To the question Write a description of Ekaterina Lvovna from Leskov’s story “Lady Macbereth. Mtsensk District”. given by the author Alexey Selyutin the best answer is Katerina Izmailova finds it very difficult to endure life in her husband’s house, mainly because the life of a woman in a merchant’s house is boring. What should a rich merchant's wife do? Katerina wanders from corner to corner in her big house, sleeps and suffers from idleness.
Katerina is tormented by unfair accusations. A silent reproach to the heroine is that she does not have children from her elderly husband, although the Izmailov family is eagerly awaiting heirs. The writer emphasizes that married life behind locked doors “strangles” the heroine, destroys her potential, all the good that is in her. Izmailova tells with regret what she was like as a girl - cheerful, full of joy of life, energy, happiness. And how unbearable it is for her to live in marriage.
Katerina Izmailova doesn’t even think about cheating. She is completely absorbed in her feelings for the clerk Sergei and is ready to do anything for him. This passionate nature completely surrendered to her feeling, which knows no boundaries: neither physical, nor moral, nor moral.
Katerina Izmailova dies - trying to drown her happier rival: “Katerina Lvovna was trembling. Her wandering gaze concentrated and became wild. Hands once or twice stretched out into space unknown where and fell again. Another minute - and she suddenly swayed all over, without taking her eyes off the dark wave, bent down, grabbed Sonetka by the legs and in one fell swoop threw her over the side of the ferry.”
The heroine understands that she will die along with another girl, but this does not stop her: why should she live if Sergei no longer loves her?
In her animal, godless love, Izmailova reaches the limit: on her conscience is the blood of three innocent people, including a child. This love and all the crimes devastate the heroine: “... for her there was neither light nor darkness, neither bad nor good, nor boredom, nor joys; she didn’t understand anything, didn’t love anyone and didn’t love herself.”
Katerina Izmailova lived by passions, obeying only the call of her flesh.
Answer from Oliya[guru]
Izmailova Katerina Lvovna is the young (twenty-three years old) wife of the wealthy merchant Zinovy Borisovich Izmailov. The portrait of I. expresses the attractiveness and sensuality of the heroine: “in appearance the woman is very pleasant.<...>She was not tall, but slender, with a neck as if carved from marble, round shoulders, a strong chest, a straight, thin nose, black, lively eyes, a high white forehead and black, almost blue-black hair.” Having passionately fallen in love with the worker Sergei, I., fearing exposure and separation from her beloved, kills her father-in-law and husband with his help, and then takes the life of her husband’s young relative, Fedya Lyamin. Heartlessness and willpower, the readiness to cross all moral standards for the sake of one’s own goals are combined in I.’s character with insane passion and selfless devotion to his beloved. I.'s inhumanity is emphasized through contrast techniques: I., expecting a child from Sergei, strangles little Fedya in cold blood, committing murder on the eve of the great Christian holiday of the Entry of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Temple.
I.’s fate after his arrest is presented as a terrible retribution for the crime committed; I. loses the most precious thing in life - the love of Sergei, who, at the convict stage, meets with another convict, Sonetka. At the crossing, I. throws Sonetka into the river, drowns her and drowns herself.
In the title of the story, Leskov likens I. to Lady Macbeth, the heroine of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, who encourages her husband to commit treacherous murders. The image of I. is polemically correlated with the image of the heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” by Katerina Kabanova. Both heroines have the same name, both are merchants, both cheat on their husbands with their lovers. The difference is that I. does not experience family oppression and is not a victim in her husband’s house.
The heroine Leskov meaningful name. On the one hand, I., seized by a dark, “infernal” passion, is contrasted with the “light” and “quiet” Katerina from Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm”. At the same time, the very name “Ekaterina” in Greek means “always pure” and, as it were, personifies the sacrificial principle in the love of Leskov’s heroine. I.'s patronymic emphasizes the firmness and masculine strength of her character. I.’s surname testifies to the black, demonic origins of the heroine’s passion: “Ishmaelites” in ancient Russian literature were the name given to the eastern, Turkic peoples who professed Islam. I.'s story served as the basis for D. D. Shostakovich's opera Katerina Izmailova.
Sergei is a young worker, lover, and then husband of Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, who commits murders of her relatives with her. The last of the three crimes (the murder of the boy Fedya Lyamin, who received the bulk of the Izmailovs’ fortune) is committed by Katerina Izmailova for the sake of S., who longed to become the only heir. Katerina's willpower, selfless passion and care for S. are contrasted with his weakness of will and selfish and shallow nature. During the investigation, he calls I. an accomplice of all crimes, at the hard labor stage he neglects I.’s love, mocks her and gets together with Sonetka.
Sonnetka is a young convict with whom Sergei meets at the stage, leaving Katerina Izmailova. Izmailova drowns S in the river, dying along with her. The selfish S., who receives gifts from Sergei, contrasts with the selflessly loving Izmailova. Cruelly mocking the humiliated Izmailova, S. is contrasted with the soldier Fiona, Sergei’s fleeting lover, and the compassionate Katerina. Evidence of a cruel, evil character is S.’s miniature figure and thinness. (Thinness is presented as a sign of an evil character in some other works of Leskov.)
In the image of the most ordinary woman, Katerina Lvovna, who comes from an ordinary, bourgeois environment, the writer shows how the outbreak of a passionate feeling completely transforms her and she rebels against the conventions of the world in which she had previously spent her whole life. From the very beginning of the essay, the author writes that Katerina’s life in the house of her wealthy husband was extremely boring; the young woman was literally stifled by monotony and melancholy.
