Analysis of the poem "who lives well in Rus'" by chapter, composition of the work. Analysis of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

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

What is the architectonics of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from individual structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the enormous text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is written down, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem any less amazing - it shocks anyone capable of feeling compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.

The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" — sets a fabulous tone for the entire work.

Of course, this is a fairy-tale beginning: who knows where and when, who knows why, seven men come together. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person live without a dispute? and the men turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth, hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearest hill, or even completely unattainable.

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

Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions of happiness fit it. The misfortunes of peasant parishioners in poor villages, the revelry of landowners who left their estates, the desolate life of the locality - all this is in the priest’s bitter answer. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers move on.

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

When a man is not Blucher

And not my foolish lord—

Belinsky and Gogol

Will it come from the market?

In Chapter III "Drunken Night" The eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant is described with bitterness - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov appears again, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminskoye as “the gentleman” and met by wanderers back there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, collects Russian folklore.

Having written down enough,

Veretennikov told them:

“Russian peasants are smart,

One thing is bad

That they drink until they are stupefied,

They fall into ditches, into ditches—

It’s a shame to see!”

This offends one of the men:

There is no measure for Russian hops.

Have they measured our grief?

Is there a limit to the work?

Wine brings down the peasant,

Doesn't grief overwhelm him?

Work isn't going well?

A man does not measure troubles

Copes with everything

No matter what, come.

This man, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of the Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoy. This surname - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosovo. Travelers learn the story of his unimaginably difficult life and ineradicable proud courage from local peasants.

In Chapter IV wanderers wander through the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Isn’t there a happy one somewhere?” - and the peasants will respond by smiling and spitting... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers “for happiness.” All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier that he was beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for wanderers, even though it would be a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy also evoke pity and not joy. The stories of the “happy” people are becoming scarier and scarier. There even appears a type of princely “slave”, happy with his “noble” disease - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.

Finally, someone directs the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who will be! The story of Ermil is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the man bought himself a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, who give their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of the men. Afterwards, Yermil gave everything to his people, the ruble remained ungiven - no owner was found, but the money was collected enormously. Yermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the people's trust. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord’s manager, and his help over many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not help but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is sitting in prison. And he was put there in connection with a peasant revolt in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the wanderers did not have time to find out.

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

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

"The last one." This part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins with a picture of haymaking on water meadows. A noble family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and evil Prince Utyatin lives because his former serfs, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, conspired with the noble family to imitate the old serf order for the sake of the prince’s peace of mind and so that he would not deny his family an inheritance due to the whim of old age. They promised to give the peasants water meadows after the death of the prince. The “faithful slave” Ipat was also found - in Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the man Agap could not stand it and cursed the Last One for what it was worth. The feigned punishment at the stable with lashes turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The last one died almost before the eyes of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing over the meadows: “The heirs are fighting with the peasants to this day.”

According to the logic of the construction of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” what follows is, as it were, herThe second part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and your chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding someone happy among the men, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what kind and how much “happiness” they find in the lot of women and peasants. All this is expressed with such depth of penetration into a woman’s suffering soul, with such an abundance of details of fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully called “Matryona Timofeevna, she is the governor’s wife,” that at times it either touches you to tears, or makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy on her first night as a woman, and when was that!

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

My hateful husband

Rises:

For the silk lash

Accepted.

Choir

The whip whistled

Blood spattered...

Oh! cherished! cherished!

Blood spattered...

The married life of a peasant woman matched the song. Only her husband's grandfather, Savely, took pity and consoled her. “He was also lucky,” recalls Matryona.

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

Do you think, Matryonushka,

Is the man not a hero?

And his life is not a military one,

And death is not written for him

In battle - what a hero!

Hands are twisted in chains,

Feet forged with iron,

Back...dense forests

We walked along it and broke down.

What about the breasts? Elijah the prophet

It rattles and rolls around

On a chariot of fire...

The hero endures everything!

In the chapter"Dyomushka" the worst thing happens: Matryona’s little son, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened the child in front of her eyes. And it’s even more terrible that the innocent culprit in the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the tormented soul of his grandfather, was Savely the hero himself, already a very old man, who fell asleep and neglected to look after the baby.

