“Notes of a Hunter” and their place in Russian literature.

Introduction

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev belongs to those great writers whose creations played a huge role in the spiritual development of Russian society, enriched social and world culture.

Turgenev's life and literary activity took place during one of the most significant eras of world and Russian history. Hostility to serfdom, sincere sympathy for the needs of the people, and progressive humane ideas inspired his work. “An irreconcilable enemy of chains and a faithful friend of the people,” that’s what Nekrasov called Turgenev.

Turgenev’s views are most fully and vividly reflected in one of the most amazing books in Russian literature - “Notes of a Hunter.” They consist of 25 works, which are varied in content and artistic features, but their common features are also clearly evident, which allows us to speak of “Notes of a Hunter” as something internally unified and artistically complete. First of all, the similarity of themes, the commonality of content taken from everyday life.

“Notes of a Hunter” posed two main questions to the reader:

a) what are the Russian people and especially their overwhelming majority – the peasantry? What are their spiritual resources that ensure the further development of the country?

b) How does the existing socio-political system, and primarily serfdom, affect the people? If it has a harmful, disastrous effect on social life, how is this manifested?

I.S. Turgenev sought to answer these questions. His focus is on the people.

The topic of this course work is “The Image of the People in “Notes of a Hunter,” and the main goal was to trace the image of the people in the stories, to note the ways and techniques of showing the people by the author, to characterize the characters from individual stories by I.S. Turgenev, which were included in the collection.

In the course of writing this course work, literary articles were read, which help to get an idea of ​​the originality of the work of the novelist and its significance in the development of Russian literature. These are articles by A.K. Baboreko, V.V. Golubkova, M.P. Starenkova, M.P. Alekseeva, P.E. Lipatova, G.B. Kurlyandskaya. Each of them has their own view of this work, but the main thing that unites them is the moral issues and humanism of “Notes of a Hunter.”

In the article by A.K. Baboreko's "Notes of a Hunter" reveals the historical background for the creation of this work, provides a complete and in-depth description of individual characters (Khor, Kalinich, Penochkin, Polutykin). According to the famous literary critic, Turgenev “depicts with merciless truthfulness the savagery of morals, cruelty and tyranny of the serf owners.” The author emphasizes: “the outstanding role of “Notes of a Hunter” in the history of Russian literature.” A.K Baboreko also notices Turgenev’s landscape, which is “poetically magnificent and full of deep meaning”

V.V. Golubkov, in the article “Ideological and artistic unity of “Notes of a Hunter,” reflects on the similarity and integrity of the work. What unites the stories included in “Notes of a Hunter”? “First, the commonality of their themes, the similarity of the phenomena on which the writer’s attention focuses, and the realistic manner of depiction.” The second feature, according to the author, is “the clear ideological purposefulness of the stories.” Golubkov was also interested in the image of the narrator, “who is a living participant in the events.” And finally, there is one more feature of “Notes of a Hunter” - the unity of the genre. The literary critic is amazed at the skill of the great writer.

“I.S. Turgenev - a recognized master artistic word, one of the creators of the Russian literary language,” says M.P. Starenkov in the article “Language and style of “Notes of a Hunter”. –<…>The purpose of this article is to summarize some results of the study of the language and style of “Notes of a Hunter”, to provide individual independent observations in this area and to set the tasks for their further research.” The author proposes to consider the language and style of the work historically, in the context of the general state and development of Russian literature and the Russian literary language of its time, in connection with:

1) the ideological and artistic direction of the “natural school”,

2) characteristic features of the narrative genres of the “natural school”,

3) the individual characteristics of the writer’s work and his views on literature and language.

“Notes of a Hunter” opened up a great treasury of Russian literature (Pushkin, Gogol) for foreign readers. M.P. Alekseev in his article “The World Significance of “Notes of a Hunter”” says that it was this cycle of stories that introduced Turgenev into world literature and established his popularity in different countries Europe. “Notes of a Hunter” as a whole and in parts was published hundreds of times in various languages. “It would be difficult to name a country in which “Notes of a Hunter” would not be known in whole or in parts, through alterations or retellings, through critical literature in a wide variety of languages. At different times and under different conditions, this book of Turgenev found its readers and connoisseurs wherever its harsh truth and courageous, gifted word were able to call forward, teach an attitude towards life and work, and evoke hatred of oppression and oppression. The impact it has had on readers all over the world, of all ages and generations, is truly incalculable. The great books of world literature have their own destiny, distinguishing them from other books of the literature in which they arose, to which they belong, which they represent. These books are not afraid of time; for them there is no space, no state borders, national differences or language barriers. Sooner or later they will find their place on library shelves in all parts of the world and in the hearts of readers of all nationalities. Among precisely such historical books of Russian literature, the role of which has not yet been fully played, includes Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter”

1. The history of the creation of “Notes of a Hunter”. Development of the traditions of Pushkin and Gogol in “Notes of a Hunter”

In 1845 it was published under the editorship of N.A. Nekrasov’s literary and artistic collection, which had an unusual title: “Physiology of St. Petersburg, compiled from the works of Russian writers.”

This collection was a significant phenomenon in the history of our literature: it meant a decisive turn from stilted, rhetorical romanticism, which tried to win a dominant place in literature in the 30s, towards consolidating the positions of ideological, critical realism.

The very title of the collection “Physiology of St. Petersburg” indicated that literature was faced with a task close to scientific research: perhaps a more accurate, realistic description of social life.

The preface to the collection, which explained its purpose, was, as it were, a manifesto of a new direction. The author of the preface said that the essays included in the collection are aimed at giving the most truthful and concrete depiction of the life and characters of various strata of St. Petersburg society, with the caveat, however, that these essays will not provide a simple reproduction of reality, but its explanation and grade. The writer, as stated in the preface, must discover “that he knows how not only to observe, but also to judge” - in other words, critical realism was proclaimed as the guiding method in literature.

The collection began with Belinsky’s brilliant essay “Petersburg and Moscow,” followed by other essays depicting the life of the St. Petersburg poor: “Petersburg Janitor” by Lugansky, “Petersburg Organ Grinder” by Grigorovich, “Petersburg Side” by Grebenka, “Petersburg Corners” by Nekrasov. A year later, in 1846, Nekrasov published the “Petersburg Collection”, which was close in its objectives to “Physiology of Petersburg”. Although the main place in it was no longer occupied by essays, but by stories and poems, the general orientation and creative method remained the same: it was critical realism, imbued with a deep interest in issues of social life.

Turgenev included in the “Petersburg Collection” the work “The Landowner,” which was defined by Belinsky as “a physiological sketch of the life of a landowner.” Thus, Turgenev entered that movement of Russian literature of the 40s, which was called the “natural school.”

From “The Landowner,” written in poetic form, Turgenev soon moves on to artistic prose, to short stories from peasant life, believing that this genre is more consistent with his new creative tasks. It was "Notes of a Hunter".

The first story from "Notes of a Hunter" - "Khor and Kalinich" - was published in the magazine "Sovremennik" in 1847. Then 20 more stories appeared in the same magazine over five years. In 1852, “Notes of a Hunter” was published as a separate publication; In addition to the previously published 21 stories, another one was added to this collection - “Two Landowners”.

In the 70s, Turgenev published three new stories in magazines: “The End of Tchertopkhanov,” “Knocking,” and “Living Relics.” They were included in the 1880 edition of Notes of a Hunter and have since been included in all subsequent editions, now consisting of 25 stories.

How can we explain Turgenev’s turn from poems and poems, which he wrote over 12 years, to stories from people’s life?

Pre-revolutionary researchers of Turgenev's work, inclined to explain the history of Russian literature by Western influence, tried to find the origins of Turgenev's new themes and new genres in the literary movements of foreign countries. Thus, Professor Sumtsov spoke about the influence of J. Sand, and Professor A.S. Gruzinsky argued that Turgenev largely followed Auerbach, who published the first books of his Black Forest Stories in 1843, four years before the first story, Notes of a Hunter, appeared.

Other researchers attributed the main role in Turgenev's transition to depicting folk life to the influence of Gogol and especially Belinsky.

There is no dispute that Gogol's Dead Souls, published in 1842, was a model for Turgenev and influenced him, increasing his interest in literary prose and critical realism. It is all the more certain that Belinsky had a tremendous influence on Turgenev.

Turgenev since student years was an attentive reader of Belinsky's literary-critical articles, in 1843 he struck up a personal acquaintance with him, and then, for a number of years, until Belinsky's death, he maintained friendly relations with him.

On the other hand, Belinsky treated Turgenev kindly. For him, this was a fair, but strict teacher, who directly and even sharply noted everything that seemed to him false and artistically weak in Turgenev’s poems and ardently supported his literary successes, everything that could lead Turgenev to the path of ideological realism. Belinsky welcomed his transition to artistic prose, to “Notes of a Hunter.”

And yet, the main reason for this transition cannot be seen in Belinsky’s influence, no matter how significant it was. Belinsky only helped Turgenev to comprehend and systematize those creative quests that were characteristic of him before, but which manifested themselves with particular force around 1846, when he came to complete disappointment in all his previous literary activities. The main reason for Turgenev’s transition to a new theme, to a new genre was the same one that prompted Grigorovich in 1846, a year before Turgenev’s “Khor and Kalinich” to write “The Village”, and in 1847 - “Anton the Poor Man”, the same , under the influence of which Dal (Cossack Lugansky) published novels and stories from folk life in 1846, in Nekrasov in 1845-1846 he wrote the poems “On the Road” and “Motherland”. This was the very reason why V.G. During these years, Belinsky most decisively called for viewing literature as a weapon of social struggle.

The main reason for all these phenomena was the social movement, which in the 40s of the 19th century swept wide circles of the advanced (mostly noble at that time) intelligentsia and was rooted in the deep discontent that was growing every year among the enslaved peasantry.

At the time of the creation of “Notes of a Hunter,” the situation of the people and the struggle for the elimination of serfdom were in the center of attention of leading public and literary figures. According to Lenin’s definition, “when our enlighteners wrote from the 40s to the 60s, all social issues came down to the fight against serfdom and its remnants.” Mass peasant unrest in the 40s swept many regions of the country. The number of peasant “revolts” grew from year to year. The first landowner of Russia, Nicholas I, frightened by the revolutionary movement in France, Germany, Hungary and Austria, sought to crush the resistance of the masses with brutal terror. The reign of Nikolai Palkin, as L.N. called the crowned despot. Tolstoy, in one of his stories, was, according to Herzen, “an era of darkness, despair and tyranny.” The suffocating social atmosphere forced Turgenev to leave his homeland for some time at the beginning of 1847 and go abroad. “I could not breathe the same air,” he wrote in “Literary and Everyday Memoirs” regarding the idea of ​​“Notes of a Hunter,” “to remain close to what I hated; For that, I probably did not have the proper endurance and strength of character. I needed to move away from my enemy in order to attack him more strongly from my very distance. In my eyes, this enemy had a certain image, wore famous name: this enemy was serfdom. Under this name I collected and concentrated everything that I decided to fight against to the end - with which I swore never to reconcile... This was my Hannibal oath; and I wasn’t the only one who gave it to myself then.”

Turgenev remained true to his oath: in the conditions of police persecution and censorship terror, he created “Notes of a Hunter” - this deeply truthful picture of the serfs of Russia. Turgenev's great work arose in the heated atmosphere of the struggle against reaction and serfdom. Hence the pathos of love of freedom and humanity that pervades the images of these stories. “Everything that is thinking and intelligent in Russian life,” Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote about this era, “understood perfectly well that wherever their eyes turn, everywhere they will encounter the problem of the peasant.”

The theme of the peasantry, as the most pressing and most important in the political situation of the pre-reform period, becomes one of the main themes of fiction. In addition to Turgenev, many progressive writers of the 40s devoted their works to the life of the serf peasantry, including Herzen (“The Thieving Magpie”) and Grigorovich (“Village,” “Anton the Miserable”). Turgenev covered the painful issue of the situation of the peasantry, which required immediate resolution, from a democratic and humanistic position. This caused angry irritation in the highest government circles. Minister of Education in connection with the exit separate publication Turgenev's stories undertook a special investigation into the activities of censorship. By order of Nicholas I, the censor who authorized the publication was removed from office. Soon, using published articles about Gogol as a pretext, Turgenev was arrested and then sent into exile in the village of Spasskoye-Lugovinovo, Oryol province. He wrote about this to Pauline Viardot: “I, by the highest order, have been placed under arrest in a police station for having published a few lines about Gogol in a Moscow newspaper. This only served as a pretext - the article itself is completely insignificant. But they have been looking at me askance for a long time and therefore became attached to the first opportunity that presented itself... They wanted to suppress everything that was said about Gogol’s death - and, by the way, they were glad to have the opportunity to ban my literary activity at the same time.” He wrote in another letter that the reason for Turgenev’s arrest and exile was “Notes of a Hunter”: “In 1852, for publishing an article about Gogol (essentially for “Notes of a Hunter”), he was sent to live in a village, where he lived for two years. ".

Before writing his disgraced book, Turgenev was not yet sure that literature was his true calling. He wrote poems, stories, dramas, but at the same time dreamed of an academic career and was ready to leave literary pursuits under the influence of a feeling of dissatisfaction with his writing. In “Notes of a Hunter,” Turgenev’s talent appeared from a new side, in all its attractiveness and strength. Turgenev himself was aware of the significance of “Notes of a Hunter”. He wrote to one of his friends: “I am glad this book has come out; It seems to me that it will remain my contribution to the treasury of Russian literature.”

As an artist, Turgenev in “Notes of a Hunter” continued the realistic traditions of Pushkin and Gogol, and managed to have his say in the development of Russian short story prose.

The art of storytelling in “Notes of a Hunter” is multifaceted. Either he is led by a hunter, painting what he saw, or he himself becomes a listener to the whole story (“District Doctor”). The story “Ovsyannikov’s One-Palace” consists of a number of miniature short stories-portraits. An everyday essay, a psychological novel, a painting from life, a lyrical sketch, a landscape sketch imbued with philosophical reflections - all these genres are equally accessible to the skill of the author of “Notes of a Hunter.” “Turgenev will forever remain in literature as an extraordinary miniature artist - artist! “Bezhin Meadow”, “Singers”, “Khor and Kalinich”, “Kasyan” and many, many other miniatures seem not to have been painted, but to have been sculpted in inimitable, thin bas-reliefs!” Goncharov once noted.

In the stories “The District Doctor”, “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District”, “Chertop-hanov and Nedopyuskin” there is a noticeable tendency towards more complex artistic forms - towards the story. The famous Turgenev backstories, telling about the past of the heroes of the work, originate from “Hamlet of Shchigrovsky District”. However, Turgenev never violates the artistic proportions of the story. In 1872, the writer returned to the image of Tchertop-hanov that occupied him and wrote “The End of Tchertop-hanov,” including this story in “Notes of a Hunter.” “I was afraid to stretch it so as not to fall out of proportion,” Turgenev admitted in a letter to M.M. Stasyulevich. He could have merged it with an earlier story (in which the same hero acts), which would have been quite natural from the point of view of content. But then a story would have formed altogether, and Turgenev did not want to destroy the genre unity of his cycle.

The poetic integrity of “Notes of a Hunter” is due to the unity of artistic manner that is inherent in this book by Turgenev. Unlike Pushkin and Gogol, Turgenev does not create carefully developed and fully developed human characters in his cycle. This kind of task could not be faced by the “hunter”. Turgenev limited himself to sketches, drafts, and portrait sketches. However, by skilful selection of characteristic features and details, the necessary realism of typification and artistic relief are achieved. The writer was able to translate his fleeting, random “hunting” encounters and observations into typical images that give a general picture of Russian life in the serf era.

