Tale by I.A. Bunin “Village” - reflections on the Russian national character and the historical path of Russia, expression of details and words

The first years after the revolution of 1905-1907. became a desire to study social reality. The works of these years involve us in deep reflections on the history of Russia, its people, and the fate of the Russian revolution. There is an interpenetration of national, historical, contemplative and philosophical thought.

General characteristics of the "Village"

The story “The Village,” created in 1910, has such complex content in an outwardly traditional everyday guise. This is one of the first major works of Ivan Alekseevich, written in prose. The writer worked on its creation for 10 years, starting work back in 1900.

V.V. Voronovsky described this work, which opens the village cycle in Bunin’s work, as a study of the causes of “memorable failures” (that is, the reasons for the defeat of the revolution). However, the semantic content of the story is not limited to this. The story about the doom of the Russian outback, given in “The Village,” is one of the most talented descriptions of the fate of the patriarchal system in the history of modern times. There is a generalized image: the village is a kingdom of death and hunger.

The task that the author set for himself was to portray the Russian people without idealization. Therefore, Ivan Alekseevich carries out a merciless psychological analysis("Village"). Bunin had a wealth of material for him, which was given to the writer by the well-known life, everyday life and psychology of the Russian outback. A miserable, impoverished life, matched by the appearance of people - inertia, passivity, cruel morals- the writer observed all this, drawing conclusions, as well as conducting a thorough analysis.

"Village" (Bunin): the ideological basis of the work

The ideological basis of the story is a reflection on the complexity and problematic nature of the question “Who is to blame?” Kuzma Krasov, one of the main characters, is painfully struggling to resolve this issue. He believes that there is nothing to exact from the unfortunate people, and his brother, Tikhon Krasov, believes that the peasants themselves are to blame for this situation.

The two aforementioned characters are the main characters of this work. Tikhon Krasov personifies the appearance of the new village owner, and Kuzma - the people's intellectual. Bunin believes that the people themselves are to blame for the misfortunes, but does not give a clear answer to the question of what should be done.

The story "Village" (Bunin): composition of the work

The action of the story takes place in the village of Durnovka, which is collectively long-suffering village. This title indicates the idiocy of his life.

The composition is divided into three parts. In the first, Tikhon is in the center, in the second part - Kuzma, in the third, the lives of both brothers are summed up. Based on their destinies, the problems of the Russian village are shown. The images of Kuzma and Tikhon are in many ways opposite.

Tikhon, being a descendant of serfs who managed to get rich and become the owner of an estate, is sure that money is the most reliable thing in the world. This hardworking, savvy and strong-willed man devotes his entire life to the pursuit of wealth. Kuzma Krasov, lover of truth and folk poet, reflects on the fate of Russia, experiencing the poverty of the people and the backwardness of the peasantry.

Images of Kuzma and Tikhon

Using the example of Kuzma, Bunin shows the emerging features of a new folk psychology; Kuzma reflects on the savagery and laziness of the people, and that the reasons for this are not only the difficult circumstances in which the peasants found themselves, but also in them themselves. In contrast to the character of this hero, Ivan Bunin (“The Village”) portrays Tikhon as calculating and selfish. He gradually increases his capital, and on the path to power and prosperity does not stop at any means. However, despite the chosen direction, he feels despair and emptiness, which are directly related to the look into the future of the country, which opens up pictures of an even more brutal and destructive revolution.

Through disputes, thoughts, conclusions of brothers about themselves and about their homeland, the writer shows the bright and dark sides the lives of peasants, revealing the depth of the decline of the peasant world, conducting its analysis. “The Village” (Bunin) is the author’s deep reflection on the deplorable situation that has created among the peasants.

The third part of the work is devoted to the depiction of the brothers at the moment of crisis - summing up the life path of the main characters in the work "The Village" (Bunin). These heroes experience dissatisfaction with life: Kuzma is consumed by melancholy and hopeless loneliness, Tikhon is preoccupied with personal tragedy (lack of children), as well as the destruction of the foundations of the village’s everyday life. The brothers realize the hopelessness of the situation in which they find themselves. Despite all the differences in their characters and aspirations, the fate of these two heroes is in many ways similar: despite their enlightenment and prosperity, social status makes both of them superfluous and unnecessary.

Author's assessment of the revolution

The story "The Village" (Bunin) is a clear, sincere and truthful assessment of Russia during the writer's life. It shows that those who are "rebels" are empty and stupid people, who grew up in rudeness and lack of culture, and their protest is only a doomed attempt to change something. However, they are unable to make a revolution in their own consciousness, which remains hopeless and skeletal, as shown by author's analysis. The village of Bunin is a sad sight.

Portrayal of the peasantry

The men appear before the reader in all their ugliness: beating children and wives, wild drunkenness, torturing animals. Many Durnovites simply do not understand what is happening around them. So, the worker Koshel once visited the Caucasus, but cannot tell anything about it, except that there is “a mountain on a mountain” there. His mind is “poor”; he repels everything incomprehensible and new, but he believes that he recently saw a real witch.

A soldier works as a teacher in Durnovka, the most ordinary-looking guy, who, however, spoke such nonsense that one could only “throw up one’s hands.” Training was presented to him as accustoming him to strict army discipline.

The work "Village" (Bunin) gives us another bright image- the man Gray. He was the poorest in the village, although he had a lot of land. Once upon a time, Gray built a new hut, but it needed to be heated in winter, so he first burned the roof and then sold the hut. This hero refuses to work, sits idle in an unheated home, and the children are afraid of splinters because they are used to living in the dark.

The village is all of Russia, so the fate of the whole country is reflected in the work. Bunin believed that peasants were only capable of a spontaneous and senseless rebellion. The story describes how one day they rebelled throughout the district. It ended with the men burning down several estates, shouting “and then falling silent.”

