Saltykov-Shchedrin M. E

12.04.2019

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Introduction………………………………………………………………..3

1. The originality of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin…………………….4

2. Elements of fantasy in the "History of one city"…………..9

Conclusion……………………………………………………………19

References…………………………………………………...20

Introduction

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin in his work chose the satirical principle of depicting reality with the help of elements of fantasy as a sure weapon. He became the successor of the traditions of D.I. Fonvizin, A.S. Griboyedov, N.V. Gogol in that he made satire his political weapon, fighting with it sharp questions of his time.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales. Appeal to this genre was natural for Saltykov-Shchedrin. Elements of fantasy permeate all the writer's work. In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, political problems are developed, topical issues are resolved. Defending the advanced ideals of his time, the author acted in his works as a defender popular interests. Enriched folklore stories new content, Saltykov-Shchedrin directed the genre of fairy tales to instill civic feelings and special respect for the people.

The purpose of the abstract is to study the role of fantasy elements in the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

1. The originality of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin

Saltykov-Shchedrin repeatedly refers to the fairy tale genre in his work: first in 1869, and then after 1881, when historical conditions (the assassination of the tsar) led to tightening of censorship.

Like many writers, Saltykov-Shchedrin uses the fairy tale genre to reveal the vices of man and society. Written for "children fair age”, fairy tales are a sharp criticism of the existing system and, in essence, serve as a weapon denouncing the Russian autocracy.

The themes of fairy tales are very diverse: the author not only opposes the vices of autocracy (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Bogatyr”), but also denounces noble despotism (“The Wild Landowner”). The views of the liberals (“Karas-idealist”), as well as the indifference of officials (“Idle conversation”) and narrow-minded cowardice (“Wise gudgeon”) cause particular condemnation in the satirist.

However, there is a theme that, one might say, is present in many fairy tales - this is the theme of the oppressed people. In the fairy tales “How one man fed two generals”, “Konyaga” it sounds especially bright.

Themes and problems determine the variety of characters acting in these witty satirical works. These are stupid rulers, who strike with their ignorance and tyrant landowners, officials and townsfolk, merchants and peasants. Sometimes the characters are quite reliable, and we find in them the features of specific historical persons, and sometimes the images are allegorical and allegorical.

Using the folklore and fairy-tale form, the satirist covers the most pressing issues of Russian life, acts as a defender of popular interests and advanced ideas.

The tale “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals” stands out from all of them with its special dynamism, variability of the plot. The writer uses a fantastic technique - the generals, as if “by pike command”, are transferred to a desert island, and here the writer, with his characteristic irony, demonstrates to us the complete helplessness of officials and their inability to act.

“The generals served all their lives in some kind of registry; there they were born, brought up and grew old, therefore, they did not understand anything. They didn't even know the words." Due to their stupidity and narrow-mindedness, they almost starved to death. But a man comes to their aid, who is a master of all trades: he can hunt and cook food. The image of a “hefty man” in this tale personifies both the strength and weakness of the Russian people. Skill, his extraordinary abilities are combined in this image with humility, class passivity (the man himself weaves a rope to be tied to a tree at night). Having gathered ripe apples for the generals, he takes sour, unripe ones for himself, and he was also glad that the generals "praised him, a parasite, and did not disdain him for peasant labor."

The tale of two generals suggests that the people, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, are the backbone of the state, they are the creator of material and spiritual values.

The theme of the people is developed in another fairy tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin - “Konyaga”, which was created in 1885. In style, it differs from others in the absence of action.

This tale is called the strongest work in the series dedicated to the plight of the Russian peasantry. The image of a horse-worker is collective. He personifies the entire forced laboring people, it reflects the tragedy of millions of peasants, this enormous force, enslaved and disenfranchised.

In this tale, the theme of the obedience of the people, their wordlessness and lack of desire to fight also sounds. Konyaga, “tortured, beaten, narrow-chested, with protruding ribs and burned shoulders, with broken legs” - such a portrait is created by the author, who mourns for the unenviable fate of a disenfranchised people. Reflections on the future, the fate of the people are painful, but filled with selfless love.

In the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the help of Aesopian language, elements of fantasy, folk traditions And satirical devices different themes are heard.

What brings the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin closer to folk tales? Typical fairy tale beginnings ("Once upon a time there were two generals ...", "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there lived a landowner ..."; sayings ("at the command of a pike", "neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen" ); characteristic of folk speech turns ("thought and thought", "it is said - it is done"); syntax, vocabulary, orthoepy close to the folk language. Exaggeration, grotesque, hyperbole: one of the generals eats the other; the “wild landowner”, like a cat, climbs a tree in an instant; a man cooks soup in a handful. As in folk tales, a miraculous incident ties up the plot: by the grace of God, "there was no peasant in the entire space of the stupid landowner's possessions." Saltykov-Shchedrin also follows the folk tradition in fairy tales about animals, when he ridicules the shortcomings of society in allegorical form.

