In Rus' live contents by chapters. Analysis of the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" by chapter, composition of the work
The work of Russian literature of the 19th century does not lose its relevance. The search for happiness can continue. Things have changed a bit modern Russia. A summary of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in chapters and parts will help you find the desired episode and understand the plot.
1 part
Prologue
Seven men from different villages gathered on the road and began to argue about who would live happily and freely in Rus'. The meeting place and the names of the villages were chosen by the author with meaning. County - Terpigorev (we endure grief), volost - Pustoporozhnaya (empty or empty). Villages with names that convey the main characteristics of peasant life:
- clothing made from patches – Zaplatovo;
- things with holes - Dyryavino;
- without shoes – Razutovo;
- shivering from illness and fear - Znobishino;
- burnt houses - Gorelovo;
- no food - Neelovo;
- constant crop failures - crop failure.
- landowner;
- official;
- merchant;
- boyar;
- minister;
- tsar.
"The tablecloth will do everything"
The warbler promised. The bird warned that you should not ask the tablecloth for more food than your stomach can handle, and only 1 bucket of vodka. If these conditions are not met, the desire will lead to disaster for the 3rd time. The men found a tablecloth and had a feast. They decided that they would find out who lived happily on Russian soil, and only then would they return home.
Chapter 1 Pop
The peasants continued their journey. They met a lot of people, but no one asked about life. All the wanderers were close to them: the bast worker, the artisan, the beggar, the coachman. The soldier could not be happy. He shaves with an awl and warms himself with smoke. Closer to night they met a priest. The peasants stood in a row and bowed to the holy man. Luka began to ask the priest whether he was living comfortably. The priest thought about it and began to talk. He simply kept silent about his years of study. The priest has no peace. He is called to a sick, dying person. My heart aches and hurts for orphans and people leaving for another world. The priest has no honor. They call him offensive names, avoid him on the way, and make up fairy tales. They don’t like either the priest’s daughter or the priest. The priest is not held in high esteem by all classes. Where does the priest get his wealth? Previously, there were many nobles in Rus'. Children were born on estates and weddings took place. Everyone went to the priests, wealth grew and multiplied. Now everything has changed in Rus'. The landowners scattered across the foreign land, leaving only ruined possessions in their homeland. The priest complains about the appearance of schismatics who live among the Orthodox. The life of the priests is becoming more and more difficult; only poor peasants provide income. What can they give? Just a dime and a pie for the holiday. The priest finished his sad story and moved on. The men attacked Luka, who claimed that priests live freely.Chapter 2 Rural fair
The comrades move on and end up at a fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. They hope to meet someone there who is truly happy. The village is rich, commercial and dirty. Kuzminsky has everything that is found in Rus'.- Dirty hotel with a beautiful sign and a tray with dishes.
- Two churches: Orthodox and Old Believers.
- School.
- A paramedic's hut where patients are bled.
Chapter 3 drunken night
The men moved along the road, meeting drunks. They“they crawled, they lay, they rode, they floundered.”
Sober wanderers walked, looking around and listening to speeches. Some were so bad that it’s scary how the Russian people drink themselves to death. Women argue in a ditch about who has a harder life. One goes to hard labor, the other is beaten by her sons-in-law.
The wanderers hear the familiar voice of Pavlusha Veretennikov. He praises the smart Russian people for their proverbs and songs, but is upset about drinking to the point of stupor. But the man doesn’t let him write down the thought. He began to prove that peasants drink on time. During the harvest, people are in the field, who works and feeds the whole country? For a drinking family, a non-drinking family. And trouble comes to everyone equally. Ugly, drunken men are no worse than those who were eaten by midges, eaten by swamp reptiles. One of the drunks was Yakim Nagoy. The worker decided to compete with the merchant and ended up in prison. Yakim loved paintings; because of them, he almost burned down in a fire. While taking pictures, I didn’t have time to pull out the rubles. They merged into a lump and lost value. The men decided that the Russian man could not be overcome by hops.
Chapter 4 Happy
Wanderers are looking for happiness in the festive crowd at the bazaar. But all the arguments of those they meet seem absurd. There are no truly happy people. A man's 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 buy the mill and resist the merchant Altynnikov. A week later, Yermil returned everything to the last penny, no one demanded anything extra from him, no one was left offended. Someone didn’t take one ruble from Girin, he gave it to the blind. The men decided to find out what kind of witchcraft Yermil possesses. Girin honestly served as headman. But he couldn’t send his brother to the army, so he replaced him with a peasant. The act exhausted Yermil’s soul. He returned the peasant home and sent his brother to serve. He resigned as headman and rented the mill. Fate still took its toll on the man; he was sent to prison. The wanderers move on, realizing that this is not the happiest person in Rus'.Chapter 5 landowner
The 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 pulled out a pistol, but the men calmed him down and explained the essence of their dispute. Gavrila Afanasyevich was amused by the peasants’ question. He laughed his fill and began to talk about his life. He started with family tree. The men quickly understood what was being said. The landowner's ancestor was Oboldui, who is already more than 2 and a half centuries old. He amused the empress by playing with animals. On the other hand, the family originates from a prince who tried to set fire to Moscow and was executed for this. The landowner was famous; the older the tree, the more eminent the family. The family's wealth was such that it seemed possible not to think about the future. The forests are full of hares, the rivers are full of fish, the arable land is filled with grain. Houses were built with greenhouses, gazebos and parks. The landowners celebrated and walked. Hunting was his favorite pastime. But gradually, along with it, the power of the Russian landowner goes away. Peasants give gifts to the master from all over the vast country. The free life quickly ended. The houses were dismantled brick by brick, everything began to fall into disrepair. There is still land left to work on. The landowner doesn't know how to work, he spends his whole life“lived on the labor of others.”
The peasants understood that the landowner was not the one they were looking for.
Part 2. Last One
Chapter 1
The wanderers reached the Volga. There was a cheerful mowing going on all around. The wanderers saw how a wonderful old man was swaggering over the peasants. He forced the heroic haystack to be swept away. It seemed to him that the hay was not dry. It turned out to be Prince Utyatin. The wanderers were surprised why the peasants behaved this way, if they had long been given their freedom and the estate belonged not 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 was struck. The children and their wives arrived. Everyone thought that the old man would die, but he recovered. The heirs of their father's wrath were frightened. One of the ladies said that serfdom had been returned. I had to persuade the serfs to continue behaving as before, until freedom. They promised to pay for all the parent's quirks. The prince's orders were as ridiculous as they were absurd. One of the old men could not stand it and spoke out to the prince. He was ordered to be punished. They persuaded Agap to drink and scream as if he was being beaten. They drank the old man to death, and by morning he died.Chapter 3
The peasants, believing in the promises of their heirs, behave like serfs. Prince Posledysh dies. But no one keeps the promises; the promised lands do not go to the peasants. There is a legal battle going on.Part 3. Peasant woman
The men decided to look for happy people among the women. They were advised to find Matryona Timofeeva Korchagina. Wanderers walk through the fields, admiring the rye. Wheat does not make them happy; it does not feed everyone. We reached the desired village - Klin. The peasants were surprised at every step. Strange, absurd work was going on throughout the village. Everything around was being destroyed, broken or damaged. Finally, they saw the reapers and reapers. Beautiful girls changed the situation. Among them was Matryona Timofeevna, popularly nicknamed the governor’s wife. The woman was approximately 37 - 38 years old. The woman’s appearance is attractive with beauty:- large stern eyes;
- wide, tight posture;
- rich eyelashes;
- dark skin.