Conclusion

Ivan Alekseevich was accused of hating the people and not knowing the village. But the author would never have created such a poignant story if he had not wholeheartedly rooted for his homeland and peasants, as can be seen in the work “Village.” Bunin, with the content of his story, wanted to show everything wild and dark that prevents people and the country from developing.

I.A. Bunin, a wonderful Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate in literature, paid a lot of attention to the theme of the village in his work. The question of the fate of the Russian peasantry became especially acute at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The post-reform decades not only did not solve this problem, but, on the contrary, deepened and aggravated it. The theme of the village never fell out of the field of view of Russian literature, and the changes that took place in life were reflected in it. First of all, the view of the peasant itself has changed: from a somewhat idealized, “round” “peasant”, literature is moving towards a deeper understanding of the ambiguous and sometimes contradictory character of the village resident.. I.A. Bunin, whose childhood was spent in the Oryol province, having become a writer, naturally could not ignore this topic. It is no coincidence that his first story, “Tanka,” was inspired by rural motifs. But the work that defined Bunin’s literary style and by which we can easily recognize the style of Bunin the prose writer was his famous story “Antonov Apples.”

What attracts me to him? First of all, a very subtle description of nature, deep lyricism, when a text written in prose is perceived as high poetry. The story has no clear plot. The author perceives individual episodes and arranges events arbitrarily, combining them general mood. These are scenes of collecting Antonov apples, threshing, hunting; and all this happens against the backdrop of dim, but surprisingly vibrant colors of the landscape of central Russia. Throughout the entire story there runs the through image of the garden as a symbol of the constancy and eternity of nature, while everything else is changeable and transitory. Directly opposite to this image are telegraph poles - ridiculous and frightening, symbolizing a different era, different morals. It is no coincidence that the author compares hunting in the old days, with greyhounds and crowded trips, and the hunting of today's impoverished landowners.

Comparing the “old” and “new”, I.A. Bunin prefers the “old”. The past is ideal for him and is not subject to critical analysis. However, reality itself, the dramatic course of Russian history forced I.A. Bunin to reconsider his views on village life, to see in it not only the bright, but also the dark sides. Defeat in the war with Japan, the first Russian revolution, more like a “senseless and merciless” rebellion, and finally, attempts by P.A. Stolypin to carry out agrarian reform - all this raised the question of whether the people are ready to manage their own history. The result of bitter thoughts about the fate of Russia was the story of I.A. Bunin's "Village", written in 1910. In it, the author seems to be arguing with himself, with “Antonov apples.”

If in the story village life is shrouded in a romantic haze of memories, then in the story the colors are brighter and more contrasting. Even nature here is devoid of charm: not the earth, but dirt; not open spaces, but tithes, suitable for purchase and sale. The story "The Village" is small in volume, but extremely rich. Its action takes place not only around the village of Durnovka, but also in other villages, at stations, in large and provincial cities. The exact time reference (period 1904-1907) is associated with the era of serfdom and goes back centuries, to Kievan Rus. In addition, the story is so densely populated with characters that, as a whole, it can be called a “little novel.” In the center of the plot is the life of two brothers, Tikhon and Kuzma Krasov, while the theme of the village itself is revealed as if through the example of their destinies. In the introduction, the author succinctly talks about their ancestors. My great-grandfather, a serf peasant, was hunted down by a landowner with greyhound dogs; the grandfather received his freedom and became a famous thief in the area; the father returned to the village, started a small trade, but quickly went broke. The main characters of the story began their independent lives with trade, but their paths diverged: Kuzma hired a job as a herd driver, and Tikhon started an inn and, in the end, bought the former landowner's "estate" - Durnovka - from a bankrupt master. Kuzma’s life is different. He has seen a lot in his life, trying to understand himself and the fate of the people, even published a book of poems in imitation of Koltsov, but in the end he finds himself in the position of manager of his brother’s estate. At first glance, they are very different: the “acquisitive” Tikhon and the “truth seeker” Kuzma, but they have a lot in common. Despite the difference in material wealth and position, they turn out to be equally unnecessary and superfluous. Life develops according to some laws of its own, unknown to them, and they are unable to influence its course - neither the “master” Tikhon, nor the “philosopher” Kuzma. And the worst thing about it is that it is “simple and ordinary” and with incredible speed “is exchanged for little things.” Bunin's "sentence" of life is confirmed by the entire course of the narrative. The author pays special attention to little things and details. For him, a torn strap on an overcoat is as important as intellectual debates about the fate of Russia. Rather, Bunin argues that it is precisely these little things that make up life: let us remember a man who washes himself in a pond where cows stand up to their bellies, or a city hunter walking in waders, although there have never been swamps in the area, a crooked bridge, a spit-stained floor in the tavern and many other signs of everyday life, which turns out to be inseparable from the soul and which in many ways plays a decisive role in determining the fate of the heroes. Bunin painted a gloomy, creepy picture of the degeneration of the village. He believed in the need for reforms, but believed that the Russian people still had a long way to go through self-education and self-purification before they could organize life on the principles of reason and beauty.

Very often in Bunin’s works the motif of doom is heard, and the reader is affected by a feeling of melancholy, sadness, and loneliness. Using the example of train passengers, and especially the professor, the author wants to show the doom of Russia and its people, the ineffectiveness of reforms.

The fate of the village in the works of I. A. Bunin

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a wonderful Russian writer, a man of great and complex destiny.

In terms of the strength of his image, the refinement of his language, the simplicity and harmony of the “architecture” of his works, Bunin ranks among the outstanding Russian writers. His work, if we do not take into account his early imitative poems (and he, by the way, was a talented poet), is marked by originality and complete independence, although, of course, it was based on the rich traditions of Russian literature. Bunin the lyricist continued the line of Russian poetry that is associated with the names of Nikitin, Maykov, Polonsky, Fet. Bunin’s book of poems “Under the Open Air” is a lyrical diary of the seasons from the first, barely noticeable February signs of spring to winter landscapes, through which the image of the homeland close to the heart appears.

