Ostrovsky who lives well in Rus'. Nekrasov who lives well in Rus'. Main storyline

According to the researchers, “establish the exact date It is impossible to begin work on the poem, but it is clear that the starting point for the emergence of its concept was 1861.” In it Nekrasov, in his own words, “he decided to present in a coherent story everything that he knew about the people, everything that he happened to hear from their lips.” “This will be an epic of modern peasant life,” said the poet.

By 1865, the first part of the work was basically completed. The same year, 1865, researchers date the emergence of the idea for “The Last One” and “The Peasant Woman”. “The Last One” was completed in 1872, “The Peasant Woman” - in 1873. At the same time, in 1873-1874, “A Feast for the Whole World” was conceived, on which the poet worked in 1876-1877. The poem remained unfinished. The dying Nekrasov bitterly told one of his contemporary that his poem was “a thing that can only have its meaning as a whole.” “When I started,” the author admitted, “I didn’t clearly see where it would end, but now everything has worked out for me, and I feel that the poem would win and win.”

The incompleteness of the poem and the length of work on it, which also affected the evolution of the author’s thought and the author’s task, make it extremely difficult solution the problem of design, which has not by chance become one of the controversial issues for non-krasologists.

The Prologue outlines a clear story line- seven temporarily obliged peasants who met by chance began arguing about “who lives cheerfully and freely in Rus'”: the landowner, the official, the priest, the “thick-bellied merchant,” “the noble boyar, the sovereign’s minister,” or the tsar. Without resolving the dispute, they “promised to each other” “not to toss and turn in their houses”, “not to see their wives or little children”, “until they find out, / No matter what - for certain, / Who lives happily, / At ease in Rus'."

How to interpret this storyline? Did Nekrasov want to show in the poem that only the “tops” are happy, or did he intend to create a picture of a universal, painful, difficult existence in Rus'? After all, already the first possible “candidates” for the lucky ones that the men met - the priest and the landowner - painted very sad pictures of the life of the entire priestly and landowner class. And the landowner even takes the question itself: is he happy, as a joke and jokingly, “like a doctor, he felt everyone’s hand / He felt it, looked into their faces, / He grabbed his sides / And started laughing...” The question of the landowner’s happiness seems to him ridiculous. At the same time, each of the narrators, both the priest and the landowner, complaining about their lot, opens the reader to the opportunity to see the reasons for their misfortunes. All of them are not of a personal nature, but are connected with the life of the country, with the poverty of the peasantry and the ruin of the landowners after the reform of 1861.

In Nekrasov’s rough drafts, the chapter “Death” remained, which told about the plight in Russia during the anthrax epidemic. In this chapter, the men listen to the story of the official’s misfortunes. After this chapter, Nekrasov, according to his confession, “finishes off with that guy who claimed that the official was happy.” But even in this chapter, as can be judged from the remaining notes, the story about the moral suffering of an official, forced to take the last crumbs from the peasants, opens up new aspects of the unified picture of all-Russian life, the hardships and suffering of the people.

The author’s plan for continuing the poem includes the arrival of the men in “St. Petersburg” and a meeting with the “sovereign minister” and the tsar, who, perhaps, also had to talk about their affairs and troubles. At the end of the poem, Nekrasov, according to the recollections of people close to him, wanted to complete the story about the misfortunes of Russia with a general pessimistic conclusion: it is good to live in Rus' only if you are drunk. Relaying his plan from Nekrasov’s words, Gleb Uspensky wrote: “Not finding a happy person in Rus', wandering men return to their seven villages: Gorelov, Neelov, etc. These villages are adjacent, that is, they are close to each other, and from each there is a path to the tavern. Here at this tavern they meet a drunken man, “belted with a sash,” and with him, over a glass, they find out who has a good life.”

And if the poem had developed only according to this intended scheme: consistently telling about the meetings of wanderers with representatives of all classes, about the troubles and sorrows of priests and landowners, officials and peasants, then the author’s intention could be understood as a desire to show the illusory nature of the well-being of everyone in Rus' estates - from the peasantry to the nobility.

But Nekrasov already in the first part deviates from the main storyline: after meeting with the priest, the men go to the “rural fair” to question the “men and women”, to look for the happy ones among them. The chapter from part two - “The Last One” - is not connected with the storyline outlined in the “Prologue”. She presents one of the episodes on the path of the men: a story about the “stupid comedy” played by the Vakhlak men. After “The Last One,” Nekrasov writes the chapter “Peasant Woman,” dedicated to the fates of two peasants - Matryona Timofeevna and Savely Korchagin. But here, too, Nekrasov complicates the task to the utmost: behind the stories of the two peasants there emerges a generalized, broad picture of the life of the entire Russian peasantry. Almost all aspects of this life are touched upon by Nekrasov: raising children, the problem of marriage, intra-family relations, the problem of “recruitment”, the relationship of peasants with the authorities (from the smallest rulers of their destinies - mayors and managers - to landowners and governors).

IN last years Nekrasov’s life, seemingly clearly deviating from the intended scheme, is working on the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World,” the central theme of which is the tragic past of the Russian people, the search for the causes of the people’s tragedy and reflection on the future fate of the people.

It is impossible not to notice that some other plot lines outlined in the Prologue do not receive development. Thus, it can be assumed that the search for the happy should have taken place against the backdrop of national disaster: in the Prologue and the first part of the poem, the leitmotif is the idea of ​​impending famine. Famine is also prophesied by the description of winter and spring; it is foreshadowed by the priest met by the peasants, the “feisty Old Believers.” For example, the priest’s words sound like a terrible prophecy:

Pray, Orthodox Christians!
Great trouble threatens
And this year:
The winter was fierce
Spring is rainy
It should have been sowing long ago,
And there is water in the fields!

But these prophecies disappear in further parts of the poem. In the chapters from the second and third parts created by Nekrasov, on the contrary, the richness of the crops being grown, the beauty of the fields of rye and wheat, and the peasant joy at the sight of the future harvest are emphasized.

Another intended line does not find development either - the prophecy-warning of the warbler bird, which gave the men a self-assembled tablecloth, that they should not ask the tablecloth for more than what they are entitled to, otherwise “they will be in trouble.” According to tradition folk tale, on which the Prologue is based, this warning should have been fulfilled. But it is not fulfilled, moreover, in “A Feast for the Whole World,” written by Nekrasov in 1876-1877, the self-assembled tablecloth itself disappears.

At one time V.E. Evgeniev-Maksimov expressed the point of view accepted by many researchers of the poem: that its concept has changed. “Under the influence of what was happening in the country,” suggested V.E. Evgeniev-Maksimov, - the poet resolutely pushes into the background the question of the happiness of the “fat-bellied merchant”, “official”, “noble boyar - minister of the sovereign”, finally, the “tsar” and devoted his poem entirely to the question of how the people lived and what the paths lead to people's happiness." B.Ya. also writes about the same thing. Bukhshtab: “The theme of the lack of happiness in people’s life already in the first part of the poem prevails over the theme of the master’s grief, and in subsequent parts it completely displaces it.<...>At some stage of work on the poem, the idea of ​​asking the owners of life whether they were happy completely disappeared or was pushed back.” The idea that the plan changed during the work on the poem is shared by V.V. Prokshin. In his opinion, the original plan was supplanted by a new idea - to show the evolution of wanderers: “travel quickly makes men wise. Their new thoughts and intentions are revealed in a new storyline of the search for true national happiness. This second line not only complements, but decisively displaces the first.”

A different point of view was expressed by K.I. Chukovsky. He argued that the “real intention” of the poem was initially the author’s desire to show “how deeply unhappy the people were “blessed” by the notorious reform,” “and only to disguise this secret plan did the poet put forward the problem of the well-being of merchants, landowners, priests and royal dignitaries , which wasn't really relevant to the plot." Fairly objecting to K. Chukovsky, B.Ya. Bukhshtab points out the vulnerability of this judgment: the theme of people's suffering is the central theme of Nekrasov's works, and in order to address it, there was no need for a disguise plot.

However, a number of researchers, with some clarification, share the position of K.I. Chukovsky, for example, L.A. Evstigneeva. She defines Nekrasov’s innermost plan differently, seeing it in the poet’s desire to show that the happiness of the people is in his own hands. In other words, the meaning of the poem is a call for a peasant revolution. Comparing different editions of the poem, L.A. Evstigneeva notes that fairy tale images did not appear immediately, but only in the second edition of the poem. One of their main functions, according to the researcher, is to “disguise the revolutionary meaning of the poem.” But at the same time, they are intended not only to be a means of Aesopian storytelling. “The special form of folk poetic tale found by Nekrasov organically included elements of folklore: fairy tales, songs, epics, parables, etc. The same warbler bird that gives the men a magic tablecloth, answers their question about happiness and contentment: “If you find it, you will find it yourself.” Thus, already in the “Prologue” Nekrasov’s central idea is born that the happiness of the people is in their own hands,” believes L.A. Evstigneeva.

The researcher sees proof of his point of view in the fact that already in the first part Nekrasov deviates from the plot scheme outlined in the Prologue: truth-seekers, contrary to their own plans, begin to look for the lucky ones among the peasants. This indicates, according to L.A. Evstigneeva, that “the action of the poem does not develop according to plot scheme, but in accordance with the development of Nekrasov’s secret plan.” Based on examination of both the final text and the rough drafts, the researcher concludes: “<...>The widespread opinion about a radical change in the intent of the poem is not confirmed by analysis of the manuscripts. There was an embodiment of the plan, its implementation and, at the same time, complication, but not evolution as such. The architectonics of the poem reflected this process. Originality compositional structure“Who Lives Well in Rus'” lies in the fact that it is based not on the development of the plot, but on the implementation of Nekrasov’s grandiose idea - about the inevitability of a people’s revolution - born at the moment of the highest rise liberation struggle 60s."

A similar point of view is expressed by M.V. Teplinsky. He believes that “from the very beginning, Nekrasov’s plan was not identical to peasant ideas about the direction of the search for the supposed lucky man. The poem was structured in such a way as not only to show the falsity of peasant illusions, but also to lead wanderers (and with them readers) to the perception of the revolutionary democratic idea of ​​​​the need to fight for people's happiness. Nekrasov had to prove that Russian reality itself forces wanderers to change their original point of view.” Thus, according to the researcher, the idea is to show the path to people's happiness.

Summing up the thoughts of the researchers, it should be said that Nekrasov’s plan cannot be reduced to one idea, to one thought. Creating the “epic of peasant life,” the poet sought to cover in his poem all aspects of people’s life, all the problems that the reform clearly revealed: the poverty of the peasants, and the moral consequences of the “age-old illness” - slavery, which formed “habits”, certain ideas, norms of behavior and attitude to life. According to the fair observation of F.M. Dostoevsky, the fate of the people is determined by their national character. This idea turns out to be very close to the author of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” A journey through Rus' also becomes a journey into the depths of the Russian soul, reveals the Russian soul and ultimately explains the vicissitudes of Russian history.

But no less important is another meaning of the journey that the heroes undertake at the will of the author. The plot of the journey, already known in ancient Russian literature, had special meaning: the movement of the heroes of ancient Russian hagiographical works in geographical space became “movement along the vertical scale of religious and moral values,” and “geography acted as a type of knowledge.” Researchers noted a “special attitude towards the traveler and travel” among ancient Russian scribes: “a long journey increases the holiness of a person.” This is the perception of the journey as moral quest, the moral improvement of man is fully characteristic of Nekrasov. The journey of his wanderers symbolizes seeking the truth Rus', Rus', “awakened” and “full of strength” to find an answer to the question about the reasons for its misfortune, about the “secret” of “people's contentment.”

One of the most famous works of Nikolai Nekrasov is the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” which is distinguished not only by its deep philosophical meaning and social acuity, but also bright, original characters - these are seven simple Russian men who got together and argued about who “lives freely and cheerfully in Rus'.” The poem was first published in 1866 in the Sovremennik magazine. The publication of the poem was resumed three years later, but the tsarist censorship, seeing the content as an attack on the autocratic regime, did not allow it to be published. IN in full the poem was published only after the revolution in 1917.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” became the central work in the work of the great Russian poet; it is his ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of his thoughts and reflections on the fate of the Russian people and on the roads leading to their happiness and well-being. These questions worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through his entire life. literary activity. Work on the poem lasted 14 years (1863-1877) and in order to create this “folk epic”, as the author himself called it, useful and understandable for the common people, Nekrasov made a lot of efforts, although in the end it was never finished (8 chapters were planned, 4 were written). A serious illness and then the death of Nekrasov disrupted his plans. Plot incompleteness does not prevent the work from having an acute social character.

