It was created in the mid-19th century. We all know that this period in history Russian Empire marked the end of the era of serfdom. What was next for our country at this time? Nikolai Vasilyevich tried to answer this question in his famous poem.
The work can be perceived ambiguously: at first glance, Rus' appears before us in some caricature of the reality that was inherent in state life. But in fact, the author depicted the fullness of the poetic richness of life in Rus'.
Description of Living Rus' in the poem
Gogol describes Rus' as a long-suffering, poor state, which was exhausted by all previously experienced obstacles and its own greedy people. However, Gogol's Rus' is full of strength and energy that still glimmers in its soul, it is immortal and full of power.
The Russian people are depicted in the poem with great literary skill.
We get acquainted with dispossessed peasants, people without rights, great workers who are forced to endure the oppression of such landowners as Manilov, Sobakevich and Plyushkin. While increasing the wealth of the landowners, they live in need and poverty. The peasants are illiterate and downtrodden, but they are by no means “dead”.
Circumstances forced them to bow their heads, but not completely submit. Gogol describes truly Russian people - hardworking, brave, resilient, who for many years, despite oppression, have preserved their personality and continue to cherish the thirst for freedom. The Russian people in the work are a reflection of their state. He does not put up with the slave situation: some peasants decide to run away from their landowners to the Siberian wilderness and the Volga region.
In the tenth and eleventh chapters, Gogol raises the theme of a peasant revolt - a group of conspirators killed the landowner Drobyazhkin. None of the men at the trial betrayed the killer - this indicated, first of all, that the people had a concept of honor and dignity.
The description of the life of the peasantry brings us an understanding that Rus' in Gogol’s poem is truly alive, full internal forces! The writer firmly believes that the moment will come when holy and righteous Rus' will throw off such greedy rotten personalities like Plyushkin, Sobakevich and others, and will shine with new lights of honor, justice and freedom.
Gogol's attitude towards Russia
During the period of the creation of the poem "Dead Souls", despite the abolition of serfdom, there was little hope that Rus' would still be resurrected to its former greatness. However, enormous patriotism, love for his people and unshakable faith in the power of Rus' allowed Gogol to realistically describe its great future. In the last lines, Gogol compares Rus' with a three-headed bird flying towards its happiness, to which all other peoples and states give way.
The image of Rus' and the peasants in the poem are the only “living” characters who, while in captivity, “ dead souls“Still managed to resist and continue their struggle for existence and freedom. The author planned to describe the triumph of free Rus' in more detail in the second volume of his work, which, unfortunately, was never destined to see the world.
The poet set himself the task of understanding and, within one work, capturing peasant Rus', Russian folk character in all its versatility, complexity and inconsistency. And the life of the people in “Who in Rus'...” appears in all the diversity of its manifestations. We see the Russian peasant at work (the speech of Yakim Nagogo, mowing in "The Last One", the story of Matryona) and struggle (the story of Yakim and Ermil, the lawsuit of the Vakhlaks, the reprisal against Vogel), in moments of rest ("Rural Fair", "Feast") and revelry (“Drunk Night”), in a time of grief (“Pop,” Matryona’s story) and moments of joy (“Before Marriage,” “Governor’s Lady,” “Feast”), in the family (“Peasant Woman”) and peasant collective (“Last One” ", "Feast"), in relationships with landowners ("Landowner", "Lastly", "Savely, the hero of the Holy Russian", tales in "Feast"), officials ("Demushka", the story about Ermil) and merchants (the history of Yakim, the lawsuit between Ermil and Altynnikov, the fight between Lavin and Eremin).
The poem gives a vivid picture of economic situation post-reform, “free” peasantry (names of villages and counties, stories of the priest and the “lucky ones”, the plot situation of the chapter “Last One”, songs “Merry”, “Salty”, “Hungry” and a number of details in the chapter “Feast”) and legal “ changes” in his life (“...instead of the master / The volost will tear up”).