In Chapter V - “She-Wolf” — the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that remains in her life. Having chased the she-wolf who carried away the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the Shepherd takes pity on the beast: hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples, the mother of the wolf cubs sits down on the grass in front of him, suffers a beating, and the little boy leaves her the sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lies under the whip.

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

A terrible song precedes Matryona's escape alone into the winter night (head "Governor" ). She threw herself backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.

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

The third part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, not called that, but having all the signs of an independent part - dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, introduction and chapters - has a strange name -"A Feast for the Whole World" . In the introduction, some semblance of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is not yet visible, lights up the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile almost for the first time in his life. But its first chapter is"Bitter times - bitter songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about hunger and injustices under serfdom, then mournful, “lingering, sad” Vakhlak songs about inescapable forced melancholy, and finally, “Corvee”.

A separate chapter - a story“About the exemplary slave - Yakov the Faithful” - begins as if about a serf peasant of the slave type who interested Nekrasov. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: unable to bear the insult, Yakov first started drinking, fled, and when he returned, he took the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of his eyes. The worst sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the worst sinner of all. Ionushka, the “humble praying mantis,” tells the story.

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

The peasants are starting a dispute about whose sin is worse—the “noble” or the “peasant.”In the chapter “Peasant Sin” Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov talks about the sin of Judas (the sin of betrayal) of a peasant elder, who was tempted by the bribe of the heir and hid the owner’s will, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who recognized that such sins were possible among them, pours out in song. “Hungry” is a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an insatiable beast - not a human. A new face appears - Gregory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a sexton. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After sighing and thinking, they decide: It’s all to blame: strengthen yourself!

It turns out that Grisha is going “to Moscow, to the new city.” And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:

“I don’t need any silver,

Not gold, but God willing,

So that my fellow countrymen

And every peasant

Life was free and fun

All over holy Rus'!

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

But here is a new chapter with a cheerful title"Good time - good songs" . Savva and Grisha sing a song of new hope on the Volga bank.

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, unites the features of Nekrasov’s dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother’s song, sung by the peasant women, was called “Salty.” A piece watered with a mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a child dying of hunger. “With love for the poor mother / Love for all the Vakhlachina / Merged, - and at the age of fifteen / Gregory already knew firmly / That he would live for the happiness / Of his wretched and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching tercets, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably pushing back the obsolete and evil. The “Angel of Mercy” sings an invocation song over a Russian youth.

Grisha, waking up, goes down to the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland and sings. The song contains his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Completed with the settlement, /Completed the settlement with the master! / The Russian people gather their strength / And learn to be citizens.”

“Rus” is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Source (abbreviated): Michalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: 10th grade. At 2 p.m. Part 1: study. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitseva. - M.: Bustard, 2018

1. Introduction. The poem "" is one of Nekrasov's most significant works. The poet managed to unfold a large-scale picture depicting the life of ordinary Russian people. The search for happiness by men is a symbol of the centuries-old desire of the peasantry for a better life. The content of the poem is very tragic, but it ends with a solemn affirmation of the future revival of “Mother Rus'”.

2. History of creation. The idea of ​​writing a real epic dedicated to the common people came to Nekrasov in the late 1850s. After the abolition of serfdom, this plan began to be realized. In 1863, the poet got to work. Separate parts of the poem were published as they were written in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski.

The part “A Feast for the Whole World” was able to see the light of day after the author’s death. Unfortunately, Nekrasov did not have time to finish work on the poem. It was assumed that the wandering men would end their journey in St. Petersburg. In this way they will be able to bypass all the supposed "happy people", not excluding the king.

3. Meaning of the name. The title of the poem has become a stable common phrase, carrying within itself the eternal Russian problem. Both in the time of Nekrasov and now, Russian people remain dissatisfied with their position. Only in Russia could the saying “It’s good where we are not” appear. In fact, “who lives well in Rus'” is a rhetorical question. It is unlikely that there will be many people in our country who will answer that they are completely satisfied with their lives.

