Analysis of the poem "who lives well in Rus'" by chapters, the composition of the work. Nikolai Nekrasov - who lives well in Rus', but in Rus' it is good to live

Plot lines and their correlation in N. A. Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'"

The plot is the development of the action, the course of events that can follow each other in a work in chronological order (fairy tales, chivalric novels) or grouped in such a way as to help identify its main idea, the main conflict (concentric plot). The plot reflects the life contradictions, clashes and relationships of the characters, the evolution of their characters and behavior.

The plot of “Who should live well in Rus'” is largely due to the genre of the epic poem, which reproduces all the diversity of the life of the people in the post-reform period: their hopes and dramas, holidays and everyday life, episodes and destinies, legends and facts, confessions and rumors, doubts and insights, defeats and overcomings, illusions and reality, past and present. And in this polyphony of folk life, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the voice of the author, who invited the reader to accept the terms of the game and go on an exciting journey with his heroes. The author himself strictly follows the rules of this game, playing the role of a conscientious narrator and imperceptibly directing its course, in general, practically without revealing his adulthood. Only sometimes does he allow himself to discover his true level. This role of the author is due to the intended purpose of the poem - not only to trace the growth of peasant self-consciousness in the post-reform period, but equally to contribute to this process. After all, likening the soul of the people to unplowed virgin soil and calling on the sower, the poet could not help but feel like one of them.

The storyline of the poem - the wanderings of seven temporarily obligated men across the vast expanses of Rus' in search of a happy one - is designed to accomplish this task.

The plot “Who should live well in Rus'” (a necessary element of the plot) is a dispute about the happiness of seven men from adjacent villages with symbolic names (Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyolovo, Neurozhayka). They go in search of a happy one, having received the support of a grateful magic bird. The role of wanderers in the development of the plot is significant and responsible. Their images are devoid of individual outline, as is customary in folklore. We only know their names and passions. So, Roman considers the landowner a happy man, Demyan - an official, Luka - a priest. Ivan and Metrodor Gubin believe that the "fat-bellied merchant" lives freely in Rus', the old man Pakhom - that of a minister, and Prov - that of a tsar.

The Great Reform changed many things in the life of the peasants, but for the most part they were not ready for it. Their concepts weighed down the age-old traditions of slavery, and consciousness was just beginning to awaken, as evidenced by the dispute between the peasants in the poem.

Nekrasov understood very well that the happiness of the people largely depends on how much he will be able to realize his place in life. It is curious that the initial plot outlined in the dispute turns out to be false: of the alleged “lucky ones”, the peasants talk only with the priest and the landowner, refusing other meetings. The fact is that at this stage the possibility of muzhik happiness does not even enter their heads. Yes, and this very concept is associated with them only with the absence of what every hour makes them, the peasants, unhappy - hunger, exhausting work, dependence on all sorts of masters.

That is why at the beginning

Beggars, soldiers

Strangers didn't ask

How is it easy for them, is it difficult

Lives in Rus'?

In the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'", in addition to the main plot, which solves the problem of the growth of peasant self-consciousness, there are numerous side storylines. Each of them contributes something significant to the consciousness of the peasants.

The turning point in the development of events in the poem is the meeting of the seven fortune-seekers with the village priest.

The clergy, especially the rural ones, were closer to the common people in the nature of their activities than other ruling classes. Ceremonies associated with the birth of children, weddings, funerals were performed by priests. They possessed the secrets of simple peasant sins and genuine tragedies. Naturally, the best among them could not help but sympathize with the common people, instilling in them love for their neighbor, meekness, patience and faith. It was with such a priest that the men met. He helped them, firstly, to translate their vague ideas of happiness into a clear formula of “peace, wealth, honor”, ​​and secondly, he revealed to them a world of suffering that was not associated with hard work, painful hunger or humiliation. The priest, in essence, translates the concept of happiness into a moral category for the peasants.

The rebuke to Luke, who is called a foolish narrator, is distinguished by rare unanimity and anger:

What did you take? stubborn head!

Rustic club!

There, climb into the dispute!

Bell Nobles -

Priests live like princes.

For the first time, the peasants could think that if a well-fed and free priest suffers like that, then it is possible that a hungry and dependent peasant can be happy. And shouldn't it be more thorough to find out what happiness is before traveling around Rus' in search of a happy one? This is how seven men find themselves at the "country fair" in the rich village of Kuzminsky, with two old churches, with a tightly packed school and

A paramedic's hut with a frightening sign, most importantly, with numerous drinking establishments. The fair polyphony is filled with light, jubilant intonations. The narrator rejoices at the abundance of products of rural masters, the variety of fruits of overwork, unpretentious entertainment, with an experienced hand he makes sketches of peasant characters, types, genre scenes, but sometimes he suddenly seems to forget about his role as a modest narrator, and the mighty figure of the poet-educator stands in front of the readers in full growth :

Eh! Eh! will the time come

When (come desired! ..)

Let the peasant understand

What is a portrait of a portrait,

What is a book a book?

When a man is not Blucher

And not my lord foolish -

Belinsky and Gogol

Will you carry it from the market?

Seven peasants have the opportunity to see how the irresistible people's energy, strength, joy are absorbed by ugly drunkenness. So, maybe it is the cause of misfortunes, and if people get rid of cravings for wine, life will change? They cannot help thinking about this when they encounter Yakim Nagim. The episode with the plowman is of great importance in the formation and development of the peasant identity. Nekrasov endows a simple grain grower with an understanding of the significance of public opinion: Yakim Nagoi snatches a pencil from the hands of the intellectual Pavlusha Veretennikov, who is ready to write down in a book that smart Russian peasants are being destroyed by vodka. He confidently states:

To the master's measure

Don't kill the peasant!

Yakim Nagoi easily establishes causal relationships. It is not vodka that makes the life of a peasant unbearable, but an unbearable life that makes them turn to vodka as their only consolation. He understands well who appropriates the fruits of peasant labor:

You work alone

And a little work is over,

Look, there are three equity holders:

God, king and lord!

The peasants, who previously thoughtlessly agreed with Pavlusha Veretennikov, suddenly agree with Yakim:

Work would not fail

Trouble would not prevail

Hops will not overcome us!

Wanderers after this meeting have the opportunity to realize the class difference in the concept of happiness and hostility to the people of the ruling classes. Now they are thinking more and more about the fate of the peasants and are trying to find

Among them are happy, or rather, it is important for them to identify popular ideas about happiness, to compare them with their own.

“Hey, the happiness of the peasant!

Leaky with patches

Humpbacked with corns,

Get off home!" -

Here is the final opinion of the wanderers about the "muzhik's happiness."

The story of Ermil Girin is an insert episode with an independent plot. The peasant Fedosey from the village of Dymoglotovo tells her happiness-seekers, not without reason deciding that this “just a peasant” can be called happy. He had everything: "calmness, and money, and honor." A literate man, he was first a clerk under the manager and in this position he managed to win the respect and appreciation of his fellow villagers, helping them in difficult paperwork for them free of charge. Then, under the young prince, he was elected steward.

Yermilo went to reign

Over the whole prince's patrimony,

And he reigned!

At seven years of a worldly penny

Didn't squeeze under the nail

At the age of seven, he did not touch the right one,

Didn't let the guilty

I didn’t bend my heart…

However, the "gray-haired priest" recalled Yermila's "sin" when, instead of his brother Mitriy, he recruited the son of the widow Nenila Vlasyevna. Ermila was tormented by his conscience, he almost committed suicide until he corrected his deed. After this incident, Ermil Girin resigned from the post of headman and acquired a mill, and moreover, no money happened to him when he traded it, and the world helped him to shame the merchant Altynnikov:

Cunning, strong clerks,

And their world is stronger

The merchant Altynnikov is rich,

And he can't resist

Against the worldly treasury...

Girin returned the money and since then has become “more than ever before all the people love” for truth, intelligence and kindness. The author left the seven wanderers to draw many lessons from this story. They could rise to an understanding of the highest happiness, which consisted in serving their class brothers, the people. Peasants

They could think about the fact that only in unity they represent an invincible force. Finally, they should have come to understand that for happiness a person needs to have a clear conscience. However, when the peasants were about to visit Yermil, it turned out that “he is sitting in prison,” because, apparently, he did not want to take the side of the bosses, the offenders of the people. The end of the story of Ermil Girin, the author deliberately does not finish, but he is also instructive. The wandering heroes could understand that for such an impeccable reputation, for such a rare happiness, the unknown peasant Girin had to pay with freedom.

On their long journey, wanderers had to think and learn, as well as readers, however.

