Features of the fairy tale genre in the works of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin
Using Genres folk art was characteristic feature creativity of many Russian writers. A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, and N. A. Nekrasov addressed them. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin took as the basis for one of his best satirical cycles a fairy tale, perhaps the most beloved genre by the people. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s weapon has always been satire. At the final stage of his work, in the period from 1883 to 1886, he decides to sum up his thoughts about Russian reality. At that time, due to the strict censorship that existed, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show the entire inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of considerable age“Saltykov-Shchedrin was able to convey to people sharp criticism of the existing order. Censorship missed the tales of the great satirist, failing to understand their purpose, their revealing power, their challenge to the existing order.
The tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are sharply individual and unlike any others. Many researchers noted that the elements of tradition in them were carefully processed, and therefore, having absorbed elements of folk and literary fairy tales, they became the most original work, which embodied mastery satirical techniques, characteristic of the entire work of the writer.
To write fairy tales, the author used such literary devices as grotesque, hyperbole, antithesis. Aesopian language was also important. Trying to hide the true meaning of what was written from censorship, the writer was forced to use a wide variety of techniques.
Let's try to consider the features of the writer's fairy tale genre using the example of several of his works. In “The Wild Landowner” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman who finds himself without servants can sink. This tale uses hyperbole. Seeming at first cultured person, a landowner, turns into a wild animal that feeds on fly agarics. In the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” the author used both hyperbole and grotesque. The reader sees the man’s resignation, his humility, his unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a chain, which once again indicates the enslavement of the Russian peasant. Allegorical fairy tale The wise minnow" We see the life of an ordinary person who is afraid of everything in the world. The “wise minnow” constantly sits locked up, afraid to once again go out into the street, talk to someone, get to know someone. He leads a closed, boring life. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived, he trembled, and he died, he trembled.” So at some point the average person realizes that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin constantly strives to improve his allegorical style and tries to make his works as accessible as possible to the reader. That’s why he often resorts to those artistic techniques, which are typical for folk tales. In his work you can find traditional fairy tale beginnings, such as “Once upon a time...”, characteristic sayings, for example, “by pike command, according to my desire.” The style of the images is also characteristic. The masters of life in M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are presented in the images of predators: bears, eagles, wolves.
You don’t have to add anything - the author’s attitude towards these characters is clear. However, with regard to the choice of comparisons with animals, the writer also relies on the tradition of Russian fables. The hidden social meaning of the image can be emphasized and strengthened by the author’s direct hint: speaking about how Toptygin eats a siskin, the writer clarifies: “... it’s the same as if someone drove a tiny schoolboy to suicide.” Animals that appear in fairy tales are often firmly integrated into reality. Russian life. For example, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s hares study statistical tables published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The very tone of the story reveals the author's deepest irony, which spares neither the oppressors nor their victims. Let us recall, for example, the man who “avoided work in the most impudent manner,” but, when necessary, made a rope for himself.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people. He sees his lack of rights, but can only be surprised at the age-old patience. He sympathizes with the intelligentsia, but understands that they are far from true paths struggle. He ridicules the average person and speaks with anger about officials. Fantasy and reality in his works are closely related, but on the whole the “Fairy Tales” cycle gives us a complete and accurate picture contemporary writer reality. But the author did not consider a simple description to be his task. His true goal is to find a way to the hearts of readers, make them think about what is happening around them and, perhaps, find in the book answers to many questions that life has posed. And it seems to me that the fairy tale genre is better suited for such purposes than many others.
The use of folk art genres was a characteristic feature of the work of many Russian writers. A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, and N. A. Nekrasov addressed them. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin took as the basis for one of his best satirical cycles a fairy tale, perhaps the most beloved genre by the people. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s weapon has always been satire. At the final stage of his work, in the period from 1883 to 1886, he decides to sum up his thoughts about Russian reality. At that time, due to the strict censorship that existed, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show the entire inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Saltykov-Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order. Censorship missed the tales of the great satirist, failing to understand their purpose, their revealing power, their challenge to the existing order.
The tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are sharply individual and unlike any others. Many researchers noted that the elements of tradition were carefully processed in them, and therefore, having absorbed elements of folk and literary fairy tales, they became the most original work, which embodied the mastery of satirical techniques, characteristic of all the writer’s work.
To write fairy tales, the author used literary techniques such as grotesque, hyperbole, and antithesis. Aesopian language was also important. Trying to hide the true meaning of what was written from censorship, the writer was forced to use a wide variety of techniques.
