How a traveler gets out of a predicament Sofia. What is this book about

Silence everywhere. Immersed in thoughts, I did not notice that my wagon had long been standing without horses. The driver who brought me pulled me out of my thoughts. - Barin-father, for vodka! - Although this collection is not legal, everyone willingly pays it, so as not to go by decree. - Twenty kopecks served me in favor. Anyone who has traveled by post office knows that the road trip is a protective letter, without which it will be unprofitable for any purse - a general's, perhaps excluding it. Taking it out of my pocket, I walked with her, as they sometimes go with a cross to protect their own.

I found the postal commissioner snoring; lightly took him by the shoulder. - Who the hell is crushing? What a way to leave the city at night. There are no horses; very early; go, perhaps, to the tavern, drink tea or fall asleep. - Having said this, Mr. Commissar turned away to the wall and started snoring. What to do? I shook the commissar again by the shoulder. “What an abyss, I already said that there are no horses,” and, wrapping a blanket around his head, Mr. Commissar turned away from me. “If the horses are in full swing,” I thought, “then it’s unfair that I disturb the commissar’s sleep. And if the horses are in the stable ... - I set out to find out whether Mr. Commissar was telling the truth. He went out into the yard, found a stable and found up to twenty horses in it; although, to tell the truth, their bones were visible, but they would have dragged me to the next camp. From the stable I again returned to the commissar; shook him much harder. It seemed to me that I had a right to this, having found that the commissar had lied. He jumped up in a hurry and, without opening his eyes yet, asked: "Who has come?" not ... - but coming to his senses, seeing me, he said to me: - It can be seen, well done, you used to treat the former coachmen like that. They were beaten with sticks; but now is not the old time. With anger, Mr. Commissar went to bed to sleep. I just as much wanted to regale him as I did the old coachmen when they behaved themselves in deceit; but my generosity, giving vodka to the city carter, prompted the Sofia coachmen to harness the horses to me as soon as possible, and at the very moment when I intended to commit a crime on the back of the commissar, a bell rang in the yard. I have been a good citizen. And so twenty copper kopecks saved a peace-loving person from investigation, my children from an example of intemperance in anger, and I learned that reason is a slave to impatience.

Horses rush me; my cabman sang a song, as usual mournful. Anyone who knows the voices of Russian folk songs admits that there is something spiritual sorrow in them that signifies. Almost all the voices of such songs are soft in tone. - On this musical disposition of the people's ear, know how to establish the reins of government. In them you will find the education of the soul of our people. Look at the Russian man; you will find it thoughtfully. If he wants to disperse boredom, or, as he himself calls it, if he wants to have fun, then he goes to a tavern. In his joy he is impulsive, courageous, grumpy. If something happens not according to him, then soon a dispute or battle begins. A barge hauler going to a tavern hanging his head and returning covered with blood from slaps in the face, a lot can be solved hitherto ordained in Russian history.

My driver sings. “Third was one past midnight. As before the bell, so now its song has made me sleep again. - O nature, having declared a man in a shroud of sorrow at his birth, dragging him along the strict ridges of fear, boredom and sadness through his entire life, you gave him a dream of joy. - He fell asleep, and everything died. Unbearable is the awakening of the unfortunate. Oh, how pleasant death is for him. Is it the end of sorrow? - All-good Father, will you really turn your eyes away from the one who ends his miserable life courageously? To you, the source of all blessings, this sacrifice is offered. You alone give strength when the nature trembles, shudders. This is the voice of the father, calling his child to himself. You gave me life, I return it to you; on earth it has become useless.

The monster is oblo, mischievous, huge, staring and barking.
"Tilemachida", volume II, book. XVIII, verse 514*.

The book is preceded by the words: “I looked around me - my soul became wounded by the sufferings of mankind. He turned my eyes to my insides - and saw that the calamities of a person come from a person, and often only from the fact that he looks indirectly at the objects surrounding him.

Departure – Sofia – Lyubani

After dinner with friends, the narrator sets off on a journey, settling in a wagon.

At the inn with the beautiful name Sophia, he presents a traveler (a document giving the right to receive postal horses), but the sleeping commissar lies that there are no horses. The traveler goes to the stable and sees that there are about twenty horses there, a pair of which could drag him to his next destination. In anger, the traveler was even going to beat the couch potato - "he intended to commit a crime on the back of the commissar." However, he pulled himself together, gave the coachmen a small bribe - and now he is on his way again.

“... My cabman sang a song, as usual, a mournful one. Whoever knows the voices of Russian folk songs admits that there is something in them, a sorrow of the soul that signifies. In them you will find the education of the soul of our people. Look at the Russian man; you will find it thoughtfully. If he wants to disperse boredom, have fun, then he goes to a tavern. In his joy he is impulsive, courageous, grumpy. If something happens not according to him, then soon a dispute or battle begins. A barge hauler going to a tavern hanging his head and returning covered with blood from slaps in the face, a lot can be solved hitherto ordained in Russian history.

At the Lyuban station, the traveler sees a peasant who works on arable land, despite the fact that it is Sunday.

“Don’t you have time to work all week, that you don’t let down even on Sunday, and even in the heat of the day?”

- In a week, sir, six days, and we go to corvée six times a week; yes, in the evening we carry the hay left in the forest to the master's yard, if the weather is good; and women and girls for a walk go on holidays to the forest for mushrooms and berries.

The peasant told the inquisitive gentleman that he worked for himself not only on holidays, but also at night. Gives horses a break: one plows, the other rests. But he does not allow himself to rest, he has three children, they want everything to eat.

The peasant works for the master without much effort: “Although stretch out at the master’s work, they won’t say thank you ... Nowadays, it’s still believed that villages are given away, as they say, for rent. And we call it to give head. The mercenary skins the men; does not even leave us a better time. In winter, he does not let him go to the cab, nor to work in the city; all work for him, so that he pays per capita (taxes, taxes) for us. The most diabolical invention of giving your peasants to someone else to work. At least you can complain about a bad clerk, but who about a mercenary (tenant)?

The state peasants have at least some kind of protection, while the peasants belonging to the landlord have no rights. The law will then pay attention to them when they commit some criminal offense.

“Beware, hard-hearted landowner, I see your condemnation on the forehead of each of your peasants!” exclaims the justly angry author.

And immediately he feels pangs of conscience: after all, he, too, oppresses his serf servant Petrushka. He even allows himself to beat him.

“If I hit someone, he can hit me too. Remember that day when Petrushka was drunk and did not have time to dress you. Remember his slap. Oh, if he then, although drunk, would come to his senses and answer you in proportion to your question!

Who gave you power over him?

- Law".

Radishchev leads the reader to the idea that such a law is unjust.

Spasskaya field

In this chapter, Radishchev develops a metaphorical vision of unjust power. It seems to him that he is “king, khan, king, bey, nabob, sultan.” In a word, someone sitting on a throne.

Government officials, noble women, military leaders and pundits close to the throne, mature people and youth - all flatter the ruler and glorify him.

This obsequious outpouring of delight pleases the king. He rewards those who know how to flatter especially well.

But now his gaze stops at a woman who is the only one of all "who showed a look of contempt and indignation." It's a Stratgaze wanderer, an eye doctor, but not an ordinary one. Pryamvzora is a symbolic image of the Truth, which helps spiritual insight.

“There is a thorn in both eyes,” said the wanderer, “and you judged everything so resolutely.

The stern woman removed thick horny thorns from the eyes of the person sitting on the throne. And he could see the price of flattery. The price of those who praise in the eyes, and laugh behind the eyes, thinking only about their own benefit.

Pryamozora urged the ruler to expel the liars. She showed him the truth: “My clothes, so shiny, were stained with blood and soaked with tears. On my fingers I saw the remains of a human brain; my feet were in mud. Those around me were even more stingy. Their whole interior seemed black and burned by the dull fire of insatiability. They cast distorted glances at me and at each other, dominated by rapacity, envy, deceit and hatred. My commander, sent to conquer, was drowning in luxury and fun. There was no subordination in the troops; my warriors were revered worse than cattle.

Instead of being known as merciful among my people, I was known as a deceiver, a hypocrite and a pernicious comedian.

The gullible ruler thought that he was helping the poor, orphans and widows, but cunning and liars sought his mercy!

This vision-chapter is a message to all who have power over people and are called to distribute wealth fairly.

Podberezye - Novgorod - Bronnitsy

IN educational institutions- the dominance of dark and incomprehensible Latin. How nice it would be if modern subjects were taught in modern Russian!

Radishchev criticizes the educational plans of Catherine II, who only promised to open new universities (for example, in Pskov), but limited herself to only promises.

The author is also critical of the development of Christianity, which “in the beginning was humbly, meek, hiding in deserts and dens, then it intensified, raised its head, removed its path, indulged in superstition, raised up a leader, expanded his power, and the pope became the all-powerful of kings.”

Martin Luther (1483-1546) - the reformer of the church, the founder of the so-called Lutheranism, directed against the dogmas of Catholicism and the abuses of the Roman popes, began the transformation, papal power and superstition began to collapse.

But the path of mankind is such that people constantly vacillate from superstition to freethinking.

The task of the writer is to expose the extremes and enlighten at least one reader.

Approaching Novgorod, Radishchev recalls the massacre of Ivan IV with Novgorod in 1570. Novgorod was annexed to Moscow (1478) by the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III. “What right did he have to rage against them; what right did he have to assign Novgorod? Is it that the first great Russian princes lived in this city? Or that it was written by the king of all Rus'? Or that the Novgorodians were a Slavic tribe? But what is the right when force is at work?

What is the right of the people?

Examples of all times show that the right without force was always in execution revered as an empty word.

Zaitsovo

In Zaitsovo, the narrator meets his old friend, who told him about the career of a certain local nobleman, who began his service as a stoker, and after begging for retirement, was awarded the rank of collegiate assessor and found a chance to buy a village in his native places, where he settled with his considerable family.

Having got out "from rags to riches", the assessor became the master of several hundred of his own kind. And it turned his head.

