(351 words) 140 years ago the epic poem by N.A. was written. Nekrasov “Who can live well in Rus'?”, describing the difficult life of the people. And if the poet were our contemporary, how would he answer the question posed in the title? In the original poem, the men were going to look for a happy one among the landowners, officials, priests, merchants, noble boyars, sovereign ministers and, in the end, intended to reach the tsar. During the search, the heroes' plan changed: they learned the stories of many peasants, townspeople, even robbers. And the lucky one among them was seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov. He saw his happiness not in peace and contentment, but in intercession for his beloved Motherland, for the people. It is unknown how his life will turn out, but it was not lived in vain.
After almost a century and a half, who is happy? If you follow the original plan of the heroes, it turns out that almost all of these paths also remain thorny. Being a farmer is extremely unprofitable, because growing agricultural products is more expensive than selling them. Businessmen constantly maneuver in a changing market situation, risking burnout every day. Official work remains dull; it is free only in areas close to the government. Presidential service is complex and responsible, because the lives of millions depend on it. The priests received fairly comfortable conditions, unlike the 19th century, but respect became even less.
What about the people? City dwellers mostly live from paycheck to paycheck, being under constant time pressure. They finish their workday, go home, sit down to watch TV, and then go to bed. And so every day, all my life. Existence is not so poor (at least compared to the 19th century), but it is becoming increasingly standardized. Villagers live more bleakly, because the villages are dying: there are no roads, hospitals, schools. Only old people live there, others have nothing to do - either run or drink.
If material wealth is taken as a criterion for happiness, then in our time deputies live well. Their job is to receive a salary of 40 subsistence minimums and periodically come to meetings. But if the criterion of happiness is intangible, then the happiest person today is the one free from routine and fuss. You can't completely get rid of it, but you can build your own inner world in such a way that the “tint of little things” will not drag on: achieving some goals, loving, communicating, being interested. You don't need to be anyone specific to do this. In order to live well, you need to be able to sometimes look around and think about something intangible.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!In what year - calculate
Guess what land?
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 further is quick.
They go - they reproach!
They scream - 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'd probably kiss you all 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?
Are you thinking about going?..”
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
To 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 it - you can't hug it!
To the forest, to the path-path
Pakhom looked, remained silent,
I looked - my mind scattered
And finally he said:
"Well! the goblin has a 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 arrived soon.
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 it!
Roman is pushing Pakhomushka,
Demyan pushes Luka.
And the two Gubina brothers
They iron the hefty Provo, -
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 nearby 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,
They're laughing, night owls!
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 I began, my dear,
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,
Without a tongue - screams!
Owl - Zamoskvoretskaya
The princess is immediately mooing,
Flies over the peasants
Crashing on the ground,
It’s about the bushes with the wing...
The fox herself is cunning,
Out of womanish curiosity,
Snuck up on the men
I listened, I listened
And she walked away, thinking:
"And the devil won't understand them!"
Indeed: the debaters themselves
They hardly knew, they remembered -
What are they making noise about...
Having bruised my sides quite a bit
To each other, we came to our senses
Finally, the peasants
They drank from a puddle,
Washed, freshened up,
Sleep began to tilt them...
Meanwhile, the tiny chick,
Little by little, half a seedling,
Flying low,
I got close to the fire.
Pakhomushka caught him,
He brought it to the fire and looked at it
And he said: “Little bird,
And the marigold is awesome!
I breathe and you'll roll off your palm,
If I sneeze, you'll roll into the fire,
If I click, you'll roll around dead
But you, little bird,
Stronger than a man!
The wings will soon get stronger,
Bye bye! wherever you want
That's where you'll fly!
Oh, you little birdie!
Give us your wings
We'll fly around the whole kingdom,
Let's see, let's explore,
Let's ask around and find out:
Who lives happily?
Is it at ease in Rus'?
"There wouldn't be any need for wings,
If only we had some bread
Half a pound a day, -
And so we would Mother Rus'
They measured it with their feet!" -
Said the gloomy Prov.
“Yes, a bucket of vodka,” -
They added eagerly
Before vodka, the Gubin brothers,
Ivan and Metrodor.
Under these pine trees
The box is buried.
Get her, -
That magic box:
It contains a self-assembled tablecloth,
Whenever you wish,
He will feed you and give you something to drink!
