Introduction
Starting work on the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov dreamed of creating a large-scale work that would reflect all the knowledge about peasants that he had accumulated throughout his life. WITH early childhood“the spectacle of national disasters” passed before the poet’s eyes, and his first childhood impressions prompted him to further study the way of peasant life. Hard work, human grief, and at the same time the enormous spiritual strength of the people - all this was noticed by Nekrasov’s attentive gaze. And it is precisely because of this that in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” the images of the peasants look so reliable, as if the poet personally knew his heroes. It is logical that the poem, in which the main character is the people, has large number peasant images, but if we take a closer look at them, we will be amazed by the diversity and liveliness of these characters.
The image of the main wanderer characters
The first peasants with whom the reader meets are truth-seeking peasants who argued about who lives well in Rus'. For the poem, it is not so much their individual images that are important, but the overall idea that they express - without them, the plot of the work would simply fall apart. And, nevertheless, Nekrasov gives each of them a name, native village(the names of the villages themselves are eloquent: Gorelovo, Zaplatovo...) and certain character traits and appearance: Luka is an inveterate debater, Pakhom is an old man. And the views of the peasants, despite the integrity of their image, are different; each does not deviate from his views even to the point of fighting. In general, the image of these men is a group image, which is why it highlights the most basic features characteristic of almost any peasant. This is extreme poverty, stubbornness and curiosity, the desire to find the truth. Let us note that while describing the peasants dear to his heart, Nekrasov still does not embellish their images. He also shows vices, mainly general drunkenness.
The peasant theme in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is not the only one - during their journey, the men will meet both the landowner and the priest, and will hear about the life of different classes - merchants, nobles, and clergy. But all other images, in one way or another, serve to more fully reveal the main theme of the poem: the life of peasants in Russia immediately after the reform.
The poem contains several crowd scenes- a fair, a feast, a road along which many people walk. Here Nekrasov portrays the peasantry as a single whole, which thinks alike, speaks unanimously and even sighs at the same time. But at the same time, the images of peasants depicted in the work can be divided into two large groups: honest working people who value their freedom and serf peasants. In the first group, Yakim Nagoy, Ermil Girin, Trofim and Agap stand out.
Positive images of peasants
Yakim Nagoy is a typical representative of the poor peasantry, and he himself resembles “Mother Earth”, like “a layer cut off by a plow”.
All his life he works “to death”, but at the same time remains a beggar. His sad story: he once lived in St. Petersburg, but started a lawsuit with a merchant, ended up in prison because of it, and returned from there “like a piece of velcro” – does not surprise listeners in any way. There were many such destinies in Rus' at that time... Despite the hard work, Yakim has enough strength to stand up for his compatriots: yes, there are many drunk men, but there are more sober ones, they are all great people “in work and in revelry.” Love for truth, for honest work, a dream of transforming life (“thunder should thunder”) – these are the main components of the image of Yakima.
Trofim and Agap complement Yakima in some ways; each of them has one main character trait. In the image of Trofim, Nekrasov shows the endless strength and patience of the Russian people - Trofim once carried away fourteen pounds, and then returned home barely alive. Agap is a lover of truth. He is the only one who refuses to participate in the performance for Prince Utyatin: “The possession of peasant souls is over!” When they force him, he dies in the morning: it is easier for a peasant to die than to bend back under the yoke of serfdom.
Yermil Girin is endowed by the author with intelligence and incorruptible honesty, and for this he was chosen as burgomaster. He “didn’t bend his soul,” but once he lost his way the right path, could not live not according to the truth, and brought repentance before the whole world. But honesty and love for their compatriots do not bring happiness to the peasants: the image of Yermil is tragic. At the time of the story, he is sitting in prison: this is how his help to the rebellious village turned out.
Images of Matryona and Savely
The life of peasants in Nekrasov’s poem would not be completely depicted without the image of a Russian woman. To reveal the “female share”, which is “grief is not life!” the author chose the image of Matryona Timofeevna. “Beautiful, strict and dark,” she tells in detail the story of her life, in which only then was she happy, as she lived with her parents in the “girls’ lounge.” Afterwards, hard work began, equal to men, the nagging of relatives, and the death of the first-born distorted the fate. For this story, Nekrasov allocated an entire part of the poem, nine chapters - much more than the stories of the other peasants occupy. This well conveys his special attitude, his love for a Russian woman. Matryona amazes with her strength and resilience. She endures all the blows of fate without complaint, but at the same time she knows how to stand up for her loved ones: she lies down under the rod in place of her son and saves her husband from the soldiers. The image of Matryona in the poem merges with the image of the people's soul - long-suffering and long-suffering, which is why the woman's speech is so rich in songs. These songs are often the only opportunity to pour out your melancholy...
