"Nest" of the Aksakovs. Creative path of S.T.

Stories by Russian writers

Animals have been living alongside humans for a long time.
Once upon a time, in cold and hunger, they came to a deliciously smelling human warm dwelling and stayed to live with a person.
Man has also long been observing the life of animals in forests, rivers, lakes, in the air and everywhere at different times of the year and finds in this life much in common with his own. Animals build homes, raise and care for their young, and work all their lives almost like humans.
Indians, for example, consider animals to be their little brothers. And we all know that little ones should not be offended. And if you show a little care and attention to animals, then a person will have loyal, selfless friends, and a person’s life will become richer.
In this book you will read stories by Russian writers about how people made friends with animals.

M. Bykova
WHERE IS THE HEDGEHOG?

Sasha and Masha were given a cute hedgehog. He lived with them all summer, got very used to them, came running when they called, took pieces of beef and bread from their hands and walked not only around the house, but also in the garden. The children loved the hedgehog very much, were not afraid of his needles and diligently fed him milk and buns.
Autumn has come. The children were not allowed to walk in the garden so much, but they were consoled by the fact that they had a playmate.
How upset the poor guys were when their hedgehog suddenly disappeared. The children ran all over the house, calling for the hedgehog, looking for him, but all in vain.
- Where did our hedgehog hide? - the children repeated and addressed this question to everyone at home.
“Promise that you will not touch the hedgehog,” the gardener told them, “and I will show you where he is.”
- We promise, we promise! - the children shouted.
The gardener led them into the garden and showed them a pile of earth between the honeysuckle bushes that grew near the house:
- I myself saw how a hedgehog dug a hole for himself here, dragged herbs into it and climbed into this hole. Now he is fast asleep here and will wake up only in the spring. Don't wake him up or touch him, otherwise he'll get sick.
The children listened to the gardener and patiently waited for spring.
How happy they were when one day, on a warm April day, their hedgehog friend returned to them again! He only lost a lot of weight during his long sleep. But over the winter there have been a lot of mice in the house, and he will probably soon eat them up.

S. Aksakov
NEST

Having noticed the nest of some bird, most often a dawn or redstart, we always went to watch the mother sitting on her eggs.
Sometimes, through carelessness, we scared her away from the nest and then, carefully pushing apart the prickly branches of barberry or gooseberry, we looked at how small, small, motley eggs lay in the nest.
It sometimes happened that the mother, bored with our curiosity, abandoned the nest: then we, seeing that the bird had not been in the nest for several days and that it did not scream or spin around us, as always happened, took out the eggs or the entire nest and took it to ourselves into the room, believing that we are the legal owners of the home left by our mother.
When the bird safely, despite our interference, hatched its testicles, and we suddenly found, instead of them, naked babies, constantly opening their huge mouths with a plaintive quiet squeak, we saw how the mother flew in and fed them flies and worms... My God, what We had joy!
We never stopped watching how the little birds grew, fledged and finally left their nest.

S. Aksakov
GROUNDHOOK

Once, while sitting by the window, I heard some plaintive squealing in the garden.
Mother heard him too, and when I began to ask to be sent to see who was crying, that “it’s true, someone is hurt,” mother sent a girl, and a few minutes later she brought in her handfuls a tiny, still blind puppy, who, trembling all over and leaning unsteadily on his crooked paws, poking his head in all directions, squealing pitifully, or bored, as my nanny put it.
I felt so sorry for him that I took this puppy and wrapped him in my dress.
The mother ordered warm milk to be brought on a saucer and after many attempts, pushing the blind kitten into the milk with her snout, she taught him to lap it.
From then on, the puppy did not leave me for hours at a time. Feeding him several times a day has become my favorite pastime.
They called him Surka.
He then became a small mongrel and lived with us for seventeen years, of course, no longer in the room, but in the yard, always maintaining an extraordinary affection for me and my mother.

K. Korovin
MY DOGS

My Fox Toby gave birth to puppies. Seeing me, they staggered and crawled towards me, waving their tails affably with joy. My mother, seeing this, worriedly dragged them away from me by the collar back to the corner where she gave birth to them. But the foxes did not stop, they climbed towards me. After some time, my mother simply brought them all one by one to my bed in the morning - she decided that they would all be together and sleep together. Father, Toby, also came...
What cute creatures dogs are. A puppy's small heart, like a pea, is full of love for a person and tact. Toby the father does not pay attention to the Children - they are raised by their mother. But, apparently, he is glad that he has a family. When the puppies grew up, the mother bit and teased them all terribly in turn. They attacked their mother in anger. Apparently she was pleased.
“That’s how she makes dogs out of them,” a friend explained to me, “so that they can protect themselves in life...

S. Aksakov
WILD AND DOMESTIC DUCKS

Next door to me, in a village called Korostelevo, a peasant woman laid twelve mallard eggs under a chicken.
The ducklings hatched, were raised in a flock of Russian ducks and got used to eating food with them...
In the fall, more food was needed and, in order not to waste it, the peasant woman sold eight ducklings, and left two young drakes and two ducks for the tribe; but after a few weeks they flew away and disappeared.
The following spring, the fugitives returned to the same pond and began to live and eat food with the yard ducks as before.
In the fall, one pair flew away again, the other remained for the winter. And the next spring the duck laid eggs and hatched ten ducklings, of which I myself bought four.
The peasant woman again left a couple, and their offspring completely mixed and were no longer different from Russian ducks.
So, only in the third generation the breed of wild ducks completely lost the memory of their free life.
The young ducks I bought, which belonged to the second generation, were still different from the yard ducks both in their appearance and in their morals: they were livelier, more agile, somehow more graceful and timid than domestic ducks, they often hid and even tried to leave several times.

M. Bykova
KATIN GIFT

Where are you going all the time, Katya? - Dad asked his nine-year-old girl. - As soon as you finish studying, you’ll disappear somewhere. Yesterday they forcibly shouted at you before lunch.
“Daddy, let me tell you about this no earlier than on Volodya’s birthday,” answered black-eyed Katya.
The father smiled. “What kind of gift did she come up with for Volodya?” - he thought.
Volodya woke up early on his birthday. He knew that he was always given toys on this day, and looked forward to it. In the dining room, dad gave him a toy gun and reins, and mom gave him a book with pictures.
When the boy had seen enough of his gifts, Katya told him:
- I also have a gift for you, Volodya. Come with me, I'll show it to you.
Katya took a small basket with her and led her brother along the road to the pond. Dad also followed them. On the shore of the pond, the children sat under the shade of a large willow tree. Volodya looked at his sister with curiosity. She took a bell out of the basket and began to ring it.
What is this? Several fish appeared on the surface of the pond. More and more. They all swam to the place where Katya was.
She took a slice of bread out of the basket and began throwing crumbs to the fish. It was fun to watch how the fish grabbed them, pushed each other, quarreled and took pieces from one another! They either didn’t notice Katya or weren’t afraid of her at all.
“You see what a magic bell you have,” said the girl, “how the fish listen to its ringing.” I give it to you. Whenever you want to look at the fish, you should come here and call.
Volodya jumped for joy and hugged his sister.
- And if I call not at the pond, but at the river, will the fish come too? - he asked.
- No, my friend, those are not scientists, but I learned these ones. For a whole month I went every day to the pond, threw crumbs of bread and called at that time. Finally, the fish got used to swimming when the bell rang.
“So this is where you kept disappearing, Katya,” said the father. - It's great that you came up with that idea. Let's go, Volodya, let's tell mom about this, she will probably also want to see the smart fish.

L. Tolstoy
HOW THE BEAR WAS CAUGHT

There are many bears in the Nizhny Novgorod province. The men catch little bear cubs, feed them and teach them to dance. Then they take the bears to show. One leads him, and the other dresses up as a goat, dances and beats the drum.
One man brought a bear to the fair.
His nephew walked with him with a goat and a drum. There were a lot of people at the fair, and everyone looked at the bear and gave the man money.
In the evening, a man brought his bear to a tavern and made him dance. The man was given more money and wine. He drank some wine and gave it to his friend to drink. And he gave the bear a whole glass of wine to drink.
When night came, the man with his nephew and the bear went to spend the night in the field, because everyone was afraid to let a bear into their yard. The man with his nephew and the bear went out of the village and went to sleep under a tree. The man tied the bear to his belt with a chain and lay down. He was a little drunk and soon fell asleep. His nephew also fell asleep. And they slept so soundly that they never woke up until the morning.
In the morning the man woke up and saw that the bear was not near him. He woke up his nephew and ran with him to look for the bear. The grass was high. And the trail of a bear was visible on the grass. He walked through the field into the forest.
The men ran after him. The forest was dense, so it was difficult to walk through it.
Nephew said:
Uncle, we won't find the bear. And even if we find him, we won’t catch him. Let's go back.
But the man did not agree. He said:
- The bear fed us, and if we don’t find him, we will go around the world. I will not go back, but with all my might I will look for him.
They went further and in the evening they came to a clearing. It began to get dark. The men were tired and sat down to rest. Suddenly they heard something rattling with a chain close to them. The man jumped up and quietly said:
- It is he. We need to sneak up and catch him.
He went to the side where the chain rattled and saw a bear. The bear pulled the chain with its paws and wanted to throw off the binding. When he saw the man, he roared terribly and bared his teeth.
The nephew was frightened and wanted to run away; but the man grabbed him by the hand and went with him to the bear.
The bear growled even louder and ran into the forest. The man saw that he would not catch him. Then he ordered his nephew to put on a goat, and dance, and beat the drum, and he himself began to shout at the bear in the same voice as he shouted when he showed him.
The bear suddenly stopped in the bushes, listened to the owner’s voice, rose on its hind legs and began to spin around.
The man came even closer to him and kept shouting. And the nephew kept dancing and beating the drum.
When the man was already close to the bear, he suddenly rushed towards him and grabbed him by the chain.
Then the bear growled and started to run, but the man did not let him go and again began to lead him and show him.

