It still depends on why you want to get acquainted with English classical literature. If for the sake of personal interest, or in order not to fall on your face in a cultural society, then I would advise:

• William Shakespeare's "Hamlet". A classic that needs no comment. Since Shakespeare is the name that comes to mind when we hear the very word “literature,” reading his most popular and famous work can be considered mandatory for a complete understanding of the history, style and dynamics of English literature.
• William Shakespeare's sonnets. I think almost every school and university teaches one or more of Shakespeare's sonnets, be it a foreign literature class or an English course. Despite such prevalence, they are distinguished not only by their historical and literary significance, but also by the novelty of their themes and poetic sophistication.
• Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". Although this book has become a classic work for school-age children to read, in fact, it was intended by the author as serious reading. Dressed in the fantastic adventures of Gulliver, the author's satire consisted of a parody and harsh criticism of the political structure of the Kingdom of England and Scotland at that time.
• Daniel Defoe "Robinson Crusoe". Having become a deliberate classic in Soviet times, this book, in my opinion, is present on the bookshelf of almost every home. Defoe himself, in his work, tried to establish the ethics of a new bourgeois society - the ethics of a man who “made it for himself” and does not need clerical and feudal institutions as regulators of his social life.
• Walter Scott "Ivanhoe". The founder of the historical novel genre in the European literary tradition, Walter Scott rethought traditional meanings and plots in the spirit of Romanticism. Its novelty consisted in the introduction of a new worldview in English literature, based on artistic and creative knowledge of the world. The historical novel "Ivanhoe" tells about the life of knights and feudal lords during the era of the Crusades, the reign of Richard I the Lionheart and John the Landless, and, in many ways, Walter Scott anticipated the further development of the genre of the historical novel in this work.
• lyric poetry and poems of George Byron. A classic not only of English but also of European literature, nicknamed by Goethe “the true genius of our time,” Byron set the tone for poetry of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The themes of his work are wide: from ancient motifs and myths to the legend of Hetman Ivan Mazepa.
• Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and/or "Oliver Twist". Charles Dickens, best known as a classic of European realism, is perhaps the greatest literary influence in English literature since the 19th century. The presented works are studied not only in secondary schools, but also in higher educational institutions around the world. The plots and artistic style set by Dickens in these two works influenced all European and American literature after the 19th century.
• Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Some historians and literary critics call Wilde's work early modern, but it is still usually considered in the light of the classical literary tradition. A very popular and widespread work, especially among certain youth communities, it became the first call signaling a crisis in traditional ethics and aesthetics of European culture. Wilde's masterful use of diction and impeccable composition give reason to consider this novel the pinnacle of English literature.

I do not consider this list to be exhaustive, but it is useful for a first introduction to English classic literature. If you need to review for professional or educational purposes, then you need to specialize this list to suit your specific purposes.

• The founder of the historical novel genre in Western European literature is Walter Scott.

• Emphasizing the historical originality and national identity of peoples.

• Features of the historical novel by W. Scott.

• For his novels, the writer chose historically turning points when entire destinies of nations were decided.

• His most famous works: “The Puritans”, “Ivanhoe”, “Quentin Durward”. Artistic originality of novels.

• A combination of romanticism with a realistic beginning.

George Byron (1788-1842)

• A bright type of romantic artist who gave the name to a whole artistic phenomenon - Byronism.

• The idea of ​​the tragic, irreconcilable struggle of the hero against hostile reality is the main feature of the poetry of J.G. Byron.

• The poet's early lyrics.

• The versatility of his lyric poetry.

• It is a combination of deep sorrow, a sense of doom and love for life, admiration for its beauty.

• The most famous work is the romantic poem “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (1812).

• Philosophical dramatic poem “Manfred”.

• Byron's participation in the Carbonari movement and the mystery “Cain” as the pinnacle of creativity of this period.

• The novel in verse “Don Juan” is the poet’s largest work.

• The image of Prometheus is the personification of the fortitude of a suffering hero, capable of “turning death into victory.”

• Goethe's Prometheus and Byron's Prometheus.

• The artistic merit of the romantics.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• Byron's friend. Spent many years in Italy.

• The poet romanticized poetry itself as a form of creativity. Poets are the legislators of the world, creating eternal images.

• Diverse creative heritage - poems, poems, odes.

• Widely used mythological and biblical images, symbols and allegories.

• Turning to history, he sought to comprehend modern reality.

• At the center of the works is a romantic hero. Fascinating love line, subtlety of lyrical experience.

• Particularly famous is “Prometheus Unbound.”

• The characteristic features of his short stories are a sharp plot, entertaining, a combination of the serious and the comic, a combination of irony with a clearly expressed rationalistic principle.

• The theme of the discrepancy between dreams and reality in Irving’s work, which became one of the main ones in American romanticism.

• Works about America: “The History of New York”, stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

• One of Irving's key works is “Rip Van Winkle.” Fantastic fiction and depiction of reality.

Realism in literature of the 19th century.

