The story of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy "Sevastopol in the month of December" is notable for the fact that the writer shows a different side of the hostilities at Sevastopol - this defense is known to everyone only from official data that tells directly about the war, and Tolstoy shows his own experiences of these events.
"Sevastopol in the month of December" in the form of an article was first published in the journal "Sovremennik" in 1855. Leo Tolstoy wrote it based on own experience, because in November 1854 he himself visited this beautiful and picturesque city.
Analysis of the author's experiences
With his lively and imbued with real experiences of the war, Tolstoy makes readers feel completely different, powerful emotions - from fear to admiration. The story describes in detail the defenders of the Fatherland and their lives, the author pays attention to what they experience, how they perceive life and the world around them.
Describing their way of life and habits, Tolstoy reveals to us real essence their lives, and the story of the defense of Sevastopol turns from official military reports into a story that takes place before the eyes of readers, in which human destinies are revealed.
Describing military operations through the eyes ordinary people, Tolstoy makes readers fully experience real picture military life. This is the main merit of Tolstoy, as outstanding writer, he not only describes the war with skill, he, first of all, makes people feel real pride in Russian soldiers.
This is due to the fact that Tolstoy specifically chose a laconic and dry style of narration, and there are no enthusiastic exclamations and a direct expression of admiration in the story - the simplicity of the story surprises readers even more. Tolstoy managed to embody his skill in such a small essay, published in the status of an article.
The emotional experiences of the characters in the story
To a large extent, "Sevastopol in the month of December" is dedicated to the disclosure of the spiritual experiences of the heroes, like other military stories of Tolstoy. The writer does not follow the patterns by which most military works are built - all his work is to tear off the masks and show reality as it is.
As strange as it may sound, main topic his war stories are true. Tolstoy moves away from the usual perception of war, the heroic images of soldiers and an enthusiastic feeling of victory, and reveals the most real truth about the war and its true heroes.
And Leo Tolstoy himself reveals his feelings about what is happening, and by analyzing his feelings and moods, readers can fully imagine the picture of the defense near Sevastopol. Tolstoy always paid a lot of attention to the psychology of people, and tried to reveal his characters from this side.
"Sevastopol in the month of December" is no exception, the story shows deep emotional experiences, their internal dialogues full of passionate and trembling feelings that help readers feel their lives and understand them.
Which hero was the Russian people. This is an emphatically simple and businesslike account of an eyewitness seeking to tell the whole truth about the war. The heroes of the siege are shown ordinary people, with all human weaknesses and shortcomings. Staff Captain Mikhailov is capable of going to save a comrade under the bullets of the enemy, and he is also conceited during the festivities that he walks arm in arm with the "aristocrats". The author mercilessly destroys romantic tradition"heroism"; war is not a beautiful, brilliant spectacle “with music and drumming, with banners fluttering and generals prancing; its true expression is in blood, in suffering, in death.”
Tolstoy. The truth about the war in "Sevastopol stories"
To the subject of reproduction, which was previously approached with a store of pompous words, with all sorts of rhetorical devices, singing the inhuman valor and beauty of battles, Tolstoy approached with completely different tools of representation. He described the warriors in all their everyday everyday situations, discarding rhetorical embellishments, false pathos; and if romantic heroism and all the so-called “Marlinism” disappeared in Tolstoy’s descriptions, then under his pen those modest exploits of imperceptible heroes loomed in relief, which speak more strongly than the romantic effects of fake stories. The hard work of the soldiers, their courage that has become a habit under bullets and grenades, the patriotic uplift of spirit among the soldiers and officers, the calm attitude towards death - all this is subtly captured by the artist's pencil. But characterizing general mood, he, with all the power of a realistic pencil, depicts individual figures and types in the army, details in the character and behavior of people, features of their spiritual way of life.