K. Korovin
RAM, HARE AND HEDGEHOG

I want to talk about how in my village, in my wooden house, near a large forest, in the wilderness, a domestic ram, a hare and a hedgehog lived with me. And they got used to me so quickly that they didn’t leave my side.
One evening, sitting near the forest, I saw a small animal - a hedgehog - walking along the grass towards me. He came right up to me. When I wanted to take him, he curled up into a ball, bristled, snorted terribly and hissed. I covered it with a handkerchief.
“There’s no need to be angry,” I told him. “Let’s come live with me.”
But he remained angry for a long time. I tell him: “Hedgehog, hedgehog,” and he hisses and pricks. My dog ​​Phoebus looked at him with contempt. I left milk in a saucer for him, and he drank it without me.
So he settled down to live in my firewood, by the stove, and I fed him bread and milk. Gradually he got used to tapping his hand on the floor.

The hare that was brought to me from the forest and sold to me was small. Hungry, he immediately began to eat cabbage and carrots. He beat Phoebus's dog mercilessly in the face with his paws so deftly and often that Phoebus left offended. Soon the hare grew up and became fat. He ate all day and was terribly shy. Constantly moving his long ears, he listened all the time and suddenly rushed to run headlong, hitting his head against the wall. And again, as if nothing had happened, he soon calmed down. In the house, he was still not afraid of me, nor the dog, nor the cat, nor the big ram that lived with me and for some reason never wanted to go into the herd. The hare knew that all these would not touch him, he understood that these, so to speak, had agreed to live together.

I went not far from home, to a river, a forest, and painted nature from life with paints. I remember Phoebus was carrying a large folding umbrella in his mouth. The hare was jumping around, and the ram was following me to the side.
The hare did not leave my side, he must have been afraid that he would be caught and eaten. When I was painting from life, Phoebus was sleeping on the grass nearby, or searching along the river, or scaring away a sandpiper, and the hare was sitting next to me and kept moving his ears and listening. But he was tired of me sitting and writing. He suddenly started hitting me with his paws and it was quite painful. At the same time, he looked something special, as if he was saying:
- Enough of this nonsense. Let's go for a walk.
The word “walk” was known to Phoebus, the hare and the ram. They loved to walk with me.

And the hedgehog appeared at night, and you could hear him walking on the floor in all the rooms, going out onto the terrace, into the garden, and disappearing. But as soon as I knocked with my hand, the hedgehog soon returned. The ram was terribly afraid of the hedgehog, raised its head with large curled horns, began to stomp with its front legs, as if scaring it, and then rushed to run in all directions.
The hare could never jump onto a chair, couch, or bed. And when I went to bed, the hare sat next to me, standing on its hind legs, but could never jump towards me. And I had to take him in by his long ears. I put him on the bed. He loved to sleep with me, he snuggled close to my legs, stretched out and slept. But his ears went in all directions, and in his sleep he listened to everything.

K. Korovin
SQUIRREL

One day at the market, a nondescript little man, coming out of a tavern, came up to me, looked at me with gray eyes and said:
- Master, listen, do you want me to give you a living toy? You'll see how entertaining it is. I just won't give it away cheaply.
And from his bosom he took out a very pretty yellow squirrel. She looked at me with large, sharp, round eyes.
He gave it to me. She sat calmly.
- Tame, brother, squirrel... That’s how affectionate it is. You'll say thank you. Igrunya... She won’t leave you. You will feed him nuts. Just let her feed herself and come to you. A sort of smart animal, just think about it, but a forest animal, wild. I found her not far from here. The little one left the nest. You know, the kite took the mother. I love working with them, and they get used to it. It’s just expensive, I won’t give it to a lesser one.
I took out ten rubles:
- Fine. Thank you. Nice squirrel. How big!
The peasant took out a handkerchief and tied the money in a knot at one end. He gave me the squirrel.
“Master,” he said unexpectedly. - And you know, she understands that I sold her to you. You won’t hurt her, you’ll save her from the cat. This squirrel brings a lot of joy. You won’t understand, but it seems like there is love in her. I trusted the man. This means he is not afraid and thanks. Take it, put it in your pocket, say: “Die” - and take it home. And for the little red one... thank you... Money, of course. When I saw you, it was hinted to me that you would buy it.
I put the squirrel in my pocket.
“Die,” said the peasant and laughed.
And the squirrel actually curled up, as if it had died.
I went to the store and bought some nuts.
In the tavern, a squirrel sat in front of me and with amazing beauty, holding a nut in its paws, ground it with its teeth and took out the grain. Then, quickly running around me, she sat on my shoulder and gnawed on a nut. I took it, put it in my side pocket, said, “Die,” and the squirrel hid.

In my village house, where there was a hunting dog Phoebus, I showed a squirrel. Phoebus sniffed a little, did not pay attention, and I released her onto the table. She quickly jumped and perched herself on the window curtain. The window was open, the squirrel disappeared outside the window. I ran out onto the terrace, went to the window - there was no squirrel... She was gone. I looked everywhere, at the trees, and suddenly a squirrel sat on my shoulder from behind. I went into the house with her again.
I tidied up everything on my large table, because I was afraid that she would get enough of the colors and get her paws into the palette." My sister and the visiting doctor were amazed at the squirrel’s affection, they wanted to pet it, but she didn’t give in. It was amazing. Really? Did the peasant tell the truth that she understands that she was sold to me, that I am her owner?

When I went to bed, the squirrel did not leave my side. I made a nest for her: I took a basket, put pine branches and hay, but she did not want to be in the basket. She slept with me. When I wanted to quietly cover her with a small pillow, she looked at me with all her eyes, and it was impossible to do this. She jumped to the side with lightning speed. It turned out that this was a game. I saw that she liked it: she deliberately sat on my chest and pretended not to look. It was impossible to cover her with a pillow. I saw how much it amused her. I sat her on my arm and wanted to slam her with my other hand: it was impossible, she was already on my head. Played out. But when I told her: “Well, stop playing, sleep, die,” the squirrel fell asleep on my shoulder.
I was afraid to run over her in my sleep, but it turned out that I was worrying in vain, since she slept well with me.
And in the morning she ran out the window into a huge forest until the evening. “What a strange thing,” I wondered, “why is she coming back?” How strange it is and how it surprised me and still surprises me. She became attached to the person by some unknown laws of love.

But at the beginning of August the squirrel did not return from the forest. I suffered a lot and thought that she had been shot. Hunter Gerasim, my friend, said:
- Who should shoot?.. It’s yellow, no one needs it... I beat them in winter. They won't buy the yellow one.
That day I was sitting on the terrace, where tea was served, with my friends. Suddenly my squirrel appeared. The friends were surprised. She ran around the table, dipped her paw into the jam, tasted it, then jumped off the terrace again, ran to the gazebo, and jumped onto a pine tree. Then we saw that another squirrel was sitting there, stretching out its neck and looking with a round eye, timidly crouched down. My squirrel was near her, they were sitting together. Then another squirrel quickly disappeared, jumping from tree to tree. My squirrel came down, jumped over Phoebus’s dog, and sat on my shoulder.

The rains came and the weather became bad. The birch leaves turned yellow and the aspens fell. The forests were stripped bare. The squirrel rarely left the house. By the end of the day I left the village for Moscow.
I took her in a cage that I bought in Moscow. She didn't like the cage, so I carried it part of the way in my pocket. And she lived with me all winter in Moscow.
When I returned late from work, from the theater, she knew the sound of the gate as I opened it, and with incredible joy she met me in the corridor, running around me in circles. She was waiting for me to take out pine nuts or some kind of gift for her.
It’s strange that she only allowed the doctor she saw in my village to stroke her; I didn’t go to others. She didn’t pester, didn’t ask, didn’t bother, but she liked being admired. How strange, what measure and tact this little animal had.
It was a long winter. I went out with her for a walk in the yard where there was a garden. She climbed the trees, but, probably having gotten used to the warmth of the house, she walked for a short time and climbed into my pocket.
In early spring I left for the village.
On the first day the squirrel left and did not return for a week. Then she showed up again and brought with her another squirrel, from which she constantly returned home and left again. She returned less and less often and disappeared completely.
It's autumn again and the first snowstorm. It's sad at heart. Grey sky. Black barns smoke in the distance. Aunt Afrosinya is chopping cabbage. Milk mushrooms are salted in the kitchen.
I took the gun and walked along the forest path to the river. Flocks of small birds, siskins, showered the branches of bare birches. They are flying away from our harsh country.
Suddenly a squirrel jumped on me and ran around merrily. She has already turned grey. I was so happy. She jumped and ran up the pine tree. I looked up and saw six squirrels jumping from branch to branch. I whistled, and when called, she returned to me again.
- Goodbye, Musya. Your children must be...?
Phoebus looked at the squirrel intently. She was already gray, but he guessed that it was our squirrel.
I didn't see her again.

