). Folklore traditions in the work of one of the Russian writers of the 19th century

Few writers of the nineteenth century used folklore and folk traditions so widely in their work. Deeply believing in the spiritual power of the people, he is nevertheless far from idealizing them, from creating idols, from “idol liturgy for the peasant,” using Gorky’s expression. The writer explained his position by the fact that he “studied the people not from conversations with St. Petersburg cab drivers”, but “grew up among the people” and that “it was not appropriate for him to either raise the people on stilts or put them under his feet.”
Confirmation of the writer’s objectivity can be “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea,” which was assessed at one time by critics as “a set of clownish expressions in the style of ugly foolishness” (A. Volynsky). Unlike other fairy tale works by Leskov, the narrator from the folk environment does not have specific features. This anonymous person speaks on behalf of an indefinite multitude, as its unique mouthpiece. There are always various rumors among the people, passed on from mouth to mouth and in the process of such transmission acquire all sorts of conjectures, assumptions, and new details. A legend is created by the people, and it appears in “Lefty” that it is so freely created, embodying the “voice of the people.”
It is interesting that in the first printed editions Leskov introduced the following preface to the story: “I wrote down this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a Tula native, who moved to the Sister River during the reign of Emperor Alexander the First. The narrator two years ago was still in good health and with a fresh memory; he readily recalled the old days, greatly honored Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, lived “according to the old faith,” read divine books and bred canaries.” The abundance of “reliable” details left no room for doubt, but everything turned out to be... a literary hoax, which was soon exposed by the author himself: “... I composed this whole story in the month of May last year, and Lefty is a person I invented... “Leskov will return to the question of the fictionality of Lefty more than once, and in his lifetime collected works he will completely remove the “preface.” Leskov needed this very hoax to create the illusion that the author was not involved in the content of the tale.
However, with all the outward simplicity of the narrative, this story by Leskov also has a “double bottom.” Embodying popular ideas about Russian autocrats, military leaders, about people of another nation, about themselves, the simple-minded narrator knows nothing about what the author who created him thinks about the same thing. But Leskov’s “secret writing” makes it possible to clearly hear the author’s voice. And this voice will tell that the rulers are alienated from the people, neglecting their duty to them, that these rulers are accustomed to power, which does not need to be justified by the presence of its own merits, that it is not the supreme power that is concerned with the honor and fate of the nation, but ordinary Tula men. They protect the honor and glory of Russia and constitute its hope.
However, the author will not hide the fact that the Tula craftsmen, who managed to shoe the English flea, essentially ruined the mechanical toy, because “they were not good at science,” that they, “deprived of the opportunity to make history, made jokes.”
England and Russia (Oryol region, Tula, St. Petersburg, Penza), Revel and Merrekul, the Ukrainian village of Peregudy - such is the “geography” of Leskov’s stories and tales in just one book. People of different nations enter into the most unexpected connections and relationships here. The “truly Russian person” sometimes puts foreigners to shame, sometimes he finds himself dependent on their “system.” Finding universal humanity in the lives of different peoples and striving to comprehend the present and future of Russia in connection with the course of historical processes in Europe, Leskov was at the same time clearly aware of the uniqueness of his country. At the same time, he did not fall into the extremes of Westernism and Slavophilism, but maintained the position of objective artistic research. How did a “through-and-through Russian” writer and a man who passionately loved Russia and his people manage to find a measure of such objectivity? The answer lies in Leskov’s work itself.