The richness of the content and novelistic forms of Notes of a Hunter is matched by their unusually diverse tonality. The tragic tone of the district doctor’s narration gives way to a humorous story about the rescue of a Frenchman, a drummer of the “great army,” whom the peasants asked to “respect them, that is, dive under the ice.” The description of the Slavophile patriotism of the landowner Lyubozvonov is filled with irony. The soulful lyricism of “The Singers”, the simplicity and sincerity of “Bezhin Meadow”, the drama of the story about Tchertopkhanov, the angry satirical intonations of the story “The Burmister” speak of the emotional richness of “Notes of a Hunter”. With the very first sketches of his hunting series, Turgenev became famous as an artist with an amazing gift for seeing and feeling nature. “He loves nature not as an amateur, but as an artist, and therefore never tries to depict it only in its poetic forms, but takes it as it appears to him. His paintings are always true, and you will always recognize our native Russian nature in them,” noted Belinsky. This feature of Turgenev’s talent was appreciated by Chekhov, who wrote to Grigorovich: “... as long as there are forests, ravines, summer nights in Rus', while there are still waders and lapwings crying, neither you, nor Turgenev, nor Tolstoy will be forgotten, just as they will not forget Gogol.”

Turgenev also recreates the deeply national Russian flavor in his descriptions of folk life. “We, realists, value color,” Turgenev writes to Pauline Viardot in December 1847, while working on the first stories of “Notes of a Hunter.” . Following Gogol, he uses the old Walter Scott principle of “cooler locks”, drawing details of folk life, which, in his words, “give color and illumination to the whole picture.” Casual decor peasant hut, the landowner's farm yard, chickens digging in manure, ducks splashing in puddles, cows fanning themselves with their tails (“My neighbor Radilov”) - all this prose of everyday life, “the Flemish school’s motley litter,” turns into Turgenev, as well as Pushkin, into the pure gold of poetry.

The basis of the Turgenev language is the speech of the cultural part of Russian society of his time. At the same time, the language of “Notes of a Hunter” widely reflects “the living vernacular of the city, the landowner’s estate and the Russian village.” Turgenev’s stories often contain local words and expressions, dialectisms of the Oryol dialect, for example, “square”, “habits”, “buchilo”, “zelenya”. There was a tendency towards dialectisms in general characteristic feature early works of writers of the “natural school”.

Fighting for national norms of the literary language, Belinsky, in a letter to Annenkov in February 1848, reproached Turgenev for “excessive use of words in the Oryol language.” Turgenev subsequently greatly weakens the ethnographic stream and the Oryol flavor of the language. He also avoids being carried away by local words and puns, which was so characteristic, for example, of Dahl. “With the light hand of Mr. Zagoskin, the Russian people are forced to speak in some special language with jokes and jokes. A Russian speaks like this, but not always and not everywhere: his ordinary speech is remarkably simple and clear,” wrote Turgenev. The peasants in “Notes of a Hunter” say this vernacular, which has already become the property of the language of fiction of that time. Saltykov-Shchedrin found in “Notes of a Hunter” strength, accuracy, humor, and the poetry of the language of a common man.

Following Pushkin and Gogol, Turgenev played a prominent role in the creation of the Russian literary language, which he considered “enchanting,” “magical,” and powerful. The language and originality of speech of the characters in “Notes of a Hunter” reflect the mindset of the peasant, his wisdom, his humor. The simple, intelligent speech of Khor, restrained in his words and “strong in his tongue,” perfectly corresponds to the common sense of the Russian person. On the contrary, often the speech of the serf owner bears the imprint of lethargy and laziness of thought, the emptiness of his soul. Penochkin's posturing and narcissism, his malicious irritability are inseparable from his mannerisms of speech and phrase-mongering. He speaks slowly, “with emphasis and, as if with pleasure, passing every word through his beautiful perfumed mustache.” The nationality of the language and the perfection of the style of “Notes of a Hunter” - one of the most patriotic books in Russian classical literature– make the sincere thoughts of the great writer exciting and close to the modern reader. Turgenev's democracy and humanism allowed him to deeply penetrate the essence of people's life, to create images that instill in people love for their homeland and for the great Russian people, in his words, “the most amazing people in the whole world.”

“Notes of a Hunter” played a huge role in the creative development of the writer himself, or, in fact, Turgenev’s turn to realism was completed. By creating “Notes of a Hunter,” a book about the Russian people, Turgenev continued and enriched the great realistic traditions of Pushkin and Gogol, his teachers and predecessors. Now he himself becomes a teacher of others and pave the way new way, deeply plowing up almost untouched virgin soil before him.

Twenty-five stories and essays in “Notes of a Hunter” are united by a common concept, warmed by the author’s ardent sense of patriotic inspiration, and form a single cycle of works about the peasantry and serf Russia. Like a masterpiece artistic creativity“Notes of a Hunter” have now completely retained the deep ideological and aesthetic value. Turgenev's folk book, this poem about the spiritual beauty and power of the Russian people, is for the modern reader one of the most beloved creations of Russian classical literature. The great Gogol spoke about Turgenev back in 1847: “His talent is remarkable and promises great activity in the future”!

2. Depiction of the harmful influence of serfdom on life and consciousness ordinary people

I.S. Turgenev wrote: “In the Russian man the germ of future great deeds, the great people's development". The key to this is the love of freedom, natural talent and the entire diverse spiritual life of the Russian peasant, who, despite his enslaved state, has a deep consciousness of his human dignity. Already in “The Choir and Kalinich,” the first short story in “Notes of a Hunter,” the peasants appear as bearers of the most typical features of the Russian national character and in this respect, according to their spiritual merits, are opposed to the landowner. Intelligence, energy, self-confidence, high poetic feelings - all this is characteristic of Mr. Polutykin’s serfs. Turgenev's view of the people's life of the serfdom era was expressed here with great completeness. Subsequent stories in Notes of a Hunter developed many of the ideas that were touched upon in Khor and Kalinich. Therefore, this story plays a special role in the overall plan of the entire series of essays and stories.

About the “merits” of Mr. Polutykin, it is enough to say that he is “a passionate hunter and, therefore,” Turgenev ironically notes, “an excellent person.” Khor and his friend Kalinich seem to the “hunter” to be unusually bright personalities both in intelligence and in the interests by which they live, in their everyday experience and knowledge of life. The story reflects not only their social status and life, but also the spiritual makeup of the heroes.

Turgenev superbly showed in this story that it is impossible to turn a peasant into a slave, obedient to his master, to instill in him a sense of obsequiousness to his master, to erase in him the consciousness of human dignity.

Kalinich served the “hunter,” who in his eyes is a “master,” without any servility. But Khor behaved with even greater independence: “He seemed to feel his dignity, spoke and moved slowly, and occasionally chuckled from under his long mustache.” He is a “smart man”; his mentality resembled the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates.

The depiction of the spiritual appearance of the peasants both in this story and in the entire cycle of works made it possible to draw a conclusion about what enormous forces are hidden in the depths of people’s life and what inexhaustible possibilities for historical and national development lurk in the people’s environment. The courageous character of the Russian man - along with other moral qualities - is what Turgenev saw in the everyday, everyday life of the peasants, forced to fight the need and hunger, and endure the senseless cruelty of the landowners. But nowhere does the author’s “Notes of a Hunter” hate serfdom with such force as in the depiction of numerous and varied manifestations of the deep discontent of the peasants, their irreconcilable hostility towards the landowners: from Khor’s mocking attitude towards his oppressor, the calculating but narrow-minded Mr. Polutykin , to the angry indignation of the peasant at his dependent position on the landowner and his accomplices. A man caught by Biryuk in the master's garden, who has been ruined by the landowner's clerk and who has to be "knocked to death", speaks of him as a "bloodsucker" and a "murderer" ("Biryuk"). This readiness of powerless and hungry peasants for spontaneous protest arouses particular suspicion and fear among the serf owners. It is not without reason that behind the peaceful complaints of the peasants against the mayor, the landowner imagines a revolt (“The mayor”).

It is significant that in the fortress village people appear who are capable of taking on the role of people’s intercessors, like the commoner Mitya (“Ovsyannikov’s Odnodvorets”). The activities of this champion of popular interests are wide and varied. According to Ovsyannikov, Mitya “composes requests for peasants, writes reports, teaches councilors, brings land surveyors to clean water, hangs around drinking houses, with indefinite workers, with city bourgeoisie and knows the janitors at inns. How long until trouble is here? Both police officers and police officers threatened him more than once. Yes, fortunately, he knows how to joke: he will make them laugh, and then he will make porridge for them.” The district doctor in the story of the same name is also distinguished by his spiritual attractiveness - a commoner from among the democratic intelligentsia, capable of understanding the deep nature of his patient, Alexandra Andreevna, who confesses her love for him, in whose image the features of the heroines of Turgenev’s novels were identified. Even more prominent features are depicted by Avenir Sorokoumov, a Hegelian during his student days, who from philosophical circles brought selfless devotion to Russian literature, theater, honest beliefs and honest aspirations, with a bookish outlook on life, naive and limited, firmly enduring loneliness and the “slavery of the teaching title.” in the landowner's house, calmly facing the inevitable death from consumption (“Death”).

Condemnation of serfdom appears in “Notes of a Hunter” in two main aspects. The first aspect is a direct image of the world of serf owners: a gallery of images of landowners, “noble nests”, life, morals, views, relationships. The second is the world of the simple Russian people, primarily the Russian peasant with his views, attitude towards the master, towards nature, towards life in general. Reminding the reader that a man is also a man, Turgenev emphasized throughout the cycle that as a man he is more gifted, more poetic, and more moral than his masters.

With deep sarcasm, Turgenev portrayed the steppe landowners, such as the owner of the Chernobai stud farm (“Lebedyan”) or the old man Tchertopkhanov (“Chertophanov and Nedopyuskin”), from whom gentlemen with subtle manners and claims to a kind of “culture” and even liberalism differed little . Eremey Lukich Tchertop-hanov, out of boredom and idleness, consoled himself with rude, tyrant antics. Every day he came up with a new idea: “... he made soup from burdock, then he cut the horses’ tails for caps for the courtyard people, then he was going to replace the flax with nettles, feed the pigs with mushrooms, or for the sake of order and economic calculation, he ordered them to be “renumbered” and sewn on everyone’s collar. his number. When meeting a master, everyone used to shout: “Such and such a number is coming!”

Mardary Apollonovich Stegunov (“Two Landowners”), an inveterate serf owner and cynic, is disgusting with his vile persecution of serfs and robbery. To any reproaches about the inhumanity of his actions, Stegunov has a “clear” and “convincing” argument: “In my opinion: if he’s a master, then he’s a master, and if he’s a man, then he’s a man.” It is simple and natural, according to his concepts, to resettle the peasants from their land and exterminate the “disgraced” ones. “To tell you frankly,” he says to his interlocutor, “from those two families, I donated them as soldiers without waiting in line and shoved them in all sorts of places; Yes they don’t translate, what are you going to do? Damn fruits." In the appearance of this wild gentleman, a couch potato who has never learned anything, there are features reminiscent of the “humane” landowner Penochkin. Stegunov has an expressive surname in its own way. To flog someone is the highest pleasure for this person. The very sound of the blows, and especially the blows of the rod, brings him into a sweetly blissful state. We ran into the garden “Yermila the coachman chickens”. The girl, Ermil’s daughter, ran out to herd them home. Stegunov grinned: “Hey, Yushka!” Give up the chickens and catch Natalka for me.” Let us note by the way that this Yushka was already “about seventy years old” and, nevertheless, he ran after the chickens. But the housekeeper managed to intercept Natalka and slapped her on the back several times.

Here's a tek, uh, here's a tek,” the landowner picked up: “those, those, those!” those, those, those! “But take away the chickens, Avdotya,” he added in a loud voice and with a bright face turned to me: “What kind of persecution was it, father?” I'm even sweating, look.

And Mardarii Apollonych burst out laughing.”

In another case, Mardary hears the real sounds of a flogging, and this is how Turgenev talks about it: “Meanwhile, the air became completely silent. Only occasionally the wind came in streams, and, closing for the last time near the house, it brought to our ears the sound of measured and frequent blows, heard in the direction of the stables. Mardary Apollonych had just brought the poured saucer to his lips and was already widening his nostrils, without which, as you know, not a single native Russian takes in tea - but he stopped, listened, nodded his head, took a sip and, putting the saucer on the table, said with with the kindest smile and, as if involuntarily, echoing the blows: “Chyuki-chyuki-chuk! Chuki-chuk! Chyuki-chuk!

What is it? – I asked in amazement.

And there, on my orders, the little naughty girl is punished... Do you want to know Vasya the bartender?

What Vasya?

Yes, this is what he served us at dinner the other day. He also walks around with such big sideburns.” .

And then again this combination of “the kindest smile” and “clear and gentle gaze” with true pleasure from the very sounds of spanking! “The fiercest indignation could not resist the clear and meek gaze of Mandary Apollonych.” There were people who saw in this phrase that it was as if Turgenev himself could not resist this “gaze,” while it is absolutely clear that this “brush stroke” is clearly ironic, designed precisely to make one feel all the organic the depravity of this man. If this above phrase expressed the opinion of the author himself, then why would Stegunov address him with the following words: “What are you talking about, young man? what do you? – he spoke, shaking his head. - What am I, a villain or what? Why are you staring at me like that? Loves and punishes: you yourself know.” . Isn’t it clear with what eyes the author of the story looked at this monster?

But Turgenev, quite unexpectedly for the unprepared reader, quotes a remark from the newly whipped barman Vasya, who not only is not indignant at his master, but even generally approves of him. This short passage is perhaps the most terrible thing in the story: before us is not only submission, but also justification for “legitimate” violence, and, moreover, justification coming from the victim himself. This is the barman Vasya - a representative of the container, wholly submissive to Rus'. It is with these words that the author ends this unusual story: “Here it is, old Rus'!” - I thought on the way back."

Turgenev does not reveal the feelings that he puts into this exclamation: they are clear without that. And, undoubtedly, these feelings were common to both the author and his readers.

In Mr. Zverkov, narcissism and adoration of his wife are artistically mixed, about whom he says that she is “an angel in the flesh, inexplicable kindness,” about which Turgenev himself talks like this: “dull, sensitive, tearful and angry - a dozen and heavy creature " And her husband, who never tires of praising her, also says this: “Maids and girls have no life, it’s just paradise being created with your own eyes...” And meanwhile, one of these maids allowed herself to fall in love with the footman Petrushka, while the lady kept only unmarried maids. What is Zverkov worried about? “Let me tell you, I am such a person: nothing offends me so much, I can safely say, it offends me so much, as ingratitude...” And then, when “the same thing” happened to the girl, about which the “bashful” Zverkov expressed himself only in a hint: “ You understand...I’m ashamed to speak out,” this exquisitely delicate landowner ordered the culprit to be “cut, dressed in shabby clothes and exiled to the village.” .

The manner in which the image of this landowner is drawn deserves great attention. He seems to be delicate, but essentially sweet and at the same time, undoubtedly, cruel and narrow-minded. The presence of these various features makes his image unusually alive, and the author would have achieved much less effect if he had presented it with only negative pathos. Here, the feeling of moral nausea arises in the reader as if spontaneously, and that is precisely why the author’s plan is realized most fully: not in the order of any conviction, but in the order of a naturally awakened feeling in the soul of the reader himself. And this reader’s feeling was also a considerable blow to serfdom.

