The series of tales by Saltykov-Shchedrin was created over 18 years and consists of 32 works. As a result of his work, fairy tales are filled with a special satire that opposes social evil. They intertwine comedy and tragedy, fantasy and reality, and demonstrate an amazing command of the language of allegory.
The first tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin were published in 1869 in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. The rest were published between 1880 and 1886 in various publications. Some fairy tales were not published during Mikhail Evgrafovich’s lifetime due to strict censorship and were distributed illegally both in Russia and abroad. Also, one of the fairy tales, “The Bogatyr,” was published only in 1922, as it was lost in the archives. Due to censorship harassment, Saltykov-Shchedrin was unable to publish the full cycle of fairy tales. Therefore, in the fall of 1886, a collection was published that contained only 23 fairy tales. A year later, an expanded collection was published, to which the writer added another work - “A Christmas Tale.”
Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales for many reasons. The difficult political situation in Russia did not allow revealing all the contradictions of society and directly criticizing the existing order. Also, the fairy tale genre was close to the satirical writer. Fantasy, strong exaggeration, irony are common in fairy tales and are very characteristic of Saltykov-Shchedrin. He furiously ridicules slave psychology in his fairy tales. Shows such traits of the Russian people as long-suffering and disregard, tries to find the origins of these troubles and determine their limits, seeing them as the main tragedy of the time.
The satirist uses Russian folklore in his fairy tales, thanks to which the characters’ dialogues are very colorful, and a certain social type of character emerges. Shchedrin's works are united not only by genre, but also by common themes that connect the tales and give unity to the entire cycle.
By ideological content Shchedrin's tales can be divided into four themes:
- satire on government and the exploiting classes;
- showing the behavior of the philistine intelligentsia;
- display of life common people in Russia;
- denouncing the morality of property owners and promoting new ideals and morality.
It is impossible to make a strict distinction between the themes of the writer’s fairy tales, and it is not required. The same fairy tale can touch on several topics at once. In most fairy tales, Mikhail Evgrafovich touches on the life of ordinary people, placing them in contrast to the elite strata of society.
Also read:
Popular topics today
- Essay based on the painting Winter in the Forest. Frost Shishkina 3rd grade
The great landscape artist I. I. Shishkin painted the painting “Winter in the Forest” in 1877. In the painting, the artist depicted the beauty of the forest in winter. A real snow kingdom stretches before the viewer’s eyes.
- My dream profession is teacher - essay
When I was 6 years old, I went to first grade. I was very embarrassed to meet the guys, so I stood on the sidelines. After some time, a woman came up to me and asked why I don’t communicate with the guys
- Essay Why are people attracted to Virtual Reality?
I’ll immediately begin my essay with the fact that in the world modern technologies, it is impossible to imagine your life without virtual reality. Now, each of us has mobile phone with Internet access
- Aesopian language in the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin (fairy tales, fables)
Form artistic speech, which is called Aesopian language or in other words allegory, dates back to ancient times. It is very easy to associate it with the name of Aesop, who is a brilliant creator
One autumn morning, just as usual, I was rushing to school. It was raining heavily, and the umbrella was of little help from the water from the sky. Almost near the school in the bushes I heard a strange rustling and sounds incomprehensible due to the rain
History of creation The first three fairy tales (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “The Lost Conscience” and “The Wild Landowner”) were written by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin back in 1886. By 1886 their number had increased to thirty-two. Some plans (at least six fairy tales) remained unrealized.
Genre originality In terms of genre, the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are similar to Russian folk tales. They are allegorical, they feature animal heroes, and traditional fairy tale techniques are used: beginnings, proverbs and sayings, constant epithets, triplicate repetitions. At the same time, Saltykov-Shchedrin significantly expands the circle fairy tale characters, and also “individualizes them. In addition, morality plays an important role in the fairy tale by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin - in this it is close to the fable genre. The story of how one man fed two generals
Allegory - allegory Opening - A rhythmically organized joke that precedes the opening in fairy tales. “Once upon a time there were...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state...”). Proverbs and sayings - (“grandmother said in two,” “if you don’t give a word, be strong, and if you give, hold on”). Epithet - In poetics: figurative, artistic definition. Constant e. (in folk literature, for example, “golden heart”, “white body”).
