Analysis of the poem "To Whom in Rus' to Live Well" (Nekrasov). Analysis of the poem "who lives well in Rus'" by chapters, composition of the work How to live well in Rus' analysis

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The well-known poem Whom in Rus' to live well was written in 1877 by the Russian writer Nikolai Nekrasov. It took many years to create it - Nekrasov worked on the poem from 1863-1877. It is interesting that some ideas and thoughts arose from Nekrasov back in the 50s. He thought to capture in the poem Whom in Rus' to live well as much as possible everything that he knew about the people and heard from the lips of people.

Below, read a summary of the poem Who lives well in Rus'.

One day, seven men converge on the high road - recent serfs, and now temporarily liable "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavin, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhayka, too." Instead of going their own way, the peasants start a dispute about who in Rus' lives happily and freely. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky man in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a minister of sovereigns or a tsar.

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

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

The first possible "lucky man" they met along the way is a priest. (It was not for the oncoming soldiers and beggars to ask about happiness!) But the priest's answer to the question of whether his life is sweet disappoints the peasants. They agree with the priest that happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor. But the pop does not possess any of these benefits. In haymaking, in stubble, in a dead autumn night, in severe frost, he must go where there are sick, dying and being born. And every time his soul hurts at the sight of grave sobs and orphan sorrow - so that his hand does not rise to take copper nickels - a miserable reward for the demand. The landlords, who formerly lived in family estates and got married here, baptized children, buried the dead, are now scattered not only in Rus', but also in distant foreign land; there is no hope for their reward. Well, the peasants themselves know what honor the priest is: they feel embarrassed when the priest blames obscene songs and insults against priests.

Realizing that the Russian pop is not among the lucky ones, the peasants go to the festive fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask the people about happiness there. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded-up house with the inscription "school", a paramedic's hut, a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village of drinking establishments, in each of which they barely manage to cope with the thirsty. Old man Vavila cannot buy his granddaughter goat's shoes, 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 a treasured gift for him.

Wandering peasants watch the farcical Petrushka, watch how the women are picking up book goods - but by no means Belinsky and Gogol, but portraits of fat generals unknown to anyone and works about "my lord stupid." They also see how a busy trading day ends: rampant drunkenness, fights on the way home. However, the peasants are indignant at Pavlusha Veretennikov's attempt to measure the peasant by the master's measure. In their opinion, it is impossible for a sober person to live in Rus': he will not endure either overwork or peasant misfortune; without drinking, bloody rain would have poured out of the angry peasant soul. These words are confirmed by Yakim Nagoi from the village of Bosovo - one of those who "work to death, drink half to death." Yakim believes that only pigs walk the earth and do not see the sky for a century. During a fire, he himself did not save money accumulated over a lifetime, but useless and beloved pictures that hung in the hut; he is sure that with the cessation of drunkenness, great sadness will come to Rus'.

Wandering men do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise to give water to the lucky ones for free, they fail to find those. For the sake of gratuitous booze, both an overworked worker, and a paralyzed former courtyard, who for forty years licked 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 Ermil Girin, a steward in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who has earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the peasants lent it to him without even asking for a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in jail.

About the misfortune that befell the nobles after the peasant reform, the ruddy sixty-year-old landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev tells the peasant wanderers. He recalls how in the old days everything amused the master: villages, forests, fields, serf actors, musicians, hunters, who belonged undividedly to him. Obolt-Obolduev tells with emotion how on the twelfth holidays he invited his serfs to pray in the manor's house - despite the fact that after that they had to drive women from all over the estate to wash the floors.

And although the peasants themselves know that life in serf times was far from the idyll drawn by Obolduev, they nevertheless understand: the great chain of serfdom, having broken, hit both the master, who at once lost his usual way of life, and the peasant.

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

Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a non-drinking and prosperous peasant family. She married Philip Korchagin, a stove-maker from a foreign village. 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 Saveliy, who lived 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: a peasant cannot be defeated, because he "bends, but does not break."

The birth of the first-born Demushka brightened up the life of Matryona. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and old grandfather Savely did not follow the baby and fed him to the pigs. In front of Matryona, the judges who arrived from the city performed an autopsy of her child. Matryona could not forget her first child, although after she had five sons. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matrena took upon herself 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 to the soldiers. 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 tell about the invisible spiritual storm that passed through this woman - just like about unrequited mortal insults, 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 from God himself.

In the midst of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims up 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 to hide the abolition of serfdom from the landowner Utyatin, who has lost his mind. For this, the relatives of the Last Duck-Duck promise the peasants floodplain meadows. But after the long-awaited death of the Afterlife, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Here, near the village of Vakhlachin, wanderers listen to peasant songs - corvée, hungry, soldier's, salty - and stories about serf times. One of these stories is about the serf of the exemplary Jacob the faithful. Yakov's only joy was to please his master, the petty landowner Polivanov. Samodur Polivanov, in gratitude, beat Yakov in the teeth with his heel, which aroused even greater love in the lackey's soul. By old age, Polivanov lost his legs, and Yakov began to follow him as if he were a child. But when Yakov's nephew, Grisha, decided to marry the serf beauty Arisha, out of jealousy, Polivanov sent the guy to the recruits. Yakov began to drink, but soon returned to the master. And yet he managed to take revenge on Polivanov - the only way available to him, in a lackey way. Having brought 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 serf, driving away birds and wolves with groans of horror.

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

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

But not only wandering peasants think about the happiness of the people. The son of a sacristan, seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, lives in Vakhlachin. In his heart, love for the deceased mother merged with love for the whole of Vahlachina. For fifteen years, Grisha knew for sure whom he was ready to give his life, for whom he was ready to die. He thinks of all mysterious Rus' as a miserable, abundant, powerful and powerless mother, and expects that the indestructible strength that he feels in his own soul will still be reflected in her. Such strong souls, like those of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the angel of mercy himself calls for an honest path. Fate prepares Grisha "a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia."

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

Rus' is a country in which even poverty has its charms. After all, the poor, who are a slave to the power of the landowners of that time, have time to reflect and see what the fat landowner will never see.

Once upon a time, on the most ordinary road, where there was a crossroads, men, of whom there were as many as seven, accidentally met. These men are the most ordinary poor men who were brought together by fate itself. The peasants have recently left the serfs, now they are temporarily liable. They, as it turned out, lived very close to each other. Their villages were adjacent - the village of Zaplatov, Razutov, Dyryavin, Znobishina, as well as Gorelova, Neelova and Neurozhayka. The names of the villages are very peculiar, but to some extent, they reflect their owners.

The men are simple people, and willing to talk. That is why, instead of just continuing their long journey, they decide to talk. They argue about which of the rich and noble people lives better. A landowner, an official, an al boyar or a merchant, or maybe even a sovereign father? Each of them has their own opinions, which they cherish and do not want to agree with each other. The dispute flares up more strongly, but nevertheless, I want to eat. You can't live without food, even if you feel bad and sad. When they argued, without noticing it themselves, they walked, but in the wrong direction. They suddenly noticed it, but it was too late. The peasants gave the maz a full thirty versts.

It was too late to return home, and therefore we decided to continue the dispute right there on the road, surrounded by wild nature. They quickly build a fire to keep warm, because it is already evening. Vodka - to help them. The argument, as it always happens with ordinary men, develops into a brawl. The fight ends, but it does not give any result. As always happens, the decision to be here is unexpected. One of the company of men, sees a bird and catches it, the bird's mother, in order to free her chick, tells them about the self-assembly tablecloth. After all, the peasants on their way meet many people who, alas, do not have the happiness that the peasants are looking for. But they do not despair of finding a happy person.

Read the summary To whom in Rus' to live well Nekrasov chapter by chapter

Part 1. Prologue

Met on the road seven temporarily assigned men. They began to argue who lives funny, very freely in Rus'. While they were arguing, evening came, they went for vodka, lit a fire and began to argue again. The argument turned into a fight, while Pahom caught a small chick. A mother bird arrives and asks to let her child go in exchange for a story about where to get a self-assembled tablecloth. The comrades decide to go wherever they look until they find out who in Rus' has a good life.

Chapter 1. Pop

The men go on a hike. Steppes, fields, abandoned houses pass, they meet both the rich and the poor. They asked the soldier they met about whether he lives happily, in response the soldier said that he shaves with an awl and warms himself with smoke. They passed by the priest. We decided to ask how he lives in Rus'. Pop argues that happiness is not in well-being, luxury and tranquility. And he proves that he does not have peace, at night and during the day they can call to the dying, that his son cannot learn to read and write, that he often sees sobs with tears at the coffins.

The priest asserts that the landowners have scattered over their native land, and now there is no wealth from this, as the priest used to have wealth. In the old days, he attended the weddings of rich people and made money on it, but now everyone has left. He told that he would come to a peasant family to bury the breadwinner, and there was nothing to take from them. The priest went on his way.

Chapter 2

Wherever men go, they see stingy housing. The pilgrim washes his horse in the river, the men ask him where the people from the village have disappeared. He replies that the fair is today in the village of Kuzminskaya. The men, having come to the fair, watch how honest people dance, walk, drink. And they look at how one old man asks the people for help. He promised his granddaughter to bring a gift, but he does not have two hryvnias.

Then a gentleman appears, as they call a young man in a red shirt, and buys shoes for the old man's granddaughter. At the fair you can find everything your heart desires: books by Gogol, Belinsky, portraits and so on. Travelers watch a performance with the participation of Petrushka, people give the actors drinks and a lot of money.

