What image opens the head of pop. “Who lives well in Rus'”

In front of you - summary Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'." The poem was intended as " folk book", an epic depicting an entire era in the life of the people. The poet himself spoke about his work like this:

“I decided to present in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” This will be an epic of modern peasant life.”

As you know, the poet did not finish the poem. Only the first of 4 parts was completed.

We did not shorten the main points that you should pay attention to. The rest is given in a brief summary.

Summary of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by chapter

Click on the desired chapter or part of the work to go to its summary

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Peasant woman

PART FOUR

Feast for the whole world

PART ONE

PROLOGUE - summary

In what year - calculate

In what land - guess

On the sidewalk

Seven men came together:

Seven temporarily obliged,

A tightened province,

Terpigoreva County,

Empty parish,

From adjacent villages:

Zaplatova, Dyryavina,

Razutova, Znobishina,

Gorelova, Neelova -

There is also a poor harvest,

They came together and argued:

Who has fun?

Free in Rus'?

Roman said: to the landowner,

“Demyan said: to the official,

Luke said: ass.

To the fat-bellied merchant! -

The Gubin brothers said,

Ivan and Metrodor.

Old man Pakhom pushed

And he said, looking at the ground:

To the noble boyar,

To the sovereign minister.

And Prov said: to the king...

The guy's a bull: he'll get in trouble

What a whim in the head -

Stake her from there

You can’t knock them out: they resist,

Everyone stands on their own!

The men argue and do not notice how evening comes. They lit a fire, went for vodka, had a snack, and again began to argue about who was living “fun, freely in Rus'.” The argument escalated into a fight. At this time, a chick flew up to the fire. I caught him with my groin. A warbler bird appears and asks to let the chick go. In return, she tells you how to find a self-assembled tablecloth. Pakhom releases the chick, the men follow the indicated path and find a self-assembled tablecloth. The men decide not to return home until they find out “for certain,” “Who lives happily, // Freely in Rus'.”

Chapter 1. Pop - summary

The men hit the road. They meet peasants, artisans, coachmen, soldiers, and the travelers understand that the life of these people cannot be called happy. Finally they meet a priest. He proves to the peasants that the priest has no peace, no wealth, no happiness - a diploma is difficult for a priest's son to get, and the priesthood is even more expensive. The priest can be called at any time of the day or night, in any weather. The priest has to see the tears of orphans and the death rattle of a dying man. But there is no honor for the priest - they make up “jokey tales // And obscene songs, // And all sorts of blasphemy” about him. The priest has no wealth either - rich landowners almost no longer live in Rus'. The men agree with the priest. They move on.

Chapter 2. Rural fair - summary

The men see meager living everywhere. A man bathes his horse in the river. The wanderers learn from him that all the people have gone to the fair. The men go there. At the fair, people bargain, have fun, walk, and drink. One man is crying in front of the people - he drank all his money, and his granddaughter is waiting for a treat at home. Pavlusha Veretennikov, nicknamed “the gentleman,” bought boots for his granddaughter. The old man is very happy. Wanderers watch a performance in a booth.

Chapter 3. Drunken night - summary

People return drunk after the fair.

People walk and fall

As if because of the rollers

Enemies with grapeshot

They're shooting at the men.

Some guy is burying a little girl, claiming at the same time that he is burying his mother. Women are quarreling in the ditch: who has a worse home? Yakim Nagoy says that “there is no measure for Russian drunkenness,” but it is also impossible to measure the people’s grief.

What follows is a story about Yakime Nagom, who previously lived in St. Petersburg, then went to prison due to a lawsuit with a merchant. Then he came to live in native village. He bought pictures with which he covered the hut and which he loved very much. There was a fire. Yakim rushed to save not the accumulated money, but pictures, which he later hung in the new hut. The people, returning, sing songs. Wanderers are sad about their own home, about their wives.

Chapter 4. Happy - summary

Wanderers walk among the festive crowd with a bucket of vodka. They promise it to someone who convinces him that he is truly happy. The first to arrive is the sexton, who says that he is happy because he believes in the kingdom of heaven. They don't give him vodka. An old woman comes up and says that she has a very large turnip in her garden. They laughed at her and didn’t give her anything either. A soldier comes with medals and says that he is happy that he is alive. They brought it to him.

A stonecutter approaches and talks about his happiness - about enormous power. His opponent is a thin man. He says that at one time God punished him for boasting in the same way. The contractor praised him at the construction site, and he was happy - he took the fourteen-pound burden and carried it to the second floor. Since then he has withered away. He goes home to die, an epidemic begins in the carriage, the dead are unloaded at the stations, but he still remains alive.

A servant comes, boasts that he was the prince’s favorite slave, that he licked plates with the remains of gourmet food, drank foreign drinks from glasses, and suffers from the noble disease of gout. He is driven away. A Belarusian comes up and says that his happiness lies in bread, which he just can’t get enough of. At home, in Belarus, he ate bread with chaff and bark. A man who had been killed by a bear came and said that his comrades died while hunting, but he remained alive. The man received vodka from the wanderers. Beggars boast that they are happy because they receive food often. The wanderers realize that they wasted vodka on “ peasant happiness" They are advised to ask Yermil Girin, who owned the mill, about happiness. By court decision, the mill is being sold at auction. Yermil won the bargain with the merchant Altynnikov; the clerks demanded a third of the price immediately, contrary to the rules. Yermil did not have money with him, which needed to be deposited within an hour, and it was a long way to go home.

He went out to the square and asked people to borrow as much as they could. They collected more money than was needed. Yermil gave the money, the mill became his, and the next Friday he paid off the debts. The wanderers wonder why the people believed Girin and gave him money. They answer him that he achieved this with the truth. Girin served as a clerk in the estate of Prince Yurlov. He served for five years and did not take anything from anyone, he was attentive to everyone. But he was kicked out, and a new clerk came in his place - a scoundrel and a grabber. After the death of the old prince new owner drove out all the old henchmen and ordered the peasants to elect a new mayor. Everyone unanimously elected Ermil. He served honestly, but one day he still committed a crime - his younger brother Mitri " fenced off“, and instead of him, Nenila Vlasyevna’s son became a soldier.

Since that time, Yermil has been sad - he doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, he says he’s a criminal. He said that he should be judged according to his conscience. Nenila Vlasvna’s son was returned, but Mitri was taken away, and a fine was imposed on Ermila. For another year after that, he was not himself, then he resigned from his position, no matter how much they begged him to stay.

The narrator advises going to Girin, but another peasant says that Yermil is in prison. A riot broke out and government troops were needed. To avoid bloodshed, they asked Girin to address the people.

The story is interrupted by the screams of a drunken footman suffering from gout - now he is suffering from beatings for theft. The wanderers are leaving.

Chapter 5. Landowner - summary

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev was

... "ruddy,

Stately, planted,

Sixty years old;

The mustache is gray, long,

Well done touches.

He mistook the men for robbers and even pulled out a pistol. But they told him what was the matter. Obolt-Obolduev laughs, gets out of the stroller and talks about the life of the landowners.

First he talks about the antiquity of his family, then he recalls the old days when

Not only Russian people,

Nature itself is Russian

She submitted to us.

Then the landowners lived well - luxurious feasts, a whole regiment of servants, own actors etc. The landowner remembers hound hunting, about unlimited power, as he Christed with all his estate “on Easter Sunday.”

Now there is decay everywhere - “ The noble class // It’s as if everything was hidden, // It died out!“The landowner cannot understand why the “idle scribblers” encourage him to study and work, after all, he is a nobleman. He says that he has lived in the village for forty years, but cannot distinguish a barley ear from a rye ear. The peasants think:

The great chain has broken,

It tore and splintered:

One end for the master,

Others don't care!..

PART TWO

The last one - summary

The wanderers walk and see hayfields. They take the women's braids and start mowing them. Music can be heard from the river - it’s a landowner riding in a boat. The gray-haired man Vlas urges the women on - they shouldn’t upset the landowner. Three boats moor to the shore, containing a landowner with his family and servants.

The old landowner walks around the hay, complains that the hay is damp, and demands that it be dried. He leaves with his retinue for breakfast. The wanderers ask Vlas (he turned out to be the burgomaster) why the landowner gives orders if serfdom cancelled. Vlas replies that they have a special landowner: when he learned about the abolition of serfdom, he had a stroke - the left half of his body was paralyzed, he lay motionless.

The heirs arrived, but the old man recovered. His sons told him about the abolition of serfdom, but he called them traitors, cowards, etc. Out of fear that they would be disinherited, his sons decide to indulge him in everything.