Difference: the interweaving of the fantastic with the real and even historically reliable. "Bear in the Voivodeship": among actors- the image of Magnitsky, a famous reactionary in Russian history, suddenly appears: even before Toptygin appeared in the forest, all printing houses were destroyed by Magnitsky, students were given into soldiers, academicians were imprisoned. In the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" the hero gradually degrades, turning into an animal. The incredible story of the hero is largely due to the fact that he read the Vesti newspaper and followed its advice. Saltykov-Shchedrin simultaneously respects the form of a folk tale and destroys it. The magic in the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin is explained by the real, the reader cannot escape reality, which is constantly felt behind the images of animals, fantastic events. Fairy-tale forms allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to present ideas close to him in a new way, to show or ridicule social shortcomings.

“The wise minnow” is an image of a frightened inhabitant to death, who “protects everything only his hateful life.” Can the slogan "survive and the pike not get into hailo" be the meaning of life for a person?

The theme of the tale is connected with the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya, when many representatives of the intelligentsia, frightened, withdrew from public affairs. A type of coward is created, miserable, unhappy. These people did no harm to anyone, but lived their lives aimlessly, without impulses. This tale is about the civil position of a person and the meaning of human life. In general, the author appears in a fairy tale in two faces at once: a folk narrator, a simpleton joker and at the same time a person wise by life experience, a writer-thinker, a citizen. In the description of the life of the animal kingdom, with its inherent details, details of the real life of people are interspersed. The language of a fairy tale combines fairy words and phrases, colloquial of the third estate and the journalistic language of that time.

2. Elements of fantasy in"HistoryAndone city"

"The History of a City" is the most significant fantastic and satirical work of Russian literature. This book is the only successful attempt in our country to give in one work a picture (parodic and grotesque, but surprisingly accurate) not only of the history of Russia, but also of its contemporary image for the writer. Moreover, while reading The History of a City, you constantly catch yourself thinking that this book is about our time, about “post-perestroika” Russia, its socio-political, psychological and artistic discoveries are so topical for us.

Saltykov-Shchedrin could write such a universal for Russia literary work only in the form of grotesque, fantasy and satire. Modern critics of Saltykov-Shchedrin, his fellow writers and ordinary readers adhered to two different opinions about the “History of a City”: some saw in it only an unfair caricature of Russian history and the Russian people (Leo Tolstoy was among the supporters of this point of view), others saw in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire the dawn of a new, happy life (liberal democrats, social Democrats). In the Soviet period, official science pretended that the work had nothing to do with Soviet reality. Only now it becomes clear that "The History of a City" is a book "for all times" and not only about Russia at the end of the 20th century, but also about other countries.

Despite the fact that Saltykov-Shchedrin's book is the first such significant grotesque-satirical work of Russian literature, the forms of grotesque, fantasy and satire in literature and art are by no means new. The very origin of the words speaks about this, and also, to a certain extent, about the essence of these methods: fantastich (fantasy) in Greek in the literal sense of the word - the art of imagining; satira (satura) in Latin - a mixture, all sorts of things; grottesco in Italian - "cave", "grotto" (to refer to bizarre ornaments found in the 15th-16th centuries during excavations of ancient Roman premises - "grottoes"). Thus, the "fantastic grotesque" and satirical works go back to the ancient, so-called "mythological archaic" ("low version" of the myth) and to the ancient satirical novel, to the folk fantastic grotesque of the Renaissance. Later, these terms became the subject of special studies in literary criticism and aesthetics. The first serious study of the grotesque as an artistic, aesthetic method was undertaken more than 200 years ago in 1788 in Germany by G. Schneegans, who first gave a generalized definition of the grotesque. Later, in 1827, the famous French writer Victor Hugo, in his Preface to Cromwell, for the first time gave the term "grotesque" a broad aesthetic interpretation and drew the attention of a wide section of the reading public to it.