The relationship between the landowner from the story “The Burmister” - retired guards officer Arkady Pavlych Penochkin - and his serfs is very clear. Penochkin sees the people as just an ignorant and faceless mass. This empty and morally insignificant “retired guards officer” is coldly calculating and cruel by nature. Predation is its main distinguishing feature. He brought the rent from the peasants to such an extent that he himself is surprised at how they “make ends meet.”

Turgenev does not fall into exaggeration or one-sidedness when speaking about such landowners as Stegunov or Penochkin, just as he does not embellish life by drawing images of peasants who sometimes have traits of slavish humiliation or the bad habits of the masters they serve, such as the valet in the story “Date”, a smug egoist who can, with cold heartlessness, violate the gullibility of the girl who loves him.

The monstrosity of slavery was not that virtuous slaves were at the mercy of villainous slave owners. The monstrosity of this order lies precisely in the fact that such things are done by mediocre people, by mediocre people over other also mediocre people.

The overlap of the “term” - “dispose of” - with the flogging of the bartender Vasya gives the feeling that the flogging of servants was a very common occurrence. Let us especially note, as it is said, that the valet, who did not dare to utter a single word, “hesitated in place and circled with his napkin.” This movement of the hand, in which there is already a feeling of impending flogging, very accurately expresses the “silent” protest of the offender.

In the same way, when he saw Penochkin passing through the village, a “lame old man” with a beard starting just under his eyes, tore the half-watered horse from the well, hit it, for some unknown reason, on the side, and then bowed.” Why did this old man deal with his horse so cruelly? It was a lightning-fast psychological feeling that he himself was about to be hit. And he instinctively transferred this blow to the poor horse.

What an old man! So, seeing the master, “the boys in long shirts ran screaming into the huts, laid their bellies on the high threshold, hung their heads, threw their legs up, and thus very quickly rolled out the door, into the dark entryway, from where they never showed up.”

This last “picture,” despite all its brevity, very expressively makes one feel the depth of the abyss that lies between the bars and the peasantry, but it is also very curious in the way it is written: we positively see all this and hear how if only we had witnessed it ourselves. And all this was achieved only with extreme accuracy in conveying individual features of what is happening.

Even more briefly, with just one verb, Turgenev allows us to see how the corpulent headman, the mayor’s son, mounted a horse: “The headman took the horse aside out of decency, jumped on it and began to trot after the carriage, holding his hat in his hand.” . This verb in question is “fell in”: you can see this movement, like the belly of the future rider sliding up the steep side of the horse! In the sound combination “fell” one can feel the “tossing” along the road that the traveler has to overcome. And it is this feeling that makes this simple verb so expressive. And in Turgenev himself, after this “slouch” movement is completed, as if with a light heart, the movement of a horse begins to “trot” appears.

The headman was also told about this how he answered the owner’s questions: “sluggishly and awkwardly, as if he were fastening his caftan with frozen fingers.” And how the same elder stood next to the complaining peasants “with his mouth agape and perplexed fists.” There was a master here, and there were men, and his fists were “perplexed” as to why they were still inactive... In the same way, Penochkin himself, gradually warming up in conversation with the men, “stepped forward, and probably remembered my presence and put his hands in his pockets." There is no doubt that his “hands were itching,” and he also had to apologize to his guest.

In this story, Turgenev reveals to us that “service” layer that brutally helped the master suck the juices out of the peasant, without forgetting, however, himself. Such, for example, is the elder Penochkina and, in particular, the mayor himself, about whom one man familiar to the author from another village expressed himself exhaustively briefly and precisely: “A dog, not a man; You won’t find such a dog all the way to Kursk!” The chief clerk in the story “The Office” is worth both of them.

Naturally, Turgenev’s landowners are not all alike. In addition to those mentioned earlier, it is especially interesting to highlight the unique figure of “Vaily Vasilich”, who refused to even give his name and suggested giving him some nickname, calling himself “Hamlet of the Shigrovsky district”. His entire fate is an example of a certain unstable balance, determined by the social instability of the era itself.

The figure of Tchertopkhanov is so “picturesque” that the author had to devote two whole stories to it. Tchertop-hanov is a man with uncontrollable impulses, capable of both simple violence and unexpected, in his own way courageous and even daring attacks against a nobleman larger than him. The fact that he himself was poor gave him the opportunity, without parting with all his quirks and lordly whims, to understand, however, the situation of the poor and all kinds of people offended by fate.

This is exactly what Tchertop-hanov is like when the gypsy Masha leaves him. But his other story - with the loss of his beloved horse - Malek-Adel - surpasses in the intensity of his emotions even this departure from him of the woman he loved. Just as Masha sat like a “fox” before leaving him, so Tchertop-hanov himself, having become convinced that the Malek-Adele he had newly acquired was not real, now walked “back and forth around the room, turning in the same way on his heels at each wall, like an animal in a cage".

Particular mention should also be made of the barely outlined, but very expressive sketch of the young landowner Lyubozvonov, about whom Ovsyannikov, a fellow nobleman, spoke - how he tried to talk to the peasants easily, as they would later say, “in a populist manner.” This Vasily Nikolaevich, who came out to talk with his peasants “in corduroy trousers, like a coachman,” vividly reminds us of Nezhdanov from “Novi”, who dressed himself to communicate with the people “in a worn-out yellowish nankeen caftan.

The author of “Notes of a Hunter” depicts with merciless truthfulness both the savagery of morals, the tyranny of the owner of the Ananva estate (“Office”), and the true appearance of the Slavophile intellectual Lyubozvonov (“Ovsyannikov’s One-Palace”), as alien to the people as the gambled “Westerner” (“ Hamlet of Shchigrovsky district"), empty and insignificant. The revealing power of the images of nobles in Notes of a Hunter aroused Herzen's admiration. “Never before,” wrote the author of “Past and Thoughts,” “the inner life of a landowner’s house was exposed in such a form to general ridicule, hatred and disgust.”

Vulgar sociological criticism tried to belittle the revealing power of the “Notes of a Hunter” and attribute to Turgenev the “idealization” of the peasants and the serf way of life. Comparative literary scholars sought to prove the dependence of the “hunter’s notes” on the so-called “village genre” in Western European literature, separating Turgenev’s stories from the specific historical conditions in which they were created. Belinsky also wrote that Turgenev took the content of his essays and stories from modern Russian life. According to the great critic, the main characteristic feature of Turgenev’s talent “was that he hardly managed to correctly create a character that he did not meet in reality. He must always keep the ground of reality." Subsequently, the author of “Notes of a Hunter” himself admitted that in his works he constantly relies on “vital data.” Based on observations of everyday life, he was able to paint images with philosophical depth and poetic subtlety, warmed by a sincere and exciting feeling.

Of course, this brief review does not exhaust all of Turgenev’s heroes from the nobility, but it should be said that they are all mixed up with peasant images, and, now taking one general look at the entire picture of rural folk life, as wide as Rus' itself, the reader clearly sees and feels that this social picture is not inferior in its expressiveness to that purely artistic chiaroscuro of the landscape, with which all these “notes of a hunter” are poetically saturated.

3. Theme of protest against the oppression of serf owners

Turgenev's appeal to peasant life naturally flowed from his anti-serfdom sentiments. The main idea of ​​“Notes of a Hunter” was a protest against serfdom. “Under this name I collected and concentrated everything against which I decided to fight to the end - with which I swore never to reconcile... This was my Hannibal oath; I wasn’t the only one who gave it to myself then,” Turgenev later recalled.

Russia during the serf era was predominantly a peasant country. The large peasantry represented the main exploited class, through whose labor the ruling classes mainly lived under serfdom. The peasantry has repeatedly demonstrated itself as a revolutionary force in the country. The peasant question was of enormous importance for the development of Russian social thought and Russian literature. Lenin pointed out that Belinsky’s mood, expressed in his famous letter to Gogol, depended on the mood of the serfs. Every honest, thinking writer in Russia has encountered the peasant question. Since the time of Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” the peasant theme has been one of the main themes of Russian literature. A deep and correct understanding of the development of Russian literature of the 19th century, especially of the serf era, is possible only in the light of peasant and generally popular sentiments at each stage of this development. These sentiments fueled the democratism of Russian literature and were the source of the originality and depth of its humanistic pathos.

The appearance of the peasant theme in Turgenev’s work corresponded to an important trend in the general development of realistic Russian literature of the 40s and the desire for artistic knowledge people's life. Belinsky, denouncing the disdainful attitude of reactionary nobles towards cultural theme, argued: “Nature is the eternal example of art, and the greatest and noblest object in nature is man. But isn’t a man a human being? But what could be interesting to a rude, uneducated person? - Like what? “His soul, mind, heart, passions, inclinations - in a word, everything is the same as in an educated person.”

The closest predecessor of Turgenev, the author of “Notes of a Hunter,” was Grigorovich. Turgenev recognized his story “Village” as “in time the first attempt to bring our literature closer to folk life, the first of our “village stories.” Grigorovich's merit was a truthful depiction of the plight of the serf man, violence and abuse of his personality. However, in Grigorovich’s stories, the serf peasant appears primarily as a type of unhappy, humiliated and disadvantaged person. The heroes of Grigorovich's story have not yet revealed their inner strength in anything. The peasant environment itself in the story “The Village” makes an oppressive impression; The life of a peasant seemed to the author to be a dull, downtrodden existence with almost nothing spiritually enlightened or warmed by it. Such an image of the village aroused protest against serfdom, but did not inspire faith in the creative powers of the people, in their ability to live an independent life, independent of the landowners.

Unlike Grigorovich, Turgenev in the very first essay from “Notes of a Hunter” not only aroused in the reader sympathy for the serf peasant, but also led to the idea of ​​the rich internal forces hidden in the people’s environment. This is the ideological and artistic pathos of “Khorya and Kalinich.”

Defending the inviolability of the serf system, reactionary journalism insisted in every possible way about the need for landlord guardianship over the peasants, who supposedly would not be able to live and manage without the master. Turgenev refuted this statement with his essay. In the famous contrast between the quitrent Kaluga peasant and the Oryol peasant who is in corvee, Turgenev condemns the serfdom in the countryside. “The Oryol peasant... is gloomy, looks from under his brows, lives in crappy pine huts, goes to corvée, does not engage in trade, eats poorly, wears bast shoes; Kaluga obrok peasant lives in spacious pine huts... he looks cheerful and bold, his face is clean and white, he sells oil and tar and wears boots on holidays.” . The quitrent peasant felt more independent than the corvee peasant; he was removed from the daily supervision and interference in his life of the landowner and the master's clerks. Khor lives on rent, master Polutykin, in essence, left him alone and Khor got stronger. And what brought Kalinich to the ruin of poverty? “Guardianship” of his master-comfrey. It was difficult to speak out more clearly against serfdom in a censored form than Turgenev did in the very first essay of “Notes of a Hunter.”

In “Dead Souls”, with images for Mityai and Uncle Minai, Selifan and Petrushka, Gogol convinced that the dominance of the Nozdrevs, Sobakeviches and Chichikovs dulls the serf peasant. At the same time, the great writer, in lyrical digressions, sang the living soul of the people, not broken by centuries of slavery.

Quite a few stupid peasants, downtrodden by serfdom, appear on the pages of Notes of a Hunter. But already in “The Choir and Kalinich”, in the typical features of serfs, Turgenev embodies Gogol’s lyrical theme in real images of real life itself.

The anti-serfdom orientation of “Notes of a Hunter” is manifested primarily in those stories in which landowners and peasants are directly compared. There are few such stories, and in them the main social conflict of the era is shown with particular force. These are “Khor and Kalinich” (peasants and Polutykin), “Ermolai and the miller’s wife” (Arina and Zverkov), “Raspberry Water” (Stepushka and the Shumikha gentleman, Vlas and the young count), “Lgov” (Suchok and his gentlemen), “The Burmister” (peasants and Penochkin), “The Office” (Pavel and Mrs. Losnyakova with her chief clerk), “Two Landowners” (the barman Vasya and Stegunov), “Petr Petrovich Karataev” (Matryona and her mistress).

Other stories are structured differently: the central place is occupied either by peasants (“Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword”, “Bezhin Meadow”, “Biryuk”, “Living Relics”), or by ordinary people from the people (“Singers”), while the images of landowners are given either periphery, whether completely absent; nevertheless, the serfdom situation is completely clear to the reader, and the development of the action is given the character of some kind of dramatic conflict. In fact, the reader needs to imagine the conditions of serfdom in order to fully understand the thirst for justice, Kasyan’s search for righteous land, the darkness and superstitions of the boys of “Bezhin Meadows,” the difficult situation of Biryuk, the tragic fate of Akulina in the story “Date” and Lukerya in the story “Living Relics”, the death of talented people from the people in “Singers”.

One should not think that the anti-serfdom orientation of “Notes of a Hunter” is manifested only in stories that show their talent or the destructive influence of the serf landowners on them.

In “Notes of a Hunter” there are a number of stories that, at first glance, stand apart from the general ideological orientation of the collection, in which there are no peasants, but only landowners, and the author raises questions about the psychological, personal, intimate life of the heroes. Such are, for example, the stories “The District Doctor,” “My Neighbor Radilov,” “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District,” “Tchertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin,” “The End of Tchertopkhanov.”

But upon closer analysis, these stories do not fall out of the general ideological plan of “Notes of a Hunter”: the questions posed in them also find their specific explanation in the conditions of landowner life of that era.

Only a noble-serf environment could give birth to people like the man from the bankrupt landowner family of the Tchertopkhanovs; he most bizarrely combined spiritual nobility, kindness and generosity with noble arrogance, arrogance and extravagance; or people like Vasily Vasilyevich (“Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district”), also a bankrupt small-landed nobleman, a man of high culture, who turned out to be completely unadapted to life, superfluous in the circle of rich landowners and dignitaries, whom he despised, but from whom he could not tear himself away due to his origin, upbringing and weak character.

It is necessary to be transported to the setting of the old noble serfdom, with its prejudices in the field of morality, with its false feigned demands in matters of marriage, in order to understand the family drama of Radilov, who decided after the death of his wife to marry her sister, and thereby violated traditional decency.

And even " late love"The dying girl (in the story "The District Doctor") is shown by Turgenev against the backdrop of serf life. The family to which the heroine of the story belonged, and this time it was a family of bankrupt landowners: “the father was... a scientist, a writer, died in poverty,” “they lived in a small thatched house,” “they didn’t hang out much with their neighbors because they were small they had to be a match, but pride forbade getting to know the rich.” This forced loneliness of the noble family can largely explain the fact that when the heroine, in her last dying hours, awoke a passionate thirst for life and love, her choice fell on a person socially alien to her, a commoner, a district doctor.

All this gave “Notes of a Hunter” a bright and consistent ideological orientation, made Turgenev’s stories a genuine weapon of socio-political struggle, and at the same time, cemented all the stories into an artistic whole.

In the face of censorship persecution, the plans of some stories remained unfulfilled. These are, for example, the essay “Earth Eater”. It is based on a real fact - the reprisal of peasants against their landowner, who annually cut off their land. According to one of the memoirists, Turgenev outlined the plot of the essay, based on a true incident, as follows: “When I was a student (as you can see, it was a very long time ago), I came to the village in the summer to hunt. An old man from the courtyards of a neighboring estate took me hunting. One day we were walking through the forest, got tired, and sat down to rest. As soon as I see, my old man keeps looking around and shaking his head. It finally got me interested. I ask: “What are you doing?” - “Yes, the place, he says, is familiar...” And he told me a story about how a gentleman was once killed in this very place. The master was cruel. He especially pestered the servants: of course, because they were in closer relations with him than the peasants. So the servants conspired to drag him out of the house at night somewhere far away and end his life. My old man was still a boy then. He accidentally overheard the conversation and that night watched the conspirators - he saw how they dragged the master away with his mouth gagged so that he could not scream (the boy ran behind this procession to the side). When the men came to the forest, the boy hid in the bushes and saw everything from there. There were terrible details - for example, the cook stuffed the master’s mouth with mud (it was raining that day), telling him to try his food.” .

