In the poem by N.A. Nekrasov, unlike the peasants, the landowners do not cause sympathy. They are negative and unpleasant. The image of the landlords in the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" is collective. The poet's talent was clearly manifested in his ability to see in individual terms the general characters of the entire social stratum of Russia.
Landlords of the Nekrasov poem
The author introduces readers to the images of landlord Rus', serf and free. Their attitude towards the common people is indignant. The lady loves to flog men who inadvertently utter words familiar to them - swear words for literate gentlemen. The landowner seems to be a little kinder than Polivanov, who, having bought the village, "freezes" and barges in it "in a terrible way."
Fate laughed at the cruel landowner. The master pays his faithful servant with ingratitude. Jacob says goodbye to life before his eyes. Polivanov drives away wolves and birds all night, trying to save his life and not go crazy with fear. Why did faithful Yakov punish Polivanov so? The master sends the servant's nephew to serve, not wanting to marry him to a girl who himself liked. Sick, practically motionless (legs failed), he still hopes to take away what he liked from the peasants. There is no feeling of gratitude in the master's soul. A servant taught him and revealed the sinfulness of his actions, but only at the cost of his life.
Obolt-Obolduev
Barin Gavrila Afanasyevich already outwardly resembles the images of the landowners of all Rus': round, mustachioed, pot-bellied, ruddy. The author uses in the description diminutive suffixes with a disparaging caressing pronunciation - -enk and others. But the description does not change. A cigar, a C grade, sweetness does not cause tenderness. There is a sharply opposite attitude towards the character. I want to turn around and walk past. The landowner does not evoke pity. The master tries to behave valiantly, but he fails. Seeing wanderers on the road, Gavrila Afanasyevich was frightened. The peasants, who received liberty, did not deny themselves the desire to avenge many years of humiliation. He pulls out a pistol. The weapon in the hands of the landowner becomes a toy, not real.
Obolt-Obolduev is proud of his origin, but the author also doubts it. For which he received the title and power: the ancestor entertained the queen by playing with a bear. Another progenitor was executed for trying to burn the capital and rob the treasury. The landowner is accustomed to comfort. He is not yet accustomed to the fact that he is not served. Talking about his happiness, he asks the peasants for a pillow for comfort, a carpet for comfort, a glass of sherry for mood. The continuous holiday of the landowner with many servants is a thing of the past. Dog hunting, Russian fun pleased the lordly spirit. Obolduev was pleased with the power he possessed. I liked hitting men. Vivid epithets are selected by Nekrasov for the “blows” of Gavrila Afanasyevich:
- Sparkling;
- Furious;
- Cheekbones.
Such metaphors do not agree with the stories of the landowner. He claimed that he took care of the peasants, loved them, treated them on holidays. It’s a pity for Obolduev of the past: who will pardon a peasant if you can’t beat him. The connection between the lordly stratum and the peasant was broken. The landowner believes that both sides suffered, but it is felt that neither the wanderers nor the author support his words. The landowner's economy is in decline. He has no idea how to restore his former state, because he cannot work. Obolt's words sound bitter:
“I smoked the sky of God, wore the royal livery, littered the people’s treasury and thought to live like this for a century ...”
The landowner, nicknamed the Last
A prince with a telling surname, which the poet loves, Utyatin, who became the Last among the people, is the last landowner of the described system. During his "reign" beloved serfdom was abolished. The prince did not believe in this, he was struck with anger. The cruel and stingy old man kept his relatives in fear. The heirs of the peasants were persuaded to pretend and lead their former way of life when the landowner was nearby. They promised the peasants land. The peasants fell for false promises. The peasants played their part, but they were deceived, which surprised no one: neither the author nor the wanderers.
The appearance of the landowner is the second type of gentleman in Rus'. A frail old man, as thin as a hare in winter. There are signs of predators in appearance: a hawkish sharp nose, long mustaches, a sharp look. The appearance of such a dangerous master of life hidden under a soft mask, cruel and stingy. The petty tyrant, having learned that the peasants were "returned to the landowners," is fooling more than ever. The whims of the master are surprising: playing the violin on horseback, bathing in an ice hole, marrying a 70-year-old widow to a 6-year-old boy, forcing the cows to be silent and not lowing, instead of a dog, he puts a wretched deaf-mute as a watchman.
The prince dies happy, he never found out about the abolition of the right.
