Motive of the road in Russian literature. The theme of wanderings and wanderings

The road is an ancient image-symbol, the spectral sound of which is very wide and varied. Most often, the image of the road in the work is perceived as the life path of a hero, a people or an entire state. “Life path” in the language is a spatio-temporal metaphor, which was used by many classics in their works: A. S. Pushkin, N. A. Nekrasov, N. S. Leskov, N. V. Gogol.

The motif of the road also symbolizes such processes as movement, search, testing, renewal. In N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the path reflects the spiritual movement of the peasants and all of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. And M. Yu. Lermontov in the poem “I go out alone on the road” resorts to using the motive of the road to show that the lyrical hero has found harmony with nature.

In love lyrics, the road symbolizes separation, parting, or persecution. A vivid example of such an understanding of the image was the poem by A. S. Pushkin "Tavrida".

For N.V. Gogol, the road became an incentive for creativity, for the search for the true path of mankind. It symbolizes the hope that such a path will be the fate of his descendants.

The image of the road is a symbol, so each writer and reader can perceive it in their own way, discovering more and more new shades in this multifaceted motif.

Compositional and semantic role of the image of the road

In Russian literature, the theme of travel, the theme of the road is very common. You can name such works as “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, “A Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov or “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov. This motif was often used as a plot-forming one. However, sometimes it is in itself one of the central themes, the purpose of which is to describe the life of Russia in a certain period of time. The motive of the road follows from the way of narration - showing the country through the eyes of heroes.

The functions of the motive of the road in the work "Dead Souls" are diverse. First of all, this is a compositional technique that links together the chapters of the work. Secondly, the image of the road performs the function of characterizing the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road, the estate. For example, here is how N.V. Gogol describes the way to Manilovka: “Having traveled two versts, we met a turn onto a country road, but already two, and three, and four versts, it seems, have been done, but there is still no stone house with two floors was seen. Here Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites you to a village fifteen miles away, it means that there are thirty miles to it.

As in "Dead Souls", in Nekrasov's poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'", the theme of the road is a connecting one. The poet begins the poem "from the pole path", on which seven men-truth-seekers converged. This theme is clearly visible throughout the long story, but for Nekrasov, only an illustration of life, a small part of it, is dear. The main action of Nekrasov is a narrative unfolded in time, but not in space (as in Gogol). In “To Whom in Rus' to Live Well” pressing questions are constantly raised: the question of happiness, the question of the peasant's share, the question of the political structure of Russia, so the topic of the road is secondary here.

In both poems, the motive of the road is a connecting, pivotal one, but for Nekrasov the fate of people connected by the road is important, and for Gogol the road that connects everything in life is important. In "To whom it is good to live in Rus'", the theme of the road is an artistic device, in "Dead Souls" it is the main theme, the essence of the work.

Another characteristic example of a work in which the motive of the road plays a compositional role is the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" by N.S. Leskov. The most prominent critic of literary populism N. K. Mikhailovsky said about this work: “In terms of the richness of the plot, this is perhaps the most remarkable of Leskov's works. But in it the absence of any center is especially striking, so that there is no plot in it, but there is a whole series of plots strung like beads on a thread, and each bead by itself can be very conveniently taken out, replaced by another. , or you can string as many beads as you like on the same thread ”(“ Russian Wealth ”, 1897, No. 6). And these “beads” are connected into one single whole by the road-fate of the protagonist Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin. Here the symbolic and compositional roles of the road motif are closely intertwined. If the connecting link in "Dead Souls" and "Who Lives Well in Rus'" is the road itself, then in "The Enchanted Wanderer" it is the life path along which, like along the road, the hero walks. It is the complex metamorphic interweaving of the roles of the road that determines the multifaceted perception of the work.

The motive of the road is the core plot-forming component of such works as “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov and "The Enchanted Wanderer" by N. S. Leskov.

RAILWAY IN THE RUSSIAN ARTISTIC CULTURE OF THE XIX-XX CENTURIES.

© Anatoly Ivanovich IVANOV

Tambov State University G.R. Derzhavin, Tambov, Russian Federation, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Head. Department of Journalism, e-mail: [email protected]© Natalia Vladimirovna SOROKINA Tambov State University. G.R. Derzhavin, Tambov, Russian Federation, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Professor of the Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, Head. Department of Russian Philology, e-mail: [email protected]

The article examines the impact of the railway as a phenomenon of technical culture on the work of cultural masters of the 19th-20th centuries. Poetic lines and prose, artistic canvases dedicated to the railway, conveyed the first impressions of a moving "steamboat" on wheels and the complex feelings associated with renewal, the expectation of a new one. For several decades, the railway was perceived as a different world and a symbol of progress.

Key words: technical and artistic culture; Railway; civilization; progress.

N. Kukolnik and N. Nekrasov, L. Tolstoy and P. Boborykin, A. Chekhov and N. Garin-Mikhailovsky, I. Annensky and A. Blok, L. Leonov and A. Platonov - some of the writers of the XIX - early XX V. did not address the topic of the railway, its role in the life of its heroes, in the development of Russian civilization! Artists, publicists, and filmmakers turned to this topic. Without pretending to be inclusive of the designated topic, let's turn over the pages of the history of our artistic culture, which conveyed the most diverse shades in the perception of the railway.

At the mention of the railway, our compatriot will long remember the well-known lines of N. Nekrasov's poem "Railway" (1864), dedicated to

construction of the Nikolaev railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg (18421852):

Straight path: the mounds are narrow,

Poles, rails, bridges.

And on the sides, all the bones are Russian ...

How many of them! Vanya, do you know?

From the same poem, socio-optimistic lines are quoted about the people-builder-body:

Carried out this railroad -

Will endure whatever the Lord sends!

Will endure everything - and wide, clear

He will pave the way for himself with his chest.

In our times, with a bitter smile, the words that complete the 11th chapter are certainly added, or even separately, like a saying:

The only pity is to live in this beautiful time

You won't have to, neither me nor you.

But after all, if you think about the meaning of Nekrasov's work, then you should talk not so much about the railway, but about construction, about the share of builders, whether it be a railway or, say, glorious Petersburg. It is no coincidence that the commentary to this poem says: “It is possible that the idea of ​​this poem arose from Nekrasov in 1860 under the influence of an article by N.A. Dobrolyubov "The experience of weaning people from food", which depicted the inhuman exploitation of workers, which was practiced by contractors in the construction of railways ".

The Nekrasov theme of the road sounded in the poem "Troika" (1847):

What are you greedily looking at the road

Away from cheerful girlfriends?

To know, the heart sounded alarm - Your whole face flared up suddenly.

And why are you running hurriedly After the rushing troika after? ..

On you, akimbo beautifully,

A passing cornet looked in.

In Nekrasov's tragic way, this theme of a woman expecting a happy change in fate from the road sounded at the beginning of the 20th century. in A. Blok's poem "On the Railroad" (1910):

Under the embankment, in the unmowed ditch,

Lies and looks, as if alive,

In a colored scarf, thrown on braids, Beautiful and young.

Sometimes, she walked with a dignified gait To the noise and whistle behind the nearby forest.

Bypassing the whole long platform,

She waited, worried under a canopy.

Three bright eyes oncoming - Delicate blush, steeper curl:

Perhaps one of the passers-by will look more closely from the windows...

Only once a hussar, with a careless hand Leaning on scarlet velvet,

He glided over it with a gentle smile ... Slipped - and the train rushed off into the distance.

The very fates of Nekrasov's and Blok's heroines will turn out to be similar. Similar in anticipation of happiness, and in the fact that beautiful military men noticed both. Similar in their misfortune. From Nekrasov:

From work and black and difficult You will fade, not having time to bloom,

And buried in a damp grave

How will you go your hard way<.>

So rushed useless youth,

In empty dreams, exhausted ...

Longing road, iron,

She whistled, breaking her heart.

In the half century that separated the poems of Nekrasov and Blok, many changes have taken place. Instead of the outskirts - the station. Instead of pro-

village - railway. But how much has changed in women's fate?

Perhaps the first who conveyed the extraordinary state of novelty that the railway gives, the joy of moving towards the desired, was N. Kukolnik, the author of the famous "Accompanying Song" (1840). From childhood, we all remember the words that, thanks to the music of F. Glinka, became a symbol of the beginning of moving into a new, joyful world. Isn't that what the words that became the refrain are about?

A column of smoke - boils, smokes Steamboat.

Variegation, revelry, excitement,

Expectation, impatience...

The Orthodox are having fun Our people.

And faster, faster than will The train rushes through the open field.

Comparing the poems of N. Nekrasov "Troika" and A. Blok "On the Railway", noting the similarities in the attitude of the heroines of these works towards the road, we would like to draw attention to the following feature in the perception of the railway in A. Blok's poem. A whole world, another world, sweeps past the heroine of A. Blok:

The carriages were moving along the usual line,

They trembled and creaked;

Silent yellow and blue;

In green wept and sang.

They got up sleepily behind the glass And looked around the platform with an even glance, the garden with faded bushes,

Her, the gendarme is next to her. .

This other life begins at the station. Recall that the concept itself came to us from the English language (WaihIaP, which in the 17th century meant an entertainment institution near London), and in Russia it was originally a place of public entertainment. Only then did it begin to designate a building for serving passengers. However, the fusion of concepts - a place for entertainment and a place for serving passengers - affected for a long time. What were the stations in the outback, in the wilderness? In A. Kuprin's novel "Duel" (1905) we read:

“There was not a single restaurant in the poor Jewish town. Clubs like a military

and civilian, were in the most miserable, neglected form, and therefore the station served as the only place where the townsfolk often went to have a drink and shake themselves up and even play cards. The ladies also went there to the arrival of passenger trains, which served as a small change in the deep boredom of provincial life.

Romashov liked to go to the station in the evenings, to the courier train, which stopped here for the last time before the Prussian border. With a strange charm, he watched excitedly as this train, which consisted of only five brand new, shiny cars, flew up to the station, swiftly jumping out from behind a turn, at full speed, how quickly its fiery eyes grew and flared up, throwing forward themselves onto the rails bright spots, and how he, already ready to skip the station, instantly stopped with a hiss and a roar - “like a giant grabbing a rock from a run,” thought Romashov. Beautiful, well-dressed and well-groomed ladies in amazing hats, in unusually elegant costumes, came out of the cars, shining through with cheerful festive lights, civilian gentlemen, beautifully dressed, carelessly self-confident, with loud lordly voices, with French and German, with free gestures, lazy laugh. None of them ever, even briefly, paid attention to Romashov, but he saw in them a piece of some inaccessible, refined, magnificent world, where life is an eternal celebration and triumph ...

Eight minutes passed. The bell rang, the locomotive whistled, and the shining train departed from the station. The lights on the platform and in the canteen were hastily put out. Dark days followed immediately. And Romashov always for a long time, with quiet, dreamy sadness, watched the red lantern, which swayed smoothly behind the last car, leaving into the darkness of the night and becoming a barely noticeable spark. The everyday existence of a romantic garrison officer became more obvious, more unattractive when compared with a piece of festive, solemn reality brought to the provincial railway station ...

The last decade of N. Kukolnik's life (1860s) was devoted to social activities within the Don region: concerns about urban improvement, the construction of a railway to Taganrog, i.e., the practical improvement of Russian life. He is the author of several "notes" to the capital's administrators (including D. A. Milyutin, P. A. Valuev). Among them is "Note on the construction of railways in Russia". In this case, we can say that poets descend to earthly problems. On the other hand, poetry (poetic generalization and figurativeness) sounded at the beginning of the 20th century. in the journalism of A. Suvorin in his "Little Letters".

