Koroviev. Koroviev His antennae are like chicken feathers hero

Demonov, a devil and a knight, who introduces himself to Muscovites as an interpreter for a foreign professor and a former regent of the church choir.

The surname Koroviev is modeled on the surname of a character in Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy's (1817-1875) novel "Ghoul" (1841) by state councilor Telyaev, who turns out to be a knight Ambrose and a vampire. Interestingly, the name of Ambrose is one of the visitors to the Griboyedov House restaurant, who praises the merits of his cuisine at the very beginning of the novel. In the finale, the visit of Behemoth and Koroviev-Fagot to this restaurant ends with a fire and the death of the Griboyedov House, and in the final scene of the last flight of Koroviev-Fagot, like A.K. Tolstoy's Telyaev, he turns into a knight.

Koroviev-Fagot is also associated with the images of the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881). In the epilogue of The Master and Margarita, "four Korovkins" are named among those detained because of the similarity of their surnames with Koroviev-Fagot. Here one immediately recalls the story "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" (1859), where a certain Korovkin appears. The narrator's uncle, Colonel Rostanev, considers this hero one of his closest people. The colonel "suddenly spoke, for some unknown reason, about some kind of Mr. Korovkin, an extraordinary man whom he met three days ago somewhere on the high road and whom he was now waiting for to visit him with extreme impatience." For Rostanev, Korovkin "is already such a person; one word, a man of science! I hope for him like a stone mountain: a victorious man! As he says about family happiness!" And now the long-awaited Korovkin "not in a sober state of mind, sir" appears before the guests. His costume, consisting of worn-out and damaged items of clothing that once made up quite decent clothes, resembles the costume of Koroviev-Fagot.

Korovkin is similar to Bulgakov's hero and striking signs of drunkenness on his face and appearance: "He was a short, but thick gentleman, about forty, with dark hair and gray hair, cut with a comb, with a crimson round face, with small, bloodshot eyes, in a high hair tie, in fluff and hay, and severely bursting under the arm, in pantalon impossible (impossible trousers (fr.) and with a cap greasy to the point of improbability, which he kept on flying away. This gentleman was completely drunk. "

And here is a portrait of Koroviev-Fagot: "... a transparent citizen of a strange appearance. On a small head is a jockey cap, a checkered short airy ... jacket ... a citizen a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note , mocking"; "... his mustache is like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half drunk, and his trousers are plaid, pulled up so that dirty white socks are visible."

Here is a complete contrast of physical features - Korovkin is low, dense and broad-shouldered, while Koroviev-Fagot is tall, thin and narrow-shouldered. However, at the same time, not only the same negligence in clothes coincides, but also the manner of speech. Korovkin addresses the guests: "Atanda, sir... Recommended: a child of nature... But what do I see? There are ladies here... Why didn't you tell me, scoundrel, that you have ladies here?" looking at my uncle with a roguish smile, "nothing? don't be shy!... let's introduce ourselves to the fair sex... Pretty ladies!" and so on... The rest is not agreed... Musicians!

Don't you want to sleep? asked Mizinchikov, calmly approaching Korovkin.
- Fall asleep? Are you talking insultingly?
- Not at all. You know, it's useful from the road ...
- Never! Korovkin replied indignantly. - You think I'm drunk? - not at all ... But, by the way, where do you sleep?
- Come on, I'll walk you through.
- Where? to the shed? No, brother, you won't! I already spent the night there ... But, by the way, lead ... Why not go with a good person? .. No need for pillows; a military man doesn't need a pillow... And you, brother, make me a sofa, a sofa... Yes, listen," he added, stopping, "you, I see, are a warm fellow; compose something for me ... you understand? Romeo, so only to crush a fly ... only to crush a fly, one, that is, a glass.
- Good good! - answered Mizinchikov.
- Well... Wait, you have to say goodbye... Adieu, mesdames and mesdemoiselles... You, so to speak, have pierced... but nothing! we'll explain later... just wake me up as soon as it starts... or even five minutes before the start... don't start without me! do you hear? don't start!"

Upon waking up, Korovkin, in the words of lackey Vidoplyasov, "screamed all sorts of cries, sir. They shouted: how will they present themselves to the fair sex, sir? And then they added: 'I am not worthy of the human race!' words-s". Koroviev-Fagot says almost the same, turning to Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and pretending to be a hangover regent:
“Looking for a turnstile, citizen?” the checkered type inquired in a cracked tenor, “please come here! Directly, and you will go where you need to. I would like you for an indication of a quarter liter ... to get better ... to the former regent!”.

Like Dostoevsky's hero, Koroviev-Fagot asks for a drink "to improve his health." His speech, like that of Korovkin, becomes jerky and incoherent, which is typical for a drunk. Koroviev-Fagot retains the intonation of picaresque deference inherent in Korovkin both in a conversation with Nikanor Ivanovich Bosy, and in an appeal to the ladies at a session of black magic at the Variety Theater. Koroviev's "Maestro! Cut the march!" clearly goes back to Korovkin's "Musicians! Polka!". In the scene with Berlioz's uncle Poplavsky, Koroviev-Fagot "compassionately" and "in choice words, sir" breaks the comedy of grief.

"The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" is also a parody of the personality and works of Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852). For example, the narrator's uncle, Colonel Rostanev, largely parodies Manilov from Dead Souls (1842-1852), Foma Fomich Opiskin - Gogol himself, and Korovkin - Khlestakov from The Inspector General and Nozdryov from Dead Souls in one person, with with which Koroviev-Fagot is equally connected.

On the other hand, the image of Koroviev-Fagot is reminiscent of the nightmare "in large-checked trousers" from Alexei Turbin's dream in The White Guard. This nightmare, in turn, is genetically linked to the image of the Westernizing liberal Karamzinov from Dostoevsky's novel "Demons" (1871-1872). K.-F. - this is also a materialized trait from the conversation of Ivan Karamazov with the unclean in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-1880).

Between Korovkin and Koroviev-Fagot there is, along with many similarities, one fundamental difference. If the hero of Dostoevsky is really a bitter drunkard and a petty rogue, capable of deceiving only the extremely simple-hearted uncle of the narrator with a game of learning, then Koroviev-Fagot is a devil that has arisen from the sultry Moscow air (an unprecedented heat for May at the time of its appearance is one of the traditional signs of the approach of an unclean strength). Woland's henchman, only out of necessity, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler, a rogue translator with a famous foreigner, etc. Only in the last flight Koroviev-Fagot becomes who he really is, a gloomy demon, a knight Bassoon, no worse than his master, who knows the price of human weaknesses and virtues.

What is the knight Fagot punished for?
Unfortunate pun about Light and Darkness
Centuries of forced buffoonery
Demonic prototypes of Koroviev from "The History of Man's Relations with the Devil"
"Legend of the Brutal Knight"
Continue Reading>>>

The talent of M. A. Bulgakov gave Russian literature wonderful works that became a reflection not only of the contemporary era of the writer, but also a real encyclopedia of human souls. In the early 1920s, he conceived the novel The Engineer with a Hoof, but since 1937 the author has given it a different name - The Master and Margarita. The novel turned out to be the last book by M. A. Bulgakov. And it was written as if the author, feeling in advance that this was his last work, wanted to put into it without a trace all his unrestrained imagination, all his most important thoughts and discoveries, all his soul. "The Master and Margarita" is an extraordinary creation, hitherto unseen in Russian literature. This is an incredible, insanely talented fusion of Gogol's satire and Dante's poetry, a fusion of high and low, funny and lyrical.

M. A. Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita as a historically and psychologically reliable book about his time and people, and therefore the novel became a kind of unique human “document” of that remarkable era. And at the same time, this deeply philosophical narrative, turned to the future, is a book for all time, which is facilitated by its highest artistry. At the same time, there is every reason to believe that the author had little hope for understanding and recognition of his novel by his contemporaries.

In the novel "The Master and Margarita" there is a happy freedom of creative imagination with all the severity of the compositional design. Satan rules the great ball, and the inspired Master, a contemporary of Bulgakov, creates his immortal novel - the work of his whole life. There, the procurator of Judea sends Christ to be executed, and nearby, quite earthly citizens, who inhabit Sadovye and Bronny streets of the 20-30s of our century, are fussing, cowardly, adapting, betraying their loved ones. Laughter and sadness, joy and pain are mixed together there, as in life, but in that high degree of concentration, which is accessible only to a fairy tale, a poem. “The Master and Margarita” is a lyric-philosophical poem in prose about love and moral duty, about the humanity of evil, about the truth of creativity, which is always the overcoming of inhumanity, a rush to light and goodness.

The events in The Master and Margarita begin "one spring, at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset, in Moscow, on the Patriarch's Ponds." Satan and his retinue appear in the capital.

The diaboliad, one of the author's favorite motifs, is so realistic here in The Master and Margarita that it can serve as a brilliant example of the grotesque satirical exposure of the contradictions of the living reality surrounding the characters of the novel. Woland sweeps over Bulgakov's Moscow like a thunderstorm, cruelly punishing meanness, lies, meanness, greed. The author gives special credibility to the events by ending the novel with an epilogue in which he talks about the life of his heroes over the next few years. And we, reading it, clearly imagine an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy, Professor Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, sitting under the linden trees on the Patriarch's Ponds, seized with irresistible anxiety during the spring full moon. However, for some reason, after the last page of the novel is turned, an overwhelming feeling of slight sadness arises, which always remains after communicating with the Great, no matter whether it is a book, a film or a play.

The very idea of ​​placing the prince of darkness and his retinue in Moscow in the 1930s, personifying those forces that defy any laws of logic, was profoundly innovative. Woland appears in Moscow to "test" the heroes of the novel, to pay tribute to the Master and Margarita, who retained love and loyalty to each other, to punish bribe-takers, covetous, traitors. Judgment on them is not carried out according to the laws of good, they will not appear before a human court. Time will be their judge, just as it became the judge for the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. According to M. A. Bulgakov, in the current situation, evil should be fought with the forces of evil in order to restore justice. This is the tragic grotesque of the novel. Woland returns to the Master his novel about Pontius Pilate, which the Master burned in a fit of despair and fear. The myth of Pilate and Yeshua, recreated in the Master's book, takes the reader to the initial era of the spiritual civilization of mankind, affirming the idea that the confrontation between good and evil is eternal, it lies in the very circumstances of life, in the human soul, capable of lofty impulses and enslaved false, transient interests of today.

A fantastic plot twist allows the writer to unfold before us a whole gallery of characters of a very unsightly appearance. A sudden encounter with evil spirits strips off the masks of hypocrisy from all these Berlioz, Brass, Maigels, Ivanovich Nikanors and others. The session of black magic, which Woland and his assistants give in the capital's variety show, literally and figuratively "uncovers" some viewers.

It is not the devil who is afraid of the author and his favorite characters. The devil, perhaps, for M. A. Bulgakov really does not exist, just as there is no god-man. In his novel lives a different, deep faith in man and humanity, immutable moral laws. For M. A. Bulgakov, the moral law is a part of the human soul and should not depend on religious horror before the coming retribution, the manifestation of which can be easily seen in the inglorious death of a well-read, but unscrupulous atheist who headed MASSOLIT.

And the Master, the protagonist of Bulgakov's book, who created the novel about Christ and Pilate, is also far from religiosity in the Christian, canonical sense of the word. He wrote a book of great psychological expressiveness based on historical material. This novel about the novel, as it were, concentrated in itself the contradictions that are doomed to solve and confirm the correctness of their decisions with their whole lives, subsequent generations, every thinking and suffering person.

The master in the novel could not win. Having made him a winner, M. A. Bulgakov would have violated the laws of artistic truth, would have betrayed his sense of realism. But does the final pages of the book exude pessimism? Let's not forget: on earth, the Master left a student, his sight Ivan Ponyrev, the former Homeless; on earth, the Master has left a novel that is destined for a long life.

The Master and Margarita is a complex work. Much has already been said about the novel, and more will be said. There are many interpretations of the famous novel. Much more will be thought about and written about The Master and Margarita.

“Manuscripts do not burn,” one of the characters in the novel says. M. A. Bulgakov really tried to burn his manuscript, but this did not bring him relief. The novel continued to live. The master remembered it by heart. The manuscript has been restored. After the death of the writer, she came to us and soon found readers in many countries of the world.

Today, the work of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov has received well-deserved recognition, has become an integral part of our culture. However, far from everything is comprehended and mastered. Readers of his novels, stories, plays are destined to understand his creations in their own way and discover new values ​​hidden in the depths of the author's intention.

