Nekrasov to whom in Rus' to live well print. Who in Rus' should live well in our time

Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" tells about the journey of seven peasants across Russia in search of a happy person. The work was written in the late 60's - mid 70's. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It tells about a post-reform society in which not only many old vices have not disappeared, but many new ones have appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the wanderers were supposed to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the journey, but due to the illness and imminent death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.

The work “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is written in blank verse and stylized as Russian folk tales. We suggest reading the online summary of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov chapter by chapter, prepared by the editors of our portal.

Main characters

Novel, Demyan, Luke, Gubin brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pahom, Prov- seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.

Other characters

Ermil Girin- the first "candidate" for the title of lucky man, an honest steward, very respected by the peasants.

Matryona Korchagina(Governor) - a peasant woman who is known in her village as a "lucky woman".

Savely- husband's grandfather Matryona Korchagina. Centennial old man.

Prince Utyatin(Last child) - an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in collusion with the peasants, does not speak about the abolition of serfdom.

Vlas- a peasant, steward of the village, once owned by Utyatin.

Grisha Dobrosklonov- a seminarian, the son of a deacon, dreaming of the liberation of the Russian people; the prototype was revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men converge on the "pillar path": Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers (Ivan and Mitrodor), the old man Pakhom and Prov. The county from which they come is called by the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the peasants come are referred to as Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyolovo and Neurozhayko, thus, the poem uses the artistic device of “talking” names .

The men got together and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?

Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that the landowner lives most freely, the other that the official, the third - the priest, "fat-bellied merchant", "noble boyar, minister of the sovereign", or the tsar.

From the outside, it seems that the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The peasants have already forgotten what business they left the house for (one went to baptize a child, the other to the market ...), and they go no one knows where until night falls. Only here the peasants stop and, "blaming the trouble on the goblin", sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.

Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.

The fight alarmed the whole forest, the echo woke up, the animals and birds got worried, the cow mooed, the cuckoo forged, the jackdaws squeaked, the fox, eavesdropping on the peasants, decides to run away.

And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest.

When the fight is over, the men pay attention to this chick and catch it. It is easier for a bird than for a peasant, Pahom says. If he had wings, he would fly all over Rus' to find out who lives best on it. “We don’t even need wings,” the rest add, they would only have bread and “a bucket of vodka,” as well as cucumbers, kvass and tea. Then they would have measured the whole "Mother Rus' with their feet."

While the men are interpreting in this way, a chiffchaff flies up to them and asks to let her chick go free. For him, she will give a royal ransom: everything desired by the peasants.

The men agree, and the chiffchaff shows them a place in the forest where a box with a self-assembled tablecloth is buried. Then she enchants clothes on them so that they do not wear out, so that the bast shoes do not break, the footcloths do not decay, and the louse does not breed on the body, and flies away "with her dear chick." In parting, the warbler warns the peasants: they can ask for food from the self-collection tablecloth as much as they like, but you can’t ask for more than a bucket of vodka a day:

And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third be trouble!

The peasants rush to the forest, where they really find a self-assembled tablecloth. Overjoyed, they arrange a feast and give a vow: not to return home until they know for sure, "who lives happily, freely in Rus'?"

Thus begins their journey.

Chapter 1. Pop

Far away stretches a wide path lined with birch trees. On it, the peasants mostly come across “small people” - peasants, artisans, beggars, soldiers. Travelers don’t even ask them anything: what kind of happiness is there? Toward evening, the men meet the priest. The men block his way and bow low. In response to the priest's silent question: what do they need?, Luka talks about the dispute and asks: “Is the priest's life sweet?”

The priest thinks for a long time, and then replies that, since it is a sin to grumble at God, he will simply describe his life to the peasants, and they themselves will realize whether it is good.

Happiness, according to the priest, consists in three things: "peace, wealth, honor." The priest knows no rest: his rank is obtained by hard work, and then no less difficult service begins, the crying of orphans, the cries of widows and the groans of the dying do little to promote peace of mind.

The situation with honor is no better: the priest serves as an object for the witticisms of the common people, obscene tales, anecdotes and fables are composed about him, which do not spare not only himself, but also his wife and children.

The last thing remains, wealth, but even here everything has changed a long time ago. Yes, there were times when the nobles honored the priest, played magnificent weddings and came to their estates to die - that was the work of the priests, but now "the landowners have scattered in distant foreign land." So it turns out that the pop is content with rare copper nickels:

The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there is nothing ...

Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the debaters attack Luka with reproaches. They unanimously accuse him of stupidity, that it was only in appearance that the priestly housing seemed free to him, but he could not figure it out deeper.

What did you take? stubborn head!

The men would probably have beaten Luka, but here, fortunately for him, at the bend in the road, the “priestly strict face” is once again shown ...

Chapter 2

The men continue on their way, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally, they meet the rider and ask him where the inhabitants have disappeared.

They went to the village of Kuzminskoe,
Today there is a fairground...

Then the wanderers decide to also go to the fair - what if the one “who lives happily” is hiding there?

Kuzminskoye is a rich, though dirty village. It has two churches, a school (closed), a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That’s why the fair is rich, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven taverns”, and they do not have time to pour for everyone:

Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!

There are a lot of drunk people around. A peasant scolds a broken ax, grandfather Vavila is sad next to him, who promised to bring shoes to his granddaughter, but drank all the money. The people feel sorry for him, but no one can help - they themselves have no money. Fortunately, there happens to be a "master", Pavlusha Veretennikov, and it is he who buys shoes for Vavila's granddaughter.

Ofeni (booksellers) also sell at the fair, but the most base books, as well as portraits of “thicker” generals, are in demand. And no one knows if the time will come when a man:

Belinsky and Gogol
Will you carry it from the market?

By evening, everyone is so drunk that even the church with the bell tower seems to stagger, and the peasants leave the village.

Chapter 3

It's worth a quiet night. The men walk along the "hundred-voiced" road and hear snippets of other people's conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we are fifty kopecks to the clerk: We made a request,” women's songs are heard with a request to “fall in love.” One drunk guy buries his clothes in the ground, assuring everyone that he is "burying his mother." At the road post, the wanderers again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with the peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants for drinking a lot - "it's a shame to look!" They object to him: the peasant drinks mainly from grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy him.

The objector's name is Yakim Goly. Pavlusha also writes his story in a book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought his son popular prints, and he himself loved to look at them no less than a child. When a fire broke out in the hut, he first of all rushed to tear pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, burned down. For a fused lump, they now give him 11 rubles.

After listening to stories, the wanderers sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the bucket of vodka for the guard, and the rest again mix with the crowd in search of a happy one.

Chapter 4

Wanderers walk in the crowd and call the happy one to come. If such a person appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to glory with vodka.

Sober people chuckle at such speeches, but a considerable queue is lined up from drunk people. The deacon comes first. His happiness, in his words, "is in complacency" and in the "kosushka", which the peasants will pour. The deacon is driven away, and an old woman appears, in which, on a small ridge, "up to a thousand raps were born." The next happiness tortures soldiers with medals, "a little alive, but I want to drink." His happiness lies in the fact that no matter how they tortured him in the service, he nevertheless remained alive. A stonecutter with a huge hammer also comes, a peasant who overstrained himself in the service, but still, barely alive, drove home, a courtyard man with a "noble" disease - gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table of the most illustrious prince, licking plates and drinking foreign wine from glasses. The men drive him away too, because they have a simple wine, “not according to your lips!”.

The line to the wanderers does not become smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats his fill of rye bread, because at home they baked bread only with chaff, and this caused terrible pain in the stomach. A man with a folded cheekbone, a hunter, is happy that he survived in a fight with a bear, while the bears killed the rest of his comrades. Even the beggars come: they are happy that there is alms on which they are fed.

Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers realize that this way they will not find happiness.

Hey, happiness man!
Leaky, with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses
Get off home!

