Who can live well in Rus'? Contents. “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: Plot and History of Creation

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is favorite piece Nekrasov, the idea of ​​which he had been nurturing for many years, dreaming of reflecting in the poem all his observations about peasant life. Writing the work also took a considerable period of time - 14 years, and in the process of working on it the poet changed the original plan several times. It is not surprising that the composition of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is considered complex, and is sometimes described as loose and not fully formed.

However, when considering the features of the composition “Who Lives Well in Rus',” it is necessary to take into account the specifics of the genre of the poem itself. The genre “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is defined as an epic poem, that is, it is a work that describes the life of an entire people during a significant historical event. To portray folk life in its entirety, it requires adherence to an epic composition, which includes multiple characters, the presence of several storylines or inserted episodes, as well as some understatement.

The plot of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov is linear, it is built on a description of the journey of seven men temporarily in search of a happy man. Their meeting is described in the exposition of the poem: “On a pillared path / Seven men came together.”

It is immediately noticeable that Nekrasov is trying to stylize his work as folk: he introduces folklore motifs into it. In the exposition and subsequent plot, fairy-tale elements are guessed: the uncertainty of the place and time of action (“in which land - guess”), the presence of fairy-tale characters and objects - a talking bird, a self-assembled tablecloth. The number of men is also significant - there are seven of them, and seven in fairy tales has always been considered a special number.

The beginning of the poem is an oath of the men who meet not to return home until they find someone happy in Rus'. Here Nekrasov describes the further plan of the main plot motif “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: the journey of men throughout Rus' with alternating meetings with a landowner, a merchant, a priest, an official and a boyar. Initially, Nekrasov even planned an episode in which his heroes would reach the king, but illness and approaching death forced the writer to change plans. The fairy-tale motifs introduced into the poem allowed Nekrasov to freely, according to fairy-tale laws, deal with time and space, without focusing on movements not necessary for the plot development. It is not mentioned anywhere exact time wanderings of peasants, and problems with food and drink were solved with the help of a magic self-assembled tablecloth. This allows you to focus all the reader’s attention on the main idea of ​​the poem: the problem of true happiness and its understanding by different people in different ways.

In the future, Nekrasov vaguely adheres to the original plot plan: the reader will never encounter a number of episodes, for example with the merchant, but many peasants will appear, each with their own unique fate. This may seem strange: after all, in the beginning there was no talk of a happy peasant life. However, it is not so important for the author to quickly bring the action of the poem closer to the natural outcome: the found happy person. Nekrasov wants, first of all, to paint a picture of people’s life in the difficult post-reform period. We can say that the seven main characters are in fact not the main ones at all and serve, for the most part, as recipients of numerous stories and as the “eyes” of the author. The main characters and true heroes of the poem are either those who tell the stories or those about whom they are told. And the reader meets a soldier, happy that he was not killed, a slave, proud of his privilege to eat from the master’s bowls, a grandmother, whose garden yielded turnips to her delight... From a large number of small episodes, a people’s face is formed. And while the external plot of the search for the happy seems to stand still (chapters “Drunken Night”, “Happy”), the internal plot is actively developing: a gradual but confident growth of national self-awareness is depicted. The peasants, still confused by the unexpected acquisition of freedom and not fully decided on what good cause to use it for, nevertheless do not want to give it back. From random conversations, from briefly described human destinies, a general picture of Rus' emerges before the reader: poor, drunk, but still actively striving for a better and fair life.

In addition to small plot scenes, the poem has several rather large-scale inserted episodes, some of which are even included in autonomous chapters (“The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman”). Each of them brings new facets to the overall plot. Thus, the story of the honest burgomaster Ermil emphasizes the people’s love for truth and the desire to live according to their conscience, so that they would not be ashamed to look people in the eyes afterwards. Only once did Yermil renounce his conscience, wanting to protect his brother from the army, but how hard he had to pay for it: loss of self-respect and forced resignation from the post of burgomaster. The life story of Matryona Timofeevna introduces the reader to the difficult life of a woman in Rus' in those days, showing all the hardships that she had to face. Backbreaking work, death of children, humiliation and hunger - no happiness fell to the lot of peasant women. And the story about Savely, the Holy Russian hero, on the one hand contains admiration for the strength of the Russian man, and on the other, emphasizes the deep hatred of the peasants for their tormentors-landowners.

Also in the row compositional features poems should be noted large number poetic fragments stylized as folk songs. With their help, the author, firstly, creates a certain atmosphere, making his poem even more “folk,” and, secondly, with their help, introduces additional storylines and additional characters. The songs differ from the main narrative in size and rhythm - both were borrowed by the author from oral folk art. The songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov, which are not related to folklore, stand out separately; The author put his own poems into the mouth of this hero, expressing his ideas and beliefs through them. The richness of the poem with such inserts, as well as numerous folk sayings, sayings, and proverbs, skillfully woven into the text, creates a special atmosphere of the story and brings the poem closer to people, giving it every right to be called folk.

The plot of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov remained unfulfilled, but the author nevertheless solved the main task - to depict the life of the Russian people - in the poem. Moreover, the last part, “A Feast for the Whole World,” leads the reader to the expected climax. Grisha Dobrosklonov turns out to be a happy man in Rus', who desires first of all not his own, but the people’s happiness. And it’s a pity that the wanderers don’t hear Grisha’s songs, because their journey could already be over.

Understand storyline and the composition of Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem will be especially useful for 10th grade students before writing an essay on a relevant topic.

Work test

Illustration by Sergei Gerasimov “Dispute”

One day, seven men—recent serfs, but now temporarily bound “from adjacent villages—Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhaika, etc.—come together on a highway.” Instead of going their own way, the men start an argument about who lives happily and freely in Rus'. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky person in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a minister of sovereigns or a tsar.