	Woland and retinue
Woland Woland is a character in the novel The Master and Margarita, who leads the world of otherworldly forces. Woland is the devil, Satan, the prince of darkness, the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows (all these definitions are found in the text of the novel). Woland is largely focused on Mephistopheles, even the name Woland itself is taken from Goethe's poem, where it is mentioned only once and is usually omitted in Russian translations. Prince's appearance. The portrait of Woland is shown before the start of the Great Ball "Two eyes rested on Margarita's face. The right one with a golden spark at the bottom, drilling anyone to the bottom of the soul, and the left one is empty and black, sort of like a narrow needle's ear, like an exit into a bottomless well of all darkness and shadows Woland's face was slanted to the side, the right corner of his mouth was pulled down, deep wrinkles parallel to sharp eyebrows were cut on his high bald forehead. The skin on Woland's face seemed to be burned forever by sunburn. "The true face of Woland Bulgakov hides only at the very beginning of the novel, so that the reader intrigue, and then directly declares through the lips of the Master and Woland himself that the devil has definitely arrived at the Patriarch's. The image of Woland - majestic and regal, is put in opposition to the traditional view of the devil, as the "monkey of God" The purpose of Messier's coming to earth Woland gives different explanations of the goals of his stay in Moscow to different characters in contact with him. He tells Berlioz and Bezdomny that he has come to study the found manuscripts of Gebert Avrilaksky. Woland explains his visit to the employees of the Variety Theater with the intention to perform a session of black magic. After the scandalous séance, Satan told the barman Sokov that he simply wanted to "see Muscovites en masse, and it was most convenient to do this in the theater." Margarita Koroviev-Fagot, before the start of the Great Ball with Satan, reports that the purpose of the visit of Woland and his retinue to Moscow is to hold this ball, whose hostess should bear the name Margarita and be of royal blood. Woland has many faces, as befits the devil, and in conversations with different people he puts on different masks. At the same time, Woland’s omniscience of Satan is completely preserved (he and his people are well aware of both the past and future lives of those with whom they come into contact, they also know the text of the Master’s novel, which literally coincides with the “Woland gospel”, thus what was told unlucky writers at the Patriarchs. The world without shadows is empty Woland's unconventionality is that, being a devil, he is endowed with some obvious attributes of God. The dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil, is most tightly revealed in the words of Woland, addressed to Levi Matthew, who refused to wish health to the "spirit of evil and the lord of shadows" ("Would you like to strip the entire globe, blowing away all the trees and all living things from it?" - for your fantasy to enjoy the naked light (You are stupid. " In Bulgakov, Woland literally revives the burnt novel of the Master - a product of artistic creativity, preserved only in the head of the creator, materializes again, turns into a tangible thing. Woland is the bearer of fate, this is connected with a long-standing a tradition in Russian literature that linked fate, fate, fate not with God, but with the devil. Bulgakov's Woland personifies fate, punishing Berlioz, Sokov and others who transgress the norms of Christian morality. This is the first devil in world literature, punishing for non-compliance with the commandments of Christ. Koroviev - Bassoon This character is the eldest of the demons subordinate to Woland, a devil and a knight, who introduces himself to Muscovites as an interpreter with a foreign professor and a former regent of the church choir. background The hero's surname was found in F.M. Dostoevsky "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants", where there is a character by the name of Korovkin, very similar to our Koroviev. His second name comes from the name of the musical instrument bassoon, invented by an Italian monk. Koroviev-Fagot has some resemblance to a bassoon - a long thin tube folded in three. Bulgakov's character is thin, tall and in imaginary servility, it seems, is ready to triple in front of his interlocutor (so that later he can calmly harm him) Appearance of the regent Here is his portrait: "... a transparent citizen of a strange appearance, On a small head a jockey cap, a short checkered jacket ... a citizen a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking"; "... his antennae are like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half drunk" Appointment of the lascivious gayar Koroviev-Fagot is a devil that has arisen from the sultry Moscow air (an unprecedented heat for May at the time of its appearance is one of the traditional signs of the approach of evil spirits). Woland's henchman, only out of necessity, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler, a rogue translator with a famous foreigner, etc. Only in the last flight Koroviev-Fagot becomes who he really is - a gloomy demon, a knight Bassoon, no worse than his master, knowing the price of human weaknesses and virtues Azazello Origin The name Azazello was formed by Bulgakov from the Old Testament name Azazel. This is the name of the negative hero of the Old Testament book of Enoch, the fallen angel who taught people to make weapons and jewelry The image of a knight Probably, Bulgakov was attracted by the combination in one character of the ability to seduce and kill. It is for the insidious seducer that Azazello Margarita takes during their first meeting in the Alexander Garden: “This neighbor turned out to be short, fiery red, with a fang, in starched linen, in a striped solid suit, in patent leather shoes and with a bowler hat on his head. “Absolutely Robber's mug!" thought Margarita. Appointment in the novel But the main function of Azazello in the novel is associated with violence. He throws Styopa Likhodeev from Moscow to Yalta, expels Uncle Berlioz from the Bad Apartment, and kills the traitor Baron Meigel with a revolver. Azazello also invented the cream, which he gives to Margherita. The magic cream not only makes the heroine invisible and able to fly, but also endows her with a new, witchy beauty. Behemoth cat This werewolf cat and Satan's favorite jester is perhaps the most amusing and memorable of Woland's retinue. Origin The author of The Master and Margarita got information about Behemoth from the book by M.A. Orlov "The History of Man's Relations with the Devil" (1904), extracts from which have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive. There, in particular, the case of the French abbess, who lived in the 17th century, was described. and possessed by seven devils, the fifth demon being Behemoth. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, with a trunk and fangs. His hands were of a human style, and a huge belly, a short tail and thick hind legs, like a hippopotamus, reminded him of his name. Behemoth image Bulgakov's Behemoth became a huge black werewolf cat, since it is black cats that are traditionally considered to be associated with evil spirits. This is how we see it for the first time: "... on a jeweler's pouffe, a third person collapsed in a cheeky pose, namely, a terrible black cat with a glass of vodka in one paw and a fork, on which he managed to pry a pickled mushroom, in the other." Behemoth in the demonological tradition is the demon of the desires of the stomach. Hence his extraordinary gluttony, especially in Torgsin, when he indiscriminately swallows everything edible. Appointment of the Jester Probably everything is clear here without additional digressions. The shootout between Behemoth and the detectives in apartment No. 50, his chess duel with Woland, the shooting contest with Azazello - all these are purely humorous scenes, very funny and even, to some extent, removing the sharpness of those worldly, moral and philosophical problems that the novel poses reader. Gella Gella is a member of Woland's retinue, a vampire woman: "I recommend my maid Gella. Quick, understanding and there is no such service that she would not be able to provide." The origin of the witch-vampire Bulgakov got the name "Gella" from the article "Sorcery" of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, where it was noted that in Lesbos this name was used to call untimely dead girls who became vampires after death. Image of Gella Beauty Gella - a green-eyed, red-haired girl who prefers not to burden herself with excess clothes and dresses only in a lace apron, moves freely through the air, thereby taking on the resemblance to a witch. The characteristic features of the behavior of vampires - clicking their teeth and smacking their lips, Bulgakov, perhaps, borrowed from the story of A.K. Tolstoy "Ghoul". There, a vampire girl with a kiss turns her lover into a vampire - hence, obviously, the kiss of Gella, fatal for Varenukha

Commentators on the novel The Master and Margarita have so far paid attention primarily to the literary sources of the figure of Woland; disturbed the shadow of the creator of "Faust", interrogated medieval demonologists. The connection between an artistic creation and an epoch is complex, bizarre, non-unilinear, and it may be worth recalling another real source for the construction of a powerful and gloomy-jolly image of Woland.

Who among the readers of the novel will forget the scene of mass hypnosis, which Muscovites were subjected to at the Variety Show as a result of the manipulations of the "consultant with a hoof"? In the memory of Bulgakov's contemporaries, whom I had to question, she is associated with the figure of the hypnotist Ornaldo (N. A. Alekseev), about whom much was said in Moscow in the 1930s. Speaking in the foyer of cinemas and houses of culture, Ornaldo performed experiments with the public, somewhat reminiscent of Woland's performance: he not only guessed, but joked and exposed. In the mid 30s he was arrested. His further fate is dark and legendary. It was said that he hypnotized the investigator, left his office, walked past the guards as if nothing had happened and returned home. But then mysteriously disappeared from sight again. Life, which, perhaps, suggested something to the author, itself embroidered fantastic patterns on a familiar canvas 1 .

Woland observes Bulgakov's Moscow as a researcher setting up a scientific experiment, as if he were indeed sent on a business trip from the heavenly office. At the beginning of the book, fooling Berlioz, he claims that he arrived in Moscow to study the manuscripts of Herbert Avrilaksky - he is playing the role of a scientist, experimenter, magician. And his powers are great: he has the privilege of a punishing act, which is in no way with the hands of the highest contemplative good.

It is easier to resort to the services of such a Woland and Margarita, who despaired of justice. “Of course, when people are completely robbed, like you and me,” she shares with the Master, “they seek salvation from an otherworldly power.” Bulgakov's Margarita in a mirror-inverted form varies the story of Faust. Faust sold his soul to the devil for the sake of a passion for knowledge and betrayed Margarita's love. In the novel, Margarita is ready to make a deal with Woland and becomes a witch for the sake of love and loyalty to the Master.

The evil spirits are doing in Moscow, at the behest of Bulgakov, many different outrages. It is not for nothing that a violent retinue is assigned to Woland. It brings together specialists of various profiles: the master of mischievous tricks and pranks - the cat Behemoth, the eloquent Koroviev, who owns all dialects and jargons - from semi-criminal to high society, gloomy Azazello, extremely resourceful in the sense of kicking all kinds of sinners out of apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this world to the next. And sometimes alternating, sometimes speaking in pairs or threes, they create situations that are sometimes eerie, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comical, despite the devastating consequences of their actions.

The fact that Woland is not alone in Moscow, but surrounded by a retinue is unusual for the traditional embodiment of the devil in literature. After all, Satan usually appears on his own - without accomplices. Bulgakov's devil has a retinue, moreover, a retinue in which a strict hierarchy reigns, and each has its own function. The closest to the devil in position is Koroviev-Fagot, the first in rank among the demons, the main assistant to Satan. Bassoon obeys Azazello and Gella. A somewhat special position is occupied by the werecat Behemoth, a favorite jester and a kind of confidant of the “prince of darkness”.

And it seems that Koroviev, aka Fagot, the oldest of the demons subordinate to Woland, who appears to Muscovites as an interpreter with a foreign professor and a former regent of the church choir, has a lot in common with the traditional incarnation of a petty demon. By the whole logic of the novel, the reader is led to the idea not to judge the heroes by their appearance, and the final scene of the “transformation” of evil spirits looks like a confirmation of the correctness of involuntarily arising guesses. Woland's henchman, only when necessary, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler. And only in the final chapters of the novel Koroviev throws off his disguise and appears before the reader as a dark purple knight with a face that never smiles.

The surname Koroviev is modeled on the surname of the character in the story A.K. Tolstoy's "Ghoul" (1841) State Councilor Telyaev, who turns out to be a knight and a vampire. In addition, in the story of F.M. Dostoevsky's "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" has a character by the name of Korovkin, very similar to our hero. His second name comes from the name of the musical instrument bassoon, invented by an Italian monk. Koroviev-Fagot has some resemblance to a bassoon - a long thin tube folded in three. Bulgakov's character is thin, tall and in imaginary subservience, it seems, is ready to triple in front of his interlocutor (in order to calmly harm him later).

Here is his portrait: “... a transparent citizen of a strange appearance, On a small head a jockey cap, a short checkered jacket ... a citizen a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking”; "... his antennae are like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half-drunk."

Koroviev-Fagot is a devil that has arisen from the sultry Moscow air (an unprecedented heat for May at the time of its appearance is one of the traditional signs of the approach of evil spirits). Woland's henchman, only out of necessity, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler, a rogue translator with a famous foreigner, etc. Only in the last flight Koroviev-Fagot becomes who he really is - a gloomy demon, a knight Bassoon, no worse than his master, who knows the price of human weaknesses and virtues.

The werewolf cat and Satan's favorite jester is perhaps the most amusing and memorable of Woland's retinue. The author of The Master and Margarita got information about the Behemoth from the book by M.A. Orlov "The History of Man's Relations with the Devil" (1904), extracts from which have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive. There, in particular, the case of the French abbess, who lived in the 17th century, was described. and possessed by seven devils, the fifth demon being Behemoth. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, with a trunk and fangs. His hands were of a human style, and a huge belly, a short tail and thick hind legs, like a hippopotamus, reminded him of his name. Bulgakov's Behemoth became a huge black werewolf cat, since it is black cats that are traditionally considered to be associated with evil spirits. This is how we see it for the first time: “... on a jeweler’s pouffe, a third person collapsed in a cheeky pose, namely, a terrible black cat with a glass of vodka in one paw and a fork, on which he managed to pry a pickled mushroom, in the other” 2 . Behemoth in the demonological tradition is the demon of the desires of the stomach. Hence his extraordinary gluttony, especially in Torgsin, when he indiscriminately swallows everything edible.

The shootout between Behemoth and the detectives in apartment No. 50, his chess duel with Woland, the shooting contest with Azazello - all these are purely humorous scenes, very funny and even, to some extent, relieving the sharpness of those worldly, moral and philosophical problems that the novel poses reader.

In the last flight, the reincarnation of this merry joker is very unusual (like most of the plot moves in this science fiction novel): “Night tore off the fluffy tail of the Behemoth, tore off his hair and scattered it to shreds across the swamps. The one who was the cat that entertained the prince of darkness, now turned out to be a thin young man, a page demon, the best jester that ever existed in the world.

These characters of the novel, it turns out, have their own history, not related to biblical history. So the purple knight, as it turns out, is paying for some kind of joke that turned out to be unsuccessful. The Behemoth cat was the purple knight's personal page. And only the transformation of another servant of Woland does not occur: the changes that occurred with Azazello did not turn him into a man, like other companions of Woland - on a farewell flight over Moscow, we see a cold and impassive demon of death.

The name Azazello was formed by Bulgakov from the Old Testament name Azazel. This is the name of the negative hero of the Old Testament book of Enoch, the fallen angel who taught people to make weapons and jewelry. Probably, Bulgakov was attracted by the combination in one character of the ability to seduce and kill. It is precisely for the insidious seducer that we take Azazello Margarita during their first meeting in the Alexander Garden: “This neighbor turned out to be short, fiery red, with a fang, in starched underwear, in a striped solid suit, in patent leather shoes and with a bowler hat on his head. "Absolutely a robber's mug!" thought Margarita. But the main function of Azazello in the novel is connected with violence. He throws Styopa Likhodeev from Moscow to Yalta, expels Uncle Berlioz from the Bad Apartment, and kills the traitor Baron Meigel with a revolver. Azazello also invented the cream, which he gives to Margherita. The magic cream not only makes the heroine invisible and able to fly, but also endows her with a new, witchy beauty.

In the epilogue of the novel, this fallen angel appears before us in a new guise: “Flying on the side of everyone, shining with the steel of armor, Azazello. The moon changed his face too. The ridiculous, ugly fang disappeared without a trace, and the squint turned out to be false. Both Azazello's eyes were the same, empty and black, and his face was white and cold. Now Azazello flew in his real form, like a demon of a waterless desert, a demon-killer.

Gella is a member of Woland's retinue, a female vampire: “I recommend my maid Gella. Quick, understanding and there is no such service that she would not be able to provide. The name "Gella" Bulgakov drew from the article "Sorcery" of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, where it was noted that in Lesbos this name was called untimely dead girls who became vampires after death.

The green-eyed beauty Gella moves freely through the air, thereby gaining resemblance to a witch. The characteristic features of the behavior of vampires - clicking their teeth and smacking their lips, Bulgakov, perhaps, borrowed from the story of A.K. Tolstoy "Ghoul". There, a vampire girl with a kiss turns her lover into a vampire - hence, obviously, the kiss of Gella, fatal for Varenukha.

Hella, the only one from Woland's retinue, is absent from the scene of the last flight. “The third wife of the writer believed that this was the result of the unfinished work on The Master Margarita. Most likely, Bulgakov deliberately removed her as the youngest member of the retinue, performing only auxiliary functions in the Variety Theater, and in the Bad Apartment, and at the Great Ball with Satan. Vampires are traditionally the lowest category of evil spirits. In addition, Gella would have no one to turn into on the last flight - when the night "exposed all the deceptions", she could only become a dead girl again.