The image of Matryona Timofeevna is accompanied by another curious image - the image of the Russian hero, Savely. Living out his life in Matryona’s family (“he lived for one hundred and seven years”), Savely thinks more than once: “Where have you gone, strength? What were you useful for? All the strength was lost under rods and sticks, wasted during back-breaking labor on the Germans and wasted away in hard labor. In the image of Savely it is shown tragic fate the Russian peasantry, heroes by nature, leading a life completely unsuitable for them. Despite all the hardships of life, Savely did not become embittered, he is wise and affectionate with those without rights (he is the only one in the family who protects Matryona). His image also shows the deep religiosity of the Russian people, who sought help in faith.
The image of peasant serfs
Another type of peasant depicted in the poem are serfs. Years of serfdom have crippled the souls of some people who are accustomed to groveling and can no longer imagine their lives without the power of the landowner over them. Nekrasov shows this using examples of the images of the slaves Ipat and Yakov, as well as the elder Klim. Jacob is the image of a faithful slave. He spent his whole life fulfilling the whims of his master: “Yakov had only joy: / To groom, protect, please the master.” However, you cannot live with the master “ladkom” - as a reward for Yakov’s exemplary service, the master gives his nephew as a recruit. It was then that Yakov’s eyes were opened, and he decided to take revenge on his offender. Klim becomes the boss thanks to the grace of Prince Utyatin. A bad owner and a lazy worker, he, singled out by the master, blossoms from a sense of self-importance: “The proud pig: itched / Oh the master’s porch!” Using the example of the headman Klim, Nekrasov shows how terrible yesterday's serf is when he becomes a boss - this is one of the most disgusting human types. But it is difficult to fool an honest peasant’s heart - and in the village Klim is sincerely despised, not afraid.
So, from the various images of the peasants “Who Lives Well in Rus'” a complete picture of the people is formed as enormous power, already beginning to gradually rebel and realize its power.
Work test
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was written by Nekrasov in the post-reform era, when the landowner essence of the reform, which doomed the peasants to ruin and new bondage, became clear. The main, key idea of the poem is the idea of the inevitability of the collapse of the unjust and cruel autocratic-serf system. The poem was supposed to lead the reader to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible only without the Obolt-Obolduevs and the Utyatins, when the people become the true masters of their lives. Nekrasov defined the main content of the reform in the words of the peasants:
The great chain has broken,
Torn and splintered:
One way for the master,
To others - man!..
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov showed two worlds - the world of masters, landowners and the world of the peasantry. The writer bases his characterization of the landowners on the point of view of a peasant.
One of them is Obolt-Obolduev. The name of the landowner is already a unique characteristic. According to Dahl's dictionary, stunned meant: “ignorant, uncouth idiot.” They are embodied in Obolte-Obolduev typical features serf owners. The hero is 60 years old. He is bursting with health, he has “valiant skills”, he is distinguished by a passionate love for earthly joys, for its pleasures. He is a good family man, not a tyrant. his negative traits(“the kulak is my police”, “whoever I want, I’ll execute”) Nekrasov portrays the class traits of the feudal landowners. Everything that the landowner boasts about depreciates and takes on a different meaning. The mocking, hostile attitude that arose between the peasants and the landowner is a sign of class discord. When meeting with the men, the landowner grabs his pistol. Obolt-Obolduev refers to his honest noble word, and the men declare: “No, you are not a nobleman for us, noblemanship with a scolding, with a push and a punch, is unsuitable for us!” Obolt-Obolduev treats the liberation of the peasants with ridicule, and the men talk to him in an independent tone. Two worlds of interests, two irreconcilable camps are in a state of ongoing struggle and are “calibrating” their strengths. The nobleman still revels in the “family tree”, is proud of his father, who grew up close to royal family family. And the men understand “ family tree” contrasts the everyday, humorous: “We saw every kind of tree.” The writer builds a dialogue between men and landowners in such a way that it becomes extremely clear to the reader popular attitude to the nobility. As a result of the conversation, the men understood the main thing: what does “white bone, black bone” mean and how much “they are different and respected.” To the words of the master: “A man loved me,” they contrast the stories of the serfs “about their difficult trades, foreign sides, about St. Petersburg, about Astrakhan, about Kiev, about Kazan,” where the “benefactor” sent peasants to earn money and from where “on top of corvée, canvas , eggs and livestock, everything that was collected for the landowner from time immemorial, gifts from voluntary peasants were brought to us!” The landowner's solemn story about the “good” life ends with an unexpectedly terrible picture. In Kuzminskoye they buried the victim of drunken revelry - a man. The wanderers did not condemn, but wished: “Rest for the peasant and the kingdom of heaven.” Obolt-Obolduev took the death knell differently: “They are not ringing for the peasant! They call on the landowner’s life!” He lives in a tragic time for his class. He has no spiritual, social relationship with the breadwinner. The great chain broke, and “... the man sits - he doesn’t move, there’s no noble pride - you feel the bile in your chest. In the forest it’s not a hunting horn, it sounds like a robber’s ax.”
