"FAIRY TALES" by M. E. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN
Formation of the genre. Creative history. Perception
A. S. Bushmin, V. N. Baskakov
"Tales" is one of the brightest creations and the most widely read of Saltykov's books. Different assumptions were made about the motives that prompted Saltykov to write fairy tales. The earliest in time and completely naive are attempts to explain the appearance of fairy tales by particular factors of the writer's personal biography: or attacks of a painful illness that prevented him from concentrating his thoughts on more complex creative work.
Deciding nevertheless to complete the planned cycle of fairy tales, Saltykov really resorted to “breaking” within the genre, which had a very noticeable effect on Chizhikov Gora, the first fairy tale written after the closure of Fatherland Notes and published in December 1884 in Russian statements". The tale is a satire on the bourgeois-noble family. Saltykov was not satisfied with the fairy tale. “I feel,” he wrote to Sobolevsky on January 9, 1885, “that two or three “Chizhikov’s grief” and the reputation of my fairy tales will be significantly undermined. Perhaps Feoktistov told the truth that particular things are not at all suitable for me” (XX, 122). And after "Chizhikov's grief" Saltykov continues to work intensively on fairy tales ("Such a verse attacked me," he writes on January 9, 1885 to V. M. Sobolevsky). But, intensifying their fantastic coloring, he refuses "particular" plots as weakening, in his opinion, the power of satire.
Many fairy tales met with censorship obstacles when going to print, which affected the timing of their publication and obliged the author to make some mitigating corrections. For the legal publication of The Petitioner Crow, which had undergone two years of ordeal, it was necessary to muffle a number of the most poignant passages, and it appeared only on the eve of Saltykov's death. The tales “The Bear in the Voivodship”, “The Dried Vobla”, “The Eagle-Patron” and “The Bogatyr” during the life of the author could not break through the censorship barriers at all.
The censored history of fairy tales testifies to Saltykov's exceptional ideological steadfastness. Of course, some muting of the ideological sharpness of the works was inevitable. However, the writer's desire to overcome censorship obstacles by means of allegorical skill remained constant.
Censorship delays and prohibitions determined the breadth of the underground distribution of fairy tales in Russia and their reproduction in the foreign emigre press. The circle of fairy tales illegally printed or published abroad is limited to eight works that have experienced censorship persecution to varying degrees. This " wise scribbler”,“ Selfless Hare ”,“ Poor Wolf ”,“ Virtues and Vices ”,“ Bear in the Voivodeship ”,“ Deceiver-newspaperman and gullible reader ”,“ Dried roach ”,“ Eagle-philanthropist ”.
In Russia, fairy tales were distributed in small editions in lithographed and hectographed editions, carried out by the Flying Hectography of the People's Party, the All-Student Union, and the Public Benefits hectography. They were usually printed according to lists or uncorrected proof proofs of Otechestvennye Zapiski, in connection with which they contained a large number of errors and deviations from the final text of the tale. In 1883, the first free hectography "Public Benefit" published brochures under the title "Tales for Children fair age. M. E. Saltykov”, which included “The Wise Scribbler”, “The Selfless Hare”, “The Poor Wolf”. This edition during 1883 (before the publication of fairy tales in Otechestvennye Zapiski) was published eight times in different formats (six times with the date of issue and two times without). The publication was distributed by the participants " People's Will”, as evidenced by the seal (“Narodnaya Volya Book Agents”) on a number of surviving copies. One of the publications with a release date, unlike all the others, contains only one fairy tale - "The Wise Piskar".
This was followed by illegal editions of fairy tales seized by Saltykov from the proof proofs of the February issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski for 1884. In the spring and summer of 1884, two illegal editions appeared in Moscow, reproducing the fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship” and “Virtue and Vices” on uncorrected galley proofs. "Domestic Notes". The first of them, printed by the Flying Hectography of the People's Party, had the title "New Tales of Shchedrin." Apparently, it appeared at the beginning of May 1884: under the handwritten text of fairy tales, the signature is “Shchedrin” and the date is “April 29, 1884”. In the same year, two issues of a lithographed edition appeared under the title “(New) fairy tales for children of a fair age. Shchedrin”, carried out by the All-Student Union. In the first issue, "Virtue and Vices" and "A Bear in the Voivodship" were printed, in the second - "Dried Vobla" and "Deceiver-newspaperman and gullible reader." In 1892, by that time, not allowed for printing, appeared as a separate hectographed edition of Dried Vobla note_272, and in 1901 - The Eagle Patron. The last edition was carried out "in favor of the Kyiv fund for assistance to political exiles and prisoners of the Red Cross" note_273.
Of particular interest is the second issue of Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age, lithographed in 1884 in Moscow by the All-Student Union and including the fairy tales The Dried Vobla and The Deceiver-Newsman and the Gullible Reader. This issue, very rare (only four copies are known), attracts attention with its design and preface, entitled "To the Russian Society from the Moscow Central Circle of the All-Student Union." The cover art, by an unknown artist, is a half-open curtain. On its closed part, the title of the collection, the author's surname and imprint are indicated, while the ajar part presents the reader with the behind-the-scenes side of autocratic reality: here is the site where the quarterly delivers the "ill-intentioned" by the scruff of the neck, the editorial office of the "Slop" newspaper, representatives of the emerging bourgeoisie, captured by the writer in images Derunovs and Razuvaevs, a peasant robbed by them, one of Shchedrin's "bastards", scribbling a denunciation, in the very corner - a character from the fairy tale "The Sane Hare", and next to them a policeman in full form and the pig helping him, grabbing the raised part of the curtain, are trying to lower it so that the reader does not see the ugliness of the reality that opens before him. Reflecting the close connection and interweaving of Shchedrin's satire with contemporary reality, the artist at the same time emphasized its revolutionary role and the fear of it by the ruling classes in Russia. The same idea is reinforced by a brief preface, which speaks of the attitude of Russian society to the closure of the Notes of the Fatherland and calls for a fight against the oppressors.
The "Tales" of Saltykov-Shchedrin played a huge role in revolutionary propaganda, and in this respect they stand out among all other works of the satirist. As numerous memoirs of leaders of the revolutionary populist movement testify, the satirist's fabulous miniatures were a constant and effective ideological weapon in their revolutionary practice note_274. The frequent appeals of populist propaganda to the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are predetermined by their social sharpness and the strength of the psychological impact on the reader. Moreover, he had at his disposal mostly forbidden fairy tales, which had a strong impact on the masses from the point of view of instilling hatred for the autocratic-feudal system and its moral and social way of life. Saltykov's "Tales" "had a revolutionary influence," recalled P.R. Rovensky, a member of the populist movement, note_275. And this influence was deep and lasting. Reading the memoirs of the populists written later, we catch many nuances of their relationship to the legacy of Saltykov-Shchedrin and once again become convinced of the enduring significance that his works - and above all "Tales" - played in the revolutionary development of Russian society.
Foreign publications of fairy tales were initially made on the pages of the newspaper Common Cause, which was published in Geneva with the direct participation of N. A. Belogolovy, one of the writer's closest friends. The Wise Piskar, The Selfless Hare, The Poor Wolf, The Virtues and Vices, The Bear in the Voivodship (Toptygin 1st), The Dried Vobla, and The Eagle Patron were printed here. Soon after the newspaper publication, these works were published by M. Elpidin's publishing house in Geneva in the form of collections and separate brochures.
