Works of writers about peasant children. The theme of peasant life in the works of Nekrasov

In literary works we find images of people, their lifestyles, and feelings. By the 17th-18th centuries, two classes had emerged in Russia: peasants and nobles - with completely different culture, mentality and even language. That is why in the works of some Russian writers there are images of peasants, while others do not. For example, Griboedov, Zhukovsky and some other masters of words did not touch upon the topic of the peasantry in their works.

However, Krylov, Pushkin, Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Yesenin and others created a whole gallery

Immortal images of peasants. Their peasants are very different people, but there is also much in common in the writers’ views on the peasant. All of them were unanimous that peasants are hard workers, creative and talented people, while idleness leads to moral decay of the individual.

This is precisely the meaning of I. A. Krylov’s fable “The Dragonfly and the Ant.” In an allegorical form, the fabulist expressed his view of the moral ideal of the peasant worker (Ant), whose motto is to work tirelessly in the summer in order to provide food for himself in the cold winter, and of the slacker (Dragonfly). In winter, when the Dragonfly came to the Ant asking for help,

He refused the "jumper", although he probably had the opportunity to help her.

On the same topic, much later, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote the fairy tale “About how a man fed two generals.” However, Saltykov-Shchedrin solved this problem differently than Krylov: the idle generals, having found themselves on a desert island, could not feed themselves, but the peasant, the man, voluntarily not only provided the generals with everything they needed, but also twisted a rope and tied himself up. Indeed, in both works the conflict is the same: between a worker and a parasite, but it is resolved in different ways. The hero of Krylov’s fable does not allow himself to be offended, and the man from Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale voluntarily deprives himself of his freedom and does everything possible for the generals who are unable to work.

There are not many descriptions of peasant life and character in the works of A. S. Pushkin, but he could not help but capture very significant details in his works. For example, in the description of the peasant war in “The Captain’s Daughter,” Pushkin showed that it was attended by the children of peasants who had left agriculture and were engaged in robbery and theft; this conclusion can be drawn from Chumakov’s song about the “baby peasant son” who “stole” and “ held a robbery,” and then was hanged. In the fate of the hero of the song, the rebels recognize their fate and feel their doom. Why? Because they abandoned labor on earth for the sake of bloodshed, and Pushkin does not accept violence.

Russian writers' peasants have a rich inner world: they know how to love. In the same work, Pushkin shows the image of the serf Savelich, who, although a slave by position, is endowed with a sense of self-worth. He is ready to give his life for his young master, whom he raised. This image echoes two images of Nekrasov: with Savely, the Holy Russian hero, and with Yakov the faithful, an exemplary slave. Saveliy loved his grandson Demochka very much, looked after him and, being an indirect cause of his death, went into the forests and then into a monastery. Yakov the faithful loves his nephew as much as Saveliy loves Demochka, and loves his master as Savelich loves Grinev. However, if Savelich did not have to sacrifice his life for Petrusha, then Yakov, torn by a conflict between the people he loved, committed suicide.

Pushkin has another important detail in Dubrovsky. We are talking about contradictions between the villages: “They (the peasants of Troekurov) were vain about the wealth and glory of their master and, in turn, allowed themselves a lot in relation to their neighbors, hoping for his strong patronage.” Isn’t this the theme sounded by Yesenin in “Anna Snegina”, when the rich residents of Radov and the poor peasants of the village of Kriushi were at enmity with each other: “They are axed, so are we.” As a result, the headman dies. This death is condemned by Yesenin. The topic of the murder of a manager by peasants was already discussed by Nekrasov: Savely and other peasants buried the German Vogel alive. However, unlike Yesenin, Nekrasov does not condemn this murder.

With Gogol’s work, the concept of a peasant hero appeared in fiction: carriage maker Mikheev, brickmaker Milushkin, shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov and others. After Gogol, Nekrasov also had a clearly expressed theme of heroism (Savely). Goncharov also has peasant heroes. It is interesting to compare Gogol’s hero, the carpenter Stepan Probka, and the carpenter Luka from Goncharov’s work “Oblomov.” Gogol’s master is “that hero who would be fit for the guard,” he was distinguished by “exemplary sobriety,” and the worker from O6lomovka was famous for making a porch, which, although shaky from the moment of construction, stood for sixteen years.

In general, in Goncharov’s work, everything in the peasant village is quiet and sleepy. Only the morning is spent in a busy and useful way, and then comes lunch, a general afternoon nap, tea, doing something, playing the accordion, playing the balalaika at the gate. There are no incidents in Oblomovka. The peace was disturbed only by the peasant widow Marina Kulkova, who gave birth to “four babies.” Her fate is similar to the difficult life of Matryona Korchagina, the heroine of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” who “every year, then has children.”

Turgenev, like other writers, speaks of the peasant’s talent and creative nature. In the story “The Singers,” Yakov the Turk and a clerk compete in singing for an eighth of beer, and then the author shows a bleak picture of drunkenness. The same theme will be heard in Nekrasov’s “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: Yakim Nagoy “works to death, drinks until half to death...”.

Completely different motives are heard in the story “The Burmist” by Turgenev. He develops the image of a despot manager. Nekrasov will also condemn this phenomenon: he will call the sin of Gleb the elder, who sold the free people of other peasants, the most serious.

Russian writers were unanimous that the majority of peasants have talent, dignity, creativity, and hard work. However, among them there are also people who cannot be called highly moral. The spiritual decline of these people mainly occurred from idleness and from material wealth acquired and the misfortunes of others.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

State budgetary educational institution of higher professional education

"TYUMEN STATE OIL AND GAS UNIVERSITY"

HUMANITARIAN INSTITUTE

Department of Social Technologies

COURSE WORK

PEASANT THEME IN THE WORKS OF DOMESTIC WRITERS

Nesterova Nadezhda Andreevna

Tyumen, 2011

Introduction

Chapter 1. “Village prose” as a literary movement

1The social literary situation of the period 60-80s.

2Depiction of peasant life in Russian literature of the 60-80s.

Chapter 2. Analysis of works of village prose

1 The image of Matryona in the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "Matrenin's Dvor"

2 The image of Yegor Prokudin in the story by V.M. Shukshina "Kalina red"

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

The theme of the peasantry is very common in Russian literature of the 20th century. Literature illuminates the life of the peasantry, penetrates into the inner world and character of the people. Russian village prose strives to portray a picture of folk life.

In 1964-1985, the country developed. Much attention in the USSR was paid to the constant cultural development of society. Among the writers whose work did not cause a negative reaction from the state and whose works were widely published and enjoyed the greatest interest of readers: V.G. Rasputin “Money for Maria” (1967), “Live and Remember” (1974), “Farewell to Matera”; V.P. Astafiev “Tsar Fish” (1976). In the works of the “village workers,” the theme of rural life begins to sound in a new way. Their works are psychological, filled with reflections on moral issues. In the 60s, the preservation of the traditions of the Russian village came to the fore. Artistically and from the point of view of the depth and originality of moral and philosophical issues, “village prose” is the most striking and significant phenomenon in the literature of the 60-80s.

