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The history of one city from the publisher. Literary direction and genre

The history of one city from the publisher. Literary direction and genre

01.03.2019

Current page: 1 (the book has 14 pages in total)

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin
History of one city

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For a long time already I had the intention to write the history of some city (or region) in a given period of time, but various circumstances prevented this enterprise. Mostly, however, the lack of material, any reliable and plausible, prevented. Now, rummaging through the Foolovsky city archives, I accidentally came across a rather voluminous bunch of notebooks, bearing the general name of the "Folupovsky Chronicler", and, having examined them, I found that they can serve as an important help in the implementation of my intention. The content of the Chronicler is rather monotonous; it is almost exclusively limited to the biographies of the city governors, who for almost a whole century controlled the fate of the city of Glupov, and a description of their most remarkable actions, such as: an early ride on the post office, the energetic collection of arrears, campaigns against the townsfolk, the construction and disorder of pavements, the taxation of tax-farmers, etc. Nevertheless, even from these meager facts, it is possible to grasp the physiognomy of the city and trace how its history reflected the various changes that simultaneously took place in the higher spheres. So, for example, the mayors of the time of Biron are distinguished by their recklessness, the mayors of the time of Potemkin - by diligence, and the mayors of the times of Razumovsky - of unknown origin and chivalrous courage. All of them whip the townsfolk, but the first ones absolutely whip, the second explain the reasons for their management by the requirements of civilization, the third want the townsfolk to rely on their courage in everything. Such a variety of events, of course, could not but affect the innermost warehouse of philistine life; in the first case, the townsfolk trembled unconsciously, in the second they trembled with the consciousness of their own benefit, in the third they rose to a trembling full of confidence. Even an energetic ride on the postal - and that inevitably had to have a certain share of influence, strengthening the philistine spirit with examples of horse vigor and restlessness. 1
Resilience - endurance.

The chronicle was kept successively by four city archivists 2
An archivist is an official in charge of an archive.

And embraces the time period from 1731 to 1825. This year, apparently, even for archivists, literary activity has ceased to be accessible. The appearance of the "Chronicler" has a very real look, that is, one that does not allow for a moment to doubt its authenticity; its sheets are just as yellow and dotted with scribbles, just as eaten by mice and polluted by flies, like the sheets of any monument of Pogodin's ancient repository. One can feel how some archival Pimen was sitting over them, illuminating his work with a tremulously burning tallow candle and in every possible way protecting him from the inevitable curiosity of Messrs. Shubinsky, Mordovtsev and Melnikov. The chronicle is preceded by a special code, or "inventory", compiled, obviously, by the last chronicler; in addition, in the form of supporting documents, several children's notebooks are attached to it, containing original exercises on various topics of administrative and theoretical content. Such, for example, are the arguments: “about the administrative unanimity of all city governors”, “about the plausible appearance of city governors”, “about the salutary pacification (with pictures)”, “thoughts when collecting arrears”, “the perverse course of time” and, finally, a rather voluminous dissertation "About severity." We can affirmatively say that these exercises owe their origin to the pen of various city governors (many of them are even signed) and have the precious property that, firstly, they give an absolutely correct idea of the current state of Russian spelling and, secondly, they depict their authors. much fuller, more demonstrative and more figurative than even the stories of the Chronicler.

As for the internal content of the Chronicler, it is predominantly fantastic and in places even almost unbelievable in our enlightened time. Such, for example, is the completely inconsistent story about the mayor with music. In one place, the Chronicler tells how the mayor flew through the air, in another - how another mayor, whose feet were turned back with his feet, almost escaped from the boundaries of the city government. The publisher, however, did not consider himself entitled to withhold these details; on the contrary, he thinks that the possibility of such facts in the past will point the reader even more clearly to the abyss that separates us from him. Moreover, the publisher was guided by the idea that the fantastic nature of the stories does not in the least eliminate their administrative and educational significance and that the reckless arrogance of the flying mayor can even now serve as a saving warning for those of today's administrators who do not want to be prematurely dismissed from office.

In any case, in order to prevent malicious interpretations, the publisher considers it his duty to make a reservation that all his work in this case consists only in the fact that he corrected the heavy and outdated style of the Chronicler and had proper supervision of spelling, without in the least touching the content of the chronicle . From the first minute to the last, the formidable image of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin did not leave the publisher, and this alone can already serve as a guarantee with what respectful trepidation he treated his task.

APPEAL TO THE READER FROM THE LAST ARCHIVIST-CHONERIST 3
This "address" is placed here line by line with the words of the "Chronicler" himself. The publisher only allowed himself to see to it that the rights of the letter "yat" were not violated too unceremoniously. - Note. publisher.

If the ancient Hellenes and Romans were allowed to give praise to their godless chiefs and hand over to posterity their vile deeds for edification, will we, Christians, who received light from Byzantium, turn out to be less worthy and grateful in this case? Surely in every country there are both glorious Nero and Caligula, shining with valor, 4
It is obvious that the chronicler, defining the qualities of these historical figures, had no idea even about the manuals published for secondary educational institutions. But the strangest thing of all was that he was unfamiliar even with Derzhavin's poems:
Caligula! your horse is in the senate
Could not shine, shining in gold:
Good deeds shine! - Note. publisher.

And only at ourselves we will not find such? It is ridiculous and absurd to even think of such a clumsy thing, let alone to preach it aloud, as some freedom-lovers do, who therefore believe their thoughts to be free, that they are in their head, like flies without shelter, flying here and there freely.

Not only a country, but every city, and even every small whole, 5
The whole is a village, a village.

- and she has and cannot not have her Achilles shining with valor and appointed by the authorities. Take a look at the first puddle - and in it you will find a reptile, which surpasses and obscures all other reptiles with its heroism. Look at the tree - and there you will see some boughs greater and stronger than others, and consequently, the most valiant. Look, finally, at your own person - and there you will first of all meet the head, and then you will no longer leave the belly and other parts unmarked. What, in your opinion, is more valiant: is your head, although stuffed with a light filling, but behind all that grief 6
Woe ́ (Church Slavonic)- to the sky.

Aspiring, or striving to ́ lu 7
Before ́ lu (Church Slavonic)- down to the ground.

The belly, for that only and suitable for manufacturing ... Oh, truly your frivolous free-thinking!

Such were the thoughts that prompted me, a humble city archivist (receiving two rubles a month in maintenance, but also glorifying everything for everything), ́ pno 8
Ku ́ pno - together, jointly.

With my three predecessors, unwashed 9
Neums ́ tny - incorruptible, honest (from the old Russian word "myt" - duty).

With your lips to sing the praises of the glorious ones Nero, 10
Again the same unfortunate mistake. - Note. publisher.

Which, not with godlessness and deceitful Hellenic wisdom, but with firmness and bossy boldness, our glorious city of Foolov was prenaturally decorated. Not having the gift of versification, we did not dare to resort to rattling and, relying on the will of God, began to expound worthy deeds in an unworthy, but characteristic of us language, avoiding only vile words. I think, however, that such a daring undertaking of ours will be forgiven us in view of the special intention that we had when embarking on it.

This intention is to depict successively the mayors who were appointed to the city of Foolov from the Russian government at different times. But, undertaking such an important matter, I at least asked myself more than once: will I be able to bear this burden? I have seen many of these amazing ascetics in my lifetime, and my predecessors have seen many of them. In total, there were twenty-two, which followed continuously, in majestic order, one after another, except for the seven-day pernicious anarchy, which almost plunged the entire city into desolation. Some of them, like a stormy flame, flew from end to end, cleansing and renewing everything; others, on the contrary, like a murmuring stream, irrigated meadows and pastures, and presented stormy and devastating behavior to the rulers of the office. But all, both stormy and meek, left behind a grateful memory in the hearts of fellow citizens, for all were city governors. This touching correspondence is already so marvelous in itself that it causes no small anxiety to the chronicler. You do not know what to glorify more: whether the power, in measure daring, or this grape, in measure thanking?

But this same correspondence, on the other hand, is no small relief for the chronicler. For what, in fact, is his task? Is it to criticize or to condemn? No, not in that. Is it to argue? No, and not in this. In what? And in that, frivolous freethinker, to be only a representative of the signified correspondence and to pass it on to posterity for proper edification.

Taken in this form, the task becomes accessible even to the humblest of the humble, because he represents only a meager vessel, 11
Skudel vessel - an earthen vessel (from "skudel" - clay), in figurative meaning- fragile, weak, poor.

In which the doxology spilled everywhere in abundance is closed. And the poorer that vessel, the more beautiful and tastier the sweet glorious moisture contained in it will seem. And a meager vessel will say to itself: I have come in handy for something, although I receive a salary of two copper rubles a month!

Having stated something in this manner in my apology, I cannot but add that our native city of Foolov, producing an extensive trade in kvass, liver and boiled eggs, has three rivers and, in agreement ancient Rome, built on seven mountains, on which a great many carriages break down in icy conditions and equally countless horses are beaten. The only difference is that wickedness shone in Rome, and piety shone with us, riotousness infected Rome, and meekness infected us, vile mob raged in Rome, and we have rulers.

And I’ll say one more thing: four archivists successively composed this chronicle: Mishka Tryapichkin, and another Mishka Tryapichkin, and Mitka Smirnomordov, and me, the humble Pavlushka, Masloboynikov’s son. Moreover, they had the same fear that our notebooks would not get to Mr. Bartenev and that he would not publish them in his "Archive". And then glory to God and my ranting is over.

ABOUT THE ROOT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE FLUPOTS

“I don’t want, like Kostomarov, gray wolf to scour the earth, nor, like Solovyov, to spread like an eagle under the clouds, nor, like Pypin, to spread my thoughts along the tree, but I want to tickle the Foolovites, dear to me, by showing the world their glorious deeds and the kind root from which this famous tree grew and branches covered the whole earth with its own.” 12
Obviously, the chronicler imitates here the "Lay of Igor's Campaign": "Boyan is prophetic, and if you want to create a song, then spreading your thoughts along the tree, gray volk on the ground, a shiz eagle under the clouds." And further: “Oh Boyan!! nightingale of the old time! Somehow you tickled these sticks, ”etc. - Note. publisher.

This is how the chronicler begins his story, and then, after saying a few words in praise of his modesty, he continues:

There was, he says, in ancient times a people called bunglers, and they lived far to the north, where Greek and Roman historians and geographers assumed the existence of the Hyperborean Sea. These people were nicknamed bunglers because they had the habit of "pulling" their heads on everything that they met on the way. The wall will fall - they sting against the wall; they start praying to God - they sting on the floor. Many independent tribes lived in the neighborhood of the bunglers, but only the most remarkable of them were named by the chronicler, namely: walrus-eaters, onion-eaters, thick-eaters, cranberries, kurales, swirling beans, frogs, lapotniks, black-nosed, dolbezhniks, broken heads of the blind-bearer, lip-slaps, lop-eared, crook-bellied , vendace, corners, kroshevniks and rukosui. These tribes had no religion, no form of government, replacing all this with the fact that they were constantly at enmity with each other. They made alliances, declared wars, reconciled, swore friendship and fidelity to each other, when they lied, they added “let me be ashamed” and were sure in advance that “shame will not eat out the eye.” Thus they mutually ruined their lands, mutually abused their wives and virgins, and at the same time were proud of being cordial and hospitable. But when they got to the point that they tore the bark from the last pine tree into cakes, when there were no wives or maidens and there was nothing to continue the “human factory”, then the bunglers were the first to take up their minds. They realized that someone had to take over, and they sent to tell the neighbors: we will wrestle with each other until then, until someone outweighs whom. “They did it cunningly,” says the chronicler, “they knew that strong heads were growing on their shoulders, so they offered it.”

And indeed, as soon as the simple-hearted neighbors agreed to the insidious proposal, the bunglers immediately, with God's help, reshuffled them all. The first succumbed to the blind-bearers and rukosui; more than others, the ground-eaters, vendaces and kosobryukhi were kept. To defeat the latter, they were even forced to resort to cunning. Namely: on the day of the battle, when both sides stood up against each other as a wall, the bunglers, unsure of the successful outcome of their case, resorted to witchcraft: they let the sun shine on the belly. The sun, by itself, was so standing that it should have shined in the eyes of the slanted belly, but the bunglers, in order to give this case the appearance of witchcraft, began to wave their hats in the direction of the slanted belly: here, they say, what we are like, and the sun is at one with us.

However, the kosobryukhy were not immediately frightened, but at first they also guessed: they poured oatmeal from the bags and began to catch the sun with bags. But they didn’t catch him, and only then, seeing that the truth was on the side of the bunglers, they brought guilt.

They drowned, then they bought a pig for a beaver and killed a dog for a wolf, then they lost their bast shoes and searched the yards: there were six bast shoes, but they found seven; then they met the crayfish with a bell ringing, then they drove the pike from the eggs, then they went to catch a mosquito for eight miles, and the mosquito sat on the nose of the Poshekhonets, then they exchanged the father for a dog, then they caulked the prison with pancakes, then they chained the flea to the chain, then the demon became a soldier they gave it away, then propped up the sky with stakes, finally got tired and began to wait what would come of it.

But nothing happened. The pike sat on the eggs again; the pancakes with which the prison was caulked were eaten by the prisoners; the purses in which the porridge was boiled burned down along with the porridge. And the strife and hubbub went even worse than before: again they began to ruin each other's lands, take their wives into captivity, swear at the virgins. There is no order, and it is full. They tried again to fight with their heads, but even then they did not finish anything. Then they decided to look for a prince.

“He will provide us with everything in an instant,” said the elder Dobromysl, “he will make soldiers with us, and build what prison he needs to build!” Aida guys!

They searched, they searched for the prince and almost got lost in three pines, yes, thanks, there happened to be a blind-breed of Poshekhona, who knew these three pines like the back of his hand. He led them to the beaten path and led them straight to the prince's courtyard.

- Who you are? and why did you complain to me? the prince asked the messengers.

- We're thugs! we are not in the light of the people wiser and braver! We even skunk-bellied - and they showered with hats! bragged the bunglers.

– What else did you do?

“Yes, they caught a mosquito seven miles away,” the bunglers began, and suddenly they became so funny, so funny ... They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

- But it was you, Pyotra, who went to catch a mosquito! Ivashka laughed.

- No, not me! he was sitting on your nose!

Then the prince, seeing that they did not leave their strife even here, in front of him, became very inflamed and began to teach them with a rod.

"You are stupid, you are stupid!" - he said, - you should not be called bunglers for your deeds, but fools! I don't want to be stupid! but look for such a prince, which is not more stupid in the world, and he will rule over you.

Having said this, he taught a little more with a rod and sent the bunglers away from him with honor.

The bunglers pondered over the words of the prince; We walked all the way and everyone was thinking.

Why did he rip us apart? - said some, - we are to him with all our hearts, and he sent us to look for the stupid prince!

But at the same time, others also turned up who did not see anything offensive in the words of the prince.

- What! - they objected, - the stupid prince will probably be even better for us! Now we give him a gingerbread in his hands: chew, but don’t hush us up!

“That’s true,” agreed the others.

The good fellows returned home, but at first they decided to try again to settle themselves. They fed the rooster on a rope so that it would not run away, they ate the god ... However, it was all to no avail. They thought and thought and went to look for the stupid prince.

They walked on level ground for three years and three days, and still could not get anywhere. Finally, however, they reached the swamp. They see a Chukhloma hand-wielding man standing on the edge of the swamp, his mittens sticking out behind his belt, and he is looking for others.

“Do you know, dear handyman, where can we find such a prince, so that he would not be more stupid in the world?” the bunglers pleaded.

“I know there is one,” answered the handkerchief, “here, go straight through the swamp, right here.”

They all rushed at once into the swamp, and more than half of them sank here (“many were jealous for their land,” says the chronicler); finally, they crawled out of the quagmire and see: on the other side of the swamp, right in front of them, the prince himself is sitting - yes, stupid, stupid! Sits and eats hand-written gingerbread. The bunglers rejoiced: that's the prince! We don't want anything better!

- Who you are? and why did you complain to me? - said the prince, chewing gingerbread.

- We're thugs! We are no people wiser and braver! We are the Gushcheeds - and they won! the bunglers boasted.

– What else have you done?

“We drove the pike from the eggs, we kneaded the Volga with oatmeal ...” the bunglers began to list, but the prince did not want to listen to them either.

“I’m so stupid,” he said, “and you are even more stupid than me!” Does a pike sit on eggs? or is it possible to knead a free river with oatmeal? No, you should not be called bunglers, but fools! I do not want to rule over you, but look for yourself such a prince, which is not more stupid in the world - and he will rule over you!

And, having punished with a rod, he released with honor.

The bunglers thought: the chicken's son cheated! He said, this prince is not stupider - but he is smart! However, they returned home and again began to settle by themselves. In the rain, they dried the onuchi, they climbed to look at the Moscow pine tree. And everything is not as there is no order, and it is complete. Then Peter Komar advised everyone.

- I have, - he said, - a friend-friend, nicknamed thief-novoto ́ p, if you don’t find some kind of burnout for the prince, then you judge me with a merciful court, chop off my untalented head from my shoulders!

He expressed this with such conviction that the bunglers obeyed and called for a new ́ ra-thief. For a long time he bargained with them, asked for Altyn and money for the search, 14
Altyn and money - old coins: altyn in 6 money, or in 3 kopecks (cf. five-altyn - 15 kopecks), money - half a penny.

The bunglers gave a penny 15
Grosh - an old coin of 2 kopecks, later - half a kopeck.