One can recognize the author's irony in the image of each landowner. But this is laughter through tears. The grief that the rich fools and the ignorant peasantry have poured into them will last more than one century. Not everyone will be able to rise from their knees and use their will. Not everyone will understand what to do with it. Many men will regret the nobility, the philosophy of serfdom has entered their brains so firmly. The author believes: Rus' will rise from sleep, rise, and happy people will fill Russia.
Definitely bad characters. Nekrasov describes various perverted relations between landowners and serfs. The young lady, who whipped the peasants for swearing, seems kind and affectionate compared to the landowner Polivanov. He bought a village for bribes, in it he “freed himself, drank, drank bitter”, was greedy and stingy. The faithful serf Yakov took care of the master, even when his legs were taken away. But the master shaved his only nephew Yakov into a soldier, seduced by his bride.
Separate chapters are devoted to two landowners.
Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev.
Portrait
To describe the landowner, Nekrasov uses diminutive suffixes and speaks of him with disdain: a round gentleman, mustachioed and pot-bellied, ruddy. He has a cigar in his mouth, and he carries a C grade. In general, the image of the landowner is sugary and not formidable at all. He is middle-aged (sixty years old), "dignified, stocky", with a long gray mustache and valiant gimmicks. The contrast of tall men and a squat gentleman should make the reader smile.
Character
The landowner was frightened by the seven peasants and drew a pistol as plump as himself. The fact that the landowner is afraid of the peasants is typical of the time of writing this chapter of the poem (1865), because the peasants who received the release were happy to take revenge on the landowners if possible.
The landowner boasts of his "noble" origin, described with sarcasm. He says that Obolt Obolduev is a Tatar who entertained the queen with a bear two and a half centuries ago. Another of his maternal ancestor, three hundred years ago, tried to set fire to Moscow and rob the treasury, for which he was executed.
Lifestyle
Obolt-Obolduev cannot imagine his life without comfort. Even talking with the peasants, he asks the servant for a glass of sherry, a pillow and a carpet.
The landowner recalls with nostalgia the old days (before the abolition of serfdom), when all nature, peasants, fields and forests worshiped the master and belonged to him. Noble houses argued in beauty with churches. The life of the landowner was a continuous holiday. The landowner kept many servants. In the autumn he was engaged in dog hunting - primordially Russian fun. During the hunt, the landowner's chest breathed freely and easily, "the spirit was transferred to the old Russian orders."
Obolt-Obolduev describes the order of the landowner's life as the absolute power of the landowner over the serfs: "There is no contradiction in anyone, whom I want - I will have mercy, whom I want - I will execute." The landowner can indiscriminately beat the serfs (the word hit repeats three times, there are three metaphorical epithets to it: sparkling, furious, cheekbones). At the same time, the landowner claims that he punished lovingly, that he took care of the peasants, set tables for them in the landowner's house on a holiday.
The landowner considers the abolition of serfdom to be similar to breaking the great chain that binds the lords and the peasants: “Now we don’t beat the peasant, but we don’t have paternal mercy on him either.” The estates of the landowners have been dismantled brick by brick, the forests have been cut down, the peasants are robbing. The economy also fell into decay: "The fields are unfinished, the crops are not sown, there is no trace of order!" The landowner does not want to work on the land, and what his purpose is, he no longer understands: “I smoked the sky of God, wore the royal livery, littered the treasury of the people and thought to live like this for a century ...”
Last
So the peasants called their last landowner, Prince Utyatin, under whom serfdom was abolished. This landowner did not believe in the abolition of serfdom and became so angry that he had a stroke.
Fearing that the old man would deprive him of his inheritance, his relatives told him that they had ordered the peasants to be returned to the landowners, and they themselves asked the peasants to play this role.
Portrait
The latter is an old old man, thin as hares in winter, white, with a beak like a hawk's nose, long gray mustaches. Seriously ill, he combines the helplessness of a weak hare and the ambition of a hawk.
Character traits
The last petty tyrant, "fools in the old way", because of his whims, both his family and the peasants suffer. For example, I had to spread a ready stack of dry hay just because the old man thought it was wet.
The landowner Prince Utyatin is arrogant, he believes that the nobles have betrayed their age-old rights. His white cap is a sign of the landowner's power.
Utyatin never valued the lives of his serfs: he bathed them in an ice-hole, forced them to play the violin on horseback.
In his old age, the landowner began to demand even greater nonsense: he ordered to marry a six-year-old to a seventy-year-old, to appease the cows so that they would not moo, instead of a dog, appoint a deaf-mute fool as a watchman.
