All episodes of the story are united by the image of the main character - Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin, shown as a giant of physical and moral power. “He was a man of enormous stature, with a swarthy, open face and thick, wavy, lead-colored hair: gray cast him so strangely. He was dressed in a novice cassock with a wide monastic belt belt and a tall black cloth cap... This new companion of ours... looked like he was in his early fifties; but he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and, moreover, a typical, simple-hearted, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in a beautiful picture by Vereshchagin and in a poem by Count A. K. Tolstoy. It seemed that he would not walk in a cassock, but would sit on a "chubar" and ride in bast shoes through the forest and lazily smell how "dark forest smells of resin and strawberries." The hero performs feats of arms, saves people, goes through the temptation of love. He knows from his own bitter experience serfdom, he knows what it is to escape from a fierce master or soldiery. Flyagin's actions manifest such traits as boundless courage, courage, pride, stubbornness, breadth of nature, kindness, patience, artistry, etc. The author creates a complex, multifaceted character, positive in its basis, but far from ideal and not at all unambiguous. The main feature of Flyagin is "the frankness of a simple soul." The narrator likens him to God's baby, to whom God sometimes reveals his plans, hidden from others. The hero is characterized by childish naivety in the perception of life, innocence, sincerity, disinterestedness. He is very talented. First of all, in the business in which he was still a boy, becoming a postilion with his master. As far as horses were concerned, he "received a special talent from his nature." His talent is associated with a heightened sense of beauty. Ivan Flyagin subtly feels female beauty, the beauty of nature, words, art - song, dance. His speech is striking in its poetry when he describes what he admires. Like any folk hero, Ivan Severyanovich passionately loves his homeland. This is manifested in the painful longing for his native places, when he is a prisoner in the Tatar steppes, and in the desire to take part in the coming war and die for his native land. Flyagin's last dialogue with the audience sounds solemn. Warmth and subtlety of feeling in heroe coexist with rudeness, pugnacity, drunkenness, narrow-mindedness. Sometimes he shows callousness, indifference: he strikes a Tatar to death in a duel, he does not consider unbaptized children his own and leaves them without regret. Kindness and responsiveness to someone else's grief coexist in him with senseless cruelty: he gives the child to his mother, tearfully imploring him, depriving himself of shelter and food, but at the same time, out of self-indulgence, he pinpoints a sleeping monk to death.

Flyagin's daring and freedom of feelings know no bounds (fight with a Tatar, relations with a grushenka). He surrenders to feeling recklessly and recklessly. Mental impulses, over which he has no control, constantly break his fate. But when the spirit of confrontation dies out in him, he very easily submits to someone else's influence. The sense of human dignity of the hero is in conflict with the consciousness of the serf. But all the same, in Ivan Severyanovich one feels a pure and noble soul.

The name, patronymic and surname of the hero are significant. The name Ivan, so often found in fairy tales, brings him closer to both Ivan the Fool and Ivan the Tsarevich, who go through various trials. In his trials, Ivan Flyagin matures spiritually, morally cleanses. Patronymic Severyanovich translated from Latin means "severe" and reflects a certain side of his character. The surname indicates, on the one hand, a tendency to a spree, but, on the other hand, it recalls the biblical image of a person as a vessel, and a righteous person as a pure vessel of God. Suffering from the consciousness of his own imperfection, he goes, without bending, towards a feat, striving for heroic service to his homeland, feeling a divine blessing over himself. And this movement, moral transformation constitutes the inner storyline of the story. The hero believes and seeks. His life path is the path of knowing God and realizing oneself in God.

Ivan Flyagin personifies the Russian national character with all its dark and bright sides, the people's view of the world. It embodies the enormous and unspent potential of the people's strength. His morality is natural, folk morality. Figypa Flyagin takes on a symbolic scale, embodying the breadth, infinity, openness of the Russian soul to the world. The depth and complexity of the character of Ivan Flyagin help to comprehend the various artistic techniques used by the author. The main means of creating the image of the hero is speech, which reflects his worldview, character, social status, etc. Flyagin's speech is simple, full of vernacular and dialectisms, there are few metaphors, comparisons, epithets, but they are bright and accurate. The style of the hero's speech is connected with the people's worldview. The image of the hero is also revealed through his attitude to other characters, about which he himself talks. In the tone of the narration, in the choice of artistic means, the personality of the hero is revealed. The landscape also helps to feel the way the character perceives the world. The hero's story about life in the steppe conveys his emotional state, longing for his native places: “No, I want to go home ... longing was done. Especially in the evenings, or even when the weather is good in the middle of the day, it’s hot, it’s quiet in the camp, all the Tatars from the heat fall into the tents ... A sultry look, cruel; space - no edge; herb rampage; the feather grass is white, fluffy, like a silver sea, agitated, and the breeze carries the smell: it smells of sheep, and the sun douses, burns, and the steppe, as if life is painful, no end is foreseen anywhere, and here there is no depth of melancholy of the bottom ... You see yourself you know where, and suddenly a monastery or a temple appears in front of you, and you remember the baptized land and cry.

The image of the wanderer Ivan Flyagin summarizes the wonderful features of people who are energetic, talented by nature, inspired by boundless love for people. It depicts a man from the people in the intricacies of his difficult fate, not broken, even though “he died all his life and could not die in any way.”

The kind and simple-minded Russian giant is the main character and the central figure of the story. This man with a childish soul is distinguished by irrepressible fortitude, heroic mischief. He acts at the behest of duty, often on the intuition of feeling and in an accidental outburst of passion. However, all his actions, even the strangest ones, are invariably born from his inherent philanthropy. He strives for truth and beauty through mistakes and bitter repentance, he seeks love and generously gives love to people. When Flyagin sees a person in mortal danger, he simply rushes to his aid. As a boy, he saves the count and countess from death, and he himself almost dies. He also goes instead of the old woman's son for fifteen years to the Caucasus. Behind the outward rudeness and cruelty, Ivan Severyanych hides the enormous kindness inherent in the Russian people. We recognize this trait in him when he becomes a nanny. He really became attached to the girl he was courting. In dealing with her, he is caring and gentle.

The “enchanted wanderer” is a type of “Russian wanderer” (in the words of Dostoevsky). This is Russian nature, requiring development, striving for spiritual perfection. He seeks and cannot find himself. Each new haven of Flyagin is another discovery of life, and not just a change of one or another occupation. The wide soul of the wanderer gets along with absolutely everyone - whether they are wild Kyrgyz or strict Orthodox monks; he is so flexible that he agrees to live according to the laws of those who adopted him: according to the Tatar custom, he is cut to death with Savarikey, according to Muslim custom, he has several wives, takes for granted the cruel “operation” that the Tatars did to him ; in the monastery, he not only does not grumble because, as a punishment, he was locked up for the whole summer in a dark cellar, but he even knows how to find joy in this: “Here the church bells are heard, and comrades visited.” But despite such a accommodating nature, he does not stay anywhere for long. He does not need to humble himself and desire to work in his native field. He is already humble and, by his muzhik rank, is faced with the need to work. But he has no peace. In life, he is not a participant, but only a wanderer. He is so open to life that she carries him, and he follows her course with wise humility. But this is not a consequence of spiritual weakness and passivity, but a complete acceptance of one's fate. Often Flyagin is not aware of his actions, intuitively relying on the wisdom of life, trusting her in everything. And the higher power, before which he is open and honest, rewards him for this and keeps him.

Ivan Severyanych Flyagin lives primarily not with his mind, but with his heart, and therefore the course of life imperiously carries him along, that is why the circumstances in which he finds himself are so diverse.