Main storyline

The poem was begun by Nekrasov in 1863 after the abolition of serfdom, so its content touches on many problems that arose after the Peasant Reform of 1861. The poem has four chapters, they are united by a common plot about how seven ordinary men argued about who lives well in Rus' and who is truly happy. The plot of the poem, touching on serious philosophical and social problems, is structured in the form of a journey through Russian villages, their “speaking” names perfectly describe the Russian reality of that time: Dyryavina, Razutov, Gorelov, Zaplatov, Neurozhaikin, etc. In the first chapter, called “Prologue,” the men meet on a highway and start their own dispute; in order to resolve it, they go on a trip to Russia. On the way, the disputing men meet a variety of people, these are peasants, merchants, landowners, priests, beggars, and drunkards, they see a wide variety of pictures from people’s lives: funerals, weddings, fairs, elections, etc. .

Meeting different people, the men ask them the same question: how happy they are, but both the priest and the landowner complain about the deterioration of life after the abolition of serfdom, only a few of all the people they meet at the fair recognize themselves as truly happy.

In the second chapter, entitled “The Last One,” wanderers come to the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, whose inhabitants, after the abolition of serfdom, continue to pose as serfs, so as not to upset the old count. Nekrasov shows readers how they were then cruelly deceived and robbed by the count's sons.

The third chapter, entitled “Peasant Woman,” describes the search for happiness among women of that time, the wanderers meet with Matryona Korchagina in the village of Klin, she tells them about her long-suffering fate and advises them not to look for happy people among Russian women.

In the fourth chapter, entitled “A Feast for the Whole World,” wandering seekers of truth find themselves at a feast in the village of Valakhchin, where they understand that the questions they ask people about happiness concern all Russian people, without exception. The ideological finale of the work is the song “Rus”, which originated in the head of a participant in the feast, the son of the parish sexton Grigory Dobrosklonov:

« You're miserable too

you are abundant

you and the omnipotent

Mother Rus'!»

Main characters

The question of who is the main character of the poem remains open, formally these are the men who argued about happiness and decided to go on a trip to Russia to decide who is right, however, the poem clearly states that main character poems - the entire Russian people, perceived as a single whole. The images of the wandering men (Roman, Demyan, Luka, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin, the old man Pakhom and Prov) are practically not revealed, their characters are not drawn, they act and express themselves as a single organism, while the images of the people they meet, on the contrary, are painted very carefully, with a lot of details and nuances.

One of the brightest representatives of a man from the people can be called the son of the parish clerk Grigory Dobrosklonov, who was presented by Nekrasov as a people's intercessor, educator and savior. He is one of the key characters and the entire final chapter is devoted to the description of his image. Grisha, like no one else, is close to the people, understands their dreams and aspirations, wants to help them and composes wonderful “good songs” for people that bring joy and hope to those around them. Through his lips, the author proclaims his views and beliefs, gives answers to the pressing social and moral questions raised in the poem. Characters such as seminarian Grisha and honest mayor Yermil Girin do not seek happiness for themselves, they dream of making all people happy at once and devote their entire lives to this. The main idea of ​​the poem follows from Dobrosklonov’s understanding of the very concept of happiness; this feeling can only be fully felt by those who, without reasoning, give their lives for a just cause in the fight for people’s happiness.

The main female character of the poem is Matryona Korchagina; the entire third chapter is devoted to a description of her tragic fate, typical of all Russian women. Drawing her portrait, Nekrasov admires her straight, proud posture, simple attire and the amazing beauty of a simple Russian woman (large, stern eyes, rich eyelashes, stern and dark). Her whole life is spent in hard peasant work, she has to endure beatings from her husband and brazen attacks from the manager, she was destined to survive tragic death his firstborn, hunger and deprivation. She lives only for the sake of her children, and without hesitation accepts punishment with rods for her guilty son. The author admires her strength mother's love, endurance and strong character, he sincerely pities her and sympathizes with all Russian women, for Matryona’s fate is the fate of all peasant women of that time, suffering from lawlessness, poverty, religious fanaticism and superstition, and lack of qualified medical care.

The poem also describes the images of landowners, their wives and sons (princes, nobles), depicts the landowners' servants (lackeys, servants, courtyard servants), priests and other clergy, kind governors and cruel German managers, artists, soldiers, wanderers, a huge number minor characters, which give the folk lyric-epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” that unique polyphony and epic breadth that make this work a real masterpiece and the pinnacle of Nekrasov’s entire literary work.

Analysis of the poem

The problems raised in the work are diverse and complex, they affect the lives of various strata of society, including a difficult transition to a new way of life, problems of drunkenness, poverty, obscurantism, greed, cruelty, oppression, the desire to change something, etc.

However, the key problem is still of this work- the search for simple human happiness, which each of the characters understands in their own way. For example, rich people, such as priests or landowners, think only about their own well-being, this is happiness for them, poorer people, such as ordinary peasants, are happy with the simplest things: staying alive after a bear attack, surviving a beating at work, etc. .

The main idea of ​​the poem is that the Russian people deserve to be happy, they deserve it with their suffering, blood and sweat. Nekrasov was convinced that one must fight for one’s happiness and it is not enough to make one person happy, because this will not solve the entire global problem as a whole; the poem calls for thinking and striving for happiness for everyone without exception.

Structural and compositional features

The compositional form of the work is distinctive; it is built in accordance with the laws of classical epic, i.e. each chapter can exist independently, and all together they represent a single whole work with a large number of characters and storylines.

The poem, according to the author himself, belongs to the genre folk epic, it is written in unrhymed iambic trimeter, at the end of each line after stressed syllables there are two unstressed syllables (using dactylic casula), in some places iambic tetrameter is present to emphasize the folklore style of the work.

In order for the poem to be understandable to the common man, many common words and expressions are used in it: village, breveshko, fair, empty poppas, etc. The poem contains a large number of various examples of folk poetry, these are fairy tales, epics, various proverbs and sayings, folk songs of various genres. The language of the work is stylized by the author in the form of a folk song to improve ease of perception; at that time, the use of folklore was considered the best way of communication between the intelligentsia and the common people.

In the poem, the author used such means of artistic expression as epithets (“the sun is red”, “black shadows”, a free heart”, “poor people”), comparisons (“jumped out as if disheveled”, “the men fell asleep like the dead”), metaphors ( “the earth lies”, “the warbler is crying”, “the village is seething”). There is also a place for irony and sarcasm, various stylistic figures are used, such as addresses: “Hey, uncle!”, “Oh people, Russian people!”, various exclamations “Chu!”, “Eh, Eh!” etc.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the highest example of a work executed in the folk style of all literary heritage Nekrasova. The elements and images of Russian folklore used by the poet give the work a bright originality, colorfulness and rich national flavor. What Nekrasov did in search of happiness main theme the poem is not at all accidental, because the entire Russian people have been looking for him for many thousands of years, this is reflected in his fairy tales, epics, legends, songs and other various folklore sources like a search for treasure, a happy land, a priceless treasure. The theme of this work expressed the most cherished desire of the Russian people throughout its existence - to live happily in a society where justice and equality rule.

An unfinished poem in which Nekrasov formulated another eternal Russian question and put folklore at the service of revolutionary democracy.

comments: Mikhail Makeev

What is this book about?

Serfdom in Russia has been abolished. Seven "temporarily obliged" After the Peasant Reform, this was the name given to peasants who had not yet bought the land from the landowner, and therefore were obliged to pay quitrent or corvee for it. ⁠ (that is, in fact not yet free) peasants (“The tightened province, / Terpigoreva County, / Empty volost, / From adjacent villages: / Zaplatova, Dyryavina, / Razutova, Znobishina, / Gorelova, Neyolova - / Unharvest also”) start an argument about someone who “lives cheerfully and freely in Rus'.” To resolve this issue, they go on a journey in search of a happy person. Along the way, the whole of peasant Russia appears to them: they meet priests and soldiers, righteous people and drunkards, a landowner who does not know about the abolition of serfdom, and the future people's intercessor, composing a hymn to the “poor and abundant, downtrodden and omnipotent” Mother Rus'.

Nikolay Nekrasov. Lithograph by Peter Borel. 1860s

When was it written?

Exactly when the idea for the poem arose has not been established. There is evidence Gabriel Potanin Gavriil Nikitich Potanin (1823-1911) - writer. Served as a teacher in Simbirsk. He became famous thanks to the novel “The Old Ages, the Young Grows,” published in Sovremennik in 1861. Nekrasov helped Potanin move to St. Petersburg and get a job. In the early 1870s, relations with Nekrasov deteriorated, and the writer returned to Simbirsk. In his declining years, Potanin wrote enthusiastic memoirs about Nekrasov, although some episodes in them do not correspond to the facts. ⁠ , who supposedly in the fall of 1860 saw a manuscript (draft?) of a poem on Nekrasov’s table. However, Potanin cannot be completely trusted. Nekrasov himself dated the first part of the poem to 1865: apparently, it was largely completed by the end of that year. With interruptions (which sometimes lasted for several years), Nekrasov worked on “Who Lives Well in Rus'” until the end of his life. The poem remained unfinished. The poet made changes to the last of the written parts, “A Feast for the Whole World,” until March 1877, that is, almost until his death. Shortly before his death, Nekrasov regretted that he would not have time to complete the poem: “...If only there were three or four more years of life. This is a thing that can only have its meaning as a whole. And the further you write, the more clearly you imagine the further course of the poem, new characters, pictures.” Based on the poet’s sketches, it is possible to reconstruct the concept of several unwritten chapters: for example, the meeting of the heroes with an official, for which the men had to come to St. Petersburg.

The great chain has broken,
Torn and splintered:
One way for the master,
Others don't care!..

Nikolay Nekrasov

How is it written?

“Who Lives Well in Rus'” is stylized after Russian folklore. This is a kind of encyclopedia or “complete collection” of genres of folk poetry - from small (proverbs, sayings, riddles, etc. - it is estimated that there are more than a hundred such inclusions in the poem) to the largest (epic, fairy tale, legend, historical song Lyric epic folklore genre telling about historical events. For example, songs about Ermak, Pugachev or the capture of Kazan. ⁠ ). In the part “Peasant Woman,” the most “folklorized” in the poem, there are direct, only slightly adapted borrowings from folk songs. Nekrasov's language is full of diminutive suffixes, typical of the rhythm of folk poetry 1 Chukovsky K.I. Nekrasov’s Mastery // Chukovsky K.I. Collected Works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s Mastery. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. pp. 515-524. ⁠ , and the images often go back to her formulas: “The ears are already full. / There are chiseled pillars, / Gilded heads...”, “Only you, black shadows, / You cannot be caught - you cannot hug!”

However, in most cases, Nekrasov does not so much copy or quote folklore texts as he is inspired by folk poetry, creating an original work in “ folk spirit" According to Korney Chukovsky, Nekrasov could even “modify” neutral folklore images so “so that they can serve the goals of the revolutionary struggle" 2 Chukovsky K.I. Nekrasov’s Mastery // Chukovsky K.I. Collected Works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s Mastery. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. pp. 398-399. ⁠ - despite the fact that this opinion itself looks biased, it is true in the sense that folklore for Nekrasov was a material, and not an end in itself: he, one might say, edited folklore, combined elements different texts, while achieving authentic sound and verified logic.

Typical fairy tale fiction plays an important role in the plot of the poem: magical helpers According to Vladimir Propp, a magical assistant is one of the key elements of a fairy tale; it helps the main character achieve the main goal. ⁠ (warbler bird) and magic remedies The outcome of a fairy tale often depends on whether the hero has some kind of magical remedy. As a rule, in a fairy tale there is also a figure of a donor (for example, Baba Yaga), thanks to whom the hero receives a means. Vladimir Propp writes about this in his book “Morphology of a Fairy Tale.” ⁠ (a self-assembled tablecloth), as well as peasant household items endowed with magical properties (overcoats that do not wear out, “baby shoes” that do not rot, bast shoes that do not “break”, shirts in which fleas “do not breed”). All this is necessary so that wanderers, leaving their wives and “little children” at home, can travel without being distracted by worries about clothing and food. The very number of wanderers - seven - speaks of a connection with Russian folklore, in which seven is a special, sacred and at the same time rather “auspicious” number.

