Nikolai Nekrasov - who lives well in Rus'. Nikolai Nekrasovskiy live well in Rus' How to live well in Rus' read in full

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Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'

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Y. Lebedev
Russian odyssey

In the "Diary of a Writer" for 1877, F. M. Dostoevsky noticed a characteristic feature that appeared in the Russian people of the post-reform period - "this is a multitude, an extraordinary modern multitude of new people, a new root of Russian people who need the truth, one truth without conditional lies, and who, in order to achieve this truth, will give everything resolutely. Dostoevsky saw in them "the advancing future Russia."

At the very beginning of the 20th century, another writer, V. G. Korolenko, made a discovery that struck him from a summer trip to the Urals: North Pole - in the distant Ural villages there were rumors about the Belovodsk kingdom and their own religious and scientific expedition was being prepared. Among the ordinary Cossacks, the conviction spread and grew stronger that “somewhere out there, “beyond the distance of bad weather”, “beyond the valleys, behind the mountains, behind the wide seas” there is a “blissful country”, in which, by the providence of God and the accidents of history, it has been preserved and flourishes throughout inviolability is a complete and whole formula of grace. This is a real fairy-tale country of all ages and peoples, colored only by the Old Believer mood. In it, planted by the Apostle Thomas, the true faith flourishes, with churches, bishops, a patriarch and pious kings ... This kingdom knows neither punishment, nor murder, nor self-interest, since true faith gives rise to true piety there.

It turns out that back in the late 1860s, the Don Cossacks were written off with the Urals, collected a fairly significant amount and equipped Cossack Varsonofy Baryshnikov and two comrades to search for this promised land. Baryshnikov set out on his journey through Constantinople to Asia Minor, then to the Malabar coast, and finally to the East Indies ... The expedition returned with disappointing news: they could not find Belovodye. Thirty years later, in 1898, the dream of the Belovodsk kingdom flares up with renewed vigor, funds are found, a new pilgrimage is equipped. On May 30, 1898, a "deputation" of the Cossacks boarded a steamboat departing from Odessa for Constantinople.

“From that day, in fact, the foreign trip of the deputies of the Urals to the Belovodsk kingdom began, and among the international crowd of merchants, military men, scientists, tourists, diplomats traveling around the world out of curiosity or in search of money, fame and pleasure, three people got mixed up, as it were from another world, who were looking for ways to the fabulous Belovodsk kingdom. Korolenko described in detail all the vicissitudes of this unusual journey, in which, for all the curiosity and strangeness of the conceived enterprise, the same Russia of honest people, noted by Dostoevsky, "who need only the truth", who "strive for honesty and truth is unshakable and indestructible, and for the word of truth each of them will give his life and all his advantages.

By the end of the 19th century, not only the top of Russian society was drawn into the great spiritual pilgrimage, but all of Russia, all of its people, rushed to it. “These Russian homeless wanderers,” Dostoevsky noted in a speech about Pushkin, “continue their wandering to this day and, it seems, will not disappear for a long time.” For a long time, “for the Russian wanderer needs precisely world happiness in order to calm down - he will not reconcile cheaper.”

“There was, approximately, such a case: I knew one person who believed in a righteous land,” said another wanderer in our literature, Luka, from M. Gorky's play “At the Bottom”. - There must be, he said, a righteous country in the world ... in that, they say, land - special people inhabit ... good people! They respect each other, they help each other - without any difficulty - and everything is nice and good with them! And so the man was going to go ... to look for this righteous land. He was poor, he lived badly ... and when it was already so difficult for him that at least lie down and die, he did not lose his spirit, but everything happened, he only smiled and said: “Nothing! I will endure! A few more - I’ll wait ... and then I’ll give up this whole life and go to the righteous land ... “He had one joy - this land ... And in this place - in Siberia, it was something - they sent an exiled scientist ... with books, with plans he, a scientist, and with all sorts of things ... A man says to a scientist: “Show me, do me a favor, where is the righteous land and how is the road there?” Now the scientist opened the books, spread out the plans ... looked, looked - no nowhere righteous land! “That's right, all the lands are shown, but the righteous one is not!”

Man - does not believe ... Should, he says, be ... look better! And then, he says, your books and plans are useless if there is no righteous land ... The scientist is offended. My plans, he says, are the most correct, but there is no righteous land at all. Well, then the man got angry - how so? Lived, lived, endured, endured and believed everything - there is! but according to the plans it turns out - no! Robbery! .. And he says to the scientist: “Oh, you ... such a bastard! You are a scoundrel, not a scientist ... “Yes, in his ear - one! And more!.. ( After a pause.) And after that he went home - and strangled himself!”

The 1860s marked a sharp historical turning point in the destinies of Russia, which from now on broke away from a sub-legal, "home-bound" existence and the whole world, all the people set off on a long path of spiritual quest, marked by ups and downs, fatal temptations and deviations, but the righteous path is precisely in passion , in the sincerity of his inescapable desire to find the truth. And perhaps for the first time, Nekrasov's poetry responded to this deep process, which embraced not only the "tops", but also the very "lower classes" of society.

1

The poet began work on the grandiose concept of the “folk book” in 1863, and ended up mortally ill in 1877, with a bitter consciousness of the incompleteness, incompleteness of his plan: “One thing that I deeply regret is that I did not finish my poem “To whom in Rus' to live well". It “should have included all the experience given to Nikolai Alekseevich by studying the people, all the information about him accumulated“ by word of mouth ”for twenty years,” recalled G. I. Uspensky about conversations with Nekrasov.

However, the question of the “incompleteness” of “Who should live well in Rus'” is highly controversial and problematic. First, the confessions of the poet himself are subjectively exaggerated. It is known that a writer always has a feeling of dissatisfaction, and the larger the idea, the sharper it is. Dostoevsky wrote about The Brothers Karamazov: "I myself think that even one tenth of it was not possible to express what I wanted." But on this basis, do we dare to consider Dostoevsky's novel a fragment of an unfulfilled plan? The same is with "Who in Rus' to live well."

Secondly, the poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” was conceived as an epic, that is, a work of art depicting with the maximum degree of completeness and objectivity an entire era in the life of the people. Since folk life is boundless and inexhaustible in its countless manifestations, the epic in any of its varieties (epic poem, epic novel) is characterized by incompleteness, incompleteness. This is its specific difference from other forms of poetic art.

"This song is tricky
He will sing to the word
Who is the whole earth, Rus' baptized,
It will go from end to end."
Her own saint of Christ
Not finished singing - sleeping eternal sleep -

this is how Nekrasov expressed his understanding of the epic plan in the poem "Peddlers". The epic can be continued indefinitely, but you can also put an end to some high segment of its path.

Until now, researchers of Nekrasov’s work are arguing about the sequence of the arrangement of the parts of “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, since the dying poet did not have time to make final orders on this matter.

It is noteworthy that this dispute itself involuntarily confirms the epic nature of "Who should live well in Rus'." The composition of this work is built according to the laws of the classical epic: it consists of separate, relatively autonomous parts and chapters. Outwardly, these parts are connected by the theme of the road: seven men-truth-seekers wander around Rus', trying to resolve the question that haunts them: who lives well in Rus'? In the Prologue, a clear outline of the journey seems to be outlined - meetings with the landowner, official, merchant, minister and tsar. However, the epic is devoid of a clear and unambiguous purposefulness. Nekrasov does not force the action, he is in no hurry to bring it to an all-permissive result. As an epic artist, he strives for the completeness of recreating life, for revealing the whole variety of folk characters, all the indirectness, all the winding paths, paths and roads of the people.

