Peasant images in the poem who lives well in Rus'. The image of a peasant in Russian literature. Images of Matryona and Savely

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

Separate chapters are devoted to two landowners.

Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev.

Portrait

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

Character

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

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

Lifestyle

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

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

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

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

Last One

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

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

Portrait

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

Character traits

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

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

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

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

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

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

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is based on N.A. Nekrasov is an image of the Russian peasantry after the abolition of serfdom. Throughout the entire work, the characters are looking for the answer to the question: “Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?”, who is considered happy, who is unhappy.

Truth-seekers

At the forefront of the research is the journey of seven men through Russian villages in search of an answer to the question posed. In the appearance of the seven “freely obligated” we see only the common features of the peasants, namely: poverty, inquisitiveness, unpretentiousness.

The men ask about the happiness of the peasants and soldiers they meet. They consider the priest, the landowner, the merchant, the nobleman and the tsar to be lucky. But the main place in the poem is given to the peasantry.

Yakim Nagoy

Yakim Nagoy works “to death”, but lives from hand to mouth, like most residents of Bosovo. In the description of the hero, we see how difficult Yakim’s life is: “...He himself looks like Mother Earth.” Yakim realizes that the peasants are the greatest power, he is proud that he belongs to this group of people. he is familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the peasant character. The main disadvantage is alcohol, which has a detrimental effect on men.

For Yakima, the idea that the poverty of the peasantry is caused by drinking wine is unacceptable. In his opinion, this is due to the obligation to work for “shareholders.” The fate of the hero is typical for the Russian people after the abolition of serfdom: while living in the capital, he enters into an argument with a merchant, ends up in prison, from where he returns to the village and begins to plow the land.

Ermila Girin

Ermila Girina N.A. Nekrasov endowed him with honesty and great intelligence. He lived for the sake of the people, was honest, fair, and did not leave anyone in trouble. The only dishonest act he committed was for the sake of his family - saving his nephew from being recruited. He sent the widow's son instead. From his own deceit and torment of conscience, Girin almost hanged himself. He corrected his mistake and subsequently took the side of the rebellious peasants, for which he was imprisoned.

The episode with the purchase of Ermil's mill is remarkable, when the peasants express absolute trust in Ermil Girin, and he, in return, is completely honest with them.

Savely - hero

Nekrasov expresses the idea that peasants for him are akin to heroes. Here comes the image of Savely, the Holy Russian hero. He sincerely sympathizes with Matryona and has a hard time rethinking the death of Demushka. This hero combines goodness, simplicity, sincerity, help to the oppressed and anger towards the oppressors.

Matrena Timofeevna

Peasant women are represented in the image of Matryona Timofeevna. This strong-hearted woman fights all her life for freedom and female happiness. Her life resembles the life of many peasant women of that time, although she is even happier than many. This is taking into account the fact that after marriage she ended up in a family that hated her, she was married only once, her first-born was eaten by pigs, and her whole life is based on hard work in the fields.

Peasant oppressors

The author shows how hard serfdom affects people’s lives, how it cripples them, destroying them morally. There are also peasants who chose the side of their masters - Ipat, Klim, Yakov the Faithful, who oppress the common people along with the landowners.

In his poem, Nekrasov showed the life of the peasantry after the reform of 1861, depicted images of Russian peasants, saying that the people have untold power and will soon begin to realize their rights.

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

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

You're past them, the landowners!

We know them!

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

Give me your Christian word!

Noblesse with abuse,

With a push and a punch,

That is of no use to us.

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

What are we doing, godfather?

Bring on the sickles! All seven

How will we be tomorrow - by evening

We will burn all your rye!

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

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

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

The chest is sunken; as if pressed in

Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth

Bends like cracks

On dry ground...

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

You work alone

And the work is almost over,

Look, there are three shareholders standing:

God, king and lord!

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

Soul, like a black cloud -

Angry, menacing - and it should be

Thunder will roar from there,

It's raining bloody...

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

In seven years the world's penny

I didn’t squeeze it under my nail,

At the age of seven I didn’t touch the right one,

He did not allow the guilty

I didn’t bend my heart...

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

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

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

...Our axes

They lay there for the time being!

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

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

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

The keys to women's happiness,

From our free will

Abandonedlost

From God himself.

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

You are still a slave in the family,

But the mother of a free son!

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

And I am the Utyatin princes

Serf - and that's the whole story!

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

Me, the latter's slave,

In winter in the ice hole!