Chapter 3

Returning home after the holiday, people from drunkenness fell into ditches, the women fought, complaining about life. Veretennikov, the one who bought the shoes for his granddaughter, was walking, arguing that the Russian people are good and smart, but drunkenness spoils everything, being a big minus for people. The men told Veretennikov about Nagoi Yakim. This guy lived in St. Petersburg and after a quarrel with a merchant ended up in prison. Once he gave his son different pictures, hung on the walls and he admired them more than his son. Once there was a fire, so instead of saving money, he began to collect pictures.

His money melted, and then only eleven rubles were given by merchants for them, and now pictures are hanging on the walls in the new house. Yakim said that the peasants did not lie and said that sadness would come and the people would be sad if they stopped drinking. Then the young people began to sing a song, and they sang so well that one girl passing by could not even hold back her tears. She complained that her husband was very jealous and she was sitting at home as if on a leash. After the story, the men began to remember their wives, realized that they were missing them and decided to quickly find out who lives well in Rus'.

Chapter 4

Travelers, passing by the idle crowd, are looking for happy people in it, promising them a drink. The clerk was the first to come to them, knowing that happiness is not in luxury and wealth, but in faith in God. He told me that he believes and that he is happy. Following the old woman talks about her happiness, the turnip in her garden has grown huge and appetizing. In response, she hears ridicule and advice to go home. After the soldier tells the story that after twenty battles he remained alive, that he survived the famine and did not die, that he was happy with this. Gets a glass of vodka and leaves. Stonecutter wields a large hammer, his strength is immeasurable.

In response, the thin man ridicules him, advising him not to show off his strength, otherwise God will take away that strength. The contractor boasts that he carried objects weighing fourteen pounds with ease to the second floor, but recently he lost his strength and was about to die in his native city. A nobleman came to them, told them that he lived with the mistress, ate very well with them, he drank drinks from other people's glasses and developed a strange illness. He was mistaken several times in the diagnosis, but in the end it turned out that it was gout. The wanderers drive him out so that he does not drink wine with them. Then the Belarusian told that happiness is in bread. The beggars see happiness in large alms. The vodka is running out, but they haven’t really found a happy one, they are advised to seek happiness from Ermila Girin, who runs the mill. Yermil is ordered to sell it, wins the auction, but he has no money.

He went to ask the people in the square for a loan, collected money, and the mill became his property. The next day, he returned to all the kind people who helped him in difficult times, their money. Travelers were amazed that the people believed in the words of Yermila and helped. Good people said that Yermila was a clerk for the colonel. He worked honestly, but he was driven away. When the colonel died and it was time to choose a steward, everyone unanimously chose Yermila. Someone said that Yermila did not correctly judge the son of a peasant woman, Nenila Vlasyevna.

Yermila was very sad that he could let down a peasant woman. He ordered the people to judge him, the young man was fined. He quit his job and rented a mill, determined his own order on it. Travelers were advised to go to Kirin, but the people said that he was in jail. And then everything is interrupted because, on the side of the road, a lackey is whipped for theft. The wanderers asked to continue the story, in response they heard a promise to continue at the next meeting.

Chapter 5

The wanderers meet a landowner who takes them for thieves and even threatens them with a gun. Obolt Obolduev, having understood people, started a story about the antiquity of his family, that while serving the sovereign he had a salary of two rubles. He recalls feasts rich in various foods, servants, which he had a whole regiment. Regrets the lost unlimited power. The landowner told how kind he was, how people prayed in his house, how spiritual purity was created in his house. And now their gardens have been cut down, houses have been dismantled brick by brick, the forest has been plundered, there is not a trace left of the former life. The landowner complains that he was not created for such a life, having lived in the village for forty years, he will not be able to distinguish barley from rye, but they demand that he work. The landowner weeps, the people sympathize with him.

Part 2

Wanderers, walking past the hayfield, decide to mow a bit, they are bored with work. The gray-haired man Vlas drives the women from the fields, asking them not to interfere with the landowner. In the river in boats the landowners are catching fish. We moored and went around the hayfield. The wanderers began to ask the peasant about the landowner. It turned out that the sons, in collusion with the people, deliberately indulge the master so that he does not deprive them of their inheritance. The sons beg everyone to play along with them. One peasant Ipat, without playing along, serves, for the salvation that the master gave him. Over time, everyone gets used to the deception and live like that. Only the peasant Agap Petrov did not want to play these games. Utyatin grabbed the second blow, but again he woke up and ordered Agap to be flogged in public. The sons put the wine in the stable and asked to shout loudly so that the prince could hear up to the porch. But soon Agap died, they say from the prince's wine. The people stand in front of the porch and play a comedy, one rich man breaks down and laughs out loud. The peasant woman saves the situation, falls at the feet of the prince, claiming that her stupid little son was laughing. As soon as Utyatin died, all the people breathed freely.

Part 3. Peasant woman

To ask about happiness, they send to the neighboring village to Matryona Timofeevna. There is hunger and poverty in the village. Someone in the river caught a small fish and talks about the fact that once the fish were caught larger.

Theft is rampant, someone is dragging something away. Travelers find Matryona Timofeevna. She insists that she does not have time to rant, it is necessary to clean the rye. Wanderers help her, during the work Timofeevna begins to willingly talk about her life.

Chapter 1

The girl in her youth had a strong family. She lived in her parents' house without knowing the troubles, there was enough time to have fun and work. One day, Philip Korchagin appeared, and the father promised to marry his daughter. Matrena resisted for a long time, but eventually agreed.

Chapter 2. Songs

Further, the story is already about life in the house of the father-in-law and mother-in-law, which is interrupted by sad songs. They beat her once for her slowness. The husband leaves for work, and she has a child. She calls him Demushka. Her husband's parents began to scold often, but she endures everything. Only the father-in-law, old man Savely, felt sorry for his daughter-in-law.

Chapter 3

He lived in the upper room, did not like his family and did not let him into his house. He told Matryona about his life. In his youth, he was a Jew in a serf family. The village was deaf, through thickets and swamps it was necessary to get there. The landowner in the village was Shalashnikov, only he could not get to the village, and the peasants did not even go to him when called. The quitrent was not paid, the police were given fish and honey as tribute. They went to the master, complained that there was no quitrent. Threatened with a flogging, the landowner nevertheless received his tribute. After some time, a notification arrives that Shalashnikov has been killed.

The rogue came instead of the landowner. He ordered to cut trees if there is no money. When the workers came to their senses, they realized that they had cut a road to the village. The German robbed them to the last penny. Vogel built a factory and ordered a ditch to be dug. The peasants sat down to rest at lunch, the German went to scold them for their idleness. They pushed him into a ditch and buried him alive. He went to hard labor, twenty years later he escaped from there. During hard labor he saved up money, built a hut and now lives there.

Chapter 4

The daughter-in-law scolded the maiden for not working much. She began to leave her son to his grandfather. Grandfather ran to the field, told about what he overlooked and fed Demushka to the pigs. The grief of the mother was not enough, but also the police began to come often, they suspected that she had killed the child on purpose. The baby was buried in a closed coffin, she mourned for a long time. And Savely calmed her down.

Chapter 5

As you die, so the work got up. The father-in-law decided to teach a lesson and beat the bride. She began to beg to kill her, the father took pity. Around the clock, the mother mourned at the grave of her son. In winter, the husband returned. Grandfather went out of grief from the beginning to the forest, then to the monastery. After Matryona gave birth every year. And again came a series of troubles. Timofeevna's parents died. Grandfather returned from the monastery, asked for forgiveness from his mother, said that he had prayed for Demushka. But he did not live long, he died very hard. Before his death, he spoke about three ways of life for women and two ways for men. Four years later, a praying man came to the village.

She talked about some beliefs, advised not to breastfeed babies on fast days. Timofeevna did not listen, then she regretted it, says God punished her. When her child, Fedot, was eight years old, he began to pasture sheep. And somehow they came to complain about him. It is said that he fed the sheep to the she-wolf. Mother began to question Fedot. The child said that he did not have time to blink an eye, as out of nowhere, a she-wolf appeared and grabbed a sheep. He ran after him, caught up, but the sheep was dead. The she-wolf howled, it was clear that somewhere in the hole she had babies. He took pity on her and handed over the dead sheep. They tried to flog Fethod, but the mother took all the punishment upon herself.

Chapter 6

Matryona Timofeevna said that it was not easy for her son to see the she-wolf then. Believes that it was a harbinger of hunger. The mother-in-law spread all the gossip around the village about Matryona. She said that her daughter-in-law croaked hunger because she knew how to do such things. She said that her husband was protecting her. And so, if it weren’t for her son, they would have long ago been beaten to death with stakes for such things.

After the hunger strike, they began to take the guys from the villages to the service. First they took her husband's brother, she was calm that in difficult times her husband would be with her. But in no queue they took away her husband. Life becomes unbearable, mother-in-law and father-in-law begin to mock her even more.

Picture or drawing Who lives well in Rus'

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"To whom it is good to live in Rus'": a summary. Parts one and two

It should be understood that the summary of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N. Nekrasov will not give such an idea of ​​​​the work as reading it in its entirety. The poem was written shortly after serfdom was abolished, and has a sharp social character. It consists of four parts. The first one has no name: seven men from different villages meet on the road, whose names speak of the situation of the peasants in them - Dyryavino, Zaplatovo, Neelovo, etc. They argue who lives well in Rus'.

The men offer different options: priests, landowners, officials, merchants, ministers, the king. Not having come to a consensus, they go to look for someone in Rus' to live well. The summary will not allow us to reveal all the events and dialogues, but it is worth saying that along the way they meet representatives of different classes - a priest, a soldier, a merchant, peasants, but none of them can say that they live wonderfully. Everyone has their own sorrows. Also in this part, the eternal question of drunkenness in Rus' is considered: one of the men he met argues that people do not drink from a good life. In the second part, called "The Last Child", the peasants meet the landowner Utyatin: the old man could not believe that serfdom had been abolished. This stripped him of all privileges. The landlord's relatives ask the local peasants to behave respectfully as before, take off their hats and bow, promising them land after the master's death. However, people remain deceived and receive nothing for their efforts.