While still a very young and inexperienced girl, she found herself married to the merchant Zinovy Borisovich, she never had any feelings for him, her parents gave Katerina in marriage only because this particular groom wooed her first, and they considered him a suitable match. Since then, the woman spends five years of her life practically in a dream, every day resembles the previous one to the minute, she has no friends or even acquaintances, Katerina is increasingly overcome by such melancholy that she literally wants to “hang herself.”
A woman dreams of a child, because with a baby in the house she will at least have something to do, joy, a purpose, but in her dull marriage, fate never brings her children.
But after these five years, a ardent love unexpectedly arises in Katerina’s life for her employee, her husband Sergei. This feeling is considered to be one of the brightest and most sublime, but for Izmailova it becomes the beginning of her death and leads an overly passionate and ardent woman to a sad ending.
Katerina, without hesitation, is ready for any sacrifices and violations of all for the sake of the person dear to her. moral standards. The woman, without any remorse, kills not only her father-in-law and husband, who have long been disgusted with her, but also the boy Fedya, who has not caused any harm to anyone, an innocent and pious child. The all-consuming passion for Sergei destroys in Katerina the feeling of fear, compassion, mercy, because before they were inherent in her, like almost any representative of the fairer sex. But at the same time, it is this boundless love that gives rise to courage, resourcefulness, cruelty and the ability to fight for her love, for her right to constantly be with her loved one and get rid of any obstacles that impede the fulfillment of this desire.
Sergei, Izmailova’s lover, also appears as a man without any moral rules and principles. He is capable of committing any crime without hesitation, but not out of love, like Katerina. For Sergei, the motive for his actions is that he sees in this woman the opportunity to ensure a further comfortable existence for himself, because she is the wife and legal heir of a rich merchant, coming from a higher, wealthy and respected class in society than himself. His plans and hopes really begin to come true after the death of his father-in-law and Katerina’s husband, but suddenly another obstacle arises, the little nephew of a merchant named Fedya.
If before Sergei served only as an assistant in the murders, now he himself offers his mistress to get rid of the child, who remains their only obstacle. He inspires Katerina that if the boy Fedya is absent and she gives birth to a child before nine months after the disappearance of her husband, all the money of the late merchant will go to them entirely, and they will be able to live happily without any worries.
Katerina agrees with her lover, his words have an almost hypnotic effect on her, the woman is ready to do literally everything that Sergei wants. Thus, she turns into a real hostage of her feelings, a reliable slave of this man, although initially Izmailova occupies a more significant social position than her husband’s employee.
During the interrogation, Katerina does not hide the fact that she committed several murders solely for the sake of her lover, that passion pushed her to such terrible acts. All her feelings are focused only on Sergei, the newborn baby does not evoke any emotions in her, the woman is indifferent to the fate of her child. Everything around is absolutely indifferent to Katerina; only a gentle glance or kind word her beloved.
On the way to hard labor, the woman notices that Sergei is clearly cooling off towards her, although she is still ready to do anything just to see him once again. However, the man feels deeply disappointed both in Katerina and in life in general, because he never achieved what he wanted; with the help of the merchant Izmailova, he will never see any wealth again. Sergei, without embarrassment, meets with the depraved Sonetka in front of his mistress, he openly showers Katerina with insults and humiliations, trying to take revenge on her for the fact that, as he believes, it was she who broke his fate and finally ruined him.
When Katerina sees that her lover, for whom she sacrificed everything she had previously, is flirting with another woman, her mind cannot withstand the test of cruel jealousy. She doesn’t even understand the meaning of bullying from other prisoners, primarily Sonetka and Sergei, but they have a deeply destructive effect on her already completely broken psyche.
Her victims appear before Katerina’s mind’s eye, the woman is unable to move, speak, live on, almost unconsciously she decides to commit suicide in order to get rid of the unbearable torment into which her entire existence has turned. Without hesitation, she also kills Sonetka, believing that it was this girl who stole her lover. In her last moments, Katerina believes that she has nothing more to do in the world, because her love, the meaning of her life, is completely lost to her. Due to boundless passion, a woman’s personality is completely destroyed, Katerina Izmailova becomes a victim of her own feelings and the inability to manage them.
The image of Lady Macbeth is well known in world literature. N.S. transferred the Shakespearean character to Russian soil. Leskov. His work “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is popular to this day and has had many dramatizations and film adaptations.
“Lady Macbeth of Our County” - under this title the work first appeared in print in the magazine “Epoch”. Work on the first edition of the essay lasted about a year, from 1864 to 1865. The essay received its final title in 1867 after significant copyright edits.
It was assumed that this story would open a series of works about the characters of Russian women: landowner, noblewoman, midwife, but for a number of reasons the plan was not realized. Lady Macbeth is based on a popular story popular print"About a merchant's wife and clerk."
Genre, direction
The author's definition of the genre is essay. Perhaps Leskov with this designation emphasizes the realism and authenticity of the narrative, since this prose genre, as a rule, is based on facts from real life, is a documentary. It is no coincidence that the first name of the county is ours; after all, this is how every reader could imagine this picture in his own village. In addition, it is the essay that is characteristic of the direction of realism, which was popular in Russian literature of that time.
From the point of view of literary criticism, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is a story, as indicated by the complex, eventful plot and composition of the work.
Leskov’s essay has many similarities with Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm,” written 5 years before “The Lady...” The fate of the merchant’s wife worried both authors, and each of them offers his own version of the development of events.
