Who will save the destroyed noble nests. "Nobody knows the real truth." “The Cherry Orchard”: history of creation, genre, heroes. The destruction of the noble nest

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

We, citizens of Russia, residents of the city of Orel, strongly protest against the construction of a high-rise building on historical territory“The Noble Nest” - the reserved land of our city! We consider such construction a treacherous seizure of part of our small Motherland irresponsible and unscrupulous regional officials with the connivance of city authorities. We regard the destruction of a green square with centuries-old trees for this development as real barbarity. We consider all attempts to justify such construction in a reserved corner of the city with good goals to be blasphemous, and we consider the clash of the interests of children's healthcare with the patriotic feelings of Russian citizens to be gross and immoral moral blackmail aimed at splitting the city's population.

Since no one other than the current governor of the Oryol region initiated the seizure of such a dear place for construction, and these plans were not discussed with anyone, were not announced in the press and there were no public hearings on them, we believe that the demolition of the historical park and the beginning of construction, only he alone can and should bear responsibility.

From the very beginning of the brutal “clearing of the territory” for construction, the city public and a number of Oryol and regional media openly spoke out against this project. On August 26, a protest action was held in defense of “Dvorianka”, which was covered in the press, the Internet and on television by independent reporters and was completely ignored by the “tame” media of the city and region, some of which hastily erased the material they had already prepared about the picket. The picket participants sent a letter to the President of the Russian Federation, signed by 23 Russian citizens, to which only a response was received from the Presidential Administration confirming the fact of its receipt and registration. The head of the regional Department of Culture, A. Yu. Egorova, who received the letter from the picket participants to the President of Russia, considered it unworthy to answer it herself and delegated this to her deputy. As a result, we have a three-page reply “from you”, which not only does not answer the essence of the issue, but also contains false statements, and only lack of faith in our justice stops us from going to court. Even earlier, on August 31, 2012, a letter was sent to your name, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich (copies to the ministers of culture, health and the chairman of VOOPIiK), written by I. S. Belyaeva - on behalf and on behalf of the citizens of the city of Orel, in which touched upon the most serious problems for all of us arising from this absolutely thoughtless construction. Besides the question about cultural value of this place, it spoke of gross violations of construction standards, the rights of citizens living nearby, and the lack of conditions for the infrastructural development of the launched project. The project of the paraclinical building itself was also criticized by specialists who saw it from the inside.

This appeal received several formal responses from all the mentioned, as well as lower authorities, including standard replies from local officials, saying that “everything has been agreed upon, signed at all levels” and that the work is supposedly “being carried out under public control.” Despite the complete or partial copying of these texts by officials from each other, fundamental differences in their assessment of the legality of the construction that began are immediately striking, which only convince us that the law was still violated.

October 16 p.m. a letter was sent to the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Medinsky, signed famous figures culture, engineers, publishers, designers, local historians and workers of museums in Moscow, Orel, Belgorod, Tambov, Penza, Stavropol, Bolkhov... We are still waiting for a response to this letter, although there was not even a signal about its receipt and registration, and the only phone number indicated on the official website of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, gives the impression of being disabled.

All this time, the main initiator of the destruction of the protected corner of the city of Oryol has been pointedly keeping silent, and the capital company he hired is only increasing the pace of construction, showing what the opinion of citizens really means to the authorities. At the same time, the governor demonstrated his attitude to what was happening around the problem he created by publicly insulting Oryol residents with a disparaging remark about the “Noble Nest”, which he casually threw out in his interview for Radio Russia - Orel on August 15, 2012 and later cleared from the transcript in his official blog.

The city authorities of both branches also do not react to what is happening and do not take the proper position on such pressing issue. At meetings of the city and regional Councils of People's Deputies, not once during the period of destruction of the protected area was the issue of it even put on the agenda. The official media have “closed themselves” to this topic. The governor hastily established a special structure, which, on his orders, will improve the image of Orel, although it was precisely thanks to its crude introduction into the historical appearance of the city that this image began to rapidly deteriorate. Despite this, in-depth and professionally written materials on the topic of attitudes towards historical and cultural monuments in Orel are regularly published in the region; they are reprinted by newspapers in other regions, and coverage of this topic on the Internet is expanding every day.