People with all their weaknesses, with traits both petty and heroic, pass here before us; the writer sets himself the task of an impartial image of what is. We see what various motives are the source of heroism in various people: one has a strict fulfillment of military duty, the other has ambition, etc. He himself shared labors and dangers with the defenders of Sevastopol, Tolstoy knew well their way of life and all the living conditions of the besieged city. Finally, in depicting the war, the writer also remained true to his task - to be truthful - and instead of a brilliant picture full of fake effects, he gave life picture murder, destruction, terrifying pools of blood, heaps of corpses and the agony of the wounded. Describing the battle, the author recalls the irreconcilable contradiction between the covenants Christian doctrine and this terrible massacre of people.
"Sevastopol Tales" is divided into three parts: "Sevastopol in December 1854", "Sevastopol in May 1855" and "Sevastopol in August 1855". Hero last essay, Volodya Kozeltsov experiences much of what the author himself experienced in the besieged city.
The author of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", the tireless destroyer of every beautiful lie, the crusher of idols and the exposer of "elevating deceptions" has already realized himself in "Sevastopol Tales". He opposes stern, sober realism to elegant and false romanticism. “The hero of my story,” he writes, “whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and who has always been, is and will be beautiful, is true.” This ascetic struggle for truth begins with the destruction of false art and ends with the destruction of art in general. Tolstoy embarks on a fatal path that leads him to complete nihilism - aesthetic, cultural and social.
Methodical development of a literature lesson for grade 10 on the topic: “A man at war in the cycle“ Sevastopol stories ”.
1 section
Explanatory note
Analysis Lesson “ Sevastopol stories” L.N. Tolstoy conducts
before studying the novel “War and Peace”. It is designed for 10th grade students studying literature under the program of T.F. Kurdyumova. This topic interesting and instructive for tenth graders.
Goals : learn about the history of creation this work; find out how Tolstoy solves the topic “Man in the face of death”; analyze climactic episodes; compare the behavior of the characters; consider artistic techniques Images.
Equipment: interactive whiteboard
2 section
During the classes
- Introduction by the teacher.
Music saver ("Farewell of the Slav").
“Sevastopol Tales” by Count, Lieutenant Tolstoy appeared in the journal “Sovremennik” in 1854-1855. In them he expressed his innermost thoughts about the war, about a man in the war.
Why did Leo Tolstoy find himself in the besieged Sevastopol?
What do you know about human behavior in war.
Board Hero ... - ... true.
optimist ... see the war in its present
pessimist expression - in blood, in suffering, in
death realist... pacifist ... war is madness Lev Tolstoy
- Student's message about Crimean War and the siege of Sevastopol.
- Back in 1847, Tolstoy made rules for himself, a kind of “moral
code." One of the rules is: Always tell the truth. Be useful, as much as you can, to the fatherland. Following this rule, Tolstoy ends up in Sevastopol during the days of its siege: “Most importantly, I then asked that it was somehow ashamed to live in St. Petersburg when people die here for the fatherland. Yes, and I wanted to be with you ”(Sevastopol in August”).
- Lexical work.
Pick up a number of associations to the word war.
War- blood, tears, hunger, suffering.
Using these words and others, give your definition of war.
War is an armed struggle between states.
III. War in Tolstoy's definition.
The worst thing in war is the death of a person.
In "Sevastopol in December" Tolstoy shows the death of a soldier
In “Sevastopol in May / August” - the death of Praskukhin, the Kozeltsov brothers
- Episode analysis.
Board: ... death of Praskukhin ... death of Mikhail Kozeltsov
... the death of Vladimir Kozeltsov
(what is the definition at the end)
sudden
inconspicuous, sleep-like (Oblomov)
early
terrible
martyr's
black (plague)
heroic
ridiculous
meaningless
random
Group work
I. Praskukhin's Death Group. Captain Climax episode.
It is not a simple game of chance that ruins Praskukhin. critical moment they have a different stream of thoughts and feelings, different behavior, which decides their fate in different ways.
The bomb fell next to Praskukhin and Mikhailov when they reached a less dangerous place and "Praskuhin began to revive a little." “To revive” means to be conceited.
Unlike him, the not very vain Mikhailov, a "coward" according to the aristocratic code, immediately fell on his stomach when someone's voice shouted: "Lie down!"
