Arguments in the composition of part C of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language on the topic "The problem of happiness (its understanding), the meaning of life"

Text from the exam

(1) The writer lives for them, his readers and viewers. (2) In novels, short stories, stories, the author certainly - sometimes even involuntarily - shares his life experience, his thoughts, sufferings and hopes.

(3) Later, letters can convey to the author the opinion of those for whom all his vigilant thoughts, turmoil, his defenseless frankness, his work. (4) One of the readers in his letter recalls how once in the House of Writers he heard from me the lines of a poem, the author of which I now cannot name with certainty:

(5) And people are looking for happiness, As if there is happiness, happiness ...

(6) Many, many questions from readers can be reduced to such a common semantic denominator: what is the concept of "happiness" in reality? (7) They are also interested in whether I have ever been absolutely happy. (8) I answer immediately and without hesitation: I have never been “absolutely”. (9) As Arkady Isaakovich Raikin said, the most meaningless question is: “Are you all right?” (10) Does anyone ever have everything well?!

(11) And if it suddenly happened ... (12) To feel such boundless, thoughtless and careless happiness is, in my opinion, immoral and sinful. (13) After all, even if everything seems to have turned out well for you, someone at the same time experiences mental and physical anguish ...

(14) The classics of Russian literature penetrated into the depths of universal situations, universal conflicts and psychological cataclysms. (15) They comprehended the incomprehensible complexities of being. (16) What do they think about the happiness so desired by everyone? (17) Pushkin, as you know, wrote: "There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and freedom." (18) By will, he meant freedom. (19) Lermontov was looking for "freedom and peace" - and this was perhaps his most secret desire. (20) Lermontov was looking for “peace”, but in reality he was likened to that sail that “is looking for storms, as if there is peace in storms!” (21) “We only dream of peace ...” - after many years, Alexander Blok sadly stated. (22) Perhaps, in the second half of the twentieth century, people no longer dream of peace. (23) But still, we crave peace of mind, in which only creative restlessness and beneficial restlessness is possible in any other activity that people need. (24) Worldly prosperity did not visit the immortals often. (25) It is customary to consider Goethe the darling of fate. (26) But Irakli Andronikov showed me Goethe's letter, in which the “darling” says that if there was at least one completely happy month in his life, he would consider his whole life to be happy. (27) Here you have "absolutely"!

(28) On the monument to Father Lermontov in Tarkhany we read:

(29) You gave me life, But you didn’t give happiness.

(30) You yourself were persecuted in the world, You only experienced evil in life ...

(31) It was hard for the immortals. (32) “In life, I only experienced evil ...” ... (33) This also applied to the poet himself. (34) But how much wisdom and light did he give people ?!

(According to A. Aleksin)

Introduction

Happiness is a relative concept that has become the main goal of human existence. No matter how different people may be, everyone strives for happiness: the poor, the rich, the simple worker, and the highly educated professor. Old and young, sick and healthy, smart and stupid... And happiness is different for everyone.

Text problem

What is absolute happiness? What is it like? Is happiness the meaning of human life? A. Aleksin reflects on this in his text.

Comment

The author says that writers and poets through their works share their thoughts and doubts, emotional experiences with the reader. People often ask creative people what happiness is, apparently hoping for their life experience and ability to see the inner world.

Aleksin is sure that it is impossible to be absolutely happy, that everything can never be good. Even if we assume that absolute boundless happiness has come, how can one feel careless under the condition of suffering and torment of others?

The classics of Russian and world literature had their own idea of ​​happiness - for the majority it is peace and freedom. Although few, more precisely, none of them had to experience happiness in real life. Pushkin, Lermontov, Blok - they all suffered, and magnificent poems filled with the deepest meaning were born from their suffering.

Author's position

According to A. Aleksin, the main goal for an artist, a creative person, is not only to find happiness, but also to help readers in the best understanding of their place in life. This is the meaning of the difficult life of poets, writers, musicians, artists.

own position

I think that bringing light and a better understanding of life is the destiny of not only creative individuals, but also of each of us. Awareness of the positive result of one's actions, efforts, and labors is happiness. Perhaps this is the meaning of our short life - to give birth to another person and help people feel the value of their existence. In other words, true happiness lies in self-realization, in the struggle for the well-being of the surrounding world.

