“Who lives well in Rus'.” Analysis of the “Prologue”, chapters “Pop”, “Rural Fair. “Who lives well in Rus'”: “Pop” (chapter analysis)

Real world The characters in the poem attract the reader. Wanderers look for the happy ones among those who are near them. One of these people are clergy.

The image and characterization of the priest in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is similar to reality, but the text also contains consonance with famous fairy-tale characters.

The first person you meet

Life of a priest

The life and behavior of clergymen often became the subject of ridicule. Pop knows this. In songs, fairy tales, and ditties, not only the priest himself is ridiculed, but also his wife, daughter, and children. This is not always fair, but their fame runs ahead. Even the signs among the people do not please the priest: “Who are you afraid of meeting?” It's a bad sign if a priest appears on the way. There is no respect among the people for the servants of faith in God; they have lost respect for themselves.

Positive character traits of the hero

“There is no heart that can bear... the death rattle, the funeral sob, the orphan’s sadness...”

The soul hurts, breaks, but does not become callous.

Patience. Priests more often receive a parish by inheritance. From infancy they get used to life in the Faith and do not complain about God.

Ability to listen and support. The priest finds words for peasant women losing their breadwinner, for mothers burying their children, for the sick and wretched.

Courage. The priest must come to the dying or sick at any time of the day. He goes in the rain, wind, snow. You have to walk at night, through the forest. Priests have no companions, they have only faith.

Negative traits of clergy

What traits are most typical of priests:

• cynicism;
• parasitism;
• acquisitiveness;
• greed;
• coarseness;
• gluttony.

There is one more priest on the pages of the poem - Ivan. He is the hero of Matryona's story. From his words one can understand that there is nothing to pay the people for sacred rituals:

“...for a wedding, for a confession, they owe years.”

Ivan is indifferent, cruel and cynical. He jokes about the mother’s grief and sees no sin in torturing the baby’s body in front of the suffering woman. He drinks with the authorities, scolds the poor parish. There is no sympathy in Ivan's priest.

What is happiness for a priest? People's trust in religion, submission, humility. But all this goes back to the distant past. Life has changed. People's poverty and the disappearance of the landowner class undermined the priest's well-being. The priest's feelings are the opposite. He feels sorry for the man, but where can he get the money? Sympathy for the people's grief will not satisfy you. The class of priests is heterogeneous. Not everyone was compassionate; most hypocritically and cruelly robbed peasants who believed in the need for religious rituals.

Wide path

Furnished with birch trees,

Stretches far

Sandy and deaf.

On the sides of the path

There are gentle hills

With fields, with hayfields,

And more often with an inconvenient

Abandoned land;

There are old villages,

There are new villages,

By the rivers, by the ponds...

Russian streams and rivers

Good in spring.

But you, spring fields!

On your shoots the poor

Not fun to watch!

“It’s not for nothing that in the long winter

(Our wanderers interpret)

It snowed every day.

Spring has come - the snow has had its effect!

He is humble for the time being:

It flies - is silent, lies - is silent,

When he dies, then he roars.

Water – everywhere you look!

The fields are completely flooded

Carrying manure - there is no road,

And the time is not too early -

The month of May is coming!”

I don’t like the old ones either,

It’s even more painful for new ones

They should look at the villages.

Oh huts, new huts!

You are smart, let him build you up

Not an extra penny,

And blood trouble!..

In the morning we met wanderers

All more people small:

Your brother, a peasant-basket worker,

Craftsmen, beggars,

Soldiers, coachmen.

From the beggars, from the soldiers

The strangers did not ask

How is it for them - is it easy or difficult?

Lives in Rus'?

Soldiers shave with an awl,

Soldiers warm themselves with smoke -

What happiness is there?..

The day was already approaching evening,

They go along the road,

A priest is coming towards me.

The peasants took off their caps.

bowed low,

Lined up in a row

And to the gelding Savras

They blocked the way.

The priest raised his head

He looked and asked with his eyes:

What do they want?

“I suppose! We are not robbers! -

Luke said to the priest.

(Luka is a squat guy,

With a wide beard.

Stubborn, vocal and stupid.

Luke looks like a mill:

One is not a bird mill,

That, no matter how it flaps its wings,

Probably won't fly.)

“We are sedate men,

Of those temporarily obliged,

A tightened province,

Terpigoreva County,

Empty parish,

Nearby villages:

Zaplatova, Dyryavina,

Razutova, Znobishina,

Gorelova, Neelova -

Bad harvest too.

Let's go on something important:

We have concerns

Is it such a concern?

Which of the houses did she survive?

She made us friends with work,

I stopped eating.

Give us the right word

To our peasant speech

Without laughter and without cunning,

According to conscience, according to reason,

To answer truthfully

Not so with your care

We'll go to someone else..."