Just say quietly:
"Hey! The tablecloth is self-assembled!
Serve the men!"
According to your wishes,
At my command,
Everything will appear immediately.
Now let the chick go!”
- Wait! we are poor people
We are going on a long journey, -
Pakhom answered her. -
I see you are a wise bird,
Respect old clothes
Bewitch us!
- So that the peasant Armenians
Worn, not torn down! -
Roman demanded.
- So that fake bast shoes
They served, they didn’t crash, -
Demyan demanded.
- Damn the louse, the vile flea!
She didn’t breed in shirts, -
Luka demanded.
- If only he could spoil... -
The Gubins demanded...
And the bird answered them:
"The tablecloth is all self-assembled
Repair, wash, dry
You will... Well, let me go!..”
ON THE. Nekrasov was always not just a poet - he was a citizen who was deeply concerned about social injustice, and especially about the problems of the Russian peasantry. The cruel treatment of landowners, the exploitation of female and child labor, a joyless life - all this was reflected in his work. And in 18621, the seemingly long-awaited liberation came - the abolition of serfdom. But was this actually liberation? It is to this topic that Nekrasov devotes “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - his most poignant, most famous - and his last work. The poet wrote it from 1863 until his death, but the poem still came out unfinished, so it was prepared for printing from fragments of the poet’s manuscripts. However, this incompleteness turned out to be symbolic in its own way - after all, for the Russian peasantry, the abolition of serfdom did not become the end of the old life and the beginning of a new one.
“Who Lives Well in Rus'” is worth reading in its entirety, because at first glance it may seem that the plot is too simple for such a complex topic. A dispute between seven men about who should live well in Rus' cannot be the basis for revealing the depth and complexity social conflict. But thanks to Nekrasov’s talent in revealing characters, the work gradually reveals itself. The poem is quite difficult to understand, so it is best to download its entire text and read it several times. It is important to pay attention to how different the peasant’s and the gentleman’s understanding of happiness is shown: the first believes that it is his material well-being, and the second - that this is as little trouble as possible in his life. At the same time, in order to emphasize the idea of the spirituality of the people, Nekrasov introduces two more characters who come from his midst - these are Ermil Girin and Grisha Dobrosklonov, who sincerely want happiness for the entire peasant class, and so that no one is offended.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is not idealistic, because the poet sees problems not only in the noble class, which is mired in greed, arrogance and cruelty, but also among the peasants. This is primarily drunkenness and obscurantism, as well as degradation, illiteracy and poverty. The problem of finding happiness for yourself personally and for the entire people as a whole, the fight against vices and the desire to make the world a better place are still relevant today. So even in unfinished form Nekrasov's poem is not only a literary, but also a morally ethical example.
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✪ Who lives well in Rus'. Nikolay Nekrasov
✪ N.A. Nekrasov "Who Lives Well in Rus'." Summary poems.
✪ N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (content analysis) | Lecture No. 62
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. 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, having just sat down to rest, immediately jump 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: “kinder and smoother - there is no 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 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
- "Governor" Elena Alexandrovna,
- Altynnikov,
- Grisha Dobrosklonov.
© Lebedev Yu. V., introductory article, comments, 1999
© Godin I.M., heirs, illustrations, 1960
© Design of the series. Publishing house "Children's Literature", 2003
* * *
Yu. Lebedev
Russian Odyssey
In the “Diary of a Writer” for 1877, F. M. Dostoevsky noticed characteristic feature, which appeared among the Russian people of the post-reform era - “this is a multitude, an extraordinary modern multitude of new people, a new root of Russian people, who need truth, one truth without conditional lies, and who, in order to achieve this truth, will give everything decisively.” Dostoevsky saw in them “the advancing future Russia.”
At the very beginning of the 20th century, another writer, V. G. Korolenko, made a discovery that struck him from a summer trip to the Urals: “At the very time when in the centers and at the heights of our culture they were talking about Nansen, about Andre’s bold attempt to penetrate hot-air balloon to the North Pole - in the distant Ural villages there was talk of the Belovodsk kingdom and preparations were being made for their own religious and scientific expedition.” Among ordinary Cossacks, the conviction spread and strengthened that “somewhere out there, “beyond the distance of bad weather,” “beyond the valleys, beyond the mountains, beyond the wide seas,” there exists a “blessed country,” in which, by the providence of God and the accidents of history, it has been preserved and flourishes throughout integrity is the complete and complete formula of grace. This is a real fairy-tale country of all centuries and peoples, colored only by the Old Believer mood. In it, planted by the Apostle Thomas, true faith blooms, with churches, bishops, patriarchs and pious kings... This kingdom knows neither theft, nor murder, nor self-interest, since true faith gives birth there to true piety.”