That’s why they persuade the peasants to make a joke, as if the peasants were returned to the landowners. But some peasants did not need to be persuaded. Ipat, for example, says: “ And I am the princes Utyatin’s slave - and that’s the whole story!“He remembers how the prince harnessed him to a cart, how he bathed him in an ice hole - he dipped him into one ice hole, pulled him out of another - and immediately gave him vodka.

The prince put Ipat on the box to play the violin. The horse stumbled, Ipat fell, and the sleigh ran over him, but the prince drove off. But after some time he returned. Ipat is grateful to the prince that he did not leave him to freeze. Everyone agrees to pretend that serfdom was not abolished.

Vlas does not agree to be burgomaster. Klim Lavin agrees to be it.

Klim has a conscience made of clay,

And Minin’s beard,

If you look, you'll think so

Why can't you find a peasant?

More mature and sober .

The old prince walks around and gives orders, the peasants laugh at him on the sly. The man Agap Petrov did not want to obey the orders of the old landowner, and when he caught him cutting down the forest, he told Utyatin directly about everything, calling him a fool. Ducky got the second blow. But contrary to the expectations of the heirs old prince recovered again and began to demand public flogging of Agap.

The latter is being persuaded by the whole world. They took him to the stables, put a glass of wine in front of him and told him to shout louder. He shouted so loudly that even Utyatin took pity. The drunk Agap was carried home. Soon he died: " The unscrupulous Klim ruined him, anathema, blame!»

Utyatin is sitting at the table at this time. Peasants stand at the porch. Everyone is putting on a comedy, as usual, except for one guy - he laughs. The guy is a newcomer, local customs are funny to him. Utyatin again demands punishment for the rebel. But the wanderers do not want to blame. The burgher's godfather saves the situation - she says that it was her son who laughed - a foolish boy. Utyatin calms down, has fun and swaggers over dinner. After lunch he dies. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But the joy of the peasants was premature: “ With the death of the Last One, the lordly caress disappeared».

PEASANT WOMAN (FROM PART THIRD)

Prologue - summary

The wanderers decide to search happy person among women. They are advised to go to the village of Klin and ask Matryona Timofeevna, nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Arriving in the village, the men see “poor houses.” The lackey he met explains that “The landowner is abroad, //And the steward is dying.” The wanderers meet Matryona Timofeevna.

Matrena Timofeevna

dignified woman,

Wide and dense

About thirty-eight years old.

Beautiful; gray streaked hair,

The eyes are large, strict,

The richest eyelashes,

Severe and dark.

The wanderers talk about their goal. The peasant woman replies that she has no time to talk about life now - she has to go reap rye. The men offer help. Matryona Timofeevna talks about her life.

Chapter 1 – Before marriage. Summary

Matryona Timofeevna was born into a friendly, non-drinking family and lived “like Christ in the bosom.” It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Then Matryona Timofeevna met her betrothed;

There's a stranger on the mountain!

Philip Korchagin - St. Petersburg resident,

Stove maker by skill.

Chapter 2 – Songs. Summary

Matryona Timofeevna ends up in someone else's house.

The family was huge

Grumpy... I'm in trouble

Happy maiden holiday to hell!

My husband went to work

I advised to remain silent and be patient...

As ordered, so done:

I walked with anger in my heart.

And I didn’t say too much

A word to no one.

In winter Philippus came,

Brought a silk handkerchief

Yes, I went for a ride on a sled

On Catherine's day,

And it was as if there was no grief!..

She says that her husband beat her only once, when her husband’s sister arrived and he asked to give her shoes, but Matryona hesitated. Philip went back to work, and Matryona’s son Demushka was born on Kazanskaya. Life in her mother-in-law's house has become even more difficult, but she endures:

Whatever they tell me, I work,

No matter how much they scold me, I remain silent.

Of the entire family, only grandfather Savely felt sorry for Matryona Timofeevna’s husband.

Chapter 3. Savely, the Holy Russian hero. Summary.

Matryona Timofeevna talks about Savelia.

With a huge gray mane,

Tea, twenty years uncut,

With a huge beard

Grandfather looked like a bear...<…>

... He's already hit the nail on the head,

According to fairy tales, a hundred years.

Grandfather lived in a special room,

Didn't like families

He didn’t let me into his corner;

And she was angry, barking,

His "branded, convict"

My own son was honoring.

Savely will not be angry,

He will go to his little room,

Reads the holy calendar, gets baptized

And suddenly he’ll say it cheerfully;

“Branded, but not a slave!”...

Savely tells Matryona why he is called “branded.” During his youth, the serf peasants of his village did not pay rent, did not go to corvée, because they lived in remote places and it was difficult to get there. The landowner Shalashnikov tried to collect rent, but was not very successful in this.

Shalashnikov tore excellently,

Not so great

I received income.

Soon Shalashnikov (he was a military man) is killed near Varna. His heir sends a German governor.

He forces the peasants to work. They themselves do not notice how they are cutting a clearing, i.e. it has now become easy to get to them.

And then came hard labor

Korezh peasant -

Ruined to the bone!<…>

The German has a death grip:

Until he lets you go around the world,

Without moving away, he sucks!

This went on for eighteen years. The German built a factory and ordered the digging of a well. The German began to scold those who were digging the well for idleness (Savely was among them). The peasants pushed the German into a hole and buried the hole. Next - hard labor, Savelig! tried to escape from it, but was caught. He spent twenty years in hard labor, another twenty in a settlement.

Chapter 4. Demushka. Summary

Matryona Timofeevna gave birth to a son, but her mother-in-law does not allow her to be with the child, since her daughter-in-law has started working less.

The mother-in-law insists that Matryona Timofeevna leave her son with his grandfather. Savely neglected to look after the child: “The old man fell asleep in the sun, // Fed Demidushka to the pigs // Silly grandfather!..” Matryona accuses her grandfather and cries. But it didn't end there:

The Lord was angry

He sent uninvited guests,

Unrighteous judges!

A doctor, a police officer, and the police appear in the village and accuse Matryona of intentionally killing a child. The doctor performs an autopsy, despite Matryona's requests. without desecration // To an honest burial // To betray the baby". They call her crazy. Grandfather Savely says that her madness lies in the fact that she went to the authorities without taking with her “ not a ruble, not a new thing.” Demushka is buried in closed coffin. Matryona Timofeevna cannot come to her senses, Savely, trying to console her, says that her son is now in heaven.

Chapter 5. She-Wolf - Summary

After Demushka died, Matryona “was not herself” and could not work. The father-in-law decided to teach her a lesson with the reins. The peasant woman bent down at his feet and asked: “Kill!” The father-in-law retreated. Day and night Matryona Timofeevna is at her son’s grave. Closer to winter, my husband arrived. Savely after the death of Demushka

For six days I lay hopelessly,

Then he went into the forests.

That's how grandpa sang, that's how he cried,

That the forest groaned! And in the fall

Went to repentance

To the Sand Monastery.

Every year Matryona gives birth to a child. Three years later, Matryona Timofeevna’s parents die. She goes to her son's grave to cry. Meets grandfather Savely there. He came from the monastery to pray for the “Deme of the Poor, for all the suffering Russian peasantry" Saveliy did not live long - “in the fall, the old man got some kind of deep wound on his neck, he died with difficulty...”. Savely spoke about the share of the peasants:

There are three paths for men:

Tavern, prison and penal servitude,

And the women in Rus'

Three loops: white silk,

The second is red silk,

And the third - black silk,

Choose any one! .

Four years have passed. Matryona came to terms with everything. One day, a pilgrim pilgrim comes to the village, she talks about the salvation of the soul, and demands from mothers that they not feed their babies milk on fasting days. Matryona Timofeevna did not listen. “Yes, apparently God is angry,” says the peasant woman. When her son Fedot was eight years old, he was sent to herd sheep. One day they brought Fedot and said that he had fed a sheep to a she-wolf. Fedot says that a huge, emaciated she-wolf appeared, grabbed the sheep and started running. Fedot caught up with her and took away the sheep, which was already dead. The she-wolf looked into his eyes pitifully and howled. It was clear from the bleeding nipples that she had wolf cubs in her lair. Fedot took pity on the she-wolf and gave her the sheep. Matryona Timofeevna, trying to save her son from flogging, asks for mercy from the landowner, who orders not the assistant shepherd to be punished, but “the impudent woman.”

Chapter 6. Difficult year. Summary.

Matryona Timofeevna says that the she-wolf did not appear in vain - there was a shortage of bread. The mother-in-law told the neighbors that Matryona had caused the famine by wearing a clean shirt on Christmas Day.