The formation of realism in the depths of romantic literature of the early 19th century. Modern interpretation of the concept of “critical realism”. Realism as a reflection of real life is a kind of aesthetic core of artistic culture in the Renaissance (“Renaissance realism”) and in the Age of Enlightenment (“Enlightenment realism”). Critical realism of the 30-40s of the 19th century.

English realistic novel of the 19th century.

• Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte sisters, Gaskell.

• Criticism of English novelists, their aesthetic principles, ethical ideal, connection with the romantic tradition. The connection between the European revolution of 1848 and the Chartist movement in England in the 30s and 40s with the literary life of the era.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

• Charles Dickens is a great humorist writer.

• The novels show the life of England in the 19th century.

• Laughter as a tool for exposing the vices of reality and as an expression of the writer’s optimism.

• Dickens' satirical skill.

• The main periods of the writer's creativity.

• The features of creativity were determined by the features of the writer’s personal biography. The circumstances of his childhood are reflected in the novel “David Copperfield”. The fate of a boy who, having gone through trials, is not disappointed in life, remains kind and responsive.

• The writer's worldview.

• Children and the theme of childhood in the novels “Dombey and Son” and “Oliver Twist”.

• The novel “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club” brought fame to the writer.

• Mr. Pickwick and other eccentrics in the writer's work.

• The world fame of his novels.

• Perception of Dickens's work in Russia. L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky about Dickens.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

• The most significant work is the novel “Vanity Fair”.

• English Society. All characters are obsessed with the thirst for profit, everything is sold and everything is bought.

• Acuteness and sarcasticness in the description of characters and situations.

• A combination of a realistic basis with a playful, comic one.

French realistic novel

• Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert.

• The connection between realism in France and pragmatism, the predominance of materialistic views.

• A combination of romantic imagery and symbolism with sober analysis, a realistic depiction of the atmosphere of Paris after the 1830 revolution.

Stendhal (1783-1842)

• Present name Henri Marie Bayle.

• The book “Racine and Shakespeare” (1823-1825) is one of the manifestos of the realistic school.

• Mastery of psychological analysis, realistic depiction of social contradictions in the writer’s works.

• Novels “Red and Black” (1831), “The Parma Monastery” (1839).

• Author of “The History of Painting in Italy” (1817), “The Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio” (1817), and the psychological treatise “On Love” (1822).

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

• Head of the realistic school of the first half of the 19th century.

• A classic of the social novel.

• Since 1829, he created the epic “The Human Comedy” of 90 novels and stories.

• The epic is a realistic picture of French society of 1816-1848, grandiose in scope.

• Showing a social cross-section of society, reflecting its contradictions, morals and relationships.

“Human Comedy”

• The general concept and characters of the epic: etudes of morals, philosophical studies, analytical studies.

• Sketches of manners - depicting provincial, Parisian, rural, private, political and military scenes. Generalization is one of the main commandments of Balzac’s aesthetics.

• “The Unknown Masterpiece” (1831), “Shagreen Skin” (1830-1831), “Eugenie Grande” (1833), “Père Goriot” (1834-1835), “Lost Illusions” (1837-1843), “Cousin Bette” (1846).

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

• The novels “Madame Bovary” and “Education of Sentiments” are an encyclopedia of the French province and Paris of the 19th century.

• Showing the deep origins of the surrounding vulgarity, the moral insignificance of the provincial bourgeoisie, the suffocating atmosphere of the Second Empire.

• The color and sound structure of the novel “Madame Bovary” as a kind of accompaniment to the sad story of Emma Bovary.

• A continuator of the trend of O. Balzac, a brilliant stylist, Flaubert influenced the development of realism in world literature.

Naturalism

• Art direction (from Latin - nature) of the second half of the 19th century.

• It arose on the basis of rejection of the artistic ideals of romanticism and realism.

• The requirement for a careful and dispassionate reproduction of the flow of life, combined with a strict socio-biological determination of the depicted phenomena.

• He asserted the omnipotence of rough everyday reality and human subconscious impulses.

• The philosophical basis of naturalism is positivism.

• The founder of the aesthetics of naturalism is Hippolyte Taine. His works lay down the basic principle of naturalism as a method: the assimilation of art to science.

Emile Zola (1840-1902)

• Chapter of naturalism.

• In 1868, he conceived the series of novels “Rugon-Macquart.” An artistic chronicle of the life of bourgeois France.

• 20-volume epic “Ruggon-Makkara. Natural and social history of one family in the era of the Second Empire” (1871-1893).

• 1870s - the first 8 novels of the cycle. Popular in Russia, hostile in France. Only the novel “The Trap” (1877) brought recognition.

• 1880-1887 - the flourishing of creativity, the appearance of the novels “Nana” (1880), “Germinal” (1885), “Creativity” (1886), “Earth” (1887).

• The controversy surrounding the novel “Earth” is the reason for the split in French naturalism.

• Critical works “Experimental Novel” (1880), “Our Playwrights”, “Naturalist Novelists”, “Naturalism in the Theater” (1881).

• They present their theoretical views, the concept of a naturalistic novel and drama.

