Brief summary to whom in Rus'. Analysis of the poem "who lives well in Rus'" by chapters, the composition of the work

Nekrasov's poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'", which is included in the mandatory school curriculum, is presented in our summary, which you can read below.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men from neighboring villages meet on the high road. They start a dispute about who has fun in Rus'. Everyone has their own answer. In conversations, they do not notice that they have traveled to God knows where for thirty miles. It's getting dark, they make a fire. The argument gradually turns into a fight. But a clear answer still can not be found.

A man named Pahom catches a warbler chick. In return, the bird promises to tell the peasants where the self-assembled tablecloth is located, which will give them food as much as they like, a bucket of vodka a day, will wash and darn their clothes. The heroes receive a real treasure and decide to find the final answer to the question: who lives well in Rus'?

Pop

On the way, the peasants meet a priest. They ask if he is happy. According to the priest, happiness is wealth, honor and peace. But these blessings are inaccessible to the priest: in cold and rain, he is forced to get out to the funeral service, to look at the tears of his relatives, when it is embarrassing to take payment for the service. In addition, the priest does not see respect among the people, and now and then becomes the subject of ridicule of the peasants.

rural fair

Having found out that the priest does not have happiness, the peasants go to the fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. Maybe they'll find a lucky one there. There are a lot of drunks at the fair. Old man Vavila is grieving that he squandered money for shoes for his granddaughter. Everyone wants to help, but they don't have the opportunity. Barin Pavel Veretennikov takes pity on his grandfather and buys a present for his granddaughter.

Closer to the night, everyone around is drunk, the men go away.

drunken night

Pavel Veretennikov, after talking with the common people, regrets that the Russian people drink too much. But the peasants are convinced that the peasants drink out of hopelessness, that it is impossible to live sober in these conditions. If the Russian people stop drinking, great sorrow awaits them.

These thoughts are expressed by Yakim Nagoi, a resident of the village of Bosovo. He tells how, during a fire, the first thing he did was to take out the lubok pictures from the hut - that which he valued most of all.

The men settled down for lunch. Then one of them remained on guard for a bucket of vodka, and the rest again went in search of happiness.

Happy

Wanderers offer those who are happy in Rus' to drink a glass of vodka. There are many such lucky people - both an overstrained man, and a paralytic, and even beggars.

Someone points them to Yermila Girin, an honest and respected peasant. When he needed to buy his mill at an auction, the people collected a ruble and a kopeck the right amount. A couple of weeks later, Jirin was distributing the debt in the square. And when the last ruble remained, he continued to look for its owner until sunset. But now Yermila has little happiness either - he was accused of a popular rebellion and thrown into prison.

landowner

The ruddy landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev is another candidate for the “lucky one”. But he complains to the peasants about the misfortune of the nobility - the abolition of serfdom. He was fine before. Everyone cared about him, tried to please. Yes, and he himself was kind with the courtyards. The reform destroyed his habitual way of life. How can he live now, because he knows nothing, is not capable of anything. The landowner began to cry, and after him the peasants became sad. The abolition of serfdom and the peasants is not easy.

Part 2

Last

The men find themselves on the banks of the Volga during haymaking. They see an amazing picture for themselves. Three lordly boats moor to the shore. Mowers, just sitting down to rest, jump up, wanting to curry favor with the master. It turned out that the heirs, having enlisted the support of the peasants, were trying to hide the peasant reform from the distraught landowner Utyatin. The peasants were promised land for this, but when the landowner dies, the heirs forget about the agreement.

Part 3

peasant woman

Seekers of happiness thought about asking about the happiness of women. Everyone they meet calls the name of Matrena Korchagina, whom people see as a lucky woman.

Matrena, on the other hand, claims that there are many troubles in her life, and devotes wanderers to her story.

As a girl, Matryona had a good, non-drinking family. When the stove-maker Korchagin looked after her, she was happy. But after marriage, the usual painful village life began. She was beaten by her husband only once, because he loved her. When he left to work, the stove-maker's family continued to mock her. Only grandfather Saveliy, a former convict who was imprisoned for the murder of a manager, felt sorry for her. Savely looked like a hero, confident that it was impossible to defeat a Russian person.

Matryona was happy when her first son was born. But while she was at work in the field, Savely fell asleep, and the pigs ate the child. In front of the heartbroken mother, the county doctor performed an autopsy on her first child. A woman still cannot forget a child, although after him she gave birth to five.

From the outside, everyone considers Matryona lucky, but no one understands what pain she carries inside, what mortal unavenged insults gnaw at her, how she dies every time she remembers a dead child.

Matrena Timofeevna knows that a Russian woman simply cannot be happy, because she has no life, no will for her.

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

Wanderers near the village of Vahlachin hear folk songs - hungry, salty, soldier's and corvee. Grisha Dobrosklonov sings - a simple Russian guy. There are stories about serfdom. One of them is the story of Yakima the faithful. He was devoted to the master to the extreme. He rejoiced at the cuffs, fulfilled any whims. But when the landowner gave his nephew to the soldier's service, Yakim left, and soon returned. He figured out how to take revenge on the landowner. Decapitated, he brought him to the forest and hanged himself on a tree above the master.

An argument begins about the most terrible sin. Elder Jonah tells the parable “about two sinners”. The sinner Kudeyar prayed to God for forgiveness, and he answered him. If Kudeyar knocks down a huge tree with just a knife, then his sins will subside. The oak fell down only after the sinner washed it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky.

The deacon's son Grisha Dobrosklonov thinks about the future of the Russian people. Rus' for him is a miserable, plentiful, powerful and powerless mother. In his soul he feels immense forces, he is ready to give his life for the good of the people. Glory awaits him in the future people's protector, hard labor, Siberia and consumption. But if the wanderers knew what feelings filled Gregory's soul, they would realize that the goal of their search had been achieved.

Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was created over more than ten years. It so happened that the last, fourth, was the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World." In the finale, it acquires a certain completeness - it is known that the author failed to realize the plan in full. This was manifested in the fact that the author indirectly names himself in Rus'. This is Grisha, who decided to devote his life to serving the people and his native country.

Introduction

In the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World" the action takes place on the banks of the Volga River, on the outskirts of the village of Vakhlachina. Here the most important events: and holidays, and reprisals against the guilty. The great feast was organized by Klim, already familiar to the reader. Next to the Vakhlaks, among whom were the elder Vlas, the parish deacon Tryphon and his sons: the nineteen-year-old Savvushka and Grigory, with a thin, pale face and thin, curly hair, sat down and the seven main characters of the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'." People who were waiting for the ferry also stopped here, beggars, among whom were a wanderer and a quiet praying mantis.

Local peasants gathered under the old willow not by chance. Nekrasov connects the chapter “A Feast for the Last World” with the plot of “Last Child”, which reports the death of the prince. The Vahlaks began to decide what to do with the meadows that they now hoped to get. Not often, but still it happened that blessed corners of the earth with meadows or woods fell to the peasants. Their owners felt independent of the headman who collected taxes. So the Vahlaks wanted to surrender the meadows to Vlas. Klim proclaimed that this would be more than enough to pay both taxes and dues, which means that you can feel free. This is the beginning of the chapter and its summary. “A feast for the whole world” Nekrasov continues with Vlas's response speech and his characterization.

Good soul man

That was the name of the headman of the Vakhlaks. He was distinguished by justice and tried to help the peasants, to protect them from the cruelties of the landowner. In his youth, Vlas kept hoping for the best, but any change brought only promises or trouble. From this, the headman became unbelieving and gloomy. And then all of a sudden the general merriment seized him. He could not believe that now, indeed, life would come without taxes, sticks and corvee. The author compares the kind smile of Vlas with a sunbeam that made everything around golden. And a new, previously unexplored feeling seized every man. To celebrate, they put another bucket, and the songs began. One of them, “funny”, was performed by Grisha - its summary will be given below.

"A Feast for the Whole World" includes several songs about the hard peasant life.

About the bitter lot

At the request of the audience, the seminarians remembered the folk song. It tells about how defenseless the people are in front of those on whom they depend. So the landowner stole the cow from the peasant, the judge took away the chickens. The fate of children is unenviable: the girls are waiting for the gentry, and the boys - long service. Against the background of these stories, the repeated refrain sounds bitterly: “It is glorious for the people to live in holy Rus'!”.

