It’s good to live in Rus' 7. Analysis of the poem “who can live well in Rus'” by chapter, composition of the work
Plot lines and their relationship in the poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
A plot is a development of action, a course of events that can follow each other in a work in chronological order (fairy tales, chivalric romances) or be grouped in such a way as to help identify its main idea, the main conflict (concentric plot). The plot reflects life's contradictions, clashes and relationships between the characters, the evolution of their characters and behavior.
The plot of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is largely determined by the genre of the epic poem, which reproduces all the diversity of the life of the people in the post-reform period: their hopes and dramas, holidays and everyday life, episodes and destinies, legends and facts, confessions and rumors, doubts and insights, defeats and victories, illusions and reality, past and present. And in this polyphony of folk life, it is sometimes difficult to discern the voice of the author, who invited the reader to accept the terms of the game and go with his heroes on an exciting journey. The author himself strictly follows the rules of this game, playing the role of a conscientious narrator and quietly guiding its course, in general, practically not revealing his adulthood. Only sometimes does he allow himself to discover his true level. This role of the author is determined by the purpose of the poem - not only to trace the growth of peasant self-awareness in the post-reform period, but equally to contribute to this process. After all, likening the soul of the people to unplowed virgin soil and calling on the sower, the poet could not help but feel like one of them.
The storyline of the poem - the journey of seven temporarily obliged men across the vast expanses of Rus' in search of a happy one - is designed to accomplish this task.
The premise of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (a necessary element of the plot) is a dispute about the happiness of seven men from adjacent villages with symbolic names (Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaika). They go in search of happiness, having received the support of a grateful magic bird. The role of wanderers in the development of the plot is significant and responsible. Their images lack individual definition, as is customary in folklore. We only know their names and preferences. So, Roman considers the landowner a happy person, Demyan - the official, Luka - the priest. Ivan and Metrodor Gubin believe that the “fat-bellied merchant merchant” lives freely in Rus', old Pakhom thinks so for the minister, and Prov for the tsar.
The Great Reform changed a lot in the lives of the peasants, but for the most part they were not ready for it. Their concepts were burdened by the centuries-old traditions of slavery, and consciousness was just beginning to awaken, as evidenced by the dispute between the men in the poem.
Nekrasov understood very well that the happiness of the people largely depends on how much they are able to understand their place in life. It is curious that the initial plot emerging in the dispute turns out to be false: of the supposed “lucky ones,” the peasants talk only with the priest and the landowner, refusing other meetings. The fact is that at this stage the possibility of peasant happiness does not even occur to them. And this very concept is associated with them only with the absence of what every hour makes them, peasants, unhappy - hunger, exhausting labor, dependence on all kinds of masters.
That's why at first
From the beggars, from the soldiers
The strangers did not ask
How is it for them - is it easy or difficult?
Lives in Rus'?
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” in addition to the main plot, which solves the problem of growing peasant self-awareness, there are numerous side plot lines. Each of them brings something significant into the consciousness of the peasants.
The turning point in the development of events in the poem is the meeting of seven fortune-seekers with the village priest.
The clergy, especially the rural ones, by the nature of their activities were closer to the common people than other ruling classes. Rituals associated with the birth of children, weddings, and funerals were performed by priests. They possessed the secrets of simple peasant sins and genuine tragedies. Naturally, the best among them could not help but sympathize with the common people, instilling in them love for their neighbors, meekness, patience and faith. It was precisely this priest that the men met. He helped them, firstly, translate their vague ideas about happiness into a clear formula “peace, wealth, honor”, and secondly, he revealed to them a world of suffering not associated with hard work, painful hunger or humiliation. The priest, in essence, translates the concept of happiness into a moral category for the peasants.
The rebuke to Luke, who is called stupid by the narrator, is distinguished by rare unanimity and anger:
What did you take? stubborn head!
Country club!
There he gets into an argument!
Nobles bells -
The priests live like princes.
For the first time, the peasants could think that if a well-fed and free priest suffers like this, then it is possible that a hungry and dependent man can be happy. And shouldn’t we find out more thoroughly what happiness is before traveling around Rus' in search of a happy one? This is how seven men find themselves at a “rural fair” in the rich village of Kuzminskoye, with two ancient churches, a packed school and
A paramedic's hut with a scary sign, and most importantly, with numerous drinking establishments. The fair's polyphony is filled with bright, jubilant intonations. The narrator rejoices at the abundance of products of rural craftsmen, the variety of fruits of back-breaking labor, simple entertainment, with an experienced hand he makes sketches of peasant characters, types, genre scenes, but sometimes he suddenly seems to forget about his role as a modest narrator, and the powerful figure of the poet-enlightener stands before the readers in full height :
Eh! Eh! will the time come,
When (come what you want!..)
They will let the peasant understand
What a rose a portrait is for a portrait,
What is the book of the book of roses?
When a man is not Blucher
And not my foolish lord -
Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?
Seven men have the opportunity to see how the people's uncontrollable energy, strength, and joy are absorbed by ugly drunkenness. So, maybe it is the cause of misfortune, and if you free people from the craving for wine, life will change? They cannot help but think about this when faced with Yakim Nagiy. The episode with the plowman is of great importance in the formation and development of peasant self-awareness. Nekrasov endows a simple grain grower with an understanding of the importance of public opinion: Yakim Nagoy snatches a pencil from the hands of the intellectual Pavlusha Veretennikov, who is ready to write in a book that smart Russian peasants are being ruined by vodka. He confidently states:
To the master's measure
Don't kill the peasant!
Yakim Nagoy easily establishes cause-and-effect relationships. It is not vodka that makes a peasant’s life unbearable, but unbearable life that makes them turn to vodka as their only consolation. He understands well who is appropriating the fruits of peasant labor:
You work alone
And the work is almost over,
Look, there are three shareholders standing:
God, king and lord!
The peasants, who had previously thoughtlessly agreed with Pavlusha Veretennikov, suddenly agree with Yakim:
Work wouldn't stop me
Trouble would not prevail
Hops will not overcome us!
After this meeting, wanderers have the opportunity to realize the class difference in the concept of happiness and the hostility of the ruling classes to the people. Now they are thinking more and more about the fate of the peasants and are trying to find
Among them are happy ones, or rather, it is important for them to identify popular ideas about happiness and compare them with their own.
“Hey, peasant happiness!
Leaky with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses,
Go home!” -
This is the final opinion of wanderers about “peasant happiness.”
The story of Yermil Girin is an insert episode with an independent plot. The peasant Fedosei from the village of Dymoglotovo tells it to the happiness seekers, not without reason deciding that this “just a man” can be called happy. He had everything: “peace, money, and honor.” A competent man, he was first a clerk for the manager and in this position he managed to win the respect and gratitude of his fellow villagers, helping them with paperwork that was difficult for them free of charge. Then, under the young prince, he was elected mayor.
Yermilo went to reign
Over the entire princely estate,
And he reigned!
In seven years the world's penny
I didn’t squeeze it under my nail,
At the age of seven I didn’t touch the right one,
He did not allow the guilty
I didn’t bend my heart...