For my husband, for my protector,

I got off cheap;

And one woman

Not for the same thing

Killed to death with stakes.

Don't joke with the hungry!..

After the lack of bread came the recruitment drive. My brother's eldest husband was drafted into the army, so the family did not expect trouble. But Matryona Timofeevna’s husband is taken as a soldier out of turn. Life gets even harder. The children had to be sent around the world. The mother-in-law became even more grumpy.

Okay, don't get dressed,

Don't wash yourself white

The neighbors have sharp eyes,

Tongues out!

Walk on the quieter streets

Carry your head lower

If you're having fun, don't laugh

Don't cry out of sadness!..

Chapter 7. Governor's wife. Summary

Matryona Timofeevna is going to the governor. She has difficulty getting to the city because she is pregnant. He gives a ruble to the doorman to let him in. He says to come in two hours. Matryona Timofeevna arrives, the doorman takes another ruble from her. The governor's wife arrives and Matryona Timofeevna rushes to her asking for intercession. The peasant woman becomes ill. When she comes to, she is told that she has given birth to a child. The governor's wife, Elena Aleksandrovna, was very fond of Matryona Timofeevna, and looked after her son as if she were her own (she herself had no children). A messenger is sent to the village to sort everything out. My husband was returned.

Chapter 8. The Woman's Parable. Summary

The men ask if Matryona Timofeevna told them everything. She says that everyone, except that they survived the fire twice, suffered from anthrax three times, that instead of a horse she had to walk “in the harrow.” Matryona Timofeevna recalls the words of the holy pilgrim who went to "the heights of Athens»:

The keys to women's happiness,

From our free will

Abandoned, lost to God himself!<…>

Yes, they are unlikely to be found...

What kind of fish swallowed

Those keys are reserved,

In what seas is that fish

Walking - God forgot!

PART FOUR.

Feast for the whole world

Introduction - summary

There is a feast in the village. The feast was organized by Klim. They sent for the parish sexton Tryphon. He came with his seminarian sons Savvushka and Grisha.

... It was the eldest

Already nineteen years old;

Now I'm an archdeacon

I looked, and Gregory

Face thin, pale

And the hair is thin, curly,

With a hint of red.

Simple guys, kind,

Mowed, reaped, sowed

And drank vodka on holidays

On a par with the peasantry.

The clerk and the seminarians began to sing.

I. Bitter times - bitter songs - summary

CHEERFUL

“Eat the prison, Yasha! There’s no milk!”

- “Where is our cow?”

Take away, my light!

Master for offspring

I took her home."

It's nice to live for the people

Saint in Rus'!

“Where are our chickens?” -

The girls are screaming.

“Don’t yell, you fools!

The zemstvo court ate them;

I took another cart

Yes, he promised to wait..."

It's nice to live for the people

Saint in Rus'!

Broke my back

But the sauerkraut doesn’t wait!

Baba Katerina

I remembered - roars:

In the yard for over a year

Daughter... no dear!

It's nice to live for the people

Saint in Rus'!

Some of the kids

Lo and behold, there are no children:

The king will take the boys,

Master - daughters!

To one freak

Live forever with your family.

It's nice to live for the people

Saint in Rus'!

Then the Vakhlaks sang:

Corvée

Kalinushka is poor and unkempt,

He has nothing to show off,

Only the back is painted,

You don't know behind your shirt.

From bast shoes to gate

The skin is all ripped open

The belly swells with chaff.

Twisted, twisted,

Flogged, tormented,

Kalina barely walks.

He'll knock on the innkeeper's feet,

Sorrow will drown in wine,

It will only come back to haunt you on Saturday

From the master's stable to his wife...

The men remember the old order. One of the men recalls how one day their lady decided to mercilessly beat the one “who would say a strong word.” The men stopped arguing, but as soon as the will was announced, they lost their souls so much that “Priest Ivan was offended.” Another man talks about the exemplary slave Yakov the Faithful. The greedy landowner Polivanov had a faithful servant, Yakov. He was devoted to the master without limit.

Yakov appeared like this from his youth,

Yakov had only joy:

To groom, protect, please the master

Yes, rock my little nephew.

Jacob's nephew Grisha grew up and asked the master for permission to marry the girl Arina.

However, the master himself liked her. He gave Grisha as a soldier, despite Yakov's pleas. The slave started drinking and disappeared. Polivanov feels bad without Yakov. Two weeks later the slave returned. Polivanov is going to visit his sister, Yakov is taking him. They drive through the forest, Yakov turns into a remote place - Devil's Ravine. Polivanov is frightened and begs for mercy. But Yakov says that he is not going to get his hands dirty with murder, and hangs himself from a tree. Polivanov is left alone. He spends the whole night in the ravine, screaming, calling people, but no one responds. In the morning a hunter finds him. The landowner returns home, lamenting: “I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!

After the story, the men start an argument about who is more sinful - the innkeepers, the landowners, the peasants or the robbers. Klim Lavin fights with a merchant. Jonushka, the “humble mantis,” talks about the power of faith. His story is about the holy fool Fomushka, who called people to escape to the forests, but he was arrested and taken to prison. From the cart, Fomushka shouted: “They beat you with sticks, rods, whips, you will be beaten with iron rods!” In the morning, a military team arrived and the pacification and interrogations began, i.e. Fomushka’s prophecy “almost came true.” Jonah talks about Euphrosyne, the messenger of God, who during the cholera years “buries, heals, and tends to the sick.” Jonah Lyapushkin - praying mantis and wanderer. The peasants loved him and argued about who would be the first to shelter him. When he appeared, everyone brought out icons to meet him, and Jonah followed those whose icons he liked best. Jonah tells a parable about two great sinners.

ABOUT TWO GREAT SINNERS

The story was told to Jonah in Solovki by Father Pitirim. There were twelve robbers, whose chieftain was Kudeyar. They lived in a dense forest, plundered a lot of wealth, and killed a lot of innocent souls. From near Kyiv, Kudeyar took himself a beautiful girl. Unexpectedly, “the Lord awakened the conscience” of the robber. Kudeyar " He blew off his mistress's head // And spotted Esaul" Came home with a tartar in monastic clothes y,” day and night he prays to God for forgiveness. The saint of the Lord appeared in front of Kudeyar. He pointed to a huge oak tree and said: “ With the same knife that robbed him, // Cut him with the same hand!..<…>The tree will just fall, // The chains of sin will fall" Kudeyar begins to do what he was told. Time passes, and Pan Glukhovsky drives by. He asks what Kudeyar is doing.

A lot of cruel, scary

The old man heard about the master

And as a lesson to the sinner

He told his secret.

Pan grinned: “Salvation

I haven't had tea for a long time,

In the world I honor only a woman,

Gold, honor and wine.

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

How many slaves do I destroy?

I torment, torture and hang,

I wish I could see how I’m sleeping!”

The hermit becomes furious, attacks the master and plunges a knife into his heart. At that very moment the tree collapsed, and the load of sins fell from the old man.

III. Both old and new - summary

PEASANT SIN

One admiral for military service, for the battle with the Turks near Ochakov, the empress granted eight thousand souls of peasants. Dying, he gives the casket to Gleb the elder. The casket is ordered to be taken care of, since it contains a will according to which all eight thousand souls will receive their freedom. After the death of the admiral, a distant relative appears on the estate, promises the headman a lot of money, and the will is burned. Everyone agrees with Ignat that this big sin. Grisha Dobrosklonov talks about the freedom of the peasants, that “there will be no new Gleb in Rus'.” Vlas wishes Grisha wealth and a smart and healthy wife. Grisha in response:

I don't need any silver

Not gold, but God willing,

So that my fellow countrymen

And every peasant

Life was free and fun

All over holy Rus'!

A cart with hay is approaching. The soldier Ovsyannikov is sitting on the cart with his niece Ustinyushka. The soldier made his living with the help of a raik - a portable panorama that showed objects through a magnifying glass. But the instrument broke. The soldier then came up with new songs and began to play the spoons. Sings a song.

Soldier's Toshen light,

There is no truth

Life is sickening

The pain is severe.

German bullets

Turkish bullets,

French bullets

Russian sticks!

Klim notices that in his yard there is a log on which he has been chopping wood since his youth. She is “not as wounded” as Ovsyannikov. However, the soldier did not receive full board, since the doctor’s assistant, when examining the wounds, said that they were second-rate. The soldier submits a petition again.

IV. Good time - good songs - summary.

Grisha and Savva take their father home and sing:

Share of the people

His happiness.

