The motif of a storm or thunderstorm has a stable range of meanings in Russian literature. One of them is related to the theme of retribution. God's wrath, the punishment for sin. Another-with all sorts of life disasters, human dramas, turning points in the fate of the characters. Often, the motif of the elements that have played out (storm, blizzard, flood) accompanies plot episodes that depict an explosion of human emotions, a riot in the soul of the characters, and social upheavals.

This motif is not exclusively Turgenev's. However, the writer uses it quite widely, it is one of the" end-to-end " symbols in his work.

Tending to the symbolic expression of artistic thought, Turgenev gives generally significant symbols individually colored content.

The writer often connects the motif of thunderstorms with the theme of love. So, in the story "First Love" the traditional technique is used: a parallel is drawn between the picture of nature and the psychological state of the hero. The description of a distant thunderstorm is followed by the confession of a young man in love: "I looked at the silent sandy field, at the dark mass of the Neskuchny Garden, at the yellowish facades of distant buildings, which also seemed to tremble at each weak flash... I looked - and didn't

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I could not tear myself away; these silent flashes of lightning, these restrained glints, seemed to respond to the silent and secret impulses that also flared up in me. The morning began to break; the dawn came out in red spots. As the sun approached, the lightning grew paler and shorter: they shuddered less and less, and finally disappeared, submerged in the sobering and unquestionable light of the emerging day...

And my lightning bolts disappeared in me. I felt very tired and quiet..." (Turgenev I. S. Poln. sobr. soch. i pis'mov: V 28 t. M.-L., 1960-1968. Vol. IX. pp. 28-29; further only volume and p.).

Such a parallel establishes the kinship of two elements - natural and human (recall Lermontov: "That friendship is brief, but alive Between a stormy heart and a thunderstorm").

The psychological state of a young man in love is shown in motion-from violent impulses of feeling to spiritual peace. The soul of a person caught up in love, as if it is at the mercy of the elements. This idea is deeply characteristic of Turgenev, who considered love as a manifestation of some irrational natural principle in a person. This meaning is indicated by the hero's reflections on the power of human passion: "This is love," I said to myself again... this is passion! How, it seems, not to be indignant, how to bear the blow from any!.. from the sweetest hand! And it seems that you can, if you love... And I am... I was imagining it...

The last month had made me very old , and my love, with all its agitations and sufferings, seemed to me to be something so small, and childish, and meager in comparison with that other, unknown something, of which I could hardly guess, and which frightened me like an unfamiliar, beautiful, but menacing face, which you try in vain to discern in the semi-darkness... " (IX, 72). In this fragment, the word "grozny" is the key word, and it is not by chance that it has the same root as the word thunderstorm.

Just as in the story "First Love" the outbursts of feelings in the soul of the heroes are compared with gusts of wind before a thunderstorm, so in "Smoke" the hero's state of mind is described in a similar way: "In Litvinov's soul, sudden, furious gusts rose like instantaneous blows of the wind before a thunderstorm..." (IX, 308), the hero finds himself among "the whirlwind and darkness of internal strife "(IX, 309).

The story "First Love" is distinguished by a deep insight into the inner world of the lover and into the essence of human passion. At the end of the story, there is a passage in which the motif of a thunderstorm is expressed by a metaphor that denotes youth, love, and freshness of feeling: "And now, when the evening shadows are already beginning to fall over my life, what do I have left that is fresher, more precious, than the memories of that morning, spring thunderstorm that quickly passed by?" (IX, 75).

This motif is organically intertwined with the motif of spring in the story "Spring Waters".

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The motif of spring, expressed in the title of the story and in the epigraph, is expressed by the image of a cheerful, stormy stream, a moving element.

The motif of a thunderstorm in "Spring Waters" is connected with two storylines: Sanin - Gemma and Sanin-Maria Nikolaevna. The hero is accompanied by two heroines representing polar opposite female types. The feelings they generate are also different: love is light, sublime, beneficial for the soul and dark, sensual, destructive passion.

