The plot of who can live well in Rus' is Nekrasov. Nekrasov who can live well in Rus'

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One day, seven men - recent serfs, and now temporarily obliged "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhaika, etc." meet on the main road. Instead of going their own way, the men start an argument about who lives happily and freely in Russia. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky person in Russia: 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.

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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 Russia.” 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 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's 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 Russia, but also in distant foreign lands; there is no hope for their retribution. Well, the men themselves know how much respect a priest deserves: they feel embarrassed when a priest criticizes obscene songs

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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

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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 Russia: 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 Russia. Male wanderers do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Russia. 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,

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who has 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, simultaneously hit the master, who immediately lost his usual

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lifestyle, and by man. 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 the hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: it is impossible to defeat a peasant, because he “bends, but does not break.”

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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 firstborn, 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. 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.

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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 had just sat down to rest, immediately jumped 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. In his old age, Polivanov's legs became weak, and Yakov began to follow him, like

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behind the 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, lives on Vakhlachin

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Dobrosklonov. 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 Russia 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.

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The idea of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” occupies a special place both in the history of Russian classical literature and in the poet’s creative heritage. It represents a synthesis of Nekrasov’s poetic activity, the completion of many years of creative work of the revolutionary poet. Everything that Nekrasov developed in separate works over thirty years is collected here in a single concept, grandiose in content, scope and courage. It merged all the main lines of his poetic quest, and most fully expressed the socio-political and aesthetic principles of the poet. The poem was created over many years. Nekrasov worked intensively on it for ten years, but he nurtured individual images and collected material for even longer. Working on it with extraordinary intensity and unrelenting energy, the poet showed

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Greater demands on yourself. This extraordinary authorial exactitude and passion for the material were largely due to the fact that Nekrasov attached exceptional importance to the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as a work that synthesizes his creative quests and had high hopes for it. Dying, the poet deeply regretted that he had not finished his favorite creation, in which he summarized all his life and poetic experience. In one of the letters to S.I. Ponomarev, the editor of the posthumous edition of Nekrasov’s works, the poet’s sister A.A. Butkevich, claiming that -. the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” “was my brother’s favorite brainchild,” quotes Nekrasov’s original words on this matter: “The one thing I deeply regret is that I did not finish my poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Considering it his patriotic duty to “glorify the suffering of the patience of an amazing people,” Nekrasov more than once complained with pain to friends and relatives that his poetry, entirely devoted to the interests and aspirations of the people, supposedly “before the people

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I didn’t get there.” This. often served as the subject of bitter thoughts and painful torment of the poet. He thought of filling this gap with his last major creation - the folk poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, both in terms of the time spent on its creation and the significance that Nekrasov attached to it, occupies a central place in the poet’s work, despite the fact that the plan underlying it was far from being fully realized. Nekrasov began writing the poem after the peasant reform of 1861, although some images of it appeared to the poet back in the 50s. The date of writing of the poem has not yet been precisely established, since the author himself did not leave clear instructions on this matter. N. G. Potanin assumed that Nekrasov began the poem in 1850. This opinion was refuted by Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky, and then by K. Chukovsky, who dates the initial chapters to 1863. The indicated date is confirmed by the fact that in one of the first versions of the chapter “Landowner” there are the following lines:

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Yes, petty officials, Yes, stupid intermediaries, Yes, Polish exiles. The poem was published in separate chapters. The “Prologue” of the poem first appeared in print in 1866 in the Sovremennik magazine. In 1869, the same prologue, without changes, was published together with the first chapter “Pop” in No. 1 of “Notes of the Fatherland”, and in No. 2 (February) chapters two (“Rural Fair”) and three (“Drunk Night” were placed) ). In the same magazine for 1870, in No. 2, two chapters of the first part were published: “Happy” and “Landowner”. Then part of the poem under the title “Last One” was published in No. 3 of “Otechestvennye zapiski” for 1872 and part “Peasant Woman” in No. 1 of “Otechestvennye zapiski” for 1874. As for the last - fourth part of the poem, it was during his lifetime The poet never appeared in print, although the dying Nekrasov really wanted this.

