"Nekrasov is like there would be such a man with enormous abilities, with Russian peasant pains in his chest, who would take that way and describe his Russian insides and show it to his fellow peasants:" Look at yourself! " (Pravda newspaper, October 1, 1913)
All my life N.A. Nekrasov's idea of a work that would become a folk book, i.e. a book "useful, understandable to the people and truthful", reflecting the most important aspects of his life. "By word" for 20 years he accumulated material for this book, and then 14 years worked on the text of the work. The result of this colossal work was this epic poem "Who Lives Well in Russia".
The broad social panorama unfolded in it, the truthful depiction of peasant life, begin to occupy a dominant place in this work. Separate plot-independent parts and chapters of the epic are connected by the inner unity of the poem - the depiction of the life of the people.
From the first chapter of the first part, the study of the main vitality Russia - the people. It was the desire to depict the entire people of Russia that led the poet to such paintings where a mass of people could be gathered. It appears especially fully in the chapter "Rural Fair".
The wanderers came to the square:
There are a lot of things for the goods
And seemingly invisibly
To the people! Isn't it fun?
With great skill, Nekrasov conveys the flavor of the Russian festivities. There is a feeling of direct participation in this holiday, as if walking among a motley crowd and absorbing the atmosphere of universal joy and celebration. Everything around moves, makes noise, shouts, plays. And here is an episode confirming the idea of the moral strength and beauty of the national character. The peasants are happy about the act of Veretennikov, who presented Vavila's granddaughter with boots:
But other peasants
So they were comforted,
So happy, as if everyone
He gave it in rubles!
Paintings folk life- this is not only fun, joy, celebration, but also its dark, unsightly, "ugly" side. The fun turned into drunkenness.
Crawled, lay, rode,
Drunk floundering,
And the groan was moaning!
The road is crowded
What later is uglier:
More and more often come across
Beaten, crawling
Lying in a layer.
Both the man who "thought about the ax" and the "quiet" guy who buried his new coat in the ground "got drunk" and the "old", "drunken woman". The statements from the crowd testify to the darkness, ignorance, patience and humility of the people. The peasant world appears to be utterly naked in all the intoxicating frankness and spontaneity. It seems that replacing each other words, phrases, quick dialogues and shouts are random and incoherent. But among them, sharp political remarks are discernible, testifying to the desire and ability of the peasants to comprehend their situation.
Good you, royal charter,
Yes, you are not writing about us.
But the picture of collective labor - "merry mowing". She is imbued with a festive and light feeling:
The people are dark!
There are white
The shirts of women, yes, colorful
Nimble braids.
The joy of work is felt in everything: "tall grasses", "nimble braids", "merry mowing". The picture of the mowing gives rise to the idea of inspired work, capable of repeating miracles:
Haymaking sweeps
They follow the correct sequence:
All at once entered
The braids flashed, tinkled.
In the chapter "Happy" Nekrasov showed the people as "the world", that is. as something organized, conscious, with the power of which neither the merchant Altynnikov, nor the clerks are able to compete ("Cunning, the clerks are strong, and the world is stronger than them, the merchant Altynnikov is rich, but he cannot resist the worldly treasury").
The people win by organized action in the economic struggle and actively behave (albeit spontaneously, but still more decisively) in political struggle... In this chapter of the poem, the writer told how the patrimony of the landowner Obrubkov of the Frightened province, the Nedykhaniev district, the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled. And in the next chapter ("The Landowner") the poet will once again ironically say for the "quick-witted" people: "It must have rebelled in an abundance of gratitude in a village somewhere!"
Nekrasov continues to recreate the collective appearance of the hero. This is achieved, first of all, by the masterful depiction of folk scenes. The artist does not stop long at showing individual types of the peasant masses. The growth of peasant consciousness is now being revealed in the historical, social, everyday, and psychological planes. It must be said about the conflicting soul of the people. Among the mass of peasants there is an old woman, "pockmarked, one-eyed," who sees happiness in the turnip harvest, a "soldier with medals," pleased that he was not killed in battles, a courtyard of Prince Peremetyev, proud of gout, a noble disease. Wanderers, seekers of happiness, listen to everyone, and the people in their bulk becomes the supreme judge. As he judges, for example, the courtyard prince Peremetyev. The arrogance and arrogance of a lackey-sycophant arouses the contempt of the peasants, they drive him away from the bucket from which they serve the "happy" at the rural fair. It should not be overlooked that Peremetyev's "beloved slave" once again flashes among the pictures of a drunken night. He is flogged for stealing.
