ON THE. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: description, characters, analysis of the poem

Krinitsyn A.B.

Nekrasov enthusiastically accepted the liberation of peasants from serfdom as a result of the reform of 1861. Sovremennik published a poem under the heading “Freedom” (with an obvious reference to Pushkin’s ode “Liberty”), where the poet declared that for the first time in long years he can finally be proud of his country:

Motherland! across your plains

I have never driven with such a feeling!

I see a child in the arms of my mother,

The heart is agitated by the thought of the beloved:

In good times a child was born,

God be merciful! you won't recognize tears!

Contrary to his custom, here Nekrasov praises modernity, although he immediately notes the new difficulties that await the peasant on the path to freedom (they had to buy back their plots from the landowners, and until then they were considered “temporarily obligated” to work for them):

I know: in place of serf networks

People have come up with many other

Yes!.. but it’s easier for people to untangle them.

Muse! Welcome freedom with hope!

But Nekrasov was far from the idea of ​​leaving peasant theme, although the official press persistently argued that the reforms of the 1860s eliminated all abuses of serfdom; the peasantry has been given everything they need to be happy, and if the men live poorly, it is their fault, and not the established order. The poet looked closely at peasant life in new conditions and saw that poverty and lack of rights still weighed down the people. In 1874, he wrote “Elegy” (to A. N. Erakov), where on behalf of his Muse he again asks: “The people have been liberated, but are the people happy?..”

Let changing fashion tell us,

That the old theme is “the suffering of the people”

And that poetry should forget her,

But believe, young men! she doesn't age.

Even the visible idyll of free peasant labor cannot completely dispel the poet’s fears:

Do I listen to the songs of the reapers over the golden harvest,

Is the old man slowly walking behind the plow?

Does he run through the meadow, playing and whistling,

Happy child with his father's breakfast,

Do sickles sparkle, do scythes ring together -

I'm looking for answers to secret questions,

Boiling in the mind: “In recent years

Have you become more bearable, peasant suffering?

And long slavery came to replace

Has freedom finally brought a change?

In the people's destinies?..

Indeed, along with positive changes in the life of the people, there were also a number of temporary negative ones. The reform shocked and stirred up the people, posing many new problems and tasks before their unprepared consciousness. The entire way of life changed - from patriarchal to industrial. Hundreds of thousands of peasants, freed without land plots and no longer bound by the landowners' power, left their homes and walked from village to village, or, in search of a better life, went to cities to build railways, factories. Accustomed to serfdom, the peasants who had never studied anywhere often did not understand how to deal with the changed political situation, what their new place in society was. They did not know their new rights and responsibilities: on what grounds were they released, nor what authorities and courts were they now subject to, which is why they were often deceived by landowners and officials. At the same time, the entire political situation disposed the people to search for a better happy life. All over the country, peasants gathered in meetings, discussing the meaning of the reform and the benefits received from it. Fairs, taverns, even roads became places of fierce disputes between peasants, like discussion clubs. A special role in this case fell to the peasants, who even before the reform were engaged in latrine trades, since they were more independent and knew more about the country than others.

During these years, Nekrasov conceived the idea of ​​a large poem about the life of post-reform Rus', intended for the widest range of readers and directly for the peasants, with the goal of raising the people's self-awareness and explaining to them how to achieve a better fate in the new social situation and defend their real rights. Therefore, Nekrasov tried to write a book on topics in simple language, which people speak. According to the poet’s plan, it was supposed to be “an epic of modern peasant life.” In his poem, Nekrasov wanted to show the living conditions, customs, morals, and interests of the people in living action, in faces, images and paintings. The populist writer and employee of the Sovremennik magazine, Gleb Uspensky, recalled about Nekrasov that “Nikolai Alekseevich thought a lot about this work, hoping to create in it a “people's book,” that is, a book that is useful, understandable to the people and truthful. This book was supposed to include all the experience given to Nikolai Alekseevich by studying the people, all the information about them accumulated, in Nikolai Alekseevich’s own words, “by word of mouth” for 20 years.” The poet does not want to destroy the popular worldview he has recreated with a look from outside it, and he himself remains, as it were, behind the scenes. So, for example, in “The Peasant Woman” the text from the author-narrator makes up less than ten percent of the total volume. And in the chapters “Before Marriage”, “Dyomushka”, “She-Wolf”, “Difficult Year”, “Governor’s Lady” there is not a single author’s remark at all.

If we consider that Nekrasov collected material and hatched a plan for twenty years, and then wrote the poem for more than fourteen years (1863-1877), then we can say without exaggeration that the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the work of the poet’s entire creative life. Art world distant from the author and seemingly independent of him.

The poem carries out an analysis of the present, based on its comparison with the past: “The great chain broke, It broke - it broke with one end for the master, The other for the peasant!..”.

The debate about who lives happily and freely in Rus', what human happiness consists of, is initially waged by seven Russian men who met by chance on a highway. As the plot develops, not only the supposedly happy ones, but literally the entire people are involved in this dispute. Collective image of the people is formed in mass scenes: at a festival-fair in the village of Kuzminskoye, on the city market square, on the Volga meadow, in the scene of a “feast for the whole world”, it appears as something diverse, but united. Stories of peasants and peasant women who came to the call of wanderers as happy people, the whole “crowded square” is listening. Decisions are made “in peace”. It is the folk worldview that serves as the main subject of the image and the basis of artistic vision (the ability to see events “through the eyes of the people”) in the poem, which is one of the stable features of the epic genre. It is included in the epic along with the folklore epic.

Genre of the poem

In the manuscript, the poet called his “favorite brainchild” a poem, and in subsequent judgments about it “the epic of modern peasant life”8. Thus, the use of several genre definitions for “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has a long and stable tradition, dating back to N. A. Nekrasov himself.

Width of span epic poem made special demands on its plot. The poet chose the traditional form of travel for this genre. It is the plot of the journey that allows the writer to unfold before us the entire life of the people. This plot is traditional for Russian literature, where even in the Middle Ages there was a genre of walking (for example, the famous “Walking across Three Seas by Afanasy Nikitin”). The plot structure of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” rightly correlates with the folk epic (the tale of truth and falsehood, the legend of birds). Among the literary sources that could have influenced the plot of the poem, one should name Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” Dead Souls“Gogol, finally, Nekrasov’s own poem “Peddlers” can be called, which directly led to the journey as a plot-forming moment.

The genre of travel is already determined by the start of it on the main road. In search of an answer to the burning question about happiness, men try to talk with as many people as possible, ask, listen, start arguments, and go through many provinces and villages.

