One of the most famous works of Nikolai Nekrasov is considered to be the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, which is distinguished not only by its deep philosophical meaning and social urgency, but also by its bright, original characters - these are seven simple Russian peasants who got together and argued about who “ live freely and cheerfully in Rus'. The poem was first published in 1866 in the Sovremennik magazine. The publication of the poem was resumed three years later, but the tsarist censorship, seeing in the content an attack on the autocracy, did not allow it to be published. The poem was published in its entirety only after the revolution in 1917.

The poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” has become the central work in the work of the great Russian poet, this is his ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of his thoughts and reflections on the fate of the Russian people and on the roads leading to his happiness and well-being. These questions worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through his entire life. literary activity. Work on the poem lasted 14 years (1863-1877) and in order to create this “folk epic”, as the author himself called it, useful and understandable for the common people, Nekrasov made a lot of efforts, although in the end it was never completed (8 chapters were planned, 4 were written). A serious illness, and then the death of Nekrasov, disrupted his plans. The plot incompleteness does not prevent the work from having an acute social character.

Main storyline

The poem was started by Nekrasov in 1863 after the abolition of serfdom, so its content touches on many problems that arose after the Peasant Reform of 1861. There are four chapters in the poem, they are united by a common plot about how seven ordinary men argued about who lives well in Rus' and who is truly happy. The plot of the poem, which touches on serious philosophical and social problems, is built in the form of a journey through Russian villages, their “speaking” names describe the Russian reality of that time in the best possible way: Dyryavin, Razutov, Gorelov, Zaplatov, Neurozhaikin, etc. In the first chapter, called "Prologue", the men meet on a high road and start their own dispute in order to solve it, they are poisoned on a trip to Russia. On the way, arguing men meet a variety of people, these are peasants, and merchants, and landowners, and priests, and beggars, and drunkards, they see a wide variety of pictures from people's lives: funerals, weddings, fairs, elections, etc. .

meeting different people, the peasants ask them the same question: how happy they are, but both the priest and the landowner complain about the deterioration of life after the abolition of serfdom, only a few of all the people they meet at the fair recognize themselves as truly happy.

In the second chapter, entitled "Last Child", the wanderers come to the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, whose inhabitants, after the abolition of serfdom, in order not to upset the old count, continue to pretend to be serfs. Nekrasov shows readers how they were then cruelly deceived and robbed by the count's sons.

The third chapter, entitled “Peasant Woman,” describes the search for happiness among women of that time, the wanderers meet with Matryona Korchagina in the village of Klin, she tells them about her long-suffering fate and advises them not to look for happy people among Russian women.

In the fourth chapter, entitled “A Feast for the Whole World”, wandering seekers of truth find themselves at a feast in the village of Valakhchina, where they understand that the questions they ask people about happiness excite all Russian people without exception. Ideological ending The composition becomes the song "Rus", which originated in the head of the participant in the feast, the son of the parish deacon Grigory Dobrosklonov:

« You are poor

you are abundant

you and almighty

Mother Rus'!»

Main characters

The question of who is the main character of the poem remains open, formally these are the men who argued about happiness and decided to go on a trip to Russia to decide who is right, but the poem clearly shows the statement that main character poems - the entire Russian people, perceived as a single whole. The images of wandering men (Roman, Demyan, Luka, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin, the old man Pakhom and Prov) are practically not disclosed, their characters are not traced, they act and express themselves as a single organism, while the images of the people they meet, on the contrary, are painted very carefully, with lots of details and nuances.

One of the brightest representatives of a man from the people can be called the son of the parish clerk Grigory Dobrosklonov, who was presented by Nekrasov as a people's intercessor, enlightener and savior. He is one of the key characters and the entire final chapter is given to describe his image. Grisha, like no one else, is close to the people, understands their dreams and aspirations, wants to help them and composes wonderful “good songs” for people that bring joy and hope to others. Through his mouth, the author proclaims his views and beliefs, gives answers to the sharp social and moral questions. Characters such as seminarian Grisha and honest steward Yermil Girin do not seek happiness for themselves, they dream of making all people happy at once and devote their whole lives to this. The main idea of ​​the poem stems from Dobrosklonov's understanding of the very concept of happiness, this feeling can be fully felt only by those who, without reasoning, give their lives for a just cause in the struggle for people's happiness.

chief female character poem is Matryona Korchagina, describing her tragic fate, typical of all Russian women, is devoted to the entire third chapter. Drawing her portrait, Nekrasov admires her straight, proud posture, uncomplicated attire and the amazing beauty of a simple Russian woman (large, strict eyes, rich eyelashes, severe and swarthy). Her whole life is spent in hard peasant work, she has to endure the beatings of her husband and the arrogant encroachments of the manager, she was destined to survive the tragic death of her firstborn, hunger and deprivation. She lives only for the sake of her children, without hesitation accepts punishment with rods for her delinquent son. The author admires the power of her maternal love, endurance and strong character, sincerely pities her and sympathizes with all Russian women, because the fate of Matryona is the fate of all peasant women of that time, suffering from lawlessness, want, religious fanaticism and superstition, lack of qualified medical care.

The poem also describes the images of landlords, their wives and sons (princes, nobles), depicts landowner servants (lackeys, servants, domestic servants), priests and other clergymen, good governors and cruel German managers, artists, soldiers, wanderers, great amount minor characters, which give the folk lyrical-epic poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” that unique polyphony and epic breadth that make this work a real masterpiece and the pinnacle of all Nekrasov's literary work.

Analysis of the poem

The problems raised in the work are diverse and complex, they affect the lives of various strata of society, this is a difficult transition to a new way of life, problems of drunkenness, poverty, obscurantism, greed, cruelty, oppression, the desire to change something, etc.

However, the key problem this work- the search for simple human happiness, which each of the characters understands in his own way. For example, rich people, such as priests or landowners, think only about their own well-being, this is happiness for them, poorer people, such as ordinary peasants, are happy with the simplest things: to stay alive after a bear attack, survive a beating at work, etc. .

The main idea of ​​the poem is that the Russian people deserve to be happy, they deserve it with their suffering, blood and sweat. Nekrasov was convinced that it is necessary to fight for one's happiness and it is not enough to make one person happy, because this will not solve the entire global problem as a whole, the poem calls for thinking and striving for happiness for everyone without exception.

Structural and compositional features

The compositional form of the work is distinguished by its originality, it is built in accordance with the laws of the classical epic, i.e. each chapter can exist autonomously, and all together they represent a single whole work with a large number of characters and storylines.

The poem, according to the author himself, belongs to the folk epic genre, it is written in iambic trimeter unrhymed, at the end of each line after the stressed syllables there are two unstressed syllables (the use of dactylic kazula), in some places to emphasize the folklore style of the work there is iambic tetrameter.

In order for the poem to be understandable to a common person, many common words and expressions are used in it: a village, a log, a fairground, an empty dance, etc. The poem contains a large number of different samples of folk poetic creativity, these are fairy tales, and epics, and various proverbs and sayings, folk songs different genre. The language of the work is stylized by the author in the form folk song to improve ease of perception, at that time the use of folklore was considered the best way for the intelligentsia to communicate with the common people.

In the poem, the author used such means artistic expressiveness as epithets (“the sun is red”, “black shadows”, the heart is free”, “poor people”), comparisons (“jumped out like a disheveled one”, “like dead men fell asleep”), metaphors (“the earth lies”, “the warbler cries ”, “village seething”). There is also a place for irony and sarcasm, various stylistic figures are used, such as appeals: “Hey, uncle!”, “Oh people, Russian people!”, Various exclamations “Chu!”, “Eh, Eh!” etc.

The poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" is the highest example of a work made in the folk style of all literary heritage Nekrasov. The elements and images of Russian used by the poet folklore give the work a bright originality, colorfulness and juicy national flavor. What the search for happiness Nekrasov did main theme The poem is not at all accidental, because the entire Russian people have been searching for it for many thousands of years, this is reflected in his fairy tales, epics, legends, songs and various other folklore sources as the search for a treasure, a happy land, a priceless treasure. The theme of this work expressed the most cherished desire of the Russian people throughout its existence - to live happily in a society where justice and equality rule.

The history of the creation of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins in the late 1850s, when Nekrasov came up with the idea of ​​a large-scale epic work summarizing all his creative and life experience revolutionary poet. The author has been collecting material for a long time based on both his personal experience of communicating with the people and the literary heritage of his predecessors. Before Nekrasov, many authors addressed the life of the common people in their works, in particular I.S. Turgenev, whose "Notes of a Hunter" became one of the sources of images and ideas for Nekrasov. He had a clear idea and plot in 1862, after the abolition of serfdom and land reform. In 1863 Nekrasov set to work.

The author wanted to create an epic "folk" poem with a detailed picture of the life of various strata of Russian society. It also seemed important to him that his work be accessible to the common people, to whom he addressed in the first place. This is the reason for the composition of the poem, conceived by the author as cyclic, the size close to the rhythm of folk tales, a kind of language, replete with sayings, sayings, "common" and dialect words.

The creative history of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has almost fourteen years of intensive work by the author, collecting materials, working out images, and correcting the original plot. According to the author's idea, the heroes, having met near their villages, had to make a long journey through the entire province, and at the end reach St. Petersburg. Being on the way, they talk with the priest, the landowner, the peasant woman. In St. Petersburg, travelers were supposed to meet with an official, a merchant, a minister, and the tsar himself.

As the individual parts of the poem were being written, Nekrasov published them in the journal Domestic Notes. In 1866, the Prologue appeared in print, the first part was published in 1868, then in 1872 and 1873. the parts "Last Child" and "Peasant Woman" were printed. The part entitled "A Feast for the Whole World" did not appear in print during the author's lifetime. Only three years after Nekrasov's death, Saltykov-Shchedrin was able to print this fragment with large censored notes.

Nekrasov did not leave any instructions regarding the order of the parts of the poem, therefore it is customary to publish it in the order in which it appeared on the pages of Domestic Notes - Prologue and the first part, The Last Child, Peasant Woman, Feast for the Whole World ". This sequence is the most adequate in terms of composition.