Yes, their bellies in addition. Finally, however, they somehow managed to come to terms and went to look for the prince.

- You look for us such that he is unwise! - said the bunglers to the new thief. - Why should we be wise, well, to hell with it!

And the thief-innovator led them at first all in a spruce forest and a birch forest, then in a dense thicket, then in a copse, and led them straight to a clearing, and in the middle of that clearing the prince was sitting.

As the bunglers looked at the prince, they froze. He sits, this, in front of them is a prince and a smart, smart one; he shoots at the gun and waves his saber. Whatever fires out of a gun, the heart will shoot through, whatever it waves with a saber, then the head is off your shoulders. And the innovator thief, having done such a dirty deed, stands stroking his belly and grinning in his beard.

- What you! crazy, crazy, crazy! will this one come to us? they were a hundred times more stupid - and they did not go! - the bunglers attacked the new thief.

– Neither ́ what! we'll have it! - said the innovator thief, - give me time, I'll have a word with him eye to eye.

The bunglers see that the thief-innovator has traveled around them on a curve, but they don’t dare to back down.

- This, brother, is not something to fight with "skew-bellied" foreheads! no, here, brother, give an answer: what is a person like? what rank and rank? they chatter among themselves.

And this time the thief-innovator reached the prince himself, took off his sable cap in front of him and began to speak secret words in his ear. For a long time they whispered, but about what - not to hear. Only the bunglers sensed how the innovative thief said: “To tear them, your princely grace, is always very free.”

Finally, it was their turn to stand before the clear eyes of his princely lordship.

- What kind of people are you? and why did you complain to me? The prince turned to them.

- We're thugs! there is no braver people among us,” the bunglers began, but suddenly they became embarrassed.

- I heard, gentlemen bunglers! - the prince chuckled (“and he smiled so affectionately, as if the sun shone!” - the chronicler remarks), - he heard it very much! And I know how you met cancer with a bell ringing - I know enough! I don’t know about one thing, why did you complain to me?

- And we came to your princely lordship to announce this: we repaired a lot of murders among ourselves, we did a lot of ruin and abuse to each other, but we don’t have all the truth. Go and Volodya us!

- And who, I ask you, did you before this of the princes of my brothers with a bow?

- And we were with one stupid prince and another stupid prince - and they didn’t want to rule us!

- OK. I wish to lead you, - said the prince, - but in order to go to live with you - I will not go! That is why you live by an animal custom: you remove the foam from untried gold, spoil your daughter-in-law! But instead of myself, I am sending this new thief to you: let him govern your houses, and I will push him and you around!

The bunglers lowered their heads and said:

“And you will pay me many tributes,” the prince continued, “whoever brings a sheep to a bright one, write a sheep on me, and leave a bright one for yourself; whoever has a penny, break it into four: give one part to me, the other to me, the third again to me, and keep the fourth for yourself. When I go to war - and you go! Other than that, you don't care!

- So! - answered the bunglers.

“And those of you who don’t care about anything, I will have mercy; the rest of all - to execute.

- So! - answered the bunglers.

“And since you didn’t know how to live on your own, and you yourself, stupid, wished bondage for yourself, then you will no longer be called bunglers, but Foolovites.”

- So! - answered the bunglers.

Then the prince ordered to surround the ambassadors with vodka, and to present them with a cake, and a scarlet scarf, and, having overlaid with tributes, he released him with honor.

The bunglers went home and sighed. “They sighed without weakening, they cried out loudly!” - the chronicler testifies. “Here it is, what a princely truth!” they said. And they said: "That ́ Kali we, that ́ kali and prota ́ Kali!” One of them, taking the harp, sang:

Don't make noise, mother green dubrovushka!
Do not interfere with the good fellow thinking,
How in the morning I, good fellow, go for interrogation
Before the formidable judge, the king himself ...

The further the song flowed, the lower the heads of the bunglers drooped. “There were among them,” says the chronicler, “old gray-haired men and wept bitterly that they had squandered their sweet will; there were also young ones who barely tasted that will, but they also wept. Only then did everyone know what a beautiful will is. When the final verses of the song were heard:

I'm for you, kid, I'll take pity
Among the field, high mansions,
With two pillars with a crossbar ... -

then they all fell on their faces and wept.

But the drama has already taken place irrevocably. Arriving home, the bunglers immediately chose a swamp and, having founded a city on it, they called themselves Foolov, and after that city they called themselves Foolovites. “So this ancient branch flourished,” adds the chronicler.

But the thief-innovator did not like this humility. He needed riots, because by pacifying them he hoped to win the favor of the prince for himself, and to collect swag 16
swag ́ - profits, bribe.

From the rioters. And he began to harass the Foolovites with all sorts of falsehoods and, indeed, not for a long time kindled riots. First the corners rebelled, and then the rennets. The thief-innovator went at them with a cannon shell, fired relentlessly and, having fired everyone, made peace, that is, he ate halibut at the corners, 17
Pa ́ ltusina - meat of the White Sea halibut fish.

The rennets have abomasums. 18
Sychu ́ g - a dish prepared from a cow's stomach.

And he received great praise from the prince. Soon, however, he was stealing so much that rumors about his insatiable theft even reached the prince. The prince became inflamed and sent a noose to the unfaithful slave. But the novotor, like a real thief, also dodged: he preceded the execution by not waiting for the loop, he stabbed himself with a cucumber.

After the new thief, an Odoevite came to “replace the prince”, the same one who “bought lean eggs for a penny”. But he also guessed that without riots he could not live, and he also began to pester. The kosobryukhi, Kalashnikovs, strawmen rose up - everyone defended the old days and their rights. Odoyevets went against the rebels and also began to fire relentlessly, but he must have fired in vain, because the rebels not only did not humble themselves, but dragged along the black-skyed and lip-slaps. The prince heard the stupid shooting of the stupid odoevtsa and endured for a long time, but in the end he could not stand it: he went out against the rebels in his own person and, having burned everyone to the last, returned home. Then he tore out the nostril from the Odoyevets and sent him to rule in Vyatka.

- I sent a real thief - it turned out to be a thief, - the prince was sad at the same time, - I sent an Odoev man nicknamed "sell lean eggs for a penny" - and he turned out to be a thief. Who will I send now?

He pondered for a long time which of the two candidates should be given the advantage: whether the Orlovites, on the grounds that “Eagle and Kromy are the first thieves,” or the Shuyanin, on the grounds that he “had been to St. Petersburg, poured on the floor and didn’t fall here ”, but finally preferred Orlovets, because he belonged to the ancient family of “Broken Heads”. But as soon as the Orlovets arrived at the place, the old people rose in revolt and, instead of the governor, met the rooster with bread and salt. An Orlovet went to them, hoping to feast on sterlets in Staritsa, but found that there "only enough mud." Then he burned the Staritsa, and gave the wives and maidens of the Staritsa to himself for reproach. “The prince, having learned about it, cut his tongue.”

Then the prince once again tried to send a “simpler thief” and for these reasons he chose a Kalyazin who “bought a pig for a beaver”, but this one turned out to be an even worse thief than the Novotor and Orlovets. He rebelled the Semendyaevites and Zaozerstvo and, "killing them, burned them."

Then the prince bulged his eyes and exclaimed:

- There is no stupidity bitter, 19
Gorshaya (Church Slavonic)- more bitter, worse.

Like stupidity!

“And arrived in my own person to Foolov and cry out:

- I'll shut up!

With this word began historical times.

"History of one city - 01"

According to original documents

Appeal to the reader from the last archivist-chronicler

This "address" is placed here line by line with the words of the Chronicler himself. Did the publisher allow himself to observe only that the letters were right? were not too unceremoniously violated. - Ed.

If the ancient Hellenes and Romans were allowed to give praise to their godless chiefs and hand over to their offspring their vile deeds for edification, will we Christians, having received light from Byzantium *, turn out to be less worthy and grateful in this case? Is it possible that in every country there will be both glorious Nero and Caligula, shining with valor (Obviously, the chronicler, determining the qualities of these historical persons, had no idea even about the manuals published for secondary schools. But the strangest thing is that he was unfamiliar even with poetry Derzhavin: Caligula, your horse in the Senate Could not shine, shining in gold: Good deeds shine!

Note. ed.), and only at home we will not find such? It is ridiculous and absurd even to conceive of such an incongruity, and not just to preach it aloud, as some freedom-lovers do, who therefore believe their thoughts to be free, that they are in their heads, like flies without shelter, flying here and there freely.

Not only a country, but every city, and even every small whole, - and that one has its own shining valor and Achilles appointed from the authorities, and cannot not have it. Take a look at the first puddle - and in it you will find a reptile that surpasses and obscures all other reptiles with its heroism. Look at the tree - and there you will see some boughs greater and stronger than others, and consequently, the most valiant. Finally, take a look at your own person - and there you will first of all meet the head, and then you will not leave the belly and other parts unmarked. What, in your opinion, is more valiant: is your head, although stuffed with a light filling, but behind all this grief? rushing, or striving to? the belly, for that only and suitable for making ... Oh, truly your frivolous free-thinking!

Such were the thoughts that prompted me, a humble city archivist (receiving two rubles a month of maintenance, but also glorifying everything), together with my three predecessors, with unwashed lips, to sing the praise of the glorious Nerons (Again the same regrettable mistake. - Ed.), which not with godlessness and false Hellenic wisdom *, but with firmness and bossy boldness, our glorious city of Foolov was naturally decorated. Not having the gift of versification, we did not dare to resort to rattling and, relying on the will of God, began to expound worthy deeds in an unworthy, but characteristic of us language, avoiding only vile words. I think, however, that such a daring undertaking of ours will be forgiven us in view of the special intention that we had when embarking on it.

This intention is to depict successively the mayors who were appointed to the city of Foolov from the Russian government at different times. But, undertaking such an important matter, I at least asked myself more than once: will I be able to bear this burden? I have seen many of these amazing ascetics in my lifetime, and my predecessors have seen many of them. In total, there were twenty-two, which followed continuously, in majestic order, one after another, except for the seven-day pernicious anarchy, which almost plunged the entire city into desolation. Some of them, like a stormy flame, flew from end to end, cleansing and renewing everything; others, on the contrary, like a murmuring stream, irrigated meadows and pastures, and left stormy and devastating to the lot of the rulers of the office. But all, both stormy and meek, left behind a grateful memory in the hearts of fellow citizens, for all were city governors. This touching correspondence is already so marvelous in itself that it causes considerable anxiety to the chronicler. You do not know what to glorify more: whether the power, in measure daring, or this grape, in measure thanking *?

But this same correspondence, on the other hand, is no small relief for the chronicler. For what is its actual task? Is it to criticize or to condemn? - No, not that. Is it to argue? - No, and not in this. In what? - And in that, frivolous freethinker, to be only a representative of the indicated correspondence, and to betray it to posterity for proper edification.

Taken in this form, the task becomes accessible even to the humblest of the humble, because he represents only a meager vessel * in which the doxology poured everywhere in abundance is closed. And the poorer that vessel, the more beautiful and tastier the sweet glorious moisture contained in it will seem. And a meager vessel will say to itself: I have come in handy for something, although I receive a salary of two copper rubles a month! "

Having stated something in this manner in my apology, I cannot but add that our native city of Foolov, producing an extensive trade in kvass, liver and boiled eggs, has three rivers and, in accordance with ancient Rome *, is built on seven mountains, on which great many carriages break down and just as many horses are beaten. The only difference is that wickedness shone in Rome, and piety shone with us, violence infected Rome, and meekness infected us, vile mob raged in Rome, and we have bosses.

And I will also say: this chronicle was successively composed by four archivists: Mishka Tryapichkin, and another Mishka Tryapichkin*, and Mitka Smirnomordov, and me, the humble Pavlushka, Masloboynikov’s son. Moreover, they had the same fear that our notebooks would not get to Mr. Bartenev, and that he would not publish them in his "Archive" *. And for that, glory to God and my ranting is over.

About the origin of the Foolovites

“I don’t want, like Kostomarov, to roam the earth like a gray wolf, nor, like Solovyov, to spread like an eagle under the clouds, nor, like Pypin, to spread my thoughts along the tree, but I want to tickle the Foolovites, dear to me, showing the world their glorious deeds and that kind the root from which this famous tree grew and covered the whole earth with its branches "(Obviously, the chronicler imitates here the "Lay of Igor's Campaign": "Boyan is prophetic, if anyone wants to create a song, then spreading his thought along the tree, gray volk on the ground, like an eagle under the clouds." And further: "Oh, Boyana! the nightingale of the old time! Somehow you tickled these sticks," etc. - Ed.).

So the chronicler begins his story, and then, having said a few words in praise of his modesty, he continues.

There was, he says, in ancient times a people called bunglers *, and they lived far to the north, where Greek and Roman historians and geographers assumed the existence of the Hyperborean Sea *. These people were nicknamed bunglers because they had the habit of "pulling" their heads on everything that they met on the way. The wall will fall - they sting against the wall; they will start praying to God - they are grabbing the floor. Many independent tribes lived in the neighborhood of the bunglers *, but only the most remarkable of them were named by the chronicler, namely: walrus-eaters, onion-eaters, thick-eaters, cranberries, kurales, swirling beans, frogs, lapotniks, black-nosed, dolbezhniks, broken heads, blind beards, lip-slaps, lop-eared , kosobryukhi, vendace, corners, crumblers and rukosui These tribes had no religion, no form of government, replacing all this with the fact that they were constantly at enmity with each other. They entered into alliances, declared wars, reconciled, swore each other in friendship and fidelity, when they lied, they added "let me be ashamed", and were sure in advance that "shame will not eat out the eye." Thus they mutually ruined their lands, mutually abused their wives and virgins, and at the same time were proud of being cordial and hospitable. But when they got to the point that they tore the bark from the last pine into cakes, when there were no wives or maidens, and there was nothing to continue the "human factory", then the bunglers were the first to take up their minds. They realized that someone had to take over, and they sent to tell the neighbors: we will wrestle with each other until then, until someone outweighs whom. "They did it cunningly," says the chronicler, "they knew that strong heads were growing on their shoulders, so they offered it." And indeed, as soon as the simple-hearted neighbors agreed to the insidious proposal, the bunglers immediately, with God's help, turned them all over. The first succumbed to the blind-bearers and rukosui; more than others, the ground-eaters, vendaces and kosobryukhy held out *. To defeat the latter, they were even forced to resort to cunning. Namely: on the day of the battle, when both sides stood up against each other as a wall, the bunglers, unsure of the successful outcome of their case, resorted to witchcraft: they let the sun shine on the belly. The sun, by itself, was so standing that it should have shined in the eyes of the slanted belly, but the bunglers, in order to give this case the appearance of witchcraft, began to wave their hats in the direction of the slanted belly: here, they say, what we are like, and the sun is at one with us. However, the kosobryukhy were not immediately frightened, but at first they also guessed: they poured oatmeal from the bags and began to catch the sun with bags. But they didn’t catch him, and only then, seeing that the truth was on the side of the bunglers, they brought the confession*.

Gathering together Kurales, Gushcheeds and other tribes, the bunglers began to settle inside, with the obvious goal of achieving some kind of order. The chronicler does not set out the history of this device in detail, but cites only separate episodes from it. It began with the fact that the Volga was kneaded with oatmeal, then they dragged a calf to a bathhouse *, then they boiled porridge in a purse, then they drowned a goat in malted dough, then they bought a pig for a beaver, but they killed a dog for a wolf, then they lost bast shoes and looked around the yards: it was there are six bast shoes, but they found seven; then they met the crayfish with a bell ringing, then they drove the pike from the eggs, then they went to catch a mosquito for eight miles, and the mosquito sat on the nose of the Poshekhonets, then they exchanged the father for a dog, then they caulked the jail with pancakes, then they chained the flea to the chain, then the demon became a soldier they gave it away, then they propped up the sky with stakes, finally they got tired and began to wait what would come of it.

He will provide us with everything in an instant, - said the elder Dobromysl, - he will make soldiers with us, and he will build a prison, which follows! Aida? guys!

They searched, they searched for the prince and almost got lost in three pines, but thanks to that there happened to be a blind-breed, who knew these three pines like the back of his hand. He led them to the beaten path and led them straight to the prince's courtyard.

Who you are? and why did you complain to me? - the prince asked the messengers.

We are bunglers! we are not in the light of the people wiser and braver! We even threw our hats on the bellies and those! - boasted bunglers.

What else have you done?

Why, they were catching a mosquito seven miles away, - the bunglings were about to start, and suddenly they became so funny, so funny ... They looked at each other and burst out.

But it was you, Pyotra, who went to catch a mosquito! Ivashka laughed.

No, not me! he was sitting on your nose!

Then the prince, seeing that they did not leave their strife even here, in front of him, became very inflamed and began to teach them with a rod.

You are stupid, you are stupid! - he said, - you should not be called bunglers, according to your deeds, but fools! I don't want to be stupid! but look for such a prince, which is not more stupid in the world - and he will rule you.

Having said this, he taught a little more with a rod and sent the bunglers away from him with honor.

The bunglers pondered over the words of the prince; We walked all the way and everyone was thinking.

Why did he cast us out? - said some, - we are to him with all our hearts, and he sent us to look for the stupid prince!

But at the same time, others also turned up who did not see anything offensive in the words of the prince.

What! - they objected, - the stupid prince will probably be even better for us! Now we give him a gingerbread in his hands: chew, but don’t hush us up!

And that's true, agreed the others.

Don't you know, dear handyman, where can we find such a prince, so that he would not be more stupid in the world? - pleaded bunglers.

