In "Fairy Tales" artistic techniques of satirical typification were clearly manifested. Fantasy, grotesque, hyperbole, allegory are the main ones. Images of the animal world are widely used. The choice of images, of course, is not accidental, hares write correspondence to newspapers, bears go on business trips, fish talk about the constitution. At the same time, these heroes are not conditional, but full-fledged artistic images. The author makes extensive use of the opposition method, which makes it possible to show social contrasts: a man - a general, Ivan Poor - Ivan the Rich, a hare - a wolf, Konyaga - Empty dancers.
In "The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals," Shchedrin depicts two officials who ended up on a desert island. Two high-ranking officials served all their lives in the registry, which was later "abolished as unnecessary." Once on the island, the parasite generals almost ate each other. If there had not been a peasant on the island, the loafers would have perished from hunger, although the island had a lot of fruits, fish and all kinds of living creatures. Having had their fill, the generals regain their self-confidence. "Look, it's good to be a general," one of them says. In this tale, Shchedrin denounces parasitism, the complete incapacity of people who have long since weaned from work. Later, Chekhov, in The Cherry Orchard, will show us Gaev, a mature man, to whom the old footman Firs puts on his pants. If Gaev were on a desert island, he, like the generals, would die of hunger. It doesn't occur to the generals that exploiting a peasant is shameful and immoral, they are completely sure of their right that someone should work for them. Shchedrin writes: "Having returned back to St. Petersburg, the generals raked in money, but they did not forget the peasant either: they sent him a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver. The peasant had fun." With the same force Saltykov-Shchedrin exposes the autocracy in the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodship". Leo sends the Toptygins to his distant province to pacify the "internal adversary". By the Toptygin dynasty, Shchedrin means court servants of the tsar. Three Toptygins replace each other at a post in a distant voivodeship. The first and second governors were engaged in various kinds of atrocities: the first Toptygin - small (he ate a chizhik), the second - large, capital (took a cow, a horse, two sheep from the peasants, "for which the peasants were angry and killed him"). The third Toptygin did not want bloody atrocities, he went the liberal way, for which the peasants sent him a cow, then a horse, then a pig for many years, but in the end, the peasants' patience snapped, and they dealt with the governor. In this massacre one can clearly see the spontaneous revolts of the peasantry against their oppressors. Shchedrin showed that the discontent of the people is due not only to the arbitrariness of the governors, but also to the depravity of the entire tsarist system, that the road to the happiness of the people lies through the overthrow of the monarchy, that is, through the revolution. Shchedrin did not tire of exposing the vices of autocracy in his other fairy tales. In the fairy tale "The Eagle-Patron", an outstanding writer showed the attitude of the upper classes to art, science and education. He draws one conclusion, "that eagles are not needed for enlightenment." In the tale "The Wise Gudgeon" Shchedrin ridicules philistinism ("lived trembled and died trembled"). Saltykov is also not indifferent to utopian idealists (the fairy tale "Karas the Idealist"). The writer claims that not with words, but with decisive actions, a happy future can be achieved, and the people themselves can do this. The people in the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are talented, original in their worldly ingenuity. A peasant makes a net and a boat out of his own hair in the tale of the generals. The humanist writer is full of bitterness for his long-suffering people, arguing that with his own hands he "weaves a rope, which the oppressors will then throw around his neck." The image of a horse from Shchedrin's fairy tale is a symbol of an enslaved people. Shchedrin calls his own style Aesopian, in each fairy tale there is a subtext, various allegories. Shchedrin's tales are closely connected with folk art: he often uses folk proverbs and expressions. Shchedrin's literary heritage, like any other writer of genius, belongs not only to the past, but also to the present and the future.
Works on literature: Heroes and plots of satirical tales by M. E. Saltykov-shchedrin"Golovlevs" is a social novel from the life of a noble family. The disintegration of bourgeois society, as in a mirror, was also reflected in the disintegration of the family. The whole complex of moral relations that cement family ties and regulate moral norms of behavior is collapsing. The topic of the family becomes topical. The attention of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in this novel is entirely devoted to the analysis of deformities, the study of the causes and the demonstration of the consequences. Here we have the ancestor and head of the family, Arina Petrovna Golovleva. She is an imperious and energetic landowner, mistress and head of the family, a purposeful, complex nature, rich in her abilities, but spoiled by unlimited power over her family and others.
