In literary works we find the image of people, their way of life, feelings. In the 19th century, there were 2 classes in Russian society: peasants and nobles - with a dissimilar culture and language, so some writers wrote about peasants, while others wrote about nobles. In Krylov, Pushkin, Gogol and others, we will see the image of the peasants. They all portrayed the peasants as different, but they also had a lot in common. Krylov Ivan Andreevich, for example, in his fable "Dragonfly and Ant" shows the example of an ant - a hard worker peasant whose life is hard, and a dragonfly means the opposite. And we see this in many of Krylov's fables.
Another writer, one of the greatest representatives of the culture of the 19th century, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. We know that Pushkin loved his Motherland and his people very much, so the writer was very worried about the problems of the Russian society. In Pushkin, the image of the peasantry is primarily manifested in his two most important works, The Captain's Daughter and Dubrovsky. In these works, Pushkin describes the life and customs of the peasants of that time, in his works he speaks of the simple Russian people not as a crowd, but as a close-knit team that understands that anti-serfdom sentiments are quite real. In the first work, we see how the author describes the peasant uprising of Pugachev, in the second we see the confrontation between the peasantry and the nobility. In each of the works, the writer emphasizes the difficult condition of the peasants, as well as the sharp disagreement between the two classes, arising from the oppression of one class by the other.
In addition to Pushkin, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol raises this topic. The image of the peasantry that Gogol paints is presented, of course, in his work Dead Souls. Gogol in his poem presented Russian society not only in greatness, but also with all its vices. The author presents us in his work with many faces of different power structures and depicts terrible pictures of serfdom. Gogol says that the peasants are presented as slaves of the landlords, as things that can be given away or sold. But despite the fact that Gogol shows such an unflattering picture of the life of the peasantry and sympathizes with them, nevertheless, he does not idealize them, but only shows the strength of the Russian people. It is this idea that the author reflects in chapter 11:
"Oh, trio! bird troika, who invented you? to know that you could only be born among a lively people, in that land that does not like to joke, but spread out like a smooth smooth halfway across the world, and go and count miles until it fills your eyes. And not a cunning, it seems, road projectile, not captured by an iron screw, but hastily alive, with one ax and a chisel, a smart Yaroslavl peasant equipped and assembled you. The coachman is not in German boots: a beard and mittens, and the devil knows what he sits on; but he got up, and swung, and dragged on the song - the horses whirlwind, the spokes in the wheels mixed up in one smooth circle, only the road trembled and the stopped pedestrian screamed in fright! and there she rushed, rushed, rushed! .. And there you could already see in the distance, how something was dusting and boring the air.
Isn't that how you, Rus', that brisk, unbeatable troika, are rushing about? The road smokes under you, the bridges rumble, everything lags behind and is left behind. The contemplator, struck by God's miracle, stopped: is it not lightning thrown from the sky? What does this terrifying movement mean? and what kind of unknown power lies in these horses unknown to the light? Oh, horses, horses, what horses! Are whirlwinds sitting in your manes? Does a sensitive ear burn in every vein of yours? They heard a familiar song from above, together and at once strained their copper breasts and, almost without touching the ground with their hooves, turned into only elongated lines flying through the air, and rushes, all inspired by God! .. Rus', where are you rushing, give me an answer? Doesn't give an answer. A bell is filled with a wonderful ringing; the air torn to pieces rumbles and becomes the wind; everything that is on the earth flies past, and other peoples and states squint aside and give it the way.
Gogol in this passage emphasizes the strength of the people and the strength of Rus', and also reflects his attitude towards the Russian simple working people.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, like previous authors, became interested in the topic of enslavement. The image of the peasantry is presented by Turgenev in his collection Notes of a Hunter. This collection consists of a number of stories not interconnected, but united by one theme. The author speaks about the peasantry. Many believe that the author painted images of peasants, emphasizing the most typical features of the Russian national character. Turgenev in his stories describes the life of the peasantry and the life of the peasants.
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov expressed his views on serfdom in the work “Who is living well in Rus'?”. Already in the title it is clear what the story is about. The main place in the poem is the position of peasants under serfdom and after its abolition. The author tells that several serfs set off on a journey to find out who in Rus' should live well. The peasants meet with different people, through the meetings we see the attitude towards the peasant question and towards the peasants in general.