The world in the epic narrative appears as it is - disordered and unexpected, devoid of rectilinear movement. The author of the epic allows "retreats, visits to the past, jumps somewhere sideways, to the side." According to the definition of the modern literary theorist G. D. Gachev, “the epic is like a child walking through the cabinet of curiosities of the universe. Here his attention was attracted by one hero, or a building, or a thought - and the author, forgetting about everything, plunges into him; then he was distracted by another - and he just as fully surrenders to him. But this is not just a compositional principle, not just the specifics of the plot in the epic ... The one who, while narrating, makes “digressions”, unexpectedly long lingers on one or another subject; he who succumbs to the temptation to describe both this and that and chokes with greed, sinning against the pace of the narration - he thereby speaks of the extravagance, abundance of being, that he (being) has nowhere to hurry. Otherwise: it expresses the idea that being reigns over the principle of time (whereas the dramatic form, on the contrary, sticks out the power of time - it was not without reason that, it would seem, only the “formal” demand for the unity of time was born there too).

The fairy-tale motifs introduced into the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'” allow Nekrasov to freely and naturally handle time and space, easily transfer the action from one end of Russia to the other, slow down or speed up time according to fairy-tale laws. What unites the epic is not an external plot, not a movement towards an unambiguous result, but an internal plot: slowly, step by step, the contradictory, but irreversible growth of people's self-consciousness, which has not yet come to a conclusion, is still on difficult roads of search, becomes clear in it. In this sense, the plot-compositional friability of the poem is not accidental: it expresses, by its lack of assembly, the diversity and diversity of folk life, thinking about itself differently, evaluating its place in the world, its destiny in different ways.

In an effort to recreate the moving panorama of folk life in its entirety, Nekrasov also uses all the wealth of oral folk art. But the folklore element in the epic also expresses the gradual growth of people's self-consciousness: the fabulous motifs of the "Prologue" are replaced by epic epic, then lyrical folk songs in "Peasant Woman" and, finally, the songs of Grisha Dobrosklonov in "A Feast for the Whole World", striving to become folk and already partially accepted and understood by the people. The men listen to his songs, sometimes nod in agreement, but they have not yet heard the last song, "Rus", he has not yet sung it to them. That is why the finale of the poem is open to the future, not resolved.

Would our wanderers be under the same roof,
If only they could know what happened to Grisha.

But the wanderers did not hear the song "Rus", which means they did not yet understand what the "embodiment of the happiness of the people" is. It turns out that Nekrasov did not finish his song, not only because death interfered. In those years, people's life itself did not sing his songs. More than a hundred years have passed since then, and the song begun by the great poet about the Russian peasantry is still being sung. In "The Feast" only a glimpse of the future happiness is outlined, which the poet dreams of, realizing how many roads lie ahead until his real incarnation. The incompleteness of “Who is to live well in Rus'” is fundamental and artistically significant as a sign of a folk epic.

“Who should live well in Rus'” both in general and in each of its parts resembles a peasant secular gathering, which is the most complete expression of democratic people's self-government. At such a meeting, the inhabitants of one village or several villages that were part of the "world" decided all the issues of joint secular life. The meeting had nothing to do with the modern meeting. There was no chairperson leading the discussion. Each community member, at will, entered into a conversation or skirmish, defending his point of view. Instead of voting, the principle of general consent was used. The dissatisfied were persuaded or retreated, and in the course of the discussion, a “worldly sentence” ripened. If there was no general agreement, the meeting was postponed to the next day. Gradually, in the course of heated debates, a unanimous opinion matured, agreement was sought and found.

An employee of the Nekrasov’s “Notes of the Fatherland”, the populist writer H. N. Zlatovratsky described the original peasant life as follows: “It’s already the second day that we have gathering after gathering. You look out the window, then at one end of the village, then at the other end of the village crowds of owners, old people, children: some are sitting, others are standing in front of them, with their hands behind their backs and attentively listening to someone. This someone waves his arms, bends his whole body, shouts something very convincingly, falls silent for a few minutes and then again begins to convince. But then suddenly they object to him, they object somehow at once, the voices rise higher and higher, they shout at the top of their lungs, as befits for such a vast hall as the surrounding meadows and fields, everyone speaks, not embarrassed by anyone or anything, as befits a free gathering of equals. Not the slightest sign of officiality. Sergeant Major Maksim Maksimych himself is standing somewhere on the side, like the most invisible member of our community... Here everything goes straight, everything becomes an edge; if someone, out of cowardice or out of calculation, takes it into his head to get away with silence, he will be ruthlessly brought to clean water. Yes, and there are very few of these faint-hearted, at especially important gatherings. I have seen the humblest, most unrequited men who<…>at gatherings, in moments of general excitement, completely transformed and<…>they gained such courage that they managed to outdo the obviously brave men. In the moments of its apogee, the gathering becomes simply an open mutual confession and mutual exposure, a manifestation of the widest publicity.

The whole epic poem by Nekrasov is a flaring up, gradually gaining strength, worldly gathering. It reaches its pinnacle in the final "Feast for the World". However, the general "worldly sentence" is still not pronounced. Only the path to it is outlined, many of the initial obstacles have been removed, and on many points there has been movement towards a common agreement. But there is no result, life has not stopped, gatherings have not been stopped, the epic is open to the future. For Nekrasov, the process itself is important here, it is important that the peasantry not only thought about the meaning of life, but also set off on a difficult, long path of truth-seeking. Let's try to take a closer look at it, moving from the "Prologue. Part One" to "Peasant Woman", "Last Child" and "Feast for the Whole World".

2

In the Prologue, the meeting of the seven men is narrated as a great epic event.

In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men got together...

So epic and fairy-tale heroes converged on a battle or on a feast of honors. The epic scale acquires time and space in the poem: the action is carried out to the whole of Rus'. The tightened province, Terpigorev district, Pustoporozhnaya volost, the villages of Zaplatovo, Dyryavino, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaina can be attributed to any of the Russian provinces, districts, volosts and villages. The general sign of the post-reform ruin is captured. Yes, and the very question that excited the peasants concerns the whole of Russia - peasant, noble, merchant. Therefore, the quarrel that arose between them is not an ordinary event, but great controversy. In the soul of every grain grower, with his own private destiny, with his worldly interests, a question has awakened that concerns everyone, the entire people's world.

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!

Each peasant had his own path, and suddenly they found a common path: the question of happiness united the people. And therefore, we are no longer ordinary peasants with their own individual fate and personal interests, but guardians of the entire peasant world, truth-seekers. The number "seven" in folklore is magical. Seven Wanderers- an image of a large epic scale. The fabulous coloring of the Prologue raises the narrative above everyday life, above peasant life, and gives the action an epic universality.

The fairy-tale atmosphere in the Prologue is ambiguous. Giving the events a nationwide sound, it also turns into a convenient device for the poet to characterize the national self-consciousness. Note that Nekrasov playfully manages with a fairy tale. In general, his handling of folklore is more free and uninhibited in comparison with the poems "Pedlars" and "Frost, Red Nose". Yes, and he treats the people differently, often makes fun of the peasants, provokes readers, paradoxically sharpens the people's view of things, makes fun of the limitations of the peasant worldview. The intonation structure of the narrative in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is very flexible and rich: here is the author’s good-natured smile, and indulgence, and light irony, and bitter joke, and lyrical regret, and sorrow, and meditation, and appeal. The intonational and stylistic polyphony of the narration in its own way reflects a new phase of folk life. Before us is the post-reform peasantry, which has broken with the immovable patriarchal existence, with centuries of worldly and spiritual settledness. This is already wandering Rus' with awakened self-awareness, noisy, discordant, prickly and uncompromising, prone to quarrels and disputes. And the author does not stand aside from her, but turns into an equal participant in her life. He either rises above the disputants, then he is imbued with sympathy for one of the disputing parties, then he is touched, then he is indignant. As Rus' lives in disputes, in search of truth, so the author is in a tense dialogue with her.

