The motive of the railway in literature. Path motive in literature

MCOU Ramonskaya secondary school No. 2

Research

“Motif of the road in the works of Russian classics”

Completed by students of grade 9A

Chukaeva Yana

Krutko Polina

Yatsenko Svetlana

Podvigina Olga

Head: teacher

Russian language and literature

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Chapter 1. The motive of the road in the lyrics and ……………..4-9

Chapter 2. The motive of the road in the novel “The Captain’s Daughter”…………..8-12

Chapter 3. The motive of the road in the novel “Hero of Our Time”...13-16

Chapter 4. The motive of the road in the poem “Dead Souls”…………………17-20

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………21

References…………………………………………………………………………………22

Introduction

The theme of the road, travel, which is an integral part of the life of every person, is of great importance in literary works and occupies an important place in the work of Russian writers of the 19th century. That is why we took this topic for research. In our work we turned to the works of... An important role in our choice was played by the fact that we study the works of these very Russian classics in the 9th grade. We wanted to get to know their work in more detail, to delve deeper into the content of the works. In addition, the theme of the road is interesting and multi-valued: the meaning of the words “path”, “road” also includes the philosophical concept of a person’s life path, his destiny. The motif of the road generally plays a big role in Russian literature: the distances are long, there is a lot of time for philosophizing on the road. The road is a metaphor for the path of life, the path of a person.

From these positions, we decided to consider the lyrics and the novel “The Captain's Daughter”, the novel “A Hero of Our Time” and the poem “Dead Souls”.

Chapter 1. The motive of the road in the lyrics and

In the fall of 1830, Pushkin came to Boldino to settle property matters before his marriage and stayed there for a long time due to cholera quarantines; he broke up with his young, beloved, beautiful bride. What awaits him on the threshold of a new stage of life? After home unsettledness, wanderings, loneliness, the poet seeks peace of mind and family happiness, but at the same time, gloomy forebodings do not leave him. Perhaps, during such painful thoughts, the poem “Demons” was created, which conveys the mental anguish, experiences, and fear of two travelers traveling “in an open field” and getting lost in a snowy blizzard - the lyrical hero and the coachman. The reader is presented with a terrible, but very real picture.

The clouds are rushing, the clouds are swirling;

Invisible moon

The flying snow illuminates;

The sky is cloudy, the night is cloudy.

The first part of the poem is relatively calm; the theme of the road is revealed here. The second part of “Demons” is the emergence of obstacles, which, thanks to poetry, acquire a symbolic meaning. This philosophical mood turns the everyday theme of the poem into a serious narrative filled with deep meaning.

But gradually the riders are overcome by anxiety (“we have lost our way,...What should we do!”), even despair, conveyed by the author through the monotonous repetition of words (“clouds are rushing, clouds are swirling”, “the sky is cloudy, the night is cloudy”, “I’m going, I’m going” , “scary, scary,” “the blizzard is angry, the blizzard is crying”) and entire quatrains, and the real winter night is filled with fantastic images from folk mythology, which, raised by a nanny-storyteller, of course, he knew well. Here is a lonely demon who " blows, spits... pushes a wild horse into a ravine,” and a multitude of demons that rush “swarm after swarm in the boundless heights, with pitiful screeches and howls tearing at the heart” of the lyrical hero, and the witch, and the brownie. The exhausted horses stopped, the coachman despaired of finding the way.

The third part of the poem is a vivid climax of the plot, when a person finds himself in a hopeless situation, since he is powerless in the face of a blizzard. And instantly the situation changes, when the horses move forward again, the conflict that arises in the poem is resolved. This is both an everyday and a philosophical solution to the situation presented in “Demons.” In the first stanza of the poem there is not just a description of nature, but a designation of the situation and the intensity in which the coachman and rider find themselves.

But it’s not for nothing that this poem is called mystical; even the title suggests that the meaning of “Demons” is much deeper than it might seem at first glance. In order to comprehend the philosophical meaning of the poem, it is necessary to correctly interpret the images and symbols that Pushkin uses. First of all, this is an image of the Russian winter - flying snow, a severe blizzard, snowy roads... All this already emphasizes the general mood of the poem - gloomy, but desperately looking for a way out of the current situation. Just like the traveler who was stopped by a snowstorm and forced to submit to the elements. The author constantly focuses on the road, on the horses, on the bell, emphasizing that the travelers have lost their way, are lost, and are afraid. At the moment when “the horses rushed again,” the climax comes: the demons acquire very real features, now they are seen not only by the coachman, but also by the rider himself, designated by the lyrical “I.” From this moment on, the earth in the poem completely disappears and an orgy, a Sabbath, begins:

Endless, ugly,

In the muddy game of the month

Various demons began to spin,

Like leaves in November...

How many of them! where are they being driven?

Why are they singing so pitifully?

Do they bury the brownie?

Do they marry off a witch?

Thus, as the speed increases, the emotional tension of the poem increases and increases. How will the blizzard winter night end? Unknown. In the meantime, the chaos of a blizzard, a snow storm, and the plaintive howl of the wind, which in the minds of the lyrical hero have turned into a phantasmagoric picture of the triumph of evil spirits, seem endless... The lost travelers in the poem “Demons” symbolize the Russian people, who are truly lost among the snowy plains and cannot find their way to a happier and freer life. It is again confirmed that the road has not only the direct meaning of a path, a trajectory, but also the life path of people who cannot find their place in life, their path along which to follow.

The poem “Road Complaints,” in our opinion, reflects the poet’s fatigue from a wandering, nomadic, restless life.

How long will I walk in the world?

Now in a carriage, now on horseback,

Now in a wagon, now in a carriage,

Either in a cart or on foot?

In the lines of the poem one can hear the poet's complaints about the Russian impassability. We think that both off-road conditions and the vagaries of the unpredictable Russian climate should be considered both in the literal sense and in a broad, historical and social sense: here is the vulnerability of the individual from all kinds of surprises, here is the all-Russian carelessness, indifference to all kinds of comfort and coziness .

Or the plague will catch me,

Or the frost will ossify,

Or a barrier will hit my forehead

A non-agile disabled person.

In the course of studying the facts of the writer’s biography, analyzing his works and getting acquainted with literary works, we came to the conclusion that Pushkin’s persistent understanding of the motive of the road is a natural result of his life and creative quest. The first, significant reason for the poet’s turning to the road theme was his wandering, travel-filled life. Pushkin traveled all over the European part of Russia, dreaming of visiting beyond the Urals, in Siberia. He was in the foothills of the Caucasus, and in the Crimea, and in Moldova, and in the Pskov region, and near the middle Volga, and in the Orenburg steppes, and in the mountains
Ossetia, and in the valleys of Georgia, and on the plateaus of Armenia, and within the borders of present-day Turkey near the highland Arzrum. Images of a traveler, a coachman, and road miles are constantly found in the poet’s works.

As in the development of other motifs in his work, Pushkin showed an unprecedented example of innovation in understanding the road theme. Before him, the road in literature was only a kind of decoration, a background for the development of action. Pushkin does not pay tribute to the image of the path, but makes it the leitmotif of his lyrics and prose. The poet's innovation is manifested in his philosophical understanding of the topic. Here the road comes to the fore as a crossroads in life and, of course, the road - a metaphor for fate and life.

The poem "Clouds", unlike Pushkin's "Demons", is not imbued with a mood of despair and fear: in it the motive of elegiac sadness sounds as the leading motive. But the feeling of loneliness and wandering melancholy also overwhelms the soul of the lyrical hero. The poet created this work in April 1840, shortly before being sent into second exile in the Caucasus. According to the recollections of one of his friends, at an evening in the Karamzin house, Lermontov, standing at the window and looking at the clouds that, covering the sky, slowly floated over the Summer Garden and the Neva, impromptu wrote a wonderful poem, whose first line sounded like this: “Heavenly clouds, eternal wanderers!" Already in these words one can feel the motive of wandering, the motive of an endless road. A metamorphic image of heavenly “eternal wanderers”, “exiles”, rushing “from the dear north towards the south” appears before the reader. The happiness of these “eternally cold, eternally free” inhabitants of the heavenly sphere is that neither envy, nor malice, nor slander have power over them. They do not know the pain of exile. The clouds are simply “bored of the barren fields,” so they set off on their journey. The fate of the lyrical hero is different: he is an involuntary exile, it is “driven” from his native side by “fate...decision”, “envy...secret”, “malice...open”, “poisonous slander from friends.” However, in the main thing, he is happier than the proud and independent clouds: he has a homeland, and the eternal freedom of the celestials is cold and lonely precisely because they were initially deprived of a fatherland.