• 1893 - Zola completes the cycle (the last novels are “Money” (1891), “Devastation” (1892), “Doctor Pascal” (1893).

• Participation in the Dreyfus affair is a true feat of Zola.

The significance of Zola's work

• Influence on the development of naturalism throughout the world.

• Great value for realism. He unusually expanded the subject of realistic depiction and developed new mechanisms for the artistic study of reality.

• He developed a new genre education - a cycle of novels, representing the society of an entire era in a “vertical” (historical) cross-section.

• Within the framework of the historical-family cycle, he developed a special type of novel, in the center of which was an enterprise, an “economic organism.”

Founder, ancestor, founder, father, initiator, pioneer, initiator, pioneer; instructor, teacher, teacher, patriarch, initiator Dictionary of Russian synonyms. originator 1. see founder. 2. cm... Synonym dictionary

BEGINNER, me, husband. (high). The one who conceives something, lays the beginning of something. Z. new direction in science. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

M. outdated One who begins any serious, significant business; founder. Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by Efremova

Initiator, initiators, initiator, initiators, initiator, initiators, initiator, initiators, initiator, initiators, initiator, initiators (Source: “Complete accentuated paradigm according to A. A. Zaliznyak”) ... Forms of words

initiator- the initiator, I... Russian spelling dictionary

initiator- (2 m); pl. origin/teli, R. origin/teli… Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

initiator- Syn: founder, ancestor, founder, father (arr.) ... Thesaurus of Russian business vocabulary

initiator- I, h. The one who starts first, I am somehow important, I am serious on the right... Ukrainian Tlumach Dictionary

I; m. The one who started something. ◁ Starter, s; and … encyclopedic Dictionary

initiator- I; m. see also. initiator The one who started something... Dictionary of many expressions

Books

• The Book of Nonsense (gift edition), Edward Lear. We present to your attention a gift edition bound in leather with a silk ribbon. Edward Lear is an outstanding English poet and artist, the famous pioneer of nonsense literature. His…
• A. M. Rodchenko. Articles. Memories. Autobiographical notes. Letters, . The name of Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, one of those masters who actively participated in the construction of young Soviet art, has not yet been fully appreciated. He belonged to that galaxy...

The second founder of the genre, Konstantin Eduardovich Gibshman, gave a conference at the St. Petersburg theater of miniatures “Crooked Mirror”.

Unlike Baliev, he created the mask of an entertainer, timid, confused, depressed by the need to perform in front of the public. His speech was slurred, confused, and interrupted by long, tedious pauses. The numbers were announced unclearly, confusingly, with frequent and seemingly unnecessary repetition

m of the same words. The movements turned out to be surprisingly awkward, constrained, not corresponding to what was said. Everything that Gibshman did and said was perceived as pure improvisation. The sadly repeated exclamations and long, frightened silence were difficult to mistake for a carefully prepared role. Meanwhile, all the sighs, hesitations, gestures, mixed up lines were memorized and reproduced with such talent and skill, so naturally that the viewer believed the actor.

Himself, perhaps, and without suspecting it, Gibshman created a kind of parody of the first, so to speak, mass production of Russian entertainers.

And for the actors performing in the program, Gibshman was good because, against the background of the inability he simulated, their performances always won.

The need for an entertainer to get into character and hence the closest kinship of this profession with acting is brilliantly confirmed by the activities on the stage of Konstantin Gibshman.

In creating his image, he went, as they say, from the opposite direction. By the time he entered the stage, the figure of the entertainer had become familiar on it, and the character of the entertainer had stabilized. This is definitely a wit, a brave, resourceful, sometimes even daring person - traits that have become familiar, standard duty for any entertainer. In the worst examples, positive qualities turned into negative ones: freedom of behavior into swagger or even impudence, wit into vulgarity. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

One can imagine what an impression was made against this background by an extremely baggy, awkward, absurd figure - a man constrained, even dumbfounded with fear, clearly pushed against his will onto the proscenium, tangled in the folds of the curtain, a man who obeys neither thought nor tongue! “I... uh,... you see,... yes... now in front of you... uh... we... you.”

Was Gibshman really helpless and shackled? Not at all. He was a good actor and before leaving the stage he successfully played in the theater; he was a sharp, lively and far from timid person. To build the image that he adopted on the stage, Gibshman started from the characteristic features of his appearance. Overweight, with tufts of hair bordering his bald spot, with a large mouth and eyes that a smile turned into slits, he aggravated his awkwardness, “unartisticness” and created on their basis a brilliant acting image - a mask, clearly confirming the basis of the entertainer's art - transformation.

The creators of the conference in Russia also include Alexey Grigorievich Alekseev. He began his activities in Odessa and Kyiv, and since 1915 he performed at the Petrograd miniature theaters “Liteiny Theater” and “Pavilion de Paris”.

The artist created an ironic image of a metropolitan snob inserting French words and phrases into his speech, and the public liked it.

All these three outstanding masters of Russian entertainer possessed the general culture necessary for this profession. Baliev was formerly an actor at the Art Theater, Gibshman was an engineer, Alekseev graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University and spoke three foreign languages. They knew how their audience lived, they presented the numbers in an interesting way and helped the actors well. A.G. managed to maintain a leading position in his genre longer than others. Alekseev.

