Content:

Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" tells about the journey of seven peasants across Russia in search of a happy person. The work was written in the late 60's - mid 70's. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It tells about a post-reform society in which not only many old vices have not disappeared, but many new ones have appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the wanderers were supposed to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the journey, but due to the illness and imminent death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.
The work “To whom it is good to live in Russia” is written in blank verse and stylized as Russian folk tales.

main characters

Roman, Demyan, Luka, Gubin Brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pakhom, Prov - seven peasants who went to look for a happy man.

Other characters

Ermil Girin is the first "candidate" for the title of lucky man, an honest steward, very respected by the peasants.

Matrena Korchagina is a peasant woman who is known in her village as a “lucky woman”.

Savely is the grandfather of her husband Matryona Korchagina. Centennial old man.

Prince Utyatin is an old landowner, a tyrant, to whom his family, in agreement with the peasants, does not speak about the abolition of serfdom.

Vlas is a peasant, steward of a village that once belonged to Utyatin.

Grisha Dobrosklonov - a seminarian, the son of a deacon, who dreams of the liberation of the Russian people; the revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov was the prototype.

Part 1

Prologue

Seven men converge on the "pillar path": Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers, the old man Pakhom and Prov. The county from which they come is called by the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the peasants come are referred to as Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Znobishino, Gorelovo, Neelovo and Neurozhayko, thus, the poem uses the artistic device of “talking” names .

The men got together and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Russia?

Each of them insists on his own. One shouts that the landowner lives most freely, the other that the official, the third - the priest, "fat-bellied merchant", "noble boyar, minister of the sovereign", or the tsar.
From the outside, it seems that the men found a treasure on the road and are now dividing it among themselves. The peasants have already forgotten what business they left the house on, and they go no one knows where until night falls. Only here the peasants stop and, "blaming the trouble on the goblin", sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.

Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.

The fight alarmed the whole forest, the echo woke up, the animals and birds got worried, the cow mooed, the cuckoo forged, the jackdaws squeaked, the fox, eavesdropping on the peasants, decides to run away.

And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest.

When the fight is over, the men pay attention to this chick and catch it. It is easier for a bird than for a peasant, Pahom says. If he had wings, he would fly all over Russia to find out who lives best on it. “We don’t even need wings,” the rest add, they would only have bread and “a bucket of vodka,” as well as cucumbers, kvass and tea. Then they would have measured the whole "Mother Russia with their feet."

While the men are interpreting in this way, a chiffchaff flies up to them and asks to let her chick go free. For him, she will give a royal ransom: everything desired by the peasants.

The men agree, and the chiffchaff shows them a place in the forest where a box with a self-assembled tablecloth is buried. Then she enchants clothes on them so that they do not wear out, so that the bast shoes do not break, the footcloths do not decay, and the louse does not breed on the body, and flies away "with her dear chick." In parting, the warbler warns the peasants: they can ask for food from the self-collection tablecloth as much as they like, but you can’t ask for more than a bucket of vodka a day:

And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third be trouble!

The peasants rush to the forest, where they really find a self-assembled tablecloth. Overjoyed, they arrange a feast and give a vow: not to return home until they know for sure, "who lives happily, freely in Russia?"

Thus begins their journey.

Chapter 1. Pop

Far away stretches a wide path lined with birch trees. On it, the peasants mostly come across “small people” - peasants, artisans, beggars, soldiers. Travelers don’t even ask them anything: what kind of happiness is there? Toward evening, the men meet the priest. The men block his way and bow low. In response to the priest's silent question: what do they need?, Luka talks about the dispute and asks: "Is the priest's life sweet?"

The priest thinks for a long time, and then replies that, since it is a sin to grumble at God, he will simply describe his life to the peasants, and they themselves will realize whether it is good.

Happiness, according to the priest, consists in three things: "peace, wealth, honor." The priest knows no rest: his rank is obtained by hard work, and then no less difficult service begins, the crying of orphans, the cries of widows and the groans of the dying do little to promote peace of mind.

