The genre system of Russian prose experienced in the 17th century. fundamental breakdown and restructuring. The meaning of this restructuring was to free from business functions, from ties with ritual, from medieval etiquette. There was a fictionalization of prose, its transformation into a free plot narrative. The hagiographies, gradually losing their former meaning of "religious epic", were penetrated by features of secular biography. The translated chivalric novel and the translated short story have sharply increased the share of entertaining plots. In prose, complex new compositions arose, in which several traditional genre schemes were used. This is the "Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" http://infolio.asf.ru/Philol/Lihachev/8_2.html - _w1, written in the 60s. like an episode from the recent past.
The story begins in 1606 and covers the siege of Smolensk by Russian troops in 1632-1634. But the nameless author of the story does not write about the history of Russia, but about the private life of a Russian man, the merchant son of Savva Grudtsyn. The story develops on Russian material the Faustian theme, the theme of selling the soul to the devil for worldly goods and pleasures.
Savva Grudtsyn, the offspring of a wealthy merchant family, sent by his father on trading business from Kazan to one of the cities in the Kama Salt region, is seduced by a married woman. He, it was, found the strength to resist her harassment on the day of the Ascension of Christ, but the lustful beloved cruelly took revenge on him: at first she “dried” Savva with a love potion, and then rejected her. Suffering Savva is ready to do anything to get her back - even ready to destroy her soul. “I would have served the devil,” he thinks. Here, next to him, an “imaginary brother” appears, a demon, then he accompanies him everywhere, to whom Savva had to give a “manuscript” - an agreement on the sale of the soul. Beloved again returned to Savva. Then, together with the demon, he “walks” around Russia, enrolls as a recruit in the army, and goes from Moscow to Smolensk. Here (of course, with the help of the demon) he shows miracles of courage, defeats three giants one by one and then returns to the capital as a hero.
But it's time for payback. Savva is mortally ill, he is terrified: after all, eternal torment is prepared for his soul. He repents, makes a vow to become a monk and begs forgiveness from the Mother of God: in the church where the sick Savva was brought, the fateful “God-marked scripture” falls from above. It is “smoothed out”, it is clean paper. This means that the contract is not valid, and the devil loses power over Savva's soul. The hero recovers and is tonsured in the Miracle Monastery.
In The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, the plot scheme of a “miracle”, a religious legend, is used. This genre was one of the most widespread in medieval writing. It is extremely important that the character of the "Tale" belongs to the merchant environment. The merchant class was the most mobile of the ancient Russian estates. Merchants were accustomed to long-distance wanderings in Russia and beyond Russian borders. Merchants knew languages, in their own and foreign markets they constantly communicated with foreigners, bought, read and brought home foreign books. The merchant class was less inert and withdrawn than other classes of ancient Russian society, more tolerant of foreign culture, open to various influences.
The author of The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn has already overcome medieval etiquette, because he keeps the reader in constant suspense, switching from one storyline to another. It would be wrong to see this as a literary game or artistic inconsistency. "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" is not a mosaic of ill-fitting fragments taken from different compositions. This is a thoughtful, ideologically and artistically integral work.
In the artistic conception of the author, the idea of diversity, diversity of life is very important. Her variability captivates the young man. But a perfect Christian must resist this delusion, for for him earthly existence is decay, sleep, vanity of vanities. This idea occupied the author so much that he allowed inconsistency in the construction of the plot. According to his views, the author of the story is a conservative. He is horrified by carnal passion, like any thought of enjoying life: it is a sin and destruction. But the power of love-passion, the attractiveness of a motley life has already captured his contemporaries, entered the flesh and blood of a new generation. The author opposes new trends, condemns them from the standpoint of church morality. But, like a true artist, he admits that these trends are firmly rooted in Russian society.
"The Tale of Frol Skobeev" .
“The Tale of Frol Skobeev” is the result of a certain, formed in the 17th century. trends.
“The Tale of Frol Skobeev” is a picaresque short story about a clever rogue, an impoverished nobleman who cannot feed himself from his patrimony or estate and therefore is forced to earn his bread by “ordering a teller” (litigation in courts), that is, becomes an intercessor for other people's affairs . Only a successful and major fraud can again make him a full member of the nobility, and he will marry Annushka, the daughter of the rich and dignitary stolnik Nardin-Nashchokin, by deceit and abduction. "I will be a colonel or a dead man!" - exclaims the hero and eventually succeeds.
Compositionally, the story is divided into two parts, approximately equal in size. The boundary between them is the marriage of the hero: after the marriage, Frol still had to propitiate his father-in-law and receive a dowry.
In the first part, there are few genre scenes and even fewer descriptions; here everything is subordinated to a rapidly developing plot. This is the apotheosis of adventure, which is presented in the form of a fun and not always decent game. The rapprochement between Frol Skobeev and Annushka takes place as a kind of Christmas fun, and the hero himself is depicted in the first part as a mummer: in a "maiden's dress" he penetrates Nardin-Nashchokin's village mansions at Christmas time; in a coachman's attire, sitting on the goats of someone else's carriage, he takes Annushka away from the Moscow steward's house.
In the second part of the story, the plot develops more slowly, it is “inhibited” by dialogues and static positions. Love stories, as a rule, end in marriage in literature. The author of "Frol Skobeev" did not limit himself to this familiar ending - he continued the story, transferring it to another plan. In the second part, the author demonstrates remarkable art in the development of characters.
“The Tale of Frol Skobeev” is the first work in Russian literature in which the author separated the statements of the characters from his own in form and language. From the replicas of the heroes, the reader learned not only about their actions and intentions - he also learned about their state of mind. In the author's text, the experiences of the characters are often silent: the reader is satisfied with their conversations.