Where he is caught - here and his judgment:
There were about three dozen judges,
We decided to give on a vine,
And each gave a vine.
It is no coincidence that this was said after the scenes of popular trust are drawn: Yermil Girin is given money without receipts to buy a mill, and he returns it to his honesty. This contrast suggests the moral health of the mass of the peasantry, the strength of its moral rules even in an atmosphere of serfdom. The image of the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna occupies a large and special place in the poem. The story about the share of this heroine is a story about the share of the Russian woman in general. Talking about her marriage, Matryona Timofeevna talks about the marriage of any peasant woman, about all of their great multitude. Nekrasov managed to combine the heroine's private life with mass life, without identifying them. Nekrasov all the time tried to expand the meaning of the image of the heroine, as if to embrace as many female destinies as possible. This is achieved by weaving folk songs and lamentations into the text. They reflect the most characteristic features of the life of the people.
Songs and lamentations are just a little bit artistic identity the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia". It is possible to write about the people, to write for the people only according to the laws of folk poetry. And the point is not that Nekrasov turned to folklore, using vocabulary, rhythm and images of folk art. In the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia", first of all, the folk theme is revealed - the people's search for the way to happiness. And this topic is approved by Nekrasov as the leading one, determining the movement of the people forward. Behind the numerous pictures of the life of the people stands the image of Russia, that "wretched and abundant, downtrodden and omnipotent." country. A patriotic feeling, heartfelt love for the homeland and the people fills the poem with that inner burning, that lyrical warmth that warms its harsh and truthful epic narrative.
I dedicated the lyre to my people.
ON. Nekrasov
Poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who Lives Well in Russia" was created for more than ten years (1863-1876). The main problem that interested the poet was the position of the people, the Russian peasant under serfdom and after the "liberation". On the essence of the royal manifesto of N.A. Nekrasov says in the words of the people: "You are good, the royal letter, but you were not written about us." Pictures of folk life are written with epic breadth, and this gives the right to call the poem an encyclopedia of Russian life at that time.
Drawing numerous images of peasants, various characters, the author divides the heroes, as it were, into two camps: slaves and fighters. Already in the prologue we get to know the peasants who seek truth. They live in villages with characteristic names: Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyelovo, Neurozhayka. The purpose of their journey is to find a happy person in Russia. While traveling, peasants meet different people. After listening to the priest's story about his "happiness", having received advice to learn about the happiness of the landowner, the peasants say:
We know them!
Truth-seekers are not satisfied with the "noble" word, they need a "Christian word":
Give a Christian word!
Noble with a curse,
With a push and a jaw,
That is unsuitable for us!
Truth-seekers are hardworking, always striving to help others. Hearing from a peasant woman that there are not enough workers to harvest grain on time, the peasants offer:
And what are we for, godfather?
Come on sickles! All seven
How will we become tomorrow - by the evening
We'll squeeze all your rye!
They are also willing to help mow the grass to the peasants of the Illiterate province.
Nekrasov most fully reveals the images of peasant fighters who do not grovel before their masters, do not resign themselves to their slave position.
Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo lives in dire poverty. He works to death, escapes from the heat and rain under the harrow.
The chest is sunken; how depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground ...
Reading the description of the peasant's appearance, we understand that Yakim, all his life toiling on a gray, barren patch of land, himself became like the earth. Yakim admits that most of his labor is appropriated by "equity holders" who do not work, but live on the labors of peasants like him: You work alone, And as soon as the work is over, Look, there are three dolytsiks: God, the king and the lord!
Throughout his long life, Yakim worked, experienced many hardships, starved, went to prison, and, "like a sticky piece of skin, he returned to his homeland." But still he finds the strength to create at least some kind of life, some kind of beauty. Yakim decorates his hut with pictures, loves a well-aimed word, his speech is full of proverbs and sayings. Yakim is the image of a peasant of a new type, a rural proletarian who has been in a waste industry. And his voice - voice the most advanced peasants:
Every peasant
Soul that black cloud -
Angry, formidable - and it should be
Thunders thunder from there,
To pour bloody rains ...
