Excerpt from the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Railway"
Good dad! Why the charm?
Should I keep Vanya the smart one?
Will you allow me at moonlight
Show him the truth.
This work, Vanya, was terribly enormous
Not enough for one!
There is a king in the world: this king is merciless,
Hunger is its name.
He leads armies; at sea by ships
Rules; rounds up people in the artel,
Walks behind the plow, stands behind
Stonemasons, weavers.
The path is straight: the embankments are narrow,
Columns, rails, bridges.
And on the sides there are all Russian bones...
How many of them! Vanechka, do you know?
Chu! menacing exclamations were heard!
Stomping and gnashing of teeth;
A shadow ran across the frosty glass...
What's there? Crowd of the dead!
Then they overtake the cast-iron road,
They run in different directions.
Do you hear singing?.. "On this moonlit night
We love to see your work!
We struggled under the heat, under the cold,
With an ever-bent back,
They lived in dugouts, fought hunger,
They were cold and wet and suffered from scurvy.
The literate foremen robbed us,
The authorities flogged me, the need was pressing...
We, God's warriors, have endured everything,
Peaceful children of labor!
Brothers! You are reaping our benefits!
We are destined to rot in the earth...
Do you all remember us poor people kindly?
Or have you forgotten a long time ago?..”
Do not be horrified by their wild singing!
From Volkhov, from Mother Volga, from Oka,
From different ends of the great state -
These are all your brothers - men!
It's a shame to be timid, to cover yourself with a glove,
You're not little!.. With Russian hair,
You see, he’s standing there, exhausted by fever,
Tall sick Belarusian:
Bloodless lips, drooping eyelids,
Ulcers on skinny arms
Always standing in knee-deep water
The legs are swollen; tangles in hair;
I'm digging into my chest, which I diligently put on the spade
Day after day I worked hard all my life...
Take a closer look at him, Vanya:
Man earned his bread with difficulty!
I didn’t straighten my hunchbacked back
He is still: stupidly silent
And mechanically with a rusty shovel
It's hammering the frozen ground!
This noble habit of work
It would be a good idea for us to adopt...
Bless the work of the people
And learn to respect a man.
Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland...
The Russian people have endured enough
He also took out this railway -
He will endure whatever God sends!
Will bear everything - and a wide, clear
He will pave the way for himself with his chest.
It’s just a pity to live in this wonderful time
You won't have to - neither me nor you.
Analysis of an excerpt from the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Railway"
Nekrasov in the poem “ Railway"described the labor and suffering of the Russian people, the oppression and losses that they experienced. One of the most terrible disasters was, of course, famine. The poet creates an expanded metaphor of the “tsar-famine”, where the latter appears before us as a living being, ruling the world. It is he who forces men to work day and night, to undertake backbreaking work, losing physical and mental strength. In order to show all the hardships of life of the workers herded to build the railway, the author builds a poem like an eyewitness account, perhaps even a participant in these events. This and also the constant appeals(to “dad”, “Vanechka”) give the text greater authenticity, and also liveliness and emotionality.
People worked and died while the railway was being built (“And on the sides there are all Russian bones…”). Fantastic image of the “crowd of the dead” helps to better understand the fate of a peasant builder. People received no gratitude for their slave labor; those who forced ordinary people to build the railway did not help in any way, but only exploited the unfortunate people. To emphasize this, Nekrasov uses short, often uncommon proposals, and vocabulary with negative semantics(“We were cold and wet, we suffered from scurvy,” “The literate foremen robbed us, / The authorities flogged us, the need pressed us ...”).
The theme of social injustice is also revealed in portrait sick Belarusian. Nekrasov, using bright epithets, and colloquial vocabulary, creates the image of a downtrodden, humiliated, sick railroad builder (“Bloodless lips, fallen eyelids<…>/ My legs are swollen; Tangles in the hair;”, “hunchbacked back”, “ulcers”, “pit chest”). His face shows all the suffering of the people and indifference upper strata society.
But Nekrasov emphasizes that, despite humiliation and poverty, hunger and cold, the Russian people “will endure everything” (“The Russian people have endured enough, / They will endure everything that the Lord sends!”). In this praise of the Russian people, as well as in the open call to fight, lies the main ideological pathos excerpt.
Painting folk life presented in the poem “Railroad”. This poem is preceded by an unusual epigraph: not a literary quotation, not a folk proverb, but a question some boy asked his father, and his father’s answer. It is designed as a miniature play - indicated characters, there are author's remarks:
Vanya (in coachman's Armenian jacket)
Dad! who built this road?
Papa (in psmto on a red lining)
Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, my dear!
Conversation in the carriage
This kind of epigraph serves as an exposition, an introduction: the author will have a conversation with both Vanya and dad. It’s not hard to guess what it will be about: who actually built the railroad. It, which connected Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1852, was laid for 10 years under the leadership of the chief manager of communications, Count P.A. Kleinmichel. In the fall of 1864, Nekrasov, on a train, having heard or supposedly heard the conversation between father and son cited in the epigraph, considered or supposedly considered it necessary to intervene in this conversation. But first - in the first part of the poem - he talked about how beautiful the moonlit night was, visible from the window of the carriage.
Glorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous
The air invigorates tired forces.
In these sonorous verses (yafenym, bofit) fatigue is overcome and strength is strengthened. Nature is incredibly beautiful. What about swamps with hummocks and stumps (stumps of former trees)? It is hardly customary to admire them. They say: “stupid as a tree stump,” but they call philistinism and stagnation a swamp. But a true poet will find a place for all this in the world of beauty. Nekrasov is genuine.
There is no ugliness in nature! And kochi,
And moss swamps and stumps -
Everything is fine under the moonlight,
Everywhere I recognize my native Rus'...
Beauty is good not only in itself, but also because it is nationally native: Rus'... It is good to travel around Russia, enjoying the newfound comfort of a railway trip, this feeling of pleasure was readily expressed by various poets of Nekrasov’s era, and it is not alien to our author: “ I fly quickly along cast-iron rails, / I think my thoughts...”
Good dad! Why the charm?
Should I keep Vanya the smart one?
You will allow me in the moonlight
Show him the truth.
In our linguistic consciousness, the word “charm” is pleasant. No one will refuse to look like a charming person. But in these poems by Nekrasov given word has a slightly different connotation. Charm is something close to delusion, although, however, also pleasant. “He’s under some kind of spell, he doesn’t see anything” (example from “ Explanatory dictionary" Dalia). It seemed that “everything is fine under the moonlight,” however, under the same “moonlight,” a very cruel “truth” will be seen, which will be shown to Vanya:
This work, Vanya, was terribly enormous, -
Not enough for one!
There is a king in the world: this king is merciless,
Hunger is its name.
The line “Can’t do it alone” directly refers to the epigraph, rejecting the answer of the “father” who said that Kleinmichel built the railway. In fact, it was built, as it turns out, by “the masses of the people,” and Tsar Famine inspired them to do this. A grandiose symbolic figure: Hunger rules the world. Like Schiller: “Love and Hunger rule the world” (according to Gorky, “this is the most truthful and appropriate epigraph to the endless history of human suffering”). Forced by the Famine, people were hired to build the railway in inhumanly difficult conditions, and many “found a phobia here”; The “road” is now so beautiful (“narrow embankments, posts, rails, bridges”), built on Russian bones, there are countless of them.
Chu! Menacing exclamations were heard!
Stomping and gnashing of teeth;
A shadow ran across the frosty glass...
What's there? Crowd of the dead!
“Chu!” - an interjection, close in meaning to the call “listen!” Something terrible is about to happen. As in ballads (for example, Zhukovsky, Katenin, Lermontov) - the dead rise from their graves. A kind of balladry has already been discussed in connection with the poem “Yesterday, at about six o’clock...”. People from the graves chase a speeding train; the dead do not just run, but sing a song, which again mentions a moonlit night - the time most suitable for contact of the living with ghosts, which, as usual, must disappear before dawn. They sing about how cold and hungry they were during their lives, how they were sick, how they were offended by the foremen, that is, the elders over a group of workers. One of this crowd of the dead - a “tall sick Belarusian”, fair-haired and emaciated with fever - is depicted in especially detail, even the mat in his hair is mentioned (a disease in which the hair on the head sticks together and sticks together; occurs in unsanitary conditions, may be a consequence of infection) .
One significant oddity: it is written that a Belarusian is standing. But the crowd of the dead, of which he is a representative, is running. As if this is a small contradiction (the Belarusian should have fled with everyone else), but it came in very handy. A static figure, snatched from the general flow and frozen in one place, is easier to describe in detail. Unlike the dead, who sing their song as they run, the Belarusian is silent. This further separates him from the rest. As a result, you somehow forget that he is dead and begin to treat him as if he were alive. Moreover, the details of his portrait (bloodless lips, drooping eyelids, swollen legs, etc.) can indicate not only death, but also the morbidity of a living person. And further: “It would be a good idea for us to adopt this noble habit of work.” This would sound strange if you remember that the Belarusian is dead: you can’t take labor lessons from a dead man! In addition, the pathos of work is interrupted by ominous motives of death: in the behavior of the Belarusian, the poet sees something dull and mechanical, something similar to an inanimate wound-up doll, monotonously repeating some given movement.
Bless the work of the people
And learn to respect a man.
The phrase “respect a man” has become commonplace. In the ballad A.K. Tolstoy’s “Stream-Bogatyr” the hero falls from Ancient Rus' V Russia XIX c., and he is strictly asked: “Do you respect the peasant?” - “Which one?” - “In general, a man who is great in humility!” But Potok says: “There is a man and a man. / If he doesn’t drink away the harvest, / Then I respect the man.”
Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland...
The Russian people have endured enough.
In the original version of the text, instead of the word “enough” there was: “Tatarism,” that is, the Mongol-Tatar yoke (1243-1480). The replaced word is surprisingly consonant with the one it replaced. One can guess the reasons for such a replacement: “Tatarism” is a matter of the distant historical past, while the Tatars “from Mother Volga, from the Oka” probably also participated in the construction of the railway, suffering together with the Russians, so why offend them with this word, as thereby promoting national hatred?