In our time, “grotesque”, “fantastic”, “satire” is understood approximately as follows. Grotesque in literature is one of the types of typification, mostly satirical, in which real life relationships are deformed, credibility gives way to caricature, fantasy, and a sharp combination of contrasts. (Another, similar definition: Grotesque is a kind of artistic imagery, summarizing and sharpening life relationships through a bizarre and contrasting combination of the real and the fantastic, the verisimilitude and the caricature, the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the ugly. Fiction - a specific method artistic display life, using an artistic form-image (an object, a situation, a world in which the elements of reality are combined in an unusual way - unbelievably, “wonderfully”, supernaturally). Satire is a specific form of artistic reflection of reality, through which negative, internally perverse phenomena are exposed and ridiculed; a kind of comic, destroying ridicule of the depicted, revealing its internal inconsistency, its inconsistency with its nature or purpose, “idea”. It is noteworthy that these three definitions have something in common. So, in the definition of the grotesque, both the fantastic and the comic are mentioned as its elements (a type of the latter is satire). It is advisable not to separate these three concepts, but to speak of the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin as satirical, written in the form of a fantastic grotesque. Moreover, the unity of all three artistic methods is emphasized by many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin's work when they speak of his works as parts of an integral satirical, grotesque world. Analyzing this world (the most striking embodiment of which is the "History of a City"), literary critics note the following features of it. The grotesque seems to "destroy" the real country of Russia and its people in the "household", everyday plausibility and creates new patterns and connections. A special grotesque world arises, which is essential, however, for revealing the real contradictions of reality. Therefore, the grotesque in Saltykov-Shchedrin consists, as it were, of two planes, and its perception is dual. What at first glance seems random, arbitrary, in fact, turns out to be deeply natural. The nature of the comic in the "History of a City" does not at all consist in strengthening the farcical principle (in "comedy"), but is connected with its two-dimensionality. The comic is released along with the comprehension of the essence of the grotesque, with the movement of the reader's thought from a superficial plane to a deeper one. Moreover, in Shchedrin's "History of a City" the grotesque beginning is not just an essential part. On the contrary, the grotesque principle is laid at the very foundation of the work. The grotesque is often characterized by the desire for the ultimate generalization, mostly satirical, to comprehend the essence of the phenomenon and extract from it some meaning, a concentrate of history. That is why the grotesque turned out to be the only possible form for Saltykov-Shchedrin and the basis of his work. The range of the generalized phenomenon in the "History of a City" expands to amazingly wide limits - to the generalization of the trend of all Russian history and modernity. The generalization and concentration of historical content determine a particularly sharp combination of humor and sarcasm, comic and tragic elements in the grotesque. Reading the "History of a City", you are convinced of the validity of another important conclusion made by philologists: the grotesque is striving for a holistic and multifaceted expression of the basic, cardinal problems of human life.

In the work of the great satirist, one can see, on the one hand, the element of folk artistic creativity and folk comedy, on the other - an expression of the inconsistency and complexity of life. The images of the folk grotesque, built on the unity of polar, contrasting (and comical in their contrasting fusion) elements, capture the essence of a sharply contradictory life, its dialectics. Laughter reduction, rapprochement of contrasts, as it were, abolishes any unambiguity, exclusivity and inviolability. The grotesque world realizes a kind of folk laughter utopia. The entire content of the "History of a City" in a compressed form fits into the "Inventory to the Mayors", therefore the "Inventory to the Mayors" best illustrates the methods by which Saltykov-Shchedrin created his work.