“He was greedy, saved money, cruel by nature, quick-tempered, vile, and therefore haughty over his weakest. From this you can judge how he treated the peasants. They were at the former landowner's dues, he put them on arable land; he took away all their land from them, bought all their cattle at a price he himself determined, forced them to work all week for himself, and so that they would not die of hunger, he fed them in the master's yard, and then once a day ... If someone seemed lazy to him, then he whipped them with rods, whips, batogs or cats (a multi-tailed whip).

It happened that his men robbed a passer-by in order to get food on the road, and then killed another. He did not give them to court for that, but hid them at home, announced to the government that they fled; saying that there would be no profit for him if the peasant was flogged with a whip and sent to work for a crime. If one of the peasants stole something from him, he whipped him as if for laziness or for an impudent or witty answer, but in addition he put on stocks, shackles, and a slingshot around his neck. His cohabitant had full power over the women.

Her sons and daughters were her helpers in carrying out her orders. The sons themselves flogged the peasants with whips or cats. The women and girls of the daughter were beaten on the cheeks or dragged by the hair. In their free time, the sons went around the village or in the field to play and mess with girls and women, and none of them escaped their violence. The daughters, having no suitors, vented their boredom on the spinners, of whom they mutilated many.

There was a peasant girl in the village, not bad-looking, who had been arranged for a young peasant from the same village. The assessor's middle son liked her, and did everything he could to win her over; but the peasant woman was faithful in her promise given to the groom ... On Sunday there should have been a wedding ... "

The nobleman lured the girl into a cage and subjected her to wild violence. The unfortunate woman resisted, but two more brothers helped the scoundrel to hold her back.

The groom found out about what had happened and broke the head of one of the villains with a stake. The father of wicked sons called to himself for punishment both the groom and his father.

"How dare you. - said the old assessor, - raise a hand against your master? And even if he slept the night with your bride on the eve of your wedding, then you should be grateful to him for this. You won't marry her; she will remain in my house, and you will be punished.”

“According to this decision, he ordered the groom to be whipped with cats mercilessly, giving him to the will of his sons. He endured the beatings courageously; He watched in an untimid spirit as they began to torture his father in the same way. But he could not endure, as he saw that the master's children wanted to lead the bride into the house. The punishment took place in the yard. In an instant, he grabbed her from the hands of her kidnappers ... "

The peasants stood up for the offended bride and groom and beat the assessor himself and his three sons to death.

A friend of Radishchev was to judge the peasants and doom them to eternal hard labor. Mercy and justice told him that only years of cruel treatment had compelled the peasants to such a desperate act of protest.

“A person will be born into the world equal in everything to another. We all have the same, we all have reason and will ... "

And again, Radishchev, already through the mouth of his friend, asks the question: is there a law that is fair for all people, and not only for the rich and noble?

Is it possible to intercede for serfs?

Krestsy — Yazhelbitsy

In the village of Krestsy, the narrator witnesses how a noble father sends his sons to military service.

“Tell the truth, loving father, tell me, O true citizen! Wouldn't you like to strangle your son rather than let him go to the service?

The army service appears to the author as a hotbed of servility, stupid careerism and cruelty. Radishchev, through the mouth of a rather enlightened father of two adult sons, talks about education. He expresses the bold idea that children are not obliged to their parents for either birth or, as he puts it, "nurture."

“When I treat a stranger, when I feed feathered chicks, when I give food to a dog that licks my right hand, do I do this for their sake? Joy, amusement or benefit in that I find my own. It is with the same motive that children are brought up. Born into the world, you have become citizens of the society in which you live. It was my duty to bring you up; for if he had allowed an untimely death to come to you, there would have been a murderer. If I was more diligent (more diligent) in your upbringing than many are, then I followed the feeling of my heart.

Father and mother did a lot for the education and upbringing of children. However, the noble nobleman does not see his merit in this either: “Praising you, they praise me. O my friends, sons of my heart!

I have had many positions in relation to you, but you do not owe me anything; I seek your friendship and your love."

The father tried not to force the children too much, to give them freedom. However, he did not indulge them, he tried not to pamper them. Often the children went barefoot and lightly dressed, ate modestly: “Our labors were the best seasoning in our dinner. Remember with what pleasure we dined in a village unknown to us, not having found the way to the house. How delicious rye bread and rustic kvass seemed to us then!

Sons going to work do not know social tricks, they do not know how to dance and compliment the ladies. However, their father instilled in them a love for art (music and painting), taught them how to run, swim, shoot, ride a horse, fencing, as well as simple peasant labor (and plow, and milk a cow, and cook soup and porridge).

“While teaching you information about the sciences, I did not leave you to acquaint you with various peoples, having studied you in foreign languages. But first of all, my concern was that you know your own, that you know how to explain your thoughts verbally and in writing on it, so that this explanation is at ease in you and does not produce sweat on your face. English, and then Latin, I tried to make others better known to you.

In his father's speech, Radishchev outlines his own views on the principles of upbringing: they are in neatness, moderation, restraint, naturalness, closeness to nature, mercy.

The young are warned against servility to the strong, against self-interest and arrogance, and against brutality towards people dependent on them.

The judge of a person on the righteous path should be his own conscience.

In the chapter "Yazhelbitsy" Radishchev addresses a difficult but necessary topic. Carnal pleasures with promiscuous women lead many people to sexually transmitted diseases.

Radishchev warns the younger generation against intemperance.

Edrovo

In this chapter, the writer compares secular beauties with village girls. How much healthier, more natural, rosier and more beautiful are those who grew up in nature, without court tricks!

“... I love rural women or peasant women because they do not yet know pretense, do not impose on themselves the masks of feigned love, and when they love, they love with all their hearts and sincerely ...”

The narrator especially liked one girl of about twenty, Anyuta, who told him:

“I don’t have a father, he has been dead for about two years now, I have a mother and a little sister. Father left us five horses and three cows. There are plenty of small livestock and birds; but there is no worker in the house. I was married to a rich house for a ten-year-old guy; but I didn't want to. What do I need in such a child; I will not love him. And when he comes at the right time, then I will grow old, and he will hang around with strangers. Yes, they say that the father-in-law himself sleeps with young daughters-in-law while the sons grow up. I did not want to go to his family for that. I want my equal. I will love my husband, and he will love me too, I have no doubt about that. I don’t like to walk with the good fellows, but I want to get married, sir. Do you know what for?

Last summer, a year ago, our neighbor's son got married to my friend, with whom I always went to get-togethers. Her husband loves her, and she loves him so much that in the tenth month, after the wedding, she bore him a son.

Every evening she goes out to nurse him outside the gate. She doesn't look at him. It seems as if the boy already loves his mother. As she tells him: aha, aha, he will laugh. I'm in tears every day; I wish I had a guy like that...

The touched traveler found out that Anyuta has a loved one, whom she, however, cannot marry, since a hundred rubles is needed for a dowry - a huge amount for peasants.

The traveler offered the necessary money to Anyuta's mother, but she refused.

“I compared this venerable mother with her sleeves rolled up behind a sourdough or with a pail beside a cow with city mothers. The peasant woman did not want to take from me an immaculate, well-meaning hundred rubles, which, in proportion to the fortunes, should be five, ten, fifteen thousand or more for a colonel, adviser, major, general's wife.

Again, the comparison is not in favor of urban noblewomen.

It turns out that the wedding will still take place. Ivan, Anyuta's fiancé, relies on his own hands - he will earn everything that is missing.

In the afterword, Radishchev is indignant at the habit of marrying primarily for property considerations: “If the husband is ten years old and the wife is twenty-five, as often happens in the peasantry; or if the husband is fifty, and the wife is fifteen or twenty years old, as happens in the nobility, can there be mutual pleasure of the senses?

Khotilov - Vydropusk

The chapters are written from the perspective of a traveler friend. They express revolutionary views on state structure, enslaving the majority of its citizens for the prosperity of a minority in power by birthright.

The author addresses all conquering kings, using the example of Alexander the Great: “The fruit of your conquest will be—do not flatter yourself—murder and hatred. You will abide the tormentor in the memory of your descendants; you will be executed, knowing that your new servants abhor you and ask for your death.

About the serfs, the author says: “The field is alien to them, the fruit of it (her) does not belong to them. And for this they work it lazily; and they do not worry about whether in the midst of labor (...) The field of slavery, yielding incomplete fruit, mortifies the citizens. There is nothing more harmful than the constant view of the objects of slavery. On the one hand, arrogance will be born, and on the other, timidity. There can be no connection here, except violence.

Radishchev directly calls for the release of the peasants from the shackles of slavery and the restoration of the natural equality of all.

Proposals of an unknown friend of Radishchev regarding the reforms of the civil system:

Separation of rural slavery and domestic slavery. “This last thing is destroyed first of all, and it is forbidden for the villagers and everyone, according to the villages in the revision written, to take home. If the landlord takes the farmer into his house for services or work, then the farmer becomes free ”;

- to allow peasants to enter into marriage without requiring the consent of their master. Prohibit taking withdrawal money (groom's payment for the bride, if she is a serf of another landowner);

- to allow the peasant to acquire an immovable estate, that is, to buy land;

- to allow the unrestricted acquisition of liberties by paying the master for a holiday known sum;

- Prohibit arbitrary punishment without trial.

"Disappear the barbaric habit, destroy the power of the tigers!" the legislator tells us.

"This is followed by the complete abolition of slavery."

Torzhok

This chapter is about free printing and counteracting the harsh laws of censorship.

“Censorship is done by the nurse of reason, wit, imagination, everything great and elegant ...

The best way to encourage good is non-obstruction, permission, freedom in thoughts. Search is harmful in the realm of science: it thickens the air and closes the breath.

A book that goes through ten censorships before it reaches the light is not a book, but a work of the Holy Inquisition; often mutilated, flogged with a sword, a prisoner with a gag in his mouth, but a slave always ... In the realms of truth, in the realm of thought and spirit, no earthly authority can give decisions and should not ...

Words are not always the essence of deeds, reflections are not crimes ...