The theme of the peasantry played an important role in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. He expresses his criticism in satirical tales. The author truthfully reflected Russia, in which the landowners are omnipotent and oppress the peasants. But not everyone understands the true meaning of the tale. In his fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin ridicules the landowners' inability to work, their negligence and stupidity. This is also discussed in the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner". In the tale, the author reflects on the unlimited power of the landlords, who oppress the peasants in every possible way. The author makes fun of the ruling class. The life of a landowner without peasants is absolutely impossible. The author sympathizes with the people.
In literary works we find the image of people, their way of life, feelings. By the XVII-XVIII centuries, two classes had developed in Russia: peasants and nobles - with a completely different culture, mentality and even language. That is why in the works of some Russian writers there is an image of peasants, while others do not. For example, Griboedov, Zhukovsky and some other masters of the word did not touch upon the theme of the peasantry in their works.
However, Krylov, Pushkin, Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Yesenin and others created a whole gallery
Immortal images of peasants. Their peasants are very different people, but there is also much in common in the views of writers on the peasant. All of them were unanimous in the fact that the peasants are hard workers, creative and talented people, while idleness leads to the moral decay of the individual.
This is precisely the meaning of the fable by I. A. Krylov “Dragonfly and Ant”. In allegorical form, the fabulist expressed his view of the moral ideal of the peasant worker (Ant), whose motto is: to work tirelessly in the summer to provide food for himself in the cold winter, and on the loafer (Dragonfly). In winter, when the Dragonfly came to the Ant asking for help,
He refused the jumper, although he probably had the opportunity to help her.
On the same topic, much later, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote a fairy tale "About how a peasant fed two generals." However, Saltykov-Shchedrin solved this problem differently than Krylov: the idle generals, having landed on a desert island, could not feed themselves, and the peasant, the peasant, voluntarily not only provided the generals with everything they needed, but also twisted a rope and tied himself up. Indeed, in both works the conflict is the same: between a worker and a parasite, but it is resolved in different ways. The hero of Krylov's fable does not let himself be offended, and the peasant from the fairy tale of Saltykov-Shchedrin voluntarily deprives himself of his freedom and does everything possible for the generals incapable of work.
In the work of A.S. Pushkin there are not many descriptions of peasant life and character, but he could not help but capture very significant details in his works. For example, in the description of the peasant war in The Captain's Daughter, Pushkin showed that it involved the children of peasants who had left agriculture, were engaged in robbery and theft, such a conclusion can be drawn from Chumakov's song about the "child peasant son" who "stole" and " held the robbery, ”and then he was hanged. In the fate of the hero of the song, the rebels learn their fate, feel their doom. Why? Because they left labor on earth for the sake of bloodshed, and Pushkin does not accept violence.
The peasants of Russian writers have a rich inner world: they know how to love. In the same work, Pushkin shows the image of the serf Savelich, who, although a slave by position, is endowed with self-esteem. He is ready to give his life for his young master, whom he raised. This image echoes two images of Nekrasov: with Saveliy, the hero of the Holy Russian, and with Jacob the faithful, an exemplary serf. Savely loved his grandson Demochka very much, looked after him and, being an indirect cause of his death, went into the forests, and then to the monastery. Yakov the faithful loves his nephew as much as Savely loves Demochka, and loves his master as Savelyich loves Grinev. However, if Savelich did not have to sacrifice his life for Petrusha, then Yakov, torn apart by the conflict between the people he loved, committed suicide.
Another important detail is in Pushkin's "Dubrovsky". We are talking about the contradictions between the villages: "They (the peasants of Troekurov) were conceited with the wealth and glory of their master and, in turn, allowed themselves a lot in relation to their neighbors, hoping for his strong patronage." Isn’t this the theme that Yesenin sounded in Anna Snegina, when the rich residents of Radov and the poor peasants of the village of Kriushi were at enmity with each other: “They are in axes, we are the same.” As a result, the elder dies. This death is condemned by Yesenin. The topic of the murder of the manager by the peasants was still with Nekrasov: Savely and other peasants buried the German Vogel alive. However, unlike Yesenin, Nekrasov does not condemn this murder.
