Description of stories from Bezhin Meadow. “Bezhin Meadow”: mysticism in Turgenev’s works, hostile nature and fatal fate. The history of the creation of the story “Bezhin Meadow”

An important historical period is reflected in the work of N.A. Nekrasov. The peasants in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are typical and very real. Their images help to understand what happened in the country after the abolition of serfdom, and what the reforms led to.

Wanderers of the People

Seven men - all of peasant origin. How are they different from other characters? Why doesn’t the author choose representatives of different classes as walkers? Nekrasov is a genius. The author suggests that a movement begins among the peasants. Russia has “awakened from its sleep.” But the movement is slow, not everyone has realized that they have gained freedom and can live in a new way. Nekrasov makes heroes of ordinary men. Previously, only beggars, pilgrims and buffoons roamed the country. Now men from different provinces and volosts have gone looking for answers to their questions. The poet does not idealize literary characters, does not try to separate them from the people. He understands that all peasants are different. Centuries-old oppression has become a habit for the majority; men do not know what to do with the rights they received, or how to continue to live.

Yakim Nagoy

A peasant lives in a village with a telling name - Bosovo. A poor man from the same village. The peasant went to work, but fell into litigation with the merchant. Yakim ended up in prison. Realizing that nothing good awaits him in the city, Nagoy returns to his homeland. He works on the earth without complaint, merging with it in his image and likeness. Like a lump, a layer cut out by a plow, Yakim

“He works himself to death and drinks until he is half to death.”

A man does not get joy from hard work. Most of it goes to the landowner, but he himself is poor and hungry. Yakim is sure that no amount of drunkenness can overcome a Russian peasant, so there is no point in blaming the peasants for drunkenness. The versatility of the soul is revealed during a fire. Yakim and his wife save paintings, icons, not money. The spirituality of the people is higher than material wealth.

Serf Yakov

Yakov lives in the service of a cruel landowner for many years. He is exemplary, diligent, faithful. The slave serves his master until old age and takes care of him during illness. The author shows how a man can show disobedience. He condemns such decisions, but also understands them. It is difficult for Yakov to stand up against the landowner. Throughout his life he had proven his devotion to him, but he did not deserve even a little attention. The slave takes the debilitated landowner into the forest and commits suicide in front of his eyes. A sad picture, but it is precisely this that helps to understand how deeply servility has taken root in the hearts of the peasants.

Favorite Slave

The yard man tries to appear the happiest before the wanderers. What is his happiness? Serf was the favorite slave of the first noble prince Peremetevo. The wife of a slave is a beloved slave. The owner allowed the serf's daughter to study languages ​​and sciences together with the young lady. The little girl sat in the presence of the gentlemen. The peasant slave looks stupid. He prays, asking God to save him from a noble disease - gout. Slavish obedience led the slave to absurd thoughts. He is proud of the noble disease. He boasts to the walkers about the wines he drank: champagne, Burgon, Tokay. The men refuse him vodka. They send us off to lick the plates after the lordly meal. A Russian drink is not on the lips of a peasant slave; let him finish off the glasses of foreign wines. The image of a sick serf is ridiculous.

Headman Gleb

There is no usual intonation in the description of the peasant. The author is indignant. He doesn’t want to write about types like Gleb, but they exist among the peasants, so the truth of life requires the appearance of the image of an elder from the people in the poem. There were few of these among the peasants, but they brought enough grief. Gleb destroyed the freedom that the master gave. He allowed his fellow countrymen to be deceived. A slave at heart, the headman betrayed the men. He hoped for special benefits, for the opportunity to rise above his equals in social status.

Man's happiness

At the fair, many peasants approach the wanderers. They are all trying to prove their happiness, but it is so miserable that it is hard to talk about it.