"To whom in Rus' to live well". "Peasant Woman": a summary

In the second part, the peasants go to seek happiness among the female population of Rus'. Rumor leads them to Matryona Timofeevna, who tells the peasants the story of her life, which began in serf times. She completely dissuades them of the possibility of a Russian woman's happiness: after hearing her story, is it worth asking at all about who in Rus' has a good life? The summary of the history of Matryona is as follows. She was given in marriage against her will to a hard-working man, but beating his wife.

She also survived the harassment of her master's manager, from whom there was no salvation. And when her first child was born, disaster struck. The mother-in-law strictly forbade Matryona to carry the child with her to the mowing, as he interfered with her work, ordered to leave the decrepit grandfather under the supervision. Grandfather did not look after the little one - the pigs ate the child. And the grieving mother had to endure not only the loss of her son, but also accusations of complicity. Matryona later gave birth to other children, but she missed her first child very much. After some time, she lost her parents and was left completely alone, without protection. Then the husband was taken into recruits out of turn, and Matryona remained in her husband's family, who did not love her, with a bunch of children and the only worker - the rest literally sat on her neck. Once she had to watch how her young son was punished for an insignificant offense - they punished cruelly and mercilessly. Unable to bear such a life, she went to the governor's wife to ask for the return of the breadwinner. There she lost consciousness, and when she came to, she found out that she had given birth to a son, whom the governor's wife had baptized. Matryona's husband was returned, but she never saw happiness in her life, and everyone began to tease her as a governor.

"To whom it is good to live in Rus'": a summary. Part 4: "A feast for the whole world"

The plot of the fourth part is a continuation of the second: the landowner Utyatin dies, and the peasants throw a feast, where they discuss plans for the land promised to them earlier by the relatives of the owner. In this part, Grisha Dobrosklonov appears: a young man at fifteen is deeply convinced that he will, without any doubt, sacrifice himself for the sake of his homeland. However, he does not shy away from simple labor: he mows and reaps together with the peasants, to which they respond to him with kindness and help. Grisha, being a democratic intellectual, eventually becomes the one who lives well. Dobrolyubov was recognized as its prototype: here is the consonance of surnames, and one disease for two - consumption, which will overtake the hero of the poem before Russia comes to a brighter future. In the image of Grisha, Nekrasov sees a man of the future, in whom the intelligentsia and the peasantry will unite, and such people, by joining forces, will lead their country to prosperity. The summary does not make it possible to understand that this is an unfinished work - the author originally planned eight parts, not four. For what reason Nekrasov ended the poem in this way, it is not known: he probably felt that he might not have time to finish it, so he led to the finale earlier. Despite the incompleteness, the poem became a hymn of love for the people, which Nekrasov was full of. Contemporaries noted that this love became the source of Nekrasov's poetry, its basis and content. The defining feature of the poet's character was the willingness to live for others - relatives, people, homeland. It was these ideas that he put into the actions and actions of his heroes.

Nekrasov's poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'", which is part of the compulsory school curriculum, is presented in our summary, which you can read below.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men from neighboring villages meet on the high road. They start a dispute about who has fun in Rus'. Everyone has their own answer. In conversations, they do not notice that they have traveled to God knows where for thirty miles. It's getting dark, they make a fire. The argument gradually turns into a fight. But a clear answer still can not be found.

A man named Pahom catches a warbler chick. In return, the bird promises to tell the peasants where the self-assembled tablecloth is located, which will give them food as much as they like, a bucket of vodka a day, will wash and darn their clothes. The heroes receive a real treasure and decide to find the final answer to the question: who lives well in Rus'?

Pop

On the way, the peasants meet a priest. They ask if he is happy. According to the priest, happiness is wealth, honor and peace. But these blessings are inaccessible to the priest: in cold and rain, he is forced to get out to the funeral service, to look at the tears of his relatives, when it is embarrassing to take payment for the service. In addition, the priest does not see respect among the people, and now and then becomes the subject of ridicule of the peasants.

rural fair

Having found out that the priest does not have happiness, the peasants go to the fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. Maybe they'll find a lucky one there. There are a lot of drunks at the fair. Old man Vavila is grieving that he squandered money for shoes for his granddaughter. Everyone wants to help, but they don't have the opportunity. Barin Pavel Veretennikov takes pity on his grandfather and buys a present for his granddaughter.

Closer to the night, everyone around is drunk, the men go away.

drunken night

Pavel Veretennikov, after talking with the common people, regrets that the Russian people drink too much. But the peasants are convinced that the peasants drink out of hopelessness, that it is impossible to live sober in these conditions. If the Russian people stop drinking, great sorrow awaits them.

These thoughts are expressed by Yakim Nagoi, a resident of the village of Bosovo. He tells how, during a fire, the first thing he did was to take out the lubok pictures from the hut - that which he valued most of all.

The men settled down for lunch. Then one of them remained on guard for a bucket of vodka, and the rest again went in search of happiness.

Happy

Wanderers offer those who are happy in Rus' to drink a glass of vodka. There are many such lucky people - both an overstrained man, and a paralytic, and even beggars.

Someone points them to Yermila Girin, an honest and respected peasant. When he needed to buy his mill at an auction, the people collected the necessary amount for a ruble and a kopeck. A couple of weeks later, Jirin was distributing the debt in the square. And when the last ruble remained, he continued to look for its owner until sunset. But now Yermila has little happiness either - he was accused of a popular rebellion and thrown into jail.

landowner

The ruddy landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev is another candidate for the “lucky one”. But he complains to the peasants about the misfortune of the nobility - the abolition of serfdom. He was fine before. Everyone cared about him, tried to please. Yes, and he himself was kind with the courtyards. The reform destroyed his habitual way of life. How can he live now, because he knows nothing, is not capable of anything. The landowner began to cry, and after him the peasants became sad. The abolition of serfdom and the peasants is not easy.

Part 2

Last

The men find themselves on the banks of the Volga during haymaking. They see an amazing picture for themselves. Three lordly boats moor to the shore. Mowers, just sitting down to rest, jump up, wanting to curry favor with the master. It turned out that the heirs, having enlisted the support of the peasants, were trying to hide the peasant reform from the distraught landowner Utyatin. The peasants were promised land for this, but when the landowner dies, the heirs forget about the agreement.

Part 3

peasant woman

Seekers of happiness thought about asking about the happiness of women. Everyone they meet calls the name of Matrena Korchagina, whom people see as a lucky woman.

Matrena, on the other hand, claims that there are many troubles in her life, and devotes wanderers to her story.

As a girl, Matryona had a good, non-drinking family. When the stove-maker Korchagin looked after her, she was happy. But after marriage, the usual painful village life began. She was beaten by her husband only once, because he loved her. When he left to work, the stove-maker's family continued to mock her. Only grandfather Saveliy, a former convict who was imprisoned for the murder of a manager, felt sorry for her. Savely looked like a hero, confident that it was impossible to defeat a Russian person.

Matryona was happy when her first son was born. But while she was at work in the field, Savely fell asleep, and the pigs ate the child. In front of the heartbroken mother, the county doctor performed an autopsy on her first child. A woman still cannot forget a child, although after him she gave birth to five.

From the outside, everyone considers Matryona lucky, but no one understands what pain she carries inside, what mortal unavenged insults gnaw at her, how she dies every time she remembers a dead child.

Matrena Timofeevna knows that a Russian woman simply cannot be happy, because she has no life, no will for her.

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

Wanderers near the village of Vahlachin hear folk songs - hungry, salty, soldier's and corvee. Grisha Dobrosklonov sings - a simple Russian guy. There are stories about serfdom. One of them is the story of Yakima the faithful. He was devoted to the master to the extreme. He rejoiced at the cuffs, fulfilled any whims. But when the landowner gave his nephew to the soldier's service, Yakim left, and soon returned. He figured out how to take revenge on the landowner. Decapitated, he brought him to the forest and hanged himself on a tree above the master.

An argument begins about the most terrible sin. Elder Jonah tells the parable “about two sinners”. The sinner Kudeyar prayed to God for forgiveness, and he answered him. If Kudeyar knocks down a huge tree with just a knife, then his sins will subside. The oak fell down only after the sinner washed it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky.

The deacon's son Grisha Dobrosklonov thinks about the future of the Russian people. Rus' for him is a miserable, plentiful, powerful and powerless mother. In his soul he feels immense forces, he is ready to give his life for the good of the people. In the future, the glory of the people's protector, hard labor, Siberia and consumption await him. But if the wanderers knew what feelings filled Gregory's soul, they would realize that the goal of their search had been achieved.

Who lives well in Rus'

Part one

“Seven men came together on a pillared path” and began to argue, “who in Rus' has a good life.” The men spent the whole day in their pores. After drinking vodka, they even had a fight. One of the peasants, Pahom, is twirling a chiffchaff that has flown up to the fire. In exchange for freedom, she tells the peasants how to find a self-assembled tablecloth. Having found it, the debaters decide without answering the question: “Who lives happily, freely in Rus'?” - do not return home.

CHAPTER ONE POP

On the road, the peasants meet peasants, coachmen, soldiers. They don't even ask them this question. Finally they meet the priest. Om replies to their question that he does not have any happiness in life. All funds go to the priest's son. At any time of the day or night, he himself can be called to the dying, he has to endure the sorrows of families in which relatives or people close to the family die. There is no respect for the priest, he is called the "breed of the foal", they compose draz-ilki, indecent songs about the priests. After talking with the priest, the men go on.