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Censors twice cut it out of the book “Notes of the Fatherland” that was ready for release (1876, No. 9 and 1877, No. 1). And only three years after the poet’s death, in 1881, Saltykov-Shchedrin, who replaced Nekrasov in Otechestvennye zapiski, still managed to print this part, but with significant censorship cuts. The poem was repeatedly subjected to severe censorship persecution, to which the poet reacted very painfully. Having briefly outlined the contents of the printed chapter of the poem, the censor concludes: “In its general content and direction, the said first chapter of this poem does not contain anything contrary to censorship regulations, since the rural clergy itself seems humiliated due to the peasant’s lack of education, poor due to their environment, which itself has nothing, so in this poem only civil grief pours out on the helplessness of the rural population and the clergy. However, concessions to censorship, alterations and corrections did not help the poet. The censors cut “A Feast for the Whole World” from

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January book of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1887. This new reprisal of censorship still did not completely kill Nekrasov’s hopes for the possibility of “A Feast for the Whole World” appearing in print. Having met with the chief censor, he literally begged him to allow the publication of this final chapter of the poem. In response to the arguments for Nekrasov’s request, the censor began to refer to the fact that if he missed the poems, he could lose his job: “Don’t deprive us of a piece of bread, we are family people. Do not plant your poems on the ruins of our existence. Finish your career with a good deed: put aside the printing of these verses." But even after this episode, Nekrasov still decided not to lay down his arms. Having learned from Dostoevsky that the head of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs, V.V. Grigoriev, considered it possible to publish part of “A Feast for the Whole World,” he turned to him with a request to read his poem. When editing the poem, textual critics had to solve a difficult task - to establish in what order to print individual parts and chapters of the poem, since the author himself did not leave sufficiently precise instructions on this matter and worked on

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in separate parts, either simultaneously, or in such a sequence as was determined by creative intent. Print them. in the order in which they were written turned out to be impossible, although the poet’s heirs published them that way. Back in 1920, Chukovsky rejected this principle on the grounds that in Nekrasov’s archives he found his own handwritten note that “A Feast for the Whole World” should be located directly after “The Last One.” Based on this instruction from the poet, Chukovsky published the last chapters in this order: “The Last One,” “A Feast for the Whole World,” “The Peasant Woman.” Initially, Nekrasov thought to give in the poem a broad picture of the life of all classes of Russian society in the years immediately following the so-called “liberation” of the peasants. But the surviving draft versions indicate that Nekrasov’s plan was much broader and that the poet was going to begin work on chapters dedicated to the meeting of inquisitive wanderers with an official, a merchant and a tsar.

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Nekrasov called the genre of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” a poem. However, in terms of genre, it was not similar to any of the famous Russian poems. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a folk heroic poem. Nekrasov combined the features of three genres: a “peasant” poem depicting the life of a peasant, a satirical review depicting the enemies of the people, and a heroic revolutionary poem revealing images of fighters for the people’s happiness. Nekrasov strives to merge these three lines of his artistic creativity in the poem. The first line is most fully represented in the poem. The depiction of folk.life is encyclopedic. The most complete reflection of this trait is given precisely in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The second and third lines, due to the incompleteness of the poem, are not superior to his other works.

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In other works, Nekrasov managed to show himself more clearly both as a satirist and as a poet of the heroic epic. In the poem “Contemporaries,” he masterfully “brands and castigates the people’s enemy” - the capitalists and the pack of those who served the owners of money and those in power. The images of revolutionary fighters are more developed and more emotionally depicted in his poem “Russian Women”. The revolutionary solution to the pressing issues of our time in the conditions of censorship terror could not receive a more complete artistic expression even under the pen of Nekrasov. Nekrasov’s ideological and, on this basis, emotional attitude to reality determined, within the framework of the new genre, the use of various techniques and means inherent not only in epic, but also in lyrical and dramatic genres. Here both a calm epic story and various songs (historical, social, everyday, propaganda, satirical, intimate lyrical) are organically merged; here legends, lamentations, fantasy of fairy tales, beliefs, metaphorical ideas appeared in synthetic unity,

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characteristic of a person of religious perception, and lively, realistic dialogue, proverbs, sayings inherent in a materialistic worldview; here is caustic satire, disguised in allegory, in omissions, in allegorical form. The wide coverage of reality required the introduction into the framework of the main event of a large number of independently developed episodes, necessary as links in a single artistic chain. In terms of genre, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is in many ways closer to a prose narrative than to the lyric-epic poems characteristic of Russian literature in the first half of the 20th century.