“Village prose” is one of the most popular genres these days. The modern reader is concerned with the themes that are revealed in the works of this genre. Issues of morality, love of nature, good attitude towards people and other problems are relevant today. The provisions and conclusions of the course work can serve as the basis for further scientific work on the study of “village prose”. The materials of “village prose” can be used in the system of general courses in the theory and history of Russian literature, special courses and seminars devoted to the study of this period, as well as in the preparation of methodological recommendations and textbooks for the study of literature of the 20th century.

The purpose of this work is to conduct a comparative analysis of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s “Matrenin’s Dvor” and the story by V.M. Shukshina "Kalina red".

The goal determined the formulation of the following tasks:

.Study the life history of writers in the context of the era.

The subject of the study is the genre of “village prose”.

The object of the study is the story of A.I. Solzhenitsyn “Matrenin’s Dvor”, story by V.M. Shukshin "Kalina red"

The methodology and methods of work are determined by the specifics of the subject of research. The methodological and theoretical basis is the work of leading literary scholars, critics and philosophers: D.S. Likhacheva, M.M. Bakhtin, V.V. Kozhinova, S. Bocharova, Yu.I. Selezneva.

“Village prose” and the works of its largest representatives have become the subject of research since the mid-1960s, not only in domestic but also in foreign literary criticism.

Many monographs have been written about her by L.L. Terakopyan “The pathos of transformation. The theme of the village in prose of the 50-70s." (1978), V.A. Surganov “Man on Earth. The theme of the village in Russian modern prose of the 50-70s." (1981), A.F. Lapchenko “Man and Earth in Russian social and philosophical prose of the 70s”, F.F. Kuznetsov “Blood Connection: The Fate of a Village in Soviet Prose” (1987), A.Yu. Bolshakov “Russian village prose of the 20th century” (2002), also a huge number of articles.

Research interest in the problems of village prose is gradually being renewed, as evidenced by the abundance of dissertations: I.M. Chekannikova - Candidate of Philological Sciences (Russian “village prose” in Anglo-American Slavic studies) revealed the specifics of perception of “village prose”, which expressed Russian national identity, by English-language criticism, focused primarily on modernism, A.M. Martazanov - professor, doctor of philological sciences of Insti- tute State University (Ideological and artistic world of “village prose”) analyzed both the ideological and aesthetic specificity of “village prose”.

Chapter 1. “Village prose” as a literary movement

1 The social literary situation of the period of “stagnation”

If the decade of N.S. Khrushchev passed under the sign of reforms, noisy political, ideological and economic campaigns, then the twenty years from the mid-60s to the mid-80s, when the political leadership of the country was headed mainly by L.I. Brezhnev is called a time of stagnation - a time of missed opportunities. Having begun with fairly bold reforms in the field of economics, it ended with an increase in negative trends in all spheres of public life, stagnation in the economy, and a crisis in the socio-political system.

It should be noted that the economic policy pursued proclaimed goals that were in keeping with the spirit of the times. It was supposed to ensure a significant increase in the material well-being of the Soviet people based on the intensification of social production, the main means of which was scientific and technological progress.

The stagnation that gradually engulfed socio-political and economic life in the USSR after the end of Khrushchev’s brief “thaw” also affected culture. Soviet culture under L.I. Brezhnev developed largely according to the inertia given to it by the previous period. This is not to say that there were no achievements, but most of them have their roots in that brief period of relative creative freedom that resulted from the 20th Congress. Quantitative indicators grew, but little bright and new was created.

Development of Soviet culture and art<#"justify">Writers - “villagers” (V. Astafiev “Last Bow”, V. Rasputin “Live and Remember”, V. Belov “Business as Usual”, M. Potanin “On the Other Side”, works by V. Shukshin) watched with horror the disappearance of the Russian villages, devaluation of folk culture, “religion of labor” on earth. People cannot settle down in the village itself, they cannot find themselves in the city. The worst thing is that there is no hope. Novels, novellas and short stories are imbued with pessimism, usually with a tragic ending (fire, death of a hero, etc.). Loss of faith in the future, in the possibility of social transformation, and the drama of the inner world are characteristic features of the literature of the 70s. A tragic ending is almost becoming the norm. Works about young people who have lost their social and moral guidelines sound alarming.

Whatever aspect the village writers chose, each of them felt a deeply personal, blood connection with the village. This was not a temporary interest, for the period of a business trip, not a topic suggested by someone, but truly my own, hard-earned. Psychological, ideological and other problems were solved by the authors and their heroes with the same interest. At the same time, some writers showed increased attention to modern life, to invisible people, others turned to the past and looked in history for answers to the questions of today's life. Village prose has always evoked an active response in criticism; its authors have often been subject to biased accusations of distorting reality. The attacks were especially fierce; writers who depicted post-war disasters and the time of collectivization.

The 50-60s are a special period in the development of Russian literature. Overcoming the consequences of the cult of personality, getting closer to reality, eliminating the elements of non-conflict, like jewelry stones<#"justify">1.Tragic consequences of collectivization (“On the Irtysh” by S. Zalygin, “Death” by V. Tendryakov, “Men and Women” by B. Mozhaev, “Eves” by V. Belov, “Brawlers” by M. Alekseev, etc.).

2.A depiction of the near and distant past of the village, its current concerns in the light of universal human problems, the destructive influence of civilization (“The Last Bow”, “The King Fish” by V. Astafiev, “Farewell to Matera”, “The Last Term” by V. Rasputin, “Bitter Herbs” "P. Proskurina).

.In the “village prose” of this period, there is a desire to introduce readers to folk traditions, to express a natural understanding of the world (“Commission” by S. Zalygin, “Lad” by V. Belov).

Thus, the depiction of a person from the people, his philosophy, the spiritual world of the village, orientation towards the people's word - all this unites such different writers as F. Abramov, V. Belov, M. Alekseev, B. Mozhaev, V. Shukshin, V. Rasputin, V. Likhonosov, E. Nosov, V. Krupin and others.

Russian literature has always been significant in that, like no other literature in the world, it dealt with issues of morality, questions about the meaning of life and death, and posed global problems. In “village prose”, issues of morality are associated with the preservation of everything valuable in rural traditions: centuries-old national life, the way of life of the village, folk morality and folk moral principles. The theme of continuity of generations, the relationship between the past, present and future, the problem of the spiritual origins of people's life is solved differently by different writers.

2 Depiction of peasant life in Russian literature of the 60s.

Russian village... When we say the word “village” we immediately remember an old house, mowing, the smell of freshly cut hay, vast fields and meadows. And I also remember the peasants and their strong hands. Many of my peers have grandparents who live in the village. Coming to them in the summer to relax, or rather, to work, we see with our own eyes how difficult the life of the peasants is and how difficult it is for us, city dwellers, to adapt to this life. But you always want to come to the village and take a break from the bustle of the city. But sometimes, in our hectic times, we try not to notice the difficulties that arise in the modern village. But they are the ones that are connected with the most pressing problems of society - ecology and moral behavior of humans.

