In the dispute between the peasants about "who lives happily, freely in Russia", the first contender for the title of the happy is the landowner. The poet of the revolutionary struggle, who painfully experienced the submissiveness of the people, its darkness and oppression, decides to look at the landlord's happiness through the eyes of the enslaved peasants themselves.
Here is a portrait of the first landowner:
... round,
Mustache, pot-bellied,
With a cigar in my mouth.
... rosy,
Dignified, stocky,
Sixty years old;
Mustache gray, long,
Well done ...
The round and ruddy Obolt-Obolduev, who ended his story-recollections with suffering sobs, for all his comicality is not at all harmless. In the chapter "Landowner" the author of the poem was able to show satirically the valiant tricks of this dignified despot. At the same time, Obolt-Obolduev exposes himself not only at the moment of regret about the days gone by, when “the landowner's chest breathed freely and easily”: ... Whoever I want - I will have mercy,
Whom I want - execution.
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
Sparkling blow,
The blow is furious.
Blow zykulovorrrot! ..
Obolt-Obolduev is no less terrible in his enthusiastic and absurd posture of a patriot, caring about the future of Russia.
We are not grieving about ourselves,
We are sorry that you, Mother Russia,
Eagerly lost
Its knightly, warlike,
Majestic view!
Russia is not a non-hamlet.
We feel delicate
We are proud of it!
Noble estates
We do not learn to work.
We have an inferior official
And he won't sweep the floors ...
Obvious ignorance, embezzlement, emptiness of thoughts, meanness of Obolt-Obolduev's feelings, his ability to live only by someone else's labor against the background of talk about the benefits for Russia, that "the fields are underdeveloped, the crops are not sown, there is no trace of order!", Allow the peasants to do sympathetic and mocking conclusion:
The great chain has broken,
Torn - jumped:
One end for the master,
The other for the man! ..
No less expressive is the image of another landowner with the same “speaking” surname - Prince Utyatin-Subsequent. The attitude of the author of the poem to this character is already felt in the caricatured description of his appearance:
A nose with a beak like a hawk
Mustache gray, long
And - different eyes:
One healthy one glows
And the left one is cloudy, cloudy,
Like a pewter penny!
The very title of the chapter about this old landowner who has gone out of his mind is also symbolic - "The Last One". Presented in the poem with great sarcasm, the gentleman, who "has been weird and foolish for the whole century," is ready to take on faith and to his own pleasure the performance that his former slaves play for him for reward. The very idea of \u200b\u200bsome kind of peasant reform does not fit into Utyatin's head so much that it is not difficult for relatives-heirs to assure him that "the landlords were told to turn the peasants back". Therefore, the words of the mayor, perceived without realizing their sarcastic essence, sound like sweet music to him:
It's written to you
Guard the stupid peasantry,
And we should work, obey,
Pray for the Lord!
Now the orders are new,
And he makes a fool in the old way ...
What are the last truly wild orders of this "foolish landowner", over which the people laugh: "Marry Gavrila Zhokhov's widow Terentyeva, fix the hut anew so that they live in it, reproduce and rule the tax!", While "that widow - under seventy, and the groom is six years old! ”; the deaf-mute fool is appointed the guard of the landlord's estate; the shepherds were ordered to calm the cows so that they would not wake the master with their lows.
But it is not at all the foolish heirs of Prince Utyatin who shamelessly deceive the peasants, depriving them of the flood meadows promised to them. So, in essence, nothing changes between nobles and peasants: some have power and wealth, others have nothing but poverty and lack of rights.
In the chapter "Savely, the bogatyr of the Holy Russian" there is an image of another landowner-serf-owner-cruel Shalashnikov, who by "military force" subdues the peasants, beating out of them a quitrent:
Shalashnikov tore superbly.
Judging by the story about him, this inhuman beast-landowner could not do anything else. That is why “I didn’t get so much income”.
Looking at Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin, the hard-hearted Shalashnikov, the reader understands that if happiness is possible in Russia, then only without such “divine grace” of gentlemen who do not want to part with the serfdom of landlord Russia.
The satirical orientation of the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" is confirmed by the symbolic picture of an empty manor house, which the mongrel is pulling apart brick by brick. It is consonant with the author's idea that all kinds of "last-borns" depicted in the poem are living out their days, just as, according to Nekrasov, the autocratic structure of Russia, which gave birth to such serf-landlords, is living out its own days.
