Techniques for a satirical depiction of the history of the city. A satirical depiction of mayors in the "History of a city" by ME Saltykov-Shchedrin. Satirical techniques of Saltykov-Shchedrin: "The history of one city", "Lord Golovlevs"

ME Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of the most famous literary satirists of the 19th century. The novel "The Story of a City" is the pinnacle of his artistic creativity.
Despite the name, behind the image of the city of Glupoza hides a whole country, namely Russia. So, in a figurative form, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects the most terrible aspects of the life of Russian society that demanded increased public attention. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe work is the inadmissibility of autocracy. And this is what unites the chapters of the work, which could become separate stories.
Shchedrin tells us the history of the city of Foolov, what happened in it for about a hundred years. Moreover, he focuses on the mayors, since it was they who expressed the vices of city government. In advance, even before the beginning of the main part of the work, the "inventory" of the mayors is given. The word "inventory" is usually referred to things, so Shchedrin uses it deliberately, as if emphasizing the inanimateness of the mayors, who are key images in each chapter.
The satirical means used by the author of the chronicle are varied. Taken together, the images of all mayors create a single image of the autocratic ruler.
The essence of each of the mayors can be imagined even after a simple description of their appearance. For example, the stubbornness and cruelty of Gloom-Grumblev are expressed in his "wooden face, obviously never illuminated by a smile." The more peaceful Pimple, on the contrary, “had a blush, had red and juicy lips,” “his gait was active and vigorous, a quick gesture”.
Images are formed in the reader's imagination with the help of such artistic devices as hyperbole, metaphor, allegory, etc. Even the facts of reality acquire fantastic features. Shchedrin deliberately uses this technique to heighten the feeling of an invisible connection with the true state of affairs in feudal Russia.
The work is written in the form of chronicles. Some parts, which, according to the author's intention, are considered to be found documents, are written in heavy clerical language, and in the chronicler's address to the reader there are common vernaculars, proverbs, and sayings. The confusion in dates and the anachronisms and allusions often made by the chronicler (for example, references to Herzen and Ogarev) reinforce the comic.
Shchedrin most fully introduces us to the mayor Gloom-Burcheev. There is a transparent analogy with reality: the surname of the mayor is similar in sound to the surname of the famous reformer Arakcheev. In the description of Gloom-Grumblev there is less comic, but more mystical, terrifying. Using satirical means, Shchedrin endowed him with a large number of the most "striking" vices. And it is no coincidence that the narrative ends on the description of this mayor's rule. According to Shchedrin, "history has stopped flowing."
The novel “The History of a City” is undoubtedly an outstanding work, it is written in a colorful, grotesque language and in a figurative form denounces the bureaucratic state. “History” has not yet lost its relevance, because, unfortunately, we are still meeting people like Foolov's mayors.

Methods of satirical depiction in the novel by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "The History of a City"

Despite the name, behind the image of the city of Glupoz hides a whole country, namely Russia. So, in a figurative form, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects the most terrible aspects of the life of Russian society that demanded increased public attention. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe work is the inadmissibility of autocracy. And this is what unites the chapters of the work, which could become separate stories.

Shchedrin tells us the history of the city of Foolov, what happened in it for about a hundred years. Moreover, he focuses on the mayors, since it was they who expressed the vices of city government. In advance, even before the beginning of the main part of the work, the "inventory" of the mayors is given. The word "inventory" is usually referred to things, so Shchedrin uses it deliberately, as if emphasizing the inanimateness of the mayors, who are key images in each chapter.

The essence of each of the mayors can be imagined even after a simple description of their appearance. For example, the stubbornness and cruelty of Gloom-Grumblev are expressed in his "wooden face, obviously never illuminated by a smile." The more peaceful Pimple, on the other hand, “had a blush, had red and juicy lips,” “his gait was active and vigorous, a quick gesture.”

Images are formed in the reader's imagination with the help of such artistic devices as hyperbole, metaphor, allegory, etc. Even the facts of reality acquire fantastic features. Shchedrin deliberately uses this technique to heighten the feeling of an invisible connection with the true state of affairs in feudal Russia.