Summarizing all that has been said, we can conclude that the local authorities are simply testing the patience of indignant citizens, as if pushing them to the least civilized protest actions, even going beyond the law. And the latest initiatives of the City Council of People's Deputies aimed at a complete revision state register architectural monuments and the gradual liquidation of one of the oldest city parks in Russia, and completely expose their irresponsible desire to deprive Orel of its face in order to please the ideas of the visiting governor to turn the homeland of Turgenev, Bunin and Leskov into one continuous residential area with McDonald's, kebab shops, dry cleaners and shopping -entertainment centers.

This whole immoral and immoral “conspiracy of silence”, boycott public opinion on the part of the local authorities it looks even more cynical because it is happening against the backdrop of demagogic talk about preparations for the 450th anniversary of the ancient Russian city, about the upcoming “round dances and fairs”, poetry festivals, “Turgenev girls’ competitions” and other “cultural events”. We have exhausted all legal means to “reach out to heaven,” and only the deafness of the authorities at all its levels forces us to break through the information blockade organized by them with this open letter to you.

If the already started project is implemented, the process of disappearance of the “Noble Nest” as a single and integral historical, architectural and natural complex will become irreversible. All projects to create a museum zone in this historical place, hotly discussed in last years and in the wake of the latest protests, those that appeared again will turn out to be empty Manilovism, and the people who invested their talent, soul and part of their lives in them will simply be deceived. Despite the infill development that disfigures our architecturally established city, there is still enough space in Orel for the construction of any objects social significance outside the museum area. In addition, right opposite the construction that began for several years now, there has been a half-empty, huge 4-story building of a “laboratory building”, erected by a commercial institute during the period of the notorious “university boom”; next to the children's hospital there is a new empty five-story building that does not belong to anyone, and nearby there is a huge building of the long-dead Prodmash plant... However, the local authorities are not able to quickly transfer all these areas for the needs of the children's clinic, repurposing them for the purposes needed by society enough either ingenuity, or administrative resources, or in the decision taken“build at any cost” has a notorious corruption component.

In the clash of the interests of regional healthcare with the constitutional rights of all citizens and peoples of the Russian Federation to preserve and access the historical and cultural heritage, we see complete administrative failure and lack of professionalism of the regional authorities, for which they should finally bear responsibility. No one doubts the need for socially important facilities, but there is more than one, and quite real, possibility of placing them in another place, including, given the compactness of the city of Orel, and outside the city, where their construction would have environmental benefits and would not pose a threat to historical and cultural heritage.

The city of Orel is known primarily as a literary mecca with a rich cultural history, and the “Noble Nest”, glorified throughout the world by the great Turgenev, occupies here special place. It should not be destroyed by a visiting governor who, by his own public admission, had not even heard of “The Noblewoman”! In less than four years of his reign, this official has done nothing to preserve and maintain our historical heritage, and it is not for him to decide its fate!

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich! We demand the immediate cessation of the ongoing construction, the restoration of the destroyed park at the children's hospital, the strictest state inspection legality of this construction, punishment of all those responsible for the current situation and guarantees that in the future no one will be allowed to trample on Russian cultural heritage and our historical pride.

With respect and hope for your surgical intervention,
citizens of the Russian
Federation, residents of Orel.
(About 300 signatures in total).

Two years ago I visited the estate of General Mirkovich - a nobleman, participant in the War of 1812, a heroic participant. I met the descendants of the general, who were trying to find investors to restore the estate, repaired some things themselves, and collected a lot interesting information, antiques for the future museum, even an antique white grand piano appeared in the estate.
Here I wrote about this story, there is a photograph of the hostess.

We decided to stop by to see if things were going well, what they had managed to restore, and if anything had been achieved.
This is what we found there.

Alas, it didn’t work out, apparently.
No sponsors were found, no money was found, everything is being destroyed. We managed to patch up the roof a little, and, in my opinion, that’s it.
How can a family of engineers and artists cope with such a volume of work! Both student architects and locals helped them, but this was very little.
I am very sorry for Olga Serafimovna. How she wanted to restore the family nest! But the family has no funds for restoration, only their own hands. They leased this building for 50 years to organize a museum here. There is still time, a lot of time, but I still haven’t found the strength.
She probably abandoned this idea...

House on the river side.
Everything is overgrown with grass. The glass in the windows is broken and patched with plywood and cardboard.