A contemporary of Pushkin, Gogol created his works in those historical conditions that developed in Russia after the failure of the first revolutionary action - the performances of the Decembrists in 1825.The new socio-political situation set new tasks for the leaders of Russian social thought and literature, which were deeply reflected in the work of Gogol ... Turning to the most important social problems of his time, the writer went further along the path of realism, which was discovered by Pushkin and Griboyedov. Developing the principles of critical
Realism. Gogol became one of the greatest representatives of this trend in Russian literature. As Belinsky notes, “Gogol was the first to look boldly and directly at Russian reality.” One of the main themes in Gogol's work is the theme of the Russian landlord class, the Russian nobility as the ruling class, and its fate and role in public life. It is characteristic that the main way of depicting landowners in Gogol is satire. The images of landowners reflect the process of gradual degradation of the landlord class, and all its vices and shortcomings are revealed. Gogol's satire is colored with irony and “hits right in the forehead”. The irony helped the writer speak directly about what it was impossible to talk about under censorship. Gogol's laugh seems good-natured, but he does not spare anyone, each phrase has a deep, hidden meaning, subtext. Irony is a characteristic element of Gogol's satire. It is present not only in the author's speech, but also in the speech of the characters. Irony - one of the essential signs of Gogol's poetics, gives the narration more realism, becoming artistic means critical analysis of reality. In the largest work of Gogol - the poem “ Dead Souls ”Images of landowners are given in the most complete and multifaceted way. The poem is structured as the story of the adventures of Chichikov, an official who buys up “dead souls”. The composition of the poem allowed the author to tell about different landowners and their villages. Almost half of the 1st volume of the poem (five chapters out of eleven) is devoted to the characterization of various types of Russian landowners. Gogol creates five characters, five portraits that are so unlike each other, and at the same time, typical features of a Russian landowner appear in each of them. Our acquaintance begins with Manilov and ends with Plyushkin. This sequence has its own logic: from one landowner to another, the process of impoverishment of the human personality deepens, an increasingly terrible picture of the disintegration of serf society unfolds. Opens portrait gallery of landowners Manilov (1 chapter). Already in the surname itself, his character is manifested. The description begins with a picture of the village of Manilovka, which “could not lure many with its location”. With irony, the author describes the manor's yard, with a claim to "an English garden with an overgrown pond", thin bushes and with a pale inscription "Temple of solitary reflection". Speaking about Manilovs, the author exclaims: "God alone could say what was the character of Manilov." He is kind by nature, polite, courteous, but all this took on ugly forms. Manilov is fine-minded and sentimental to the point of cloying. The relationship between people seems to him idyllic and festive. Manilov did not know life at all, reality was replaced with empty fantasy. He loved to reflect and dream, sometimes even about things useful to the peasants. But his projecting was far from the demands of life. He did not know about the real needs of the peasants and never thought about it. Manilov considers himself to be a bearer of spiritual culture. Once in the army, he was considered the most educated person. The author speaks ironically about the atmosphere of Manilov's house, in which “something was always lacking,” about his sugary relationship with his wife. At the moment of talking about dead souls, Manilov is compared to an overly clever minister. Here Gogol's irony seems to inadvertently intrude into the forbidden area. Comparing Manilov with the minister means that the latter is not so different from this landowner, and “Manilovism” is a typical phenomenon of this vulgar world. The third chapter of the poem is devoted to the image of the Box, which Gogol considers one of those “small landowners who complain about crop failures, losses and keep their heads a little to one side, and meanwhile collect a little bit of money in variegated bags placed on the drawers of the chest of drawers! ”. This money is obtained from the sale of a wide variety of subsistence products. Korobochka understood the benefits of trade and, after much persuasion, agrees to sell such an unusual product as dead souls. The author is ironic in describing the dialogue between Chichikov and Korobochka. The “club-headed” landowner for a long time cannot understand what they want from her, drives Chichikov out of herself, and then bargains for a long time, fearing “just to make a mistake.” Korobochka's outlook and interests do not go beyond her estate. The economy and all its life is patriarchal in nature. Gogol depicts a completely different form of decomposition of the nobility in the image of Nozdryov (Chapter IV). it typical person “Of all trades”. There was something open, direct, daring in his face. He is characterized by a kind of "breadth of nature". As the author ironically notes: "Nozdryov was in some respects a historical person." Not a single meeting he attended was complete without stories! Nozdryov with a light heart loses a lot of money at cards, beats a simpleton at the fair and immediately “squanders” all the money. Nozdrev is a master of "casting bullets", he is a reckless braggart and utter liar. Nozdryov always behaves defiantly, even