Then the Vakhlaks sang their own - about corvee. The same sad: the people's soul has not yet come up with merry ones.

"Corvee": a summary

“A Feast for the Whole World” tells about how the Vakhlaks and their neighbors live. The first story is about Kalinushka, whose back is "adorned" with scars - often and severely flogged - and her stomach is swollen from the chaff. Out of hopelessness, he goes to a tavern and drowns out his grief with wine - this will come back to haunt his wife on Saturday.

The following is a story about how the inhabitants of Vahlachin had suffered under the landowner. During the day they worked like hard labor, and at night they waited for the messengers sent for the girls. From shame, they stopped looking into each other's eyes and could not exchange a word.

A neighboring peasant reported how a landowner in their volost decided to flog everyone who would say a strong word. Namalyalis - after all, without him, the peasant does not. But having received freedom, they abused plenty ...

The chapter "A Feast for the Whole World" continues with a story about a new hero - Vikenty Alexandrovich. At first he served under the baron, then moved to the plowmen. He told his story.

About the faithful serf Jacob

Polivanov bought a village for bribes and lived there for 33 years. He became famous for his cruelty: having given his daughter in marriage, he immediately whipped the young and drove him away. He did not associate with other landowners, he was greedy, he drank a lot. Kholopa Yakov, who faithfully served him from an early age, would beat his teeth with his heel for nothing, and that gentleman in every possible way cherished and appeased. So both lived to old age. Polivanov's legs began to hurt, and no treatment helped. They had entertainment left: playing cards and visiting the landowner's sister. Yakov himself endured the master and took him to visit. For the time being, everything went peacefully. Yes, as soon as the servant's nephew Grisha grew up and wanted to get married. Hearing that the bride was Arisha, Polivanov became angry: he laid eyes on her himself. And he gave the groom to the recruits. Yakov was very offended and started to drink. And the master felt embarrassed without a faithful servant, whom he called his brother. This is the first part of the story and its summary.

“A Feast for the Whole World” Nekrasov continues with a story about how Jacob decided to avenge his nephew. After a while he returned to the master, repented and began to serve further. It just got gloomy. Somehow the master's serf took him to visit his sister. On the way, he suddenly turned to a ravine, where there was a forest slum, and stopped under pine trees. When he began to unharness the horses, the frightened landowner begged. But Yakov only laughed evilly and replied that he would not dirty his hands with murder. He fixed the reins on a tall pine tree and his head in a noose ... The master screams, rushes about, but no one hears him. And the serf hangs over his head, sways. Only the next morning did a hunter see Polivanov and take him home. The punished gentleman only lamented: “I am a sinner! Execute me!

Controversy about sinners

The narrator fell silent, and the men argued. Some felt sorry for Yakov, others for the master. And they began to decide who is the most sinful of all: tavern owners, landlords, peasants? The merchant Eremin named the robbers, which caused indignation in Klim. Their argument soon turned into a fight. The praying mantis Ionushka, who until then had been sitting quietly, decided to reconcile the merchant and the peasant. He told his story, which will continue the summary of the chapter "A Feast for the Whole World."

About wanderers and pilgrims

Ionushka began by saying that there are many homeless people in Rus'. Sometimes, entire villages are begging. Such people do not plow and do not reap, but the settled peasants are called the hump of the granary. Of course, among them come across the wicked, such as a wanderer-thief or pilgrims who approached the mistress by deceit. The old man is also known, who undertook to teach the girls to sing, but only spoiled them all. But more often wanderers are harmless people, like Fomushka, who lives like a god, is girded with chains and eats only bread.

Ionushka also told about Kropilnikov, who came to Usolovo, accused the villagers of godlessness and urged them to go into the forest. They asked the Stranger to submit, then they took him to prison, and he kept saying that grief and even more difficult life awaited everyone ahead. The frightened residents were baptized, and in the morning soldiers came to the neighboring village, from whom the Usolovets also got it. So the prophecy of Kropilnikov came true.

In "A Feast for the Whole World" Nekrasov also includes a description of a peasant's hut in which a passing wanderer stopped. The whole family is busy with work and listens to measured speech. At some point, the old man drops the bast shoes that he was repairing, and the girl does not notice that she pricked her finger. Even the children freeze and listen with their heads hanging from the bedspreads. So the Russian soul has not yet been explored, it is waiting for a sower who will show the right path.

About two sinners

And then Ionushka told about the robber and the pan. He heard this story in Solovki from Father Pitirim.

12 robbers led by Kudeyar were outraged. Many were robbed and killed. But somehow the conscience woke up in the ataman, he began to see the shadows of the dead. Then Kudeyar spotted the captain, beheaded his mistress, dismissed the gang, buried the knife under an oak tree, and distributed the stolen wealth. And he began to forgive sins. He traveled a lot and repented, and after returning home, he settled under an oak tree. God took pity on him and proclaimed: he will receive forgiveness as soon as he cuts down a mighty tree with his knife. For several years the hermit cut an oak three times wide. And somehow a rich pan drove up to him. Glukhovsky chuckled and said that one should live according to his principles. And he added that he respects only women, loves wine, ruined many slaves, and sleeps peacefully. Anger seized Kudeyar, and he plunged his knife into the chest of the pan. At the same moment, a mighty oak collapsed. Thus, the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" shows how the former robber receives forgiveness after the punishment of evil.

About peasant sin

We listened to Ionushka and thought about it. And Ignatius again noted that the most serious sin is the peasant one. Klim was indignant, but then nevertheless said: "Tell me." Here is the story the men heard.

One admiral received eight thousand souls for his faithful service from the empress. And before his death, he handed over to the headman a casket, in which was his last wish: to release all the serfs into freedom. But a distant relative arrived, who, after the funeral, called the headman to him. Having learned about the casket, he promised Gleb freedom and gold. The greedy headman burned the will and doomed all eight thousand souls to eternal bondage.

Vahlaks made a noise: "It is indeed a great sin." And their whole past and future hard life appeared before them. Then they calmed down and suddenly started singing “Hungry” in unison. We offer its summary (“A Feast for the Whole World” by Nekrasov, it seems, fills with centuries of suffering of the people). A tortured peasant goes to a strip of rye and calls on her: “Rise, mother, eat a pile of carpet, I won’t give it to anyone.” As if in their guts, the Vakhlaks sang a song to the hungry and went to the bucket. And Grisha suddenly noticed that the cause of all sins is strength. Klim immediately exclaimed: “Down with the “Hungry”. And they began to talk about the support, praising Grisha.

"Soldier's"

It began to get light. Ignatius found a sleeping man near the logs and called Vlas. The rest of the men approached, and seeing the man lying on the ground, they began to beat him. To the question of the wanderers, for what, they answered: “We don’t know. But this is how it is punished from Tiskov. So it turns out - since the whole world is ordered, then there is guilt behind him. Here the hostesses brought out cheesecakes and goose, and everyone pounced on the food. The Vakhlaks were amused by the news that someone was coming.

Ovsyannikov, familiar to everyone, was on the cart - a soldier who earned money by playing on spoons. They asked him to sing. And again, a bitter story poured out about how the former warrior tried to achieve a well-deserved pension. However, all the wounds he received were measured in inches and rejected: second-rate. Klim sang along to the old man, and the people collected a ruble for a penny and a penny.

The end of the feast

Only in the morning the Vakhlaks began to disperse. They took home their father and Savvushka with Grisha. They walked and sang that the happiness of the people lies in freedom. Further, the author introduces a story about the life of Tryphon. He did not keep farms, they ate what others would share. The wife was caring, but died early. The sons studied at the seminary. This is its summary.