The essence
The main events take place in a merchant family. Katerina Izmailova, while her husband is away on business, starts an affair with the clerk Sergei. The father-in-law tried to stop debauchery in his own home, but paid for it with his life. The husband who returned home also received a “warm welcome.” Having gotten rid of the interference, Sergei and Katerina enjoy their happiness. Soon their nephew Fedya comes to stay with them. He can lay claim to Katerina's inheritance, so the lovers decide to kill the boy. The scene of strangulation is seen by passersby coming from the church.
The main characters and their characteristics
- Katerina Izmailova- a very complex image. Despite her countless crimes, she cannot be considered solely negative character. Analyzing the character of the main character, one cannot ignore the unfair accusations of her infertility, the contemptuous attitude of her father-in-law and husband. All the atrocities were committed by Katerina for the sake of love; only in her did she see salvation from that nightmarish life, which was filled only with cowardice and boredom. This is a passionate, strong and gifted nature, which, unfortunately, was revealed only in crime. At the same time, we can note the intelligence, cruelty and unscrupulousness of a woman who raised her hand even to a child.
- Clerk Sergei, an experienced “girl,” cunning and greedy. He knows his strengths and is familiar with women's weaknesses. It was not difficult for him to seduce the rich mistress, and then cleverly manipulate her, just to take ownership of the estate. He loves only himself, and only takes advantage of women's attention. Even in hard labor, he looks for amorous adventures and buys them at the cost of his mistress’s sacrifice, begging her for what is valued in prison.
- Husband (Zinovy Borisovich) and father-in-law of Katerina (Boris Timofeevich)- typical representatives of the merchant class, callous and rude inhabitants who are only busy getting rich. Their harsh moral principles rest only on their reluctance to share their goods with anyone. The husband does not value his wife, he simply does not want to give away his property. And his father is also indifferent to the family, but he does not want unflattering rumors to circulate in the area.
- Sonetka. A cunning, resourceful and flirtatious convict who is not averse to having fun even in hard labor. What she has in common with Sergei is frivolity, because she has never had firm and strong attachments.
Themes
- Love - the main theme of the story. It is this feeling that pushes Katerina to commit monstrous murders. At the same time, love becomes the meaning of life for her, while for Sergei it is just fun. The writer shows how passion can not elevate, but humiliate a person, plunge him into the abyss of vice. People often idealize feelings, but the danger of these illusions cannot be ignored. Love cannot always be an excuse for a criminal, a liar and a murderer.
- Family. Obviously, Katerina did not marry Zinovy Borisovich out of love. Has not arisen between spouses over the years family life proper mutual respect and agreement. Katerina heard only reproaches addressed to her; she was called a “non-relative.” The arranged marriage ended tragically. Leskov showed what the neglect of interpersonal relationships within the family leads to.
- Revenge. For the order of that time, Boris Timofeevich quite rightly punishes the lustful clerk, but what is Katerina’s reaction? In response to the bullying of her lover, Katerina poisons her father-in-law with a lethal dose of poison. The desire for revenge drives the rejected woman in the episode at the crossing, when the current convict pounces on the homewrecker Sonetka.
Problems
- Boredom. This feeling arises in heroes for a number of reasons. One of them is lack of spirituality. Katerina Izmailova did not like to read, and there were practically no books in the house. Under the pretext of asking for a book, Sergei sneaks in to the hostess on the first night. The desire to bring some variety to a monotonous life becomes one of the main motives for betrayal.
- Loneliness. Katerina Lvovna spent most of her days in all alone. The husband had his own affairs, only occasionally he took her with him, going to visit his colleagues. There is also no need to talk about love and mutual understanding between Zinovy and Katerina. This situation was aggravated by the absence of children, which also saddened the main character. Perhaps, if her family had given her more attention, affection, and participation, then she would not have responded to her loved ones with betrayal.
- Self-interest. This problem is clearly indicated in the image of Sergei. He masked his selfish goals with love, trying to evoke pity and sympathy from Katerina. As we learn from the text, the careless clerk already had the sad experience of courting a merchant’s wife. Apparently, in the case of Katerina, he already knew how to behave and what mistakes not to make.
- Immorality. Despite their ostentatious religiosity, the heroes stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Treason, murder, attempt on the life of a child - all this fits into the head of an ordinary merchant's wife and her accomplice. It is obvious that the life and customs of the merchant province corrupt people secretly, because they are ready to commit sin so that no one finds out about it. Despite the strict patriarchal foundations that reign in society, the heroes easily commit crimes, and their conscience does not torment them. Moral issues opens before us the abyss of personal decline.
the main idea
With his work, Leskov warns of the tragedy that an ossified patriarchal way of life and the lack of love and spirituality in the family can lead to. Why did the author choose the merchant environment? There was a very large percentage of illiteracy in this class; merchants followed centuries-old traditions that could not fit into the modern world. The main idea of the work is to point out the catastrophic consequences of lack of culture and cowardice. The lack of internal morality allows the heroes to commit monstrous crimes, which can only be atone for by their own death.
The heroine’s actions have their own meaning - she rebels against conventions and boundaries that prevent her from living. The cup of her patience is full, but she doesn’t know how or with what to draw it out. Ignorance is aggravated by debauchery. And so the very idea of protest turns out to be vulgarized. If at first we empathize with a lonely woman who is not respected and insulted in her family, then in the end we see a completely decomposed person who has no way back. Leskov calls on people to be more selective in their choice of means, otherwise the goal is lost, but the sin remains.
What does it teach?
"Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" teaches one main folk wisdom: You cannot build your happiness on someone else’s misfortune. Secrets will be revealed, and you will have to answer for what you have done. Relationships created at the expense of other people's lives end in betrayal. Even the child, the fruit of this sinful love, becomes of no use to anyone. Although it used to seem that if Katerina had children, she could be quite happy.