While arguing, they do not notice that they have taken a detour of thirty miles. Seeing that it is too late to return home, the men make a fire and continue the argument over vodka - which, of course, little by little develops into a fight. But a fight does not help resolve the issue that worries the men.

The solution is found unexpectedly: one of the men, Pakhom, catches a warbler chick, and in order to free the chick, the warbler tells the men where they can find a self-assembled tablecloth. Now the men are provided with bread, vodka, cucumbers, kvass, tea - in a word, everything they need for a long journey. And besides, a self-assembled tablecloth will repair and wash their clothes! Having received all these benefits, the men make a vow to find out “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.”

The first possible “lucky person” they meet along the way turns out to be a priest. (It was not right for the soldiers and beggars they met to ask about happiness!) But the priest’s answer to the question of whether his life is sweet disappoints the men. They agree with the priest that happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor. But the priest does not possess any of these benefits. In the haymaking, in the harvest, in the dead of autumn night, in the severe frost, he must go to where there are the sick, the dying and those being born. And every time his soul hurts at the sight of funeral sobs and orphan sadness - so much so that his hand does not rise to take copper coins - a pitiful reward for the demand. The landowners, who previously lived in family estates and got married here, baptized children, buried the dead, are now scattered not only throughout Rus', but also in distant foreign lands; there is no hope for their retribution. Well, the men themselves know how much honor the priest deserves: they feel embarrassed when the priest reproaches him for obscene songs and insults towards priests.

Realizing that the Russian priest is not one of the lucky ones, the men go to a holiday fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask people about happiness. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded up house with the sign “school”, a paramedic’s hut, a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village there are drinking establishments, in each of which they barely have time to cope with thirsty people. Old man Vavila cannot buy goatskin shoes for his granddaughter because he drank himself to a penny. It’s good that Pavlusha Veretennikov, a lover of Russian songs, whom everyone calls “master” for some reason, buys him the treasured gift.

Male wanderers watch the farcical Petrushka, watch how the ladies stock up on books - but not Belinsky and Gogol, but portraits of unknown fat generals and works about “my lord stupid.” They also see how a busy trading day ends: widespread drunkenness, fights on the way home. However, the men are indignant at Pavlusha Veretennikov’s attempt to measure the peasant against the master’s standard. In their opinion, it is impossible for a sober person to live in Rus': he will not withstand either backbreaking labor or peasant misfortune; without drinking, bloody rain would pour out of the angry peasant soul. These words are confirmed by Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo - one of those who “works until they die, drinks until they die.” Yakim believes that only pigs walk on the earth and never see the sky. During the fire, he himself did not save the money he had accumulated throughout his life, but the useless and beloved pictures hanging in the hut; he is sure that with the cessation of drunkenness, great sadness will come to Rus'.

Male wanderers do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise of giving free water to the lucky ones, they fail to find them. For the sake of free booze, both the overworked worker, the paralyzed former servant who licked the master’s plates with the best French truffle for forty years, and even ragged beggars are ready to declare themselves lucky.

Finally, someone tells them the story of Yermil Girin, the mayor in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the men lent it to him without even requiring a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in prison.

The ruddy sixty-year-old landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev tells the wandering men about the misfortune that befell the nobles after the peasant reform. He remembers how in the old days everything amused the master: villages, forests, fields, serf actors, musicians, hunters, who completely belonged to him. Obolt-Obolduev talks with emotion about how on the twelve holidays he invited his serfs to pray in the master's house - despite the fact that after this he had to drive the women away from the entire estate to wash the floors.

And although the men themselves know that life in serfdom was far from the idyll depicted by Obolduev, they still understand: the great chain of serfdom, having broken, hit both the master, who was immediately deprived of his usual way of life, and the peasant.

Desperate to find someone happy among the men, the wanderers decide to ask the women. The surrounding peasants remember that Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina lives in the village of Klin, whom everyone considers lucky. But Matryona herself thinks differently. In confirmation, she tells the wanderers the story of her life.

Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a teetotal and wealthy peasant family. She married a stove-maker from a foreign village, Philip Korchagin. But the only happy night for her was that night when the groom persuaded Matryona to marry him; then the usual hopeless life of a village woman began. True, her husband loved her and beat her only once, but soon he went to work in St. Petersburg, and Matryona was forced to endure insults in her father-in-law’s family. The only one who felt sorry for Matryona was grandfather Savely, who was living out his life in the family after hard labor, where he ended up for the murder of a hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: it is impossible to defeat a peasant, because he “bends, but does not break.”

The birth of Demushka's first child brightened Matryona's life. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and the old grandfather Savely did not keep an eye on the baby and fed him to pigs. In front of Matryona's eyes, judges who had arrived from the city performed an autopsy on her child. Matryona could not forget her first-born, although after that she had five sons. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matryona accepted the punishment assigned to her son. Then, being pregnant with her son Liodor, she was forced to go to the city to seek justice: her husband, bypassing the laws, was taken into the army. Matryona was then helped by the governor Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying.

By all peasant standards, Matryona Korchagina’s life can be considered happy. But it is impossible to tell about the invisible spiritual storm that passed through this woman - just like about unpaid mortal grievances, and about the blood of the firstborn. Matryona Timofeevna is convinced that a Russian peasant woman cannot be happy at all, because the keys to her happiness and free will are lost to God himself.