As a work in which the motif of the road sounds, one can also consider the poem “I go out alone on the road...” full of philosophical thoughts about the secrets of the universe, about the meaning of life. Written in the spring of 1841, it seems to sum up the short, but bright, like a flash of a meteorite, life of the poet. Here the lyrical hero is alone with the endless road and the sky wide open above his head. He feels like a part of the universe, a person immersed in the open and free elements of nature. “The flint path,” characteristic of the Caucasus mountains, is perceived in the poem in two guises: both as a specific road along which a lonely traveler walks, and as a symbol of life’s path. The world around the lyrical hero is calm, majestic and beautiful, a “blue radiance” is spread everywhere. But “radiance” is not only moonlight, in the rays of which the road sparkles. It is perceived as a background that clearly reveals the gloomy state of the soul of the traveler, who “does not expect anything from life” and who “does not regret ... the past at all.” The lyrical hero is lonely, he is now looking only for “freedom and peace,” the kind of peace that exists in the world around him at these moments. The poet shows that in the majestic universe everything is alive: here “the desert listens to God,” “star speaks to star,” here there is no loneliness from which the traveler suffers. Peace descends into the hero’s soul, and he longs for one thing - to “forget himself and fall asleep” forever. But not “the cold sleep of the grave,” but so that “the strength of life slumbered in the chest,” so that both day and night, cherishing his hearing, “a sweet voice sang to him about love ...” so that above him, calmly sleeping, “ever green , the dark oak bowed and made noise." Eternal peace takes on the meaning of eternal life, and the “flint path” acquires the features of an infinite path in time and space. The dream of the lyrical hero is fantastic in its essence, but the nature around him also acquires fantastic magical features! The motive of lonely wandering gives way to the motive of the triumph of life and complete merging with the Divine world. (Isn’t it on this road that the master from the novel found eternal peace? Wasn’t it from there that Pontius Pilate began his journey along the lunar road? In general, when reading the classics of the 19th century, many associations arise with works of a later period. But this topic, apparently, is for another study... )

Chapter 2. The motive of the road in the novel “The Captain's Daughter”

The motif of the road in the novel “The Captain's Daughter” is very important. On the road, Pyotr Grinev meets with officer Ivan Zurin and the fugitive Cossack Emelyan Pugachev. These people will later meet again on the young man’s life path and play an important role in his destiny. This especially applies to Pugachev, who, remembering the kind attitude of the young master, will save his life during the capture of the Belogorsk fortress, and then help him rescue his beloved. It is interesting to note that the meeting of Pyotr Grinev with the future leader of the popular uprising took place during a strong snowstorm, but the unknown tramp, in whom only later the young man and his faithful servant recognize the formidable Pugachev, easily finds his way. “Where do you see the road?” the driver carrying the young officer asks him doubtfully. Everything around is covered with snow, and it is, indeed, hardly possible to see the road. But the tramp finds her completely differently. He suggests waiting a little until it clears up: “... then we’ll find our way by the stars.” Smelling smoke, he concludes that there must be human habitation nearby, and he turns out to be right. The road does not have to be seen as a strip of land running towards the horizon; it can be found thanks to signs that most people do not pay due attention to. So, we find an echo of the most ancient ideas about the road as the fate of a person. Those whom the hero meets by chance will have a great influence on his entire future.

But in the same chapter, Grinev has a prophetic dream: a man turns out to be a “scary man” who, waving an ax, filled the entire room with “dead bodies”, and this “scary man” “affectionately... called” Grinev and offered to “come” under his "blessing". Thus, the “road” indicated by Pugachev turned out to be saving for Petrusha and disastrous for others. It is deeply symbolic that Pugachev emerges from the snowstorm and saves Grinev from it: the rebellion raised by Pugachev will turn out to be as “merciless” as the elements, and Pugachev will more than once save Petrusha from this blind force. It is significant that the paths of the heroes, having crossed so bizarrely and incredibly, diverge. Peter Grinev will not follow the path of Russian rebellion indicated by “Peter III”.
Analysis of the development of the road motif in The Captain's Daughter allows us to talk about its different tasks in the novel. According to our observation, the road gives development to the plot of the work and causes unpredictable meetings of antipodean heroes: Grinev and Pugachev, Grinev and Shvabrin, Savelich and Pugachev. She brings Masha and the Empress together, Masha and Petrusha’s parents.
In the chapter “Sergeant of the Guard,” the road becomes the starting point of the protagonist’s fate, promises the bitterness of parting with his parents’ home, and foreshadows the difficult path of personality development. Petrusha recalls: “I got into the wagon with Savelich and set off on the road, shedding tears.” The hero clearly does not strive for a wandering life, and he can be called an exile conditionally: the father wants to raise his son as an honest officer, a defender of the Fatherland. The beginning of the chapter “Fortress” draws a road in the traditions of the era - as an element of the landscape and an exposition of the history of the Belogorsk stage of Grinev’s life. “The Belogorsk fortress was located forty miles from Orenburg, the road went along the steep bank of the Lika. The river had not yet frozen, and its leaden waves sadly blackened in the monotonous banks covered with white snow. Behind them stretched the Kyrgyz steppes.” Here again the coachman appears as a cross-cutting hero of the road theme. In this episode, he confidently carries the rider and does not need a “counselor.” The hero recalls: “We were driving quite quickly. “How far is it to the fortress?” - I asked my driver. “Not far,” he answered. “It’s already visible.” In the chapter “Rebel Settlement” the semantic load of the image of the path intensifies. The desire to save his beloved again drives Grinev on the road, despite Savelich’s warnings. In the description of the road, concrete and symbolic meanings merge: “My path went past Berdskaya Sloboda, Pugachev’s refuge. The straight road was covered with snow; but all over the steppe horse tracks were visible, renewed daily. I was riding at a fast trot. Savelich could hardly follow me from a distance and shouted to me every minute: “Quiet down, sir, for God’s sake, quiet down.<...>It would be good to have a feast, otherwise you’ll be damned..." On the one hand, Pushkin’s hero describes the details of a specific place, on the other hand, the words “past the Berdsk side” become iconic in the context of the work: Peter is not on the same path with the rebels, his the field is the path of an honest and valiant officer. Grinev chooses this road himself, without the advice of his father, uncle, or general. Internally, he agrees with Savelich: how long can a fugitive Cossack show nobility towards a military enemy? But he is driven on a dangerous path by the desire to defend his beloved. The further conversation between Grinev and his failed imprisoned father is about the fate of everyone, about the only possible path in life. Already here the leader of the rebels feels his defeat. He confesses to Peter: “My street is narrow; I don’t have enough will.” Grinev once again proclaims his life ideals, in which the voice of the author is heard: “But to live by murder and robbery means, for me, to peck at carrion.”
Pugachev’s departure in a wagon to Berda (chapter “Orphan”) marks the Cossack’s farewell to Grinev. Their paths are completely divergent. Then Masha and Petrusha “left the Belogorsk fortress forever.” This departure symbolizes both Masha’s separation from her native place, moving away from the places that gave rise to tragic memories, and Peter’s path to Home, the possibility of his beloved to be accepted by the Grinevs.

Another understanding of the theme of the journey in the novel is connected with Masha’s journey to Tsarskoe Selo, which she makes to meet the empress.
Masha’s path is faith in the triumph of justice, the fulfillment of the desire to change fate, to defend not only the freedom of her loved one, but also his officer’s and noble honor. The end of the journey of Marya Ivanovna is significant, who “not being curious to look at St. Petersburg, went back to the village...” This is explained not so much by the heroine’s haste as by her reluctance to join the life of the capital. If at the beginning of the novel Petrusha grieved that his path lay in places forgotten by God, the daughter of Captain Mironov hurries to the village. The “Russian soul” Tatyana Larina also strives there, and the author finds himself there, if we recall his lyrical works and lyrical digressions in Onegin.
So, the road tests Pushkin’s heroes for resilience and evokes thoughts about the meaning of life and their place in it. The road gives unexpected encounters and outlines drastic changes in fate.

Chapter 3. The motive of the road in the novel “A Hero of Our Time.”

The theme of the road is explored very widely in the novel “A Hero of Our Time.” In it, each story begins from a new place, to which Pechorin goes at the behest of his superiors. After all, the novel was conceived as Pechorin’s travel notes. Throughout all the stories the road is traced. This is the life path of an officer-traveler who is looking for his place in life. Through Pechorin's notes, the author tells us about the most interesting stories in which the main character finds himself. influences the fate of other people, how he analyzes his actions and actions, and how each story ultimately ends is very interesting to readers. And it’s as if we, too, are moving from one place to another, experiencing the events of the novel together with the main character.