The work is written in the form of chronicles. Some parts, which, according to the author's intention, are considered to be found documents, are written in heavy clerical language, and the chronicler's address to the reader contains common phrases, proverbs, and sayings. The confusion in dates and the anachronisms and allusions often made by the chronicler (for example, references to Herzen and Ogarev) reinforce the comic.

Shchedrin most fully introduces us to the mayor Gloom-Burcheev. Here there is a transparent analogy with reality: the surname of the mayor is similar in sound to the surname of the famous reformer Arakcheev. In the description of Gloom-Grumblev there is less comic, but more mystical, terrifying. Using satirical means, Shchedrin endowed him with a large number of the most "striking" vices. And it is no coincidence that the narrative ends on the description of this mayor's rule. According to Shchedrin, "history has stopped flowing."

The novel “The History of a City” is undoubtedly an outstanding work, it is written in a colorful, grotesque language and in a figurative form denounces the bureaucratic state. “History” has not yet lost its relevance, because, unfortunately, we are still meeting people like Foolov's mayors.

The very "History" is built by the creator intentionally illogical, inconsistent. The great satirist prefaced the main content with an appeal from the publisher (in the role of which he himself acts) and an appeal to the readers of the supposedly last Foolov's archivist. The inventory of city governors, giving the book an alleged historiography and special meaning, consists of 21 surnames (from the traitorous macaroni Clementius to Major Intercept-Zalivatsky, who burned down the gymnasium and abolished science). In “History” itself, attention to the people in command is clearly unequal: some (Benevolensky, Brudasty, Wartkin, Gloom-Bur-cheev) have many literary pages devoted to them, others (Mi-keladze, Du-Chariot) were less fortunate. This can also be seen from the structure of the History; three introductory sections, one concluding Appendix (Supporting documents containing city-governing thinking and law-making exercises) and only 5 main sections for narrating the exploits of 21 rulers.

There has never been a city called "Fools" in the Russian Empire, no one has met such outlandish, incredible bosses (with a stuffed head, like Ivan Panteleevich Pryshch's).

ME Saltykov-Shchedrin showed himself to be a brilliant expert on the Aesopian language, clothed it in an allegedly chronicle form (the chronicle of city-governors' successes covers about a century, and they indicate, albeit approximately, years of reign). This parody of the presentation allowed the writer to talk about modernity, to denounce officials, without causing censorship interference and the anger of his superiors. It was not for nothing that Shchedrin himself called himself "a graduate of the censorship department." Of course, the intelligent reader guessed the surrounding life behind Foolov's ugly pictures. The power of Shchedrin's satirical denunciation of the reactionary foundations on which Russian monarchical power was held was so powerful that the grotesque-fantastic images of the book were perceived as the most truthful depiction of life.

What is, for example, a description of the causes of death of mayors: Ferapontov torn to pieces by dogs; Lamvrokakis is seized by bedbugs; The cormorant is broken in half by a storm; Ferdyshchenko ended his life by eating; Ivanov - to comprehend the Senate Decree from effort; Mikeladze - from exhaustion of strength, etc.

In History, Shchedrin skillfully uses satirical hyperbole: the facts of true reality take on fantastic outlines from him, which allows the satirist to most vividly reveal one side of the image or another. But the writer does not avoid realistic sketches either. Thus, the fire in the Pushkar settlement of the “straw city” was described in a very naturalistic way: “you could see people swarming in the distance, and it seemed that they were unconsciously jostling in one place, and not rushing about in anguish and despair. Shreds of burning straw, torn from the roofs by a whirlwind, could be seen swirling in the air. Gradually, one by one, the wooden buildings were occupied and seemed to melt away ”.

