Essay “Analysis of the fairy tale by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin The Wild Landowner”

From the literature of the second half of the 19th century

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Fairy tales: “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “The Wild Landowner”, “The Wise Minnow”

Outstanding Achievement last decade creative activity Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-1889) is the book “Fairy Tales”, which includes thirty-two works. This is one of the brightest and most popular creations of the great satirist. With a few exceptions, fairy tales were created over four years (1883-1886), at the final stage creative path writer. The fairy tale is only one of the genres of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work, but it is organically close artistic method satirical

In an environment of government reaction, fairy-tale fiction to some extent served as a means of artistic camouflage for the most acute ideological and political intentions of the satirist. Approaching the form of satirical works to a folk tale also opened the way for the writer to a wider readership. In this form, the most accessible to the masses and loved by them, he pours all the ideological and thematic richness of his satire and creates a kind of small satirical encyclopedia for the people.

Some fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin were reprinted in metropolitan and provincial publications, and those of the fairy tales that were prohibited by tsarist censorship (“Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Eagle-Patron”, “ Dried roach", etc.), were distributed in illegal publications - Russian and foreign.

Fairy tales “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” and “ Wild landowner"were first published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski in 1869. “The Wise Minnow” was published in 1883 in the Geneva newspaper “Common Cause” under the editorial heading “Fairy tales for children of a fair age”, without a signature. In Russia, this fairy tale was first published in the magazine “Domestic Zatsiski” in 1884 in a publication under the general title “Fairy Tales”.

Composition

The fairy tale is one of the most popular folklore genres. This type of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction has a long history. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are connected not only with folklore tradition, but also with satirical literary fairy tale XVIII-IX centuries. Already in his declining years, the author turns to the fairy tale genre and creates a collection of Fairy Tales for children of a fair age. They, according to the writer, are called upon to educate these very children, to open their eyes to the world.

Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales not only because it was necessary to bypass censorship, which forced the writer to turn to Aesopian language, but also in order to educate the people in a form familiar and accessible to them.

a) In my own way literary form and style, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy tale characters: talking animals, fish, Ivan the Fool and many others. The writer uses characteristic folk tale beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes. As in folklore tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear temporal and spatial framework.

B) But using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition. He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, French words. The pages of his fairy tales include episodes of modern public life. This is how styles mix, creating comic effect, and connecting the plot with the problems of our time. Thus, enriching the tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of social political satire. The fairy tale The Wild Landowner (1869) begins as an ordinary fairy tale: In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner... But then the element modern life: And that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper Vest, a reactionary-serfdom newspaper, and the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview.

The abolition of serfdom aroused anger among the landowners towards the peasants. According to the plot of the fairy tale, the landowner turned to God to take the peasants from him: He reduced them so that there is nowhere to stick his nose: wherever you can’t, it’s not allowed, but it’s not yours! Using Aesopian language, the writer depicts the stupidity of the landowners who oppress their own peasants, at the expense of whom they lived, having a loose, white, crumbly body. There were no more men throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner: No one noticed where the man went. Shchedrin hints at where the man might be, but the reader must guess this for himself. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; ...even though their landowner is stupid, he is given great intelligence. There is irony in these words. Next, representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky with his actors, invited to the estate: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! Who gives you a wash, stupid one? the generals, whom he treated to printed gingerbread and candy instead of beef: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!; and, finally, the police captain: You are stupid, Mr. Landowner! The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, since not a piece of meat or a pound of bread can be bought at the market, the treasury is empty, since there is no one to pay taxes, robberies, robbery and murder have spread in the district. But the stupid landowner stands his ground, shows firmness, proves to the liberal gentlemen his inflexibility, as his favorite newspaper Vest advises. He indulges in unrealistic dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve prosperity in the economy. He thinks about what kind of cars he will order from England so that there will be no servile spirit at all. He thinks about what kind of cows he will breed. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only one day the landowner thought: Could he really be a fool?

Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness... further development plot, showing the gradual savagery and bestiality of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorts to the grotesque. At first he grew hair... his nails became like iron... he walked more and more on all fours... He even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds... But he had not yet acquired a tail. His predatory nature was manifested in the way he hunted: like an arrow, he would jump from a tree, grab onto his prey, tear it apart with his nails and so on with all the insides, even the skin, and eat it. The other day I almost killed the police captain. But then the final verdict was passed on the wild landowner new friend bear: ...only, brother, you destroyed this guy in vain! And why is this so? Because this man was far more capable than your nobleman brother. And therefore I will tell you straight: you are a stupid landowner, even though you are my friend! So in the fairy tale the technique of allegory is used, where under the mask of animals they perform human types in their inhumane relationship.

This element is also used in the depiction of peasants. When the authorities decided to catch and place the man, as if on purpose, at this time through provincial town An emerging swarm of men flew and showered the entire market square. The author compares the peasants to bees, showing their hard work. When the peasants were returned to the landowner, at the same time flour, meat, and all kinds of livestock appeared in the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, just clasped his hands in surprise and screamed: And where do you scoundrels get it from!!! How much bitter irony there is in this exclamation! And they caught the landowner, washed him, cut his nails, but he never understood anything and learned nothing, like all the rulers who ruin the peasantry, rob the workers and do not understand that this could result in ruin for themselves. Meaning satirical tales is that in a small work the writer was able to combine the lyrical, epic and satirical beginning and to express extremely sharply his point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem of the era, the problem of the fate of the Russian people.

“Saltykov-Shchedrin fairy tales” - Here Saltykov-Shchedrin became seriously interested in literature. “The story of how one man fed two generals.” "Eagle Patron". Some plans (at least six fairy tales) remained unrealized. 6. If Gogol’s is “laughter through tears,” then how can one define Shchedrin’s? Genre originality. In terms of genre, the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are similar to Russian folk tales.

“Gentlemen Golovlevs” - -What is it! Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlevs". "Niece." Pavel Vladimirovich and Vladimir Mikhailovich die. Stepan dies. Volodya's suicide. Ideological and thematic content of the novel. "In a kindred way." "Family Court" Suicide of Lyubinka Death of Judas. Judas' binge of idle thinking. Depth and breadth of concept.

“Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin” - 4. Mother, Olga Mikhailovna Zabelina. Education of young Saltykov. In our family, it was not so much stinginess that reigned, but some kind of stubborn hoarding.” 2. Daughter of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Son of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Father, Evgraf Vasilyevich Saltykov. She appeared angry, unforgiving, with her lower lip bitten, resolute in her hand, angry.”

“The history of a city, a lesson” - The writer’s works are still relevant today. Checking your understanding difficult words and expressions. What is “The Story of a City” in terms of genre? Brief retelling Chapters “On the Roots of the Origin of the Foolovites.” How can you explain the names of the peoples listed by the writer? (Literature lesson for 8th grade).

“Works of Shchedrin” - Cruel and merciless laughter in “The History of a City” has a cleansing meaning. The language of Shchedrin's tales is deeply folk, close to Russian folklore. Saltykov-Shchedrin. At the end of the 60s. No. The images of Foolov's inhabitants are also fantastic. Heyday fairy tale genre Shchedrin falls in the 80s.

“Lesson of Saltykov-Shchedrin” - 1869 – 1886. . As a result, no writer was subjected to such persecution as Saltykov-Shchedrin. Purpose of the lesson: Features: Fantasy, reality + tragic, grotesque, hyperbole, Aesopian language. Cover of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s book “The History of a City.” Saltykov-Shchedrin. Evgrafovich. Satire writer-satirist hyperbole grotesque “Aesopian language.”

There are a total of 35 presentations in the topic

Fairy tales with their allegorical images, in which the author was able to say more about Russian society of the 60-80s of the 19th century than the historians of those years. Saltykov-Shchedrin writes these fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” that is, for an adult reader whose mind is in the state of a child who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for those who are ridiculed in it.

