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 for many 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 ​​abandoning the peasant theme, although the official press persistently argued that the reforms of the 1860s had 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 went from village to village, or, in search of a better life, went to the cities to build railways and 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 experiences given to Nicholas 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. The artistic world is 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. The 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.

The breadth of scope of the epic poem placed 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 Luke (“Luke 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 hot 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 an entire monologue on behalf of the men, although in an ordinary 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'.” A wonderful self-assembled tablecloth and the no less wonderful number seven will play very well 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 of fantastic images with the world of ordinary real-life objects, “low” in their everyday reality : the men ask the warbler to bewitch “old clothes”, “so that the peasants’ coats won’t be worn out”, so that the linden bast shoes will serve for a long time, “so that the louse, the vile flea, will not breed in shirts”, etc. The warbler’s response to these most realistic requests of the men is even more asserts the real-subject basis of the narrative: “all self-assembled tablecloths will be repaired, washed, and dried by you.” 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 a fairy tale, for the form of a folk fairy tale was entertaining and well known 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 can 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”). Metaphors in the overwhelming majority of cases turn into comparisons (let’s say “The master’s abuse is like a mosquito’s 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, keep in their memory large number folklore texts, they know how to insert “an apt word” into the stories of the priest and the 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 19th century.

From the many wedding customs described in detail in folklore 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 the 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:

- Just stand there, 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 depicted 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 bride’s sincere request.

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, for example, 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. Moreover, thanks to 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' among the common people.” At the “rural fair” the epic action develops in breadth and depth, involving more and more 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, which the wanderers immediately receive 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 the peasants, the wanderers come to the conclusion that happiness lies in 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 Bolshie 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 the wandering men: they define certain features of the population of a given area, but these specific names carry a common origin. 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 purpose excluded from then on logical foundations 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, or the Izbytkova 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 the search. happy person among the people, and allows the reader to penetrate into the inner world of a 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 the happy, 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 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. Gregory's spiritual origin 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, trust him completely and listen with delight to his explanations, are also shown to be ideal. state life. Thus, Gregory 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. Thus, the wanderers’ dispute 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.

References

[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 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 – 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); female - when after the last stressed syllable there is one more unstressed line (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 the 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

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 title “Freedom” (with an obvious reference to Pushkin’s ode “Liberty”), where

Artistic originality poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?”, created by Nekrasov over 16 years (from 1863 to 1877), occupies a central place in the poet’s work. Nekrasov created a special genre of socio-philosophical poem about a liberated, reborn people, showed a developing picture of Russia in its past, present and future. Having begun to write immediately after the reform of 1862, Nekrasov endlessly expanded the original idea - he wanted to show all the social strata of post-reform Russia - from the peasant to the tsar. The search for the “lucky” in Rus' led him from modernity to the origins: the poet. sought to understand not only the results of the abolition of serfdom, but also the very philosophical nature of such concepts as happiness, freedom, honor, peace, because without this philosophical understanding it is impossible to understand the essence of the present moment and see the future of the people.

But Nekrasov’s grandiose plan was only partially realized. He created “an epic of modern peasant life.” The poet said that in this book he wanted to put all the experience of studying the people, “all the information about them, accumulated word by word over twenty years.” During this time, the author collected a wealth of folklore material, which formed the basis of his poem. Alive spoken language, fairy-tale motifs, songs, sayings, rituals are the striking features of this work of art, considered by critics as a synthesis of the poet’s entire work. Nekrasov, like pearls, sprinkles his narrative with folklore elements, thereby showing reality, poeticized through the eyes of the people themselves.

The fundamental novelty of the genre explains the fragmentation of the poem, built from internally open chapters. United by the image-symbol of the road, the poem breaks down into stories, the fates of dozens of people. Each episode in itself could become the plot of a song or a story, a legend or a novel. All together, in their unity, they constitute the fate of the Russian people, their historical path from slavery to freedom. That is why only in the last chapter does the image of the “people's defender” Grisha Dobrosklonov appear - the one who will lead people to freedom.

Only at this moment did the author himself fully see the compositional and artistic solution of his poem and, dying, regretted that he did not have time to implement it: “The only thing I regret,” he said, “is that I do not have time to finish writing “To whom in Rus' ... “Now I see that this is a thing that will only have its meaning in its entirety.” The author's task determined not only genre innovation, but also the entire originality of the poetics of the work.