Let's try to consider the features of the writer's fairy tale genre using the example of several of his works. In “The Wild Landowner” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman who finds himself without servants can sink. This tale uses hyperbole. A seemingly cultured man, a landowner, turns into a wild animal feeding on fly agarics. In the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” the author used both hyperbole and grotesque. The reader sees the man’s resignation, his humility, his unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a chain, which once again indicates the enslavement of the Russian peasant. The fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” is allegorical. We see the life of an ordinary person who is afraid of everything in the world. The “wise minnow” constantly sits locked up, afraid to once again go out into the street, talk to someone, get to know someone. He leads a closed, boring life. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived and trembled and died - he trembled.” So at some point the average person realizes that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin constantly strives to improve his allegorical style and tries to make his works as accessible as possible to the reader. Therefore, he often resorts to those artistic techniques that are characteristic of folk tales. In his work you can find traditional fairy-tale beginnings, such as “Once upon a time...”, characteristic sayings, for example, “at the behest of the pike, at my will.” The style of the images is also characteristic. The masters of life in M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are presented in the images of predators: bears, eagles, wolves.
You don’t have to add anything - the author’s attitude towards these characters is clear. However, with regard to the choice of comparisons with animals, the writer also relies on the tradition of Russian fables. The hidden social meaning of the image can be emphasized and strengthened by the author’s direct hint: speaking about how Toptygin eats a siskin, the writer clarifies: “... it’s the same as if someone drove a tiny schoolboy to suicide.” Animals featured in fairy tales often find themselves firmly integrated into real Russian life. For example, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s hares study statistical tables published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The very tone of the story reveals the author's deepest irony, which spares neither the oppressors nor their victims. Let us recall, for example, the man who “avoided work in the most impudent manner,” but, when necessary, made a rope for himself.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people. He sees his lack of rights, but can only be surprised at the age-old patience. He sympathizes with the intelligentsia, but understands that they are far from the true ways of struggle. He ridicules the average person and speaks with anger about officials. Fantasy and reality in his works are closely related, but on the whole the “Fairy Tales” cycle gives us a complete and accurate picture of the writer’s contemporary reality. But the author did not consider a simple description to be his task. His true goal is to find a way to the hearts of readers, make them think about what is happening around them and, perhaps, find in the book answers to many questions that life has posed. And it seems to me that the fairy tale genre is better suited for such purposes than many others.
Russian literature has always been more closely connected with the life of society than European literature. Any changes in public mood, new ideas immediately found a response in literature. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was acutely aware of the ills of his society and found an unusual artistic form to attract the attention of readers to the problems that worried him. Let's try to understand the features of this form created by the writer.
Traditionally, Russian folklore distinguishes three types of fairy tales: magical, social and everyday tales, and fairy tales about animals. Saltykov-Shchedrin created literary fairy tale, connecting all three types. But the fairy tale genre does not determine all the originality of these works. In Shchedrin’s “Fairy Tales” we encounter the traditions of fables and chronicles, or rather, parodies of chronicles. The author uses such fable techniques as allegory, allegory, comparison of human phenomena with phenomena of the animal world, and the use of emblems. An emblem is an allegorical image that traditionally carries one meaning. In Shchedrin’s “Fairy Tales,” the emblem is, for example, a bear. He personifies awkwardness and stupidity, but under the pen of Saltykov-Shchedrin, these properties acquire social significance. Thus, the traditional emblematic meaning of the image of a bear colors and characterizes a specific social image(voivode, for example).
Genre beginning chronicles is found in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship”. It is indicated by the presence chronological sequence when reporting events: Toptygin I, Toptygin II and so on. Parody is achieved by transferring the properties and qualities of specific historical figures to images of forest inhabitants. Leo's illiteracy is reminiscent of the notorious illiteracy of Peter I.
However, the artistic originality of “Fairy Tales” is not limited to the genre nature characteristic of fairy tales. Special mention should be made about satire. Satire, that is, special laughter aimed at destroying an object, becomes “the main creative technique.
It is quite natural that the object of satire for Saltykov-Shchedrin, a writer who continues Gogol’s traditions, is serfdom.
Trying to depict relationships in his contemporary society, he models situations that allow this to be done.