At the height of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims to the shore in three boats. The mowers, having just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help the heirs hide the abolition of serfdom from the crazy landowner Utyatin. The relatives of the Last-Duckling promise the men floodplain meadows for this. But after the long-awaited death of the Last One, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Here, near the village of Vakhlachina, wanderers listen to peasant songs - corvée, hunger, soldier, salty - and stories about serfdom. One of these stories is about the exemplary slave Yakov the Faithful. Yakov's only joy was pleasing his master, the small landowner Polivanov. Tyrant Polivanov, in gratitude, hit Yakov in the teeth with his heel, which aroused even greater love in the lackey’s soul. As Polivanov grew older, his legs became weak, and Yakov began to follow him like a child. But when Yakov’s nephew, Grisha, decided to marry the beautiful serf Arisha, Polivanov, out of jealousy, gave the guy as a recruit. Yakov started drinking, but soon returned to the master. And yet he managed to take revenge on Polivanov - the only way available to him, the lackey. Having taken the master into the forest, Yakov hanged himself right above him on a pine tree. Polivanov spent the night under the corpse of his faithful servant, driving away birds and wolves with groans of horror.

Another story - about two great sinners - is told to the men by God's wanderer Jonah Lyapushkin. The Lord awakened the conscience of the chieftain of the robbers Kudeyar. The robber atoned for his sins for a long time, but all of them were forgiven him only after he, in a surge of anger, killed the cruel Pan Glukhovsky.

The wandering men also listen to the story of another sinner - Gleb the elder, who for money hid the last will of the late widower admiral, who decided to free his peasants.

But it is not only wandering men who think about the people’s happiness. The sexton’s son, seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, lives on Vakhlachin. In his heart, love for his late mother merged with love for all of Vakhlachina. For fifteen years Grisha knew for sure who he was ready to give his life to, for whom he was ready to die. He thinks of all the mysterious Rus' as a wretched, abundant, powerful and powerless mother, and expects that the indestructible force that he feels in his own soul will still be reflected in it. Such strong souls as Grisha Dobrosklonov’s are called by the angel of mercy to an honest path. Fate is preparing for Grisha “a glorious path, a great name for the people’s intercessor, consumption and Siberia.”

If the wandering men knew what was happening in the soul of Grisha Dobrosklonov, they would probably understand that they could already return to their native shelter, because the goal of their journey had been achieved.

Retold

Summary of the poem:

One day, seven men—recent serfs, but now temporarily bound “from adjacent villages—Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhaika, etc.—come together on a highway.” Instead of going their own way, the men start an argument about who lives a fun and easy life in Rus'. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky person in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a minister of sovereigns or a tsar.

While arguing, they do not notice that they have taken a detour of thirty miles. Seeing that it is too late to return home, the men make a fire and continue the argument over vodka - which, of course, little by little develops into a fight. But a fight does not help resolve the issue that worries the men.

The solution is found unexpectedly: one of the men, Pakhom, catches a warbler chick, and in order to free the chick, the warbler tells the men where they can find a self-assembled tablecloth. Now the men are provided with bread, vodka, cucumbers, kvass, tea - in a word, everything they need for a long journey. And besides, a self-assembled tablecloth will repair and wash their clothes! Having received all these benefits, the men make a vow to find out “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.”

The first possible “lucky person” they meet along the way turns out to be a priest. (The soldiers and beggars they met were not the ones to ask about happiness!) But the priest’s answer to the question of whether his life is sweet disappoints the men. They agree with the priest that happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor. But the priest does not possess any of these benefits. In the haymaking, in the harvest, in the dead of autumn night, in the bitter frost, he must go to where there are the sick, the dying and those being born. And every time his soul hurts at the sight of funeral sobs and orphan sadness - so much so that his hand does not rise to take copper coins - a pitiful reward for the demand. The landowners, who previously lived in family estates and got married here, baptized children, buried the dead, are now scattered not only throughout Rus', but also in distant foreign lands; there is no hope for their retribution. Well, the men themselves know how much respect the priest deserves: they feel embarrassed when the priest reproaches him for obscene songs and insults towards priests.

Realizing that the Russian priest is not one of the lucky ones, the men go to a holiday fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask people about happiness. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded up house with the sign “school”, a paramedic’s hut, and a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village there are drinking establishments, in each of which they barely have time to cope with thirsty people. Old man Vavila cannot buy goatskin shoes for his granddaughter because he drank himself to a penny. It’s good that Pavlusha Veretennikov, a lover of Russian songs, whom everyone calls “master” for some reason, buys him the treasured gift.

Male wanderers watch the farcical Petrushka, watch how the ladies stock up on books - but not Belinsky and Gogol, but portraits of unknown fat generals and works about “my lord stupid”. They also see how a busy trading day ends: widespread drunkenness, fights on the way home. However, the men are indignant at Pavlusha Veretennikov’s attempt to measure the peasant against the master’s standard. In their opinion, it is impossible for a sober person to live in Rus': he will not withstand either backbreaking labor or peasant misfortune; without drinking, bloody rain would pour out of the angry peasant soul. These words are confirmed by Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo - one of those who “work until they die and drink half to death.” Yakim believes that only pigs walk on the earth and never see the sky. During the fire, he himself did not save the money he had accumulated throughout his life, but the useless and beloved pictures hanging in the hut; he is sure that with the cessation of drunkenness, great sadness will come to Rus'.

Male wanderers do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise of giving free water to the lucky ones, they fail to find them. For the sake of free booze, both the overworked worker, the paralyzed former servant who spent forty years licking the master’s plates with the best French truffle, and even ragged beggars are ready to declare themselves lucky.

Finally, someone tells them the story of Yermil Girin, the mayor in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the men lent it to him without even requiring a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in prison.

The ruddy sixty-year-old landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev tells the wandering peasants about the misfortune that befell the nobles after the peasant reform. He remembers how in the old days everything amused the master: villages, forests, fields, serf actors, musicians, hunters, who completely belonged to him. Obolt-Obolduev talks with emotion about how on the twelve holidays he invited his serfs to pray in the master's house - despite the fact that after this he had to drive the women away from the entire estate to wash the floors.

And although the men themselves know that life in serfdom was far from the idyll depicted by Obolduev, they still understand: the great chain of serfdom, having broken, hit both the master, who was immediately deprived of his usual way of life, and the peasant.