She single-handedly disposes of the estate, depriving the serfs, turning her husband into a hanger-on, crippling the life of "hateful children" and corrupting "favorites". In a fantastic pursuit of "acquired" she increased her husband's wealth. For whom and for what? Three times in the first chapter we hear her cry: “And for whom am I saving all this abyss!
Who am I saving for? I don’t get enough sleep at night, I don’t eat a piece ... for whom!?” - Arina Petrovna’s question, of course, is rhetorical: it is understood that she does everything for the family, for children. children, she talks about maternal duty in order to disguise her true attitude - complete indifference, so that evil tongues do not reproach. Loudly, for everyone - hypocritically hypocritical words about the deceased daughter Anna and her twin orphans: "God took one daughter - two gave". For herself, for "internal use": "As your sister lived (she writes to her "beloved" Porfiry) dissolutely, she died, throwing her two puppies on me." The word did not leave Arina Petrovna's tongue " family".
But go was just an empty sound. In the chores of the family, she forgot about her. She did not have time and desire to think about the upbringing of children, about the development of their morality. The thirst for hoarding perverted and killed the instinct of motherhood. “In her eyes, children were one of those fatalistic life attitudes against which she considered herself entitled to protest, but which, nevertheless, did not affect a single string of her inner being, wholly devoted herself to the countless details of life organization.” The children, feeling the complete indifference of their mother and not feeling love, paid her the same indifference, turning into enmity. Arina Petrovna understood that the children had no gratitude towards her, and, looking at them, she asked herself more than once who would be her destroyer.
But, forever immersed in material troubles and mercantile calculations, she did not dwell on this thought for a long time. And all together - the omnipotence of the mistress and mother, the atmosphere of acquisitiveness, contempt for creative work - morally corrupts the souls of children, forms humiliated, slavish natures, ready for lies, deceit, scolding and betrayal. The eldest son Stepan, by nature observant and witty, but careless, hateful Styopka-stupid, drank himself and died a loser. The daughter, from whom Arina Petrovna intended to make a free accountant, fled from her parents' house and soon, abandoned by her husband, died. Her two little twin girls were taken in by her grandmother. At first, she looked at them as a burden, then became attached to them. The girls grew up and became provincial actresses. Left to themselves, without support and support, they failed to protect themselves from the vulgar harassment of wealthy idlers and, sinking lower and lower, were drawn into a scandalous lawsuit. As a result, one got poisoned, the other did not have the courage to drink poison, they had to bury themselves alive in Golovlev.
The abolition of serfdom dealt the "first blow" to Arina Petrovna's authority. Knocked down from her usual positions, having met with real life difficulties, she becomes weak and powerless. She divided the estate between her sons Porfiry and Paul, leaving herself only the capital. Paul died soon after. His property passed to the hated brother Porfiry. But even before Pavel's death, Porfiry managed to bypass "mother's dear friend", to defraud her of capital. More cunning and treacherous, pet Judas "swallows" her capital, turning her mother into a modest hanger-on.
And, of course, seeing on the shelf a book with the inscription “M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Tales,” reached out to her.
Only later did I learn that these tales are not quite ordinary, and they are intended for "children of a fair age." "Tales" is one of the brightest creations and the most widely read of the books of the great Russian satirist. In an atmosphere of ferocious government reaction, fairy tale fiction to some extent served as a means of artistic conspiracy for the most acute ideological and political ideas of the satirist. The life of Russian society in the second half of the 19th century is captured in Shchedrin's fairy tales in many paintings, miniature in size, but huge in content. In the gallery of typical images, Saltykov-Shchedrin reproduced the entire social anatomy of society, touched on all the main classes and social groups: the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, the workers of the countryside and the city, touched on many social, political, ideological problems, widely presented all kinds of currents of social thought. In the complex content of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales, four main themes can be distinguished: satire on the government, denunciation of the behavior and psychology of the philistine-minded intelligentsia, depiction of the masses, exposure of the morality of predatory owners, and propaganda of a new morality. Here, for example, the tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship" is distinguished by the sharpness of the satire directed at the governmental tops of the autocracy. Its plot is the story of royal dignitaries, transformed into bears, raging in the forest slums. The main meaning of the tale is to expose the stupid and tough rulers of the era of ferocious reaction.