– I give you my true word:

If you ask the matter,

Without laughter and without cunning,

In truth and in reason,

How should one answer?

"Thank you. Listen!

Walking the path,

We came together by chance

They came together and argued:

Who has fun?

Free in Rus'?

Roman said: to the landowner,

Demyan said: to the official,

And I said: ass.

Kupchina fat-bellied, -

The Gubin brothers said,

Ivan and Metrodor.

Pakhom said: to the brightest

To the noble boyar,

To the sovereign minister.

And Prov said: to the king...

The guy's a bull: he'll get in trouble

What a whim in the head -

Stake her from there

You can’t knock it out: no matter how much they argue,

We did not agree!

Having argued, we quarreled,

Having quarreled, they fought,

Having caught up, we changed our minds:

Don't go apart

Don't toss and turn in the houses,

Don't see your wives

Not with the little guys

Not with old people,

As long as our dispute

We won't find a solution

Until we find out

Whatever it is - for certain:

Who likes to live happily?

Free in Rus'?

Tell us in a divine way:

Is the priest's life sweet?

How are you - at ease, happily

Are you living, honest father?..”

I looked down and thought,

Sitting in a cart, pop

And he said: “Orthodox!”

It is a sin to grumble against God,

I bear my cross with patience,

I’m living... but how? Listen!

I'll tell you the truth, the truth,

And you have a peasant mind

Be smart! -

“Begin!”

– What do you think is happiness?

Peace, wealth, honor -

Isn't that right, dear friends?

They said: “Yes”...

- Now let's see, brothers,

What's the butt like? peace?

I have to admit, I should start

Almost from birth itself,

How to get a diploma

the priest's son,

At what cost to Popovich

I'm not a sinner, I haven't lived

Nothing from the schismatics.

Fortunately, there was no need:

In my parish there are

Living in Orthodoxy

And there are such volosts,

Where there are almost all schismatics,

So what about the butt?

Everything in the world is changeable,

The world itself will pass away...

Laws formerly strict

To the schismatics, they softened,

And with them the priest

The landowners moved away

They don't live in estates

And die in old age

They don't come to us anymore.

Rich landowners

Pious old ladies,

Which died out

Who have settled down

Near monasteries,

Nobody wears a cassock now

He won’t give you your butt!

Live with only peasants,

Collect worldly hryvnias,

Yes, pies on holidays,

Yes, holy eggs.

The peasant himself needs

And I would be glad to give, but there’s nothing...

In Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” there is a very precise and touching image the priest whom the main characters meet. They ask him how he lives in Rus', and the priest begins his story.

The reader knows little about the priest’s appearance: only a huge hat, which he takes off when he makes the sign of the cross, and a stern face. He talks about his life willingly and with heaviness, because his life is very difficult. He runs a large church, where many peasants come to pray and ask the priest for God's help. In addition to the church, the priest is also called to the house, and regardless of weather conditions and time of day, he works both at night and during the day. The priest experiences hardships of the people who turn to him, he takes their pain onto his soul, sincerely sympathizes and suffers because he is sometimes unable to help. It is especially difficult for him to attend the funeral of the family breadwinner, because the whole family is left without means of living.

Due to the fact that rich landowners have left the city and are unlikely to return, the church is experiencing better times, the priest receives very little money, but what he receives is very conscientious and even shameful for him. He would be glad to work for free, but he needs to live for something, that’s why he takes money from the hands of even poor peasants.

But what depresses the priest most of all is that the peasants treat priests poorly, joke about their daughters and wives, and make up sayings like “When you meet a priest, it’s not good.” Among other things, the peasants compose vulgar and mocking songs about priests and laugh at them in every possible way.

The priest is very patient, courageous and stoic about his life, he understands that the cross he carries is heavy, but he will carry it until he dies, because he is a servant of God, helping the peasants, this is his purpose.

It's a shame that in present life There are few such people, for some reason everyone is used to complaining about life, forgetting that somewhere far away there are countries where people’s lives are tens of times worse. I believe that it is necessary to approach every difficulty in life with full combat readiness, to try in every possible way to overcome the difficulty and rise above it, as the priest from the poem does.

Why is life good for the priest and why is it bad?

Essay about Pop (Who lives well in Rus')

Question about happy life and about people who have been wondering “it’s good to live in Rus'” for generations different years. The heroes of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” to different historical eras were understood differently. The work, written in the nineteenth century, remains relevant today. A person strives to be independent of the circumstances that surround him. Everyone has their own concept of a “good life”. For some, “living well” means having an unlimited amount of money, for others it means the happiness of loved ones, for others it means a peaceful sky above your head. And let everyone have their own happiness, but it is not possible without love.