The contrasting construction of The Tale of Frol Skobeev is a conscious and skillfully used technique. In this case, contrast is not at all equivalent to inconsistency, artistic ineptitude. Creating a contrasting composition, the author showed that he is able to solve various problems - and build a dynamic plot, and depict human psychology.
Similar information.
Thematically close to "The Tale of Woe and Misfortune" is "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn", created in the 70s of the 17th century. This story also reveals the theme of the relationship between two generations, contrasts two types of attitudes towards life.
The basis of the plot is the life of the merchant's son Savva Grudtsyn, full of worries and adventures. The narrative about the fate of the hero is given against a broad historical background. Savva's youth takes place in the years "persecution and great rebellion", that is, during the struggle of the Russian people with the Polish intervention; in his mature years, the hero takes part in the war for Smolensk in 1632–1634. The story mentions historical figures: Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, boyar Streshnev, governor Shein, centurion Shilov; and the hero himself belongs to the well-known merchant family of the Grudtsyn-Usovs. However, the main place in the story is occupied by pictures of private life.
The story consists of a series of consecutive episodes that make up the main milestones of Savva's biography: youth, mature years, old age and death.
In his youth, Savva, sent by his father on commercial affairs to the city of Orel Solikamsky, indulges in amorous pleasures with the wife of his father's friend Bazhen II, boldly trampling on the sanctity of the family union and the sanctity of friendship. In this part of the story, the central place is given to a love affair and the first attempts are made to depict the love experiences of a person. Intoxicated with a love potion, expelled from Bazhen's house, Savva begins to be tormented by the pangs of love: “And behold, some kind of fire began to burn in his heart ... he began to grieve and mourn for her wife ... And the beauty of his face began to fade from the great tightness and his flesh became thinner.” To dispel his grief, to quench his heart's anguish, Savva goes outside the city, into the bosom of nature.
The author sympathizes with Savva, condemns the act "evil and unfaithful wife", deceitfully deceived him. But this traditional motif of the seduction of an innocent child acquires real psychological outlines in the story.
The medieval motif of the union of a man with the devil is also introduced into the story: in a fit of love sorrow, Savva calls for the help of the devil, and he did not hesitate to appear at his call in the form of a young man. He is ready to render Savva any services, requiring him only to give "manuscript little some"(sell your soul). The hero fulfills the demand of the demon, without attaching any special importance to it, and even worships Satan himself in his kingdom, the devil, having taken the form of the "named brother", becomes Savva's devoted servant.
The ideological and artistic function of the image of the demon in the story is close to the function of Grief in The Tale of Woe and Misfortune. He is the embodiment of the fate of the hero and the inner turmoil of his young and impulsive soul. At the same time, the image of the "named brother", which the demon takes in the story, is close to the folk tale.
With the help of his “named brother”, Savva reconnects with his beloved, escapes from the wrath of his parents, being transported with fabulous speed from Orel Solikamsky to the Volga and Oka. In Shuya, the “named brother” teaches Savva the military article, then helps him in reconnaissance of the fortifications of Smolensk and in duels with three Polish "giants".
Showing the participation of Savva in the struggle of the Russian troops for Smolensk, the author of the story glorifies his image. Savva's victory over enemy heroes is depicted in a heroic epic style. As M. O. Skripil notes, in these episodes Savva approaches the images of Russian heroes, and his victory in fights with enemy "giants" rises to the significance of a national feat.
It is characteristic that Savva enters the service of the king on the advice of his "named brother" - a demon. When the boyar Streshnev invited Savva to stay in his house, the demon "fury" He speaks: “Why do you want to despise the royal mercy and serve his serf? You yourself are now arranged in the same order, already more and the king himself was noble, ecu ... Whenever the king leads your faithful service, then he will also be exalted in rank from him. The royal service is considered by the demon as a means for the merchant's son to achieve nobility, to move him into the service nobility. Attributing these "sinful thoughts" of Savva to a demon, the author condemns the ambitious thoughts of the hero. The heroic deeds of Savva are surprising "all... the Russian army", but they provoke the furious wrath of the voivode - the boyar Shein, who acts in the story as a zealous guardian of the inviolability of class relations. Upon learning that the feats were accomplished by a merchant's son, the governor "began to revile him with all sorts of absurd words." Shein demands that Savva immediately leave Smolensk and return to his wealthy parents. The conflict between the boyar and the merchant's son is vividly characterized by the conflict that began in the second half of the 17th century. the process of forming a new nobility.
If in the episodes depicting the youth of the hero, a love affair is brought to the fore and the ardent, captivating nature of an inexperienced young man is revealed, then in the episodes telling about the mature years of Savva, the heroic traits of his character come to the fore: courage, courage, fearlessness. In this part of the story, the author successfully combines the methods of folk epic poetry with the stylistic devices of military stories.
In the last part of the story, describing Savva's illness, the author makes extensive use of traditional demonological motifs: "temple" demons rush in to the sick person in a great crowd and begin to torment him: "... ovo on the wall of the biy, ovo on the platform from his bed, sweeping it, but crushing it with specks and foam and tormenting him with all sorts of different languor." In these "demonic torments" it is not difficult to detect the characteristic signs of epilepsy. Learning about Savva's torment, the king sends two "guards" protect from demonic torments.
The denouement of the story is connected with the traditional motif of the "miracles" of the Mother of God icons: the Mother of God, by her intercession, saves Savva from demonic torment, having previously taken a vow from him to go to the monastery. Healed, getting back your smoothed "manuscript", Savva becomes a monk. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that Savva remains a "young man" throughout the story.
The image of Savva, as well as the image of the Young Man in "The Tale of Woe and Misfortune", summarizes the features of the younger generation, striving to throw off the oppression of centuries-old traditions, to live to the fullest extent of their daring youthful strength.