Nekrasov concludes "A Feast for the Whole World" with Grisha's song. Having brought the parent to the house, he went to the fields. He remembered in solitude the songs that his mother sang, especially "Salty". And not by chance. You could ask the Vakhlaks for bread, but you only bought salt. Forever sunk into the soul and study: the housekeeper underfed the seminarians, taking everything for himself. Knowing well the difficult peasant life, Grisha, at the age of fifteen, decided to fight for the happiness of the miserable, but dear Vakhlachina. And now, under the influence of what he heard, he thought about the fate of the people, and his thoughts poured into songs about the imminent reprisal against the landowner, about the difficult fate of a barge hauler (he saw three loaded barges on the Volga), about wretched and plentiful, mighty and powerless Rus', the salvation of which he saw in the strength of the people. A spark ignites, and a great army rises, containing indestructible power.

Summary Who lives well in Rus'

Nekrasov worked on the work “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” for several years, giving the poem all the strength of his soul.

In the work we see the journey of the seven wanderers in the poem. They are trying to find a person who would live happily. It seems to one of them that an official is happy, to others - a priest, a merchant, a landowner or a king. Wanderers want to find on the ground the Untouched province, the Ungutted volost, the Surplus village. It is important for them to get to the bottom of what happiness is. All seven men are arguing, they are often at each other, but it is the arguing that pushes them forward. In search of happiness.

They are fond of nature. They watch herbs, bushes, flowers, understand the voices of animals and birds. Each of them has its own way of looking at things, its own character. Meanwhile, all of them together represent something common, inseparable.

Nekrasov in the poem shows all sides folk life. He describes the life of the poor, and soldiers, and artisans, and coachmen. We see the poverty of the peasants, recruitment, exhausting labor, lack of rights and exploitation.

But even in slavery, the people of Russia still have a living soul. Nekrasov shows the Russian people as industrious, responsive to the suffering of others, with self-respect, daring and cheerful. It shows people who are full of thirst for social justice. These are Ermil Girin, Vlas, Agap Petrov, the peasants who hate the Last, participating in the rebellion in Stolbnyaki, Kropilnikov, Kudeyar.

Savely occupies an important place in the poem. He is endowed with the features of a hero. His mighty prowess is already manifested in the fact that he alone went to the bear. He despises slavish obedience and stands for the interests of the people. There is something epic in this image. In the image of Savely's granddaughter, Nekrasov did not embody his aesthetic ideal, everything positive features inherent in a Russian woman, he carried through suffering and life's trials. Nekrasov to dedicate a whole third of the poem to the image of Matryona. She confesses to strangers, talks about her happy moments in life, and about the difficult female lobe. From the age of six, she grazed cattle, worked in the field, spun, and busied herself around the house. And then - slave labor in marriage and raising children. But despite hard life She remained noble and rebellious.

But Nekrasov presents the image of a perfect man in the person of Grisha Dobrosklonov. Dobrosklonov is young. He is a raznochinets by origin, the son of a laborer. He had to endure a hungry childhood. Then he studied at the seminary. Life connected him with labor, the needs of his fellow countrymen. He rescues the peasants with his labor, and the peasants help him with food. Grisha knows all the peasant work - he mows, reaps, sows. He is the voice of hope common people. Gregory is not afraid of the upcoming trials, as he sees that the people themselves are awakening to struggle, and this thought fills his soul with joy.

Summary

In what year - count

In what land - guess

On the pillar path

Seven men got naked:

Seven temporarily liable,

tightened province,

County Terpigorev,

empty parish,

From adjacent villages:

Zaplatova, Dyryavina,

Razutova, Znobishina,

Gorelova, Neelova -

Crop failure, too,

They agreed and argued:

Who has fun

Feel free in Rus'?

According to Roman, the landowner, Demyan is sure that Luka said to the official that the priest. The Gubin brothers, Ivan and Mitrodor, insist that the "fat-bellied merchant" lives best. "Old man Pahom puckered up and said, looking at the ground: to the noble boyar, the minister of the sovereign." And Prov is convinced that the king has such a life.

Each of them left the house on his own business, and it would be time to go back, but they started a dispute. Evening comes, and the men do not stop arguing. Durandiha asks where they go at night looking. Pakhom notices that they are "thirty miles away" from the house. “Under the forest by the path” they made a fire, drank, ate, and, continuing the argument “who should live happily, freely in Rus'?”, they fought. The forest woke up from the noise: a hare jumped out, the jackdaws “raised a nasty, sharp squeak”, “a tiny chick fell out of fright from the nest”, the warbler is looking for him, the old cuckoo “woke up and decided to cuckle for someone”, seven owls fly in, “ the raven came to the fire, a cow with a bell came to the fire and mooed, an owl flies over the peasants, a fox “crept up to the peasants”. No one can understand what the men are making such a fuss about. Pahom finds a chick by the fire. He complains that they would have wings, they would fly around "the whole kingdom"; Prov notices that if there was bread, they would have bypassed "Mother Rus'" with their feet; the rest added that vodka, cucumbers, “cold kvass” would be good with bread. The chiffchaff bird asks the men to release the chick. For this, she promises to tell them how they can find a “self-assembled tablecloth” that they will “repair, wash, dry”. The men release the chick. Chiffchaff warns them:

“Look, chur, one!

How much food will take

Womb - then ask

And you can ask for vodka

In day exactly on a bucket.

If you ask more

And one and two - it will be fulfilled

At your request,

And in the third, be in trouble!

PART ONE

Wanderers see old and new villages.

Not fond of the old ones,

It hurts more than that for new

Trees for them to look at.

Oh, huts, new huts!

You are smart, let it build you

Not an extra penny

And blood trouble!

On the way, the peasants meet peasants, "artisans, beggars, soldiers, coachmen." Their life is miserable. In the evening the wanderers meet the priest. Luka reassures him: "We are not robbers."

(Luke is a squat man

With a wide beard

Stubborn, verbose and stupid.

Luka looks like a mill:

One is not a bird mill,

What, no matter how it flaps its wings,

Probably won't fly.)

The men are interested in: “Is the priestly life sweet?” Pop responds:

“What is happiness, in your opinion?

Peace, wealth, honor ... "

He has no peace, since it is difficult for a priest's son to get a letter, and the priesthood of a priest is even more expensive. He must go to the dying at any time of the day, in any weather, in any wilderness, see the tears of relatives and listen to the dying groans and wheezing. Further, the priest tells, "what honor is the priest." People call the priests "a foal breed", they are afraid of meeting them, they compose about them "joke tales and obscene songs and all kinds of blasphemy." From human languages ​​suffer "mother-popadya sedate" and "priest's daughter innocent".

Meanwhile, the sky is covered with clouds, "to be heavy rain."

The priest invites the peasants to listen, "where the priestly wealth comes from." IN old days the landowners lived, who "became fruitful and multiplied" and "let the priests live." All family holidays could not do without clergy. Now the "landlords have died out," and there is nothing to take from the poor.

Our poor villages

And in them the peasants are sick

Yes, sad women

Nurses, drinkers,

Slaves, pilgrims

And eternal workers

Lord give them strength!

Guiding the deceased...

..And here to you C

taruha, mother of the deceased,

Look, stretching with a bony,

Callused hand.

The soul will turn

How they tinkle in this hand

Two copper coins! ..

The priest leaves, and the men attacked Luka with reproaches:

Well, here's your praise

Pop's life!

rural fair

Wanderers complain about "wet, cold spring". Stocks are running out, the cattle in the field have nothing to eat. “Only for Nikola Veshny” the cattle ate plenty of grass. Passing through the village, the wanderers notice that there is no one in it. Wanderers are interested in a peasant who bathes a horse in the river, where the people are from the village, and they hear that everyone is “at the fair” in the village of Kuzminskoye. At the fair, people trade, drink, walk. In Kuzminsky there are two churches, “one Old Believer, the other Orthodox”, a school - a house “packed up tightly”, a hut “with the image of a paramedic bleeding”, a hotel, shops. Wanderers come to the square where there is trade. Who is not here! "Intoxicating, loud, festive, motley, red all around!" The wanderers admire the goods. They see a man who has drunk his money and is crying, as he promised his granddaughter to bring gifts. The assembled people feel sorry for him, but no one helps him: if you give money, "you yourself will be left with nothing." Pavlusha Veretennikov, who was called "master", bought shoes for the peasant's granddaughter. He didn't even thank him. The peasants are “so happy, as if he gave each one a ruble!”

