Images of peasants in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'. The image of a peasant in Russian literature Who can live well in Rus'? The life of peasants

An important historical period is reflected in the work of N.A. Nekrasov. The peasants in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are typical and very real. Their images help to understand what happened in the country after the abolition of serfdom, and what the reforms led to.

Wanderers of the People

Seven men - all of peasant origin. How are they different from other characters? Why doesn’t the author choose representatives of different classes as walkers? Nekrasov is a genius. The author suggests that a movement begins among the peasants. Russia has “awakened from its sleep.” But the movement is slow, not everyone has realized that they have gained freedom and can live in a new way. Nekrasov makes heroes of ordinary men. Previously, only beggars, pilgrims and buffoons roamed the country. Now men from different provinces and volosts have gone looking for answers to their questions. The poet does not idealize literary characters, does not try to separate them from the people. He understands that all peasants are different. Centuries-old oppression has become a habit for the majority; men do not know what to do with the rights they received, or how to continue to live.

Yakim Nagoy

A peasant lives in a village with a telling name - Bosovo. A poor man from the same village. The peasant went to work, but fell into litigation with the merchant. Yakim ended up in prison. Realizing that nothing good awaits him in the city, Nagoy returns to his homeland. He works on the earth without complaint, merging with it in his image and likeness. Like a lump, a layer cut out by a plow, Yakim

“He works himself to death and drinks until he is half to death.”

A man does not get joy from hard work. Most of it goes to the landowner, but he himself is poor and hungry. Yakim is sure that no amount of drunkenness can overcome a Russian peasant, so there is no point in blaming the peasants for drunkenness. The versatility of the soul is revealed during a fire. Yakim and his wife save paintings, icons, not money. The spirituality of the people is higher than material wealth.

Serf Yakov

Yakov lives in the service of a cruel landowner for many years. He is exemplary, diligent, faithful. The slave serves his master until old age and takes care of him during illness. The author shows how a man can show disobedience. He condemns such decisions, but also understands them. It is difficult for Yakov to stand up against the landowner. Throughout his life he proved his devotion to him, but did not deserve even a little attention. The slave takes the debilitated landowner into the forest and commits suicide in front of his eyes. A sad picture, but it is precisely this that helps to understand how deeply servility has taken root in the hearts of the peasants.

Favorite Slave

The yard man tries to appear the happiest before the wanderers. What is his happiness? Serf was the favorite slave of the first noble prince Peremetevo. The wife of a slave is a beloved slave. The owner allowed the serf's daughter to study languages ​​and sciences together with the young lady. The little girl sat in the presence of the gentlemen. The peasant slave looks stupid. He prays, asking God to save him from a noble disease - gout. Slavish obedience led the slave to absurd thoughts. He is proud of the noble disease. He boasts to the walkers about the wines he drank: champagne, Burgon, Tokay. The men refuse him vodka. They send us off to lick the plates after the lordly meal. A Russian drink is not on the lips of a peasant slave; let him finish his glasses of foreign wines. The image of a sick serf is ridiculous.

Headman Gleb

There is no usual intonation in the description of the peasant. The author is indignant. He doesn’t want to write about types like Gleb, but they exist among the peasants, so the truth of life requires the appearance of the image of an elder from the people in the poem. There were few of these among the peasants, but they brought enough grief. Gleb destroyed the freedom that the master gave. He allowed his fellow countrymen to be deceived. A slave at heart, the headman betrayed the men. He hoped for special benefits, for the opportunity to rise above his equals in social status.

Man's happiness

At the fair, many peasants approach the wanderers. They are all trying to prove their happiness, but it is so miserable that it is hard to talk about it.

Which peasants approached the walkers:

• The peasant is Belarusian. His happiness is in bread. Previously, it was barley, it hurt my stomach so much that it can only be compared with contractions during childbirth. Now they give rye bread, you can eat it without fear of consequences.
• A man with a curled cheekbone. The peasant went after the bear. His three friends were broken by forest owners. The man remained alive. The happy hunter cannot look to the left: his cheekbone is curled up like a bear's paw. The walkers laughed and offered to go see the bear again and turn the other cheek to equalize the cheekbones, but they gave me vodka.
• Stonemason. The young Olonchan man enjoys life because he is strong. He has a job, if you get up early, you can earn 5 silver.
• Tryphon. Possessing enormous strength, the guy succumbed to the contractor’s ridicule. I tried to pick up as much as they put in. I brought in a load of 14 poods. He didn’t allow himself to be laughed at, but he tore his heart and got sick. The man’s happiness is that he reached his homeland to die on his own land.