Unlike Obolduev, Utyatin does not find out about his changed status and dies, "as he lived, as a landowner."
- The image of Saveliy in Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'"
- The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov in Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'"
- The image of Matryona in the poem "To whom in Rus' it is good to live"
It would be wrong to say that every meeting makes heroes. poems "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" wiser. So, meeting the "round gentleman" - landowner Obolt-Obolduev, the peasants are talking the same way:
Tell us godly
Is the landowner's life sweet?
You are like - at ease, happily,
Do you live as a landowner?
The behavior and reaction of the wanderers to the story of the landowner testifies to how difficult the process of real liberation - already moral - of the Russian peasants is going: their timidity in front of the landowner, their unwillingness to sit in his presence - all these details add up to the characteristics of the "village Russian people" who are accustomed to that they are people of the "low kind".
In essence, the entire chapter is a "master's measure" - here the opinion of the landowner about the landlord class and the peasants is mainly presented. And at the same time, the peasants are not silent witnesses of the story: not daring to object to the landowner, they are free in their thoughts. And these thoughts make it possible to compare the "master's measure" with the "peasant's measure", to see the reverse side of the idyllic life of landowners and peasants under serfdom, as depicted by Obolt-Obolduev, and at the same time comprehend the peasant soul.
The head reveals the abyss that has developed over the years of slavery: the landowner and the peasants speak different languages, they perceive the same event in different ways. What the landowner considers "good" for the peasant does not seem "happiness" to wanderers. The peasants and the landowner have different understandings and “honor”, which opens up the conversation about the genealogy. It is no coincidence that the author begins a conversation about the "happiness" of the landowner with the history of his family. The history of the ancestors of Obolt-Obolduev reveals, with all the satirical sharpening, the real features of Russian life: the arbiters of the destinies of the peasants received the nobility for the ability to amuse the Russian sovereign. "Honor" for the landowner is the antiquity of the family, and not his true merits before the state, before the people.
Listening to the idyllic story of the landlord about the past "prosperity", the peasants perceive this "prosperity" in their own way, especially when the story concerns the "patrimony". They do not argue with the landowner, they do not object to him. But the thoughts of the peasants conveyed by the author reveal the true meaning of the “idyll”, behind which are all the same humiliations of the peasants and violence against their souls. Thus, when a landowner paints a picture of the "spiritual kinship" between landlords and peasants who prayed together in the master's house during "every revered twelfth holiday," the peasants, agreeing aloud, are perplexed to themselves:
"Kolom knocked them down, or something, you
Pray in the manor's house? .. "
What constituted the "happiness" of the landowner in his recent life? The first thing the landowner is so proud of, what he calls “honor,” is the humility of the peasants and even nature itself:
Will you go to the village -
Peasants fall at their feet
You will go forest cottages -
centennial trees
The forests will bow!
His story really convinces: "he lived like in Christ's bosom": holidays, hunting, free and idle life made up the "happy" life of the landowners. But the people were “happy” too, the landowner assures. His "happiness", as Obolt-Obolduev believes, consisted in the caress of the landowner, in pleasing the landowner. Recalling the recent past, when he was the undivided owner of the patrimony (“There is no contradiction in anyone, / I will have mercy on whom I want, / I will execute whom I want. / The law is my desire! / The fist is my police!<...>”), he is sincerely convinced that before he “lived well” with his “patrimony”.
But the "master's measure" does not coincide with the peasant's. Agreeing that the "life" of the landowner was indeed enviable, the wandering peasants listen very skeptically to his stories about the "happiness" of the patrimony. It is no coincidence that in response to Obolt-Obolduev’s question: “So, benefactors, / I lived with my patrimony, / Isn’t it really good? ..”, the peasants in their answer recognize only the landowner’s life as “good”: landlords, / Life is enviable, / No need to die!
However, the current misfortunes of the landowner do not seem to the wanderers either far-fetched or ridiculous. Behind the complaints of the landowner, a very important problem of Russian life really arises. Entire generations of the Russian nobility, who lived at the expense of someone else's, gratuitous labor, turned out to be absolutely incapable of a different life. Having remained the owners of the land, but having lost free laborers, they perceive the land belonging to them not as a mother-nurse, but as a “stepmother”. Labor is incompatible for them with "delicate feelings" and "pride". To paraphrase Nekrasov, we can say that "the habit is strong even over the landowner" - the habit of an idle life. And therefore, the reproaches to the organizers of the reform, sounding from the lips of the landowner, are not so much ridiculous as full of drama - behind them is a certain attitude to life that has been formed over the centuries:
And if indeed
We misunderstood our duty
And our purpose
Not that the name is ancient,
Dignity of nobility
Keep up the hunt
Feasts, every luxury
And live by your work
It should have been so before
Say... What did I study?