They were much more prepared for the meeting with the landowner than for the meeting with the priest. The peasants are ironic and mocking both when the landowner boasts of his genealogical tree, and when he speaks of spiritual kinship with the peasant patrimony. They are well aware of the polarity of their own and the landowners' interests. Perhaps for the first time, the wanderers realized that the abolition of serfdom was a great event that forever left in the past the horrors of landlord arbitrariness and omnipotence. And although the reform, which hit "one end on the master, the other on the peasant", completely deprived them of the "lordly caress", but also called for independence, responsibility for arranging their own lives.

In Nekrasov, the theme of women's fate takes place in his work as an independent, especially significant theme. The poet was well aware that in serf Russia, a woman carried a double oppression, social and family. He makes his wanderers think about the fate of a woman, the ancestor of life, the support and guardian of the family - the basis of people's happiness.

Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina was called lucky by her neighbors. In some ways she was really lucky: she was born and raised in a non-drinking family, married for love, but otherwise went the usual path of a peasant woman. From the age of five she began to work, got married early and drank plenty of grievances, insults, hysterical labor in her husband's family, lost her first-born son and remained a soldier with children. Matryona Timofeevna is familiar with the master's rods and beatings of her husband. Hardworking, talented (“And a kind worker, / And a hunter to sing and dance / I was from a young age”), passionately loving children, family, Matrena Timofeevna did not break under the blows of fate. In lawlessness and humiliation, she found the strength to fight injustice and won, returning her husband from the soldiery. Matrena Timofeevna is the embodiment of the moral strength, intelligence and patience of a Russian woman, selflessness and beauty.

In the bitter hopelessness of the peasant fate, the people, almost by folklore inertia, associated happiness with good luck (Matryona Timofeevna, for example, was helped by the governor), but by this time the wanderers had already seen something and did not believe in a lucky break, so they asked Matryona Timofeevna to lay out their whole soul . And it's hard for them to disagree with her words:

Keys to female happiness

From our free will

abandoned, lost

God himself!

However, the conversation with Matrena Timofeevna turned out to be very important for the seven peasants in determining the paths, roads to the happiness of the people. A large role in this was played by an insert episode with an independent plot about Saveliy, the Holy Russian hero.

Savely grew up in a remote village, separated from the city by dense forests and swamps. The Korezsky peasants were distinguished by their independent disposition, and the landowner Shalashnikov had “not so hot great incomes” from them, although he fought the peasants desperately:

Weak people gave up

And the strong for the patrimony

They stood well.

The manager Vogel, sent by Shalashnikov, tricked the Korean peasants into making a road, and then finally enslaved them:

The German has a dead grip:

Until they let the world go

Without moving away, sucks.

The men did not tolerate violence - they executed the German Vogel by burying him alive in the ground. The seven wanderers are confronted with a difficult question: is violence against oppressors justified? To make it easier for them to answer it, the poet introduces another tragic episode into the plot - the death of the first-born Matryona Timofeevna Demushka, who was killed by pigs due to Savely's oversight. Here the repentance of the old man knows no bounds, he prays, asks for forgiveness from God, goes to the monastery for repentance. The author deliberately emphasizes Savely's religiosity, his compassion for all living things - every flower, every living being. There is a difference in his guilt for the murder of the German Vogel and Demushka. But Savely ultimately does not justify himself and for the murder of the manager, or rather, considers it senseless. It was followed by hard labor, settlement, awareness of wasted power. Savely understands well the hardship of a peasant's life and the righteousness of his anger. He also knows the measure of the potential strength of the "man-hero". However, his conclusion is clear. He says to Matryona Timofeevna:

Be patient, you bastard!

Be patient long-suffering!

We can't find the truth.

The author brings the seven wanderers to the idea of ​​the righteousness of the violent reprisal against the oppressor, and warns against the thoughtlessness of the impulse, which will inevitably be followed by both punishment and repentance, because nothing will change in life from such a single justice.

Wanderers grew wiser during the months of wandering, and the initial thought of a happily living in Rus' was replaced by the thought of people's happiness.

To the elder Vlas from the chapter "Last Child" they talk about the purpose of their journey:

We are looking for, Uncle Vlas,

unworn province,

Not gutted volost,

Surplus village!..

Wanderers think about the universality of happiness (from the province to the village) and mean by it personal inviolability, legal security of property, well-being.

The level of self-awareness of the peasants at this stage is quite high, and now we are talking about ways-incomes to people's happiness. The first obstacle to it in the post-reform years were the remnants of serfdom in the minds of both landowners and peasants. This is discussed in the chapter "Last Child". Here the wanderers get acquainted with the emasculated prince Utyatin, who does not want to recognize the tsarist reform, because his noble arrogance suffers. In order to please the heirs, who were afraid for their inheritance, the peasants, for the promised “poem meadows,” play the “gum” of the former order in front of the landowner. The author does not spare satirical colors, showing their cruel absurdity and obsolescence. But not all peasants agree to submit to the insulting condition of the game. For example, steward Vlas does not want to be a “pea jester”. The plot with Agap Petrov shows that even the most ignorant peasant awakens a sense of dignity - a direct consequence of the reform that cannot be reversed.

The death of the Afterlife is symbolic: it testifies to the final triumph of a new life.

In the final chapter of the poem "A Feast for the Whole World" there are several storylines that take place in numerous songs and legends. One of the main themes raised in them is the theme of sin. The guilt of the ruling classes before the peasants is endless. The song, called "Merry", speaks of the arbitrariness of landowners, officials, even the king, depriving the peasants of their property, destroying their families. “It is glorious to live for the people / Saint in Rus'!” - the refrain of the song, sounding bitter mockery.

Uncombed, “twisted, twisted, cut, tormented” Kalinushka is a typical corvée peasant whose life is written “on his own back”. Growing up "under the snout of the landowner", the corvee peasants especially suffered from their painstaking arbitrariness and stupid prohibitions, for example, the ban on rude words:

We got drunk! really

We celebrated the will

Like a holiday: they cursed so much,

That pop Ivan was offended

For the ringing of bells

Buzzing that day.

The story of the former traveling footman Vikenty Aleksandrovich “About the exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful” is another evidence of the inexorable sin of the autocratic landowner. Mr. Polivanov, with a dark past (“he bought a village with bribes”) and the present (“he went free, drank, drank bitter”), was distinguished by rare cruelty not only in relation to serfs, but even to relatives (“Having married a daughter, a noble husband / Whipped - both drove away naked"). And, of course, he did not spare the “exemplary lackey, faithful Jacob,” whom he “simply blew with his heel” in the teeth.

Jacob is also a product of serfdom, which turned the best moral qualities of the people: fidelity to duty, devotion, selflessness, honesty, diligence - into senseless servility.

Yakov remained devoted to his master, even when he lost his former strength, became decapitated. The landowner seemed to finally appreciate the devotion of the servant, began to call him "friend and brother"! The author invisibly stands behind the narrator, who is called upon to convince the listeners that brotherly relations between master and serf are impossible. Mr. Polivanov forbids his beloved nephew Yakov to marry Arisha, and his uncle's requests do not help. Seeing an opponent in Grisha, the master gives him up as a soldier. Perhaps for the first time, Yakov thought about something, but he managed to tell the master about his wine in only one way - he hung himself over him in the forest.

The theme of sin is vigorously discussed by the feasters. There are as many sinners as there are lucky ones. Here are the landlords, and the tavern-keepers, and the robbers, and the peasants. And the disputes, as in the beginning of the poem, end in a brawl until Iona Lyapushkin, who often visits the Vakhlat side, comes forward with his story.

The author dedicates a special chapter to wanderers and pilgrims who "do not reap, do not sow - feed" throughout Rus'. The narrator does not hide the fact that among them there are many deceivers, hypocrites and even criminals, but there are also true bearers of spirituality, the need for which is so great among the Russian people. She was not destroyed by overwork, nor long slavery, nor even a tavern. The author draws an unpretentious genre scene depicting a family at work in the evening, while the wanderer welcomed by her finishes the "truth of Athos". There is so much trusting attention, warm sympathy, intense fascination on the faces of old people, women, children, that the poet exclaims with tenderness, love and faith:

More Russian people

No limits set:

Before him is a wide path ...

In the mouth of God's pilgrim Jonah, ardently revered by the peasants, the narrator puts the legend "About two great sinners", which he heard in Solovki from Father Pitirim. It is very important for solving the problem of "sin" posed in the poem.

The ataman of the gang of robbers Kudeyar, the murderer, who shed a lot of blood, suddenly repented. To atone for sins, the Lord commanded him to cut down a mighty oak tree with the knife with which he robbed.

Cuts tough wood

Singing glory to the Lord

Years go - moves on

Slowly business forward.

Pan Glukhovsky, the first in that direction, laughed at Kudeyar:

You have to live, old man, in my opinion:

How many slaves I destroy

I torture, I torture, and I hang,

And I would like to see how I sleep.