The serious illness of Nekrasov forced him to abandon the original plan of the poem, according to which it was supposed to consist of seven or eight parts and include, in addition to pictures of rural life, scenes of St. Petersburg life. It was also planned that the structure of the poem would be based on the change of seasons and agricultural seasons: travelers set off on a journey in early spring, spent the whole summer and autumn on the road, reached the capital in winter and returned to their native places in the spring. But the history of writing "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was interrupted in 1877 with the death of the writer.

Anticipating the approach of death, Nekrasov says: “One thing I deeply regret is that I didn’t finish my poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”.” Realizing that the disease does not leave him enough time to complete his plans, he is forced to change his original plan; he quickly reduces the story to an open ending, in which, however, he still demonstrates one of his most striking and significant heroes - the commoner Grisha Dobrosklonov, who dreams of the welfare and happiness of all the people. It was he who, according to the idea of ​​the author, was to become the very lucky man that the wanderers are looking for. But, not having time for a detailed disclosure of his image and history, Nekrasov limited himself to a hint of how this large-scale epic should have ended.

Artwork test

One day, seven men converge on the high road - recent serfs, and now temporarily liable "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavin, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhayka, too." Instead of going their own way, the peasants start a dispute about who lives happily and freely in Rus'. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky man in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a minister of sovereigns or a tsar.

During the argument, they do not notice that they gave a detour of thirty miles. Seeing that it is too late to return home, the men make a fire and continue the argument over vodka - which, of course, little by little turns into a fight. But even a fight does not help to resolve the issue that worries the men.

The solution is found unexpectedly: one of the peasants, Pahom, catches a warbler chick, and in order to free the chick, the warbler tells the peasants where they can find a self-assembled tablecloth. Now the peasants are provided with bread, vodka, cucumbers, kvass, tea - in a word, everything they need for a long journey. And besides, the self-assembled tablecloth will repair and wash their clothes! Having received all these benefits, the peasants give a vow to find out "who lives happily, freely in Rus'."

The first possible "lucky man" they met along the way is a priest. (It was not for the oncoming soldiers and beggars to ask about happiness!) But the priest's answer to the question of whether his life is sweet disappoints the peasants. They agree with the priest that happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor. But the pop does not possess any of these benefits. In haymaking, in stubble, in a dead autumn night, in severe frost, he must go where there are sick, dying and being born. And every time his soul hurts at the sight of grave sobs and orphan sorrow - so that his hand does not rise to take copper nickels - a miserable reward for the demand. The landlords, who formerly lived in family estates and got married here, baptized children, buried the dead, are now scattered not only in Rus', but also in distant foreign land; there is no hope for their reward. Well, the peasants themselves know what honor the priest is: they feel embarrassed when the priest blames obscene songs and insults against priests.

Realizing that the Russian pop is not among the lucky ones, the peasants go to the festive fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask the people about happiness there. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded-up house with the inscription "school", a paramedic's hut, a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village of drinking establishments, in each of which they barely manage to cope with the thirsty. Old man Vavila cannot buy his granddaughter goat's shoes, because he drank himself to a penny. It’s good that Pavlusha Veretennikov, a lover of Russian songs, whom everyone calls “master” for some reason, buys a treasured gift for him.

Wandering peasants watch the farcical Petrushka, watch how the women are picking up book goods - but by no means Belinsky and Gogol, but portraits of fat generals unknown to anyone and works about "my lord stupid." They also see how a busy trading day ends: rampant drunkenness, fights on the way home. However, the peasants are indignant at Pavlusha Veretennikov's attempt to measure the peasant by the master's measure. In their opinion, it is impossible for a sober person to live in Rus': he will not endure either overwork or peasant misfortune; without drinking, bloody rain would have poured out of the angry peasant soul. These words are confirmed by Yakim Nagoi from the village of Bosovo - one of those who "work to death, drink half to death." Yakim believes that only pigs walk the earth and do not see the sky for a century. During a fire, he himself did not save money accumulated over a lifetime, but useless and beloved pictures that hung in the hut; he is sure that with the cessation of drunkenness, great sadness will come to Rus'.

Wandering peasants do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise to give water to the lucky ones for free, they fail to find those. For the sake of gratuitous booze, both an overworked worker, and a paralyzed former courtyard, who for forty years licked the master's plates with the best French truffle, and even ragged beggars are ready to declare themselves lucky.

Finally, someone tells them the story of Ermil Girin, a steward in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who has earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the peasants lent it to him without even asking for a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in jail.

About the misfortune that befell the nobles after the peasant reform, the ruddy sixty-year-old landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev tells the peasant wanderers. He recalls how in the old days everything amused the master: villages, forests, fields, serf actors, musicians, hunters, who belonged undividedly to him. Obolt-Obolduev tells with emotion how on the twelfth holidays he invited his serfs to pray in the manor's house - despite the fact that after that they had to drive women from all over the estate to wash the floors.

And although the peasants themselves know that life in serf times was far from the idyll drawn by Obolduev, they nevertheless understand: the great chain of serfdom, having broken, hit both the master, who at once lost his usual way of life, and the peasant.

Desperate to find a happy man among the men, the wanderers decide to ask the women. The surrounding peasants recall that Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina lives in the village of Klin, whom everyone considers lucky. But Matrona herself thinks differently. In confirmation, she tells the wanderers the story of her life.

Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a non-drinking and prosperous peasant family. She married Philip Korchagin, a stove-maker from a foreign village. But the only happy night for her was that night when the groom persuaded Matryona to marry him; then the usual hopeless life of a village woman began. True, her husband loved her and beat her only once, but soon he went to work in St. Petersburg, and Matryona was forced to endure insults in her father-in-law's family. The only one who felt sorry for Matryona was grandfather Saveliy, who lived out his life in the family after hard labor, where he ended up for the murder of the hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: a peasant cannot be defeated, because he "bends, but does not break."

The birth of the first-born Demushka brightened up the life of Matryona. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and old grandfather Savely did not follow the baby and fed him to the pigs. In front of Matryona, judges who arrived from the city performed an autopsy of her child. Matryona could not forget her first child, although after she had five sons. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matrena took upon herself the punishment assigned to her son. Then, being pregnant with her son Liodor, she was forced to go to the city to seek justice: her husband, bypassing the laws, was taken to the soldiers. Matryona was then helped by the governor Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying.

By all peasant standards, the life of Matryona Korchagina can be considered happy. But about the invisible mental storm that passed through this woman, it is impossible to tell - just like about unrequited mortal insults, and about the blood of the firstborn. Matrena Timofeevna is convinced that a Russian peasant woman cannot be happy at all, because the keys to her happiness and free will are lost from God himself.

In the midst of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims up to the shore in three boats. The mowers, who have just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help their heirs to hide the abolition of serfdom from the landowner Utyatin, who has lost his mind. For this, the relatives of the Last Duck-Duck promise the peasants floodplain meadows. But after the long-awaited death of the Afterlife, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.

Here, near the village of Vahlachin, wanderers listen to peasant songs - corvée, hungry, soldier's, salty - and stories about serf times. One of these stories is about the serf of the exemplary Jacob the faithful. Yakov's only joy was to please his master, the petty landowner Polivanov. Samodur Polivanov, in gratitude, beat Yakov in the teeth with his heel, which aroused even greater love in the lackey's soul. By old age, Polivanov lost his legs, and Yakov began to follow him like a child. But when Yakov's nephew, Grisha, decided to marry the serf beauty Arisha, out of jealousy, Polivanov sent the guy to the recruits. Yakov began to drink, but soon returned to the master. And yet he managed to take revenge on Polivanov - the only way available to him, in a lackey way. Having brought the master into the forest, Yakov hanged himself right above him on a pine tree. Polivanov spent the night under the corpse of his faithful serf, driving away birds and wolves with groans of horror.

Another story - about two great sinners - is told to the peasants by God's wanderer Iona Lyapushkin. The Lord awakened the conscience of the ataman of the robbers Kudeyar. The robber prayed for sins for a long time, but all of them were released to him only after he killed the cruel Pan Glukhovsky in a surge of anger.

The wandering men also listen to the story of another sinner - Gleb the headman, who hid the last will of the late widower admiral for money, who decided to free his peasants.

But not only wandering peasants think about the happiness of the people. The son of a sacristan, seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, lives in Vakhlachin. In his heart, love for the deceased mother merged with love for the whole of Vahlachina. For fifteen years, Grisha knew for sure whom he was ready to give his life, for whom he was ready to die. He thinks of all mysterious Rus' as a miserable, abundant, powerful and powerless mother, and expects that the indestructible strength that he feels in his own soul will still be reflected in her. Such strong souls, like those of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the angel of mercy himself calls for an honest path. Fate prepares Grisha "a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia."

An unfinished poem in which Nekrasov formulated another eternal Russian question and put folklore at the service of revolutionary democracy.

comments: Mikhail Makeev

What is this book about?

Serfdom in Russia has been abolished. Seven "temporarily liable" After the Peasant Reform, this was the name of the peasants who had not yet bought the land from the landowner, therefore they were obliged to pay dues or corvee for it. ⁠ (that is, in fact, not yet free) peasants (“Tightened province, / Terpigoreva Uyezd, / Empty volost, / From adjacent villages: / Zaplatova, Dyryavina, / Razutova, Znobishina, / Gorelova, Neelova - / Identity crop failure”) start a dispute about who "has a fun, free life in Rus'." To resolve this issue, they go on a journey in search of a happy person. Along the way, they see all of peasant Russia: they meet priests and soldiers, the righteous and drunkards, a landowner who does not know about the abolition of serfdom, and a future people's protector, who composes a hymn to the "poor and plentiful, downtrodden and omnipotent" Mother Rus'.

Nikolay Nekrasov. Lithograph by Peter Borel. 1860s

When was it written?