In the literature about “Who is to live well in Rus'”, one can find the assertion that the dispute of the seven wanderers that opens the poem corresponds to the original compositional plan, from which the poet subsequently retreated. Already in the first part, there was a deviation from the intended plot, and instead of meeting with the rich and noble, the truth-seekers began to question the crowd.

But after all, this deviation immediately takes place at the “upper” level. Instead of a landowner and an official, scheduled by the peasants for questioning, for some reason there is a meeting with a priest. Is it by chance?

First of all, we note that the “formula” of the dispute proclaimed by the peasants signifies not so much the original intention as the level of national self-consciousness, manifested in this dispute. And Nekrasov cannot but show the reader his limitations: peasants understand happiness in a primitive way and reduce it to a well-fed life, material security. What is worth, for example, such a candidate for the role of a lucky man, who is proclaimed "merchant", and even "fat-bellied"! And behind the argument of the peasants - who lives happily, freely in Rus'? - immediately, but still gradually, muffled, another, much more significant and important question arises, which is the soul of the epic poem - how to understand human happiness, where to look for it and what does it consist of?

In the final chapter "A Feast for the Whole World", Grisha Dobrosklonov gives the following assessment of the current state of people's life: "The Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be a citizen."

In fact, this formula contains the main pathos of the poem. It is important for Nekrasov to show how the forces that unite him are ripening among the people and what kind of civic orientation they are acquiring. The idea of the poem is by no means reduced to making the wanderers carry out successive meetings according to the program they have outlined. A completely different question turns out to be much more important here: what is happiness in the eternal, Orthodox Christian understanding of it, and is the Russian people capable of combining peasant "politics" with Christian morality?

Therefore, folklore motifs in the Prologue play a dual role. On the one hand, the poet uses them to give the beginning of the work a high epic sound, and on the other hand, to emphasize the limited consciousness of the disputants, who deviate in their idea of happiness from the righteous to the evil ways. Recall that Nekrasov spoke about this more than once a long time ago, for example, in one of the versions of the "Song of Eremushka", created back in 1859.

change pleasure,
To live does not mean to drink and eat.
There are better aspirations in the world,
There is a nobler good.
Despise wicked ways:
There is debauchery and vanity.
Honor the covenants forever right
And learn from Christ.

The same two paths, sung over Russia by the angel of mercy in "A Feast for the Whole World," are now opening up before the Russian people, who are celebrating the wake of the fortress and facing a choice.

In the middle of the world
For a free heart
There are two ways.
Weigh the proud strength
Weigh your firm will:
How to go?

This song resounds over Russia coming to life from the lips of the messenger of the Creator himself, and the fate of the people will directly depend on which path the wanderers will take after long wanderings and windings along the Russian country roads.

In the meantime, the poet is pleased only with the very desire of the people to seek the truth. And the direction of these searches, the temptation of wealth at the very beginning of the path cannot but cause bitter irony. Therefore, the fabulous plot of the Prologue also characterizes the low level of peasant consciousness, spontaneous, vague, with difficulty making its way to universal questions. People's thought has not yet acquired clarity and clarity, it is still merged with nature and is sometimes expressed not so much in words as in action, in deeds: instead of thinking, fists are used.

The men still live according to the fabulous formula: "go there - I don't know where, bring that - I don't know what."

They walk like they're running
Behind them are gray wolves,
What is further - then sooner.
…
Probably b, whole night
So they went - where, not knowing ...

Isn't that why the disturbing, demonic element grows in the Prologue. “The woman on the other side”, “the clumsy Durandikha”, turns into a laughing witch before the eyes of the peasants. And Pahom scatters his mind for a long time, trying to understand what happened to him and his companions, until he comes to the conclusion that the "goblin's glorious joke" played a trick on them.

In the poem, a comic comparison of the dispute between the peasants with the fight of bulls in a peasant herd arises. And the cow, lost in the evening, came to the fire, stared at the peasants,

I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!

Nature responds to the destructiveness of the dispute, which develops into a serious fight, and in the person of not so much good as sinister forces, representatives of folk demonology, enrolled in the category of forest evil spirits. Seven eagle owls flock to look at the arguing wanderers: from seven large trees “midnight owls laugh”.

And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
By the fire itself
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!

The commotion grows, spreads, covers the entire forest, and it seems that the “spirit of the forest” itself laughs, laughs at the peasants, responds to their skirmish and carnage with malicious intentions.

A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.

Of course, the author's irony in the Prologue is good-natured and condescending. The poet does not want to strictly judge the peasants for the wretchedness and extreme limitation of their ideas about happiness and a happy person. He knows that this limitation is connected with the harsh everyday life of a peasant, with such material deprivations, in which suffering itself sometimes takes on soulless, ugly and perverted forms. This happens every time a people is deprived of their daily bread. Recall the song "Hungry" that sounded in "Feast":

The man is standing
swaying
A man is walking
Don't breathe!
From its bark
swelled up,
Longing trouble
Exhausted…

3

And in order to shade the limited peasant understanding of happiness, Nekrasov brings the wanderers in the first part of the epic poem not with the landowner and not with the official, but with the priest. A priest, a spiritual person, closest to the people in his way of life, and called upon to keep a thousand-year-old national shrine by duty, very accurately compresses ideas of happiness, vague for the wanderers themselves, into a capacious formula.

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

Of course, the priest himself ironically distances himself from this formula: “This, dear friends, is happiness in your opinion!” And then, with visual persuasiveness, he refutes with all life experience the naivety of each hypostasis of this triune formula: neither "peace", nor "wealth", nor "honor" can be put at the foundation of a truly human, Christian understanding of happiness.

The priest's story makes the men think about a lot. The commonplace, ironically condescending assessment of the clergy reveals its untruth here. According to the laws of epic narration, the poet trustingly surrenders to the priest's story, which is constructed in such a way that behind the personal life of one priest, the life of the entire clergy rises and rises to its full height. The poet is in no hurry, in no hurry with the development of the action, giving the hero a full opportunity to utter everything that lies on his soul. Behind the life of a priest, the life of all of Russia in its past and present, in its various estates, opens on the pages of the epic poem. Here are dramatic changes in the estates of the nobility: the old patriarchal-noble Rus', which lived settled, in customs and customs close to the people, is fading into the past. The post-reform burning of life and the ruin of the nobles destroyed its age-old foundations, destroyed the old attachment to the family village nest. “Like a Jewish tribe,” the landlords scattered around the world, adopted new habits, far from Russian moral traditions and traditions.

In the story, the priest unfolds before the eyes of the savvy peasants a “great chain”, in which all the links are firmly connected: if you touch one, it will respond in another. The drama of the Russian nobility drags drama into the life of the clergy. To the same extent this drama is exacerbated by the post-reform impoverishment of the muzhik.

Our poor villages
And in them the peasants are sick
Yes, sad women
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers
Lord give them strength!