With the work of Gogol, the notion of a heroic peasant appeared in fiction: the carriage-maker Mikheev, the brick-maker Milushkin, the shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov and others. After Gogol, Nekrasov also had a pronounced theme of heroism (Savelii). Goncharov also has heroes-peasants. It is interesting to compare Gogol's hero carpenter Stepan Cork and carpenter Luka from Goncharov's Oblomov. The Gogol master is “the hero who would be fit for the guard”, he was distinguished by “exemplary sobriety”, and the worker from O6lomovka was famous for making the porch, which, although staggering from the moment of construction, stood for sixteen years.
In general, in the work of Goncharov in a peasant village, everything is quiet and sleepy. Only the morning is spent troublesome and useful, and then dinner comes, the general afternoon nap, tea, doing something, playing the accordion, playing the balalaika at the gate. There are no incidents in Oblomovka. Peace was broken only by the peasant widow Marina Kulkova, who gave birth to "four babies at once." Her fate is similar to the hard life of Matrena Korchagina, the heroine of Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'", who "has a year, then children."
Turgenev, like other writers, speaks of the talent of the peasant, of his creative nature. In the story “The Singers”, Yakov Turk and a hawker compete in singing for an eighth of beer, and then the author shows a bleak picture of drunkenness. The same theme will be heard in Nekrasov's "To whom it is good to live in Rus'": Yakim Nagoi "works to death, Drinks half to death ...".
Quite different motives sound in Turgenev's story "The Burmister". He develops the image of a despot manager. Nekrasov will also condemn this phenomenon: he will call the sin of Gleb the elder, who sold the free peasants to other peasants, the most serious.
Russian writers were unanimous that the majority of peasants have talent, dignity, creativity, hard work. However, among them there are also such people who cannot be called highly moral. The spiritual decline of these people mainly came from idleness and from material wealth acquired and the misfortunes of those around them.,
There is not a single side of peasant life that Nekrasov would bypass. With all his heart and consciousness he experienced peasant grief, and his works are full of pictures of this grief. The fate of the oppressed peasant woman especially excited the poet. You're all - embodied fear - You're all - age-old languor! said Nekrasov, addressing the peasant woman.
In the poem “In the Village” we have before us an old peasant woman who lost her only breadwinner son. She is forced to go around the world in her old age, her life is hopelessly difficult, and "if only it weren't a sin," the old mother would have committed suicide. The same theme - the grief of a peasant mother - is set in the poem "Orina, a soldier's mother." At the heart of the poem is not fiction, but a true story. “Orina, a soldier’s mother, herself told me her life,” Nekrasov recalled. “I made a detour several times to talk to her, otherwise I was afraid to fake it.” Orina talks about her “great sadness”: her only son, tortured by the soldiery, “sick” returned home and died:
Ivanushka was ill for nine days, On the tenth day he passed away. Heroic build. The kid was healthy!
But the cruel barracks drill ruined, brought to consumption this hero. So terrible was the royal soldiery that even on the last night before his death, in delirium, All this service was presented to him before his death. The delirium of a dying man reveals the horror of the situation of a peasant who has been surrendered to the soldiers, the inhuman treatment of him:
Suddenly he rushed about ... looks plaintively ... Fell down - cries, repents, Shouted: “Your honor! Yours! ..” I see - suffocating ... Few words, but grief is a river, Woe is a bottomless river! .. With these words, the author concludes Orina's story.
In the works of Nekrasov, the image of a peasant woman warmed by the author's love, pure in heart, bright in mind, strong in spirit, arises. That is exactly what Daria, the heroine of the poem "Frost - Red Nose", is in spirit - the sister of the Nekrasov Decembrists. Once in her youth, she "wondered her beauty, was both dexterous and strong," but she, like any peasant woman, had to share such a life, which is "hardly to be found" more difficult. It is impossible to be indifferent to see how a deprived Russian woman, crushed by slavery and overwork, suffers. And the poet says, addressing the peasant woman:
He did not carry a heart in his chest, Who did not shed tears over you!