CHAPTER TWO RURAL FAIR

At the fair, fun, people drink, bargain, walk. Everyone rejoices at the deed of the "master" Pavlusha Veretennikov. He bought shoes for the granddaughter of a peasant who drank all the money without buying gifts for his relatives.

In the booth there is a performance - a comedy with Petrushka. After the performance, people drink with the actors, give them money.

From the fair, the peasants also carry printed materials - these are stupid little books and portraits of generals with many orders. The famous lines are devoted to this, expressing the hope for the cultural growth of the people:

When a peasant is not Blucher And not my lord stupid - Belinsky and Gogol From the market will carry?

CHAPTER THREE DRUNK NIGHT

After the fair, everyone returns home drunk. The men notice the women arguing in the ditch. Each proves that her home is the worst. Then they meet Veretennikov. He says that all the troubles come from the fact that Russian peasants drink without measure. The men begin to prove to him that if there were no sadness, then people would not drink.

Every peasant has a Soul - like a black cloud - Wrathful, formidable, - but it would be necessary for Thunders to thunder from there, To pour bloody rains, And everything ends with wine.

They meet a woman. She tells them about her jealous husband, who watches over her even in her sleep. Men miss their wives and want to return home as soon as possible.

CHAPTER FOUR HAPPY

With the help of a self-collection tablecloth, the men take out a bucket of vodka. They walk in a festive crowd and promise to treat vodka to those who prove that they are happy. The emaciated deacon proves that he is happy by faith in God and the Kingdom of Heaven; the old woman says that she is happy that her turnip has ugly - they don’t give them vodka. A soldier comes up next, shows off his medals, and says he's happy because he wasn't killed in any of the battles he's been in. The soldier is treated to vodka. The bricklayer got home alive after a serious illness - this is what makes him happy.

The yard man considers himself happy, because, licking the master's plates, he got a "noble disease" - gout. He puts himself above the men, they drive him away. A Belarusian sees his happiness in bread. Wanderers bring vodka to a peasant who survived hunting a bear.

People tell strangers about Yermila Girin. He asked people for a loan of money, then returned everything to the last ruble, although he could deceive them. People believed him, because he honestly served as a clerk and treated everyone carefully, did not take someone else's, did not shield the guilty. But once a fine was imposed on Yermila because instead of his brother he sent the son of a peasant woman, Nenila Vlasyevna, to recruit. He repented, and the peasant woman's son was returned. But Yermila still feels guilty for her act. People advise wanderers to go to Yermila and ask him. The story of Girin is interrupted by the cries of a drunken footman who has been caught stealing.

CHAPTER FIVE LANDMAN

In the morning the wanderers meet the landowner Obolt-Obolduev. He takes the wanderers for robbers. Realizing that they are not robbers, the landowner hides the gun and tells the wanderers about his life. His family is very ancient; he recalls the sumptuous feasts that used to take place. The landowner was very kind: on holidays he let peasants into his house to pray. The peasants voluntarily brought him gifts. Now the gardens of the landlords are being plundered, the houses are being dismantled, the peasants are working badly, reluctantly. The landowner is called upon to study and work when he cannot even tell a barley ear from a rye ear. At the end of the conversation, the landowner sobs.

Last

(From the second part)

Seeing the haymaking, the peasants, longing for work, take the scythes from the women and begin to mow. Here an old gray-haired landowner sails in boats with servants, barchats, ladies. Orders to dry one stack - it seems to him that it is wet. Everyone is trying to curry favor with the master. Vlas tells the story of the master.

When serfdom was abolished, he had a stroke, as he became extremely furious. Fearing that the master would deprive them of their inheritance, the sons persuaded the peasants to pretend that serfdom still existed. Vlas refused the post of burmister. Having no conscience, Klim Lavin takes his place.

Satisfied with himself, the prince walks around the estate and gives stupid orders. Trying to do a good deed, the prince fixes the crumbling house of a seventy-year-old widow and orders her to be married to a minor neighbor. Not wanting to obey Prince Utyatin, the peasant Aran tells him everything. Because of this, the prince had a second blow. But he survived again, not justifying the hopes of the heirs, and demanded the punishment of Agap. The heirs persuaded Petrov to shout louder in the stable after drinking a damask of wine. Then he was taken home drunk. But soon he, poisoned by wine, died.

At the table, everyone submits to the whims of Utyatin. The "rich St. Petersburg worker" suddenly arrived for a while, unable to stand it, laughs.

Utyatin demands to punish the guilty. Burmistrova's godfather throws herself at the master's feet and says that her son laughed. Having calmed down, the prince drinks champagne, revels and after a while falls asleep. They take him away. The duckling grabs the third blow - he dies. With the death of the master, the expected happiness did not come. Litigation began between the peasants and the heirs.

peasant woman

(From the third part)

Wanderers come to the village of Klin to ask Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina about happiness. Some men fishing complain to strangers that there used to be more fish. Matryona Timofeevna has no time to talk about her life, because she is busy harvesting. When the wanderers promise to help her, she agrees to talk to them.

CHAPTER ONE BEFORE MARRIAGE

When Matryona was a girl, she lived "like in Christ's bosom." Having drunk with the matchmakers, the father decides to marry his daughter to Philip Korchagin. After persuasion, Matrena agrees to marriage.

CHAPTER TWO SONG

Matrena Timofeevna compares her life in her husband's family with hell. “The family was huge, grumpy ...” Well, it’s true that the husband got a good one - her husband beat her only once. And so he even "ride on a sled" and "gave a silk handkerchief." She named her son Matryona Demushka.

In order not to quarrel with her husband's relatives, Matryona does all the work assigned to her, does not answer the scolding of her mother-in-law and father-in-law. But the old grandfather Saveliy - the father-in-law - takes pity on the young woman and talks to her kindly.

CHAPTER THREE

Matrena Timofeevna begins the story about grandfather Saveliy. Compares him to a bear. Grandfather Saveliy did not let his relatives into his room, for which they were angry with him.

Peasants during Savely's youth paid dues only three times a year. The landowner Shalashnikov could not get to the remote village himself, so he ordered the peasants to come to him. They have not come. Twice the peasants paid tribute to the police: sometimes with honey and fish, sometimes with skins. After the third arrival of the police, the peasants decided to go to Shalashnikov and say that there was no quitrent. But after the flogging, they still gave away some of the money. The hundred-ruble notes sewn under the lining did not get to the landowner.

The German, sent by the son of Shalashnikov, who died in battle, first asked the peasants to pay as much as they could. Since the peasants could not pay, they had to earn dues. Only later did they realize that they were building a road to the village. And, therefore, now they can not hide from the tax collectors!

The peasants began a hard life and lasted eighteen years. Angry, the peasants buried the German alive. They were all sent to prison. Savely failed to escape, and he spent twenty years in hard labor. Since then, it has been called "convict".

CHAPTER FOUR

Because of her son, Matryona began to work less. Mother-in-law demanded to give Demushka to grandfather. Falling asleep, the grandfather overlooked the child, he was eaten by pigs. The arriving police accuse Matryona of deliberately killing the child. She is declared insane. Demushka is buried in a closed coffin.

CHAPTER FIVE THE WOLF

After the death of his son, Matryona spends all the time at his grave, unable to work. Savely takes the tragedy hard and goes to the Sand Monastery for repentance. Every year Matryona gives birth to children. Three years later, Matryona's parents die. At the grave of his son, Matryona meets with grandfather Savely, who came to pray for the child.

Matryona's eight-year-old son Fedot is sent to guard the sheep. One sheep was stolen by a hungry she-wolf. Fedot, after a long pursuit, overtakes the she-wolf and takes away the sheep from her, but, seeing that the cattle is already dead, he returns it to the she-wolf - she has become terribly thin, it is clear that she is feeding the children. For the act of Fedotushka, the mother is punished. Matrena believes that her disobedience is to blame, she fed Fedot with milk on a fast day.

CHAPTER SIX

HARD YEAR

When the lack of bread came, the mother-in-law blamed Matryona for the bey. She would have been killed for this, if not for her intercessor husband. Matrona's husband is recruited. Her life in the house of her father-in-law and mother-in-law became even harder.

CHAPTER SEVEN

GOVERNOR

Pregnant Matryona goes to the governor. Having given two rubles to the lackey, Matryona meets with the governor's wife, asking her for protection. Matryona Timofeevna gives birth to a child in the governor's house.

Elena Alexandrovna has no children of her own; she takes care of Matrena's child as if it were her own. The envoy sorted everything out in the village, Matrena's husband was returned.

CHAPTER EIGHT

WOMAN'S PARABLE

Matrena tells the wanderers about her current life, saying that among the women they will not find a happy one. To the question of the wanderers, did Matryona tell them everything, the woman replies that there is not enough time to list all her troubles. He says that women are already slaves from their very birth.

The keys to women's happiness, From our free will Abandoned, lost From God himself!

Feast - for the whole world

INTRODUCTION

Klim Yakovlich started a feast in the village. The parish deacon Trifon came with his sons Savvushka and Grisha. They were hardworking, kind guys. The peasants argued about how they should dispose of the meadows after the death of the prince; guessed and sang songs: "Merry", "Corvee".

The peasants remember the old order: they worked during the day, drank and fought at night.

They tell the story of the faithful servant Jacob. Yakov's nephew Grisha asked to marry his girlfriend Arisha. The landowner himself likes Arish, so the master sends Grisha to the soldiers. After a long absence, Yakov returns to the master. Later, Yakov, in front of the master, hangs himself in a dense forest. Left alone, the master cannot get out of the forest. In the morning a hunter found him. The master admits his guilt and asks to be executed.

Klim Lavin defeats the merchant in a fight. The pilgrim Ionushka talks about the power of faith; how the Turks drowned the monks of Athos in the sea.