In a fairy tale Wild landowner“With the disappearance of the peasants, the landowner’s inability to exist independently is revealed. The unnaturalness of the relationships that exist in society is also shown in the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals.” This is very interesting tale, which is based on a situation similar to that of “Robinson Crusoe”. On desert island turned out to be a man and two generals. Freeing his characters from the conventions of civilized life, the author preserves existing relationships, showing their absurdity.
The following fact is also interesting. The fairy tale only states social status, but the names of the characters are not given. It can be assumed that Saltykov-Shchedrin uses a technique similar to that of emblems. For the author, a peasant, a landowner, a general have the same constant meaning as a hare, a fox, a bear for readers of fables.
All of the above-mentioned situations are created with the help of fantastic elements, one of which is the grotesque, which serves as the main means of creating images (the image of the “wild landowner” from the fairy tale of the same name.) Exaggeration, shifting the boundaries of reality, allows you to create a game situation. It is based on a phrase introduced by Pushkin - “wild lordship,” but with the help of the grotesque, “savagery” takes on a literal meaning. The image of the man is also built on the grotesque. In the fairy tales “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” and “The Wild Landowner” the passivity and subordination of the peasantry are exaggerated. I will not cite classic examples from “The Tale of That...” -. The second tale is much more interesting. There the men gather into a herd, a flock, and fly away. A very lively, associative image of a collective principle.
A technique often used by the writer is rapprochement social phenomena and types with the animal world allows you to more clearly write out images that connect the properties of animals and people. This technique gives the author relative freedom of expression, allowing him to bypass censorship restrictions.
What distinguishes Shchedrin’s comparison with animals from the fable tradition is a clearly expressed social orientation.
The character system is also unique. All fairy tales can be divided into tales about people and about animals. But, despite this formal difference, the entire system of characters in any fairy tale is built on the principle of social contrast: oppressor and oppressed, victim and predator.
For all its originality, Shchedrin’s “Fairy Tales” rely on the obvious, albeit stylized, folklore tradition. This is connected with the theory of “skaz”, which was put forward by the famous Russian literary critic Eikhenbaum. According to this theory, works aimed at oral speech, have a number artistic features: puns, clauses, game situations. Classic examples of the use of “skaz” are the works of Gogol and “The Enchanted Wanderer” by Leskov.
Shchedrin’s “Fairy Tales” are also “fairy tale” works. This is even indicated by the presence of traditional fairy-tale phrases: “once upon a time they lived”, “on pike command, according to my desire”, “in some kingdom, some state”, “to live and get along” and so on.
In conclusion, I would like to say that exactly art form“Fairy tales” is their main advantage. Of course, literature has always been a public platform, but very rarely is a work that affects only social problems, remains in history literary development. “Fairy Tales” by Shchedrin thanks to the amazing and complex artistic world, truly artistic originality are still included in the compulsory reading circle of all educated people.
Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of those great writers whose work is distinguished by high ideology, nationalism, realism, and artistic perfection.
Along with other classics of Russian literature, he excellently mastered the skill of depicting the life and psychology of people, social and moral phenomena public life. But he, like each of his outstanding literary contemporaries - Nekrasov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy - was original in his own way, socio-political satire became his calling, and he made his unique contribution to this area.
The works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, no matter how diverse they may be in problem-thematic and genre relations, constitute a single art world, marked with a bright seal creative individuality writer.
The originality of Shchedrin as an artist is most clearly manifested primarily in such features of his satirical poetics as the art of using humor, hyperbole, grotesque, fantasy, and allegory for the realistic reproduction of reality and its assessment from a progressive social position.
Laughter is the main weapon of satire. “This weapon is very powerful,” said Shchedrin, “for nothing discourages vice more than the consciousness that it has been guessed and that laughter has already been heard about it.” These weapons were used to fight the social and moral vices of society: Fonvizin in “The Minor”, Krylov in Fables, Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit”, Gogol in “ Dead souls" and "Inspector". Shchedrin developed their tradition. By his own admission, humor has always been his main strength.
Shchedrin is the brightest successor of the Gogol tradition of satirical laughter. Gogol and Shchedrin had an inexhaustible wit in exposing social vices. And at the same time, there is a big difference in the ideological motives and forms of artistic manifestation of humor among these two largest Russian satirists.
Belinsky, characterizing Gogol’s humor as “calm, calm in its very indignation, good-natured in its very slyness,” at the same time said that there is another kind of humor, “menacing and open,” “bilious, poisonous, merciless.” This is precisely Shchedrin’s humor.
Noting “something Swiftian” in Shchedrin’s bitter and harsh laughter, Turgenev wrote: “I saw listeners writhing with laughter when reading some of Saltykov’s essays.