4. Genre Poem

5. Subject. The main theme of the poem is the unsuccessful search for national happiness. Nekrasov somewhat departs from his selfless service to the common people, arguing that not a single class can consider itself happy. A common misfortune unites all categories of society, which allows us to talk about a single Russian people.

6.Issues. The central problem of the poem is the eternal Russian grief and suffering arising from the backwardness and low level of development of the country. In this regard, the peasantry occupies a special position. Being the most downtrodden class, it nevertheless retains within itself healthy national forces. The poem touches on the problem of the abolition of serfdom. This long-awaited act did not bring the expected happiness. Nekrasov owns the most famous phrase describing the essence of the abolition of serfdom: “The great chain has broken... One end for the master, the other for the peasant!..”.

7. Heroes. Roman, Demyan, Luka, Gubin brothers, Pakhom, Prov. 8. Plot and composition The poem has a ring composition. A fragment is constantly repeated that explains the journey of the seven men. The peasants drop everything they are doing and go in search of a happy man. Each hero has his own version of this. The wanderers decide to meet all the “candidates for happiness” and find out the whole truth.

The realist Nekrasov allows for a fairy-tale element: the men receive a self-assembled tablecloth, allowing them to continue their journey without any problems. The first seven men meet the priest, in whose happiness Luka was sure. The clergyman “in good faith” tells the wanderers about his life. From his story it follows that priests do not enjoy any special advantages. The well-being of priests is only an apparent phenomenon for the laity. In fact, the life of a priest is no less difficult than that of other people.

The chapters “Rural Fair” and “Drunken Night” are dedicated to both the reckless and difficult life of the common people. Ingenuous fun gives way to unstoppable drunkenness. Alcohol has been one of the main troubles of Russian people for centuries. But Nekrasov is far from a decisive condemnation. One of the characters explains the tendency to drink: “Great sadness will come when we stop drinking!..”.

In the chapter “The Landowner” and the part “The Last One,” Nekrasov describes the nobles who also suffered from the abolition of serfdom. For the peasants, their suffering seems far-fetched, but in fact, the breakdown of the centuries-old way of life “hit” the landowners very hard. Many farms were ruined, and their owners were unable to adapt to the new conditions. The poet dwells in detail on the fate of a simple Russian woman in the part “Peasant Woman”. She is considered happy. However, from the peasant woman’s story it becomes clear that her happiness lies not in gaining something, but in getting rid of trouble.

Even in the chapter “Happy” Nekrasov shows that the peasants do not expect favors from fate. Their ultimate dream is to avoid danger. The soldier is happy because he is still alive; The stonecutter is happy because he continues to have enormous strength, etc. In the part “A Feast for the Whole World,” the author notes that the Russian peasant, despite all the troubles and suffering, does not lose heart, treating grief with irony. In this regard, the song “Veselaya” with the refrain “It is glorious to live for the people in holy Rus'!” is indicative. Nekrasov felt the approach of death and realized that he would not have time to finish the poem. Therefore, he hastily wrote the “Epilogue”, where Grisha Dobrosklonov appears, dreaming of freedom and the good of all the people. He was supposed to become the happy person that wanderers are looking for.

9. What the author teaches. I truly had a heart for Russia. He saw all its shortcomings and sought to draw the attention of his contemporaries to them. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is one of the poet’s most elaborate works, which, according to the plan, was supposed to present all of tormented Russia at a glance. Even in its unfinished form, it sheds light on a number of purely Russian problems, the solution of which is long overdue.

One of the most famous works of Nikolai Nekrasov is the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, which is distinguished not only by its deep philosophical meaning and social acuity, but also by its bright, original characters - these are seven simple Russian men who got together and argued about who “ life is free and joyful in Rus'.” The poem was first published in 1866 in the Sovremennik magazine. The publication of the poem was resumed three years later, but the tsarist censorship, seeing the content as an attack on the autocratic regime, did not allow it to be published. The poem was published in full only after the revolution in 1917.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” became the central work in the work of the great Russian poet; it is his ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of his thoughts and reflections on the fate of the Russian people and on the roads leading to their happiness and well-being. These questions worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through his entire literary activity. Work on the poem lasted 14 years (1863-1877) and in order to create this “folk epic”, as the author himself called it, useful and understandable for the common people, Nekrasov made a lot of efforts, although in the end it was never finished (8 chapters were planned, 4 were written). A serious illness and then the death of Nekrasov disrupted his plans. Plot incompleteness does not prevent the work from having an acute social character.