Nekrasov devoted many poems to the life of the post-reform village. Like Chernyshevsky, he understood the predatory nature of "liberation" and that only the forms of oppression of the people had changed. Nekrasov bitterly noted that the situation of the people after the "liberation" did not improve: In the life of a peasant, now free, Poverty, ignorance, darkness. In the poem "Grandfather", written in 1870, he painted the following image of a "free" peasant:
Here he is, our gloomy plowman, With a dark, murdered face; Bast shoes, rags, a hat ... The eternal worker is hungry,
The life of the people is eloquently depicted in the songs “Hungry”, “Corvee”, “Soldier”, “Merry”, “Salty” and others. Here, for example, is how a pre-reform corvée peasant is shown in one of these songs:
The skin is all ripped open, The belly swells from the chaff, Twisted, twisted, Slashed, tormented Barely Kalina wanders ... White, unkempt Kalinushka, There is nothing for him to flaunt, Only the back is painted, Yes, you don’t know behind the shirt. From the bast to the gate
The reform of 1861 did not improve the situation of the people, and it is not for nothing that the peasants say about it: You are good, royal letter, Yes, you are not written about us. As before, the peasants are people who "have not eaten their fill, slurped without salt." The only thing that has changed is that now they "instead of the master will be torn by the volost". Immeasurable people's suffering. Hard, exhausting work does not save us from eternal poverty, from the threat of starvation. But “the soil is the kind soul of the Russian people,” and no matter how terrible peasant life is, it did not kill the best human traits in the people: diligence, responsiveness to the suffering of others, self-esteem, hatred for the oppressors and readiness to fight them.
In slavery, the saved Heart is free - Gold, gold The heart of the people!
Only peasants help a retired soldier who is "sick of the world" because he "has no bread, no shelter." They also help out Yermila Girin, who "fought" with the merchant Altynnikov. Peasants are "people ... great" at work; "habit ... to work" never leaves the peasant. The poet showed how the dissatisfaction of the people with their position begins to turn into open indignation:
…sometimes the Team will pass. Guess: Must have rebelled In an abundance of gratitude Villages somewhere!
With undisguised sympathy, Nekrasov treats such peasants who do not put up with their disenfranchised and hungry existence. First of all, we should note the seven seekers of truth, whose inquisitive thought made them think about the fundamental question of life: “Who lives happily, freely in Rus'?” Among the peasants who have risen to the consciousness of their disenfranchised position is Yakim Nagoi, who understood who gets the fruits of peasant labor. The “rebellious” Agap also belongs to the same type of peasants, who answered the scolding of Prince Utyatin - the “last child” - with angry words: Syts! Nishkni! Today you're in charge, And tomorrow we'll finish Pink - and the ball is over.
The theme of peasant life in the works of Nekrasov
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I. Peasant children in Russian literature
What work, dedicated to peasant children, did we read in the 5th grade?
The students will remember the great poem by N. A. Nekrasov "Peasant Children", written later than Turgenev's story.
We will tell you that the story "Bezhin Meadow" is unique in many respects. The most important significance of this work in the history of Russian literature lies in the fact that in it I. S. Turgenev, one of the first Russian writers, introduced the image of a peasant boy into literature. Before Turgenev, peasants were rarely written about at all. The book "Notes of a Hunter" drew the attention of the general public to the situation of a peasant in Russia, and "Bezhin Meadow", in addition to poetic and heartfelt descriptions of Russian nature, showed readers living children, superstitious and inquisitive, brave and cowardly, forced from childhood to remain alone with world without the help of the knowledge accumulated by mankind.
Now we will try to take a closer look at the faces of these children ...
II. Images of peasant boys, their portraits and stories, the spiritual world. Inquisitiveness, curiosity, impressionability.
First stage: independent work in a group
We will divide the class into four groups (of course, if the number of students in the class allows it), we will give the task: to discuss homework and prepare a story about the hero according to the plan. 10-15 minutes are allotted for work.
Story plan
1. Portrait of a boy.
2. The boy's stories, his speech.
3. The actions of the boy.
The teacher will try to make sure that in each group there is a strong student who can take over the organization of the work.
Pupils discuss the characteristics of the hero, prepare to talk about him.