If a madman, in his dream, not only in his heart, but with a loud voice, says: “There is no God,” a loud and hasty echo is heard in the mouths of all madmen: “There is no God, there is no God.” But what of that? Echo - sound; hits the air, shakes it up and disappears. It rarely leaves a line on the mind, and even then a weak one; never in the heart. God will always be God, we feel even those who do not believe in him...

A schismatic will not throw himself into the fire from a printed book, but from a cunning example. To ban tomfoolery is the same as to encourage it. Give him free rein; everyone will see what is stupid and what is smart. What is forbidden is what you want.”

Radishchev in these chapters gives a historical and geographical insight into censorship in America, France, and Germany.

Copper

This chapter depicts the sale of serfs.

“There are always a lot of hunters for cheap things. The day and hour of the sale has come. Buyers are coming. In the hall where it is produced, convicts stand motionless for sale.

An old man of 75 years old, leaning on an elm club, is eager to guess who fate will give him into his hands, who will close his eyes. With his master's father, he was in the Crimean campaign, under Field Marshal Munnich; in the Frankfurt battle, he carried his wounded master on his shoulders. Return home, was the uncle of his young master. In infancy (of a young master) he saved him from drowning, rushing after him into the river, where this one fell, moving on a ferry, and with the danger of his life saved him. In his youth, he bought him out of prison, where he was imprisoned for debts when he was a non-commissioned officer in the guard.

An old woman of eighty years old, his wife, was the nurse of the mother of her young master; she was his nanny and had oversight of the house until the very hour that she was brought out to this marketplace.

During all the time of her service, she did not steal anything from her masters, did not self-serve in anything, never lied, and if sometimes she annoyed them, then only with her honesty.

A woman in her forties, a widow, nurse of her young master. And to this day she still feels a certain tenderness for him. Her blood flows in his veins.

She is his second mother, and he owes his belly more to her than to his natural mother. She conceived him in joy, and in his infancy did not worry about him ... "

A hard-hearted owner sells devoted serfs, who have repeatedly proved to him in practice their not slavish, but human love.

He sells because he squandered his estate. Sells because he does not see people in them. He sells because the structure of society has corrupted him and instilled a consumer attitude towards the human dignity of serfs.

Gorodnya

The recruiting kit strikes the impressionable soul of the traveler.

“In one crowd, an old woman of about fifty, holding a twenty-year-old guy by the head, yelled:

“My dear child, to whom are you leaving me?” To whom do you entrust the parental home? Our fields will be overgrown with grass, moss - our hut. I, your poor elderly mother, must wander the world. Who will warm my decrepitude from the cold, who will shelter it from the heat? Who will give me drink and food?

The recruit's bride also cried, because she would not have to become a wife and babysit common kids.

Russian army before military reform 1870 was replenished by recruiting sets from peasants who were obliged to supply one recruit from a hundred. You had to serve in the army for twenty-five years - best years life.

State and economic (serfs who passed from the monasteries to the economic board) peasants instead of themselves exhibited serfs specially bought from the landowners. Landowner speculation with serfs during recruiting was repeatedly banned, but was not eradicated.

The narrator was surprised by the joy of another recruit. This man said that it is better to hope for happiness in the soldiery than to disappear with an unmerciful master as a serf.

The old master raised his uncle's son (a serf tutor) on a par with his own son. Moreover, the serf was more successful in the sciences than the young master.

The master and his young servant were sent abroad for five years. Upon their return, the landowner promised to give the serf youth freedom. However, without waiting for the return of his son, the good master died.

Recruit says:

“A week after our arrival in Moscow, my former master fell in love with a fair-faced girl, but who, with bodily beauty, combined the meanest soul and a cruel and stern heart. Brought up in the arrogance of her origin, she honored only appearance, nobility, and wealth as excellent. In two months she became the wife of my master and my mistress. Until that time, I did not feel a change in my condition, I lived in the house of my master as his companion. Although he did not order me anything, I sometimes warned him of his desires, feeling his power and my fate. As soon as the young mistress crossed the threshold of the house in which she was determined to be in charge, I felt the burden of my lot. The first evening after the wedding and the next day, on which I was introduced to her by her husband as his partner, she was busy with the usual cares of the new marriage; but in the evening, when, at a rather crowded meeting, everyone came to the table and sat down at the first dinner at the newlyweds, and I, as usual, sat in my place at the lower end, the new mistress said quite loudly to her husband: if he wants her to sit at the table with the guests, then the serf would not plant for it.

Thus began a series of humiliations. An educated and sensitive young man was punished physically (flogged with cats) and forced to suffer morally. In the end, for impudence and disobedience, the guy was identified as a recruit. The soldier's share was preferable to him than the service of a hard-hearted mistress.

And there were many more recruit tears: someone wept for their old helpless parents, someone for their young wife, and someone for their native lands.

Pawns

In a peasant's hut, the narrator is having breakfast with his supplies. The mistress's son asks him for a piece of sugar - "boyar food".

The hostess addresses him reproachfully:

“Are you not drinking the tears of your peasants when they eat the same bread as we do?”

The dough consisted of three-quarters of chaff and one part of wholemeal flour. The traveler after these words, as if for the first time, looks at the inside of the hut.

“Four walls, half covered like the entire ceiling, with soot; the floor was cracked, at least an inch overgrown with mud; a stove without a chimney and smoke that fills the hut every morning in winter and summer.

In the windows, instead of glass, a bubble will be stretched.

From dishes - two or three pots. And that hut is happy if in one of them every day there are empty (without meat) cabbage soup!

In the hut there is a trough for feeding pigs or calves that sleep in the hut in winter. The air is stuffy, there is a burning candle in it - as if in a fog.

From clothes - a linen shirt, shoes with bast shoes for going out.

This is where the source of state excess, strength, and power is revered in justice; but the weakness, shortcomings and abuses of laws and their rough, so to speak, side are immediately visible. Here you can see the greed of the nobility, robbery, our torment and defenseless poverty.

Greedy beasts, insatiable leeches, what do we leave the peasant? What we cannot take away is air. Yes, one air. We often take from him not only the gift of the earth, bread and water, but also light itself. The law forbids taking his life. But not instantly. How many ways to take her away from him gradually! On the one hand, almost omnipotence; on the other hand, weakness is defenseless. For the landowner in relation to the peasant is the legislator, the judge, the executor of his decision and, at his will, the plaintiff, against whom the defendant does not dare to say anything, ”radishchev goes from describing the hut to a direct accusation of the power of the nobles over the serfs.

The story ends with a chapter where the work and genius of Lomonosov, the son of a simple fisherman who became a great scientist, is exalted.

In the chapter "Sofia" the traveler reflects on the peculiarities of the Russian national character: "A barge hauler, going to a tavern hanging his head and returning bloodied from slaps in the face, can solve a lot, hitherto guessing in Russian history."

"Lyubani": the author describes his meeting with a peasant who plows a field on a holiday. Six days a week he works at the barshchina. To the question of the author, when does he have time to get bread to feed big family, he replies: “Not just holidays, and our night. Don’t be lazy, our brother, he won’t die of hunger. You see, one horse is resting, but when this one gets tired, I’ll take on another; it’s a matter of argument.” The traveler is shocked by the peasant's confessions. He ends his reflections with the words: "Fear, hard-hearted landowner, I see your condemnation on the forehead of each of your peasants."

At Chudovo station, the hero meets a friend who tells him a story that happened to him. Having set off on a small ship on a journey by sea, he and his companions got into a storm. The ship was stuck one and a half kilometers from the shore between two stones and did not move. Twelve people barely had time to pump out the water. One brave man, risking his life, managed to get to the shore, ran to the nearest village and came to the chief, asking for help. The boss was asleep, but the sergeant did not dare to wake him up and pushed the man out the door. He turned to ordinary fishermen who saved the rest. Returning to the village, the narrator went to the chief. He thought he would punish his sergeant for not being awakened when twelve men were in danger. But the boss only replied: "That's not my position." Then the narrator turned to the higher authorities, and "someone" answered him: "But in his position he is not prescribed to save you." "Now I will say goodbye to the city forever," the narrator exclaims.

In Spasskaya Polest, the hero gets caught in the rain and is forced to spend the night in a hut. There he hears a whisper: a husband and wife are talking, who also spent the night on the way to Novgorod. The husband tells his wife a story worthy of the pen of Saltykov-Shchedrin. We see Radishchev from a new angle: we have before us a sharp satirist who tells how the governor spends state money on his own whims (he loves "usters", that is, oysters), and couriers and officers receive money and ranks for fulfilling these whims.

Reflecting on the former greatness of Novgorod (chapter "Novgorod"), the author writes with bitter irony about the right of peoples: "When enmity arises between them, when hatred or self-interest directs them at each other, their judge is a sword. Whoever fell dead or disarmed is guilty; he obeys unquestioningly this decision, and there is no appeal to it. - That's why Novgorod is Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich. That's why he is his ruined and appropriated its smoking remnants.

Anticipating Tolstoy's thought, Radishchev says that during war "great violence is covered by the law of war" ("Zaitsovo"); reflects on the greed of the authorities, on the lack of rights of the peasants, touches on economic problems, issues of education and relationships between husband and wife - both in a peasant and in a noble family.

In the chapter "Edrovo" the traveler meets the girl Anyuta and talks to her. He admires not only her beauty, but the nobility in her way of thinking. Anyuta is about to get married, and the hero wholeheartedly offers her mother a hundred rubles as a dowry for her daughter. The mother refuses, although for a peasant family this is a lot of money. Anyuta's chastity and innocence delight the hero, and he thinks about her for a long time.

In the same chapter, he tells an episode of the Pugachev uprising. Pugachev's name was forbidden even to be mentioned, but Radishchev boldly talks about the arbitrariness of the landowner and the massacre of the peasants, who were later convicted, and sums up his thoughts: "But the peasant is dead in law ..."

The chapters "Khotilov" and "Vydropusk" are subtitled "Project in the Future". This is the most important document of social thought - the first Russian utopia. What can a state become when, "enjoying inner silence, having no external enemies," society will be brought "to the highest bliss of civil coexistence"? The only guardian of society will be the law: “Under its sovereign protection, our heart is also free,” Radishchev wants to believe in this.