Here one of the people who approached them advises “ask Yermila Girin”, because if he does not turn out to be happy, then there is nothing to look for. Ermila is a simple man who deserved the great love of the people. The wanderers are told the following story: once Ermila had a mill, but they decided to sell it for debts. Bidding began, the merchant Altynnikov really wanted to buy the mill. Yermila was able to outbid his price, but the trouble is that he did not have money with him to make a deposit. Then he asked for an hour's reprieve and ran to the market square to ask the people for money.

And a miracle happened: Yermil received money. Very soon, the thousand necessary for the ransom of the mill turned out to be with him. And a week later, on the square, there was an even more wonderful sight: Yermil "counted on the people", handed out all the money and honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Yermil asked until sunset whose it was.

Wanderers are perplexed: by what sorcery did Yermil receive such trust from the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Girin served as a clerk in the office and never took a penny from anyone, but helped with advice. Passed away soon old prince, and the new one ordered the peasants to choose a burgomaster. Unanimously, “six thousand souls, with the whole patrimony” Yermila shouted - although young, he loves the truth!

Only once did Yermil "pretend" when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitriya, replacing him with the son of Nenila Vlasyevna. But the conscience after this act tortured Yermila so much that he soon tried to hang himself. Mitrius was handed over to the recruits, and the son of Nenila was returned to her. Yermil, for a long time, did not walk on his own, “he resigned from his post,” but instead rented a mill and became “more than the former people love.”

But here the priest intervenes in the conversation: all this is true, but it is useless to go to Yermil Girin. He is sitting in prison. The priest begins to tell how it was - the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Yermila - his people would listen.

The story is interrupted by cries: the thief has been caught and is being flogged. The thief turns out to be the same lackey with a "noble disease", and after the flogging, he flies away as if he had completely forgotten about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish telling the story at the next meeting.

Chapter 5

On their further journey, the peasants meet the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is at first frightened, suspecting robbers in them, but, having figured out what the matter is, he laughs and begins to tell his story. He leads his noble family from the Tatar Oboldui, who was skinned by a bear for the amusement of the empress. She granted cloth to the Tatar for this. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner ...

Law is my wish!
The fist is my police!

However, not all strictness, the landowner admits that he more "attracted hearts with affection"! All the courtyards loved him, gave him gifts, and he was like a father to them. But everything changed: the peasants and the land were taken away from the landowner. The sound of an ax is heard from the forests, everyone is being ruined, instead of estates drinking houses are multiplying, because now no one needs a letter at all. And they shout to the landowners:

Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! - study! work hard!..

But how can a landowner work, accustomed to something completely different from childhood? They did not learn anything, and “thought to live like this for a century,” but it turned out differently.

The landowner began to sob, and the good-natured peasants almost wept with him, thinking:

The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..

Part 2

Last

The next day, the peasants go to the banks of the Volga, to a huge hay meadow. As soon as they got into a conversation with the locals, music was heard and three boats moored to the shore. In them noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, little barchats, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman. The old man inspects the mowing, and everyone bows to him almost to the ground. In one place he stops and orders a dry haystack to be spread: the hay is still damp. The absurd order is immediately executed.

Strangers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man.

It turns out that the old man - Prince Utyatin (the peasants call him the Last) - having learned about the abolition of serfdom, "fooled", and came down with a blow. His sons were told that they had betrayed the landowner's ideals, that they could not defend them, and if so, they were left without an inheritance. The sons were frightened and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, so that after his death they would give the village poem meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to be returned back to the landowners, the prince was delighted and stood up. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:

Ipat said: “You have fun!
And I am the Utyatin princes
Serf - and the whole story here!

But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in the wild someone will push him around. Once he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. When he woke up, he ordered Agap to be whipped, and the peasants, in order not to reveal the deceit, led him to the stable, where they put a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died the same night: it was hard for him to bow down...

Wanderers are present at the feast of the Last, where he speaks about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in the boat and falls asleep in it with songs. The village of Vahlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one gives them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.

Part 3

peasant woman

“Not everything is between men
Find a happy
Let's touch the women!”

With these words, the wanderers go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, a beautiful woman of 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then she was only happy, how she grew up in her parents' house. But girlhood quickly rushed by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Philip becomes her betrothed, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife (according to her, he beat him only once), but soon he goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.

Matryona works for her elder sister-in-law, and for a strict mother-in-law, and for her father-in-law. She had no joy in her life until her eldest son, Demushka, was born.

In the whole family, only the old grandfather Savely, the “Holy Russian hero”, who lives out his life after twenty years of hard labor, regrets Matryona. He ended up in hard labor for the murder of a German manager who did not give the peasants a single free minute. Savely told Matryona a lot about his life, about "Russian heroism."

The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka into the field: she does not work much with him. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep, and the pigs eat the child. After some time, Matryona meets Savely at the grave of Demushka, who has gone to repentance in the Sand Monastery. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.

Matryona also had other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherdess Fedot, once wanted to be whipped for a sheep carried away by a wolf, but Matrena took the punishment upon herself. When she was pregnant with Liodorushka, she had to go to the city to ask for the return of her husband, who had been taken into the soldiers. Right in the waiting room, Matryona gave birth, and the governor, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona has been "denounced as a lucky woman, nicknamed the governor's wife." But what kind of happiness is there?

This is what Matryonushka tells the wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to female happiness are lost, and even God does not know where to find them.

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

There is a feast in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered here: both wanderers, and Klim Yakovlich, and Vlas the headman. Among the feasters sit two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, kind simple guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “jolly” song, then the turn comes for different stories. There is a story about “an exemplary slave - Jacob the faithful”, who all his life went after the master, fulfilled all his whims and even rejoiced at the master's beatings. Only when the master gave his nephew to the soldiers, Yakov took to drink, but soon returned to the master. And yet, Yakov did not forgive him, and was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he brought him, with his legs off, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree above the master.

There is a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. God's wanderer Jonah tells the story of "two sinners", about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened a conscience in him and imposed a penance on him: cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven him. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant's sin is still greater, and tells the story of the headman. He hid last will his master, who decided before his death to release his peasants. But the headman, tempted by money, tore free.

The crowd is subdued. Songs are sung: "Hungry", "Soldier's". But the time will come in Rus' for good songs. Confirmation of this is two seminarian brothers, Savva and Grisha. The seminarian Grisha, the son of a sexton, has known since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the happiness of the people. Love for his mother merges in his heart with love for the whole vakhlachin. Grisha walks along his edge and sings a song about Rus':

You are poor
You are abundant
You are powerful
You are powerless
Mother Rus'!

And his plans will not be lost: fate prepares Grisha “a glorious path, a loud name people's protector, consumption and Siberia. In the meantime, Grisha sings, and it is a pity that the wanderers do not hear him, because then they would understand that they had already found a happy person and could return home.

Conclusion

This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Rus', which, with torment, is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the ruining of a Russian person (it’s not without reason that a bucket of vodka is offered as a reward!) The problems of women, the ineradicable slave psychology (revealed on the example of Yakov, Ipat) and the main problem of people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another still remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotations from it have become part of everyday speech. The compositional device of the main characters' wanderings brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, thanks to which it is read easily and with great interest.

A brief retelling of “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” conveys only the most basic content of the poem; for a more accurate idea of the work, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with full version"To whom in Rus' it is good to live."

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Retelling rating

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

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

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

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

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

Part 1. Prologue

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

Chapter 1. Pop

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

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

Chapter 2

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

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

Chapter 3

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

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

Chapter 4

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

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

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

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

Chapter 5

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

Part 2

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

Part 3. Peasant woman

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

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

Chapter 1

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

Chapter 2. Songs

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

Chapter 3

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

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

Chapter 4

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

Chapter 5

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

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

Chapter 6

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

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

Picture or drawing Who lives well in Rus'

Genre, genre, direction

ON THE. Nekrasov called his creation “the epic of modern peasant life” and was precise in his wording: the genre of the work “Who should live well in Rus'?” - epic poem. That is, at the base of the book, not one kind of literature coexists, but two whole: lyrics and epic:

epic component. In the history of the development of Russian society in the 1860s, there was a turning point when people learned to live in new conditions after the abolition of serfdom and other fundamental changes in the usual way of life. This heavy historical period and described by the writer, reflecting the realities of that time without embellishment and falsehood. In addition, the poem has a clear linear plot and many original characters, which indicates the scale of the work, comparable only to a novel ( epic genre). The book also included folklore elements heroic songs that tell about the military campaigns of heroes against enemy camps. All these are generic features of the epic.
lyric component. The work is written in verse - this is the main property of lyrics, as a kind. The book also has a place for author's digressions and typical poetic symbols, means of artistic expression, features of the characters' confession.