It is customary to talk about the three plans of the novel - ancient, Yershalaim, eternal otherworldly and modern Moscow, which surprisingly turn out to be interconnected, the role of this bundle is played by the world of evil spirits, headed by the majestic and regal Woland. But "no matter how many plans stand out in the novel and no matter how they are called, it is indisputable that the author had in mind to show the reflection of eternal, transtemporal images and relationships in the unsteady surface of historical existence."

The image of Jesus Christ as an ideal of moral perfection invariably attracts many writers and artists. Some of them adhered to the traditional, canonical interpretation of it, based on the four gospels and the apostolic letters, others gravitated towards apocryphal or simply heretical stories. As is well known, M. A. Bulgakov took the second path. Jesus himself, as he appears in the novel, rejects the credibility of the evidence of the Gospel of Matthew (let us recall here the words of Yeshua about what he saw when he looked into the goat parchment of Levi Matthew). And in this regard, he shows a striking unity of views with Woland-Satan: “... someone, who,” Woland turns to Berlioz, “but you should know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the gospels happened really never..." Woland is the devil, Satan, the prince of darkness, the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows (all these definitions are found in the text of the novel). "It is undeniable ... that not only Jesus, but also Satan in the novel are not presented in the New Testament interpretation." Woland is largely focused on Mephistopheles, even the name Woland itself is taken from Goethe's poem, where it is mentioned only once and is usually omitted in Russian translations. The epigraph of the novel also reminds of Goethe's poem. In addition, researchers find that when creating Woland, Bulgakov also remembered the opera by Charles Gounod, and Bulgakov's modern version of Faust, written by the writer and journalist E. L. Mindlin, the beginning of the novel of which was published in 1923. Generally speaking, the images of evil spirits in the novel carry with them many allusions - literary, operatic, musical. It seems that none of the researchers remembered that the French composer Berlioz (1803-1869), whose last name is one of the characters in the novel, is the author of the opera The Condemnation of Doctor Faust.

And yet Woland is, first of all, Satan. For all that, the image of Satan in the novel is not traditional.

Woland's unconventionality is that, being a devil, he is endowed with some obvious attributes of God. Yes, and Woland-Satan himself thinks of himself with him in the "cosmic hierarchy" approximately on an equal footing. No wonder Woland remarks to Levi Matthew: "It's not difficult for me to do anything."

Traditionally, the image of the devil was drawn comically in literature. And in the edition of the novel 1929-1930. Woland possessed a number of degrading traits: he giggled, spoke with a "picaresque smile", used colloquial expressions, calling, for example, Homeless "a pig liar." And to the barman Sokov, pretendingly complaining: “Ah, the bastard people in Moscow!”, And whiningly begging on his knees: “Don’t ruin the orphan.” However, in the final text of the novel, Woland became different, majestic and regal: “He was in an expensive gray suit, in foreign shoes, the color of the suit, a gray beret famously twisted behind his ear, under his arm he carried a cane with a black knob in the form of a poodle's head. The mouth is kind of crooked. Shaved smoothly. Brunette. The right eye is black, the left one is green for some reason. The eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other. “Two eyes rested on Margarita’s face. The right one with a golden spark at the bottom, drilling anyone to the bottom of the soul, and the left one is empty and black, sort of like a narrow needle eye, like an exit to a bottomless well of all darkness and shadows. Woland's face was slanted to the side, the right corner of his mouth was drawn downwards, deep wrinkles parallel to sharp eyebrows were cut on his high bald forehead. The skin on Woland's face seemed to be burned forever by a tan.

Woland has many faces, as befits the devil, and in conversations with different people he puts on different masks. At the same time, Woland’s omniscience of Satan is completely preserved (he and his people are well aware of both the past and future lives of those with whom they come into contact, they also know the text of the Master’s novel, which literally coincides with the “Woland gospel”, thus, what was told unlucky writers at the Patriarchs).

Ticket number 26

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" is read and loved in many respects thanks to its "ancient" part. Here is the original version of the events that the Gospel tells us about. The main characters of the Yershalaim chapters are the fifth procurator of Judea, the horseman Pontius Pilate and the beggar vagrant Yeshua Ha-Nozri, in whom Jesus Christ is guessed. Why does Bulgakov tell us about them? I think to give a lofty example with which to compare the vulgar Moscow life. And these chapters are written differently than the modern part of the novel. How solemn and alarming it sounds: “The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, lanes, ponds ... Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist on light." It seems as if you are transported back two thousand years, to the time of Christ, and you see with your own eyes a long-standing tragedy. Pilate sees Yeshua for the first time and at first treats him with undisguised contempt. And only when a nondescript prisoner heals him of a terrible and previously indestructible headache, the procurator gradually begins to understand that before him is an outstanding person. Pilate first thinks that Yeshua is a great doctor, then that he is a great philosopher. The procurator hopes to save the person he likes, having convinced himself of the absurdity of the accusations leveled against Ha-Notsri of the intention to destroy the Yershalaim temple. However, a much more serious sin pops up here - a violation of the "lèse majesté law". And Pilate is a coward before the cruel Caesar Tiberius. Yeshua tries to convince the procurator that "it is easy and pleasant to speak the truth." Pilate, on the other hand, knows that to act "in truth" - to release an innocent prisoner, can cost him his career. Having condemned Yeshua to death, the procurator tries to observe the letter of the law, but at the same time wants to act according to his conscience and save the condemned from death. Pontius Pilate summons the head of the Sanhedrin Kai-fu and convinces him to pardon Ha-Nozri. But the high priest himself set up a trap for Yeshua with the help of Judas of Kiriath. Kaifa needs to destroy the new preacher, who undermines the power of the Jewish clergy with his teaching. When Pilate realizes that execution is inevitable, his conscience begins to torment him. Trying to calm her down, the procurator organizes the murder of the traitor Judas, but all in vain. Only in a dream can Pilate see the executed Yeshua again and end the argument about the truth. In reality, he is horrified to realize that the consequences of his own cowardice are irreversible, that "there was an execution." Only at the end of the novel does repentance finally free the procurator from eternal torment, and he again meets Ga-Notsri. But this meeting does not take place on earth, but in the starry sky. The story of Pilate and Yeshua proves that by no means all people are good, as Ga-Nozri believes. The latter tells us what a society that lives according to the precepts of Christianity should be like. But both the ancient Roman Empire and Bulgakov's modern Moscow are very far from this ideal. Among the characters of the Moscow scenes there are neither righteous people nor those who repent of their evil deeds. The master is able to write a brilliant novel about Pontius Pilate. However, he no longer believes that "it is easy and pleasant to tell the truth." The bullying campaign convinced the Master that this was not the case at all. The author of the novel about Pilate was broken by unfavorable life circumstances, gave up hope for the publication of his work, and refused to fight. The Master no longer believes that all people are kind. He, unlike Yeshua, is not ready to die for his beliefs. And it's not the writer's job to die for a novel. There are no those in Bulgakov's Moscow who, like Pilate, are tormented by an unclean conscience. Only for a moment does the poet Ryukhin see through his own mediocrity, not believing in those peppy revolutionary slogans that he voices in holiday poems. However, he immediately fills his grief with vodka. It is impossible to imagine Berlioz, Latunsky or other persecutors of the Master, tormented by remorse. The characters of the Moscow scenes look much smaller than the characters of the Yershalaim scenes. The theme of power, which worried Bulgakov, is also connected with the image of Pontius Pilate. The writer saw the arbitrariness of the regime established in the country after 1917. Using an example from the history of the birth of Christianity, he tried to understand why state power turns out to be hostile to a free person. Yeshua claims that “all power is violence against people, and that the time will come when there will be no power of Caesars or any other power. A person will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all. To refute the ideas of Ga-Notsri, Pilate finds nothing better than to utter an insincere toast in honor of the emperor Tiberius, whom he despised. This was necessary for the procurator. To demonstrate to the secretary and soldiers of the escort present during the interrogation their loyalty to the Caesar and the lack of sympathy for the thought of the eloquent prisoner about the kingdom of justice, where there would be no need for imperial power. And right there, not with a false declaration, but with deeds, he proves that Yeshua is right in his assessment of the existing government. Dooming the innocent to a painful execution, Pilate commits violence that has no justification. Once the procurator was a brave warrior. Now, having become the governor of Judea, he is afraid to do a just deed, to free a person from punishment; innocent of a crime. Therefore, Yeshua, before the crucifixion, claims that one of the main human vices is cowardice. Pilate, at least, remembered past battles and once saved the giant Mark Ratslayer from death. Only the injury received in the battle of Idistaviso made him hate people and made him a convinced executioner. The characters of the Moscow scenes of The Master and Margarita, unlike Pilate and the Ratslayer, no longer remember battles and exploits, although they are separated from the end of the bloody civil war by no more than ten years. Here are shown people whose power is more limited than that of the procurator of Judea. They, unlike Pontius Pilate, are not free in the life and death of citizens. But it is entirely within the power of literary leaders like Berlioz, Lavrovich or Latunsky to bring the unwanted to poverty and death. And the drunkard and lecher Styopa Likhodeev as director of the Variety Theater clearly testifies to the degradation of power compared to the Roman era. What was a tragedy in ancient Yershalaim, in Bulgakov's contemporary Moscow, has degenerated into a farce of the Variety. Both Yeshua and the Master have one disciple each - Matvey Levi and Ivan Bezdomny. Matthew is a fanatic. For him, above all, his own understanding of the teachings of Yeshua. A homeless person before meeting with the Master is an ignorant person. And after this meeting, on the advice of the author of the novel about Pontius Pilate, he quits poetry forever. However, having turned into professor-historian Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, Bezdomny gained faith not in the genius of his teacher, but in his own omniscience: “Ivan Nikolaevich knows everything, he knows and understands everything. He knows that in his youth he became a victim of hypnotists, was treated after that and was cured. With the Master, Yeshua and Pilate, the former poet now meets only in a dream, on the night of the spring full moon. And in this case, Ivan Nikolaevich is only a reduced likeness of Levi Matvey. The Yershalaim scenes of The Master and Margarita are the ideological center of the novel, that standard of high tragedy, against which Bulgakov's contemporary Moscow life is tested. And it turns out that the righteous is just as doomed to perish in Moscow as in Yershalaim. But in the ancient chapters, we don’t want to laugh at any of the characters, but in the Moscow part of the novel, laughter, according to the author’s intention, is designed to mask the tragedy of what is happening, to prepare us for an optimistic finale, when the Master and his beloved receive a well-deserved reward - peace.

Ticket number 27

In one of his last interviews, V. G. Rasputin, reflecting on the traditions of peoples, their destinies in modern conditions, said with conviction: "How much memory is in a man, so much is a person in him." Nature is wise. She built the path of human life in such a way that the thread that unites and connects generations does not weaken or break. Keeping a warm memory of the past, we retain a sense of responsibility for the Motherland, strengthen faith in the strength of our people, the value and uniqueness of its history. Therefore, the role of fiction in the moral and patriotic education of new generations is great and in no way replaceable. Its impact on the formation of a young citizen's historical memory is complex and multifaceted.

Each literary work bears the imprint of its time, grows out of the history of national culture and is perceived in the context of its past and present experience. And a person grows up as a part of society, part of its history. The burning memory of the past is the support of a person in life, the strength of his “self-reliance”. "Man's self-reliance is the key to his greatness",- said A.S. Pushkin.

Modern literature peers in depth and intently into the heroic epochs of the history of our people, into the spiritual and moral roots of our real achievements,

shows the high moral potential of a person. Modern literature has done a lot to preserve the cultural heritage of the past, to develop the historical memory of the new generation.

The theme of morality, moral quest is being actively developed in our literature. But the achievements in prose about the war are perhaps especially significant here. It is the war, with its tragedy and heroism, with its inhumanly difficult everyday life, with the extreme polarization of good and evil, with its crisis situations, in which every now and then a person finds himself and in which, his basic human qualities are most clearly highlighted, gives the artists of the word the richest material. to highlight moral and ethical issues. The world must not forget the horrors of war, separation, suffering and death of millions. It would be a crime against the fallen, a crime against the future, we must remember the war, the heroism and courage that passed its roads, fight for peace - the duty of all living on Earth, therefore one of the most important topics of our literature is the theme of the feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic war.

This topic is complex, diverse, inexhaustible. The tasks of modern writers writing about the war are enormous. They need to be shown the significance of the struggle and victory, the origins of the heroism of the Russian people, their moral strength, ideological conviction, devotion to the Motherland; show the difficulties of the fight against fascism; to convey to contemporaries the feelings and thoughts of the heroes of the war years, to give a deep analysis in one of the most critical periods in the life of the country and their own lives.

War... The very word tells us about misfortune and grief, about misfortune and tears, about losses and partings. How many people died during this terrible Great Patriotic War!..

The theme of war is still not outdated in our literature. In the war, there was a real identity check for authenticity. This explains the dawn of Russian literature in the war and post-war period. One of the main themes of military literature is the theme of heroism.

On the grave of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow, the following words are carved: "Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal." Books about the war are also like a monument to the dead. They solve one of the problems of education - they teach the younger generation love for the Motherland, perseverance in trials, they teach high morality on the example of fathers and grandfathers. Their importance is growing more and more in connection with the great relevance of the theme of war and peace in our days. The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War.

The Victory Day, the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, is dear to the heart of every citizen of Russia. Dear by the memory of more than twenty million sons and daughters, fathers and mothers who gave their lives for the freedom and bright future of the Motherland dear to their hearts. The memory of those who healed front-line wounds, revived the country from ruins and ashes. The feat of those who fought and defeated fascism is immortal. This feat will live through the ages.

We, the youth of the 90s, did not see the war, but we know almost everything about it, we know at what cost happiness was won. We must remember those girls from B. Vasiliev's story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", who, without hesitation, went to the front to defend their homeland. Should they wear men's boots and tunics, hold machine guns in their hands? Of course not. But they understood that in difficult years for the Motherland, they were obliged to pay membership fees not in rubles, but with their own blood, life. And they went to meet the fascist thugs in order to prevent them from going to the White Sea-Baltic Canal, they were not afraid, they were not at a loss, at the cost of their lives to fulfill their duty to the Motherland. Death has no power over such people because at the cost of their lives they defended freedom.