Many writers have not ignored the fate of the Russian village in their work. Some admired the rural nature, others saw the real situation of the peasants and called the village poor, and its huts gray and dilapidated. In Soviet times, the topic of the fate of the Russian village became almost the leading one, and the question of the great turning point is still relevant today. It must be said that it was collectivization and its consequences that forced many writers to take up their pen. The writer shows how much the life, soul and moral guidelines of the peasantry have changed after the introduction of collective farms and the implementation of general collectivization. In the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn shows the crisis of the Russian village, which began immediately after the seventeenth year. First the civil war, then collectivization, dispossession of the peasants. The peasants were deprived of property, they lost incentive to work. But the peasantry later, during the Great Patriotic War, fed the entire country. The life of a peasant, his way of life and morals - all this can be understood very well by reading the works of country writers.

Peasant realism (village prose) - literary direction of Russian prose (60s-80s); The central theme is a modern village, the main character is a peasant. In the 20s L.D. Trotsky singled out writers in the post-revolutionary literary process who expressed the interests and views of the peasantry. He called these writers “muzhikovskie.” However, peasant realism, which developed half a century later, does not coincide with this artistic phenomenon of the 20s, because village prose looks at all phenomena through problems associated with the fate of the peasant who went through the crucible of collectivization.

Village prose received enthusiastic attention from critics, publishers, and translators. The term “village prose” itself was introduced by Soviet criticism in the late 60s of the twentieth century. Even before grocery store shelves emptied, before the Communist Party issued the Food Program, country writers boldly denounced the then-untouchable collectivization. This social courage of peasant realism was combined with its artistic achievements (in particular, new layers of folk speech, new characters, and high traditional moral values were introduced into literary use). According to the artistic concept of this literary movement, the peasant is the only true representative of the people and the bearer of ideals, the village is the basis for the revival of the country. The villagers proceeded from universal human ideals, which alone are fruitful in art. In a certain sense, peasant realism is unique - after the mid-30s. this is the only artistic movement allowed to exist legally in Soviet culture next to socialist realism. Peasant realism formed into an independent artistic movement, which began to develop in parallel with socialist realism, coinciding with it in a number of postulates. Thus, village prose, despite the denial of collectivization, was not alien to the idea of violent intervention in the historical process, as well as the search for “enemies” obligatory for socialist realism. In a number of other respects, peasant realism diverged from socialist realism: village prose asserted a bright past, socialist realists - a bright future; rural prose denied many orthodox values that were unshakable for socialist realism - it condemned the collective farm system, and did not consider dispossession to be a socially fruitful and fair action.

Chapter 2. Analysis of village prose (A.I. Solzhenitsyn “Matrenin’s Dvor”, V.G. Rasputin “Money for Maria”)

1 The image of Matryona in the work “Matryona’s Dvor”

The heroes of “village prose” are indigenous villagers, soft and whole natures, conscientious, kind and trusting, highly moral, kind people capable of self-sacrifice. The type of righteous hero is the moral and ethical standard by which the author tunes his lyre. “Righteous” - in “village prose”, as a rule, are old people or, in any case, very middle-aged people. From the authors’ point of view, rural youth, not to mention urban ones, were already losing these qualities.

One of the first types of “righteous people” was Matryona from A. Solzhenitsyn’s work “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The author's title of the story is “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous man.” Matryona is the guardian of the village type of life. She personifies a stereotype of life behavior consecrated by centuries-old traditions. In his work, the writer does not give a detailed, specific description of the heroine. Only one portrait detail is constantly emphasized by the author - Matryona’s “radiant”, “kind”, “apologetic” smile. However, by the end of the story, the reader imagines the appearance of the heroine. Already in the very mood of the phrase, the selection of “colors” one can feel the author’s attitude towards Matryona: “The frozen window of the entryway, now shortened, was filled with a little pink from the red frosty sun - and Matryona’s face was warmed by this reflection.” And then - a direct author’s description: “Those people always have good faces, who are in harmony with their conscience.” One remembers Matryona’s smooth, melodious, native Russian speech, beginning with “some low warm purring, like grandmothers in fairy tales.” The entire world around Matryona in her darkish hut with a large Russian stove is, as it were, a continuation of herself, a part of her life. The author-narrator does not immediately unfold the story of Matryona’s “prickly little life”. Bit by bit, referring to the author's digressions and comments scattered throughout the story, to the meager confessions of Matryona herself, a complete story is put together about the difficult life path of the heroine. She had to endure a lot of grief and injustice in her lifetime: broken love, the death of six children, the loss of her husband in the war, hellish work in the village that is not feasible for every man, a serious illness, a bitter resentment towards the collective farm, which squeezed all her strength out of her, and then written off as unnecessary, leaving him without a pension and support. In the fate of one Matryona, the tragedy of a rural Russian woman is concentrated - the most expressive. But amazing! - Matryona was not angry at this world, she retained a good mood, feelings of joy and pity for others, her radiant smile still brightens her face. One of the author’s main assessments is that “she had a sure way to regain her good spirits - work.” For a quarter of a century on the collective farm, she had broken her back quite a lot: digging, planting, carrying huge sacks and logs. And all this “not for money - for sticks. For sticks of workdays in the accountant’s dirty book.” However, she was not entitled to a pension, because, as Solzhenitsyn writes with bitter irony, she did not work at a factory - on a collective farm. And in her old age, Matryona did not know rest: she either grabbed a shovel, then went with sacks to the swamp to mow grass for her dirty white goat, or went with other women to secretly steal peat from the collective farm for winter kindling. She lived poorly, wretchedly, alone - a “lost old woman”, exhausted by work and illness. Relatives almost did not visit her, fearing that Matryona would ask them for help. Everyone unanimously condemned Matryona, that she was funny and stupid, that she worked for others for free, that she was always meddling in men’s affairs.

Matryona has a difficult tragic fate. And the stronger her image becomes, the more the hardships of her life are revealed. And at the same time, she does not have a pronounced individuality. But how much kindness and love of life! At the end of the work, the author speaks about his heroine with words that characterize her purpose: We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand. Neither the city. Not all the land is ours .

Despite many unrelated events, Matryona is the main character. The plot of the story develops around her. There is, and indeed was in her youth, something absurd and strange in her appearance. A stranger among her own, she had her own world.

The author himself, having gone through a complex and varied life path, having seen many different people, substantiated in his heart the image of a woman - first of all, a person: one who will support and understand; the one who, having her own inner depth, will understand your inner world and perceive you as you are.

It is no coincidence that Solzhenitsyn mentions righteous in the story Matrenin Dvor . This may, in some way, apply to all positive heroes. After all, they all knew how to come to terms with anything. And at the same time, remain fighters - fighters for life, for kindness and spirituality, without forgetting about humanity and morality.

Solzhenitsyn said about the idea of his story: “I did not take the liberty and did not try to describe the village, but wrote a poem about selflessness. It is in unselfishness that I see the most important feature of our time; I want to continue to write about it. The principle of material interest, frankly speaking, does not seem to me to be organically ours.”

2.2 The image of Yegor Prokudin in the work “Kalina Krasnaya”

The author who encourages the reader to be kinder and more sincere with each other was V.M. Shukshin was a man with multifaceted talent: actor, director, writer. All his creations exude warmth, sincerity, and love for people. One day a writer will say: “Every real writer, of course, is a psychologist, but he himself is sick.” It is this pain for people, for their sometimes empty and worthless lives, that Shukshin’s stories are imbued with.