There was something almost scary in this laughter, because the audience, while laughing, at the same time felt like a scourge was lashing itself.” According to M. Gorky’s definition, Shchedrin’s laughter “is not Gogol’s laughter, but something much more deafeningly truthful, deeper and more powerful.” If the formula “laughter through tears” is applicable to Gogol’s humor, then the formula “laughter through contempt and indignation” would be more appropriate to Shchedrin’s humor.
The nature of Shchedrin’s humor was, of course, influenced by the properties of the writer’s personal biography and talent, but above all by new social conditions and new ideas, of which he was a faithful representative. During the years separating the satirical activities of Gogol and Shchedrin, a major step was taken in the social life of Russia and in the development of Russian liberation thought.
Shchedrin's laughter, which drew its strength from the growth of the democratic movement and from the ideals of democracy and socialism, penetrated deeper into the source social evil than Gogol's laughter. Of course, we are not talking about Shchedrin’s artistic superiority over Gogol, but about the fact that, compared to his great predecessor, Shchedrin as a satirist has gone further, driven by time and ideas. As for Gogol’s creative power itself, Shchedrin recognized its significance as the highest example.
If Gogol saw satirical laughter as a means of moral correction of people, then Shchedrin, not shying away from these intentions, considered the main purpose of laughter to arouse feelings of indignation and active protest against social inequality and political despotism. Shchedrin's laughter differed from Gogol's primarily in its, so to speak, political aim.
Satirical laughter in Shchedrin’s concept is intended to be not a healer, but a gravedigger of an outdated social organism, and is intended to impose a final shameful stigma on those phenomena that have completed their development cycle and are recognized as untenable in the court of history.
In Shchedrin’s laughter, mostly menacing and indignant, other emotional tones and shades are not excluded, due to the diversity ideological plans, image objects and changing moods satirical “Fairy Tales”, which presents pictures of the lives of everyone social strata society, can serve as a textbook of examples of Shchedrin’s humor in all the richness of its artistic manifestation.
Saltykov-Shchedrin was a great master of irony - subtle, hidden ridicule, clothed in the form of praise, flattery, feigned solidarity with the enemy. In this most poisonous variety of humor, Shchedrin was surpassed in Russian literature only by Gogol. In "Fairy Tales" Shchedrin's irony shines with all its colors.
The satirist either admires the extremely intelligent, sensible hare, who “reasoned so sensibly that a donkey is in time”, then suddenly, together with the generals, he is indignant at the behavior of the parasite-peasant, who was sleeping “and in the most impudent way avoided work”, then he seems to agree with the need to come bear-pacifier to the forest slum, because “at that time there was such a free spirit among the forest men that everyone strove in their own way. Animals prowled, birds flew, insects crawled, but no one wanted to march in step.”
By mockingly ridiculing the bearers of social evil, the satirist aroused a feeling of active hatred towards them in society, inspired the masses to fight against them, raised their spirits and self-confidence, and taught them to understand their role in life. By correct definition A.V. Lunacharsky, Shchedrin is “the master of such laughter, laughing with which a person becomes wise.”
The works of Saltykov-Shchedrin are characterized by the widespread use of the techniques of hyperbole, grotesque, and fantasy, through which the writer sharply exposed the essence of denied phenomena of social life and executed them with the weapon of laughter.
Exposing certain features of social types, the satirist very often found some equivalent for them in a world beyond human nature, creating poetic allegories in which dolls and animals took the place of people, playing the role of a satirical parody.
Such fantasy has found its brilliant application in fairy tales, where the entire table of ranks is wittily replaced different representatives fauna. Fantastic costume at the same time and brightly highlights negative traits types, and makes them look funny. A person whose actions are equated with the actions of a lower organism or a primitive mechanism causes laughter.
Hyperbole, grotesque, fantasy, which were effective methods of depicting and ridiculing social evil, simultaneously also played their role in the complex system artistic means, used by the satirist in the fight against censorship.
Advanced Russian literature was brutally persecuted by the autocracy. In the fight against censorship persecution, writers resorted to deceptive means. “On the one hand,” says Shchedrin, “allegories appeared, on the other, the art of understanding these allegories, the art of reading between the lines. A special slavish manner of writing was created, which can be called Esopian, a manner that revealed remarkable resourcefulness in the invention of reservations, omissions, allegories and other deceptive means.”