Nekrasov depicts folk life in a strictly realistic manner. The author does not turn a blind eye to the negative phenomena of people's life. He boldly speaks about the darkness and underdevelopment generated by the “fortress” and the living conditions of the peasantry (illiteracy, belief in “poor” signs), rudeness (“As if he didn’t knock?”), swearing, drunkenness (“Drunk Night”), parasitism and servility servants (Peremetyev's footman, Ipat, servants in the "Prologue" of the chapter "Peasant Woman"), the sin of social betrayal (Gleb the headman, Yegorka Shutov). But shadow sides people's life and consciousness do not obscure the main thing in the poem, that which forms the basis of the people's life, is decisive for the people's character. Labor is such a basis of people's life in Nekrasov's poem.
Reading “To whom in Rus'...”, we feel the greatness of the labor feat of the Russian peasantry, this “sower and guardian” of the Russian land. The man “works to death”, his “work has no measure”, the peasant navel is cracking from the strain of exorbitant labor, Matryona’s fellow villagers are making “horse strains”, peasant women appear as “eternal toilers”. Through the labor of a peasant, in the spring they are dressed with the greenery of cereals, and in the fall the fields are stripped, and although this labor does not save from poverty, the peasant loves to work (“The Last One”: mowing, the participation of wanderers in it; Matryona’s story). The Russian peasant, as depicted by Nekrasov, is smart, observant, inquisitive (“comedy with Petrushka”, “they care about everything”, “who has ever seen how he listens ...”, “he greedily catches news”), persistent in the pursuit of his goal goals (“man, what a bull...”), sharp-tongued (there are many examples!), kind and sympathetic (episodes with Vavilushka, with Brmil at the fair, the help of the Vakhlaks to Ovsyannikov, the family of the sexton Dobrosklonov), has a grateful heart (Matryona about governor), sensitive to beauty (Matryona; Yakim and pictures). Nekrasov characterizes the moral qualities of the Russian peasantry with the formula: “gold, gold is the people’s heart.” The poem reveals the thirst for justice characteristic of the Russian peasantry, shows the awakening and growth of its social consciousness, manifested in a sense of collectivism and class solidarity (support for Yermil, hatred of the Last One, beating Shutov), in contempt for lackeys and traitors (attitude towards the lackey Prince Peremetyev and Ipat, to the story about Gleb the Headman), in rebellion (rebellion in Stolbnyaki). The popular environment as a whole is depicted in the poem as “good soil” for the perception of liberation ideas.
The masses, the people, are the main characters of the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Nekrasov not only painted vivid portraits of individual representatives of the people's environment. The innovative nature of Nekrasov’s plan was manifested in the fact that the central place in the work is occupied by the collective image of the Russian peasantry.
Researchers have repeatedly noted the high “population density” of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” In addition to the seven wanderers and the main characters, dozens and hundreds of images of peasants are drawn in it. Some of them are briefly characterized, in the images of others only some characteristic touch is noticed, and others are only named. Some of them are present “on stage”, included in the action, while truth-seekers and the reader learn about others only from the stories of the “stage” characters. Along with individual ones, the author introduces numerous group images into the poem.
Gradually, from chapter to chapter, the poem introduces us to various options people's destinies, various types characters' characters, with the world of their feelings, their moods, concepts, judgments and ideals. A variety of portrait sketches, speech characteristics, the abundance of crowd scenes, their polyphony, the introduction of folk songs, sayings, proverbs and jokes into the text - everything is subordinated to the single goal of creating an image of the peasant masses, the constant presence of which is felt when reading every page of “Who Lives Well in Rus'”.
Against the background of this peasant mass, the author of the epic painted close-up images of the best representatives of the Russian peasantry. Each of them artistically captures certain aspects, facets of the people’s character and worldview. Thus, the image of Yakim reveals the theme of heroic people’s labor and the awakening of the people’s consciousness, Savely is the embodiment of the heroism and love of freedom of the peasantry, its rebellious impulses, the image of Yermil is evidence of the love of truth, the moral beauty of the people and the height of their ideals, etc. But this commonality is revealed in a unique individuality of fate and character of each. Any character in “To Whom in Rus'...”, be it Matryona, who “revealed” her whole soul to the wanderers, or the “yellow-haired, hunched” Belarusian peasant who flashed in the crowd, is realistically accurate, full-blooded, and at the same time, everyone is some micro part general concept"people".