It is no coincidence that in the center of the chapter there is a symbolic picture of a funeral bell ringing. The landowner perceives the funeral knell for the deceased peasant as a farewell to the landowner's life: “They call not for the peasant! / Through the life of a landowner / They call! .. Oh, life is wide! / Sorry - goodbye forever! / Farewell to landlord Rus'! And, importantly, the peasants also recognize this drama of the landowner: the chapter ends with their thoughts about the general trouble:
The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..
The poem was supposed to lead the reader to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible only without the Obolt-Obolduevs and the Utyatins, when the people become the true master of their lives. Nekrasov defined in the words of the peasants the main content of the era, that post-reform time, which is depicted in his poem: The great chain broke, It broke - it jumped: One end hit the gentleman, The other - the peasant! ..
The writer puts the point of view of the peasant as the basis for characterizing the landowners. Here the peasants met Obolt-Obolduev. Already the name of the landowner attracts our attention with its pointedness. According to Dahl's dictionary, stunned meant: "Ignorant, uncouth fool" . Hero is 60 years old. He radiates with health, he has “valiant gimmicks”, a broad nature (passionate love for earthly joys, for her joys). He is a good family man, not a tyrant. Nekrasov portrays his negative features (“the fist is my police”, “whoever I want, I will execute”) as class qualities. Everything good that the landowner boasts of depreciates, acquires a different meaning.
The mocking, hostile attitude that arose between the peasants and the landowner is a sign of class discord. When meeting with the peasants, the landowner grabs his pistol. Obolt-Obolduev refers to his word of honor of the nobility, and the peasants declare: “No, you are not noble to us, noble with a scolding, with a push and with a dent, it is unsuitable for us!”.
The nobleman still revels in the "family tree", is proud of his father, who grew up in a family close to the royal family. And the peasants oppose the concept of “family tree” with the everyday, humorous: “We saw any tree.” The solemn story of the landowner about the "good" life is interrupted by an unexpectedly terrible picture. In Kuzminsky they buried the victim of a drunken revelry - a peasant. The wanderers did not condemn, but wished: "Peace to the peasant and the kingdom of heaven." Obolt-Obolduev took the death knell differently: “They are not ringing for a peasant! They call for landlord life! He lives in a tragic time for his class. He has no spiritual, social relationship with the breadwinner. The great chain broke, and “... the peasant is sitting - he won’t move, not noble pride - you feel bile in your chest. In the forest, it’s not a hunting horn, it sounds like a robber’s ax.
Chapter "Last Child" peasants continue to be connoisseurs of events. Wanderers on the Volga saw an unusual picture: the "free" people agreed to play "comedy" in front of the prince, who believed that serfdom had been returned. It is the hoax, the farce of the situation that helps the poet to discover the failure of old relationships, to punish the past with laughter, which still lives and hopes, despite internal bankruptcy, to be restored. The emasculation of the Last One stands out especially expressively against the backdrop of a healthy Vakhlat world.
In the characterization of Prince Utyatin, the question of the further decline of the landlord class acquires a special meaning. Nekrasov emphasizes the physical flabbiness and moral impoverishment of the landowner. The "last child" is not only a feeble old man, he is a degenerate type. The writer brings his image to the grotesque. The old man who has gone out of his mind amuses himself with amusements, lives in the world of ideas of "untouched" feudalism. Family members create artificial serfdom for him, and he swaggers over the slaves. His anecdotal orders (on the marriage of an old widow to a six-year-old boy, on the punishment of the owner of an “irrespectful” dog that barked at the master), with all their seeming exclusivity, create a real idea that tyranny is limitless in its absurdity and can only exist under conditions of serfdom.
The image of the Afterlife becomes a symbol of death, a symbol of extreme forms of expression of serfdom. People hate him and his kind. Despising, the peasants realized: maybe it’s more profitable to endure, “to keep quiet until the death of the old man.” The sons of Utyatin, afraid of losing their inheritance, persuade the peasants to play a stupid and humiliating comedy, pretending that the feudal order is alive.