How wonderful!

Two ice holes:

He will lower you into one in a net,

In another moment he will pull out -

And he’ll bring you some vodka.

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

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

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

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

People of servile rank -

Real dogs sometimes:

The heavier the punishment,

That's why gentlemen are dearer to them.

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

More to the Russian people

No limits set:

There is a wide path before him.

Veretennikov Pavlusha - a collector of folklore who met men - seekers of happiness - at a rural fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. This character is given a very sparse external description (“He was good at acting out, / Wore a red shirt, / A cloth undergirl, / Grease boots...”), little is known about his origin (“What kind of rank, / The men didn’t know, / However, they called him “master”). Due to such uncertainty, V.’s image acquires a generalizing character. His keen interest in the fate of the peasants distinguishes V. from among indifferent observers of the life of the people (figures of various statistical committees), eloquently exposed in the monologue of Yakim Nagogo. V.’s first appearance in the text is accompanied by a selfless act: he helps out the peasant Vavila by buying shoes for his granddaughter. In addition, he is ready to listen to other people's opinions. So, although he blames the Russian people for drunkenness, he is convinced of the inevitability of this evil: after listening to Yakim, he himself offers him a drink (“Veretennikov / He brought two scales to Yakim”). Seeing the genuine attention from the reasonable master, and “the peasants open up / to the gentleman’s liking.” Among the alleged prototypes of V. are folklorists and ethnographers Pavel Yakushkin and Pavel Rybnikov, figures of the democratic movement of the 1860s. The character probably owes his surname to the journalist P.F. Veretennikov, who visited the Nizhny Novgorod fair for several years in a row and published reports about it in Moskovskie Vedomosti.

Vlas- headman of the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki. “Serving under a strict master, / Bearing the burden on his conscience / An involuntary participant / in his cruelties.” After the abolition of serfdom, V. renounced the post of pseudo-burgomaster, but accepted actual responsibility for the fate of the community: “Vlas was the kindest soul, / He was rooting for the entire Vakhlachin - / Not for one family.” When the hope for the Last One flashed with the death free life “without corvee... without taxes... Without a stick...” is replaced for the peasants by a new concern (litigation with the heirs for the flood meadows), V. becomes an intercessor for the peasants, “lives in Moscow... was in St. Petersburg ... / But there’s no point!” Along with his youth, V. gave up his optimism, is afraid of new things, and is always gloomy. But his daily life is rich in unnoticeable good deeds, for example, in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World.” on his initiative, the peasants collect money for the soldier Ovsyanikov. The image of V. is devoid of external concreteness: for Nekrasov, he is, first of all, a representative of the peasantry. ) - the fate of the entire Russian people.

Girin Ermil Ilyich (Ermila) - one of the most likely candidates for the title of lucky. The real prototype of this character is the peasant A.D. Potanin (1797-1853), who managed by proxy the estate of Countess Orlova, which was called Odoevshchina (after the surnames of the former owners - the Odoevsky princes), and the peasants were baptized into Adovshchina. Potanin became famous for his extraordinary justice. Nekrasovsky G. became known to his fellow villagers for his honesty even in the five years that he served as a clerk in the office (“You need a bad conscience - / A peasant should extort a penny from a peasant”). Under the old Prince Yurlov, he was fired, but then, under the young Prince, he was unanimously elected mayor of Adovshchina. During the seven years of his “reign” G. only once betrayed his soul: “...from the recruiting / He shielded his younger brother Mitri.” But repentance for this offense almost led him to suicide. Only thanks to the intervention of a strong gentleman was it possible to restore justice, and instead of Nenila Vlasyevna’s son, Mitriy went to serve, and “the prince himself takes care of him.” G. quit his job, rented the mill “and it became more powerful than ever / Loved by all the people.” When they decided to sell the mill, G. won the auction, but he did not have the money with him to make a deposit. And then “a miracle happened”: G. was rescued by the peasants to whom he turned for help, and in half an hour he managed to collect a thousand rubles in the market square.

G. is driven not by mercantile interest, but by a rebellious spirit: “The mill is not dear to me, / The resentment is great.” And although “he had everything he needed / For happiness: peace, / And money, and honor,” at the moment when the peasants start talking about him (chapter “Happy”), G., in connection with the peasant uprising, is in prison. The speech of the narrator, a gray-haired priest, from whom it becomes known about the arrest of the hero, is unexpectedly interrupted by outside interference, and later he himself refuses to continue the story. But behind this omission one can easily guess both the reason for the riot and G.’s refusal to help in pacifying it.