Main storyline

The poem was begun by Nekrasov in 1863 after the abolition of serfdom, so its content touches on many problems that arose after the Peasant Reform of 1861. The poem has four chapters, they are united by a common plot about how seven ordinary men argued about who lives well in Rus' and who is truly happy. The plot of the poem, touching on serious philosophical and social problems, is structured in the form of a journey through Russian villages, their “speaking” names perfectly describe the Russian reality of that time: Dyryavina, Razutov, Gorelov, Zaplatov, Neurozhaikin, etc. In the first chapter, called “Prologue,” the men meet on a highway and start their own dispute; in order to resolve it, they go on a trip to Russia. On the way, the disputing men meet a variety of people, these are peasants, merchants, landowners, priests, beggars, and drunkards, they see a wide variety of pictures from people’s lives: funerals, weddings, fairs, elections, etc. .

Meeting different people, the men ask them the same question: how happy they are, but both the priest and the landowner complain about the deterioration of life after the abolition of serfdom, only a few of all the people they meet at the fair admit that they are truly happy.

In the second chapter, entitled “The Last One,” wanderers come to the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, whose inhabitants, after the abolition of serfdom, in order not to upset the old count, continue to pose as serfs. Nekrasov shows readers how they were then cruelly deceived and robbed by the count's sons.

The third chapter, entitled “Peasant Woman,” describes the search for happiness among the women of that time, the wanderers meet with Matryona Korchagina in the village of Klin, she tells them about her long-suffering fate and advises them not to look for happy people among Russian women.

In the fourth chapter, entitled “A Feast for the Whole World,” wandering seekers of truth find themselves at a feast in the village of Valakhchin, where they understand that the questions they ask people about happiness concern all Russian people, without exception. The ideological finale of the work is the song “Rus”, which originated in the head of a participant in the feast, the son of the parish sexton Grigory Dobrosklonov:

« You're miserable too

you are abundant

you and the omnipotent

Mother Rus'!»

Main characters

The question of who is the main character of the poem remains open, formally these are the men who argued about happiness and decided to go on a trip to Russia to decide who is right, however, the poem clearly states that the main character of the poem is the entire Russian people , perceived as a single whole. The images of the wandering men (Roman, Demyan, Luka, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin, the old man Pakhom and Prov) are practically not revealed, their characters are not drawn, they act and express themselves as a single organism, while the images of the people they meet, on the contrary, are painted very carefully, with a lot of details and nuances.

One of the brightest representatives of a man from the people can be called the son of the parish clerk Grigory Dobrosklonov, who was presented by Nekrasov as a people's intercessor, educator and savior. He is one of the key characters and the entire final chapter is devoted to the description of his image. Grisha, like no one else, is close to the people, understands their dreams and aspirations, wants to help them and composes wonderful “good songs” for people that bring joy and hope to those around them. Through his lips, the author proclaims his views and beliefs, gives answers to the pressing social and moral questions raised in the poem. Characters such as seminarian Grisha and honest mayor Yermil Girin do not seek happiness for themselves, they dream of making all people happy at once and devote their entire lives to this. The main idea of ​​the poem follows from Dobrosklonov’s understanding of the very concept of happiness; this feeling can be fully felt only by those who, without reasoning, give their lives for a just cause in the fight for people’s happiness.

The main female character of the poem is Matryona Korchagina; the entire third chapter is devoted to a description of her tragic fate, typical of all Russian women. Drawing her portrait, Nekrasov admires her straight, proud posture, simple attire and the amazing beauty of a simple Russian woman (large, stern eyes, rich eyelashes, stern and dark). Her whole life is spent in hard peasant work, she has to endure beatings from her husband and brazen attacks from the manager, she was destined to survive the tragic death of her first-born, hunger and deprivation. She lives only for the sake of her children, and without hesitation accepts punishment with rods for her guilty son. The author admires the strength of her maternal love, endurance and strong character, sincerely pities her and sympathizes with all Russian women, for the fate of Matryona is the fate of all peasant women of that time, suffering from lawlessness, poverty, religious fanaticism and superstition, and lack of qualified medical care.