The main themes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are united not only by genre, but also common topics. 1) Theme of power (“Wild Landowner”, “Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Eagle Patron”, etc.) 2) Theme of the intelligentsia (“ The wise minnow”, “Selfless Hare”, etc.) 3) Theme of the people (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “Fool”, etc.) 4) Theme of universal human vices (“Christ’s Night”) Eagle-Patron
Problems The tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin reflect the “special pathological state” in which Russian society in the 80s of the XIX century. However, they address not only social problems(the relationship between the people and ruling circles, the phenomenon of Russian liberalism, enlightenment reform), but also universal ones (good and evil, freedom and duty, truth and lies, cowardice and heroism). The wise minnow
Artistic Features Most Important artistic features M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are irony, hyperbole and grotesque. The device of antithesis and philosophical reasoning also play a large role in fairy tales (for example, the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” begins with a preface: “Large and serious atrocities are often called brilliant and as such are recorded on the tablets of History. Small and comic atrocities are called shameful and not only They don’t mislead history, but they don’t receive praise from their contemporaries either.” Bear in the province
Irony is a subtle, hidden mockery (for example, in the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “What sweetness is it for a pike to swallow a sick, dying minnow, and a wise one at that?”) Hyperbole is an exaggeration (for example, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”: “He thinks what kind of cows he will breed, no skin, no meat, but all milk, all milk!”) Grotesque - comic, based on sharp contrasts and exaggerations (for example, in the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”: “A man he became so adept that he even began to cook soup in a handful”) Antithesis - opposition, opposition (many of them are built on the relationship between hero-antagonists: man - general, hare - wolf, crucian carp - pike)
Many writers turned to the literary fairy tale genre in the 19th century: L.N. Tolstoy, V.M. Prishvin, V.G. Korolenko, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak. main feature fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is that folk genre they use it to create an “Aesopian” narrative about the life of Russian society in the 1880s. Hence their main themes (power, intelligentsia, people) and problems (the relationship between the people and the ruling circles, the phenomenon of Russian liberalism, educational reform). Borrowing from Russian folk tales images (primarily animals) and techniques (beginnings, proverbs and sayings, constant epithets, triple repetitions), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin develops the satirical content inherent in them. At the same time, irony, hyperbole, grotesque, as well as others artistic techniques serve the writer to expose not only social, but also universal human vices. That is why the fairy tales of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin have been popular among Russian readers for many decades.
Composition
The fairy tale is one of the most popular folklore genres. This type of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction has a long history. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are connected not only with folklore tradition, but also with satirical literary fairy tale XVIII-IX centuries. Already in his declining years, the author turns to the fairy tale genre and creates a collection of Fairy Tales for Children of considerable age. They, according to the writer, are called upon to educate these very children, to open their eyes to the world around them.
Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales not only because it was necessary to bypass censorship, which forced the writer to turn to Aesopian language, but also in order to educate the people in a form familiar and accessible to them.
a) In my own way literary form and style of Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy-tale characters: talking animals, fish, Ivan the Fool and many others. The writer uses characteristic folk tale beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes. As in folklore tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear temporal and spatial framework.
B) But using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition. He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, French words. The pages of his fairy tales include episodes of modern public life. This is how styles mix, creating comic effect, and connecting the plot with the problems of our time. Thus, having enriched the fairy tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire. The fairy tale The Wild Landowner (1869) begins as an ordinary fairy tale: In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner... But then the element modern life: And that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper Vest, a reactionary-serfdom newspaper, and the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview.
The abolition of serfdom aroused anger among the landowners towards the peasants. According to the plot of the fairy tale, the landowner turned to God to take the peasants from him: He reduced them so that there is nowhere to stick his nose: wherever you can’t, it’s not allowed, but it’s not yours! Using Aesopian language, the writer depicts the stupidity of the landowners who oppress their own peasants, at the expense of whom they lived, having a loose, white, crumbly body. There were no more men throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner: No one noticed where the man went. Shchedrin hints at where the man might be, but the reader must guess this for himself. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; ...even though their landowner is stupid, he is given great intelligence. There is irony in these words. Next, representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky with his actors, invited to the estate: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! Who gives you a wash, stupid one? the generals, whom he treated to printed gingerbread and candy instead of beef: However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!; and, finally, the police captain: You are stupid, Mr. Landowner! The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, since not a piece of meat or a pound of bread can be bought at the market, the treasury is empty, since there is no one to pay taxes, robberies, robbery and murder have spread in the district. But the stupid landowner stands his ground, shows firmness, proves to the liberal gentlemen his inflexibility, as his favorite newspaper Vest advises. He indulges in unrealistic dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve prosperity in the economy. He thinks about what kind of cars he will order from England so that there will be no servile spirit at all. He thinks about what kind of cows he will breed. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only one day the landowner thought: Could he really be a fool?
Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness... further development plot, showing the gradual savagery and bestiality of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorts to the grotesque. At first he grew hair... his nails became like iron... he walked more and more on all fours... He even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds... But he had not yet acquired a tail. His predatory nature was manifested in the way he hunted: like an arrow, he would jump from a tree, grab onto his prey, tear it apart with his nails and so on with all the insides, even the skin, and eat it. The other day I almost killed the police captain. But then the final verdict on the wild landowner was pronounced by his new friend the bear: ... only, brother, you destroyed this man in vain! And why is this so? Because this man was far more capable than your nobleman brother. And therefore I will tell you straight: you are a stupid landowner, even though you are my friend! So in the fairy tale the technique of allegory is used, where under the mask of animals they perform human types in their inhumane relationship.
This element is also used in the depiction of peasants. When the authorities decided to catch and place the man, as if on purpose, at this time through provincial town An emerging swarm of men flew and showered the entire market square. The author compares the peasants to bees, showing their hard work. When the peasants were returned to the landowner, at the same time flour, meat, and all kinds of livestock appeared in the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, just clasped his hands in surprise and screamed: And where do you scoundrels get it from!!! How much bitter irony there is in this exclamation! And they caught the landowner, washed him, cut his nails, but he never understood anything and learned nothing, like all the rulers who ruin the peasantry, rob the workers and do not understand that this could result in ruin for themselves. Meaning satirical tales is that in a small work the writer was able to combine the lyrical, epic and satirical beginning and to express extremely sharply his point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem of the era, the problem of the fate of the Russian people.
A special place in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin is occupied by fairy tales with their allegorical images, in which the author was able to say more about Russian society of the 60-80s of the 19th century than the historians of those years. Saltykov-Shchedrin writes these fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” that is, for an adult reader whose mind is in the state of a child who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for those who are ridiculed in it.
The main problem of Shchedrin's fairy tales is the relationship between the exploiters and the exploited. The writer created a satire on Tsarist Russia. The reader is presented with images of rulers (“The Bear in the Voivodeship,” “Eagle Patron”), exploiters and exploited (“The Wild Landowner,” “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”), and ordinary people (“ The wise minnow", "Dried roach").
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is directed against everything social order, based on exploitation, anti-people in its essence. Preserving the spirit and style of a folk tale, the satirist talks about real events in contemporary life. The work begins as an ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...
“But then an element of modern life appears: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest”.” “Vest” is a reactionary-serf newspaper, so the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The landowner considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev.
The whole point of his existence comes down to pampering his body, “soft, white and crumbly.” He lives at the expense of his men, but he hates and is afraid of them, and cannot stand the “servile spirit.” He rejoices when, by some fantastic whirlwind, all the men were carried away to who knows where, and the air in his domain became pure, pure.
But the men disappeared, and there was such a famine that it was impossible to buy anything at the market. And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He’s all overgrown with hair, from head to toe...
and his nails became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago and walked more and more on all fours.
I’ve even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds...” In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all the insides, even the skin.” The landowner's savagery indicates that he cannot live without the help of a peasant.
After all, it was not without reason that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “flour, meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared at the market.” The stupidity of the landowner is constantly emphasized by the writer. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky (“However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!
Who gives you a wash, stupid one?”), the generals, whom he treated instead of “beef” to printed gingerbread cookies and candies (“However, brother, you’re a stupid landowner!”) and, finally, the police captain (“You’re a stupid you, Mr. Landowner!
"). The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, and he indulges in unrealistic dreams that he will achieve prosperity in the economy without the help of the peasants, and thinks about English machines that will replace the serfs. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own.
And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?
“If we compare the well-known folk tales about the master and the peasant with the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example, with “The Wild Landowner,” we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is very close to folklore, and the peasants, on the contrary, differ from the fairy tales. In folk tales, a quick-witted, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master.
And in “The Wild Landowner” there arises collective image workers, breadwinners of the country and at the same time patient martyrs and sufferers. Thus, modifying a folk tale, the writer condemns the people's long-suffering, and his tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview.
Of all the arts, literature has the richest possibilities for embodying the comic. Most often, the following types and techniques of comedy are distinguished: satire, humor, grotesque, irony.
Satire is called looking “through a magnifying glass” (V.). The object of satire in literature can be a variety of phenomena.
Political satire is most common. A clear proof of this is the fairy tales of M.
E. Saltykova-Shchedrin.
Fantastic fairy tales allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to continue criticizing the social system, bypassing censorship even in the face of political reaction. Shchedrin's fairy tales depict not just evil or good people, not just a struggle between good and evil, like most folk tales, they reveal the class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 19th century century.
Let us consider the features of the problems of the writer’s fairy tales using the example of two of them. In “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” Shchedrin shows the image of a hard worker-breadwinner.
He can get food, sew clothes, conquer the elemental forces of nature. On the other hand, the reader sees the man’s resignation, his humility, his unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a rope, which once again indicates the submissiveness and downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.