The greatest pleasure is given to Utyatin by the cries of the peasants, who are subjected to excruciating tortures for the slightest "offense". Nekrasov mercilessly exposes all the inhumanity and moral ugliness of this "last child" of feudal times.
Peasant hatred for the landowner, for the master, was also reflected in those proverbs with which the peasants characterize the master landowner. Headman Vlas says: Praise the grass in a haystack, And the master - in a coffin!
The landlords in the poem are depicted satirically. This is expressed in their portrait and speech characteristics. They always treated their peasants cruelly and arrogantly, despising the working people and leading a parasitic way of life. The only exception is the image of the good governor Elena Alexandrovna. With bitter irony, the author portrays both the landowners themselves, suffering from the abolition of serfdom, and their faithful serfs, accustomed to patience, humility and humiliation, incapable of open protest and struggle for their liberation.
The poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” was written by Nekrasov in the post-reform era, when the landlord essence of the reform became clear, which doomed the peasants to ruin and new bondage. The main, key idea of the poem is the idea of the inevitability of the collapse of the unjust and cruel autocratic-feudal system. The poem was supposed to lead the reader to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible only without the Obolt-Obolduevs and the Utyatins, when the people become the true master of their lives. Nekrasov defined the main content of the reform in the words of the peasants:
The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others - for a man! ..
In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus',” Nekrasov showed two worlds - the world of masters, landowners and the world of the peasantry. The writer puts the point of view of the peasant as the basis for characterizing the landowners.
One of them is Obolt-Obolduev. Already the name of the landowner is a peculiar characteristic. According to Dahl's dictionary, stunned meant: "an ignorant, uncouth blockhead." Obolt-Obolduev embodies the typical features of the feudal lords. Hero is 60 years old. He radiates with health, he has "valiant tricks", he is distinguished by a passionate love for earthly joys, for her pleasures. He is a good family man, not a tyrant. Nekrasov depicts his negative features (“the fist is my police”, “whoever I want, I will execute”) as class features of the feudal landlords. Everything that the landowner boasts of depreciates, acquires a different meaning. The mocking, hostile attitude that arose between the peasants and the landowner is a sign of class discord. When meeting with the peasants, the landowner grabs his pistol. Obolt-Obolduev refers to his word of honor of the nobility, and the peasants declare: “No, you are not noble to us, noble with a scolding, with a push and with a dent, it is unsuitable for us!”. Obolt-Obolduev treats the liberation of the peasants with mockery, and the peasants speak to him in an independent tone. Two worlds of interests, two irreconcilable camps are in a state of unrelenting struggle and "calibrate" their forces. The nobleman still revels in the "family tree", is proud of his father, who grew up in a family close to the royal family. And the peasants oppose the concept of “family tree” with the everyday, humorous: “We saw any tree.” The writer constructs a dialogue between the peasants and the landlords in such a way that the reader's understanding of the people's attitude towards the nobility becomes extremely clear. As a result of the conversation, the men understood the main thing: what does “the bone is white, the bone is black” and how much “they are different and respected”. The master’s words: “A man loved me” - they contrast the serfs’ stories “about their difficult crafts, alien sides, about St. Petersburg, about Astrakhan, about Kiev, about Kazan”, where the “benefactor” sent the peasants to work and from where “over the , eggs and living creatures, everything that was collected for the landowner from time immemorial, voluntary peasants brought us gifts! The solemn story of the landowner about the "good" life is interrupted by an unexpectedly terrible picture. In Kuzminsky they buried the victim of a drunken revelry - a peasant. The wanderers did not condemn, but wished: "Peace to the peasant and the kingdom of heaven." Obolt-Obolduev took the death knell differently: “They are not ringing for a peasant! They call for landlord life! He lives in a tragic time for his class. He has no spiritual, social relationship with the breadwinner. The great chain broke, and “... the peasant is sitting - he won’t move, not noble pride - you feel bile in your chest. In the forest, it’s not a hunting horn, it sounds like a robber’s ax.