Chapter 1 Before marriage
Matryona was happy in parental home. Everyone treated her well: father, brother, mother. The girl grew up hardworking. She has been helping with housework since she was 5 years old. She grew up to be a kind worker who loved to sing and dance. Matryona was in no hurry to get married. But stove maker Philip Korchagin appeared. The girl thought it over all night, cried, but after looking at the guy more closely, she agreed. There was happiness only on the night of the matchmaking, as Matryona said.Chapter 2 Songs
The wanderers and the woman sing songs. They talk about the hard life in someone else's house. Matryona continues the story about her life. The girl ended up in a huge family. The husband went to work and advised his wife to remain silent and endure. Matryona worked for her eldest sister-in-law, the pious Martha, looked after her father-in-law, and pleased her mother-in-law. It occurred to Philip’s mother that it would be better for rye to grow 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 is talking. Philip beat him for not answering a question quickly when his wife was lifting a heavy pot and could not speak. The wanderers began to sing new song about the husband's whip and relatives. Matryona gave birth to a son, Demushka, when her husband went to work again. Trouble came again: the master’s manager, Abram Gordeevich Sitnikov, liked the woman. He didn't give way. 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 hasn’t cut his hair for 20 years, he’s bent over with age. According to documents, my grandfather was already more than 100 years old. He lived in a corner - in a special upper room. He didn’t allow family members to visit him; they didn’t like him. Even his own son scolded his father. They called my grandfather branded. But Savely was not offended:“Branded, but not a slave!”
The grandfather rejoiced at the family’s failures: while they were waiting for matchmakers, beggars came to the window, and they beat up the father-in-law in the pub. 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 the branded one in the family. He was a convict who buried the German Vogel alive in the ground. Savely tells the woman how they lived. Times were prosperous for the peasants. The master could not get to the village because there were no roads. Only bears worried the residents, but the men easily dealt with them without guns:
"with a knife and a spear."
The grandfather tells how he got scared and why his back bent. He stepped on the sleepy bear, was not afraid, drove the spear into her and raised her like a chicken. My back crunched from the weight; in my youth it ached a little, but in my old age it became bent. In a lean year, Shalashnikov reached them. The landowner began to tear “three skins” from the peasants. When Shalashnikov died, a German, strange and quiet man. He forced them to work, unbeknownst to them, the peasants cut a clearing to the village, and a road appeared. Hard labor came with her. The German spirit is to let it go around the world. The Russian heroes endured and did not break. Peasant
“The axes lay there 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. Saveliy quietly pushed him with his shoulder, and the others did the same. They carefully threw the German into the pit. He shouted and demanded a rope and a ladder, but Savely said:
“Pump it up!”
The hole was filled quickly, as if it had never happened. Next came hard labor, prison, and floggings. The old man’s skin has become as if it had been tanned, the grandfather jokes, and that’s why it has been worn “for a hundred years” because 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. Demushka
Matryona continues the story about her life. She loved her son Demushka and took him with her everywhere, but her mother-in-law demanded that the child be left with his 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 the interrogations of the police officer were even more terrible. He found out whether Matryona and Savely cohabited, whether she killed her son in conspiracy and added arsenic. The mother asked to bury Demushka according to Christian custom, but they began to cut the child, “torture and plaster.” The woman almost went crazy from anger and grief, she cursed Savely. Lost 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 persecute 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. She-Wolf
20 years have passed since her son died, and the woman still regrets his fate. Matryona stopped working and was not afraid of her father-in-law’s reins. I couldn’t make any more promises with my grandfather Savely. The old man sat in his little room out of grief for 6 days and went into the forest. He cried so much that the whole forest groaned with him. In the fall, my grandfather went to the Sand Monastery to repent for what he had done. Life began to take its course: children, work. Her parents died, Matryona went to cry at Demushka’s grave. I met Savelia there. He prayed for Dema, Russian suffering, for the peasantry, asked to remove the anger from his mother’s heart. Matryona reassured the old man, saying that she had forgiven him a long time ago. Savely asked to look at him as before. The woman’s kind look pleased the grandfather. The “hero” died hard: he didn’t eat for 100 days and withered away. He lived 107 years and asked to be buried next to Demushka. The request was fulfilled. Matryona worked for the whole family. My son was sent to work as a shepherd at the age of 8. He did not keep track of the lamb, and the she-wolf carried it away. The mother did not allow the crowd to flog her son. Fedot said that the enormous she-wolf grabbed the sheep and ran. The boy rushed after her, boldly took the animal from the gray woman, but took pity on her. The she-wolf was covered in blood, her nipples were cut up by grass. She howled as pitifully as a mother cries. The boy gave her the sheep, came to the village and told everything honestly. The headman ordered the assistant shepherd to be forgiven and the woman to be punished with rods.Chapter 6. Difficult year
A hungry year has come to the village. The peasants looked for reasons in their neighbors; Matryona was almost killed for wearing a clean shirt for Christmas. My husband was drafted into the army, and poverty became almost unbearable. Matryona sends her children to beg. The woman can’t stand it and leaves the house at night. She sings a song to the wanderers that she really likes.Chapter 7. Governor's wife
Matryona ran at night to ask the governor for help in the city. The woman walked all night, silently praying to God. In the morning I reached the cathedral square. I found out that the doorman's name was Makar and began to wait. He promised to let us in in two hours. The woman walked around the city, looked at the monument to Susanin, which reminded her of Savely, and was frightened by the cry of a drake that had fallen under the knife. I returned to the governor’s house early and managed to talk with Makar. A lady in a sable fur coat was coming down the stairs, and Matryona threw herself at her feet. She begged so much that she began giving birth in the governor’s house. The lady baptized the boy and chose his name Liodor. Elena Alexandrovna (the lady) returned Philip. Matryona wishes the lady only joy and goodness. The husband's family is grateful to their daughter-in-law; with a man in the house, hunger is not so bad.Chapter 8. The Woman's Parable
The woman was glorified in the area and began to be called by a new name - governor's wife. Matryona has 5 sons, one is already in the army. Korchagina sums up her story:“...It’s no business to look for a happy woman among women!...”
The wanderers are trying to find out if the woman has told everything about her life, but she only tells them about troubles and grief:
- Anthrax;
- Work instead of a horse;
- The whip and the loss of the firstborn.
Part 4 Feast for the whole world
The wanderers settled down at the end of the village under a willow tree. They remember the master - the Last One. During the feast they begin to sing and share stories.Song Merry. It is sung by priests and street people like a dance song. Only the vakhlak did not sing. A song about the hard lot of the Russian peasant.
“It is glorious to live in holy Rus' for the people”:
He has no milk - the master took away the cow for offspring, there are no chickens - the judges of the zemstvo council ate them, the children are taken away: the king - the boys, the master - the daughters.
Corvee song. The second song is sad and drawn-out. The hero of the story is the unkempt Kalinushka. Only his back is painted with rods and lashes. Kalinushka drowns his grief in the tavern, sees his wife only on Saturday, and “comes back” to her from the master’s stable.
About an exemplary slave - Yakov Verny. The story is narrated by the servant Vikenty Alexandrovich. Main character story - a gentleman, cruel and evil. For bribes, he acquired a village for himself and established his own law. The master’s cruelty was not only towards the servants. Native daughter got married, whipped the guy and “drove (the children) away naked.” Polivanov had a servant - Yakov. He served his master like a faithful dog. The slave took care of the master and pleased him as best he could. The old man began to get sick, his legs gave out. Yakov carried him in his arms like a child. Yakov's nephew Grisha grew up. Yakov asked permission to marry the girl Arisha, but the master himself liked the girl, so he sent Grigory as a recruit. The slave was tanning. He drank for 2 weeks, the master felt what it was like for him without an assistant. Yakov returned and devotedly began to look after the landowner again. They went to visit their sister. The landowner sat carefree in the carriage, Yakov took him to the forest. The master was frightened when he saw that they had turned off the road towards a ravine. He got scared and decided that death awaited him. But the slave laughed evilly:
“I found a murderer!”
Yakov didn't want to
“...getting your hands dirty with murder...”
He made a rope and hanged himself in front of the master. He lay in the ravine all night, driving away birds and wolves. The next morning a hunter found him. The gentleman realized what sin he had committed against his faithful servant.
The story "About two great sinners." Ionushka began to tell the story of Father Pitirim from Solovki. Twelve robbers with ataman Kudeyar committed rampage in Rus'. Suddenly, the robber Kudeyar's conscience awoke. He began to argue with her, trying to gain the upper hand. He cut off the beauty's head and killed the captain. But conscience won. The ataman disbanded the gang and went to pray. For a long time he sat under the oak tree, asking God. The Lord heard the sinner. He suggested that he cut down a century-old tree with a knife. The chieftain began to work, but the oak tree 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 and stabbed the master in the heart. The oak collapsed at that very moment. God forgave the sins of one sinner, freeing the world from another villain.
