"Olesya"

In 1897, Kuprin served as an estate manager in the Ro-Vienna district of the Volyn province. The writer discovered the amazing nature of the Polesie region and dramatic fates its inhabitants. On the basis of what he saw, he created a cycle of "Polesie Stories", which included "Olesya" - a story about nature and love.

The story begins with a description of a picturesque corner where the hero spent six months. He talks about the uncommunicativeness of the Polissya peasants, about traces of Polish rule, about customs and superstitions. In the world on the threshold of the 20th century with its rapid development of natural sciences, technology and social transformations, traditional ideas about good and evil, about love and hatred, about enemies and friends have been preserved. Sometimes the hero thinks that he is in some kind of reserved world in which time has stopped. Here people believe not only in God, but also in devils, devil, water. The space is divided into its own - clean, Christian - and pagan: evil forces that can bring grief and illness live in it. All these sketches are necessary in order to introduce the reader to the atmosphere of Polissya places and explain the reason for the negative attitude of the peasants to the hero's novel with the "witch".

Nature with its beauty and charm, with its enlightening effect on the human soul determines the whole flavor of the story. The winter forest landscape promotes a special state of mind, the solemn silence emphasizes the detachment from the world. The hero meets Olesya in winter and spring, when the renewed nature and the revived forest awaken feelings in the souls of two people. In the beauty of Olesya, in the proud power emanating from her, the strength and charm of the world around her are embodied. A beautiful heroine is inseparable from the greatness of the pristine nature of this region, whose name seems to echo the words "forest" and "Polesie".

Kuprin sketches a portrait in which earthly and sublime principles are fancifully combined: “My stranger, a tall brunette of about twenty or twenty-five, carried herself lightly and slenderly. A spacious white shirt loosely and beautifully wrapped around her young, healthy breasts. The original beauty of her face, once seeing it, could not be forgotten, but it was difficult, even getting used to it, to describe it. His charm lay in those large, shiny, dark eyes, to which thin, broken eyebrows in the middle gave an elusive shade of cunning, imperious and naivete; in the dark-pink rut of the skin, in the willful curl of the lips, of which the lower one, somewhat fuller, protruded forward with a resolute and capricious look.

Kuprin managed to vividly embody the ideal of a natural person, free, original and whole, living in harmony and harmony with nature, “grown in the freedom of an old pine forest as harmonious and as powerful as young Christmas trees grow”, which is close to Tolstoy's traditions.

The heroine's chosen one Ivan Timofeevich, in his own way humane and kind, educated and intelligent, is endowed with a "lazy" heart. Fortune-telling to her betrothed, Olesya says: “Your kindness is not good, not cordial. You are not master of your word. You like to take the upper hand over people, and although you yourself do not want to, you obey. "

And such different people fell in love with each other: “A month has risen, and its radiance with strangely variegated and mysterious bloom of the forest ...<.„> And we walked, embracing, among this smiling living legend, without a single word, suppressed by our happiness and the terrible silence of the forest. " The magnificent nature with its overflow of colors echoes the heroes, as if bewitched by the beauty of youth. But the forest tale ends tragically. And not only because cruelty and meanness of the surrounding world bursts into the light world of Olesya. The writer raises the question on a larger scale: could this girl, a child of nature, free from all conventions, live in a different environment? The theme of shared love is replaced in the story by another, constantly resounding in Kuprin's work - the theme of unattainable happiness.

History of creation

A. Kuprin's story "Olesya" was first published in 1898 in the newspaper "Kievlyanin" and was accompanied by a subtitle. "From memories of Volyn". It is curious that the writer first sent the manuscript to the journal "Russkoe bogatstvo", since before that Kuprin's story "Forest Wilderness", also dedicated to Polesie, had already appeared in this magazine. Thus, the author counted on creating a continuation effect. However, for some reason Russkoe Bogatstvo refused to publish Olesya (perhaps the publishers were not satisfied with the size of the story, because by that time it was the author's largest work), and the cycle planned by the author did not work out. But later, in 1905, "Olesya" came out in an independent edition, accompanied by an introduction from the author, which told the story of the creation of the work. Later, a full-fledged "Polesie cycle" was released, the peak and decoration of which was "Olesya".