In a furious rage, the hermit kills Glukhovsky - and a miracle happens:

The tree collapsed, rolled down

From a monk the burden of sins! ..

The seven wanderers had already heard once about Savely, who had committed the sin of murder, and had the opportunity to distinguish the murder of the tormentor Vogel from the accidental death of the infant Demushka. Now they had to understand the difference in the sinfulness of the repentant robber Kudeyar and the convinced executioner and debaucher Glukhovsky, who tortured the peasants. Kudeyar, who executed Pan Glukhovsky, not only did not commit a sin, but was forgiven by God for past sins. This is a new level in the minds of happiness-seekers: they are aware of the possibility of violent actions against the militant executioners of the people - actions that are not opposed to the Christian worldview. "Great noble sin!" - this is the unanimous conclusion of the peasants. But unexpectedly, the sin of the nobility does not exhaust the question of the perpetrators of peasant suffering.

Ignatiy Prokhorov tells a folk ballad about the "widower ammiral" who released eight thousand souls into freedom after his death. The headman Gleb sold the “free” to the heir of the admiral.

God forgives everything, but Judas sin

Doesn't forgive.

Oh man! man! you are the worst of all

And for that you always toil!

The poet was well aware that serfdom not only unleashed the most cruel instincts of the landowners, but disfigured the peasant souls.

The betrayal of fellow peasants is a crime for which there is no forgiveness. And this lesson is learned by our wanderers, who, moreover, had the opportunity to soon be convinced of its effectiveness. Vakhlaks unanimously pounce on Yegorka Shutov, having received an order from the village of Tiskov "to beat him." “If the whole world ordered: / Beat - it’s become, there is something for it,” the headman Vlas says to the wanderers.

Grisha Dobrosklonov sums up the peasant dispute, explaining to the peasants the main reason for the sins of nobles and peasants:

The snake will give birth to kites,

And fasten - the sins of the landowner,

The sin of Jacob, the unfortunate one,

Sin gave birth to Gleb,

Everyone needs to understand, he says, that if “there is no support”, then these sins will no longer exist, that a new time has come.

In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, Nekrasov does not bypass the fate of the soldiers - yesterday's peasants, cut off from the land, from families thrown under bullets and rods, often crippled and forgotten. Such is the tall and extremely skinny soldier Ovsyannikov, on whom hung, as on a pole, "a frock coat with medals." Legless and wounded, he still dreams of receiving a “pension” from the state, but not getting him to St. Petersburg: the iron is expensive. At first, “grandfather was fed by the district committee,” and when the instrument deteriorated, he bought three yellow spoons and began to play them, composing a song for simple music:

Toshen light,

There is no truth

Life is boring

The pain is strong.

The episode about the soldier, the hero of Sevastopol, forced to beg (“Nutka, with Georgy - peace, peace”) is instructive for wanderers and the reader, like all the numerous episodes with independent plots included in the poem.

In the difficult search for ways to peasant happiness, it is necessary for the whole world to show mercy and compassion to the undeservedly destitute and offended by fate.

By order of the headman Vlas, Klim, who had outstanding acting skills, helps the soldier Ovsyannikov receive modest public assistance, spectacularly and convincingly retelling his story to the assembled people. A penny, a penny, money poured into the old soldier's wooden plate.

The new "good time" brings new heroes to the stage, next to whom are seven happiness seekers.

The true hero of the final plot of the poem is Grisha Dobrosklonov. From childhood he knew bitter need. His father, the parish deacon Tryphon, lived "poorer than the last rundown peasant", his mother, the "unrequited laborer" Domna, died early. In the seminary, where Grisha studied with his elder brother Savva, it was "dark, cold, gloomy, strict, hungry." Vakhlaks fed kind and simple guys, who paid them for this with work, handled their affairs in the city.

Grateful "love for all Vakhlachin" makes smart Grisha think about their fate.

... And fifteen years

Gregory already knew for sure

What will live for happiness

Wretched and dark

native corner.

This is Gregory explaining to the Vahlaks that serfdom is the cause of all the sins of the nobility and peasants and that it is forever a thing of the past.

All closer, all the more joyful

Listened to Grisha Prov:

grinned, comrades

"Move on your mustache!"

Prov is one of the seven wanderers, who claimed that the tsar lives best in Rus'.

So the final plot is connected with the main one. Thanks to Grisha's explanations, the wanderers realize the root of evil in Russian life and the meaning of will for the peasants.

Vakhlaks appreciate Grisha's extraordinary mind, they respectfully speak of his intention to go "to Moscow, to the new city".

Grisha carefully studies the life, work, cares and aspirations of peasants, artisans, barge haulers, clergy and "all mysterious Rus'."

The angel of mercy - a fabulous image-symbol that replaced the demon of rage - now hovers over Russia. In his song about two paths, sung over a Russian youth, there is a call to go not the usual torn road for the crowd, - the road full of passions, enmity and sin, but the narrow and difficult road for the chosen and strong souls.

Go to the downtrodden

Go to the offended -

Fate prepared for him

The path is glorious, the name is loud

people's protector,

Consumption and Siberia.

Grisha is a talented poet. It is curious that the song “Veselaya”, apparently composed by him, is called “not folk” by the author: priests and courtyards sang it on holidays, and Vakhlaks only stomped and whistled. The signs of bookishness are obvious in it: the strict logic of constructing verses, the generalized irony of the refrain, the vocabulary:

It's nice to live people

Saint in Rus'!

Wanderers listen to this song, and the other two songs of the poet-citizen remain unheard by them.

The first is riddled with pain for the slave past of the Motherland and hope for happy changes:

Enough! Finished with the last calculation,

Done with sir!

The Russian people gather with strength

And learn to be a citizen.

The concept of citizenship is not yet familiar to wanderers, they still have a lot to understand in life, a lot to learn. Perhaps that is why the author at this stage does not connect them with Grisha - on the contrary, he breeds them. The second song by Grisha, where he speaks of the great contradictions of Rus', is still inaccessible to the understanding of the wanderers, but expresses hope for the awakening of the people's forces, for their readiness to fight:

Rat rises -

Innumerable!

The strength will affect her

Invincible!

Grisha Dobrosklonov experiences joyful satisfaction from life, because a simple and noble goal is clearly indicated for him - the struggle for the happiness of the people.

Would our wanderers be under their native roof,

If they could know what was going on with Grisha - here

Folklore traditions in the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who should live well in Rus'"

N.A. Nekrasov conceived the poem “Who in Rus' should live well as a“ folk book ”. The poet always made sure that his works had "a style appropriate to the theme." The desire to make the poem as accessible as possible to the peasant reader forced the poet to turn to folklore.

Already from the first pages he is greeted by a fairy tale - a genre beloved by the people: a warbler, grateful for the rescued chick, gives the peasants a “self-assembled tablecloth” and takes care of them throughout the journey.

The reader is familiar with the fabulous beginning of the poem:

In what year - count

What year, guess...

And doubly desirable and familiar are the lines promising the fulfillment of the cherished:

At your request

At my command...

The poet uses fairy tale repetitions in the poem. Such, for example, are appeals to the self-assembly tablecloth or a stable characteristic of the peasants, as well as the reason for their dispute. Fairy-tale tricks literally permeate the entire work of Nekrasov, creating a magical atmosphere where space and time are subordinate to the heroes:

Whether they walked for a long time, or for a short time,

Were they close, were they far...

Widely used in the poem are the techniques of the epic epic. The poet likens many images of peasants to real heroes. Such, for example, is Savely, the Holy Russian hero. Yes, and Savely himself refers to the peasants as genuine heroes:

Do you think, Matryonushka,

The man is not a hero?

And life is not for him,

And death is not written for him

In battle - a hero!

“The peasant horde” in epic tones is drawn by Yakim Nagoi. The bricklayer Trofim, who lifted “at least fourteen pounds” of bricks to the second floor, or the stonemason-Olonchanin, look like real heroes. In the songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the vocabulary of the epic epic is used (“The army rises - innumerable!”).

The whole poem is sustained in a fairy tale-colloquial style, where, naturally, there are a lot of phraseological units: “he scattered with his mind”, “almost thirty miles”, “soul hurts”, “dissolved the lyas”, “where did the agility come from”, “suddenly took off, as if by hand ”, “the world is not without good people”, “we will treat you to glory”, “but the thing turned out to be rubbish”, etc.

There are many proverbs and sayings of all kinds in the poem, organically subordinated to poetic rhythms: “Yes, the belly is not a mirror”, “working
the horse eats straw, and the idle dance - oats", "proud pig: scratched on the master's porch", "do not spit on the red-hot iron - it will hiss", "God is high, the king is far", "praise the grass in a haystack, and the master in the coffin", “one is not a bird mill, which, no matter how it flaps its wings, I suppose, will not fly”, “no matter how you suffer from work, you will not be rich, but you will be a hunchback”, “yes, our axes lay for the time being”, “and I would be glad to heaven, but where is the door?