The essay “The Russian German and the Reformer” was also unable to see the light of day, the idea of ​​which, according to the recollections of the same contemporary, was to depict two landowners: “... one - Z. managed everything in his village, put everything in order - built up the peasants according to his plan, forcing them to drink, eat, and do according to their program; At night he got up, walked around the huts, woke up the people, and observed everything. The other was a German, reasonable, neat, but both men had a bad time. Only Z. came out so strikingly like Nikolai Pavlovich that there was nothing to even think about publishing, the censorship would never have let it through.”

Turgenev observed serfdom as a child, on his mother’s estate, looking closely at the life of the peasants of Spassky-Lugovinov and the surrounding villages. “I was born and raised,” Turgenev wrote, “among beatings and torture. Hatred of serfdom was already in me then.” Turgenev’s book is also imbued with a deep feeling of this hatred.

4. Depiction of folk characters embodying strength and inner beauty

Assessing Turgenev’s work and the writer’s services to Russian society, Saltykov-Shchedrin noted: “Turgenev was a highly developed, convinced man who never left the soil of universal human ideals. He carried these ideals into Russian life with that conscious constancy, which constitutes his main and invaluable service to Russian society. In this sense, he is a direct successor of Pushkin and has no other rivals in Russian literature. So if Pushkin had every reason to say about himself that he awakened " good feelings", the same thing and with the same justice could be said about himself and Turgenev. These were not some conventional agreement with this or that transitional trend, but those simple, universally accessible “good feelings”, which are based on a deep faith in the triumph of light, goodness and moral beauty». .

These words are a deep and insightful description of the work of Turgenev, the greatest humanist writer. Love for man, the desire to reveal his undoubted spirituality, the struggle for the emancipation of a generously gifted people humiliated by slavery and violence, faith in the ultimate triumph of goodness and justice - this is the main feature of Turgenev’s creative heritage, the inner passion, the pathos of his creative activity.

Turgenev, awakening simple, universally accessible “good feelings”, spoke out against the selfish isolation of people, individualistic isolation, with criticism of the universal morality of the ruling class, for unification and fraternal peace on earth. By recognizing the high moral value of the human personality, Turgenev was associated with his great predecessors - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The idea of ​​social and moral duty was reflected in Turgenev’s works as a struggle for the emancipation of a spiritually rich people. In his “Literary and Everyday Memoirs,” Turgenev wrote about the feeling of embarrassment, indignation, and disgust that the landowner serf environment aroused in him. Indeed, the educational protest against serfdom united such writers as Turgenev, Goncharov, Grigorovich and Herzen, who, to varying degrees, however, realized the connection of their thoughts and feelings with the needs of the masses, as well as history.

Undoubtedly, Turgenev's work in its best achievements has an inextricable internal connection with the struggle of the peasant masses against the feudal landowners. The writer early realized that the “substance” of the Russian people, that is, its deep spiritual content, is invariably rich and fruitful, but the ugly forms of social life, i.e. autocracy and serfdom hinder the progressive national development of the country. Inspired by the sermon of Belinsky, confident in the “depths of peasant nature,” Turgenev in “Notes of a Hunter” turned to the image of that people in which “the germ of future great deeds, great development lurks and matures.” He created the image of a great people, distinguished by an inquisitive critical mind and the ability for creative fantasies, artistic talent, moral responsiveness, a deep understanding of reality, sobriety of consciousness, in a word, romantic dreamers and rationalist practitioners from the people. The writer convinces the reader that the striving for beauty in the best people of the working masses is generated by the purity of moral feeling, spontaneity and integrity of the spiritual structure.

With subtle psychological skill, Turgenev showed the “romantic exaltations” of his dreamers from the people - Kalinich, who in his stories about Europe was most touched by descriptions of nature, mountains, waterfalls; Kasyan, who, surrendering to moods of tenderness and tenderness, lives as one soul with nature, harmoniously merging with it; Jacob the Turk, in whose singing the “Russian truthful soul” sounded and breathed and breathed “something familiar and immensely wide.” These “poetic natures from the people” were helpless in practical life and lacked interest in it: “Kalinich walked in bast shoes and managed to get by somehow,” “Kasyan, according to the coachman, also got away from the hands ... from work, that is,” from Ermolai They rejected him as a person unfit for any work. For those around them, these romantics, intoxicated by nature and love, are always eccentrics: Ermolai “generally looked like an eccentric,” Kasyan is “a wonderful person: like a holy fool,” “an incongruous person.” What struck the Russian peasant Turgenev was his ability to experience life aesthetically.

Turgenev also saw practical rationalists among the Russian people. The efficiency of the Russian peasant was reflected not in elementary childishness, but in spiritual breadth. Thus, Khor “understood reality,” “he saw a lot, knew a lot,” “he even rose to an ironic point of view on life.” The writer emphasizes Khor’s healthy criticism: “What’s good is what he likes, what’s reasonable is what you give him, but where it comes from, he doesn’t care. His common sense willingly makes fun of the lean German mind; but the Germans, according to Khor, are a curious people, and he is ready to learn from them.” Khor was distinguished by the necessary practical tenacity, strength of character, and the ability to build his well-being against the will of the landowner. In his stories about Europe, he was interested in administrative and state issues. Khor’s positive, rational consciousness, as a fundamental feature of the Russian national character, helps Turgenev bring the enterprising man closer to the personality of Peter I, who was “primarily a Russian man, Russian precisely in his transformations.”

Calm worldly wisdom and sober prudence are characteristic of the single-lord Ovsyannikov, who felt the disintegration of feudal-serf ties (“different times have come”), but at the same time regarded his era as an era of timelessness (“the old has died out, but the young is not born!”). Sober-minded and possessing a sense of justice, Ovsyannikov acts as a judge of the patriarchal savage nobility - the “old times” and the new, Europeanized nobility, whose representatives are “courteous, polite,” “but don’t understand real affairs,” i.e., they give in to “liberal verbiage "

Rationalists from the people, Ovsyannikov and Khor, are marked by a clear moral superiority over landowners like Polutykin. It was not for nothing that Khor’s face resembled Socrates: the same high, knobby forehead, the same small eyes, the same snub nose. Ovsyanikov’s face resembled Krylov’s with a clear and direct gaze under an overhanging eyebrow, with an important posture, measured speech, and a slow gait.

The best people among the people manifest themselves in work perseverance, in calm and persistent courage, in blood attachment to their homeland, in a hidden and lasting sense of personal dignity. A wise, noble and even lyrical principle lurks in the mass of working people suffering from poverty and lack of rights. Khor and Ovsyanikov raised the level of their farming only due to the fact that they were not personally dependent on the landowner. The author of “Notes of a Hunter” is confident that the people will achieve prosperity only if they live outside of serfdom.

Turgenev showed that a sense of personality had awakened in the Russian peasant. Kalinich served the hunter-master “without servility.” Smart, active, self-confident, Khor seemed to feel his dignity, spoke and moved slowly, occasionally laughing from under his long mustache. Ovsyannikov, devoid of “hasty, anxious haste,” is also afraid of losing his human dignity: “the lower the rank, the stricter you behave, otherwise you’ll just dirty yourself.” Here there is a roll call between Turgenev and Belinsky, according to whose thoughts Russia “needs not sermons (she heard them enough), not prayers (she repeated them enough), but the awakening in the people of a sense of human dignity, lost for so many centuries in dirt and rubbish."

The richness of the spiritual world of the enslaved peasantry was expressed, according to Turgenev, in a practical, sober understanding of reality, and in romantic experiences of beauty, and in a passionate longing for higher social justice, and in the consciousness of one’s moral dignity.

Turgenev, who went through a long ideological and artistic journey and reflected in his works various stages of the social history of his homeland, was spiritually shaped by the era of the 40s, when “Notes of a Hunter” was created. He constantly recognized himself as a writer, spiritually born in that “wonderful decade” when the crisis of the serfdom turned him to Hannibal’s oath. Speaking in 1879 at a farewell dinner at the Hermitage, organized in his honor before leaving Moscow, he said: “There is no doubt that your sympathy relates to me not so much as a writer who has managed to earn your approval, but as a person, belonging to the era of the 40s - it refers to a person who did not completely change either his artistic and literary convictions or the so-called liberal direction.” Recognizing that the word “liberal” has recently become somewhat vulgar, Turgenev emphasized that this word “meant a protest against everything dark and oppressive, it meant respect for science and education, love for poetry and art, and finally, most of all, it meant love for the people, who, still under the yoke of serfdom, needed the active help of his happy sons.”

And, indeed, he retained the position of a humanist writer that Turgenev outlined in “Notes of a Hunter” until the end of his life. Attention to the inner moral life of the peasants was of great importance for the further ideological and creative development of Turgenev: it fertilized him with a sense of moral purity and awareness of broad prospects for national development. The connection between Turgenev's novels and Notes of a Hunter is an undeniable connection. While depicting the historical fate of the noble class, Turgenev continued to develop his idea that the Russian people are a great people, that enormous opportunities for national development are hidden and ripening within them. The novels also affirmed the internal significance of representatives of the people's environment, and the moral value of characters from the ruling class was tested by the degree of their closeness to the people.

Turgenev was not only a humanist writer, but also a patriotic writer, with his whole being close to the very core of his people, to the very center of Russian life. He believed that “to express the innermost essence of one’s people is the highest happiness for an artist.”

Turgenev valued in a person, first of all, a wonderful sense of homeland, closeness to the national foundations of Russian folk life. The writer’s testament: “There is no happiness outside the homeland, everyone should take root in native land».

Turgenev is close to his readers as a writer who gave his sympathy to those public figures who were aware of their moral and civil responsibility to the people and homeland, who were convinced of the need to forget themselves for the sake of the “common good.” Turgenev is close to us as a writer who came out with a democratic protest against cosmopolitan aristocrats with their slavish admiration for bourgeois Europe, with their contempt for everything Russian and folk.

Turgenev as " central artist", like Pushkin, standing close to the very center of Russian life, had worldwide significance. Russian literature, represented by Turgenev, amazed Western European readers not only with the power of artistic expression, but also with its social and moral orientation. After all, the main thing in Turgenev’s novel is the dream of social activity, of selfless service to the homeland and people, the longing for a new, deeply humanized life.

Acting as a “prose poet,” Turgenev remains faithful to the usual norm of everyday events. He preserves the “pure gold of poetry,” lyrical emotion, because, conveying the sober and harsh truth about life, he rises above it, constantly guided by the ideal.

It has always been believed that the content of “Notes of a Hunter” is associated with the condemnation of serfdom. This is true. The writer never reconciled himself with serfdom, he fought against it by all means, including with the help of fiction. “Notes of a Hunter”, like no other work by I. S. Turgenev, confirms the seriousness of his intentions. Turgenev's book is interesting now not only and not so much for its anti-serfdom orientation, but for its deep posing of the question about the essence of the people, its capabilities, properties, tasks, which have not been fully revealed in some way. Needless to say, in our days, when attention to the historical destinies of the people has intensified, when the dependence of the social factor on the psychology and efforts of each person has become obvious, Turgenev’s book takes on a new meaning. It will not answer all the questions, but it will suggest a lot, it will reveal a lot in the mysteries of life, in the historical perspectives of the people's character. And without knowledge of the character of one’s people, their hidden or forever ruined potentials, no spiritual revival is possible, which means moving forward.

How is the theme of the people revealed in “Notes of a Hunter”? Behind the unsightly appearance of the peasants, their simple and often meager forms of existence, the writer was able to discern many truly human, inherently beautiful qualities. And it is no coincidence that already from the first essay “Khor and Kalinich” Belinsky concluded that Turgenev approached the people “from a side that no one had ever approached them before.” This was an innovation that had important consequences for all Russian literature.

Turgenev not only describes the peasants, talks about them, reproduces their speech, characterizes their actions, but, as it were, looks into their souls in order to see something hidden there, and in this way tell about the many noble properties of the people. And it turned out that a “man” is really a person, and not a downtrodden creature, often more a person than a “dumb slave,” and, moreover, a wonderful person who has a correct understanding of things, which sometimes educated people from privileged classes do not have.

At the same time, Turgenev does not idealize the peasants - as the author shows, they have both carelessness, often mixed with “stupidity,” and servility; They are often prone to drinking, superstitious, and “dark.” But all this, if you look closely, is the general result of their hardships in life. It is all the more surprising that under such conditions many peasants did not lose either sanity, dignity, or faith in the best, although they did not know what it should consist of.

A whole line of people from the people passes in front of the reader. Getting to know them, the reader comprehends the very essence of the nationality, outside of which nothing good can happen (this idea is also present in the hunter’s sketches) and in the life of the privileged classes.

This is the smart and practical Khor, the “administrative head”, according to the author’s description (this expression is used in the text in a positive sense). The ferret sees right through his master (landowner Polutykin). Khor pays him one hundred rubles a year, but in everything else he is his own boss. He has a good home, a decent household, his sons look openly, with a slightly hidden grin - a sign of his own dignity. And the thought involuntarily suggests itself: if individual men within the framework of the serf system managed to get on their feet, then how would the people turn out if they turned out to be free, having received freedom and feeling like masters? It is not for nothing that the author compares Khor with Peter the Great, a “Russian man,” the narrator notes, “in his transformations,” courage in renewing life.

But friend Khorya Kalinich is an idealist, romantic, gentle and sublime soul. Kalinich does not have a farm, and not because he is lazy. And because, firstly, the master “takes” him to hunt every time as an “expert” in the places necessary for shooting. The main thing is because he himself gravitates more towards nature, he needs constant movement, constant communication with nature.

Falling in love with nature, treating it as a living element endowed Kalinich with an invaluable gift - warmth and responsiveness. He goes to his friend Khorya with a bunch of wild strawberries - a kind of symbol of friendly affection, affection and delicacy.

Kalinich's speech is melodious, his eyes have a gentle expression, and it is pleasant to be with him. Next to him, a person seems to rest his soul. Kalinich, moreover, is an artist, an artist: he sings, plays the balalaika, unwisely, of course, but with feeling.

Next to the image of Kalinich, one can also place the image of Lukerya (“Living Relics”), which is usually considered as an example of the long-suffering of the Russian person, his ability to endure any hardship, and in extreme conditions (Lukerya, once the best singer in the village, a beauty, injured her spine - and here for seven years without movement...). Of course, in all this one should see extraordinary courage, the fortitude of the Russian soul. But it is equally important to recognize the source of such resilience.