Few writers of the nineteenth century used folklore and folk traditions so widely in their work. Deeply believing in the spiritual power of the people, he is nevertheless far from idealizing them, from creating idols, from “idol liturgy for the peasant,” using Gorky’s expression. The writer explained his position by the fact that he “studied the people not from conversations with St. Petersburg cab drivers”, but “grew up among the people” and that “it was not appropriate for him to either raise the people on stilts or put them under his feet.”
Confirmation of the writer’s objectivity can be “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea,” which was assessed at one time by critics as “a set of clownish expressions in the style of ugly foolishness” (A. Volynsky). Unlike other fairy tale works by Leskov, the narrator from the folk environment does not have specific features. This anonymous person speaks on behalf of an indefinite multitude, as its unique mouthpiece. There are always various rumors among the people, passed on from mouth to mouth and in the process of such transmission acquire all sorts of conjectures, assumptions, and new details. A legend is created by the people, and it appears in “Lefty” that it is so freely created, embodying the “voice of the people.”
It is interesting that in the first printed editions Leskov introduced the following preface to the story: “I wrote down this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a Tula native, who moved to the Sister River during the reign of Emperor Alexander the First. The narrator two years ago was still in good health and with a fresh memory; he readily recalled the old days, greatly honored Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, lived “according to the old faith,” read divine books and bred canaries.” The abundance of “reliable” details left no room for doubt, but everything turned out to be... a literary hoax, which was soon exposed by the author himself: “... I composed this whole story in the month of May last year, and Lefty is a person I invented... “Leskov will return to the question of the fictionality of Lefty more than once, and in his lifetime collected works he will completely remove the “preface.” Leskov needed this very hoax to create the illusion that the author was not involved in the content of the tale.
However, with all the outward simplicity of the narrative, this story by Leskov also has a “double bottom.” Embodying popular ideas about Russian autocrats, military leaders, about people of another nation, about themselves, the simple-minded narrator knows nothing about what the author who created him thinks about the same thing. But Leskov’s “secret writing” makes it possible to clearly hear the author’s voice. And this voice will tell that the rulers are alienated from the people, neglecting their duty to them, that these rulers are accustomed to power, which does not need to be justified by the presence of its own merits, that it is not the supreme power that is concerned with the honor and fate of the nation, but ordinary Tula men. They protect the honor and glory of Russia and constitute its hope.
However, the author will not hide the fact that the Tula craftsmen, who managed to shoe the English flea, essentially ruined the mechanical toy, because “they were not good at science,” that they, “deprived of the opportunity to make history, made jokes.”
England and Russia (Oryol region, Tula, St. Petersburg, Penza), Revel and Merrekul, the Ukrainian village of Peregudy - such is the “geography” of Leskov’s stories and tales in just one book. People of different nations enter into the most unexpected connections and relationships here. The “truly Russian person” sometimes puts foreigners to shame, sometimes he finds himself dependent on their “system.” Finding universal humanity in the lives of different peoples and striving to understand the present and future of Russia in connection with the course of historical processes in Europe, Leskov was at the same time clearly aware of the uniqueness of his country. At the same time, he did not fall into the extremes of Westernism and Slavophilism, but maintained the position of objective artistic research. How did a “through-and-through Russian” writer and a man who passionately loved Russia and his people manage to find a measure of such objectivity? The answer lies in Leskov’s work itself.

Few writers of the nineteenth century used folklore and folk traditions so widely in their work. Deeply believing in the spiritual power of the people, he is nevertheless far from idealizing them, from creating idols, from “idol liturgy for the peasant,” using Gorky’s expression. The writer explained his position by the fact that he “studied the people not from conversations with St. Petersburg cab drivers”, but “grew up among the people” and that “it was not appropriate for him to either raise the people on stilts or put them under his feet.” Confirmation of the writer’s objectivity can be “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea,” which was assessed at one time by critics as “a set of clownish expressions in the style of ugly foolishness” (A. Volynsky). Unlike other fairy tale works by Leskov, the narrator from the folk environment does not have specific features. This anonymous person speaks on behalf of an indefinite multitude, as its unique mouthpiece. There are always various rumors among the people, passed on from mouth to mouth and in the process of such transmission acquire all sorts of conjectures, assumptions, and new details. A legend is created by the people, and it appears in “Lefty” that it is so freely created, embodying the “voice of the people.” It is interesting that in the first printed editions Leskov introduced the following preface to the story: “I wrote down this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a Tula native, who moved to the Sister River during the reign of Emperor Alexander the First. The narrator two years ago was still in good health and with a fresh memory; he readily recalled the old days, greatly honored Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, lived “according to the old faith,” read divine books and bred canaries.” The abundance of “reliable” details left no room for doubt, but everything turned out to be... a literary hoax, which was soon exposed by the author himself: “... I composed this whole story in the month of May last year, and Lefty is a person I invented... “Leskov will return to the question of the fictionality of Lefty more than once, and in his lifetime collected works he will completely remove the “preface.” Leskov needed this very hoax to create the illusion that the author was not involved in the content of the tale. However, with all the outward simplicity of the narrative, this story by Leskov also has a “double bottom.” Embodying popular ideas about Russian autocrats, military leaders, about people of another nation, about themselves, the simple-minded narrator knows nothing about what the author who created him thinks about the same thing. But Leskov’s “secret writing” makes it possible to clearly hear the author’s voice. And this voice will tell that the rulers are alienated from the people, neglecting their duty to them, that these rulers are accustomed to power, which does not need to be justified by the presence of its own merits, that it is not the supreme power that is concerned with the honor and fate of the nation, but ordinary Tula men. They protect the honor and glory of Russia and constitute its hope. However, the author will not hide the fact that the Tula craftsmen, who managed to shoe the English flea, essentially ruined the mechanical toy, because “they were not good at science,” that they, “deprived of the opportunity to make history, made jokes.” England and Russia (Oryol region, Tula, St. Petersburg, Penza), Revel and Merrekul, the Ukrainian village of Peregudy - such is the “geography” of Leskov’s stories and tales in just one book. People of different nations enter into the most unexpected connections and relationships here. The “truly Russian person” sometimes puts foreigners to shame, sometimes he finds himself dependent on their “system.” Finding universal humanity in the lives of different peoples and striving to understand the present and future of Russia in connection with the course of historical processes in Europe, Leskov was at the same time clearly aware of the uniqueness of his country. At the same time, he did not fall into the extremes of Westernism and Slavophilism, but maintained the position of objective artistic research. How did a “through-and-through Russian” writer and a man who passionately loved Russia and his people manage to find a measure of such objectivity? The answer lies in Leskov’s work itself.

