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“The story of how a man fed two generals” by Saltykov-Shchedrin has common features of plot construction fairy tale, but first of all, it carries a satirical orientation.

Social household tales, like fairy tales about animals, have the same composition as fairy tales, but everyday fairy tales are qualitatively different. Everyday fairy tale is firmly connected with reality. Here there is only one world - the earth. If a fairy tale has a more or less definite formula - its beginnings, endings, common places, then an everyday fairy tale can begin as you like, usually it immediately introduces the listener to the story of the events that form the basis of the plot - without a beginning, without a preface.

Each work has its own individual genre features. The main features of folk tales associated with the genre can be called:

1) an individual language in which a fairy tale is told;

2) a looped structure (The beginning and the ending build the fairy tale into the “chain” of others. For example: the beginning “Once upon a time ...”, the ending “Here the fairy tale ends ...”);

3) the repetition of actions three times (three iron staffs, three iron boots, etc.);

4) some details of the plot in the fairy tale are connected by special formulas “How long is it short ...”;

5) heroes have special names (Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Wise, etc.)

Based on folk tradition, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin created a special genre in Russian literature - a literary satirical fairy tale, in which traditional fairy tale fantasy is combined with realistic, topical political satire. According to the unpretentious plot, these tales are close to folk tales. The writer uses techniques from the poetics of folklore beginnings:

“Once upon a time there was a minnow ..” (in the fairy tale “ wise gudgeon”), “Two neighbors lived in a certain village ..” (in the fairy tale “Neighbors”), “In a certain kingdom, the Bogatyr was born ...” (“The Bogatyr”)

Tips:

"By pike command”,“ not in a fairy tale to say ”),

Three times repetition of a motive, episode, etc. (three Toptygins, three visits of guests to the Wild Landowner, etc.). In addition, attention should be paid to the construction of a line, characteristic of folk poetic works, with the transfer of an adjective or verb to the end

Transparent morality, which is easy to understand from the content.

At the same time, the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin differ significantly from folk tales. The satirist did not imitate folk tales, but on their basis he freely created his own, author's ones. Using the usual folklore images, the writer filled them with a new (socio-political) meaning, successfully inventing new expressive images (wise gudgeon, idealist crucian carp, dried roach). Folk tales(magical, everyday, fairy tales about animals) usually express universal morality, show the struggle between good and evil forces, an obligatory victory goodies thanks to their honesty, kindness, intelligence - Saltykov-Shchedrin writes political fairy tales filled with content relevant to their time.

Chapter 2 Conclusion

"Tales for children of a fair age" M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin use folklore canons, but not completely and gradually develop into something else, expressed in the form of a satirical political fairy tale, otherwise, they are transformed under the influence of the cultural context of the era. It should also be noted that poetics is an artistic system with a special world outlook, the so-called "folklore consciousness", the roots of which go back to the archaic past of mankind, and the purpose of the functions of folklore poetics, one might say, is the expression of this consciousness.

Based on folk tradition, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin created a special genre in Russian literature - a literary satirical fairy tale, in which traditional fairy tale fantasy is combined with realistic, topical political satire.

Chapter 3

Many Russian writers recognized the serious significance of fairy tale fiction: fairy tales always tell about something incredible, impossible in real life. However, fantastic fiction includes “an ordinary and natural idea”, that is, there is truth in fiction. The great Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov wrote that thanks to fantastic fiction, “an ordinary and natural idea”, that is, the truth of life, is expressed “stronger” than the story would have been without fiction.

IN AND. Dalya in the dictionary defines a fairy tale as "a fictional story, an unprecedented and even unrealizable story, a legend" and cites several proverbs and sayings associated with this folklore genre as an example. “Either do business, or tell fairy tales. The fairy tale is a fold, but the song is true. Fairy tale warehouse, the song is red in tune. Not in a fairy tale to say, not to describe with a pen. Before you finish reading the fairy tale, do not throw pointers. A fairy tale starts from the beginning, is read to the end, but is not interrupted in the middle. From these proverbs it is obvious: a fairy tale is a product of folk fantasy - "folding", bright, interesting work, which has a certain integrity and special meaning.27

When analyzing the features of folk spiritual life, one can come across such a concept as catholicity, which is also reflected in fairy tales. Sobornost represents the unity of deeds, thoughts, feelings; in fairy tales it opposes selfishness and greed. Labor acts not as a duty, but as a holiday. Almost all folk tales, personifying the joy of work, end with the same saying: “Here, in joy, they all started dancing together ...”, in the fairy tales “Konyaga”, “The story of how a peasant fed two generals” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin depicts the exploitation of peasant labor.

In a folk tale, such moral values people, as: kindness, as pity for the weak, which triumphs over selfishness and manifests itself in the ability to give the last to another and give life for another; suffering as a motive for virtuous deeds and deeds; victory of spiritual strength over physical strength. By embodying these values ​​in the basis of the fairy tale, its meaning becomes deep, despite the naivety of its purpose. The artistic world of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin absorbed these features folk art.

The writer partly continues the romantic traditions (two worlds), built on the continuous play of the conventional world with the present. The allegorical nature of the text is destroyed with the help of abundant concrete realities, the Aesopian language begins to live its own life, independent of the tasks of the author. It should be noted that in fairy tales, in most cases, sarcasm only coexists with romantic irony, but in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin dominates her.

In folklore, the writer took as a basis not only the images familiar to the national consciousness, but also the distribution of ethical traits between the characters, which is usual for folklore, is replaced by the creation of a psychological portrait (the Sheep-not-remembering with his "sudden thirst for formless aspirations" in the fairy tale "The Unremembering Sheep", The Crow Petitioner with his truly sick heart, even the simple-hearted Chizhik with his unpretentious dreams in the fairy tale "The Raven Petitioner").

M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin fruitfully uses folklore fairy tale tradition. In a folk tale, each animal evoked its own series of impressions in people, and this was developed in versions of the tale by its different performers. For example: the nicknames of the frog were associated with the sounds it made in the water: “rumble on the water”, “squealing toad”, “quack frog”, “balagta on the water”. The bunny aroused visual impressions: “Ivanov’s son of a white hare”, “runaway bunny”, “stray bunny”.

The images of a bear and a wolf are often accompanied by such nicknames as: “at the den, a feltboard”, “forest oppression”, “you crush everyone”. Found the image of a fox estimated characteristics: “beautiful fox”, “sister fox”, etc.

It is impossible not to pay attention to the image of the bear: in almost all fairy tales, the bear is fooled and ridiculed. Such a tradition of depicting a bear is noticeable in many Russian folk tales: “The Bear and the Old Woman”, “The Cat and the Wild Animal”, “The Bear Learns to Carpentry”, “The Man, the Bear and the Fox” ... In fairy tales, perhaps only a wolf can turn out to be more stupid than a bear.

Folk mockery of the beast, perhaps, is caused by the loss of the totem cult. Perhaps it is no coincidence that “bear fun” was widespread among the Eastern Slavs. It is a dramatized entertainment, a grotesque mockery of the rites of the past, as you know, Tsar Ivan the Terrible also liked this fun. For example, in 1571, on his orders, a certain Subota Sturgeon arrived in Novgorod, who collected cheerful people - buffoons - and bears throughout the Novgorod land and took them to Moscow on several carts. The king himself, without fairy tales and fables, could not even fall asleep.

In the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the image of a bear is found in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, which reveals the problems of the foundations of the monarchical system. Toptygins from this tale are sent by a lion to the province. Their dementia prevents them from doing more or less decent deeds towards their subjects. The goal of their reign was to commit as much "bloodshed" as possible.

Popular anger decided their fate: the Toptygins were killed by the rebels, but the idea of ​​a revolutionary reorganization of the state did not attract the writer much, because he believed that violence only breeds violence. The main thought of this tale is that even the most meek patience comes to an end, and the tyranny of the rulers, who are not “burdened” with intelligence and insight, one way or another will one day work against them, which happened.