The style of the story combines traditional book techniques and individual motifs of oral folk poetry. The novelty of the story lies in its attempt to depict an ordinary human character in an ordinary everyday environment, to reveal the complexity and inconsistency of character, to show the meaning of love in a person's life. Quite rightly, therefore, a number of researchers consider "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" as the initial stage in the formation of the novel genre.
- See: Russian novels of the 17th century // Afterword and comments by M. O. Skripil to the Tale of Savva Grudtsyn. M., 1954. S. 385–394.
- Cm.: Likhachev D.S. Prerequisites for the emergence of the genre of the novel in Russian literature// Likhachev D.S. Studies in Russian literature. L., 1986. S. 96–112.
INTRODUCTION
"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" is the first everyday novel in Russian literature, with a love affair, vivid sketches from the then reality and extremely varied adventures of the hero. The plot narrative is multifaceted and is colored by a successful artistic mixture of genre solutions, combining the wonderful motifs of old literature with innovative lyrical and everyday narration, which, in turn, are successfully combined with fabulous and epic narrative techniques.
I chose this topic because, perhaps due to my age, the theme of love, forbidden and sophisticated, is very close to me. In the Tale, much attention is paid to the depiction of the love experiences of a young man. Savva - the main character, is hard going through separation from his beloved.
In my work I will try to reveal this theme of love, which entailed the temptation of man. I will analyze the “good” help of the demon, his role in the life and fate of Savva Grudtsyn, the punishment of the latter and his forgiveness, the meaning of the presence of the motive of the relationship between man and the devil. I will try to clearly identify the combination of a romantic theme with detailed descriptions of the life and customs of Russia in the 17th century.
These days, situations like this are very common. Often people, in order to achieve their goal, often a whim, forget about everything: about age-old family traditions, about parents (the problem of “fathers” and “children”), about any spiritual values and about the laws of God. On this basis, I consider this topic relevant, and "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" is a work that is the best lesson in our difficult, confusing life.
1. "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" as a storyXVIIcentury
The genre system of Russian prose experienced in the 17th century. fundamental breakdown and restructuring. The meaning of this restructuring was to free from business functions, from ties with ritual, from medieval etiquette. There was a fictionalization of prose, its transformation into a free plot narrative. The hagiographies, gradually losing their former meaning of "religious epic", were penetrated by features of secular biography. The translated chivalric novel and the translated short story have sharply increased the share of entertaining plots. In prose, complex new compositions arose, in which several traditional genre schemes were used.
The 17th century, when the renewal of Russian spiritual culture and literature begins, in particular, is well characterized by A.M. Panchenko. He writes in his book "Russian Literature on the Eve of Peter's Reforms" that the 17th century cries out about the conflict between fathers and children, for example, in the author's literature of different generations. The 17th century is the century of a turn, a transition to the new in the life of the entire state. Time that cuts life into old and new, past and future.
In the literature of the 17th century there are a number of works that reveal the features of the time, such a work is, without a doubt, the Tale of Savva Grudtsyn.
The hero of literature of the second half of the 17th century is distinguished activity, liveliness. This is primarily due to the socio-historical nature of the literature of that time. For folklore knows neither social concreteness nor individuality. And although "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" is not a folklore work, it also demonstrates the extraordinary energy of the protagonist.
From birth, a person is destined for a place in society. This is his life purpose. The heroes of lives feel their destiny from an early age. Saints, either in a dream or in reality, receive a vision that points them to their destiny.
Here, in the literature of the 17th century, the heroes understand a destiny of a different kind - a destiny in self-reliance. In the literature, this is also related to the development individuality when personality traits begin to emerge. In the center is a person as a person.
A deep philosophical thought about personal destiny is closely connected with the idyll. The idyll is expressed in the agreement of destiny with tradition and in the agreement of man with destiny. These two concepts merge and diverge at the same time. There is a destiny as a norm, a ready-made idyll, and as a departure from the norm, an idyll that the hero is looking for.
Reliance on one's own strengths includes the beginning - creative and destructive. Creativity as a consequence of independence is the rejection of the idyll, and it is this that leads to union with the devil. This union gives rise to a destructive beginning. This is well reflected in The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn.
Savva was offered a certain norm: the norm of life, the norm of behavior, which stems from the idyll, from the initial destination. Savva, starting from her, thereby falls out of the norm. In a situation of choice, he chooses his own path. Not accepting the norm and falling out of it, the hero is subject to many trials and temptations of life.
Demonic intervention is perceived as good, but for the time being, until the understanding of one's sin before God. Savva went the wrong, inhuman way and was punished for apostasy. Being on the verge of a choice, not having fulfilled his true destiny, Savva leaves for a monastery. The monastery is only a refuge from fate, from oneself. This is an idyll, but an idyll in which the struggle with oneself continues, since the non-exhaustive awareness of one's guilt before God haunts the hero, and hence the relentless atonement for sins.
So, the person in the stories of the 17th century is ambiguous. In it, the high is connected with the base, the animal, the sinful. And the latter wins at first. This fact of connection explains the duality of the inner world of the characters, as well as the renunciation of God and the sale of the soul to the devil. God fades into the background for them, so the heroes of the Tales, having gone through the fall, in their repentance are forever deprived of their initial idyll and acquire a relative idyll.
2. Event outline in a brief retelling
"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn"
The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn is the first Russian novel written at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.
At the very beginning of The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, the author, unknown to us by name, emphasizes the importance of the topic he has taken: “I want to tell you, brethren, this amazing story, filled with fear and horror and worthy of inexpressible surprise, how long-suffering the philanthropic God is, waiting for our conversion, and by its inexpressible destinies leads to salvation. 200 years before Dostoevsky, the author of The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn was essentially trying to create a kind of Life of a Great Sinner, in which the most important moral and ethical issues of the era were to be resolved by means of fiction.