The author calls on the people to fight, protest, calls to wake up, think about their situation, and stop submitting meekly. In the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman can sink when he finds himself without a man. Abandoned by his peasants, he immediately turns into a dirty and wild animal, moreover, he becomes a forest predator.
And this life, in essence, is a continuation of his previous predatory existence. The wild landowner, like the generals, acquires a dignified appearance again only after his peasants return. Thus, the author gives an unambiguous assessment of contemporary reality.
In their literary form and style, Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy-tale characters: talking animals, fish, birds. The writer uses the beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes, characteristic of a folk tale.
As in a folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear time and spatial framework. But, using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition.
He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, and French words into the narrative. Episodes of modern society appear on the pages of his fairy tales.
life. This is how styles are mixed, creating a comic effect, and the plot is combined with modern problems.
Thus, having enriched the fairy tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire.
The tale “The Wild Landowner” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, like his others satirical works, intended for an adult audience. It was first published in the progressive literary magazine Otechestvennye zapiski in 1869, when it was headed by editor-publisher Nikolai Nekrasov, a friend and like-minded person of the writer.
Fairytale plot
The small work took up several pages of the magazine. The tale tells of a stupid landowner who pestered the peasants living on his land because of their "slave smell". The peasants disappear, and he remains the only occupant on his estate. The inability to take care of oneself and run a household leads first to impoverishment, and later to savagery and complete loss of sanity.
A madman hunts hares, which he eats alive, and talks to a bear. The situation reaches the provincial authorities, who order the peasants to be returned, the wild ones to be caught and left under the supervision of the servant.
Literary devices and images used
The work was typical of the author, who used satire and metaphorical devices to convey his ideas to the general public. The cheerful style, lively dialogues written in everyday colloquial language, cynical humor attracted readers with the ease of presentation. The allegorical images were thought-provoking and were extremely understandable both for serious subscribers of the magazine and for young cadets and young ladies.
Despite the fairy-tale narrative, Saltykov-Shchedrin directly mentions several times the real newspaper “Vest”, with whose editorial policy he did not agree. The author makes it the main reason for the protagonist's insanity. Usage satirical device helps to ridicule a competitor and at the same time convey to the reader the inconsistency of ideas that can lead to absurdity.
The mention of the Moscow theater actor Mikhail Sadovsky, who was at the peak of his popularity at that time, is designed to attract the attention of an idle audience. Sadovsky's remarks in interrogative form indicate the absurdity of the actions of a madman and set the reader's judgments in the direction intended by the author.
Saltykov-Shchedrin uses his writing talent to present his political position and personal attitude to what is happening. The allegories and metaphors used in the text were perfectly understandable to his contemporaries. The reader from our time needs clarification.
Allegories and political background
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 caused violent cataclysms in economic condition Russia. The reform was timely, but had a lot of controversial issues for all classes. Peasant uprisings caused civil and political aggravation.
The wild landowner, whom both the author and the characters constantly call stupid, is a collective image of a radical nobleman. The mental breakdown of centuries-old traditions was difficult for landowners. Recognition of a "man" as free man, with whom it is necessary to build new economic relations, happened with difficulty.
According to the plot, the temporarily obliged, as the serfs began to be called after the reform, were carried away by God in an unknown direction. This is a direct hint at the implementation of the rights that the reform has given them. The retrograde nobleman rejoices in the absence "manly smell", but demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the consequences. It is difficult for him to come to terms with the loss of free labor, but he is ready to starve, just not to have relations with former serfs.
The landowner constantly reinforces his delusional ideas by reading the newspaper Vest. The publication existed and was distributed at the expense of part of the nobility, dissatisfied with the ongoing reform. The materials published in it supported the destruction of the serfdom system, but did not recognize the peasants' ability to administrative organization and self-government.
Propaganda blamed the peasant class for the ruin of landowners and economic decline. In the finale, when the madman is forcibly brought back into human form, the police officer takes the newspaper from him. The author's prophecy came true, a year after the publication of " Wild landowner“The owner of Vesti went bankrupt and circulation ceased.
Saltykov describes the economic consequences that can occur without the labor of those temporarily obliged, without allegories: “not a piece of meat or a pound of bread in the market”, “robberies, robbery and murders have spread in the district”. The nobleman himself lost “its body is loose, white, crumbly”, became impoverished, became wild and finally lost his mind.
The police captain is responsible for straightening out the situation. Representative civil service voices the author's main idea that “the treasury cannot exist without taxes and duties, and even more so without wine and salt regalia”. He shifts the blame for disruption of order and ruin from the peasants to “a stupid landowner who is the instigator of all the troubles”.
The tale of the “Wild Landowner” is a typical example of a political feuilleton, timely and vividly reflecting what was happening in the 60s of the 19th century.