By the beginning of the 30s, the balance of power in the literary development of European countries had noticeably changed. By the end of the XVIII century. France is losing the role of the former legislator of aesthetic norms and tastes in art and literature. Germany comes first, with which England successfully competes in other moments. One way or another, all European literature of that time is full of responses to the aesthetic theories and literary activities of the early German romantics. By the end of the 1920s, when romanticism became an inverted page of German literature when its literary fame temporarily faded away with the death of Hoffmann when Heine appeared at a literary crossroads, and German literature was forced to leave behind for a long time and firmly, and inside it begins the process of acute and active anti-romantic reaction. In France, at that time, on the contrary, the romantic movement, although quite significant in its origins, but fragmented and not organized organizationally, consolidated forces in the 1920s, became a "school", developed its aesthetic program, put forward new names for the largest poets and writers - Lamartine, Vigny, Hugo. At the same time, in close connection with the powerful romantic movement and in parallel with it, in the struggle against the common literary adversary - epigone classicism, a new literary direction is emerging and growing - the direction of critical realism, represented by the early works of Stendhal, Balzac, Maritime. This new young literary France, which J. Sand, and then Flaubert, is about to enter, quickly regains its former authority in its national literature.

True, with all the greatness of its literature revived from the 1930s, France no longer dictates, as before, literary norms and fashion to Europe. And at the same time, in the variety of creative individuals, literary and aesthetic schools, and sometimes in the depth of artistic insights and theoretical positions, French literature of that time plays the role of a leader in the Central European region. And, perhaps, the main factors determining such a powerful flowering of French literature from the beginning of the 30s were the deep organic connection of its nascent realistic aesthetics with the artistic practice of romanticism, as well as the significant and vibrant late stage of French romanticism (J. Sand and mature Hugo predominantly) falls at the height of critical realism. This last circumstance could not but lead to mutual fruitful both direct and indirect contacts of writers of both directions.

In other European countries, in connection with the national identity of each individual literature, the process of changing romanticism by critical realism took place in different chronological frames, and nevertheless, the turn of the beginning of the 1930s to a greater or lesser extent defined itself in almost every national literature.

The literature of England of that time among other major national kinds of literature in Europe in its general development goes from romanticism to critical realism. After Lake School, Byron and Shelley, the public life of England put forward Dickens and almost simultaneously with him Thackeray, writers, by the scale of their work, by the degree of talent, standing next to their largest contemporaries in European literature on the other side of the English Channel.

The work of romantics is everywhere subjected to sometimes very harsh and unjust criticism from the point of view of the concrete historical significance of romanticism. At the same time, again, in the concrete historical context of the process of the overall progressive development of art, this denial of romanticism was inevitable and fruitful. That is precisely why it could turn out that, for example, such an outstanding artist, a man deeply erudite and educated, like Thackeray, “did not understand” neither Walter Scott, nor the poets of the Lake School, nor Byron. The situation in Germany is even more paradoxical in this sense, where such major authorities as Hegel, Buchner, as well as Heine, whose early work inscribed one of the brightest pages in the history of romanticism, were among the most significant subversion of romanticism. This "romantic", as T. Gauthier very neatly called it, in his brilliant literary-critical pamphlet "The Romantic School" (1833-1836) also "did not understand the significance of the work of his predecessors Tenets. In France, this aesthetic confrontation received a slightly muffled expression, and it became apparent much later than in England and Germany - romanticism has retained its aesthetic significance here for at least two decades after 1830.