The poem also describes the images of landowners, their wives and sons (princes, nobles), depicts the landowners' servants (lackeys, servants, courtyard servants), priests and other clergy, kind governors and cruel German managers, artists, soldiers, wanderers, a huge number secondary characters who give the folk lyric-epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” that unique polyphony and epic breadth that make this work a real masterpiece and the pinnacle of Nekrasov’s entire literary work.

Analysis of the poem

The problems raised in the work are diverse and complex, they affect the lives of various strata of society, including a difficult transition to a new way of life, problems of drunkenness, poverty, obscurantism, greed, cruelty, oppression, the desire to change something, etc.

However, the key problem of this work is the search for simple human happiness, which each of the characters understands in their own way. For example, rich people, such as priests or landowners, think only about their own well-being, this is happiness for them, poorer people, such as ordinary peasants, are happy with the simplest things: staying alive after a bear attack, surviving a beating at work, etc. .

The main idea of ​​the poem is that the Russian people deserve to be happy, they deserve it with their suffering, blood and sweat. Nekrasov was convinced that one must fight for one’s happiness and it is not enough to make one person happy, because this will not solve the entire global problem as a whole; the poem calls for thinking and striving for happiness for everyone without exception.

Structural and compositional features

The compositional form of the work is distinctive; it is built in accordance with the laws of classical epic, i.e. each chapter can exist independently, and all together they represent a single whole work with a large number of characters and storylines.

The poem, according to the author himself, belongs to the genre of folk epic, it is written in unrhymed iambic trimeter, at the end of each line after stressed syllables there are two unstressed syllables (the use of dactylic casula), in some places there is iambic tetrameter to emphasize the folklore style of the work.

In order for the poem to be understandable to the common man, many common words and expressions are used in it: village, breveshko, fair, empty popple, etc. The poem contains a large number of different examples of folk poetry, these are fairy tales, epics, various proverbs and sayings, folk songs of various genres. The language of the work is stylized by the author in the form of a folk song to improve ease of perception; at that time, the use of folklore was considered the best way of communication between the intelligentsia and the common people.

In the poem, the author used such means of artistic expression as epithets (“the sun is red”, “black shadows”, a free heart”, “poor people”), comparisons (“jumped out as if disheveled”, “the men fell asleep like the dead”), metaphors ( “the earth lies”, “the warbler is crying”, “the village is seething”). There is also a place for irony and sarcasm, various stylistic figures are used, such as addresses: “Hey, uncle!”, “Oh people, Russian people!”, various exclamations “Chu!”, “Eh, Eh!” etc.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the highest example of a work executed in the folk style of Nekrasov’s entire literary heritage. The elements and images of Russian folklore used by the poet give the work a bright originality, colorfulness and rich national flavor. The fact that Nekrasov made the search for happiness the main theme of the poem is not at all accidental, because the entire Russian people have been searching for it for many thousands of years, this is reflected in his fairy tales, epics, legends, songs and in other various folklore sources as the search for treasure, a happy land, priceless treasure. The theme of this work expressed the most cherished desire of the Russian people throughout its existence - to live happily in a society where justice and equality rule.