The feat of the soldiers who defended Stalingrad is immortal. Y. Bondarev tells us about these heroes in the novel "Hot Snow". Where he describes the living people of those whom he met in the war, with whom he walked along the roads of the Stalingrad steppes, Ukraine and Poland, pushed the guns with his shoulder, pulled them out of the autumn mud, fired, stood on direct fire, slept, as the soldiers say, on one bowler hat, ate tomatoes that smelled of burning and German tol and shared the last tobacco for a spin at the end of a tank attack. Which, in a terrible battle, fought to the last drop of blood. These people perished knowing full well that they were giving their lives in the name of happiness, in the name of freedom, in the name of a clear sky and a clear sun, in the name of future happy generations.

War... How much this word says. War is the suffering of mothers, hundreds of dead soldiers, hundreds of orphans and families without fathers, terrible memories of people. And we, who have not seen the war, are not laughing. The soldiers served honestly, without self-interest. They defended the fatherland, relatives and friends.

Yes, they did a great job. They died, but did not give up. The consciousness of one's duty to the Motherland drowned out the feeling of fear, pain, and thoughts of death. This means that this action is not an unaccountable feat, but a conviction in the rightness and greatness of a cause for which a person consciously gives his life. Our warriors knew, understood that it was necessary to defeat this black evil, this cruel, ferocious gang of murderers and rapists, otherwise they would enslave the whole world. Thousands of people did not spare themselves, gave their lives for a just cause. Therefore, with great excitement, you read the lines from the letter of Meselbek, the hero of Ch. Aitmatov's story "Mother's Field": “... We did not beg for a war and we did not start it, this is a huge misfortune for all of us, all people. And we must shed our blood, give our lives to crush, to destroy this monster. If we do not do this, then we are not worthy, we will be the name of Man. An hour later I'm going to do the task of the Motherland. It is unlikely that I will return alive. I am going there to save the lives of many of my comrades in the offensive. I am going for the sake of the people, for the sake of victory, for the sake of everything beautiful that is in Man. These are the people who defeated fascism.

“People warm living went to the bottom, to the bottom, to the bottom ...”

Man and war

The Great Patriotic War is an ordeal that befell the Russian people. The literature of that time could not remain aloof from this event.

So on the first day of the war at a rally of Soviet writers the following words were heard : "Every Soviet writer is ready to devote all his strength, all his experience and talent, all his blood, if necessary, to the cause of the sacred people's war against the enemies of our Motherland." These words were justified. From the very beginning of the war, the writers felt "mobilized and called". About two thousand writers went to the front, more than four hundred of them did not return.

Writers lived one life with the fighting people: they froze in the trenches, went on the attack, performed feats and ... wrote.

V. Bykov came to literature, feeling obliged to tell about how difficult the past war was, what heroic efforts of millions of people were required in order to get it in the fire of fierce battles. And this feeling itself, which determines the inner pathos of all the writer's military works, and his humanistic passion, moral maximalism, uncompromising truthfulness in depicting the war, have a deep connection with the fact that V. Bykov really writes on behalf of the generation of his peers, and in general, front-line soldiers, not only those who remained alive, but also those who gave their lives for the sake of victory over fascism. He very organically, with all his human essence, feels the blood unity, the soldier's kinship, with those who died on the fields of past battles.

Vasil Bykov is a seventeen-year-old participant in the war, a writer who reflects in his works about a person, about his behavior in a war, about duty and honor, which guide the hero of the story of the same name "Sotnikov".

In Bykov's works there are few battle scenes, spectacular historical events, but he manages to convey with amazing depth the feelings of an ordinary soldier in a big war. Using the example of the most strategically insignificant situations, the author gives answers to complex questions of war.

The problem of the moral choice of a hero in a war is characteristic of the entire work of V. Bykov. This problem is posed in almost all of his stories: "Alpine Ballad", "Obelisk", "Sotnikov" and others. In Bykov's story "Sotnikov" the problem of true and imaginary heroism is emphasized, which is the essence of the plot collision of the work. The writer gives an artistic study of the moral foundations of human behavior in their social and ideological conditionality.

Vasil Bykov builds plots only on the dramatic moments of the local war, as they say, with the participation of ordinary soldiers. Step by step, analyzing the motives for the behavior of soldiers in extreme situations, the writer gets to the bottom of the psychological states and experiences of his heroes. This quality of Bykov's prose distinguishes his early works: The Third Rocket, The Trap, The Dead Doesn't Hurt, and others.

In each new story, the writer puts his characters in even more difficult situations. The only thing that unites the heroes is that their actions cannot be assessed unambiguously. The plot of the story

"Sotnikov" is psychologically twisted in such a way that critics are confused in assessing the behavior of Bykov's characters. And there are almost no events in the story. Critics had something to be confused about: the main character is a traitor?! In my opinion, the author deliberately blurs the edges of the image of this character.

But in fact, the plot of the story is simple: two partisans Sotnikov and Rybak go to the village on a mission - to get a sheep to feed the detachment. Before that, the heroes hardly knew each other, although they managed to make war and even helped each other out in one battle. Sotnikov is not entirely healthy and could easily evade a generally trifling task, but he does not feel himself enough among the partisans and therefore volunteers to go. By this, he seems to want to show his comrades in arms that he does not shy away from “dirty work”.

The two partisans react differently to the impending danger, and it seems to the reader that the strong and quick-witted Rybak is more prepared to commit a brave act than the frail and sick Sotnikov. But if Rybak, who “managed to find some way out” all his life, is already internally ready to commit betrayal, then Sotnikov remains true to the duty of a person and citizen to the last breath: “Well, it was necessary to gather the last strength in oneself in order to face death with dignity ... Otherwise, why then life? It is too hard for a person to be carefree about its end.

In the story, not representatives of two different worlds collide, but people of one country. The heroes of the story - Sotnikov and Rybak - under normal conditions, perhaps, would not have shown their true nature. But during the war, Sotnikov goes through difficult trials with honor and accepts death without renouncing his beliefs, and Rybak, in the face of death, changes his beliefs, betrays his homeland, saving his life, which after betrayal loses all value. He actually becomes an enemy. He goes to another world, alien to us, where personal well-being is placed above all else, where fear for his life makes him kill and betray. In the face of death, a person remains as he really is. Here the depth of his convictions, his civic fortitude are tested.

In the last moments of his life, Sotnikov suddenly lost his confidence in the right to demand from others the same thing that he demands from himself. The fisherman became for him not a bastard, but simply a foreman who, as a citizen and a person, did not get something. Sotnikov did not seek sympathy from the crowd that surrounded the place of execution. He did not want to be thought badly of him, and was angry only at Rybak, who was acting as an executioner. Fisherman apologizes. "I'm sorry, brother." "Go to hell!"- follows the answer.

The characters develop slowly. The fisherman becomes unpleasant to us, causes hatred, as he is capable of betrayal. Sotnikov, on the other hand, opens up as a strong-willed, courageous nature. The writer is proud of Sotnikov, whose last feat was an attempt to take all the blame on himself, removing it from the headman and Demchikha, who came to the Nazis for helping partisan intelligence officers. Duty to the Motherland, to people, as the most important manifestation of one's own Self - that's what the author draws attention to. Consciousness of duty, human dignity, soldier's honor, love for people - such values ​​exist for Sotnikov. It is about the people who are in trouble, he thinks. The hero sacrifices himself, knowing that life is the only real value. And Rybak had just a lust for life. And the main thing for him is to survive at any cost. Of course, much depends on the person, his principles, beliefs. Rybak has many virtues: he has a sense of camaraderie, he sympathizes with the sick Sotnikov, shares with him the remnants of steamed rye, and behaves with dignity in battle. But how did it happen that he becomes a traitor and participates in the execution of his comrade? In my opinion, in the mind of Rybak there is no clear boundary between the moral and the immoral. Being with everyone in the ranks, he conscientiously bears all the hardships of partisan life, without thinking deeply about either life or death. Duty, honor - these categories do not disturb his soul. Faced alone with inhuman circumstances, he turns out to be a spiritually weak person. If Sotnikov thought only about how to die with dignity, then Rybak is cunning, deceiving himself and, as a result, surrenders to his enemies. He believes that in moments of danger, everyone thinks only of himself.

Sotnikov, despite the failures: captivity, escape, then again captivity, escape, and then the partisan detachment, did not harden, did not become indifferent to people, but retained loyalty, responsibility, love. The author does not pay attention to how Sotnikov once saves the life of Rybak in battle, how the sick Sotnikov nevertheless goes on a mission. Sotnikov could not refuse, as this was contrary to his life principles. On the last night of his life, the hero recalls his youth. Lying to his father in childhood became a lesson in pangs of conscience for him. Therefore, the hero strictly judges himself and holds an answer to his conscience. He remained a man in the cruel conditions of war. This is the feat of Sotnikov. It seems to me that in the tragic situations of war it is difficult to remain true to yourself, to your moral principles. But it is precisely such people of duty

and honor fight evil, make life more beautiful, and they make us think: do we know how to live according to conscience.

What is the depth of the work of the writer Bykov? The fact that he left the possibility of a different path to the traitor Rybak even after such a grave crime. This is both a continuation of the struggle with the enemy, and a confessional confession of one's betrayal. The writer left his hero the possibility of repentance, an opportunity that is more often given to a person by God, and not by a person. The writer, in my opinion, assumed that this guilt could also be atoned for.

The work of V. Bykov is tragic in its sound, just as tragic is the war itself, which claimed tens of millions of human lives. But the writer talks about strong-willed people who are able to rise above circumstances and death itself. And today, I believe, it is impossible to assess the events of the war, those terrible years, without taking into account the views on this topic of the writer Vasil Bykov. The work is imbued with thoughts about life and death, about human duty and humanism, which are incompatible with any manifestation of selfishness. An in-depth psychological analysis of every action and gesture of the characters, fleeting thoughts or remarks - the bottom of the strongest sides of the story "The Centuries".

The Pope of Rome gave the writer V. Bykov a special prize of the Catholic Church for the story "The Centurions". This fact indicates what kind of moral universal principle is seen in this work. The enormous moral strength of Sotnikov lies in the fact that he managed to accept suffering for his people, managed to keep the faith, not to succumb to that vile thought that Rybak succumbed to : "Anyway, now death does not make sense, it will not change anything." This is not so - suffering for the people, for the faith always makes sense for humanity. Feat instills moral strength in other people, preserves faith in them. Another reason why the church prize was awarded to the author of Sotnikov lies in the fact that religion always preaches the idea of ​​understanding and forgiveness. Indeed, it is easy to condemn Rybak, but in order to have the full right to do so, one must at least be in the place of this person. Of course, Rybak is worthy of condemnation, but there are universal principles that call for refraining from unconditional condemnation even for such grave crimes.

There are many examples in the literature when circumstances turn out to be higher than the willpower of the heroes, for example, the image of Andrei Guskov from the story “Live and Remember” by Valentin Rasputin. The work is written with the author's deep knowledge of folk life, the psychology of the common man. The author puts his heroes in a difficult situation: a young guy Andrei Guskov honestly fought almost until the very end of the war, but in 1944 he ended up in a hospital, and his life cracked. He thought that a severe wound would free him from further service. But it was not there, the news that he was again sent to the front struck him like a lightning bolt. All his dreams and plans were destroyed in an instant. And in moments of spiritual confusion and despair, Andrei makes a fatal decision for himself, which turned his whole life and soul upside down, made him a different person.

In any work of art, the title plays a very important role for the reader. The title of the story “Live and Remember” prompts us to a deeper concept and understanding of the work. These words “Live and remember” tell us that everything that is written on the pages of the book should become an unshakable eternal lesson in a person’s life.

Andrei was afraid to go to the front, but more than this fear was resentment and anger at everything that brought him back to the war, not allowing him to stay at home. And, in the end, he decides to commit a crime and becomes a deserter. Before, he didn’t even have such thoughts in his thoughts, but the longing for his relatives, family, native village turned out to be the strongest of all. And the very day on which he was not given a vacation becomes fatal and turns the life of the hero and his family upside down.

When Andrey found himself near his home, he realized the vileness of his act, realized that a terrible thing had happened and now he had to hide from people all his life, look back, be afraid of every rustle. This story is not only about how a soldier becomes a deserter. It is also about cruelty, the destructive power of war, which kills feelings and desires in a person. If a soldier in war thinks only of victory, he can become a hero. If not, then the longing will usually be stronger. Constantly thinking about meeting with his family, the soldier mentally strives to see all his relatives and friends, to get to his home as soon as possible. In Andrey these feelings

were very strong and pronounced. And therefore he is a person doomed to death from the very beginning, since from the minute when the war began, until the last moment, he lived in memories and in anticipation of a meeting.

The tragedy of the story is enhanced by the fact that not only Andrei dies in it. Following him, he takes away both his young wife and the unborn child. His wife, Nastena, is a woman who is able to sacrifice everything so that her loved one stays alive. Like her husband, Nastena is a victim of an all-destroying war and its laws. But if Andrei can be blamed, then Nastena is an innocent victim. She is ready to take the blow, the suspicions of loved ones, the condemnation of neighbors and even punishment. All this evokes undeniable sympathy in the reader. “The war delayed Nastenino's happiness, but Nastena believed in the war that it would be. Peace will come, Andrey will return, and everything that has stopped over the years will start moving again. Otherwise, Nastena could not imagine her life. But Andrey came ahead of time, before the victory, and confused everything, mixed it up, knocked it out of its order - Nastena could not help but guess about this. Now I had to think not about happiness - about something else. And it, frightened, moved away somewhere, eclipsed, obscured - there was no way for it, it seemed, from there, no hope.

The idea of ​​life is destroyed, and with them, life itself. Not every person is given the opportunity to experience such grief and shame that Nastena took upon herself. She constantly had to lie, get out of difficult situations, figure out what to say to her fellow villagers.

The author introduces many thoughts about life into the story “Live and Remember”. We see this especially well when Andrey meets Nastena. They not only remember the most vivid impressions from the past, but also reflect on the future. In my opinion, the boundary between the past and future life of Nastya and Andrei is very clearly distinguished here. From their conversations, it is clear that they used to live happily: this is proved by the many joyful occasions and moments that he recalled. They imagine them very clearly, as if it were just recently. But they cannot imagine the future. How is it possible to live away from all human people, not to see mother and father and friends? You can’t hide from everyone and be afraid of everything for the rest of your life! But they have no other way, and the heroes understand this. It is worth noting that basically Nastena and Andrei talk about that happy life, and not about what will happen.