Argument #1

A lot has been written about happiness. One of the most famous was the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who is it good to live in Russia". The heroes of the poem, seven men from the surrounding villages, go in search of a happy man in Russia.

On the way they meet various heroes: a priest, a landowner, prosperous Russian peasants who live by honor and justice. None of them found happiness in life, each has its own difficulties.

There is no happiness among Russian peasant women either. Matrena Timofeevna is considered lucky by the people, although she works for seven, and in her youth she lost her first-born son.

Unfortunately, Nekrasov did not finish the work. From his draft notes, it becomes clear that Grisha Dobrosklonov, a man who lives for the good of his people, becomes the main “lucky” of the poem.

Argument #2

Another understanding of happiness is presented by L.N. Tolstoy in the epilogue to the novel "War and Peace". All their lives, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov were in search of answers to eternal questions: what do we live for? how should one live? is there happiness? what does it consist of?

The moral quest of one ended in death - Prince Andrei died during the war of 1812. And the other found simple human happiness - Pierre married Natasha Rostova, they gave birth to three children, formed a strong family, for the sake of which they built their future life, not being afraid of problems and difficulties.

Natasha Rostova, a windy girl in her youth, turned out to be a faithful wife and a wonderful mother, she put her personal ambitions on the altar of the needs of her husband's life.

Family is the true pleasure of a person, his meaning of life, his happiness.

Conclusion

Everyone is happy in their own way, everyone has their own ideas about happiness. It is not easy to achieve, for the sake of happiness you need to sacrifice a lot, then a person’s life will become filled with meaning.

This publication is based on the report of Archimandrite Simeon (Tomachinsky), Candidate of Philological Sciences, Rector of the Kursk Orthodox Theological Seminary, at the Znamensky Readings at Kursk State University, which took place on March 17, 2015. The author addresses the theme of happiness, considers the meanings attached to it and its reflection in Russian literature.

Russian literature is one of the main guardians of the values ​​that make up our Orthodox civilization. I talked about this in detail in my report at the plenary meeting of the Znamensky readings. Today I would like to touch on the topic of happiness, since the interpretation of this term largely determines what type of civilization this or that community belongs to.

The concept of "happiness" in the philistine mind, as a rule, is associated with material wealth, business success, an excess of entertainment and pleasure. However, in life, everything is completely different, and sometimes rich and successful people are the most unhappy, and sometimes even commit suicide. Numerous sociological surveys in different years and in different countries have revealed that residents of poor countries often feel much happier than citizens of “prosperous countries”. What is the reason here?

There was a lot of discussion about what happiness is even in ancient times. The Stoics, for example, believed that happiness consisted in an ascetic way of life and freedom from passions. Skeptics added fearlessness before death to fearlessness. The Epicureans saw happiness in pleasures and pleasures, however, they also considered the highest good to be the mind that should control a person. Epicurus famously said that pleasures that later bring harm should be avoided.

“Happiness is a concept denoting the highest good as a complete, self-valuable, self-sufficient state of life; universally recognized ultimate subjective goal of human activity,” says the New Philosophical Encyclopedia, published by the Academy of Sciences. So, happiness is “the universally recognized ultimate goal of human activity”, that is, an unconditional value recognized by all mankind, the difference is only in interpretations.

In the Christian tradition, the analogue of the word "happiness" is "bliss", that is, the fullness of being. The gospel “commandments of the beatitude” reveals what it consists of: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, “Blessed are the merciful”, and so on (see the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5).

The very Russian word "happiness" in its inner form reveals the meaning of this concept: "to be with a part", "to be involved". The Psalter says: “You are my part, O Lord” (Ps 119:57) and “You are my hope, my part in the land of the living” (Ps 141:5). “Part” in this case does not mean some fragment - half or a quarter - but it means: You, Lord, are my fate, my inheritance, my lot, my wealth and glory. The happiness of man is God Himself. And it is no coincidence that the main Sacrament of the Orthodox Church is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist.