Second stage: presentations by group representatives, discussion of presentations
If students find it difficult to draw conclusions, the teacher helps them with leading questions, leading the conversation to the necessary conclusions.
“The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would give fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, slightly small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-joyful, half-scattered smile. He belonged, by all indications, to a wealthy family and went out into the field not out of need, but just for fun. He wore a colorful cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new coat, worn with a back-to-back, barely rested on his narrow coat-shoulders; a comb hung from a pigeon belt. His boots with low tops were like his boots - not his father's.
The last detail that the author draws attention to was very important in peasant life: many peasants were so poor that there were no means to make boots even for the head of the family. And here the child has his own boots - this suggests that Fedya's family was prosperous. Ilyusha, for example, had new bast shoes and onuchi, while Pavlush had no shoes at all.
Fedya understands that he is the oldest; the wealth of the family gives him additional solidity, and he behaves patronizingly towards the boys. In conversation, he, “as the son of a wealthy peasant, had to be the leader (he himself spoke little, as if afraid to drop his dignity).”
He starts a conversation after a break, asks questions, interrupts, sometimes mockingly, Ilyusha, who turns his story to him: “Maybe Fedya, you don’t know, but only there we have a drowned man buried ...” But, listening to stories about mermaids and goblin, he falls under their charm and expresses his feelings with direct exclamations: “Eka! - Fedya said after a short silence, - but how can such a forest evil spirits spoil the soul of a peasant, he didn’t listen to her? "Oh you! - exclaimed Fedya, slightly shuddering and shrugging his shoulders, - pfu! ..».
Toward the end of the conversation, Fedya affectionately turns to Vanya, the youngest boy: it is clear that he likes Vanya's older sister, Anyutka. Fedya, according to village etiquette, first asks about her sister's health, and then asks Vanya to tell her to come to Fedya, promising her and Vanya himself a present. But Vanya ingenuously refuses the gift: he sincerely loves his sister and wishes her well: “Give her better: she is so kind with us.”
Vania
The story says the least about Vanya: he is the smallest boy of those who went to the night, he is only seven years old:
“The last one, Vanya, I didn’t even notice at first: he was lying on the ground, quietly crouching under the angular matting, and only occasionally sticking out his fair-haired curly head from under it.”
Vanya did not get out from under the mat even when Pavel called him to eat potatoes: apparently, he was sleeping. He woke up when the boys were silent, and saw stars above him: “Look, look, guys,” Vanya’s childish voice suddenly rang out, “look at God’s stars, that the bees are swarming!” This exclamation, as well as Vanya's refusal of a hotel for the sake of Anyuta's sister, depicts us a kind, dreamy boy, apparently from a poor family: after all, at the age of seven he was familiar with peasant worries.
Ilyusha
Ilyusha is a boy of about twelve.
His face “... was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, blind-sighted, it expressed some kind of dull, morbid solicitude; his compressed lips did not move, his knitted eyebrows did not diverge - he seemed to squint from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp plaits from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He was wearing new bast shoes and onuchi, a thick rope, twisted three times around the camp, carefully pulled together his neat black coat.
Ilyusha has been forced to work in a factory since early childhood. He says about himself: "My brother, Avdyushka, and I are fox workers." Apparently, there are many children in the family, and the parents gave two brothers to the "factory" so that they would bring home the hard-earned pennies. Perhaps this is the mark of concern on his face.
Ilyusha's stories reveal to us the world of superstitions among which the Russian peasant lived, show how people were afraid of incomprehensible natural phenomena and attributed to them an unclean origin. Ilyusha narrates very convincingly, but mostly not about what he himself saw, but what different people told.