Saltykov-Shchedrin also quite often depicts representatives of the "fish" world. On the one hand, fish images refer us to a direct allegory: the silence of the inhabitants of quiet backwaters is the irresponsibility, alienation of the people. But on the other hand, the problems of these works are much more complicated.

So, for example, if the fairy tale "The Wise Gudgeon" is based on a description of the hero's whole life, then the fairy tale "Karas the Idealist" goes back to a philosophical dialogue. We can say that we have before us a kind of fairy tale-dispute, where a harmonious combination of two opposite principles is found. And the fairy tale Dried vobla»reminds artistic features philosophical political pamphlet. It reflects the atmosphere in Russia after the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, the panicked state of society, “there are superfluous thoughts, superfluous conscience, superfluous feelings.”28

If we compare the "Tales" of Saltykov-Shchedrin with Russian folk tales, then it should be noted that Saltykov's characters are special, sharply different from the heroes of Russian folk tales: in folk tales, the hero often changes for the better (Ivan the Fool turns into Ivan Tsarevich), and with Saltykov-Shchedrin everything remains unchanged. In Shchedrin's tales there is no triumph of good over evil, as in Russian folk tales. Rather, vice triumphs in them, but in "Tales for children of a fair age" there is always a moral that makes them related to fables.

In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, reality is not perceived in the context of the usual meanings and values. Reality is presented as absurd, as something incredible, but it is she who becomes the terrible reality that surrounds the writer.

"Terrible laughter", or "laughter of fear" is one of the main author's devices in the fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. This laughter, as it is often called, senseless and destructive, exposes stereotypes and illusory ideas about life. In folk tales, laughter primarily bears the self-ironic character of generally accepted ideals.

Summing up the observations, it should be noted that the artistic and poetic world of fairy tales consists of structural forms of mythopoetic thinking. M. E. Saltykov - Shchedrin uses a system of binary oppositions, which, as you know, go back to the poetics of myth (dream/reality, life/death, truth/falsehood, up/down, rich/poor, etc.). A special role in the formation of deep semantics, which goes back to mythopoetics, belongs to such images - symbols as horses, fields, consciences, etc., that is, symbols of different semantic layers: from mythological to modern figurative everyday life.

The artistic world of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin interprets the poetics of the folklore genre depending on the author's goals. The transformation of the people's worldview will be considered in the next section.

3.1 Transformation of the people's worldview in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

In almost every Russian fairy tale there is a "fool" who stands out from the rest of the characters. The strength of the fool in Russian folk tales is in his kindness and responsiveness, in his readiness to help those in trouble, in the absence of greed, M.E. also addresses this hero. Saltykova-Shchedrin. Only his hero finds himself in a society in which high human dignity is recognized as abnormal, dangerous and subjected to severe persecution. The finale of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tale is not like the finale of a folk tale: a miracle does not happen.

The artistic world of the fairy tale "Bogatyr" contradicts the folk tradition: the image of a hero-warrior, a "brave husband" turns into an anti-ideal. Breaking folk traditions, the hero is the son of the "Baba Yaga" and acts as an evil idol, a representative of the pagan world. The sound sleep of a hero is tantamount to death. The motive of death in Shchedrin is caused by a feeling of the exhaustion of the generic ideal image.

The work "A Christmas Tale" reveals the role of truth through the prism of religious sermons. In this tale, truth is taken, but in a distorted public vision. It should be noted that in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin - two truths: one is the "real" truth, which has already "set the teeth on edge", the truth of the surrounding world. There is another truth - the truth is a dream, which is inaccessible to a mere mortal. The truth of the hero of fairy tales is not yet stable, because “no one can really determine where and why he is going ...”29 (in the fairy tale “The Petitioner Raven”).

In fairy tales, truth-seeking is inextricably linked with the theme of conscience; in folk beliefs, conscience is a mirror that reflects how strongly kindness, honesty, and responsibility have become established in the human mind. In the fairy tales of the satirist, the understanding of conscience is reduced or perverted, for example, in the work “Conscience Lost”, conscience abruptly disappears among the people and unexpectedly falls to Samuil Davidovich, who nevertheless finds a way out of this situation. The hero "fitted" his conscience to his ordinary life- "everything in the world is bought and sold." Thus, through external sacrifice, external, and not internal repentance, he “bought his conscience” in order to continue to lead a normal life, now according to his own conscience, but outside of a conscientious spiritual being. At the end of the work, there is still a ray of hope, the writer draws the image of a child in whom the conscience is still buried: “And the little child will be a man, and there will be a great conscience in him. And then all unrighteousness, deceit and violence will disappear.

Folk tales especially sharply show the aspirations of the people, their dreams, desires and hopes. In fairy tales one can meet both a daring dream of a different, bright and just life, and a desire to surrender to the charm of bright fiction, forgetting for a moment an unsettled life, and a desire, at least in fantasy, with undisguised pleasure to punish a gentleman, a priest, a merchant. In fantastic fiction, the fairy tale embodies everything that disturbed the heart and mind of the people. A distinctive feature of such fiction is a deep nationality.

In the tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the people's world outlook is transformed: society is vicious, and the truth is reflected as if in a distorted mirror.

In the fairy tales "Fool", "Conscience Lost", "Christ's Night", "Christmas Tale" the morality of the ruling classes is denied, where the conscience turns into a "useless rag" that needs to be got rid of, and the presence of "vile" thoughts is necessary. for a successful adaptation to life, and each person is forced, as a result, "to choose between tomfoolery and meanness."

3.2 The satirical function in folk tales and fairy tales M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

The main function of the fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, according to the writer himself, is a satirical orientation, which is also characteristic of folk tales and can be expressed in the use of the folk language - vernacular and colloquial speech, as well as phraseological constructions, including proverbs and sayings, traditional fairy-tale techniques. All this does not obscure the meaning of fairy tales, but creates a comic effect. The fantasy of fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is based on reality and carries a generalized content, which is expressed, for example, in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship”.

The inclusion of images of the animal world in nicknames (Toptygin, donkey, wild beast) is a common technique in satirical and playful folk speech. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses the forms of satirical works for a fairy tale.

Language in literature is the main means for the artistic depiction of life. Words in the language of a literary work are used for figurative disclosure ideological content works and author's assessment. Saltykov-Shchedrin, in addition to allegory, Aesopian language and similitude, will use folk wit - colloquial speech or vernacular, he seeks to clearly convey to the reader artistic idea works. “Pollo-speech - words, expressions, turns, forms of inflection that are not included in the norm literary speech; often allowed in literary works and colloquial speech to create a certain color. The great satirist often drew synonyms from folk speech and enriched his works with this. As you know, a phraseological unit is a stable combination of words that is used to show individual objects, signs, actions. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin often used them to give expressiveness, figurativeness and careless satirical style to fairy tales. For example, “And he began to live and live…”; “Well, let yourself stand like this for the time being!”; “The devil brought some kind of hard one!”; "... they are teeming with swarms", "... with a bag around the world ..."; “and he’s already right there ...”, “... as if it were a sin ...”, “... on his own two ...”, “... said and done”. In a special group, it is necessary to single out the tautological phrases popular with the author, which are characteristic of folk speech: “And he began to live and live ...”, “... in the bushes, snakes and reptiles teemed with all sorts of swarms”, “... loitered from corner to corner, shrouded in the darkness of times "," ... and Toptygin is already here, as it were, "" suddenly a whole theory of dysfunctional well-being arose."30

It is also necessary to note the phraseological combinations of a fabulous folk aesthetic character: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state”, “And he began to live and live”.