Light and freedom

First of all!

We're a little

We ask God:

Fair deal

Do it skillfully

Give us strength!

Working life -

Direct to friend

Road to the heart

Away from the threshold

Coward and lazy!

Isn't it heaven?

Share of the people

His happiness.

Light and freedom

First of all!

Father fell asleep, Savvushka took up his book, and Grisha went into the field. Grisha has a thin face - they were underfed by the housekeeper at the seminary. Grisha remembers his mother Domna, whose favorite son he was. Sings a song:

In the middle of the world below

For a free heart

There are two ways.

Weigh the proud strength,

Weigh your strong will, -

Which way to go?

One spacious

The road is rough,

The passions of a slave,

It's huge,

Greedy for temptation

There's a crowd coming.

About sincere life,

About the lofty goal

The idea there is funny.

Eternal boils there,

Inhuman

Enmity-war.

For mortal blessings...

There are souls captive there

Full of sin.<…>

The other one is tight

The road is honest

They walk along it

Only strong souls

Loving,

To fight, to work.

For the bypassed

For the oppressed -

In their footsteps

Go to the downtrodden

Go to the offended -

Be the first there.

No matter how dark the vahlachina is,

No matter how crammed with corvée

And slavery - and she,

Having been blessed, I placed

In Grigory Dobrosklonov

Such a messenger.

Fate had in store for him

The path is glorious, the name is loud

People's Defender,

Consumption and Siberia.

Grisha sings a song about the bright future of his Motherland: “ You are still destined to suffer a lot, //But you will not die, I know" Grisha sees a barge hauler who, having completed his work, jingling coppers in his pocket, goes to the tavern. Grisha sings another song.

RUS

You're miserable too

You are also abundant

You are mighty

You are also powerless

Mother Rus'!

Saved in slavery

Free heart -

Gold, gold

People's heart!

People's power

Mighty force -

Conscience is calm,

The truth is alive!

Strength with untruth

They don't get along

Sacrifice by untruth

Not called -

Rus' does not move,

Rus' is like dead!

And she caught fire

Hidden spark -

They stood up - unwounded,

They came out - uninvited,

Live by the grain

The mountains have been destroyed!

The army rises -

Countless!

The strength in her will affect

Indestructible!

You're miserable too

You are also abundant

You're downtrodden

You are omnipotent

Mother Rus'!..

Grisha is pleased with his song:

He heard the immense strength in his chest,

The sounds of grace delighted his ears,

The radiant sounds of the noble hymn -

He sang the embodiment of people's happiness!..

I hope this summary of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” helped you prepare for your Russian literature lesson.

The first chapter tells about a meeting between truth-seekers and a priest. What is its ideological and artistic meaning? Expecting to find someone happy “at the top,” men are primarily guided by the opinion that the basis of every person’s happiness is “wealth,” and as long as they encounter “craftsmen, beggars, / Soldiers, coachmen” and “their brother, a peasant-basket-maker,” neither thoughts ask

How is it for them - is it easy or difficult?

Lives in Rus'?

It’s clear: “What happiness is there?”

And the picture of a cold spring with poor shoots in the fields, and the sad view of Russian villages, and the background with the participation of a poor, tormented people - all inspires wanderers and the reader with disturbing thoughts about the people's fate, thereby preparing them internally for a meeting with the first “lucky one” - the priest. The priest's happiness in Luke's view is depicted as follows:

The priests live like princes...

Raspberries are not life!

Popova porridge - with butter,

Popov pie - with filling,

Popov's cabbage soup - with smelt!

etc.

And when the men ask the priest whether the priest’s life is sweet, and when they agree with the priest that the prerequisites for happiness are “peace, wealth, honor,” it seems that the priest’s confession will follow the path outlined by Luke’s colorful sketch. But Nekrasov gives the movement of the main idea of ​​the poem an unexpected twist. The priest took the peasants' issue very seriously. Before telling them the “truth, the truth,” he “looked down, thought,” and began to talk not at all about “porridge with butter.”

In the chapter “Pop,” the problem of happiness is revealed not only in a social sense (“Is the life of a priest sweet?”), but also in a moral and psychological sense (“How are you living at ease, happily / Are you living, honest father?”). Answering the second question, the priest in his confession is forced to talk about what he sees as the true happiness of a person. The narration in connection with the priest's story acquires a high teaching pathos.

The truth-seekers met not a high-ranking shepherd, but an ordinary rural priest. The lower rural clergy in the 60s constituted the largest layer of the Russian intelligentsia. As a rule, rural priests knew life well common people. Of course, this lower clergy was not homogeneous: there were cynics, drunkards, and money-grubbers, but there were also those who were close to the needs of the peasants and understood their aspirations. Among the rural clergy there were people who were in opposition to the higher church circles and to the civil authorities. We must not forget that a significant part of the democratic intelligentsia of the 60s came from among the rural clergy.

The image of the priest encountered by the wanderers is not without its own kind of tragedy. This is the type of person characteristic of the 60s, an era of historical rupture, when the feeling of catastrophe modern life or pushed honest and thinking people the dominant environment on the path of struggle, or was driven into a dead end of pessimism and hopelessness. The priest drawn by Nekrasov is one of those humane and moral people who live an intense spiritual life, observe with anxiety and pain the general ill-being, painfully and truthfully striving to determine their place in life. For such a person, happiness is impossible without peace of mind, satisfaction with oneself, with one’s life. There is no peace in the life of the “examined” priest, not only because

Sick, dying,

Born into the world

They don't choose time

and the priest must go wherever he is called at any time. Much heavier than physical fatigue is moral torment: “the soul will get tired, it will hurt” look at human suffering, on the mountain of a poor, orphaned, family that has lost its breadwinner. The priest remembers with pain those moments when

The old woman, the mother of the dead man,

Look, he's reaching out with the bony one

Calloused hand.

The soul will turn over,

How they jingle in this little hand

Two copper coins!

Painting before his listeners a stunning picture of popular poverty and suffering, the priest not only denies the possibility of his own personal happiness in an atmosphere of nationwide grief, but instills an idea that, using Nekrasov’s later poetic formula, can be expressed in words:

Happiness of noble minds

See contentment around.

The priest of the first chapter is not indifferent to the people's fate, and he is not indifferent to the people's opinion. What kind of respect do people have for the priest?

Who do you call

Foal breed?

...Who are you writing about?

You are joker fairy tales

And the songs are obscene

And all sorts of blasphemy?..

These direct questions from the priest to the wanderers reveal the disrespectful attitude towards the clergy found among the peasants. And although the truth-seekers are embarrassed in front of the priest standing next to him for the popular opinion that is so offensive to him (the wanderers “groan, shift,” “look down, remain silent”), they do not deny the prevalence of this opinion. The well-known validity of the hostile and ironic attitude of the people towards the clergy is proven by the priest’s story about the sources of the priest’s “wealth”. Where is it from? Bribes, handouts from landowners, but the main source of priestly income is collecting the last pennies from the people (“Live from the peasants alone”). The priest understands that “the peasant himself is in need,” that

With so much work for pennies

Life is hard.

He can't forget these copper nickels, jingling in the old woman’s hand, but even he, honest and conscientious, takes them, these pennies of work, because “if you don’t take it, there’s nothing to live on.” The confession story of the priest is structured as his judgment over the life of the class to which he himself belongs, a trial over the life of his “spiritual brethren”, over his own life, because collecting people's pennies is a source of eternal pain for him.

As a result of a conversation with the priest, truth-seekers begin to understand that “man does not live by bread alone,” that “porridge with butter” is not enough for happiness if you have it alone, that to an honest man living on the backbone is hard, and those who live on other people’s labor and lies are worthy only of condemnation and contempt. Happiness based on untruth is not happiness - this is the conclusion of the wanderers.

Well, here's what you've praised,

Popov's life -

They attack “with selective strong abuse / On poor Luka.”

Consciousness of the inner rightness of one’s life is required condition human happiness - the poet teaches the contemporary reader.

PROLOGUE

On the main road in Pustoporozhnaya volost, seven men meet: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Prov, old man Pakhom, brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin. They come from neighboring villages: Neurozhayki, Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova and Neelova. Men argue about who lives well and freely in Rus'. Roman believes that the landowner, Demyan - the official, and Luka - the priest. Old man Pakhom claims that a minister lives best, the Gubin brothers live best as a merchant, and Prov thinks that he is a king.