In the poem, to one degree or another, all the main genres of folklore are “involved”: fairy tale, song, epic, legend. The first, introductory part of the poem “Prologue” begins with successful and therefore never changed verses, written in the style of a fairy tale beginning: “In a certain kingdom , in a certain state.” Just like the fairytale beginning, the initial verses (“In what year - calculate, in what land - guess, seven men met on a pillared path...”) help to show everyday reality, and the number “seven” evokes from memory “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights.” The very plot of the search for the happy is correlated with the plot of the fairy tale “About Truth and Falsehood.” The gift of the talking chiffchaff, a self-assembled tablecloth, enhances the fairy-tale impression of the entire subsequent narrative. But not only the theme of the search for the happy, the images of the self-assembled tablecloth, the talking chiffchaff give the poem a fairytale flavor Nekrasov complements his narrative with other fairy-tale images. For example, the animation of animals and birds, the mention of the devil who fooled the men, and the constant refrains: “we are sedate men...”, “who live happily, freely.” Rus'” - serve as a saying.

To show the world through the eyes of the people, Nekrasov uses not only fairy-tale motifs. The poet widely uses folk wisdom, expressed in signs, rituals, customs, folk superstition, so skillfully inserted into the narrative.

In addition, in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” we see sketches from peasant life: customs, rituals, work songs:

On the day of Simeon, father

He put me on a burushka...

Thanks to the hot baenka,

birch broom,

To the icy spring, -

White again, fresh.

Spinning with friends

Eat until midnight!

The poem also contains lament songs belonging to the folk poetic genre:

Like a fish in a blue sea

You'll scurry away! Like a nightingale

You'll fly out of the nest!

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!

This is how Matryona Timofeevna’s mother cries, giving her daughter in marriage to a “stranger” man, Philip Korchagin. Matryona Timofeevna’s father went to the matchmakers and promised his daughter as a wife. No matter how much she cried, she still had to get married. Matryona Timofeevna interrupts the story of her fate with a song “Tell me why...”, in which the whole depth of the Russian girl’s experiences is felt. In the matchmaking scene we encounter another ritual:

And the wolf rolled down

From a girl's head...

The fact is that for a long time in Rus', during the last party, the bride’s will was removed, that is, the ribbon that girls wear before marriage.

The chapter “Songs” is literally woven from folk songs intertwined with laments, proverbs and riddles, skillfully processed by Nekrasov.

There is also an epic in Nekrasov’s poem. This is a chapter about Savely, the Holy Russian hero. There is also a legend “About two great sinners”, which was actually composed in the Solovetsky Monastery. The poet only expanded and supplemented it. There is also a parable: “A woman’s parable”, which is told by the wanderers Matryona Timofeevna.

But the most important, in my opinion, manifestation of the folklore basis of the poem is its main theme - the search for happiness. This motif is characteristic of all oral folk art: it is found both in epics and fairy tales. The search for happiness among the people forces truth-seekers to listen to many stories. These stories are varied in volume, content and form. In the most simplified form, the reader hears them in the chapter “Happy.” More complex in composition and larger in volume are the stories of the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna, the elder Vlas, and the peasant Fedosey. However, with all their diversity, the stories of the characters form a single whole, a single epic canvas. The epic element of such a vision world is further strengthened by the fact that in most cases all these stories are heard publicly; they are verified by the world and complemented by the world. But the heroes who tell their stories are not depersonalized, but, on the contrary, the author clearly highlights their individuality and special features. them personalities. For example, Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo stands out from the mass of peasants present at the festival-fair in the village of Kuzminskoye, not by his surname, not by the name of his village, but by the insight of his mind and talent as a people's tribune. Yakim's speech about the essence of the Russian peasantry serves to create a collective image. the people. Yakim’s speech and fellow villagers’ stories about him are listened to by the entire polyphonic square, and along with it by seven truth-seekers. The poet describes this peasant through the eyes of plowmen like him:

The chest is sunken, as if depressed

Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth

Bends like cracks

On dry ground;

And to Mother Earth myself

He looks like...

The portrait of a peasant is painted with colors borrowed from mother earth, the earth-nurse. From the earth and the power of Yakima Nagogo.

From all of the above, we can conclude that N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a unique collection folk wisdom, poetry. All this material was painstakingly, as the saying goes, collected by many researchers and folklore collectors. The merit of the poet Nekrasov is that he was able to take advantage of this wealth, creating a folk poem on its basis.