The situation with respect is no better: the priest serves as an object for witticisms of the common people, obscene tales, anecdotes and fables are composed about him, which do not spare not only himself, but also his wife and children.

The last thing remains, wealth, but even here everything has changed a long time ago. Yes, there were times when the nobles honored the priest, played magnificent weddings and came to their estates to die - that was the work of the priests, but now "the landowners have scattered in distant foreign land." So it turns out that the pop is content with rare copper nickels:

The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there is nothing ...

Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the debaters attack Luka with reproaches. They unanimously accuse him of stupidity, that it was only in appearance that the priestly housing seemed free to him, but he could not figure it out deeper.

What did you take? stubborn head!

The men would probably have beaten Luka, but here, fortunately for him, at the bend in the road, the “priestly strict face” is once again shown ...

Chapter 2

The men continue on their way, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally, they meet the rider and ask him where the inhabitants have disappeared.

They went to the village of Kuzminskoe,
Today there is a fairground...

Then the wanderers decide to also go to the fair - what if the one “who lives happily” is hiding there?

Kuzminskoye is a rich, though dirty village. It has two churches, a school, a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That’s why the fair is rich, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven taverns”, and they do not have time to pour for everyone:

Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!

There are a lot of drunk people around. A peasant scolds a broken ax, grandfather Vavila is sad next to him, who promised to bring shoes to his granddaughter, but drank all the money. The people feel sorry for him, but no one can help - they themselves have no money. Fortunately, there happens to be a "master", Pavlusha Veretennikov, and it is he who buys shoes for Vavila's granddaughter.

They sell at the fair and ofen, but the most base books, as well as portraits of “thicker” generals, are in demand. And no one knows if the time will come when a man:

Belinsky and Gogol
Will you carry it from the market?

By evening, everyone is so drunk that even the church with the bell tower seems to stagger, and the peasants leave the village.

Chapter 3

It's worth a quiet night. The men walk along the "hundred-voiced" road and hear snippets of other people's conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we are fifty kopecks to the clerk: We made a request,” women's songs are heard with a request to “fall in love.” One drunk guy buries his clothes in the ground, assuring everyone that he is "burying his mother." At the road post, the wanderers again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with the peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants for drinking a lot - "it's a shame to look!" They object to him: the peasant drinks mainly from grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy him.

The objector's name is Yakim Goly. Pavlusha also writes his story in a book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought his son popular prints, and he himself loved to look at them no less than a child. When a fire broke out in the hut, he first of all rushed to tear pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, burned down. For a fused lump, they now give him 11 rubles.

After listening to stories, the wanderers sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the bucket of vodka for the guard, and the rest again mix with the crowd in search of a happy one.

Chapter 4

Wanderers walk in the crowd and call the happy one to come. If such a person appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to glory with vodka.

Sober people chuckle at such speeches, but a considerable queue is lined up from drunk people. The deacon comes first. His happiness, in his words, "is in complacency" and in the "kosushka", which the peasants will pour. The deacon is driven away, and an old woman appears, in which, on a small ridge, "up to a thousand raps were born." The next torturing happiness is a soldier with medals, "a little alive, but I want to drink." His happiness lies in the fact that no matter how they tortured him in the service, he nevertheless remained alive. A stonecutter with a huge hammer, a peasant who overstrained himself in the service, but still, barely alive, arrived home, a courtyard man with a "noble" disease - gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table of the most illustrious prince, licking plates and drinking foreign wine from glasses. The men drive him away too, because they have a simple wine, “not according to your lips!”.

The line to the wanderers does not become smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats his fill of rye bread, because at home they baked bread only with chaff, and this caused terrible pain in the stomach. A man with a folded cheekbone, a hunter, is happy that he survived in a fight with a bear, while the bears killed the rest of his comrades. Even the beggars come: they are happy that there is alms on which they are fed.

Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers realize that this way they will not find happiness.

Hey, happiness man!
Leaky, with patches,
Humpbacked with calluses
Get off home!