Which peasants approached the walkers:

• The peasant is Belarusian. His happiness is in bread. Previously, it was barley, it hurt my stomach so much that it can only be compared with contractions during childbirth. Now they give rye bread, you can eat it without fear of consequences.
• A man with a curled cheekbone. The peasant went after the bear. His three friends were broken by forest owners. The man remained alive. The happy hunter cannot look to the left: his cheekbone is curled up like a bear's paw. The walkers laughed and offered to go see the bear again and turn the other cheek to equalize the cheekbones, but they gave me vodka.
• Stonemason. The young Olonchan man enjoys life because he is strong. He has a job, if you get up early, you can earn 5 silver.
• Tryphon. Possessing enormous strength, the guy succumbed to the contractor’s ridicule. I tried to pick up as much as they put in. I brought in a load of 14 poods. He didn’t allow himself to be laughed at, but he tore his heart and got sick. The man’s happiness is that he reached his homeland to die on his own land.

N.A. Nekrasov calls peasants differently. Only slaves, serfs and Judases. Other exemplary, faithful, brave heroes of the Russian land. New paths are opening up for the people. A happy life awaits them, but they should not be afraid to protest and seek their rights.

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 relevant to this day. 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. She, as the breadwinner of the family, 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.

The Realist and "Ghosts"

The researcher of creativity I. Vinogradov notes: “A sober realist who always amazed with the amazing authenticity of his paintings, and suddenly mystical stories about ghosts, about posthumous love, about mysterious dreams and meetings with the dead... This confused many.”

The story “The Dog” (1864), the hero of which, a bankrupt Kaluga landowner, encounters, as they would say today, the phenomenon of a poltergeist, was met with particular skepticism. The satirical magazine “Alarm Clock” published a poetic review by a certain P.I. Weinberg on this work:

I read your "Dog"
And from now on
There's something scratching in my brain
Like your Trezor.
Scratching by day, scratching by night,
Keeps up
And very strange questions
Asks me:
“What does a Russian writer mean?
Why why
Mostly he cums
The devil knows what?

Flying in a dream and a goblin in the “night”

Only more than a hundred years later, when the Russian press began to actively write about various “paranormal” phenomena, some researchers paid attention to how exactly the details of “Ghosts” coincide with people’s stories about the “release of the astral body” in a dream or in an altered state of consciousness . As a rule, in these cases, eyewitnesses say that their soul left the bodily shell and traveled to various places, becoming a witness to events, information about which was not available to the person in his physical body.

Sometimes “exits from the body” were carried out at will and became the result of meditation. Thus, D. Whiteman in his book “The Mysterious Life” describes more than 600 such “astral travels”. In turn, R. Monroe in the book “Travel Out of the Body” claims that he experienced more than 900 similar experiences.

Turgenev does not ignore either. Thus, in the story “Bezhin Meadow” from “Notes of a Hunter”, peasant children in the “night” tell each other stories about brownies, mermaids, goblins, water creatures, the dead and other mystical phenomena. And one of the young heroes hears the voice of a drowned man and at the end of the story dies by falling from a horse. “I did not at all want to give this story a fantastic character,” the author justifies himself in a letter to E.M. Feoktistov.

Terror in the Forest

For the first time, Ivan Sergeevich publicly spoke about this in Paris, in the salon of Pauline Viardot, when among the guests there was talk of the terrible and inexplicable. The details of his story were reflected by the no less famous French writer Guy de Maupassant in the short story “The Horror.”

One day young Turgenev went hunting. The case took place in central Russia. In the evening he went to the bank of a forest river and wanted to swim. Suddenly he felt someone touching his shoulder and, turning around, saw a strange creature - either a woman or a monkey. She had a wide, wrinkled face that seemed to be grimacing, her bare breasts dangled like bags, and her long, tangled hair fluttered behind her...

The young man felt a chilling fear and sharply turned towards the shore. However, the creature constantly overtook him, touching his neck, back, and legs. At the same time, it let out a joyful squeal.

Having got to the shore, Turgenev rushed to run as fast as he could, without taking either clothes or a gun. The creature followed him... Fortunately, they met a shepherd boy, who began to whip the monster with a whip and thereby put him to flight. Screaming in pain, the “monkey woman” disappeared into the forest thickets.

Oddly enough, this incident never became the subject of a story. But people who have at least once encountered something from the sphere of the “unknown” often show interest in it throughout their lives. Apparently, this is what happened to one of the most outstanding Russian classical writers.