Consider two episodes of the story in which the motif of a thunderstorm appears. The first of them is the scene after which Sanin and Gemma's rapprochement begins. If in" First Love " Turgenev describes a real thunderstorm, projecting the psychological state of the hero to the description of nature, then in this episode it is said about some mysterious vortex that carries an omen from above. The appearance of a mysterious, powerful and formidable force is like a sign given from heaven, evidence of the significance of the moment: "Gemma involuntarily stopped at this word. She couldn't go on: something extraordinary had happened at that very moment.

Suddenly, in the midst of a deep silence, with a perfectly cloudless sky, there came such a gust of wind that the very ground seemed to tremble under their feet, the thin starlight quivered and streamed, the very air swirled in a cloud. A whirlwind, not cold, but warm, almost sultry, struck the trees, the roof of the house, its walls, and the street; it instantly tore Sanin's hat from his head, and whipped and scattered Gemma's black curls. Sanin's head was on a level with the window-sill; he involuntarily leaned against it , and Gemma put both hands on his shoulders and pressed her breast against his head. The noise, ringing and crashing lasted for about a minute... Like a flock of huge birds, the swirling whirlwind raced away... A deep silence fell again "(XI, 56). This night is further called "electrically shaken" (XI, 70).

The symbolic motif of a thunderstorm is repeated in another episode of the story. Next to Sanin is no longer Gemma, but her opposite number - Maria Nikolaevna. Her character is determined by her love for freedom, which she values most in life, which she admits to Sanin (a scene in the theater). The dark, elemental element in her nature forms a powerful force, and for Sanin she acts as a fate that can neither be overcome, circumvented, nor changed. It is not for nothing that Maria Nikolaevna starts a conversation about witchcraft and prisukha, and Sanin himself admits to himself that "he really was bewitched" (XI, 147). Both are experiencing a state of elation, but the main person here is Maria Nikolaevna. A thunderstorm is a holiday for her, as she herself says; this upheaval in nature meets the needs of her soul, everything responds in her to this kindred call and increases the power of her influence on Sanin. After everything that happened to him in the forest, he is already completely enslaved. Gemma didn't

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she has such a strong attraction, despite all her girlish charm. Note that female characters like Gemma in Turgenev are consistently characterized by girlish traits - for example, the hero of "Faust" notices that Vera remains like a girl even after marriage - while heroines of the opposite type are always endowed with a pronounced attraction of gender.

Comparing the two episodes of the story we have considered, we can see that in them the symbolic motif of the thunderstorm expresses both Turgenev's concept of love and Turgenev's interpretation of the female character.

In the story" Spring Waters", the thunderstorm motif appears precisely at the moments of rapprochement between the hero and the heroine, at the culminating moments in the development of the love line.

"Spring Waters" and "First Love" are united by a common interpretation of the thunderstorm motif - in both cases, its content reflects the complex unity of two opposite sides of love - heavy, deadly passion and life-giving grace-giving feelings that root a person in life. This inconsistency of the motif is explained by the dialectic nature of Turgenev's idea of love.

The motif of thunderstorms carries a symbolic load in the novel "On the Eve". He appears in the scene immediately preceding Insarov and Elena's explanation. It is the thunderstorm that is the reason that they met in the chapel, where the declaration of love takes place. This motif is associated with the moment of rapprochement of lovers, it symbolizes the discharge of accumulated tension, the onset of harmony in their relationships. Helen, after this explanation, goes into a state of bliss: "She desired nothing, because she possessed everything "(VIII, 94).

Here are some metaphors and comparisons in which Turgenev uses the thunderstorm motif when talking about love. In the story of Faust, lightning appears between lovers as between two poles oppositely charged: "What was between us flashed instantly like lightning, and like lightning brought death and destruction "(VII, 41). In the novel "Smoke": "An unexpected explanation with Irina caught him off guard; her hot, quick words swept over him like a thunderstorm" (IX, 229). In the same place: "Love came like a thundercloud "(IX, 182). It is the same in Asa: "I assure you that you and I, sensible people, cannot imagine how deeply she feels and with what incredible force these feelings are expressed in her; it comes upon her as unexpectedly and as irresistibly as a thunderstorm "(VII, 107). A similar comparison occurs again in "Smoke", but the storm is already replaced by a storm; these are two similar motifs: "He remembered Moscow, and how' it 'had suddenly come like a storm" (IX, 260).