Love for your loved one, your family, the place where you were born.

Who helps ordinary peasants from Nekrasov’s poem, looking for happiness, answer the question about a good life in Rus', and those who directly live next to him.

It is the priest that the seven peasants meet first on their way. This is quite symbolic. In those distant times, the rural priest was considered the spiritual father of every born child, a person who blesses for good deeds, who escorts the dying person to the kingdom of heaven.

From the poem it is clear that the clergyman - rural pop, which has a fairly large income. The peasants are convinced that he is the one who has the best life in Rus'. From the narration of the priest himself, it turns out that they are greatly mistaken.

The service of a priest is difficult; in any weather, he must go to the person who asks him for help: “Go wherever you are called!” He worries about people, tries to help them with the word of God.

At the same time, there is no due respect for him. People laugh at him, try to avoid him (a bad omen), so life is very difficult for him.

His income directly depends on his parishioners, mostly poor peasants. He lives on whatever they give him. His family does not have much wealth, nor do the peasants themselves who turned to him. But he cannot help but take money from the poor; then he himself will die of hunger. There are no rich people in his parish; the landowners have left for the cities.

The priest, who has heard the confession of other people more than once, in the poem seems to be confessing himself, only not before God, but before ordinary Russian peasants.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the poet conceived the confession of a priest. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” - last piece N.A. Nekrasova. He wrote it as a very sick man, well aware that his days were numbered and his illness would not go away. With his poem he sums up his spiritual quest. For the poet, happiness is serving his people, freedom from censorship, and the prosperity of Russia.

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Chapters Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" not only open different sides life of Russia: in each chapter we look at this life through the eyes of representatives of different classes. And the story of each of them, as the center, turns to the “kingdom of the peasants,” revealing different sides folk life- his life, work, revealing the people's soul, people's conscience, people's aspirations and aspirations. To use the expression of Nekrasov himself, we “measure” the peasant with different “standards” - both the “master’s” and his own. But in parallel, against the background of the majestic picture of life created in the poem Russian Empire The internal plot of the poem develops - the gradual growth of the heroes’ self-awareness, their spiritual awakening. Observing what is happening, talking with the most different people, men learn to distinguish true happiness from imaginary, illusory ones, they find the answer to the question “who is the most holy of all, who is the most sinful of all.” It is characteristic that already in the first part the heroes act as judges, and it is they who have the right to determine: who of those who call themselves happy is truly happy. This is a complex moral task that requires a person to have his own ideals. But it is equally important to note that wanderers increasingly find themselves “lost” in the crowd of peasants: their voices seem to merge with the voices of residents of other provinces, the entire peasant “world.” And the “world” already has a weighty word in condemning or justifying the happy and unhappy, sinners and righteous.

Going on a journey, the peasants are looking for someone who “life is easy and fun in Rus'”. This formula probably presupposes freedom and idleness, inseparable for men with wealth and nobility. To the first of the possible lucky ones I met - ass they ask the question: “Tell us in a divine way: / Is the priest’s life sweet? / How are you living at ease, happily / Are you living, honest father?..” For them, a synonym for a “happy” life is “sweet” life. The priest contrasts this vague idea with his understanding of happiness, which men share: “What do you think happiness is? / Peace, wealth, honor - / Isn’t that right, dear friends?” / They said: so...” It can be assumed that the ellipsis (and not an exclamation mark or period) placed after the peasant words means a pause - the peasants think about the priest’s words, but also accept them. L.A. Evstigneeva writes that the definition of “peace, wealth, honor” is alien to the people’s idea of ​​happiness. This is not entirely true: Nekrasov’s heroes really accepted this understanding of happiness, agreed with it internally: it is these three components - “peace, wealth, honor” that will be for them the basis for judging the priest and landowner, Ermil Girin, for choosing between numerous lucky people, which will appear in the chapter “Happy”. It is precisely because the priest’s life is devoid of peace, wealth, and honor that the men recognize him as unhappy. After listening to the priest’s complaints, they realized that his life was not “sweet” at all. They take out their frustration on Luka, who convinced everyone of the priest’s “happiness.” Scolding him, they remember all the arguments of Luke, who proved the priest’s happiness. Listening to their abuse, we understand what they set off on the journey with, what they considered a “good” life: for them it is a well-fed life:

What, did you take it? stubborn head!
Country club!
That's where the argument gets into!<...>
For three years I, little ones,
He lived with the priest as a worker,
Raspberries are not life!
Popova porridge - with butter,
Popov pie - with filling,
Popov's cabbage soup - with smelt!<...>
Well, here's what you've praised,
A priest's life!