The story ends with the tragic death of Nastena and her unborn child. She was tired of living such a life - a life away from all living things. Nastena no longer believed anything, it seemed to her that she had come up with it all herself. “The head really broke. Nastena was ready to tear off her skin. She tried to think less and move less - she had nothing to think about, nowhere to move. Enough... She was tired. Who would know how tired she is and how much she wants to rest!”. She jumped over the side of the boat and ... The author did not even write this word - she drowned. He described it all in figurative terms. “Far, far away, there was a flickering from within, like from a terrible beautiful fairy tale.” A play on words is noticeable - a “creepy” and “beautiful” fairy tale. Probably, the way it is - terrible, because it is still death, but beautiful, because it was she who saved Nastya from all her torment and suffering.

The distant impact of war on the lives of specific people. The echoes of the actions committed during the war affect not only the life of the hero, but also the lives of people close to him. The choice that was once made predetermines all his further actions and leads to a completely natural outcome.

War is a complex phenomenon, the situation can change extremely quickly, and choices must be made. It is especially difficult to decide the fate of other people, to take responsibility, in many ways to determine who will live. It is this situation that is reflected in one of the early stories of Yuri Bondarev "Battalions ask for fire." The author writes about the storming of Kyiv, of which he was an eyewitness. Critics have by no means accidentally called this work "a tragedy in prose", since we are talking about a simple and at the same time harsh reality. The battalions were given the task of seizing a bridgehead for the offensive, which was accomplished. And here, in the midst of blood and death, a person simply, imperceptibly does an ordinary and holy deed - he defends his homeland. Reflecting the fierce counterattacks of the enemy, fighting for every meter of ground, soldiers and officers are waiting for artillery support, hoping for an early approach of the main forces. But while the Dnieper was being crossed, while the fierce battle was going on, the situation on this sector of the front changed. The division must direct all its forces, all its firepower to another bridgehead, the offensive from which is recognized as more promising. Such is the cruel logic of war. The battalion commanders were given a new order: to hold out to the last, divert enemy forces onto themselves, and prevent their transfer.

Yu. Bondarev creates realistic images of commanders and soldiers who have specific features that are unusual for anyone. All of them are ready to give their lives for the Fatherland, to do everything for victory, but they all want to live to see this victory, they want ordinary human happiness, a peaceful life. If a soldier at the front is responsible only for himself, for his "maneuver", then it is much more difficult for the commander. So, Major Bulbanyuk, realizing the difficult situation his battalion got into, having received a mortal wound, regrets only that “I didn’t save people, for the first time in the whole war I didn’t save them.”

Captain Boris Ermakov, the commander of another battalion, would seem to be a completely different person. Ermakov got used to the war and, it seems, did not think much about it. He is passionate, loves risk, cheerful, even fearless. But at the same time, he is noble, fair, does not spare himself in battle, he, in my opinion, can be called a man of honor and duty. This hero is still alive. In a decisive and frank conversation, Yermakov throws a cruel accusation in the face of commander Shevtsov about the death of people, innocent soldiers. He demands to explain why and why the battalions were sent to a senseless death. But there are no clear answers to such questions. I think that this is what the poems written by A. Tvardovsky are about:

"I know it's not my fault,

The fact that others did not come from the war.

That all of them, who are older, who are younger,

Remained there.

And not about the same speech that I could have them,

But he couldn't save.

It's not about that, but still, nevertheless, nevertheless ... "

Probably, these feelings are in one way or another characteristic of everyone who went through the war and survived and returned. Books about the Great Patriotic War are necessary not only because they reflect the history of our country, but also because, by reading them, "you can educate a person in yourself in an excellent way."

Fighting on the bridgehead, behind enemy lines and already realizing that there would be no support and that the battalion was doomed to death, Yermakov, even in the face of death, does not change his sense of duty, does not lose heart. He performs his imperceptible feat... At first you don't understand that this is a feat. In Bondarev's "Battalions ..." almost everyone perishes. Of several hundred people who, in the most cruel and hopeless circumstances, fulfilled their soldierly duty to the end, only five remain alive. On such days and at such moments, human courage and conscience are measured with a particularly severe measure. It seems that no one will know about this, it is worth taking care of yourself a little - and you are saved. But he was saved at the cost of the lives of others: someone needs to go through these terrible meters, which means to die, because not a single line in the world has yet been taken without sacrifice. Captain Yermakov, who returned after the battle to his own people and matured for almost a few years in a day, violating all charters and subordination, will angrily and uncompromisingly throw in the face of the division commander, the careerist Iverzev: "I cannot consider you a man and an officer." And how many such Ermakovs were, such hopeless battles for the bridgehead, finally, such battalions, almost completely destroyed in the Second World War! Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? True, in this war it is a feat and death of thousands for the life, freedom and glory of millions.

Another one of those prominent people writing about the war is V. Kondratiev. The fact that Kondratiev began to write about the war was not only a literary task, but the meaning and justification of his current life, the fulfillment of his duty to his fellow soldiers who died on the Rzhev land.

The story "Sashka" immediately attracted the attention of both critics and readers and put the author in the first row of military writers.

K. Simonov wrote in the preface to "Sasha" by V. Kondratiev: "This is the story of a man who found himself in the most difficult time in the most difficult place and in the most difficult position - a soldier."

The author managed to create a charming image of a person who embodied the best human qualities. The mind, ingenuity, moral certainty of the hero are manifested so directly, openly, that they immediately arouse the reader's trust, sympathy and understanding in him. Sasha is smart, quick-witted, dexterous. This is evidenced by the episode of the capture of the German. He is constantly in action, in motion, sees a lot around him, thinks, reflects.

One of the main episodes of the story is Sashka's refusal to shoot the captured German. When Sasha is asked how he decided not to follow the order - he didn’t shoot the prisoner, didn’t he understand what it threatened him with, he simply answers : "We are people, not fascists ..." In this he is unshakable. His simple words are filled with the deepest meaning: they speak of the invincibility of humanity.

Sasha inspires respect for himself with his kindness, humanity. The war did not crippled his soul, did not depersonalize him. Surprisingly great sense of responsibility for everything, even for what he could not be responsible for. He was ashamed in front of the German for the useless defense, for the guys who were not buried: he tried to lead the prisoner so that he would not see our dead and not buried fighters, and when they stumbled upon them, Sasha was ashamed, as if he were guilty of something . Sashka pities the German, has no idea how he can break his word. "The price of human life has not diminished in his mind." And it is also impossible not to follow the order of the battalion commander. Sashka leads a German prisoner to be shot, playing for time with all his might, and the author drags out their path, forcing the reader to worry: how will this end? The battalion commander is approaching, and Sasha does not lower her gaze in front of him, feeling that he is right. And the captain turned his eyes away, canceled his order. Sashka, on the other hand, experiences extraordinary relief, sees that for the first time and "Destroyed Church" and “a bluish forest beyond the field, and a not too blue sky” and thinks: “if he remains alive, then of everything he experienced on the front end, this case will be the most memorable, the most unforgettable for him ...”

The character of Sasha is the discovery of Kondratiev. An inquisitive mind and innocence, vitality and active kindness, modesty and self-esteem - all this is combined in the whole character of the hero. Kondratiev discovered the character of a man from the midst of the people, shaped by his time and embodied the best features of this time. "The story of Sasha is the story of a man who showed up at the most difficult time in the most difficult place in the most difficult position - a soldier." “... If I hadn’t read Sasha, I would have missed something not in literature, but simply in life. Together with him, I had another friend, a person I fell in love with, ”wrote K. Simonov.

The fight against fascism was not easy. But even in the most difficult days of the war, in its most critical moments, the owls did not leave "War has no woman's face."

Many works have been written about the Great Patriotic War, but this topic is truly inexhaustible. Literature has always sought to comprehend the spiritual image of the hero, the moral origins of the feat. M. Sholokhov wrote: “I am interested in the fate of ordinary people in the last war…” Perhaps many writers and poets could subscribe to these words.

However, it was not until decades after the end of the war that quite special books about this period of history could appear.

Extremely interesting, it seems to me, are works created in a special genre that has not yet received a final definition in literature. It is called differently: epic-choral prose, cathedral novel, tape literature, and so on. Perhaps it is closest to documentary fiction. For the first time in Russian literature, A. Adamovich turned to him, creating the book “I am from a fire village”, which provides evidence of miraculously surviving people from Khatyn.

The continuation of these traditions is, in my opinion, the books of Svetlana Aleksievich "The war has no woman's face" and "The Last Witnesses". These works achieve such power of influence, such emotional intensity. This happens, probably, because it is impossible to replace even brilliant creations with the living truth of a fact, eyewitness testimony, because everyone who has gone through the horrors of war has his own perception of events, which does not in the least exclude the idea of ​​the global nature of what is happening.

“The war does not have a woman's face” - a story about the fate of women in the war: front-line soldiers, partisans, underground workers, home front workers. Sincere and emotional stories of the heroines of the work alternate with accurate and careful author's comments. It is difficult to take at least one of the hundreds of heroines who are both characters and at the same time peculiar creators of this book.

Svetlana Aleksievich managed to preserve and reflect in the book the features of “women's perception of the war, because “women's memory embraces that continent of human feelings in war, which usually eludes male attention” This book is addressed not only to the reader's mind, but to his emotions. One of the heroines, Maria Ivanovna Morozova, says this about it : « Iremember onlyThat,What co me was. What nailin the showeris sitting... »

"The Last Witnesses" is a book that contains the memories of those whose childhood fell on the years of the war. Children's memory retains for life the smallest details, the sensation of color, smell. Wartime children have just as vivid memories, but "they are forty years older than their memory." Children's memory snatches out of the stream of life "the brightest" tragic "moments."

In this work by Svetlana Aleksievich, the author's commentary is reduced to a minimum, the main attention is paid to the "selection and editing" of the material. In my opinion, the author's position could have been expressed more clearly, but, probably, Svetlana Aleksievich wanted to keep intact the perception of the terrible reality of the war by the "last witnesses" - children.

One of the stories by V. Kozko "A Lean Day" is devoted to the same topic. The theme of a war-torn childhood, a spiritual wound that does not heal. The scene of action is a small Belarusian town; the time of action is ten years after the war. The main thing that characterizes the work is the tense tone of the narration, which depends not so much on the plot development of events, but on internal pathos, psychological intensity. This high tragic pathos determines the whole style of the story.

Kolka Letichka (this name was given to him in the orphanage, he does not remember his own), as a small child he ended up in a concentration camp, where donor children were kept, from whom they took blood for German soldiers. He does not remember his mother or father. And those inhuman mental and physical suffering that he experienced generally take away his memory of the past.

And now, ten years later, accidentally hitting a court session, listening to the testimony of former punishing police officers, the boy remembers everything that happened to him. The terrible past comes to life - and kills Kolka Letichka. But his death is predetermined by those events that are already more than ten years old. He is doomed: no forces are able to restore what was taken from him in childhood. Kolka's cry, sounded in the courtroom, is an echo of the call for help from all children forcibly torn away from their mothers: "Mom, save me!" - he shouted to the whole hall, as he shouted to the whole earth in that distant 1943, as thousands and thousands of his peers shouted.

Perhaps someone will say that it is necessary to protect the younger generation from such upheavals, that it is unnecessary to know about all the horrors of war, but such knowledge is essential not only because it is the history of our country, but also because otherwise mutual understanding will not be possible. between members of different generations.

Ticket number 28

Nowadays, it becomes obvious that "camp prose" has become firmly established in literature, like rural or military prose. The testimonies of eyewitnesses, miraculously survived, escaped, risen from the dead, continue to amaze the reader with their naked truth. The emergence of this prose is a unique phenomenon in world literature. As Yu. Sokhryakov noted, this prose appeared due to "an intense spiritual desire to comprehend the results of the grandiose genocide that was carried out in the country throughout the entire twentieth century" (125, 175).

Everything that is written about camps, prisons, prisons is a kind of historical and human documents that provide rich food for thought about our historical path, about the nature of our society and, importantly, about the nature of man himself, which is most expressively manifested precisely in emergency circumstances. , what were the terrible years of prisons, prisons, penal servitude, the Gulag for the writers-“camps”.

Prisons, jails, camps - this is not a modern invention. They have existed since the time of Ancient Rome, where exile, deportation, “accompanied by the imposition of chains and imprisonment” (136, 77), as well as life exile, were used as punishment.

In England and France, for example, a very common form of punishment for criminals, with the exception of prisons, was the so-called colonial expulsion: to Australia and America from England, in France - exile to galleys, to Guiana and New Caledonia.

In tsarist Russia, convicts were sent to Siberia, and later to Sakhalin. Based on the data cited in his article by V.

Shaposhnikov, we learned that in 1892 there were 11 hard labor prisons and prisons in Russia, where a total of 5,335 people were kept, of which 369 were women. “These data, I believe,” writes the author of the article, “will cause a sarcastic grin to those who for many years hammered into our heads the thesis about the incredible cruelties of the tsarist autocracy and called pre-revolutionary Russia nothing more than a prison of peoples” (143, 144).

The advanced, enlightened part of Russian society of the 19th century suffered from the fact that in the country, even in the distant Nerchinsk mines, people were kept in custody, shackled, and subjected to corporal punishment. And the first, most active petitioners for mitigating the fate of the convicted were writers who created a whole trend in Russian literature, which was quite powerful and noticeable, since many word artists of the last century made their contribution to it: F. M. Dostoevsky, P. F. Yakubovich, V. G. Korolenko, S. V. Maksimov, A. P. Chekhov, L. N. Tolstoy. This direction can be conditionally called "convict prose".

The founder of the Russian "convict prose", of course, is F. M. Dostoevsky. His "Notes from the House of the Dead" shocked Russia. It was like a living testimony from the "world of outcasts." Dostoevsky himself was rightly annoyed that his work is read as direct evidence of the cruel treatment of prisoners, ignoring its artistic nature and philosophical problems. D. I. Pisarev was the first of the critics who revealed to readers the ideological depth of the work and connected the image of the House of the Dead with various public institutions in Russia.

N. K. Mikhailovsky also gave a high assessment to "Notes from the House of the Dead". While generally negative about Dostoevsky's work, he also made exceptions for The House of the Dead. The fact that he defined "Notes" as a work with a "harmonic" and "proportional" structure requires modern researchers to pay special attention and carefully study it from this point of view.