Lukerya’s spiritual overcoming of physical weakness occurred as a result of her awareness of the sacrifice of her suffering, its necessity for delivering other peasants from torment and sinfulness. In other words, Lukerya felt her involvement in God's revelation - and this endowed her with such inner strength, which is not always found in people under normal conditions. Lukerya’s conviction that her cross is the guarantee of God’s gracious love allows her to find harmony and unity with the world and environment. That’s why she doesn’t feel unhappy at all (“It’s worse for many,” she says to herself, although it would seem – where is it even worse?). It is noteworthy that she has “her own” relationship with nature, “her own” very subtle, although unconscious by the mind, understanding of the highest purpose of existence: “I lie and lie down - I don’t think; I feel that I’m alive, I’m breathing - and all of me is here. I look, I listen. The bees in the apiary are buzzing and humming; a dove will sit on the roof and coo; a mother hen will come in with the chickens to peck some crumbs, or a sparrow will fly in and a butterfly will fly in - I’m very pleased.” It is clear that such a heightened perception of the world is possible only if there is in the soul of a person a passionate faith in the enduring perfection of the spiritual world. Therefore, the notorious formula about the ability of a Russian person to be satisfied with “little things,” to bathe in “a spoonful of water,” and then “to dance barefoot in the cold” is inapplicable to Lukerya. Quite the opposite. Through Lukerya’s physical helplessness, an unkilled craving (as a person who grew up in his national beliefs) for the boundless purity of true love, for complete satisfaction of needs and perfection, is revealed.

The “gold” of the people’s heart was revealed by Turgenev in other stories and essays: “Bezhin Meadow”, “Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword”, “Date”. Moreover, each subsequent story does not repeat, but deepens and expands readers’ ideas about the properties of the people’s character.

The culminating story, perhaps, is “The Singers.” Here we see a competition between two singers from the people: Yakov the Turk and a rower from Zhizdra (in the old days, rowers were people from the trade and craft classes who carried out the artel hiring of free peasant hands).

It is known that the art of a people is its soul. Strong, daring and passionate, it just resulted in Yakov’s singing. “The Russian, truthful, ardent soul,” the author writes, “sounded and breathed in him and so grabbed you by the heart, grabbed you right by its Russian strings... He sang, and from every sound of his voice there was something familiar and immensely wide, as if the familiar steppe was opening up before you, stretching into an endless distance...” And here is the impression, the reaction to Yakov’s singing of those who were in the Prytynny tavern at that time: “I looked around - the kisser’s wife was crying, leaning her chest against the window... the gray little man was quietly sobbing in the corner, shaking his head in a bitter whisper: and iron face From under the completely furrowed eyebrows of the Wild Master, a heavy tear slowly rolled down... Everyone stood as if numb.”

Yes, true art unites and purifies people. And in the life of the people, as Turgenev shows, there are moments just as sublime as those of the owners of brilliant drawing rooms. At the same time, a truthful and honest artist, Turgenev does not hide the fact that in their everyday life the people are still very far from realizing the rich spiritual potential that is hidden in their soul and is expressed in songs and art. This contrast between the capabilities of the people and their actual state is clearly emphasized by the following scenes. Having rested in the hayloft and leaving the village, the hunter decided to look into the window of the tavern, where a few hours earlier he had witnessed a wonderful singing. So what? A “gay” and “motley picture” appeared before his eyes: everyone was drunk, starting with Yakov. He sat bare-chested on a bench, singing in a hoarse voice some kind of dance, street song. He lazily fingered and plucked the strings of the guitar... In the middle of the tavern, Stunned, completely “unscrewed” and without a caftan, skipped in front of a man in a gray army coat; the peasant, in turn, stomped and shuffled with difficulty with his weakened legs and, smiling meaninglessly through his tousled beard, occasionally waved one hand, as if wanting to say “wherever it goes!” .

This scene is usually omitted...But what to do with the contrasts that exist in life and which, as we see, are exposed with all frankness by a truthful writer? After all, they are also a part of our existence, which, unfortunately, has not yet been eliminated. And it is no coincidence, apparently, that Turgenev describes the evening scene in the tavern in such detail. It reflects exactly that side of our national existence, which was formulated a little later by Nekrasov, albeit harshly, but ultimately fairly: “... you’re wretched.”

The ending of the story is curious in this regard. Moving away from the window, from which came the discordant sounds of tavern “fun,” the hunter quickly walked away from the beater. And then the boy’s clear voice was heard, apparently addressed to his brother: “Antropka! Come here, damn le-shi-i-iy! Daddy wants to flog you!” This is where the story ends. Strange ending...

Perhaps Antropka is really guilty and deserves to be cut, or maybe this is a random episode. But it is no coincidence that it is inserted into the ending of the story.

In the system of Turgenev’s “secret writing” (“an artist must be a psychologist, but “secret”,” said the writer), it is perceived as a contrasting parallel to the competition that took place during the day in the Pritynny tavern, where those present (and at the same time the reader) felt something lofty and beautiful . And it turns out that on the one hand, there is a song that grabs the heart, tearing tears from our eyes, and on the other hand, “to carve out the desires,” that is, the all-stupefying everyday life, “the power of darkness,” as L. Tolstoy would later say, characterizing the contradictory factors of people's life.

The contrast between the lofty and the everyday, the ugly and the beautiful, strength and powerlessness is determined in people's life primarily by the conditions of cultural and economic development. But the tragedy of Russian national life, the powerlessness of the people depend not only on social oppression, but also on inertia combined with cowardice, on the long-standing habit of many Russian people to adapt to any existence. And indeed, some peasants, as Turgenev shows (and this does not at all contradict what is depicted in “Living Relics”, since a different type of person is given there), resign themselves to any situation. This is, for example, Twig from the story “Lairs”. What positions did he not perform in his bars? He was a coachman, a postilion, a gardener, a delivery driver, and an “actor” - and he never really did anything or was able to do anything.

His last position was as a “fisherman” at a pond where there are no fish. And what? He is happy with his life, there are moments when he even experiences some semblance of joy. Do whatever you want with such people! They will bear everything, endure everything, come to terms with any conditions and even explain their inevitable cause themselves. Complain? No no! “Eksta! - one of the men answers the question of why the peasants are not indignant at the mischief of their headman. “Go ahead, complain... No, he’s just like that” (“The Burmister”). This is the answer.

It is clear that the downtrodden state of the peasants is largely determined by their economic dependence on the “masters” and on serfdom. But it would be wrong to forget about psychology, which is tenacious. And now many more, having turned to other areas of activity, having interrupted their centuries-old ties with agriculture, live, guided by the fear: “No, he’s like you, that one...” And they retreat, and thereby create a difficult, tragic collision of national inconsistency, disconnection.

There is another extremely important artistic component in “Notes of a Hunter” - nature. Here Turgenev skillfully uses paintings of nature to identify and emphasize any feature in the character of the hero, to convey psychological nuances in the feelings of the characters. Let us recall, for example, how subtly the girl’s sadness is emphasized, one might say the tragedy of Akulina in the story “Date”.

Tenderly loving Akulina comes to the grove for a date with the noble valet's spoiled valet and finds out that he is leaving with his master for Paris, leaving her, in essence, forever. Nature here is a subtle, lyrical commentary on the girl’s painful, hopeless state: “A gusty wind quickly rushed towards through the yellow, dried stubble; hastily rising in front of him, small warped leaves rushed past, across the road, along the edge.” “Little Warped Leaves” is a kind of analogue with Akulina’s emotional experience. And the story began with a description of slender young birch trees that matched this sweet, gentle creature.

The landscape in “Notes of a Hunter” is not only a way to deepen psychological characteristics hero, not only an ornament that enhances the lyricism of the narrative, but also something more. This is an image of the homeland, Russia. Turgenev very touchingly shows his attitude towards the natural world. Unfortunately, such an attitude has not yet become the norm of existence, the norm of human morality, although it lives in the depths national consciousness. All the more remarkable is the dialogue between the “wonderful”, not of this world, man Kasyan and the hunter.

At that moment when the resting hunter fully felt the surrounding grace, Kasyan, having undertaken to accompany the hunter and who had been silent all the time before, suddenly spoke with an insistence unusual for him:

“- Master, oh master! – Kasyan suddenly said in his sonorous voice.

I stood up in surprise; Until now he had barely answered my questions, otherwise he suddenly spoke.

What do you want? – I asked.

Well, why did you kill the bird? – he began, looking me straight in the face.

How for what? Crake is game: you can eat it.

That's not why you killed him, master: you'll eat him! You killed him for fun.

But you yourself probably eat geese or chicken, for example?

That bird is designated by God for man, and the corncrake is a forest bird. And he is not alone: ​​there is a lot of it, every forest creature, and field and river creature, and swamp and meadow, and upland and downstream - it is a sin to kill it, and let it live on earth to its limit.

...Blood,” he continued, “blood is a holy thing!” The blood does not see the sun of God, the blood hides from the light... it is a great sin to show blood to the light, a great sin and fear...

I admit, I looked at the strange old man with complete amazement. His speech did not sound like a peasant's speech: common people don't talk like that, and talkers don't talk like that. This language, deliberately solemn and strange... I have never heard anything like it.”

One should agree with the author: “Common people don’t speak like that,” and in general, no one speaks like that yet, and Kasyan’s voice in the context of Turgenev’s narrative can perhaps be perceived as the voice of Nature itself, calling to man. And yet, it is precisely in the popular strata that Turgenev finds the origins of this genuine love for Nature, which everyone needs to join. Moreover, delving into the “strange” actions, the “wonderful” psychology of people like Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword and Kalinich, the author comes to the realization and affirmation of the need for a new measure of human morality, which would be regulated by man’s relationship to nature. Turgenev I.S. He was one of the first to proclaim man’s sense of responsibility for his actions before Nature.

One more feature of “Notes of a Hunter” should be noted. Reproducing pictures of folk life, pointing to the “golden” placers in the souls of the peasants, Turgenev is far from idealizing reality. Human life is not as blessed as the nature around us. The writer does not hide the fact that the landowners are mired in extortion, dishonor in relation to their subjects, and among the masses of the people they have not yet woken up even half, their potential life-giving forces are not operating. He did not draw in his essays ideal images positive people who can transform reality. But still, he did not lose faith in goodness and beauty. And if we talk about “Notes of a Hunter,” here the author’s hopes are connected with hopes for the life-giving sources of life itself, understood as a single process for both nature and man. That is why the book ends not with a description of any incident or individual human fate, but with pictures of nature (essay “Forest and Steppe”).

When you get acquainted with the reviews of contemporaries about “Notes of a Hunter,” you come across completely unexpected statements about the embellished image of the people.

V. Botkin wrote to Belinsky: “...in the story “Khor and Kalinich” the fiction is clearly visible; this is an idyll, not a characteristic of two Russian men!” Belinsky, however, objected to Botkin: “It seems to me that in relation to this play, so dramatically remarkable, you are completely wrong. He saw in “The Chorus and Kalinich” a truly realistic, truthful portrayal of the Russian people.” In the magazine “Son of the Fatherland,” literary critics received the following review of Turgenev’s story: “Khor has half a dozen fine sons; his hut stands alone, in a forest or in a swamp; You’re just waiting for one of those rural idylls that we often admired in Russian huts! Nothing happened! Khorya's wife is an obnoxious grumbler and constantly fights with her daughters-in-law. Kalinich is a dreamer, like a Russian commoner is unlikely to be.” The reviewer is surprised by the strange “similarity”: “Khor is a realist, Kalinich is an idealist, Khor is a very smart, but roguish man who does not trust his master, who treats him quite kindly, despite the fact that Khor loves to make jokes at the expense of his master.” This review sensitively captures the main and fundamental thing that was unacceptable in “Notes of a Hunter” for serf owners - Turgenev’s denial of the idea of ​​unity between the master and the peasant, an idea that, for example, was clearly reflected in his story “Tarantas” by V. Sologub, who saw in the relationships between nobles and peasants there is “some kind of high, secret, holy connection,” and in the hearts of the peasants there is love for the master, “innate and almost inexplicable love.”

The writer really looked at reality and knew that Russia did not need a “softening of morals,” but a resolution of social issues (the abolition of serfdom). Turgenev shows that life in the Russian village is not so peaceful and ideal that it can be contrasted with the life of the city. Turgenev has no admiration for the simplicity and artlessness of the villagers, in particular the peasants. In “Notes of a Hunter” there are no invented happy endings - the poor heroine does not become the legal wife of a rich man at the end of the story; there is no naive strained moralization in them, no whimsical play in opposition: first tragedy and tears, then peace and goodwill.

In Turgenev's first stories ("Khor and Kalinich", "Ovsyannikov's Household", "Death") there was something unusual and, in fact, very innovative, which could give rise to statements about the idyllic nature of Turgenev's depiction of the village. Later, this feature intensified in the stories “Singers”, “Date”, “Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword”, “Bezhin Meadow”. What is characteristic of Turgenev’s approach to depicting the people?

Turgenev, in the words of P.V. Annenkov, “rehabilitated” a simple man - a Russian peasant, showed the beauty of his soul and his inherent common sense, emphasized that he is absolutely no different in spiritual makeup and mental nature from an educated person, even in some respects superior to him.

Turgenev emphasized the best, bright sides of people from the people, showed in a concentrated way what was new in the life of the peasantry (growth of self-esteem, initiative, desire for independence, and so on), which in the future, in his opinion, should have become even stronger and developed. In this sense, Turgenev’s depiction of peasants is distinguished by “ideality.” Communication with the people, observations of people from the people allowed the author to optimistically imagine the future of the Russian people and the Russian state.

N.G. Chernyshevsky pointed out two types of arousal of sympathy for the people, which are presented in the works of Turgenev. The first, Chernyshevsky wrote, “idealized peasant life, portrayed common people to us as so noble, sublime, virtuous, meek and intelligent, patient and energetic, that all that remained was to be touched by the description of their interesting virtues and shed tender tears about the troubles to which such lovely creatures were sometimes subjected.” , and were always subjected without any fault or even reason in themselves.” Why did Turgenev portray the people this way? Because it was necessary to arouse sympathy for him. He cannot do anything for himself, and he must persuade others in his favor. But if you tell others everything that can be said about him, their compassion for him will be weakened by the knowledge of his shortcomings. Therefore, one should remain silent about its shortcomings. But the point is not only that Turgenev emphasized the ideal in his peasant characters. He also clearly expressed his democratic positions. He did not hide the cruel truth from his readers, and along with showing this truth, he sought to arouse the reader’s sympathy for the people. The hunter likes the peasants he meets; he listens with interest to their speeches and observes their lives. Many things surprise him, he is pleasantly surprised.

Although many literary critics they believe that the people in “Notes of a Hunter” are embellished, “this imaginary embellishment” of the image of the peasants is deciphered as a feature of Turgenev’s creative realistic method, associated with his desire to artistically exaggerate the main and fundamental thing in the spiritual appearance of the people, to enlarge to reveal their civic potentials, the inclinations dormant in them .

Another feature of the depiction of the people in “Notes of a Hunter” is that the fate of the main characters personifies a special time - personal and historical, which exists “next to” the current time. Mikhailo Savelyev (“Fog”) is a representative of the past, eighteenth century. The former butler of a wealthy Catherine's nobleman, a hospitable man and a reveler, he is all in the past, in memories of the grandiose feasts that his master gave for the entire neighborhood, and about all that cheerful, festive life: fireworks, skating, serf orchestras, etc. The lyrical sublimity of the memories is emphasized by the ugliness of the material skeleton of the past life, which is reminded only by “a huge wooden house on two floors, completely abandoned, with a collapsed roof and tightly boarded windows...” The life and self-awareness of the Fog are limited and, to a certain extent, absorbed the previous century, time that passed with the death of his master.

The second hero, Stepushka, is “pushed” out of real time to an even greater distance than Fog. It would be more accurate to say that Stepushka does not fit into any time at all. Talking about the appearance of Stepushka in the nearest village, and his strange, restless life, Turgenev with particular insistence emphasizes not so much the strangeness of Stepushka’s fate as its incomparability with anything else, the foreignness of his existence. According to the author, Stepushka “...could not be considered either a person in general or healthy in particular.”