The heroes of the work are three Toptygins. Toptygin was the first to "at all costs wanted to get on the tables of history, and for this he preferred the brilliance of bloodshed to everything in the world." For this, the lion sent him to pacify the internal adversaries in a distant forest, where "at that time there was such freemen between the forest peasants that everyone strove in his own way ... no one wanted to march in step." Having not yet begun to implement the plan of noble bloodshed, Toptygin was the first to swallow the chizhik with a hangover.
The whole forest was indignant. Leo, having learned that Toptygin was the first to disgrace himself, removed him from the province. At this time, the commander Toptygin II was sent to another slum. This one started out with a big villainy.
“He chose a darker night, and climbed into the yard to a neighboring peasant. In turn, he pulled up a horse, a cow, a pig, a couple of sheep ... but everything seems a little to him. Toptygin decided to roll out the yard of a peasant on a log, let him go around the world.
Greed let him down, the villain hung on a piece of log. The men came running, some with a stake, some with an ax. They threw him on a horn, skinned him, the rest was taken to the swamp for birds of prey to be torn to pieces. Toptygin the third was smarter than his predecessors and was distinguished by a good-natured disposition. He limited his activities only to the observance of the "ancient routine." This went on for many years. The peasants' patience snapped, and they dealt with Toptygin the third, as well as with the second. The moral of this tale is that the salvation of the people is not in the replacement of the evil Toptygins with good ones, but in the elimination of the governors of the Toptygins in general, i.e.
e. in the overthrow of the autocracy. A significant group of Shchedrin's tales is devoted to exposing the bourgeois philistine intelligentsia, intimidated by government persecution and succumbing to shameful panic during the period of political reaction in the 1880s. Take, for example, the tale "The Selfless Hare". It is about enslavers with their wolf habits and their victims, blind in their obedience. The hare was guilty before the wolf.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was singled out among Russian writers, according to his contemporary Turgenev, by his amazing "crazy humorous fantasy." In the art of using hyperbole, grotesque, fantasy and allegory to reproduce reality, he had no equal. The outstanding achievement of the last decade of the writing activity of Saltykov-Shchedrin was the book "Tales" - one of the most striking creations of the merciless exposer of social injustice.
The appearance of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales in the first half of the 1980s is largely due to the fact that in the atmosphere of government reaction, allegorical images and fairy-tale fantasy became for the writer a means of artistic "conspiracy" of the most acute ideas. But this is not the only reason why the writer turned to the fairy tale genre. There is another explanation. The story was close and understandable to the people. Saltykov-Shchedrin writes his fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” in other words, for adults (among the options for the subtitle was this: “For children from 7 to 70 years old”).
Even fairy tales, as you know, are inherent in moralizing and satirical orientation. Thus, the genre itself corresponded to the artistic intentions of the writer. In addition, the approximation of the form of satirical works to a folk tale made them accessible to the common people.
In Shchedrin's satire, several main themes can be distinguished: denunciation of the top government, depiction of the life of the masses in Tsarist Russia, exposure of individualistic morality, denunciation of philistine psychology. The behavior of liberals “within” and “in relation to meanness”, the psychology of the “average” layman, intimidated by government persecution, the senselessness of the world of the townsfolk itself, are reflected in the famous images of the wise scribbler, selfless hare, sane hare, dried roach.
In The Wise Scribbler, the writer exposed to public disgrace that part of the intelligentsia that, during the years of political reaction, succumbed to panic. Depicting the pitiful fate of the hero of a fairy tale, distraught with fear, walling himself up in a dark hole for life, the satirist expressed his contempt for those who obeyed the instinct of self-preservation, went into the world of personal interests.
He ridicules the wise scribbler, who all his life thought only about how the pike would not eat him, and therefore spent a hundred years in his hole, away from danger. Every day, happy because he was alive, the scribbler exclaimed: “Glory to you, Lord! alive!" He lived and trembled - that's all. Piskar "lived trembled - and died trembled."
The satirist makes his "wise man" in the face of death understand the meaninglessness of the life he lived. For all the comedy of this tale, its ending is deeply tragic. We hear the voice of Shchedrin himself in the questions that the scribbler asks himself before his death. Behind these questions, the position of the writer is clearly visible: “The whole life instantly flashed before him. What were his joys? Who did he console? Who sheltered, warmed, protected? Who heard about it? Who remembers its existence? And he had to answer all these questions: no one, no one. So the writer came up with the most terrible punishment for the hero: later fruitless insight, the realization in the face of death that life was lived in vain.