Peasant sin. The widower ammiral received 8 thousand souls from the empress for his service. The ammiral leaves a will to the headman. The free ones are hidden in the casket. After the death of the ammiral, a relative finds out from Gleb where the will is kept and burns the will. Peasant sin is betrayal among one's own. He is not forgiven even by God.
Song Hungry. The men sing it in chorus, like a chased march, the words approach like a cloud and draw in the soul. The song is about hunger, a man’s constant desire for food. He is ready to eat everything alone, dreams of cheesecake on a large table. The song is sung not by voice, but by 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 lot of people's and working life. The people ask God for little - light and freedom.
Epilogue. Grisha Dobrosklonov
Gregory lived in the family of a poor, seedy peasant. He was the son of a clerk who boasted about his children, but did not think about their food. Gregory 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. Two roads stretch before a person:- Spacious, where people inhumanly fight among themselves for the sake of passions and sin.
- A cramped place where honest people suffer and fight for the oppressed.
One day, seven men - recent serfs, and now temporarily obliged "from adjacent villages - Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova, Neyolova, Neurozhaika, etc." meet on the main road. Instead of going their own way, the men start an argument about who lives happily and freely in Rus'. Each of them judges in his own way who is the main lucky person in Rus': a landowner, an official, a priest, a merchant, a noble boyar, a minister of sovereigns or a tsar.
While arguing, they do not notice that they have taken a detour of thirty miles. Seeing that it is too late to return home, the men make a fire and continue the argument over vodka - which, of course, little by little develops into a fight. But a fight does not help resolve the issue that worries the men.
The solution is found unexpectedly: one of the men, Pakhom, catches a warbler chick, and in order to free the chick, the warbler tells the men where they can find a self-assembled tablecloth. Now the men are provided with bread, vodka, cucumbers, kvass, tea - in a word, everything they need for a long journey. And besides, a self-assembled tablecloth will repair and wash their clothes! Having received all these benefits, the men make a vow to find out “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.”
The first possible “lucky person” they meet along the way turns out to be a priest. (It was not right for the soldiers and beggars they met to ask about happiness!) But the priest’s answer to the question of whether his life is sweet disappoints the men. They agree with the priest that happiness lies in peace, wealth and honor. But the priest does not possess any of these benefits. In the haymaking, in the harvest, in the dead of autumn night, in the bitter frost, he must go to where there are the sick, the dying and those being born. And every time his soul hurts at the sight of funeral sobs and orphan's sadness - so much so that his hand does not rise to take copper coins - a pitiful reward for the demand. The landowners, who previously lived in family estates and got married here, baptized children, buried the dead, are now scattered not only throughout Rus', but also in distant foreign lands; there is no hope for their retribution. Well, the men themselves know how much honor the priest deserves: they feel embarrassed when the priest reproaches him for obscene songs and insults towards priests.
Realizing that the Russian priest is not one of the lucky ones, the men go to a holiday fair in the trading village of Kuzminskoye to ask people about happiness. In a rich and dirty village there are two churches, a tightly boarded up house with the sign “school”, a paramedic’s hut, a dirty hotel. But most of all in the village there are drinking establishments, in each of which they barely have time to cope with thirsty people. Old man Vavila cannot buy goatskin shoes for his granddaughter because he drank himself to a penny. It’s good that Pavlusha Veretennikov, a lover of Russian songs, whom everyone calls “master” for some reason, buys him the treasured gift.
Male wanderers watch the farcical Petrushka, watch how the ladies stock up on books - but not Belinsky and Gogol, but portraits of unknown fat generals and works about “my lord stupid.” They also see how a busy trading day ends: widespread drunkenness, fights on the way home. However, the men are indignant at Pavlusha Veretennikov’s attempt to measure the peasant against the master’s standard. In their opinion, it is impossible for a sober person to live in Rus': he will not withstand either backbreaking labor or peasant misfortune; without drinking, the angry peasant soul would spill bloody rain. These words are confirmed by Yakim Nagoy from the village of Bosovo - one of those who “works until they die, drinks until they die.” Yakim believes that only pigs walk on the earth and never see the sky. During the fire, he himself did not save the money he had accumulated throughout his life, but the useless and beloved pictures hanging in the hut; he is sure that with the cessation of drunkenness, great sadness will come to Rus'.
Male wanderers do not lose hope of finding people who live well in Rus'. But even for the promise of giving free water to the lucky ones, they fail to find them. For the sake of free booze, both the overworked worker, the paralyzed former servant who spent forty years licking the master’s plates with the best French truffle, and even ragged beggars are ready to declare themselves lucky.
Finally, someone tells them the story of Yermil Girin, the mayor in the estate of Prince Yurlov, who earned universal respect for his justice and honesty. When Girin needed money to buy the mill, the men lent it to him without even requiring a receipt. But Yermil is now unhappy: after the peasant revolt, he is in prison.
The ruddy sixty-year-old landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev tells the wandering peasants about the misfortune that befell the nobles after the peasant reform. He remembers how in the old days everything amused the master: villages, forests, fields, serf actors, musicians, hunters, who completely belonged to him. Obolt-Obolduev talks with emotion about how on the twelve holidays he invited his serfs to pray in the master's house - despite the fact that after this he had to drive the women away from the entire estate to wash the floors.
And although the peasants themselves know that life in serfdom was far from the idyll depicted by Obolduev, they still understand: the great chain of serfdom, having broken, hit both the master, who was immediately deprived of his usual way of life, and the peasant.
Desperate to find someone happy among the men, the wanderers decide to ask the women. The surrounding peasants remember that Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina lives in the village of Klin, whom everyone considers lucky. But Matryona herself thinks differently. In confirmation, she tells the wanderers the story of her life.
Before her marriage, Matryona lived in a teetotal and prosperous peasant family. She married a stove-maker from a foreign village, Philip Korchagin. But the only happy night for her was that night when the groom persuaded Matryona to marry him; then the usual hopeless life of a village woman began. True, her husband loved her and beat her only once, but soon he went to work in St. Petersburg, and Matryona was forced to endure insults in her father-in-law’s family. The only one who felt sorry for Matryona was grandfather Savely, who was living out his life in the family after hard labor, where he ended up for the murder of the hated German manager. Savely told Matryona what Russian heroism is: it is impossible to defeat a peasant, because he “bends, but does not break.”
The birth of Demushka's first child brightened Matryona's life. But soon her mother-in-law forbade her to take the child into the field, and the old grandfather Savely did not keep an eye on the baby and fed him to pigs. In front of Matryona's eyes, judges who had arrived from the city performed an autopsy on her child. Matryona could not forget her firstborn, although after that she had five sons. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once allowed a she-wolf to carry away a sheep. Matryona accepted the punishment assigned to her son. Then, being pregnant with her son Liodor, she was forced to go to the city to seek justice: her husband, bypassing the laws, was taken into the army. Matryona was then helped by the governor Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying.
By all peasant standards, Matryona Korchagina’s life can be considered happy. But it is impossible to tell about the invisible spiritual storm that passed through this woman - just like about unpaid mortal grievances, and about the blood of the firstborn. Matrena Timofeevna is convinced that a Russian peasant woman cannot be happy at all, because the keys to her happiness and free will are lost to God himself.
At the height of haymaking, wanderers come to the Volga. Here they witness a strange scene. A noble family swims to the shore in three boats. The mowers, having just sat down to rest, immediately jump up to show the old master their zeal. It turns out that the peasants of the village of Vakhlachina help the heirs hide the abolition of serfdom from the crazy landowner Utyatin. The relatives of the Last-Duckling promise the men floodplain meadows for this. But after the long-awaited death of the Last One, the heirs forget their promises, and the whole peasant performance turns out to be in vain.