Lermontov's hero Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin rides on a crossroads from Tiflis through the Kaishaur valley along the road, “on both sides of which bare, black stones stuck out; here and there bushes peeked out from under the snow, but not a single dry leaf moved, and it was fun to hear among of this dead sleep of nature, the snorting of a tired, postal troika and the nervous jingling of a Russian bell." The author repeatedly describes the danger of mountain dredges and their unpredictability in the chapter “Bela”. The travelers had difficulty moving, “the horses were falling; a deep chasm was gaping to the left,” “the snow was falling under their feet.” Rocky, winding, they were sometimes intersected by shallow ravines, sometimes by fast, noisy streams.

The chapter “Bela” begins with the lines “I was traveling on a crossroads from Tiflis.” While traveling along mountain paths, the narrator meets Maxim Maksimych, who tells him a story about his friend Pechorin and the Circassian princess Bela. Precisely because this novel is about military men who serve in the Caucasus and wander from place to place, the author makes the story about Bel like a story within a story. After all, only travelers who live far from home can get to know each other so easily, help in a difficult situation, and be frank with a new acquaintance. Reveal your secrets to him and tell him about the stories and adventures you have seen in your life. They talk about their lives so openly and without regret, probably because they may never meet their interlocutor again. They will go to different places, and everyone will keep the fascinating story that an old acquaintance once told him. But he doesn’t have time to tell the story: it’s time for them to hit the road again. And because of the bad weather conditions, it’s not easy on the road: “We had to go down about five miles on icy rocks and muddy snow to reach Kobi station. The horses were exhausted, we were cold; the blizzard hummed stronger and stronger, like our native northern one; only her wild melodies were sadder, more mournful.” The Russian road seems to be holding the military, not allowing them to separate, because the story has not yet been told. And so they have to stay one more night.

Next comes the chapter “Maxim Maksimych”. There the narrator and Maxim Maksimych manage to see Pechorin, but he is not happy to meet his old friend and rejects his friendly greeting. Then Pechorin’s notes fall into the hands of the narrator. From this moment “Pechorin's Journal” begins. And now the main character of the novel is narrating.

The first lines of the chapter “Taman” begin with Pechorin’s impressions of this city: “Taman is the worst little town of all the coastal cities of Russia. I almost died of hunger there, and on top of that they wanted to drown me.” The officer speaks very badly and poorly about the new place. After all, many different situations happen on the road, and they don’t always leave a good impression. In Taman, Pechorin has to stop for the night. And there he finds himself in an unpleasant situation that he should not have gotten into. But this is just another part of the path traveled by Pechorin. He destroyed other people's destinies and moved on. So he left these places without regret or loss: “And what do I care about human joys and misfortunes, me, a traveling officer...”. Pechorin understood that he would never return here again.

Next, the hero ends up in Pyatigorsk in high society. There he meets his old love Vera. But due to his uncontrollable nature, he again becomes entangled in other people's destinies. Vera could no longer wait for him and decided to leave him forever. When Pechorin found out about this, he rushed in pursuit of his love: “I jumped out onto the porch like crazy, jumped on my Circassian, ... and set off at full speed ... I mercilessly drove the exhausted horse, which, snoring and covered in foam, rushed me across rocky road." Throwing everything away, Pechorin pursued a better life. He thought that with her he would find his happiness. But even here his road is interrupted: the horse could not withstand such a frantic speed, Pechorin knocked it off its feet. Thus, throughout the entire novel, Pechorin, traveling, looked for his place in life, but never found it. All his life he was on the road, visited different places, but never found his native meth anywhere.

Pechorin, aptly named “Onegin’s younger brother,” not only travels (fate takes this aristocrat to St. Petersburg, then to Kislovodsk, then to the Cossack village, then to the “bad town” Taman, then even to Persia), but also dies in road, "returning from Persia." Here Pechorin returns home along a deserted road in the chapter “Fatalist”. What thoughts overcome his mind? “In the vain struggle, both the heat of the soul and the constancy of will necessary for real life were exhausted; I entered this life having already experienced it mentally, and I felt bored and disgusted, like someone who reads a bad imitation of a book that has long been known.” And these bitter confessions of Pechorin are heard more than once! He calls his generation “pathetic descendants”, incapable of making great sacrifices either for the good of humanity or even for their own happiness. Feelings of melancholy and loneliness are constant companions of his life.

In the chapter "Taman" Pechorin compares himself to a sailor born on the deck of a robber brig. He misses. All day long he walks along the coastal sand, listens to the roar of the incoming waves and peers into the distance. What is he waiting for? What are his eyes looking for? ...Won't the desired sail flash by, running evenly, approaching the deserted pier... But for Pechorin this dream did not come true: the sail did not appear and did not rush him off to another life, to other shores.

He is depicted as bored in the chapter “Bela”, and only when the travelers climbed to the top of Mount Gud, the hero is fascinated by the silver threads of the rivers; like a child, he watches the bluish fog sliding across the water, the ruddy shine with which the snow on the mountain crests merrily burns. When Pechorin goes to the scene of the story "Princess Mary", he is overcome in the face of danger by a thirst for life and a love of nature. But here he is on his way back. The sun seemed dim to him, there was a stone in his heart. His condition was so grave. Homelessness, restlessness of Pechorin and senseless death “somewhere on the way to Persia” - this is the spiritual collapse to which the author leads his hero, for a person is not given the right to judge himself according to laws other than universal laws, for the path of double morality and morality , the path of permissiveness is fruitless, it is the path to spiritual devastation, spiritual death.

In Lermontov's novel, the road appears precisely as a patchwork pattern of various events and impressions that may relate to different periods of time. Thus, in Lermontov’s novel the road appears as a mixture of impressions, as a place where he found material for his work. The road is like a colorful carpet, on which the destinies of people and the imperturbable peaks of mountains flash: during the journey, the author and the plot of his work find each other, just as the heroes of ancient legends found the field for exploits and glory. And the main character is madly rushing along this road of life, but has never found a worthy use for his abilities and powers.

Chapter 4. The motive of the road in the poem “Dead Souls”

The theme of the road takes up a lot of space in Gogol’s work for a reason. For the author, our life is a constant movement. Maybe we don’t notice this, maybe it seems to us that our life is too measured and lacks drive and speed. But in reality we are carried along in the stream of fate. Moreover, it speaks not only about everyday life, but also about the inner world of a person. After all, every day we learn something new, and this makes us stronger.

In the poem, the author pays special attention to the road. Throughout the reading, we follow the journey of the main character Chichikov. He visits all the landowners in order to buy up as many dead souls as possible. At that time, serfs were called souls. They belonged entirely to their owners. The more souls a landowner had, the higher his status in society. In addition, serfs, like any property, could be given as collateral and money received. So Chichikov decided to pull off such a scam.

In the poem "Dead Souls" the image of the road appears from the first lines; we can say that he stands at its beginning. “A rather beautiful small spring britzka drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN...”, etc. The poem ends with the image of the road; the road is literally one of the last words of the text: “Rus, where are you rushing, give me the answer?... Everything that is on earth flies past, and other peoples and states sideways and give way to it.”

But what a huge difference between the first and last image of the road! At the beginning of the poem, this is the road of one specific character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. In the end, this is the road of the whole state, Russia, and even more, the road of all humanity, on which Russia overtakes “other nations.”

At the beginning of the poem, this is a very specific road along which a very specific britzka is dragging, with the owner and his two serfs, the coachman Selifan and the footman Petrushka, harnessed by horses, which we also imagine quite specifically: both the root bay, and both trailing horses, the forelock and Kaurogo, nicknamed the Assessor. At the end of the poem, it is quite difficult to imagine the road specifically: this is a metaphorical, allegorical image, personifying the gradual course of all human history. These two values ​​are like two extreme milestones. Between them there are many other meanings - both direct and metamorphic, forming a complex and unified Gogolian image of the road. The transition from one meaning to another—concrete to metaphorical—most often occurs unnoticed. Here Chichikov’s father is taking the boy to the city: a piebald horse, known among horse dealers under the name Soroki, wanders through the Russian villages a day or two, enters a city street... the father, having assigned the boy to the city school, “the very next day he got out on the road” - home. Chichikov begins his independent life. “...despite all this, his road was difficult,” the narrator notes. One meaning of the image – quite concrete, “material” – is imperceptibly replaced by another, metaphorical (the road as a path of life). But sometimes such a change occurs dramatically and unexpectedly. There are also more complex cases when the change of different images of meaning occurs either gradually, or abruptly, suddenly. Chichikov leaves the city of NN. “And again, on both sides of the main path, I again went to write miles, station guards, wells, carts, gray villages with samovars, women and a lively bearded owner... a pedestrian in shabby bast shoes, trudged 800 miles, small towns built alive...”, etc. Then follows the author’s famous appeal to Rus': “Rus! Rus'! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful distance I see you...”