On the whole, this noticeable and significant turning point in the spiritual life of Europe, reflected not only in literature and art, was associated with the development of a new stage in the bourgeois-capitalist structure. The needs of a booming industry required accurate knowledge of the material world and, accordingly, the development of the natural sciences. The intense philosophical and aesthetic searches of the romantics, their theoretical abstractions, could in no way contribute to the fulfillment of these tasks. The spirit of the new ideological atmosphere is now beginning to be determined by the philosophy of positivism, the philosophy of “positive knowledge,” as they said then. The concepts of positivism did not at all exhaust the philosophical basis of critical realism. Moreover, the range of their impact on the aesthetic system of representatives of this literary direction was different, because both philosophically and in terms of general perception, most critical realists sometimes, contrary to their own theoretical declarations, remained under the fruitful influence of romantic concepts. So, for example, in the Dickens – Thackeray – Stendhal – Balzac – Flaubert chain, we can easily catch the varying degrees of positivism affecting these writers. At the same time, it should be emphasized that positivism was the common source of the philosophical base of both critical realism and the one that took on the aesthetic baton of naturalism. Moreover, naturalists, in essence, having completely lost their connection with romanticism, are completely relying on the philosophical system of positivism. This junction between the positivism of critical realists and the positivism of naturalists is particularly clearly defined when comparing Flaubert’s aesthetic system, on the one hand, Chanflery and Duranti (who were closer to naturalism than realism), on the other, and even later Maupassant and Zola, although it is quite obvious that both the latter in their work both overcame and refuted many of the normative-dogmatic aspects of the aesthetics of naturalism.

Ultimately, all these notable shifts in the literary process - the change of romanticism to critical realism, or at least the extension of critical realism to the role of a direction that represents the main line of literature - were determined by the entry of bourgeois capitalist Europe into a new phase of its development.

The most important new moment, ”which now characterizes the alignment of class forces, was the working class entering the independent arena of socio-political struggle, freeing the proletariat from the organizational and ideological guardianship of the left-wing of the bourgeoisie.

The July revolution, which overthrew the throne of Charles X, the last king of the eldest branch of the Bourbons, put an end to the regime. Restoration broke the rule of the Holy Alliance in Europe and had a significant impact on the political climate of Europe (revolution in Belgium, an uprising in Poland).

The formation of critical realism in England chronologically almost exactly coincides with the sharp turning point in the country's socio-political life, which was determined by the parliamentary reform of 1832 and the beginning of the Chartist movement. At the beginning of the 30s Thackeray entered the literature, in 1833 he began work on the "Essays of Bose," his first work, Dickens - the largest representative of critical realism in England.

Similar processes, but with their own national characteristics, occurred at that time in France. It was in the 20s that Balzac, Merime, and, earlier, Stendhal, entered the literature. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, Balzac and Stendhal created their first significant works, the novels Shuana and Red and Black, and in the coming years became leading representatives of European critical realism.

At the same time, French romanticism undergoes significant changes in its fruitful progressive development. In the early lyrics of Hugo, in his first experiments of prose, the formation of a romantic perception of reality in the confrontation with classicist traditions was noted. It was at this time that Hugo firmly established himself in the principles of romanticism, choosing for the whole decade the main route of his work a romantic drama with a sharp social sound, creating at the same time one of the masterpieces of all romantic prose - the novel Notre Dame de Paris. The paths of the creative development of Lamartine and Vigny, remarkable poets, who already in the 1920s made perhaps the greatest contribution to romantic lyrics (as for Vigny, then to the development of a romantic theory), are taking shape in a new way. Finally, it was from the beginning of the 30s that the romantic tradition of chamber-psychological prose, brilliantly developed by the early French romantics, was transformed and enriched by the social-romantic novel by J. Sand. New motifs, new ideological and aesthetic tendencies begin to sound in Beranger’s work, the songs of which are acutely satirical and at the same time imbued with life-affirming democracy brought him world fame already during the years of the Restoration.