Already in the story one priest appeared important feature narratives. Talking about his life, about personal troubles, every possible “candidate” for happiness that the men meet will draw big picture Russian life. This is how the image of Russia is created - one world, in which the life of each class turns out to be dependent on the life of the entire country. Only against the backdrop of people's life, in close connection with it, does the troubles of the heroes themselves become understandable and explainable. In the priest's story, first of all, the dark sides of the peasant's life are revealed: the priest, confessing to the dying, becomes a witness to the most sorrowful moments in the peasant's life. From the priest we learn that both in years of rich harvest and in years of famine, the life of a peasant is never easy:

Our benefits are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The little beast goes from hand to mouth,
Bread will be born on its own,
And if it gets better
The damp earth is the nurse,
So a new problem:
There is nowhere to go with the bread!
There's a need - you'll sell it
For sheer trifle,
And there is a crop failure!
Then pay through the nose,
Sell ​​the cattle!

It is pop that touches on one of the most tragic aspects of people's life - the most important topic poems: the sad position of the Russian peasant woman, “the sadwoman, the nurse, the water-maid, the slave, the pilgrim and the eternal toiler.”

One can also note this feature of the narrative: at the heart of each story of the heroes about his life lies antithesis: past - present. At the same time, the heroes do not simply compare different stages of their lives: human life, a person’s happiness and misfortune are always connected with those laws - social and moral, according to which the life of the country follows. Characters often make broad generalizations themselves. So, for example, the priest, depicting the current ruin - both of the landowners' estates and peasant life, and the lives of priests, says:

At a time not far away
Russian Empire
Noble estates
Was full<...>
What weddings were played there,
That children were born
On free bread!<...>
But now it’s not the same!
Like the tribe of Judah,
The landowners dispersed
Across distant foreign lands
And native to Rus'.

The same antithesis will be characteristic of the story Obolta-Oboldueva about the landowner’s life: “Now Rus' is not the same!” - he will say, drawing pictures of the past prosperity and current ruin of noble families. The same theme will be continued in “The Peasant Woman,” which begins with a description of a beautiful village being destroyed by courtyard workers. landowner's estate. The past and present will also be contrasted in the story about Savely, the Holy Russian hero. “And there were blessed times / Such times” - this is the pathos of Savely’s own story about his youth and old life Korezhins.

But the author’s task is clearly not to glorify lost prosperity. Both in the story of the priest and in the story of the landowner, especially in the stories of Matryona Timofeevna, the leitmotif runs through the idea that the basis of well-being is great work, great patience of the people, the very “fortification” that brought so much grief to the people. “Free bread”, the bread of serfs that was given to landowners for free, is the source of well-being for Russia and all its classes - all except the peasant class.

The painful impression of the priest’s story does not disappear even in the chapter describing rural holiday. Chapter " Rural fair» opens up new aspects of people's life. Through the eyes of peasants, we look at the simple joys of peasants, we see a motley and drunken crowd. “Blind people” - this Nekrasov definition from the poem “The Unhappy” fully conveys the essence of the picture drawn by the author national holiday. A crowd of peasants offering caps to tavern owners for a bottle of vodka, a drunken peasant who dumped a whole cartload of goods into a ditch, Vavilishka who drank all his money, offen men buying “pictures” with important generals and books “about my stupid lord” for sale to the peasants - All these, both sad and funny scenes, testify to the moral blindness of the people, their ignorance. Perhaps, only one bright episode was noted by the author in this holiday: universal sympathy for the fate of Vavilushka, who drank away all the money and grieved that he would not bring his granddaughter the promised gift: “The people gathered, listened, / Don’t laugh, feel sorry; / If there had been work, some bread, / They would have helped him, / But if you take out two two-kopeck pieces, / You’ll be left with nothing.” When the scholar-folklorist Veretennikov helps out the poor peasant, the peasants “were so comforted, / So glad, as if he had given each one / a ruble.” Compassion for someone else's misfortune and the ability to rejoice in someone else's joy - the spiritual responsiveness of the people - all this foreshadows future author's words about the people's golden heart.

Chapter "Drunken Night" continues the theme of the “great Orthodox thirst”, the immensity of “Russian hops” and paints a picture of wild revelry on the night after the fair. The basis of the chapter is numerous dialogues of different people invisible to either wanderers or readers. Wine made them frank, forced them to talk about the most painful and intimate things. Every dialogue could be turned into a story human life, as a rule, unhappy: poverty, hatred between the closest people in the family - this is what these conversations reveal. This description, which gave the reader the feeling that “there is no measure for Russian hops,” originally ended the chapter. But it is not by chance that the author writes a sequel, making the center of the chapter “Drunken Night” not these painful pictures, but an explanatory conversation Pavlushi Veretennikova, folklorist scientist, with peasant Yakim Nagim. It is also no coincidence that the author makes the interlocutor of the folklorist scholar not a “craftsman,” as was the case in the first drafts, but rather a peasant. It is not an outside observer, but the peasant himself who provides an explanation for what is happening. “Don’t measure a peasant by the master’s measure!” - the voice of the peasant Yakim Nagogo sounds in response to Veretennikov, who reproached the peasants for “drinking until they stupefy.” Yakim explains public drunkenness by the suffering that was inflicted on the peasants without measure:

There is no measure for Russian hops,
Have they measured our grief?
Is there a limit to the work?<...>
Why is it shameful for you to look,
Like drunk people lying around
So look,
Like being dragged out of a swamp
Peasants have wet hay,
Having mowed down, they drag:
Where horses can't get through
Where and without a burden on foot
It's dangerous to cross
There's a peasant horde there
By Kochs, by Zhorins
Crawling and crawling with whips, -
The peasant's navel is cracking!

The image used by Yakim Naga in defining the peasants is full of contradictions - the army-horde. The army is the army, the peasants are warrior-warriors, heroes - this image will pass through all Nekrasov's poem. Men, workers and sufferers, are interpreted by the author as defenders of Russia, the basis of its wealth and stability. But the peasants are also a “horde”, an unenlightened, spontaneous, blind force. And these dark sides in folk life are also revealed in the poem. Drunkenness saves the peasant from sorrowful thoughts and from the anger that has accumulated in the soul for long years suffering and injustice. The soul of a peasant is a “black cloud” foreshadowing a “thunderstorm” - this motif will be picked up in the chapter “Peasant Woman”, in “A Feast for the Whole World”. But the soul is peasant and “kind”: its anger “ends in wine.”

The contradictions of the Russian soul are further revealed by the author. Myself Yakima image full of such contradictions. This peasant’s love for the “pictures” that he bought for his son explains a lot. The author does not detail what “pictures” Yakim admired. It may well be that the same important generals were depicted there as in the pictures described in “Rural Fair”. It is important for Nekrasov to emphasize only one thing: during a fire, when people save what is most precious, Yakim did not save the thirty-five rubles he had accumulated, but “pictures.” And his wife saved him - not money, but icons. What was dear to the peasant soul turned out to be more important than that what the body needs.

When talking about his hero, the author does not seek to show the uniqueness or peculiarity of Yakima. On the contrary, by emphasizing natural images in the description of his hero, the author creates a portrait-symbol of the entire Russian peasantry - a plowman who has become close to the land over many years. This gives Yakim’s words special weight: we perceive his voice as the voice of the very land-breadwinner, of peasant Rus' itself, calling not for condemnation, but for compassion:

The chest is sunken, as if depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And to Mother Earth myself
He looks like: brown neck,
Like a layer cut off by a plow,
Brick face
Hand - tree bark.
And the hair is sand.

The chapter “Drunken Night” ends with songs in which the strongest impact was folk soul. In one of them it is sung “about mother Volga, about brave prowess, about girlish beauty" The song about love and brave strength and will disturbed the peasants, passed “through the hearts of the peasants” with “fire-longing”, made women cry, and caused homesickness in the hearts of wanderers. Thus, the drunken, “cheerful and roaring” crowd of peasants is transformed before the eyes of the readers, and the longing for will and love, for happiness, suppressed by work and wine, opens in the hearts and souls of people.

Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” tells about the journey of seven peasants across Russia in search of happy person. The work was written in the late 60s to mid 70s. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It tells about a post-reform society in which not only many old vices have not disappeared, but many new ones have appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the wanderers were supposed to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the journey, but due to the illness and imminent death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.

The work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is written in blank verse and stylized as Russian folk tales. We invite you to read online a summary of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov, chapter by chapter, prepared by the editors of our portal.

Main characters

Novel, Demyan, Luke, Gubin brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Groin, Prov- seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.

Other characters

Ermil Girin- the first “candidate” for the title of lucky man, an honest mayor, very respected by the peasants.

Matryona Korchagina(Governor's wife) - a peasant woman, known in her village as a “lucky woman”.

Savely- husband's grandfather Matryona Korchagina. A hundred year old man.

Prince Utyatin(The Last One) is an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in agreement with the peasants, does not talk about the abolition of serfdom.

Vlas- peasant, mayor of a village that once belonged to Utyatin.

Grisha Dobrosklonov- seminarian, son of a clerk, dreaming of the liberation of the Russian people; the prototype was the revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men converge on the “pillar path”: Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers (Ivan and Mitrodor), old man Pakhom and Prov. The district from which they come is called by the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the men come are called Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo and Neurozhaiko, thus used in the poem artistic technique"talking" names.

The men got together and argued:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?

Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that life is most free for the landowner, another that for the official, the third for the priest, “the fat-bellied merchant,” “the noble boyar, the sovereign’s minister,” or the tsar.