Chapters Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" not only do they reveal different aspects of Russian life: in each chapter we look at this life through the eyes of representatives of different classes. And the story of each of them, as the center, turns to the “kingdom of the peasant”, revealing different aspects of people’s life - their way of life, work, revealing the people’s soul, people’s conscience, people’s aspirations and aspirations. To use the expression of Nekrasov himself, we “measure” the peasant with different “standards” - both the “master’s” and his own. But in parallel, against the background of the majestic picture of the life of the Russian empire created in the poem, the internal plot of the poem develops - the gradual growth of the heroes’ self-awareness, their spiritual awakening. Observing what is happening, talking with a variety of people, men learn to distinguish true happiness from imaginary, illusory ones, they find the answer to the question “who is the holiest of all, who is the greatest sinner of all.” It is characteristic that already in the first part the heroes act as judges, and it is they who have the right to determine: which of those who call themselves happy is truly happy. This is a complex moral task that requires a person to have his own ideals. But it is equally important to note that wanderers increasingly find themselves “lost” in the crowd of peasants: their voices seem to merge with the voices of residents of other provinces, the entire peasant “world.” And the “world” already has a weighty word in condemning or justifying the happy and unhappy, sinners and righteous.

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

What, did you take it? stubborn head!
Country club!
That's where the argument gets into!<...>
For three years I, little ones,
He lived with the priest as a worker,
Raspberries are not life!
Popova porridge - with butter,
Popov pie - with filling,
Popov's cabbage soup - with smelt!<...>
Well, here's what you've praised,
A priest's life!

Already in the story one priest appeared important feature of the story. Talking about their lives, about personal troubles, every possible “candidate” for happiness that the men meet will paint a broad picture of Russian life. This creates the image of Russia - a single world in which the life of each class turns out to be dependent on the life of the entire country. Only against the backdrop of people's life, in close connection with it, does the troubles of the heroes themselves become understandable and explainable. In the priest's story, first of all, the dark sides of the peasant's life are revealed: the priest, confessing to the dying, becomes a witness to the most sorrowful moments in the peasant's life. From the priest we learn that both in years of rich harvest and in years of famine, the life of a peasant is never easy:

Our benefits are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The little beast goes from hand to mouth,
Bread will be born on its own,
And if it gets better
The damp earth is the nurse,
So a new problem:
There is nowhere to go with the bread!
There's a need - you'll sell it
For sheer trifle,
And there is a crop failure!
Then pay through the nose,
Sell ​​the cattle!

It is pop that touches on one of the most tragic aspects of people's life - the most important theme of the poem: the sad position of the Russian peasant woman, “the sad woman, the nurse, the water-maid, the slave, the pilgrim and the eternal toiler.”

One can also note this feature of the narrative: at the heart of each story of the heroes about his life lies antithesis: past - present. At the same time, the heroes do not simply compare different stages of their lives: human life, a person’s happiness and misfortune are always connected with those laws - social and moral, according to which the life of the country follows. Characters often make broad generalizations themselves. So, for example, a priest, depicting the current ruin of landowners’ estates, peasant life, and the lives of priests, says:

At a time not far away
Russian Empire
Noble estates
Was full<...>
What weddings were played there,
That children were born
On free bread!<...>
But now it’s not the same!
Like the tribe of Judah,
The landowners dispersed
Across distant foreign lands
And native to Rus'.

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

But the author’s task is clearly not to glorify lost prosperity. Both in the story of the priest and in the story of the landowner, especially in the stories of Matryona Timofeevna, the leitmotif is the idea that the basis of well-being is great work, great patience of the people, the very “fortification” that brought so much grief to the people. “Free bread”, the bread of serfs that was given to landowners for free, is the source of well-being for Russia and all its classes - all except the peasant class.

The painful impression of the priest's story does not disappear even in the chapter describing the rural holiday. Chapter “Rural Fair” opens up new aspects of people's life. Through the eyes of peasants, we look at the simple joys of peasants, we see a motley and drunken crowd. “Blind people” - this Nekrasov definition from the poem “The Unhappy” fully conveys the essence of the picture of the national holiday drawn by the author. A crowd of peasants offering caps to tavern owners for a bottle of vodka, a drunken peasant who dumped a whole cartload of goods into a ditch, Vavilishka who drank all his money, offen men buying “pictures” with important generals and books “about my stupid lord” for sale to the peasants - All these, both sad and funny scenes, testify to the moral blindness of the people, their ignorance. Perhaps, only one bright episode was noted by the author in this holiday: universal sympathy for the fate of Vavilushka, who drank away all the money and grieved that he would not bring his granddaughter the promised gift: “The people gathered, listened, / Don’t laugh, feel sorry; / If there had been work, some bread / They would have helped him, / But if you take out two two-kopeck pieces, / You’ll be left with nothing.” When the scholar-folklorist Veretennikov helps out the poor peasant, the peasants “were so comforted, / So glad, as if he had given each one / a ruble.” Compassion for someone else's misfortune and the ability to rejoice in someone else's joy - the spiritual responsiveness of the people - all this foreshadows future author's words about the people's golden heart.