The main problem of Shchedrin's fairy tales is the relationship between the exploiters and the exploited. The writer created a satire on Tsarist Russia. The reader is presented with images of rulers (“The Bear in the Voivodeship,” “Eagle Patron”), exploiters and exploited (“The Wild Landowner,” “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”), and ordinary people (“ The wise minnow", "Dried roach").

The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is directed against everything social order, based on exploitation, anti-people in its essence. Preserving the spirit and style of a folk tale, the satirist talks about real events his contemporary life. The work begins as an ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...

“But then an element of modern life appears: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest”.” “Vest” is a reactionary-serf newspaper, so the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The landowner considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev.

The whole point of his existence comes down to pampering his body, “soft, white and crumbly.” He lives at the expense of his men, but he hates and is afraid of them, and cannot stand the “servile spirit.” He rejoices when, by some fantastic whirlwind, all the men were carried away to who knows where, and the air in his domain became pure, pure.

But the men disappeared, and such hunger set in that it was impossible to buy anything at the market. And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He’s all overgrown with hair, from head to toe...

and his nails became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago and walked more and more on all fours.

I’ve even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds...” In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all the insides, even the skin.” The savagery of the landowner indicates that he cannot live without the help of the peasant.

After all, it was not without reason that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “flour, meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared at the market.” The stupidity of the landowner is constantly emphasized by the writer. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky (“However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!

Who gives you a wash, stupid one?”), the generals, whom he treated instead of “beef” to printed gingerbread cookies and candies (“However, brother, you’re a stupid landowner!”) and, finally, the police captain (“You’re a stupid you, Mr. Landowner!

"). The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, and he indulges in unrealistic dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve prosperity in the economy, reflects on English cars who will replace serfs. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own.

And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?

“If we compare the well-known folk tales about the master and the peasant with the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example, with “The Wild Landowner,” we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is very close to folklore, and the peasants, on the contrary, differ from the fairy tales. In folk tales, a quick-witted, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master.

And in “The Wild Landowner” there arises collective image workers, breadwinners of the country and at the same time patient martyrs and sufferers. Thus, modifying a folk tale, the writer condemns the people's long-suffering, and his tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview.

Of all the arts, literature has the richest possibilities for embodying the comic. Most often, the following types and techniques of comedy are distinguished: satire, humor, grotesque, irony.

Satire is called looking “through a magnifying glass” (V.). The object of satire in literature can be a variety of phenomena.

Political satire is most common. A clear proof of this is the fairy tales of M.

E. Saltykova-Shchedrin.

Fantastic fairy tales allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to continue criticizing the social system, bypassing censorship even in the face of political reaction. Shchedrin's fairy tales depict not just evil or good people, not just a struggle between good and evil, like most folk tales, they reveal the class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 19th century century.

Let us consider the features of the problems of the writer’s fairy tales using the example of two of them. In “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” Shchedrin shows the image of a hard worker-breadwinner.

He can get food, sew clothes, conquer the elemental forces of nature. On the other hand, the reader sees the man’s resignation, his humility, his unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a rope, which once again indicates the submissiveness and downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.

The author calls on the people to fight, protest, calls on them to wake up, think about their situation, and stop submitting meekly. In the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman can sink when he finds himself without a man. Abandoned by his peasants, he immediately turns into a dirty and wild animal, moreover, he becomes a forest predator.

And this life, in essence, is a continuation of his previous predatory existence. Worthy appearance the wild landowner, like the generals, acquires again only after his peasants return. Thus, the author gives an unambiguous assessment of contemporary reality.

In their literary form and style, Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy-tale characters: talking animals, fish, birds. The writer uses the beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes, characteristic of a folk tale.

As in a folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear time and spatial framework. But, using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition.

He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, and French words into the narrative. The pages of his fairy tales include episodes of modern society.

life. This is how styles are mixed, creating a comic effect, and the plot is combined with modern problems.

Thus, having enriched the tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire.