Gleb- peasant, “great sinner.” According to the legend told in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”, the “ammiral-widower”, participant in the battle “at Achakov” (possibly Count A.V. Orlov-Chesmensky), granted by the empress with eight thousand souls, dying, entrusted to the elder G. his will (free for these peasants). The hero was tempted by the money promised to him and burned the will. Men tend to regard this “Judas” sin as the most serious sin ever committed, and because of it they will have to “suffer forever.” Only Grisha Dobrosklonov manages to convince the peasants “that they are not responsible / For Gleb the accursed, / It’s all their fault: strengthen yourself!”

Dobrosklonov Grisha - a character who appears in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”; the epilogue of the poem is entirely dedicated to him. “Gregory / Has a thin, pale face / And thin, curly hair / With a tinge of redness.” He is a seminarian, the son of the parish sexton Trifon from the village of Bolshiye Vakhlaki. Their family lives in extreme poverty, only the generosity of Vlas the godfather and other men helped put Grisha and his brother Savva on their feet. Their mother Domna, “an unrequited farmhand / For everyone who helped her in any way / on a rainy day,” died early, leaving a terrible “Salty” song as a reminder of herself. In D.’s mind, her image is inseparable from the image of her homeland: “In the boy’s heart / With love for his poor mother / Love for all the Vakhlachina / Merged.” Already at the age of fifteen he was determined to devote his life to the people. “I don’t need silver, / Nor gold, but God grant, / So that my fellow countrymen / And every peasant / May live freely and cheerfully / Throughout all holy Rus'!” He is going to Moscow to study, while in the meantime he and his brother help the peasants as best they can: they write letters for them, explain the “Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom,” work and rest “with the peasantry on an equal basis.” Observations on the life of the surrounding poor, reflections on the fate of Russia and its people are clothed in poetic form, D.'s songs are known and loved by the peasants. With his appearance in the poem, the lyrical principle intensifies, the author’s direct assessment invades the narrative. D. is marked with the “seal of the gift of God”; a revolutionary propagandist from among the people, he should, according to Nekrasov, serve as an example for the progressive intelligentsia. Into his mouth the author puts his beliefs, his own version of the answer to the social and moral questions posed in the poem. The image of the hero gives the poem compositional completeness. The real prototype could be N.A. Dobrolyubov.

Elena Alexandrovna - governor's wife, merciful lady, Matryona's savior. “She was kind, she was smart, / Beautiful, healthy, / But God did not give children.” She sheltered a peasant woman after a premature birth, became the child’s godmother, “all the time with Liodorushka / Was worn around like her own.” Thanks to her intercession, it was possible to rescue Philip from the recruiting camp. Matryona praises her benefactor to the skies, and criticism (O. F. Miller) rightly notes echoes of the sentimentalism of the Karamzin period in the image of the governor.

Ipat- a grotesque image of a faithful serf, a lord's lackey, who remained faithful to the owner even after the abolition of serfdom. I. boasts that the landowner “harnessed him with his own hand / into a cart,” bathed him in an ice hole, saved him from the cold death to which he himself had previously doomed. He perceives all this as great blessings. I. causes healthy laughter among wanderers.

Korchagina Matrena Timofeevna - a peasant woman, the third part of the poem is entirely devoted to her life story. “Matryona Timofeevna / A dignified woman, / Broad and dense, / About thirty-eight years old. / Beautiful; gray hair, / Large, stern eyes, / Rich eyelashes, / Severe and dark. / She’s wearing a white shirt, / And a short sundress, / And a sickle over her shoulder.” The fame of the lucky woman brings strangers to her. M. agrees to “lay out her soul” when the men promise to help her in the harvest: the suffering is in full swing. M.’s fate was largely suggested to Nekrasov by the autobiography of the Olonets prisoner I. A. Fedoseeva, published in the 1st volume of “Lamentations of the Northern Territory,” collected by E. V. Barsov (1872). The narrative is based on her laments, as well as other folklore materials, including “Songs collected by P. N. Rybnikov” (1861). The abundance of folklore sources, often included practically unchanged in the text of “The Peasant Woman,” and the very title of this part of the poem emphasize the typicality of M.’s fate: this is the ordinary fate of a Russian woman, convincingly indicating that the wanderers “started / Not a matter between women / / Look for a happy one.” In his parents' house, in a good, non-drinking family, M. lived happily. But, having married Philip Korchagin, a stove maker, she ended up “by her maiden will in hell”: a superstitious mother-in-law, a drunken father-in-law, an older sister-in-law, for whom the daughter-in-law must work like a slave. However, she was lucky with her husband: only once did it come to beatings. But Philip only returns home from work in the winter, and the rest of the time there is no one to intercede for M. except grandfather Savely, father-in-law. She has to endure the harassment of Sitnikov, the master's manager, which stopped only with his death. For the peasant woman, her first-born De-mushka becomes a consolation in all troubles, but due to Savely’s oversight, the child dies: he is eaten by pigs. An unjust trial is being carried out on a grief-stricken mother. Having not thought of giving a bribe to her boss in time, she witnesses the violation of her child’s body.

