The fate of the Russian peasant woman. (According to Nekrasov's poem "Who is it good to live in Rus'?")
Keys to female happiness
From our free will,
abandoned, lost
God himself!
Nekrasov was the first to write about peasant women, about their fate, life, happiness and misfortune. He wrote about the harsh one. In his work, he describes a peasant woman as powerless, crushed by hard slave labor, but retaining physical and spiritual beauty. Other writers, for example, Pushkin, Lermontov wrote more about women of high society. These ladies, ignorant of need, hunger, because they were very rich. And the writers did not even suspect how interesting, but at the same time difficult, the life of a peasant woman can be.
Since I consider this problem relevant for our time, I would like to show it on the example of Matryona Timofeevna, the heroine of Nekrasov's poem.
Matryona Timofeevna is a beautiful, portly woman, broad and thick, about thirty-eight.
Beautiful: gray hair,
The eyes are large, stern,
Eyelashes are the richest
Stern and swarthy.
Despite the fact that she had a very hard time in life, her character was persistent. She is patient with her family, where she is insulted and forced to work like a slave.
Before marriage, Matryona Timofeevna lived happily. She had a good non-drinking family. She lived for her own pleasure. She did not hang herself on guys, but she still found a groom.
She married Philip Korchagin. In this family, Matryona Timofeevna lived very badly. Her husband kept her so that she would not quarrel with her father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law. Only one grandfather, Savely, treated her well.
Soon Matryona's first son Dyomushka was born. She loved him very much and all the time went with him to the field where she worked. But one day her mother-in-law opposed this, and then Matryona left Dyoma with her grandfather Savelich.
Matryona Timofeevna had a second son, Fedotushka. And a misfortune happened to him, because of which his mother suffered:
Saved a minor.
By youth, by stupidity
Forgive: but a daring woman
About to punish!
But one misfortune was not enough. The husband was taken into recruits. Without her husband, Matryona Timofeevna had even worse, she herself was starving, trying to feed her family. She had to go to the city to the governor's wife and ask her to return her husband from the recruits. And the governor helped her . The husband returned home.
There was a lot of misfortune in the life of Matryona Timofeevna, but there was also happiness. All these events tempered her character and will.
It is difficult, very difficult for a peasant woman to live. There are many worries on her shoulders. And a house, and children, and a husband, and work. It is hard for her to live. So where are they, the keys to women's happiness? Do they not exist?>.
The poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who should live well in Rus'” is a work that depicts the consequences of one of the most significant events in the history of Russia - the abolition of serfdom. The peasantry expected liberation, but, having gone free without land, they found themselves in an even more difficult situation. Nekrasov tells about this in his poem. He wrote it for twenty years, wishing to cover all social strata of Russia: from a simple peasant to a tsar. The title itself already poses the main problem of the whole work - this is the problem of happiness.
The main characters of the work are seven wandering men: Roman, Demyan, Luka, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin, the old man Pakhom and Prov, who went on a journey to find out who “live well in Rus'”:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
The form of travel helps Nekrasov to show the life of all strata of society in all its diversity and throughout Russia. In the poem, the reader will find an idea of \u200b\u200bhappiness among ordinary peasants and landowners.
The wanderers decided to start looking for those living "at ease" at the village fair. They throw a cry, whether there are happy people among those present in the festive crowd, and promise them to pour vodka. The first to come to talk about his happiness is a skinny, dismissed deacon, who assures that happiness lies in “complacency” and faith in the kingdom of heaven, and says that this is what makes him happy. The next one comes an old woman and claims that in her garden “up to a thousand turnips” have been born, tasty and large. Then a soldier with medals appears to the wanderers and says that he is happy, because he was in twenty battles, and not killed, they beat him with sticks, starved him, but he did not die. The stonemason claims that his happiness lies in great strength. Thus, we see that ordinary people find happiness in simple things, in everyday phenomena - in the harvest, in bread, in strength. But all this is a rather pathetic semblance of happiness.