The sensible hare, although ordinary, was also wise. His wisdom consisted in the fact that he loved to philosophize that “every animal has its own life. Wolf - wolf, lion - lion, hare - hare. Whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with your life, no one asks you: live, that's all. To justify the existing order of things, he recalled statistics, found positive in such a device for a hare's life: "No, we, hares, can even live very well."
Once this compromiser hare fell into the clutches of a fox. He tried to talk the fox with his reasoning, to pity her so as not to be eaten, but, of course, he did not wait for mercy from the fox. “Instead of a hare, there were only scraps of skin and his sensible words: “Every animal has its own life: a lion - a lion, a fox - a fox, a hare - a hare.”
A similar resignation to fate, justification of the existing order, is ridiculed by the writer in the fairy tale "The Selfless Hare". The writer calls not to sit, like a selfless hare, on a leash in front of the wolf's lair, not to wait for his mercy, because predators do not have mercy on their victims and do not heed calls for generosity.
Everyone who tried, avoiding the struggle, to hide from the implacable enemy or to pity him, perishes. Such is the fate of both the naive dreamer crucian, who believes in the possibility of moral re-education of the predatory pike, and the dried roach, who seemed to have “extra” thoughts, feelings and conscience, who did not stick his nose into his own business.
Already in his first fairy tales “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals” and “The Wild Landowner”, using the techniques of witty fairy tale fiction, Shchedrin showed that the source of the material well-being of the nobles and their culture is the work of the peasant.
And the man, fortunately for the generals, is there. This is a "huge man", a master of all trades. He also took apples from the tree, and took potatoes from the ground, and made a snare for hazel grouse from his own hair, and got the fire. And what? I collected ten apples for the generals, and “one, sour” for myself. Moreover, he himself twisted the rope so that the generals would keep him tied at night. And the generals also scold the peasant for parasitism. Meanwhile, he made a vessel, "so that it was possible to cross the ocean-sea", covered its bottom with swan's down - for the generals, and they sailed. The generals all scold him for parasitism, but he keeps rowing and rowing and feeding the generals with herrings. He did bring the generals home. Such is the fairy tale. Fiction or reality?
It is difficult to imagine a more vivid and truthful depiction of the life and moral state of the peasants: hard labor, slave psychology, oppression, ignorance. Shchedrin admires the strength and endurance of the peasant, but is forced to ridicule his slavish obedience.
In The Wild Landowner, the satirist ridiculed the stupid landowner, who “had enough of everything: peasants, and bread, and cattle, and land, and gardens.” One thing was not to his liking: "It was too much divorced in our kingdom of the peasant." He began to oppress his peasants so much that they prayed to God: it’s better to be lost with small children than to suffer all your life. God heard the orphan's request, and the stupid landowner had no more peasants. Without his peasants, the landowner ran wild. He was overgrown with hair, his nails became like iron, he had long ago stopped blowing his nose, he had even lost the ability to articulate sounds, he began to walk on all fours.
Since there was no one to pay taxes, the worried bosses gathered a council at which they decided to catch the peasants, and to “inspire the landowner, who started the turmoil, in the most delicate way” so that he would stop his fanfare.
A fairy tale is a fairy tale. A swarm of men appeared out of nowhere, and life went on as before. The wild landowner was caught, washed, tonsured, only he "yearns for his former life in the forests, washes only under duress and at times mumbles."
The pain of the writer-democrat for the Russian peasant that never subsided, all the bitterness of his thoughts about the fate of his people, his native country, concentrated with special force in the narrow framework of the fairy tale "Konyaga". The tale, on the one hand, depicts the tragedy of the life of the Russian peasantry - this enormous but enslaved force, and on the other hand, shows the author's mournful experiences associated with the unsuccessful search for answers to the most important questions: who will free this force from captivity? Who will bring her into the world? Konyaga is immortal, the whole meaning of his existence is hard, bloody sweat work: “There is no end to work! The whole meaning of his existence is exhausted by work; for her he was conceived and born, and outside of her ... no one needs. Each line of this fairy tale is overwhelmed with pain, it must be recognized as correlated not only with the time that has long gone from us. Of all the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, “Konyaga”, as it seemed to me, has not lost its relevance today and is surprisingly very modern.
Shchedrin's tale is close to the folk tale, but does not resemble it. Under the guise of a story about animals, Shchedrin gained some freedom to attack the oppressors and the opportunity to talk in a funny way about serious things. Yes, his tales presented the reader with positive ideals, which he carried out "in a negative form." But most importantly, his characters, outwardly implausible, are always essentially realistic. And the grotesque - an exaggeration - is just an opportunity to present an ugly, abnormal reality in a contrasting, satirical light.