Peasants continue to be connoisseurs of events in the chapter "the last one". Wanderers on the Volga saw an unusual picture: the “free” people agreed to play “comedy” with the prince, who believed that serfdom had been returned. It is the joke that helps the poet to discover the failure of old relationships, to punish the past with laughter, which still lives and hopes, despite internal bankruptcy, to be restored. The emasculation of the Last One stands out especially expressively against the backdrop of a healthy Vakhlat world. In the characterization of Prince Utyatin, the question of the further decline of the landlord class acquires a special meaning. Nekrasov emphasizes the physical flabbiness and moral impoverishment of the landowner. "The latter is not only a feeble old man, he is a degenerate type." The writer brings his image to the grotesque. The old man who has gone out of his mind amuses himself with amusements, lives in the world of ideas of "untouched" feudalism. Family members create artificial serfdom for him, and he swaggers over the slaves. His anecdotal orders (on the marriage of an old widow to a six-year-old boy, on the punishment of the owner of an “irrespectful” dog that barked at the master), with all their seeming exclusivity, create a real idea that tyranny is limitless in its absurdity and can only exist under conditions of serfdom.
The image of the Afterlife becomes a symbol of death, a symbol of extreme forms of expression of serfdom.
People hate him and his kind. Despising, the peasants realized: maybe it’s more profitable to endure, “to keep quiet until the death of the old man.” The sons of Utyatin, afraid of losing their inheritance, persuade the peasants to play a stupid and humiliating comedy, pretending that the feudal system is alive. Nekrasov mercilessly exposes all the inhumanity and moral ugliness of this "last child" of feudal times. Peasant hatred for the landowner, for the master, was also reflected in those proverbs with which the peasants characterize the master landowner. Starosta Vlas says:
Praise the grass in a haystack
And the master is in the coffin!
More difficult and at the same time somehow simpler than Obolt-Obolduev and Prince Utyatin, the Shalashnikovs, father and son, as well as their manager, the German Vogel, spoke to the peasants. Matryona Timofeevna tells about them from the words of the Holy Russian hero Saveliy. Vogel acts before us. If Shalashnikov, according to Saveliy, beat the peasants out of quitrent, then the German Vogel “until he let him go around the world, without leaving, he sucks!” Nekrasov deepens the characterization of the nobility and forms of slavery. The Shalashnikovs are Russian serf-owners. The son can give orders: forgive Fyodor's "underage shepherd", and "probably punish" Matryona Timofeevna. But serfdom in the hands of a German is an unbearable thing. The German, “slowly, sawed,” sawed every day, without getting tired and without letting the hungry peasants take a break from overwork. In the third part of the poem - "Peasant Woman" Nekrasov contrasted the triumphant despotism of the landowners with the heroism of the people, introduced us to a number of representatives from the peasants, pointed out the weaknesses that are the reason that the victory has not yet come. Two new representatives of the people are depicted in close-up - Matryona Korchagina and grandfather Savely. In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus',” Nekrasov resolutely advocates a conscious and active struggle against landlord arbitrariness, for retribution against the oppressors. This was reflected in the new, democratic humanism of the poet, who denied the possibility of "reconciliation" and demanded vengeance for the crimes of the ruling classes.
In search of people's happiness
Not eternal care
Nor the yoke of long slavery,
Not a tavern by ourselves
More Russian people
Limits not set
Before him is a wide path.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, stern,
Eyelashes are the richest
Stern and swarthy.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This an image that is also associated with Nekrasov's idea of a perfect man. But here the poet's dream of a perfect life joins this. At the same time, the poet's ideal acquires modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a raznochinets by origin, the son of an "unrequited laborer," had to go through a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now it's over.
What will live for happiness
... The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
In search of people's happiness
Nekrasov's high ideas about a perfect life and a perfect person made him write a great poem "Who in Rus' should live well." Nekrasov worked on this work for many years. The poet gave part of his soul to this poem, putting into it his thoughts about Russian life and its problems.
The journey of the seven wanderers in the poem is a search for a beautiful person who lives happily. At least, this is an attempt to find one in their long-suffering land. It seems to me that it is difficult to understand Nekrasov's poem without understanding Nekrasov's ideal, which is somewhat close to the peasant's ideal, although it is much broader and deeper.
A particle of the Nekrasov ideal is already visible in the seven wanderers. Of course, in many ways they are still dark people, deprived of correct ideas about the life of the "tops" and "bottoms" of society. Therefore, some of them think that an official should be happy, others - a priest, a "fat-bellied merchant", a landowner, a tsar. And for a long time they will stubbornly adhere to these views, defending them, until life brings clarity. But what sweet, kind men they are, what innocence and humor shine on their faces! These are eccentric people, or rather, with an eccentric. Later, Vlas will tell them this: "We are strange enough, and you are more wonderful than us!"