The composition of the poem is free: while traveling around Rus', seven men witness numerous colorful scenes, meet a variety of its inhabitants (mainly peasants like themselves, but also representatives of other social strata - landowners, priests, servants, servants). The answers to the main question of the poem are summed up in short stories(there are many of them in the first part: in the chapters “ Rural fair", "Drunken Night" and "Happy"), and sometimes turn into independent plots: for example, such an inserted story occupies most of the fragment "Peasant Woman", a long story is dedicated to the life of Yermil Girin. This is how a kaleidoscopic picture of life in Russia develops in the era of the Peasant Reform (Nekrasov called his poem “the epic of modern peasant life”).

The poem is written mostly in white iambic trimeter. Focusing on folk verse, Nekrasov randomly alternates dactylic Rhyme with stress on the third syllable from the end. ⁠ ending with male Rhyme with stress on the last syllable. ⁠ - this creates a feeling of free, flowing speech:

Yes, no matter how I ran them,
And the betrothed appeared,
There's a stranger on the mountain!
Philip Korchagin - St. Petersburg resident,
Stove maker by skill.
The mother cried:
"Like a fish in a blue sea
You scurry! like a nightingale
You'll fly out of the nest!
Someone else's side
Not sprinkled with sugar
Not drizzled with honey!”

However, in “Who in Rus'...” there are fragments written in a variety of sizes, both in blank and in rhymed verse. For example, the song “Hungry”: “A man is standing - / Swaying, / A man is walking - / Can’t breathe! // From the bark / It unraveled, / Melancholy-trouble / Tormented” - or the famous hymn “Rus”, written by seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov:

The army is rising -
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!

You're miserable too
You are also abundant
You're downtrodden
You are omnipotent
Mother Rus'!..

Reaper. Photo from the album “Types of Podolsk Province”. 1866

Peasants at lunch. Photo from the album “Types of Podolsk Province”. 1866

What influenced her?

First of all, the Peasant Reform of 1861. It caused mixed responses in the circle to which Nekrasov belonged. Many of his employees and like-minded people reacted sharply to it negatively, including the leading critic of Sovremennik, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who assessed the reform as unfair to the peasants and committed “in favor” of the landowners. Nekrasov himself was reserved about the reform, but significantly more optimistic. The poet saw in it not only injustice towards the people, the “sower and guardian” of the land, who now had to buy this land from the landowner, but also new opportunities. In a letter to Turgenev dated April 5, 1861, Nekrasov wrote: “We now have a curious time - but the real deal and his whole fate lie ahead.” Apparently, the general feeling is well expressed in the short poem “Freedom” written at the same time:

Motherland! across your plains
I have never driven with such a feeling!

I see a child in the arms of my mother,
The heart is agitated by the thought of the beloved:

In good times a child was born,
God be merciful! you won't recognize tears!

Since childhood, I have not been intimidated by anyone, I am free,
Choose the job you're good for,

If you want, you will remain a man forever,
If you can do it, you will soar into the sky like an eagle!

There are many mistakes in these fantasies:
The human mind is subtle and flexible,

I know, in place of serf networks
People have come up with many other

Yes!.. but it’s easier for people to untangle them.
Muse! Welcome freedom with hope!

In any case, Nekrasov had no doubt that people’s life was changing radically. And it was precisely the spectacle of change, along with reflections on whether the Russian peasant was ready to take advantage of freedom, that in many ways became the impetus for writing the poem.

Of the literary and linguistic influences, the first is folklore, with the help of which people talk about their lives, worries and hopes. Interest in folklore was characteristic of many Russian poets of the first half of the 19th century century; Most likely, Nekrasov’s immediate predecessor should be considered Alexei Koltsov, the author of popular poems imitating the style of folk poetry. Nekrasov himself became interested in folklore back in the mid-1840s (for example, in the poem “Ogorodnik”), but the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” became the culmination of this interest. Folk oral creativity Nekrasov collected his works independently for several decades, but also used collections of folk poetry published by professional folklorists. Thus, Nekrasov was greatly impressed by the first volume of “Lamentations of the Northern Territory,” collected Elpidifor Barsov Elpidifor Vasilievich Barsov (1836-1917) - ethnographer. Author of the three-volume work “Lamentations of the Northern Territory”. Researcher of ancient Russian writing and owner of one of the best paleographic collections of his time. In 1914, he donated it to the Historical Museum. ⁠ (it mainly included screams and lamentations recorded from Irina Fedosova Irina Andreevna Fedosova (1827-1899) - folk storyteller. Originally from Karelia. She gained fame as a mourner. At the end of the 1860s, for several years, Elpidifor Barsov recorded her lamentations, which were included in the ethnographic study “Lamentations of the Northern Territory.” In total, about 30 thousand of her texts were recorded by different ethnographers. Fedosova performed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, and had many fans. ⁠ ), as well as the third and fourth parts of “Songs Collected P. N. Rybnikov Pavel Nikolaevich Rybnikov (1831-1885) - ethnographer. Graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University. He studied the schism and the Old Believers in the Chernigov province, was suspected of participating in the revolutionary circle of “vertepniks”, after which he was exiled to Petrozavodsk. In 1860, Rybnikov undertook a trip to the Russian North, where he collected and recorded unique local folklore. Based on the results of the trip, he published the book “Songs Collected by P. N. Rybnikov,” which became famous not only in Russia, but also abroad. ⁠ " The poet used both of these books mainly in the part “Peasant Woman” to create the image of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina. Many of the stories told by the characters in the poem were heard by Nekrasov from people familiar with folk life(for example, from a famous lawyer Anatoly Koni Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927) - lawyer and writer. He served as a prosecutor, was the chairman of the St. Petersburg District Court, and an honorary judge of the St. Petersburg and Peterhof districts. Presided over by Koni, the jury acquitted Vera Zasulich, who shot the St. Petersburg mayor Trepov. Based on Kony’s memories of one of the cases, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel “Resurrection.” After the revolution, he lectured on criminal proceedings and wrote a commentary on the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922. Author of the books "On life path", "Court speeches", "Fathers and sons of judicial reform". ⁠ ), possibly from peasant hunters. “No matter how you spice up the old serviceman’s story with jokes, no matter how wittily you distort the words, such a story will still not be a real soldier’s story if you yourself have never heard a soldier’s story,” Nekrasov wrote back in 1845; the folklore layer in the poem is based on deep personal knowledge of folk traditions 3 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. P. 380-386. ⁠ .

The “travel” plot, convenient for large-scale depiction of national life, was used, for example, by Nikolai Gogol in. Gogol is one of the writers whom Nekrasov awarded his highest praise: “the people’s defender” (the second such writer is Belinsky, whose books, according to Nekrasov’s dream, a man will one day “carry from the market” along with Gogol’s, and in his drafts Nekrasov also calls Pushkin).

Grigory Myasoedov. The zemstvo is having lunch. 1872 State Tretyakov Gallery

The poem was published in parts as it was created. "Prologue" was published in No. 1 "Contemporary" Literary magazine (1836-1866), founded by Pushkin. Since 1847, Sovremennik was led by Nekrasov and Panaev, later Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov joined the editorial staff. In the 60s, an ideological split occurred in Sovremennik: the editors came to understand the need for a peasant revolution, while many of the magazine’s authors (Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Druzhinin) advocated slower and more gradual reforms. Five years after the abolition of serfdom, Sovremennik closed by personal order of Alexander II. ⁠ for 1866, and from 1869 the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski.

“A Feast for the Whole World” was not published during Nekrasov’s lifetime: its text, greatly distorted for censorship reasons, was included in the November (11th) issue of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1876, but was cut out from there by censorship; publication planned in 1877 was also cancelled, citing the "ill health of the author". This fragment was first published separately in 1879 in an illegal edition of the St. Petersburg Free Printing House, and a legally incomplete version of “The Feast” was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski only in 1881.

The first separate publication, “Who Lives Well in Rus',” appeared in 1880 year 4 “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: Poem by N. A. Nekrasov. SPb.: Type. M. Stasyulevich, 1880. ⁠ , however, in addition to the first part, as well as “The Peasant Woman” and “The Last One,” it included only a short fragment “Grishin’s Song”). Apparently the first full publication“Who Lives Well in Rus'” should be considered the one-volume edition of “Poems by N. A. Nekrasov”, published Mikhail Stasyulevich Mikhail Matveevich Stasyulevich (1826-1911) - historian and publicist. Professor of history at St. Petersburg University, specialist in the history of Ancient Greece and the Western European Middle Ages. In 1861 he resigned in protest against the suppression of student protests. Author of the three-volume work “History of the Middle Ages, in its sources and modern writers" From 1866 to 1908 he was editor of the journal "Bulletin of Europe". ⁠ in 1881; however, here too “A Feast for the Whole World” is presented in a distorted form.

Since 1869, the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski

Cover of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Printing house of M. M. Stasyulevich, 1880

How was she received?

As new parts of the poem were published, critics met them mostly negatively. Victor Burenin Viktor Petrovich Burenin (1841-1926) - literary critic, publicist, playwright. In his youth, he was friends with the amnestied Decembrists and radical democrats (he helped Nekrasov with collecting materials for the poem “Russian Women”), and published in Herzen’s “Bell.” From 1876 until the revolution, he worked for Suvorin’s Novoye Vremya, a conservative right-wing publication. Due to frequent attacks and rudeness in his articles, Burenin gradually acquired a scandalous reputation - he was sued several times for libel. They said that it was Burenin’s harsh article that brought the poet Semyon Nadson to death - after reading the accusations that he was only pretending to be sick, Nadson felt worse and soon died. ⁠ believed that the chapters of the first part “are weak and prosaic in general, constantly smack of vulgarity and only in places represent some dignity" 5 St. Petersburg Gazette. 1873, March 10. No. 68. ⁠ , Vasily Avseenko Vasily Grigorievich Avseenko (1842-1913) - writer, publicist. He taught general history at Kiev University, was co-editor of the newspaper “Kievlyanin”, and head of the governor’s office. After moving to St. Petersburg in 1869, he served in the Ministry of Public Education and published critical articles in Russky Vestnik, Russky Slovo, and Zarya. From 1883 to 1896 he published the St. Petersburg Gazette. He wrote fiction: the novels “Evil Spirit”, “Milky Way”, “Gnashing of Teeth” and others. ⁠ called “Who Lives Well in Rus'” “long and watery thing" 6 Russian thought. 1872, May 13. No. 122. ⁠ and even considered her “among the most unsuccessful works» Nekrasova 7 Russian thought. 1873, February 21. No. 49. ⁠ . Burenin greeted “The Last One” more favorably, in which he saw “artistic truth combined with modern social thought" 8 St. Petersburg Gazette. 1873. No. 68. ⁠ . However, both Burenin and Avseenko, who had a sharply negative attitude towards “The Last One,” denied the topicality and relevance of this part: they accused Nekrasov of “exposing serfdom exactly 12 years after it cancellations" 9 Russian Bulletin. 1874. No. 7. P. 454. ⁠ . “Peasant Woman” was scolded for “false, made-up populism" 10 Burenin; St. Petersburg Gazette. 1874. No. 10. ⁠ , big stretches, rudeness, cacophony 11 Son of the Fatherland. 1874. No. 30. ⁠ . It is characteristic that, attacking specific places in the poem, critics often did not even suspect that it was here that Nekrasov was using an authentic folklore text.

Friendly criticism noted in the poem a sincere feeling of sympathy for the common man, “love for the “unfortunate Russian people” and the poet’s sympathy for his suffering" 12 Radiance. 1873. No. 17. ⁠. Generally hostile to Nekrasov Evgeniy Markov Evgeny Lvovich Markov (1835-1903) - writer, critic, ethnographer. He served as a teacher in Tula, then as director of the Simferopol gymnasium. Collaborated with the magazines “Domestic Notes”, “Delo”, “Bulletin of Europe”. Author of the novels “Black Earth Fields” (1876), “Seashore” (1880), travel notes “Sketches of the Crimea” (1872), “Sketches of the Caucasus” (1887), “Travel to Serbia and Montenegro” (1903). ⁠ wrote about “The Peasant Woman”: “The speech of its best passages best poems sometimes it sounds like the characteristic melody of a real Russian song, sometimes it strikes with the laconic wisdom of Russian proverbs" 13 Voice. 1878. No. 46. ⁠.

There were also downright enthusiastic reviews: the critic Prokofy Grigoriev called “Who is Good in Rus'” “in terms of the power of genius, the mass of life contained in it, unprecedented in the literature of any people.” poem" 14 The library is cheap and public. 1875. No. 4. P. 5. ⁠ .