I know there is one, - the hand answered, - go straight through the swamp, just here.

They all rushed at once into the swamp, and more than half of them drowned here ("Many were jealous for their land," says the chronicler); finally they got out of the quagmire and they saw: on the other side of the swamp, right in front of them, the prince himself was sitting - yes, stupid, stupid! Sits and eats hand-written gingerbread. The bunglers rejoiced: that's the prince! We don't want anything better!

Who you are? and why did you complain to me? - said the prince, chewing gingerbread.

We are bunglers! We are no people wiser and braver! We are the Gushcheeds - and they won! bragheads boasted.

What else have you done?

We drove the pike from the eggs, we kneaded the Volga with oatmeal ... - they began to list the bunglers, but the prince did not want to listen to them.

I'm so stupid, - he said, - and you are even more stupid than me! Does a pike sit on eggs? or is it possible to knead a free river with oatmeal? No, you should not be called bunglers, but fools! I do not want to rule over you, but look for yourself such a prince, which is not more stupid in the world - and he will rule over you!

And, having punished with a rod, he released with honor.

I have, - he said, - a friend-friend, nicknamed the thief-novoto?r, so if some kind of burnout of the prince does not find, then you judge me with a merciful court, chop my talentless head off my shoulders!

He expressed this with such conviction that the bunglers obeyed and called for a new thief. For a long time he bargained with them, asked for gold coins and money for the search, but the bunglers gave a penny and their stomachs in addition. Finally, however, they somehow managed to come to terms and went to look for the prince.

You look for us such that he was unwise! - the bunglings said to the new thief, - why should we be wise, well, to hell with him!

As the bunglers looked at the prince, they froze. He sits, this, in front of them is a prince and a smart, smart one; he shoots at the gun and waves his saber. Whatever fires out of a gun, the heart will shoot through, whatever it waves with a saber, then the head is off your shoulders. And the innovative thief, having done such a dirty deed, stands, strokes his belly and smiles in his beard.

What you! crazy, crazy, crazy! will this one come to us? they were a hundred times more stupid - and they did not go! - the bunglings attacked the new thief.

Nothing! we'll have it! - said the innovator thief, - give me time, I'll have a word with him eye to eye.

The bunglers see that the thief-innovator has traveled around them on a curve, but they don’t dare to back down.

This, brother, is not something to fight with "skew-bellied" foreheads! no, here, brother, give an answer: what is a person like? what rank and rank? they chatter among themselves.

And this time the thief-innovator reached the prince himself, took off his sable cap in front of him and began to speak secret words in his ear. They whispered for a long time, but they didn’t hear about anything. Only the bunglers sensed how the innovative thief said: "To tear them, your princely grace, is always very free" *.

Finally, it was their turn to stand before the clear eyes of his princely lordship.

What kind of people are you? and why did you complain to me? the prince turned to them.

We are bunglers! there is no braver people among us,” the bunglers began, but suddenly they became embarrassed.

Heard, misters bunglers! - the prince chuckled ("and he smiled so affectionately, as if the sun shone!" - the chronicler remarks), - he heard it very much! And I know how you met cancer with a bell ringing - I know enough! I don’t know about one thing, why did you complain to me?

And we came to your princely lordship to announce this: we repaired a lot of murders among ourselves, we did a lot of ruin and insults to each other, but we don’t have all the truth. Go and Volodya us!

And who, I ask you, did you doprezh this of the princes, my brothers, with a bow?

And we were with one stupid prince, and with another stupid prince - and they didn’t want to lead us!

OK. I want to be your leader, - said the prince, - but I won’t go to live with you! That is why you live by an animal custom: you remove the foam from untried gold, spoil your daughter-in-law! But I am sending to you, instead of myself, this new thief himself: let him govern your houses, and I will push around them and you from now on!

The bunglers lowered their heads and said:

And you will pay me many tributes, - continued the prince, - whoever brings a sheep to a bright one, write a sheep on me, but leave a bright one for yourself; whoever has a penny, break it into four: give one part to me, the other to me, the third again to me, and keep the fourth for yourself. When I go to war - and you go! Other than that, you don't care!

So! - answered the bunglers.

And those of you who care about nothing, I will have mercy; the rest of all - to execute.

So! - answered the bunglers.

And since you didn’t know how to live on your own, and you yourself, stupid, wished for yourself bondage, then you will henceforth be called not bunglers, but Foolovites.

So! - answered the bunglers.

Then the prince ordered the ambassadors to be surrounded with vodka and presented with a cake, and a scarlet scarf, and, having overlaid with tributes many, he released from him with honor.

The bunglers went home and sighed. "They sighed without weakening, they cried out loudly!" - the chronicler testifies. "Here it is, what is the princely truth!" they said. And they also said: “So? Kali we, so? Kali, and prot? Kali!” * One of them, taking the harp, sang:

Don't make noise, mother green dubrovushka!*

Do not interfere with the good fellow thinking, As in the morning I, the good fellow, go for interrogation Before the formidable judge, the king himself ...

The further the song flowed, the lower the heads of the bunglers drooped. “There were among them,” says the chronicler, “the old people were gray-haired and wept bitterly that they had squandered their sweet will; there were also young ones who barely tasted that will, but they also wept. When the final verses of the song were heard:

For that, child, I will spare you In the middle of the field with high mansions, With two pillars with a crossbar ... -

then they all fell on their faces and wept.

But the drama has already taken place irrevocably. Arriving home, the bunglers immediately chose a swamp and, having founded a city on it, they called themselves Foolov, and after that city they called themselves Foolovites. "So this ancient industry flourished," adds the chronicler.

But the thief-innovator did not like this humility. He needed riots, because by pacifying them he hoped to win the favor of the prince for himself, and to collect swag from the rebels. And he began to pester the Foolovites with all sorts of falsehoods, and indeed, not for a long time kindled riots. First the corners rebelled, and then the rennets *. The thief-innovator went at them with a cannon shell, fired relentlessly and, having fired everyone, made peace, that is, he ate halibut at the corners, and abomasums at the rennets. And he received great praise from the prince. Soon, however, he was stealing so much that rumors about his insatiable theft even reached the prince. The prince became inflamed and sent a noose to the unfaithful slave. But the novotor, like a real thief, also dodged: he preceded the execution by not waiting for the loop, he stabbed himself with a cucumber.

After the new thief, an Odoevite came to "replace the prince", the same one who "bought lean eggs for a penny." But he also guessed that without riots he could not live, and he also began to pester. The kosobryukhi, Kalashnikovs, strawmen* rose up - everyone defended the old days and their rights. Odoevets went against the rebels, and also began to fire relentlessly, but he must have fired in vain, because the rebels not only did not humble themselves, but carried away the black-skyed and lip-slaps with them. The prince heard the stupid shooting of the stupid odoevtsa and endured for a long time, but in the end he could not stand it: he went out against the rebels in his own person and, having burned everyone to the last, returned home.

I sent a real thief - it turned out to be a thief, - the prince was sad at the same time, - I sent an Odoyevets nicknamed "sell lean eggs for a penny" - and he turned out to be a thief. Who will I send now?

He pondered for a long time which of the two candidates should be given the advantage: whether the Orlovites - on the grounds that "Eagle and Kromy are the first thieves" - or the Shuyanin, on the grounds that he "had been in St. Petersburg, poured on the floor? l, and then did not fall", but, finally, he preferred the Orlovets, because he belonged to the ancient family of "Broken Heads". But as soon as the Orlovets arrived at the place, the old people rose up in a riot and, instead of the governor, met the rooster with bread and salt. An Orlovet went to them, hoping to feast on sterlets in Staritsa, but found that there "only enough mud." Then he burned the Staritsa, and gave the wives and maidens of the Staritsa to himself for reproach. "The prince, having learned about it, cut his tongue."

Then the prince once again tried to send a "simpler thief", and for these reasons he chose a Kalyazin who "bought a pig for a beaver", but this one turned out to be even more of a thief than a Novotor and Orlovets. He rebelled the Semendyaevites and Zaozerstvo and "killing them, burned them."

Then the prince bulged his eyes and exclaimed:

There is no bitterness of stupidity, like stupidity!

And I arrived in my own person to Foolov and cry out:

I'll constipate!"

With this word began historical times.

Inventory to the mayors, at different times, in the city of Stupid from the higher authorities appointed * (1731-1826)

1) Klementy, Amadeus Manuilovich. Taken out of Italy by Biron, Duke of Courland, for skillful cooking of pasta; then, being suddenly promoted to the proper rank, sent by the mayor. Arriving in Foolov, not only did he not give up pasta, but he even forced many people to do so, which made him glorify himself. For treason, in 1734 he was beaten with a whip and, after tearing out his nostrils, exiled to Berezov.

2) Ferapontov, Fotiy Petrovich, foreman *. Former barber of the same Duke of Courland *. He repeatedly made campaigns against the short-earners and was so eager for spectacles that he did not trust anyone to flog without himself. In 1738, being in the forest, he was torn to pieces by dogs.

3) Velikanov, Ivan Matveevich. He imposed in his favor the inhabitants with a tribute of three kopecks from the soul, having previously drowned the director in the river of economy *. He killed many police captains in the blood. In 1740, during the reign of the meek Elizabeth, having been caught in a love affair with Avdotya Lopukhina, he was beaten with a whip * and, after curtailing his tongue, was exiled to imprisonment in the Cherdyn jail.

4) Urus-Kugush-Kildibaev, Manyl Samylovich, captain-lieutenant of the Life Campanians *. He was distinguished by insane courage, and once even took the city of Foolov by storm. By bringing this to the attention, he did not receive praise and in 1745 he was dismissed with publication *.

5) Lamvrokakis, a fugitive Greek, without a name or patronymic, and even without a rank, caught by Count Kiril Razumovsky in Nizhyn, in the market. Traded Greek soap, sponge and nuts; moreover, was a supporter classical education. In 1756 he was found in bed, bitten by bedbugs.

6) Baklan, Ivan Matveyevich*, foreman. He was three arshins and three vershoks tall, and boasted of what was happening in a straight line from Ivan the Great (the bell tower known in Moscow). Broken in half during a storm that raged in 1761.

7) Pfeifer, Bogdan Bogdanovich, guard sergeant, native of Holstein. Having accomplished nothing, he was replaced in 1762 for ignorance *.

8) Busty, Dementy Varlamovich *. He was appointed in a hurry and had some special device in his head, for which he was nicknamed "Organchik". This did not prevent him, however, from putting in order the arrears started by his successor. During this reign there was a pernicious anarchy, which lasted seven days, as will be narrated below.

9) Dvoekurov, Semyon Konstantinovich, civilian adviser and cavalier. He paved Bolshaya and Dvoryanskaya streets, started brewing and mead making, introduced mustard and bay leaves, collected arrears, patronized the sciences and petitioned for the establishment of an academy in Foolov. Wrote an essay: "Biographies of the most remarkable monkeys." Being of a strong physique, he had eight amants in succession. His wife, Lukerya Terentyevna, was also very indulgent, and thus greatly contributed to the brilliance of this reign. He died a natural death in 1770.

10) Marquis de Sanglot, Anton Protasievich, a French native and friend of Diderot. He was frivolous and liked to sing obscene songs. It flew through the air in the city garden, and almost flew away completely, as it caught on the tails of a spitz, and was removed from there with great difficulty. For this idea, he was fired in 1772, and the next year, without losing heart, he gave performances at Isler on mineral waters * (This is an obvious mistake *. - Approx. Ed.).

11) Ferdyshchenko, Petr Petrovich, foreman. Former batman of Prince Potemkin. With a not very extensive mind, he was tongue-tied. Arrears launched; he liked to eat boiled pork and goose with cabbage. During his tenure, the city was subjected to famine and fire. He died in 1779 from overeating.

12) Borodavkin, Vasilisk Semyonovich. * This city administration was the longest and most brilliant. He led a campaign against the arrears, burned down thirty-three villages and, with the help of these measures, recovered the arrears of two and a half rubles. Introduced the game lamouche * and olive oil; paved the market square and planted birch trees on the street leading to government offices; again petitioned for the establishment of an academy in Foolov, but, having received a refusal, he built a movable house *. He died in 1798, at the execution, admonished by the police captain.

13) Scoundrels *, Onufry Ivanovich, former Gatchina stoker. He placed the streets paved with its predecessors and set up monuments from the extracted stone *. He was replaced in 1802 for disagreeing with Novosiltsev, Czartorysky and Strogonov (a famous triumvirate in his time) about constitutions, in which he was justified by the consequences.

14) Mikaladze, Prince Xavier Georgievich, Cherkashenin, a descendant of the voluptuous Princess Tamara. He had a seductive appearance, and was so eager for the female sex that he almost doubled the population of Foolov. Left a useful guide on this subject. He died in 1814 from exhaustion.

15) Benevolensky *, Feofilakt Irinarkhovich, State Councilor, comrade of Speransky in the seminary. He was wise and showed a penchant for legislation. He predicted public courts and zemstvos.* He had a love affair with the merchant Raspopova, with whom, on Saturdays, he ate pies with filling. In his free time, he composed sermons for city priests and translated from the Latin works of Thomas a Kempis. Re-introduced, as if useful, mustard, bay leaf and olive oil. The first taxed a tribute, from which he received three thousand rubles a year. In 1811, for pandering to Bonaparte, he was called to account and exiled to prison.

16) Pimple, major, Ivan Panteleevich. He turned out with a stuffed head, which was convicted by the local marshal of the nobility. *

17) Ivanov, State Councilor, Nikodim Osipovich. He was so small in stature that he could not contain extensive laws. He died in 1819 from strain, trying to comprehend some Senate decree.

18) Du Chario, viscount, Angel Dorofeevich, French native. He liked to dress up in a woman's dress and feast on frogs. Upon examination, it turned out to be a girl. Exiled in 1821 abroad.

20) Sadtilov, Erast Andreevich, State Councilor. Friend of Karamzin. He was distinguished by tenderness and sensitivity, hearts *, he liked to drink tea in the city grove, and could not see without tears how black grouse were playing. He left behind several idyllic compositions and died of melancholy in 1825. The tribute from the ransom was raised to five thousand rubles a year.

21) Gloomy-Grumbling, a former scoundrel. He destroyed the old city and built another in a new place.

22) Interception-Zalikhvatsky *, Archangel * Stratilatovich, major. I will keep silent about this. He rode into Foolov on a white horse, burned the gymnasium and abolished the sciences.

Organchik1

1 According to the "Short Description" is listed under No. 8. The publisher found it possible not to strictly adhere to chronological order when acquainting the public with the contents of the Chronicler. Moreover, he considered it better to present here the biographies of only the most remarkable city governors, since the rulers who are not so remarkable are sufficiently characterized by the “Brief Description” that precedes this essay. - Ed.

In August 1762, an unusual movement took place in the city of Glupov on the occasion of the arrival of a new mayor, Dementy Varlamovich Brudasty. The inhabitants rejoiced; not yet seeing the newly appointed ruler in the eyes, they were already telling jokes about him and calling him "handsome" and "clever". They congratulated each other with joy, kissed, shed tears, entered the taverns, left them again, and again entered. In a fit of delight, Foolov's old liberties also came to mind. The best citizens gathered in front of the cathedral bell tower and, having formed a nationwide assembly, shook the air with exclamations: our father! our handsome man! smart one is ours!

Even dangerous dreamers appeared. Guided not so much by reason as by the movements of a grateful heart, they asserted that trade would flourish under the new mayor, and that sciences and arts would arise under the supervision of district overseers*. They didn't refrain from making comparisons. They remembered the old mayor who had just left the city, and found that although he was also handsome and clever, but that, behind all that, the new ruler should already be given the advantage alone because he was new. In a word, in this case, as in other similar ones, they fully expressed: both the usual Foolovian enthusiasm and the usual Foolovian frivolity.

Meanwhile, the new mayor turned out to be silent and gloomy. He galloped to Foolov, as they say, with all his might (the time was such that not a single minute could be lost), and barely broke into the boundaries of the city pasture, when right there, on the very border, he crossed a lot of coachmen. But even this circumstance did not cool the enthusiasm of the inhabitants, because the minds were still full of memories of recent victories over the Turks, and everyone hoped that the new mayor would take the Khotyn fortress by storm for the second time *.

Soon, however, the townsfolk became convinced that their jubilations and hopes were, to say the least, premature and exaggerated. The usual reception took place, and here, for the first time in their lives, the Foolovites had to experience in practice what bitter trials the most stubborn love of the authorities can be subjected to. Everything at this reception happened somehow mysteriously. The mayor silently walked around the ranks of bureaucratic archangels, flashed his eyes, said: "I will not tolerate it!" - and disappeared into the office. The officials were dumbfounded; behind them, the townsfolk were dumbfounded.

Despite their irresistible firmness, the Foolovites are a pampered and extremely pampered people. They love to have a friendly smile on their boss's face, so that from time to time kind jokes come out of his mouth, and they are perplexed when these lips only snort or make mysterious sounds. The boss can take all sorts of measures, he may even not take any actions, but if he does not scribble at the same time, then his name will never become popular. There were truly wise mayors, those who were not alien even to the idea of establishing an academy in Foolov (such, for example, is the civilian councilor Dvoekurov, listed under the "inventory" under No. 9), but since they did not call the Foolovites either "brothers" or "robyatami", then their names remained in oblivion. On the contrary, there were others, although not really stupid ones - there were no such people - but those who did average things, that is, flogged and collected arrears, but since they always said something kind at the same time, their names not only were recorded on the tablets, but even served as the subject of a wide variety of oral legends.