Thinking about the causes of the Russo-Japanese War, about the attitude towards it, A. Suvorin called the Far Eastern Road a giant iron bridge between Europe and Russia and the Eastern Ocean. “Immediately after its completion, this bridge became the cause of real, complex relations between Russia, China and Japan. The heroic monument of the excessive efforts of the Russian people is endangered. For all its reality, it appears as a mystical tower of Babel, rising to the Russian sky, the Great Ocean. This is not the Siberian, but the Russian-Asian great path, and its significance can be explained not by numbers, by calculating income and expenses, but by the penetrating idea of ​​transforming Asia into a cultural state.<...>Nicholas II opened the gates to the Great Ocean for us, which we had been knocking on for a long time. The iron road there is living water, which splashed the peoples with its life-giving moisture, giving them new life and promising a better future. Fate itself, and not at all someone else's mistake, as many people think, forced the railroad to run exactly as it was laid, not along the left bank of the Amur - this would be a fatal mistake - but along Manchuria and then to the exit to the Great Ocean to this new field of world life. Is it because the Americans are in a hurry with the Panama Canal that we have stopped at the Great Ocean? We have circumnavigated the whole of Asia from the north with an unbroken iron chain, and we cannot yield a single link of this chain. And let one of our enemies try to break his forehead against this iron. .

If in the poem by N. Kukolnik a steam locomotive was also called a steamboat, then in the 1930s. A. Platonov (prose writer, engineer!) sang the steam locomotive - this is a miracle made of metal - comparing its perception with the perception of poetry. In the story “In a beautiful and furious world. Machinist Maltsev, the hero of Platonov, recalls: “The IS machine, the only one on our traction section at that time, by its very appearance evoked a feeling of inspiration in me; I could look at her for a long time, and a special touched joy awakened in me - as beautiful as in childhood when I read Pushkin's poems for the first time.

What was railway technology for the heroes of Platonov? Is it only metal? In his story “The Old Mechanic”, at first the following phrase may cause a smile: “Peter Savelich’s family was small: it consisted of himself, his wife and the “E” series steam locomotive on which Peter Savelich worked”. But only at first. For later the reader hears that Pyotr Savelyich and his wife Anna Gavrilovna are constantly talking about the locomotive on which the head of the family worked, as if they were a living being. The focus of this small family (the only son died of a childhood illness) is the condition of the car. And the story begins with a description of the gloomy mood of Pyotr Savelich due to the breakdown of the family's favorite.

New time, new art demanded new means of depicting the growing technical power, other rhythms. In order to convey the rhythm of industrialization of the 20th century, it took Mikhail Tsekhanovsky's still unsurpassed animated film Pacific 231 - a symphonic poem about a steam locomotive (1931). In this film, Tsekhanovsky showed himself to be an artist of the synthetic type. It was an artistic experiment in the field of artistic interaction between image and sound. A. Honegger's music served as a montage axis for visual images of three types - a full-scale depiction of a steam locomotive and its parts, a conductor and musicians, individual close-ups of the orchestra - puffy cheeks, fluttering bows, etc. This was actually the first attempt at film illustration of symphonic music. All over the world, another Tsekhanovsky steam locomotive aroused tremendous interest and recognition. serious

art history magazines devoted detailed analyzes to this work. And one of the sources of inspiration was a steam locomotive that went down in history two decades later.

Speaking about the theme of the railway in the domestic literature of the 1920s-1980s, one cannot fail to emphasize the special role of L. Leonov's novels in the development of this motif. His work, having absorbed the achievements of the previous century, reflected a multidimensional, far from major perception of technical civilization. It can be said that L. Leonov's railway acquired a philosophical sound. In relation to the railway, the worldview of Leonov's heroes is reflected, the author's anxious, sometimes dramatic attitude to the steel arteries of a renewing country is conveyed.

The complexity, metaphorical nature of the image of the railway in the novels of L. Leonov caused and continues to cause contradictory judgments of the interpreters of his work, who differently assessed the development of this topic by the writer. Thus, R. Opitz notes the emergence in The Thief of the theme of the railway, “so important for the compositional structure of Road to the Ocean. V.P. Skobelev considers it logical that the image of the railway as “the motif of iron rubbing against a wheel” repeatedly appears on the pages of The Thief.

E.A. Yablokov: “Both in The Thief and Chevengur (and before it in The Secret Man), the image of the “iron road” has an extremely broad meaning, since it is directly oriented to Marx’s metaphor of the revolution as the locomotive of history. In terms of this metaphor<. >the ambivalent attitude towards the "locomotive of history" in "The Thief" is not so clearly expressed. However, Pchkhov's parable about Adam and Eve contains the locomotive as one of the symbols of progress, and the whole instructive story is about the path of mankind: “At first, I dragged myself on foot, but how we began to get tired, the locomotive came up with, transplanted us onto iron wheels. Nonche, however, rolls on eroplanes, whistles in his ears, his breath is overwhelmed.<. >

It turned out to be long, a roundabout path, and all are invisible for the time being, the cherished gates. The locomotive is perceived as a symbol of a terrible future, a harbinger of future historical and social catastrophes. The writer contrasts this with the initial purity of relations, loyalty to the cultural past.

Vekshin's involvement in the constant movement is based, not directly - indirectly, by the fact that his house is close to the railway. During the years of childhood, the hero has become so fused with the world of rails and sleepers that he even perceives natural phenomena in comparison with the phenomena of the railway: for him, the height of the storm is “as if crazy trains ran along the rails, filling the night with howling and roar” (3, 59). Traditionally, the comparison is made in a different order: the trains are noisy, like wind in a storm. But for Vekshin, it is the steel sheet that is primary, and not the elements of nature. Therefore, it is difficult to agree with V.I. Khrulev that Vekshin is accompanied by the water element, the river: “In the novel “The Thief,” the researcher writes, the Kudema River acquires a symbolic meaning. Accompanying the path of Vekshin, it becomes a sphere of purification, a hope for healing. Rather, the railway is a constant companion of the hero's main life ups and downs. The naturalness of nature, the purity of water are not characteristic of Vekshin.

Vekshin's childhood impressions of the picture of an approaching steam locomotive were created by L.M. Leonov in a lyrical vein. But poignant lines about the continuity and aimlessness of the movement of the train appear in this particular fragment: “Trains, trains, iron driven by human longing! With a roar they rushed past, in a fruitless attempt to reach the ends of the earth and dreams ”(3, 70). I also recall the already mentioned Blok's lines: “So the useless youth rushed, / In empty dreams, exhausted. / Longing for the road, iron / Whistle, tearing the heart ....

Observations by R.S. Spivak over the poetics of A. Blok's poem "On the Railway" seem to be written about the hero of the novel L.M. Leonov "The Thief": ". a train flying past a stop-station grows into a symbol of life, ruthlessly overturning youthful illusions that do not take into account the individual and

not programming happiness as the fulfillment of his hopes and plans.

The hero experiences fear and incomprehensible admiration for the iron bulk of the train: “The iron of the bridge hummed in a small tremor: doomed to immobility, it welcomed another iron, whose lot was movement without rest and end” (3, 75). The writer considered this fragment one of the most successful in the novel: "The train is coming, buzzing, rushing, and Mitka and Manya clung to each other and felt that they were now forever connected." V.A. Kovalev, however, does not allow the equivalence of the transfer of the experiences of the character and the direct author's lyricism: “The main thing here is the description of Vekshin’s childhood experiences, his dreams of a different, distant life, where trains passing by are carried away, and at the same time the disclosure of Firsov’s lyricism, which is the only could call trains "human anguish animated iron" and emphasize the "futility" of impulses to achieve a dream.

A different point of view was expressed by E.B. Sko-rospelova. She believes that the connection of the hero's childhood and youth with the railway world reflects "contact with big life and reflects a sense of its unattainability" . But Dmitry does not deify the movement and does not revere the trains. Once in his memoirs, transmitted by the indirect speech of the author, Vekshin will call the train "a long, iron, tailed monster" (3, 344). The first reproaches of conscience are also connected with the “train” events, when, having caught a piglet from a young lady from the train, Vekshin bought a bun and ate it alone, without sharing it with his family. However, “the smallest dot, more like a splash of a draftsman’s pen” (3, 68), containing a distant junction, became for Vekshin a symbol of the motherland, loneliness without it and longing.

The railway is also associated with the transience of life, fear of the bulk of iron and its rapid speed, the infinity and aimlessness of the path, the lack of one's own, not on wheels, home. The motif of the railway in "The Thief" has become a symbol of tragic hopelessness, the futility of movement, the monotonous course of life.

In the works of L. Leonov following after The Thief, the railway is perceived

is considered by the author and the characters as something already natural and firmly established in modern life: “The locomotive screams, awakening the sleeping elements; the ear of Burago is caressed by the impatient clanging of steam and iron” (4, 261); “The train, stuffed with seekers of bread and salt, carried her (Suzanna. - N.S.), the seeker of her will, to a meager, nameless half-station” (4, 72). Workers on Sot arrive by train. When there was not enough work in production, even the train that brought builders and was perceived as a necessary condition for a new life now seemed to the people of Sotin to be just an “old-fashioned steam locomotive that dragged a long train” (4, 213), and the steel main itself plunged into a “lifeless stupor » (4, 213). For the young heroes of The Road to the Ocean, the locomotive becomes a symbol of new achievements and a password for future success.

L. Leonov calls a rushing train “a rattling tin tree” (5, 12), “tin leaves” - wheels, under the recitation of which Skutarevsky comes to gloomy thoughts: “Dying is right.”, “immortality is a rebellion of an individual!” (5, 12), etc. Leonov's perception of the "cold" and "soullessness" of the railway continues the traditions of the Silver Age. I.F. Annensky in the poem "Winter Train" wrote:

I know - a flaming dragon,

All covered with fluffy snow,

Now it will break with a rebellious run Bewitched gave a dream.

And with him, tired slaves,

Doomed to a cold pit

Heavy coffins are dragging,

Gritting and chattering teeth.

A similar inexplicable feeling of fear of the “iron dragon” is noted in the memoirs of A. Benois: “... agonizing dreams about the railway were repeated especially often. There were two options. Option one: I'm standing on the grass near the track and I'm not at all scared, I know that the train runs on rails and it won't touch me. But smoke appears above the trees, the locomotive jumps out of the forest and instead of passing by, it turns and with some kind of anger rushes right in my direction. I died!..

The second option: it resembles the dream that Anna Karenina sees. Again the rails, but I'm not on the grass, but on the station platform. There is no train at all, they are waiting for it, but some unfamiliar, shaved, toothless, crooked old man, like a beggar, with a stick in his hand, purrs the same thing in my ear: “He’s going - he’s not going, he’s going - he won’t get there.” In this dream, which I always somehow foresaw, there was something especially vile. .

L.M. Leonov gradually builds up impressions, which are then finally formed into a capacious formula. The railway car and the steel line as a whole become a symbol of homelessness, the disorder of the heroes, “the most convincing way of human homelessness” (3, 529): Dmitry’s father worked as a watchman at the railway siding, “went out to the trains with a green flag<. >notify about the safety of their endless (read: aimless. - A. I, N. S.) wanderings ”(3, 60) (this is an indirect allusion to the lack of a full-fledged home for the hero, just like, for example, Uvadiev’s mother (“Sot ”) works as a switchman on the tram tracks: “You sit, and the rails all run, run. And so you have to sit until the end until you freeze” (4, 267); Sanka Bicycle lives with Ksenia in an empty car (“The Thief”) ; Pavel Rakhleev ("Badgers") moves and lives in an armored train; Kurilov ("Road to the Ocean"), by virtue of his position, is constantly on wheels; Valery Krainov ("Russian Forest") during the Civil War also lived in a service car. everyday life pushes the heroes to connect with the railway.

It is natural that the author in the new epilogue to the novel "Badgers" takes the brothers out of the forest to the railroad. In the original version, the meeting of the Rakhleevs took place in the forest. But the natural element - the forest - does not quite correspond to the mood of the main characters. The naturalness of nature contrasts with the "iron" logic of Anton and Semyon. Harmony will not work. Therefore, the car can serve as the best place for the final date. The writer transfers the center of philosophical and moral gravity from the harmonious world of nature to the world of technology, iron.

The railway is perceived as a symbol of death, iron necessity, emptiness and fear. A patient is flying on an airplane

Potemkin: “I don’t like to die on the road.<...>And I still have enough for the flight” (4, 230). “Flight, this is the natural state of a person, everything else is just a blasphemous deviation from the norm,” the hero of “Skutarevsky” echoes him. “One must die in flight, running into the original substance and dissolving in it without a trace” (5, 97).