From the outside it seems as if the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The men have already forgotten what business they left the house for (one was going to baptize a child, the other was going to the market...), and they go to God knows where until night falls. Only here do the men stop and, “blaming the trouble on the devil,” sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.

Roman is pushing Pakhomushka,
Demyan pushes Luka.

The fight alarmed the whole forest, an echo woke up, animals and birds became worried, a cow mooed, a cuckoo croaked, jackdaws squeaked, the fox, who had been eavesdropping on the men, decided to run away.

And then there’s the warbler
Tiny chick with fright
Fell from the nest.

When the fight is over, the men pay attention to this chick and catch it. It’s easier for a bird than for a man, says Pakhom. If he had wings, he would fly all over Rus' to find out who lives best in it. “We wouldn’t even need wings,” the others add, they would just have some bread and “a bucket of vodka,” as well as cucumbers, kvass and tea. Then they would measure all of “Mother Rus' with their feet.”

While the men are talking In a similar way, a warbler flies up to them and asks them to let her chick go free. For him she will give a royal ransom: everything the men want.

The men agree, and the warbler shows them a place in the forest where a box with a self-assembled tablecloth is buried. Then she enchants their clothes so that they do not wear out, so that their bast shoes do not break, their foot wraps do not rot, and louses do not breed on their bodies, and flies away “with her birth chick.” In parting, the chiffchaff warns the peasant: they can ask for as much food from the self-assembled tablecloth as they want, but you can’t ask for more than a bucket of vodka a day:

And once and twice - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And the third time there will be trouble!

The peasants rush into the forest, where they actually find a self-assembled tablecloth. Delighted, they throw a feast and make a vow: not to return home until they find out for sure “who lives happily and at ease in Rus'?”

This is how their journey begins.

Chapter 1. Pop

A wide path lined with birch trees stretches far away. On it, the men come across mostly “small people” - peasants, artisans, beggars, soldiers. Travelers don’t even ask them anything: what kind of happiness is there? Towards evening, the men meet the priest. The men block his path and bow low. In response to the priest’s silent question: what do they want?, Luka talks about the dispute that started and asks: “Is the priest’s life sweet?”

The priest thinks for a long time, and then answers that, since it is a sin to grumble against God, he will simply describe his life to the men, and they will figure out for themselves whether it is good.

Happiness, according to the priest, lies in three things: “peace, wealth, honor.” The priest knows no peace: his rank goes to him hard work, and then an equally difficult service begins, the cries of orphans, the cries of widows and the groans of the dying do little to contribute to peace of mind.

The situation is no better with honor: the priest serves as an object for witticisms common people, obscene tales, jokes and fables are written about him, which do not spare not only himself, but also his wife and children.

The last thing that remains is wealth, but even here everything has changed long ago. Yes, there were times when the nobles honored the priest, played magnificent weddings and came to their estates to die - that was the job of the priests, but now “the landowners have scattered across distant foreign lands.” So it turns out that the priest is content with rare copper nickels:

The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give it, but there’s nothing...

Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the disputants attack Luke with reproaches. They unanimously accuse him of stupidity, of the fact that it was only at first glance that the priest’s housing seemed comfortable to him, but he could not figure it out deeper.

What did you take? stubborn head!

The men would probably have beaten Luka, but then, to his happiness, at the bend of the road, “the priest’s stern face” appears once again...

Chapter 2. Rural fair

The men continue their journey, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally they meet the rider and ask him where the villagers have gone.

We went to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Today there is a fair...

Then the wanderers decide to also go to the fair - what if it is there that the one “who lives happily” is hiding?

Kuzminskoye is a rich, albeit dirty village. It has two churches, a school (closed), a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That’s why the fair is rich, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven taverns,” and they don’t have time to pour a drink for everyone:

Oh Orthodox thirst,
How great are you!

There are a lot of drunk people around. A man scolds a broken ax, and Vavil’s grandfather, who promised to bring shoes for his granddaughter, but drank away all the money, is sad next to him. The people feel sorry for him, but no one can help - they themselves have no money. Fortunately, a “master” happens, Pavlusha Veretennikov, and he buys shoes for Vavila’s granddaughter.

Ofeni (booksellers) also sell at the fair, but the most low-quality books, as well as thicker portraits of generals, are in demand. And no one knows whether the time will come when a man:

Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?

By evening everyone gets so drunk that even the church with its bell tower seems to be shaking, and the men leave the village.

Chapter 3. Drunken night

It's a quiet night. The men walk along the “hundred-voice” road and hear snatches of other people’s conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we give fifty dollars to the clerk: We have made a request,” women’s songs are heard asking them to “love.” One drunk guy buries his clothes in the ground, assuring everyone that he is “burying his mother.” At the road sign, the wanderers again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants for drinking a lot - “it’s a shame to see!” They object to him: the peasant drinks mainly out of grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy him.