The author began his "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" in 1606. “Maybe in our days in the summer of 7114,” he writes, “for the multiplication of our sins, let God let the Bogomer apostate and heretic Grishka despise Otrepyev on the Moscow state, steal the throne of the Russian state robbery, and not royally. Then, throughout the Russian state, the evil Lithuania and many dirty tricks and devastation by the Russian people in Moscow and in the city of creators will multiply. And from that Lithuanian ruin, I leave many of my houses and run from city to city. This introduction immediately opens up to the reader a broad historical perspective, linking the private life of the hero of the Tale, which will be discussed in the future with a great event in the life of the people. The story was developed on Russian material. The theme of selling the soul to the devil for worldly goods and pleasures.
In 1606, the eminent merchant Foma Grudtsyn moved from the city of Veliky Ustyug to Kazan. Here he calmly lived until the end of the “troubles”, when he could again expand his trading activities, together with his twelve-year-old son Savva. A few years later, Foma Grudtsyn sailed on his ships to Persia, and sent his son to Salt Kamskaya with goods also loaded on ships before reaching Solikamsk, Savva stopped in the small town of Orel with a “deliberate man in a hotel”. This man knew Foma Grudtsyn well and cordially met his son.
An old friend of his father, merchant Bazhen II, learns about Savva's arrival in Orel. He asks Savva to come to his house, where he introduces him to his young wife. A romance develops between a young woman and Savva. After the first intoxication with passion, Savva tries to stop communicating with the wife of his father's friend, but the offended woman gives him a love potion, after which Savva's passion flares up with renewed vigor. But Bazhen's wife, taking revenge on Savva, rejects him and forces him to leave Bazhen's house.
Sympathizing with his hero, the author of The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, for the first time in the history of Russian medieval literature, carefully traces and describes the psychological state of Savva in love, who “is grieving in his heart and inconsolably grieving for that wife. And the beauty of his face began to fade from the great hardship and his flesh to become thinner. Suffering Savva is ready to do anything to get her back - even ready to destroy her soul. “I would have served the Devil,” he thinks.
The story introduces the medieval motif of the union between man and the devil. Traditional demonological motifs are inserted into the causal relationship of events. In addition to a wonderful explanation, some of them have a very real one. They are concretized, surrounded by everyday details, made visual. The torment of Savva, who was seized by a passion for someone else's wife, psychologically prepares the sale of his soul to the devil. In a fit of spiritual grief, Savva calls out for help from the demon, and he immediately appeared before Savva in the guise of a young man who introduced himself to him as a relative, also from the Grudtsyn family, but those who did not leave for Kazan, but remained in Veliky Ustyug. The newly-appeared relative of Savva undertook to help him in grief, demanding for this only "a small manuscript of some kind."
Since then, luck has rained down on Savva: he reconnects with his beloved, escapes from the wrath of his father, moves with fabulous speed from Orel Solikamsky to the cities of the Volga region and the Oka.
Then the "named brother" teaches Savva the art of war. On his advice, Savva enters the service of the king. Further, he participates in the struggle of Russian troops with Polish feudal lords for Smolensk and three times defeats three Polish "giants" (heroes).
The demon serves Savva, and for a long time he does not know about his true nature. Bes is smart, he knows more than Savva. This is a completely different image of the demon compared to the one that was familiar to the ancient Russian reader from hagiographic literature. The demon in the story acquires quite “particular” features. He accompanies Savva and outwardly does not differ from people: he walks in a merchant's caftan and performs the duties of a servant. He's even a little vulgar. The miraculous has an ordinary look. This is an element of fantasy, skillfully introduced into a real setting.
Savva's constant moving from one city to another is caused by Savva's restless conscience. They are psychologically motivated. The sale of the soul to the devil becomes a plot-forming moment in the story.
Thus, the plot of the sale of the soul to the devil, as it were, landed, introduced into a certain geographical and historical setting. He was associated with real psychological motivations. Individual conflicts were dramatized. The action was theatrical. The author not only talks about the past, but also presents events to readers, unfolds events in front of readers, creating the effect of co-presence of the reader.
But now it's payback time. Savva is mortally ill, and his relative comes to him dying and demands payment according to the receipt given by Savva to him in Orel. Savva realizes that under the guise of a relative, the devil himself helped him, and is horrified by his frivolity. Savva prays to the Mother of God, asking her for help. In a dream, he had a vision. The Mother of God promises to save him if he becomes a monk. Savva agrees, then recovers and is tonsured in the Miracle Monastery.
"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn", as I already wrote, is called the first Russian novel. Its plot development, indeed, in many respects resembles the plot development of a novel, which is characterized by a certain psychology, the presence of spiritual development and everyday concretization. The author tried to show an ordinary human character in an everyday, everyday environment, to reveal the complexity and inconsistency of character, to show the meaning of love in a person's life. Quite rightly, therefore, a number of researchers consider The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn as the initial stage in the formation of the novel genre.
3. The plot scheme of the Tale, its construction
In The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, the plot scheme of a “miracle”, a religious legend, is used. This genre was one of the most widespread in medieval writing. It is widely represented in the prose of the 17th century. Every religious legend sets itself the didactic goal of proving some kind of Christian axiom, for example, the reality of prayer and repentance, the inevitability of punishment for the sinner. In legends, for example, there are three plot nodes. Legends begin with a transgression, misfortune or illness of the hero. This is followed by repentance, prayer, an appeal to God, the Mother of God, the saints for help. The third knot is remission of sin, healing, salvation. This composition was obligatory, but in its development, in a specific performance, a certain artistic freedom was allowed.
The plot source of the Tale was religious legends about a young man who sinned by selling his soul to the devil, then repented and was forgiven.
Another source is a fairy tale. The fairy tale is inspired by the scenes in which the demon acts as a magical assistant, “giving” Savva “wisdom” in military affairs, supplying him with money, etc. The duel of Savva with three enemy heroes near Smolensk goes back to the fairy tale.