The road in the novel "Road to the Ocean" acts, among other things, as a character, which is characterized by various experiences and with which various events occur: "The road began to feel feverish" (6, 185), "Your road does not work well" (6, 186), etc. It seems that this is not an ordinary metonymy. It is this, alive, that Kurilov and his colleagues perceive the railway.

Older people are distrustful of any miracle technique. Their assessments and comparisons are negative. Thus, even the technically literate Renne likens the playing of a novice trumpeter to playing on a steam locomotive, emphasizing the clumsiness and loudness of the action. Movement, any road, movement, even a simple observation of the construction of roads are terrible for skitchans: “It was only clear that a fierce car would soon roll along the paved road, which would inevitably devour both the absurd charm of the place, and silence - the legacy of grandfathers, and with it Meletiev’s brainchild » (4, 24).

On the way to the exhibition, Cherimov and Zhenya ride in a bus, in the cabin of which representatives of the young and old generations collide, for whom technology, vehicles symbolize the transition to a new,

more civilized life. And if “a wizened old woman, from the breed of those who wash the dead and love to stand in lines” (5, 268), is frightened by the fast ride and the inexplicable fun of her young neighbors, then the young couple just like some kind of unbridled prowess, embodied in a dashing race . Speed, courage and youth - along the way, and for the old woman the bus is a "witch box" (5, 268).

For Omelichev, the metaphor of the life path turns out to be connected with the railway. "Whenever<.>a steam locomotive stopped at the platform, Gleb felt an unaccountable need to jump into the last carriage and drive back into the past” (6, 304). It is at the station that Gleb meets Kormilitsyn: the past from the carriage was approaching Gleb.

Initially, the clergy saw "in the spread of railways a threat to faith, damage to the church and corruption of the flock" (6, 346). “Locomotive screams from the railway” caused bouts of unreasonable anguish in the landowner Sapegina (9, 221) (You can also recall A.N. Ostrovsky’s Kabanikha, who was afraid of new technology: “And at least scree me with gold, so I won’t go.” Heroines: both Sapegina and Kabanova are representatives of the same class and approximately the same age, and their perception of the “harnessed fiery serpent” is similar). The decline of the industrial economy of the Omelichevs "came after the appearance of the railway" (6, 85), technical improvements harmed the merchant economy.

The opening of the railway, about which Alyosha Peresypkin compiles a historical story, took place on Ilyin's day: "Borzing's steam locomotives are equated with the fiery cart on which<.>the prophet Elijah departed for heaven, for the imperishable halls of the creator" (6, 358).

Death under the wheels of a train was perceived in the 1930s. as something natural: Gleb Protoklitov, writing a biography “suitable for cleansing” for himself, “killed” his father in precisely this way; Cheredilov's absurdly careless behavior almost cost him his life, left under the wheels of the train, when he, drunk, was almost crushed by the train (9, 266). Mother Gelasia crushed

train, because of the tragedy with the locomotive, Gelasius' life became miserable.

For young heroes, the railway becomes a familiar attribute of a new life. Renne, in the eyes of her own daughter, acts as “a conscientious steam engine from a Russian narrow-gauge railway, which turned out to be not at all adapted to the rails of new highways, not only in terms of its technical skills” (4, 178). Zhenya sees the image of the future precisely in the image of an electric locomotive (5, 130). Saifulla's mother respectfully and proudly perceives her son-driver "as the owner of a big machine" (6, 388).

For many heroes of "Road to the Ocean" and "Russian Forest" the railway "was not only a source of income, but also a tool<.>human activity, if not the meaning of existence” (9, 440).

The first phrase of "Russian Forest" is dedicated to the heroine's arrival at the station: "The train arrived exactly on schedule" (9, 7). V.V. Agenosov drew attention to this detail: “The very concept of “train” carries, along with the direct one, a number of additional shades. Marx's expression "the locomotive of history" comes to mind.<.>"Train" entails the association "road". This is a romantic concept. Finally, the train is a collection of different people. And all these meanings will really be revealed in the first chapter. Its leitmotif will be a miracle.

“The click of a steam locomotive fading in the midst of a stuffy summer night” (9, 33) is associated in Paul with his father, with the departure of his mother from the family. And that is why it is precisely the “cock-calling cry of a shunting locomotive” (9, 37), as a signal for decisive action, that pushes Polya to go into her father’s house. Lenochka Vikhrova, tormented by the oppression of her conscience for living out of gratitude in the Vikhrovs’ house, at night “listened to the alarming, from the close ring road, locomotive whistles, insinuatingly calling her somewhere” (9, 334).

Sergei Vikhrov has a completely different attitude. He was possessed by “an old passion for all kinds of mechanisms that overcome time and space and<.>lengthening life" (9, 394). A children's toy (like Luka Omelichev's in The Road to the Ocean) determined Serezhin's fate. The assembly of an armored train for the front is described in detail. In this case

this is no longer the same locomotive that Adam and Eve “travelled” behind, but a mechanical structure absolutely necessary for the front, for the country. It is no coincidence that Vikhrov compares himself with “the pressure gauge needle on a locomotive boiler”, which is not “supposed to lie” (9, 344), but Cheredilov sees an alarming symbol in the locomotive and represents Vikhrov as a kind of semaphore on duty on the road: “I waved a flag once or twice and step aside: they will crush you with a locomotive, you monster of the forest ”(9, 408).

In the Pyramid, all members of the Loskutov family, frightened by the visit of the financial inspector, immediately after his departure, "forever remembered<...>from the district railway, a locomotive scream, an ominous reminder of the imminent expulsion from Staro-Fedoseevo. Such a farewell longing sounded in him "; The “shunting horn from the ring road” also served as a signal for a bitter parting.

Technical transport on the pages of Leonov's novels gradually, as in life, goes through the stages of improvement and replacement of one type by another. In "Badgers" and "So-ty" they traveled mostly on carts, in "The Thief" the image of a locomotive appears in the parable, and Dmitry Vekshin and Nikolai Zavarikhin ride trains, in "Skutarevsky" they move mostly by cars and trains, in The Road to the Ocean, the characters travel and are engaged in the nature of their activities with rail transport, and the pre-revolutionary events concern the shipping company. Vikhrov, as a true lover of nature, walks and travels more and more. The Pyramid, on the other hand, provides means of transportation that are absolutely fantastic for the time of the mid-twentieth century: flying on skis, by car. The very expanse of the travels of Leonov's heroes undergoes changes that affect the temporal and spatial plans of the novels.

But it is the railway that seems to the author to be the road to the future. Kurilov and his associates are building a railway line leading to the expanses of water, the metaphor of the road to the future is based on the perception of the road as a civilized steel highway to the future. “For me, the road,” said L. Leonov, “was like laying a highway to the distant future of the world. Sa-

maybe the name "Road to the Ocean" meant not only the road and not only the "iron", and not just to the East, to the Pacific Ocean, but also to the Ocean - in the concept of Eternity ".

The steel highway is a new path for the march of civilization. It is in this sense that Leonov uses the image of a locomotive as progress in Pchkhov's parable and in other works too. It seems that the well-known line of E.A. Baratynsky "Century walks its iron path." implies precisely technical progress, and the epithet "iron" arose with the advent of railways, removing humanity from its roots.

Comparison of Russia's path with a ship has become traditional in literature. L.M. Leonov uses this metaphor: “He (Uvad'evu. - A.I., N.S.) imagined a simple image of a ship that is shaken by night and storm. Extraordinary skill and will were needed to lead him, with overloaded boilers, across a sea that was not marked on any maps. The ship heeled first in one direction, then in the other, and each time the waves rushed more ferociously onto the swaying vertical ”(4, 235), - but, in accordance with the ongoing technical changes, it can liken the country to a simpler means if we are talking about failures : “Like an overturned truck, a Russian car rumbled, and people ran around, intending to put it on wheels again” (4, 70).

Not the best memories are associated with the train in the creative biography of Leonov himself. The well-known formula of L.D. Trotsky about fellow travelers concerned L. Leonov directly. It is worth noting that the term put into use by Trotsky was in demand by those whom the political critic referred to as fellow travelers. L. Leonov refers to the “road” vocabulary to characterize the new tasks facing the writers: “The writer is primarily interested in perestroika himself, because he has to live and work; the union of fellow travelers should think a lot about this: whether he has already reached his station. For in the future the train speeds up, the hauls will become longer and longer, and on the move jumping out of the socialist express will be more and more in danger of falling under its wheels. “In the bivouacs of the civil war,” continues this thought,

the image of a writer, we sang a song about a locomotive that flies like an arrow into the commune. Such a word denotes in the working people the concept of a just human existence. At the same time, the terminal station was not yet included in the current schedule of human progress.<.>Since then, speeding up the pace, our train has been rushing, refueled by the hand of the great machinist. Dates run back like milestones; they are covered by others, alternately either blinding or fogging their eyes with the brilliance of unfamiliar expanses, the sadness of loss, the sparkle of another victory ”(10, 383).

A similar technique was used by E.I. Zamyatin, in whose article "New Russian Prose" the image of a steam locomotive appears, and in the literary manifesto "I'm afraid" a detailed metaphor is used about the writer's belonging to a certain post-October movement: "a ticket to the car" Serapion brothers ".

The railway in Leonov's novels is not just a means of travel for the hero. The writer does not show extensive road landscapes, does not convey vivid road impressions. For his characters, the road is rather the state of the inner world. Specific events in life are connected with the steel highway, it serves as a signal, a hint of development prospects. The railway is presented as a symbol of destructive human history, under whose wheels and next to which human tragedies occur. The road does not always connect people.

Leonov's motif of the road, constantly evolving, acquires the features of conceptual generalizations, growing to the scale of a symbol and acquiring an epic character. The theme of the path of human culture and civilization is also connected with the motive of avoiding the road, wandering along the roads of history. This is evidenced by the general pathos of Leonov's creativity, in particular his novels The Thief and The Pyramid.

The characters of Leonov's novels are constantly on the move, which indicates the continuity of their movement in the space of history, in the development of internal qualities, and the tireless work on themselves. Movement is a symbol of life. The actions and feelings of the characters have their own evolution, there are practically no characters “frozen” in place.

In the novels of L.M. Leonov's "Road to the Ocean", "Russian Forest", "Pyramid", the road has become not only a piercing thread at the thematic level, but also one of the motives that determine structural unity and stylistic originality. The space-time metaphor of the road symbolizes the path of the heroes, the country in their development.

The railway - a phenomenon, in this case, of technical culture - had an impact on the artistic culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, imprinted in poetry, prose, journalism and cinema. The masters of the word, for example, conveyed: both the childishly naive impression of a moving "steamboat" on wheels, and the complex feelings associated with renewal, the expectation of a new one, and the perception of the railway as a different world, and understanding the essence of progress. And so many more lines, artistic canvases, photo and film frames dedicated to the railway, are waiting for careful reading, viewing, understanding.

1. Nekrasov N.A. Full coll. op. and letters: in 9 t. M., 1948. T. 2.

2. Nekrasov N.A. Decree. op. T. 1.

3. Blok A.A. Sobr. cit.: in 6 t. M., 1980. T. 2.

4. Kuprin A.I. Sobr. cit.: in 5 t. M., 1982. T. 2.

5. Russian writers 1800-1917. Biographical Dictionary. T. 3. M., 1988.

6. Suvorin A. Russian-Japanese war and Russian revolution. Little Letters (1904-1908). M., 2005.

7. Platonov A. In a beautiful and furious world. Machinist Maltsev // Platonov A. Fav. Prod.: Stories. Tales. M., 1988.

8. Opitz R. Philosophical aspects of the novel "The Thief" by L. Leonov // Modern Soviet novel. Philosophical aspects. L., 1979.

9. Skobelev V.P. L. Leonov's novel "The Thief" in the context of "novel" thinking in the second half of the 20s // Age of Leonid Leonov. Problems of creativity. Memories. M., 2001.

10. Yablokov E.A. The Pukhovs and others (Leonid Leonov and Andrey Platonov in the twenties) // Age of Leonid Leonov. Problems of creativity. Memories. M., 2001.