Among other things, the fair has a shop selling second-rate reading material, as well as portraits of generals. The author wonders if the time will come when the peasants will understand "that a portrait is a portrait, that a book is a book", when the people "will carry Belinsky and Gogol from the market."

Here you would have their portraits

Hang in your boots,

In the booth there is a performance: “the comedy is not wise, but not stupid either, to the hozhal, quarter not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye!” The speech of Petrushka, the hero of the comedy, is interrupted by the "accurate word" from the people. After the performance, some of the spectators fraternize with the actors, bring them drunk, drink with them, give money. By evening, the wanderers leave the “vibrant village”.

drunken night

After the fair, everyone goes home, "the people go and fall." Sober wanderers see how a drunken man buries his undercoat, saying at the same time that he is burying his mother. Two peasants sort things out, aiming at each other's beards. With swearing, the women in the ditch are trying to determine who's house is worse. Veretennikov notes that the peasants are "smart", but "drink to the point of stupefaction". To which the peasant, whose name is Yakim, objects that the peasants are busy with work, only occasionally allowing the “poor peasant soul” to have fun, that “the family of the drinking non-drinking family”, that when the work ends, “look, there are three equity holders: God, the king and sir!

Wine brings down the peasant

And grief does not bring him down?

Work not falling?

A man copes with any trouble; when he works, he does not think that he will overstrain.

Every peasant has

The soul is like a black cloud -

Angry, formidable - and it would be necessary

Thunders rumble from there,

pouring bloody rains,

And everything ends with wine.

Veretennikov learns from the peasants the story of the plowman Yakim Nagogoi, who "works to death, drinks half to death." While in St. Petersburg, he decided to compete with the merchant and "ended up in prison", and then returned home. He bought pictures for his son and, having hung them on the walls, “he didn’t less than a boy loved to look at them. During his life, Yakim collected "thirty-five rubles". But there was a fire in the village. Yakim began to save the pictures, but the money melted into a lump, and the buyers offered eleven rubles for him. Saved and new pictures Yakim hung on the walls in a new hut.

The master looked at the plowman:

The chest is sunken; like a depressed

Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth

Bends like cracks

On dry ground;

And myself to mother earth

He looks like: a brown neck,

Like a layer cut off with a plow.

brick face,

Hand - tree bark,

And hair is sand.

According to Yakim, since people drink, it means that they feel strength.

On the way, the peasants sing a song, to which the “young woman alone” burst into tears, admitting that her husband is jealous: he gets drunk and snores on the cart, guards her. She wants to jump off the wagon, but she does not succeed: the husband "stood up - and the woman by the scythe." The men are sad about their wives, and then unfold the "self-assembled tablecloth." Having refreshed himself, Roman stays by the bucket of vodka, and the rest go "to the crowd - to look for the lucky one."

Happy

Having obtained a bucket of vodka with the help of a self-collection tablecloth, the wanderers throw a cry into the festive crowd, whether there are those among those present who consider themselves happy. Anyone who confesses is promised vodka.

A skinny, dismissed deacon hurries to tell about his happiness, which lies in "complacency" and faith in the Kingdom of Heaven. They don't give him vodka.

An old woman appears and boasts that she has a rich harvest in her garden: "rep up to a thousand." But they just laughed at her.

A "soldier with medals" arrives. He is happy that he was in twenty battles, but remained alive, was beaten with sticks, but survived, starved, but did not die. The wanderers give him vodka.

“Olonchanin Stonemason” tells about his happiness: every day he hammers gravel “for five silver”, which testifies to the great strength that he possesses.

"A man with shortness of breath, relaxed, thin" tells that he was also a bricklayer and also boasted of his strength, "God punished." The contractor praised him, but he was foolishly happy, he worked for four. After the mason lifted the load "of fourteen pounds" to the second floor, he withered away and could no longer work. Went home to die. On the way, an epidemic broke out in the carriage, people were dying, and their corpses were unloaded at the stations. The mason in delirium saw that he was cutting roosters, he thought he would die, but he got home. According to him, this is happiness.

The courtyard man says: “I was a favorite slave of Prince Peremetyev,” his wife was “a beloved slave,” his daughter studied French and other languages ​​\u200b\u200bwith a young lady and sat in the presence of her mistress. He got "a noble disease, which is only found in the first persons in the empire", - gout, which can be obtained if you drink various alcoholic beverages for thirty years. He himself licked plates, finished drinking drinks from glasses. The men chase him away.

A “Belarusian peasant” comes up and says that his happiness is in bread, that he “chewed barley bread with chaff, with a bonfire”, from which he “grabs the bellies”. Now he eats bread "to the full at Gubonin's."

A man with a folded cheekbone says that he and his comrades hunted for bears. The bears broke three comrades, and he managed to stay alive. They gave him vodka.

For the poor, happiness lies in large alms.

Hey, happiness man!

Leaky with patches

Humpbacked with calluses

Get off home!

The peasant Fedosey advises the peasants to ask Yermila Girin. "The Orphan was held by Yermilo mill on Unzha." The court decides to sell the mill. Yermilo is bargaining with the merchant Altynnikov (“the merchant is his penny, and the other is his ruble!”) And wins the bargain. The clerks demanded to pay at once a third of the cost of the mill - about a thousand rubles. Girin did not have so much money, and they had to be paid within an hour. At the market place, he told people about everything and asked them to lend him money, promising that he would return everything next Friday. Got more than needed. Thus the mill became his. He, as promised, returned the money to everyone who approached him. Nobody asked too much. He had one ruble left, which he, not finding the owner, gave to the blind. Wanderers are interested in why people believed Yermila, and they hear in response that he gained trust with the truth. Yermilo served as a clerk in the estate of Prince Yurlov. He was fair, he was attentive to everyone. For five years, many have learned about him. He was kicked out. The new clerk was a grabber and a scoundrel. When old prince died, a young prince arrived and ordered the peasants to elect a steward. They chose Yermila, who decided everything fairly.

At seven years of a worldly penny

Didn't squeeze under the nail

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

Didn't let the guilty

I didn’t bend my heart…

The “gray-haired priest” interrupted the narrator, and he had to recall the case when Yermilo “buffed out” his younger brother Mitriy from recruitment, sending the son of a peasant woman, Nenila Vlasyevna, instead of him, and then repented before the people and asked to be judged. And he fell on his knees in front of the peasant woman. The son of Nenila Vlasyevna was returned, Mitriy was recruited, and Yermila himself was fined. After that, Yermilo "resigned from his post", rented a mill, where "strict order was maintained."

The “gray-haired priest” says that Yermilo is now in prison. A riot arose on the estate of "the landowner Obrubkov, the Frightened province, Nedykhanyev county, the village of Stolbnyaki", which required government troops to suppress. In order to do without bloodshed, they decided to turn to Yermila, believing that the people would listen to him. At this moment, the narrator is interrupted by the cries of a drunken lackey, the owner of a "noble disease", who was caught stealing, and therefore flogged. The wanderers are trying to find out about Yermil, but the man who started talking about the rebellion, leaving me, promises that he will tell another time.

Wanderers meet the landowner.

Some kind of round gentleman,

mustachioed, pot-bellied,

With a cigar in my mouth.

The landowner, Obolt-Obolduev, is riding in a carriage.

The landlord was ruddy,

portly, squat,

sixty years;

Mustache gray, long,

Good fellows,

Hungarian woman with brandenburgers,

Wide pants.

He takes the wanderers for robbers, draws a pistol. Having learned for what purpose they travel, he laughs heartily.

Tell us godly

Is the landowner's life sweet?

You are like - at ease, happily,

Landlord, do you live?

Leaving the carriage, Obolt-Obolduev orders the footman to bring a pillow, a carpet and a glass of sherry. He sits down and tells the story of his family. Most ancient ancestor his father "with wolves and foxes ... amuse the empress," and on the name day of the empress, his bear "ripped off." Wanderers say that "there are a lot of scoundrels roaming with bears even now." Landowner: "Shut up!" His most ancient ancestor on his mother’s side was Prince Shchepin, who, together with Vaska Gusev, “tried to set fire to Moscow, they thought to rob the treasury, but they were executed by death.” The landowner recalls the old days when they lived "like in Christ's bosom", "knew ... honor", nature "subdued". He talks about luxurious feasts, rich feasts, his own actors. He talks about hunting with special feeling. Complains that his power is over:

Whom I want - I have mercy

Whoever I want, I will execute.