How does Russian literature describe happiness, what did our poets and writers put into this word?

Pushkin's famous words immediately come to mind:

There is no happiness in the world

But there is peace and freedom...

(from the 1834 poem "It's time, my friend it's time").

Of course, the fullness of happiness, the fullness of bliss, the fullness of communion with God is possible only in another life, and on earth it is always mixed with bitterness from human imperfection, from our own shortcomings, from our limitations and sinfulness. In this sense, one can only agree with Pushkin. But at the same time, Alexander Sergeevich himself gave examples of simple human happiness in his work.

For example, in the story "Snowstorm" the main characters find happiness as a result of many searches and suffering. It would seem that Marya Gavrilovna lost her happiness when her chosen fiancé could not get to the church due to bad weather and she was hurriedly married by mistake to a stranger, who later disappeared. In turn, the hussar colonel Burmin, “due to unforgivable windiness,” as he himself put it, having married a girl unknown to him and immediately leaving her, can now tie the knot with the one he loves.

Happiness is impossible? It would seem, yes. But suddenly it turns out that the same blizzard connected the main characters in the Sacrament of the Wedding, although they did not know each other. And only their fidelity to each other, their trust in God, Who arranged everything so unexpectedly, mysteriously and incomprehensibly, - only this made their common happiness possible. And only thanks to their patience and faith they found each other and united together forever...

A similar denial of earthly happiness and at the same time an affirmation of its possibility, but only under certain conditions, we find in the work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. As a rule, in Chekhov's works, the word "happiness" is used rather in an ironic vein - as a triumph of self-satisfied vulgarity and primitive philistinism. We meet this, for example, in the story "Gooseberry".

In the story "The Black Monk", "happiness", on the contrary, plays with other lights - illusory, deceptive, leading to the destruction of one's own and other people's lives.

Both of these understandings: as a rough passion and a deceptive ghost - were combined in Chekhov's story, which is just called "Happiness". The two main characters embody the two sides of this coin: “The first was not let go by thoughts of happiness, while the second thought about what was said at night; he was not interested in happiness itself, which he did not need and did not understand, but in the fantastic and fabulous nature of human happiness.

But the most vivid and life-affirming understanding of happiness as belonging to the Divine world order and participation in God's love was expressed by Chekhov in the story "Student". It is known that it was his favorite work. The protagonist, a student of the Theological Academy Ivan Velikopolsky, unexpectedly touches the deep secret of being, discovers the “thread connecting the days”.

“He thought that truth and beauty, which directed human life there, in the garden and in the courtyard of the high priest, continued uninterruptedly to this day and, apparently, have always been the main thing in human life and in general on earth; and a feeling of youth, health, strength - he was only twenty-two years old - and an inexpressibly sweet expectation of happiness, unknown, mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him delightful, wonderful and full of lofty meaning.

For Chekhov, as for Pushkin, happiness does not consist in the totality of earthly blessings, but in touching eternity, in keeping one's conscience and in communion with God.

But, probably, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky expressed this understanding of happiness more clearly than all Russian writers.

In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, the elder Zosima speaks directly about human happiness. The notes of the elder Zosima say: “People were created for happiness, and whoever is completely happy is directly worthy to say to himself: “I have fulfilled God’s covenant on this earth.”

Remembering his deceased brother, the elder Zosima tells how his illness changed him and how it revealed to him the true meaning of life. Here is what the brother of the elder Zosima said, being already mortally ill: “And one day is enough for a person to know all the happiness. My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember insults one on another: let's go straight to the garden and begin to walk and frolic, love and praise each other, and kiss, and bless our life.

Dostoevsky's novels, which are overflowing with human grief, suffering, the most difficult life collisions, at the same time paint an optimistic picture of the world, give a person hope for the transformation of this world. Even in such, at first glance, depressing work as "Crime and Punishment", in the epilogue we see both a bright ending and a new perspective on life, life with God.