At the beginning of the third part, the ballad dead disappear:
At this moment the whistle is deafening
He squealed - the crowd of dead people disappeared.
Here the locomotive whistle played the traditional role of a cock's crow, heralding the dawn and dispersing ghosts who are now in a hurry to escape from the world of the living. These are the Slavic, and not only Slavic, ideas on this matter. In Shakespeare, this is exactly how the ghost of Hamlet’s father disappears: “He suddenly disappeared at the crow of a rooster” (quoted from the modern Nekrasov translation by A. Kroneberg). It seems to Vanya that he dreamed of all this: thousands of men appeared (he tells his “dad”), and someone - he - said: “Here they are, the builders of our road!..” Maybe this one was also in Vanya’s dream - and talked about the railroad builders and showed them? But no, the boy’s father, who turns out to be a general, perceives the narrator as a real person and enters into an argument with him. He says that he recently visited Rome and Vienna and saw wonderful monuments of ancient architecture. Was it really “the people who created all this” - such beauty? And does the general’s interlocutor, who spoke so eloquently about the needs of low life, place them above the eternal ideals of beauty:
- Or for you Apollo Belvedere
Worse than a stove pot?
This refers to Pushkin’s poem “The Poet and the Crowd,” in which the self-seeking “rabble” is sharply condemned: “...by weight / You value the Belvedere Idol, / You see no benefit, no benefit in it... / The stove pot is more valuable to you. ..” What is more important: beauty or benefit? Shakespeare or boots? Raphael or kerosene? Apollo Belvedere or stove pot? - they argued about this in every possible way in the Nekrasov era, literature and journalism struggled with these “damned” questions. On the one hand, aesthetes, priests pure art, on the other - utilitarians, materialists. Nekrasov’s general is aesthetically pleasing and despises the black and rude people:
Here are your people - these thermal baths and baths,
A miracle of art - he took everything away!
Exclamation “Here are your people!” entered into oral usage. In Korolenko’s story “Prokhor and the Students,” two students pass by a pitiful, degraded peasant, and, pointing at him, one says to the other: “Here are your people!”, and he wonders: where are the people, because I’m the only one here! Baths - ancient Roman public baths, once luxurious, now ruins, testifying to lost greatness ancient culture. It was destroyed by barbarians, that is, peoples not involved in Roman civilization: Slavs (apparently southern, non-Russian), Germans... destroyers, not creators:
Your Slav, Anglo-Saxon and German
Do not create - destroy the master,
Barbarians! wild bunch of drunkards!..
In the same way, according to the general, Russian barbarian men cannot be considered the creators of the railway: “a wild crowd of drunkards” is not capable of this. But there is also a “bright side” of people’s life! So let the general’s interlocutor show Vanya her too, instead of traumatizing the child with “the spectacle of death and sadness”! And in the fourth part of the poem this “bright side” is shown.
The construction of the railway is completed, the dead are in the ground, the sick are in the dugouts, the workers have gathered at the office: what kind of earnings will there be? But the rogue foremen (in modern terms, foremen) calculated them so daringly that it turned out that the workers not only should not receive anything, but also must pay the arrears (part of the tax not paid on time) to the contractor (here - the rich merchant responsible for this area of work). The situation is bad, but then the contractor himself appears, “congratulates” (congratulates) those gathered and is ready to treat them and generally make them happy: “I’m giving away the arrears!”
The people's reaction was universal jubilation. They shout “hurray!” The foremen, singing, roll the promised barrel of wine. Apparently, in the words of the general - “a wild crowd of drunkards!..” - there is a certain amount of truth. Here is the “bright side” of people’s life - the tortured people are sincerely happy:
The people unharnessed the horses - and the purchase price
Shouting “Hurray!” rushed along the road...
It seems difficult to see a more gratifying picture
Shall I draw, general?..
The history of the creation of Nekrasov’s work “Railroad”
The poem “Railway” is one of Nekrasov’s most dramatic works. For the first time, a poem indicating the author “Dedicated to Children” was published in the tenth issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1865. The published poem aroused the indignation of the censors - after two warnings, the magazine was closed in June 1866. Particular criticism was directed at the epigraph, which, according to the censors, gave the poem a sharp social meaning and cast a shadow both on the former chief executive of the railways, Count Kleinmichel, and on his deceased patron, that is, the king.
The real basis of the poem “The Railway” was the construction (1842-1855) of the first Nikolaev railway in Russia (now Oktyabrskaya). Opened on November 1, 1851 constant movement trains along the St. Petersburg - Moscow mainline, the longest and most advanced double-track railway in the world in terms of technical equipment. In Russia it was a time of serfdom, there was very little free labor. Therefore, the main builders of the railway were state and serf peasants, who were brought to the construction site in batches, shamelessly deceived, and enormous fortunes were made from their labor. Landowners generally rented out serfs. Legally, the builders of the Nikolaev railway were completely defenseless. Russia knew at that time one method of construction - contracting. This is exactly how the Nikolaev railway was built.
This construction was led by one of the important dignitaries of that time, Count P.A. Kleinmichel. Wanting to please the king with an unusually fast pace of work, he spared neither the health nor the lives of the workers; the unfortunates died in hundreds and thousands in damp and cold dugouts.