When exactly the idea of ​​the poem arose is not established. There is evidence Gabriel Potanin Gavriil Nikitich Potanin (1823-1911) - writer. He served as a teacher in Simbirsk. He gained fame thanks to the novel "The old grows old, the young grows", published in Sovremennik in 1861. Nekrasov helped Potanin move to St. Petersburg and get a job. In the early 1870s, relations with Nekrasov worsened, and the writer returned to Simbirsk. In his declining years, Potanin wrote enthusiastic memoirs about Nekrasov, however, some episodes in them do not correspond to the facts. ⁠ , who allegedly saw a manuscript (draft?) of the poem on Nekrasov's desk in the fall of 1860. However, Potanin cannot be completely trusted. Nekrasov himself dated the first part of the poem to 1865: apparently, it was basically completed by the end of that year. With interruptions (which sometimes stretched for several years), Nekrasov worked on “Who in Rus' should live well” until the end of his life. The poem was left unfinished. In the last of the written parts, "A Feast for the Whole World", the poet made changes until March 1877, that is, almost until his death. Shortly before his death, Nekrasov regretted that he would not have time to complete the poem: “... If only three or four more years of life. It is such a thing that only as a whole can have its own meaning. And the further you write, the more clearly you imagine the further course of the poem, new characters, pictures. Based on the poet's sketches, it is possible to restore the idea of ​​several unwritten chapters: for example, the meeting of heroes with an official, for the sake of which the peasants had to come to St. Petersburg.

The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..

Nikolai Nekrasov

How is it written?

“Who should live well in Rus'” is stylized as Russian folklore. This is a kind of encyclopedia or "complete collection" of genres of folk poetry - from small ones (proverbs, sayings, riddles, etc. - it is estimated that there are more than a hundred such inclusions in the poem) to the largest ones (epic, fairy tale, legend, historical song A lyrical epic folklore genre that tells about historical events. For example, songs about Ermak, Pugachev or the capture of Kazan. ⁠ ). In the part "Peasant Woman", the most "folklorized" in the poem, there are direct, only slightly adapted borrowings from folk songs. Nekrasov's language is full of diminutive suffixes, typical of the rhythm of the folk poetry 1 Chukovsky K. I. Nekrasov’s skill // Chukovsky K. I. Collected works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s skill. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. C. 515-524. ⁠ , and the images often go back to her formulas: “Spikes have already poured. / Chiseled pillars stand, / Gilded heads...”, “Only you, black shadows, / You can’t catch - hug!”

However, in most cases, Nekrasov does not so much copy or quote folklore texts as he is inspired by folk poetry, creating an original work in the “folk spirit”. According to Korney Chukovsky, Nekrasov could even "modify" neutral folklore images in such a way "so that they could serve the purposes of the revolutionary wrestling" 2 Chukovsky K. I. Nekrasov’s skill // Chukovsky K. I. Collected works in 15 volumes. T. 10: Nekrasov’s skill. Articles. M.: Terra, 2012. C. 398-399. ⁠ - despite the fact that this opinion itself looks biased, it is true in the sense that folklore for Nekrasov was material, and not an end in itself: he, one might say, edited folklore, combined elements of different texts, while achieving authentic sound and verified logic.

Typical fairy tale fiction plays an important role in the plot of the poem: magical helpers According to Vladimir Propp, a magical assistant is one of the key elements of a fairy tale, it helps the main character achieve the main goal. ⁠ (bird-chiffchaff) and magic remedies The outcome of a fairy tale often depends on the presence of a certain magical agent in the hero. As a rule, in the tale there is also a figure of a donor (for example, Baba Yaga), thanks to which the hero receives a remedy. Vladimir Propp writes about this in his book Morphology of a Fairy Tale. ⁠ (self-assembled tablecloth), as well as items of peasant life endowed with magical properties (armyians that do not wear out, do not rot "onuchenki", do not "break" bast shoes, shirts in which fleas "do not breed"). All this is necessary so that wanderers who have left their wives and “little children” at home can travel without being distracted by worries about clothing and food. The very number of wanderers - seven - speaks of a connection with Russian folklore, in which the seven is a special, sacred and, at the same time, rather "favorable" number.

The composition of the poem is free: in their wanderings around Rus', seven men witness numerous colorful scenes, meet with a variety of its inhabitants (mainly with peasants like themselves, but also with representatives of other social strata - landowners, priests, courtyards, lackeys). Answers to the main question of the poem are formed into short stories (there are many of them in the first part: in the chapters "Country Fair", "Drunken Night" and "Happy"), and sometimes turn into independent plots: for example, such an insert story occupies most of the fragment " Peasant Woman ”, a long story is dedicated to the life of Ermil Girin. This is how a kaleidoscopic picture of life in Russia develops in the era of the Peasant Reform (Nekrasov called his poem "the epic of modern peasant life").

The poem is mostly written in white iambic trimeter. Focusing on folk verse, Nekrasov randomly alternates dactylic Rhyme with stress on the third syllable from the end. ⁠ ending with male Rhyme with stress on the last syllable. ⁠ - this creates a feeling of free, flowing speech:

Yes, no matter how I ran them,
And the betrothed turned up,
On the mountain - a stranger!
Philip Korchagin - Petersburger,
A baker by skill.
The mother was crying
"Like a fish in a blue sea
You yell! like a nightingale
Flutter from the nest!
Someone else's side
Not sprinkled with sugar
Not watered with honey!

However, in "To whom in Rus' ..." there are fragments written in a variety of sizes, both in white and in rhymed verse. For example, the song “Hungry”: “A man is standing - / Swaying, / A man is walking - / Can’t breathe! // From his bark / He was swollen, / Longing-trouble / Tormented” - or the famous anthem “Rus”, written by seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov:

Rat rises -
innumerable,
The strength will affect her
Invincible!

You are poor
You are abundant
You are beaten
You are almighty
Mother Rus'!

Reaper. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1866

Peasants at dinner. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1866

What influenced her?

First of all, the Peasant Reform of 1861. She caused mixed responses in the circle to which Nekrasov belonged. Many of his employees and like-minded people reacted sharply negatively to it, including Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the leading critic of Sovremennik, who assessed the reform as unfair to the peasants and committed "in favor" of the landowners. Nekrasov himself was reserved about the reform, but much more optimistic. The poet saw in it not only injustice towards the people, the “sower and keeper” of the land, who now had to buy this land from the landowner, but also new opportunities. In a letter to Turgenev dated April 5, 1861, Nekrasov wrote: “Now we have a curious time - but the very thing and all his fate is ahead.” Apparently, the general feeling is well expressed in the short poem “Freedom” written at the same time:

Motherland! across your plains
I have never traveled with this feeling!

I see a child in the arms of a darling,
The heart is excited by the thought of the beloved:

In a good time, a child was born,
Merciful God! you don't know tears

Since childhood, no one has been intimidated, free,
Choose a job that suits you

If you want, you will remain a man for a century,
If you can, you will soar under the sky like an eagle!

There are many mistakes in these fantasies:
The human mind is thin and flexible,

I know, in place of the networks of serfs
People came up with many other

So! .. but it is easier for people to unravel them.
Muse! hopefully welcome freedom!

In any case, Nekrasov had no doubt that people's life was changing dramatically. And just the spectacle of change, along with reflections on whether the Russian peasant is ready to take advantage of freedom, in many ways became the impetus for writing the poem.

Of the literary and linguistic influences, the first is folklore, through which the people speak of their lives, worries, and hopes. Interest in folklore was characteristic of many Russian poets of the first half of XIX century; most likely, Alexei Koltsov, the author of popular poems that imitate the style of folk poetry, should be considered the immediate predecessor of Nekrasov. Nekrasov himself became interested in folklore back in the mid-1840s (for example, in the poem "Gardener"), but the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was the culmination of this interest. Folk oral creativity Nekrasov collected on his own for several decades, but he also used collections of folk poetry published by professional folklorists. So, a strong impression on Nekrasov was made by the first volume of "Lamentations of the Northern Territory", collected Elpidifor Barsov Elpidifor Vasilyevich Barsov (1836-1917) - ethnographer. Author of the three-volume work "Lamentations of the Northern Territory". Researcher of ancient Russian literature and owner of one of the best paleographic collections of his time. In 1914 he gave it to the Historical Museum. ⁠ (mostly it included cries and lamentations recorded from Irina Fedosova Irina Andreevna Fedosova (1827-1899) - folk storyteller. Originally from Karelia. Gained fame as a mourner. In the late 1860s, for several years, Elpidifor Barsov wrote down her lamentations, which were included in the ethnographic study "Lamentations of the Northern Territory". In total, about 30 thousand of its texts were recorded by various ethnographers. Fedosova performed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, had many fans. ⁠ ), as well as the third and fourth parts of "Songs collected P. N. Rybnikov Pavel Nikolayevich Rybnikov (1831-1885), ethnographer. Graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University. He studied the schism and the Old Believers in the Chernihiv province, was suspected of participating in the revolutionary circle of "vertepniks", after which he was exiled to Petrozavodsk. In 1860, Rybnikov undertook a trip to the Russian North, where he collected and recorded unique local folklore. Based on the results of the trip, he published the book “Songs collected by P. N. Rybnikov”, which became known not only in Russia, but also abroad. ⁠ ". The poet used both of these books mainly in the part "Peasant Woman" to create the image of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina. Many of the stories told by the characters of the poem were heard by Nekrasov from people familiar with folk life (for example, from a well-known lawyer Anatoly Koni Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927) - lawyer and writer. He served as a prosecutor, was the chairman of the St. Petersburg District Court, an honorary judge of St. Petersburg and Peterhof districts. Under the chairmanship of Koni, the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty to Vera Zasulich, who shot at the St. Petersburg mayor Trepov. Based on Koni's memoirs on one of the cases, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection. After the revolution, he lectured on criminal justice, wrote a commentary on the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922. Author of the books "On life path», « Judicial speeches”, “Fathers and children of judicial reform”. ⁠ ), possibly from peasant hunters. “Whatever jokes you spice up the story of an old serviceman, no matter how witty you distort words, such a story will still not be a real soldier’s story if you yourself have never heard soldier’s stories,” Nekrasov wrote back in 1845; the folklore layer in the poem is based on a deep personal knowledge of folk traditions 3 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. C. 380-386. ⁠ .