It's starting to get dark. The men understand that, carried away by the argument, they have walked thirty miles and now it is too late to return home. They decide to spend the night in the forest, light a fire in the clearing and again begin to argue, and then even fight. Their noise causes all the forest animals to scatter, and a chick falls out of the warbler’s nest, which Pakhom picks up. The mother warbler flies up to the fire and asks in a human voice to let her chick go. For this, she will fulfill any desire of the peasants.

The men decide to go further and find out which of them is right. Warbler tells where you can find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed and water them on the road. The men find a self-assembled tablecloth and sit down to feast. They agree not to return home until they find out who has the best life in Rus'.

Chapter I. Pop

Soon the travelers meet the priest and tell the priest that they are looking for “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.” They ask the church minister to answer honestly: is he satisfied with his fate?

The priest replies that he carries his cross with humility. If men think that happy life- this is peace, honor and wealth, then he has nothing like that. People don't choose the time of their death. So they call the priest to the dying person, even in the pouring rain, even in the bitter cold. And sometimes the heart cannot stand the tears of widows and orphans.

There is no talk of any honor. They make up all sorts of stories about priests, laugh at them and consider meeting with a priest bad omen. And the wealth of the priests is not what it used to be. Previously, when noble people lived on their family estates, the incomes of the priests were quite good. The landowners gave rich gifts, were baptized and married in the parish church. Here they had a funeral service and were buried. These were the traditions. And now nobles live in capitals and “abroads”, where they celebrate all church rites. But you can’t take much money from poor peasants.

The men bow respectfully to the priest and move on.

CHAPTER II. Country fair

The travelers pass several empty villages and ask: where have all the people gone? It turns out that there is a fair in the neighboring village. The men decide to go there. There are a lot of dressed-up people walking around the fair, selling everything from plows and horses to scarves and books. There are a lot of goods, but there are even more drinking establishments.

Old man Vavila is crying near the bench. He drank all the money and promised his granddaughter goatskin boots. Pavlusha Veretennikov approaches his grandfather and buys shoes for the girl. The delighted old man grabs his shoes and hurries home. Veretennikov is known in the area. He loves to sing and listen to Russian songs.

CHAPTER III. drunken night

After the fair, there are drunk people on the road. Some wander, some crawl, and some even lie in the ditch. Moans and endless drunken conversations can be heard everywhere. Veretennikov is talking with peasants at a road sign. He listens and writes down songs and proverbs, and then begins to reproach the peasants for drinking too much.

A well-drunk man named Yakim gets into an argument with Veretennikov. He says that the common people have accumulated a lot of grievances against landowners and officials. If you didn’t drink, it would be a big disaster, but all the anger dissolves in vodka. There is no measure for men in drunkenness, but is there any measure in grief, in hard work?

Veretennikov agrees with such reasoning and even drinks with the peasants. Here the travelers hear a beautiful young song and decide to look for the lucky ones in the crowd.

CHAPTER IV. Happy

Men walk around and shout: “Come out happy! We’ll pour some vodka!” People crowded around. The travelers began to ask about who was happy and how. They pour it to some, they just laugh at others. But the conclusion from the stories is this: a man’s happiness lies in the fact that he sometimes ate his fill, and God protected him in difficult times.

The men are advised to find Ermila Girin, whom the whole neighborhood knows. One day, the cunning merchant Altynnikov decided to take the mill away from him. He came to an agreement with the judges and declared that Ermila needed to immediately pay a thousand rubles. Girin did not have that kind of money, but he went to the marketplace and asked honest people to chip in. The men responded to the request, and Ermil bought the mill, and then returned all the money to the people. For seven years he was mayor. During that time, I didn’t pocket a single penny. Only once did he exclude his younger brother from the recruits, but then he repented in front of all the people and left his post.

The wanderers agree to look for Girin, but the local priest says that Yermil is in prison. Then a troika appears on the road, and in it is a gentleman.

CHAPTER V. Landowner

The men stop the troika, in which the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is riding, and ask how he lives. The landowner begins to remember the past with tears. Previously, he owned the entire district, he kept a whole regiment of servants and gave holidays with dances, theatrical performances and hunting. Now “the great chain has broken.” The landowners have land, but there are no peasants to cultivate it.

Gavrila Afanasyevich was not used to working. It’s not a noble thing to do housekeeping. He only knows how to walk, hunt, and steal from the treasury. Now his family nest has been sold for debts, everything is stolen, and the men drink day and night. Obolt-Obolduev bursts into tears, and the travelers sympathize with him. After this meeting, they understand that they need to look for happiness not among the rich, but in the “Unbroken province, Ungutted volost...”.

PEASANT WOMAN

PROLOGUE

The wanderers decide to search happy people among women. In one village they are advised to find Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Soon the men find this beautiful, dignified woman of about thirty-seven. But Korchagina doesn’t want to talk: it’s hard, the bread needs to be removed urgently. Then the travelers offer their help in the field in exchange for a story of happiness. Matryona agrees.

Chapter I. Before marriage

Korchagina spends her childhood in a non-drinking, friendly family, in an atmosphere of love from her parents and brother. Cheerful and agile Matryona works a lot, but also loves to go for a walk. A stranger, the stove maker Philip, is wooing her. They are having a wedding. Now Korchagina understands: she was only happy in her childhood and girlhood.

Chapter II. Songs

Philip brings his young wife to his large family. It’s not easy there for Matryona. Her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sisters-in-law do not allow her to live, they constantly reproach her. Everything happens exactly as it is sung in the songs. Korchagina endures. Then her first-born Demushka is born - like the sun in a window.

The master's manager pesters a young woman. Matryona avoids him as best she can. The manager threatens to give Philip a soldier. Then the woman goes for advice to grandfather Savely, the father-in-law, who is one hundred years old.

Chapter III. Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Savely looks like a huge bear. He for a long time served hard labor for murder. The cunning German manager sucked all the juice out of the serfs. When he ordered four hungry peasants to dig a well, they pushed the manager into the hole and covered it with earth. Among these killers was Savely.

CHAPTER IV. Demushka

The old man's advice was of no use. The manager, who did not allow Matryona passage, suddenly died. But then another problem happened. The young mother was forced to leave Demushka under the supervision of her grandfather. One day he fell asleep, and the child was eaten by pigs.

The doctor and the judges arrive, perform an autopsy, and interrogate Matryona. She is accused of intentionally killing a child, in conspiracy with an old man. The poor woman is almost losing her mind with grief. And Savely goes to the monastery to atone for his sin.

CHAPTER V. She-Wolf

Four years later, the grandfather returns, and Matryona forgives him. When Korchagina’s eldest son, Fedotushka, turns eight years old, the boy is given to help as a shepherd. One day the she-wolf manages to steal a sheep. Fedot chases after her and snatches out the already dead prey. The she-wolf is terribly thin, she leaves a bloody trail behind her: she cut her nipples on the grass. The predator looks doomedly at Fedot and howls. The boy feels sorry for the she-wolf and her cubs. He leaves the carcass of a sheep to the hungry beast. For this, the villagers want to whip the child, but Matryona accepts the punishment for her son.

CHAPTER VI. Difficult year

A hungry year is coming, in which Matryona is pregnant. Suddenly news comes that her husband is being recruited as a soldier. The eldest son from their family is already serving, so they shouldn’t take the second one, but the landowner doesn’t care about the laws. Matryona is horrified; pictures of poverty and lawlessness appear before her, because her only breadwinner and protector will not be there.

CHAPTER VII. Governor's wife

The woman walks into the city and arrives at the governor’s house in the morning. She asks the doorman to arrange a date for her with the governor. For two rubles, the doorman agrees and lets Matryona into the house. At this time, the governor's wife comes out of her chambers. Matryona falls at her feet and falls into unconsciousness.

When Korchagina comes to her senses, she sees that she has given birth to a boy. The kind, childless governor’s wife fusses with her and the child until Matryona recovers. Together with her husband, who was released from service, the peasant woman returns home. Since then, she has not tired of praying for the health of the governor.

Chapter VIII. The Old Woman's Parable

Matryona ends her story with an appeal to wanderers: do not look for happy people among women. The Lord dropped the keys to women's happiness into the sea, and they were swallowed by a fish. Since then they have been looking for those keys, but they can’t find them.

LAST

Chapter I

I

Travelers come to the banks of the Volga to the village of Vakhlaki. There are beautiful meadows there and haymaking is in full swing. Suddenly music sounds and boats land on the shore. It is old Prince Utyatin who has arrived. He inspects the mowing and swears, and the peasants bow and ask for forgiveness. The men are amazed: everything is like under serfdom. They turn to the local mayor Vlas for clarification.