In Russian literature at that time, a lot of poems were written dedicated to the railway. In them, the authors thanked the emperor and officials, calling them the builders of the railway. Nekrasov created a poem as a counterbalance to this literature.
Nekrasov’s close friend, engineer Valerian Aleksandrovich Panaev, who was personally involved in the construction of the railway, characterized the situation of the workers this way: “Diggers were mainly hired in the Vitebsk and Vilna provinces from Lithuanians. They were the most unfortunate people in the entire Russian land, who looked less like people than like working cattle, from whom they demanded superhuman strength in their work without any, one might say, remuneration.”
This is confirmed by the official report of the then auditor Myasoedov. It turns out that for six months of hard labor, the diggers received an average of 19 rubles (that is, 3 rubles per month), that they did not have enough clothes or shoes, that, taking advantage of the illiteracy and downtrodden nature of the people, the clerks shortchanged them at every turn. And when one of the diggers expressed dissatisfaction with the government ration, he was punished with whips. On another occasion, the gendarmes flogged 80 workers from a party of 728 people. Driven to extreme despair, the workers continually fled to their homeland, but were caught and returned to the construction site.
Genre, genre, creative method
“The Railway” is a small poem in size. However, in terms of the scale of events, in its spirit, this poem is a real poem about the people. The journalistic orientation of the poem is combined with artistic depiction pictures of the backbreaking labor of workers, poetic generalization - with deep lyricism, poetic depiction of Russian autumn and nature - with an ideological orientation.
Subject of the analyzed work
The main content of Nekrasov’s poetry is love and compassion for ordinary people, to the people, to the Russian land. In his poem “The Railway,” Nekrasov touched upon a topical issue for those years—the role of capitalism in the development of Russia. Using the example of the construction of a railway, the author showed how, at the cost of backbreaking labor and the lives of hundreds of ordinary people, new public relations approved in Russia.
Nekrasov did not limit himself to showing the horrors of hard labor. He admires the labor feat of people who “suffered under the heat, under the cold, with their backs always bent, lived in dugouts, fought hunger, were cold and wet, suffered from scurvy,” and still built the road. Nekrasov glorifies people's labor, glorifies the “noble habit of work.” He glorified the people's patience and endurance, hard work and high moral qualities: “This noble habit of work / It wouldn’t be a bad thing for us to adopt with you... / Bless the people’s work / And learn to respect the peasant.”
And at the same time with heartache the author shows the humility of the people, resigned to their situation. He contrasts the beauty diffused in the world of nature: “there is no ugliness in nature... everything is good under the moonlight,” with the “ugliness” that reigns in the world of human relations, and again emphasizes the love for “native Rus'.”
The idea of the poem "Railroad"
An analysis of the work shows that in “The Railway” one can hear the poet’s confidence in the bright future of the Russian people, although he is aware that this wonderful time will not come soon. And in the present, “The Railway” presents the same picture of spiritual sleep, passivity, downtroddenness and humility. The epigraph preceding the poem helps the author express his view of the people in a polemic with the general, who calls Count Kleinmichel the builder of the railway, and the people in his view are “barbarians, a wild crowd of drunkards.” Nekrasov in his poem refutes this statement of the general, drawing images of the real builders of the road, talking about the most difficult conditions of their life and work. But the poet strives to awaken in young Van, who personifies the younger generation of Russia, not only pity and compassion for the oppressed people, but also deep respect for them, for their creative work.
The main characters of the work
There are no individual characters in the poem. There are pictures of folk life that create a broad social panorama and are united by one theme. The poet is angrily indignant at the terrible conditions in which the people were, because it is believed that the road was built by the construction manager, Count Kleinmichel, and not by the people - ragged men driven to build the road by hunger. The crowds of ghostly dead people surrounding the speeding train are victims of back-breaking work and hardships during the construction of the road. But their work was not in vain: they created a magnificent structure, and the poet glorifies the working people. From this crowd, the author singles out the figure of a navvy: “bloodless lips,” “fallen eyelids,” “ulcers on skinny arms.” And next to them is the culprit of the people's disasters - the overweight "meadowsweet". This is a self-confident, cunning and arrogant embezzler.
The images in “The Railway” are graphic and realistically merciless. The people are depicted truthfully - as they really are. The poet not only addresses the long-suffering Russian working people in his work, he merges with popular consciousness. In the struggle for a place in life, Nekrasov’s man appears not as a loner opposed to society, but as a full-fledged representative of the masses.
The poem depicts the people in two forms: a great worker, deserving universal respect and admiration for his deeds, and a patient slave, whom one can only pity without offending with this pity. The author condemns the people who have come to terms with their situation and do not dare to openly protest. However, the poet is confident that the hardworking Russian people will not only build railways, but will also create a “beautiful time” in the future.
The people are opposed in the poem by the general, who in his monologue tries to act as a defender of aesthetic values, recalling the Colosseum, the Vatican, and Apollo Belvedere. However, the listing of works of art and culture in the mouth of the general is replaced by curses addressed to the people: “barbarians”, “a wild crowd of drunkards”, which testifies to his true culture. The general perceives the people as the destroyer of everything beautiful, and not the creator.