The poet treats his hero Yermil Girin with great sympathy, the village headman, fair, honest, intelligent, who, according to the peasants,
At seven years old worldly penny
I didn’t pinch it under my fingernail,
At seven years old, he did not touch the right one,
Did not let the guilty one
I didn’t twist my soul.
Only once Yermil did not act according to his conscience, giving the son of the old woman Vlasyevna instead of his brother to the army. Repenting, he tried to hang himself. In the opinion of the peasants, Yermil had everything for happiness: calmness, money, honor, but his honor was special, not bought "neither by money, nor by fear: strict truth, intelligence and kindness."
The people, defending the worldly cause, in difficult times helps Yermil to keep the mill, showing exceptional trust in him. This act confirms the ability of the people to act together, in peace.
And Yermil, not being afraid of the prison, took the side of the peasants when "the estate of the landowner Obrubkov rebelled." Yermil Girin is a defender of peasant interests.
The next and most striking image in this series is Savely, the Holy Russian hero, a fighter for the people's cause. In his youth, like all peasants, he endured for a long time cruel bullying by the landowner Shalashnikov and his manager. But Savely cannot accept such an order, and he rebelled along with other peasants, he buried the German Vogel in the ground alive. “Twenty years of strict hard labor, twenty years of settlement” Savely received for this. Returning as an old man to his native village, he retained good spirits and hatred of the oppressors. "Branded, but not a slave!" - he says about himself. Savely retained a clear mind, cordiality, responsiveness until old age. In the poem, he is shown as a people's avenger:
... Our axes
We lay there for the time being!
He speaks contemptuously about passive peasants, calling them "lost ... lost."
Nekrasov calls Savely the Holy Russian bogatyr, emphasizing his heroic character, and also compares him with folk hero Ivan Susanin. The image of Savely personifies the people's desire for freedom.
This image is given in one chapter with the image of Matryona Timofeevna not by chance. The poet shows two heroic Russian characters together. Matryona Timofeevna goes through many trials. In her parents' house she lived freely and cheerfully, and after marriage she had to work like a slave, endure reproaches from her husband's relatives, beating her husband. Only in work and in children did she find joy. She grieved the death of her son Demushka, a hungry year, begging. But in difficult times, she showed firmness and perseverance: she fought for the release of her husband, illegally taken into the army, even went to the governor himself. She interceded for Fedotushka when they wanted to punish him with rods. Rebellious, decisive, she is always ready to defend her rights, and this brings her closer to Savely. Having told the pilgrims about her hard life, she says that “it’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman between women”. In the chapter entitled "A Woman's Parable," the peasant woman speaks of the woman's share:
Keys to women's happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
With God himself.
But Nekrasov is sure that the "keys" must be found. The peasant woman will wait and achieve happiness. The poet says about this in one of Grisha Dobrosklonov's songs:
You are still in the family as long as you are a slave,
But the mother is already a free son!
Nekrasov with a special feeling created the images of truth-seekers, boards, which expressed the strength of the people, the will to fight the oppressors. However, the poet could not help but turn to the dark sides of the life of the peasantry. The poem depicts peasants who have become accustomed to their slavery position. In the chapter "Happy" peasants-truth-seekers meet with a courtyard man who considers himself happy because he was the beloved slave of Prince Peremetyev. The courtyard is proud that his daughter, together with the young lady, "studied both French and all kinds of languages, she was allowed to sit in the presence of the princess." And the courtyard himself stood for thirty years behind the chair of the Most Serene Prince, licked the plates after him and drank the remnants of overseas wines. He is proud of his “closeness” to his masters and his “honorable” disease, gout. Simple freedom-loving peasants laugh at a slave who looks down on his fellow peasants, not understanding all the baseness of his lackey position. The courtyard of Prince Utyatin Ipat did not even believe that the "will" was announced to the peasants:
And I am the princes of the Utyatin
Serf - and that's the whole story!