11. Leonov L.M. Sobr. cit.: v 10 t.

12. Khrulev V.I. Symbolism of the natural world in L. Leonov's prose // Nature in fiction: material and spiritual. SPb., 2004.

13. Spivak R. S. Russian philosophical lyrics. Problems of typology of genres. Krasnoyarsk, 1985.

14. See: Ovcharenko A.I. In the circle of Leonid Leonov. From notes of 1968-1988. M., 2002.

15. Kovalev V.A. Creativity of Leonid Leonov. To the characteristic of the creative individuality of the writer. Moscow; Leningrad, 1962.

16. Skorospelova E.B. Russian Soviet prose of the 20-30s: the fate of the novel. M., 1985.

17. Annensky I.F. Selected works. L., 1988.

18. Benois A.N. My memories: in 5 books. M., 1993. Book. 1-3.

19. Ostrovsky A.N. Thunderstorm // Ostrovsky A.N. Full coll. cit.: in 16 t. M., 1950. T. 2.

20. Agenosov V.V. Soviet philosophical novel. M., 1989.

21. Leonov L.M. Pyramid. M., 1994. Issue. 1.

22. Leonov L.M. "Human, only human." // Questions of Literature. 1989. No. 1.

23. New world. 1931. No. 10. Cited. Quoted from: Lavrov A.V. "Production novel" - the last plan of Andrei Bely // New lit. review. 2002. No. 4. (56). S. 115.

24. See: Zamyatin E.I. I'm afraid. Literary criticism. Publicism. Memories. M., 1999.

Received November 16, 2011

RAILWAY IN RUSSIAN ARTISTIC CULTURE OF 19TH-20TH CENTURIES

Anatoly Ivanovich IVANOV, Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin, Tambov, Russian Federation, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Head of Journalism Department, e-mail: [email protected]

Natalia Vladimirovna SOROKINA, Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin, Tambov, Russian Federation, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Professor of Russian and Foreign Literature Department, Head of Russian Philology Department, e-mail: [email protected]

In the article the authors study the effect that railway as a technical culture phenomenon had on creative work of cultural professionals of the 19th-20th centuries. Poetic lines, prose and paintings, dedicated to the railway, show the first impressions left by the moving wheeled “steamer”, they show the complex feelings due to the oncoming renovation, the new expectations. For a few decades the railway was the new world itself, it was the symbol of progress.

Key words: technical and artistic culture; railway; civilization; progress.

Larisa Vasilievna TOROPCHINA - teacher at the Moscow gymnasium No. 1549, Honored Teacher of Russia.

Getting ready for the exam

The motif of the road in the works of Russian writers of the XIX century

As the topics of the examination essay on literature in the eleventh grade, the so-called cross-cutting topics, which have been identified in a number of works of art of one or another time period, can be proposed. So, one of them is the theme of the road in Russian literature. The motive of the road is clearly visible in a number of works of ancient Russian literature: on a campaign “to the Polovtsian land”, wanting to take revenge on the nomads for the insults inflicted on the Russian people, and “to scoop up the Don with a helmet”, Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich of Novgorod-Seversky sets off with his squad, the warriors of which “ were born under chimneys, grew up under helmets, grew up as warriors”, that is, they got used to battles and nomadic life; Prince Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow (Zadonshchina) leads the army on the way to the battle with Khan Mamai; the distant, full of difficulties journey to foreign lands of the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin is dedicated to an autobiographical manuscript, which is called “Walking (or - in Russian - walking) over the three seas”; full of deprivation and suffering, the hard journey from Moscow to Siberia of the martyr for the old faith, the frantic archpriest Avvakum and his family (“The Life of Archpriest Avvakum, written by himself”).

In Russian literature of the late 18th century, the theme of the road can be traced even in the titles of some works. It should be noted that sentimentalist writers (sentimentalism developed in Russia at that time) often used such a genre of fiction as travel: impressions of visiting Germany, Switzerland, France and England formed the basis of N.M. Karamzin "Letters of a Russian Traveler", and the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow shocked A.N. Radishchev, which eventually led to the creation of his most famous book, Travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

The travel motif is also characteristic of the works of the 19th century. Let us recall how the calmness of Famusov’s Moscow was outraged by the arrival of Chatsky from abroad, who “did not write two words for three years and suddenly burst out, as if from clouds” (A.S. Griboedov. “Woe from Wit”). Having not spent even a day in Moscow, the hero is forced to leave the old capital again with the words: “I’m running, I won’t look back, I’ll go looking around the world where there is a corner for an offended feeling ...”

The reader's acquaintance with the protagonist of Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" takes place precisely when the "young rake" flies "in the dust on the mail" to the village to his dying uncle. “Having fun and luxury, a child” flees from high society to the village, and after a while, having had enough of the landowner’s life and feeling remorse from the sad finale of the duel with Lensky, Onegin again sets off on the road ...

Lermontov's hero Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin (the novel "A Hero of Our Time"), aptly named by V.G. Belinsky’s “younger brother of Onegin”, not only travels (fate brings this metropolitan aristocrat either to Pyatigorsk, then to Kislovodsk, then to a Cossack village, then to the “bad town” Taman, then even to Persia), but also dies on the road, “ returning from Persia.

“The genius of a penny” Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov (N.V. Gogol. “Dead Souls”) in the first volume of the poem, which has come down to the reader, in fact, is presented as an energetic traveler making a purely mercantile trip to one of the Russian provinces. In the censored edition, even the title was changed “to the side of the road” - “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls”.

It can be recalled that the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". And during the entire action of the work, friends do not stay in one place for long: they go to the provincial city, then to the estate of Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, then to visit the old Bazarovs, and then return again to the estate of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. By this, the writer seems to emphasize their indefatigable young energy, a thirst for learning new things, in contrast to the generation of “fathers”, who, due to their age and habit to a measured way of life, according to the apt expression of Arina Vlasyevna Bazarova, “like honey agarics on a hollow, sit in a row and don’t from place".

From the exit from a cramped closet and aimless wandering along the “middle” St. Petersburg streets, on which tenement houses and dirty taverns are concentrated, the novel “Crime and Punishment” originates from the hero of Dostoevsky, Rodion Raskolnikov. And in general, the writer, who is rooting for the “humiliated and offended,” often unfolds the action against the backdrop of the urban landscape of summer Petersburg, where “the heat is unbearable ... dust, brick, limestone ... the stench from shops and taverns” and where “people are swarming”, as if a “feeling of the deepest disgust” is pushing them to leave their miserable, impoverished “corners” and, having gone out into the city, merge with a crowd of “all sorts of industrialists and shabby people”.

And the famous Nekrasov "wanderers"! This is what the poet calls the seven peasants who set off on the road in order to find someone “who lives happily, freely in Rus'.” Nekrasov's lyrical poem "Peddlers" is also dedicated to the passerby offen merchants traveling with their goods (“the box is full, full, there are chintz and brocade”) in the villages.

For many heroes of Russian literature of the 19th century, the road, travel are an integral part of life, and perhaps that is why the smart, kind, but sluggish and inactive Ilya Ilyich Oblomov in the novel of the same name by I.A. Goncharova looks atypical(it is no coincidence that the work shows his antipode - the energetic, constantly on the move Andrei Stolz), and critics call Oblomov "an extra person among extra people."

But after all, the words road, path are ambiguous: they can denote not only a segment of space between any points, but also stages of life of both an individual and an entire nation. And in this sense, we can talk about the short path of the heroine of the play A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm": from a happy childhood ("I lived - I did not grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild") to premature death, which freedom-loving Katerina prefers life in the house of a despotic mother-in-law and a weak-willed husband; about the life quests of L.N. Tolstoy Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov (the epic novel “War and Peace”), who live actively and “restlessly”, because, according to the author of the work, “calmness is spiritual meanness”. Finally, here you can also consider the path of the Russian people in the Patriotic War of 1812 (the epic novel "War and Peace"), when different segments of the population - from commander-in-chief Kutuzov to the "most needed person" in the partisan detachment - Tikhon Shcherbaty and "old man Vasilisa , who beat a hundred French, ”- rallied in a single patriotic impulse to liberate Russia from foreign invaders.

And how majestic the image of the road seems to the readers of the poem “Dead Souls”, along which, “what a lively, unbeatable troika”, Rus is rushing! “... The mighty space envelops me menacingly,” exclaims the writer. - … Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful far away I see you ... "

Thus, road theme in Russian literature is vast, multifaceted and deep. However, it is precisely these factors that can cool down the desire of students to work with her: after all, remembering all the episodes associated with the endless journeys of Onegin, Pechorin and Chichikov, as well as analyzing in detail the stages of the life path of Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov or Natasha Rostova will be quite difficult. Therefore, I think it will be more convenient for some eleventh-graders to reveal this topic on works of small, lyrical genres. Among them are poems by A.S. Pushkin "Road complaints", "Winter road", "Demons", "For the shores of the distant homeland ...", "In a clean field it is silvering ..."; M.Yu. Lermontov "Clouds", "I go out alone on the road ...", "Farewell, unwashed Russia ..."; ON THE. Nekrasov "On the road", "Schoolboy", "Reflections at the front door", "Railway" and others. An epigraph to such an essay could take lines from a poem by A.S. Pushkin "Road Complaints".

How long am I to walk in the world
Now in a wheelchair, then on horseback,
Now in a wagon, now in a carriage,
Either in a cart or on foot?

Two or three texts should be selected for analysis. , for example, to compare Pushkin's poems "Demons" and Lermontov's "Clouds". In the introduction, it can be noted that both poets, due to life circumstances, had to spend a lot of time traveling both in central Russia and in the Caucasus at different times of the year. The impressions of these trips formed the basis of many works, including those named.

So, the poem "Demons" by A.S. Pushkin creates in 1830, in one of the most fruitful periods of his work, later called the Boldin autumn by literary critics. At this time, the affairs forced the poet to leave the capital and part for a while with a young, beloved, beautiful bride. What awaits him on the threshold of a new stage of life? After domestic disorder, wandering, loneliness, the poet seeks peace of mind and family happiness, but at the same time, gloomy forebodings do not leave him. Perhaps, during such painful reflections, the poem “Demons” was created, in which spiritual anguish, feelings, fear of two travelers traveling “in an open field” and getting lost in a snow blizzard - a lyrical hero and a coachman, are conveyed. The reader is first presented with a terrible, but very real picture.

Clouds are rushing, clouds are winding;
Invisible moon
Illuminates the flying snow;
The sky is cloudy, the night is cloudy.

But gradually, the riders are seized with anxiety (“we lost our way ... What should we do!”), Even despair, conveyed by the author with the help of a monotonous repetition of words (“clouds rush, clouds curl”, “cloudy sky, muddy night”, “food, food”, “scary, scary”, “the blizzard is angry, the blizzard is crying”) and whole quatrains, and the real winter night is filled with fantastic images from folk mythology, which A.S. Pushkin, brought up by a nanny-narrator, of course, knew well. Here is a lone demon that “blowing, spitting ... pushing a wild horse into a ravine”, and many demons that rush “swarm after swarm in boundless heights, screeching plaintively and howling tore the heart” of the lyrical hero, and a witch, and a brownie. The exhausted horses stopped, the coachman despaired of finding his way. How will the snowy winter night end? Unknown. In the meantime, the chaos of the blizzard, the snowstorm, the plaintive howl of the wind, which have turned into a phantasmagoric picture of the triumph of evil spirits in the mind of the lyrical hero, seem endless...

The poem "Clouds" by M.Yu. Lermontov, unlike Pushkin's "Demons", is not imbued with a mood of despair and fear: in it, as a leader, the motive of elegiac sadness sounds. But the feeling of loneliness, wandering melancholy also overwhelms the soul of the lyrical hero. The poet created this work in April 1840, shortly before being sent to the second Caucasian exile. According to the recollections of one of his friends, at an evening in the house of the Karamzin Lermontovs, standing at the window and looking at the clouds that, having covered the sky, slowly floated over the Summer Garden and the Neva, he wrote a wonderful poem impromptu, whose first line sounded like this: “Clouds of heaven, eternal wanderers!” Already in these words we feel the motive of wandering, the motive of the endless road. The reader is presented with a metaphorical image of heavenly “eternal wanderers”, “exiles”, rushing “from the sweet north towards the south”. The happiness of these “eternally cold, eternally free” inhabitants of the heavenly sphere lies in the fact that neither envy, nor malice, nor slander have power over them. They do not know the pain of exile. The clouds are simply “bored with the barren fields”, so they set off. The fate of the lyrical hero is different: he is an exile involuntarily, this “drives” him from his native side of “fate ... decision”, “envy ... secret”, “malice ... open”, “poisonous slander of friends”. However, in the main, he is happier than proud and independent clouds: he has a homeland, and the eternal freedom of the celestials is cold and lonely precisely because they are initially deprived of a fatherland.