Under the sky of deathly lead

The winter day is gloomily fading,

And there is no end to the pine forests,

And far from the villages.

One fog is milky blue,

Like someone's gentle sadness,

Above this snowy...

I. A. Bunin was born in 1870 in Voronezh. He was always proud that he came from a noble, albeit impoverished, family, to which the outstanding poet V.A. belonged. Zhukovsky. From his mother and the servants, Bunin, as he put it, “heard a lot” of songs and fairy tales. Even then, with a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own admission, the “divine splendor of the world” - the main motive of all his work. It was at this age that it was discovered in him artistic perception life, which, in particular, was expressed in the ability to portray people with facial expressions and gestures; He was already a talented storyteller. When he was eight years old, Bunin wrote his first poem.

At the age of 17, Bunin published his first poems. He was engaged in poetic creativity all his life, but more significant is his prose, which captures vivid pictures of Russian life, types of peasants, landowners, intellectuals, etc. Even in the pre-revolutionary years, the talent of Bunin as a prose writer, a master of storytelling, was fully developed, able to convey in a few episodes and scenes the character and fate of a person, recreate his psychology and language, and outline the entire world around him. These are Bunin’s stories “Tanka”, “ Antonov apples”, “Chernozem”, “Pines”. The last story was noted by Chekhov, who wrote that “Pines” is “very new, very fresh and very good, only too compact, like a condensed broth.” The extraordinary conciseness, expressiveness and weight of every detail are sustainable distinctive feature Bunin style.

Most famous Bunin was brought to life by his realistic novels and short stories, such as “The Village”, “The Merry Yard”, “Night Conversation”, “Sukhodol” and others, which he himself considered among the works that “sharply depicted the Russian soul, its peculiar plexuses, its bright and dark, but almost always tragic underpinnings.”

The story “The Village,” published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin’s enormous popularity. This work, like the writer’s work as a whole, affirmed the realistic traditions of Russian classical literature. The story captures the richness of observations and colors, the strength and beauty of the language, the harmony of the drawing, the sincerity of tone and truthfulness. A.M. Gorky highly valued Bunin’s realistic work; he wrote about the story “The Village”: “I know that when the stupefaction and confusion passes... then serious people will say: “Besides the first artistic value in its “Village” Bunin was the impetus that forced the broken and shaky Russian society think seriously no longer about the peasant, not about the people, but about the strict question - to be or not to be Russia.”

“This is a work,” wrote M.K. Gorky. Jordan in 1910, - historical nature, we haven’t written about the village like that before.” He wrote to Bunin himself in December 1910: “...No one has taken the village so deeply, so historically... I don’t see what you can compare your thing with, I’m touched by it - very much. This modestly hidden, muffled moan about native land, the road of noble sorrow, painful fear for her - and all this is new.”

An outstanding critic and publicist of that time, V.V. Vorovsky. wrote that “Village” attracts primarily due to its talent. This is precisely talented, i.e. truly internally experienced and sincerely written talented artist story.

Vorovsky further said that Bunin adopted the mood that permeated the work of A.P. Chekhov. And this means that his psyche is characterized by: tender lyrics of love for nature, and the idealization of the cozy, beautiful life of “cultured” noble nests, and the grief of the destruction of this paradise, and disappointment in the peasant, that peasant who, having left his father’s care “cultured” master, has become degraded, impoverished, and brutalized. A.P. Chekhov painted the village with harsh, merciless strokes. Not only did he not feel the desire to tint and embellish the life of a “free” man. The man became a fist, and therefore the man lost the sympathy of an intellectual. This is the meaning of Chekhov's attitude towards the village. Bunin also looks at the village approximately the same way.

Darkness and dirt - both physically, and mentally, and in moral life, - that’s all that Bunin sees in a modern village, according to Vorovsky.

For example, an old man lies dying. He is still alive, and already in the Senets there is a pine coffin, the daughter-in-law is already crumbling the dough for pies. And suddenly the old man recovered. “Where should we put the coffin? How can you justify spending? Lukyan was then cursed for five years for them, lived with reproaches from the world, starved to death, poisoned with lice and dirt.” Or, if you please: “On the night before Christmas, in a fierce snowstorm, men from Kolodziej strangled a guard in the Kurasovsky forest in order to divide the rope taken from the dead for some witchcraft purposes.”

But what especially struck the main character of the story, Kuzma, was that the village itself did not believe what it was doing. They strangled a man because of a rope, “but did they believe in this rope? Oh, weak! This absurd and terrible deed was committed with merciless cruelty, but without faith, without firmness... Yes, they have no faith in anything.” “Everything has degenerated...” he adds sadly.

The picture of village life that Bunin paints is bleak, the peasant’s psyche is bleak, even at the moments of the highest rise of social struggle, and the prospects for the future among these dead fields blocked by lead clouds are also bleak. "Idiocy village life” is closely connected with the very way of village life, with village labor, with a narrow outlook, with the isolation and isolation of the interests and life of the village.

Here is how Bunin describes the village of that time:

“White grain rushed obliquely, falling on a black, poor village, on bumpy, dirty roads, on horse manure, ice and water; the twilight fog hid the endless fields”

Bunin himself said this to a correspondent of one of the Odessa newspapers: “There was a lot of rumors and rumors about my last story “Village”. Most critics completely missed my point. I was accused of being embittered towards the Russian people, they reproached me for my noble attitude towards the people, etc. And all this because I look at the situation of the Russian people rather bleakly. But what to do if the modern Russian village does not give reason for optimism, but, on the contrary, plunges into hopeless pessimism...”

Bunin’s skill is manifested in many ways in the story “Antonov Apples” (1900), magnificent in artistic execution, especially in the descriptions of nature with all its colors and smells. To be convinced of this, it is enough to read at least this excerpt from “Antonov Apples”:

“I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember fallen maple leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, it’s as if there is no air at all, it can be heard throughout the entire garden.”