Meanwhile, Alekseev maintained his popularity not only as an entertainer, but also as the author of plays, director and artistic director of the miniature theater "Crooked Jimmy".

As a rule, Alekseev’s conferences were dominated by intratheater themes and parodies, and witty explanations of the numbers. His reprises presented an interesting and unexpected picture of the colorful life of art in the 1920s. However, this was already beginning to seem insufficient to contemporaries. Young people could listen to a famous artist with curiosity rather than with genuine interest. The entertainer, who performed in a tailcoat and, especially with a monocle, that is, exactly the same as he was in pre-revolutionary Petrograd, in the words of one of the reviewers, seemed “too bon ton,” in other words, bourgeois.

Unlike the Muscovite N. Baliev, A.G. Alekseev was a true Petersburger. “A thin, unsmiling or maliciously smiling, carefully dressed, very kind, hospitable, but reserved host-interlocutor came onto the stage: a St. Petersburger. A monocle gleamed in his eye.”

The entertainer had to be, as it were, akin to the hall, molded from the same flesh and spirit. He embodied the features of his contemporary, his appearance more strikingly, sometimes even to the point of subtle parody. So, Baliev stepped onto the proscenium from among the Moscow intelligentsia. Alekseev was almost a mirror image of a refined Petersburger - he was a socialite who knew a lot about a sophisticated joke. Similar figures were encountered on the street, in salons, in theaters and at literary evenings. Only the appearance created by Alekseev was very subtly seasoned with parody.

Carrying out the connection between the stage and the hall, the entertainer could not help but have a heightened sense of modernity in everything - in thinking, in jokes and in appearance. The slightest lag in one of these components was fraught with separation from the audience, its indifference, and sometimes an ironic attitude. It is in this sense that we can talk about changing the image of the entertainer. This constant addition to the audience (and, accordingly, the restructuring of the image) was especially pronounced during periods when the composition of the hall changed radically. Thus, with the revolution, the “secular” Petersburger created by A.G. Alekseev sank into the past, such people disappeared from life, they were no longer in the hall, and the new spectator who filled the rows of seats, seeing him on the proscenium, categorically rejected him.

“In the 20s,” recalls A.G. Alekseev, - in England, the prime minister was Chamberlain, the worst enemy of the Soviet people. In all his cartoons and posters he was depicted with a monocle, often enlarged to make the drawing more striking.

And other bourgeoisie, “heroes” of the Entente, military and civilian, were depicted with monocles, so this piece of glass became almost an emblem of the counter-revolution.

But it didn’t occur to me, and I continued to appear on stage with a monocle. In 1926, there was some kind of grandiose concert in Kharkov. When I said something funny, suddenly a young, perky voice was heard from the gallery:

Bravo, Chamberlain!

And there was general laughter. But it was not Alekseev’s wit that they laughed at, but Alekseev himself was laughed at. This is what happens when, even in the smallest detail, you lose the sense of time and era in the theater!

Of course, on the same day the monocle was archived!” (Alekseev, ser. and see art. 259)

The timeliness of the birth of this profession is confirmed by its almost instantaneous spread. Now, it is even difficult to separate the dates of the appearance of Nikita Baliev in Moscow and Alexey Grigorievich Alekseev in St. Petersburg. They discovered a galaxy of brilliant masters of this genre. They were followed by K. Gibshman, A. Mendeleevich, P. Muravsky, later M. Garkavi and many others.

Entertaining is a form of stage action performed by an entertainer - a person who announces program numbers at a variety show or concert and occupies the audience between the numbers being performed (S.V. Shubin, dictionary).

Entertaining is a variety genre - a performance on stage associated with the announcement and commentary (usually of a comedic nature) of numbers of a variety performance, concert, as well as text

Conference is a pop artistic genre - a performance on stage associated with the announcement and commentary of program numbers.

Entertainer - (from French - speaker), a pop artist who announces concert numbers and performs in the intervals between them.

An entertainer is a pop artist who announces the numbers of a concert program, sometimes performing independent numbers.

An entertainer is an artist who announces program numbers at a variety show or concert and entertains the audience in the intervals between numbers with his independent performances.

Among the variety genres, entertainer is one of the youngest. However, the roots of this pop genre are sought in the distant past. They are found in the chorus of the ancient theater, in the prologues of the Italian comedy of masks, in the performances of Russian buffoons and farcical grandfathers. However, real continuity was not found in the major work on the history of Russian pop music by E. Kuznetsov “From the past of Russian pop music.” The transition from a bearded barker shouting his lively jokes at the house to a variety artist in the role of a dapper, correct, ironic “entertainer” and presenter is too abrupt. But the similarity of these phenomena cannot be a mere coincidence and suggests that for a long time there has been a need for some kind of connecting link between the viewer and the stage.