The chronicle of the city administration is written in a colorful, but also complex language. It also widely uses the dull bureaucratic syllable: “Let everyone bake pies on holidays, not forbidding themselves to bake such baking even on weekdays” (Charter of respectable baking pies - performed by Benevolensky). There is also an old Slavic speech: “I want to tickle the Foolovites who are dear to me, showing the world their glorious deeds and the kindly root from which this famous tree grew and covered the whole earth with its branches”. There was a place and time for popular proverbs: “only here is what I say to you: it’s better ... to sit at home with the truth, than to call trouble on yourself” (Ferdyshchenko).

The portrait gallery of Shchedrin's "favorites" - the Foolov's mayors, is immediately and strongly remembered. One after another they pass before the reader, absurd and disgusting in their cruelty, stupidity, and malicious hatred of the people. Here is Brigadier Ferdyshchenko, who starved the Foolovites with hunger, and his successor Borodavkin, who burned thirty-three villages “with the help of these measures” to collect arrears for two rubles and a half, and Major Intercept-Zalivatsky, who abolished science in the city, and Theophylact Benevolensky, possessed passion for writing laws (already on the benches of the seminary, he outlined several remarkable laws, among which the following are most famous: “let every man have a contrite heart”, “let every soul tremble,” “let every cricket know the six corresponding to his title”).

It is in the description of the main characters that M.E.Saltykov-Shchedrin uses a variety of artistic means. Thus, the extreme cruelty of Gloom-Burcheev is recorded “in a wooden face, obviously never illuminated by a smile,” with a “narrow and sloping forehead”, sunken eyes and developed jaws, ready to “crush or bite in half”. On the contrary, the liberal-minded Pimple, a town governor with a stuffed head, “had a blush, had red and juicy lips, because of which there was a row of white teeth; his gait was active and vigorous, a quick gesture. " External characteristics are similar to their psychological images: the fierce Bruddety, aka Organchik, does not look like a native of France, the aristocrat Du Chariot, who is having fun with pleasure and entertainment, but the “friend of Karamzin” Grus-tilov, distinguished by his “tenderness and sensitivity serd ", no less far from" the fantastic traveler Brigadier Ferdyshchenko ...

The townspeople, the people in "History" evoke an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, according to the author himself, they are characterized by two things: "the usual Foolov's enthusiasm and the usual Foolov's frivolity." It's scary to live in the town of Foolov. The book evokes laughter, but not funny, but bitter and gloomy. The writer himself said that he counted on "arousing in the reader a bitter feeling, and not at all merry-go-lucky." It is terrible for Foolov not only because limited officials “appointed by the Russian government” rule in him. It is terrible that the people endure their calamities with no complaint and patience.

However, this silent, painful reproach from the writer did not at all mean mockery of the people. Shchedrin loved his contemporaries: "All my works," he wrote later, "are full of sympathy." The deep meaning of "The History of a City" lies not only in the images of the mayors of a genius in their incriminating power, but also in that generalizing characteristic of the Foolovites, which inevitably suggested the future awakening of the people crushed by the government. The great satirist calls for the inner life of Russian cities like Foolov to once burst out, become bright, worthy of a person. It is no accident that the “historical” chronicle ends with the flight of the last mayor; Ug-rum-Burcheev disappeared, “as if melted in the air”. The mighty movement of the true history of mankind, the authorities were unable to hold back for another century: “the river did not subside. It still flowed, breathed, murmured and wriggled ... ”It appears that Shchedrin was looking far ahead. He believed in the collapse of Foolov's system of life, in the victory of the ideals of reason, human dignity, democracy, progress, and civilization. A great future was predicted for his works, including The History of a City. Turgenev compared Saltykov-Shchedrin with Swift, Gorky admitted that it was for this work that he “fell in love” with the writer. And so it happened. Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin has become one of the most widely read writers in our country and abroad.