The story “Sukhodol” synthesized the experience of the author of “The Village” in creating everyday stories and lyrical prose. In form, “Sukhodol” is a chronicle of the once noble, but over time, impoverished noble family of the Khrushchevs; in content, it is a study of the reasons for the death of one of the noble nests. “Sukhodol” and the stories, written soon after, marked a new creative rise of Bunin after “The Village” - in the sense of greater psychological depth and complexity of images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In “Sukhodol” there is no foreground historical Russia with its way of life, as in “The Village,” but “the soul of a Russian person in the deep sense of the word, an image of the features of the Slav’s psyche,” said Bunin.

Bunin's sense of homeland, language, and history was enormous. The writer said that all these sublime words, wondrously beautiful songs, “cathedrals - all this is needed, all this was created over centuries...”. One of the sources of his creativity was folk speech.

On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva left Moscow. Began for many years emigration - in Paris and in the south of France, in Grasse, near Cannes. Bunin told Vera Nikolaevna that he “cannot live in the new world, that he belongs to the old world, to the world of Goncharov, Tolstoy, Moscow, St. Petersburg; that poetry is only there, and in the new world he does not grasp it.”

Bunin grew as an artist all the time. “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “ Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925), and then “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933) and many other works marked new achievements in Russian prose. Bunin himself spoke about the “piercing personality” of “Mitya’s Love”. This is what is most fascinating about his novels and stories of the last three decades. The prose of these years excitingly conveys a sensory perception of life. Contemporaries (G.V. Adamovich, V.F. Khodasevich) noted great philosophical meaning such works as “Mitya’s Love” or “The Life of Arsenyev”. K.G. Paustovsky wrote that “The Life of Arsenyev” is “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.”

According to the critic P.M. Pilsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” “is precious precisely for these little things, no one has seen, moods, their transitions, secret worries, the whole world hidden from people and the person himself, the alarming, unclear paths of youth with its homelessness, placelessness, illusory consolations.

In 1993, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for “The Life of Arsenyev.”

“Take Bunin out of Russian literature,” wrote A.M. Gorky, - and it will fade, lose the living rainbow shine and starry radiance of his lonely wandering soul.”

References. Baborenko A.K. I.A. Bunin. Materials for biography. - M., 1967. Bunin I.A. Antonov apples. Novels and stories. - Barnaul, 1980. Bunin I.A. Poems. - Petrozavodsk, 1978. Muromtseva-Bunina V.N. Bunin's life. Conversations with memory. - M., 1989. Privalov K.P. Call of Ivan Bunin. // Journal “Youth”. - 1990. - No. 4. Sokolov A.G., Mikhailova M.V. Russian literary criticism of the end XIX - early XX century. - M., 1982.

Tutoring

Need help studying a topic?

Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.

Bunin wrote the work “In the Village” in 1897. This is one of the writer’s most poetic stories; it is filled with an extraordinary love for the rural landscape.

Bunin dedicated several stories and novellas to the village. It is worth saying that this topic was quite relevant for many writers at the turn of the century. The question of the fate of the Russian peasantry at that time was very acute. If in the nineteenth century many works of art contained unnecessary pastoralism, then at the beginning of the twentieth century prose writers began to depict rural life without embellishment.

Features of Bunin's work

“In the Village” is a story that still contains optimistic notes. The author mentions the poverty of the peasantry only in passing. The narration is conducted in the first person - from the perspective of little boy. The author recalls his childhood. It is not easy to present a summary of Bunin’s “In the Village.” This is extremely poetic work, which shows very few events.

Plan

If you retell Bunin’s “In the Village” chapter by chapter, you need to adhere to the following plan:

1. Waiting for the holiday.
2. The road home.
3. Return to the city.

As we can see from the plan presented above, there is no plot as such in the story. Most of the work is dedicated to the road. First, the boy and his father go to their native village, then return to the city. Nothing is said about how the Christmas holidays are going.

The main focus of Bunin's work is the village. It was to her that the writer dedicated this short story. And the story about a boy who missed home and rejoiced at the arrival of his father is probably just an excuse to glorify the rural landscape - gray and unsightly for a person who cannot appreciate its beauty, and beautiful for the author and his heroes.

Waiting for the holiday

The boy studies at the city gymnasium and lives away from his family. He is only at home during the holidays. The work “In the Village” by Ivan Bunin tells about the events that take place on the eve of the Christmas holidays. The boy's father comes to pick him up and takes him to the village, where he will spend two weeks.

As a child, it seemed to the narrator that spring would come after the Christmas holidays. He was looking forward to Christmas, and on the way to the gymnasium he looked into the shop windows, where many elegant Christmas tree decorations were already on display. The boy was sure that the real, harsh and gray winter was behind him. After all, father will arrive soon. He saw him infrequently, only on holidays.

Finally, this day has come. A bell rang in the apartment where the boy lived. It was the father. The schoolboy did not leave his side the whole evening, and before going to bed he dreamed about how he would spend his time in native village. The next morning they set off.

The way home

Everything made him happy these pre-Christmas days. And a long way home along a snow-covered road. And the coachman, who threateningly, cracking his whip, shouted at the horse. And huge snowdrifts under the porch of my home.

The word "spring" appears frequently in the story. What does this time of year have to do with the January holidays? But isn’t it a spring mood that visits a child who is finally home? Perhaps spring is also mentioned because the hero associates it with home.

In the village

The next day the boy woke up early, studied the bizarre drawings on the glass for a long time, and then asked his father to go on a ride on the slide. The severe frosts did not frighten him. And he still believed that spring was very close. He didn’t want to leave the yard at all. Everything made me happy. He wandered into a yard where cows were dozing, sheep were scurrying about, and horses, who had lost weight over the winter, wandered. Here he smelled a mixture of hay and snow smells. And these were the happiest moments in his short life.