The transition from specific to general is still smooth and almost imperceptible. The road along which Chichikov travels, endlessly lengthening, gives rise to the thought of all of Rus'. Then this monologue, in turn, is interrupted by another shot. Let us remember the end of the monologue and those lines that wedge into it, interrupting it. "...And a mighty space envelops me menacingly, reflecting with terrible force in my depths; my eyes were illuminated with an unnatural power: wow! what a sparkling, wonderful distance, unfamiliar to the earth! Rus'!

Hold it, hold it, you fool! - Chichikov shouted to Selifan.

Here I am with a broadsword! - shouted a courier with a mustache as long as he was galloping towards. - Don’t you see, damn your soul: it’s a government carriage! “And, as a sign, the troika disappeared with thunder and dust.

How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful is the word: road! And how wonderful it is, this road: a clear day, autumn leaves, cold air... tighter in your travel overcoat, a hat over your ears, you’ll snuggle closer and more comfortably into the corner!”

Gogol's image of the road further acquires a metaphorical meaning. It is equivalent to a person's life path. After all, after living life, a person becomes different. He gives up the dreams and seductions of his youth, and pays for the experience of life with his best hopes. In one of the surviving chapters of the second volume of the poem, Chichikov says about himself: “I crooked, I don’t argue, I crooked. What can I do? But I crooked only when I saw that you couldn’t take the straight road and that the oblique road was more straight forward.” The straight road... A crooked road... These are also typical Gogolian concepts. Gogol’s turn in resolving the image of the road speaks of the same thing - about strengthening the ethical moment. After all, a “straight” or “oblique road” are also metaphorical images. In one case, an “honest life” is implied - according to conscience, out of duty; in the other - a dishonest life, subordinated to selfish interests.

We can observe an interesting moment when Chichikov leaves Korobochka. He asks her to show the way to the main road. “How can I do this? - answered the hostess. “It’s tricky to tell, there are a lot of turns...” Here the author is not talking about a simple question when a passerby asks for directions. This is a symbolic gesture with which the author tries to make us think about the great road of life. Gogol himself answers the question. He says that getting to this road is very difficult, because there are a lot of obstacles on the way that we must go through. That is why the author acts as a guide who leads his hero along this difficult path. Thus, Gogol introduces into his artistic image the most important moral coordinates, with the help of which he will correlate the actual and ideal, desired path of the character.

In the penultimate chapter of “Dead Souls” we read: “Many mistakes have been made in the world that, it would seem, even a child would not have made now. What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have been chosen by humanity, striving to achieve eternal truth, then how the straight path was completely open before him... And how many times, induced by the meaning descending from heaven, they knew how to recoil and stray to the side, knew how to find themselves again in impassable backwaters in broad daylight, knew how to again cast a blind fog into each other’s eyes and, trailing after the swamp lights, they knew how to get to the abyss, and then ask each other in horror: “Where is the way out, where is the road?" What an inspired, bright speech! What bitter, caustic irony! How it was suffered by the writer - they can guess behind it many years of reflection on the book of history, personal experience.

It is difficult to imagine a more important topic, because we are talking about the “evasion of the truth” not of one person, but of all humanity. And this means not only errors in thinking, but perversions in historical destinies, in the entire structure of human relations. But, on the other hand, what did this general deviation from the straight path of history consist of, if not from the deviations of specific, specific people?

The image of the road endlessly expands the range of the poem - to a work about the fate of the entire people, all of humanity.

Conclusion

Thus, having examined the road motif in some works, we saw that this topic is multifaceted, interesting and multi-valued. The very meaning of the word “road” has two meanings: a specific road connecting some places, and the life path of a person and an entire country. The theme of the road helps the authors to more clearly show the reversal of the destinies of the heroes, to express their attitude to the fate of an individual and the entire society as a whole, to express prophetic concerns about the historical path of generations and the nation.

An analysis of the works of Russian classics made it possible to identify in them the motif of the path as one of the elements of the poetics of different authors. Modern poetry and prose have certainly adopted this tradition. A person of the 21st century is in a hurry all the time - this is prompted by the fantastic rhythm of life, ambitious dreams, and the desire to find his only correct path in life. The road, going into unknown distances, has become a symbol of the quest of man and humanity. This led to the depiction of the path as an important element of the composition and content of various literary works. The philosophical sound of the road motif helps to reveal the ideological content of the works. The road is an artistic image and a plot-forming component. The road is unthinkable without travelers, for whom it becomes the meaning of life, an incentive for personal development. So, the road is an artistic image and a plot-forming component. The road is a source of change, life and help in difficult times. The road is both the ability to create, and the ability to understand the true path of man and all humanity, and the hope that contemporaries will be able to find such a path.

It seems that the study of the road motif in the works of writers and poets of the 20th century could become the topic of another research work, in which one could reflect on the pages of the works of A. Blok, S. Yesenin, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov...

References

1. "Dead Souls". M.: Fiction, 1969.

2. Lermontov’s works in four volumes. M.: Fiction, 1964.

3. Pushkin collected works in ten volumes. M.: Nauka, 1964.

4. Lermontov. Research and findings. 3rd edition. Moscow 1964

5. Bocharov Pushkin. Moscow 1974

6.Gukovsky and the problems of realistic style. M., 1957
7.Gukovsky and Russian romantics. - M., 1965
8. Lakhostsky Sergeevich Pushkin. Biography. Benefit for
students-M.-L.: “Enlightenment”, 1964

9. Makogonenko in the 1830s (). L.: Artist. lit., 1974.
10. Chronicle of Lermontov’s life and work. Moscow 1964

11.Mashinsky world. 2nd edition. 1979

12. C Poetry and fate. Above the pages of Pushkin's spiritual biography. - M.: Sov. Writer, 1987
13. Rozhdestvensky Pushkin - L.: State Publishing House of Children's Literature of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1962
14. Skatov is a genius. - M.: Sovremennik, 1987
15. Slinin’s Pushkin cycle “Poems composed during the journey (1829)” // Collection. Pushkin collection, Leningrad State University, 1977.

16. Slonimsky Pushkina-M.: State Publishing House

The motive of the road in Russian literature.(Study of “cross-cutting” topics in the process of teaching literature).

Methodological commentary.

The road motif is significantly and widely represented in Russian literature. Schoolchildren begin to understand the importance of the road motif from the early grades, reading fairy tales and epics, where there is always a road, a fork in it, and a horse, and where one must choose a path. The theme of wandering is closely related to the road motif. In this topic, several micro-themes can be distinguished: wanderings, the travels of the writers themselves, works of the “travel” genre. In school practice, there are also works where schoolchildren study texts in which the entire plot is based on the hero’s wanderings. A journey can characterize a hero, be an assessment of a certain stage of his life. The theme of the heroes’ search for the truth of happiness, the meaning of life, and also in the process of wandering, is also widely represented in Russian literature. Dwelling on this topic, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the road conveys the movement of the characters not only in relation to space, but also to time. I propose this form of organizing a lesson as a lesson study. Research activity is one of the conditions that allows students to arouse interest and desire for discovery. It is important for students to see something that goes beyond ready-made solutions and regulated exercises. At the level of independent discovery, the student looks at the familiar text in a new way and feels its depth. This will make it possible to reach a higher level of systematization and generalization of the studied material. This lesson is most appropriate to teach after studying N. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Two weeks before the lesson, students receive an advanced task: 1) re-read the texts of works of art: A. Radishchev “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”; N. Gogol “Dead Souls”; N. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” 2) divide into creative groups, preparing speeches on key issues of the lesson and slides for commenting: Group No. 1Who are they, wandering heroes setting off on the road?(Slide with an image of a wagon with a traveler, a chaise with Chichikov, seven men on the road). Group No. 2(Slide showing post stations, landowners' estates, villages and market squares). Group No. 3How does the author, as a result of one meeting on the road, manage to draw a memorable face, and sometimes an entire human life?(Slide with an image of an old man with a piece of bread, Plyushkin’s estate, a merchant with an orderbreasts and an oyster in hands). Group No. 4 What role can a song play in revealing the motive of the road? Group No. 5 What symbolic meaning does the image of the road have, how is the road motif related to the philosophical concept of the path of life?(A slide depicting a road blurred by rain in the summer; a road in the fall with three horses, a trail road). When preparing for the lesson, students are asked to select material to fill out the table, which will serve as the final stage of the lesson. To study the theme of the road in development, I propose three works: “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A. Radishchev, “Dead Souls” by N. Gogol, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N. Nekrasov.

Planned results:

subject : understanding of the cross-cutting theme, the author’s position, analysis of literary works, the ability to compare and contrast works of different eras.

meta-subject : understanding the problem of the lesson, selecting arguments to support one’s own position, formulating generalized conclusions on key issues of the lesson.