For a long time, K. cannot forgive Savely for his irreparable mistake. Over time, the peasant woman has new children, “there is no time / Neither to think nor to be sad.” The heroine's parents, Savely, die. Her eight-year-old son Fedot faces punishment for feeding someone else's sheep to a wolf, and his mother lies under the rod in his place. But the most difficult trials befall her in a lean year. Pregnant, with children, she herself is like a hungry wolf. The recruitment deprives her of her last protector, her husband (he is taken out of turn). In her delirium, she draws terrible pictures of the life of a soldier and soldiers’ children. She leaves the house and runs to the city, where she tries to get to the governor, and when the doorman lets her into the house for a bribe, she throws herself at the feet of the governor Elena Alexandrovna. With her husband and newborn Liodorushka, the heroine returns home, this incident secured her reputation as a lucky woman and the nickname “governor”. Her further fate is also full of troubles: one of her sons has already been taken into the army, “They were burned twice... God visited with anthrax... three times.” The “Woman’s Parable” sums up her tragic story: “The keys to women’s happiness, / From our free will / Abandoned, lost / From God himself!” Some of the critics (V.G. Avseenko, V.P. Burenin, N.F. Pavlov) met “The Peasant Woman” with hostility; Nekrasov was accused of implausible exaggerations, false, fake populism. However, even ill-wishers noted some successful episodes. There were also reviews of this chapter as the best part of the poem.

Kudeyar-ataman - “great sinner”, the hero of the legend told by God’s wanderer Jonushka in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World.” The fierce robber unexpectedly repented of his crimes. Neither a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher nor a hermitage brings peace to his soul. The saint who appeared to K. promises him that he will earn forgiveness when he cuts down a century-old oak tree “with the same knife that he robbed.” Years of futile efforts raised doubts in the heart of the old man about the possibility of completing the task. However, “the tree collapsed, the burden of sins rolled off the monk,” when the hermit, in a fit of furious anger, killed Pan Glukhovsky, who was passing by, boasting of his calm conscience: “Salvation / I haven’t been drinking for a long time, / In the world I honor only woman, / Gold, honor and wine... How many slaves I destroy, / I torture, torture and hang, / And if only I could see how I’m sleeping!” The legend about K. was borrowed by Nekrasov from folklore tradition, but the image of Pan Glukhovsky is quite realistic. Among the possible prototypes is the landowner Glukhovsky from the Smolensk province, who spotted his serf, according to a note in Herzen’s “Bell” dated October 1, 1859.

Nagoy Yakim- “In the village of Bosovo / Yakim Nagoy lives, / He works until he’s dead, / He drinks until he’s half to death!” - this is how the character defines himself. In the poem, he is entrusted to speak out in defense of the people on behalf of the people. The image has deep folklore roots: the hero’s speech is replete with paraphrased proverbs, riddles, in addition, formulas similar to those that characterize his appearance (“The hand is tree bark, / And the hair is sand”) are repeatedly found, for example, in folk spiritual verse "About Yegoriy Khorobry." Nekrasov reinterprets the popular idea of ​​the inseparability of man and nature, emphasizing the unity of the worker with the earth: “He lives and tinkers with the plow, / And death will come to Yakimushka” - / As a lump of earth falls off, / What has dried on the plow ... near the eyes, near the mouth / Bends like cracks / On dry ground<...>the neck is brown, / Like a layer cut off by a plow, / A brick face.”