Here, near the village of Vakhlachina, wanderers listen to peasant songs - corvee songs, hunger songs, soldier songs, salt songs - and stories about serfdom. One of these stories is about the exemplary slave Yakov the Faithful. Yakov's only joy was pleasing his master, the small landowner Polivanov. Tyrant Polivanov, in gratitude, hit Yakov in the teeth with his heel, which aroused even more in the lackey’s soul. great love. As Polivanov grew older, his legs became weak, and Yakov began to follow him like a child. But when Yakov’s nephew, Grisha, decided to marry the beautiful serf Arisha, Polivanov, out of jealousy, gave the guy as a recruit. Yakov started drinking, but soon returned to the master. And yet he managed to take revenge on Polivanov - the only way available to him, the lackey. Having taken the master into the forest, Yakov hanged himself right above him on a pine tree. Polivanov spent the night under the corpse of his faithful servant, driving away birds and wolves with groans of horror.
Another story - about two great sinners - is told to the men by God's wanderer Jonah Lyapushkin. The Lord awakened the conscience of the chieftain of the robbers Kudeyar. The robber atoned for his sins for a long time, but all of them were forgiven him only after he, in a surge of anger, killed the cruel Pan Glukhovsky.
The wandering men also listen to the story of another sinner - Gleb the headman, who for money hid the last will of the late widower admiral, who decided to free his peasants.
But it is not only wandering men who think about the people’s happiness. The sexton’s son, seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov, lives on Vakhlachin. In his heart, love for his late mother merged with love for all of Vakhlachina. For fifteen years now, Grisha knew for sure who he was ready to give his life to, for whom he was ready to die. He thinks about everything mysterious Rus', as about a wretched, abundant, powerful and powerless mother, and waits for that indestructible power that he feels in his own soul to be reflected in her. Such strong souls as Grisha Dobrosklonov’s are called by the angel of mercy to an honest path. Fate is preparing for Grisha “a glorious path, a great name for the people’s intercessor, consumption and Siberia.”
If the wandering men knew what was happening in the soul of Grisha Dobrosklonov, they would probably understand that they could already return to their native shelter, because the goal of their journey had been achieved.
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
On the main road in Pustoporozhnaya volost, seven men meet: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Prov, old man Pakhom, brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin. They come from neighboring villages: Neurozhayki, Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutov, Znobishina, Gorelova and Neelova. Men argue about who lives well and freely in Rus'. Roman believes that he is a landowner, Demyan - an official, and Luka - a priest. Old man Pakhom claims that the minister lives best, the Gubin brothers live best as a merchant, and Prov thinks that he is a king.
It's starting to get dark. The men understand that, carried away by the argument, they have walked thirty miles and now it is too late to return home. They decide to spend the night in the forest, light a fire in the clearing and again begin to argue, and then even fight. Their noise makes everyone run away forest animals, and a chick falls out of the warbler’s nest, which Pakhom picks up. The mother warbler flies up to the fire and asks in a human voice to let her chick go. For this, she will fulfill any desire of the peasants.
The men decide to go further and find out which of them is right. Warbler tells where you can find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed and water them on the road. The men find a self-assembled tablecloth and sit down to feast. They agree not to return home until they find out who has the best life in Rus'.
Chapter I. Pop
Soon the travelers meet the priest and tell the priest that they are looking for “who lives happily and freely in Rus'.” They ask the church minister to answer honestly: is he satisfied with his fate?
The priest replies that he carries his cross with humility. If men believe that a happy life means peace, honor and wealth, then he has nothing like that. People don't choose the time of their death. So they call the priest to the dying person, even in the pouring rain, even in the bitter cold. And sometimes the heart cannot stand the tears of widows and orphans.
There is no talk of any honor. They make up all sorts of stories about priests, laugh at them and consider meeting with a priest bad omen. And the wealth of the priests is not what it used to be. Previously, when noble people lived on their family estates, the incomes of the priests were quite good. The landowners gave rich gifts, were baptized and married in the parish church. Here they had a funeral service and were buried. These were the traditions. And now the nobles live in the capitals and “abroad”, that’s all there church ceremonies are coping. But you can’t take much money from poor peasants.
The men bow respectfully to the priest and move on.
CHAPTER II. Country fair
The travelers pass several empty villages and ask: where have all the people gone? It turns out that there is a fair in the neighboring village. The men decide to go there. There are a lot of dressed-up people walking around the fair, selling everything from plows and horses to scarves and books. There are a lot of goods, but there are even more drinking establishments.
Old man Vavila is crying near the bench. He drank all the money and promised his granddaughter goatskin boots. Pavlusha Veretennikov approaches his grandfather and buys shoes for the girl. The delighted old man grabs his shoes and hurries home. Veretennikov is known in the area. He loves to sing and listen to Russian songs.
CHAPTER III. drunken night
After the fair, there are drunk people on the road. Some wander, some crawl, and some even lie in the ditch. Moans and endless drunken conversations can be heard everywhere. Veretennikov is talking with peasants at a road sign. He listens and writes down songs and proverbs, and then begins to reproach the peasants for drinking too much.
A well-drunk man named Yakim gets into an argument with Veretennikov. He says that the common people have accumulated a lot of grievances against landowners and officials. If you didn’t drink, it would be a big disaster, but all the anger dissolves in vodka. There is no measure for men in drunkenness, but is there any measure in grief, in hard work?
Veretennikov agrees with such reasoning and even drinks with the peasants. Here the travelers hear a beautiful young song and decide to look for the lucky ones in the crowd.
CHAPTER IV. Happy
Men walk around and shout: “Come out happy! We’ll pour some vodka!” People crowded around. The travelers began to ask about who was happy and how. They pour it to some, they just laugh at others. But the conclusion from the stories is this: a man’s happiness lies in the fact that he sometimes ate his fill, and God protected him in difficult times.
The men are advised to find Ermila Girin, whom the whole neighborhood knows. One day, the cunning merchant Altynnikov decided to take the mill away from him. He came to an agreement with the judges and declared that Ermila needed to immediately pay a thousand rubles. Girin did not have that kind of money, but he went to the marketplace and asked honest people to chip in. The men responded to the request, and Ermil bought the mill, and then returned all the money to the people. For seven years he was mayor. During that time, I didn’t pocket a single penny. I only shielded my own once younger brother from the recruits, then he repented in front of all the people and left his post.
The wanderers agree to look for Girin, but the local priest says that Yermil is in prison. Then a troika appears on the road, and in it is a gentleman.
CHAPTER V. Landowner
The men stop the troika, in which the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is riding, and ask how that's how he lives. The landowner begins to remember the past with tears. Previously, he owned the entire district, he kept a whole regiment of servants and gave holidays with dancing, theatrical performances and hunting. Now “the great chain has broken.” The landowners have land, but there are no peasants to cultivate it.
Gavrila Afanasyevich was not used to working. It is not a noble thing to do housekeeping. He only knows how to walk, hunt, and steal from the treasury. Now his family nest has been sold for debts, everything is stolen, and the men drink day and night. Obolt-Obolduev bursts into tears, and the travelers sympathize with him. After this meeting, they understand that they need to look for happiness not among the rich, but in the “Unbroken province, Ungutted volost...”.
PEASANT WOMAN
PROLOGUE
The wanderers decide to look for happy people among women. In one village they are advised to find Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Soon the men find this beautiful, dignified woman of about thirty-seven. But Korchagina doesn’t want to talk: it’s hard, the bread needs to be removed urgently. Then the travelers offer their help in the field in exchange for a story of happiness. Matryona agrees.
Chapter I. Before marriage
Korchagina spends her childhood in a non-drinking, friendly family, in an atmosphere of love from her parents and brother. Cheerful and agile Matryona works a lot, but also loves to go for a walk. A stranger, the stove maker Philip, is wooing her. They are having a wedding. Now Korchagina understands: she was only happy in her childhood and girlhood.
Chapter II. Songs
Philip brings his young wife to his big family. It’s not easy there for Matryona. Her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sisters-in-law do not allow her to live, they constantly reproach her. Everything happens exactly as it is sung in the songs. Korchagina endures. Then her first-born Demushka is born - like the sun in a window.