It turns out that back in the late 1860s, the Don Cossacks corresponded with the Ural Cossacks, collected quite a significant amount and equipped the Cossack Varsonofy Baryshnikov and two comrades to search for this promised land. Baryshnikov set off through Constantinople to Asia Minor, then to the Malabar coast, and finally to the East Indies... The expedition returned with disappointing news: it failed to find Belovodye. Thirty years later, in 1898, the dream of the Belovodsk kingdom flares up with renewed vigor, funds are found, and a new pilgrimage is organized. On May 30, 1898, a “deputation” of Cossacks boarded a ship departing from Odessa for Constantinople.
“From this day, in fact, the foreign journey of the deputies of the Urals to the Belovodsk kingdom began, and among the international crowd of merchants, military men, scientists, tourists, diplomats traveling around the world out of curiosity or in search of money, fame and pleasure, three natives, as it were, got mixed up from another world, looking for ways to the fabulous Belovodsk kingdom.” Korolenko described in detail all the vicissitudes of this unusual journey, in which, despite all the curiosity and strangeness of the planned enterprise, the same Russia noted by Dostoevsky appeared honest people, “who need only the truth,” whose “desire for honesty and truth is unshakable and indestructible, and for the word of truth, each of them will give his life and all his advantages.”
By the end of the 19th century, not only the top of Russian society was drawn into the great spiritual pilgrimage, all of Russia, all of its people, rushed to it.
“These Russian homeless wanderers,” Dostoevsky noted in a speech about Pushkin, “continue their wanderings to this day and, it seems, will not disappear for a long time.” For a long time, “for the Russian wanderer needs precisely universal happiness in order to calm down - he will not be reconciled cheaper.”
“There was approximately the following case: I knew one person who believed in a righteous land,” said another wanderer in our literature, Luke, from M. Gorky’s play “At the Depths.” - He said there should be a righteous country in the world... in that land, they say - special people inhabit... good people! They respect each other, they simply help each other... and everything is nice and good with them! And so the man kept getting ready to go... to look for this righteous land. He was poor, he lived poorly... and when things were so difficult for him that he could even lie down and die, he did not lose his spirit, and everything happened, he just grinned and said: “Nothing!” I'll be patient! A few more - I’ll wait... and then I’ll give up this whole life and - I’ll go to the righteous land...” He had only one joy - this land... And to this place - it was in Siberia - they sent an exiled scientist... with books, with plans he, a scientist, with all sorts of things... The man says to the scientist: “Show me, do me a favor, where the righteous land lies and how to get there?” Now it was the scientist who opened his books, laid out his plans... he looked and looked - no nowhere is there a righteous land! “Everything is true, all the lands are shown, but the righteous one is not!”
The man doesn’t believe... There must be, he says... look better! Otherwise, he says, your books and plans are of no use if there is no righteous land... The scientist is offended. My plans, he says, are the most faithful, but there is no righteous land at all. Well, then the man got angry - how could that be? Lived, lived, endured, endured and believed everything - there is! but according to plans it turns out - no! Robbery!.. And he says to the scientist: “Oh, you... such a bastard!” You are a scoundrel, not a scientist...” Yes, in his ear - once! Moreover!.. ( After a pause.) And after that he went home and hanged himself!”
The 1860s marked a sharp historical turning point in the destinies of Russia, which henceforth broke with the legal, “homebody” existence and the whole world, all the people went to long haul spiritual quest, marked by ups and downs, fatal temptations and deviations, but the righteous path lies precisely in passion, in the sincerity of one’s inescapable desire to find the truth. And perhaps for the first time, Nekrasov’s poetry responded to this deep process, which covered not only the “tops”, but also the very “bottoms” of society.