It is here, in the most concentrated form, that we meet “bizarre and contrasting combinations of the real and the fantastic, the plausibility and the caricature, the tragic and the comic” that are characteristic of the grotesque. Probably, never before in Russian literature has such a compact description of entire epochs, layers Russian history and life. In the "Inventory" the reader is bombarded with a stream of absurdity, which, oddly enough, is more understandable than the real contradictory and phantasmagoric Russian life. Let's take the first mayor, Amadeus Manuylovich Klementy. Only seven lines are devoted to him (approximately the same amount of text is given to each of the 22 mayors), but each word here is more valuable than many pages and volumes written by contemporary Saltykov-Shchedrin official historians and social scientists. The comic effect is created already in the first words: the absurd combination of the foreign, beautiful and high-sounding for the Russian ear name Amadeus Klementy with the provincial Russian patronymic Manuilovich says a lot: about the fleeting "westernization" of Russia "from above", about how the country was flooded with foreign adventurers, about how alien the mores imposed from above were to ordinary people, and about many other things. From the same sentence, the reader learns that Amadeus Manuilovich ended up in the mayor’s office “for skillful cooking of pasta” - a grotesque, of course, and at first it seems funny, but after a moment the modern Russian reader understands with horror that in the one hundred and thirty years that have passed since writing the "History of a City", and in the 270 years that have passed since the time of Biron, little has changed: and before our eyes, numerous "advisers", "experts", "creators of monetary systems" and the "systems" themselves were discharged crackling foreign chatter, for a beautiful, exotic surname for the Russian ear ... And after all, they believed, they believed, like the Foolovites, just as stupid and just as naive. Nothing has changed since then. Further, the descriptions of the "town governors" almost instantly follow one after another, piled up and mixed up in their absurdity, together making up, oddly enough, an almost scientific picture of Russian life. This description clearly shows how Saltykov-Shchedrin “constructs” his grotesque world. To do this, he really first “destroys” the plausibility: Dementy Vaolamovich Brudasty had “some special device” in his head, Anton Protasyevich de Sanglot flew through the air, Ivan Panteleevich Pimple turned out to be with a stuffed head. In the "Inventory" there is something not so fantastic, but still very unlikely: the mayor Lamvrokakis died, eaten in bed by bedbugs; foreman Ivan Matveyevich Baklan is broken in half during a storm; Nikodim Osipovich Ivanov died of exertion, "struggling to comprehend some Senate decree," and so on. So, the grotesque world of Saltykov-Shchedrin is constructed, and the reader laughed at him to his heart's content. However, our contemporary soon begins to understand that the absurd, fantastic world of Saltykov is not so absurd as it seems at first glance. More precisely, it is absurd, but the real world, the real country is no less absurd. In this "high reality" of Shchedrin's world, in the understanding by the modern reader of the absurdity of the structure of our life, lies the justification and purpose of Shchedrin's grotesque as artistic method. Organchik Following the "Inventory", a detailed account of the "acts" of the mayors and a description of the behavior of the Foolovites more than once makes the modern reader involuntarily exclaim: "How could Saltykov-Shchedrin 130 years ago know what is happening to us at the end of the twentieth century?" The answer to this question, according to Kozintsev, must be sought in the dictionary for the word "genius". In places, the text of this chapter is so amazing and so testifies to the exceptional visionary gift of Saltykov-Shchedrin, supported by the methods of hyperbole, grotesque and satire he uses, that it is necessary to quote several quotations here. “The inhabitants rejoiced... They congratulated each other with joy, kissed, shed tears... In a fit of delight, Foolov's old liberties were also remembered. The best citizens..., having formed a nationwide veche, shook the air with exclamations: our father! Even dangerous dreamers appeared. Guided not so much by reason as by the movements of a noble heart, they argued that trade would flourish under the new city governor and that sciences and arts would arise under the supervision of district overseers. They didn't refrain from making comparisons. They remembered the old mayor who had just left the city, and it turned out that although he was also handsome and clever, but after all that, the new ruler should already be given the advantage by one volume that he was new. In a word, in this case, as in other similar cases, both the usual Foolovian enthusiasm and the usual Foolovian frivolity were fully expressed ... Soon, however, the townsfolk became convinced that their glee and hopes were, to a minimum, premature and exaggerated. .. The new mayor locked himself in his office ... From time to time he ran out into the hall ... he said “I won’t stand it!” - and again hid in the office. The Foolovites were horrified ... suddenly the thought dawned on everyone: well, how is he in such a manner whole nation flogged! ... got excited, made a noise and, inviting the superintendent of the public school, asked him a question: were there examples in history when people ordered, waged wars and concluded treaties, having an empty vessel on their shoulders? A lot has already been said about the "organ", the mayor Brudast, from this amazing chapter. No less interesting, however, is the description of the Foolovites in this chapter.