II

Vlas gives an explanation. The prince became terribly angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein, and he was struck down. After that, Utyatin began to act weird. He doesn’t want to believe that he no longer has power over the peasants. He even promised to curse his sons and disinherit them if they spoke such nonsense. So the heirs of the peasants asked them to pretend in front of the master that everything was as before. And for this they will be granted the best meadows.

III

The prince sits down to breakfast, which the peasants gather to gawk at. One of them, the biggest quitter and drunkard, long ago volunteered to play the steward in front of the prince instead of the rebellious Vlas. So he crawls in front of Utyatin, and the people can barely contain their laughter. One, however, cannot cope with himself and laughs. The prince turns blue with anger and orders the rebel to be flogged. One lively peasant woman comes to the rescue, telling the master that her son, the fool, laughed.

The prince forgives everyone and sets off on the boat. Soon the peasants learn that Utyatin died on the way home.

A Feast FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin

Introduction

The peasants rejoice at the death of the prince. They walk and sing songs, and the former servant of Baron Sineguzin, Vikenty, tells an amazing story.

About the exemplary slave - Yakov Verny

There lived one very cruel and greedy landowner, Polivanov, who had a faithful servant, Yakov. The man suffered a lot from the master. But Polivanov’s legs became paralyzed, and faithful Yakov became an indispensable person for the disabled man. The master is not overjoyed with the slave, calling him his brother.

Yakov’s beloved nephew once decided to get married, and asks the master to marry the girl whom Polivanov had his eye on for himself. The master, for such insolence, gives up his rival as a soldier, and Yakov, out of grief, goes on a drinking binge. Polivanov feels bad without an assistant, but the slave returns to work after two weeks. Again the master is pleased with the servant.

But new trouble already on the way. On the way to the master's sister, Yakov suddenly turns into a ravine, unharnesses the horses, and hangs himself by the reins. All night the master drives away the crows from the poor body of the servant with a stick.

After this story, the men argued about who was more sinful in Rus': landowners, peasants or robbers? And the pilgrim Ionushka tells the following story.

About two great sinners

Once upon a time there was a gang of robbers led by Ataman Kudeyar. The robber destroyed many innocent souls, but the time has come - he began to repent. And he went to the Holy Sepulcher, and received the schema in the monastery - everyone does not forgive sins, his conscience torments him. Kudeyar settled in the forest under a hundred-year-old oak tree, where he dreamed of a saint who showed him the way to salvation. The murderer will be forgiven when he cuts down this oak tree with the knife that killed people.

Kudeyar began to saw the oak tree in three circles with a knife. Things are going slowly, because the sinner is already advanced in age and weak. One day, the landowner Glukhovsky drives up to the oak tree and begins to mock the old man. He beats, tortures and hangs slaves as much as he wants, but sleeps peacefully. Here Kudeyar flows into terrible anger and kills the landowner. The oak tree immediately falls, and all the robber’s sins are immediately forgiven.

After this story, the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov begins to argue and prove that the most serious sin is the peasant sin. Here is his story.

Peasant sin

For military services, the admiral receives from the empress eight thousand souls of serfs. Before his death, he calls the elder Gleb and hands him a casket, and in it - free food for all the peasants. After the death of the admiral, the heir began to pester Gleb: he gives him money, free money, just to get the treasured casket. And Gleb trembled and agreed to give important documents. So the heir burned all the papers, and eight thousand souls remained in the fortress. The peasants, after listening to Ignatius, agree that this sin is the most serious.

The history of the poem

Nikolai Nekrasov began working on his work in the early 1860s and completed the first part five years later. The prologue was published in the January issue of Sovremennik magazine for 1866. Then painstaking work began on the second part, which was called “The Last One” and was published in 1972. The third part, entitled “Peasant Woman,” was published in 1973, and the fourth, “A Feast for the Whole World,” was published in the fall of 1976, that is, three years later. It’s a pity that the author of the legendary epic was never able to fully complete his plans - the writing of the poem was interrupted by his untimely death in 1877. However, even after 140 years, this work remains important for people; it is read and studied by both children and adults. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is included in the required school curriculum.

Part 1. Prologue: who is the happiest in Rus'

So, the prologue tells how seven men meet on a highway and then go on a journey to find a happy man. To whom on Rus' lives freely, happily and cheerfully - here main question curious travelers. Everyone, arguing with another, believes that he is right. Roman shouts that the most a good life at the landowner's, Demyan claims that the official has a wonderful life, Luka proves that it is still the priest, the rest also express their opinion: “to the noble boyar”, “to the fat-bellied merchant”, “to the sovereign’s minister” or to the tsar.

Such a disagreement leads to an absurd fight, which is observed by birds and animals. It is interesting to read how the author reflects their surprise at what is happening. Even the cow “came to the fire, fixed her eyes on the men, listened to the crazy speeches and began, dear heart, to moo, moo, moo!..”

Finally, having kneaded each other's sides, the men came to their senses. They saw a tiny chick of a warbler fly up to the fire, and Pakhom took it in his hands. The travelers began to envy the little birdie, who could fly wherever she wanted. They were talking about what everyone wanted, when suddenly... the bird spoke in a human voice, asking to release the chick and promising a large ransom for it.

The bird showed the men the way to where the real self-assembled tablecloth was buried. Wow! Now you can definitely live without having to worry. But the smart wanderers also asked that their clothes not wear out. “And this will be done by a self-assembled tablecloth,” said the warbler. And she kept her promise.

The men began to live a well-fed and cheerful life. But they haven’t yet resolved the main question: who lives well in Rus' after all? And the friends decided not to return to their families until they found the answer to it.

Chapter 1. Pop

On the way, the men met a priest and, bowing low, asked him to answer “in good conscience, without laughter and without cunning,” whether life was really good for him in Rus'. What the priest said dispelled the seven curious people’s ideas about his happy life. No matter how harsh the circumstances may be - a dead autumn night, or a severe frost, or a spring flood - the priest has to go where he is called, without arguing or contradicting. The work is not easy, and besides, the groans of people leaving for another world, the cries of orphans and the sobs of widows completely upset the peace of the priest’s soul. And only outwardly it seems that the priest is held in high esteem. In fact, he is often the target of ridicule among the common people.

Chapter 2. Rural fair

Further, the road leads purposeful wanderers to other villages, which for some reason turn out to be empty. The reason is that all the people are at the fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. And it was decided to go there to ask people about happiness.

The life of the village gave the men some not very pleasant feelings: there were a lot of drunks around, everything was dirty, dull, and uncomfortable. They also sell books at the fair, but they are of low quality; Belinsky and Gogol cannot be found here.

By evening everyone becomes so drunk that even the church with its bell tower seems to be shaking.

Chapter 3. Drunken night

At night the men are on the road again. They hear drunk people talking. Suddenly attention is drawn to Pavlusha Veretennikov, who is making notes in a notebook. He collects peasant songs and sayings, as well as their stories. After everything that has been said is captured on paper, Veretennikov begins to reproach the assembled people for drunkenness, to which he hears objections: “the peasant drinks mainly because he is in grief, and therefore it is impossible, even a sin, to reproach him for this.

Chapter 4. Happy

The men do not deviate from their goal - to find a happy person at any cost. They promise to reward with a bucket of vodka the one who tells that he is the one who lives freely and cheerfully in Rus'. Drinkers fall for such a “tempting” offer. But no matter how colorfully they try to paint the gloomy everyday life Those who want to get drunk for nothing, nothing comes of it. The stories of an old woman who had up to a thousand turnips, a sexton who rejoices when someone pours a drink for him; the paralyzed former servant, who for forty years licked the master's plates with the best French truffle, does not at all impress the stubborn seekers of happiness on Russian soil.

Chapter 5. Landowner.

Maybe luck will smile on them here - the seekers of the happy Russian man assumed when they met the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev on the road. At first he was frightened, thinking that he had seen robbers, but having learned about the unusual desire of the seven men who blocked his way, he calmed down, laughed and told his story.

Maybe before the landowner considered himself happy, but not now. After all, in old times Gabriel Afanasyevich was the owner of the entire district, a whole regiment of servants, and organized holidays with theatrical performances and dances. He didn’t even hesitate to invite peasants to the manor’s house to pray on holidays. Now everything has changed: the Obolta-Obolduev family estate was sold for debts, because, left without peasants who knew how to cultivate the land, the landowner, who was not used to working, suffered heavy losses, which led to a disastrous outcome.