The law is my desire!

The fist is my police!

The landowner interrupts his speech, calls the servant, while noting that "it is impossible without severity," but that he "punished - loving." He assures the wanderers that he was kind and that on holidays peasants were allowed into his house to pray. Gavrilo Afanasyevich, having heard the “death knell”, remarks that “they are not calling for a peasant! They call for landlord life! Now the landowners' houses are being demolished for bricks, the gardens are being cut down for firewood, the peasants are stealing timber, and instead of estates, "drinking houses are being built."

The dissolute people sing,

They call for earthly services,

Planted, taught to read and write, -

He needs her!

The landowner says that he is "not a peasant-bast worker", but "by the grace of God, a Russian nobleman."

Noble estates

We do not learn how to work.

We have a bad official

And that one will not sweep the floors,

Will not heat the oven...

He complains to strangers that he is called to work, and having lived in the village for forty years, he cannot distinguish a barley ear from a rye ear.

After listening to the landowner, the peasants sympathize with him.

PEASANT WOMAN

(From the third part)

Wanderers decide what they should ask

about the happiness of not only men, but also women. They go to the village of Klin, where Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna lives, whom everyone called the "governor".

“Oh, a field of many grains!

Now you don't think

How many people of God

Beat over you

While you are dressed

Heavy, even spike

And stood in front of the plowman,

Like an army before a king!

Not so much dew is warm,

Like sweat from a peasant's face

Moisturize you!..”

Wanderers do not rejoice looking at the fields of wheat that feeds "by choice", they like to look at the rye that "feeds everyone." In the village of Klin, life is miserable. Wanderers reach master's house, and the lackey explains that "the landowner is abroad, and the steward is dying." “Hungry courtyards” are loitering around the estate, whom the master left “to the mercy of fate”. Local men fish in the river, complaining that there were much more fish before. A pregnant woman is waiting for them to catch at least "heels" in her ear.

Yards and peasants are dragging whatever they can. One of the courtyards is angry at the wanderers who refuse to buy foreign books from him.

Wanderers hear how the song "Tsevets Novo-Arkhangelskaya" sings in a beautiful bass. There were “non-Russian words” in the song, “and the grief in them is the same as in the Russian song, it was heard, without a shore, without a bottom.” There is a herd of cows, as well as "a crowd of reapers and reapers." They meet Matrena Timofeevna, a woman of "thirty-eight years old", and tell why they found her. But the woman says she needs to harvest rye. The strangers promise to help her. They take out a "self-assembled tablecloth." “The month became high” when Matryona began to “open her whole soul to wanderers.”

before marriage

She was born in a good and non-drinking family.

For father, for mother

Like Christ in the bosom,

I lived...

She lived happily, although there was a lot of work. After some time, “the betrothed appeared”:

On the mountain - a stranger!

Philip Korchagin - Petersburger,

A baker by skill.

The father promised to marry his daughter. Korchagin persuades Matryona to marry him, promising that he will not offend her. She agrees.

Matrena sings a song about a girl who ended up in her husband's house, where evil relatives live. The strangers sing in chorus.

Matryona lives in the house of her mother-in-law and father-in-law. Their family is “big, grumpy”, in which “there is no one to love, dove, but there is someone to scold!” Philip went to work, and he advised her not to interfere in anything and endure.

As ordered, so done:

Walked with anger in my heart

And didn't say too much

Word to nobody.

Filippushka came in winter,

Bring a silk handkerchief

Yes, I took a ride on a sled

On Catherine's day

And as if there was no grief! ..

There were always “frets” between the young. The wanderers ask Matrena Timofeyevna if her husband beat her. She answers them that only once, when her husband asked for shoes for his visiting sister, and she hesitated.

On the Annunciation, Matrena Timofeevna's husband went to work, and on Kazanskaya she gave birth to a son, Demushka.

The manager Abram Gordeich Sitnikov “began to bother her hard,” and she had to turn to her grandfather for advice.

From the whole family of her husband

One Savely, grandfather,

The father-in-law's parent - fathers,

Pity me...

Matrena Timofeevna asks the wanderers if they want to hear the story of Savely's life. They answer in agreement.

Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Grandfather Savely "looked like a bear", had not cut his hair for about twenty years, had a beard, they said that he was a hundred years old. He lived "in a special room", where he did not let anyone from the family of his son, who called him "branded, hard labor". To this he replied: "Branded, but not a slave."

Matryona asked Saveliy why he was so native son calls. During his youth, the peasants were also serfs. Their village was in remote places. “We didn’t rule the corvee, we didn’t pay dues, and so, when we judge, we’ll send it three times over.” The landowner Shalashnikov tried to get to them by animal paths, "yes, he turned his skis." After that, he orders the peasants to come to him, but they do not go. Twice the police come and leave with tribute, and when they came the third time, they left with nothing. Then the peasant women went to Shalashnikov in provincial city where he stood with the regiment. When the landowner found out that there was no quitrent, he ordered the peasants to be flogged. They flogged them so badly that the peasants had to “rip open” where the money was hidden, and bring half a cap of “lobanchiki”. After that, the landowner even drank with the peasants. They went home, and on the way the two old men rejoiced that they were carrying hundred-ruble notes sewn up in the lining.

Excellently fought Shalashnikov,

And not so hot great

Received income.

Soon Shalashnikov was killed near Varna. His heir sent to them a German, Christian Christian Vogel, who managed to gain confidence in the peasants. He told them that if they can't pay, then let them work. The peasants, as the German asks them, dig the swamp with grooves, cut down the trees in the designated places. It turned out a clearing, a road.

And then came the hardship

Korean peasant -

/ Ruined to the bone!

And he fought ... like Shalashnikov himself!

Yes, he was simple: pounce

With all military strength,

Think it will kill you!

And sun the money, it will fall off,

Neither give nor take bloated

Tick ​​in a dog's ear.

The German grip is dead:

Until they let the world go

Without leaving, sucks!

For eighteen years the peasants endured. We built a factory. The German ordered the peasants to dig a well. Among them was Savely. When the peasants, having worked until noon, decided to take a break, Vogel came and began to saw them "in his own way, without haste." Then they threw him into the hole. Savely shouted: “Give it!” After that, the Germans were buried alive. So Savely ended up in hard labor, fled, he was caught.

Twenty years of strict hard labor.

Twenty years of settlement.

I saved money

According to the royal manifesto

Went home again

Built this stove...

The mother-in-law is unhappy that, because of her son, Matryona does not work much, and demands that she leave him with her grandfather. Matryona reaps rye together with everyone. The grandfather appears and asks for forgiveness for the fact that “the old man fell asleep in the sun, the silly grandfather fed Demidushka to the pigs!” Matryona is crying.

The Lord got angry

He sent uninvited guests,

Wrong judges!

The camp officer, the doctor, the police arrive to accuse Matryona and Saveliy of premeditated murder of the child. The doctor makes an autopsy, and Matryona begs not to do it.

From a thin diaper

Rolled out Demushka

And the body became white

To torment and plastovat.

Matryona sends curses. She is declared insane. When family members are asked if they noticed “crazy” behind her, they answer that they “did not notice.” Savely notes that when she was called to the authorities, she did not take with her "neither a security deposit, nor a novina (homespun canvas)."

Seeing grandfather at the coffin of his son, Matryona chases him, calling him "branded, hard labor." The old man says that after the prison he turned to stone, and Demushka melted his heart. Grandfather Savely comforts her, says that her son is in paradise. Matryona exclaims: “Is it really true that neither God nor the tsar will stand up? ..” Savely replies: “God is high, the tsar is far away,” and therefore they have to endure, since she is a “serf woman.”

Twenty years have passed since Matryona buried her son. It didn't take long for her to "recover". She could not work, for which her father-in-law decided to “teach” her with the reins. Bowing at his feet, she asked him to kill her. Then he calmed down.