ME Saltykov-Shchedrin is a recognized master of satire. It was satire that helped the writer to illuminate historical events in a new way and look at modernity. In the novel “The History of a City”, it was important for the author to reveal the essence of each era, to determine the patterns of development of society, the causes of political violence. That is why the narrative in the novel is led not by the author, but by the chronicler, completely subordinate to the cruel state machine.
At the beginning of the novel, the chronicler gives a short description of all Foolov's mayors, indicating their role in the life of the city. The order of the images is not random. All characters are built on the principle of satirical parallels, as well as on the principle of increasing, strengthening certain qualities.
The chronicler leads the line of town governors who begin with external automatism and mechanicalness (Organchik, Pimple) and end with internal devastation and inhumanity (Gloom-Grumblev). Many mayors have prototypes among historical figures, emperors and empresses (Nicholas I, Arakcheev, Speransky, Potemkin, Catherine II, Anna Ioannovna, etc.). Satire allowed the writer to visually show the insignificant essence of Foolov's rulers. The whole history of this city is a history of despotism, oppression, senseless cruelty.
Among the twenty-two mayors, the chronicler singles out only the most outstanding. Their biographies occupy whole chapters in the novel. The first to appear before the reader is the image of Dementy Varlamovich Brudastoy. In the memory of the Foolovites, he remained under the name Organchik. The author describes his senseless automatic activity with the help of grotesque and hyperbole.
The grotesque allows you to create an artistic exaggeration that reaches the point of absurdity. Organchik's activities are essentially useless and cruel. The essence of this ruler is expressed in just two words: “I will ruin”, “I will not tolerate”. It is not surprising that the inhabitants suspect of him not a person, but a mechanism. Brudasty's vigorous activity consisted in issuing decrees allowing flogging of the townsfolk. The consequences of this legislative activity are portrayed hyperbolic: “unheard-of activity suddenly began to boil in all parts of the city: private bailiffs galloped; the quarter ones galloped; the assessors galloped off; but they have forgotten what it means to eat ... They grab and catch, whip and whip, describe and sell ... ”.
The breakdown of the Organ, which plays the same melody until the very end, is depicted grotesquely. Grotesque is also used in the episode when Organchik's head bites the boy in the cart. Even without a torso, the mechanical head of the mayor continues to commit violence.
The disappearance of Organchik's head marked anarchy, anarchy in the city. Using fiction, the chronicler speaks of the murder of the Leib-Campanian, beheaded for the sake of restoring the broken Organchik. The meeting of two impostors with an empty mechanical head is fantastically depicted. The people no longer believe any of them, they are still waiting for the return of their "father". The essence of Organchik is revealed gradually: first, the chronicler uses hyperbole, then it grows into grotesque and ends with fantasy. These techniques allow you to give the reader a complete picture of the insignificance of all Organchik's innovations, its mechanical essence.
Satirically shown in the novel mayor Pyotr Petrovich Ferdyshchenko, former foreman, orderly of Prince Potemkin (chapter "The Straw City" and "Fantastic Traveler"). At first, his activity as the head of the city was unremarkable. But the authorities discovered the essence of this ruler - selfishness, greed, stupidity. With his greed and connivance, he nearly destroyed the city.
To characterize this hero, the chronicler uses not only satire, he includes a love intrigue in the image. His love affairs are portrayed using a gradation technique. At first, his sympathies were for the townsman's wife Alena Osipovna, famous for her beauty. The rude, dirty archer Domashka completes the love line.
Ferdyschenko eventually settled on the choice of his own kind. Famine and fires fell on the Foolovites. The chronicler depicts these calamities with the help of hyperbole. Fiction and irony permeate the description of the foreman's ridiculous journey. He conceived to do good to his subjects, to cause a harvest with his blessing.
Using satire and irony, the chronicler shows in paints a pasture for cattle, along which Ferdyshchenko travels from one end to the other with his retinue - two disabled soldiers. This is how ME Saltykov-Shchedrin parades Count Orlov's famous travels in the south of Russia. The essence of such travel is empty pastime and lavish receptions, dinners. It is lunch that crowns the foreman's entire journey. After the piglet in sour cream, “some kind of administrative vein” on his face trembled, trembled and suddenly “froze”. Ferdyshchenko died of gluttony. This is the result of his inglorious life.
Foolov's story ends with Gloom-Grumblev (chapters "Confirmation of Repentance", "Conclusion"). His reign is the most tragic for the entire city. Despite the fact that the chronicler portrays him as a person, Gloom-Grumblev has long lost his human essence. To characterize this image, the leading technique is the hyperbole. His portrait is hyperbolic: “wooden face”, “conical skull”, “developed jaws”, ready to “crush and bite in half” everything. In all the paintings, he invariably appears in a soldier's greatcoat against the background of the desert. This is very symbolic, because Gloom-Grumblev hated all living things. “He slept on bare ground,” he himself gave orders and he himself carried them out. He turned all his family members into dumb, downtrodden creatures who languished in the basement of his house.
It is a "leveling device" to the highest degree, striving to equalize, depersonalize everything around. The drill of the Foolovites is hyperbolically described, their grandiose efforts aimed at destroying the city in order to fulfill the order of Gloom-Burcheev. The use of hyperbole culminates when the Foolovites try to block the river with a dam. Here, the images-symbols of the river and the image of the mayor himself come to the fore. The river, disobedient to his will, personifies here a life that cannot be stopped by the will of a gloomy nonentity.
Gloom-Grumblev is a symbol of destruction, death, violence, which, ultimately, is doomed to self-destruction. Life prevailed over the arbitrariness of the "scoundrel". The element of grotesque and fantasy in the first chapters of the novel develops into hyperbolization, no less terrible and tragic. Thus, with the help of a rich arsenal of satirical methods, ME Saltykov-Shchedrin reveals to the reader the essence of each mayor.