At the time of Saltykov-Shchedrin, and even now, the grotesque image of the Russian people he created seemed and still seems to many to be forced, and even slanderous. It was common for monarchists, liberals, and social democrats alike to idealize the people, to ascribe to it some sublime, abstract qualities. Both liberals and socialists thought it incredible that the broad masses of the population could endure for centuries a long succession of "organists" and "former scoundrels", sometimes bursting into outbursts of unreasonable enthusiasm or anger. This situation was considered a "historical error" or "a contradiction between the forces of production and production relations" and seemed to be correctable by introducing representative democracy or putting into practice the theories of Marxism. Only later did it gradually become clear that the seemingly paradoxical, absurd and grotesque features of the national Russian character are confirmed by serious scientific analysis. Thus, we see that Saltykov-Shchedrin's grotesque and satire were not only expressive means by which he solved artistic problems, but also a tool for analyzing Russian life - contradictory, paradoxical and seemingly fantastic, but internally integral and containing not only negative traits, but also elements of sustainability, and a guarantee of future development. In turn, the very foundations of the contradictory Russian life dictated to Saltykov-Shchedrin the need to use precisely the forms of the fantastic grotesque.

The story about Ugryum-Burcheev is probably the most widely cited chapter of the History of a City in perestroika times. As you know, Arakcheev and Nicholas I were the direct prototypes of the image of Grim-Burcheev, and the military settlements of the Nikolaev era were the prototype of the barracks town of Nepreklonsk, and literary critics of the Soviet period paid attention to this. However, reading this chapter, you can clearly see the features of the amazing similarity between Nepreklonsk and barracks socialism of the Stalinist type. Moreover, Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to point out the main features of the society built by the “levelers”, and even such details of this society that, it seems, were absolutely impossible to predict 60 years before. The accuracy of Saltykov-Shchedrin's providence is amazing. In his book, he foresaw both the "barracks" type of society, to which the "idea of universal happiness" would lead, elevated into a "rather complex and inexhaustible administrative theory of ideological tricks", and enormous sacrifices Stalin era(“the resolved question of general extermination”, “a fantastic failure in which “everything and everything” disappeared without a trace”), and the miserable straightforwardness of the ideology and “theory” of barracks socialism (“Having drawn a straight line, he planned to squeeze into it all the visible and invisible world”- how not to recall here the primitive theories of gradual “erasing the edges” and “improving” everything and everyone), and annoying collectivism (“Everyone lives every minute together ...”), and much more. And the more particular features of Saltykov-Shchedrin's "society of the future" are like two drops of water similar to the reality of the Stalinist dictatorship. Here is the low origin of the "mayor", and his incredible, inhuman cruelty towards the members of the own family, and two official ideological holidays in Nepreklonsk in the spring and autumn, and spy mania, and the gloomy-grumbling "plan for the transformation of nature", and even the details of the illness and death of Glum-Burcheev ... When you reflect on how Saltykov-Shchedrin succeeded with such accuracy to foresee the future of Russia, you come to the conclusion that his literary method study of the world and the country, based on the artistic logic of fantastic hyperbole, turned out to be much more accurate and powerful than scientific methods forecast, which were guided by social scientists and philosophers, contemporaries of the writer. Moreover, in the chapter on Ugryum-Burcheev, he gave a more accurate diagnosis of the society of barracks socialism than most Russian scientists of the 20th century! This aspect of the problem also attracts attention. When Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote his "dystopia", much of what he said about Nepreklonsk seemed and was for that time precisely fantasy, hyperbole and grotesque. But after 60 years, the most fantastic predictions of the writer turned out to be realized with amazing accuracy. Here we have an example of how (perhaps for the only time in the history of literature) the fantastic grotesque and artistic hyperbole of such magnitude is absolutely certain to become a real life. In this case, the fantastic grotesque allowed the writer to reveal hidden for the time being, but inexorable mechanisms of transformation of society. The reason that Saltykov-Shchedrin turned out to be more perspicacious than all the major philosophers of his time lay, obviously, in the very nature of his artistic creativity and method: the fantastic grotesque method allowed him to single out the essential elements and patterns of the historical process, while his great artistic talent allowed him to simultaneously (Unlike social sciences) to preserve the totality of details, accidents and features of living, real life. The artistic world, constructed in this way by Saltykov-Shchedrin, turned out to be a reflection of such a real force that over time it inexorably and menacingly made its way into life. Instead of a conclusion: “It” The final lines of the “History of a City” contain a gloomy and mysterious prediction, not deciphered by the author: “The North has darkened and covered with clouds; from these clouds something rushed to the city: either a downpour, or a tornado ... It was approaching, and as it approached, time stopped its run. At last the earth shook, the sun went dark... the Foolovites fell on their faces. Inscrutable horror appeared on all faces, seized all hearts. It has come ... "Many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin's work write that by" it "the writer meant social revolution, "Russian rebellion", the overthrow of the autocracy. The fantastic nature of the image of “it” emphasizes in Saltykov-Shchedrin the tragedy of the social cataclysms he expects. It is interesting to compare the prophecy of Saltykov-Shchedrin with the forecasts of other Russian writers. M.Yu. Lermontov in his poem, which is called “Prediction”, wrote: A year will come, a black year for Russia, When the crown of the kings will fall; The mob will forget their former love for them, And the food of many will be death and blood; ... It is significant that Pushkin described similar events with much greater optimism as regards changes in society itself, and welcomed the most "radical" measures against the tsar, his family and children: Autocratic villain! I hate you, your throne, Your death, the death of children With cruel joy I see. Finally, Blok in "Voice in the Clouds" also looks to the future with a fair amount of optimism: We fought with the wind and, eyebrows furrowed, In the darkness we could hardly distinguish the path ... And then, like an ambassador of a growing storm, A prophetic voice hit the crowd. - Sad people, tired people, Wake up, find out that joy is near! Where the seas sing about a miracle, Where the light of the lighthouse goes! As we can see, the opinions of the great Russian poets on the future of Russian ups and downs radically diverged.

It is known that the forecasts of events in Russia made by other great Russian writers - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov - turned out to be much less accurate than the providences of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Conclusion

Like his works, the figure of Saltykov-Shchedrin still remains one of the most paradoxical in the history of Russian literature. While many literary critics and the “general reader” often place him much lower than Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, connoisseurs of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work consider him the successor to the traditions of the titans of Renaissance and Enlightenment literature: Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift.

Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the help of elements of fantasy, was able to see and reflect in his fairy tales not only the specific and passing troubles of his time, but also the eternal problems of relations between the people and power, the shortcomings of the people's character.

Perhaps centuries will pass, and the work of our great satirist writer will be as relevant as it was a hundred years ago, as it is now. In the meantime, we, together with him, “laughingly say goodbye to our past” and look with anxiety and hope into the future of our great and unfortunate Motherland.

Bibliography

1. Efimov A.I. The language of satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 1953.

2. Makashin S.A. Saltykov, Mikhail Evgrafovich. // KLE. T.6. - M.: SE, 1971.

3. Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Evgrafovich // Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Who's Who / Ed. V. Gakov. - Minsk: IKO Galaxias, 1995.

An essay on a work on the topic: “The artistic originality of one of the fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin”

In the fairy tale genre, ideological and artistic features Shchedrin's satire: its political sharpness and purposefulness, the realism of its fiction, the ruthlessness and depth of the grotesque, the sly sparkle of humor. "Tales" of Saltykov-Shchedrin in miniature contain the problems and images of the entire work of the great satirist. If, besides "Fairy Tales", Shchedrin did not write anything, then they alone would give him the right to immortality. Fairy tales, as it were, sum up the forty-year creative activity writer.