Traveling peasants are advised to ask the landowner Ermila Girin about happiness, who kept the mill. The court decides to sell it. Yermila wins the bargain with the merchant, but the scribes needed the money right away, but Girin does not have it. He had to turn to the people, promising to return them to everyone, which he did. And people believed him. Having met with the landowner, the wanderers listen to his story about how kind he was, how “on bright Sunday, with all his patrimony, he himself Christed himself”, claims that peasants were allowed to pray in his house for holidays. However, the good life ended with the abolition of serfdom, although the peasants sympathize with the landowner, they first of all think about themselves.
Thus, the reader understands that even the landlords do not live happily in Rus'. Travelers come to the conclusion that it is necessary to look for women's happiness in the people. But, contrary to their expectations, the story of Matrena Timofeevna is full of drama. The life of a “happy” peasant woman is dominated by losses, grief, hard work. The words of a woman's confession are bitter:
Keys to female happiness
From our free will
abandoned, lost
God himself!
Isn't this a dramatic situation? Is it really impossible for the peasants to find a truly happy person, satisfied with his life, in the vast expanses of Great Rus'? The strangers are despondent.
Having met Grisha Dobrosklonov, travelers understand that they are truly happy people. But his happiness is not in wealth, contentment, peace, but in the respect of the people, who see Grisha as their intercessor:
Fate prepared for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
The poem ends with the following warning:
Rat rises -
Innumerable!
The strength will affect her
Invincible!
The Russian people are capable of much if they are led by such a leader as Grisha Dobrosklonov.
Once again, Nekrasov proves that happiness for a Russian person lies not in material wealth, but in fortitude. The answer to the question posed in the poem can be as follows: it is good to live in Rus' for those people who are looking for good in the environment and strive to do something good for the happiness of others. Ordinary peasants are also happy with a rich harvest, and such popular intercessors as Grisha Dobrosklonov will be “at ease” only when he sees a happy gleam in the eyes of those around him.
The problem of happiness in the poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who should live well in Rus'”
One of the central works of Nekrasov is the poem "Who should live well in Rus'." It reflected most of the motives and ideas that can be traced in the works of Nekrasov throughout his entire career: the problems of serfdom, the features of the Russian national character, the motives of people's suffering and people's happiness - all this can be seen on the pages of the poem. A peculiar depth is also created by the "incompleteness" of the poem, because the scale of the narrative and the lack of a clear ending makes readers look at the questions posed by Nekrasov as general historical ones. Due to this, the narrow time frame described in the poem is expanding, covering several centuries of the history of the Russian people, reflecting all aspects of the life of the peasant class. And the definition of people's happiness requires especially deep and serious consideration.
According to the plot, seven men converge "on the pillar path":
Agreed - and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
During the argument, they did not notice how “the red sun set” and evening came. Realizing that they were "thirty miles away" from the house, the peasants decide to spend the night "under the forest near the path." In the morning, the argument continued with renewed vigor, and the peasants decide that they will not return home, "until they find out" what is really happy in Rus'.
They go in search of a happy man. Here it makes sense to note that their criteria for happiness are rather vague, because “happiness” is a rather multifaceted concept. It is quite possible that men do not notice a happy person simply because they have different concepts of happiness with this person. This is what explains why wanderers do not see a happy person in anyone they meet. Although, for example, the deacon says:
... happiness is not in pastures,
Not in sables, not in gold,
Not in expensive stones.
“And what is it?” - “In complacency! ..”
The happiness of a soldier lies in the fact that he has been in many battles, but remained intact, that he did not starve to death and was not beaten to death with sticks:
… first, happiness,
That in twenty battles I live, not killed!
And secondly, more importantly,
Even in times of peace I walked neither full nor hungry,
And death did not give!
And thirdly - for faults,
Great and small
Mercilessly I beat with sticks,
And at least feel it - it's alive!
In turn, the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev has completely different values:
... Your villages are modest,
Your forests are dense
Your fields are all around!