An essay on literature on the topic: Methods of satirical depiction of mayors in the “History of a city” by ME Saltykov-Shchedrin

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ME Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of the most famous literary satirists of the 19th century. The novel "The Story of a City" is the pinnacle of his artistic creativity. Despite the name, behind the image of the city of Glupoza hides a whole country, namely Russia. So, figuratively, Saltykov-Shchedrin Read More ......
“The History of a City” by ME Saltykov-Shchedrin was an innovative work not only in form, but also in content. Based on the historical works of Karamzin, Pypin and other historians, the writer displays the gallery of Foolov's rulers, recreates in their appearance the history of Russian autocracy since 1731 Read More ......
One of the most famous works of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin is “The History of a City”. Despite the name, this work is not an allegorical historical chronicle, but a satirical novel, which embodied the state of society under the autocracy. This state arose in Russia much earlier than 1731 Read More ......
“The History of a City” is an example of political satire. In this work, the author decisively criticizes the foundations of the autocratic system, exposes despotic representatives of the authorities, protests against humility, submission, passivity and cowardice. It is easy to see that the mayors depicted by Saltykov-Shchedrin carry a hint in their images Read More ......
Saltykov resorts only to this kind of caricature, which exaggerates the truth, as it were, by means of a magnifying glass, but never completely distorts its essence. I. S. Turgenev. The irreplaceable and first means of satire in The History of a City is hyperbolic exaggeration. Satire - genus Read More ......
city \u200b\u200b”ME Saltykov-Shchedrin The history of the city of Foolov is“ a story, the content of which is continuous fright, ”a story that boils down to the fact that“ mayors whip, and the townsfolk tremble. ” The chronicle of the city of Foolov outlines the darkest sides of the history of “unwashed” Russia, about which Read More ......
The "History of a City" denounces the imperfection of the social and political life of Russia. Unfortunately, Russia was rarely lucky to have good rulers. You can prove this by opening any history textbook. Saltykov-Shchedrin, sincerely worried about the fate of his homeland, could not stay away from this Read More ......
“The History of a City” can rightfully be considered the pinnacle of Saltykov-Shchedrin's creativity. It was this work that brought him the fame of a satirist writer, for a long time, consolidating it. I believe that The History of a City is one of the most unusual books on the history of the Russian state. Originality Read More ......