Flyagin reacts sharply to insult and injustice. As soon as the manager of the count, the German, punished him for his misconduct with humiliating work, Ivan Severyanych, risking his own life, flees from his native places. Subsequently, he recalls it like this: “They tore me terribly cruelly, I couldn’t even get up ... but that would be nothing for me, but the last condemnation, to kneel and beat bags ... it already tormented me ... It’s just that my patience was gone ...” The most terrible and unbearable for a simple person is not corporal punishment, but an insult to self-esteem. out of desperation, he runs away from them and goes “to the robbers”.

In The Enchanted Wanderer, for the first time in Lesk's work, the theme of folk heroism is fully developed. the collective semi-fairytale image of Ivan Flyagin appears before us in all its grandeur, nobility of soul, fearlessness and beauty and merges with the image of the heroic people. Ivan Severyanych's desire to go to war is a desire to suffer alone for all. love for the Motherland, for God, Christian aspirations save Flyagin from death during the nine years of his life with the Tatars. For all this time he could not get used to the steppes. He says: "No, sir, I want to go home ... Longing was becoming." What a great feeling lies in his unpretentious story about loneliness in Tatar captivity: “... There is no bottom to the depths of anguish ... You see, you don’t know where, and suddenly a monastery or a temple is indicated in front of you, and you remember the baptized land and cry.” From the story of Ivan Severyanovich about himself, it is clear that the most difficult of the diverse life situations he experienced were precisely those that most bound his will, doomed him to immobility.

The Orthodox faith is strong in Ivan Flyagin. In the middle of the night in captivity, he “creeped out slowly behind the headquarters ... and began to pray ... so pray that even the snow melted under his knees and where tears fell, you see grass in the morning.”

Flyagin is an unusually gifted person; nothing is impossible for him. The secret of his strength, invulnerability and amazing gift - to always feel joy - lies in the fact that he always does what the circumstances require. He is in harmony with the world when the world is in harmony, and he is ready to fight evil when it stands in his way.

At the end of the story, we understand that, having come to the monastery, Ivan Flyagin does not calm down. He foresees war and is going to go there. He says: “I really want to die for the people.” These words reflect the main property of a Russian person - the readiness to suffer for others, to die for the Motherland. Describing the life of Flyagin, Leskov makes him wander, meet different people and entire nations. Leskov argues that such beauty of the soul is characteristic only of a Russian person, and only a Russian person can manifest it so fully and widely.

The image of Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin is the only "through" image that connects all the episodes of the story. As already noted, it has genre-forming features, tk. his "biography" goes back to works with strict normative schemes, namely, to the lives of saints and adventure novels. The author brings Ivan Severyanovich closer not only to the heroes of lives and adventure novels, but also to epic heroes. Here is how the narrator describes Flyagin’s appearance: “This new companion of ours could have been given a little over fifty in appearance; but he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and, moreover, a typical, simple-hearted, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in the beautiful picture of Vereshchegin and in a poem by Count A. K. Tolstoy.4 It seemed that he would not have to walk in a cassock, but would have sat on a "chubar" and rode in bast shoes through the forest and lazily sniffed how "a dark forest smells of tar and strawberries" ". Flyagin's character is multifaceted. Its main feature is "the frankness of a simple soul." The narrator likens Flyagin to "babies", to whom God sometimes reveals his plans, hidden from the "reasonable". The author paraphrases the gospel sayings of Christ: "... Jesus said: "... I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies" (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 25). Christ allegorically calls people with a pure heart wise and reasonable.

Flyagin is distinguished by childish naivete and innocence. Demons in his ideas resemble a large family, in which there are both adults and mischievous children-imps. He believes in the magical power of the amulet - "a band of the holy brave prince Vsevolod-Gabriel from Novgorod." Flyagin understands the experiences of tamed horses. He subtly feels the beauty of nature.

But, at the same time, a certain callousness and narrow-mindedness are also inherent in the soul of an enchanted wanderer (from the point of view of an educated, civilized person). Ivan Severyanovich cold-bloodedly beats a Tatar to death in a duel and cannot understand why the story of this torture horrifies his listeners. Ivan brutally cracks down on the countess's maid's cat, who strangled his beloved pigeons. He does not consider unbaptized children, adopted by Tatar women in Ryn-Sands, as his own and leaves without a shadow of doubt and regret.

Natural kindness coexists in Flyagin's soul with senseless, aimless cruelty. So, he, serving as a nanny with a young child and violating the will of his father, his master-master, gives the child to his mother and her lover, who tearfully begged Ivan, although he knows that this act will deprive him of faithful food and make him wander again in search of food and shelter. . And he, in adolescence, out of pampering, whips a sleeping monk to death with a whip.

Flyagin is reckless in his daring: just like that, disinterestedly, he enters into a competition with the Tatar Savakirey, promising a familiar officer to give a prize - a horse. He surrenders entirely to the passions that take possession of him, embarking on a drunken spree. Struck by the beauty and singing of the gypsy woman Pear, without hesitation, he gives her the huge amount of state money entrusted to him.

Flyagin's nature is both unshakably firm (he piously professes the principle: "I will not give my honor to anyone") and self-willed, malleable, open to the influence of others and even suggestion. Ivan easily assimilates the ideas of the Tatars about the justification for a deadly duel with whips. Until now, not feeling the bewitching beauty of a woman, he - as if under the influence of conversations with a degraded master-magnetizer and the eaten "magic" sugar-"mentor" - is fascinated by the first meeting with Grusha.

Wanderings, wanderings, unique "searches" of Flyagin carry a "worldly" coloring. Even in the monastery, he performs the same service as in the world - a coachman. This motive is significant: Flyagin, changing professions and services, remains himself. He begins his difficult journey as a postilion, a rider on a horse in a team, and in old age returns to the duties of a coachman.

The service of the Leskovsky hero "with horses" is not accidental, it has an implicit, hidden symbolism. The fickle fate of Flyagin is like a fast running horse, and the "strong" hero himself, who endured and endured many hardships in his lifetime, resembles a strong "Bityutsky" horse. Both Flyagin's irascibility and independence are, as it were, compared with the proud horse temper, which was told about by the "enchanted wanderer" in the first chapter of Lesk's work. The taming of horses by Flyagin correlates with the stories of ancient authors (Plutarach and others) about Alexander the Great, who pacified and tamed the horse Bucephalus.

And like the hero of epics, leaving to measure his strength "in the open field", Flyagin is correlated with open, free space: with the road (Ivan Severyanovich's wanderings), with the steppe (ten-year life in the Tatar Ryn-sands), with lake and sea expanse (meeting storyteller with Flyagin on a steamer sailing on Lake Ladoga, a wanderer's pilgrimage to Solovki). The hero wanders, moves in a wide, open space, which is not a geographical concept, but a value category. Space is a visible image of life itself, sending disasters and trials towards the hero-traveler.

In his wanderings and travels, the Leskovsky character reaches the limits, the extreme points of the Russian land: he lives in the Kazakh steppe, fights against the highlanders in the Caucasus, goes to the Solovetsky shrines on the White Sea. Flyagin finds himself on the northern, southern, and southeastern "borders" of European Russia. Ivan Severyanovich did not visit only the western border of Russia. However, Leskov's capital can symbolically designate precisely the western point of Russian space. (This perception of St. Petersburg was characteristic of Russian literature of the 18th century and was recreated in Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman"). The spatial "scope" of Flyagin's travels is significant: it symbolizes, as it were,5 the breadth, infinity, and openness of the Russian people's soul to the world.6 But the breadth of Flyagin's nature, the "Russian hero," is by no means tantamount to righteousness. Leskov repeatedly created in his works the images of Russian righteous people, people of exceptional moral purity, noble and kind to the point of selflessness ("Odnodum", "Nemortal Golovan", "Cadet Monastery", etc.). However, Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin is not like that. He, as it were, personifies the Russian folk character with all its dark and light sides and the people's view of the world.