A happy person does not notice time. Griboyedov once said something similar. The boy, drowning in happy dreams, did not notice how the holidays flew by. It's time to return to the city. His father equipped him for the trip and gave him instructions. And to lighten the mood a little, he promised to buy a stallion by spring. Over the next few months, the boy will dream about riding horses and going hunting with his father. He is very sad to leave his home. But he agrees with his father: spring will come very soon.

Return to the city

The work is imbued with love for rural landscapes. On the way, the father talks about the village, about why people think that living here is boring. From just a few phrases of the hero, the reader understands that this man is very wise. The man says that the village is not boring at all, but there really is a lot of poverty here. In order for it not to exist, you need to work hard. And then there will be a good life in the village. After all, only here can you understand what real spring is. In the city, people do not fully notice the beauty of the thaw. There he pays more attention to bright signs. You can love nature only in the countryside - here, perhaps, main idea Bunin's story.

On the way to the city, the boy admires the scenery again. He thinks that soon these huge snowdrifts will melt, and even the poor black huts will change their appearance - they will become cheerful and clean. He likes village houses, especially brick ones, those that belong to wealthy peasants. In such huts there is always the smell of freshly baked bread, there is wet straw on the floor, there are a lot of people, and everyone is at work.

They leave the village. There are endless fields around. Black peasant huts are behind...

From the history of writing

At the beginning of the 20th century, Bunin began work on a series of works dedicated to rural life. But the main work in this collection was not the story, a summary of which is presented above, but a completely different work. It is simply called “Village”.

When writing this work, the author set himself the following task: to show a simple Russian peasant without embellishment, while emphasizing the hopelessness of his existence. At the beginning of the century, quite a lot happened in Russia tragic events, from which primarily rural residents suffered. But in the story "The Village" Bunin showed poverty not so much material as spiritual. At the same time, he depicted the picture of rural poverty quite realistically.

The writer sympathized with the peasants with all his heart. Exhausted by hard work, they were subjected to humiliation and hopeless poverty throughout their lives. But it is worth saying that despite the rather sad background, Bunin’s heroes have spontaneity, childlike naivety and an amazing love of life.

These two works dedicated to the village are completely different. In the first, the contents of which are conveyed in this article, we're talking about about a wise villager. The protagonist's father does not suffer from poverty. One of the peasants calls high school student - main the hero - a “barchuk”, but affectionately, without malice or envy. The boy's father is used to working hard, loves his native land and instills this love little son. This hero is perhaps an example of the right villager in Bunin's understanding.

The story "The Village" shows the wretchedness of the spiritual world of the descendants of the former serf. The characters in this work live in a village called Durnovo, which speaks for itself.

Landscape in Bunin's story

The prose of this writer is extremely poetic. He achieved real mastery, of course, in creating works dedicated to love. Bunin is known primarily as the author of short romantic stories, for example, the stories included in the collection Dark Alleys. But famous stories about love were written much later, already in emigration. In Russia, apparently, there was a place for the writer the topic is more important villages - poor, gray, sometimes gloomy, but very beloved by the last Russian classic.

In order to understand how important the role of landscape is in literary work, you should read one of Ivan Bunin's stories. And first of all, the one we are talking about in today’s article. When immersed in the world of Bunin’s images, it’s as if you find yourself in another time. You feel that amazing mixture of smells of hay and snow that made the hero of the story “In the Country” so happy. You see endless snow-white fields, and in the distance - black peasant huts. Summary does not convey the richness of the Bunin language. In order to appreciate it, the work must be read in the original.

Reflections on Russia in I. A. Bunin’s story “Village”

Lesson objectives: show what new Bunin brings to the traditional theme of Russian literature; understand the author's position.

Methodological techniques: teacher’s explanations, analytical reading.

Lesson progress

I. Opening remarks teachers

The story “The Village” was written in 1910 by an already famous, established writer. In the works of the 10s, the epic principle intensifies, philosophical reflections about the fate of Russia, about the “soul of the Russian man.” In the stories “Village” and “Sukhodol”, in the stories “Ancient Man”, “Merry Courtyard”, “Zakhar Vorobyov”, “John Rydalets”, “The Cup of Life”, etc. Bunin sets the task of displaying the main, as he believes, layers of the Russian people - the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the small nobility, and outline the historical prospects of the country.

The theme of the village and the problems of Russian life associated with it have been central to our literature for a whole century.

II. Conversation

— In the works of which writers does the theme of the village arise?

(Suffice it to recall Turgenev (“Notes of a Hunter,” Fathers and Sons”), Tolstoy (“Morning of the Landowner,” “War and Peace,” Anna Karenina,” “The Power of Darkness”), Chekhov (“Men,” “In the Ravine,” "Gooseberry").)

- What is the plot of the story?

(There is no clear plot in the story. The narrative is based on the alternation genre paintings scenes of everyday village life, portrait sketches of men, descriptions of their housing, expressive landscapes.)

(All these scenes, paintings, episodes are shown through the prism of the subjective perception of the brothers Tikhon and Kuzma Krasov. The village is seen mainly through the eyes of these characters. The picture of village life, and Russian life in general, emerges from their conversations, disputes, remarks. In this way, the objectivity of the story is achieved .Direct author's assessment no, although sometimes it clearly appears from the characters’ lines. Tikhon concludes with irritation: “Oh, and there’s poverty all around! The men were completely ruined, there was no market left in the impoverished estates scattered throughout the district,” and his thoughts merge with the view and opinion of the author. The idea of ​​general impoverishment and ruin of the peasants runs through many episodes.)

— How does Bunin depict the village? Give examples of descriptions.