The nature of the July monarchy regime, its socio-political contradictions become the main object of artistic understanding of reality in French literature of the 30-40s. For realists, this understanding takes on a deeply analytical character, as evidenced by Stendhal’s novel “Lucien Leuven” and many of Balzac’s masterpieces of “Human Comedy”. French critical realism (primarily in the work of Balzac) in the process of artistic and aesthetic analysis of the social essence of the July monarchy regime, relying on the achievements of the romantics, comes to a new understanding of historicism and new principles of typification. This was theoretically justified by Balzac. Through the prism of romantic historicism, reality seemed either an aesthetic utopia (as in the early German romantics), or a conscientious reconstruction of the color of the place and time, the realities of life, furnishings, clothing, customs (as in dramaturgy, poetry and early prose of Hugo, poetry of early Vigna, partly in his novel Saint-Mar). The new qualities of historicism are already outlined in the historical novel by W. Scott, where the color of place and time - the external detail, with all its enormous significance for the creative manner of the writer - does not play a self-sufficient role. The novelist sees his main task in the artistic depiction and understanding of the acute turning points of national history. And perhaps no other European literature of the first half of the last century, like French, was so closely associated with the name of W. Scott. The 20s - early 30s in the literary life of France are full of echoes of his work. This was a time when, along with the new stage of romanticism, critical realism took the first victorious steps. “Our father, Walter Scott,” Balzac called the great novelist. Indeed, it is easy to see that the author of the Shuans took lessons from the Scottish Sorcerer. But this was not the apprenticeship of an epigon or even a follower. The new admirer of the Scottish novelist, with deep reverence for his teacher, took much of his experience, but, asserting a new direction in literature, he interpreted the principles of historicism in a different way. In his grandiose creation “The Human Comedy”, Balzac sets the task of showing the history of the morals of modern France, that is, the concept of historicism is actualized by him. To understand the essence of the bourgeois structure of the modern monarchy of bankers in France, Balzac quite naturally associates its emergence with the origins of the power of the bourgeoisie, which it received as a result of a revolution of the late 18th century. In his many short stories and novels that make up a single whole, Balzac consistently traces the dirty, criminal, and sometimes bloody stories of the enrichment of the bourgeois who rule modern France.

Actually historical in his novels and Stendhal. The topical contemporary in Red and Black, Lucien Leuven in a different manner than Balzac, but perhaps even more organically linked with the previous stages of development of post-revolutionary France.

This principle of historicism is preserved in a new sound by Flaubert, a large-scale figure in the European literary process. In the works of Flaubert, a deep drama of public and aesthetic consciousness was noted, generated by the negative consequences of the defeat of the revolution of 1848-1849.

The third largest European country - Germany - and by the age of 30 continuing to remain fragmented, in its economic development lagged significantly not only from England, but also from France. Nevertheless, the patterns noted above are also characteristic of it. And in Germany, the beginning of the 30s, there are noticeable social shifts for the country. The most significant manifestation of the opposition movement of the 1930s in Germany was the activity of the secret "Human Rights Society", one of whose leaders was Georg Buchner, and the uprising of the Hessian peasants connected with the activities of this society.

In the 40s, the role of Germany in the class struggle of the progressive forces of Europe markedly increased. Evidence of this was the powerful uprising of the Silesian weavers of 1844. In Germany, which only now, in conditions of escalated class contradictions, has approached its bourgeois revolution, the center of the revolutionary movement is moving.

The new successes of German literature, partly related to the further development of realistic trends, were a response to the events of the 40s (the so-called Pre-March literature) and the March revolution of 1848 and were expressed in the works of Weert, Herweg and Freiligrat. A notable phenomenon in the mainstream of the development of German realism was the drama of the outstanding playwright F. Goebbel “Mary Magdalene” (1844), but his further work, if it can be correlated with realism, is only with its peripheral abstract allegorical modifications. And although in the German literature, until the heyday of the creative work of the Mann brothers, separate phenomena of realism arose, neither the works of V. Raabe, A. Stifter or the highly gifted novelist T. Storm (a kind of lyrical-psychological realism very close to romanticism) give reason to talk about the direction of critical realism, which is somewhat close in its scale and artistic and aesthetic quality to the realism of England and France of the same decades.

A significant role in the development of progressive literature of the 40s is played by Marx and Engels. Brilliant literary and critical articles by Engels, who had tried his hand in literature, his deeply analytical judgments about the modern world literary process, the joint work of Marx and Engels, which dealt with various problems of literature, and finally, personal contacts of the founders of scientific communism with writers, for example, Heine, in their totality, represent an important page "in German and throughout world literature.

No matter how significant the national characteristics of the literary process in Germany are, they still do not contradict the fact that with the beginning of the 30s a significant turning point in literature, as well as in public life, begins. This turning point, the main sign of which was the beginning of the formation and development of critical realism, dominating in the literature of England, France, and somewhat later in the literature of Russia, determines the face of the literary process.