Here and there on the columns you can see that they were plastered and painted blue.

It is dangerous to be close to the house; at any moment a brick or piece of plaster can fall on your head.

But the view of the river from the porch of the house is still beautiful.

The estate's outbuildings are also being destroyed.

We discovered another ancient building a little away from the main house.
These are apparently private properties, so they look “more lively.”

And Mirkovich's house is a monument of federal significance.
The state clearly does not have enough strength and resources for all the noble estates, especially since there are so many of them, abandoned, dilapidated estates across Russia.
And yet it’s very, very, very sad. A little more, and everything will finally turn into ruins...

... Forgive such frivolous people,
How are you, gentlemen, so unbusinesslike,
I haven't met any strange ones yet.
A.P. Chekhov

The action of the play takes place on the border of two centuries, when the old, obsolete era of serfdom and the widespread domination of the nobles is replaced by a new time, new people, new outlooks on life. The time has come for capitalists and entrepreneurs. And the “noble nest” depicted in the play represents a fragment of a former life; both external and internal conditions show that it is doomed.

To the representatives " noble nest“It seems to me that this could include Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, her brother Gaev, as well as the neighboring landowner Simeonov-Pishchik. The remaining inhabitants of the estate cannot be classified as inhabitants of the “noble nest” either by origin or by conviction.

I would like to dwell in more detail on the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev, since they are revealed most fully in the play. Both Ranevskaya and Gaev, of course, belong to a passing era. If earlier they were considered the “top of society,” to which their origin gave them the right, now, when their nobility does not give them any advantages, when income from the peasants and the garden has ceased to flow, they find themselves helpless in the face of reality. And the life that they led before, to which they were accustomed, would soon inevitably come to an end, and they, it seems to me, understand this perfectly well. No wonder Ranevskaya exclaims: “I’m still waiting for something, as if the house was about to collapse above us.”

Both Gaev and Ranevskaya are aristocrats in in every sense this word: they are educated, smart, cultured. Everyone around her recognizes Lyubov Andreevna’s femininity and kindness. " Good man. An easy, simple person,” Lopakhin says about her.” “She is good, kind, nice,” Gaev echoes him, but immediately adds: “Still, we must admit, she is vicious.” What's the matter? Probably because she doesn't have a hard bone vital core, and all her feelings and emotional impulses are very frivolous, short-lived, and love affair undermined her even more mental strength. As for Gaev, he is generally unlikable: being an adult man, he can neither make any important decisions nor do anything useful for the society in which he lives, or at least for his family. His infantility is already expressed in the fact that he cannot simply take care of himself, and the elderly Firs has to do this. The only thing Gaev succeeded in was heartfelt monologues, so sentimental that those around him simply felt uncomfortable for him. “Baba,” Lopakhin says briefly about Gaev.

Relations between the inhabitants of the “noble nest” are very friendly and warm, because they are connected by common memories, upbringing, and outlook on life. This relationship characterizes them as kind and gentle people. But the attitude of Gaev and, to an even greater extent, Ranevskaya towards the people who depend on them makes us look at them from a slightly different point of view. Ranevskaya, without hesitation, spends her last money on dinners in a restaurant, tips for footmen, and a Jewish orchestra, while her servants are almost starving. Varya dreams of a hundred rubles to go to a monastery, not to mention the fact that the estate is being sold under the hammer.

Ranevskaya is also insolvent as a mother. Yes, she treats her daughters with love and kindness, but she cannot raise them properly, provide for them financially, or pay enough attention to them. I think we can say unequivocally about her: she is a bad mother.

Ranevskaya’s attitude towards the cherry orchard is very interesting and somewhat strange: she talks about her deep love to him, that she cannot live without him, but, having received money from Anya’s grandmother, she easily leaves him and goes to Paris to her lover. Doesn't this once again indicate a certain frivolity of her feelings? What is also surprising is the ease with which she appropriates the money sent to Anya.

To reveal the images of Gaev and Ranevskaya, Chekhov uses such a technique as parody duplication. Dunyasha and Charlotte Ivanovna can be considered as a caricature of Lyubov Andreevna, Yasha - of Gaev. These people, each of whom is a tragicomic character, are reflected worst traits representatives of the “nest of nobility”, not covered by the culture, education, and intelligence of the latter.