Having nevertheless decided to complete the planned cycle of fairy tales, Saltykov actually resorted to “breaking” within the genre, which had a very noticeable effect on “Chizhikov Mountain” - the first fairy tale written after the closure of “Otechestvennye Zapiski” and published in December 1884 in “Russians” statements." The tale is a satire on a bourgeois-noble family. Saltykov was not happy with the fairy tale. “I feel,” he wrote to Sobolevsky on January 9, 1885, “that two or three “Chizhikov’s grief” - and the reputation of my fairy tales will be significantly undermined. Feoktistov, perhaps, was telling the truth that particular affairs are not at all suitable for me” (XX, 122). And after “Chizhikov’s Grief,” Saltykov continues to work intensively on fairy tales (“Such a verse attacked me,” he wrote on January 9, 1885 to V. M. Sobolevsky). But, enhancing their fantastic flavor, he abandons “particular” plots as, in his opinion, weakening the power of satire.

Many fairy tales encountered censorship obstacles when going to press, which affected the timing of their publication and obligated the author to make some mitigating amendments. For the legal publication of “The Crow the Petitioner,” which had undergone two years of ordeal, it was necessary to tone down a number of the most sensitive passages, and it appeared only on the eve of Saltykov’s death. The fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Dried Roach”, “The Eagle Patron” and “The Bogatyr” during the author’s lifetime could not break through censorship barriers at all.

The censorship history of fairy tales testifies to Saltykov’s exceptional ideological fortitude. Of course, some muting of the ideological sharpness of the works was inevitable. However, the writer’s desire to overcome censorship obstacles by means of allegorical skill remained constant.

Censorship delays and prohibitions determined the extent of the underground distribution of fairy tales in Russia and their reproduction in the foreign emigrant press. The range of fairy tales illegally printed or published abroad is limited to eight works that have experienced censorship persecution to varying degrees. These are “The Wise Minnow”, “Selfless Hare”, “Poor Wolf”, “Virtues and Vices”, “Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Deceitful Newspaper Man and Gullible Reader”, “Dried Roach”, “Eagle Patron”.

In Russia, fairy tales were distributed in small editions in lithographed and hectographed editions, carried out by the Flying Hectograph of the People's Party, the General Student Union, and the hectograph “Public Benefit.” They were usually printed from lists or from uncorrected proofs of the “Notes of the Fatherland”, and therefore contained a large number of errors and deviations from the final text of the tale. The first to be published in 1883 by the free hectograph “Public Benefit” were brochures entitled “Fairy tales for children of a fair age. M.E. Saltykov", including " The wise minnow", "Selfless Hare", "Poor Wolf". This publication was published eight times during 1883 (before the publication of fairy tales in Otechestvennye zapiski) in different formats (six times with an indication of the release date and two times without an indication). The publication was distributed by members of Narodnaya Volya, as evidenced by the seal (“Book Agents of Narodnaya Volya”) on a number of surviving copies. One of the publications with a date of release, unlike all the others, contains only one fairy tale - “The Most Muddy Minnow”.

This was followed by illegal editions of fairy tales that Saltykov removed from the proofs of the February issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski for 1884. In the spring and summer of 1884, two illegal publications appeared in Moscow, reproducing the fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship” and “Virtues and Vices” based on uncorrected proofs "Domestic Notes". The first of them, printed by the Flying Hectograph of the People's Party, had the title “New Tales of Shchedrin.” It appeared, apparently, at the beginning of May 1884: under the handwritten text of the fairy tales, the signature is “Shchedrin” and the date is “April 29, 1884.” In the same year, two editions of a lithographed publication appeared under the title “(New) Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age. Shchedrin”, carried out by the General Student Union. In the first issue, “Virtues and Vices” and “Bear in the Voivodeship” were published, in the second - “Dried Roach” and “Deceitful Newspaper Man and Gullible Reader.” In 1892, which by that time had not been approved for publication, appeared as a separate hectographed edition of “Dried Roach” note_272, and in 1901 - “Eagle the Patron”. The latest edition was made “in favor of the Kyiv Fund for Assistance to Political Exiles and Red Cross Prisoners” note_273.