However, the “gray-haired priest” remembered Yermil’s “sin” when, instead of his brother Mitri, he gave the son of the widow Nenila Vlasyevna as a recruit. Ermil was tormented by his conscience, he almost committed suicide until he corrected what he had done. After this incident, Ermil Girin refused the post of headman and acquired a mill, and no money happened to him when he traded it, and the world helped him put the merchant Altynnikov to shame:
Cunning, strong clerks,
And their world is stronger,
The merchant Altynnikov is rich,
And everything cannot resist him
Against the worldly treasury...
Girin returned the money and since then has become “loved by all the people more than ever” for truth, intelligence and kindness. The author allowed the seven wanderers to learn many lessons from this story. They could rise to the understanding of the highest happiness, which consisted in serving their brothers in class, the people. Peasants
You might think about the fact that only in unity they represent an indestructible force. Finally, they should have come to the understanding that for happiness a person must have a clear conscience. However, when the men gathered to visit Yermil, it turned out that “he is sitting in prison,” since, apparently, he did not want to take the side of the bosses, the offenders of the people. The author deliberately does not finish telling the end of Yermil Girin’s story, but it is also instructive. The wandering heroes could understand that for such an impeccable reputation, for such rare happiness, the unknown peasant Girin had to pay with freedom.
On their long journey, the wanderers had to think and learn, just like the readers, however.
They turned out to be much more prepared for the meeting with the landowner than for the meeting with the priest. The peasants are ironic and mocking both when the landowner boasts of his family tree and when he talks about spiritual kinship with the peasant estate. They understand well the polarity of their own and the landowner's interests. Perhaps for the first time, the wanderers realized that the abolition of serfdom was a great event that would forever leave in the past the horrors of landowner tyranny and omnipotence. And although the reform, which hit “one end at the master, the other at the peasant,” completely deprived them of “lordly affection,” it also called for independence and responsibility for arranging their own lives.
In Nekrasov’s work, the theme of women’s fate appears in his work as an independent and especially significant theme. The poet understood well that in serf Russia, a woman bore double oppression, social and family. He makes his wanderers think about the fate of a woman, the ancestor of life, the support and guardian of the family - the basis of people's happiness.
Neighbors called Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina lucky. In some ways she was really lucky: she was born and raised in a family that didn’t drink, she married for love, but otherwise she followed the usual path of a peasant woman. She started working at the age of five, got married early and suffered plenty of insults, insults, and hard work in her husband’s family, lost her first-born son and remained a soldier with children. Matryona Timofeevna is familiar with the master's rods and her husband's beatings. Hardworking, talented (“And a kind worker, / And a hunter to sing and dance / I was from a young age”), passionately loving children and family, Matryona Timofeevna did not break under the blows of fate. In the absence of rights and humiliation, she found the strength to fight injustice and won, returning her husband from the soldiery. Matryona Timofeevna is the embodiment of the moral strength, intelligence and patience of a Russian woman, dedication and beauty.
In the bitter hopelessness of the peasant fate, the people, almost by folklore inertia, associated happiness with luck (Matryona Timofeevna, for example, was helped by the governor’s wife), but by this time the wanderers had already seen something and did not believe in a lucky chance, so they asked Matryona Timofeevna to pour out her whole soul . And it’s hard for them to disagree with her words:
The keys to female happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!
However, the conversation with Matryona Timofeevna turned out to be very important for the seven men in determining the paths to people's happiness. An inserted episode with an independent plot about Savely, the Holy Russian hero, played a big role in this.
Savely grew up in a village behind the eyes, separated from the city by dense forests and swamps. The Korezh men were distinguished by their independent character, and the landowner Shalashnikov had “not so great incomes” from them, although he tore the men desperately:
Weak people gave up
And the strong for the patrimony
They stood well.
The manager Vogel, sent by Shalashnikov, tricked the Korezh men into making the road, and then completely enslaved them:
The German has a death grip:
Until he lets you go around the world,
Without moving away, he sucks.
The men did not tolerate violence - they executed the German Vogel, burying him alive in the ground. The seven wanderers are faced with a difficult question: is violence against oppressors justified? To make it easier for them to answer it, the poet introduces another tragic episode into the plot - the death of Matryona Timofeevna Demushka’s first-born, who was killed by pigs due to Savely’s oversight. Here the old man’s repentance knows no bounds, he prays, asks for forgiveness from God, and goes to the monastery to repent. The author deliberately emphasizes Savely's religiosity, his compassion for all living things - every flower, every living creature. There is a difference in his guilt for the murder of the German Vogel and Demushka. But Savely ultimately does not justify himself for the murder of the manager, or rather, considers it senseless. It was followed by hard labor, settlement, and the realization of wasted power. Savely understands well the severity of the peasant’s life and the righteousness of his anger. He also knows the extent of the potential strength of a “heroic man.” However, its conclusion is clear. He says to Matryona Timofeevna:
Be patient, multi-branched one!
Be patient, long-suffering!
We can't find the truth.
The author brings the seven wanderers to the idea of the righteousness of violent reprisal against the oppressor, and warns against a rash impulse, which will inevitably be followed by punishment and repentance, because nothing will change in life from such a single justice.
The wanderers grew wiser during the months of wandering, and the initial thought of living happily in Rus' was replaced by the thought of people's happiness.
They speak to Elder Vlas from the chapter “The Last One” about the purpose of their journey:
We are looking, Uncle Vlas,
Unflogged province,
Ungutted parish,
Izbytkova village!..
Wanderers think about the universality of happiness (from the province to the village) and mean by it personal integrity, legal protection of property, and well-being.
The level of self-awareness of the peasants at this stage is quite high, and now we are talking about ways of income to people's happiness. The first obstacle to it in the post-reform years was the remnants of serfdom in the minds of both landowners and peasants. This is discussed in the chapter “The Last One”. Here the wanderers meet the emasculated Prince Utyatin, who does not want to recognize the tsarist reform, since his noble arrogance is suffering. To please the heirs, who are afraid for their inheritance, the peasants play the “gum” of the old order in front of the landowner for the promised “water meadows.” The author does not spare satirical colors, showing their cruel absurdity and obsolescence. But not all peasants agree to submit to the offensive conditions of the game. For example, Burmist Vlas doesn’t want to be a “clown.” The plot with Agap Petrov shows that even the darkest peasant awakens to a sense of self-worth - a direct consequence of the reform that cannot be reversed.
The death of the Last One is symbolic: it testifies to the final triumph of a new life.
The final chapter of the poem “A Feast for the Whole World” contains several storylines that take place in numerous songs and legends. One of the main themes raised in them is the theme of sin. The guilt of the ruling classes towards the peasants is endless. The song, called “Merry,” talks about the arbitrariness of landowners, officials, even the tsar, depriving peasants of their property and destroying their families. “It’s glorious to live for the people / Saint in Rus'!” - the refrain of the song, sounding like a bitter mockery.
Uncombed, “twisted, twisted, chopped, tortured” Kalinushka is a typical corvee peasant, whose life is written “on his own back.” Having grown up “under the snout of the landowner,” corvée peasants especially suffered from their painstaking arbitrariness and stupid prohibitions, for example, the ban on rude words:
We're tired! truly
We celebrated the will,
Like a holiday: they swore like that,
That priest Ivan was offended
For the ringing of bells,
Whooped that day.