As a work in which the motive of the road sounds, one can also consider M.Yu. Lermontov "I go out alone on the road ...". Written in the spring of 1841, it seems to sum up the short, but bright, like a flash of a meteorite, the life of the poet. Here the lyrical hero is alone with the endless road and the sky wide open above his head. He feels himself a part of the universe, a person immersed in the open and free elements of nature. The “siliceous path”, characteristic of the mountains of the Caucasus, is perceived in the poem in two forms: both as a specific road along which a lonely traveler walks, and as a symbol of the life path. The world around the lyrical hero is calm, majestic and beautiful, “blue radiance” is poured everywhere. But “radiance” is not only moonlight, in the rays of which the road shines. It is perceived as a background that clearly reveals the gloomy state of the soul of a traveler who “does not expect anything from life” and who “does not feel sorry for ... the past at all”. The lyrical hero is lonely, he is now looking only for “freedom and peace”, such peace that exists in the world around him at these moments. The poet shows that in the majestic universe everything is alive: here “the desert listens to God”, “the star speaks to the star”, there is no loneliness from which the traveler suffers. Peace descends into the soul of the hero, and he longs for one thing - to “forget and fall asleep” forever. But not in the “cold sleep of the grave”, but in such a way that “the life of strength slumbers in the chest”, so that day and night, cherishing the rumor, “about love ... a sweet voice sang” to him, so that over him, sleeping peacefully, “eternally green, the dark oak leaned and rustled.” Eternal peace acquires the meaning of eternal life, and the “siliceous path” acquires the features of an infinite path in time and space. The dream of a lyrical hero is fantastic in its essence, but the nature around him also acquires fantastic, magical features! The motive of lonely wandering gives way to the motive of the triumph of life and complete merging with the Divine world.

Years pass, many things change in life, in people's views on nature and society, but there are eternal values. So, in the poem "Railway", created already in the second half of the 19th century, in 1864, and dedicated to a specific event - the opening of the first Russian railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow, N.A. Nekrasov contrasts the harmony and peace reigning in nature (“there is no ugliness in nature! And kochi, and moss swamps, and stumps - everything is fine under the moonlight”), social injustice in society. It is the journey “on cast-iron rails” that prompts the lyrical hero of the poem to think about the opposition between the good nature and the cruel world of people. There is time to think “our own thought” and see not only the picture of “glorious autumn” outside the window, but also imagine on the sides of the railway track the “crowd of the dead”, “our road builders”, who “in a terrible struggle, calling to life these barren jungles, found a coffin for themselves here.” The word road itself, along with the specific meaning "the way from one point to another", acquires here a different, metaphorical meaning. This is also a difficult segment of the life path that the “masses of the people” went through, driven to construction by hunger and endured many difficulties (“we tore ourselves under the heat, under the cold, with our backs forever bent, lived in dugouts, fought hunger, froze and got wet, got sick scurvy”), and a symbol of people’s suffering in the present, and a bright dream of a happy future (“the Russian people ... endure everything - and pave the way for themselves with a wide, clear chest”). Nekrasov believes that in the distant future (“It’s only a pity that we won’t have to live in this beautiful time - neither me nor you,” the lyrical hero says with regret to little Vanya, a fellow traveler whom he tells about the construction of the railway), the path of the Russian people and all of Russia will be bright, spacious and joyful.

Alexander Blok also reflects on the path of Russia and the Russian people in a number of his poems, figuratively speaking - taking over from his predecessors and standing on the threshold of the twentieth century. A brief analysis of his works “Rus”, “Russia” and the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” can complete the essay on the topic indicated in the title of the article. In the poem "Rus" (1906), the reader is presented with the image of a mysterious, magical country "with swamps and cranes, and with the cloudy gaze of a sorcerer", a country "where all the roads and crossroads are exhausted with a living stick." Here, in Blok’s Rus', everything is in a whirlwind, in motion: “a blizzard sweeps violently ... fragile housing”, a whirlwind whistles “in bare rods”, “various peoples from land to land, from valley to valley lead night dances”, “witches amuse themselves with devils in road snow pillars”. The country itself is swirled, turned into a clot of energy, it seems to be ready for flight, the essence of which cannot be unraveled by the uninitiated, just as it is impossible to touch the mysterious cover of “extraordinary” Rus'. The Fatherland on the road, in perpetual motion, also appears in the poem "Russia" (1908), which begins with the words:

Again, as in the golden years,
Three worn out harnesses are fraying,
And painted knitting needles
In loose ruts...

The poet with happy pride confesses his love for the “poor” homeland. He feels his merger with it and is glad that “the impossible is possible, the long road is easy”, when Russia, with forest and field, in a “patterned veil up to the eyebrows”, will give the weary traveler “an instant look from under the scarf”. And, finally, as the personification of the pinnacle of the frantic movement of block Russia, a metaphorical image of a “steppe mare” is presented, flying “through blood and dust” forward, into restlessness, because “we can only dream of peace”, and the fatherland is waiting for “eternal battle”.

Road without end... Road without beginning and end... Road - movement - life!

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Motive of the road in Russian literature.(The study of "cross-cutting" topics in the process of teaching literature).

methodological comment.

The motif of the road is significantly and widely represented in Russian literature. Schoolchildren begin to understand the importance of the motive of the road from the elementary grades, reading fairy tales, epics, where there is always a road, a fork in it, and a horse, and where you have to choose the path. The theme of wanderings is closely connected with the motive of the road. In this topic, several micro-themes can be distinguished: wanderings, travels of the writers themselves, works of the “travel” genre. In school practice, there are also works where schoolchildren study texts in which the entire plot is built on the wanderings of the hero. A journey can characterize a hero, be an assessment of a certain stage in his life. The theme of the heroes' search for the truth of happiness, the meaning of life, and also in the process of wandering, is also widely represented in Russian literature. Dwelling on this topic, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the road conveys the movement of heroes not only in relation to space, but also to time. I propose such a form of organization of the lesson as a lesson research. Research activity is one of the conditions that allow students to arouse interest and desire for discoveries. It is important for students to see something that goes beyond ready-made solutions, regulated exercises. At the level of independent discoveries, the student looks at the familiar text in a new way, feels its depth. This will provide an opportunity to reach a higher level of systematization and generalization of the studied material. This lesson is most appropriate to conduct after studying the poem by N. Nekrasov "Who in Rus' should live well." Two weeks before the lesson, students receive an advanced task: 1) reread the texts of works of art: A. Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"; N. Gogol "Dead Souls"; N. Nekrasov "Who in Rus' should live well." 2) divide into creative groups by preparing presentations on the key issues of the lesson and slides for commenting: Group No. 1Who are they, wandering heroes, setting out on the road?(Slide showing a wagon with a traveler, a cart with Chichikov, seven men on the road). Group#2(Slide showing post stations, estates of landowners, villages and market squares). Group#3How does the author manage to draw a memorable face, and sometimes a whole human life, as a result of one meeting on the way?(Slide depicting an old man with a piece of bread, Plyushkin's estate, a merchant with an order onchest and oyster in hand). Group #4 What role can the song play in revealing the motive of the road? Group #5 What symbolizing meaning does the image of the road have, how is the motif of the road connected with the philosophical concept of the life path?A slide with an image of a road blurred by rains in the summer; roads in autumn with a trio of horses, paths). In preparation for the lesson, students are invited to select material to fill out the table, which will serve as the final stage of the lesson. To study the theme of the road in development, I propose three works: “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A. Radishchev, “Dead Souls” by N. Gogol, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N. Nekrasov.

Planned results:

subject : understanding of a cross-cutting theme, the author's position, analysis of literary works, the ability to compare and contrast works of different eras.

metasubject : understanding the problem of the lesson, selecting arguments to support one's own position, formulating generalized conclusions on the key issues of the lesson.

Types of educational activities: reproductive: understanding the plots of works, the events depicted in them;

productive creative: expressive reading of excerpts from works; verbal detailed monologue response to a problematic question on the text of the work;

search engine : independent search for an answer to the question posed, commenting on a literary text;

research: comparative analysis of texts.

During the classes. What twisted, deaf, narrow, impassable, drifting far to the side of the road humanity has chosen, trying to comprehend the eternity of truth… N.V. Gogol

Teacher :Today, together with A. Radishchev, N.V. Gogol, N.A. Nekrasov, we are going on a journey through Russia, on a journey through time. What is travel? What does it mean to travel? Traveling with wandering heroes is a great way to get to know the life of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. The road… Try to imagine what you associate the image of the road with?

Road

wandering hero route vehicle

New encounters new impressions

So, we have a picture of an ideal road. The motive of the road is clearly visible in a number of works of ancient Russian literature: on a campaign “to the Polovtsian land”, wanting to take revenge on the nomads for the insults inflicted on the Russian people and “scoop the Don with a helmet”, Igor Svyatoslavovich sets off with his squad; Prince Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow (Zadonshchina) leads the army on the way to the battle with Khan Mamai; The autobiographical manuscript, which is called “Journey Beyond the Three Seas”, is dedicated to the distant, full journey to foreign lands of the Tver merchant Athanasius Nikitin; Archpriest Avvakum and his family). In Russian literature of the late 18th century, the theme of the road can be traced even in the title of the work by A. Radishchev “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” The motive of the journey is also characteristic of the works of the 19th century. Let's try together to turn over the pages of the great works of A. Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" and N.A. Nekrasov "Who Lives Well in Rus'".