So it was in the present case. No matter how inflamed the hearts of the townsfolk on the occasion of the arrival of the new chief, but his reception significantly cooled them.

What is this! - snorted - and the back of the head showed! we didn’t see the backs of our heads! and you like to talk to us! you caress something, caress something penetrate! you threaten something threaten, but then have mercy! - So the Foolovites spoke, and with tears they recalled what bosses they used to have, all friendly, but kind, but handsome - and all in uniforms! They even remembered the fugitive Greek Lamvrokakis (according to the "inventory" under No. 5), they remembered how the brigadier Baklan arrived in 1756 (according to the "inventory" under No. 6), and what a fine fellow he showed himself to the townsfolk at the very first reception.

An onslaught, - he said, - and, moreover, speed, condescension, and, moreover, severity. And, besides, prudent firmness. Here, gracious sirs, is the object, or rather the five objectives, which I, with God's help, hope to achieve through certain administrative measures, which form the essence, or rather the core, of the campaign plan I have considered!

And then, deftly turning on one heel, he turned to the mayor and added:

And on holidays we will eat pies with you!

So, sir, how the real bosses accepted! - the Foolovites sighed, - and what about this one! snorted some nonsense, and that was it!

Alas! subsequent events not only justified the public opinion of the townsfolk, but even surpassed their wildest fears. The new mayor locked himself in his office, did not eat, did not drink, and kept scratching something with a pen. From time to time he ran out into the hall, threw a pile of written sheets to the clerk, said: "I will not tolerate it!" - and again hid in the office. Unheard-of activity suddenly began to boil in all parts of the city; private bailiffs galloped; quarterly galloped; the assessors galloped; the watchmen* forgot what it means to eat, and since then they have acquired the pernicious habit of grabbing pieces on the fly. They seize and catch, flog and flog, describe and sell... And the mayor sits still, and scrapes out more and more urges... A rumble and crackle rush from one end of the city to the other, and over all this hubbub, over all this confusion , like the cry of a bird of prey, ominous reigns: "I will not tolerate!"

The fools were horrified. They remembered the general section of the coachmen, and suddenly the thought dawned on everyone: well, how he will flog the whole city in such a manner! - finally, they resorted to the history of Glupov, began to look for examples of saving city governors in it, found an amazing variety, but still did not find anything suitable.

And at least he would say in deeds, since he needs it from the bottom of his heart! - the embarrassed townsfolk talked among themselves, - otherwise it circulates, and even on? - Go!

Foolov, careless, good-natured and cheerful Foolov, despondent. There are no more lively gatherings behind the gates of houses, the clicking of sunflowers has ceased, there is no money game! The streets were deserted, predatory animals appeared in the squares. People left their homes only out of necessity and, showing frightened and exhausted faces for a moment, were immediately buried. Something similar happened, according to old-timers, during the time of the Tushino tsar *, and even under Biron, when a walking girl, Tanka Clumsy, almost brought the whole city under execution. But even then it was better; at least then they understood at least something, but now they felt only fear, an ominous and unaccountable fear.

It was especially difficult to look at the city late at night. At this time, Foolov, already a little animated, completely froze. Hungry dogs reigned in the street, but even they did not bark, but in the greatest order indulged in effeminacy and licentiousness of morals; dense darkness enveloped the streets and houses, and only in one of the rooms of the mayor's apartment did an ominous light flicker, long after midnight. The awakened inhabitant could see how the mayor was sitting, bent over, at his desk, scratching something with his pen ... And suddenly he would come to the window and shout "I will not tolerate it!" - and again sits down at the table, and again scratches ...

Ugly rumors began to circulate. They said that the new mayor was not even a mayor at all, but a werewolf sent to Foolov out of frivolity; that at night, in the form of an insatiable ghoul, he hovers over the city and sucks blood from sleepy inhabitants. Of course, all this was told and passed on to each other in a whisper; although there were daredevils who offered to fall on their knees without exception and ask for forgiveness, but even those took thought. What if this is exactly what is needed? what, if it is considered necessary that in Foolov, for his sake, there should be just such, and not another, mayor? These considerations seemed so reasonable that the brave men not only renounced their proposals, but immediately began to reproach each other for confusion and incitement.

And suddenly it became known to everyone that the mayor was secretly visited by the clock and organ master Baibakov. Reliable witnesses said that once, at three o'clock in the morning, they saw how Baibakov, all pale and frightened, left the mayor's apartment and carefully carried something wrapped in a napkin. And what is most remarkable, on this memorable night, not only was not one of the townsfolk awakened by the cry "I will not tolerate!", but the mayor himself, apparently, stopped for a while critical analysis of the arrears of registers * was not, but simply exacted money, as much as was due to anyone.There was, consequently, no critical analysis.However, this is more likely not an anachronism, but clairvoyance, which the chronicler in places reveals to such a strong extent that the reader does not even do it quite cleverly. So, for example (we will see this later), he foresaw the invention of the electric telegraph and even the establishment of provincial governments - editor's note.) And fell into a dream.

The question arose: what need could the mayor of Baibakovo have, who, in addition to drinking without waking up, was also an obvious adulterer?

Tricks and tricks began in order to find out the secret, but Baibakov remained dumb as a fish, and for all exhortations he limited himself to shaking all over. They tried to get him drunk, but he, not refusing vodka, only sweated, but did not give out a secret. The boys who were in his apprenticeship could report one thing: that one night a police soldier really came, took the owner, who returned an hour later with a bundle, locked himself in the workshop and since then has been homesick.

Nothing more could be found. Meanwhile, the mysterious meetings between the mayor and Baibakov became more frequent. With the passage of time, Baibakov not only ceased to yearn, but even dared to such an extent that he promised the mayor of the city himself to give him without credit for the soldiers * if he did not give him a shkalik every day. He sewed himself a new pair dress and boasted that one of these days he would open such a shop in Foolov that he would throw himself in the nose of Winterhalter himself.

In the midst of all this talk and gossip, suddenly, as if from heaven, a subpoena fell, inviting the eminent representatives of the Foolov intelligentsia, on such and such a day and hour, to come to the mayor for suggestion. The eminent were embarrassed, but began to prepare.

It was a beautiful spring day. Nature rejoiced; sparrows chirped; the dogs squealed with joy and wagged their tails. The townsfolk, holding paper bags under their arms, crowded into the courtyard of the mayor's apartment and tremblingly awaited a terrible fate. Finally, the expected moment arrived.

He went out, and for the first time the Foolovites saw on his face that friendly smile that they longed for. It seemed that the beneficial rays of the sun also had an effect on him (at least, many inhabitants later claimed that they saw with their own eyes how his tails were shaking). He walked around all the townsfolk in turn, and although silently, but favorably accepted from them everything that followed. Having finished with this business, he retreated somewhat to the porch and opened his mouth ... And suddenly something inside him hissed and buzzed, and the longer this mysterious hissing lasted, the more and more his eyes spun and sparkled. "P...p...spit!" finally came out of his mouth ... With this sound, he last time flashed his eyes and rushed headlong into open door your apartment.

Reading in the "Chronicle" a description of an event so unheard of, we, witnesses and participants in other times and other events, of course, have every opportunity to treat it in cold blood. But let us transport ourselves in thought a hundred years ago, put ourselves in the place of our glorious ancestors, and we will easily understand the horror that should have seized them at the sight of these revolving eyes and this open mouth, from which nothing came out, except for hissing and some kind of a meaningless sound, unlike even the striking of a clock. But it was precisely in this that the good quality of our ancestors consisted, that, no matter how shocked they were by the spectacle described above, they were not carried away either by the revolutionary ideas fashionable at that time *, or by the temptations represented by anarchy, but remained true to the love of the authorities, and only slightly allowed themselves to condole with and blame their more than strange mayor.

And where did this scoundrel come from to us! - said the townsfolk, asking each other in amazement and not attaching any special meaning to the word "scoundrel".

Look brothers! how could it be for us ... we wouldn’t have to answer for him, for the scoundrel! - added others.

And after all that, they calmly went home and indulged in their usual activities.

And our Brady would have remained for many years the shepherd of this heliport, and would have rejoiced the hearts of the chiefs with his diligence, and the inhabitants would not have felt anything unusual in their existence, if a completely accidental circumstance (a simple oversight) had not stopped his activity in its full swing.

A little later after the reception described above, the clerk of the mayor, having entered his office in the morning with a report, saw the following spectacle: the mayor's body, dressed in a uniform, was sitting at a desk, and in front of him, on a pile of arrears of registers, lay, in the form of a dandy paperweight , a completely empty head of the mayor ... The clerk ran out in such confusion that his teeth chattered.

They ran for the assistant to the mayor and for the senior quarterly. First of all, he attacked the latter, accused him of negligence, of indulging insolent violence, but the quarterly justified himself. He argued, not without reason, that the head could be emptied only with the consent of the mayor himself, and that a person who undoubtedly belonged to the craft workshop took part in this case, since on the table, among the material evidence, were: a chisel, a gimlet and an English file. They called the chief city doctor for advice and asked him three questions: 1) could the head of the city head separate from the head of the body without hemorrhage? 2) is it possible to assume that the mayor took off his shoulders and emptied his own head? and 3) is it possible to suppose that the mayor's head, once abolished, could subsequently grow again by some unknown process? Aesculapius thought, muttered something about some kind of "city governor's substance" supposedly exuding from the city governor's body, but then, seeing himself that he had reported, he evaded direct resolution of questions, responding that the secret of building a city governor's body had not yet been sufficiently examined by science (Now it has been proven that the bodies of all bosses in general obey the same physiological laws as any other human body, but we should not forget that in 1762 science was in its infancy. - Ed.).

After hearing such an evasive answer, the assistant mayor was at a dead end. He had one of two things to do: either immediately report what had happened to his superiors and in the meantime begin an investigation at hand, or else remain silent for a while and wait for what would happen. In view of such difficulties, he chose the middle path, that is, he proceeded to an inquiry, and at the same time ordered everyone and everyone to keep the deepest secret on this subject, so as not to excite the people and not to plant unrealizable dreams in them.

But no matter how strictly the guards guarded the secret entrusted to them, the unheard-of news of the abolition of the mayor's head spread throughout the city in a few minutes. Many of the townsfolk cried because they felt like orphans, and moreover they were afraid to fall under the responsibility for obeying such a mayor, who had an empty vessel on his shoulders, instead of a head. On the contrary, although others also wept, they asserted that for their obedience, not punishment awaits them, but praise*.

In the club, in the evening, all available members were assembled. They were agitated, interpreted, recalled various circumstances and found facts of a rather suspicious nature. Thus, for example, Assessor Tolkovnikov said that one day he came unawares into the mayor's office on a very necessary matter and found the mayor playing with his own head, which he, however, immediately hastened to attach to the proper place. Then he did not pay due attention to this fact, and even considered it a figment of the imagination, but now it is clear that the mayor, in the form of his own relief, from time to time took off his head and put on a yarmulke instead, just as the cathedral archpriest, being in his home circle, takes off his kamilavka and puts on a cap. Another assessor, Mladentsev, recalled that one day, walking past the watchmaker Baibakov's workshop, he saw in one of its windows the head of the mayor, surrounded by metalwork and carpentry tools. But Mladentsev was not allowed to finish, because, at the first mention of Baibakov, everyone remembered his strange behavior and his mysterious nightly trips to the mayor’s apartment ...

Nevertheless, no clear result came out of all these stories. The public even began to incline in favor of the opinion that this whole story is nothing but the invention of idle people, but then, recalling the London agitators * (Even this was foreseen by the Chronicler! - Ed.) and passing from one syllogism to another , concluded that treason had built a nest for itself in Foolov himself. Then all the members became agitated, made a noise and, having invited the superintendent of the public school, asked him a question: were there examples in history of people giving orders, waging wars and concluding treaties, having an empty vessel on their shoulders? The superintendent thought for a minute and answered that much in history is shrouded in darkness; but that there was, however, a certain Charles the Innocent, who had on his shoulders, although not empty, but still, as it were, an empty vessel, and waged wars and concluded treatises.

While these rumors were going on, the assistant to the mayor did not doze off. He also remembered Baibakov and immediately pulled him to account. For some time, Baibakov locked himself up and did not answer anything except “I don’t know, I don’t know,” but when he was shown the material evidence found on the table and, moreover, they promised fifty dollars for vodka, he came to his senses and, being literate, gave the following testimony :

"They call me Vasily, Ivanov's son, nicknamed Baibakov. Glupovsky guild; I don't go to confession and Holy Communion, because I belong to the sect of pharmacists, and I am a false priest of this sect. He was tried for cohabitation out of wedlock with the suburban wife Matryonka, and was recognized by the court as explicit adulterer, in what rank I am still in. Last year, in the winter - I don’t remember what date and month - being awakened in the night, I went, accompanied by a tenth policeman, to our mayor, Dementy Varlamovich, and, having come, found I was standing speechless at the threshold, and suddenly my head was beckoned to me with his hand to him and handed me a piece of paper. read: "Do not be surprised, but correct the spoiled." After that, the mayor took off his own head and gave it to me. Looking closer at the box lying in front of me, I found that it contains in one corner a small organ that can play some easy pieces of music . There were two of these plays: "I will ruin!" and "I will not stand it!". But since the head became somewhat damp on the road, some of the pins loosened on the roller, while others completely fell out. From this very fact, the mayor could not speak clearly, or they spoke with the omission of letters and syllables. Noticing in myself the desire to correct this error and having received the consent of the mayor, I wrapped my head in a napkin with due diligence and went home. But here I saw that I had vainly relied on my zeal, for no matter how hard I tried to fix the pegs that had fallen out, I had so little time in my enterprise that at the slightest negligence or a cold the pegs fell out again, and lately the mayor could only say: -spit! In this extreme, they set out to rashly make me unhappy for the rest of my life, but I deflected that blow, suggesting that the mayor ask for help in St. Petersburg, to the clock and organ master Winterhalter, which they did exactly. Quite a bit of time has passed since then, during which I daily looked at the head of the mayor and cleaned the rubbish out of it, in which occupation I was also on the morning when your high nobility, due to my mistake, confiscated the instrument belonging to me. But why the new head ordered from Mr. Winterhalter has not yet arrived is unknown. I believe, however, that beyond the flooding of the rivers, according to the current spring time, this head is now somewhere inactive. To your Excellency’s question, firstly, can I, in the case of sending a new head, approve it, and, secondly, will that approved head function properly? I have the honor to answer this: I can approve and it will act, but I cannot have real thoughts. The obvious adulterer Vasily Ivanov Baibakov had a hand in this testimony.

After listening to Baibakov's testimony, the assistant to the mayor realized that if it was once allowed that there was a mayor in Foolovo who had a simple head instead of a head, then, therefore, this is how it should be. Therefore, he decided to wait, but at the same time sent a compelling telegram to Winterhalter * (Amazing !! - Ed. *) and, locking the mayor's body with a key, directed all his activities to calming public opinion.

But all the tricks were already in vain. Two more days passed after that; Finally, the long-awaited St. Petersburg mail arrived; but brought no head.

Anarchy began, that is, anarchy. The places of presence were deserted; arrears accumulated so much that the local treasurer, looking into the treasury drawer, opened his mouth, and so he remained open-mouthed for the rest of his life; the guards got out of hand and brazenly did nothing; official days have disappeared*. Moreover, the murders began, and on the very city pasture the torso of an unknown person was raised, in which, although they recognized the Life Campanian by the tails, neither the police captain nor the other members of the temporary department, no matter how hard they fought, could not find separated from torso of the head.

At eight o'clock in the evening, the assistant to the mayor received the news by telegraph that the head had been sent long ago. The assistant to the mayor was dumbfounded completely.

Another day passes, and the mayor's body still sits in his office and even begins to deteriorate. The love of the authorities, temporarily shocked by the strange behavior of Brodystoy, steps forward with timid but firm steps. The best people they go in procession to the assistant to the mayor and urgently demand that he give orders. The assistant to the mayor, seeing that arrears were accumulating, drunkenness was developing, truth was being abolished in the courts, and resolutions were not being approved, turned to the assistance of the staff officer*. This latter, as an obligatory person, telegraphed the incident to his superiors, and by telegraph received the news that he, for an absurd report, had been dismissed from service (This worthy official justified himself and, as we will see below, took an active part in subsequent Foolov events. - Ed.).

Hearing about this, the assistant to the mayor came to the office and began to cry. The assessors came - and also wept; The lawyer appeared, but even he could not speak because of tears.

Meanwhile, Winterhalter was telling the truth, and the head was actually made and sent in time. But he acted recklessly, instructing the delivery of it by post to a boy who was completely ignorant of the organ business. Instead of keeping the parcel carefully on the weight, the inexperienced messenger threw it to the bottom of the cart, while he himself dozed off. In this position, he rode several stations, when he suddenly felt that someone had bitten his calf. Caught unawares by the pain, he hastily untied the sackcloth in which the mysterious treasure was wrapped, and a strange sight suddenly presented itself to his eyes. The head opened its mouth and rolled its eyes; not only that: she loudly and quite distinctly said: "I will ruin!"

The boy was simply terrified. His first move was to throw the talking baggage onto the road; second - discreetly get down from the cart and hide in the bushes.

Perhaps this strange incident would have ended in this way, that the head, having lain for some time on the road, would have been crushed in time by the carriages of the passing by, and finally taken out to the field in the form of fertilizer, if the matter had not been complicated by the intervention of an element to such a degree of fantastic, that the Foolovites themselves - and they have become a dead end. But let's not preempt events and let's see what's going on in Foolov.