Methods of satirical depiction of mayors in the "History of a city" by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

The writing

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a recognized master of satire. It was satire that helped the writer to illuminate historical events in a new way and look at the present. In the novel "The History of a City", it was important for the author to reveal the essence of each era, to determine the patterns of development of society, the causes of political violence. That is why the narrative in the novel is led not by the author, but by the chronicler, completely subordinate to the cruel state machine.

At the beginning of the novel, the chronicler gives a short description of all Foolov's mayors, indicating their role in the life of the city. The order of the images is not random. All characters are built on the principle of satirical parallels, as well as on the principle of increasing, strengthening certain qualities.

The chronicler leads the line of city governors who begin with external automatism, mechanicalness (Organchik, Pimple) and end with internal devastation, inhumanity (Gloom-Grumblev). Many mayors have prototypes among historical figures, emperors and empresses (Nicholas I, Arakcheev, Speransky, Potemkin, Catherine II, Anna Ioannovna, etc.). Satire allowed the writer to visually show the insignificant essence of Foolov's rulers. The whole history of this city is a history of despotism, oppression, senseless cruelty.

Among the twenty-two mayors, the chronicler singles out only the most outstanding. Their biographies take up whole chapters in the novel. The first before the reader is the image of Dementy Varlamovich Brudastoy. In the memory of the Foolovites, he remained under the name Organchik. The author describes his senseless automatic activity with the help of grotesque and hyperbole.

The grotesque allows you to create an artistic exaggeration that reaches the point of absurdity. Organchik's activities are essentially useless and cruel. The essence of this ruler is expressed in just two words: "I will ruin", "I will not tolerate." It is not surprising that the residents suspect of him not a person, but a mechanism. Brudasty's vigorous activity consisted in issuing decrees that allowed flogging the townsfolk. The consequences of this legislative activity are portrayed hyperbolic: “unheard-of activity suddenly began to boil in all parts of the city: private bailiffs galloped off; the quarter ones galloped; the assessors galloped off; the watchmen have forgotten what it means to eat ... They grab and catch, whip and whip, describe and sell ... ".

The breakdown of the Organ, which plays the same melody until the very end, is depicted grotesquely. Grotesque is also used in the episode when Organchik's head bites the boy in the cart. Even without a torso, the mechanical head of the mayor continues to commit violence.

The disappearance of Organchik's head marked anarchy, anarchy in the city. Using fiction, the chronicler speaks of the murder of a Leib-Campanian, beheaded for the sake of restoring the broken Organchik. The meeting of two impostors with an empty mechanical head is fantastically depicted. The people no longer believe any of them, they are still waiting for the return of their "father". The essence of Organchik is revealed gradually: first, the chronicler uses hyperbole, then it develops into grotesque and ends with fantasy. These techniques allow you to give the reader a complete picture of the insignificance of all Organchik's innovations, its mechanical essence.

Satirically shown in the novel mayor Pyotr Petrovich Ferdyschenko, former foreman, orderly of Prince Potemkin (chapter "The Straw City" and "Fantastic Traveler"). At first, his activity as the head of the city was unremarkable. But the authorities discovered the essence of this ruler - selfishness, greed, stupidity. With his covetousness and connivance, he almost destroyed the city.

To characterize this hero, the chronicler uses not only satire, he includes a love intrigue in the image. His love affairs are portrayed using a gradation technique. At first, his sympathies were for the posad wife Alyona Osipovna, famous for her beauty. The rude, dirty archer Domashka completes the love line.

Ferdyschenko eventually settled on the choice of his own kind. Famine and fires fell on the Foolovites. The chronicler depicts these calamities with the help of hyperbole. Fiction and irony permeate the description of the foreman's ridiculous journey. He conceived to do good to his subjects, to cause a harvest with his blessing.

Using satire and irony, the chronicler in paints shows a pasture for cattle, along which Ferdyshchenko travels from one end to the other with his retinue - two disabled soldiers. This is how ME Saltykov-Shchedrin parades Count Orlov's famous travels in the south of Russia. The essence of such travels is empty pastime and magnificent receptions, dinners. It is lunch that crowns the foreman's entire journey. After the piglet in sour cream, "some kind of administrative vein" on his face trembled, trembled and suddenly "froze". Ferdyshchenko died of gluttony. This is the result of his inglorious life.

