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

What is the architectonics of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from individual structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the enormous text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is written down, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem any less amazing - it shocks anyone capable of feeling compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.

The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" — sets a fabulous tone for the entire work.

Of course, this is a fairy-tale beginning: who knows where and when, who knows why, seven men come together. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person live without a dispute? and the men turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth, hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearest hill, or even completely unattainable.

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

Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions of happiness fit it. The misfortunes of peasant parishioners in poor villages, the revelry of landowners who left their estates, the desolate life of the locality - all this is in the priest’s bitter answer. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers move on.

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

When a man is not Blucher

And not my foolish lord—

Belinsky and Gogol

Will it come from the market?

In Chapter III "Drunken Night" The eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant is described with bitterness - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov appears again, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminskoye as “the gentleman” and met by wanderers back there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, collects Russian folklore.

Having written down enough,

Veretennikov told them:

“Russian peasants are smart,

One thing is bad

That they drink until they are stupefied,

They fall into ditches, into ditches—

It’s a shame to see!”

This offends one of the men:

There is no measure for Russian hops.

Have they measured our grief?

Is there a limit to the work?

Wine brings down the peasant,

Doesn't grief overwhelm him?

Work isn't going well?

A man does not measure troubles

Copes with everything

No matter what, come.

This man, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of the Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoy. This surname - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosovo. Travelers learn the story of his unimaginably difficult life and ineradicable proud courage from local peasants.

In Chapter IV wanderers wander through the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Is there a happy one somewhere?” - and the peasants will respond by smiling and spitting... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers “for happiness.” All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier that he was beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for wanderers, even though it would be a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy also evoke pity and not joy. The stories of the “happy” people are becoming scarier and scarier. There even appears a type of princely “slave”, happy with his “noble” disease - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.

Finally, someone directs the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who will be! The story of Ermil is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the man bought himself a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, who give their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of men. Afterwards, Yermil gave everything to his people, the ruble remained ungiven - no owner was found, but the money was collected enormously. Yermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the people's trust. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord’s manager, and his help over many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not help but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is sitting in prison. And he was put there in connection with a peasant revolt in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the wanderers did not have time to find out.

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

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

"The Last One." This part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins with a picture of haymaking on water meadows. A noble family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and evil Prince Utyatin lives because his former serfs, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, conspired with the noble family to imitate the old serf order for the sake of the prince’s peace of mind and so that he would not deny his family an inheritance due to the whim of old age. They promised to give the peasants water meadows after the death of the prince. The “faithful slave” Ipat was also found - in Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the man Agap could not stand it and cursed the Last One for what it was worth. The feigned punishment at the stable with lashes turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The last one died almost before the eyes of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing over the meadows: “The heirs are fighting with the peasants to this day.”

According to the logic of the construction of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” what follows is, as it were, herThe second part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and your chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding someone happy among the men, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what kind and how much “happiness” they find in the lot of women and peasants. All this is expressed with such depth of penetration into a woman’s suffering soul, with such an abundance of details of fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully called “Matryona Timofeevna, she is the governor’s wife,” that at times it either touches you to tears, or makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy on her first night as a woman, and when was that!

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

My hateful husband

Rises:

For the silk lash

Accepted.

Choir

The whip whistled

Blood spattered...

Oh! cherished! cherished!

Blood spattered...

The married life of a peasant woman matched the song. Only her husband's grandfather, Savely, took pity and consoled her. “He was also lucky,” recalls Matryona.

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

Do you think, Matryonushka,

Is the man not a hero?

And his life is not a military one,

And death is not written for him

In battle - what a hero!

Hands are twisted with chains,

Feet forged with iron,

Back...dense forests

We walked along it and broke down.

What about the breasts? Elijah the prophet

It rattles and rolls around

On a chariot of fire...

The hero endures everything!

In the chapter"Demushka" the worst thing happens: Matryona’s little son, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened the child in front of her eyes. And it’s even more terrible that the innocent culprit in the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the tormented soul of his grandfather, was Savely the hero himself, already a very old man, who fell asleep and neglected to look after the baby.

In Chapter V - “She-Wolf” — the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that remains in her life. Having chased the she-wolf who carried away the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the Shepherd takes pity on the beast: hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples, the mother of the wolf cubs sits down on the grass in front of him, suffers a beating, and the little boy leaves her the sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lies under the whip.

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

A terrible song precedes Matryona's escape alone into the winter night (head "Governor" ). She threw herself backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.

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

The third part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, not called that, but having all the signs of an independent part - dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, introduction and chapters - has a strange name -"A Feast for the Whole World" . In the introduction, some semblance of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is not yet visible, lights up the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile almost for the first time in his life. But its first chapter is"Bitter times - bitter songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about hunger and injustices under serfdom, then mournful, “lingering, sad” Vakhlak songs about inescapable forced melancholy, and finally, “Corvee”.

A separate chapter - a story“About the exemplary slave - Yakov the Faithful” - begins as if about a serf peasant of the slave type who interested Nekrasov. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: unable to bear the insult, Yakov first started drinking, fled, and when he returned, he took the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of his eyes. The worst sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the worst sinner of all. Ionushka, the “humble praying mantis,” tells the story.