Chapter "Drunken Night" continues the theme of the “great Orthodox thirst”, the immensity of “Russian hops” and paints a picture of wild revelry on the night after the fair. The basis of the chapter is numerous dialogues of different people invisible to either wanderers or readers. Wine made them frank, forced them to talk about the most painful and intimate things. Each dialogue could be expanded into the story of human life, as a rule, unhappy: poverty, hatred between the closest people in the family - that’s what these conversations reveal. This description, which gave rise to the reader’s feeling that “there is no measure for Russian hops,” originally ended the chapter. But it is no coincidence that the author writes a sequel, making the center of the chapter “Drunken Night” not these painful pictures, but an explanatory conversation Pavlushi Veretennikova, folklorist scientist, with peasant Yakim Nagim. It is also no coincidence that the author makes the interlocutor of the folklorist scholar not a “craftsman,” as was the case in the first drafts, but rather a peasant. It is not an outside observer, but the peasant himself who provides an explanation for what is happening. “Don’t measure a peasant by the master’s measure!” - the voice of the peasant Yakim Nagogo sounds in response to Veretennikov, who reproached the peasants for “drinking until they stupefy.” Yakim explains public drunkenness by the suffering that was inflicted on the peasants without measure:

There is no measure for Russian hops,
Have they measured our grief?
Is there a limit to the work?<...>
Why is it shameful for you to look,
Like drunk people lying around
So look,
Like being dragged out of a swamp
Peasants have wet hay,
Having mowed down, they drag:
Where horses can't get through
Where and without a burden on foot
It's dangerous to cross
There's a peasant horde there
By Kochs, by Zhorins
Crawling and crawling with whips, -
The peasant's navel is cracking!

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

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

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

The chest is sunken, as if depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And to Mother Earth myself
He looks like: brown neck,
Like a layer cut off by a plow,
Brick face
Hand - tree bark.
And the hair is sand.

The chapter “Drunken Night” ends with songs in which the people’s soul was most strongly reflected. In one of them they sing “about Mother Volga, about valiant prowess, about maiden beauty.” The song about love and brave strength and will disturbed the peasants, passed “through the hearts of the peasants” with “fire-longing”, made women cry, and caused homesickness in the hearts of wanderers. Thus, the drunken, “cheerful and roaring” crowd of peasants is transformed before the eyes of the readers, and the longing for will and love, for happiness, suppressed by work and wine, opens in the hearts and souls of people.

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

History of creation

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

After the death of the author, the publishers of the poem were faced with the difficult task of determining in what sequence to publish the disparate parts of the work, because Nekrasov did not have time to combine them into one whole. The problem was solved by K. Chukovsky, who, relying on the writer’s archives, decided to print the parts in the order in which they are known to the modern reader: “The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman,” “A Feast for the Whole World.”

Genre of the work, composition

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

Theme and idea of ​​the work, characters, issues

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

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

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

From Grisha’s understanding of happiness arises the main idea of ​​the work: true happiness is possible only for those who do not think about themselves, and are ready to spend their whole life for the happiness of everyone. The call to love your people as they are and to fight for their happiness, without remaining indifferent to their problems, sounds clearly throughout the poem, and finds its final embodiment in the image of Grisha.

Artistic media

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

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

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

Conclusion

So, having examined Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we can confidently conclude that, despite the fact that it remained unfinished, it is still of enormous literary value. The poem remains relevant to this day and can arouse interest not only among researchers, but also among ordinary readers interested in the history of problems of Russian life. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has been repeatedly interpreted in other forms of art - in the form of a stage production, various illustrations (Sokolov, Gerasimov, Shcherbakova), as well as a popular print on this subject.

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