I have a cherished thought that has been occupying me day and night for a long time, but God does not send me the intelligence and inspiration to carry it out. I want to write a book for children that has never been seen in literature...

S. T. Aksakov

This small temple at the intersection of New Arbat and Povarskaya looks like a village old woman lost in Moscow. How many times have I run or passed this temple on a trolleybus, not realizing how remarkable it is for Russian culture. ­

Here, in the church of St. Simeon the Stylite, on June 2, 1816, the twenty-five-year-old son of an Orenburg landowner, collegiate secretary Sergei Aksakov, and the twenty-three-year-old daughter of a retired Suvorov major general, Olga Zaplatina, were married. “This marriage was corrected: Archpriest Stefan. Deacon Stefan Fedorov. Sexton Nikolai Terentyev. Sexton Alexey Ivanov..."

Thus began the history of the family, which in the 19th century became the personification

Russian family in general.

Moscow was just being rebuilt after the war of 1812: “the traces of the gigantic fire,” Sergei Timofeevich later recalled, “had not yet been erased; huge charred stone houses, somehow covered with old iron; windows covered with wooden boards with frames and glass painted on them; vacant lots with charred foundations and stoves, overgrown with thick grass; the very newness, the freshness of many wooden, beautiful modern architecture houses, just rebuilt or under construction"

Everywhere there was a cheerful smell of fresh shavings, resin and tow. The church was re-consecrated and whitewashed. When the young Aksakovs came out onto the porch, it seemed that all of Moscow was happy with them.

On the eve of the wedding, the groom wrote to the bride: “Like heavenly harmony, the delightful sounds of your voice are still opening in my ears: “I love you!” I'm happy!" Ah, these words will be a consolation for me in sorrow, healing in illness and support in misfortune, if Providence wishes to send them down on me...”

And now, two centuries later, I stand in this ancient temple. I remember that tomorrow is Ecumenical Parents' Saturday. I write in a memorial note the names of my departed relatives and friends, and then - all the Aksakovs. Sergey, Olga, their children - Konstantin, Vera, Gregory, Olga, Ivan, Mikhail, Maria, Sophia, Nadezhda and Lyubov.

Why are they all so dear to me that I already remember them all by name? Why do I feel the Aksakovs are not “historical and literary characters”, but close people?

Probably it all started with Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov’s book “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson.”

For some reason I don't remember this book from my childhood. But I remember well how my wife and I took turns reading “Childhood…” to our daughters when they were still preschoolers. In the evening we left only the table lamp and went with the flow of Aksakov’s prose. Since then, S. T. Aksakov has become one of our family’s favorite writers.

Recently I asked our outstanding philologist Sergei Georgievich Bocharov what he would recommend re-reading from Russian classics. He immediately answered: “Well, first of all, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov.”

This year there is a special reason to reread Aksakov: “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” was first published as a separate edition 150 years ago, in 1858. The fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower” was also published for the first time as an appendix to this autobiographical story.

And today (December 26) marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of the writer’s beloved granddaughter, Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. Both “Childhood…” and “The Scarlet Flower” are dedicated to her.

The fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower,” which appeared in print only as an appendix to the main text, was much more fortunate than “Childhood Years...”. The fairy tale of the housekeeper Pelageya has always been illustrated by the best artists, and it is wonderfully published. “Childhood Years...” is released reluctantly, “for high school age,” or even as for adults - almost without illustrations, in small print. And few people remember that this book, which became a textbook at the end of the 19th century, was written for small children!

It is obvious that there has been some kind of general alienation from the text. The textbook nature has so “blurred” our eyes that in the story about Bagrov the Grandson we manage not to recognize works of children’s literature and thereby fall into the nets cleverly placed a century and a half ago by the kind author of “Notes on Fishing.”

Thinking over the idea of ​​an autobiographical book in the mid-1840s, Sergei Timofeevich first of all set about “bait” for the little reader. “The secret is,” he wrote in his workbook, “that the book should be written not as if it were for children’s age, but as if for adults, and so that not only would there be no moralizing (children don’t like all this), but so that there would be no a hint of a moral impression and so that the execution is artistic to the highest degree..."

In 1848, Aksakov’s first granddaughter was born, and the book immediately received the working title “Grandfather’s Stories.” In a letter to a friend, Sergei Timofeevich admitted: “I am writing the history of my childhood from the age of 3 to the 9th year, I am writing it for children’s reading” (my italics - D.Sh.).

When Olya was five years old, the grandfather solemnly announced to his granddaughter that he wanted to dedicate the future book to her; he even composed a simple poem about this.

For Olya’s tenth birthday, the book was published with a laconic dedication on the title page: “To my granddaughter Olga Grigorievna Aksakova.” Here too, Sergei Timofeevich dodged the temptation to “fake it for childhood” and did not decorate the book with a verbal vignette. Not “precious granddaughter Olenka,” but “Olga Grigorievna”! He believed that such an appeal to a child already instills dignity in him. Education is direct and clear, without squatting, hints or moralizing.

“Childhood…” claims, first of all, not to be artistic, but to be non-fiction, where the sequence of events is checked against the calendar. For children, the authenticity of both the everyday and the miraculous is extremely important. I remember how, as a child, I endlessly interrupted adults’ readings with the fundamental question for me at that time: “Was it for real or just make-believe?” To be honest, the value of the book in my eyes increased sharply.

Covering the last decade of the 18th century, Aksakov’s epic strictly followed children’s perceptions and therefore did not directly reflect the political events of that time (and in its turbulence it may well be comparable to our nineties).

The change of seasons for Seryozha Bagrov is much more important than the change of emperors on the throne. For a boy, only the moral structure of life is important, only what happens in God’s world. Sometimes adults, busy with the current moment, do not understand Seryozha at all; Even uncle Efrem Evseev, who loves him immensely, is perplexed: “What is it that you, falcon, want to know: why, yes why, and what for? Even the old people don’t know this, and you are still a child. That’s how God wants it - that’s all.”

November 1796. In these first days of the reign of Paul I, the Bagrovs learn about the illness of their grandfather Stepan Mikhailovich, and they have no time for Pavel. While in Gatchina the friends of the new emperor are rude to Catherine’s old men, and Paul issues bizarre decrees and deals with the press (he gave instructions to confiscate and destroy all newspapers surviving in the country from 1762, where Peter III’s forced manifesto on abdication was published), Alexei Stepanovich Bagrov is running around Ufa, he is looking for a warm cart and a wagon from his friends so that he and his wife and son can quickly go to his dying father.

Police officers go from house to house asking: “Do you have any old newspapers? If you still have them, then they are ordered to take them away...” - “What kind of newspapers, for mercy’s sake!..”

The frosts are crackling, the likes of which five-year-old Seryozha has never seen before. “How can we go in winter? - I thought. “After all, my sister and I are small, won’t we freeze?” All such thoughts settled firmly in my head, and I, alarmed and upset to the depths of my soul, sat in silence.” Aksakov’s memory does not fail here either. The winter of 1796 was incredibly harsh. The merchant Ivan Tolchenov kept a diary that year and “in a discussion of the weather” he wrote: “From December 1st to 11th there were severe frosts, and then it snowed continuously for 3 days in a row. Since the 16th there have been big frosts again...”

The Bagrovs left Ufa for the village just in early December. Their sled train makes its way like a goose across the snowy plain. “In both doors [of the cart] there was a small quadrangular window with glass sealed tightly. I somehow crawled to the window and looked out of it with pleasure; It was a month-long night, bright, but - alas! “Soon the glass became foggy, painted with snow patterns and finally covered with a thick layer of impenetrable frost.”

Sergei Timofeevich captivates the young reader not with the development of events (the dynamism of the plot for children aged 5 to 10 years does not yet have the value that it has for teenagers), but with the sophisticated detail and vividness of the descriptions. This is essentially macro photography of every phenomenon or object encountered along the way.

For adults and teenagers, such thoroughness in descriptions is tiresome, and for some it is completely unbearable. Kids, on the contrary, in all ages can endlessly look at the patterns of a rug, spend hours looking at the same landscape outside the window, and even just cracks in the ceiling. All this for them is full of life only visible to them.

Remembering this special childhood impressionability, Aksakov slowly and solemnly unfolds before the child that picture of existence, which only the listener of the book, and not the reader, is able to survey. “...The greatness of the beauties of God’s world imperceptibly fell on the child’s soul and lived without my knowledge in my imagination...”

The happy apotheosis of the narrative is the chapter “The First Spring in the Village,” where the ebullience of spring life is simply felt physically. Words rustle and flutter like the wings of thousands of migratory birds.