From childhood to old age, the master in every possible way mocked his slave Ipag. All this the footman took for granted:
... redeemed
Me, the slave of the latter,
In the winter in the hole!
How wonderful!
Two ice holes:
In one he will drop in a seine,
In another instant it will pull -
And bring vodka.
Ipat could not forget the master's "favors": that after bathing in an ice-hole the prince would "bring vodka", he would put him "next to him, unworthy, with his princely persona."
An obedient slave is also "an exemplary servant - Yakov the faithful." He served with the cruel Mr. Polivanov, who "in the teeth of an exemplary servant ... casually blew his heel." Despite this treatment, the faithful slave took care of the master until his very old age. The landowner severely offended his faithful servant, having recruited his beloved nephew Grisha. Yakov “made a fool of himself”: first he “washed down the dead,” and then he brought the master into a remote forest ravine and hanged himself on a pine tree over his head. The poet condemns such manifestations of protest as well as servile obedience.
With indignation, Nekrasov speaks of such traitors to the people's cause as the elder Gleb. He, bribed by the heir, destroyed the "free" given to the peasants before his death by the old master-admiral, than "for tens of years, until recently, eight thousand souls were secured by the villain."
To characterize the courtyard peasants, devoid of self-esteem, the poet finds contemptuous words: slave, servant, dog, Judas. Nekrasov concludes the characteristics with a typical generalization:
People of servile rank -
Real dogs sometimes:
The heavier the punishment
So much dearer to them, gentlemen.
By creating Various types peasants, Nekrasov asserts: there are no happy among them, the peasants, even after the abolition of serfdom, are still destitute and bled, only the forms of oppression have changed. But among the peasants there are people capable of conscious, active protest. And therefore the poet believes that in the future in Russia there will come a good life:
More to the Russian people
No limits are set:
Before him is a wide path.
The first folk poet, he wrote about the people and for the people, knowing their thoughts, needs, concerns and hopes. Communication with the people filled the life of Nekrasov with a special meaning and constituted the main content of his poetry.
"On the road"
Nekrasov the poet is very sensitive to the changes that are taking place in the folk environment. In his poems, the life of the people is portrayed in a new way, not like those of their predecessors.
The motive of the road runs through all the poet's work - a through-going motive for Russian literature. The road is not just a segment connecting two geographical points, it is something more. "If you go to the right, you will lose your horse, if you go to the left, you will not be alive yourself, if you go straight ahead, you will find your destiny." The road-path is a choice of a life path, a goal.
On the subject chosen by Nekrasov, there were many poems in which daring troikas rushed, bells rang under the arc, the songs of the coachmen sounded. At the beginning of his poem, the poet reminds the reader about this:
Boring! boring! .. The coachman is daring,
Dispel my boredom with something!
Sing a song or something, buddy
About recruiting and separation ...
But immediately, abruptly, decisively, he breaks off the usual and familiar poetic course. What amazes us about this poem? Of course, the coachman's speech, completely devoid of the usual folk song intonations. It seems as if naked prose unceremoniously burst into poetry: the driver's speech is clumsy, rude, saturated with dialect words. What new opportunities does this "down-to-earth" approach to depicting a person from the people open up for Nekrasov the poet?
Note: in folk songs, as a rule, we are talking about "a daring coachman, about a" good fellow "or" red maiden ". Everything that happens to them applies to many people from the folk environment. The song reproduces events and characters of national significance and sound. Nekrasov is interested in something else: how people's joys or hardships are manifested in the fate of this particular, only hero. The poet depicts the general in peasant life through the individual, the unrepeatable. Later, in one of his poems, the poet joyfully greets his village friends:
All familiar people,
Every man is a friend.
So it happens in his poetry that no man is a unique personality, a unique character.
Perhaps none of Nekrasov's contemporaries dared to come close to a peasant so closely on the pages of a poetic work. Only he could then not only write about the people, but also "speak with the people"; letting in peasants, beggars, artisans with their different perceptions of the world, different language in poetry.