For days and nights, Matryona cries at the grave of her Demushka. By winter, Philip returns from work. Grandfather Savely went to the forests, where he mourned the death of the boy. “And in the autumn he went to repentance in the Sand Monastery.” Every year Matryona has a baby. She has no time to "neither think nor grieve, God forbid to cope with the work and cross her forehead." Three years later, her parents die. At the grave of her son, she meets grandfather Saveliy, who came to pray for "the Poor Dema, for all the suffering Russian peasantry." Grandfather soon dies, and before his death he says:

There are three paths for men:

Tavern, jail and hard labor,

And the women in Rus'

Three loops: white silk,

The second is for red silk,

And the third - black silk,

Choose any!

They buried him next to Demushka. He was at that time one hundred and seven years old.

Four years later, a praying pilgrim appears in the village. She makes speeches about the salvation of the soul, on holidays she wakes up the peasants for matins, she makes sure that mothers do not feed babies on fast days. They shed tears when they hear their children crying. Matryona did not listen to the pilgrimage. Her son, Fedot, was eight years old when he was sent to guard the sheep. The boy is accused of not seeing the sheep. From the words of Fedot, it becomes known that when he was sitting on a hillock, a huge emaciated she-wolf appeared, “puppy: her nipples dragged, in a bloody trail.” She managed to grab the sheep and run. But Fedot pursued her and pulled out the dead sheep. The boy felt sorry for the she-wolf, and he gave her the sheep. For this, Fedot is going to be flogged.

Matryona asks for mercy from the landowner, and he decides "to shepherd a minor in his youth, to forgive out of stupidity ... and punish the impudent woman approximately." Matryona comes to the sleeping Fedotushka, who, although he was “born weak,” since during pregnancy she greatly missed Demushka, he was a smart boy.

I sat on it all night

I am a kind shepherd

Raised up to the sun

Itself, shod in bast shoes,

rebaptized; cap,

She gave me a horn and a whip.

In a quiet place on the river Matrena cries about her fate, remembering her parents.

Night - I shed tears,

Day - like grass I lay down ...

I bow my head

I carry an angry heart!

Difficult year

According to Matryona, the she-wolf appeared for a reason, since soon a breadless woman came to the village. The mother-in-law of Matrena Timofeevna admits to her neighbors that her daughter-in-law is to blame for everything, who “put on a clean shirt at Christmas.” If Matryona had been a lonely woman, then the hungry peasants would have killed her with stakes. But “for her husband, for her intercessor,” she “got off cheaply.”

After one misfortune came another: recruitment. The family was calm, as the husband's older brother was among the recruits. Matryona was pregnant with Liodorushka. The father-in-law goes to a meeting and returns with the news: “Now give me less!”

Now I'm not a sharecropper

rural area,

Mansion builder,

Clothing and livestock.

Now one wealth:

Three lakes cry

Flammable tears, sown

Three stripes of trouble!

Matryona does not know how she can live with her children without her husband, who is not recruited in turn. When everyone is asleep, she gets dressed and leaves the hut.

Governor

On the way Matryona prays Mother of God and asks her: “How did I anger God?”

Pray on a frosty night

Under the starry sky of God

I have loved since then.

With difficulty, the pregnant Matrena Timofeevna gets to the city to the governor. She gives the porter a “tight money”, but he does not let her through, but sends her away to come in two hours. Matryona sees how a drake escaped from the hands of the cook and he rushed after him.

And how he screams!

Such was the cry, what a soul

Enough - I almost fell,

So they scream under the knife!

When the drake was caught, Matrena, running away, thinks: "The gray drake will subside under the chef's knife!" She reappears in front of the governor's house, where the porter takes from her another "virgin" one, and then in his "closet" gives her tea to drink. Matrona throws herself at the governor's feet. She becomes ill. When she comes to, she learns that she has given birth to a son. The governor, Elena Alexandrovna, who had no children, listened to the woman in labor, took care of the child, baptized him herself and chose his name, and then sent a messenger to the village to sort everything out. The husband was saved. Song of praise for the governor.

woman's parable

Wanderers drink to the governor's health. Since then, Matryona was "nicknamed the governor's wife." She has five sons. "Peasant orders are endless - they already took one!" "... We burned twice ... God visited us three times with anthrax."

The mountains didn't move

Fell on the head

God is not a thunderbolt

In anger he pierced his chest,

For me - quiet, invisible -

The storm has passed,

Will you show her?

For a mother that has been scolded,

Like a trampled snake,

The blood of the firstborn has passed

For me insults are mortal

Gone unpaid

And the whip passed over me!

Matrena Timofeevna says that it is useless for wanderers to "look for a happy woman among women."

Matryona Timofeevna recalls the words of the holy praying woman:

Keys to female happiness

From our free will Abandoned, lost in God himself!

Those keys are constantly looking for "the desert fathers, and the blameless wives, and the scribes-readers."

Yes, they are unlikely to be found ...

LATER

(From the second part)

On the way, the wanderers see a hayfield. Wanderers came to the Volga, where haystacks stand in the meadows and peasant families live. They missed work.

They take braids from seven women and mow them down. Music comes from the river. The man, whose name is Vlas, reports that the landowner is in the boat. Three boats are approaching, in which sit an old landowner, hangers-on, servants, three barchonok, two ladies, two mustachioed gentlemen.

The old landowner finds fault with one stack and demands that the hay be dried. They cater to him in every way. The landowner with his retinue goes to breakfast. The wanderers ask Vlas, who turned out to be a steward, about the landowner, perplexed that it was he who disposes of it at a time when serfdom already cancelled. The wanderers take out a "self-assembled tablecloth", and Vlas begins to tell.

Vlas says that their landowner, Prince Utyatin, is "special." After a quarrel with the governor, he had a stroke - the left half of his body was taken away.

Lost for a dime!

It is known, not self-interest,

And arrogance cut him off,

He lost his sorinko.

Pakhom recalls that, being in prison on suspicion, he saw a peasant.

For horse stealing, it seems

He was sued, his name was Sidor,

So from the prison to the master

He sent a tribute!

Vlas continues the story. Sons and wives appeared. When the master recovered, his sons informed him that serfdom had been abolished. He calls them traitors. They, fearing to be left without an inheritance, decide that they will indulge him. The sons persuade the peasants to pretend that serfdom has not been abolished. One of the peasants, Ipat, declares: “You have fun! And I'm a serf of the Duck princes - and that's the whole story! With emotion, Ipat reminisces about how the prince harnessed him to the cart, how he bought him in the hole and gave him vodka, how he put him on the goats to play the violin, how he fell and the sleigh ran over him, and the prince left, how the prince returned for him and he was grateful to him. Sons are ready to give good "promises" for silence. Everyone agrees to play comedy.

Let's go to an intermediary:

Laughing! "It's a good thing

And the meadows are good,

Fool around, God forgives!

Not in Rus', you know

Shut up and bow down

Forbid anyone!”

Vlas did not want to be a steward: “Yes, I didn’t want to be a gorokhov jester.” They volunteered to be Klim Lavin, “both a drunkard and unclean at hand. It doesn’t work to work, ”says that“ no matter how you suffer from work, you will not be rich, but you will be a hunchback! Vlas is left as a burgher, and the old gentleman is told that Klim, who has a “conscience of clay,” has become him. The old orders are back. Looking at how the old prince disposes of his estate, the peasants laugh at him.

Klim reads orders to the peasants; from one it follows that the house of the widow Terentyeva has collapsed and she is forced to beg, and therefore she must marry Gavrila Zhokhov and the house should be repaired. The widow is already close to seventy, and Gavrila is a six-year-old child. Another order says that the shepherds should "calm down the cows" so that they do not wake the master. From the next order it was clear that the watchman's "dog is disrespectful", barked at the master, and therefore the watchman must be driven away and Yeryomka appointed. He is deaf and mute from birth.

Agap Petrov refuses to obey the old rules. The old master finds him stealing wood, and he calls the landowner a jester. Peasant souls possession It's over. You are the last!

You are the last! By grace

Peasant our stupidity

Today you are in charge

And tomorrow we'll follow

Pink - and the ball is over!