Foolov boiled. Not seeing the mayor for several days in a row, the citizens became agitated and, not in the least embarrassed, accused the assistant to the mayor and the senior quarterly of embezzling state property. Holy fools and blessed wandered around the city with impunity and predicted all sorts of disasters for the people. Some Mishka Vozgryavy assured that he had a sleepy vision at night, in which a formidable husband appeared to him and a cloud of bright clothes.

Finally, the Foolovites could not bear it; led by their beloved citizen Puzanov *, they lined up in a square? in front of government offices and demanded an assistant to the mayor before the people's court, threatening otherwise to smash both him and his house.

Anti-social elements rose to the top with terrifying speed. There was talk of impostors, of some Styopka, who, leading freemen, not later than yesterday, in front of everyone, brought together two merchant wives.

Where did you take our father? - screamed the host, angry to the point of fury, when the assistant to the mayor appeared before him.

Atamans-well done! where can I get it for you, if it is locked with a key! - persuaded the crowd of a trembling official, caused by the events from an administrative stupor. At the same time, he secretly blinked at Baibakov, who, seeing this sign, immediately disappeared.

But the excitement did not subside.

You're lying, you moneybag! - answered the crowd, - you purposely collided with the quarterly to get rid of our father!

And God knows how the general confusion would have been resolved if at that moment the ringing of a bell had not been heard and after that a cart had not driven up to the rebels, in which sat the police captain, and next to him ... the disappeared mayor!

He was wearing a Life Campanian uniform; his head was heavily soiled with mud and beaten in several places. Despite this, he deftly jumped out of the cart and glared at the crowd with his eyes.

I will ruin! he thundered in such a deafening voice that everyone instantly fell silent.

The excitement was crushed at once; in this crowd, which had recently been so menacingly buzzing, such silence was established that one could hear the buzzing of a mosquito, which had flown in from a neighboring swamp to marvel at "this absurd and laughable foolish confusion."

Instigators forward! - commanded the mayor, raising his voice more and more.

They began to choose instigators from among the non-payers of taxes, and they had already recruited about a dozen people, when a new and completely outlandish circumstance gave the matter a completely different turn.

While the Foolovites were mournfully whispering, remembering which of them had accumulated more arrears, the town governor's droshky, so well-known to the townsfolk, imperceptibly drove up to the gathering. Before the townsfolk had time to look back, Baibakov jumped out of the carriage, and behind him, in the sight of the whole crowd, was exactly the same mayor as the one who, a minute before, had been brought in a cart by the police officer! The fools were so dumbfounded.

The head of this other mayor was completely new and, moreover, varnished. It seemed strange to some perspicacious citizens that a large birthmark, which had been on the mayor's right cheek a few days ago, now ended up on the left.

The impostors met and measured each other with their eyes. The crowd dispersed slowly and in silence (The publisher thought it best to end the real story at this point, although the Chronicler supplements it with various explanations. For example, he says that the first mayor was wearing the same head that the messenger threw out of the cart Winterhalter and which the police captain put to the body of an unknown Life Campanian, while the second mayor was wearing the old voice, which Baibakov hastily corrected, on the orders of the assistant mayor, stuffing it, by mistake, instead of music with obsolete prescriptions. All these arguments are positive infantile, and the only thing that remains undoubted is that both mayors were impostors. - Ed.).

The Tale of the Six Mayors

A picture of Foolov's civil strife

As was to be expected, the strange incidents that took place in Foolovo did not go unnoticed.

The pernicious dual power had not yet had time to put down its malicious roots, when a messenger arrived from the province, who, taking both impostors and putting them in special vessels filled with alcohol, immediately took them away for examination.

But this apparently natural and legitimate act of administrative firmness almost became a source of even worse difficulties than those caused by the incomprehensible appearance of two identical city governors.

As soon as the trace of the messenger who had taken away the impostors got cold, the Foolovites had hardly learned that they were left completely without a mayor, when, driven by the power of love of the authorities, they immediately fell into anarchy.

"And this city would lie even to this day in this perilous abyss," says the chronicler, "if it had not been extracted from there by the firmness and selflessness of some fearless staff officer from the local inhabitants."

The anarchy began with the fact that the Foolovites gathered around the bell tower and threw two citizens from the roll: Styopka and Ivashka. Then they went to a fashionable establishment of a Frenchwoman, the maiden de St. Culotte * (in Foolov she was known under the name of Ustinya Protasyevna Chimney sweeper; later she turned out to be Marat's sister (Marat was not known at that time; this mistake, however, can be explained by the fact that the events were described by the "Chronicler", apparently not in hot pursuit, but several years later. - Ed.) and died of remorse) and, breaking the glass there, followed to the river. Here they drowned two more citizens: Porfishka and another Ivashka, and, without finishing anything, they went home.

Meanwhile, betrayal did not doze off. Ambitious personalities appeared who planned to take advantage of the disorganization of power to satisfy their selfish goals. And, strangest of all, this time exclusively women represented the anarchist element.

The first, who planned to steal the reins of Foolov's government, was Iraida Lukinishna Paleologiva, a childless widow, of an unyielding character, of a courageous build, with a face of a dark brown color*, reminiscent of old-printed images. No one remembered when she settled in Foolovo, so some of the old-timers believed that this event coincided with the darkness of times. She lived in solitude, living on meager food, lending money on interest, and cruelly torturing her four serf girls. She seemed to have maturely considered her daring undertaking. First, she realized that it was impossible for the city to remain without a leader for a minute; secondly, bearing the surname Paleologov*, she saw in this some secret indication; thirdly, the circumstance that her late husband, a former wine bailiff, once, due to impoverishment, corrected the position of the mayor somewhere, boded well for her. “Having realized this,” says the Chronicler, “the wicked Iraid began to act.”

Before the Foolovites had time to come to their senses from yesterday's events, Paleologova, taking advantage of the fact that the assistant to the mayor and his henchmen sat down in a club in Boston, drew the sword of the late wine bailiff from the scabbard and, having drunk, for courage, three soldiers from the local disabled team, invaded the treasury . Ottol, having captured the treasurer and accountant, and shamelessly robbed the treasury, returned to her house. Moreover, she threw copper money at the people, and her drunken henchmen exclaimed: "Here is our mother! Now, brothers, we will have plenty of wine!"

When, the next day, the assistant to the mayor woke up, everything was already over. From the window he saw how the townsfolk congratulated each other, kissed each other and shed tears. Then, although he tried to seize the reins of government again, but since his hands were shaking, he immediately released them. In despondency and anguish, he hurried to the city administration to find out how many police soldiers were left loyal to him, but on the road he was seized by assessor Tolkovnikov and brought before Iraidka. There he already found a state attorney bound by state affairs, who also awaited his fate.

Do you recognize me as a mayor? Iraidka shouted at them.

If you have a husband and can prove that he is the local mayor, then I admit it! - firmly answered the courageous assistant to the mayor. The state attorney trembled all over, and by this shaking, as it were, he confirmed the courage of his colleague.

They are not asking you whether I am a husband's wife or a widow, but whether you recognize me as a mayor? - Iraidka was more furious.

If you don’t have clearer evidence, then I won’t admit it! - the assistant to the mayor answered so firmly that the lawyer snapped his teeth and rushed about in all directions.

What to interpret with them! to break them! yelled Tolkovnikov and his supporters.

There is no doubt that the fate of these officials who remained faithful to their duty would have been very deplorable if an unforeseen circumstance had not rescued them. At a time when Iraida was blithely celebrating victory, the fearless staff officer did not doze off and, guided by the proverb: "Knock out a wedge with a wedge," he taught a certain adventurer, Clementine de Bourbon, to lay claim to her rights. These rights consisted in the fact that her father, Clementine, cavalier de Bourbon, was once a town governor somewhere and was dismissed from that post for a fake game of cards. Above all, the new challenger had high growth, loved to drink vodka and rode like a man. Having easily won over four soldiers * of the local disabled team and being secretly supported by the Polish intrigue, this idle rogue captured the minds almost instantly. Again, the Foolovites shied away to the bell tower, threw Timoshka and the third Ivashka from the rumble, then went to the Chimney sweeper and completely ruined her establishment, then shied away to the river and drowned Proshka and the fourth Ivashka there.

Things were in such a state when the courageous sufferers were led to a roll. In the street they were met by a crowd led by Clementine, in the midst of which a fearless staff officer was awake with a watchful eye. The prisoners were immediately released.

What, old people! do you recognize me as a mayor? - asked the dissolute Clementine.

If you have a husband and can prove that he is the local mayor, then we admit it! - courageously answered the assistant to the mayor.

Well, Christ be with you! give them a piece of land for vegetable gardens! let them plant cabbage and graze geese! - meekly said Clementine, and with this word she moved to the house, in which the Iraid girl fortified herself.

There was a battle; The Iraid defended herself all day and all night, skillfully pushing the captive treasurer and accountant forward.

Give up! Clementine said.

Submit, shameless! get rid of your dogs! - Iraidka answered bravely.

However, by the morning of the next day, Iraidka began to weaken, but even then only due to the fact that the treasurer and accountant, imbued with civic courage, resolutely refused to defend the fortification. The situation of the besieged became very doubtful. In addition to the duty to beat off the besiegers, Iraidka needed to pacify treason in her own camp. Foreseeing the final death, she decided to die a heroic death and, having collected the money stolen from the treasury, in the sight of everyone flew into the air along with the treasurer and accountant.

In the morning, the assistant to the mayor, planting cabbage, saw how the townsfolk again congratulated each other, kissed each other and shed tears. Some of them were so bold that they even approached him, clapped him on the shoulder and jokingly called him a swineherd. The assistant to the mayor, of course, then wrote down all these daredevils on a piece of paper.

The news of "stupid, absurd and laughable confusion" finally reached the authorities. It was ordered "to present the dissolute Clementinka, having found it, and whoever she has accomplices, then, having found those, to present them, and to punish the Foolovites firmly and firmly, so that innocent citizens in the river are not drowned in vain and are not thrown off the roll with bestial custom" . But the news about the appointment of a new mayor still did not work.

Meanwhile, things in Foolov were becoming more and more confused. A third pretender appeared, a native of Reval, Amalia Karlovna Stockfish, who based her claims solely on the fact that she had lived with some mayor in pompadours for two months. Again, the Foolovites shied away to the bell tower, threw Semka off the roll and just wanted to lower the fifth Ivashka there, as they were stopped by the eminent citizen Sila Terentyev Puzanov.

Atamans-well done! - said Puzanov, - however, after all, we will kill all the little people in this manner, but we won’t think of any sense!

Is it true! - agreed to come to their senses atamans-well done.

Stop! - shouted others, - why is Ivashko making a noise? gal kid divorced?

Fifth Ivashko stood neither alive nor dead before the rumble, mechanically bowing in all directions.

At this time, the girl Stockfish rode up to the crowd on a white horse, accompanied by six drunken soldiers, who were leading the dissolute Clementinka taken prisoner. Stockfisch was a plump, blond German woman with high breasts, ruddy cheeks, and plump lips like cherries. The crowd got excited.

Look fat! navels? - resounded in different places.

But Stockfish evidently weighed the dangers of her position beforehand and hastened to repel them with composure.

Atamans-well done! - she barked, valiantly pointing to Clementine, distraught from vodka, - here is that dissolute Clementine, which, having found, was ordered to be presented! seen?

Seen! the crowd roared.

Did you see it right? and you recognize her for that very dissolute Clementine, which, having found, you are ordered to immediately present?

Seen! admit!

So roll out three barrels of foam to them! - the fearless German woman exclaimed, turning to the soldiers, and, without haste, rode out of the crowd.

Here she is! here she is, our mother Amalia Karlovna! now, brothers, we will have plenty of wine! - the atamans-well done barked after the departing.

On this day, all of Foolov was drunk, and most of all the fifth Ivashko. The dissolute Clementinka was put in a cage and taken to the square; the atamans-fellows approached and teased her. Some, more good-natured, regaled vodka, but demanded that she throw back some kind of knee for it.

The ease with which the fat German Stockfish defeated the dissolute Clementine can be explained very simply. Clementine, as soon as she destroyed Raidka, immediately locked herself up with her soldiers and indulged in the effeminacy of morals. In vain did Pan Kshepshitsiulsky and Pan Pshekshitsiulsky, whom she was a secret weapon, admonish, protest and threaten - Klemantinka was so drunk in five minutes that she did not understand anything. The lords held out for some time, but then, seeing the futility of further steadfastness, they retreated. And indeed, on the same night, Clementine was lifted unconscious from the bed and dragged out into the street in one shirt.

The fearless staff officer (from the townsfolk) was in despair. Of all his tricks, dirty tricks and dressing up, absolutely nothing came of it. Anarchy reigned in the city complete; there were no bosses; the leader fled to the village *; the senior quarterly burrowed into the straw with the superintendent of the schools in the fire yard and trembled. He himself, a staff officer, was searched around the city and an altyn award was assigned for his capture. The townsfolk got excited, because it was flattering for everyone to pocket that altyn. He was already thinking whether it would not be better for him to use the money himself, coming to the fat German woman with a confession, when suddenly an unexpected circumstance gave the matter a completely new turn.

It was easy for the German woman to cope with the dissolute Clementinka, but it was incomparably more difficult to disarm the Polish intrigue, especially since she operated through invisible underground routes*. After the defeat of Klemantinkinov, Pans Kshepshytsyulsky and Pshekshitsyulsky sadly returned home and loudly complained about the inability of the Russian people, who even for such an occasion could not develop a single talented person out of themselves, as their attention was entertained by one, apparently, insignificant incident.

It was a crisp May morning, and abundant dew was falling from the sky. After a sleepless and stormy night, the Foolovites went to bed, and an unbreakable silence reigned in the city. Near a wooden house of nondescript appearance, some two guys fussed and smeared the gates with tar. Seeing the pans, they apparently mixed up and hurried to their heels, but were stopped.

What are you doing here? the gentlemen asked.

Why, Nelka's gates are smeared with tar! - confessed one of the guys, - very much she began to wave in all directions!

The gentlemen exchanged glances and snarled in a somewhat meaningful way. Although they went further, a plan had already matured in their heads. They remembered that their compatriot, Anelya Aloizievna Lyadokhovskaya, really lived in the dilapidated wooden house and kept the guest house, and that although she did not have any rights to the title of mayor's pompadours, she was also once called to the mayor. This last circumstance was quite enough to put forward a new pretender and weave a new Polish intrigue.

They were all the more able to succeed in their intention because at that time the self-will of the Foolovites reached unheard-of proportions. Not only did they throw off a rumble and drown in the river dozens of beloved citizens in one day, but at the outpost they arbitrarily stopped an official who was traveling from the province, along the state road.

Who are you? and what did you come to us with? the Foolovites asked the official.

An official from the province (name), - the visitor answered, - and he came here to search for the idle Clementine cases!

He's lying! He is from Klementinka, from the vile one, sent! drag him to the exit! - shouted atamans-well done.

In vain the visitor protested and resisted, in vain he showed some papers, the people did not believe in anything and did not let him out.

They showed us, brother, a whole heap of this paper - but it turned out to be an empty case! but it’s not convenient for us to refer to you, by that you, and by your appearance, you can see, that dissolute Clementinka is a scout! - shouted one.

What with him on trifles to sharpen folly! into its water - and the Sabbath! others shouted.

The unfortunate official was taken to a moving house and handed over to bailiffs.

Meanwhile Amalia Stockfisch was in charge; appointed from the townspeople a altyn from each yard, from the merchants a pound of tea and a large amount of sugar for a head. Then she went to the barracks and from own hands brought the soldiers a glass of vodka and a piece of pie. Returning home, she met on the road an assistant to the mayor and a lawyer, who were driving geese from the meadow with a twig.

Well, old people? change your mind? do you recognize me? she asked them kindly.

If you have a husband and can prove that he is our mayor, then we admit it! - firmly answered the assistant to the mayor.

Well, Christ be with you! feed the geese! - said the fat German woman and proceeded further.

Toward evening it rained so heavily that the streets of Glupov became impassable for several hours. Thanks to this circumstance, the night passed safely for everyone, except for the ill-fated visiting official, who, for the surest test, was put in a dark and cramped closet, which from time immemorial was called the "big flea factory", in contrast to the small factory in which less dangerous criminals were tested. The next morning also did not favor the intrigues of the Polish intrigue, since this intrigue, always operating in the dark, cannot endure sunlight. The "fat-fleshed German woman", deceived by the external silence, considered herself fully established and dared so much that she went out into the street without an escort and began to flirt with the passers-by. However, towards evening, for the sake of form, she called together the most experienced city guards and opened the meeting. The guards unanimously advised: first, to drown the dissolute Clementinka without delay, so as not to embarrass the people and not tease; secondly, to torture the assistant mayor and the lawyer, and thirdly, to present the fearless staff officer, having found. But such was the blindness of this unfortunate woman that she did not want to hear about strict measures and even ordered the visiting official to be transferred from a large flea factory to a small one.

In the meantime, the Foolovites were gradually beginning to come to their senses, and the guarding forces*, which had hitherto been hiding in the back yards, timidly but firmly stepped forward. The assistant to the mayor, referring to the solicitor and intrepid staff officer, began to persuade the Foolovites to withdraw from the German and Klemantinka malicious charms and turn to their studies. He severely condemned the order, as a result of which the visiting official was planted in a flea factory, and predicted great disasters for Foolov. Sila Terentiev Puzanov, at these words, shook his head sadly, so that if the atamans-good fellows had been a little bit more agile, they, of course, would have smashed the moving hut over a log. On the other hand, the "dissolute Clementinka" rendered an important service to the party of order ...