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The plot and composition of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” The theme of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1863-1877) is an image of post-reform Russia for ten to fifteen years after the abolition of serfdom. The reform of 1861 is an extremely important event in Russian history, because it radically changed the life of the entire state and the entire people. After all, serfdom determined the economic, political, and cultural situation in Russia for approximately three hundred years. And now it has been canceled and normal life has been disrupted. Nekrasov formulates this idea in the poem like this: The great chain broke, It broke and came apart: One end hit the master, The other hit the peasant. (“Landowner”)

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The idea of the poem is a discussion about human happiness in the modern world. It is formulated in the title itself: who lives well in Rus'. The plot of the poem is based on a description of the journey across Rus' of seven temporarily obliged men. The men are looking for a happy person and on their way they meet a variety of people, listen to stories about different human destinies. This is how the poem unfolds a broad picture of contemporary Russian life for Nekrasov. A short exposition of the plot is placed in the prologue of the poem: In what year - calculate, In what land - guess, Seven men came together on a high road: Seven temporarily obliged, Tightened province, Terpigoreva County, Empty volost, From adjacent villages -

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Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razugova, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neelova, Neurozhaika, etc. The men met by chance, because each was going about his own business: one had to go to the blacksmith, another was in a hurry to invite the priest to a christening, the third was going to sell honeycombs at the market, the Gubin brothers had to catch their stubborn horse, etc. The plot of the poem begins with the oath of the seven heroes: Do not toss and turn in the houses, Do not see your wives. Neither with small children, nor with old people. Until a solution is found to the controversial matter - Who lives happily, at ease in Rus'? (prologue)

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Already in this dispute between the men, Nekrasov presents a plan for the development of the plot action in the work - who the wanderers will meet: Roman said: to the landowner, Demyan said: to the official, Luka said: to the priest. To the fat-bellied merchant! - Said the Gubin brothers, Ivan and Mitrodor. Old man Pakhom strained and said, looking at the ground: To the noble boyar, to the sovereign's minister. And Prov said: to the king. (prologue) As you know, Nekrasov did not finish the poem, so the planned plan was not fully completed: the peasants talked with the priest (chapter “Pop”), with the landowner Obolt-Obolduev (chapter “Landowner”), observed the “happy life” of the nobleman - the prince Duck (chapter

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"Last One") All the travelers’ interlocutors cannot call themselves happy; they are dissatisfied with their lives, everyone complains about difficulties and deprivations. However, even in the unfinished poem there is a climax in the meeting of the men in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World” (in different editions the title of the chapter is written differently - “A Feast for the Whole World” or “A Feast for the Whole World”) with a happy man - Grisha Dobrosklonov. True, the men did not understand that they were seeing a happy man in front of them: this young man looked very unlike a man who, according to peasant ideas, could be called happy. After all, the wanderers were looking for a person with good health, with income, with a good family and, of course, with a clear conscience - that’s what happiness is, according to the men. Therefore, they calmly pass by the beggar and unnoticed seminarian. Nevertheless, it is he who feels happy, despite the fact that he is poor, in poor health, and, according to Nekrasov, has a short and difficult life ahead of him: Fate has prepared for him a glorious Path, a great name for the People's Intercessor,

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Consumption and Siberia. (“A feast for the whole world”) So, the climax is literally in the last lines of the poem and practically coincides with the denouement: Our wanderers would be under their own roof, If only they could know what was happening to Grisha. (“A feast for the whole world”) Consequently, the first feature of the composition of the poem is the coincidence of the climax and denouement. The second feature is that, in fact, the entire poem, excluding the prologue, where the plot is located, represents the development of an action constructed in a very complex manner. The general plot of the poem described above is threaded with numerous life stories of heroes met by travelers. The individual stories within the poem are united by the cross-cutting theme of the road and the main idea of the work. This construction has been used more than once in literature, starting with Homer’s “Odyssey” and ending with N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls.” In other words, the poem is compositionally

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looks like a motley mosaic picture, which is made up of many pebble pieces. Collected together, individual stories heard by wanderers create a broad panorama of post-reform Russian reality and the recent serf past. Each private story-story has its own more or less complete plot and composition. The life of Yakim Nagogo, for example, is described very briefly in the chapter “Drunken Night.” This middle-aged peasant worked hard and a lot all his life, as his portrait definitely indicates: His chest is sunken; like a depressed Belly; at the eyes, at the mouth Bends, like cracks On the dried earth... But the hero managed to maintain his powers of observation, his clear mind, and his unusual interest in knowledge for a peasant: during the fire, he saved not the thirty-five rubles accumulated over his entire life, but pictures , which