Desperate to find someone happy among the men, the wanderers decide to ask the women. The surrounding peasants remember that Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina lives in the village of Klin, whom everyone considers lucky. But Matryona herself thinks differently. In confirmation, she tells the wanderers the story of her life.

Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a teetotal and wealthy peasant family. She married a stove-maker from a foreign village, Philip Korchagin. But the only happy night for her was that night when the groom persuaded Matryona to marry him; then the usual hopeless life of a village woman began. True, her husband loved her and beat her only once, but soon he went to work in St. Petersburg, and Matryona was forced to endure insults in her father-in-law’s family. The only one who felt sorry for Matryona was grandfather Savely, who lived out his life in the family after hard labor, where he got caught for the murder of a hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: it is impossible to defeat a peasant, because he “bends, but does not break.”

The birth of Demushka's first child brightened Matryona's life. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and the old grandfather Savely did not take care of the baby and fed him to pigs. In front of Matryona, the judges who came from the city performed an autopsy on her child. Matryona could not forget her first-born, although after that she had five sons. . One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matryona accepted the punishment assigned to her son. Then, being pregnant with her son Liodor, she was forced to go to the city to seek justice: her husband, bypassing the laws, was taken into the army. Matryona was then helped by the governor Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying.

By all peasant standards, the life of Matryona Korchagina can be considered happy. But it is impossible to talk about the invisible spiritual storm that passed through this woman - just like about unpaid mortal grievances, and about the blood of her firstborn. Matrena Timofeevna is convinced that a Russian peasant woman cannot be happy at all, because the keys to her happiness and free will are lost to God himself.

At the height of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims to the shore in three boats. The mowers, who have just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help the heirs hide the abolition of serfdom from the crazy landowner Utyatin. The relatives of the Last-Duckling promise the men floodplain meadows for this. But after the long-awaited death of the Last One, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Here, near the village of Vakhlachina, wanderers listen to peasant songs - corvee songs, hunger songs, soldiers' songs, salt songs - and stories about serfdom. One of these stories is about the exemplary slave Yakov the Faithful. Yakov's only joy was pleasing his master, the small landowner Polivanov. Tyrant Polivanov, in gratitude, hit Yakov in the teeth with his heel, which aroused even greater love in the lackey’s soul. As Polivanov grew older, his legs became weak, and Yakov began to follow him like a child. But when Yakov’s nephew, Grisha, decided to marry the beautiful serf Arisha, Polivanov, out of jealousy, gave the guy as a recruit. Yakov started drinking, but soon returned to the master. And yet he managed to take revenge on Polivanov - the only way available to him, the lackey. Having taken the master into the forest, Yakov hanged himself right above him on a pine tree. Polivanov spent the night under the corpse of his faithful servant, driving away birds and wolves with groans of horror.

Another story - about two great sinners - is told to the men by God's wanderer Jonah Lyapushkin. The Lord awakened the conscience of the chieftain of the robbers Kudeyar. The robber atoned for his sins for a long time, but all of them were forgiven him only after he, in a surge of anger, killed the cruel Pan Glukhovsky.

The wandering men also listen to the story of another sinner - Gleb the headman, who for money hid the last will of the late widower admiral, who decided to free his peasants.

But it is not only wandering men who think about the people’s happiness. The sexton’s son, seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, lives on Vakhlachin. In his heart, love for his late mother merged with love for all of Vakhlachina. For fifteen years Grisha knew for sure who he was ready to give his life to, for whom he was ready to die. He thinks of all the mysterious Rus' as a wretched, abundant, powerful and powerless mother, and expects that the indestructible power that he feels in his own soul will still be reflected in it. Such strong souls as Grisha Dobrosklonov’s are called by the angel of mercy to an honest path. Fate is preparing for Grisha “a glorious path, a great name for the people’s intercessor, consumption and Siberia.”

If the wandering men knew what was happening in the soul of Grisha Dobrosklonov, they would probably understand that they could already return to their native shelter, because the goal of their journey had been achieved.

Construction: Nekrasov assumed that the poem would have seven or eight parts, but managed to write only four, which, perhaps, did not follow one another. Part one is the only one without a title. Prologue: “In what year - count,
In what land - guess
On the sidewalk
Seven men came together..."

They got into an argument:

Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?

Further in the poem there are 6 answers to this question: to the landowner, official, priest, merchant, minister, tsar. The peasants decide not to return home until they find the correct answer. They find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed them and set off.

The first part represents both in content and form something unified and integral. “The Peasant Woman” ideologically and partly the plot may not be adjacent to the first part and may follow the part “The Last One”, being at the same time an independent poem within the poem. The “Last One” part is ideologically close to “The Feast...”, but also differs significantly from the last part both in content and form. Between these parts lies a gap of five years (1872-1877) - the time of activity of the revolutionary populists.

The researchers suggested that the correct sequence is:

"Prologue" and part one.

"The last one." From the second part. "A feast for the whole world." Chapter two.

"Peasant woman" From the third part.

Plot: Image of post-reform Russia. Nekrasov wrote the poem over the course of twenty years, collecting material for it “word by word.” The poem covers folk life unusually widely. Nekrasov wanted to depict all social strata in it: from the peasant to the tsar. But, unfortunately, the poem was never finished - the death of the poet prevented it. The main problem, the main question of the work is already clearly visible in the title “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - this is the problem of happiness.

Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins with the question: “In what year - calculate, in what land - guess.” But it is not difficult to understand what period Nekrasov is talking about. The poet is referring to the reform of 1861, according to which the peasants were “freed”, and they, not having their own land, fell into even greater bondage.

The plot of the poem is based on a description of the journey across Rus' of seven temporarily obliged men. Men are looking for a happy person and on their way they meet the most different people, listen to stories about different human destinies. This is how the poem unfolds a broad picture of contemporary Russian life for Nekrasov.