Ilyusha believes in everything that the peasants and courtyards tell: in goblin, water, mermaids, he knows village signs and beliefs. His stories are filled with mystery and fear:
“Suddenly, lo and behold, at one vat the form stirred, rose, dipped, looked like, looked like that in the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and again back into place. Then, at another vat, the hook was taken off the nail and back on the nail; then it was as if someone went to the door, and then suddenly he coughed, how he suffocated, like some kind of sheep, but so loudly ... We all fell down in such a heap, crawled under each other ... Oh, how scared we were at that time! »
A special theme of Ilyushin's stories is the drowned and the dead. Death has always seemed to people a mysterious, incomprehensible phenomenon, and beliefs about the dead are timid attempts of a superstitious person to realize and comprehend this phenomenon. Ilyusha tells how the kennel Yermil saw a lamb on the grave of a drowned man:
“... such a white, curly, pretty pacing. So Yermil thinks: “I’ll take him, why should he disappear like that,” and he got down, and took him in his arms ... But the lamb - nothing. Here Yermil goes to the horse, and the horse stares at him, snores, shakes his head; however, he rebuked her, sat on her with a lamb and rode again, holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks right into his eyes. He felt terrible, Yermil, the kennel: that, they say, I don’t remember that rams looked into someone’s eyes like that; however nothing; he began stroking his wool like that, saying: “Byasha, byasha!”
The feeling that death is always near a person and can take away both the old and the small is manifested in the story of the vision of the woman Ulyana, in Pavlusha's warning to be more careful near the river. In the tone of a connoisseur, he sums up the impressions of the boys after Pavel's story about the voice from the water: “Ah, this is a bad omen,” Ilyusha said with an arrangement.
He, like a factory worker, like a connoisseur of village customs, feels like an experienced person, able to understand the meaning of signs. We see that he sincerely believes in everything he tells, but at the same time perceives everything somehow detached.
Kostya
“... Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad eyes. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed down like a squirrel's; lips could hardly be distinguished; but a strange impression was made by his large, black, glittering eyes with a liquid gleam; they seemed to want to say something for which there were no words in the language - in his language, at least. He was of small stature, puny build, and rather poorly dressed.
We see that Kostya is from a poor family, that he is thin and poorly dressed. Perhaps he is often malnourished and for him a trip at night is a holiday where you can eat plenty of steaming potatoes.
“And even then, my brothers,” Kostya objected, widening his already huge eyes ... “I didn’t even know that Akim was drowned in that bouchil: I wouldn’t be so frightened yet.”
Kostya himself tells about the meeting of the suburban carpenter Gavrila with a mermaid. The mermaid called the carpenter who got lost in the forest to her place, but he put a cross on himself:
“That’s how he laid the cross, my brothers, the little mermaid stopped laughing, but suddenly she started crying ... She cries, my brothers, she wipes her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green, like your hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and began to ask her: “Why are you crying, forest potion?” the end of days; but I cry, I am hurt because you were baptized; yes, I will not be killed alone: be killed yourself until the end of days. Then, my brothers, she disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how he should get out of the forest, that is, to get out ... But since then he has been walking around sadly.
Kostya's story is very poetic, like a folk tale. We see in the belief told by Kostya, in common with one of the tales of P. P. Bazhov - “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain”. Like the protagonist of Bazhov's tale, the carpenter Gavrila meets with evil spirits in a female form, miraculously finds his way after the meeting and then cannot forget about her, "he walks unhappily."
Kostya's story about the voice from the buchil is imbued with fear of the incomprehensible: “Fear took me, my brothers: it was some time later, and the voice was so painful. So, it seems, he would have cried himself ... ”Kostya sadly narrates about the death of the boy Vasya and about the grief of his mother Theoklista. His story is like a folk song:
“It used to go from Vasya with us, with the guys, to swim in the river in the summer, - she would tremble all over. Other women are fine, they walk past with troughs, roll over, and Theoclista will put the trough on the ground and will call him: “Come back, they say, come back, my little light! Oh, come back, falcon!'"
Repetitions and words give special expressiveness to this story. tremble, call.
Kostya turns to Pavlusha with questions: he sees that Pavlusha is not afraid of the world around him and tries to explain what he sees around.
Pavlusha
Pavlusha, like Ilyusha, looks to be twelve years old.
He “... had tousled black hair, gray eyes, wide cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, with a beer cauldron, a squat, clumsy body. The small one was unsightly - what can I say! - and yet I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not flaunt his clothes: all of it consisted of a simple sackcloth shirt and patched ports.
Pavlusha is a smart and brave boy. He actively participates in the conversation around the fire and tries to cheer up the boys when they get scared and lose heart under the impression of scary stories. After Kostya's story about the mermaid, when everyone listens with fear to the sounds of the night and calls for help from the power of the cross, Pavel behaves differently:
“Oh, you crows! - shouted Pavel, - what are you excited about? Look, the potatoes are cooked."