In the chapter “The Last One,” the peasants continue to be connoisseurs of events. Wanderers on the Volga saw unusual picture: the “free” people agreed to play “comedy” with the prince, who believed that serfdom returned. It is the practical joke that helps the poet to discover the inconsistency of old relationships, to punish with laughter the past, which still lives and hopes, despite internal bankruptcy, to be restored. The escheat of the Last One stands out especially clearly against the backdrop of the healthy Vakhlat world. In the characterization of Prince Utyatin, the question of the further decline of the landowner class takes on a special meaning. Nekrasov emphasizes the physical flabbiness and moral impoverishment of the landowner. “The last one is not only a feeble old man, he is a degenerate type.” The writer brings his image to the grotesque. The old man, out of his mind, amuses himself with amusements, lives in the world of ideas of “untouched” feudalism. Family members create artificial serfdom for him, and he swaggers over the slaves. His anecdotal orders (about the marriage of an old widow to a six-year-old boy, about punishing the owner of a “disrespectful” dog that barked at a master), despite all their apparent exclusivity, create a real idea that tyranny is limitless in its absurdity and can only exist under conditions of serfdom.
The image of the Last One becomes a symbol of death, a symbol of extreme forms of expression of serfdom.
The people hate him and others like him. Disdainful, the peasants realized: maybe it would be more profitable to endure, “to remain silent until the old man’s death.” Utyatin's sons, afraid of losing their inheritance, persuade the peasants to act out a stupid and humiliating comedy, pretending that serfdom is still alive. Utyatin's greatest pleasure comes from the cries of the peasants, who are subjected to painful torture for the slightest "offense". Nekrasov mercilessly exposes all the inhumanity and moral ugliness of this “last child” of serfdom. Peasant hatred of the landowner, of the master, is also reflected in the proverbs with which the peasants characterize the landowner. Elder Vlas says:
Praise the grass in the stack,
And the master is in the coffin!
More complex and at the same time somehow simpler than Obolt-Obolduev and Prince Utyatin, the Shalashnikovs - father and son, as well as their manager, the German Vogel, spoke to the men. Matryona Timofeevna talks about them from the words of the hero Holy Russian Savely. Vogel acts before us. If Shalashnikov, according to Savely, beat the rent out of the men, then the German Vogel “until he lets him go around the world, without leaving, he sucks!” Nekrasov deepens the characteristics of the nobility and forms of slavery. The Shalashnikovs are Russian serf owners. The son can give orders: forgive the “minor’s assistant” Fyodor, and “approximately punish” Matryona Timofeevna. But serfdom in the hands of a German is an intolerable thing. The German, “sawed slowly,” sawed every day, without getting tired and not giving the hungry men a break from backbreaking labor. In the third part of the poem, “The Peasant Woman,” Nekrasov contrasted the triumphant despotism of the landowners with the heroism of the people, introduced us to a number of representatives from the peasants, and pointed out the weaknesses that are the reason that victory has not yet come. Close up two new representatives of the people are depicted - Matryona Korchagina and grandfather Savely. In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov decisively advocates a conscious and active struggle against the tyranny of the landowners, for retribution on the oppressors. This reflected the new, democratic humanism of the poet, who denied the possibility of “reconciliation” and demanded revenge for the crimes of the ruling classes.