The character’s biography is not entirely typical for a peasant, it is rich in events: “Yakim, a wretched old man, / Once lived in St. Petersburg, / But he ended up in prison: / He decided to compete with a merchant! / Like a piece of velcro, / He returned to his homeland / And took up the plow.” During the fire, he lost most of his property, since the first thing he did was rush to save the pictures that he bought for his son (“And he himself, no less than the boy / Loved to look at them”). However, even in the new house, the hero returns to the old ways and buys new pictures. Countless adversities only strengthen his firm position in life. In Chapter III of the first part (“Drunken Night”) N. pronounces a monologue, where his beliefs are formulated extremely clearly: hard labor, the results of which go to three shareholders (God, the Tsar and the Master), and sometimes are completely destroyed by fire; disasters, poverty - all this justifies peasant drunkenness, and it is not worth measuring the peasant “by the master’s standard.” This point of view on the problem of popular drunkenness, widely discussed in journalism in the 1860s, is close to the revolutionary democratic one (according to N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov, drunkenness is a consequence of poverty). It is no coincidence that this monologue was subsequently used by the populists in their propaganda activities, and was repeatedly rewritten and reprinted separately from the rest of the text of the poem.

Obolt-Obolduev Gavrila Afanasyevich - “The gentleman is round, / Mustachioed, pot-bellied, / With a cigar in his mouth... ruddy, / Stately, stocky, / Sixty years old... Well done, / Hungarian with Brandenburs, / Wide trousers.” Among O.'s eminent ancestors are a Tatar who amused the empress with wild animals, and an embezzler who plotted the arson of Moscow. The hero is proud of his family tree. Previously, the master “smoked... God’s heaven, / Wore the royal livery, / Wasted the people’s treasury / And thought to live like this forever,” but with the abolition of serfdom, “the great chain broke, / It broke and sprang apart: / One end hit the master, / For others, it’s a man!” With nostalgia, the landowner recalls the lost benefits, explaining along the way that he is sad not for himself, but for his motherland.

A hypocritical, idle, ignorant despot, who sees the purpose of his class in “the ancient name, / The dignity of the nobility / To support with hunting, / With feasts, with all kinds of luxury / And to live by the labor of others.” On top of that, O. is also a coward: he mistakes unarmed men for robbers, and they do not soon manage to persuade him to hide the pistol. The comic effect is enhanced by the fact that accusations against oneself come from the lips of the landowner himself.

Ovsyanikov- soldier. “...He was fragile on his legs, / Tall and skinny to the extreme; / He was wearing a frock coat with medals / Hanging like on a pole. / It’s impossible to say that he had a kind / face, especially / When he drove the old one - / Damn the devil! The mouth will snarl, / The eyes are like coals!” With his orphan niece Ustinyushka, O. traveled around the villages, earning a living from the district committee, when the instrument became damaged, he composed new sayings and performed them, playing along with himself on spoons. O.'s songs are based on folklore sayings and raesh poems recorded by Nekrasov in 1843-1848. while working on “The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikovaya. The text of these songs fragmentarily outlines the soldier’s life path: the war near Sevastopol, where he was crippled, a negligent medical examination, where the old man’s wounds were rejected: “Second-rate! / According to them, the pension”, subsequent poverty (“Come on, with George - around the world, around the world”). In connection with the image of O., the theme of the railway, relevant both for Nekrasov and for later Russian literature, arises. The cast iron in the soldier’s perception is an animated monster: “It snorts in the peasant’s face, / Crushes, maims, tumbles, / Soon the entire Russian people / Will sweep cleaner than a broom!” Klim Lavin explains that the soldier cannot get to the St. Petersburg “Committee for the Wounded” for justice: the tariff on the Moscow-Petersburg road has increased and made it inaccessible to the people. The peasants, the heroes of the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World,” are trying to help the soldier and together collect only “rubles.”

Petrov Agap- “rude, unyielding,” according to Vlas, a man. P. did not want to put up with voluntary slavery; they calmed him down only with the help of wine. Caught by the Last One at the scene of the crime (carrying a log from the master’s forest), he broke down and explained his real situation to the master in the most impartial terms. Klim Lavin staged a brutal reprisal against P., getting him drunk instead of flogging him. But from the humiliation suffered and excessive intoxication, the hero dies by the morning of the next day. Such a terrible price is paid by peasants for a voluntary, albeit temporary, renunciation of freedom.