Plot and composition
In the context of the analysis, it is worth noting that the poem is preceded by an epigraph - a conversation in the carriage between the boy Vanya and his father. The boy asks his father who built the railway. The father (“in a coat with a red lining”) called “Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel.” Only generals wore coats with red lining. And Vanya’s Armenian boy is a demonstration of the general’s “love of the people.” Dad wants to emphasize his love for the “simple peasant.” Nekrasov contrasts the general’s false statement that the road was built by the head of railway construction, Count Kleinmichel (who became famous for embezzlement and bribes), with the real truth and shows the true builder of the road - the people.
In "Railway" there are two storylines. The first of them: the story of the lyrical hero, touched by the words of the “good father” - the general, about the true builders of the railway. The second line is Vanya’s dream, in which a crowd of builders appears, talking about their difficult fate.
The poem consists of four parts. In the first part we see a beautiful autumn landscape: the air is “healthy, vigorous”, the leaves are “yellow and fresh, lying like a carpet”, everywhere there is “peace and space”. The author emphasizes: “There is no ugliness in nature!” The first part is an exposition of the further narrative.
The second part is the main one in the poem. The poet - a lyrical hero - tells Vanya the truth about the construction of the railway: “This work, Vanya, was terribly enormous - / Not enough for one!” The boy learns that the real builder of the road is not the tsar’s henchman and embezzler, but the people driven to the construction of the “cast iron” by hunger. On both sides of the road there are “Russian bones”, “a crowd of the dead”. IN final words the lyrical hero addresses not only the boy, but also everything to the younger generation 60s of the XIX century.
In the third part, the general demands to turn to “ bright side» construction, he objects to the author's story. Here the character of the general, an empty and cruel man, is fully revealed. However, the story continues. Hard backbreaking labor (“strained themselves under the heat, under the cold”), the hunger of the people who were robbed by the foremen, “the bosses flogged them, the need crushed them” - in the center of the third part of the poem.
The fourth part, depicting the “bright side”, is filled with irony, hidden mockery in the depiction of the picture of receiving a reward for “fatal labors”: “The dead are buried in the ground; sick / Hidden in dugouts...” And those who did not die from hunger and disease were deceived: “Every contractor owes a stay...”.
Artistic originality
The narrative in the poem begins with a description of the beautiful autumn landscape. The author shows that in nature “there is no ugliness”, everything is proportionate. The image of “peace” in nature is contrasted with images of backbreaking labor and inhumane treatment of ordinary people. Nekrasov is characterized by exaggeration in poetry. And in the poem “Railway” it is present. The poet turns to a variety of artistic means.
In the very title of the poem, the epithet “iron” carries an evaluative meaning, that is, a road built with hard work.
In order to talk about the hardship and feat of national labor, the poet turns to a technique quite well known in Russian literature - a description of the dream of one of the participants in the story. Vanya’s dream is not only a conventional device, but the real state of a boy, in whose disturbed imagination the story of suffering with which the narrator addresses him gives birth to fantastic pictures with the dead revived under the moonlight and strange songs.
The poem is written in truly folk poetic language. As always, “the people spoke; more precisely, the poet himself spoke personally like a Russian commoner, with the language, jokes, and humor of a peasant, worker, typesetter, soldier, etc.” (V.V. Rozanov).
“The Railway” is written mainly in dactyl tetrameter; the construction of the lines of the poem allows us to convey the rhythmic sound of the wheels of a moving train.
Meaning of the work
Analysis of the work clearly proved that the poem “Railway” remains relevant to this day and the most cited work of Nekrasov, who predicted long haul To people's happiness. Nekrasov is one of the poets who determine the direction of art on long years, for entire periods of its development. And literature critical realism, and painting (the Peredvizhniki artists), and in some respects even Russian music - developed under the influence of Nekrasov’s mournful and passionate poetry. Compassion, denunciation and protest penetrated into all spheres of Russian life. The social character of Russian culture developed to a large extent under the influence of Nekrasov.
NA Nekrasov created new type poetic satire, combining elegiac, lyrical and satirical motifs within one poem, as in “The Railway”. Nekrasov expanded the possibilities poetic language, including a plot-narrative beginning in the lyrics. He mastered Russian folklore: a penchant for song rhythms and intonations, the use of parallelisms, repetitions, trisyllabic meters (dactyl and anapest) with verbal rhymes. Nekrasov poetically interpreted proverbs, sayings, folk mythology, but most importantly, he creatively processed folklore texts, revealing the potentially revolutionary, liberating meaning contained in them. Nekrasov also unusually expanded the stylistic range of Russian poetry, using colloquial speech, folk phraseology, dialectisms, boldly including different speech styles in the work - from everyday to journalistic, from popular vernacular to folklore and poetic vocabulary, from oratorical-pathetic to parody-satirical.
This is interesting
Anyone traveling from St. Petersburg to Moscow passes through the city of Chudovo. The village of Chudovo on the Kerest River in the Georgian Pogost was first mentioned in the Novgorod scribe book in 1539.