Every now and then, riddles are woven into the text, creating picturesque images of either an echo (without a body, but it lives, without a language - it screams), then snow (it lies silent, when it dies, then it roars), then a lock on the door (Does not bark, does not bites, but does not let into the house), then an ax (all your life you bowed, but you have never been affectionate), then a saw (chews, but does not eat).

More N.V. Gogol noted that the Russian people have always expressed their soul in song.

ON THE. Nekrasov constantly refers to this genre. The songs of Matrena Timofeevna tell "about a silk whip, about her husband's relatives." She is picked up by a peasant choir, which testifies to the ubiquity of the suffering of a woman in the family.

Matrena Timofeevna's favorite song, "A Little Light Stands on the Mountain," is heard by her when she decides to seek justice and return her husband from soldiery. This song tells about the choice of a single lover - the owner of a woman's fate. Its location in the poem is determined by the ideological and thematic content of the episode.

Most of the songs introduced by Nekrasov into the epic reflect the horrors of serfdom.

The hero of the song "Corvee" is the unfortunate Kalinushka, whose "skin is all ripped from the bast shoes to the collar, the stomach swells from the chaff." His only joy is a tavern. Even more terrible is the life of Pankratushka, a completely starving plowman who dreams of a big carpet of bread. Because of the eternal hunger, he lost simple human feelings:

Eat all alone

I manage myself

Whether mother or son

Ask - I will not give / "Hungry" /

The poet never forgets about the heavy soldier's share:

German bullets,

Turkish bullets,

French bullets

Russian sticks.

The main idea of ​​the "Soldier's" song is the ingratitude of the state, which left the crippled and sick defenders of the fatherland to the mercy of fate.

Bitter times gave birth to bitter songs. That is why even "Merry" is riddled with irony and talks about the poverty of the peasants "in Holy Rus'."

The song "Salty" tells about the sad side of peasant life - the high cost of salt, which is so necessary for storing agricultural products and in everyday life, but inaccessible to the poor. The poet also uses the second meaning of the word "salty", denoting something heavy, exhausting, difficult.

The fairy-tale angel of mercy acting in the Nekrasov epic, who replaced the demon of rage, sings a song calling honest hearts "to fight, to work."

The songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov, still very bookish, are full of love for the people, faith in their strength, hope to change their fate. The knowledge of folklore is felt in his songs: Grisha often uses its artistic and expressive means (lexicon, constant epithets, general poetic metaphors).

The heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are characterized by confessionalism, which is so common for works of oral folk art. Pop, then numerous "happy ones", the landowner, Matrena Timofeevna, tell the wanderers about their lives.

And we will see

Church of God

in front of the church

We are baptized for a long time:

"Give her, Lord,

Joy-happiness

Good darling

Alexandrovna".

With the experienced hand of a genius poet, connoisseur and connoisseur of folklore, the poet removes the dialectal phonetic irregularities of genuine lamentations, lamentations, thereby revealing their artistic spirituality:

Drop my tears

Not on land, not on water,

Not to the Lord's temple!

Fall right on your heart

My villain!

He is fluent in N.A. Nekrasov with the genre of the folk ballad and, introducing it into the poem, skillfully imitates both the form (transferring the last line of the verse to the beginning of the next) and vocabulary. He uses folk phraseology, reproduces the folk etymology of book turns, the storytellers' commitment to the geographical and factual accuracy of details:

Ammiral the widower walked the seas,

I walked the seas, I drove ships,

Near Achakov fought with the Turks,

Defeated him.

In the poem, there is a genuine scattering of constant epithets: “gray bunny”, “violent little head”, “black souls”, “fast night”, “white body”, “clear falcon”, “combustible tears”, “reasonable little head”, “red girls ”,“ good fellow ”,“ greyhound horse ”,“ clear eyes ”,“ bright Sunday ”,“ ruddy face ”,“ pea jester ”.

The number seven, traditionally widely used in folklore (seven Fridays a week, slurping jelly for seven miles, seven do not wait for one, measure seven times - cut one, etc.) is also noticeable in the poem, where seven men from seven adjacent villages (Zaplatovo, Dyryavino , Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhayka) set off to wander around the world; seven eagle owls look down on them from seven large trees, and so on. No less often does the poet turn to the number three, also according to the folklore tradition: “three lakes are weeping”, “three lanes of trouble”, “three loops”, “three equity holders”, “three Matryonas” - and so on.

Nekrasov also uses other methods of oral folk art, such as interjections and particles, which give the narrative emotionality: “Oh, swallow! Oh! stupid”, “Chu! the horse is clattering its hooves”, “ah, kosonka! Like gold burns in the sun.

Compound words are common in “To whom it is good to live in Russia”, composed of two synonyms (gad-midge, way-path, melancholy-trouble, mother earth, mother rye, fruit-berries) or single-root words (rad-radekhonek, young -baby) or words reinforced by the repetition of single-root words (tablecloth with a tablecloth, snoring snoring, roaring roars).

Traditional in the poem are folklore diminutive suffixes in words (round, pot-bellied, gray-haired, mustachioed, path), appeals, including to inanimate objects (“oh you, small bird ...”, “Hey, peasant happiness!”, “ Oh, you, dog hunting", "Oh! night, drunken night!"), Negative comparisons

(Not violent winds blow,

Not mother earth sways -

Noise, sing, swear,

Fighting and kissing

At the holiday people).

The events in “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” are set out in chronological order - the traditional composition of folk epic works. Numerous subplots of the poem are predominantly narrative texts. The diverse rhythms of the Nekrasov epic poem are conditioned by the genres of oral folk art: fairy tales, epics, songs, lamentations, lamentations!

The author is a folk storyteller who is fluent in lively folk speech. In the gullible view of peasant readers, it differs little from them, as, for example, wanderers - pilgrims, who captivate their listeners with entertaining stories. In the course of the narration, the narrator discovers the cunning of the mind, beloved by the people, the ability to satisfy their curiosity and fantasy. Christian condemnation is close to his heart

The narrator of the sinfulness of vice and the moral reward of the sufferers and the righteous. And only a sophisticated reader can see behind this role of a folk narrator the face of a great poet, poet-educator, educator and leader.

The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is written mostly in iambic trimeter with two final unstressed syllables. The poet's poems are not rhymed, they are distinguished by the richness of consonances and rhythms.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" has its own unique feature. All the names of the villages and the names of the heroes clearly reflect the essence of what is happening. In the first chapter, the reader can get acquainted with seven men from the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyolovo, Neurozhayko, who argue about who lives well in Rus', and in no way cannot come to an agreement. No one is even going to yield to another ... So unusually begins the work that Nikolai Nekrasov conceived in order, as he writes, "to present in a coherent story everything that he knows about the people, everything that happened to be heard from his lips ..."

The history of the creation of the poem

Nikolai Nekrasov began working on his work in the early 1860s and finished the first part five years later. The prologue was published in the January issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1866. Then painstaking work began on the second part, which was called "Last Child" and was published in 1972. The third part, entitled "Peasant Woman", was released in 1973, and the fourth, "A Feast for the Whole World" - in the fall of 1976, that is, three years later. It is a pity that the author of the legendary epic did not manage to fully complete his plan - the writing of the poem was interrupted by an untimely death - in 1877. However, even after 140 years, this work remains important for people, it is read and studied by both children and adults. The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is included in the compulsory school curriculum.

Part 1. Prologue: who is the happiest in Rus'

So, the prologue tells how seven men meet on a high road, and then go on a journey to find a happy man. Who in Rus' lives freely, happily and cheerfully - this is the main question of curious travelers. Each, arguing with the other, believes that he is right. Roman shouts that the landowner has the best life, Demyan claims that the official lives wonderfully, Luka proves that it’s still a priest, the rest also express their opinion: “noble boyar”, “fat-bellied merchant”, “sovereign minister” or the tsar .

Such a disagreement leads to a ridiculous fight, which is observed by birds and animals. It is interesting to read how the author displays their surprise at what is happening. Even the cow “came to the fire, stared at the peasants, listened to crazy speeches and began, cordially, to moo, moo, moo! ..”

At last, having kneaded each other's sides, the peasants came to their senses. They saw a tiny warbler chick flying up to the fire, and Pahom took it in his hands. The travelers began to envy the little bird that could fly wherever it wanted. They talked about what everyone wants, when suddenly ... the bird spoke in a human voice, asking to release the chick and promising a large ransom for it.

The bird showed the peasants the way to where the real tablecloth was buried. Wow! Now you can definitely live, not grieve. But the quick-witted wanderers also asked that their clothes not wear out. “And this will be done by a self-assembled tablecloth,” said the warbler. And she kept her promise.