Polivanov- “... a gentleman of low birth,” however, small means did not in the least prevent the manifestation of his despotic nature. He is characterized by the whole range of vices of a typical serf owner: greed, stinginess, cruelty (“with relatives, not only with peasants”), voluptuousness. By old age, the master’s legs were paralyzed: “The eyes are clear, / The cheeks are red, / The plump arms are as white as sugar, / And there are shackles on the legs!” In this trouble, Yakov became his only support, “friend and brother,” but the master repaid him with black ingratitude for his faithful service. The terrible revenge of the slave, the night that P. had to spend in the ravine, “driving away the groans of birds and wolves,” force the master to repent (“I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!”), but the narrator believes that he will not be forgiven: “You will You, master, are an exemplary slave, / Faithful Jacob, / Remember until the day of judgment!

Pop- according to Luke’s assumption, the priest “lives cheerfully, / At ease in Rus'.” The village priest, who was the first to meet the wanderers on the way, refutes this assumption: he has neither peace, nor wealth, nor happiness. With what difficulty “the priest’s son gets a letter,” Nekrasov himself wrote in the poetic play “Rejected” (1859). In the poem, this theme will appear again in connection with the image of seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov. The priest’s career is restless: “The sick, the dying, / Born into the world / They do not choose time,” no habit will protect from compassion for the dying and orphans, “every time it gets wet, / The soul gets sick.” Pop enjoys dubious honor among the peasantry: folk superstitions are associated with him, he and his family are constant characters in obscene jokes and songs. The priest's wealth was previously due to the generosity of parishioners and landowners, who, with the abolition of serfdom, left their estates and scattered, “like the Jewish tribe... Across distant foreign lands / And across native Rus'.” With the transfer of the schismatics to the supervision of civil authorities in 1864, the local clergy lost another serious source of income, and it was difficult to live on “kopecks” from peasant labor.

Savely- the hero of the Holy Russian, “with a huge gray mane, / Tea, not cut for twenty years, / With a huge beard, / Grandfather looked like a bear.” Once in a fight with a bear, he injured his back, and in his old age it bent. S’s native village, Korezhina, is located in the wilderness, and therefore the peasants live relatively freely (“The zemstvo police / Haven’t come to us for a year”), although they endure the atrocities of the landowner. The heroism of the Russian peasant lies in patience, but there is a limit to any patience. S. ends up in Siberia for burying a hated German manager alive. Twenty years of hard labor, an unsuccessful attempt to escape, twenty years of settlement did not shake the rebellious spirit in the hero. Having returned home after the amnesty, he lives with the family of his son, Matryona’s father-in-law. Despite his venerable age (according to revision tales, his grandfather is a hundred years old), he leads an independent life: “He didn’t like families, / didn’t let them into his corner.” When they reproach him for his convict past, he cheerfully replies: “Branded, but not a slave!” Tempered by harsh trades and human cruelty, S.’s petrified heart could only be melted by Dema’s great-grandson. An accident makes the grandfather the culprit of Demushka's death. His grief is inconsolable, he goes to repentance at the Sand Monastery, tries to beg for forgiveness from the “angry mother.” Having lived one hundred and seven years, before his death he pronounces a terrible sentence on the Russian peasantry: “For men there are three roads: / Tavern, prison and penal servitude, / And for women in Rus' / Three nooses... Climb into any one.” The image of S, in addition to folklore, has social and polemical roots. O. I. Komissarov, who saved Alexander II from the assassination attempt on April 4, 1866, was a Kostroma resident, a fellow countryman of I. Susanin. Monarchists saw this parallel as proof of the thesis about the love of the Russian people for kings. To refute this point of view, Nekrasov settled the rebel S in the Kostroma province, the original patrimony of the Romanovs, and Matryona catches the similarity between him and the monument to Susanin.

Trophim (Trifon) - “a man with shortness of breath, / Relaxed, thin / (Sharp nose, like a dead one, / Thin arms like a rake, / Long legs like knitting needles, / Not a man - a mosquito).” A former bricklayer, a born strongman. Yielding to the contractor’s provocation, he “carried one at the extreme / Fourteen pounds” to the second floor and broke himself. One of the most vivid and terrible images in the poem. In the chapter “Happy,” T. boasts of the happiness that allowed him to get from St. Petersburg to his homeland alive, unlike many other “feverish, feverish workers” who were thrown out of the carriage when they began to rave.