The author's introduction has survived only in the archives. In it, Kuprin said that when he visited Polesie with a friend of the landowner Poroshin, he heard from him many legends and tales associated with local beliefs. Among other things, Poroshin said that he himself was in love with a local sorceress. Kuprin would later tell this story in the story, at the same time including in it all the mysticism of local legends, the mysterious mystical atmosphere and the piercing realism of the environment that surrounded him, the difficult fates of Polesie residents.

Analysis of the work

The plot of the story

Compositionally "Olesya" is a retrospective story, that is, the author-narrator returns in his memoirs to the events that took place in his life many years ago.

The basis of the plot and the leading theme of the story is the love between the city nobleman (panych) Ivan Timofeevich and a young resident of Polesie, Olesya. Love is light, but tragic, since its death is inevitable due to a number of circumstances - social inequality, the gap between the heroes.

According to the plot, the hero of the story, Ivan Timofeevich, spends several months in a remote village, on the edge of Volyn Polesye (the territory called Little Russia in tsarist times, today is the west of the Pripyat lowland, in northern Ukraine). A city dweller, he first tries to instill a culture of local peasants, heals them, teaches them to read, but the classes are unsuccessful, since people are overcome by worries and they are not interested in either education or development. Ivan Timofeevich increasingly goes hunting in the forest, admires the local landscapes, sometimes listens to the stories of his servant Yarmola, who talks about witches and sorcerers.

Lost one day while hunting, Ivan finds himself in a forest hut - the same witch from Yarmola's stories - Manuilikha and her granddaughter Olesya live here.

The second time the hero comes to the inhabitants of the hut in the spring. Olesya guesses to him, predicting a quick unhappy love and hardships, up to a suicide attempt. The girl also shows mystical abilities - she can influence a person, inspiring her will or fear, and stop the blood. Panych falls in love with Olesya, but she herself remains emphatically cold with him. She is especially angry that the panych stands up for her and her grandmother before the local police officer, who threatened to disperse the inhabitants of the forest hut for their alleged divination and harm to people.

Ivan falls ill and does not appear in the forest hut for a week, but when he comes, it is noticeable that Olesya is happy to see him, and the feelings of both flare up. A month of secret dates and quiet, bright happiness passes. Despite Ivan's obvious and realized inequality of lovers, he proposes to Olesya. She refuses, arguing that she, the servant of the devil, should not go to church, therefore, and get married, entering into a marriage union. Nevertheless, the girl decides to go to church in order to make a pleasant panychu. Local residents, however, did not appreciate Olesya's impulse and attacked her, severely beating her.

Ivan hurries to the forest house, where the beaten, defeated and morally crushed Olesya tells him that her fears about the impossibility of their union were confirmed - they cannot be together, so she and her grandmother will leave her house. Now the village is even more hostile to Olesya and Ivan - any whim of nature will be associated with its sabotage and sooner or later will be killed.

Before leaving for the city, Ivan again goes into the forest, but in the hut he finds only red olesin beads.

Heroes of the story

Olesya

The main heroine of the story is the forest witch Olesya (her real name is Alena, according to her grandmother Manuilikha, and Olesya is the local version of the name). A beautiful, tall brunette with intelligent dark eyes immediately attracts Ivan's attention. Natural beauty in a girl is combined with a natural mind - despite the fact that a girl cannot even read, there is perhaps more tact and depth in her than in a city one.

Olesya is sure that she is “not like everyone else” and soberly understands that for this dissimilarity she can suffer from the people. Ivan does not really believe in Olesya's unusual abilities, believing that there is more of a centuries-old superstition here. However, he cannot deny the mystical character of Olesya.

Olesya is well aware of the impossibility of her happiness with Ivan, even if he makes a strong-willed decision and marries her, so it is she who boldly and simply manages their relationship: firstly, she takes self-control, trying not to impose a panic, and secondly, she decides to part seeing that they are not a couple. Secular life would be unacceptable for Olesya, her husband would inevitably become burdened by it after the absence of common interests would become clear. Olesya does not want to be a burden, to bind Ivan hand and foot and leaves by herself - this is the heroism and strength of the girl.

Ivan Timofeevich

Ivan is a poor, educated nobleman. Urban boredom leads him to Polesie, where at first he tries to do some business, but in the end, only hunting remains from his studies. He treats the legends about witches like fairy tales - a healthy skepticism is justified by his education.