“The snow quickly began to melt, and water appeared everywhere. Yevseich carried me around the house in his arms, because there was water and dirt everywhere. The river overflowed its banks, raised water on both sides and, having captured half of our garden, merged with the lake of Rook Grove. All the banks were strewn with all kinds of game; many ducks swam on the water between the tops of the flooded bushes, and meanwhile large and small flocks of various migratory birds were constantly rushing by. Not knowing what kind of bird it was flying or walking, what its dignity was, which one was squeaking or whistling, I was amazed, distraught by such a spectacle. Father and Yevseich themselves were in great excitement. They pointed to each other the bird, called it by name, often guessing by its voice. “Pintail, so many pintails!” - Yevseich spoke hastily. - What a flock! And the kryakovs! Fathers, apparently and invisibly!” “Do you hear,” my father picked up, “after all, these are steppe animals, curlews are pouring!” It's just painfully high. But the barnacles are playing over the winter crops like a cloud!.. There are so many godwits! And Turukhtanov “I listened, looked and then did not understand anything what was happening around me: only my heart either froze or pounded like a hammer.”

All these countless details, happily captured by the boy and devoted to paper by the old man, develop what is now called fine motor skills. But if modern psychologists are concerned only with the motor skills of the hands, Aksakov’s prose develops the fine motor skills of the imagination, without which the child will be deprived of all the wonderful things that lurk nearby.

What do parents and teachers hear most often from children these days? "It's boring..."

The current crisis of the epic and, in general, serious comprehension of life is associated with the disappearance of not only the thoughtful reader, but also the thoughtful listener. No one to listen. Even on that rare evening when the family is gathered, reading aloud is impossible, because one “gone” to the computer, the second “hid” in the TV, the third fenced himself off from the whole world with a player. It seems that everything is nearby, but at the same time everyone is on their own. Just like in the office.

Psychologists, priests, sociologists, and pediatricians are now beginning to sound the alarm about this, but long before this, a distress signal was given by Russian literature - a proven echo sounder of public life. Deprived of its former influence, suppressed by electronic media, Russian literature sent a signal of silence, a signal of silence. Remember how almost all significant and profound writers fell silent in the early 90s? So, this did not happen due to a general conspiracy and not due to the economic circumstances of those years alone.

At that critical moment, perhaps for the first time in the entire history of our literature, it was not the reader who listened to the writers, but literature tried to listen to the reader. Not to demand, but to the heart. This critical moment could be a milestone for understanding what was happening, a starting point for dialogue in new, much more confusing and complex conditions than before. But it is obvious that comprehension did not happen. The dialogue, which ended mid-sentence, has not yet resumed. The sorrowful silence did not seriously puzzle anyone. It was replaced by information noise about pseudo-literary novelties and numerous awards. Russian literature has lost that atmosphere of sympathetic resonance in which it could only exist in its classical version.

Back in the 1930s, Mikhail Bakhtin came up with something like a universal formula for the subtle interdependence of literature historically in Russia and a small but friendly circle of readers: “all lyric poetry is alive only by trust in possible choral support,” it exists “only in a warm atmosphere ..." Bakhtin's formula can be read from the end: the warm atmosphere of the family as a spiritual choir is largely created precisely by the lyrics in the broadest sense of the word.

Aksakov’s books could only appear with the choral support of a large, friendly family. By the age of sixty, Sergei Timofeevich was almost completely blind and did not write his works, but told them and dictated them to his loved ones. Most often, the eldest daughter Vera recorded her father.

In the summer, my granddaughter Olya was the most attentive listener. It is no coincidence that Sergei Timofeevich dedicated “Childhood Years...” to her. Adults can listen to an old man out of respect, out of politeness. A child listens only when he is terribly interested.

“I told my mother everything I had seen, with my usual excitement and enthusiasm.”

“When my father returned, we talked to our heart’s content”

“I constantly told my sister, like an experienced person, about various miracles I had seen; She listened with curiosity, fixing her beautiful eyes on me, full of intense attention, which at the same time clearly expressed: “Brother, I don’t understand anything.” And what’s so strange: the narrator has just turned five years old, and the listener has just turned three.”

Despite all the severity of the form and the author’s categorical refusal to simply entertain a child with amusing stories, Aksakov’s prose turned out to be a lullaby. She calms and pacifies an overexcited child who has been running all day long. But only if the book sounds. “Childhood…” is an ideal book to read aloud, to listen to together under a green lampshade. And here the child can be captivated not so much by the plot as by the music of the native word, the tenderness and sedateness of intonation so rare these days. Someone will tell me: this music will make a child get bored and fall asleep. So thank God! To fall asleep on a kind word, with a smile and serenely - are such moments lost for the soul?

“Already the long shadow of the house slanted to the south and laid its edges on the storeroom and stables...”

“Twilight enveloped our carriage. The reddish stripe became a little lighter where the sun had set...”

“The grass faded, darkened and lay flat to the ground; the bare, steep peaks of the mountains became even steeper and bareder; the marmots are somehow taller and redder, because the leaves of the chilisnik and bean grass have withered"

How amazing that this was written by a blind man. Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov recalled: “For Sergei Timofeevich it was unbearable to use the wrong word or adjective that was unusual for the subject he was talking about and did not express it. He felt the incorrectness of the expression, like some kind of insult, like some kind of untruth, and calmed down only when he found the real word.”

Having lost his sight, Sergei Timofeevich acquired a particularly complete and integral vision of the world. He unwittingly proved that seeing with the heart is not just a romantic image of a deep spiritual life, but this is the true vision of the world. There are no barriers for the heart, and Aksakov the artist’s gaze does not rest on things, but embraces the entire picture: from the rug in the nursery to the very horizon, from earth to sky, from early morning to late evening, from the first days of childhood to old age. This stereoscopic vision gives such freshness of descriptions that on some pages it seems that you are holding the first book in your life in your hands and you have never read anything else.

And how incredibly vividly Aksakov conveyed what A. S. Khomyakov called the warmth of a common nest! This image of a nest appears every now and then on Aksakov’s pages. “It was a little dawn when they woke us up; It was dark even to get dressed. My God, how my sister and I didn’t want to get up! From the warm nest go out into the damp and cold autumn air, at dawn, when one sleeps especially sweetly"

In 1917, one of our most perspicacious thinkers, Prince Evgeny Trubetskoy, wrote about the saving view of life through the nursery window: “What is this longing for the nursery that I feel? Is this a manifestation of mental weakness? No. This is a different, extremely complex feeling. This is not an escape from the present, but a search for a foothold for the present.” And then Evgeniy Nikolaevich recalled his childhood: “What kind of spiritual atmosphere was that?<...>we breathed grace there, as if every breath of air there was full of grace. I was filled with a feeling of some deep trust in the nest.”

Plunging into the “Childhood Years...”, observing all the events through the eyes of little Seryozha Bagrov, one cannot help but feel that for a child there is nothing more precious than the warmth of the family nest. This warmth is literally recreated in the word; At the same time, Aksakov never overreacts in painterly sentimentality, but draws what is happening as if with just a stub of a pencil accidentally lying in his pocket.

Here is a young Bagrov family on the road, spending the night in a field in the open air. Serezha is three or four years old. “Mother soon went to bed<...>but I didn’t want to sleep, and I stayed to sit with my father and talk<...>. But in the midst of conversations, we both somehow became lost in thought and sat for a long time without saying a single word. The sky sparkled with stars, the river gurgled in the ravine, the fire was blazing and brightly illuminated our people, the horses allowed to eat oats were also illuminated on one side by a strip of light. “Isn’t it time for you to sleep, Seryozha?” - said my father after a long silence; kissed me, crossed me and carefully, so as not to wake my mother, put me in the carriage.”

And here is a father and son in a spring grove: “How pleased the father was when he saw the lungwort for the first time! He taught me to lightly pull out purple flowers and suck their white, sweet roots! And how he was even more delighted when he heard from afar, also for the first time, the singing of a bluethroat. “Well, Seryozha,” he told me, “now all the birds will start singing: the bluethroat is the first to sing.

But when the bushes are dressed, our nightingales will sing, and it will be even more fun in Bagrov!..”

One of Aksakov’s first readers spoke about his impressions of the book like this: “A joyful heart, long hardened in cold solitude, seems to emerge from some kind of darkness into the free light, into God’s world...”.

“The Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson” captured something that had not yet been seen in Russian literature: the mood of everyday life. Everyday life, often so painful and monotonous for adults, was revealed to the reader from the children's side - like God's day. Like a space for kindness and good deeds, for every minute discoveries. “Let every breath praise the Lord.”

In one of Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov’s letters to his fiancée, who feared the “vulgarity” of family everyday life, there are the following words: “Can everyday everyday life vulgarize a person, when there is prayer, when there is an opportunity to read the Gospel?”

In the life of the Bagrovs there is very little idyllicity and patriarchy in their current sense. But the very flow of the book is so powerfully directed towards God, towards the ideal of Christian pious life, that, carried away by the narrative, one cannot help but surrender one’s soul to this flow. It’s impossible not to love the Bagrovs and not repeat after the author (at the end of “Family Chronicle”): “Farewell!<...>You are not great heroes, not big personalities; you passed through your earthly career in silence and obscurity and left it long, long ago; but you were people, and your external and internal life is full of poetry, as curious and instructive for us as we and our lives, in turn, will be curious and instructive for posterity. Through the mighty power of writing and printing, your descendants have now become acquainted with you. It greeted you with sympathy and recognized you as brothers."

