Appearance of the matryona. Matryonin yard

« Matrenin yard". An old village woman who lives alone and does not receive support from anyone, but she herself constantly and selflessly helps people.

History of creation

Solzhenitsyn wrote the story "Matrenin Dvor" in 1959, and the first publication took place in 1963 in the literary magazine " New world". Solzhenitsyn originally gave the story the title "A Village Isn't Standing Without a Righteous Man," but the magazine's editors insisted on changing the title so as not to run into censorship problems.

The writer began to work on the story in the summer of 1959, when he was visiting friends in one of the Crimean villages. By winter, the story was already over. In 1961, the author sent the story to Alexander Tvardovsky, editor-in-chief of the Novy Mir magazine, but he considered that the story should not be published. The manuscript was discussed and put aside for a while.

In the meantime, Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was published, which had big success by the reading public. After that, Tvardovsky decided to once again discuss with the editors the possibility of publishing Matryona Dvor, and the story began to be prepared for publication. The title of the story was changed before publication at the insistence of the editor-in-chief, but this did not save the text from the wave of controversy that arose in the Soviet press after the publication of the magazine.

Creativity Solzhenitsyn for a long time was hushed up, and only in the late 80s of the twentieth century, the writer's texts began to be published again in the USSR. Matrenin Dvor was the first story by Solzhenitsyn to be published after a long break. The story was published in the Ogonyok magazine in 1989 with a huge circulation of three million copies, but the publication was not agreed with the author, so Solzhenitsyn called it "pirate".

The story "Matryona yard"

The full name of the heroine is Matrena Vasilievna Grigorieva. This is a lonely woman of sixty years old, a poor widow, in whose house there was not even a radio. When Matryona was 19 years old, the neighbor guy Thaddeus got married to her, but the wedding did not take place, because the First World War, Thaddeus was taken to fight, and he went missing.

Three years later, the heroine marries Yefim, the younger brother of Thaddeus. And after the wedding, it suddenly turns out that Thaddeus is alive - he returns home from captivity. Scandal, however, does not come out. Thaddeus forgives his brother and failed wife and marries another girl.

Matrona's husband disappeared at the beginning of World War II, and twelve years have passed since then at the time of the story. At the same time, Yefim probably did not die, but simply took advantage of the situation so as not to return to his unloved wife, and after the war he lived somewhere else with another woman.

Thaddeus is left with the youngest daughter Kira, whom the lonely Matryona takes in to be raised. The girl lives with the heroine for ten years, and she takes care of Kira as if she were her own, and shortly before the tenant appears, she marries a young driver to another village.

The heroine lives alone in the village of Talnovo somewhere in middle lane THE USSR. Nobody helps the elderly woman, Matryona has no one to talk to. At one time, the heroine had six children, but they died one after another in infancy.

The only person in the whole village with whom Matryona communicated was her friend Masha. They have been close friends since their youth. Masha was sincerely attached to Matryona and came to look after the goat and the hut when the heroine herself fell ill. Of the relatives, Matryona has three younger sisters who had little interest in the fate of the heroine.

The heroine wears "undefined dark rags" and "senile faded handkerchiefs", looks sick and tortured. Matryona has a roundish wrinkled face of an unhealthy yellow color and cloudy pale blue eyes. From time to time, seizures happen to the heroine unknown disease when Matrena cannot get out of bed and even move for two or three days. During such periods, the heroine does not eat or drink, she does not receive any medical assistance, however, she does not complain about serious condition, just waiting for the next "attack".

The heroine worked on the collective farm to the last, and Matryona was released from there only when she was completely ill. At the same time, the old woman was not paid a pension, Matryona had no opportunity to earn money, and relatives rarely remembered the heroin and practically did not help. The life of the heroine improved when she got a renter - in fact, the narrator, on behalf of whom the story is being told. The narrator pays the heroine to stay, plus in the same winter, for the first time in her life, Matryona begins to pay a pension, and the old woman has money.