Folk festivities began in the 18th century, but in the 19th century they became especially popular. At Christmas - “festivities under the mountains”, at Maslenitsa and Easter - “under the swings”. Contemporaries left a description of such festivities: “...During the week, crowds of people flock daily to the swings erected in the squares. Attracted from afar by the Turkish drums and noisy music of traveling comedians, rope dancers and other various types of actors, people rush to the square to take a walk near the swings... Several musicians, led by clowns, are placed on the balcony and on the upper platform of this peculiar carousel and thus find themselves in the center general circulation. In the immediate vicinity there is a stage for comedians, who especially attract people with sharp, albeit crude jokes.” (1-Kuznetsov from the past 1958 p.39.)

We should dwell especially on these clowns, or, as they were popularly called, “carousel grandfathers,” because they are the direct ancestors of modern entertainers and presenters.

“The costume and makeup of the “grandfather” was traditional...” writes one of the folk festival figures. (2Russian Nar. Gul.aleks.-Yakov.1948 art.62.) Let’s add - and catchy. In the colorful crowd of festivities, it was necessary to stop everyone's gaze on themselves. “A beard and mustache made of gray tow, deliberately roughly made, a gray, deliberately patched caftan and an old round coachman’s hat with a paper flower on the side, onuchi and bast shoes on the legs.” The appearance of a figure in this outfit on the balcony of the swing served as a signal for the start of cheerful speeches, all sorts of buffoonery, jokes and jokes.

The “carousel grandfather” was also responsible for announcing “numbers”. Here's how it happened: “After joking around... the “grandfather” suddenly slapped himself on the forehead, as if remembering something, hastily disappeared and brought out three dancers. Having introduced them to the public and, more often than not, joked quite openly at their expense, the “grandfather” began to dance with them.

Variety historians, not without reason, see the distant ancestors of entertainers in these folk entertainers. A close connection with the audience and the fun of direct conversation with them, as well as the “presentation” of the performers - these are the threads that stretch from the witty ones in onuchas to the modern elegant entertainers.

E.B. Shapirovsky, taking as a basis the literal translation from French “entertainer-speaker”, writes that in the 19th century, such “speakers”, easy on a funny flying word, a caustic but good-natured attack, an impromptu pun, were regulars at literary and artistic cafes . Poets, artists, and musicians met in such cafes. “From this singing, reading, reciting, drawing, seething with Bohemian passions, the crowd spontaneously stood out as the most resourceful verbal duelist, quick to come up with a playful reprisal, a shocking response.

A barrel, a stool, a chair, a table - and the improvisational stage is ready. Jumping on it, inciting those around him to perform, he becomes the “conductor” of a talkative company, picking up the “jumping” conversation on the fly, the host of the evening, a cheerful “speaker” - entertainer.”

N.P. Smirnov-Sokolsky, in his report “On the Art of Entertaining,” finds the historical origins of entertainer in the Italian theater of the Renaissance and believes that the masks of the commedia dell’arte, their work in the play, in essence, are also the work of the entertainer.

The modern entertainer has another source, the concert - the theater. Since the end of the 18th century, it has become a custom in the opera house after the main performance to release on stage in a divertissement the audience's favorite artists to perform the most spectacular arias from operas or dances from ballets. Gradually, the artists in the divertissements began to replenish their repertoire with works taken not only from ongoing performances.

In the mid-20s of the 19th century, divertissements began to be organized in drama theaters, mainly in the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and the Maly Theater in Moscow. Here they are called intermissions, because during the intermission, before the curtain, the actors read the public’s favorite monologues from their roles or sing popular couplets from vaudevilles.

The most famous actors of the time performed during intermissions. The Great Shchepkin brought his oral stories to them. He was the first to read the works of Pushkin and Shevchenko and the fables of Krylov before the curtain. He performed vaudeville couplets during intermissions. Thus, the intermission accustoms people to the juxtaposition of various genres. The artist's best, most successful monologues, couplets and other fragments of roles were highlighted and brought to the proscenium. And this natural selection gradually turned into a new art form - the concert.

It’s unlikely that many people know now that the word “station”, associated in our country with meetings and departures, the clanging of wheels and the exciting smells of travel, was assigned to the place where trains arrive and leave because of art, and, moreover, pop art.

In the 18th century, train stations were country gardens with club and concert premises that combined concerts and divertissements with dance parties and masquerades (the name “station” came to us from London Station, the earliest known metropolitan entertainment enterprise of this type).

The first trains in Russia began running between St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk. At the Pavlovsk station, a concert and dance hall and a stage were built - a favorite place of entertainment for residents of the capital - the so-called Pavlovsky Music Station. And since this was also the place where trains departed, over time the word “station” lost its original meaning.

Since the forties of the 19th century, in addition to the Pavlovsky station in St. Petersburg, the so-called “Garden of Artificial Mineral Waters”, or Izler’s Garden, was very popular. In Moscow, a similar institution was the Summer Theater in Neskuchny Garden (on the territory where the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure is now located), and then Petrovsky Park, which eclipsed it. These gardens became a place of relaxation for the townspeople, and various types of pop art flourished in them.