Foolov's story ends with Gloom-Grumblev (chapters "Confirmation of Repentance", "Conclusion"). His reign is the most tragic for the entire city. Despite the fact that the chronicler portrays him as a person, Gloom-Grumblev has long lost his human essence. To characterize this image, the leading technique is hyperbole. His portrait is hyperbolic: "wooden face", "conical skull", "developed jaws", ready to "crush and bite in half" everything. In all the pictures he appears invariably in a soldier's greatcoat against the backdrop of the desert. This is very symbolic, because Gloom-Grumblev hated all living things. “He slept on the bare ground,” he himself gave orders and himself carried them out. He turned all his family members into dumb, downtrodden creatures who languished in the basement of his house.

It is a "leveling device" to the highest degree, striving to equalize, depersonalize everything around. The drill of the Foolovites is described in a hyperbolic manner, their grandiose efforts aimed at destroying the city in order to fulfill the order of Gloom-Burcheev. The use of hyperbole culminates when the Foolovites try to block the river with a dam. Here, the images-symbols of the river and the image of the mayor himself come to the fore. The river, disobedient to his will, here personifies life, which cannot be stopped by the will of a gloomy nonentity.

Gloom-Grumblev is a symbol of destruction, death, violence, which, ultimately, is doomed to self-destruction. Life prevailed over the arbitrariness of the "scoundrel". The element of grotesque and fantasy in the first chapters of the novel develops into hyperbolization, no less terrible and tragic. Thus, with the help of a rich arsenal of satirical techniques, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin reveals to the reader the essence of each mayor.

Other compositions on this work

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june 21 2011

Despite the name, behind the image of the city of Glupoz hides a whole country, namely Russia. So, in a figurative form, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects the most terrible aspects of the life of Russian society that required increased public attention. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe work is the inadmissibility of autocracy. And this is what unites the chapters of the work, which could become separate stories.

Written in the form of chronicles. Some parts, which, according to the author's intention, are considered to be found documents, are written in heavy clerical language, and in the chronicler's address to the reader, there are common vernaculars, and proverbs, and sayings. The comic is reinforced by confusion in dates and anachronisms and allusions often made by the chronicler (for example, references to Herzen and Ogarev).

Shchedrin most fully introduces us to the mayor Gloom-Burcheev. There is a transparent analogy with reality: the surname of the mayor is similar in sound to the surname of the famous reformer Arakcheev. In the description of Gloom-Grumblev there is less comic, but more mystical, terrifying. Using satirical means, Shchedrin endowed him with a large number of the most "striking" vices. And it is no coincidence that the narrative ends on the description of this mayor's rule. According to Shchedrin, "history has stopped flowing."

The History of a City is undoubtedly an outstanding work, it is written in a colorful, grotesque language and in a figurative form denounces the bureaucratic state. “History” has not yet lost its relevance, because, unfortunately, we are still meeting people like Foolov's mayors.

The very "History" is built by the creator intentionally illogical, inconsistent. The great satirist prefaced the main content with the appeal of the publisher (in the role of which he himself acts) and the appeal to the readers of the supposedly last Foolov's archivist. The inventory of city governors, giving the book an alleged historiography and a special meaning, consists of 21 surnames (from the traitorous pasta Clementius to Major Intercept-Zalivatsky, who burned down the gymnasium and abolished science). In “History” itself, attention to the people in command is clearly unequal: some (Benevolensky, Brudasty, Wartkin, Gloom-Bur-cheev) have many literary pages devoted to them, others (Mi-keladze, Du-Chariot) were less fortunate. This can also be seen from the structure of the History; three introductory sections, one concluding Appendix (Supporting documents containing city-governing thinking and law-making exercises) and only 5 main sections for narrating the exploits of 21 rulers.

There has never been a city called "Fools" in the Russian Empire, no one has met such outlandish, incredible bosses (with a stuffed head, like Ivan Panteleevich Pryshch's).