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He bought them for his son, hung them on the walls, and he loved looking at them just as much as the boy. It is Yakim who gives the answer to Mr. Veretennikov when he reproaches the peasants for drunkenness: There is no measure for Russian drunkenness, But have they measured our grief? Is there a limit to the work? More detailed stories with a detailed plot are dedicated to Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina; Saveliy, the Holy Russian hero; Ermila Girin; Yakov the faithful exemplary slave. The last hero, the devoted servant of Mr. Polivanov, is described in the chapter “A feast for the whole world.” The plot of the action is beyond the scope of the story: even in his youth, Yakov had only joy: to groom, take care of, please and rock his young nephew.

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The author briefly describes the thirty-three years of the wild life of Mr. Polivanov, until his legs became paralyzed. Yakov, like a kind nurse, looked after his master. The climax of the story comes when Polivanov “thanked” his faithful servant: he gave Yakov’s only relative, his nephew Grisha, as a recruit, because this fellow wanted to marry a girl who the master himself liked. The denouement of the story about the exemplary slave comes quite quickly - Yakov takes his master to the remote Devil's Ravine and hangs himself before his eyes. This denouement simultaneously becomes the second climax of the story, since the master receives a terrible moral punishment for his atrocities: Jacob hangs over the master, sways rhythmically, The master rushes about, sobs, screams, One echo responds! So the faithful servant refuses, as he did before, to forgive the master everything. Before death, humanity awakens in Jacob

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dignity, and it does not allow killing a legless disabled person, even one as soulless as Mr. Polivanov. The former slave leaves his offender to live and suffer: The master returned home, lamenting: “I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me! You, master, will be an exemplary slave, Remember faithful Jacob until the day of judgment! In conclusion, it should be repeated that Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is compositionally constructed in a complex way: the overall plot includes complete stories that have their own plots and compositions. The stories are dedicated to individual heroes, primarily peasants (Ermil Girin, Yakov the faithful, Matryona Timofeevna, Saveliy, Yakim Nagoy, etc.). This is somewhat unexpected, because in the dispute between the seven men, representatives of all classes of Russian society are named (landowner, official, priest, merchant), even the tsar - everyone except the peasant.

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The poem was written over about fifteen years, and during this time its plan changed somewhat in comparison with the original plan. Gradually, Nekrasov comes to the conclusion that the main figure in Russian history is the peasant who feeds and protects the country. It is the mood of the people that plays an increasingly noticeable role in the state, therefore, in the chapters “Peasant Woman”, “Last One”, “Feast for the Whole World” people from the people become the main characters. They are unhappy, but have strong characters (Savely), wisdom (Yakim Nagoy), kindness and responsiveness (Vahlaks and Grisha Dobrosklonov). It is not for nothing that the poem ends with the song “Rus”, in which the author expressed his faith in the future of Russia. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was not finished, but it can be considered as a complete work, since the idea stated at the beginning found its complete expression: Grisha Dobrosklonov turns out to be happy, who is ready to give his life for the happiness of ordinary people. In other words, while working on the poem, the author replaced the peasant understanding of happiness with a populist one: the happiness of an individual is impossible without the happiness of the people.

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Moral problems in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” N.A.’s work continued for about fourteen years, from 1863 to 1876. Nekrasov on the most significant work in his work - the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”. Despite the fact that, unfortunately, the poem was never completed and only individual chapters of it have reached us, later arranged by textual critics in chronological order, Nekrasov’s work can rightfully be called “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” In terms of the breadth of coverage of events, the detailed depiction of characters, and amazing artistic accuracy, it is not inferior to “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin. In parallel with the depiction of folk life, the poem raises questions of morality, touches on the ethical problems of the Russian peasantry and the entire Russian society of that time, since it is the people who always act as the bearer of moral norms and universal ethics in general.

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The main idea of the poem follows directly from its title: who in Rus' can be considered a truly happy person? One of the main categories of morality underlying the concept of national happiness, according to the author. Loyalty to duty to the Motherland, service to one’s people. According to Nekrasov, those who fight for justice and “happiness of their native corner” live well in Rus'. The peasant heroes of the poem, looking for “happy”, do not find it either among the landowners, or among the priests, or among the peasants themselves. The poem depicts the only happy person - Grisha Dobrosklonov, who devoted his life to the struggle for people's happiness. Here the author expresses, in my opinion, an absolutely indisputable idea that one cannot be a true citizen of one’s country without doing anything to improve the situation of the people, who constitute the strength and pride of the Fatherland. True, Nekrasov’s happiness is very relative: for the “people's protector” Grisha, “fate was preparing... consumption and Siberia.” However, it is difficult to argue with the fact that fidelity to duty and a clear conscience are necessary conditions for real happiness.