By the middle of the 18th century. Chudovo turns into a large Yamskoye village with a postal station, taverns, and trading shops. In the vicinity of the village there were possessions of landowners and St. Petersburg nobility. In 1851, the Nikolaevskaya Railway (St. Petersburg - Moscow) passed through it. And in 1871, the construction of the Novgorod - Chudovo railway was completed, and near railway station a large village grew up.
An entire period in the work of the poet Nekrasov is associated with the Chudovskaya land. In 1871, the poet bought the small estate Chudovskaya Luka from the landowners Vladimirovs. It was located where the Kerest River, a tributary of the Volkhov, makes a beautiful loop. In the old garden there is a two-story wooden house in which the poet spent every summer from 1871 to 1876. Nekrasov came here to take a break from magazine work and censorship ordeals with his wife Zinochka. She accompanied Nekrasov on trips to Chudovo and even took part in hunts. Nekrasov usually lived here for several days in the summer and only once - in 1874 - he stayed here for two months. Then he wrote 11 poems that made up the so-called “Monster Cycle”. The poet uses details of the life and everyday life of local peasants and Novgorod impressions in the poems “Railroad”, “Fire”, in lyrical comedy"Bear Hunt". Here he created the text of the famous “Elegy” (“I dedicated the lyre to my people...”).
The poem “Railway” is based on Novgorod material. The description of the road of 644 kilometers is documented accurately. He speaks with anger about the living conditions of the builders:
We toiled under the heat, under the cold, With our backs always bent, We lived in dugouts, fought against hunger, We were frozen and wet, and suffered from scurvy.
Ilyushin AL. Poetry of Nekrasov. - M., 1998.
RozanovaLA. About the work of N. Nekrasov. - M., 1988.
Russians writers XIX V. about his works: Reader of historical and literary materials / Comp. I.E. Kaplan. - M., 1995.
Skatov N.N. Nekrasov. - M., 1994.
Chukovsky K.I. Nekrasov's mastery. - M., 1971.
Yakushin N.I. ON Nekrasov in life and work: Tutorial for schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, colleges. - M.: Russian word, 2003.
“Railroad” Nikolai Nekrasov
Vanya (in the coachman’s Armenian jacket).
Dad! who built this road?
Papa (in a coat with a red lining),
Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, my dear!
Conversation in the carriageGlorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous
The air invigorates tired forces;
Fragile ice on the icy river
It lies like melting sugar;Near the forest, like in a soft bed,
You can get a good night's sleep - peace and space!
The leaves have not yet had time to fade,
Yellow and fresh, they lie like a carpet.Glorious autumn! Frosty nights
Clear, quiet days...
There is no ugliness in nature! And kochi,
And moss swamps and stumps -Everything is fine under the moonlight,
Everywhere I recognize my native Rus'...
I fly quickly on cast iron rails,
I think my thoughts...Good dad! Why the charm?
Should I keep Vanya the smart one?
You will allow me in the moonlight
Show him the truth.This work, Vanya, was terribly enormous
Not enough for one!
There is a king in the world: this king is merciless,
Hunger is its name.He leads armies; at sea by ships
Rules; rounds up people in the artel,
Walks behind the plow, stands behind
Stonemasons, weavers.It was he who drove the masses of people here.
Many are in a terrible struggle,
Having brought these barren wilds back to life,
They found a coffin for themselves here.The path is straight: the embankments are narrow,
Columns, rails, bridges.
And on the sides there are all Russian bones...
How many of them! Vanechka, do you know?Chu! menacing exclamations were heard!
Stomping and gnashing of teeth;
A shadow ran across the frosty glass...
What's there? Crowd of the dead!Then they overtake the cast-iron road,
They run in different directions.
Do you hear singing?.. “On this moonlit night
We love to see your work!We struggled under the heat, under the cold,
With an ever-bent back,
They lived in dugouts, fought hunger,
They were cold and wet and suffered from scurvy.The literate foremen robbed us,
The authorities flogged me, the need was pressing...
We, God's warriors, have endured everything,
Peaceful children of labor!Brothers! You are reaping our benefits!
We are destined to rot in the earth...
Do you still remember us poor people kindly?
Or have you forgotten a long time ago?..”Do not be horrified by their wild singing!
From Volkhov, from Mother Volga, from Oka,
From different ends of the great state -
These are all your brothers - men!It's a shame to be timid, to cover yourself with a glove,
You're not little!.. With Russian hair,
You see, he’s standing there, exhausted by fever,
Tall sick Belarusian:Bloodless lips, drooping eyelids,
Ulcers on skinny arms
Always standing in knee-deep water
The legs are swollen; tangles in hair;I'm digging into my chest, which I diligently put on the spade
Day after day I worked hard all my life...
Take a closer look at him, Vanya:
Man earned his bread with difficulty!I didn’t straighten my hunchbacked back
He is still: stupidly silent
And mechanically with a rusty shovel
It's hammering the frozen ground!This noble habit of work
It would be a good idea for us to share with you...
Bless the work of the people
And learn to respect a man.Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland...
The Russian people have endured enough
He took out this railway too -
He will endure whatever God sends!Will endure everything - and a wide, clear
He will pave the way for himself with his chest.
It’s just a pity to live in this wonderful time
You won’t have to, neither me nor you.At this moment the whistle is deafening
He squealed - the crowd of dead people disappeared!