This is followed by the statement: “This man didn’t even have a past.” The narrator calls Stepushka a “neglected” person, and there is a considerable temptation to interpret this word in its literal meaning. Moreover, the author himself seems to mean by Stepushkina “abandonment

Not so much his loneliness and homelessness, but the mystery of his appearance. In this sense, Turgenev’s subtle definitions in relation to Stepushka’s life-being among other people are not accidental: “Stepushka did not live with the gardener: he lived, hovered in the garden.”

Current, concrete social time is embodied in the image of the third hero, the peasant Vlas, who suddenly appeared at the spring. He returns home from Moscow, where his son died. In Moscow, however, Vlas goes not to his son, but to the master in the hope of begging him to at least ease his fate a little: to reduce his rent or transfer him to corvee. But the master is inexorable, and Vlas returns to his native village, where “his wife, tea, is now whistling into her fist from hunger.” The man truly makes the way of the cross: for his sons, death seems to merge with hopelessness and extreme need, which is also fraught with death.

Turgenev sometimes shows the diverse powers, talents, and artistic traits of the Russian people in passing, without emphasizing, as if by chance, and at the same time with amazing clarity and depth. Take, for example, the essay “Swan”. This is precisely an essay, descriptive, semi-ethnographic. Description of a horse fair - what can be learned from such a topic? In Turgenev, everything is subordinated to the general task of the book, and in this seemingly very simple essay the very melodies that make up the living soul of “Notes of a Hunter” begin to sound. Already from the very beginning, the motif of peasant ruin begins. In the very first paragraph, the hunter-narrator talks about how he sometimes happens to “drive ten miles, instead of permanent courtyards, and find himself in the landowner’s, severely ruined village of Khudobubnov.” This meaningful phrase will be remembered by the reader later, when describing the fair itself, when “men in sheepskin coats torn under their arms” appear in front of him, desperately bargaining, “while the subject of their dispute, a trashy horse, covered with warped matting, just blinked her eyes, as if it wasn’t about her...And really, does it matter to her who beats her!” This is one pole, wretched Rus', downtrodden, humiliated and hungry. The other pole is the landowners, whose cursory portraits form a whole gallery of lower beings, marked with some kind of poisonous stamp of vulgarity: here are broad-browed landowners with dyed mustaches and an expression of dignity on their faces, and cheeky young landowners in Hungarian shorts and gray trousers, and nobles in Cossacks with swollen eyes. Turgenev will not forget to note disgustingly that these nobles were “sniffling painfully,” as if we're talking about not about people, but about animals.

Turgenev had a fairly broad understanding of the people. This is not only the peasantry, but also all oppressed layers of society in general. Already in “Notes of a Hunter” a similar approach was reflected: the people here are the draft peasantry, and the quit-rent craftsman, and the small landowner Nedopyuskin, and the gypsy Masha, and the freedman Vladimir, and the innkeeper Nikolai Ivanovich, and the factory worker Yakov-Turok, and the ruined landowner Karataev, and Russian Hamlet Vasily Vasilievich. In “Notes of a Hunter” there is a real wealth of human images, characters, destinies. We see in these stories traces of complex social relationships, features of a bygone era and emerging features of a new life. The general style of Turgenev’s chiaroscuro does not give us any “flat” images, but always the real depth of life flowing in time. Here it was impossible to just “admire” - Turgenev’s stories awakened certain feelings in the soul and called for action. And the author does all this without any pressure from the pen: the truth of the bright, artistic narrative speaks for itself.

Turgenev was completely faithful to reality, and it is necessary to remember his words: “I never directly copy from living examples of human nature.” One statement does not in any way contradict the other. What exactly the artist takes from reality for his creative embodiment can be seen from a simple description, in which everything important and unimportant is conveyed in a row. This choice of this or that character, this or that situation or collision is already the most crucial moment for the creation of a future work of art: whatever you choose, it must be significant, characteristic, typical.

But the further development of what is taken from life does not necessarily have to coincide exactly with how everything happened in reality. Not at all. It will also flow according to the laws of living life, but at the same time it will be submissive to the will, the very plan of the artist. It can and should play the role that is intended for it in the whole work, and this will never be untrue in the hands of a great and truthful artist. On the contrary, such a work of art reveals precisely that deep truth that was contained in the reality of life, but was not accessible to the perception of many.

Let us also recall Turgenev’s laconicism. In the shortest words he was able to convey not only a landscape or a portrait of one of the characters in the story, but sometimes the whole fate of a person. Turgenev here “relyed” on his reader, to whom, however, he was demanding.

Turgenev’s individual stories turned into a single, integral book, and this happened completely organically, because in the book that was being born, first of all, there was a single theme - serf Rus', and the artist had a unity of perception of life.

Having established the author’s unified perception of Russian reality, we must add that it was the perception of a true patriotic artist. In “Rudin,” Turgenev says through the mouth of one of the novel’s heroes, Lezhnev: “Russia can do without each of us, but none of us can do without it. Woe to the one who thinks this, double woe to the one who actually gets along without it! Cosmopolitanism is nonsense, cosmopolitan is zero, worse than zero: outside the nationality there is no art, no truth, no life, nothing.”

The entire book “Notes of a Hunter” is saturated with this love of Turgenev for Russia, for its nature and people. And this great love his was not passive love. This feeling and anticipation of a bright future warmed the truly inimitable book of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - “Notes of a Hunter”, a book beloved by the Russian people, an undying book!

Conclusion

At the end of the work, it should be noted that the Russian enslaved peasant in “Notes of a Hunter” appeared as a person, and not just as a “little brother,” and this became a genuine artistic discovery. From the beginning of “Khor and Kalinich,” I remember that “Notes of a Hunter” begins not with portraits, but with the summary characteristics of the peasant “breeds”: Oryol, Kaluga. Instead of faces, the heroes were essentially personifications of one kind of activity or another, or some specific living conditions. This has become a tradition in Russian literature.

Turgenev connects to this tradition in order, however, not to continue, but to overturn it on its own territory. He immediately calls his Kalinich (then Khorya) not a man, but a man: “Kalinich was a man.”

The peasant heroes of the first essay of "Notes..." are joined by the miller's wife Arina ("Yermolai and the miller's wife"), the wanderer Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword, the forester Foma ("Biryuk"), who looked at the "daring factory fellow" Yashka-Turok ("Singers"), the former maid Lukerya (“Living Relics”), boys from “Bezhin Meadow”. People are by no means idealized, inseparable from their way of life with its special concerns and needs, and at the same time always unique, and often bright, individuals. In these heroes - representatives of cultural Russia, something national and universal is revealed...

The fact is that these heroes of “Notes of a Hunter” are revealed as much in the “peasant” context as in the all-Russian and universal human context.

In Turgenev’s portrayal, nothing human was truly alien to the Russian peasants. Like every developed personality, they contained within themselves at least nationally-eternal spiritual and moral aspirations and conflicts that went back to the basic human archetypes.

Various historical and cultural associations and literary “doubles” are “laid” by Turgenev already in the external appearances of the peasant boys from “Bezhin Meadows” - a true masterpiece of “Notes...” The five peasant boys “Bezhin Meadows” are, thus, five unique types, in as much folk-Russian as universal. Indeed, in Turgenev’s typical character, his general beginning does not exclude, as was the case in the stereotypes of essayists-“physiologists,” the beginning is unique and special, but is manifested precisely in individualized design.

“Notes of a Hunter” is, first of all, a book about the people and their unnatural enslaved-slave state. But it is not just one display of lordly tyranny that her undoubted pathos against serfdom is realized in her. First of all, it is generated by the very discovery and revelation of peasants as individuals, often complex or gifted, but always unique. This official order looked wild and scary, in which such people were owned as if they were things. various kinds Polutykins and Zverkovs.

It is not just civil indignation that determines Turgenev’s deep interest in Russian peasants. He came from respect for the individual and from this concept, according to which a person “conscious in itself of his infinite, unconditional dignity” is, according to Turgenev’s contemporary historian K.D. Kavelin “a necessary condition for any spiritual development people."

“The real feat of the author of “Notes of a Hunter” was that he saw and showed such a personality in conditions where it seemed to be completely leveled and trampled upon by the monotony of a miserable life and a powerless situation.”

The free and organic unity in the personality of Turgenev himself of “sympathy for humanity and artistic feeling” (Tyutchev), in other words, of man and artist, allowed him to create numerous images from the people, which are reflected in a truthful and poetic book, the name of which is “Notes of a Hunter "

Bibliography

1. Baboreko A.K. Notes of a hunter // Creativity of I.S. Turgenev. Collection of articles p/r. CM. Petrova. - M.: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959.

2. Golubkov V.V. Ideological and artistic unity of “Notes of a Hunter” // Creativity of I.S. Turgenev. Collection of articles p/r. CM. Petrova. - M.: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959.

3. Starenkov M.P. Language and style of “Notes of a Hunter” // Creativity of I.S. Turgenev. Collection of articles p/r. CM. Petrova. - M.: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959.

4. Alekseev M.P. World significance of “Notes of a Hunter” // Creativity of I.S. Turgenev. Collection of articles p/r. S. M. Petrova. - M.: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959.

5. Lenin V.I. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M., 1955.

6. Turgenev I.S. Collected works in 11 volumes. - M.: GIHL, 1934.

7. Turgenev I.S. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1949.

8. The first collection of letters from I.S. Turgenev. - St. Petersburg, 1884.

9. Turgenev I.S. Collected works in 11 volumes. - M.: GIHL., 1934.

10. Collection of the Russian Public Library.//issue. 1. - M., 1924.

11. Turgenev I.S. Complete collection of letters in 11 volumes. - M., 1951.

12. Belinsky V.G. Complete works in 12 volumes. - M., 1962.

13. Chekhov A.P. Complete works in 8 volumes. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1956.

14. Turgenev I.S. Complete collection of letters in 11 volumes. - M., 1951.

15. Chernyshevsky V.I. Russian language in the works of I.S. Turgenev.// “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Social Sciences." 1936. - No. 3.

16. Belinsky V.G. Complete works in 12 volumes. - M., 1962.

17. I.S. Turgenev. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1949.

18. Gogol about literature. - M.: Gosizdat, 1952.

19. Turgenev I.S. Notes of a hunter: stories and stories. - Mn.: Narodnaya Asveta, 1984.

20. Turgenev I.S. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1949.

21. Belinsky V.G. Complete works in 12 volumes. - M., 1962.

22. Ostrovskaya N.A. Memories of Turgenev. V. Book: "Turgenev's collection" p/r Piksanova N.K. - P-g, 1916.

23. Ostrovskaya N.A. Memories of Turgenev. V. Book: "Turgenev's collection" p/r Piksanova N.K. - P-g, 1916.

24. Turgenev I.S. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1949.

25. Saltykov-Shchedrin M.E. Complete works in 10 volumes. - M., 1936-1957.

26. Belinsky V.G. Complete works in 12 volumes. - M., 1962.

27. Turgenev I.S. Notes of a hunter: stories and stories. - Mn.: Narodnaya Asveta, 1984.

28. Nedzvetsky V.A. In the context of humanity and nature // Russian literature, 1996. - No. 4.

The teacher’s lecture about Turgenev may include reports from tenth graders about individual pages of the writer’s life and work. A book for students by Yu. V. Lebedev “Turgenev” from the “Biography of a Writer” series (M., 1990) will help with this work.

Main points of the lecture

Page one - "Mother". The difficult childhood and youth of Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova’s mother, a constant feeling of dependence and at the same time an extraordinary mind and great abilities. Strong will, pride, the desire for independence in an atmosphere of lack of love turned into a desire to rule and control the destinies of people. A woman with a heavy, despotic, capricious character was gifted and charming in her own way. In relation to her three sons, she was caring and tender, but this did not stop her from tyrannizing them and punishing them for any reason. The mother’s features are recognizable in the lady from the story “Mumu”, Glafira Petrovna from the novel “The Noble Nest”, and the domineering grandmother from the story “Punin and Baburin”. His mother's diary, discovered after her death, shocked Turgenev. I couldn’t sleep all night, I thought about her life: “What a woman!.. May God forgive her everything!” But what a life!”
Page two - “A few words about love.” Perhaps it was from his mother that Turgenev’s contradictions in relation to women were formed: worship of the “beautiful half of humanity” and an insurmountable rejection of family, marriage, and stable “philistine happiness.” This explains the strange love for Pauline Viardot (Michelle Fernand Paulina Garcia). The beauty of the 22-year-old singer’s voice in the role of Rosina from “The Barber of Seville” by G. Rossini captivated Turgenev. In a letter to her we read: “Oh, my feelings for you are too great and powerful. I can no longer live away from you, I must feel your closeness, enjoy it; “The day when your eyes didn’t shine on me is a lost day!” Her appearance is inspired by the prose poem “Stop!”, which can be read in class.
Page three - "Father". First meeting with true love Turgenev's is unrequited. They preferred someone else to him. The “other” turned out to be the future writer’s father, Sergei Nikolaevich. The son did not hate his father, but in the story “First Love” he portrayed him “quiveringly and lovingly.” (The lecture can include a short report from the student about the problems and poetics of the story “First Love” with a summary of what has been previously studied.)
Page four - “Childhood impressions.” Favorite Spassky. An old manor garden, where his mother’s secretary Fyodor Ivanovich Lobanov taught him to read and write, a huge manor house with 40 rooms, a huge library and a boy who thought about life early, acutely felt pain and deeply understood beauty. (Here it is possible to show video materials about Spassky-Lutovinov or take a correspondence tour of the Turgenev estate.)
Page five - “First work.” Turgenev began his literary activity as a poet. 1843 - the poem “Parasha” was created. Everything here is Turgenev’s, this is a statement of one’s own style, the first sketches of the image of a “Turgenev girl.” (You can read aloud several excerpts from a poem or poems about love dedicated to Tatyana Bakunina.)
Page six - “Notes of a Hunter.” 1852 - Turgenev writes an obituary on Gogol’s death and publishes “Notes of a Hunter” (the stories were published separately in Sovremennik from 1841 to 1851). For these publications and “violation of censorship rules” “by the highest command” Turgenev was arrested and exiled to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo until November 1853. “An indictment of serfdom” - this is what Herzen called “Notes of a Hunter”. The stories are varied. This is a story about the greatness and beauty of the Russian people, about their position under the yoke of serfdom, about the harmful influence of serfdom on people, about the beautiful Russian nature. Turgenev sees the Russian peasant as a mysterious sphinx. “Yes, then you, Karp, Sidor, Semyon, Yaroslavl, Ryazan peasant, my compatriot, Russian bone! How long ago did you end up in the sphinxes? - he asks in the prose poem "Sphinx". (You should summarize information about stories from “Notes of a Hunter”, studied in primary school and read independently, for example “Bezhin Meadow”, “Biryuk”, “Khor and Kalinich”, “Singers”, “Living Relics”, etc., recall the features their content and form. It is also possible for a previously prepared student to report on the collection “Notes of a Hunter,” its content, structure, problematics and poetics.)
Page seven - “Liberals”. Turgenev had a great friendship with Sovremennik; he had a hard time breaking up with it. (About the reasons for disagreements with the editorial board of the magazine, the novel “On the Eve”, Dobrolyubov’s article “When will the real one will come day?" the teacher will tell or the student’s message will be heard.) It should be emphasized that Turgenev was a liberal of the 1840s. In the 1860s. it was already a different liberalism. “This word “liberal” has become incredibly vulgar lately, and not without reason... Who, think of it, didn’t hide behind it! But in our time, in my young time... the word “liberal” meant a protest against everything dark and oppressive, it meant respect for science and education, love for poetry and art, and, finally, most of all it meant love for the people.”
Page eight - “Last years.” In the 1880s, dying in a foreign land from a serious illness, yearning for his homeland, Turgenev wrote to Ya. Polonsky: “When you are in Spassky, bow for me to the house, the garden, my young oak - bow to the homeland, which I have probably already , I’ll never see.” Turgenev died on August 22, 1883, and rests in Russian soil at the Volkov cemetery in St. Petersburg. His poetic testament, summarizing his philosophical reflections on life, was “Poems in Prose.” (You should remember the previously studied “Russian Language”, “Twins”, “Two Rich Men” and read some prose poems about eternal problems existence: love, death, creativity, attitude to the Motherland, for example “Village”, “Old Woman”, “Path to Love”, “Sparrow”, “We will fight again!”, “Rose”, etc. (at the teacher’s choice). )
Lesson summary. The complexity of I. S. Turgenev's life is reflected in his work, where the heroes, as a rule, are unhappy, their characters are contradictory, strong and beautiful. The writer sought to show moral people. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote about this in his obituary: “Turgenev was a highly developed, convinced man who never left the soil of universal human ideals... he is a direct successor of Pushkin and does not know any other rivals in Russian literature. So, if Pushkin had every reason to say about himself that he awakened “good feelings,” Turgenev could say the same about himself with the same justice. These were not some conventional “good feelings”... but those simple, universally accessible “good feelings” that are based on a deep belief in the triumph of light, goodness and moral beauty.”