"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" is not a mosaic of ill-fitting fragments taken from different compositions. This is a thoughtful, ideologically and artistically integral work. Savva then was not destined to achieve fabulous happiness, which God judges, and Savva sold his soul to Satan. The demon, so similar to a fabulous, magical assistant, is in fact the antagonist of the hero. The demon is not omnipotent, and the one who trusts in him will certainly fail. Evil begets evil. Evil makes a person unhappy. Such is the moral conflict of the story, and in this conflict the demon plays the primary role.
The demonic theme in The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn is the tragic theme of "doubling". Bes is the "brother" of the hero, his second self. In the Orthodox view, every person living on earth is accompanied by a guardian angel - also a kind of double, but an ideal, heavenly double. The author of the "Tale" gave a negative, "shadow" solution to this topic. The demon - the shadow of the hero, the demon personifies the vices of Savva, the dark that is in him - frivolity, weak will, vanity, voluptuousness. The forces of evil are powerless in the fight against the righteous, but the sinner becomes their easy prey, because they choose the path of evil. Savva, of course, is a victim, but he himself is guilty of his misfortunes.
In the author's artistic conception of the varied diversity of life. Its variability fascinates a young man, but a perfect Christian must resist this delusion, for for him earthly existence is perishable, sleep is vanity of vanities. This idea occupied the author so much that he allowed inconsistency in the construction of the plot.
In his views, the author of the story is a conservative. He is horrified by carnal passion, as well as any thought of enjoying life. This is a sin of destruction, but the power of love - the passions of an attractive motley life - has already captured his contemporaries, entered the flesh and blood of a new generation. The author opposes new trends, condemns them from the standpoint of church morality. But, like a true artist, he admits that these trends are firmly rooted in Russian society.
CONCLUSION
Having finished the work, I want to note the important thing - "the philanthropic god is long-suffering, waiting for our conversion, and with his inexpressible destinies leads to salvation." The finale is prosperous and, despite the fact that Savva Grudtsyn went the wrong, I repeat, inhuman way, he finds salvation for himself, and this is his salvation - in the monastery (although I think that serving God in the monastery, probably, first of all, is a renunciation of himself). God gives the main character a second chance - a chance for salvation, repentance. The author seems to have revealed the problem of Dostoevsky for many millennia: a crime must always be followed by punishment. Raskolnikov is also punished, however, for the murder, but the meaning of the finale is the same: the revival of the protagonist, the atonement for guilt. Nothing passes without a trace, we see in this work, and, by the way, this can be confirmed today, for example, on the basis of our own life experience.
Analyzing "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn", I was once again convinced that this work contains the main eternal values \u200b\u200brelated to morality and morality.
This work shows all aspects of the situation: both positive and negative. And this is very important, as it helps us to be more reasonable when choosing a direction, a path in life. The "Tale" makes you think about your purpose, which is written in the second paragraph of the abstract plan, because everyone has it, and everyone has it individually. This must be known, understood and remembered always.
List of used literature
1. Vodovozov N. History of ancient Russian literature: A textbook for students ped. in-t on spec. No. 2101 "Russian language and literature". - M., "Enlightenment", 1972.
2. History of Russian literature X - XVII centuries. / ed. D.S. Likhachev. - M., "Enlightenment", 1880.
3. Radi E.A. The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Russian Literature: Uchebn. Handbook for students of philological faculties of a pedagogical university. - Sterlitamak - Samara, 2006.
4. Kuskov V.V., Prokofiev N.I. History of Old Russian Literature: A Handbook for Students Nat. separate ped. in-comrade. - L .: "Enlightenment". Leningrad. department, 1987.
5. Likhachev D.S. The Tale of the Tver Otroch Monastery, The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, The Tale of Frol Skobeev // History of World Literature: In 9 volumes / USSR Academy of Sciences; Institute of world literature. them. A. M. Gorky. — M.: Nauka, 1983.
6. Literature of Ancient Russia. Reader. / comp. L.A. Dmitriev; Ed. D.S. Likhachev. - M., "Higher School", 1990.
The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn
The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn
"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" was written in the 70s of the 17th century. The work reflects the historical events of the first half of the century and many everyday features of that time. However, these are minor, accompanying details of the story. In the center of the work, as in the Tale of Woe-Misfortune, is the fate of a young man. Like the young man from Woe-Misfortune, Savva Grudtsyn, who, due to his youth and inexperience, became dependent on a hostile otherworldly force, finds salvation in the monastery.
In The Tale, many assessments and author's interpretations of various situations are of a traditional nature, the hero's deviations from accepted norms of behavior, his love passion, his oblivion of duty to his parents are explained by the devilish temptation, but at the same time, this work for the first time in ancient Russian literature develops a romantic theme of narration with reflection of living human feelings. It is characteristic, for example, that the hero, seized with lovesickness, seeks consolation in communion with nature; the passion that seized Savva is caused by a "love potion", but the hero's experiences are described by the author sympathetically and vitally. In the "Tale" the fabulous adventures of Savva are intertwined in a peculiar way with historical events in which real historical figures participate. It is noteworthy in this regard that the hero of the work himself bears the name of a well-known in the 17th century. wealthy merchant family of the Grudtsyn-Usovs. The combination in the "Tale" of a romantic theme with detailed descriptions of the life and customs of Russia in the 17th century. gave grounds to a number of researchers to see in this work the experience of creating the first Russian novel.
The text is printed according to the publication: Izbornik. pp. 609-625.
THE STORY ABOUT SAVVA GRUDTSYN
The story is very wonderful and worthy of surprise,
similar actions in the city of Kazan
a certain merchant Foma Grudtsyn about his son Savva
In the summer from the creation of the world 7114 (1606), there was a certain merchant in the city of Velitz Ustyuz1, a husband glorious and rich, with the name and notoriety of Foma Grudtsyn-Usovs. Seeing God’s persecution and revolt against Christians in the Russian state and in many cities, Abie2 leaves the great city of Ustyug and moves to the lower glorious royal city of Kazan, for in the lower cities there was no ill-fated Lithuania.