Of particular interest is the second edition of “Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age,” lithographed in 1884 in Moscow by the General Student Union and including the fairy tales “Dried Roach” and “The Deceiver Newspaper Man and the Gullible Reader.” This issue, very rare (only four copies are known), attracts attention with its design and preface, entitled “To Russian Society from the Moscow Central Circle of the General Student Union.” Cover drawing by unknown artist, is a half-open curtain. On its closed part the title of the collection, the author's surname and imprint are indicated, while the slightly open part presents the reader with the behind-the-scenes side of autocratic reality: here is the site where the quarterly delivers the "unwell-intentioned" by the collar, the editorial office of the newspaper "Slops", representatives of the emerging bourgeoisie, captured by the writer in the images The Derunovs and Razuvaevs, the peasant they robbed, one of Shchedrin’s “scoundrels” scribbling a denunciation, in the very corner is a character from the fairy tale “The Sensible Hare”, and next to them a policeman in full uniform and a pig helping him, having grabbed the raised part of the curtain, are trying to lower it so that the reader does not see the ugliness of the reality opening before him. Reflecting close connection and the interweaving of Shchedrin’s satire with modern reality, the artist at the same time emphasized its revolutionary role and the fear of it by the ruling classes in Russia. This same idea is reinforced by a brief preface, which talks about the attitude of Russian society to the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski and calls for a fight against the oppressors.

Saltykov-Shchedrin's "Fairy Tales" played a huge role in revolutionary propaganda, and in this respect they stand out among all other works of the satirist. As evidenced by numerous memoirs of leaders of the revolutionary populist movement, the satirist’s fabulous miniatures were a constant and effective ideological weapon in their revolutionary practice note_274. Frequent appeals of populist propaganda to the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are predetermined by their social acuity and the power of psychological impact on the reader. Moreover, he had at his disposal mainly prohibited fairy tales, which had a strong impact on the masses from the point of view of instilling hatred towards the autocratic serfdom system and its moral, social and everyday way of life. Saltykov’s “fairy tales” “had a revolutionaryizing influence,” recalled P. R. Rovensky, a participant in the populist movement note_275. And this influence was deep and lasting. Reading the later written memoirs of the populists, we catch many of the nuances of their relationship to the legacy of Saltykov-Shchedrin and are once again convinced of the enduring significance that his works - and first of all "Fairy Tales" - played in the revolutionary development of Russian society.

Foreign publications of fairy tales were initially carried out on the pages of the newspaper “Common Cause”, published in Geneva with the direct participation of N. A. Belogolovy, one of the writer’s closest friends. “The Wise Minnow”, “Selfless Hare”, “Poor Wolf”, “Virtues and Vices”, “Bear in the Voivodeship (Toptygin 1st)”, “Dried Roach”, “Eagle Patron” were published here. Soon after the newspaper publication, these works were published by M. Elpidin's publishing house in Geneva in the form of collections and separate brochures.

As in the Russian illegal press, the first booklet published in Geneva in 1883 was “Three Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age. N. Shchedrin”, containing “The Wise Minnow”, “The Selfless Hare” and “The Poor Wolf”. Subsequently, this brochure was republished by M. Elpidin in 1890 and 1895, and in 1903 it was published in Berlin by G. Steinitz as the 69th issue of the “Collection of the best Russian works.”

In 1886, the publishing house of M. Elpidin published a second collection entitled “New fairy tales for children of a fair age. N. Shchedrin." It included “Virtues and Vices”, “Bear in the Voivodeship” and “Dried Roach”. In the 90s a photomechanical reproduction of this collection appeared twice (in 1893; the third edition was published without a year). In 1903, G. Steinitz published this brochure in Berlin as the 72nd issue of the “Collection of the Best Russian Works.” Simultaneously with the above publication, in 1886, the Elpidina publishing house published the fairy tale “The Eagle the Patron” as a separate brochure. This tale was written in 1891 and 1898. was republished by Elpidin, and in 1904 it was included in the brochure “Three Revolutionary Satires” published in Berlin by G. Steinitz (“Collection of the best Russian works”, issue 77), in Berlin a year earlier I. Rade carried out separate edition fairy tales "The Bear in the Voivodeship".