N.A. Nekrasov calls peasants differently. Only slaves, serfs and Judases. Other exemplary, faithful, brave heroes of the Russian land. New paths are opening up for the people. A happy life awaits them, but they should not be afraid to protest and seek their rights.

“Images of peasants in the poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

Poem by N.A. Nekrasov's "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was created in the last period of the poet's life (1863-1876). The ideological concept of the poem is already indicated in its title, and then repeated in the text: who can live well in Rus'? In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov shows the life of the Russian peasantry in post-reform Russia, their difficult situation. The main problem of this work is the search for an answer to the question, “who lives happily and freely in Rus',” who is worthy and not worthy of happiness? The poet speaks about the essence of the Tsar’s manifesto in the words of the people: “You are kind, Tsar’s letter, but you were not written about us.” The poet touched upon the pressing problems of his time, condemned slavery and oppression, and sang the praises of the freedom-loving, talented, strong-willed Russian people. The author introduces into the poem the image of seven wandering peasants traveling around the country in search of the lucky ones. They live in the villages: Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaika. They are united by poverty, unpretentiousness, and the desire to find happiness in Rus'. While traveling, peasants meet different people, evaluate them, determine their attitude towards the priest, towards the landowner, towards the peasant reform, towards the peasants. Men do not seek happiness among the working people: peasants, soldiers. Their idea of ​​happiness is associated with the images of the clergy, merchants, nobility, and the tsar. Peasant truth-seekers have a sense of self-esteem. They are deeply convinced that the working people are better, taller, and smarter than the landowner. The author shows the hatred of the peasants for those who live at their expense. Nekrasov also emphasizes the people’s love for work and their desire to help other people. Having learned that Matryona Timofeevna’s crop is dying, the men without hesitation offer her help. They also willingly help the peasants of the Illiterate Province mow the grass. “Like teeth from hunger,” everyone’s nimble hand works.

Traveling around Russia, men meet various people. Revealing the images of the heroes encountered by truth-seekers allows the author to characterize not only the situation of the peasantry, but also the life of the merchants, clergy, and nobility.

Having listened to the priest’s story about his “happiness”, having received advice to find out about the landowner’s happiness, the peasants snapped: you are past them, the landowners! We know them! Truth-seekers are not satisfied with the noble word, they need the “Christian word.” “Give me your Christian word! The noble with a scolding, with a push and a punch, is unsuitable for us! They have self-esteem. In the chapter “Happy” they angrily see off the sexton, a servant who boasted of his servile position: “Get lost!” They sympathize with the soldier’s terrible story and tell him: “Here, have a drink, servant! There's no point in arguing with you. You are happy - there is no word."

The author pays main attention to the peasants. The images of Yakim Nagogo, Ermila Girin, Savely, Matryona Timofeevna combine both general, typical features of the peasantry, such as, for example, hatred of all “shareholders” who drain their vitality, and individual traits.

Nekrasov more fully reveals the images of peasant fighters who do not grovel before their masters and do not resign themselves to their slave position. Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo lives in terrible poverty. He works himself to death, saving himself under the harrow from the heat and rain. His portrait shows constant hard work:

And to Mother Earth myself

He looks like: brown neck,

Like a layer cut off by a plow,

Brick face...

The chest is sunken, like a depressed belly. There are bends near the eyes, near the mouth, like cracks in dried earth... Reading the description of the peasant’s face, we understand that Yakim, having toiled all his life on a gray, barren piece, had himself become like the earth. Yakim admits that most of his labor is appropriated by “shareholders” who do not work, but live on the labors of peasants like him. “You work alone, and as soon as the work is finished, look, there are three shareholders: God, the Tsar and the Master!” All his long life, Yakim worked, experienced many hardships, went hungry, went to prison and, “like a piece of velcro, he returned to his homeland.” But still he finds the strength to create at least some kind of life, some kind of beauty. Yakim decorates his hut with pictures, loves and uses apt words, his speech is full of proverbs and sayings. Yakim is the image of a new type of peasant, a rural proletarian who has been in the latrine industry. And his voice is the voice of the most determined peasants. Yakim understands that the peasantry is a great force. He is proud to belong to it. He knows what the strength and weakness of the “peasant soul” is:

Soul, like a black cloud -

Angry, menacing - and it should be

Thunder will roar from there...