aggressively. The hero's speech is full of swear words, while he has a passion “to shit on his neighbor.” In the image of Nozdryov, Gogol created a new social and psychological type of “nozdrevshchina” in Russian literature. In the image of Sobakevich, the author's satire acquires a more accusatory character (Chapter V of the poem) He bears little resemblance to the previous landowners - he is a “landowner-kulak”, a cunning, tight-fisted huckster. He is alien to Manilov's dreamy complacency, Nozdryov's exuberant extravagance, Korobochka's hoarding. He is laconic, has an iron grip, on his own mind, and there are few people who could deceive him. Everything with him is solid and strong. Gogol reflects the character of a person in all the surrounding things of his life. Everything in Sobakevich's house was surprisingly reminiscent of him. Each thing seemed to say: "And I, too, Sobakevich." Gogol draws a figure striking in its rudeness. To Chichikov, he seemed very similar "to an average size bear." Sobakevich is a cynic, not ashamed of moral deformity, either in himself or in others. He is a man far from enlightenment, a die-hard serf owner who cares about the peasants only as a labor force. Characteristically, except for Sobakevich, no one understood the essence of the "scoundrel" Chichikov, but he perfectly understood the essence of the proposal, which reflects the spirit of the times: everything is subject to sale and purchase, and from everything one should benefit from Chapter VI of the poem is dedicated to Plyushkin, whose name has become a household name for avarice and moral degradation. This image becomes the last step in the degeneration of the landlord class. Gogol begins his acquaintance with the character; as usual, with a description of the village and the landowner's estate. On all the buildings there was “some kind of special dilapidation”. The writer paints a picture of the complete ruin of the once god - that landlord economy. The reason for this is not the extravagance and idleness of the landlord, but painful avarice. This is an evil satire on a landowner who has become a "hole in humanity." The owner himself is a sexless creature resembling a housekeeper. This hero does not cause laughter, but only bitter disappointment. So, the five characters created by Gogol in Dead Souls diversify the state of the noble-serf class. Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin - all these are different forms of the same phenomenon - the economic, social, spiritual decline of the serf-landlord class.
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Essay on literature on the topic: Satirical depiction of landowners
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- A contemporary of Pushkin, Gogol created his works in the historical conditions that developed in Russia after the failure of the first revolutionary action - the performance of the Decembrists in 1825. The new socio-political situation set new tasks for the leaders of Russian social thought and literature, which found Read More ... ...
- Whoever has not become a man first of all is a bad citizen. VG Belinsky In his poem, Gogol mercilessly castigates officials with the light of satire. They are like a collection of strange and nasty insects put together by the author. Not a very attractive image, but are the officials themselves pleasant? If Read More ......
- Nekrasov conceived “Who Lives Well in Russia” as a “people's book”. He wanted to include in it all the information about the people's life, accumulated "by word" over twenty years. The poet dreamed that his book would reach the peasantry and read Read More ......
- In N. A. Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" we have a whole gallery of images of landowners, at which the author looks through the eyes of peasants. The poet creates these characters without any idealization and at the same time with a certain amount of sympathy. Satirically, angrily tells Read More ......
- "Dead Souls" is one of the brightest works of Russian and world literature. Belinsky called Gogol's poem "a creation snatched from the cache of people's life, mercilessly pulling off the veil from reality." The idea of \u200b\u200bDead Souls, like the Inspector General, was suggested by Pushkin. "Dead Souls" - the pinnacle of artistic Read More ......
- Gogol is a great realist writer, whose work has firmly entered the Russian classic literature... Its originality lies in the fact that he was one of the first to give the broadest image of the county landlord-bureaucratic Russia. In his poem "Dead Souls", Gogol exposes to the utmost the contradictions of contemporary Russian Read More ......
- The poem by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol "Dead Souls" is one of the brilliant works of Russian literature of the nineteenth century. This work was created in the new political situation in the country, which are reflected here. In it, Gogol wanted to show all of Russia, with all of its Read More ......
- Dead Souls is a novel called a poem. Permanent resident of all anthologies on Russian literature. A work of classics, which today is as topical and relevant as a century and a half ago. “Try to remember in detail the plot and finale of Dubrovsky,” said one of the researchers. - Read More ......
Definitely negative characters. Nekrasov describes various perverted relationships between landowners and serfs. The young lady who beat the peasants for swear words seems kind and affectionate in comparison with the landowner Polivanov. He bought a village for bribes, in it he "freed, fumbled, drank bitter", was greedy and mean. The faithful servant Yakov took care of the master, even when his legs were taken away. But the master shaved Yakov's only nephew into the soldiers, flattered by his bride.