The work shows that an immoral life ends in tragedy. The main character is overcome by despair: she is forced to admit that all the crimes committed were in vain. Before her death, Katerina Lvovna tries to pray, but in vain.
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Russian literature
Victor Eremin
Katerina Lvovna Izmailova
Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov - man great passion, great contradictions, great Conscience and great patriotism. No wonder A.M. Gorky, who read in 1909-1911. on the island of Capri, a series of lectures under the general title “History of Russian Literature”, stated then that Leskov wrote “not about a peasant, not about a nihilist, not about a landowner, but always about a Russian person, about a person of a given country. Each of his heroes is a link in a chain of people, in a chain of generations, and in each of Leskov’s stories you feel that his main thought is not about the fate of an individual, but about the fate of Russia.”*
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* IMLI RAS. Archive of A.M. Gorky. T.1. History of Russian literature. M.: Goslitizdat, 1939.
It is in these words that the essence of the modern misunderstanding of Leskov’s work is revealed. Nikolai Semyonovich is a writer of the fate of the Fatherland, and today in his works they often look for the quintessence of the Russian character, moreover, the image of the Russian people. And this is deeply wrong. Leskov is the brightest representative of heterogeneous literature, therefore, in his books (in continuation of the aristocratic literature of the 19th century c.) a predominantly aristocratic idea of the Russian people is given, although richly decorated with great knowledge of the inner world common man. Unfortunately, knowledge is not truth, and the Russian people in Leskov’s works remain, on the one hand, a romantic dream, and on the other hand, the writer’s gloomy idea of them. Let us note that the works of all the heresiarchs of Great Russian literature suffer from this disease.
Leskov is often called the most Russian, the most national writer of all the writers of our land. This comes from that part of the domestic intelligentsia, which is usually called patriotic, professing mainly the Uvarov formula “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality”, and therefore recognizing and even proclaiming the passive subordination of the people in relation to the autocracy (in general, any power) and Orthodoxy (church) that are irresponsible to them. hierarchy).
Nikolai Semyonovich himself repeatedly emphasized that he was best able to positive characters. However, the writer’s positive ones (especially over the years) are dominated by such human characteristics as humility, readiness to suffer unforgivingly from a villain in power, and humility before one’s prepared fate. That is, in continuation of aristocratic literature, Leskov welcomed the feminized face of the Russian man. After all, from time immemorial, the Orthodox intelligentsia of Russia proclaimed that, unlike God’s chosen people - the Jews, the Russian people are a God-bearing people, under the Protection of the Veil. Mother of God, and Russia is its vale, therefore, the Divine face of the Russian people is a woman humbly suffering and trusting only in God.
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* Yudol is a place of suffering.
Let's face it, this understanding of the Russian people is a purely aristocratic and intellectual invention that has nothing to do with reality. Intellectuals wanted and still want to see the people in such a way that gradually they could fully feel themselves masters, supermen and saviors, but the pretext for this was, as always, God and faith in him. Russian history itself, and even more so the most important part of it - Russian literature (despite many of its great creators) and its heroes, have refuted the image of submissive, pleading and silent Russians imposed on us a thousand times over. Leskov’s heroes were no exception, in whose works even eldership is a form of active struggle against earthly villainy for the triumph of Divine good.
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov
Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was born on February 4, 1831 in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province. His mother, Maria Petrovna Leskova (née Alferyeva) (1813-1886), was one of the impoverished Oryol nobles. Father, Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov (1789-1848), came from a priestly background, served as a noble assessor of the Oryol Criminal Chamber (criminal investigator). Nikolai became the eldest of the seven Leskov children.
In 1839, the father resigned with a scandal, and the family moved to live on a recently purchased estate - the Panin farm in Kromsky district. In 1841, Nikolai entered the Oryol gymnasium, but studied unevenly and in 1846 failed the transfer exams. However, by the time he was expelled from the gymnasium, he was already working as a scribe in the Oryol State Chamber and was actively moving in the circle of the Oryol intelligentsia.
It was then that Leskov had the opportunity to meet the exiled Little Russian writer, ethnographer and folklorist Afanasy Vasilyevich Markevich (1824-1867), under whose influence the young Leskov chose his life path— the young man firmly decided to become an ethnographer.
After the sudden death of his father in 1849, Nikolai was transferred for service to Kyiv as an official of the treasury chamber. There he lived in the family of his maternal uncle, professor-therapist at Kyiv University Sergei Petrovich Alferyev (1816-1884).
In Kyiv in 1853, Nikolai Semenovich married the daughter of a wealthy Kyiv homeowner and businessman, Olga Vasilyevna Smirnova (c. 1831-1909). And soon it began Crimean War(1854-1856), which changed all the foundations of the life of Russian society.
In May 1857, Leskov retired and got a job at the private company Shcott and Wilkens, which was headed by the husband of his aunt Alexandra Petrovna (1811-1880), the Russified Englishman Alexander Yakovlevich (Jamesovich) Shcott (c. 1800-1860). Nikolai Semyonovich was involved in the resettlement of peasants to fertile lands, the organization of enterprises in the provinces, and agriculture. The writer himself subsequently called three years of service in his uncle’s company the happiest time of his life. Then Leskov traveled almost the entire European part of Russia, saw and understood a lot, the collected vital material was enough for him to long years fruitful literary work.
Unfortunately, the company's business was not going well, and in April 1860 it had to be closed. Leskov returned to Kyiv and entered the service - in the office of the Governor General. At the same time, he took up journalism. On June 18, 1860, his first article was anonymously published in the journal “Economic Index” - about the speculation of booksellers in the Gospel. However, the beginning of its literary activity Leskov himself considered the publication in February 1861 on the pages of “Domestic Notes” of “Essays on the distillery industry (Penza province).”