The name of Ivan Flyagin is significant. He is like the fabulous Ivan the Fool and Ivan the Tsarevich, going through various trials. From his "stupidity", moral callousness, Ivan in these trials is cured, freed. But the moral ideals and norms of Leskov's enchanted wanderer do not coincide with the moral principles of his civilized interlocutors and the author himself. Flyagin's morality is a natural, "common" morality.

It is no coincidence that the patronymic of the Lesk hero is Severyanovich (severus - in Latin: severe). The surname speaks, on the one hand, of a former tendency to drink and spree, on the other hand, it seems to recall the biblical image of a person as a vessel, and a righteous person as a pure vessel of God.

Flyagin's life path is partly an atonement for his sins: the "youthful" murder of a monk, as well as the murder of Grushenka, left by her lover, Prince, committed at her plea. The dark, egoistic, "animal" force, characteristic of Ivan in his youth, is gradually enlightened, filled with moral self-consciousness. On the slope of his life, Ivan Severyanovich is ready to "die for the people", for others. But as before, the enchanted wanderer does not renounce many deeds that are reprehensible for educated, "civilized" listeners, not finding anything bad in them.

This is not only limited, but also the integrity of the character of the protagonist, devoid of contradictions, internal struggle and introspection,7 which, like the motive for the predestination of his fate, brings Leskov's story closer to the classical, ancient heroic epic. B.S. Dykhanova characterizes Flyagin’s ideas about his fate in the following way: “According to the hero’s conviction, his destiny is that he is the son of a “prayer” and “promised”, he is obliged to devote his life to serving God, and the monastery should, it would seem, be perceived as the inevitable end of the path Finding a true calling Listeners repeatedly ask the question of whether predestination has been fulfilled or not, but each time Flyagin evades a direct answer.

"Why are you saying this... as if you're not sure?

• - Yes, because how can I say for sure when I can’t even embrace all my vast elapsed vitality?
• - What is it from?
• “Because, sir, I did a lot of things not even of my own free will.”

Despite the outward inconsistency of Flyagin's answers, he is amazingly accurate here. "The audacity of vocation" is inseparable from one's own will, one's own choice, and the interaction of a person's will with life circumstances independent of it gives rise to that living contradiction that can be explained only by preserving it. In order to understand what his vocation is, Flyagin has to tell his life "from the very beginning." finally, he loses his own name twice (going into the army instead of a peasant recruit, then taking monasticism). Ivan Severyanovich can imagine the unity, the integrity of his life, only by retelling it all, from birth. The motive of predestination gives an internal connection to what happened to Flyagin. this predetermination of the fate of the hero, in subordination and "bewitchment" by some power ruling over him, "not by his own will", which is driven by Flyagin, is the meaning of the title of the story.

The protagonist of The Enchanted Wanderer is a real Russian hero in a monastic cassock. His life is surprisingly complex and varied: he was a serf, served as a “nanny”, was an artist, a prisoner of the Asians, a stable manager for a wealthy prince, fought in the Caucasus and received awards and the rank of officer. In Leskov's story, the wanderer is fascinated by life, its incomprehensibility, and beauty. This is a work about the spiritual maturation of a person, about his formation, the search for himself. The author showed many characters, morals, destinies, describing the main milestones in the life of Ivan Golovan.

Characteristics of the characters “The Enchanted Wanderer”

main characters

Ivan Severyanych Flyagin	Son of a coachman, nicknamed Golovan. Strong, strong, like a hero. Born with a large head, mother died in childbirth. He grew up with his father, studied horse care, had a special approach to them. Once a monk died because of him, appearing in a dream to Ivan, he said that he would not take death and he would become a monk. Many times Golovan saved the lives of other people, was in captivity, helped those in need. He threw the woman he loved off a cliff because she asked him to. Far from his homeland, he yearned, he drank a lot in his homeland, he searched for the meaning of life. At the end of his journey, he became a novice.
Grushenka	A gypsy beauty, who was bought by the prince, the owner of Golovan, for a lot of money. She became a friend to Ivan, and the prince very quickly lost interest in her. Suffering from love, she suspected the man of treason. He took her out of town and hid her under the supervision of three women. Having escaped from them, Grusha meets Ivan, he invites her to live like a brother and sister. She refuses, asks Ivan to throw her off a cliff, love for the prince does not allow her to live. Ivan kills Grusha. Since then, she sometimes appears to him, helps, protects from death, tells the future.
Boyars from the Oryol province	The first owners of Golovan, they raised him, he grew up on their estate. Due to the fact that Ivan “punished” the cat of the boyar servants, he was sent to thresh stones for the stable. From such a humiliating monotonous work, Golovan wanted to hang himself. The case changed his fate, for a silver cross he was discharged free. Already a mature man, he returns to their estate. They give him freedom.
Prince	He takes Ivan as a "nanny" to look after his infant daughter. His wife ran away from him. He is very pleased with the worker. Finding Ivan on the beach with his daughter and his runaway wife, the Pole grabs his gun. Ivan is forced to flee.
Girl	For more than a year, Ivan has been working for a Pole, looking after a child. The girl is sick, she needs sun and sand. Every day, being with the girl on the beach, he meets her mother and allows her to be with the child. As a result, he has to give his daughter to his mother and run away.

Minor characters

In the work, the author raised questions of a religious nature, made an attempt to show a truly Russian character. The story is built according to the laws of the genre of life, its artistic version. In the book "The Enchanted Wanderer" the hero acquires the gift of prophecy, he is tormented by "demons", he continues his journey, going to war for the Russian people. His life is full of mystical coincidences, secrets, accidents, as if an invisible hand guides the hero throughout his life. A list of characteristics of the characters in the story will help in preparing for a lesson or writing a creative work.

Flyagin Ivan Severyanych - the hero of N. S. Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer", the main narrator of events. This is a completely new image of a person, incomparable with any of the heroes of Russian literature. It organically intertwines the features of an epic hero, a fairy-tale character and a hero of adventure novels. This character is invulnerable and successfully overcomes all life's obstacles. Ivan Severyanych does not have a specific purpose of travel. For him, the world is an endless wonder, and each new haven is a new adventure. He gets along well with any people. He happened to live with Orthodox monks, and with unbaptized Tatars, and with wild Kirghiz. But the hero is so flexible that he managed to live according to other people's customs.

By nature, Flyagin is a naive and simple-hearted person. When the owner, as a reward for saving his family, is ready to shower Ivan with gold, he only asks for an accordion, which he immediately throws away. Somehow this character manages to avoid certain death in any situation. He also fought in the Caucasian war, and swam across the river under enemy bullets, and wanted to hang himself, but some gypsy cut the rope. The ability to get out alive from any difficult situation brings him closer to the heroes of adventurous novels. At the same time, this hero is quite controversial. On the one hand, he honors God and avoids sins. He does not want to love his unbaptized wives and children. On the other hand, he also had non-Christian deeds. So, for example, in his youth he beat a monk with a whip, who later appeared to him in a dream.

Composition

The story "The Enchanted Wanderer" was written by Nikolai Semenovich Leskov (1831 - 1895) in 1872-1873. Apparently, Leskov came up with the idea of ​​the news during a trip in the summer of 1872 to the Valaam Monastery on Lake Ladoga.

For the first time, Leskov's work was published in the Russkiy Mir newspaper on August 8 - September 19, 1873 under the title "The Enchanted Wanderer, His Life, Experiences, Opinions and Adventures".

Genre and compositional originality of the story

"The Enchanted Wanderer" is a work of a complex genre character. This is a story that uses the motifs of ancient Russian biographies of saints (lives) and folk epic (epics), rethinking the plot scheme common in the literature of the 18th century. adventure novels.