The story of the former traveling footman Vikenty Aleksandrovich “About the exemplary slave - Yakov the Faithful” is another evidence of the irredeemable sin of the autocratic landowner. Mr. Polivanov, with a dark past (“he bought a village with bribes”) and present (“he was free, drunk, drank bitterly”), was distinguished by rare cruelty not only towards serfs, but even towards relatives (“Having married his daughter, his faithful husband / He flogged them and drove them both away naked." And, of course, he did not spare the “exemplary slave, the faithful Yakov,” whom he “in passing blew with his heel” in the teeth.
Jacob is also a product of serfdom, which transformed the best moral qualities of the people: fidelity to duty, devotion, dedication, honesty, hard work - into meaningless servility.
Yakov remained devoted to the master, even when he lost his former strength and became legless. The landowner seemed to finally appreciate the servant’s devotion and began to call him “friend and brother”! The author invisibly stands behind the narrator, designed to convince listeners that the fraternal relationship between master and serf is impossible. Mr. Polivanov forbids Yakov’s beloved nephew to marry Arisha, and his uncle’s requests do not help. Seeing Grisha as a rival, the master gives him up as a soldier. Perhaps for the first time, Yakov thought about something, but he was able to tell the master about his wine in only one way - by hanging himself over him in the forest.
The topic of sin is vigorously discussed by those feasting. There are no less sinners than happy ones. There are landowners, innkeepers, robbers, and peasants here. And the disputes, as at the beginning of the poem, end in a brawl, until Iona Lyapushkin, who often visits the Vakhlat side, comes forward with his story.
The author devotes a special chapter to wanderers and pilgrims who “do not reap, do not sow, but feed” throughout Rus'. The narrator does not hide the fact that among them there are many deceivers, hypocrites and even criminals, but there are also true bearers of spirituality, the need for which is so great among the Russian people. She was not destroyed by backbreaking work, nor by long slavery, nor even by the tavern. The author draws a simple genre scene depicting a family at evening work, while the wanderer she welcomed finishes the story of Athonite. There is so much trusting attention, ardent sympathy, intense fascination on the faces of old people, women, children that the poet exclaims with tenderness, love and faith:
More to the Russian people
No limits set:
There is a wide path before him...
The narrator puts into the mouth of God's wanderer Jonah, warmly revered by the peasants, the legend “About Two Great Sinners,” which he heard in Solovki from Father Pitirim. It is very important for solving the problem of “sin” posed in the poem.
The chieftain of the band of robbers Kudeyar, a murderer who shed a lot of blood, suddenly repented. To atone for his sins, the Lord ordered him to cut down a mighty oak tree with the knife with which he was robbing.
Cuts resilient wood
Sings glory to the Lord,
As the years go by, it gets better
Slowly things move forward.
The first one in that direction, Pan Glukhovsky, laughed at Kudeyar:
You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves do I destroy?
I torture, I torture, and I hang,
I wish I could see how I sleep.
In a furious rage, the hermit kills Glukhovsky - and a miracle occurs:
The tree collapsed and rolled down
The monk is off the burden of sins!..
The seven wanderers had already heard once about Savely, who had committed the sin of murder, and had the opportunity to distinguish the murder of the tormentor Vogel from the accidental death of the baby Demushka. Now they had to understand the difference in the sinfulness of the repentant robber Kudeyar and the convinced executioner and libertine Glukhovsky, who tortured the peasants. Kudeyar, who executed Pan Glukhovsky, not only did not commit a sin, but was forgiven by God for past sins. This is a new level in the consciousness of happiness seekers: they realize the possibility of violent actions against the militant executioners of the people - actions that are not opposed to the Christian worldview. “Great is the noble sin!” - this is the unanimous conclusion of the peasants. But unexpectedly, the question of those responsible for peasant suffering does not end with the sin of the nobility.
Ignatius Prokhorov tells a folk ballad about a “widower ammiral” who released eight thousand souls to freedom after his death. Headman Gleb sold the “freedom” to the admiral’s heir.
God forgives everything, but Judas sin
It doesn't say goodbye.
Oh man! man! you are the sinner of all,
And for that you will suffer forever!
The poet understood well that serfdom not only unleashed the most cruel instincts of the landowners, but also disfigured the peasant souls.
Betrayal of fellow peasants is a crime that cannot be forgiven. And this lesson is learned by our wanderers, who also had the opportunity to soon become convinced of its effectiveness. The Vakhlaks unanimously attack Yegor Shutov, having received orders from the village of Tiskova to “beat him.” “If the whole world has ordered: / Beat - there is a reason,” says Elder Vlas to the wanderers.
Grisha Dobrosklonov sums up the peasant dispute, explaining to the peasants the main reason for the sins of the nobles and peasants:
The snake will give birth to baby snakes,
And the support is the sins of the landowner,
The sin of Jacob - the unfortunate one,
Gleb gave birth to sin,
Everyone needs to understand, he says, that if “there is no support,” then these sins will no longer exist, that a new time has come.
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov does not ignore the fate of the soldiers - yesterday’s peasants, torn from the land, from their families, thrown under bullets and rods, often crippled and forgotten. Such is the tall and extremely skinny soldier Ovsyannikov, on whom a “frock coat with medals” hung as if on a pole. Depleted and wounded, he still dreams of receiving a “pension” from the state, but he cannot get to St. Petersburg: cast iron is expensive. At first, “grandfather fed on the district,” and when the instrument deteriorated, he bought three little yellow spoons and began to play on them, composing a song for simple music:
The light is sickening
There is no truth
Life is sickening
The pain is severe.
The episode about the soldier, the hero of Sevastopol, forced to beg (“Nutka, with George - around the world, around the world”) is instructive for wanderers and the reader, like all the numerous episodes with independent plots included in the poem.
In the difficult search for paths to peasant happiness, it is necessary to show the whole world mercy and compassion for the undeservedly disadvantaged and offended by fate.
By order of the elder Vlas, Klim, who had extraordinary acting skills, helps the soldier Ovsyannikov receive modest popular help, spectacularly and convincingly retelling his story to the assembled people. Little by little, little by little, money fell into the old soldier’s wooden plate.
The new “good time” brings new heroes onto the stage, next to whom are seven seekers of happiness.
The true hero of the final plot of the poem is Grisha Dobrosklonov. From childhood he knew bitter need. His father, the parish sexton Tryfon, lived “poorer than the last shabby peasant,” his mother, the “unresponsive farm laborer” Domna, died early. At the seminary, where Grisha studied with his older brother Savva, it was “dark, cold, gloomy, strict, hungry.” The Vakhlaks fed the kind and simple guys, who paid them for it with work and managed their affairs in the city.
The grateful “love for all the Vakhlachina” makes the smart Grisha think about their fate.
...And about fifteen years
Gregory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark
Native corner.
It is Gregory who explains to the Vakhlaks that serfdom is the cause of all noble and peasant sins and that it is forever a thing of the past.
All the more closely, all the more joyfully
I listened to Grisha Prov:
Grinning, comrades
“Watch it!”
Prov is one of the seven wanderers who claimed that the king had the best life in Rus'.