It was a turning point in the life of the aspiring writer. Leskov’s wife left him, he moved to live in St. Petersburg, and was recognized as a talented publicist...
And in 1862, Nikolai Semyonovich for the first time had to feel his foreignness in St. Petersburg society. In the spring, a wave of fires swept through the capital. Rumor attributed the arson to nihilistic students. Outraged by these rumors, Leskov published an article in the Northern Bee calling on the St. Petersburg mayor to look into this issue and, if the students are guilty, punish them, and if not, stop the slanderous chatter. The writer found ill-wishers who began to spread gossip around St. Petersburg that Leskov was calling for reprisals against progressive-minded youth. Few people read the article itself, but the condemnation of the innocent journalist turned out to be universal. Even Alexander II was indignant against Nikolai Semyonovich. It was just cancelled. serfdom(1861), democratic reforms were actively introduced, and society was in a state of delight in its own liberalism. Freedom fighters craved a retrograde victim. And the provincial journalist who so conveniently turned up was chosen as such.
Poor Leskov was shocked by both the slander and such monstrously general rejection of an article that no one had read. Nobody wanted to hear his explanations - he was guilty and that was all! In the end, Nikolai Semyonovich was forced to go abroad for a while - as a correspondent for the Northern Bee, he visited Austria (Bohemia), Poland, France...
And when he returned, contrary to many expectations, not only did he not repent - there was nothing to repent of, but he had the audacity to rush into battle against St. Petersburg society with its liberal demagoguery. In 1863, the writer published his first stories - “The Life of a Woman” and “Musk Ox”; Leskov published the collection “Three Stories by M. Stebnitsky*”, which was followed in 1864 by the anti-nihilistic novel “Nowhere”.
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* M. Stebnitsky - pseudonym of the first years literary work N.S. Leskova.
To say that this novel became a social bomb means to say nothing. For the first time in Russian literature (great prophetic works on this topic were written much later), albeit slightly, albeit only in some features, only in the third part of the novel, however, the revolutionary movement was condemned (!). The hysteria of the democratic press, which was then essentially exercising a dictatorship in the literary field of Russia, had no boundaries. The apogee of the scandal was the article by the idol of the revolutionary youth of those years, Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (1848-1869), “A Walk through the Gardens of Russian Literature,” which he wrote in a cell in the Peter and Paul Fortress, which gave the writings of a mentally ill critic a special aura of a sufferer. It was in this article that there were famous words, a shameful stain that has forever entered the history of Russian and world literature: “I am very interested in the following two questions: 1) Is there now in Russia - besides Russky Vestnik - at least one magazine that would dare to print on its pages something coming out of -from the pen of Mr. Stebnitsky and signed with his last name? 2) Is there at least one honest writer in Russia who will be so careless and indifferent to his reputation that he will agree to work in a magazine that adorns itself with the stories and novels of Mr. Stebnitsky? “These questions are very interesting for the psychological assessment of our literary world.”* In fact, Pisarev shouted: “Atu!” - at Leskov, and the democratic crowd rushed to poison him.
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* D.I. Pisarev. Literary criticism in 3 volumes. T. 2. Articles 1864-1865. L., “Art. literature", 1981.
However, to our common happiness, there were both magazines and writers for whom the absurd Pisarev was not a decree. And the first among them was the journal of the recent convict Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Pisarev’s article appeared in Russky Vestnik in March 1865, and was published in the same month last number magazine of the Dostoevsky brothers “Epoch”, on the pages of which Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov’s masterpiece was published - the essay “Lady Macbeth of our County”*.
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* It was only in the 1867 edition of “Tales, Essays and Stories by M. Stebnitsky,” vol. I, that the essay first received its current name: “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District.”
Essays in the 19th century. they also called purely artistic works. “Lady Macbeth...” became the first essay in the planned series. Leskov himself wrote to the famous Russian philosopher and literary critic, and at the same time to the leading employee of “Epoch” Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov (1828-1896): “... I ask you for your attention to this small work. “Lady Macbeth of Our Country” constitutes the first of a series of essays exclusively on typical female characters our (Oka and part of the Volga) area. I propose to write twelve such essays..."*.
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* V.A. Gebel. N.S. Leskov. In the creative laboratory. M.: Soviet writer, 1945.
The main character Katerina Lvovna Izmailova does not have a prototype, although they never stop looking for one. “Lady Macbeth...” is a purely artistic work, composed by the author “out of his head,” and rumors that a similar tragedy occurred in Leskov’s childhood are groundless.
The writer was working on an essay in Kyiv, in heavy state of mind, caused by widespread public obstruction, which inevitably affected the work itself. In a later conversation with famous writer Vsevolod Vladimirovich Krestovsky (1839-1895) Nikolai Semenovich recalled: “But when I wrote my “Lady Macbeth,” under the influence of tense nerves and loneliness, I almost reached the point of delirium. At times I felt unbearably creepy, my hair stood on end, I froze at the slightest rustle, which I myself made by moving my leg or turning my neck. These were difficult moments that I will never forget. Since then I have avoided describing such horrors.”*
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* How Leskov worked on “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” Sat. articles for the production of the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” by the Leningrad State Academic Maly Theater. L.: 1934.
The essay turned out to be millions of times more anti-nihilistic and anti-revolutionary than any other work of Leskov. Only no one noticed or understood this - after all, Nikolai Semyonovich Pisarev himself (!) was declared an outlaw reactionary. They chose to ignore “Lady Macbeth of our district”!