The master's manager pesters a young woman. Matryona avoids him as best she can. The manager threatens to give Philip a soldier. Then the woman goes for advice to grandfather Savely, the father-in-law, who is one hundred years old.
Chapter III. Saveliy, Holy Russian hero
Savely looks like a huge bear. He served hard labor for a long time for murder. The cunning German manager sucked all the juice out of the serfs. When he ordered four hungry peasants to dig a well, they pushed the manager into the hole and covered it with earth. Among these killers was Savely.
CHAPTER IV. Demushka
The old man's advice was of no use. The manager, who did not allow Matryona passage, suddenly died. But then another problem happened. The young mother was forced to leave Demushka under the supervision of her grandfather. One day he fell asleep, and the child was eaten by pigs.
The doctor and the judges arrive, perform an autopsy, and interrogate Matryona. She is accused of intentionally killing a child, in conspiracy with an old man. The poor woman is almost losing her mind with grief. And Savely goes to the monastery to atone for his sin.
CHAPTER V. She-Wolf
Four years later, the grandfather returns, and Matryona forgives him. When Korchagina’s eldest son, Fedotushka, turns eight years old, the boy is given to help as a shepherd. One day the she-wolf manages to steal a sheep. Fedot chases after her and snatches out the already dead prey. The she-wolf is terribly thin, she leaves a bloody trail behind her: she cut her nipples on the grass. The predator looks doomedly at Fedot and howls. The boy feels sorry for the she-wolf and her cubs. He leaves the carcass of a sheep to the hungry beast. For this, the villagers want to whip the child, but Matryona accepts the punishment for her son.
CHAPTER VI. Difficult year
A hungry year is coming, in which Matryona is pregnant. Suddenly news comes that her husband is being recruited as a soldier. The eldest son from their family is already serving, so they shouldn’t take the second one, but the landowner doesn’t care about the laws. Matryona is horrified; pictures of poverty and lawlessness appear before her, because her only breadwinner and protector will not be there.
CHAPTER VII. Governor's wife
The woman walks into the city and arrives at the governor's house in the morning. She asks the doorman to arrange a date for her with the governor. For two rubles, the doorman agrees and lets Matryona into the house. At this time, the governor’s wife comes out of her chambers. Matryona falls at her feet and falls into unconsciousness.
When Korchagina comes to her senses, she sees that she has given birth to a boy. The kind, childless governor's wife fusses with her and the child until Matryona recovers. Together with her husband, who was released from service, the peasant woman returns home. Since then, she has not tired of praying for the health of the governor.
Chapter VIII. The Old Woman's Parable
Matryona ends her story with an appeal to wanderers: do not look for happy people among women. The Lord dropped the keys to women's happiness into the sea, and they were swallowed by a fish. Since then they have been looking for those keys, but they can’t find them.
LAST
Chapter I
I
Travelers come to the banks of the Volga to the village of Vakhlaki. There are beautiful meadows there and haymaking is in full swing. Suddenly music sounds and boats land on the shore. It is old Prince Utyatin who has arrived. He inspects the mowing and swears, and the peasants bow and ask for forgiveness. The men are amazed: everything is like under serfdom. They turn to the local mayor Vlas for clarification.
II
Vlas gives an explanation. The prince became terribly angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein, and he was struck down. After that, Utyatin began to act weird. He doesn’t want to believe that he no longer has power over the peasants. He even promised to curse his sons and disinherit them if they spoke such nonsense. So the heirs of the peasants asked them to pretend in front of the master that everything was as before. And for this they will be granted the best meadows.
III
The prince sits down to breakfast, which the peasants gather to gawk at. One of them, the biggest quitter and drunkard, had long ago volunteered to play the steward in front of the prince instead of the rebellious Vlas. So he crawls in front of Utyatin, and the people can barely contain their laughter. One, however, cannot cope with himself and laughs. The prince turns blue with anger and orders the rebel to be flogged. One lively peasant woman comes to the rescue, telling the master that her son, the fool, laughed.
The prince forgives everyone and sets off on the boat. Soon the peasants learn that Utyatin died on the way home.
Feast - FOR THE WHOLE WORLD
Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin
Introduction
The peasants rejoice at the death of the prince. They walk and sing songs, and the former servant of Baron Sineguzin, Vikenty, tells an amazing story.
About the exemplary slave - Yakov Verny
There lived one very cruel and greedy landowner, Polivanov, who had a faithful servant, Yakov. The man suffered a lot from the master. But Polivanov’s legs became paralyzed, and faithful Yakov became an indispensable person for the disabled man. The master is not overjoyed with the slave, calling him his brother.
Yakov’s beloved nephew once decided to get married, and asks the master to marry the girl whom Polivanov had his eye on for himself. The master, for such insolence, gives up his rival as a soldier, and Yakov, out of grief, goes on a drinking binge. Polivanov feels bad without an assistant, but the slave returns to work after two weeks. Again the master is pleased with the servant.
But new trouble is already on the way. On the way to the master's sister, Yakov suddenly turns into a ravine, unharnesses the horses, and hangs himself by the reins. All night the master drives away the crows from the poor body of the servant with a stick.
After this story, the men argued about who was more sinful in Rus': landowners, peasants or robbers? And the pilgrim Ionushka tells the following story.
About two great sinners
Once upon a time there was a gang of robbers led by Ataman Kudeyar. The robber killed many innocent souls, but the time has come - he began to repent. And he went to the Holy Sepulcher, and received the schema in the monastery - everyone does not forgive sins, his conscience torments him. Kudeyar settled in the forest under a hundred-year-old oak tree, where he dreamed of a saint who showed him the way to salvation. The murderer will be forgiven when he cuts down this oak tree with the knife that killed people.
Kudeyar began to saw the oak tree in three circles with a knife. Things are going slowly, because the sinner is already advanced in age and weak. One day, the landowner Glukhovsky drives up to the oak tree and begins to mock the old man. He beats, tortures and hangs slaves as much as he wants, but sleeps peacefully. Here Kudeyar falls into a terrible anger and kills the landowner. The oak tree immediately falls, and all the robber’s sins are immediately forgiven.
After this story, the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov begins to argue and prove that the most serious sin is the peasant sin. Here is his story.
Peasant sin
For military services, the admiral receives from the empress eight thousand souls of serfs. Before his death, he calls the elder Gleb and hands him a casket, and in it - free food for all the peasants. After the death of the admiral, the heir began to pester Gleb: he gives him money, free money, just to get the treasured casket. And Gleb trembled and agreed to hand over important documents. So the heir burned all the papers, and eight thousand souls remained in the fortress. The peasants, after listening to Ignatius, agree that this sin is the most serious.
At this time, a cart appears on the road. A retired soldier is riding on it to the city to collect his pension. He is sad that he needs to get all the way to St. Petersburg, and the “piece of iron” is very expensive. The peasants invite the servant to sing and play the spoons. The soldier sings about his hard lot, about how unfairly he was awarded a pension. He can barely walk and his injuries were considered “minor.” The peasants chip in a penny and collect a ruble for the soldier.
EPILOGUE
Grisha Dobrosklonov
The local sexton Dobrosklonov has a son, Grisha, who is studying at the seminary. The guy is endowed with wonderful qualities: smart, kind, hardworking and honest. He composes songs and plans to go to university, dreams of improving the lives of the people.
Returning from a peasant celebration, Gregory composes a new song: “The army is rising - innumerable! The strength in her will be indestructible! He will definitely teach his fellow villagers to sing it.
Content:
Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” tells about the journey of seven peasants across Russia in search of a happy person. The work was written in the late 60s to mid 70s. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It tells about a post-reform society in which not only many old vices have not disappeared, but many new ones have appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the wanderers were supposed to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the journey, but due to the illness and imminent death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.
The work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is written in blank verse and stylized as Russian folk tales.
Main characters
Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin Brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pakhom, Prov - seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.
Other characters
Yermil Girin is the first “candidate” for the title of lucky man, an honest mayor, very respected by the peasants.
Matryona Korchagina is a peasant woman who is known in her village as a “lucky woman”.