The life of the peasants began to be full and cheerful. But they have not yet resolved the main question: who still lives well in Rus'. And friends decided not to return to their families until they find the answer to it.

Chapter 1. Pop

On the way, the peasants met the priest and, bowing low, asked him to answer “in conscience, without laughter and without cunning,” whether he really lives well in Rus'. What the pop said dispelled the ideas of the seven curious about his happy life. No matter how severe the circumstances are - a dead autumn night, or a severe frost, or a spring flood - the priest has to go where he is called, without arguing or contradicting. The work is not easy, besides, the groans of people leaving for another world, the weeping of orphans and the sobs of widows completely upset the peace of the priest's soul. And only outwardly it seems that pop is held in high esteem. In fact, he is often the target of ridicule by the common people.

Chapter 2

Further, the road leads purposeful wanderers to other villages, which for some reason turn out to be empty. The reason is that all the people are at the fair, in the village of Kuzminskoe. And it was decided to go there to ask people about happiness.

The life of the village evoked not very pleasant feelings among the peasants: there were a lot of drunks around, everywhere it was dirty, dull, uncomfortable. Books are also sold at the fair, but low-quality books, Belinsky and Gogol are not to be found here.

By evening, everyone becomes so drunk that it seems that even the church with the bell tower is shaking.

Chapter 3

At night, the men are on their way again. They hear the conversations of drunk people. Suddenly, attention is attracted by Pavlush Veretennikov, who makes notes in a notebook. He collects peasant songs and sayings, as well as their stories. After everything that has been said is captured on paper, Veretennikov begins to reproach the assembled people for drunkenness, to which he hears objections: “The peasant drinks mainly because he has grief, and therefore it is impossible, even a sin, to reproach for it.

Chapter 4

Men do not deviate from their goal - by all means to find a happy person. They promise to reward with a bucket of vodka the one who tells that it is he who lives freely and cheerfully in Rus'. Drinkers peck at such a "tempting" offer. But no matter how hard they try to colorfully paint the gloomy everyday life of those who want to get drunk for free, nothing comes out of them. Stories of an old woman who has born up to a thousand turnips, a sexton rejoicing when they pour him a pigtail; the paralyzed former courtyard, who for forty years licked the master's plates with the best French truffle, does not impress the stubborn seekers of happiness on Russian soil.

Chapter 5

Maybe luck will smile on them here - the searchers assumed a happy Russian person, having met the landowner Gavrila Afanasich Obolt-Obolduev on the road. At first he was frightened, thinking that he saw the robbers, but after learning about the unusual desire of the seven men who blocked his path, he calmed down, laughed and told his story.

Maybe before the landowner considered himself happy, but not now. Indeed, in the old days, Gavriil Afanasyevich was the owner of the entire district, a whole regiment of servants and arranged holidays with theatrical performances and dances. Even the peasants did not hesitate to invite the peasants to pray in the manor house on holidays. Now everything has changed: the family estate of Obolt-Obolduev was sold for debts, because, left without peasants who knew how to cultivate the land, the landowner, who was not used to working, suffered heavy losses, which led to a deplorable outcome.

Part 2

The next day, the travelers went to the banks of the Volga, where they saw a large hay meadow. Before they had time to talk with the locals, they noticed three boats at the pier. It turns out that this is a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, their children, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman named Utyatin. Everything in this family, to the surprise of travelers, occurs according to such a scenario, as if there was no abolition of serfdom. It turns out that Utyatin was very angry when he found out that the peasants were given freedom and came down with a stroke, threatening to deprive his sons of their inheritance. To prevent this from happening, they came up with a cunning plan: they persuaded the peasants to play along with the landowner, posing as serfs. As a reward, they promised the best meadows after the death of the master.

Utyatin, hearing that the peasants were staying with him, perked up, and the comedy began. Some even liked the role of serfs, but Agap Petrov could not come to terms with the shameful fate and told the landowner everything to his face. For this, the prince sentenced him to flogging. The peasants also played a role here: they took the “rebellious” to the stable, put wine in front of him and asked him to shout louder, for appearances. Alas, Agap could not bear such humiliation, got very drunk and died the same night.

Further, the Last (Prince Utyatin) arranges a feast, where, barely moving his tongue, he delivers a speech about the advantages and benefits of serfdom. After that, he lies down in the boat and gives up the spirit. Everyone is glad that they finally got rid of the old tyrant, however, the heirs are not even going to fulfill their promise to those who played the role of serfs. The hopes of the peasants were not justified: no one gave them meadows.

Part 3. Peasant woman.

No longer hoping to find a happy man among the men, the wanderers decided to ask the women. And from the lips of a peasant woman named Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna they hear a very sad and, one might say, terrible story. Only in her parents' house she was happy, and then, when she married Philip, a ruddy and strong guy, a hard life began. Love did not last long, because the husband went to work, leaving his young wife with his family. Matryona works tirelessly and sees no support from anyone except old Savely, who lives a century after hard labor, which lasted twenty years. Only one joy appears in her difficult fate - the son of Demushka. But suddenly a terrible misfortune befell the woman: it is impossible to even imagine what happened to the child because the mother-in-law did not allow her daughter-in-law to take him into the field with her. Due to an oversight of the boy's grandfather, the pigs eat him. What grief for a mother! She mourns Demushka all the time, although other children were born in the family. For their sake, a woman sacrifices herself, for example, she takes upon herself the punishment when they want to flog her son Fedot for a sheep that was carried away by wolves. When Matryona was carrying another son, Lidor, in her womb, her husband was unfairly taken into the army, and his wife had to go to the city to look for the truth. It’s good that the governor’s wife, Elena Alexandrovna, helped her then. By the way, in the waiting room Matryona gave birth to a son.

Yes, the life of the one who was called “lucky” in the village was not easy: she constantly had to fight for herself, for her children, and for her husband.

Part 4. A feast for the whole world.

At the end of the village of Valakhchina, a feast was held, where everyone was gathered: the wandering peasants, and Vlas the headman, and Klim Yakovlevich. Among the celebrating - two seminarians, simple, kind guys - Savvushka and Grisha Dobrosklonov. They sing funny songs and tell different stories. They do it because ordinary people ask for it. From the age of fifteen, Grisha knows for sure that he will devote his life to the happiness of the Russian people. He sings a song about a great and mighty country called Rus'. Isn't this the lucky one that the travelers were so stubbornly looking for? After all, he clearly sees the purpose of his life - in serving the disadvantaged people. Unfortunately, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov died untimely, before he had time to finish the poem (according to the author's plan, the peasants were to go to St. Petersburg). But the reflections of the seven wanderers coincide with the thought of Dobrosklonov, who thinks that every peasant should live freely and cheerfully in Rus'. This was the main intention of the author.

The poem by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov became legendary, a symbol of the struggle for the happy everyday life of ordinary people, as well as the result of the author's reflections on the fate of the peasantry.

ON THE. Nekrasov was always not just a poet - he was a citizen who was deeply concerned about social injustice, and especially about the problems of the Russian peasantry. The cruel treatment of the landowners, the exploitation of women's and children's labor, a bleak life - all this was reflected in his work. And in 18621, the seemingly long-awaited liberation comes - the abolition of serfdom. But was it actually liberation? It is to this topic that Nekrasov devotes “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” - the sharpest, most famous - and his last work. The poet wrote it from 1863 until his death, but the poem still came out unfinished, so it was prepared for printing based on fragments of the poet's manuscripts. However, this incompleteness turned out to be significant in its own way - after all, for the Russian peasantry, the abolition of serfdom did not become the end of the old and the beginning of a new life.

“Who should live well in Rus'” is worth reading in full, because at first glance it may seem that the plot is too simple for such a complex topic. The dispute of seven peasants about who is happy to live in Rus' cannot be the basis for revealing the depth and complexity of the social conflict. But thanks to Nekrasov's talent in revealing characters, the work is gradually revealed. The poem is quite difficult to understand, so it is best to download its full text and read it several times. It is important to pay attention to how different the understanding of happiness is shown by a peasant and a gentleman: the first believes that this is his material well-being, and the second - that this is the least possible number of troubles in his life. At the same time, in order to emphasize the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe spirituality of the people, Nekrasov introduces two more characters who come from his environment - these are Yermil Girin and Grisha Dobrosklonov, who sincerely want happiness for the entire peasant class, and so that no one is offended.

The poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is not idealistic, because the poet sees problems not only in the nobility, which is mired in greed, arrogance and cruelty, but also among the peasants. This is primarily drunkenness and obscurantism, as well as degradation, illiteracy and poverty. The problem of finding happiness personally for oneself and for the whole people as a whole, the struggle against vices and the desire to make the world a better place are relevant today. So even in its unfinished form, Nekrasov's poem is not only a literary, but also a moral and ethical model.