The first entertainer, the famous Nikita Baliev, was given to the Russian stage by the Art Theater.

He announced and commented on performances in his theater, told the audience about many things that interested them and, seemingly inconsistently jumping from topic to topic, created the impression that what was said today had just been improvised and would not necessarily be repeated tomorrow.

Going out to the ramp, Baliyev peered at those sitting at the tables to find out who had come today, nodded his head or even “naming their names,” greeted his friends, addressed them with some funny, but understandable remark to the rest of the public - and there was contact with the audience installed.

All those who wrote about Baliev, and in particular K.S. Stanislavsky, note his extraordinary resourcefulness: quick and witty responses to remarks from the audience, the ability to create an atmosphere of unprecedented freedom and spontaneity in the relationship between the stage and the audience.

The actors of the then young Art Theater were themselves young, had a large reserve of creative strength, they were overwhelmed with energy, they, unwillingly, spent themselves on jokes, on mischief, shining with invention and taste. The theater hosted “family” evenings, filled to the brim with fun of the highest taste, illuminated by brilliant talent. These evenings began to be called skit parties.

At first, they were really only internal to the theater; only the closest friends were allowed to attend from outside. But as more and more people tried to get to the skits, the family circle was broken, and they became a kind of variety show, a kind of comic concert, no longer for themselves, but for the public.

At the skits of the Art Theater for the first time a completely new character of a variety show appeared - the entertainer.

Let us turn to the book by K. S. Stanislavsky “My Life in Art”: “Our artist N. F. Baliev performed as an entertainer at these skits for the first time and showed off his talent. His inexhaustible fun, resourcefulness, wit - both in the very essence and in the form of stage presentation of his jokes - courage, often reaching the point of insolence, the ability to hold the audience in his hands, a sense of proportion, the ability to balance on the border of daring and cheerful, offensive and playful, his ability to stop in time and give a joke a completely different, good-natured direction - all this made him an interesting artistic figure of a new genre.” (Stanislavsky my life in the lawsuit.)

From the skits of the Art Theater, the Bat Theater was born under the leadership of N. Baliev, and after it, theaters of this type literally fell down.

The program of "The Bat" consisted of scenes, dramatizations and numbers. The indispensable character of this fragmented “action”, its core and cementing element, was the entertainer Nikita Baliev. His new role at that time, as well as his “brilliant talent,” attracted viewers to “The Bat” no less than to the Moscow Art Theater.

There was one circumstance that largely determined the originality of Bali's entertainer. Since the connection between “The Bat” and the skits and acting was not yet completely broken, the hall of the new theater at first continued to be filled with theatrical and near-theater, that is, “its” audience. Not long ago, at skit events, this spectator would become a performer within a minute, and everyone would laugh at his invention and joke, and then return from the playground to the hall and laugh at the next performance of his comrades. In the new theater, for some time, the boundary separating the stage from the hall was erased. The most active involvement of the audience in what was happening on the stage was an indispensable condition of the genre. And at the same time - a guarantee of general fun, for the sake of which they went to this theater.

The chronicler “The Bat” in the anniversary edition, released for the 10th anniversary of the theater, wrote: “Everyone who descended under the arch left sadness in the hallway along with his galoshes, took off his coat and worries, and seemed to take a vow to be in these few nights hours under the wings of the “Bat” a knight of laughter and witty fun. There, beyond the threshold, I was obliged to leave behind my touchiness, my ability to be offended by a joke. Otherwise, you risked being pretty pitied, because the arrows and jokes of the “mouse” were sharpened very sharply and accurately hit the target, although they were released from the bowstring with a cheerful and gentle hand...

The ball of a joke that began on stage was thrown into the basement, then back onto the stage and became more and more merrily entangled, capturing an increasing number of actors and spectators in its threads. ", 1918, p. 13.)

The entertainer contributed to close communication between the hall and the stage, performers and spectators. But this was not its only function.

The performance, which had a mosaic character, needed a core, a general plot movement, which was carried out by the compere.

Almost simultaneously with The Bat, many other theaters of a similar type began to appear. Among the best pre-revolutionary ones, besides “The Bat”, it is worth mentioning “Crooked Mirror”, in the 20s - such as “Free Theatre”, “Free Comedy”, “Balaganchik”, “Crooked Jimmy”... You can give many more names , but no matter what name these theaters had, no matter what programs they showed, the main thing in them was laughter.

The accumulator of laughter and fun at the performances of such theaters was the entertainer.

Nikita Baliev, according to A.G. Alekseev’s definition, “was a Muscovite entertainer, not a Moscow entertainer, but a Muscovite entertainer; a pink-faced, wide-smiling, well-fed, joyful lover of life, a hospitable owner: a Muscovite, appeared on stage!” (Alex is serious and see p. 233)

It is worth re-reading the chapters of L. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” about the old Count Rostov and the genealogy of Baliev’s image will become clear. Was he really like that? In other words, did he wear “soul makeup”? Even more precisely: did he appear before the public “as is” or did he “retouch” his properties to create a certain stage image? There is no doubt that this was exactly the case. Enough evidence of this can be found at least in articles dedicated to Baliyev. As a rule, they are enthusiastic. Baliyev causes dissatisfaction with critics when, in a pick-and-roll, he gets too carried away with his wit and injures his opponents. It causes reproaches not only because it changes the general atmosphere of light fun - the main motto of “The Bat”. And not only because he offends a person who has entered into a competition with him, and he offends not as an equal, but as a host who has forgotten the rule of hospitality. But mainly because it comes out of the image, comes out of the “mask” necessary for his art.