"The Enchanted Wanderer" is a kind of story - a biography of the hero, made up of several closed, completed episodes. Lives are built in a similar way, consisting of separate fragments describing various events from the life of the saints. The same principle is typical for an adventure novel, a novel of adventures, with the hero of which on his life path, in his wanderings around the world, by the will of fate, the most unexpected incidents happen. By the way, the very title of the story in the first edition was undoubtedly stylized as the titles of Russian adventurous philosophical and moralistic novels of the 18th century.

Elements of the hagiographic genre and the adventure novel in The Enchanted Wanderer are obvious. The hero of the story, Ivan Flyagin, like the character of his life, a repentant and transformed sinner, goes around the world from sin (the senseless "daring" murder of a nun, the murder of the gypsy Grushenka, albeit committed at her own prayer, but still, according to Flyagin, sinful) to repentance and atonement.

“Having experienced a deep moral shock with the death of a gypsy, Ivan Severyanych is imbued with a completely new moral inclination for him to “suffer.” If earlier for many years of his life he himself felt himself a free son of nature, now for the first time he is filled with a sense of duty to another person. confession, Grusha’s death “crossed out” him all. He thinks “only one thing is that Grusha’s soul is now dead” and his duty is “to suffer for her and rescue her from hell.” Following this conviction, he voluntarily takes on the burden of someone else’s recruitment , he asks to be sent to a dangerous place in the Caucasus, and there he goes under bullets, arranges a crossing over a mountain river "(Stolyarova I.V. Leskov and Russia // Leskov N.S. Complete works: In 30 vols. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 56).

The Leskovsky wanderer, like the saint - the hero of his life, goes to the monastery, and this decision, as he believes, is predetermined by fate, by God.

True, going to the monastery also has an ordinary motivation: "in the context of the narrative, that life step that, as it were, must inevitably take place in the life of Ivan Severyanych, regardless of any everyday ups and downs - leaving for the monastery - acquires not so much a providential meaning as a social meaning ─ psychological, almost everyday. “I was left completely without shelter and food,” he explains his act to the audience, “so he took it and went to the monastery.” “Only from this?” His fellow travelers are surprised and hear in confirmation of what was said: what to do, with - there was nowhere to go. "So, the moment of freedom, choice is completely absent, the dictate of everyday necessity operates, and not the hero's own desire and will" (Stolyarova I. V. Leskov and Russia. P. 58).

This interpretation is fair, but somewhat one-sided. The ordinary motivation, obviously, does not exclude the second, providential plan in the story: God's plan for Flyagin is manifested through outwardly ordinary events. The lives of the saints are also known in more unexpected cases of the embodiment of providence. Thus, in the life of St. Theodosius of the Caves, the mother of the saint, preventing, in particular, the removal of her son to the Holy Land, is possessed by an unenlightened, selfish attachment to Theodosius, and she acts at the instigation of the devil. However, in the end, without knowing it, she serves to fulfill the providential plan for Theodosius, whom God destined to become a "great lamp"
t; Russian land, one of the founders of Russian cenobitic monasticism.

The story is brought closer to the lives of prophetic dreams and visions that reveal to the hero, like a saint, his future. The saint in life is pre-elected to serve God. So, in the life of the Monk Theodosius of the Caves, written by Nestor, the future of the baby at his baptism is seen by the priest; this episode goes back probably. To the Translated Greek Life of St. Euthymius the Great, Compiled by Cyril of Scythopol. And in the life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, the destined holy calling to be a special worshiper of the Holy Trinity is evidenced by the threefold pronouncement of an unborn baby from the mother's womb at the liturgy. In Leskov's story, these motifs correspond to a vision in which Flyagin is shown a monastery on the White Sea - the Solovetsky Monastery, where he is now directing his path. The traditional motif of life - the temptation of the saint by demons - is also reflected in the story, but in a comical refraction: these are the "pestering of demons" to Flyagin, who became a novice.

And such a key motive as the birth of Ivan through the prayers of his parents, ultimately goes back to the Old Testament biblical story about the miraculous birth of Isaac, the promised son of Abraham and Sarah. The monastic name of Ivan - Ishmael, the identical name of the first (not promised) son of Abraham from the slave Hagar, seems to refer to this biblical legend. But Ishmael is the progenitor of wild nomadic peoples who do not know the true God. Flyagin is "wild" in his own way, and he did not comprehend much in the Christian faith.

Possessing genre-forming features, the plot and the hero of Leskov's story resemble the event outline and characters not only of hagiographic literature, but also of an adventure novel. The vicissitudes constantly lie in wait for Flyagin, he is forced to change many social roles and professions: a serf, a postilion, a courtyard of Count K .; nanny-"caretaker" for a minor child; a slave in the Tatar pastures; horse trainer; soldier, participant in the war in the Caucasus; an actor in a Petersburg booth; director of the capital's address desk; novice in a monastery. And this same, the last in the story, role, Flyagin's service, is not the final one in the circle of his "metamorphoses". The hero, following his inner voice, prepares for the fact that "soon it will be necessary to fight," he "really wants to die for the people."

Flyagin can never stop, freeze, become stagnant in one role, "dissolve" in one service, like the hero of an adventure novel, who is forced to change professions, positions, sometimes even his name, in order to avoid danger and adapt to circumstances. The motive of wandering, constant movement in space also makes "The Enchanted Wanderer" related to the adventure novel. The adventurous hero, like Flyagin, is deprived of his home and must wander the world in search of a better life. Both the wanderings of Ivan Severyanych and the wanderings of the adventurous hero have only a formal end: the characters do not have a specific goal, having reached which, they can calm down, stop. This is already the difference between Leskov's story and the lives - its prototypes: the hagiographic hero, gaining holiness, then remains unchanged. If he goes to a monastery, then this completes his wanderings in the world. The path of the Leskian wanderer is open, unfinished. The monastery is just one of the "stops" in his endless journey, the last of Flyagin's habitats described in the story, but, perhaps, not the last in his life. It is no coincidence that the life of Flyagin (who, by the way, performs the duties of a novice, but does not take monastic vows) in the monastery is devoid of peace and peace of mind (the “appearance” of demons and imps to the hero). Misdemeanors committed by a novice out of absent-mindedness and inattention bring on him the punishment of the hegumen (“they blessed me to let me go down to the cellar without trial”). From the Flyagin Monastery, they either let go, or they “drive” them to Solovki to worship the relics of Saints Zosima and Savvaty.

The author brings Ivan Severyanych close not only to the heroes of the lives of adventure novels, but also to epic heroes. Flask has in common with the heroes of epics love for horses, the art of driving around them. He repeats the words with which the epic Ilya Muromets scolds his horse: “Well, here I see that he (the horse. - A. R.) asks sorry, hurry up. He got off him, rubbed his eyes, took him by the tuft and I say:“ Stop, dog meat, dog food! - yes, as I pull him down - he fell to his knees and fell ... ".

In The Enchanted Wanderer there is also a somewhat transformed plot mot
willow, characteristic of epics: a duel of a Russian hero with a Basurman warrior, a steppe. The flyagin is "flogged", whipped with whips with the "Tatar" (Kazakh) Savakirey; the reward for winning the competition is a karak foal, which gallops "as if riding through the air" (cf. the flight under the clouds of a heroic horse in epics).

It is no coincidence that Flyagin's story about his life mentions heroic tales close to epics about Bova Korolevich and Yeruslan Lazarevich.

Leskov's story is an "average" (in comparison with the story, on the one hand, and the novel, on the other) genre, which acquires the features of a great epic form, a heroic epos. It is significant that Leskov originally intended to name The Enchanted Wanderer Russian Telemak and Black Earth Telemak, bringing Flyagin, who is looking for the meaning of life and his place in it, closer to the hero of Homer's Odyssey, who is looking for his father. However, despite the epic setting, the fate of Flyagin does not lose its singularity, concreteness.