Here Utyatin had a second blow. From the new order it followed that Agapa should be punished "for unparalleled audacity." Agapa begin to persuade the whole world. Klim drinks with him for a day and then brings him to the manor's yard. The old prince is sitting on the porch. In front of Agap at the stable they put a damask of wine and ask to shout louder. The peasant screams so that the landowner takes pity on him. Drunk Agap was carried home. He was not destined to live long, because soon "Klim the shameless ruined him, anathema, with a blame!"

Gentlemen are sitting at the table: the old prince, on the sides are two young ladies, three boys, their nanny, “Last sons”, obsequious servants: teachers, poor noblewomen; the lackeys make sure that the flies do not bother him, they assent to him from everywhere. The master's steward, when asked by the master whether the haymaking will soon be completed, speaks of the "master's term." Utyatin laughs: “The master’s term is the whole life of a slave!” The steward says: "Everything is yours, everything is master's!"

It's written for you

Watch over the stupid peasantry,

And we work, obey,

Pray for the Lord!

One man laughs. Utyatin demands punishment. The steward turns to the wanderers, asks one of them to confess, but they only nod at each other. The sons of the Last say that "a rich man ... a Petersburger" was laughing. "Our orders are wonderful to him so far as a curiosity." Utyatin calms down only after the burmistrov's godfather asks him to forgive her son, who laughed, since he is an unintelligent boy.

Utyatin does not deny himself anything: he drinks champagne without measure, “pinches beautiful daughters-in-law”; music and singing are heard, girls are dancing; he ridicules his sons and their wives, who dance before his eyes. To the song of the “blond lady”, the Last falls asleep, and he is transferred to the boat. Klim says:

Do not know about the new will,

Die as you lived, landowner,

To the songs of our slaves,

To the music of servile -

Yes, just hurry up!

Let the peasant rest!

Everyone will know what happened to the master after eating new blow, as a result of which he died. The peasants rejoice, but in vain, because "with the death of the Last, the caress of the lord disappeared."

The sons of the landlord "compete with the peasants to this day." Vlas was in St. Petersburg, now he lives in Moscow, he is trying to stand up for the peasants, but he does not succeed.

PIR - FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

(From the second part)

Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin

Introduction

Klim Yakovlich organized a feast in the village. “Vlas the headman” sent his son for the parish deacon Tryphon, with whom his sons, seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, also came.

Simple guys, kind,

Mowed, reaped, sowed

And drank vodka on holidays

equal to the peasantry.

When the prince died, the peasants did not suspect that they would have to decide what to do with the flooded meadows.

And after drinking a glass,

First of all, they argued:

How should they be with the meadows?

They decide "to hand over the meadows to the headman - on taxes: everything is weighed, calculated, just quitrent and taxes, with a surplus."

After that, "continuous clamor and songs began." They ask Vlas if he agrees with this decision. Vlas "was sick of the whole vakhlachin", he honestly carried out his service, but now he was thinking how to live "without corvée ... without taxation ... without a stick ... is it true, Lord?"

1. Bitter times - bitter songs

- Eat prison, Yasha!

There is no milk!

"Where is our cow?"

— Take away, my light!

Master for offspring Took her home.

It is glorious for the people to live In Rus', a saint!

"Where are our chickens?" —

The girls are yelling.

- Don't yell, fools!

The Zemsky court ate them;

I took another supply

Yes, he promised to stay ...

It's nice to live people

Saint in Rus'!

Broke my back

And the sourdough doesn't wait!

Baba Katerina

Remembered - roars:

In the yard for over a year

Daughter ... no dear!

It's nice to live people

Saint in Rus'!

A little from the kids

Look - and there are no children:

The king will take the boys

Barin - daughters!

One freak

Live with family.

It's nice to live people

Saint in Rus'!

Corvee

Poor, unkempt Kalinushka,

Nothing for him to flaunt

Only the back is painted

Yes, you don’t know behind the shirt.

From the bast to the gate

The skin is all torn

Puzznet belly from the chaff.

twisted, twisted,

Slashed, tormented,

Hardly Kalina wanders.

It will knock on the feet of the tavern keeper,

Sorrow drowns in wine

Only on Saturday will come around

From the master's stables to his wife~.

Peasants remember the old order.

Day is hard labor, but night?

-L silently got drunk,

Kissed in silence

The fight went on in silence.

One of the peasants says that their young lady Gertruda Aleksandrovna ordered that the one who says a strong word be punished ... and the peasant does not bark - it’s the only thing to be silent. When the peasants “celebrated their freedom,” they swore so hard that the priest was offended.

Vikenty Alexandrovich, nicknamed "Exit", tells about the "opportunity" that happened to them.

About the exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful

The landowner Polivanov, who “bought a village with bribes” and was distinguished by cruelty, giving his daughter in marriage, quarreled with his son-in-law, and therefore ordered him to be whipped, and kicked him out with his daughter without any gifts.

In the teeth of an exemplary slave,

Jacob the faithful

Like he was blowing with his heel.

Yakov was more faithful than a dog, he pleased his master, and the harder the owner punished him, the sweeter he was for him. The bartender's legs hurt. He constantly calls his servant to serve him.

Yakov's nephew decided to marry the girl Arisha and turned to the master for permission. Despite the fact that Yakov asks for his nephew, he gives Grisha to the soldiers, since he has his own intentions regarding the girl. Jacob got drunk and disappeared. The landowner is uneasy, he is used to his faithful servant. Two weeks later, Jacob appears. The servant takes Polivanov to his sister through the forest and turns into a remote place, where he throws the reins over the bough and hangs himself, telling the master that he will not dirty his hands with murder. The master calls people for help, spends the whole night in the Devil's ravine. The hunter finds him. At home, Polivanov laments: “I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!"

The peasants decide who is more sinful - "tavern owners", "landlords" or, as Ignaty Prokhorov said, "muzhiks". “We should listen to him,” but the peasants did not let him say a word. “Eremin, the brother of the merchant, who bought anything from the peasants,” says that “robbers” are the most sinful of all. Klim Lavin fights him and wins. Suddenly, Ionushka enters the conversation.

2. Wanderers and pilgrims

Ionushka says that wanderers and pilgrims are different.

people's conscience:

Got tired of the decision

What is more misfortune here,

Than lies - they are served.

It happens that "the wanderer will turn out to be a thief", "there are great masters to please the ladies."

Others don't do good

And evil is not seen behind him,

You won't understand otherwise. ^

Ionushka tells a story about the holy fool Fomushka, who "lives like a god." He called people to flee to the forests, was arrested and taken to prison, but from the cart he shouted to the peasants: “... they beat you with sticks, rods, whips, you will be beaten with iron rods!” The next morning came to understand the military team. She carried out interrogations, pacification, so that Fomushka's words were almost justified.

After that, Ionushka tells another story about God's messenger Euphrosyne. She appears in the cholera years and "buries, heals, fusses with the sick."

If a wanderer turns out to be in the family, then the owners follow him, “wouldn’t shave anything,” and the women winter evenings they listen to stories, of which there are many in the “wretched and timid”: how the Turks drowned the monks of Athos in the sea.

Who has seen how he listens

Of their passing wanderers

peasant family,

Understand that no work

Not eternal care

Nor the yoke of long slavery,

No taverns themselves

More Russian people

No limits set:

Before him is a wide path!

Soil is good

The soul of the Russian people...

O sower! come!..

Iona Lyapushkin was a pilgrim and a wanderer. The peasants were arguing about who would give him shelter first, and icons were brought out to meet him. Jonah went with those whose icon he liked best, often behind the poorest. Jonah tells a parable about two great sinners.

About two great sinners

This story is very ancient. Jonah learned about it from Father Pitirim in Solovki. The ataman of the twelve robbers was Kudeyar. They hunted in the forest, robbed, shed human blood. Kudeyar took a beautiful girl out of Kyiv.

Suddenly, the leader of the robbers began to imagine the people he had killed. He “blew off his mistress’s head and spotted the Yesaul”, and then “an old man in monastic clothes” returned to his native land, where he tirelessly prays to the Lord to forgive him his sins. An angel appears, pointing to a huge oak tree, telling Kudeyar that the Lord will forgive his sins if he cuts the tree with the same knife that killed people.

Kudeyar began to fulfill God's command. Pan Glukhovsky is passing by, he is interested in what he is doing. He heard a lot of terrible things about Pan Kudeyar himself, and therefore told him about himself.