And that Foma lives with his wife in the city of Kazan even until the years of the pious great sovereign tsar and great prince Mikhail Feoderovich3 of all Russia. And having that Thomas a son of the only begotten, named Savva, twelve years old in age4. The custom, having that Thomas, I will buy deeds, driving down the Volga River, sometimes5 to the Kama Salt, sometimes to Astrakhan, and sometimes across the Khvalynsk6 Sea to the Shakhov Region7 driving off, I will buy creative things. To the same and his son Savva, it is instructive and not lazy to such a matter to diligently command you, so that after death his heir would be his estate.
At some time, at the desire of that Thomas, sail to buy in the Shakhov region and arrange ordinary boats with tavars for swimming, while his son, having arranged courts with ordinary tavars, orders to sail to the Kamskaya Salt and such a merchant’s business with all fear of adhering to your command. And abie kissing the usual kiss to his wife and son, touches the path.
The days are short, hesitating, and his son, on the courts arranged 8, at the command of his father, to the Salt of Kama begins to create a voyage. When he reaches the Usolsk city of Orel9, the Abie comes to the shore and, at the command of his father, stays with a certain deliberate person in an inn. The host10 is the same and his wife, remembering the love and mercy of his father, a lot of diligence and every good deed I do to him, and as if he had every care for his son. He stays in the hotel for a long time.
In the same city of Orel, there was a certain philistine of that city, the name and notoriety of the Second Important, having already grown old in years and we know better in many cities for the sake of his life, more and more wealthy and more and more we know and is friendly to Savvin father Foma Grudtsyn. Having seen Bazhen the Second, as if from Kazan Foma Grudtsyn, his son is found in their city, and thinking in himself, as if "his father had much love and friendship with me, but now I despise him, but I will take him into my house, let him dwell with me, and eats with me from my table."
And having thought this, having once seen that Savva on the way to come and, having called him, they began to say: “Friend Savvo! therefore do not disobey me, come and dwell in my house, so that we eat from my common meal. Because of the love of your father, I graciously accept you like a son. Savva, having heard such verbs from her husband, was very glad to be, as if from such a glorious husband he wants to be, and does low worship before him. Immediately from the inn, the onago leaves for the house of the husband of that Bazhen the Second and lives in all prosperity, rejoicing. The same important is the second old one, and having a wife, newly brought by a third marriage, I am a virgin. Hate the good of the human race, the adversary the devil, seeing that man’s virtuous life, and although he stirs up his house, Abie stings his wife on the young man onago to a foul mixture of fornication and incessantly entraps the young man onago with flattering words to fall fornication: God knows the feminine nature to entrap the minds of the young to fornication . And so that Savva, by the flattery of that wife, even more so, say 13, from the envy of the devil, they would 14 quickly fall into the net of fornication with her wife, insatiably doing fornication and untimely in that nasty deed being with her, lower than the resurrection day, lower the holiday remembering, but forgetting fear God's and mortal's, always more in the feces of fornication like a pig wallowing and in such an insatiable wandering for a long time like cattle.
Once upon a time, I will be in time for the feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the eve of the feast of Bazhen II, we will drink with us the young man Savva, ongoing to the holy church for evening singing and after the dismissal of vespers, I will come back to my house, and at the usual supper, reclining with my skin on my bed thanking God. Suddenly, the God-loving husband Bazhen II fell asleep soundly, while his wife, instigated by the devil, secretly got up from his bed and came to the bed of the young man onago and aroused him, forcing him to a nasty mixture of prodigal. He, even a young one, but as if by a certain arrow of the fear of God, was wounded, fearing the judgment of God, thinking in himself: “How on such a domineering day should an imam do such a stingy deed?” And think of this, start with an oath to deny it, saying, as if "I do not want to destroy my soul and defile my body on such a great holiday." But she, insatiably inflamed by the lust of fornication, relentlessly nudges him with caresses, and with the same rebuke, 16 threatening him with some, so that he fulfills her desire, and laboring a lot, admonishing him, but it is by no means possible to incline him to her will: divine, for some power helps him . Seeing that crafty wife, as if it were not possible to attract the young man to her will, aby green fury fell on the young man like a fierce snake, groaning, moving away from his bed, thinking with magic potions to drink him and immediately commit his evil intention though. And having conceived the greatness, this and create.
The good fellow, who tries to deviate from the precepts of pious antiquity and pays for this by being tonsured a monk, also appears in another work that has come down to us in a large number of lists, starting from the 18th century. In one of these lists, it is titled: “The story is very strange in ancient times and years, the city of Veliky Ustyug of the merchant Foma Grudtsyn, about his son Savva, how he gave the handwriting to the devil and how he was delivered by the mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos of Kazan.” In another list, the table of contents is as follows: “The story is exceedingly wonderful and worthy of surprise, even if it was a sin for our sake the persecution of the Russian state against Christians from the godless heretic Grishka Otrepyev’s rostriga, who also happened in the city of Kazan of a certain merchant Foma Grudiyn, about his son Savva.”