All chapters of the epic are united by the end-to-end image of seven truth-seekers. The epic, generalized, conventional character of this image gives all the real-life events depicted in it special significance, and the work itself - the character of a “philosophy of people’s life.” Thus, the somewhat abstract concept of “people” in the “Prologue” gradually, as the reader gets acquainted with the wanderers, Yakim, Ermil, Matryona, Savely, the many-sided and motley mass of peasants, is filled for him with the brightness of life’s colors, concrete and figurative realistic content.
In “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov wanted to show the process of awakening self-awareness among the masses, their desire to comprehend their situation and find ways out. Therefore, the author constructed the work in such a way that his folk heroes wander, observe, listen and judge, moreover, as the circle of their observations expands, their judgments become more mature and deep. The pictures of life in the poem are refracted through the perception of them by truth-seekers, that is, the author chooses the epic path or way of depicting reality.
The epic breadth of the depiction of life in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is also manifested in the fact that, along with the peasantry, everyone is represented here community groups and classes of Russia (priests, landowners, officials, merchants, bourgeois entrepreneurs, intelligentsia), moreover, in a wide variety of typical individuals, the intertwining of their destinies, the struggle of their interests.
1. The main meaning of the poem.
2. Peasantry in the poem.
3. The hard lot and simple happiness of the Russian people.
4. Matryona Timofeevna as a symbol of a Russian woman.
5. Grisha Good of the Clones - the ideal of the intelligentsia for Nekrasov.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” is a programmatic work for N. A. Nekrasov. Creating it for many years, the author invested personal ideas about morality, the fate of the people and the concept of national happiness. This work contains thoughts about the people, worries about them and aspirations for a better life.
The main storyline of the work is the motive of the journey of seven men in search of a person living happily. The main point of travel is to find such a person in his native land. Nekrasov’s ideal of man is inextricably linked with the peasantry and lies in the wanderers themselves. Of course they are dark. Uneducated, naive people. They lack a clear concept of the upper and lower classes, and are sincerely convinced that the “fat-bellied merchant,” the landowner, the tsar, must be happy. But at the same time they do not cease to be kind, sensitive and compassionate people. Later Vlas will say about them: “We are weird enough, but you are weirder than us!”
The poem colorfully depicts the living, spontaneous folk life with the whole palette of emotions - joy, worries, grief, sarcasm and envy. The work is polyphonic, it contains a man with rims, a peasant who overturned a cart, a drunken woman, and a bear hunter. Here are Vavilushka, Olenushka, Parashenka, Trofim, Fedosei, Proshka, Vlas, Klim Lavin, Ipat, Terentyeva. Showing the severity of the peasant share, the lack of rights of the people and their exploitation, the poet nevertheless does not remain silent about the problems hidden within the people themselves, that is, the darkness of the mind and drunken revelry.
Nekrasov reports best qualities of the Russian peasantry - hard work, moral purity and spiritual nobility, the ability to compassion and self-esteem, daring and fun, despite the surrounding adversity and difficulties. The author asserts that “good soil is the soul of the Russian people.” Readers will probably remember the scenes where Euphrosyne cares for the sick during cholera, and the peasants help Vavila and the disabled soldier. By using various means And various methods The author proves the purity of the “golden heart of the people.”
An irresistible craving for beauty is also clearly demonstrated by the example of the incident with Yakim. Thus, a simple peasant Yakim saved from a fire not furniture or savings accumulated with great difficulty, but pictures he bought at a fair. I also remember a peasant singer with a marvelous, pure voice, with which he “captivated the hearts of the people.” Often speaking about peasants, Nekrasov uses words with diminutive suffixes - old woman, soldiers, guys. Isn't this excellent proof of the warm, friendly attitude towards them on the part of the author? He is convinced that no matter the hard work,
Nor eternal care,
Not the yoke of slavery for a long time,
Not the pub itself
More to the Russian people
No limits are set
There is a wide path before him.