Since ancient times, fables and satirical tales have actively used images of the animal kingdom. Turning to these images, the people acquired some freedom and the ability to speak in an intelligible, funny, witty manner about serious things. M. E. Saltykov - Shchedrin used the form of artistic narration beloved by the people in his work. The writer masterfully embodied the denounced social types in the images of animals, achieving a bright satirical effect. By the very fact of likening the representatives of the ruling classes and the ruling caste of the autocracy to predatory beasts, the satirist declared his deepest contempt for them. It should be noted that M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin often accompanies his allegorical images with direct allusions to their hidden meaning.

The peculiarity of the poetics and the irresistible artistic persuasiveness of the writer's tales lies in the fact that no matter how the satirist "humanizes" his images of animals, no matter what difficult roles he entrusts to the "tailed" heroes, the latter always retain their basic natural properties and qualities.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in fairy tales combines the real with the fantastic, authentic with fiction. The fantasy of fairy tales is based on a reality that is inextricably linked with a specific political reality. For example, in the fairy tales “The Eagle-Patron”, “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, the satirist describes the activities of the heroes, making it clear that this is not at all about bird and bear deeds and deeds. (“Toptygin wrote a report and is waiting ..”, “I would have recruited a servant and would have lived in clover ..”)31

In the images of predators, the satirist emphasizes their main features, while using such techniques as the grotesque. The opposition of magical themes and the pronounced real political meaning of Saltykov-Shchedrin is emphasized in such fairy tales as "The Vigilant Eye" and "Bogatyr", and thereby more strongly exposes political essence any type or circumstance.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin gradually adds elements of reality to the plot of fairy tales, for example: hares learn “statistical tables published under the Ministry of the Interior ...”32, write correspondence to newspapers, and articles about them are published in newspapers; bears go on business trips and receive running money; the birds talk about the railroad capitalist Guboshlepov; fish talk about the constitution, debate about socialism; a landowner living "in a certain kingdom, in a certain state" reads the real newspaper "Vest".

The peculiarity of the artistic time of the fairy tale is expressed in the grotesque-parodic form of the alternation of the present and the past. Basically, the heroes of fairy tales live with pleasant memories of blessed times, when “there was plenty of food”, “every animal in the forest”, and “fish swarmed in the water”, “it would be nice to live like the landowners lived in the old days”. Transitions from the past to the present, from the present to the past in fairy tales occur suddenly, as evidenced by the use of the word "suddenly", which belongs to the category of chance, therefore, leads to the exposure and rejection of the hero from life. For example, in the fairy tale "Conscience Lost", the conscience disappears "suddenly", "almost instantly". However, the consequences of the loss of conscience do not fit within the boundaries of "today", representing the extended processes taking place in a shameless world. All the episodes in the fairy tale (the awakening of the conscience of a drunkard, a tavern keeper, a quartermaster, an entrepreneur) return to the starting point of moral unconsciousness.

The peculiarity of the artistic space of the satirist's works is presented in the contrast of the ideal and reality, evil and good, that is, the artistic space is formed within the framework of the opposition of "closed" and "open" space.

As you know, laughter is one of the main weapons of satire. “This weapon is very powerful,” wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, “for nothing so discourages vice as the consciousness that it has been guessed and that laughter has already been heard about it.” According to the writer, the main purpose of laughter is to arouse feelings of indignation and active protest against social inequality and political despotism.

Depending on the ideas and objects of the image, you can distinguish different shades of laughter in the works of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. In fairy tales, which depict all social strata of society, they can serve as a vivid example of the satirist's humor in all its richness. artistic expression. Here is contemptuous sarcasm, stigmatizing kings and royal nobles (“Eagle-philanthropist”, “Bear in the province”), and a cheerful mockery of the noble class (“The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, “ wild landlord”), and a scornful mockery of the shameful cowardice of the liberal intelligentsia (“The Wise Gudgeon”, “Liberal”).

The tales "The Sane Hare" and "The Selfless Hare" should be analyzed together as soon as together they represent an exhaustive satirical characterization"hare" psychology in both its practical and theoretical manifestation in the writer's work. As already noted, the image of a hare in folk tales is very different. AT

“The Selfless Hare” reveals the psychology of an irresponsible slave, and “The Sane Hare” tells about a perverted consciousness that has developed a servile tactic of adapting to a regime of violence.

The tale of the selfless hare is a vivid example of the devastating irony of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, denouncing, on the one hand, the wolf habits of the enslavers, and on the other, the blind obedience of their victims.

The tale begins its narrative with the fact that a hare was running not far from the wolf's lair, the wolf, seeing him, shouted: “Hare! Stop, honey!" And the hare only added more pace. The wolf got angry, caught him, and said: “I sentence you to deprivation of the stomach by tearing it to pieces. And since now I am full, and my wolf is full ... then you sit here under this bush and wait in line. Or maybe… ha ha… I’ll have mercy on you!” What is a hare? He wanted to run away, but as soon as he looked at the wolf's lair, "a hare's heart began to pound." The hare sat under a bush and lamented that he had so much left to live and his hare dreams would not come true: ! The bride's brother rode up to him one night and began to persuade him to run away to the sick hare. More than ever, the hare began to lament about his life: “For what? How did he deserve his bitter fate? He lived openly; But no, the hare cannot even move from its place: “I can’t, the wolf didn’t order!”. And then a wolf and a she-wolf came out of the lair. The hares began to make excuses, convinced the wolf, moved the she-wolf to pity, and the predators allowed the hare to say goodbye to the bride, and leave her brother with the amanat.

Released, the hare “like an arrow from a bow” hurried to the bride, ran, went to the bathhouse, spent a bit with the bride and ran back to the lair - to return by the specified date. The way back was hard for the hare: “He runs in the evening, runs in the middle of the night; his legs are cut with stones, his hair hangs in clumps from thorny branches on his sides, his eyes are clouded, bloody foam oozes from his mouth ... ". He after all "word, you see, gave, and the hare to the word - the master". At first glance, it may seem that the hare is extremely noble and thinks only about how not to let the bride's brother down, but fear and obedience to the wolf stems from slavish obedience. Moreover, he is aware that the wolf can eat him, but at the same time he stubbornly hopes that “maybe the wolf will… ha ha… and have mercy on me!”34. This variety slave psychology overpowers the instinct of self-preservation and is elevated to the level of nobility and virtue.

The title of the tale surprisingly accurately expresses the idea of ​​the conflict of the narrative, thanks to the oxymoron used by the satirist - the combination of opposite concepts. The word hare is very often figuratively synonymous with cowardice. And the word selfless in combination with this synonym gives an unexpected comic effect: selfless cowardice, which characterizes the main conflict of the tale. Saltykov-Shchedrin demonstrates perversity to the reader human quality in a society based on violence. The wolf praised the selfless hare, who remained true to his word, and delivered a mocking sentence to him: “... sit, for the time being ..., and later I will ... ha ha ... have mercy on you!”.

Despite the fact that the wolf and the hare symbolize the hunter and the victim with all their accompanying characteristics (the wolf is bloodthirsty, strong, despotic, angry, and the hare is cowardly, cowardly and weak), these images are also filled with topical social content. The image of the wolf represents the exploitative regime, and the hare - the layman, who believes that a peaceful agreement with the autocracy is possible. The wolf enjoys the position of the ruler, the despot, the whole wolf family lives according to the "wolf" laws: both the cubs play with the victim, and the wolf, ready to devour the hare, pities him in her own way ...

However, the hare also lives according to the laws of the wolf: the hare is not just cowardly and helpless, but cowardly. He goes to the wolf's mouth and makes it easier for him to solve the "food problem", believing that the wolf has the right to take his life. He doesn't even try to resist. The hare justifies all his actions and behavior with the words: “I can’t, the wolf didn’t order!”. He is accustomed to obey, he is a slave to obedience. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin deeply despises the psychology of a slave: the author's irony gradually turns into caustic sarcasm.