Shchedrin often resorted to the fairy-tale genre in his work. Elements of fairy-tale fiction are also in the "History of a City", and in the satirical " Modern idyll"and the chronicle" Abroad "complete fairy tales are included.

And it is no coincidence that the heyday of the fairy-tale genre falls on Shchedrin in the 80s. XIX years century. It was during this period of rampant political reaction in Russia that the satirist had to look for a form that was most convenient for circumventing censorship and at the same time the closest, understandable to the common people. And the people understood the political acuteness of Shchedrin's generalized conclusions hidden behind Aesop's speech and zoological masks. He created a new original genre political fairy tale, which combines fantasy with real, topical political reality.

In Shchedrin's fairy tales, as in all of his work, two social forces confront each other: the working people and their exploiters. The people appear under the masks of kind and defenseless animals and birds (and often without a mask, under the name "muzhik"), the exploiters - in the images of predators. Symbol peasant Russia is the image of Konyaga from the fairy tale of the same name. Konyaga is a peasant, a worker, a source of life for everyone. Thanks to him, bread grows in the vast fields of Russia, but he himself has no right to eat this sleb. His destiny is eternal hard labor. "There is no end to work" The whole meaning of his existence is exhausted by work! - exclaims the satirist. Konyaga is tortured and beaten to the limit, but only he is able to liberate his native country. “From century to century, the formidable immovable bulk of the fields freezes, as if guarding a fairy-tale force in captivity. Who will free this force from captivity? Who will call it into the world? This is a hymn to the working people of Russia, and it is no coincidence that it had such a great influence on modern Shchedrin democratic literature.

The carp from the fairy tale "Karas-idealist" is not a hypocrite, he is truly noble, pure in soul. His ideas as a socialist deserve deep respect, but the methods of their implementation are naive and ridiculous. Shchedrin, being himself a socialist by conviction, did not accept the theory of the utopian socialists, he considered it the fruit of an idealistic view of social reality, of the historical process. "I do not believe that struggle and strife are a normal law, under the influence of which everything living on earth is supposedly destined to develop. I believe in bloodless prosperity, I believe in harmony." - ranted crucian. It ended up that the pike swallowed it, and swallowed it mechanically: it was struck by the absurdity and strangeness of this sermon.

"Selfless Hare" and "Sane Hare". Here, the heroes are not noble idealists, but cowardly townsfolk, hoping for the kindness of predators. Hares do not doubt the right of the wolf and fox to take their lives, they consider it quite natural that the strong eat the weak, but they hope to touch the wolf's heart with their honesty and humility. "Maybe the wolf will have mercy on me. ha-ha!" Predators are still predators. Zaitsev is not saved by the fact that they "did not allow revolutions, did not go out with weapons in their hands." Shchedrin's wise gudgeon, the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, became the personification of the wingless and vulgar philistine. The meaning of life for this "enlightened, moderately liberal" coward was self-preservation, avoidance of clashes, of struggle. Therefore, the minnow lived to a ripe old age unharmed. But what a humiliating life it was! It all consisted of continuous trembling for its own skin. "He lived and trembled - that's all." This fairy tale, written during the years of political reaction in Russia, hit the liberals, who groveled before the government because of their own skins, and the townsfolk who hid in their holes from the social struggle without a miss. For many years sunk into the soul thinking people In Russia, the passionate words of the great democrat: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows.” Such "minnows"-philistines Shchedrin showed in the novel "Modern Idyll".

All of Shchedrin's tales were subjected to censorship and many alterations. Many of them were published in illegal editions abroad. Animal masks couldn't hide political content fairy tales. transfer human features- both psychological and political - on animal world created a comic effect, clearly exposed the absurdity of the existing reality.

The language of Shchedrin's fairy tales is deeply folk, close to Russian folklore. The satirist uses not only traditional fabulous tricks, images, but also proverbs, sayings, sayings ("If you didn’t give a word - be strong, but if you gave it - hold on!", "There will be no two deaths, one cannot be avoided", "Ears do not grow above the forehead", "My hut is on the edge" , "Simplicity is worse than theft"). The dialogue of the characters is colorful, the speech draws a specific social type: an imperious, rude eagle, a beautiful-hearted idealist crucian, an evil reactionary voblachka, a hypocrite priest, a dissolute canary, a cowardly hare, etc.

The images of fairy tales came into use, became common nouns and live for many decades, and the universal types of objects of satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin are still found in our lives today, you just need to take a closer look at surrounding reality and think.

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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 allowed for a simple and accessible interpretation the toughest problems 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 the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin were: denunciation of the autocracy (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”), the ruling class (“The Wild Landowner”), liberalism (“ 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 system, 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 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 Gogol's psychological method, pushed 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 everyone individual person as a product of the social environment that gave birth to it, deprives the artistic image of all human traits and replaces individual psychology with manifestations of class instinct. Every act 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, but 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. excessive cruelty 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 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.