Mikhailov's democracy, his instinctive habit of living with ordinary soldiers, prevails over his other feelings.
Praskukhin, noticing the falling bomb, only “involuntarily bent to the very ground”, and a second later “feared that he hadn’t chickened out in vain.” Opening his eyes, true to himself, Praskukhin at first saw with “selfish pleasure” not a bomb, but the fact that Mikhailov “was lying on the ground near his very feet.” When at last Praskukhin, just a yard away from himself, noticed the spinning bomb with a whirlwind and “horror that excludes all other thoughts and feelings,” seized his vanity, which became second nature, played with him the last bad joke. He didn't lay flat, didn't press himself to the ground, but fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands.
The merciless analyst Tolstoy goes on to show that self-love also determines the flash of death. mental life Praskukhin.
The first thought that flashed through his terrified mind was the question: “Whom will he kill - me or Mikhailov?”
The episode of Praskukhin's death shows how, already in the Sevastopol period, Tolstoy, in such trifles and details of the feelings of his heroes, learns to catch the hidden course of history.
The death of Praskukhin is akin to suicide, the moral background of which is vanity.
The episode of Praskukhin's death to some extent echoes the episode of the death of Prince Andrei in the Battle of Borodino. Prince Andrei did not lie down at the sight of a falling bomb. In the behavior of Prince Andrei, the motives of vanity are muffled. A high sense of pride in the command regiment, which is noticed by subordinates.
Vanity, not patriotism, is the decisive stimulus in the behavior of officers. The elite cannot stand the test of war.
In the behavior of officers, aristocratic egoistic motives prevailed over patriotic ones.
What word can define the death of Praskukhin?
II. Death of Mikhail Kozeltsov. Heroic.
Mikhail Kozeltsov hates staff officers. The people's point of view on life is characteristic, it listens to the opinion of ordinary participants in the defense. Soldiers' conversations subconsciously invade his inner world.
Behavior during the assault on Sevastopol.
The connection between the inner world of the individual and the general spirit of the army. A feeling of fear involuntarily communicated itself to Kozeltsov. Solidarity with people who obey him gives Kozeltsov internal forces For heroic deed. Opposite him
flax is a young officer whose fear develops into a spirit of defenselessness and isolation. Kozeltsov shares the general mood of the masses. His impulse carries away the company only because Kozeltsov is spiritually connected with it. This state of health of the soldiers is close to his own.
III. Accidental death of ensign Vladimir Kozeltsov.
War is indifferent human destinies. The hero is killed routinely, as if in passing
(something in an overcoat lay prone on the spot where Vladimir stood).
IV. Why is the death of the hero present in each of the cycles?
This shows Tolstoy's attitude to the war, the anti-human orientation
Why does Tolstoy show us the death of a soldier, a staff officer - an aristocrat, an infantry officer.
Conclusions: 1) The main man in the war is a Russian soldier - the defender of Sevastopol
What feeds on this everyday heroism of the defenders of the city?(love for country)
2) True patriotism, love for the motherland should not be sought in higher
spheres, not among adjutants and staff, but among ordinary people, on whose shoulders the brunt of the war falls.
About War Tolstoy:
“Sevastopol in December”... see the war in its true expression - in blood, in suffering, in death ...
“Sevastopol in May”... either war is madness, or if people do this madness, then they are not rational creatures at all ...
The hero of the story, whom I love with all my might, whom I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and who has always been and will be beautiful,- Truth.
Death on the fourth battalion of a sailor,who had part of his chest torn out
Under the influence of a patriotic feeling, the straightened back of a soldier flares up
the sparkle in it human dignity- a highly noble thought.
Main features: courage, simplicity, modesty, naturalness.
War is a harsh environment. She brutally avenges a lightweight performance
about her, mercilessly breaks the youthful pink ideas. Tolstoy
shows us the collapse of Kozeltsov's youthful ideas. Courage
is born in a struggle, it comes to Volodya only in a combat situation, on a ba-
stione.