Egor Prokudin (thieves' nickname - Grief) - the main character of the story, a "forty-year-old short-haired" criminal, having served another term (five years), is released from prison and, by coincidence, is forced to go to the village to visit the girl Lyuba, whom he met through correspondence. He is traveling with the intention of taking a break after imprisonment. Yegor does not take his trip or what he said when parting with the head of the colony (“I’ll take up farming and get married”) seriously. “I can’t be anyone else on this earth - only a thief,” he says about himself almost proudly. About Lyuba, to whom he is going, he thinks like this: “Oh, you, my darling!.. I’ll at least eat around you... You’re my rich darling!.. I’ll strangle you in my arms!.. I’ll tear you apart and shave you! And I'll drink it with moonshine. All!" But, finding himself in the village life familiar from his childhood, among people who were strangers before, but who turned out to be unexpectedly family (Lyuba, her parents, Peter), discovering the unexpected power over himself of the very way of village life and relationships, Yegor suddenly felt unbearable pain because that his life did not go as it should. He makes a desperate attempt to change his fate - he becomes a tractor driver and lives in Lyuba’s house as her husband. The main theme of not only this story, but, perhaps, of Shukshin’s entire work is connected with the image of Yegor - the drama of human destinies in a country devastated by war and social experiments; homelessness of a person who has lost his natural way of life and habitat. The emotional background for the development of this topic: “resentment” for the Russian peasant, and more broadly - “resentment for a person in general,” for a person broken by circumstances. Yegor grew up in a village without a father, with his mother and five brothers and sisters. During a time of famine for his family, as a teenager he leaves for the city. He leaves with a terrible resentment towards people, their senseless cruelty. One day their only cow, nurse Manka, came home with a pitchfork in her side. Someone just like that, out of malice, deprived six orphans of their wet nurse. The first person Yegor met in the city and from whom he learned to make his way to a real, beautiful life was the thief Guboshlep. And it seems like Prokudin made his way “Sometimes I am fantastically rich,” he tells Lyuba. Yegor's soul, will and beauty want a holiday. “He couldn’t stand sadness and creeping lethargy in people. That’s why, perhaps, his life’s path led him so far astray, that from a young age he always gravitated towards people who were outlined sharply, at least sometimes with a crooked line, but sharply, definitely.”

Gradually, Yegor finds out that this is not what his soul asked for. “I stink this money... I completely despise it.” The payment for free thieves turned out to be exorbitant for him, the feeling of being an outcast among normal people, the need to lie. "I wouldn't want to lie<...>All my life I hate lying<...>I'm lying, of course, but that doesn't<...>It's just harder to live. I lie and despise myself. And I really want to finish off my life completely, to smithereens, if only it would be more fun and preferably with vodka.”

The most difficult test was the meeting with his abandoned mother, the blind old woman Kudelikha. Yegor did not utter a word, he only attended the conversation between Lyuba and his mother. From all his bright, risky, at times rich and free life, nothing remained in his soul except melancholy. In the appearance of Yegor Prokudin, his “inflammation” with life is constantly emphasized. The fun he indulges in on the thief's raspberry is hysterical and hysterical. An attempt to organize a loud drunken spree in the town with his own money ends with his nightly flight to the village, to Lyuba and her brother Peter - the sight of people gathered “for debauchery” is very wretched and disgusting for him. In Yegor, his peasant spirit and his nature, twisted by the life of a thief, are fighting. The most difficult thing for him is to find peace of mind: “My soul... is kind of tarnished.” According to Shukshin, Yegor died because he realized: neither from people nor from himself would he receive forgiveness.

The heroes of Shukshin's stories are all different: in age, in character, in education, in social status, but in each of them an interesting character is visible. personality. Shukshin, like no one else, managed to deeply show not only the lifestyle of various people, but with amazing insight reveal the moral character of both a scoundrel and an honest person. Indeed, Vasily Shukshin’s prose can serve as a kind of teaching aid that teaches how to avoid or not repeat many mistakes.

The author's attitude is unconditional acceptance, poeticization of the hero. In their righteous heroes, the authors see a fulcrum in modern life, something that needs to be saved and preserved. And thanks to this, we can save ourselves.

The name of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was banned a few years ago, but currently we have the opportunity to admire his works, in which he demonstrates exceptional skill in depicting human characters, in observing the destinies of people and understanding them. Solzhenitsyn's books are imbued with boundless love for the Motherland and at the same time full of pain and compassion for it. In his work we encounter the tragedy of prisons and camps, the arrests of innocent citizens, and the dispossession of hardworking peasants. This is the tragic page of Russian history that is reflected in the pages of this author.

All this is revealed especially clearly in the story of Matrenin Dvor. “Matryonin’s Dvor” is a story about the mercilessness of human fate, evil fate, the stupidity of the Soviet order, about the life of ordinary people, far from the bustle and haste of the city - about life in a socialist state. This story, as the author himself noted, is “completely autobiographical and reliable,” the narrator’s patronymic, Ignatich, is consonant with A. Solzhenitsyn’s patronymic, Isaevich. He writes about life based on personal experience, he writes specifically about himself, about what he has experienced and seen. The author shows us life as it is (in his understanding). Solzhenitsyn talks about injustice, as well as weakness of character, excessive kindness and what this can lead to. He puts his thoughts and his attitude towards society into Ignatich’s mouth. The hero of the story survived everything that Solzhenitsyn himself had to endure.

Describing the village, Matryona, the harsh reality, at the same time he gives his assessment, expressing his own opinion. Solzhenitsyn's Matryona is the embodiment of the ideal of the Russian peasant woman. How much warmth, sensitivity, and sincerity is felt in the description of Matryona’s modest home and its inhabitants. The author treats Matryona with respect. He never reproaches the heroine and really appreciates her calmness. He is delighted by her mysterious smile, he sympathizes with Matryona, because she has not lived an easy life. The main features that the author distinguishes in the heroine are kindness and hard work. Solzhenitsyn openly admires the heroine’s language, which includes dialect words. A duel, she says about the strong wind. Spoilage is called a portion. This woman retained a bright soul and a sympathetic heart, but who will appreciate her? Unless Kira is a pupil and a guest, and most have no idea that a righteous woman, a beautiful soul, lived among them!

In the article “Repentance and Self-restraint” Solzhenitsyn writes: “There are such born angels - they seem to be weightless, they seem to glide on top of this slurry / violence, lies, myths about happiness and legality /, without drowning in it at all, even if their feet touch its surface? Each of us has met such people, there are not ten or a hundred of them in Russia, these are righteous people, we saw them, were surprised (“eccentrics”), took advantage of their goodness, in good moments answered them in kind... and immediately plunged again into our doomed depths . We wandered, some ankle-deep, some knee-deep, some neck-deep... and some even sank, only with rare bubbles of the preserved soul reminding of itself on the surface.” Matryona, according to the author, is the ideal of a Russian woman. “All of us,” the narrator concludes his story about Matryona’s life, “lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand. Neither the city. Not all the land is ours .