“I saw, dad, I had an amazing dream,”
Vanya said, “five thousand men,”Representatives of Russian tribes and breeds
Suddenly they appeared - and he said to me:
“Here they are - the builders of our road!..”
The general laughed!“I was recently within the walls of the Vatican,
I wandered around the Colosseum for two nights,
I saw St. Stephen in Vienna,
Well... did the people create all this?Excuse me for this impudent laugh,
Your logic is a little wild.
Or for you Apollo Belvedere
Worse than a stove pot?Here are your people - these thermal baths and baths,
It’s a miracle of art - he took everything away!”
“I’m not speaking for you, but for Vanya...”
But the general did not allow him to object:"Your Slav, Anglo-Saxon and German
Do not create - destroy the master,
Barbarians! wild bunch of drunkards!..
However, it’s time to take care of Vanyusha;You know, the spectacle of death, sadness
It is a sin to disturb a child's heart.
Would you show the child now?
The bright side..."Glad to show you!
Listen, my dear: fatal works
It’s over - the German is already laying the rails.
The dead are buried in the ground; sick
Hidden in dugouts; working peopleA tight crowd gathered around the office...
They scratched their heads:
Every contractor must stay,
Walking days have become a penny!The foremen entered everything into a book -
Did you take to the bathhouse, did you lie sick:
“Maybe there is a surplus here now,
Here you go!..” They waved their hand...In a blue caftan is a venerable meadowsweet,
Thick, squat, red as copper,
A contractor is traveling along the line on holiday,
He goes to see his work.The idle people part decorously...
The merchant wipes the sweat from his face
And he says, putting his hands on his hips:
“Okay... nothing... well done!.. well done!..With God, now go home - congratulations!
(Hats off - if I say!)
I expose a barrel of wine to the workers
And - I give you the arrears!..”Someone shouted “hurray”. Picked up
Louder, friendlier, longer... Lo and behold:
The foremen rolled the barrel singing...
Even the lazy man could not resist!The people unharnessed the horses - and the purchase price
With a shout of “Hurray!” rushed along the road...
It seems difficult to see a more gratifying picture
Shall I draw, general?..
Analysis of Nekrasov’s poem “Railway”
The poet Nikolai Nekrasov is one of the founders of the so-called civil movement in Russian literature. His works are devoid of any embellishment and are characterized by extraordinary realism, which sometimes causes a smile, but in most cases is an excellent reason for rethinking the reality around us.
Such profound works include the poem “The Railway,” written in 1864, a few months after the abolition of serfdom. In it, the author tries to show the other side of the coin of the construction of the overpass between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which for many workers became a huge mass grave.
The poem consists of four parts. The first of them is romantic and peaceful in nature. In it, Nekrasov talks about his railway journey, not forgetting to pay tribute to the beauty of Russian nature and the delightful landscapes that open outside the window of the train, sailing through meadows, fields and forests. Admiring the opening picture, the author becomes an involuntary witness to a conversation between a father-general and his teenage son, who is interested in who built the railway. It should be noted that this topic was particularly relevant and pressing in the second half of the 19th century, since railway communication opened up truly unlimited possibilities for travel. If it was possible to get from Moscow to St. Petersburg by mail carriage in about a week, then traveling by train made it possible to reduce travel time to one day.
However, few people thought about the price that had to be paid for Russia to finally transform from a backward agricultural country into a developed European power. A symbol of transformation into in this case The railway came forward, which was intended to emphasize the new status of the Russian empire. It was built by former serfs who, having received their long-awaited freedom, simply did not know how to use this priceless gift. They were driven to the construction site of the century not so much by curiosity and the desire to fully taste the delights of a free life, but by banal hunger, which Nekrasov in his poem refers to only as the “king” who rules the world. As a result, several thousand people died during the construction of the railway, and the poet considered it necessary to tell about this not only to his young companion, but also to his readers.
The subsequent parts of the poem “Railroad” are devoted to a dispute between the author and the general, who is trying to assure the poet that the Russian peasant, stupid and powerless, is not able to build anything more worthwhile than a wooden rural hut, wretched and distorted. According to Nekrasov’s opponent, only educated and noble people have the right to consider themselves geniuses of progress; they own great discoveries in the field of science, culture and art. At the same time, the general insists that the bleak picture painted by the poet harms the fragile youthful mind of his son. And Nekrasov takes it upon himself to show the situation from the other side, talking about how the construction work was completed, and at a celebration on this occasion, from the lordly shoulder of the meadowsweet worker, the workers received a barrel of wine and the writing off of the debts that they had accumulated during the construction of the railway. Simply put, the poet directly pointed out the fact that yesterday’s slaves were again deceived, and the results of their labor were appropriated by those who are the masters of life and can afford to dispose of the lives of others at their own discretion.
The poet was the founder of a new, democratic movement that developed a civic position. Along with many famous writers, including Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, was published in the Sovremennik magazine, of which he was the editor.
In this article we will look at one of the author’s works called “The Railway,” which was written in 1864, at a time when civic position was taking on more and more pronounced forms of revolutionary and democratic orientation.