This is how the final plot is connected to the main one. Thanks to Grisha's explanations, the wanderers realize the root of the evil of Russian life and the meaning of will for the peasants.
The Vakhlaks appreciate Grisha’s extraordinary mind and speak with respect of his intention to go “to Moscow, to the new city.”
Grisha carefully studies the life, work, worries and aspirations of peasants, artisans, barge haulers, the clergy and “all mysterious Rus'.”
The Angel of Mercy - a fairy-tale image-symbol that replaced the demon of rage - now hovers over Russia. In his song about two paths, sung over a Russian youth, there is a call to take not the usual beaten path for the crowd - a road full of passions, enmity and sin, but a narrow and difficult road for chosen and strong souls.
Go to the downtrodden
Go to the offended -
Fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
Grisha is a talented poet. It is curious that the author calls the song “Veselaya,” apparently composed by him, “not folk”: priests and servants sang it on holidays, and the vakhlaks only stamped their feet and whistled. The signs of bookishness are obvious in it: the strict logic of the construction of the verses, the generalized irony of the chorus, the vocabulary:
It's nice to live for the people
Saint in Rus'!
Wanderers listen to this song, but the other two songs of the poet-citizen remain unheard by them.
The first is permeated with pain for the slave past of the Motherland and hope for happy changes:
Enough! Finished with past settlement,
The settlement with the master has been completed!
The Russian people are gathering strength
And learns to be a citizen.
The concept of citizenship is not yet familiar to travelers; they still have a lot to understand in life, a lot to learn. Perhaps that is why the author at this stage does not connect them with Grisha - on the contrary, he separates them. Grisha’s second song is also inaccessible to the understanding of wanderers, where he talks about the great contradictions of Rus', but expresses hope for the awakening of the people’s forces, for their readiness to fight:
The army rises -
Countless!
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
Grisha Dobrosklonov experiences joyful satisfaction from life, because a simple and noble goal is clearly outlined for him - the fight for the people's happiness.
If only our wanderers could be under their own roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha - here
Folklore traditions in the poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
N.A. Nekrasov conceived the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as a “people's book.” The poet always made sure that his works had a “style that suits the theme.” The desire to make the poem as accessible as possible to the peasant reader forced the poet to turn to folklore.
From the very first pages he is greeted by a fairy tale, a popular genre: a warbler, grateful for the saved chick, gives the men a “self-assembled tablecloth” and takes care of them throughout the journey.
The reader is familiar with the fairy-tale beginning of the poem:
In what year - calculate
Guess what year...
And the lines promising the fulfillment of the cherished are doubly desirable and familiar:
According to your wishes,
At my command...
The poet uses fairy-tale repetitions in the poem. These are, for example, references to a self-assembled tablecloth or a stable characteristic of the peasants, as well as the reason for their dispute. Fairy-tale techniques literally permeate Nekrasov’s entire work, creating a magical setting where space and time are subordinate to the characters:
Whether it was long or short,
Whether they walked close or far...
The techniques of the epic epic are also widely used in the poem. The poet likens many images of peasants to real heroes. Such, for example, is Savely, the Holy Russian hero. And Savely himself treats the peasants as true heroes:
Do you think, Matryonushka,
Is the man not a hero?
And life is not a military one for him,
And death is not written for him
In battle - what a hero!
“The Peasant Army Horde” is painted in epic tones by Yakim Nagoy. The bricklayer Trofim, who lifted “at least fourteen pounds” of bricks to the second floor, or the Olonchan stonemason, look like true heroes. The songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov use the vocabulary of the epic epic (“The army is rising - innumerable!”).
The whole poem is designed in a folktale-conversational style, where, naturally, there are a lot of phraseological units: “scattered with my mind”, “almost thirty miles”, “my soul is in pain”, “let loose my laces”, “where did the agility come from”, “suddenly it disappeared as if by hand” ”, “the world is not without good people”, “we’ll treat you well”, “but it turned out to be rubbish”, etc.
There are a lot of proverbs and sayings of all kinds in the poem, organically subordinated to poetic rhythms: “Yes, the belly is not a mirror,” “a worker
the horse eats straw, and the idle dancer eats oats”, “the proud pig was scratching himself on the master’s porch”, “don’t spit on the hot iron - it will hiss”, “high is God, far is the king”, “praise the grass in the haystack, but the master in the coffin”, “one is not a mill bird, which, no matter how much it flaps its wings, probably won’t fly”, “no matter how much you suffer from work, you will not be rich, but you will be hunchbacked”, “yes, our axes lay for the time being”, “and I would be glad to heaven, but where is the door?
Every now and then, riddles are woven into the text, creating picturesque images of either an echo (without a body, but it lives, without a tongue - it screams), then of snow (it lies silent, when it dies, then it roars), then of a lock on the door (It doesn’t bark, it doesn’t bites, but does not let you into the house), then an ax (all your life you bowed, but were not affectionate), then a saw (chews, but does not eat).
Also N.V. Gogol noted that the Russian people have always expressed their soul in song.
N.A. Nekrasov constantly turns to this genre. Matryona Timofeevna’s songs tell “about a silk whip, about her husband’s relatives.” It is taken up by a peasant choir, indicating the ubiquity of a woman’s suffering in the family.
Matryona Timofeevna’s favorite song “There is a little light on the mountain” is heard by her when she decides to achieve justice and return her husband from the soldiery. This song talks about the choice of a single lover - the master of a woman's destiny. Its location in the poem is determined by the ideological and thematic content of the episode.
Most of the songs Nekrasov introduced into the epic reflect the horrors of serfdom.
The hero of the song “Barshchinnaya” is the unfortunate Kalinushka, whose “skin is completely torn from his bast shoes to his collar, his stomach is swollen with chaff.” His only joy is the tavern. Even more terrible is the life of Pankratushka, a completely starved plowman who dreams of a large loaf of bread. Due to eternal hunger, he lost simple human feelings:
I'll eat it all alone
I can handle it myself
Be it mother or son
Ask - I won’t give / “Hungry” /
The poet never forgets about the hard life of a soldier:
German bullets
Turkish bullets,
French bullets
Russian sticks.
The main idea of the “Soldier’s” song is the ingratitude of the state, which abandoned the crippled and sick defenders of the fatherland to the mercy of fate.
Bitter times gave birth to bitter songs. That is why even “Veselaya” is permeated with irony and talks about the poverty of the peasants “in holy Rus'.”
The song “Salty” tells about the sad side of peasant life - the high cost of salt, so necessary for storing agricultural products and in everyday life, but inaccessible to the poor. The poet also uses the second meaning of the word “salty”, denoting something heavy, exhausting, difficult.
Acting in Nekrasov's epic, the fairy-tale angel of mercy, who replaced the demon of rage, sings a song calling honest hearts “to battle, to work.”
The songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov, still very bookish, are filled with love for the people, faith in their strength, hope for a change in their destiny. His songs reveal a knowledge of folklore: Grisha often uses its artistic and expressive means (vocabulary, constant epithets, general poetic metaphors).
The heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are characterized by confessionalism, so common in works of oral folk art. The priest, then numerous “happy” people, the landowner, Matryona Timofeevna tell the wanderers about their lives.