The objector's name is Yakim Goly. Pavlusha also writes down his story in a book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought his son popular prints and he himself loved to look at them no less than the child. When there was a fire in the hut, the first thing he did was rush to tear pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, were burned. Now he gets 11 rubles for a melted lump.

Having heard enough stories, the wanderers sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the guard’s bucket of vodka, and the rest again mix with the crowd in search of the happy one.

Chapter 4. Happy

Wanderers walk in the crowd and call for the happy one to appear. If such a one appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to vodka.

Sober people laugh at such speeches, but a considerable queue of drunk people forms. The sexton comes first. His happiness, in his words, “lies in complacency” and in the “kosushechka” that the men pour out. The sexton is driven away, and an old woman appears who, on a small ridge, “up to a thousand turnips were born.” The next to try his luck is a soldier with medals, “he’s barely alive, but he wants a drink.” His happiness is that no matter how much he was tortured in the service, he still remained alive. A stonecutter with a huge hammer also comes, a peasant who overstrained himself in the service but still made it home barely alive, a yard man with a “noble” disease - gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table of His Serene Highness, licking plates and finishing glasses of foreign wine. The men drive him away too, because they have simple wine, “not for your lips!”

The queue for travelers is not getting smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats his fill of rye bread, because in his homeland they baked bread only with chaff, and this caused terrible cramps in the stomach. A man with a folded cheekbone, a hunter, is happy that he survived the fight with the bear, while the rest of his comrades were killed by the bears. Even beggars come: they are happy that there is alms to feed them.

Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers realize that they will not find happiness this way.

Hey, man's happiness!
Leaky, with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses,
Go home!

Here one of the people who approached them advises them to “ask Ermila Girin,” because if he doesn’t turn out to be happy, then there’s nothing to look for. Ermila is a simple man who has earned the great love of the people. The wanderers are told the following story: Ermila once had a mill, but they decided to sell it for debts. The bidding began; the merchant Altynnikov really wanted to buy the mill. Ermila was able to beat his price, but the problem was that he didn’t have the money with him to make a deposit. Then he asked for an hour's delay and ran to retail space ask people for money.

And a miracle happened: Yermil received the money. Very soon he had the thousand he needed to buy out the mill. And a week later there was an even more wonderful sight on the square: Yermil was “calculating the people”, he distributed the money to everyone and honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Yermil kept asking until sunset whose it was.

The wanderers are perplexed: by what witchcraft did Yermil gain such trust from the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Girin served as a clerk in an office and never took a penny from anyone, but helped with advice. Died soon old prince, and the new one ordered the peasants to elect a burgomaster. Unanimously, “six thousand souls, the whole estate,” Yermila shouted - although young, he loves the truth!

Only once did Yermil “betray his soul” when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitri, replacing him with the son of Nenila Vlasyevna. But after this act, Yermil’s conscience tormented him so much that he soon tried to hang himself. Mitri was handed over as a recruit, and Nenila’s son was returned to her. Yermil, for a long time, was not himself, “he resigned from his position,” but instead rented a mill and became “more loved by the people than before.”

But here the priest intervenes in the conversation: all this is true, but going to Yermil Girin is useless. He is sitting in prison. The priest begins to tell how it happened - the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Yermil - his people will listen.

The story is interrupted by shouts: they caught the thief and flogged him. The thief turns out to be the same footman with the “noble illness”, and after the flogging he runs away as if he had completely forgotten about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish telling the story the next time they meet.

Chapter 5. Landowner

On their further journey, the men meet the landowner Gavrila Afanasich Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is frightened at first, suspecting them to be robbers, but, having figured out what the matter is, he laughs and begins to tell his story. He traces his noble family back to the Tatar Oboldui, who was skinned by a bear for the amusement of the empress. She gave the Tatar cloth for this. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner...

The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!

However, not all strictness; the landowner admits that he “attracted hearts more with affection”! All the servants loved him, gave him gifts, and he was like a father to them. But everything changed: the peasants and land were taken away from the landowner. The sound of an ax can be heard from the forests, everyone is being destroyed, drinking houses are springing up instead of estates, because now no one needs a letter at all. And they shout to the landowners:

Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! - study! work!..

But how can a landowner, who has been accustomed to something completely different since childhood, work? They didn’t learn anything, and “thought they’d live like this forever,” but it turned out differently.

The landowner began to cry, and the good-natured peasants almost cried with him, thinking:

The great chain has broken,
Torn and splintered:
One way for the master,
Others don't care!..