And in vain, although it must be admitted that Katerina Izmailova has not been recognized by our literary criticism to this day. But it is precisely this that is the central connecting thread that stretches from “ The captain's daughter"and Nekrasov's peasant women to Dostoevsky's great pentateuch, to Anna Karenina and Quiet Don; It was she who, having absorbed all the willfulness and unbridled licentiousness of Pushkin’s Emelka Pugachev and the power of the one who “stops a galloping horse, will enter a burning hut” from the poem “Frost, Red Nose”, became inseparable, if not the main integral part almost every hero latest novels Fyodor Mikhailovich (primarily Nastasya Filippovna, Parfena Rogozhina, Dmitry and Ivan Karamazov) or Sholokhov’s Grigory Melekhov and Aksinya.
Why? Yes, because it was in the image of Katerina Izmailova that for the first time in history (in the most artistically perfect form) the individual, personal embodiment of that very national, purely national philosophical thought of A.S. was revealed to the world. Pushkin: “God forbid that we see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless!”*. After Katerina Izmailova, the theme of a personal, merciless, very selfish, and often senseless Russian rebellion became almost the main one in our national literature and replaced the theme extra person. And it was precisely this personal rebellion on the pages of Great Russian literature that involuntarily created the idea of the Russian people as a people living in constant stress, a people inextricably welded together by uncontrollable daring and recklessness, spiritual freedom and naive, but unjustified cruelty, etc. Nowadays, mediocre intellectuals from cinema don’t even know how to show the Russian people anything other than as shambolic, reckless victims of their own boundless passions. This is already a stable stencil, a brand of belonging to everything Russian.
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* A.S. Pushkin. Collection op. in 10 volumes. T.5. M.: State Publishing House fiction, 1960.
However, in Russian literature, personal rebellion always has a great background: no matter what forms it is expressed, it is initially always directed against injustice, and it is always preceded by a long-suffering expectation of Justice.
Katerina Izmailova was married from the poor with one purpose - to give birth to a child and bring an heir to the Izmailovs’ house. Her entire way of life, as was customary in Russian merchant families, was built and organized to raise a successor to the family. But Katerina remained a non-relative for five (!) years. Many years of infertility became the root cause of her rebellion: on the one hand, the woman innocently turned out to be the greatest obstacle for her husband, since the absence of an heir for a merchant is a catastrophe of his entire life, and Katerina was constantly blamed for this; on the other hand, for a childless young merchant's wife, loneliness in a golden cage is mortal boredom, from which it is time to go mad. Katerina rebelled, and her rebellion spontaneously resulted in an insane passion for the insignificant, pretty clerk Sergei. The worst thing is that Katerina Lvovna herself would never be able to explain what she was rebelling against, a dark carnal passion simply went wild in her, provoked by a kindly thief*, and then events developed against anyone’s will, in full accordance with the epigraph-proverb that preceded the essay “When I started to sing the first song.”
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* Firth (obsolete) - a dashing, dapper and cheeky, self-satisfied person.
Crimes were committed by the merchant's wife on an increasing scale: at first Katerina sinned; then she secretly poisoned her old father-in-law with rat poison, who learned about her adultery; then she forced her lover to participate in the murder of her husband, so as not to interfere with them leading a free life; and only then the two of them, for the sake of capital, strangled their husband’s little nephew, and were caught and exposed by people...
And here Leskov brought us to another topic given only to the Russian world (apparently as a general philosophical national one) - the topic of torment and the violent death of an innocent baby. In real history, the death of two boys, terrible and unjustified, became the mystical root cause of two of the greatest Russian Troubles - the mysterious death of Tsarevich Dimitri Ioannovich on May 15, 1591 became the impetus for the Troubles of 1605-1612; The popular hanging in 1614 at the Serpukhov Gate of the Moscow Kremlin of three-year-old Ivashka Vorenok, the son of Maria Mnishek and False Dmitry II, became the unrepentant curse of the reigning house of the Romanovs, the mystical retribution for which was the extermination and expulsion of the family in 1917-1918.
In Russian literature, A.S. was the first to raise this topic. Pushkin in “Boris Godunov”:
...And the boys have bloody eyes...
And I’m glad to run, but there’s nowhere... terrible!
Yes, pitiful is the one whose conscience is unclean.
The murdered boy in Pushkin's drama is the Supreme Judge, Conscience and the inevitability of the highest Retribution.
Leskov posed this question differently. For Katerina Izmailova, the murder of a child became the lowest point of fall, beyond which earthly retribution began, and much more terrible than human judgment. The woman suffered from her lover, seemingly refuting previous accusations that she was not a relative. But in fact, she only confirmed her infertility in an even more monstrous form: “... in the prison hospital, when they gave her her child, she just said, “Well, that’s it!” and, turning to the wall, without any groan, without any complaint, she collapsed with her chest on the hard cot.”* She already had the opportunity on earth to become convinced of the senselessness and monstrosity of what she had done; it was not for nothing that Katerina’s last earthly words, instead of a prayer, became a shameful lament for the one who mocked her ex-lover: “how you and I walked, sat through the long autumn nights, sent people away from the world with a cruel death.” And Leskov described the last earthly moments of this unrepentant, godless killer-monster as absolutely terrible, terrible: “... but at the same time, from another wave, Katerina Lvovna rose above the water almost waist-deep, rushed at Sonetka, like a strong pike at a soft-feathered flesh, and both didn’t show up again.”
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* N.S. Leskov. Collection op. in 11 volumes. T.1. M.: State Publishing House of Fiction, 1956. The following text is quoted from this publication.