Looking for people's happiness
Nor eternal care,
Not the yoke of slavery for a long time,
Not the pub itself
More to the Russian people
No limits are set
There is a wide path before him.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, strict,
The richest eyelashes,
Severe and dark.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This an image with which Nekrasov’s idea of a perfect man is also associated. But here the poet’s dream of a perfect life is added to this. At the same time, the ideal of the poet receives modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a commoner by birth, the son of a “unrequited farm laborer,” had to endure a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now that's behind us.
What will live for happiness
...The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
In search of people's happiness
Nekrasov’s lofty ideas about a perfect life and a perfect person forced him to write great poem"Who lives well in Rus'." Nekrasov worked on this work for many years. The poet gave part of his soul to this poem, putting into it his thoughts about Russian life and its problems.
The journey of the seven wanderers in the poem is a search wonderful person living happily. At least, this is an attempt to find one on our long-suffering land. I think it's hard to understand Nekrasov's poem without understanding the Nekrasov ideal, which in some ways comes close to the peasant ideal, although it is much broader and deeper.
A particle of Nekrasov’s ideal is already visible in the seven wanderers. Of course, in many ways they are still dark people, deprived of correct ideas about the life of the “tops” and “bottoms” of society. Therefore, some of them think that an official should be happy, others - a priest, a “fat-bellied merchant,” a landowner, a tsar. And for a long time they will stubbornly adhere to these views, defending them until life brings clarity. But what sweet, kind men they are, what innocence and humor shine on their faces! These are eccentric people, or rather, eccentric people. Later Vlas will tell them this: “We are weird enough, but you are weirder than us!”
Wanderers hope to find on their land paradise- The unflogged province, the ungutted volost, the village of Izbytkovo. A naive desire, of course. But that’s why they are people with an eccentricity, to want, to go and search. In addition, they are truth-seekers, one of the first in Russian literature. It is very important for them to get to the bottom of the meaning of life, to the essence of what happiness is. Nekrasov greatly values this quality among his peasants. The seven men are desperate debaters; they often “scream and never come to their senses.” But it is the dispute that pushes them forward along the road of vast Russia. “They care about everything”—everything they see, they take note of it.
Wanderers treat the nature around them tenderly and lovingly. They are sensitive and attentive to herbs, bushes, trees, flowers, they know how to understand animals and birds and talk to them. Addressing the bird, Pakhom says: “Give us your wings. We’ll fly around the whole kingdom.” Each of the wanderers has his own character, his own view of things, his own face, and at the same time, together they represent something welded, united, inseparable. They even often speak in chorus. This image is beautiful, it is not for nothing that the sacred number seven unites the peasants.
Nekrasov in his poem draws a real sea folk life. There are beggars, soldiers, artisans, and coachmen; here is a man with rims, and a peasant who overturned a cart, and a drunken woman, and a bear hunter; here are Vavilushka, Olenushka, Parashenka, Trofim, Fedosei, Proshka, Vlas, Klim Lavin, Ipat, Terentyeva and many others. Without turning a blind eye to the hardships of people's life, Nekrasov shows the poverty and misery of the peasants, recruitment, exhausting labor, lack of rights and exploitation. The poet does not hide the darkness of the peasants, their drunken revelry.
But we clearly see that even in slavery the people managed to save their living soul, your heart of gold. The author of the poem conveys hard work, responsiveness to the suffering of others, spiritual nobility, kindness, self-esteem, daring and cheerfulness, moral purity, characteristic of a peasant. Nekrasov claims that “good soil is the soul of the Russian people.” It’s hard to forget how the widow Efrosinya selflessly takes care of the sick during cholera/how the peasants help Vavila and the disabled soldier with “work and bread.” In different ways The author reveals “the gold of the people’s heart,” as stated in the song “Rus.”
The craving for beauty is one of the manifestations of the spiritual wealth of the Russian people. The episode has a deep meaning when, during a fire, Yakim Nagoy saves not the money he collected with such difficulty, but the pictures that he loved so much. I remember and peasant singer, who had a very in a beautiful voice, with which he “captivated the hearts of the people.” This is why Nekrasov so often, when speaking about peasants, uses nouns with affectionate suffixes: old woman, soldiers, kids, clearing, little road. He is convinced that neither the onerous "work"
Nor eternal care,
Not the yoke of slavery for a long time,
Not the pub itself
More to the Russian people
No limits are set
There is a wide path before him.