The direction within which the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was written is realism. However, the author significantly expanded its boundaries by adding fantastic and folklore elements (prologue, beginnings, symbolism of numbers, fragments and heroes from folk legends). The poet chose the form of travel for his idea, as a metaphor for the search for truth and happiness, which each of us carries out. plot structure many researchers of Nekrasov's work are compared with the structure of the folk epic.

Composition

The laws of the genre determined the composition and plot of the poem. Nekrasov was finishing the book in terrible agony, but still did not have time to finish it. This explains the chaotic composition and many branches from the plot, because the works were formed and restored from drafts by his friends. He himself in recent months life was not able to clearly adhere to the original concept of creation. Thus, the composition “Who is living well in Rus'?”, comparable only to the folk epic, is unique. It was developed as a result of the creative assimilation of world literature, and not the direct borrowing of some well-known model.

Exposition (Prologue). The meeting of seven men - the heroes of the poem: "On the pillar path / Seven men came together."
The plot is the oath of the heroes not to return home until they find the answer to their question.
The main part consists of many autonomous parts: the reader gets to know a soldier, happy that he was not killed, a serf, proud of his privilege to eat out of the master's bowls, a grandmother, in whose garden, to her joy, a turnip mutilated ... While the search for happiness stands still, the slow but steady growth of national self-consciousness is depicted, which the author wanted to show even more than the declared happiness in Russia. From random episodes, a general picture of Rus' emerges: impoverished, drunk, but not hopeless, striving for a better life. In addition, the poem contains several large and independent interstitial episodes, some of which are even placed in autonomous chapters (“Last Child”, “Peasant Woman”).
Climax. The writer calls Grisha Dobrosklonov, a fighter for the people's happiness, a happy man in Rus'.
Interchange. A serious illness prevented the author from completing his great plan. Even those chapters that he managed to write were sorted and marked by his proxies already after his death. It must be understood that the poem is not finished, it was written by a very sick person, therefore this work- the most complex and confusing of the entire literary heritage of Nekrasov.
The final chapter is called "A Feast for the Whole World". All night the peasants sing about the old and new times. Kind and hopeful songs are sung by Grisha Dobrosklonov.

What is the poem about?

Seven peasants met on the road and argued about who should live well in Rus'? The essence of the poem is that they were looking for an answer to this question on the way, talking with representatives of different classes. The revelation of each of them is a separate story. So, the heroes went for a walk in order to resolve the dispute, but only quarreled, starting a fight. In the night forest, at the moment of a fight, a chick fell from the bird's nest, and one of the men picked it up. The interlocutors sat down by the fire and began to dream in order to also acquire wings and everything necessary for traveling in search of the truth. The warbler bird turns out to be magical and, as a ransom for her chick, tells people how to find a self-assembled tablecloth that will provide them with food and clothes. They find her and feast, and during the feast they vow to find the answer to their question together, but until then they will not see any of their relatives and not return home.

On the way they meet a priest, a peasant woman, a farcical Petrushka, a beggar, an overworked worker and a paralyzed former yard, honest man Yermila Girin, a landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev, a survivor of the mind of the Last Duck and his family, a serf Yakov the faithful, God's wanderer Ion Lyapushkin but none of them were happy people. Each of them is associated with a story full of genuine tragedy of suffering and misfortune. The goal of the journey is reached only when the wanderers stumble upon the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, who is happy with his selfless service to his homeland. With good songs, he instills hope in the people, and this is how the poem “Who lives well in Rus'” ends. Nekrasov wanted to continue the story, but did not have time, but he gave his heroes a chance to gain faith in the future of Russia.

Main characters and their characteristics

It is safe to say about the heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” that they represent a complete system of images that streamlines and structures the text. For example, the work emphasizes the unity of the seven wanderers. They do not show individuality, character, they express the common features of national self-consciousness for all. These characters are a single whole, their dialogues, in fact, are a collective speech that originates from oral folk art. This feature makes Nekrasov's poem related to the Russian folklore tradition.

Seven Wanderers are former serfs "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhayka, too." All of them put forward their own versions of who lives well in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a sovereign minister or a tsar. Perseverance is expressed in their character: they all demonstrate unwillingness to take sides. Strength, courage and the pursuit of truth - that's what unites them. They are ardent, easily succumb to anger, but the appeasement compensates for these shortcomings. Kindness and responsiveness make them pleasant interlocutors, even despite some meticulousness. Their temper is harsh and cool, but life did not spoil them with luxury: the former serfs always bent their backs, working for the master, and after the reform, no one bothered to attach them properly. So they wandered in Rus' in search of truth and justice. The search itself characterizes them as serious, thoughtful and thorough people. The symbolic number "7" means a hint of good luck that awaited them at the end of the journey.
Main character- Grisha Dobrosklonov, seminarian, son of a deacon. By nature, he is a dreamer, a romantic, loves to compose songs and make people happy. In them, he talks about the fate of Russia, about her misfortunes, and at the same time about her mighty strength, which will someday come out and crush injustice. Although he is an idealist, his character is firm, as are his convictions to devote his life to the service of the truth. The character feels a calling to be a people's leader and singer of Rus'. He is happy to sacrifice himself to a lofty idea and help his homeland. However, the author hints that a difficult fate awaits him: prisons, exile, hard labor. The authorities do not want to hear the voice of the people, they will try to shut them up, and then Grisha will be doomed to torment. But Nekrasov makes it clear with all his might that happiness is a state of spiritual euphoria, and it can only be known by being inspired by a lofty idea.
Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina – main character, a peasant woman whom the neighbors call lucky because she begged the wife of her husband’s military commander (he, the only breadwinner of the family, was to be recruited for 25 years). However, the story of a woman's life reveals not luck or good fortune, but grief and humiliation. She knew the loss of her only child, the anger of her mother-in-law, everyday, exhausting work. Detailed and her fate is described in an essay on our website, be sure to look.
Savely Korchagin- the grandfather of Matryona's husband, a real Russian hero. At one time, he killed a German manager who mercilessly mocked the peasants entrusted to him. For this, a strong and proud man paid for decades of hard labor. Upon his return, he was no longer good for anything, years of imprisonment trampled on his body, but did not break his will, because, as before, he stood up for justice with a mountain. The hero always said about the Russian peasant: "And it bends, but does not break." However, without knowing it, the grandfather turns out to be the executioner of his own great-grandson. He did not notice the child, and the pigs ate it.
Ermil Girin- a man of exceptional honesty, a steward in the estate of Prince Yurlov. When he needed to buy the mill, he stood in the square and asked people to rush to help him. After the hero got to his feet, he returned all the borrowed money to the people. For this, he earned respect and honor. But he is unhappy, because he paid for his authority with freedom: after the peasant revolt, suspicion fell on him in his organization, and he was imprisoned.
Landlords in the poem“To whom in Rus' to live well” are presented in abundance. The author portrays them objectively and even gives some images a positive character. For example, the governor's wife Elena Alexandrovna, who helped Matryona, appears as a people's benefactor. Also, with a note of compassion, the writer portrays Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev, who also treated the peasants tolerably, even arranged holidays for them, and with the abolition of serfdom, he lost the ground under his feet: he was too accustomed to the old order. In contrast to these characters, the image of the Last Duck and his treacherous, prudent family was created. The relatives of the hard-hearted old serf-owner decided to deceive him and persuaded former slaves to participate in the performance in exchange for profitable territories. However, when the old man died, the rich heirs brazenly deceived the common people and drove him away with nothing. The apogee of the nobility of the nobility is the landowner Polivanov, who beats his faithful servant and sends his son to the recruits for trying to marry his beloved girl. Thus, the writer is far from denigrating the nobility everywhere, he is trying to show both sides of the coin.
Kholop Yakov- an indicative figure of a serf, the antagonist of the hero Saveliy. Yakov absorbed the whole slavish essence of the oppressed class, downtrodden with lack of rights and ignorance. When the master beats him and even sends his son to certain death, the servant meekly and meekly endures the offense. His revenge was a match for this humility: he hanged himself in the forest right in front of the master, who was crippled and could not get home without his help.
Iona Lyapushkin- God's wanderer, who told the peasants several stories about the life of people in Rus'. It tells about the epiphany of ataman Kudeyara, who decided to atone for sins by killing for good, and about the cunning of Gleb the headman, who violated the will of the late master and did not release the serfs on his orders.
Pop- a representative of the clergy, who complains about the difficult life of a priest. The constant clash with grief and poverty saddens the heart, not to mention the popular witticisms against his dignity.