Leskov, in a letter to the writer and publicist P.K. Shchebalsky dated January 4, 1874, apparently disagreeing with the addressee's opinion about the lack of clarity of Flyagin's character, obscured by detailed descriptions of the "environment", remarked: "... why is the face of the hero himself must be obscured by all means? What kind of demand is this? And Don Quixote, and Telemak, and Chichikov? Why not go side by side with the milieu and the hero?"

I. 3. Serman, in the preamble of his commentary on Leskov's story, interpreted these lines as follows: "The form of the story about adventures in The Enchanted Wanderer really resembles Chichikov's trips to the surrounding landowners, and Don Quixote's trips in search of rivals, and even in some least the novel of Fenelon (French writer of the 18th century) about the wanderings of Telemachus in search of Odysseus "(Leskov N. S. Collected Works: V 11 t. M., 1956. T. 4. S. 552).

What is important, however, is not only the similarity of the "story form" in Leskov's story and in Dead Souls, Don Quixote, and The Adventures of Telemachus. The works mentioned in Leskov's letter are distinguished by their focus on the most complete, multifaceted depiction of reality and the symbolic understanding of the hero and his wanderings. These are stories that describe a person in general, changing or transforming in search of truth. The parallels to "The Enchanted Wanderer" cited by Leskov are examples of "epos", a large epic form in modern European literature.

Features of the plot of the story

The well-known literary critic N.K. Mikhailovsky remarked: “There is, in fact, no plot in the story, but there is a whole series of plots strung like beads on a thread. Each bead by itself can be very conveniently removed, replaced by another, or and string as many beads as you like on the same thread" (Mikhailovsky N. K. Literary essays // Russian wealth. 1887. No. 6. P. 97. There is no through plot in the work. Events from the time of the hero’s youth, Ivan Severyanych Flyagin (service in positions of a postilion under his master, Count K.), are not directly connected in any way with the incidents that befell him later - a ten-year life in the Tatar steppe nomads, going to a monastery, etc. There are no "cross-cutting" characters in Leskov's story, with the exception of Flyagin himself. The episodes that make up the story have their own “micro-plots.” The micro-plots are arranged as follows: 1) Flyagin's rescue of Count K.'s family; 2) punishment (for revenge on the countess cat who ate flyagin pigeons), flogging and flight from the count; 3) service in "nannies" and flight with the child's mother and her lover; 4) duel with Savakirey and retreat to the steppe; 5) return to Russia; 6) service under the prince, the story of Grushenka; 7) soldier's service; 8) wandering and coming to the monastery; 8) life in a monastery.

The Enchanted Wanderer reflects not only the plot elements of hagiographies, epics and adventure novels, it not only gravitates towards the epic form, but it also transforms the collisions and plot episodes of many classical works, in particular A. S. Pushkin's Prisoner of the Caucasus ( Flyagin’s stay in captivity among the Tatars), “Gypsy” by A. S. Pushkin (Grusha, a gypsy who bewitched Flyagin’s heart). 4. S. 552-553] and the observations of L. A. Anninsky [Anninsky L. The soil of truth. The charm and strangeness of the "Enchanted Wanderer" // Leskov N. S. Collected Works: In 6 vols. M., 1993. T. 5. S. 56].)

The obvious literary basis of The Enchanted Wanderer, however, does not indicate the author's attitude to the
the perception of his text as "secondary" in relation to the classical "patterns". Leskov, on the contrary, wants to demonstrate, using the example of Flyagin's fate, that real life is more whimsical and unpredictable than fictional stories. In addition, the correlation with Pushkin's romantic poems emphasizes the "strangeness" (from the point of view of romantic poetics) of the behavior of the hero, who does not feel anything unusual in the outlandish metamorphoses of his life. “Romantic” situations (captivity, the Caucasian war) are perceived prosaically and soberly by Leskov’s hero (partly an exception is Grusha’s fascination, but it also manifests itself in actions and words that have little in common with the actions and speeches of a romantic character).

All the episodes listed above are "narrated" by the hero himself. Flyagin's story about his fate is listened to by travelers sailing on a steamboat on Lake Ladoga; one of them is a narrator, introducing us to Ivan Severyanych and completing his story with his commentary. Thus, "The Enchanted Wanderer" in terms of composition is "a story within a story." Such a construction of The Enchanted Wanderer is significant. Firstly, this is how the author gives credibility to Flyagin's story about the incredible events, the vicissitudes of his life. Secondly, the form of "skaz", oral speech in the first person, uttered by a person from the people, motivates the "strange" composition of the plot: a detailed presentation of individual episodes from the life of Flyagin and, at the same time, an extremely brief story about the "exotic" (from the point of view of educated listeners ) life in captivity; the obscure, not described by Flyagin, murder of Grushenka, carried out as if in a fog; Flyagin's "magical" transformation, enchanted by female beauty, a transformation that is made mysterious by the story of a hero who is unable to clearly explain both the sudden change and the lapse in consciousness that preceded it. at the same time, an extremely brief story about the "exotic" (from the point of view of educated listeners) life in captivity; the obscure, not described by Flyagin, murder of Grushenka, carried out as if in a fog; Flyagin's "magical" transformation, enchanted by female beauty, a transformation that is made mysterious by the story of a hero who is unable to clearly explain both the sudden change and the lapse in consciousness that preceded it.

The tale form allows the author to hide "behind the hero", hide his own assessment and refuse to interpret events. The only view on the life of Ivan Severyanych is the point of view of the character himself, whose explanations and range of ideas are very far from the author's. By the way, this narrative technique outwardly resembles such a feature of the heroic epic as the coincidence of the author's point of view and the vision of the hero. Leskov does not have such a coincidence, but in the text the author's "view" and Flyagin's "view" are not really distinguished, since there are no direct author's statements.

The skaz form also motivates the abundant use of colloquial words, dialectisms, and sometimes intricate folk play with words.

The meaning of the "frame" - the story framing Flyagin's narrative - is also ambiguous. Just as Flyagin's life is a gradual overcoming of his own egoism and curbing his self-will, moving towards other people, a growing understanding of their souls, worries and experiences, so the storytelling situation itself is overcoming alienation, the distance between Flyagin and other passengers. At first, Ivan Severyanovich's companions only expect "jokes" from him, funny and interesting stories from the life of the monastic brethren, priests and horse trainers. The merchant, one of the listeners, looks down on the wanderer a little. The originality and strength of Flyagin's nature are only gradually understood by his random fellow travelers. Their reaction, as it were, programs, "models" the reaction of the readers of Leskov's story, opens its boundaries. At the same time, the role of listeners is to mark the distance between the opinions, ideas, world of feelings of the common man (the former serf Count K.) and the educated "public".

In addition, the framing story about a trip on a steamboat gives an expansive, symbolic meaning to Ivan Severyanych's life "journey": not only he, but, as it were, all of Russia wanders, sails to an unknown goal. Ivan Severyanych Flyagin is an eternal wanderer, he talks about his former wanderings on the way.

Leskovsky's framing story has one more meaning. Outstanding characters, personalities are not uncommon among the people, and a chance meeting with them is always possible.