Types of educational activities: reproductive: understanding the plots of works and the events depicted in them;

productive creative: expressive reading of excerpts from works; an oral detailed monologue answer to a problematic question regarding the text of the work;

search engine : independent search for an answer to the question posed, commenting on a literary text;

research: comparative analysis of texts.

During the classes. What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have humanity chosen in an effort to comprehend the eternity of truth?... N.V. Gogol

Teacher :Today we, together with A. Radishchev, N.V. Gogol, N.A. Nekrasov, are going on a journey around Russia, on a journey through time. What is a journey? What does it mean to travel? Traveling with wandering heroes is a great way to experience life in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. Road... Try to imagine what you associate with the image of a road?

Road

Wandering hero route vehicle

New meetings, new impressions

So, we have a picture of an ideal road. The motif of the road is clearly visible in a number of works of ancient Russian literature: on a campaign “to the Polovtsian land”, wanting to take revenge on the nomads for the insults inflicted on the Russian people and “scoop up the Don with a helmet,” Igor Svyatoslavovich sets off with his squad; Prince of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich (“Zadonshchina”) leads the army on the road to battle with Khan Mamai; the long, complete journey to foreign lands of the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin is the subject of an autobiographical manuscript, which is called “Walking across the Three Seas”; the hard journey from Moscow to Siberia of the martyr for the old faith, the frantic archpriest Avvakum and his family is full of hardships and suffering (“Life” Archpriest Avvakum and his family"). In Russian literature of the late 18th century, the theme of the road can be traced even in the title of A. Radishchev’s work “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” The motif of travel is also characteristic of works of the 19th century. Let’s all try to flip through the pages of the great works of A. Radishchev “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, N.V. Gogol “Dead Souls” and N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”.

- Who are they, wandering heroes setting off on the road?First group performance:Choice by A.N. Radishchevgenre form of the “journey” was due to the opportunity, through a first-person narrative, to permeate the narrative with increased emotionality: “ I looked around me - my soul became wounded by the sufferings of humanity. He turned his attention mine into my insides -and I saw that man’s misfortunes come from man...” (The famous preface is the address to a friend that opens “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”). As a materialist educator, Radishchev believes that man depends on external conditions and circumstances. Helping people to know the truth, teaching them to “look straight” at the “objects around them,” that is, the real causes of evil, is the duty of the writer. “Having presented the travel document to the postal commissar and paid the travel money at the established rate, the traveler received a new coachman and fresh horses that carried him to the next station...” This is how Radishchev’s Traveler travels. And here are the first lines from “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol: “A rather beautiful chaise drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of N... In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, not too fat, not too thin... Entry he didn’t make any noise at all in the city.” It was Mr. Chichikov. “His career is dramatic. There are several breakdowns and falls in it, in which another would break his neck, but this little guy manages to straighten up, recover, and rise even higher everywhere.” The hero of N.V. Nekrasov’s poem is seven men. Traditionally, the number of debaters is seven - a folklore number. Male wanderers are the plot-forming heroes of the poem. There are either no individual characteristics of each of the seven men at all, or they are very laconic: the slow Pahom, who needs to “push” before uttering a word; “gloomy” Prov, “vodka-hungry” Gubin brothers. In what year - calculate, In what year - guess, Seven men came together on a highway. Seven temporarily obliged, Tightened province, Terpigorev County, From adjacent villages... The author reports that the Russian peasant is stubborn and tenacious in achieving a goal, and not a practical one, namely “whim,” dreams, fantasies. Thus, the seven peasants who open the “Prologue” are already at the end they become seven truth-seeking wanderers. The Nekrasov wanderers who set off on their journey are not traditional pilgrim pilgrims, but ordinary peasants who have seized on a wonderful question: who can live well in Rus'? So, let's go. (The speech is accompanied by viewing a slide). Conclusion: The wandering heroes are: the Traveler, Chichikov, the seven men. The image of the wandering hero is one of the images of Russian literature, the personification of a restless, rushing Russia. All these works are united by the image of the road with its wanderers. The plot of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” is the story of a wandering man who experiences all the horror, all the injustice of the existing serfdom. The traveler sees the torment of the people, reduced to a bestial, humiliated state. We also meet the hero-wanderer in N. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The author constructs the narrative as a story about the wanderings of seven men. N. Nekrasov’s heroes set off to wander around Rus' in search of an answer to the question: “Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?” Truth-seekers personify the Russian people striving for the truth. We meet the image of a hero-wanderer, but of a completely different formation, in N. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls.” If the goal of wanderers (men) is noble (search for truth), then Chichikov travels across Rus' with the goal of acquiring dead souls, with the goal enrichment. The image of a wandering hero made it possible to show “all of Rus'”: bureaucratic, landowner, people's. (Filling out the table by students). Teacher: How long will they walk in the world, sometimes in a chaise, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a wagon, sometimes in a carriage,Either in a stroller or on foot?What role does the route play in revealing the image of the road?Performance of the second group:N. Radishchev’s book is written in the form of travel notes, and its chapters are named after the names of those postal stations where the hero-traveler stops (Lyubani - a station in the Novgorod province, 26 versts from Tosny, Chudovo Selo and a postal station with the imperial travel palace in 32 versts from Lyuban. Spasskaya Polist - more correctly Spasskaya Polist, since we are talking about a station 24 versts from Chudov (with a wooden traveling palace), which stood on the banks of the Polisti River. All subsequent chapters of the “Travel” bear the names of postal stations on the road, basically coinciding with the current Leningrad-Moscow highway. This gives the author the opportunity to widely cover Russian reality at the end of the 18th century. People of all walks of life appear before the reader: local and service nobles, raznochintsy officials, courtyard servants, serfs. The form of a travel diary allowed Radishchev deeply reveal the thoughts, feelings, experiences of the traveler, convey his impressions of what he saw on the road.The movement of the plot of N. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” begins with the second chapter - a visit to the landowners. The first among the landowners whom Chichikov visited was Manilov."Let's go look for Manilovka. Having driven two miles, we came across a turn onto a country road, but it seemed like we had already made it two, three, and four miles. But the two-story stone house was not visible.” He is followed by Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich. And Plyushkin completes the gallery of landowners. “While Chichikov was thinking and inwardly laughing at the nickname given to Plyushkin by the peasants, he did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets... The manor’s house began to appear in parts and finally looked at the whole place where the chain of huts was broken... How- then this strange castle stood as a decrepit invalid.” Gogol also touched upon the “metropolitan theme.” Petersburg lives in almost every chapter. The author never missed an opportunity without saying two or three caustic words to him. The right method of choosing a “route” allowed Chichikov, during his travels, to meet not only landowners, but also officials who form a fairly expressive collective portrait of the provincial government. In “Who Lives Well in Rus'” Nekrasov shows the life of all of Rus' through the travels of seven men through several villages. The main characters of the poem are peasants, for at that time they were the most numerous class in Russia. Already the beginning of the poem (“In what year - count, in which land - guess"), which do not give the exact geographical coordinates of the events depicted, emphasizes that we are talking about the entire Russian land. The names of the villages are deeply symbolic. Several villages through which the men pass symbolize the entire peasant Russia. The movement of the protagonist of the poem in space, his journey along the roads of Russia, meetings with landowners, officials, peasants and city dwellers forms before us a broad picture of the life of Russia. Nekrasov keenly sympathizes with everything that happens to travelers, walks next to them, “gets used to it” in the image of each of his heroes (be it Matryona Timofeevna, Ermil Girin, Savely, the hero of the Holy Russian, Yakim Nagoy, Yakov, Grisha Dobrosklonov), lives his life, empathizes with him. During the journey of wanderers in search of happiness in N. Nekrasov’s poem “Who on It’s good to live in Rus',” they meet: a priest, a merchant, a soldier, a landowner, as well as peasant plowmen, artisans, Old Believers, pilgrim pilgrims... Thanks to Nekrasov’s wandering peasants, we get to know post-reform Russia as a whole. (Speeches are accompanied by viewing a slide). Conclusion: While moving along their path, the wandering heroes stop at stations (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), on the estates of landowners (“Dead Souls”), in villages, on a country road, at a fair on the chrome holiday, on a market square ( “Who lives well in Rus'”). It is the meetings along the “route” chosen by the author that help to see and understand the life and suffering of Rus', and more fully reveal the image of the road. (Students fill out the table). Teacher : Deciding to travel together with the heroes of the works, we set off on the road towards the Russian expanse, along the path and crossroads of the spiritual life of Russians.How does the author manage toin a few lines, as a result of one meeting on the road, to draw a memorable face, and sometimes an entire human life? Third group performance: From the At the beginning of N. Nekrasov’s poem, we feel the epic tone of the narrative. And the very first words sound almost like the famous fairy-tale introduction “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state.” There is no need to guess which land we are talking about - it is clear that the story will be about Russia. This beginning means that the poet seeks to embrace the country in all its historical significance and geographical immensity. And the names of the province, volosts, villages where the men came from are again symbolic words: Zaplatovo, Dyryvino, Razutova, Znobishena, Gorelova, Neelova, Neurozhaika, etc. In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the poet knows how to find such a portrait or everyday detail that reveals the main thing in a person, especially what is characteristic of him. Let's remember the images replacing each other: peasants in the chapter “Happy”. Only a few strokes - and the person appears before us as if alive. Here is one of the “happy” ones: A yellow-haired, hunched man crept timidly up to the wanderers. A Belarusian peasant. Just one external stroke of “hunched over”, just one detail depicting movements, gait (“crept up timidly”) - and we see this hungry, humiliated poor man. How terrible life must be if a person sees all happiness only in bread. The Belarusian peasant feels happy: And now, by the grace of God! - Gubonin’s is full of rye bread, I chew it, I can’t get enough of it! One more detail complements this tragic image: the Belarusian says respectfully, lovingly - not “bread”, but “bread”. A few strokes and we understand what kind of world we found ourselves in thanks to Gogol’s pen: “The windows in the huts were without glass, others were covered with a rag or a zipun”, “... this terrible castle, long, long, looked like some kind of decrepit invalid ...” (description of Plyushkin’s estate) or “Not a single meeting where he was without a story. Some story certainly happened: or the gendarmes will lead him out of the hall by the hand, or his friends will be forced to push him out” (Nozdrev’s life). With the image of Sobakevich, Gogol opens a new page in the chronicle of the life of estate owners. This hero has a kulak bestial nature, which manifests itself in his actions, in his way of thinking and imposes an indelible mark on your entire life. His way of life bears traces of rudeness, clumsiness and ugliness. His gray house resembles the buildings of military settlements. Each object “seemed to say: and I, too, is Sobakevich.” Gogol widely uses elements of the grotesque, the nature of epithets, metaphors, comparisons when describing the appearance of the characters. “And some kind of warm ray suddenly slid across this wooden face” (Meeting with Plyushkin) A. Radishchev depicts a wide panorama of reality. One phrase. And what strength she has! “...there is no time: you have to work off your corvée, and on Sunday work for yourself to feed your family. We are not gentlemen, so we shouldn’t go for a walk,” says the peasant. One remark, but it says so much. Everywhere the traveler encounters injustice. In the chapter “Spasskaya Polest” he talks about a merchant who received an order for bringing ... oysters to the high authorities. That’s why he was awarded by his superiors “for his zeal.” Radishchev writes about “vile servility,” which he himself has witnessed more than once. (The speech is accompanied by viewing a slide) Conclusion: The authors of the works being studied are not just travelers, they are not contemplators, but participants in the events described, who have experienced human life through themselves. Having met the heroes along the way, the masters of the literary word were able to prove that as a result of even a short road meeting, you can remember your interlocutor for a long time. And on the road again! (Filling out the table by students) Teacher : After all, only through the hero’s travels, through his wanderings, can the global task be accomplished: “to embrace all of Rus'.” Rus…. How many delightful colors, despite the dull tones of everyday life! Is it possible to imagine Rus' without song, despite all the hardships of everyday life?Performance of the fourth group:- “The horses are racing me; My cab driver began to sing, but as usual it was mournful. Anyone who knows the voices of Russian folk songs will admit that there is something in them that signifies spiritual sorrow...” These lines from the first chapter of “Sofia” are amazing! “Almost all the voices of such songs are in a soft tone... In them you will find the formation of the soul of our people” (chapter “Copper”), “All-merciful Father... You gave me life, and I return it to you, on earth it has become useless,” the Traveler reflected under the dull chanting of a coachman. How many Russian writers, following Radishchev, will surrender to this irresistible power of the road, the Russian path, the Russian thought, leading to the distant horizons of dreams and to bitter reflection on the present: “The horses are rushing me... the cabman began to sing,” and in this song there will be Russian writers of several generations , like him, to seek and find, and again seek the answer to the Russian mystery, the secret of the people's soul. “What is in it, in this song?” Gogol will begin to inquire after him. “What calls and sobs, and grabs the heart? Rus! what do you want from me?” or “After which Selifan, waving his whip, began to sing, not a song, but something so long that there was no end.” The merchant of dead souls returns to the city in the most cheerful mood. And how can you not rejoice! “Indeed, whatever you say, not only are some dead, but also runaways, and only two hundred plus people.” Chichikov whistles, plays, sings “some kind of song, so strange that Selifan shakes his head in bewilderment. » Chichikov and the song, Selifan and the song. There are different songs in the souls of the heroes. This means their roads are different. These roads are sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy, sometimes impassable mud, and sometimes they “spread out in all directions like caught crayfish.” Nekrasov, as if freeing himself, breaks down his entire “epic”, with which the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was written for many years ”, and arranges a rare, truly choral polyphony, knits into one in the richest verse diversity the different beginnings and ends of Russian life on Russian roads, conceiving a general “Feast for the whole world.” This is not only a poem, but, as it were, a whole folk opera, rich in mass scenes and choirs, original “arias” - songs and duets. The song became the main form of the story. First, about the past: “Bitter times, bitter songs.” “Good times - good songs” is the final chapter. It is the focus on the future that explains a lot in this chapter, which is not accidentally called “Songs,” because they contain its whole essence. There is also a person here who writes and sings these songs, Grisha Dobrosklonov:

In the midst of the distant world For a free heart There are two paths. Weigh your proud strength, Weigh your firm will, Which way should you go? The high road on which the peasants meet the priest and the landowner, and that narrow path along which Grisha walks, composing his songs, turn into his song “In the Middle of the Distant World” into a symbol of two life paths: the path of idleness and the path of struggle. For Nekrasov, the song is important, the fates of the people connected by the road are important. Conclusion: Song is a living source that helps to understand human feelings. It is not for nothing that Chichikov’s song is extremely strange, just like the hero himself, who lives by the thirst for profit, is strange. Grisha's songs are a choice of path. The coachman sings a mournful song, inspired by excessive melancholy from the long journey. (Filling out the table with students). Teacher: What different routes, different songs, different travelers! Unites everyone and everything - roads The theme of roads in Russian literature is vast, diverse and deep. Which does the image of a road have a symbolic meaning and how is the motive of the road related to the philosophical concept of a person’s life path? Performance of the fifth group:The image of the road appears with the first lines of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” “Having arrived from St. Petersburg, I imagined that the road was the best. It was revered as such by all those who sat along it after the sovereign. Such it really was, but for a short time. The earth poured on the road made it smooth in dry times, liquefied by rains, produced great mud in the middle of the summer and made it impassable...” The road is an artistic image and a plot-like component in the work. It is no coincidence that the author ends the story: “But, dear reader, I have become hardened with you. It’s already All Saints... If you’re not bored with me, then wait for me at the outskirts, we’ll see each other on the way back. Now I'm sorry. “Coachman, drive!” The image of the road appears from the first lines of “Dead Souls.” The description of the road leading to this or that estate precedes the description of the landowners themselves and sets the reader in a certain mood. In the seventh chapter of the poem, the author also turns to the image of the road, and here this image opens the lyrical digression of the poem: “Happy is the traveler who, after a long road, a boring road with its cold, slush, dirt, sleep-deprived station guards, the jingling of bells, repairs, squabbles , coachmen, blacksmiths and all sorts of road scoundrels he finally sees a familiar roof...” The poem ends with the image of the road: “Rus, where are you rushing, give me the answer? Everything that is on earth flies past, and, touching, other peoples and states move aside and give it way.” But these are completely different roads. At the beginning of the poem, this is the road of one person, a specific character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. At the end, this is the road of an entire state, Russia, and even more, the road of all humanity; a metaphorical allegorical image appears before us, personifying the gradual course of all history. "God! how beautiful you are sometimes, long, long way! How many times, like someone dying and drowning, have I grabbed onto you, and each time you generously carried me out and saved me!” The road along which Chichikov travels, endlessly lengthening, gives rise to the thought of all of Rus'. The image of Gogol's road is complex. And how beautiful is the description in the following lines: “How strange and alluring, and carrying and wonderful in the word: road! and how wonderful it is, this road: a clear day, autumn leaves, cold air... tighten your travel shawl, cap on your ears... The horses are racing...” The road is the compositional core of the work. Chichikov's chaise is a symbol of the monotonous whirling of the soul of a Russian man who has lost his way. And the country roads along which the chaise travels are not only a realistic picture of Russian off-road conditions, but also a symbol of the crooked path of national development. “The Troika Bird” and its rapid growth are contrasted with Chichikov’s chaise and its monotonous circling off-road from one landowner to another. But this road is no longer the life of one person, but the fate of the entire Russian state. Rus' itself is embodied in the image of a troika bird flying into the future: “Hey, troika!... does not give an answer... everything flies past... and other roads give it peoples and states.” The image of the road in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the connecting link between the chapters. Here, too, the connecting thread between the stages of the narrative is the road. Thus, the poem begins with a description of the road, inviting the reader to go on a journey: A wide path, lined with birches, Stretches far, The image of the road is repeated often: They are walking along the road; -The cattle are chasing home, The road is dusty. In the context of the theme of the work, the image of the road acquires a symbolic meaning - it is also a person’s life path. The priest says in the poem about the road as a person’s life path, as his business, occupation: “Our roads are difficult. Our parish is large.” This is how the image of the road in the poem is associated with the theme of happiness. Each of the heroes met by the peasants on the way talks about his own “road.” The image of the road in this work does not come to the fore. This is just a connecting thread between the individual points of the journey. Nekrasov vividly senses what is happening to travelers. The image of the road here is a traditional symbol of the path of life. Grisha Dobrosklonov is faced with the question of which path in life to choose: “One spacious road is rough, a slave of passions, along it is a huge crowd, greedy for temptation,” “The other is narrow, the road is honest, only strong, loving souls walk along it.” fight, to work." The result: “Grisha was lured by a narrow, winding path.” He chose the path of the people's intercessor. At the end of the poem, the author reflects on the fate of the honest, free man Grisha Dobrosklonov. Two paths open before him. One is the well-trodden path of a greedy crowd. The other is the path of an honest, strong-willed person, ready to fight for the people's happiness. (The presentation is accompanied by viewing a slide) Conclusion: The functions of the road motif in the works of A. Radishchev, N. Nekrasov, N. Gogol are varied. First of all, this is a compositional technique that links together the chapters of the work. Secondly, the image of the road performs the function of characterizing the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road, the estate. As in “Dead Souls,” in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the theme of the road is a connecting one. The poet begins the poem “from a high road” on which seven truth-seekers met. This theme is visible throughout the entire long narrative, but for Nekrasov the road is only an illustration of life, a small part of it. The main action in “The Journey...” is a narrative unfolding in time, but not in space. The main thing is the issue of the political structure in Russia, therefore the topic of the road for A. Radishchev is secondary. In the analyzed works, the road motif is the connecting one. For N. Nekrasov, the destinies of people connected by the road are important; for N. Gogol, the road that connects everything in life is important; for A. Radishchev, the road is an artistic device. (Students fill out the table).