As a result, the narrative takes on a “patchwork” character, breaking up into separate scenes, plots and descriptions. Thousands of peasant destinies pass before us, which could become the topic of a separate poem or song in Nekrasov’s lyrics.

The image of seven men

The journey is made not by one, but by seven heroes at once, who merge into a single image within themselves, at the same time organically connected with the wider popular environment. In fiction, most likely, one hero would travel, as in Gogol’s “Dead Souls” or Karamzin’s “Letters of a Russian Traveler.” But such collective characters are often found in folk tales and epics. The number "seven" is also a traditional fairy number. But even in depicting a generalized epic character, Nekrasov did not repeat his predecessors, but creatively developed the existing tradition.

The author of the poem strongly emphasizes the unity of the seven wanderers. With the exception of Luka (“Luka is a stocky man, / With a wide beard, / Stubborn, eloquent and stupid”), they are not given portrait characteristics, the features of the inner world of each of them have not been identified. All of them are united by a common desire to find a happy person in Rus', persistence of searches, detachment from personal interests, selfless readiness for a peasant to leave the busy spring work,

Don't toss and turn in the houses,

Don't see your wives

Whatever it is - for certain,

Not with the little guys.

Not with old people

Until they find out

Who lives happily?

At ease in Rus'.

The unity of thought and feeling is manifested in the almost verbatim repeated appeal of the peasants with a question to the landowner, to Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, to the elder Vlas and other persons. With the rarest exceptions (Luke's address to the priest), the specific speaker in these addresses has not been identified. The author often uses the expression “the men said” and then gives a whole monologue on behalf of the men, although in the usual realistic work a collective monologue of seven people is almost impossible. But the reader is so imbued with the idea of ​​the epic unity of the seven wanderers that he considers their “choral monologue” appropriate and acceptable.

Folklore features

Folklore in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is both an object and a means of artistic representation: the object as the embodiment of the people’s worldview and its development.

In addition to the generalized image of seven men, the poem also contains many other folklore elements. In the structure of the plot, the main one is the fairytale beginning. The men find a chick of a talking warbler in the forest, and as a reward for saving the chick, she gives the men a self-assembled tablecloth so that she can “feed” the men during their journey to find out the answer to “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.” The wonderful self-assembled tablecloth and the no less wonderful number seven will play a very important role in the plot of the entire epic. These and other fairy-tale episodes of the plot, at first glance, do not agree with the serious content of the poem and its depiction of the sad state of the people. But in fact, these disparate elements of content coexist quite calmly with each other. Seven eagle owls on seven trees, a raven praying to the devil, a warbler bird and a self-assembled tablecloth could be perceived as a naive fiction, as something contrasting with the greatness and significance of the dispute, if they did not carry within themselves the deep content of the folk epic. In itself, the image of a fabulous self-assembled tablecloth is a poetic symbol of the people’s dream of happiness, of contentment, expressing the same eternal national thought that “drove out of their homes, drove away from food” the heroes of Nekrasov’s poem. The fantastic element, so boldly and freely included in the prologue of the poem, does not in the least take the reader away from the real world; the fantasy in the prologue is greatly weakened by the author’s joke, a peculiar combination fantastic images with the world of ordinary real-life objects, “low” in their everyday reality: men ask the warbler to bewitch “old clothes”, “so that peasants’ coats won’t be worn out”, so that linden bast shoes will serve for a long time, “so that lice - a vile flea - will not breed in shirts ", etc. The warbler's answer to these most realistic requests from the men further confirms the real-subject basis of the story: "You will be able to repair, wash, and dry all the self-assembled tablecloth." In the further course of the poem, the fantastic element will disappear completely, even the idea of ​​a self-assembled tablecloth changes greatly, “two stalwart hands” come into action, serving bread, kvass, cucumbers, etc. All this does not go beyond the boundaries of peasant life, and the tablecloth itself is perceived as a poetic convention, as a necessary prerequisite for such a long journey to take place.

As we have already said, the poem was intended for a wide range of readers, including ordinary men. Nekrasov undoubtedly thought of attracting their attention with the fairytale beginning, for the form of folk fairy tale was interesting and familiar to them. The beginning was to set readers up for light and cheerful content, and then, when they were already “drawn in” to reading, the poet wanted to tell them his innermost and sometimes sad thoughts and observations, as realistic as possible. The same effect of the first reader's perception is also intended. appearance title, formulated in the form of a question in the manner of folk philosophical fairy tales and parables (such as “Where is it more fun to live”). The title sounds intriguing and stimulates the reader's curiosity.

Nekrasov maintains the same principle in relation to the language of the poem: he does not use a single word from the poetic literary language, using exclusively peasant folk vocabulary, so that even an illiterate peasant could understand the poem. Speech is replete with folklorisms: words with diminutive suffixes (“cow”, “village”, “mlada-mladyoshenka”, “tselkovenkoy”, “breveshko”, “lyubyohonko”), colloquialisms (“with a zalushkom”, “from the middle of grief” ”, “noble with a scolding, with a push and with a punch”, “drowsy, dormant, unruly”), dialecticisms (“Showing rotten goods from the hazy end”). In the overwhelming majority of cases, metaphors turn into comparisons (let’s say “The master’s abuse is like a mosquito sting, the peasant’s is a butt”). He enriched the speech of his heroes with the insertion of a huge number of genuine folk songs, jokes, jokes and sayings (“For blowing the right whistle, they beat you in the face with a bow”, “A workhorse eats straw, but an idle dancer eats oats!”).

Seekers of happiness, like many other peasants, store a large number of folklore texts in their memory and know how to insert “a well-aimed word” into the stories of the priest and landowner. They are not surprised that Matryona Timofeevna often speaks in proverbs, sayings, legends, that she sings songs about a woman’s share. The wanderers even sing some songs together with the “lucky one”.

The names of the villages are “Zaplatovo”, “Dyryavino”, “Gorelovo”, “Neelovo”, “Golodukhino”, etc. could have been suggested to Nekrasov by a proverb taken from Dahl’s collection: “Everyman of the Golodalka volost, the village of Obnischukhina.”

Nekrasov placed a huge number of folk songs in his poem, especially in the chapters “Peasant Woman” and “Feast for the Whole World” - the last two parts of the poem. Most of them are directly taken from collections of genuine folklore, which began to appear in various versions from the beginning of the nineteenth century.