Savely is the grandfather of Matryona Korchagina’s husband. A hundred year old man.
Prince Utyatin is an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in agreement with the peasants, does not talk about the abolition of serfdom.
Vlas is a peasant, mayor of a village that once belonged to Utyatin.
Grisha Dobrosklonov is a seminarian, the son of a clerk, who dreams of the liberation of the Russian people; the prototype was the revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov.
Part 1
Prologue
Seven men converge on the “pillar path”: Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers, old man Pakhom and Prov. The district from which they come is called by the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the men come are called Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo and Neurozhaiko, thus the poem uses the artistic device of “speaking” names .
The men got together and argued:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?
Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that life is most free for the landowner, another that for the official, the third for the priest, “the fat-bellied merchant,” “the noble boyar, the sovereign’s minister,” or the tsar.
From the outside it seems as if the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The men have already forgotten what business they left the house for, and go to God knows where until night falls. Only here do the men stop and, “blaming the trouble on the devil,” sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.
Roman is pushing Pakhomushka,
Demyan pushes Luka.
The fight alarmed the whole forest, an echo woke up, animals and birds became worried, a cow mooed, a cuckoo croaked, jackdaws squeaked, the fox, who had been eavesdropping on the men, decided to run away.
And then there’s the warbler
Tiny chick with fright
Fell from the nest.
When the fight is over, the men pay attention to this chick and catch it. It’s easier for a bird than for a man, says Pakhom. If he had wings, he would fly all over Rus' to find out who lives best in it. “We wouldn’t even need wings,” the others add, they would just have some bread and “a bucket of vodka,” as well as cucumbers, kvass and tea. Then they would measure all of “Mother Rus' with their feet.”
While the men are interpreting this, a warbler flies up to them and asks them to let her chick go free. For him she will give a royal ransom: everything the men want.
The men agree, and the warbler shows them a place in the forest where a box with a self-assembled tablecloth is buried. Then she enchants their clothes so that they do not wear out, so that their bast shoes do not break, their foot wraps do not rot, and louses do not breed on their bodies, and flies away “with her birth chick.” In parting, the chiffchaff warns the peasant: they can ask for as much food from the self-assembled tablecloth as they want, but you can’t ask for more than a bucket of vodka a day:
And once and twice - it will come true
At your request,
And the third time there will be trouble!
The peasants rush into the forest, where they actually find a self-assembled tablecloth. Delighted, they throw a feast and make a vow: not to return home until they find out for sure “who lives happily and at ease in Rus'?”
This is how their journey begins.
Chapter 1. Pop
A wide path lined with birch trees stretches far away. On it, the men come across mostly “small people” - peasants, artisans, beggars, soldiers. Travelers don’t even ask them anything: what kind of happiness is there? Towards evening, the men meet the priest. The men block his path and bow low. In response to the priest’s silent question: what do they want?, Luka talks about the dispute that started and asks: “Is the priest’s life sweet?”
The priest thinks for a long time, and then answers that, since it is a sin to grumble against God, he will simply describe his life to the men, and they will figure out for themselves whether it is good.
Happiness, according to the priest, lies in three things: “peace, wealth, honor.” The priest knows no peace: his rank goes to him hard work, and then an equally difficult service begins, the cries of orphans, the cries of widows and the groans of the dying do little to contribute to peace of mind.
The situation is no better with honor: the priest serves as an object for the witticisms of the common people, obscene tales, anecdotes and fables are written about him, which do not spare not only himself, but also his wife and children.
The last thing that remains is wealth, but even here everything has changed long ago. Yes, there were times when the nobles honored the priest and played lavish weddings and they came to their estates to die - that was the work of the priests, but now “the landowners are scattered throughout the distant foreign lands.” So it turns out that the priest is content with rare copper nickels:
The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give it, but there’s nothing...
Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the disputants attack Luke with reproaches. They unanimously accuse him of stupidity, of the fact that it was only at first glance that the priest’s housing seemed comfortable to him, but he could not figure it out deeper.
What did you take? stubborn head!
The men would probably have beaten Luka, but then, fortunately for him, at the bend of the road, “the priest’s stern face” appears once again...
Chapter 2. Rural fair
The men continue their journey, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally they meet the rider and ask him where the villagers have gone.
We went to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Today there is a fair...
Then the wanderers decide to also go to the fair - what if it is there that the one “who lives happily” is hiding?
Kuzminskoye is a rich, albeit dirty village. It has two churches, a school, a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That’s why the fair is rich, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven taverns,” and they don’t have time to pour a drink for everyone:
Oh Orthodox thirst,
How great are you!
There are a lot of drunk people around. A man scolds a broken ax, and Vavil’s grandfather, who promised to bring shoes for his granddaughter, but drank away all the money, is sad next to him. The people feel sorry for him, but no one can help him - they themselves have no money. Fortunately, a “master” happens, Pavlusha Veretennikov, and he buys shoes for Vavila’s granddaughter.
Ofeni are also sold at the fair, but the most low-quality books, as well as thicker portraits of generals, are in demand. And no one knows whether the time will come when a man:
Belinsky and Gogol
Will it come from the market?
By evening everyone gets so drunk that even the church with its bell tower seems to be shaking, and the men leave the village.
Chapter 3. Drunken night
It's a quiet night. The men walk along the “hundred-voice” road and hear snatches of other people’s conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we give fifty dollars to the clerk: We have made a request,” women’s songs are heard asking them to “love.” One drunk guy buries his clothes in the ground, assuring everyone that he is “burying his mother.” At the road sign, the wanderers again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants for drinking a lot - “it’s a shame to see!” They object to him: the peasant drinks mainly out of grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy him.
The objector's name is Yakim Goly. Pavlusha also writes down his story in a book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought popular prints for his son and he loved looking at them just as much as the child. When there was a fire in the hut, the first thing he did was rush to tear pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, were burned. Now he gets 11 rubles for a melted lump.
Having heard enough stories, the wanderers sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the guard’s bucket of vodka, and the rest again mix with the crowd in search of the happy one.
Chapter 4. Happy
Wanderers walk in the crowd and call for the happy one to appear. If such a one appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to vodka.
Sober people laugh at such speeches, but a considerable queue of drunk people forms. The sexton comes first. His happiness, in his words, is “in complacency” and in the “kosushechka” that the men pour out. The sexton is driven away, and an old woman appears who, on a small ridge, “up to a thousand turnips were born.” The next to try his luck is a soldier with medals, “he’s barely alive, but he wants a drink.” His happiness is that no matter how much he was tortured in the service, he still remained alive. There also come a stonecutter with a huge hammer, a peasant who overstrained himself in the service but still made it home barely alive, a yard man with a “noble” disease - gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table of His Serene Highness, licking plates and finishing glasses of foreign wine. The men drive him away too, because they have simple wine, “not for your lips!”
The queue for travelers is not getting smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats his fill of rye bread, because in his homeland they baked bread only with chaff, and this caused terrible cramps in the stomach. A man with a folded cheekbone, a hunter, is happy that he survived the fight with the bear, while the rest of his comrades were killed by the bears. Even beggars come: they are happy that there is alms to feed them.
Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers realize that they will not find happiness this way.
Hey, man's happiness!
Leaky, with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses,
Go home!
Here one of the people who approached them advises them to “ask Ermila Girin,” because if he doesn’t turn out to be happy, then there’s nothing to look for. Ermila is a simple man who has earned the great love of the people. Wanderers are told the following story: once upon a time Ermila had a mill, but for debts...
they decided to sell it. The bidding began; the merchant Altynnikov really wanted to buy the mill. Yermila was able to beat his price, but the problem was that he didn’t have the money with him to make a deposit. Then he asked for an hour's delay and ran to the market square to ask the people for money.
And a miracle happened: Yermil received the money. Very soon he had the thousand he needed to buy out the mill. And a week later there was an even more wonderful sight on the square: Yermil was “calculating the people”, he distributed the money to everyone and honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Yermil kept asking until sunset whose it was.