How freely these people could breathe, how securely the Russian soil held them, how fervently, like children, they prayed to God! They must have seen little in the world, knew little of book wisdom, but loved a lot. They looked into each other's eyes and took the time to listen to their loved one and speak out themselves.

And why is it so difficult for us to find for children those tender spring words that were so simply, by chance, dropped by the illiterate uncle Yevseich and sank into little Seryozha Bagrov’s soul for the rest of his life? “My little falcon...”

Obviously, seeing the good and good in everything before the negative and bad - this was in the Aksakovs’ blood. Ivan Aksakov (being forty years old, a man who has experienced and seen a lot) writes to his bride: “You will say: again I’m idealizing. Yes, I idealize, because without idealization no personal relationships with people are possible. That is, this means that in every person there is his ideal - his own inner true physiognomy, his type, his best, about which the person himself can be untrue.”

Is it not because the Aksakovs became the personification of the Russian family for all of Russia because they treated both people and their country this way?

V.V. Rozanov wrote in 1915 that one has only to pronounce the name of the Aksakovs? - and “there is not a literate person in Rus' who would not respond: “I know,” the Aksakovs, “how come... They loved Rus', the kings, the Russian faith.” "

Vasily Vasilyevich interpreted this popular opinion ideologically, somewhat ironically emphasizing the Slavophilism of the Aksakovs. They are already a “common place” for him, one of those Russian myths, attachment to which an intelligent person should not take seriously. But the key word in assessing the Aksakovs was the word loved. “I know,” the Aksakovs, “how... They loved...”

In a situation where many were zealously mastering the science of hatred, the Aksakovs loved. They loved each other and their home. Loved life. They loved their people. They also loved those who, perhaps, did not deserve their love. They loved like Konstantin - blindly, ardently, childishly. And like Ivan - demanding, without illusions. Light and sacrificial, like Faith: “One moment of love, and everything inaccessible, everything terrible and incompatible, everything becomes close and accessible, everything is clear, light and blissful...”

And people, especially in the merchant or military environment, for the most part responded kindly to Aksakov. This is actually a rare case when not one person, but an entire family was surrounded by good fame and universal respect.

There was something mysterious about this, since for contemporaries there was nothing heroic in the life of the Aksakovs. Having many children in itself was not considered a feat. The memoirs of Sergei Timofeevich and the philosophical articles of Konstantin, as well as the newspapers edited by Ivan Aksakov, were known only to a small circle of the educated public.

In the summer of 1865 (six years after the death of his father), Ivan Aksakov, traveling along the Volga on a ship, met General Pavel Khristoforovich Grabbe, who had just been appointed ataman of the Don Army. They spent several days talking on deck. Saying goodbye, the general said to Aksakov: “I now understand Aksakov’s reputation...”

On the same day, Ivan Sergeevich shares his impressions in a letter to the bride: “By the way, about this reputation. How strange and inexplicable she is. It was formed from my father’s reputation as the author of the “Family Chronicle,” my brother’s reputation, and partly mine. Many people hardly know how to distinguish between these three faces and confuse them together. That the author of “Family Chronicle” is famous is very clear, but why my brother and I used it in Russia even before my father, this seems to me a mystery... Neither “Russian Conversation”, nor even “Day” have ever been as popular as popular the name that I bear... This reputation confuses me, because I myself feel inside that it is not fully deserved... On the other hand, this meaning of the name that you bear serves as some kind of protective measure; it obliges and in any case serves as a good memento..."

The Aksakovs remained in full view of all of Moscow for almost three decades. They really lived amicably, but not at all idyllic. Differences in characters, temperaments, mental aspirations and outlook on life are common in a large family. It used to be that girls would pull boys by the hair, and the boys would fight with each other every now and then. Quiet games with horses and dolls in Abramtsevo did not captivate anyone.

One day, twelve-year-old Kostya created a squad of his younger brothers based on the ancient Russian model, ordered to call himself Prince Vyachka, and even established the holiday of this Vyachka on November 30. Since then, the boys rushed around the house and surrounding area with warlike cries, rattling iron armor and shields, wearing cardboard helmets, with wooden swords and spears.

With such and such a number of children - and not the slightest attempt by the elder Aksakovs to send some of the boys to a boarding school or lyceum, and the girls to an institute for noble maidens. Perhaps because Sergei Timofeevich himself in childhood underwent a brief test of this kind of “exile”, when his parents left him with his sister in Bagrov for a whole month. The bitter memory of these days remained with him throughout his life. The chapter “Staying in Bagrov without Father and Mother” is perhaps the saddest in Sergei Timofeevich’s book: “they greeted us, said a few words, and sometimes almost didn’t say anything, then sent us to our room”

In the wealthy class, even then, children were sometimes burdened. It was far from television, but Courchevel was already inviting, as well as balls, theaters, salons... In many noble families it was believed that children were not worth paying attention to. There are nannies, tutors - and that's enough.

It is not surprising that soon war was declared on the parents. Twenty-year-old Mikhail Bakunin writes to his sister Varya: “For me, my parents don’t exist, I don’t need their love anymore.”<...>. I do not recognize any rights for them"

Natalya Zakharyina in a letter to her fiancé A. Herzen: “Did I have a mother? - No... Did I have a father?.. Did I have a brother, sister or someone related?.. "

Alexander threw wood on this fire: “No one wanted to take care of you, you were left to yourself...”

Apollo Maikov wrote to F. M. Dostoevsky: “Do you believe that, if you take at least the circle of my acquaintances, in a rare family the father and mother are not the most unhappy people in the world from their sons and especially from their daughters, for they go straight into depravity, into cold depravity by conviction!”

To some Aksakov acquaintances, it seems inevitable that the young Aksakovs are about to rebel against their “old men.” But there is no rebellion. Moreover, grown-up children are not shy about their attachment to their parents. They are not afraid of ridicule from their “advanced” peers and, in any case, admit that they feel happy only under the roof of their parents’ house. As modern researcher Elena Annenkova writes, “the will of the [Aksakov] children did not break - the need for rebellion did not arise.”

Sergei Timofeevich and Olga Semenovna never isolated children from communication with their peers, but did everything to eliminate the very possibility of bad influence. When Konstantin entered Moscow University, M. Pogodin offered him a place in a boarding school at the university, to which he immediately received a polite but decisive refusal from Aksakov Sr.: “It’s strange that my eldest son (this is important for brothers) at that time when he must become my friend, he will not live under the same roof with me! We will certainly, although unconsciously, be sad about him<...>. Funny, but true. You’ve already got a lot of boys, you’ll get even more, you might get all sorts of them (you can’t guess their vices at first sight)<...>. What if my son picks up bad impressions or habits from one of his friends? How can I justify myself to myself?

Before his death, Konstantin told his sisters Vera and Lyuba: “We are united, united by family love, but the love of children for their parents is above all.”<...>I would like to convey my thoughts about marriage - how in marriage children give it full meaning - fate snatched the pen from my hands."

Thanks to a common love for the epistolary genre, the intensity of communication in the Aksakov family did not weaken at all with the departure of one or more children. Every day, up to a dozen letters were sent to the station by coachman, and the same number of replies were brought to Abramtsevo in the evening.

Each letter from the Aksakovs is striking in that it contains, like a nesting doll, letters to all family members. Here is twenty-year-old Ivan writing home (from Astrakhan to Moscow, April 16, 1844): “Your lines, dear little fellow, awakened many internal reproaches in me.” And then: “Yes, yes, why are you laughing, dear mother, know that I almost dream about the seal and the income from it to the treasury.” A few lines later: “I ask Olinka to tell me her real opinion about the dignity of the pattern and the goodness of matter”

And here are the lines of another Vanya letter, where he manages to speak to everyone at the same time (June 17, 1844): “What are my sisters’ poems like? Sophie and Marichen, I know, are writers, but I did not at all imagine Lyuba to be a poet. No, apparently it runs in the family, in the blood. What do you think, Vera Sergeevna, and Olinka, and Nadya, and everyone has a versifying ability, who knows? Try it, definitely try it. “Well, well, start, Gritsko, like this, like this!” Well, well, Vera, well, well, Olya!”

Sophie is Sonya, who was ten years old at the time. Marikhen - Masha, she was thirteen years old then. Gritsko is Grisha, he is already twenty-three. Vera is twenty-five, Olya is twenty-two, Nadya is eight, and Lyuba is only seven years old.

Restless and active Vanya left his parents' home early and, in terms of life experience, quickly overtook his older brother Kostya. After graduating from the School of Law, Ivan traveled almost all of Russia with commissions and audits. Something happens to him all the time. He either asks the tsar to let him go on a trip around the world, then gets arrested due to a denunciation, then joins the militia, then leads the population of the entire city of Romanov-Borisoglebsk to the Orthodox faith.

Konstantin, on the other hand, is a homebody, lived his whole life next to his parents and forever remained a philosopher-dreamer, prone to abstract reasoning and theatrical effects.

In almost every letter home, Ivan either instructs his brother (who is six years older than him!), or ridicules him, or reproaches him, or downright shames him.

“Let him [Kostya] study Russia not just from Moscow. But alas! Konstantin will remain deaf to my appeals. Kostya is like a spider, he has woven an intricate web around himself."