Drawing the war truthfully, the writer put a living person in the center of his scenes,
revealed his inner world, motivated his actions, deeds, his innermost
new thoughts.
The criterion for evaluating a person is his attitude to the cause of the whole people. War with her horror
catfish and greatness is shown from the inside by revealing the internal attitude towards it
ordinary students, and the students themselves are characterized depending on their place in
nationwide struggle.
Before death, a person's feelings are especially acute.
4 section
Bibliography
- Internet-
In the 50s years XIX century "Sovremennik" began to publish "Sevastopol stories" by L. N. Tolstoy. For readers who were looking forward to news about the Crimean War, these essays were necessary as an eyewitness account, as a report from the scene. And the titles of the stories were quite consistent: "Sevastopol in August", "Sevastopol in December", "Sevastopol in May".
Collection history
An analysis of the "Sevastopol Tales" shows that the author's personal participation in the defense of this city made it possible to fully and objectively depict both the ongoing events and human characters. Tolstoy was in the service when the war between Turkey and Russia began. Tolstoy received permission to transfer to Sevastopol. From November 1854 to November 1855 he was in the vicinity of Sevastopol.
Once in the besieged city, the writer was shocked by the heroism of the common people and soldiers. He began to write his first story under the roar of guns. Under the ingenious pen of the master of defense, the heroic defense of Sevastopol comes to life. Even the most cursory analysis of the "Sevastopol Tales" will allow us to note that this is not only piece of art, but also historical document, so precious to historians is the testimony of the participant.
Purpose and main theme
As a participant in the events described, the author came to the conclusion that the Russian soldier, the simple Russian people, is that driving force which gives rise to the heroic spirit. The narrator of the story is surprised at the difference between sincerity ordinary soldiers and the vanity of officers, "start a battle", kill a hundred or two people in order to get another rank or an asterisk. Only the best of the officers are close to the masses of the people.
"Sevastopol stories" played a role in the formation of Tolstoy as a writer. For the first time in his work, he depicted the Russian people, standing up for the defense of their fatherland. This is how Russian literature began realistic image war and human psychology. The writer's new, honest view of the war, devoid of a halo of beauty, allowed readers to see behind the music and drumming, behind the beautiful formation and prancing generals - pain, blood, suffering and death.
August in Sevastopol
We continue the analysis of "Sevastopol stories". The third and last essay in the collection "Sevastopol in August" is one of those stories that will preserve for future generations the characteristics of the war, and at the same time remain a model literary work by the simplicity and artlessness of the language, by artistic processing by the ability to capture the reader's gaze. The author does not resort to literary delights, nor to intrigues and romantic inventions. He just writes about everyday life defenders of the city, they do not risk their lives out of boasting, but they do not regret it in hours of danger.
Let's take a short break from the analysis of Tolstoy's "Sevastopol Tales" and get acquainted with summary the last in the story cycle. Here we are talking about a young officer, just "released from the corps" Volodya Kozeltsov. All his thoughts are occupied with only one thing - he is afraid to chicken out. So it was on the morning of August 27, he thought that the feeling of fear and danger Furthermore that he would become a traitor. He does not want to die, he has seen so little in his life. IN last days August, he met with his brother Mikhail, he has long belonged to the Sevastopol defenders, but was on leave for injury.
Volodya came with him to Sevastopol. His mood is not cheerful, dreams are spinning in his head that if his brother is killed next to him, he will immediately rush to avenge his death and die near his bloodied brother. Volodya's dreams will come true: his brother will be wounded and he will die at the dressing station, Volodya will die at the mortar battery. The story ends with the Russian troops crossing the bay to the North Side.
December Sevastopol
We continue the analysis of the work "Sevastopol stories". Let's get acquainted with the summary of the first essay in the collection - "Sevastopol in December". morning dawn slowly colors the sky over Sapun Mountain. It is cool from the bay, occasionally the morning silence is broken by rolling shots. The city is running fighting, But Life is going run their course: merchants sell rolls and sbiten. It seems that everyone here is fussing, but this is the first impression.