- Who are they, wandering heroes on their way?First group performance:Choice by A.N. Radishchevgenre form of "journey" was due to the possibility through a first-person story to permeate the narrative with increased emotionality: " I looked around me - my soul became wounded by the sufferings of mankind. mine into my insides -and he saw that the disasters of man come from man ... "(The famous preface is an appeal to a friend who opens the Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow). As a materialist educator, Radishchev believes that a person depends on external conditions and circumstances. To help people to know the truth, to teach them to "look directly" at the "surrounding objects", that is, the real causes of evil, is the writer's duty. “Having presented the road to the postal commissioner and having paid the running money at the established rate, the traveler received a new driver and fresh horses that carried him to the next station ...” In this way, Radishchev's Traveler rides. And here are the first lines from “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol: “A rather beautiful chaise drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial city of N ... A gentleman was sitting in the chaise, not handsome, but not bad-looking, not too fat, not too thin ... Entry it did not make any noise in the city.” It was Mr. Chichikov. “His career is dramatic. There are several breakdowns and falls in it, in which another would break his neck, this vanka-stanka everywhere and everywhere manages to straighten up, recover, rise even higher. The hero of the poem by N.V. Nekrasov are seven men. Traditionally, the number of debaters: seven is a folklore number. Wandering men are the plot-forming heroes of the poem. There are either no individual characteristics of each of the seven men at all, or they are very laconic: the slow Pakhom, who needs to “pull” before uttering a word; "gloomy" Prov, "hungry for vodka" Gubin brothers. In what year - count, In what year - guess, On the pillar path Seven men met. Seven temporarily liable, Tightened province, Terpigoreva Uyezd, From adjacent villages ... The author reports that the Russian peasant is stubborn and stubborn in achieving the goal, and not practical, but “good”, dreams, fantasies it becomes seven wanderers-truth-seekers. The Nekrasov wanderers who set out on their journey are not traditional pilgrimage wanderers, but ordinary peasants clinging to a wonderful question: who is living well in Russia? So, on the road. (The presentation is accompanied by a slide view). Conclusion: The wandering heroes are: the Traveler, Chichikov, seven men. The image of the wandering hero is one of the images of Russian literature, the personification of the restless, rushing about Russia. All these works are united by the image of the road with its wanderers. The plot of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" is the story of a wandering man who knows all the horror, all the injustice of the existing feudal system. The traveler sees the torment of the people, brought to a bestial, humiliated state. We also meet the wanderer hero in N. Nekrasov's poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”. The author builds the narrative as a story about the wanderings of seven men. The heroes of N. Nekrasov set off to wander around Rus' in search of an answer to the question: “Who lives happily, freely in Rus'?” Truth seekers personify the Russian people, striving for the truth. With the image of a wanderer hero, but of a completely different formation, we meet in N. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". enrichment. The image of a wandering hero made it possible to show "all Rus'": bureaucratic, landlord, folk. (Completion of the table by students). Teacher: How long will they walk in the world, Now in a cart, now on horseback, Now in a wagon, then in a carriage,Whether in a wheelchair or on foot?What role does the route play in revealing the image of the road?Second group performance:N. Radishchev's book is written in the form of travel notes, and its chapters are named after the names of those postal stations where the hero-traveler stops (Lyubani is a station in the Novgorod province, 26 miles from Tosna, Chudovo village and a post station with an imperial traveling palace in 32 versts from Lyuban. Spasskaya Polest is more correct Spasskaya Polists, since we are talking about a station 24 versts from Chudov (with a wooden traveling palace), which stood on the banks of the Polisti River. All subsequent chapters of the "Journey" bear the names of postal stations on the road, basically coinciding with the current Leningrad-Moscow highway. This gives the author the opportunity to broadly cover Russian reality at the end of the 18th century. The reader is presented with people of all walks of life: local and service nobles, raznochintsy officials, yard servants, serfs. The form of the travel diary allowed Radishchev deeply reveal the thoughts, feelings, experiences of the traveler, convey his impressions of what he saw on the road. "Dead Souls" by N. Gogol begins with the second chapter - a visit to the landowners. The first among the landowners visited by Chichikov was Manilov."Let's go look for Manilovka. Having traveled two versts, we met a turn onto a country road, but already two, and three, and four versts, it seems, were done. And the two-story stone house was not visible. ”Followed by Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich. And Plyushkin completes the gallery of landowners. “While Chichikov was thinking and inwardly laughing at the nickname allotted by the peasants to Plyushkin, he did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets ... Parts of the master's house began to appear and finally looked all at the place where the chain of huts was interrupted ... then this strange castle stood like a decrepit invalid.” Gogol also touched on the “metropolitan theme.” Petersburg lives in almost every chapter. The author did not miss a chance not to say two or three caustic words addressed to him. The right way to choose the “route” allowed Chichikov during his trip to meet not only with the landowners, but also with officials who form a fairly expressive collective portrait of the provincial government. In “Who should live well in Russia,” Nekrasov shows the life of all of Rus' through the travels of seven men through several villages. The main characters of the poem are peasants, because in that era they were the most numerous class in Russia. in what land - guess"), which do not give the exact geographical coordinates of the events depicted, emphasizes that we will talk about the entire Russian land. The names of the villages are deeply symbolic. Several villages, through which the peasants pass, symbolize the whole of peasant Russia. The movement of the protagonist of the poem in space, his journey along the roads of Russia, meetings with landowners, officials, peasants and city dwellers develop before us into a broad picture of the life of Russia. Nekrasov vividly sympathizes with everything that happens to travelers, walks alongside them, “gets used” in the image of each of his heroes (be it Matrena Timofeevna, Yermil Girin, Savely, the Holy Russian hero, Yakim Nagoy, Yakov, Grisha Dobrosklonov), lives his life, empathizes with him. Russia live well”, they meet: a priest, a merchant, a soldier, a landowner, as well as peasant plowmen, artisans, Old Believers, pilgrimage wanderers ... Thanks to the wandering peasants of Nekrasov, we get acquainted with post-reform Russia as a whole. (Speech is accompanied by viewing a slide). Conclusion: While moving along their path, wandering heroes stop at stations (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), in the estates of landlords (“Dead Souls”), in villages, on a country road, at a fair on a chrome holiday, on a market square ( "To whom in Rus' it is good to live"). It is the meetings along the “route” chosen by the author that help to see and understand the life and suffering of Rus', to more fully reveal the image of the road. (Filling out the table by students). Teacher : Deciding to travel together with the heroes of the works, we set off on the road towards Russian distances, along the path and crossroads of the spiritual life of Russians.How does the author succeed inseveral lines as a result of one meeting on the way to draw a memorable face, and sometimes a whole human life? The performance of the third group: From the the beginning of the poem by N. Nekrasov, we feel the epic tone of the story. And the very first words sound almost like the famous fairy-tale introduction "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state." There is no need to guess what kind of land we are talking about - it is clear that the story will be about Russia. Such a beginning means that the poet seeks to cover the country in all its historical significance and geographical immensity. And the names of the province, volosts, villages, where the peasants came from, are again symbolic words: Zaplatovo, Dyryvino, Razutova, Znobishen, Gorelova, Neyolova, and Neurozhayka, too. In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, the poet is able to find such a portrait or everyday detail that reveals the main thing in a person, especially characteristic of him. Let's remember the images changing each other: peasants in the chapter "Happy". Only a few strokes - and the person appears before us as if alive. Here is one of the “happy ones”: A yellow-haired, hunched-up timidly crept up to the wanderers A Belarusian peasant. Only one external stroke is “hunched”, only one detail that depicts movements, gait (“crept up timidly”) - and we see this starving, humble poor man. How terrible life must be if a person sees all happiness only in bread. The Belarusian peasant feels happy: And now, by the grace of God! One more detail completes this tragic image: respectfully, lovingly says “bread” to the Belarusian, but “bread”. A few strokes and we understand what world we found ourselves in thanks to Gogol’s pen: or zipun", "... this terrible castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid, long, long ..." (description of Plyushkin's estate) or "Not a single meeting where he was could do without history. Some story would certainly happen: or the gendarmes will take him out of the hall by the arms, or they will be forced to push out their own friends ”(Nozdrev’s life). In the image of Sobakevich, Gogol opens a new page in the annals of the life of the owners of estates. This hero has a kulak animal nature, which manifests itself in his actions, in the way of thinking and imposes an indelible mark on the whole life. His way of life bears traces of rudeness, clumsiness and ugliness. His gray house resembles the buildings of military settlements. Each object “seemed to say: I am also Sobakevich.” Gogol makes extensive use of elements of the grotesque, the nature of epithets, metaphors, and comparisons when describing the appearance of characters. “And some kind of warm ray suddenly slipped on this wooden face” (Meeting with Plyushkin) A. Radishchev depicts a wide panorama of reality. One phrase. And what strength is in it! “... there is no time: you need to work off the corvée, and on Sunday work for yourself in order to feed your family. We are not gentlemen, so that we can go for a walk, ”says the peasant. One remark, but how much it says. Everywhere the traveler encounters injustice. In the chapter "Spasskaya Field" he talks about a merchant who received an order for bringing ... oysters to high authorities. For that, he was granted by the authorities "for diligence." Radishchev writes about “mean servility”, which he himself witnessed more than once. (The speech is accompanied by viewing a slide) Conclusion: The authors of the works under study are not just travelers, they are not contemplators, but participants in the described events that let human life through themselves. Having met the heroes along the way, the masters of the literary word were able to prove that as a result of even a short road meeting, you can remember your interlocutor for a long time. And on the road again! (Filling out the table by students) Teacher : After all, only through the journey of the hero, through his wanderings, you can fulfill the set global task: "embrace the whole of Rus'." Rus…. How many intoxicating colors, despite the dull tones of everyday life! Is it possible to imagine Rus' without a song, despite all the hardships of everyday life.The performance of the fourth group:- “Horses rush me; my cabby sang a song, but as usual, a mournful one. Who knows the voices of Russian folk songs, he admits that there is something in them, the sorrow of the soul, signifiers ... ”These lines from the first chapter of Sofia are amazing! “Almost all the voices of such songs are in a soft tone ... In them you will find the formation of the soul of our people” (chapter “Copper”), “All-good Father ... You gave me life, and I return it to you, it has become useless on earth,” the Traveler reflected under the sad melody of the coachman. How many Russian writers, following Radishchev, will give in to this irresistible power of the road, the Russian way, the Russian thought, which leads to distant horizons of dreams and to bitter reflection on the present: “Horses are racing me ... the cabman sang a song,” and in this song there will be Russian writers of several generations , like him, seek and find, and again look for the solution to the Russian mystery, the secret of the people's soul. “What is in it, in this song?” Gogol will ask after him. “What is calling and sobbing, and grabbing the heart? Rus! what do you want from me?” or “After that, Selifan, waving his whip, sang a song, not a song, but something so long that there was no end.” Merchant of dead souls returns to the city in the most cheerful mood. And how not to rejoice! “Really, don’t say anything, not only dead, but also runaways, and only more than two hundred people.” Chichikov whistles, plays, sings “some song, so strange that Selifan shakes his head in bewilderment. » Chichikov and song, Selifan and song. In the soul of the heroes there are different song tunes. So they have different paths. These roads are sometimes even, sometimes bumpy, sometimes the mud is impassable, otherwise they “spread in all directions, like caught crayfish.” Nekrasov, as if freeing himself, breaks his entire “epic”, who for many years wrote the poem “Who in Russia should live well ”, and arranges a rare truly choral polyphony, knits into one in the richest verse variety the different beginnings and ends of Russian life on Russian roads, starting a universal “Feast for the whole world.” This is not only a poem, but, as it were, a whole folk opera, abundant mass scenes and choirs, original "arias" - songs and duets. The song became the main form of the story. First about the past: "Bitter time - bitter songs." “Good time-good songs” is the final chapter. It is the aspiration to the future that explains a lot in this chapter, which is not accidentally called “Songs”, because they are its whole essence. There is also a person who composes and sings these songs - Grisha Dobrosklonov:

In the middle of the distant world There are two ways for a free heart. Weigh the proud strength, Weigh the firm will, How to go? The pillar road on which the peasants meet the priest and the landowner, and the narrow path along which Grisha walks, composing his songs, turn into his songs “In the middle of the distant world” into a symbol of two life paths: the path of idleness and the path of struggle. For Nekrasov, the song is important, the fate of people connected by the road is important. Conclusion: The song is a living source that helps to understand human feelings. It is not for nothing that Chichikov's song is extremely strange, just like the hero himself, who lives by a thirst for profit, is strange. Grisha's songs are the choice of the path. The coachman sings a mournful song, inspired by excessive longing from a long journey. (Filling out the table with students). Teacher: What different routes, different songs, different travelers! Unites everyone and all-roads The theme of the road in Russian literature is extensive, diverse and deep. Which does the image of the road have a symbolizing meaning, and how is the motif of the road connected with the philosophical concept of a person's life path? Fifth group performance:The image of the road arises from the first lines of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” “Arriving from St. Petersburg, I imagined that the road was the best. It was revered as such by all those who sat along it after the sovereign. Such was it really, but for a short time. The earth, poured on the road, made it smooth in dry times, liquefied by rains, produced great mud in the middle of summer and made it impassable ... ”The road is an artistic image and a plot-like component in the work. It is no coincidence that the author ends the story: “But, dear reader, I started talking with you. Now the All Saints ... If I haven’t bored you, then wait for me at the outskirts, we will see each other on the way back. Now sorry. “Coachman, drive!” The image of the road appears from the first lines of “Dead Souls”. The description of the road leading to one or another estate precedes the description of the landowners themselves, setting the reader in a certain way. In the seventh chapter of the poem, the author also refers to the image of the road, and here this image opens the lyrical digression of the poem: “Happy is the traveler who, after a long road, a boring road with its cold, slush, mud, sleepy stationmasters, jingle bells, repairs, squabbles , coachmen, blacksmiths and all kinds of road scoundrels, he finally sees a familiar roof ... ". The poem ends with the image of the road:" Russia, where are you rushing, give me an answer? Everything that is on earth flies past, and, touching, step aside and give it the way other peoples and states. ”But these are completely different roads. At the beginning of the poem, this is the road of one person, a specific character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. At the end, this is the road of the whole state, Russia, and even more, the road of all mankind, we are presented with a metaphorical allegorical image, personifying the gradual course of the whole history. "God! how good you are sometimes, distant, distant road! How many times, like a perishing and drowning man, I clutched at you, and every time you generously carried me out and saved me! The road along which Chichikov travels, endlessly lengthening, gives rise to the idea of ​​all of Rus'. The image of Gogol's road is complicated. And how beautiful is the description in the following lines: “What a strange and alluring, and bearing and wonderful in the word: road! and how wonderful she herself is, this road: a clear day, autumn leaves, cold air ... tighter in a travel shawl, a hat on your ears ... Horses are racing ... "The road is the compositional core of the work. Chichikov's britzka is a symbol of the monotonous whirling of the soul of a Russian person who has gone astray. And the country roads along which the cart travels are not only a realistic picture of Russian impassability, but also a symbol of the crooked path of national development. The "bird-troika" and its impetuous years are opposed to Chichikov's britzka and its monotonous circling off-road from one landowner to another. But this road is no longer the life of one person, but the fate of the entire Russian state. Rus' itself is embodied in the image of a troika bird flying into the future: “Hey, troika! ... does not give an answer ... everything flies past ... and others give it roads peoples and states.” The image of the road in the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” is a link between the chapters. Here, too, the connecting thread between the stages of the story is the road. So, the poem begins with a description of the road, calling the reader to go on a journey: A wide path, Lined with birch trees, It stretches far, The image of the road will be repeated often: They go the way - the road; -The cattle is chasing home, The road is dusty. In the context of the theme of the work, the image of the road acquires a symbolic meaning - it is also the life path of a person. The pope says about the road as a life path of a person, as about his business, occupation: “Our roads are difficult. We have a big parish.” Thus, the image of the road in the poem is associated with the theme of happiness. Each of the heroes met by the peasants on the way tells about his “road.” The image of the road in this work does not come to the fore. This is just a connecting thread between the individual points of the journey. Nekrasov vividly feels what is happening with the travelers. The image of the road here is a traditional symbol of the life path. Grisha Dobrosklonov is faced with the question of which way to choose in life: “One spacious road is a thorny one, of the passions of a slave, it is huge, a crowd is greedy for temptation”, “Another is narrow, an honest road, only strong, loving souls, on fight, to work. The result - "Grisha was lured by a narrow, winding path." He chose the path of a people's protector. At the end of the poem, the author reflects on the fate of an honest, free man, Grisha Dobrosklonov. There are two paths before him. One is the beaten path of the greedy crowd. The other is the path of an honest strong-willed person who is ready to fight for the happiness of the people. (The presentation is accompanied by a slide view) Conclusion: The functions of the motive of the road in the works of A. Radishchev, N. Nekrasov, N. Gogol are diverse. First of all, it is a compositional technique that links together the chapters of the work. Secondly, the image of the road performs the function of characterizing the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road, the estate. The poet begins the poem "from the pole path", on which seven men-truth-seekers converged. This theme is visible throughout the long story, but for Nekrasov, only an illustration of life, a small part of it, is dear. The main action in "Journey ..." is a narrative deployed in time, but not in space. The main thing is the question of the political structure in Russia, so the topic of the road for A. Radishchev is secondary. In the disassembled works, the motif of the road is a link. For N. Nekrasov, the fate of people connected by the road is important; for N. Gogol, the road that connects everything in life is important; for A. Radishchev, the road is an artistic device. (Filling out the table by students).

Teacher: Having traveled together with A. Radishchev, N. Nekrasov, N. Gogol, we saw how thorny and difficult the path was, we saw how long and endless the road was. Let's all remember together whom we met on our way together with the author of the works.

1.N. Nekrasov calls him the poem "Dead Souls" "a historical man." Who is he? 2. Who met first on the path of the seven wanderers? 3. In the chapter “Spasskaya Polest” “Traveling ...” by A. Radishchev, the sleeping traveler saw himself as who? 4. Who is he, a wanderer hero who buys dead souls? 5. “I got a good song!” Who is the author of this statement in N. Nekrasov's poem? 6. What was the name of the peasant girl in the chapter "Edrovo" "Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow"?

As a result of the performances of creative groups in students' notebooks and on the board, it is possible to record a table of the key points of the lesson, which is the final stage of the lesson.

The motive of the road in the works of Russian literature.
Key questions	A. Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"	N. Gogol "Dead Souls"	N. Nekrasov “Who is living well in Rus'”
Who are they, wandering heroes, setting out on the road?	A traveler who knows the horror of the feudal system.	Chichikov travels around Rus' with the aim of acquiring dead souls.	Truth-seekers in search of an answer to the question: “Who has a fun, free life in Rus'?”
What role does the route play in revealing the image of the road?	The chapters of the work are named after the stations where the traveler stopped. This makes it possible to broadly cover Russian reality at the end of the 18th century.	The movement of the plot is a visit to the estates of landowners, officials, who form a collective portrait of the provincial government.	Meetings with landowners, officials, peasants, and city dwellers add up to a broad picture of the life of Russia.
	A replica, a phrase, comparisons make it possible to depict a wide panorama of reality.	The widespread use of elements of the grotesque, epithets, metaphors, comparisons, word-symbols is used to describe the appearance of characters.	The epic tone of the narration, the fabulous introduction, the identification of everyday details, the loving use of diminutive suffixes makes it possible to be a participant in events.
What role does the song play in revealing the motive of the road?	The coachman sings a mournful song inspired by excessive longing from a long journey.	Chichikov's song is strange, as the hero himself is strange, living with a thirst for profit. Seli-fan and the song. Different songs, different fates.	The songs of Grisha, Matrena are abundant mass singing with choirs. The song is the solution to the secrets of the Russian soul.
What symbolizing meaning does the road have, how is the motif of the road connected with the philosophical concept of the life path?	The main action in the "Journey .." is a narrative deployed in time, but not in space. The main thing is the question of the political structure in Russia. For Radishchev, the road is an artistic device.	The road is a compositional technique that links the chapters together. At the beginning of the poem, this is the road of one person, at the end, the road of the whole state. For Gogol, the road is a metaphorical image.	The road is an illustration of life, a symbol of a person's life path, connecting the thread between the individual points of the journey. For Nekrasov, the fate of people connected by the road is important.

Reflection. In the life of every person there are such moments when you want to go out into the open and go to the “beautiful far away”. Imagine that there are three roads in front of you: the road of A. Radishchev, N. Gogol, N. Nekrasov and their works. Which road would you like to walk on?

Homework: (at the choice of students) - make up a USC on the topic “The motive of the road in the works of A. Radishchev, N. Gogol, N. Nekrasov; -write an essay-essay "Natural calendar on the way" based on the works "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", "Dead Souls", "Who Lives Well in Rus'"; Complete the diagram yourself, proving your point of view (in writing):

Wanderer types

truth-seekers ("To whom on R mustache and live adventurer "Dead) ? good") souls") ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow")

The motive of the road and its philosophical sound in the works of the classics
The road is an ancient image-symbol. In language, the expression "life path" is a spatio-temporal metaphor. The road symbolizes life in its development. The motif of the road has a long tradition in Russian literature. This tradition goes from medieval pilgrimage travel novels and novels about knights errant to Radishchev's Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. In A. Radishchev's story, travel is a means of depicting a wide panorama of Russian life.
In the works of Russian writers of the 19th century, the motive of the road becomes not only plot-forming, but is also filled with new symbolic meanings, and the interpretation of the motive of the road in romantic and realistic works is different.
The motif of the road in romantic works. The theme of wandering, exile and the theme of freedom.
For Pushkin of the “southern” period, the motif of the road is associated with the ideology of romanticism, one of the main themes of which was the theme of exile or voluntary flight. The traditional reasons for this flight in romantic poetry were the hero's dissatisfaction with his relationship with society.
The romantic hero is an eternal wanderer, his whole life is roads, and any stop means for him the loss of freedom. In romantic poetry, the theme of freedom is very closely connected with the motive of the road. It is no coincidence that Pushkin began the poem “Gypsies” with a description of the nomadic gypsy life:
Gypsies in a noisy crowd
They wander around Bessarabia.
They are over the river today
They spend the night in tattered tents.
Like a liberty, their lodging for the night is cheerful
And peaceful sleep under heaven.
If the theme of prison and the prisoner appeared in a romantic work, then it was always associated with the motive of escape, with the desire for freedom:
We are free birds; it's time, brother, it's time!
There, where the mountain turns white behind the cloud,
There, where the sea edges turn blue,
There, where we walk only the wind ... yes, I!
(“Prisoner”, 1822)
The mention of the wind here is not accidental: in romantic literature, it has become a stable symbol of freedom.
In the romantic poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Mtsyri" the desire for freedom of the hero is also associated with his escape. But Mtsyri's path to the free land of his ancestors turns out to be a path in a circle: Mtsyri again comes to the monastery. The road to the dream is not found. The path in a circle symbolizes in the work the hopelessness of life and the impracticability of striving for freedom.
The motif of the road in realistic works.
The heroes of the works of Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century traveled a lot (Pechorin, Onegin, etc.). The journey itself to some extent became a sign, a kind of characteristic of a bored, restless, restless person. This was the connection between Russian literature and the romantic tradition. “Wanderlust” is a state of mind of a person who feels his opposition to the world, the society in which he lives.
If in a romantic poem the motif of the road was associated with constant movement, with nomadic life, and it was such a life that was considered the closest to the ideal - the complete freedom of man, then in 1826 Pushkin interprets this topic in a different way.
A demonstrative departure from the romantic tradition in the development of the motive of the road manifested itself in "Eugene Onegin".
The differences between the journey in the romantic poem and in Eugene Onegin were clearly visible. Onegin's journey occupies a special position in the novel: here Russia's past and its present are compared. Onegin passes historical places, but in Nizhny Novgorod, he sees that
Everything fusses, lies for two,
And everywhere the mercantile spirit.
Thus, the journey in the novel takes on a new meaning compared to the “southern” poems.
But the motive of the road in "Eugene Onegin" is not only Onegin's journey, but also the journey of the Larins from the village to Moscow. Here Pushkin uses emphatically “low” vocabulary, unacceptable in a romantic poem: Booths, women, Boys, shops, lanterns, Palaces, gardens, monasteries, Bukharians, sleighs, vegetable gardens flash by ...
The image of the road in lyrical works acquires many concrete everyday features, is more strongly associated with the theme of native nature, homeland, without losing its symbolic meaning.
Poem " Winter Road” (1826) is built on the antithesis of the house - the road. The motif of the road here is associated with “wavy fogs”, “sad glades” and a “monotonous” bell, and the road itself is called “boring”. Home comfort is opposed to this long and tiring journey:
Winter road
Through the wavy mists
The moon is creeping
To sad glades
She pours a sad light.

On the winter road, boring
Troika greyhound runs
Single bell
Tiring noise.

Something is heard native
In the coachman's long songs:
That revelry is remote,
That heartache...

No fire, no black hut...
Wilderness and snow... Meet me
Only miles striped
Come across alone.

Boring, sad ... Tomorrow, Nina,
Tomorrow, returning to my dear,
I'll forget by the fireplace
I look without looking.

Sounding hour hand
He will make his measured circle,
And, removing the boring ones,
Midnight won't separate us.