Part 2. The Last One

The next day, the travelers went to the banks of the Volga, where they saw a large hay meadow. Before they had time to talk to local residents, as we noticed three boats at the pier. It turns out that this is a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, their children, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman named Utyatin. Everything in this family, to the surprise of the travelers, happens according to such a scenario, as if the abolition of serfdom had never happened. It turns out that Utyatin became very angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein and fell ill with a blow, threatening to deprive his sons of their inheritance. To prevent this from happening, they came up with a cunning plan: they persuaded the peasants to play along with the landowner, posing as serfs. They promised the best meadows as a reward after the master’s death.

Utyatin, hearing that the peasants were staying with him, perked up, and the comedy began. Some even liked the role of serfs, but Agap Petrov could not come to terms with his shameful fate and expressed everything to the landowner’s face. For this the prince sentenced him to flogging. The peasants played a role here too: they took the “rebellious” one to the stable, put wine in front of him and asked him to shout louder, for visibility. Alas, Agap could not bear such humiliation, got very drunk and died that same night.

Next, the Last One (Prince Utyatin) arranges a feast, where, barely moving his tongue, he makes a speech about the advantages and benefits of serfdom. After this, he lies down in the boat and gives up the ghost. Everyone is glad that they finally got rid of the old tyrant, however, the heirs are not even going to fulfill their promise, given to those who played the role of serfs. The hopes of the peasants were not justified: no one gave them any meadows.

Part 3. Peasant woman.

No longer hoping to find a happy person among men, the wanderers decided to ask women. And from the lips of a peasant woman named Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina they hear a very sad and, one might say, scary story. Only in her parents' house was she happy, and then, when she married Philip, rosy-cheeked and strong guy, a hard life began. The love did not last long, because the husband left to work, leaving his young wife with his family. Matryona works tirelessly and sees no support from anyone except the old man Savely, who lives a century after hard labor that lasted twenty years. Only one joy appears in her difficult fate - her son Demushka. But suddenly a terrible misfortune befell the woman: it is impossible to even imagine what happened to the child due to the fact that the mother-in-law did not allow her daughter-in-law to take him with her to the field. Due to an oversight by his grandfather, the boy is eaten by pigs. What a mother's grief! She mourns Demushka all the time, although other children were born in the family. For their sake, a woman sacrifices herself, for example, she takes punishment when they want to flog her son Fedot for a sheep that was carried away by wolves. When Matryona was pregnant with another son, Lidor, her husband was unjustly taken into the army, and his wife had to go to the city to seek the truth. It’s good that the governor’s wife, Elena Alexandrovna, helped her then. By the way, Matryona gave birth to a son in the waiting room.

Yes, life was not easy for the one who was nicknamed “lucky” in the village: she constantly had to fight for herself, and for her children, and for her husband.

Part 4. A feast for the whole world.

At the end of the village of Valakhchina there was a feast, where everyone was gathered: the wandering men, Vlas the elder, and Klim Yakovlevich. Among those celebrating are two seminarians, simple, kind guys - Savvushka and Grisha Dobrosklonov. They sing funny songs and tell stories various stories. They do this because ordinary people ask for it. From the age of fifteen, Grisha firmly knows that he will devote his life to the happiness of the Russian people. He sings a song about a great and powerful country called Rus'. Is this not the lucky one whom the travelers were so persistently looking for? After all, he clearly sees the purpose of his life - in serving the disadvantaged people. Unfortunately, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov died untimely, without having time to finish the poem (according to the author’s plan, the men were supposed to go to St. Petersburg). But the thoughts of the seven wanderers coincide with the thoughts of Dobrosklonov, who thinks that every peasant should live freely and cheerfully in Rus'. This was the main intention of the author.

The poem by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov has become legendary, a symbol of the struggle for happy everyday life ordinary people, as well as the result of the author’s thoughts about the fate of the peasantry.

“Who Lives Well in Rus'” - a summary of the poem by N.A. Nekrasova

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

On the main road in Pustoporozhnaya volost, seven men meet: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Prov, old man Pakhom, brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin. They come from neighboring villages: Neurozhayki, Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova and Neelova. Men argue about who lives well and freely in Rus'. Roman believes that he is a landowner, Demyan - an official, and Luka - a priest. Old man Pakhom claims that the minister lives best, the Gubin brothers live best as a merchant, and Prov thinks that he is a king.

It's starting to get dark. The men understand that, carried away by the argument, they have walked thirty miles and now it is too late to return home. They decide to spend the night in the forest, light a fire in the clearing and again begin to argue, and then even fight. Their noise causes all the forest animals to scatter, and a chick falls out of the warbler’s nest, which Pakhom picks up. The mother warbler flies up to the fire and asks in a human voice to let her chick go. For this, she will fulfill any desire of the peasants.

The men decide to go further and find out which of them is right. Warbler tells where you can find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed and water them on the road. The men find a self-assembled tablecloth and sit down to feast. They agree not to return home until they find out who has the best life in Rus'.

Chapter I. Pop

Soon the travelers meet the priest and tell the priest that they are looking for “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.” They ask the church minister to answer honestly: is he satisfied with his fate?

The priest replies that he carries his cross with humility. If men believe that a happy life means peace, honor and wealth, then he has nothing like that. People don't choose the time of their death. So they call the priest to the dying person, even in the pouring rain, even in the bitter cold. And sometimes the heart cannot stand the tears of widows and orphans.

There is no talk of any honor. They make up all sorts of stories about priests, laugh at them and consider meeting a priest a bad omen. And the wealth of the priests is not what it used to be. Previously, when noble people lived on their family estates, the incomes of the priests were quite good. The landowners gave rich gifts, were baptized and married in the parish church. Here they had a funeral service and were buried. These were the traditions. And now nobles live in capitals and “abroads”, where they celebrate all church rites. But you can’t take much money from poor peasants.

The men bow respectfully to the priest and move on.

CHAPTER II. Country fair

The travelers pass several empty villages and ask: where have all the people gone? It turns out that there is a fair in the neighboring village. The men decide to go there. There are a lot of dressed-up people walking around the fair, selling everything from plows and horses to scarves and books. There are a lot of goods, but there are even more drinking establishments.

Old man Vavila is crying near the bench. He drank all the money and promised his granddaughter goatskin boots. Pavlusha Veretennikov approaches his grandfather and buys shoes for the girl. The delighted old man grabs his shoes and hurries home. Veretennikov is known in the area. He loves to sing and listen to Russian songs.

CHAPTER III. drunken night

After the fair, there are drunk people on the road. Some wander, some crawl, and some even lie in the ditch. Moans and endless drunken conversations can be heard everywhere. Veretennikov is talking with peasants at a road sign. He listens and writes down songs and proverbs, and then begins to reproach the peasants for drinking too much.

A well-drunk man named Yakim gets into an argument with Veretennikov. He says that the common people have accumulated a lot of grievances against landowners and officials. If you didn’t drink, it would be a big disaster, but all the anger dissolves in vodka. There is no measure for men in drunkenness, but is there any measure in grief, in hard work?

Veretennikov agrees with such reasoning and even drinks with the peasants. Here the travelers hear a beautiful young song and decide to look for the lucky ones in the crowd.

CHAPTER IV. Happy

Men walk around and shout: “Come out happy! We’ll pour some vodka!” People crowded around. The travelers began to ask about who was happy and how. They pour it to some, they just laugh at others. But the conclusion from the stories is this: a man’s happiness lies in the fact that he sometimes ate his fill, and God protected him in difficult times.

The men are advised to find Ermila Girin, whom the whole neighborhood knows. One day, the cunning merchant Altynnikov decided to take the mill away from him. He came to an agreement with the judges and declared that Ermila needed to immediately pay a thousand rubles. Girin did not have that kind of money, but he went to the marketplace and asked honest people to chip in. The men responded to the request, and Ermil bought the mill, and then returned all the money to the people. For seven years he was mayor. During that time, I didn’t pocket a single penny. Only once did he exclude his younger brother from the recruits, but then he repented in front of all the people and left his post.

The wanderers agree to look for Girin, but the local priest says that Yermil is in prison. Then a troika appears on the road, and in it is a gentleman.

CHAPTER V. Landowner

The men stop the troika, in which the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is riding, and ask how he lives. The landowner begins to remember the past with tears. Previously, he owned the entire district, he kept a whole regiment of servants and held holidays with dancing, theatrical performances and hunting. Now “the great chain has broken.” The landowners have land, but there are no peasants to cultivate it.

Gavrila Afanasyevich was not used to working. It is not a noble thing to do housekeeping. He only knows how to walk, hunt, and steal from the treasury. Now his family nest has been sold for debts, everything is stolen, and the men drink day and night. Obolt-Obolduev bursts into tears, and the travelers sympathize with him. After this meeting, they understand that they need to look for happiness not among the rich, but in the “Unbroken province, Ungutted volost...”.