The plot of the "journey", convenient for a large-scale display of national life, was used, for example, by Nikolai Gogol in. Gogol is one of the writers whom Nekrasov honored with the highest praise for him: “the people’s protector” (the second such writer is Belinsky, whose books, according to Nekrasov’s dream, the peasant will one day “carry from the market” along with Gogol’s, and in drafts Nekrasov also calls Pushkin).

Grigory Myasoedov. The land is having lunch. 1872 State Tretyakov Gallery

The poem was printed in parts as it was created. "Prologue" was published in No. 1 "Contemporary" Literary magazine (1836-1866), founded by Pushkin. From 1847, Nekrasov and Panaev directed Sovremennik, later Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov joined the editorial board. In the 60s, an ideological split occurred in Sovremennik: the editors came to understand the need for a peasant revolution, while many authors of the journal (Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Druzhinin) advocated slower and more gradual reforms. Five years after the abolition of serfdom, Sovremennik was closed by personal order of Alexander II. ⁠ for 1866, and since 1869 the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Domestic Notes.

“A Feast for the Whole World” was not published during Nekrasov’s lifetime: his text, severely distorted for censorship reasons, was included in the November (11th) issue of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1876, but was cut out by censorship; the publication, planned in 1877, was also canceled, citing the author's "ill health". For the first time this fragment was published separately in 1879 in an illegal edition of the St. Petersburg Free Printing House, and the legally incomplete version of The Feast was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski only in 1881.

The first separate edition of "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" appeared in 1880. year 4 “Who in Rus' should live well”: A poem by N. A. Nekrasov. SPb.: Type. M. Stasyulevich, 1880. ⁠ , however, in addition to the first part, as well as "Peasant Woman" and "Last Child", it included only a short fragment "Grishin's Song"). Apparently, the one-volume poems of N. A. Nekrasov, published by Mikhail Stasyulevich Mikhail Matveevich Stasyulevich (1826-1911) - historian and publicist. Professor of History at St. Petersburg University, specialist in history Ancient Greece and Western European Middle Ages. In 1861 he resigned in protest against the suppression of student protests. The author of the three-volume work "History of the Middle Ages, in its sources and contemporary writers". From 1866 to 1908 he was the editor of the journal Vestnik Evropy. ⁠ in 1881; however, here, too, "A Feast for the Whole World" is presented in a distorted form.

Since 1869, the poem was published in separate chapters in the journal Domestic Notes.

Cover of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'". Printing house of M. M. Stasyulevich, 1880

How was it received?

As new parts of the poem were published, critics met them mostly negatively. Viktor Burenin Victor Petrovich Burenin (1841-1926) - literary critic, essayist, playwright. In his youth, he was friends with the amnestied Decembrists and radical democrats (helped Nekrasov with the collection of materials for the poem "Russian Women"), published in Herzen's Bell. From 1876 until the revolution, he worked for Suvorin's Novoye Vremya, a conservative right-wing publication. Due to frequent attacks and rudeness in his articles, Burenin gradually acquired a scandalous reputation - he was sued several times for libel. It was said that it was Burenin's harsh article that brought the poet Semyon Nadson to death - after reading the accusations that he was only pretending to be ill, Nadson felt worse and soon died. ⁠ believed that the chapters of the first part are “weak and prosaic as a whole, incessantly smack of vulgarity and only in places represent some dignity" 5 Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1873, March 10. No. 68. ⁠ , Vasily Avseenko Vasily Grigoryevich Avseenko (1842-1913) - writer, publicist. He taught general history at Kiev University, was co-editor of the Kievlyanin newspaper, head of the governor's office. After moving to St. Petersburg in 1869, he served in the Ministry public education, published critical articles in "Russian Messenger", "Russian Word", "Dawn". From 1883 to 1896 he published the St. Petersburg Vedomosti. He wrote fiction: the novels The Evil Spirit, The Milky Way, Grinding of Teeth, and others. ⁠ called "To whom in Rus' it is good to live" "long and watery thing" 6 Russian thought. 1872, May 13. No. 122. ⁠ and even considered it "among the most unsuccessful works" Nekrasov 7 Russian thought. 1873, February 21. No. 49. ⁠ . More favorably Burenin met the "Last Child", in which he saw "artistic truth in conjunction with modern social thought" 8 Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1873. No. 68. ⁠ . However, both Burenin and Avseenko, who reacted sharply negatively to The Last Child, denied that this part was topical, the relevance of this part: they accused Nekrasov of “exposing serfdom exactly 12 years after cancellation" 9 Russian Bulletin. 1874. No. 7. S. 454. ⁠ . The “peasant woman” was scolded for “false, made vulgarity" 10 Burenin; Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. 1874. No. 10. ⁠ , big stretches, rudeness, dissonance 11 Son of the fatherland. 1874. No. 30. ⁠ . It is characteristic that, attacking specific places in the poem, critics often did not even suspect that it was here that Nekrasov was using an authentic folklore text.

Friendly criticism noted in the poem a sincere feeling of sympathy for a simple person, "love for the" unfortunate Russian people "and the poet's sympathy for him suffering" 12 Radiance. 1873. No. 17. ⁠. Generally hostile to Nekrasov Evgeny Markov Evgeny Lvovich Markov (1835-1903) - writer, critic, ethnographer. He served as a teacher in Tula, then director of the Simferopol gymnasium. He collaborated with the magazines Otechestvennye Zapiski, Delo, Vestnik Evropy. Author of the novels "Chernozem fields" (1876), "Seashore" (1880), travel notes "Essays on the Crimea" (1872), "Essays on the Caucasus" (1887), "Journey through Serbia and Montenegro" (1903). ⁠ wrote about "Peasant Woman": "Speech the best places his best poems sometimes it sounds like a characteristic melody of a real Russian song, sometimes it beats with the laconic wisdom of a Russian proverbs" 13 Voice. 1878. No. 46. ⁠.

There were also directly rave reviews: the critic Prokofy Grigoriev called “Who is good in Rus'” “by the power of genius, by the mass of life, enclosed in it, unprecedented in literature, not a single people poem" 14 The library is cheap and publicly available. 1875. No. 4. S. 5. ⁠ .

Probably the most perspicacious of his contemporaries was the poet (and one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov) Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov Alexey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov (1821-1908) - poet, satirist. He served in the Ministry of Justice and the State Chancellery, in 1858 he retired. Together with brothers Vladimir and Alexander and cousin Aleksey Tolstoy created the literary pseudonym Kozma Prutkov. Author of several books of poetry. ⁠ : he highly appreciated the scale of Nekrasov's plan and singled out "Who in Rus' should live well" among the works of the poet. In a private letter to Nekrasov dated March 25, 1870 from Wiesbaden, Zhemchuzhnikov wrote: “This poem is a capital thing, and, in my opinion, among your works it occupies a place in the forefront. The main thought is very happy; the frame is extensive, like a frame. You can fit a lot in it."

Viktor Burenin. 1910s. Critic Burenin believed that the first parts of the poem "smell with vulgarity"

Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov. 1900 The poet Zhemchuzhnikov, on the contrary, believed that the poem "is a capital thing"

answer Lev Oborin

The modern status of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as the most important work of Nekrasov did not develop immediately. One of the first critics to put effort into this was Sergey Andreevsky Sergei Arkadyevich Andreevsky (1848-1918) - poet, critic, lawyer. He worked under the supervision of the lawyer Anatoly Koni, was a well-known judicial orator, the book with his defense speeches went through several editions. At the age of 30, Andreevsky began to write and translate poetry. He published the first translation into Russian of Poe's poem "The Raven". From the late 1880s he worked on critical studies about the work of Baratynsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, Nekrasov. ⁠ , whose articles on the poet had a significant impact on the perception of subsequent critics. In the article "The Degeneration of Rhyme" (1900), Andreevsky declared the poem one of Nekrasov's highest achievements.

The further canonization of the poem is connected not only with the work of non-beautiful critics (primarily Korney Chukovsky and Vladislav Evgeniev-Maximov Vladislav Evgenievich Evgeniev-Maksimov (1883-1955) - literary critic. He worked as a teacher at the Tsarskoye Selo real school, was fired for organizing a literary evening at which Nekrasov's "Railway" was read. Later he worked in independent public educational institutions. He created the Nekrasov exhibition, on the basis of which the Nekrasov Museum-Apartment in St. Petersburg was formed. Since 1934 he taught at the Leningrad University. Participated in the preparation of the complete works of Nekrasov. ⁠ ), but also with the fact that civil, revolutionary pathos was clearly audible in the poem: “Every peasant / Soul is like a black cloud - / Angry, formidable, - and it would be necessary / Thunders rumble from there, / Rains of blood ... " The censorship fate of the poem only reinforced the feeling that Nekrasov was proposing a direct revolutionary program and opposed liberal half-measures, and the figure of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the future revolutionary, was being shaped to answer the central question of the poem - an answer that Nekrasov did not finally give. The poem was popular even in circles Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya is a revolutionary organization founded in 1879. There were about 500 people among the registered participants. The Narodnaya Volya campaigned among the peasants, issued proclamations, staged demonstrations, including terrorist activities - they organized the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. For participation in the activities of the "Narodnaya Volya" 89 people were sentenced to death. ⁠ , was confiscated from the revolutionaries along with illegal literature. The name of Nekrasov appears in the texts of the main theorists of Russian Marxism - Lenin and Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918) - philosopher, politician. He headed the populist organization "Land and Freedom", the secret society "Black Redistribution". In 1880 he emigrated to Switzerland, where he founded the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. After the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Plekhanov disagreed with Lenin and headed the Menshevik Party. He returned to Russia in 1917, supported the Provisional Government and condemned the October Revolution. Plekhanov died a year and a half after returning from an exacerbation of tuberculosis. ⁠ . In the memoirs of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin appears as a true connoisseur of Nekrasov's poetry. Lenin's articles are interspersed with Nekrasov quotes: in particular, in 1912, Lenin recalls the lines about that "desired time" when the peasant "Belinsky and Gogol / From the market will suffer", and states that this time has finally come, and in 1918 he puts the lines from a song by Grisha Dobrosklonov (“You are poor, you are abundant ...”) as an epigraph to the article “The main task of our days" 15 Chukovsky K. I. Lenin about Nekrasov // Chukovsky K. I. People and books. M.: GIHL, 1960. ⁠ . Plekhanov, the chief specialist in aesthetics among Marxists, wrote a long article about him on the 25th anniversary of Nekrasov's death. A significant fragment in it is devoted to “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”: Plekhanov reflects on how Nekrasov would have reacted to a popular uprising, and comes to the conclusion that it seemed to him “completely unthinkable.” Plekhanov associated the pessimistic moods of the poem with the general decline of the revolutionary movement in the late 1870s: Nekrasov did not live to see the appearance of a new generation of revolutionaries, “and having recognized and understood these people, new in Rus', he might perhaps have written a new one in their honor, inspired "song", Not "hungry" and not "salty", A combat, - the Russian "La Marseillaise", in which the sounds of "to sweep" but the sounds "sorrows" would be replaced by the sounds of joyful confidence in victory. Despite this, in Marxist literary criticism there was no doubt that Nekrasov in "To whom in Rus' ..." was the harbinger of the revolution - accordingly, in the post-revolutionary literary canon, his poem was given a high place. It remains in the poem even today: the current study of Nekrasov's work at school cannot be imagined without a detailed analysis of "Who in Rus' should live well."