Folklore has its own special ideas, style, techniques, its own figurative system, its own laws and its own artistic means. The most basic difference between folklore and fiction- lack of authorship in it: the people compose, the people tell, the people listen.

Author's literature turns to folklore when it is necessary to penetrate deeper into the essence of national morality; when the work itself is addressed not only to the intelligentsia, but also to the people. Nekrasov set both of these tasks for himself in the poem “Who can live well in Rus'?” And one more most important aspect distinguishes original literature from folklore. Oral creativity does not know the concept of “canonical text”: each listener becomes a co-author of the work, retelling it in his own way. Nekrasov strove for such active co-creation between the author and the reader. That is why his poem is written “in a free language, as close as possible to common speech. “Researchers call the verse of the poem Nekrasov’s “brilliant find.” Free and flexible poetic meter, independence from rhyme, opened up the opportunity to generously convey the originality of the folk language, preserving all its precision, aphorism and special proverbial turns; organically weave village songs, sayings, lamentations, elements into the fabric of the poem folk tale(a magical self-assembled tablecloth treats wanderers); skillfully reproduce the perky speeches of drunken men at the fair, and the expressive monologues of peasant speakers, and the absurdly self-satisfied reasoning of a tyrant landowner, colorful folk scenes, full of life and movements, a lot characteristic persons and figures - all this creates a unique polyphony of Nekrasov’s poem, in which the voice of the author himself seems to disappear, and instead the voices and speeches of his countless characters are heard.”

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. N. A. Nekrasov called his creation “the epic of modern peasant life,” therefore the genre “Who Lives Well in Rus'” can be defined as an epic poem..
Nekrasov turned to folklore motifs and images in his lyrics, building the poem on a folklore basis. Zhs: He used the traditions of folk epic, which made it possible to interpret the genre of the poem as an epic (Prologue, the journey of men across Rus', a generalized folk view of the world - seven men). The poem is characterized by the abundant use of folklore genres:
A) Fairy tale(Prologue)
b) Bylina (traditions) - Savely, the Holy Russian hero,
c) Song - ritual (wedding, harvest, lament songs) and labor,
d) Parable (Woman's Parable),
e) Legend (About two great sinners),
f) Proverbs, sayings, riddles.
Fairy-tale motifs are present in the prologue: social and everyday ones (heroes, the fairy-tale opening “In what year - count, in what year - guess, a dispute about happiness, everyday elements), magic (magical objects), about Ivan the Fool, about animals (speaking bird, a fairy tale about the bird kingdom). The poem includes lyrical, social, everyday, wedding, soldier, love, ritual songs (“Merry”, “Covee”, “Hungry”, “Salty”, Grisha’s songs) and author’s laments in the form of inserts. There are both pagan and Christian beliefs: the wedding ceremony is unbraiding, the post-wedding ceremony is sleigh rides, etc.
The plot of the poem is structured as a journey of wandering peasants in search of a happy person. The central character is the people and their identity. The plot plan is built on the principle of epic completeness: the dispute between seven men in the Prologue is brought out in the last parts into the wide open spaces of the will and takes on the character of a popular discussion.
Seven truth-seekers wander around Rus', trying to resolve the question that haunts them: who can live well in Rus'? And here the motive of wandering sounds. Travelers carefully listen to the opinions of those they meet during their journey, observe various pictures of Russian life (chapters “The Landowner”, “Peasant Woman”, “Feast for the Whole World”), they themselves participate in the events (chapter “Happy”), and most importantly, they are both a plot-forming element of the work (the theme of travel) and exponents of the author’s assessment of the stories being described (in an apt word, a vivid comparison).
The style “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a fusion of literary language, elements of folklore and colloquial speech Russian peasantry. Nekrasov introduces colloquial vocabulary, folk speech patterns, and phraseological units into the poem. The entire figurative and emotional system of Nekrasov’s work is based on the laws of folk poetics. The free and flexible language of the poem is called “Nekrasov’s brilliant find.”
Composite The poem is fragmentary, built from internally open chapters. United by the image-symbol of the road, it falls apart into the fates of dozens of people. Time and space in the poem become comprehensive, allowing Rus' to be shown in a wide time frame. All 4 parts are permeated with heated debates, showing the peasants emerging from a state of passivity, awakening, and liberation from the slave spirit.
All parts of the poem are interconnected by the title question of the poem. (method of subordination or parallel subordination). Each part is a small completed poem. The use of contrasts or antithesis is characteristic, which is manifested in the titles of parts of the poem, in the contrasting opposition between serf peasants and freedom-loving peasants, and in the contrast between the lives of masters and peasants.
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The use of a “free” language, close to popular speech, contributed to the transmission of the originality of the folk language with its aphorism and turns of phrase; weaving village songs, sayings, lamentations, and elements of folk tales into the fabric of the poem (a magic self-assembled tablecloth treats wanderers); reproduction of fervent speeches of men, and expressive monologues of peasant speakers, and the reasoning of a tyrant landowner.