“They were resurrected by love, the heart of one included endless sources of life for the heart of the other ... They still had seven years left; until then, so much unbearable torment and so much endless happiness!” So it is said about the love of Sonya and Raskolnikov, who through suffering found God for himself and a new understanding of life in the light of the Gospel.

So, we have considered only a few examples from Russian literature. Of course, this topic deserves a deeper and more detailed study. But even from a brief review, it becomes clear that the preaching of happiness is one of the main themes for Russian writers. And happiness appears in Russian literature as the fullness of being, achieved through harmony with oneself, reconciliation with neighbors and life in God.

Rostov family. Illustration for the novel by L. Tolstoy "War and Mri".
Artist V.A. Serov (Rappoport). 1953

"Family Thought" that is, the description of families, several generations, is characteristic of many works of fiction.

• It is the family that forms the character of a person, those moral values ​​that will become important in a person’s life. The family brings up the best positive personality traits in the heroes. (The Rostov and Bolkonsky families in War and Peace, the Grinev family in The Captain's Daughter)
• The negative qualities of a person are also laid in the family: laziness, unwillingness to work, desire for hoarding, greed and others (the Golovlev family, the Prostakovs, the Famusovs, the Chichikov family, Eugene Onegin, Oblomov, Kuragins and others)
• The image of the family as support for the hero in difficult moments of his life, the support of the hero (the Raskolnikov family, the story “The Fate of a Man” by M. Sholokhov)
• Depiction of complex intra-family relations between spouses (L. Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina", "Quiet Flows the Don" by M. Sholokhov)
• The relationship between parents and children (I. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", D. Fonvizin "Undergrowth" and many others)
• Disclosure of the problem of happy and unhappy families, the reasons for this (this problem is revealed to one degree or another in all works about families).

As we see, The approach to depicting families can be different. However, all writers are united in one thing: the family plays an important role in a person's life, it is here that moral foundations are laid, which pass from generation to generation.

Approaches to the image of the family:

• Family and household- disclosure of relationships between family members
• Psychological- the image of the psychological climate in the family, support or conflict between its members.
• Ideological- ideological confrontation, misunderstanding of children and parents, or, conversely, unity, mutual understanding.
• Moral- the formation of personality, the formation of his character.

There are many examples of works on the "family" theme. Almost everyone reveals it to one degree or another. I will give those that are convenient to use as arguments.

Works that can be cited as arguments in task number 9 on a family topic:

• "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"
• D.I.Fonvizin "Undergrowth"
• A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit"
• A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter", "Eugene Onegin"
• N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", "Taras Bulba"
• I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons"
• L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina"
• M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Gentlemen Golovlyovs"
• F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"
• A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard"
• A.M. Gorky "Mother"
• M. Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don", "The Fate of Man"
• A. Tolstoy "Walking through the torments"
• M. Bulgakov "Master and Margarita", "White Guard"
• V. Rasputin "Live and remember"

Material prepared: Melnikova Vera Alexandrovna

Note: individual articles will be written on these works over time.

Larisa TOROPCHINA

Larisa Vasilievna TOROPCHINA - teacher at the Moscow gymnasium No. 1549, Honored Teacher of Russia.

The theme of home and family in Russian literature of the 19th century

What is needed for happiness? Quiet family life... with the ability to do good to people.
(L.N. Tolstoy)

The theme of home and family is one of the cross-cutting themes both in world literature in general and in Russian literature in particular. Its echoes can be heard even in ancient Russian works of art. Princess Efrosinya Yaroslavna yearns for her beloved husband Igor, crying on the Putivl wall. ("The Tale of Igor's Campaign"). Through all the trials of life, Prince Peter of Murom and his wife, a wise woman from the common people, Fevronia, carry love and loyalty. ("The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom"), and at the end of their lives, the heroes who have become monks and live in different monasteries even pass away on the same day, and their bodies, as the legend says, end up in the same coffin - is this not proof of the devotion of husband and wife to each other! The family of the head of the Russian Old Believer Church, the frantic archpriest Avvakum, who shared with her husband and father the hardships of exile and suffering for the faith, is also worthy of admiration ( "The Life of Archpriest Avvakum"). Let us recall the episode when the archpriest, exhausted by a long walk through the “barbarian country”, turning to her husband, exclaims: “How long will this torment, archpriest, be?” And, having heard from him in response: “Markovna, to the very death!” - dutifully says: “Good, Petrovich, otherwise we’ll wander some more.”