ME Saltykov-Shchedrin showed himself to be a brilliant expert in the Aesopian language, clothed it in an allegedly chronicle form (it covers about a century of city governors' successes, and they indicate, albeit approximately, years of reign). This parody of the presentation allowed the writer to talk about modernity, to denounce officials, without causing censorship interference and the anger of superiors. It was not for nothing that Shchedrin himself called himself "a graduate of the censorship department." Of course, the intelligent reader guessed the surrounding environment behind Foolov's ugly pictures. The power of Shchedrin's satirical denunciation of the reactionary foundations on which Russian monarchical power was held was so powerful that the grotesque-fantastic images of the book were perceived as the most truthful depiction of life.

In History, Shchedrin skillfully uses satirical hyperbole: the facts of true reality take on fantastic outlines from him, which allows the satirist to most clearly reveal one side or the other. But he does not avoid realistic sketches either. Thus, the fire in the Pushkar settlement of the “straw town” is described in a very naturalistic way: “you could see people swarming in the distance, and it seemed that they were unconsciously jostling in one place, and not rushing about in anguish and despair. Shreds of burning straw, torn from the roofs by a whirlwind, could be seen swirling in the air. Gradually, one by one, the wooden buildings were occupied and seemed to melt. "

The chronicle of the city administration is written in a colorful, but also complex language. It also widely uses the dull bureaucratic syllable: “Let everyone bake pies on holidays, not forbidding themselves to bake such baking even on weekdays” (Charter on respectable baking pies - performed by Benevolensky). There is also an old Slavic speech: "I want to tickle the Foolovites who are dear to me, showing the world their glorious deeds and the kindly root from which this famous tree grew and covered the whole earth with its branches." There was a place and time for popular sayings: “only here is what I say to you: it’s better ... to sit at home with the truth, than to call trouble on yourself” (Ferdishchenko).

The portrait gallery of Shchedrin's “favorites” - the Foolov's mayors - is immediately and strongly remembered. One after another they pass before the reader, absurd and disgusting in their cruelty, stupidity, and malicious hatred of the people. Here is Brigadier Ferdyshchenko, who starved the Foolovites with hunger, and his successor Borodavkin, who burned thirty-three villages “with the help of these measures” to collect arrears for two rubles and a half, and Major Intercept-Zalivatsky, who abolished science in the city, and Theophylact Benevolensky, possessed passion for the writing of laws (already on the benches of the seminary, he outlined several remarkable laws, among which the most famous are the following: “let everyone have a contrite heart,” “let every soul tremble,” “let every cricket know the six corresponding to his title”).

It is in the description of the main characters that M.E.Saltykov-Shchedrin uses a variety of artistic means. Thus, the extreme cruelty of Gloom-Burcheev is recorded “in a wooden face, obviously never illuminated by a smile,” with a “narrow and sloping forehead”, sunken eyes and developed jaws, ready to “crush or bite in half”. On the contrary, the liberal-minded Pimple, a town governor with a stuffed head, “had a blush, had red and juicy lips, because of which a row of white teeth appeared; his gait was active and vigorous, a quick gesture. " External characteristics are similar to their psychological images: the fierce Bruddety, aka Organchik, does not look like a native of France, the aristocrat Du Chariot, having fun with pleasure and entertainment, but “Karamzin's friend” Grus-tilov, distinguished by “tenderness and sensitivity Serd ", no less far from the" fantastic traveler, Brigadier Ferdyshchenko ...

The townspeople, the people in "History" evoke an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, according to the author himself, they are characterized by two things: "the usual Foolov's enthusiasm and the usual Foolov's frivolity." It's scary to live in the city of Foolov. causes laughter, but not funny, but bitter and gloomy. The writer himself said that he counted on "arousing in the reader a bitter feeling, and not at all merry-go-lucky." It is terrible for not only because it is ruled by limited officials "appointed by the Russian government." It is terrible that the people endure their calamities with no complaint and patience.

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