Here one of the people who approached them advises “ask Yermila Girin”, because if he does not turn out to be happy, then there is nothing to look for. Yermila is a simple man who has earned the great love of the people. Wanderers are told the following story: once Ermila had a mill, but for debts...
decided to sell it. Bidding began, the merchant Altynnikov really wanted to buy the mill. Yermila was able to outbid him, but the trouble is that he did not have money with him to make a deposit. Then he asked for an hour's reprieve and ran to the market square to ask the people for money.

And a miracle happened: Yermil received money. Very soon, the thousand necessary for the ransom of the mill turned out to be with him. And a week later, on the square, there was an even more wonderful sight: Yermil "counted on the people", handed out all the money and honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Yermil asked until sunset whose it was.

Wanderers are perplexed: by what sorcery did Yermil receive such trust from the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Girin served as a clerk in the office and never took a penny from anyone, but helped with advice. Soon the old prince died, and the new one ordered the peasants to choose a burgomaster. Yermila shouted unanimously, “six thousand souls, with the whole patrimony” - although he is young, he loves the truth!

Only once did Yermil "disguise" when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitriy, replacing him with the son of Nenila Vlasyevna. But the conscience after this act tortured Yermila so much that he soon tried to hang himself. Mitrius was handed over to the recruits, and the son of Nenila was returned to her. Yermil, for a long time, did not walk on his own, “he resigned from his post,” but instead rented a mill and became “more than the former people love.”

But here the priest intervenes in the conversation: all this is true, but it is useless to go to Yermil Girin. He is sitting in prison. The priest begins to tell how it happened - the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Yermila - his people would listen.

The story is interrupted by cries: the thief has been caught and is being flogged. The thief turns out to be the same lackey with a "noble disease", and after the flogging, he flies away as if he had completely forgotten about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish telling the story at the next meeting.

Chapter 5

On their further journey, the peasants meet the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is at first frightened, suspecting robbers in them, but, having figured out what the matter is, he laughs and begins to tell his story. He leads his noble family from the Tatar Oboldui, who was skinned by a bear for the amusement of the empress. She granted cloth to the Tatar for this. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner ...

The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!

However, not all strictness, the landowner admits that he more "attracted hearts with affection"! All the courtyards loved him, gave him gifts, and he was like a father to them. But everything changed: the peasants and the land were taken away from the landowner. The sound of an ax is heard from the forests, everyone is being ruined, instead of estates drinking houses are multiplying, because now no one needs a letter at all. And they shout to the landowners:

Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! — learn! work hard!..

But how can a landowner work, accustomed to something completely different from childhood? They did not learn anything, and “thought to live like this for a century,” but it turned out differently.
The landowner began to sob, and the good-natured peasants almost wept with him, thinking:

The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..

Part 2

Last

The next day, the peasants go to the banks of the Volga, to a huge hay meadow. As soon as they got into a conversation with the locals, music was heard and three boats moored to the shore. They have a noble family: two gentlemen with their wives, little barchats, servants and a gray-haired old gentleman. The old man inspects the mowing, and everyone bows to him almost to the ground. In one place he stops and orders a dry haystack to be spread: the hay is still damp. The absurd order is immediately executed.

Strangers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man.

It turns out that the old man - Prince Utyatin - having learned about the abolition of serfdom, "fooled", and came down with a stroke. His sons were told that they had betrayed the landlord's ideals, that they could not defend them, and if so, they were left without an inheritance. The sons were frightened and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, so that after his death they would give the village poem meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to be returned back to the landowners, the prince was delighted and stood up. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:

Ipat said: “You have fun!
And I am the Utyatin princes
Slave - and the whole story here!

But Agap Petrov cannot come to terms with the fact that even in the wild someone will push him around. Once he told the master everything directly, and he had a stroke. When he woke up, he ordered Agap to be whipped, and the peasants, in order not to reveal the deceit, led him to the stable, where they put a bottle of wine in front of him: drink and shout louder! Agap died the same night: it was hard for him to bow down...
Wanderers are present at the feast of the Last, where he speaks about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in the boat and falls asleep in it with songs. The village of Vahlaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one gives them the meadows - the trial continues to this day.