An important place in the poem is occupied by the image of Savely, endowed with heroic features. He despises submission and courageously stands up for the defense of the humiliated people. The protest, becoming more and more open, takes on terrible forms of rebellion. This is where the edifying, albeit cruel, story about the mocking German Vogel ends. The author's aesthetic ideals were embodied in the image of Matryona Timofeevna, the granddaughter of the great hero. It contains not only external beauty, but also endless spiritual wealth. She embodies the best traits inherent in a Russian woman, which she carries through difficult life circumstances and suffering. This image is so valuable and important that the author devotes an independent chapter to it. In Matryona there is a combination of features already identified in early works. You can see in her Daria, Orina, and the nameless girl from “Troika...”. Yes and appearance it's hard to forget her:
Matrena Timofeevna -
dignified woman,
Wide and dense
About thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, strict,
The richest eyelashes,
Severe and dark.
A different type of ideal person is represented by the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov. He has great value for understanding human and peasant happiness, but at the same time does not apply to those described earlier. He is a commoner, the son of a “unrequited farm laborer,” who has gone through difficult times. Half-starved childhood. He is incredibly young, not so much in body as in powerful spirit.
The life of this hero is inextricably linked with the peasantry - he owes his life to them. He gives his debt to him - sincerely and selflessly - trying to help in everything. He sows, mows, reaps, goes to the forest to pick mushrooms, plays with peasant children and listens with great pleasure to simple peasant songs:
...about fifteen years old
Gregory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark
Native corner.
The image of Dobrosklonov inexorably leads the reader to his description. They will be united by many features: origin, roll call of surnames, seminary education, common illness (consumption), a penchant for poetic creativity. This image, which appeared in the text of the poem not by chance, develops the ideal described by Nekrasov in the poem “In Memory of Dobrolyubov,” making it more down-to-earth and life-like. Like Dobrolyubov, Grisha was destined by fate
... The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
Gregory is not afraid of future difficulties and trials, since he believes with all his heart in the rightness of his cause. He believes in the help and support of his native people, because he sees how the people themselves are rising to the right fight:
The army is rising
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
This thought can make the hero happy, fill his soul with joy. The finale of the poems also shows the effect of Gregory’s words on the entire people and on the seven wanderers seeking happiness. Dobrosklonov is the future leader of his people, expressing their joy and pain:
If only our wanderers could be under their own roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha.
He heard the immense strength in his chest,
The sounds of grace delighted his ears,
The radiant sounds of the noble hymn -
He sang the embodiment of people's happiness.
Thus, the work shows the ideal type of person for Nekrasov, organically combining the positive traits of the peasantry and the Russian intelligentsia. Only the joint efforts of the revolutionaries leading the people, and the people themselves, can lead the country to victory, lead the Russian people onto the true path of happiness. But so far the Russian people are only on the way to a “feast for the whole world.”
The theme of “people's suffering” was developed by the author throughout his work; it is characteristic of works of different years. Just remember such classic poems as “Troika”, “Forgotten Village”, “Reflections at the Main Entrance”, “ Railway" And the culmination of the development of this theme - both in Nekrasov’s work and in Russian literature in general - is considered to be the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” Unfortunately, Nekrasov was unable to finish it - he died, leaving the picture of Rus' unfinished. However, despite this, the poem is often called the epic of folk life, and for good reason: despite its incompleteness, it still reflects different sides Russian national character is quite complete.
The Russian peasant, as it is stated in it, is a hero (the mason Trofim, Savely - “the Holy Russian hero”), but his strength does not find what he needs, useful application, often leads to misfortunes (for example, Trofim overstrained himself when he decided to lift too much weight; a child died through Savely’s fault). The life credo of any hard worker is patience and work. An example of this is Matryona Timofeevna, the personification of a woman’s difficult lot; even God himself, in Nekrasov’s words, has lost “the keys to women’s happiness.”
But a Russian peasant can only tolerate his own, Russian. The arbitrariness of some Vogel (“nemchura”) or Mr. Glukhovsky leads to a crime against the law, although justified from the point of view of human justice.