(Ivan and Olesya)

Ivan Timofeevich - sincere and kind person, he is able to feel the beauty of nature, and therefore Olesya at first interests him not how beautiful girl, but as interesting person... He wonders how it happened that she was brought up by nature itself, and she came out so gentle and delicate, unlike the rough, uncouth peasants. How is it that they, religious, albeit superstitious, are rougher and tougher than Olesya, although she should be the embodiment of evil. For Ivan, a meeting with Olesya is not a lordly fun and a difficult summer love adventure, although he also understands that they are not a couple - in any case, society will be stronger than their love, destroy their happiness. The personification of society in this case does not matter - whether it is a blind and stupid peasant force, whether it is city dwellers, Ivan's colleagues. When he thinks of Olesa as his future wife, in city dress, trying to keep up small talk with his colleagues, he just stumbles. The loss of Olesya for Ivan is the same tragedy as finding her as a wife. This remains outside the scope of the narrative, but most likely Olesya's prediction came true in full - after her departure he felt bad, right down to thoughts of intentionally leaving this life.

Final conclusion

The culmination of events in the story falls on a great holiday - Trinity. This is not an accidental coincidence, it emphasizes and intensifies the tragedy with which Olesya's bright fairy tale is trampled by people who hate her. There is a sarcastic paradox in this: the servant of the devil, Olesya, the witch, turns out to be more open to love than a crowd of people, whose religion fits into the thesis "God is Love".

The author's conclusions sound tragic - it is impossible for two people to be happy together, when the happiness for each of them separately is different. For Ivan, happiness is impossible apart from civilization. For Olesya - out of touch with nature. But at the same time, the author claims, civilization is cruel, society can poison the relations between people, morally and physically destroy them, but nature is not.

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Kuprin's story "Olesya" is one of the most famous works of the author. And this is not surprising: an unusual plot, artistically perfect, thoughtful composition, a wide system artistic images are able not only to make you pick up a story, but also to read it to the end in one breath.

The main characters of the story

After retirement, Kuprin traveled a lot and collected material for writing. It so happened that Kuprin had a chance to visit Ukraine in 1897, namely in the present village. Kuzmivka, which then had the name Kazimirka in the Rivne region. The stay of 6 months did not pass without leaving a trace: the published series of stories excited the readers. The story "Olesya" was written in 1898. The main ones are Ivan Timofeevich - a writer, writer, city dweller who got to the village for some time and Olesya - a village girl with supernatural abilities and the ability to conjure. The rest of the characters in the story are also not faceless.

We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the problems of the story of Alexander Kuprin, one of the most famous works the author.

According to the laws of the genre, there are few of them: Yarmola is a servant of Ivan Timofeevich, Mishchenko Nikita Nazarovich is a clerk, Evpsykhiy Afrikanovich is a police officer, a blind lyre singer and Manuilikha is Olesya's grandmother, also a witch.

The love that arose between the two main characters is unique. In addition to the fact that she arose between a gentleman, with urban morals and a simple rural girl, the relationship is also surprising in that they connect two worlds: the mysterious, unknown witchcraft (the ability to conjure girls) and the ordinary, devoid of supernaturalism (not endowed with any unusual gift Ivan Timofeevich ).

A priori, their love could not be happy - social conflict and society's interference contributed to the breakdown of relations.

Truth and Fiction: Character prototypes

The first thing that interests after reading the story: which of all the stories told is true, and which is fiction? Could such a story actually happen?

Kuprin himself, argued that the basis of the text of the narration is the events that actually happened. In the introduction to the story (it was not published), the author says that he had a chance to visit Ivan Timofeevich Poroshin in Rivne region. One evening, he told Kuprin an unusual story about the love of a witch girl and a landowner, and later admitted that this landowner was he, Poroshin, and this story is not fiction.

Analyzing the text of the story, one can draw an analogy between the image of Ivan Timofeevich and the personality of Kuprin. Main character, like the author himself, literary man, writer. He, like Kuprin, unexpectedly comes to the village and stays there for six months. Some character traits also have similarities with Kuprin.

Thus, we note that there are autobiographical moments in the image of Ivan Timofeevich, however, it is an erroneous action to identify the character and Kuprin's personality.

The hero of the story is different, his character traits have only partial similarity, and the events experienced by Ivan Timofeevich never happened in real life Kuprin.

The witch-girl Olesya also has a prototype. Poroshin's beloved was called Solomiya Manuilovna Kovalik. She was a local native and really knew how to conjure, the woman lived to a very old age, and died in 1954, having outlived Kuprin himself for 16 years.