As in the Russian illegal press, the first booklet published in Geneva in 1883 was “Three Tales for Children of a Fair Age. N. Shchedrin", which contained "The Wise Scribbler", "The Selfless Hare" and "The Poor Wolf". Subsequently, this pamphlet was republished by M. Elpidin in 1890 and 1895, and in 1903 it was published in Berlin by G. Steinitz as the 69th edition of the Collection of the Best Russian Works.
In 1886, the publishing house of M. Elpidin published the second collection under the title “New Tales for Children of a Fair Age. N. Shchedrin. It included Virtues and Vices, Bear in the Voivodeship and Dried Vobla. In the 90s. a photomechanical reproduction of this collection appeared twice (in 1893; the third edition was published without a year). In 1903, G. Steinitz published this pamphlet in Berlin as the 72nd edition of the Collection of the Best Russian Works. Simultaneously with the named edition, in 1886, Elpidin's publishing house published the fairy tale "The Eagle-Maecenas" as a separate brochure. This tale in 1891 and 1898. was republished by Elpidin, and in 1904 it was included in the brochure “Three Revolutionary Satires” (“Collection of the Best Russian Works”, issue 77) published in Berlin by G. Steinitz, in Berlin a year earlier I. Rede carried out separate edition fairy tales "Bear in the Voivodeship".
Saltykov managed to write not all of the fairy tales planned for the cycle. According to Saltykov's letters, the memoirs of Belogolovoy and L.F. Panteleev, the titles and partly the content of unrealized fairy tales are known. Saltykov informed Nekrasov about the first of them on May 22, 1869: “I want to write children's story under the title: “The Tale of How One Sexton Wanted to Serve as Bishop,” and dedicate it to Ant (onovich)” (XVIII, book 2, p. 26). On February 8, 1884, he wrote to Mikhailovsky: “It’s terribly insulting: I conceived a fairy tale called “Colorful People” to write (there is already a hint about this in the fairy tale “Dried Vobla”), when suddenly I see that Uspensky is interpreting the same subject! note_276. Well, yes, I’ll take mine not today, but tomorrow ”(XIX, book 2, p. 279). The idea of the tale in 1886 was transformed into the last of the Motley Letters.
On May 13, 1885, Saltykov informed Sobolevsky that he was writing a new fairy tale "Dogs", which he was going to send to Russkiye Vedomosti soon. The tale, obviously, was not written, since no further mention of it is found in Saltykov's letters (XX, 181, 182).
As Belogolovy testifies, in the middle of 1885, simultaneously with Bogatyr, Saltykov planned to write two more tales - The Forgotten Balalaika and The Sun and Pigs, "but both of these tales had not yet been sufficiently thought out by him" note_277. In the first of them, as the memoirist points out, Saltykov wanted to present the ideologist of the late Slavophilism, I. S. Aksakov. In the second, the satirist, apparently, intended to develop the idea of that dramatic scene, which, under the title "The Triumphant Pig, or the Conversation of the Pig with the Truth," was included in the sixth chapter of the essays "Abroad." Recall that the pig begins its attack on the Truth by denying the existence of the sun in the sky, declaring: "But in my opinion, all these suns are one false doctrine." It is well known that the reactionaries usually called the ideas of democracy and socialism “false doctrine”. Apparently, Saltykov intended to dedicate the fairy tale "The Sun and the Pigs" to the defense of precisely these ideas.
The sixth of the fairy tales unrealized by the satirist is on the topic of an exiled revolutionary who, despite all the persecution, remains adamant in his convictions. From Saltykov's letters it is known that in 1875-1876. he was going to write the story "Lousy" - about the tragic fate and courage of a revolutionary, the prototype of which should have been "Chernyshevsky or Petrashevsky". Cycle " cultured people”, for which the story was designed, remained unfinished. Ten years later, Saltykov wanted to dedicate a fairy tale to the same topic and spoke of it to Panteleev as “almost finished”: “I bring out a person who lives in big city takes a conscious and active part in the course of public life, she influences him and suddenly, by a wave of magic, she finds herself among the Siberian deserts. At first, she lives by the continuation of those interests that only yesterday agitated her, she feels as if in the midst of struggling passions; but gradually the images begin to recede into the distance; a kind of fog descends, the outlines of the past barely emerge, finally everything disappears, dead silence reigns. Only occasionally, on an impenetrable night, is the ringing of the bell of a passing troika heard, and the words reach him: “Are you still not corrected?” note_278. This idea was reflected in the fairy tales "The Fool" and "The Adventure with Kramolnikov".
The table below contains information about the appearance of fairy tales in the Russian legal, illegal and émigré press note_279.
1. The story of how one man fed two generals / OZ. 1869. No. 2
2. Lost conscience/OZ. 1869. No. 2
3. Wild landowner / OZ. 1869. No. 3
4. Toy business people / OZ. 1880.№1
5. Wise scribbler/OZ. 1884. No. 1 / "Tales for children of a fair age" (1883) / OD. 1883 September
6. Selfless hare / OZ. 1884. No. 1 / "Tales for children of a fair age" (1883) / OD. 1883 September
8. Karas-idealist / Sat. "XXV years". (St. Petersburg, 1884) / "Tales for children of a fair age" (1883) / OD. 1883 September
9. Virtues and vices / Sat. "XXV years". (St. Petersburg, 1884) / "New Tales of Shchedrin" (1884) / OD. 1884 November
10. Deceiver-newspaperman and gullible reader / Sat. "XXV years". (St. Petersburg, 1884) / "(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. Shchedrin" (M., 1884. Issue 2) / OD. 1884, November
26. Hyena/Sat. "23 Tales" (St. Petersburg, 1886)
28. Raven petitioner / Sat. "In memory of V.M. Garshin" (St. Petersburg, 1889)
32. Dried vobla/Full. coll. op. in 20 volumes (M., 1937. Vol. 16) / "(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. Shchedrin" / "(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. N. Shchedrin" (Geneve. 1886)
Censorship persecution did not allow the satirist to give a complete set of his tales. In September 1886, the first edition of the collection of fairy tales appeared - "23 Tales", and in October 1887 - the second, supplemented by "A Christmas Tale". These collections did not include eight fairy tales. Saltykov did not include three fairy tales of 1869 (“The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, “The Conscience Lost”, “The Wild Landowner”) because they had already been published three times and the last time in a book that had not yet been sold out note_280. The collection also did not include five fairy tales that did not receive censorship permission (“Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Eagle-Maecenas”, “Dried Vobla”, “Crow Petitioner”, “Bogatyr”).
The publication of fairy tales in cheap pamphlets intended for mass distribution among the people, conceived by Saltykov in 1887, did not take place either. The book "23 Tales" was allowed by censorship in two editions, and the publication of the same fairy tales, but in separate brochures, was banned. At first glance, the actions of the censorship authorities seem inconsistent, but close acquaintance with the surviving record keeping convinces of the opposite. The journal of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee dated April 15, 1887 reports that “Mr. Saltykov’s intention is to publish some of his fairy tales in separate pamphlets that cost no more than three kopecks, and therefore, for common people more than strange. What Mr. Saltykov calls fairy tales does not at all correspond to its name; his tales are the same satire, and caustic, tendentious satire, more or less directed against our social and political structure. They ridicule not only vices, but also established authorities, and the upper classes, and established national habits. These tales, appearing from time to time in periodicals, constantly arouse doubts in the press-monitoring authorities as to whether they should not be banned. And Mr. Saltykov wants to propagate such and such works among the simple, uneducated population. This is not the kind of food that a simple people needs, whose morality God knows how stable without that” note_281. The conclusion of the censorship committee testifies that the authorities were well aware of the revolutionary influence of Shchedrin's works, including fairy tales, on the broad masses of Russian society and tried by all means to weaken this influence and prevent the distribution of fairy tales in large print runs of cheap publications.
IN recent months life, Saltykov was preparing for publication a collection of his works, in which he intended to give full cycle fairy tales. However, this time, in volume VIII of the Collected Works, published in 1889, after the death of the author, only twenty-eight works of the fairy-tale cycle were placed - the Tale of That ..., The Conscience Lost and The Wild Landowner were added, but Of the fairy tales that had not previously been censored, only The Raven Petitioner got here, which by this time still managed to be printed in the collection “In Memory of Garshin”. The tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle-Patron” and “The Dried Vobla”, which were distributed in Russian and foreign underground publications, were legally published in Russia only in 1906, in the fifth edition of the Complete Works of Saltykov, published by A.F. Marx (appendix to "Niva"). The fairy tale "Bogatyr" was lost in the writer's archive and was first published only in 1922, and added to the collection of fairy tales in 1927 note_282. Thus, the fairy tale cycle, created in 1869-1886, became available to the reader in its entirety only forty years after its completion.
Literature about Saltykov-Shchedrin, fascinating wide circle issues related to his social, artistic, literary-critical and journalistic practice is extensive. From the moment the "Provincial Essays" appeared, criticism has closely followed the development of the satirist's work. True, the value of lifetime literature about him is negligible. The only exceptions are the articles by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov about " provincial essays”, which have enduring scientific significance, and partly articles by N.K. Mikhailovsky about the works created by the writer in the 70s and 80s.
Liberal populist criticism, which dominated during the heyday of the literary activity of the writer, did not put forward such representatives who would be able to give a deep and correct interpretation of the revolutionary democratic satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Critical Thought 1870-80s was aware of the futility of her attempts to penetrate the secrets of Shchedrin's satire, to explain its true meaning and role in social and social development. One of its prominent representatives A. M. Skabichevsky wrote: “Such powerful writers as Shchedrin require critics equal to them in size, and, to the greatest regret, it is unlikely that Shchedrin will receive such a correct and deep assessment during his lifetime. deserves. In this respect, he shares the same fate with Gogol, who still remains unexamined and unappreciated comprehensively. And still - for such talents Belinskys and Dobrolyubovs are required ”note_283.
Current Russian criticism has touched slightly on fairy tales, but to appreciate them, to reveal their ideological and artistic aspects I could not. True, these satirical miniatures, appearing at the time of the most difficult reaction of the 80s, immediately took their place in the revolutionary-democratic and literary-social movement, they were closely followed by all progressive Russia, reading them in legal newspapers and magazines, getting acquainted with them in lists, hectographed editions and thin Elpidin pamphlets with forbidden works of the cycle. The role of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin in the spiritual life of the then society consisted primarily in the fact that they brought up hatred for autocracy and serfdom, awakened the self-consciousness of the people, affirmed their faith in a brighter future. In order to understand the peculiarities of the existence of Shchedrin's fairy tales in Russian society of that time, it is necessary to consider the most significant moments of this process associated with the speeches of modern Saltykov (lifetime) criticism - criticism of the bourgeois-liberal and populist.
The perception of Shchedrin's tales by current Russian criticism is largely due to the nature of their publication: they were printed as separate satirical miniatures, not yet combined for the reader and critics. common thought(this will become clear later), and for the writer himself, they have not yet formed into a single fairy-tale cycle, the breaking of which was carried out repeatedly in the process of its creation. Therefore, criticism took a wait-and-see attitude, considering the tales appearing in different publications as separate speeches by the satirist, carried out outside the usual cycles for Saltykov. Therefore, during the period of the most intensive work on fairy tales in the Russian press, the Poshekhon stories, Motley Letters and Little Things in Life, published at the same time, were considered more often and more consistently than fairy tales that appeared from time to time. The breakdown associated with censorship circumstances and the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski led to the fact that one of the most outstanding and by nature final cycle in the work of the satirist received the most insignificant reflection in criticism. The rare reviews that appeared in various magazines and newspapers were most often of an overview and informational nature and the ideological and aesthetic content of fairy tales, their role in social and revolutionary reality was almost never touched upon.
The process of perception of fairy tales by Russian critics begins in 1869, when the first fairy tales appeared. However, criticism was not immediately able to discern their social meaning and see in the fairy tales “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, “The Conscience Lost” and “The Wild Landowner” the beginning of a new satirical cycle in the writer's work. Focusing on the common title (“For Children”), critics for the most part considered the first fairy tales as works really intended for children, works full of humor and belonging to a writer whose talent “has not yet faded and, perhaps, has not weakened, he still no stretch is visible, which is so noticeable in our other accusers or laughers ”note_284. The reckoning of Saltykov to the "accusers" and "laughers" is an attempt to obscure the true meaning of the great social and political satire contained in these works. True, with the appearance in the press of the entire cycle, criticism realized that the purpose of the first fairy tales “for children” was only a witty cover that allowed Saltykov to touch upon the most serious social and social problems in these works. public problems. “It goes without saying,” a critic of Russian Thought wrote in 1887, “that these fairy tales are not written for children at all, and some of them are far too “too tough” for very many adults” note_285. However, it is still impossible to judge the perception of fairy tales by Russian society on the basis of responses to their first samples, because the main works of the cycle are ahead and opinion about them will be formed by criticism of the second half of the 80s. However, "it will be formed" - it is said, perhaps, not quite accurately, because there were no serious works about fairy tales in the then Russian criticism, not a single great article about them was not.
The history of creation The first three tales (“The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, “The Conscience Lost” and “The Wild Landowner”) were written by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin back in 1886. By 1886 their number had increased to thirty-two. Some plans (at least six fairy tales) remained unrealized.
Genre originality In terms of genre, the tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are similar to Russian folk tales. They are allegorical, animal characters act in them, traditional fairy-tale techniques are used: beginnings, proverbs and sayings, permanent epithets, triple repetitions. At the same time, Saltykov-Shchedrin significantly expands the circle fairy tale characters and also “individualizes them. In addition, morality plays an important role in the tale of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin - in this it is close to the fable genre. The story of how one man fed two generals
Allegory - allegory Beginning - A rhythmically organized joke that precedes the beginning in fairy tales. “They lived - they were ...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state ...”). Proverbs and sayings - (“grandmother said in two”, “without giving a word - be strong, but having given it - hold on”). Epithet - In poetics: figurative, artistic definition. Permanent e. (in folk literature, for example, “golden heart”, “white body”).
The main themes The tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are united not only by the genre, but also by common themes. 1) The theme of power (“The Wild Landowner”, “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle-Maecenas”, etc.) 2) The theme of the intelligentsia (“The Wise Piskar”, “The Selfless Hare”, etc.) 3) The theme of the people (“The Tale about how one man fed two generals”, “Fool”, etc.) 4) The theme of universal vices (“Christ's night”) Eagle-philanthropist
Problems Fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin reflect the “special pathological state” in which Russian society was in the 80s XIX years century. However, they touch upon not only social problems (the relationship between the people and the ruling circles, the phenomenon of Russian liberalism, the reform of education), but also universal ones (good and evil, freedom and duty, truth and falsehood, cowardice and heroism). wise scribbler
Artistic features The most important artistic features of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are irony, hyperbole and grotesque. An important role in fairy tales is also played by the reception of antithesis and philosophical reasoning (for example, the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” begins with the preface: “Large and serious atrocities are often called brilliant; History is not led astray, but they do not receive praise from contemporaries either. Bear in the province
Irony is a subtle, hidden mockery (for example, in the fairy tale “The Wise Scribbler”: “What sweetness is it for a pike to swallow an ailing, dying scribbler, and besides, a wise one?”) Hyperbole is an exaggeration (for example, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”: “Thinks what kind of cows will he breed, that neither skin nor meat, but all one milk, all milk! so contrived that he even began to cook soup in a handful") Antithesis - opposition, opposite (many of them are built on the relationship of antagonist heroes: a man - a general, a hare - a wolf, a crucian - a pike)
In the 19th century, many writers turned to the literary fairy tale genre: L.N. Tolstoy, V.M. Prishvin, V.G. Korolenko, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak. main feature fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin lies in the fact that folk genre they are used to create an "Aesopian" narrative about the life of Russian society in the 1880s. Hence their main themes (power, intelligentsia, people) and problems (the relationship between the people and the ruling circles, the phenomenon of Russian liberalism, the reform of education). Borrowing from Russian folk tales images (especially animals) and techniques (beginnings, proverbs and sayings, constant epithets, triple repetitions), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin develops the satirical content inherent in them. At the same time, irony, hyperbole, grotesque, and other artistic techniques serve the writer to denounce not only social, but also universal human vices. That is why the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin have been popular with the Russian reader for many decades.
Analysis of the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner"
In satire, reality as a kind of imperfection is opposed to the ideal as the highest reality.(F. Schiller) Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of the most original writers of Russian literature. His talent perfectly coped with the tasks that the era set before him. Tales chronologically complete the satirical work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Their problem was
social conditions after reform Russia. The task of the writer can be defined as educational and agitational, so the style of fairy tales is simple and accessible to the general public. My favorite fairy tale is "The Wild Landowner". The plot of the tale is based on a grotesque situation, behind which real social and serf relations are easily guessed. As a result, reality is shown under the guise of a fairy tale. Grotesque-hyperbolic images are metaphors for real socio-psychological types of the then Russia. The stupid landowner complains to God: "... there are too many peasants divorced in our kingdom!", not realizing that he completely depends on him. And without receiving help from God, the landowner himself began to squeeze them out of the world. “He reduced them so that there was nowhere to stick his nose out ...” Then the peasants prayed to the Lord God and disappeared from the landowner's possessions. A peculiar combination of fiction and reality is one of the features of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales. In the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" there are real names of newspapers ("News"), people (actor Sadovsky), references to topical social and political topics. In the depiction of animals, the author follows the folklore tradition: animals speak and act on a par with humans. For example, the bear enters into a conversation with the landowner and even gives him advice. In this case, the animals also act in their original role: the bear eats the peasant, the peasant catches fish. The tale "The Wild Landowner" refers to a satire on government steeps and the ruling class, as well as to socially -
everyday fairy tales. The main characters of such fairy tales are stupid generals, landowners who know nothing and cannot do anything. In the folk tale, the man is always smarter, stronger, braver, fooling
the mighty of the world this, leaves the oppressors in the cold. Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes the paradox of mixing valuable, vital
necessary qualities peasant and humility, longevity, sometimes bordering on dementia. This is a typical antithesis for the author, and the qualities on both sides are exaggerated. Using traditional fairy tales in the language
folklore elements(“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there once lived ...”), the author does not borrow the plot. The writer paid much attention to such means of artistic expression as epithet (“crumbly body”, “bad life”), metaphor (“fireball” - the sun), comparison (“like a black cloud, swept ... peasant trousers”). Saltykov-Shchedrin -
real master words, which uses the richness and imagery of the language to achieve the goal: to awaken the thought and feelings of a submissive Russian person. The satirist's tales are evidence of his great love for Russia and its people.
Lord Golovlev Roman FAMILY COURT Arina Petrovna, a wealthy landowner, is informed that a house in Moscow has been sold at auction for the debts of her son Stepan, nicknamed Styopka the Stupid in the family, for only eight thousand rubles, although she herself bought it two years ago for twelve thousand. “Arina Petrovna is a woman of about sixty, but still vigorous and accustomed to living with all her will. She holds herself menacingly; single-handedly and uncontrollably manages the vast Golovlev estate, lives in solitude, prudently, almost sparingly, does not make friends with neighbors, is kind to local authorities, and demands from children that they be in such obedience to her that with every act they ask themselves: something will your mother say about it? In general, she has an independent, inflexible and somewhat obstinate character ... Her husband is a frivolous and drunk person (Arina Petrovna readily says about herself that she is neither a widow nor a husband's wife); children partly serve in St. Petersburg, partly took after their father and, as "hateful", are not allowed to any family affairs. “The head of the family, Vladimir Mikhailovich Golovlev, was known from a young age for his careless and mischievous character, and for Arina Petrovna, who was always distinguished by seriousness and efficiency, he never imagined anything pretty ... The husband called his wife “witch” and “devil”, the wife called her husband -"
windmill"and" stringless balalaika ". Being in such a relationship, they enjoyed a life together for more than forty years, and it never occurred to either of them that such a life contained something unnatural ... A little happier was Arina Petrovna in children. She had too independent, so to speak, a bachelor nature, so that she could see in children anything but an extra burden ... There were four children: three sons and a daughter. About the eldest son and daughter, she she didn’t even like to talk, she was more or less indifferent to her youngest son, and only the middle one, Por-fish, didn’t really love, but seemed to be afraid. childhood, he played in the house the role of either a pariah or a jester.Unfortunately, he was a gifted fellow, who too readily and quickly perceived the impressions that she produced
environment ... The constant belittling ... was not in vain. As a result, it did not result in anger, not protest, but formed a slavish character, accommodating to buffoonery, not knowing a sense of proportion and devoid of any forethought. Stepan Golovlev graduated from the gymnasium and entered the university, where "thanks to his pliability for every thing, he soon became the favorite of rich students." After graduating from the university, “they began wandering around the departments and offices; he had no patronage, no desire to break the road by personal labor. So four years pass. The mother orders her son to come to Moscow, where he is attached to the court. Three years later, he is fired. “Then Arina Petrovna decided on an extreme measure: she “thrown away a piece to her son,” which, however, at the same time was supposed to portray a “parental blessing.” This piece consisted of a house in Moscow ... which promised to give a thousand rubles in silver income ... ”However, after five years he“ burns out completely ”, enters the militia. By the time he returns to Moscow, his house has already been sold, he has a hundred rubles in his pocket, which he loses at cards. Stepan goes to the houses of his mother's wealthy peasants who lived in Moscow: from whom he will dine, from whom he will borrow money. But at last the moment came when he, so to speak, found himself face to face with a blank wall. He was already under forty, and he was forced to admit that a further wandering existence was beyond his strength. There was only one way - to Golovlevo. About her daughter, Anna Vladimirovna, the mother "also did not like to talk." The fact is that she “had views” of Annushka, and not only did she not justify her hopes, but instead she made a scandal for the whole county by running away from Golovlev and marrying a cornet. Daughters Arina Petrovna also “thrown away a piece” - she separated her capital of five thousand and a devastated village. A year later, the cornet fled, leaving his wife with two twin daughters: Anninka and Lyubinka, and three months later Anna Vladimirovna herself died, so Arina Petrovna was forced to shelter her granddaughters. The brothers Porfiry and Pavel Golovlev served in St. Petersburg: the first - before the civilian part, the second - in the military. Porfiry was married, Pavel was single. “Porfiry Vladimirych was known in the family under three names: Judas, a blood drinker, and an outspoken boy ... From infancy, he loved to caress his dear friend, mother ... and sometimes a little puff.” His fawning aroused suspicion even among Arina Petrovna. “He will look - well, as if he is casting a noose,” she sometimes reasoned with herself. “So it pours poison, and it beckons!” But even seeing Porfisha's insincerity, she still favored him. The youngest son of the Golovlevs, Pavel, is “the complete personification of a person deprived of any actions ... an apathetic, mysteriously gloomy personality ... He often snapped at his mother and at the same time was afraid of her like fire.” Arina Petrovna learns that the “hateful,” that is, Styopka the booby, “will again sit on her neck.” At that time he was already on his way to Golovlevo. “One thought fills his entire being to the brim: another three to four hours - and there is nowhere to go further. He recalls his old Golovlev life, and it seems to him that the doors of a damp basement are dissolving before him... From now on he will be alone with the evil old woman... This old woman will seize him... His predictions were justified. He was placed in a special room of the wing, which housed the office. They brought him linen... and papa's old robe... The doors of the crypt opened, let him in and slammed shut... He was fed extremely badly. From morning to evening he was starving and only thought about how to eat. Arina Petrovna, meanwhile, decided to convene a family council “to solve the dunce’s fate”, in order to shift the responsibility for
own solutions on their sons. Porfiry and Pavel must immediately arrive in Golovlevo. Arina Petrovna plays before Judaska and Pavel her favorite role of “respectable and dejected mother”. The brothers visit their sick father, whose position gives Judas a reason to seduce her mother: “Really, you even wonder how you have the strength to endure these trials!” Arina Petrovna is satisfied. She is angry with Pavel, as usual. The family council begins. Arina Petrovna paints the sacrifices she made for the sake of the unlucky Stepan, complains about how hard it was for her while she was saving her fortune - and now, she has collected four thousand souls. Let the brothers decide what to do with the “stupid”. Porfiry, of course, refuses to judge his brother - how can he, because this is the right of mother! Arina Petrovna intends to allocate a village to Stepan - “and let him live for himself ... to feed the peasants!”. Yudushka, fawning and Julia, persuades her mother not to give anything to Stepan, but to leave him to live in Golovlev, and even make him sign a paper refusing to share in the inheritance. This is exactly what Arina Petrovna expected from him. “As long as papa and I are alive - well, he will live in Golovlev, he will not die of hunger,” she says, “and then how?” Judas assures her that he will not leave his brother, and even asks her permission to immediately give him two pounds of tobacco. Arina Petrovna silently looks at Yudushka: “Is he really such a blood drinker that he will drive his own brother out into the street?” However, he agrees to do as Judas wants. Both brothers return to Petersburg. Stepan got used to his position. Summer is coming to an end, and in Golovlev “pickles, jams, cooking for the future” are taking place, “women’s natural duty: dried mushrooms, berries, eggs, vegetables, etc.” are brought in carts from the villages. Stepan is fussing, taking part in this “procedure”. Stepan signs the papers sent by his mother without any objections. He starts drinking again and one night runs away from Golovlev. Arina Petrovna, who had completely forgotten about the existence of her son, begins to find out where he got the vodka from, and for the first time enters Stepan's room. “The room was dirty, black, slushy, so that even she, who did not know and did not recognize any requirements for comfort, became embarrassed.” Stepan is found and brought to Golovlevo. Arina Petrovna shows some concern for him, but Stepan does not react to anything. “It seemed that he was completely plunged into a dawnless mist, in which there is no place not only for reality, but also for fantasy. His brain was producing something, but this something had nothing to do with the present or the future. It was as if a black cloud enveloped him from head to toe...” Soon Stepan dies. Arina Petrovna reports this in a letter to Judas, describes “the grief of her
maternal heart and a rich funeral. RELATEDLY Ten years have passed. Pavel Vladimirovich is dying, but he does not believe in it and does not want to sign a document so that his estate passes to his nieces - Anninka and Lubinka. This means that it will go to Judas. Meanwhile, Arina Petrovna “from a quarrelsome owner of Golovlev’s estates became a modest accustomer in the house
younger son... having no voice in economic orders.” “The first blow to Arina Petrovna's authority was dealt” by the approaching abolition of serfdom. She was confused, and at that time her husband died. “Porfiry Vladimirych ... with amazing sensitivity guessed the confusion that had taken possession of her thoughts.” As a result, Arina Petrovna divides the estate, leaving only capital with her. At the same time, Porfiry Vladimirych was allocated
the best part, and Pavel Vladimirych - worse. Arina Petrovna, as if forgetting that Golovlevo is no longer hers, spends her money on this estate. And so, when “Arina Petrovna’s capital has diminished to such an extent that it has become almost impossible to exist independently on interest from it,” Yudushka sends her “a whole bale of accounting forms” - a guide for compiling annual reports. Here everything is taken into account to the last raspberry bush and a gift “to boy N for good manners”. Arina Petrovna is struck by the stinginess of Judas. “After a long polemical correspondence,” she moved to the Dubrovino estate to her son Pavel, and soon Yudushka retired and settled in Golovlev. Pavel Vladimirych received Arina Petrovna “quite tolerably”, undertook to feed her and her orphaned nieces, but on the condition that she would not interfere in the management of the estate. In Pavel's house, everything is run by the housekeeper Julitta, "a malicious woman caught in secret correspondence with the blood-drinking Porfishka, and papa's former valet Kiryushka." Both steal mercilessly. But Pavel does not tolerate any comments from his mother. On top of that, he drinks. He is gnawed by hatred for all people, and especially for Judas. Finally, he falls mortally ill. Arina Petrovna tries to persuade Pavel to give her and her nieces the estate, or at least money, but he does not believe in imminent death and refuses. Judas, sensing a close prey, comes to Dubrovino with his sons - Petenka and Volodenka. Knowing that Paul hates and fears him, Judas nevertheless goes to him. The sick man drives him away, scolds him, accuses him of letting his mother go around the world, but there is nothing to get Judas through. After all, the main thing for him is that Paul did not make any order about the inheritance. So he can only wait for his death - and Dubrovino will be his. Meanwhile, Arina Petrovna started a conversation with the sons of Judas "not without the purpose of finding out something." Petya and Volodya complain to her about their father: he eavesdrops at the door, stingy and petty, incredibly boring with him. And they came to Dubrovino because Julitta reported
imminent death Paul. The only thing that Judas is afraid of is the curse of his mother. His sons are convinced that if their father gets the Dubrovino estate, he will not give anything to anyone, and he will deprive their own sons of their inheritance. Pavel is dead. Arina Petrovna decides to leave for Pogorelka, “the estate of orphans”. “For Judas, she did not feel either hatred or disposition: she simply became disgusted to have business with him.” Yudushka shows that he is offended by this decision of his mother, but he himself ordered Julitta to make sure that Arina Petrovna did not take anything superfluous with her. And so Arina Petrovna and her granddaughters get into the carriage (this is Arina Petrovna's own carriage, she has proof of this), and Yudushka cannot take her eyes off him. Finally he says to his mother: “So tarantasik, mother, how is it? Will you deliver it yourself or will you send for it?” Mother screams that this is her tarantass. “Have mercy, mother! I’m not complaining ... even if the tarantass was Dubrovinsky ... So you, my dear, don’t forget us ... simply ... without fantasies ... in a kindred way!” FAMILY RESULTS Arina Petrovna is trying to somehow improve things in the impoverished Pogorelka, but she is unwell, she can’t fix anything. Anninka and Lyubinka announce to their grandmother that they cannot and do not want to stay in Pogorelka any longer. Arina Petrovna worries about the future of her granddaughters, but lets them go. With the departure of the girls, the Pogorelkovsky house is plunging into “some kind of hopeless silence.” Arina Petrovna, for the sake of economy, dismisses almost all the servants. “The former feverish activity suddenly gave way to drowsy idleness, and idleness gradually corrupted the will ... From a strong and restrained woman ... a ruin turned out for which neither past nor future existed ...” She is afraid of everything: thieves, ghosts, devils... She eats poorly and meagerly, the house is damp and dirty... Increasingly, memories of Golovlev, of the abundance there, come to Arina Petrovna. Her hatred for Judas gradually disappears, “old grievances were somehow forgotten by themselves.” She begins to send "messengers" to Judas with a request to give her either cucumbers, or a turkey, or something else to eat. “Yudushka frowned, but did not dare to openly express displeasure ... He was most afraid that his mother would curse him.” “Tired of a long widowhood,” Judas takes as a housekeeper “a maiden from the clergy,” Yevprak-sei, “who was industrious, unresponsive, and made almost no demands.” Meanwhile, Arina Petrovna often moved to Golovlevo, and then moved here altogether. Five years have passed. Judas “has grown considerably older, has faded and faded, but is swindling, lying and talking even more than before, because now he has a good friend mother almost always at hand, who, for the sake of a sweet old woman’s piece, has become an obligatory listener to his idle talk ... If he was a hypocrite , then a hypocrite of a purely Russian kind, that is, simply a person deprived of any moral measure and not knowing any other truth, except for the one that appears in the alphabetical copybooks. He was ignorant without borders, a quarrel, a liar, an idle talker, and to top it all, he was afraid of the devil, "Having settled in Golovlev," he immediately felt free, because nowhere, in any other sphere, his inclinations could not find such scope for themselves, like here... No one's judgment disturbed, no one's immodest glance disturbed - therefore, there was no reason to control himself either ... Long ago, this complete freedom from any moral restrictions attracted him to itself ... ". Yudushka spends his days counting and counting, taking into account every penny, every thing in twenty books, writing complaints to the justice of the peace ... All contact with the outside world is broken, he does not receive books, newspapers, or even letters. One of his sons - Volodenka - committed suicide, with another - Petenka - he writes only when he sends him money. Arina Petrovna receives a letter from her granddaughters. They became actresses and will never return to Pogorelovka. Judas spat at this news and thought, “some sinister plan flickers in his head.” Son Peter arrives from the regiment. “... The mysterious arrival of Petenka does not particularly excite” Judas, “because, no matter what happens, Judas is already ready for everything in advance. He knows that nothing will take him by surprise and nothing will force him to make any deviation from that network of empty and thoroughly rotten aphorisms in which he has wrapped himself from head to toe. Peter lost government money, asks for a loan from his grandmother, but she does not have her own money, and she cannot spend the capital of her granddaughters. Judas refuses his son flatly, as usual, hiding behind hypocritical excuses and teachings. Peter accuses his father of killing his brother Volodya - it was he who killed him, leaving him penniless when he married allegedly against his wishes. Arina Petrovna silently listens to this conversation. “She by no means remained an indifferent spectator of this family scene. On the contrary, at first glance one could suspect that something unusual was happening to her, and that perhaps the moment had come when the results of her
own life ". She curses Judas. NIECE “Yudushka still didn’t give Petenka money, although, like a good father, he ordered at the moment of departure to put chickens, and veal, and a pie in his wagon ... he himself went out onto the porch to see his son off, inquired if he was able to sit whether he wrapped his legs well ... Contrary to Petenka's expectations, Porfiry Vladimirych endured his mother's curse quite calmly and did not deviate a single hair from those decisions that, so to speak, were always ready in his head ... Arina Petrovna's trick was like this suddenly, that Judas did not even think of pretending to be frightened. The next day after the departure of her grandson, Arina Petrovna leaves for Pogorelka and no longer returns to Golovlevo, despite the hypocritical persuasion of Judas. One day, she discovers that she cannot get out of bed. Yudushka immediately arrived and began to order, found out where the papers were. Arina Petrovna dies, Yudushka takes care of the funeral with pleasure and immediately starts studying the papers. As a result, he declares himself the sole heir to the property left after his mother. With that, he leaves for his home in Golovlevo, taking his mother's tarantass and two cows. A letter arrives from Peter: he says that he is going into exile, and asks if his father will send him the content. Judas, of course, refuses him. But it is not known whether Judas' letter reached his son - a notification arrives that Peter, before reaching the place of exile, fell ill and died. “Judas was left alone, but still, in the heat of the moment, he still did not understand that with this new loss he had already finally been let into space, face to face with his own idle talk.” Anninka arrives - “a tall and stately woman with a beautiful ruddy face, with high, well-developed breasts, with bulging gray eyes and with an excellent ashy braid ... with sharp, even cheeky manners ... ". Judas cannot take his lustful gaze away from his niece, he climbs in to kiss supposedly in a related way. Anninka knows everything about the fate of Peter - it turns out that he sent a letter to him and his sister after the trial, they collected six hundred rubles and sent it to him. Judas jumps up: how did he not receive this money after Petenka's death?! Anninka goes to her grandmother's grave, then to Pogorelka, where she learns that Yudushka even took the icons from there. She says goodbye to the village and to her grandmother's grave forever. Yudushka wants Anninka to stay in Golovlyovo, but, speaking to her, he looks at her with such "oily eyes" that she becomes "embarrassed." She decides to leave under the pretext that she is “bored” in Golovlev. Anninka is dissatisfied with her life. “As a girl not stupid, she perfectly understood that between those vague dreams of labor bread, which served as her starting point in order to leave Pogorelka forever, and the position of a provincial actress in which she found herself, there was a whole abyss. Instead of
quiet life labor she found a stormy existence, filled with endless revels, arrogant cynicism and disorderly, leading to nothing fuss. Arriving in Golovlevo, she remembered her former, pure life, and she became "unbearably disgusting." But her dreams of her home "were immediately to be shattered when confronted with the reality that we encountered in Golovlev." We must leave. She will try to get a job on the Moscow stage. Yudushka does everything to keep her in Golovlyovo, procrastinating and endlessly persuading Anninka to the point of exhaustion. Already sitting in the wagon, when Judas asked if she would come again, Anninka answered him: “No, uncle, I won’t come! Scary with you!” ILLEGAL FAMILY JOYS One day, shortly before the catastrophe with Petenka, Arina Petrovna, a guest in Golovlev, notices that Evprakseyushka is pregnant. It turned out that Porfiry Vladimirych had already been reported, but he did not say anything to this, “but only folded his hands with his palms inward, whispered with his lips and looked at the image ...”. The mother makes fun of her prayerful son, recalls a lot of cases of pregnancies and births, eagerly prepares for the upcoming birth, consults with her old maid Julitta, who in her youth, too, according to rumors, gave birth to a child from Porfiry Vladimirych. But then "a catastrophe happened to Petenka, and Arina Petrovna's death soon followed it." Iudushka's hopes that thanks to Arina Petrovna's experience and Julitta's dexterity... "the 'trouble' will pass without publicity" collapsed. He is afraid that he will be accused of adultery - but he did not take any measures, "he did not even have time to lie." Childbirth begins, Julitta informs Judas about this. “... I don’t know any of your affairs,” he declares. “I know that there is a sick woman in the house, but what she is sick with and why she is sick - I have no curiosity to find out about this, I confess!” He refuses to look at his son, and to the visiting priest he says about Evpraksey: “She is a diligent, faithful servant, but as for the mind, don’t ask! That is why they fall ... into pre-lu-bo-de-yanie! Julitta, at the direction of Judas, takes the baby to Moscow, to an orphanage, while the young mother rushes about in the heat and delirium. Vyvochnyy “Yudushka's agony began with the fact that the resource of idle talk, which he had so willingly abused until now, began to visibly shrink. Everything around was empty: some died, others left. On top of everything else, “some kind of corruption” happened to Evprakseyushka - “she suddenly understood something, and the immediate result of the awakened ability of understanding was a sudden, still unconscious, but evil and invincible disgust.” She “rebelled”: she boldly objects to Judas, does not let him near her, does not spend the night at home, stops courting the master, harasses him with nit-picking and scolding for any reason, threatens to leave for Moscow to look for her son or to her parents. "IN
a short time Porfiry Vladimirych has gone wild.” He sits in his office all day long. “As much as he was captious and annoying before, he has now become timid and gloomy submissive.” Only in the office, “one on one with himself, did he feel like a complete master, having the opportunity to idly think to his heart's content. Just as both his brothers died of drunkenness, so he also suffered from the same disease. Only it was a binge of a different kind - a binge of idle thought ... From morning to evening he languished over
fantastic job: built all sorts of unrealizable assumptions, took into account himself, talked with imaginary interlocutors and created entire scenes in which the first person who accidentally came to mind was the protagonist ... He was always petty and inclined to slander ... bothered, tormented, tyrannized ... now these properties were transferred to an abstract, fantastic ground ... where he could freely entangle
the whole world network of slander, harassment and resentment. He loved to mentally torture, ruin, deprive, suck blood. Yudushka recalls his collisions and quarrels that happened in his youth, and imagines them in such a way that he would certainly emerge victorious. He mentally takes revenge on everyone he has ever met, takes revenge on the living, takes revenge on the dead. “Fantasizing in this way, he imperceptibly reached the point of intoxication ... His existence became so full ... that he had nothing left to desire. The whole world was at his feet... Porfiry Vladimirych was happy.” In this semi-delusion, Yudushka continues to calculate the losses inflicted on him by his mother, as if lending rye to a peasant at unimaginable interest rates, and then, armed with accounts, he counts, counts, counts ... CALCULATION It is December. Everything is covered in snow. Yudushka senselessly wanders around the study, goes to the window and suddenly sees: a wagon drives up to the estate, a young woman hurriedly jumps out of it. It was Anninka who returned. Only she has changed so much that it is almost impossible to recognize - “this is some kind of weak, frail creature with a hollow chest, sunken cheeks, with an unhealthy blush, with sluggish body movements, a stooped creature, almost hunched over.” Her sister Lyubinka poisoned herself a month ago, and she is seriously ill. Anninka asks her uncle's permission to live in Golovlev. He doesn't mind. Having left Golovlev the last time, Anninka went “straight to Moscow and began to work to get her and her sister accepted on the official stage ... But everywhere she was received in a strange way.” As soon as someone found out that they were both provincial actresses, they were immediately refused. In addition, real makings for success on
metropolitan scene sisters did not. I had to return to the province. Anninka goes to the city, where she lives on the payroll of the dishonest zemstvo leader Lyubinka, the sisters quarrel. The merchant Kukishev, an admirer of Anninka, having not achieved his goal, decides to “curb the obstinate upstart”. As a result, Anninka is deprived of roles, her last money is running out, and then her sister appears, persuading her to give in to a rich admirer. Anninka surrenders. The whole winter passes as if in a drunken stupor. The patrons of the sisters steal away, one of them shoots himself, Anninka and Lyubinka are arrested, having taken away all their property. After the trial, the impoverished, desperate sisters go hand in hand. Lyubinka suggests that her sister commit suicide and drinks poison. Frightened by death, Anninka remained alive. In Golovlev, Anninka tries not to remember the past, but it haunts her relentlessly.
scary life brought her to Golovlevo, but “this is death itself, vicious, hollow; it is death, always waiting for a new victim.” Accustomed to drunkenness by the merchant Kukishev, Anninka gets drunk every evening. Judas also joins her. Further, the author writes about successful and unsuccessful families. “... Along with successful families, there are a great many of those whose representatives home land, from the very cradle, apparently do not give anything but hopeless misfortune ... It was this kind of ill-fated fate that weighed heavily on the Golovlev family. For several generations, three characteristic features have passed through the history of this family: idleness, unsuitability for any business and hard drinking. The first two brought in their wake idle talk, idle thought and empty wombness, the last one was, as it were, the obligatory conclusion of a general trouble in life ... so that the Golovlev family would probably have completely begun to whine if Arina Petrovna had not flashed like a chance meteor in the midst of this drunken confusion. This woman, thanks to her personal energy, brought the level of well-being of the family to the highest point, but behind all that, her work was in vain, because she not only did not transfer her qualities to any of the children, but, on the contrary, she herself died, entangled with on all sides with idleness, idle talk and wastefulness." During joint drinking parties, Annina's conversation with Yudushka every time turns into a quarrel. The niece "with merciless importunity dug up Golovlev's archive and especially liked to tease Yudushka, proving that
the main role in all injuries, along with the deceased grandmother, belonged to him. This is repeated from day to day! Judas feels that “a misfortune is coming towards him, which will finally crush him. From everywhere, from all the corners of this hateful house, it seemed, "deaths" crawled out ... Here is papa ... here is brother Styopka the dumbass and next to him brother Pashka the quiet one; here is Lubinka. And here they are... Volodya and Petka... And that's it: it's intoxicated, prodigal, exhausted, bleeding...”. Judas suddenly had a conscience. But it’s too late ... “Here he grew old, went wild, with one foot) Stands in the grave, but there is no creature in the world that would approach him, ““ pity “ him.” Only one niece is alive, and she “appeared, to abuse him and finish him off". Yes, "his conscience woke up, but it was fruitless)". Judas wants to die, longs for death, but the end does not come. One day during Passion Week, Judas, thinking, suddenly understands: "But I am guilty dead mother ... in "I tortured her ... I!" He suddenly feels sorry for Anninka, and for the first time in his life he sincerely says to her: “You poor thing! My poor you!” Judas" asks to forgive him. At night, he secretly goes to his mother's grave - "to say goodbye" ... The next day, the stiffened corpse of the Golovlev master was found by the road. They rushed to Anninka, but she was lying in a fever, in an unconscious state. sister" Nadezhda Ivanovna Galkina (daughter of aunt Varvara Mikhailovna), "who has been vigilantly following everything that happened in Golovlev since last autumn." This topic has been repeatedly developed in literature by I. S. Turgenev and A. Goncharov, L. N. Tolstoy, S. T. Aksakov, in the poems of A. A. Fet, etc. Shchedrin could pass by the "estate" theme. The peasant and the gentleman were put at the center of the writer's attention by life itself. But the student of Chernyshevsky, friend and colleague of Nekrasov, he approaches this topic in a completely different way than Turgenev, Goncharov, Aksakov and Tolstoy. An enemy of the nobility , he looks at the estate through the eyes of "a man who eats a quinoa" - through the eyes of a hungry and ruined peasant. Brought up in the "noble nest", he retained his hatred for the rest of his life.
father's house. Idleness, unsuitability for any business, idle talk and idle thought - that's
typical features characterizing, according to Shchedrin, the life of the nobility. The theme of the novel "Lord Golovlyovs" is the life of a Ryan family in the conditions of pre-reform and post-reform Russia. Decay image "
noble nest”is given by Shchedrin from the standpoint of a peasant democrat. The novel shows that nothing can prevent and stop this decay. This idea runs throughout the novel. Decay theme
noble family, her moral and physical decay determined the plot and composition of the novel, showing the history of the worthless existence and ridiculous death of members of the Golovlev family. Stepan dies in the first chapter, Pavel dies in the second, Vladimir Golovlevs in the third, Arina Petrovna and Peter in the fourth; the latter tells about the death of Lyubinka, Porfiry Golovlev dies and the last of the Golovlev family, Anninka, dies. In their fate, the idea of the novel is revealed: parasitic classes, and first of all the nobility, - "this is death itself, vicious, hollow... All ... poisons, all ulcers - everything comes from here." On rotten soil, poisoned by predation and idleness, a healthy, full-fledged personality cannot be formed, socially
useful person. With the ruling classes, the people will make a severe, just and merciless "calculation".
Composition
The fairy tale is one of the most popular folklore genres. This type of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction has a long history. Tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are connected not only with the folklore tradition, but also with the satirical literary fairy tale of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Already in his declining years, the author turns to the genre of fairy tales and creates a collection of Tales for children of a fair age. They, according to the writer, are called upon to educate these very children, to open their eyes to the world.
Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales not only because it was necessary to bypass censorship, which forced the writer to turn to the Aesopian language, but also in order to educate the people in a familiar and accessible form.
a) in your own way literary form and the style of the Saltykov-Shchedrin fairy tales are associated with folk traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy-tale characters: talking animals, fish, Ivanushka the Fool and many others. The writer uses characteristic folk tale beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes. As in a folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have clear time and space frames.
B) But using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition. He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical turns, French words into the narrative. The pages of his fairy tales include episodes of modern social life. So there is a mixture of styles, creating comic effect, and the connection of the plot with the problems of the present. Thus, enriching the tale with new satirical devices, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into an instrument of socio-political satire. The fairy tale The Wild Landowner (1869) begins as an ordinary fairy tale: In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner ... But immediately an element enters the fairy tale modern life: And that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper Vest, a reactionary-feudal newspaper, and the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview.
The abolition of serfdom aroused anger among the landowners towards the peasants. According to the plot of the tale, the landowner turned to God to take the peasants from him: He reduced them so that there was nowhere to stick his nose: wherever it was impossible, but not allowed, but not yours! Using Aesopian language, the writer depicts the stupidity of the landlords who oppress their own peasants, at the expense of whom they lived, having a loose, white, crumbly body. There were no more peasants in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner: No one noticed where the peasant had gone. Shchedrin hints where the peasant might be, but the reader must guess for himself. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; ... even though they have a stupid landowner, but he has been given a great mind. The irony is in these words. Further, the landowner is called stupid three times (reception of three repetitions) by representatives of other classes: the actor Sadovsky with the actors, invited to the estate: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! Who gives you, stupid, to wash yourself; generals, whom he treated to printed gingerbread and candy instead of beef: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!; and, finally, the police captain: You are stupid, mister landowner! The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, since neither a piece of meat nor a pound of bread can be bought at the market, the treasury is empty, since there is no one to pay taxes, robberies, robbery and murders have spread in the county. But the stupid landowner stands his ground, shows firmness, proves to the gentlemen liberals his inflexibility, as his favorite newspaper, Vest, advises. He indulges in unrealizable dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve the prosperity of the economy. He thinks what kind of cars he will order from England, so that there is no servile spirit at all. He thinks what kind of cows he will breed. His dreams are ridiculous, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only once did the landowner think: Is he really a fool?
Is it possible that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness .. In further development plot, showing the gradual savagery and bestiality of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorts to the grotesque. At first he was overgrown with hair ... his nails became like iron ... he walked more and more on all fours ... He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds ... But he had not yet acquired a tail. His predatory nature manifested itself in the way he hunted: like an arrow, he would jump off a tree, cling to his prey, tear it apart with his nails, and so on with all the insides, even with the skin, and eat it. The other day, I almost pulled up the police captain. But then the final verdict on the wild landowner new friend bear: ... only, brother, you destroyed this man in vain! And why is it so? And because this peasant is not an example more capable than your brother, a nobleman. And so I'll tell you straight out: you're a stupid landowner, even though you're my friend! So in the fairy tale, the allegory technique is used, where under the mask of animals human types in their inhuman relationships.
This element is also used in the depiction of peasants. When the authorities decided to catch and install the peasant, as if on purpose, at that time through provincial city a swarm of peasants flew in and showered the entire market square. The author compares the peasants with bees, showing diligence. When the peasants were returned to the landowner, at the same time flour, and meat, and all living creatures appeared in the market, and so many taxes were received in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, only threw up his hands from surprise and cried out: And where do you, rogues, take !!! How much bitter irony in this exclamation! And the landowner was caught, washed, his nails were cut, but he did not understand anything and did not learn anything, like all the rulers who ruin the peasantry, rob the workers and do not understand that this could turn into a collapse for themselves. The significance of satirical tales is that in a small work the writer was able to combine lyrical, epic and satirical beginnings and extremely sharply express his point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem of the era, the problem of the fate of the Russian people.