Saltykov-Shchedrin, who remained at the forefront of political satirism until the end of his days, brought the Aesopian style to the highest perfection and became its most prominent representative in Russian literature. Acting under the yoke of censorship, forced to constantly overcome difficult barriers, the satirist did not deviate from his democratic convictions, but fought against obstacles through artistic means.
He developed a whole system of allegorical techniques, names, expressions, images, epithets, metaphors that allowed him to achieve an ideological victory over the enemy. So, for example, in Shchedrin’s Aesopian language, the order of things means the arbitrariness of the autocracy, the heartbreaker means a spy, and fuit means a sudden administrative exile to distant places. The satirist called the corrupt literary opportunists the foam skimmers, and gave their newspapers the names: “Foam Skimmer”, “What do you want?”, “Slops”, “Sniff for your health”.
Shchedrin often depicted the Russian reality of his time in the form of a narrative about the past (a striking example is “The History of a City”) or about foreign countries.
In “Fairy Tales” these allegorical techniques are widely used, changing according to the genre. Sometimes a fairy tale begins with an indication that it will be about the old times, although the whole meaning of the subsequent story relates to the present.
For example: “Today this does not exist, but there was such a time...” (“Idle conversation”); “In the old years, under Tsar Gorokh it was...” (“Fool”). To deliberately attribute the events depicted to unspecified countries and times, the satirist successfully used the traditional beginnings of folk tales: “...In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...” (“Wild Landowner”); “In a certain country there lived a liberal...” (“Liberal”).
Allegories in Shchedrin's satire are intended not only to deceive censors. They are effective means satirical image life, allowing you to approach a subject from an unexpected angle and illuminate it wittily. This is especially important for satire; the more successfully it achieves its goal, the more unexpected its attack on the enemy and the more witty its comic features are outlined.
The image of Toptygin’s bear, denoting the governor, was chosen, of course, not without censorship considerations, at the same time, the pseudonym found had all the advantages of a mark, witty artistic metaphor, which intensified the satirical attack on the ruling caste of the autocracy. This example can serve as a vivid illustration of the satirist’s recognition that sometimes, thanks to the commitment of Aesop’s manner, he was able to find such features and colors that are more embedded in the reader’s memory.
Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to subordinate the writing techniques imposed on him by censorship circumstances to the requirements of artistic representation. Of course, the tsarist censorship recognized the satirist’s disguised intentions, but often did not have the opportunity to formally accuse him.
Aesopian language, helping Shchedrin elude the claws of the tsarist censors and sometimes allowing him to present the phenomena of life in a picturesque and witty form, at the same time had its own negative side. He wasn't always clear to a wide circle readers.
Therefore, the satirist, improving his allegorical style, increasingly sought to bring it closer to the traditions of folk poetry. In his fairy tales, he achieved a form that was least perceptible to censorship and at the same time distinguished by high artistic perfection and accessibility. It was a victory for a genius who had the gift of inexhaustible inventiveness in the field of the art of words.
History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.
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M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of the most famous satirists of the 19th century. The writer has proven himself in many genres of literature, such as novels, novellas, short stories, essays, and fairy tales.
Almost all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s works have a satirical orientation. The writer was outraged Russian society, unfair attitude of masters towards slaves, obedience common people before senior officials. In his works, the author ridiculed the vices and imperfections of Russian society.
The plots of fairy tales serve as a vivid and accessible example of the immorality of society in the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin. It seemed like this literary genre designed for children's understanding of good and evil. But Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are imbued with irony; they contain the problem of Russian society, which the author wants to solve simple example, ridiculing at certain moments the actions of its heroes.
Saltykov-Shchedrin chose, it seems to me, the most complex genre literature - satire. After all, satire is a type of comic that most mercilessly ridicules reality and, unlike humor, does not give a chance for correction.
The writer had the gift of sensitively capturing the most acute conflicts brewing in Russia and displaying them in front of the entire Russian society in his works.
The inevitable fall of the tsarist regime, the process of destruction of not only its political, but also its moral foundations, are clearly depicted in the novel "The Golovlevs." Here we see the story of three generations of Golovlev nobles, as well as a vivid picture of the decay and degeneration of the entire noble class. The image of Judushka Golovlev embodies the ulcers and vices of both the family and the entire class of owners. I am especially struck by the speech of Judas the misanthrope and fornicator. It all consists of sighs, hypocritical appeals to God, continuous repetitions: “But God - here he is. And there, and here, and here with us, as long as we are talking - he is everywhere! And he sees everything, everything hears, only pretends not to notice."