Despite the presence in the poem of such heroes as the hero Savely, Yakim Nagoy, Ermil Girin, headman Vlas, Matryona Timofeevna, as well as seven “truth-seekers” - heroes who have preserved true humanity and spiritual nobility - it is clear that not one of them will change nothing in the situation of the Russian village. None of them acts in this direction, everyone works and endures, achieves success - but there is no change for the better either for them personally or for the peasantry as a whole.
But the men’s hatred of the oppressor landowners is clearly defined. Nekrasov’s peasant can clearly and sensibly explain why he doesn’t love the master. But all other social likes and dislikes of the peasant are less definite. Why, for example, did men not like priests, why are they called “the foal breed”? The Gubin brothers, Ivan and Mitrodor, embarrassedly answer this question: “Not ourselves... According to our parents, we are like that...”. Here it is - peasant truth. Children inherit it from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on.
This is how one of the traits of the Russian folk character manifests itself. Is not personal experience the Gubin family, but a national, primordial trait dating back to ancient times. The individual in the village should not stand out, but, on the contrary, be guided general rules, the opinion of the masses. That is, the Russian people strongly general beginning, the best thing is what is done “by the whole world”; So, not knowing the essence of the matter, they drive Yegorka Shutov from village to village. Why beat? It is unknown, but “this is the punishment.” They are also unanimous on the issue of “exemplary slaves” - universal contempt for Yakov Verny and the “faithful slave” of Prince Peremetyev, who “suffers” from gout.
The national character cannot be captured entirely in one work, and several will not contain its entire width. Nekrasov managed to reflect a significant part of the people's consciousness, but he managed to do this only during the entire period of his literary activity. Russian national character undergoes constant changes, new types are born and old types die, and therefore folk life in Nekrasov’s depiction is only a small (although, giving due credit to the poet’s skill, a very vividly depicted) period of development of the folk character.
Nekrasov’s genius in depicting “folk thought” often forced critics to talk about the nationality of the poet’s work in general and specifically about the nationality of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” Indeed, it is difficult to argue with the fact that the presence of “folk thought” in a work inevitably guarantees that it has this quality. Usually, the nationality of a particular work is determined by the relationship between the individual and collective creativity of the author, the degree of creative borrowing of motifs, images, poetics of folk poetry - in other words, folklore.
Also the concept folk art denotes depth work of art, the importance of his ideas and images for the development of social self-awareness, for understanding the life of the entire nation. As has been noted more than once, Nekrasov in his work touched upon very deep issues, social and public, moral and philosophical. He seemed to summarize everything said by previous authors, and also introduced some of his own new ideas, reasoning about the real essence and prospects for the future for Russia. He managed to clearly and clearly expose to the reader the ulcers of his contemporary society, showed the morals of the nobility, the peasants, and the church. After all, the concept of “folk thought,” in my opinion, includes not only the meaning of “folk spirit,” “people’s soul,” so reliably depicted by Nekrasov in the images of Russian heroes. “People's Thought” is also the author’s reflections on the future of Russia, an expression of his “thought” about the fate of his people, his regret about its failures and admiration for its merits.
(No ratings yet)
Other writings:
- In his poem N.A. Nekrasov creates images of “new people” who emerged from the people’s environment and became active fighters for the good of the people. This is Ermil Girin. Whatever position he is in, whatever he does, he strives to be useful to the man, Read More......
- For this war, the peasants needed leaders. The poem shows Ermil Girin and Grigory Dobrosklonov as people capable of becoming peasant leaders. Yermil Girin is described in the first chapter of the poem. He won honor “neither with money, nor with fear: with strict truth, with intelligence and kindness!” Being Read More......
- “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the most amazing work of N. A. Nekrasov. This is not a poem in the usual sense of the word, or even a novel in verse, but a folk epic of modern times, which has retained its connection with the ancient Russian epic. This work embodies Read More......
- The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the pinnacle of N. A. Nekrasov’s creativity. He himself called her his favorite child. Nekrasov gave his poem long years tireless work, putting into it all the information about the Russian people, accumulated, as the poet said, according to the word Read More ......