The modern researcher V. A. Nedzvetsky in the article “The denial of personality: (“Notes from the House of the Dead” as a literary dystopia)” notes that the Omsk prison prison - “The Dead House” - is gradually “transforming” from an institution for especially dangerous criminals. into a miniature of an entire country, even humanity. (102, 15).

N. M. Chirkov in his monograph “On Dostoevsky’s Style: Problems, Ideas, Images” calls “Notes from the House of the Dead” “the true pinnacle of Dostoevsky’s work” (140, 27), a work equal in strength “only to Dante’s “Hell”. And this is indeed “Hell” in its own way,” the researcher continues, “of course, of a different historical era and environment” (140, 27).

G. M. Friedlender in the monograph "Realism of Dostoevsky", dwelling on "Notes from the House of the Dead", notes the "outward calm and epic routine" (138, 99) of the narrative. The scientist notes that Dostoevsky describes with harsh simplicity the dirty, stupefying atmosphere of the prison barracks, the severity of forced labor, the arbitrariness of the administration's representatives, intoxicated with power. G. M. Friedlander also notes that the pages dedicated to the prison hospital are "written with great force." The scene with the sick man, who died in shackles, emphasizes the deadening impression of the atmosphere of the House of the Dead.

In I. T. Mishin’s article “Problematics of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Notes from the House of the Dead”, attention is also focused on the “worldlikeness” of penal servitude: Dostoevsky proves with stories of the crimes of convicts that the same laws operate outside the prison walls” (96, 127 ). Step by step, analyzing the work. The researcher concludes that there is no way to establish where there is more arbitrariness: in hard labor or in freedom.

In the study by Yu. G. Kudryavtsev “Three Circles of Dostoevsky: Eventful. Temporary. Eternal” the author dwells in detail on the nature of the crime. The scientist notes that the author of the "notes" finds something human in each prisoner: in one - fortitude, in the other - kindness, gentleness, gullibility, in the third - curiosity. As a result, Yu. G. Kudryavtsev writes, there are people in prison who are not worse at all than outside the prison. And this is a reproach to justice, because the worst should still be in prisons.

The monographs of T. S. Karlova “Dostoevsky and the Russian Court”, A. Bachinin “Dostoevsky: the metaphysics of crime” are devoted to the same problem of crime and punishment.

The monographs of O. N. Osmolovsky "Dostoevsky and the Russian Psychological Novel" and V. A. Tunimanov "Creativity of Dostoevsky (1854-1862)" are detailed and deep in content and thoughts. O. Osmolovsky quite rightly noted that for Dostoevsky the psychological situation experienced by the hero, its moral meaning and results, was of paramount importance. Dostoevsky depicts the phenomena of human psychology, its exceptional manifestations, feelings and experiences in an extremely pointed form. Dostoevsky portrays the heroes in moments of mental upheaval, extreme psychological manifestations, when their behavior is not subject to reason and reveals the valley foundations from the personality. V. A. Tunimanov, dwelling in detail on the analysis of the psychological state of the executioner and the victim, also draws attention to the critical state of the soul of the executioner and the victim.

In the article of the researcher L.V. Akulova "The theme of penal servitude in the works of Dostoevsky and Chekhov", parallels are drawn between the works of two great writers in the depiction of penal servitude as a real earthly hell. The same problem of human necrosis in the House of the Dead is discussed in the articles by A. F. Zakharkin “Siberia and Sakhalin in the work of Chekhov”, Z. P. Ermakova “Sakhalin Island” in A. Solzhenitsyn’s “GULAG Archipelago”. G. I. Printseva in the dissertation research “Sakhalin works of A. P. Chekhov in the early and mid-90s. (Ideas and Style)” resonates with the above studies that Sakhalin is not a place of correction, but only a haven for moral torture.

G. P. Berdnikov in the monograph “A. P. Chekhov. Ideological and creative searches” gives a detailed analysis of the work, reveals its problems. A.F. Zakharkin also very clearly traces “the justice of the picture of hard labor, exile, settlements, drawn by Chekhov in the essays “Sakhalin Island” (73, 73). The researcher quite rightly considers “the complete absence of fiction in it” to be the originality of the book. Using the disclosure of the character's biography as an artistic device, the author tries to "find out and determine the social causes of crimes" (73, 80-81).

Hard labor prose is distinguished by a variety of genres and features of the manifestation of the author's position. The genre features of hard labor prose and the originality of the manifestation of the author's position in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky are devoted to the works of V. B. Shklovsky "Pros and Cons: Dostoevsky", E. A. Akelkina "Notes from the House of the Dead: An example of a holistic analysis of a work of art", dissertations M. Gigolova "The evolution of the hero-narrator in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky in the 1845-1865s", N. Zhivolupova "Confessional narration and the problem of the author's position ("Notes from the Underground" by F. M. Dostoevsky)", article by V. B. Kataeva "The author in the "Sakhalin Island" and in the story" Gusev ".

The influence of Dostoevsky on the literature of the 20th century is one of the main problems of modern literary criticism. The question of the influence of the work of the great Russian writer on the literature of the 19th century, in particular, on the work of P. F. Yakubovich, is also extremely important.

A. I. Bogdanovich gave a high assessment to the novel, noting that the work of Melshin-Yakubovich was written “with amazing force” (39, 60).

The modern researcher V. Shaposhnikov in the article “From the House of the Dead” to the Gulag Archipelago, tracing the evolution from the House of the Dead to the Gulag Archipelago on the example of the works of Dostoevsky, Yakubovich and Solzhenitsyn, noted that the image of the head of the Shelaevsky prison Luchezarov in Yakubovich’s novel is the prototype of future Gulag "kings".

A. M. Skabichevsky, reflecting on the attitude of the mass of convicts to the nobles, noted the greater intelligence of the Shelaevsky shpanka than the prisoners of Dostoevsky. The critic explains this by the reforms carried out by the government: the abolition of serfdom, the introduction of universal military service, and the mitigation of the excessive severity of military discipline. This also led to the fact that "involuntarily injured people who stand at a more moral height" (121, 725) are beginning to fall into the composition of convicts less and less. Skabichevsky confirms his thesis with the following facts from the novels: Dostoevsky writes that it was not customary to talk about his crimes in prison. Yakubovich was struck by how much the prisoners loved to boast of their adventures, and describing them in the most detailed way.

The orientation towards "Notes from the House of the Dead" was especially emphasized by P. Yakubovich himself, considering it the unattainable pinnacle of Russian "convict prose". Borrowing a ready-made genre model, which was developed by Dostoevsky, Yakubovich created a work that reflects the real picture of Russian hard labor reality in the 80-90s of the XIX century.

For many years, the topic of hard labor and exile remained the "property" of pre-revolutionary Russia. The appearance in 1964 of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in the press marked that the curtain hiding the secret area of ​​Soviet reality was beginning to lift. With his story, A. Solzhenitsyn laid the foundation for a new trend in Soviet literature, later called "camp prose."

In our opinion, the term "camp theme" was first put forward by V. T. Shalamov. In his manifesto "On Prose" he writes: "The so-called camp theme is a very large topic, which will accommodate one hundred writers like Solzhenitsyn and five writers like Leo Tolstoy" ("On Prose" -17, 430).

After the publication of the testimonies of the prisoners of the Stalinist camps on the pages of periodicals, the phrase "camp prose" began to be used in modern literary criticism. For example, there are a number of works in the title of which this term is present: in the article by L. Timofeev, for example, "The Poetics of Camp Prose", in the study by O. V. Volkova "The Evolution of the Camp Theme and Its Influence on Russian Literature of the 50s - 80s ", in the work of Yu. Sokhryakov "Moral lessons of "camp" prose". The term "camp prose" is also widely used in I. V. Nekrasova's dissertation work "Varlam Shalamov - prose writer: (Poetics and problems)". We, for our part, also consider it quite legitimate to use the term "camp prose."

The camp theme is studied by AI Solzhenitsyn at the level of different genres - stories, documentary narrative of a large volume ("artistic research" - by the definition of the writer himself).

V. Frenkel noted the curious, “as it were, stepped structure” (137, 80) of Solzhenitsyn’s camp theme: “One day of Ivan Denisovich” - camp, “In the first circle” - “sharashka”, “Cancer Ward” - exile, hospital, “Matrenin Dvor” is the will, but the will of the former exile, the will in the village, which is not much different from the exile. Solzhenitsyn creates, as it were, several steps between the last circle of hell and "normal" life. And in the "Archipelago" all the same steps are collected, and, in addition, the dimension of history opens up, and Solzhenitsyn leads us along the chain that led to the Gulag. The history of the "streams" of repression, the history of the camps, the history of the "organs". Our history. The sparkling goal - to make all mankind happy - turned into its opposite - into the tragedy of a man thrown into a "dead house".

Undoubtedly, "camp prose" has its own characteristics, inherent in it alone. In his manifesto article "On Prose" V. Shalamov proclaimed the principles of the so-called "new prose": "The writer is not an observer, not a spectator, but a participant in the drama of life, a participant not in a writer's guise, not in a writer's role.

According to V. Shalamov, his "Kolyma Tales" is a vivid example of "new prose", the prose of "living life, which at the same time is a transformed reality, a transformed document" ("On Prose" -17, 430). The writer believes that the reader has lost hope of finding answers to "eternal" questions in fiction, and he is looking for answers in memoirs, the credibility of which is unlimited.

The writer also notes that the narration in Kolyma Tales has nothing to do with the essay. Essay pieces are interspersed there "for the greater glory of the document" ("On Prose" -17, 427). In "Kolyma stories" there are no descriptions, conclusions, journalism; the whole point, according to the writer, "is in the depiction of new psychological patterns, in the artistic study of a terrible topic" ("On Prose" -17, 427). V. Shalamov wrote stories indistinguishable from a document, from a memoir. In his opinion, the author must examine his material not only with his mind and heart, but "with every pore of the skin, with every nerve" ("On Prose" -17, 428).

And in a higher sense, any story is always a document - a document about the author, and this property, V. Shalamov notes, makes one see in the "Kolyma Tales" the victory of good, not evil.

Critics, noting the skill, originality of the style and style of the writers, turned to the origins of Russian "convict prose", to Dostoevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead, as A. Vasilevsky does. He called Dostoevsky "the famous convict", and defined his novel as "the book that marked the beginning of all Russian "camp prose" (44, 13).

Quite deep and interesting are the articles on the development of "camp prose" of a comparative nature. For example, in the article by Yu. Sokhryakov "Moral lessons of "camp" prose" a comparative analysis of the works of V. Shalamov, A. Solzhenitsyn, O. Volkov is made. The critic notes that in the works of "camp" writers we constantly meet with "reminiscences from Dostoevsky, references to his Notes from the House of the Dead, which turn out to be the starting point in artistic calculus" (125, 175). Thus, there is a persistent comparative comprehension of our past and present.

V. Frenkel in his study makes a successful comparative analysis of the works of V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn. The critic notes the originality of V. Shalamov's chronotope - "there is no time in Shalamov's stories" (137, 80), that depth of hell, from which he himself miraculously emerged, is the final death, between this abyss and the world of living people there are no bridges. This, - considers V. Frenkel, - is the highest realism of Shalamov's prose. A. Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand, “does not agree to cancel time” (137, 82), in his works he restores the connection of times, which “is necessary for all of us” (137, 82).

It is impossible not to note the article by V. Shklovsky “The Truth of Varlam Shalamov”. The main attention of the critic is paid to the problem of human morality, reflected in the works of Varlam Shalamov. E. Shklovsky speaks about the moral impact of his prose on readers, dwelling on the contradiction: the reader sees in V. T. Shalamov the bearer of some truth, and the writer himself strenuously denied edification, teaching, inherent in Russian classical literature. The critic examines the peculiarities of V. Shalamov's worldview, world outlook, and analyzes some of his stories.

L. Timofeev in his article “The Poetics of “Camp Prose” dwells to a greater extent on the artistic properties of V. Shalamov's prose. The critic rightly considers death to be the compositional basis of the Kolyma Tales, which, in his opinion, determined their artistic novelty, as well as the features of the chronotope.

Prison, penal servitude and exile in Russian literature is a more than extensive topic, rooted, perhaps, in The Life of Archpriest Avvakum. If you add documentary evidence, memoirs, journalism to fiction, then this is truly a boundless ocean. Thousands of pages of memoirs of the Decembrists, “Notes from the House of the Dead” by F. M. Dostoevsky, “In the World of Outcasts” by P. F. Yakubovich, “Sakhalin Island” by A. P. Chekhov, “The Gulag Archipelago” by A. I. Solzhenitsyn, “Kolyma Stories" by V. T. Shalamov, "A Steep Route" by F A Ginzburg, "Immersion in Darkness" by O. V. Volkov, "The Zecameron of the 20th Century" by V. Kress, and many other artistic and documentary studies form, outline this huge, important for Russia topic.

F. M. Dostoevsky, who became the founder of Russian “hard labor prose”, posed in his confessional novel such important problems as the problem of crime and punishment, the problem of human nature, his freedom, the problem of the relationship between the people and the intelligentsia, the problem of the executioner and butchery.

The writer pays special attention to the issue of the detrimental effect of the House of the Dead on human morality; at the same time, the writer confirms with examples that hard labor cannot make a criminal out of a person if he was not one before. F. M. Dostoevsky does not accept the unlimited power given to one person over another. He argues that corporal punishment has a detrimental effect on the state of mind of the executioner and the victim.

Undoubtedly, prison cannot make a villain, a criminal out of a good person. However, he leaves his mark on a person who has come into contact with him in one way or another. It is no coincidence that the hero-narrator, after leaving hard labor, continues to shun people, as he used to do in hard labor, and eventually goes crazy. Therefore, staying in the House of the Dead leaves a mark on the soul of any person. Dostoevsky, in fact, 150 years before V. Shalamov, expressed the idea of ​​​​an absolutely negative experience of the camp.

The novel by P. F. Yakubovich “In the world of outcasts” is a memoir-fictional narrative about the experience. Borrowing a ready-made genre model, P.F. Yakubovich gave in his novel a realistic picture of Russian hard labor reality, showed us how hard labor has changed 50 years after Dostoevsky's stay there. Yakubovich makes it clear that Dostoevsky was lucky to meet the best representatives of the Russian people in hard labor, while in hard labor Yakubovich was made up of "the scum of the people's sea." In the novel there is such a category of criminals as vagrants. These are some kind of prototypes of the blatars that appeared in the 30s. years of the XX century in the Gulag. In the convict chief Luchezarov, the features of the Gulag "kings" - camp chiefs - are clearly seen.