And it all ends with wine...

Yakim refutes the opinion that the peasant is poor because he drinks. He reveals the true reason for this situation - the need to work for “interest holders”. The fate of Yakim is typical for the peasants of post-reform Rus': he “once lived in St. Petersburg,” but, having lost a lawsuit with a merchant, he ended up in prison, from where he returned, “torn like a piece of Velcro” and “took up his plow.”

The writer treats with great sympathy his hero Yermil Girin, the village elder, fair, honest, intelligent, who, according to the peasants: “At seven years old he did not squeeze a worldly penny under his fingernail, at seven years he did not touch the right, did not allow the guilty, did not with his soul screwed up...” Only once did Yermil act against his conscience, giving the old woman Vlasyevna’s son to the army instead of his brother. Repenting, he tried to hang himself. According to the peasants, Yermil had everything for happiness: peace, money, honor, but his honor was special, not bought “neither money nor fear: strict truth, intelligence and kindness.” The people, defending the worldly cause, help Yermil save the mill in difficult times and show exceptional trust in him. This act confirms the ability of the people to act together, in peace. And Yermil, not afraid of prison, took the side of the peasants when: “the estate of the landowner Obrubkov rebelled...” Yermil Girin is a defender of peasant interests. If the protest of Yakim Nagogo is spontaneous, then Yermil Girin rises to a conscious protest.

Another hero of the work is Savely. Savely, the Holy Russian hero, is a fighter for the people's cause. Savely acts as a folk philosopher. He ponders whether the people should continue to endure their lack of rights and oppressed state. Savely comes to the conclusion: it is better to “understand” than to “endure,” and he calls for protest. In his youth, like all peasants, he endured cruel bullying for a long time from the landowner Shalashnikov, his manager. But Savely cannot accept such an order, and he rebels along with other peasants; he buried the living German Vogel in the ground. Saveliy received “twenty years of strict hard labor, twenty years of imprisonment” for this. Returning as an old man to his native village, Savely retained good spirits and hatred of the oppressors. "Branded, but not a slave!" - he said about himself. Until old age Savely retained a clear mind, warmth, and responsiveness. In the poem he is shown as the people's avenger: “our axes lay - for the time being!” He speaks contemptuously about passive peasants, calling them “dead... lost.” Nekrasov calls Saveliy a Holy Russian hero, raising him very high, emphasizing his heroic character, and also compares him with the folk hero Ivan Susanin. The image of Savely personifies the people's desire for freedom. The image of Savely is given in the same chapter with the image of Matryona Timofeevna not by chance. The poet shows together two heroic Russian characters.

Nekrasov poem peasantry Rus'

In the last chapter, called “The Woman’s Parable,” the peasant woman speaks about the common female lot: “The keys to women’s happiness, to our free will, are abandoned, lost to God himself.” But Nekrasov is sure that the “keys” must be found. The peasant woman will wait and achieve happiness. The poet speaks about this in one of Grisha Dobrosklonov’s songs: “You are still a slave in the family, but the mother of a free son!”

With great love, Nekrasov painted images of truth-seekers, fighters, in which the strength of the people and the will to fight the oppressors were expressed. However, the writer did not close his eyes to the dark sides of the life of the peasantry. The poem depicts peasants who are corrupted by their masters and have become accustomed to their slave position. In the chapter “Happy,” the truth-seeking peasants meet with a “broken yard man” who considers himself happy because he was the beloved slave of Prince Peremetyev. The courtyard is proud that his “daughter, together with the young lady, studied French and all sorts of languages, she was allowed to sit down in the presence of the princess.” And the servant himself stood behind the chair of His Serene Highness for thirty years, licking the plates after him and finishing off the remnants of overseas wines. He is proud of his “closeness” to the masters and his “honorable” disease - gout. Simple freedom-loving peasants laugh at the slave looking down on his fellow men, not understanding the baseness of his lackey position. Prince Utyatin’s yard servant Ipat didn’t even believe that “freedom” had been declared to the peasants: “And I am the Prince Utyatin’s Serf - and that’s the whole story!”