Having got hold of the money, the heroine orders new felt boots, buys a quilted jacket and, from a worn railway overcoat, orders a coat to be sewn from a village tailor. He sews the heroine a "glorious coat" on a cotton lining, which "for six decades" the heroine has never seen.

The heroine's house is old and small, but the narrator is quite well in it. In the house, the woman keeps a lot of ficuses in pots and tubs, which "fill the loneliness" of the heroine.

For all her loneliness, Matrena is a sociable woman by nature, simple and cordial, tactful and delicate. The heroine does not annoy the tenant with questions and does not interfere with work in the evenings. The narrator notes that Matryona never even asked if he was married. Busy about the house, Matrena tries not to make noise so as not to disturb the guest.

The heroine lives modestly and at odds with her own conscience. At the same time, Matrena has little interest in the household and does not seek to equip the house. She does not keep cattle, because she does not like to feed them, she does not protect things, however, she does not seek to acquire them, she is indifferent to clothes and her own external image. Of the entire household, Matrena had only a dirty white goat and a cat, which the heroine sheltered out of pity, because the cat was old and rickety. The heroine milks the goat and gets hay for it.

Despite the fact that the heroine is not preoccupied with the economy and is indifferent to her own life, she never spares either property or her own labor and willingly helps strangers just like that, without demanding money for it. In the evening, a neighbor or a distant relative could come to the heroine and demand that Matryona go in the morning to help dig potatoes, and the woman resignedly went to do what they said. At the same time, the heroine does not envy someone else's wealth, does not want anything for herself and refuses to take money for her own work.

The heroine works hard not to think about misfortunes. Matrena gets up at four or five in the morning, goes with a bag for peat herself and works in the garden, where she grows only potatoes. At the same time, the land of the heroine is not fertile, sandy, but for some reason Matryona does not want to fertilize and put the garden in order, as well as grow something there, except for potatoes. But he walks into the distant forest for berries and carries bundles of firewood - in the summer on himself, in the winter on a sleigh. Despite the difficult and unsettled life, Matryona herself considered herself happy man.

Matrena is a superstitious and probably believing woman, however, the heroine has never been seen praying or being baptized in public. The heroine experiences an incomprehensible fear of trains, and is also afraid of fires and lightning. Matryona's speech contains rare and obsolete words, This " vernacular”, filled with dialectisms and expression. For all her ignorance, the heroine loves music and enjoys listening to romances on the radio. Difficult biography Matryona ends tragic death under the wheels of the train.

Quotes

“We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village does not stand. Neither city. Not all our land."

“What for breakfast, she did not announce, and it was easy to guess: unflaked potatoes, or cardboard soup (everyone in the village pronounced it that way), or barley porridge (other cereals that year could not be bought in Peat product, and even barley with a fight - how they fattened pigs with the cheapest one and took it in bags).

“Then I learned that crying over the deceased is not just crying, but a kind of politics. Matrona's three sisters flocked, seized the hut, the goat and the oven, locked her chest with a padlock, gutted two hundred funeral rubles from the lining of her coat, and told everyone that they were the only ones close to Matryona.

Matrena Vasilievna Grigorieva - central character A.I. Solzhenitsyn's story "Matrenin Dvor". We learn her story from the face of the narrator - Ignatich, who after 10 years of camps accidentally drove into the small village of Talnovo and became his mother's guest.

The poor hut and the good-natured elderly, although exhausted by illnesses, her mistress immediately liked Ignatich.

Matrena is a typical Russian peasant woman who lived difficult life. She is about 60 years old, she is single and lives very modestly, having worked hard all her life, she has not saved up any good. And although her hut is large and was built under big family, but very poor - for 25 years of work on the collective farm, she was not even entitled to a pension, because she worked not for money, but for "sticks" of workdays. During her life, the old woman earned five such pensions, but due to bureaucratic confusion, she remained completely poor.