It is likely that other characters also had prototypes, but information about them has not been preserved. Although, it is possible that they were collective images - Kuprin loved to spend time in the company of young people and listen to local legends, so he could "copy" portrait characteristic not from a specific person, but to combine into one image the personal characteristics of several people, and events that happened to different people, while adding a share of literary fiction.

Kuprin planned to publish his story on the pages of Russkoye Bogatstvo; this magazine had already published his stories about Volhynia and Polissya, but the editors of the magazine did not support the author's intention and refused to publish.

Contacting Kievlyanin was more successful. In 1898, the reader was able to read Olesya for the first time, and in 1905, the independent publication of the story took place.

Today "Olesya" enjoys wide interest among readers. The theme of unity with nature and harmonious existence has not lost its relevance now. And the story of an unusual, pure and kind love, which does not have a happy ending, is touching for many.

Alexander Kuprin wrote the story "Olesya" under the impression of a trip to Polesie, stories, legends and stories he heard there. The story uses features of an ethnographic sketch: a description of local customs, folklore elements, dialect vocabulary. Let's spend brief analysis story "Olesya", and look at some of the features of the work. On our website you can also read a summary of Kuprin's "Olesya".

The plot of the story "Olesya"

The story "Olesya", which we are analyzing, is dedicated to the love story of Ivan Timofeevich and the Polesie "witch". The relationships of the characters reveal the characters of each of them. The narration is in the past tense, the narrator Ivan Timofeevich recalls the events that happened to him during a trip to one of the Polesie villages. There he hunted, treated peasants, studied customs. He was interested in the story about the witch Manuilikha, who lived in these places.

Once, while hunting, Ivan Timofeevich wandered into her hut. There the narrator met Olesya, Manuilikha's granddaughter. The girl was so unusual that Ivan Timofeevich fell in love with her, "a beautiful fairy tale of love" is depicted surrounded by a mysterious forest. They thought about the wedding. For the sake of love, Olesya decided to go to church on Trinity, but the village women kicked her out and beat her, as they considered her a witch. Olesya shouted in her hearts that they would regret it. The next day, a thunderstorm with hail broke out. Olesya and her grandmother had to flee, otherwise they would face reprisals from local residents. As a souvenir of herself, she left Ivan Timofeevich with a string of coral beads. Although this description is not named summary, without him, nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine an analysis of the story "Olesya".

Traits of romanticism in the story "Olesya" by Kuprin

The work has a number of features that make it romantic. First of all, it is the opposition of the everyday world and the ideal world. The sad reality appears in the depiction of the life of the protagonist in a distant village, the customs of the peasants. Kuprin shows their ignorance, rudeness and cruelty of actions. Ivan Timofeevich himself is an indecisive and weak-willed person. The ideal and poetic dream is embodied in the image of Olesya and her peaceful life in the bosom of nature.

The romantic ideal is the fleeting happiness of lovers surrounded by “blazing evening dawns”, the smells of lily of the valley and honey, “ringing bird din”. Nature reflects the sublime and beautiful feelings of the heroes.

At the heart of romanticism is an exceptional personality. This is the main character of the story - Olesya. Continuing the analysis of the story "Olesya", let us turn directly to the image the main character.

The image of the main character

Olesya's first appearance in the story is unusual. At first, Ivan Timofeevich, sitting in the hut near Manuilikha, hears a song that Olesya hums, only then the girl appears. "Fresh, strong and sonorous voice" shows the youth and beauty of Olesya, who grew up in the forest. Kuprin paints the image of Olesya with the help of a psychological portrait: original beauty, "an elusive shade of cunning, imperiousness and naivety", shiny, dark eyes, willful curl of lips. All this shows Olesya's decisive, strong character, at the same time, her childishness and kindness. It is no coincidence that Olesya appears for the first time, carrying chicks in her arms, which "tied" behind her. This thought is very important when we analyze the story "Olesya".

The girl considers herself a real sorceress. She knows how to read cards, understands the language of birds, speaks and stops blood, shows many more "tricks" (as Ivan Timofeevich calls them).

Olesya's love is as beautiful as the evening and morning dawns, it is no coincidence that many years later for the narrator the image of the beloved remains inextricably linked with the June freshness of nature. He notes the girl's subtle delicacy and sensitivity. She is ready for much for love.