The image of the protagonist in the artistic structure of the story

The image of Ivan Severyanych Flyagin is the only "through" image that connects all the episodes of the story. As already noted, he has genre-forming features, since his "biography" goes back to works with strict normative schemes, namely, the lives of saints and adventures.
novels. The author brings Ivan Severyanovich closer not only to the heroes of lives and adventure novels, but also to epic heroes. Here is how the narrator describes Flyagin's appearance: "This new companion of ours ... looked like he was over fifty years old; but he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and, moreover, a typical, simple-minded, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in a beautiful picture Vereshchagin and in the poem by Count A. K. Tolstoy [I mean the painting by V. N. Vereshchagin "Ilya Muromets at the feast of Prince Vladimir" (1871) and the ballad by A. K. Tolstoy "Ilya Muromets" (1871); this ballad.] It seemed that he would not walk in a cassock, but would sit on a "chubar" and ride in bast shoes through the forest and lazily sniff how "dark forest smells of tar and strawberries."

Flyagin's character is multifaceted. Its main feature is "the frankness of a simple soul." The narrator likens Flyagin to "babies", to whom God sometimes reveals his plans, hidden from the "reasonable". The author paraphrases the gospel sayings of Christ: "...Jesus said: '...I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies'" (Matt 11:25). Infants Christ allegorically calls people with a pure heart.

Flyagin is distinguished by childish naivete and innocence. Demons in his ideas resemble a large family, in which there are both adults and mischievous children-imps. He believes in the magical power of the amulet - "a band of the holy brave prince Vsevolod-Gabriel from Novgorod." Flyagin understands the experiences of tamed horses. He subtly feels the beauty of nature.

But at the same time, the soul of an enchanted wanderer is also characterized by some callousness, narrow-mindedness (from the point of view of an educated, civilized person). Ivan Severyanych cold-bloodedly beats the "Tatar" to death in a duel and cannot understand why the story of this competition horrifies his listeners. Ivan brutally cracks down on the countess's maid's cat, who strangled his beloved pigeons. He does not consider unbaptized children, adopted by Tatar women in Ryn-Sands, as his own and leaves without a shadow of doubt and regret.

Natural kindness coexists in Flyagin's soul with senseless, aimless cruelty. So, he, serving as a nanny with a young child and violating the will of his father, his master-master, gives the child to his mother and her lover, who tearfully begged Ivan, although he knows that this act will deprive him of faithful food and make him wander again in search of food and shelter. . And in his adolescence, out of pampering, he whips a sleeping monk to death with a whip.

Flyagin is reckless in his daring: just like that, disinterestedly, he enters into a competition with the "Tatar" Savakirey, promising a familiar officer to give a prize - a horse. He surrenders entirely to the passions that take possession of him, embarking on a drunken spree. Struck by the beauty and singing of the gypsy woman Pear, without hesitation, he gives her the huge amount of state money entrusted to him.

Flyagin's nature is both unshakably firm (he piously professes the principle: "I will not give my honor to anyone") and self-willed, malleable, open to the influence of others and even suggestion. Ivan easily assimilates the ideas of the "Tatars" about the justification for a deadly duel with whips. Until now, not feeling the bewitching beauty of a woman, he - as if under the influence of conversations with a degraded master-magnetizer and the eaten "magic" sugar-"mentor" - is fascinated by the first meeting with Grusha.

Wanderings, wanderings, unique "searches" of Flyagin carry a "worldly" coloring. Even in the monastery, he performs the same service as in the world - a coachman. This motive is significant: Flyagin, changing professions and services, remains himself. He begins his difficult journey as a postilion, a rider on a horse in a team, and in old age returns to the duties of a coachman.

The service of the Leskovsky hero "with horses" is not accidental, it has an implicit, hidden symbolism. The fickle fate of Flyagin is like a fast running horse, and the "strong" hero himself, who endured and endured many hardships in his lifetime, resembles a strong "Bityutsky" horse. Both Flyagin's irascibility and independence are, as it were, compared with the proud horse temper, which was told about by the "enchanted wanderer" in the first chapter of Lesk's work. The taming of horses by Flyagin correlates with the stories of ancient authors (Plutarch and others) about Alexander the Great, who pacified and tamed the horse Bucephalus.

Other writings on this work

The mysterious Russian soul" in N. Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer Analysis of an episode from N. S. Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer" Analysis of the episode "The Incident with the Pear" (N. S. Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer") What is the charm of Ivan Flyagin? (N. S. Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer") What is the meaning of the title of the story by N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer"? Female images in the story of N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer" The life path of Ivan Flyagin (based on the novel by N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer") Ivan Flyagin - the truth seeker of the Russian land (based on the novel by N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer") Ivan Flyagin in Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer" Ivan Flyagin - the main character of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" by N. S. Leskov Ivan Flyagin - an image that embodies the features of the Russian national character Who is Ivan Severyanych Flyagin: a sinner or a righteous man? The world of Leskov's images The image of Ivan Flyagin in the story by N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer" The image of Ivan Flyagin in the story of N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer". Flyagin's image The Enchanted Wanderer - the most significant hero of N. S. Leskov Why is the story of N. S. Leskov called "The Enchanted Wanderer"? Righteous or sinful Ivan Flyagin Russia in the story of N.S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer" Russian national character in the story of N. S. Leskov "The Enchanted Wanderer"

In the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" the author attempted a religious interpretation of Russian reality. In the image of Ivan Flyagin, Leskov portrayed a truly Russian character, revealing the basis of the mentality of our people, which is closely connected with Orthodoxy. In modern realities, he dressed the parable of the prodigal son and thereby again raised the eternal questions that mankind has been asking for more than a century.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov created his story in one breath. The whole job took less than a year. In the summer of 1872, the writer traveled to Lake Ladoga, the very place where the action in The Enchanted Wanderer takes place. It was not by chance that the author chose these protected areas, because the islands of Valaam and Korelu, the ancient dwellings of monks, are located there. On this trip, the idea of ​​the work was born.

By the end of the year, the work was completed and acquired the name "Black Earth Telemak". The author invested in the title a reference to ancient Greek mythology and a reference to the scene. Telemachus is the son of King Ithaca Odysseus and Penelope, the heroes of Homer's poem. He is known for going fearlessly in search of his missing parent. So Leskov's character set off on a long and dangerous journey in search of his destiny. However, the editor of Russkiy vestnik M.N. Katkov refused to publish the story, referring to the "dampness" of the material and pointing out the discrepancy between the title and the content of the book. Flyagin is an apologist for Orthodoxy, and the writer compares him with a pagan. Therefore, the writer changes the title, but refers the manuscript to another publication, the Russkiy Mir newspaper. It was published there in 1873.

The meaning of the name

If everything is clear with the first version of the title, then the question arises, what is the meaning of the title "The Enchanted Wanderer"? Leskov invested in it no less interesting idea. Firstly, it indicates the rich life of the hero, his wanderings, both on earth and within his inner world. Throughout his life, he went to the realization of his mission on earth, this was his main search - the search for his place in life. Secondly, the adjective indicates Ivan's ability to appreciate the beauty of the world around him, to be fascinated by it. Thirdly, the writer uses the meaning "witchcraft", because often the character acts unconsciously, as if not of his own free will. He is led by mystical forces, visions and signs of fate, and not by reason.

The story is also called so because the author indicates the ending already in the title, as if fulfilling a destiny. The mother predicted the future for her son, promising him to God even before birth. Since then, he has been under the spell of fate, aimed at fulfilling his destiny. The wanderer does not walk independently, but under the influence of predestination.

Composition

The structure of the book is nothing more than a modernized and composition of a tale (a folklore work that implies an oral impromptu story with certain genre features). Within the framework of a tale there is always a prologue and an exposition, which we also see in The Enchanted Wanderer, in the scene on the ship where the travelers get to know each other. This is followed by the narrator's memoirs, each of which has its own plot outline. Flyagin tells the story of his life in the style that is characteristic of people of his class, moreover, he even conveys the speech characteristics of other people who are the heroes of his stories.