The wanderers are perplexed: by what witchcraft did Yermil gain such trust from the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Girin served as a clerk in an office and never took a penny from anyone, but helped with advice. The old prince soon died, and the new one ordered the peasants to elect a burgomaster. Unanimously, “six thousand souls, the whole estate,” Yermila shouted - although young, he loves the truth!
Only once did Yermil “betray his soul” when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitri, replacing him with the son of Nenila Vlasyevna. But after this act, Yermil’s conscience tormented him so much that he soon tried to hang himself. Mitri was handed over as a recruit, and Nenila’s son was returned to her. Yermil, for a long time, was not himself, “he resigned from his position,” but instead rented a mill and became “more loved by the people than before.”
But here the priest intervenes in the conversation: all this is true, but going to Yermil Girin is useless. He is sitting in prison. The priest begins to tell how it happened - the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Yermil - his people will listen.
The story is interrupted by shouts: they caught the thief and flogged him. The thief turns out to be the same footman with the “noble illness”, and after the flogging he runs away as if he had completely forgotten about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish telling the story the next time they meet.
Chapter 5. Landowner
On their further journey, the men meet the landowner Gavrila Afanasich Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is frightened at first, suspecting them to be robbers, but, having figured out what the matter is, he laughs and begins to tell his story. He traces his noble family back to the Tatar Oboldui, who was skinned by a bear for the amusement of the empress. She gave the Tatar cloth for this. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner...
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
However, not all strictness; the landowner admits that he “attracted hearts more with affection”! All the servants loved him, gave him gifts, and he was like a father to them. But everything changed: the peasants and land were taken away from the landowner. The sound of an ax can be heard from the forests, everyone is being destroyed, drinking houses are springing up instead of estates, because now no one needs a letter at all. And they shout to the landowners:
Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! - study! work!..
But how can a landowner, who has been accustomed to something completely different since childhood, work? They didn’t learn anything, and “thought they’d live like this forever,” but it turned out differently.
The landowner began to cry, and the good-natured peasants almost cried with him, thinking:
The great chain has broken,
Torn and splintered:
One way for the master,
Others don't care!..
Part 2
Last One
The next day, the men go to the banks of the Volga, to a huge hay meadow. They had barely started talking with the locals when music began and three boats moored to the shore. They are a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, little barchat, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman. The old man inspects the mowing, and everyone bows to him almost to the ground. In one place he stops and orders the dry haystack to be swept away: the hay is still damp. The absurd order is immediately carried out.
The wanderers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man?
It turns out that the old man - Prince Utyatin - upon learning about the abolition of serfdom, “beguiled” and died with a stroke. It was announced to his sons that they had betrayed the landowner ideals, were unable to defend them, and if so, they would be left without an inheritance. The sons got scared and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, with the idea that after his death they would give the village flood meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to be returned to the landowners, the prince was delighted and stood up. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:
Ipat said: “Have fun!
And I am the princes Utyatin
Serf - and that’s the whole story!”
But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in freedom someone will push him around. One day he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. When he woke up, he ordered Agap to be flogged, and the peasants, so as not to reveal the deception, took him to the stable, where they placed a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died that same night: it was hard for him to bow down...
The wanderers attend the feast of the Last One, where he gives a speech about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in a boat and falls asleep in eternal sleep while listening to songs. The village of Vakhlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one is giving them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.
Part 3
Peasant woman
"Not everything is between men
Find the happy one
Let’s feel the women!”
With these words it’s strange
Iki go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, beautiful woman 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then I was only happy, as I was growing up in my parents’ house. But girlhood quickly flew by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Her betrothed is Philip, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife, but soon goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.
Matryona works for her older sister-in-law, her strict mother-in-law, and her father-in-law. She had no joy in her life until her eldest son, Demushka, was born.
In the whole family, only the old grandfather Savely, the “hero of the Holy Russian”, who is living out his life after twenty years of hard labor, feels sorry for Matryona. He ended up in hard labor for the murder of a German manager who did not give the men a single free minute. Savely told Matryona a lot about his life, about “Russian heroism.”
The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka into the field: she doesn’t work with him much. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep and the child is eaten by pigs. After some time, Matryona meets Savely at the grave of Demushka, who has gone to repentance at the Sand Monastery. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.
Matryona had other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherdess Fedot, once wanted to be whipped for a sheep carried away by a wolf, but Matryona took the punishment upon herself. When she was pregnant with Liodorushka, she had to go to the city and ask for the return of her husband, who had been taken into the army. Matryona gave birth right in the waiting room, and the governor’s wife, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona “has been glorified as a lucky woman and nicknamed the governor’s wife.” But what kind of happiness is that?
This is what Matryonushka says to the wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to female happiness are lost, and even God does not know where to find them.
Part 4
Feast for the whole world
There is a feast in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered here: the wanderers, Klim Yakovlich, and Vlas the elder. Among the feasting are two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, good, simple guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “cheerful” song, then it’s their turn to different stories. There is a story about an “exemplary slave - Yakov the faithful,” who followed the master all his life, fulfilled all his whims and rejoiced even in the master’s beatings. Only when the master gave his nephew as a soldier did Yakov start drinking, but soon returned to the master. And yet Yakov did not forgive him, and was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he took him, with his legs swollen, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree above the master.
A dispute ensues about who is the most sinful. God's wanderer Jonah tells the story of “two sinners,” about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened his conscience and imposed a penance on him: cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant’s sin is still greater, and tells a story about the headman. He hid the last will of his master, who decided to set his peasants free before his death. But the headman, seduced by money, tore up his freedom.
The crowd is depressed. Songs are sung: “Hungry”, “Soldier’s”. But the time will come in Rus' for good songs. This is confirmed by two seminarian brothers, Savva and Grisha. Seminarian Grisha, the son of a sexton, has known for sure since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the people’s happiness. Love for his mother merges in his heart with love for all Vakhlachin. Grisha walks along his land and sings a song about Rus':
You're miserable too
You are also abundant
You are mighty
You are also powerless
Mother Rus'!
And his plans will not be lost: fate is preparing for Grisha “a glorious path, a great name for the people’s intercessor, consumption and Siberia.” In the meantime, Grisha sings, and it’s a pity that the wanderers can’t hear him, because then they would understand that they have already found a happy person and could return home.
Conclusion
This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Rus', which with pain is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the problems of women ruining the Russian man, the ineradicable slave psychology and main problem people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotes from it have entered everyday speech. The compositional method of the main characters' journey brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, making it easy to read and with great interest.
A brief retelling of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” conveys only the most basic content of the poem; for a more accurate idea of the work, we recommend that you read full version“Who lives well in Rus'.”
The poem by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has its own unique feature. All the names of the villages and the names of the heroes clearly reflect the essence of what is happening. In the first chapter, the reader can meet seven men from the villages “Zaplatovo”, “Dyryaevo”, “Razutovo”, “Znobishino”, “Gorelovo”, “Neelovo”, “Neurozhaiko”, who argue about who has a good life in Rus', and in no way cannot come to an agreement. No one is even going to give in to another... This is how the work begins in an unusual way, which Nikolai Nekrasov conceived in order, as he writes, “to present in a coherent story everything that he knows about the people, everything that happened to be heard from their lips...”
The history of the poem
Nikolai Nekrasov began working on his work in the early 1860s and completed the first part five years later. The prologue was published in the January issue of Sovremennik magazine for 1866. Then painstaking work began on the second part, which was called “The Last One” and was published in 1972. The third part, entitled “Peasant Woman,” was published in 1973, and the fourth, “A Feast for the Whole World,” was published in the fall of 1976, that is, three years later. It’s a pity that the author of the legendary epic was never able to fully complete his plans - the writing of the poem was interrupted by his untimely death in 1877. However, even after 140 years, this work remains important for people; it is read and studied by both children and adults. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is included in the required school curriculum.
Part 1. Prologue: who is the happiest in Rus'
So, the prologue tells how seven men meet on a highway and then go on a journey to find a happy man. Who lives freely, happily and cheerfully in Rus' - here main question curious travelers. Everyone, arguing with another, believes that he is right. Roman shouts that the most a good life at the landowner's, Demyan claims that the official has a wonderful life, Luka proves that it is still the priest, the rest also express their opinion: “to the noble boyar”, “to the fat-bellied merchant”, “to the sovereign’s minister” or to the tsar.