Story by N.S. Leskov’s “Lefty” is one of the writer’s most popular works. What attracts here is the combination of folk, folklore origins with the deep thoughts of the author about the essence of the Russian national character, about the role of Russia and Russians in the world. It is no coincidence that this work has the subtitle “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Left-Hander and the Steel Flea.” “Lefty” was imitated as a folk legend, although Leskov later admitted: “I composed this whole story... and Lefty is a person I made up.” To stylize the story as folklore, a narrator was chosen who is very different from the real author both in terms of speech and biography. Readers get the impression that the narrator is the same Tula artisan as the skilled gunsmith Lefty. He speaks completely differently than Leskov, and endows the characters with speech characteristics unusual for their real prototypes. For example, the Don ataman Count Platov, while with Emperor Alexander Pavlovich in England, “ordered the orderly to bring a flask of Caucasian vodka-kisl from the cellar
bright, shook a good glass, prayed to God on the travel fold, covered himself with a cloak and snored so much that no one in the whole English house could sleep.” And the same Platov speaks just like a peasant or a craftsman: “Oh, they are dog scoundrels! Now I understand why they didn’t want to tell me anything there. It’s good that I took one of their fools with me.” The emperor himself expresses it no better, in the narrator’s view: “No, am I still a jellyfish? see other news...” The narrator’s own speech is the same, as we have already seen when describing Platov. The author of “Lefty,” having entrusted the story to him, left only footnotes directly behind him, thanks to which readers get the impression of the reliability of the facts underlying the story. The language of the notes is literary correct, almost scientific. Here Leskov’s own voice can already be heard: “Pop Fedot” was not taken from the wind: Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, before his death in Taganrog, confessed to the priest Alexei Fedotov-Chekhovsky, who
After that, he was called “His Majesty’s confessor” and liked to point out to everyone this completely random circumstance. This Fedotov - Chekhovsky, obviously, is the legendary “priest Fedot.” But Lefty’s voice in the story is almost indistinguishable in style from the speech of other characters and the narrator. Let us also add that Leskov deliberately gives the popular vowels of the names of famous nobles. For example, Chancellor Count K.V. Nesselrode turned into Count Kisselrode. In this way, the writer conveyed his negative attitude towards Nesselrode’s activities as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The main character of the story is an uneducated man, not without the shortcomings characteristic of Russians, including friendship with the “green serpent”. However, the main property of Lefty is extraordinary, wonderful skill. He wiped the noses of the “Aglitsky masters”, shod the flea with such small nails that you couldn’t see it even with the strongest microscope. In the image of Lefty, Leskov proved that the opinion put into the mouth of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich was incorrect: foreigners “have such a nature of perfection that once you look at it, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our significance.”

put into the mouth of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich: foreigners “have such a nature of perfection that once you look at it, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our meaning.” Lefty does not succumb to any temptations and refuses to betray his homeland, sacrificing his life to convey: “Tell the sovereign that the British don’t clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean ours either, otherwise, God bless wars, they are not suitable for shooting.” But the officials never conveyed this warning to either the then emperor or his successor, c. as a result of which the Russian army allegedly lost the Crimean War. And when Lefty's friend "Aglitsky half-skipe"
“r” states in a wonderful broken language: “Even though he has a sheep’s fur coat, he has a little man’s soul,” the author of the story himself speaks to us. And in the final chapter of “Lefty” Leskov sheds the mask of a simple-minded and illiterate narrator, immediately taking readers from the time of Lefty to the present (the story was created in 1881): “Now all this is already “the affairs of bygone days” and “legends of antiquity,” although and not deep, but there is no need to rush to forget these legends, despite the fabulous nature of the legend and the epic character of its main character. Lefty's own name, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity; but as a myth personified by folk fantasy; is interesting, and his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which is accurately and accurately captured.” The image of Lefty, according to the writer, recalls those times when “inequality of talents and talents” mattered, and makes us look with sadness at the present, when, “while favoring an increase in earnings, machines are not favorable
testify to artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the limit, inspiring popular imagination to compose fabulous legends similar to the current one.”