The clergy cannot be at peace when the people, their drinker and breadwinner, are in poverty. And the point here is not only the material impoverishment of the peasantry and nobility, which entails the impoverishment of the clergy. The main trouble of the priest is something else. The misfortunes of a peasant bring deep moral suffering to sensitive people from the clergy: “It’s hard to live on such pennies!”

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!

The priest's confession speaks not only of the suffering that is associated with social "disorders" in a country that is in a deep national crisis. These "disorders" that lie on the surface of life must be eliminated; a righteous social struggle is possible and even necessary against them. But there are other, deeper contradictions connected with the imperfection of human nature itself. It is precisely these contradictions that reveal the vanity and cunning of people who seek to present life as sheer pleasure, as thoughtless intoxication with wealth, ambition, complacency, which turns into indifference to one's neighbor. Pop in his confession deals a crushing blow to those who profess such a morality. Talking about parting words to the sick and dying, the priest speaks about the impossibility of peace of mind on this earth for a person who is not indifferent to his neighbor:

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?..

It turns out that a completely free from suffering, “freely, happily” living person is a stupid, indifferent, morally flawed person. Life is not a holiday, but hard work, not only physical, but also spiritual, requiring self-denial from a person. After all, Nekrasov himself affirmed the same ideal in the poem “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, the ideal of high citizenship, surrendering to which it is impossible not to sacrifice oneself, not to consciously reject “worldly pleasures”. Isn’t that why the priest looked down when he heard the question of the peasants, far from the Christian truth of life - “Is the priestly life sweet,” and with the dignity of an Orthodox minister turned to the wanderers:

… Orthodox!
It's a sin to grumble at God
Bear my cross with patience...

And his whole story is, in fact, an example of how every person who is ready to lay down his life “for his friends” can bear the cross.

The lesson taught to the wanderers by the priest has not yet gone to their benefit, but nevertheless brought confusion into the peasant consciousness. The men unanimously took up arms against Luka:

- What did you take? stubborn head!
Rustic club!
That's where the argument gets in!
"Nobles bell -
The priests live like princes.”
…
Well, here's your praise
Pop's life!

The irony of the author is not accidental, because with the same success it was possible to “finish” not only Luka, but each of them individually and all of them together. The peasant scolding is again followed by the shadow of Nekrasov, who makes fun of the limitedness of the people's initial ideas about happiness. And it is no coincidence that after meeting with the priest, the nature of the behavior and way of thinking of wanderers change significantly. They become more and more active in dialogues, more and more energetically intervene in life. And the attention of the wanderers is beginning to capture more and more powerfully not the world of masters, but the people's environment.

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 a "complete collection" of folk poetry genres - 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 landlords. 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 in the first half of the 19th 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 "The Gardener"), but the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" was the culmination of this interest. Nekrasov collected folk oral art 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 Chernigov 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 the Path of Life", "Judicial Speeches", "Fathers and Sons 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 the history of Ancient Greece and the 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 modern 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 Viktor Petrovich Burenin (1841-1926) - literary critic, publicist, 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 of Public Education, published critical articles in Russkiy Vestnik, Russkiy Slovo, Zarya. 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 the relevance of this part: they accused Nekrasov of “denouncing serfdom exactly 12 years after it 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 The Peasant Woman: “The speech of the best parts of his best poems either sounds like a characteristic melody of a real Russian song, or 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 Alexei Tolstoy, he 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 on 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

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

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

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 must 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? The main character of the fragment, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, 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 can be considered, not without reason: 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 is 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?

The question of what happiness is and whether there is already a happy person (or group of people) in Rus' is replaced by another question: 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 his own joy) and a person who is able to sensibly and unexpectedly competently explain the true the reasons and real dimensions of popular drunkenness: he says that “we are great people / In work and in revelry”, and explains that wine is a kind of substitute for popular 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 landlords, 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 bloody
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 on the headman 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 with the headman Vlas, who feels himself to be a kind of leader of the people's world: on his shoulders is a great responsibility for the future. It is he who, turning into the “voice of the people”, either 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 most 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. Young people went to the villages not just to propagate revolutionary ideas, but to help the people, open their eyes to the reasons for their plight, 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 “the name of the loud / People's protector, / Consumption and Siberia” is really awaiting him (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

“Who lives well in Rus'” is the final work of Nekrasov, a folk epic, which includes all the centuries-old experience of peasant life, all the information about the people collected by the poet “by word” for twenty years.

PART ONE 1

PEASANT 11

LAST 18

PIR FOR THE WHOLE WORLD 22

Notes 28

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'

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
Thinking of 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 a 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!
Kosushki drank three,
Ate - and argued
Again: who has fun to live,
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman shouts: to the landowner,
Demyan shouts: to the official,
Luke yells: ass;
Fat-bellied merchant, -
The Gubin brothers are screaming,
Ivan and Mitrodor;
Pahom shouts: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State,
And Prov shouts: to the king!
Taken more than ever
perky men,
Cursing swearing,
No wonder they get stuck
Into each other's hair...
Look - they've got it!
Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.
And two brothers Gubina
They iron Prov hefty, -
And everyone screams!
A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.
King! - heard to the right
Left responds:
Butt! ass! ass!
The whole forest was in turmoil
With flying birds
By swift-footed beasts
And creeping reptiles, -
And a groan, and a roar, and a rumble!
First of all, a gray bunny
From a neighboring bush
Suddenly jumped out, as if tousled,
And off he went!
Behind him are small jackdaws
At the top of the birches raised
Nasty, sharp squeak.
And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest;
Chirping, crying chiffchaff,
Where is the chick? - will not find!
Then the old cuckoo
I woke up and thought
Someone to cuckoo;
Taken ten times
Yes, it crashed every time
And started again...
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Bread will sting
You choke on an ear -
You won't poop!
Seven owls flocked,
Admire the carnage
From seven big trees
Laugh, midnighters!
And their eyes are yellow
They burn like burning wax
Fourteen candles!
And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
At the very fire.
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!
Cow with a bell
What has strayed since the evening
From the herd, I heard a little
human voices -
Came to the fire, tired
Eyes on men
I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!
Silly cow mooing
Small jackdaws squeak.
The boys are screaming,
And the echo echoes everything.
He has one concern -
To tease honest people
Scare guys and women!
Nobody saw him
And everyone has heard
Without a body - but it lives,
Without a tongue - screaming!
Owl - Zamoskvoretskaya
Princess - immediately mooing,
Flying over peasants
Rushing about the ground,
That about the bushes with a wing ...
The fox herself is cunning,
Out of curiosity,
Sneaked up on the men
I listened, I listened
And she walked away, thinking:
"And the devil does not understand them!"
And indeed: the disputants themselves
Hardly knew, remembered -
What are they talking about...
Naming the sides decently
To each other, come to their senses
Finally, the peasants
Drunk from a puddle
Washed, refreshed
Sleep began to roll them ...
In the meantime, a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Got to the fire.
Pakhomushka caught him,
He brought it to the fire, looked at it
And he said: "Little bird,
And the nail is up!
I breathe - you roll off the palm of your hand,
Sneeze - roll into the fire,
I click - you will roll dead,
And yet you, little bird,
Stronger than a man!
Wings will get stronger soon
Bye-bye! wherever you want
You will fly there!
Oh you little pichuga!
Give us your wings
We will circle the whole kingdom,
Let's see, let's see
Let's ask and find out:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?"
"You don't even need wings,
If only we had bread
Half a pood a day, -
And so we would Mother Rus'
They measured with their feet!" -
Said the sullen Prov.
"Yes, a bucket of vodka," -
Added willing
Before vodka, the Gubin brothers,
Ivan and Mitrodor.
"Yes, in the morning there would be cucumbers
Salty ten, "-
The men joked.
"And at noon would be a jug
Cold kvass."
"And in the evening for a teapot
Hot tea…"
While they were talking
Curled, whirled foam
Above them: listened to everything
And sat by the fire.
Chiviknula, jumped up
And in a human voice
Pahomu says:
"Let go of the chick!
For a little chick
I will give you a big ransom."
– What will you give? -
"Ladies bread
Half a pood a day
I'll give you a bucket of vodka
In the morning I will give cucumbers,
And at noon sour kvass,
And in the evening a seagull!
- And where, little pichuga, -
Gubin brothers asked, -
Find wine and bread
Are you on seven men? -
"Find - you will find yourself.
And I, little pichuga,
I'll tell you how to find it."
- Tell! -
"Go through the woods
Against the thirtieth pillar
A straight verst:
Come to the meadow
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines
Beneath these under the pines
Buried box.
Get her -
That box is magical.
It has a self-assembled tablecloth,
Whenever you wish
Eat, drink!
Quietly just say:
"Hey! self-assembled tablecloth!
Treat the men!"
At your request
At my command
Everything will appear at once.
Now let the chick go!"
- Wait! we are poor people
I'm going on a long road,
Pahom answered her. -
You, I see, are a wise bird,
Respect - old clothes
Bewitch us!
- So that the peasants' Armenians
Worn, not worn! -
Roman demanded.
- To fake bast shoes
Served, did not crash, -
Demyan demanded.
- So that a louse, a foul flea
I didn’t breed in shirts, -
Luke demanded.
- Wouldn’t the onuchenki ... -
Gubins demanded...
And the bird answered them:
"All the tablecloth is self-assembled
Repair, wash, dry
You will ... Well, let it go! .. "