The hare from Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Sane Hare” is described in the work as follows: “although it was an ordinary hare, it was a clever one. And he reasoned so sensibly that it was just right for a donkey.

Usually this hare sat under a bush and talked to himself, reasoned on various topics: “Everyone, he says, is given his own life to the beast. A wolf is a wolf, a lion is a lion, a hare is a hare. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your life, no one asks you: live, that's all, ”or“ They eat us, eat, and we, hares, that year, we multiply more ”, or“ These vile people, these wolves - this is the truth say. All they have is robbery on their minds!” But one day he decided to flaunt his common sense in front of the hare. “The hare was talking and talking,” and at that time the fox crawled up to him and begins to play with him, stretching out in the sun, the fox told the hare to “sit closer and chat”, and she herself “plays comedies in front of him.” The fox is clearly mocking the “sensible” hare in order to eventually eat it. And the most terrible thing is that both of them understand this very well. The fox is not even very hungry to eat a hare, but "where is it seen that the foxes themselves let go of their dinner," one has to obey the law willy-nilly. All the smart, justifying theories of the hare, the idea that he has completely mastered the regulation of wolf appetites, are shattered to smithereens against the cruel truth of life. It turns out that hares were created to be eaten, and not to create new laws. Convinced that wolves will not stop eating hares, the “sensible” hare creates a project for a more rational eating of hares - so that not all at once, but one by one.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the tale ridicules pathetic attempts at theoretical justification of slavish "hare" obedience and liberal ideas about adapting to a regime of violence. Both tales clearly express the political views of the writer.

In the fairy tales "Karas the Idealist", "The Wise Gudgeon" end in a bloody denouement, which is not typical for the writer. With the death of the main characters of the fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes the tragedy of ignorance of the true ways of fighting evil, with a clear understanding of the need for such a struggle. In addition, these tales were influenced by the political situation in the country at that time - the ferocious government terror, the defeat of populism, the police persecution of the intelligentsia.

Researcher M. S. Goryakina rightly notes that the presence of a folklore element in the basis of the narration of both fairy tales is obvious; the colloquial speech of the characters is consonant with the folk language.

Saltykov-Shchedrin uses already become classic elements living, folk speech. The satirist emphasizes the connection of these fairy tales with folklore with the help of: numerals with non-numerical meanings, (“the kingdom is far away”, “because of distant lands”), typical sayings and sayings (“the trace is cold”, “runs, the earth trembles”, “not in you can’t tell a fairy tale, you can’t describe it with a pen”, “soon the fairy tale is told ...”, “don’t put your finger in your mouth”, “no stake, no yard”), numerous constant epithets and vernacular (“presytehonka”, “slander fox”, “ rabble”, “come on”, “oh you, Goryun, Goryun!”, “hare life”, “make a mess”, “ tasty”, “bitter tears”, “great troubles”, etc.)

It should be noted that the plots of both fairy tales are based on elements of reality. So in the fairy tale “The Sane Hare”, the hero every day learns “statistical tables published at the Ministry of Internal Affairs ...”, and they write about him in the newspaper: “Here in the Moskovskie Vedomosti they write that hares do not have a soul, but steam - but there he is… how he flies away!”37. The sensible hare also tells the fox a little about real human life - about peasant labor, about market entertainment, about recruiting. The fairy tale about the “selfless” hare mentions events invented by the author, unreliable, but essentially real: “In one place it rained, so that the river, which the hare swam jokingly a day earlier, swelled and overflowed ten miles. In another place, King Andron declared war on King Nikita, and on the hare's very path the battle was in full swing. In the third place, cholera manifested itself - it was necessary to go around a whole quarantine chain of a hundred miles ... ".

It should be noted that in these tales the language is concise and deeply folk. It is known that the very first image of a hare that has come down to us can be considered a white marble statue dating back to the 6th century BC. e., now this statue is in the Louvre under the name "Hera of Samos" or

"Goddess with a hare." In Russian folk tales, the hare is usually small, pitiful, stupid, cowardly, as in the fairy tale "The Hare and the Fox", where many heroes came to his aid, and the rooster eventually drove the fox out of the hare's house, and the hare himself only cried and did not tried neither to fight the fox, nor to outwit it. True, sometimes there are some exceptions in the behavior of this character.

Thus, we can conclude that M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, using folk images, creates new ones that reflect the spirit of his era, reveals the worldview of the people around him. In literary criticism there is a term "laughter through tears", it is also applicable to the work of a satirist. The images-symbols of the writer are still relevant today.

Chapter 3 Conclusion

In the tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the people's world outlook is transformed: society is vicious, and the truth is reflected, as if in a distorted mirror. As already noted, the folk tale is a prime literary genre, and that is why there is such an abundance of folklore motifs in the author's tales. The artistic world of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin interprets the poetics of the folklore genre depending on the writer's intention and thereby expands the boundaries of the fairy tale genre and fills it with new meaning. The satirist draws pictures of all social strata of society, using the traditional canon of folk art. The main feature of the poetics of fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is the use of the fantasy form to depict the reality of an entire era.

Conclusion

A folk tale has a long history, it is an epic work, mostly of a fantastic nature, the purpose of which is moralizing or entertainment. Years of experience artistic processing oral and poetic fairy tales and motives preceded the emergence of a literary fairy tale in Russian culture. Study of genre features fairy tales has led researchers to ambiguous conclusions: there are two points of view on defining the boundaries of the fairy tale genre.

On the one hand, they single out a fairy tale as a single genre that has several genre varieties, on the other hand, a fairy tale as a generic concept that combines several genres. In our work, we adhere to the second point of view.

The question of comparing the classification of folk tales and tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin has not been fully studied. The divergence in views on the definition of a folk tale is associated with what is regarded as the main thing in it: an orientation towards fiction or the desire to reflect reality through allegory and fiction.

With a problem-thematic approach, one can single out fairy tales dedicated to animals, fairy tales about unusual and supernatural events, social and everyday ones. All the features of folk tales, thematic and genre-forming, appeared in the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin and influenced them. poetic features. The study used the classification of the functions of poetics, developed by V. Ya Propp, in the analysis of a literary fairy tale.

The work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is inseparable from his life path and personal qualities, the cycle of fairy tales by Saltykov-Shchedrin is considered the result of his satirical work. The writer's appeal to the fairy-tale genre is due to the socio-political situation in the state. Peculiarity author's fairy tale lies in the fact that in a small work, the writer was able to combine lyrical, epic and satirical beginnings and extremely sharply express his point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem of the era - the problem of the fate of the Russian people, using the traditional folk genre folk tale.

In the course of the work, we studied the transformation of the people's worldview in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, which resulted in the following conclusions:

1. Traditional genre folk tale is modified in the writer's work and turns into something else, expressed in the form of a satirical political tale.

2. Traditional folklore images of M. E. Saltykov - Shchedrin are filled with a new, socio-political meaning.

– The comic effect is created by using the folk language of vernacular and colloquial speech, as well as phraseological constructions, including proverbs and sayings, traditional fairy-tale techniques.

In "Tales for Children of a Fair Age" Saltykov-Shchedrin shows how spiritually meager and vicious human life turns out to be, having lost its highest purpose, raises not only concrete historical issues the last two decades of the nineteenth century, but also universal, timeless - the problems of the people's worldview.

Bibliography

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Tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are written in a real folk language - simple, concise and expressive.