Will you go through the village - Peasants fall at their feet,
You will go through the forest dachas - The forests will bow with hundred-year-old trees! ..
Too different ideas about happiness are found in the poem. The reader can meet in the work reflections on muzhik happiness, about
landlord happiness, but there is no female happiness in “Who in Rus' Lives Well”. And this is exhaustively explained to us by Matryona Timofeevna:
Keys to female happiness
From our free will Abandoned, lost in God himself!
Introducing readers to various concepts of happiness, Nekrasov not only shows the ambiguity of the problem, but also explains the existence of a huge gulf between classes that has persisted in Russia for many centuries. The question of the source of people's suffering here is also ambiguous. It would seem that the answer is obvious: the existing tsarist regime, people's poverty and oppression, and, of course, serfdom, the abolition of which did not change or simplify the painful existence of the peasants, are to blame for everything:
You work alone
And a little work is over,
Look, there are three equity holders:
God, king and lord!
However, the position of the author here is somewhat different. Nekrasov does not deny the terrible burden of peasant labor, but he also portrays the peasants themselves as powerful, unbending, able to withstand any work. He shows that all misfortunes happen to the peasants by chance, as if independently of the oppression of the landowners: Yakim Nagoi suffers from a fire, and Savely, accidentally dozing off, loses Demushka.
By this, Nekrasov wants to show that the true causes of people's suffering lie much deeper and that the Russian peasant will not find happiness in gaining freedom. From the author's point of view, true happiness requires something completely different.
The reader can see this completely different, true happiness in the image of Grigory Dobrosklonov - a character in which Nekrasov combined the features of the advanced people of that time, the features of people who were especially close to the author (N. G. Chernyshevsky was among them):
Fate was preparing a glorious path for him, a loud name
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
Grigory Dobrosklonov, being a people's intercessor, is a truly happy person, Nekrasov believes. Despite the difficult fate, he does not become a slave to circumstances, but continues his difficult path. Love for the motherland is the most natural feeling for him, comparable to love for his mother:
And soon in the heart of the boy With love for the poor mother, Love for the whole vakhlachin Merged ...
The true happiness of the hero lay in this boundless love and struggle for the happiness of the people:
“I don’t need neither silver nor gold, but God forbid,
So that my countrymen And every peasant Live freely and cheerfully In all of holy Rus'!
Dobrosklonov understands that society needs fundamental changes, that a Russian person must destroy the slavish obedience to fate in himself and fight to improve the life of both his own and those around him:
Enough! Finished with the last calculation,
Done with sir!
The Russian people are gathering strength And learning to be a citizen.
This is how the author sees the problem of people's happiness in a multifaceted way. In addition to the ambiguity of the very concept of "happiness", the reader sees different ways to achieve it. In addition, in the poem one can see the most beautiful idea of happiness, coupled here with the achievement of the public good. Nekrasov did not complete the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'", but he pointed out the right path to achieving civil ideals, as well as freedom and personal happiness of people.
- The theme of the poem.
- The image of a peasant woman.
- Matrena Timofeevna as a bright representative of a peasant woman.
- A feature of the female character of Nekrasov.
N. A. Nekrasov devotes his final work, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, to a symbolic search for a happy person in Rus'. The author explores the life of various strata of Russian society: peasants, landlords, clergy. The fate of the Russian peasant woman becomes a special topic, for it turns out to be even harder than the fate of the other peasants. “It’s not a matter between women / to look for a happy one,” Matryona Timofeevna, the heroine of the chapter “Peasant Woman,” directly answers the wanderers who turned to her. But the image of a peasant woman, enslaved by both serfdom and the despotism of her husband's family, worries Nekrasov more.
This type was most fully revealed by Nekrasov in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in the image of Matryona Korchagina. The bitter lot of a peasant woman, eternally humiliated by poverty, overworking and not seeing happiness, causes deep sympathy in the soul of the poet, but at the same time, he notes in her character both human dignity, and pride, and unshakable moral purity. The image of Matrena Timofeevna is given in the poem in dynamics, in development.