Heartfelt anger, which sometimes manifests itself among peasants in action, in their decisive struggle against oppressors has special meaning for Nekrasov. It shows people filled with a thirst for social justice. Such are Ermil Girin, Vlas, Agap Petrov, peasants who hate the Last One, participating in the riot in Stolbnyaki, Kropilnikov, Kudeyar.
Among these characters, Savely occupies an important place. The poet endows him with the features of a hero. They are already evident in the appearance of old man Korchagin: with his “huge gray mane..., with a huge beard, the grandfather looked like a bear.” As soon as he pulled himself up in the light, he would punch a hole in it. The mighty prowess of this peasant is also reflected in the fact that he went after the bear alone. But the main thing is that he despises slavish obedience and courageously stands for the interests of the people. It is curious that he himself notes the heroic traits in the peasant: “The back... the dense forests passed over it - they broke... The hero endures everything. !" But sometimes he does not tolerate it. From silent patience Savely and his friends, the Korezhin residents, move on to passive, and then to open, active protest. This is evidenced by the story of the mocking German Vogel. The story is cruel, but its ending is caused by that popular anger, which the men had accumulated, the result was twenty years of hard labor and whippings, “twenty years of settlement.” But Savely endures and overcomes these ordeals.
Nekrasov glorifies the mighty forces hidden in the people, and the spiritual beauty that this hundred-year-old grandfather preserved. He can be touched by the sight of a squirrel in the forest, admire “every flower,” and treat his granddaughter Matryona Timofeevna tenderly and touchingly. There is something epic in this Nekrasov hero; it is not for nothing that they call him, like Svyatogor, “the hero of the Holy Russians.” I would put as an epigraph to Savely’s separate topic his words: “Branded, but not a slave!”
His granddaughter Matryona Timofeevna listens to his grandfather’s words and his biography. It seems to me that in her image Nekrasov also embodied some facet of his aesthetic ideal. Spiritual beauty is captured here folk character. Matryona Korchagina embodies the best, heroic traits inherent in a Russian woman, which she carried through suffering, hardship and trials. Nekrasov gave this image such great value, enlarged it so much that he needed to devote a whole third of the poem to it. It seems to me that Matryona Timofeevna has absorbed all the best that was separately outlined in “Troika”, and in “Orina” - the soldier’s mother”, and in Daria from the poem “Frost, Red Nose”. The same impressive beauty, then the same grief, the same unbrokenness. It is difficult to forget the appearance of the heroine:
Matrena Timofeevna - Postural woman,
Wide and dense, about thirty years old.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, strict,
The richest eyelashes,
Severe and dark.
Her confession remains in my memory female soul in front of the wanderers, in which she told about how she was destined for happiness, and about her happiest moments in life (“I had happiness in girls”), and about the difficult lot of women. Narrating about Korchagina’s tireless work (shepherding from the age of six, working in the fields, at the spinning wheel, chores around the house, slave labor in marriage, raising children), Nekrasov reveals another, important side of his aesthetic ideal: like her grandfather Savely, Matryona Timofeevna She carried human dignity, nobility and rebellion through all the horrors of her life.
“I carry an angry heart...” - the heroine sums up her long, hard-won story about a sad life. Her image exudes some kind of majesty and heroic power. No wonder she is from the Korchagin family. But she, like many other people whom the wanderers met in their wanderings and searches, cannot be called happy.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This is an image with which Nekrasov’s idea of a perfect person is also associated. But here the poet’s dream of a perfect life is added to this. At the same time, the ideal of the poet receives modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a commoner by birth, the son of a “unrequited farm laborer,” had to endure a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now that's behind us.
Grisha's life connected him with work, everyday life, the needs of his fellow countrymen, peasants, and his native Vakhlachina. The men help him with food, and he helps out the peasants with his labor. Grisha mows, reaps, sows with the men, wanders in the forest with their children, rejoices in peasant songs, peers at the work of artel workers and barge haulers on the Volga:
...at the age of fifteen, Gregory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
A wretched and dark native corner.