With ardent love the poet treats nature - the only treasure of the world, which "the strong and well-fed lands could not take away the hungry from the poor." Thinly feeling nature, Nekrasov never shows it in isolation from a person, his activities and state. In the poems "Uncompressed Strip" (1854), "Village News" (1860), in the poem "Peasant Children" (1861), the image of Russian nature is closely intertwined with the disclosure of the soul of the Russian peasant, his difficult life. A peasant who lives in the midst of nature and deeply feels it, rarely has the opportunity to admire it.
Who are we talking about in the poem "Uncompressed Strip"? As if about a sick peasant. And the trouble is comprehended from the peasant point of view: there is no one to clean the strip, the grown crop will be lost. The land-nurse is also animated in a peasant way: “ears seem to be whispering to each other”. I was going to die, but this rye, ”said the people. And with the onset of the hour of death, the peasant thought not of himself, but of the land, which would be left an orphan without him.
But you read the poem and more and more you feel that these are very personal, very lyrical poems, that the poet looks at himself through the eyes of a plowman. And so it was. "Uncompressed strip" Nekrasov wrote seriously ill, before leaving abroad for treatment in 1855. The poet was overcome by sad thoughts; it seemed that the days were already numbered, that he might not return to Russia either. And here the courageous attitude of the people to troubles and misfortunes helped Nekrasov to withstand the blow of fate, to preserve spiritual strength. The image of the "uncompressed strip", like the image of the "road" in the previous verses, takes on a figurative, metaphorical meaning in Nekrasov: this is a peasant field, but also a "field" of writing, the craving for which in a sick poet is stronger than death, as love is stronger than death a grain grower to work on the ground, to a laboring field.
"Song to Eremushka" (1859)
In this Song, Nekrasov condemns the "vulgar experience" of opportunists crawling towards the blessings of life, and calls on the younger generation to devote their lives to the struggle for the people's happiness.
Exercise
Reading and independent analysis or commentary on Nekrasov's poems: "On the road", "I'm going at night", "I don't like your irony ...", "Uncompressed strip", "Schoolboy", "Song to Eremushka", "Funeral", " Green Noise ”,“ Morning ”,“ Prayer ”, fragments from the cycle“ On the Weather ”.
The analysis of poems is carried out at three levels:
- figurative and linguistic (vocabulary, paths);
- structural and compositional (composition, rhythm);
- ideological (ideological and aesthetic content).
In the poem "Yesterday at six o'clock," Nekrasov first introduced his Muse, the sister of the offended and oppressed. In his last poem "O Muse, I am at the door of the coffin" the poet recalls for the last time "this pale, in blood, / with the Knut excised Muse". Not love for a woman, not the beauty of nature, but the suffering of the tortured poverty of the poor - this is the source of lyrical feelings in many of Nekrasov's poems.
Nekrasov's lyric themes are diverse.
The first of the artistic principles of Nekrasov's lyric poetry can be called social. The second is social analyticism. And this was new in Russian poetry, absent from Pushkin, and from Lermontov, especially from Tyutchev and Fet. This principle permeates two famous poems Nekrasov: "Reflections at the front door" (1858) and " Railway"(1864).
"Reflections at the front entrance" (1858)
In "Reflection ..." a specific isolated case is the arrival of men with a request or complaint to a certain statesman.
This poem is about contrast. The poet contrasts two worlds: the world of the rich and the idle, whose interests are reduced to "red tape, gluttony, play", "shameless flattery", and the world of the people, where "crying grief" reigns. The poet draws their relationship. The nobleman is full of contempt for the people, this is revealed with the utmost clarity in one line:
Drive!
Ours does not like the ragged rabble! "
The feelings of the people are more complicated. "Dolgonko" walkers wandered from a distant province in the hope of finding help or protection from the grandee. But the door slammed in front of them, and they leave,
Repeating: "God judge him!"
Spreading hopelessly hands,
And as long as I could see them,
They walked with their heads uncovered ...
The poet is not limited to the depiction of hopeless obedience and the endless groan of the people. “Will you wake up full of strength? ..” - he asks and brings the reader to the answer to this question with the whole poem: “Happy are deaf to good”, the people have nothing to wait for salvation from the nobles, they must take care of their own destiny.