A poem by N.A. Nekrasov's "Who Lives Well in Rus'", on which he worked for the last ten years of his life, but did not have time to fully realize, cannot be considered unfinished. It contains everything that made up the meaning of the spiritual, ideological, life and artistic searches of the poet from youth to death. And this "everything" found a worthy - capacious and harmonious - form of expression.

What is the architectonics of the poem "Who should live well in Rus'"? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from separate structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem, it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the huge text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is added, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem less amazing - it shocks anyone who is able to feel compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.

The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" - sets the tone of the whole work.

Of course, this is a fabulous beginning: no one knows where and when, no one knows why seven men converge. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person be without a dispute; and the peasants turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearby hill, or not at all achievable.

In the text of the Prologue, whoever does not appear, as if in a fairy tale: a woman is almost a witch, and a gray hare, and small jackdaws, and a chick of a warbler, and a cuckoo ... Seven eagle owls look at the wanderers in the night, the echo echoes their cries, an owl, a cunning fox - everyone has been here. In the groin, examining a small birdie - a chick of a warbler - and seeing that she is happier than a peasant, he decides to find out the truth. And, as in a fairy tale, the mother warbler, helping out the chick, promises to give the peasants plenty of everything they ask for on the road, so that they only find the truthful answer, and shows the way. The Prologue is not like a fairy tale. This is a fairy tale, only literary. So the peasants give a vow not to return home until they find the truth. And the wandering begins.

Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions for happiness is suitable for it. The calamities of the peasant parishioners in impoverished villages, the revelry of the landowners who left their estates, the desolated local life - all this is in the bitter answer of the priest. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers go further.

Chapter II wanderers at the fair. The picture of the village: "a house with an inscription: school, empty, / Clogged tightly" - and this is in the village "rich, but dirty." There, at the fair, a familiar phrase sounds to us:

When a man is not Blucher

And not my lord foolish—

Belinsky and Gogol

Will it carry from the market?

In Chapter III "Drunken Night" bitterly describes the eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov reappears, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminsky as a “master” and met by wanderers there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, he collects Russian folklore.

Having recorded enough

Veretennikov told them:

"Smart Russian peasants,

One is not good

What they drink to stupefaction

Falling into ditches, into ditches—

It's a shame to look!"

This offends one of the men:

There is no measure for Russian hops.

Did they measure our grief?

Is there a measure for work?

Wine brings down the peasant

And grief does not bring him down?

Work not falling?

A man does not measure trouble,

Copes with everything

Whatever come.

This peasant, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of a Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoi. Surname this - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosov. The story of his unthinkably hard life and ineradicable proud courage is learned by wanderers from local peasants.

Chapter IV wanderers walk around in the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Is there somewhere happy? - and the peasants in response, who will smile, and who will spit ... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers "for happiness". All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier who is beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for the wanderers, although it is a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Pity, not joy, are also caused by other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy. The stories of the "happy" are getting scarier and scarier. There is even a type of princely "slave", happy with his "noble" illness - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.

Finally, someone sends the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who is! The story of Yermila is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the peasant would buy a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, giving their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of the men. After that, Yermil gave everything to his own, there was a ruble that was not given away - the owner was not found, and the money was collected enormously. Ermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the trust of the people. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord's manager, his help for many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is in prison. And he was planted there in connection with the rebellion of the peasants in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the strangers did not have time to find out.

In Chapter V - "The Landlord" - the carriage rolls out, in it - and indeed the landowner Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is described comically: a plump gentleman with a "pistol" and a paunch. Note: he has a "speaking", as almost always with Nekrasov, name. “Tell us Godly, is the landowner’s life sweet?” the strangers stop him. The landowner's stories about his "root" are strange to the peasants. Not feats, but disgrace to please the queen and the intention to set fire to Moscow - these are the memorable deeds of illustrious ancestors. What is the honor for? How to understand? The story of the landowner about the charms of the former master's life somehow does not please the peasants, and Obolduev himself bitterly recalls the past - it is gone, and gone forever.

To adapt to a new life after the abolition of serfdom, one must study and work. But labor - not a noble habit. Hence the grief.

"The Last". This part of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" begins with a picture of haymaking in water meadows. The royal family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and vicious prince Utyatin is alive because, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, his former serfs conspired with the lord's family to depict the former serfdom for the sake of the prince's peace of mind and so that he would not refuse his family, due to a whim of an senile inheritance. The peasants were promised to give back the water meadows after the death of the prince. The "faithful slave" Ipat was also found - at Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the peasant Agap could not stand it and scolded the Last One for what the world was worth. Punishment in the stable with whips, feigned, turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The last one died almost in front of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing for the meadows: "The heirs compete with the peasants until this day."

According to the logic of the construction of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, then follows, as it were, herThe second part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and their chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding a happy man among the peasants, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what and how much "happiness" they find in the share of women, peasants. All this is expressed with such a depth of penetration into the suffering woman's soul, with such an abundance of details of the fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully referred to as "Matryona Timofeevna, she is a governor", that at times it touches you to tears, then it makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy one of her first women's nights, but when was that!

Songs created by the author on a folk basis are woven into the narrative, as if sewn on the canvas of a Russian folk song (Chapter 2. "Songs" ). There, the wanderers sing with Matryona in turn, and the peasant woman herself, recalling the past.

My disgusting husband

Rises:

For a silk whip

Accepted.

choir

The whip whistled

Blood splattered...

Oh! leli! leli!

Blood splattered...

To match the song was the married life of a peasant woman. Only her grandfather, Saveliy, took pity on her and consoled her. “There was also a lucky man,” recalls Matryona.

A separate chapter of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is dedicated to this powerful Russian man -"Savelius, Holy Russian hero" . The title of the chapter speaks of its style and content. The branded, former convict, heroic build, the old man speaks little, but aptly. “To not endure is an abyss, to endure is an abyss,” are his favorite words. The old man buried alive in the ground for the atrocities against the peasants of the German Vogel, the master's manager. The image of Saveliy is collective:

Do you think, Matryonushka,

The man is not a hero?

And his life is not military,

And death is not written for him

In battle - a hero!

Hands twisted with chains

Legs forged with iron

Back ... dense forests

Passed on it - broke.

And the chest? Elijah the prophet

On it rattles-rides

On a chariot of fire...

The hero suffers everything!

Chapter"Dyomushka" the worst thing happens: the son of Matryona, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened the child in front of her eyes. And even more terrible, that Savely the hero himself, a deep old man who fell asleep and overlooked the baby, was innocently guilty of the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the suffering soul of his grandfather.

In chapter V - "She-wolf" - the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that is left for her in life. Chasing after the she-wolf who carried off the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the shepherd pity the beast: the hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples mother of the cubs sinks down in front of him on the grass, suffers beatings, and the little boy leaves her a sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lays down under the whip.

After this episode, Matryona’s song lamentations on a gray stone above the river, when she, an orphan, calls a father, then a mother for help and comfort, complete the story and create a transition to a new year of disasters -Chapter VI "A Difficult Year" . Hungry, “Looks like kids / I was like her,” Matryona recalls the she-wolf. Her husband is shaved into the soldiers without a term and out of turn, she remains with her children in the hostile family of her husband - a "parasite", without protection and help. The life of a soldier is a special topic, revealed in detail. Soldiers flog her son with rods in the square - you can’t even understand why.

A terrible song precedes the escape of Matryona alone on a winter night (Head of the Governor ). She rushed backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.

And the next morning Matryona went to the governor. She fell at her feet right on the stairs so that her husband would be returned, and she gave birth. The governor turned out to be a compassionate woman, and Matryona returned with a happy child. They nicknamed the Governor, and life seemed to get better, but then the time came, and they took the eldest as a soldier. “What else do you want? - Matryona asks the peasants, - the keys to women's happiness ... are lost, ”and cannot be found.

The third part of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, which is not called that, but has all the signs of an independent part, - a dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, an introduction and chapters, - has a strange name -"Feast for the whole world" . In the introduction, a kind of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is still not visible, illuminates the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile for almost the first time in his life. But the first chapter"Bitter Time - Bitter Songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about famine and injustice under serfdom, then mournful, “drawn-out, sad” Vahlat songs about inescapable forced anguish, and finally, “Corvee”.

Separate chapter - story"About an exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful" - begins as if about a serf of the slavish type that Nekrasov was interested in. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: not having endured the offense, Yakov first took to drink, fled, and when he returned, he brought the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of him. A terrible sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. Tells Ionushka - "humble praying mantis".