From childhood until old age, the master mocked his slave Ipat as best he could. The footman took all this for granted: “he ransomed me, the last slave, in an ice hole in winter! How wonderful! Two holes: he’ll lower it into one in a net, and into the other he’ll instantly pull it out and bring him some vodka.” Ipat could not forget the master's "mercies" that after swimming in the ice hole the prince would "bring vodka" and then seat him "next to the unworthy one with his princely person."

The obedient slave is also shown in the image of an “exemplary slave - Jacob the faithful.” Yakov served under the cruel Mr. Polivanov, who “was blowing his heel into the teeth of an exemplary slave.” Despite such treatment, the faithful slave took care of and pleased the master until his old age. The landowner cruelly offended his faithful servant by recruiting his beloved nephew Grisha. Yakov made a fool of himself. First, he “drank the dead woman,” and then he took the master into a deep forest ravine and hanged himself on a pine tree above his head. The poet condemns such manifestations of protest as well as servile submission.

Nekrasov speaks with deep indignation about such traitors to the people's cause as Elder Gleb. He, bribed by the heir, destroyed the “freedom” given to the peasants before his death by the old master-admiral, thereby “for tens of years, until recently, the villain secured eight thousand souls.” For the images of courtyard peasants who became slaves of their masters and abandoned genuine peasant interests, the poet finds words of angry contempt: slave, serf, dog, Judas.

The poem also notes such a feature of the Russian peasantry as religiosity. It's a way to escape reality. God is the supreme judge from whom the peasants seek protection and justice. Faith in God is hope for a better life.

Nekrasov concludes the characteristics with a typical generalization: “people of the servile rank are real dogs sometimes: the more severe the punishment, the dearer the Lord is to them.” Creating different types of peasants, Nekrasov argues that there are no happy ones among them, that the peasants, even after the abolition of serfdom, are still destitute and bloodless. But among the peasants there are people capable of conscious, active protest, and he believes that with the help of such people in the future, everyone will live well in Rus', and first of all, a good life will come for the Russian people. “Limits have not yet been set for the Russian people: there is a wide path before them” N.A. Nekrasov, in his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” recreated the life of the peasantry in post-reform Russia, revealed the typical character traits of Russian peasants, showing that this is a force to be reckoned with, which is gradually beginning to realize its rights.

Definitely negative heroes. Nekrasov describes various perverted relationships between landowners and serfs. The young lady who whipped men for swear words seems kind and affectionate in comparison with the landowner Polivanov. He bought a village with bribes, in it he “played freely, indulged in drinking, drank bitterly,” was greedy and stingy. The faithful servant Yakov took care of the master, even when his legs were paralyzed. But the master chose Yakov’s only nephew to become a soldier, flattered by his bride.

Separate chapters are devoted to two landowners.

Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev.

Portrait

To describe the landowner, Nekrasov uses diminutive suffixes and speaks of him with disdain: a round gentleman, mustachioed and pot-bellied, ruddy. He has a cigar in his mouth, and he’s carrying a C grade. In general, the image of the landowner is sweet and not at all menacing. He is not young (sixty years old), “portanous, stocky,” with a long gray mustache and dashing manners. The contrast between the tall men and the squat gentleman should make the reader smile.

Character

The landowner was frightened by the seven peasants and pulled out a pistol, as plump as himself. The fact that the landowner is afraid of the peasants is typical for the time this chapter of the poem was written (1865), because the liberated peasants gladly took revenge on the landowners whenever possible.

The landowner boasts of his “noble” origins, described with sarcasm. He says that Obolt Obolduev is a Tatar who entertained the queen with a bear two and a half centuries ago. Another of his maternal ancestors, about three hundred years ago, tried to set fire to Moscow and rob the treasury, for which he was executed.

Lifestyle

Obolt-Obolduev cannot imagine his life without comfort. Even when talking with the men, he asks the servant for a glass of sherry, a pillow and a carpet.