In "Fairy Tales" artistic techniques of satirical typification were clearly manifested. Fantasy, grotesque, hyperbole, allegory are the main ones. Images of the animal world are widely used. The choice of images, of course, is not accidental, hares write correspondence to newspapers, bears go on business trips, fish talk about the constitution. At the same time, these heroes are not conditional, but full-fledged artistic images. The author makes extensive use of the opposition method, which makes it possible to show social contrasts: a man - a general, Ivan Poor - Ivan the Rich, a hare - a wolf, Konyaga - Empty dancers.
By the Toptygin dynasty, Shchedrin means court servants of the tsar. Three Toptygins replace each other at a post in a distant voivodeship. The first and second governors were engaged in various kinds of atrocities: the first Toptygin - small ones (he ate a chizhik), the second - large, capital ones (took a cow, a horse, two sheep from the peasants, “for which the men got angry and killed him”). The third Toptygin did not want bloody atrocities, he went the liberal way, for which the peasants sent him a cow, then a horse, then a pig for many years, but in the end, the peasants' patience snapped, and they dealt with the governor. In this massacre one can clearly see the spontaneous revolts of the peasantry against their oppressors. Shchedrin showed that the discontent of the people is due not only to the arbitrariness of the governors, but also to the depravity of the entire tsarist system, that the road to the happiness of the people lies through the overthrow of the monarchy, that is, through the revolution. Shchedrin did not tire of exposing the vices of autocracy in his other fairy tales. In the fairy tale "The Eagle-Patron", an outstanding writer showed the attitude of the upper classes to art, science and education. He draws one conclusion, “that eagles are not needed for enlightenment.” In the tale “The Wise Gudgeon,” Shchedrin ridicules philistinism (“lived trembled and died trembled”). Saltykov is also not indifferent to utopian idealists (the fairy tale “Karas the Idealist”). The writer claims that not with words, but with decisive actions, a happy future can be achieved, and the people themselves can do this. The people in the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are talented, original in their worldly ingenuity. A peasant makes a net and a boat out of his own hair in the tale of the generals. The humanist writer is full of bitterness for his long-suffering people, arguing that he “weaves a rope with his own hands, which the oppressors will then throw around his neck.” The image of a horse from Shchedrin's fairy tale is a symbol of an enslaved people. Shchedrin calls his own style Aesopian, in each fairy tale there is a subtext, various allegories. Shchedrin's tales are closely connected with folk art: he often uses folk proverbs and expressions. Shchedrin's literary heritage, like any other writer of genius, belongs not only to the past, but also to the present and the future.
A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it ...
A.S. Pushkin
The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin reflect the main social, political, ideological and moral problems that characterized Russian life in the second half of the 19th century. The fairy tales show all the main classes of society - the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, the working people.
The satire that castigates the government elites of the autocracy stands out most sharply in three tales: "The Bear in the Voivodeship", "The Eagle-Maecenas" and "The Bogatyr".
In the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship" Saltykov-Shchedrin draws three Toptygins. They take turns taking the place of the governor. The first Toptygin ate a siskin, the second killed a horse, a cow, a pig from a peasant, and the third generally "craved bloodshed." All of them suffered the same fate: the peasants dealt with them after their patience ran out. In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin calls for the fight against the autocracy.
In the fairy tale "The Eagle-Patron", the Eagle acts as an official-educator, who at his court started the arts and sciences. But the role of a philanthropist soon bored him: he ruined the nightingale-poet, imprisoned a learned woodpecker in a hollow and dispersed the crows. The author concludes that science, education, art should only be free, independent of all sorts of eagles-patrons.
In the fairy tale "Bogatyr" the author shows in the image of the Bogatyr the autocracy, which is asleep and is not able to help people. People suffer from wars and invasions. The essence of tsarism is revealed in the words of the "adversaries": "But the Bogatyr is rotten."