However, Katerina Lvovna is completely terrible not for her actions, but for the fact that she has become a mirror of the soul of the Russian intelligentsia of our days - a great mirror for the black souls of blurred morality.
By creating “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” Leskov showed the dead-end path of personal rebellion for the sake of satisfying one’s own passions and nihilism as such in general, in contrast to the general rebellion for Justice. If a popular revolt is an earthly judgment against those in power who have gone too far, then a personal revolt is a dead end of infertility, an all-death loop of narcissistic egoism, which has no justification either in the atrocities of others or in one’s own misfortune. It was this terrible all-consuming difference that was later most fully revealed by F.M. Dostoevsky in Ivan Karamazov’s great monologue about a tortured child and a mother embracing the torturer who tore her son to pieces with dogs.
Through the efforts of the modern creative intelligentsia, Katerina Izmailova is now presented as the bearer of “innocent” and “undervalued” female love, as a victim-sufferer, but not because of the terrible atrocities and infanticide she committed, but because the lover to whom she devoted her whole life , betrayed her boundless passion. Comments are unnecessary: the preachers of this nonsense managed to fall spiritually even lower than Katerina herself.
In 1930, Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (1906-1975) based on the essay wrote the brilliant opera “Katerina Izmailova” - the growing cacophony of reckless Russian rebellion, which was never understood by the domestic intelligentsia. To this day, the opera is interpreted as a story about the confrontation with free, passionate loving person- Katerina - to the dictates of the everyday-thinking crowd! Leskov and Shostakovich must be turning over in their graves at such a high flight of thought among modern intellectuals.
The first film adaptation of the story entitled “Katerina the Gas Chamber” was made in 1916. Director A.A. Arkatov.
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* Alexander Arkadyevich Arkatov (Mogilevsky) (1888-1961) - classic director of world silent cinema. In 1922 he emigrated from Soviet Russia in the USA and ended his film career. Arkatov's fame was brought to him by films about the fate of Jews in pre-revolutionary Russia.
The last film adaptation of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” was made in 1989 by director R.G. Balayan. The role of Katerina Izmailova was played by actress N.E. Andreichenko.
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* Roman Gurgenovich Balayan (b. 1941) - famous domestic film director; creator of 14 films, including “Flights in a dream and in reality”, “Keep me safe, my talisman”, “Filer”, etc.
** Natalya Eduardovna Andreichenko (b. 1956) - domestic theater and film actress. She played leading roles in many classical works our cinema, but is best known for her role as Mary Poppins in the television film “Goodbye Mary Poppins!”
Composition
But many, choked with love,
You won’t be able to finish shouting no matter how much you call.
They are counted by rumor and idle talk.
But this score is steeped in blood.
And we will put candles at the head of the room
Died from unprecedented love.
V. S. Vysotsky
“The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky. “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District” by N. S. Leskov. Two famous works by two great Russian writers. They were created around the same time (1859 and 1865). Even the main characters are both Katerinas. Leskov’s essay, however, can be considered a kind of polemic with the author of “The Thunderstorm.” Yes, these writers show the fate of their heroines in different ways and portray the strength of their characters in different ways. Let's try to compare the heroines of these works.
Katerina Petrovna Kabanova. The young daughter-in-law in the Kabanov family became an outcast, a stumbling block for her mother-in-law. Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova sees in her daughter-in-law only a woman who stole her son from her, who has greater influence on him. Ostrovsky depicts the conflict in a merchant family, the despotic attitude of the mother-in-law towards the daughter-in-law, highlighting the eternal problem of fathers and children, the interaction of generations. It is quite natural that a young woman seeks love and understanding outside the family, where she cannot show sincere feelings, where she is powerless and voiceless, where her human dignity is violated.
And she, it seems to her, finds this love and understanding in Boris, who turns out to be the same as her silent husband Tikhon, only “educated.” During Tikhon's absence, she secretly meets with Boris. But she cannot lie to her husband, looking into his eyes. Her direct, honest nature cannot stand lies and sin, and she confesses everything to her husband in front of everyone. Under the weight of reproaches from her mother-in-law and her own soul, she cannot live on, cannot come to terms with the situation that awaits her in her mother-in-law’s house. Katerina rushes into the Volga. Now she is free. But how sad such a liberation is. Unfortunately, for such a heroine as Katerina Kabanova, there was no other way out of this situation. We are glad to see the release of Katerina - even through death, if not otherwise.
The main character of Leskov’s essay “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is also a young merchant’s wife, Katerina Lvovna Izmailova. Her husband, by the way, is much older than her, constantly at work and away. She is bored and lonely in a big rich house. And then Sergei, a handsome young clerk, appears. Katerina is passionate, her hobby quickly turns into passion. She is ready to do anything for the sake of her sinful, criminal love, for the sake of her lover. And a bloody, terrible series of murders for the sake of love begins: first, Katerina Lvovna kills her father-in-law, who learned about her affair with Sergei; then, together with Sergei, her husband, and then her young nephew Fedya, who could challenge her rights to the inheritance. At the third villainous murder, Sergei and Katerina are caught. Public flogging - and Katerina Lvovna and Sergei were exiled to Siberia. Sergei instantly loses interest in Katerina Lvovna as soon as she ceases to be a rich and influential merchant's wife.
He is infatuated with another woman, cares for her in front of Katerina Lvovna and laughs at her love. The final chord is as terrible as the entire story - Katerina kills her rival, Sonetka, and dies herself, throwing herself into the cold waves of the river. This is how Leskov ends this work, reminiscent of Shakespearean tragedies in its intensity of passion.