Saltykov did not manage to write all of the tales planned for the cycle. From the letters of Saltykov, the memoirs of Belogolov and L.F. Panteleev, the titles and partly the content of unrealized fairy tales are known. Saltykov reported to Nekrasov about the first of them on May 22, 1869: “I want to write children's story entitled: “The Tale of How a Sexton Wanted to Concelebrate the Bishop’s Service,” and dedicate it to Ant(onovich)” (XVIII, book 2, p. 26). On February 8, 1884, he wrote to Mikhailovsky: “It’s terribly offensive: I was planning to write a fairy tale called “The Motley People” (there is already a hint about this in the fairy tale “Dried Roach”), when suddenly I see that Uspensky is treating the same subject! note_276. Well, I’ll take mine not today, but tomorrow” (XIX, book 2, p. 279). The concept of the fairy tale was transformed into the last of the “Motley Letters” in 1886.

On May 13, 1885, Saltykov informed Sobolevsky that he was writing a new fairy tale“Dogs”, which he plans to send soon to “Russian Vedomosti”. The tale, obviously, was not written, since no further mentions of it are found in Saltykov’s letters (XX, 181, 182).

As Belogolovy testifies, in mid-1885, simultaneously with “The Bogatyr,” Saltykov decided to write two more fairy tales – “The Forgotten Balalaika” and “The Sun and the Pigs,” “but both of these fairy tales had not yet been sufficiently thought out by him” note_277. In the first of them, as the memoirist points out, Saltykov wanted to present the ideologist of late Slavophilism I. S. Aksakov. In the second, the satirist apparently intended to develop the idea of ​​that dramatic scene, which, under the title “The Triumphant Pig, or the Conversation of a Pig with the Truth,” was included in the sixth chapter of the essays “Abroad.” Let us recall that the pig begins his attack on the Truth by denying the existence of the sun in the sky, declaring: “But in my opinion, all these suns are one false teaching.” It is known that reactionaries usually called the ideas of democracy and socialism “false teaching.” Apparently, Saltykov intended to dedicate the fairy tale “The Sun and the Pigs” to the defense of precisely these ideas.

The sixth of the fairy tales unrealized by the satirist is about an exiled revolutionary who, despite all the persecution, remains adamant in his convictions. From Saltykov’s letters it is known that in 1875-1876. he was going to write the story "Lousy" - about tragic fate and the courage of a revolutionary, the prototype of which should have been “Chernyshevsky or Petrashevsky.” Cycle " Cultured people", for which the story was designed, remained unfinished. Ten years later, Saltykov wanted to dedicate a fairy tale to the same topic and spoke about it to Panteleev as “almost ready”: “I bring out a person who lives in big city, takes a conscious and active part in the course of public life, influences it herself and suddenly, by magic, finds herself among the Siberian deserts. At first, she lives by the continuation of those interests that just yesterday worried her, she feels as if in an environment of battling passions; but gradually the images begin to move into the distance; some kind of fog descends, the outlines of the past barely appear, finally everything disappears, dead silence reigns. Only occasionally, on an impenetrable night, is the ringing of the bell of a passing troika heard, and the words reach him: “Are you still not reformed?” "note_278. The idea of ​​​​a fairy tale about a political exile was not realized, obviously, primarily due to censorship difficulties, but certain motives This idea was reflected in the fairy tales “The Fool” and “The Adventure with Kramolnikov.”

The table below contains information about the appearance of fairy tales in the Russian legal, illegal and emigrant press note_279.

1. The story of how one man fed two generals/OZ. 1869. No. 2

2. Conscience/OZ is gone. 1869. No. 2

3. Wild landowner/OZ. 1869. No. 3

4. Toy business people/OZ. 1880.№1

5. Wise minnow/OZ. 1884. No. 1/"Fairy tales for children of a fair age" (1883)/OD. 1883, September

6. Selfless hare/OZ. 1884. No. 1/"Fairy tales for children of a fair age" (1883)/OD. 1883, September

8. Crucian idealist/Sat. "XXV years". (SPb., 1884) / "Fairy tales for children of a fair age" (1883) / OD. 1883, September