Idle talk and hypocrisy helped him hide the true essence of his nature - the desire to “torture, ruin, dispossess, suck blood.” The name Judushka became a household name for every exploiter and parasite. With the power of his talent, Saltykov-Shchedrin created a bright, typical, unforgettable image, mercilessly exposing political betrayal, greed, and hypocrisy. It seems to me that it is appropriate here to quote the words of Mikhailovsky, who said about “The Golovlevs” that this is “a critical encyclopedia of Russian life.”
The writer showed himself in many genres of literature. From his pen came novels, chronicles, stories, stories, essays, plays. But Saltykov-Shchedrin’s artistic talent is most clearly expressed in his famous “Fairy Tales”. The writer himself defined them as follows: “Fairy tales for children of a fair age.” They combine elements of folklore and original literature: fairy tales and fables. They most fully reflect life experience and the wisdom of the satirist. Despite the topical political motives, fairy tales still retain all the charm of folk art: “In a certain kingdom, a Bogatyr was born. Baba Yaga gave birth to him, gave him drink, fed him...” (“Bogatyr”).
Fairy tales occupy a special place in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, since they contain allegorical images in which the author was able to say more about Russian society in the sixties and eighties of the nineteenth century than the historians of those years.
Saltykov-Shchedrin writes “fairy tales” “for children of a fair age,” that is, for an adult reader who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for the “tops.” No wonder the censor Lebedev reported: “Mr. S.’s intention to publish some of his fairy tales in separate brochures is more than strange. What Mr. S. calls fairy tales does not at all correspond to its name; his fairy tales are the same satire, and the satire is caustic, tendentious , more or less directed against our social and political structure."
The main problem of fairy tales is the relationship between exploiters and exploited. The fairy tales provide satire on Tsarist Russia: on bureaucrats, on bureaucrats, on landowners. The reader is presented with images of the rulers of Russia ("Bear in the Voivodeship", "Eagle Patron of Art"), exploiters and exploited ("Wild Landowner", "How One Man Fed Two Generals"), ordinary people ("The Wise Minnow", "Dried Roach" and others).
Many of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are devoted to exposing philistinism. One of the most poignant is “The Wise Minnow.” Gudgeon was "moderate and liberal." Dad taught him the “wisdom of life”: not to interfere in anything, take care of yourself. Now he sits all his life in his hole and trembles, lest he get hit in the ear or end up in the mouth of a pike. He lived like this for more than a hundred years and trembled all the time, and when the time came to die, he trembled as he died. And it turned out that he had not done anything good in his life, and no one remembers or knows him.
The satirist talks about real events in contemporary life, preserving the spirit and style of a folk tale. Although the action takes place in “a certain kingdom, a certain state,” the pages of the fairy tale depict a very specific image of a Russian landowner. The whole meaning of his existence comes down to “pampering his white, loose, crumbly body.” He lives at the expense of his men, but he hates them, is afraid, and cannot stand their “servile spirit.” He considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev. He rejoices when some chaff whirlwind carried away all the men to God knows where, and the air in his domain became pure and pure. But the men disappeared, and there was such a famine that in the city “...you can’t buy a piece of meat or a pound of bread at the market.” And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He was all overgrown with hair, from head to toe... and his legs became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, and walked more and more on all fours. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds...” In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all the insides, even the skin.” The landowner went wild because he couldn’t live without the help of the “man.” It was not for nothing that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “there was a smell of chaff and sheepskin in that district; flour and meat and all kinds of living creatures appeared at the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, I just clasped my hands in surprise..."
If we compare folk tales about the master and the peasant with famous fairy tales Saltykov-Shchedrin, we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is very close to folk tales. But his men are different from those in fairy tales. In folk tales, a smart, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master. This is how it appears in "The Wild Landowner" collective image workers, breadwinners of the country and at the same time martyrs and sufferers, their “tearful orphan’s prayer” sounds: “Lord, it is easier for us to perish even with small children than to suffer like this all our Life!” Modifying folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin condemns the long-suffering of the people, and his fairy tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview. Many of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are dedicated to exposing philistinism.
Until the end of his life, Saltykov-Shchedrin remained faithful to the ideas of his friends in spirit: Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov. The significance of the work of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is also great because in the most difficult years of reaction, he almost alone continued the progressive ideological traditions of the sixties of the 19th century.