Main characters:

Temporarily obliged peasants who went to look for who was living happily and at ease in Rus'

· Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin

· Old Man Pakhom

The author treats with undisguised sympathy those peasants who do not put up with their hungry, powerless existence. Unlike the world of exploiters and moral monsters, slaves like Yakov, Gleb, Sidor, Ipat, the best of the peasants in the poem retained true humanity, the ability to self-sacrifice, and spiritual nobility. These are Matryona Timofeevna, the hero Saveliy, Yakim Nagoy, Ermil Girin, Agap Petrov, headman Vlas, seven truth-seekers and others. Each of them has their own task in life, their own reason to “seek the truth,” but all of them together testify that peasant Rus' has already awakened and come to life. Truth seekers see such happiness for the Russian people:

I don't need any silver

Not gold, but God willing,

So that my fellow countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Rus'!

In Yakima Nagom presents the unique character of the people's lover of truth, the peasant "righteous man". Yakim lives the same hardworking, beggarly life as the rest of the peasantry. But he has a rebellious disposition. Yakim is an honest worker with great feeling own dignity. Yakim is smart, he understands perfectly why the peasant lives so wretchedly, so poorly. These words belong to him:

Every peasant

Soul, like a black cloud,

Angry, menacing - and it should be

Thunder will roar from there,

Bloody rains,

And it all ends with wine.

Ermil Girin is also noteworthy. A competent man, he served as a clerk and became famous throughout the region for his justice, intelligence and selfless devotion to the people. Yermil showed himself to be an exemplary headman when the people elected him to this position. However, Nekrasov does not make him an ideal righteous man. Yermil, feeling sorry for his younger brother, appoints Vlasyevna’s son as a recruit, and then, in a fit of repentance, almost commits suicide. Ermil's story ends sadly. He is jailed for his speech during the riot. The image of Yermil testifies to the spiritual powers and wealth hidden in the Russian people moral qualities peasantry.

But only in the chapter “Savely - the hero of Holy Russia” does the peasant protest turn into a rebellion, ending with the murder of the oppressor. True, the reprisal against the German manager is still spontaneous, but such was the reality of serf society. Peasant revolts arose spontaneously as a response to the brutal oppression of peasants by landowners and managers of their estates.

It is not the meek and submissive who are close to the poet, but the rebellious and brave rebels, such as Savely, the “hero of the Holy Russian”, Yakim Nagoy, whose behavior speaks of the awakening of the consciousness of the peasantry, of its simmering protest against oppression.

Nekrasov wrote about the oppressed people of his country with anger and pain. But the poet was able to notice the “hidden spark” of the mighty internal forces, embedded in the people, and looked forward with hope and faith:

The army rises

Uncountable,

The strength in her will affect

Indestructible.

The peasant theme in the poem is inexhaustible, multifaceted, the entire figurative system of the poem is devoted to the theme of revealing peasant happiness. In this regard, we can recall the “happy” peasant woman Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, nicknamed the “governor’s wife” for her special luck, and people of the serf rank, for example, the “exemplary slave Yakov the Faithful,” who managed to take revenge on his offending master, and the hard-working peasants from chapters of “The Last One,” who are forced to perform a comedy in front of the old Prince Utyatin, pretending that there was no abolition of serfdom, and many other images of the poem.

Meaning

The idea that runs through the entire poem is about the impossibility of living like this any longer, about the difficult peasant lot, about peasant ruin. This motif of the hungry life of the peasantry, who are “tormented by melancholy and misfortune,” sounds with particular force in the song called “Hungry” by Nekrasov. The poet does not soften the colors, showing poverty, harsh morals, religious prejudices and drunkenness in peasant life.

The position of the people is depicted with extreme clarity by the names of those places where the truth-seeking peasants come from: Terpigorev county, Pustoporozhnaya volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo. The poem very clearly depicts the joyless, powerless, hungry life of the people. “A peasant’s happiness,” the poet exclaims bitterly, “holey with patches, hunchbacked with calluses!” As before, the peasants are people who “didn’t eat their fill and slurped without salt.” The only thing that has changed is that “now the volost will tear them up instead of the master.”

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov reveals the meaning of the entire poem. This is a fighter who opposes this way of life. His happiness is in freedom, in his own and in others. He will try to do everything so that the people of Rus' are no longer in captivity.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: concept, plot, composition. Review of the contents of the poem. Historical information about the peasant reform of 1861

On February 19, 1861, Alexander II issued a Manifesto and Regulations that abolished serfdom. What did the men get from the gentlemen?

The peasants were promised personal freedom and the right to dispose of their property. The land was recognized as the property of landowners. Landowners were charged with the responsibility of allocating a plot of land and field plots to the peasants.

The peasants had to buy the land from the landowner. The transition to the purchase of land plots depended not on the wishes of the peasants, but on the will of the landowner. The peasants who, with his permission, switched to the redemption of land plots were called owners, and those who did not switch to the redemption were called temporarily obligated. For the right to use the plot of land received from the landowner before the transfer to redemption, they had to fulfill compulsory duties (pay quitrent or work corvée).

The establishment of temporary obligatory relations preserves the feudal system of exploitation for an indefinite period. The value of the allotment was determined not by the actual market value of the land, but by the income received by the landowner from the estate under serfdom. When buying land, peasants paid for it twice and three times its actual value. For landowners, the redemption operation made it possible to retain in full the income that they received before the reform.

The beggarly allotment could not feed the peasant, and he had to go to the same landowner with a request to accept sharecropping: to cultivate the master's land with his own tools and receive half the harvest for his labor. This mass enslavement of the peasants ended with the massive destruction of the old village. In no other country in the world has the peasantry experienced such ruin, such poverty, even after “liberation”, as in Russia. That is why the first reaction to the Manifesto and the Regulations was the open resistance of the bulk of the peasantry, expressed in the refusal to accept these documents.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is Nekrasov’s pinnacle work.