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play "Who Lives Well in Rus'" at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

The play "Who Lives Well in Rus'" at the Gogol Center. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 2015

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

From the archives of the Gogol Center. Photo by Ira Polyarnaya

Why do men go in search of a happy man?

On the one hand, we have a convention: the men start a dispute, which comes to an epicly described fight, and then it occurs to them to go around all of Russia until they find an answer - a typical fairy tale quest, the folklore of which is enhanced by the appearance of a magical bird-chiffchaff and self-assembled tablecloths (almost the only fantastic elements in Nekrasov's poem, on the whole realistic: even seemingly speaking toponyms like Gorelov and Neelov had quite real correspondences).

On the other hand, whatever the motives for the journey, it is still necessary to figure out what exactly the wanderers wanted to know and why they chose such interlocutors. The very concept of happiness is very broad and ambiguous. Perhaps the wanderers do not just want to know who is happy with simple and understandable happiness - as it seems to them. Maybe they are also searching for what happiness is in general, what types of happiness there are, what is the happiness of happy people. And they do encounter a whole gallery of people who think they are happy—and a whole range of happiness types.

Finally, on the third hand, one should not exaggerate the fabulous beginning of the Nekrasov dispute: disputes on important topics in the post-reform peasant environment really took place - this was due to the beginning of the movement of liberated peasants to the cities, in general, with the seething of new ideas in Russia. The Soviet literary critic Vasily Bazanov associated the heroes of “Who should live well in Rus'” with the emergence of “a new type of peasant - a gambling debater, loudmouth, “brisk talker" 16 Comments // Nekrasov N. A. Complete works and letters: In 15 vols. T. 5: P. 605; see: Bazanov. ⁠ .

Great Russians. Drawing by L. Belyankin from the album “Russian peoples. Part 1. European Russia. 1894

What kind of happiness can be seen in Nekrasov's poem?

It is clear what happiness is - according to the principle “it could be worse”, but these examples allow wanderers to sort of clarify their idea of ​​happiness. It not only has to be strong, it gradually emerges as its own, specific. Of course, wealth is also important: instead of their “Tightened province, / Terpigorev district, / Empty volost”, the peasants are looking for “Unwhacked province, / Ungutted volost, / Surplus village”. But this is not the contentment of a well-fed slave, not wealth in the lordly manner. The happiness of a lackey who has been licking plates of truffles all his life and has fallen ill with the "lord's disease" (which is called "yes-gray!") is not "people's happiness", it is unacceptable for the peasant. The “correct” happiness is in something else. The series of happy people in the first part of the poem is crowned by the image burmistra Manager of the landowner's estate, supervised the peasants. ⁠ Yermila Girina: he, as the peasants think, is happy because he enjoys the respect and love of the people for his honesty, nobility and justice in relation to the peasants. But the hero himself is absent - he is sitting in prison (for what - it remains not completely clear; apparently, he refused to suppress the popular revolt), - and his candidacy is no longer possible.

Faced with failure, wanderers do not lose interest in their subject, expanding the boundaries of ideas about happiness. The stories they learn teach them something. For example, from a conversation with a village priest, the peasants learn that he is almost as unhappy as the peasants. The peasants' ideas about priestly happiness ("Popov's porridge - with butter, / Popov's pie - with filling, / Priest's cabbage soup with smelt!") turn out to be incorrect: it is impossible to achieve any income from serving the destitute ("The peasant himself needs, / And he would be glad to give, there's nothing..."),
and the reputation of the “priests” among the people is unimportant - they are laughed at, they are composed of “joke tales, / And obscene songs, / And all kinds of blasphemy.” Even the gentleman is unhappy, longingly recalling the former, pre-reform time:

Whom I want - I have mercy
Whoever I want, I will execute.
Law is my wish!
The fist is my police!
sparkling blow,
a crushing blow,
Cheekbone blow!..

Finally, in the poem there is an amazing story of the Last, the surviving Prince Utyatin, who was lied to that the tsar canceled the reform and returned serfdom: his former serfs play a comedy, pretending that everything remains the same. This story, which Nekrasov's critics considered a absurd, fantastic anecdote, actually had precedents; they might have been known to Nekrasov. The plot of the "Last Child" also warns against longing for the past (it was terrible, you should not try to restore it, even if the present does not justify bright hopes) and from voluntary slavery (even if this slavery is pretend, there will be no promised reward for it: heirs, in whose interests this performance was played out, the former serfs will certainly be deceived). Happiness should not be sought in the serf-owning past: then only the master and his faithful lackey Ipat were happy, whom the prince once accidentally ran over with a sleigh, and then nevertheless “nearby, unworthy, / With his special princely / In a sleigh he brought home” (telling about At this, Ipat invariably wept with emotion).

Can a woman be happy in Rus'?

“Not everything is between men / To look for a happy one, / Let's touch the women!” - the wanderers think at some point. The fragment "Peasant Woman" translates the question of happiness into a new plane: how to achieve happiness? main character fragment Matryona Timofeevna Korchagin, whose story is filled mainly with losses and sufferings (the difficult situation in her husband's house, the loss of a son, corporal punishment, constant hardships and deprivations), nevertheless, not without reason, appears as a possible lucky woman:

And there is in the village of Klin:
Holmogory cow,
Not a woman! wiser
And more ironically - there is no woman.
Ask Korchagina
Matryona Timofeev,
She is the Governor...

She changed her fate: she saved her husband, achieved respect and, in fact, leadership in the family. This "impressive woman, / Broad and dense" enjoys unprecedented authority for a "woman" in her village. It is not without reason to assume that this female image in the poem shows that the path, if not to happiness, then to a change in a bitter fate, lies through a strong, decisive act. This idea becomes clear if you look at the antipode of Matryona in "The Peasant Woman": this is grandfather Savely, "the hero of the Holy Russian." He pronounces the famous monologue, a kind of hymn to patience, the colossal ability for which makes the Russian peasant a real hero:

Hands twisted with chains
Legs forged with iron
Back ... dense forests
Passed on it - broke.
And the chest? Elijah the prophet
On it rattles-rides
On a chariot of fire...
The hero suffers everything!

This apology for patience does not impress Matryon at all:

"You're kidding jokes, grandpa! —
I said. — So-and-so
The mighty hero,
Tea, the mice will bite!”

Later, the old man Saveliy (whose fault was the death of Matryona's son) tells her: “Be patient, multi-curved! / Be patient, long-suffering! / We can’t find the truth”; of course, this idea is disgusting to her, and she is always looking for justice. For Nekrasov, the intention itself is more important than the result: Matryona Korchagina not happy, but she has something that in other circumstances can become the foundation of happiness - courage, intransigence, strong will. However, neither Matryona nor her contemporary peasant women can wait for these other circumstances - for happiness, she tells the wanderers,

Go to the official
To the noble boyar,
Go to the king
Don't touch women
Here is God! pass with nothing
To the grave!

Podolyanka. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1886

Three poor old women. Photo from the album "Types of Podolsk province". 1886

What is the special role of the Feast for the Whole World fragment?

To replace the question of what happiness is and whether there is already now in Rus' happy man(or a group of people), another question comes up: how to change the position of the Russian peasant? This is the reason for the unusual nature of the last fragment of the poem, "A Feast for the Whole World".

Even at a superficial glance, this part is different from the rest. First of all, the movement seems to have finally stopped: the wanderers no longer go through Rus', they remain in the Big Vakhlaki tree at the feast on the occasion of the death of the Last One - they participate in a kind of commemoration for serfdom. Secondly, here the wanderers do not meet anyone new - all the characters are the same whom we have already seen in the "Last Child" fragment. We already know that it makes no sense to look for a lucky one among them (and for those who appear in this fragment for the first time, the wanderers do not even try to ask a question that concerns them). It seems that the pursuit of happiness and the lucky man is either stopped or postponed, and the plot of the poem has undergone a change that was not provided for in its original program.

The search for happiness and happy is replaced discussion, conversation. For the first time in the poem, her peasant characters do not just tell their stories, but themselves begin to look for the reasons for their situation, their hard life. Prior to this, only one character from the people was shown as a kind of "people's intellectual" - Yakim Nagoi, a lover of "pictures" (that is, paintings hung on the walls for children's education and for their own joy) and a person who is able to sensibly and unexpectedly competently explain real reasons and the real extent of people's drunkenness: he says that "we are great people / In work and in revelry," and explains that wine is a kind of substitute for people's anger: "Every peasant / Soul is like a black cloud - / Wrathful, formidable, - and it would be necessary / Thunders rumble from there, / It rains bloody, / And everything ends with wine. / A charm went through the veins - / And the kind / Peasant soul laughed! (This is a “theory”, as if justifying the unsightly practice shown earlier in a few lines.) In the last fragment of the poem, the whole “world”, a kind of spontaneous folk assembly, acts as such a reflective subject.