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

The peasants are starting a dispute about whose sin is worse—the “noble” or the “peasant.”In the chapter “Peasant Sin” Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov talks about the sin of Judas (the sin of betrayal) of a peasant elder, who was tempted by the bribe of the heir and hid the owner’s will, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who recognized that such sins were possible among them, pours out in song. “Hungry” is a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an insatiable beast - not a person. A new face appears - Grigory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a sexton. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After sighing and thinking, they decide: It’s all to blame: strengthen yourself!

It turns out that Grisha is going “to Moscow, to the new city.” And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:

“I don’t need any silver,

Not gold, but God willing,

So that my fellow countrymen

And every peasant

Life was free and fun

All over holy Rus'!”

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

But here is a new chapter with a cheerful title"Good times - good songs" . Savva and Grisha sing a song of new hope on the Volga bank.

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, unites the features of Nekrasov’s dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother’s song, sung by the peasant women, was called “Salty.” A piece watered with a mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a child dying of hunger. “With love for the poor mother / Love for all the Vakhlachina / Merged, - and at the age of fifteen / Gregory already knew firmly / That he would live for the happiness / Of his wretched and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching tercets, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably pushing back the obsolete and evil. The “Angel of Mercy” sings an invocation song over a Russian youth.

Grisha, waking up, goes down to the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland and sings. The song contains his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Finished with the past settlement, /Finished settlement with the master! / The Russian people gather their strength / And learn to be citizens.”

“Rus” is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Source (abbreviated): Michalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: 10th grade. At 2 p.m. Part 1: study. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitseva. - M.: Bustard, 2018

I. “Do you know,” said the queen, “that I have the power to make you an Arab sovereign, and at this very moment I can take your life?”

“I know very well,” answered my lord, “that my life now lies in the power of your Majesty; only I would rather agree to lose my life than to bend to your permission.

The queen, seeing that he did not agree to her proposal, decided to seduce him with her beauty, for among the Arabs she was considered a great beauty, and, revealing her black breasts, which were of considerable proportions, to my lord, she said:
- Look, my lord, you, of course, have not seen such pleasant and tender members in London?

“It’s true, Your Majesty,” he answered, “that even in London itself a vile woman would not agree to open these members publicly in front of a man for any money, for which reason I advise Your Majesty to continue to close them.”

The queen, hearing these despicable words from my lord, came into great shame and excessive grief and said:
- Ah, ungrateful slave! Could I have thought that you would dare to make such a despicable curse at me and insult my Majesty; no, don’t think, you ungrateful one, that I won’t punish you for your insolence; I will teach you to know how to treat a queen; You will soon find out and repent of your crime, but you will no longer be able to attract my mercy. - And immediately she shouted: - Take this villain from me and, having exposed him, throw him into the deepest aedicule, so that he can more easily feel the various reptiles crawling on him!

II. The queen's sister, Elena, fell so in love with my lord at first sight that without any shame she made many declarations of love, but he, not wanting to enter into any conversations with her, answered all her questions as briefly as possible. Meanwhile, while cutting the roast, he cut his finger and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, tied his hand with it. Helena, seeing this, immediately took the ribbon from her neck and, handing it to my lord, said:
- If this ribbon is not disgusting to you, then I ask you to bandage your finger with it and stop the blood flowing from it, what a special pleasure it is for me.

My lord, seeing Elena’s obscene impudence, answered her:
“I humbly thank you for your favor, only your hands don’t like silk, and for this I advise you to bandage your neck again, which without the ribbon has lost a lot of its beauty.”

The queen heard this and, turning to her ladies-in-waiting, burst out laughing; and then, getting up from the table, she began to dance.

"The Tale of the Adventures of the English Mylord George and the Brandenburg Margravess Friederike-Louise."

Composition

Will the time come
(Come what you desire!).
When the people are not Blucher
And not my foolish lord,
Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?

N. Nekrasov

The work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol goes far beyond national and historical boundaries. His works revealed to a wide range of readers the fairy-tale and bright world of the heroes of the stories from the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, the harsh and freedom-loving characters of “Taras Bulba”, and lifted the veil of mystery of the Russian man in the poem “Dead Souls”. Far from the revolutionary ideas of Radishchev, Griboyedov, and the Decembrists, Gogol, meanwhile, with all his creativity expresses a sharp protest to the autocratic serfdom, which cripples and destroys human dignity, personality, and the very life of people subject to him. With the power of his artistic words, Gogol makes millions of hearts beat in unison and lights the noble fire of mercy in the souls of readers.

In 1831, the first collection of his stories and short stories, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” was published. It included “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “May Night, or the Drowned Woman”, “The Missing Letter”, “Sorochinskaya Fair”, “The Night Before Christmas”. From the pages of his works emerge the living characters of cheerful Ukrainian boys and girls. The freshness and purity of love, friendship, camaraderie are their wonderful qualities. Written in a romantic style based on folklore and fairy-tale sources, Gogol's stories and stories recreate a poetic picture of the life of the Ukrainian people.