What is needed for this? The author answers us in the chapter "Torzhok". The beginning of civil society is freedom, and the first element of freedom is "free printing", when censorship does not stand at the printing press "to nurse reason, wit, imagination, everything great and elegant." But "freedom of thought is terrible for governments."

The traveler, whom the traveler meets, gives to read a notebook with an essay, the title of which is "A Brief Narrative of the Origin of Censorship." In the notebook - the history of the struggle between power and social thought from the time of Socrates to the latest European events.

In the chapter "Copper" - the tragic scene of the sale of a family of serfs at auction. Who has the power to establish freedom for the peasants in Russia? “But the freedom of the villagers will offend, as they say, the right to property. And all those who could fight for freedom are all great otchinniks, and freedom should not be expected from their advice, but from the very severity of enslavement.”

In Tver, the traveler meets a poet who reflects on the significance of poetry in society and reads the ode "Liberty" to him. How to understand liberty? "Liberty should be called that everyone equally obeys the laws." The ode was written by Radishchev himself and had a huge influence on Pushkin. Pushkin admitted this in the draft edition of the "Monument": "After Radishchev, I glorified freedom ...".

Now we are struck by phrases that sound like prophecies: "I wished that the farmer would not be a prisoner in his field ..."; "The next 8 stanzas contain predictions about the future lot of the fatherland, which will be divided into parts, and the sooner, the more spacious it will be. But the time has not yet come. When it comes, then

The rivets of a hard night will meet.

The resilient power, with its last gasp, will put the guard to the word and gather all its strength in order to crush the emerging liberty with the last stroke ... (...) But humanity will roar in fetters and, guided by the hope of freedom and indestructible natural law, will move ... "

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Led Sofia

Written in the second half of the 18th century, Radishchev’s work “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” was one of the first in which the author denounced the autocracy. For his courage, he was sent first to Peter and Paul Fortress and then in Ilim prison. Radishchev loved his people very much and rooted for them with all his heart. He openly fought for the rights of the peasants, as he saw their hardships and plight. For the most part modern society, he remained misunderstood, but his story had an effect, albeit much later.

The work “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” itself is a chain of disparate chapters in which the author talks about the people he meets at each station and their problems. The story begins with an introductory letter to A. M. Kutuzov, in which Radishchev asks for blessings for his work and explains the reasons that prompted him to write such a story. This is followed by the chapter “Departure”, in which the Traveler, having said goodbye to his friends, is sad on the way and reflects on the Russian character. Next

Sofia station.

Here we see how he tries to get new horses, but the caretaker refuses him, referring to their absence. In fact, there are more than twenty horses in the stall, but only "twenty-five kopecks" do their job. The coachmen, secretly from the caretaker, harness the troika for the traveler, after which he continues on his way. The writer mentioned this example not by chance. He wanted to highlight the problem of corruption and bribery. In other chapters, the traveler is faced with the general poverty that prevails in the huts of the peasants, with the cruelty of the landowners, forcing the poor to work even on holidays.

Reading this work, we feel that the writer is indignant with all his soul. He sympathizes with the serfs and wishes them a better fate. In one of the chapters, he is an old friend named Krestyankin, who left the service in the criminal chamber after he realized that he could not bring any benefit to people. His ward broke the head of the son of a landowner who abused his girlfriend. The poor fellow, who defended the honor of his beloved, was sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Since then, Krestyankin refused to do his job.

In the work, in addition to the chapters, the writer mentioned the odes “Liberty” and “The Tale of Lomonosov”. In the latter, he praises the great writer and scientist for his special contribution to Russian literature.