All reality is reflected in this poem. This is growth Russian Empire, in the desire to catch up European countries escaping from agrarian slavery. This is also the deplorable state in which most of the population was, ready to sell their labor for pennies. This is the attitude of different segments of the population towards construction.
The construction of the railway took place during the period of serfdom, when peasants, regardless of their desire, were herded to construction. But even after the abolition of serfdom, unfortunate people did not have a worthy place in society. As a result of the past reforms, many farms became unprofitable and simply closed. Now it was not patriotism, but hunger that drove people to construction sites. To feed themselves, many were forced to sell their labor for pennies.
Without embellishment, Nekrasov was able to describe all reality in his poem.
This work is recognized as one of the most dramatic of those times. It begins with a description of everyday days, and everything sounds colorful, this can be understood from such expressions: “the ice is fragile,” “the river is cold.” At the beginning of the lines, you might think that this is a lyrical work, because the author reveals everything gradually, as if enhancing the effect and preparing the reader.
Yes, according to the story little son with his father, the general, set off on a journey by rail. Here the little son begins to ask his father who built such a huge railway with trains. Without thinking for a long time, the general names the name of the builder, Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel. Then the son falls asleep from motion sickness on the road and has a dream that was more of a horror. In this dream, the child saw the whole truth about the construction of this road.
The work was very hard, which they agreed to out of despair. The name of this hopelessness was hunger. We had to live in dugouts; there was practically no such thing as recreation. They had to work for at least twelve hours in damp and frozen conditions, while there were strict limits, and observers recorded every mistake of the builders.
Builders were fined so often that sometimes they did not have enough wages. Some were given a barrel of wine as a salary. If a person had something against it, argued with the main ones, then he was simply flogged to death. Many died from various diseases or exhaustion, such people were buried on the same road. From this we can conclude that the road was built on human bones.
The path is straight: the embankments are narrow,
Columns, rails, bridges.
And on the sides there are all Russian bones...
How many of them! Vanechka, do you know?
Of course, the construction was officially given special meaning, like a construction site of the century. The road, which took twelve years to build, reduced the time spent on the road during a trip between the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg by seven times. In addition, this construction had political overtones. All-Russian Emperor Nicholas I wanted to declare his state in Europe as progressive and developed. Money was allocated for the creation of infrastructure at the appropriate level, good specialists, including foreign ones. But few people thought about their own people, who were cheap labor.
The whole story of the construction of the railway was true and told about how the people actually lived and what they were forced to endure. Then the emperor highly appreciated the work of the construction organizers. The Commander-in-Chief of the Railways, Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, was awarded an award for services to the Fatherland. Indeed, the speed of construction was high, and the mortality of ordinary workers was considered as a production cost.
Analysis of the poem
The railway was called Nikolaevskaya and was built between 1842 and 1855. Only 12 years later did Nekrasov come up with this poem. The work itself seems to answer the question: will the descendants of the unfortunate workers who gave their lives to strengthen the state, as a progressive state, and for the convenience of the upper class of the population, be remembered?
We struggled under the heat, under the cold,
With an ever-bent back,
They lived in dugouts, fought hunger,
They were cold and wet and suffered from scurvy.
The literate foremen robbed us,
The authorities flogged me, the need was pressing...
We, God's warriors, have endured everything,
Peaceful children of labor!
Brothers! You are reaping our benefits!
We are destined to rot in the earth...
Do you still remember us poor people kindly?
Or have you forgotten a long time ago?..
The poem itself consists of four parts. All of them are united by one plot and the image of the lyrical hero. The narrator and neighbors in the carriage, where there is a boy and his father, a general. The dialogue is about the railway, how it was built, this is the epigraph.
The first part of the story describes nature, which very colorfully depicts the surrounding environment, which can be seen from the train window. She is very perfect and doesn’t seem to have the ugliness that is present in people’s lives. The second part is shown in the form of a monologue by the narrator himself, where the life of society is shown. It shows the life of the builders of this highway, all their suffering and misfortunes.
The main meaning is found in the last three stanzas. Where it is described that the Russian people must be respected, that with their hard work and sacrifices they are moving towards a bright future. The writer also very accurately describes the mentality of the people, who have endured much suffering and humiliation for centuries. With just one statement, Nekrasov described the entire life of the people of those times:
“It’s just a pity - I won’t have to live in this beautiful time - neither for me nor for you.”
In the third part, the author presents a dispute between the author and the general, where the reader can take either side. It’s hard to argue with the fact that the people are illiterate, downtrodden, and dirty. The general presents evidence, calling people pathetic destroyers and drunkards, and sees only this as their destiny. But the author comes to the defense of the peasants, declaring that it is not the people themselves who are to blame for this.
In the fourth part the reasoning continues. Now the author has gone even deeper. The reader becomes even more immersed in the problems of society. It becomes clear that different positions, which already divide society - this is an insurmountable gap. And small people, from the point of view of the upper class, are simply consumables. Material that, if necessary, can be sacrificed endlessly.
But the narrator believes that a “bright future” will come, because the Russian people deserve a better life. Nekrasov could not have finished the poem any other way. He put all his pain into every line. That is why his words echo in the hearts of his contemporaries.