Probably the most insightful of his contemporaries was the poet (and one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov) Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov Alexey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov (1821-1908) - poet, satirist. He served in the Ministry of Justice and the State Chancellery, and retired in 1858. Together with brothers Vladimir and Alexander and cousin Alexei Tolstoy, he created literary pseudonym Kozma Prutkov. Author of several books of poetry. ⁠ : he highly appreciated the scale of Nekrasov’s plan and singled out “Who Lives Well in Rus'” among the poet’s works. In a private letter to Nekrasov dated March 25, 1870 from Wiesbaden, Zhemchuzhnikov wrote: “This poem is a major thing, and, in my opinion, among your works it occupies a place in the forefront. The main idea is very happy; The frame is extensive, like a frame. You can fit so much in it.”

Victor Burenin. 1910s. The critic Burenin believed that the first parts of the poem “smack of vulgarity”

Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov. 1900 The poet Zhemchuzhnikov, on the contrary, believed that the poem “is a capital thing”

answer Lev Oborin

The modern status of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as Nekrasov’s most important work did not emerge immediately. One of the first critics to make an effort was Sergey Andreevsky Sergei Arkadyevich Andreevsky (1848-1918) - poet, critic, lawyer. He worked under the supervision of lawyer Anatoly Koni, was a famous court speaker, the book with his defensive speeches went through several editions. At the age of 30, Andreevsky began writing and translating poetry. He published the first translation into Russian of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". Since the late 1880s he worked on critical studies about the works of Baratynsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, Nekrasov. ⁠ , whose articles about the poet had a significant impact on the perception of subsequent critics. In the article “Degeneration of Rhyme” (1900), Andreevsky declared the poem one of Nekrasov’s highest achievements.

The further canonization of the poem is connected not only with the work of critics and critics (primarily Korney Chukovsky and Vladislava Evgenieva-Maksimova Vladislav Evgenievich Evgeniev-Maksimov (1883-1955) - literary critic. He worked as a teacher at the Tsarskoye Selo real school, and was fired for organizing a literary evening at which they read “ railway» Nekrasova. Later he worked in independent folk educational institutions. He created the Nekrasov exhibition, on the basis of which the Nekrasov museum-apartment in St. Petersburg was formed. Since 1934 he taught at Leningrad University. Participated in the preparation of the complete works of Nekrasov. ⁠ ), but also with the fact that the civil, revolutionary pathos was clearly heard in the poem: “Every peasant / has a soul like a black cloud - / angry, menacing, - and it would be necessary / for thunder to thunder from there, / to rain bloody rains...” The censorship fate of the poem only strengthened the feeling that Nekrasov was proposing a direct revolutionary program and opposed liberal half-measures, and the figure of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the future revolutionary, was being molded to answer the central question of the poem - an answer that Nekrasov never finally gave. The poem was still popular in circles Narodnaya Volya "People's Will" is a revolutionary organization that emerged in 1879. The registered participants included about 500 people. The Narodnaya Volya campaigned among the peasants, issued proclamations, organized demonstrations, including carrying out terrorist activities - they organized the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. For participation in the activities of Narodnaya Volya, 89 people were sentenced to death. ⁠ , was confiscated from revolutionaries along with illegal literature. The name of Nekrasov appears in the texts of the main theoreticians of Russian Marxism - Lenin and Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918) - philosopher, politician. He headed the populist organization “Land and Freedom” and the secret society “Black Redistribution”. In 1880 he emigrated to Switzerland, where he founded the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. After the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Plekhanov disagreed with Lenin and headed the Menshevik party. Returned to Russia in 1917, supported the Provisional Government and condemned October Revolution. Plekhanov died a year and a half after returning from an exacerbation of tuberculosis. ⁠ . In the memoirs of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin appears as a real connoisseur of Nekrasov’s poems. Lenin’s articles are sprinkled with Nekrasov’s quotes: in particular, in 1912, Lenin recalls lines about that “desired time” when a man “Brings Belinsky and Gogol / From the market,” and states that this time has finally come, and in 1918 he puts the lines from the song by Grisha Dobrosklonov (“You are both wretched, you are also abundant...”) as the epigraph to the article “ the main task our days" 15 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. ⁠ . Plekhanov, the main specialist in aesthetics among Marxists, wrote a long article about him on the 25th anniversary of Nekrasov’s death. A significant fragment in it is dedicated to “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: Plekhanov reflects on how Nekrasov would have reacted to a popular uprising, and comes to the conclusion that it seemed “completely unthinkable” to him. Plekhanov associated the pessimistic mood of the poem with the general decline revolutionary movement in the late 1870s: Nekrasov did not live to see the speech of the new generation of revolutionaries, “and having learned and understood these people, new to Rus', he, perhaps, would have written a new, inspired "song", Not "hungry" and not "salty", A combat, - the Russian "Marseillaise", in which the sounds would still be heard "to sweep", but the sounds "sadness" would be replaced by sounds of joyful confidence in victory.” Despite this, in Marxist literary criticism there was no doubt that Nekrasov in “Who is in Rus'...” was the herald of the revolution - accordingly, his poem was given a high place in the post-revolutionary literary canon. It remains behind the poem today: the current study of Nekrasov’s work in school cannot be imagined without a detailed analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play “Who Lives Well in Rus'” at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play “Who Lives Well in Rus'” at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

Why do men go in search of a happy man?

On the one hand, we have a convention: the men begin an argument that leads to an epically described fight, and then it occurs to them to go around all of Rus' until they find an answer - a typical fairy-tale quest, the folklore of which is enhanced by the appearance of a magical warbler bird and self-assembled tablecloths (almost the only fantastic elements in Nekrasov’s poem, which is generally realistic: even seemingly speaking place names like Gorelov and Neelov had very real correspondences).

On the other hand, whatever the motives for the trip, we still need to figure out what exactly the wanderers wanted to know and why they chose such interlocutors. The very concept of happiness is very broad and ambiguous. Perhaps the wanderers do not just want to find out who is happy with simple and understandable happiness - as it seems to them. Maybe they are also trying to find out what happiness is, what types of happiness there are, what is the happiness of happy people. And they actually encounter a whole gallery of people who consider themselves happy - and a whole range of varieties of happiness.

Finally, on the third hand, one should not exaggerate the fabulous beginning of Nekrasov’s dispute: disputes on important topics in the post-reform peasant environment really did occur - this was associated with the beginning of the movement of liberated peasants to the cities, and in general with the bubbling of new ideas in Russia. Soviet literary critic Vasily Bazanov associated the heroes of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” with the emergence of “a new type of peasant - a passionate debater, a loudmouth, a “glib talker" 16 Comments // Nekrasov N. A. Complete collection works and letters: In 15 vols. T. 5: P. 605; see: Bazanov. ⁠ .

Great Russians. Drawing by L. Belyankin from the album “Russian Peoples. Part 1. European Russia" 1894

What kind of happiness can be seen in Nekrasov’s poem?

It is clear that such happiness is based on the principle “it could be worse,” but these examples allow wanderers to clarify their idea of ​​happiness. Not only must it be durable, it gradually emerges as its own, specific one. Of course, wealth is also important: in exchange for their “Tightened province, / Terpigorev County, / Empty volost,” the men are looking for “An unscarred province, / Ungutted volost, / Empty village.” But this is not the contentment of a well-fed slave, not prosperity in the lordly manner. The happiness of a footman who spent his whole life licking plates of truffles and fell ill with the “lord’s disease” (which is called “by the way!”) is not “people’s happiness”; it is unacceptable for a peasant. “Correct” happiness lies in something else. The series of happy people in the first part of the poem is crowned by the image mayor The manager of the landowner's estate, supervised the peasants. ⁠ Ermila Girina: he, as the peasants think, is happy because he enjoys the respect and love of the people for his honesty, nobility and justice towards the peasants. But the hero himself is absent - he is sitting in prison (for what - it remains not entirely clear; apparently, he refused to suppress the popular rebellion) - and his candidacy disappears.

When faced with failures, wanderers do not lose interest in their question, expanding the boundaries of ideas about happiness. The stories they learn teach them something. For example, from a conversation with the village priest, the peasants learn that he is almost as unhappy as the peasants. The peasants’ ideas about the priest’s happiness (“Pop’s porridge with butter, / Pop’s pie with filling, / Pop’s cabbage soup with smelt!”) turn out to be incorrect: it is impossible to achieve any income from serving the disadvantaged (“The peasant himself is in need, / And would be glad to give, nothing..."),
and the reputation of the “priests” among the people is unimportant - they laugh at them, they compose “jokey tales, / And obscene songs, / And all sorts of blasphemy” about them. Even the master is unhappy, remembering with longing the former, pre-reform time:

I will have mercy on whomever I want,
I'll execute whoever I want.
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
The blow is sparkling,
The blow is tooth-breaking,
Hit the cheekbone!..

Finally, the poem contains the amazing story of the Last One - Prince Utyatin, who is living out his days, who was lied to that the tsar canceled the reform and returned serfdom: his former serf owners play a comedy, pretending that everything remains as before. This story, which Nekrasov’s critics considered a nonsense, fantastic anecdote, actually had precedents; they could have been known to Nekrasov. The plot of “The Last One” also warns against longing for the past (it was terrible, you should not try to restore it, even if the present does not live up to rosy hopes) and against voluntary slavery (even if it is a make-believe slavery, there will be no promised reward for it: heirs, in whose interests this performance was played out, the former serfs will certainly be deceived). One must not look for happiness in the serfdom past: then only the master and his faithful lackey Ipat were happy, whom the prince once accidentally ran over with a sleigh, and then nevertheless “nearby, unworthy, / With his special princely / In a sleigh, he brought home” (talking about At this, Ipat invariably cried with emotion).

Can a woman be happy in Rus'?

“Not everything is between men / Find the happy one, / Let’s touch the women!” - the wanderers realize at some point. The fragment “Peasant Woman” takes the question of happiness to a new plane: how to achieve happiness? The main character of the fragment, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, whose story is filled mainly with losses and suffering (a difficult situation in her husband’s house, the loss of a son, corporal punishment, constant hardships and deprivations), nevertheless, not without reason, appears as a possible lucky woman:

And in the village of Klin:
Kholmogory cow,
Not a woman! kinder
And smoother - there is no woman.
You ask Korchagina
Matryona Timofeev,
She is also the governor's wife...

She changed her destiny: she saved her husband, achieved respect and, in fact, leadership in the family. This “stately woman, / Wide and dense” enjoys unprecedented authority for a “woman” in her village. It is not without reason to believe that this female image in the poem shows that the path, if not to happiness, then to changing a bitter fate lies through a strong, decisive act. This idea becomes clear if you look at Matryona’s antipode in “The Peasant Woman”: this is grandfather Savely, “the hero of the Holy Russian.” He pronounces a famous monologue, a kind of hymn to patience, the colossal ability for which makes the Russian peasant a real hero:

Hands are twisted in chains,
Feet forged with iron,
Back...dense forests
We walked along it and broke down.
What about the breasts? Elijah the prophet
It rattles and rolls around
On a chariot of fire...
The hero endures everything!

Matryona is not at all impressed by this apology for patience:

“You're joking, grandpa! —
I said. - So and so
​​​​​​​​The mighty hero,
Tea, the mice will eat you!”

Later, the old man Savely (through whose fault Matryona’s son died) tells her: “Be patient, many-armed one! / Be patient, long-suffering one! / We can’t find the truth”; Of course, this thought disgusts her, and she is always looking for justice. For Nekrasov, the intention itself is more important than the result: Matryona Korchagina is not happy, but she has what in other circumstances can become the foundation of happiness - courage, intransigence, strong will. However, neither Matryona nor the peasant women of her day will experience these other circumstances - for happiness, she tells the wanderers,

Go to the official
To the noble boyar,
Go to the king
Don't touch women,
Here is God! you pass with nothing
To the grave!

Podolyanka. Photo from the album “Types of Podolsk Province”. 1886

Three poor old women. Photo from the album “Types of Podolsk Province”. 1886

What special role fragment "A Feast for the Whole World"?

To replace the question of what happiness is and whether there is already happiness in Rus' happy man(or a group of people), another question comes: how to change the situation of the Russian peasant? This is the reason for the unusual nature of the most recent fragment of the poem, “A Feast for the Whole World.”