Everything that A.I. says Solzhenitsyn, in the story “Matrenin's Dvor” about the fate of the Russian village, shows that his work was not so much an opposition to this or that political system, but to the false moral foundations of society.

He sought to return eternal moral concepts to their deep, original meaning.

Shukshin believed that life can best be expressed in a “free narrative”, in a non-plot structure. “The plot is an inevitably programmed morality tale. He is not a scout of life, he follows the tracks of life, or, even worse, along the roads of literary ideas about life.” The integrity of Shukshin’s narrative is given not by the plot, but by the life of the human soul embodied in it. In “Kalina Red” he shows Yegor Prokudin through “the single law of his life, from the cradle to the grave, i.e. form of personality over time. And here, no matter how important the flourishing of the individual is, it only symbolically hints at the whole, without at all canceling its entire growth, as well as its decline.” Shukshin chooses moments of life, behind which the integrity of character shines through. The soul of Yegor Prokudin, thirsting for a holiday, suffers from a terrible split: this is, on the one hand, a thirst for the harmony of life, love for a woman, for nature, and on the other hand, the need for an immediate, completely earthly embodiment of the festive joy of being. The work consists of episodes contrasting in state, which towards the end of the story receive increasingly vivid expression. However, the tragic ending is foreseen literally from the first moments.

Shukshin said about Yegor Prokudin: “When the first serious difficulty occurred in his young life, he turned off the road in order, even if unconsciously, to bypass this difficulty. Thus began the path of compromise with conscience, betrayal - betrayal of the mother, society, and oneself. Life became distorted and flowed according to false, unnatural laws. Isn’t it most interesting and instructive to discover and reveal the laws by which this failed life was built (and destroyed)? Yegor's whole destiny is lost - that's the whole point, and it doesn't matter whether he dies physically. Another collapse is more terrible - moral, spiritual. It was necessary to carry out fate to the end. Until the very end... he himself unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) seeks death.”

Shukshin considers compassion and love to be the main qualities of a writer. Only they allow him to see the truth of life that cannot be obtained by simple arithmetic addition of small Truths (Shukshin was looking for Truth as the whole truth; it is no coincidence that in the definition of “morality is Truth” he writes this word with a capital letter).

Shukshin saw the dirty side of life, suffered terribly from injustice and lies, but it was precisely the feeling of love, as well as the belief that literature is of extreme importance for the life of the people, that led him to the creation of holistic images. The absence of this feeling, as a rule, led Russian writers, who did not accept the surrounding reality, to degradation.

Conclusion

Russian literature has always been significant in that, like no other literature in the world, it has dealt with issues of morality, questions about the meaning of life and death, and posed global problems. In “village prose”, issues of morality are associated with the preservation of everything valuable in rural traditions: centuries-old national life, the way of life of the village, folk morality and folk moral principles. The theme of continuity of generations, the relationship between the past, present and future, the problem of the spiritual origins of people's life is solved differently by different writers.

With the advent of country writers, new heroes appeared in Russian literature - people from the common people, new characters.

One of the most curious features of “village prose” is the type of hero who becomes the main spiritual and moral guideline in it.

The heroes of “village prose” are indigenous villagers, soft and whole natures, conscientious, kind and trusting, highly moral, kind people capable of self-sacrifice. Heroes of the works of A.I. Solzhenitsyn “Matryona’s yard” - Matryona and V.M. Shukshina “Kalina Krasnaya” - Yegor Prokudin seem to be completely different people. Matryona is a righteous woman, a simple Russian woman, modest, kind, helping everyone free of charge. Egor is a thief, a “forty-year-old, short-haired” criminal who has served another term. But from the first lines of the story “Kalina Krasnaya” we understand that Yegor is a man with a complex but rich inner world. Talking to an unfamiliar taxi driver, he tries to find out from him what joy is and whether he knows how to rejoice? Essentially, this is one of the philosophical questions - “what is happiness”? Prokudin is concerned about similar problems. He himself cannot find even peace in life, let alone happiness. Egor appears before the reader as a strong personality and a deeply emotional person. From the dark world of thieves, he stepped into a new and bright one. His soul remains pure, he does not want to return to the past. The author shows that true kindness and morality cannot disappear. He is still stubborn and assertive. Universal human values have not died in him - respect for women, the elderly, and friendship. This gives him hope that he has a chance for social recovery.

The image of Matryona Vasilievna is the embodiment of the best features of a Russian peasant woman. She has a difficult tragic fate. Her “children did not stand: each one died before they were three months old and without any illness.” Everyone in the village decided that there was damage in it. Matryona does not know happiness in her personal life, but she is not all for herself, but for people. For ten years, working for free, the woman raised Kira as her own, instead of her children. Helping her in everything, refusing to help anyone, she is morally much higher than her selfish relatives. Life is not easy, “thick with worries,” - Solzhenitsyn does not hide this in any detail. I believe that Matryona is a victim of events and circumstances. Despite her hard life, numerous insults and injustices, Matryona remained a kind, bright person to the end.

I think these heroes are worthy of respect, if only because, despite their different, but at the same time tragic fates, they combine such qualities as true kindness, morality, independence, openness, sincerity, and goodwill towards people.

Literature

1. Apukhtina V.A. Modern Soviet prose. 60-70s. - M., 1984.

Agenosov V.V. [and others] Russian prose of the late 20th century: textbook. aid for students higher textbook establishments/ V.V. Agenosov, T.M. Kolyadich, L.A. Trubina; edited by T. M. Kolyadich. - M.: Academy, 2005. - 424 p.

Bolshakova L.A. Essays on the history of Russian literature of the 20th century. issue 1. -M., 1995. - 134 p.

Borev Yu.B. Aesthetics: textbook. /Yu.B. Borev.- M.: Higher. school, 2002. - 511 p.

Burtseva E.N. Russian literature of the 20th century: encyclops. ed. - M.: Gloria, 2003.

Vinokur T.G. Happy New Year, sixty-second // questions of literature. November December. - M., 1991. - P.448-69

Kormilov S.I. History of Russian literature of the 20th century. issue 1. - M., 1995. - 134 p.

Likhachev D.S. Notes about Russian // Selected works in three volumes. Volume 2. - L.: Artist. lit., 1987. - pp. 418-494

Palamarchuk P.G. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Life and art. - M., 1994. - 285 p.

Solzhenitsyn A.I. Matrenin's yard. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 1999.

Shukshin V.M. Red viburnum. - M.: AST, 2006. - 435 p.

Shukshin V.M. Stories. - L.: Lenizdat, 1983. - 477 p.

There is not a single aspect of peasant life that Nekrasov would ignore. With all his heart and consciousness he experienced the peasant's grief, and his works are full of pictures of this grief. The poet was especially disturbed by the fate of the oppressed peasant woman. You are all fear embodied, You are all age-old languor! - Nekrasov said, addressing the peasant woman.