And we'll see
Church of God,
In front of the church
Let's be baptized for a long time:
"Give her, Lord,
Joy-happiness,
Good darling
Alexandrovna."
With the experienced hand of a brilliant poet, connoisseur and connoisseur of folklore, the poet removes the dialectal phonetic irregularities of genuine lamentations, thereby revealing their artistic spirituality:
Fall my tears
Not on land, not on water,
Not to the Lord's temple!
Fall right on your heart
My villain!
Fluent in N.A. Nekrasov the genre of folk ballad and, introducing it into the poem, skillfully imitates both the form (transferring the last line of the verse to the beginning of the next) and vocabulary. He uses folk phraseology, reproduces the folk etymology of book phrases, and the narrators’ commitment to geographical and factual accuracy of details:
The widower ammiral walked the seas,
I walked the seas, sailed ships,
Near Achakov he fought with a Turk,
Defeated him.
The poem contains a veritable scattering of constant epithets: “gray bunny”, “wild little head”, “black souls”, “quick night”, “white body”, “clear falcon”, “flammable tears”, “reasonable little head”, “red girls” ”, “good fellow”, “greyhound horse”, “clear eyes”, “bright Sunday”, “ruddy face”, “clown of a pea”.
The number seven, traditionally widely used in folklore (seven Fridays in a week, you can slurp jelly seven miles away, seven don’t wait for one, measure seven times - cut once, etc.) is also noticeable in the poem, where seven men from seven adjacent villages (Zaplatovo, Dyryavino , Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaika) go to travel around the world; seven eagle owls look at them from seven large trees, etc. The poet also refers no less often to the number three, also according to folklore tradition: “three lakes of tears”, “three streaks of trouble”, “three loops”, “three shareholders”, “three Matryonas” - etc.
Nekrasov also uses other techniques of oral folk art, for example, interjections and particles that add emotionality to the narrative: “Oh, swallow! Oh! stupid”, “Choo! the horse is knocking its hooves”, “ah, braid! Like gold burns in the sun.”
Common in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are complex words made up of two synonyms (bad-midge, path-path, melancholy-trouble, mother-earth, rye-mother, fruit-berries) or cognate words (rad-radekhonek, mlada -baby) or words reinforced by the repetition of cognate words (good riddance, good riddance, snoring, roaring).
Traditional in the poem are folklore diminutive suffixes in words (round, pot-bellied, gray-haired, mustachioed, dear), addresses, including to inanimate objects (“oh, you little birdie...”, “Hey, peasant happiness!”, “ Oh, you canine hunt”, “Oh! drunken night!”), negative comparisons
(It is not the winds that blow violently,
It is not mother earth that sways -
He makes noise, sings, swears,
Fights and kisses
People are celebrating).
The events in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are presented in chronological order - a traditional composition of folk epic works. The numerous side plots of the poem are primarily narrative texts. The diverse rhythms of Nekrasov’s epic poem are determined by the genres of oral folk art: fairy tales, epics, songs, lamentations, cries!
The author is a folk storyteller with a good command of lively folk speech. To the gullible eye of peasant readers, there is little difference from them, just like, for example, wanderers - pilgrims, captivating their listeners with entertaining stories. In the course of the story, the narrator discovers the cunning of the mind, beloved by the people, and the ability to satisfy their curiosity and imagination. Christian condemnation is close to his heart
The narrator of the sinfulness of vice and the moral reward of the sufferers and the righteous. And only a sophisticated reader can see behind this role of a folk storyteller the face of a great poet, poet-educator, educator and counselor.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is written mostly in iambic trimeter with two final unstressed syllables. The poet's poems are not rhymed and are distinguished by a richness of consonances and rhythms.
In January 1866, the next issue of the Sovremennik magazine was published in St. Petersburg. It opened with lines that are now familiar to everyone:
In what year - calculate
Guess which land...
These words seemed to promise to introduce the reader into an entertaining fairy-tale world, where a warbler bird speaking human language and a magic tablecloth would appear... So N. began with a sly smile and ease.
A. Nekrasov his story about the adventures of seven men who argued about “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.”
Already in the “Prologue” a picture of peasant Rus' was visible, the figure of the main character of the work stood up - the Russian peasant, as he really was: in bast shoes, onuchakh, an army coat, unfed, having suffered grief.
Three years later, publication of the poem resumed, but each part was met with severe persecution by the tsarist censors, who believed that the poem was “notable for its extreme ugliness of content.” The last chapter written, “A Feast for the Whole World,” came under especially sharp attack. Unfortunately, Nekrasov was not destined to see either the publication of “The Feast” or a separate edition of the poem. Without abbreviations or distortions, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was published only after the October Revolution.
The poem occupies a central place in Nekrasov’s poetry, is its ideological and artistic peak, the result of the writer’s thoughts about the fate of the people, about their happiness and the paths that lead to it. These thoughts worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through all his poetic work.
By the 1860s, the Russian peasant became the main hero of Nekrasov’s poetry. “Peddlers”, “Orina, the soldier’s mother”, “Railway”, “Frost, Red Nose” are the most important works of the poet on the way to the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”.
He devoted many years to working on the poem, which the poet called his “favorite brainchild.” He set himself the goal of writing a “people's book”, useful, understandable to the people and truthful. “I decided,” said Nekrasov, “to present in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” This will be an epic of peasant life.” But death interrupted this gigantic work; the work remained unfinished. However, despite this, it retains ideological and artistic integrity.
Nekrasov revived the genre of folk epic in poetry. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a truly folk work: both in its ideological sound, and in the scale of the epic depiction of modern folk life, in the formulation of the fundamental questions of the time, and in heroic pathos, and in the widespread use of poetic traditions of oral folk art, the closeness of the poetic language to living speech forms of everyday life and song lyricism.
At the same time, Nekrasov’s poem has features characteristic specifically of critical realism. Instead of one central character, the poem depicts, first of all, the folk environment as a whole, the living conditions of different social circles. The people's point of view on reality is expressed in the poem already in the very development of the theme, in the fact that all of Rus', all events are shown through the perception of wandering peasants, presented to the reader as if in their vision.
The events of the poem unfold in the first years after the reform of 1861 and the liberation of the peasants. The people, the peasantry, are the true positive heroes of the poem. Nekrasov pinned his hopes for the future on him, although he was aware of the weakness of the forces of peasant protest and the immaturity of the masses for revolutionary action.
In the poem, the author created the image of the peasant Savely, the “hero of the Holy Russian”, “the hero of the homespun”, who personifies the gigantic strength and fortitude of the people. Savely is endowed with the features of the legendary heroes of the folk epic. This image is associated by Nekrasov with the central theme of the poem - the search for ways to people's happiness. It is no coincidence that Matryona Timofeevna says about Savely to wanderers: “He was also a lucky man.” Savely’s happiness lies in his love of freedom, in his understanding of the need for active struggle of the people, who can only achieve a “free” life in this way.
The poem contains many memorable images of peasants. Here is the smart old mayor Vlas, who has seen a lot in his time, and Yakim Nagoy, a typical representative of the working agricultural peasantry. However, Yakim Naga portrays the poet as not at all like a downtrodden, dark peasant of a patriarchal village. With a deep consciousness of his dignity, he ardently defends the people's honor and makes a fiery speech in defense of the people.