(The general tone of the image, the general coloring of the story is gloomy and dull. Here is a description of winter in the village: “Behind the blizzards, hard winds blew across the hardened gray pasta of the fields, tore off the last brown leaves from the homeless oak bushes in the ravines”; “The morning was gray, with a harsh northern under the hardened gray snow, the village was gray. Linens hung on the beams under the roofs of the puneks. Slops were poured out, ash was thrown out; “The sun had set, there was a dim light in the house with neglected gray windows, it was unsociable and cold” (Chapter III) Intrusiveness dominates these descriptions. gray. Autumn in the village is also depicted as uncomfortable, slushy, dirty, even in the pictures of spring and summer there are no joyful colors: “A dry wind swept along the empty streets, through the vines scorched by the heat. At the thresholds, chickens fussed and buried themselves in the ashes. A wild-colored church stuck out rudely on a bare pasture. Behind the church, a shallow clay pond under a dung dam glistened in the sun—thick yellow water, in which stood a herd of cows, constantly defecating their needs, and a naked man soaping his head.” Beggarly, gray, half-starved, wretched life appears in a whole string peasant images, images of the inhabitants of the village of Durnovka, where the main events of the story unfold (let’s note the significance of the toponym “Durnovka”).)

(In the middle of Durnovka there is a hut of the most impoverished and idle man with the expressive nickname Gray. This nickname matches the general gray coloring of the village, the whole gray life of the Durnovka residents. “Sery’s appearance justified his nickname: gray, thin, average height, sagging shoulders, short fur coat, torn , filthy, his felt boots were broken and hemmed with string.” His dark hut “was unpleasantly black,” “it was deaf, dead,” it was “almost an animal’s dwelling” (Chapter III). peasant life and inhuman morals - a disgusting life. Where is the love for Russia here?

The villagers are lazy, apathetic, indifferent, and cruel to each other. They have forgotten how to manage the land, they have lost the habit of working in general. Gray, for example, “as if he was still waiting for something,” sat at home, “waiting for little things from the Duma,” “staggered from yard to yard”—strove to drink and eat for free.

The image of a man who, having heard a nightingale, dreamily says: “If only he could use his gun!” I would have tumbled like that!” Bunin shows how the psychology of the peasant is distorted and broken even “by the serf inheritance he shows how darkness and savagery reign in the village, where violence has become the norm of life.)

Let us recall Pushkin’s famous pun - the epigraphs to the second chapter of “Eugene Onegin”: “O rus!”, (“O village!” Horace, lat.) and “O Rus'!” How do the concepts of “village” and “Russia” relate to Bunin?

(Bunin’s village is a model of Russia. “Yes, it’s all a village, kill it on your nose!” Bunin italics. Reflections on the village are reflections on the fate of the people, about national character, about the fate of his homeland, Bunin debunks the Slavophile myth about the “chosenness of God” of the Russian people. The horror of life is that a lot of beautiful inclinations are crippled and disfigured. Bunin does not gloat, he deeply cares about Russia and sympathizes with it. He does not call to the past, does not idealize the peasant, patriarchal foundations. In his “Village” there is pain and fear for the fate of the homeland, an attempt to understand what the new, urban, bourgeois civilization of Russia brings to the people, to the individual.)

— What place do the images of Tikhon and Kuzma Krasov occupy in the story?

(Using the example of the fate of the Krasov brothers, Bunin shows “the light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations of life, two sides of the national character. Kuzma is a loser broken by life, who left the village, after long wanderings got a job as a clerk in the city, a self-taught poet, free time gives to “self-development... reading, that is.” Tikhon is the owner who managed to buy out the Durnovo estate. A strict, strong-willed, tough, powerful man, he “watched every inch of the earth like a hawk.” In conversations and disputes between brothers, views on Russia and its prospects are revealed. The Krasov brothers are united by the feeling of doom in the village. Tikhon Ilyich used to say: “I, brother, am a Russian man. I don’t need yours for nothing, but keep in mind: I won’t give you mine! Kuzma does not share his pride: “I see, you are proud that you are Russian, and I, brother, oh, am far from a Slavophile! (...) don’t boast, for God’s sake, that you are Russian. We are wild people! And he adds: “Russian music, brother: it’s bad to live like a pig, but still I live and will live like a pig!” Potential wealth - black soil - remains only black greasy mud, and “the huts are clay, small, with dung roofs,” even in rich courtyards there is squalor: “the mud is knee-deep all around, there is a pig lying on the porch. The windows are tiny, and in the living half of the hut... darkness, eternal cramped conditions...” (Chapter II).)

— What are the Krasov brothers arguing about?

(The brothers’ disputes concern different aspects of life: history, literature, politics, customs, morals, everyday life, etc. Both are characterized by philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, on its purpose. Both are no longer young, it’s time to sum up the results, but they are disappointing. “ Life is lost, brother! - says Tikhon. - I had, you know, a dumb cook, I gave her, the fool, a foreign scarf, and she took it and wore it out... You understand? From stupidity and from greed. to wear on weekdays, - they say, I’ll wait for the holiday, - but the holiday came - only rags were left... So here I am... with my life, it’s truly like that!”)

— Are there any bright images in the story?

(Appear occasionally in the story attractive characters: Odnodvorka and her nimble and smart son Senka, a nameless man “with a wonderful kind face in a red beard,” who delighted Kuzma with his appearance and his behavior, the wanderer Ivanushka, a young peasant driver - “a ragged but handsome farm laborer, slender, pale, with a reddish beard, with intelligent eyes.” From the very tone of the description it is clear what the ideals of a man from the people are, what the sympathies of the author are.

Young is depicted poetically. She looks good even in an ugly peasant outfit, is modest and bashful, affectionate and sympathetic.)

— What is the meaning of the image of Young?

(The image of Molodoy (Evdokia) carries a symbolic meaning. She personifies Russia. Molodoy’s fate is tragic: out of hopelessness, she marries the fool, boor and lazy Deniska. The wedding is rather like a funeral: “everyone was crazy. It was crazy in the church too, crazy “, cold and gloomy - from the blizzard, low arches and bars in the windows”; the hand of the Young One, who seemed even more beautiful and deader in the crown, trembled, and the wax of the melting candle dripped onto her frills. blue dress...” “The Village” ends with the wedding “travel” scene. This scene is an allusion to Gogol’s Rus'-troika: a wedding train rushing at dusk among a terrible blizzard “into the violent dark turbidity.”)