The novels "Lull" and" Faust " end with the death of the heroines, the cause of which is love. In one case, suicide occurs

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in the other, death caused by the intervention of a mystical force. In both stories there are descriptions of thunderstorms, storms.

The story "Faust" in some ways resembles Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm". In Ostrovsky's play, the storm that was expected in the first act breaks out in the fourth. This motif has a compositional function of warning about future events, and its content is connected with the theme of punishment, retribution.

In Turgenev's Faust, the description of a thunderstorm plays roughly the same role as the main symbolic motif in Ostrovsky's play. At the approach of a thunderstorm, Turgenev writes, " the sound of leaves suddenly shaken by the wind swept out of the garden "(VII, 27). Vera Nikolaevna, as if anticipating danger, shuddered: in this sound she thought she heard an ominous warning. There is a motif of the heroine's fear-both before the natural element, and before the dangerous power of love-a passion that she did not know before. The fear is heightened by the fact that she will have to break the ban imposed by her mother on the sphere into which she is now entering. This is the fear of punishment for violating the ban. In this case, fear, guilt, and retribution define one area of meaning for the symbolic motif of a thunderstorm. Another area of meaning is directly related to the theme of love-passion, as a force external to man, transpersonal and just as dangerous for him as other violent manifestations of natural forces. Naturally, there is a motive for retribution. Turgenev's hero is always punished for breaking the boundaries of the forbidden. This motif, as often in Turgenev, precedes the tragic outcome, is an indication of it.

The title of the story is symbolic: "Calm" is a temporary state of calm, but apparent calm, in the depths of which tension accumulates, and it must certainly be resolved by a storm, a riot of the elements. Thus, the motif of thunderstorms, storms is hidden in the title of the work.

And in the story there is a description of a thunderstorm. The episode in which it is placed does not carry in its content anything dramatic, and even more so tragic. If you see it as symbolic, then only by correlating it with the ending of the story, where Veretyev and Astakhov recall the days of youth and happiness. A summer thunderstorm is a symbol of those distant happy days that will never return.

In "Lull" there is another description of the unfolding elements, and this motif is analogous to the thunderstorm motif in that area of its content, which goes back to Turgenev's idea of the hostility of the surrounding world. The parallel development of two motives - rampant elements and protest in the soul of the heroine against the hopelessness of the life situation-gives the first of them a symbolic meaning. This function of the symbolic motif is also found in other writers

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(the image of a blizzard in The Captain's Daughter and a flood in Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman). An air vortex, a breath of air, a gust of wind in the picture of the night when Marya Pavlovna is killed, are analogous to a thunderstorm and are connected with the inner state of the heroine: "The wind was rushing with a screech, as if trying to blow out the lanterns "(XI, 151).

The motif of a thunderstorm in the first half of the story and the motif of a storm, an autumn storm at the end of it form a symbolic unity in "Calm", in the content of which two sides can be distinguished (as in the novels "Spring Waters" and "First Love"). In one case, the motif under consideration symbolizes youth, happiness, love, in the other-hostile social and natural forces, the power of fate, the inevitability of death. This is how two themes - love and death-are intertwined in Turgenev's work.

This interweaving determines the specifics of the story "After Death". It clearly expresses the idea that love is a mystical force, that its source is outside the consciousness of an individual or even a couple in love. Klara Milich acquires the features of a demonic personality because she is destined to become the bearer of this principle. It was the kind of domineering love she had to fall in love with, no matter who she chose. And again (as in "Spring Waters"), a woman acts as an inescapable fate. After Klara's death, her physical shell no longer exists, but the elemental principle of which she was the bearer materializes as a movement of air, a whirlwind: "Suddenly it seemed to him that some soft, noiseless whirlwind swept through the whole room, through him, through him - and the word "I" was clearly heard in his mind. ears" (XIII, 122). Even in this "through him, through him" movement, the deceased heroine's desire to merge with the object of her passion is felt.