At the same time, the discussion, deep and serious, is conducted in the same folklore forms, in the form of parables and legends. Take, for example, the question of who is to blame for the suffering of the people. The blame at first, of course, is laid on the nobles, the landowners, whose cruelty obviously exceeds any national offense and crime. It is illustrated by the famous song "About two great sinners". Her hero, the robber Kudeyar, in whom his conscience woke up, becomes a schemer; in a vision, a certain saint appears to him and says that in order to atone for his sins, Kudeyar must cut down the centuries-old oak with “the same knife that robbed”. This work takes many years, and one day Kudeyar sees the local rich landowner, Pan Glukhovsky, who boasts to him of his debauchery and declares that his conscience does not torment him:

“You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves I destroy
I torture, I torture and hang,
And I would like to see how I sleep!

The miracle with the hermit happened:
Felt rage,
Rushed to Pan Glukhovsky,
A knife plunged into his heart!

Just pan bloodied
Fell head on the saddle
A huge tree collapsed
The echo shook the whole forest.

The tree collapsed, rolled down
From a monk the burden of sins! ..
Let us pray to the Lord God:
Have mercy on us, dark slaves!

People's holiness is opposed to the sin of the landowner (in this part, images of "God's people" appear, whose feat is not in serving God, but in helping the peasants in difficult times for them). However, here the idea also arises that the people themselves are partly to blame for their situation. A great sin (much more terrible than the landowner's) lies with the elder Gleb: his master, the old "ammiral-widower", before his death set his peasants free, but Gleb sold his freedom to his heirs and thereby left his brothers in serfdom (written "Koltsovskiy" verse song "Peasant sin"). The very abolition of serfdom is described as an event of catastrophic proportions: “The great chain broke” and hit “One end on the gentleman, / On the other end on the peasant! ..”

It is no longer the author, but his peasant characters who are trying to understand whether their life is changing for the better after the end of serfdom. Here the main burden lies on the headman Vlas, who feels like a kind of leader people's world: on his shoulders - a great responsibility for the future. It is he who, turning into the "voice of the people", then expresses the hope that it will be easier for the liberated peasants to achieve a better life, then falls into despondency, realizing that serfdom is deeply rooted in the souls of the peasants. A new character helps Vlas to dispel heavy doubts, introducing both already familiar and completely new notes into the work. This young man is a seminarian named Grigory Dobrosklonov, the son of a peasant woman and a poor deacon:

Although Dobrolyubov also came from the clergy, Grigory Dobrosklonov does not have much personal resemblance to him. Nekrasov did not achieve it: already in the lyrical poetry of Nekrasov, the image of Dobrolyubov separated from a specific person and became a generalized image of a revolutionary people-lover, ready to give his life for the happiness of the people. In "To whom it is good to live in Rus'," the type of populist is added to it, as it were. This movement, which arose already in the late 1860s, largely inherited the ideas, views and principles of the revolutionaries of the 60s, but at the same time differed from them. The leaders of this movement (some of them, like Mikhailovsky Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky (1842-1904) - publicist, literary critic. Since 1868, he was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and in 1877 he became one of the editors of the magazine. In the late 1870s, he became close to the Narodnaya Volya organization, and was expelled from St. Petersburg several times for his connections with the revolutionaries. Mikhailovsky considered the goal of progress to be raising the level of consciousness in society, and criticized Marxism and Tolstoyism. By the end of his life, he became a well-known public intellectual and a cult figure among populists. ⁠ And Lavrov Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823-1900), sociologist and philosopher. One of the main ideologists of populism. He was a member of the revolutionary society "Land and Freedom". After his arrest, he was sent into exile, where he wrote his own famous work- Historical Letters. In 1870 he fled abroad: he participated in the Paris Commune, edited the Vperyod magazine. Author of poems for the song "Working Marseillaise", which was used as an anthem in the first months after the February Revolution. ⁠ , collaborated in the Nekrasov journal Otechestvennye Zapiski) proclaimed the idea of ​​duty to the people. According to these ideas, the "thinking minority" owes its capabilities, the benefits of civilization and culture to people's labor - that huge mass of peasants who, while creating material wealth, do not use them themselves, continuing to vegetate in poverty, having no access to enlightenment, education, which could to help them change their lives for the better. Young people, brought up not only on the articles of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, but also Lavrov, Mikhailovsky, Bervi-Flerovsky Vasily Vasilievich Bervi-Flerovsky (real name - Wilhelm Wilhelmovich Bervi; 1829-1918) - sociologist, publicist. One of the main ideologists of populism. In 1861 he was arrested in the "case of Tver peace mediators" and sent into exile, first to Astrakhan, and then to Siberia. Wrote a revolutionary proclamation "On the Martyr Nicholas". Collaborated with the magazines Delo, Slovo and Otechestvennye Zapiski. He enjoyed great respect among young revolutionaries. ⁠ , sought to repay this debt to the people. One of these attempts was the famous "going to the people" undertaken by these people in the summer of 1874 at the call of their ideologists. The youth went to the villages not just to propagate revolutionary ideas, but to help the people, to open their eyes to the reasons for their plight, to give them useful knowledge(and excerpts from Nekrasov's poem could push them to this). The failure that ended this peculiar feat only increased the sense of sacrifice that guided the young people - many of them paid for their impulse with heavy and lengthy punishments.

Dobrosklonov does not think of his happiness otherwise than through overcoming someone else's, people's grief. His connection with the people is blood: Grisha's mother was a peasant woman. Nevertheless, if Dobrosklonov embodies the author's, Nekrasov's concept of happiness, which became the fruit of the poet's thoughts, this does not mean that he completes the poem: it remains a question whether the peasants will be able to understand such happiness and recognize a person like Grisha as a genuine lucky man - especially in the event that he is really expected "a loud name / people's protector, / Consumption and Siberia ”(lines that Nekrasov deleted from the poem, possibly for censorship reasons). We remember that Burmeister Ermil Girin's candidacy for the role of a real lucky man disappears precisely when it turns out that "he is sitting in prison."

In the finale, when Grisha Dobrosklonov composes his ecstatic hymn to Mother Rus', Nekrasov declares: “If our wanderers were under their native roof, / If they could know what was happening with Grisha.” Perhaps the self-awareness of the young man who composed the "divine" song about Rus' is the main approach to happiness in the poem; it probably coincided with the feelings of the true author of the anthem - Nekrasov himself. But, despite this, the question of people's happiness, happiness in the understanding of the people themselves remains open in the poem.

"drunk" 17 Bee. 1878. No. 2. ⁠: “Having not found a happy man in Rus', the wandering peasants return to their seven villages ... These villages are “adjacent”, and from each there is a path to the tavern. Here, at this tavern, they meet a man who has drunk himself with a circle ... and with him over a glass they will find out who has a good life. Writer Alexander Shklyarevsky Alexander Andreevich Shklyarevsky (1837-1883) - writer. Served as parish teacher. He gained fame as the author of crime detectives. Author of the books "Tales of the Investigator", "Corners of the Slum World", "Murder without a trace", "Is she a suicide?" and many others. ⁠ recalled that the supposed answer to the poem's central question was "nobody" 18 A week. 1880. No. 48. S. 773-774. ⁠ , - in this case, this question is rhetorical and only a disappointing answer can be given to it. This evidence deserves attention, but the dispute about Nekrasov's design has not yet been resolved.

From the very beginning, a strangeness is striking: if the peasants could really assume that the representatives of the upper classes (landowner, official, priest, merchant, minister, tsar) were happy, why did they start looking for a happy one among their fellows? Indeed, as the literary critic Boris Bukhshtab noted, “there was no need for the peasants to leave their Razutovs, Gorelovs, Neyelovs to find out if they were happy peasants" 19 Bukhshtab B. Ya. N. A. Nekrasov. Problems of creativity. L.: Owls. pis., 1989. C.115. ⁠ . According to Bukhstab, there was an original idea for the poem, according to which Nekrasov wanted to show the happiness of the "upper classes" of society against the backdrop of people's grief. However, he underwent a change, since a different understanding of happiness came to the fore - from happiness as personal and selfish contentment, Nekrasov moves on to the idea of ​​​​the impossibility of being happy when grief and misfortune reigns around.

Fate prepared for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia...

In some editions, these lines are included in the main text of the poem as being the victim of self-censorship, but there are no grounds for an unequivocal conclusion about this (as in many other cases). The "censored" version of the exclusion of these famous lines has been disputed by philologists more than once. As a result, in the last academic collected works Nekrasov 20 Nekrasov N.A. Complete Works and Letters: In 15 volumes. Works of Art. Volumes 1-10. Criticism. Publicism. Letters. T. 11-15. L., St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1981-2000. ⁠ - the most authoritative edition of Nekrasov's texts - they are published in the "Other editions and variants" section.

Another still unresolved issue is in what order to print the completed fragments. There is no doubt that "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" should open the "Prologue" and "Part One". Variations are possible with the three following fragments. From 1880 to 1920, in all editions, fragments of the poem were printed in the order in which they were created and published (or prepared for printing) by Nekrasov: 1. “Part One”. 2. "Last child". 3. "Peasant woman". 4. "A feast for the whole world." In 1920, Korney Chukovsky, who prepared the first Soviet collected works of Nekrasov, changed the order, based on the author's instructions in the manuscripts: Nekrasov indicated in the notes where this or that fragment should be attributed. The order in Chukovsky's edition is as follows: 1. "Part One". 2. "Last child". 3. "A feast for the whole world." 4. "Peasant woman". This order is based, among other things, on the agricultural calendar cycle: according to it, the action of the "Peasant Woman" should take place two months after the "Last Child" and "Feast for the Whole World".

Chukovsky's decision was criticized: it turned out that if the "Peasant Woman" completes the entire poem, this gives it an overly gloomy meaning. In this version, it ended (cut off) on a pessimistic note - the story of the "holy old woman": "The keys to female happiness, / From our free will / Abandoned, lost / God himself!" The poem, thus, lost the historical optimism inherent in Nekrasov (as was traditionally considered in Soviet times), faith in a better future for the people. Chukovsky accepted the criticism and in 1922 published, in violation of the chronology of the author's work on the text, fragments in a different order: 1. "Part One". 2. "Peasant woman". 3. "Last child". 4. "A feast for the whole world." Now the poem took on a semblance of completeness on an optimistic note - Grisha Dobrosklonov experiences real euphoria in the finale of A Feast for the Whole World:

He heard immense strength in his chest,
Gracious sounds delighted his ears,
Radiant sounds of the noble hymn -
He sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people! ..