Even at a superficial glance, this part is different from the rest. First of all, it is as if the movement has finally stopped: the wanderers no longer walk through Rus', they remain in the Bolshiye Vakhlaki tree at a feast on the occasion of the death of the Last One - they participate in a kind of commemoration according to serfdom. Secondly, here the wanderers do not meet anyone new - all the characters are the same ones we have already seen in the fragment “The Last One”. We already know that there is no point in looking for the lucky one among them (and for those who appear in this fragment for the first time, the wanderers do not even try to ask the question that worries them). It seems that the pursuit of happiness and the lucky person has either been stopped or postponed, and the plot of the poem has undergone a change that was not provided for in its original program.

The search for happiness and the happy is replaced by discussion, conversation. For the first time in the poem, its peasant characters not only tell their stories, but themselves begin to look for the reasons for their situation, their difficult life. Before this, only one character from the people was shown as a kind of “people's intellectual” - Yakim Nagoy, a lover of “pictures” (that is, paintings hanging on the walls for children's education and for their own joy) and a person who is able to intelligently and unexpectedly competently explain the true reasons and actual sizes popular drunkenness: he says that “we are great people / In work and in revelry,” and explains that wine is a kind of substitute for popular anger: “Every peasant / Has a soul like a black cloud - / Angry, formidable, - and it should be / Thunder thunders from there, / Bloody rains pour down, / And it all ends in wine. / A little glass went through my veins - / And the kind one laughed / Peasant soul! (This is a “theory” that seems to justify the unsightly practice shown a few lines earlier.) In last fragment In the poem, such a reflective subject is the whole “world”, a kind of spontaneous folk meeting.

At the same time, the discussion, deep and serious, is still conducted in the same folklore forms, in the form of parables and legends. Take, for example, the question of who is to blame for the suffering of the people. The blame, of course, is first laid on the nobles, the landowners, whose cruelty obviously exceeds any popular misdeed and crime. Illustrates it famous song"About two great sinners." Its hero, the robber Kudeyar, in whom his conscience has awakened, becomes a schema-monk; in a vision, a certain saint appears to him and says that in order to atone for his sins, Kudeyar must cut down “with the same knife that he robbed” the centuries-old oak tree. This work takes many years, and one day Kudeyar sees the local rich landowner, Mr. Glukhovsky, who boasts of his debauchery and declares that his conscience does not torment him:

“You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves do I destroy?
I torment, torture and hang,
I wish I could see how I’m sleeping!”

A miracle happened to the hermit:
I felt furious anger
He rushed to Pan Glukhovsky,
The knife stuck into his heart!

Just now pan bloody
I fell my head on the saddle,
A huge tree collapsed,
The echo shook the whole forest.

The tree collapsed and rolled down
The monk is off the burden of sins!..
Let us pray to the Lord God:
Have mercy on us, dark slaves!

Landowner sin is contrasted with popular holiness (in this part, images of “God’s people” appear, whose feat is not in serving God, but in helping peasants in difficult times for them). However, the idea also arises here that the people themselves are partly to blame for their situation. A great sin (much more terrible than the landowner's) lies with the headman Gleb: his owner, the old “widower ammiral,” before his death set his peasants free, but Gleb sold the manumission to his heirs and thereby left his brothers in serfdom (written "Koltsov's" verse song "Peasant Sin"). The abolition of serfdom itself is described as an event of catastrophic proportions: “The great chain broke” and hit “One end on the master, / The other on the peasant!..”

It is no longer the author, but his peasant characters who are trying to understand whether their lives are changing for the better after the end of serfdom. Here the main burden lies on the elder Vlas, who feels like a kind of leader of the people's world: on his shoulders is a great responsibility for the future. It is he who, turning into the “voice of the people,” either expresses the hope that it will be easier for the liberated peasants to achieve a better life, or becomes despondent, realizing that serfdom is deeply rooted in the souls of the peasants. A new character helps Vlas dispel his grave doubts, introducing both already familiar and completely new notes into the work. This is a young seminarian named Grigory Dobrosklonov, the son of a peasant woman and a poor sexton:

Although Dobrolyubov also came from the clergy, Grigory Dobrosklonov does not have much personal resemblance to him. Nekrasov did not achieve it: already in Nekrasov’s lyrical poetry, the image of Dobrolyubov was separated from a specific person and became a generalized image of a revolutionary-lover of the people, ready to give his life for the people’s happiness. In “Who Lives Well in Rus'” the populist type seems to be added to it. This movement, which arose already at the end of the 1860s, largely inherited the ideas, views and principles of the revolutionaries of the 60s, but at the same time differed from them. The leaders of this movement (some of them, like Mikhailovsky Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky (1842-1904) - publicist, literary critic. From 1868 he published in Otechestvennye zapiski, and in 1877 he became one of the editors of the magazine. At the end of the 1870s, he became close to the People's Will organization and was expelled from St. Petersburg several times for connections with revolutionaries. Mikhailovsky considered the goal of progress to increase the level of consciousness in society, and criticized Marxism and Tolstoyism. By the end of his life he became a well-known public intellectual and a cult figure among the populists. ⁠ And Lavrov Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823-1900) - sociologist, philosopher. One of the main ideologists of populism. He was a member of the revolutionary society "Land and Freedom". After his arrest, he was sent into exile, where he wrote his most famous work, “Historical Letters.” In 1870 he fled abroad: he participated in the Paris Commune and edited the magazine “Forward”. Author of poems for the song “Working Marseillaise”, which in the first months after February Revolution used as an anthem. ⁠ , collaborated in Nekrasov’s journal Otechestvennye zapiski) proclaimed the idea of ​​duty to the people. According to these ideas, the “thinking minority” owes its opportunities, the benefits of civilization and culture to the people’s labor - that huge mass of peasants who, while creating material wealth, do not use them themselves, continuing to vegetate in poverty, without access to enlightenment, education, which could to help them change their lives for the better. Young people, brought up not only on the articles of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, but also by Lavrov, Mikhailovsky, Bervi-Flerovsky Vasily Vasilyevich Bervi-Flerovsky (real name - Wilhelm Vilhelmovich Bervi; 1829-1918) - sociologist, publicist. One of the main ideologists of populism. In 1861, he was arrested in the “case of the Tver peace mediators” and sent into exile, first to Astrakhan and then to Siberia. He wrote the revolutionary proclamation “On the Martyr Nicholas.” Collaborated with the magazines “Delo”, “Slovo” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”. He was highly respected by young revolutionaries. ⁠ , sought to repay this debt to the people. One of these attempts was the famous “going to the people,” undertaken by these people in the summer of 1874 at the call of their ideologists. Young people went to the villages not just to propagate revolutionary ideas, but to help the people, to open their eyes to the reasons for their difficult situation, to give them useful knowledge (and excerpts from Nekrasov’s poem could push them to this). The failure that ended this peculiar feat only strengthened the sense of sacrifice that guided the young people - many of them paid for their impulse with heavy and lengthy punishments.

Dobrosklonov does not imagine his happiness except through overcoming someone else’s, people’s grief. His connection with the people is blood: Grisha’s mother was a peasant. However, if Dobrosklonov embodies the author’s, Nekrasov’s concept of happiness, which became the fruit of the poet’s thoughts, this does not mean that he completes the poem: it remains questionable whether the peasants will be able to understand such happiness and recognize a person like Grisha as a truly lucky person, especially in the event that he is really expected “a big name / People's Defender, / Consumption and Siberia” (lines that Nekrasov deleted from the poem, possibly for censorship reasons). We remember that the candidacy of mayor Yermil Girin for the role of the real lucky one disappears precisely when it turns out that “he is sitting in prison.”

In the finale, when Grisha Dobrosklonov composes his ecstatic hymn to Mother Rus', Nekrasov declares: “Our wanderers would be under their own roof, / If only they could know what was happening to Grisha.” Perhaps the self-awareness of the young man who composed the “divine” song about Rus' is the main approach to happiness in the poem; it probably coincided with the feelings of the real author of the anthem - Nekrasov himself. But despite this, the question of people's happiness, happiness in the understanding of the people themselves remains open in the poem.

"drunk" 17 Bee. 1878. No. 2. ⁠: “Not finding a happy person in Rus', the wandering men return to their seven villages... These villages are “adjacent”, and from each there is a path to the tavern. It’s at this tavern that they meet a drunk man... and with him over a glass they find out who has a good life.” Writer Alexander Shklyarevsky Alexander Andreevich Shklyarevsky (1837-1883) - writer. He served as a parish teacher. He gained fame as the author of crime detective stories. Author of the books “Stories of a Forensic Investigator”, “Corners of the Slum World”, “Murder Without a Trace”, “Is She Suicide?” and many others. ⁠ recalled that the supposed answer to the central question of the poem sounded like "no one" 18 A week. 1880. No. 48. P. 773-774. ⁠ , - in this case, this question is rhetorical and only a disappointing answer can be given. This evidence deserves attention, but the dispute about Nekrasov’s plan has not yet been resolved.

From the very beginning, a strange thing is striking: if the peasants could really assume that representatives of the upper classes (landowner, official, priest, merchant, minister, tsar) were happy, why did they begin to look for the happy among their fellows? After all, as the literary critic Boris Bukhshtab noted, “there was no need for the peasants to leave their Razutovs, Gorelovs, Neelovs to find out if they were happy.” peasants" 19 Bukhshtab B. Ya. N. A. Nekrasov. Problems of creativity. L.: Sov. pis., 1989. P.115. ⁠ . According to Bukhshtab, there was an initial plan for the poem, according to which Nekrasov wanted to show the happiness of the “upper classes” of society against the backdrop of popular grief. However, he underwent a change, since a different understanding of happiness came to the fore - from happiness as personal and egoistic contentment, Nekrasov moves on to the idea of ​​​​the impossibility of being happy when grief and unhappiness reign around.

Fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia...

In some editions, these lines are included in the main text of the poem as a victim of self-censorship, but there is no basis for an unambiguous conclusion about this (as in many other cases). The “censorship” version of the exclusion of these famous lines has been repeatedly disputed by philologists. As a result, in the latest academic collected works Nekrasova 20 Nekrasov N. A. Complete works and letters: In 15 volumes. Works of art. Volumes 1-10. Criticism. Journalism. Letters. T. 11-15. L., St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1981-2000. ⁠ - the most authoritative edition of Nekrasov’s texts - they are published in the section “Other editions and variants”.

Another question that has not yet been resolved is in what order the completed fragments should be printed. There is no doubt that “Who Lives Well in Rus'” should open with “Prologue” and “Part One”. Variations are possible with the three subsequent fragments. From 1880 to 1920, in all editions, fragments of the poem were printed in the order in which Nekrasov created and published them (or prepared them for publication): 1. “Part One.” 2. “The Last One.” 3. "Peasant Woman". 4. “A feast for the whole world.” In 1920, Korney Chukovsky, who prepared the first Soviet collected works of Nekrasov, changed the order, based on the author's instructions in the manuscripts: Nekrasov indicated in the notes where this or that fragment should be included. The order in Chukovsky’s edition is as follows: 1. “Part One.” 2. “The Last One.” 3. “A feast for the whole world.” 4. "Peasant Woman". This order is based, among other things, on the agricultural calendar cycle: according to it, the action of “The Peasant Woman” should take place two months after “The Last One” and “A Feast for the Whole World.”

Chukovsky’s decision was criticized: it turned out that if “The Peasant Woman” ends the entire poem, this gives it an overly gloomy meaning. In this version, it ended (broke off) on a pessimistic note - with the story of the “holy old woman”: “The keys to women’s happiness, / From our free will / Abandoned, lost / From God himself!” The poem, thus, lost its inherent Nekrasov (as was traditionally believed in Soviet time) historical optimism, faith in a better future for the people. Chukovsky accepted the criticism and in 1922 published, in violation of the chronology of the author’s work on the text, fragments in a different order: 1. “Part One.” 2. "Peasant Woman". 3. “The Last One.” 4. “A feast for the whole world.” Now the poem found a semblance of completion on an optimistic note - Grisha Dobrosklonov experiences real euphoria at the end of “A Feast for the Whole World”:

He heard the immense strength in his chest,
The sounds of grace delighted his ears,
The radiant sounds of the noble hymn -
He sang the embodiment of people's happiness!..

The poem was published in this form until 1965, but discussions among literary scholars continued. In the last academic collection of Nekrasov’s works, it was decided to return to the order in which “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was published before 1920 of the year 21

PROLOGUE

In what year - calculate
In what land - guess
On the sidewalk
Seven men came together:
Seven temporarily obliged,
A tightened province,
Terpigoreva County,
Empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
There is also a poor harvest,
They came together and argued:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?

Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
Luke said: ass.
To the fat-bellied merchant! -
The Gubin brothers said,
Ivan and Metrodor.
Old man Pakhom pushed
And he said, looking at the ground:
To the noble boyar,
To the sovereign minister.
And Prov said: to the king...

The guy's a bull: he'll get in trouble
What a whim in the head -
Stake her from there
You can’t knock them out: they resist,
Everyone stands on their own!
Is this the kind of argument they started?
What do passers-by think?
You know, the kids found the treasure
And they share among themselves...
Each one in his own way
Left the house before noon:
That path led to the forge,
He went to the village of Ivankovo
Call Father Prokofy
Baptize the child.
Groin honeycomb
Carried to the market in Velikoye,
And the two Gubina brothers
So easy with a halter
Catch a stubborn horse
They went to their own herd.
It's high time for everyone
Return on your own way -
They are walking side by side!
They walk as if they are being chased
Behind them are gray wolves,
What's next is quick.
They go - they reproach!
They scream and they won’t come to their senses!
But time doesn’t wait.

They didn’t notice the dispute
As the red sun set,
How evening came.
I would probably kiss you the night
So they went - where, not knowing,
If only they met a woman,
Gnarled Durandiha,
She didn’t shout: “Reverends!
Where are you looking at night?
Have you decided to go?..”

She asked, she laughed,
Whipped, witch, gelding
And she rode off at a gallop...

“Where?..” - they looked at each other
Our men are here
They stand, silent, looking down...
The night has long since passed,
The stars lit up frequently
In the high skies
The moon has surfaced, the shadows are black
The road was cut
Zealous walkers.
Oh shadows! black shadows!
Who won't you catch up with?
Who won't you overtake?
Only you, black shadows,
You can't catch and hug!

To the forest, to the path-path
Pakhom looked, remained silent,
I looked - my mind scattered
And finally he said:

"Well! goblin nice joke
He played a joke on us!
No way, after all, we are almost
We've gone thirty versts!
Now tossing and turning home -
We're tired - we won't get there,
Let's sit down - there's nothing to do,
Let's rest until the sun!..”

Blaming the trouble on the devil,
Under the forest along the path
The men sat down.
They lit a fire, formed a formation,
Two people ran for vodka,
And the others as long as
The glass was made
The birch bark has been touched.
The vodka will soon arrive,
The snack has arrived -
The men are feasting!
They drank three kosushki,
We ate and argued
Again: who has fun living?
Free in Rus'?
Roman shouts: to the landowner,
Demyan shouts: to the official,
Luka shouts: ass;
Kupchina fat-bellied, -
The Gubin brothers are shouting,
Ivan and Mitrodor;
Pakhom shouts: to the brightest
To the noble boyar,
To the sovereign minister,
And Prov shouts: to the king!
It took more than before
Perky men,
They swear obscenely,
No wonder they grab it
In each other's hair...

Look - they've already grabbed hold of it!
Roman is pushing Pakhomushka,
Demyan pushes Luka.
And the two Gubina brothers
They iron the hefty Prov -
And everyone shouts his own!

A booming echo woke up,
Let's go for a walk,
Let's go scream and shout
As if to tease
Stubborn men.
To the king! - heard to the right,
To the left responds:
Ass! ass! ass!
The whole forest was in commotion
With flying birds
Swift-footed beasts
And creeping reptiles, -
And a groan, and a roar, and a roar!

First of all, little gray bunny
From a neighboring bush
Suddenly he jumped out as if disheveled
And he ran away!
Small jackdaws are behind him
Birch trees were raised at the top
A nasty, sharp squeak.
And then there’s the warbler
Tiny chick with fright
Fell from the nest;
The warbler chirps and cries,
Where is the chick? - he won’t find it!
Then the old cuckoo
I woke up and thought
Someone to cuckoo;
Accepted ten times
Yes, I got lost every time
And started again...
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
The bread will begin to spike,
You'll choke on an ear of corn -
You won't cuckoo!
Seven eagle owls flew together,
Admiring the carnage
From seven big trees,
The night owls are laughing!
And their eyes are yellow
They burn like burning wax
Fourteen candles!
And the raven, a smart bird,
Arrived, sitting on a tree
Right by the fire,
Sits and prays to the devil,
To be slapped to death
Which one!
Cow with a bell
That I've been off since the evening
From the herd, I heard a little
Human voices -
She came to the fire and stared
Eyes on the men
I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!

The stupid cow moos
Small jackdaws squeak,
The boys are screaming,
And the echo echoes everyone.
He has only one concern -
Teasing honest people
Scare the boys and women!
Nobody saw him
And everyone has heard,
Without a body - but it lives,
Screams without a tongue!

Wide path
Furnished with birch trees,
Stretches far
Sandy and deaf.
On the sides of the path
There are gentle hills
With fields, hayfields,
And more often with an inconvenient
Abandoned land;
There are old villages,
There are new villages,
By the rivers, by the ponds...
Forests, flood meadows,
Russian streams and rivers
Good in spring.
But you, spring fields!
On your shoots the poor
Not fun to watch!
“It’s not for nothing that in the long winter
(Our wanderers interpret)
It snowed every day.
Spring has come - the snow has had its effect!
He is humble for the time being:
It flies - is silent, lies - is silent,
When he dies, then he roars.
Water - everywhere you look!
The fields are completely flooded
Carrying manure - there is no road,
And the time is not too early -
The month of May is coming!”
I don’t like the old ones either,
It’s even more painful for new ones
They should look at the villages.
Oh huts, new huts!
You are smart, let him build you up
Not an extra penny,
And blood trouble!..,

In the morning we met wanderers
All more people small:
Your brother, a peasant-basket worker,
Craftsmen, beggars,
Soldiers, coachmen.
From the beggars, from the soldiers
The strangers did not ask
How is it for them - is it easy or difficult?
Lives in Rus'?
Soldiers shave with an awl,
Soldiers warm themselves with smoke, -
What happiness is there?..

The day was already approaching evening,
They go along the road,
A priest is coming towards me.
The peasants took off their caps,
bowed low,
Lined up in a row
And to the gelding Savras
They blocked the way.
The priest raised his head
He looked and asked with his eyes:
What do they want?

“I suppose! We are not robbers! -
Luke said to the priest.
(Luka is a squat guy,
With a wide beard,
Stubborn, vocal and stupid.
Luke looks like a mill:
One is not a bird mill,
That, no matter how it flaps its wings,
Probably won't fly.)

“We are sedate men,
Of those temporarily obliged,
A tightened province,
Terpigoreva County,
Empty parish,
Nearby villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Bad harvest too.
Let's go on something important:
We have concerns
Is it such a concern?
That she left home,
She made us friends with work,
I stopped eating.
Give us the right word
To our peasant speech
Without laughter and without cunning,
According to conscience, according to reason,
To answer truthfully
Not so with your care
We'll go to someone else..."

I give you my true word:
If you ask the matter,
Without laughter and without cunning,
In truth and in reason,
How should one answer?
Amen!.. -

"Thank you. Listen!
Walking the path,
We came together by chance
They came together and argued:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?
Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
And I said: ass.
Kupchina fat-bellied, -
The Gubin brothers said,
Ivan and Metrodor.
Pakhom said: to the brightest,
To the noble boyar,
To the sovereign minister,
And Prov said: to the king...
The guy's a bull: he'll get in trouble
What a whim in the head -
Stake her from there
You can’t knock it out: no matter how much they argue,
We did not agree!
Having argued, we quarreled,
Having quarreled, they fought,
Having caught up, they changed their minds:
Don't go apart
Don't toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys
Not with old people,
As long as our dispute
We won't find a solution
Until we find out
Whatever it is - for certain:
Who likes to live happily?
Free in Rus'?
Tell us in a divine way:
Is the priest's life sweet?
How are you - at ease, happily
Are you living, honest father?..”

I looked down and thought,
Sitting in a cart, pop
And he said: - Orthodox!
It is a sin to grumble against God,
I bear my cross with patience,
I live... how? Listen!
I'll tell you the truth, the truth,
And you have a peasant mind
Be smart! -
“Begin!”

What do you think is happiness?
Peace, wealth, honor -
Isn't that right, dear friends?

They said: "Yes"...

Now let's see, brothers,
What is butt peace like?
I have to admit, I should start
Almost from birth itself,
How to get a diploma
To the priest's son,
At what cost to Popovich
The priesthood is bought
Let's better keep quiet!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Our roads are difficult,
Our parish is large.
Sick, dying,
Born into the world
They don’t choose time:
In reaping and haymaking,
In the dead of autumn night,
In winter, in severe frosts,
And in the spring flood -
Go where you are called!
You go unconditionally.
And even if only the bones
Alone broke, -
No! gets wet every time,
The soul will hurt.
Don't believe it, Orthodox Christians,
There is a limit to habit:
No heart can bear
Without any trepidation
Death rattle
Funeral lament
Orphan's sadness!
Amen!.. Now think,
What's the peace like?..

The peasants thought little.
Letting the priest rest,
They said with a bow:
“What else can you tell us?”

Now let's see, brothers,
What honor to the priest!
The task is delicate
Wouldn't it make you angry?..

Tell me, Orthodox,
Who do you call
Foal breed?
Chur! respond to demand!

The peasants hesitated
They are silent - and the priest is silent...

Who are you afraid of meeting?
Walking the path?
Chur! respond to demand!

They groan, shift,
They are silent!
- Who are you writing about?
You are joker fairy tales,
And the songs are obscene
And all sorts of blasphemy?..

I'll get a sedate mother,
Popov's innocent daughter,
Every seminarian -
How do you honor?
To catch whom, like a gelding,
Shout: ho-ho-ho?..

The boys looked down
They are silent - and the priest is silent...
The peasants thought
And pop with a wide hat
I waved it in my face
Yes, I looked at the sky.
In the spring, when the grandchildren are small,
With the ruddy sun-grandfather
The clouds are playing:
Here's the right side
One continuous cloud
Covered - clouded,
It got dark and cried:
Rows of gray threads
They hung to the ground.
And closer, above the peasants,
From small, torn,
Happy clouds
The red sun laughs
Like a girl from the sheaves.
But the cloud has moved,
Pop covers himself with a hat -
Be in heavy rain.
And the right side
Already bright and joyful,
There the rain stops.
It's not rain, it's a miracle of God:
There with golden threads
Hanging skeins...

“Not ourselves... by parents
This is how we..." - Gubin brothers
They finally said.
And others echoed:
“Not on your own, but on your parents!”
And the priest said: - Amen!
Sorry, Orthodox!
Not in judging your neighbor,
And at your request
I told you the truth.
Such is the honor of a priest
In the peasantry. And the landowners...

“You’re passing them, the landowners!
We know them!

Now let's see, brothers,
Where does the wealth come from?
Is Popovskoye coming?..
At a time not far away
Russian Empire
Noble estates
It was full.
And the landowners lived there,
Famous owners
There are none now!
Been fruitful and multiply
And they let us live.
What weddings were played there,
That children were born
On free bread!
Although often tough,
However, willing
Those were the gentlemen
They did not shy away from the arrival:
They got married here
Our children were baptized
They came to us to repent,
We performed the funeral service for them.
And if it did happen,
That a landowner lived in the city,
That's probably how I'll die
Came to the village.
If he dies accidentally,
And then he will punish you firmly
Bury him in the parish.
Look, to the village temple
On a mourning chariot
Six horse heirs
The dead man is being transported -
Good correction for the butt,
For the laity, a holiday is a holiday...
But now it’s not the same!
Like the tribe of Judah,
The landowners dispersed
Across distant foreign lands
And native to Rus'.
Now there's no time for pride
Lie in native possession
Next to fathers, grandfathers,
And there are many properties
Let's go to the profiteers.
Oh sleek bones
Russian, noble!
Where are you not buried?
In what land are you not?

Then the article... schismatics...
I'm not a sinner, I haven't lived
Nothing from the schismatics.
Fortunately, there was no need:
In my parish there are
Living in Orthodoxy
Two thirds of the parishioners.
And there are such volosts,
Where there are almost all schismatics,
So what about the butt?
Everything in the world is changeable,
The world itself will pass away...
Laws formerly strict
To the schismatics, softened,[ ]
And with them the priest
The income has come.
The landowners moved away
They don't live in estates
And die in old age
They don't come to us anymore.
Rich landowners
Pious old ladies,
Which died out
Who have settled down
Near monasteries.
Nobody wears a cassock now
He won’t give you your butt!
No one will embroider air...
Live with only peasants,
Collect worldly hryvnias,
Yes, pies on holidays,
Yes, eggs, oh Holy One.
The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there’s nothing...