Two principles of reflection of reality in Nekrasovskaya lyrics naturally come to the third principle - revolutionary. The lyrical hero of Nekrasov's poetry is convinced that only a people's, peasant revolution can change the life of Russia for the better. This side of consciousness is especially strong lyrical hero manifested itself in poems dedicated to Nekrasov's associates in the revolutionary-democratic camp: Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev.
Literature
School curriculum for grade 10 in answers and solutions. M., SPb., 1999
Yu.V. Lebedev Comprehension of the people's soul // Russian literature of the 18th – 19th centuries: reference materials. M., 1995
"Who Lives Well in Russia" is an epic poem. In its center is the image of post-reform Russia. Nekrasov wrote a poem for twenty years, collecting material for it "by word." The poem embraces the life of the people unusually broadly. Nekrasov wanted to portray all social strata in it: from peasant to tsar. But, unfortunately, the poem was never finished - the death of the poet prevented. The main problem, the main issue of the work is already clearly visible in the title "Who Lives Well in Russia" - this is the problem of happiness. Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" begins with the question: "In what year - count, in what land - guess."
But it is not difficult to understand what period Nekrasov is talking about. The poet has in mind the reform of 1861, according to which the peasants were “liberated”, and those, who did not have their own land, fell into even greater bondage. Throughout the entire poem, there is the idea of the impossibility of living like this further, about the hard peasant lot, about peasant ruin. This motive of the hungry life of the peasantry, which "anguish-misfortune tormented" sounds with special force in the song called "Hungry" by Nekrasov. The poet does not soften the colors, showing poverty, rudeness of morals, religious prejudices and drunkenness in the peasant life. The position of the people is depicted with the utmost clarity by the name of those places where the peasants-truth-seekers come from: Terpigorev Uyezd, Empty Volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyelovo. The poem very vividly depicts the joyless, powerless, hungry life of the people.
"Peasant happiness," the poet exclaims bitterly, "full of holes with patches, hunchbacked with calluses!" As before, the peasants are people "who did not eat their fill, drank deeply."
The only thing that has changed is that "now instead of the master, the volost will tear them up." The author treats with undisguised sympathy those peasants who do not put up with their hungry, powerless existence. Unlike the world of exploiters and moral monsters, slaves like Yakov, Gleb, Sidor, Ipat, the best of the peasants in the poem retained their true humanity, the ability to sacrifice themselves, and spiritual nobility. These are Matryona Timofeevna, the hero Savely, Yakim Nagoy, Yermil Girin, Agap Petrov, the headman Vlas, seven truth seekers and others. Each of them has his own task in life, his own reason to “seek the truth,” but all of them together testify that peasant Russia has already awakened and revived. Truth-seekers see such happiness for the Russian people: I do not need neither silver, nor gold, but God grant that my fellow countrymen And every peasant Live freely, cheerfully In all holy Russia! In Yakima Naga, the peculiar character of the people's truth-lover, the peasant "righteous man" is presented.
Yakim lives the same hardworking beggarly life as all the peasantry. But he is distinguished by a rebellious disposition. Yakim is an honest worker with a great sense of his own dignity. Yakim and smart, he perfectly understands why the peasant lives so poorly, so badly. It belongs to him such words: Every peasant has a soul that the cloud is black, Anger, formidable - and it would be necessary for Thunders to thunder from there, To pour bloody rains, And everything ends with wine. Yermil Girin is also remarkable. A competent man, he served as a clerk, became famous throughout the district for his justice, intelligence and disinterested devotion to the people.
Yermil showed himself to be an exemplary headman when the people elected him to this position. However, Nekrasov does not make him an ideal righteous man. Yermil, taking pity on his younger brother, appoints Vlasyevna's son to recruits, and then, in a fit of remorse, almost commits suicide. Yermil's story ends sadly. He is imprisoned for his performance during the riot. The image of Yermil testifies to the spiritual forces lurking in the Russian people, the wealth of moral qualities of the peasantry.
But only in the chapter "Savely - the bogatyr of the Holy Russian" peasant protest turns into a riot, culminating in the murder of the oppressor. True, the reprisal against the German manager is still spontaneous, but such was the reality of a serf society. Peasant riots arose spontaneously as a response to the cruel oppression of the peasants by the landlords and managers of their estates. Not the meek and obedient are close to the poet, but the recalcitrant and courageous rebels, such as Savely, the "bogatyr of the Holy Russian", Yakim Nagoy, whose behavior speaks of the awakening of the consciousness of the peasantry, of its boiling protest against oppression.