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The poet began work on a grandiose plan " folk book” in 1863, and ended up mortally ill in 1877, with a bitter consciousness of the incompleteness and incompleteness of his plans: “The one thing I deeply regret is that I did not finish my poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” It “should have included all the experience given to Nikolai Alekseevich by studying the people, all the information about them accumulated “by word of mouth” over twenty years,” recalled G. I. Uspensky about conversations with Nekrasov.
However, the question of the “incompleteness” of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is very controversial and problematic. Firstly, the poet’s own confessions are subjectively exaggerated. It is known that a writer always has a feeling of dissatisfaction, and the larger the idea, the more acute it is. Dostoevsky wrote about The Brothers Karamazov: “I myself think that not even one tenth of it was possible to express what I wanted.” But on this basis, do we dare to consider Dostoevsky’s novel a fragment of an unrealized plan? It’s the same with “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”
Secondly, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was conceived as an epic, that is piece of art, depicting with the maximum degree of completeness and objectivity an entire era in the life of the people. Since folk life is limitless and inexhaustible in its countless manifestations, the epic in any of its varieties (poem-epic, novel-epic) is characterized by incompleteness and incompleteness. This is its specific difference from other forms of poetic art.
"This tricky song
He will sing to the end of the word,
Who is the whole earth, baptized Rus',
It will go from end to end."
Her Christ-pleaser himself
He hasn’t finished singing - he’s sleeping in eternal sleep -
This is how Nekrasov expressed his understanding of the epic plan in the poem “Peddlers.” The epic can be continued indefinitely, but you can also put an end to it at some high point in its path.
Until now, researchers of Nekrasov’s work are arguing about the sequence of arrangement of parts of “Who Lives Well in Rus',” since the dying poet did not have time to make final orders in this regard.
It is noteworthy that this dispute itself involuntarily confirms the epic nature of “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The composition of this work is built according to the laws of classical epic: it consists of separate, relatively autonomous parts and chapters. Outwardly, these parts are connected by the theme of the road: seven truth-seekers wander around Rus', trying to resolve the question that haunts them: who can live well in Rus'? In the “Prologue” there seems to be a clear outline of the journey - a meeting with a landowner, an official, a merchant, a minister and a tsar. However, the epic lacks a clear and unambiguous sense of purpose. Nekrasov does not force the action and is in no hurry to bring it to an all-resolving conclusion. As an epic artist, he strives to completely recreate life, to reveal all the diversity folk characters, all the indirectness, all the winding of folk paths, paths and roads.
The world in the epic narrative appears as it is - disordered and unexpected, devoid of rectilinear motion. The author of the epic allows for “digressions, trips into the past, leaps somewhere sideways, to the side.” According to the definition of the modern literary theorist G.D. Gachev, “the epic is like a child walking through the cabinet of curiosities of the universe. One character, or a building, or a thought caught his attention - and the author, forgetting about everything, plunges into it; then he was distracted by another - and he gave himself up to him just as completely. But this is not just a compositional principle, not just the specificity of the plot in the epic... Anyone who, while narrating, makes “digressions”, lingers on this or that subject for an unexpectedly long time; the one who succumbs to the temptation to describe both this and that and is choked with greed, sinning against the pace of the narrative, thereby speaks of the wastefulness, the abundance of being, that he (being) has nowhere to rush. In other words: it expresses the idea that being reigns over the principle of time (while the dramatic form, on the contrary, emphasizes the power of time - it is not for nothing that a seemingly only “formal” demand for the unity of time was born there).
The fairy-tale motifs introduced into the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'” allow Nekrasov to freely and easily deal with time and space, easily transfer the action from one end of Russia to the other, slow down or speed up time according to fairy-tale laws. What unites the epic is not the external plot, not the movement towards an unambiguous result, but the internal plot: slowly, step by step, the contradictory but irreversible growth of national self-awareness, which has not yet come to a conclusion, is still on the difficult roads of quest, becomes clear. In this sense, the plot-compositional looseness of the poem is not accidental: it expresses through its uncollectedness the diversity and diversity folk life thinking about herself differently, assessing her place in the world and her purpose differently.
In an effort to recreate the moving panorama of folk life in its entirety, Nekrasov also uses all the wealth of oral folk art. But the folklore element in the epic also expresses the gradual growth of national self-awareness: the fairy-tale motifs of the “Prologue” are replaced by epic epic, then lyrical folk songs in “The Peasant Woman” and, finally, with the songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov in “A Feast for the Whole World,” striving to become popular and already partially accepted and understood by the people. The men listen to his songs, sometimes nod in agreement, but last song, “Rus,” they had not yet heard: he had not yet sung it to them. And therefore the ending of the poem is open to the future, not resolved.