Utyatin (Last One) - "thin! / Like winter hares, / All white... Nose with a beak like a hawk, / Gray mustache, long / And - different eyes: / One healthy one glows, / And the left one is cloudy, cloudy, / Like a tin penny! Having “exorbitant wealth, / An important rank, a noble family,” U. does not believe in the abolition of serfdom. As a result of an argument with the governor, he becomes paralyzed. “It was not self-interest, / But arrogance cut him off.” The prince's sons are afraid that he will deprive them of their inheritance in favor of their side daughters, and they persuade the peasants to pretend to be serfs again. The peasant world allowed “the dismissed master to show off / During the remaining hours.” On the day of the arrival of wanderers - seekers of happiness - in the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, the Last One finally dies, then the peasants arrange a “feast for the whole world.” The image of U. has a grotesque character. The absurd orders of the tyrant master will make the peasants laugh.

Shalashnikov- landowner, former owner of Korezhina, military man. Taking advantage of the distance from the provincial town, where the landowner and his regiment were stationed, the Korezhin peasants did not pay quitrent. Sh. decided to extract the quitrent by force, tore the peasants so much that “the brains were already shaking / In their little heads.” Savely remembers the landowner as an unsurpassed master: “He knew how to flog! / He tanned my skin so well that it lasts for a hundred years.” He died near Varna, his death put an end to the relative prosperity of the peasants.

Yakov- “about the exemplary slave - Yakov the faithful”, a former servant tells in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”. “People of the servile rank are / Sometimes mere dogs: / The more severe the punishment, / The dearer the Lord is to them.” So was Ya. until Mr. Polivanov, having coveted his nephew’s bride, sold him as a recruit. The exemplary slave took to drinking, but returned two weeks later, taking pity on the helpless master. However, his enemy was already “torturing him.” Ya takes Polivanov to visit his sister, halfway turns into the Devil's Ravine, unharnesses the horses and, contrary to the master's fears, does not kill him, but hangs himself, leaving the owner alone with his conscience for the whole night. This method of revenge (“carrying dry misfortune” - hanging yourself in the possessions of the offender in order to make him suffer for the rest of his life) was indeed known, especially among the eastern peoples. Nekrasov, creating the image of Ya., turns to the story that A.F. Koni told him (who, in turn, heard it from the watchman of the volost government), and only slightly modifies it. This tragedy is another illustration of the destructiveness of serfdom. Through the mouth of Grisha Dobrosklonov, Nekrasov summarizes: “No support - no landowner, / Driving a zealous slave to the noose, / No support - no servant, / Taking revenge / on his villain by suicide.”

The main idea of ​​Nekrasov’s poem was to depict Russian peasants from the time when serfdom was abolished. Throughout the entire poem, the heroes travel throughout Rus' in order to answer the question: “Who lives cheerfully, at ease in Rus'?”, who is in complete prosperity, happy, and who is not.

Men seeking the truth

The main characters of the work come forward, seven men, wandering through Russian towns and villages, looking for an answer to a very difficult question. In the image of peasants there are the main features of poverty of ordinary Russian men, such as: poverty, curiosity, unpretentiousness. These men ask the same question to everyone who crosses their path. In their minds, the lucky ones are the priest, the merchant, the landowner, the nobleman and the Tsar Father himself. However, the main place in the author’s work is given to the peasant class.

Yakim Nagoy

He works until his death, but lives poorly and is constantly hungry, like the bulk of the residents of Bosovo. Yakim understands that the peasants are a great force and he is proud that he belongs to them, he knows the weak and strong points of the peasants’ character. It assumes that the main enemy of men is alcohol, which destroys them.

Ermila Girin

Yermila received honesty and intelligence from Nekrasov. He lives for the population, he is fair, he will not leave anyone in grief. There was one dishonest thing, he saved his nephew from recruiting. But he did this not for himself, but for the sake of his family. He sent his widow's son instead of his nephew. He was so tormented by his own lies that he almost led to hanging. Then he corrected the mistake and marched with the rebels, after which he was put in prison.

Savely the hero

The author admits the idea that ordinary men are like Russian heroes. Here the image of Savely, the Holy Russian hero, appears. Saveliy empathizes with Matryona from the bottom of his heart and takes Demushka’s death hard. This hero contains kindness, sincerity, and helping other people in difficult situations.

Matrena Timofeevna

All peasant women are shown in the guise of this woman. She has a powerful soul and willpower. Throughout his life he fights for the freedom and joy of women. Her life is similar to many peasant women of that time. Considering that after marriage she ends up in a family that despises her. Her husband beat her once, her first child was eaten by piglets, and she spends the rest of her life working in the fields.