In the poem “In the Village” we see an old peasant woman who has lost her only son and breadwinner. In her old age she is forced to walk through the world, her life is hopelessly difficult, and “if only it were not a sin,” the old mother would commit suicide. The same theme - the grief of a peasant mother - is posed in the poem "Orina, Mother of a Soldier." The poem is based not on fiction, but on reality. “Orina, the soldier’s mother, told me her life herself,” Nekrasov recalled. “I made a detour several times to talk to her, otherwise I was afraid to fake it.” Orina talks about “her great sadness”: her only son, tortured by the soldiery, “sickly” returned home and died:

Ivanushka was ill for nine days, and died on the tenth day. Bogatyrsky build. He was a big kid!

But the cruel barracks drill ruined this hero and drove him to consumption. The tsarist soldiery was so terrible that even on the last night before his death, in his delirium, he imagined this service all before his death. The delirium of a dying man reveals the horror of the situation of a peasant who was handed over as a soldier, and the inhumane treatment he received:

Suddenly he rushed... looks pitifully... He fell down - crying, repenting, Shouting: “Your Honor! Yours!”

In Nekrasov’s works, an image of a peasant woman, pure in heart, bright in mind, and strong in spirit, appears, warmed by the author’s love. This is exactly what Daria is, the heroine of the poem “Frost - Red Nose”, in spirit - the sister of Nekrasov’s Decembrists. Once in her youth she “amazed with her beauty, she was both dexterous and strong,” but she, like every peasant woman, had to endure a life more difficult than which “it’s unlikely to be found.” One cannot indifferently see how a powerless Russian woman, crushed by slavery and overwork, suffers. And the poet says, addressing the peasant woman:

He didn’t carry a heart in his chest, Who didn’t shed tears over you!

Nekrasov dedicated many poems to the life of the post-reform village. Like Chernyshevsky, he understood the predatory nature of “liberation” and the fact that only the forms of oppression of the people had changed. Nekrasov noted with bitterness that the situation of the people after the “liberation” did not improve: In the life of a peasant, now free, there is Poverty, ignorance, darkness. In the poem “Grandfather,” written in 1870, he painted the following image of a “free” peasant:

Here he is, our gloomy plowman, With a dark, sad face; Bast shoes, rags, a cap... The eternal worker is hungry,

The life of the people is eloquently depicted in the songs “Hungry”, “Covee”, “Soldier’s”, “Veselaya”, “Salty” and others. Here, for example, is how a pre-reform corvee peasant is shown in one of these songs:

The skin is all ripped open, the belly is swollen from the chaff, twisted, twisted, flogged, tormented. Kalina barely wanders... White, unkempt Kalinushka, He has nothing to show off, Only the back is painted, But he doesn’t know behind his shirt. From bast shoes to gate

The reform of 1861 did not improve the situation of the people, and it is not for nothing that the peasants say about it: You are kind, the Tsar’s letter, But you were not written about us. As before, the peasants are people who “didn’t eat enough and slurped without salt.” The only thing that has changed is that now “instead of the master, the volost will tear them down.” The people's suffering is immeasurable. Hard, exhausting work does not save you from eternal poverty or the threat of starvation. But “the soil is the good soul of the Russian people,” and no matter how terrible peasant life is, it did not kill the best human traits in the people: hard work, responsiveness to the suffering of others, self-esteem, hatred of the oppressors and readiness to fight them.

Saved in slavery, the heart is free - Gold, gold, the heart of the people!

Only the peasants help the retired soldier, who is “sick of the light” because he has “no bread, no shelter.” They help out Yermil Girin, who was “fighting” with the merchant Altynnikov. Peasants are “people... great” at work; “the habit... of work” never leaves a man. The poet showed how the people's dissatisfaction with their situation begins to turn into open indignation:

...sometimes the Team will pass. You can guess: The village must have rebelled somewhere in an excess of gratitude!

Nekrasov treats peasants who do not put up with their powerless and hungry existence with undisguised sympathy. First of all, we should note the seven truth-seekers, whose inquisitive thoughts made them think about the fundamental question of life: “Who lives cheerfully, freely in Rus'?” Among the peasants who have risen to the consciousness of their powerless situation is Yakim Nagoy, who realized who gets the fruits of peasant labor. The “disobedient” Agap also belongs to the same type of peasant, who responded to the abuse of Prince Utyatin, the “last child,” with angry words: Tsyts! Nishkni! Today you are in charge, and tomorrow we will follow Pink - and the ball is over.

The theme of peasant life in the works of Nekrasov

Summary of Peasant Children of Nekrasov

Reading the initial lines of this amazing poetic work, we find ourselves in a small barn, where a tired hunter wandered in and lay down to rest. He fell asleep soundly, as he had been hunting for a long time, and did not hear several pairs of inquisitive children’s eyes looking at him through the cracks, who could not understand whether the man was lying alive or lifeless. Finally he woke up, and immediately he heard the shimmering singing of birds. He managed to distinguish between a crow and a rook. And suddenly the stranger’s gaze came across tiny, nimble eyes. These were children who looked at the stranger with great interest. They quietly talked to each other and cast their gazes first at the man’s equipment, then at his dog. When the children noticed that the stranger was watching them, some of them ran away. And late in the evening it was already known that a rich gentleman had arrived at their settlement.

Having settled in the village for the summer, the master enjoys the beautiful places and time spent together with the children. The author describes their life in a variety of ways, which is filled with various games. And, of course, what is striking is that all the activities of rural children are very different from the leisure time of city children.

We see how some boy bathes in the river with pleasure, another babysits his sister. A mischievous girl rides a horse. At the same time, the guys help the adults. So Vanya tries his hand at harvesting bread, and then takes it home with a majestic look. They have no time to be sick and think about empty things. Days fly by for them instantly and happily. And they learn all the most informative things from their elders. But Nekrasov also notes another side of their fate. These children have no future. They play and work with pleasure, but none of them receive an education, and accordingly they will not become worthy and respected people in society.

In the poem, Nikolai Alekseevich inserted a bright moment where the work activities of children are described. One day in the cold winter, the poet, apparently hunting, meets a small child who is helping his father carry firewood. This happens on such frosty days! And he is forced to help, since there are only two men in their family. Then Nekrasov again returns us to the beginning of the poem. The rested hunter began to show the children how smart his dog was. But then a thunderstorm began, and the children ran home, and the narrator went on hunting.

Picture or drawing Peasant children

Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary

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Summary Sholokhov Food Commissar
The earth is round, you never know where you will find it and where you will lose it. Bodyagin is a man who has experienced a lot in his life. He was still a boy, a teenager, when he was thrown out of home by his father. Everything happened quickly then
Summary of Sholokhov Bakhchevnik
Life would simply become unacceptable if everyone decided what to do and how to act. If people decided to do whatever they wanted and whatever they decided was right, it would become impossible to live. After all, everyone is right in their own way, regardless of the situation
Summary Bondarev Battalions ask for fire
Bondarev's story shows all the horror of war, which is not only in battles, hospitals, hunger... The difficulty of choosing when someone must be sacrificed for the sake of the lives of others is also terrible. The name suggests that this is the most important phrase
Summary of Gogol Mirgorod
“Mirgorod” is a continuation of the collection “Evenings on the Farm...”. This book served as a new period in the author’s work. This work by Gogol consists of four parts, four stories, each of them is different from the other

I. Peasant children in Russian literature

What work about peasant children did we read in 5th grade?