Such a disagreement leads to an absurd fight, which is observed by birds and animals. It is interesting to read how the author reflects their surprise at what is happening. Even the cow “came to the fire, fixed her eyes on the men, listened to crazy speeches and began, dear heart, to moo, moo, moo!..”
Finally, having kneaded each other's sides, the men came to their senses. They saw a tiny chick of a warbler fly up to the fire, and Pakhom took it in his hands. The travelers began to envy the little birdie, which could fly wherever it wanted. They were talking about what everyone wanted, when suddenly... the bird spoke in a human voice, asking to release the chick and promising a large ransom for it.
The bird showed the men the way to where the real self-assembled tablecloth was buried. Wow! Now you can definitely live without having to worry. But the smart wanderers also asked that their clothes not wear out. “And this will be done by a self-assembled tablecloth,” said the warbler. And she kept her promise.
The men began to live a well-fed and cheerful life. But they haven’t yet resolved the main question: who lives well in Rus' after all? And the friends decided not to return to their families until they found the answer to it.
Chapter 1. Pop
On the way, the men met a priest and, bowing low, asked him to answer “in good conscience, without laughter and without cunning,” whether life was really good for him in Rus'. What the priest said dispelled the ideas of seven curious people about him. happy life. No matter how harsh the circumstances may be - a dead autumn night, or a severe frost, or a spring flood - the priest has to go where he is called, without arguing or contradicting. The work is not easy, and besides, the groans of people leaving for another world, the cries of orphans and the sobs of widows completely upset the peace of the priest’s soul. And only outwardly it seems that the priest is held in high esteem. In fact, he is often the target of ridicule among the common people.
Chapter 2. Rural fair
Further, the road leads purposeful wanderers to other villages, which for some reason turn out to be empty. The reason is that all the people are at the fair in the village of Kuzminskoye. And it was decided to go there to ask people about happiness.
The life of the village gave the men some not very pleasant feelings: there were a lot of drunks around, everything was dirty, dull, and uncomfortable. They also sell books at the fair, but they are of low quality; Belinsky and Gogol cannot be found here.
By evening everyone becomes so drunk that even the church with its bell tower seems to be shaking.
Chapter 3. Drunken night
At night the men are on the road again. They hear drunk people talking. Suddenly attention is drawn to Pavlusha Veretennikov, who is making notes in a notebook. He collects peasant songs and sayings, as well as their stories. After everything that has been said is captured on paper, Veretennikov begins to reproach the assembled people for drunkenness, to which he hears objections: “the peasant drinks mainly because he is in grief, and therefore it is impossible, even a sin, to reproach him for this.
Chapter 4. Happy
The men do not deviate from their goal - to find a happy person at any cost. They promise to reward with a bucket of vodka the one who tells that he is the one who lives freely and cheerfully in Rus'. Drinkers fall for such a “tempting” offer. But no matter how hard they try to colorfully describe the gloomy everyday life of those who want to get drunk for nothing, nothing comes of it. The stories of an old woman who had up to a thousand turnips, a sexton who rejoices when someone pours a drink for him; the paralyzed former servant, who for forty years licked the master's plates with the best French truffle, does not at all impress the stubborn seekers of happiness on Russian soil.
Chapter 5. Landowner.
Maybe luck will smile on them here - the seekers of the happy Russian man assumed when they met the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev on the road. At first he was frightened, thinking that he had seen robbers, but having learned about the unusual desire of the seven men who blocked his way, he calmed down, laughed and told his story.
Maybe before the landowner considered himself happy, but not now. Indeed, in the old days, Gabriel Afanasyevich was the owner of the entire district, an entire regiment of servants, and organized holidays with theatrical performances and dances. He didn’t even hesitate to invite peasants to the manor’s house to pray on holidays. Now everything has changed: family estate Obolta-Obolduev was sold for debts, because, left without peasants who knew how to cultivate the land, the landowner, who was not used to working, suffered heavy losses, which led to a disastrous outcome.
Part 2. The Last One
The next day, the travelers went to the banks of the Volga, where they saw a large hay meadow. Before they had time to talk with the locals, they noticed three boats at the pier. It turns out that this is a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, their children, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman named Utyatin. Everything in this family, to the surprise of the travelers, happens according to such a scenario, as if the abolition of serfdom had never happened. It turns out that Utyatin became very angry when he learned that the peasants had been given free rein and fell ill with a blow, threatening to deprive his sons of their inheritance. To prevent this from happening, they came up with a cunning plan: they persuaded the peasants to play along with the landowner, posing as serfs. They promised the best meadows as a reward after the master’s death.
Utyatin, hearing that the peasants were staying with him, perked up, and the comedy began. Some even liked the role of serfs, but Agap Petrov could not come to terms with his shameful fate and expressed everything to the landowner’s face. For this the prince sentenced him to flogging. The peasants played a role here too: they took the “rebellious” one to the stable, put wine in front of him and asked him to shout louder, for visibility. Alas, Agap could not bear such humiliation, got very drunk and died that same night.
Next, the Last One (Prince Utyatin) arranges a feast, where, barely moving his tongue, he makes a speech about the advantages and benefits of serfdom. After this, he lies down in the boat and gives up the ghost. Everyone is glad that they finally got rid of the old tyrant, however, the heirs are not even going to fulfill their promise, given to those who played the role of serfs. The hopes of the peasants were not justified: no one gave them any meadows.
Part 3. Peasant woman.
No longer hoping to find a happy person among men, the wanderers decided to ask women. And from the lips of a peasant woman named Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina they hear a very sad and, one might say, scary story. Only in her parents' house was she happy, and then, when she married Philip, a ruddy and strong guy, a hard life began. The love did not last long, because the husband left to work, leaving his young wife with his family. Matryona works tirelessly and sees no support from anyone except the old man Savely, who lives a century after hard labor that lasted twenty years. Only one joy appears in her difficult fate- son of Demushka. But suddenly a terrible misfortune befell the woman: it is impossible to even imagine what happened to the child due to the fact that the mother-in-law did not allow her daughter-in-law to take him with her to the field. Due to an oversight by his grandfather, the boy is eaten by pigs. What a mother's grief! She mourns Demushka all the time, although other children were born in the family. For their sake, a woman sacrifices herself, for example, she takes punishment when they want to flog her son Fedot for a sheep that was carried away by wolves. When Matryona was pregnant with another son, Lidor, her husband was unjustly taken into the army, and his wife had to go to the city to seek the truth. It’s good that the governor’s wife, Elena Alexandrovna, helped her then. By the way, Matryona gave birth to a son in the waiting room.
Yes, life was not easy for the one who was nicknamed “lucky” in the village: she constantly had to fight for herself, and for her children, and for her husband.
Part 4. A feast for the whole world.
At the end of the village of Valakhchina there was a feast, where everyone was gathered: the wandering men, Vlas the elder, and Klim Yakovlevich. Among those celebrating are two seminarians, simple, kind guys - Savvushka and Grisha Dobrosklonov. They sing funny songs and tell different stories. They do this because ordinary people ask for it. From the age of fifteen, Grisha firmly knows that he will devote his life to the happiness of the Russian people. He sings a song about a great and powerful country called Rus'. Is this not the lucky one whom the travelers were so persistently looking for? After all, he clearly sees the purpose of his life - in serving the disadvantaged people. Unfortunately, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov died untimely, without having time to finish the poem (according to the author’s plan, the men were supposed to go to St. Petersburg). But the thoughts of the seven wanderers coincide with the thoughts of Dobrosklonov, who thinks that every peasant should live freely and cheerfully in Rus'. This was the main intention of the author.
The poem by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov became legendary, a symbol of the struggle for the happy everyday life of ordinary people, as well as the result of the author’s thoughts about the fate of the peasantry.
“Who lives well in Rus'” - summary poems by N.A. Nekrasova
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