III. Teacher's final words

The Russian character, the Russian people for the most part appear as rich but uncultivated soil. Talent, naivety, spontaneity coexist with impracticality, mismanagement, inability to apply one’s strength to the real work, with underdevelopment of consciousness. But there is no hopelessness in Bunin’s perception. Along with the inertia and hopelessness of life, a state of general discontent, an expectation of change, and a desire to somehow change one’s destiny and the destiny of the country are conveyed. The world of Bunin's village is tragic, but bright, primarily with the feelings and experiences of the author himself.

Bunin's story was highly praised by critics. Many saw in it “deeply pessimistic, almost negative”, “bleak and disgusting colors.” In this regard, let us turn to M. Gorky’s assessment (from a letter to I.A. Bunin, 1910):

“I read the end of “The Village” - with excitement and joy for you, with great joy, because you wrote a paramount thing. This is undoubtedly for me: no one has taken the village so deeply, so historically. (...) I don’t see what you can compare your thing with, I was touched by it - very much. This modest, hidden, muffled groan about my native land is dear to me, noble sorrow is dear, painful fear for it - and all this is new. It hasn't been written like that yet. (...)

Do not consider my speeches about the “Village” to be elevated and exaggerated, they are not. I am almost sure that the Moscow and St. Petersburg Ivans of all parties and colors, who do not remember and do not know, who write critical articles for magazines, will not appreciate the “village”, will not understand either its essence or its form. The threat hidden in it is tactically unacceptable for both the left and the right - no one will notice this threat.

But I know that when the stupefaction and confusion pass, when we are cured of boorish debauchery - it must be either - we are lost! - then serious people will say: “In addition to its primary artistic value, Bunin’s “Village” was an impetus that forced the broken and shaken Russian society to think seriously not about the peasant, not about the people, but about the strict question - to be or not to be Russia? We haven’t yet thought about Russia as a whole, but this work showed us the need to think about the whole country, to think historically.”

2. Find images-symbols, determine their meaning.

3. Determine the role of episodic persons.

Additional material for teachers

1. Place of the story “Village” in literary process

First major work I. A. Bunin’s “Village” was published in 1910, but even today this story remains relevant and provides significant material for modern literary scholars, reflecting on the problems of the “Russian soul” and “national character”. These themes in Bunin’s work still attract the attention of critics to small work, created by the writer at the beginning of the last century. And this is not accidental, because Russian criticism has always sought to find an answer to the question: what is the “Russian soul” and the Russian person in general? That is why attention to the story “The Village” does not fade away, because it is a very capacious work of Russian literature, in which all the author’s attention is drawn to pressing problems folk life and the problems of the Russian village, which objectively reflects the reality of that time.

Bunin's description of village life in Russia did not leave his contemporaries indifferent. Immediately after the publication of the story, different assessments of this work appeared. Some readers were outraged by the deceitfulness of the depiction of the Russian village and its inhabitants, while others found for themselves the main question posed by the author: “...to be or not to be Russia?” (M. Gorky).

Analyzing Bunin’s work, critics could not help but touch upon the theme of the depiction of the “Russian soul”, they could not help but pay attention to “Bunin’s prophecies” regarding the future of Russia, since the entire work is permeated with a description of the current problems of those years, reflections on the fate of the peasantry and, of course, about the uniqueness of the national Russian character.

The writer’s plan for a realistic reflection of reality corresponded to a special genre of the work he wrote - the genre of a chronicle story, where ordinary men are brought to the fore, and witnesses to what is happening, witnesses “from the outside,” are left in the background. The plot of “The Village” also corresponded to the tasks set before the author, which is devoid of intrigue, unexpected events, plot development, and a clear denouement. Everything in Bunin's story is immersed in the elements of slowly moving life, an established way of life. But every compositional part The work opens up to the reader more and more new, unexpected and stunning aspects of rural reality.

The story “The Village” is an openly polemical work. True, unlike other works, for example by A.P. Chekhov, in Bunin’s story it is not the intelligentsia who talk about the people, but people who came from peasant backgrounds. A frank and terrible question is asked by one of the heroes of the story: “Is there anyone more fierce than our people?” And in the work the reader finds an answer to it, unfortunately, no less terrible: the Russian people do not want and do not know how to conquer the dark, bestial nature within themselves.

From this answer follows the main problem raised in Bunin’s story: is it the misfortune or guilt of the Russian people that they live such a wretched, terrible and meager life? And using the example of the fate of the two Krasov brothers, the author shows the tragic predetermination of the fate of the Russian people, who depend on the properties of their psyche. One of the brothers is the innkeeper and merchant Tikhon Ilyich Krasov - a strong, tough, cunning man. It embodies strength, activity and perseverance. The other brother, Kuzma, is softer, kinder and more subtle. He embodies spiritual warmth, lyricism and softness. Despite the fact that two siblings are so different from each other, their lives lead to one thing - to powerlessness and spiritual devastation. Even they, who emerged from the people and rose to a higher level, remained unhappy.

Bunin believes that the psyche of the Russian people is to blame for this outcome and gives it his own definition - “a motley soul.” Explaining these words, he cites a statement from the people themselves: “The people themselves said to themselves - “from us, like from a tree, - both a club and an icon” - depending on the circumstances, on who will process this tree: Sergius of Radonezh or Emelyan Pugachev "

It is no coincidence that the ending of the story is a wedding, more like a funeral. After all, Evdokia, nicknamed Young, marries the most depraved and disgusting man in the village. This wedding can be interpreted symbolically: Beauty perishes under the onslaught of ugliness, and a blizzard sweeps away the home. The Russian village disappears under snowdrifts, just as ancient cities disappeared under a layer of sand.