Students will remember N. A. Nekrasov’s great poem “Peasant Children,” written later than Turgenev’s story.

Let us tell you that the story “Bezhin Meadow” is unique in many respects. The most important significance of this work in the history of Russian literature is that in it I. S. Turgenev, one of the first Russian writers, introduced the image of a peasant boy into literature. Before Turgenev, peasants were rarely written about at all. The book “Notes of a Hunter” drew the attention of the general public to the situation of the peasant in Russia, and “Bezhin Meadow,” in addition to poetic and heartfelt descriptions of Russian nature, showed readers living children, superstitious and inquisitive, brave and cowardly, forced from childhood to remain alone with world without the help of the knowledge accumulated by humanity.

Now we will try to take a closer look at the faces of these children...

II. Images of peasant boys, their portraits and stories, the spiritual world. Inquisitiveness, curiosity, impressionability.

First stage: independent work in a group

We will divide the class into four groups (of course, if the number of students in the class allows this), give the task: discuss the completion of homework and prepare a story about the hero according to plan. 10-15 minutes are allotted for work.

Story plan

1. Portrait of a boy.

2. The boy’s stories, his speech.

3. The boy's actions.

The teacher will try to ensure that each group has a strong student who can take charge of organizing the work.

Students discuss the characteristics of the hero and prepare to talk about him.

Second stage: presentation by group representatives, discussion of presentations

If students find it difficult to draw conclusions, the teacher helps them with the help of leading questions, bringing the conversation to the necessary conclusions.

“You would give the first, eldest of all, Fedya, about fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with beautiful and delicate, slightly small features, curly blond hair, light eyes and a constant half-cheerful, half-absent-minded smile. He belonged, by all accounts, to a rich family and went out into the field not out of necessity, but just for fun. He was wearing a motley cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new army jacket, worn saddle-back, barely rested on his narrow shoulders; A comb hung from a blue belt. His boots with low tops were just like his boots - not his father’s.”

The last detail that the author draws attention to was very important in peasant life: many peasants were so poor that they did not have the means to make boots even for the head of the family. And here the child has his own boots - this suggests that Fedya’s family was wealthy. Ilyusha, for example, had new bast shoes and onuchi, but Pavlusha had no shoes at all.

Fedya understands that he is the oldest; The family's wealth gives him additional respectability, and he behaves patronizingly towards the boys. In the conversation, he, “as the son of a rich peasant, had to be the lead singer (he himself spoke little, as if afraid of losing his dignity).”

He starts a conversation after a break, asks questions, interrupts, sometimes mockingly, Ilyusha, who turns his story to him: “Perhaps you, Fedya, don’t know, but there’s a drowned man buried there...” But, listening to stories about mermaids and goblin, he falls under their charm and expresses his feelings with immediate exclamations: “Eka! - Fedya said after a short silence, “how can such forest evil spirits spoil a peasant’s soul, he didn’t listen to her?”; "Oh you! - Fedya exclaimed, shuddering slightly and shrugging his shoulders, - pfu!...”

Towards the end of the conversation, Fedya affectionately addresses Vanya, the youngest boy: it’s clear that he likes Vanya’s older sister, Anyutka. Fedya, according to village etiquette, first asks about his sister’s health, and then asks Vanya to tell her to come to Fedya, promising her and Vanya himself a gift. But Vanya simply refuses the gift: he sincerely loves his sister and wishes her well: “It’s better to give it to her: she’s so kind among us.”

Vania

The least is said about Van in the story: he is the smallest boy of those who went to the night, he is only seven years old:

“The last one, Vanya, I didn’t even notice at first: he was lying on the ground, quietly huddled under the angular matting, and only occasionally stuck his light brown curly head out from under it.”

Vanya did not crawl out from under the mat even when Pavel called him to eat potatoes: apparently he was sleeping. He woke up when the boys fell silent and saw the stars above him: “Look, look, guys,” Vanya’s childish voice suddenly rang out, “look at God’s stars, the bees are swarming!” This exclamation, as well as Vanya’s refusal of a gift for the sake of his sister Anyuta, paint us a picture of a kind, dreamy boy, apparently from a poor family: after all, already at the age of seven he is familiar with peasant concerns.

Ilyusha

Ilyusha is a boy of about twelve.

His face “...was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, blind, it expressed some kind of dull, painful solicitude; his compressed lips did not move, his knitted eyebrows did not move apart - it was as if he was still squinting from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp braids from under a low felt cap, which he pulled down over his ears every now and then with both hands. He was wearing new bast shoes and onuchi, a thick rope, twisted three times around his waist, carefully tightened his neat black scroll.”

Ilyusha is forced to work in a factory from early childhood. He says about himself: “My brother and Avdyushka are members of the fox workers.” Apparently, there are many children in the family, and the parents sent two brothers to the “factory workers” so that they would bring hard-earned pennies into the house. Maybe this is why there is a stamp of concern on his face.

Ilyusha's stories reveal to us the world of superstitions among which the Russian peasant lived, they show how people were afraid of incomprehensible natural phenomena and attributed unclean origins to them. Ilyusha narrates very convincingly, but mainly not about what he himself saw, but what different people told him.

Ilyusha believes in everything that peasants and servants tell: in goblins, water creatures, mermaids, he knows village signs and beliefs. His stories are filled with mystery and fear:

“Suddenly, lo and behold, the form of one vat began to move, rose, dipped, walked, walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and then fell back into place. Then another vat's hook came off the nail and onto the nail again; then it was as if someone was going to the door, and suddenly he started coughing, choking, like some kind of sheep, and so loudly... We all fell in such a heap, crawling under each other... How scared we were about that time! »

A special theme of Ilyushin’s stories is the drowned and the dead. Death has always seemed to people to be a mysterious, incomprehensible phenomenon, and beliefs about the dead are timid attempts by a superstitious person to realize and comprehend this phenomenon. Ilyusha tells how the huntsman Yermil saw a lamb at the grave of a drowned man:

“...he’s so white, curly, and walks around handsomely. So Yermil thinks: “I’ll take him, why should he disappear like this?”, and he got down and took him in his arms... But the lamb is okay. Here Yermil goes to the horse, and the horse stares at him, snores, shakes its head; however, he scolded her, sat on her with the lamb and rode off again, holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks him straight in the eye. He felt terrible, Yermil the huntsman: that, they say, I don’t remember sheep looking into anyone’s eyes like that; however nothing; He began to stroke his fur like that, saying: “Byasha, byasha!” And the ram suddenly bared his teeth, and he too: “Byasha, byasha...”

The feeling that death is always near a person and can take away both old and young is manifested in the story about the vision of Baba Ulyana, in the warning to Pavlusha to be careful near the river. In the tone of an expert, he sums up the boys’ impressions after Pavel’s story about the voice from the water: “Oh, this is a bad omen,” Ilyusha said with emphasis.”

He, like a factory worker, like an expert in village customs, feels like an experienced person, capable of understanding the meaning of signs. We see that he sincerely believes in everything he tells, but at the same time he perceives everything somehow detached.

Kostya

“...Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad gaze. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed downwards, like a squirrel's; lips could barely be distinguished; but his large, black eyes, shining with a liquid brilliance, made a strange impression; they seemed to want to express something for which there were no words in the language - in his language, at least. He was short, frail in build, and dressed rather poorly.”