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"Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow". Summary of the novel by chapters A. M. K. The narrative opens with a letter to a friend Alexei Mikhailovich Kutuzov, in which Radishchev explains his feelings that forced him to write this book. This is a kind of blessing for work. Departure After saying goodbye to friends, the author-narrator leaves, suffering from parting. He dreams that he is alone, but, fortunately, there was a pothole, he woke up, and then they drove up to the station. Sophia Having taken the road, our traveler goes to the commissioner for horses, but they don’t give horses, they say that they don’t, although there are up to twenty nags in the stable. Twenty kopecks had an effect "on the coachmen." Behind the commissioner's back they harnessed the troika, and the traveler went on. The driver pulls a mournful song, and the traveler reflects on the character of the Russian people. If a Russian wants to disperse anguish, then he goes to a tavern; what is not for him, climbs into a fight. The traveler asks God why he turned away from people? Tosna Discourse on a disgusting road that cannot be overcome even in summer rains. In the station hut, the traveler meets an unsuccessful writer - a nobleman who wants to hand him his literary work "on the loss of privileges by the nobles." The traveler gives him copper pennies, and offers to give the "labor" to the peddlers by weight, so that they use paper for "wrapping", since it is not suitable for anything else. Lyubani The traveler sees a peasant plowing on a holiday and wonders if he is a schismatic? The peasant is Orthodox, but he is forced to work on Sunday, because. six days a week he goes to corvée. The peasant says that he has three sons and three daughters, the eldest is only ten years old. So that the family does not starve, he has to work at night. He works diligently for himself, but somehow for the master. In the family, he is one worker, and the master has many of them. The peasant envies the quitrent and state peasants, it is easier for them to live, then he harnesses the horses so that they can rest, while he himself works without rest. The traveler mentally curses all the exploiting landowners and himself for offending his Petrushka when he was drunk. Chudovo Traveler meets with a university friend, Chelishchev, who recounted his adventure in the raging Baltic, where he nearly died because an official refused to send aid, saying, "That's not my job." Now Chelishchev is leaving the city - "a host of lions" so as not to see these villains. Spasskaya Poles The traveler got caught in the rain and asked to dry off in his hut. There he hears her husband's story about an official who loves "usters" (oysters). For the fulfillment of his whim - the delivery of oysters - he gives ranks, rewards from the state treasury. The rain is over. The traveler continued on his way with a companion who asked for it. The fellow traveler tells his story, how he was a merchant, trusting dishonest people, got on trial, his wife died in childbirth, which began due to experiences a month earlier. A friend helped this unfortunate man to escape. The traveler wants to help the fugitive, in a dream he imagines himself to be an all-powerful ruler, whom everyone admires. This dream shows him the wanderer Direct View, she removes the thorns from his eyes that prevent him from seeing the truth. The author states that the tsar was known among the people as "a deceiver, a hypocrite, a pernicious comedian." Radishchev shows the discrepancy between the words and deeds of Catherine; the ostentatious splendor, magnificent, decorative facade of the empire hides behind it terrible pictures of oppression. Pryamozora addresses the king with words of contempt and anger: "Know that you are ... the first robber, the first traitor to the general silence, the most fierce enemy, directing his anger at the inside of the weak." Radishchev shows that good kings no, they pour out their favors only on the unworthy. Podberezie A traveler meets a young man who is going to St. Petersburg to study with his uncle. Here are the arguments of the young man about the lack of an education system that is detrimental to the country. He hopes that the descendants will be happier in this regard, because. will be able to learn. Novgorod The traveler admires the city, remembering its heroic past and how Ivan the Terrible set out to destroy the Novgorod Republic. The author is indignant: what right did the tsar have to "appropriate Novgorod"? The traveler then goes to a friend, Karp Dementich, who married his son. Everyone sits at the table together (master, young people, guest). The traveler draws portraits of the hosts. And the merchant talks about his business. As "was launched into the world", now the son trades. Bronnitsy The traveler goes to the sacred hill and hears the formidable voice of the Almighty: "Why did you want to know the secret?" "What are you looking for, reckless child?" Where once there was a "great city" the traveler sees only poor shacks. Zaitsev Traveler meets his friend Krestyankin, who once served, and then retired. Krestyankin, a very conscientious and warm-hearted person, was the chairman of the criminal chamber, but left the post, seeing the futility of his efforts. Krestyankin tells about a certain nobleman who began his career as a court stoker, tells about the atrocities of this unscrupulous man. The peasants could not stand the bullying of the landlord family and killed everyone. Krestyankin acquitted the "guilty" who had been driven to death by the landowner. No matter how hard Krestyankin fought for a fair solution to this case, nothing came of it. They were executed. And he retired, so as not to be an accomplice in this villainy. The traveler receives a letter that tells of a strange wedding between "a 78-year-old young man and a 62-year-old young woman", a certain widow engaged in pandering, and in her old age who decided to marry a baron. He marries money, and in her old age she wants to be called "Your Nobility." The author says that without the Buryndins, the light would not have stood for even three days, he is outraged by the absurdity of what is happening. The sacrums Seeing the parting of the father with his sons going to work, the traveler recalls that out of a hundred serving noblemen, ninety-eight "become rakes." He grieves that he will soon have to part with his eldest son. The author's reasoning leads him to the conclusion: "Tell the truth, child-loving father, tell me, a true citizen! Wouldn't you like to strangle your son, rather than let him go to the service? Because in the service, everyone cares about their pocket, and not about the good of the motherland. "The landowner, calling on the traveler to witness how hard it is for him to part with his sons, tells them that they do not owe him anything, but must work for the good of the fatherland, for this he raised and unlived them, taught them the sciences and made them think. He instructs his sons not to stray from the true path, not to lose their pure and high souls. Yazhelbitsy Passing by cemetery, the traveler sees a heartbreaking scene when the father, rushing to the coffin of his son, does not allow him to be buried, crying that they do not bury him with his son in order to stop his torment. For he is guilty that his son was born weak and sick and how much he lived, he suffered so much. location unmarried women . The traveler says that everyone knows "Valdai bagels and shameless girls." Then he tells the legend of a sinful monk who drowned in a storm in the lake, swimming to his beloved. Edrovo Traveler sees a lot of smart women and girls. He admires their healthy appearance, reproaching the noblewomen that they disfigure their figures, dragging themselves into corsets, and then die from childbirth, because for years they have spoiled their bodies for the sake of fashion. The traveler is talking to Annushka, who at first behaves sternly, and then, talking, she told that her father had died, she lives with her mother and sister, and wants to get married. But for the groom they ask for a hundred rubles. Vanyukha wants to go to St. Petersburg to work. But the traveler says: "Do not let him go there, there he will learn to drink, wean himself from peasant labor." He wants to give money, but the family won't take it. He is amazed at their nobility. Khotilov Project in the Future Written on behalf of another traveler, even more progressive in his views than Radishchev. Our traveler finds papers left by his brother. Reading them, he finds arguments similar to his thoughts about the perniciousness of slavery, the malevolent nature of the landlords, and the lack of enlightenment. Vyshny Volochok The traveler admires the locks and man-made canals. He talks about a landowner who treated the peasants like slaves. They worked all day for him, and he gave them only meager food. The peasants did not have their own allotments and cattle. And this "barbarian" flourished. The author calls on the peasants to ruin the estate and tools of this nonhuman, who treats them like oxen. Vydropusk (again written according to someone else's notes) Project of the future The author says that the kings imagined themselves to be gods, surrounded themselves with hundreds of servants and imagine that they are useful to the fatherland. But the author is sure that this order should be changed. The future is in education. Only then will there be justice when people become equal. Torzhok Traveler meets a man who wants to open a free printing press. What follows is a discussion of the perniciousness of censorship. "What harm will it be if books are printed without the stigma of a policeman?" The author argues that the benefits of this are obvious: "The rulers are not free to excommunicate the people from the truth." The author in "A Brief Narrative of the Origin of Censorship" says that censorship and the Inquisition have the same roots. And tells the story of printing and censorship in the West. And in Russia... in Russia, what happened with censorship, he promises to tell "another time." Copper Traveler sees a round dance of young women and girls. And then there is a description of the shameful public sale of peasants. The 75-year-old man is waiting to whom they will give him. His 80-year-old wife was the breadwinner of the mother of a young master who ruthlessly sells his peasants. There is also a 40-year-old woman, the breadwinner of the master himself, and the entire peasant family, including the baby, going under the hammer. It is dreadful for the traveler to see this barbarism. Tver A traveler listens to the arguments of a tavern interlocutor "after dinner" about the poetry of Lomonosov, Sumarokov and Trediakovsky. The interlocutor reads excerpts from the ode "Liberty" by Radishchev, allegedly written by him, which he is taking to St. Petersburg to be published. The traveler liked the poem, but he did not have time to tell the author about it, because he hastily left. Gorodnya Here the traveler sees the recruitment, hears the cries and cries of the peasants, learns about the many violations and injustices that are happening at the same time. The traveler listens to the story of the courtyard Vanka, who was brought up and taught together with a young master, called Vanyusha, sent abroad not as a slave, but as a comrade. But the old gentleman favored him, and the young one hated and envied his successes. The old man is dead. The young owner got married, and his wife hated Ivan, humiliated him in every possible way, and then decided to marry him to a dishonored yard girl. Ivan called the landowner "an inhuman woman", then he was sent to the soldiers. Ivan is glad of such a fate. Then the traveler saw three peasants, whom the landowner sold as recruits, because. he needed a new carriage. The author is amazed by the lawlessness that is happening around. Zavidovo Traveler sees a warrior in a grenadier hat, who, demanding horses, threatens the headman with a whip. By order of the headman, fresh horses were taken away from the traveler and given to the grenadier. The traveler is outraged by this order of things. What will you do? Wedge Traveler listens to the mournful song of a blind man, and then gives him a ruble. The old man is surprised by the generous alms. He is more happy with the birthday cake than with the money. For the ruble can lead someone into temptation, and it will be stolen. Then the traveler gives the old man his handkerchief from his neck. Pawns The traveler treats the child with sugar, and his mother says to her son: "Take the master's food." The traveler is surprised why this is the lord's food. The peasant woman replies that she has nothing to buy sugar with, but they use it in the bar, because the money itself does not get it. The peasant woman is sure that these are the tears of slaves. The traveler saw that the master's bread consisted of three parts of chaff and one part of wholemeal flour. He looked around for the first time and was horrified at the squalid surroundings. With anger, he exclaims: “Hard-hearted landowner! Look at the children of the peasants who are subject to you! ", calls on the exploiters to change their minds. Black mud The traveler meets the wedding train, but very sad, because they go down the aisle under the compulsion of the master. A word about Lomonosov The author, passing by the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, went into it in order to honor the grave of the great Lomonosov with his presence. He recalls the life path of the great scientist, striving for knowledge. Lomonosov eagerly studied everything that could be recognized at that time, was engaged in versification. The author comes to the conclusion that Lomonosov was great in all matters he touched. And now Moscow! Moscow! "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow." Summary of the novel Having gone to Moscow after dinner with friends, the hero woke up only at the next postal station - Sofia. With difficulty waking up the caretaker, he demanded horses, but was refused due to night time. In Tosna, the hero meets a solicitor who was engaged in composing ancient genealogies for young nobles. On the way from Tosna to Lyuban, the traveler sees a peasant who plowed "with great care", despite the fact that it was Sunday. The plowman said that six days a week his family cultivates the land of the masters and, in order not to die of hunger, he is forced to work on a holiday, although this is a sin. The hero reflects on the cruelty of the landlords and at the same time reproaches himself for the fact that he also has a servant over whom he has power. In Chudov, the hero is overtaken by his friend Ch. and tells why he had to hastily leave Petersburg. Ch., for the sake of entertainment, sailed on a twelve-oared boat from Kronstadt to Sisterbek. On the way, a storm broke out, and the boat was squeezed between two stones by raging waves. It filled with water, and it seemed that death was inevitable. But two brave rowers made an attempt to swim over the rocks and swim to the shore, which was a mile and a half away. One succeeded, and, having got ashore, he ran to the house of the local chief, so that he urgently detached boats to save the rest. But the chief deigned to rest, and the sergeant, his subordinate, did not dare to wake him up. When, through the efforts of others, the unfortunate were nevertheless saved, Ch. tried to reason with the chief, but he said: "That is not my position." Indignant, Ch. “almost spat in his face and went out.” Not finding sympathy for his act among his Petersburg acquaintances, he decided to leave this city forever. On the way from Chudovo to Spasskaya Polest, a fellow traveler sits next to the hero and tells him his story. sad story. Having trusted a partner in matters of ransom, he was deceived, lost his entire fortune and was brought under criminal court. His wife, surviving what had happened, gave birth ahead of time and three days later she died, and the premature baby also died. Friends, seeing that they had come to take him into custody, put the unfortunate man in a wagon and ordered him to go "wherever his eyes look." The hero was touched by what his fellow traveler told, and he is thinking about how to bring this case to the ears of the supreme authority, "for it can only be impartial." Realizing that he is unable to help the unfortunate man in any way, the hero imagines himself to be the supreme ruler, whose state seems to be prospering, and everyone sings his praise. But here the wanderer of Direct-look removes the thorn in the eyes of the ruler, and he sees that his reign was unjust, that bounties were poured out on the rich, flatterers, traitors, unworthy people. He understands that power is the duty to observe the law and right. But it all turned out to be just a dream. At the Podberezye station, the hero meets a seminarian who complains about modern education. The hero reflects on the science and work of the writer, whose task he sees as enlightenment and praise of virtue. Arriving in Novgorod, the hero remembers that this city in ancient times had people's rule, and questions the right of Ivan the Terrible to annex Novgorod. “But what is the right when force is at work?” he asks. Distracted from his thoughts, the hero goes to dine with his friend Karp Dementievich, formerly a merchant, and now an eminent citizen. The conversation turns to trade affairs, and the traveler understands that the introduced bill system does not guarantee honesty, but, on the contrary, promotes easy enrichment and theft. In Zaitsev, at the post office, the hero meets an old friend of Mr. Krestyankin, who served in the criminal chamber. He retired, realizing that in this position he could not benefit the fatherland. He saw only cruelty, bribery, injustice. Krestyankin told the story of a cruel landowner whose son raped a young peasant woman. The bridegroom of the girl, protecting the bride, broke the rapist's head. Together with the groom there were several more peasants, and according to the Code of the Criminal Chamber, the narrator had to sentence them all to death penalty or life hard labor. He tried to justify the peasants, but none of the local nobles supported him, and he was forced to resign. In Krestsy, the hero witnesses the separation of his father from his children, who are going to serve. The father reads them instructions on the rules of life, urges them to be virtuous, to comply with the prescriptions of the law, to restrain passions, and not to servility to anyone. The hero shares his father's thoughts that the power of parents over children is negligible, that the union between parents and children should be "based on tender feelings of the heart" and that a father should not see his son as his slave. In Yazhelbitsy, passing by a cemetery, the hero sees that a burial is taking place there. At the grave, the father of the deceased is crying, saying that he is the killer of his son, since he "poured poison into his head." It seems to the hero that he hears his condemnation. In his youth, indulging in lust, he had been ill with a “stinking disease” and is afraid that it will pass on to his children. Thinking about who is the cause of the spread of the "stinking disease", the traveler blames the state for this, which opens the way to vices and protects public women. In Valdai, the hero recalls a legend about a monk of the Iversky Monastery who fell in love with the daughter of a Valdai resident. As Leander swam across the Hellespont, so this monk swam across Lake Valdai to meet his beloved. But one day the wind rose, the waves raged, and in the morning the body of a monk was found on a distant shore. In Yedrovo, the hero meets a young peasant girl, Anyuta, and talks to her about her family and fiancé. He wonders how much nobility in the way of thinking of the villagers. Wishing to help Anyuta get married, he offers her fiancé money for acquiring. But Ivan refuses to take them, saying: "I, master, have two hands, I will run the house with them." The hero reflects on marriage, condemning the customs that still exist, when an eighteen-year-old girl could be married to a ten-year-old child. Equality is the foundation family life, he believes. On the way to Khotilovo, the hero is visited by thoughts about the injustice of serfdom. The fact that one person can enslave another, he calls "a brutal custom": "enslavement is a crime," he says. Only those who cultivate the land have rights to it. And a state where two-thirds of its citizens are deprived of their civil status cannot "be called blessed." The hero of Radishchev understands that work under compulsion yields fewer fruits, and this prevents the "multiplication of the people." In front of the post station, he picks up a paper that expresses the same thoughts, and learns from the postman that one of his friends was the last person passing by. He, apparently, forgot his compositions at the post station, and the hero takes forgotten papers. They defined a whole program for the liberation of peasants from serfdom, and also contained a provision on the destruction of court officials. In Torzhok, the hero meets a man who sends a petition to St. Petersburg for permission to start printing in the city, free from censorship. They talk about the harmfulness of censorship, which “like a nanny, leads a child on the harness”, and this “child”, that is, the reader, will never learn to walk (think) on his own. Society itself must serve as censorship: it either recognizes the writer or rejects it, just as the audience provides recognition for a theatrical performance, and not the director of the theater. Here the author, referring to the notebook received by the hero from the person he met, tells about the history of censorship. On the way to Mednoe, the traveler continues to read the papers of his acquaintance. It tells about the auctions that take place if any landowner goes bankrupt. And among other property from the auction are people. An old man of seventy-five, the uncle of a young master, an old woman of eighty, his wife, a nurse, a widow of forty, a young woman of eighteen, her daughter and granddaughter of the old people, her baby - they all do not know what fate awaits them, into whose hands they will fall. The conversation about Russian versification, which the hero has with a friend at the tavern table, brings them back to the theme of liberty. A friend reads excerpts from his ode with that title. In the village of Gorodnya, recruitment is taking place, which has caused the sobbing of the crowding people. Cry mothers, wives, brides. But not all recruits are dissatisfied with their fate. One "lord's man", on the contrary, is glad to get rid of the power of his masters. He was brought up by a kind gentleman together with his son, went abroad with him. But the old master died, and the young one got married, and the new lady put the serf in his place. In Peshki, the hero surveys a peasant's hut and is surprised at the poverty prevailing here. The hostess asks him for a piece of sugar for the child. Author in digression addresses the landowner with a condemning speech: “Hard-hearted landowner! look at the children of the peasants who are subject to you. They are almost naked." He promises him God's punishment, because he sees that there is no righteous judgment on earth. The "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" ends with "The Tale of Lomonosov". The hero refers to the fact that these notes were given to him by the "Parnassian judge", with whom he dined in Tver. The author focuses on the role of Lomonosov in the development of Russian literature, calling him "the first in the path of Russian literature." Analysis of chapters from "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by A.N. Radishchev From chapter to chapter, the author of the book introduces the reader to certain vices, abuses and crimes of the nobles - landlords and state officials, while not forgetting the official Orthodox Church that serves the government and landowners. There is also a new merchant class here, but it is " dark kingdom”, also corrupted, despotic, illiterate and self-serving, nothing like the advanced European “third estate”, which has already led the American and French revolutions. At the same time, Radishchev alternates these scenes with sympathetic portraits of peasants and pictures of people's life. His journey has not only an ethnographic, but also a political, even propaganda purpose. The author of the book, a lawyer by profession, who has worked extensively in the Senate and other government judicial institutions, wants, with the help of his instructive trip from the new capital to the ancient one, to introduce readers to his very deep and indifferent knowledge of serfdom, exhausted by the abuses of the nobility and bureaucratic lawlessness Russia. Radishchev in the chapter "Spasskaya Poles" rises to bold criticism of the autocracy, which allowed all this and tacitly approved, and openly justifies the cruel popular revenge on the oppressors, the murders of the landowners and the peasant revolt. All this caused the understandable indignation of Empress Catherine II. Of course, the traveler in Radishchev’s book sees various cities and areas, tells about them, about the people he met folk customs And interesting cases(chapter "Valdai"), the life and characters of the peasants, and his serfs are morally higher than the landowners and officials. There is also a plug-in utopia chapter "Khotilov" in his journey. But the main thing is the alignment of the chapters of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” with characteristic examples of violations by people of the authorities of various ranks of their official duties, laws and simply the rules of universal morality. Already in the chapter “Sophia” there is a lazy and deceitful postal servant who does not give horses to the author and thereby violates his official duty. In the chapter of Lyuban, the traveler meets a peasant who cheerfully and diligently plows his own, not a lord's field on Sunday, that is, on a holiday, which was considered a sin by Orthodox Christians, but the peasants themselves did not consider labor a sin. Here, for the first time, we are talking about the oppression of the peasants by the master, the landowner, who six days a week drives the peasants to corvée, that is, to forced, joyless work on their lands, and sends village women and girls to gather mushrooms and berries for their household. The theme of inequality, oppression, social injustice, the impossibility for the peasants to appeal to justice appears, the author's anger is expressed. simple soldiers who gave them their boats. This scene is important for a detailed description of the feelings and thoughts of the perishing and the growing anger of the author against the hardened officials who have forgotten their duty: “Now I will say goodbye to the city forever. I will never enter this dwelling of tigers. Their only joy is to gnaw at each other; their consolation is to torment the weak to the point of exhaustion and servility to the authorities. Even the famous description of the peasant hut (the chapter of "Pawns"), which Pushkin liked so much, allows Radishchev to reproach the feudal lords and the authorities with people's poverty: "Here you can see the greed of the nobility, robbery, our torment and defenseless poverty state." But the landowner Radishchev knew very well that such a dirty hut with cracks in the floor was built by a negligent peasant himself from the master's forest allocated to him, the nobility had nothing to do with it. lawlessness and persecution. There is even talk of the lawless destruction by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich of the liberties of the ancient Novgorod Republic , moreover, the tsar, in accordance with the ideas of the enlighteners, was condemned as a violator of the natural right of Novgorodians to these liberties and independence. The sale of serfs, described with such indignation and passion in the chapter "Copper", denounced the very anti-human and illegal essence of the power of the landowners. The picture of the recruitment in the chapter "Gorodnya" also called for indignation, prophesied an uprising of slaves, giving children forever into the soldiery. In the chapter “Zaitsovo”, the traveler tells the story of a landowner who oppressed and humiliated his peasants so cruelly and ingeniously that they killed him and his adult sons. The author is on the side of the peasants, recognizes their act as justified, protecting their loved ones and rights, says prophetic words about the Russian rebellion: “The Russian people are very patient and endure to the very extreme; but when he puts an end to his patience, then nothing can hold him back so that he does not bow to cruelty. Here the key speech for the whole book is made about the natural equality of all people, about their natural right to break laws in the name of their own good and freedom, about their right to revenge, rebellion and even the murder of their oppressors. The tsar is only a servant of the law, he rules by the general consent of the people, he concluded a social contract with him according to the famous idea of Rousseau. The trouble, if he is blind, has forgotten about his duty and truth, indulges the crimes and abuses of his favorites and court flatterers, as shown in the author’s dream (“Spasskaya Polest”), with good reason perceived by Catherine as a satire on her wasteful reign, condescending to abuses and outright theft of nobles. The idea of rational egoism, expressed here by Radishchev and later developed in Chernyshevsky's novel, was that people can observe state laws and submit to the power of the monarch as long as the laws correspond to their desires and goals, serve the benefit of the individual, and do not violate their natural rights. In a monarchical state, such an idea looked rebellious and criminal, and therefore Catherine called Radishchev a rebel. He, a Russian nobleman, lawyer, high-ranking government official and wealthy landowner, legally and morally justified a peasant rebellion: “They are waiting for an opportunity and an hour. The bell strikes. And this evil of atrocity spreads quickly. We will see sword and poison all around us. Death and burning will be promised to us for our severity and inhumanity. The autocracy, which has forgotten about man and the people's benefit, has also been condemned. The tyrannical ode "Liberty", written in "strong verses" (Pushkin) and placed in the chapter "Tver", calls for revenge on the kings, their execution by the verdict of the people's court. Further, Radishchev develops his bold thoughts into a whole system of revolutionary ideas. He, a Russian nobleman and high-ranking official, is against the state and military service young nobles, against conquests and war as criminal bloodshed, against state and spiritual (that is, church) censorship, against court parasites, against forcible recruitment into the army, abuse of priests - in a word, against the whole system of lawlessness and oppression of man by man, which was the basis of autocracy, serfdom, the Russian military-feudal state. And all this was not only thought and said by him, but also written and printed, the book was sent out and put on sale. Pushkin was already amazed at the civil and human courage of Radishchev: “We cannot but recognize in him a criminal with an extraordinary spirit; political fanatic, mistaken, of course, but acting with amazing selflessness and with some kind of chivalrous conscience.

Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" - essay "" Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow "in the artistic and ideological context of the era"

For many generations of Russian readers, the name of Radishchev is surrounded by an aura of martyrdom: for writing Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the author was sentenced to death, replaced by Catherine II with ten years of exile in Siberia. Her successors on the throne restored Radishchev to his rights, but he did not change his views and, not finding sympathy for them from the authorities, committed suicide in 1802. For the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia of the 19th century, he became a legendary figure, in his views they saw radical humanism and depth in revealing social problems Russian society late XVIII century. After the revolution of 1917, homegrown Marxist literary scholars saw in Radishchev even the founder of socialism in Russia and the first Russian materialist, but in these more than bold judgments they clearly followed in the footsteps of V.I. In order to bring Radishchev back to the modern Russian reader, it is necessary to remove layer after layer of ideological and other husks from his name and try to impartially evaluate him. philosophical views, literary and poetic creativity.

Although Radishchev wrote poetry, poems, and also composed a philosophical treatise “On Man, His Mortality and Immortality”, in the memory of his descendants, he remained only the author of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”. This work received a very unflattering characterization from A. S. Pushkin, who wrote that it “is the cause of his misfortune and glory, is a very mediocre work, not to mention even a barbaric style.”

Pushkin, who is rightfully considered the creator of the Russian literary language, had quite good reasons for such a harsh sentence.

Can it be unconditionally asserted that the lightness, smoothness, flexibility, smooth fluidity and elegance of Pushkin's language are evidence of his undoubted merit in comparison with the language of Derzhavin, Karamzin and Radishchev? Perhaps those who consider Pushkin's style to be light-weighted are right, and the thought expressed in his characteristic free, uninhibited form is flat and simplified? Certainly not, however, in justification of Radishchev with his “barbaric style”, we will cite two excerpts from his poem “Ode to my friend”:

Flies, my friend, the winged age,

Everything falls into the bottomless eternity.