In fact, most people do not pay attention to either explosions or gunshots. Only on the bastion you can see the defenders of the city, amazing, unforgettable pictures. In the hospital, the soldiers share their impressions. The injured, waiting in line, watch in horror as doctors amputate their arms and legs. Only here you can see amazing spectacles of the soul, real war blood, pain, death.
A young officer from the fourth, most dangerous bastion, complains not about shells and bombs, but about dirt. He has this defensive reaction He is still inexperienced and behaves at ease. On the way to the fourth, civilians are less and less common, more and more often - a stretcher with the wounded. The officer on the bastion behaves calmly and recalls how the bomb hit the dugout and killed eleven people at once. In the face and posture of the defenders of the bastion, real Russian features are visible - simplicity and stubbornness.
Continuing the analysis of the “Sevastopol Tales” chapter by chapter, it should be noted that in this story the author’s desire to portray the heroism of the Russian people and show their conviction that Sevastopol cannot be taken, it is impossible to shake the strength of the Russian people is especially clearly visible.
"Sevastopol in May"
This story is at the center of the collection. Six months have passed since the siege. Soldiers watch each other, diplomats cannot agree, and military action is even more difficult to resolve the conflict.
Let's continue the analysis with a summary of the second story in the cycle "Sevastopol in May". Officer Mikhailov is walking around the city and recalls a letter from his friend. He writes that his wife always reads about everything that happens in Sevastopol and is very proud of him. Mikhailov has long lacked such communication. He always dreamed of high award and to write about it in newspapers.
Unnoticed, Mikhailov approached the pavilion with music, he wanted to talk with the aristocrats, but did not dare. He aspired to promotion, and communication with common people or the soldiers did not suit him. The officer dared to approach them. They accepted well and even took a walk with him. Mikhailov was happy.
Among the aristocrats were those who did not really want to come under fire - Praskukhin. Mikhailov is in command of a company on the front line, and Praskukhin is asked to carry the order to move. When a battalion moves, the officers try to impress each other. Praskukhin is killed, Mikhailov is wounded in the head, and he refused the infirmary because he wants to distinguish himself. The next day, aristocrats stroll along the boulevard and talk about their heroic deeds. Declares a truce. Russian soldiers and enemy soldiers talk to each other without malice or hatred. But as soon as the white flag is removed, everything starts again.
Conclusion
Tolstoy uncompromisingly condemns the war in Sevastopol Tales. Brief analysis artistic features this cycle comes down to one thing: the author does not want to embellish events, his goal is to portray everything as it really is. The main theme of this cycle is testing the spiritual and moral strength of the nation. The war breaks the usual course of life, the characters and destinies of people, but they not only remain people in inhuman conditions, but are also capable of love for the motherland and heroism.
At the beginning of the story, Tolstoy confronts the reader with contradictions that are insoluble for him. On the one hand, "blood, dirt, suffering and death." On the other hand, there is an atmosphere of some kind of revival that reigns in the besieged city. How can these contradictory facts be reconciled with each other? Tolstoy teaches us to "match", compare, connect with each other different impressions of being. At first, he shows the newcomer "a furshtat soldier who leads some bay troika to drink ... just as calmly and self-confidently and indifferently, as if all this were happening somewhere in Tula or Saransk."
Then Tolstoy notices the manifestation of this low-key, folk heroism in its origins "and on the face of this officer, who, in impeccably white gloves, passes by, and in the face of a sailor who smokes, sitting on the barricade, and in the face of working soldiers, with a stretcher waiting on the porch of the former Assembly", turned into a hospital. What feeds on this everyday, everyday heroism of the defenders of the city? Tolstoy is not in a hurry to explain, he makes you look at what is happening around. Here he offers to enter the hospital: "Do not believe the feeling that keeps you on the threshold of the hall - this is a bad feeling - go ahead, do not be ashamed that you seem to have come to look at the sufferers, do not be ashamed to come up and talk to them .. What bad feeling of shame is Tolstoy talking about?