The second founder of the genre, Konstantin Eduardovich Gibshman, gave a conference at the St. Petersburg theater of miniatures “Crooked Mirror”.

Unlike Baliev, he created the mask of an entertainer, timid, confused, depressed by the need to perform in front of the public. His speech was slurred, confused, and interrupted by long, tedious pauses. The numbers were announced unclearly, confusingly, with frequent and seemingly unnecessary repetition of the same words. The movements turned out to be surprisingly awkward, constrained, not corresponding to what was said. Everything that Gibshman did and said was perceived as pure improvisation. The sadly repeated exclamations and long, frightened silence were difficult to mistake for a carefully prepared role. Meanwhile, all the sighs, hesitations, gestures, mixed up lines were memorized and reproduced with such talent and skill, so naturally that the viewer believed the actor.

Himself, perhaps, and without suspecting it, Gibshman created a kind of parody of the first, so to speak, mass production of Russian entertainers.

And for the actors performing in the program, Gibshman was good because, against the background of the inability he simulated, their performances always won.

The need for an entertainer to get into character and hence the closest kinship of this profession with acting is brilliantly confirmed by the activities on the stage of Konstantin Gibshman.

In creating his image, he went, as they say, from the opposite direction. By the time he entered the stage, the figure of the entertainer had become familiar on it, and the character of the entertainer had stabilized. This is definitely a witty person, a brave, resourceful, sometimes even daring person - traits that have become familiar, standard duty for any entertainer. In the worst examples, positive qualities turned into negative ones: freedom of behavior into swagger or even impudence, wit into vulgarity.

One can imagine what an impression the extremely baggy, awkward, absurd figure made against this background - a man constrained, even dumbfounded with fear, clearly pushed against his will onto the proscenium, tangled in the folds of the curtain, a man who obeys neither thought nor tongue! “I... uh,... you see,... yes... now in front of you... uh... we... you...”

Was Gibshman really helpless and shackled? Not at all. He was a good actor and before leaving the stage he successfully played in the theater; he was a sharp, lively and far from timid person. To build the image that he adopted on the stage, Gibshman started from the characteristic features of his appearance. Overweight, with tufts of hair bordering his bald spot, with a large mouth and eyes that a smile turned into slits, he aggravated his awkwardness, “unartisticness” and created on their basis a brilliant acting image - a mask, clearly confirming the basis of the entertainer's art - transformation.

The creators of the conference in Russia also include Alexey Grigorievich Alekseev. He began his activities in Odessa and Kyiv, and since 1915 he performed at the Petrograd miniature theaters “Liteiny Theater” and “Pavilion de Paris”.

The artist created an ironic image of a metropolitan snob inserting French words and phrases into his speech, and the public liked it.

All these three outstanding masters of Russian entertainer possessed the general culture necessary for this profession. Baliev was formerly an actor at the Art Theater, Gibshman was an engineer, Alekseev graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University and spoke three foreign languages. They knew how their audience lived, they presented the numbers in an interesting way and helped the actors well. A.G. managed to maintain a leading position in his genre longer than others. Alekseev.

Meanwhile, Alekseev maintained his popularity not only as an entertainer, but also as the author of plays, director and artistic director of the miniature theater "Crooked Jimmy".

As a rule, Alekseev’s conferences were dominated by intratheater themes and parodies, and witty explanations of the numbers. His reprises presented an interesting and unexpected picture of the colorful life of art in the 1920s. However, this was already beginning to seem insufficient to contemporaries. Young people could listen to a famous artist with curiosity rather than with genuine interest. The entertainer, who performed in a tailcoat and, especially with a monocle, that is, exactly the same as he was in pre-revolutionary Petrograd, in the words of one of the reviewers, seemed “too bonton,” in other words, bourgeois.

Unlike the Muscovite N. Baliev, A.G. Alekseev was a true Petersburger. “A thin, unsmiling or maliciously smiling, carefully dressed, very kind, hospitable, but reserved host-interlocutor came onto the stage: a St. Petersburger. A monocle gleamed in his eye.”

The entertainer had to be, as it were, akin to the hall, molded from the same flesh and spirit. He embodied the features of his contemporary, his appearance more strikingly, sometimes even to the point of subtle parody. So, Baliev stepped onto the proscenium from among the Moscow intelligentsia. Alekseev was almost a mirror image of a refined Petersburger - he was a socialite who knew a lot about a sophisticated joke. Similar figures were encountered on the street, in salons, in theaters and at literary evenings. Only the appearance created by Alekseev was very subtly seasoned with parody.