Story by N.S. Leskov’s “Lefty” is one of the writer’s most popular works. What attracts here is the combination of folk, folklore origins with the deep thoughts of the author about the essence of the Russian national character, about the role of Russia and Russians in the world. It is no coincidence that this work has the subtitle “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Left-Hander and the Steel Flea.” “Lefty” was imitated as a folk legend, although Leskov later admitted: “I composed this whole story... and Lefty is a person I made up.” To stylize the story as folklore, a narrator was chosen who is very different from the real author both in terms of speech and biography. Readers get the impression that the narrator is the same Tula artisan as the skilled gunsmith Lefty. He speaks completely differently than Leskov, and endows the characters with speech characteristics unusual for their real prototypes. For example, the Don ataman Count Platov, while with Emperor Alexander Pavlovich in England, “ordered the orderly to bring a flask of Caucasian vodka-kizlyarka from the cellar, cracked a good glass, prayed to God on the road fold, covered himself with a cloak and snored so that in the whole house no Englishmen could sleep.” it was impossible." And the same Platov speaks just like a peasant or a craftsman: “Oh, they are dog scoundrels! Now I understand why they didn’t want to tell me anything there. It’s good that I took one of their fools with me.” The emperor himself expresses it no better, in the narrator’s view: “No, am I still a jellyfish? see other news...” The narrator’s own speech is the same, as we have already seen when describing Platov. The author of “Lefty,” having entrusted the story to him, left only footnotes directly behind him, thanks to which readers get the impression of the reliability of the facts underlying the story. The language of the notes is literary correct, almost scientific. Here you can already hear Leskov’s own voice: “Pop Fedot” was not taken from the wind: Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, before his death in Taganrog, confessed to the priest Alexei Fedotov-Chekhovsky, who after that was called “His Majesty’s confessor” and loved to make everyone see this completely random circumstance. This Fedotov - Chekhovsky, obviously, is the legendary “priest Fedot.” But Lefty’s voice in the story is almost indistinguishable in style from the speech of other characters and the narrator. Let us also add that Leskov deliberately gives the popular vowels of the names of famous nobles. For example, Chancellor Count K.V. Nesselrode turned into Count Kisselrode. In this way, the writer conveyed his negative attitude towards Nesselrode’s activities as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The main character of the story is an uneducated man, not without the shortcomings characteristic of Russians, including friendship with the “green serpent”. However, the main property of Lefty is extraordinary, wonderful skill. He wiped the noses of the “Aglitsky masters”, shod the flea with such small nails that you couldn’t see it even with the strongest microscope. In the image of Lefty, Leskov proved that the opinion put into the mouth of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich was incorrect: foreigners “have such a nature of perfection that once you look at it, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our significance.” Lefty does not succumb to any temptations and refuses to betray his homeland, sacrificing his life to convey: “Tell the sovereign that the British don’t clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean ours either, otherwise, God bless wars, they are not suitable for shooting.” But the officials never conveyed this warning to either the then emperor or his successor, c. as a result of which the Russian army allegedly lost the Crimean War. And when Lefty’s friend “the English half-skipper” states in a wonderful broken language: “Even though he has an Ovechkin’s fur coat, he has the soul of a little man,” the author of the story himself speaks to us. And in the final chapter of “Lefty” Leskov sheds the mask of a simple-minded and illiterate narrator, immediately taking readers from the time of Lefty to the present (the story was created in 1881): “Now all this is already “the affairs of bygone days” and “legends of antiquity,” although and not deep, but there is no need to rush to forget these legends, despite the fabulous nature of the legend and the epic character of its main character. Lefty's own name, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity; but as a myth personified by folk fantasy; interesting, and his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which is accurately and accurately captured.” The image of Lefty, according to the writer, recalls those times when “inequality of talents and talents” mattered, and makes one look with sadness at the present time, when, “while favoring an increase in earnings, machines do not favor artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the limit, inspiring folk imagination to compose fabulous legends similar to the current ones.”

Bibliography

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