Lesson102. “And the distance of a free novel...” 3

I. S. Turgenev is the creator of the Russian novel. Problematics and poetics of one of the writer’s novels. The history of the creation of the novel "Fathers and Sons".

The objectives of the lesson are to identify the features of the novel genre and the reasons for its development in the middle of the 19th century, to trace the development of the novel genre in the work of Turgenev.
“The novel arose in an era when all civil, social, family and human relationships in general became infinitely complex and dramatic; life has spread in depth and breadth in an infinite variety of elements,” Belinsky wrote.
Features of the novel form are a large form (a large number of characters, great interest in the circumstances of human life, large exposition, no restrictions in time and space), but artistic completeness.
Questions for frontal conversation
1. What kind of hero is Turgenev looking for when turning to the novel genre? (The writer is looking for a new hero, but at first he relies on the traditions of depiction " extra person" Such is Rudin, who never found the real case.) “Onegin was replaced by Pechorin, Pechorin by Beltov and Rudin. We heard from Rudin himself that his time had passed, but he did not indicate to us anyone who would replace him, and we still do not know whether we will soon see his successor,” Chernyshevsky wrote. Such is Lavretsky in the novel “The Noble Nest”, suffering from disorder and loneliness. Such is the hero of the novel “On the Eve” Insarov, who never reached his homeland to join the fight for its liberation.
2. Why were the heroes of the first three novels unable to use their powers? How does the image of a new hero change from novel to novel? (“Then a complete, sharply and vividly outlined image of the Russian Insarov will appear in literature” (Dobrolyubov). Bazarov will become such a hero.)
3. What is the situation in the country at the time the novel was written? (Reforms; arrest of Chernyshevsky, Pisarev; development of science - Butlerov, Sechenov, Mendeleev; aggravation of confrontation between social forces.)
4. What is the meaning of the novel's title? (The meaning is double: socio-historical (the confrontation of two social forces) and universal (family).) The novel was first mentioned in a letter to E. E. Lambert (1860). In the history of the creation of the novel, there are three stages of writing: 1) August 1860 - August 1861 - creation of the main text; 2) end of September 1861 - January 1862 - “plowing up the novel”, introducing numerous amendments caused by changes political situation; 3) February - September 1862 - preparation of the novel for publication. The result is 238 sheets of Turgenev’s neat handwriting. Due to the break with Sovremennik, the novel was published in M. N. Katkov’s magazine “Russian Messenger”.
5. What did Turgenev want to show in the novel? What is his plan? (The writer wanted to show the rise of the revolutionary democratic movement, the new type emerging as a result of this movement - nihilism; to criticize moral qualities nihilists, particularly conceit; imagine the conflict of two forces: new (nihilists) and old (conservatives and liberals); dwell on family problems.)
6. What explains Bazarov’s central position in the novel? What are its prototypes? (Turgenev was reproached for the lifelessness of the image of Bazarov, but the author himself said that it was important for him to observe the “living face.”) In the article “About “Fathers and Sons”” we read: “...at the basis of the main figure, Bazarov, lay One personality that struck me was a young provincial doctor. This man embodied - to my eyes - that barely born, still fermenting principle, which later received the name of nihilism.” According to researchers of the work of I. S. Turgenev, it is based on the traits of several “living persons”:
- Doctor D. - district doctor Dmitriev. “Without the district doctor Dmitriev there would have been no Bazarov” (Turgenev).
- A young Russian doctor who met Turgenev on a train during a trip to Germany.
- A young doctor whom Turgenev met in a carriage on the Nikolaev Railway.
- A young provincial doctor, a neighbor on the estate, Viktor Ivanovich Yakushkin. (Version by N. Chernov.)
- Traits of representatives of revolutionary democracy: Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov.
- Traits of Belinsky, to whom the novel is dedicated.
Lesson summary. The appearance of the novel on Russian soil was caused by the time, which required the study of all aspects of life, since it did not suit progressively minded people. Turgenev made a great contribution to the development of the novel form. It is no coincidence that the definition of “Turgenev’s novel” even appeared. We can also talk about Turgenev as the creator of the Russian novel. The writer's novels are a search for a hero and possible ways for the development of society.

Lesson103. “I put “nihil” over everything that has been done.” 4

The spiritual conflict of generations and worldviews in the novel “Fathers and Sons.” Bazarov is a hero of his time.

The objectives of the lesson are to show Bazarov as the type required by the time; prove that the hero of the novel - a nihilist who obeys the laws of theory - will not stand the test of life; reveal two aspects of Bazarov: a literary type and a living person.
“And if he is called a nihilist, then it should be read: revolutionary,” Turgenev wrote about his hero.
The novel was written at a time when the struggle between different views and movements intensified in Russia. Turgenev, showing the confrontation between liberals and revolutionary democrats, could not take either side. Neither one nor the other had a clear author's relationship. But more attention is paid to Bazarov, the author is interested in this hero, because this is something new that tries himself.
Questions and tasks for conversation
1. There are two aspects to the image of Bazarov: a militant democrat and a nihilist. Analyzing chapters II, III, IV, V of the novel, prove its democracy (clothes, speech, appearance, behavior, relationship with servants, reading range, etc.).
2. Why did Prokofich dislike Bazarov? Give reasons for your opinion. How did other residents of the estate treat him?
3. How does Bazarov behave during his stay in Maryino? Compare his activities with those of Arkady (chap. X).
4. How does Bazarov talk about his origin (chap. X, XXI)? What do we learn about his life path, about his parents? How does this help to understand his image?
5. Why does Bazarov “diligently” oppose himself to Pavel Petrovich and behave defiantly?
6. Nihilism - nihil (lat.) - nothing- a mental trend that denies generally accepted values, ideals, moral standards, culture. On the one hand, Turgenev is not a supporter of nihilism, so his attitude towards Bazarov is complex and ambiguous. On the other hand, Bazarov does not really “fit” into the framework of nihilism, which also increases its complexity and inconsistency. Describe the views of Bazarov the nihilist (Chapters V, X). What is he denying? What is he guided by in his denial? Are his views specific?
7. Bazarov is engaged in natural sciences. How does this relate to the problems of the novel?
8. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of nihilism. Where does Bazarov's nihilism fail?
9. How are Bazarov’s relations with the people shown? Watch how they change. Why do the residents of Maryino and the residents of his father’s estate treat Evgeniy differently?
10. What does Turgenev mean by the word “nihilist”? (This is what Russian revolutionaries were called abroad.)
11. Why is the hero so contradictory? What role does the author’s position play in these contradictions?
Lesson summary. Turgenev could not have an unambiguous attitude towards his hero, so the image of Bazarov is contradictory. Explicitly denying nihilistic views, the author shows him in many scenes stronger than the older generation. Turgenev himself could not determine his attitude towards Bazarov: “... I myself don’t know... whether I love him or hate him.”

Lesson104. “Everything gave rise to disputes between them...” 5

"Fathers" and "sons" in the novel "Fathers and Sons". Supporters and opponents of Bazarov.

The very title of the novel identifies two forces: “fathers” and “children.” This is the main problem of the novel, which is revealed in social and universal terms. The objectives of the lesson are to consider both aspects of the problem of “fathers” and “children” and determine which of the two is more important for Turgenev.
Questions and tasks for discussion
1. Analyze chapters II and IV and determine what role the hand motif plays in revealing the theme of “fathers” and “sons.” (Bazarov has a “naked red hand”, which he did not immediately give to Nikolai Petrovich; Pavel Petrovich has “ beautiful hand with long pink nails,” which he not only did not hand to Bazarov, but hid back in his pocket. Peter “as an improved servant did not approach the gentleman’s hand.” Prokofich “went up to Arkady’s hand.” Thus, the hand is an indicator of the confrontation between Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov, and the conflict between “fathers” and “children” exists even among servants.)
2. Prove that this conflict reaches its peak in Chapter X. Watch how the heroes' dispute develops. What are they right and what are they wrong? (They argue about the meaning of the nobility, about nihilism, about the Russian people, about art, about power.) The results of the dispute about “principles”:

3. Did the heroes find the truth? Did they want to find her or were they just sorting things out? Did they try to understand each other? (The positions of Bazarov and Kirsanov are extremes. They lacked: one - the feeling of respect for a “son”, the other - the love and understanding of a “father”. They were not looking for the truth, but simply sorting things out. They failed to treat each other as fathers and sons Starting from Chapter XIII, the author removes the external confrontation, the antithesis moves inward. But more and more often the heroes find themselves in similar situations: unembodied love, the story with Fenechka.)
4. Follow the text of Chapters II, III, VI, VII, IX, X, XXV, XXVI, XXVIII to see how Arkady’s attitude towards nihilism changes. Find author's attitude to Bazarov's nihilism (chapter XI). What do Pisarev’s words say: “Arkady... wants to be the son of his age and puts on himself the ideas of Bazarov, which absolutely cannot merge with him. He is on his own, and the ideas are on their own, dangling like an adult’s frock coat put on a ten-year-old child”? (Arkady’s passion for nihilism is a tribute to fashion and time. He imitates Bazarov, which evokes the author’s irony.)
5. Analyzing the vocabulary of chapters XII and XIII, show the author’s attitude towards the characters who consider themselves Bazarov’s students. Why are they caricatured? What are their compositional role in the novel? (Kukshina and Sitnikov are needed as a background against which the image of Bazarov is revealed. The caricature and unnaturalness of the imaginary nihilists highlight the strength and power of Bazarov.)
6. Describe Bazarov’s relationship with his parents. What is the ideological and compositional role of the images of the old Bazarovs for understanding the character of the main character? (Bazarov has no closeness with his parents, although he loves and pities them. The hero consciously refuses family traditions, continuity of generations, denies authority, believes that he raised himself. This is a hero of the time, without a past and, sadly, without a future. )
7. Describe the relationships in the Kirsanov family. What is the compositional role of the Kirsanovs’ images for understanding Bazarov’s personality? (Pavel Petrovich respects traditions, but refuses changes in life. This is a hero without a future, everything is in his past. He, like Bazarov, is proud, uninfluenced, and lonely. Both heroes are lifeless. It is no coincidence that Turgenev linked “fathers” in the title "and "children" by a connecting union. It should be like this: both fathers and children remain alive, because one strives to take all the best from the "fathers", and the other constantly keeps the past in mind and tries to understand the future. heroes create families, that is, they continue the family line, have a future.)
Lesson summary. In revealing the social aspect of the conflict in the novel, Bazarov is left alone, and Pavel Petrovich is alone, since Nikolai Petrovich almost does not enter into the dispute. If we talk about the universal, family meaning of the title, then in the system of images we find a confrontation between the Kirsanov family and the Bazarov family. The first continues to live, and the second gradually leaves. Children are the future, but only if they learn the traditions of the past. For Turgenev, family relationships built according to the laws of understanding and respect are more important. Only in the family are traditions passed on from generation to generation. A person deprived of this is not able to understand others. Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich are lonely, but Arkady and Nikolai Petrovich are close to each other, they have families, their lives go on.

Having noted those stories from “Notes of a Hunter” that are the most striking, let us consider their significance.

Firstly, they have deep public importance- in them Turgenev for the first time began to carry out his “Annibal oath.” He drew a whole series folk types and showed what morally and intellectually high personalities are found among the people and thereby indicated that the people should pay more attention than they did. On the other hand, in a number of stories he painted a picture of the humiliation and lack of rights of the people, dependence on the boundless arbitrariness and tyranny of the landowners. Among society, these pictures were supposed to inspire disgust for the shameful institution of serfdom and strengthen the idea of ​​​​the need for its destruction.

Thus, "Notes of a Hunter", the significance of which is very great, are a kind of propaganda. However, this propaganda is purely artistic - all stories are devoid of any tendentiousness; just as they have no desire to portray the people in the form of Arcadian shepherds, which Karamzin did. Also, they do not contain that loud appeal that is heard in “The Village” and “Anton Goremykin” by Grigorovich. Turgenev describes what he saw - he does not even give exceptional cases from serf life - no, everything described in his stories represents only a picture of the most ordinary life, the most everyday incidents in this area. Turgenev was kept from harsh propaganda, from tendentious presentation, mainly by the instinct of an artist, which he was par excellence, by the requirement of artistic measure.

The significance of “Notes of a Hunter” lies not only in the fact that, having shown the dark sides of serfdom, which was killing the living vultures of Russia, they convinced both the government and society of the urgent need for its destruction. No, Turgenev was the first to destroy the view that existed before him that there was nothing like a person in a peasant’s body. The artist-poet was the first to explain with such truth that he has a soul, and the human soul, that he knows how to think, feel, as literate Russian people think and feel. Before Turgenev, no one said better: “This is the same person as us!” Throughout almost all of the “Notes” the poet has so much sincerity that everyone must involuntarily recognize the omnipotence of poetry, which is able to find a sublime picture in the most everyday environment of the Russian commoner.

“Notes of a Hunter” have not lost their meaning and are unlikely to ever lose their meaning: in these fragmentary stories, connected, however, by the unity of the main idea, the reader will learn the whole the power of the Russian people, his rich spiritual powers, his feeling, not devoid of poetry.

Along with social significance, “Notes of a Hunter” also have deep literary and artistic. In our literature, Turgenev is one of the representatives of that “real” school, the founders of which were Pushkin and Gogol. But they have only taken the first steps in this direction. Turgenev went much further. Firstly, in “Notes of a Hunter” he touched upon people’s life much more deeply than Pushkin and Gogol did. "Notes of a Hunter", in its form reminiscent of Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", are completely different from them in the method of presentation and depth of content. Turgenev does not have caustic humor, mood swings, the predominance of common language, all that we see in Gogol: he impartially paints us picture after picture, in which, against the background of wonderful descriptions of nature, various personalities from the people’s environment pass before us, scenes from his life . Poetic dreaminess is harmoniously mixed in them with clear reality.

Regarding language, Turgenev was also significantly ahead of his predecessors. The language of “Notes of a Hunter” is smooth, rounded: the author has an amazing talent for capturing and appropriately conveying individual features that give the whole picture completeness and clarity; sometimes he achieves this by describing his surroundings in detail. Before Turgenev, no one in Russian literature had ever coped with the riches of the Russian language with such skill, or been able to give it such expressiveness.