Teacher: Having made the journey together with A. Radishchev, N. Nekrasov, N. Gogol, we became convinced how thorny and difficult the path was, we saw how long and endless the road was. Let's all remember together who we met along the way together with the author of the works.

1. N. Nekrasov calls him a “historical person” in the poem “Dead Souls”. Who is he? 2.Who met the seven pilgrims first on the way? 3. In the chapter “Spasskaya Polest” “Travels...” by A. Radishchev, the sleeping traveler saw himself as who? 4.Who is he, the hero-wanderer who buys up dead souls? 5. “The song was a success for me!” Who is the author of this statement in N. Nekrasov’s poem? 6.What was the name of the peasant girl in the chapter “Edrovo” of “Travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow”?

As a result of the performances of creative groups, it is possible to record a table of key points of the lesson in students’ notebooks and on the board, which is the final stage of the lesson.

Reflection. There are moments in every person’s life when you want to go out into the open and go to the “beautiful far away”. Imagine that there are three roads in front of you: the road of A. Radishchev, N. Gogol, N. Nekrasov and their works. Which road would you like to walk along?

Homework: (by students’ choice) – compose an OSK on the topic “Motif of the road in the works of A. Radishchev, N. Gogol, N. Nekrasov; -write an essay “Natural calendar on the road” based on the works “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, “Dead Souls”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'”; - complete the diagram yourself, proving your point of view (in writing):

Types of wanderers

truth-seekers (“To whom on R mustache and live adventurer "Dead) ? good") souls") ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow")

One of the cross-cutting themes of Russian literature is the theme of the road, which is present in the works of many Russian classics. Why did such a cross-cutting plot arise and why is such a theme highlighted in Russian classical literature?

Road theme

The motif of the path can be traced in ancient Russian literature, and this is largely due to historical circumstances that determined the fate of the Russian land. Ancient princes and kings went on trips for various reasons - to explore new territories, protect their lands and expand their horizons.

If we talk about a later period, then even from the titles of works of the 18th century it is clear that this topic was actively developed in literature. An example is A. Radishchev’s book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” and N. Karamzin’s book “Letter of a Russian Traveler,” which was based on his impressions of France, England and Germany.

The theme of the road also develops in the literature of the 19th century, and now it acts as a cross-cutting plot in many famous works of Russian classical literature. This is Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, in which the main character “in the dust at the post office” rushes to the village and after a while hits the road again, and Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”, where Chatsky returns from abroad to his homeland.

And the main character of the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” Pechorin, is constantly on the move, and even finds death on the road. A famous traveler was Chichikov, a colorful character in Gogol's Dead Souls. And in the work itself one can find majestic descriptions of the image of the road, which reveal the power and beauty of the Russian land.

And in Turgenev's work "Fathers and Sons" the characters are constantly on the road - the novel itself begins on the road, and throughout its course the characters move around different provinces and estates.

The motive of the path and traditions of spiritual literature

The motif of the road is multifaceted and extensive in Russian literature. It also fills deep, spiritual works like “War and Peace,” in which the life paths of Natasha Rostova, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov are revealed through roads; it can be found in all famous works of the classics.

The motive of the path is surprisingly revealed in small lyrical works that fill it with spirituality. These are poems by A. Pushkin “Winter Road”, “For the Shores of the Distant Fatherland”, “Demons”, “Road Complaints”, poems by Lermontov “I Go Out Alone on the Road...” and “Farewell, Unwashed Russia...”, poems N. Nekrasova “Railway”, “On the Road”, “Reflections at the Main Entrance”.

Road in folklore

The theme of the path is clearly revealed in folklore works. This is natural, since for folklore the path and the road are important elements of human life, and the cross-cutting plot of the road in such works is revealed more fully.

The theme of the road in Russian literature is vast, multifaceted and deep.
The motif of the road can be clearly seen in the works of A.S. Pushkin. And this is no coincidence. As fate would have it, due to the fact that the poet always loved freedom and never betrayed this feeling, he had to travel “by the grace” of the tsar both throughout central Russia and the Caucasus at different times of the year.
The poem “Demons,” written in the famous Boldino autumn, is one of those when the poet was experiencing a difficult internal state. Business forces the poet to leave the capital and part for a while with his young, beloved beauty - his bride.

The focus of the poem is on him, the lyrical hero, and the coachman. The hero's state of mind is comparable to clouds. Like the hero, they have no rest, they are in constant motion, in anticipation of something terrible. Two travelers traveling “in the open field” are in the same mental turmoil and languor:

The clouds are rushing, the clouds are swirling:
Invisible moon
The flying snow illuminates;
The sky is cloudy, the night is cloudy.

Travelers are on the road, but the road is dangerous, because “the sky is cloudy,” “the night is cloudy.” Anxiety and even despair from the knowledge that they are alone in the field among the “unknown plains”:

I'm driving, driving in an open field;
Bell ding - ding - ding...
Scary, scary involuntarily
Among the unknown plains.

And now a fantastic, truly demonic picture appears, filled with images from folk mythology, which A.S. Pushkin, raised by a nanny - a storyteller, knew well:

The demon leads us into the field, apparently
Yes, it circles around

Look: there he is playing,
Blows, spits on me;
There - now he’s pushing into the ravine
Wild horse.

And now “endless, ugly, various demons began to swirl.” The exhausted horses stopped, and the driver despaired of finding the way. How will the blizzard winter road end at night? Unknown. In the meantime, in the consciousness of the lyrical hero, this chaos of a blizzard, a snowstorm with its demons, witches, the chaos of pure evil spirits triumphs, tearing the poet’s heart from a premonition, some kind of alarming, still unclear to him.
Thus, the road trip helped us, the readers, to realize and better understand the inner state and mental anxiety of the lyrical hero - a traveler whose life was unpredictable in its outcome:

We assume to live... And lo and behold, we will die.
There is no happiness in the world...
And there is no peace...