It's sad, Nina: my path is boring,
Dremlya fell silent my coachman,
The bell is monotonous
Foggy moon face.
1826
Pushkin's the image of the road always has a philosophical and symbolic perspective, but at the same time is quite realistic.
The motif of the road receives philosophical significance in “Demons” (1830), the story “The Snowstorm” and the historical work “The Captain's Daughter”. The off-road motif is being updated. And if the road in these works denotes the life path of the hero, then the motifs of a blizzard, a snowstorm symbolize the element of life, in which the heroes, although it is difficult, but need to be determined.
A traveler is caught in a "clear field" by a snowstorm, and, having lost his way, he is completely at the mercy of dark, hostile forces. A person turns out to be helpless before the elements, he cannot cope with this cruel force.
In the story “Snowstorm” (1830), the elements dramatically change the fate of the characters against their will: because of a snowstorm, Marya Gavrilovna is forever separated from her fiancé; after a failed escape, she returns home, and her parents are not even aware of the events that have occurred; after a fateful night, Vladimir goes to the army and dies in the Patriotic War of 1812. Finally, due to a snowstorm, Burmin accidentally ends up in the Zhadrinskaya church and accidentally becomes the husband of Marya Gavrilovna.
But even more than with "Snowstorm", the poem "Demons" echoes the second chapter of "The Captain's Daughter" - "Counselor". Here, as in "Demons", a traveler caught in a snowstorm loses his way and his horses stop in the "clean field". But Grinev meets a man in the field who is "on a firm path" and shows him the way. Thus, the “road” indicated by Pugachev turned out to be saving for Petrusha and disastrous for others.
The motifs of the road, the path were included by Pushkin in works of a wide variety of subjects and acquired new symbolic meanings.
The motive of the road acquires a philosophical sound in the poems “Road Complaints”, “Elegy”, “Cart of Life”
Poem "Cart of Life" built on the principle of a parable. It provides an extended metaphor. The cart is a reduced image. Associated primarily with the people, the village. In such a prosaic form, the image of the road passes into the poetry of Lermontov (“Motherland”), where the controversy with the romantic tradition is felt even more strongly. “Riding in a cart”, “dreaming of an overnight stay” is an allusion to the “Cart of Life”, as if a hidden oath of allegiance to the Pushkin tradition.
N.V. Gogol, continuing the traditions of A.S. Pushkin in the poem "Dead Souls" uses the motif of the road both as a plot-forming and as a symbolic image.
Rus-Troika and numerous other metaphors are associated with the road and refer to an individual person (“Take with you on the road, leaving your soft youthful years in a harsh, hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, you will not pick them up later !”) or to the whole of humanity (argument about “curved” roads).
(For comparison: Gogol also has symbolic aspects of the image of the road, among them one that Pushkin did not have: Rus' is a troika opposed to Western states.
The protagonist Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, buying up dead souls from the landowners, moves from one estate to another. The compositional significance of the image of the road is obvious: the road plot allows the writer to "string" on each other a wide variety of life experiences, achieving the effect of encyclopedia,
This is how the poems of Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Nekrasov's "Who Lives Well in Rus'" are constructed.
The image of the road in the poem by N. V. Gogol "Dead Souls"
“On the road! on the road!.. At once and suddenly we plunge into life with all its soundless chatter and bells ... ”- this is how Gogol ends one of the most penetrating and deeply philosophical lyrical digressions in the poem“ Dead Souls ”. The motif of the road, path, movement appears more than once on the pages of the poem. This image is multi-layered and highly symbolic.
The movement of the protagonist of the poem in space, his journey along the roads of Russia, meetings with landowners, officials, peasants and city dwellers add up to us in a broad picture of the life of Rus'.
The image of the road, tangled, lying in the wilderness, leading nowhere, only circling the traveler, is a symbol of a deceitful path, the unrighteous goals of the protagonist. Next to Chichikov, either invisibly, or coming to the fore, there is another traveler - this is the writer himself. We read his remarks: “The hotel was of a certain kind ...”, “what are these common rooms - everyone passing by knows very well”, “the city was in no way inferior to other provincial cities”, etc. With these words, Gogol not only emphasizes the typicality of the phenomena depicted, but also makes us understand that the invisible hero, the author, is also well acquainted with them.
However, he considers it necessary to emphasize the discrepancy in the assessment of the surrounding reality by these heroes. The wretched furnishings of the hotel, the receptions of city officials, and the lucrative deals with the landowners are quite satisfied with Chichikov, and the author is undisguisedly ironic. When events and phenomena reach the peak of ugliness, the author's laughter reaches the peak of ruthlessness.
The reverse side of Gogol's satire is the lyrical beginning, the desire to see a person perfect, and the Motherland - powerful and prosperous. Different heroes perceive the road differently. Chichikov experiences the pleasure of fast driving (“And what Russian does not like fast driving?”), He can admire a beautiful stranger (“opening a snuffbox and sniffing tobacco”, he will say: “Glorious grandmother!”). But more often he notes the “thrown up force” of the pavement, enjoys a soft ride on a dirt road or dozes off. The magnificent landscapes that pass before his eyes do not arouse thoughts in him. The author, too, is not deceived by what he sees: “Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful far away I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you ... nothing will seduce and charm the eye. But at the same time, for him there is “something strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful in the word: road!” The road awakens thoughts about the Motherland, about the writer's destiny: "How many wonderful ideas, poetic dreams were born in you, how many wondrous impressions were felt!"
The real road that Chichikov travels turns into the author's image of the road as a way of life. “As for the author, in no case should he quarrel with his hero: there is still a long way and the road they will have to go together hand in hand ...” By this Gogol points to the symbolic unity of the two approaches to the road, their mutual complementarity and interconversion.
Chichikov's road, passing through different corners and nooks and crannies of the Moscow province, as if emphasizes his vain and false life path. At the same time, the path of the author, which he makes together with Chichikov, symbolizes the harsh, thorny, but glorious path of the writer, who preaches "love with a hostile word of denial."
The real road in "Dead Souls" with its potholes, bumps, dirt, barriers, unrepaired bridges grows up to be a symbol of "hugely rushing life", a symbol of the great historical path of Russia.
On the pages that conclude Volume I, instead of the Chichikov troika, a generalized image of the troika bird appears, which is then replaced by the image of Rus' rushing “inspired by God”. This time she is on the right path, which is why the filthy Chichikov carriage was transformed into a trio bird - a symbol of a free Russia that has found a living soul.
The compositional (plot-forming) role of the image of the road.
The traveler usually has a goal, this organizes the work, does not allow it to fall apart into separate episodes: this is exactly what happens in Dead Souls or in poem "To whom in Rus' it is good to live", where many individual episodes are organized around the main task of the wanderers.
The motif of the road is one of the leading ones in Nekrasov's work “Who should live well in Rus'?” To answer this exciting question, put in the title of the work, “strange” people set off on the road, i.e. wanderers - seven men. A peasant is a sedentary person, tied to the land. And they start wandering, and even in the most difficult time. This oddity is a reflection of the upheaval that all of peasant Rus' is going through. The peasants travel, and with them the whole of Rus' moves, she set in motion, rejecting the old way of life after the reform of 1861. The motive of the road allows you to go through all of Rus', to see it in its entirety, from the inside. On their way, wanderers meet with representatives of all classes: the priest, landowners, peasants, merchants. These characters make the peasants understand that there is no happiness that should be.

The leitmotif of the road can be seen in Turgenev's work Fathers and Sons. At the heart of the tragedy lies the struggle of the hero with forces superior to him, and the road is, as it were, a test tape for him. The novel has a closed circular composition, and the image of the road is also closed. The hero's beliefs are tested throughout the story. On the one hand, the aristocracy presses on him, on the other, the love of a woman.
The first circle of the hero's movement allows you to see the confidence and superiority of Bazarov. in the first part of the novel. The hero of all collisions is the winner. Before the reader is a man of deep mind, confident in his abilities and in the work to which he devoted himself, proud, purposeful, with the ability to influence people (Ch. 4 - laughs at the old romantics; a negative attitude towards poetry, art, recognizes only practical application Nature; Chapter 6 - emerges victorious in a dispute with Pavel Petovich, instructs Arkady).
The second circle of the hero's movement is doubts, contradictions, an ideological crisis, a passionate unrequited feeling of illness and death of the hero.

Creativity S.A. Yesenin
The poem "The road thought about the red evening ..." (1916) is dedicated to love for the native land. Already in the first lines, the image of the road, characteristic of Russian lyrics, appears. In Yesenin's work, he is inextricably linked with the theme of his home. In this poem, the poet describes late autumn, the cold, when you really want to be in a warm hut, smelling of the smell of homemade bread. But here the image of the “yellow-haired youth” also appears, looking with interest “through the blue of the glass ... at the checkbox game”.
In the second part of the poem, the motif of longing for the past, for the irrevocably gone rural childhood sounds clearly:
Someone's heels no longer crush the groves
Cracked leaf and gold grass.
In the last lines of the poem, the image of the road reappears as a symbol of the return to the native hearth.

In “The road thought about the red evening ...”, the poet actively uses personifications: the road “thought”, the cold “sneaks”, the wind “whispers”, the straw “groans”, etc. They symbolize the inseparable connection of the lyrical hero with the living, ever-renewing world nature and testify to the poet's ardent love for his father's land, for his native nature, and folk culture.
The poem "Hewn drogs sang ..." (1916)
http://www.a4format.ru/pdf_files_bio2/478bc626.pdf

The poem is dedicated the central theme of Yesenin's creativity is the theme of the motherland. The first line introduces the motif of the road and movement. Past the lyrical hero “plains and bushes run”, a gentle breeze blows. But then the theme of the brevity of human life and the fragility of happiness is introduced: “commemorative crosses” are visible behind the chapels.
Most of the poem is a declaration of love to the native land. This feeling overwhelms the lyrical hero:
I love to joy, to pain
Your lake longing.
Loving Rus' is not easy (“Cold sorrow cannot be measured”), but the hero’s love for her is unconditional:
But not to love you, not to believe -
I can't learn.

A. Blok "Russia". "On the field of Kulikovo". Road motive.
The motive of the road in the lyrics of A. Blok sounds when the poet reflects on the path of Russia and the Russian people.
Rus' is surrounded by rivers
And surrounded by wilds
With swamps and cranes,
And with the cloudy gaze of a sorcerer.
Such is the enigmatic, extraordinary, magical Russia of Blok in the poem "Rus". This is a country "where all the ways and all the crossroads are exhausted with a living stick." Here, in Blok Rus', everything is in motion, in a whirlwind:
Where the blizzard sweeps violently
Up to the roof - fragile housing,
Here the whirlwind whistles "in the bare rods", here "diverse peoples from land to land, from valley to valley lead night dances."
There is a feeling that the country is swirling, turned into a bunch of energy. It is impossible to unravel the mystery in which Rus' rests, it is impossible to touch the mysterious cover of "extraordinary" Rus'.
But the feeling that Rus' is in motion, that it seems to be ready for flight, does not leave the reader.
Fatherland on the road, in perpetual motion - appears in the poem "Russia":
Again, as in the golden years,
Three worn out harnesses fray,
And painted knitting needles
In loose ruts...
With happy pride, the poet confesses his love for impoverished Russia:
Russia, impoverished Russia,
I have your gray huts,
Your songs are windy for me,
Like the first tears of love.

He is glad that "the impossible is possible, the long road is easy", because Russia is immense, it has everything - forests and fields and "patterned patterns to the eyebrows."
A. Blok turns to the historical past in order to understand the present through the past in the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”. And here is the first stanza of the poem:
The river spread: flows, sad lazily
And washes the shore
Over the meager clay of the yellow cliff
Haystacks are sad in the steppe.

Something frozen, sad in her. But already in the next stanza, the image of Russia acquires a sharply dynamic character. A different rhythm begins. As the personification of the pinnacle of the frantic movement of block Russia, a metaphorical image of a “steppe mare” appears, flying “through blood and dust”:

Our path is steppe, our path is in boundless anguish:
In your anguish, oh, Rus'!
The “steppe mare” rushes galloping forward, into restlessness, because the future of Russia is seen by the poet as unclear, distant, and the path is difficult and painful, the fatherland is waiting for the “eternal battle”:
And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams
Through blood and dust...
The steppe mare flies, flies ...

Sunset in blood! Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no rest! steppe mare
Rushing jump!

"Blood flows from the heart!" - only a poet who realized his fate, his life, vitally connected with the fate and life of the Motherland, could say so.
For Blok, Russia is first of all a distance, a space, a "path". Talking about Russia, the poet himself feels like a traveler, lost in disastrous but beloved spaces, and says that even at the last minute, on his deathbed, he will remember Russia as the sweetest thing in life:
No ... still forests, glades,
And country roads, and highways,
Our Russian road
Our Russian fogs...
Blok's Russia... This is a road without end... This is a road from the past through the difficult present to the harsh future!