ABOUT TWO GREAT SINNERS

Father Pitirim told this ancient story to Ionushka. Twelve robbers with ataman Kudeyar lived in the forest and robbed people. But soon the robber began to imagine the people he had killed, and he began to ask the Lord to forgive him his sins. To atone for his sins, Kudeyar needed to cut down an oak with the same hand and the same knife that he used to kill people. When he began to saw, pan Glukhovsky rode by, who honored only women, wine and gold, but mercilessly tortured, tortured and hanged peasants. Angry, Kudeyar plunged a knife into the sinner's heart. The burden of sins immediately fell.

OLD AND NEW

Jonah swims away. The peasants are again arguing about sins. Ignat Prokhorov tells the story of a will, according to which eight thousand serfs would have been freed if the headman had not sold it.

Soldier Ovsyannikov and his niece Ustinyushka arrive on the wagon. Ovsyannikov sings a song that there is no truth. They do not want to give the soldier a pension, and yet he was repeatedly wounded in numerous battles.

GOOD TIME - GOOD SONGS

Savva and Grisha take their father home and sing a song that freedom comes first. Grisha goes to the fields and remembers his mother. Sings a song about the future of the country. Grigory sees a barge hauler and sings the song "Rus", calling her mother.

On February 19, 1861, a long-awaited reform took place in Russia - the abolition of serfdom, which immediately stirred up the whole society and caused a wave of new problems, the main of which can be expressed in a line from Nekrasov's poem: "The people are freed, but are the people happy? ..". The singer of folk life, Nekrasov, did not stand aside this time either - since 1863, his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins to be written, telling about life in post-reform Rus'. The work is considered the pinnacle in the writer's work and to this day enjoys the well-deserved love of readers. At the same time, despite its seemingly simple and stylized fairy tale plot, it is very difficult to perceive. Therefore, we will analyze the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in order to better understand its meaning and problems.

History of creation

Nekrasov created the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” from 1863 to 1877, and some ideas, according to contemporaries, arose from the poet as early as the 1850s. Nekrasov wanted to present in one work everything that, as he said, “I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips”, accumulated “by word” over 20 years of his life. Unfortunately, due to the death of the author, the poem remained unfinished, only four parts of the poem and a prologue were published.

After the death of the author, the publishers of the poem faced a difficult task - to determine in what sequence to publish the disparate parts of the work, because. Nekrasov did not have time to combine them into one. The task was solved by K. Chukovsky, who, relying on the writer's archives, decided to print the parts in the order in which they are known to the modern reader: "Last Child", "Peasant Woman", "Feast for the Whole World".

Genre, composition

There are many different genre definitions of “Who lives well in Rus'” - they talk about it as a “poem-journey”, “Russian Odyssey”, even such a confusing definition is known as “the protocol of a kind of All-Russian peasant congress, an unsurpassed transcript of the debate on an acute political issue ". Nevertheless, there is also the author's definition of the genre, with which most critics agree: the epic poem. The epic involves the depiction of the life of an entire people at some decisive moment in history, whether it be a war or other social upheaval. The author describes what is happening through the eyes of the people and often turns to folklore as a means of showing the people's vision of the problem. The epic, as a rule, does not have one hero - there are many heroes, and they play a more connecting than plot-forming role. The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" fits all these criteria and can safely be called an epic.

Theme and idea of ​​the work, heroes, problems

The plot of the poem is simple: “on the pillar path” seven men converge who argued about who lives best in Rus'. To find out, they go on a journey. In this regard, the theme of the work can be defined as a large-scale narrative about the life of peasants in Russia. Nekrasov covered almost all spheres of life - during his wanderings, the peasants will get to know different people: a priest, a landowner, beggars, drunkards, merchants, a cycle of human destinies will pass before their eyes - from a wounded soldier to the once all-powerful prince. The fair, prison, hard work for the master, death and birth, holidays, weddings, auctions and the election of the burgomaster - nothing escaped the writer's gaze.

The question of who should be considered the main character of the poem is ambiguous. On the one hand, formally it has seven main characters - men wandering in search of a happy person. The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov also stands out, in whose person the author portrays the future people's savior and enlightener. But besides this, the image of the people as the image of the main character of the work is clearly traced in the poem. The people appear as a single whole in the scenes of the fair, mass festivities (“Drunk Night”, “Feast for the Whole World”), haymaking. Various decisions are made by the whole world - from the help of Yermil to the election of a burgomaster, even a sigh of relief after the death of the landowner breaks out from everyone at the same time. Seven men are not individualized either - they are described as briefly as possible, do not have their own separate features and characters, pursue the same goal and even speak, as a rule, all together. The secondary characters (the serf Yakov, the village headman, Savely) are written by the author in much more detail, which allows us to talk about the special creation of a conditionally allegorical image of the people with the help of seven wanderers.

One way or another, the lives of the people are also affected by all the problems raised by Nekrasov in the poem. This is the problem of happiness, the problem of drunkenness and moral degradation, sin, the relationship between the old and the new way of life, freedom and lack of freedom, rebellion and patience, as well as the problem of the Russian woman, characteristic of many of the poet's works. The problem of happiness in the poem is fundamental, and is understood by different characters in different ways. For the priest, the landowner and other characters endowed with power, happiness is presented in the form of personal well-being, "honor and wealth." Peasant happiness consists of various misfortunes - the bear tried to bully, but could not, they beat him to death in the service, but they didn’t kill him to death ... But there are also such characters for whom there is no personal happiness apart from the happiness of the people. Such is Yermil Girin, the honest burgomaster, such is the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, who appears in the last chapter. In his soul, love for a poor mother outgrew and merged with love for the same poor homeland, for the happiness and enlightenment of which Grisha plans to live.

From Grisha's understanding of happiness, the main idea of ​​​​the work grows: real happiness is possible only for someone who does not think about himself, and is ready to spend his whole life for the happiness of everyone. The call to love your people as they are, and to fight for their happiness, not remaining indifferent to their problems, sounds distinctly throughout the poem, and finds its final embodiment in the image of Grisha.

Artistic media

An analysis of Nekrasov’s “Who Lives Well in Rus'” cannot be considered complete without considering the means of artistic expression used in the poem. Basically, this is the use of oral folk art - both as an object of image, to create a more reliable picture of peasant life, and as an object of study (for the future public intercessor, Grisha Dobrosklonov).

Folklore is introduced into the text either directly, as a stylization: the stylization of the prologue as a fairy-tale beginning (the mythological number seven, a self-assembled tablecloth and other details speak eloquently about this), or indirectly - quotations from folk songs, references to various folklore plots (most often to epics).

Stylized as a folk song and the very speech of the poem. Let us pay attention to a large number of dialectisms, diminutive suffixes, numerous repetitions and the use of stable constructions in descriptions. Thanks to this, “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” can be perceived as folk art, and this is not accidental. In the 1860s, an increased interest in folk art arose. The study of folklore was perceived not only as a scientific activity, but also as an open dialogue between the intelligentsia and the people, which, of course, was close to Nekrasov ideologically.

Conclusion

So, having examined Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, we can confidently conclude that, despite the fact that it remained unfinished, it still represents a huge literary value. The poem remains relevant until today and can arouse interest not only among researchers, but also among the ordinary reader who is interested in the history of the problems of Russian life. “Who should live well in Rus'” was repeatedly interpreted in other types of art - in the form of a stage production, various illustrations (Sokolov, Gerasimov, Shcherbakova), as well as popular prints on this plot.

Artwork test

Analysis of the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who lives well in Rus'"

In January 1866, another issue of the Sovremennik magazine was published in St. Petersburg. It opened with lines that are now familiar to everyone:

In what year - count

In what land - guess...

These words, as it were, promised to introduce the reader into an entertaining fairy-tale world, where a chiffchaff bird would appear, speaking a human language, and a magic self-assembly tablecloth ... So N.A. began with a sly smile and ease. Nekrasov his story about the adventures of seven men who argued about "who lives happily, freely in Russia."

He devoted many years to work on the poem, which the poet called his "beloved brainchild". He set himself the goal of writing a "people's book", useful, understandable to the people and truthful. “I decided,” said Nekrasov, “to state in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who should live well in Russia.” It will be the epic of peasant life.” But death interrupted this gigantic work, the work remained unfinished. However, uhthese words, as it were, promised to introduce the reader into an entertaining fairy-tale world, where a chiffchaff bird would appear, speaking a human language, and a magic self-collection tablecloth ... So, with a sly smile and ease, N. A. Nekrasov began his story about the adventures of seven men, arguing about "who lives happily, freely in Russia."

Already in the Prologue, a picture of peasant Rus' was visible, the figure of the protagonist of the work, the Russian peasant, stood up, as he was in reality: in bast shoes, onuchs, an Armenian, unsatisfied, suffering grief.

Three years later, the publication of the poem was resumed, but each part met with severe persecution from the tsarist censorship, which believed that the poem "is distinguished by its extreme disgrace of content." The last of the written chapters - "Feast - for the whole world" was subjected to especially sharp attacks. Unfortunately, Nekrasov was not destined to see either the publication of The Feast or a separate edition of the poem. Without abbreviations and distortions, the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" was published only after the October Revolution.

The poem occupies a central place in Nekrasov's poetry, is its ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of the writer's thoughts about the fate of the people, about their happiness and the paths that lead to it. These thoughts worried the poet throughout his life, passed like a red thread through all his poetic work.

By the 1860s, the Russian peasant became the main character in Nekrasov's poetry. "Pedlars", "Orina, a soldier's mother", "Railway", "Frost, Red Nose" are the most important works of the poet on the way to the poem "Who should live well in Rus'."