Nekrasov, following Pushkin and Gogol, decided to depict a broad canvas of the life of the Russian people and their main mass - the Russian peasant of the post-reform era, to show the predatory nature of the peasant reform and the deterioration of the people's lot. An important image of the poem is the image of the road, which brings the author’s position closer to the motifs of the biblical way of the cross, with the traditions of Gogol and Russian folklore. At the same time, the author’s task also included a satirical depiction of the “tops,” where the poet follows Gogol’s traditions. But the main thing is to demonstrate the talent, will, perseverance and optimism of the Russian peasant. In its stylistic features and poetic intonations, the poem is close to works of folklore. The composition of the poem is complex primarily because its concept changed over time, the work remained unfinished, and a number of fragments were not published due to censorship restrictions.

1. The idea of ​​the poem.“The people are liberated, but are the people happy?” - this line from “Elegy” explains Nekrasov’s position in relation to the peasant reform of 1861, which only formally deprived the landowners of their former power, but in fact deceived and robbed peasant Rus'.

2. The history of the creation of the poem. The poem was begun shortly after the peasant reform. The poet worked on the poem from 1863 to 1877, that is, about 14 years. Nekrasov considered its goal to be the depiction of the disadvantaged lower peasantry, among whom - as in all of Russia - there is no happy person. The search for happiness among the upper echelons of society was for Nekrasov only a compositional device. The happiness of the “strong” and “well-fed” was beyond doubt for him. The very word “lucky”, according to Nekrasov, is a synonym for a representative of the privileged classes. Depicting the ruling classes (priest, landowner), Nekrasov first of all focuses on the fact that the reform hit not so much “one end at the master” as “the other at the peasant.”

3. Composition of the poem. During the work on the poem, its concept changed, but the poem was never completed by the author, so in criticism there is no consensus on its composition, there is no exact arrangement of its chapters.

The poet calls the wanderers “temporarily obliged,” which shows that the poem was begun no later than 1863, since later this term was very rarely applied to peasants.

Under the chapter “Landowner” there is a date set by the author - 1865, which indicates that before that the poet worked on its first part.

Dates of writing other chapters: “The Last One” - 1872; “Peasant Woman” - 1873; "A Feast for the Whole World" - 1877

Nekrasov wrote “A Feast for the Whole World” when he was already in a state of fatal disease, but he did not consider this part to be the last, intending to continue the poem with the image of wanderers in St. Petersburg.

It was V.V. Gippius who found in the poem itself objective indications of the sequence of parts: “Time is calculated in it “according to the calendar”: the action of the “Prologue” begins in the spring, when the birds build nests and the cuckoo crows. In the chapter “Pop,” the wanderers say: “And the time is not early, the month of May is approaching.” In the chapter “Rural Fair” there is a mention: “The weather only stared at Nikola in the spring”; Apparently, on St. Nicholas Day (May 9, old style) the fair itself takes place. “The Last One” also begins exact date: “Petrovka. It's a hot time. Haymaking is in full swing." In “A Feast for the Whole World” the haymaking is already over: the peasants are going to the market with hay. Finally, in “The Peasant Woman” - the harvest. The events described in “A Feast for the Whole World” refer to early autumn (Gregory is picking mushrooms in Chapter IV), and the “St. Petersburg part” conceived but not implemented by Nekrasov was supposed to take place in winter time, when wanderers come to St. Petersburg to seek access “to the noble boyar, the sovereign’s minister.” Presumably, the poem could have ended with the St. Petersburg episodes.”

The poet did not have time to make an order about the sequence of parts of the poem. The only thing that is known is that Nekrasov wanted to place the part “A Feast for the Whole World” after “The Last One.” So, literary scholars have come to the conclusion that behind the “Prologue. Part One” should be followed by the parts “Peasant Woman”, “Last One”, “Feast for the Whole World”. All these parts are connected by the theme of the road.

4. Genre of the poem. According to M. G. Kachurin, “before us epic" is a work of art that reflects "great historical events, entire eras in the life of the country and people." The objectivity of the depiction of life is expressed in the fact that the author’s voice is fused with the collective consciousness of the nation; the author depicts life, assessing it from the position of the people. Hence the connection of the poem with folklore, with the people's perception of existence. Thus, “Who lives well in Rus'” - realistic epic poem.

About the plot. The plot is close to folk tales about men's search for a happy man. The beginning of the poem (“In what year - calculate, in what land - guess ...") resembles a fairy tale beginning. Seven men from six the villages “came together”, argued (“Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?”) and went in search of a truly happy person. Everything that the wanderers saw during their journey through Rus', who they met, who they listened to, forms the content of the epic poem.

PROLOGUE

On the main road in Pustoporozhnaya volost, seven men meet: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Prov, old man Pakhom, brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin. They come from neighboring villages: Neurozhayki, Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova and Neelova. Men argue about who lives well and freely in Rus'. Roman believes that the landowner, Demyan - the official, and Luka - the priest. Old man Pakhom claims that a minister lives best, the Gubin brothers live best as a merchant, and Prov thinks that he is a king.

It's starting to get dark. The men understand that, carried away by the argument, they have walked thirty miles and now it is too late to return home. They decide to spend the night in the forest, light a fire in the clearing and again begin to argue, and then even fight. Their noise causes all the forest animals to scatter, and a chick falls out of the warbler’s nest, which Pakhom picks up. The mother warbler flies up to the fire and asks in a human voice to let her chick go. For this, she will fulfill any desire of the peasants.

The men decide to go further and find out which of them is right. Warbler tells where you can find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed and water them on the road. The men find a self-assembled tablecloth and sit down to feast. They agree not to return home until they find out who has the best life in Rus'.