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Speaking about Russian literature of the 18th century, students, of course, will remember the Prostakov family (comedy DI. Fonvizin "Undergrowth"), in which there is no love and harmony between spouses (the intimidated Prostakov obeys in everything a rude, domineering wife, who alone manages the estate, and the servants, and the house). Blind adoration by Mrs. Prostakova for the only son of Mitrofanushka takes the most ugly forms: the main thing for her is to marry her spoiled child to a rich girl. When dreams of a wedding collapse, and even, as it turns out at the end of the play, the estate, by court decision, is taken into custody, Mrs. Prostakova turns to her son, seeing in him the only support and support. In response, he hears from Mitrofan: “Get off, mother, how you imposed yourself!” Therefore, there can be no question of any kind of heartfelt attachment of the son to his mother, and such a result, according to the comedian, is natural: these are “evil-minded fruits worthy of fruit”.

But the relationship between the modest villager Lisa and her mother (story N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa"), on the contrary, should, according to the author-sentimentalist, evoke tenderness in the reader: mother and daughter are tenderly attached to each other, together they experience the loss of their father and husband, the breadwinner. Poverty does not prevent the heroines from maintaining self-esteem. The old mother rejoices in her daughter's sincere love for the young nobleman Erast, and Lisa herself, having decided to commit suicide, first of all thinks of her mother and asks her "dear friend" Anyuta to take care of her.

About the plight of peasant families, where the male breadwinners are forced, violating Christian rules, to work on arable land on Sundays (the rest of the time they work for the “hard-hearted landowner”), and the ever-hungry children have never seen “lordly food” (sugar), mentions in "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" A.N. Radishchev.

“Family thought” is widely traced in the literature of the 19th century. Let's remember the Larin family (novel A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"), where consent and mutual understanding reigned between husband and wife, although the wife managed the household, “without asking her husband.” This patriarchal local family, where they regularly “kept the peaceful habits of sweet antiquity in their lives”, and their daughters were brought up on a bizarre combination of reading French novels and a naive belief in “traditions of the common people of antiquity ... dreams, card fortune-telling and predictions of the moon”, causes both readers and the author has a kind, slightly condescending smile. A.S. Pushkin notes that when the landowner Dmitry Larin retired to the world of eternal rest, he was sincerely mourned by "children and a faithful wife more sincere than anyone else." Perhaps such a family was lacking for Eugene Onegin, who did not know true parental love and affection: after all, his father was absorbed in the life of high society, “lived with debts ... gave three balls annually and finally squandered”, the author of the novel does not mention the mother of the hero at all, from early For years, Eugene was placed under the care of “madame”, which was then “monsieur ... replaced”. Perhaps the absence of a real family in childhood and adolescence subsequently did not allow Onegin to reciprocate the feeling of the village “humble girl” Tatyana. Although he was “vividly touched”, “having received Tanya’s message”, he is sincerely sure that “marriage ... will be torment” for him and Tatyana, because he himself is not able to love for a long time: “having gotten used to it, I will stop loving immediately”. Perhaps that is why the creator of the work punishes his “good friend” with loneliness and mental suffering at the end of the novel.