Visiting places “where it’s hard to breathe, where grief is heard,” Nekrasov’s hero becomes an exponent of aspirations ordinary people. Vakhlachina, “having given her blessing, placed such an envoy in Grigory Dobrosklonov.” And for him, the share of the people, his happiness becomes an expression of his own happiness.
Dobrosklonov's features are reminiscent of Dobrolyubov's: origin, family names, seminary education, common illness - consumption, penchant for poetic creativity. One can even consider that the image of Dobrosklonov develops the ideal that Nekrasov painted in the poem “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, “lowering him down to earth” a little and “warming” him a little. Just like Dobrolyubova. Fate had prepared for Grisha
...The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
In the meantime, Grisha wanders in the fields and meadows of the Volga region, absorbing the natural and peasant worlds that open up to him. He seems to merge with the “tall curly birch trees”, just as young, just as bright. It is no coincidence that he writes poetry and songs. This feature makes the image of Grisha especially attractive. “Merry”, “The Share of the People”, “In a moment of despondency, O Motherland”, “Burlak”, “Rus” - in these songs it is not difficult to hear the main themes: the people and the suffering, but rising to freedom of the Fatherland. In addition, he hears the song of the angel of mercy "in the midst of the distant world" and goes - according to her call - to the "humiliated and offended." In this he sees his happiness and feels like a harmonious person living true life. He is one of those sons of Rus' whom she sent “on honest paths,” since they are marked with the “seal of God’s gift.”
Gregory is not afraid of the upcoming trials, because he believes in the triumph of the cause to which he devoted his whole life. He sees that the people of many millions themselves are awakening to fight.
An innumerable host rises,
The strength in her will be indestructible!
This thought fills his soul with joy and confidence in victory. The poem shows what a strong effect Gregory’s words have on the peasants and the seven wanderers, how they infect them with faith in the future, in happiness for all of Rus'. Grigory Dobrosklonov is the future leader of the peasantry, an exponent of their anger and reason.
Our wanderers would howl under their native roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha.
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.
Nekrasov offers his solution to the question of how to unite the peasantry and the Russian intelligentsia. Only the joint efforts of revolutionaries and people can bring Russian peasantry on the broad road of freedom and happiness. In the meantime, the Russian people are still only on the way to a “feast for the whole world.”
The crowning achievement of N. A. Nekrasov’s work is the folk epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” In this monumental work the poet sought to show as fully as possible the main features of contemporary Russian reality and to reveal the deep contradictions between the interests of the people and the exploitative essence of the ruling classes, and above all landed nobility, which in the 20-70s of the 19th century had already completely outlived its usefulness as an advanced class and began to hinder further development countries.
In the dispute among men about “who lives happily and freely in Rus',” the landowner was declared the first contender for the right to call himself happy. However, Nekrasov significantly expanded the plot framework outlined by the plot of the work, as a result of which the image of the landowner appears in the poem only in the fifth chapter, which is called “The Landowner”.
For the first time, the landowner appears before the reader as the peasants saw him: “Some kind of gentleman, round, mustachioed, pot-bellied, with a cigar in his mouth.” With the help of diminutive forms, Nekrasov conveys the condescending, contemptuous attitude of men towards the former owner of living souls. Following this is the author's description of the appearance of the landowner Obolt-Obolduev (Nekrasov uses the technique of surname meanings) and his own story about his “noble” origin further enhances the ironic tone of the narrative.
The basis of Obolduev’s satirical image is a striking contrast between the significance of life, nobility, learning and patriotism, which he ascribes to himself with “dignity,” and the actual insignificance of existence, extreme ignorance, emptiness of thoughts, baseness of feelings. Sad about the pre-reform time dear to his heart, with “all luxury”, endless holidays, hunting and drunken revelry, Obolt-Obolduev takes on the absurd pose of a son of the fatherland, a father of the peasantry, caring about the future of Russia. But let us remember his confession: “I littered the people’s treasury.” He makes ridiculous “patriotic” speeches: “Mother Rus' willingly lost its knightly, warlike, majestic view" Obolt-Obolduev's enthusiastic story about landowner life under serfdom is perceived by the reader as an unconscious self-exposure of the insignificance and meaninglessness of the existence of former serf owners.