Essay Peasants (Who lives well in Rus')

In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” N. A. Nekrasov raises and examines one of the main problems of the Russian state, which is still relevant today. The images of peasants as the main characters of this problem and, accordingly, the poem reveals its entire essence.

The writer creates a group portrait of seven peasants who travel around Rus' and look for happy people, among whom, they are sure, there are no peasants, soldiers and other lower classes. The author identifies the characteristics of wanderers: poverty, curiosity, independence. Nekrasov clearly points out the hostility of the peasants towards those who live and get rich for their work, while the poor peasants are pure in heart, honest in their work, and kind in soul. This can be seen in the described case with Matryona Timofeevna, when ordinary men came to her to help with the harvest.

The image of Yakima Nagoy personifies all the peasants who work tirelessly and live in starving poverty. HE works so hard that he already merges with the ground, which he plows day and night.

And to Mother Earth myself
He looks like: brown neck,
Like a layer cut off by a plow,
Brick face...

The myth that all peasants are poor because of drunkenness is not confirmed; in fact, the reason is in fate to work for the owner.

Ermila Girin wins over the reader with her honesty and great intelligence. After he framed a neighbor's boy as a soldier, he is tormented by his conscience instead of his brother. He is visited by the thought of suicide, but still he goes to the people to repent. The author introduces the image of Savely to demonstrate the idea that the people are heroes. Despite his illness, he knows how to empathize with others. Nekrasov gives him the role of a philosopher.

It is fashionable to see the female share in Matryona Timofeevna. She is strong-willed and resilient. Any successful merchant can envy her inner core. Her fate is so typical for all Russian women that she does not advise looking for a happy one among them. As the breadwinner of the family, she is obliged to work and not spare herself and her strength.

Such images of peasants arise as a consequence of the reform of 1861. The peasants try not to look at the cruel reality and live in their own religious and humane world, which still treats them cruelly.

Option 3

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” talks about the difficulties of the life of peasants after the serfdom reform of Alexander II. Ordinary men, peasants, I decide to find out who in Rus' lives better than everyone else, who is truly happy: a landowner, a merchant, a priest, or maybe only the tsar himself is happy?

In search of the truth and an answer to their question, seven wanderers walk across Russian soil. On the way they meet a variety of heroes, and the wanderers help everyone and provide all kinds of support. This is how the wanderers help Matryona Timofeevna, whose harvest was dying. The peasant peasants of the Illiterate province also provide all possible assistance.

By showing the journeys of the heroes, the author of the poem thereby introduces readers to the most different strata of society. Wanderers meet merchants, nobility, and clergy. In comparison of all these classes, peasants stand out clearly in their behavior and character traits.

When reading the poem, the reader meets a poor peasant whose name is Yakim Naga. Despite the fact that Yakim worked all his life, he did not get rich at all, remaining among the poorest people in society. Many residents of the village of Bosovo are the same as the character Yakim Nagoy.

The author of the work compares the character with Mother Earth. His neck is brown and his face is brick. From this description it becomes clear what kind of work Yakim does. But our hero is not much upset by his situation, because he sincerely believes in the bright future of all peasants.

Another peasant in the poem who is completely different from Yakima is Ermila Girin. Ermila is distinguished by her intelligence, as well as crystal honesty. Revealing the image of this character, Nekrasov shows how solidarity the peasants were, how united they were. For example, the people trust Ermila when purchasing a mill, and Girin in return supports the rebellion, thereby taking the side of the peasants.

Many times in the text, when describing the peasants, Nekrasov compares them with heroes. For example, Savely is a strong man. However, despite the strongly expressed features of a stern man, Savely is very bright and sincere. He treats Matryona Timofeevna with tender trepidation. Savely is haunted by thoughts about why the people should endure all the hardships that fall on them and, in general, should they endure it?

Nekrasov embodied all the female images in the poem in the heroine Matryona Timofeevna. This woman spent her entire life striving for freedom and happiness. It can be assumed that in her understanding, freedom was already the embodiment of happiness. She was an unusually strong and resilient woman. Having got married, she steadfastly accepted all the trials that came to her, and in the end she took on hard work on an equal basis with the men.

In the poem, Nekrasov shows ordinary peasants and tries to tell readers that peasants are not labor force, but people with their own aspirations, feelings and dreams. And, of course, these people must be free, their opinions must also be listened to.