Part 3

peasant woman

"Not everything between men
Find a happy
Let's feel the women! ”-
With these words strange

Iki goes to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, the governor, a beautiful woman of 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then she was only happy, how she grew up in her parents' house. But girlhood quickly rushed by, and now Matryona is already being wooed. Philip becomes her betrothed, handsome, ruddy and strong. He loves his wife, but soon goes to work, and leaves her with his large, but alien to Matryona, family.

Matryona works for her elder sister-in-law, and for a strict mother-in-law, and for her father-in-law. She had no joy in her life until her eldest son, Demushka, was born.

In the whole family, only the old grandfather Savely, the “Holy Russian hero”, who lives out his life after twenty years of hard labor, regrets Matryona. He ended up in hard labor for the murder of a German manager who did not give the peasants a single free minute. Savely told Matryona a lot about his life, about "Russian heroism."

The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka into the field: she does not work much with him. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep, and the pigs eat the child. After some time, Matryona meets Savely at the grave of Demushka, who has gone to repentance in the Sand Monastery. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.

Matryona also had other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherdess Fedot, once wanted to be whipped for a sheep carried away by a wolf, but Matrena took the punishment upon herself. When she was pregnant with Liodorushka, she had to go to the city to ask for the return of her husband, who had been taken into the soldiers. Right in the waiting room, Matryona gave birth, and the governor, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona has been "denounced as a lucky woman, nicknamed the governor's wife." But what kind of happiness is there?

This is what Matryonushka tells the wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to female happiness are lost, and even God does not know where to find them.

Part 4

A feast for the whole world

There is a feast in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered here: both wanderers, and Klim Yakovlich, and Vlas the headman. Among the feasters are two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, good simple guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “jolly” song, then the turn comes for different stories. There is a story about the “exemplary lackey - Jacob the faithful”, who all his life went after the master, fulfilled all his whims and even rejoiced at the master's beatings. Only when the master gave his nephew to the soldiers, Yakov took to drink, but soon returned to the master. And yet, Yakov did not forgive him, and was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he brought him, with his legs off, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree above the master.

There is a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. God's wanderer Jonah tells the story of "two sinners", about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened a conscience in him and imposed a penance on him: cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven him. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled it with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant's sin is still greater, and tells the story of the headman. He hid the last will of his master, who decided to release his peasants before his death. But the headman, tempted by money, tore free.

The crowd is subdued. Songs are sung: "Hungry", "Soldier's". But the time will come in Russia for good songs. Confirmation of this is two brothers-seminarians, Savva and Grisha. The seminarian Grisha, the son of a sexton, has known since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the happiness of the people. Love for his mother merges in his heart with love for the whole vakhlachin. Grisha walks along his edge and sings a song about Russia:

You are poor
You are abundant
You are powerful
You are powerless
Mother Russia!

And his plans will not be lost: fate prepares Grisha "a glorious path, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia." In the meantime, Grisha sings, and it is a pity that the wanderers do not hear him, because then they would understand that they had already found a happy person and could return home.

Conclusion

This ends the unfinished chapters of the poem by Nekrasov. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is presented with a large-scale picture of post-reform Russia, which, with torment, is learning to live in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the ruining Russian people, the problems of women, the ineradicable slave psychology and the main problem of people's happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to one degree or another still remain relevant today, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotations from it have become part of everyday speech. The compositional device of the main characters' wanderings brings the poem closer to an adventure novel, thanks to which it is read easily and with great interest.

A brief retelling of “To whom it is good to live in Russia” conveys only the most basic content of the poem; for a more accurate idea of ​​​​the work, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the full version of “To whom it is good to live in Russia”.

TO WHOM IN RUSSIA LIVE WELL

The men are arguing and do not notice how the evening comes. They built a fire, went for vodka, had a bite, and again began to argue about who lives "fun, freely in Russia." The dispute turned into a fight. At this time, a chick flew up to the fire. Pahom caught him. A chiffchaff bird appears and asks to let the chick go. In return, she tells how to find a self-assembled tablecloth. The groin releases the chick, the men go the indicated way and find a self-assembled tablecloth. The peasants decide not to return home until they find out "for certain", "Who lives happily, // Freely in Russia."

