Nekrasov, the great Russian writer, created many works in which he sought to reveal something new to the world. The poem "Who lives well in Rus'" is no exception. The most important hero for revealing the topic is Grisha Dobrosklonov, a simple peasant with complex desires and thoughts.
Prototype
The last to be mentioned, but the first most important image of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is Grisha Dobrosklonov. According to the sister of the poet Butkevich A.A., the artist Dobrolyubov became the hero. Butkevich argued so for a reason. Firstly, such statements were made by Nekrasov himself, and secondly, this is confirmed by the consonance of surnames, the character of the hero and the attitude of the prototype towards selfless and purposeful fighters on the side of the people.
Tverdokhlebov I. Yu. believes that the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov is a kind of cast of the features of such famous figures as Belinsky, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, who together create the ideal of the hero of the revolution. It should also be noted that Nekrasov did not leave without attention a new type of public figure - a populist, who combined the features of both a revolutionary and a religious activist.
Common features
The image of Grigory Dobrosklonov demonstrates that he is a bright representative of the propagandist of the revolution, who seeks to prepare the masses for the struggle against the capitalist foundations. The features of this hero embodied the most romantic features of the revolutionary youth.
Considering this hero, one must also take into account that Nekrasov set about creating him in 1876, that is, at a time when "going to the people" was already complicated by many factors. Some scenes of the work confirm that Grisha was preceded by "wandering" propagandists.
As for Nekrasov's attitude to the simple working people, here he expressed his special attitude. His revolutionary leads him to live and grow up in Vakhlachin. The people's protector Grisha Dobrosklonov is a hero who knows his people well, understands all the troubles and sorrows that have befallen him. He is one of them, therefore, there is no doubt or suspicion among a simple man. Grisha is the poet's hope, his bet on the representatives of the revolutionary peasantry.
Composite image
The poet himself notes that in the image of Grisha, he captured the features that were characteristic of the revolutionary-minded youth of the 1860-1870s, the French Communards and progressive representatives of the peasantry. The researchers argue that the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov is somewhat schematic. But this is easily explained by the fact that Nekrasov created a new historical type of hero and could not fully portray in him everything he wanted. This was influenced by the conditions that accompanied the creation of a new type, and the historical features of the time.
Nekrasov reveals his vision of a public figure, concretizing the deep historical roots of the struggle of the people, depicting the spiritual and political connection of the hero with the fate and hopes of the people, systematizing them in the images of specific individuals and individual characteristics of the biography.
Characteristics of the hero
The image of the people's protector Grisha Dobrosklonov describes a simple guy from the people who is eager to fight the established social strata. He stands on the same level with ordinary peasants and is no different from them. Already at the very beginning of his life, he learned what need, hunger and poverty are, and realized that these phenomena must be resisted. For him, the order that prevailed in the seminary was the result of an unjust social order. Already during his studies, he realized all the hardships of seminary life and was able to comprehend them.
In the 60s of the XIX century, seminarians grew up on the works of freedom-loving Russian authors. Many writers came out of the clerical students, for example, Pomyalovsky, Levitov, Chernyshevsky and others. Revolutionary hardening, closeness to the people and natural abilities make the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov a symbol of the people's leader. The character of the young seminarian contains characteristic youthful features, such as spontaneity, shyness, combined with selflessness and strong will.
Hero Feelings
Grisha Dobrosklonov is full of love, which he pours out on his suffering mother, on his homeland and people. In the poem there is even a specific reflection of his love for ordinary people, whom he helps "to the best of his ability." He reaps, mows, sows and celebrates holidays together with ordinary peasants. He likes to spend time with other guys, wander through the forest and pick mushrooms.
He sees his personal, personal happiness in the happiness of others, in peasant joy. It is not so easy to protect the downtrodden, but Grisha Dobrosklonov does everything to alleviate the fate of the disadvantaged.
Image disclosure
Grisha reveals his feelings through songs, and through them he also points the way to the happiness of a simple peasant. The first song is addressed to the intelligentsia, which the hero seeks to encourage to protect the common people - this is the whole Grisha Dobrosklonov. The characteristic of the next song is explained simply: it motivates the people to fight, seeks to teach the peasants "to be a citizen." After all, this is precisely the goal of his life - he longs to improve the life of the poor class.
The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov is revealed not only in songs, but also in his noble, radiant anthem. The seminarian devotes himself to chanting the time when a revolution will become possible in Rus'. To explain whether there will be a revolution in the future or whether it has already started its first sprouts, Nekrasov used the image of the “Third Day”, which is mentioned four times in the poem. This is not a historical detail, the city burned to the ground is a symbol of the overthrow of the fortress foundations.
Conclusion
The realization of wandering peasants who are trying to figure out who in Rus' should live well, how they can use their strength to improve the life of the people, is the result of the poem. They realized that the only way to make people happy is to eradicate the “support”, to make everyone free - Grisha Dobrosklonov prompts them to such an idea. The characterization of his image emphasizes the existence of two main problematic lines: who is "happier" and who is "sinner" - which are resolved as a result. The happiest for Grisha are the fighters for the people's happiness, and the most sinful are the traitors of the people. Grigory Dobrosklonov is a new revolutionary hero, an engine of historical force that will consolidate freedom.
Citizen poet, revolutionary struggle poet, N.A. Nekrasov, who wrote poems about his comrades-in-arms Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev, amazing in strength and feeling, could not help but turn in his work to a new image for Russian literature - the image of a people's intercessor.
In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, it is shown that forces are maturing in the people that can stand up for the honor and dignity of people of low rank. The poet represents at once several characters of people who are ready to join the struggle for the humiliated and insulted Russian people, who are in bondage. Among them are Savely, the Holy Russian hero, the people's truth-seeker Yakim Nagoi, famous for "strict truth, intelligence and kindness" Yermil Girin, who knows "to whom he will give his whole life and for whom he will die", Grisha Dobrosklonov.
As one of those who stood well for the "patrimony", Nekrasov draws Savely the hero, seeing in him the embodiment of people's strength and courage. Neither the rod nor hard labor humbled him to his fate. “Branded, but not a slave,” he says of himself. It combines such qualities as self-esteem and hatred of oppressors, remarkable strength and love of freedom, love of nature and stamina. Reading the lines dedicated to Savely, we understand that only the truly strong and courageous can be so patient and generous to endure the suffering that has befallen them.
And so we endured
That we are rich.
In that Russian heroism.
Do you think, Matryonushka,
The man is not a hero?
And his life is not military,
And death is not written for him
In battle - a hero!
Speaking of the folk heroes of the peasant kingdom of homespun Rus', Nekrasov finds amazing, truly epic comparisons:
.. .Hands twisted with chains,
Legs forged with iron
Back ... dense forests
Passed on it - broke ...
... And it bends, but does not break,
Doesn't break, doesn't fall...
Really not a hero?
The favorite word of the national avenger Saveliy - nadday - helps to see in him a person who can not only cheer up, but, most importantly, rally, captivate and lead. This word will determine the fate of the proud hero. Remembering his young years, old man Savely tells how for eighteen years the peasants endured the arbitrariness of a cruel German manager, in whose power their whole life actually turned out to be. Constant bullying on his part could not but cause indignation of people. And one day they could not stand it and killed a German.
A tavern ... a prison in Bui-gorod,
There I studied literacy,
Until they decided us.
The solution came out: hard labor
And weave in advance ...
... And life was not easy.
Twenty years of strict hard labor,
Twenty years of settlement ... "
Next to Savely in the poem, another majestic image of the Russian peasant rises - the village righteous Yermil Girin. The very appearance in the world of slavery and unbridled arbitrariness of people like him serves for Nekrasov as a basis for faith in the future victory of the people and a source of cheerful feeling that permeates the poem:
The strength of the people
mighty force -
Conscience is calm
The truth is alive!
Not by struggle, like Saveliy, but by labor and skill, Yer-mil Girin wants to change the fate of the eternally oppressed. Literate, he becomes a clerk, and then, thanks to a humane attitude towards people, he is elected steward. Honest, decent, smart, once Girin, saving his brother from recruitment, commits an unfair act. And the sin taken on his soul does not give him rest.
Does not drink, does not eat; that ended
What's in the stall with a rope
Stopped by his father.
“Since the son of Vlasyevna
I put it out of line
The white light is disgusting to me!”
The image of Ermila Girin, who resigned from his post, is tragic, but cannot but arouse respect for his nobility, honesty, and compassion for people. The people around Girin appreciate him for this. And as the episode with the purchase of the windmill shows, the people at the right moment are ready to come to his aid, to return kindness for kindness. The situation described by Nekrasov may not be the most typical, but it allows the poet to say that great power is hidden in the unity and mutual assistance of the common people.
Yakim Nagoi is another man with whom the wanderers met in their search for a happy life in Rus'. It would seem which of him is the defender:
The chest is sunken; like a depressed belly; at the eyes, at the mouth Bends, like cracks On the dry earth;
And he himself looks like mother earth: his neck is brown,
Like a layer cut off with a plow,
brick face,
Hand - tree bark,
And hair is sand.
In the very first lines it says:
He works to death
Drinks half to death.
But there is a dash in him that allows him to be ranked among the people's intercessors: Yakim Nagoi protects the people's soul. Exhausted, having lost his strength and health, during a fire he saves not the accumulated thirty-five rubles, but the pictures hanging in the hut on the wall, the only joy of his miserable and gray existence. Pictures are a symbol of something beautiful that lurks in the tormented soul of the people, the case allows the poet to tell the reader about the spiritual beauty inherent in the working people, which, as you know, "save the world."
And yet, the future of Russia, Nekrasov is sure, lies with people like Grisha Dobrosklonov: literate, most conscious people from the people who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for the people. The image of the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, for whom "fate prepared a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia," reflected not only the poet's hopes for a brighter future, but also his life ideals. To be a din, where "it's hard to breathe, where grief is heard," is Dobrosklonov's life goal. In his songs, there is not even a call for a struggle for liberation, but a statement that the struggle has already begun:
Rat rises -
Innumerable!
The strength will affect her
Invincible!
This image, according to the poet, contained the only possible answer to the question posed in the poem about the possibility of happiness in Russia at that time. Nekrasov considered truly happy only selfless fighters for the people's good, those who, like Grisha Dobrosklonov, heard "immense strength in their chest", whose ears were delighted by "the sounds of the radiant anthem of the noble" - "the embodiment of the happiness of the people."
As you can see, both the hero of the poem and its author are full of faith that a person's happiness lies in revolutionary service to the people. Faith, based, as history has shown, on rather utopian ideas of that time, when people firmly believed that the Russian people would gather strength and learn to be a citizen.
The theme of the "people's protector" runs through all the work of N. A. Nekrasov, it also sounds in the poem "Who should live well in Rus'." Many writers and poets tried to answer the question "What to do?". I was looking for an answer to it and Nekrasov in his work. What to strive for in life? What is the real happiness of a person in Russia? What needs to be done to make everyone happy? he asked himself. The poet believed that in order to resolve these issues, people are needed who are able to join the struggle and lead others. He showed such characters in the images of Yakim Nagogoy, Ermila Girin, Savely Korchagin, Grisha Dobrosklonov. In Yakima Nagoi, a peculiar character of the people's truth-seeker is presented. He lives a beggarly life, like all the peasantry, but is distinguished by a rebellious disposition. Yakim is ready to stand up for his rights. Here is what he says about the people:
Every peasant has
The soul is like a black cloud
Angry, formidable - and it would be necessary
Thunders rumble from there,
To pour bloody rains.
Ermila Girin is a peasant whom the people themselves chose as a steward, recognizing his justice. Even as a clerk, Yermila won prestige among the people for the fact that
... he will advise
And he will provide information;
Where there is enough strength - will help out,
Don't ask for gratitude
And if you give it, you won't take it!
But Yermila was also guilty: he shielded his younger brother from recruitment, but the people forgave him for his sincere repentance. Only Ermila's conscience did not calm down: he left the steward, hired a mill. And again the people fell in love with him for his good treatment, for his even attitude towards the landowner and the poor, for his kindness.
"Grey priest" characterizes Yermila in this way:
He had everything he needed
For happiness and peace
And money and honor
Honor enviable, true,
Not bought by money
Not fear: strict truth.
Mind and kindness.
It can be seen from the priest's statement that Girin achieved honor with “strict truth”, “mind and kindness”. He is worried about the attitude of the people towards him, but Yermila himself judges himself even more strictly. He seeks to alleviate the situation of the peasants, to help them financially, although he himself was not yet ready for a revolutionary action. Kirin is already satisfied that his conscience is clear, that he makes life a little easier for others.
Savely the Bogatyr represents another type of Russian peasant. He is the embodiment of strength and courage. Despite the rods and hard labor, he did not resign himself to his fate. “Branded, but not a slave,” he says about himself. Savely embodies the best features of the Russian character: love for the motherland and people, hatred for the oppressors, self-esteem. His favorite word - "nadday" - helps to see in him a person who knows how to cheer up his comrades, rally, captivate. Saveliy is one of those who stood up well for "the patrimony." Together with the peasants, he executes the hated manager, the German Vogel. People like Savely will not stand aside at the moment of peasant unrest.
The most conscious of the "people's defenders" is Grisha Dobrosklonov. He devotes his whole life to the struggle, lives among the people, knows their needs, has an education. The future of Russia, the poet believes, belongs to people like Grisha Dobrosklonov, for whom "fate prepared a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia." The songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov reflect his thoughts about life ideals, his hopes for a brighter future:
The share of the people
his happiness,
Light and freedom
First of all.
In a moment of despondency, O Motherland!
I am thinking ahead.
You are destined to suffer a lot,
But you won't die, I know.
Saved in bondage
Free heart -
Gold, gold
The heart of the people!
The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov helps to understand that the one on whose side the truth is on whose side the truth is, who the people hope for, who chooses an honest path for himself, being a "people's defender" is truly happy.
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov entered Russian poetry as a "people's mourner". The folk poem became one of the central ones in his work. But the poet was never a simple everyday writer; as an artist, he was primarily concerned with the drama of the people.
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, the author himself appeared as the people’s “intercessor”, who not only expressed his attitude towards the people by the fact of creating this work, but was able to understand his soul, truly reveal his character. The theme of popular intercession is widely represented in the poem. Protector is one of his keywords. The people's protector is one who not only pities, sympathizes with the peasants, but serves the people, expresses their interests, confirming this with actions and deeds. I think that the image of such a person is not the only one in the poem. His features were refracted in Ermil Girin, Savely, Grisha Dobrosklonov, and partly in Yakim Nagoy.
So, Girin acted as a real defender of worldly interests: he defended the mill, which was needed by everyone. He sincerely, with pure thoughts, turned to the people for help, and people collected money for him, completely trusting and not sparing the last penny. Then Yermil paid off everyone. His honesty and disinterestedness are evidenced by the fact that he did not steal the “extra ruble” that he had left, but, not finding the owner, gave the money to the blind. How did Jirin win the honor and respect of almost the entire district? The answer is short: only "truth". People were drawn to him, and when Yermil held the positions of a clerk and steward, He was “loved by all the people” because it was always possible to visit him
ask for help and advice. And Yermil never demanded a reward:
"Where there is enough strength - it will help out,
Don't ask for gratitude
And he won’t take it like that!”
Only once there was a case when the hero, as they say, "disguised his soul" Girin "shielded" his brother from the recruitment, instead of whom another person had to go to the soldiers. The realization that he acted dishonestly, unfairly, leads Girin almost to suicide. And only repentance in front of all the people frees him from the pangs of conscience. The story about Yermil Girin suddenly ends, and we learn that he nevertheless suffered for the cause of the people, he was put in prison. It is impossible not to mention another national hero - Yakim Nagogo. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in his fate:
once he lived in St. Petersburg, because of a lawsuit with a merchant, he ended up in prison. Then he returned to his homeland and became a plowman. Better than Nekrasov himself not to present this image, which has become a generalized image of the Russian peasant:
"The chest is sunken, like a distant
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;…”
But in the eyes of people, Yakim was a special person: during a fire, he rushed to save not money, but pictures that he lovingly collected for his son and looked at them spellbound himself. Talking about this, a kind of folk "collector", Nekrasov also opens a page in the life of a peasant, in which not only work and "drinking" could
be the main ones. The image of the people's intercessor was vividly embodied in Savely, the Holy Russian hero. Already in this definition there is a meaning: the heroes in the epics have always been the protectors of the Russian land. Sa
Veretennikov Pavlush - a collector of folklore, who met peasants - seekers of happiness - at a rural fair in the village of Kuzminsky. This character is given a very meager external description (“He was a lot of baluster, / He wore a red shirt, / A woolen undershirt, / Lubricated boots ...”), little is known about his origin (“What kind of title, / The men didn’t know, / However, they were called “master”). Due to such uncertainty, the image of V. acquires a generalizing character. A lively interest in the fate of the peasants distinguishes V. from the environment of indifferent observers of the life of the people (leaders of various statistical committees), eloquently exposed in the monologue of Yakim Nagogo. The very first appearance of V. in the text is accompanied by a disinterested act: he helps out the peasant Vavila by buying shoes for his granddaughter. In addition, he is ready to listen to someone else's opinion. So, although he reproaches the Russian people for drunkenness, he is convinced of the inevitability of this evil: after listening to Yakim, he himself offers him a drink (“Yakim Veretennikov / He brought two scales”). Seeing genuine attention from a reasonable master, and "peasants open up / Milyaga likes it." Folklorists and ethnographers Pavel Yakushkin and Pavel Rybnikov, leaders of the democratic movement of the 1860s, are among the supposed prototypes of V. The character owes his last name, perhaps, to the journalist P.F. Veretennikov, who visited the Nizhny Novgorod Fair for several years in a row and published reports about it in Moskovskie Vedomosti.
Vlas- headman of the village of Big Vakhlaki. “Serving under a strict master, / Carried a burden on his conscience / An involuntary participant / His cruelties.” After the abolition of serfdom, V. refuses the post of pseudo-burmister, but assumes actual responsibility for the fate of the community: “Vlas was a kind soul, / He was sick for the whole vakhlachin” - / Not for one family. free life "without corvee ... without tax ... Without a stick ..." is replaced by a new concern for the peasants (litigation with heirs for rented meadows), V. becomes an intercessor for the peasants, "lives in Moscow ... was in St. Petersburg ... / But there is no sense! ". Together with his youth, V. parted with optimism, he is afraid of the new, he is always gloomy. But his daily life is rich in inconspicuous good deeds, for example, in the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World" by his initiative, the peasants collect money for the soldier Ovsyanikov. The image of V. is devoid of external specificity: for Nekrasov, he is primarily a representative of the peasantry. His difficult fate (“Not so much in Belokamennaya / It was driven along the bridge, / As the peasant’s soul / insults passed ... " ) is the fate of the entire Russian people.
Girin Ermil Ilyich (Yermila) - one of the most likely contenders for the title of lucky man. The real prototype of this character is the peasant A. D. Potanin (1797-1853), who managed by proxy the estate of Countess Orlova, which was called Odoevshchina (after the name of the former owners, the princes Odoevsky), and the peasants were baptized into Adovshchina. Potanin became famous for his extraordinary justice. Nekrasovsky G. became known for his honesty to his fellow villagers back in the five years that he served as a clerk in the office (“You need a bad conscience - / A peasant from a peasant / Extort a penny”). Under the old prince Yurlov, he was dismissed, but then, under the young prince, he was unanimously elected mayor of Hell. During the seven years of his "reign" G. only once grimaced: "... from the recruitment / Little brother Mitrius / He outshone it." But remorse for this offense almost led him to commit suicide. Only thanks to the intervention of a strong master, it was possible to restore justice, and instead of the son of Nenila Vlasyevna, Mitriy went to serve, and "the prince himself takes care of him." G. resigned, rented a mill "and he became more than ever / Loved by all the people." When they decided to sell the mill, G. won the auction, but he did not have money with him to make a deposit. And then “a miracle happened”: G. was rescued by the peasants, to whom he turned for help, in half an hour he managed to collect a thousand rubles on the market square.
G. is driven not by mercenary interest, but by a rebellious spirit: "The mill is not dear to me, / The resentment is great." And although “he had everything that is needed / For happiness: and peace, / And money, and honor”, at the moment when the peasants start talking about him (chapter “Happy”), G., in connection with the peasant uprising, is in prison. The speech of the narrator, a gray-haired priest, from whom it becomes known about the arrest of the hero, is suddenly interrupted by outside interference, and later he himself refuses to continue the story. But behind this omission, one can easily guess both the cause of the rebellion and G.'s refusal to help in pacifying him.
Gleb- peasant, "great sinner". According to the legend told in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”, the “ammiral-widower”, a participant in the battle “near Achakov” (possibly, Count A.V. Orlov-Chesmensky), granted by the Empress eight thousand souls, dying, entrusted the elder G. his will (free for these peasants). The hero was tempted by the money promised to him and burned the will. The peasants tend to regard this "Judas" sin as the worst ever committed, because of it they will have to "forever toil". Only Grisha Dobrosklonov manages to convince the peasants, "that they are not the defendants / For the accursed Gleb, / To all the fault: grow strong!"
Dobrosklonov Grisha - a character that appears in the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World", the epilogue of the poem is entirely dedicated to him. "Grigory / His face is thin, pale / And his hair is thin, curly / With a hint of red." He is a seminarian, the son of the parish deacon Tryphon from the village of Bolshie Vahlaki. Their family lives in extreme poverty, only the generosity of Vlas the godfather and other men helped put Grisha and his brother Savva on their feet. Their mother Domna, “an unrequited laborer / For everyone who did something / Helped her on a rainy day”, died early, leaving a terrible “Salty” song as a memory of herself. In D.'s mind, her image is inseparable from the image of her homeland: "In the heart of a boy / With love for a poor mother / Love for all Vakhlachin / Merged." Already at the age of fifteen, he was determined to devote his life to the people. “I don’t need any silver, / No gold, but God forbid, / So that my fellow countrymen / And every peasant / Live freely and cheerfully / In all holy Rus'!” He is going to Moscow to study, but in the meantime, together with his brother, they help the peasants to the best of their ability: they write letters for them, explain the "Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom", work and rest "on a par with the peasantry." Observations on the life of the surrounding poor, reflections on the fate of Russia and its people are clothed in poetic form, the songs of D. are known and loved by the peasants. With his appearance in the poem, the lyrical beginning intensifies, the direct author's assessment intrudes into the narrative. D. is marked with the "seal of the gift of God"; a revolutionary propagandist from among the people, he should, according to Nekrasov, serve as an example for the progressive intelligentsia. In his mouth, the author puts his convictions, his own version of the answer to the social and moral questions posed in the poem. The image of the hero gives the poem compositional completeness. The real prototype could be N. A. Dobrolyubov.
Elena Alexandrovna - governor, merciful lady, savior of Matryona. “She was kind, she was smart, / Beautiful, healthy, / But God did not give children.” She sheltered a peasant woman after a premature birth, became the godmother of the child, "all the time with Liodorushka / Worn like with her own." Thanks to her intercession, Philip was rescued from recruitment. Matryona exalts her benefactor to the skies, and criticism (O.F. Miller) rightly notes in the image of the governor's echoes of the sentimentalism of the Karamzin period.
Ipat- a grotesque image of a faithful serf, a lord's lackey, who remained faithful to his master even after the abolition of serfdom. I. boasts that the landowner “harnessed him with his own hand / To the cart”, bathed him in the hole, saved him from a cold death, to which he himself had doomed him before. All this he perceives as great blessings. I. evokes healthy laughter among wanderers.
Korchagina Matrena Timofeevna - a peasant woman, the third part of the poem is entirely devoted to her biography. “Matryona Timofeevna / A portly woman, / Broad and thick, / Thirty-eight years old. / Beautiful; gray hair, / Large, stern eyes, / The richest eyelashes, / Harsh and swarthy. / She has a white shirt on, / Yes, a short sundress, / Yes, a sickle over her shoulder. The glory of a lucky woman leads wanderers to her. M. agrees to "lay out her soul" when the peasants promise to help her in the harvest: the suffering is in full swing. The fate of M. was largely prompted by Nekrasov, published in the 1st volume of "Lamentations of the Northern Territory", collected by E. V. Barsov (1872), the autobiography of the Olonets wailer I. A. Fedoseeva. The narrative is based on her laments, as well as other folklore materials, including "Songs collected by P. N. Rybnikov" (1861). The abundance of folklore sources, often with little or no change included in the text of the "Peasant Woman", and the very title of this part of the poem emphasize the typical fate of M.: this is the usual fate of a Russian woman, convincingly indicating that the wanderers "started / Not a deal - between women / / Look for a happy one. In the parental home, in a good, non-drinking family, M. lived happily. But, having married Philip Korchagin, a stove-maker, she ended up “from a girl’s will to hell”: a superstitious mother-in-law, a drunkard father-in-law, an older sister-in-law, for whom the daughter-in-law must work like a slave. True, she was lucky with her husband: only once it came to beatings. But Philip only returns home from work in the winter, the rest of the time there is no one to intercede for M., except for grandfather Saveliy, father-in-law. She has to endure the harassment of Sitnikov, the master's manager, which ceased only with his death. Her first-born Demushka becomes a consolation in all troubles for a peasant woman, but due to Savely's oversight, the child dies: he is eaten by pigs. An unrighteous judgment is being carried out over a heartbroken mother. Not guessing in time to give a bribe to the boss, she becomes a witness to the abuse of the body of her child.
For a long time, K. cannot forgive Savely for his irreparable oversight. Over time, the peasant woman has new children, "there is no time / Neither to think nor be sad." The heroine's parents, Savely, are dying. Her eight-year-old son Fedot is threatened with punishment for feeding someone else's sheep to a she-wolf, and his mother lies under the rod instead of him. But the most difficult trials fall on her lot in a lean year. Pregnant, with children, she herself is likened to a hungry she-wolf. Recruitment deprives her of her last intercessor, her husband (he is taken out of turn). In delirium, she draws terrible pictures of the life of a soldier, soldier's children. She leaves the house and runs to the city, where she tries to get to the governor, and when the porter lets her into the house for a bribe, she throws herself at the feet of the governor Elena Alexandrovna. With her husband and newborn Liodorushka, the heroine returns home, this incident cemented her reputation as a lucky woman and the nickname "governor". Her further fate is also full of troubles: one of her sons has already been taken to the soldiers, "They burned twice ... God anthrax ... visited three times." In the "Woman's Parable" her tragic story is summed up: "The keys to a woman's happiness, / From our free will / Abandoned, lost / God Himself!" Part of the criticism (V. G. Avseenko, V. P. Burenin, N. F. Pavlov) met the "Peasant Woman" with hostility, Nekrasov was accused of implausible exaggerations, false, fake common people. However, even ill-wishers noted some successful episodes. There were also reviews about this chapter as the best part of the poem.
Kudeyar-ataman - "the great sinner", the hero of the legend told by God's wanderer Ionushka in the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World". The fierce robber unexpectedly repented of his crimes. Neither pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher, nor hermitage bring peace to his soul. The saint, who appeared to K., promises him that he will earn forgiveness when he cuts off the age-old oak with “the same knife that robbed”. Years of futile efforts cast doubt in the heart of the old man about the possibility of completing the task. However, “the tree collapsed, the burden of sins rolled down from the monk,” when the hermit, in a fit of furious anger, killed Pan Glukhovsky, who was passing by, boasting of his calm conscience: “Salvation / I don’t have tea for a long time, / In the world I honor only a woman, / Gold, honor and wine... How many serfs I destroy, / I torture, torture and hang, / And I would look at how I sleep! The legend about K. was borrowed by Nekrasov from the folklore tradition, but the image of Pan Glukhovsky is quite realistic. Among the possible prototypes is the landowner Glukhovsky from the Smolensk province, who spotted his serf, according to a note in Herzen's Bell dated October 1, 1859.
Naked Yakim- “In the village of Bosov / Yakim Nagoi lives, / He works to death, / Drinks half to death!” This is how the character defines himself. In the poem, he is entrusted to speak in defense of the people on behalf of the people. The image has deep folklore roots: the hero’s speech is replete with paraphrased proverbs, riddles, in addition, formulas similar to those that characterize his appearance (“Hand is tree bark, / And hair is sand”) are repeatedly found, for example, in folk spiritual verse "About Egor Khorobrom". The folk idea of the inseparability of man and nature is rethought by Nekrasov, emphasizing the unity of the worker with the earth: “He lives - he is busy with the plow, / And death will come to Yakimushka" - / As a clod of earth falls off, / What has dried up on the plow ... at the eyes, at the mouth / Bends like cracks / On dry ground<...>the neck is brown, / Like a layer cut off by a plow, / A brick face.
The biography of the character is not quite typical for a peasant, rich in events: “Yakim, a miserable old man, / Once upon a time he lived in St. Petersburg, / Yes, he ended up in prison: / I thought of competing with a merchant! / Like a peeled velvet, / He returned to his homeland / And took up the plow. During the fire, he lost most of his belongings, because the first thing he rushed to save the pictures he bought for his son (“I myself was no less than a boy / Loved to look at them”). However, even in the new house, the hero takes up the old, buys new pictures. Countless hardships only strengthen his firm position in life. In chapter III of the first part (“Drunken Night”), N. utters a monologue, where his convictions are formulated very clearly: hard labor, the results of which go to three equity holders (God, the king and the lord), and sometimes they are completely destroyed by fire; disasters, poverty - all this justifies the peasant drunkenness, and it is not worth measuring the peasant "by the master's measure." Such a point of view on the problem of popular drunkenness, widely discussed in the journalism of the 1860s, is close to the revolutionary democratic one (according to N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov, drunkenness is a consequence of poverty). It is no coincidence that later this monologue was used by the populists in their propaganda activities, repeatedly copied and reprinted separately from the rest of the text of the poem.
Obolt-Obolduev Gavrila Afanasyevich - “The gentleman is round, / Mustachioed, pot-bellied, / With a cigar in his mouth ... ruddy, / Possessed, stocky, / Sixty years old ... Valiant gimmicks, / Hungarian with brandenburgers, / Wide trousers.” Among the eminent ancestors of O. is a Tatar, who entertained the empress with wild animals, and an embezzler who plotted to set fire to Moscow. The hero is proud of his family tree. Previously, the master "smoked ... the sky of God, / He wore the royal livery, / Littered the people's treasury / And thought to live like this for a century," but with the abolition of serfdom, "the great chain broke, / It broke - jumped: / At one end along the master, / Others - like a man! With nostalgia, the landowner recalls the lost benefits, explaining along the way that he is sad not about himself, but about his motherland.
A hypocritical, idle, ignorant despot, who sees the purpose of his class in "an ancient name, / Dignity of the nobility / Support with hunting, / Feasts, every luxury / And live by someone else's labor." In addition to everything, O. is also cowardly: he takes unarmed men for robbers, and they do not soon manage to persuade him to hide the gun. The comic effect is enhanced by the fact that the accusations against oneself come from the lips of the landowner himself.
Ovsyanikov- soldier. “... He was fragile on his feet, / Tall and thin to the extreme; / He is wearing a frock coat with medals / Hanging like on a pole. / It is impossible to say that he has a kind / Face, especially / When he drove the old one - / Damn it! The mouth will snarl, / The eyes are like coals! With his orphan niece Ustinyushka, O. traveled around the villages, earning a living by the district committee, but when the instrument deteriorated, he composed new proverbs and performed them, playing along with himself on spoons. O.'s songs are based on folklore sentences and rural rhymes recorded by Nekrasov in 1843-1848. while working on The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikova. The text of these songs sketchily describes the life path of a soldier: the war near Sevastopol, where he was crippled, a negligent medical examination, where the old man’s wounds were rejected: “Second-rate! / According to them and pension”, subsequent poverty (“Well, with George - around the world, around the world”). In connection with the image of O., the theme of the railway, which is relevant both for Nekrasov and for later Russian literature, arises. Cast iron in the perception of a soldier is an animated monster: “It snorts in the face of a peasant, / Presses, maims, somersaults, / Soon the whole Russian people / Will sweep a cleaner broom!” Klim Lavin explains that the soldier cannot get to the St. Petersburg "Committee for the Wounded" for justice: the tariff on the Moscow-Petersburg road has increased and made it inaccessible to the people. The peasants, the heroes of the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World", are trying to help the soldier and collect only "rubles" together.
Petrov Agap- "rude, intractable", according to Vlas, a man. P. did not want to put up with voluntary slavery, they calmed him down only with the help of wine. Caught by the Last at the scene of the crime (carrying a log from the master's forest), he broke loose and explained to the master his real situation in terms of the most impartial. Klim Lavin staged a cruel reprisal against P., getting him drunk instead of a spanking. But from the endured humiliation and excessive intoxication by the morning of the next day, the hero dies. Such a terrible price is paid by the peasants for their voluntary, albeit temporary, renunciation of freedom.
Polivanov- "... a gentleman of a low family", however, small funds did not in the least interfere with the manifestation of his despotic nature. The whole spectrum of vices of a typical serf-owner is inherent in him: greed, stinginess, cruelty (“with relatives, not only with peasants”), voluptuousness. By old age, the master’s legs were taken away: “The eyes are clear, / The cheeks are red, / Plump hands are white as sugar, / Yes, there are shackles on the legs!” In this trouble, Yakov became his only support, "friend and brother", but for his faithful service, the master repaid him with black ingratitude. The terrible revenge of the serf, the night that P. had to spend in the ravine, “chasing away the birds and wolves with moans,” makes the master repent (“I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!”), But the narrator believes that he will not be forgiven: “You will you, sir, are an exemplary serf, / Jacob the faithful, / Remember until the day of judgment!
Pop- according to Luke's assumption, the priest "lives cheerfully, / At ease in Rus'." The village priest, who was the very first to meet the wanderers on the way, refutes this assumption: he has neither peace, nor wealth, nor happiness. With what difficulty "gets a letter / Popov's son", Nekrasov himself wrote in the poetic play "Rejected" (1859). In the poem, this theme will appear again in connection with the image of the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov. The career of a priest is restless: “He who is ill, dying, / Born into the world / They do not choose time,” no habit will protect the dying and orphans from compassion, “every time he gets wet, / The soul will hurt.” The priest enjoys dubious honor in the peasant environment: folk superstitions are associated with him, he and his family are constant characters in obscene anecdotes and songs. Priestly wealth was previously due to the generosity of parishioners-landlords, who, with the abolition of serfdom, left their estates and dispersed, “like a Jewish tribe ... Through distant foreign land / And through native Rus'.” With the transition of the schismatics under the supervision of the civil authorities in 1864, the local clergy lost another serious source of income, and from peasant labor "it's hard to live on a penny."
Savely- Holy Russian hero, "with a huge gray mane, / Tea, not cut for twenty years, / With a huge beard, / Grandfather looked like a bear." Once, in a fight with a bear, he injured his back, and in old age she bent. The native village of S, Korezhina, is located in the wilderness, and therefore the peasants live relatively freely ("Zemstvo police / Did not get to us for a year"), although they endure the atrocities of the landowner. Patience is the heroism of the Russian peasant, but there is a limit to any patience. S. ends up in Siberia for burying the hated German manager alive in the ground. Twenty years of hard labor, an unsuccessful attempt to escape, twenty years of settlement did not shake the rebellious spirit in the hero. Returning home after the amnesty, he lives in the family of his son, father-in-law Matryona. Despite his venerable age (according to the revision tales, his grandfather is a hundred years old), he leads an independent life: “He didn’t like families, / He didn’t let him into his corner.” When they reproach him for his hard labor past, he cheerfully answers: “Branded, but not a slave!” Hardened by harsh crafts and human cruelty, only the great-grandson of Dema could melt the petrified heart of S.. The accident makes the grandfather responsible for Demushkin's death. His grief is inconsolable, he goes to repentance in the Sand Monastery, trying to beg forgiveness of the "angry mother". Having lived for one hundred and seven years, before his death, he pronounces a terrible verdict on the Russian peasantry: “There are three paths for men: / A tavern, prison and hard labor, / And for women in Rus' / Three loops ... Get into any one.” Image C, in addition to folklore, has social and polemical roots. O. I. Komissarov, who saved Alexander II from an assassination attempt on April 4, 1866, was a Kostroma dweller, fellow countryman of I. Susanin. Monarchists in this parallel saw proof of the thesis about the regality of the Russian people. To refute this point of view, Nekrasov settled in the Kostroma province, the original patrimony of the Romanovs, rebel S, and Matryona catches the similarity between him and the monument to Susanin.
Trofim (Tryphon) - "a man with shortness of breath, / Relaxed, thin / (Easy nose, like a dead one, / Skinny arms like a rake, / Long knitting needles, / Not a man - a mosquito)". Former bricklayer, born strongman. Yielding to the contractor's provocation, he "carried one at least / Fourteen pounds" to the second floor and overstrained himself. One of the brightest and most terrible images in the poem. In the chapter “Happy”, T. boasts of the happiness that allowed him to get from St. Petersburg alive to his homeland, unlike many other “feverish, feverish workers” who were thrown out of the car when they began to rave.
Utyatin (Last child) - "thin! / Like winter hares, / All white ... The nose with a beak, like that of a hawk, / The mustache is gray, long / And - different eyes: / One healthy one glows, / And the left one is muddy, cloudy, / Like a pewter penny! Having “exorbitant wealth, / an important rank, a noble family,” U. does not believe in the abolition of serfdom. As a result of a dispute with the governor, he is paralyzed. “Not self-interest, / But arrogance cut him off.” The sons of the prince are afraid that he will deprive them of their inheritance in favor of side daughters, and persuade the peasants to pretend to be serfs again. The peasant world allowed "to show off / To the dismissed master / In the remaining hours." On the day of the arrival of wanderers - seekers of happiness - in the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, the Last One finally dies, then the peasants arrange a "feast for the whole world." The image of U. has a grotesque character. The absurd orders of the tyrant master will make the peasants laugh.
Shalashnikov- landowner, former owner of Korezhina, military man. Taking advantage of the remoteness from the provincial town, where the landowner stood with his regiment, the Korezha peasants did not pay dues. Sh. decided to beat the quitrent by force, tore the peasants so that "the brains were already shaking / In the little heads." Savely recalls the landowner as an unsurpassed master: “He knew how to flog! / He dressed my skin so that it has been worn for a hundred years. He died near Varna, his death put an end to the relative prosperity of the peasants.
Jacob- “about the exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful” tells the former courtyard in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”. "People of the servile rank - / Real dogs sometimes: / The heavier the punishment, / The dearer the Lord is to them." So was Y. until Mr. Polivanov, having coveted the bride of his nephew, sold him into recruits. An exemplary serf took to drink, but returned two weeks later, taking pity on the helpless master. However, the enemy was already "mutilating him." Ya. takes Polivanov to visit his sister, turns halfway into the Devil's ravine, unharnesses the horses and, contrary to the fears of the master, does not kill him, but hangs himself, leaving the owner alone with his conscience for the whole night. Such a way of revenge (“drag a dry misfortune” - to hang yourself in the possessions of the offender in order to make him suffer all his life) was really known, especially among the eastern peoples. Nekrasov, creating the image of Ya., refers to the story that A.F. Koni told him (who, in turn, heard it from the watchman of the volost government), and only slightly modifies it. This tragedy is another illustration of the perniciousness of serfdom. Through the mouth of Grisha Dobrosklonov, Nekrasov summarizes: “There is no support - there is no landowner, / Bringing up to the noose / An assiduous slave, / No support - there is no courtyard, / Revenging suicide / His villain.”
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is a Russian poet whose main theme of creativity will be the theme of the people. Already in the "Elegy" N.A. Nekrasov will say: "I dedicated the lyre to my people." However, the poet has a different approach to the theme of the people, he expresses the ideals of democracy in his work. Yes, Nekrasov sympathizes with the oppressed people, but does not idealize him, and even accuses him of humility. The poet is trying to find the people's way to happiness. This becomes the main problem in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, where the hero is the entire numerous “peasant kingdom”, which Russian literature did not know before.
However, in the poem the folk theme develops and rises to the theme of the search for a "people's protector". It is the heroes who are able to lead others that are needed in order to find happiness for everyone. Such characters N.A. Nekrasov painted in the images of Yakim Nagogoy, Yermila Girin, Savely Korchagin and, of course, Grisha Dobrosklonov.
Yakim Nagoi is a people's truth lover, he is a beggar, like all peasants, but there is disobedience in him, unwillingness to put up with injustice. This hero is able to defend his rights.
Another image is Ermila Girin. He is a favorite of the people, who speak of him like this:
... he will advise
And he will provide information;
Where there is enough strength - will help out,
Don't ask for gratitude
And if you give it, you won't take it!
Ermila Girin is not sinless: he fraudulently frees his younger brother from military service, from soldiering, but the people forgive him, because they see true repentance. The hero has a heightened sense of conscience, he cannot find peace and judges himself very strictly: he leaves the steward, hires a mill, seeks to make the position of the peasants easier. But, despite compassion, mercy for the people, he is not ready for a revolutionary action, it is enough for a hero that he is not to blame for anyone.
ON THE. Nekrasov in the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" shows us another type of Russian peasant, "the people's defender." This is the image of Saveliy - the “hero of the Holy Russian”. It's already in effect. Despite the fact that he was sent to hard labor, he did not resign himself to his fate: "branded, but not a slave." This hero is the conductor and bearer of such best character traits of the Russian people as justice, self-esteem, love for the motherland and people, hatred for their oppressors. Savely is a man who knows how, if necessary, to rally his comrades, to captivate them with an idea. People like him will certainly take part, if necessary, in peasant revolts and unrest.
A person who knows his needs is ready to devote his whole life to the struggle, to the people. This is Grisha Dobrosklonov - the most conscious "people's defender". It is for such as Dobrosklonov, according to N.A. Nekrasov, the future of Russia. No wonder the hero "fate prepared" a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia. The poet expressed the life goals and ideals of this hero in the songs that Grisha sings. They are truly revolutionary, they already sound the idea of liberating the people from slavery. The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov is an example of the fact that only those who choose the path of honor and truth can truly be happy.
Thus, in the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” N.A. Nekrasov shows that the answer to the question of how to find happiness can be given by people who have the strength in themselves to lead the masses. Yakim Nagoi, Ermila Girin, Savely are characters who see the injustice towards the peasant, all the pain of the peasant, but are not ready to go against fate, while Grisha Dobrosklonov is a new type of Russian person, in my opinion, the embodiment of the author's ideal. Such a hero is capable of "sowing the reasonable, the good, the eternal." He is the real "people's protector"!