And how ridiculous is the invasion of the family life of the characters of Lermontov's Pechorin (novel "Hero of our time"). Satiated with life already in his youth, the lonely hero is looking for sharp, unusual sensations that could pull him out of his state of skepticism and indifference. Therefore, being carried away by Bela and stealing her with the help of Azamat, he, in fact, dooms the family of the “peaceful prince” to death (the head of “Bela”). Pechorin, whom, according to him, fate was pleased to “throw into a peaceful circle honest smugglers", destroyed their family, albeit a very peculiar one: Yanko and the “undine” are forced to leave, fearing a “wandering officer” denunciation of them, the old woman is doomed to death, and the blind boy is doomed to suffering (chapter “Taman”). Vera, who, by the will of circumstances, married an unloved person, is the only woman to whom Pechorin is truly attached. But his love does not bring the heroine anything but mental suffering, because family happiness and Pechorin are incompatible concepts. The reader is sincerely sorry for the proud beauty Mary, who fell in love with the hero and is confident that a marriage proposal awaits her, and then a happy married life. Alas, Pechorin, having met the girl for an explanation, “in a firm voice and with a forced smile” says: “... I laughed at you ... I can’t marry you” (chapter “Princess Mary”). And how not to sympathize with the kind-hearted Maxim Maksimych, who did not have his own family and sincerely, like a son who became attached to Pechorin! The coldness and indifference that the hero shows when meeting with an elderly staff captain a few years after parting, painfully injure the soul of an old campaigner (chapter "Maxim Maksimych"). It is no coincidence that the author reports the death of Pechorin in just one line: “Pechorin, returning from Persia, died.” The hero failed to create a family, did not leave behind any offspring, his life turned out to be “an even path without a goal”, “a feast at a strange holiday”.

Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century also presents the reader with a whole series of works that can safely be called “family”. Let's remember "Thunderstorm" A.N. Ostrovsky: its main characters are members of the family of the merchant Kabanova, who rigidly and imperiously controls her son, daughter-in-law and daughter. The heroine, who fanatically observes the “old order”, according to Kuligin’s true remark, is a real “prudence”: “she clothes the poor, but completely ate her family”. Savel Prokofyich Dikoy, the “shrill man” Savel Prokofyich Dikoy, keeps his family in fear, and his frightened wife begs the household from the very morning: “Darlings, don’t make me angry.” It is against such a family structure, where everything rests on blind obedience and fear of some before others, that Katerina, who decided to commit suicide, opposes, because it is impossible for her to live in the house of a despotic mother-in-law and a weak-willed, unloved husband.

A "family romance" can also be called a novel I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", where we meet several families at once: from the first chapter we learn about the father and mother of the Kirsanov brothers - a military general and his faithful girlfriend, who lived in love and harmony for many years; the author tells with tenderness about the family nest of Nikolai Petrovich and his wife Masha, where kindness, mutual understanding, and comfort always reigned. And in Fenechka, a simple, unsophisticated woman, sincerely attached to the Maryinsky landowner, who gave him his son Mitya, who knows how to equip life on the estate and cook jam from the “circle”, Nikolai Petrovich seemed to see the continuation of the sweet Masha, who died early, whose memory will never leave his heart. Arkady will repeat the path of his father: the young man is also looking for quiet family happiness, he is ready to deal with the affairs of the estate, forgetting about his youthful passion for nihilism (“... he has become a zealous owner, and the “farm” already brings quite a significant income”), he has a son named in honor of grandfather Nicholas. And what admiration is evoked by the “old Bazarovs”, souls that do not rest in the beloved “Enyushenka” and treat each other with caring attention. Yes, and Bazarov himself, hiding his love for his parents under the guise of a condescending grin, before his death asks Odintsova to take care of her father and mother: “After all, people like them cannot be found in your big world during the day with fire ...”

We get acquainted with different families of both peasants and landowners in the poem ON THE. Nekrasov "Who should live well in Russia": these are also brief references to the family of an old woman lamenting that it is “more sickening to go home than to hard labor”; and an episode with the confession of the peasant Vavila in his heartfelt attachment to his granddaughter, “Egoza”, who dreams of receiving “goat shoes” as a gift from his grandfather; and the story of Yakim Nagogo, drawn to beauty, about the hardships experienced by peasant families. But first of all, these are the families of landowners (heads “Landlord”, “Last Child”) and the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina (head “Peasant Woman”) - they were discussed in detail in my article ““Family Thought” in N.A. Nekrasov “Who should live well in Russia” (2004. No. 24).