Chapter I. Pop

Soon the travelers meet the priest and tell the priest that they are looking for “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.” They ask the church minister to answer honestly: is he satisfied with his fate?

The priest replies that he carries his cross with humility. If men believe that a happy life means peace, honor and wealth, then he has nothing like that. People don't choose the time of their death. So they call the priest to the dying person, even in the pouring rain, even in the bitter cold. And sometimes the heart cannot stand the tears of widows and orphans.

There is no talk of any honor. They make up all sorts of stories about priests, laugh at them and consider meeting a priest a bad omen. And the wealth of the priests is not what it used to be. Previously, when noble people lived in their family estates, the incomes of the priests were quite good. The landowners gave rich gifts, were baptized and married in the parish church. Here they had a funeral service and were buried. These were the traditions. And now nobles live in capitals and “abroads”, where they celebrate all church rites. But you can’t take much money from poor peasants.

The men bow respectfully to the priest and move on.

CHAPTER II. Country fair

The travelers pass several empty villages and ask: where have all the people gone? It turns out that there is a fair in the neighboring village. The men decide to go there. There are a lot of dressed-up people walking around the fair, selling everything from plows and horses to scarves and books. There are a lot of goods, but there are even more drinking establishments.

Old man Vavila is crying near the bench. He drank all the money and promised his granddaughter goatskin boots. Pavlusha Veretennikov approaches his grandfather and buys shoes for the girl. The delighted old man grabs his shoes and hurries home. Veretennikov is known in the area. He loves to sing and listen to Russian songs.

CHAPTER III. drunken night

After the fair, there are drunk people on the road. Some wander, some crawl, and some even lie in the ditch. Moans and endless drunken conversations can be heard everywhere. Veretennikov is talking with peasants at a road sign. He listens and writes down songs and proverbs, and then begins to reproach the peasants for drinking too much.

A well-drunk man named Yakim gets into an argument with Veretennikov. He says that the common people have accumulated a lot of grievances against landowners and officials. If you didn’t drink, it would be a big disaster, but all the anger dissolves in vodka. There is no measure for men in drunkenness, but is there any measure in grief, in hard work?

Veretennikov agrees with such reasoning and even drinks with the peasants. Here the travelers hear a beautiful young song and decide to look for the lucky ones in the crowd.

CHAPTER IV. Happy

Men walk around and shout: “Come out happy! We’ll pour some vodka!” People crowded around. The travelers began to ask about who was happy and how. They pour it to some, they just laugh at others. But the conclusion from the stories is this: a man’s happiness lies in the fact that he sometimes ate his fill, and God protected him in difficult times.

The men are advised to find Ermila Girin, whom the whole neighborhood knows. One day, the cunning merchant Altynnikov decided to take the mill away from him. He came to an agreement with the judges and declared that Ermila needed to immediately pay a thousand rubles. Girin did not have that kind of money, but he went to the marketplace and asked honest people to chip in. The men responded to the request, and Ermil bought the mill, and then returned all the money to the people. For seven years he was mayor. During that time, I didn’t pocket a single penny. Only once he excluded his younger brother from the recruits, and then he repented in front of all the people and left his post.

The wanderers agree to look for Girin, but the local priest says that Yermil is in prison. Then a troika appears on the road, and in it is a gentleman.

CHAPTER V. Landowner

The men stop the troika, in which the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is riding, and ask how he lives. The landowner begins to remember the past with tears. Previously, he owned the entire district, he kept a whole regiment of servants and held holidays with dancing, theatrical performances and hunting. Now “the great chain has broken.” The landowners have land, but there are no peasants to cultivate it.

Gavrila Afanasyevich was not used to working. It’s not a noble thing to do housekeeping. He only knows how to walk, hunt, and steal from the treasury. Now it's family nest sold for debts, everything is stolen, and the men drink day and night. Obolt-Obolduev bursts into tears, and the travelers sympathize with him. After this meeting, they understand that they need to look for happiness not among the rich, but in the “Unbroken province, Ungutted volost...”.

PEASANT WOMAN

PROLOGUE

The wanderers decide to search happy people among women. In one village they are advised to find Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Soon the men find this beautiful, dignified woman of about thirty-seven. But Korchagina doesn’t want to talk: it’s hard, the bread needs to be removed urgently. Then the travelers offer their help in the field in exchange for a story of happiness. Matryona agrees.

Chapter I. Before marriage

Korchagina spends her childhood in a non-drinking, friendly family, in an atmosphere of love from her parents and brother. Cheerful and agile Matryona works a lot, but also loves to go for a walk. A stranger, the stove maker Philip, is wooing her. They are having a wedding. Now Korchagina understands: she was only happy in her childhood and girlhood.

Chapter II. Songs

Philip brings his young wife to his large family. It’s not easy there for Matryona. Her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sisters-in-law do not allow her to live, they constantly reproach her. Everything happens exactly as it is sung in the songs. Korchagina endures. Then her first-born Demushka is born - like the sun in a window.

The master's manager pesters a young woman. Matryona avoids him as best she can. The manager threatens to give Philip a soldier. Then the woman goes for advice to grandfather Savely, the father-in-law, who is one hundred years old.

Chapter III. Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Savely looks like a huge bear. He served hard labor for a long time for murder. The cunning German manager sucked all the juice out of the serfs. When he ordered four hungry peasants to dig a well, they pushed the manager into the hole and covered it with earth. Among these killers was Savely.

CHAPTER IV. Demushka

The old man's advice was of no use. The manager, who did not allow Matryona passage, suddenly died. But then another problem happened. The young mother was forced to leave Demushka under the supervision of her grandfather. One day he fell asleep, and the child was eaten by pigs.