An important role in the poem is occupied by the image of Yermil Girin - a pure and incorruptible “protector of the people”, who takes the side of the rebel peasants and ends up in prison.
In the beautiful female image of Matryona Timofeevna, the poet draws the typical features of a Russian peasant woman. Nekrasov wrote many moving poems about the harsh “female share,” but he had never written about a peasant woman so fully, with such warmth and love as is depicted in the poem Matryonushka.
Along with the peasant characters of the poem, who evoke love and sympathy, Nekrasov also depicts other types of peasants, mainly courtyards - lordly hangers-on, sycophants, obedient slaves and outright traitors. These images are drawn by the poet in the tones of satirical denunciation. The more clearly he saw the protest of the peasantry, the more he believed in the possibility of their liberation, the more irreconcilably he condemned slavish humiliation, servility and servility. Such are the “exemplary slave” Yakov in the poem, who ultimately realizes the humiliation of his position and resorts to pitiful and helpless, but in his slavish consciousness, terrible revenge - suicide in front of his tormentor; the “sensitive lackey” Ipat, who talks about his humiliations with disgusting relish; informer, “one of our own spy” Yegor Shutov; Elder Gleb, seduced by the promises of the heir and agreed to destroy the will of the deceased landowner about the liberation of eight thousand peasants (“Peasant Sin”).
Showing the ignorance, rudeness, superstition, and backwardness of the Russian village of that time, Nekrasov emphasizes the temporary, historically transient nature of the dark sides of peasant life.
The world poetically recreated in the poem is a world of sharp social contrasts, clashes, and acute contradictions in life.
In the “round”, “ruddy-faced”, “pot-bellied”, “mustachioed” landowner Obolt-Obolduev, whom the wanderers met, the poet reveals the emptiness and frivolity of a man who is not used to thinking seriously about life. Behind the guise of a good-natured man, behind the courteous courtesy and ostentatious cordiality of Obolt-Obolduev, the reader sees the arrogance and anger of the landowner, barely restrained disgust and hatred for the “men”, for the peasants.
The image of the landowner-tyrant Prince Utyatin, nicknamed by the peasants the Last One, is marked with satire and grotesquery. A predatory look, “a nose with a beak like a hawk,” alcoholism and voluptuousness complement the disgusting appearance of a typical representative of the landowner environment, an inveterate serf owner and despot.
At first glance, the development of the plot of the poem should consist in resolving the dispute between the men: which of the persons they named lives happier - the landowner, the official, the priest, the merchant, the minister or the tsar. However, developing the action of the poem, Nekrasov goes beyond the plot framework set by the plot of the work. Seven peasants are no longer looking for happiness only among representatives of the ruling classes. Going to the fair, in the midst of the people, they ask themselves the question: “Isn’t he hiding there, who lives happily?” In “The Last One” they directly say that the purpose of their journey is to search for people’s happiness, a better peasant lot:
We are looking, Uncle Vlas,
Unflogged province,
Ungutted parish,
Izbytkova village!..
Having begun the narrative in a semi-fairy-tale humorous tone, the poet gradually deepens the meaning of the question of happiness and gives it an increasingly acute social resonance. The author's intentions are most clearly manifested in the censored part of the poem - “A feast for the whole world.” The story about Grisha Dobrosklonov that began here was to take a central place in the development of the theme of happiness and struggle. Here the poet speaks directly about that path, about that “path” that leads to the embodiment of national happiness. Grisha’s happiness lies in the conscious struggle for a happy future for the people, so that “every peasant can live freely and cheerfully throughout all holy Rus'.”
The image of Grisha is the final one in the series of “people’s intercessors” depicted in Nekrasov’s poetry. The author emphasizes in Grisha his close proximity to the people, lively communication with the peasants, in whom he finds complete understanding and support; Grisha is depicted as an inspired dreamer-poet, composing his “good songs” for the people.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the highest example of the folk style of Nekrasov poetry. The folk song and fairy-tale element of the poem gives it a bright national flavor and is directly related to Nekrasov’s faith in the great future of the people. The main theme of the poem - the search for happiness - goes back to folk tales, songs and other folklore sources, which talked about the search for a happy land, truth, wealth, treasure, etc. This theme expressed the most cherished thought of the masses, their desire for happiness, the age-old dream of the people about a fair social system.
Nekrasov used in his poem almost the entire genre diversity of Russian folk poetry: fairy tales, epics, legends, riddles, proverbs, sayings, family songs, love songs, wedding songs, historical songs. Folk poetry provided the poet with rich material for judging peasant life, life, and the customs of the village.
The style of the poem is characterized by a wealth of emotional sounds, a variety of poetic intonation: the sly smile and leisurely narration in the “Prologue” is replaced in subsequent scenes by the ringing polyphony of a seething fair crowd, in “The Last One” - by satirical ridicule, in “The Peasant Woman” - by deep drama and lyrical emotion, and in “A Feast for the Whole World” - with heroic tension and revolutionary pathos.
The poet subtly feels and loves the beauty of the native Russian nature of the northern strip. The poet also uses the landscape to create an emotional tone, to more fully and vividly characterize the character’s state of mind.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has a prominent place in Russian poetry. In it, the fearless truth of pictures of folk life appears in an aura of poetic fabulousness and the beauty of folk art, and the cry of protest and satire merged with the heroism of the revolutionary struggle.
Poem by N.A. Nekrasov’s “Who Lives Well in Rus',” which he worked on for the last ten years of his life, but did not have time to fully implement, cannot be considered unfinished. It contains everything that made up the meaning of the poet’s spiritual, ideological, life and artistic searches from his youth to his death. And this “everything” found a worthy—capacious and harmonious—form of expression.
What is the architectonics of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from individual structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the enormous text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is written down, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem any less amazing - it shocks anyone capable of feeling compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.
The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" — sets a fabulous tone for the entire work.
Of course, this is a fairy-tale beginning: who knows where and when, who knows why, seven men come together. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person live without a dispute? and the men turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth, hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearest hill, or even completely unattainable.
In the text of the “Prologue,” whoever doesn’t appear, as if in a fairy tale: a woman - almost a witch, and a gray hare, and small jackdaws, and a chick warbler, and a cuckoo... Seven eagle owls look at the wanderers in the night, the echo echoes their cries, an owl, a cunning fox - everyone has been here. Groin, looking at the small birdie - a chick warbler - and seeing that she is happier than the man, decides to find out the truth. And, as in a fairy tale, the mother warbler, rescuing the chick, promises to give the men plenty of everything they ask for on the road, so that they can only find the truthful answer, and shows the way. “Prologue” is not like a fairy tale. This is a fairy tale, only a literary one. So the men make a vow not to return home until they find the truth. And the wandering begins.
Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions of happiness fit it. The misfortunes of peasant parishioners in poor villages, the revelry of landowners who left their estates, the desolate life of the locality - all this is in the priest’s bitter answer. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers move on.