Already this day, the hour and the moment has passed,

And nothing will ever come back.

Beauty and youth withered,

Covered with white hair

Where are the sweet hours now,

That spirit and body have always been enchanted?

Such is everything in the world of rock:

Not forever on the bush seduces

Masculine pink flower,

And the sun only shines during the day, but not at night.

We pray in vain:

Yes, the charm of young good years

Crippled old age does not want!

Nowhere from caustic we do not leave death away ...

If we return to Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, then the flagrant shortcomings of the book are really striking. The story is a collection of disparate fragments, interconnected only by the names of cities and villages, past which the traveler follows.

Arguments about the flagrant injustice of the landowners, who do not consider their peasants to be people, are interspersed with rather dubious considerations about certain rules of personal hygiene.

Such - in the words of Dostoevsky - "scraps and ends of thoughts" side by side with free translations from French enlighteners. In addition, Radishchev included his ode “Liberty” and “The Tale of Lomonosov” in the story...

Radishchev, wishing to attract the public to his work, took as a model the fashionable at that time story by Lawrence Stern “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy”, the originality of which lies in the fact that Stern elegantly and witty fooled the ingenuous reader, entertaining him with trifling arguments about heterogeneous and unrelated subjects. The naivety of Radishchev is striking and touching, who wanted to hide behind a fashionable and attractive - in his opinion - form, the well-known ideas of the French Enlightenment about equality, expressing them in a grandiloquent style: “Finally, I cried out to the shit: a man was born into the world equal to everything else.” Alas, Radishchev's story was published in 1790, after the French Revolution, and fell, as they say, under the hot hand of the Empress. Having familiarized herself with it, for some reason she decided that “the author of this book is filled and infected with French delusions, is looking in every possible way to belittle respect for the authorities.” She laid the foundation for the myth of Radishchev, saying about him: "a rebel is worse than Pugachev."

Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" - composition "Image of the people and images in the work" Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow "by Radishchev"

A. Radishchev's novel "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" is one of the most significant phenomena of Russian literature of the eighteenth century. It is written in the then popular genre of “travel”, which was discovered by L. Stern, the founder of sentimentalism. In his assessment of man, Radishchev generally followed the sentimentalist writers and wrote that it is precisely the ability to sympathize that distinguishes man from the beast. Sympathy, compassion are the main emotions of the narrator in the novel: “I looked around me - my soul became wounded by the sufferings of mankind.”

What is the narrator's compassion for? The position of the people. The novel gives a broad panorama of the life of the serfs. And Radishchev is outraged not so much by the poverty and hard work of the peasants, but by the fact that they, like serfs, are deprived of free will, legally deprived of rights. “The peasant in law is dead,” writes Radishchev. And he is dead only when the protection of the law is required. This is what the head of “Zaitsevo” says. For many years, the cruel landowner and his family tortured the peasants, and no one ever stood up for the unfortunate. When the peasants, driven out of patience, killed the monster, the law remembered them, and they were sentenced to death.

The fate of the peasant is terrible: "And the lot of a riveted in bonds, and the lot of a prisoner in a stinking dungeon, and the lot of an ox in a yoke." But the narrator, brought up on the ideas of enlightenment, affirms the equality of all people. But the majority of the peasants are simply humanly better than the landowners. The landlords in Radishchev's novel are almost all negative characters, nonhumans. The morals of the peasants are healthy and natural, they are not infected by artificial civilization. This is especially clear when comparing urban and rural girls: “Look how all the members of my beauties are round, tall, not twisted, not spoiled. It's funny to you that they have feet at five. vershokov, and maybe six. Well, my dear niece, with your three-toothed leg, stand next to them and run in a run, who will sooner reach the tall birch that stands at the end of the meadow?

Village beauties are healthy and virtuous, while urban beauties “have blush on their cheeks, blush on their hearts, blush on their conscience, on sincerity ... soot.”

The main merit of Radishchev and his main difference from most accusatory literature of the eighteenth century is that he does not complain about individual negative examples, but condemns the very order of things, the existence of serfdom:

The rest of the slave under the shadow of the Golden Fruits will not increase; Where all the mind abhors striving, Greatness does not vegetate there.

The peculiarity of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow lies in the fact that Radishchev, having taken the form of a “journey”, filled it with accusatory content. The sensitive hero of sentimental literature, although capable of compassion, seeks to escape from the evil of this world into himself, and the narrator from Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow is concerned with public issues and seeks to serve the public good.

“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” is the first Russian ideological novel, where not so much artistic as political tasks are set. This is its originality and significance for all our literature.

Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" - essay "Analysis of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by Radishchev"

Russia in the 18th century did not know a philosopher equal to Radishchev in breadth and depth of mind. With the consistency and versatility of a scientist, he reviewed and subjected to devastating criticism in "Journey ..." the entire autocratic-feudal social system that brings grief to the people.

"Journey ...", comprehensive in its coverage of the facts of Russian life, was, as it were, a code of critical anti-monarchist and anti-serfdom statements. With his inherent analytical depth, Radishchev highlighted the connection between such phenomena as the decline in the morality of the people and the depravity of the upper classes (“the lower ones become infected from the upper ones, and from them the ulcer of depravity reaches the villages”), as well as the mutual dependence of the autocracy and the church. He said that the prisoners of captivity, who have power and a sharp edge in their hands, can be “the most furious preachers of it”, that censorship, stopping the procession of thought, deprives the press of its function as a healer of society. The writer’s accusatory voice sounds with particular force and passion in the chapter “Spasskaya Polest”, where the state and court of Catherine II are depicted in the language of transparent allegory, where the tsar appears in clothes soaked from the blood and tears of the people, “the first killer in society, the first traitor”, “a hypocrite and pernicious comedian”.

Observing the orgy of oppression of the peasantry, seeing the moral degradation of the upper classes, Radishchev found support for optimistic forecasts among the people. In his work, folk criteria become the measure of a person's value. It is no coincidence that in a speech about the education of youth, delivered by a Krestitsky nobleman, one of the traveler's like-minded people, the demand is put forward to feed on the work of one's own hands, which is the most important norm of peasant morality ("Edrovo"). The nobility and beauty of the moral and physical appearance of the peasants, their continuous work for the benefit of society, the writer considers the key to the future great national revival. The growing feeling of protest among the people made him exclaim: "Fear, hard-hearted landowner, I see your condemnation on the forehead of each of your peasants." How far Radishchev went in his hatred of the nobility is evident from his following statement: “Oh! if the slaves, weighed down with heavy bonds, raging in their despair, would break with iron, the liberties hindering them, our heads, the heads of their inhuman masters, and stain their fields with our blood! What would the state lose? Soon great men would be torn out of their midst to intercede for a beaten tribe; but if they had other thoughts about themselves, they would be deprived of the right to oppress. This is not a dream, but the gaze pierces the thick veil of time, hiding the future from our eyes ... "The writer foresaw the revolution:" The bell is ringing, danger is already revolving over our heads. Already time, having raised its scythe, is waiting for the hour of convenience ... "Looking back at the past of Russia and Europe, comparing new history Russia, France and slave-owning America, Radishchev saw something that his contemporaries did not see - that is why the ode "Liberty", included in the "Journey", depicted the collapse of thrones, the erection of kings on the chopping block, the establishment of a republic.

The enemy of the autocracy, with his Journey, Radishchev also spoke out against the reactionary currents of social thought, which helped to educate the “doer” person, distracted him from the social struggle, and led him “into the fields of delusion” (freemasonry). He argued that a person cannot be happy if the world is unhappy, denounced the cowardice of the sighted, which objectively strengthened the power of the feudal landowners. The writer - the embodied conscience of Russia - saw the ideal of man in a fighter who lives in the real interests of the people.

Radishchev was ahead of his time. The book and his name illuminated the prospect of the Russian liberation movement for decades to come. He enters our history under the name of the first Russian revolutionary. And when the October Socialist Revolution took place, in Petrograd, under the rubble of the fence of the Winter Palace, the former residence of the tsars, the workers 'and peasants' government erected their first monument: the face of the prophet of the revolution, writer Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev, turned to the Neva, carved from stone.