9. Virtues and vices / Sat. "XXV years". (SPb., 1884)/"New Tales of Shchedrin" (1884)/OD. 1884, November

10. The deceiving newspaperman and the gullible reader/Sb. "XXV years". (SPb., 1884) / "(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. Shchedrin" (M., 1884. Issue 2) / OD. 1884, November

26. Hyena/Sat. "23 Tales" (St. Petersburg, 1886)

28. Raven-petitioner/Sat. "In memory of V.M. Garshin" (St. Petersburg, 1889)

32. Dried roach/Full. collection op. in 20 volumes (M., 1937. T. 16)/"(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. Shchedrin"/"(New fairy tales for children of a fair age. N. Shchedrin" (Geneve. 1886)

Censorship persecution did not allow the satirist to give a complete set of his tales. In September 1886, the first edition of the collection of fairy tales, “23 Tales,” appeared, and in October 1887, the second edition, supplemented by “A Christmas Tale,” appeared. These collections did not include eight fairy tales. Saltykov did not include three fairy tales from 1869 (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “The Lost Conscience”, “The Wild Landowner”) because they had already been published three times and last time in a book that has not yet been sold out note_280. Five fairy tales that did not receive censorship permission were also not included in the collection (“The Bear in the Voivodeship,” “The Eagle Patron,” “Dried Roach,” “The Crow Petitioner,” “The Bogatyr”).

The publication of fairy tales in cheap brochures intended for mass distribution among the people, planned by Saltykov in 1887, also did not take place. The censorship allowed the book “23 Fairy Tales” in two editions, and prohibited the publication of the same fairy tales, but in separate brochures. At first glance, the actions of the censorship authorities seem inconsistent, but a closer acquaintance with the surviving records shows the opposite. The journal of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee dated April 15, 1887 reports that “Mr. Saltykov’s intention to publish some of his fairy tales in separate brochures costing no more than three kopecks, and therefore for common people, more than strange. What Mr. Saltykov calls fairy tales does not at all correspond to its name; his fairy tales are the same satire, and the satire is caustic, tendentious, more or less directed against our social and political structure. In them, not only vices are ridiculed, but also established authorities, and higher classes, and established national habits. These tales, appearing from time to time in periodicals, constantly raise doubts among the authorities monitoring the press about whether they should be banned. And this is the kind of work that Mr. Saltykov wants to propagate among the simple, uneducated population. This is not the kind of food the common people need, whose morality is already God knows how stable it is.” note_281. The conclusion of the censorship committee indicates that the authorities perfectly understood the revolutionary influence of Shchedrin’s works, including fairy tales, on the broad masses of Russian society and tried by all means to weaken this influence and prevent the dissemination of fairy tales in large circulations of cheap publications.

IN recent months Saltykov was preparing for publication a collection of his works, in which he intended to give full cycle fairy tales However, this time, too, in volume VIII of the Collected Works, published in 1889, after the author’s death, only twenty-eight works of the fairy-tale cycle were placed - “The Tale of That...”, “Conscience Lost” and “Wild Landowner” were added, but Of the fairy tales that had not been previously censored, only “The Petitioner Raven” was included here, which by this time had nevertheless managed to be published in the collection “In Memory of Garshin.” The fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle Patron” and “Dried Roach”, distributed in Russian and foreign underground publications, were legally published in Russia only in 1906, in the fifth edition Full meeting works of Saltykov, published by A.F. Marx (appendix to Niva). The fairy tale “The Bogatyr” was lost in the writer’s archive and was first published only in 1922, and added to the collection of fairy tales in 1927 note_282. Thus, the fairy tale cycle, created in 1869-1886, in its entirety became available to the reader only forty years after its completion.

Literature about Saltykov-Shchedrin, exciting wide circle issues related to his social, artistic, literary-critical and journalistic practice are extensive. Since the appearance of “Provincial Sketches,” criticism has closely followed the development of the satirist’s work. True, the value of the lifetime literature about him is insignificant. The only exceptions are articles by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov about “ Provincial essays”, which have enduring scientific significance, and partly articles by N. K. Mikhailovsky about the works created by the writer in the 70s and 80s.