The characters in the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" are diverse and allow us to paint a picture of the customs and life of that time.

Subject

The main theme of the piece is Liberty- rests on the problem that the Russian peasant did not know what to do with it, and how to adapt to new realities. The national character is also “problematic”: people-thinkers, people-seekers of truth still drink, live in oblivion and empty talk. They are not able to squeeze slaves out of themselves until their poverty acquires at least the modest dignity of poverty, until they stop living in drunken illusions, until they realize their strength and pride, trampled down by centuries of humiliating state of affairs that have been sold, lost and bought.
Happiness Theme. The poet believes that a person can get the highest satisfaction from life only by helping other people. The real value of being is to feel needed by society, to bring goodness, love and justice to the world. Selfless and selfless service to a good cause fills every moment with sublime meaning, with an idea, without which time loses color, becomes dull from inaction or selfishness. Grisha Dobrosklonov is happy not with wealth and position in the world, but with the fact that he leads Russia and his people to a brighter future.
Homeland Theme. Although Rus' appears in the eyes of readers as a poor and tortured, but still a beautiful country with a great future and a heroic past. Nekrasov pities his homeland, devoting himself entirely to its correction and improvement. The homeland for him is the people, the people are his muse. All these concepts are closely intertwined in the poem "To whom in Rus' it is good to live." The author's patriotism is especially pronounced at the end of the book, when wanderers find a lucky man who lives in the interests of society. In a strong and patient Russian woman, in the justice and honor of a hero-peasant, in the sincere good-heartedness of a folk singer, the creator sees the true image of his state, full of dignity and spirituality.
The theme of labor. Useful activity elevates the impoverished heroes of Nekrasov above the vanity and depravity of the nobility. It is idleness that destroys the Russian master, turning him into a self-satisfied and arrogant nonentity. But the common people have skills that are really important for society and genuine virtue, without them there will be no Russia, but the country will manage without noble tyrants, revelers and greedy seekers of wealth. So the writer comes to the conclusion that the value of each citizen is determined only by his contribution to the common cause - the prosperity of the motherland.
mystical motif. Fantastic elements appear already in the Prologue and immerse the reader in fabulous atmosphere epics, where it is necessary to follow the development of the idea, and not the realism of the circumstances. Seven owls on seven trees - magic number 7, which promises good luck. The raven praying to the devil is another guise of the devil, because the raven symbolizes death, grave decay and infernal forces. He is opposed by a good force in the form of a warbler bird, which equips the men on the road. Self-assembly tablecloth - poetic symbol happiness and contentment. The “Wide Path” is a symbol of the open ending of the poem and the basis of the plot, because on both sides of the road, travelers open up a multifaceted and genuine panorama of Russian life. Symbolic is the image of an unknown fish in unknown seas, which has swallowed "the keys to female happiness." A crying she-wolf with bloody nipples also clearly demonstrates hard fate Russian peasant woman. One of the most vivid images of the reform is the “great chain”, which, having broken, “spread one end along the gentleman, the other along the peasant!”. The seven wanderers are a symbol of the entire people of Russia, restless, waiting for change and seeking happiness.

Issues

In the epic poem, Nekrasov touched on a large number of acute and topical issues of that time. The main problem is “Who is it good to live in Rus'?” - the problem of happiness, both socially and philosophically. She is associated with social theme the abolition of serfdom, which greatly changed (and not in better side) the traditional way of life of all segments of the population. It would seem that here it is, freedom, what else do people need? Is this not happiness? However, in reality, it turned out that the people, who, due to long slavery, do not know how to live independently, turned out to be thrown to the mercy of fate. A priest, a landowner, a peasant woman, Grisha Dobrosklonov and seven peasants are real Russian characters and destinies. The author described them, relying on rich experience of communicating with people from the common people. The problems of the work are also taken from life: disorder and confusion after the reform to abolish serfdom really affected all classes. No one organized jobs for yesterday's serfs, or at least land allotments, no one provided the landowner with competent instructions and laws governing his new relationship with workers.
The problem of alcoholism. Wanderers come to an unpleasant conclusion: life in Rus' is so hard that without drunkenness a peasant will completely die. Forgetfulness and fog are necessary for him in order to somehow pull the strap of a hopeless existence and hard labor.
The problem of social inequality. The landlords have been torturing the peasants with impunity for years, and Savelyia has been deformed for the murder of such an oppressor all her life. For the deceit, there will be nothing for the relatives of the Last, and their servants will again be left with nothing.
The philosophical problem of the search for truth, which each of us encounters, is allegorically expressed in the campaign of seven wanderers who understand that without this discovery their life is depreciated.

The idea of the work

The road skirmish of the peasants is not an everyday quarrel, but an eternal, great dispute, in which all layers of Russian society of that time appear to one degree or another. All its main representatives (priest, landowner, merchant, official, tsar) are called to the peasant court. For the first time men can and have the right to judge. For all the years of slavery and poverty, they are not looking for retribution, but for an answer: how to live? This is the meaning of Nekrasov's poem "Who is living well in Rus'?" - the growth of national consciousness on the ruins of the old system. The author's point of view is expressed by Grisha Dobrosklonov in his songs: “And your burden was lightened by fate, companion of the days of the Slav! You are still a slave in the family, but the mother is already a free son! ..». Despite the negative consequences of the reform of 1861, the creator believes that behind it is a happy future for the fatherland. It is always difficult at the beginning of change, but this work will be rewarded a hundredfold.

The most important condition for further prosperity is to overcome internal slavery:

Enough! Finished with the last calculation,
Done with sir!
The Russian people gather with strength
And learning to be a citizen

Despite the fact that the poem is not finished, Nekrasov voiced the main idea. Already the first of the songs of “A Feast for the Whole World” gives an answer to the question posed in the title: “The share of the people, their happiness, light and freedom, first of all!”

End

In the finale, the author expresses his point of view on the changes that have taken place in Russia in connection with the abolition of serfdom and, finally, sums up the results of the search: Grisha Dobrosklonov is recognized as the lucky one. It is he who is the bearer of Nekrasov's opinion, and in his songs the true attitude of Nikolai Alekseevich to what he described is hidden. The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" ends with a feast for the whole world in the truest sense of the word: that's what final chapter, where the characters celebrate and rejoice at the happy end of their quest.

Conclusion

In Rus', the hero of Nekrasov, Grisha Dobrosklonov, is well, as he serves people, and, therefore, lives with meaning. Grisha is a fighter for the truth, a prototype of a revolutionary. The conclusion that can be drawn on the basis of the work is simple: a lucky man has been found, Rus' is embarking on the path of reforms, the people, through thorns, are drawn to the title of citizen. This bright omen is the great meaning of the poem. For more than a century it has been teaching people altruism, the ability to serve high ideals, and not vulgar and passing cults. From the point of view of literary skill, the book is also of great importance: it is truly a folk epic, reflecting a controversial, complex, and at the same time the most important historical era.