If only our wanderers could be under one roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha.
But the wanderers did not hear the song “Rus”, which means they did not yet understand what the “embodiment of people’s happiness” was. It turns out that Nekrasov did not finish his song not only because death got in the way. People’s life itself did not finish singing his songs in those years. More than a hundred years have passed since then, and the song begun by the great poet about the Russian peasantry is still being sung. In “The Feast,” only a glimpse of the future happiness is outlined, which the poet dreams of, realizing how many roads lie ahead before its real embodiment. The incompleteness of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is fundamental and artistically significant as a sign of a folk epic.
“Who Lives Well in Rus'” both as a whole and in each of its parts resembles a peasant lay gathering, which is the most complete expression of democratic people's self-government. At such a gathering, residents of one village or several villages that were part of the “world” resolved all issues of common worldly life. The gathering had nothing in common with a modern meeting. The chairman leading the discussion was absent. Each community member, at will, entered into a conversation or skirmish, defending his point of view. Instead of voting, the principle of general consent was in effect. The dissatisfied were convinced or retreated, and during the discussion a “worldly verdict” matured. If there was no general agreement, the meeting was postponed to the next day. Gradually, during heated debates, a unanimous opinion matured, agreement was sought and found.
A contributor to Nekrasov’s “Domestic Notes”, the populist writer N. N. Zlatovratsky described the original peasant life this way: “This is the second day that we have had gathering after gathering. You look out the window, now at one end, now at the other end of the village, there are crowds of owners, old people, children: some are sitting, others are standing in front of them, with their hands behind their backs and listening carefully to someone. This someone waves his arms, bends his whole body, shouts something very convincingly, falls silent for a few minutes and then starts convincing again. But suddenly they object to him, they object somehow at once, their voices rise higher and higher, they shout at the top of their lungs, as befits such a vast hall as the surrounding meadows and fields, everyone speaks, without being embarrassed by anyone or anything, as befits a free a gathering of equal persons. Not the slightest sign of formality. Foreman Maxim Maksimych himself stands somewhere on the side, like the most invisible member of our community... Here everything goes straight, everything becomes an edge; if anyone, out of cowardice or calculation, decides to get away with silence, he will be mercilessly brought to light clean water. And there are very few of these faint-hearted people at especially important gatherings. I saw the most meek, most unrequited men who<…>at gatherings, in moments of general excitement, they were completely transformed and<…>they gained such courage that they managed to outdo the obviously brave men. At the moments of its apogee, the gathering becomes simply an open mutual confession and mutual exposure, a manifestation of the broadest publicity.”
Nekrasov’s entire epic poem is a flaring up worldly gathering that is gradually gaining strength. It reaches its peak in the final "Feast for the Whole World." However, a general “worldly verdict” is still not passed. Only the path to it is outlined, many initial obstacles have been removed, and on many points a movement towards general agreement has been identified. But there is no conclusion, life has not stopped, gatherings have not stopped, the epic is open to the future. For Nekrasov, the process itself is important here; it is important that the peasantry not only thought about the meaning of life, but also set out on a difficult, long path of truth-seeking. Let's try to take a closer look at it, moving from “Prologue. Part one" to "The Peasant Woman", "The Last One" and "A Feast for the Whole World".
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In the "Prologue" the meeting of seven men is narrated as a great epic event.
In what year - calculate
Guess what land?
On the sidewalk
Seven men came together...
So the epics and fairy-tale heroes for a battle or a feast of honor. Time and space acquire an epic scope in the poem: the action is carried out throughout Rus'. The tightened province, Terpigorev district, Pustoporozhnaya volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaina can be attributed to any of the Russian provinces, districts, volosts and villages. The general sign of post-reform ruin is captured. And the question itself, which excited the men, concerns all of Russia - peasant, noble, merchant. Therefore, the quarrel that arose between them is not an ordinary event, but great debate. In the soul of every grain grower, with his own private destiny, with his own everyday interests, a question arose that concerns everyone, the entire people's world.
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!