And for last years the woman began to suffer from some kind of illness, which completely deprived her of strength. Sick and tired for the first time sees her and Ignatich:

"... the roundish face of the hostess seemed to me yellow, sick. And from her cloudy eyes one could see that the illness had exhausted her ..."

Regularly tormented by seizures, Matrena still does not go to the paramedic - some kind of innate delicacy, shyness does not allow her to complain and be a burden, even for a village doctor.

But neither illness, nor great need, nor loneliness made her callous. Amazing all-forgiving kindness and humanity are reflected even in her appearance:

"... Those people always have good faces, who are at odds with their conscience ..." the ingenuous face was kind and bright, and the smile was lively.

In his native village, Matryona was treated with misunderstanding and even with disdain. How to understand a person who rushes to help everyone around, but does not take a penny for it ?! But such was the soul of Matryona. Selfless help became a meaning for her, and work - a way to forget all the hardships, a cure for adversity, which always put her on her feet.

"... But her forehead did not remain clouded for long. I noticed: she had a sure way to regain her good mood - work. Immediately she either grabbed a shovel and dug kartov. wicker body - for berries in a distant forest ... ".

Having learned about her unfortunate fate, Ignatich was more surprised not by her childlike kindness and bright naivety, but by the callousness and disgust towards her of those around her. The wretchedness of her housing, the inability to earn money, irritated them, but, nevertheless, no one neglected her disinterestedness and constant desire to be useful.

The unfortunate woman knew neither love, nor family, nor simple female happiness. Having married at the behest of fate for an unloved person, in the end, she realized that he never loved her either. She gave birth and buried six children who were not even three months old. And after the war, she remained completely alone. But nothing could break her, and she remained pure and generous. Do people really need it? The world rests on the righteous, but the world refuses them.

So, wanting to do a good deed, Matrena sacrifices part of her own house, dismantled, in order to build a dwelling for a stranger, which ultimately leads her to an absurd death, but not to the understanding and compassion of others. So true beauty her soul, her greatness good heart remain visible only to her modest lodger Ignatich.

"... We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, there is no village. Not a city. Not all our land ..."

A lot of hardships, labors and worries fell on the shoulders of the heroine of the story of A. I. Solzhenitsyn Matryona [see. full text, summary and analysis of the story "Matryonin Dvor"]. Her life in her youth and in her old age was a continuous mess. “Year after year, for many years, Matryona Vasilievna did not earn a single ruble from anywhere. Because she didn't get paid. Her family did little to help her. And on the collective farm, she worked not for money - for sticks. For the sticks of workdays in the grimy book of the accountant.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Matrenin Yard. Author Reads

But, unlike her fellow villagers, Matryona kept living soul, remained forever disinterested, kind, delicate, until old age she saved her former maiden love.

Not rich in words, her story about love for Thaddeus is full of poetry, reminiscent of old songs and lamentations. After all, this is a kind of lamentation for the past, for failed happiness. “I hid for three years, waiting. And no news, and no bones ... "; “Oh-oh-oyinki, poor little head! ..” - she wails.

The narrator seems to echo her. In his speech, intonations begin to sound folk poetry: “And the years went by, as the water swam ...” In his imagination, folklore images: “I presented them side by side: a resin hero with a scythe across his back; her, ruddy, hugging the sheaf. And - a song, a song under the sky, which the village has long lagged behind to sing, and you can’t sing with mechanisms.

Mourning his heroine, he calls her "homeless", unconsciously repeating the lament of Irina Fedosova:

No one to be proud to shelter,
There is no one to hang on to victoriously ...

The fate of Matryona is truly tragic. But not only because she lost a loved one, lived with an unloved one, buried six children in infancy; not because she is tormented by a black disease, that she is struggling in poverty, that she is destined to die under a train. Her immense loneliness is tragic. No one understood, did not love, did not feel sorry for her, because among the black crows she remained white.