Of course, the poem would not be so valuable if it only gave lessons in history and literature. She gives life lessons, and this is her most important property. The moral of the work “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is that it is necessary to work for the good of one’s homeland, not to scold it, but to help it with deeds, because it’s easier to push around with a word, but not everyone can and wants to really change something. Here it is, happiness - to be in your place, to be needed not only for yourself, but also for the people. Only together can a significant result be achieved, only together can we overcome the problems and hardships of this overcoming. Grisha Dobrosklonov, with his songs, tried to unite, rally people so that they would meet changes shoulder to shoulder. This is his holy purpose, and everyone has it, it is important not to be too lazy to go out on the road and look for him, as the seven wanderers did.

Criticism

The reviewers were attentive to the work of Nekrasov, because he himself was an important person in literary circles and had great authority. Entire monographs were devoted to his phenomenal civil lyrics with detailed analysis creative technique and ideological and thematic originality of his poetry. For example, here is how the writer S.A. spoke about his style. Andreevsky:

He retrieved from oblivion the anapaest abandoned on Olympus and long years made this heavy, but flexible meter as walking as from the time of Pushkin to Nekrasov, only the airy and melodious iambic remained. This rhythm, chosen by the poet, reminiscent of the rotational movement of a hurdy-gurdy, made it possible to stay on the borders of poetry and prose, to joke with the crowd, to speak fluently and vulgarly, to insert a cheerful and cruel joke, to express bitter truths and imperceptibly, slowing down the beat, with more solemn words, to turn into ornate.

Korney Chukovsky spoke with inspiration about the thorough preparation of Nikolai Alekseevich for work, citing this example of writing as a standard:

Nekrasov himself constantly “visited Russian huts”, thanks to which both soldier and peasant speech became thoroughly known to him from childhood: not only from books, but also in practice, he studied the common language and from his youth became a great connoisseur of folk poetic images, folk forms thinking, folk aesthetics.

The death of the poet came as a surprise and a blow to many of his friends and colleagues. As you know, F.M. Dostoevsky with a heartfelt speech inspired by the impressions of a recently read poem. Specifically, among other things, he said:

He, indeed, was highly original and, indeed, came with a "new word."

The “new word”, first of all, was his poem “Who in Rus' should live well”. No one before him was so deeply aware of the peasant, simple, worldly grief. His colleague in his speech noted that Nekrasov was dear to him precisely because he bowed "to the people's truth with all his being, which he testified in his best creatures". However, Fedor Mikhailovich did not support his radical views on the reorganization of Russia, however, like many thinkers of that time. Therefore, criticism reacted violently to the publication, and in some cases aggressively. In this situation, the honor of a friend was defended by a well-known reviewer, a master of the word Vissarion Belinsky:

N. Nekrasov in his last work remained true to his idea: to arouse the sympathy of the upper classes of society for the common people, their needs and requirements.

Quite sharply, recalling, apparently, professional disagreements, I. S. Turgenev spoke about the work:

Nekrasov's poems, collected in one trick, are burning.

The liberal writer was not a supporter of his former editor and openly expressed his doubts about his talent as an artist:

In white threads sewn together, seasoned with all sorts of absurdities, painfully hatched fabrications of the mournful muse of Mr. Nekrasov - she, poetry, is not even worth a penny ”

He really was a man of very high nobility of soul and a man of great mind. And as a poet he is, of course, superior to all poets.

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Year of writing:

1877

Reading time:

Description of the work:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Realizing that the Russian pop is not among the lucky ones, the peasants go to the festive fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask the people about happiness there. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded-up house with the inscription "school", a paramedic's hut, a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village of drinking establishments, in each of which they barely manage to cope with the thirsty. Old man Vavila cannot buy his granddaughter goat's shoes, because he drank himself to a penny. It’s good that Pavlusha Veretennikov, a lover of Russian songs, whom everyone calls “master” for some reason, buys a treasured gift for him.

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

Wandering men do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise to give water to the lucky ones for free, they fail to find those. For the sake of gratuitous booze, both an overworked worker, and a paralyzed former courtyard, who for forty years licked the master's plates with the best French truffle, and even ragged beggars are ready to declare themselves lucky.

Finally, someone tells them the story of Ermil Girin, a steward in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who has earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the peasants lent it to him without even asking for a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in jail.

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

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

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

Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a non-drinking and prosperous peasant family. She married Philip Korchagin, a stove-maker from a foreign village. But the only happy night for her was that night when the groom persuaded Matryona to marry him; then the usual hopeless life of a village woman began. True, her husband loved her and beat her only once, but soon he went to work in St. Petersburg, and Matryona was forced to endure insults in her father-in-law's family. The only one who felt sorry for Matryona was grandfather Saveliy, who lived out his life in the family after hard labor, where he ended up for the murder of the hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: a peasant cannot be defeated, because he "bends, but does not break."

The birth of the first-born Demushka brightened up the life of Matryona. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and old grandfather Savely did not follow the baby and fed him to the pigs. In front of Matryona, the judges who arrived from the city performed an autopsy of her child. Matryona could not forget her first child, although after she had five sons. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matrena took upon herself the punishment assigned to her son. Then, being pregnant with her son Liodor, she was forced to go to the city to seek justice: her husband, bypassing the laws, was taken to the soldiers. Matryona was then helped by the governor Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying.

By all peasant standards, the life of Matryona Korchagina can be considered happy. But about the invisible mental storm that passed through this woman, it is impossible to tell - just like about unrequited mortal insults, and about the blood of the firstborn. Matrena Timofeevna is convinced that a Russian peasant woman cannot be happy at all, because the keys to her happiness and free will are lost from God himself.

In the midst of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims up to the shore in three boats. The mowers, who have just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help the heirs to hide the abolition of serfdom from the landowner Utyatin, who has lost his mind. For this, the relatives of the Last Duck-Duck promise the peasants floodplain meadows. But after the long-awaited death of the Afterlife, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

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

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

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

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

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

Current page: 1 (total book has 13 pages)

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'

* * *

Y. Lebedev
Russian odyssey

In the "Diary of a Writer" for 1877, F. M. Dostoevsky noticed a characteristic feature that appeared in the Russian people of the post-reform period - "this is a multitude, an extraordinary modern multitude of new people, a new root of Russian people who need the truth, one truth without conditional lies, and who, in order to achieve this truth, will give everything resolutely. Dostoevsky saw in them "the advancing future Russia."

At the very beginning of the 20th century, another writer, V. G. Korolenko, made a discovery that struck him from a summer trip to the Urals: North Pole - in the distant Ural villages there were rumors about the Belovodsk kingdom and their own religious and scientific expedition was being prepared. Among the ordinary Cossacks, the conviction spread and grew stronger that “somewhere out there, “beyond the distance of bad weather”, “beyond the valleys, behind the mountains, behind the wide seas” there is a “blissful country”, in which, by the providence of God and the accidents of history, it has been preserved and flourishes throughout inviolability is a complete and whole formula of grace. This is a real fairy-tale country of all ages and peoples, colored only by the Old Believer mood. In it, planted by the Apostle Thomas, the true faith flourishes, with churches, bishops, a patriarch and pious kings ... This kingdom knows neither punishment, nor murder, nor self-interest, since true faith gives rise to true piety there.

It turns out that back in the late 1860s Don Cossacks written off with the Urals, collected a fairly significant amount and equipped Cossack Varsonofy Baryshnikov and two comrades to search for this promised land. Baryshnikov set out on his journey through Constantinople to Asia Minor, then to the Malabar coast, and finally to the East Indies ... The expedition returned with disappointing news: they could not find Belovodye. Thirty years later, in 1898, the dream of the Belovodsk kingdom flares up with new force, funds are found, a new pilgrimage is being equipped. On May 30, 1898, a "deputation" of the Cossacks boarded a steamboat departing from Odessa for Constantinople.

“From that day, in fact, the foreign trip of the deputies of the Urals to the Belovodsk kingdom began, and among the international crowd of merchants, military men, scientists, tourists, diplomats traveling around the world out of curiosity or in search of money, fame and pleasure, three people got mixed up, as it were from another world, who were looking for ways to the fabulous Belovodsk kingdom. Korolenko described in detail all the vicissitudes of this unusual journey, in which, for all the curiosity and strangeness of the planned enterprise, the same Russia noted by Dostoevsky stood out. honest people, “who need only the truth”, who have “the desire for honesty and truth is unshakable and indestructible, and for the word of truth, each of them will give his life and all his advantages.”