He devoted many years to work on the poem, which the poet called his "beloved brainchild". He set himself the goal of writing a "people's book", useful, understandable to the people and truthful. “I decided,” said Nekrasov, “to state in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who should live well in Russia.” It will be the epic of peasant life.” But death interrupted this gigantic work, the work remained unfinished. However, despite this, it retains its ideological and artistic integrity.

Nekrasov revived the folk epic genre in poetry. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a truly folk work: both in its ideological sound, and in the scale of the epic depiction of modern folk life, in posing the fundamental questions of the time, and in heroic pathos, and in the widespread use of the poetic traditions of oral folk art, the closeness of the poetic language to live speech everyday forms and song lyricism.

At the same time, Nekrasov's poem has features that are characteristic of critical realism. Instead of one central character, the poem depicts, first of all, the people's environment as a whole, the life situation of different social circles. The popular point of view on reality is expressed in the poem already in the very development of the theme, in that all of Russia, all events are shown through the perception of wandering peasants, presented to the reader as if in their vision.

The events of the poem unfold in the first years after the reform of 1861 and the emancipation of the peasants. The people, the peasantry - the true positive hero of the poem. Nekrasov connected his hopes for the future with him, although he was aware of the weakness of the forces of peasant protest, the immaturity of the masses for revolutionary action.

In the poem, the author created the image of the peasant Saveliy, “the hero of the Holy Russian”, “the hero of the homespun”, which personifies the gigantic strength and stamina of the people. Savely is endowed with the features of the legendary heroes of the folk epic. This image is associated by Nekrasov with the central theme of the poem - the search for ways to people's happiness. It is no coincidence that Matryona Timofeevna says about Savely to wanderers: "There was also a lucky man." Saveliy's happiness lies in love of freedom, in understanding the need for an active struggle of the people, who can achieve a “free” life only in this way.

There are many memorable images of peasants in the poem. Here is the clever old steward Vlas, who has seen a lot in his lifetime, and Yakim Nagoi, a characteristic representative of the working agricultural peasantry. However, Yakim Nagoi is portrayed as a poet who does not at all look like a downtrodden, dark peasant of a patriarchal village. With a deep consciousness of his dignity, he ardently defends the honor of the people, delivers a fiery speech in defense of the people.

An important role in the poem is occupied by the image of Ermil Girin - a pure and incorruptible "defender of the people", who takes the side of the rebellious peasants and ends up in jail.

In the beautiful female image of Matrena Timofeevna, the poet draws the typical features of a Russian peasant woman. Nekrasov wrote many exciting poems about the harsh “female share”, but he has not yet written about a peasant woman so fully, with such warmth and love, with which Matryonushka is described in the poem.

Along with the peasant characters of the poem, who arouse love and participation, Nekrasov also draws other types of peasants, mostly courtyards - lordly hangers-on, sycophants, obedient slaves and direct traitors. These images are drawn by the poet in the tones of satirical denunciation. The more clearly he saw the protest of the peasantry, the more he believed in the possibility of his emancipation, the more irreconcilably he condemned slavish humiliation, servility and servility. Such are the “exemplary serf” Jacob in the poem, who in the end realizes the humiliation of his position and resorts to pitiful and helpless, but in his slavish consciousness of terrible revenge - suicide in front of his tormentor; the "sensitive lackey" Ipat, who talks about his humiliations with disgusting relish; scammer, "a spy from his own" Egor Shutov; elder Gleb, seduced by the promises of the heir and agreed to destroy the will of the deceased landowner about the release of eight thousand peasants (“Peasant sin”).

Showing ignorance, rudeness, superstition, backwardness of the Russian village of that time, Nekrasov emphasizes the temporary, historically transient nature of the dark sides of peasant life.

The world poetically recreated in the poem is a world of sharp social contrasts, clashes, acute life contradictions.

In the “round”, “ruddy”, “pot-bellied”, “moustached” landowner Obolt-Obolduev, whom the wanderers met, the poet exposes the emptiness and frivolity of a person who is not accustomed to seriously think about life. Behind the guise of a good-natured man, behind the gracious courtesy and ostentatious hospitality of Obolt-Obolduev, the reader sees the arrogance and anger of the landowner, barely restrained disgust and hatred for the “muzhik”, for the peasants.

Satire and grotesque marked the image of the landowner-tyrant Prince Utyatin, nicknamed by the peasants the Last. A predatory look, "a nose with a beak like a hawk", alcoholism and voluptuousness complement the disgusting appearance of a typical representative of the landowner's environment, an inveterate serf-owner and despot.

At first glance, the development of the plot of the poem should consist in resolving the dispute between the peasants: which of the persons named by them lives happier - a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a minister or a king. However, developing the action of the poem, Nekrasov goes beyond the plot framework set by the plot of the work. Seven peasants are looking for a happy man not only among the representatives of the ruling classes. Going to the fair, in the midst of the people, they pose the question: “Isn’t he hiding there, who lives happily?” In The Last One, they explicitly say that the purpose of their journey is to search for national happiness, the best peasant share:

We are looking for, Uncle Vlas,

unworn province,

Not gutted volost,

Surplus village!..

Starting the story in a half-fairy joking tone, the poet gradually deepens the meaning of the question of happiness, giving it an ever sharper social sound. The most visibly the author's intentions are manifested in the censored part of the poem - "Feast - for the whole world." The story about Grisha Dobrosklonov begun here was to take a central place in the development of the theme of happiness-struggle. Here the poet speaks directly about that path, about that "path" that leads to the embodiment of people's happiness. Grisha's happiness lies in a conscious struggle for a happy future for the people, for "every peasant to live freely and cheerfully in all of holy Rus'."

The image of Grisha is the final one in the series of "people's defenders" depicted in Nekrasov's poetry. The author emphasizes in Grisha his closeness to the people, live communication with the peasants, in whom he finds complete understanding and support; Grisha is depicted as an inspired dreamer-poet, composing his "good songs" for the people.

The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is the highest example of the folk style of Nekrasov's poetry. The folk-song and fairy-tale element of the poem gives it a bright national flavor and is directly connected with Nekrasov's faith in the great future of the people. The main theme of the poem - the search for happiness - goes back to folk tales, songs and other folklore sources, which spoke about the search for a happy land, truth, wealth, treasure, etc. This theme expressed the most cherished thought of the masses of the people, their striving for happiness, the people's age-old dream of a just social order.

Nekrasov used in the poem almost all the genre diversity of Russian folk poetry: fairy tales, epics, legends, riddles, proverbs, sayings, family songs, love songs, wedding songs, historical songs. Folk poetry gave the poet the richest material for judging the peasant life, way of life, customs of the village.

The style of the poem is characterized by a richness of emotional sounds, a variety of poetic intonation: the sly smile and slowness of the narration in the "Prologue" is replaced in subsequent scenes by the ringing polyphony of the seething fair crowd, in the "Last Child" - by satirical mockery, in "The Peasant Woman" - by deep drama and lyrical excitement, and in "A Feast - for the Whole World" - with heroic tension and revolutionary pathos.

The poet subtly feels and loves the beauty of the native Russian nature of the northern strip. The landscape is also used by the poet to create an emotional tone, for a more complete and vivid characterization of the character's state of mind.

The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" has a prominent place in Russian poetry. In it, the fearless truth of the pictures of folk life appears in a halo of poetic fabulousness and the beauty of folk art, and the cry of protest and satire merged with the heroism of the revolutionary struggle. All this was expressed with great artistic power in the immortal work of N.A. Nekrasov.

Chapters Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" not only reveal different aspects of life in Russia: in each chapter we look at this life through the eyes of representatives of different classes. And the story of each of them, as to the center, refers to the "peasant kingdom", revealing different aspects of people's life - its way of life, work, revealing the people's soul, people's conscience, people's aspirations and aspirations. To use the expression of Nekrasov himself, we "measure" the peasant with different "measures" - both the "lord's" and his own. But in parallel, against the background of the majestic picture of the life of the Russian empire created in the poem, the inner plot of the poem develops - the gradual growth of the self-awareness of the heroes, their spiritual awakening. Watching what is happening, talking with a variety of people, men learn to distinguish true happiness from imaginary, illusory, they find the answer to the question, "who is all the saints, who is the sinner of all." It is characteristic that already in the first part, the characters also act as judges, and it is they who have the right to determine: which of those who call themselves happy is truly happy. This is a complex moral task that requires a person to possess his own ideals. But it is no less important to note that wanderers are increasingly "lost" in the crowd of peasants: their voices, as it were, merge with the voices of the inhabitants of other provinces, the entire peasant "world". And already “the world” has a weighty word in condemning or justifying the happy and the unfortunate, the sinners and the righteous.

Going on a journey, the peasants are looking for someone to whom "free-fun life in Rus'". This formula presupposes, probably, freedom and idleness, inseparable for men of wealth and nobility. To the first of the met possible lucky ones - ass they ask the question: “Tell us in a divine way: / Is the priestly life sweet? / How are you - at ease, happily / Do you live, honest father? To this indefinite idea, the pop opposes his understanding of happiness, which men share: “What do you think happiness is? / Peace, wealth, honor - / Isn't that right, dear friends? / They said: so...”. It can be assumed that the ellipsis (and not an exclamation point or a period) after the peasant words means a pause - the peasants ponder over the priestly words, but also accept them. L.A. Evstigneeva writes that the definition of "peace, wealth, honor" is alien to the popular idea of ​​happiness. This is not entirely true: Nekrasov's heroes really accepted this understanding of happiness, agreed with it internally: it is these three terms - "peace, wealth, honor" that will be the basis for them to judge the priest and the landowner, Yermil Girin, for choosing between numerous lucky people, who will appear in the chapter "Happy". Precisely because the priestly life is devoid of peace, and wealth, and honor, the peasants recognize him as unhappy. After listening to the priest's complaints, they realized that his life was not "sweet" at all. They take out their annoyance on Luka, who convinces everyone of the "happiness" of the priest. Scolding him, they remember all the arguments of Luke, who proved the priest's happiness. Listening to their scolding, we understand what they set off with, what they considered a “good” life: for them, this is a well-fed life:

What did you take? stubborn head!
Rustic club!
That's where the argument gets in!<...>
Three years I, robots,
Lived with the priest in the workers,
Raspberry - not life!
Popova porridge - with butter,
Popov pie - with filling,
Priest cabbage soup - with smelt!<...>
Well, here's your praise
Pop's life!