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The poem also acutely addresses the problem of the moral decline of Russian people, who, due to their horrific economic situation, are placed in conditions in which people lose their human dignity, turning into lackeys and drunkards. Thus, the stories of the footman, the “beloved slave” of Prince Peremetyev, or the yard man of Prince Utyatin, the song “About the exemplary slave, the faithful Yakov” are a kind of parables, instructive examples of what kind of spiritual servility and moral degradation the serfdom of the peasants led to, and before of all - servants, corrupted by personal dependence on the landowner. This is Nekrasov’s reproach to a great people, powerful in their inner strength, who have resigned themselves to the position of a slave. Nekrasov’s lyrical hero actively protests against this slave psychology, calls the peasantry to self-awareness, calls on the entire Russian people to free themselves from centuries-old oppression and feel like citizens. The poet perceives the peasantry not as a faceless mass, but as a creative people; he considered the people the real creator of human history.

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However, the most terrible consequence of centuries of slavery, according to the author of the poem, is that many peasants are satisfied with their humiliated position, because they cannot imagine another life for themselves, they cannot imagine how they can exist in any other way. For example, the footman Ipat, subservient to his master, talks with reverence and almost with pride about how the master dipped him into an ice hole in winter and forced him to play the violin while standing in a flying sleigh. Prince Peremetyev’s lackey is proud of his “lordly” illness and the fact that “he licked the plates with the best French truffle.” Considering the perverted psychology of the peasants as a direct consequence of the autocratic serfdom system, Nekrasov also points to another product of serfdom - incessant drunkenness, which has become a real disaster in the Russian countryside. For many men in the poem, the idea of happiness comes down to vodka. Even in the fairy tale about the warbler, seven truth-seekers, when asked what they would like, answer: “If only we had some bread... and a bucket of vodka.” In the chapter “Rural Fair”

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Wine is flowing like a river, people are getting drunk en masse. The men return home drunk, where they become a real disaster for their family. We see one such man, Vavilushka, who drank to the last penny, and who laments that he cannot even buy goatskin boots for his granddaughter. Another moral problem that Nekrasov touches on is the problem of sin. The poet sees the path to the salvation of a person’s soul in the atonement of sin. This is what Girin, Savely, Kudeyar do; Elder Gleb is not like that. Burmister Ermil Girin, having sent the son of a lonely widow as a recruit, thereby saving his own brother from soldiering, atones for his guilt by serving the people, remaining faithful to them even in a moment of mortal danger. However, the most serious crime against the people is described in one of Grisha’s songs: the village headman Gleb withholds the news of emancipation from his peasants, thus leaving eight thousand people in the bondage of slavery. According to Nekrasov, nothing can atone for such a crime. The reader of Nekrasov’s poem has a feeling of acute bitterness and resentment for their ancestors, who hoped for better times, but

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forced to live in “empty volosts” and “tightened up provinces” more than a hundred years after the abolition of serfdom. Revealing the essence of the concept of “people's happiness,” the poet points out that the only true way to achieve it is a peasant revolution. The idea of retribution for the people's suffering is most clearly formulated in the ballad “About Two Great Sinners,” which is a kind of ideological key to the entire poem. The robber Kudeyar throws off the “burden of sins” only when he kills Pan Glukhovsky, known for his atrocities. Killing a villain, according to the author, is not a crime, but a feat worthy of a reward. Here Nekrasov’s idea comes into conflict with Christian ethics. The poet conducts a hidden polemic with F.M. Dostoevsky, who asserted the inadmissibility and impossibility of building a just society on blood, who believed that the very thought of murder is already a crime. And I can’t help but agree with these statements! One of the most important Christian commandments is: “Thou shalt not kill!” After all, a person who takes the life of his own kind, thereby kills the person in himself, commits a serious crime against

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Author's position in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov worked on his work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” for many years, giving him part of his soul. And throughout the entire period of creation of this work, the poet did not leave high ideas about a perfect life and a perfect person. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the result of the author’s many years of thoughts about the fate of the country and the people. So, who can live well in Rus'? This is exactly how the poet poses the question and tries to answer it. The plot of the poem, like the plot of folk tales, is structured as a journey of old peasants in search of a happy person. Wanderers are looking for it among all classes of the then Rus', but their main goal is to find “peasant happiness.” The poem addresses the most important question of our time: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?”