In total, there are 20 chapters in the story, each of which follows, not obeying the chronology of events. The Storyteller arranges them at his own discretion, based on the hero's random associations. So the author emphasizes that Flyagin lived his whole life as spontaneously as he talks about it. Everything that happened to him is a series of interconnected accidents, just like his narrative is a string of stories connected by vague memories.

It was not by chance that Leskov added the book to the cycle of legends about the Russian righteous, because his creation was written according to the canons of life - a religious genre based on the biography of the saint. The composition of The Enchanted Wanderer confirms this: first we learn about the special childhood of the hero, filled with signs of fate and signs from above. Then his life is described, filled with allegorical meaning. The climax is the battle with temptation and demons. In the end, God helps the righteous to endure.

What is the story about?

Two travelers talk on deck about a suicidal deacon and meet a monk who travels to holy places to escape temptation. People become interested in the life of this "hero", and he willingly shares his story with them. This biography is the essence of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer". The hero comes from serfs, served as a coachman. His mother could hardly bear the child and in her prayers she promised God that the child would serve him if she was born. She herself died in childbirth. But the son did not want to go to the monastery, although he was haunted by visions calling for him to fulfill his promise. While Ivan was stubborn, many troubles happened to him. He became the culprit in the death of a monk who dreamed of him and foreshadowed several "deaths" before Flyagin came to the monastery. But even this forecast did not make the young man think, who wanted to live for himself.

At first, he almost died in an accident, then he lost his lordly grace and sinned by stealing horses from the owner. For sin, he really did not get anything and, having made false documents, was hired as a nanny to a Pole. But even there he did not stay long, again violating the master's will. Then, in a battle for a horse, he accidentally killed a man, and in order to avoid prison, he went to live with the Tatars. There he worked as a doctor. The Tatars did not want to let him down, so they forcibly captured him, although there he got a family and children. Later, strangers brought fireworks, with which the hero scared the Tatars away and fled. By the grace of the gendarmes, he, like a runaway peasant, ended up in his native estate, from where he was expelled as a sinner. Then he lived for three years with the prince, whom he helped to choose good horses for the army. One evening he decided to get drunk and squandered government money on the gypsy Grusha. The prince fell in love with her and ransomed her, and later fell out of love and drove her away. She asked the hero to take pity on her and kill her, he pushed her into the water. Then he went to war instead of the only son of poor peasants, accomplished a feat, acquired the rank of officer, retired, but could not settle in a peaceful life, so he came to the monastery, where he really liked it. This is what the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" is written about.

Main characters and their characteristics

The story is rich in characters from a variety of classes and even nationalities. The images of the characters in the work "The Enchanted Wanderer" are as multifaceted as their motley, heterogeneous composition.

1. Ivan Flyagin is the main character of the book. He is 53 years old. This is a gray-haired old man of enormous growth with a swarthy open face. This is how Leskov describes him: “He was a hero in the full sense of the word, and, moreover, a typical, simple-hearted, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in the beautiful picture of Vereshchagin and in the poem of Count A. K. Tolstoy.” This is a kind, naive and simple-hearted person, possessing outstanding physical strength and courage, but devoid of bragging and swagger. He is frank and sincere. Despite his low birth, he has dignity and pride. This is how he talks about his honesty: “Only I didn’t sell myself either for big money or for small ones, and I won’t sell myself.” In captivity, Ivan does not betray his homeland, since his heart belongs to Russia, he is a patriot. However, even with all his positive qualities, the man committed many stupid, random acts that cost the lives of other people. So the writer showed the inconsistency of the Russian national character. Maybe that's why the character's life story is complex and eventful: he was a prisoner of the Tatars for 10 years (from the age of 23). After some time, he enters the army and serves in the Caucasus for 15 years. For the feat, he earned an award (George Cross) and the rank of officer. Thus, the hero acquires the status of a nobleman. At the age of 50, he enters a monastery and receives the name Father Ishmael. But even in the church service, the wanderer seeking the truth does not find peace: demons come to him, he has the gift of prophecy. The exorcism of demons did not work, and he is released from the monastery on a journey to holy places in the hope that this will help him.
2. Pear- a passionate and deep nature, conquering everyone with its languid beauty. At the same time, her heart is true only to the prince, which betrays her strength of character, devotion and honor. The heroine is so proud and adamant that she asks to be killed, because she does not want to interfere with the happiness of her treacherous lover, but she cannot belong to another. Exceptional virtue contrasts in her with demonic charm that destroys men. Even Flyagin commits a dishonorable act for her sake. A woman, combining positive and negative forces, after death takes the form of either an angel or a demon: either protecting Ivan from bullets, or embarrassing his peace in the monastery. So the author emphasizes the duality of female nature, in which mother and temptress, wife and lover, vice and holiness coexist.
3. Characters noble origin are presented caricatured, negatively. So, the owner of Flyagin appears before the reader as a tyrant and a hard-hearted person who does not feel sorry for the serfs. The prince is a frivolous and selfish scoundrel, ready to sell himself for a rich dowry. Leskov also notes that the nobility itself does not give privileges. In this hierarchical society, they are given only by money and connections, which is why the hero cannot get a job as an officer. This is an important characteristic of the nobility.
4. Gentiles and foreigners also has its own characteristics. For example, the Tatars live as they have to, they have several wives, many children, but there is no real family, and, therefore, no true love either. It is no coincidence that the hero does not even remember his children who remained there, no feelings arise between them. The author defiantly characterizes not individuals, but the people as a whole, in order to emphasize the absence of individuality in him, which is not possible without a single culture, social institutions - all that the Orthodox faith gives Russians. The writer also got the gypsies, dishonest and thieving people, and the Poles, whose morality is cracking. Getting acquainted with the life and customs of other peoples, the enchanted wanderer understands that he is different, he is not on the same path with them. It is also indicative that he does not develop relationships with women of other nationalities.
5. clergy characters severe, but not indifferent to the fate of Ivan. They have become for him a real family, a brotherhood that worries about him. Of course, they don't immediately accept it. For example, Father Ilya refused to confess a fugitive peasant after a vicious life among the Tatars, but this severity was justified by the fact that the hero was not ready for initiation and still had to pass worldly trials.

Topic

• In the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" the main theme is righteousness. The book makes one think that the righteous is not the one who does not sin, but the one who sincerely repents of sins and wants to atone for them at the cost of self-denial. Ivan searched for the truth, stumbled, made mistakes, suffered, but God, as is known from the parable of the Prodigal Son, is more precious to God who returned home after long wanderings in search of the truth, and not to the one who did not leave and took everything on faith. The hero is righteous in the sense that he took everything for granted, did not resist fate, walked without losing his dignity and without complaining about the heavy burden. In search of the truth, he did not turn to profit or passion, and in the finale he came to true harmony with himself. He realized that his highest destiny was to suffer for the people, “to die for the faith”, that is, to become something greater than himself. A great meaning appeared in his life - service to the motherland, faith and people.
• The theme of love is revealed in Flyagin's relationship with the Tatars and Grusha. It is obvious that the author cannot imagine this feeling without unanimity, conditioned by one faith, culture, paradigm of thinking. Although the hero was blessed with wives, he could not love them even after the birth of joint children. Pear also did not become his beloved woman, because he was fascinated by only the outer shell, which he immediately wanted to buy, throwing government money at the feet of the beauty. Thus, all the feelings of the hero turned not to an earthly woman, but to abstract images of the homeland, faith and people.
• The theme of patriotism. Ivan more than once wanted to die for the people, and in the finale of the work he was already preparing for future wars. In addition, his love for his homeland was embodied in a quivering longing for the fatherland in a foreign land, where he lived in comfort and prosperity.
• Vera. The Orthodox faith, which permeates the entire work, had a huge impact on the hero. She showed herself both in form and in content, because the book resembles the life of a saint, both in composition and in ideological and thematic terms. Leskov considers Orthodoxy a factor that determines many properties of the Russian folk character.