Already in the story, the butt appeared alone important feature of the story. Talking about his life, about personal troubles, every possible “candidate” for the happy people met by the peasants will paint a broad picture of Russian life. This is how the image of Russia is created - a single world in which the life of each class is dependent on the life of the whole country. Only against the background of people's life, in close connection with it, does the trouble of the heroes themselves become understandable and explainable. In the story of the priest, first of all, the dark sides of the life of a peasant are revealed: the priest, confessing the dying, becomes a witness to the most sorrowful moments in the life of a peasant. From the priest, we learn that both in years of rich harvest and in years of famine, the life of a peasant is never easy:

Our favors are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The cattle walks from hand to mouth,
Bread itself will be born,
And if it gets good
Cheese land-breadwinner,
So a new problem:
Nowhere to go with bread!
Lock the need - sell it
For a real trifle
And there - crop failure!
Then pay exorbitant prices
Sell ​​the cattle!

It is pop that affects one of the most tragic aspects of folk life - the main theme of the poem: the sad situation of a Russian peasant woman, "sadness, nurse, drinker, slave, pilgrimage and eternal toiler."

One can also note such a feature of the narrative: at the heart of each story of the heroes about his life lies antithesis: past - present. At the same time, the heroes do not just compare different stages of their lives: human life, happiness and unhappiness of a person are always connected with those laws - social and moral, according to which the life of the country goes. Heroes often make sweeping generalizations themselves. So, for example, the priest, drawing the current ruin - and landowners' estates, and peasant life, and the life of priests, says:

During the near
Russian Empire
Noble estates
was full of<...>
What weddings were played there,
What babies were born
On free bread!<...>
And now it's not like that!
Like a Jewish tribe
The landowners scattered
Through a distant foreign land
And in native Rus'.

The same antithesis will be characteristic of the story Obolta-Oboldueva about the landowner's life: "Now Rus' is not the same!" - he will say, drawing pictures of the past prosperity and the current ruin of noble families. The same theme will be continued in The Peasant Woman, which begins with a description of a beautiful landowner's estate being destroyed by the courtyards. The past and the present will also be opposed in the story of Savely, the Holy Russian hero. “But there were fertile / Such times” - this is the pathos of Savely's own story about his youth and Korezhina's former life.

But the author's task is clearly not to glorify the lost prosperity. Both in the story of the priest and in the story of the landowner, especially in the stories of Matrena Timofeevna, the leitmotif is the idea that the basis of well-being is great work, great patience of the people, the very “string” that brought so much grief to the people. “Gift bread”, the bread of serfs that was given to the landowners as a gift, is the source of the well-being of Russia and all its estates - all except the peasant.

The painful impression of the priest's story does not disappear even in the chapter describing the village holiday. Chapter "Country Fair" opens up new aspects of people's life. Through the eyes of peasants, we look at simple peasant joys, we see a motley and drunken crowd. “Blind people” - this is Nekrasov’s definition from the poem “The Unfortunates” fully conveys the essence of the picture of the national holiday drawn by the author. A crowd of peasants holding out their hats to the tavern-men for a bottle of vodka, a drunken peasant who dumped a whole cartload of goods into a ditch, Vavilushka, who drank all the money, men-ofeni buying "pictures" with important generals and books "about my lord stupid" for sale to the peasants - all these sad and funny scenes testify to the moral blindness of the people, their ignorance. Perhaps only one bright episode was noted by the author on this holiday: universal sympathy for the fate of Vavilushka, who drank all the money and grieved that he would not bring the promised gift to his granddaughter: “The people gathered, listened, / Do not laugh, pity; / If it happened, with work, with bread / They would help him, / And take out two kopecks, / So you yourself will be left with nothing. When the folklorist Veretennikov rescues the poor peasant, the peasants "were so comforted, / So happy, as if everyone / He gave a ruble." Compassion for someone else's misfortune and the ability to rejoice in someone else's joy - the spiritual responsiveness of the people - all this portends the future author's words about the golden heart of the people.

Chapter "Drunken Night" continues the theme of the “great Orthodox thirst”, the immensity of the “Russian hops” and paints a picture of wild revelry on the night after the fair. The basis of the chapter is numerous dialogues of various people, invisible to neither wanderers nor readers. Wine made them frank, made them talk about the most sick and intimate. Each dialogue could be unfolded into a story of human life, as a rule, unhappy: poverty, hatred between the closest people in the family - that's what these conversations reveal. This description, which gave the reader the feeling that "there is no measure for Russian hops," originally ended the chapter. But it is not by chance that the author writes a sequel, making the center of the chapter “Drunk Night” not these painful pictures, but an explanation conversation. Pavlusha Veretennikova, scholar-folklorist, with peasant Yakim Nagim. It is also not by chance that the author makes the interlocutor of the folklorist not a “craftsman”, as was the case in the first sketches, but a peasant. Not an outside observer, but the peasant himself gives an explanation for what is happening. “Don’t measure a peasant on a master’s measure!” - sounds the voice of the peasant Yakim Nagogoy in response to Veretennikov, who reproached the peasants for "drinking to the point of stupefaction." Yakim explains the people's drunkenness by the suffering that the peasants are released without measure:

There is no measure for Russian hops,
Did they measure our grief?
Is there a measure for work?<...>
And what is shameful to look at you,
How drunks roll
So look, go
Like dragging from a swamp
Peasants have wet hay,
Mowed, dragged:
Where horses can't get through
Where and without a burden on foot
It's dangerous to cross
There is a peasant horde
On the rocks, on the gorges
Crawling, crawling with whips, -
The peasant's navel is cracking!

The image used by Yakim Nagoi in defining the peasants is full of contradictions - the army-horde. The army is the army, the peasants are warriors, heroes - this image will pass through the entire Nekrasov poem. The peasants, workers and sufferers, are comprehended by the author as the defenders of Russia, the basis of its wealth and stability. But the peasants are also a "horde", an unenlightened, elemental, blind force. And these dark sides in folk life are also revealed in the poem. Drunkenness saves the peasant from sorrowful thoughts and from the anger that has accumulated in the soul over many years of suffering and injustice. The soul of a peasant is a “black cloud”, foreshadowing a “thunderstorm”, - this motif will be picked up in the chapter “Peasant Woman”, in “A Feast for the Whole World”. But the peasant's soul is also "kind": her anger "ends with wine."

The contradictions of the Russian soul are further revealed by the author. Myself image of Yakima full of such contradictions. Much explains in this peasant's love for the "pictures" that he bought his son. The author does not detail what "pictures" Yakim admired. It may well be that all the same important generals were drawn there as in the pictures described in the Rural Fair. It is important for Nekrasov to emphasize only one thing: during a fire, when people save the most precious thing, Yakim did not save the thirty-five rubles he had accumulated, but “pictures”. And his wife saved him - not money, but icons. What was dear to the peasant soul turned out to be more important than what was needed for the body.

Talking about his hero, the author does not seek to show the uniqueness, the peculiarity of Yakim. On the contrary, emphasizing natural images in the description of his hero, the author creates a portrait-symbol of the entire Russian peasantry - a plowman, who for many years has become close to the earth. This gives Yakim's words a special weight: we perceive his voice as the voice of the land-breadwinner itself, of peasant Rus' itself, calling not for condemnation, but for compassion:

Chest sunken as if depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And myself to mother earth
He looks like: a brown neck,
Like a layer cut off with a plow,
brick face,
Hand - tree bark.
And hair is sand.

The chapter "Drunken Night" ends with songs in which the people's soul has the strongest effect. One of them sings "about the Volga, mother, about brave courage, about girlish beauty." The song about love and valiant strength and will disturbed the peasants, went “through the heart of the peasant” with “fire-longing”, made women cry, and in the hearts of wanderers caused homesickness. Thus, a drunken, “merry and roaring” crowd of peasants is transformed before the eyes of readers, and a longing for freedom and love, for happiness, crushed by work and wine, opens in the hearts and souls of people.

A poem by N.A. Nekrasov's "Who Lives Well in Rus'", on which he worked for the last ten years of his life, but did not have time to fully realize, cannot be considered unfinished. It contains everything that made up the meaning of the spiritual, ideological, life and artistic searches of the poet from youth to death. And this "everything" found a worthy - capacious and harmonious - form of expression.

What is the architectonics of the poem "Who should live well in Rus'"? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from separate structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem, it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the huge text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is added, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem less amazing - it shocks anyone who is able to feel compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.

The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" - sets the tone of the whole work.

Of course, this is a fabulous beginning: no one knows where and when, no one knows why seven men converge. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person be without a dispute; and the peasants turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearby hill, or not at all achievable.

In the text of the Prologue, whoever does not appear, as if in a fairy tale: a woman is almost a witch, and a gray hare, and small jackdaws, and a chick of a warbler, and a cuckoo ... Seven eagle owls look at the wanderers in the night, the echo echoes their cries, an owl, a cunning fox - everyone has been here. In the groin, examining a small birdie - a chick of a warbler - and seeing that she is happier than a peasant, he decides to find out the truth. And, as in a fairy tale, the mother warbler, helping out the chick, promises to give the peasants plenty of everything they ask for on the road, so that they only find the truthful answer, and shows the way. The Prologue is not like a fairy tale. This is a fairy tale, only literary. So the peasants give a vow not to return home until they find the truth. And the wandering begins.

Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions for happiness is suitable for it. The calamities of the peasant parishioners in impoverished villages, the revelry of the landowners who left their estates, the desolated local life - all this is in the bitter answer of the priest. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers go further.

Chapter II wanderers at the fair. The picture of the village: "a house with an inscription: school, empty, / Clogged tightly" - and this is in the village "rich, but dirty." There, at the fair, a familiar phrase sounds to us:

When a man is not Blucher

And not my lord foolish—

Belinsky and Gogol

Will it carry from the market?

In Chapter III "Drunken Night" bitterly describes the eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov reappears, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminsky as a “master” and met by wanderers there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, he collects Russian folklore.

Having recorded enough

Veretennikov told them:

"Smart Russian peasants,

One is not good

What they drink to stupefaction

Falling into ditches, into ditches—

It's a shame to look!"

This offends one of the men:

There is no measure for Russian hops.

Did they measure our grief?

Is there a measure for work?

Wine brings down the peasant

And grief does not bring him down?

Work not falling?

A man does not measure trouble,

Copes with everything

Whatever come.

This peasant, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of a Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoi. Surname this - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosov. The story of his unthinkably hard life and ineradicable proud courage is learned by wanderers from local peasants.

Chapter IV wanderers walk around in the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Is there somewhere happy? - and the peasants in response, who will smile, and who will spit ... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers "for happiness". All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier who is beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for the wanderers, although it is a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Pity, not joy, are also caused by other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy. The stories of the "happy" are getting scarier and scarier. There is even a type of princely "slave", happy with his "noble" illness - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.

Finally, someone sends the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who is! The story of Yermila is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the peasant would buy a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, giving their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of the men. After that, Yermil gave everything to his own, there was a ruble that was not given away - the owner was not found, and the money was collected enormously. Ermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the trust of the people. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord's manager, his help for many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is in jail. And he was planted there in connection with the rebellion of the peasants in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the strangers did not have time to find out.

In Chapter V - "The Landlord" - the carriage rolls out, in it - and indeed the landowner Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is described comically: a plump gentleman with a "pistol" and a paunch. Note: he has a "speaking", as almost always with Nekrasov, name. “Tell us Godly, is the landowner’s life sweet?” the strangers stop him. The landowner's stories about his "root" are strange to the peasants. Not feats, but disgrace to please the queen and the intention to set fire to Moscow - these are the memorable deeds of illustrious ancestors. What is the honor for? How to understand? The story of the landowner about the charms of the former master's life somehow does not please the peasants, and Obolduev himself bitterly recalls the past - it is gone, and gone forever.

To adapt to a new life after the abolition of serfdom, one must study and work. But labor - not a noble habit. Hence the grief.

"The Last". This part of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" begins with a picture of haymaking in water meadows. The royal family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and vicious prince Utyatin is alive because, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, his former serfs conspired with the lord's family to depict the former serfdom for the sake of the prince's peace of mind and so that he would not refuse his family, due to a whim of an senile inheritance. The peasants were promised to give back the water meadows after the death of the prince. The "faithful slave" Ipat was also found - at Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the peasant Agap could not stand it and scolded the Last One for what the world was worth. Punishment in the stable with whips, feigned, turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The last one died almost in front of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing for the meadows: "The heirs compete with the peasants until this day."

According to the logic of the construction of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, then follows, as it were, herThe second part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and their chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding a happy man among the peasants, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what and how much "happiness" they find in the share of women, peasants. All this is expressed with such a depth of penetration into the suffering woman's soul, with such an abundance of details of the fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully referred to as "Matryona Timofeevna, she is a governor", that at times it touches you to tears, then it makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy one of her first women's nights, but when was that!

Songs created by the author on a folk basis are woven into the narrative, as if sewn on the canvas of a Russian folk song (Chapter 2. "Songs" ). There, the wanderers sing with Matryona in turn, and the peasant woman herself, recalling the past.

My disgusting husband

Rises:

For a silk whip

Accepted.

choir

The whip whistled

Blood splattered...

Oh! leli! leli!

Blood splattered...

To match the song was the married life of a peasant woman. Only her grandfather, Saveliy, took pity on her and consoled her. “There was also a lucky man,” recalls Matryona.

A separate chapter of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is dedicated to this powerful Russian man -"Savelius, Holy Russian hero" . The title of the chapter speaks of its style and content. The branded, former convict, heroic build, the old man speaks little, but aptly. “To not endure is an abyss, to endure is an abyss,” are his favorite words. The old man buried alive in the ground for the atrocities against the peasants of the German Vogel, the master's manager. The image of Saveliy is collective:

Do you think, Matryonushka,

The man is not a hero?

And his life is not military,

And death is not written for him

In battle - a hero!

Hands twisted with chains

Legs forged with iron

Back ... dense forests

Passed on it - broke.

And the chest? Elijah the prophet

On it rattles-rides

On a chariot of fire...

The hero suffers everything!

Chapter"Dyomushka" the worst thing happens: the son of Matryona, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened the child in front of her eyes. And even more terrible, that Savely the hero himself, a deep old man who fell asleep and overlooked the baby, was innocently guilty of the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the suffering soul of his grandfather.

In chapter V - "She-wolf" - the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that is left for her in life. Chasing after the she-wolf who carried off the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the shepherd pity the beast: the hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples mother of the cubs sinks down in front of him on the grass, suffers beatings, and the little boy leaves her a sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lays down under the whip.

After this episode, Matryona’s song lamentations on a gray stone above the river, when she, an orphan, calls a father, then a mother for help and comfort, complete the story and create a transition to a new year of disasters -Chapter VI "A Difficult Year" . Hungry, “Looks like kids / I was like her,” Matryona recalls the she-wolf. Her husband is shaved into the soldiers without a term and out of turn, she remains with her children in the hostile family of her husband - a "parasite", without protection and help. The life of a soldier is a special topic, revealed in detail. Soldiers flog her son with rods in the square - you can’t even understand why.

A terrible song precedes the escape of Matryona alone on a winter night (Head of the Governor ). She rushed backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.

And the next morning Matryona went to the governor. She fell at her feet right on the stairs so that her husband would be returned, and she gave birth. The governor turned out to be a compassionate woman, and Matryona returned with a happy child. They nicknamed the Governor, and life seemed to get better, but then the time came, and they took the eldest as a soldier. “What else do you want? - Matryona asks the peasants, - the keys to women's happiness ... are lost, ”and cannot be found.

The third part of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, which is not called that, but has all the signs of an independent part, - a dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, an introduction and chapters, - has a strange name -"Feast for the whole world" . In the introduction, a kind of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is still not visible, illuminates the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile for almost the first time in his life. But the first chapter"Bitter Time - Bitter Songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about famine and injustice under serfdom, then mournful, “drawn-out, sad” Vahlat songs about inescapable forced anguish, and finally, “Corvee”.

Separate chapter - story"About an exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful" - begins as if about a serf of the slavish type that Nekrasov was interested in. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: not having endured the offense, Yakov first took to drink, fled, and when he returned, he brought the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of him. A terrible sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. Tells Ionushka - "humble praying mantis".

A new page of the poem opens -"Wanderers and Pilgrims" , for her -"About two great sinners" : a tale about Kudeyar-ataman, a robber who killed an uncountable number of souls. The story goes in an epic verse, and, as if in a Russian song, the conscience wakes up in Kudeyar, he accepts hermitage and repentance from the saint who appeared to him: to cut off the century-old oak with the same knife with which he killed. The work is many years old, the hope that it will be possible to complete it before death is weak. Suddenly, the well-known villain Pan Glukhovsky appears on horseback in front of Kudeyar and tempts the hermit with shameless speeches. Kudeyar cannot withstand the temptation: a knife is in the pan's chest. And - a miracle! - collapsed century-old oak.

The peasants start a dispute about whose sin is heavier - "noble" or "peasant".In the chapter "Peasant sin" Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov tells about the Judas sin (sin of betrayal) of a peasant headman, who was tempted to pay a heir and hid the will of the owner, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who admitted that such sins are possible among them, pours out in a song. "Hungry" - a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an unsatisfied beast - not a man. A new face appears - Grigory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a deacon. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After groaning and thinking, they decide: To all the fault: grow strong!

It turns out that Grisha is going "to Moscow, to Novovorsitet." And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:

"I don't need any silver,

No gold, but God forbid

So that my countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Rus'!

But the story continues, and the wanderers become witnesses of how an old soldier, thin as a chip, hung with medals, drives up on a cart with hay and sings his song - “Soldier's” with the refrain: “The light is sick, / There is no bread, / There is no shelter, / There is no death,” and to others: “German bullets, / Turkish bullets, / French bullets, / Russian sticks.” Everything about the soldier's share is collected in this chapter of the poem.

But here's a new chapter with a peppy title"Good time - good songs" . The song of new hope is sung by Savva and Grisha on the Volga bank.

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, combines the features of Nekrasov's dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother's song, sung by peasant women, is called "Salty". A piece watered with mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a starving child. “With love for the poor mother / Love for the whole Vakhlachin / Merged, - and for fifteen years / Gregory already knew for sure / That he would live for happiness / Poor and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching three lines, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably crowding out the obsolete and evil. "Angel of Mercy" sings an invocative song over a Russian youth.

Grisha, waking up, descends into the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland, and sings. In the song, his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Finished with the past calculation, /Finished calculation with the master! / The Russian people gathers strength / And learns to be a citizen.

"Rus" is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Source (abridged): Mikhalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: Grade 10. At 2 o'clock. Part 1: account. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitsev. - M.: Bustard, 2018