To whom it is good to live in Rus' online - Nikolai Nekrasov. Nikolai Nekrasov - who lives well in Rus' Who lives well in Rus' completely

To whom in Rus' to live well? This issue still worries many people, and this fact explains the increased attention to the legendary poem by Nekrasov. The author managed to raise a topic that has become eternal in Russia - the topic of asceticism, voluntary self-denial in the name of saving the fatherland. It is the service of a high goal that makes a Russian person happy, as the writer proved using the example of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

“Who is living well in Rus'” is one of the last works of Nekrasov. When he wrote it, he was already seriously ill: he was struck by cancer. That is why it is not finished. It was collected bit by bit by the poet's close friends and arranged the fragments in random order, barely capturing the confused logic of the creator, broken by a fatal illness and endless pains. He was dying in agony, and yet he was able to answer the question posed at the very beginning: Who lives well in Rus'? In a broad sense, he himself turned out to be lucky, because he faithfully and selflessly served the interests of the people. This ministry supported him in the fight against the fatal illness. Thus, the history of the poem began in the first half of the 60s of the 19th century, approximately in 1863 (serfdom was abolished in 1861), and the first part was completed in 1865.

The book was published in fragments. The prologue was already published in the January issue of Sovremennik in 1866. More chapters came out later. All this time, the work attracted the attention of censors and was mercilessly criticized. In the 70s, the author wrote the main parts of the poem: "Last Child", "Peasant Woman", "Feast for the Whole World". He planned to write much more, but due to the rapid development of the disease, he could not and stopped at "Feast ...", where he expressed his main idea regarding the future of Russia. He believed that such holy people as Dobrosklonov would be able to help his homeland, mired in poverty and injustice. Despite the fierce attacks of reviewers, he found the strength to stand up for a just cause to the end.

Genre, genre, direction

ON THE. Nekrasov called his creation “the epic of modern peasant life” and was precise in his wording: the genre of the work “Who should live well in Rus'?” - epic poem. That is, at the base of the book, not one kind of literature coexists, but two whole: lyrics and epic:

1. epic component. In the history of the development of Russian society in the 1860s, there was a turning point when people learned to live in new conditions after the abolition of serfdom and other fundamental changes in the usual way of life. This difficult historical period was described by the writer, reflecting the realities of that time without embellishment and falsity. In addition, the poem has a clear linear plot and many original characters, which indicates the scale of the work, comparable only to a novel (epic genre). The book also absorbed the folklore elements of heroic songs that tell about the military campaigns of heroes against enemy camps. All these are generic features of the epic.
2. lyric component. The work is written in verse - this is the main property of lyrics, as a kind. The book also has a place for author's digressions and typical poetic symbols, means of artistic expression, features of the characters' confession.

The direction within which the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was written is realism. However, the author significantly expanded its boundaries by adding fantastic and folklore elements (prologue, beginnings, symbolism of numbers, fragments and heroes from folk legends). The poet chose the form of travel for his idea, as a metaphor for the search for truth and happiness, which each of us carries out. Many researchers of Nekrasov's work compare the plot structure with the structure of the folk epic.

Composition

The laws of the genre determined the composition and plot of the poem. Nekrasov was finishing the book in terrible agony, but still did not have time to finish it. This explains the chaotic composition and many branches from the plot, because the works were formed and restored from drafts by his friends. In the last months of his life, he himself was unable to clearly adhere to the original concept of creation. Thus, the composition “Who is living well in Rus'?”, comparable only to the folk epic, is unique. It was developed as a result of the creative assimilation of world literature, and not the direct borrowing of some well-known model.

1. Exposition (Prologue). The meeting of seven men - the heroes of the poem: "On the pillar path / Seven men came together."
2. The plot is the oath of the heroes not to return home until they find the answer to their question.
3. The main part consists of many autonomous parts: the reader gets to know a soldier happy that he was not beaten, a serf proud of his privilege to eat out of the master's bowls, a grandmother whose turnip was mutilated in her garden to her delight ... While the search for happiness stands still, the slow but steady growth of national self-consciousness is depicted, which the author wanted to show even more than the declared happiness in Russia. From random episodes, a general picture of Rus' emerges: impoverished, drunk, but not hopeless, striving for a better life. In addition, the poem contains several large and independent interstitial episodes, some of which are even placed in autonomous chapters (“Last Child”, “Peasant Woman”).
4. Climax. The writer calls Grisha Dobrosklonov, a fighter for the people's happiness, a happy man in Rus'.
5. Interchange. A serious illness prevented the author from completing his great plan. Even those chapters that he managed to write were sorted and marked by his confidants after his death. It must be understood that the poem is not finished, it was written by a very sick person, therefore this work is the most complex and confusing of Nekrasov's entire literary heritage.
6. The final chapter is called "A Feast for the Whole World". All night the peasants sing about the old and new times. Kind and hopeful songs are sung by Grisha Dobrosklonov.

What is the poem about?

Seven peasants met on the road and argued about who should live well in Rus'? The essence of the poem is that they were looking for an answer to this question on the way, talking with representatives of different classes. The revelation of each of them is a separate story. So, the heroes went for a walk in order to resolve the dispute, but only quarreled, starting a fight. In the night forest, at the moment of a fight, a chick fell from the bird's nest, and one of the men picked it up. The interlocutors sat down by the fire and began to dream in order to also acquire wings and everything necessary for traveling in search of the truth. The warbler bird turns out to be magical and, as a ransom for her chick, tells people how to find a self-assembled tablecloth that will provide them with food and clothes. They find her and feast, and during the feast they vow to find the answer to their question together, but until then they will not see any of their relatives and not return home.

On the way they meet a priest, a peasant woman, a farcical Petrushka, a beggar, an overworked worker and a paralyzed former yard, honest man Yermila Girin, a landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev, a survivor of the mind of the Last Duck and his family, a serf Yakov the faithful, God's wanderer Ion Lyapushkin but none of them were happy people. Each of them is associated with a story full of genuine tragedy of suffering and misfortune. The goal of the journey is reached only when the wanderers stumble upon the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, who is happy with his selfless service to his homeland. With good songs, he instills hope in the people, and this is how the poem “Who lives well in Rus'” ends. Nekrasov wanted to continue the story, but did not have time, but he gave his heroes a chance to gain faith in the future of Russia.

Main characters and their characteristics

It is safe to say about the heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” that they represent a complete system of images that streamlines and structures the text. For example, the work emphasizes the unity of the seven wanderers. They do not show individuality, character, they express the common features of national self-consciousness for all. These characters are a single whole, their dialogues, in fact, are a collective speech that originates from oral folk art. This feature makes Nekrasov's poem related to the Russian folklore tradition.

1. Seven Wanderers are former serfs "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhayka, too." All of them put forward their own versions of who lives well in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a sovereign minister or a tsar. Perseverance is expressed in their character: they all demonstrate unwillingness to take sides. Strength, courage and the pursuit of truth - that's what unites them. They are ardent, easily succumbed to anger, but quickness compensates for these shortcomings. Kindness and responsiveness make them pleasant interlocutors, even despite some meticulousness. Their temper is harsh and cool, but life did not spoil them with luxury: the former serfs always bent their backs, working for the master, and after the reform, no one bothered to attach them properly. So they wandered in Rus' in search of truth and justice. The search itself characterizes them as serious, thoughtful and thorough people. The symbolic number "7" means a hint of good luck that awaited them at the end of the journey.
2. Main character- Grisha Dobrosklonov, seminarian, son of a deacon. By nature, he is a dreamer, a romantic, loves to compose songs and make people happy. In them, he talks about the fate of Russia, about her misfortunes, and at the same time about her mighty strength, which will someday come out and crush injustice. Although he is an idealist, his character is firm, as are his convictions to devote his life to the service of the truth. The character feels a calling to be a people's leader and singer of Rus'. He is happy to sacrifice himself to a lofty idea and help his homeland. However, the author hints that a difficult fate awaits him: prisons, exile, hard labor. The authorities do not want to hear the voice of the people, they will try to shut them up, and then Grisha will be doomed to torment. But Nekrasov makes it clear with all his might that happiness is a state of spiritual euphoria, and it can only be known by being inspired by a lofty idea.
3. Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina- the main character, a peasant woman, whom the neighbors call lucky because she begged the wife of her husband's military leader (he, the only breadwinner of the family, was to be recruited for 25 years). However, the story of a woman's life reveals not luck or good fortune, but grief and humiliation. She knew the loss of her only child, the anger of her mother-in-law, everyday, exhausting work. Detailed and her fate is described in an essay on our website, be sure to look.
4. Savely Korchagin- the grandfather of Matryona's husband, a real Russian hero. At one time, he killed a German manager who mercilessly mocked the peasants entrusted to him. For this, a strong and proud man paid for decades of hard labor. Upon his return, he was no longer good for anything, years of imprisonment trampled on his body, but did not break his will, because, as before, he stood up for justice with a mountain. The hero always said about the Russian peasant: "And it bends, but does not break." However, without knowing it, the grandfather turns out to be the executioner of his own great-grandson. He did not notice the child, and the pigs ate it.
5. Ermil Girin- a man of exceptional honesty, a steward in the estate of Prince Yurlov. When he needed to buy the mill, he stood in the square and asked people to rush to help him. After the hero got to his feet, he returned all the borrowed money to the people. For this, he earned respect and honor. But he is unhappy, because he paid for his authority with freedom: after a peasant revolt, suspicion fell on him in his organization, and he was imprisoned.
6. Landlords in the poem"To whom in Rus' to live well" are presented in abundance. The author portrays them objectively and even gives some images a positive character. For example, the governor's wife Elena Alexandrovna, who helped Matryona, appears as a people's benefactor. Also, with a note of compassion, the writer portrays Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev, who also treated the peasants tolerably, even arranged holidays for them, and with the abolition of serfdom, he lost the ground under his feet: he was too accustomed to the old order. In contrast to these characters, the image of the Last Duck and his treacherous, prudent family was created. The relatives of the hard-hearted old serf-owner decided to deceive him and persuaded the former slaves to participate in the performance in exchange for profitable territories. However, when the old man died, the rich heirs brazenly deceived the common people and drove him away with nothing. The apogee of the nobility of the nobility is the landowner Polivanov, who beats his faithful servant and sends his son to the recruits for trying to marry his beloved girl. Thus, the writer is far from denigrating the nobility everywhere, he is trying to show both sides of the coin.
7. Kholop Yakov- an indicative figure of a serf, the antagonist of the hero Saveliy. Yakov absorbed the whole slavish essence of the oppressed class, downtrodden with lack of rights and ignorance. When the master beats him and even sends his son to certain death, the servant meekly and meekly endures the offense. His revenge was a match for this humility: he hanged himself in the forest right in front of the master, who was crippled and could not get home without his help.
8. Iona Lyapushkin- God's wanderer, who told the peasants several stories about the life of people in Rus'. It tells about the epiphany of ataman Kudeyara, who decided to atone for sins by killing for good, and about the cunning of Gleb the headman, who violated the will of the late master and did not release the serfs on his orders.
9. Pop- a representative of the clergy, who complains about the difficult life of a priest. The constant clash with grief and poverty saddens the heart, not to mention the popular witticisms against his dignity.

The characters in the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" are diverse and allow us to paint a picture of the customs and life of that time.

Subject

• The main theme of the piece is Liberty- rests on the problem that the Russian peasant did not know what to do with it, and how to adapt to new realities. The national character is also “problematic”: people-thinkers, people-seekers of truth still drink, live in oblivion and empty talk. They are not able to squeeze slaves out of themselves until their poverty acquires at least the modest dignity of poverty, until they stop living in drunken illusions, until they realize their strength and pride, trampled down by centuries of humiliating state of affairs that have been sold, lost and bought.
• Happiness Theme. The poet believes that a person can get the highest satisfaction from life only by helping other people. The real value of being is to feel needed by society, to bring goodness, love and justice to the world. Selfless and selfless service to a good cause fills every moment with sublime meaning, with an idea, without which time loses color, becomes dull from inaction or selfishness. Grisha Dobrosklonov is happy not with wealth and position in the world, but with the fact that he leads Russia and his people to a brighter future.
• Homeland Theme. Although Rus' appears in the eyes of readers as a poor and tortured, but still a beautiful country with a great future and a heroic past. Nekrasov pities his homeland, devoting himself entirely to its correction and improvement. The homeland for him is the people, the people are his muse. All these concepts are closely intertwined in the poem "To whom in Rus' it is good to live." The author's patriotism is especially pronounced at the end of the book, when wanderers find a lucky man who lives in the interests of society. In a strong and patient Russian woman, in the justice and honor of a peasant hero, in the sincere good-heartedness of a folk singer, the creator sees the true image of his state, full of dignity and spirituality.
• The theme of labor. Useful activity elevates the impoverished heroes of Nekrasov above the vanity and depravity of the nobility. It is idleness that destroys the Russian master, turning him into a self-satisfied and arrogant nonentity. But the common people have skills that are really important for society and genuine virtue, without them there will be no Russia, but the country will manage without noble tyrants, revelers and greedy seekers of wealth. So the writer comes to the conclusion that the value of each citizen is determined only by his contribution to the common cause - the prosperity of the motherland.
• mystical motif. Fantastic elements appear already in the Prologue and immerse the reader in the fabulous atmosphere of the epic, where you have to follow the development of the idea, and not the realism of the circumstances. Seven owls on seven trees - the magic number 7, which promises good luck. The raven praying to the devil is another guise of the devil, because the raven symbolizes death, grave decay and infernal forces. He is opposed by a good force in the form of a warbler bird, which equips the men on the road. A self-assembled tablecloth is a poetic symbol of happiness and contentment. The “Wide Path” is a symbol of the open ending of the poem and the basis of the plot, because on both sides of the road, travelers open up a multifaceted and genuine panorama of Russian life. Symbolic is the image of an unknown fish in unknown seas, which has swallowed "the keys to female happiness." A weeping she-wolf with bloody nipples also clearly demonstrates the difficult fate of a Russian peasant woman. One of the most vivid images of the reform is the “great chain”, which, having broken, “spread one end along the gentleman, the other along the peasant!”. The seven wanderers are a symbol of the entire people of Russia, restless, waiting for change and seeking happiness.

Issues

• In the epic poem, Nekrasov touched on a large number of acute and topical issues of that time. The main problem is “Who is it good to live in Rus'?” - the problem of happiness, both socially and philosophically. It is connected with the social theme of the abolition of serfdom, which greatly changed (and not for the better) the traditional way of life of all segments of the population. It would seem that here it is, freedom, what else do people need? Is this not happiness? However, in reality, it turned out that the people, who, due to long slavery, do not know how to live independently, turned out to be thrown to the mercy of fate. A priest, a landowner, a peasant woman, Grisha Dobrosklonov and seven peasants are real Russian characters and destinies. The author described them, relying on rich experience of communicating with people from the common people. The problems of the work are also taken from life: disorder and confusion after the reform to abolish serfdom really affected all classes. No one organized jobs for yesterday's serfs, or at least land allotments, no one provided the landowner with competent instructions and laws governing his new relationship with workers.
• The problem of alcoholism. Wanderers come to an unpleasant conclusion: life in Rus' is so hard that without drunkenness a peasant will completely die. Forgetfulness and fog are necessary for him in order to somehow pull the strap of a hopeless existence and hard labor.
• The problem of social inequality. The landlords have been torturing the peasants with impunity for years, and Savelyia has been deformed for the murder of such an oppressor all her life. For the deceit, there will be nothing for the relatives of the Last, and their servants will again be left with nothing.
• The philosophical problem of the search for truth, which each of us encounters, is allegorically expressed in the campaign of seven wanderers who understand that without this discovery their life is depreciated.

The idea of ​​the work

The road skirmish of the peasants is not an everyday quarrel, but an eternal, great dispute, in which all layers of Russian society of that time appear to one degree or another. All its main representatives (priest, landowner, merchant, official, tsar) are called to the peasant court. For the first time men can and have the right to judge. For all the years of slavery and poverty, they are not looking for retribution, but for an answer: how to live? This is the meaning of Nekrasov's poem "Who is living well in Rus'?" - the growth of national consciousness on the ruins of the old system. The author's point of view is expressed by Grisha Dobrosklonov in his songs: “And your burden was lightened by fate, companion of the days of the Slav! You are still a slave in the family, but the mother is already a free son! ..». Despite the negative consequences of the reform of 1861, the creator believes that behind it is a happy future for the fatherland. It is always difficult at the beginning of change, but this work will be rewarded a hundredfold.

The most important condition for further prosperity is to overcome internal slavery:

Enough! Finished with the last calculation,
Done with sir!
The Russian people gather with strength
And learning to be a citizen

Despite the fact that the poem is not finished, Nekrasov voiced the main idea. Already the first of the songs of “A Feast for the Whole World” gives an answer to the question posed in the title: “The share of the people, their happiness, light and freedom, first of all!”

End

In the finale, the author expresses his point of view on the changes that have taken place in Russia in connection with the abolition of serfdom and, finally, sums up the results of the search: Grisha Dobrosklonov is recognized as the lucky one. It is he who is the bearer of Nekrasov's opinion, and in his songs the true attitude of Nikolai Alekseevich to what he described is hidden. The poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” ends with a feast for the whole world in the truest sense of the word: this is the name of the last chapter, where the characters celebrate and rejoice at the happy end of the search.

Conclusion

In Rus', the hero of Nekrasov, Grisha Dobrosklonov, is well, as he serves people, and, therefore, lives with meaning. Grisha is a fighter for the truth, a prototype of a revolutionary. The conclusion that can be drawn on the basis of the work is simple: a lucky man has been found, Rus' is embarking on the path of reforms, the people, through thorns, are drawn to the title of citizen. This bright omen is the great meaning of the poem. For more than a century it has been teaching people altruism, the ability to serve high ideals, and not vulgar and passing cults. From the point of view of literary skill, the book is also of great importance: it is truly a folk epic, reflecting a controversial, complex, and at the same time the most important historical era.

Of course, the poem would not be so valuable if it only gave lessons in history and literature. She gives life lessons, and this is her most important property. The moral of the work “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is that it is necessary to work for the good of one’s homeland, not to scold it, but to help it with deeds, because it’s easier to push around with a word, but not everyone can and wants to really change something. Here it is, happiness - to be in your place, to be needed not only for yourself, but also for the people. Only together can a significant result be achieved, only together can we overcome the problems and hardships of this overcoming. Grisha Dobrosklonov, with his songs, tried to unite, rally people so that they would meet changes shoulder to shoulder. This is his holy purpose, and everyone has it, it is important not to be too lazy to go out on the road and look for him, as the seven wanderers did.

Criticism

The reviewers were attentive to the work of Nekrasov, because he himself was an important person in literary circles and had great authority. Entire monographs were devoted to his phenomenal civil lyrics with a detailed analysis of the creative methodology and the ideological and thematic originality of his poetry. For example, here is how the writer S.A. spoke about his style. Andreevsky:

He retrieved the anapaest abandoned on Olympus from oblivion and for many years made this heavy, but flexible meter as walking as from the time of Pushkin to Nekrasov only airy and melodious iambic remained. This rhythm, chosen by the poet, reminiscent of the rotational movement of a hurdy-gurdy, made it possible to stay on the borders of poetry and prose, to joke with the crowd, to speak fluently and vulgarly, to insert a cheerful and cruel joke, to express bitter truths and imperceptibly, slowing down the tact, with more solemn words, to turn into ornate.

Korney Chukovsky spoke with inspiration about the thorough preparation of Nikolai Alekseevich for work, citing this example of writing as a standard:

Nekrasov himself constantly “visited Russian huts”, thanks to which both soldier and peasant speech became thoroughly known to him from childhood: not only from books, but also in practice, he studied the common language and from his youth became a great connoisseur of folk poetic images, folk forms thinking, folk aesthetics.

The death of the poet came as a surprise and a blow to many of his friends and colleagues. As you know, F.M. Dostoevsky with a heartfelt speech inspired by the impressions of a recently read poem. Specifically, among other things, he said:

He, indeed, was highly original and, indeed, came with a "new word."

The “new word”, first of all, was his poem “Who in Rus' should live well”. No one before him was so deeply aware of the peasant, simple, worldly grief. His colleague in his speech noted that Nekrasov was dear to him precisely because he bowed "to the people's truth with his whole being, which he testified to in his best creations." However, Fedor Mikhailovich did not support his radical views on the reorganization of Russia, however, like many thinkers of that time. Therefore, criticism reacted violently to the publication, and in some cases aggressively. In this situation, the honor of a friend was defended by a well-known reviewer, a master of the word Vissarion Belinsky:

N. Nekrasov in his last work remained true to his idea: to arouse the sympathy of the upper classes of society for the common people, their needs and requirements.

Quite poignantly, recalling, apparently, professional differences, I. S. Turgenev spoke about the work:

Nekrasov's poems, collected in one trick, are burning.

The liberal writer was not a supporter of his former editor and openly expressed his doubts about his talent as an artist:

In white threads sewn together, seasoned with all sorts of absurdities, painfully hatched fabrications of the mournful muse of Mr. Nekrasov - she, poetry, is not even worth a penny ”

He really was a man of very high nobility of soul and a man of great mind. And as a poet he is, of course, superior to all poets.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

An unfinished poem in which Nekrasov formulated another eternal Russian question and put folklore at the service of revolutionary democracy.

comments: Mikhail Makeev

What is this book about?

Serfdom in Russia has been abolished. Seven "temporarily liable" After the Peasant Reform, this was the name of the peasants who had not yet bought the land from the landowner, therefore they were obliged to pay dues or corvee for it. ⁠ (that is, in fact, not yet free) peasants (“Tightened province, / Terpigoreva Uyezd, / Empty volost, / From adjacent villages: / Zaplatova, Dyryavina, / Razutova, Znobishina, / Gorelova, Neelova - / Identity crop failure”) start a dispute about who "has a fun, free life in Rus'." To resolve this issue, they go on a journey in search of a happy person. Along the way, they see all of peasant Russia: they meet priests and soldiers, the righteous and drunkards, a landowner who does not know about the abolition of serfdom, and a future people's protector, who composes a hymn to the "poor and plentiful, downtrodden and omnipotent" Mother Rus'.

Nikolay Nekrasov. Lithograph by Peter Borel. 1860s

When was it written?

When exactly the idea of ​​the poem arose is not established. There is evidence Gabriel Potanin Gavriil Nikitich Potanin (1823-1911) - writer. He served as a teacher in Simbirsk. He gained fame thanks to the novel "The old grows old, the young grows", published in Sovremennik in 1861. Nekrasov helped Potanin move to St. Petersburg and get a job. In the early 1870s, relations with Nekrasov worsened, and the writer returned to Simbirsk. In his declining years, Potanin wrote enthusiastic memoirs about Nekrasov, however, some episodes in them do not correspond to the facts. ⁠ , who allegedly saw a manuscript (draft?) of the poem on Nekrasov's desk in the fall of 1860. However, Potanin cannot be completely trusted. Nekrasov himself dated the first part of the poem to 1865: apparently, it was basically completed by the end of that year. With interruptions (which sometimes stretched for several years), Nekrasov worked on “Who in Rus' should live well” until the end of his life. The poem was left unfinished. In the last of the written parts, "A Feast for the Whole World", the poet made changes until March 1877, that is, almost until his death. Shortly before his death, Nekrasov regretted that he would not have time to complete the poem: “... If only three or four more years of life. It is such a thing that only as a whole can have its own meaning. And the further you write, the more clearly you imagine the further course of the poem, new characters, pictures. Based on the poet's sketches, it is possible to restore the idea of ​​several unwritten chapters: for example, the meeting of heroes with an official, for the sake of which the peasants had to come to St. Petersburg.

The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..

Nikolai Nekrasov

How is it written?

“Who should live well in Rus'” is stylized as Russian folklore. This is a kind of encyclopedia or "complete collection" of genres of folk poetry - from small ones (proverbs, sayings, riddles, etc. - it is estimated that there are more than a hundred such inclusions in the poem) to the largest ones (epic, fairy tale, legend, historical song A lyrical epic folklore genre that tells about historical events. For example, songs about Ermak, Pugachev or the capture of Kazan. ⁠ ). In the part "Peasant Woman", the most "folklorized" in the poem, there are direct, only slightly adapted borrowings from folk songs. Nekrasov's language is full of diminutive suffixes, typical of the rhythm of the folk poetry 1 Chukovsky K. I. Nekrasov’s skill // Chukovsky K. I. Collected works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s skill. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. C. 515-524. ⁠ , and the images often go back to her formulas: “Spikes have already poured. / Chiseled pillars stand, / Gilded heads...”, “Only you, black shadows, / You can’t catch - hug!”

However, in most cases, Nekrasov does not so much copy or quote folklore texts as he is inspired by folk poetry, creating an original work in the “folk spirit”. According to Korney Chukovsky, Nekrasov could even "modify" neutral folklore images in such a way "so that they could serve the purposes of the revolutionary wrestling" 2 Chukovsky K. I. Nekrasov’s skill // Chukovsky K. I. Collected works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s skill. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. C. 398-399. ⁠ - despite the fact that this opinion itself looks biased, it is true in the sense that folklore for Nekrasov was material, and not an end in itself: he, one might say, edited folklore, combined elements of different texts, while achieving authentic sound and verified logic.

Typical fairy tale fiction plays an important role in the plot of the poem: magical helpers According to Vladimir Propp, a magical assistant is one of the key elements of a fairy tale, it helps the main character achieve the main goal. ⁠ (bird-chiffchaff) and magic remedies The outcome of a fairy tale often depends on the presence of a certain magical agent in the hero. As a rule, in the tale there is also a figure of a donor (for example, Baba Yaga), thanks to which the hero receives a remedy. Vladimir Propp writes about this in his book Morphology of a Fairy Tale. ⁠ (self-assembled tablecloth), as well as items of peasant life endowed with magical properties (armyians that do not wear out, do not rot "onuchenki", do not "break" bast shoes, shirts in which fleas "do not breed"). All this is necessary so that wanderers who have left their wives and “little children” at home can travel without being distracted by worries about clothing and food. The very number of wanderers - seven - speaks of a connection with Russian folklore, in which the seven is a special, sacred and, at the same time, rather "favorable" number.

The composition of the poem is free: in their wanderings around Rus', seven men witness numerous colorful scenes, meet with a variety of its inhabitants (mainly with peasants like themselves, but also with representatives of other social strata - landowners, priests, courtyards, lackeys). Answers to the main question of the poem are formed into short stories (there are many of them in the first part: in the chapters "Country Fair", "Drunken Night" and "Happy"), and sometimes turn into independent plots: for example, such an insert story occupies most of the fragment " Peasant Woman ”, a long story is dedicated to the life of Ermil Girin. This is how a kaleidoscopic picture of life in Russia develops in the era of the Peasant Reform (Nekrasov called his poem "the epic of modern peasant life").

The poem is mostly written in white iambic trimeter. Focusing on folk verse, Nekrasov randomly alternates dactylic Rhyme with stress on the third syllable from the end. ⁠ ending with male Rhyme with stress on the last syllable. ⁠ - this creates a feeling of free, flowing speech:

Yes, no matter how I ran them,
And the betrothed turned up,
On the mountain - a stranger!
Philip Korchagin - Petersburger,
A baker by skill.
The mother was crying
"Like a fish in a blue sea
You yell! like a nightingale
Flutter from the nest!
Someone else's side
Not sprinkled with sugar
Not watered with honey!

However, in "To whom in Rus' ..." there are fragments written in a variety of sizes, both in white and in rhymed verse. For example, the song “Hungry”: “A man is standing - / Swaying, / A man is walking - / Can’t breathe! // From his bark / He was swollen, / Longing-trouble / Tormented” - or the famous anthem “Rus”, written by seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov:

Rat rises -
innumerable,
The strength will affect her
Invincible!

You are poor
You are abundant
You are beaten
You are almighty
Mother Rus'!

Reaper. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1866

Peasants at dinner. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1866

What influenced her?

First of all, the Peasant Reform of 1861. She caused mixed responses in the circle to which Nekrasov belonged. Many of his employees and like-minded people reacted sharply negatively to it, including Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the leading critic of Sovremennik, who assessed the reform as unfair to the peasants and committed "in favor" of the landowners. Nekrasov himself was reserved about the reform, but much more optimistic. The poet saw in it not only injustice towards the people, the “sower and keeper” of the land, who now had to buy this land from the landowner, but also new opportunities. In a letter to Turgenev dated April 5, 1861, Nekrasov wrote: “Now we have a curious time - but the very thing and all his fate is ahead.” Apparently, the general feeling is well expressed in the short poem “Freedom” written at the same time:

Motherland! across your plains
I have never traveled with this feeling!

I see a child in the arms of a darling,
The heart is excited by the thought of the beloved:

In a good time, a child was born,
Merciful God! you don't know tears

Since childhood, no one has been intimidated, free,
Choose a job that suits you

If you want, you will remain a man for a century,
If you can, you will soar under the sky like an eagle!

There are many mistakes in these fantasies:
The human mind is thin and flexible,

I know, in place of the networks of serfs
People came up with many other

So! .. but it is easier for people to unravel them.
Muse! hopefully welcome freedom!

In any case, Nekrasov had no doubt that people's life was changing dramatically. And just the spectacle of change, along with reflections on whether the Russian peasant is ready to take advantage of freedom, in many ways became the impetus for writing the poem.

Of the literary and linguistic influences, the first is folklore, through which the people speak of their lives, worries, and hopes. Interest in folklore was characteristic of many Russian poets in the first half of the 19th century; most likely, Alexei Koltsov, the author of popular poems that imitate the style of folk poetry, should be considered the immediate predecessor of Nekrasov. Nekrasov himself became interested in folklore back in the mid-1840s (for example, in the poem "Gardener"), but the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was the culmination of this interest. Nekrasov collected folk oral art on his own for several decades, but he also used collections of folk poetry published by professional folklorists. So, a strong impression on Nekrasov was made by the first volume of "Lamentations of the Northern Territory", collected Elpidifor Barsov Elpidifor Vasilyevich Barsov (1836-1917) - ethnographer. Author of the three-volume work "Lamentations of the Northern Territory". Researcher of ancient Russian literature and owner of one of the best paleographic collections of his time. In 1914 he gave it to the Historical Museum. ⁠ (mostly it included cries and lamentations recorded from Irina Fedosova Irina Andreevna Fedosova (1827-1899) - folk storyteller. Originally from Karelia. Gained fame as a mourner. In the late 1860s, for several years, Elpidifor Barsov wrote down her lamentations, which were included in the ethnographic study "Lamentations of the Northern Territory". In total, about 30 thousand of its texts were recorded by various ethnographers. Fedosova performed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, had many fans. ⁠ ), as well as the third and fourth parts of "Songs collected P. N. Rybnikov Pavel Nikolayevich Rybnikov (1831-1885), ethnographer. Graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University. He studied the schism and the Old Believers in the Chernigov province, was suspected of participating in the revolutionary circle of "vertepniks", after which he was exiled to Petrozavodsk. In 1860, Rybnikov undertook a trip to the Russian North, where he collected and recorded unique local folklore. Based on the results of the trip, he published the book “Songs collected by P. N. Rybnikov”, which became known not only in Russia, but also abroad. ⁠ ". The poet used both of these books mainly in the part "Peasant Woman" to create the image of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina. Many of the stories told by the characters of the poem were heard by Nekrasov from people familiar with folk life (for example, from a well-known lawyer Anatoly Koni Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927) - lawyer and writer. He served as a prosecutor, was the chairman of the St. Petersburg District Court, an honorary judge of St. Petersburg and Peterhof districts. Under the chairmanship of Koni, the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty to Vera Zasulich, who shot at the St. Petersburg mayor Trepov. Based on Koni's memoirs on one of the cases, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection. After the revolution, he lectured on criminal justice, wrote a commentary on the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922. Author of the books "On the Path of Life", "Judicial Speeches", "Fathers and Sons of Judicial Reform". ⁠ ), possibly from peasant hunters. “Whatever jokes you spice up the story of an old serviceman, no matter how witty you distort words, such a story will still not be a real soldier’s story if you yourself have never heard soldier’s stories,” Nekrasov wrote back in 1845; the folklore layer in the poem is based on a deep personal knowledge of folk traditions 3 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. C. 380-386. ⁠ .

The plot of the "journey", convenient for a large-scale display of national life, was used, for example, by Nikolai Gogol in. Gogol is one of the writers whom Nekrasov honored with the highest praise for him: “the people’s protector” (the second such writer is Belinsky, whose books, according to Nekrasov’s dream, the peasant will one day “carry from the market” along with Gogol’s, and in drafts Nekrasov also calls Pushkin).

Grigory Myasoedov. The land is having lunch. 1872 State Tretyakov Gallery

The poem was printed in parts as it was created. "Prologue" was published in No. 1 "Contemporary" Literary magazine (1836-1866), founded by Pushkin. From 1847, Nekrasov and Panaev directed Sovremennik, later Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov joined the editorial board. In the 60s, an ideological split occurred in Sovremennik: the editors came to understand the need for a peasant revolution, while many authors of the journal (Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Druzhinin) advocated slower and more gradual reforms. Five years after the abolition of serfdom, Sovremennik was closed by personal order of Alexander II. ⁠ for 1866, and since 1869 the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Domestic Notes.

“A Feast for the Whole World” was not published during Nekrasov’s lifetime: his text, severely distorted for censorship reasons, was included in the November (11th) issue of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1876, but was cut out by censorship; the publication, planned in 1877, was also canceled, citing the author's "ill health". For the first time this fragment was published separately in 1879 in an illegal edition of the St. Petersburg Free Printing House, and the legally incomplete version of The Feast was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski only in 1881.

The first separate edition of "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" appeared in 1880. year 4 “Who in Rus' should live well”: A poem by N. A. Nekrasov. SPb.: Type. M. Stasyulevich, 1880. ⁠ , however, in addition to the first part, as well as "Peasant Woman" and "Last Child", it included only a short fragment "Grishin's Song"). Apparently, the one-volume poems of N. A. Nekrasov, published by Mikhail Stasyulevich Mikhail Matveevich Stasyulevich (1826-1911) - historian and publicist. Professor of History at St. Petersburg University, specialist in the history of Ancient Greece and the Western European Middle Ages. In 1861 he resigned in protest against the suppression of student protests. The author of the three-volume work "History of the Middle Ages, in its sources and modern writers." From 1866 to 1908 he was the editor of the journal Vestnik Evropy. ⁠ in 1881; however, here, too, "A Feast for the Whole World" is presented in a distorted form.

Since 1869, the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Domestic Notes.

Cover of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'". Printing house of M. M. Stasyulevich, 1880

How was it received?

As new parts of the poem were published, critics met them mostly negatively. Victor Burenin Viktor Petrovich Burenin (1841-1926) - literary critic, publicist, playwright. In his youth, he was friends with the amnestied Decembrists and radical democrats (helped Nekrasov with the collection of materials for the poem "Russian Women"), published in Herzen's Bell. From 1876 until the revolution, he worked for Suvorin's Novoye Vremya, a conservative right-wing publication. Due to frequent attacks and rudeness in his articles, Burenin gradually acquired a scandalous reputation - he was sued several times for libel. It was said that it was Burenin's harsh article that brought the poet Semyon Nadson to death - after reading the accusations that he was only pretending to be ill, Nadson felt worse and soon died. ⁠ believed that the chapters of the first part are “weak and prosaic as a whole, incessantly smack of vulgarity and only in places represent some dignity" 5 Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1873, March 10. No. 68. ⁠ , Vasily Avseenko Vasily Grigoryevich Avseenko (1842-1913) - writer, publicist. He taught general history at Kiev University, was co-editor of the Kievlyanin newspaper, head of the governor's office. After moving to St. Petersburg in 1869, he served in the Ministry of Public Education, published critical articles in Russkiy Vestnik, Russkiy Slovo, Zarya. From 1883 to 1896 he published the St. Petersburg Vedomosti. He wrote fiction: the novels The Evil Spirit, The Milky Way, Grinding of Teeth, and others. ⁠ called "To whom in Rus' it is good to live" "long and watery thing" 6 Russian thought. 1872, May 13. No. 122. ⁠ and even considered it "among the most unsuccessful works" Nekrasov 7 Russian thought. 1873, February 21. No. 49. ⁠ . More favorably Burenin met the "Last Child", in which he saw "artistic truth in conjunction with modern social thought" 8 Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1873. No. 68. ⁠ . However, both Burenin and Avseenko, who reacted sharply negatively to The Last Child, denied the relevance of this part: they accused Nekrasov of “denouncing serfdom exactly 12 years after it cancellation" 9 Russian Bulletin. 1874. No. 7. S. 454. ⁠ . The “peasant woman” was scolded for “false, made vulgarity" 10 Burenin; Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1874. No. 10. ⁠ , big stretches, rudeness, dissonance 11 Son of the fatherland. 1874. No. 30. ⁠ . It is characteristic that, attacking specific places in the poem, critics often did not even suspect that it was here that Nekrasov was using an authentic folklore text.

Friendly criticism noted in the poem a sincere feeling of sympathy for a simple person, "love for the" unfortunate Russian people "and the poet's sympathy for him suffering" 12 Radiance. 1873. No. 17. ⁠. Generally hostile to Nekrasov Evgeny Markov Evgeny Lvovich Markov (1835-1903) - writer, critic, ethnographer. He served as a teacher in Tula, then director of the Simferopol gymnasium. He collaborated with the magazines Otechestvennye Zapiski, Delo, Vestnik Evropy. Author of the novels "Chernozem fields" (1876), "Seashore" (1880), travel notes "Essays on the Crimea" (1872), "Essays on the Caucasus" (1887), "Journey through Serbia and Montenegro" (1903). ⁠ wrote about The Peasant Woman: “The speech of the best parts of his best poems either sounds like a characteristic melody of a real Russian song, or beats with the laconic wisdom of a Russian proverbs" 13 Voice. 1878. No. 46. ⁠.

There were also directly rave reviews: the critic Prokofy Grigoriev called “Who is good in Rus'” “by the power of genius, by the mass of life, enclosed in it, unprecedented in literature, not a single people poem" 14 The library is cheap and publicly available. 1875. No. 4. S. 5. ⁠ .

Probably the most perspicacious of his contemporaries was the poet (and one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov) Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov Alexey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov (1821-1908) - poet, satirist. He served in the Ministry of Justice and the State Chancellery, in 1858 he retired. Together with brothers Vladimir and Alexander and cousin Alexei Tolstoy, he created the literary pseudonym Kozma Prutkov. Author of several books of poetry. ⁠ : he highly appreciated the scale of Nekrasov's plan and singled out "Who in Rus' should live well" among the works of the poet. In a private letter to Nekrasov dated March 25, 1870 from Wiesbaden, Zhemchuzhnikov wrote: “This poem is a capital thing, and, in my opinion, among your works it occupies a place in the forefront. The main thought is very happy; the frame is extensive, like a frame. You can fit a lot in it."

Viktor Burenin. 1910s. Critic Burenin believed that the first parts of the poem "smell with vulgarity"

Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov. 1900 The poet Zhemchuzhnikov, on the contrary, believed that the poem "is a capital thing"

answer Lev Oborin

The modern status of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as the most important work of Nekrasov did not develop immediately. One of the first critics to put effort into this was Sergey Andreevsky Sergei Arkadyevich Andreevsky (1848-1918) - poet, critic, lawyer. He worked under the supervision of the lawyer Anatoly Koni, was a well-known judicial orator, the book with his defense speeches went through several editions. At the age of 30, Andreevsky began to write and translate poetry. He published the first translation into Russian of Poe's poem "The Raven". From the late 1880s he worked on critical studies on the work of Baratynsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, Nekrasov. ⁠ , whose articles on the poet had a significant impact on the perception of subsequent critics. In the article "The Degeneration of Rhyme" (1900), Andreevsky declared the poem one of Nekrasov's highest achievements.

The further canonization of the poem is connected not only with the work of non-beautiful critics (primarily Korney Chukovsky and Vladislav Evgeniev-Maximov Vladislav Evgenievich Evgeniev-Maksimov (1883-1955) - literary critic. He worked as a teacher at the Tsarskoye Selo real school, was fired for organizing a literary evening at which Nekrasov's "Railway" was read. Later he worked in independent public educational institutions. He created the Nekrasov exhibition, on the basis of which the Nekrasov Museum-Apartment in St. Petersburg was formed. Since 1934 he taught at the Leningrad University. Participated in the preparation of the complete works of Nekrasov. ⁠ ), but also with the fact that civil, revolutionary pathos was clearly audible in the poem: “Every peasant / Soul is like a black cloud - / Angry, formidable, - and it would be necessary / Thunders rumble from there, / Rains of blood ... " The censorship fate of the poem only reinforced the feeling that Nekrasov was proposing a direct revolutionary program and opposed liberal half-measures, and the figure of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the future revolutionary, was being shaped to answer the central question of the poem - an answer that Nekrasov did not finally give. The poem was popular even in circles Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya is a revolutionary organization founded in 1879. There were about 500 people among the registered participants. The Narodnaya Volya campaigned among the peasants, issued proclamations, staged demonstrations, including terrorist activities - they organized the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. For participation in the activities of the "Narodnaya Volya" 89 people were sentenced to death. ⁠ , was confiscated from the revolutionaries along with illegal literature. The name of Nekrasov appears in the texts of the main theorists of Russian Marxism - Lenin and Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918) - philosopher, politician. He headed the populist organization "Land and Freedom", the secret society "Black Redistribution". In 1880 he emigrated to Switzerland, where he founded the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. After the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Plekhanov disagreed with Lenin and headed the Menshevik Party. He returned to Russia in 1917, supported the Provisional Government and condemned the October Revolution. Plekhanov died a year and a half after returning from an exacerbation of tuberculosis. ⁠ . In the memoirs of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin appears as a true connoisseur of Nekrasov's poetry. Lenin's articles are interspersed with Nekrasov quotes: in particular, in 1912, Lenin recalls the lines about that "desired time" when the peasant "Belinsky and Gogol / From the market will suffer", and states that this time has finally come, and in 1918 he puts the lines from a song by Grisha Dobrosklonov (“You are poor, you are abundant ...”) as an epigraph to the article “The main task of our days" 15 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. ⁠ . Plekhanov, the chief specialist in aesthetics among Marxists, wrote a long article about him on the 25th anniversary of Nekrasov's death. A significant fragment in it is devoted to “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”: Plekhanov reflects on how Nekrasov would have reacted to a popular uprising, and comes to the conclusion that it seemed to him “completely unthinkable.” Plekhanov associated the pessimistic moods of the poem with the general decline of the revolutionary movement in the late 1870s: Nekrasov did not live to see the appearance of a new generation of revolutionaries, “and having recognized and understood these people, new in Rus', he might perhaps have written a new one in their honor, inspired "song", Not "hungry" and not "salty", A combat, - the Russian "La Marseillaise", in which the sounds of "to sweep" but the sounds "sorrows" would be replaced by the sounds of joyful confidence in victory. Despite this, in Marxist literary criticism there was no doubt that Nekrasov in "To whom in Rus' ..." was the harbinger of the revolution - accordingly, in the post-revolutionary literary canon, his poem was given a high place. It remains in the poem even today: the current study of Nekrasov's work at school cannot be imagined without a detailed analysis of "Who in Rus' should live well."

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play "Who Lives Well in Rus'" at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play "Who Lives Well in Rus'" at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

Why do men go in search of a happy man?

On the one hand, we have a convention: the men start a dispute, which comes to an epicly described fight, and then it occurs to them to go around all of Russia until they find an answer - a typical fairy tale quest, the folklore of which is enhanced by the appearance of a magical bird-chiffchaff and self-assembled tablecloths (almost the only fantastic elements in Nekrasov's poem, on the whole realistic: even seemingly speaking toponyms like Gorelov and Neelov had quite real correspondences).

On the other hand, whatever the motives for the journey, it is still necessary to figure out what exactly the wanderers wanted to know and why they chose such interlocutors. The very concept of happiness is very broad and ambiguous. Perhaps the wanderers do not just want to know who is happy with simple and understandable happiness - as it seems to them. Maybe they are also searching for what happiness is in general, what types of happiness there are, what is the happiness of happy people. And they do encounter a whole gallery of people who think they are happy—and a whole range of happiness types.

Finally, on the third hand, one should not exaggerate the fabulous beginning of the Nekrasov dispute: disputes on important topics in the post-reform peasant environment really took place - this was due to the beginning of the movement of liberated peasants to the cities, in general, with the seething of new ideas in Russia. The Soviet literary critic Vasily Bazanov associated the heroes of “Who should live well in Rus'” with the emergence of “a new type of peasant - a gambling debater, loudmouth, “brisk talker" 16 Comments // Nekrasov N. A. Complete works and letters: In 15 vols. T. 5: P. 605; see: Bazanov. ⁠ .

Great Russians. Drawing by L. Belyankin from the album “Russian peoples. Part 1. European Russia. 1894

What kind of happiness can be seen in Nekrasov's poem?

It is clear what happiness is - according to the principle “it could be worse”, but these examples allow wanderers to sort of clarify their idea of ​​happiness. It not only has to be strong, it gradually emerges as its own, specific. Of course, wealth is also important: instead of their “Tightened province, / Terpigorev district, / Empty volost”, the peasants are looking for “Unwhacked province, / Ungutted volost, / Surplus village”. But this is not the contentment of a well-fed slave, not wealth in the lordly manner. The happiness of a lackey who has been licking plates of truffles all his life and has fallen ill with the "lord's disease" (which is called "yes-gray!") is not "people's happiness", it is unacceptable for the peasant. The “correct” happiness is in something else. The series of happy people in the first part of the poem is crowned by the image burmistra Manager of the landowner's estate, supervised the peasants. ⁠ Yermila Girina: he, as the peasants think, is happy because he enjoys the respect and love of the people for his honesty, nobility and justice in relation to the peasants. But the hero himself is absent - he is sitting in prison (for what - it remains not completely clear; apparently, he refused to suppress the popular revolt), - and his candidacy is no longer possible.

Faced with failure, wanderers do not lose interest in their subject, expanding the boundaries of ideas about happiness. The stories they learn teach them something. For example, from a conversation with a village priest, the peasants learn that he is almost as unhappy as the peasants. The peasants' ideas about priestly happiness ("Popov's porridge - with butter, / Popov's pie - with filling, / Priest's cabbage soup with smelt!") turn out to be incorrect: it is impossible to achieve any income from serving the destitute ("The peasant himself needs, / And he would be glad to give, there's nothing..."),
and the reputation of the “priests” among the people is unimportant - they are laughed at, they are composed of “joke tales, / And obscene songs, / And all kinds of blasphemy.” Even the gentleman is unhappy, longingly recalling the former, pre-reform time:

Whom I want - I have mercy
Whoever I want, I will execute.
Law is my wish!
The fist is my police!
sparkling blow,
a crushing blow,
Cheekbone blow!..

Finally, in the poem there is an amazing story of the Last, the surviving Prince Utyatin, who was lied to that the tsar canceled the reform and returned serfdom: his former serfs play a comedy, pretending that everything remains the same. This story, which Nekrasov's critics considered a absurd, fantastic anecdote, actually had precedents; they might have been known to Nekrasov. The plot of the "Last Child" also warns against longing for the past (it was terrible, you should not try to restore it, even if the present does not justify bright hopes) and from voluntary slavery (even if this slavery is pretend, there will be no promised reward for it: heirs, in whose interests this performance was played out, the former serfs will certainly be deceived). Happiness must not be sought in the serf-owning past: then only the master and his faithful lackey Ipat were happy, whom the prince once accidentally ran over with a sleigh, and then nevertheless “nearby, unworthy, / With his special princely / In a sleigh he brought home” (telling about At this, Ipat invariably wept with emotion).

Can a woman be happy in Rus'?

“Not everything is between men / To look for a happy one, / Let's touch the women!” - the wanderers think at some point. The fragment "Peasant Woman" translates the question of happiness into a new plane: how to achieve happiness? The main character of the fragment, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, whose story is filled mainly with losses and sufferings (the difficult situation in her husband’s house, the loss of a son, corporal punishment, constant hardships and deprivations), nevertheless, not without reason, appears as a possible lucky woman:

And there is in the village of Klin:
Holmogory cow,
Not a woman! wiser
And more ironically - there is no woman.
Ask Korchagina
Matryona Timofeev,
She is the Governor...

She changed her fate: she saved her husband, achieved respect and, in fact, leadership in the family. This "impressive woman, / Broad and dense" enjoys unprecedented authority for a "woman" in her village. It can be considered, not without reason: this female image in the poem shows that the path, if not to happiness, then to a change in a bitter fate, lies through a strong, decisive act. This idea becomes clear if you look at the antipode of Matryona in "The Peasant Woman": this is grandfather Savely, "the hero of the Holy Russian." He pronounces the famous monologue, a kind of hymn to patience, the colossal ability for which makes the Russian peasant a real hero:

Hands twisted with chains
Legs forged with iron
Back ... dense forests
Passed on it - broke.
And the chest? Elijah the prophet
On it rattles-rides
On a chariot of fire...
The hero suffers everything!

This apology for patience does not impress Matryon at all:

"You're kidding jokes, grandpa! —
I said. — So-and-so
The mighty hero,
Tea, the mice will bite!”

Later, the old man Saveliy (whose fault was the death of Matryona's son) tells her: “Be patient, multi-curved! / Be patient, long-suffering! / We can’t find the truth”; of course, this idea is disgusting to her, and she is always looking for justice. For Nekrasov, the intention itself is more important than the result: Matryona Korchagina is not happy, but she has something that in other circumstances can become the foundation of happiness - courage, intransigence, strong will. However, neither Matryona nor her contemporary peasant women can wait for these other circumstances - for happiness, she tells the wanderers,

Go to the official
To the noble boyar,
Go to the king
Don't touch women
Here is God! pass with nothing
To the grave!

Podolyanka. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1886

Three poor old women. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1886

What is the special role of the Feast for the Whole World fragment?

The question of what happiness is and whether there is already a happy person (or group of people) in Rus' is replaced by another question: how to change the position of the Russian peasant? This is the reason for the unusual nature of the last fragment of the poem, "A Feast for the Whole World".

Even at a superficial glance, this part is different from the rest. First of all, the movement seems to have finally stopped: the wanderers no longer go through Rus', they remain in the Big Vakhlaki tree at the feast on the occasion of the death of the Last One - they participate in a kind of commemoration for serfdom. Secondly, here the wanderers do not meet anyone new - all the characters are the same whom we have already seen in the "Last Child" fragment. We already know that it makes no sense to look for a lucky one among them (and for those who appear in this fragment for the first time, the wanderers do not even try to ask a question that concerns them). It seems that the pursuit of happiness and the lucky man is either stopped or postponed, and the plot of the poem has undergone a change that was not provided for in its original program.

The search for happiness and happy is replaced discussion, conversation. For the first time in the poem, her peasant characters do not just tell their stories, but themselves begin to look for the reasons for their situation, their hard life. Prior to this, only one character from the people was shown as a kind of "people's intellectual" - Yakim Nagoi, a lover of "pictures" (that is, paintings hung on the walls for children's education and for his own joy) and a person who is able to sensibly and unexpectedly competently explain the true the reasons and real dimensions of popular drunkenness: he says that “we are great people / In work and in revelry”, and explains that wine is a kind of substitute for popular anger: “Every peasant / Soul is like a black cloud - / Wrathful, formidable, - and it would be necessary / Thunders rumble from there, / It rains bloody, / And everything ends with wine. / A charm went through the veins - / And the kind / Peasant soul laughed! (This is a “theory”, as if justifying the unsightly practice shown earlier in a few lines.) In the last fragment of the poem, the whole “world”, a kind of spontaneous folk assembly, acts as such a reflective subject.

At the same time, the discussion, deep and serious, is conducted in the same folklore forms, in the form of parables and legends. Take, for example, the question of who is to blame for the suffering of the people. The blame at first, of course, is laid on the nobles, the landlords, whose cruelty obviously exceeds any national offense and crime. It is illustrated by the famous song "About two great sinners". Her hero, the robber Kudeyar, in whom his conscience woke up, becomes a schemer; in a vision, a certain saint appears to him and says that in order to atone for his sins, Kudeyar must cut down the centuries-old oak with “the same knife that robbed”. This work takes many years, and one day Kudeyar sees the local rich landowner, Pan Glukhovsky, who boasts to him of his debauchery and declares that his conscience does not torment him:

“You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves I destroy
I torture, I torture and hang,
And I would like to see how I sleep!

The miracle with the hermit happened:
Felt rage,
Rushed to Pan Glukhovsky,
A knife plunged into his heart!

Just pan bloody
Fell head on the saddle
A huge tree collapsed
The echo shook the whole forest.

The tree collapsed, rolled down
From a monk the burden of sins! ..
Let us pray to the Lord God:
Have mercy on us, dark slaves!

People's holiness is opposed to the sin of the landowner (in this part, images of "God's people" appear, whose feat is not in serving God, but in helping the peasants in difficult times for them). However, here the idea also arises that the people themselves are partly to blame for their situation. A great sin (much more terrible than the landowner's) lies on the headman Gleb: his master, the old "ammiral-widower", before his death set his peasants free, but Gleb sold his freedom to his heirs and thereby left his brothers in serfdom (written "Koltsovskiy" verse song "Peasant sin"). The very abolition of serfdom is described as an event of catastrophic proportions: “The great chain broke” and hit “One end on the gentleman, / On the other end on the peasant! ..”

It is no longer the author, but his peasant characters who are trying to understand whether their life is changing for the better after the end of serfdom. Here the main burden lies with the headman Vlas, who feels himself to be a kind of leader of the people's world: on his shoulders is a great responsibility for the future. It is he who, turning into the “voice of the people”, either expresses the hope that it will be easier for the liberated peasants to achieve a better life, then falls into despondency, realizing that serfdom is deeply rooted in the souls of the peasants. A new character helps Vlas to dispel heavy doubts, introducing both already familiar and completely new notes into the work. This young man is a seminarian named Grigory Dobrosklonov, the son of a peasant woman and a poor deacon:

Although Dobrolyubov also came from the clergy, Grigory Dobrosklonov does not have much personal resemblance to him. Nekrasov did not achieve it: already in the lyrical poetry of Nekrasov, the image of Dobrolyubov separated from a specific person and became a generalized image of a revolutionary people-lover, ready to give his life for the happiness of the people. In "To whom it is good to live in Rus'," the type of populist is added to it, as it were. This movement, which arose already in the late 1860s, largely inherited the ideas, views and principles of the revolutionaries of the 60s, but at the same time differed from them. The leaders of this movement (some of them, like Mikhailovsky Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky (1842-1904) - publicist, literary critic. Since 1868, he was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and in 1877 he became one of the editors of the magazine. In the late 1870s, he became close to the Narodnaya Volya organization, and was expelled from St. Petersburg several times for his connections with the revolutionaries. Mikhailovsky considered the goal of progress to be raising the level of consciousness in society, and criticized Marxism and Tolstoyism. By the end of his life, he became a well-known public intellectual and a cult figure among populists. ⁠ And Lavrov Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823-1900), sociologist and philosopher. One of the main ideologists of populism. He was a member of the revolutionary society "Land and Freedom". After his arrest, he was sent into exile, where he wrote his most famous work, Historical Letters. In 1870 he fled abroad: he participated in the Paris Commune, edited the Vperyod magazine. Author of poems for the song "Working Marseillaise", which was used as an anthem in the first months after the February Revolution. ⁠ , collaborated in the Nekrasov journal Otechestvennye Zapiski) proclaimed the idea of ​​duty to the people. According to these ideas, the "thinking minority" owes its capabilities, the benefits of civilization and culture to people's labor - that huge mass of peasants who, while creating material wealth, do not use them themselves, continuing to vegetate in poverty, having no access to enlightenment, education, which could to help them change their lives for the better. Young people, brought up not only on the articles of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, but also Lavrov, Mikhailovsky, Bervi-Flerovsky Vasily Vasilievich Bervi-Flerovsky (real name - Wilhelm Wilhelmovich Bervi; 1829-1918) - sociologist, publicist. One of the main ideologists of populism. In 1861 he was arrested in the "case of Tver peace mediators" and sent into exile, first to Astrakhan, and then to Siberia. Wrote a revolutionary proclamation "On the Martyr Nicholas". Collaborated with the magazines Delo, Slovo and Otechestvennye Zapiski. He enjoyed great respect among young revolutionaries. ⁠ , sought to repay this debt to the people. One of these attempts was the famous "going to the people" undertaken by these people in the summer of 1874 at the call of their ideologists. Young people went to the villages not just to propagate revolutionary ideas, but to help the people, open their eyes to the reasons for their plight, give them useful knowledge (and excerpts from Nekrasov's poem could push them to this). The failure that ended this peculiar feat only increased the sense of sacrifice that guided the young people - many of them paid for their impulse with heavy and lengthy punishments.

Dobrosklonov does not think of his happiness otherwise than through overcoming someone else's, people's grief. His connection with the people is blood: Grisha's mother was a peasant woman. Nevertheless, if Dobrosklonov embodies the author's, Nekrasov's concept of happiness, which became the fruit of the poet's thoughts, this does not mean that he completes the poem: it remains a question whether the peasants will be able to understand such happiness and recognize a person like Grisha as a genuine lucky man - especially in the event that “the name of the loud / People's protector, / Consumption and Siberia” is really awaiting him (lines that Nekrasov deleted from the poem, possibly for censorship reasons). We remember that Burmeister Ermil Girin's candidacy for the role of a real lucky man disappears precisely when it turns out that "he is sitting in prison."

In the finale, when Grisha Dobrosklonov composes his ecstatic hymn to Mother Rus', Nekrasov declares: “If our wanderers were under their native roof, / If they could know what was happening with Grisha.” Perhaps the self-awareness of the young man who composed the "divine" song about Rus' is the main approach to happiness in the poem; it probably coincided with the feelings of the true author of the anthem - Nekrasov himself. But, despite this, the question of people's happiness, happiness in the understanding of the people themselves remains open in the poem.

"drunk" 17 Bee. 1878. No. 2. ⁠: “Having not found a happy man in Rus', the wandering peasants return to their seven villages ... These villages are “adjacent”, and from each there is a path to the tavern. Here, at this tavern, they meet a man who has drunk himself with a circle ... and with him over a glass they will find out who has a good life. Writer Alexander Shklyarevsky Alexander Andreevich Shklyarevsky (1837-1883) - writer. Served as parish teacher. He gained fame as the author of crime detectives. Author of the books "Tales of the Investigator", "Corners of the Slum World", "Murder without a trace", "Is she a suicide?" and many others. ⁠ recalled that the supposed answer to the poem's central question was "nobody" 18 A week. 1880. No. 48. S. 773-774. ⁠ , - in this case, this question is rhetorical and only a disappointing answer can be given to it. This evidence deserves attention, but the dispute about Nekrasov's design has not yet been resolved.

From the very beginning, a strangeness is striking: if the peasants could really assume that the representatives of the upper classes (landowner, official, priest, merchant, minister, tsar) were happy, why did they start looking for a happy one among their fellows? Indeed, as the literary critic Boris Bukhshtab noted, “there was no need for the peasants to leave their Razutovs, Gorelovs, Neyelovs to find out if they were happy peasants" 19 Bukhshtab B. Ya. N. A. Nekrasov. Problems of creativity. L.: Owls. pis., 1989. C.115. ⁠ . According to Bukhstab, there was an original idea for the poem, according to which Nekrasov wanted to show the happiness of the "upper classes" of society against the backdrop of people's grief. However, he underwent a change, since a different understanding of happiness came to the fore - from happiness as personal and selfish contentment, Nekrasov moves on to the idea of ​​​​the impossibility of being happy when grief and misfortune reigns around.

Fate prepared for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia...

In some editions, these lines are included in the main text of the poem as being the victim of self-censorship, but there are no grounds for an unequivocal conclusion about this (as in many other cases). The "censored" version of the exclusion of these famous lines has been disputed by philologists more than once. As a result, in the last academic collected works Nekrasov 20 Nekrasov N.A. Complete Works and Letters: In 15 volumes. Works of Art. Volumes 1-10. Criticism. Publicism. Letters. T. 11-15. L., St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1981-2000. ⁠ - the most authoritative edition of Nekrasov's texts - they are published in the "Other editions and variants" section.

Another still unresolved issue is in what order to print the completed fragments. There is no doubt that "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" should open the "Prologue" and "Part One". Variations are possible with the three following fragments. From 1880 to 1920, in all editions, fragments of the poem were printed in the order in which they were created and published (or prepared for printing) by Nekrasov: 1. “Part One”. 2. "Last child". 3. "Peasant woman". 4. "A feast for the whole world." In 1920, Korney Chukovsky, who prepared the first Soviet collected works of Nekrasov, changed the order, based on the author's instructions in the manuscripts: Nekrasov indicated in the notes where this or that fragment should be attributed. The order in Chukovsky's edition is as follows: 1. "Part One". 2. "Last child". 3. "A feast for the whole world." 4. "Peasant woman". This order is based, among other things, on the agricultural calendar cycle: according to it, the action of the "Peasant Woman" should take place two months after the "Last Child" and "Feast for the Whole World".

Chukovsky's decision was criticized: it turned out that if the "Peasant Woman" completes the entire poem, this gives it an overly gloomy meaning. In this version, it ended (cut off) on a pessimistic note - the story of the "holy old woman": "The keys to female happiness, / From our free will / Abandoned, lost / God himself!" The poem, thus, lost the historical optimism inherent in Nekrasov (as was traditionally considered in Soviet times), faith in a better future for the people. Chukovsky accepted the criticism and in 1922 published, in violation of the chronology of the author's work on the text, fragments in a different order: 1. "Part One". 2. "Peasant woman". 3. "Last child". 4. "A feast for the whole world." Now the poem took on a semblance of completeness on an optimistic note - Grisha Dobrosklonov experiences real euphoria in the finale of A Feast for the Whole World:

He heard immense strength in his chest,
Gracious sounds delighted his ears,
Radiant sounds of the noble hymn -
He sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people! ..

In this form, the poem was printed until 1965, but the discussions of literary critics continued. In the last academic collected works of Nekrasov, it was decided to return to the order in which “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was printed until 1920 of the year 21

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History of creation

N. A. Nekrasov began work on the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in the first half of the 60s of the XIX century. The mention of the exiled Poles in the first part, in the chapter "The Landowner", suggests that work on the poem was started no earlier than 1863. But the sketches of the work could have appeared earlier, since Nekrasov had been collecting material for a long time. The manuscript of the first part of the poem is marked 1865, however, it is possible that this is the date when work on this part was completed.

Shortly after finishing work on the first part, the prologue of the poem was published in the January issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1866. Printing stretched for four years and was accompanied, like all of Nekrasov's publishing activities, by censorship persecution.

The writer began to continue working on the poem only in the 1870s, writing three more parts of the work: "Last Child" (1872), "Peasant Woman" (1873), "Feast - for the whole world" (1876). The poet was not going to limit himself to the written chapters, three or four more parts were conceived. However, the developing disease interfered with the ideas of the author. Nekrasov, feeling the approach of death, tried to give some "completion" to the last part, "Feast - for the whole world."

The poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” was published in the following sequence: “Prologue. Part One”, “Last Child”, “Peasant Woman”.

The plot and structure of the poem

It was supposed that the poem would have 7 or 8 parts, but the author managed to write only 4, which, perhaps, did not follow one after another.

The poem is written in iambic trimeter.

Part one

The only part that doesn't have a title. It was written shortly after the abolition of serfdom (). According to the first quatrain of the poem, it can be said that Nekrasov initially tried to anonymously characterize all the problems of Rus' at that time.

Prologue

In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men got together.

They got into an argument:

Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?

They gave 6 answers to this question:

• Roman: to a landowner;
• Demyan: to an official;
• Gubin brothers - Ivan and Mitrodor: merchant;
• Pakhom (old man): minister, boyar;

The peasants decide not to return home until they find the right answer. In the prologue, they also find a self-assembled tablecloth to feed them, and set off on their journey.

Chapter I. Pop

Chapter II. Village fair.

Chapter III. Drunk night.

Chapter IV. Happy.

Chapter V. Landowner.

Last (from the second part)

In the midst of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they become witnesses of a strange scene: a noble family swims up to the shore in three boats. The mowers, who have just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help their heirs to hide the abolition of serfdom from the landowner Utyatin, who has lost his mind. For this, the relatives of the last-born Utyatin promise the peasants floodplain meadows. But after the long-awaited death of the Afterlife, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Peasant woman (from the third part)

In this part, the wanderers decide to continue their search for someone who can “live happily, freely in Rus'” among women. In the village of Nagotino, the women told the peasants that there was a “governor” Matryona Timofeevna in Klin: “there is no wiser and smoother woman.” There, seven men find this woman and convince her to tell her story, at the end of which she reassures the men of her happiness and of women's happiness in Rus' in general:

Keys to female happiness
From our free will
abandoned, lost
God himself!

• Prologue
• Chapter I. Before Marriage
• Chapter II. Songs
• Chapter III. Savely, hero, Holy Russian
• Chapter IV. Dyomushka
• Chapter V. She-wolf
• Chapter VI. Difficult year
• Chapter VII. Governor
• Chapter VIII. woman's parable

Feast - for the whole world (from the fourth part)

This part is a logical continuation of the second part ("Last Child"). It describes the feast that the peasants threw after the death of the old man, the Last. The wanderers' adventures do not end in this part, but at the end one of the feasters - Grisha Dobrosklonov, the priest's son, the next morning after the feast, walking along the river bank, finds the secret of Russian happiness, and expresses it in a short song "Rus", by the way, used by V. I. Lenin in the article "The main task of our days." The work ends with the words:

To be our wanderers
Under the native roof
If they could know
What happened to Grisha.
He heard in his chest
Forces are immeasurable
Sweetened his ears
blessed sounds,
Sounds radiant
Noble hymn -
He sang the incarnation
Happiness of the people! ..

Such an unexpected ending arose because the author was aware of his imminent death, and, wanting to complete the work, logically completed the poem in the fourth part, although at the beginning N. A. Nekrasov conceived 8 parts.

List of heroes

Temporarily liable peasants who went to look for someone who lives happily, freely in Rus':

Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin,

Old Pahom,

Peasants and serfs:

• Artem Demin,
• Yakim Nagoi,
• Sidor,
• Egorka Shutov,
• Klim Lavin,
• Vlas,
• Agap Petrov,
• Ipat is a sensitive slave,
• Jacob is a faithful servant,
• Gleb,
• Proshka,
• Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina,
• Savely Korchagin,
• Ermil Girin.

Landlords:

• Obolt-Obolduev,
• Prince Utyatin (late son),
• Vogel (Little information on this landowner)
• Shalashnikov.

Other heroes

• Elena Alexandrovna - the governor who took the birth of Matryona,
• Altynnikov - merchant, possible buyer of Ermila Girin's mill,
• Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov

Who lives well in Rus'

PART ONE

In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men came together:
Seven temporarily liable,
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure, too,
Agreed - and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?

Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
Luke said: ass.
Fat-bellied merchant! -
Gubin brothers said
Ivan and Mitrodor.
Old man Pahom pushed
And he said, looking at the ground:
noble boyar,
Minister of the State.
And Prov said: to the king ...

Man what a bull: vtemyashitsya
In the head what a whim -
Stake her from there
You won’t knock out: they rest,
Everyone is on their own!
Is there such a dispute?
What do passers-by think?
To know that the children found the treasure
And they share...
To each his own
Left the house before noon:
That path led to the forge,
He went to the village of Ivankovo
Call Father Prokofy
Baptize the child.
Pahom honeycombs
Carried to the market in the Great,
And two brothers Gubina
So simple with a halter
Catching a stubborn horse
They went to their own herd.
It's high time for everyone
Return your way -
They are walking side by side!
They walk like they're running
Behind them are gray wolves,
What is further - then sooner.
They go - they perekorya!
They shout - they will not come to their senses!
And time does not wait.

They didn't notice the controversy
As the red sun set
How the evening came.
Probably a whole night
So they went - where not knowing,
When they meet a woman,
Crooked Durandiha,
She did not shout: “Venerable!
Where are you looking at night
Have you thought about going?..”

Asked, laughed
Whipped, witch, gelding
And jumped off...

"Where? .." - exchanged glances
Here are our men
They stand, they are silent, they look down...
The night has long gone
Frequent stars lit up
In high skies
The moon surfaced, the shadows are black
The road was cut
Zealous walkers.
Oh shadows! black shadows!
Who won't you chase?
Who won't you overtake?
Only you, black shadows,
You can not catch - hug!

To the forest, to the path
He looked, was silent Pahom,
I looked - I scattered my mind
And he said at last:

"Well! goblin glorious joke
He played a trick on us!
After all, we are without a little
Thirty miles away!
Home now toss and turn -
We are tired - we will not reach,
Come on, there's nothing to be done.
Let's rest until the sun! .. "

Having dumped the trouble on the devil,
Under the forest along the path
The men sat down.
They lit a fire, formed,
Two ran away for vodka,
And the rest for a while
The glass is made
I pulled the birch bark.
The vodka came soon.
Ripe and snack -
The men are feasting!

Kosushki drank three,
Ate - and argued
Again: who has fun to live,
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman shouts: to the landowner,
Demyan shouts: to the official,
Luke yells: ass;
Fat-bellied merchant, -
The Gubin brothers are screaming,
Ivan and Mitrodor;
Pahom shouts: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State,
And Prov shouts: to the king!

Taken more than ever
perky men,
Cursing swearing,
No wonder they get stuck
Into each other's hair...

Look - they've got it!
Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.
And two brothers Gubina
They iron Prov hefty, -
And everyone screams!

A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.
King! - heard to the right
Left responds:
Butt! ass! ass!
The whole forest was in turmoil
With flying birds
By swift-footed beasts
And creeping reptiles, -
And a groan, and a roar, and a rumble!

First of all, a gray bunny
From a neighboring bush
Suddenly jumped out, as if tousled,
And off he went!
Behind him are small jackdaws
At the top of the birches raised
Nasty, sharp squeak.
And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest;
Chirping, crying chiffchaff,
Where is the chick? - will not find!
Then the old cuckoo
I woke up and thought
Someone to cuckoo;
Taken ten times
Yes, it crashed every time
And started again...
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Bread will sting
You choke on an ear -
You won't poop!
Seven owls flocked,
Admire the carnage
From seven big trees
Laugh, midnighters!
And their eyes are yellow
They burn like burning wax
Fourteen candles!
And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
At the very fire.
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!
Cow with a bell
What has strayed since the evening
From the herd, I heard a little
human voices -
Came to the fire, tired
Eyes on men
I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!

Silly cow mooing
Small jackdaws squeak.
The boys are screaming,
And the echo echoes everything.
He has one concern -
To tease honest people
Scare guys and women!
Nobody saw him
And everyone has heard
Without a body - but it lives,
Without a tongue - screaming!

Owl - Zamoskvoretskaya
Princess - immediately mooing,
Flying over peasants
Rushing about the ground,
That about the bushes with a wing ...

The fox herself is cunning,
Out of curiosity,
Sneaked up on the men
I listened, I listened
And she walked away, thinking:
"And the devil does not understand them!"
And indeed: the disputants themselves
Hardly knew, remembered -
What are they talking about...

Naming the sides decently
To each other, come to their senses
Finally, the peasants
Drunk from a puddle
Washed, refreshed
Sleep began to roll them ...
In the meantime, a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Got to the fire.

Pakhomushka caught him,
He brought it to the fire, looked at it
And he said: "Little bird,
And the nail is up!
I breathe - you roll off the palm of your hand,
Sneeze - roll into the fire,
I click - you will roll dead,
And yet you, little bird,
Stronger than a man!
Wings will get stronger soon
Bye-bye! wherever you want
You will fly there!
Oh you little pichuga!
Give us your wings
We will circle the whole kingdom,
Let's see, let's see
Let's ask and find out:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?

"You don't even need wings,
If only we had bread
Half a pood a day, -
And so we would Mother Rus'
They measured it with their feet!” -
Said the sullen Prov.

"Yes, a bucket of vodka," -
Added willing
Before vodka, the Gubin brothers,
Ivan and Mitrodor.

“Yes, in the morning there would be cucumbers
Salty ten, "-
The men joked.
“And at noon would be a jug
Cold kvass."

"And in the evening for a teapot
Hot tea…”

While they were talking
Curled, whirled foam
Above them: listened to everything
And sat by the fire.
Chiviknula, jumped up
And in a human voice
Pahomu says:

"Let go of the chick!
For a little chick
I'll give you a big ransom."

– What will you give? -
"Lady's bread
Half a pood a day
I'll give you a bucket of vodka
In the morning I will give cucumbers,
And at noon sour kvass,
And in the evening a seagull!

- And where, little pichuga, -
Gubin brothers asked, -
Find wine and bread
Are you on seven men? -

“Find - you will find yourself.
And I, little pichuga,
I'll tell you how to find it."

- Tell! -
"Go through the woods
Against the thirtieth pillar
A straight verst:
Come to the meadow
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines
Beneath these under the pines
Buried box.
Get her -
That box is magical.
It has a self-assembled tablecloth,
Whenever you wish
Eat, drink!
Quietly just say:
"Hey! self-made tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
At your request
At my command
Everything will appear at once.
Now let the chick go!”

- Wait! we are poor people
I'm going on a long road,
Pahom answered her. -
You, I see, are a wise bird,
Respect - old clothes
Bewitch us!

- So that the peasants' Armenians
Worn, not worn! -
Roman demanded.

- To fake bast shoes
Served, did not crash, -
Demyan demanded.

- So that a louse, a foul flea
I didn’t breed in shirts, -
Luke demanded.

- Wouldn’t the onuchenki ... -
Gubins demanded...

And the bird answered them:
"All the tablecloth is self-assembled
Repair, wash, dry
You will be ... Well, let it go! .. "

Opening a wide palm,
He let the chick go.
Let it go - and a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Went to the hollow.
Behind him, a foam rose
And on the fly added:
“Look, chur, one!
How much food will take
Womb - then ask
And you can ask for vodka
In day exactly on a bucket.
If you ask more
And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third, be in trouble!
And the foam flew away
With my darling chick,
And the men in single file
Reached for the road
Look for the thirtieth pillar.
Found! - silently go
Straight, straight
Through the dense forest,
Every step counts.
And how they measured a mile,
We saw a meadow -
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines...
The peasants dug
Got that box
Opened and found
That tablecloth self-assembled!
They found it and shouted at once:
“Hey, self-assembled tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
Look - the tablecloth unfolded,
Where did they come from
Two strong hands
A bucket of wine was placed
Bread was laid on a mountain
And they hid again.
“But why aren’t there cucumbers?”
"What is not a hot tea?"
“What is there no cold kvass?”
Everything suddenly appeared...
The peasants unbelted
They sat down by the tablecloth.
Went here feast mountain!
Kissing for joy
promise to each other
Forward do not fight in vain,
And it's quite controversial
By reason, by God,
On the honor of the story -
Do not toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys
Not with old old people,
As long as the matter is controversial
Solutions will not be found
Until they tell
No matter how it is for sure:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?
Having made such a vow,
In the morning like dead
Men fell asleep...

The work of Russian literature of the 19th century does not lose its relevance. The search for happiness can continue. Little has changed in the customs of modern Russia. A summary of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by chapters and parts will help you find the right episode and understand the plot.

1 part

Prologue

Seven men from different villages gathered on the road and began to argue about who lives happily and freely in Rus'. The meeting place and the name of the villages are chosen by the author with meaning. Uyezd - Terpigorev (we endure grief), volost - Pustoporozhnaya (empty or empty). Villages with names that convey the main characteristics of the life of peasants:

• clothing from patches - Zaplatovo;
• leaky things - Dyryavino;
• without shoes - Razutovo;
• shivering from illness and fear - Znobishino;
• burnt houses - Gorelovo;
• no food - Neelovo;
• constant crop failures - Crop failure.

Who met on the road, what will be the name of the hero of the poem: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Ivan, Mitrodor, Pahom, Prov. Each of them puts forward his own version, but the men do not come to a consensus. Who can live happily in Rus':

• landowner;
• official;
• merchant;
• boyar;
• minister;
• tsar.

The men argue as only a Russian can. They each went about their business, but forgot about the goal. During the argument, they did not notice how the day ended, the night came. Old Pahom suggested that we stop and wait for the next day to continue our journey. The men sat around the fire, ran for vodka, made glasses from birch bark and continued the argument. The screams turned into a fight that frightened the entire forest. Eagle owls, a cow, a raven, a fox, a cuckoo admire the carnage. The warbler chick fell out of the nest and crept up to the fire. Pahom talks to the chick, explaining its weakness and strength. A hand can crush a helpless chick, but the peasants do not have wings to fly around all of Rus'. Other fellow travelers began to dream of their own: vodka, cucumbers, kvass and hot tea. The mother warbler whirled and listened to the speeches of the disputants. Pichuga promised to help and told me where to find a self-assembly tablecloth. Having learned about the wisdom of the bird, the peasants began to ask to make sure that the shirts do not wear out, the bast shoes do not wipe off, and the louse does not start.

"Everything will do the tablecloth"

Promised foam. The bird warned that one should not ask the tablecloth for more food than the stomach can withstand, and only 1 bucket of vodka. If these conditions are not met, for 3 times the desire will lead to trouble. The men found a tablecloth, arranged a feast. They decided that they would find out who lives happily on Russian soil, only then they will return home.

1 chapter. Pop

The peasants continued on their way. They met many people, but no one was interested in life. All the wanderers were close to them: a lapotnik, an artisan, a beggar, a coachman. The soldier could not be happy. He shaves with an awl, warms himself with smoke. Closer to the night they met a pop. The peasants stood in a row and bowed to the holy man. Luka began to ask the priest if he had a free life. The priest thought for a moment and began to speak. He simply kept silent about the years of study. The priest has no rest. He is called to the sick, dying. The heart aches and hurts for orphans and people leaving for another world. The priest has no honor. They call him insulting words, shun him on the way, compose fairy tales. They do not like either the priest's daughter or the priest. Not held in high esteem by the pop of all classes. Where does the priest get his wealth from? Previously, there were many nobles in Rus'. Children were born in estates, weddings were played. Everyone went to the priests, wealth grew and multiplied. Now in Rus' everything has changed. The landowners scattered throughout the foreign land, leaving only ruined possessions in their homeland. The priest complains about the schismatics who have appeared, who live among the Orthodox. The life of priests is becoming more and more difficult, only poor peasants give income. What can they give? Only a dime and a pie for the holiday. The priest finished his dreary story and moved on. The men attacked Luka, who claimed that the priests live freely.

Chapter 2 rural fair

• Dirty hotel with a beautiful sign and a tray with dishes.
• Two churches: Orthodox and Old Believers.
• School.
• Medical assistant's hut, where the sick bleed.

Wanderers came to the square. There were many tents with different goods. The men are walking among the malls, they are surprised, laugh, and look at the people they meet. Someone sells handicrafts, another checks the rim and gets hit on the forehead. Women scold French fabrics. One got drunk and does not know how to buy the promised gift for his granddaughter. He is helped by Pavlusha Veretennikov, a man without a title. He bought shoes for his granddaughter. The peasants left the village without meeting the one they were looking for. On the hillock it seemed to them that Kuzminskoye was staggering along with the church.

Chapter 3 drunken night

The men were moving along the road, meeting drunks. They

"crawled, lay, rode, floundered."

Sober wanderers walked, looking around and listening to speeches. Some were so bad that it becomes terrifying how the Russian people drink too much. In the ditch, the women are arguing about who lives harder. One goes as if to hard labor, the other is beaten by sons-in-law.

The wanderers hear the familiar voice of Pavlusha Veretennikov. He praises the smart Russian people for proverbs and songs, but is upset because of drunkenness to the point of stupefaction. But the man does not allow him to write down the thought. He began to prove that the peasants drink on time. In suffering people in the field, who works and feeds the whole country? For a drinking family - a non-drinking family. And trouble comes to everyone the same way. Ugly drunken men are no worse than those who were eaten by midges, eaten by swamp reptiles. One of the drunks was Yakim Nagoi. The worker decided to compete with the merchant and ended up in prison. Yakim loved paintings, because of them he almost burned down during a fire. Taking pictures, I did not have time to pull out the rubles. They merged into a lump, lost their value. The men decided that they could not overcome the hops of a Russian person.

Chapter 4 Happy

Wanderers are looking for the lucky one in the festive crowd at the bazaar. But all the arguments they meet seem absurd. There are no truly happy people. Peasant happiness does not impress wanderers. They are sent to Yermil Girin. He collected money from people in an hour. All the peasants chipped in and helped Yermil to buy the mill, to resist the merchant Altynnikov. A week later, Yermil returned everything to the penny, no one demanded more from him, no one was offended. Someone did not take one ruble from Girin, he gave it to the blind. The men decided to find out what kind of witchcraft Yermil owns. Kirin faithfully served as the headman. But he could not send his brother to the army, he replaced him with a peasant. The act exhausted Yermil's soul. He returned the peasant home, and sent his brother to the service. He resigned as headman and took the mill on lease. Fate still took revenge on the peasant, he was put in jail. The wanderers go further, realizing that this is not the happiest person in Rus'.

Chapter 5 landowner

Wanderers meet the landowner. The ruddy landowner was 60 years old. And here the author tried. He chose a special surname for the hero - Obolt-Obolduev Gavrila Afanasyevich. The landowner decided that they were going to rob him. He drew a pistol, but the men calmed him down and explained the essence of their argument. Gavrila Afanasyevich was amused at the question of the peasants. He laughed his fill and began to talk about his life. He started with a family tree. The men quickly understood what was being said. The ancestor of the landowner was Oboldui, who is already more than 2 and a half centuries old. He entertained the empress by playing with animals. On the other hand, the family originates from the prince who tried to set fire to Moscow and was executed for it. The landowner was famous, the older the tree, the better the family. The wealth of the family was such that it seemed that one could not think about the future. The forests are full of hares, the rivers are full of fish, the arable land is flooded with grain. Houses were built with greenhouses, gazebos and parks. The landowners were celebrating and walking. Hunting was a favorite pastime. But gradually the power of the Russian landowner is leaving with it. Peasants if the master of gifts from all over the vast country. The long life ended quickly. Houses sorted out brick by brick, everything began to fall into disrepair. There is land left to work on. The landowner does not know how to work, he spends his whole life

"lived by someone else's work."

The peasants realized that the landowner was not the one they were looking for.

2 part. Last

Chapter 1

The wanderers reached the Volga. There was a lot of fun going on around. The wanderers saw how the wonderful old man swaggered over the peasants. He forced to scatter the heroic haystack. It seemed to him that the hay had not dried up. It turned out to be Prince Utyatin. The wanderers were surprised why the peasants behave this way, if they have long been given freedom and the patrimony does not belong to the prince, but to them. Vlas explains to his comrades what the matter is.

Chapter 2

The landowner was very rich and important. He did not believe that serfdom had been abolished. He got hit. The children and their wives arrived. Everyone thought that the old man would die, but he recovered. The heirs of their father's anger were afraid. One of the ladies said that serfdom was returned. I had to persuade the serfs to continue to behave as before, before the free. They promised to pay for all the quirks of the parent. The prince's orders were as ridiculous as they were absurd. One of the old men could not stand it and told the prince. He was ordered to be punished. Agap was persuaded to drink and scream as if he was being beaten. They made the old man drunk to death, he died by morning.

Chapter 3

The peasants, believing in the promises of their heirs, behave like serfs. The Prince of the Last is dying. But no one fulfills the promises, the promised lands do not pass to the peasants. There is a lawsuit going on.

3 part. peasant woman

The men decided to look for happy people among the women. They were advised to find Matryona Timofeeva Korchagina. Wanderers go through the fields, admiring the rye. Wheat does not please them, it does not feed everyone. We reached the desired village - Klin. The peasants were surprised at every step. Strange, absurd work went on throughout the village. Everything around was destroyed, broken or spoiled. Finally, they saw reapers and reapers. Pretty girls have changed the scene. Among them was Matrena Timofeevna, popularly nicknamed the governor's wife. The woman was about 37 - 38 years old. The appearance of a woman attracts with beauty:

• big stern eyes;
• wide tight posture;
• rich eyelashes;
• swarthy skin.

Matryona is neat in her clothes: a white shirt and a short sundress. The woman could not immediately answer the question of the wanderers. She thought, reproached the peasants, they chose the wrong time for talking. But the peasants offered their help in exchange for a story. The Governor agreed. The self-made tablecloth fed and watered the peasants. The hostess agreed to open the soul.

1 chapter. before marriage

Matryona was happy in her parents' house. Everyone treated her well: father, brother, mother. The girl grew up hardworking. She has been helping with housework since she was 5 years old. A kind worker grew up, a lover of singing and dancing. Matryona was in no hurry to get married. But the stove-maker Philip Korchagin appeared. The girl thought it over all night, cried, but after looking at the guy more carefully, she agreed. Happiness was only on the night of the matchmaking, as Matryona said.

Chapter 2 Songs

Wanderers and a woman sing songs. They talk about a heavy share in someone else's house. Matrena continues the story of her life. The girl got into a huge family. The husband went to work, advised his wife to be silent and endure. Matrena worked for her older sister-in-law, the devout Martha, looked after her father-in-law, and gratified her mother-in-law. It occurred to Philip's mother that rye would be best grown from stolen seeds. The father-in-law went to steal, he was caught, beaten and thrown into the barn half dead. Matryona praises her husband, and the wanderers ask if he beat her. The woman tells. Philip was beaten for a slow answer to a question when his wife lifted a heavy pot and could not speak. The wanderers sang a new song about her husband's whip and relatives. Matrena gave birth to a son, Demushka, when her husband again went to work. The trouble came again: the master's manager, Abram Gordeevich Sitnikov, liked the woman. He didn't let go. Of the whole family, only grandfather Savely felt sorry for Matryona. She went to him for advice.

Chapter 3 Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Grandfather Savely looked like a bear. He did not cut his hair for 20 years, bent from the years he had lived. According to the documents, my grandfather was already over 100 years old. He lived in a corner - in a special room. He did not let his family members in, they did not like him. Even his own son scolded his father. They called grandfather branded. But Savely was not offended:

"Branded, but not a slave!"

Grandfather rejoiced at the failures of the family: they were waiting for matchmakers - beggars came under the windows, the father-in-law was beaten in a drinking tavern. Grandfather collects mushrooms and berries, catches birds. In winter he talks to himself on the stove. The old man has many sayings and favorite sayings. Matryona and her son went to the old man. The grandfather told the woman why he was called branded in the family. He was a convict, he buried the German Vogel alive in the ground. Savely tells the woman how they lived. Times were good for the peasants. The master could not get to the village because there were no roads. Only bears disturbed the inhabitants, but even those men coped easily without guns:

"with a knife and a horn."

Grandfather tells when he was frightened, from which his back bent. He stepped on a sleepy bear, was not afraid, drove a horn into her and raised her like a chicken. The back crunched from heaviness, in youth it ached a little, and in old age it bent. In a lean year, Shalashnikov reached them. The landowner began to tear "three skins" from the peasants. When Shalashnikov died, a German, a strange and quiet man, was sent to the village. He forced them to work, unbeknownst to themselves, the peasants cut a clearing to the village, a road appeared. With her came hard labor. The German grip is to let it go around the world. Russian heroes endured, did not break. Peasants

"the axes lay for the time being."

The German ordered to dig a well and came to scold him for his slowness. Hungry men stood and listened to his whining. Savely gently pushed him with his shoulder, the others did the same. They carefully threw the German into the pit. He shouted, demanded a rope and a ladder, but Savely said:

"Give it up!"

The pit was quickly dug up, as if it never happened. Next came penal servitude, prison, and flogging. The old man's skin has become like dressed, the grandfather jokes, that's why it has been worn "for a hundred years", that it has endured so much. Grandfather returned to his homeland while there was money, he was loved, then they began to hate him.

Chapter 4

Matrena continues the story of her life. She loved her son Demushka, took him everywhere with her, but her mother-in-law demanded to leave the child with her grandfather. The woman was loading compressed sheaves of rye when she saw Savely crawling towards her. The old man roared. He fell asleep and did not notice how the pigs ate the child. Matryona experienced terrible grief, but even more terrible were the interrogations of the police officer. He found out whether Matryona cohabited with Savely, whether she had killed her son in conspiracy, poured arsenic. The mother asked to bury Demushka according to the Christian custom, but they began to cut the child, “torment and plast”. The woman almost went crazy with anger and grief, she cursed Savely. Having gone crazy in her mind, she went into oblivion, when she woke up, she saw that her grandfather was reading a prayer over a small coffin. Matryona began to chase the old man, and he asked for forgiveness and explained that Demushka had melted the old man's petrified heart. All night Savely read a prayer over the child, and the mother held a candle in her hands.

Chapter 5

It has been 20 years since the son died, and the woman still regrets his fate. Matryona stopped working, she was not afraid of her father-in-law's reins. I could not make any more promises with my grandfather Savely. The old man sat out of grief in his room for 6 days, went into the forest. He wept so that the whole forest moaned with him. In autumn, grandfather went to the Sand Monastery to repent for what he had done. Life began to go on as usual: children, work. Parents died, Matrena went to cry at Demushka's grave. There she met Savelia. He prayed for Dema, Russian suffering, for the peasantry, asked to remove anger from his mother's heart. Matrena reassured the old man, saying that she had forgiven him a long time ago. Savely asked to look at him as before. The kind look of the woman delighted the grandfather. The “hero” died hard: he did not eat for 100 days and dried up. He lived for 107 years, asked to be buried next to Demushka. The request was fulfilled. Matrena worked for the whole family. The son was given at the age of 8 as a shepherd. He did not follow the sheep, and the she-wolf carried it away. The mother did not let the crowd flog her son. Fedot said that the huge she-wolf grabbed the sheep and ran. The boy rushed after her, boldly took away the animal from the gray one, but took pity on her. The she-wolf was covered in blood, her nipples were cut with grass. She howled as plaintively as a mother weeps. The boy gave her the sheep, came to the village and told everything honestly. The headman ordered the shepherd to be forgiven, and the woman to be punished with rods.

Chapter 6

A hungry year has come to the village. The peasants looked for reasons in their neighbors, Matryona was almost killed for a clean shirt, dressed in Christmas. The husband was taken into the army, poverty became almost unbearable. Matryona sends the children to beg. The woman cannot stand it and leaves the house at night. She sings to the wanderers a song that she likes very much.

Chapter 7

Matrena ran at night to ask for help in the city from the governor. All night the woman walked, praying to God to herself. In the morning I reached the Cathedral Square. I learned that the porter's name was Makar and began to wait. He promised to start in two hours. The woman walked around the city, looked at the monument to Susanin, which reminded her of Savely, was frightened by the cry of a drake that fell under the knife. I returned to the governor's house early, managed to talk with Makar. A lady in a sable coat came down the stairs, Matryona threw herself at her feet. She asked so much that she began to give birth in the governor's house. The lady baptized the boy, chose the name Liodor for him. Elena Alexandrovna (lady) returned Philip. Matrena wishes the lady only joy and goodness. The husband's family is grateful to the daughter-in-law, with a man in the house, hunger is not so terrible.

Chapter 8

The woman was defamed in the district, they began to call a new name - the governor. Matryona has 5 sons, one is already in the army. Korchagina sums up her story:

"... It's not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women! ...".

Wanderers are trying to find out if the woman told them everything about her life, but she only tells them about troubles and grief:

• Anthrax;
• Work instead of a horse;
• Scourge and loss of the firstborn.

The woman did not experience only "the last shame." Matrena says that the keys to women's happiness are lost by God. She tells a parable she heard from the holy old woman. God abandoned the keys, they were looking for them, but they decided that the fish had swallowed them. The warriors of the Lord went through the whole of God's world, finally found the loss. Women breathed a sigh of relief throughout the world. But it turned out that these were the keys to slavery. No one still knows where this fish walks.

4 part. A feast for the whole world

The wanderers settled down at the end of the village under the willow. They remember the master - the Last. Under the feast, they begin to sing and share stories.

Song Merry. It is sung like a dance priests and courtyard people. Only vakhlak did not sing. A song about the hard lot of a Russian peasant.

“It is glorious for the people to live in holy Rus'”:

He has no milk - the master took the cow for offspring, there are no chickens - the judges of the Zemstvo council ate, the children are taken away: the king - the boys, the master - the daughters.

Barshine song. The second song is sad and drawn out. The hero of the story is the unkempt Kalinushka. His only back is painted from a rod and whips. Grief drowns Kalinushka in a tavern, he sees his wife only on Saturday, he will "backfire" on her from the master's stables.

About the exemplary lackey - Yakov Verny. The story is told by the courtyard Vikenty Alexandrovich. The protagonist of the story is a gentleman, cruel and evil. For bribes, he bought a village for himself and established his own law. The cruelty of the master was in relation not only to the courtyards. He gave his own daughter in marriage, flogged the guy and "chased away (the children) naked." Polivanov had a serf - Yakov. He served his master like a faithful dog. The serf took care of the master, humored him as best he could. The old man began to get sick, his legs gave out. Jacob carried him in his arms like a child. Jacob's nephew Grisha grew up. Yakov asked permission to marry the girl Arisha, but the master himself liked the girl, he sent Grigory to recruit. The serf was on fire. He drank for 2 weeks, the master felt what it was like for him without an assistant. Yakov returned and devotedly again began to look after the landowner. They went to visit their sister. The landowner settled down carelessly in the carriage, Yakov took him to the forest. The master was frightened when he saw that they had turned off the road to the ravine. Frightened, he decided that he was waiting for death. But the serf laughed evilly:

"Found the murderer!",

Jacob did not want

"... dirty your hands with murder ...".

He made a rope and hanged himself in front of the master. He lay all night in a ravine, driving away birds and wolves. The hunter found him the next morning. The master understood what sin he had committed against the faithful serf.

A story about two great sinners. Ionushka began to tell the story of Father Pitirim from Solovki. Twelve robbers with ataman Kudeyar rampaged in Rus'. Suddenly, the robber Kudeyar woke up conscience. He began to argue with her, trying to gain the upper hand. He cut off the beauty's head, killed the captain. But conscience won. Disbanded the ataman gang, went to pray. For a long time he sat under the oak, asking God. The Lord heard the sinner. He suggested that he cut down a centuries-old tree with a knife. The chieftain set to work, but the oak did not give in to him. Pan Glukhovsky came to him. He began to boast that he kills easily and sleeps peacefully, without remorse. Kudeyar could not stand it, plunged a knife into the heart of the pan. The oak collapsed at the same moment. One sinner was forgiven by God for sins, freeing the world from another villain.

Peasant sin. The widower-ammiral received 8,000 souls from the empress for his service. Ammiral leaves a will to the headman. Freemen are hidden in the casket. After the death of the emmiral, a relative finds out from Gleb, where the free will is kept and burns the will. A peasant's sin is a betrayal among one's own. He is not forgiven even by God.

Song Hungry. The peasants sing it in chorus, like a beaten march, the words are approaching in a cloud and dragging the soul. A song about hunger, a man's constant desire for food. He is ready to eat everything alone, dreams of a cheesecake from a large table. The song is not sung with a voice, but with a hungry gut.

Grisha Dobrosklonov joins the wanderers. He tells the peasants that the main thing for him is to achieve a good life for the peasants. They sing a song about the share of people's and working life. The people ask God for few things - light and freedom.

Epilogue. Grisha Dobrosklonov

Gregory lived in the family of a poor, seedy peasant. He was the son of a deacon, who boasted of his children, but did not think about their food. Grigory remembered the song that his mother sang to him. Song "Salty". The essence of the song is that the mother managed to salt her son's piece of bread with her tears. The guy grew up with love for his mother in his heart. Already at the age of 15, he knows for whom he will give his life. There are two roads in front of a person:

• Spacious, where people inhumanly fight among themselves for the sake of passions and sin.
• Close, where honest people suffer and fight for the oppressed.

Dobrosklonov thinks about his homeland, he goes his own way. Meets barge haulers, sings songs about a great and mighty country. Gregory composes the song "Rus". He believes that the song will help the peasants, give optimism, replace sad stories.