Words and images for wonderful tales the satirist overheard in folk tales and legends, in proverbs and sayings, in the picturesque dialect of the crowd, in all the poetic elements of the living folk language. The connection of Shchedrin's fairy tales with folklore was also manifested in:

Traditional beginnings using the form of the past tense (“Once upon a time there were”; “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state”; “Once upon a time there was a newspaperman, and there once was a reader”);

The frequent appeal of the satirist to folk sayings - proverbs, sayings and sayings (“neither to describe with a pen, nor to tell in a fairy tale”, “at the command of a pike”, “a fairy tale soon tells”, “how long, how short”);

The use of numerals with a non-numerical meaning ("far away kingdom", "because of distant lands");

The use of constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions (“full honey”, “ardent millet”, “rolling snores”, “fierce animals”);

Borrowing proper names from folklore (Militris Kirbityevna, Ivanushka the Fool, Tsar Pea, Mikhailo Ivanovich);

Use of peculiar folk poetry synonymous combinations (“by the way”, “judged, rowed”) and phraseological units dating back to folklore (“to breed on beans”, “you can’t lead with your ear”, “grandmother said in two”).

The proximity of the satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin and works of folklore can also be traced in the use of colloquial folk speech or vernacular.

Vernacular - words, expressions, turns, forms of inflection that are not included in the norm of literary speech; are often allowed in literary works and colloquial speech to create a certain color.

The vernacular made the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin more intelligible and understandable for the people, helped the satirist express his attitude towards him or his oppressors. The speech of the heroes of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, personifying the working people, is simple, natural, intelligent and colorful. It is unusually individualized and draws a specific social type.

However, there is no dialogue as such, and even more so, there is no noticeable confrontation between characters in fairy tales. In fact, this is one common peasant, nationwide speech, divided into replicas distributed to two heroes. They do not argue, they think aloud, correcting and supplementing each other, looking for more convincing explanations for incomprehensible, confusing issues, and come to a common ending.

And yet, despite the abundance folklore elements, Shchedrin's tale, taken as a whole, is not like folk tales. It does not repeat traditional folklore schemes either in composition or in plot. The satirist not only freely created on the basis and in the spirit of folklore samples, revealing and developing their deep meaning, but also brought something new, his own. For example, in the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the image of the author appears, helping the satirist to express his personal attitude to actors and ongoing events.

Relying on the rich imagery of a satirical folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin interpreted complex social phenomena with the help of unsurpassed examples of brevity. Every word, epithet, metaphor, comparison, every artistic image in his fairy tales it has a high ideological and artistic value, concentrates in itself a huge satirical power. In this regard, those tales in which representatives of the animal world act are especially noteworthy.

Images of the animal kingdom have long been inherent in the fable and satirical tale about animals. Under the guise of a story about animals, the people acquired some freedom to attack their oppressors and the opportunity to speak in an intelligible, funny, witty manner about serious things. This form of artistic narration, beloved by the people, found wide application in Shchedrin's fairy tales.

The "menagerie", presented in Shchedrin's fairy tales, testifies to the great skill of the satirist in the field of allegory and artistic allegory. The choice of representatives of the animal kingdom for allegories in Shchedrin's fairy tales is always subtly motivated and is based on the folklore and fairy tale and literary fable tradition.

For his socio-political allegories, depicting the enmity of classes and the despotism of the authorities, Saltykov-Shchedrin used images fixed by the fairy-tale and fable tradition (lion, bear, donkey, wolf, fox, hare, pike, eagle, etc.), as well as , starting from this tradition, he extremely successfully created other images (carp, gudgeon, roach, hyena, etc.).

The hidden meaning of the fabulous allegory of Saltykov-Shchedrin is easily comprehended by the reader from the figurative pictures of folk tales and fables themselves and, due to the fact that the satirist often accompanies his allegorical images with direct allusions to the hidden meaning.

The special poetic charm and irresistible artistic persuasiveness of Shchedrin's tales lies in the fact that no matter how the satirist "humanizes" his zoological pictures, no matter how difficult the roles he entrusts to the "tailed" heroes, the latter always retain their basic natural properties.

Another typical trick for Saltykov-Shchedrin in fairy tales is the interweaving of the real with the fantastic, the authentic with fiction. The fantasy of Shchedrin's fairy tales is fundamentally real, inextricably linked with concrete political reality, and carries an extremely deep revolutionary content in encrypted form. Shchedrin's political tales "The Eagle-Maecenas", "The Bear in the Voivodeship" can serve as an example of this. The satirist, describing the activities of the heroes of these tales, makes it clear that this is not at all about bird and bear deeds and deeds.

In the images of these predators, the satirist emphasizes their main, leading features. Beginnings and endings of fairy tales fabulous images, taken by Saltykov-Shchedrin from folklore, in no way detract from the comic effect in describing reality. With the help of the inconsistency of the magical setting and the pronounced real political content, Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes the meaning of such fairy tales as "The Vigilant Eye" and "The Bogatyr", and further reveals the political essence of any type or circumstance.

Also, Saltykov-Shchedrin, in the course of the story, adds some more elements of reality to the tales: hares study “statistical tables published under the Ministry of Internal Affairs ...”, write correspondence to newspapers, and articles about them are published in newspapers; bears go on business trips and receive running money; the birds talk about the railroad capitalist Guboshlepov; fish talk about the constitution, debate about socialism; a landowner living "in a certain kingdom, in a certain state" reads the real newspaper "Vest" and much more.

The bright originality of Shchedrin as a satirical writer also lies in the power of his humor, because laughter is the main weapon of satire. “This weapon is very powerful,” said Saltykov-Shchedrin, “for nothing discourages vice so much as the consciousness that it has been guessed and that laughter has already been heard about it” XIII, 270. Shchedrin’s laughter is incriminating and scourging, ennobling and educating, causes hatred and confusion among enemies and joy among the champions of truth, goodness and justice. Saltykov-Shchedrin believed that the main purpose of laughter was to arouse feelings of indignation and active protest against social inequality and political despotism.

In Shchedrin's laughter, mostly formidable and indignant, other emotional tones and shades are not excluded, due to the variety of ideological ideas and objects of the image. "Fairy tales", which paint pictures of all social strata of society, can also serve as a reader of samples of Shchedrin's humor in all the richness of its artistic manifestation. Here is contemptuous sarcasm, stigmatizing kings and royal nobles (“The Eagle-Patron”, “The Bear in the Voivodeship”), and a cheerful mockery of the nobility (“The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”, “Wild Landowner”), and a scornful mockery of the shameful cowardice of the liberal intelligentsia ("The Wise Gudgeon", "Liberal").

In "Fairy Tales" Shchedrin's irony shines with all colors. The satirist admires the clever hares, together with the generals he is indignant at the behavior of the male parasite, as if he agrees with the need for a taming bear to come to the forest slum.

All the techniques that Saltykov-Shchedrin used in his fairy tales, as well as the genre of political fairy tale itself, serve to express the political views and ideas of the author. It was in fairy tales that Saltykov-Shchedrin's ardent love for the people, hatred and contempt for their oppressors, received particularly vivid expression.

The whole cycle of fairy tales "for children of a fair age" is built on sharp social contrasts. It contains not only evil and good people, the fight between good and evil. Fairy tales reveals the class struggle in Russia second half of XIX in. they recreate a picture of a society torn apart by internal contradictions, full of social drama, and depict a direct and sharp clash between representatives of antagonistic classes. Along with the deep drama of the life of the working people, Saltykov-Shchedrin showed the most shameful comedy of the life of the noble-bourgeois strata of society. Hence the constant intertwining of the tragic and the comic in Shchedrin's fairy tales, the continuous change from feelings of sympathy to feelings of anger, the sharpness of conflicts and the sharpness of ideological polemics.

In fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin embodied his many years of observation of the life of the enslaved Russian peasantry, his bitter reflections on the fate of the oppressed masses, his deep sympathy for the working people and his bright hopes for the strength of the people.

Samoilov M.

Research: "Folklore motifs in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"

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Municipal budgetary educational institution

Bondar secondary school

Competition of literary and artistic creativity

"Masterpieces from the Inkwell"

Research work (abstract) on the topic:

“Folklore motifs in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"

Nomination: "Literary criticism"

Completed by: student of class 7 A Samoilov M.