Pan chuckled: "Salvation

I haven't had tea for a long time

In the world I honor only a woman,

Gold, honor and wine.

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

How many slaves I destroy

I torture, I torture and hang,

And I would like to see how I sleep!

Kudeyar pounces on Glukhovsky and plunges a knife into his heart. Immediately after this, the oak falls. Thus, the hermit "rolled down ... the burden of sins."

3. Old and new

Jonah leaves on the ferry. Again the peasants start talking about sins. Vlas says that "the sin of the nobility is great." Ignat Prokhorov talks about peasant sin.

Peasant sin

The empress granted one admiral eight thousand souls of peasants for the service, for the battle with the Turks near Ochakovo. Being near death, the admiral gives the headman, whose name was Gleb, a casket. This casket contains a will, according to which all its peasants receive freedom.

A distant relative of the admiral came to the estate, learned from the headman about the will, promised him "mountains of gold." And then the will was burned.

The peasants agree with Ignat that this is a great sin. The wanderers sing a song.

hungry

The man is standing

swaying

A man is walking

Don't breathe!

From its bark

swelled up,

Longing trouble

Exhausted.

Darker face

Glass

Not seen

At the drunk.

Goes - puffs,

Walks and sleeps

Went there

Where the rye is noisy.

How the idol became

On the strip

"Rise, rise,

Rye is mother!

I am your plowman

Pankratushka!

I'll eat the rug

mountain mountain,

Eat a cheesecake

With a big table!

Eat all alone

I manage myself.

Whether mother or son

Ask - I will not give!

The deacon's son Grigory approaches the countrymen, who look sadly. Grisha Dobrosklonov talks about the freedom of the peasants and that "there will be no new Gleb in Rus'." The deacon, father, “wept over Grisha: “God will create a little head! It’s not for nothing that he rushes to Moscow, to the new city!” Vlas wishes him gold, silver, a smart and healthy wife. He replies that he does not need all this, since he wants something else:

So that my countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Rus'!

When it began to get light, among the poor, the peasants saw a “beaten man”, who was attacked with cries of “beat him!”, “Yegor Shutov - beat him!”. Fourteen villages “driven him away, as if through a system!”

A cart with hay rides, on which soldier Ovsyannikov sits with his niece Ustinyushka. He was fed by the district committee, but the instrument broke. Ovsyannikov bought "three yellow spoons", "in due time he came up with new words, and the spoons went into action." The headman asks him to sing. The soldier sings a song.

Soldier's

Toshen light,

There is no truth

Life is boring

The pain is strong.

German bullets,

Turkish bullets,

French bullets,

Russian sticks!..

Klim compares Ovsyannikov with a deck on which he has been chopping wood since his youth, saying that "it is not so wounded." The soldier did not receive a full pension, since the doctor's assistant recognized his wounds as second-class. Ovsyannikov had to apply again with a petition. “They measured the wounds with versts and estimated each one a little more than a copper penny.”

4. Good time - good songs

The feast ended in the morning. The people go home. Swinging, Savva and Grisha lead their father home. They sing a song.

The share of the people

his happiness,

Light and freedom

First of all!

We are a little

We ask God:

honest deal

do skillfully

Give us strength!

Working life -

Direct to friend

Road to the heart

Away from the threshold

Coward and lazy!

Isn't it heaven?

The share of the people

his happiness,

Light and freedom

First of all!

Tryphon lived very poorly. The children put their father to bed. Savva starts reading a book. Grisha goes to the fields, to the meadows. He has a thin face, because in the seminary the seminarians were malnourished because of the "grabber-economist." He was the favorite son of his now deceased mother, Domna, who "thought about salt all her life." Peasant women sing a song called "Salty". It says that the mother gives her son a piece of bread, and he asks to sprinkle it with salt. The mother sprinkles flour, but the son "twisted his mouth." Tears drip on a piece of bread.

Missed mother -

Saved my son.-

Know, salt

There was a tear!

Grisha often remembered this song, grieved for his mother, the love for which merged in his soul with the love for all the peasants, for whom he is ready to die.

In the middle of the world

For a free heart

There are two ways.

Weigh the proud strength

Weigh your firm will,

How to go?

One spacious

The road is tortuous,

The passions of a slave

On it is huge,

Hungry for temptation

The crowd is coming.

About sincere life

About the lofty goal

There thought is ridiculous.

Boils there eternal

Inhuman

feud-war

For mortal blessings...

There are captive souls

Full of sin.

Looks shiny

There life is deadly

Good deaf.

The other one is tight

The road is honest

They walk on it

Only strong souls

loving,

To fight, to work.

For the bypassed

For the oppressed

Join their ranks.

Go to the downtrodden

Go to the offended -

You are needed there.

No matter how dark vakhlachina,

No matter how crowded with corvee

And slavery - and she,

Blessed, put

In Grigory Dobrosklonov.

Such a messenger.

Fate prepared for him

The path is glorious, the name is loud

people's protector,

Consumption and Siberia.

In another of his songs, Gregory believes that, despite the fact that his country has suffered a lot, it will not perish, as "the Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be a citizen."

Seeing a barge hauler who, after work, clinking copper in his pocket, goes to a tavern, Grigory sings the following song:

You are poor

You are abundant

You are powerful

You are powerless

Mother Rus'!

Saved in bondage

Free heart -

Gold, gold

The heart of the people!

The strength of the people

mighty force -

Conscience is calm

The truth is alive!

Strength with unrighteousness

They don't get along

Victim of untruth

Not invoked -

Rus' does not stir

Rus' is dead!

And lit up in it

The hidden spark

We got up - unwary,

Came out - uninvited,

Live by the grain

Mountains of Nanogeens!

Rat rises -

Innumerable!

The strength will affect her

Invincible!

You are poor

You are abundant

You are beaten

You are almighty

Mother Rus'!

Grisha is proud of his songs, because "he sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people!"

Content:

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

Main characters

Roman, Demyan, Luka, Gubin Brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pakhom, Prov - seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.

Other characters

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

Matrena Korchagina is a peasant woman who is known in her village as a “lucky woman”.

Savely is the grandfather of her husband Matryona Korchagina. Centennial old man.

Prince Utyatin is an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in agreement with the peasants, does not speak about the abolition of serfdom.

Vlas is a peasant, steward of a village that once belonged to Utyatin.

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

Part 1

Prologue

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

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

Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that the landowner lives most freely, the other that the official, the third - the priest, "fat-bellied merchant", "noble boyar, minister of the sovereign", or the tsar.
From the outside, it seems that the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The peasants have already forgotten what business they left the house on, and they go no one knows where until night falls. Only here the peasants stop and, "blaming the trouble on the goblin", sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.

Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus begins their journey.

Chapter 1. Pop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did you take? stubborn head!

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

Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!

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

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

Belinsky and Gogol
Will you carry it from the market?

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

Chapter 3

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

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

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

Chapter 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 5

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

The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!

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

Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! — learn! work hard!..

But how can a landowner work, accustomed to something completely different from childhood? They did not learn anything, and “thought to live like this for a century,” but it turned out differently.
The landowner began to sob, and the good-natured peasants almost wept with him, thinking:

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

Part 2

Last

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

Strangers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man.

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

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

But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in the wild someone will push him around. Once he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. When he woke up, he ordered Agap to be whipped, and the peasants, in order not to reveal the deceit, led him to the stable, where they put a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died the same night: it was hard for him to bow down...
Wanderers are present at the feast of the Last, where he speaks about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in the boat and falls asleep in it with songs. The village of Vahlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one gives them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.

Part 3

peasant woman

"Not everything between men
Find a happy
Let's feel the women! ”-
With these words strange

Iki go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, beautiful woman 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then she was only happy, how she grew up in parental home. But girlhood quickly rushed by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Philip becomes her betrothed, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife, but soon goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.

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

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

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

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

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

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Rus', which, with torment, is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the ruining Russian people, the problems of women, the ineradicable slave psychology and main problem people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another still remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotations from it have become part of everyday speech. Compositional technique the wanderings of the protagonists brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, thanks to which it is read easily and with great interest.

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