The fact is that she continued to sit in a cage in the square, and it was sweet for the Foolovites, in their leisure hours, to come to tease her, since she became unheard of at the same time, especially when her body was touched with the ends of red-hot iron rods.

What, Clementine, is sweet? - some laughed, seeing how the "dissolute" spun in pain.

And how much, brothers, this bastard of wine has devoured from us - passion! others added.

Did I drink yours? - snarled the dissolute Clementine, - if it weren’t for my unfortunate weakness, may my dear pans not leave me, would you already know from me what I am!

The fat one must have shown you before what she is!

That's "fat"! I am, whatever it is, but still the daughter of the mayor, otherwise they took a common German woman for themselves!

The Foolovites pondered over these Clementine words. She gave them a riddle.

And what, brothers! after all, she, Clementine, though dissolute, but she spoke the truth! - said one.

Come on, let's smash the fat meat! - others shouted.

And if the guards hadn’t arrived here, then the “fat-meaty” would have been unhappy, she would have been flying upside down from a roll! But since the guards were strict, the matter of order was delayed, and the atamans, well done, after making a little more noise, went home.

But the triumph of the "free German woman" came to an end by itself. At night, as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard a suspicious noise in the street and immediately realized that everything was over for her. In one shirt, barefoot, she rushed to the window, so that at least to avoid shame and not be put, like Clementine, in a cage, but it was already too late.

The strong hand of Pan Kshepshitsiulsky firmly held her by the camp, and Nelka Lyadokhovskaya, “unbelievably furious,” demanded an answer.

Is it true, girl Amalka, that you fraudulently stole power and deigned to falsely call yourself the mayor of the city, and thus led many people into temptation? Lyadokhovskaya asked her.

True, - answered Amalka, - only not in a deceitful way and not falsely, but she was and is the mayor in the very essence of truth.

And why did you, faggot, get such a ridiculous thing into your head? and who taught you that thing, you bastard? Lyadokhovskaya continued to interrogate, ignoring Amalkin's answer.

Amalka was offended.

Maybe there is a bastard here, - she said, - but not me.

No matter how many questions were then put to the girl Amalka, she was contemptuously silent; no matter how much they forced her to obey, she did not obey. It was decided to lock her up in the same cage with the dissolute Clementine.

“It was terrible to see,” says the Chronicler, “how these two dissolute girls, from the third, even more dissolute, were given to each other to be eaten! Suffice it to say that by the morning of the next day, there was nothing in the cage except their stinking bones, was gone!"

Waking up, the Foolovites were surprised to learn about what had happened; but even here it was not difficult. Again everyone went out into the street and began to congratulate each other, kiss each other and shed tears. Some asked for a hangover.

Ah, fuck you! - said the fearless staff officer, looking at this picture. What are we going to do now, though? he asked the assistant mayor in anguish.

It is necessary to operate, - answered the assistant to the mayor, - that's what! Is it possible, sir, to spread a rumor among the people that this rogue Anelka, instead of the temples of God, ordered churches to be erected everywhere?

And wonderful!

But by noon the rumors became even more disturbing. Events followed events with incredible speed. In the suburban soldier's settlement, another pretender, Dunka the thick-fifted, showed up, and in the streltsy settlement Matryonka the nostril made the same claim. Both based their rights on the fact that they, too, had visited the mayors more than once "for a treat." Thus, it was necessary to reflect not one, but three contenders at once.

Both Dunka and Matryonka acted outrageously. They went out into the street and knocked down the heads of passers-by with their fists, went alone to taverns and smashed them, caught young guys and hid them in the underground, ate babies, and they cut out the breasts of women and also ate. Having let their hair down in the wind, in one morning negligee, they ran along the city streets, as if in a frenzy, spitting, biting and uttering inappropriate words.

The fools were simply mad with horror. Again, everyone ran to the bell tower, and how many people's bodies were killed and overheated here - it's impossible to figure out even approximately. A common judgment has begun; everyone remembered everything about his neighbor, even such that he never even dreamed of, and since the admonition was short, all that was heard in the city was: slap-slap-slap! By four o'clock in the afternoon the moving out hut caught fire; The Foolovites rushed there and were stunned when they saw that the official, who had come from the province, was completely burned to death. The trial began again; they began to find out whose theft caused the fire, and decided that the fire was caused by a real thief and idler the fifth Ivashka. They reared Ivashka on the rack, demanding a sincere confession in everything, but at that very moment a small cockroach factory caught fire in the Pushkar settlement, and everyone shied away there, leaving the fifth Ivashka hanging on the rack. They rang the alarm, but the flames had already spread like a river and burned all the cockroaches without a trace. Then they caught Matryonka the nostril and politely began to drown her in the river, demanding that she tell who taught her, a real loafer and thief, to steal and who helped her in that matter? But Matryonka only blew bubbles in the water, and did not betray any accomplices and accomplices.

In the midst of this general anxiety, the rogue Anelka was completely forgotten. Seeing that her business did not work out, she, under the guise, again moved to her visiting house, as if there were no dirty tricks behind her, and lords Kshepshitsilsky and Pshekshitsilsky started a confectionery and began selling printed gingerbread in it. There was only one fat-footed Dunka, but it was decidedly impossible to control her.

And it is necessary, brothers, to seize it without fail! - Sila Terentyich Puzanov exhorted the atamans-well done.

Yes! come on, come on! clever! - answered well done. It was, out of indignation, already the sixth day*.

Then there was a touching and unprecedented spectacle. The Foolovites suddenly perked up and performed the modest feat of their own salvation. Having killed and drowned a whole lot of people, they thoroughly concluded that now there was not so much seditious sin left in Foolovovo. Only the well-meaning survived. Therefore, everyone looked everyone boldly in the eyes, knowing that it was impossible to reproach him either with Clementinka, or Raidka, or Matryonka. We decided to act unanimously and, above all, to communicate with the suburbs. As was to be expected, the undaunted staff officer was the first to take the stage.

Nevertheless, the Foolovites shed tears and began to force the assistant to the mayor to take the reins of government again; but he, before the capture of Dunka, firmly refused to do so. Sighs were heard in the crowd; exclamations were heard: "Ah! our great sins!" - but the assistant to the mayor was unshakable.

Atamans-well done! in whom sedition still remains - come out! shouted a voice from the crowd.

The crowd was silent.

All! All! the crowd roared.

Baptize, brothers!

Everyone crossed themselves, a general militia was announced against Dunka the fat-fifth.

In the meantime, one after another, the suburbs sent the most comforting replies to Foolov. Everyone unanimously agreed that sedition should be uprooted and, first of all, to purify ourselves. Particularly touching was the reply from the suburb of Poloumnov. “Quite the same, brethren, diligently test yourself,” the local townspeople wrote, “yes, in your hearts, a seditious nest will not be twisted, but you will be healthy, and in front of the authorities you will not be malicious, but kind, meritorious and most amiable.” When this reply was read, sobs were heard in the crowd, and the townsman's wife Aksinya Gunyavaya, inflamed with great jealousy, immediately poured out two kopecks from her purse and laid the foundation for capital intended to catch Dunka.

But Dunka did not give up. She fortified herself in a large bedbug factory and, armed with a cannon, fired from it like a gun.

Look, rogue, what? makes articles with a cannon! - said the Foolovites, and did not dare to approach.

Ah, eat you bedbugs! others exclaimed.

But the bugs were with her as if at the same time. She released them in whole clouds against the besiegers, who fled in horror. We decided to defend ourselves against them with pitch, and this remedy seemed to help. Indeed, the attacks of the bugs stopped, but it was still impossible to approach the hut, because the bugs stood there like a wall, and the cannon continued to act deadly. They tried to set fire to the bedbug factory, but there was little unanimity in the actions of the besiegers, since no one wanted to take on the responsibility of leading them, and the attempt failed.

Give up, Dunka! let's not touch! - shouted the besiegers, thinking to subdue her with flattering words.

But Dunka answered with ignorance.

This went on until the evening. When night fell, the besiegers, prudently retreating, left, for any case, a guard chain at the bug plant.

It turned out, however, that the stratagem with the var was not without consequences. Finding no food outside the fortification and irritated by the smell of human meat, the bugs rushed inside to seek satisfaction for their bloodthirstiness. At the dead of midnight, Foolov was shocked by an unnatural cry: it was the fat-fifted Dunka, eaten by bedbugs, who was dying. Her body, literally representing a continuous ulcer, was found the next day lying in the middle of the hut, and near it a cannon and countless herds of crushed bugs. Other bugs, as if ashamed of their feat, hid in the cracks.

It was, after the beginning of the disturbance, the seventh day. The fools rejoiced. But, despite the fact that internal enemies were defeated and the Polish intrigue was put to shame, the atamans-well done were somehow uncomfortable, since there was still not a rumor or a spirit about the new mayor. They wandered around the city like poisoned flies, and did not dare to take up any business, because they did not know how their new boss would somehow like their recent ideas.

Finally, at two o'clock on the afternoon of the seventh day, he arrived. The newly appointed, "existing" mayor was the state councilor and gentleman Semyon Konstantinovich Dvoekurov.

He immediately went to the square to the brawlers and demanded the instigators. They gave Styopka the Gorlasty and Filka the Beschastny.

The wife of the new boss, Lukerya Terentyevna, bowed graciously in all directions.

Thus ended this idle and laughable frenzy; ended and hasn't happened since.

Saltykov-Shchedrin - History of one city - 01, read text

Summary The history of one city according to the heads of Saltykov-Shchedrin

From the publisher

It is explained that the publisher had long intended to write about some city. But he could not do this due to lack of material. But by chance, the publisher found notebooks in which the nameless chronicler was telling a story about his hometown.

Chapter 1

The history of the foundation of the town is revealed. Once upon a time, there lived people who "pulled" everything in their path with their heads. That's why they called them bunglers. They decided to find a ruler for themselves. But only a foolish prince was willing to govern such a people. They called the people fools.

Chapter 2

All the mayors of Glupov and their accomplishments are described.

Chapter 3

The ruler of the city, Brodysty, could not utter anything but a few phrases. It turns out that there was a small organ in the man's head that could only play two pieces. One day musical instrument broke and the city was left without leadership. Riots broke out in Glupov.

Chapter 4

It tells about how women fought for power in the city. But Dvoekourov became the mayor.

Chapter 5

The new mayor forced the townspeople to eat food with mustard and bay leaves, brew mead and beer.

Chapter 6

It tells about the mayor Ferdyshchenko - a good-natured and lazy ruler. He fell in love with a married woman. Soon, due to the lack of rain, plants in the fields die in Foolovo, people begin to starve. Many residents begin to consider the mayor's mistress a witch. The woman is killed.

Chapter 7

No sooner had the Foolovites recovered from one misfortune than a new misfortune came. The mayor fell in love with the depraved woman again and brought her to his house. Immediately, the city was on fire. Ferdyshchenko had to part with the woman.

Chapter 8

Traveling became Ferdyshchenko's new hobby. In one of them, a man died from heavy drinking and gluttony. Wartkin arrives in the city to rule.

Chapter 9

The new mayor, choosing the rule of Dvoekurov as a model, began to force people to sow mustard again. But the head suddenly dies.

Chapter 10

The reign of Negodyaev leads the city to the final ruin and savagery of the population, which is overgrown with wool. Then an inconspicuous and meek prince, a lover of women, takes power into his own hands. However, he soon dies of exhaustion. The place of the head is occupied by Benevolensky - a lover of drafting laws. And since he does not have the right to publish these important documents, the mayor writes laws in secret and scatters them along the streets of the city. Then the man begins to conduct secret correspondence with the French. Which is the reason for the arrest.

The authorities arrest the head for this. He is relieved by Officer Pimple, who is off duty at all. The next mayor, Benevolensky, smells of truffles, and the men's head is eaten.

Chapter 11

Under Ivanov, the Foolovites lived well. But soon the man dies due to the drying of his head, therefore he does not use it for its intended purpose. Then another person takes over the power. The townspeople in his reign live cheerfully and stupidly. Soon it turns out that the mayor is a woman, and she is expelled from the city. Then Sadtilov becomes the head. He, together with the people, debauchery and does not deal with administrative affairs. Hunger sets in. Sadtilov has to return the people to the true faith. The mayor reads forbidden works at night, for which he loses his position.

Chapter 12

The last mayor destroys city buildings, and forces people to wear uniforms and work according to a schedule. Suddenly, the city falls under a downpour and a tornado. The mayor disappears without a trace.

supporting documents

Written for the edification of other city governors.

You can use this text for reader's diary

Saltykov-Shchedrin. All works

Sheep-not remembering
History of one city
Chizhikovo mountain

History of one city. Picture for the story

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Satire by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “The History of a City”

“The only fertile soil for satire,” said Shchedrin, “is the soil of the people, for it can only be called social in the true and real sense of the word. The further the satirist penetrates into the depths of this life, the more weighty his word becomes, the clearer his task is drawn, the more undeniably the significance of his activity comes out.

The first "weighty word" of Saltykov-Shchedrin in Russian literature is the cycle of his "Provincial Essays", created in 1856-1857. This book is the fruit of the writer's long thoughts, the result of his eight-year stay in Vyatka, remote and deaf at that time, where he was exiled by Nicholas I in 1848. Saltykov discovered for himself grassroots, county Rus', got acquainted with the life of petty provincial officials, merchants, peasants, workers of the Urals, plunged into the life-giving "element of the gracious folk dialect."

Service practice in organizing an agricultural exhibition in Vyatka, studying cases of a split in the Volga-Vyatka Territory plunged Saltykov-Shchedrin into oral folk art, into the depths of popular religiosity. “I undoubtedly felt that in my heart there was an invisible, but hot stream, which, without my knowing it, attached me to the original and eternally beating sources. folk life”, the writer recalled about Vyatka impressions. Experience public service in the provinces was a harsh school of life, which opened for the writer "fertile soil" for satire, "the soil of the people."

Saltykov now looked at the state system of Russia from the positions of the people. He concluded that " central authority, no matter how enlightened she is, she cannot embrace all the details of the life of a great people; when it wants to control the various springs of people's life with its own means, it exhausts itself in fruitless efforts. The main inconvenience of autocracy is that it “erases all the individuals that make up the state. By interfering in all the petty functions of people's life, assuming the regulation of private interests, the government thereby, as it were, frees citizens from any original activity "and puts itself under attack, since" it becomes responsible for everything, becomes the cause of all evils and gives rise to hatred". “Exhausted in fruitless efforts,” autocracy breeds “a mass of officials who are alien to the population both in spirit and in aspirations, not connected with them by any common interests, powerless for good, but in the realm of evil being a terrible, corrosive force.”

This is how a vicious circle is formed: autocracy kills the people's initiative, artificially restrains civic development people, keeps them in "infantile immaturity", and this immaturity, in turn, justifies and supports bureaucratic centralization. "Sooner or later the people will break it Procrustean bed which only tormented him uselessly." But what to do now? How to deal with the anti-people essence of the state system in the conditions of passivity and civil underdevelopment of the people themselves?

Saltykov comes to the conclusion that the only way out of this situation is "honest service", the practice of "liberalism in the very temple of anti-liberalism." In the “Provincial Essays” (1856–1857), the artistic result of the Vyatka exile, such a theory is professed by a fictional character, court adviser Shchedrin, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted and who from now on will become Saltykov’s “double”.

The social upsurge of the 1860s gives Saltykov confidence that the “honest service” of the Christian socialist Shchedrin is capable of pushing society to profound changes, that a single good can bring noticeable results if the bearer of this good keeps in mind a lofty and noble social ideal.

The content of the “Provincial Essays” convinces that the position of an honest official in the conditions of the fictitious provincial town of Krutogorsk is not political program but ethical necessity, the only way for Shchedrin so far to preserve a sense of moral honesty, a sense of duty done to the Russian people and to himself: “Yes! I couldn’t have lived in vain for so many years, I couldn’t have left no trace behind me! Because even an unconscious blade of grass does not live in vain, and that one, with its own life, though imperceptibly, but certainly affects the surrounding nature ... am I really lower, more insignificant than this blade of grass?

In distant Vyatka, he seeks and finds support for his ideals in the beliefs and hopes of the people. From here comes the poetization of popular religiosity, from here comes the epic scale of Shchedrin's satire, which is gaining momentum in the "Provincial Essays". Like Nekrasov in the poem "Silence", Shchedrin tries to reach out to the people through communion with their moral shrines. In the middle of the 19th century they were religious. Shchedrin loves among the people the ethics of self-sacrifice, the renunciation of oneself in the name of the happiness of another, the ethics of serving one's neighbor, which makes one forget about oneself and one's sorrows.

Following Turgenev, and at the same time as Tolstoy and Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin finds among the people what was lost in the world of the Krutogorsk bureaucracy, in the world of the Russian bureaucracy - human community and sensitivity. Shchedrin's people of the people are wanderers and pilgrims, wandering along Russian roads in a tireless search for brotherhood and truth.

However, Saltykov looks at the peasant not only from a democratic, but also from a historical point of view. Therefore, the image of the people in the "Essays" doubles. The people are poeticized as "the embodiment of the idea of democracy", but Shchedrin's sad and ironic thoughts are evoked by the people-citizen, acting in the field of modern Russian history.