Carrying out the connection between the stage and the hall, the entertainer could not help but have a heightened sense of modernity in everything - in thinking, in jokes and in appearance. The slightest lag in one of these components was fraught with separation from the audience, its indifference, and sometimes an ironic attitude. It is in this sense that we can talk about changing the image of the entertainer. This constant addition to the audience (and, accordingly, the restructuring of the image) was especially pronounced during periods when the composition of the hall changed radically. Thus, with the revolution, the “secular” Petersburger created by A.G. Alekseev sank into the past, such people disappeared from life, they were no longer in the hall, and the new spectator who filled the rows of seats, seeing him on the proscenium, categorically rejected him.

“In the 20s,” recalls A.G. Alekseev, - in England, the prime minister was Chamberlain, the worst enemy of the Soviet people. In all his cartoons and posters he was depicted with a monocle, often enlarged to make the drawing more striking.

And other bourgeoisie, “heroes” of the Entente, military and civilian, were depicted with monocles, so this piece of glass became almost an emblem of the counter-revolution.

But it didn’t occur to me, and I continued to appear on stage with a monocle. In 1926, there was some kind of grandiose concert in Kharkov. When I said something funny, suddenly a young, perky voice was heard from the gallery:

Bravo, Chamberlain!

And there was general laughter. But it was not Alekseev’s wit that they laughed at, but Alekseev himself was laughed at. This is what happens when, even in the smallest detail, you lose the sense of time and era in the theater!

Of course, on the same day the monocle was archived!” (Alekseev, ser. and see art. 259)

The timeliness of the birth of this profession is confirmed by its almost instantaneous spread. Now, it is even difficult to separate the dates of the appearance of Nikita Baliev in Moscow and Alexey Grigorievich Alekseev in St. Petersburg. They discovered a galaxy of brilliant masters of this genre. They were followed by K. Gibshman, A. Mendeleevich, P. Muravsky, later M. Garkavi and many others.

The entertainers were the ones who, like experienced cooks, seasoned the performances with the right doses of salt, pepper and spices, making the close connection between the stage and the hall even closer. The audience in such theaters, as it happened from their progenitor - the skit-maker, was actively drawn into the performance. Replicas rushed not only from the stage to the hall, but also from the hall to the stage, or rather, to the proscenium, to the entertainer.

The profession of an entertainer then required improvisation, lightning-fast reactions and, of course, brilliant wit, because the audience was actively drawn into the game and did not remain silent. Among the audience there were experienced wits. Woe to the entertainer who did not emerge victorious from the “verbal battles”.

It makes no sense to give examples of wit that was more than half a century old, and even born out of chance, in a certain situation and atmosphere. But it’s worth citing an example of the entertainer’s resourcefulness; it’s instructive. Wit is, of course, a gift of nature, but, like any talent, it requires development, education, and training. The same goes for resourcefulness. Slow-witted people (as well as people with organic speech defects) should not choose the profession of a presenter or entertainer. But it is possible, necessary, necessary to liberate your natural gift. And here successful samples are faithful helpers.

A.G. Alekseev recalls that during the NEP, not the best part of the hall was made up of various businessmen who had crawled out of who knows what hiding place, often with a large capital, but with a very small stock of culture. One of these visitors, at the height of his wit, decided to parry the joke by shouting “bastard.” This confused even such an experienced entertainer as A.G. Alekseev. “... But I have to answer,” he recalls, “and I began to mumble that, they say, we have learned to understand politics, but we still don’t understand humor, and at the same time I feverishly thought: this is not the kind of lecture my place at the proscenium, but if you get off with a joke, he won’t even say that; so what? What?! At this time, the theater director... ran backstage: “Give light to the hall!” Dali - and it saved me! I immediately turned to the stage and said: “No, turn it off, I don’t want to see what I heard!” (1 Alekseev, serious and funny. 1967 p. 270)

Graceful knockout! Reserving the last and “unbreakable”, indisputable word in verbal duels was a brilliant property, an integral condition of the entertainer’s profession. Pop legends have preserved many tales about glorious victories, irresistible answers, and undying witticisms.

The entertainers of the “first call” were distinguished by their bright personalities. Each person presented a certain image on the stage with emphasized character.

The ability of lightning-fast and victorious counter-replica, which was amazing in previous entertainers, was the fruit of not only talent, culture, but, as in every profession, necessarily work, training, and absorption of other people's experience. Many entertainers, including A.G. Alekseev, consider Vladimir Mayakovsky their best teacher. Stories about how the poet spoke to the audience, how he thoroughly defeated his opponents, became textbook, many of his witticisms and remarks entered our everyday life as sayings.

It is obligatory for the entertainer to transform into a certain stage image. (Shcherbakov’s concert and his edit. 1974.p.5-15.)

Yes, the art of the entertainer was originally inherent and requires internal transformation, internal restructuring and “adjustment” into a permanent image. His behavior in this image depended on the composition of the audience and on a variety of situations, often unexpected.

Thus, the first entertainers constructed their image from their own “material,” emphasizing the properties given to them by their character and life.