Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov who lives well in Rus'. Nikolai NekrasovWho lives well in Rus' (collection) Happy man of Rus' lives well

Essay text:

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was one of the first Russian poets who was deeply concerned with the theme of peasant life. He created his works during difficult years for Russia. It was already clear to everyone that serfdom had outlived its usefulness and could no longer exist. But the reform of 1861 does not make the situation easier for the peasants. As a man of revolutionary democratic views, Nekrasov perfectly understands the remaining enslaving dependence of the peasantry on the landowners.
In 1863, Nekrasov began work on one of his most significant works. This is the poem Who Lives Well in Rus'. The whole life of a peasant can be traced in the poem. We see the birth of a child, and a wedding, and recruitment, and funerals, and work in the field. The poem reflects the spiritual world of the peasantry, its joys and sorrows, doubts and hopes. The question runs through the entire work: Who is happy on Russian land?
There are many characters in the poem. But how different they all are! The poor, exhausted by hunger and need, who endure humiliation and lack of rights all their lives, are happy that they are still alive after all the hardships, happy that they will die in their native land. Savely and Ermila Girin have completely different happiness. They are rebels in spirit. They do not resign themselves to adversity, they try to make life better in their own way. But serfdom kills them too. Savely spends his entire life in hard labor, and his only joy in old age, Demushka, dies. Yermilo Girin ends up in prison during a peasant revolt, and it is not difficult to imagine what his future fate will be. But there is no unity in the peasant world: serfdom distorts not only human destinies, but also personalities. We see happy slaves who are happy to be slaves to their masters. This is the footman Ipat, who with joy and tenderness talks about the cruelty of his master towards him, this is the footman of Prince Peremetyev, a completely distorted personality in whom there is absolutely no human dignity left. But even among such slaves, protest is growing. An example of this is Yakov, who takes revenge on his master with his own death.
And the noble landowners are also unhappy in their own way. They feel that their time is running out, they feel that protest and discontent are emerging among the peasantry. But they cannot change themselves, they cannot change their lifestyle.
There are no happy ones among the clergy either. Many priests understand that they are a burden for the SVR peasants, because life is not easy for the people even without them. So say the priest whom the men meet on their way. He sympathizes with the peasants, but at the same time he is sorry that the landowners have disappeared.
Peasant women are also unhappy. The poet paints a beautiful image of the majestic Slavic woman Matryona Timofeevna. Has she seen happiness in life? She was happy during her childhood, but from an early age she has been working and helping her parents. There was the happiness of motherhood, but life was also cruel to her children. Whatever character you take in the poem, each has their own tragedy. Who can live well in Rus'? The question remains unanswered.
Thus, it turns out that there are no truly happy people in the poem. They don’t exist in life either. Serfdom destroyed destinies and personalities. It destroyed the human traits in many nobles, clergy and other people. What kind of happiness can we talk about if the peasantry has no rights and life is full of hardships and disasters, and the serf owners have inhuman souls.

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Starting from the chapter “Happy”, a turn is planned in the direction of the search for a happy person. On their own initiative, the “lucky” ones from the lower classes begin to approach the wanderers. Most of them are very tempted to take a sip of free wine. But the very fact of their appearance is significant in the epic. The attention of the seven wanderers is increasingly captured by the polyphonic people's Rus'. There are confessional stories from courtyard people, clergy, soldiers, stonemasons, and hunters. The entire peasant kingdom is involved in a dialogue, in a dispute about happiness. Of course, these “lucky ones” are such that the wanderers, seeing the empty bucket, exclaim with bitter irony:

Hey, man's happiness!

Leaky with patches,

Humpbacked with calluses,

Go home!

But at the end of the chapter there is a story about a happy man, moving the action of the epic forward, marking a higher level of popular ideas about happiness. Yermil - “not a prince, not an illustrious count, but just a man!” But in terms of his character and influence on peasant life, he is stronger and more authoritative than anyone. His strength lies in the trust of the people's world and in Yermil Girin's support for this world. The heroism of the people is poeticized when they act together. The story about Ermil begins with a description of the hero’s litigation with the merchant Altynnikov over the orphan mill. When at the end of the bargaining “things turned out to be rubbish” - there was no money with Yermil - he turned to the people for support:

And a miracle happened -

Throughout the market square

Every peasant has

Like the wind, half left

Suddenly it turned upside down!

This is the first time in the poem when the people’s world, with one impulse, one unanimous effort, wins victory over untruth:

Cunning, strong clerks,

And their world is stronger,

The merchant Altynnikov is rich,

And everything cannot resist him

Against the world's treasury...

Like Yakim, Yermil is endowed with a keen sense of Christian conscience and honor. Only once did he stumble: he excluded “his younger brother Mitri from recruiting.” But this act cost the righteous man severe torment and ended with nationwide repentance, which further strengthened his authority. Ermil's conscientiousness is not exceptional: it is an expression of the most characteristic features of the peasant world as a whole. Let us remember how Yermil paid off the peasants for their worldly debt, collected in the market square:

An extra ruble, whose - God knows!