And then not everyone
And a nice peasant penny.
Our benefits are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The little beast goes from hand to mouth,
Bread will be born on its own,
And if it gets better
The damp earth is the nurse,
So a new problem:
There is nowhere to go with the bread!
There's a need, you'll sell it
For sheer trifle,
And there is a crop failure!
Then pay through the nose,
Sell ​​the cattle.
Pray, Orthodox Christians!
Great trouble threatens
And this year:
The winter was fierce
Spring is rainy
It should have been sowing long ago,
And there is water in the fields!
Have mercy, Lord!
Send a cool rainbow
To our heavens!
(Taking off his hat, the shepherd crosses himself,
And the listeners too.)
Our villages are poor,
And the peasants in them are sick
Yes, women are sad,
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers,
Lord give them strength!
With so much work for pennies
Life is hard!
It happens to the sick
You will come: not dying,
The peasant family is scary
At that hour when she has to
Lose your breadwinner!
Give a farewell message to the deceased
And support in the remaining
You try your best
The spirit is cheerful! And here to you
The old woman, the mother of the dead man,
Look, he's reaching out with the bony one,
Calloused hand.
The soul will turn over,
How they jingle in this little hand
Two copper coins!
Of course, it's a clean thing -
I demand retribution
If you don’t take it, there’s nothing to live with,
Yes a word of comfort
Freezes on the tongue
And as if offended
You will go home... Amen...

Finished the speech - and the gelding
Pop lightly whipped.
The peasants parted
bowed low,
The horse trudged slowly.
And six comrades,
It's like we agreed
They attacked with reproaches,
With selected large swearing
To poor Luka:
- What, did you take it? stubborn head!
Country club!
That's where the argument gets into! -
"Nobles of the bell -
The priests live like princes.
They're going under the sky
Popov's tower,
The priest's fiefdom is buzzing -
Loud bells -
For God's whole world.
For three years I, little ones,
He lived with the priest as a worker,
Raspberries are not life!
Popova porridge - with butter,
Popov pie - with filling,
Popov's cabbage soup - with smelt!
Popov's wife is fat,
The priest's daughter is white,
Popov's horse is fat,
The priest's bee is well-fed,
How the bell rings!”
- Well, here's what you've praised
A priest's life!
Why were you yelling and showing off?
Getting into a fight, anathema?
Wasn't that what I was thinking of taking?
What's a beard like a shovel?
Like a goat with a beard
I walked around the world before,
Than the forefather Adam,
And he is considered a fool
And now he’s a goat!..

Luke stood, kept silent,
I was afraid they wouldn't hit me
Comrades, stand by.
It would have happened that way
Yes, fortunately for the peasant,
The road is bent -
The face is priestly stern
Appeared on the hill...

I feel sorry for the poor peasant
And I’m even more sorry for the cattle;
Having fed meager supplies,
The owner of the twig
He drove her into the meadows,
What should I take there? Chernekhonko!
Only on St. Nicholas of the spring
The weather has cleared up
Green fresh grass
The cattle feasted.

It's a hot day. Under the birch trees
The peasants are making their way
They chatter among themselves:
“We’re going through one village,
Let's go another - empty!
And today is a holiday.
Where have the people gone?..”
They are walking through the village - on the street
Some guys are small
There are old women in the houses,
Or even completely locked
Lockable gates.
Castle - a faithful dog:
Doesn't bark, doesn't bite,
But he doesn’t let me into the house!
We passed the village and saw
Mirror in green frame:
The edges are full of ponds.
Swallows are flying over the pond;
Some mosquitoes
Agile and skinny
Leaping, as if on dry land,
They walk on the water.
Along the banks, in the broom,
The corncrakes are creaking.
On a long, shaky raft
Thick blanket with roller
Stands like a plucked haystack,
Tucking the hem.
On the same raft
A duck sleeps with her ducklings...
Chu! horse snoring!
The peasants looked at once
And we saw over the water
Two heads: a peasant's,
Curly and dark,
With an earring (the sun was blinking
On that white earring),
The other is horse
With a rope, five fathoms.
The man takes the rope in his mouth,
The man swims and the horse swims,
The man neighed - and the horse neighed.
They're swimming and screaming! Under the woman
Under the small ducklings
The raft moves freely.

I caught up with the horse - grab it by the withers!
He jumped up and rode out into the meadow
Child: white body,
And the neck is like tar;
Water flows in streams
From the horse and from the rider.

“What do you have in your village?
Neither old nor small,
How did all the people die out?”
- We went to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Today there is a fair
And the temple holiday. -
“How far is Kuzminskoye?”

Let it be three miles.

“Let's go to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Let's watch the fair!"
The men decided
And you thought to yourself:
"Isn't that where he's hiding?
Who lives happily?..”

Kuzminskoe rich,
And what's more, it's dirty
Trading village.
It stretches along the slope,
Then he descends into the ravine,
And there again on the hill -
How can there not be dirt here?
There are two ancient churches in it,
One Old Believer
Another Orthodox
House with the inscription: school,
Empty, packed tightly,
A hut with one window,
With the image of a paramedic,
Drawing blood.
There is a dirty hotel
Decorated with a sign
(With a big nosed teapot
Tray in the hands of the bearer,
And small cups
Like a goose with goslings,
That kettle is surrounded)
There are permanent shops
Like a district
Gostiny Dvor...!

Strangers came to the square:
There are a lot of different goods
And apparently-invisibly
To the people! Isn't it fun?
It seems there is no godfather,
And, as if in front of icons,
Men without hats.
Such a side thing!
Look where they go
Peasant shliks:
In addition to the wine warehouse,
Taverns, restaurants,
A dozen damask shops,
Three inns,
Yes, “Rensky cellar”,
Yes, a couple of taverns,
Eleven zucchinis
Set for the holiday
Tents in the village.
Each has five carriers;
The carriers are young guys
Trained, mature,
And they can’t keep up with everything,
Can't cope with change!
Look what's stretched out
Peasant hands with hats,
With scarves, with mittens.
Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How great are you!
Just to shower my darling,
And there they will get the hats,
When the market leaves.

Over the drunken heads
The spring sun is shining...
Intoxicatingly, vociferously, festively,
Colorful, red all around!
The guys' pants are corduroy,
Striped vests,
Shirts of all colors;
The women are wearing red dresses,
The girls have braids with ribbons,
The winches are floating!
And there are still some tricks,
Dressed like a metropolitan -
And it expands and sulks
Hoop hem!
If you step in, they will dress up!
At ease, newfangled women,
Fishing gear for you
Wear under skirts!
Looking at the smart women,
The Old Believers are furious
Tovarke says:
“Be hungry! be hungry!
Marvel that the seedlings are wet,
That the spring flood is worse
It's up to Petrov!
Since women began
Dress up in red calico, -
The forests don't rise
At least not this bread!”

Why are the calicoes red?
Have you done something wrong here, mother?
I can't imagine!

“And those French calicoes -
Painted with dog blood!
Well... do you understand now?..”

The wanderers went to the shops:
They admire handkerchiefs,
Ivanovo chintz,
Harnesses, new shoes,
A product of the Kimryaks.
At that shoe shop
The strangers laugh again:
There are goat shoes here
Grandfather traded with granddaughter
I asked about the price five times,
He turned it over in his hands and looked around:
The product is first class!
“Well, uncle! Two two hryvnia
Pay up or get lost!” -
The merchant told him.
- Wait a minute! - Admires
An old man with a tiny shoe,
This is what he says:
- I don’t care about my son-in-law, and my daughter will keep silent
, The wife doesn’t care, let her grumble!
I feel sorry for my granddaughter! Hanged herself
On the neck, fidget:
“Buy a hotel, grandpa,
Buy it!” - Silk head
The face is tickled, caressed,
Kisses the old man.
Wait, barefoot crawler!
Wait, spinning top! Goats
I'll buy boots...
Vavilushka boasted,
Both old and young
He promised me gifts,
And he drank himself to a penny!
How my eyes are shameless
Will I show it to my family?..

I don’t care about my son-in-law, and my daughter will remain silent,
The wife doesn't care, let her grumble!
I feel sorry for my granddaughter!.. - I went again
About my granddaughter! Killing himself!..
The people have gathered, listening,
Don't laugh, feel sorry;
Happen, work, bread
They would help him
And take out two two-kopeck pieces,
So you will be left with nothing.
Yes, there was a man here
Pavlusha Veretennikov.
(What kind of rank,
The men didn't know
However, they called him “master”.
He was very good at making jokes,
He wore a red shirt,
Cloth girl,
Grease Boots;
Sang Russian songs smoothly
And he loved listening to them.
Many have seen him
In the inn courtyards,
In taverns, in taverns.)
So he helped Vavila -
I bought him boots.
Vavilo grabbed them
And so he was! - For joy
Thanks even to the master
Old man forgot to say
But other peasants
So they were consoled
So happy, as if everyone
He gave it in rubles!
There was also a bench here
With pictures and books,
Ofeni stocked up
Your goods in it.
“Do you need generals?” -
The burning merchant asked them.
- And give me generals!
Yes, only you, according to your conscience,
To be real -
Thicker, more menacing.

“Wonderful! the way you look! -
The merchant said with a grin. -
It’s not a matter of complexion...”
- What is it? You're kidding, friend!
Rubbish, perhaps, is it desirable to sell?
Where are we going to go with her?
You're naughty! Before the peasant
All generals are equal
Like cones on a spruce tree:
To sell the ugly one,
You need to get to the dock,
And fat and menacing
I'll give it to everyone...
Come on big, dignified ones,
Chest as high as a mountain, eyes bulging,
Yes, for more stars!

“Don’t you want civilians?”
- Well, here we go again with the civilians! -
(However, they took it - cheaply! -
Some dignitary
For a belly the size of a wine barrel
And for seventeen stars.)
Merchant - with all respect,
Whatever he likes, he treats him to it
(From Lubyanka - the first thief!) -
He sent down a hundred Bluchers,
Archimandrite Photius,
Robber Sipko,
Sold the book: “The Jester Balakirev”
And "English my lord"...

The books went into the box,
Let's go for a walk portraits
According to the All-Russian kingdom,
Until they settle down
In a peasant's summer cottage,
On a low wall...
God knows why!

Eh! eh! will the time come,
When (come, desired one!..)
They will let the peasant understand
What a rose is a portrait of a portrait,
What is the book of the book of roses?
When a man is not Blucher
And not my foolish lord -
Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?
Oh people, Russian people!
Orthodox peasants!
Have you ever heard
Are you these names?
Those are great names,
Wore them, glorified them
People's intercessors!
Here's some portraits of them for you
Hang in your gorenki,
Read their books...

“And I would be glad to go to heaven, but where is the door?” -
This kind of speech breaks in
To the shop unexpectedly.
- Which door do you want? -
“Yes, to the booth. Chu! music!.."
- Let's go, I'll show you!

Having heard about the farce,
Our wanderers have also gone
Listen, look.
Comedy with Petrushka,
With a goat and a drummer
And not with a simple barrel organ,
And with real music
They looked here.
Comedy is not wise
However, not stupid either
Resident, quarterly
Not in the eyebrow, but straight in the eye!
The hut is full,
People are cracking nuts
Or two or three peasants
Let's exchange a word -
Look, vodka has appeared:
They'll watch and drink!
They laugh, they are consoled
And often in Petrushkin’s speech
Insert an apt word,
Which one you can't think of
At least swallow a feather!

There are such lovers -
How will the comedy end?
They'll go behind the screens,
Kissing, fraternizing,
Chatting with musicians:
“Where from, good fellows?”
- And we were masters,
They played for the landowner,
Now we are free people
Who will bring it, treat it,
He is our master!

“And that’s it, dear friends,
Quite a bar you entertained,
Amuse the men!
Hey! small! sweet vodka!
Liqueurs! some tea! half a beer!
Tsimlyansky - come alive!..”

And the flooded sea
It will do, more generous than the lord's
The kids will be treated to a treat.

The winds do not blow violently,
It is not mother earth that sways -
He makes noise, sings, swears,
Swaying, lying around,
Fights and kisses
People are celebrating!
It seemed to the peasants
How we reached the hillock,
That the whole village is shaking,
That even the church is old
With a high bell tower
It shook once or twice! -
Here, sober and naked,
Awkward... Our wanderers
We walked around the square again
And by evening they left
Stormy village...