Liberal-populist criticism that dominated the heyday literary activity writer, did not put forward such representatives who would be able to give a deep and correct interpretation of the revolutionary-democratic satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Critical thought 1870-80s. realized the futility of her attempts to penetrate the secrets of Shchedrin’s satire, to explain its true meaning and role in social and social development. One of its prominent representatives, A. M. Skabichevsky, wrote: “Such powerful writers as Shchedrin require critics equal to them in magnitude, and, to the greatest regret, Shchedrin is unlikely to receive such a correct and deep assessment during his lifetime. deserves it. In this respect, he shares the same fate with Gogol, who still remains unexamined and not fully appreciated. And yet - for such talents the Belinskys and Dobrolyubovs are required" note_283.

Current Russian criticism has lightly touched on fairy tales, but has failed to appreciate them and reveal their ideological and artistic aspects. True, these satirical miniatures, appearing at the time of the most severe reaction of the 80s, immediately took their place in the revolutionary-democratic and literary-social movement, they were closely followed by all of advanced Russia, reading them in legal newspapers and magazines, getting acquainted with them in lists, hectographed editions and thin Elpidin brochures with prohibited works of the cycle. The role of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales in the spiritual life of the society of that time was, first of all, that they instilled hatred of autocracy and serfdom, awakened the people's self-awareness, and affirmed their faith in a bright future. To understand the peculiarities of the existence of Shchedrin’s fairy tales in Russian society of that time, it is necessary to consider the most significant moments of this process associated with the performances modern Saltykov(lifetime) criticism - bourgeois-liberal and populist criticism.

The perception of Shchedrin's fairy tales by current Russian criticism is largely due to the nature of their publication: they were published as separate satirical miniatures, for the reader and critics not yet united by a common thought (this will become clear later), and for the writer himself, not yet formed into a single fairy tale cycle, breaking which was produced repeatedly during the process of its creation. Therefore, the critic took a wait-and-see attitude, considering the fairy tales appearing in different publications as individual performances of the satirist, carried out outside the usual cycles for Saltykov. Therefore, during the period of the most intensive work on fairy tales in the Russian press, the “Poshekhonsky Stories”, “Motley Letters” and “Little Things in Life” published at the same time were considered more often and more consistently than the fairy tales that appeared from time to time. The breakdown associated with censorship circumstances and the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski led to the fact that one of the most outstanding and, by its nature, the final cycle in the satirist’s work received the slightest reflection in criticism. The rare reviews that appeared in various magazines and newspapers were most often of a review and informational nature and the ideological and aesthetic content of fairy tales; their role in social and revolutionary reality was almost not touched upon.

The process of perception of fairy tales by Russian criticism begins in 1869, when the first fairy tales appeared. However, criticism was not immediately able to discern them social meaning and see in the fairy tales “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” “Conscience Lost,” and “The Wild Landowner” the beginning of a new satirical cycle in the writer’s work. Focusing on the general title (“For Children”), critics for the most part viewed the first fairy tales as works truly intended for children, works full of humor and belonging to a writer whose talent “has not yet faded and, perhaps, has not weakened, it still has there is no tension visible, which is so noticeable in our other accusers or laughers” note_284. Classifying Saltykov among the “exposers” and “laughmakers” is an attempt to obscure the true meaning of the great social and political satire contained in these works. True, with the appearance of the entire cycle in print, criticism realized that the purpose of the first fairy tales “for children” was only a witty cover that allowed Saltykov to touch upon the most serious social and public problems in these works. “It goes without saying,” a critic of “Russian Thought” wrote in 1887, “that these fairy tales were not written for children at all, and some of them are far too tough for many adults” note_285. However, it is still impossible to judge the perception of fairy tales by Russian society based on responses to their first examples, because the main works of the cycle are ahead and the opinion about them will be formed by criticism of the second half of the 80s. However, “will be formed” is said, perhaps, not entirely accurately, because no serious works about fairy tales appeared in Russian criticism of that time, not a single large article about them.