For all his comedy, Obolt-Obolduev is not so harmlessly funny. In the past, a convinced serf owner, even after the reform he hopes, as before, to “live by the labor of others,” which is what he sees as the purpose of his life.
But still, the times of such landowners are gone. Both the serf owners and the peasants themselves feel this. Although Obolt-Obolduev speaks to the peasants in a condescending and patronizing tone, he still has to endure the unequivocal mockery of the peasants. Nekrasov also feels this: Obolt-Obolduev is simply unworthy of the author’s hatred and deserves only contempt and unkind ridicule.
But if Nekrasov speaks of Obolt-Obolduev with irony, then the image of another landowner in the poem - Prince Utyatin - is depicted in the chapter “The Last One” with obvious sarcasm. The very title of the chapter is symbolic, in which the author, sharply sarcastically using to some extent the technique of hyperbolization, tells the story of a tyrant - the “last man” who does not want to part with the serfdom of landowner Rus'.
If Obolt-Obolduev still feels that there is no return to the old ways, then the old man Utyatin, who has lost his mind, even in whose appearance there is little human left, over the years of lordship and despotic power has become so imbued with the conviction that he is “by the grace of God” a master who “has the family is written to watch over the stupid peasantry,” that peasant reform seems to this despot to be something unnatural. That is why it did not take much effort for his relatives to assure him that “the landowners were ordered to turn back the peasants.”
Talking about the wild antics of the “last man” - the last serf owner Utyatin (which seem especially wild in the changed conditions), Nekrasov warns of the need for a decisive and final eradication of all remnants of serfdom. After all, it is they, preserved in the consciousness not only former slaves, ultimately killed the “inflexible” man Agap Petrov: “If it weren’t for such an opportunity, Agap would not have died.” Indeed, unlike Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin, even after serfdom, remained virtually the master of life (“It is known that it was not self-interest, but arrogance that cut him off, he lost the Mote”). Wanderers are also afraid of Utyatina: “Yes, the master is stupid: sue later...” And although the Posledysh himself - the “foolish landowner,” as the peasants call him - is more funny than scary, by the end of the chapter Nekrasov reminds the reader that the peasant reform did not bring true liberation to the people and real power still remains in the hands of the nobility. The prince's heirs shamelessly deceive the peasants, who ultimately lose their water meadows.
The entire work is imbued with a feeling of the inevitable death of the autocratic system. The support of this system - the landowners - are depicted in the poem as the “last-born”, living out their days. The ferocious Shalashnikov has long been gone, Prince Utyatin died as a “landowner,” and the insignificant Obolt-Obolduev has no future. The picture of an empty manor’s estate, which is being taken away brick by brick by servants (chapter “Peasant Woman”), has a symbolic character.
Thus, in the poem we contrast two worlds, two spheres of life: the world of the landowners and the world of the peasantry. Nekrasov with the help satirical images landowners leads readers to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible without Obolt-Obolduev and the Utyatins and only when the people themselves become the true masters of their lives.
Images of landowners in Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'"
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov, as if on behalf of millions of peasants, acted as an angry denouncer of the socio-political system of Russia and pronounced a severe sentence on it. The poet painfully experienced the submissiveness of the people, their downtroddenness, darkness.
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
The blow is sparkling,
The blow is tooth-breaking,
Impact cheekbone!.
The abolition of serfdom “hit the master with one end and the peasant with the other.” The master cannot and does not want to adapt to the living conditions of growing capitalism; the desolation of the estates and the ruin of the masters becomes inevitable. Without any regret, the poet speaks about how “brick by brick” the manor’s houses are being dismantled. Nekrasov’s satirical attitude towards bars is also reflected in the names he gives them: Obolt-Obolduev, Utyatin “Last One”. Particularly expressive in the poem is the image of Prince Utyatin - “The Last One”. This is a gentleman who “has been weird and foolish all his life.”
He remained a cruel despot-serf owner even after 1861. Completely unaware of his peasants, “The Last One” gives absurd orders for the estate, orders “the widow Terentyeva to marry Gavrila Zhokhov, to rebuild the hut so that they can live in it, be fruitful and manage the tax!” The men greet this order with laughter, since “that widow - nearly seventy, and the groom is six years old! “The Last One appoints the deaf-mute fool as a watchman, and orders the shepherds to quiet the herd so that the cows do not wake up the master with their mooing. Not only are the orders of the “Last One” absurd, he himself is even more absurd and strange, stubbornly refusing to come to terms with the abolition of serfdom. His appearance is also caricatured: A nose with a beak like a hawk, A gray mustache, long And different eyes: One healthy one glows, And the left one is cloudy, cloudy, Like a tin penny!