- The problem of a happy life, people's happiness is one of the main problems of the entire work of N. A. Nekrasov. But, undoubtedly, the main place is given to it in the artist’s pinnacle work - the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Already included in the title of the work, the problem of happiness is filled with Read More......
- The pinnacle of Nekrasov’s creativity is his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The poem, having absorbed all the previous creative experience of the poet, was at the same time an innovative work, the like of which Russian literature did not know. Already the beginning of the poem, its prologue, telling about the men who argued Read More ......
- In the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1863-1877), N. A. Nekrasov depicted the life of the Russian peasantry in the post-reform era. The work poses the problem of national happiness. In the poem “Elegy” the question of people’s happiness sounded rhetorically: The people are liberated, but are the people happy?.. Indeed, Read More ......
- In all his works, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov addresses the people. And the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is no exception. Nekrasov brought poetry closer to the people, he wrote about the people and for the people. The only judge for the poet is the people. He glorifies, Read More......
Nekrasov began writing this poem in 1863, during a difficult post-reform period for Russia. The heroes of the poem, traveling through Russian villages in search of happiness, are temporarily obliged peasants. Despite the changes that have taken place in the country, the life of the inhabitants of the villages (Nekrasov gives them eloquent names - Neelovo, Razutovo, Neurozhaika, Dyryavino) remained as before difficult and hungry. Wherever the Seven Wanderers come, everywhere they see the same sad picture. People live in cruel world injustice, slavery and lawlessness. However, the peasants do not fall into hopeless melancholy and despondency and see not only the dark side of their lives. “A calm conscience” and “tenacious truth” give them the strength to withstand adversity and oppression and overcome numerous trials.
Nekrasov, through his heroes, tells us about the fate of the peasants, and each such story can serve as an example of
the utmost humility, dedication and fortitude. Yakim Nagoy, Ermil Girin, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina “carry their cross with patience,” although this burden, as Nekrasov convincingly shows, is unbearable. Matryona had to endure the death of her beloved son and a difficult year of hunger. “I work for everyone, for everyone,” “I submitted to everything,” she says about herself. Saveliy, her fellow countryman, consoles her: “Be patient, long-suffering one, be patient, many-suffering one.” Savely, according to Nekrasov, embodies the best qualities of a Russian hero, but his courage is not manifested in feats of arms, but in strength of spirit, in the feat of humility and patience:
And his life is not a military one,
And death is not written for him
In battle - what a hero!
With chains arms are twisted,
Feet forged with iron
The hero endures everything!
Savely had to experience a lot in life: hunger, poverty and deprivation, cruel treatment by the landowner, who “ruined” his peasants to the bone. However, Nekrasov, who rejected the idea of Christian humility for the sake of afterlife, shows that, no matter how great the patience of the peasants, it also has its limits. “Our axes lay there for the time being,” says Savely. Unable to withstand the master's open bullying, the men rebel and kill the villain and bloodsucker. Now they have hard labor and Siberia ahead... Savely looks into the future with bitterness:
To be intolerant is an abyss!
To endure it is an abyss!
...
There are three paths for men:
Tavern, prison and hard labor.
Similar to the fate of Savely is the story of the repentant robber who, having atone for his sins, decided to live honestly. And here Nekrasov again comes into conflict with the Christian principles of forgiveness and love for one’s enemies. The poet tells us that after many years of seclusion and righteous work he meets the sinner and villain Pan Glukhovsky, who, without a shadow of embarrassment or repentance, tells him:
How many slaves do I destroy?
I torture, torture and hang.
The hermit, shocked by the villain’s shamelessness, deals with him, and the peasants justify his action, because in their souls, in addition to humility and obedience, there lives a “hidden spark” that is about to flare up into a flame...
The Russian people endure for the time being, rebellion is only latently fermenting in its powerful, but still passive and not awakened soul, but it is already waiting for that “sower” who will sow the seeds of a new life, for “people’s power” does not get along with untruth.
The spokesman for these sentiments in the poem is Grisha Dobrosklonov. He cannot be called the hero of the poem, since he came from another life, from the world of the future, but it is he who announces the new life of “all-powerful Mother Rus'” and calls to live not for the sake of humility, but in the name of happiness and justice!