By means of artistic journalism, A.P. Chekhov continued and developed what was started by Dostoevsky. The writer appears before us as a scientist and a writer at the same time, combining scientific material with a subtle depiction of human characters. The totality of facts, episodes, individual "stories" irresistibly testify to the pernicious influence of the House of the Dead, in this sense, Chekhov's work echoes Dostoevsky's novel, in particular, in depicting hard labor as a real earthly hell. This image repeatedly pops up on the pages of Chekhov's work. Like Dostoevsky, Chekhov emphasizes the negative impact of corporal punishment on the mental state of executioners and victims. The writer believes that both themselves and society are guilty of crimes committed by criminals. Chekhov saw the main evil in the common barracks, in life imprisonment, in a society that looked indifferently and got used to this evil. Every person should have a sense of responsibility - the writers believed, and no one should have illusions about their own non-involvement in what is happening.

The intra-literary regularity that has developed more than one century ago is such that continuity and renewal are characteristic of literature. And even if we do not have direct authorial confessions about the impact of this or that literary source on his work, then indirectly, “secretly”, this interaction always “manifests itself”, because tradition can also enter into literary creativity spontaneously, regardless of the intentions of the author.

Writers - chroniclers of the GULAG, "Virgils of new prose", repeatedly refer to the work of "prison chroniclers" of the 19th century on the pages of their memoirs about the Stalinist camps.

First of all, in depicting the most terrible abomination that is conceivable on earth - human life in the worst version of lack of freedom, the works of writers of two centuries have in common a humanistic orientation, faith in man and aspiration for freedom. In their works, writers of the 19th and 20th centuries noted a person's constant striving for freedom, which was expressed in various ways: in Dostoevsky and Chekhov - escape, illegal wine trade, playing cards, homesickness; with Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov - an attempt to escape, an attempt to "change their fate."

Philanthropy and faith in man, in the possibility of his spiritual and moral rebirth distinguishes the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn and Volkov. It was philanthropy and faith in man that made Chekhov make a trip to Sakhalin. Solzhenitsyn bluntly pointed out that prison helped him "nurture his soul," turn to faith. O. V. Volkov, an orthodox Christian, connects his salvation, "resurrection from the dead" precisely with faith. V. Shalamov, on the contrary, says that it was not God, but real people who helped him get through the hell of the Kolyma camps. He argued, by no means unfounded, that in the camp corruption covers everyone: both the chiefs and the prisoners. A. Solzhenitsyn argued with him in his artistic research, arguing that the personality of the author of Kolyma Tales is an example of the opposite, that Varlam Tikhonovich himself did not become either a “snitch”, or an informer, or a thief. In fact, A. Solzhenitsyn expressed the idea of ​​A. P. Chekhov and F. M. Dostoevsky: penal servitude (camp, exile) cannot make a criminal out of a person if he was not such before, and corruption can seize a person in the wild.

A significant contribution of A. P. Chekhov and P. F. Yakubovich to fiction is the image, following F. M. Dostoevsky, of convicts, the underworld. The "criminal world" is shown by Chekhov and Yakubovich mercilessly, in all its diversity and ugliness, not only as a product of a certain social class society, but also as a moral and psychological phenomenon. The authors, by an excellent grouping of facts and personal observations, show true life and show the practical unsuitability of prisons and islands.

The most terrible thing in the criminal world is not even that it is frenziedly cruel, monstrously immoral, that all the laws of nature and man are perverted in it, that it is a collection of all sorts of impurities, but that, once in this world, a person finds himself in the abyss from which there is no escape. All this is confirmed by illustrative examples of writers-"camp". Like the tentacles of a giant octopus, the thieves, "socially close," entangled all the camp authorities with their nets and, with their blessing, took control of the entire camp life. In hospitals, in the kitchen, in the rank of brigadier, criminals reigned everywhere. In the "Essays on the Underworld" V. T. Shalamov, with the meticulousness of a researcher, reproduces the psychology of the prisoner, his principles, or rather, their absence.

And if Russian classical literature believed in the revival of the criminal, if Makarenko affirmed the idea of ​​the possibility of labor re-education, then V. T. Shalamov “Essays on the Underworld” leaves no hope for the “rebirth” of the criminal. Moreover, he speaks of the need to destroy the "lesson", since the psychology of the underworld has a detrimental effect on young, immature minds, poisoning them with criminal "romance".

Works about the camps of the 20th century have something in common with the 19th century in the depiction of penal servitude (camp, exile, prison) as a "Dead House", an earthly hell. The idea of ​​the world-likeness of the camp (hard labor, exile), a cast of the "free" life of Russia, echoes back.

Dostoevsky's thought about the inclinations of the beast that exists in every person, about the danger of intoxication with the power given to one person over another, runs like a red thread through all the works. This idea was fully reflected in V. Shalamov's Kolyma Tales. In a calm, subdued tone, which in this case is an artistic device, the writer reveals to us what “blood and power” can bring, how low the “crown of creation” of nature, Man, can fall. Speaking about the crimes committed by doctors against patients, two categories can be distinguished - a crime of action ("Shock therapy") and a crime of inaction ("Riva-Rocci").

The works of the "camp" writers are human documents. V. Shalamov's attitude that the writer is not an observer, but a participant in the drama of life, largely determined both the nature of his prose and the nature of many other works of "camp" writers.

If Solzhenitsyn introduced into the public consciousness the idea of ​​the previously taboo, the unknown, then Shalamov brought emotional and aesthetic richness. V. Shalamov chose for himself the artistic setting "on the verge" - the image of hell, anomalies, the transcendence of human existence in the camp.

O. Volkov, in particular, notes that the government, which has chosen violence as its instrument, negatively affects the human psyche, its spiritual world, plunges the people into fear and dumbness with bloody reprisals, destroys the concepts of good and evil in it.

So, what was started in Russian literature by the “House of the Dead” was continued by the literature that received the name “camp prose”. I would like to believe that the Russian "camp prose", if we mean by this the stories about innocent political prisoners, has only one future - to remember the terrible past again and again. But prisons have always been and will always be, and there will always be people in them. As Dostoevsky rightly noted, there are such crimes that everywhere in the world are considered indisputable crimes and will be considered as such, "as long as a person remains a person." And humanity, in turn, in its centuries-old history has not found another (except for the death penalty) way of protection from encroaching on the laws of human society, although the corrective value of the prison, as we have seen from the above, is very, very doubtful.

And in this sense, "camp prose" always has a future. Literature will never lose interest in the guilty and innocent man in captivity. And Notes from the House of the Dead - with its desperate belief in the possibility of salvation - will remain a reliable guide for many, very different writers.

Camp theme in Russian literature

One of the innovative and interesting themes in the literature of the 60s was the theme of camps and Stalinist repressions.

One of the first works written on this topic was "Kolyma stories" by V. Shalamov. V. Shalamov is a writer of a difficult creative destiny and his work is far from English fairy tales. He himself went through the camp dungeons. He began his career as a poet, and in the late 50s-60s he turned to prose. In his stories, with a sufficient degree of frankness, camp life is conveyed, with which the writer was familiar firsthand. In his stories, he was able to give vivid sketches of those years, to show images not only of prisoners, but also of their guards, the heads of the camps where he had to sit. In these stories, terrible camp situations are recreated - hunger, dystrophy, humiliation of people by brutal criminals. The Kolyma Tales explores collisions in which the prisoner "swims" to prostration, to the threshold of non-existence.

But the main thing in his stories is not only the transmission of an atmosphere of horror and fear, but also the image of people who at that time managed to preserve the best human qualities in themselves, their willingness to help, the feeling that you are not only a cog in a huge machine of suppression, and above all a man in whose soul lives hope.

The representative of the memoir direction of "camp prose" was A. Zhigulin. Zhigulin's story "Black Stones" is a complex, ambiguous work. This is a documentary and artistic narrative about the activities of the KPM (Communist Youth Party), which included thirty boys who, in a romantic impulse, united for a conscious struggle against the deification of Stalin. It is built as the author's memories of his youth. Therefore, unlike the works of other authors, there is a lot of so-called "smart romance" in it. But at the same time, Zhigulin was able to accurately convey the feeling of that era. With documentary authenticity, the writer writes about how the organization was born, how the investigation was carried out. The writer very clearly described the conduct of the interrogations: “The investigation was generally conducted vilely ... The records in the protocols of interrogations were also vilely conducted. It was supposed to be written down word for word - how the accused answers. But the investigators invariably gave our answers a completely different color. For example, if I said: “Communist Party of Youth,” the investigator wrote down: “Anti-Soviet organization of the KPM.” If I said: "assembly," the investigator wrote "assembly." Zhigulin, as it were, warns that the main task of the regime was to "penetrate into thought" that had not even been born yet, to penetrate and strangle it to its cradle. Hence the premature cruelty of a self-adjusting system. For playing the organization, a semi-childish game, but deadly for both sides (which both sides knew about) - ten years of a prison-camp nightmare. This is how the totalitarian system works.

Another striking work on this topic was the story "Faithful Ruslan" by G. Vladimov. This work was written in the footsteps and on behalf of a dog specially trained, trained to lead prisoners under escort, “make a selection” from the same crowd and overtake hundreds of miles away crazy people who risked escaping. A dog is like a dog. A kind, intelligent, loving person more than a person himself loves his relatives and himself, a being destined by the dictates of fate, the conditions of birth and upbringing, the camp civilization that fell to his lot, to carry out the duties of a guard, and, if necessary, an executioner.

In the story, Ruslan has one production concern, for which he lives: this is to maintain order, elementary order, and the prisoners would maintain the established system. But at the same time, the author emphasizes that he is too kind by nature (brave, but not aggressive), smart, reasonable, proud, in the best sense of the word, he is ready for anything for the sake of the owner, even to die.

But the main content of Vladimirov's story is precisely to show: if something happens, and this case presented itself and coincides with our era, all the best opportunities and abilities not only of a dog, but of a person. The most sacred intentions are shifted, without knowing it, from good to evil, from truth to deceit, from devotion to a person to the ability to wrap a person, take a hand, a leg, take a throat, risking, if necessary, his own head, and turn stupid bunch named "people", "people" into the harmonic stage of the prisoners - into the ranks.

The undoubted classics of "camp prose" is A. Solzhenitsyn. His works on this topic appeared at the end of the thaw, the first of which was the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". Initially, the story was even called in the camp language: "Sch-854. (One day of a prisoner)". In a small "time-space" of the story, many human destinies are combined. These are, first of all, the captain Ivan Denisovich and the film director Tsezar Markovich. Time (one day) seems to flow into the space of the camp, in which the writer focused all the problems of his time, the whole essence of the camp system. He also devoted his novels “In the First Circle”, “Cancer Ward” and a large documentary and artistic study “The Gulag Archipelago” to the topic of the Gulag, in which he proposed his concept and periodization of the terror that unfolded in the country after the revolution. This book is based not only on the personal impressions of the author, but also on numerous documents and memoirs of the prisoners themselves.

Ticket number 29

The Quiet Flows the Don is one of the most famous "Nobel" novels of the 20th century, which caused controversy, gave rise to rumors, survived immoderate praise and unrestrained abuse. The dispute about the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don was resolved in favor of Mikhail Sholokhov - such a conclusion was given back in the nineties of the last century by an authoritative foreign commission. Today, the novel, peeled from the husks of rumors, is left face to face with a thoughtful reader. "Quiet Don" was created in a terrible time, when Russia was torn apart by an internecine war, senseless and merciless. Divided into whites and reds, society has lost not only integrity, but also God, beauty, the meaning of life. The tragedy of the country was made up of millions of human tragedies. The exposition of "Quiet Flows the Don" captures the reader. Sholokhov introduces us to the world of the Russian borderlands, the Cossacks. The life of these warrior-settlers, which developed centuries ago, is bright and original. The description of Melekhov's ancestors resembles an old tale - unhurried, full of curious details. The language of The Quiet Don is amazing - rich, full of dialect words and expressions, organically woven into the fabric of the novel. Peace and contentment destroys the First World War. Mobilization for a Don Cossack is not at all the same as, say, for a Ryazan peasant. It is hard to leave home and relatives, but the Cossack always remembers his great mission - the defense of Russia. The time has come to show your combat skills, to serve God, the homeland and the king-father. But the times of "noble" wars have passed: heavy artillery, tanks, gases, machine-gun fire - all this is directed against armed horsemen, well done Donets. The protagonist of The Quiet Flows the Don, Grigory Melekhov and his comrades, experience the deadly power of the industrial war, which not only destroys the body, but also corrupts the spirit. The civil war grew out of the imperialist war. And now the brother went to the brother, the father fought with the son. The Don Cossacks generally perceived the ideas of the revolution negatively: traditions were too strong among the Cossacks, and their well-being was much higher than the average for Russia. However, the Cossacks did not stand aside from the dramatic events of those years. According to historical sources, the majority supported the Whites, the minority followed the Reds. On the example of Grigory Melekhov, Sholokhov showed the mental turmoil of a person who doubts the correctness of his choice. Who to follow? Whom to fight against? Such questions really torment the main character. Melekhov had to play the role of white, red and even green. And everywhere Gregory became a witness to a human tragedy. The war passed like an iron roller through the bodies and souls of fellow countrymen. The Civil War once again proved that there are no just wars. Executions, betrayals, torture have become commonplace for both warring parties. Sholokhov was under ideological pressure, but still he managed to convey to the reader the inhuman spirit of the era, where the reckless prowess of victory and the fresh wind of change coexisted with medieval cruelty, indifference to a single person, and a thirst for murder. "Quiet Don" ... An amazing name. Putting the ancient name of the Cossack river in the title of the novel, Sholokhov once again emphasizes the connection between the eras, and also points to the tragic contradictions of the revolutionary time: Don wants to be called “bloody”, “rebellious”, but not “quiet”. The waters of the Don cannot wash away all the blood spilled on its banks, cannot wash away the tears of wives and mothers, and cannot return the dead Cossacks. The finale of the epic novel is lofty and majestic: Grigory Melekhov returns to the earth, to his son, to peace. But for the protagonist, the tragic events have not yet ended: the tragedy of his position is that the Reds will not forget Melekhov his exploits. Gregory is waiting for execution without trial or investigation or a painful death in Yezhov's dungeons. And the fate of Melekhov is typical. Only a few years will pass, and the people will fully feel what “revolutionary transformations in a single country” really are. The suffering people, the victim people became the material for a historical experiment that lasted more than seventy years...