“How annoying and sad I am that Konstantin is moping around and doing nothing!<...>Eh, really, where is a person’s will?..”

“That’s right, Konstantin! First of all, he inquires about whether someone is Russian and Orthodox. Eats mushrooms during Lent, without fish! - delight and tears of tenderness! “For me, before I find out whether someone is French or Russian, Orthodox or Catholic, the first question is: what kind of person is he in general and does a good, Christian heart beat in him…”

“I cannot, like Konstantin, be consoled by such phrases<...>“That the Russian people are seeking the kingdom of God!..”, etc. Indifference to common benefits, laziness, apathy and preference for their own benefits are recognized as seeking the kingdom of God!..”

“Hasn’t Kostya shaved off his beard and taken off his zipun?.. I will never put on a zipun... It is not through the funny that great thoughts achieve fulfillment...”

At the same time, Ivan always rushed to the defense of his older brother when one of the strangers made jokes at his expense. Ivan loudly declared to the secular public: “It’s great that he wears Russian dress, despite all the jokes and ridicule, we should all do the same, but we’re too trashy...”

The Aksakov sisters recalled that during his fatal illness on the island of Zante, Konstantin often called Ivan, and the last thing Ivan wrote in his life were memories of his older brother, which remained unfinished.

The Aksakovs, both in Moscow and Abramtsevo, always lived an open house, and therefore they inevitably had to hold back the onslaught of the curious, then endure the slander of gossips and extortion of crooks, or sometimes host random and malicious people.

Vera Aksakova sadly wrote in her diary (December 1854): “For the most part, people, the most ardent admirers of our family, either idealize it to the point of unnaturalness and even to the point of ridiculousness, or take the severity of our moral view to such an extreme and to the point of ugliness, or extol it to the point of ugliness.” to such a degree is our general education, even scholarship. In a word, they make something strained out of our simple life (which develops by itself). Is it really so difficult to understand the simplicity of our lives!<...>we live this way because this is how we live, because we cannot live otherwise, we have nothing pre-conceived, no pre-calculated plan, we do not picture ourselves in our life, which is full of true, real suffering, deprivation of all kinds and many spiritual invisible sorrows. Every kind person will find sincere sympathy in us, and the participation of good people is dear to us; but we do not need that empty participation, which is more like curiosity, and these rumors about us out of nothing to do are especially unpleasant. We don't need this fame"

And if we remember that for many years the Aksakovs’ house was under close surveillance by the secret police, it is completely surprising how they managed to maintain family and spiritual peace. Today, for some reason, many people are sure that the Slavophiles preached leavened patriotism and official autocracy. The reality was that from the mid-40s until the end of the 70s, the Slavophiles were suspected of an anti-government conspiracy. Their books and magazines were banned, all trips of Samarin, Kireevsky, Khomyakov and the Aksakov brothers took place under secret police surveillance. In 1878, the activities of the Slavic Benevolent Society, created by Ivan Aksakov to help the Bulgarian and Serbian militia, were banned.

Sergei Timofeevich, unlike his children, wisely avoided politics, but in critical moments, turning points, he always supported his children and did not hide his convictions. It is enough to re-read the chapter about Mikhail Kurolesov in the Family Chronicle. The story about the adventures of this criminal landowner of the 18th century, whose favorite saying was “Cheat, steal, and bury your ends,” is still chilling to this day. So those nouveau riche, with messages about their fun and quirks flooding the television screen today, are not such “new Russians” at all. These are disgusting old types who have been dormant for a long time under the cover of Brezhnev’s power.

The worst thing that blind Sergei Timofeevich saw in the Kurolesovs was not their bloody crimes, but the spiritual decay that they sow. “Mikhaila Maksimovich, having reached the highest degree of depravity and cruelty, zealously began building a stone church...”

The aristocracy, accustomed in the Nicholas era to hypocrisy and cynicism, to ostentatious piety and unbridled arbitrariness, felt in the Aksakovs enemies more terrible than any rebels. Most of all, the then elite was irritated not by the philosophical and political views of the Aksakov brothers, but by the complete agreement of their worldview, their beliefs with their home and family way of life. The Aksakovs were a moral reproach, and they could not forgive them for this.

After the death of her eldest son, Olga Semyonovna wrote with bitterness: “Now from the department Kostomarov, a professor in St. Petersburg, made a speech about the merits and significance of Konstantin in history and literature, and there were one and a half thousand listeners, and everyone applauded; and how many (before that. - D. Sh.) evil attacks there were! My God! Is it really necessary to die in order for justice to be given to a person, but during life he was not consoled by anything, by any manifestation! My soul grieves for that!..”

The attitude of the then elite towards the Aksakov family can be easily guessed from the letter of Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova-Rosset, a famous imperial lady-in-waiting. In 1847, she wrote mockingly to N.V. Gogol about the Aksakovs (about the family that sheltered the great writer during his most difficult years!): “I am very glad that I am not among the Aksakovs, who live according to the law of love unknown to me, like the entire Slavic world."

According to the “unknown law of love,” the Aksakovs admired Alexandra Osipovna, her original mind, and could not understand only one thing: why does she hate them so much?..

...Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov immediately after the publication of “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” began the story about his younger sister Natasha, but did not have time to finish it. He died in April 1859. His last words were: “Light the candles!..”

Olga Semyonovna survived her husband and five of her ten children. “My soul is sometimes filled with grief,” she wrote in a letter on January 8, 1865, “I strongly feel the loss of my extraordinary, in the full sense of the moral, children; I am consoled by the fact that they are better off there, but I think that they would be useful on earth, and I, in fact, for myself should thank God that I am surrounded by such care for my daughters and son Ivan; and Grisha, my son, came from Ufa and could only live with us for a week. And my poor Ivan is beating so hard. My heart aches, looking at his exorbitant labors. Pray for Russia - it’s scary where they will take it. Farewell, write to us, remember and love..."

Let's return to the present-day New Arbat, to the Temple of Simeon the Stylite, where on a summer morning in 1816 Sergei Timofeevich and Olga Semyonovna Aksakov were married. This temple, built back in 1679, found itself at the center of a huge construction project in the mid-twentieth century. During the construction of New Arbat, everything in the area was demolished, crushed, and turned into brick chips. Old estates, merchant mansions, and apartment buildings from the beginning of the century were destroyed.

A few meters from the temple, which was closed back in the 1930s, a pit was dug for the construction of a high-rise building. It seemed that the dilapidated building, in which it was already difficult to recognize the church building, was about to be bulldozed into a hole. But for unknown reasons, the equipment drove around the ruins of the temple. The authorities who came to the construction site could not understand what was going on. Orders flew from department to department - demolish it immediately! And Simeon the Stylite stood, looking like a mysterious bastion (how can one not recall the feat of this ancient ascetic, who, fleeing the bustle, built himself a pillar and lived on it for eighty years).

In the summer of 1964, an excavator was brought to the church, but before it could begin work, the architect-restorer st1:personname w:st=»on» Leonid/st1:personname Ivanovich Antropov, a friend and ally of the legendary defender of old Moscow Pyotr Dmitrievich Baranovsky, climbed into its bucket. While st1:personname w:st=»on»Leonid/st1:personnameIvanovich held the defense, sitting in the bucket of an excavator, Baranovsky, through the paths he knew only, obtained an order from the Ministry of Culture to place the monument under state protection. Little of! A decision was made to urgently restore the temple. temple.

Olga Dmitrievna Savitskaya, a researcher of ancient Russian architecture, was appointed head of the restoration work. Here is her story about those days, recorded by Alexander Rozanov, author of the book “Temples Don’t Die...”: “The construction of New Arbat was already in full swing. And we, restorers, were given very strict deadlines. The situation was complicated by the endless orders from the “leading comrades”: to demolish the church. But these decisions changed every day. I still have a bunch of documents, acts, each of which cancels the previous one. Scientific work had to be carried out in the process of restoration work. Fortunately, excellent masons Konstantin Fadeev (he restored the Solovetsky Monastery) and Vladimir Storozhenko, carpenter Alexey (unfortunately, I forgot his last name) worked with me. They were all very capable people. Extraordinary smart people. At first glance, they are completely illiterate people, but it turns out that they are born mathematicians. I rack my brains over some template for a long time, and they attach a cord, a strip and make it more accurate than I designed. la.

Alexey was a drunkard, but he was madly in love with flowers. Every day he brought me huge, absolutely luxurious bouquets of flowers. One day I told him: “Listen, Alexey, what’s the matter? Why are there flowers every day?” He remained silent......

When almost the entire volume of work was completed (obviously, it was the spring of 1966? -
D. Sh.), the decision to demolish the temple came again. Then the workers surrounded the entire temple with plywood and stayed there overnight. I sat at home, grieved, worried: again all my work was in vain. And in one night they restored the heads that rose above the temple in the morning. The authorities have arrived and see? - a temple with domes! It is somehow indecent to demolish a ready-made, only restored temple. (A day or two later the crosses were also put up, but on the orders of M.A. Suslov they were removed. These crosses lay in the basement until 1990.))

The workers were so tired during the night that they immediately fell down to sleep. And my Alexey didn’t wake up... He died. After that I thought a lot: “What was that?”