Each man had his own path, and suddenly they found a common path: the question of happiness united the people. And therefore, before us are no longer ordinary men with their own individual destiny and personal interests, but guardians for the entire peasant world, truth-seekers. The number “seven” is magical in folklore. Seven Wanderers– an image of great epic proportions. The fairy-tale flavor of the “Prologue” raises the narrative above everyday life, above peasant life and gives the action an epic universality.
The fairy-tale atmosphere in the Prologue has many meanings. Giving events a national sound, it also turns into a convenient method for the poet to characterize national self-consciousness. Let us note that Nekrasov plays with the fairy tale. In general, his treatment of folklore is more free and relaxed compared to the poems “Peddlers” and “Frost, Red Nose”. Yes, and he treats the people differently, often makes fun of the peasants, provokes readers, paradoxically sharpens the people’s view of things, and laughs at the limitations of the peasant worldview. The intonation structure of the narrative in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is very flexible and rich: there is the author’s good-natured smile, and condescension, and slight irony, and a bitter joke, and lyrical regret, and grief, and reflection, and an appeal. The intonation and stylistic polyphony of the narrative in its own way reflects the new phase of folk life. Before us is the post-reform peasantry, which has broken with the immovable patriarchal existence, with the age-old everyday and spiritual settled life. This is already a wandering Rus' with awakened self-awareness, noisy, discordant, prickly and unyielding, prone to quarrels and disputes. And the author does not stand aside from her, but turns into an equal participant in her life. He either rises above the disputants, then becomes imbued with sympathy for one of the disputing parties, then becomes touched, then becomes indignant. Just as Rus' lives in disputes, in search of truth, so the author is in an intense dialogue with her.
In the literature about “Who Lives Well in Rus'” one can find the statement that the dispute between the seven wanderers that opens the poem corresponds to the original compositional plan, from which the poet subsequently retreated. Already in the first part there was a deviation from the planned plot, and instead of meeting with the rich and noble, truth-seekers began to interview the crowd.
But this deviation immediately occurs at the “upper” level. For some reason, instead of the landowner and the official whom the men had designated for questioning, a meeting takes place with a priest. Is this a coincidence?
Let us note first of all that the “formula” of the dispute proclaimed by the men signifies not so much the original intention as the level of national self-awareness that manifests itself in this dispute. And Nekrasov cannot help but show the reader its limitations: men understand happiness in a primitive way and reduce it to a well-fed life and material security. What is it worth, for example, such a candidate for the role of a lucky man, as the “merchant” is proclaimed, and even a “fat-bellied one”! And behind the argument between the men - who lives happily and freely in Rus'? - immediately, but still gradually, muffled, another, much more significant and important question, which makes up the soul of the epic poem, - how to understand human happiness, where to look for it and what does it consist of?
In the final chapter, “A Feast for the Whole World,” the following assessment is given through the mouth of Grisha Dobrosklonov current state national life: “The Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be citizens.”
In fact, this formula contains the main pathos of the poem. It is important for Nekrasov to show how the forces that unite them are maturing among the people and what civic orientation they are acquiring. The intent of the poem is by no means to force the wanderers to carry out successive meetings according to the program they have planned. Much more important here is a completely different question: what is happiness in the eternal, Orthodox Christian understanding and are the Russian people capable of combining peasant “politics” with Christian morality?
That's why folklore motives in the Prologue they play a dual role. On the one hand, the poet uses them to give the beginning of the work a high epic sound, and on the other hand, to emphasize the limited consciousness of the disputants, who deviate in their idea of happiness from the righteous to the evil paths. Let us remember that Nekrasov spoke about this more than once for a long time, for example, in one of the versions of “Song to Eremushka,” created back in 1859.
Pleasures change
Living does not mean drinking and eating.
There are better aspirations in the world,
There is a nobler good.
Despise the evil ways:
There is debauchery and vanity.
Honor the covenants that are forever right
And learn them from Christ.
These same two paths, sung over Russia by the angel of mercy in “A Feast for the Whole World,” are now opening up before the Russian people, who are celebrating a funeral service and are faced with a choice.
In the middle of the world
For a free heart
There are two ways.
Weigh the proud strength,
Weigh your strong will:
Which way to go?
This song sounds over Russia, coming to life from the lips of the messenger of the Creator himself, and the fate of the people will directly depend on which path the wanderers take after long wanderings and meanderings along Russian country roads.