From many wedding customs, described in detail in folkloristic collections, he introduced into his poem those in which the inner, spiritual life of the peasants is revealed in its brightest side. This, for example, is the custom that is revealed to us in one of the bride’s songs recorded by Rybnikov. The bride marries a “stranger,” that is, a peasant almost unknown to her from a distant village. After the wedding she will leave parents' house forever and will be taken away by her husband

Into the great villain into captivity,

To the chilly alien distant side.

What awaits her there is unknown, and yet in a few days she will have to submit forever to both her husband and his unfriendly, stern relatives. And then, on the eve of the wedding, she turns to him with a naive and helpless request that he give her his solemn word that he will not offend her.

Become, young father's son,

On the same bridge with me,

For one crossbar.

Look into your clear eyes,

Look really into the white face.

To live you don’t have to repent,

I wish I could live and not cry.

This request, which so vividly characterizes the female lot, could not help but attract Nekrasov with its touching pathos, and he reproduced it in full in his poem, in Matryona Timofeevna’s address to her fiancé:

- Stand up, good fellow,

Directly against me

Get on the same page!

Look into my clear eyes,

Look into the rosy face,

Think, dare:

To live with me - not to repent,

And I don’t have to cry with you...

That's all I am here!

At a superficial glance it may seem that this exact copy folklore text, but if you look more closely, you see a systematic processing of the original. Firstly, everything narrowly dialectal was eliminated and replaced by all-Russian. “Mostinochka”, “crossbeam” became a board. Secondly, the intonations of living human speech were introduced: “Straight against me,” “Think, be smart,” “I’m all like that here.” This is already the own spiritual impulse of the girl portrayed by Nekrasov.

And, completely violating the folklore canon, Nekrasov forced the groom to answer the appeal to him:

- I suppose I won’t repent,

You probably won't cry! –

Philippushka said.

This male remark is not found in any folklore record. It is not included in the wedding ritual. Nekrasov introduced it into his description of the wedding as a living response to the sincere request of the bride.

Nekrasov could not ignore this woman’s sadness and expressed it in his “Peasant Woman” through the mouth of Matryona:

Yes, no matter how I ran them,

And the betrothed appeared,

There's a stranger on the mountain! -

The reason for her sadness is that

Someone else's side

Not sprinkled with sugar

Not drizzled with honey!

It's cold there, it's hungry there,

There's a well-groomed daughter there

Violent winds will blow around,

Black crows will rob

The shaggy dogs bark,

And people will laugh.

These lines are undoubtedly based on one of the wedding signs published by Rybnikov:

How alien is the distant chilly side

It is not covered with gardens,

It's not filled with honey,

Not with sugar, villainess, sprinkled with:

The side of the side is fiercely chilled

By great cruelty,

Someone else's chilly side has been watered

With bitter, burning tears,

It is sprinkled with great crumbs.

Most of the songs in the poem are remarkable for their melody, the variety of which Nekrasov is truly inexhaustible. Here, for example, is the lamentation of Matryona Timofeevna after she was flogged for the guilt of her son:

I called loudly to my mother.

The violent winds responded,

The distant mountains responded,

But my dear one didn’t come!

Day is my sad one,

At night - night pilgrimage!

Never you, my beloved,

I won't see it now!

You went into irrevocability,

An unfamiliar path

Where the wind doesn't reach,

The beast is not searching...

When Matryona returns from the governor’s wife in triumph, having rescued her husband from conscription, her feelings are expressed in a festive, jubilant song:

Okay, light

In the world of God,

Okay, easy

Clear in my heart.

I'm sailing on the waters

White swan

I run across the steppes

Quail.

Arrived at the house

Rock dove...

Bowed to me

Father-in-law,

Bowed

Mother-in-law,

Brothers-in-law

Bowed down

Bowed down

Apologize!

In the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World,” all the past hardships and deprivations of serfdom, as well as the fate of many peasants, pass before us in songs. But, despite the tragic content, the songs retain an exciting, soul-stirring melodiousness and a unique rhythmic pattern, as, say, in “Corvee”:

Kalinushka is poor and unkempt,

He has nothing to show off,

Only the back is painted,

You don't know behind your shirt.

From bast shoes to gate

The skin is all ripped open

The stomach swells with chaff.

Twisted, twisted,

Flogged, tormented,

Kalina barely walks.

Soul-shattering horror emanates from the spare and laconic lines of the iambic bimeter “Salty” and “Hungry” songs, telling about mortal hunger in lean years:

HUNGRY

The man is standing -

It's swaying

A man is coming -

Can't breathe!

From its bark

It's unraveled

Melancholy-trouble

Exhausted.

The ballad “About Two Great Sinners” later became a real folk song, with its chant accompanied by church hymns:

Let us pray to the Lord God,

Let's proclaim the ancient story,

He told it to me in Solovki

Monk, Father Pitirim.

There were twelve thieves

There was Kudeyar-ataman,

The robbers shed a lot

The blood of honest Christians,

A song about peasant sin, written by a folk singer with a caesura (intonation pause) in the middle of the line, sounds in a completely different rhythm - a declamatory recitative:

The widower ammiral / walked the seas,

I walked the seas, / led ships,

Near Achakov / fought with the Turk,

Inflicted / defeat on him,

And the Empress gave him

Eight thousand souls / as a reward.

Finally, the final song that completes the entire poem, which is composed by Grigory Dobrosklonov, the result of all the author’s thoughts about Russia and a testament to the people for the future, sounds like a hymn written in a very rare size - an energetic two-foot dactyl, with two strong, hammer-like accents: on the first syllable and in the middle of the verse. At the same time, thanks to the dactylic endings (each line ends with two unstressed syllables), the verse retains its melodiousness and “rolling quality”:

People's power

Mighty force -

Conscience is calm,

The truth is alive!

Saved in slavery

Free heart -

Gold, gold

People's heart!

Composition of the poem

It would seem that the development of the plot should be determined by the question asked in the title of the poem, the dispute between seven men and their agreement to go across Rus' to meet the supposedly happy ones: the landowner, the official, the priest, the merchant, the minister and the tsar, in order to decide which of them is really happy. However, the actual development of the plot does not coincide with this scheme.

Based on personal experience The men’s initial assumptions remained unchanged for some time: having gone in search of the happy, they did not pay attention to the “small people”, confident that they could not call themselves happy:

In the morning we met wanderers

More and more small people:

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 warm themselves with smoke,

Soldiers shave with an awl,

What happiness here...