Nekrasov wrote about the oppressed people of his country with anger and pain. But the poet was able to notice the "hidden spark" of the mighty internal forces, laid down by the people, and looked ahead with hope and faith: The Host rises, Innumerable, the Power in it will be unbreakable. The peasant theme in the poem is inexhaustible, multifaceted, the whole figurative system of the poem is devoted to the theme of revealing peasant happiness. In this regard, one can recall the "happy" peasant woman Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, nicknamed the "governor's wife" for her special luck, and people of serfdom, for example, "the servant of the faithful Yakov," who managed to take revenge on his abusive master, and hard-working peasants from the chapters of The Last One, who are forced to break the comedy in front of the old prince Utyatin, pretending that there was no abolition of serfdom, and many other images of the poem.
All these images, even episodic ones, create a mosaic, vivid canvas of the poem, overlap with each other. This technique has been called polyphony by critics. All people live differently. Some are rich, some are poor; someone is strong, someone is weak. For some, fate presents pleasant surprises, for others it turns away. It cannot be so in the world that everyone lives well. Someone has to suffer.
And this cruel law of our complex life has always worried people. Among them is the great Russian writer Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. Whoever lives happily, freely in Russia, this question is asked by the heroes of his famous epic poem to everyone who meets them on the way. The heroes of the poem Who lives well in Russia are not officials, not rich people, not merchants, but ordinary peasants. Nekrasov chose them to clarify this issue because it is they who do not live happily and freely. They see nothing but work from morning to night, poverty, hunger and cold.
From the very beginning of the poem, Nekrasov argues that the peasants are not those who bathe in happiness. And indeed it is. And who, in the opinion of the peasants, lives without knowing grief? This is a landowner, an official, a priest, a fat-bellied merchant, a boyar, a minister of the sovereign, a tsar. But are our heroes right? Is such a cloudless life for these people? Both the priest and the landowner claim the opposite.
In their opinion, they can hardly make ends meet. Maybe they are telling the truth, but not all. Is it possible to compare the life of a peasant with the life of a landowner, even the most poor? Of course not. The more a person has, the more he needs. For example, a landowner doesn't have a big house, an abundance of food, three horses and servants. He needs more: so that each herb whispers: “I'm yours!
". Do the peasants really have such desires! For them, a piece of bread is joy.
Everyone understands happiness differently. Most are in wealth, and some are in bringing happiness to others. And such people, in my opinion, are really happy. To live well, you need to help other people. You have to be honest, kind, disinterested. But there are very few such people, but they still exist. Such, for example, is Grisha Dobrosklonov, the hero of the poem: Fate prepared the glorious Path for him, the resounding name of the People's Defender ...
Nekrasov claims that Grisha will be happy, because he does a lot for the good of the people, supports them, instills faith. And his kindness cannot go unnoticed. Maybe that's why our pilgrims could not find a happy person for so long that they met selfish people on their way, but this is not the case for everyone. For example, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina is a kind, hardworking woman. And the men themselves cannot be called bad.
But still, what is happiness How to become happy As they say, a person is the smith of his own happiness. We must strive for it.
And if it doesn’t work, then this is the fate. And there's nothing you can do about it.
Composition.
Pictures of folk life in the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who lives well in Russia"
"Who Lives Well in Russia" is an epic poem. In the center of it -
image of post-reform Russia. Nekrasov wrote a poem for twenty years, collecting material for it "by word." The poem embraces the life of the people unusually broadly. Nekrasov wanted to portray all social strata in it: from peasant to tsar. But, unfortunately, the poem was never finished - the death of the poet prevented. The main problem, the main issue of the work is already clearly visible in the title "Who Lives Well in Russia" - this is the problem of happiness.
Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" begins with the question:
"In what year - calculate, in what land - guess." But it is not difficult to understand what period Nekrasov is talking about. The poet has in mind the reform of 1861, according to which the peasants were "liberated", and those, who did not have their own land, fell into even greater bondage.