“Move aside, people!”
(Excise officials
With bells, with plaques
They rushed from the market.)

“And I mean this now:
And the broom is rubbish, Ivan Ilyich,
And he will walk on the floor,
It will spray wherever!

“God forbid, Parashenka,
Don't go to St. Petersburg!
There are such officials
You are their cook for a day,
And their night is crazy -
So I don’t care!”

“Where are you going, Savvushka?”
(The priest shouts to the sotsky
On horseback, with a government badge.)
- I’m galloping to Kuzminskoye
Behind the stanov. Occasion:
There's a peasant ahead
Killed... - “Eh!.., sins!..”

“You’ve become thinner, Daryushka!”
- Not a spindle, friend!
That's what the more it spins,
It's getting potbellied
And I'm like every day...

"Hey guy, stupid guy,
Tattered, lousy,
Hey love me!
Me, bareheaded,
Drunk old woman,
Zaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaly!

Our peasants are sober,
Looking, listening,
They go their own way.

In the middle of the road
Some guy is quiet
I dug a big hole.
“What are you doing here?”
- And I’m burying my mother! -
"Fool! what a mother!
Look: a new undershirt
You buried it in the ground!
Go quickly and grunt
Lie down in the ditch and drink some water!
Maybe the crap will come off!”

“Come on, let’s stretch!”

Two peasants sit down
They rest their feet,
And they live, and they push,
They groan and stretch on a rolling pin,
Joints are cracking!
Didn't like it on the rolling pin:
"Let's try now
Stretch your beard!”
When the beard is in order
They reduced each other,
Grabbed your cheekbones!
They puff, blush, writhe,
They moo, squeal, and stretch!
“Let it be to you, damned ones!”
You won't spill water!

Women are quarreling in the ditch,
One shouts: “Go home
More sick than hard labor!”
Another: - You're lying, in my house
Worse than yours!
My eldest son-in-law broke my rib,
The middle son-in-law stole the ball,
A ball of spit, but the thing is -
Fifty dollars was wrapped in it,
And the younger son-in-law keeps taking the knife,
Look, he'll kill him, he'll kill him!..

“Well, that’s enough, that’s enough, dear!
Well, don't be angry! - behind the roller
You can hear it nearby -
I’m okay... let’s go!”
Such a bad night!
Is it right or left?
From the road you can see:
Couples are walking together
Isn't it the right grove that they're going to?
That grove attracts everyone,
In that grove the vociferous
The nightingales are singing...

The road is crowded
What later is uglier:
More and more often they come across
Beaten, crawling,
Lying in a layer.
Without swearing, as usual,
Not a word will be uttered,
Crazy, obscene,
She is the loudest!
The taverns are in turmoil,
The leads are mixed up
Scared horses
They run without riders;
Little children are crying here,
Wives and mothers grieve:
Is it easy from drinking
Should I call the men?..

At the traffic post
A familiar voice is heard
Our wanderers are approaching
And they see: Veretennikov
(What goatskin shoes
Gave it to Vavila)
Talks with peasants.
The peasants are opening up
The gentleman likes:
Pavel will praise the song -
They will sing it five times, write it down!
Like the proverb -
Write a proverb!
Having written down enough,
Veretennikov told them:
“Russian peasants are smart,
One thing is bad
That they drink until they are stupefied,
They fall into ditches, into ditches -
It’s a shame to see!”

The peasants listened to that speech,
They agreed with the master.
Pavlusha has something in a book
I already wanted to write,
Yes, he turned up drunk
Man, he is against the master
Lying on his stomach
I looked into his eyes,
I kept silent - but suddenly
How he will jump up! Straight to the master -
Grab the pencil from your hands!
- Wait, empty head!
Crazy news, shameless
Don't talk about us!
What were you jealous of!
Why is the poor thing having fun?
Peasant soul?
We drink a lot from time to time,
And we work more
You see a lot of us drunk,
And there are more of us sober.
Have you walked around the villages?
Let's take a bucket of vodka,
Let's go through the huts:
In one, in the other they will pile up,
And in the third they won’t touch -
We have a drinking family
Non-drinking family!
They don’t drink, but they also toil,
It would be better if they drank, stupid ones,
Yes, conscience is like that...
It’s wonderful to watch how he bursts in
In such a sober hut
A man's trouble -
And I wouldn’t even look!.. I saw it
Are Russian villages in the midst of suffering?
In a drinking establishment, what, people?
We have vast fields,
And not much generous,
Tell me, by whose hand
In the spring they will dress,
Will they undress in the fall?
Have you met a guy
After work in the evening?
To reap a good mountain
I set it down and ate a pea-sized piece:
"Hey! hero! straw
I’ll knock you over, move aside!”

The peasants, as they noted,
Why are you not offended by the master?
Yakimov's words,
And they themselves agreed
With Yakim: - The word is true:
We should drink!
We drink - it means we feel strong!
Great sadness will come,
How can we stop drinking!..
Work wouldn't stop me
Trouble would not prevail
Hops will not overcome us!
Is not it?

“Yes, God is merciful!”

Well, have a glass with us!

We got some vodka and drank it.
Yakim Veretennikov
He brought two scales.

Hey master! didn't get angry
Smart little head!
(Yakim told him.)
Smart little head
How can one not understand a peasant?
And pigs walk on the ground -
They can't see the sky for ages!..

Suddenly the song rang out in chorus
Daring, consonant:
Ten three young men,
They're tipsy and don't lie down,
They walk side by side, sing,
They sing about Mother Volga,
About brave daring,
About girlish beauty.
The whole road became silent,
That one song is funny
Rolls wide and freely
Like rye spreading in the wind,
According to the peasant's heart
It goes with fire and melancholy!..
I'll go away to that song
I lost my mind and cried
Young girl alone:
“My age is like a day without the sun,
My age is like a night without a month,
And I, young and young,
Like a greyhound horse on a leash,
What is a swallow without wings!
My old husband, jealous husband,
He's drunk and drunk, he's snoring,
Me, when I was very young,
And the sleepy one is on guard!”
That's how the young girl cried
Yes, she suddenly jumped off the cart!
"Where?" - the jealous husband shouts,
He stood up and grabbed the woman by the braid,
Like a radish for a cowlick!

Oh! night, drunken night!
Not light, but starry,
Not hot, but with affectionate
Spring breeze!
And to our good fellows
You weren't in vain!
They felt sad for their wives,
It's true: with my wife
Now it would be more fun!
Ivan shouts: “I want to sleep,”
And Maryushka: - And I’m with you! -
Ivan shouts: “The bed is narrow,”
And Maryushka: - Let's settle down! -
Ivan shouts: “Oh, it’s cold,”
And Maryushka: - Let's get warm! -
How do you remember that song?
Without a word - agreed
Try your casket.

One, why God knows,
Between the field and the road
A thick linden tree has grown.
Strangers crouched under it
And they said carefully:
"Hey! self-assembled tablecloth,
Treat the men!”

And the tablecloth unrolled,
Where did they come from?
Two hefty arms:
They put a bucket of wine,
They piled up a mountain of bread
And they hid again.

The peasants refreshed themselves
Roman for the guard
Stayed by the bucket
And others intervened
In the crowd - look for the happy one:
They really wanted
Get home soon...

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ Who lives well in Rus'. Nikolay Nekrasov

✪ N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (content analysis) | Lecture No. 62

✪ 018. Nekrasov N.A. Poem Who Lives Well in Rus'

✪ Open lesson with Dmitry Bykov. "Misunderstood Nekrasov"

✪ Lyrics N.A. Nekrasova. Poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (analysis of the test part) | Lecture No. 63

Subtitles

History of creation

N. A. Nekrasov began work on the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in the first half of the 60s of the 19th century. The mention of exiled Poles in the first part, in the chapter “Landowner,” suggests that work on the poem began no earlier than 1863. But sketches of the work could have appeared earlier, since Nekrasov had been collecting material for a long time. The manuscript of the first part of the poem is marked 1865, however, it is possible that this is the date of completion of work on this part.

Soon after finishing work on the first part, the prologue of the poem was published in the January issue of Sovremennik magazine for 1866. The printing lasted for four years and was accompanied, like all of Nekrasov’s publishing activities, by censorship persecution.

The writer began to continue working on the poem only in the 1870s, writing three more parts of the work: “The Last One” (1872), “The Peasant Woman” (1873), and “A Feast for the Whole World” (1876). The poet did not intend to limit himself to the written chapters; three or four more parts were planned. However, a developing illness interfered with the author's plans. Nekrasov, feeling the approach of death, tried to give some “completeness” to the last part, “A feast for the whole world.”

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was published in the following sequence: “Prologue. Part one", "Last One", "Peasant Woman".

Plot and structure of the poem

It was assumed that the poem would have 7 or 8 parts, but the author managed to write only 4, which, perhaps, did not follow one another.

The poem is written in iambic trimeter.

Part one

The only part that does not have a title. It was written shortly after the abolition of serfdom (). Judging by the first quatrain of the poem, we can say that Nekrasov initially tried to anonymously characterize all the problems of Rus' at that time.

Prologue

In what year - calculate
In what land - guess
On the sidewalk
Seven men came together.

They got into an argument:

Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?

They offered 6 possible answers to this question:

• Novel: to the landowner;
• Demyan: official;
• Gubin brothers - Ivan and Mitrodor: to the merchant;
• Pakhom (old man): minister, boyar;

The peasants decide not to return home until they find the correct answer. In the prologue, they also find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed them, and they set off.

Chapter I. Pop

Chapter II. Rural fair.

Chapter III. Drunken night.

Chapter IV. Happy.

Chapter V. Landowner.

The last one (from the second part)

At the height of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene: a noble family sails to the shore in three boats. The mowers, who had just sat down to rest, immediately jumped up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help the heirs hide the abolition of serfdom from the crazy landowner Utyatin. For this, the relatives of the last one, Utyatin, promise the men floodplain meadows. But after the long-awaited death of the Last One, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Peasant woman (from the third part)

In this part, the wanderers decide to continue their search for someone who can “live cheerfully and at ease in Rus'” among women. In the village of Nagotin, the women told the men that there was a “governor” in Klin, Matryona Timofeevna: “there is no more kind-hearted and smoother woman.” There, seven men find this woman and convince her to tell her story, at the end of which she reassures the men of her happiness and of women’s happiness in Rus' in general:

The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!..

• Prologue
• Chapter I. Before marriage
• Chapter II. Songs
• Chapter III. Savely, hero, Holy Russian
• Chapter IV. Dyomushka
• Chapter V. She-Wolf
• Chapter VI. Difficult year
• Chapter VII. Governor's wife
• Chapter VIII. The Old Woman's Parable

A feast for the whole world (from the fourth part)

This part is a logical continuation of the second part (“The Last One”). It describes the feast that the men threw after the death of the old man Last. The adventures of the wanderers do not end in this part, but at the end one of the feasters, Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a priest, the next morning after the feast, walking along the river bank, finds what the secret of Russian happiness is, and expresses it in short song“Rus”, by the way, was used by V.I. Lenin in the article “The Main Task of Our Days”. The work ends with the words:

If only our wanderers could
Under my own roof,
If only they could know,
What happened to Grisha.
He heard in his chest
Immense forces
Delighted his ears
Blessed sounds
Radiant sounds
Noble hymn -
He sang the incarnation
People's happiness!..

Such an unexpected ending arose because the author was aware of his imminent death, and, wanting to finish the work, logically completed the poem in the fourth part, although at the beginning N. A. Nekrasov conceived 8 parts.

List of heroes

Temporarily obliged peasants who went to look for those who live happily and freely in Rus':

Ivan and Metropolitan Gubin,

Old man Pakhom,

Peasants and serfs:

• Artyom Demin,
• Yakim Nagoy,
• Sidor,
• Egorka Shutov,
• Klim Lavin,
• Vlas,
• Agap Petrov,
• Ipat is a sensitive serf,
• Yakov is a faithful servant,
• Gleb,
• Proshka,
• Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina,
• Savely Korchagin,
• Ermil Girin.

Landowners:

• Obolt-Obolduev,
• Prince Utyatin (the last one),
• Vogel (Little information on this landowner)
• Shalashnikov.

Other heroes

• Elena Alexandrovna - the governor's wife who delivered Matryona,
• Altynnikov - merchant, possible buyer of Ermila Girin's mill,
• Grisha Dobrosklonov.