The landowner nostalgically recalls the old days (before the abolition of serfdom), when all nature, peasants, fields and forests worshiped the master and belonged to him. Noble houses competed with churches in beauty. The life of a landowner was a continuous holiday. The landowner kept many servants. In the fall he was engaged in hound hunting - a traditional Russian pastime. During the hunt, the landowner’s chest breathed freely and easily, “the spirit was transferred to the ancient Russian customs.”

Obolt-Obolduev describes the order of landowner life as the absolute power of the landowner over the serfs: “There is no contradiction in anyone, I will have mercy on whomever I want, and I will execute whomever I want.” A landowner can beat serfs indiscriminately (word hit repeated three times, there are three metaphorical epithets for it: spark-sprinkling, tooth-breaking, zygomatic-rot). At the same time, the landowner claims that he punished lovingly, that he took care of the peasants, and set tables for them in the landowner’s house on holidays.

The landowner considers the abolition of serfdom to be similar to breaking the great chain connecting masters and peasants: “Now we don’t beat the peasant, but at the same time we don’t have mercy on him like a father.” The landowners' estates were dismantled brick by brick, the forests were cut down, the men were committing robbery. The economy also fell into disrepair: “The fields are unfinished, the crops are unsown, there is no trace of order!” The landowner does not want to work on the land, and what his purpose is, he no longer understands: “I smoked God’s heaven, wore the royal livery, littered the people’s treasury and thought of living like this forever...”

Last One

This is what the peasants called their last landowner, Prince Utyatin, under whom serfdom was abolished. This landowner did not believe in the abolition of serfdom and became so angry that he had a stroke.

Fearing that the old man would be deprived of his inheritance, his relatives told him that they had ordered the peasants to turn back to the landowners, and they themselves asked the peasants to play this role.

Portrait

The last one is an old man, thin as hares in winter, white, a beaked nose like a hawk, long gray mustache. He, seriously ill, combines the helplessness of a weak hare and the ambition of a hawk.

Character Traits

The last tyrant, “fools in the old way”, because of his whims, both his family and the peasants suffer. For example, I had to sweep away a ready-made stack of dry hay just because the old man thought it was wet.

The landowner Prince Utyatin is arrogant and believes that the nobles have betrayed their age-old rights. His white cap is a sign of landowner power.

Utyatin never valued the lives of his serfs: he bathed them in an ice hole and forced them to play the violin on horseback.

In old age, the landowner began to demand even greater nonsense: he ordered a six-year-old to be married to a seventy-year-old, to quiet the cows so that they would not moo, to appoint a deaf-mute fool as a watchman instead of a dog.

Unlike Obolduev, Utyatin does not learn about his changed status and dies “as he lived, as a landowner.”

• The image of Savely in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
• The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
• The image of Matryona in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was created over more than ten years (1863-1876). The main problem that interested the poet was the situation of the Russian peasant under serfdom and after “liberation.” N. A. Nekrasov speaks about the essence of the tsar’s manifesto in the words of the people: “You are kind, tsar’s charter, but you were not written about us.” The pictures of folk life are written with an epic breadth, and this gives the right to call it an encyclopedia of Russian life of that time.

Drawing numerous images of peasants and different characters, the author divides the heroes into two camps: slaves and fighters. Already in the prologue we meet the truth-seeking peasants. They live in villages with characteristic names: v Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaika. The purpose of their journey is to find a happy person in Rus'. While traveling, peasants meet different people. After listening to the priest’s story about his “happiness”, having received advice to find out about the landowner’s happiness, the peasants say:

You're past them, the landowners!

We know them!

Truth-seekers are not satisfied with the “noble” word, they need the “Christian word”:

Give me your Christian word!

Noblesse with abuse,

With a push and a punch,

That is of no use to us.

Truth-seekers are hardworking and always strive to help others. Having heard from a peasant woman that there are not enough workers to harvest the bread on time, the men suggest:

What are we doing, godfather?

Bring on the sickles! All seven

How will we be tomorrow - by evening

We will burn all your rye!

They also willingly help the peasants of the Illiterate Province mow the grass.

Nekrasov most fully reveals the images of peasant fighters who do not grovel before their masters and do not resign themselves to their slave position.

Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo lives in terrible poverty. He works himself to death, saving himself under the harrow from the heat and rain.

The chest is sunken; as if pressed in

Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth

Bends like cracks

On dry ground...

Reading the description of the peasant’s appearance, we understand that Yakim, having toiled all his life on a gray, barren piece of land, himself became like the earth. Yakim admits that most of his labor is appropriated by “shareholders” who do not work, but live on the labors of peasants like him:

You work alone

And the work is almost over,

Look, there are three shareholders standing:

God, king and lord!

All his long life, Yakim worked, experienced many hardships, went hungry, went to prison, and, “like a piece of velcro, he returned to his homeland.” But still he finds the strength to create at least some kind of life, some kind of beauty. Yakim decorates his hut with pictures, loves apt words, his speech is full of proverbs and sayings. Yakim is the image of a new type of peasant, a rural proletarian who has been in the latrine industry. And his voice is the voice of the most advanced peasants: . Every peasant

Soul, like a black cloud -

Angry, menacing - and it should be

Thunder will roar from there,

It's raining bloody...

WITH The poet has great sympathy for his hero Ermil Girin, the village elder, fair, honest, smart, who, according to the peasants,

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...

Only once did Yermil act dishonestly, giving the old woman Vlasyevna’s son to the army instead of his brother. Repenting, he tried to hang himself. According to the peasants, Yermil had everything for happiness: peace of mind, money, honor, but his honor was special, not bought “neither money nor fear: strict truth, intelligence and kindness.”

The people, defending the worldly cause, in difficult times help Yermil preserve the mill, showing exceptional trust in him. This act confirms the ability of the people to act together, in peace. And Yermil, not afraid of the prison, took the side of the peasants when “the estate of the landowner Obrubkov was rebelling.” Ermil Girin is a defender of peasant interests.

The next and most striking image in this series is Savely, the Holy Russian hero, a fighter for the people's cause. In his youth, he, like all peasants, endured cruel bullying for a long time from the landowner Shalashnikov and his manager. But Savely cannot accept such an order, and he rebels along with other peasants, he buried the German Vogel in the ground alive. Savely received “twenty years of strict hard labor, twenty years of imprisonment” for this. Returning as an old man to his native village, he retained good spirits and hatred of his oppressors. “Branded, but not a slave!” - he says about himself. Until old age Savely retained a clear mind, warmth, and responsiveness. In the poem he is shown as the people's avenger:

...Our axes

They lay there for the time being!

He speaks contemptuously about passive peasants, calling them “perished... lost.”

Nekrasov calls Saveliy a Holy Russian hero, emphasizing his heroic character, and also compares him with the folk hero Ivan Susanin. The image of Savely personifies the people's desire for freedom.

This image is given in the same chapter with the image of Matryona Timofeevna not by chance. The poet shows together two heroic Russian characters. Matryona Timofeevna goes through many trials. In her parents' house she lived freely and cheerfully, and after marriage she had to work like a slave, endure the reproaches of her husband's relatives, and her husband's beatings. She found joy only in work and children. She had a hard time with the death of her son Demushka, the year of hunger, and beggary. But in difficult moments, she showed firmness and persistence: she worked for the release of her husband, who was illegally taken as a soldier, and even went to the governor himself. She stood up for Fedotushka when they wanted to punish him with rods. Rebellious, determined, she is always ready to defend her rights, and this brings her closer to Savely. Having told the wanderers about her difficult life, she says that “it’s not a matter of looking for a happy one among women.” In the chapter entitled “The Woman’s Parable,” the Yankee peasant speaks about a woman’s lot:

The keys to female happiness,

From our free will

Abandonedlost

From God himself.

But Nekrasov is sure that the “keys” must be found. The peasant woman will wait and achieve happiness. The poet talks about this in one of Grisha Dobroskponov’s songs:

You are still a slave in the family,

But the mother of a free son!