By the end of the 19th century, not only the top of Russian society was drawn into the great spiritual pilgrimage, but all of Russia, all of its people, rushed to it. “These Russian homeless wanderers,” Dostoevsky noted in a speech about Pushkin, “continue their wandering to this day and, it seems, will not disappear for a long time.” For a long time, “for the Russian wanderer needs precisely world happiness in order to calm down - he will not reconcile cheaper.”

“There was, approximately, such a case: I knew one person who believed in a righteous land,” said another wanderer in our literature, Luka, from M. Gorky's play “At the Bottom”. “There must be, he said, a righteous country in the world ... in that, they say, land - special people inhabit ... good people! They respect each other, they help each other - without any difficulty - and everything is nice and good with them! And so the man was going to go ... to look for this righteous land. He was poor, he lived badly ... and when it was already so difficult for him that at least lie down and die, he did not lose his spirit, but everything happened, he only smiled and said: “Nothing! I will endure! A few more - I’ll wait ... and then I’ll give up this whole life and go to the righteous land ... “He had one joy - this land ... And in this place - in Siberia, it was something - they sent an exiled scientist ... with books, with plans he, a scientist, and with all sorts of things ... A man says to a scientist: “Show me, do me a favor, where is the righteous land and how is the road there?” Now the scientist opened the books, spread out the plans ... looked, looked - no nowhere righteous land! “That's right, all the lands are shown, but the righteous one is not!”

Man - does not believe ... Should, he says, be ... look better! And then, he says, your books and plans are useless if there is no righteous land ... The scientist is offended. My plans, he says, are the most correct, but there is no righteous land at all. Well, then the man got angry - how so? Lived, lived, endured, endured and believed everything - there is! but according to the plans it turns out - no! Robbery! .. And he says to the scientist: “Oh, you ... such a bastard! You are a scoundrel, not a scientist ... “Yes, in his ear - one! And more!.. ( After a pause.) And after that he went home - and strangled himself!”

The 1860s marked a sharp historical turning point in the destinies of Russia, which from now on broke away from a sub-legal, "home-bound" existence and the whole world, all the people set off on a long path of spiritual quest, marked by ups and downs, fatal temptations and deviations, but the righteous path is precisely in passion , in the sincerity of his inescapable desire to find the truth. And perhaps for the first time, Nekrasov's poetry responded to this deep process, which embraced not only the "tops", but also the very "lower classes" of society.

1

The poet began work on a grandiose plan " folk book"In 1863, and ended up mortally ill in 1877, with a bitter consciousness of incompleteness, incompleteness of what was conceived:" One thing that I deeply regret is that I did not finish my poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'." It “should have included all the experience given to Nikolai Alekseevich by studying the people, all the information about him accumulated“ by word of mouth ”for twenty years,” recalled G. I. Uspensky about conversations with Nekrasov.

However, the question of the “incompleteness” of “Who should live well in Rus'” is highly controversial and problematic. First, the confessions of the poet himself are subjectively exaggerated. It is known that a writer always has a feeling of dissatisfaction, and the larger the idea, the sharper it is. Dostoevsky wrote about The Brothers Karamazov: "I myself think that even one tenth of it was not possible to express what I wanted." But on this basis, do we dare to consider Dostoevsky's novel a fragment of an unfulfilled plan? The same is with "Who in Rus' to live well."

Secondly, the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" was conceived as an epic, that is piece of art, depicting with the maximum degree of completeness and objectivity an entire era in the life of the people. Since folk life is boundless and inexhaustible in its countless manifestations, the epic in any of its varieties (epic poem, epic novel) is characterized by incompleteness, incompleteness. This is its specific difference from other forms of poetic art.

"This song is tricky
He will sing to the word
Who is the whole earth, Rus' baptized,
It will go from end to end."
Her own saint of Christ
Not finished singing - sleeping eternal sleep -

this is how Nekrasov expressed his understanding of the epic plan in the poem "Peddlers". The epic can be continued indefinitely, but you can also put an end to some high segment of its path.

Until now, researchers of Nekrasov’s work are arguing about the sequence of the arrangement of the parts of “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, since the dying poet did not have time to make final orders on this matter.

It is noteworthy that this dispute itself involuntarily confirms the epic nature of "Who should live well in Rus'." The composition of this work is built according to the laws of the classical epic: it consists of separate, relatively autonomous parts and chapters. Outwardly, these parts are connected by the theme of the road: seven men-truth-seekers wander around Rus', trying to resolve the question that haunts them: who lives well in Rus'? In the Prologue, a clear outline of the journey seems to be outlined - meetings with the landowner, official, merchant, minister and tsar. However, the epic is devoid of a clear and unambiguous purposefulness. Nekrasov does not force the action, he is in no hurry to bring it to an all-permissive result. As an epic artist, he strives for the completeness of the reconstruction of life, for revealing all the diversity folk characters, all indirectness, all the winding of folk paths, paths and roads.

The world in the epic narrative appears as it is - disordered and unexpected, devoid of rectilinear movement. The author of the epic allows "retreats, visits to the past, jumps somewhere sideways, to the side." According to the definition of the modern literary theorist G. D. Gachev, “the epic is like a child walking through the cabinet of curiosities of the universe. Here his attention was attracted by one hero, or a building, or a thought - and the author, forgetting about everything, plunges into him; then he was distracted by another - and he just as fully surrenders to him. But it's not easy compositional principle, not just the specifics of the plot in the epic ... The one who, while narrating, makes “digressions”, unexpectedly lingers on one or another subject for a long time; he who succumbs to the temptation to describe both this and that and chokes with greed, sinning against the pace of the narration - he thereby speaks of the extravagance, abundance of being, that he (being) has nowhere to hurry. Otherwise: it expresses the idea that being reigns over the principle of time (whereas the dramatic form, on the contrary, sticks out the power of time - it was not without reason that, it would seem, only the “formal” demand for the unity of time was born there too).

The fairy-tale motifs introduced into the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'” allow Nekrasov to freely and naturally handle time and space, easily transfer the action from one end of Russia to the other, slow down or speed up time according to fairy-tale laws. What unites the epic is not an external plot, not a movement towards an unambiguous result, but an internal plot: slowly, step by step, the contradictory, but irreversible growth of people's self-consciousness, which has not yet come to a conclusion, is still on difficult roads of search, becomes clear in it. In this sense, the plot-compositional friability of the poem is not accidental: it expresses, by its lack of assembly, the diversity and diversity of folk life, thinking about itself differently, evaluating its place in the world, its destiny in different ways.

In an effort to recreate the moving panorama of folk life in its entirety, Nekrasov also uses all the wealth of oral folk art. But the folklore element in the epic expresses the gradual growth of people's self-consciousness: the fairy tale motifs of the Prologue are replaced by epic epic, then lyrical folk songs in "Peasant Woman" and, finally, the songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov in "A Feast for the Whole World", striving to become popular and already partially accepted and understood by the people. The men listen to his songs, sometimes nod in agreement, but they have not yet heard the last song, "Rus", he has not yet sung it to them. That is why the finale of the poem is open to the future, not resolved.

Would our wanderers be under the same roof,
If only they could know what happened to Grisha.

But the wanderers did not hear the song "Rus", which means they did not yet understand what the "embodiment of the happiness of the people" is. It turns out that Nekrasov did not finish his song, not only because death interfered. In those years, people's life itself did not sing his songs. More than a hundred years have passed since then, and the song begun by the great poet about the Russian peasantry is still being sung. In "The Feast" only a glimpse of the future happiness is outlined, which the poet dreams of, realizing how many roads lie ahead until his real incarnation. The incompleteness of “Who is to live well in Rus'” is fundamental and artistically significant as a sign of a folk epic.