PEASANT WOMAN

PROLOGUE

The wanderers decide to look for happy people among women. In one village they are advised to find Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Soon the men find this beautiful, dignified woman of about thirty-seven. But Korchagina doesn’t want to talk: it’s hard, the bread needs to be removed urgently. Then the travelers offer their help in the field in exchange for a story of happiness. Matryona agrees.

Chapter I. Before marriage

Korchagina spends her childhood in a non-drinking, friendly family, in an atmosphere of love from her parents and brother. Cheerful and agile Matryona works a lot, but also loves to go for a walk. A stranger, the stove maker Philip, is wooing her. They are having a wedding. Now Korchagina understands: she was only happy in her childhood and girlhood.

Chapter II. Songs

Philip brings his young wife to his large family. It’s not easy there for Matryona. Her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sisters-in-law do not allow her to live, they constantly reproach her. Everything happens exactly as it is sung in the songs. Korchagina endures. Then her first-born Demushka is born - like the sun in a window.

The master's manager pesters a young woman. Matryona avoids him as best she can. The manager threatens to give Philip a soldier. Then the woman goes for advice to grandfather Savely, the father-in-law, who is one hundred years old.

Chapter III. Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Savely looks like a huge bear. He served hard labor for a long time for murder. The cunning German manager sucked all the juice out of the serfs. When he ordered four hungry peasants to dig a well, they pushed the manager into the hole and covered it with earth. Among these killers was Savely.

CHAPTER IV. Demushka

The old man's advice was of no use. The manager, who did not allow Matryona passage, suddenly died. But then another problem happened. The young mother was forced to leave Demushka under the supervision of her grandfather. One day he fell asleep, and the child was eaten by pigs.

The doctor and the judges arrive, perform an autopsy, and interrogate Matryona. She is accused of intentionally killing a child, in conspiracy with an old man. The poor woman is almost losing her mind with grief. And Savely goes to the monastery to atone for his sin.

CHAPTER V. She-Wolf

Four years later, the grandfather returns, and Matryona forgives him. When Korchagina’s eldest son, Fedotushka, turns eight years old, the boy is given to help as a shepherd. One day the she-wolf manages to steal a sheep. Fedot chases after her and snatches out the already dead prey. The she-wolf is terribly thin, she leaves a bloody trail behind her: she cut her nipples on the grass. The predator looks doomedly at Fedot and howls. The boy feels sorry for the she-wolf and her cubs. He leaves the carcass of a sheep to the hungry beast. For this, the villagers want to whip the child, but Matryona accepts the punishment for her son.

CHAPTER VI. Difficult year

A hungry year is coming, in which Matryona is pregnant. Suddenly news comes that her husband is being recruited as a soldier. The eldest son from their family is already serving, so they shouldn’t take the second one, but the landowner doesn’t care about the laws. Matryona is horrified; pictures of poverty and lawlessness appear before her, because her only breadwinner and protector will not be there.

CHAPTER VII. Governor's wife

The woman walks into the city and arrives at the governor’s house in the morning. She asks the doorman to arrange a date for her with the governor. For two rubles, the doorman agrees and lets Matryona into the house. At this time, the governor's wife comes out of her chambers. Matryona falls at her feet and falls into unconsciousness.

When Korchagina comes to her senses, she sees that she has given birth to a boy. The kind, childless governor’s wife fusses with her and the child until Matryona recovers. Together with her husband, who was released from service, the peasant woman returns home. Since then, she has not tired of praying for the health of the governor.

Chapter VIII. The Old Woman's Parable

Matryona ends her story with an appeal to wanderers: do not look for happy people among women. The Lord dropped the keys to women's happiness into the sea, and they were swallowed by a fish. Since then they have been looking for those keys, but they can’t find them.

LAST

Chapter I

I

Travelers come to the banks of the Volga to the village of Vakhlaki. There are beautiful meadows there and haymaking is in full swing. Suddenly music sounds and boats land on the shore. It is old Prince Utyatin who has arrived. He inspects the mowing and swears, and the peasants bow and ask for forgiveness. The men are amazed: everything is like under serfdom. They turn to the local mayor Vlas for clarification.

II

Vlas gives an explanation. The prince became terribly angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein, and he was struck down. After that, Utyatin began to act weird. He doesn’t want to believe that he no longer has power over the peasants. He even promised to curse his sons and disinherit them if they spoke such nonsense. So the heirs of the peasants asked them to pretend in front of the master that everything was as before. And for this they will be granted the best meadows.

III

The prince sits down to breakfast, which the peasants gather to gawk at. One of them, the biggest quitter and drunkard, long ago volunteered to play the steward in front of the prince instead of the rebellious Vlas. So he crawls in front of Utyatin, and the people can barely contain their laughter. One, however, cannot cope with himself and laughs. The prince turns blue with anger and orders the rebel to be flogged. One lively peasant woman comes to the rescue, telling the master that her son, the fool, laughed.

The prince forgives everyone and sets off on the boat. Soon the peasants learn that Utyatin died on the way home.

Feast - FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin

Introduction

The peasants rejoice at the death of the prince. They walk and sing songs, and the former servant of Baron Sineguzin, Vikenty, tells an amazing story.

About the exemplary slave - Yakov Verny

There lived one very cruel and greedy landowner, Polivanov, who had a faithful servant, Yakov. The man suffered a lot from the master. But Polivanov’s legs became paralyzed, and faithful Yakov became an indispensable person for the disabled man. The master is not overjoyed with the slave, calling him his brother.

Yakov’s beloved nephew once decided to get married, and asks the master to marry the girl whom Polivanov had his eye on for himself. The master, for such insolence, gives up his rival as a soldier, and Yakov, out of grief, goes on a drinking binge. Polivanov feels bad without an assistant, but the slave returns to work after two weeks. Again the master is pleased with the servant.

But new trouble is already on the way. On the way to the master's sister, Yakov suddenly turns into a ravine, unharnesses the horses, and hangs himself by the reins. All night the master drives away the crows from the poor body of the servant with a stick.

After this story, the men argued about who was more sinful in Rus': landowners, peasants or robbers? And the pilgrim Ionushka tells the following story.

About two great sinners

Once upon a time there was a gang of robbers led by Ataman Kudeyar. The robber killed many innocent souls, but the time has come - he began to repent. And he went to the Holy Sepulcher, and received the schema in the monastery - everyone does not forgive sins, his conscience torments him. Kudeyar settled in the forest under a hundred-year-old oak tree, where he dreamed of a saint who showed him the way to salvation. The murderer will be forgiven when he cuts down this oak tree with the knife that killed people.

Kudeyar began to saw the oak tree in three circles with a knife. Things are going slowly, because the sinner is already advanced in age and weak. One day, the landowner Glukhovsky drives up to the oak tree and begins to mock the old man. He beats, tortures and hangs slaves as much as he wants, but sleeps peacefully. Here Kudeyar falls into a terrible anger and kills the landowner. The oak tree immediately falls, and all the robber’s sins are immediately forgiven.

After this story, the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov begins to argue and prove that the most serious sin is the peasant sin. Here is his story.

Peasant sin

For military services, the admiral receives from the empress eight thousand souls of serfs. Before his death, he calls the elder Gleb and hands him a casket, and in it - free food for all the peasants. After the death of the admiral, the heir began to pester Gleb: he gives him money, free money, just to get the treasured casket. And Gleb trembled and agreed to hand over important documents. So the heir burned all the papers, and eight thousand souls remained in the fortress. The peasants, after listening to Ignatius, agree that this sin is the most serious.

At this time, a cart appears on the road. A retired soldier is riding on it to the city to collect his pension. He is sad that he needs to get all the way to St. Petersburg, and the “piece of iron” is very expensive. The peasants invite the servant to sing and play the spoons. The soldier sings about his hard lot, about how unfairly he was awarded a pension. He can barely walk and his injuries were considered “minor.” The peasants chip in a penny and collect a ruble for the soldier.

EPILOGUE

Grisha Dobrosklonov

The local sexton Dobrosklonov has a son, Grisha, who is studying at the seminary. The guy is endowed with wonderful qualities: smart, kind, hardworking and honest. He composes songs and plans to go to university, dreams of improving the lives of the people.

Returning from a peasant celebration, Grigory composes new song: “The army is rising - innumerable! The strength in her will be indestructible! He will definitely teach his fellow villagers to sing it.