In many ways he repeated the fate of his teacher, Pushkin, and Lermontov. The same fate of an exile in his homeland, the same death in a duel. Lermontov's position was especially difficult also because the circumstances of Russian life in the thirties of the last century doomed him to loneliness.
The poem “Clouds” by M. Lermontov is not imbued with a mood of despair and fear. The leading motive is the motive of sadness and loneliness, wandering melancholy.
This poem was written in 1840, shortly before being sent into second Caucasian exile. As one of Lermontov’s friends recalls, at an evening in the Karamzins’ house, the poet, standing at the window and looking at the clouds that, having covered the sky, slowly floated over the Summer Garden and the Neva, impromptu wrote a wonderful sad elegy, the first line of which sounded like this:

Heavenly clouds, eternal wanderers!
The azure steppe, the pearl chain
You rush as if, like me, you are exiles,
From the sweet north to the south.

This is the fate of the clouds... Eternal wandering, eternal endless road. This is the metaphorical image of eternal wanderers that appears before us, personifying the fate of the poet. The poet asks a question, looking at the clouds floating across the sky:

Who is driving you away: is it destiny’s decision?
Is it secret envy? Is it open anger?..

The happiness of these “eternal wanderers” is that neither envy, nor malice, nor slander have power over them. They do not know the pain of exile. The clouds were simply bored with the “barren fields.” They are free to move from the north to the south. The fate of the lyrical hero is different: he is an involuntary exile, he is “driven” from the “dear north”, “decision of fate”, “envy... secret”, “malice... open”, “poisonous slander from friends.”
However, in the main, the lyrical hero is happier than the proud and independent clouds: he has a homeland, in contrast to the eternal freedom without a fatherland that the clouds have.
Thus, the polysemy of the word road helped us to trace in this poem the stage of the life path of the poet himself.
The motif of the road, but with philosophical reflections, also sounds in the poems of M.Yu. Lermontov “I go out alone on the road...” Written in 1841, it seems to sum up the life path of the poet, short but bright, like the flash of a meteorite:

I go out alone on the road;
Through the fog the flinty path shines;
The night is quiet. The desert listens to God,
And star speaks to star.

The lyrical hero is face to face with the endless road. He feels like a part of the universe. The “Flint Road” is both a specific Caucasian road and a symbol of the path of life:

It’s solemn and wonderful in heaven!
The earth sleeps in a blue radiance...

The world around the hero is beautiful, solemn, calm “in a blue glow.” And this blue radiance clearly reveals the gloomy state of the traveler’s soul:

Why is it so painful and so difficult for me?
Am I waiting for what? Do I regret anything?

But he no longer expects anything from life, the traveler is not sorry for the “past at all,” because the lyrical hero is lonely, he is now looking only for:

...freedom and peace!
I would like to forget myself and fall asleep!

It is here, in the majestic universe, where “star speaks to star,” where “the desert listens to God,” the poet finds spiritual peace, he wants to “forget himself and fall asleep”:

But not the cold sleep of the grave...
I would like to sleep like this forever...

And so, “so that the strength of life slumbers in the chest...”:

So that all night, all day, cherishing my hearing,
A sweet voice sang to me about love,
Above me so that, forever green,
The dark oak bowed and made noise.

And the philosophical meaning of the final quadruple is that eternal peace takes on the meaning of eternal life, and the “siliceous path” acquires the features of an infinite path in time and space. The motive of lonely wandering gives way to the motive of the triumph of eternal life and complete merging with the Divine world.
But N.A. Nekrasov’s theme of the road can be seen already in the title – “Railway”. The poem, created in the second half of the 19th century, is dedicated to a specific event - the opening of the first Russian railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. And the basis of the storyline is a specific fact - the journey through time and space of Vanya (in a coachman's jacket) and dad (Count Pyotr Andreich Kleinmichel).
Thus, the word road has its own specific meaning in the poem. But there is another metaphorical meaning in it.
The poem opens with a wonderful picture of a “glorious autumn”:

Glorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous
The air invigorates tired forces;...

There is no ugliness in nature! And kochi,
And moss swamps, and stumps - Everything is fine under the moonlight...

But the poet contrasts the picture of the “glorious autumn” with the social injustice of society and the cruelty of the world. And this reflection on the opposition of the lyrical hero is prompted precisely by the journey “on cast iron rails.” There is time to think about your thoughts and see outside the window not only the picture of the “glorious autumn”, but also hear the voice of the author, who does not trust his father to tell the story about the construction of the road.
And after hearing the author’s story, it’s easy to imagine a “crowd of the dead” who:

...suffered under the heat, under the cold,
With an ever-bent back,
They lived in dugouts, fought hunger,
They were cold and wet, and suffered from scurvy.

It’s easy to imagine a sick Belarusian, exhausted with fever, who:

I didn’t straighten my hunchbacked back
He is still stupidly silent now
And mechanically with a rusty shovel
It's chiseling the frozen ground.

Vanya will imagine at what cost, at whose labor this “road of the century” was built, who “in a terrible struggle, calling these barren wilds to life, found his coffin here.”
And the reader will understand what the other, metaphorical meaning of this word is. The road is also a difficult section of life that the “masses of the people” have gone through, it is a symbol of people’s suffering in the present and a bright dream of a happy future:

Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland...
The Russian people have endured enough
He took out this railway too

Will bear everything - and a wide, clear
He will pave the way for himself with his chest.

Still, the poet believes in the future of the Russian people, that this path will be bright, spacious and joyful. The poet only regrets that:

...to live in this wonderful time
You won’t have to, neither me nor you.

The image of a road (path) can be called an archetype: it is present in the culture of various eras. In Russian literature, the motif of the path sounded even in ancient Russian works: Prince of Novgorod-Seversk Igor Svyatoslavovich went on a campaign “to the Polovtsian land”, wanting to take revenge on the nomads for the insults inflicted on the Russian people; Prince of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich (“Zadonshchina”) led the army to the battle with Khan Mamai; The Tver merchant described his journey in “Walking across Three Seas.”

Later we will see this motif in the famous “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A.N. Radishcheva.

The theme of the road is also heard in A.S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” (Chatsky arrives in Famusov’s Moscow at the beginning of the work and leaves it at the end; we see the restless hero in search, on the way), in “Hero of Our Time” M Yu. Lermontov's theme of travel in the plot of the novel reflects the loneliness and loss of the main character, Pechorin.

But the words “road” and “path” have multiple meanings: they can denote not only a piece of space between any points, but also stages in the life of both an individual and an entire nation. And in this sense, we can talk about the life path of the hero, the historical path of the people. It turned out to be short for the heroine of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's “The Thunderstorm”: from a happy childhood (“I lived - I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild”) to premature death, which the pure and free Katerina prefers to life in the house of her mother-in-law Kabanikha. In a similar vein, one can consider the path of the Russian people in the Patriotic War of 1812 (the epic novel “War and Peace”), when different segments of the population from the commander-in-chief Kutuzov to the “most needed person” in the partisan detachment - Tikhon Shcherbaty and the “elder Vasilisa, who beat a hundred French,” rallied in a single patriotic impulse to liberate Russia from foreign invaders.

And how majestic the image of the road appears to the readers of the poem “Dead Souls”, along which “like a brisk, unstoppable troika,” Rus' is rushing! Gogol's lyrical digressions are full of reflections on the historical path of Russia, on its place and significance in the whole world.

Alexander Blok, a poet who found himself at the crossroads of two centuries - the 19th and 20th, also reflects on the path of Russia and the Russian people in a number of his poems. This topic is revealed especially deeply and unusually in the poems “Rus”, “Russia” and in the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”. In the poem “Rus,” the reader is presented with an image of a mysterious, witchcraft country, “where all the paths and crossroads are worn out with a living stick.” The Fatherland is on the road, in perpetual motion, and appears in the poem “Russia,” which begins with the words:

...And the painted knitting needles knit(Blok's spelling)
Into loose ruts...

In the poem “Russia” this image is endowed with a number of meanings: “the impossible is possible, the long road is easy,” and Russia, with forest and field, in a “patterned scarf up to the eyebrows,” will give the tired traveler “an instant glance from under the scarf.” And, finally, as the personification of the peak of the frantic movement of Blok’s Russia, the metaphorical image of a “steppe mare” is presented, flying “through blood and dust” forward, into peace, because “we only dream of peace,” and “eternal battle” awaits the Russians.

So, the image of the road in Russian literature is multifaceted and deep. Among the works of Russian writers one can find its most varied aspects: the path as the personal destiny of a person, the path as the road of the soul to God and harmony, and, finally, the path as the fate of Russia and a movement in the history of an entire people. The latest understanding of the image of the road makes a special impression on any Russian person, finding a pure, patriotic response in his soul.