“Who should live well in Rus'” both in general and in each of its parts resembles a peasant secular gathering, which is the most complete expression of democratic people's self-government. At such a meeting, the inhabitants of one village or several villages that were part of the "world" decided all the issues of joint secular life. The meeting had nothing to do with the modern meeting. There was no chairperson leading the discussion. Each community member, at will, entered into a conversation or skirmish, defending his point of view. Instead of voting, the principle of general consent was used. The dissatisfied were persuaded or retreated, and in the course of the discussion, a “worldly sentence” ripened. If there was no general agreement, the meeting was postponed to the next day. Gradually, in the course of heated debates, a unanimous opinion matured, agreement was sought and found.

An employee of Nekrasov's "Notes of the Fatherland", the populist writer H. N. Zlatovratsky described the original peasant life: “This is the second day that we have gathering after gathering. You look out the window, then at one end of the village, then at the other end of the village crowds of owners, old people, children: some are sitting, others are standing in front of them, with their hands behind their backs and attentively listening to someone. This someone waves his arms, bends his whole body, shouts something very convincingly, falls silent for a few minutes and then again begins to convince. But then suddenly they object to him, they object somehow at once, the voices rise higher and higher, they shout at the top of their lungs, as befits for such a vast hall as the surrounding meadows and fields, everyone speaks, not embarrassed by anyone or anything, as befits a free gathering of equals. Not the slightest sign of officiality. Sergeant Major Maksim Maksimych himself is standing somewhere on the side, like the most invisible member of our community... Here everything goes straight, everything becomes an edge; if someone, out of cowardice or out of calculation, takes it into his head to get away with silence, he will be ruthlessly brought to clean water. Yes, and there are very few of these faint-hearted, at especially important gatherings. I have seen the humblest, most unrequited men who<…>at gatherings, in moments of general excitement, completely transformed and<…>they gained such courage that they managed to outdo the obviously brave men. In the moments of its apogee, the gathering becomes simply an open mutual confession and mutual exposure, a manifestation of the widest publicity.

The whole epic poem by Nekrasov is a flaring up, gradually gaining strength, worldly gathering. It reaches its pinnacle in the final "Feast for the World". However, the general "worldly sentence" is still not pronounced. Only the path to it is outlined, many of the initial obstacles have been removed, and on many points there has been movement towards a common agreement. But there is no result, life has not stopped, gatherings have not been stopped, the epic is open to the future. For Nekrasov, the process itself is important here, it is important that the peasantry not only thought about the meaning of life, but also set off on a difficult, long path of truth-seeking. Let's try to take a closer look at it, moving from the "Prologue. Part One" to "Peasant Woman", "Last Child" and "Feast for the Whole World".

2

In the Prologue, the meeting of the seven men is narrated as a great epic event.

In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men got together...

So epic and fairy-tale heroes converged on a battle or on a feast of honors. The epic scale acquires time and space in the poem: the action is carried out to the whole of Rus'. The tightened province, Terpigorev district, Pustoporozhnaya volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaina can be attributed to any of the Russian provinces, districts, volosts and villages. The general sign of the post-reform ruin is captured. Yes, and the very question that excited the peasants concerns the whole of Russia - peasant, noble, merchant. Therefore, the quarrel that arose between them is not an ordinary event, but great controversy. In the soul of every grain grower, with his own private destiny, with his worldly interests, a question has awakened that concerns everyone, the entire people's world.

To each his own
Left the house before noon:
That path led to the forge,
He went to the village of Ivankovo
Call Father Prokofy
Baptize the child.
Pahom honeycombs
Carried to the market in the Great,
And two brothers Gubina
So simple with a halter
Catching a stubborn horse
They went to their own herd.
It's high time for everyone
Return your way -
They are walking side by side!

Each peasant had his own path, and suddenly they found a common path: the question of happiness united the people. And therefore, we are no longer ordinary peasants with their own individual fate and personal interests, but guardians of the entire peasant world, truth-seekers. The number "seven" in folklore is magical. Seven Wanderers- an image of a large epic scale. The fabulous coloring of the Prologue raises the narrative above everyday life, above peasant life, and gives the action an epic universality.

The fairy-tale atmosphere in the Prologue is ambiguous. Giving the events a nationwide sound, it also turns into a convenient device for the poet to characterize the national self-consciousness. Note that Nekrasov playfully manages with a fairy tale. In general, his handling of folklore is more free and uninhibited in comparison with the poems "Pedlars" and "Frost, Red Nose". Yes, and he treats the people differently, often makes fun of the peasants, provokes readers, paradoxically sharpens the people's view of things, makes fun of the limitations of the peasant worldview. The intonation structure of the narrative in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is very flexible and rich: here is the author’s good-natured smile, and indulgence, and light irony, and bitter joke, and lyrical regret, and sorrow, and meditation, and appeal. The intonational and stylistic polyphony of the narration in its own way reflects a new phase of folk life. Before us is the post-reform peasantry, which has broken with the immovable patriarchal existence, with centuries of worldly and spiritual settledness. This is already wandering Rus' with awakened self-awareness, noisy, discordant, prickly and uncompromising, prone to quarrels and disputes. And the author does not stand aside from her, but turns into an equal participant in her life. He either rises above the disputants, then he is imbued with sympathy for one of the disputing parties, then he is touched, then he is indignant. As Rus' lives in disputes, in search of truth, so the author is in a tense dialogue with her.

In the literature about “Who is to live well in Rus'”, one can find the assertion that the dispute of the seven wanderers that opens the poem corresponds to the original compositional plan, from which the poet subsequently retreated. Already in the first part, there was a deviation from the intended plot, and instead of meeting with the rich and noble, the truth-seekers began to question the crowd.

But after all, this deviation immediately takes place at the “upper” level. Instead of a landowner and an official, scheduled by the peasants for questioning, for some reason there is a meeting with a priest. Is it by chance?

First of all, we note that the “formula” of the dispute proclaimed by the peasants signifies not so much the original intention as the level of national self-consciousness, manifested in this dispute. And Nekrasov cannot but show the reader his limitations: peasants understand happiness in a primitive way and reduce it to a well-fed life, material security. What is worth, for example, such a candidate for the role of a lucky man, who is proclaimed "merchant", and even "fat-bellied"! And behind the argument of the peasants - who lives happily, freely in Rus'? - immediately, but still gradually, muffledly, another, much more significant and important question, which is the soul of the epic poem - how to understand human happiness, where to look for it and what does it consist of?

In the final chapter "A Feast for the Whole World", Grisha Dobrosklonov gives the following assessment of the current state of people's life: "The Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be a citizen."

In fact, this formula contains the main pathos of the poem. It is important for Nekrasov to show how the forces that unite him are ripening among the people and what kind of civic orientation they are acquiring. The idea of the poem is by no means reduced to making the wanderers carry out successive meetings according to the program they have outlined. A completely different question turns out to be much more important here: what is happiness in the eternal, Orthodox Christian understanding of it, and is the Russian people capable of combining peasant "politics" with Christian morality?

Therefore, folklore motifs in the Prologue play a dual role. On the one hand, the poet uses them to give the beginning of the work a high epic sound, and on the other hand, to emphasize the limited consciousness of the disputants, who deviate in their idea of happiness from the righteous to the evil ways. Recall that Nekrasov spoke about this more than once a long time ago, for example, in one of the versions of the "Song of Eremushka", created back in 1859.

change pleasure,
To live does not mean to drink and eat.
There are better aspirations in the world,
There is a nobler good.
Despise wicked ways:
There is debauchery and vanity.
Honor the covenants forever right
And learn from Christ.

The same two paths, sung over Russia by the angel of mercy in "A Feast for the Whole World," are now opening up before the Russian people, who are celebrating the wake of the fortress and facing a choice.

In the middle of the world
For a free heart
There are two ways.
Weigh the proud strength
Weigh your firm will:
How to go?

This song resounds over Russia coming to life from the lips of the messenger of the Creator himself, and the fate of the people will directly depend on which path the wanderers will take after long wanderings and windings along the Russian country roads.