But soon there will be a deviation from the plot scheme set in the prologue. Contrary to their original intentions, the wanderers begin to look for happiness in the fair peasant crowd. Due to the nature of the situation, the men meet many merchants at the fair and do not enter into a conversation about happiness with any of them. The entire fourth chapter of the first part (“Happy”) is devoted to “finding out” little people in the hope of finding a happy one among them. Thus, the question that wanderers are asking is already changing: they are interested not in “who is happy in Rus'” in general, but in “who is happy in Rus' from common people" At the “rural fair” the epic action develops in breadth and depth, involving everything new and new material from the life of the people. It seems that the entire diverse epic world has formed by itself, that it lives according to its own laws, that the course of events depends not on the author’s will, but on a combination of circumstances.

The depiction of popular poverty in itself could not constitute the content of an epic poem, could not reveal the fullness of the spirit of the people, the foundations of their worldview. In the chapter “Happy,” the theme of national self-awareness outlined in the prologue and first chapters was developed. It comes into close interaction with the theme of national happiness. The wanderers' question turns out to be addressed to the entire fair crowd, with a promise to treat free wine to the one who proves that he is truly happy. From conversations in the crowd, it turns out that the peasants for the most part do not know what constitutes happiness and whether they are happy. Men are offered a variety of answer options: In a good harvest? - but it cannot make a person happy for a long time (one old woman boasts of an unprecedented harvest of turnips, to which she receives a mocking answer from the men: “Drink at home, old woman, eat that turnip!”). In trusting in God and disdaining wealth? - this is the answer the sexton offers, but the wanderers catch him saying that for complete happiness he still needs a “braid” (a completely material thing!), which the wanderers themselves promised to give him, so they answer him rudely: “Get lost! you’re naughty!..” In health and strength, allowing you to live on your earnings? (the stonecutter boasts about this, calling a heavy hammer his “happiness”) - but they are also transitory, of which the wanderers immediately receive a clear example: another peasant comes up and, reproaching the braggart, tells how he overstrained himself at work and became a cripple. Subsequently, from the story of a soldier who considers himself lucky because he survived twenty battles and under sticks, from the story of a Belarusian peasant who rejoices that he used to chew only barley bread out of hunger, and now can afford rye, it turns out that among the people, happiness lies in the very absence of even more serious troubles. The wanderers themselves are also thinking. It turns out that their idea of ​​happiness was limited to a self-made tablecloth - a symbol of constant satiety and reliable material contentment. The pope gave them a much more precise definition of happiness: happiness is “peace, wealth, honor.” Applying these criteria to the destinies of peasants, wanderers come to the conclusion that happiness lies in a whole life, happily lived in universal respect and prosperity. This is evidenced by the example of Yermil Girin, about whom people who knew him closely talk. However, the happy example “goes out of date” before the story about it comes to an end: it turns out that Yermil is in prison for participating in a peasant uprising. The peasants, however, have not yet despaired of their search, although at first they are forced to admit their failure:

Our wanderers realized

Why was vodka wasted for nothing?

By the way, and a bucket

End. “Well, that will be yours!

Hey, man's happiness!

Leaky with patches,

Humpbacked with calluses,

Go home!”

In the next chapter (“The Last One”) the internal purpose of the epic action is finally clarified. Wanderers formulate it as their individual goal, but it also expresses a national principle:

We are looking, Uncle Vlas,

Unfrozen Gubernia,

Ungutted Volost,

Izbytkova village!..

The true goal - the search for people's happiness - is defined here with complete clarity. It is not for nothing that the words “Province” and “Volost” in this context are highlighted graphically by the author.

In “The Last One,” the scale of the image narrows. In the author’s field of view, the life of peasants is only in the village of Bolshiye Vakhlaki. The names of the province - Illiterate and the village - Vakhlaki perform the same function as the sad, telling names of the native villages of peasant wanderers: they define certain features of the population of a given area, but these specific names carry within them general beginning. Due to the fact that the external spatial boundaries of the epic material are narrowed here to the scale of one village, the depth of penetration into the essence folk life increases.

The established certainty of the goal henceforth excluded the logical basis of questions to the official, merchant, minister and king. Neither the positive nor the negative answer of these persons to the question of the seven wanderers solved the problem. None of them could contribute to the search for the Ungutted Governorate, the Ungutted Volost, the Izbytkov Village, or could show the way to this lofty goal. The chapters about the official, the merchant, the minister and the king became unnecessary. From then on, the seven wanderers no longer turned to people from the ruling classes with their questions, and at times they only laughed at their initial assumptions.

In the third part of the poem (“Peasant Woman”), the plan is even more enlarged, and as a result, the understanding of folk life deepens. At the center of the narrative is a peasant family, but its fate, like the fate of the narrator - Matryona Timofeevna - is so typical that it can be told in folk tales. songs that the wanderers themselves know and therefore “pull” them up. It turns out that everything that the heroine told the peasants, they themselves knew for a long time, but this story helps them understand the hopelessness of searching for a happy person among the people, and allows the reader to penetrate into it. inner world peasant woman and sympathize with her fate. The general idea of ​​happiness, which excited the seven men in the prologue, is expressed here in the example of the bright fate of several people, first of all, Matryona Timofeevna.

The chapter “Peasant Woman” begins and ends with the thought of a woman’s happiness. With the question: “What is your happiness?” - seven wanderers address Matryona Timofeevna in one of the initial stanzas. The "Woman's Parable" - the final chapter of "The Peasant Woman" - ends with a bitter groan about the lost keys to female happiness. It is noteworthy that here, as in many other cases, the concept of happiness is associated with “freedom”:

The keys to women's happiness,

From our free will

Abandoned, lost

From God himself!

After the conversation with Matryona Timofeevna, the men no longer turn to anyone with their question. In “A Feast for the Whole World” they merge with the wider public environment, along with others they participate in the dispute “who is the sinner of all, who is the saint of all,” they listen carefully to everything new, and together with the Vakhlaks and passing men they discuss various aspects of people’s life. The fate of the peasantry becomes a common question; they concern not only the seven wanderers, but also the Vakhlaks and all the numerous participants in the dispute who gathered on the banks of the Volga near the ferry.