Savva Grudtsyn is the son of pious and sedate parents. His father, a wealthy merchant Foma Grudtsyn, as the story says, in 1606, due to the events of the Time of Troubles, moved from Ustyug to Kazan, from where he traveled to various places down the Volga on trade business, stopping even in Persia. From an early age, he also taught his son to engage in trade. Some time later, on his way to Persia, Foma ordered Savva with merchant ships to sail to Soli-Kamskaya. Having reached the Usolsk city of Orel, Savva stopped at a hotel maintained by a good friend of Thomas. In the same city lived a certain elderly rich man named Vazhen II, a friend of Savva's father, married to a young woman by his third marriage. Upon learning that Savva lives in Orel, he, out of his love for his father, insisted that the young man move to his house. Savva willingly accepts this offer and lives in Bazhen in complete prosperity. But the "hater of good" the devil arouses in Bazhen's wife a lustful feeling for the young man: "God knows it's a woman's nature to entrap the minds of the young to fornication." Savva succumbs to temptation and indulges in insatiable fornication, not remembering Sundays or holidays. However, on the eve of the Ascension Feast, as if wounded by "a certain arrow of the fear of God," Savva refused to be intimate with Bazhen's wife, despite all her persistent urges. Inflamed after this with strong anger at the young man, the woman planned to intoxicate him with a magic potion. And as she intended, so she did. Having drunk the potion, Savva “began with a heart of grief and mourning for her wife”; she, pretending to be completely indifferent to him, slandered him in front of her husband, who after that, albeit with regret, refuses him the house. Savva returns to the hotel and mourns inconsolably, so that “beginning from great anguish, the beauty of his face wither and his flesh thin.” The owner of the hotel, who takes a great part in Savva and does not know the cause of his grief, learns about her from a certain sorcerer.
Once at noon, going out of town to take a walk away from his sadness, Savva thought that if any person, or even the devil himself, returned his lost love to him, he would serve the devil. Just at that time, he heard a voice calling him behind him and, when he looked back, he saw a young man quickly catching up with him, more precisely, the devil, "who is constantly prowling, looking for the destruction of the human soul." Calling himself a relative of Savva, who also belongs to the Grudtsyn-Usov family, he invited him to consider him a friend and brother and rely on his help in everything. Savva rejoiced at the unexpected relative, but did not go into frankness with him about the reason for his grief, and then the demon himself said that this reason was known to him: Bazhen's wife had lost interest in him. In response to Savva's promise to generously endow his relative if he helps him again take possession of the heart of Bazhen's wife, the demon says that his father is immensely richer than Savva's father, and therefore he does not need wealth; for the service, he demands only "a small handwriting." Not suspecting evil and not understanding the letter properly, Savva, without hesitation, writes “manuscript” on the charter, not realizing that by doing so he renounces Christ and surrenders to the service of the devil. Having indicated where he can meet with Savva, the demon tells him to go to Bazhen, who again joyfully accepts him into his house. The young man’s love relationship with Bazhen’s wife is resumed, and the rumor about the dissolute behavior of his son reaches Kazan’s mother Savva, who twice sends him reproachful letters, conjuring him to return home, but Saova accepts the mother’s letters with mockery and does not pay any attention to them, as before indulging in debauchery.
After some time, the demon leaves with Savva outside the city and, having announced to him that he is not a relative of Savva, but a royal son, leads him to a certain hill and shows him from there a magnificent city in the kingdom of his father. Brought to the throne, on which the “prince of darkness” sat in all its splendor, Savva, at the suggestion of the demon, bowed to the devil himself and handed him the “manuscript”, and this time without suspecting who he was dealing with. Returning from the kingdom of Satan, he continues his dissolute life.
Meanwhile, Savva’s father Foma returns from Persia and, having learned from his wife about his son’s behavior, sends him a letter persuading him to return to Kazan, but since Savva neglects this letter as well as his mother’s letter, the father himself decides to go to Oryol to take away thence a son; the demon, having learned about the intention of Thomas, invites Savva to take a walk around other cities, to which Savva willingly agrees. One night, the demon and Savva arrive in the city of Kozmodem-yansk on the Volga, at a distance of 840 miles from Orel, then, after living a little in this city, they also reach the village of Pavlova Perevoz on the Oka during the night. There Savva met a certain holy elder, dressed in rags, who, mourning his death, told him that his companion was a demon and that Savva had surrendered to the devil. But the demon with a gnashing of teeth called Savva away and, persuading and threatening him, forcing him to neglect the words of the elder, went with him to the city of Shuya; Savva's father, after a futile search for his son in Orel, returned to Kazan in great sorrow, where he died some time later.
At that time, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich decided to send his army near Smolensk, against the Polish king. There was a recruitment of soldiers in Shuya. Savva, on the advice of the demon, enters the military service and with his help, he is unusually successful in military affairs. Arriving in Moscow, Savva, with his military talents, earns himself a general favor and becomes known to the tsar himself and his entourage. He settles on Sretenka, in Zemlyanoy Gorod, in the house of the archery centurion Yakov Shilov, who, like his wife, pays great attention to Savva. Once, Savva and the demon reach Smolensk in one night, look out for enemy fortifications there for three days, and then, having opened up to the Poles, run away towards the Dnieper. The water parted before them, and they crossed the river on dry land, with the Poles pursuing them to no avail. Soon, Savva and the demon again, already together with the Moscow regiments under the command of the boyar Shein, go to Smolensk, where Savva enters into single combat three times with three Polish giants, whom he defeats; then, wherever he appears with a demon to help the Russian troops, the Poles turn with huge losses into flight. All these episodes are described close to the folk-poetic style. The traitor Shein, as the story depicts him, is very saddened by the success of Savva and with all sorts of threats forces him to leave Smolensk and return to Moscow, to the house of the centurion Shilov.
The story then comes to a close. Savva falls seriously ill and, at the insistence of Shilov's wife, calls a priest to come to him for confession. During confession, a crowd of demons, led by Savva's "brother", appears before him in the room where the patient was lying, now appearing before him not in human form, as it was before, but in his demonic, "bestial" guise. Gritting his teeth and showing Savva the "manuscript", he threatens him with cruel reprisals. Nevertheless, the confession was carried through to the end, but after that the demon began to mercilessly torment Savva. Shilov brings to the attention of the king about the inhuman suffering of his guest, who orders to assign two guards to Savva so that, mad with suffering, he does not throw himself into fire or water, and he himself daily sends him food.