The heroine had a happy, carefree early childhood, and from the age of five she began to get involved in feasible work: “she carried her father for breakfast, she grazed the ducklings”, “turned the hay”, etc. Yes, even happiness - I got a good husband. Matryona did not have to, like many other peasant women, live with the “hateful”, endure beatings. Matryona lived with her husband in love and harmony. It was this harmony in the family that helped the heroine endure troubles and misfortunes. Philip was a stove-maker, constantly leaving to work in St. Petersburg. Matryona was very upset by constant separation. She had to adapt to life in a strange family. A young beautiful woman, in the absence of her husband-protector, was pursued by the master's manager. None of the relatives, except for the hundred-year-old grandfather Savely, the heroine did not find support.
The character of Matrena Timofeevna is tempered precisely in severe trials. This is a smart, selfless, strong-willed, resolute woman. This is the image of a peasant woman not only strong in spirit, but also gifted and talented. Matrena's story about her life is a story about the fate of any peasant woman, a long-suffering Russian woman. The chapter itself is not named after her, but "Peasant Woman". This emphasizes that the fate of Matryona is not at all an exception to the rule, but the typical fate of millions of Russian peasant women. The best spiritual qualities - willpower, the ability to love, fidelity - make Matryona related to the heroines of the poem "Russian Women". Matryona Timofeevna's long story about her (still quite prosperous and extremely lucky!) fate is both an ode to the beauty of the soul of a Russian peasant woman and an accusation to those who doomed her to terrible torment.
Like Yermil Girin, Matryona is known throughout the district. But in the poem she tells about her life herself, and only seven wanderers listen to her. The veracity of the story is emphasized by the request of the wanderers: “Ata lay out your soul to us!” And the heroine of the chapter herself promises: "I will not hide anything."
Matryona Timofeevna's extraordinary creative talent allows her not only to keep folklore in her memory, but also to update it. The story is replete with elements of folklore works dedicated to the bitter fate of a woman: songs, proverbs, sayings, lamentations, lamentations.
Songs play a special role in describing the life of a Russian woman (it is no coincidence that the second chapter of this part of the poem is called "Songs"). Nekrasov depicts the life of a peasant woman in its entirety, from childhood, until the moment when she meets with the seekers of a happy person. There are several moments in the life of Matrena Timofeevna when those feelings that could lead her to decisive action are about to burst out. The first time - when, contrary to her pleas, the doctors begin the autopsy of Demushka's body. But the guard then orders to bind the mother. The second - when the headman decides to punish her son Fedotushka, who took pity on the hungry she-wolf.
The master decides to forgive the child, but to punish the "impudent woman" herself. And Nekrasov shows a very important feature of the strong-willed character of the heroine: she proudly lies down. under the rod, without stooping to ask for forgiveness, endures the pain and shame of public punishment. And only the next day she cried out her grief over the river. The only time when Matrena Timofeevna decides to fight for her happiness is when her husband is taken to the soldiers. She turns with a frantic prayer to the Mother of God, and this prayer, apparently, gives her strength: Matryona Timofeevna finds the courage to turn to the governor, who not only helps the peasant woman, but also becomes the godmother of her child. After this incident, Matryona begins to be called happy. This, it turns out, is the happiness of a peasant woman: not to become a soldier, to find the strength to remain silent and endure and raise children.
The keys to women's happiness, - From our free will, Abandoned, lost ... - such is the gloomy result of Matrena Timofeevna's conversation with seven wanderers. External beauty, cordiality, quick wits, the glory of a lucky woman make it possible to speak of Matryona Timofeevna as a unique, exceptional personality.
By depicting the fate of Matrena Timofeevna, the author makes deep generalizations: Russian women live in constant work, the joys and sorrows of motherhood, in the struggle for a family, for a home. The theme of the female share in the poem merges with the theme of the homeland. The female characters of Nekrasov's heroines speak of the strength, purity and incorruptibility of the common people. Those inhuman conditions of life, against which these images emerge, point to the urgent need for changes in the order, style and way of life in the villages and cities of old-regime Russia.