In this form, the poem was printed until 1965, but the discussions of literary critics continued. In the last academic collected works of Nekrasov, it was decided to return to the order in which “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was printed until 1920 of the year 21

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men came together:
Seven temporarily liable,
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure, too,
Agreed - and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?

Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
Luke said: ass.
Fat-bellied merchant! -
Gubin brothers said
Ivan and Mitrodor.
Old man Pahom pushed
And he said, looking at the ground:
noble boyar,
Minister of the State.
And Prov said: to the king ...

Man what a bull: vtemyashitsya
In the head what a whim -
Stake her from there
You won’t knock out: they rest,
Everyone is on their own!
Is there such a dispute?
What do passers-by think?
To know that the children found the treasure
And they share...
To each his own
Left the house before noon:
That path led to the forge,
He went to the village of Ivankovo
Call Father Prokofy
Baptize the child.
Pahom honeycombs
Carried to the market in the Great,
And two brothers Gubina
So simple with a halter
Catching a stubborn horse
They went to their own herd.
It's high time for everyone
Return your way -
They are walking side by side!
They walk like they're running
Behind them are gray wolves,
What is further - then sooner.
They go - they perekorya!
They shout - they will not come to their senses!
And time does not wait.

They didn't notice the controversy
As the red sun set
How the evening came.
Probably a whole night
So they went - where not knowing,
When they meet a woman,
Crooked Durandiha,
She did not shout: “Venerable!
Where are you looking at night
Have you thought about going?..”

Asked, laughed
Whipped, witch, gelding
And jumped off...

"Where? .." - exchanged glances
Here are our men
They stand, they are silent, they look down...
The night has long gone
Frequent stars lit up
In high skies
The moon surfaced, the shadows are black
The road was cut
Zealous walkers.
Oh shadows! black shadows!
Who won't you chase?
Who won't you overtake?
Only you, black shadows,
You can not catch - hug!

To the forest, to the path
He looked, was silent Pahom,
I looked - I scattered my mind
And he said at last:

"Well! goblin glorious joke
He played a trick on us!
After all, we are without a little
Thirty miles away!
Home now toss and turn -
We are tired - we will not reach,
Come on, there's nothing to be done.
Let's rest until the sun! .. "

Having dumped the trouble on the devil,
Under the forest along the path
The men sat down.
They lit a fire, formed,
Two ran away for vodka,
And the rest for a while
The glass is made
I pulled the birch bark.
The vodka came soon.
Ripe and snack -
The men are feasting!

Russian streams and rivers
Good in spring.
But you, spring fields!
On your seedlings are poor
It's not fun to watch!
"No wonder in the long winter
(Our wanderers interpret)
It snowed every day.
Spring has come - the snow has affected!
He is humble for the time being:
Flies - silent, lies - silent,
When he dies, then he roars.
Water - everywhere you look!
The fields are completely flooded
To carry manure - there is no road,
And the time is not early -
The month of May is coming!
Dislike and old,
It hurts more than that for new
Trees for them to look at.
Oh, huts, new huts!
You are smart, let it build you
Not an extra penny
And blood trouble!

Wanderers met in the morning
All more people small:
His brother is a peasant-bast worker,
Artisans, beggars,
Soldiers, coachmen.
Beggars, soldiers
Strangers didn't ask
How is it easy for them, is it difficult
Lives in Rus'?
Soldiers shave with an awl
Soldiers warm themselves with smoke -
What happiness is here?

The day was already drawing to a close,
They go the way,
The pop is coming towards.

The peasants took off their hats.
bow low,
Lined up in a row
And gelding savrasoma
Blocked the way.
The priest raised his head
He looked and asked with his eyes:
What do they want?

“No way! we are not robbers!” -
Luka said to the priest.
(Luke is a squat man,
With a wide beard.
Stubborn, verbose and stupid.
Luka looks like a mill:
One is not a bird mill,
What, no matter how it flaps its wings,
Probably won't fly.)

"We are men of power,
Of the temporary
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
Roundabout villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure too.
Let's go on something important:
We have a concern
Is it such a concern
Which of the houses survived
With work unfriended us,
Got off food.
You give us the right word
To our peasant speech
Without laughter and without cunning,
According to conscience, according to reason,
Answer truthfully
Not so with your care
We will go to another…”

- I give you the right word:
When you ask a thing
Without laughter and without cunning,
In truth and reason
How should you answer.
Amen! .. -

"Thank you. Listen!
Walking the path,
We got together casually
They agreed and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
And I said: ass.
Fat-bellied merchant, -
Gubin brothers said
Ivan and Mitrodor.
Pahom said: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State.
And Prov said: to the king ...
Man what a bull: vtemyashitsya
In the head what a whim -
Stake her from there
You won’t knock out: no matter how they argued,
We did not agree!
Argued - quarreled,
Quarreled - fought,
Podravshis - dressed up:
Don't go apart
Do not toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys
Not with old old people,
As long as our dispute
We won't find a solution
Until we get it
Whatever it is - for sure:
Who wants to live happily
Feel free in Rus'?
Tell us Godly
Is the priest's life sweet?
You are like - at ease, happily
Do you live, honest father? .. "

Downcast, thinking
Sitting in a cart, pop
And he said: - Orthodox!
It's a sin to grumble at God
Bear my cross with patience
I live ... but how? Listen!
I'll tell you the truth, the truth
And you are a peasant mind
Dare! -
"Begin!"

What is happiness, in your opinion?
Peace, wealth, honor -
Isn't that right, dear ones?

They said yes...

- Now let's see, brethren,
What is the ass peace?
Start, confess, it would be necessary
Almost from birth
How to get a diploma
the priest's son
At what cost popovich
The priesthood is bought
Let's better shut up!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Our roads are difficult.
We have a large income.
Sick, dying
Born into the world
Do not choose time:
In stubble and haymaking,
In the dead of autumn night
In winter, in severe frosts,
And in the spring flood -
Go where you are called!
You go unconditionally.
And let only the bones
One broke,
No! every time it gets wet,
The soul will hurt.
Do not believe, Orthodox,
There is a limit to habit.
No heart to endure
Without some trepidation
death rattle,
grave sob,
Orphan sorrow!
Amen!.. Now think.
What is the peace of the ass?..

The peasants thought little
Letting the priest rest
They said with a bow:
"What else can you tell us?"

- Now let's see, brethren,
What is the ass honor?
A tricky task
Wouldn't make you angry...

Say, Orthodox
Who do you call
Foal breed?
Chur! respond to demand!

The peasants hesitated.
They are silent - and the pope is silent ...

Who are you afraid to meet?
Walking the way?
Chur! respond to demand!

They groan, shift,
Silent!
- Who are you talking about?
You are fairy tales,
And obscene songs
And all the bullshit? ..

Mother-popadyu sedate,
Popov's innocent daughter
Seminarian of any -
How do you honor?
Who is after, like a gelding,
Shout: ho-ho-ho? ..

The kids got down
They are silent - and the pope is silent ...
The peasants thought
And pop with a big hat
Waving in my face
Yes, I looked at the sky.
In the spring, that the grandchildren are small,
With the ruddy sun-grandfather
Clouds are playing
Here is the right side
One continuous cloud
Covered - clouded
She fainted and cried:
Rows of gray threads
They hung to the ground.
And closer, above the peasants,
From small, torn,
Merry clouds
Laughing red sun
Like a girl from sheaves.
But the cloud has moved
Pop hat is covered -
Be heavy rain.
And the right side
Already bright and joyful
There the rain stops.
Not rain, there is a miracle of God:
There with golden threads
Skeins are scattered…

“Not by themselves ... by parents
We are somehow ... ”- the Gubin brothers
They finally said.
And the others agreed:
“Not by themselves, by their parents!”
And the priest said, “Amen!
Sorry Orthodox!
Not in condemnation of the neighbor,
And at your request
I told you the truth.
Such is the honor of the priest
in the peasantry. And the landowners...

“You are past them, the landowners!
We know them!"

- Now let's see, brethren,
Otkudova wealth
Popovskoe is coming?..
During the near
Russian Empire
Noble estates
It was full.
And the landowners lived there,
eminent owners,
Which are no longer there!
Be fruitful and multiply
And they let us live.
What weddings were played there,
What babies were born
On free bread!
Though often cool,
However, well-meaning
Those were the gentlemen
The parish was not alienated:
They got married with us
Our children were baptized
They came to us to repent,
We buried them
And if it happened
That the landowner lived in the city,
So probably die
He came to the village.
When he dies by accident
And then punish firmly
Bury in the parish.
You look to the rural temple
On the funeral chariot
In six horses heirs
The deceased is being transported -
The ass is a good amendment,
For the laity, a holiday is a holiday ...
And now it's not like that!
Like a Jewish tribe
The landowners scattered
Through a distant foreign land
And in native Rus'.
No more pride now
Lie in native possession
Next to fathers, with grandfathers,
And many possessions
They went to the barryshniks.
oh damn bones
Russian, nobility!
Where are you not buried?
What land are you not in?

Then, an article… schismatics…
I'm not sinful, I didn't live
Nothing from the schismatics.
Luckily, there was no need
In my parish is
Living in Orthodoxy
two-thirds of the parishioners.
And there are such volosts
Where almost entirely schismatics,
So how to be an ass?

Everything in the world is changeable
The world itself will pass...
Laws, formerly strict
To the dissenters, softened,
And with them and priestly
Income mat came.
The landlords moved
They don't live in estates.
And die of old age
They don't come to us anymore.
Wealthy landowners
devout old ladies,
who died out
who settled down
Close to monasteries
Nobody is now a cassock
Don't give a pop!
No one will embroider the air ...
Live from the same peasants
Collect worldly hryvnias,
Yes pies on holidays
Yes, eggs oh saint.
The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there is nothing ...