The motif under consideration in this variant (swirling air movement) is repeated in the description of the hero's dream. Aratov's dream is full of symbolism: "The boat is rushing fast... but suddenly there comes a whirlwind, not like yesterday's, noiseless, soft-no; a black, terrible, howling whirlwind! Everything gets mixed up in a circle - and in the midst of the swirling mist Aratov sees Klara in a theatrical costume " (XIII, 128). This terrible whirlwind is a symbol of death (already come - Klara and approaching-Aratov).

A similar motif, expressed in metaphor, is found in the story "Unhappy", where it is said about the death of Susanna's mother: "Oh, what a grief it was, what an evil whirlwind it came upon me!" (X, 111). The idea that "love is stronger than death" is affirmed here, but the general tone and character of Turgenev's mysticism evoke in the reader the feeling that there is something dark, even sinister, both in Klara's personality and in the character of the feelings Aratov inspired by her.

The climactic episode in the story includes a motif of the element that has played out, endowed with a symbolic function. It repeats itself

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in this fragment, the nest motif expressed by the metaphor is also repeated, which allows us to talk about the correlation of these motifs.

The episode opens with a description of bad weather: "The February blizzard was angry and howling in the yard, and the dry snow from time to time knocked on the windows like coarse sand thrown by a strong hand..." (X. 100). A little later, the blizzard is mentioned again: "A sudden gust of wind with a sharp whistle and the sound of snow hit the window, a cold stream ran through the room... Susanna shuddered" (X, 103). This evening is the last in Susanna's life, and she knows it herself and her interlocutor guesses it: "I realized, despite my frivolity and youth, that at that moment the fate of a whole life was ending before me - a bitter and difficult fate" (X, 101).

The description in the finale of the story of a cloudy and cold spring day when Susanna was buried forms a parallel to the climactic episode we have considered, primarily because the motif of the elements that played out is also found here. Thus, the motif under study performs a compositional function in the story, connecting the climax with the denouement. The connection of this motif with the theme of death is obvious, as in the story "Lull".

The motif of the whirlwind in the novel "Smoke" is associated with the image of wings (the hero feels the touch of "dark wings") and also arises in connection with the theme of love-passion. The vortex is associated with something "unknown and cold", it is hostile to the hero, who becomes its powerless victim. A whirlwind strikes and destroys the fate that is still being formed. Love-passion turns its hostile side.

In the prose poem "Doves", the thunderstorm motif appears more as an allegory, but in this allegory the content that is usually given to the symbolic image of the storm is more clearly revealed. Here we find the antithesis characteristic of Turgenev. Two pigeons are a family (nest). A small closed world, a protective circle, is created around them. And then - a vast expanse, where a storm broke out, which is a manifestation of the natural principle. Similar antitheses are found in other works of Turgenev: in the story "Unhappy" (the space of the window is Susanna's "nest" and the street separated from it by glass, where the February wind walks), as well as in the prose poems "The End of the World" and "Sea Voyage".

"Through" motifs of thunderstorms, swirling air, storms, snowstorms can be considered in the writer's artistic world as a kind of unity that has a symbolic content with a fairly wide range; the main meaning is connected with the theme of love-passion.

The symbolic motif of the element as a whole expresses Turgenev's idea of the "secret forces" of life, hostile to man.

The considered motif is sometimes repeated in one piece, changing its meaning. So, the motif of thunderstorms in some stories.-

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It is used twice, acting as a complex dialectical whole. This inconsistency is determined precisely by Turgenev's philosophy of love.

The motif of the element played out in Turgenev's prose often becomes a means of psychologism, indicating the release of emotional tension that the characters experience in connection with the development of a love drama, and is compositionally connected with its climax.

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