The writer depicts situations differently in which people's humility receives ethical justification. The old schismatic woman, brought to death by the tyranny of the dashing mayor, on her deathbed “thanks” her tormentor: “Thank you, your honor, that you didn’t leave me, the old woman, didn’t deprive me of the crown of martyrdom.” In the long-suffering of the people, a high spirituality is revealed here, a spark of resistance runs through the soulless extortion of the top. The world of people's life in the "Provincial Essays" is thus not devoid of drama: relying on the viable elements of the people's worldview, Shchedrin separates the dead and lifeless elements from them.

After his release from the "Vyatka captivity", he continues (with a short break in 1862-1864) public service, first in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then as vice-governor of Ryazan and Tver, having earned "Vice-Robespierre" in bureaucratic circles. In 1864-1868 he served as chairman of the state chamber in Penza, Tula and Ryazan. Administrative practice reveals to him the most hidden aspects of bureaucratic power, its entire mechanism hidden from external observation. At the same time, Saltykov-Shchedrin works hard, publishing his satirical works in Nekrasov's journal Sovremennik.

Gradually, he outlives faith in the prospects for "honest service", which more and more turns into "an aimless drop of goodness in a sea of bureaucratic arbitrariness." If in the “Provincial Essays” Shchedrin buries the “past times” in the finale, and then dedicates the unfinished “Book of the Dying” to them, now the satirist feels the prematureness of hopes for such a funeral. The past not only does not die, but takes root in the present, revealing an extraordinary vitality. What nourishes the old order of things, why do the changes not affect the deep essence, the root foundation of Russian life?

These reflections lead Saltykov-Shchedrin to the cycle “Pompadours and Pompadours”, in which, relying on his own practical experience, the satirist shows how the pre-reform order, slightly changing, comes to life and resurrects in the new post-reform times in the images of provincial town governors. The writer calls this cycle for himself - "governor's". In one of the letters, he reports that a new idea is beginning to take shape in his head, which goes beyond the "pompadour" cycle - "Essays on the city of Bryukhov." The essence of the new idea lies in its breadth, going beyond the provincial borders to all-Russian satirical generalizations.

Back in 1857-1859, the satirist was working on the idea of the story "Hegemonies", which is based on a satirical interpretation of the myth about the calling of the Varangian princes to Rus' to restore "order" in the "great and abundant land". By "order" Saltykov means the autocracy of the upper classes, the legalized robbery of the townsfolk. This motif will then move on to the chapter "The History of a City" - "On the Root of the Origin of the Foolovists." Later, in the early 1860s, in the essays: "Literary Writers", "Folupov's Debauchery", "Slander", "Our Foolov's Deeds", "To the Reader" - the provincial Krutogorek is replaced by the fictitious city of Foolov, the very name of which is symbolic.

"Stupid" is a special order of things, which rests on the "yoke of madness" of the top and the complete passivity of the bottom, the bonded masses patronized by the "rulers".

In 1867, the satirist reports on the concept of a fabulously fantastic work - "The Story of the Governor with a Stuffed Head." This is how the idea of the “Glupovsky Chronicler” matures and work begins on one of the peak works of the writer - the satirical chronicle “The History of a City”. In 1869, Saltykov-Shchedrin left the civil service forever and became a member of the editorial board of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine rented by Nekrasov.

If in the “Provincial Essays”, “Pompadours and Pompadours” and other works of the 1850s-1860s, the main arrows of satirical denunciation hit provincial officials, then in the “History of a City” Shchedrin rose to the top of the government: in the center of this work is a satirical image people and authorities, the Foolovites and their mayors. The writer is convinced that bureaucratic power is the result of people's "minority" - "stupidity".

The book satirically highlights the history of the fictional city of Glupov, even indicating its exact dates: from 1731 to 1825. In the fantastic characters and events of Shchedrin's book there are echoes of real historical facts of the period of time named by the author. But at the same time, the satirist constantly diverts the reader's attention from direct historical parallels. This is not about any particular historical epoch, but about such phenomena that resist the passage of time and remain unchanged on different stages national history. The satirist sets himself a dizzyingly bold goal - to create a generalized image of Russia, in which the age-old weaknesses of national history are synthesized, worthy of satirical ridicule, the fundamental vices of Russian public life.

In an effort to give the characters and events a timeless, generalized meaning, Shchedrin uses reception of anachronism- mixing times. The story is told from the perspective of fictitious provincial archivists of the 18th - early 19th centuries. But their stories are often woven into facts and events of a later time, which these chroniclers could not have known about (Polish intrigue, London propagandists, Russian historians of the middle and second half of XIX century, etc.). Yes, and in the town governors of Foolov, the features of various statesmen of different historical eras are generalized.

Strange, bizarre is the image of the city of Foolov. In one place we learn that the tribes of the bunglers founded it in a swamp, and in another it is stated that “our native city of Foolov ... has three rivers and, in accordance with ancient Rome, is built on seven mountains, on which a great many carriages break into icy conditions ... » It is clear that this city incorporates features of two Russian capitals – St. Petersburg and Moscow. Paradoxical and social characteristics. Either it appears to readers in the form of a county town, or it will take on the appearance of a provincial and even metropolitan one, or it will suddenly turn into a seedy Russian village or village with its own cattle pasture. But at the same time, it turns out that the borders of the Foolov pasture are adjacent to the borders of the Byzantine Empire.

The characteristics of Foolov's townsfolk are also fantastic: at times they resemble capital or provincial townspeople, but these "townspeople" plow and sow, graze cattle and live in village huts. The faces of the Foolov authorities are just as incongruous and bizarre: city governors combine the habits typical of Russian tsars and nobles with the actions and deeds characteristic of a governor, a county mayor or even a village headman.

Why did Saltykov-Shchedrin need a combination of the incompatible, a combination of the incompatible? The literary critic D. P. Nikolaev answers this question in this way: “In the History of a City, as is already evident from the title of the book, we meet with one city, one image. But this is such an image that has absorbed the signs of all cities at once. And not only cities, but also villages and villages. Moreover, it was embodied character traits of the entire autocratic state, of the entire country.

Working on the "History of a City", Saltykov-Shchedrin mobilizes not only his rich and versatile experience of public service, not only his deep knowledge of the works of all Russian historians - from Karamzin and Tatishchev to Solovyov and Kostomarov - documentary literature of democratic writers comes to the aid of the satirist , his contemporaries, connoisseurs of Russian provincial life.

On the pages of Nekrasov's "Notes of the Fatherland" in 1868-1869, the writer and ethnographer S.V. Maksimov published the documentary narrative "Siberia and Hard Labor", and starting from 1869, Saltykov-Shchedrin published "The History of a City" here. The reader, who is well acquainted with Maksimov's book, cannot get rid of the impression that many of the images and motifs of the "History of a City" date back to "Siberia and Hard Labor", where a unique "epopee" of tyranny and atrocities of the provincial administration is deployed for almost two centuries. .

Don’t you remember, for example, Shchedrin’s “Ustav about respectable pastry pies” when you read the following Maximov’s lines: “Loskutov, the Nizhne-Udin police officer, entered the villages in no other way than with the Cossacks, who were carrying a load of rods and twigs. Examining the huts, he looked into the ovens, into the closets; entangled by force in every detail of domestic life, he ruthlessly punished for any deviation from the rules prescribed by him. If the bread was badly baked, he immediately flogged the hostess with rods, if the kvass was sour or warm in the summer, the host would be cut.

Truly, in the "miracles" of Shchedrin's book, in the language of its author, "upon careful examination, one can notice a rather striking real basis." This "real basis" was provided by Shchedrin's fantasies and many other facts collected by Maximov. The “civilizing” exploits of the Shchedrin city governors, their breathtaking “wars for enlightenment” are anticipated, for example, in the autocratic debauchery of the head of the Nerchinsk factories, the godson of Catherine II, V.V. Naryshkin.

“This Naryshkin, having begun to hurt, brought five prisoners closer to him, of whom he made two secretaries; for guilt he beat with a batozh and did not say why: “I alone know”; he was not embarrassed in the waste of state money, he did not send a report on them and the money itself to Petersburg. When the treasury was not enough, he took money from the wealthy merchant Sibiryakov, who had some plants on lease. When Sibiryakov refused another time, Naryshkin appeared in front of his house with cannons and threatened to shoot if the merchant did not give what he needed: Sibiryakov went out onto the porch with a silver tray on which the requested five thousand were placed.

He established some new holiday - "The Discovery of New Grace", - ordered everyone to repent of sins, destroyed a lot of gunpowder, the very one that is so necessary in mining. He recruited an army, attached to it the newly organized Tungus hussar regiment and moved with cannons and bells from the Nerchinsk factory through the city of Nerchinsk, the Bratsk steppe and Verkhneudinsk to Irkutsk.

On the way, he stopped merchant carts, selected goods, issuing receipts.

“In the steppe, on vacation, huge cauldrons of water were boiling, where tea and sugar were piled in pounds; wine stood in whole barrels, cloth, dabu, Chinese women, canvas were all taken for free, without any account. Traveling in the direction of Irkutsk, he called the people together by various means, as, for example, in the villages - by ringing the bells at churches; cannon fire and drumming where there were no churches. The people gathered in this way gave wine to drink, forcibly seized in drinking houses, and threw state money into the crowds ... "

In the “exploits” of this zealous chief, one can easily guess the activities of Ugryum-Burcheev, who renamed the city of Foolov into Nepreklonsk and established new holidays, and the “travels” of Ferdyshchenko, who spoke “unlike speeches and, pointing to a“ wooden cannon ”, threatened all his amphitryons burn out." And don’t Shchedrin’s Foolovites, Ferdyshchenko’s free or involuntary henchmen, who, in anticipation of their boss, “knock on basins, shake tambourines, and even play one violin” not behave “in Maximov’s way”? “Cauldrons were smoking aside, in which so many piglets, geese and other living creatures were boiled and fried that even the priests became envious.” And doesn’t Shchedrin’s Vasilisk Borodavkin, who makes civilizing raids on philistine homes, distribute vodka to all participants in the campaign and order them to sing songs, not look like Maksimov’s Naryshkin?

Even these few facts confirm that Saltykov-Shchedrin's book grew up on a real, life-like basis, that even its most fantastic images were based on concrete historical material.

In the construction of the "History of a City" Saltykov-Shchedrin parodies the official historical monograph. In the first part of the book there are generalizing chapters, a general outline of Foolov's history is given, and in the second - chapters-personalities devoted to describing the life of outstanding city governors. This is how sworn historians built their works: history was written “according to kings”. Saltykov-Shchedrin's parody has a dramatic connotation: there is no other way to write Foolov's story, it all boils down to a change of tyrant authorities, the masses remain mute and submissive to the will of any "bosses".

The Foolovian state began with a formidable boss shouting "I'll screw it up!". Since then, the art of managing the Foolovites has consisted in a variety of forms of cutting: some mayors whip the Foolovists "absolutely", others explain this by "the requirements of civilization", and still others make the townsfolk want to be whipped themselves. In turn, in the mass of the people, only the forms of obedience change. In the first case, the townsfolk tremble unconsciously, in the second, with the consciousness of their own benefit, and, finally, they rise to a trembling filled with trust.

In the inventory of the mayors, brief descriptions of Foolov's statesmen are given, the satirical appearance of the most stable features of Russian history, invariably repeated in all epochs and all times, is reproduced. Theophylact Benevolensky and Basilisk Borodavkin went down in history by the widespread and violent planting of lamush, mustard and bay leaves, Provence oil and Persian chamomile in Foolov. Amadeus Clementius glorified himself by diligently forcing the townsfolk to cook pasta. Onufry Vegodyaev laid out the streets paved by his predecessors and set up monuments for himself from the extracted stone. Gloom-Grumbling destroyed the old city and built another in a new place. Interception-Zalikhvatsky burned down the gymnasium and abolished the sciences. Charters and circulars, which the governors became famous for, bureaucratically regulate the life of the townsfolk down to everyday trifles, up to decrees "ABOUT respectable cookie pies.

The biography of Foolov's mayors is opened by Brodasty. In the head of this administrator, instead of the brain, there is something like a barrel organ (“organ”), playing two words-shouting: “I will ruin!” and "I will not stand it!". It tells about how one day the mechanism in the head of Brodystoy broke down, how he disappeared from the eyes of the townsfolk, having retired to his office. The clerk, who entered in the morning with a report, “saw such a sight: the mayor’s body, dressed in a uniform, was sitting at a desk, and in front of him, on a pile of arrears registers, lay, in the form of a dandy paperweight, a completely empty mayor’s head ...”. While the local master was trying to fix the broken "organ", a "rebellion" began in Glupovo, the root cause of which was the indestructible love of the authorities. The enraged crowd ran to the house of the assistant mayor with a heart-rending cry: “Where did you do our father ?!”

This is how Shchedrin ridicules the bureaucratic thoughtlessness of Russian state power. Another mayor with an artificial head, Pimple, adjoins Brudastom. Pimple has a stuffed head, so he is completely unable to administer, his motto is "rest, sir." And although the Foolovites sighed under the new ruler, the essence of life has changed little: in both cases, the fate of the city was in the hands of the brainless authorities.

When the "History of a City" was published, liberal criticism began to reproach Saltykov-Shchedrin for distorting life, for retreating from realism. But these accusations were unfounded. Satirical grotesque and fantasy in Shchedrin they do not distort reality, they only bring to a paradox those qualities that the bureaucratic regime conceals in itself. Artistic exaggeration acts like a magnifying glass: it makes the secret clear, reveals the essence of things hidden from the naked eye, enlarges the real evil.

It is impossible not to notice that at the heart of Shchedrin's fantasy and grotesque lies the people's view of things, that many fantastic images are nothing more than detailed metaphors drawn from Russian proverbs and sayings. Both Brodasty’s “organ” and Pimple’s “stuffed head” go back to popular proverbs, sayings and phraseological expressions: “You can’t fit a hat on a body without a head”, “It’s hard for a head without shoulders, it’s bad for a body without a head”, “At his head is full of dust”, “Losing his head”, “Though it’s thick on his head, but his head is empty.” Rich in satirical meaning, folk proverbs without any alteration fall into the descriptions of Foolov's riots and civil strife.

With the help of the grotesque and fantasy, Shchedrin often gets ahead of himself, diagnoses social diseases that exist in the bud and have not yet unfolded all the possibilities and "readiness" contained in them. Bringing these "readiness" to its logical end, to the size of a social "epidemic", the satirist acts as a visionary. Precisely such a prophetic meaning is contained in the fantastic image of Grim-Burcheev, crowning the biographies of Foolov's city governors.

On what does Foolov's despotism rest, what aspects of the people's life support and nourish it? Foolov in Shchedrin's book is a special order of things, the constituent elements of which are not only the administration, but also the people - the Foolovites. The "History of a City" gives an unparalleled satirical picture of the weakest aspects of the people's worldview. Shchedrin shows that the masses of the people are fundamentally politically naive, that they are characterized by inexhaustible patience and blind faith in the authorities, in the supreme power.

“We are familiar people! - said some, - we can endure. If we now put everyone in a heap and set them on fire from four ends, even then we won’t say a nasty word! They contrast the energy of administrative action with the energy of inaction, “rebellion” on their knees: “Do what you want with us! - said some, - he likes - cut into pieces; if you like - eat with porridge, but we do not agree! “From us, brother, you won’t take anything! - others said, - we are not like the others who have acquired a body! us, brother, and there is nowhere to stab us!” And stubbornly stood at the same time on their knees. “You never know there were riots! - Foolov's old-timers proudly say about themselves. “We, sir, have such a sign about this: if they whip you, you already know that it’s a riot!”

When the Foolovites "take up their minds", then, "according to the old-fashioned seditious custom", they either send a walker or write petitions addressed to the high authorities. "Look, you've wobbled! - said the old men, following the troika, which carried their request to an unknown distance, - now, well done chieftains, we will not endure for long! And indeed, the city became quiet again; the Foolovites did not undertake any new revolts, but sat on the rubble and waited. When passers-by asked: how are you? - they answered: “Now our cause is right! now we, my brother, have submitted the paper!”

From the pages of Shchedrin's book, the "history of Foolov's liberalism" appears in a satirical light in stories about Ionka Kozyr, Ivashka Farafontiev and Alyoshka Bespyatov. Fine-hearted daydreaming and ignorance of the practical ways of realizing one's dreams - such are characteristics all Foolov's liberals, whose destinies develop tragically. It cannot be said that the masses of the people do not sympathize with their intercessors. But even in the very sympathy of the Foolovites, the same political naivety shines through: “I suppose, Evseich, I suppose! - the Foolovites escort the truth-seeker Yevseich to prison, - with the truth, you will live well everywhere! “From that moment old Yevseich disappeared, as if he had not existed in the world, disappeared without a trace, as only the “prospectors” of the Russian land know how to disappear.”

After the publication of The History of a City, the critic A.S. Suvorin published an article in Vestnik Evropy, entitled Historical Satire. He accused the writer of mocking the people, of lordly scornful "slander" of the dark and downtrodden Foolovites. Saltykov-Shchedrin was deeply touched by this article. He sent a special letter to the editors of the Vestnik Evropy magazine, in which he made the following explanations: “... my reviewer does not distinguish the historical people, that is, acting in the field of history, from the people as the embodiment of the idea of democracy. The first is evaluated and gains sympathy according to the extent of his deeds. If it produces the Wartkins and the Grim-Grumblings, then there can be no question of sympathy... activities".