Leader: teacher of Russian and

Literature Shestakova O.A.

with. Bondari

2016

Brief annotation

The author of this work tried to find the distinctive features and features of the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, as well as to analyze what brings the fairy tales of the great writer closer to the works of folklore and how they differ from them.

Tasks:

Analyze folklore motifs in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin;

Learn the distinctive features and features of the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin;

Check if creativity is interesting this author to the modern reader.

Research methods:

1. Work with the texts of fairy tales.

2. Analysis of information about the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin from various sources.

3. Testing based on the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Relevance

A striking sign of the creativity of many writers of the 19th century was their ability to continue folklore traditions in their works. This also applies to the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. This is most evident in his stories.

The fairy tale is one of the most popular folklore genres. This type of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction, which has a long history. The fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are associated not only with folklore traditions, but also with the satirical literary fairy tale of the 18th-19th centuries.

In "Tales for Children of Fair Age" the writer castigates the unrest that hinders the development of Russia. And the main evil that the author condemns is serfdom.

I explore the connection of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin with the traditions of oral folk art and try to understand the purpose for which the author introduced topical political topics and with the help of familiar characters revealed the complex problems of his time.

Introduction

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales.

But A. S. Pushkin was right when he wrote: “A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it! ..” Yes, a fairy tale is a lie, fiction, but it was with the help of M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin shows all the positive qualities of the people and stigmatizes, ridicules the domination in society of some over others. I believe that with the help of a fairy tale, it was easier for the author to communicate with the people, because its language is understandable to everyone. In order to be convinced of this, let us take a closer look at the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Main part

Among the huge literary heritage M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are very popular. It is in them that the traditions of Russian folklore are most clearly traced. Fairy tales are the result of many years of life observations of the author, as they were created at the final stage of his life and creative path. Of the 32 fairy tales, 28 were created within four years, from 1882 to 1886. The writer conveyed 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. Shchedrin wrote his fairy tales for ordinary people, for the widest readership. It was no coincidence that the subtitle was chosen: "Fairy tales for children of a fair age." These works were distinguished by true nationality..

What brings Shchedrin's tales closer to folk tales and how do they differ from them? Let's try to figure it out. In Shchedrin's tales, we see typical fairy-tale beginnings ("Once upon a time there were two generals ...", "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there once lived a landowner ..."), which give the tales a special, some kind of fantastic shade; proverbs (“at the command of a pike”, “neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen”); turns characteristic of folk speech (“thought and thought”, “said and done”); syntax, vocabulary close to the folk language; exaggeration, grotesque, hyperbole. For example, one of the generals eats the other; The “wild landowner”, like a cat, climbs a tree in an instant, a peasant cooks soup in a handful. As in folk tales, a miraculous incident sets up the plot: two generals "suddenly found themselves on a desert island"; by the grace of God, "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner." The use of proverbs and sayings is another feature of Shchedrin's fairy tales, which, of course, indicates their nationality, their originality. hallmark The allegory of Saltykov's fairy tales is the use by the author of the paraphrase ("Bear in the Voivodeship", "Dried Vobla", "Eagle-Maecenas").

But, at the same time, the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is not the speech of the people-narrator. These are philosophical and satirical tales. They are about life, about what the writer saw and observed in reality. The difference between the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin and folk tales is that they often intertwine the fantastic not only with real events, but even with historically reliable ones.

To verify this, one can compare Shchedrin's tales with Russian folk tales and note their common and distinctive features.

Emphasizing the connection between the fairy tale and reality, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin combined elements of folk speech with modern concepts. The author used not only the usual beginning (“Once upon a time ...”), 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 "), vernacular ("hateful", "destroy"), but also introduced journalistic vocabulary, foreign words. He enriched folklore stories with new content. Folk tradition M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin also follows in fairy tales about animals, when he ridicules the shortcomings of society in allegorical form! He created images of the animal kingdom: the greedy Wolf, the cunning Fox, the cowardly Hare, the stupid and evil Bear. Despite the fact that the reader was well aware of these images from Krylov's fables, Shchedrin, with the help of familiar characters, revealed the complex problems of our time, introducing topical political topics into the world of folk art.

Relying on folk wisdom Using the wealth of folk speech, Russian folklore, imbued with purely folk humor, the writer created works whose purpose was to awaken in the people his great spirit, his will and strength. With all his work, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin strove toso that "children of a fair age" mature and cease to be children.

Thus, enriching the tale with new satirical devices, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into an instrument of socio-political satire.

The satirist does not parody folklore expressions and living, folk speech contemporary to him, but adapts them to solve his own artistic problems, which has become a characteristic sign of the author's style. Saltykov-Shchedrin did not copy the structure of the folk tale, but introduced his own, new one into it.

Conclusion

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a great Russian writer. His fairy tales are a magnificent monument of the past. Not only the types created by this author, but also winged words and expressions are still found in our everyday life. The images of his works have firmly entered the life of the Russian people, have become common nouns and live for centuries.

Output

After analyzing the tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, in accordance with the purpose of our work, I came to the following conclusions:

1. The language of the writer's fairy tales is deeply folk, close to Russian folklore.

2. Folklore basis fairy tales attracted the attention of the masses of readers. "Tales" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was awakened by the political consciousness of the people, called to fight against injustice and human vices.

3. The testing I conducted among my classmates showed:

Most of the children read the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin with interest.

Application:

1. Test.

1. What explains M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's choice of the fairy tale genre?

a) the desire to get away from life's plausibility;

b) the desire to overcome censorship obstacles;

c) addiction to the allegorical manner of writing;

d) the popularity of fairy tales as a favorite genre
propaganda literature;

2. What do the tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin have in common with folk tales?

a) fairy tale

b) based on real life

c) popular beliefs about good and evil

d) traditional fairy tale tricks

e) socially acute problems

f) images of animals typical of folk tales

3. What is the difference between the “Shchedrinskaya” fairy tale and the folk one?

a) evil in the final is not always punished

b) use of sarcasm and satire

c) interpretation of characters

d) the introduction of images atypical for a folk tale

4. Who is ridiculed in the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin?

a) government

b) revolutionary democrats
c) common people

d) liberals

Tales Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote mainly from 1880 to 1886, at the final stage of his work. The form of a fairy tale was chosen by the writer not only because this genre provided an opportunity to hide the true meaning of the work from censorship, but also because it made it possible to simply and easily interpret the most complex problems of politics and morality. In the form most accessible to the masses, he, as it were, poured all the ideological and thematic richness of his satire.

Shchedrin's tales are truly encyclopedic. They reflect everything Russian society post-reform period, all public and social forces of Russia.

The main themes of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales were: denunciation of the autocracy (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”), the ruling class (“The Wild Landowner”), liberalism (“The Wise Scribbler”, “Liberal”, “Karas-Idealist”), and also touched upon the problem of the people (“The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals”).

Folklore traditions are clearly traced in Shchedrin's fairy tales. The connection with folklore is established with the help of the traditional “once upon a time”, which is the beginning in a fairy tale. The writer also uses proverbs (“At the pike's command, at my will ...”), refers to folk sayings given in a socio-political interpretation.

The plot of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin is also folklore, since here good opposes evil, good opposes bad. However, the usual boundaries between these two concepts are blurred, and even positive characters are endowed with negative features, which are then ridiculed by the author himself.

Saltykov-Shchedrin had to constantly improve his allegorical manner in order to make his work accessible to the reader, therefore, proximity to folklore is also manifested in the figurative structure, which gives him the opportunity to directly use epithets, and when choosing animals for allegory, also rely on the fable tradition. The writer uses roles that are familiar to both fables and fairy tales. For example, in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, the Bear Governor is a major, the Donkey is an adviser, the Parrots are buffoons, and the Nightingale is a singer.