Problems

The rich range of problems in the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" contains the social, spiritual, moral and ethical problems of the individual and the whole people.

• Search for the truth. In an effort to find his place in life, the hero stumbles upon obstacles and does not overcome all of them with dignity. Sins, which have become a means to overcome the path, become a heavy burden on the conscience, because he does not withstand some tests and makes mistakes in choosing the direction. However, without mistakes, there is no experience that led him to realize his own belonging to a spiritual brotherhood. Without trials, he would not have suffered his truth, which is never easy. However, the price for a revelation is invariably high: Ivan became a kind of martyr and experienced real spiritual torment.
• Social inequality. The plight of the serfs becomes a problem of gigantic proportions. The author not only depicts the sad fate of Flyagin, whom the master brought to injury by sending him to the quarry, but also individual fragments of the life of other ordinary people. Bitter is the lot of old people who almost lost their only breadwinner, who was taken into recruits. The death of the hero's mother is terrible, because she was dying in agony without medical care and any help at all. The attitude towards serfs was worse than towards animals. For example, horses worried the master more than people.
• Ignorance. Ivan could have realized his mission faster, but no one was involved in his education. He, like his entire class, did not have a chance to go out into the people, even acquiring a free one. This restlessness is demonstrated by the example of Flyagin's attempt to settle in the city even in the presence of the nobility. Even with this privilege, he could not find a place for himself in society, since no recommendation can replace education, education and manners, which were comprehended not in the stable and not in the quarry. That is, even a free peasant became a victim of his slave origin.
• Temptation. Any righteous person suffers from the misfortune of demonic power. If we translate this allegorical term into everyday language, it turns out that the enchanted wanderer struggled with his dark sides - selfishness, desire for carnal pleasures, etc. No wonder he sees Grusha in the form of a tempter. The desire, once experienced in relation to her, did not give him rest in his righteous life. Perhaps he, accustomed to wandering, could not become an ordinary monk and put up with a routine existence, and he clothed this craving for active actions, new searches in the form of a “demon”. Flyagin is an eternal wanderer who is not satisfied with passive service - he needs flour, a feat, his own Golgotha, where he will ascend for the people.
• Homesickness. The hero suffered and languished in captivity in an inexplicable desire to return home, which was stronger than the fear of death, stronger than the thirst for comfort with which he was surrounded. Because of his escape, he experienced real torture - horse hair was sewn into his feet, so he could not escape all these 10 years of captivity.
• Faith problem. In passing, the author told how Orthodox missionaries died in an attempt to baptize the Tatars.

Main idea

The soul of a simple Russian peasant comes off before us, which is illogical, and sometimes even frivolous in its actions and deeds, and most terrible of all, that it is unpredictable. It is impossible to explain the actions of the hero, because the inner world of this seemingly commoner is a labyrinth in which one can get lost. But no matter what happens, there is always a light that will lead you on the right path. This light for the people is faith, an unshakable faith in the salvation of the soul, even if life has darkened it with sins. Thus, the main idea in the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" is that every person can become a righteous man, you just need to let God into your heart, repenting of evil deeds. Nikolai Leskov, like no other writer, was able to understand and express the Russian spirit, about which A.S. Pushkin. The writer sees a simple peasant, who embodied the entire Russian people, a faith that many deny. Despite this seeming denial, the Russian people do not stop believing. His soul is always open to miracles and salvation. To the last, she is looking for something holy, incomprehensible, spiritual in her existence.

The ideological and artistic originality of the book lies in the fact that it transfers the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son to the contemporary realities of the author and shows that Christian morality does not know time, it is relevant in every century. Ivan was also angry at the usual way of things and left his father's house, only the church was his home from the very beginning, so his return to his native estate did not bring him peace. He left God, indulging in sinful pleasures (alcohol, mortal combat, theft) and sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire of depravity. His path was a heap of accidents, in it N. S. Leskov showed how empty and absurd life is without faith, how aimless its course is, which always brings a person to the wrong place where he would like to be. As a result, like his biblical prototype, the hero returns to the roots, to the monastery, which his mother bequeathed to him. The meaning of the work "The Enchanted Wanderer" lies in finding the meaning of being, which calls Flyagin to selfless service to his people, to self-denial for the sake of a higher goal. Ivan could not do anything more ambitious and correct than this dedication of himself to all mankind. This is his righteousness, this is his happiness.

Criticism

The opinions of critics about Leskov's story, as always, were divided due to the ideological differences of the reviewers. They expressed their views depending on the journal in which they published, because the editorial policy of the media of those years was subject to a certain direction of the publication, its main idea. There were Westernizers, Slavophiles, Soil-Christians, Tolstoyans, and so on. Some of them, of course, liked The Enchanted Wanderer due to the fact that their views found their justification in the book, and someone categorically disagreed with the author’s worldview and what he called the “Russian spirit”. For example, in the journal "Russian wealth" critic N.K. Mikhailovsky expressed his approval of the writer.

In terms of the richness of the plot, this is perhaps the most remarkable of Leskov's works, but in him the absence of any center is especially striking, so that, in fact, there is no plot in it, but there is a whole series of plots strung together like beads on a thread, and each bead by itself can be very conveniently taken out, replaced by another, or you can string as many beads as you like on the same thread.

A critic from the Russian Thought magazine spoke equally enthusiastically about the book:

A truly wonderful collection of lofty examples of virtues, capable of touching the most callous soul, with which the Russian land is strong and thanks to which the “city stands” ...

N. A. Lyubimov, one of the publishers of Russkiy Vestnik, on the contrary, refused to print the manuscript and justified the refusal to publish it by the fact that “the whole thing seems to him more like raw material for making figures, now very vague, than a finished description of something in the reality of the possible and the happening. This remark was eloquently answered by B. M. Markevich, who was the first listener of this book and saw what a good impression it made on the public. He considered the work to be something "highly poetic". He especially liked the descriptions of the steppe. In his message to Lyubimov, he wrote the following lines: “His interest is maintained equally all the time, and when the story ends, it becomes a pity that it has ended. It seems to me that there is no better praise for a work of art.”

In the newspaper "Warsaw Diary", the reviewer emphasized that the work is close to the folklore tradition and has a truly folk origin. The hero, in his opinion, has a phenomenal, typically Russian endurance. He talks about his troubles in a detached way, as about other people's misfortunes:

Physically, the hero of the story is the brother of Ilya Muromets: he endures such torture at the nomads, such an environment and living conditions that he is not inferior to any hero of antiquity. In the moral world of the hero, that complacency prevails, which is so characteristic of the Russian simple man, by virtue of which he shares his last crust of bread with his enemy, and in the war, after the battle, gives help to the wounded enemy on an equal basis with his own.

Reviewer R. Disterlo wrote about the peculiarities of the Russian mentality, depicted in the image of Ivan Flyagin. He stressed that Leskov managed to understand and display the ingenuous and submissive nature of our people. Ivan, in his opinion, was not responsible for his actions, his life, as it were, was given to him from above, and he put up with it, as with the weight of the cross. L. A. Annensky also described the enchanted wanderer: “Leskov’s heroes are inspired, enchanted, mysterious, intoxicated, foggy, insane people, although according to their inner self-esteem they are always “innocent”, always righteous.”

The literary critic Menshikov spoke about the artistic originality of Leskov's prose, emphasizing, along with the originality, the shortcomings of the writer's style:

His style is wrong, but rich and even suffers from the vice of wealth: satiety.

It is impossible to demand from the pictures what you demand. This is a genre, and a genre must be taken by one measure: is it skillful or not? What are the directions here? Thus it will turn into a yoke for art and strangle it, as an ox is crushed by a rope tied to a wheel.

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