Having analyzed the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev, we can conclude that their time has passed. Perhaps their reluctance to give up the garden for dachas is dictated to a greater extent not by contempt for all kinds of business and hoarding, but by an elementary inability to do any practical activities? I don’t know, but that’s probably not the point. The views of these people, their principles, habits have become obsolete, and no matter how sorry we are for them, the hopes of Lyubov Andreevna and Gaev for new life after the sale of the garden, most likely, they will not be justified. Yes, the garden was sold, their life, of course, will change, but the people themselves remained the same. And the future does not belong to them, but to Anya and Petya. However, according to Chekhov, there is still a bright, joyful future. Therefore, the entire work can be considered optimistic, despite the sad end for the “noble nest”. And most importantly, in my opinion, the play teaches the art of living, which has always consisted mainly of the ability to look forward.

A.P. Chekhov more than once approached the topic of the collapse of noble nests in his works. The author writes about the impending death of the noble nests in the stories “In the Estate”, “Someone else’s Trouble”, “In the Native Corner”, “With Friends”, etc.

In the play " The Cherry Orchard“Chekhov, as it were, generalizes the theme of the death of noble nests and sums up his thoughts about the fate of the nobility.

Before us is a typical noble estate, surrounded by an old cherry orchard. “What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky!..” - says the heroine of the play Ranevskaya enthusiastically.

The noble nest survives last days. The property was not only mortgaged, but also remortgaged. Soon, in case of non-payment of interest, it will go under the hammer. What are its owners doing to save the estate? And what exactly are these last owners of the cherry orchard, who live more in the past than in the present?

In the past, this was a rich noble family that traveled to Paris on horseback and at whose balls generals, barons, and admirals danced. Ranevskaya had a dacha even in the south of France in Meton.

The past now stands before Lyubov Andreevna in the form of a blooming cherry orchard, which must be sold for debts.

Lopakhin offers the estate owners the surest way to save the estate: divide the cherry orchard into plots and rent them out as dachas. But from the point of view of lordly concepts, this means seems unacceptable, offensive to honor and family traditions. It also contradicts noble ethics. “The dacha and summer residents are so vulgar, sorry,” Ranevskaya lordly and arrogantly declares to Lopakhin. The poetry of the cherry orchard and its noble past obscure life and the demands of practical calculation from the owners of the estate.

Lack of will, inadaptability, romantic enthusiasm, mental instability, and inability to live characterize Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. The personal life of this heroine was unsuccessful. Having lost her husband and son, she settled abroad and spends her money on a man who deceived and robbed her.

In Ranevskaya's character, at first glance, there is a lot good features. She is charming, loves nature and music. According to others, she is a “kind, nice” woman, simple and spontaneous.

She is trusting and sincere to the point of enthusiasm. But there is no depth in her emotional experiences, her moods are fleeting, she is sentimental and easily moves from tears to carefree laughter. She seems to be sensitive and attentive to people. And yet, what spiritual emptiness is hidden behind this external complacency, what indifference and indifference to everything that goes beyond the boundaries of the cherry orchard and her personal well-being.

Ranevskaya is essentially selfish and indifferent to people. While her house servant “has nothing to eat,” Ranevskaya wastes money left and right and even throws a ball that no one needs.

Her life is empty and aimless, although she talks a lot about her tender love for people, for the cherry orchard.

The same as Ranevskaya, weak-willed, worthless in life. Her brother Gaev is also human. He lived his whole life on the estate, doing nothing. He himself admits that he spent his fortune on candy. His only occupation is billiards. He is completely immersed in thoughts about various combinations of billiard moves.

In contrast to his sister, Gaev is somewhat rude. The lordly arrogance towards others can be heard in his words “who?”, “boor”.

Both Ranevskaya and Gaev are people who are accustomed to living carelessly, without working, they cannot even comprehend the tragedy of their situation. They have no future. This last representatives degenerating nobility.

Another significant figure for understanding the problem of the death of noble nests is the servant Firs. A product of the serf era, he lives with memories of a happy past. He is full of worries about his master and looks after him like a small child. “They wore the wrong trousers again. And what should I do with you? - he turns to fifty-year-old Gaev.

The fact that Firs found himself in a boarded-up house and essentially doomed to death is a symbolic episode in the play. His death coincides with the death of the cherry orchard and marks the end of the era of noble nests.