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov

Who lives well in Rus'

PART ONE

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!

Kosushki drank three,
Ate - and argued
Again: who has fun to live,
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman shouts: to the landowner,
Demyan shouts: to the official,
Luke yells: ass;
Fat-bellied merchant, -
The Gubin brothers are screaming,
Ivan and Mitrodor;
Pahom shouts: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State,
And Prov shouts: to the king!

Taken more than ever
perky men,
Cursing swearing,
No wonder they get stuck
Into each other's hair...

Look - they've got it!
Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.
And two brothers Gubina
They iron Prov hefty, -
And everyone screams!

A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.
King! - heard to the right
Left responds:
Butt! ass! ass!
The whole forest was in turmoil
With flying birds
By swift-footed beasts
And creeping reptiles, -
And a groan, and a roar, and a rumble!

First of all, a gray bunny
From a neighboring bush
Suddenly jumped out, as if tousled,
And off he went!
Behind him are small jackdaws
At the top of the birches raised
Nasty, sharp squeak.
And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest;
Chirping, crying chiffchaff,
Where is the chick? - will not find!
Then the old cuckoo
I woke up and thought
Someone to cuckoo;
Taken ten times
Yes, it crashed every time
And started again...
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Bread will sting
You choke on an ear -
You won't poop!
Seven owls flocked,
Admire the carnage
From seven big trees
Laugh, midnighters!
And their eyes are yellow
They burn like burning wax
Fourteen candles!
And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
At the very fire.
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!
Cow with a bell
What has strayed since the evening
From the herd, I heard a little
human voices -
Came to the fire, tired
Eyes on men
I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!

Silly cow mooing
Small jackdaws squeak.
The boys are screaming,
And the echo echoes everything.
He has one concern -
To tease honest people
Scare guys and women!
Nobody saw him
And everyone has heard
Without a body - but it lives,
Without a tongue - screaming!

Owl - Zamoskvoretskaya
Princess - immediately mooing,
Flying over peasants
Rushing about the ground,
That about the bushes with a wing ...

The fox herself is cunning,
Out of curiosity,
Sneaked up on the men
I listened, I listened
And she walked away, thinking:
"And the devil does not understand them!"
And indeed: the disputants themselves
Hardly knew, remembered -
What are they talking about...

Naming the sides decently
To each other, come to their senses
Finally, the peasants
Drunk from a puddle
Washed, refreshed
Sleep began to roll them ...
In the meantime, a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Got to the fire.

Pakhomushka caught him,
He brought it to the fire, looked at it
And he said: "Little bird,
And the nail is up!
I breathe - you roll off the palm of your hand,
Sneeze - roll into the fire,
I click - you will roll dead,
And yet you, little bird,
Stronger than a man!
Wings will get stronger soon
Bye-bye! wherever you want
You will fly there!
Oh you little pichuga!
Give us your wings
We will circle the whole kingdom,
Let's see, let's see
Let's ask and find out:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?

"You don't even need wings,
If only we had bread
Half a pood a day, -
And so we would Mother Rus'
They measured it with their feet!” -
Said the sullen Prov.

"Yes, a bucket of vodka," -
Added willing
Before vodka, the Gubin brothers,
Ivan and Mitrodor.

“Yes, in the morning there would be cucumbers
Salty ten, "-
The men joked.
“And at noon would be a jug
Cold kvass."

"And in the evening for a teapot
Hot tea…”

While they were talking
Curled, whirled foam
Above them: listened to everything
And sat by the fire.
Chiviknula, jumped up
And in a human voice
Pahomu says:

"Let go of the chick!
For a little chick
I'll give you a big ransom."

– What will you give? -
"Lady's bread
Half a pood a day
I'll give you a bucket of vodka
In the morning I will give cucumbers,
And at noon sour kvass,
And in the evening a seagull!

- And where, little pichuga, -
Gubin brothers asked, -
Find wine and bread
Are you on seven men? -

“Find - you will find yourself.
And I, little pichuga,
I'll tell you how to find it."

- Tell! -
"Go through the woods
Against the thirtieth pillar
A straight verst:
Come to the meadow
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines
Beneath these under the pines
Buried box.
Get her -
That box is magical.
It has a self-assembled tablecloth,
Whenever you wish
Eat, drink!
Quietly just say:
"Hey! self-made tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
At your request
At my command
Everything will appear at once.
Now let the chick go!”
Womb - then ask
And you can ask for vodka
In day exactly on a bucket.
If you ask more
And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third, be in trouble!
And the foam flew away
With my darling chick,
And the men in single file
Reached for the road
Look for the thirtieth pillar.
Found! - silently go
Straight, straight
Through the dense forest,
Every step counts.
And how they measured a mile,
We saw a meadow -
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines...
The peasants dug
Got that box
Opened and found
That tablecloth self-assembled!
They found it and shouted at once:
“Hey, self-assembled tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
Look - the tablecloth unfolded,
Where did they come from
Two strong hands
A bucket of wine was placed
Bread was laid on a mountain
And they hid again.
“But why aren’t there cucumbers?”
"What is not a hot tea?"
“What is there no cold kvass?”
Everything suddenly appeared...
The peasants unbelted
They sat down by the tablecloth.
Went here feast mountain!
Kissing for joy
promise to each other
Forward do not fight in vain,
And it's quite controversial
By reason, by God,
On the honor of the story -
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 the matter is controversial
Solutions will not be found
Until they tell
No matter how it is for sure:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?
Having made such a vow,
In the morning like dead
Men fell asleep...