A new page of the poem opens -"Wanderers and Pilgrims" , for her -"About two great sinners" : a tale about Kudeyar-ataman, a robber who killed an uncountable number of souls. The story goes in an epic verse, and, as if in a Russian song, the conscience wakes up in Kudeyar, he accepts hermitage and repentance from the saint who appeared to him: to cut off the century-old oak with the same knife with which he killed. The work is many years old, the hope that it will be possible to complete it before death is weak. Suddenly, the well-known villain Pan Glukhovsky appears on horseback in front of Kudeyar and tempts the hermit with shameless speeches. Kudeyar cannot withstand the temptation: a knife is in the pan's chest. And - a miracle! - collapsed century-old oak.

The peasants start a dispute about whose sin is heavier - "noble" or "peasant".In the chapter "Peasant sin" Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov tells about the Judas sin (sin of betrayal) of a peasant headman, who was tempted to pay a heir and hid the will of the owner, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who admitted that such sins are possible among them, pours out in a song. "Hungry" - a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an unsatisfied beast - not a man. A new face appears - Grigory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a deacon. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After groaning and thinking, they decide: To all the fault: grow strong!

It turns out that Grisha is going "to Moscow, to Novovorsitet." And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:

"I don't need any silver,

No gold, but God forbid

So that my countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Rus'!

But the story continues, and the wanderers become witnesses of how an old soldier, thin as a chip, hung with medals, drives up on a cart with hay and sings his song - “Soldier's” with the refrain: “The light is sick, / There is no bread, / There is no shelter, / There is no death,” and to others: “German bullets, / Turkish bullets, / French bullets, / Russian sticks.” Everything about the soldier's share is collected in this chapter of the poem.

But here's a new chapter with a peppy title"Good time - good songs" . The song of new hope is sung by Savva and Grisha on the Volga bank.

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, combines the features of Nekrasov's dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother's song, sung by peasant women, is called "Salty". A piece watered with mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a starving child. “With love for the poor mother / Love for the whole Vakhlachin / Merged, - and for fifteen years / Gregory already knew for sure / That he would live for happiness / Poor and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching three lines, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably crowding out the obsolete and evil. "Angel of Mercy" sings an invocative song over a Russian youth.

Grisha, waking up, descends into the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland, and sings. In the song, his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Finished with the past calculation, /Finished calculation with the master! / The Russian people gathers strength / And learns to be a citizen.

"Rus" is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Source (abridged): Mikhalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: Grade 10. At 2 o'clock. Part 1: account. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitsev. - M.: Bustard, 2018

Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" tells about the journey of seven peasants across Russia in search of a happy person. The work was written in the late 60's - mid 70's. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It tells about a post-reform society in which not only many old vices have not disappeared, but many new ones have appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the wanderers were supposed to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the journey, but due to the illness and imminent death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.

The work “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is written in blank verse and stylized as Russian folk tales. We suggest reading the online summary of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov chapter by chapter, prepared by the editors of our portal.

Main characters

Novel, Demyan, Luke, Gubin brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pahom, Prov- seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.

Other characters

Ermil Girin- the first "candidate" for the title of lucky man, an honest steward, very respected by the peasants.

Matryona Korchagina(Governor) - a peasant woman who is known in her village as a "lucky woman".

Savely- grandfather of her husband Matryona Korchagina. Centennial old man.

Prince Utyatin(Last child) - an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in collusion with the peasants, does not speak about the abolition of serfdom.

Vlas- a peasant, steward of the village, once owned by Utyatin.

Grisha Dobrosklonov- a seminarian, the son of a deacon, dreaming of the liberation of the Russian people; the revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov was the prototype.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men converge on the "pillar path": Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers (Ivan and Mitrodor), the old man Pakhom and Prov. The county from which they come is called by the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the peasants come are referred to as Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neyolovo and Neurozhayko, thus, the poem uses the artistic device of “talking” names .

The men got together and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?

Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that the landowner lives most freely, the other that the official, the third - the priest, "fat-bellied merchant", "noble boyar, minister of the sovereign", or the tsar.

From the outside, it seems that the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The peasants have already forgotten what business they left the house for (one went to baptize a child, the other to the market ...), and they go no one knows where until night falls. Only here the peasants stop and, "blaming the trouble on the goblin", sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.

Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.

The fight alarmed the whole forest, the echo woke up, the animals and birds got worried, the cow mooed, the cuckoo forged, the jackdaws squeaked, the fox, eavesdropping on the peasants, decides to run away.

And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest.

When the fight is over, the men pay attention to this chick and catch it. It is easier for a bird than for a peasant, Pahom says. If he had wings, he would fly all over Rus' to find out who lives best on it. “We don’t even need wings,” the rest add, they would only have bread and “a bucket of vodka,” as well as cucumbers, kvass and tea. Then they would have measured the whole "Mother Rus' with their feet."

While the men are interpreting in this way, a chiffchaff flies up to them and asks to let her chick go free. For him, she will give a royal ransom: everything desired by the peasants.

The men agree, and the chiffchaff shows them a place in the forest where a box with a self-assembled tablecloth is buried. Then she enchants clothes on them so that they do not wear out, so that the bast shoes do not break, the footcloths do not decay, and the louse does not breed on the body, and flies away "with her dear chick." In parting, the warbler warns the peasants: they can ask for food from the self-collection tablecloth as much as they like, but you can’t ask for more than a bucket of vodka a day:

And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third be trouble!

The peasants rush to the forest, where they really find a self-assembled tablecloth. Overjoyed, they arrange a feast and give a vow: not to return home until they know for sure, "who lives happily, freely in Rus'?"

Thus begins their journey.

Chapter 1. Pop

Far away stretches a wide path lined with birch trees. On it, the peasants mostly come across “small people” - peasants, artisans, beggars, soldiers. Travelers don’t even ask them anything: what kind of happiness is there? Toward evening, the men meet the priest. The men block his way and bow low. In response to the priest's silent question: what do they need?, Luka talks about the dispute and asks: “Is the priest's life sweet?”

The priest thinks for a long time, and then replies that, since it is a sin to grumble at God, he will simply describe his life to the peasants, and they themselves will realize whether it is good.

Happiness, according to the priest, consists in three things: "peace, wealth, honor." The priest knows no rest: his rank is obtained by hard work, and then no less difficult service begins, the crying of orphans, the cries of widows and the groans of the dying do little to promote peace of mind.

The situation with honor is no better: the priest serves as an object for the witticisms of the common people, obscene tales, anecdotes and fables are composed about him, which do not spare not only himself, but also his wife and children.

The last thing remains, wealth, but even here everything has changed a long time ago. Yes, there were times when the nobles honored the priest, played magnificent weddings and came to their estates to die - that was the work of the priests, but now "the landowners have scattered in distant foreign land." So it turns out that the pop is content with rare copper nickels:

The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there is nothing ...

Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the debaters attack Luka with reproaches. They unanimously accuse him of stupidity, that it was only in appearance that the priestly housing seemed free to him, but he could not figure it out deeper.

What did you take? stubborn head!

The men would probably have beaten Luka, but here, fortunately for him, at the bend in the road, the “priestly strict face” is once again shown ...

Chapter 2

The men continue on their way, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally, they meet the rider and ask him where the inhabitants have disappeared.

They went to the village of Kuzminskoe,
Today there is a fairground...

Then the wanderers decide to also go to the fair - what if the one “who lives happily” is hiding there?

Kuzminskoye is a rich, though dirty village. It has two churches, a school (closed), a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That’s why the fair is rich, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven taverns”, and they do not have time to pour for everyone:

Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!

There are a lot of drunk people around. A peasant scolds a broken ax, grandfather Vavila is sad next to him, who promised to bring shoes to his granddaughter, but drank all the money. The people feel sorry for him, but no one can help - they themselves have no money. Fortunately, there happens to be a "master", Pavlusha Veretennikov, and it is he who buys shoes for Vavila's granddaughter.

Ofeni (booksellers) also sell at the fair, but the most base books, as well as portraits of “thicker” generals, are in demand. And no one knows if the time will come when a man:

Belinsky and Gogol
Will you carry it from the market?

By evening, everyone is so drunk that even the church with the bell tower seems to stagger, and the peasants leave the village.

Chapter 3

It's worth a quiet night. The men walk along the "hundred-voiced" road and hear snippets of other people's conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we are fifty kopecks to the clerk: We made a request,” women's songs are heard with a request to “fall in love.” One drunk guy buries his clothes in the ground, assuring everyone that he is "burying his mother." At the road post, the wanderers again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with the peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants for drinking a lot - "it's a shame to look!" They object to him: the peasant drinks mainly from grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy him.

The objector's name is Yakim Goly. Pavlusha also writes his story in a book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought his son popular prints, and he himself loved to look at them no less than a child. When a fire broke out in the hut, he first of all rushed to tear pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, burned down. For a fused lump, they now give him 11 rubles.