Such a gloomy ending follows from the very life of the village with the expressive name of Durnovka. Everything in it is illogical, makes no sense, and most importantly, goes beyond the norm. The village is steadily and quickly dying: family and public relations, the way of life that has developed over centuries is collapsing. Unable to stop the death of the village and the rebellion of the peasants, he only accelerates this process, as the author of the story painfully narrates.

Bunin in “The Village” very clearly showed that the morality that determined the life of the Russian village in the past has been completely lost. A existing life without moral principles, main goal which is survival, is unworthy of man.

According to the author of the story, he “took the typical,” exactly what happens in the life of a Russian village. Bunin also said that he was primarily interested in the “soul of the Russian man,” “the souls of Russian people in general,” and not the men themselves.

The problems of the Russian character and the life of the people raised in the story worried and still worry literary scholars, so Bunin’s work “Village” is still relevant in our time and is capable of giving answers to some of the questions posed by the Russian life. Bunin’s extraordinary “prophecies” about the “Russian soul” and the “fate of the Russian people” are still relevant to this day.

2. Article by V. V. Rozanov “Don’t trust fiction writers...”

As additional material in the process of studying Bunin’s story “The Village,” you can offer students a discussion of an article by the famous Russian philosopher, literary critic and publicist Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov (1856-1919). Before proceeding directly to the discussion of the proposed article, it is necessary to say a few words about its author and introduce students to his worldview and life philosophy.

It is difficult to determine exactly who V.V. Rozanov was - a philosopher, critic or writer. Its place in Russian culture is not easy to give the usual classification. Rozanov’s thought sought to reflect the world in all its manifestations, hence the abundance and diversity of ideas and themes touched upon by his work. Rozanov himself spoke of his writings in the following way: “Twisted sleepers. Checkers. Sand. Stone. Potholes. "What is this? — pavement repair? — No, these are “Rozanov’s Works.” And the tram rushes confidently along the iron rails.”

Rozanov lived and wrote in his own way, was often inconsistent in his philosophical, political and aesthetic ideas and judgments, did not strive for unity and ideas and did not attach importance to the opinions of his contemporaries.

V. Rozanov is considered, first of all, to be one of the brightest and most original representatives of Russian religious philosophy. It was this philosophy that saw its main task in understanding the place and purpose of man in the world. Rozanov has always been a philosopher who thought about the fate of the world.

It is quite reasonable to name V. Rozanov and literary critic, because he always thought about literary development, about writers and their destinies, about the role of books in modern society. It was about the books of his contemporaries that he wrote many articles and reviews, including the article “Don’t believe the fiction writers...”, published in the newspaper “Novoe Vremya” on January 5, 1911.

The article was a kind of reader’s response to Rozanov’s story “Autumn Song” by N. Oliger and to K. Chukovsky’s review of the latter literary works. Among them were works by I. Bunin, telling about the Russian peasantry; M. Gorky - about the bourgeoisie; A. Tolstoy - about landowners; Iv. Rukavishnikov - about merchant life, K. Chukovsky in his review spoke about the critical attitude of writers to Russian reality and noted the talent of their authors.

V. Rozanov, in the article “Don’t believe the fiction writers...” does not agree with the depiction of Russian life in these works, believes “that the fiction writers, all five of them, are simply lying.” The critic perceives the proposed works of art from the position of a simple reader, for whom personal everyday experience and common sense serve as criteria for evaluating what he read. Rozanov believes that art should depict the truth of life, therefore writers are obliged to show reality itself, the life of the country and people, in particular, their health, economic and social situation.

Therefore, Rozanov does not intend to agree with the portrayal of the “fiction writers”: “Well, if they are telling the truth, then Russia in essence no longer exists, only empty space, a rotten place that can only be conquered by the “neighboring smart people,” as Smerdyakov already dreamed of in “The Brothers Karamazov.”

“But there is another obviousness, quite impressive, that Russia is just standing still, thousands of high school boys and girls are running to study in the morning, and all the faces are so vigorous, fresh; that they come from somewhere, probably from a family where not all “brothers live with sisters”; that some huge “living creatures” are eaten by Russia every day, and it’s unlikely that these are all “cows with cut off nipples, etc. ....” Giving such arguments for his disagreement with the “fiction writers” regarding the life they depict in the country, Rozanov concludes that they are “simply lying.”

The critic believes that work of art should "point" to the reader's own experience, to real life and reality, especially if the work claims to be “realistic”, depicting everything “true” and “typical”. And no matter how the writer “modernizes” reality, such a work must show life familiar to the reader.

Rozanov considers the concept of “truth of art” and the talent of a writer to be inseparable. Can a work be called talented if its author “lies” when depicting reality? A talented writer is a writer whose view of life and its depiction in a work fully corresponds to the “truth of life” itself.

One reason is not enough true portrayal In the lives of writers, V. Rozanov considers their limited vision of the world around them, explaining this by the fact that the writing environment, like any professional environment, is closed in on itself. Referring to your life experience, the critic talks about everyday life"fiction writers", showing writers in the "Theater Club", the luxurious palace of the Yusupov princes.

So from what “living” space, from what environment can a writer see reality if his environment is so closed? That is why the writer’s work contains his own idea of ​​the country, the people, the peasantry... And the life of the common people serves for him only as “material” necessary to confirm these ideas. This is where the author’s vision of reality appears in the work. As for the works mentioned by Rozanov, they precisely reflected the author’s views and ideological attitudes characteristic of writers of that time. Almost each of them attributed their own vision of the world to their heroes.

After all that has been said, the words spoken by I. Bunin about his work become clear: “All my life I have suffered from the fact that I cannot express what I want. In essence, I am doing an impossible task. I’m exhausted because I look at the world only with my own eyes and can’t look at it any other way!”

In the article “Don’t trust fiction writers...” V. Rozanov freely and skillfully expressed his point of view on the shortcomings present in the works of certain writers. And he did this without really caring about logical proof, constantly drawing parallels between the realities of literature and the “truth of life” and freely expressing his emotions about disagreement with the mentioned authors in the depiction of reality.