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Here another question arises: what are the paths leading to people's happiness? The author has deep sympathy for those peasants who do not resign themselves to their slave position. This is Savely, and Matryona Timofeevna, and Grisha Dobrosklonov, and Ermil Girin. To answer the question of who lives well in Rus', Nekrasov looks around all of Rus' and at first does not find a positive answer to this question, because the poem was begun in 1863, immediately after the abolition of serfdom. But later, already in the 70s, when progressive youth went “to the people”, finding happiness in serving them, the poet came to the conclusion that serving the people is happiness. With the image of the “people's defender” Grisha Dobrosklonov, the poet answers the question posed in the poem. Grisha Dobrosklonov is described in the last part of the poem, entitled “A Feast for the Whole World.” The life path of seminarian Grisha is difficult. The son of a semi-poor sexton and a “unrequited farm laborer,” he lived through a hungry childhood and harsh youth. And Gregory has a thin, pale face and thin, curly hair, with a tinge of redness.

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At the seminary, the seminarians were “underfed by the money grabber,” and during the holidays Grisha worked as a laborer in his native village of Vakhlachino. He was a responsive and loving son, and “in the boy’s heart, with love for his poor mother, love for all the Vakhlachina merged.” And Grisha Dobrosklonov firmly decided to devote his life to the struggle for the liberation of the people: ... and for fifteen years Gregory already knew firmly that he would live for the happiness of his wretched and dark native corner. Strong in spirit, freedom-loving, alien to personal interests, Grisha Dobrosklonov does not follow the beaten path, but chooses the difficult path of fighting for the rights of the oppressed. The people, seeing him as their messenger, bless him for a righteous fight. Go to the humiliated, Go to the offended - Be the first there!

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So, it is with the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov that Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov connects his idea of a perfect person, in him he sees an aesthetic and moral ideal. The idea of a perfect person sees him as an aesthetic and moral ideal. Raising his readers to its most complete embodiment, the poet answers the question of the poem - who lives well in Rus'. All of Nekrasov’s work is dedicated to the people, and, seriously ill, he never stopped thinking about them. The poem “To the Sowers” is a call to continue the social struggle. Sowers are public figures, people's intercessors who must bring “seeds of truth” to the people. Why is Belinsky an ideal for Nekrasov? Perhaps the reason for this is that it was thanks to Belinsky that Nekrasov became a great poet. When Belinsky read Nekrasov’s poem “The Railway,” he approached him with tears in his eyes and said: “Do you know that you are a poet - and a true poet!”

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In Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov saw a revolutionary ready to burn in the flames of struggle, noted his ability to subordinate his personal life to high social goals, and his rare ability for self-sacrifice. Dobrolyubov always believed in high ideals; his spiritual purity amazed Nekrasov.

Summary of the poem:

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 light 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 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's 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 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, 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 - 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 now, 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.

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 can be adjacent to the first part and can 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 there is 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. The men are looking for a happy person and on their way they meet a variety of 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. Iakim is an honest worker with a great sense of self-worth. 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 forces hidden in the Russian people, the wealth of moral qualities of the peasantry.

But only in the chapter “Savely - the hero of the Holy Russian” 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 courageous 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 powerful internal forces inherent 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 runs through the entire poem 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'” is Nekrasov’s favorite work, 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. In order to depict folk life in its entirety, adherence to an epic composition is required, 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 who are temporarily in bondage 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 the 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. The exact time of the peasants’ wanderings is not mentioned anywhere, and problems with food and drink are 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... A large number of small episodes make up the people’s face. 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 among the compositional features of the poem, one should note a large number of 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. The happy man in Rus' turns out to be Grisha Dobrosklonov, who first of all wants 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.

Understanding the plot line and composition of Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem will be especially useful for 10th grade students before writing an essay on the appropriate topic.

Work test

Summary of the poem:

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.

They got into an argument:

Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?

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.

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

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'!

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.

The army rises

Uncountable,

The strength in her will affect

Indestructible.

Meaning

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 dispossessed 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 “with one end on the master” as “with the other on 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” while already in a state of mortal illness, 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 with the 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, when wanderers would 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.