In the meantime, the poet is pleased only with the very desire of the people to seek the truth. And the direction of these searches, the temptation of wealth at the very beginning of the path cannot but cause bitter irony. Therefore, the fabulous plot of the Prologue also characterizes the low level of peasant consciousness, spontaneous, vague, with difficulty making its way to universal questions. People's thought has not yet acquired clarity and clarity, it is still merged with nature and is sometimes expressed not so much in words as in action, in deeds: instead of thinking, fists are used.

The men still live according to the fabulous formula: "go there - I don't know where, bring that - I don't know what."

They walk like they're running
Behind them are gray wolves,
What is further - then sooner.
…
Probably b, whole night
So they went - where, not knowing ...

Isn't that why the disturbing, demonic element grows in the Prologue. “The woman on the other side”, “the clumsy Durandikha”, turns into a laughing witch before the eyes of the peasants. And Pahom scatters his mind for a long time, trying to understand what happened to him and his companions, until he comes to the conclusion that the "goblin's glorious joke" played a trick on them.

In the poem, a comic comparison of the dispute between the peasants with the fight of bulls in a peasant herd arises. And the cow, lost in the evening, came to the fire, stared at the peasants,

I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!

Nature responds to the destructiveness of the dispute, which develops into a serious fight, and in the person of not so much good as sinister forces, representatives of folk demonology, enrolled in the category of forest evil spirits. Seven eagle owls flock to look at the arguing wanderers: from seven large trees “midnight owls laugh”.

And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
By the fire itself
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!

The commotion grows, spreads, covers the entire forest, and it seems that the “spirit of the forest” itself laughs, laughs at the peasants, responds to their skirmish and carnage with malicious intentions.

A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.

Of course, the author's irony in the Prologue is good-natured and condescending. The poet does not want to strictly judge the peasants for the wretchedness and extreme limitation of their ideas about happiness and a happy person. He knows that this limitation is connected with the harsh everyday life of a peasant, with such material deprivations, in which suffering itself sometimes takes on soulless, ugly and perverted forms. This happens every time a people is deprived of their daily bread. Recall the song "Hungry" that sounded in "Feast":

The man is standing
swaying
A man is walking
Don't breathe!
From its bark
swelled up,
Longing trouble
Exhausted…

3

And in order to shade the limited peasant understanding of happiness, Nekrasov brings the wanderers in the first part of the epic poem not with the landowner and not with the official, but with the priest. A priest, a spiritual person, closest to the people in his way of life, and called upon to keep a thousand-year-old national shrine by duty, very accurately compresses ideas of happiness, vague for the wanderers themselves, into a capacious formula.

What is happiness, in your opinion?
Peace, wealth, honor -
Isn't that right, dear ones? -
They said yes...

Of course, the priest himself ironically distances himself from this formula: “This, dear friends, is happiness in your opinion!” And then, with visual persuasiveness, he refutes with all life experience the naivety of each hypostasis of this triune formula: neither "peace", nor "wealth", nor "honor" can be put at the foundation of a truly human, Christian understanding of happiness.

The priest's story makes the men think about a lot. The commonplace, ironically condescending assessment of the clergy reveals its untruth here. According to the laws of epic narration, the poet trustingly surrenders to the priest's story, which is constructed in such a way that behind the personal life of one priest, the life of the entire clergy rises and rises to its full height. The poet is in no hurry, in no hurry with the development of the action, giving the hero a full opportunity to utter everything that lies on his soul. Behind the life of a priest, the life of all of Russia in its past and present, in its various estates, opens on the pages of the epic poem. Here are dramatic changes in the estates of the nobility: the old patriarchal-noble Rus', which lived settled, in customs and customs close to the people, is fading into the past. The post-reform burning of life and the ruin of the nobles destroyed its age-old foundations, destroyed the old attachment to the family village nest. “Like a Jewish tribe,” the landlords scattered around the world, adopted new habits, far from Russian moral traditions and traditions.

In the story, the priest unfolds before the eyes of the savvy peasants a “great chain”, in which all the links are firmly connected: if you touch one, it will respond in another. The drama of the Russian nobility drags drama into the life of the clergy. To the same extent this drama is exacerbated by the post-reform impoverishment of the muzhik.

Our poor villages
And in them the peasants are sick
Yes, sad women
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers
Lord give them strength!

The clergy cannot be at peace when the people, their drinker and breadwinner, are in poverty. And the point here is not only the material impoverishment of the peasantry and nobility, which entails the impoverishment of the clergy. The main trouble of the priest is something else. The misfortunes of the peasant bring deep moral suffering to sensitive people from the clergy: “It’s hard to live on such pennies!”

It happens to the sick
You will come: not dying,
Terrible peasant family
At the moment when she has to
Lose the breadwinner!
You admonish the deceased
And support in the rest
You try your best
The spirit is awake! And here to you
The old woman, the mother of the deceased,
Look, stretching with a bony,
Callused hand.
The soul will turn
How they tinkle in this hand
Two copper coins!

The priest's confession speaks not only of the suffering that is associated with social "disorders" in a country that is in a deep national crisis. These "disorders" that lie on the surface of life must be eliminated; a righteous social struggle is possible and even necessary against them. But there are other, deeper contradictions connected with the imperfection of human nature itself. It is precisely these contradictions that reveal the vanity and cunning of people who seek to present life as sheer pleasure, as thoughtless intoxication with wealth, ambition, complacency, which turns into indifference to one's neighbor. Pop in his confession deals a crushing blow to those who profess such a morality. Talking about parting words to the sick and dying, the priest speaks about the impossibility of peace of mind on this earth for a person who is not indifferent to his neighbor:

Go where you are called!
You go unconditionally.
And let only the bones
One broke,
No! every time it gets wet,
The soul will hurt.
Do not believe, Orthodox,
There is a limit to habit.
No heart to endure
Without some trepidation
death rattle,
grave sob,
Orphan sorrow!
Amen!.. Now think
What is the peace of the ass?..

It turns out that a completely free from suffering, “freely, happily” living person is a stupid, indifferent, morally flawed person. Life is not a holiday, but hard work, not only physical, but also spiritual, requiring self-denial from a person. After all, Nekrasov himself affirmed the same ideal in the poem “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, the ideal of high citizenship, surrendering to which it is impossible not to sacrifice oneself, not to consciously reject “worldly pleasures”. Isn’t that why the priest looked down when he heard the question of the peasants, far from the Christian truth of life - “Is the priestly life sweet,” and with the dignity of an Orthodox minister turned to the wanderers:

… Orthodox!
It's a sin to grumble at God
Bear my cross with patience...

And his whole story is, in fact, an example of how every person can carry the cross, ready life put "for your friends."

The lesson taught to the wanderers by the priest has not yet gone to their benefit, but nevertheless brought confusion into the peasant consciousness. The men unanimously took up arms against Luka:

- What did you take? stubborn head!
Rustic club!
That's where the argument gets in!
"Nobles bell -
The priests live like princes.”
…
Well, here's your praise
Pop's life!

The irony of the author is not accidental, because with the same success it was possible to “finish” not only Luka, but each of them individually and all of them together. The peasant scolding is again followed by the shadow of Nekrasov, who makes fun of the limitedness of the people's initial ideas about happiness. And it is no coincidence that after meeting with the priest, the nature of the behavior and way of thinking of wanderers change significantly. They become more and more active in dialogues, more and more energetically intervene in life. And the attention of the wanderers is beginning to capture more and more powerfully not the world of masters, but the people's environment.

Nekrasov to whom in Rus' to live well print. Who in Rus' should live well in our time

Main characters

Other characters

Part 1

Prologue

Chapter 1. Pop

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part 2

Last

Part 3

peasant woman

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

Conclusion

Test on the poem "Who lives well in Rus'"

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

Part 1. Prologue

Chapter 1. Pop

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part 2

Part 3. Peasant woman

Chapter 1

Chapter 2. Songs

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

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End

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Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov Who lives well in Rus'

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Y. LebedevRussian odyssey

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The idea of the work

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'

Y. Lebedev
Russian odyssey