It should be noted that the main characters of these works, Katerina Petrovna and Katerina Lvovna, have a lot in common. So, both of them are from a merchant environment, from merchant families, they married without love, they both have no children. (True, Katerina Lvovna gives birth to a child in a prison hospital, but immediately abandons him: “I don’t need him at all.”) Boredom reigns in the house, from which “it’s even fun to hang yourself.” It is quite natural that determined, freedom-loving women strive for love as liberation from domestic oppression. They find her. But after this, each heroine behaves in her own way, in accordance with the morality, the spiritual and psychological attitudes that are inherent in them. This is where their main differences appear.
Katerina Petrovna's love and desire for happiness elevate her, she rises above her environment, rises above the “dark kingdom.” Love, once happiness is known, makes it unbearable to continue to be in the power of previous values. She is pious, she is not characterized by cruelty and despotism. For her, kindly, noble, with a living soul and a trembling heart, there is only one thing left to do - throw herself into the Volga.
Katerina Lvovna is flesh and blood of the “dark kingdom”. Love for Sergei awakens in her not sublime feelings, but base instincts and vicious passions. Katerina Izmailova is a strong-willed, strong, decisive woman, but the dreaminess, romance, and fear of God of Katerina Kabanova are alien to her. She is ready to sell her soul to the devil, to commit a chain of terrible crimes, if only her lover would be with her. She agrees to endure all the trials of fate (and punishment with whips, and hard labor) for the sake of her love, her dark passion. The only thing she cannot endure is humiliation, the violation of her human dignity, the bullying of her lover, his betrayal. And her revenge is terrible: death in a whirlpool without a single sound or groan, together with her rival. She dies, but she dies unbroken, unconquered, still remaining a person. In terms of its impact on readers, the image of Katerina Izmailova reaches tragic heights in Leskov’s essay.
Katerina Kabanova commits a crime: she cheats on her husband, who loves her with all his soul, cheats with a man who is not worth her. And she is punished - she punishes herself by saying goodbye to life.
The crimes committed by Katerina Izmailova are more terrible: treason, murder. But she is also punished: she has lost everything. Both wealth and family are lost, she is publicly beaten with whips, sent to hard labor, in the end she is abandoned by her lover, humiliated by her loved one for the sake of another woman. But she leaves this life without repenting, without obeying. She dies the same way she lived: she commits a double crime - murder and suicide.
The destinies of two women, the strength of their personalities cannot leave readers indifferent, and cannot but arouse surprise and admiration for the strength of their sinful love.
In that " dark kingdom“Everything is alien to her, everything oppresses her. She, according to the customs of that time, married against her will and to an unlovable man whom she would never love. Katerina soon realized how weak and pathetic her husband was; he himself could not resist his mother, Kabanikha, and, naturally, was not able to protect Katerina from constant attacks from her mother-in-law.
main character tries to convince herself and Varvara that she loves her husband, but still later admits to her husband’s sister: “I feel very sorry for him.” Pity is the only feeling she feels for her husband. Katerina herself understands perfectly well that she will never love her husband, and the words she uttered when her husband left (“how I would love you”) are words of despair. Katerina is already possessed by another feeling - love for Boris, and her attempt to grab hold of her husband in order to prevent trouble, a thunderstorm, the approach of which she feels, is futile and useless. Tisha does not listen to her, he stands next to his wife, but in his dreams he is already far from her - his thoughts are about drinking and partying outside Kalinov, but he himself says to his wife: “I won’t understand you, Katya!” Yes, how can he “dismantle” it! Inner world Katerina is too complex and incomprehensible for people like Kabanov. Not only Tikhon, but also his sister says to Katerina: “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
In the “dark kingdom” there is not a single person whose spiritual qualities are equal to Katerina’s, and even Boris, the hero singled out by a woman from the entire crowd, is unworthy of Katerina. Her love is a stormy river, his is a small stream that is about to dry up. Boris is just going to take a walk with Katerina during Tikhon’s departure, and then... then we’ll see. He is not too concerned about how the hobby will turn out for Katerina; Boris is not stopped even by Kudryash’s warning: “You want to completely ruin her.” On last date he says to Katerina: “Who knew that we should suffer so much for our love with you,” after all, at the first meeting, the woman told him: “I ruined it, I ruined it, I ruined it.”
The reasons that prompted Katerina to commit suicide are hidden not only (and even not so much) in the society surrounding her, but in herself. Her soul is a precious stone, and the invasion of foreign particles into it is impossible. She cannot, like Varvara, act according to the principle “as long as everything is sewn and covered”; she cannot live, keeping within herself such terrible secret, and even confessing to everyone does not bring her relief, she understands that she will never atone for her guilt, and cannot come to terms with it. She has taken the path of sin, but will not aggravate it by lying to herself and everyone, and understands that the only deliverance from her mental torment is death. Katerina asks Boris to take her to Siberia, but even if she runs away from this society, she is not destined to hide from herself, from remorse.
To some extent, Boris perhaps understands this and says that “there is only one thing you need to ask God for, that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time!” One of Katerina’s problems is that “she doesn’t know how to deceive, she can’t hide anything.” She cannot deceive or hide NK from herself, much less from others. Katerina is constantly tormented by the consciousness of her sinfulness.
Translated from greek name Catherine means “always pure,” and our heroine, of course, always strives for spiritual purity. All kinds of lies and untruths are alien to her, even if she finds herself in such a degraded society, she does not betray her inner ideal, she does not want to become the same as many people in that circle. Katerina does not absorb dirt, she can be compared to a lotus flower that grows in a swamp, but, in spite of everything, blooms with unique snow-white flowers. Katerina does not live to see the full bloom, her half-bloomed flower withered, but no toxic substances penetrated into it, it died innocent.