Part 2

Last One

The next day, the men go to the banks of the Volga, to a huge hay meadow. They had barely started talking with the locals when music began and three boats moored to the shore. They are a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, little barchat, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman. The old man inspects the mowing, and everyone bows to him almost to the ground. In one place he stops and orders the dry haystack to be swept away: the hay is still damp. The absurd order is immediately carried out.

The wanderers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man?

It turns out that the old man - Prince Utyatin (the peasants call him the Last One) - having learned about the abolition of serfdom, “beguiled” and fell ill with a stroke. It was announced to his sons that they had betrayed the landowner ideals, were unable to defend them, and if so, they would be left without an inheritance. The sons got scared and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, with the idea that after his death they would give the village flood meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to be returned to the landowners, the prince was delighted and stood up. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:

Ipat said: “Have fun!
And I am the Utyatin princes
Serf - and that’s the whole story!”

But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in freedom someone will push him around. One day he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. Having woken up, he ordered Agap to be flogged, and the peasants, so as not to reveal the deception, took him to the stable, where they placed a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died that same night: it was hard for him to bow down...

The wanderers attend the feast of the Last One, where he gives a speech about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in a boat and falls asleep in eternal sleep while listening to songs. The village of Vakhlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one is giving them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.

Part 3

Peasant woman

“Not everything is between men
Find the happy one
Let’s feel the women!”

With these words, the wanderers go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, beautiful woman 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then I was only happy, as I grew up in parents' house. But girlhood quickly flew by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Her betrothed is Philip, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife (according to her, he only beat him once), but soon he goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.

Matryona works for her older sister-in-law, her strict mother-in-law, and her father-in-law. She had no joy in her life until her eldest son, Demushka, was born.

In the whole family, only the old grandfather Savely, the “hero of the Holy Russian”, who is living out his life after twenty years of hard labor, feels sorry for Matryona. He ended up in hard labor for the murder of a German manager who did not give the men a single free minute. Savely told Matryona a lot about his life, about “Russian heroism.”

The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka into the field: she doesn’t work with him much. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep and the child is eaten by pigs. After some time, Matryona meets Savely at the grave of Demushka, who has gone to repentance at the Sand Monastery. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.

Matryona had other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherdess Fedot, once wanted to be whipped for a sheep carried away by a wolf, but Matryona took the punishment upon herself. When she was pregnant with Liodorushka, she had to go to the city and ask for the return of her husband, who had been taken into the army. Matryona gave birth right in the waiting room, and the governor’s wife, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona “has been glorified as a lucky woman and nicknamed the governor’s wife.” But what kind of happiness is that?

This is what Matryonushka says to the wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to female happiness lost, and even God does not know where to find them.

Part 4

Feast for the whole world

There is a feast in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered here: the wanderers, Klim Yakovlich, and Vlas the elder. Among those feasting are two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, kind simple guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “cheerful” song, then it’s their turn to different stories. There is a story about an “exemplary slave - Yakov the faithful,” who followed his master all his life, fulfilled all his whims and rejoiced even in the master’s beatings. Only when the master gave his nephew as a soldier did Yakov start drinking, but soon returned to the master. And yet Yakov did not forgive him, and was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he took him, with his legs swollen, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree over the master.

A dispute ensues about who is the most sinful. God's wanderer Jonah tells the story of “two sinners,” about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened his conscience and imposed a penance on him: cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant’s sin is still greater, and tells a story about the headman. He hid last will his master, who decided before his death to set his peasants free. But the headman, seduced by money, tore up his freedom.

The crowd is depressed. Songs are sung: “Hungry”, “Soldier’s”. But the time will come in Rus' for good songs. This is confirmed by two seminarian brothers, Savva and Grisha. Seminarian Grisha, the son of a sexton, has known for sure since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the people’s happiness. Love for his mother merges in his heart with love for all Vakhlachin. Grisha walks along his land and sings a song about Rus':

You're miserable too
You are also abundant
You are mighty
You are also powerless
Mother Rus'!

And his plans will not be lost: fate is preparing for Grisha “a glorious path, a great name people's defender, consumption and Siberia." In the meantime, Grisha sings, and it’s a pity that the wanderers can’t hear him, because then they would understand that they have already found a happy person and could return home.

Conclusion

This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Rus', which with pain is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, ruining the Russian people (no wonder a bucket of vodka is offered as a reward to the happy one!) problems of women, ineradicable slave psychology (revealed in the example of Yakov, Ipat) and main problem people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotes from it have entered everyday speech. Compositional technique The journey of the main characters brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, making it easy to read and with great interest.

A brief retelling of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” conveys only the most basic content of the poem; for a more accurate idea of ​​the work, we recommend that you read full version“Who lives well in Rus'.”

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