This is a feeling from a world where sympathy humiliates, and compassion offends the painfully developed self-esteem of a person, this feeling of noble living rooms and aristocratic salons, which is completely out of place here. The author encourages the interlocutor to open, cordial communication, which awakens in the defense participants the atmosphere people's war. Here the emaciated soldier watches us "with a good-natured look, and as if inviting us to approach him." There is something family, folk in the style of those relations that were established in December Sevastopol. And as the hero enters this world, he is freed from selfishness and vanity. Tolstoy leads the reader to understand the main reason for the heroism of the participants in the defense: "... This reason is a feeling that rarely manifests itself, bashful in Russian, but lies in the depths of the soul everyone is love to the motherland."
"Sevastopol in December", like "Childhood" in the previous trilogy, is the grain of "Sevastopol Tales": it captures that ideal, that moral height, from the top of which the events of the next two (*95) stories are evaluated. Plot motives"Sevastopol in December" is repeatedly repeated in "Sevastopol in May" and "Sevastopol in August": overall plan, visiting the hospital, the road to the fourth bastion, staying at the forefront of defense. In the second story, Tolstoy once again takes his aristocratic heroes through these circles to emphasize the dramatic change in the mood and behavior of the leaders at the second stage of the Sevastopol defense.
In the first story, the hero overcomes the fear of death, not withdrawing into himself, but opening himself up to the world. He speaks to the wounded, looks closely at the soldier who runs past with a laugh. And as the feeling of solidarity with the ordinary defenders of the city involuntarily straightens his chest, the painful feeling of loneliness disappears. He sees that everyone is walking along the road of death, that soldiers and sailors smoke pipes under bombs, play cards, change shoes, eat - live.
He finally feels "the latent warmth of patriotism"; uniting these people in moments of national testing, and rises above his egoistic "I" into another dimension life values where in the foreground, conquering death, there is a feeling of love for the motherland, for Russia. Tolstoy's historicism artistic vision life in the second story appeared as in the image individual heroes, and in creating a holistic image of the Sevastopol garrison and - more broadly - the war itself. The story "Sevastopol in May" marks a new phase of this war, which did not justify hopes for the unity of the nation. Vanity, and not patriotism, turned out to be the decisive stimulus for behavior in the circle of people in power, working in the headquarters of armies and regiments. And Tolstoy mercilessly condemns such a war, which, for the sake of crosses, awards, for the sake of promotions, requires more and more victims, more and more coffins and linen covers. Having a sacred, patriotic meaning in the first period of defense, when Kornilov was still remembered and Nakhimov, beloved by the people, lived, the war more and more lost this meaning, as careerist considerations and vain impulses of the "little Napoleons" came to the fore in it.
In Sevastopol Tales, for the first time in Tolstoy's work, the "Napoleonic theme" appears. shows that the officer elite does not stand the test of war, that in the behavior of aristocratic officers, egoistic, caste motives by May 1855 prevailed over other patriotic motives.
Instead of uniting the nation, a whole group of people who headed the state and the army separated themselves from higher values the life of the world, the guardian of which was a simple soldier. It is no coincidence that the heroes of "Sevastopol in August" are people who are not well-born, belonging to the petty and middle nobility: by August 1855, the flight of aristocrats and staff officers from Sevastopol under any pretexts became a mass phenomenon. The time before the last enemy assault on the strongholds of Sevastopol sorted people in its own way.
In the critical moments for Russia between different groups mutual estrangement grows within the officer circle. If the staff captain Mikhailov was still drawn to the aristocrats, then they are deeply unsympathetic to Mikhail Kozeltsov. The course of events forces Mikhail Kozeltsov to renounce the officer elite, accept popular point view of life, listen to the opinion of ordinary participants in the defense. "Sevastopol in August" is a kind of return to "Sevastopol in December". But only in August, only a few from the officer class turn out to be with the people, which gives the final story a tragic optimism. Sevastopol fell, but the Russian people emerged from it spiritually undefeated. "Almost every soldier, looking from the North side at the remaining Sevastopol, sighed with inexpressible bitterness in his heart and threatened his enemies."