The idea, framed in the prologue in the form of a dispute and a decision to seek happiness, acquires the character of universality in “A Feast for the Whole World.” The wording of their question changes again and is already taking on its final form: instead of “who is the happiest of the people?” it sounds like “how to make the whole people happy?”, “how to change the entire peasant life for the better?” This formulation of the question indicates a significant growth in national self-awareness, both among the seven men and among the broad peasant masses, with whom the wanderers are inseparably fused. In the dispute of the Vakhlaks, “who is the sinner of all, who is the saint of all,” which in its essence, of course, is associated with a dispute about what is happy in Rus', all those gathered on the banks of the Volga are involved along with the Vakhlaks. The general situation seemed to be repeated: in the prologue it was a dispute between seven men, in “A Feast for the Whole Feast” it was a dispute between a large crowd gathered on the banks of the Volga, which took on the character of a wide public discussion. The action in A Feast for the Whole World is taken out into the wide open. Disputes and direct clashes between those gathered, the emotionality of the perception of legends and songs, the tension of situations indicate a general excitement of minds, a passion in search of a way out.

This is where Nekrasov introduces the figure of Grigory Dobrosklonov into his poem. He is from the clergy class, but is the son not of a priest, but of a sexton, that is, he comes from the lower, poor strata of the clergy. Therefore, on the one hand, he is an educated and thinking person, and on the other hand, he is close to the people and understands all the problems of their life. Gregory is shown to sincerely love the people and set main goal his life to achieve his happiness. In this image, Nekrasov brought out a democratic intellectual and showed the situation of going to the people. Spiritual origin Gregory was also typical of a democratic revolutionary environment (both Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov came from the clergy). There is no doubt that the image of Dobrosklonov is idealized by Nekrasov, just as his relationships with the peasants, who love him dearly, completely trust him and listen with delight to his explanations, are also shown to be ideal. state life. Thus, Grigory explains to the vakhlaks that in the case of Gleb (the song “Peasant Sin”) the elder’s sin was generated by unrighteous laws that gave the landowners power over the peasants (“it’s all the fault of the fortress”), and he also confirms his idea with an intelligible comparison of parables: “A snake will give birth to baby snakes " Thus, Gregory quietly teaches the peasants to think politically and look to the root of their troubles.

This image was key for Nekrasov. Nekrasov leads to the idea that people's happiness is real and possible if the people rise to fight for it. However, the protest of individuals will remain ineffective (this is how the poet describes in different chapters of the poem the reprisal of the Korezh peasants against the German manager, the riot of the village of Stolbnyaki, etc.). The spontaneous peasant struggle must be illuminated by political consciousness, must be organized by the revolutionary intelligentsia, which will enlighten the peasants and formulate their protest in a politically competent manner.

The words of Grigory Dobrosklonov about the purpose of his life, even in the form of expression, coincide with the argument of the seven men in the prologue. Gregory sees the goal of life in “so that... every peasant should live freely and cheerfully throughout all holy Rus',” or, as stated in the author’s narration, Gregory “... will live for the happiness of his wretched and dark native corner,” for happiness , which the seven wanderers are so persistently looking for. So the dispute between the wanderers finds its resolution in the end (“Our wanderers would be under their own roof, If only they could know what was happening to Grisha”), and the plot of the poem has a logical conclusion.

Bibliography

[i] As, for example, in “Am I driving along a dark street at night...”: “Do you remember the mournful sounds of trumpets, /Splashes of rain, half-light, half-darkness? /Your son cried, and his cold hands /You warmed him with your breath.”

This passage is placed at the beginning of the 7th chapter of “Dead Souls”: “Happy is the writer who, past boring, disgusting characters, striking with their sad reality, approaches characters that demonstrate the high dignity of man,<...>and, without touching the ground, he completely plunged into his own images, far removed from it and exalted. His wonderful destiny is doubly enviable: he is among them, as in family of origin; and yet his glory spreads far and loudly.<...>Everyone rushes after him, applauding, and rushes after his solemn chariot. They call him a great world poet, soaring high above all other geniuses of the world, like an eagle soaring above other high-flying ones.<...>There is no equal to him in strength - he is a god! But this is not the fate, and the fate of the writer is different, who dared to call out everything that is every minute before the eyes and what indifferent eyes do not see - all the terrible, stunning mud of little things that entangle our lives, all the depth of the cold, fragmented, everyday characters with which ours teems. an earthly, sometimes bitter and boring road, and with the strong power of an inexorable chisel, who dared to expose them prominently and brightly to the eyes of the people! He cannot gather popular applause, he cannot bear the grateful tears and unanimous delight of the souls excited by him;<...>he will not forget himself in the sweet charm of the sounds he emitted; he cannot escape, finally, from the modern court, the hypocritically insensitive modern court, which will call the creatures he cherished insignificant and base, will assign him a despicable corner among the writers who insult humanity, will give him the qualities of the heroes he depicted, will take away his heart, both the soul and the divine flame of talent.<...>The modern court does not recognize this and will turn everything into a reproach and reproach for the unrecognized writer; without division, without answer, without participation, like a familyless traveler, he will remain alone in the middle of the road. His field is harsh, and he will feel his loneliness bitterly.”

"Pogost" is a cemetery next to a church.

Idyll is a poetic genre common in ancient poetry, describing a serene life in the lap of nature. The idyll genre presupposes the absence of any conflicts and dissonance - one indestructible harmony, as in the earthly paradise before the fall of people.

[v] a rhyme is called masculine when the line ends on a stressed syllable (sang - made noise); feminine - when after the last stressed syllable in the line there is another unstressed one (abode - guardian); and finally, dactylic - when after the last stressed syllable in a line there are two more unstressed ones (heavenly - unknown); thus the rhyme represents a dactylic foot: .

Skatov N.N. Nekrasov. Series ZhZL, M., 1994. P. 343.

In Pushkin’s poem, the poet says to the crowd: “Be silent, senseless people, / Day laborer, slave of need, of worries! /Your impudent murmur is unbearable to me, /You are a worm of the earth, not a son of heaven; /You would benefit from everything worth its weight /The idol you value is the Belvedere. /You don’t see any benefit in him. /But this marble is God!.. so what? /The stove pot is more precious to you: /You cook your food in it” (“The Poet and the Crowd”). This poem was considered a manifesto of “pure art”; it was also quoted by Nekrasov for polemical purposes in his subject poem “The Poet and the Citizen.”

Wed. from Pushkin: “And every autumn I bloom again; /Russian cold is good for my health; /I again feel love for the habits of life; /One by one sleep flies away, one by one hunger finds, /The blood plays easily and joyfully in the heart, /Desires are boiling - I’m happy and young again, /I’m full of life again - that’s my body / (Please forgive me the unnecessary prosaism)” (“Autumn” 1833).