The composition “The image of the landlords in the work“ Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow ”Like all enlighteners of the 18th century, the first-born of freedom is based on the theory of“ natural law ”and“ social contract ”, and natural“ natural state”considers as something opposed to oppression, despotism and tyranny. He believes that ugly social relations distort the human essence of both the oppressed and the oppressed, becoming disastrous for both. for those and for others. Social environment as a rule, it turns out to be stronger than a good upbringing and a good education; thus serfdom exerts its destructive influence not only on the serfs, but also on the "good masters." Radishchev considers labor to be the basis of high morality, the measure of the value of the human personality. Therefore, the images of the peasants in the Journey always turn out to be morally superior to the images of feudal lords who live off the labor of others. The author's focus is not so much on the characters' characters and their destinies, but on the typification of common properties. social life autocratic-feudal Russia at the end of the 18th century. The landlords, the characters of the Journey, do not have detailed biographies. Radishchev almost does not dwell on their individual features, since he sees in a person, first of all, a representative of a certain social circle of society. Private character traits are of interest to the writer only insofar as they are determined by the environment and, in turn, influence the lives of others. “Acts ... are always the true essence of the features of spiritual education,” the author of the Journey claims in the chapter “Zaitsovo”. Omitting details, the writer depicts the main thing, that is, what is characteristic of the landowners as an estate that oppresses the peasants, and what the greatest force shows the corrupting influence of serfdom on the landowners themselves. Moreover, in many chapters of the book (“Copper”, “Broadvya”, “Vyshny Volochek”) Radishchev does not depict the landowner at all and replaces the story about his “deeds” with showing the results of his activities. So, for example, in the chapter "Lyubani" it is told about the meeting of a traveler with a peasant who "plows with great diligence" in his field on a holiday. From inquiries it turns out that the local landowner makes his serfs go to corvee six days a week. “... Yes, in the evening,” says the plowman, “we carry the hay left in the forest to the master's yard, if the weather is good; and women and girls, for a walk, go on holidays to the forest for mushrooms and berries ... Yes, even if you stretch out at the master's work, - he continues, - they won't say thank you. The master won't pay capitation; neither ram, nor linen, nor chicken, nor oil will yield. Or life for our brother, like where barges take rent from a peasant, and even without a clerk. It is true that sometimes even good gentlemen take more than three rubles per soul; but everything is better than barshchina. Nowadays, it is still believed that villages are being given away, as they say, for rent. And we call it to give head. A naked mercenary pulls the skin off the peasants; does not even leave us a better time. In winter, he does not let him go to the cab, nor to work in the city; all work for him, so that he pays the poll for us. The most diabolical invention, to give your peasants to someone else to work. Although you can complain about a bad clerk, but who about a mercenary? The traveler objects to him: "My friend, you are mistaken, laws forbid torturing people." - "Torment? - asks the plowman. - Is it true; but I suppose, b Zarin, you don’t want to into my skin. ” In another chapter of the Chotils, the firstborn of the free puts the following words into the mouth of the “citizen of future times”: “... Forced labor gives less fruit ... Where there is nothing, even if there was someone to eat, there will not be; will die of exhaustion, Tako the field of slavery, yielding incomplete fruit, mortifies the citizens. So Radishchev puts forward an economic argument: it is unprofitable, since it reduces the number wealth obtained by the labor of the people. After all, forced labor for a master is less effective than free labor, when a person works for himself. Radishchev also puts forward legal and moral arguments against serfdom. The greed of the landowners is exposed by him in the chapter "Vyshny Volochek". The traveler tells about his meeting with a certain landowner, who, not finding satisfaction in public service, retired from the capital to the countryside. To get rich on the exploitation of other people's labor. A true son of the fatherland, Radishchev writes with "excitement of the heart", since he cannot look indifferently at the lawlessness and injustice around him. About the case of a thirty-year-old peasant who, due to the hardness of heart of a young master and his wife, was recruited, Radishchev tells in the chapter "Gorodnya". The old gentleman, "a kind-hearted, reasonable and virtuous man," gave Vanyusha an excellent upbringing and an exemplary education on a par with his son. After graduating from a foreign university, the young serf returned to his homeland, full of bright hopes. However, even in Riga, the young gentleman received news that his father had died and left a will in which he ordered Vanyusha to be released. “Justice must be given to my former master, that he has many good qualities, but his timidity of spirit and frivolity darken him,” Vapyusha said about the young master. In a word, the son did not fulfill the last will of his father. “A week after our arrival in Moscow,” Vanyusha continued his story, “my former master fell in love with a fair-faced girl; but which, with the beauty of the body, united the meanest soul and the cruel and stern heart. Brought up in the arrogance of her origin, she honored only appearance, nobility, wealth as excellent. The young landowner did not take a liking to the educated serf and, contemplating by force to marry him to her maid Mavrushka, soon made his life unbearable. Fleeing from humiliation and bullying, Vanya counted 25 years of military service the only way out from the established position. Researchers of Radishchev's work believe that the image of Vanyusha has a real prototype. This is Nikolai Smirnov, a serf of the Golitsyn princes, who attended lectures at Moscow University; he tried to escape from the landowner abroad, but was caught and forcibly handed over to the soldiers. His case was examined in the St. Petersburg Criminal Chamber in 1785. The arbitrariness of the landowners is also described in one of the final chapters of the book Black Dirt. The writer also depicted the result of the actions of the "evil-hearted landowners" in the scenes of the mass sale of serfs at auction in the chapter "Copper". The citizen of the future, on behalf of whom the story is being told (read: Radishchev himself), was probably present at one of these auctions, and he was shocked by the terrible picture of the sale of people - one family of courtyards, consisting of elderly and infirm parents, their daughter - a widow and 18-year-old granddaughter, dishonored by the master. The means of depicting characters here are indications of the age of the peasants, brief reports about their appearance and internal qualities, bringing specific details of their relationship with the masters and among themselves. Composition "Traveler - characterization of a literary hero" Traveler - main character and narrator famous book, for which Radishchev was called by Catherine II "a rebel worse than Pugachev" and planted in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The court sentenced the writer to death, which was replaced by the order of the empress by deprivation of rank, nobility and exile to Siberia. The ban on the rebellious book was lifted only after the revolution of 1905. The book is a travelogue of P. P. wandering around the Russian provinces and is not at all identical to the author - although the dedication preceding the book, written on behalf of Radishchev, indicates the closeness of the author and his hero. The impulse to create "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" was a feeling of compassion: "I looked around me, my soul became wounded by the sufferings of mankind." The following phrase again reminds the reader of the enlightening tasks of the Journey: “I turned my eyes to my insides - and saw that the misfortunes of a person come from a person, and often only from the fact that he looks indirectly at the objects surrounding him.” The reader is invited to follow P. to learn to see the truth and "look" at the world "directly". The book does not describe P. as literary character, with a detailed portrait and biography. Fragmentary information about P. is scattered in separate chapters - it is easy to miss them, and in order to put them together in an integral image, considerable reader attention is required. Social status it is clear enough: P. is a poor nobleman, an official. With a lesser degree of certainty, we can talk about the age of the hero and marital status- he is a widow, he has children, the eldest son should soon go to serve. In his youth, P. led the life of an ordinary young nobleman. At the very beginning of the journey (ch. "Luban"), denouncing the "hard-hearted" landowner, P. recalls his cruel treatment of the coachman Petrushka, whom he beat for an insignificant reason. But there is still a difference: the hero is able to repent. Deep repentance gives rise to thoughts of suicide in him (ch. "Sophia"), which determines some pessimism of the initial chapters, but in the final chapters the general tone of the story becomes optimistic - despite the fact that the number tragic pictures and impressions by the end of the trip only increases. Reflections on what he saw lead P. to the insight of the truth, which consists in the fact that any reality can be corrected. The author brings to the reader's judgment several possible ways to the transformation of the social system of serf RUSSIA: and reforms from above (chapter “Khotilov” - P. finds; in this chapter notes with the “Project in the Future”), enlightenment of the nobility with the help of proper education (chapter “Sacrums” - here the hero listens to the story of an already “enlightened” nobleman about raising his children), a peasant revolt (“Zaitsevo” - this chapter tells how the anger of the serfs against the cruel landowner led to the fact that the peasants they kill their tormentor). Ch. "Tver", inside which the ode "Liberty" is placed, where the people's right to a revolutionary coup is justified. In Soviet literary criticism, the point of view was widespread that it was the latter path that expresses the views of Radishchev himself. However, the text of the Journey does not give us grounds for such assertions. For Radishchev, several ways of changing Russian reality are equal. Thus, a peasant revolt evokes sincere sympathy” Shv. and is fully justified by him as the "natural right" of the peasants to be human beings. In a feudal state, they ceased to be citizens; the law does not protect them. "The peasants in law are dead" is the key phrase of the book. The upbringing by the Krestitsky nobleman of his children as true sons of the Fatherland also gives rise to respect and hope in the hero. So, none of the possibilities is absolutized by the author, the right of choice remains with the reader. Many of the events described in the text are not based on P.'s direct observations, but were told to him by a variety of people they met on the road. “Foreign” works, accidentally found by P., are also introduced into the text: two “projects in the future”, “father's instruction to children”, “A short story about the origin of censorship”, an ode to “Liberty”. At the same time, P. personally meets the author of this ode, “a newfangled poet” (ch. “Tver”) - a definition behind which Radishchev himself disappeared. Thanks to the constant irony and self-irony of P. pathos; easily replaced by good-natured humor even in relation to ideas, as if not allowing for a frivolous tone. The presentation of many thoughts far from being indifferent to Radishchev is accompanied by ironic remarks: for example, having presented to the reader a “project in the future” (a plan to change society with the help of reforms from above), P. himself considers it “good” “to talk about what is more profitable for a postal rider to have horses trot or amble, or what is more profitable for a postal nag, to be a pacer or a horse? rather than doing something that doesn't exist. The irony of P. resembles Stern's wit and lightness. Despite the obvious connection between The Journey and sentimentalism, Radishchev's style is far from the smoothness of a sentimentalist style. His language is deliberately heavy, complicated by long syntactic constructions, replete with Church Slavonicisms. The key to revealing the meaning of such stylistic heaviness lies in the explanations made by the author of Liberty about his ode. "Liberty" was repeatedly reproached for the difficulties of the language, however, according to the author, "in the unevenness of the verse, a pictorial expression of the difficulty of the action itself." A “heavy” subject, a theme, also requires the severity of the syllable. In addition, this "heaviness" referred to a very specific cultural tradition. The complexity of the syntax, the abundance of Church Slavonicisms, forcing the reader to literally wade through the narrative, made P.'s speech special, namely, prophetic. The Bible prophet must speak solemnly and loftily. The use of archaisms, speech difficulty, high style were used by Radishchev (and later by the Decembrist, and the whole revolutionary literature) as a kind of propaganda technique: "incomprehensibility" of speech meant the seriousness and importance of the topic. After Radishchev, the genre of travel in Russian literature was firmly associated with the theme of Russia. It was the image of the road that made it possible to organize the endless Russian open spaces and the diversity of Russian customs into a single artistic space. Let's remember and Dead Souls"(1842) by Gogol, and "Who should live well in Rus'" (1863-1877) by Nekrasov, and the "poem" structurally closest to Radishchev's "Journey" in the prose of Venedikt Erofeev "Moscow - Petushki" (1969) - with stems - the names of stations, with extremely close to the author lyrical hero and the general spirit of "freedom" and opposition to the existing state system. P. Radishcheva is one of the first images of an intellectual (even though this word itself appeared in the language much later) in Russian literature, embodying all the main “intelligent” qualities: broad education and willingness to sympathize, a sharp analytical mind and a sense of guilt towards the people, irony and often somewhat exaggerated “sensitivity”.