The doctor and the judges arrive, perform an autopsy, and interrogate Matryona. She is accused of intentionally killing a child, in conspiracy with an old man. The poor woman is almost losing her mind with grief. And Savely goes to the monastery to atone for his sin.

CHAPTER V. She-Wolf

Four years later, the grandfather returns, and Matryona forgives him. When Korchagina’s eldest son, Fedotushka, turns eight years old, the boy is given to help as a shepherd. One day the she-wolf manages to steal a sheep. Fedot chases after her and snatches out the already dead prey. The she-wolf is terribly thin, she leaves a bloody trail behind her: she cut her nipples on the grass. The predator looks doomedly at Fedot and howls. The boy feels sorry for the she-wolf and her cubs. He leaves the carcass of a sheep to the hungry beast. For this, the villagers want to whip the child, but Matryona accepts the punishment for her son.

CHAPTER VI. Difficult year

A hungry year is coming, in which Matryona is pregnant. Suddenly news comes that her husband is being recruited as a soldier. The eldest son from their family is already serving, so they shouldn’t take the second one, but the landowner doesn’t care about the laws. Matryona is horrified; pictures of poverty and lawlessness appear before her, because her only breadwinner and protector will not be there.

CHAPTER VII. Governor's wife

The woman walks into the city and arrives at the governor’s house in the morning. She asks the doorman to arrange a date for her with the governor. For two rubles, the doorman agrees and lets Matryona into the house. At this time, the governor's wife comes out of her chambers. Matryona falls at her feet and falls into unconsciousness.

When Korchagina comes to her senses, she sees that she has given birth to a boy. The kind, childless governor's wife fusses with her and the child until Matryona recovers. Together with her husband, who was released from service, the peasant woman returns home. Since then, she has not tired of praying for the health of the governor.

Chapter VIII. The Old Woman's Parable

Matryona ends her story with an appeal to wanderers: do not look for happy people among women. The Lord dropped the keys to women's happiness into the sea, and they were swallowed by a fish. Since then they have been looking for those keys, but they can’t find them.

LAST

Chapter I

I

Travelers come to the banks of the Volga to the village of Vakhlaki. There are beautiful meadows there and haymaking is in full swing. Suddenly music sounds and boats land on the shore. It is old Prince Utyatin who has arrived. He inspects the mowing and swears, and the peasants bow and ask for forgiveness. The men are amazed: everything is like under serfdom. They turn to the local mayor Vlas for clarification.

II

Vlas gives an explanation. The prince became terribly angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein, and he was struck down. After that, Utyatin began to act weird. He doesn’t want to believe that he no longer has power over the peasants. He even promised to curse his sons and disinherit them if they spoke such nonsense. So the heirs of the peasants asked them to pretend in front of the master that everything was as before. And for this they will be granted the best meadows.

III

The prince sits down to breakfast, which the peasants gather to gawk at. One of them, the biggest quitter and drunkard, long ago volunteered to play the steward in front of the prince instead of the rebellious Vlas. So he crawls in front of Utyatin, and the people can barely contain their laughter. One, however, cannot cope with himself and laughs. The prince turns blue with anger and orders the rebel to be flogged. One lively peasant woman comes to the rescue, telling the master that her son, the fool, laughed.

The prince forgives everyone and sets off on the boat. Soon the peasants learn that Utyatin died on the way home.

A Feast FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin

Introduction

The peasants rejoice at the death of the prince. They walk and sing songs, and the former servant of Baron Sineguzin, Vikenty, tells an amazing story.

About the exemplary slave - Yakov Verny

There lived one very cruel and greedy landowner, Polivanov, who had a faithful servant, Yakov. The man suffered a lot from the master. But Polivanov’s legs became paralyzed, and faithful Yakov became an indispensable person for the disabled man. The master is not overjoyed with the slave, calling him his brother.

Yakov’s beloved nephew once decided to get married, and asks the master to marry the girl whom Polivanov had his eye on for himself. The master, for such insolence, gives up his rival as a soldier, and Yakov, out of grief, goes on a drinking binge. Polivanov feels bad without an assistant, but the slave returns to work after two weeks. Again the master is pleased with the servant.

But new trouble is already on the way. On the way to the master's sister, Yakov suddenly turns into a ravine, unharnesses the horses, and hangs himself by the reins. All night the master drives away the crows from the poor body of the servant with a stick.

After this story, the men argued about who was more sinful in Rus': landowners, peasants or robbers? And the pilgrim Ionushka tells the following story.

About two great sinners

Once upon a time there was a gang of robbers led by Ataman Kudeyar. The robber destroyed many innocent souls, but the time has come - he began to repent. And he went to the Holy Sepulcher, and received the schema in the monastery - everyone does not forgive sins, his conscience torments him. Kudeyar settled in the forest under a hundred-year-old oak tree, where he dreamed of a saint who showed him the way to salvation. The murderer will be forgiven when he cuts down this oak tree with the knife that killed people.

Kudeyar began to saw the oak tree in three circles with a knife. Things are going slowly, because the sinner is already advanced in age and weak. One day, the landowner Glukhovsky drives up to the oak tree and begins to mock the old man. He beats, tortures and hangs slaves as much as he wants, but sleeps peacefully. Here Kudeyar falls into a terrible anger and kills the landowner. The oak tree immediately falls, and all the robber’s sins are immediately forgiven.

After this story, the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov begins to argue and prove that the most serious sin is the peasant sin. Here is his story.

Peasant sin

For military services, the admiral receives from the empress eight thousand souls of serfs. Before his death, he calls the elder Gleb and hands him a casket, and in it - free food for all the peasants. After the death of the admiral, the heir began to pester Gleb: he gives him money, free money, just to get the treasured casket. And Gleb trembled and agreed to hand over important documents. So the heir burned all the papers, and eight thousand souls remained in the fortress. The peasants, after listening to Ignatius, agree that this sin is the most serious.