Russian literature is rich in excellent examples of socio-psychological works that make the reader not only think about the meaning of life, but also encourage action, struggle, and heroism.

One of such artistic works is “Notes of a Hunter” by Turgenev, a brief analysis of which we will consider in this article.

The writer's childhood

It is impossible to begin an analysis of the “Notes of a Hunter” series without getting to know its author. And indeed, only by understanding the worldview and thinking of the writer can one truly appreciate his work.

Ivan Sergeevich was born in the fall of 1818 into a family of wealthy nobles. His parents' marriage was not a happy one. The father soon left the family and died, and the children were raised by the mother. The childhood of the future writer cannot be called cloudless.

His mother, due to her upbringing and life circumstances, was a complex woman, but at the same time well-read and enlightened. She often beat her sons, behaved imperiously with the serfs, but at the same time she read a lot, traveled, and appreciated modern Russian literature.

It was Varvara Petrovna who awakened in little Ivan a love for the Russian word and Russian literature. It was she who introduced him to invaluable examples of Russian thinkers - the works of Zhukovsky, Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov...

The question of serfdom

His serf valet also had considerable influence on young Ivan. In general, Turgenev was very deeply interested in the question of the peasantry. He saw a lot and, more importantly, thought a lot.

The life of serfs was always before the eyes of a child. He spent almost his entire childhood in the village, where he could see how ordinary people were enslaved, how they were mocked, how hard life was for those who are the support and foundation of the state - ordinary workers, villagers, farmers.

Having become independent, Turgenev traveled a lot around his homeland. He observed the peasants, their life and work. It was reflection on the complex life of serfs that prompted Ivan Sergeevich to create his famous work, “Notes of a Hunter,” the analysis of which we will now consider.

Why this name?

The fact is that Turgenev was very fond of hunting, which was his real passion. He could hold the gun in his hands for weeks, if not months, traveling hundreds of kilometers in search of game. Among his acquaintances, Ivan Sergeevich was considered the most famous and successful hunter.

Throughout his life, he walked countless times through the Tula, Oryol, Tambov, Kaluga and Kursk provinces. Thanks to his travels, the writer met ordinary people who accompanied him on hunting trips, served as guides or advisers.

The nobleman Turgenev did not hesitate to communicate closely with poor serfs. He liked to listen to them, ask them questions, observe their behavior. Ivan Sergeevich saw in them his brothers, his fellow citizens, and really wanted other rich and influential people to treat the forced peasants in the same way.

That is why he published a series of stories “Notes of a Hunter,” which we will now analyze. In his own he captured what he saw and heard. For example, as the prototype for the main character of “Notes,” he chose his frequent hunting companion, the peasant Afanasy, whose stories he loved to listen to.

Briefly about the work itself

Before you begin to analyze Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter,” you should take a closer look at the work itself. It was published as an independent literary work in 1852. “Notes” consist of 25 stories or essays, each of which is a new story, new acting characters. However, reflecting on the analysis of Turgenev’s stories “Notes of a Hunter,” one can see that all these small essays are united by one theme - the theme of love for Russian nature and the Russian people.

A little about the author's style

The author's unsurpassed original style is striking. He describes events simply and laconically, rarely assessing what is happening, without unnecessary dramatic and lyrical digressions. But the tragedy of the serfs runs like a red thread through all the lines of the work, in the spirit of true realism.

In every sentence, in every dialogue, one can see the pain and sighs of the common people, burdened with an unbearable burden. Without embellishment or exaggeration, the writer manages to portray to the reader the images of those who are forever imprinted in his memory as true heroes and representatives of the Russian soul. They, ordinary people, also have their own moral principles, they also have their own nobility, which is sometimes even higher and better than that of noble nobles.

Below we will examine in detail several essays by the great writer. To understand the depth and importance of the work, it is not enough to consider the analysis of one story from “Notes of a Hunter.” So, ahead of you awaits a detailed, intriguing excursion through the pages of Turgenev’s cycle.

“Khor and Kalinich”

We will begin our analysis of “Notes of a Hunter” with this work. In it the writer creates two different images, which accurately reflect the basic mentality of ordinary people.

And it all started with the fact that the narrator met a small landowner, Mr. Polutykin, and came to him to hunt. On the owner's estate, the main character met two serfs.

It is noteworthy that in his essay, as in many others, Turgenev makes little mention of the nobles. All his attention is focused on the behavior and psychology of the peasants.

So in this story, the reader is much more interested in observing the life of the serfs than in the life of their owner.

Khor appears in the work as a wealthy and practical peasant. He lives separately, has a large, well-kept house and family, pays rent, but does not want to buy his freedom. This is the whole primitiveness of the peasant. He is a businessman - a jack of all trades, but he does not see the most valuable thing in his life. He is limited, uneducated, narrow-minded, and at the same time looks down on the master and secretly laughs at him.

Kalinich is Khorya’s bosom friend and at the same time his complete opposite. This guy is romantic and thoughtful, impractical and soft-hearted. He has no family and is in great need. But at the same time, Kalinich has enormous knowledge of nature, for which he is highly valued in the area. He has a keen sense of beauty, is able to reflect and analyze.

Based on reflection on the characters of Khor and Kalinich, one can see what the peasantry of Turgenev’s time was like.

“Singers”

With this essay we will continue the analysis of Turgenev’s stories “Notes of a Hunter”. The plot centers on a competition between two village singers, started in the same peasant tavern. The main characters are described briefly and briefly. Yakov is the 23-year-old son of a captured Turkish woman. Works in a factory, but is known for his creative abilities.

His rival, a row-seller - a thirty-year-old man, a lively and resourceful tradesman - spoke first. He sang a cheerful song, he sang well, impressively. But he lacked something, although his skill was appreciated.

When Yakov began to sing, tremulously and intermittently, everyone froze. His voice - deep, exciting, sensual, made those present cry. It was amazing how adults, dexterous, cunning and tenacious, truly shed tears under the influence of the worker’s song.

It was clear that Yakov sang with the feeling that he was deeply concerned about the meaning of the rhymed lines.

Of course, those present unanimously came to the conclusion that Yakov won. But the essay did not end there.

In the evening, after the competition, the traveler again saw the “golden voice” of the village. What did Jacob do? He drank, drank self-indulgently, to the point of unconsciousness, losing all human appearance. And together with him, those who a few hours ago had enjoyed his wondrous, soulful voice took part in the revelry.

It was hard for the traveler to look at such an ugly party, when everything that is good in people is ruined - talent, feelings, soul. Analysis of “The Singers” (from “Notes of a Hunter”) shows how poverty and vice can influence even the most subtle and sensitive souls.

"Date"

The action of the essay covers only one dialogue that took place between the arrogant and heartless valet of the lord and the peasant woman Akulina, innocently abandoned by him. A hunter-traveler, dozing off in the shade of dense trees, becomes an accidental witness to the separation of these young people.

Why did the author place this seemingly lyrical and banal story of unrequited love in his “Notes of a Hunter”? Analysis of “Date” shows that this work raises deep life questions. And the point is not only that the valet of a rich nobleman played on the feelings of an inexperienced girl, took advantage of her innocence and love, and now indifferently abandons her. No. The topic of the essay is much deeper.

For example, Turgenev shows how much a person can forget himself, seduced by secular tinsel, and break away from his roots, from his brothers, considering himself higher and more significant than those with whom he is equal.

Using the example of the master's valet, it also becomes clear how quickly people adopt the negative qualities of their masters and how easy it is to forget who you really are.

Analysis of “Raspberry Water” from “Notes of a Hunter”

Reflecting on the work makes you think about how serfs relate to their yoke. Not everyone, it turns out, craves freedom and does not fight for their independence.

In the center of the story is the story of one old serf, the butler of a bankrupt master, who with nostalgia recalls the old days when powerless serfs were given up as soldiers for no reason or flogged beyond measure.

However, injustice reigned not only before. Further, Turgenev describes the lordly cruelty and heartlessness, which he persistently exposes throughout the entire cycle.

Vlas is an old peasant who recently buried his son, who died after a serious long-term illness. The old man went to the master and asked him to reduce the rent, but he only got angry and kicked the unfortunate man out. As we see, the life of poor serfs and their circumstances were never of interest to their rich masters. They think only about themselves and about the profit they receive from forced people. What is the price of this quitrent? Behind it stand the life and health of the unfortunate, doomed to eternal enslavement.

"Office"

It is noteworthy that this work exposed not only the enslavement of serfs by landowners, but also the abuse of rich peasants against their fellows. For example, the central character of the work, the master's chief clerk named Nikolai Eremeich, does not hesitate to take bribes from his fellow villagers for some indulgences and indulgences.

He uses his power with greed and shamelessness. Abusing his position, Eremeich tries to punish people who are unfit for him or those with whom he has ever quarreled. The behavior of the lady, who could restore justice on her estate, but does not want to think about the lives of her peasants and delve into their personal affairs, is also interesting.

For example, the landowner treats the innocent girl Tatyana unfairly and heartlessly, over whom Nikolai Eremeich and the local paramedic Pavel quarreled. Instead of judging sensibly and finding the culprits, the lady sends Tatyana away, destroying her life and the life of Pavel, who is in love with her.

As we see, not only did the peasants endure and suffer from the oppression of the rich masters, they were also unscrupulously oppressed by their own brothers who received some position at the master’s court. Such suppression of human will shattered destinies and negatively affected people's mentality.

"Death"

This will be the final work, on the basis of which we will analyze “Notes of a Hunter.” The plot centers on short stories and memoirs by the author about how Russian people, mostly peasants, die. They die easily and simply, as if they were performing an unremarkable ritual. There is no fear of death in them, no desire to live and fight, but some kind of genuine indifference to their fate, to their life, to their health.

This can be seen in the example of a man who was burned in a barn and slowly dying at home. His relatives, and he himself, led daily life, without worrying at all about the dying person and without even trying to prevent death, let alone alleviate the suffering.

Vasily Dmitrievich is another miller by profession, indifferent to his life. He overstrained himself at hard work and suffered a hernia, but did not want to be in the hospital or do anything to improve his condition or alleviate his condition. The man goes home to settle financial matters with his property and dies four days later.

There were other cases. For example, an old friend of the main character from university. Sick with consumption, living with strangers out of mercy, he does not think about his bitter fate, is not afraid of death, but lives with the memories inspired by his comrade, and listens with enthusiasm to his stories. Ten days later he dies in agony.

Why did Turgenev describe these incidents in his “Notes of a Hunter”? Analysis of “Death” shows that the writer himself is perplexed where such indifference comes from. Most likely, this is a consequence of centuries-old serfdom, absorbed by unfortunate people with mother's milk, which became the second (if not the first and only) of their being. Their constant hard work, their difficult living conditions dull all other feelings and experiences in them.

Criticism and censorship

How did Turgenev's contemporaries react to his collection of stories? Many literary critics of that time noted that almost all the works included in the cycle have subtle psychologism and realism, revealing to readers the true soul of the Russian peasant.

On the other hand, some critics believed that Turgenev's stories were written in an idealistic style, that they were far-fetched and banal, and therefore were of no value.

How did the censorship react? Prince Lvov, who allowed the collection of essays to be published, was personally punished by the emperor for such a decision. Further publishing of “Notes of a Hunter” was prohibited.

Why did the authorities react to the work this way? Turgenev was charged with the fact that he poeticized the serfs, making them the main characters of his stories, revealing their souls and thoughts. The writer also earned the tsar’s disapproval for exposing the oppression of the common people and proving that serfs would have lived better in freedom.

As we see, the writer had great courage and love for the common people, since he was not afraid to displease the emperor. This is evidenced by the analysis of Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” given in this article.

“Notes of a Hunter” has deep roots in Russian life and Russian literature. Turgenev's book was written at a time when all issues boiled down to the abolition of serfdom; it was the answer to this central question of the era, in the resolution of which the vast majority of the Russian people were vitally interested. In Belinsky’s letter to Gogol I saw a reflection of the sentiments of the serfs, their hatred of serfdom. Belinsky’s famous letter was the basis of Turgenev’s views in the 40s, during the period when “Notes of a Hunter” was created. In Turgenev’s own words, this letter contained his entire religion.

It is quite obvious that Turgenev’s book also absorbed the sentiments of the serfs, their burning dissatisfaction with serfdom, their protest. This is the nationality of “Notes of a Hunter.” Literary historians have talked a lot about all sorts of literary influences, which allegedly gave birth to this book, as well as Turgenev’s general interest in the peasant question. The influence of Russian life itself was not taken into account at all. To promote the turn of public interests towards living social issues - Turgenev saw this as the most important national task of advanced Russian people. Speaking about the Russian people, Turgenev described them in the quoted review as “a young and strong people who believe and have the right to believe in their future...”

So, the fight against romantic egoism had the significance of a great patriotic cause for Turgenev. There is no doubt that Turgenev formed these views under the direct influence of Belinsky. Personal closeness with Belinsky in the 40s further consolidated and strengthened the impact of his ideas. This closeness between Turgenev and Belinsky reached its peak in 1847, when Belinsky wrote his famous letter to Gogol in Salzbrung, where he lived with Turgenev.

But even before 1847, Turgenev largely followed Belinsky. Turgenev never rose to the heights of his revolutionary democratic ideas, nevertheless, following Belinsky, the author of “Notes of a Hunter” affirmed the great possibilities of the Russian people, “a young and strong people”; following Belinsky, he rejected cosmopolitanism. Together with Belinsky, Turgenev demanded that thinking Russian people shift their attention from “small contradictions in their own lives” to the great contradictions in the life of humanity and society, to social issues and tasks.

In 1845, Turgenev wrote “The Landowner,” a physiological essay in verse, which introduced Turgenev into the circle of Writers of the Gogolian movement. Belinsky greeted Turgenev's work with delight. “The Landowner” by Turgenev,” he wrote, “is a light, lively, brilliant improvisation, full of intelligence, irony, wit and grace.” And then he added meaningfully: “It seems that here Turgenev’s talent has found its true kind, and in this kind it is inimitable.”

By creating this kind of satirical images of effectiveness and strength, Turgenev continued the traditions of “Dead Souls”, and to Gogol’s gallery dead souls Turgenev added a gallery of living souls, taken primarily from the peasant environment. Those people about whom Chichikov thought in the famous lyrical digression, stood up to their full height in “Notes of a Hunter.” Next to the Stogunovs and Zverkovs, real people appeared - Kdlinych, Ermolai, Yakov Turok, peasant children. Next to the “statesman” Penochkin was a true statesman - Khor. The deceitful “humanity” of the landowner was contrasted with the harsh humanity of Biryuk and the poetic humanity of Kasyan. Enthusiastic lovers of art, landowners and patrons of the arts, these, in the words of Turgenev, “clubs smeared with tar,” discovered their true value next to such a true connoisseur of art as the Wild Master. Stupid Andrei Belovzorov, Tatyana Borisovna's nephew, artist and conqueror of hearts, a caricature in himself, became even more of a caricature when compared with the great artist of the people - Yakov Turk.

It is also important that many peasant characters in “Notes of a Hunter” turned out to be not only carriers of excellent spiritual qualities; the positive heroes of the peasant environment are depicted as bearers of the best features of the Russian national character. This, first of all, was Turgenev’s protest against serfdom and the social significance of his book. Turgenev, in connection with “Notes of a Hunter,” was more than once reproached for idealizing the peasantry and deviating from realism.