In Chapter II wanderers at the fair. The picture of the village: “a house with the inscription: school, empty, / Packed tightly” - and this is in a village “rich, but dirty.” There, at the fair, a phrase familiar to us sounds:
When a man is not Blucher
And not my foolish lord—
Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?
In Chapter III "Drunken Night" The eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant is described with bitterness - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov appears again, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminskoye as a “master” and met by wanderers back there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, collects Russian folklore.
Having written down enough,
Veretennikov told them:
“Russian peasants are smart,
One thing is bad
That they drink until they are stupefied,
They fall into ditches, into ditches—
It’s a shame to see!”
This offends one of the men:
There is no measure for Russian hops.
Have they measured our grief?
Is there a limit to the work?
Wine brings down the peasant,
Doesn't grief overwhelm him?
Work isn't going well?
A man does not measure troubles
Copes with everything
No matter what, come.
This man, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of the Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoy. This surname - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosovo. Travelers learn the story of his unimaginably difficult life and ineradicable proud courage from local peasants.
In Chapter IV wanderers wander through the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Isn’t there a happy one somewhere?” - and the peasants will respond by smiling and spitting... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers “for happiness.” All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier that he was beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for wanderers, even though it would be a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy also evoke pity and not joy. The stories of the “happy” people are becoming scarier and scarier. There even appears a type of princely “slave”, happy with his “noble” disease - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.
Finally, someone directs the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who will be! The story of Ermil is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the man bought himself a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, who give their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of men. Afterwards, Yermil gave everything to his people, the ruble remained ungiven - no owner was found, but the money was collected enormously. Yermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the people's trust. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord’s manager, and his help over many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not help but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is sitting in prison. And he was put there in connection with a peasant revolt in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the wanderers did not have time to find out.
In Chapter V - “The Landowner” — the stroller rolls out, and in it is indeed the landowner Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is described comically: a plump gentleman with a “pistol” and a paunch. Note: he has a “speaking” name, as almost always with Nekrasov. “Tell us, in God’s terms, is the life of a landowner sweet?” - the wanderers stop him. The landowner's stories about his “root” are strange to the peasants. Not exploits, but outrages to please the queen and the intention to set fire to Moscow - these are the memorable deeds of illustrious ancestors. What is the honor for? How to understand? The landowner's story about the delights of the former master's life somehow does not please the peasants, and Obolduev himself recalls with bitterness the past - it is gone, and gone forever.
To adapt to a new life after the abolition of serfdom, you need to study and work. But labor - not a noble habit. Hence the grief.
"The last one." This part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins with a picture of haymaking on water meadows. A noble family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and evil Prince Utyatin lives because his former serfs, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, conspired with the noble family to imitate the old serf order for the sake of the prince’s peace of mind and so that he would not deny his family an inheritance due to the whim of old age. They promised to give the peasants water meadows after the death of the prince. The “faithful slave” Ipat was also found - in Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the man Agap could not stand it and cursed the Last One for what it was worth. The feigned punishment at the stable with lashes turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The last one died almost before the eyes of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing over the meadows: “The heirs are fighting with the peasants to this day.”
According to the logic of the construction of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” what follows is, as it were, hersecond part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and your chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding someone happy among the men, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what kind and how much “happiness” they find in the lot of women and peasants. All this is expressed with such depth of penetration into a woman’s suffering soul, with such an abundance of details of fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully called “Matryona Timofeevna, she is the governor’s wife,” that at times it either touches you to tears, or makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy on her first night as a woman, and when was that!
Weaved into the narrative are songs created by the author on a folk basis, as if sewn on the canvas of a Russian folk song (Chapter 2. “Songs” ). There, the wanderers sing with Matryona in turn, and the peasant woman herself, remembering the past.
My hateful husband
Rises:
For the silk lash
Accepted.
Choir
The whip whistled
Blood spattered...
Oh! cherished! cherished!
Blood spattered...
The married life of a peasant woman matched the song. Only her husband's grandfather, Savely, took pity and consoled her. “He was also lucky,” recalls Matryona.
A separate chapter of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is dedicated to this powerful Russian man -"Savely, the Holy Russian hero" . The title of the chapter speaks about its style and content. A branded, former convict, an old man of heroic build speaks little, but aptly. “To not endure is an abyss, to endure is an abyss,” are his favorite words. The old man buried the German Vogel, the lord's manager, alive in the ground for atrocities against the peasants. Savely’s collective image:
Do you think, Matryonushka,
Is the man not a hero?
And his life is not a military one,
And death is not written for him
In battle - what a hero!
Hands are twisted in chains,
Feet forged with iron,
Back...dense forests
We walked along it and broke down.
What about the breasts? Elijah the prophet
It rattles and rolls around
On a chariot of fire...
The hero endures everything!
In the chapter"Dyomushka" the worst thing happens: Matryona’s little son, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened up the child in front of her eyes. And it’s even more terrible that the innocent culprit in the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the tormented soul of his grandfather, was Savely the hero himself, already a very old man, who fell asleep and neglected to look after the baby.
In Chapter V - “She-Wolf” — the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that remains in her life. Having chased the she-wolf who carried away the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the Shepherd takes pity on the beast: hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples, the mother of the wolf cubs sits down on the grass in front of him, suffers a beating, and the little boy leaves her the sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lies under the whip.
After this episode, Matryona’s song lamentations on a gray stone above the river, when she, an orphan, calls out to her father and mother for help and comfort, complete the story and create the transition to a new year of disasters -Chapter VI “Difficult Year” . Hungry, “She looks like the kids / I was like her,” Matryona recalls the she-wolf. Her husband is drafted into a soldier without a deadline and without a queue; she remains with her children in her husband’s hostile family - a “freeloader”, without protection or help. The life of a soldier is a special topic, revealed in detail. The soldiers flog her son with rods in the square - you can’t understand why.
A terrible song precedes Matryona's escape alone into the winter night (head "Governor" ). She threw herself backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.
And the next morning Matryona went to the governor. She fell at her feet right on the stairs to get her husband back, and gave birth. The governor turned out to be a compassionate woman, and Matryona and her child returned happy. They nicknamed her the Governor, and life seemed to be getting better, but then the time came, and they took the eldest as a soldier. “What else do you need? — Matryona asks the peasants, “the keys to women’s happiness... are lost,” and cannot be found.
The third part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, not called that, but having all the signs of an independent part - dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, introduction and chapters - has a strange name -"A Feast for the Whole World" . In the introduction, some semblance of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is not yet visible, lights up the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile almost for the first time in his life. But its first chapter is"Bitter times - bitter songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about hunger and injustices under serfdom, then mournful, “lingering, sad” Vakhlat songs about inescapable forced melancholy, and finally, “Corvee”.
A separate chapter - a story“About the exemplary slave - Yakov the Faithful” - begins as if about a serf peasant of the slave type who interested Nekrasov. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: unable to bear the insult, Yakov first started drinking, fled, and when he returned, he took the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of his eyes. The worst sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the worst sinner of all. Ionushka, the “humble praying mantis,” tells the story.