The allegory of Shchedrin's fairy tales is always as transparent as in Krylov's fables, where, according to Belinsky, there are no animals, but people, "and, moreover, Russian people." It is no coincidence that the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin were called fables in prose, since they clearly traced the tradition of depiction corresponding to this genre. human vices in the form of animals. In addition, the Shchedrin tale, like the fable of Krylov or Aesop, always carries a lesson, morality, being a spontaneous educator and mentor of the masses.

In his fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin continues the Russian satirical literary tradition. For example, Gogol's motifs and polemics with Gogol can be traced in a number of fairy tales. In general, Gogol's satire largely determined the nature of the writer's further literary activity. For example, both in Gogol's "The Overcoat" and in "The Wise Scribbler" by Saltykov-Shchedrin, the psychology of the intimidated average person is shown. Shchedrin's innovation consisted in the fact that he introduced political satire into fairy tales, which has both a topical and universal sound. This writer turned the very idea of ​​​​satire, going beyond the Gogol psychological method, pushing the boundaries of the possibilities of satirical generalization and ridicule. From now on, the subject of satire was not individual, often random events and incidents, and not private individuals involved in them, but the whole life of the state from top to bottom, from the essence of the tsarist autocracy to the dumb slave people, whose tragedy was the inability to protest against cruel forms of life. Thus, the main idea of ​​the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodship” is that the causes of national disasters are not only in the abuse of power, but also in the very nature of the autocratic system. And this means that the salvation of the people lies in the overthrow of tsarism.

Shchedrin's satire thus acquires a stable political coloring.

The satirist struggles not with specific phenomena, but with the social system that generates and nourishes these phenomena. Saltykov-Shchedrin considers each individual person as a product of the public environment, deprives the artistic image of all human traits and replaces individual psychology with manifestations of class instinct. Every action of the hero is comprehended by Shchedrin as socially necessary and inevitable.

In all the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, two planes are organically combined: real and fantastic, life and fiction, and fantasy is always based on real events.

The depiction of the “illusion” of political reality required an appropriate form, which, having brought the phenomenon to the point of absurdity, to the point of ugliness, would reveal its true ugliness. Such a form could only be the grotesque (connection of the incompatible), which is an important source of comic effect in fairy tales. Thus, the grotesque distorted and exaggerated reality, while fantasy gave the most unusual life phenomena the character of familiarity and everyday life, and the thought of the daily and regularity of what was happening only strengthened the impression. The excessive cruelty of the political regime and the complete lack of rights of the people really bordered on magic, on fantasy. So, for example, in the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" Shchedrin, in an ugly comic form, showed the apogee of both the moral and external "neglect" of a person. The landowner “has become overgrown with hair, his nails have become like iron”, he began to walk on all fours, “has even lost the ability to articulate sounds”, “but he has not yet acquired a tail.” And in “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals,” the generals find a number of “Moskovskie Vedomosti” on a desert island.

Shchedrin uses hyperbole very actively. Both the dexterity of the peasant and the ignorance of the generals are extremely exaggerated. A skillful peasant cooked soup in a handful, stupid generals do not know that they bake flour rolls, and one even swallows the order of his friend.

Sometimes - although not as often and clearly as other means of artistic representation - Saltykov-Shchedrin uses antithesis (opposition). This can be seen in the example of "The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals." The generals “raked in so much money - it can’t be said in a fairy tale or described with a pen”, and the peasant received “a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver”.

Important in understanding the tale is the author's irony, thanks to which the author's position is revealed. Irony can be traced in all the images present in fairy tales. For example, in “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals,” the calligraphy teacher cannot distinguish between cardinal directions.

The language of all the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin is distinguished by a special aphorism. The writer not only actively uses the elements of folklore (proverbs, sayings) already established in the language, but also introduces new expressions into it, for example: “Accept the assurances of my perfect respect and devotion”, “actually he was not angry, but so, cattle ".

So, the active use of artistic techniques allowed the writer to reveal more deeply the essence of the autocratic apparatus. In addition, the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin had a great influence on further development Russian literature and especially the genre of satire.

The plots of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are based on a grotesque situation, but behind it are always guessed real public relations, under the guise of a fairy tale, reality is shown. The grotesque-hyperbolic images of the heroes are, in fact, metaphors for the actual socio-psychological types of contemporary Russia.

In fairy tales there are real people, newspaper names, references to topical socio-political topics. Along with this, there are also stylized situations that parody reality. In particular, ideological clichés and their typical linguistic forms are parodied.

Animals in fairy tales often act in a typical fable function, and not in a fairy tale one. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses “ready-made” roles assigned to some animals; traditional symbolism is found in his fairy tales.

Saltykov-Shchedrin demonstrates his adherence to the fable tradition, in particular, he includes morality in some fairy tales, a typical fable device, for example, "let this serve as a lesson to us."

The grotesque, as a favorite means of satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin, is already expressed in the very fact that animals act as people in specific situations, most often associated with

ideological disputes, socio-political issues relevant to Russia in the 1880s. In the depiction of these incredible, fantastic events, the originality of Shchedrin's realism is manifested, which notices the essence of social conflicts and relations, the characteristic features of which are exaggerated.

Evil, angry ridicule of slave psychology is one of the main tasks of Shchedrin's fairy tales. He not only states these features of the Russian people - their long-suffering, unresponsiveness, not only anxiously seeks their origins and limits.

Saltykov-Shchedrin makes extensive use of allegory in his works. Including in fairy tales. He also masterfully uses vernacular.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are modern today. Shchedrin's satire has stood the test of time and is especially poignant in a period of social turmoil such as Russia is experiencing today.

"The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals."

The plot of the tale is as follows: two generals suddenly found themselves in an unthinkable way on a desert island in a completely helpless state. This is the first of the features of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales - a combination of the real and the fantastic. The second feature is irony. The image of these generals is filled with it, their appearance is ridiculous. They are in nightgowns, barefoot, but with an order around their necks. Thus, in the description by Saltykov-Shchedrin, the order depreciates, loses its meaning, since they received it not for work, but for "long sitting in the department." Ironically, the author also speaks of the general's abilities: he cannot remember them, except perhaps the calligraphic handwriting.

But the generals' stupidity is visible, their ignorance of life is obvious. They do not know how to do anything, they are used to living at the expense of others, they think that rolls grow on trees. Here the third pictorial technique is used - hyperbole, that is, exaggeration. Of course, there could not have been such stupid generals, but those receiving salaries beyond their merits - as many as you like. With the help of hyperbole, the author ridicules, depersonalizes this phenomenon. To emphasize the worthlessness of the generals, the author uses the fourth feature - contrast. The generals are not alone: ​​miraculously, a peasant appeared on the island. Handyman of all trades, he fed the insatiable generals. Able to create everything: even cook soup in a handful. Saltykov-Shchedrin is ironic not only over the generals, but also over the peasant. In particular, over his obedience to stupid, defenseless generals. They forced him to twist a rope for himself - the generals wanted to tie him up so that he would not run away. The situation is fabulous, but the author used it to laugh evilly at his contemporary life, namely, at mediocre newspapers. After futile attempts to get food, the generals find one of these newspapers on the island and read it out of boredom. Saltykov-Shchedrin invites the reader to make fun of its content, stupid articles. The fairy tale ends with the peasant returning the generals to St. Petersburg, and in gratitude they give a glass of vodka and yes copper nickel. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses a phrase from a folk tale: “It flowed down his mustache, but it didn’t get into his mouth.” But here it is used in the same ironic way - the peasant did not receive anything. The gentlemen live by the labor of the peasants, and the latter are ungrateful, while the savior people have nothing from their labor.

Saltykov-Shchedrin said: "I love Russia to the point of pain in my heart." It was love and the desire for change that guided him when, using various visual means, he painted a real-fiction story about two worthless generals and a clever peasant.

"Karas is an idealist."

This tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin, like all his tales, has a telling title. By the title, we can already say that this tale describes a crucian who had idealistic views on life. The crucian carp is the object of satyrs, and in his image are people who, like him, hope for a class idyll.

He is pure in soul, and says that evil has never been a driving force, it devastates our life and puts pressure on it. And goodness is the driving force, it is the future.

But immersed in my ideological thoughts, he completely forgot that he lives in a world where there was, is and will be a place for evil. But Saltykov-Shchedrin ridicules not idealistic views, but the methods by which he wanted to achieve an idyll. In his fairy tales, the author uses three repetitions. Three times the crucian went to a dispute with a pike. Seeing her for the first time, he was not shy, she seemed to him an ordinary fish, like everyone else, only mouth to ear. He also told her about a happy life, where all the fish would be united, that even she listened to him, but the methods seemed ridiculous to her. Karas proposed to issue laws prohibiting, for example, pike from eating crucian carp. Yes, the fact is that these laws did not exist and probably never will. So the pike had three disputes with crucian carp, but accidentally swallowed it with water.

There is irony in this tale, because crucian carp is secretly mocked, saying that it is smart.

The images of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin entered our everyday life, and now you can see people promoting their ideology, but not able to implement it.

"Sane Bunny"

The sensible hare is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, "he reasoned so sensibly that it fit the donkey." He believed that “every animal has its own life” and that, although “everyone eats” hares, he is “not picky” and “agrees to live in every possible way.” In the heat of this philosophizing, he was caught by the Fox, who, bored with his speeches, ate him.

Fairy tale characters are standard for most fairy tales. One can recall not a single fairy tale where the main characters are a fox and a hare, and throughout the whole work their confrontation is considered. In fact, this is an exciting and quite interesting story. That is why Saltykov-Shchedrin, in one of his fairy tales, stopped precisely on these characters.

The main theme of the tale is that by depicting animals, the author wanted each reader to transfer the content to himself, i.e. a fairy tale is like a fable and has a hidden meaning.

In my opinion, if we apply a fairy tale to the modern world, then its main idea is that for the most part stupid people much more and therefore those who are more literate and educated face many problems and non-recognition in society. Also, the mind of a hare is intertwined with a share of boasting and talkativeness, which ultimately leads to a deplorable end.

Each of the characters has their own point of view and expresses their thoughts. For excessive talkativeness, the hare was eaten by a fox, although his reasoning cannot be called meaningless and irrelevant.

"Wild Landlord"

The theme of serfdom and the life of the peasantry played an important role in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The writer could not openly protest the existing system. Saltykov-Shchedrin hides his merciless criticism of the autocracy behind fabulous motifs. He wrote his political fairy tales from 1883 to 1886. In them, the writer truthfully reflected the life of Russia, in which despotic and all-powerful landowners destroy hard-working peasants.

In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects on the unlimited power of the landowners, who in every way torment the peasants, imagining themselves almost as gods. The writer also speaks of the landowner's stupidity and lack of education: "that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper" Vest "and his body was soft, white and crumbly." Shchedrin also reflects the disenfranchised position of the peasantry in tsarist Russia in this tale: "There was no need to light a torch for a peasant in the light, there was no more rod to sweep the hut with." The main idea of ​​the fairy tale was that the landowner cannot and does not know how to live without a peasant, and the work of the landowner only dreamed of in nightmares. So in this tale, the landowner, who had no idea about labor, becomes a dirty and wild beast. After he was abandoned by all the peasants, the landowner never even washed his face: “Yes, I’ve been walking unwashed for many days!”.

The writer caustically ridicules all this negligence of the master class. The life of a landowner without a peasant is far from reminiscent of a normal human life.

The master became so wild that "from head to toe he was overgrown with hair, his nails became like iron, he even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds. But he has not yet acquired a tail." Life without peasants was also disrupted in the district itself: "no one pays taxes, no one drinks wine in taverns." "Normal" life begins in the county only when the peasants return to it. In the image. This one landowner Saltykov-Shchedrin showed the life of all the gentlemen in Russia. And the final words of the tale are addressed to each landowner: "He lays out grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes only under duress, and at times mumbles."

This fairy tale is full of folk motives, close to Russian folklore. There are no tricky words in it, but there are simple Russian words: "it's said and done", "muzhiks' trousers", etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin sympathizes with the people. He believes that the torment of the peasants is not endless, and freedom will prevail.

"Konyaga"

In the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the image of the Russian people, which was embodied in the image of a horse, is very well revealed. Konyaga - ordinary people, peasants who work for the benefit of the entire state, who with their labor are able to feed all the inhabitants of Russia. The image of Konyaga is saturated with pain and fatigue, which gives him a hard job.

If Saltykov-Shchedrin described the life of various social strata verbatim, then his works would not be allowed to print due to censorship, and thanks to the Aesopian language, he achieved a very touching and natural description of the estates. What is Aesopian language? This special kind secret writing, censored allegory, which was often referred to fiction deprived of freedom of expression under conditions of censorship. In Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tale "Konyaga" this technique is widely used, which makes it possible to expose reality and serves as a means of combating the infringement of the rights of the lower strata of society by political figures. This work shows the difficult, even ugly, life of the Russian people. Saltykov-Shchedrin himself sympathizes with the peasants, but he still shows this terrible picture of a beggarly way of life.

The field on which the peasant and horse work is boundless, just as their work and significance for the state are boundless. And, apparently, all the upper strata of the population are enclosed in the images of Pustoplyasov: gentlemen, officials - who only watch the work of the horse, because their life is easy and cloudless. They are beautiful and well-fed, they are given the food that the horse provides with his hard work and he himself lives from hand to mouth.

Saltykov-Shchedrin urges to think about the fact that such a hard work of the Russian people for the good of the state does not give them freedom from serfdom and does not save them from humiliation before officials and gentlemen who live easily, who can afford a lot.

The problem of the people and the bureaucracy is very relevant in our time, because for modern readers it will be interesting and curious. Also, thanks to the use of such an artistic means as Aesopian language, the problem of the fairy tale "Konyaga" is still acute to this day.

A striking sign of the work of many writers of the 19th century was their ability to continue folklore traditions in their works. Pushkin, and Nekrasov, and Gogol, and Tolstoy were famous for this. But this series would be incomplete if we did not put one more name in it - Saltykov-Shchedrin. Among the huge heritage of this writer, his fairy tales are very popular. It is in them that the traditions of Russian folklore are most clearly traced.

Before Saltykov-Shchedrin, various writers used the form of a folk tale. In verse or prose, they recreated the world of folk performances, folk poetry, folk humor. Let us recall, for example, Pushkin's fairy tales: "About the priest and his worker Balda", "About the golden cockerel".

The work of Saltykov-Shchedrin is also replete with folk poetic literature. His tales are the result of many years of life observations of the author. The writer conveyed 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. It was no coincidence 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 the 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 ...”), 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 "), vernacular ("spread-barking", "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.

But the words of the author, dedicated to the people, are filled with bitterness. He endures the oppression of the landowner, endures meekly. When it becomes unbearable, the peasants turn to God with a tearful orphan prayer: "Lord! It is easier for us to perish with small children than to toil like this all our lives!" Men are dumb creatures living an unconscious herd life. The heart of the great writer is filled with longing, pain for his people and hatred for the oppressors.

In a fairy tale, there is a call-question, like in Nekrasov: "Will you wake up full of strength?" And, it seems to me, with this fairy tale and all his other works, Saltykov-Shchedrin tried to convey to the people those high ideals, in the name of which he himself fought with a sharp pen of satire.

Based on folk wisdom, using the wealth of folk speech, Russian folklore, imbued with purely folk humor, the writer created works whose purpose was to awaken in the people his great spirit, his will and strength. With all his work, Saltykov-Shchedrin strove to ensure that "children of a fair age" matured and ceased to be children.