She lived all her life in her native village "misunderstood and abandoned", "alien", "funny". Neighbors condemn her for what the author considers especially valuable in her. They speak of Matryona's cordiality and simplicity "with contemptuous regret." They reproach her that she is "not careful." “I didn’t chase the equipment ... I didn’t get out to buy things and then take care of them more than my life.” And the author reflects: "... good ours, folk or mine, the language strangely calls our property. And it is considered shameful and stupid to lose him in front of people. And the heroine of Solzhenitsyn cherished not good, but kindness. And she was incredibly rich. But no one noticed or appreciated the spiritual values ​​that she possessed.

The description of Matryona's hut takes on a deep meaning in the story. Lonely among people, she is surrounded at home by close "creatures". They make up a special poetic world in tune with her soul. She is deeply attached to this world, and he lives his independent, simple and mysterious life.

So, it is said about ficuses: "They filled the loneliness of the hostess with a silent, but living crowd." Ficuses are compared with the forest and seem to be a part of the natural world. Even insects are spoken of in the spirit of opposing them to everything that is outside the hut: “Besides Matryona and me, they also lived in the hut: a cat, mice and cockroaches /... / At night, when Matryona was already sleeping, and I was busy at the table , - the rare quick rustle of mice under the wallpaper was covered with a single, unified, continuous, like the distant sound of the ocean, the rustle of cockroaches behind the partition. But I got used to him, because there was nothing evil in him, there was no lie in him. Their rustling was their life.

To the number the best works A. I. Solzhenitsyn, undoubtedly, refers to the story "Matryona Dvor" about a simple Russian woman with hard fate. Many trials fell to her lot, but the heroine until the end of her days retained in her soul love of life, boundless kindness, readiness to sacrifice herself for the well-being of others. The article offers the reader a description of the image of Matryona.

"Matrenin Dvor": the real basis of the work

He wrote his own in 1959 and at first called it “A village is not worth without a righteous man” (for censorship reasons, the title was subsequently changed). Prototype main character became Matrena Timofeevna Zakharova, a resident of the village of Miltsevo, located in the Vladimir region. The writer lived with her during the years of his teaching after returning from the camps. Therefore, the feelings and thoughts of the narrator largely reflect the views of the author himself, from the first day, according to his confession, he felt something familiar and familiar in the house of a woman he did not know. close to heart. Why this became possible will help to explain the characteristics of Matryona.

"Matrenin Dvor": the first acquaintance with the heroine

The narrator was brought to Grigorieva's house, when all the options for apartments for the settlement had already been considered. The fact is that Matryona Vasilievna lived alone in an old house. All her property was a bed, a table, benches and ficuses beloved by the hostess. Yes, even a rickety cat, which a woman picked up on the street out of pity, and a goat. She did not receive a pension, since on the collective farm she was given sticks instead of workdays. I could no longer work for health reasons. Then, however, with great difficulty she issued a pension for the loss of her husband. At the same time, she always silently came to the aid of everyone who turned to her, and did not take anything for her work. This is the first characteristic of Matryona in the story "Matryona's Yard". To this we can add that the peasant woman also did not know how to cook, although the tenant was picky and did not complain. And a couple of times a month she was attacked by a severe illness, when the woman could not even stand up. But even at that moment she did not complain, and even tried not to moan, so as not to disturb the tenant. The author especially emphasizes blue eyes and a radiant smile - a symbol of openness and kindness.

The difficult fate of the heroine

The history of life helps to better understand a person. Without it, the characterization of Matryona in the story "Matryona's Yard" will also be incomplete.

The peasant woman had no children of her own: all six died in infancy. She did not marry out of love: she waited for a groom from the front for several years, and then agreed to become the wife of his younger brother - the time was difficult, and there were not enough hands in the family. Shortly after the wedding of the young, Thaddeus returned, who never forgave Yefim and Matryona. It was believed that he put a curse on them, and later the heroine's husband would perish in World War II. And the woman will take Kira, the youngest daughter of Thaddeus, to bring up, and give her love and care. The narrator learned about all this from the hostess, and she suddenly appeared before him in a new guise. Even then, the narrator realized how far from the real his first characterization of Matryona was.