Wanderers hope to find a corner of paradise on their land - Untouched province, Undisturbed volost, Redundant village. Naive, of course, desire. But that's why they are people with a weirdo, to want, to go and look. In addition, they are truth-seekers, one of the first in Russian literature. It is very important for them to get to the bottom of the meaning of life, to the essence of what happiness is. Nekrasov greatly appreciates this quality among his peasants. Seven men are desperate debaters, they often "shout - they won't come to their senses." But it is precisely the dispute that pushes them forward along the road of boundless Russia. "They care about everything" - everything that they see, they wind it on their mustache, they notice it.
Tenderly and lovingly wanderers relate to the nature around them. They are sensitive and attentive to herbs, bushes, trees, flowers, they can understand animals and birds and talk to them. Turning to the bird, Pahom says: "Give us your wings. We will fly around the whole kingdom." Each of the wanderers has its own character, its own view of things, its own face, and at the same time, together they represent something soldered, united, inseparable. They often even speak in unison. This image is beautiful, it’s not for nothing that the sacred number seven unites the peasants.
Nekrasov in his poem draws a real sea of \u200b\u200bpeople's life. Here are beggars, and soldiers, and artisans, and coachmen; here is a peasant with rims, and a peasant who overturned a wagon, and a drunken woman, and a bear hunter; here are Vavilushka, Olenushka, Parashenka, Trofim, Fedosey, Proshka, Vlas, Klim Lavin, Ipat, Terentyeva and many others. Without closing his eyes to the hardships of people's life, Nekrasov shows the poverty and destitution of the peasants, recruitment, exhausting work, lack of rights and exploitation. The poet does not hide the darkness of the peasants, their drunken spree.
But we clearly see that even in slavery the people managed to save their living soul, their golden heart. The author of the poem conveys diligence, responsiveness to other people's suffering, spiritual nobility, kindness, self-esteem, daring and gaiety, moral purity, characteristic of a peasant. Nekrasov claims that "good soil is the soul of the Russian people." It is hard to forget how the widow Efrosinya selflessly takes care of the sick during cholera / how the peasants help Vavila and the disabled soldier with "work, bread". In various ways, the author reveals the "gold of the people's heart", as it is said in the song "Rus".
The craving for beauty is one of the manifestations of the spiritual wealth of the Russian people. The episode when, during a fire, Yakim Nagoi saves not the money he collected with such difficulty, but the pictures he loved so much, has a deep meaning. I also remember the peasant singer, who had a very beautiful voice, with which he "captivated the hearts of the people." That is why Nekrasov so often, speaking of peasants, uses nouns with endearing suffixes: an old woman, soldiers, children, a clearing, a path. He is convinced that neither the burdensome "work"
Not eternal care
Nor the yoke of long slavery,
Not a tavern by ourselves
More Russian people
Limits not set
Before him is a wide path.
The heartfelt anger, which sometimes manifests itself among the peasants in action, in their decisive struggle against the oppressors, is of particular importance for Nekrasov. It shows people full of thirst for social justice. These are Ermil Girin, Vlas, Agap Petrov, the peasants who hate the Last, participating in the rebellion in Stolbnyaki, Kropilnikov, Kudeyar.
Savely occupies an important place among these characters. The poet gives him the features of a hero. They are already evident in the appearance of old Korchagin: with his “great gray mane .., with a huge beard, grandfather looked like a bear.” he went alone on a bear. But the main thing is that he despises slavish obedience and courageously stands for the interests of the people. It is curious that he himself notes heroic traits in a peasant: "The back ... dense forests passed through it - they broke ... !" But sometimes he does not tolerate it. From silent patience, Savely and his friends from Korezhin pass to passive, and then to open, active protest. This is evidenced by the story of the German mocker Vogel. The story is cruel, but its ending is caused by that popular anger, The result was twenty years of penal servitude and lashes, “twenty years of settlement.” But Savely endures and overcomes these ordeals.
Nekrasov glorifies the mighty forces lurking among the people, and the spiritual beauty that this centenary grandfather has preserved. He can be touched at the sight of a squirrel in the forest, admire "every flower", treat his granddaughter, Matryona Timofeevna, tenderly and touchingly. There is something epic in this Nekrasov hero, it is not for nothing that they call him, like Svyatogora, "the hero of the Holy Russian." I would put an epigraph to a separate theme of Saveliy's words: "Branded, but not a slave!"