In 1968, the restored temple was given to the Society for the Conservation of Nature.

Not the worst option for those times. Canaries, siskins and goldfinches sang in the temple...

In 1991, the temple was returned to believers. The next year, on Trinity Parents' Saturday, a minor consecration of the temple took place.

The candles are lit..

P.S. Since 1998, the Nauka publishing house has been publishing the wonderful and in many ways unique series “Lore of the Russian Family.” As the epigraph to it, the creators of the series chose the words of Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, which can serve as the key to the discovery of the Russian 19th century from a completely new, little-studied side: “Together and in accordance with the beginning of the Christian faith, the beginning of the family is given out, the basis of all goodness to the earth.” The editorial board of the series included such well-known researchers of Russian culture as B. F. Egorov, V. A. Kotelnikov, N. N. Skatov, B. L. Bessonov, S. V. Valchuk, V. M. Kamnev, E. S. Lebedeva and Yu V. Stennik. The books are distinguished not only by their scientific integrity, but also by their rare delicacy in handling epistolary, memoir and other sources.

The position of the creators of the series was wonderfully expressed by Doctor of Philology Natalya Vladimirovna Volodina in her book about the Maykovs: “Interpreting someone else’s fate is a special responsibility. The defenselessness of people who have disappeared into oblivion obliges us to be extremely delicate and careful when explaining facts and deciphering subtexts, makes us feel that invisible border that cannot be crossed.”

Alas, in ten years only five books were published: “Aksakovs”, “Mukhanovs”, “Botkins”, “Tyutchevs”, “Maikovs”. The books in the series, which by design are addressed to the widest possible readership, are published in circulations ranging from one thousand to two thousand copies. Finding them in bookstores is almost impossible.

The “Year of the Family” is underway in Russia......

Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov came from an old but poor noble family. His father Timofey Stepanovich Aksakov was a provincial official. Mother - Maria Nikolaevna Aksakova, nee Zubova, was a very educated woman for her time. Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov came from an old but poor noble family. His father Timofey Stepanovich Aksakov was a provincial official. Mother - Maria Nikolaevna Aksakova, nee Zubova, was a very educated woman for her time.

Aksakov's childhood was spent in Ufa and Aksakov's childhood was spent in Ufa and on the Novo-Aksakovo estate, among the steppe nature. on the Novo-Aksakovo estate, among steppe nature. Pelageya played a major role in the upbringing of the future writer, who played the role of housekeeper and storyteller in the house. Pelageya played a major role in the upbringing of the future writer, who played the role of housekeeper and storyteller in the house.

At the age of 8, in 1801, Aksakov was assigned to the Kazan gymnasium. In 1804, thirteen-year-old Sergei Aksakov was among the 40 most capable gymnasium students. At the age of 8, in 1801, Aksakov was assigned to the Kazan gymnasium. In 1804, thirteen-year-old Sergei Aksakov became a student among the 40 most capable gymnasium students. Kazan University. During his studies, his literary interests and abilities began to manifest. becomes a student. Kazan University. During his studies, his literary interests and abilities began to manifest.

His literary activity began in 1821. But there was no time for creativity; I had to earn a living. Aksakov was forced to serve as an inspector of the Land Surveying School. In 1821, his literary activity began. But there was no time for creativity; I had to earn a living. Aksakov was forced to serve as an inspector of the Land Surveying School, and later became its director. and later became its director.

After the death of his father, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov received an inheritance and retired. He bought the Abramtsevo estate near Moscow and turned it into a unique house - a museum of Russian culture. Writers, artists and actors often visited here. After the death of his father, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov received an inheritance and retired. He bought the Abramtsevo estate near Moscow and turned it into a unique house - a museum of Russian culture. Writers, artists and actors often visited here.

In Abramtsevo, Aksakov wrote books about nature. Memories of childhood formed the basis of the autobiographical story “Family Chronicle” and the book “Childhood of Bagrov – Grandson.” In Abramtsevo, Aksakov wrote books about nature. Memories of childhood formed the basis of the autobiographical story “Family Chronicle” and the book “Childhood of Bagrov – Grandson.”

Let's remember the fairy tale! 1. Name the main character of the fairy tale. 1. Name the main character of the fairy tale. 2. Why did the merchant love his younger daughter more? 2. Why did the merchant love his younger daughter more? 3. What gifts did the merchant ask to bring to his daughter? 3. What gifts did the merchant ask to bring to his daughter? 4. What miracles happened to the merchant in the palace? 4. What miracles happened to the merchant in the palace? 5. How did the merchant meet the monster? 5. How did the merchant meet the monster? 6. What happened in the merchant’s house after his return? 6. What happened in the merchant’s house after his return?

7. How did the merchant’s daughter live in the forest monster’s palace? 7. How did the merchant’s daughter live in the forest monster’s palace? 8. Why did the monster refuse to show itself to the girl? 8. Why did the monster refuse to show itself to the girl? 9. How did the merchant’s daughter meet her father and sisters? Why did the sisters want to detain her? 9. How did the merchant’s daughter meet her father and sisters? Why did the sisters want to detain her? 10. What happened to the monster because the merchant’s daughter was late? 10. What happened to the monster because the merchant’s daughter was late? 11. Why did the merchant’s daughter fall in love with the forest beast and the miracle of the sea? 11. Why did the merchant’s daughter fall in love with the forest beast and the miracle of the sea? 12. What does this fairy tale teach? 12. What does this fairy tale teach?

" on the topic " "

Lesson 34

GENERALIZATION ON THE TOPIC “ABOUT OUR LESS BROTHERS”

– introduce students to S. Aksakov’s story “The Nest”;
– summarize knowledge on the topic “About our little brothers”;
– improve the skill of reading whole words, the skill of expressive reading;
– develop speech skills, memory, attention, thinking, creativity;
– continue to develop the ability to analyze works;
– cultivate a caring attitude towards nature and animals.

Equipment: puzzles; cards with riddles and excerpts from works; images of animals; encyclopedia about animals.

During the classes

I. Organizational moment.

II. Checking homework.

1. Exhibition of drawings about animals.
2. Retelling of N. Sladkov’s story “The Fox and the Hedgehog.”

III. Setting the lesson goal.

– What section of works did we get acquainted with in the last reading lessons?
– Why are animals called our little brothers?
– Today in class we will summarize our knowledge of works about animals and read a new story, the name of which is hidden in the rebus.

Answer: nest.

IV. Learning new material.

1. Speech minute.

- Read the tongue twister:

Cuckoo
Little Cuckoo
Bought
Hood.
Allotment
Cuckoo
Hood.
How funny he is in the hood!

2. Practicing reading skills.

You will open the windows to wonder -
Happy is knocking on the path,
Veselutik blooms by the river,
And the nightingales sing loudly,
And somewhere along distant roads
Nosomot and Begerog are wandering...
We will sooner enter wonderland with them -
There's a hurry right under the window,
Calls us to look and take a look:
What's behind the window?
Chu!.. Childhood!

– Explain the meaning of the highlighted words.

3. Reading the story “Nest” by S. Aksakov.

The teacher reads aloud S. Aksakov’s story “The Nest.”

4. Analysis of the work.

– What is this work about?
– What did the guys do when they noticed the birds’ nest?
– How did the guys watch the bird?
– What happened when the bird left the nest?
– When did the guys experience joy?
– How do you feel about the actions of the guys?
– Why shouldn’t you touch or destroy birds’ nests?
– Can children’s pranks be considered just a nuisance?
– Read the encrypted words:

Tsasini (tit)
tailgokari (redstart)
robin (sparrow)
kazor (dawn)
lubgo (dove)
wagtail (wagtail)

– Name those birds that we read about in S. Aksakov’s story. Why are birds called our friends?

Reference material for teachers.

If a person’s temperature rises to 38 degrees, he is put to bed. The person cannot work.

And the nightingale, with a temperature of 41–42 degrees, gives concerts, the thrush, whistling, plasters its nest.

We digest dinner for hours, but in a bird's hot body this happens in a few minutes. And again the bird wants to eat.

Hence the bird's gluttony. The food that a tit eats per day weighs more than it itself.

If you had the appetite of a pied flycatcher chick, you would have thirty breakfasts, fifty lunches, and twenty dinners a day!

Serving you breakfast, lunch and dinner, grandma would be knocked off her feet and faint.
No surprise! This is what happens with birds. Old starlings sometimes faint from fatigue near the nest.

But for us humans, the bird’s appetite only makes us happy: there will be fewer harmful larvae, caterpillars, flies and mosquitoes.

That's why we want birds to settle closer to us.

Let the gardening tit take apples from the garden, let the starling gardener clean up the garden beds, let the nurse flycatcher catch all the flies in the yard!

5. Reading works from the section “Colorful pages” on p. 76–77 textbook.

– Quickly read the poem by V. Berestov in whole words.
– Who is this poem about?
– What do chickens do?
– Read what song they sing.
– Read E. Blaginina’s poem expressively, observing punctuation marks.
– Who is this poem about?
– Why is a mouse afraid to live in a hole?
– Read the quatrain about a beetle.
-Where was the beetle’s house?
-What happened to his house?
– With what intonation should this poem be read?
– Read the poem about the mouse expressively.
– What does the mouse ask the mouse?
– Give the mouse a warning: “Quiet, don’t make noise!”
– Read expressively in whole words a poem about a funny bird.
– Why can’t a bird in the forest learn to sing like a rooster?
-What do you know about the cuckoo?