In the morning we are used to seeing a huge number of people rushing to work or school, and the fact that about half of these people are women does not surprise us in the least. In the evenings, you can watch happy dads picking up their children from kindergarten, as well as companies of single women who are in a state of far from the first sobriety, who are waiting for empty apartments with broken electrical appliances that they themselves will fix. But we understand that this was not always the case, because even in the century before last, things were completely different.
One of the most ardent fighters for peasant freedom, N.A. Nekrasov very colorfully and plausibly describes the fate of a certain peasant woman, Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, which is a generalization of the life of a Russian peasant woman in general. The people dubbed her happy, but is it really so? To answer this question, the reader is given the opportunity to follow almost the entire life of Matryona, from childhood to adulthood.
We are met by “a portly woman, wide and thick, a child of thirty-eight” (and most importantly - “with a sickle over her shoulder”) and begins her story, starting from childhood. Subsequently, we learn that this was precisely the happiest time in her life. The heroine was lucky with her family: "We had a good, non-drinking family.", She was raised in care and affection, but at the same time she was taught to work: "I myself ran to the herd, brought breakfast to my father, grazed ducklings." And in general, the entire chapter “before marriage” is written in iridescent colors and contains exceptionally pleasing plots. Moreover, the fact that her life will soon deteriorate is not a secret for anyone: “In a strange family, sleep is not long! Get to bed late! They’ll come to wake up before the sun, they’ll save a basket, they’ll throw a crust on the bottom: swallow it - and pick up a full basket! .. "Thus, Nekrasov, once again emphasizing the power of patience and humility of the Russian people, draws his attention to the fact that everyone understood perfectly well the order of things and resignedly obeyed him.Further, the author shows us that even if we make a peasant woman a happy childhood and love marriage, her fate will still be saturated with hopelessness and endless litigation.Having married, our Matryona finds herself in a completely unfamiliar environment, and since the world peasants are quite harsh, then the orders there are quite specific for modern man... Firstly, the female hierarchy: "" The family was huge, grumpy ... I got
From girlish Holi to hell! ”, Where the only thing you can do is again show patience, the bowl of which is not allowed to overflow. Secondly, it is the need to "save face", which is very difficult, especially when you are a newly arrived woman in an unfamiliar village. It is quite logical that every step you take will be looked at so sideways and distrustfully that any desire to do something will gradually disappear, and the absence of the aforementioned desire leads to isolation and, consequently, to loneliness. And what could be worse than loneliness?
Soon, all internal suffering is resolved by the birth of a son: “My handsome man drove away all the anger from my soul with an angelic smile, like the spring sun drives snow from the fields ... I didn’t worry that they didn’t tell me to work, no matter how scolded I was silent.” But here, too, the cruelty and unpredictability of the peasant disenfranchised world in relation to an even more disenfranchised woman makes itself felt. The death of her first child, the meaning of her life, came from the man she loves. Such things are doubly hard to endure.
The subsequent events are also not distinguished by their fabulousness: the threat of losing a husband, the threat of becoming defamed, falling under pagan beliefs, etc. Obviously, such things are completely sobering. In Matryona Timofeevna, the now dormant determination awakens; humility remains, but it is already on a par with the struggle. This feature, inherent in a peasant woman, is noted by Nekrasov with pride and admiration.
Having achieved what she fought for, and without betraying her moral principles, Matryona Timofeevna, for sure, can be called happy, but you need to understand that this “happiness” has been suffered. Yes, now they respect her and listen to her advice, she has a loving family, a stable income and household. And now let’s remember what she had to endure for the sake of all this: endure humiliation, do hard work, lose two loved ones, succumb to moral pressure, constantly sacrifice herself and endure again, while maintaining exorbitant inner strength and determination.
So how can Matryona be called a lucky woman, and are there really happy women among peasant women? My answer is no. They can be endlessly called strong, determined, rational, struggling and humble, pure, enduring, but never happy.