In the Gospel, Christ tells this parable about Himself and His impending death on the cross. In addition, it expresses the idea that every believer reflects Christ within himself, lives with Him and in Him, and ascends to the cross with Him.

To prepare this work, materials from the site http://www.portal-slovo.ru were used

Nekrasov enthusiastically accepted the liberation of peasants from serfdom as a result of the reform of 1861. Sovremennik published a poem under the title “Freedom” (with an obvious reference to Pushkin’s ode “Liberty”), where The poetic language of the poem has three main sources: material of folklore origin, the folk-colloquial practice of the peasantry, and the literary speech of an intellectual commoner. The first two sources are used mainly in parts I, II, III of the poem, the last - in part IV “A Feast for the Whole World” and in the author’s lyrical digressions (although it should be noted that in general the author’s speech is almost no different from the speech of heroes from the peasant environment). In “Who Lives Well in Rus'” the narration is told on behalf of the narrator, who speaks almost the same way as main character

poems - peasantry. There is almost no difference either in phraseological, lexical or syntactic relations. It is enough, for example, to compare the language of the “Prologue” with the speech of the peasant characters to be convinced of this.
In the speech of the “Last One” there are also words characteristic of popular colloquial speech: “What is the master’s term? Where did you get it from? etc.
Thanks to the individualization of the characters’ language, the image of a fired sexton stands out before us, who “dissolved his laces” and taught that “happiness is not in pastures, not in sables, not in gold, not in expensive stones...”, but “in complacency.” “There are limits to the possessions of lords, nobles, and kings of the earth, and the wise possession is the entire city of Christ!”

The Church Slavic element makes itself felt in the speech of the priest. His speech (mostly colloquial peasant) is woven into phrases and words characteristic of clergyman, for example: “brothers”, “Orthodox”, “it is a sin to murmur against God, I bear my cross with patience”, “sick”, “dying”, “there is no heart that can bear without some trembling the death rattle, the funeral sob, the orphan’s sadness! Amen...-”, etc.
Slavicisms found in Nekrasov’s works early period creativity, almost completely disappear in his mature works, which was primarily due to the general democratization of the style of Nekrasov’s poetry and his nationality.
In “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov resorts to Slavicisms only where it contributes to the realistic concretization of the image (priest, sexton), or when the narration, for censorship reasons, is conducted on behalf of a pilgrim pilgrim (“The Woman’s Parable”), schemanik (“About two great sinners”) and it is necessary to stylize it to match the speech of the character. The chapters “The Woman’s Parable”, “About Two Great Sinners” and “Wanderers and Pilgrims”, to a greater extent than others, are replete with Slavicisms (“Desert fathers and immaculate wives and scribes-readers are looking for them - they will not find them!”; “in chains exhausted”, “to ask the wise men, and to calculate by the stars”; “a certain saint appeared to the elder in a prayer vigil and said: “It was not without God’s providence that you chose the age-old oak...”; the tree collapsed, the burden of sins rolled off the monk!..”).

And only occasionally do we come across Slavicisms in the author’s speech and in the speech of heroes from the peasant environment, for example: “the frequent stars in the high heavens were lit”; “Why were you yelling and showing off? inafema climbed into the fight; “one like a finger”; “the heirs are fighting with the peasants to this day”; “I have reached a vigorous youth”, etc. But these are primarily Slavicisms that have entered everyday peasant speech and reflect the influence of bookish Church Slavonic vocabulary.

The individualization of the speech of sexton Trofim, peasants Klim, Vlas and soldier Ovsyannikov goes in a different direction. Their speech is interspersed with distorted foreign words. The words dokhtur and gum (instead of comedy) are used by the experienced peasant Vlas. When telling the story about the courtyard Ipat, Vlas says “faletur” instead of “postilion.” In the IV part of the poem - “A Feast for the Whole World” - the sexton Trofim says about his son: “it’s not for nothing that he rushes to Moscow, to the new community...”. The word “pension” (instead of pension) is found in the same part of the poem in the speech of the experienced soldier Ovsyannikov.

The speech of Mayor Klim, who visited St. Petersburg and encountered different people, heard enough words unusual for the peasantry:
Some special words
I've heard enough: Atechestvo,
Moscow is the first throne,
Great Russian soul.
“I am a Russian peasant!”
Fathers! leaders!
Watch out for the stupid peasantry

But in general it must be said that distortions of literary and foreign words in the poem are relatively rare and Nekrasov never abuses them. To give the story a local flavor and convey his attitude towards the peasantry, Nekrasov uses dialectisms characteristic of Yaroslavl-ko. Stromsky dialect. Here too, the poet shows artistic tact and never allows exaggeration or deliberate emphasis. Dialectisms in a poem are always appropriate. These are the most characteristic of them: respect, koknul, lafa, kolobrod, balashit, freely, like, two bros, vtyamashitsya, squabble, gutorili, now, shaliki, mirvolili, diral, along the way, stibrill, yarmonka, skhonali, etc.

Some of the examples given can be attributed to jargon, reflecting the influence of bourgeois urban dialects (for example, lafa, stibrill, kokn). By introducing dialecticisms, Nekrasov avoids in the same cream such specific local phrases that are incomprehensible outside the boundaries of a given dialect.
Nekrasov does not stop before introducing such folk words and expressions that, from the point of view of “aesthetes,” were considered “unliterary,” unpoetic, or seemed unacceptably rude and vulgar. Spontaneity, simplicity, sometimes crude humor and sharp jokes were for him the undoubted advantages of the folk language.

Nekrasov, in his own words, collected the poem “who lives well in Rus'” “word by word for twenty years.” “I decided to expound... - the poet wrote, everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips...”. The genre of this poem is difficult to define. We can say that this is a folk epic of modern times. Externally, the plot of the poem looks like this: seven men from different villages asked themselves the question: “Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?” In search of an answer, they travel throughout Russia, meeting people from different classes (priest, landowner, merchant, official, various people from the people). The plot of the work is structured to cover the life of all of post-reform Russia.

Nekrasov devotes most of the poem to a review of folk life, because the main character of the work is the Russian people. Throughout the entire work, the author creates a collective portrait of the Russian people, which consists of a totality central characters(Matryona Timofeevna, Grisha Dobrosklonov. Ermila Girin), episodic (Agap Petrov, Gleb, Vavila, Vlas, Klim, etc.), “polyphony” of the crowd (chapter “A feast for the whole world”).