Matrenin's court, meanwhile, began to attract the eyes of Thaddeus more strongly, who wished to take the dowry assigned to Kira by her adoptive mother. This part of the chamber will cause the death of the heroine.

Live for others

Matrena Vasilievna had long foreseen trouble. The author describes her suffering when it turned out that during the baptism someone took away her pot of holy water. Then all of a sudden And before the parsing of the room, the hostess did not go at all herself. The collapse of the roof meant the end of her life. Such trifles formed the whole life of the heroine, which she lived not for herself, but for the sake of others. And when Matryona Vasilievna went along with everyone else, she also wanted to help. Sincere, open, not embittered by the injustices of life. She accepted everything as appointed by fate and never grumbled. The characteristic of Matryona leads to this conclusion.

Matrenin Dvor ends with a description of the heroine's funeral scene. She plays important role in understanding how this peasant woman differed from the people who surrounded her. The narrator notes with pain that the sisters and Thaddeus immediately began to divide the meager property of the hostess. And even a friend, as if sincerely experiencing the loss, managed to snip off her blouse. Against the background of everything that was happening, the narrator suddenly remembered the living Matryona, so unlike everyone else. And I realized: she is the righteous man, without whom not a single village stands. Why is there a village - the whole land is ours. This is proved by the life and characteristics of Matryona.

"Matryona Dvor" contains the author's regret that during his lifetime he (as, indeed, others) could not fully understand the greatness of this woman. Therefore, one can perceive the work of Solzhenitsyn as a kind of repentance before the heroine for one's own and others' spiritual blindness.

Another point is indicative. On the mutilated body of the heroine, the bright face and right hand. “He will pray for us in the next world,” said one of the women in the story “Matryona Dvor”. The characteristic of Matryona, thus, makes us think about the fact that people live nearby who are able to preserve human dignity, kindness, humility. And partly thanks to them, there are still in our world filled with cruelty, such concepts as sympathy, compassion, mutual assistance.

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You, perhaps, more than once met such people who are ready to work with all their might for the benefit of others, but at the same time remain outcasts in society. No, they are not degraded either morally or mentally, but no matter how good their actions are, they are not appreciated. A. Solzhenitsyn tells us about one such character in the story "Matryona Dvor".

It's about about the main character of the story. The reader gets acquainted with Matrena Vasilievna Grigoreva at an already advanced age - she was about 60 years old when we first see her on the pages of the story.

Audio version of the article.

Her house and yard are gradually falling into disrepair - “the wood chips rotted, the logs of the log house and the gate, once mighty, became gray from old age, and their lining thinned out.”

Their hostess often gets sick, cannot get up for several days, but once everything was different: everything was built taking into account big family, good quality and well. The fact that now only a single woman lives here already sets the reader up for the perception of tragedy. life history heroines.

Matryona's youth

Solzhenitsyn does not tell the reader anything about the childhood of the main character - the main focus of the story is on the period of her youth, when the main factors of her future were laid. unhappy life.

When Matryona was 19 years old, Thaddeus wooed her, at that time he was 23. The girl agreed, but the war prevented the wedding. There was no news about Thaddeus for a long time, Matryona was faithfully waiting for him, but she didn’t wait for news, nor the guy himself. Everyone decided that he was dead. His younger brother- Yefim offered Matryona to marry him. Matryona did not love Yefim, so she did not agree, and, perhaps, the hope of Thaddeus' return did not completely leave her, but she was nevertheless persuaded: “the smart one comes out after the Intercession, and the fool comes out after Petrov. They were missing hands. I went." And as it turned out in vain - her lover returned to Pokrova - he was captured by the Hungarians and therefore there was no news about him.

The news of the marriage of his brother and Matryona was a blow to him - he wanted to chop up the young, but the notion that Yefim was his brother stopped his intentions. Over time, he forgave them for such an act.

Yefim and Matryona remained to live in parental home. Matrona still lives in this courtyard, all the buildings here were made by her father-in-law.