A new page of the poem opens -"Wanderers and Pilgrims" , behind her -"About two great sinners" : a tale about Kudeyar-ataman, a robber who killed countless souls. The story is told in epic verse, and, as if in a Russian song, Kudeyar’s conscience awakens, he accepts hermitage and repentance from the saint who appeared to him: to cut off a century-old oak with the same knife with which he killed. The work takes many years, the hope that it will be possible to complete it before death is weak. Suddenly, the well-known villain Pan Glukhovsky appears on horseback in front of Kudeyar and tempts the hermit with shameless speeches. Kudeyar cannot stand the temptation: the master has a knife in his chest. And - a miracle! — the century-old oak tree collapsed.
The peasants are starting a dispute about whose sin is worse—the “noble” or the “peasant.”In the chapter “Peasant Sin” Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov talks about the sin of Judas (the sin of betrayal) of a peasant elder, who was tempted by the bribe of the heir and hid the owner’s will, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who recognized that such sins were possible among them, pours out in song. “Hungry” is a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an insatiable beast - not a human. A new face appears - Gregory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a sexton. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After sighing and thinking, they decide: It’s all to blame: strengthen yourself!
It turns out that Grisha is going “to Moscow, to the new city.” And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:
“I don’t need any silver,
Not gold, but God willing,
So that my fellow countrymen
And every peasant
Life was free and fun
All over holy Rus'!
But the story continues, and the wanderers witness how an old soldier, thin as a sliver, hung with medals, rides up on a cart of hay and sings his song - “Soldier’s” with the refrain: “The light is sick, / There is no bread, / There is no shelter, /There is no death,” and to others: “German bullets, /Turkish bullets, /French bullets, /Russian sticks.” Everything about the soldier’s lot is collected in this chapter of the poem.
But here is a new chapter with a cheerful title"Good time - good songs" . Savva and Grisha sing a song of new hope on the Volga bank.
The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, unites the features of Nekrasov’s dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother’s song, sung by the peasant women, was called “Salty.” A piece watered with a mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a child dying of hunger. “With love for the poor mother / Love for all the Vakhlachin / Merged, - and at the age of fifteen / Gregory already knew firmly / That he would live for the happiness / Of his wretched and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching tercets, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably pushing back the obsolete and evil. The “Angel of Mercy” sings an invocation song over a Russian youth.
Grisha, waking up, goes down to the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland and sings. The song contains his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Completed with the settlement, /Completed the settlement with the master! / The Russian people gather their strength / And learn to be citizens.”
“Rus” is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.
Source (abbreviated): Michalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: 10th grade. At 2 p.m. Part 1: study. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitseva. - M.: Bustard, 2018
The work of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is associated with the second period of the Russian liberation movement. In his works, he examines the origins of social disasters and means of overcoming them. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the result of the author’s thoughts about the fate of the country and the people. It addresses the main question of post-reform Russia: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?” Nekrasov shows the path leading to people's happiness, the path of struggle.
At the center of the work is the image of the people. Describing it, the author uses simple Russian language, using folklore and proverbs. The folk types created by the poet are mainly divided into two categories. The first, most numerous, belong to the peasants who are thinking about their lives, in whose souls a protest is already brewing. Another category of peasants are people poisoned by the poison of serfdom and turned into slaves.
Nekrasov repeatedly mentions in the poem about peasant riots, which especially intensified after the reform:
Have any of you heard,
How the estate rebelled
Landowner Obrubkov,
Frightened province,
Nedykhanev County,
Villages Tetanus?..
In this passage, attention is drawn to the telling names, emphasizing the fear and downtroddenness of the residents. And if the peasants of such places rebelled, then the cup of people’s patience was overflowing!
Among others, Yakim Nagoy especially stands out. He is a defender of the interests of the people and an exponent of those sentiments of protest that are growing among the peasant masses. Drawing a portrait of Yakim, Nikolai Alekseevich emphasizes his closeness to the land on which he was born, lived, and worked:
And to Mother Earth myself
He looks like...
A competent man, Yakim Nagoy, thought for a long time about the fate of his brothers, and was able to understand a lot from his own experience. He speaks about the people with love, and with anger about the enslavers:
Every peasant
The soul is like a black cloud -
Angry, menacing, and it should be
Thunder will roar from there,
It's raining bloody...
The image of a thundercloud is an image of the revolution, the storm that the poet called for, exclaiming:
Roar over the depths of the sea,
In the field, in the forest, whistle!..
In many ways he is similar to Yakima Nagogo Saveliy. The old man sees the causes of evil; he has lost the faith in God’s help and in the good king (“high is God, far is the king”) that is so characteristic of the patriarchal peasantry. Grandfather understands that one must gain freedom not through humility, but with an ax. Savely realizes the heroic power of the people, but sees with pain that all the strength of the peasants is spent on endless patience. Nekrasov reveals both the inconsistency of the people's consciousness and the struggle between the age-old habit of slavery and the rebellious spirit.
From the story about Matryona Timofeevna, we understand more deeply that a spiritual thunderstorm is brewing in a woman, the most downtrodden and disadvantaged creature. Faith in the people, in their spiritual awakening, is expressed in the words of the poet:
Saved in slavery
Free heart -
Gold, gold
People's heart!
The author did not idealize the peasants, because many of them turned into slaves. He speaks about this part of the people with bitterness and contempt. Lackey Ipat (chapter “The Last One”) is happy with his servile title; he doesn’t want to hear about freedom. Choking with emotion, he remembers the bullying of his master, calling him “prince” and himself “the last slave.” Nekrasov gives Ipat an apt assessment: “a sensitive lackey.” But among the slaves there are also people like Yakov. Unable to withstand the bullying, he took revenge on the master with his death. The poet understands that the cause of all national disasters is serfdom.
With sarcasm, he paints images of landowners. This is how, for example, Obolt-Obolduev is depicted:
Some round gentleman,
Mustachioed, pot-bellied,
With a cigar in his mouth...
Peasant speech often mocks the serf owners:
We corvées have grown up
Under the landowner's snout...
Nikolai Alekseevich creates images of “new people” who emerged from the people’s environment and became active fighters for the good of the people. This is Ermil Girin. No matter who he was, no matter what he did, he sought to be useful to the peasant, to help him, to protect him.
The type of democratic intellectual is embodied in Grisha Dobrosklonov. Grisha dreams of people's happiness more than his own. His love for his poor and exhausted mother gradually turns into love for his homeland. Dobrosklonov consciously chooses the path along which “strong, loving souls” go. His image is typical of a “people's defender.” Characteristic of Grisha is a thirst for learning. He believes in the future happiness of the people.
Dobrosklonov's songs contain hope and optimism. The song “Rus” ends with the lines:
The army rises -
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
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In Russia, about 80 million live in poverty. Vladislav Zhukovsky [Forecast for 2016]
Economist Vladislav Zhukovsky: Today in Russia, out of 140 million people, about 65-70 million live in poverty. This is approximately 45-50%. If the current rate of impoverishment continues, in 2016 85% of Russians will be below the poverty line!
In comparison with the USSR, the population is now two times smaller than it was in the USSR, but, at the same time, there are twice as many beggars.
In Russia there is an unprecedented destruction of the middle class, signs of a feudal and slave system are appearing.
90% of Russian manufacturers consider state policy to be strangling small and medium-sized businesses.
Russia is on the verge of collapse.