Saltykov-Shchedrin condemns the inaction of the people, their passivity and long-suffering. The people are so accustomed to slavish obedience that they do not even think about their plight, they feed and water countless parasites and allow themselves to be punished for this. This is clearly reflected in the fairy tale "The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals." Two generals who had served all their lives in some kind of registry, which was later abolished "as unnecessary", ended up on a desert island. They never did anything and now they believe that "rolls in the same form will be born, as they are served to us in the morning with coffee." If the peasant had not been under the tree, the generals would have eaten each other from hunger. The “huge man” first fed the hungry generals. He picked apples and gave them ten each, took one for himself - sour. He dug up potatoes from the ground, lit a fire, and caught fish. And then he truly began to work miracles: he twisted a snare for hazel grouses from his own hair, made a rope so that there was something for the generals to tie him to a tree, and he even got the hang of cooking soup in handfuls. Well-fed and contented generals think: "That's how good it is to be generals - you won't get lost anywhere!" Upon returning to St. Petersburg, the generals "raked in the money", and the peasant was sent "a glass of vodka, and a nickel of silver: have fun, man!" In this tale, the author shows the patience of the people and its result: well-fed landowners and no gratitude to the peasant.
About what can happen if a peasant is not at hand, it is said in the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner". The landowner lived "stupid, read the newspaper Vest" and had a soft, white and crumbly body. The action takes place after the abolition of serfdom, so the peasants are "liberated". True, this does not make their life any better: “wherever they look, everything is impossible, but not allowed, but not yours.” The landowner is afraid that the peasants will eat everything from him, and dreams of getting rid of them: “My heart alone is unbearable: there are too many peasants divorced in our kingdom.” The peasants also have no life from the landowner, and they pray to God: “Lord! it’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!” God heard the prayer, and "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner." And what about the landowner? He is now unrecognizable: overgrown with hair, grown long nails, walks on all fours and growls at everyone - he has gone wild.
Saltykov-Shchedrin writes allegorically, that is, he uses Aesopian language. Each tale of Saltykov-Shchedrin has its own subtext. For example, in the tale of the faithful Trezor, the merchant Vorotilov, in order to test the vigilance of the dog, dresses up as a thief. The merchant acquired his wealth precisely by theft and deceit. Therefore, the author remarks: "It's amazing how this suit went to him."
In fairy tales, animals, birds, fish act along with people. The author puts all of them in unusual conditions and ascribes to them those actions that they cannot actually perform. In fairy tales, folklore, allegory, miracles and reality are intertwined in an amazing way, which gives them a satirical coloring. The minnow of Saltykov-Shchedrin can talk and even serve somewhere, only "he does not receive a salary and does not keep a servant." The crucian carp not only knows how to speak, but also acts as a preacher, the dried roach even philosophizes: “You go quieter, you will continue; a small fish is better than a big cockroach... Ears do not grow above the forehead.” There are many exaggerations and grotesques in fairy tales. This also gives them a satirical coloring and comedy. The wild landowner has become like a beast, he has gone wild, the peasant is preparing soup in a handful, the generals do not know where the rolls come from.
Almost all fairy tales use folklore elements and traditional beginnings. So, in the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" there is a fabulous beginning: "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there lived a landowner ..." and reality: "He read the newspaper" Vest "". In the fairy tale “Bogatyr”, the Bogatyr himself and Baba Yaga are fairy-tale characters: “In a certain kingdom, the Bogatyr was born. Baba Yaga gave birth to him, made him drunk, nursed him and groomed him. There are many sayings in fairy tales: “neither to describe with a pen, nor to say in a fairy tale”, “at the behest of a pike”, “how long, short”, there are such fairy-tale characters as Tsar Pea, Ivanushka the Fool, stable phrases: “by the way” , "judged-rowed".
Drawing predatory animals and birds, Saltykov-Shchedrin often endows them with such unusual features as gentleness and the ability to forgive, which enhances the comic effect. For example, in the fairy tale “The Selfless Hare”, the Wolf promised to pardon the Hare, another wolf once let go of the lamb (“Poor Wolf”), the Eagle forgave the Mouse (“Eagle Patron”), the Bear from the fairy tale “Poor Wolf” also reasoned with the Wolf: “Yes, you at least it would be easier, or something, ”and he justifies himself:“ I even ... as much as I can, I make it easier ... I grab it right by the throat - the coven!
Saltykov-Shchedrin ridiculed in his fairy tales the socio-political system of tsarist Russia, exposed the types and customs, morality and politics of the whole society. The time in which the satirist lived and wrote has become history for us, but his tales are alive to this day. The hero of his fairy tales lives next to us: “selfless hares”, “dried roach”, “idealistic carp”. Because "every animal has its own life: a lion - a lion, a fox - a fox, a hare - a hare."