Reference material for teachers.

The cuckoo, like the woodpecker, if anyone has not seen it, has certainly heard it. Probably everyone knows that she lays eggs in other people's nests and that cuckoo chicks throw their owners' chicks out of the nest. But probably few people have heard about the cuckoo’s appetite. Thanks to her appetite, she completely atones for the harm that she causes by destroying the chicks of small birds. The cuckoo is an insectivorous bird, and also a big glutton. And most importantly, it eats caterpillars that other birds do not eat. After all, among the caterpillars there are hairy and even poisonous ones. And the cuckoo eats them all in a row. There are times when just a few cuckoos save large areas of forest from very dangerous pests.

Physical education minute

SANDPIPER

A young sandpiper climbed in
On the deck -
Plunging into the water.
He surfaced. Soaked. Got out. Dried out.
Got on the deck
- And again into the water.
Quite a sandpiper
He hung his head.
I remembered the young sandpiper,
What's behind him
Wings.
And he flew.

Children pronounce the text, then squat down, clasping their knees with their hands and hanging their heads low; repeat squats several times. Then they stand up, stretch their arms out to the sides and shake them. They jump in place, waving their arms.

V. Generalization of students' knowledge.

1. Crossword “Animals”.

– Look at the illustration:

– Solve the crossword puzzle and read the keyword.

Keyword: animals.

– Explain the words of N. Sladkov “We ​​are responsible not only for ourselves, but also for our smaller brothers.”
– What animals depicted in the crossword puzzle did we read about?
– What are the names of these works?
– Who is their author?

2. Quiz “Find out a work about animals.”

Students read excerpts from works written on cards and guess the title of the work and its author.

“We used to be caviar, qua-qua!
And now we’re all heroes, come on!..”
(V. Berestov “Frogs.”)

“...I came up with a name for the puppy,
I saw him in a dream..."
(I. Tokmakova “Buy a dog.”)

"…Everybody left
And one
In the house
They locked him up..."
(S. Mikhalkov “Trezor”.)

“...The animals came up to the box and began to examine it, sniff it and lick it...”
(D. Kharms “The Brave Hedgehog.”)

"You after a rough kick
Try calling the puppy!”
(S. Mikhalkov “Important advice.”)

“You, Hedgehog, are good and handsome to everyone, but thorns don’t suit you!..”
(N. Sladkov “The Fox and the Hedgehog.”)

“... – What’s a shame? We didn't do anything! - the boys were surprised..."
(V. Oseeva “The dog barked furiously.”)

3. Work in pairs.

– Choose the works that you liked best.
– Read them expressively in whole words to each other.

4. Riddles about animals.

- Guess the riddles and remember in what works we read about these animals.

Here are the needles and pins
They crawl out from under the bench,
They look at me
They want milk.
(Hedgehog.)

Who's on the tree, who's on the tree?
The score is kept by: “Ku-ku! Cuckoo!"?
(Cuckoo.)

Cheren, but not a raven,
Horned, but not a bull,
Six legs - no hooves,
It flies and howls,
He sits down and digs the ground.
(Bug.)

You stroke - he caresses,
You tease and it bites.
(Dog.)

Hidden under the floor
Afraid of cats.
(Mouse.)

The muzzle is mustachioed,
Striped fur coat,
Washing frequently
But I don’t know about water.
(Cat.)

He appeared in a yellow fur coat:
- Goodbye, two shells!
(Chick.)

The rope lies
The cheat hisses.
It's dangerous to take her -
It will bite.
Clear?
(Snake.)

5. Games of Grandfather Letter Eater.

Game “What kind of cancer?”

- The typesetter got all the letters mixed up, and one - a - even got lost.

Rearrange the letters in the correct order and you will read the name of a famous fairy tale and the name of its author. Don't forget about the lost a.

VI. Lesson summary.

- Which section of the work did we reread in class today?
– Who are called our little brothers?
- Why?
– What rules of conduct should you follow in nature? How should we treat animals?

Pre-prepared students read a poem.

SAVE THE EARTH!

Take care of the lark in the blue zenith,
A butterfly on a dodder stem,
There are sun glares on the path,
A crab playing on the stones,
Over the desert the shadow of the baobab tree,
A hawk soaring over a field
A clear month over the river calm.
A swallow flickering in life.
Take care of the Earth, take care!
Take care of the miracle of songs
Cities and villages
The darkness of the depths and the will of the heavens.
Revelation of earth and heaven -
The sweetness of life, milk and bread.
Take care of young shoots
At the green festival of nature,
The sky is filled with stars, the ocean and land.
And a soul that believes in immortality, -
All destinies are connected by threads,
Take care of the Earth, take care!
M. Dudin

Literature and library science

Aksakov's nest. Aksakov’s place and significance of his work in the history of Russian literature. Aksakov Sergei Timofeevich 17911859 his sons: Konstantin 18171860 Ivan 18231886. Aksakov was born in Ufa into an old noble family, father an official, mother daughter of a governor.

7. “Nest” of the Aksakovs. Creative path of S.T. Aksakov, the place and significance of his work in the history of Russian literature.

Aksakov Sergei Timofeevich (1791-1859), his sons: Konstantin (1817-1860), Ivan (1823-1886).

S.T. Aksakov was born in Ufa, into an old noble family, his father was an official, his mother was the daughter of a governor.

He spent his childhood in the Orenburg province, studied at the Kazan gymnasium (1801-1805), then at the Kazan University (1805-1807).

1808-1811 service in the commission for drafting laws, 1811 - leaves for Moscow, where he translates Schiller, Moliere, meets Derzhavin, Gogol.

He opposed the slavish imitation of the French.After 1812, a supporter of the Russian, his sons became Slavophiles.

1834 - publishes the essay “Buran” in the almanac “Dennitsa”" - the founder of landscape-descriptive literature. Aksakov wrote about what he observed personally or heard from his contemporaries. He worked as a censor and became close to the theater community.1834 - Aksakov buys Abramtsevo, where Gogol often visited him and listened to his oral stories.

Aksakov is going blind; his last works are being dictated by his sons. In Abramtsevo he began to write:“The Hunting Trilogy”, “Notes about Fishing”, “Notes of a Gun Hunter”, “Stories and Memories of Various Hunts”. “Notes of a Hunter” is distinguished by the reliability of the material.

Aksakov: “I can write only standing on the basis of reality, following the thread of an actual event. I don’t have the gift of pure fiction at all.”

Epigraph: “I’m going into the world of nature, into a world of peace and freedom.”

Turgenev: “I really like his style, it’s real Russian speech, good-natured and direct, flexible and dexterous. There is nothing pretentious or superfluous, tense or sluggish; the freedom and precision of expression are equally remarkable.”

IN " Notes of a Gun Hunter“More observation, “killing is not the goal for him.” We must protect our wealth: fish, animals. In Part 3 of “Memories of Hunting” he recalls funny incidents. There are different signs.

Turgenev: “Author of “Notes of a Gun Hunter”"looks at nature (animate and inanimate) not from some exclusive point of view, but as it should be looked at:clear, simple and with full participation, he doesn’t split hairs, doesn’t cheat, doesn’t plant extraneous intentions and goals on her. And before such a gaze, nature reveals itself completely to him and allows him to look into himself.”

Nekrasov and Chernyshevsky gave the works a very high rating.

He created his own autobiographical trilogy: “Family Chronicle” (1856), “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson” (1858), “Memoirs” (1856).

“Family Chronicle”: 5 excerpts:

1. Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov,

2. Mikhail Maksimovich Kurolesov,

3. Marriage of young Bagrov,

4. Young in Bagrovey,

5. Life in Ufa.

A wide panorama of landowner life at the end of the 18th century is recreated here.

Herzen: “This is a book of enormous importance and informativeness.”

Saltykov Shchedrin: “A precious contribution that has enriched Russian literature.” Dobrolyubov writes an article “The village life of a landowner in the old years” and “On various works of the Aksaks.”

The veracity of the story makes one think about moral relations. Aksakov is the founder of autobiographical prose.

“Childhood years of Bagrov the grandson.” Aksakov sets 2 tasks:

1. create thin. the history of the formation of a child in a fortress estate,

2. write a book for children.

Turgenev: “Your idea to write a child’s story for children is wonderful. The complex process of the formation of a child’s soul was reproduced by a writer wise in life, who managed to take an adult away from himself and transport himself into the soul of a child. Every day life confronts the inquisitive boy with serious problems. And nature itself and its people become a cause for his concern.”

Aksakov showed himself to be a wise teacher, in this work he depicted how children should be prepared for learning.

Konstantin Sergeevichknown as the creator of the Slavophile lyrical comedy "Prince Lupovitsky, or Arrival in the Village“, as a critic who polemicized with Belinsky on the topic of “Dead Souls.”

Ivan Sergeevich became famous for his publishing activities, as well as as the creator of the lyric-epic work “Mystery in three periods. Life of a Russian official”, where he criticizes officials for bribery; author of poems "Winter Road", "Tramp"».