We see that Kostya is from a poor family, that he is thin and poorly dressed. Perhaps he is often malnourished and for him going out at night is a holiday where he can eat plenty of steaming potatoes.

“And even then, my brothers,” Kostya objected, widening his already huge eyes... “I didn’t even know that Akim was drowned in that booze: I wouldn’t have been so scared.”

Kostya himself talks about the meeting of the suburban carpenter Gavrila with a mermaid. The mermaid called the carpenter who was lost in the forest to her, but he laid a cross on himself:

“That’s how he laid down the cross, my brothers, the little mermaid stopped laughing, but suddenly she started crying... She cries, my brothers, she wipes her eyes with her hair, and her hair is as green as your hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and began to ask her: “Why are you, forest potion, crying?” And the mermaid said to him: “You shouldn’t be baptized,” he says, “man, you should live with me in joy until end of days; but I cry, I am killed because you were baptized; Yes, I won’t be the only one who will kill myself: you too will kill yourself until the end of your days.” Then she, my brothers, disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how he could get out of the forest, that is, get out... But since then he’s been walking around sadly.”

Kostya's story is very poetic, similar to a folk tale. We see in the belief told by Kostya something in common with one of P. P. Bazhov’s tales - “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain.” Like the main character of Bazhov's tale, the carpenter Gavrila meets with evil spirits in the form of a woman, miraculously finds his way after the meeting and then cannot forget about it, “he walks around sadly.”

Kostya’s story about the voice from the bully is filled with fear of the incomprehensible: “I was so afraid, my brothers: it was late, and the voice was so painful. So, it seems, I would have cried myself...” Kostya sadly tells about the death of the boy Vasya and the grief of his mother Theoklista. His story is like a folk song:

“It used to be that Vasya would go with us, with the kids, to swim in the river in the summer, and she would get all excited. Other women are fine, they walk past with troughs, waddle over, and Theoklista will put the trough on the ground and begin to call to him: “Come back, come back, my little light!” Oh, come back, falcon!’”

Repetitions and words give this story special expressiveness. will startle, click.

Kostya turns to Pavlusha with questions: he sees that Pavlusha is not afraid of the world around him and is trying to explain what he sees around him.

Pavlusha

Pavlusha, like Ilyusha, appears to be twelve years old.

He “... had tousled, black hair, gray eyes, wide cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, the size of a beer kettle, a squat, awkward body. The guy was unprepossessing - needless to say! - but still I liked him: he looked very smart and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He couldn’t flaunt his clothes: they all consisted of a simple, fancy shirt and patched ports.”

Pavlusha is a smart and brave boy. He actively participates in the conversation around the fire and tries to cheer up the boys when, under the influence of scary stories, they get scared and lose heart. After Kostya’s story about the mermaid, when everyone listens with fear to the sounds of the night and calls on the power of the cross for help, Pavel behaves differently:

“Oh, you crows! - Pavel shouted, - why are you alarmed? Look, the potatoes are cooked.”

When the dogs suddenly get up and rush away from the fire with convulsive barking, the boys get scared, and Pavlusha rushes after the dogs screaming:

“The restless running of an alarmed herd was heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: “Gray!” Bug!..” After a few moments, the barking stopped; Pavel's voice came from afar... A little more time passed; the boys looked at each other in bewilderment, as if waiting for something to happen... Suddenly the tramp of a galloping horse was heard; She stopped abruptly right next to the fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha quickly jumped off her. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.

What's there? what's happened? - the boys asked.

“Nothing,” answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, “the dogs sensed something.” “I thought it was a wolf,” he added in an indifferent voice, breathing quickly through his entire chest.”

“I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very good at that moment. His ugly face, animated by fast driving, glowed with bold prowess and firm determination. Without a twig in his hand, at night, he, without hesitation at all, galloped alone towards the wolf...”

Pavlusha is the only boy whom the author calls in the story by his full name - Pavel. He, in contrast to Ilyusha and Kostya, is trying to understand and explain the world, incomprehensible phenomena.

The boys appreciate their comrade's courage, turning their questions to him. Even the dog values the boy's attention:

“Sitting down on the ground, he dropped his hand on the shaggy back of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal did not turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.”

Pavlusha explains the incomprehensible sounds: he distinguishes the cry of a heron over the river, the voice in the boom explains the cry that “such tiny frogs” make; he distinguishes the sound of flying sandpipers and explains that they are flying to “where, they say, there is no winter,” and the land is “far, far away, beyond the warm seas.”

Pavlusha’s character is revealed very clearly in the story about a solar eclipse. Ilyusha eagerly recounts village superstitions about Trishka’s arrival, and Pavlusha looks at what is happening with an intelligent, critical, mocking look:

“Our master, Khosha, told us in advance that, they say, you will have a foresight, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, became so afraid that it’s like. And in the yard hut there was a woman cook, so as soon as it got dark, hear, she took and broke all the pots in the oven with a grabber: “Who can eat now, when, he says, the end of the world has come.” So the stuff started flowing.”

Pavlusha creates intrigue by not immediately revealing what kind of creature it was with a huge head, describing how the frightened residents behaved. The boy tells the story leisurely, laughing at the men and, probably, at his own fear, because he, too, was in the crowd of people pouring out into the street and waiting for what would happen:

“- They look - suddenly some man is coming from the settlement from the mountain, so sophisticated, his head is so amazing... Everyone shouts: “Oh, Trishka is coming!” oh, Trishka is coming!“ - who knows where! Our elder climbed into a ditch; the old woman is stuck in the gateway, screaming obscenities, and she has frightened her yard dog so much that she is off the chain, through the fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka’s father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, sat down, and started shouting like a quail: “Maybe, they say, at least the enemy, the murderer, will take pity on the bird.” That’s how everyone was alarmed!.. And this man was our cooper, Vavila: he bought himself a new jug and put an empty jug on his head and put it on.”

What fascinates us most is the climax of the story, when Pavlusha returns from the river “with a full pot in his hand” and tells how he heard Vasin’s voice:

“- By God. As soon as I began to bend down to the water, I heard suddenly they called me in Vasya’s voice and as if from under the water: “Pavlusha, oh Pavlusha!” I listened; and he again calls: “Pavlusha, come here.” I walked away. However, he scooped up some water.”

The last phrase emphasizes the firmness and strength of character of the boy: he heard the voice of the drowned man, but was not afraid and scooped up water. He walks through life directly and proudly, responding to Ilyusha’s words:

“Well, it’s okay, let me go! - Pavel said decisively and sat down again, “you cannot escape your fate.”

Homework

You can invite children to make illustrations for the story at home, choose musical accompaniment for some fragments, and prepare an expressive reading of some superstition of the students’ choice.

Lesson 36

Images of peasant boys. The meaning of artistic detail. Pictures of nature in the story “Bezhin Meadow”

Speech development lesson

Works of writers about peasant children. The theme of peasant life in the works of Nekrasov

Other essays on the topic:

Summary of Peasant Children of Nekrasov

Picture or drawing Peasant children

Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary