N. Leskov

12.03.2019

Nikolai Leskov is one of the original representatives of Russian classical literature. His storytelling features are largely related to the style of presentation used by the writer.

One of the key features inherent in Leskov is a lively manner of presentation, a language close to colloquial. The author's texts are very different from the correct literary speech, but, at the same time, this feature does not turn them into unnecessarily simple and primitive.

Leskov deliberately inserted into his works speech errors and misuse of words. However, it should be noted that in such cases it is not the direct speech of the author that sounds like this, but speech turns put into the mouths of the characters.

With the help of such techniques, Leskov managed to show Russian reality in a wide and multifaceted way, representatives of different social strata. The writer uses many different dialects, manners of speaking, characteristic of village priests or officials. Their originality helps him to revive the story, make the characters brighter and more convex.

At the same time, it is characteristic that the writer did not reproduce the actual folk speech. The manner he uses is just a stylization, but it looks very natural and believable.

The styles of narration used by Leskov are also different. This is also an appeal to folklore motifs and to the language of the annals, judgment and other different aspects of the life of society.

The widespread use of national color was dictated different reasons. First of all, Leskov's goal was to portray the Russian character; it is not without reason that in a number of works he displays its opposition to foreigners, especially Germans.

In addition, Leskov is a satirist. The bizarre expressions of different characters helped him to more vividly draw the images of the heroes, in which he painted the personification of the qualities of the people. The coloring of the narrative language allowed the writer not to resort to excessive dramatization in his works.

Leskov's works can be defined as a tale. Epic elements are woven into the story, which looks like a story about a story that happened in real life, which gives Leskov's works a unique flavor. The manner of presentation looks like a story from one good friend to another, where the truth is not so easy to separate from fiction. However, clearly implausible details do not spoil the overall impression.

Option 2

Leskov is an outstanding writer who began his career in the twentieth century.

Leskov has a completely different language and style of writing each work, and therefore it is very difficult to confuse him with anyone. He can also be called an experimenter, who, on the one hand, is kind and cheerful, but on the other hand, he is serious, who sets big goals for himself and does everything in order to fulfill them.

If you look at his work, it seems that he has no boundaries. He can bring out heroes not only of different circles, but also of different classes. In addition, representatives of different nationalities meet here. It can be Ukrainians, Yakuts, Jews, Gypsies and Poles. And he knows perfectly well how everyone lived. And he had life experience for this, as well as memory, flair and a keen eye.

Before you put one of the people as the main character, you must first study his manners, as well as learn how to express speech and thoughts as he does. Immerse yourself at least a little in his life and field of activity.

The story about the main character is not the author and not a neutral character, but a special narrator who is in the thick of all events. The story can be told not only by a landowner or a merchant, but also by a monk, an artisan or a retired soldier. With the help of this, each work is saturated with living creatures. The language becomes rich and varied. With the help of this facet, one can not only judge, but also evaluate each of the characters, as well as the event that occurs in the work.

Since Leskov had never seen workers before, he dresses them as he sees fit. He does not know many words that they use in their work. That is why many of them are distorted and pronounced differently.

Many contemporaries considered Leskov not such a great writer. And all because each of his heroes had a not very good and easy position in life. One problem is superimposed on another and then it is very difficult or almost impossible to deal with them.

In one of his works, he spoke about Tula craftsmen, who are actually professionals in their field and can make beautiful and miniature things from any material.

The peculiarity of the narrative style

Leskov began his own literary activity at a fairly mature age, but it was this maturity that allowed the author to form his own style, his own narrative manner. A distinctive feature of Leskov is the ability to quite accurately convey the folk manner of speech. He really knew how people speak, and he knew incredibly accurately.

Here we should note a very significant fact that readers can observe in the tale of Lefty. There are many so-called folk words that stylize the narrative as a story that one man could tell another. At the same time, Leskov himself invented all these words, he did not take and did not retell folk speech, but he was so competently oriented in this aspect of the language that he himself actually invented some innovations for such speech, moreover, innovations that looked quite harmonious and, perhaps, , after the publication of the work, they really began to be used by ordinary people in their communication.

Also, the genre invented by Leskov for Russian literature deserves special attention, and this genre is a tale. Etymologically, the term goes back to the word fairy tale and the verb to tell, that is, to tell a story.

The tale, however, is not a fairy tale and stands out as a very special genre, which is distinguished by its versatility and originality. It is most similar to a story that one person could tell another somewhere in a tavern, or during a break at work. In general, it is something like such a folk rumor.

Also, the tale, a characteristic example of which is the work (best known by Leskov) “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Left-hander Who Shod a Flea”, is to some extent an epic work. As you know, the epic is distinguished by the presence of some grandiose hero who has special qualities and charisma. The tale, in turn, is based, as it were, on true history, but from this story makes something incredible, epic and fabulous.

The manner of presentation leads the reader to think about some narrator and about the friendly communication that occurs between the reader and this narrator. So the Tale of the Left-hander, for example, comes from the face of some gunsmith from near Sestroretsk, that is, Leskov says: they say, these stories come from the people, they are real.

By the way, such a narrative style, which is additionally supported by the characteristic structure of the work (where there are amazing rhythms and rhymes, self-repetitions that again lead to the idea of colloquial speech, puns, colloquial speech, colloquial word formation) often leads the reader to the idea of the authenticity of history. The tale of the left-hander gave some critics the impression of a simple retelling of the stories of Tula artisans, ordinary people sometimes even wanted to find this left-hander and find out details about him. At the same time, the left-hander was completely invented by Leskov.

This is the peculiarity of his prose, which combines, as it were, two realities. On the one hand, we see stories about everyday life and ordinary people, on the other hand, a fairy tale and epic are intertwined here. In fact, in this way, Lescombe conveys an amazing phenomenon.

Thanks to the tale and his style, Leskov managed to understand how to convey the experience of the consciousness of an entire people. After all, what is it made up of? From legends, legends, tales, fantasies, fictions, conversations, conjectures that are superimposed on everyday reality.

This is what simple people exist and “breathe” with, this is their originality and beauty. Leskov, in turn, was able to capture this beauty.

In Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's story "The Overcoat", the main character is Akaki Akakievich, a petty official. The man Akaki Akakievich is very modest, even downtrodden, everyone makes fun of him and mocks him

Analysis of the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is one of the most beloved and famous stories among schoolchildren. This book was first published in 1876, and in 1877 it was already published in the Russian Empire.

Leskov's innovative experiments in combining realistic writing with the conventions of traditional folk poetic techniques, the courage to resurrect the style and genres of old Russian literature in the interests of updating the narrative palette, virtuosic stylistic experiments with phraseology, gleaned either from the vernacular of the road, or from persistent professional lexicons, from the Nestor Chronicle and topical newspaper periodicals, from the language of theology and the exact sciences - all this often baffled criticism, lost in the definitions of Leskov's art. This is what N.S. Leskov against the backdrop of all the writers of the 19th century.

His skill was compared with icon painting and ancient architecture, the writer was called an "isographer", and this was generally true. Gorky called the gallery of original folk types painted by Leskov "the iconostasis of the righteous and saints" of Russia. However, along with the archaic stylization, Leskov impeccably mastered a lively "voice-leading": countless confessions of his peasants, masons, soldiers, wanderers, buffoons, merchants, serf actors, members of the same palace - as well as representatives of other classes - sound like the richest symphony of Russian national speech of the 19th century.

The most diverse characters in their social status in the works of Leskov got the opportunity to express themselves in their own words and thus act as if independently of their creator. Leskov was able to realize this creative principle thanks to his outstanding philological abilities. His "priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists - in a nihilistic way, peasants - in a peasant way, upstarts from them and buffoons with frills."

Juicy, colorful language Lesk characters corresponded to the bright colorful world his work, in which the fascination with life reigns, despite all its imperfections and tragic contradictions. Life in the perception of Leskov is unusually interesting. The most ordinary phenomena, falling into the artistic world of his works, are transformed into a fascinating story, into a sharp anecdote or into “a cheerful old fairy tale, under which, through some kind of warm slumber, the heart smiles freshly and affectionately.” To match this semi-fairytale, "full of mysterious charms of the world" and Leskov's favorite heroes are eccentrics and "righteous people", people with a whole nature and a generous soul. None of the Russian writers we will meet so many positive characters. Acute criticism of Russian reality and an active civic position prompted the writer to search for the positive beginnings of Russian life. And the main hopes for the moral revival of Russian society, without which he could not imagine social and economic progress, Leskov placed on the best people of all classes, be it priest Savely Tuberozov from Soboryan, a policeman (Odnodum), officers (Unmercenary Engineers, Cadet Monastery), a peasant (Nemortal Golovan), a soldier (Man on the Watch) , craftsman ("Lefty"), landowner ("The seedy family").

Leskov's genre, thoroughly saturated with philology, is a "skaz" ("Lefty", "Leon the Butler's Son", "The Sealed Angel"), where the speech mosaic, vocabulary and voice setting are the main organizing principle. This genre is partly popular, partly antique. Here reigns "folk etymology" in the most "excessive" forms. Lesk's philologicalism is also characterized by the fact that his characters are always marked by their profession, their social and national sign. They are representatives of this or that jargon, dialect. It is also characteristic that these dialects are used by him in most cases in a comic way, which increases the play function of the language. This applies both to learned language and to the language of the clergy (cf. the deacon Achilles in The Councilmen or the deacon in Journey with the Nihilist), and to national languages. The Ukrainian language in the "Hare Remise" is used exactly as comic element, and in other things the broken Russian language now and then appears - in the mouth of a German, then a Pole, then a Greek. Even such a "public" novel as "Nowhere" is filled with all sorts of linguistic anecdotes and parodies - a trait typical of a storyteller, a variety artist. But apart from the realm of the comic tale, L also has an opposite realm - the realm of sublime declamation. Many of his works are written, as he himself said, in "musical recitative" - metrical prose, approaching verse. There are such pieces in "The Bypassed", in "The Islanders", in "The Spender" - in places of greatest tension. In his early works, L uniquely combines stylistic traditions and techniques he took from Polish, Ukrainian. and Russian writers. But in later works this connection

How much we sometimes lose the wonderful moments that Russian literature can give us, just because in our age of high computer technology, we don’t just have enough time to open the worn volume of our favorite author...

We have forgotten how to succumb to the charm of the unhurried, melodious Russian language. Let's stop our run for a while and try to take a different look at the creations of the amazing, truly Russian writer - Nikolai Semenovich Leskov.

How many charming details, filled with the deepest meaning, pass a cursory glance of the reader, who then marvels at the “complexity” and “excessive ornateness” of Lesk’s writing. Maybe that's why at the end of the 20th century the researchers of N.S. Leskov still has to prove his belonging to the galaxy of Russian classics.

Let's try to restore historical justice in relation to the remarkable Russian writer, let's plunge into the magical world of his "words", from which one does not want to return to the world of modern problems, modern relations, modern language.

Realizing the place and significance of N.S. Leskova in literary process, we always note that this is a surprisingly original writer. Even among the classics of Russian prose, each of which is a bright, unique artistic phenomenon, even among them Leskov looks somewhat unusual.

The outward dissimilarity of his predecessors and contemporaries sometimes forced him to see in him a completely new phenomenon, which had no analogues in Russian literature. However, as a master of the word, he also has his predecessors (N.V. Gogol, V.I. Dahl, A. Veltman), and contemporaries close to him in many respects (I.F. Gorbunov, A.N. Ostrovsky, A. I. Levitov), and followers who continued his artistic traditions in different ways (M. Gorky, and later, and primarily in relation to the language, - M. Zoshchenko).

Leskov is brightly original, and at the same time, one can learn a lot from him.

He is an amazing experimenter who gave rise to a whole wave of artistic searches in Russian literature; he is a cheerful, mischievous experimenter, and at the same time extremely serious and deep, setting great educational goals for himself.

“The nature of artistic discoveries by N.S. Leskov is due to the originality of his views on life. He always relied on reality, but in the accident he was able to see a hidden pattern; in a single fact - a link in the chain linking the past with the present. He gravitated toward original characters and incidents of life, to exceptional circumstances in which “ordinary improbability” is suddenly revealed” (1).

For a long time there were negative judgments about Leskov's style, as, indeed, about all his work. Here is what is said in the "Great Encyclopedia" edited by S.N. Yuzhakov:

“As for the style and architectonics of L[eskov’s] works, in both respects, to the great disadvantage of their author, they significantly deviate from the generally accepted samples bequeathed by the true masters of our fiction. L[eskov's] language is often distinguished by such turns of speech, replete with such pretentious words and clownish distortion of the most commonly used “ordinary expressions, which often produces the most repulsive impression” (2).

A similar assessment is contained in the “Desktop Encyclopedic Dictionary” by Br[atiev] A. and I. Granat: “Leskov’s style is distinguished by originality, strength, humor and would have gained a lot if the author had renounced his weakness for cunningly invented words, from some mannerism in descriptions and exaggerations in the character of the characters and the conduct of the scenes” (3).

And here is how P.N. wrote about Leskov’s style. Krasnov: “Just as on every note of Chopin’s compositions there is the signature “Frederic Chopin”, so on every word of Leskov there is a stigma indicating belonging to this writer ... He mastered the manner characteristic of many Russian people with a somewhat ecclesiastical fold, it is not easy to speak, but to embroider, using words, comparisons, turns, making on interesting places reservations and stops that do not go to the point, but embellish speech, just as vignettes decorate the pages of a book, although they do not relate to the text, and icing decorations make bread more pleasant to look at without improving its taste ”(4).

Indeed, Leskov himself, recognizing the “variety of styles”, the stylistic play of his writings, passed it off as the language of his people, and he, the writer, is just a copyist of folk diversity. In the introduction to the work “Leon the noble son”, Leskov writes that folk legends are filled with infantile naivety. “Hence,” he writes, “the very plot of legends is full of insufficiency and contradictions, and the language is dotted with the most diverse deposits of ill-used words of the most diverse environment” (5). This feature, as the writer admits, he retains in his legends and asks the reader to “reconcile” with this.

In fact, Leskov's language is one of the wonders of our speech culture, and one cannot belittle its role in the development of the Russian literary language and in artistic and verbal creativity, which was first noticed by M. Gorky, who saw in Leskov a great master of the language and his teacher .

Gorky wrote: “The people in his stories often speak on their own, but their speech is so amazingly lively, so truthful and convincing that they stand before you, just as mysteriously tangible, physically clear, like people from the books of L. Tolstoy and others, otherwise to say, Leskov achieves the same result, but by a different method of skill” (6).

* * *

In the work of Leskov, an important role is played by the use of the linguistic composition of Ancient Rus', preserved both in folk dialects and in monuments. ancient Russian literature, and in writing.

Not only folk speech (“speech lanes”) of various estates and classes, but also the language of ancient Russian literature and writing was alive for Leskov. He thought in terms of the Russian language; colloquial vocabulary broke into the pages of a literary text, merging in a peculiar way with modern language norms. So the bizarre “inlay” of a literary text with old Russian sayings is found in almost all of his works. Is there a story about the death of the hegumen-libertine in the "Trifles of Bishop's Life", does irony appear in the phrase from the "Tale of Bygone Years" - "died like obre" (VI, 463); whether the “Pechersk Antiques” tells about a trip to Kursk, the reader hears familiar words - “My Kurians, led by the kites” (VI, 198), whether the repeated tricks of the immoral and greedy Marya Stepanovna from the Companions are reported and accusatory expression sounds from “The Prayer of Daniil the Sharpener” - “returns like a dog to his vomit” (VII, 424) is the fairy tale “The Hour of the Will of God” written - is brought in from the “Tale of the Chernorizet the Brave” and the Old Russian verb “mitusit” and the turnover “written ... with features and cuts” (XI, 14, 28). Such examples are common for Leskov.

These are not excerpts from books, but something that sat firmly in the very structure of the language and artistic thinking of the writer. The ancient text is reproduced from memory, as evidenced by the approximate, inaccurate reproduction of Old Russian phraseology.

The very methods of using the Old Russian language and its widespread use make it possible to attribute Leskov to exceptional, peculiar phenomena in all Russian literature. Only he has such a connection, such an attitude to the culture of the Old Russian language and imagery.

Old Russian literature was based on the principles of different styles of works. Not only such monuments as “The Tale of Bygone Years”, which included various ancient Russian genre formations, are diverse in style, but also “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, and “The Life of Stephen of Perm”, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronya”, etc.

Leskov as a writer uses various stylistic systems. In this sense, his work, taken as a whole, is diverse in style. “More than any of the Russian writers of the 19th century, Leskov left traces of a stylistic game with the properties of the Russian language” (6). “Leskov brought the principle of different styles of ancient Russian literature to high artistry, to a “stylistic game”, which, however, naturally fits into the poetic narrative system” (N.N. Prokofiev).

This "stylistic game" or, more precisely, the use of various stylistic systems in Leskov's literary and artistic work has its own laws.

The choice of stylistic system depended on:

storytelling forms;
the type of the narrator, from his social class affiliation, from his mental and spiritual needs, his moral character;
the nature of the literary heroes about whom the story is being told;
the originality and role of a specific structural part of the work, that is, whether it is a dialogue, the narrator's speech about the social and domestic situation that precedes the development of the action, or a narrative about the actions of the literary heroes themselves” (8).

Of course, these four aspects do not cover the whole variety of stylistic devices, which in the practice of Leskov's work are more flexible and subtle, however, these "subtleties" still exist within the indicated patterns.

Works like “ folk stories” (“Buffoon Pamphalon”, “Mountain”, “Beautiful Aza”, “Innocent Prudentius” and others), according to their genre and purpose, according to universal moral pathos, were formed in rhythmic speech, sounding like prose poetry.

The story “Buffoon Pamphalon”, as the writer himself admits, “one can chant and read whole pages with a cadence” (XI, 460). Indeed, the language of the story sounds like chants, even direct speech is conveyed in rhythmic prose that sounds like prose poetry.

Leskov attached great importance to the finishing of the language of this story. “I worked on it a lot, a lot,” he wrote. - This language, like the language of the "Steel Flea", is not easy, but very difficult, and one love for work cannot induce a person to take on such a mosaic work. But this very “peculiar language” was blamed on me and still forced me to spoil and discolor it a little” (XI, 348. Letter to S.N. Shubinsky dated September 19, 1887).

In another "folk story" - "Mountain" - Leskov also achieved musicality of speech. “Mountain,” he wrote, “required an extremely large amount of work. This can be done only “out of love for art” and out of confidence that you are doing something for the benefit of people, striving to suppress the instincts of rudeness in them and encourage their spirit to endure trials and undeserved insults. “Mountain” has been rewritten so many times that I have forgotten the count, and therefore it is true that the style reaches “music” in places ... I achieved “musicality” that suits this plot like a recitative” (XI, 460).

Another “stylistic game” in parables - fairy tales (“The Hour of the Will of God” and “Malanya - the head of a ram”, created on a folklore basis. Academician A.S. Orlov, considering the stylistic system of the tale, notes in it the presence of not only folklore, orally - poetic syntax and vocabulary, but also Old Russian book phraseology (9).

Leskov himself wrote about the language of the fairy tale “The Hour of the Will of God”: “Fairy tales are boring to write in modern language. I began to jokingly monkey the language of the 17th century and then, as Tolstoy says, “drunk myself with luck” and sustained the whole tale in a solid tone” (XI, 470-471).

The language of ancient Russian literature, folk speech of various social classes of Russia is widely used and in Leskov's narrative works about the "righteous", which are original stories, short stories, inflow tales and historical and everyday chronicles on contemporary themes(“The Sealed Angel”, “Odnodum”, “Pygmy”, “Non-Deadly Golovan”, “Engineers - Unmercenaries”, “Lefty”, “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “The Man on the Clock”, “Sheramur”, “Pechersk antiques”, “ At the end of the world”, “Unbaptized pop” and others). The style of these works is flowery and ornate, ornamentally embellished with folk phraseology, ancient Russian sayings, preserved not only in the monuments of ancient literature, but also in the lively speech of some sections of the Russian people. Examples of this ornamentality are found in any work. However, in the selection of ancient Russian sayings, Leskov, unlike the writers - his predecessors, goes his own way. His gaze, first of all, captures the original Russian vocabulary and phraseology, gives it preference over the Church Slavonic linguistic elements. Leskov knew how to inlay poetic speech with them, which captivates the reader with its brilliance. This is how the plot of the plot begins in the story “The Sealed Angel”.

“Suddenly we saw that there are in our midst two vessels of God's election for our punishment. One of those was the forager Mara, and the other was the counter Pimen Ivanov. Mara was quite a simpleton, even illiterate, which is even a rarity according to the Old Believers, but he was a special person: he was clumsy in appearance, like a vellud, and unkempt like a wild boar - one bosom one and a half heads on the dome gumenzo shaved. His speech was dull and unintelligible, he kept mumbling his lips, and his mind was tight and so clumsy for everything that he didn’t even know how to memorize prayers; clairvoyant, and had the gift of prophesying, and could give inconsistent ones.

Pimen, on the other hand, was a spiky man: he liked to behave very forcefully and spoke with such a cunning twist of words that one should have been surprised at his speech; but the character was light and fascinating. Mara was old man for seventy years, and Pimen is medieval and graceful: he had curly hair, parted in the middle; shaggy eyebrows, a face with a blush, the word veliar. Here in these two vessels suddenly fermented the value of astringent drink, which we should have drunk” (IV, 327). In this story. written directly on the samples of ancient originals, ancient Russian words are scattered over the speech tissue.

They highlight the properties of the narrator himself and in a peculiar way describe those people who play such a big role in the events of the story.

Leskov did not follow the path beaten in literature, did not turn only to the Church Slavonic language, which was familiar to the reader of that time, but selected the Old Russian vocabulary. The text includes archaic words that fell into disuse at the end of the 19th century, but were widely used in Old Russian writing: nedrist - busty (from the bowels - chest); sinus - a synonym for the word "chest"; simpleton - a worldly person, unspiritual, simple; prophesy - speak, predict; shrapaty - mannered, dapper; twist - sophistication; medieval - a person of average height, not old.

Of course, Leskov also used biblical phraseology, which has become firmly established in Russian literature, language and colloquial speech. In this case, the conversation about the cup, “in which the estimation of astringent drink fermented” and which “should have been drunk”, is a very common metaphor coming from the gospel text.

The whole structure of the narrator's speech, the characters and the author's language are colored by unusualness, but this "unusualness is created on deep national-folk foundations, on the historical sources of a living language, preserved in the writer's contemporary speech and ancient literary monuments" (12).

The unusualness of Leskov's language is in the flamboyance and quirkiness of vocabulary, phraseology and syntax, so harmoniously associated with his characters and narrators, with people with a "freak", to whom the reader treats so favorably and trustingly that they become living people and natural speech. The vitality and authenticity of the language are determined by the correspondence of its (language) to the personality of the narrator and literary heroes, the originality of the ways of expressing their thoughts, their spiritual appearance. And before Leskov, writers knew well that a person is characterized not only by WHAT she says, but also by HOW she says it. New at N.S. Leskov lies in the wide use of the riches of the language of ancient Russian literature.

* * *

Leskov created a broad picture of life - from everyday facts to national events - going back into the depths of time. His works are imbued with historical legends, folk legends, people's rumors. In this regard, the image of the narrator is extremely important for Leskov. This image was a kind of artistic discovery of the writer. Gorky, who highly appreciated the writer, noted this artistic feature of his: “Leskov is ... a magician of words, but he did not write plastically, but - told, and in this art he has no equal ...”

Telling, telling is one of the stable features of folklore and poetic traditions coming from antiquity.

Leskov was convinced that humane relations between people could develop only on the basis of the best centuries-old folk traditions.

The tale style of narration has long penetrated into literature, being equally convenient for both oral and written presentation. The word “tell” in the meaning of “transmit events”, “notify”, “report”, and the same word denotes one of the ways of narration inherent in folk art. The speaker was a participant or a witness to the events, and quite concrete, non-fictional reality prevailed in his story.

The transmission of events as it actually happened in reality, which once had a practical purpose, eventually becomes an artistic device in written literature (especially in the 19th century). In the work, instead of a specific person, a witness of the events that have taken place, a literary image of a narrator appeared, leading a narration about any incidents and people.

In folklore, the narrator is an epic figure. his role is to calmly and truthfully present facts and events in their chronological order. In literature, this image, on the contrary, is usually devoid of epic scope. Here his role is not only that he leads the narration, but at the same time - and in everyday involvement in the narrated. Such are the narrators of Lermontov, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov. In this image, the character of a simple-minded person, sometimes with cunning, was recreated. In a certain sense, the narrator also expresses the author's point of view: behind each of these narrators one can feel the presence of the writer. The narrator's assessments and judgments are usually deciphered by the reader without much difficulty. The authors treat them kindly, if they make fun of them, then without malice. Here the narrator narrates, testifies, gives assessments and leads the reader (not without the help of the author, of course) to a certain conclusion.

Leskov has a completely different narrator. Firstly, Leskov significantly expanded the field of activity of his narrator. “Leskovsky's narrator is not just an observer and participant in the event, he is an active, and often one of the main characters (Tuberozov from The Cathedral, 1872, or Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin from The Enchanted Wanderer, 1873).

Moreover, if you look closely, the narrator also acts as the embodiment of the moral ideal of the writer - at least in the most important respects” (13).

Secondly, the image of the Leskovsky narrator has a rather complex internal structure, which makes it difficult to directly understand the true motives of his behavior. Its essence is not revealed immediately, but is revealed gradually, emerges through a dense layer of plot riddles, “secrets”, extravagant antics of the hero, and so on.

The image of the narrator in Leskov to a certain extent embodies the artistic testament of N.V. Gogol, who believed that in a new kind of narrative writings there should be “a private and invisible face, but, however, significant in many respects for an observer of the human soul ... in order to present ... in a living, true picture of everything significant in features and customs taken them time...” (14).

It is thanks to the image of the narrator that a previously unknown literature is created artistic reality, the pictures of which are refracted in the people's consciousness, are perceived through the prism of centuries-old folk experience. Therefore, the narrator plays a decisive role in the ideological and artistic system of many of Leskov's works. And in "The Imprinted Angel" (1873), and in "The Toupee Artist" (1873), and in other works - the heroes - storytellers - these are outstanding, talented people.

At the same time, in a number of significant works by Leskov, the narrator is a passive figure, the object of authorial irony, sometimes hidden, and often frank, such as Vatazhkov (“Laughter and Sorrow”, 1871) or Onopry Peregud ( hare remise” 1884; published in 1917). And here is the paradox: frankly mocking his hero-narrator, leading him through a series of situations and trials discrediting him, the writer nevertheless turns him, in a certain sense, into the mouthpiece of his ideas: after all, it is through the mouth of the narrator (Vatazhkov, Peregud and others) that he speaks the author's, often critical attitude to the curiosities of reality. At the same time, “thanks to such a hero, reality appears to the reader as many-sided and complex... Before Leskov, there was no such storyteller in literature” (15).

Lesk's characters are connected in different and complex ways with the image of the narrator. These connections and relationships, on the one hand, make the characters of Leskov's heroes more alive and multifaceted, and on the other hand, determine the amazing variety of forms and aspects of the author's self-expression. This is another artistic discovery of Leskov.

In those works where the writer "hides" behind the hero - the narrator, the author's voice does not disappear, but from time to time breaks through either in a detached - objective presentation of events, or in a wide epic stream of historical and special information that is unlikely to accommodate limited personal experience. the consciousness of the narrator. Meanwhile, all these objectively presented events and various information that seem to go beyond the life experience of the hero - the narrator are evaluated by him and receive a very special original coverage in his speech. So in Leskov's narrative, the author's voice and the hero's voice, the author's view and the hero's point of view merge in a peculiar way.

Often the very speech of the narrator somehow imperceptibly merges into the speech of the literary hero and even the author himself. As a result, three stylistic layers merge into a single language stream. This was done not spontaneously, but consciously, as an artistic necessity, which the author himself admitted: “Please do not condemn me for that,” Leskov wrote in the story “Hare Remise”, “that here his (the narrator) and my words will be mixed together (IX, 503). This principle is noticeable in many works of N.S. Leskov.

A great many socio-psychological types created by the writer, with all the brightness of their individuality and originality of language, nevertheless reveal a certain commonality of style, a certain property inherent in all of them to think “in a national key, in Russian”.

This Leskovian way of thinking is manifested both in impulsive sincere spontaneity, and in a kind of bashful intricacy of expressions, and in a constant and fruitful look back at tradition, antiquity.

Traditionalism is manifested both in bright ancient sayings and catchphrases, and in the complex construction of old speech, and in fluent historical excursions, expressed with respect and with a sense of kinship with the past, and sometimes with some admiration for it. This "national way of thinking" was reflected in the generalizing artistic form that Leskov's literary tale became.

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Leskovsky tale peculiarly accumulated the interpenetration of the views and opinions of the author and the narrator.

The narrator is one of the most important landmarks in a tale, largely determining the aesthetic assessment of events and facts from the point of view of the community, the people. The presence of a narrator distinguishing feature a tale that characterizes it both from the side of content and from the side of form. In a literary tale, in contrast to a folk tale, the narrator not only narrates, but is also involved in the events described. The narrator - the people - the author are inseparable in the tale, they form a single whole. the writer, thus, uses oral skaz speech, a “foreign” verbal manner.

It should be borne in mind that Leskov's narrator is an active person, with a pronounced position. This is revealed both in the character of the narrator and his interpretation of events, and in the richness of his colorful individualized speech.

In this, Leskov is also original. In order to realize this originality, it is important to consider the question of the relationship between Leskov's tale and the tale form of narration.

For Academician V. V. Vinogradov, for example, the problem of narration “was defined as one of the sides of the question of the narrator” (16). In one of his works on stylistics we read: “The tale builds the narrator, but he himself is the construction of the writer. Or rather, in the tale the image is given not only of the narrator, but also of the author” (17). But in the tale, the image of the narrator is dominated by another “character” - the writer: “It turned out that the writer does not always write, and sometimes only, as it were, records the oral conversation, creating the illusion of live improvisation. This is how the problem of the 'narrative' appeared” (18). The scientist defines a tale as “a kind of literary and artistic orientation towards an oral monologue of the narrative type”, as “an artistic imitation of monologue speech that embodies the narrative plot, as if built in the order of its direct creation” (19). The tale requires a certain involvement of the writer in the actor's action: “The narrator is the speech product of the author, and the image of the narrator in the tale is a form of the author's literary artistry. The image of the author is seen in him as the image of an actor in the stage image he creates” (20).

B. Eikhenbaum wrote about the skaz form of narration: “By skaz, I mean such a form of narrative prose that, in its vocabulary, syntax and selection of intonations, reveals an orientation towards the oral speech of the narrator, fundamentally departs from written speech and makes the narrator as such real character. The appearance of skaz forms is of fundamental importance. It marks, on the one hand, the transfer of the center of gravity from the plot to the word (from the “hero” to the story of this or that case, event, and so on), and on the other hand, the liberation from the traditions associated with written and printed culture and the return to oral living language.

Leskov himself considered certainty speech characteristics The main advantage of his works and pointed out this feature of his narrative style: “The voice of the writer lies in the ability to master the voice and language of his hero and not stray from altos to basses. In myself, I tried to develop this skill and, it seems, I reached the point that my priests speak in a spiritual way, the peasants speak in a peasant way, upstarts from them and buffoons - with frills, etc. On my own behalf, I speak the language of old tales and church-folk in a purely literary speech. That's why you recognize me now in every article, even if I didn't subscribe to it. It makes me happy. They say I'm fun to read. This is because we all: both my heroes and I myself have their own voice. It is placed in each of us correctly, or at least diligently. When I write, I'm afraid to go astray: that's why my philistines speak philistine, and lisping-burr aristocrats - in their own way ... Studying the speech of each representative of social and personal positions is rather difficult. This folk, vulgar and pretentious language, in which many pages of my works are written, was not composed by me, but was overheard from a peasant, a semi-intellectual, from rhetoricians, from holy fools and saints ... After all, I have been collecting it for many years according to catchphrases, proverbs and individual expressions caught on the fly in the crowd, in barracks, in recruiting offices and monasteries ... I carefully and for many years listened to the pronunciation and pronunciation of Russian people at different levels of their social position. They all speak to me in their own way, and not in a literary way. It is more difficult for a writer to master the philistine language than the bookish one. That is why we have few artists of the syllable, that is, who own a living, and not literary, speech” (22).

From the above words of Leskov, it can be seen that the use of oral speech, which has specific social and professional shades, is characteristic of skaz forms. that the principle of a tale requires that the narrator's speech be colored not only with intonational-syntactic, but also with lexical shades: the narrator must act as the owner of one or another phraseology, this or that dictionary, so that an orientation to the spoken word is carried out. Under such conditions, the reader's attention moves from the subject, from the concept to the expression itself, to the verbal construction itself, that is, it puts the form before the reader outside the motivation. Leskov, with his exceptional striving for a tangible word, makes extensive use of this means and gives place to rhetoricians who distort words and speak with “frills”. No wonder “folk etymology” is one of the main methods of his tale.

Subsequently, the figure of the narrator was considered by literary critics as one of the most stable and characteristic features of the tale. “Neither in a folk tale, nor in a literary fairy tale and everyday life, is he (the narrator) as much an artistic image as in a tale” (23). In other words: a tale is a form of narration on behalf of a narrator who speaks a common language and uses lexical and grammatical constructions that are characteristic of oral speech. But in this case, many works of Russian writers could be included in the tale genre. For example, “How much land does a person need”, “Two old men”, “Candle” and other stories by L.N., Tolstoy, “The Incident” by A.P. Chekhov, “The Good Life”, “The Guest” by I.A. Bunin, “Khan and his son” by M. Gorky and so on. Nevertheless, the named works (their form) are not literary tales.

The narration on behalf of the hero, despite the pronounced individual intonation, does not yet constitute a tale. An example of this is Leskov's "Pearl Necklace" (1885).

In a literary tale, the narrator is the sovereign manager not only of his own fiction, he is in charge of all the poetic treasures of folk art. Behind such a narrator, a writer skillfully hides. The active authorial principle is found both in the interpretation of the events described, and in the enrichment of the poetic form of plots and images created by once folk storytellers.

In Leskov's tale there is no definite personified narrator, but there is a commonality of the author's attitude towards all his numerous narrators, to whom he, as if withdrawing himself, passes the word.

The greatest merit of N.S. Leskov in front of domestic and world literature lies in the fact that he used the oral tale, which existed as a phenomenon of oral folk art, to express the personal consciousness of the narrator and narrator and artistically approved this updated tale, gave it stable signs of a literary genre. This is an undoubted artistic innovation of the writer. In such works as "The Enchanted Wanderer" (1873), "The Darner" (1882), "Lefty" (1882), "The Stupid Artist" (1883) and others, there are the main genre features of a literary tale: narration on behalf of the hero - narrator; the widespread use of both reliable event material taken from the life or storehouses of folk memory, and the presence of elements of folklore, in particular, fabulousness, dating back to legends, legends; a clear focus on the colloquial folk language and its stylistic norms.

Oral transmission of events. Rumors and incidents are important not only as a kind of reflection of history, they are also valuable in a literary sense, when considering the genesis of the Russian literary tale, which rests on a solid eventual, life-based basis. At the same time, the literary tale inherits folklore artistic traditions, dating back to folk legends, legends and other folk poetic genres. In the tale genre, an organic synthesis of folk art and written literature, suggesting full possession of folklore material, its poetics.

“In the crucible of time, both the reliable and the unreliable have melted, and in the artist’s creative laboratory this alloy can no longer be decomposed into its component parts” (24). In one of his stories, Leskov wrote about this: “And I began to remember a whole swarm of more or less wonderful stories and histories that have long lived in one or another of the Russian localities and are constantly passed from mouth to mouth, from one person to another .. All such stories should be dear to literature and worthy of keeping them in its records. These stories, no matter how anyone thinks about them, are a modern continuation of folk art, to which, of course, it is unforgivable not to listen and consider it as nothing. In oral traditions, or even writings of this kind (let us assume that there are the purest writings), the mood of the minds, tastes and fantasies of people of a given time and a given locality is always strongly and vividly indicated. And that this is really so, I am sufficiently convinced by the records made by me during my wanderings in different places of my fatherland .. I really appreciate such stories, even when their historical authenticity does not seem reliable, and sometimes even seems completely doubtful . In my opinion, as fiction or as an interweaving of fiction with reality, they are even more curious” (VII, 450-451).

“More curious” - because they reflected reality in a more complex, multifaceted way, merged the facts of life with their multi-colored, subjective perception, in which a person is reflected.

The pinnacle of Leskov's achievement in the tale, most researchers of the writer's work unanimously consider the famous "Lefty". “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Left-hander and the Steel Flea” is instructive in terms of the very structure of the genre. With all the abundance of unreliable material in it, it is entirely built on genuine historical facts. It is no coincidence that it begins so businesslike and historically specific: “When Emperor Alexander Pavlovich graduated from the Vienna Council ...” (VII, 26). However, historical authenticity and concreteness in depicting the general spirit of the era do not in the least prevent the author from unleashing the full power of his imagination, especially in describing the truly fabulous “jewelry” skill of Tula craftsmen. Leskov, like no one else, was able to brilliantly prove that the merits of a literary tale are not determined only by an arsenal of disparate inventive means and techniques, but are hidden in the genre possibilities, and in speech richness, and in the very features of the tale style. Thanks to Leskov, the literary tale became a full-fledged genre of Russian prose.

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“The forms of N.S. Leskov’s works are extremely diverse, his language is infinitely rich and seems to change from work to work, while remaining characteristic, Leskov’s language.” (24)

Leskov, as it were, avoids the usual forms for literature, even if he writes a novel, he puts in the subtitle “a novel in three books” (“Nowhere”) as a clarifying definition. If he writes a story, then try to somehow distinguish it from an ordinary story - for example, “a story on a grave” (“Dumb Artist”). The remarkable Leskovsky "Lefty" first appeared in 1881 in the magazine "Rus" with the subtitle "Shop Legend", while the actual title is the current subtitle: "The Tale of the Tula oblique left-hander and the steel flea."

Leskov, as it were, wants to pretend that his works do not belong to "recognized literature" and that they are written "in this way" - in between times, written in small forms, as if they belong to the lowest kind of literature. This is not only the result of a “shameful form” characteristic of Russian literature, but also the desire that the reader does not see something complete in his works, does not fully believe him as an author, and thinks out the moral meaning of his work. The uncommonness of Leskov's language, which sometimes includes "non-literary definitions", plays a special role in his works: a kind of warning to the reader not to take them as an expression of the author's attitude to what is being described.

This gives freedom to the reader: he is left alone with the creation of the author. The writer, as it were, relieves himself of a certain share of responsibility, he makes the form of his works "alien", seeks to shift the responsibility for it to the narrator or to the document that he cites. Thus, the author "hides" from the reader.

The language of N.S. Leskov, individual expressions, defined by the writer as “local words”, nicknames or, in the words of D.S. Likhachev, “terms” serve to conceal the author’s personality, his own attitude to the work described in the work.

He speaks in "foreign" words, therefore he does not give any assessment to what he is talking about. Leskov the author hides behind "other people's words", and this "game of hide and seek" is necessary for him: his words are too brightly and colorfully built and used in order to belong to the author, whose creative and educational task is to aspire to interest the reader in interpretation, independent interpretation (not without the help of the author, of course) the moral meaning of what is happening in the work.

In his WORDS - everything: attitude to reality, objects, heroes, life. What is left for the reader if Leskov does not play his game? Just listen obediently. This does not correspond to Leskov's aesthetics, and he gives the fruits of his word creation to the narrators.

It turns out that unusual names for objects and phenomena and mysterious definitions and nicknames for the hero are given not by him, N.S. Leskov, but by someone else. And the assessment of what is happening, thus, "heavy load" falls on the reader's shoulders.

But, nevertheless, in the literature there is such a thing as "author's position". And it is quite clearly visible, despite the (apparent) "absence" of the author.

In the works of N.S. Leskov, "linguistic impulses" are strong, and for the reader, they are signals of the author's hand. It is interesting that this impulse is concluded, how. rule, in the word itself, its structure. With Leskov, as perhaps with no other writer, communication with us, readers, is at the linguistic level, at the level of the poetic Russian language, interest in which, according to V.V. Vinogradov, sometimes acquired self-sufficient significance from Leskov.

Let us pay attention to the extremely characteristic device of Leskov's artistic prose - his predilection for creative word formation, for the creation of mysterious "terms" for various objects and phenomena.

Here are variations of foreign words, often ironic, and derivational cripples.

For example, in the "Collections" we meet: "... and the father of the archpriest to the police officer for this ... that, in French, assay-mua, they asked ..." (IV.26); “... I was also drunk<...>so that I want Cain...” (IV, 21).

Or in "The Seedy Kind": "... it's better than sometimes boasting, and joli-face" (V, 126);

“... who will use French in front of her<...>she will now apologize and make a besiege ... ”(V, 69).

<...>Somehow they chatter, but there are no real feelings of delicacy. ” One more interesting example, when the onomatopoeia of a foreign word acquires an appropriate and, moreover, very successful meaning for a given speech situation: “<...>"... the revolution is throbbing... it is trembling, trembling..." - and I see that it is already trembling for sure" (V, 145). (26) Or in the “Sealed Angel”: “... the value of strong drinking fermented ...” (IV, 327). Estimation - from the Polish ozet - vinegar.

By the way, Leskov's ironic plays on foreign words are not accidental. They reflect the deep attitude of the writer to the Russian language, advocacy for its purity.

This is another ingenious invention of Leskov. For example, his one-time neologism: "... to captivate him with strangeness ..." (Lefty" (VII, 26)) "Foreign" merges with a completely different word - "strange"; one word plays with a combination of two meanings: "captivated by the oddities of foreign countries."

Only on two pages of the printed text of "Lefty" do we find similar examples:

Candelabria - a combination of two words: candelabrum and Calabria (locality in Italy); nymphosoria - nymph + ciliate; busts - busts + chandeliers; studding - jelly + pudding; public - public + police; buremer - barometer + storm; dolbitsa (multiplications) - dolbit + table; watch with trepeter - repeater (sound battle mechanism) + tremble. This technique is especially clearly seen in Leskov's play on the structure of abstract nouns. The author, as it were, “replaces” one suffix of an abstract noun with another, and by the structure itself suggests to the reader the true meaning of the word resulting from such “crossing”.

For example, in “The Seedy Kind” we read: “... in her expression there was no that sweetness that disposed and attracted to the princess any person who appreciates the noble qualities of the soul in another ...” (V, 136).

From the very structure of the word (abstract suffix -ot-) from the meaning of this statement, we understand that this is rather kindness, colored, moreover, by good looks. The word "cute" serves not so much as a description of the appearance of the princess, but as a conductor of the author's attitude to the character. Moreover, this word alone contains the key to the artistic image, the unique means of creating which Leskov uses is his creative word formation.

We can say the same about the fascination of Akhila Desnitsyn from Soboryan, that is, about the degree of his enthusiasm for the world around him, which makes him attractive to other people and, first of all, by the will of the author, to readers.

According to the same principle, the artistic image of Domna Platonovna from Leskov’s story “The Warrior” is built, which “... through its simplicity and through kindness<...>I saw a lot of grief in the world” (I, 145). In this case, the artistic image is created not only with the help of word formation, but also with the help of a psycho-linguistic device. In psychological questioning, for this signal word, people. as a rule (about 90%), they answer with antonyms.

So, the root -good- works here as a given (constant value), and the suffix -ost- as the author's signal, which does not allow the reader to make a mistake when correlating good with the opposite principle. Kindness and anger are two components of one indivisible whole. The duality of the structure of the word brings us to the duality of the very character of Domna Platonovna, confirmed by the narrator: “<...>... how “prayer and fasting, and one’s own chastity, and pity for people converge”<...>with matchmaking lies, an artistic inclination to arrange short marriages not for the sake of love, but for the sake of interest”, as “it all made its way into the same plump heart and coexists in it with such amazing consent” (I, 191).

Interestingly, in the author's understanding of the character of Domna Platonovna, "kindness" merges with "malice", and not with other representatives of this synonymous series, for example, with "malice". The author's attitude to the personality of Domna Platonovna lies in this choice: "anger" carries the meaning of impulsiveness, temporality, something passing, while the word "malice" is distinguished by the frightening theme of constancy, strength negative energy contained in its very sound.

This technique can in no way be reduced only to style - jokes, the desire to make the reader laugh. This is both a means of satire, and a device of literary intrigue, and an essential element of plot construction, and an interesting means of creating an artistic image.

Amazing words, skillfully created in the language of Leskov's works in a variety of ways (here, not only education in the spirit of "folk etymology", but also dialectisms - the use of local expressions, sometimes nicknames) also intrigue the reader.

For example, Golovan from the story "Non-lethal Golovan" was a greengrocer - from "potion" - a herbal healer; or "spitting" - yarn consisting of scraps of paper threads; "berdo" - belonging to the loom.

Leskov informs the reader of "terms" and mysterious definitions before he gives material that can fill them with specific content, focusing the reader's attention on the word, and it is the word that forms the image in the reader's imagination, influences him, helps to determine the attitude to what is happening at intermediate or initial stages. stages of development of the work.

I.V. Stolyarova in her work “Principles of Leskov's “insidious satire” draws attention to this amazing feature of Leskov's poetics. She writes: “As a kind of signal of attention addressed to the reader, the writer uses a neologism or just an unusual word, mysterious in its real meaning and therefore arousing the reader's interest” (27).

Telling, for example, about the trip of the tsarist ambassador, Leskov pointedly remarks: "Platov rode very hastily and with ceremony ..." (VII, 39). The last word is stressed and is pronounced by the narrator with a special meaning. with a "stretch", to use Leskov's expression from his story "The Enchanted Wanderer". Everything that follows in this period is a description of this ceremony, which, as it is already right for the reader, is fraught with something interesting, unusual, and worthy of attention.

Let us illustrate this with the example of nicknames that are introduced by Leskov into the intrigue of the work and “work” in this way. These are riddles that are guessed at the beginning of the work and are solved right there with great pleasure.

About Protazanov Yakov Lvovich from "The Seedy Family" we learn that "<...>his small mouth made his face look like some kind of lively bird, which is why his family called him<...>"chizhik" ...<...>in his mature age he was called “Prince Kiss-Mekvik”, a nickname made up of three English words: kiss me guik (kiss me soon) ”(V, 153).

Here too: "<...>it was the invocative battle cry of the gentleman, either altered by him from the name "Zinovy", or composed of an abbreviation of two words: Zinka, beat "..." (V, 83). We are talking about Zinovia, nicknamed "Zinobey".

But Foteya from the story "Non-deadly Golovan" "<...>for the variegation of his rags they called him an ermine" (VI, 338).

“The nickname “non-lethal” given to Golovan did not express ridicule and was by no means an empty, meaningless sound - he was called non-lethal due to strong conviction that Golovan is a special person, a person who is not afraid of death” (VI, 351).

But Leskov is in no hurry to reveal the magic of the names of Akhila Desnitsyn (“Soboryanye”) immediately. In the first chapter, the author gives four nicknames for Akhila: “Inspector religious school, who excluded Akhila Desnitsyn from the syntactic class for "great age" and "poor success" told him: - Eka, you, what a long-folded cudgel!

<...>The rector, on special petitions, considered the former nickname insufficient and called Akhila "a whole load of firewood"<...>Bishop's choir director<...>called him "extraordinary"<...>

The bishop made the fourth<...>and the most weighty of the characteristic definitions to the deacon Achilles<...>. According to this definition, the deacon of Achilles was called "wounded" (IV,6-7).

And although the fourth nickname - "wounded" - is explained in the same first chapter, but in the aggregate, all four nicknames are revealed as the "Cathedral" is read. Explanation of the first nickname “ignites” interest in the meaning of the other three.

But why Nadezhda Stepanovna (“Cathedrals”) was called “Esperanza” is not explained either immediately or later. However, this does not require a special explanation: "Esperanza" - from the French esperanse - hope.

N.S. Leskov does not tell about the reason why the hero of the story “Laughter and Sorrow” was nicknamed Philemon. Perhaps from filo - "I love" and mono - one; that is, "monogamous", a constant person, which very accurately characterizes the essence of the protagonist of the story.

Creativity N.S.Leskov has the deepest origins in the oral colloquial tradition. It goes back not only to truly vital characters and events of Russian reality, but also to what D.S. Likhachev calls “talking Russia”.

In the first part of "Nowhere" the elements of the folk dialect are strong, especially when depicting nature: "Nature has a person's congestion, and, according to popular expression, it is not the river that drowns, but the puddle ... the river savanka has risen, swelled ..." From a peasant speech the words are taken: “large clearings, especially along the fronts”, “roosters bristled their wings”, “a woman, moving her shoulders and understanding, walked into the canopy”, “It was early dusk in the yard the most angry winter day and a dry blizzard beat mercilessly ... poke nose into a snow-covered suvolok, from which an icy window looks belmisto.

The author, however, is not afraid to combine the folk word with a more intellectual word: “Ozimi poured, and the juicy grain quickly grew stronger, bursting the elastic cell of the mustachioed ear”, “... in the gray air, pumped by the low crawling sky, there was a lot of something like that , which had an unpleasant effect on the oxidation of the blood ... ".

The dialect of the village does not wedged in as something alien, but organically merges with the voice of the author: such words as zazhory - snow-covered water in a ravine, a pit (from "guzzle" - get stuck, go into the ground); vzlobochki - steep hillocks; dusk - dusk - does not clutter up speech and does not complicate reading, strongly coloring everything that comes into contact with them and creates a folk flavor of the depicted picture.

In the author's language, artlessly simple, but OWN expressions constantly flicker, giving the novel its flavor. It is not said, for example, “morning has come” or “it was dawning”, but “... the room was littered with gray”. The language in this work determines the general "gray" mood of St. Petersburg, thus building the artistic image of the city.

The true language of Leskov in his stories, where the proportion of an independent word is significant, where the word does not spread, is concentrated in itself, in its own, according to A.V. Chicherin, “verbal” life. Leskov's words are pebbles-gems, they form together something whole, but not merged, but composite. A separate expression stands out and shines with its own light” (28). Therefore, both L.N. Tolstoy and M. Gorky constantly spoke primarily and especially about the language of N.S. Leskov. The extraordinary mastery of the language was noted by L.N. Tolstoy on December 3, 1890 in a letter to Leskov. N.S. Leskov was described by M. Gorky as “subtly knowing the Russian language and in love with its beauty”.

In the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" the vocabulary is largely different from that of Leskov's contemporaries.

On the very first pages of the story: “such characters are given”, “black, even blue-black hair”, “she didn’t have to sort out suitors”; and further: “longing, reaching to stupefaction”, “glance”, “grabbed on her bare foot”, “hul”, “something suddenly seemed to become ruddy”, and so on.

It was not in the tradition of the literature of that time that these words were used in given value, but they are all taken from the popular dialect, the invasion of which in the language from this moment on expands significantly. All of these are living, expressive and perfectly understandable words.

The speech of the characters is in full accordance with the attitude of the author towards them. In any word of Sergei - and a merchant clerk, and a flattering insolent, and a man ready for anything, but most of all - an actor: “Now you notice that I’m thoughtful now<...>Maybe my whole heart sank in baked blood! “And I, too, Katerina Lvovna, have my own heart and can see my torments”; "I'm not like the others<...>I feel what love is and how it sucks my heart like a black snake ... "; “Am I to have you with me in constant love? Is it some kind of honor for you to be a mistress? I would like to be your husband before the holy eternal temple ... so then<...>I could publicly rebuke everyone how much I deserve from my wife with my respect for her ... ”and so on. In Leskov's story "The Sealed Angel" the "linguistic image" of the narrator is very interesting.

From his first words, signs of a village dialect appear: “I’m nothing more than a peasant”, “I’m a bricklayer with handicrafts”, “since childhood”, “they have gone all over Russia”, “now you’re all hushing”, “circle around the neck”. But through this shell of the peasant dialect, the further, the more clearly sophisticated expressions break through in their own way: “a great and plentiful granary”, “and we lived under him in the quietest patriarchy”, “they passed their way with him like the Jews<...>they even had their tabernacle with him”, “do not cut all this splendor”, “You cannot cut it, what kind of art it was in both shrines!”, “the wings are spacious and white as snow.”

Peasant dialect is combined with speech that arose in an artistic and religious environment, involved in ancient art, which grew up on its subtleties and on a great spiritual upsurge. The emotional language wave, raised high by the author in this story, leads to the disclosure of the image of the narrator, understanding the duality of his nature (just as the language combines the sophisticated with the rustic), combining folk innocence and a great upsurge of either joyful or sorrowful experiences caused by the works of the true art.

Leskovsky's "Lefty" captivates the reader with its unusual linguistic significance. In the very first lines, the reader is puzzled by the expression:<..>and always, through his kindness, had the most "internecine" conversations with all sorts of people" (VII, 26). It is curious that A.S. Pushkin remarked about the first of these words: “Internecine means mutel, but does not contain the idea of scolding, dispute” (29).

Pushkin himself used this word only in the sense of internal strife and wars, and the word "strife" in Dahl's dictionary: "in strife, brother raises his hand against brother." But Leskovsky's hero uses his "internecine conversations", playing with the reverse meaning of this inappropriate use of the word.

The artistic image of this hero is entirely woven from "shifters", altered words, which are another bright and original sign of Leskov's language: "hornbeam" instead of "humpback"; "kislyarka" - "kizlyarka"; "valdakhin" - "canopy"; "neramides" - "pyramids"; "mother of pearl" - "mother of pearl"; "tugament" - "document"; "melkoscope" - "microscope"; "pubel" - "poodle"; "double" - "double"; "probability" - "variation"; "Abolon Polvedere" - "Apollo Belvedere".

The author assigned an unusual mission to these "reversals": their function is not at all to convey the "negative polarity" of the image, as it might seem, demonstrating the rudeness or ignorance, "narrowness" of the narrator. With the help of his witty word formation, the author allows the reader to see ingenuity in the narrator and, to use Leskov's expression from his story "The Warrior", "as a Russian person, a little cunning"; the ability to highlight the main thing, the main thing, to see the essence; rationality inherent in a peasant not only at the everyday level, but also at the linguistic level and, of course, inseparable bond of this character with Russian colorful humor, adorned with charming lucklessness.

Speaking about Leskovsky's "terms" that characterize specific characters and serve as a means of consciousness of the artistic image, one cannot but say once again about their specific purpose, about their most essential function - the function of a conductor of a linguistic impulse sent by the author to his reader. These words - "impulses" help the reader to comprehend the author's deep idea, which underlies all the work of N.S. Leskov. This idea is the search for a moral ideal.

Even those of Leskov's "new formations" that are called upon to characterize, roughly speaking, "negative character traits" thanks to artistic modeling, reduce the negative background of this facet of the artistic image; appealing to the linguistic, and therefore spiritual sensitivity of the reader. With their help, the writer gives the reader the opportunity, precisely at the linguistic level, to discern his attempts to rehabilitate the poor fellow "bad", if, of course, in this particular situation this is the author's task.

In any case, N.S. Leskov is true to his aesthetic principle: to go around the subject of the image around, “and not from the side where it is vulgar, meaner and more disgusting.”

An example of this is the image of a priest from the story "The Enchanted Wanderer":<...>this priest is a terrible drunkard - he drinks wine and is not good in the parish, and this report, according to one essence, was fair. Vladyko<...>looked at him and see that really this priest is a “drinker” (IV, 388).

Let us pay attention to the fact that the “terrible drunkard” priest “as if”, and “really” this priest is a “drinker”:

not a drunkard (a person who drinks, an alcoholic); not a drunkard ((colloquial) drunk person); not a drunkard (same as "drunkard"); not a drunkard ((colloquial) contemptuous) the same as a drunkard); not a drunkard (colloquial, diminutive-pejorative); not a drunk person, drunk or drunk, but a drinker. The fact that “zapivashka” is a signal word, in addition to the subjective reader’s perception (which, in general, the author is counting on), also proves that it was chosen from the above synonymous series, or rather, created and selected ( the word is not recorded in dictionaries). Apparently, all available lexico-semantic variants given word was not enough for an accurate, figurative expression of the author's thought. Note that in the context it is opposed to the word "drunkard". This word, "zapivashka", is self-sufficient for creating on its basis in the reader's imagination the image of this same priest; besides, in the work, in addition to the fact that he is “as if a drunkard”, but “actually a drunkard”, according to by and large nothing is said.

Although there is one more auxiliary detail: he is not a “pop”, but a “priest”. If it speaks about the structure of these words, then it is more than eloquent in the sense that it helps us to accurately determine the attitude of the author himself towards this character. And we see before us an eccentric; a modest, diligent, quiet person, unlucky and a little funny in his unluckyness, touching, with an unlucky life (which is why he is a drinker), most likely kind, and even plus to all this, likeable to the author himself.

In the author's language, one feels empathy not only with the object of ridicule, but also with bitter mockery, a sad smile about human imperfections. At its core, it is a kind, sympathetic "cleansing" laughter, which makes Leskov related to folk laughter culture. N.S. Leskov was “intolerant” to any evil and, if we take into account his conviction, one hundred “indulgence to evil very closely borders on indifference to good, and the inability to despise and hate most often lives along with the inability to respect and love”, then those traits of Leskov's personality are clarified, which could not but be reflected in his language, in all his work. This is sincerity, strength, extraordinary color, childish maximalism, Russian enthusiasm and lyricism ...

But the main thing that triumphs in the works of Leskov is kindness. He is a kind, surprisingly kind writer who strives to embody this property of his nature in his favorite characters, to give them positive energy: “... the strength of my talent is in positive types. I gave the reader positive types of Russian people...”.

Favorite heroes of N.S. Leskov, depicted by him with undisguised warmth and sympathy, are eccentric righteous people, namely eccentrics; with its spontaneity, childishness; funny, cute, sometimes unlucky. Not deliberately ideal heroes, who do not always have a chance to become loved, but "true positive Russian types."

The key theme of this remarkable author can unmistakably be called the theme of Russia. The linguistic artistic image of Russia built by the writer is complex and multifaceted. It has a certain duality, nevertheless, it is infinitely harmonious. Let us pay attention to the dual nature of the artistic image of Russia. Russia in the language of the writer appears before us in the form of a Russian hero: huge, strong, daring, though a little clumsy, but very kind. And the vocabulary that defines Russian life and the Russian people in this case carries in itself this theme of the superlative degree, the theme of “heroism”.

Only on a few pages of the story “Laughter and Sorrow” we read: “... life is nowhere so abundant<...>like in Russia" "... this should not be the case<...>nowhere, and even more so in Russia ""... a grandiose, inspiring figure in a boundless<...>wolf coat" "... it was a huge turkey on a large wooden dish..." "... he came with huge bills..." "... we came across a strange story..." "... we found an angry, angry-looking person ... "" ... fearlessness, courage and courage in their most diverse applications ... "" The huge garden of the boarding house served as an immense field ... "" ... huge snowdrifts ... "" .. studied well .. ""... he himself was a big fool, had a huge appetite ..." "... he had no powers of observation ..." "... he prayed<...>and very sweetly and most sincerely" The peasants "... live much more excellently than before." But the writer's language helps us to see another Russia: quiet, provincial, meek, in the words of M.I. Tsvetaeva "touchingly small". We will see this, as if another Russia, turning over the pages of the same story:

“... in front of the carriage that suddenly stopped, a black<...>a strip of towns dotted with red dots ... "Not a small neat town, not a small town, not a godforsaken seedy town, but a bright, pretty town, as if from a Russian lubok pictures, unique in its proud miserliness, or:

“A bay horse was standing at the entrance, harnessed to a small droshky.” .

“... I remember a small station ...” Both “horse” and “drozhechki” and “station” are signal words with an impulse of tenderness for the Russian road - a category not of everyday life in Rus', but of a philosophical one.

Analyzing the means of creating an artistic image in Leskov's works, one cannot but come to the conclusion that everything Leskov did in Russian literature is extremely necessary, significant and bright. Without Leskov, Russian literature would have lost a significant share of its national color and national issues, which largely determine and global importance every writer.

In the artistic manner of Leskov, the WORD plays a very special role. The word of the hero or narrator, "skillful weaving of the nervous lace of colloquial speech" is Leskov's main means of creating an artistic image (30).

In the writer's works, "linguistic impulses" are strong, which are signals of the author's hand for the reader. This impulse is enclosed, as a rule, in the very structure of the word. Leskov, like perhaps no other writer, communicates with his reader at the level of the poetic Russian language.

In the artistic manner of Leskov, an important role is played by the use of the linguistic composition of Ancient Rus'. The very methods of using the Old Russian language and its widespread use make it possible to classify Leskov as an exceptionally peculiar phenomenon of all Russian literature.

His works are imbued with historical legends, folk legends, people's rumors. Leskov created a great variety of socio-psychological types, and for all their brightness, individuality and originality of language, they reveal a certain commonality of style, a certain property inherent in them all to think “in a national key”, “in Russian”.

This "national way of thinking" was reflected in a generalizing artistic form, which is Leskov's literary tale.

Leskov was one of the first to realize that in order to comprehend the spirit of the times, and most importantly - folk character, the folk tale represents a precious material.

NOTES

Fed N.M. Leskov's artistic discoveries // Leskov and Russian literature. Sat edited Lomunov and Troitsky. M., 1988. P.25.

Big Encyclopedia / Ed. S.N. Yuzhakova. 4th ed. St. Petersburg, 1903-1904. T.XII. P.382.

Desktop Encyclopedic Dictionary Br.A. and Garnet, M., 1901. T.VI. P.382.

Dykhanova B.S. "The Sealed Angel" and "The Enchanted Wanderer" by N.S. Leskov. M., 1980. S. 23.; Krasnov P.N. A sensitive artist and stylist, // Trud, 1895. No. 5, P. 449.

Leskov N.S. Sobr. op. In 11 volumes. T.VII. P.60-61 .M., 1958. Further, the volume and page of the text are indicated by this edition.

Gorky M. Sobr. op. In 30 tons. T.24. P.236.

Orlov A.S. The language of Russian writers. M.-L., 1948. S.153.

Prokofiev N.I. Traditions of Old Russian Literature in the Works of Leskov // Leskov and Russian Literature. Sat. under. ed. Lomunov and Troitsky. M., 1988.S.122.

Orlov A.S. The language of Russian writers. M.-L., 1948. S.153. (Question about the story.)

Gorky A.M. Uncollected literary-critical articles. M., 1941. S.88-89.

Kuskov V.V. The idea of beauty in ancient Russian literature // Problems of theory and history of literature. M., 1971.S.63.

Prokofiev N.I. Specified essay. P.134.

Fed N.M. Leskov's artistic discoveries // Leskov and Russian literature. Sat. under. ed. Lomunov and Troitsky. M., 1988. P. 26.

Gogol N.V. Full coll. op. In 14 volumes. T.8. M., 1952. S.478-479.

Fed N.M. Specified essay. P.28.

Vinogradov V.V. Poetics. M., 1926.S.25.

Vinogradov V.V. Stylistics. theory of poetic speech. Poetics. M., 1963.S.18.

There. P.25.

There. P.34.

Vinogradov V.V. On the theory of artistic speech. M., 1971. S. 118.

Eikhenbaum B.O. About literature. Works of different years. M., 1987.S.413.

There. pp. 414-415; / Faresov A.I. Against the currents. SPb., 1904. S.273-274.
The name of Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov, a remarkable Russian writer,

One of the problems that need careful consideration due to the low degree of study and extreme complexity is Leskov's genre-logy in its evolutionary and innovative modifications. The problem of genre traditions, the need to take them into account in own creativity was perceived by Leskov extremely sharply in connection with the inevitable use of given and not too natural ready-made forms. At the very beginning of his career, adjoining the then widespread genre of the so-called accusatory essays - with the difference that they already felt the hand of the future novelist, the writer then turned it "into a feuilleton, and sometimes into a story" (23, p. XI).

In a well-known article about Leskov, P.P. Gromov and B.M. Eikhenbaum, who own A.I. Izmailov casually touches on one of the most important aspects of the aesthetics of a unique artist, noting that “Leskov’s things often baffle the reader when attempt to comprehend their genre nature(hereinafter it is highlighted by me - N.A.). Leskov often blurs the line between a newspaper journalistic article, an essay, memoirs and traditional forms of high prose - a story, a short story"

Reflecting on the specifics of each of the prose narrative genres, Leskov points out the difficulties of distinguishing between them: “A writer who would truly understand the difference between a novel and a story, essay or short story would also understand that in their last three forms he can only be a draftsman, with known stock of taste, skills and knowledge; and, starting the fabric of the novel, he must also be a thinker ... "If you pay attention to the subtitles of Leskov's creations, then both the author's constant desire for genre certainty and the unusualness of the proposed definitions such as "landscape and genre", "story on grave”, “stories by the way”.

The problem of the specificity of the Leskovsky story in its similarities and differences with
genre canon is complicated for researchers by the fact that in critical
Literature of Lesk's time did not have sufficiently accurate typological
Russian criteria for the genre of a story in its differences from a short story or a short story
lead. In 1844-45, in the prospectus of the Educational Book of Literature for Russian
youth "Gogol gives a definition of the story, which includes the story
as its particular variety (“masterfully and vividly told picture
chance"), in contrast to the tradition of the short story ("an extraordinary incident",
“a witty turn”), Gogol shifts the emphasis to “cases that can
get along with every person and are "wonderful" in psychological and moral
descriptive (63, p. 190)

In his St. Petersburg cycle, Gogol introduced a modification into literature short psychological story which was continued by F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, and later in many stories (“The Red Flower” by V.M. Garshin, “Ward No. 6” by A.P. Chekhov and many others).

With the weakening of the plot beginning, slowing down the action, the power of cognitive analytical thought increases here. The place of an extraordinary incident in a Russian story is more often occupied by an ordinary incident, an ordinary story, comprehended in their inner significance (63, p. 191).

Since the late 40s of the XIX century, the story has been perceived as special genre both in relation to the short story and in comparison with the "physiological essay". The development of prose associated with the names of D.V. Grigorovich, V.I. Dahl, A.F. Pisemsky, A.I. Herzen, I.A. Goncharova, F.M. Dostoevsky, led to the selection and crystallization of new narrative forms.

Belinsky stated in 1848: “And therefore now the very limits of the novel and the story have moved apart, except for the“ story ”, which has long existed in literature, as lower and lighter kind of story, Recently, the so-called physiologies, characteristic essays on various aspects of social life, have received in the literature the right of citizenship.

In contrast to the essay, where a direct description, research, problem-journalistic or lyrical montage of reality prevails, the story retains the composition of a closed narrative, structured around a certain episode, event, human destiny or character (63, p. 192).

The development of the Russian form of the story is associated with the “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev, combining the experience of a psychological story and a physiological essay. The narrator is almost always a witness, listener, interlocutor of the characters; less often - a participant in events. artistic principle becomes "accident", unintentional choice of phenomena and facts, freedom of transitions from one episode to another.

The emotional coloring of each episode is created by minimal artistic means. The experience of psychological prose familiar with

b "details of feelings", is widely used in detailing the impressions of the narrator.

Freedom and flexibility of the sketch form, naturalness, poetry of the story with an internal sharpness of social content - the qualities of the genre of the Russian story, coming from the "Notes of a Hunter". According to G. Vyaly, “Turgenev contrasts the dramatic reality of the traditional short story with the lyrical activity of the author's narrative, based on accurate descriptions of the situation, characters and landscape. Turgenev brought the story closer to the border of the lyric-essay genre. This trend was continued in the folk stories of L. Tolstoy, G.I. Uspensky, A.I. Ertel, V.G. Korolenko

According to B.M. Eikhenbaum, the short story is not only built on the basis of some kind of contradiction, mismatch, error, contrast, but in its very essence, the short story, like an anecdote, accumulates all its weight towards the end, which is why the short story, according to B.M. Eikhenbaum, - "uphill, the purpose of which is a view from a high point"

B.V. Tomashevsky in his book Theory of Literature. Poetics, speaking of prose narrative, divides it into two categories: small form identifying it with the novella, and big shape - novel (137, p. 243). The scientist already points out all the "bottlenecks" in the theory of genres, noting that "the sign of size - the main one in the classification of narrative works - is far from being as unimportant as it might seem at first glance. It depends on the volume of the work how the author disposes of the plot material, how he builds his plot, how he introduces his own theme into it.

Academician D.S. Likhachev in the well-known article "False" ethical assessment of the COP. Leskov”: “The works of N.S. Leskov demonstrates to us (usually these are stories, novels, but not his novels) a very interesting phenomenon of disguising the moral assessment of what is being told. This is achieved by a rather complex superstructure over the narrator of a false author, over which the author, already completely hidden from the reader, rises, so that it seems to the reader that he comes to a real assessment of what is happening quite independently” (72, p. 177).

With all certainty in his monograph "Leskov - the artist" V.Yu. Troitsky pointed out the extreme aesthetic function of the image of the narrator in Leskov's prose, including the short story genre (141, pp. 148-162).

O.V. Evdokimova, a subtle and accurate researcher of Leskov's creativity, speaking of the embodiment in the images of Leskov's storytellers of "different forms of awareness of some phenomenon", expresses an extremely valuable idea about the presence in Leskov's stories of a structure typical of this writer, clearly schematized in the same short story, about which D.S. Likhachev. In "Shameless" "the personality of each of the characters is written out by Leskov colorfully, but without going beyond the form of consciousness that the hero represents. There are bright personalities in the story, but they are conditioned by the sphere of feelings and thoughts about shame” (46, pp. 106-107). And further: “Any work by Leskov contains this mechanism and can be called a “natural fact in mystical illumination.” It is natural that stories, novels, “memories” of the writer often look like everyday stories or pictures from life, and Leskov was and is known as a master of everyday storytelling”

The problem of the genre of Lesk's story is recognized by researchers in its acuteness and relevance. This, in particular, is directly stated by T.V. Sepik: “Leskov's work is characterized by an innovative, experimental attitude towards genre practice. Innovation of this kind in itself represents a philological problem, since the boundaries between a story and a short story are blurred here (the conflict of all levels is perceived by us as an indicator of the quality of a short story, and not an ordinary story, all the more complicated by a tale form), between a story and memoirs (some stories are divided into chapters, which is more consistent with the story), story and essay; between the novel and the chronicle (for example, the richness of the characters and types involved). In addition, the so-called "new heats" practiced by Leskov have not been studied. The literary narrative norm as a standard that defines the subjective will over the objective sphere of a work of art is transformed into a new genre form with an ambiguous characteristic, blurred genre boundaries.

Language

Literary critics who wrote about Leskov's work invariably - and often unfriendly - noted the unusual language, the author's bizarre verbal play. "Mr. Leskov is ... one of the most pretentious representatives of our modern literature. Not a single page can do with him without some equivocations, allegories, invented or God knows where dug up words and all kinds of kunstshtyukov," - said about Leskov A .M. Skabichevsky, known in the 1880s - 1890s. a literary critic of a democratic trend (a kunstshtuk, or a kunstshtuk - a trick, a trick, a trick). The writer said it a little differently. turn XIX-XX centuries A.V. Amfiteatrov: “Of course, Leskov was a natural stylist. Already in his first works, he discovers rare reserves of verbal wealth. But wandering around Russia, close acquaintance with local dialects, studying Russian antiquity, Old Believers, original Russian crafts, etc. added a lot, over time, into these reserves. Leskov took into the depths of his speech everything that was preserved among the people from his ancient language, smoothed out the remnants found with talented criticism and put it into business with great success. The special richness of the language is distinguished ... "The Sealed Angel" and " The enchanted wanderer." But the sense of proportion, which is generally little inherent in Leskov's talent, betrayed him in this case too. way of external comic effects, funny words and turns of speech. Leskov was also accused by his younger contemporary literary critic M.O. Menshikov. Menshikov commented on the language of the writer as follows: “The incorrect, motley, antique (rare, imitating the old language. - Ed.) manner makes Leskov’s books a museum of all kinds of dialects; you hear in them the language of village priests, officials, clerics, the language of liturgical, fabulous, chronicle , litigation (the language of court proceedings. - Ed.), Salon, here all the elements meet, all the elements of the ocean of Russian speech... This language, until you get used to it, seems artificial and colorful ... His style is wrong, but rich and even suffers vices of wealth: satiety and what is called embarras de richesse (overwhelming abundance. - French. - Ed.) It does not have the strict simplicity of the style of Lermontov and Pushkin, in which our language has taken on truly classical, eternal forms, it does not have an elegant and refined simplicity of Goncharov's and Turgenev's writing (that is, style, syllable. - Ed.), there is no sincere everyday simplicity of Tolstoy's language - Leskov's language is rarely simple; in most cases it is complex, but in St. kinda handsome and lush."

The writer himself said this about the language of his own works (these words of Leskov were recorded by his friend A.I. Faresov): “The voice of the writer lies in the ability to master the voice and language of his hero .... In myself, I tried to develop this skill and achieved, it seems that my priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists in a nihilistic way, peasants in a peasant way, upstarts from them and buffoons with tricks, etc. From myself, I speak the language of old fairy tales and church folk in a purely "Literary speech. That's why you now recognize me in every article, even if I didn't subscribe to it. It makes me happy. They say that it's fun to read me. This is because all of us: both my heroes and I myself, have our own voice "It is set in each of us correctly, or at least diligently. When I write, I am afraid of going astray: therefore, my philistines speak philistine, and lisping-burr aristocrats - in their own way. This is the setting of talent in a writer. And its development is not only a matter of talent, but also huge th labor. A person lives with words, and one must know at what moments of psychological life which of us will find words. It is rather difficult to study the speeches of each representative of numerous social and personal positions. This folk, vulgar and pretentious language, in which many pages of my works are written, was not composed by me, but overheard from a peasant, from a semi-intellectual, from talkers, from holy fools and saints.

1. Innovation M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the field of satire.

2. Roman M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "History of one city" as a satire on bureaucratic Russia. Modernity of the novel. Disputes about the position of the author.

3. The artistic originality of the novel by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "History of one city" (irony, grotesque, the image of an archivist, etc.).

The work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, a democrat for whom the autocratic-feudal system prevailing in Russia was absolutely unacceptable, had a satirical orientation. The writer was outraged by the Russian society of "slaves and masters", the excesses of the landlords, the humility of the people, and in all his works he denounced the "ulcers" of society, cruelly ridiculed its vices and imperfections.

So, starting to write the “History of a City”, Saltykov-Shchedrin set himself the goal of exposing the ugliness, the impossibility of the existence of autocracy with its social vices, laws, mores, and ridiculing all its realities.

Thus, “The History of a City” is a satirical work, the dominant artistic means in depicting the history of the city of Glupov, its inhabitants and mayors is the grotesque, the technique of combining the fantastic and the real, creating absurd situations, comic inconsistencies. In fact, all the events taking place in the city are grotesque. Its inhabitants, the Foolovites, “who descended from an ancient tribe of bunglers,” who did not know how to live in self-government and decided to find a master for themselves, are unusually “boss-loving.” “Experiencing unaccountable fear”, unable to live independently, they “feel like orphans” without city governors and consider the excesses of the Organchik, who had a mechanism in his head and knew only two words - “I will not tolerate” and “ruin”, as “saving severity”. Quite “usual” in Foolovo are such city governors as Pimple with a stuffed head or the Frenchman Du Mario, who “on closer examination turned out to be a girl.” However, the absurdity reaches its climax with the appearance of Ugryum-Burcheev, “a scoundrel who planned to embrace the entire universe.” In an effort to realize his “systematic nonsense”, Ugryum-Burcheev is trying to equalize everything in nature, to arrange society in such a way that everyone in Foolov lives according to a plan invented by himself, so that the entire structure of the city is created anew according to his project, which leads to the destruction of Glupov by his own residents who unquestioningly carry out the orders of the “scoundrel”, and further - to the death of Ugryum-Burcheev and all the Foolovites, therefore, the disappearance of the orders he established, as an unnatural phenomenon, unacceptable by nature itself.

So, by using the grotesque, Saltykov-Shchedrin creates a logical, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a comically absurd picture, but for all its absurdity and fantasy, “The History of a City” is a realistic work that touches on many topical problems. The images of the city of Glupov and its mayors are allegorical, they symbolize autocratic-feudal Russia, the power that reigns in it, Russian society. Therefore, the grotesque used by Saltykov-Shchedrin in the narrative is also a way to expose the disgusting for the writer, ugly realities of contemporary life, as well as a means of identifying the author's position, Saltykov-Shchedrin's attitude to what is happening in Russia.

Describing the fantastically comic life of the Foolovites, their constant fear, all-forgiving love for their superiors, Saltykov-Shchedrin expresses his contempt for the people, apathetic and obedient-slavish, according to the writer, by their nature. Only once in the work were the Foolovites free - under the mayor with a stuffed head. By creating this grotesque situation, Saltykov-Shchedrin shows that under the existing socio-political system, the people cannot be free. The absurdity of the behavior of the “strong” (symbolizing real power) of this world in the work embodies the lawlessness and arbitrariness perpetrated in Russia by high-ranking officials. The grotesque image of Grim-Burcheev, his “systematic nonsense” (a kind of dystopia), which the mayor decided to bring to life at all costs, and the fantastic end of the reign - the realization of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s idea of inhumanity, the unnaturalness of absolute power, bordering on tyranny, about the impossibility of its existence. The writer embodies the idea that autocratic-feudal Russia with its ugly way of life will sooner or later come to an end.

Thus, denouncing vices and revealing the absurdity and absurdity of real life, the grotesque conveys a special “evil irony”, “bitter laughter”, characteristic of Saltykov-Shchedrin, “laughter through contempt and indignation”. The writer sometimes seems absolutely ruthless to his characters, overly critical and demanding of the world around him. But, as Lermontov said, "the cure for the disease can be bitter." The cruel denunciation of the vices of society, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, is the only effective means in the fight against the “disease” of Russia. Ridicule of imperfections makes them obvious, understandable to everyone. It would be wrong to say that Saltykov-Shchedrin did not love Russia, he despised the shortcomings, vices of her life and devoted all his creative activity to the fight against them. Explaining the "History of a City", Saltykov-Shchedrin argued that this is a book about modernity. In modern times, he saw his place and never believed that the texts he created would excite his distant descendants. However, a sufficient number of reasons are revealed due to which his book remains the subject and reason for explaining events. modern reader reality.

One of these reasons, of course, is the method of literary parody, which the author actively uses. This is especially noticeable in his “Appeal to the reader”, which is written on behalf of the last archivist-chronicler, as well as in the “Inventory of the mayors”.

The object of parody here is the texts of ancient Russian literature, and in particular “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, “The Tale of Bygone Years” and “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”. All three texts were canonical for modern writer literary criticism, and it was necessary to show special aesthetic courage and artistic tact in order to avoid their vulgar distortion. Parody is a special literary genre, and Shchedrin shows himself to be a true artist in it. What he does, he does subtly, cleverly, elegantly and funny.

“I don’t want, like Kostomarov, to roam the earth like a gray wolf, nor, like Solovyov, to spread like an eagle under the clouds, nor, like Pypin, to spread my thoughts along the tree, but I want to tickle the Foolovites, dear to me, showing the world their glorious deeds and that reverend the root from which this famous tree came and covered the whole earth with its branches. Thus begins the Foolov chronicle. The author organizes the majestic text “Words...” in a completely different way, changing the rhythmic and semantic pattern. Saltykov-Shchedrin, using contemporary clericalism (which undoubtedly affected the fact that he corrected the position of governor of the provincial office in Vyatka), introduces the names of the historians Kostomarov and Solovyov into the text, while not forgetting his friend, the literary critic Pypin. Thus, the parodied text gives the entire Foolovian chronicle a certain authentic pseudo-historical sound, an almost feuilleton interpretation of history.

And in order to finally “tickle” the reader, just below Shchedrin creates a dense and complex passage based on The Tale of Bygone Years. Let us recall the Shchedrin bunglers who “thump their heads on everything”, thick-eaters, dolbezhniks, rukosuevs, kurales and compare with glades “living on their own”, with radimichi, dulebs, drevlyans, “living like cattle”, animal custom, and krivichi.

The historical seriousness and drama of the decision to call on the princes: “Our land is great and plentiful, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us,” Shchedrin becomes historical frivolity. For the world of the Foolovites is an inverted world, a looking-glass world. And their history behind the looking-glass, and its laws behind the looking-glass act according to the method “from the opposite”. The princes do not go to own the Foolovites. And the one who finally agrees puts his own stupid “innovator thief” over them.

And the “prenaturally decorated” city of Foolov is being built in a swamp in a landscape that is dull to tears. “Oh, light-bright and beautifully decorated, the Russian land!” - loftily exclaims the romantic author of "Words about the destruction of the Russian land."

The history of the city of Glupov is a counter-history. It is a mixed, grotesque and parodic opposition to real life, indirectly, through the annals, ridiculing history itself. And here the sense of proportion never betrays the author.

After all, a parody literary device, allows, by distorting and turning reality, to see its funny and humorous sides. But Shchedrin never forgets that the subject of his parodies is the serious. It is not surprising that in our time the "History of a City" itself becomes the object of parody, both literary and cinematic. In the cinema, Vladimir Ovcharov shot a long and rather dull tape “It”. AT contemporary literature V. Pietsukh carries out a stylistic experiment called “The history of one city in modern times”, trying to show the ideas of city government in Soviet times. However, these attempts to translate Shchedrin into another language ended in nothing and were safely forgotten, which indicates that the unique semantic and stylistic fabric of “History ...” can be parodied by satirical talent, if not greater, then equal to the talent of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Saltykov resorts only to this kind of caricature, which exaggerates the truth, as if by means of a magnifying glass, but never completely distorts its essence.

I.S. Turgenev.

Indispensable and the first means of satire in the "History of a City" is hyperbolic exaggeration. Satire is a kind of art where hyperbole of expression is a legitimate technique. However, the satirist is required that the fantasy of exaggeration does not stem from a desire to amuse, but serves as a means for a more visual reflection of reality and its shortcomings.

The genius of Saltykov-Shchedrin as a satirist is expressed in the fact that his fantasy, as it were, freed reality from all obstacles that hindered its free manifestation. The fantastic in form is based in this writer on the undoubtedly real, which in the best possible way reveals the characteristic, the typical in the existing order of things. Shchedrin wrote: "I don't care about history, I see only the present."

With the help of the grotesque (depicting something in a fantastic, ugly-comic form, based on sharp contrasts and exaggerations), the writer manages to create historical satire in The History of a City. In this work, Saltykov-Shchedrin bitterly ridicules the political system, the lack of rights of the people, the arrogance and tyranny of the rulers.

The historical point of view made it possible for the writer to explain the origin of the autocracy and its development. The "History of a City" has all this: there is evolution, there is the history of Russia. The appearance of the gloomy figure of Moody-Grumbling, who completes the gallery of mayors in the novel, is prepared by the entire previous presentation. It is conducted according to the principle of gradation (from less bad to worse). From one hero to another, the hyperbolicity in the depiction of city governors is increasing, the grotesque is becoming more and more pronounced. Gloomy-Grumbling brings the character of the autocratic tyrant to the last limits, just as the very image of the mayor is brought to the limit. This is explained by the fact that, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, autocracy has reached its historical end.

Revealing the roots of the hated regime, the satirist persecuted him at all stages of development and in all its varieties. The gallery of city governors reveals the variety of forms of autocratic arbitrariness and tyranny, which are also depicted with the help of the grotesque.

For example, Organchik is a mayor with a "mysterious story" that is revealed in the course of the story. This hero is “visited by watch and organ master Baibakov. ... they said that once, at three o'clock in the morning, they saw how Baibakov, all pale and frightened, left the mayor's apartment and carefully carried something wrapped in a napkin. And what is most remarkable - on this memorable night, not only was not one of the townsfolk awakened by a cry: “I will not tolerate it!” - but the mayor himself, apparently, stopped for a while the critical analysis of the arrears of registers and fell into a dream. And then we learn that one day the clerk of the mayor, “entering his office in the morning with a report, saw such a sight: the mayor’s body, dressed in a uniform, was sitting at a desk, and in front of him, on a pile of arrears registers, lay, in the form of a dandy press -papier, a completely empty mayor's head ... "

No less fantastic is the description of another mayor - Pimple: “- It smells of him! - he [the leader] said to his confidant, - it smells! Right here in the sausage shop!” This story reaches its climax when one day, in a struggle with the leader, the mayor “has already gone into a rage and does not remember himself. His eyes sparkled, his belly ached sweetly ... Finally, with unheard-of frenzy, the leader rushed to his victim, cut off a chunk of the head with a knife and immediately swallowed it ... "

The grotesque and fantasy in the description of the mayors begins already in the "Inventory for the Mayors" at the very beginning of the novel. In addition, not only the rulers themselves are grotesque, but also the Foolovian people, over whom these rulers are placed. If the mayors exaggerate their tyranny, stupidity and covetousness, then the people - indecision, stupidity, lack of will. Both of them are good. All of them are "worthy" heroes of the great satirist's book.

The fantasy and hyperbolic nature of the "History of a City" is explained by Saltykov-Shchedrin himself. This justifies the methods chosen by the satirist for the grotesque depiction of the images of his work. The writer noted: “... the history of the city of Glupov is primarily a world of miracles, which can be rejected only when the existence of miracles in general is rejected. But this is not enough. There are miracles in which, upon careful examination, one can notice a fairly bright real basis.

The genre of the novel by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev". Disputes about the genre in literary criticism.

Traditionally, "Lord Golovlev" is positioned as a novel. Based on the definition of this term, recorded in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, is it a kind of epic as a kind of literature, one of the largest epic genres, which has significant differences from another similar genre? national-historical (heroic) epic. In contrast to the epic with its interest in the formation of society? to events and goodies of national historical significance, the novel shows interest in the formation of a social character individual in her own life and in her external and internal collisions with the environment. Here you can also add the definition of Bakhtin M.M., Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. M., 1975 for a more complete understanding of the specifics of this genre: “A novel, a detailed narrative, which, as a rule, gives the impression of a story about real people and events that are not really such. No matter how large it is, the novel always offers the reader an unfolding action in an integral artistic space, and not just one episode or a bright moment.

Let us consider in more detail which of these definitions is applicable to determine the genre affiliation of such a work as "Lord Golovlev".

In the center of the story is one single family - the Golovlevs, its three generations are shown in their gradual degeneration and extinction. Therefore, this is a chronicle novel that tells about the events taking place in the Golovlev family estate. But this is only one of the sides of this work, since it has much in common with the chronicle genre of the memoir-family type, well developed in Russian classical prose. However, the connection between the Golovlevs and the traditional family romance is purely external. "Family" content is impossible to explain all the features of the genre nature of Saltykov's novel. The "family" attribute affected him mainly only in the designation of the thematic framework, the boundaries of a certain range of life phenomena.

A look at the family and family issues can be different. Saltykov considered the family mainly as a social category, as an organic cell of the social organism. In 1876, he wrote to E. I. Utin: “I turned to the family, to property, to the state and made it clear that none of this was already in cash. That, therefore, the principles in the name of which freedom is constrained are no longer principles even for those who use them. On the principle of nepotism, I wrote the “Golovlevs” ”M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the memoirs of contemporaries, 2nd ed., vol. 1 - 2, M., 1975. P. 113. put special content. It is not for nothing that Saltykov's family stands on a par with the state and property, these cornerstones of the noble-bourgeois system. The satirist devoted many pages to exposing the decay of a system based on exploitation and slavery; in this sense, the Golovlevs, in their ideological motives, are closely intertwined with other works by Saltykov, and primarily with Well-Intentioned Speeches and Poshekhonskaya Antiquity.

Here Saltykov opposes the established traditions of the novel (both on Russian and Western European soil) with its love-family plot. Highlighting the task of creating a social novel, he finds the traditional family romance too narrow. He points to the need for a decisive change in the social basis of the novel and persistently puts forward the problem of the environment in the first place. “After all, a man died because his darling kissed his darling,” Saltykov wrote, “and no one found it wild that this death was called the resolution of the drama. Why? - and precisely because this resolution was preceded by the very process of kissing, i.e. drama .. With all the more reason it is permissible to think that other, by no means less complex definitions of a person can also provide content for a very detailed drama. If they are still insufficiently and uncertainly used, it is only because the arena in which their struggle takes place is too poorly lit. But it exists, it exists, and it even knocks very insistently on the doors of literature. In this case, I can refer to the greatest of Russian artists, Gogol, who for a long time foresaw that the novel would have to go beyond the framework of nepotism.

It may seem strange that Saltykov, who so sharply opposed the tradition of the "family romance" and put forward the task of highlighting the social environment, "the arena in which the struggle takes place," built his novel on the basis of "nepotism." However, this impression is purely external; the principle of nepotism was chosen by the author only for a certain convenience. It gave ample opportunities to use the richest material of direct life observations.

When they talk about the principle of nepotism, they usually mean the traditional novel, in which all life conflicts, dramatic situations, clashes of passions and characters are depicted exclusively through privacy families and family relationships. At the same time, even within the framework of traditional, familiar family romance, it is not something homogeneous and immovable. This conditional concept often serves as a means of designation only external signs plot.

The main defining feature of the genre of the novel "Golovlevs" is social factor. The author focuses on social problems.

But it would be strange, speaking of social, public problems, to bypass the psychological side of this work. After all, “Lord Golovlev” reveals not only the theme of the extinction of the landlord class, but also the theme of extinction human soul, the theme of morality, spirituality, conscience in the end. The tragedies of broken human destinies wind like a black mourning ribbon through the pages of the novel, evoking both horror and sympathy in the reader.

The head of the Golovlev family is the hereditary landowner Arina Petrovna, a tragic figure, despite the fact that in the collection of weak and worthless people of the Golovlev family, she appears as a strong, domineering person, the real mistress of the estate. This woman for a long time single-handedly and uncontrollably managed the vast Golovlev estate and, thanks to her personal energy, managed to multiply her fortune tenfold. The passion for accumulation dominated in Arina Petrovna over maternal feeling. The children "did not touch a single string of her inner being, which was completely devoted to the countless details of life-building."

In whom such monsters were born? - Arina Petrovna asked herself in her declining years, seeing how her sons devour each other and how the “family stronghold” created by her hands collapses. Before her appeared the results of her own life - a life that was subject to heartless acquisitiveness and formed "monsters". The most disgusting of them is Porfiry, nicknamed in the family since childhood Judas.

The traits of heartless money-grubbing, characteristic of Arina Petrovna and the entire Golovlev family, developed in Iudushka to their utmost expression. If a feeling of pity for her sons and orphaned granddaughters from time to time still visited the callous soul of Arina Petrovna, then Judas was "incapable not only of affection, but also of simple pity." His moral stiffness was so great that, without the slightest shudder, he condemned to death in turn each of his three sons - Vladimir, Peter and the illegitimate baby Volodya.

The world of Golovlev's estate, when Arina Petrovna rules in it, is a world of individual arbitrariness, a world of "authority" emanating from one person, authority that does not obey any law, contained in only one principle - the principle of autocracy. The Golovlevskaya estate represents, as they said in the 19th century, the whole of autocratic Russia, frozen in a “stupefaction of authority” (with these words, Saltykov defined the very essence of the reign of Arina Petrovna, “a woman of power and, moreover, highly gifted with creativity”). Only from her, from Arina Petrovna, certain active currents emanate, only she in this Golovlev world has the privilege of acting. Other members of the Golovlev world are completely deprived of this privilege. At one pole, in the person of the autocrat Arina Petrovna, power, activity, "creativity" are concentrated. On the other - resignation, passivity, apathy. And it is understandable why, despite the "numbness" that dominates Golovlev's world, only in Arina Petrovna something alive still remains.

Only she is capable of "life-building", whatever it may be, only she lives - in her household, in her acquisitive pathos. Of course, this life is very relative, limited by very narrow limits, and most importantly - depriving all other members of Golovlev's world of the right to life, dooming them in the end to the "coffin", to dying. After all, the life of Arina Petrovna finds satisfaction in herself, her "creativity" does not have any goal outside itself, any moral content. And the question that Arina Petrovna often asks: for whom do I work, for whom do I save? - the question, in essence, is illegal: after all, she saved up not even for herself, especially not for children, but due to some unconscious, almost animal instinct of accumulation. Everything was subordinated, everything was sacrificed to this instinct.

But this instinct, of course, is not biological, but social. The hoarding of Arina Petrovna - in its social and therefore psychological nature - is very different from the stinginess of Balzac's Gobsek or Pushkin's Miserly Knight.

In the novel, therefore, Saltykov set himself a difficult task: to artistically reveal the internal mechanism of the destruction of the family. From chapter to chapter traced tragic exit from the family and from the life of the main representatives of the Golovlev family. But everything characteristic of the process of the destruction of the landlord family is most consistently summarized in the image of Porfiry Goloplev. It is no coincidence that Saltykov considered it necessary to note the following at the very beginning of the second chapter: “The family stronghold, erected by the tireless hands of Arina Petrovna, collapsed, but collapsed so imperceptibly that she herself, not understanding how it happened, “became an accomplice and even an obvious engine of this destruction, the real soul of which was, of course, Porfiska the Blood Drinker.

Therefore, this novel is psychological and tragic.

But, in addition, the novel "Lord Golovlev" is also a satirical novel. The prophetic, in Gorky's words, laughter of Saltykov's satire in the novel penetrated the consciousness of entire generations of Russian people. And in this peculiar process of social education lies another merit of this work. In addition, it opened the image of Judas to the reading Russia, which entered the gallery of the world's common satirical types.

Thus, we can conclude that the Saltykov-Shchedrin novel in its genre identity is a unique synthetic fusion of a novel - a family chronicle, a socio-psychological, tragic and satirical novel.

The universal meaning of the image of Judas Golovlev. Disputes about its creation and essence.

One of the most striking images of the satirist was Judas Golovlev, the hero of the novel "Golovlevs". The Golovlev family, the Golovlev estate, where the events of the novel unfold, is a collective image that summarizes specific traits life, customs, psychology of the landowners, their whole way of life on the eve of the abolition of serfdom.

Porfiry Vladimirovich Golovlev is one of the members of a large family, one of the "monsters" as the mother - Arina Petrovna - called her sons. “Porfiry Vladimirovich was known in the family under three names: Judas, blood-drinking and frank boy,” - this exhaustive description is given by the author already in the first chapter of the novel. The episodes that describe the childhood of Judas show us how the character of this hypocritical person was formed: Porfisha, in the hope of encouragement, became an affectionate son, curry favor with his mother, slander, fawn, in a word, became "all obedience and devotion." “But even then Arina Petrovna was somehow suspicious of these filial ingratiations,” subconsciously guessing insidious intent in them. But still, unable to resist the false charm, she was looking for "the best piece on the platter" for Porfisha. Pretense, as one of the ways to achieve what you want, has become a fundamental character trait of Judas. If in childhood the ostentatious “filial devotion” helped him to get the “best pieces”, then later he received the “best part” for this when dividing the estate. Yudushka first became the sovereign owner of the Golovlev estate, then the estate of his brother Pavel. Having seized all the wealth of his mother, he doomed this previously formidable and domineering woman to a lonely death in an abandoned house.

The traits of heartless money-grubbing inherited from Arina Petrovna are presented in Porfiry to the highest degree of their development. If his mother, despite all the callousness of her soul, sometimes still lit up with a feeling of pity for her sons, orphaned granddaughters, then her son Porfiry was "incapable not only of affection, but also of simple pity." Without any remorse, he doomed all his sons to death - Vladimir, Peter and baby Volodya

The behavior and appearance of Judas can mislead anyone: "His face was bright, tender, breathing with humility and joy." His eyes "exuded bewitching poison", and his voice, "like a snake, crawled into the soul and paralyzed the will of a person" those who came into contact with him felt the danger emanating from this man, hidden behind his good-natured "idle talk".

With his meanness, the vileness of his actions, Judas cannot cause anything but disgust. With his speeches, this blood drinker, according to one peasant, can "rot a person." Each of his words "has ten meanings."

An indispensable attribute of Jewish idle talk is all sorts of aphorisms, proverbs, religious sayings: “we all walk under God”, “what God arranged in his wisdom, we don’t have to redo it with you”, “every man has his own limit from God” and so Further. Porfiry Vladimirovich calls these phrases for help whenever he wants to do something nasty, violating the norms of morality. So, the sons who asked Judas for help always received a ready-made maxim instead - “God punishes disobedient children”, “he messed up - and get out yourself”, which were taken as “a stone served to a hungry person”. As a result, Vladimir committed suicide, Petenka, who was put on trial for embezzlement of state money, died on the way to exile. And he always came out of the water dry.

This person, insignificant in all respects, dominates those around him, destroys them, relying on feudal morality, on law, on religion, sincerely considering himself a champion of truth.

Revealing the image of Judas - a "blood drinker" protected by the dogmas of religion and the laws of power, Shchedrin denounced the social, political and moral principles of a serf society. Showing Judas' "awakening of the wild conscience" in the last chapter of the novel, Shchedrin warns his contemporaries that sometimes this can happen too late.

Using the example of Judas, who has the capitalist grip of a predator, who, having lost his gratuitous peasant strength, in the new conditions, excels in other methods of extorting money from completely ruined peasants, the satirist says that there is a “grimy” one, he is already here, already walking with a false measure, and it is an objective reality.

The family drama "Mr. Golovlyov" unfolds in a religious context: the plot situation doomsday covers all the characters and is transferred to the readers; the gospel parable of the prodigal son appears as a story of forgiveness and salvation, which will never come true in the world where the Golovlevs live; the religious rhetoric of Judas is a way of self-exposing the hero, who completely separated sacred words from vile deeds.

In search of the "hidden" plot of the novel, the researchers turn to those biblical and mythological images that are saturated with "Lord Golovlev".

It should be emphasized right away that Shchedrin was not an orthodox writer, neither in the political, nor even more so in the religious sense. It is difficult to say how much the gospel images of "Christ's Night", "Christmas Tale" and the same "Lord Golovlev" were a reality for him, and how much they were successful metaphors or simply "eternal images". One way or another, the Gospel events for Shchedrin invariably remained a model, a model that is repeated from century to century with new characters. The writer directly said this in a feuilleton dedicated to the painting by N. Ge “ The Last Supper"(cycle" Our public life”, 1863): “The external setting of the drama is over, but its instructive meaning for us has not ended. With the help of the artist’s clear contemplation, we are convinced that the sacrament, which actually contains the grain of the drama, has its own continuity, that it not only has not ended, but always stands before us, as if it happened yesterday.

It is significant that we are talking about the Last Supper, or rather, about the moment when Judas finally decided to betray. Eternal, therefore, is precisely the confrontation between Christ and Judas.

How is the situation in "Mr. Golovlyov"?

Ta psychological characteristic traitor, which Shchedrin gives in the quoted feuilleton, has nothing to do with the character of the protagonist of the novel.

The Last Supper is not mentioned at all in the novel; only the way of the cross of Christ is important for the heroes - from the laying on of the crown of thorns. Everything else (the preaching of Christ and His resurrection) is only implied. The gospel events are shown from two points of view: Judas and his "servants". The fact that serfs are persistently called slaves is, of course, not accidental. For them, Easter is a guarantee of future liberation: “The slave women sensed in their hearts their Lord and Redeemer, they believed that He would rise again, truly rise again. And Anninka also waited and believed. Behind the deep night of torture, vile mockery and nodding - for all these poor in spirit, the kingdom of rays and freedom was visible. The contrast between the Lord-Christ and The Golovlevs is probably intentional (let us recall that the very title of the novel appeared at the last stage of work - that is, exactly when the quoted words were written). Accordingly, the "slaves" are not only Golovlev's serfs, but also "God's servants."

In the mind of Judas, the image of the resurrection is absent: “Forgive everyone! - he said aloud to himself: - not only those who then gave Him otset to drink with bile, but also those who later, now, and henceforth, forever and ever, will bring otset mixed with bile to His lips .. . Terrible! oh, that's terrible!" Porfiry is horrified by what was previously only the subject of idle talk - and consoling empty talk: “And the only, in my opinion, for you, my dear, in this case, a refuge is to remember as often as possible what Christ himself endured.”

The plot of "Mr. Golovlyov" is the implementation of the model set in the Bible; but the trial of Christ turns out to be, in the end, a metaphor: “he [Judas] realized for the first time that this legend is about some unheard-of untruth that committed a bloody judgment on the Truth ...”.

One way or another, it is the biblical code explicated on the last pages of the novel that gives us the opportunity to read the global plot of the novel. It is no coincidence that Shchedrin says that “life-to-life comparisons” did not arise in Judas’ soul between the “tale” he heard on Good Friday and his own history. The hero cannot make such comparisons, but the reader must make them. However, let us also pay attention to the fact that Porfiry Vladimirych, who was called not only “Judas”, but also “Judas”, calls himself Judas once - just before his death, when he mentally repents before Evprakseyushka: “And to her, Judas, inflicted the gravest injury, and he managed to take away the light of life from her, taking away his son and throwing him into some nameless pit. This is no longer just a “juxtaposition”, but an identification.

The parallel between Yudushka and Judas is sometimes drawn by Shchedrin with amazing accuracy, but sometimes it goes into subtext. For example, in the last months of his life, Porfiry was tormented by “unbearable bouts of suffocation, which, regardless of moral torments, are in themselves able to fill life with sheer agony” - an obvious reference to the kind of death that the gospel Judas chose for himself. But Porfiry's illness does not bring the expected death. This motif, perhaps, goes back to the apocryphal tradition, according to which Judas, having hanged himself, did not die, but fell from the tree and later died in agony. Shchedrin could not resist a meaningful inversion: Judas, in the prime of his life, "looks - well, as if throwing a noose."

Judas never commits betrayal in the literal sense of the word, but on his conscience - the murders ("death") of brothers, sons and mothers. Each of these crimes (committed, however, within the framework of the law and public morality) and all of them together are equated with betrayal. For example: as a fratricide, Judas undoubtedly acquires the features of Cain, and when Porfiry kisses his dead brother, this kiss, of course, is called "the last Judas kiss."

At the moment when Yudushka sends her second son to Siberia, and in fact to death, Arina Petrovna curses him. Mamenkino’s curse always seemed to Judas very possible and in his mind it was arranged like this: “the thunder, the candles went out, the veil was torn, darkness covered the earth, and above, among the clouds, one can see the angry face of Jehovah, illuminated by lightning.” Obviously, not only the mother's, but also God's curse is meant. All the details of the episode are taken by Shchedrin from the Gospels, where they are connected with the death of Christ. Judas' betrayal took place, Christ was (again) crucified, but Judas himself did not even notice this - or did not want to notice it.

The tragedy of the novel "Lord Golovlev" makes it related to "Anna Karenina", named by L.D. Opulskaya tragedy novel, because the time displayed by the writers in these works was really filled with dramatic events.

This drama is especially noticeable in the finale of the novel "Lord Golovlyov", about which there are several different opinions.

Researcher Makashin wrote: “The greatness of Saltykov the moralist, with his almost religious faith in the power of moral shock from the awakened consciousness, was nowhere expressed with greater artistic power than at the end of his novel.”

And, indeed, Shchedrin's finale of Judas' life story is "fruitless." The artistic features of this part of the work are manifested in a clear difference in the intonation of the author's narration in the scene of the awakening of conscience in Judas and the final lines of the novel, where it is about him. The intonation from sympathetic, suffering becomes insensitive, informational and informative: the coming morning illuminates only "the stiffened corpse of the Golovlev gentleman."

The change of style after the scene of the awakening of conscience is due to the author's return to reality, to the everyday reality surrounding him. It is here that the writer focuses on the problem of the survival of man and society. Shchedrin confronts humanity with a radical antithesis, a decisive choice—the only alternative of “either-or”: either humanity, having banished conscience, will wallow in vile self-destruction, covered in a mire of trifles, or it will nurture that growing little child in which conscience is also growing. Shchedrin does not indicate other paths for mankind.

Prozorov believes that the finale of "God Golovlyovs" really "may seem sudden and even almost improbable." For the world, nothing happened at night, except for the physical act of the death of the Golovlevsky gentleman.

Literary critic V.M. Malkin, on the contrary, believes that “the end of Judas is natural. He, who has honored church rituals all his life, dies without repentance ... ". And death without repentance gives us the opportunity to consider it a deliberate death, i.e. suicide.

Shchedrin's active position as an author can be seen in his personal attitude to current events: the writer, with pain and bitterness, realizes the loss of spirituality and humanism in family relationships and such a state of the world, when in place of the disappeared "conscience" there is a "void", which corresponds to the "familyless" human existence.

Traditional and innovative in M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev".

Genre features: Each chapter is, as it were, a separate essay on the life of the Golovlev family in a particular period of time. The publicity of the style enhances the satire, gives it even greater persuasiveness and authenticity. "Golovlevs" as a realistic work: The work presents typical characters in typical circumstances. The image of Judas is written out, on the one hand, very clearly and endowed with individual traits, on the other hand, is typical of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. In addition to social satire, one can also notice a certain philosophical generalization in the image of Judas - Judas is not only a certain type characteristic of a certain time, but also a universal type (albeit sharply negative) - "Judas" are found anywhere and at all times. However, the goal of Saltykov-Shchedrin is not at all reduced to showing a certain type or character.

Its purpose is much broader. The theme of his narration is the story of the decomposition and death of the Golovlev family, Judas is only the most vivid image from a whole series.

Thus, the focus of the narrative is not a specific type or image, but social phenomenon. The pathos of the work and satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin: The satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin has a pronounced social character. The decay of the Golovlev family (drunkenness, adultery, idle thought and idle talk, inability to do any creative work) is given in a historical perspective - the life of several generations is described. In an effort to understand and display in their works the features Russian life, Saltykov-Shchedrin takes one of the most characteristic layers of Russian life - the life of provincial landowners-nobles. The accusatory pathos of the work extends to the entire class - it is no coincidence that in the finale everything seems to “return to normal” - a distant relative of Judas comes to the estate, who has been following what is happening in Golovlev for a very long time.

Thus, Judas' repentance and his visit to his mother's grave lead nowhere. There is no moral or any other cleansing. This episode contains irony: no repentance can atone for the atrocities that Judas committed in life. Tradition and innovation: Saltykov-Shchedrin continues the traditions of Russian satire, founded by Gogol, in The Golovlev Gentlemen. In his work there is no goodie(like Gogol in his "Inspector" and " Dead souls”), realistically depicting the surrounding reality, Saltykov-Shchedrin denounces the vices social system and Russian social development, conducts social typification of phenomena. His manner, in contrast to Gogol's, is devoid of a touch of fantasy, it is deliberately "reified" (essay, journalistic nature of the narrative) in order to give an even more unattractive character to the vices depicted in the work.

Thematic variety of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Their proximity to the folk tale and difference from her.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin can rightfully be called one of the the greatest satirists Russia. The most vivid and expressive satirical talent of Saltykov-Shchedrin manifested itself in the fairy tales "For children of a fair age", as he himself called them.

Probably, there is not a single dark side of the Russian reality of that time that would not have been touched upon in some direct or indirect way in his magnificent fairy tales and other writings.

The ideological and thematic diversity of these tales is, of course, very great, just as the number of problems in Russia is, in fact, great. However, some themes can be called basic - they are, as it were, cross-cutting for the entire work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. First of all, this is a political issue. In the fairy tales in which it is touched upon, the author either ridicules the stupidity and inertness of the ruling classes, or ironically over the liberals of his day. These are such fairy tales as "The Wise Gudgeon", "Selfless Hare", "Karas-Idealist" and many others.

In the fairy tale "The Wise Minnow", for example, one can discern a satire on moderate liberalism. The protagonist was so frightened by the danger of getting into the ear that he spent his whole life sitting without protruding from the hole. Only before the death of the minnow it dawns that if everyone lived like this, then "the whole minnow family would have long since died out." Saltykov-Shchedrin here ridicules narrow-minded morality, the narrow-minded principle "my hut is on the edge."

Satire on liberalism can also be found in such fairy tales as "The Liberal", "The Sane Hare" and others. The author dedicates the tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship” and “The Eagle-Maecenas” to the denunciation of the upper strata of society. If in the first of them Saltykov-Shchedrin ridicules the administrative principles of Russia, as well as the idea of the necessary historical bloodshed, then in the second - pseudo-enlightenment, he considers the problem of the relationship between despotic power and enlightenment.

The second topic, no less important for the writer, is fairy tales, in which the author shows the life of the masses in Russia. latest topic most of all the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are devoted, and there is no doubt that these are almost all of his most successful and most famous fairy tales. These are “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, and “ wild landlord", and many more. One thing brings all these tales together - a caustic satire on different types of gentlemen, who, regardless of whether they are landowners, officials or merchants, are equally helpless, stupid and arrogant.

So, in “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals,” Saltykov-Shchedrin writes: “The generals served in some kind of registry ... therefore, they did not understand anything. They didn't even know the words. It is quite natural that, suddenly finding themselves on the island, these generals, who all their lives believed that buns grow on trees, almost starved to death. These generals, who, according to the then established order in Russia, were considered gentlemen, far from the peasant, demonstrate their complete inability to live, stupidity and even readiness for complete bestiality. At the same time, a simple peasant is shown by the author as a real fine fellow, he will cook soup in a handful and get meat. In this tale, the peasant appears as the true basis for the existence of the state and nation. But Saltykov-Shchedrin does not spare the peasant. He sees that the habit of obeying is ineradicable in him, he simply cannot imagine life without a master.

Saltykov-Shchedrin touches on many other topics in his tales, for example, he ridicules the proprietary morality and capitalist ideals of his contemporary society, exposes the psychology of the philistine, etc. But no matter what topic the writer takes, the tale invariably turns out to be topical and sharp. This is where great talent comes in.

"Tales" by Saltykov-Shchedrin is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. They represent a fusion of folklore and reality contemporary to the author and were intended to expose the social vices of the 19th century.

Why did the writer use the fairy tale genre in his work? I think he sought to convey his thoughts to the common people, to call them to action (it is known that Shchedrin was a supporter of revolutionary changes). A fairy tale, its language and images could best of all make the artist's thoughts accessible to the people.

The writer shows how helpless and miserable, on the one hand, and despotic and cruel, on the other, the ruling class. So, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”, the main character squeamishly despises his serfs and equates them to soulless objects, but without them his life turns into hell. Having lost his peasants, the landowner instantly degenerates, takes the form of a wild animal, lazy and unable to take care of himself.

In contrast to this hero, the people in the fairy tale are shown as a living creative force on which all life rests.

Often the heroes of Shchedrin's fairy tales, following the folklore tradition, are animals. Using allegory, Aesopian language, the writer criticizes the political or social forces of Russia. So, in the fairy tale “The Wise Gudgeon”, his irony and sarcasm are awarded to cowardly liberal politicians who are afraid of the government and are not capable, despite good intentions, of decisive action.

Creating his "Tales for Adults", Saltykov-Shchedrin uses hyperbole, grotesque, fantasy, irony. In a form that is accessible and understandable to all segments of the population, he criticizes Russian reality and calls for changes that, in his opinion, should come “from below”, from among the people.

The work of Saltykov-Shchedrin is replete with folk poetic literature. His fairy tales are the result of many years of life observations of the author. The writer brought them to the reader in an accessible and vivid artistic form. He took words and images for them in folk tales and legends, in proverbs and sayings, in the picturesque speech of the crowd, in all the poetic elements of the living folk language. Like Nekrasov, Shchedrin wrote his fairy tales for ordinary people, for the widest range of readers. Therefore, it was not by chance that the subtitle was chosen: "Fairy tales for children of a fair age." These works were distinguished by true nationality. Using folklore samples, the author created on their basis and in their spirit, creatively revealed and developed their meaning, took them from the people in order to return them later ideologically and artistically enriched. He masterfully used the vernacular. There are memories that Saltykov-Shchedrin "loved purely Russian peasant speech, which he knew perfectly." Often he said about himself: "I am a man." This is basically the language of his works.

Emphasizing the connection between a fairy tale and reality, Saltykov-Shchedrin combined elements of folklore speech with modern concepts. The author used not only the usual beginning (“Once upon a time there were ...”), traditional phrases (“neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen, “began to live and live”), folk expressions (“thinks a thought”, “mind chamber”), colloquialism (“hateful”, “destroy”), but also introduced journalistic vocabulary, clerical jargon, foreign words, turned to Aesopian speech. He enriched folklore stories with new content. In his fairy tales, the writer created images of the animal kingdom: the greedy Wolf, the cunning Fox, the cowardly Hare, the stupid and evil Bear. The reader knew these images well from Krylov's fables. But Saltykov-Shchedrin introduced topical political themes into the world of folk art and, with the help of familiar characters, revealed the complex problems of our time.

N. Leskov

Option 2

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