Already in the first chapter “Pop” large-scale pictures of folk life are created. The heroes go out onto the road, and the entire Russian land stretches before their eyes: “Forests, wet meadows, Russian streams and rivers...” Further, this picture is associated with the life of the people: in the spring, rivers flood, which flood all the fields, which means they leave the peasant without a harvest . From the priest's story we learn not only about the life of the clergy in Russia after the abolition of serfdom, but also the plight of the majority of peasant families who are unable to pay the priest for his work.

In the chapter " Rural fair“The peasant mass appears before us in all its breadth and diversity: “There was brisk trade going on, With god-bashing, with jokes, With healthy, loud laughter...” Here the people's recreation is described. Popular preferences: a bookstore where people buy popular prints with images of “fat generals”, a booth with Petrushka. Here the hero Vavila appears, having drunk away all the money, but thanks to the generosity of the “master”, he bought a gift for his beloved granddaughter.

The chapter “Drunken Night” reveals the peasants’ revelations, shows the hidden side of their lives: here is one woman complaining to another about conflicts with her son-in-law; Here Olenushka deceived a drunken man by eating a gingerbread and running away from him; Here is an unhappy old woman asking a young boy for love. But already here social motives and themes of the plight of the peasants begin to appear. Throughout the entire work, we see pictures of the difficult, impoverished and powerless life of the peasantry. Nekrasov shows that after the abolition of serfdom, the position of the peasantry in Russia remained almost unchanged.

The panorama of people's life is revealed gradually, as it were, during the men's search for the truth. Moreover, the further the wanderers move, the more formalized the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bbecomes. With the meeting with Ermila Girin, an image is outlined people's defender and another condition of happiness is outlined - popular respect. Savely complements this image: he is a people's avenger and hero. Matryona Timofeevna - female version“happy” with his own interpretation of the problem: “It’s not a matter of looking for a happy one among women.” On last stage searching, we meet Grisha Dobrosklonov, the most developed and happy, according to Nekrasov. This hero is ready to give his life in the name of the triumph of an “honest cause”, in the name of improving the lives of the people.

The poem “Who Lives in Rus'” is full of folklore motifs and images. The plot of the poem is in many ways similar to the folk tale about the search for truth and happiness. The work begins with a peculiar beginning, characteristic of Russian fairy tales and epics: “In what year - calculate, In what land - guess...”

There are also folk signs in the poem: “Cuckoo, cuckoo! The bread will sprout, You will choke on the ear - You won’t cuckoo!” Riddles are also often found in the poem: “No one has seen him, But everyone has heard him, Without a body, but he lives, Without a tongue, he screams.” This work is also characterized by constant epithets and comparisons: “Like a fish in a blue sea.” Folklore images also appear in the poem (a self-assembled tablecloth, for example).

“Who Lives Well in Rus'” is one of the most famous works ON THE. Nekrasova. In the poem, the writer managed to reflect all the hardships and torments that the Russian people endure. The characteristics of the heroes are especially significant in this context. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a work rich in bright, expressive and original characters, which we will consider in the article.

The meaning of the prologue

The beginning of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” plays a special role in understanding the work. The prologue resembles a fairy tale opening like “In a Certain Kingdom”:

In what year - calculate

In what land - guess...

The following tells about the men who came from different villages (Neelova, Zaplatova, etc.). All titles and names are telling; with them Nekrasov gives a clear description of places and characters. In the prologue, the men's journey begins. This is where the fairy-tale elements in the text end, the reader is introduced to the real world.

List of heroes

All the heroes of the poem can be divided into four groups. The first group consists of the main characters who went for happiness:

• Demyan;
• Novel;
• Prov;
• Groin;
• Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin;
• Luke.

Then come the landowners: Obolt-Obolduev; Glukhovskaya; Utyatin; Shalashnikov; Peremetev.

Slaves and peasants met by travelers: Yakim Nagoy, Egor Shutov, Ermil Girin, Sidor, Ipat, Vlas, Klim, Gleb, Yakov, Agap, Proshka, Savely, Matryona.

And heroes who do not belong to the main groups: Vogel, Altynnikov, Grisha.

Now let's consider key characters poems.

Dobrosklonov Grisha

Grisha Dobrosklonov appears in the episode “A Feast for the Whole World”; the entire epilogue of the work is dedicated to this character. He himself is a seminarian, the son of a clerk from the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki. Grisha's family lives very poorly, only thanks to the generosity of the peasants they managed to raise him and his brother Savva to their feet. Their mother, a farm worker, died early from overwork. For Grisha, her image merged with the image of her homeland: “With love for the poor mother, love for all the Vakhlachina.”

While still a fifteen-year-old child, Grisha Dobrosklonov decided to devote his life to helping the people. In the future, he wants to go to Moscow to study, but for now, together with his brother, he helps the men as best he can: he works with them, explains new laws, reads documents to them, writes letters for them. Grisha composes songs that reflect observations of poverty and suffering of the people, and thoughts about the future of Russia. The appearance of this character enhances the lyricism of the poem. Nekrasov’s attitude towards his hero is clearly positive; the writer sees in him a revolutionary from the people who should become an example for the upper strata of society. Grisha voices the thoughts and position of Nekrasov himself, decisions of social and moral problems. N.A. is considered the prototype of this character. Dobrolyubova.

Ipat

Ipat is a “sensitive serf,” as Nekrasov calls him, and in this characteristic one can hear the poet’s irony. This character also makes travelers laugh when they learn about his life. Ipat is a grotesque character; he became the embodiment of a faithful lackey, a lordly slave who remained faithful to his master even after the abolition of serfdom. He is proud and considers it a great blessing for himself how the master bathed him in an ice hole, harnessed him to a cart, and saved him from death, to which he himself doomed. Such a character cannot even evoke sympathy from Nekrasov; only laughter and contempt are heard from the poet.

Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna

The peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina is the heroine to whom Nekrasov dedicated the entire third part of the poem. This is how the poet describes her: “A dignified woman, about thirty-eight years old, broad and dense. Beautiful... big eyes... stern and dark. She’s wearing a white shirt and a short sundress.” Travelers are led to the woman by her words. Matryona agrees to talk about her life if the men will help in the harvest. The title of this chapter (“Peasant Woman”) emphasizes the typicality of Korchagina’s fate for Russian women. And the author’s words “it’s not a matter for women to look for a happy woman” emphasize the futility of the wanderers’ search.

Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina was born into a good, non-drinking family, and she lived happily there. But after marriage, she found herself “in hell”: her father-in-law was a drunkard, her mother-in-law was superstitious, and she had to work for her sister-in-law without straightening her back. Matryona was lucky with her husband: he only beat her once, but all the time, except winter, he was at work. Therefore, there was no one to stand up for the woman; the only one who tried to protect her was grandfather Savely. The woman endures the harassment of Sitnikov, who has no authority because he is the master’s manager. Matryona's only consolation is her first child, Dema, but due to Savely's oversight, he dies: the boy is eaten by pigs.

Time passes, Matryona has new children, parents and grandfather Savely die of old age. The most difficult years are the lean years, when the whole family has to go hungry. When her husband, the last intercessor, is taken into the army out of turn, she goes to the city. He finds the general's house and throws himself at the feet of his wife, asking for intercession. Thanks to the help of the general's wife, Matryona and her husband return home. It was after this incident that everyone considered her lucky. But in the future, the woman faces only troubles: her eldest son is already a soldier. Nekrasov, summing up, says that the key to female happiness long lost.

Agap Petrov

Agap is an inflexible and stupid man, according to the peasants who know him. And all because Petrov did not want to put up with the voluntary slavery that fate was pushing the peasants into. The only thing that could calm him down was wine.

When he was caught carrying a log from the master's forest and accused of theft, he could not stand it and told the owner everything he thought about the real state of affairs and life in Russia. Klim Lavin, not wanting to punish Agap, stages a brutal reprisal against him. And then, wanting to console him, he gives him something to drink. But humiliation and excessive drunkenness lead the hero to die in the morning. This is the price the peasants pay for the right to openly express their thoughts and desire to be free.

Veretennikov Pavlusha

Veretennikov was met by men in the village of Kuzminskoye, at a fair; he is a collector of folklore. Nekrasov gives a poor description of his appearance and does not talk about his origin: “The men did not know what family and rank.” However, for some reason everyone calls him master. This uncertainty is necessary for the image of Pavlusha to be generalized. Compared to people, Veretennikov stands out for his concern about the fate of the Russian people. He is not an indifferent observer, like the participants in the many inactive committees that Yakim Nagoy denounces. Nekrasov emphasizes the hero’s kindness and responsiveness by the fact that his very first appearance is marked by a selfless act: Pavlusha helps out a peasant buying shoes for his granddaughter. Genuine concern for the people also attracts travelers to the “master”.

The prototype of the image was the ethnographers-folklorists Pavel Rybnikov and Pavel Yakushkin, who participated in the democratic movement of the 60s of the 19th century. The surname belongs to the journalist P.F. Veretennikov, who visited rural fairs and published reports in Moskovskie Vedomosti.

Yakov

Yakov is a loyal servant, a former servant, he is described in the part of the poem called “A Feast for the Whole World.” The hero was loyal to his master, endured any punishment and performed even the most difficult work without complaint. This continued until the master, who liked his nephew’s bride, sent him to recruit service. Yakov started drinking, but still returned to his owner. However, the man wanted revenge. One day, when he was taking Polivanov (the master) to his sister, Yakov turned off the road into Devil’s Ravine, unharnessed his horse and hanged himself in front of the owner, wanting to leave him alone with his conscience all night. Similar cases revenge was indeed common among the peasants. Nekrasov based his story on a true story he heard from A.F. Horses.

Ermila Girin

Characteristics of the heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is impossible without a description of this character. It is Ermila who can be considered one of the lucky ones whom the travelers were looking for. The prototype of the hero was A.D. Potanin, a peasant, manager of the Orlovs' estate, famous for his unprecedented justice.

Girin is revered among the peasants because of his honesty. For seven years he was burgomaster, but only once did he allow himself to abuse his power: he did not give his younger brother Mitri as a recruit. But the unrighteous act tormented Yermil so much that he almost killed himself. The intervention of the master saved the situation, he restored justice, returned the peasant who had been unfairly sent to the recruits and sent Mitri to serve, but personally took care of him. Girin then left the service and became a miller. When the mill that he rented was sold, Ermila won the auction, but he did not have the money with him to pay the deposit. The people helped out the peasant: in half an hour, men who remembered kindness collected a thousand rubles for him.

All of Girin’s actions were driven by the desire for justice. Despite the fact that he lived in prosperity and had a considerable household, when a peasant revolt broke out, he did not stand aside, for which he ended up in prison.

Pop

The characterization of the heroes continues. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - a work rich in characters of different classes, characters and aspirations. Therefore, Nekrasov could not help but turn to the image of a clergyman. According to Luke, it is the priest who should “live cheerfully and freely in Rus'.” And the first on their way, the seekers of happiness meet the village priest, who refutes Luke’s words. The priest has no happiness, wealth or peace of mind. And getting an education is very difficult. The life of a clergyman is not at all sweet: he sees off the dying on their last journey, blesses those who are born, and his soul aches for the suffering and tormented people.

But the people themselves do not particularly honor the priest. He and his family are constantly the subject of superstitions, jokes, obscene ridicule and songs. And all the wealth of the priests consisted of donations from parishioners, among whom were many landowners. But with the cancellation, most of the rich flock scattered around the world. In 1864, the clergy was deprived of another source of income: schismatics, by decree of the emperor, came under the tutelage of the civil authorities. And with the pennies that the peasants bring, “it’s hard to live.”

Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev

Our description of the characters in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is coming to an end; of course, we could not give descriptions of all the characters in the poem, but we included the most important ones in the review. The last of them significant heroes became Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev - a representative of the lordly class. He is round, pot-bellied, mustachioed, ruddy, stocky, and sixty years old. One of the famous ancestors of Gavrila Afanasyevich was a Tatar who entertained the empress with wild animals, stole from the treasury and plotted the arson of Moscow. Obolt-Obolduev is proud of his ancestor. But he is sad because now he can no longer make money from peasant labor as before. The landowner covers up his sorrows with concern for the peasant and the fate of Russia.

This idle, ignorant and hypocritical man is convinced that the purpose of his class is one thing - “to live by the labor of others.” When creating an image, Nekrasov does not skimp on shortcomings and endows his hero with cowardice. This trait is manifested in a comical incident when Obolt-Obolduev mistakes unarmed peasants for robbers and threatens them with a pistol. It took a lot of effort for the men to dissuade the former owner.

Conclusion

Thus, N. A. Nekrasov’s poem is filled with a number of bright, original characters, designed from all sides to reflect the position of the people in Russia, the attitude of different classes and government officials towards them. It is precisely thanks to such a number of descriptions of human destinies, often based on real stories, that the work leaves no one indifferent.

Artistic features of “Who Lives Well in Rus'”