Nekrasov, with a special feeling, created images of truth-seekers, fighters, in which the strength of the people and the will to fight the oppressors were expressed. However, the poet could not help but turn to the dark sides of the life of the peasantry. The poem depicts peasants who have become accustomed to their slave position. In the chapter “Happy,” the truth-seeking peasants meet a courtyard man who considers himself happy because he was the beloved slave of Prince Peremetyev. The courtyard is proud that his daughter, together with the young lady, “studied French and all sorts of languages; she was allowed to sit down in the presence of the princess.” And the servant himself stood behind the chair of His Serene Highness for thirty years, licking the plates after him and finishing off the remnants of overseas wines. He is proud of his “closeness” to the masters and his “honorable” disease - gout. Simple freedom-loving peasants laugh at the slave who looks down on his fellow men, not understanding the baseness of his lackey position. Prince Utyatin’s servant Ipat did not even believe that “freedom” had been declared to the peasants:

And I am the Utyatin princes

Serf - and that's the whole story!

From childhood until old age, the master mocked his slave Ipat in every possible way. The footman took all this for granted: ...ransomed

Me, the latter's slave,

In winter in the ice hole!

How wonderful!

Two ice holes:

He will lower you into one in a net,

In another moment he will pull out -

And he’ll bring you some vodka.

Ipat could not forget the master’s “mercies”: the fact that after swimming in the ice hole the prince would “bring some vodka”, then he would seat him “next to, unworthy, his princely person.”

A submissive slave is also an “exemplary slave—Yakov the faithful.” He served under the cruel Mr. Polivanov, who “in the teeth of an exemplary slave... casually blew his heel.” Despite such treatment, the faithful slave took care of and pleased the master until his old age. The landowner cruelly offended his faithful servant by recruiting his beloved nephew Grisha. Yakov “made a fool”: first he “drank the dead man”, and then he drove the master into a remote forest ravine and hanged himself on a pine tree above his head. The poet condemns such manifestations of protest as well as servile submission.

Nekrasov speaks with indignation about such traitors to the people's cause as Elder Gleb. He, bribed by the heir, destroyed the “freedom” given to the peasants before his death by the old master-admiral, thereby “for tens of years, until recently, the villain secured eight thousand souls.”

To characterize the serf peasants, deprived of a sense of their own dignity, the poet finds contemptuous words: slave, serf, dog, Judas. Nekrasov concludes the characteristics with a typical generalization:

People of servile rank -

Real dogs sometimes:

The heavier the punishment,

That's why gentlemen are dearer to them.

Creating different types of peasants, Ne-krasov argues: there are no happy ones among them, the peasants, even after the abolition of serfdom, are still destitute and deprived of blood, only the forms of oppression have changed. But among the peasants there are people capable of conscious, active protest. And therefore the poet believes that in the future there will be a good life in Rus':

More to the Russian people

No limits set:

There is a wide path before him.

I. Images of peasants and peasant women in poetry.
2. Heroes of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”
3. Collective image of the Russian people.

Peasant Rus', the bitter lot of the people, as well as the strength and nobility of the Russian people, their age-old habit of work is one of the main themes in the works of N. A. Nekrasov. In the poems “On the Road,” “Schoolboy,” “Troika,” “Railway,” “Forgotten Village” and many others, we see images of peasants and peasant women, created by the author with great sympathy and admiration.

He is struck by the beauty of the young peasant girl, the heroine of the poem “Troika,” who runs after the troika flying past. But admiration gives way to thoughts about her future bitter female lot, which will quickly destroy this beauty. The heroine faces a joyless life, beatings from her husband, eternal reproaches from her mother-in-law and hard daily work that leaves no room for dreams and aspirations. The fate of Pear from the poem “On the Road” is even more tragic. Brought up as a young lady at the master's whim, she was married to a man and returned “to the village.” But torn out from her environment and not accustomed to hard peasant labor, having touched culture, she can no longer return to her former life. The poem contains almost no description of her husband, the coachman. But the compassion with which he talks about the fate of the “villainous wife,” understanding the tragedy of her situation, tells us a lot about himself, his kindness and nobility. For his failed family life, he blames not so much his wife as the “masters” who destroyed her in vain.

The poet no less expressively depicts the men who once came to the front entrance. Their description occupies only one sixth of the work and is given outwardly sparingly: bent backs, a thin little Armenian, tanned faces and hands, a cross on the neck and blood on the feet, shod in homemade bast shoes. Apparently their path was not close to the front entrance, where they were never allowed in, without accepting the meager contribution they could offer. But if all the other visitors who “besiege” the front entrance on weekdays and holidays are portrayed by the poet with a greater or lesser degree of irony, then he writes about the peasants with open sympathy and respectfully calls them Russian people.