The happiness of lovers Gritsko and Paraska, Levko and Ganna, Vakula and Oksana is hindered by the forces of evil. In the spirit of folk tales, the writer embodied these forces in the images of witches, devils, and werewolves. But no matter how evil the evil forces are, the people will defeat them. And so the blacksmith Vakula, breaking the stubbornness of the old devil, forced him to take himself to St. Petersburg for slippers for his beloved Oksana. The old Cossack from the story “The Missing Letter” outwitted the witches.

In 1835, the second collection of Gogol’s stories “Mirgorod” was published, which included stories written in a romantic style: “Old World Landowners”, “Taras Bulba”, “Viy”, “The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”. In “Old World Landowners” and “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” the writer reveals the insignificance of representatives of the serf-owner class, who lived only for the sake of their stomachs, indulged in endless squabbles and quarrels, in whose hearts, instead of noble civil feelings, lived exorbitantly petty envy, self-interest, cynicism. And the story “Taras Bulba” takes the reader to a completely different world, which depicts an entire era in the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people, their fraternal friendship with the great Russian people. Before writing the story, Gogol worked a lot on studying historical documents about popular uprisings.

The image of Taras Bulba embodies the best features of the freedom-loving Ukrainian people. He devoted his entire life to the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine from its oppressors. In bloody battles with enemies, he teaches the Cossacks by personal example how to serve their homeland. When his own son Andriy betrayed the sacred cause, Taras did not hesitate to kill him. Having learned that the enemies have captured Ostap, Taras makes his way through all the obstacles and dangers to the very center of the enemy camp and, looking at the terrible torment that Ostap endures, worries most of all about how his son would not show cowardice during the torture, for then the enemy can take comfort in the weakness of the Russian man.
In his speech to the Cossacks, Taras Bulba says: “Let them all know what partnership means in the Russian land! If it comes to that, to die, then none of them will have to die like that!.. No one, no one!” And when the enemies grabbed old Taras and led him to a terrible execution, when they tied him to a tree and built a fire under him, the Cossack did not think about his life, but until his last breath he was together with his comrades in the struggle. “Will there really be such fires, torments and such strength in the world that would overpower the Russian force!” - the writer exclaims enthusiastically.

Following the collection “Mirgorod”, Gogol published “Arabesques”, which contained his articles on literature, history, painting and three stories - “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Portrait”, “Notes of a Madman”; later, “The Nose”, “Carriage”, “Overcoat”, “Rome” were also published, classified by the author as part of the “St. Petersburg cycle”.

In the story “Nevsky Prospekt” the writer claims that in the northern capital everything breathes lies, and the highest human feelings and impulses are trampled by the power and authority of money. An example of this is the sad fate of the hero of the story - the artist Piskarev. The story “Portrait” is dedicated to showing the tragic fate of folk talents in serf Russia.

In “The Overcoat,” one of Gogol’s most remarkable works, the writer continues the theme raised by Pushkin in “The Station Agent,” the theme of the “little man” in autocratic Russia. Petty official Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin spent many years straightening his back, copying papers, not noticing anything around him. He is poor, his horizons are narrow, his only dream is to buy a new overcoat. What joy lit up the official’s face when he finally put on his new overcoat! But a misfortune happened - the robbers robbed Akaki Akakievich of his “treasure”. He seeks protection from his superiors, but everywhere he encounters cold indifference, contempt and misunderstanding.

In 1835, Gogol finished the comedy “The Inspector General”, in which he, by his own admission, was able to collect in one pile everything that was bad and unfair in Russia at that time and laugh at it all at once. With the epigraph of the play - “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked” - the author emphasizes the connection between comedy and reality. When the play was staged, the real prototypes of its heroes, all these Khlestakovs and Derzhimords, recognizing themselves in the gallery of swindlers, screamed that Gogol was allegedly slandering the nobility. Unable to withstand the attacks of ill-wishers, in 1836 Nikolai Vasilyevich went abroad for a long time. There he works hard on the poem “Dead Souls”. “I could not devote a single line to someone else’s,” he wrote from abroad. “I am chained to my own by an insurmountable chain, and I preferred our poor dim world, our smoke-filled huts, naked spaces, to the better skies that looked at me more kindly.”

In 1841, Gogol brought his work to Russia. But only a year later the writer managed to publish the main creation of life. The generalizing power of the gallery of satirical images created by the author - Chichikov, Manilov, Nozdryov, Sobakevich, Plyushkin, Korobochka - was so impressive and apt that the poem immediately aroused the indignation and hatred of apologists of serfdom and at the same time gained warm sympathy and admiration from the writer's progressive contemporaries . The true meaning of “Dead Souls” was revealed by the great Russian critic V. G. Belinsky. He compared them to a flash of lightning and called them a “truly patriotic” work.

The significance of Gogol’s work is enormous, and not only for Russia. “The same officials,” said Belinsky, “only in a different dress: in France and England they do not buy up dead souls, but bribe living souls in free parliamentary elections!” Life has confirmed the correctness of these words.

Encyclopedic dictionary of popular words and expressions Vadim Vasilievich Serov

When will a man carry not Blucher, / And not my stupid lord - / Belinsky and Gogol / From the market?