After listening to stories, the wanderers sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the bucket of vodka for the guard, and the rest again mix with the crowd in search of a happy one.

Chapter 4

Wanderers walk in the crowd and call the happy one to come. If such a person appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to glory with vodka.

Sober people chuckle at such speeches, but a considerable queue is lined up from drunk people. The deacon comes first. His happiness, in his words, "is in complacency" and in the "kosushka", which the peasants will pour. The deacon is driven away, and an old woman appears, in which, on a small ridge, "up to a thousand raps were born." The next torturing happiness is a soldier with medals, "a little alive, but I want to drink." His happiness lies in the fact that no matter how they tortured him in the service, he nevertheless remained alive. A stonecutter with a huge hammer also comes, a peasant who overstrained himself in the service, but still, barely alive, drove home, a courtyard man with a "noble" disease - gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table of the most illustrious prince, licking plates and drinking foreign wine from glasses. The men drive him away too, because they have a simple wine, “not according to your lips!”.

The line to the wanderers does not become smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats his fill of rye bread, because at home they baked bread only with chaff, and this caused terrible pain in the stomach. A man with a folded cheekbone, a hunter, is happy that he survived in a fight with a bear, while the bears killed the rest of his comrades. Even the beggars come: they are happy that there is alms on which they are fed.

Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers realize that this way they will not find happiness.

Hey, happiness man!
Leaky, with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses
Get off home!

Here one of the people who approached them advises “ask Yermila Girin”, because if he does not turn out to be happy, then there is nothing to look for. Ermila is a simple man who deserved the great love of the people. The wanderers are told the following story: once Ermila had a mill, but they decided to sell it for debts. Bidding began, the merchant Altynnikov really wanted to buy the mill. Yermila was able to outbid his price, but the trouble is that he did not have money with him to make a deposit. Then he asked for an hour's reprieve and ran to the market square to ask the people for money.

And a miracle happened: Yermil received money. Very soon, the thousand necessary for the ransom of the mill turned out to be with him. And a week later, on the square, there was an even more wonderful sight: Yermil "counted on the people", handed out all the money and honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Yermil asked until sunset whose it was.

Wanderers are perplexed: by what sorcery did Yermil receive such trust from the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Girin served as a clerk in the office and never took a penny from anyone, but helped with advice. Soon the old prince died, and the new one ordered the peasants to choose a burgomaster. Unanimously, “six thousand souls, with the whole patrimony” Yermila shouted - although young, he loves the truth!

Only once did Yermil "disguise" when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitriy, replacing him with the son of Nenila Vlasyevna. But the conscience after this act tortured Yermila so much that he soon tried to hang himself. Mitrius was handed over to the recruits, and the son of Nenila was returned to her. Yermil, for a long time, did not walk on his own, “he resigned from his post,” but instead rented a mill and became “more than the former people love.”

But here the priest intervenes in the conversation: all this is true, but it is useless to go to Yermil Girin. He is sitting in prison. The priest begins to tell how it was - the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Yermila - his people would listen.

The story is interrupted by cries: the thief has been caught and is being flogged. The thief turns out to be the same lackey with a "noble disease", and after the flogging, he flies away as if he had completely forgotten about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish telling the story at the next meeting.

Chapter 5

On their further journey, the peasants meet the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is at first frightened, suspecting robbers in them, but, having figured out what the matter is, he laughs and begins to tell his story. He leads his noble family from the Tatar Oboldui, who was skinned by a bear for the amusement of the Empress. She granted cloth to the Tatar for this. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner ...

Law is my wish!
The fist is my police!

However, not all strictness, the landowner admits that he more "attracted hearts with affection"! All the courtyards loved him, gave him gifts, and he was like a father to them. But everything changed: the peasants and the land were taken away from the landowner. The sound of an ax is heard from the forests, everyone is being ruined, instead of estates drinking houses are multiplying, because now no one needs a letter at all. And they shout to the landowners:

Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! - study! work hard!..

But how can a landowner work, accustomed to something completely different from childhood? They did not learn anything, and “thought to live like this for a century,” but it turned out differently.

The landowner began to sob, and the good-natured peasants almost wept with him, thinking:

The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..

Part 2

Last

The next day, the peasants go to the banks of the Volga, to a huge hay meadow. As soon as they got into a conversation with the locals, music was heard and three boats moored to the shore. They have a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, little barchats, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman. The old man inspects the mowing, and everyone bows to him almost to the ground. In one place he stops and orders a dry haystack to be spread: the hay is still damp. The absurd order is immediately executed.

Strangers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man.

It turns out that the old man - Prince Utyatin (the peasants call him the Last) - having learned about the abolition of serfdom, "fooled", and came down with a blow. His sons were told that they had betrayed the landowner's ideals, that they could not defend them, and if so, they were left without an inheritance. The sons were frightened and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, so that after his death they would give the village poem meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to be returned back to the landowners, the prince was delighted and stood up. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:

Ipat said: “You have fun!
And I am the Utyatin princes
Serf - and the whole story here!

But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in the wild someone will push him around. Once he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. When he woke up, he ordered Agap to be whipped, and the peasants, in order not to reveal the deceit, led him to the stable, where they put a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died the same night: it was hard for him to bow down...

Wanderers are present at the feast of the Last, where he speaks about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in the boat and falls asleep in it with songs. The village of Vahlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one gives them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.

Part 3

peasant woman

“Not everything is between men
Find a happy
Let's touch the women!”

With these words, the wanderers go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, a beautiful woman of 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then she was only happy, how she grew up in her parents' house. But girlhood quickly rushed by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Philip becomes her betrothed, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife (according to her, he beat him only once), but soon he goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.

Matryona works for her elder sister-in-law, and for a strict mother-in-law, and for her father-in-law. She had no joy in her life until her eldest son, Demushka, was born.

In the whole family, only the old grandfather Savely, the “Holy Russian hero”, who lives out his life after twenty years of hard labor, regrets Matryona. He ended up in hard labor for the murder of a German manager who did not give the peasants a single free minute. Savely told Matryona a lot about his life, about "Russian heroism."

The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka into the field: she does not work much with him. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep, and the pigs eat the child. After some time, Matryona meets Savely at the grave of Demushka, who has gone to repentance in the Sand Monastery. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.

Matryona also had other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherdess Fedot, once wanted to be whipped for a sheep carried away by a wolf, but Matrena took the punishment upon herself. When she was pregnant with Liodorushka, she had to go to the city to ask for the return of her husband, who had been taken into the soldiers. Right in the waiting room, Matryona gave birth, and the governor, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona has been "denounced as a lucky woman, nicknamed the governor's wife." But what kind of happiness is there?

This is what Matryonushka tells the wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to female happiness are lost, and even God does not know where to find them.

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

There is a feast in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered here: both wanderers, and Klim Yakovlich, and Vlas the headman. Among the feasters are two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, good simple guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “jolly” song, then the turn comes for different stories. There is a story about “an exemplary slave - Jacob the faithful”, who all his life went after the master, fulfilled all his whims and even rejoiced at the master's beatings. Only when the master gave his nephew to the soldiers, Yakov took to drink, but soon returned to the master. And yet, Yakov did not forgive him, and was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he brought him, with his legs off, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree above the master.

There is a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. God's wanderer Jonah tells the story of "two sinners", about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened a conscience in him and imposed a penance on him: cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven him. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant's sin is still greater, and tells the story of the headman. He hid the last will of his master, who decided to release his peasants before his death. But the headman, tempted by money, tore free.

The crowd is subdued. Songs are sung: "Hungry", "Soldier's". But the time will come in Rus' for good songs. Confirmation of this is two seminarian brothers, Savva and Grisha. The seminarian Grisha, the son of a sexton, has known since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the happiness of the people. Love for his mother merges in his heart with love for the whole vakhlachin. Grisha walks along his edge and sings a song about Rus':

You are poor
You are abundant
You are powerful
You are powerless
Mother Rus'!

And his plans will not be lost: fate prepares Grisha "a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia." In the meantime, Grisha sings, and it is a pity that the wanderers do not hear him, because then they would understand that they had already found a happy person and could return home.

Conclusion

This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Rus', which, with torment, is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the ruining of a Russian person (it’s not without reason that a bucket of vodka is offered as a reward!) The problems of women, the ineradicable slave psychology (revealed on the example of Yakov, Ipat) and the main problem of people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another still remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotations from it have become part of everyday speech. The compositional device of the main characters' wanderings brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, thanks to which it is read easily and with great interest.

A brief retelling of “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” conveys only the most basic content of the poem; for a more accurate idea of ​​​​the work, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the full version of “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”.

Test on the poem "Who lives well in Rus'"

After reading the summary, you can test your knowledge by taking this quiz.

Retelling rating

Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 16983.