Separate chapters are devoted to two landowners.
Gavrila Afanasevich Obolt-Obolduev.
Portrait
To describe the landowner, Nekrasov uses diminutive-affectionate suffixes and speaks of him with disdain: a round gentleman, moustached and pot-bellied, rosy. He has a cigar in his mouth, and his C is lucky. In general, the image of the landowner is sugary and not at all formidable. He is middle-aged (sixty years old), "dignified, stocky", with a long gray mustache and valiant grips. The contrast between tall men and a squat gentleman should make the reader smile.
Character
The landowner was frightened by the seven peasants and snatched out a pistol, as plump as himself. The fact that the landlord is afraid of the peasants is typical of the time when this chapter of the poem was written (1865), because the peasants who received liberation were happy to take revenge on the landowners whenever possible.
The landowner boasts of his "noble" origin, described with sarcasm. He says that Obolt Obolduev is a Tatar who amused the queen with a bear for two and a half centuries. Another of his maternal ancestors, three hundred years ago, tried to set fire to Moscow and rob the treasury, for which he was executed.
Lifestyle
Obolt-Obolduev cannot imagine his life without comfort. Even talking with the men, he asks the servant for a glass of sherry, a pillow and a carpet.
The landowner with nostalgia recalls the old days (before the abolition of serfdom), when all nature, peasants, fields and forests worshiped the master and belonged to him. Noble houses competed for beauty with churches. The life of the landowner was a continuous holiday. The landowner kept many servants. He was engaged in hunting with dogs in the fall - a primordially Russian amusement. During the hunt, the landlord's chest breathed freely and easily, "the spirit was transferred to the Old Russian orders."
Obolt-Obolduev describes the order of landlord life as the absolute power of the landowner over the serfs: "There is no contradiction, whom I want - I will have mercy, whom I want - execution." The landowner can indiscriminately beat the serfs (word hit repeated three times, there are three metaphorical epithets to it: sparkling, furious, zygomatic). At the same time, the landowner claims that he punished in love, that he took care of the peasants, laid tables for them in the landowner's house on a holiday.
The landowner considers the abolition of serfdom to be similar to breaking the great chain linking masters and peasants: "Now we do not beat the peasant, but we do not have pity on him as a father." The manors of the landowners were dismantled brick by brick, the forests were cut down, the peasants were robbing. The economy also fell into decay: "The fields are underdeveloped, the crops are undersowed, there is no trace of order!" The landowner does not want to work on the land, and what his purpose is, he no longer understands: "I smoked heaven of God, wore the royal livery, littered the people's treasury and thought to live like this for a century ..."
The last one
This is how the peasants called their last landowner, Prince Utyatin, under whom the serfdom... This landowner did not believe in the abolition of serfdom and was so angry that he had a blow.
Fearing that the old man would deprive him of his inheritance, his relatives told him that they had ordered the peasants to be turned back by the landowners, and they themselves asked the peasants to play this role.
Portrait
The latter is an old old man, thin as hares in winter, white, a nose with a beak like a hawk, and a long gray mustache. In him, seriously ill, the helplessness of a weak hare and the ambition of a hawk are combined.
Traits
The latter is a tyrant, “fooling in the old way”, because of his whims, both his family and peasants suffer. For example, I had to scatter a ready-made stack of dry hay just because the old man thought it was wet.
The landowner Prince Utyatin, arrogant, believes that the nobles betrayed their age-old rights. His white cap is a sign of landlord power.
Utyatin never appreciated the lives of his serfs: he bathed them in an ice-hole, made them play the violin on horseback.
In his old age, the landowner began to demand even greater stupidity: he ordered to marry a six-year-old to a seventy-year-old, to calm the cows so that they would not bellow, to appoint a deaf-mute fool as a guard instead of a dog.
Unlike Obolduev, Utyatin does not learn about his changed status and dies, "as he lived, as a landowner."
- The image of Savely in Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia"
- The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov in Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia"
- The image of Matryona in the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia"
The pinnacle of creativity of the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov is the epic poem "Who Lives Well in Russia", in which the author with vivid imagery and authenticity wanted to show and show the relationship between the ruling class and the peasantry in the 20-70s of the XIX century.
Note that the first candidate for the happy one is precisely one of the main characters of the poem - the landowner. Representatives of the peasantry, who are always in his service, still, after the abolition of serfdom, consider his life to be free and happy.