Completely different patterns of socio-political life are characteristic of the United States, where along with the industrially developed northern states, which have a relatively liberal social structure, there are slave-owning southern states.

If in European literature, English and French, first of all, the realistic direction begins to be clearly defined from the beginning of the 30s, in other cases, romanticism has been substantially ousted as a literary direction, then in US literature romanticism reaches its peak in this period, determining the general line of development of the literary process. In 1824, an outstanding romantic, poet and novelist E. Poe entered literature, whose fame went far beyond the United States and the influence of his work became noticeable in European short stories. The middle of the century, the 60s, was called the period of the "American Renaissance", which is associated with the largest achievements of romantic literature (N. Hawthorne, G. Melville, G. D. Toro, W. Whitman, G. W. Longfellow). The ideas of subjective-romantic philosophy were the basis of the transcendentalist movement (30-40s).

However, in the 50s in the literature of the United States social intonations markedly increased. They, for example, are especially tangible in the philosophical and lyrical prose of the romanticism of Thoreau, in his journalism. In the 40s in the work of a number of writers the origins of critical realism were formed, which became the leading method of abolitionist (from the English abolition - abolition, cancellation) literature during the Civil War (1861-1865). In line with this literature publishes his widely known novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852) G. Beecher Stow. The ideas of abolitionism are associated with the work of another classic of US literature, W. Whitman, in whose collection Leaves of Grass, one can trace the development of romanticism towards a more objective reflection of reality with its social contradictions. Whitman's work is an organic combination of a romantic vision of reality with the principles of critical realism. However, only towards the end of the century in the works of M. Twain, W. D. Howells, G. James, he will determine the face of the literary process in the United States.

The European revolutions of 1848-1849, which covered almost all the countries of the continent, became a major milestone in the socio-political process of the XIX century. The events of the late 1940s marked the final demarcation of the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In addition to direct responses to the mid-century revolution in the works of a number of revolutionary poets, the general ideological atmosphere after the defeat of the revolution affected the further development of critical realism (Dickens, Thackeray, Flaubert, Heine), and a number of other phenomena, in particular, the formation of naturalism in European literature.

Especially clearly the features of naturalistic aesthetics were manifested in the works of French writers Edmond and Jules Goncourt. It is noteworthy that both Chanfleury and Duranti, who considered themselves to be realists and genuine successors of Balzac, were essentially naturalists in their aesthetics and creative practice. The aesthetic principles of naturalism were professed at the early stage of their activity by the talented English writer George Eliot. Her magnificent psychological skill and keen observation make it possible for her to create vivid expressive characters, some of which carry the features of social typification, thereby expressing, contrary to the original theoretical platform of the writer, her attitude to the depicted reality. However, it is easy to notice that in D. Eliot’s novels there is neither the breadth of historical scope nor the depth of social generalizations inherent in the work of Dickens and Thackeray. Roughly the same thing can be said in general terms about another English realist of this period - E. Trollope.

The literary process of the second half of the century, under all the complicating circumstances of the post-revolutionary period, is enriched with new achievements. The positions of critical realism in the Slavic countries are consolidated. Such great realists as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky begin their creative activity. Critical realism is formed in the literature of Belgium, Holland, Hungary, and Romania.

The national liberation struggle against the Turkish enslaves, which unfolded in Bulgaria, brought to life new forces in literature, which was experiencing in the middle of the century the "Renaissance", the civil revolutionary liberation pathos of which was so vividly voiced in journalism and poetry by Hristo Botev.

The national liberation movement against the backdrop of a new phase of social contradictions played a decisive role in that bright period in which, after 1848, the literature of the northern peoples entered. This sharp turnaround in young Finnish literature and in the literature of the Scandinavian countries was associated with unresolved conflicts of 1848 - an aggravation of relations between the Danish-German population of Schleswig-Holstein and Prussia, between the Swedish government and the Norwegian public, the influence of the revolutionary situation in Russia on the public life in Finland, where national identity grew stronger. Under the influence of these factors, romantic principles are increasingly fading into the background and realistic art begins to play a leading role.

                                  Acknowledgments 

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