In the epic novel "War and Peace" one of the leading, by definition of L.N. Tolstoy, is “family thought”. The writer argued that “people are like rivers”: each has its own source, its own course. From the source - from the lullaby of the mother, from the warmth of the native hearth, from the care of relatives - human life begins. And in what direction it will enter, in many respects depends on the family, family way of life and traditions. In the center of the work are two families - the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys. The main qualities of the members of the Rostov family are absolute sincerity, gullibility, natural movements of the soul. It is no coincidence that both mother and daughter have the same name - this emphasizes their closeness. And about his father, Count Ilya Andreevich, Tolstoy will say: "He is the very dissolute kindness." Sensitive, sympathetic, enthusiastic and vulnerable Natasha, endowed with a happy gift to “read the secret” of people and nature; Petya, charming in his naivete and sincere generosity; open, straightforward Nikolai - they all inherited from their parents the ability to sympathize, empathize, complicity. Rostov - real a family in which peace, harmony, love reign.

The Bolkonskys are attracted by their uncommonness. Father, Nikolai Andreevich, “with the brilliance of smart and young eyes”, “inspires a sense of respect and even fear”, is energetic and active. He revered only two human virtues - “activity and mind” and was constantly busy with something, including raising and educating children, not trusting or entrusting the latter to anyone. The son, Andrei, admires his father for his sharp analytical mind and extensive, deep knowledge. He himself - just like his sister Marya - is endowed with pride and self-esteem. Marya and Andrei understand each other perfectly, in many ways they reveal the unity of views, they are connected not only by blood relationship, but also by true friendship. Subsequently, Princess Marya will be paternally demanding towards her children, in Nikolenka she will see the continuation of her beloved brother, and she will name her eldest son Andryusha.

The “spiritual treasures” are opened by the writer in his favorite characters. It is not for nothing that Pierre, thinking about what Platon Karataev, who became the ideal of kindness and conscientiousness for Bezukhov, would approve of, says to Natasha: “I would approve of our family life. He so desired to see beauty, happiness, tranquility in everything, and I would proudly show him us.

In plays A.P. Chekhov "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard" we do not see prosperous - even outwardly - families. Relations between Konstantin Treplev and his mother, the famous provincial actress Arkadina ("The Seagull"), are extremely tense. The heroes cannot and do not try to understand each other, and in a fit of anger they are able to reach direct insults: “miser”, “raggedy”. They dream of escaping from the whirlpool of philistine life in a provincial town of the Prozorov sisters (“Three Sisters”), but is this dream destined to come true?
"To Moscow! To Moscow!" - these words, like a spell, sound throughout the play, but these are only words, not actions. There is only one person in the family - Natasha, an absurd bourgeois woman who has taken both her weak-willed husband and the whole house into her hands - the Prozorovs' hereditary nest. The Ranevsky-Gaev family breaks up (“The Cherry Orchard”): leaves for Paris, taking the last money from her daughter (after all, it was Anya who sent fifteen thousand “Yaroslavl grandmother”), Ranevskaya; the adopted daughter of Ranevskaya Varya, who did not wait for an offer from Lopakhin, is forced to go “to the housekeeper”; is going to take an exam for a teacher and then work Anya. But, perhaps, the most dramatic thing is that in the empty house of the sick Firs, who served this family faithfully for several decades, and that the old cherry orchard is dying under the ax of new owners, which also for centuries was like a member of the family, and now here he was abandoned without help, left, like Firs, devoted to the masters, to die ...

“Those born in years of deaf paths do not remember their own. // We, the children of the terrible years of Russia, are unable to forget anything,” Alexander Blok writes in the early twentieth century, as if foreshadowing the trials that will fall to the lot of the Motherland and the people, to the lot of many families over the course of a century ... But this is a story for another consultation.