But Nekrasov does not stop there. He expands the plot framework, fully reveals his idea and gives further development of the image of the landowner in the fifth chapter, which is called "The Landowner". In this chapter, we get acquainted with a certain representative of the landlord class Obolt-Obolduev (let's pay attention to the surname, which in some way helps Nekrasov to show his mockery of the depicted class even more vividly), a description of which is given first by the peasants:
Some kind of round gentleman,
pot-bellied,
with a cigar in his mouth.
Mockery, irony resound in these words. Once an important, sedate gentleman turns into a target for bullying and ridicule. The same intonation continues to sound in the subsequent description of the landowner, already through the mouth of the author himself: "ruddy, dignified, big-headed", "well done". Here is such a landowner "C grade" carried.
The hero appears to us as a "pea jester" at whom even former serfs laugh. And he pretends to be an important master and speaks with bitterness and resentment about the old days:
We lived
Like Christ in the bosom,
And we knew the honor.
He speaks of the nobility and antiquity of his kind, boasts of this, and he himself is the subject of ridicule of both the peasants and the author. Light laughter in some moments is accompanied by open sarcasm:
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
Sparkling blow,
The blow is furious,
Blow to the cheekbone!
But I punished - loving!
The landowner considers himself entitled to offend and humiliate the peasants, for they are his property. But that time has passed, and the bells are already ringing for landlord life. Russia is not his mother, but his stepmother now. And now it's time to work, but the landowner does not know how. All his life he lived not grieving, "smoked the heaven of God." But now everything has changed, and I really don't want to come to terms with these orders, but we must:
The great chain has broken!
Broke - split:
One end for the master,
The other for the man! ..
These words can be largely attributed to the landowner from the chapter "The Last One": "Our landowner: Prince of Utyatin!"
The title of the chapter "The Last One" is symbolic. Her hero is somewhat exaggerated and, at the same time, allegorical: the landowner does not want to part with the old order, with the old power, so he lives with remnants of the past.
Unlike Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin could not come to terms with the abolition of serfdom:
Our landlord is special,
The wealth is exorbitant
An important rank, a noble family,
All century freaky, foolish
But suddenly a thunderstorm struck.
Prince Utyatin was paralyzed with grief after the terrible news - then his "heirs" came to him. The hero tears and flies, does not want to admit the obvious. The "heirs" were afraid that their inheritance would be lost, but they persuaded the peasants to pretend that Prince Utyatin was still their master. Absurd and funny:
I believed: easier than small
The child has become old-fashioned!
I started crying! Before icons
He prays with the whole family.
How strong is this desire in the landowner to rule the peasants, to make their lives more miserable! After all, as soon as the prince woke up from a terrible "dream", more than ever he began to treat the peasant, he again took up his own: to judge, punish the people. And the peasant does not have the will and strength to resist this. From time immemorial this is inherent in the Russian people - reverence for their master and serving him.
Cleverly deceived by the "heirs" of the former serfs. After all, after the death of the prince, they began to sue the peasants to prove that this land belongs to them. The writer deduces the bitter truth from the description of this landowner and his last days of life: even though the landowners have ceased to be serf-owners, they have their own power over the peasants. The truly Russian people have not yet freed themselves. Yes, Prince Utyatin died, but who knows how many more such "last-born" there are throughout Mother Russia.
Note that Nekrasov showed all the landowners for a reason: the first was reconciled to inevitability, but decides to live on for someone else's labor; the second nearly died after learning about the reform; and the third type of landowner is the gentleman who constantly mocks the peasant, serf or not. And there are still many of them left in Russia. But, nevertheless, Nekrasov writes that the autocratic system is coming to an end, and the landowners will no longer be able to say with greatness:
I am by God's grace
And with an ancient royal letter,
And kind and merit
Master over you! ..
The time of master and slave has passed, and although the peasants have not yet completely freed themselves from the oppression of the landowners, the Obolt-Obolduevs, Utyatins and Shalashnikovs are already living out their days. The "last ones" will soon completely leave the Russian land, and the people will breathe freely. Symbolic in this regard is the picture of an empty manor house being pulled apart brick by brick by the courtiers (chapter "The Peasant Woman").
With his poem, I think, Nekrasov wanted to show that the time of landlord Russia has passed. Depicting satirical images of landowners, the author boldly and fearlessly asserts: the happiness of the people is possible without the landowners, but only after the people themselves free themselves and become the master of their own lives.