Stayed with him.

All day with my money open

Yermil walked around, asking questions,

Whose ruble? I didn’t find it.

Throughout his life, Yermil refutes the initial ideas of wanderers about the essence of human happiness. It would seem that he has “everything that is needed for happiness: peace of mind, money, and honor.” But at a critical moment in his life, Yermil sacrifices this “happiness” for the sake of the people’s truth and ends up in prison.

HAPPY IN THE POEM. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was one of the first Russian poets who was deeply concerned with the theme of peasant life. He created his works during difficult years for Russia. It was already clear to everyone that serfdom had outlived its usefulness and could no longer exist. But the reform of 1861 does not make the situation easier for the peasants. As a man of revolutionary democratic views, Nekrasov perfectly understands the remaining enslaving dependence of the peasantry on the landowners.

In 1863, Nekrasov began work on one of his most significant works. This is the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The whole life of a peasant can be traced in the poem. We see the birth of a child, a wedding, recruiting, a funeral, and work in the field. The poem reflects the spiritual world of the peasantry, its joys and sorrows, doubts and hopes. The question runs through the entire work: “Who is happy in Russian land?”

There are many characters in the poem. But how different they all are! The poor, exhausted by hunger and need, who endure humiliation and lack of rights all their lives, are happy that they are still alive after all the hardships, happy that they will die in their native land. Savely and Ermila Girin have a completely different “happiness”. They are rebels in spirit. They do not resign themselves to adversity, they try to make life better in their own way. But serfdom kills them too. Savely spends his entire life in hard labor, and his only joy in old age - Demushka - dies. Ermilo Girin ends up in prison during a peasant revolt, and it is not difficult to imagine what his future fate will be. But there is no unity in the peasant world: serfdom distorts not only human destinies, but also personalities. We see happy slaves who are happy to be slaves to their masters. This is the footman Ipat, who with joy and tenderness talks about the cruelty of his master towards him, this is the footman of Prince Peremetyev, a completely distorted person in whom there is absolutely no human dignity left. But even among such slaves, protest is growing. An example of this is Yakov, who takes revenge on his master with his own death.

And the noble landowners are also unhappy in their own way. They feel that their time is running out, they feel that protest and discontent are emerging among the peasantry. But they cannot change themselves, they cannot change their lifestyle.

There are no happy ones among the clergy either. Many priests understand that they are a burden for the peasantry, because life is not easy for the people even without them. So says the priest whom the men meet on their way. He sympathizes with the peasants, but at the same time he is sorry that the landowners have disappeared.

Peasant women are also unhappy. The poet paints a beautiful image of the majestic Slavic woman Matryona Timofeevna. Has she seen happiness in life? She was happy during her childhood, but from an early age she has been working and helping her parents. There was the happiness of motherhood, but life was also cruel to her children. Whatever character you take in the poem, each has their own tragedy. Who can live well in Rus'? The question remains unanswered.

Thus, it turns out that there are no truly happy people in the poem. They don’t exist in life either. Serfdom destroyed destinies and personalities. It destroyed human traits in many nobles, clergy and other people. What kind of happiness can we talk about if the peasantry has no rights and life is full of hardships and disasters, and the serf owners have inhuman souls?

IN chapter "Happy" a crowd of men and women will appear on the way. Many of the peasants they met declare themselves “happy,” but the men do not agree with everyone. The researchers noted an important feature in this list of “happy” people - in general, they represent different peasant “professions”, their stories reveal “almost all aspects of the life of the working masses: here are a soldier, a stonecutter, a worker, a Belarusian peasant, etc. ." In this episode, the wanderers themselves act as judges: they do not need to be convinced who is happy and who is not, they decide this issue on their own. And therefore they laughed at the “dismissed sexton”, who assured that happiness lies “in complacency”, in the acceptance of small joy; They laughed at the old woman, “happy” because “in the fall / Up to a thousand turnips were born / On a small ridge.” They pitied the old soldier, who considered it fortunate that he “didn’t succumb to death”, having been in twenty battles. They respected the mighty stonemason, convinced that happiness lies in strength, but still did not agree with him: “<...>But won’t it / be difficult to carry around with this happiness / in old age?..” It is no coincidence that the story of a heroic man who lost both his strength and health through hard work and returned to his homeland to die immediately follows. Strength, youth and health are unreliable grounds for happiness. The Nekrasov peasants did not accept the “happiness” of the bear hunter, who was glad that he did not die, but was only wounded in a fight with the beast, nor do they recognize the happiness of the Belarusian, who received plenty of “bread.” They drove out in disgrace the lackey Prince Peremetyev, who saw happiness in his lackey. But Ermila Girin’s happiness seems very justified to them and to many witnesses of these conversations.