Let us note that Shchedrin's satirical pictures of people's life differ from the satire on city governors in a slightly different tone. The writer's laughter becomes bitter here, contempt is replaced by secret sympathy. Relying on "the soil of the people", Shchedrin strictly observes the boundaries of the satire that the people themselves have created for themselves, making extensive use of folklore. “In order to say bitter words of reproof about the people, he took these words from the people themselves, from them he received sanction to be their satirist,” noted A. S. Bushmin.

In defense of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the Iskra magazine came out with an article, probably belonging to A. M. Skabichevsky. The critic pointed out that Suvorin wants to blame Shchedrin's satire on one "poor Makar" so as not to see "himself and his brethren" in the Foolovites. The purpose of The History of a City "is not at all to ridicule Russian history in general or the customs of any "age" in particular", but to "expose in a few historical features of the people's life the glaring social shortcoming of our own time: that outrageous passivity with which our society endures all sorts of outrages and tyranny, treating them not only as a gravitating fate, but also as something due and even highly sacred ... "

The meaning of satire is not limited to social issues, it is even wider and deeper. In fact, the writer denounces here not only the bias towards autocracy of the Russian autocracy, but also any godless power that grows on the soil of popular apostasy and the general desecration of eternal spiritual truths. The very understanding of “stupidity” has, in addition to the social, a pronounced Christian meaning. In stupidity, the satirist finds all the vices of a fallen, decrepit man: pride, carnal pleasure, love of glory, voluptuousness, lies, hardness of heart. “The carnal man,” said St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, - he uses his mind for his own self-interest or for the ruin of his neighbor, he lives according to the flesh, does carnal deeds, even if he is covered with a cassock and a hood or decorated with an external cross. Christians who live lawlessly do not know God, although they confess His holy name, and pray to Him, and go to church, and partake of the Mysteries of Christ. This is exactly how the Foolovites and their mayors behave throughout the story told by Saltykov-Shchedrin "History ...".

Already at the very beginning of the satirical chronicle, in the chapter "On the Root of the Origin of the Foolovites", Saltykov-Shchedrin parodies, on the one hand, historical legend about calling the Varangians to the kingdom Slavic tribes, and on the other hand, as the philologist T.N. Golovina noted, the biblical story reflected in the I Book of Kings, when the elders of Israel demanded from their former ruler, the prophet Samuel, that he put a king over them. The embarrassed Samuel turned to the Lord with a prayer and received from Him the following answer: "... They did not reject you, but rejected Me, so that I would not reign over them."

In their town governors, the Foolovites see earthly idols, on whose arbitrariness everything depends: the climate, the harvest, and social mores. And the mayors themselves rule like pagan gods. They “in the beginning” also “had a word”, only this word is an animal cry “I’ll screw it up!”. According to T. N. Golovina, imagining themselves as the undivided organizers of Foolov's existence, the mayors write their charters and laws in the spirit of the commandments that God gave to Moses in the Tablets of the Law, and in the same biblical language. The law of the 1st mayor of Benevolensky reads: “Yes, every person walks dangerously; the farmer, let him bring gifts.” And paragraph four of the “Charter on Respectable Cooking Pies” is written in the solemn style of describing the gospel bloodless sacrifice: “After taking it out of the oven, let everyone take a knife in his hand and, having cut out a part from the middle, let him bring it as a gift.”

The love of power of these "hardened idiots" is so boundless that it extends not only to the life of the inhabitants, but also to God's creation itself. Brigadier Ferdyshchenko, for example, undertakes a journey through Foolov's pasture with such "demiurgical" goals: "He imagined that the grasses would become greener and the flowers would bloom brighter as soon as he left for the pasture. “Fields will grow fat, rich rivers will flow, ships will sail, cattle breeding will flourish, communication routes will appear,” he muttered to himself and cherished his plan more than the apple of his eye.

But after all, the Foolovites themselves believe that all their disasters: crop failures, droughts, bad weather, fires - are directly related to the will of their mayors. And when the foreman Ferdyshchenko started tricks with the townsman's wife Alyonka, “nature itself ceased to be favorable to the Foolovites. “This new Jezebel,” the chronicler says about Alenka, “brought dryness to our city.” From the very spring of Nikola, from the time the water began to enter the low water, and until Ilyin's day, not a drop of rain fell. The old-timers could not remember anything like this and, not without reason, attributed this phenomenon to the brigadier's fall into sin.

The attitude of the Foolovites towards their idols cannot be called loving in the Christian sense of the word: they revere them, obey them resignedly, but they can smear them with mud, as the pagans do, punishing their earthly god. "What? did you get an answer, foreman? they asked him with unheard-of impudence. “I didn’t get it, brothers!” The brigadier replied. The Foolovites looked into his eyes with their "absurd custom" and shook their heads. “You are a slut! that's what! - they reproached him, - that's why they don't unsubscribe to you, bastard! don't stand!"

“For the same reason, they so willingly clung to polytheism: it seemed to them more convenient than monotheism. They more willingly bowed before Volos or Yarilo, but at the same time shook their heads that if they don’t have rain for a long time or the rains are too long, then they can carve their favorite gods, smear them with sewage and generally vent vexation on them. .

Comparing the moral state modern society with the writings of the fathers of the Eastern Church, H. S. Leskov in the chronicle "Soboryane" came to the conclusion that "Christianity in Rus' has not yet been preached": "Yes, this is indisputable that we are baptized in Christ, but we are not yet clothed in Christ."

Saltykov-Shchedrin, in The History of a City, not without satirical bitterness, notes the same fact. In the chapter “Adoration of Mammon and Repentance,” the transition of the Foolovites from polytheism to Christian monotheism changes little in their worldview and psychology. “Meanwhile, the bell continued to call to prayer at the appointed time, and the number of the faithful increased every day. At first, only policemen walked, but then, looking at them, strangers began to walk. Sadtilov, for his part, set an example of true piety, spitting on the temple of Perun every time he passed him.

And the people had their own preachers: first Paramosha and Yashenka, then the holy fool Aksinyushka. “The basic principles of her teachings were the same as those of Paramosha and Yashenka, that is, that one should not work, but should contemplate. “And, most importantly, to give to the poor, because the poor are not baked about mammon, but about how to save their souls,” she added, while holding out her hand. And it was impossible not to give it to her, because she spat in the eyes of anyone who did not give alms without ceremony and, instead of an apology, said only: “Do not demand!”

The Foolovites, on the other hand, “transitioned from merrily and violent inaction to gloomy inaction,” and therefore “there was no increase in cereals in the fields.” “In vain did they raise their hands, in vain did they prostrate themselves, made vows, fasted, arranged processions - God did not heed their prayers. Someone hinted to say that “after all, you’ll have to go out into the field with a plow,” but the impudent one was almost stoned and, in response to his proposal, zeal was tripled.<…>Corrupted by the recent bacchanalia of polytheism and satiated with the spices of civilization, they were not content with mere faith, but were looking for some kind of "admiration."

“Will I not punish for this? says the Lord; and shall not my soul take vengeance on such a people as this? A marvelous and terrible thing is happening on earth: The prophets prophesy lies, and the priests rule through them, and my people love this. What will you do after all this?” (Jer., ch. 5, verses 29-31).

It is in this, biblical, key that one must understand the final chapter of the book - “Confirmation of repentance. Conclusion". Gloomy-Grumbling is sent to the Foolovites as a punishment for their sins. The person on whom his gaze rested felt fear for human nature in general: “It was a gaze as light as steel, a gaze completely free from thought, and therefore inaccessible either to shades or to vibrations. Naked determination - and nothing more. It was not for nothing that the quivering lips of the Foolovites instinctively whispered: "Satan!" “It was thought that the sky would collapse, the earth would open up underfoot, that a tornado would fly in from somewhere and swallow everything, all at once…” these are the only goals that the true scoundrel recognizes as worthy of his efforts.

The "life-building" nonsense of Grim-Burcheev is a challenge to all of God's miraculous creation. In the image of the city of Nepreklonsk, Saltykov-Shchedrin creates a bold parody of the ideals of any state power that deifies itself. In the administrative anti-utopia, created by the imagination of the great satirist, the aspirations of power-hungry people of all times and peoples, all godless social parties and movements that have entered into competition with the Creator Himself are summarized.

The satirist acts here as a merciless critic of those social-utopian theories that he was fond of in his youth. “At that time,” writes Saltykov-Shchedrin, “nothing was reliably known either about the communists, or about the socialists, or about the so-called levelers in general. Nevertheless, leveling existed, and, moreover, on the most extensive scale ... each squadron commander, without calling himself a communist, imputed to himself, however, to count and be obliged to be one from the top to the bottom. Gloom-Grumbling was one of the most fantastic levelers of this school.<…>. In the middle is a square, from which streets, or, as he mentally called them, companies, scatter in radii in all directions.<…>Each company has six fathoms wide - no more and no less; each house has three windows protruding into the front garden in which grow: lordly arrogance, royal curls, beetroot and Tatar soap. All houses are painted in light gray paint ...

In each house there are two elderly people, two adults, two teenagers and two youngsters ...<…>Women have the right to give birth to children only in winter, because a violation of this rule can prevent a successful move. summer jobs. Unions between young people are arranged only in accordance with growth and physique, since this satisfies the requirements of a correct and beautiful front. Leveling, simplified to a certain dacha of black bread, is the essence of this Cantonist fantasy ... ”“ There is neither past nor future, and therefore the chronology is abolished. There are two holidays: one in the spring, immediately after the snow melts, is called the "Feast of Steadfastness" and serves as a preparation for the coming disasters; the other, in autumn, is called "The Feast of Those in Power" and is dedicated to the memories of the disasters already experienced. These holidays differ from weekdays only in the strengthened exercise in marching.

Every home is nothing but settled unit, which has its commander and its spy ...<…>

In each settlement unit, time is distributed in the most strict way. As the sun rises, everyone in the house rises; adults and adolescents are dressed in uniform clothes ... "and sent ".. to the performance of the duties assigned to them. First they enter the "kneeling arena" where they hurriedly recite a prayer; then they send the feet to the "arena for bodily exercises", where they strengthen the body with fencing and gymnastics; finally, they go to the "meal arena", where they receive a piece of black bread sprinkled with salt. After eating, they line up in a square in a square, and from there, under the leadership of commanders, they are bred in platoons for public work. Work is done on a team basis. The townsfolk bend down and straighten up at once ...<…>Near each working platoon, a soldier with a gun walks with measured steps and every five minutes he shoots at the sun.<…>

At night, the spirit of Grim-Grumbling hovers over Nepreklonsky and vigilantly guards the philistine dream...

No God, no idols - nothing ... "

The "History of a City" ends with the death of Ugryum-Burcheev. It comes at the moment when, under the leadership of this idiot, the Foolovites not only destroyed the old city, but also built a new one - Steadfast! When the administrative nonsense was put into practice, the tired mayor, shouting "sabbath!", fell to the ground and began to snore, forgetting to appoint spies this time. “Exhausted, scolded and destroyed, the Foolovites, after a long break, for the first time breathed freely. They looked at each other and suddenly felt ashamed.<…>

The scoundrel woke up, but his gaze no longer made the same impression. He was annoying, but not intimidating." Dissatisfaction among the Foolovites grew, and ceaseless conferences began at night. The idiot finally realized that he had made a mistake, and scribbled an order announcing the appointment of spies. “It was a drop that overflowed the cup…”

But Shchedrin leaves the reader at a loss as to what happened next. The notebooks containing the details of this case seem to have been lost. Only one sheet remained, which fixed the denouement of this story: “A week later (after what?) ... the Foolovites were struck by an unheard of spectacle. The north darkened and covered with clouds; from these clouds something rushed to the city: either a downpour, or a tornado. Full of anger it rushed, drilling the ground, rumbling, humming and groaning, and from time to time belching out some kind of dull, croaking sounds. Although it it was not yet close, but the air in the city began to tremble, the bells began to hum of their own accord, the trees were ruffled, the animals went mad and rushed about the field, not finding the way to the city. It approached, and as it approached, time stopped its run. Finally the earth shook, the sun went dark... the Foolovites fell on their faces. Inscrutable horror appeared on all faces, seized all hearts.

It came...

At this solemn moment, Moody-Grumbling suddenly turned his whole body towards the numb crowd and said in a clear voice:

- Will come...

But before he had time to finish, there was a crash, and the former scoundrel instantly disappeared, as if melted into the air.

History has stopped flowing."

In the Soviet period, many believed that before us was a picture of revolutionary anger, which finally woke up in the Foolovites and victoriously wiped out the despotic regime and the "Stupid" history associated with it. However, there was another point of view: a formidable it, which flew in from outside, plunged the Foolovites themselves in fear and trembling, is an even more severe and despotic regime (historically corresponding to the change of the reign of Alexander I by the reign of Nicholas I). After all, the phrase that Ugryum-Burcheev did not say was communicated to the Foolovites more than once. “Someone is coming after me,” he said, “who will be even more terrible than me.” This someone seems to be named in the “Inventory to the Mayors”: after Ugryum-Burcheev there follows Perechvat-Zalikhvatsky, who “drove into Foolov on a white horse (as a winner. - Yu. L.), burned the gymnasium and abolished the sciences. Apparently, the Foolovian revolution resulted in a spontaneous peasant "rebellion, senseless and merciless", after which an even more terrible regime was established.

It would seem that everything is logical ... But only after all, Intercept-Zalikhvatsky drove in Silly, which by the beginning of the turmoil no longer existed: it was replaced by the rebuilt Relentless. Besides, what kind of gymnasium could this mayor burn down and what sciences could be abolished, if in Nepreklonsk “there are no schools and literacy is not supposed; the science of numbers is taught by fingers”?!

It is clear that it is formidable, advancing on Relentless with north, - this is some kind of retribution, equally promising death to both the Foolovites and their mayors. Not for nothing it publishes croaking sounds. Who is the bearer of this retribution? Maybe the One Who said: “Vengeance is mine and I will repay”? After all, the biblical story, through the mouths of the prophets, told us about God's wrath, which led to the destruction of the country and city for the depravity and wickedness of the inhabitants who had fallen away from God: Babylon, Jerusalem, Sodom, Gomorrah ...

“Thus says the Lord: Behold, the waters are rising from north and they shall become a flood, and drown the earth and all that fills it, the city, and those who dwell in it; then people will cry out, and all the inhabitants of the country will weep” (Jer., ch. 47, v. 2). “Announce and divulge among the nations… Babylon is taken… her idols are put to shame, her idols are crushed. For from the north a people has risen up against him, who will make his land a desert, and no one will live there, from man to cattle ... ”(Jer., ch. 50, st. 2-3). "The earth is shaking and trembling for the intentions of the Lord are being fulfilled over Babylon to make the land of Babylon a desert, without inhabitants ”(Jer., ch. 51, v. 29). “Set up a standard for Zion, run, do not stop; for I will bring from the north calamity and great destruction ... This is because My people are stupid - they do not know Me; they are foolish children, and they have no sense; they are smart for evil, but they do not know how to do good” (Jer., ch. 4, verse 6, 22). “There is a rumor: here he comes, and great noise from the north country to make the cities of Judah a wilderness, a dwelling place for jackals” (Jer., ch. 10, v. 22). “The Lord is long-suffering and great in power and does not leave without punishment; in the whirlwind and in the tempest is the procession of the Lord; the cloud is the dust from his feet.”(Nahum, ch. 1, v. 3).

The notes of the Apocalypse at the end of the "History of a City" attracted the attention of modern researchers of the satirist's work. But they received too global interpretation. The final phrase "history has stopped its course" began to be understood as the end of the history of mankind. In fact, the meaning of this phrase is more specific: it's about the end of the stupid story how the history of Babylon, Sodom, Gomorrah, ancient Jerusalem ended in its time. Shchedrin's book is, at its core, Pushkin-like optimistic: "Tsars cannot cope with God's element."

This is evidenced by a symbolic episode with an attempt to curb the river Ugryum-Burcheev. “Until now, only the works of human hands have been destroyed, but now the turn has come to the eternal, not made by hands.<…>

The struggle with nature took the beginning.<…>

There is nothing more dangerous than the imagination of a scoundrel ... Once excited, it throws off any yoke of reality and begins to draw the most grandiose enterprises for its owner.<…>

As soon as he saw a mass of water, the idea was already established in his head that he would have his own sea.<…>There is a sea, which means that there are fleets: first, of course, the military, then the merchant one.<…>There is a great abundance of specie, which, however, the Foolovites despise and throw into the manure, and the Jews secretly dig it out of the manure and use it to solicit railway concessions.

And now gigantic efforts are being made to carry out the plan to create the sea and curb the river. All the garbage from the destroyed Glupov was thrown into the construction of a giant dam, all the inhabitants of the future city of Nepreklonsk are driven to compact it. The river stops and begins to spill over the meadow side. Glancing at the vast mass of water, Gloom-Grumbling brightened up and even received the gift of speech. “That’s how people see it!” - he said, like God, imitating the language of the Holy Scriptures. His demiurgic plan triumphed. He withstood the competition with the Creator Himself!

“So what! - all these dreams collapsed the next morning.<…>

Barely having time to open his eyes, Grim-Grumbling hastened to admire the work of his genius, but, approaching the river, he stood in his tracks. There was a new nonsense. The meadows are exposed; the remnants of the monumental dam floated downstream in disorder, and the river murmured and moved along its banks, exactly as it did the day before.

The meaning of this scene is obvious: the course of history is miraculous. Like the world of nature, it is in the right hand of God, and as a result, it is not subject to the usurper habits of earthly rulers.