One of the trials for the "witch" was going to church. She knew how this could turn out for her, because the locals hated witches. But even after Olesya paid for this act, she never rebuked Ivan Timofeevich. Analysis of the story "Olesya" by Kuprin shows that the girl turns out to be bolder and taller than the man, who cannot decide what to do. He loves Olesya, but he cannot imagine that she will turn out to be his wife, mistress of secular evenings. The hero's hesitation leads to the fact that Olesya and her grandmother leave, and he remembers his beloved and lost happiness all his life.

We hope that this article, which presented a brief analysis of the story "Olesya", will help you better understand the meaning of the work and Kuprin's intention. Visit our literature blog for hundreds of articles on similar topics. You may also be interested in

The story "Olesya" was written by Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin in 1898.

Kuprin spent 1897 in Polesie, Rivne district, where he served as the estate manager. Observations of the peculiar way of life of local peasants, the impressions of a meeting with majestic nature gave Kuprin rich material for creativity. A cycle of the so-called "Polesie stories" was conceived here, which later included the stories "On the wood grouse", "Wilderness", "The Silver Wolf" and one of the best works writer - the story "Olesya".

This story is the embodiment of the writer's dream about a wonderful person, about a free and healthy life in fusion with nature. Among the eternal forests, permeated with light, fragrant with lilies of the valley and honey, the author finds the heroine of his most poetic story.

The story of a short, but beautiful in its sincerity and fullness of love of Olesya and Ivan Timofeevich is steeped in romance. The romantic intonation is guessed already at the very beginning behind the outwardly calm description of the life and customs of the Polissya peasants, the state of health of Ivan Timofeevich in the unusual atmosphere of a remote village. Then the hero of the story listens to Yarmola's stories about the "witchers" and about a witch living nearby.

Ivan Timofeevich could not help but find lost in the swamps "a fairy-tale hut on chicken legs" where Manuilikha and the beautiful Olesya lived.

The writer surrounds his heroine with mystery. No one knows and will never know where Manuilikha came from with her granddaughter to the Polesye village and where they disappeared forever. This unsolved mystery is the special attraction of Kuprin's poem in prose. Life for a moment merges with a fairy tale, but only for a moment, because the cruel circumstances of life destroy the fairy world.

In love, disinterested and honest, the characters of the heroes of the story are revealed with the greatest completeness. Growing up in the forests, akin to nature, Olesya does not know calculation and cunning, selfishness is alien to her - everything that poisons human relationships in the "civilized world". Olesya's natural, simple and sublime love makes Ivan Timofeyevich forget for a while the prejudices of his environment, awakens in his soul all the best, bright, humane. And that is why it is so bitter for him to lose Olesya.

Olesya, possessing the gift of providence, feels the inevitability of the tragic end of her short happiness. She knows that their happiness in a stuffy, cramped city, from which Ivan Timofeevich could not renounce, is impossible. But all the more humanly valuable is her self-denial, an attempt to reconcile her way of life with what is alien to her.

Kuprin is merciless in portraying the inert, downtrodden, terrible in its dark anger of the peasant masses. He speaks the bitter truth about human souls ruined by centuries of slavery. He speaks with pain and anger, does not justify, but explains the ignorance of the peasants, their cruelty.

The landscape fragments of the story belong to the best pages of Kuprin's work and Russian prose in general. The forest is not a background, but a living participant in the action. The spring awakening of nature and the origin of love of the heroes coincide because these people (Olesya - always, her beloved - only for a short time) live one life with nature, obey its laws. They are happy as long as they maintain this unity.

There was a lot of naivety in the understanding of happiness, which was possible only apart from civilization. Kuprin himself understood this. But the ideal of love as the highest spiritual force will continue to live in the mind of the writer.

It is known that Kuprin rarely came up with plots, life itself prompted them in abundance. Apparently, the plot of "Olesya" had roots in reality. By at least it is known that at the end of its life path the writer confessed to one of the interlocutors, speaking about the Polissya story: "All this was with me." The author managed to melt life material into a unique wonderful piece art.

Konstantin Paustovsky, a wonderful writer, a true connoisseur and admirer of Kuprin's talent, wrote very correctly: "Kuprin will not die while the human heart is agitated by love, anger, joy and the spectacle of the mortally tempting land allotted to our lot for life."

Kuprin cannot die in the memory of people - just as the wrathful power of his "Duel", the bitter charm " Garnet bracelet", The amazing picturesqueness of his" Listrigones ", just as his passionate, intelligent and direct love for man and his native land cannot die.