And that's not for everyone
And sweet peasant penny.
Our favors are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The cattle walks from hand to mouth,
Bread itself is born, friend,
And if it gets good
Cheese land-breadwinner,
So a new problem:
Nowhere to go with bread!
Lock in need, sell it
For a real trifle
And there - a crop failure!
Then pay exorbitant prices
Sell ​​the cattle.
Pray Orthodox!
Great disaster threatens
And this year:
Winter was fierce
Spring is rainy
It would be necessary to sow for a long time,
And on the fields - water!
Have mercy, Lord!
Send a cool rainbow
To our skies!
(Taking off his hat, the shepherd is baptized,
And listeners too.)
Our poor villages
And in them the peasants are sick
Yes, sad women
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers
Lord give them strength!
With such works pennies
Life is hard!
It happens to the sick
You will come: not dying,
Terrible peasant family
At the moment when she has to
Lose the breadwinner!
You admonish the deceased
And support in the rest
You try your best
The spirit is awake! And here to you
The old woman, the mother of the deceased,
Look, stretching with a bony,
Callused hand.
The soul will turn
How they tinkle in this hand
Two copper coins!
Of course, it's clean
For demanding retribution,
Do not take - so there is nothing to live with.
Yes, a word of comfort
Freeze on the tongue
And as if offended
Go home... Amen...

Finished the speech - and the gelding
Pop lightly slapped.
The peasants parted
They bowed low.
The horse moved slowly.
And six comrades
As if they were talking
Attacked with reproaches
With selected big swearing
On poor Luke:
- What did you take? stubborn head!
Rustic club!
That's where the argument gets in! -
"Nobles bell -
Priests live like princes.
They go under the sky
Popov's tower,
The priest's patrimony is buzzing -
loud bells -
For the whole world of God.
Three years I, robots,
Lived with the priest in the workers,
Raspberry - not life!
Popova porridge - with butter.
Popov pie - with filling,
Popovy cabbage soup - with smelt!
Popov's wife is fat,
Popov's daughter is white,
Popov's horse is fat,
Popov's bee is full,
How the bell tolls!
- Well, here's your praise
Pop's life!
Why was he yelling, swaggering?
Climbed into a fight, anathema?
Didn't you think to take
What is a beard with a shovel?
So with a goat beard
Walked the world before
than the forefather Adam,
And it's considered a fool
And now the goat! ..

Luke stood silent,
I was afraid they wouldn't slap
Comrades on the side.
It became so
Yes, fortunately the peasant
The road bent
The priest's face is strict
Appeared on a hillock ...

CHAPTER II. VILLAGE FAIR

No wonder our wanderers
They scolded the wet
Cold spring.
The peasant needs spring
And early and friendly,
And here - even a wolf howl!
The sun does not warm the earth
And rainy clouds
Like milk cows
They go to heaven.
Driven snow, and greenery
No weed, no leaf!
Water is not removed
The earth does not dress
Green bright velvet
And like a dead man without a shroud,
Lies under a cloudy sky
Sad and naked.

Pity the poor peasant
And more sorry for the cattle;
Feeding scarce supplies,
The owner of the twig
Chased her into the meadows
What is there to take? Chernekhonko!
Only on Nicholas of the spring
The weather turned up
Green fresh grass
The cattle enjoyed.

The day is hot. Under the birches
The peasants are making their way
They chat among themselves:
"We're going through one village,
Let's go another - empty!
And today is a holiday
Where did the people disappear to? .. "
They go through the village - on the street
Some guys are small
In the houses - old women,
And even locked up
Castle gates.
The castle is a faithful dog:
Doesn't bark, doesn't bite
He won't let you in the house!
Passed the village, saw
Mirror in green frame
With the edges of a full pond.
Swallows soar over the pond;
Some mosquitoes
Agile and skinny
Hopping, as if on dry land,
They walk on the water.
Along the banks, in the broom,
The corncrakes creak.
On a long, rickety raft
With a roll, the priest is thick
It stands like a plucked haystack,
Tucking the hem.
On the same raft
Sleeping duck with ducklings...
Chu! horse snore!
The peasants looked at once
And they saw over the water
Two heads: a man's.
Curly and swarthy
With an earring (the sun blinked
On that white earring)
Another - horse
With a rope, fathoms at five.
The man takes the rope in his mouth,
The man swims - and the horse swims,
The man neighed, and the horse neighed.
Float, scream! Under the grandmother
Under the little ducks
The raft is moving.

I caught up with the horse - grab it by the withers!
I jumped up and went to the meadow
Child: the body is white,
And the neck is like pitch;
Water flows in streams
From horse and rider.

“And what do you have in the village
Neither old nor small
How did the whole nation die?
- They went to the village of Kuzminskoe,
Today there is a fair
And a temple feast. -
“How far is Kuzminskoe?”

- Yes, it will be three miles.

"Let's go to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Let's watch the holiday-fair! -
The men decided
And they thought to themselves:
Isn't that where he's hiding?
Who lives happily? .. "

Kuzminsky rich,
And what's more, it's dirty.
Trading village.
It stretches along the slope,
Then it descends into the ravine.
And there again on the hill -
How can there not be dirt here?
Two churches in it are old,
One old believer
Another Orthodox
House with the inscription: school,
Empty, packed tightly
Hut in one window
With the image of a paramedic,
Bleeding.
There is a dirty hotel
Decorated with a sign
(With a big nosed teapot
Tray in the hands of the carrier,
And small cups
Like a goose by goslings,
That kettle is surrounded)
There are permanent shops
Like a county
Gostiny Dvor…

Wanderers came to the square:
A lot of goods
And apparently invisible
To the people! Isn't it fun?
It seems that there is no way of the godfather,
And, as if before the icons,
Men without hats.
Such a sidekick!
Look where they go
Peasant hats:
In addition to the wine warehouse,
Taverns, restaurants,
A dozen damask shops,
Three inns,
Yes, "Rensky cellar",
Yes, a couple of zucchini.
Eleven zucchini
Set for the holiday
Village tents.
With each five trays;
Carriers - youngsters
Trained, poignant,
And they can't keep up with everything
Can't handle surrender!
Look what stretched out
Peasant hands with hats
With scarves, with mittens.
Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!
Just to douse the darling,
And there they will get hats,
How will the market go?

By drunken heads
The sun is playing...
Intoxicating, loud, festive,
Variegated, red all around!
The pants on the guys are plush,
striped vests,
Shirts of all colors;
The women are wearing red dresses,
The girls have braids with ribbons,
They float with winches!
And there are still tricks
Dressed in the capital -
And expands and pouts
Hem on hoops!
If you step in - they will undress!
At ease, new fashionistas,
You fishing tackle
Wear under skirts!
Looking at elegant women,
Furious Old Believer
Tovarke says:
"Be hungry! be hungry!
See how the seedlings got wet,
What spring flood
Worth to Petrov!
Ever since the women started
Dress up in red chintzes, -
Forests do not rise
But at least not this bread!

- Why are the chintzes red?
Did you do something wrong here, mother?
I won't put my mind to it! -
“And those French chintzes -
Painted with dog blood!
Well… understand now?…”

They hustled on horseback,
On the hill, where they are piled
Roe deer, rakes, harrows,
Bagry, cart looms,
Rims, axes.
There was a brisk trade
With godfather, with jokes,
With a healthy, loud laugh.
And how not to laugh?
The guy is kinda tiny
I went, I tried rims:
Bent one - do not like it
Bent the other, pushed.
And how will the rim straighten -
A flick on the man's forehead!
A man roars over the rim,
"Elm club"
Scolds the fighter.
Another came with different
Wooden handicraft -
And dumped the whole cart!
Drunk! The axle is broken
And he began to do it -
The ax is broken! changed my mind
A man with an ax
Scolds him, reproaches him,
As if doing the job:
“You scoundrel, not an ax!
Empty service, don't give a damn
And he did not help.
All your life you bowed
And there was no affection!

Wanderers went to the shops:
Love handkerchiefs,
Ivanovo chintz,
Harnesses, new shoes,
The product of the Kimryaks.
At that shoe store
The strangers laugh again:
Here are the goat's shoes
Grandfather traded for granddaughter
Asked about the price five times
He turned in his hands, looked around:
First class product!
"Well, uncle! two kopecks
Pay, or get lost!" -
The merchant told him.
- And you wait! – Admire
An old man with a tiny boot
This is how he speaks:
- My son-in-law does not care, and the daughter will be silent,

Sorry granddaughter! hung herself
On the neck, fidget:
“Buy a hotel, grandfather.
Buy it! - silk head
The face tickles, caresses,
Kissing the old man.
Wait, barefoot crawler!
Wait, yule! gantry
Buy boots...
Vavilushka boasted,
Both old and small
Promised gifts,
And he drank himself to a penny!
How I shameless eyes
Will I show my family?

My son-in-law does not care, and my daughter will be silent,
Wife - do not care, let him grumble!
And I’m sorry for the granddaughter! .. - Went again
About granddaughter! Killed!..

The people gathered, listening,
Do not laugh, pity;
Happen, work, bread
He would have been helped
And take out two two-kopeck coins -
So you will be left with nothing.
Yes, there was a man
Pavlusha Veretennikov
(What kind, rank,
The men did not know
However, they were called "master".
He was much more of a baluster,
He wore a red shirt
Cloth undershirt,
Lubricated boots;
He sang Russian songs smoothly
And I loved listening to them.
It was taken down by many
In the inns,
In taverns, in taverns.)
So he rescued Vavila -
I bought him shoes.
Vavilo grabbed them
And he was! - for joy
Thanks even to the bar
Forgot to say old man
But other peasants
So they were disappointed
So happy, like everyone
He gave the ruble!
There was also a shop
With pictures and books
Ofeny stocked up
With your goods in it.
"Do you need generals?" -
The merchant-burner asked them.
“And give the generals!
Yes, only you in conscience,
To be real -
Thicker, more menacing."

“Wonderful! how you look! -
The merchant said with a smile,
It's not about the build…”

- And in what? kidding, friend!
Rubbish, or what, it is desirable to sell?
Where are we going with her?
You're naughty! Before the peasant
All generals are equal
Like cones on a fir tree:
To sell the shabby one,