Found in fairy tales real people, names of newspapers, 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, noticing the essence social conflicts and relationships character traits which are hyperbolized.

Evil, angry mockery slave psychology- 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 the 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 we use the third pictorial technique 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 fairy tale Saltykov-Shchedrin like all his fairy tales, speaking name. 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 his 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 happy life where all the fish will 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 modern world, then its main idea is that for the most part there are much more stupid people and therefore those who are more literate and educated face many problems and non-recognition of themselves 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." The disenfranchised position of the peasantry in tsarist Russia Shchedrin also reflects in this tale: "The luchin did not become a peasant to light in the light, there was no 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 triumph.

"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 is a special kind of 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 artistic means as an Aesopian language, the problem of the fairy tale "Konyaga" is acute to this day.

content:

"Tales" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin occupy a special place in Russian literature. Although their themes are similar to those of the works of many writers, the Tales are nevertheless unique due to their artistic originality and manner of presentation.

Shchedrin used the fairy tale genre to avoid censorship attacks, and also to make it easier for the reader to understand the absurdity of the situations depicted in the work. The allegorical manner of narration has great advantages. After all, a neutral narrative does not create a vivid picture of human vices, does not generate disgust for the existing system. The wise simplicity of the fairy tale allowed the author to present his views on the problems, his attitude towards them in a concise, generalized form, without losing their significance and sharpness. In addition, of all genres, the fairy tale is closest to popular understanding.

In "Tales" the writer uses folklore elements, since ancient times used by the people in their oral creativity. For example, in the beginning of his works, Shchedrin uses the traditional fairy-tale style: “there once was a squatter.”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there once lived a landowner.” Often there is magic (for example, the miraculous disappearance of the peasants in the "Wild Landowner"). Magic (or fantasy) allows the author to give the characters sufficient freedom of action, unlimited possibilities. The writer also uses proverbs, sayings, colloquialisms: "Kuzkin's mother", "chicken's son".

But along with fabulous, folklore, in "Tales" there are expressions, facts from modern writer life: the newspapers "Vest", "Moskovskie Vedomosti", latin phrase"sshshe vypshbiz sigran1; ur". The heroes of "Tales" are representatives of different social strata: officials, landowners, generals and, of course, peasants.

"Tales" Shchedrin were a kind of result of all his previous work. In them, he touches on topics that worried the writer throughout his life and were revealed in one way or another in his works.

One of these themes is quite old, many generations of Russian writers wrote about it, and each, of course, found some new feature in it. This is the theme of the relationship between the people and the authorities. And Saltykov gives it a new sound, examines it from a different angle. According to the author, unlimited power partially deprives a person of the ability to think about his actions, their consequences, makes him lazy, not adapted to anything, narrow-minded, limited.

People invested with power get used to it and, not feeling the need to do anything on their own, gradually degrade. Such, for example, are the generals from The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals, who do not even suspect that “buns are not born in the same form as they are served with coffee in the morning”, that “human food in its original form flies , floats and grows on trees. They are naive and ignorant, divorced from the life of the people, from those same peasants, whose hands everything is created. wealth, due to which the ruling circles exist.

Shchedrin calls in his "Tales" for the transformation of Russian reality, for the struggle against the arbitrariness of those in power. But he does not speak about this directly, but uses satire, irony, hyperbole, and the grotesque to express his ideas. Aesopian language. He ridicules social vices, ... thereby drawing attention to them. Shchedrin creates exaggerated, grotesque images in his works. Collected all the most extreme manifestations those negative traits to which he would like to draw the eye of the reader.

The satirical images of the heroes are sometimes even ugly, evoke a feeling of disgust, and the reader begins to understand the terrible situation of the people in Russian reality. A society with such orders and customs has no future if it is not capable of change. For example, in The Wild Landowner, the ignorance of the landowner himself, his absolute confidence in his superiority over the peasant, and the inability of the people to resist are ridiculed. In The Wise Scribbler, there is fear of the strong, the lack of will of the liberal intelligentsia.

Shchedrin most fully revealed the typical features of various social strata of society in fairy tales about animals. Their characters are birds, animals, fish. In their manners, behavior, human characters are guessed. Under the allegorical description of the arbitrariness that is happening in the animal world, we see Russian life with all its unsightly features. For example, in "The Bear in the Voivodeship" the animals are called "forest men". In each animal, Saltykov-Shchedrin collected various features of certain types of people. Here are some of them: the stupidity of the Donkey, the sluggishness, the brute and insane strength of Toptygin. These properties resonate with folklore ideas about these animals. The combination of allegorical and real meaning enhances the sharpness of satire.

It is no coincidence that Shchedrin portrays senior officials under the guise of predatory beasts that rob in their possessions and by their nature cannot do anything else. They act according to the principle: to govern means to devastate, destroy, ruin, rob, inflict "special bloodshed". The officials who come to the places do not understand anything in the case entrusted to them, do not try to delve into it; they bring with them some of their preparations, ideas, projects, which sometimes do not correspond to the existing situation, the characteristics of a given area, region.

This is well illustrated by the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship". Bears come with the aim of ruining, destroying, carrying out "bloodshed" and believe that this is the meaning and purpose of power. But what about the people? And the people do not see anything monstrous in the actions of the authorities, this is normal for them, usually, everyday, as it has been from time immemorial. The people are resigned, obey any order from above, as they consider this the only possible behavior. And this willingness of the people to fulfill all the whims is brought by Saltykov-Shchedrin sometimes even to the point of absurdity.

Unlike other writers, Saltykov-Shchedrin satirically depicts not only landlords and generals, but also peasants. After all, he saw in the peasants an unclaimed huge force that could change the existing system, create favorable conditions for the life of the people, if awakened. But for this it is necessary to convince the muzhik that one cannot put up with the domination of "wild landowners", town governors, governors, one must fight for their rights.

Conciseness, clarity, ruthless satire, accessibility to the common people made "Tales" one of the most significant works of the XIX century. Many of the problems identified in them still exist today. And so Shchedrin's satire remains relevant to this day.

Introduction

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales. Appeal to this genre was natural for Saltykov-Shchedrin. Elements of fantasy permeate all the writer's work. In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, political problems are developed, topical issues are resolved. Defending the advanced ideals of his time, the author acted in his works as a defender of the people's interests. Having enriched folklore plots with new content, Saltykov-Shchedrin directed the genre of fairy tales to educate civic feelings and special respect for the people.

The purpose of the abstract is to study the role of fantasy elements in the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

The originality of the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin

Like many writers, Saltykov-Shchedrin uses the fairy tale genre to reveal the vices of man and society. Written for "children of a fair age," the fairy tales are a sharp criticism of the existing system and, in essence, serve as a weapon incriminating the Russian autocracy.

Themes and problems determine the variety of characters acting in these witty satirical works. These are stupid rulers, who strike with their ignorance and tyrant landowners, officials and townsfolk, merchants and peasants. Sometimes the characters are quite reliable, and we find in them the features of specific historical figures, and sometimes the images are allegorical and allegorical.

Using the folklore and fairy-tale form, the satirist covers the most pressing issues of Russian life, acts as a defender of popular interests and advanced ideas.

The tale “The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals” stands out from all of them with its special dynamism, variability of the plot. The writer uses a fantastic trick - the generals, as if "at the behest of a pike", are transferred to a desert island, and here the writer, with his characteristic irony, demonstrates to us the complete helplessness of officials and their inability to act.

The tale of two generals suggests that the people, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, are the backbone of the state, they are the creator of material and spiritual values.

The theme of the people is developed in another fairy tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin - “Konyaga”, which was created in 1885. In style, it differs from others in the absence of action.

In the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the help of Aesopian language, elements of fantasy, folklore traditions and satirical devices, various themes sound.

What brings the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin closer to folk tales? Typical fairy tale beginnings ("Once upon a time there were two generals ...", "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there lived a landowner ..."; sayings ("at the command of a pike", "neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen" ); turnarounds characteristic of folk speech (“thought and thought”, “said - done”); syntax, vocabulary, orthoepy close to the folk language. Exaggerations, grotesque, hyperbole: one of the generals eats another; “wild landowner”, as a cat climbs a tree in an instant, a man cooks a handful of soup.As in folk tales, a miraculous incident sets up a plot: by the grace of God, "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of a stupid landowner." The folk tradition of Saltykov-Shchedrin follows in fairy tales about animals, when in allegorical form he ridicules the shortcomings of society.

Difference: the interweaving of the fantastic with the real and even historically reliable. “The Bear in the Voivodship”: among the characters - animals, the image of Magnitsky, a famous reactionary in Russian history, suddenly appears: even before Toptygin appeared in the forest, all printing houses were destroyed by Magnitsky, students were given into soldiers, academicians were imprisoned. In the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" the hero gradually degrades, turning into an animal. The incredible story of the hero is largely due to the fact that he read the Vesti newspaper and followed its advice. Saltykov-Shchedrin simultaneously respects the form of a folk tale and destroys it. The magic in the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin is explained by the real, the reader cannot escape reality, which is constantly felt behind the images of animals, fantastic events. Fairy-tale forms allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to present ideas close to him in a new way, to show or ridicule social shortcomings.

The theme of the tale is connected with the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya, when many representatives of the intelligentsia, frightened, withdrew from public affairs. A type of coward is created, miserable, unhappy. These people did no harm to anyone, but lived their lives aimlessly, without impulses. This tale is about the civil position of a person and the meaning of human life. In general, the author appears in a fairy tale in two faces at once: a folk narrator, a simpleton joker and at the same time a person wise by life experience, a writer-thinker, a citizen. In the description of the life of the animal kingdom, with its inherent details, details of the real life of people are interspersed. The language of the fairy tale combines fabulous words and phrases, the spoken language of the third estate and the journalistic language of that time.