Throughout the entire poem, there is the idea of the impossibility of living like this further, about the hard peasant lot, about peasant ruin. This motive of the hungry life of the peasantry, which "anguish-misfortune tormented" sounds with special force in the song called "Hungry" by Nekrasov. The poet does not soften the colors, showing poverty, rudeness of morals, religious prejudices and drunkenness in the peasant life.
The position of the people is depicted with the utmost clarity by the name of those places where the peasants-truth-seekers come from: Terpigorev Uyezd, Empty Volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyelovo. The poem very vividly depicts the joyless, powerless, hungry life of the people. "Peasant happiness," the poet exclaims bitterly, "full of holes with patches, hunchbacked with calluses!" As before, the peasants are people "who did not eat their fill, drank deeply." The only thing that has changed is that "now the volost will fight them instead of the master."
The author treats with undisguised sympathy those peasants who do not put up with their hungry, powerless existence. Unlike the world of exploiters and moral monsters, slaves like Yakov, Gleb, Sidor, Ipat, the best of the peasants in the poem retained their true humanity, the ability to sacrifice themselves, and spiritual nobility. These are Matryona Timofeevna, bogatyr Savely, Yakim Nagoy, Yermil Girin, Agap Petrov, headman Vlas, seven truth seekers and others. Each of them has his own task in life, his own reason to “seek the truth,” but all of them together testify that peasant Russia has already awakened and revived. Truth-seekers see such happiness for the Russian people:
I don’t need any silver
No gold, but God forbid
So that my fellow countrymen
And to every peasant
Lived freely, cheerfully
In all holy Russia!
In Yakima Nagom, the peculiar character of the people's truth-lover, the peasant "righteous man" is presented. Yakim lives the same hardworking beggarly life as all the peasantry. But he is distinguished by a rebellious disposition. Yakim is an honest worker with a great sense of his own dignity. Yakim and smart, he perfectly understands why the peasant lives so poorly, so badly. These words belong to him:
Every peasant
Soul that black cloud
Angry, formidable - and it should be
Thunders thunder from there,
To pour bloody rains
And everything ends with wine.
Yermil Girin is also remarkable. A competent man, he served as a clerk, became famous throughout the district for his justice, intelligence and disinterested devotion to the people. Yermil showed himself to be an exemplary headman when the people elected him to this position. However, Nekrasov does not make him an ideal righteous man. Yermil, taking pity on his younger brother, appoints Vlasyevna's son to recruits, and then, in a fit of remorse, almost commits suicide. Yermil's story ends sadly. He is imprisoned for his performance during the riot. The image of Yermil testifies to the spiritual forces lurking in the Russian people, the wealth of moral qualities of the peasantry.
But only in the chapter "Savely - the bogatyr of the Holy Russian" peasant protest turns into a riot, culminating in the murder of the oppressor. True, the reprisal against the German manager is still spontaneous, but such was the reality of a serf society. Peasant riots arose spontaneously as a response to the cruel oppression of the peasants by the landlords and managers of their estates.
Not the meek and obedient are close to the poet, but the recalcitrant and courageous rebels, such as Savely, the "bogatyr of the Holy Russian", Yakim Nagoy, whose behavior speaks of the awakening of the consciousness of the peasantry, of its boiling protest against oppression.
Nekrasov wrote about the oppressed people of his country with anger and pain. But the poet was able to notice the "hidden spark" of the mighty inner forces inherent in the people, and looked ahead with hope and faith:
The host is rising
Innumerable
The strength in it will affect
Enduring.
The peasant theme in the poem is inexhaustible, multifaceted, the whole figurative system of the poem is devoted to the theme of revealing peasant happiness. In this regard, one can recall the "happy" peasant woman Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, nicknamed the "governor's wife" for her special luck, and people of serfdom, for example, "the servant of the faithful Yakov," who managed to take revenge on his abusive master, and hard-working peasants from the chapters of The Last One, who are forced to break the comedy in front of the old prince Utyatin, pretending that there was no abolition of serfdom, and many other images of the poem.
All these images, even episodic ones, create a mosaic, vivid canvas of the poem, overlap with each other. This technique has been called polyphony by critics. Indeed, the poem, written on folklore material, gives the impression of a Russian folk song performed in many voices