Nekrasov also glorifies the moral beauty, resilience, and courage of the Russian people in the poem “Frost, Red Nose.” The author emphasizes the bright individuality of his heroes: parents who suffered a terrible grief - the death of their breadwinner son, Proclus himself - a mighty hero-worker with large calloused hands. Many generations of readers admired the image of Daria - the “stately Slavic woman”, beautiful in all clothes and dexterous in any work. This is the poet’s true hymn to the Russian peasant woman, accustomed to earning wealth through her labor, who knows how to both work and rest.

It is the peasants who are the main characters in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Seven “stately men from temporarily obliged”, as they call themselves, from villages with telling names (Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neuro-zhaika), are trying to solve a difficult question: “who lives a happy, free life in Rus'? " Each of them imagines happiness in his own way and calls different people happy: the landowner, the priest, the tsar’s minister and the sovereign himself. They are a generalized image of a peasant - persistent, patient, sometimes hot-tempered, but also ready to stand for the truth and his beliefs. The wanderers are not the only representatives of the people in the poem. We see many other male and female images there. At the fair, the peasants meet Vavila, “selling goatskin shoes to his granddaughter.” Leaving for the fair, he promised everyone gifts, but “drank himself to a penny.” Vavila is ready to patiently endure the reproaches of her family, but is tormented by the fact that she will not be able to bring the promised gift to her granddaughter. This man, for whom only a tavern is a consolation in a difficult, hopeless life, evokes in the author not condemnation, but rather compassion. Those around him also sympathize with the man. And everyone is ready to help him with bread or work, but only the master Pavlusha Veretennikov was able to help him with money. And when he helped Vavila out and bought shoes for him, everyone around was happy as if he had given everyone a ruble. This ability of a Russian person to sincerely rejoice for another adds another important feature to the collective image of a peasant.

The same breadth of the people’s soul is emphasized by the author in the story about Ermil Ilyich, from whom the rich merchant Altynnikov decided to take away the mill. When it was necessary to make a deposit, Yermil turned to the people with a request to help him out. And the hero collected the necessary amount, and exactly a week later he honestly repaid the debt to everyone, and everyone honestly took only as much as they gave and there was even an extra ruble left, which Yermil gave to the blind. It is no coincidence that the peasants unanimously elect him as headman. And he judges everyone fairly, punishes the guilty and does not offend the right and does not take a single extra penny for himself. Only once, in modern terms, Yermil took advantage of his position and tried to save his brother from recruitment by sending another young man in his place. But his conscience tormented him and he confessed to his untruth in front of the whole world and left his position. Grandfather Saveliy is also a bright representative of the people’s persistent, honest, ironic character. A hero with a huge mane, looking like a bear. Matryona Timofeevna tells the wanderers about him, whom the wanderers also ask about happiness. His own son calls Saveliy’s grandfather “branded, a convict,” and the family doesn’t like him. Matryona, who has suffered many insults in her husband’s family, finds consolation from him. He tells her about the times when there was neither a landowner nor a manager over them, they did not know corvée and did not pay rent. Since there were no roads in their places, except for animal trails. Such a comfortable life continued until “through dense forests and marshy swamps” the German master sent them to them. This German deceived the peasants into making a road and began to govern in a new way, ruining the peasants. They endured for the time being, and one day, unable to bear it, they pushed the German into a hole and buried him alive. From the hardships of prison and hard labor that befell him, Savely became coarse and hardened, and only the appearance of the baby Demushka in the family brought him back to life. The hero learned to enjoy life again. It is he who has the hardest time surviving the death of this baby. He did not reproach himself for the murder of the German, but for the death of this baby, whom he neglected, he reproaches him so much that he cannot live among people and goes into the forest.

All the characters from the people depicted by Nekrasov create a single collective image of a peasant worker, strong, persistent, long-suffering, filled with inner nobility and kindness, ready to help those who need it in difficult times. And although this peasant’s life in Rus' is not sweet, the poet believes in his great future.