And then one day, falling asleep after extraordinary demonic torment, Savva in a dream, as if in reality, begged the Virgin for help, promising to fulfill what he promised her. Waking up, he told the centurion Shilov that he saw a “wife, bright and shining with inexpressible lordship,” who came to his bed, and with her two husbands, adorned with gray hairs. Savva guesses that they were the Mother of God, along with John the Theologian and Metropolitan Peter of Moscow. The Mother of God promised Savva healing from his illness if he took monastic orders, and ordered him to appear in the Kazan Cathedral, on the square in Moscow near Vetoshny Row, on the day of the feast of her Kazan icon, and then a miracle would be performed on him before all the people.
The vision of Savva is reported to the king, who orders on the day of the feast of the icon of the Virgin of Kazan to bring the patient to the Kazan Cathedral. The king himself is there. During the singing of the cherubic song, * there was a voice from above, like thunder, commanding Savva to enter inside the church and promising him recovery. And immediately the “God-marked writing of Savino” fell from above the church, all smoothed over, as if it had never been written, and Savva jumped up from the carpet, as if he was not sick at all, hurried to the church and thanked the Mother of God for salvation. Having distributed all his possessions to the poor, after that he went to the Chudov Monastery, accepted monasticism there and lived to death in fasting and unceasing prayers.
In its style, the story about Savva Grudtsyn is a kind of combination of elements of the old narrative, in particular hagiographic tradition, with elements of literary novelty. The main meaning of the story is the salvation of the sinner by prayer and repentance. According to tradition, the instigator of all evil here is the devil, defeated by the intervention of divine power. The behavior of a person who has fallen into sin is not so much a consequence of his natural individual qualities, but the result of the influence of extraneous forces on him - evil or good. There is no personal initiative of the hero; it is completely subordinated to outsiders, outside of it being elements. Even the very act of “manuscripting”, which has long been used as a motive by apocryphal literature, is not a conscious action of Savva, but only a purely mechanical act, because the young man does not realize the consequences that will result from this “manuscript”, but the one that turned out to be a demon , right up to the very illness of Savva, appears to him in a human form, very cleverly disguising his demonic essence. A woman in our story appears as an instrument of the devil - it is she, pushed by a demon, who leads an inexperienced young man into temptation and then does not know the measure of her shamelessness and unbridledness. If Savva still has the voice of religious conscience, which keeps him from debauchery on the eve of a big holiday, then Bazhen's wife has nothing sacred left to which she could sacrifice her indefatigable passion. Love itself, its ebbs and flows, are regulated in the story not by the inner impulses of the lovers, but by a magic potion or the assistance of a demon. In connection with all this, the psychological element here is just as weak as in most hagiographic and narrative works of old Russian literature.
And at the same time, in our story, those sprouts of a new style, which we already partly noted in the life of Julia Lazarevskaya, clearly make themselves felt. Along with the elements of fantasy and legend, which are reflected in the relationship of Savva with demonic power, and in various supernatural adventures and successes of Savva, and in the description of the kingdom of Satan, and, finally, in the miraculous healing of the sinner and his liberation from the power of the devil, there is a desire to in all details, albeit with some factual errors, to convey the real features of the era, up to the introduction of real historical figures into the narrative - Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the boyars Shein and Semyon Streshnev, the steward Vorontsov, the archery centurion Yakov Shilov, as well as real geographical areas and even streets . The very clan of the Grudtsyn-Usovs is not fictional, but existed in reality: this surname in the 17th century. were worn by several wealthy representatives of a merchant family who lived in Veliky Ustyug and in Moscow. Further, a whole series of everyday and historical details marked by the story finds an almost exact correspondence to itself in the historical setting in which the action of the story unfolds. The story is of great interest as the first attempt in Russian literature to portray the life of a private person against a broad background of historical events, in a real historical setting. The era reflected in it is determined primarily by the facts indicated in the presentation itself. Foma Grudtsyn moves from Veliky Ustyug to Kazan in 1606. The Smolensk War, in which Savva participates along with the regiments of the boyar Sheip, took place in 1632-1634. Thus, the story captures the events of approximately the first third of the 17th century. The motif of the miraculous help of the Mother of God, destroying the "manuscript", as well as colorful demonological fantasy and the emphasized depiction of forbidden love passion and its ups and downs (which previous Russian literature did not know), she most likely approaches such a kind of translation of the Catholic collection of moralizing stories and short stories "Great Mirror”, as the “Bright Star”, translated into Russian in 1668. However, the motive of selling the soul to the devil for love luck, followed by getting rid of the power of evil power with the help of good, heavenly power, which formed the basis of folk legends about Dr. , is present in a number of works of medieval literature, in particular in the Byzantine legend about Euladius, which is popular with us (“The Miracle of St. We will also find points of contact with our story in such Byzantine works known then in Russia as the legends about Proterius and Theophilus, as well as in numerous Russian legends about the “miracle-working” icons of the Theotokos.
The story is mainly sustained in the traditional Slavic-Russian language. f language with its inherent archaisms, but at the same time, it contains new lexical formations (“exercise”, “command”, “military article”), which entered the Russian language at the very end of the 17th and early 18th centuries, but, perhaps, inherent not to the original of the story, but to its later lists; its very appearance should most likely be dated within the second half of the 17th century. Judging by the general pious tone of the story and the finale, its author was a spiritual person, perhaps belonging to the clergy of the Moscow Kazan Cathedral and therefore interested in replenishing miracles from the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God." The presence of the author's remarks in it in the spirit of the usual Of course, the author's good knowledge of merchant life does not in the least contradict our assumption, since a clergyman, like anyone else, could have sufficient information about this life.