The story of Ermila Girin It is no coincidence that it occupies a central place in the chapter. His story is instructive and really makes you believe that a man can be happy. What is the happiness of Ermila Girin? Coming from a peasant background, he earned money through intelligence and hard work; at first he kept an “orphan mill,” then, when they decided to sell it, he decided to buy it. Deceived by the clerks, Yermil did not bring money to the auction, but the men who knew Girin’s honesty came to the rescue: they collected the “worldly treasury” by the penny. “Mir” has proven its strength, its ability to resist untruth. But the “world” helped Girin because everyone knew his life. And other stories from the life of Ermil Ilyich confirm his kindness and decency. Having sinned once, sending a widow’s son as a soldier instead of his brother, Yermil repented before the people, ready to accept any punishment, any shame:

Yermil Ilyich himself came,
Barefoot, thin, with pads,
With a rope in my hands,
He came and said: “It was time,
I judged you according to my conscience,
Now I myself am more sinful than you:
Judge me!
And he bowed to our feet,
Neither give nor take holy fool<...>

The men's journey could end with a meeting with Yermil Girin. His life corresponds to the people's understanding of happiness and includes: peace, wealth, honor gained by honesty and kindness:

Yes! there was only one man!
He had everything he needed
For happiness: and peace of mind,
And money and honor,
An enviable, true honor,
Not bought with money,
Not with fear: with strict truth,
With intelligence and kindness!

But it is no coincidence that Nekrasov ends the chapter with a story about the misfortune of the happy Girin. “If Nekrasov,” B.Ya. rightly believes. The Bukhshtab wanted to recognize a person like Girin as happy; he could have avoided introducing a prison situation. Of course, Nekrasov wants to show with this episode that happiness in Rus' is hampered by the oppression of the people, which in one way or another deprives the happiness of people who sympathize with the people<...>. The happiness of a merchant who has acquired, albeit legally, a fair amount of capital, even if he is a decent, kind person, is not the happiness that could resolve the dispute between wanderers, because this happiness is not in the understanding that the poet wants to instill in the reader.” One can assume another reason for this ending of the chapter: Nekrasov wanted to show the insufficiency of all these terms for happiness. The happiness of one person, especially an honest one, is impossible against the backdrop of general misfortune.

Other articles on analysis poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”.

In the poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who lives well in Rus'?” seven wandering peasants are looking for a happy one in Rus'. The poet wrote this poem for several decades, but never completed it. The wanderers did not meet the happy one and the poem remained with an open ending. But can any of the heroes of the work be called happy? What is needed for happiness, from the point of view of the heroes and the poet himself?

The poem shows the crisis state of the Russian world. Firstly, there is poverty and hunger. Let us remember the names of the villages from which the wanderers came: Dyryavino, Zaplatovo, Neurozhaika... Secondly, after the abolition of serfdom, “the great chain broke,” and hit “one end on the master, the other on the peasant”: no one knows how to arrange their life what value system to rely on.

This is why many of the heroes of the poem are unhappy - even those who deserve it. For example, Savely, who was a “hero of Holy Russia”, strong, stubborn, served hard labor, watched how a pig killed his great-grandson Demushka, and spent a long time atone for his sin, etc. “The keys to women’s happiness” have also been lost in Rus'. Matryona Timofeevna, a peasant woman who was a kind, good wife, a wonderful mother, was deprived of happiness because of all the worries placed on her shoulders around the house, housework, because of her hungry life, and lack of support.

But even those who feel happy often have poor ideas about happiness. Wanderers went all over Rus' in search of a happy person. Nekrasov uses the technique of “poetic polyphony,” as if “giving the floor” to the Russian people themselves. As it turned out, for some, happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor, for others in the opportunity to pour vodka into their “happy” life. In the chapter “Happy” we see how people measure their happiness, if it can be called such, for the opportunity to “sip free wine.” Some have grown up to a thousand, others see happiness in the recognition of their owners: “I’m happy, God knows! The first boyar, Prince Peremetyev, had me as his favorite slave.” The landowner's happiness is an idle life, feasts, hunting, power over people. The author writes: “Hey, peasant happiness! Leaky with patches, hunchbacked with calluses...” This primitive idea of ​​happiness, which every “happy” person talked about, does not bring true happiness to any of them.

The owner of true happiness in the poem is Grisha Dobrosklonov. Despite the life of “poorer than the last shabby peasant” and hard everyday work, he has a desire for spiritual development. He has a craving for beauty, for creativity, for dreams. Grisha is a poet, he composes songs about Russia, about the people, and is preparing to devote himself to the fight for the people’s happiness. This is what distinguishes him from the other heroes of this poem. But the wanderers never met Grisha and did not find the happy one.

“Who can live well in Rus'?” is an epic poem. In it, thanks to the image of the road and the travel plot, a panoramic picture of Russian life appears, a picture of people's grief, discord, etc. There cannot be truly happy people if life as a whole is arranged unreasonably and is in a state of crisis. But on the whole, the poem is not tragic in nature, since, according to the author, healthy and strong principles are still preserved in Russian life; they only need to be given the opportunity to mature and manifest themselves.

Thus, N. Nekrasov believes that happiness lies in constant movement, development, and creativity. This is what gives meaning to a person's life. This is why Grisha Dobrosklonov becomes happy in the poem.