To the words of the grandfather, his granddaughter Matrena Timofeevna listens to his biography. It seems to me that in her image Nekrasov also embodied some facet of his aesthetic ideal. The spiritual beauty of the national character is captured here. Matryona Korchagina embodies the best, heroic traits inherent in a Russian woman, which she carried through suffering, hardship and trials. Nekrasov attached such great importance to this image, enlarged it so much that he needed to devote a whole third of the poem to it. It seems to me that Matrena Timofeevna absorbed all the best that was planned separately in Troika, and in Orina, the soldier’s mother, and in Daria from the poem Frost, Red Nose. The same impressive beauty, then the same grief, the same unbrokenness.It is hard to forget the appearance of the heroine:
Matryona Timofeevna - Possessive woman,
Wide and dense, Thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, stern,
Eyelashes are the richest
Stern and swarthy.
The confession of her female soul to the wanderers remains in memory, in which she told about how she was intended for happiness, and about her happy moments of life (“I had happiness in girls”), and about the difficult female lot. Narrating the tireless work of Korchagina (shepherding from the age of six, working in the field, behind a spinning wheel, household chores, slave labor in marriage, raising children), Nekrasov reveals another, important side of his aesthetic ideal: like her grandfather Savely, Matrena Timofeevna carried through all the horrors of her life human dignity, nobility and disobedience.
“I carry an angry heart...” - the heroine sums up her long, hard-won story about a sad life. Some kind of majesty and heroic power emanates from her image. No wonder she is from the Korchagin family. But she, like many other people met by wanderers in their wanderings and searches, cannot be called happy.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This is an image with which Nekrasov's idea of a perfect man is also associated. But here the poet's dream of a perfect life joins this. At the same time, the poet's ideal acquires modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a raznochinets by origin, the son of an "unrequited laborer," had to go through a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now it's over.
Grisha's life connected him with work, everyday life, the needs of his fellow countrymen, peasants, and his native Vakhlachina. The peasants help him with food, and he rescues the peasants with his labor. Grisha mows, reaps, sows with the peasants, wanders in the forest with their children, rejoices in peasant songs, peers at the work of artel workers and barge haulers on the Volga:
... fifteen years old Grigory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark native corner.
Being there, "where it is difficult to breathe, where grief is heard," Nekrasov's hero becomes the spokesman for the aspirations of ordinary people. Vakhlachina, “with her blessing, placed such a messenger in Grigory Dobrosklonov.” And for him the share of the people, their happiness become an expression of their own happiness.
With his features, Dobrosklonov resembles Dobrolyubov: origin, surnames, seminary education, general illness - consumption, a penchant for poetic creativity. It can even be considered that the image of Dobrosklonov develops the ideal that is drawn by Nekrasov in the poem "In Memory of Dobrolyubov", a little "lowering him to the ground" and a little "warming" him. Like Dobrolyubov. Fate prepared Grisha
... The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
In the meantime, Grisha wanders in the fields, meadows of the Volga region, absorbing the natural and peasant worlds that open up to the front. He seems to be merged with "high curly birches", just as young, just as bright. It is no coincidence that he writes poetry and songs. This feature of him makes the image of Grisha especially attractive. "Merry", "The share of the people", "In a moment of despondency, oh motherland", "Burlak", "Rus" - in these songs it is easy to hear the main themes: the people and the suffering, but rising to freedom of the Fatherland. In addition, he hears the song of the angel of mercy "among the far world" and goes - according to her call - to "the humiliated and offended." In this he sees his happiness and feels like a harmonious person living a true life. He is one of those sons of Rus', whom she sent "on honest paths", as they are marked with the "seal of the gift of God."
Gregory is not afraid of the upcoming trials, because he believes in the triumph of the cause to which he devoted his whole life. He sees that the people of many millions themselves are awakening to struggle.
The army rises innumerable,
The power in it will be indestructible!
This thought fills his soul with joy and confidence in victory. The poem shows what a strong effect the words of Gregory have on the peasants and on the seven wanderers, what they infect with faith in the future, in happiness for all of Rus'. Grigory Dobrosklonov - the future leader of the peasantry, the spokesman for his anger and reason.
Our wanderers would howl under their native roof,
If only they could know what happened to Grisha.
He heard immense strength in his chest,
Gracious sounds delighted his ears,
Sounds of the radiant hymn of the noble -
He sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people.
Nekrasov offers his own solution to the question of how to unite the peasantry and the Russian intelligentsia. Only the joint efforts of the revolutionaries and the people can lead the Russian peasantry onto the broad road of freedom and happiness. In the meantime, the Russian people are only on their way to "a feast for the whole world."