Thaddeus did not marry for a long time, and then he found himself another Matryona - they have six children. Yefim also had six children, but none of them survived - they all died before the age of three months. Because of this, everyone in the village began to believe that Matryona had an evil eye, she was even taken to a nun, but positive result failed to achieve.

After the death of Matryona, Thaddeus tells that his brother was ashamed of his wife. Yefim preferred to "dress culturally, and she - somehow, everything is rustic." Once the brothers had to work together in the city. Yefim cheated on his wife there: he started a sudarka, didn’t want to return to Matryona

A new grief came to Matryona - in 1941 Yefim was taken to the front and he never returned from there. Efim died or found another one for himself - it is not known for sure.

So Matryona remained alone: ​​“not understood and abandoned even by her husband.”

Living alone

Matryona was kind and sociable. She maintained contact with her husband's relatives. Thaddeus's wife also often came to her "to complain that her husband was beating her, and her stingy husband was pulling the veins out of her, and she cried here for a long time, and her voice was always in her tears."

Matryona felt sorry for her, her husband hit her only once - as a protest, the woman went away - after this it did not happen again.

The teacher, who lives in an apartment with a woman, believes that, quite likely, Yefim's wife was more fortunate than Thaddeus' wife. The elder brother's wife has always been severely beaten.

Matryona did not want to live without children and her husband, she decides to ask “that second downtrodden Matryona - the womb of her snatches (or the blood of Thaddeus?) - their youngest girl Kira. For ten years she raised her here as her own, instead of her weak ones. At the time of the story, the girl lives with her husband in neighboring village.

Matryona worked diligently on the collective farm for the cost “not for money - for sticks”, in total she worked for 25 years, and then, despite the hassle, she still got a pension.

Matryona worked hard - she needed to prepare peat for the winter and gather lingonberries (in lucky days, she "brought six bags" a day).

cranberries. They also had to make hay for the goat. “In the morning she took a bag and a sickle and left (...) Having stuffed a bag with fresh heavy grass, she dragged it home and laid it out in a layer in her yard. From a bag of grass, dried hay was obtained - navilnik. In addition, she also managed to help others. By her nature, she could not refuse anyone to help. It often happened that one of the relatives or just acquaintances asked her to help dig up potatoes - the woman "left her turn of affairs, went to help." After harvesting, she, along with other women, harnessed to a plow instead of a horse and plowed gardens. She didn’t take money for her work: “you can’t help but hide it.”

Once in a month and a half she had troubles - she had to cook dinner for the shepherds. On such days, Matryona went shopping: "she bought canned fish, she was torn apart for sugar and butter, which she herself did not eat." Such were the orders here - it was necessary to feed as well as possible, otherwise she would have been made a laughing stock.

After applying for a pension and receiving money for renting out housing, Matryona's life becomes much easier - the woman “ordered new felt boots for herself. Bought a new sweatshirt. And she straightened her coat. She even managed to set aside 200 rubles “for her funeral”, which, by the way, did not have to wait long. Matrena takes an active part in the transfer of the upper room from her plot to relatives. On railway crossing she rushes to help pull out the stuck sled - an oncoming train knocks her and her nephew to death. Dropped the bag to wash. Everything was a mess - no legs, no half of the torso, no left arm. One woman crossed herself and said:

- The Lord left her the right hand. There will be prayers to God.

After the death of the woman, everyone quickly forgot her kindness and began literally on the day of the funeral to divide her property and condemn the life of Matryona: “and she was unclean; and she didn’t chase after the equipment, she was stupid, she helped strangers for free (and the very reason to remember Matryona fell out - there was no one to call the garden to plow the plow).

Thus, Matrena's life was full of troubles and tragedies: she lost both her husband and children. For everyone, she was strange and abnormal, because she did not try to live like everyone else, but retained a cheerful and kind disposition until the end of her days.

The life of Matryona in the story "Matryona Dvor" by A. Solzhenitsyn in quotes