MBOU "Pogromskaya secondary school named after.

HELL. Bondarenko, Volokonovsky district, Belgorod region

Test based on the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

for grade 11

prepared

teacher of Russian language and literature

Morozova Alla Stanislavovna

2014

Explanatory note

The test allows you to determine the level of knowledge of students in grade 11 of the novel

M. Bulgakov "Master and Margarita". The work contains questions on knowledge of the text, on knowledge of the heroes of the novel, questions on the genre and composition of the novel, on the history of the creation of the work.

Each question is given three possible answers, of which only one is correct (except for question 8 I option with 2 answers).

The presented test can be used at the final lesson on the novel by M. Bulgakov"Master and Margarita".

I option

1. Years of creation of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

1. 1930 - 1941

2. 1928 - 1940

3. 1929 - 1939

2. The novel first appeared in a magazine

1. "Moscow"

2. "Milestones"

3. "Northern Star"

3. What is the originality of the composition of the novel "The Master and Margarita"?

1. Chronological order of development of events;

2. parallel development of three storylines;

3. parallel development of two storylines.

4. What is the genre of the novel?

1. Philosophical;

2. love;

3. a novel of many genres.

5. How many days did the events of the Moscow chapters last?

12 o'Clock in the noon

2. 3 days

3. 4 days

6. In what chapter does the Master appear?

1. 11

2. 13

3. 9

7. Why is Yeshua presented as a vagabond in the novel?

1. Opposition to the biblical story;2. the author shows the poverty of the hero;3. the inner freedom of the hero is emphasized, opposed to the hierarchical world.

8. As an epigraph to the novel, Bulgakov chose the words of Goethe: “I am part of that force that always wants ... and always does ...”. What words are missing in this aphorism?

1. Evil;

2. truth;

3. good;

4. good.

9. The duration of the novel

1. Moscow. 20 - 30 years XX century;

2. Yershalaim. 1st century AD;

3. covers two eras at once.

10. Why was Pilate punished?

1. Cowardice;

2. evil;

3. conscience.

11. Who has the mission to punish vices in the novel?

1. Pontius Pilate;

2. Master;

3. Woland.

12. How are the three worlds connected in the novel?

1. Jesus Christ;

2. Woland;

3. Yeshua.

13. Who sets Pilate free?

1. Woland;

2. Master;

3. Margarita.

14. Get to know the portrait. “His mustache is like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, and his trousers are checkered, pulled up so that dirty white socks are visible.”

1. Azazello;

2. Koroviev;

3. Varenukha.

15. Get to know the portrait. “Small, fiery red, with a tuft, in a striped solid suit ... a gnawed chicken bone stuck out of his pocket.”

1. Azazello;

2. Koroviev;

3. Varenukha.

16. Yeshua spoke about the fact that "the temple of the old faith will collapse and a new temple of truth will be created." What is the meaning of this saying?

1. Yeshua - the new king of the Jews, who erected a new Temple;

2. it is not about faith, but about Truth;

17. How did Woland reward the Master?

1. Light;

2. freedom;

3. peace.

18. Who does Ivan Bezdomny become in the epilogue of the novel?

1. Professor of the Institute of History and Philosophy;

2. Professor of the Institute of Literary Studies;

3. chairman of MASSOLIT.

II option

1. How many editions of the novel did M. Bulgakov make?

1. 6

2. 8

3. 10

2. How would you define the composition of the novel?

1. "a novel within a novel"

2. circular

3. free

3. During how many days do the gospel chapters take place?

1. 2

2. 3

3. 1

4. In what year did the novel begin to be called The Master and Margarita?

1. 1935

2. 1937

3. 1940

5. In what year did the full text of the novel appear in the writer's homeland?

1. 1970

2. 1972

3. 1973

6. Who spilled the oil on which Berlioz slipped? 1. Annushka 2. Margarita 3. Gella
7. What was the name of the building that housed MASSOLIT? 1. Pushkin's house 2. Griboedov's house3. Lermontov's house

8. Description of which character is given in the episode: “... a man of twenty-seven years old ... was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. Under the left eye ... a big bruise, in the corner of the mouth - an abrasion with gore?

1. Mark Ratslayer

2. Levi Matvey

3. Yeshua Ha-Nozri

9. Whom did Margarita save from eternal torment?

1. Frosya

2. Frida

3. Francesca

10. Which of Woland's retinue had a fang?

1. the cat Behemoth

2. at Koroviev-Fagot

3. Azazello

11. Indicate the real name of Ivan Homeless.

1. Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev

2. Ivan Ivanovich Latunsky

3. Ivan Nikolaevich Likhodeev

12. When does the novel take place?

1. spring 2. summer 3. autumn
13. Where does Woland leave Moscow with his retinue ? 1. from Sparrow Hills2. from the Patriarch's Ponds 3. from Sadovaya
14. To what city was Styopa Likhodeev sent? 1. to Leningrad 2. to Kyiv 3. to Yalta

15. Where did Ivan Bezdomny meet the master? 1. at the Patriarch's Ponds2. in the "madhouse" 3. in Variety

16 . Which character is shown here: “... a clean-shaven, dark-haired man with a sharp nose, worried eyes and a tuft of hair hanging over his forehead, a man of about thirty-eight years old” ?

1. master

2. Yeshua Ha-Nozri

3. Pontius Pilate

17. What did Margarita fly?

1. on the mortar

2. on a broom

3. on the brush

18. What did Woland give Margarita as a keepsake?

1. ruby ​​ring

2. yellow rose

3. golden horseshoe

Answers

I option 1. 2 2. 1 3. 2 4. 3 5. 3 6. 2 7. 3 8. 1.4 9. 3 10. 1 11. 3 12. 2 13. 2 14. 2 15. 1 16. 2 17. 3 18.1
II option 1. 2 2. 1 3. 1 4. 2 5. 3 6. 1 7. 2 8. 3 9. 2 10. 3 11. 1 12. 1 13. 1 14. 3 15. 2 16. 1 17. 3 18 .3

Criteria for evaluation:

"5" - 17 - 18 points

"4" - 14 - 16 points

"3" - 10 - 13 points

"2" - 0 - 9 points

Bibliography

1. Author's development

Work:

Master and Margarita

He is Fagot. Woland's assistant. It has a bright repulsive appearance. "On a small head is a jockey cap, a checkered, short, airy jacket ... A citizen is a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking." K. has a cracked voice, one can often see a cracked pince-nez or a monocle on him. This character constantly plays the role of a jester. But during the flight under the moonlight, this hero has changed beyond recognition. We see that in fact it is "... a dark purple knight with the gloomiest and never smiling face." It becomes known to us that this knight once joked unsuccessfully, and he had to joke more and longer than he expected.

Koroviev-Fagot

This character is the eldest of the demons subordinate to Woland, a devil and a knight, who appears to Muscovites as an interpreter with a foreign professor and a former regent of the church choir.

The surname Koroviev is modeled on the surname of the character in the story A.K. Tolstoy's "Ghoul" (1841) State Councilor Telyaev, who turns out to be a knight and a vampire. In addition, in the story of F.M. Dostoevsky's "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" has a character by the name of Korovkin, very similar to our hero. His second name comes from the name of the musical instrument bassoon, invented by an Italian monk. Koroviev-Fagot has some resemblance to a bassoon - a long thin tube folded in three. Bulgakov's character is thin, tall and in imaginary subservience, it seems, is ready to triple in front of his interlocutor (in order to calmly harm him later). Here is his portrait: “... a transparent citizen of a strange appearance, On a small head a jockey cap, a short checkered jacket ... a citizen a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking”; "... his antennae are like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half-drunk." Koroviev-Fagot is a devil that has arisen from the sultry Moscow air (an unprecedented heat for May at the time of its appearance is one of the traditional signs of the approach of evil spirits). Woland's henchman, only out of necessity, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler, a rogue translator with a famous foreigner, etc. Only in the last flight Koroviev-Fagot becomes who he really is - a gloomy demon, a knight Bassoon, no worse than his master, who knows the price of human weaknesses and virtues.

The novel "The Master and Margarita" is the most controversial of all the works of Bulgakov. In it, the author embodied all his experiences, the search for the meaning of life, observation of a person. I would like to note that the creation of Mikhail Bulgakov is saturated with all sorts of allegories. Such allegories sometimes appear in the form of situations, and most often in the form of characters. One of these characters is Fagot, aka Koroviev. That is where I want to focus my attention.

The author describes it as follows: "... On a small head there is a jockey cap, a checkered short jacket ... A citizen of a sazhen's height, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking; his mustache is like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half-drunk, and the trousers are checkered, pulled up so that dirty white socks are visible.

According to the description, it seems to us a flimsy subject, who does not have a gayer at all, causing nothing but negativity. In the future, these thoughts are justified - the eternal bullying and evil jokes of the demon speak of its poisonous essence. Take, for example, laughter at Ivan Bezdomny, performances in the Variety Show, denunciation of citizens, mockery of their vices, arson in a store, arson in a restaurant, putting currency in a house manager's diplomat, and so on. This restless and mocking mine, always painted on his face, characterizes him. But he is an accuser. He is Woland's companion. His retinue. One of the judges.

The true face of Fagot appears to us at the end of the novel: “This knight once joked unsuccessfully,” Woland answered, turning his face to Margarita with a quietly burning eye, “his pun, which he composed, talking about light and darkness, was not entirely good And after that the knight had to poke around a little more and longer than he expected, "- in the past, Koroviev," the former regent, "was a knight. The bassoon is dressed in a dark purple cloak, a symbol of royal sorrow. The last suit "in a box" is also an allegory - imprisonment in the body of a jester. A cell in the body of a joker.

One of the most controversial characters, giving us a lot of aphorisms and food for thought.

Verification work on the content of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

How old was the Master and how old was Margarita?

Where is the Master when we meet him on the pages of the novel?

Which of the heroes wore a "white cloak with a bloody lining"?

Recognize the character by the portrait:

Shaved, dark-haired, with a sharp nose, anxious eyes and a tuft of hair hanging over his forehead, a man of about 38 years old.

“... a man of 27 years old ... His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead ... The man had a large bruise under his left eye, and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. Brought with anxious curiosity looked ... "

What was the name of Yeshua's disciple?

List who was part of Woland's retinue?

Which of the human vices does Yeshua name before his death?

Who is this?“His mustache is like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half drunk, and his trousers are plaid.”

“Small, fiery red, with a fang, in a striped solid suit ... The tie was bright ... from the pocket ... a gnawed chicken bone stuck out.”

“At the neck ... a white frock tie with a bow, and on the chest mother-of-pearl ladies' binoculars on a strap ... the mustache was gilded.”

Determine the owner of the house by interior details. “Books, a stove, two sofas, a beautiful night lamp, a small desk, a sink with water in the front room, lilac, linden and maple outside the window.”

Who betrayed Yeshua?

What did Margarita fly?

“Forgive me as soon as possible forget. I'm leaving you forever. Don't look for me, it's useless. I became a witch from the grief and calamity that struck me. I have to go. Goodbye".

16. The heroes of the novel are triads of representatives of the ancient world (Yershalaim), modern Moscow and the other world (evil spirits).

1) Pilate Professor Stravinsky-Woland

2) Niza-Natasha-Gella

3) Mark Krysoboy-Archibald Archibaldovich - Azazello

4) Judas-Aloisil Mogarych-Baron Meigel

5) Matvey Levi - Ivan Bezdomny - Alexander Ryukhin

6) Banga-Tuztuben-Behemoth

Determine the role of each triad:

A) heroes have power in their world, but are still powerless over human choice

B) beauty and its service to the forces of darkness

C) heroes act as executioners

D) traitors who are justly punished

D) the image of a disciple-follower

E) a true friend

17. Who owns the words “Manuscripts do not burn”, “Never ask for anything ... They themselves will offer and give everything themselves!”

a) Margarita b) Master c) Woland

18. Indicate which scene is the climax in the novel?

1. Walpurgis Night

2. Ball of Satan

3. Presentation in Variety

4. scene in which Woland and his retinue leave the city.

1. “Cowardice is the worst vice…”

2. "The servants of evil will be destroyed by evil itself"

3. "... the image of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country."

1. intermediate instance between "heaven" and "hell"

2. The pure conscience of the artist in the eyes of the future, immortality for future readers, the pure conscience of a person not weighed down by the pangs of shame.

3. an intermediate instance between "heaven" and "hell", where people with a clear conscience find shelter, who suffered in real life, but sinned, therefore they were not awarded paradise.

21. Indicate the character of the novel who is part of Woland's retinue and is called a killer demon.

1. Hippo

2. Koroviev-Fagot

3. Azazello

4. Woland

22. Why was Yeshua sentenced to death?

1. for insulting the authority of Caesar.

2. for murder

3.for the collection of taxes

4.for theft

23. Why does the Master stop fighting for the publication of his novel about Pontius Pilate?

1. The master is offended by the injustice of critics

2. he considers his romance a failure

3. he shows cowardice, cowardice and betrays his work

4. The master is afraid for the fate of Margarita and strives to protect her.

24. Arrange in chronological order the events of the novel:

A. Conversation between Woland and Berlioz

B. meeting of Margarita and Azazello

B, Pilate's forgiveness

D. Frida's forgiveness

1.VBAG2.ABVG3. ABGV4. AGBV

25. The image of Margarita is the center of the novel. She is a symbol ...

1.Christian humility

2.revenge and retribution

3. love, mercy and eternal sacrifice

4. envy and meanness

26. What is the role of fantasy in the novel? 3 points

1. Strengthening the problem of good and evil

2. Fiction gives the novel an entertaining character

3. Showing the unreality of the conflict

4. Strengthening the problem of moral choice

5. One of the methods of satire

6. Fiction is a revealing element of all the works of the author

1. "Blood is cheap in the red fields, and no one will redeem it."

2. "Everything will be right, and the world is built on this."

3. "The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our bodies and deeds does not remain on the earth."

28. What is the main theme of the novel?

1. The problem of generational conflict

2. The problem of evangelical love

3. The problem of the relationship between talent and mediocrity

4. The problem of moral choice

Answers:

Master - 38, Margarita - 30.11. Behemoth cat

In a madhouse.12.Master's apartment

Pontius Pilate13. Judas

Master14. On the broom

Yeshua Ha-Notzri15. Margarita to her husband

Levy Matvey

Azazello, Koroviev (Bassoon), Behemoth, Gella

Cowardice

Koroviev