Lecture, abstract. Genre originality of N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - concept and types. Classification, essence and features.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was created by Nekrasov at the end of his life. The author did not have time to complete his work, but even in the form in which the poem reached readers, it amazes with the greatness of its plan. The life of post-reform Rus' in all spheres - peasant, landowner, spiritual - is revealed to the reader. Nekrasov’s desire to depict as fully as possible the way of peasant life, which he knew well, determined the artistic originality of “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

Work on the poem lasted about 14 years - and it’s not surprising, because Nekrasov had to process huge amount material. In the 1860s, the population of Russia was precisely in the so-called “epic” state - the abolition of serfdom served as a turning point. Old traditions were breaking down and becoming a thing of the past, but new ones had not yet had time to emerge. And in order to depict this time in its entirety, the courage of a genius was required, who, according to the critic Belinsky, saw in the poem “the feat of his whole life.”

The most important thing that Nekrasov shows in his poem is the ideological originality of that time. Despite the fact that the abolition of serfdom was a long-awaited event, it could not be realized at once. The wealthy part of the population - landowners and clergy - were sensitive to the loss of their income and their power. The peasants, in the face of change, were confused. Some of them sought to return to the old, slave, but familiar way of life, while the majority remained as disenfranchised as before the reform. Rus' was a huge, agitated sea, and Nekrasov needed to paint this picture.

To realize his plan, the author chooses the genre of an epic poem, in which both philosophical and social features are manifested - and this is also a feature of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The genre of the work determined the plot and composition of the poem. The traditional form of travel for epics turned out to be very convenient for Nekrasov, because with its help he was able to take the reader throughout Russia. The author expanded the artistic space of the poem almost limitlessly - in addition to the villages visited by the wanderers, the work includes stories of characters about St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, and Kyiv. Peasants went there to earn money. Temporary space is also not limited to the image of exclusively post-reform Rus'. Grandfather Savely recalls the Russian-Turkish war of 1828, the priest tells the men about the times of the Old Believers. Various historical and semi-historical characters are mentioned - Ivan Susanin, Field Marshal Blucher, the robber Kudeyar. Thus, time and space in the poem become comprehensive, making it possible to show Rus' not in one of the minutes of its life, but in a wide time slice.

Another feature of the poem is its fragmentation. The seven wanderers unite the disparate parts of the work, but their line in the poem is not the main one. There are a lot of voices here, and more than a dozen faces pass before the reader. Each episode could serve as a plot for a separate text, but together they add up to a complete picture of Russian life.

In addition to the genre originality of the work, we must not forget about the specificity of poetics. It also correlates with the epic genre: trying to recreate the unique atmosphere of peasant life, Nekrasov relies mainly on folklore motifs. This leads to the peculiarities of the style of the poem - a bizarre combination of literary, colloquial speech and folklore elements. Among the artistic means used in the poem, one can highlight a large number of epithets and comparisons characteristic of folk poetic creativity. Nekrasov also weaves into the text of the poem, both directly and artistically transformed, excerpts from folklore - wedding and funeral songs, uses plots from epics and folk legends, and introduces about seventy proverbs and riddles into the text.

The connection of the poem with folklore is not limited to the use of folklore elements in it. Nekrasov changes the entire rhythmic organization of the verse. The free and flexible language of the poem, which easily includes the entire range of folk speech - from perky jokes to lamentations, has been called by researchers “Nekrasov’s brilliant find.” Having carried out enormous research work, the author was able to use the features of individual folk dialects in the speech of the poem: a large number of diminutive suffixes, changing the endings of words into dialect ones, melodiousness and softness of folk speech. We must also not forget about the specific folk humor with which the poem is so rich.

We can conclude that in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” artistic features determined by the intent of the poem and cannot be considered separately from it. Thanks to his enormous talent, as well as painstaking and lengthy work with the material, Nekrasov was able to cope with the task set for himself and created a holistic picture of post-reform Rus'.

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