The work of Russian literature of the 19th century does not lose its relevance. The search for happiness can continue. Little has changed in the customs of modern Russia. A summary of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by chapters and parts will help you find the right episode and understand the plot.

1 part

Prologue

Seven men from different villages gathered on the road and began to argue about who lives happily and freely in Rus'. The meeting place and the name of the villages are chosen by the author with meaning. Uyezd - Terpigorev (we endure grief), volost - Pustoporozhnaya (empty or empty). Villages with names that convey the main characteristics of the life of peasants:

clothing from patches - Zaplatovo;
leaky things - Dyryavino;
without shoes - Razutovo;
shivering from illness and fear - Znobishino;
burnt houses - Gorelovo;
no food - Neelovo;
constant crop failures - Crop failure.

Who met on the road, what will be the name of the hero of the poem: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Ivan, Mitrodor, Pahom, Prov. Each of them puts forward his own version, but the men do not come to a consensus. Who can live happily in Rus':

landowner;
official;
merchant;
boyar;
minister;
tsar.

The men argue as only a Russian can. They each went about their business, but forgot about the goal. During the argument, they did not notice how the day ended, the night came. Old Pahom suggested that we stop and wait for the next day to continue our journey. The men sat around the fire, ran for vodka, made glasses from birch bark and continued the argument. The screams turned into a fight that frightened the entire forest. Eagle owls, a cow, a raven, a fox, a cuckoo admire the carnage. The warbler chick fell out of the nest and crept up to the fire. Pahom talks to the chick, explaining its weakness and strength. A hand can crush a helpless chick, but the peasants do not have wings to fly around all of Rus'. Other fellow travelers began to dream of their own: vodka, cucumbers, kvass and hot tea. The mother warbler whirled and listened to the speeches of the disputants. Pichuga promised to help and told me where to find a self-assembly tablecloth. Having learned about the wisdom of the bird, the peasants began to ask to make sure that the shirts do not wear out, the bast shoes do not wipe off, and the louse does not start.

"Everything will do the tablecloth"

Promised foam. The bird warned that one should not ask the tablecloth for more food than the stomach can withstand, and only 1 bucket of vodka. If these conditions are not met, for 3 times the desire will lead to trouble. The men found a tablecloth, arranged a feast. They decided that they would find out who lives happily on Russian soil, only then they will return home.

1 chapter. Pop

The peasants continued on their way. They met many people, but no one was interested in life. All the wanderers were close to them: a lapotnik, an artisan, a beggar, a coachman. The soldier could not be happy. He shaves with an awl, warms himself with smoke. Closer to the night they met a pop. The peasants stood in a row and bowed to the holy man. Luka began to ask the priest if he had a free life. The priest thought for a moment and began to speak. He simply kept silent about the years of study. The priest has no rest. He is called to the sick, dying. The heart aches and hurts for orphans and people leaving for another world. The priest has no honor. They call him insulting words, shun him on the way, compose fairy tales. They do not like either the priest's daughter or the priest. Not held in high esteem by the pop of all classes. Where does the priest get his wealth from? Previously, there were many nobles in Rus'. Children were born in estates, weddings were played. Everyone went to the priests, wealth grew and multiplied. Now in Rus' everything has changed. The landowners scattered throughout the foreign land, leaving only ruined possessions in their homeland. The priest complains about the schismatics who have appeared, who live among the Orthodox. The life of priests is becoming more and more difficult, only poor peasants give income. What can they give? Only a dime and a pie for the holiday. The priest finished his dreary story and moved on. The men attacked Luka, who claimed that the priests live freely.

Chapter 2 rural fair

Dirty hotel with a beautiful sign and a tray with dishes.
Two churches: Orthodox and Old Believers.
School.
Medical assistant's hut, where the sick bleed.

Wanderers came to the square. There were many tents with different goods. The men are walking among the malls, they are surprised, laugh, and look at the people they meet. Someone sells handicrafts, another checks the rim and gets hit on the forehead. Women scold French fabrics. One got drunk and does not know how to buy the promised gift for his granddaughter. He is helped by Pavlusha Veretennikov, a man without a title. He bought shoes for his granddaughter. The peasants left the village without meeting the one they were looking for. On the hillock it seemed to them that Kuzminskoye was staggering along with the church.

Chapter 3 drunken night

The men were moving along the road, meeting drunks. They

"crawled, lay, rode, floundered."

Sober wanderers walked, looking around and listening to speeches. Some were so bad that it becomes terrifying how the Russian people drink too much. In the ditch, the women are arguing about who lives harder. One goes as if to hard labor, the other is beaten by sons-in-law.

The wanderers hear the familiar voice of Pavlusha Veretennikov. He praises the smart Russian people for proverbs and songs, but is upset because of drunkenness to the point of stupefaction. But the man does not allow him to write down the thought. He began to prove that the peasants drink on time. In suffering people in the field, who works and feeds the whole country? For a drinking family - a non-drinking family. And trouble comes to everyone the same way. Ugly drunken men are no worse than those who were eaten by midges, eaten by swamp reptiles. One of the drunks was Yakim Nagoi. The worker decided to compete with the merchant and ended up in prison. Yakim loved paintings, because of them he almost burned down during a fire. Taking pictures, I did not have time to pull out the rubles. They merged into a lump, lost their value. The men decided that they could not overcome the hops of a Russian person.

Chapter 4 Happy

Wanderers are looking for the lucky one in the festive crowd at the bazaar. But all the arguments they meet seem absurd. There are no truly happy people. Peasant happiness does not impress wanderers. They are sent to Yermil Girin. He collected money from people in an hour. All the peasants chipped in and helped Yermil to buy the mill, to resist the merchant Altynnikov. A week later, Yermil returned everything to the penny, no one demanded more from him, no one was offended. Someone did not take one ruble from Girin, he gave it to the blind. The men decided to find out what kind of witchcraft Yermil owns. Kirin faithfully served as the headman. But he could not send his brother to the army, he replaced him with a peasant. The act exhausted Yermil's soul. He returned the peasant home, and sent his brother to the service. He resigned as headman and took the mill on lease. Fate still took revenge on the peasant, he was put in jail. The wanderers go further, realizing that this is not the happiest person in Rus'.

Chapter 5 landowner

Wanderers meet the landowner. The ruddy landowner was 60 years old. And here the author tried. He chose a special surname for the hero - Obolt-Obolduev Gavrila Afanasyevich. The landowner decided that they were going to rob him. He drew a pistol, but the men calmed him down and explained the essence of their dispute. Gavrila Afanasyevich was amused at the question of the peasants. He laughed his fill and began to talk about his life. He started with a family tree. The men quickly understood what was being said. The ancestor of the landowner was Oboldui, who is already more than 2 and a half centuries old. He entertained the empress by playing with animals. On the other hand, the clan originates from the prince who tried to set fire to Moscow and was executed for it. The landowner was famous, the older the tree, the better the family. The wealth of the family was such that it seemed that one could not think about the future. The forests are full of hares, the rivers are full of fish, the arable land is flooded with grain. Houses were built with greenhouses, gazebos and parks. The landowners were celebrating and walking. Hunting was a favorite pastime. But gradually the power of the Russian landowner is leaving with it. Peasants if the master of gifts from all over the vast country. The long life ended quickly. Houses sorted out brick by brick, everything began to fall into disrepair. There is land left to work on. The landowner does not know how to work, he spends his whole life

"lived by someone else's work."