When the dogs suddenly get up and throw themselves from the fire with convulsive barking, the boys get scared, and Pavlusha rushes after the dogs with a cry:
“The restless running of the alarmed herd was heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: “Grey! Bug!..” After a few moments, the barking stopped; Paul's voice came already from afar ... A little more time passed; the boys looked at each other in bewilderment, as if waiting for something to happen... Suddenly there was a clatter of a galloping horse; she stopped abruptly at the very fire, and, clinging to the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.
What's there? what's happened? the boys asked.
Nothing, - Pavel answered, waving his hand at the horse, - so, the dogs sensed something. I thought it was a wolf,” he added in an indifferent voice, breathing briskly with his whole chest.
“I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very good at that moment. His ugly face, animated by his fast ride, burned with bold prowess and firm determination. Without a twig in his hand, at night, he, without any hesitation, rode alone against the wolf ... "
Pavlusha is the only boy whom the author calls in the story by his full name - Pavel. He, in contrast to Ilyusha and Kostya, is trying to understand, explain the world, incomprehensible phenomena.
The boys appreciate the courage of a comrade, turning their questions to him. Even the dog cherishes the attention of the boy:
“Sitting down on the ground, he dropped his hand on the furry nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal did not turn its head, looking with grateful pride from the side at Pavlusha.”
Pavlusha explains incomprehensible sounds: he distinguishes the cry of a heron over the river, the voice in the buchil explains the cry that "such tiny frogs" make; he distinguishes the sound of flying sandpipers and explains that they fly to "where, they say, there is no winter," and the land is "far, far, beyond the warm seas."
The character of Pavlusha is very clearly manifested in the story of a solar eclipse. Ilyusha passionately retells village superstitions about the arrival of Trishka, and Pavlusha looks at what is happening with an intelligent, critical, mocking look:
“Our master, the hosha, explained to us in advance that, they say, there will be foresight for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, he was so cowardly that you should go. And in the yard hut the woman was a cook, so as soon as it got dark, you hear, she took and broke all the pots in the oven with a fork: “Who now has it, when, she says, the doomsday has come.” So shti flowed.
Pavlusha creates intrigue, not immediately revealing what kind of creature with a huge head it was, describing how the frightened residents behaved. The boy tells slowly, laughing at the peasants and, probably, at his own fear, because he, too, was in the crowd of people who poured out into the street and waited for what would happen:
“- They look - suddenly a man comes from the settlement from the mountain, so tricky, his head is so amazing ... Everyone shouts: “Oh, Trishka is coming! oh, Trishka is coming!“ - but who goes where! Our elder climbed into the ditch; the old woman got stuck in the doorway, screaming with a good obscenity, she frightened her yard dog so much that she was off the chain, and through the wattle fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeyich, jumped into the oats, sat down, and let's shout like a quail: "Perhaps, they say, at least the enemy, the murderer, will take pity on a bird." Everyone was so alarmed! .. And the man was our cooper, Vavila: he bought himself a new jug and put an empty jug on his head and put it on.
Most of all, we admire the climax of the story, when Pavlusha returns from the river "with a full cauldron in his hand" and tells how Vasya heard the voice:
“- By God. As soon as I began to bend down to the water, I hear, suddenly they call me that way in Vasya's voice and, as if from under the water: “Pavlusha, and Pavlusha!” I listen; and he again calls: “Pavlusha, come here.” I walked away. However, he scooped up water.
The last phrase emphasizes the firmness and strength of the boy's character: he heard the voice of a drowned man, but was not afraid and scooped up water. He walks straight and proudly through life, answering the words of Ilyusha:
“- Well, nothing, let it go! - Pavel said decisively and sat down again, - you will not escape your fate.
Homework
You can invite the children to make illustrations for the story at home, choose the musical arrangement for any fragments, prepare an expressive reading of some belief at the choice of the students.
Lesson 36
Images of peasant boys. The value of the artistic detail. Pictures of nature in the story "Bezhin Meadow"
Speech development lesson