The landowner Shalashnikov, who “used military force” to conquer his own peasants, is also shown to be a cruel tyrant-oppressor. The German manager Vogel is even more cruel. Under him, “hard labor came to the Korozh peasant - he ruined him to the bone!” says Savely. The men and the master are irreconcilable, eternal enemies. “Praise the grass in the haystack, and the master in the coffin,” says the poet. As long as gentlemen exist, there is no and cannot be happiness for the peasant - this is the conclusion to which Nekrasov leads the reader of the poem with iron consistency.
They have no darling in their chests,
They have no conscience in their eyes.
N. Nekrasov. Who can live well in Rus'?
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the final work of N. A. Nekrasov. In it, the poet fully and comprehensively shows the life of the Russian people in grief and in “happiness”.
You work alone, And as soon as the work is over, look, there are three shareholders: God, the king and the master!
The landowner Obolt-Obolduev, whom the seekers of fortune meet on the road, is “a round, mustachioed, pot-bellied... ruddy gentleman,” but cowardly and hypocritical. From his story one can understand that the landowner’s happiness was a thing of the past, when his chest breathed “freely and easily,” when “everything made the master happy,” since everything belonged to him alone: trees, forests, and fields were its actors, “music”. No one stopped Obolt-Obolduev from showing his domineering, despotic character in his own possessions:
There is no contradiction in anyone, I will have mercy on whomever I want, I will execute whomever I want. The law is my desire! The fist is my police!
Every spring the peasants asked the cruel landowner to leave “to the other side,” and when they returned in the fall, they had to bring him “voluntary gifts” “on top of the corvée,” pleasing not only Obolt-Obolduev, but also his wife and children.
The words of the landowner about the times that came after the abolition of serfdom are sad: “Now Rus' is not the same!” The parasite and hypocrite is worried that the landowner has lost power over the peasants, from whom they can no longer expect their former respect for the master. He also complains that the poor have begun to work less and worse:
The fields are unfinished, the crops are not sown, there is no trace of order!
However, the arrogant, lazy and complacent landowner does not intend to work himself:
Noble classes We don’t learn to work.
The landowner cries from grief and hopelessness, because he does not know how to live differently. He feels that the times of parasitism and unscrupulous exploitation of peasants are passing.
A vivid picture of the tyranny of the landowners over the peasants after their “liberation” is depicted in the example of the landowner of Bolshiye Vakhlakov Utyatin, who was immensely rich, which gave him the right to arbitrariness, self-government: “he was weird and foolish all century.” He was so confident in the inviolability of his position and power that even after the reform he defended “his noble rights, sanctified for centuries.” The peasants hated the landowner with all their hearts, but after they were “released” they were given inconvenient lands in which “there were no pastures, no meadows, no forests, no watering places left.” Therefore, believing the promise of Utyatin’s heirs to cut off the meadow they needed so much after the death of their father, they agreed to pretend to be serfs. During this period, they suffered a lot of insults and suffering from the sick, dying landowner, but after his death, not only were they not given the meadows, but they didn’t say thank you! Material from the site
The legend “About Two Great Sinners” ends in a completely different way, where the rich, noble, infinitely cruel and merciless Pan Glukhovskaya acts. While mocking the peasants, he does not feel any remorse:
How many slaves I destroy, Torture, torture and hang, And if only I could see how I sleep!
Pan Glukhovsky is killed by the ataman of the robbers Kudeyar, who has committed many evil and dirty deeds in his life, but for this murder Kudeyar receives forgiveness of all his past sins. The revolutionary meaning of the legend is that landowners need to be destroyed, and not patiently fulfill their whims.
Throughout the entire poem, Nekrasov conveys the idea that after the reform, no matter how enslaving it was for the peasants, long-awaited changes nevertheless came in the life of the Russian people. And this became clear not only to the peasants, but also to the landowners:
Oh, life is wide! Sorry, goodbye forever! Farewell to landowner Rus'! Now Rus' is not the same!
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- images of “who lives well in Rus'”
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- essay on who lives well in Rus' image of landowners