The peasants realized that the landowner was not the one they were looking for.

2 part. Last

Chapter 1

The wanderers reached the Volga. There was a lot of fun going around. The wanderers saw how the wonderful old man swaggered over the peasants. He forced to scatter the heroic haystack. It seemed to him that the hay had not dried up. It turned out to be Prince Utyatin. The wanderers were surprised why the peasants behave this way, if they have long been given freedom and the patrimony does not belong to the prince, but to them. Vlas explains to his comrades what the matter is.

Chapter 2

The landowner was very rich and important. He did not believe that serfdom had been abolished. He got hit. The children and their wives arrived. Everyone thought that the old man would die, but he recovered. The heirs of their father's anger were afraid. One of the ladies said that serfdom was returned. I had to persuade the serfs to continue to behave as before, before the free. They promised to pay for all the quirks of the parent. The prince's orders were as ridiculous as they were absurd. One of the old men could not stand it and told the prince. He was ordered to be punished. Agap was persuaded to drink and scream as if he was being beaten. They made the old man drunk to death, he died by morning.

Chapter 3

The peasants, believing in the promises of their heirs, behave like serfs. The Prince of the Last is dying. But no one fulfills the promises, the promised lands do not pass to the peasants. There is a lawsuit going on.

3 part. peasant woman

The men decided to look for happy people among the women. They were advised to find Matryona Timofeeva Korchagina. Wanderers go through the fields, admiring the rye. Wheat does not please them, it does not feed everyone. We reached the desired village - Klin. The peasants were surprised at every step. Strange, absurd work went on throughout the village. Everything around was destroyed, broken or spoiled. Finally, they saw reapers and reapers. Pretty girls have changed the scene. Among them was Matrena Timofeevna, popularly nicknamed the governor's wife. The woman was about 37 - 38 years old. The appearance of a woman attracts with beauty:

big stern eyes;
wide tight posture;
rich eyelashes;
swarthy skin.

Matryona is neat in her clothes: a white shirt and a short sundress. The woman could not immediately answer the question of the wanderers. She thought, reproached the peasants, they chose the wrong time for talking. But the peasants offered their help in exchange for a story. The Governor agreed. The self-made tablecloth fed and watered the peasants. The hostess agreed to open the soul.

1 chapter. before marriage

Matryona was happy in her parents' house. Everyone treated her well: father, brother, mother. The girl grew up hardworking. She has been helping with housework since she was 5 years old. A kind worker grew up, a lover of singing and dancing. Matryona was in no hurry to get married. But the stove-maker Philip Korchagin appeared. The girl thought it over all night, cried, but after looking at the guy more carefully, she agreed. Happiness was only on the night of the matchmaking, as Matryona said.

Chapter 2 Songs

Wanderers and a woman sing songs. They talk about a heavy share in someone else's house. Matrena continues the story of her life. The girl got into a huge family. The husband went to work, advised his wife to be silent and endure. Matrena worked for her older sister-in-law, the devout Martha, looked after her father-in-law, and gratified her mother-in-law. It occurred to Philip's mother that rye would be best grown from stolen seeds. The father-in-law went to steal, he was caught, beaten and thrown into the barn half dead. Matryona praises her husband, and the wanderers ask if he beat her. The woman tells. Philip was beaten for a slow answer to a question when his wife lifted a heavy pot and could not speak. The wanderers sang a new song about her husband's whip and relatives. Matrena gave birth to a son, Demushka, when her husband again went to work. The trouble came again: the master's manager, Abram Gordeevich Sitnikov, liked the woman. He didn't let go. Of the whole family, only grandfather Savely felt sorry for Matryona. She went to him for advice.

Chapter 3 Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Grandfather Savely looked like a bear. He did not cut his hair for 20 years, bent from the years he had lived. According to the documents, my grandfather was already over 100 years old. He lived in a corner - in a special room. He did not let his family members in, they did not like him. Even his own son scolded his father. They called grandfather branded. But Savely was not offended:

"Branded, but not a slave!"

Grandfather rejoiced at the failures of the family: they were waiting for matchmakers - beggars came under the windows, the father-in-law was beaten in a drinking tavern. Grandfather collects mushrooms and berries, catches birds. In winter he talks to himself on the stove. The old man has many sayings and favorite sayings. Matryona and her son went to the old man. The grandfather told the woman why he was called branded in the family. He was a convict, he buried the German Vogel alive in the ground. Savely tells the woman how they lived. Times were good for the peasants. The master could not get to the village because there were no roads. Only bears disturbed the inhabitants, but even those men coped easily without guns:

"with a knife and a horn."

Grandfather tells when he was frightened, from which his back bent. He stepped on a sleepy bear, was not afraid, drove a horn into her and raised her like a chicken. The back crunched from heaviness, in youth it ached a little, and in old age it bent. In a lean year, Shalashnikov reached them. The landowner began to tear "three skins" from the peasants. When Shalashnikov died, a German, a strange and quiet man, was sent to the village. He forced them to work, unbeknownst to themselves, the peasants cut a clearing to the village, a road appeared. With her came hard labor. The German grip is to let it go around the world. Russian heroes endured, did not break. Peasants

"the axes lay for the time being."

The German ordered to dig a well and came to scold him for his slowness. Hungry men stood and listened to his whining. Savely gently pushed him with his shoulder, the others did the same. They carefully threw the German into the pit. He shouted, demanded a rope and a ladder, but Savely said:

"Give it up!"

The pit was quickly dug up, as if it never happened. Next came penal servitude, prison, and flogging. The old man's skin has become like dressed, the grandfather jokes, that's why it has been worn "for a hundred years", that it has endured so much. Grandfather returned to his homeland while there was money, he was loved, then they began to hate him.

Chapter 4

Matrena continues the story of her life. She loved her son Demushka, took him everywhere with her, but her mother-in-law demanded to leave the child with her grandfather. The woman was loading compressed sheaves of rye when she saw Savely crawling towards her. The old man roared. He fell asleep and did not notice how the pigs ate the child. Matryona experienced terrible grief, but even more terrible were the interrogations of the police officer. He found out whether Matryona cohabited with Savely, whether she had killed her son in conspiracy, or if she poured arsenic. The mother asked to bury Demushka according to the Christian custom, but they began to cut the child, “torment and plast”. The woman almost went crazy with anger and grief, she cursed Savely. Having gone crazy in her mind, she went into oblivion, when she woke up, she saw that her grandfather was reading a prayer over a small coffin. Matryona began to chase the old man, and he asked for forgiveness and explained that Demushka had melted the old man's petrified heart. All night Savely read a prayer over the child, and the mother held a candle in her hands.

Chapter 5

It has been 20 years since the son died, and the woman still regrets his fate. Matryona stopped working, she was not afraid of her father-in-law's reins. I could not make any more promises with my grandfather Savely. The old man sat out of grief in his room for 6 days, went into the forest. He wept so that the whole forest moaned with him. In autumn, grandfather went to the Sand Monastery to repent for what he had done. Life began to go on as usual: children, work. Parents died, Matrena went to cry at Demushka's grave. There she met Savelia. He prayed for Dema, Russian suffering, for the peasantry, asked to remove anger from his mother's heart. Matrena reassured the old man, saying that she had forgiven him a long time ago. Savely asked to look at him as before. The kind look of the woman delighted the grandfather. The “hero” died hard: he did not eat for 100 days and dried up. He lived for 107 years, asked to be buried next to Demushka. The request was fulfilled. Matrena worked for the whole family. The son was given at the age of 8 as a shepherd. He did not follow the sheep, and the she-wolf carried it away. The mother did not let the crowd flog her son. Fedot said that the huge she-wolf grabbed the sheep and ran. The boy rushed after her, boldly took away the animal from the gray one, but took pity on her. The she-wolf was covered in blood, her nipples were cut with grass. She howled as plaintively as a mother weeps. The boy gave her the sheep, came to the village and told everything honestly. The headman ordered the shepherd to be forgiven, and the woman to be punished with rods.

Chapter 6

A hungry year has come to the village. The peasants were looking for reasons in their neighbors, Matryona was almost killed for a clean shirt, dressed in Christmas. The husband was taken into the army, poverty became almost unbearable. Matryona sends the children to beg. The woman cannot stand it and leaves the house at night. She sings to the wanderers a song that she likes very much.

Chapter 7

Matryona ran at night to ask for help in the city from the governor. All night the woman walked, praying to God to herself. In the morning I reached the Cathedral Square. I learned that the porter's name was Makar and began to wait. He promised to start in two hours. The woman walked around the city, looked at the monument to Susanin, which reminded her of Savely, was frightened by the cry of a drake that fell under the knife. I returned to the governor's house early, managed to talk with Makar. A lady in a sable coat came down the stairs, Matryona threw herself at her feet. She asked so much that she began to give birth in the governor's house. The lady baptized the boy, chose the name Liodor for him. Elena Alexandrovna (lady) returned Philip. Matrena wishes the lady only joy and goodness. The husband's family is grateful to the daughter-in-law, with a man in the house, hunger is not so terrible.

Chapter 8

The woman was defamed in the district, they began to call a new name - the governor. Matryona has 5 sons, one is already in the army. Korchagina sums up her story:

"... It's not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women! ...".

Wanderers are trying to find out if the woman told them everything about her life, but she only tells them about troubles and grief:

Anthrax;
Work instead of a horse;
Scourge and loss of the firstborn.

The woman did not experience only "the last shame." Matrena says that the keys to women's happiness are lost by God. She tells a parable she heard from the holy old woman. God abandoned the keys, they were looking for them, but they decided that the fish had swallowed them. The warriors of the Lord went through the whole of God's world, finally found the loss. Women breathed a sigh of relief throughout the world. But it turned out that these were the keys to slavery. No one still knows where this fish walks.

4 part. A feast for the whole world

The wanderers settled down at the end of the village under the willow. They remember the master - the Last. Under the feast, they begin to sing and share stories.

Song Merry. It is sung like a dance priests and courtyard people. Only vakhlak did not sing. A song about the hard lot of a Russian peasant.

“It is glorious for the people to live in holy Rus'”:

He has no milk - the master took the cow for offspring, there are no chickens - the judges of the Zemstvo council ate, the children are taken away: the king - the boys, the master - the daughters.

Barshine song. The second song is sad and drawn out. The hero of the story is the unkempt Kalinushka. His only back is painted from a rod and whips. Grief drowns Kalinushka in a tavern, he sees his wife only on Saturday, he will "backfire" on her from the master's stables.

About the exemplary lackey - Yakov Verny. The story is told by the courtyard Vikenty Alexandrovich. The protagonist of the story is a gentleman, cruel and evil. For bribes, he bought a village for himself and established his own law. The cruelty of the master was in relation not only to the courtyards. He gave his own daughter in marriage, flogged the guy and "chased away (the children) naked." Polivanov had a serf - Yakov. He served his master like a faithful dog. The serf took care of the master, humored him as best he could. The old man began to get sick, his legs gave out. Jacob carried him in his arms like a child. Jacob's nephew Grisha grew up. Yakov asked permission to marry the girl Arisha, but the master himself liked the girl, he sent Grigory to recruit. The serf was on fire. He drank for 2 weeks, the master felt what it was like for him without an assistant. Yakov returned and devotedly again began to look after the landowner. They went to visit their sister. The landowner settled down carelessly in the carriage, Yakov took him to the forest. The master was frightened when he saw that they had turned off the road to the ravine. Frightened, he decided that he was waiting for death. But the serf laughed evilly:

"Found the murderer!",

Jacob did not want

"... dirty your hands with murder ...".

He made a rope and hanged himself in front of the master. He lay all night in a ravine, driving away birds and wolves. The hunter found him the next morning. The master understood what sin he had committed against the faithful serf.

A story about two great sinners. Ionushka began to tell the story of Father Pitirim from Solovki. Twelve robbers with ataman Kudeyar rampaged in Rus'. Suddenly, the robber Kudeyar woke up conscience. He began to argue with her, trying to gain the upper hand. He cut off the beauty's head, killed the captain. But conscience won. Disbanded the ataman gang, went to pray. For a long time he sat under the oak, asking God. The Lord heard the sinner. He suggested that he cut down a centuries-old tree with a knife. The chieftain set to work, but the oak did not give in to him. Pan Glukhovsky came to him. He began to boast that he kills easily and sleeps peacefully, without remorse. Kudeyar could not stand it, plunged a knife into the heart of the pan. The oak collapsed at the same moment. One sinner was forgiven by God for sins, freeing the world from another villain.

Peasant sin. The widower-ammiral received 8,000 souls from the empress for his service. Ammiral leaves a will to the headman. Freemen are hidden in the casket. After the death of the emmiral, a relative finds out from Gleb, where the free will is kept and burns the will. A peasant's sin is a betrayal among one's own. He is not forgiven even by God.

Song Hungry. The peasants sing it in chorus, like a beaten march, the words are approaching in a cloud and dragging the soul. A song about hunger, a man's constant desire for food. He is ready to eat everything alone, dreams of a cheesecake from a large table. The song is not sung with a voice, but with a hungry gut.

Grisha Dobrosklonov joins the wanderers. He tells the peasants that the main thing for him is to achieve a good life for the peasants. They sing a song about the share of people's and working life. The people ask God for few things - light and freedom.

Epilogue. Grisha Dobrosklonov

Gregory lived in the family of a poor, seedy peasant. He was the son of a deacon, who boasted of his children, but did not think about their food. Grigory remembered the song that his mother sang to him. Song "Salty". The essence of the song is that the mother managed to salt her son's piece of bread with her tears. The guy grew up with love for his mother in his heart. Already at the age of 15, he knows for whom he will give his life. There are two roads in front of a person:

Spacious, where people inhumanly fight among themselves for the sake of passions and sin.
Close, where honest people suffer and fight for the oppressed.

Dobrosklonov thinks about his homeland, he goes his own way. Meets barge haulers, sings songs about a great and mighty country. Gregory composes the song "Rus". He believes that the song will help the peasants, give optimism, replace sad stories.

Nikolai Nekrasov - who lives well in Rus'. Nikolai Nekrasovskiy live well in Rus' How to live well in Rus' read in full

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov Who lives well in Rus'

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Y. LebedevRussian odyssey

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comments: Mikhail Makeev

answer Lev Oborin

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

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

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov Who lives well in Rus'

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

1 part

Prologue

1 chapter. Pop

Chapter 2 rural fair

Chapter 3 drunken night

Chapter 4 Happy

Chapter 5 landowner

2 part. Last

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

3 part. peasant woman

1 chapter. before marriage

Chapter 2 Songs

Chapter 3 Saveliy, Holy Russian hero

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

4 part. A feast for the whole world

Epilogue. Grisha Dobrosklonov

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'

Y. Lebedev
Russian odyssey

Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'