Chapter I Pop

The men are on their way. They meet peasants, artisans, coachmen, soldiers, and travelers understand that the life of these people cannot be called happy. Finally they meet pop. He proves to the peasants that the priest has no peace, no wealth, no happiness - it is difficult for a priest's son to get a diploma, the priesthood is even more expensive. The priest can be called at any time of the day or night, in any weather. The priest has to see the tears of the orphans and the death rattle of the dying. And there is no honor for the priest - they compose about him "funny tales // And obscene songs, // And all kinds of blasphemy." The priest has no wealth either - the rich landlords almost never live in Russia. The men agree with the priest. They go further.

Chapter II Village Fair

The peasants see poor living everywhere. A man bathes a horse in the river. The wanderers learn from him that all the people went to the fair. The men go there. At the fair, people trade, have fun, walk, drink. One peasant is crying in front of the people - he drank all the money, and the granddaughter of the guest is waiting at home. Pavlusha Veretennikov, nicknamed "master" bought shoes for his granddaughter. The old man is very happy. Wanderers are watching a performance in a booth.

Chapter III Drunken Night

People return drunk after the fair.

People go and fall

As if because of the buckshot rollers, the enemies are firing on the peasants.

Some man buries the little girl, while assuring that he is burying his mother. Women quarrel in a ditch: who has a worse house. Yakim Nagoi says that "there is no measure for Russian hops," but it is also impossible to measure the grief of the people.

This is followed by a story about Yakima Nag, who previously lived in St. Petersburg, then ended up in prison because of a lawsuit with a merchant. Then he came to live in his native village. He bought pictures with which he pasted over the hut and which he loved very much. There was a fire. Yakim rushed to save not the accumulated money, but the pictures that he later hung in the new hut. The people, returning, sing songs. Wanderers are sad about their own home, about their wives.

Chapter IV Happy

Wanderers walk among the festive crowd with a bucket of vodka. They promise it to the one who convinces that he is really happy. The deacon is the first to come, he says that he is happy that he believes in the kingdom of heaven. They don't give him vodka. An old woman comes up and says that a very large turnip has been born in her garden. They laughed at her and did not give anything either. A soldier comes with medals, says that he is happy that he survived. They brought it to him.

Approached stonemason tells about his happiness - about great strength. His opponent is a thin man. He says that at one time God punished him for boasting the same way. The contractor praised him at the construction site, and he was glad - he took the burden of fourteen pounds and brought it to the second floor. Since then, and withered. He goes to die at home, an epidemic begins in the car, the dead are unloaded at the stations, but he still survived.

A courtyard man comes, boasts that he was the prince's favorite slave, that he licked plates with the remnants of gourmet food, drank foreign drinks from glasses, suffers from a noble disease of gout. He is chased away. A Belarusian comes up and says that his happiness lies in bread, which he can't get enough of. At home, in Belarus, he ate bread with chaff and bark. A man who had been hurt by a bear came and said that his comrades had died while hunting, but he remained alive. The man received vodka from strangers. The beggars boast that they are happy because they are often served. The wanderers understand that they were wasting vodka on “muzhiks’ happiness” in vain. They are advised to ask Ermil Girin, who kept the mill, about happiness. By decision of the court, the mill is sold at auction. Yermil won the bargain with the merchant Altynnikov, the clerks demanded a third of the cost immediately, contrary to the rules. Yermil did not have money with him, which was required to be paid within an hour, and it was a long way to go home.

He went out to the square and asked the people to lend as much as they could. They got more money than they needed. Yermil gave the money, the mill became his, and the next Friday he distributed the debts. The wanderers wonder why the people believed Girin and gave money. They answer him that he achieved this with the truth. Girin served as a clerk in the estate of Prince Yurlov. He served for five years and did not take anything from anyone, he was attentive to everyone. But he was expelled, and a new clerk came in his place - a scoundrel and a grabber. After the death of the old prince, the new master drove out all the old henchmen and ordered the peasants to elect a new steward. All unanimously elected Yermila. He served honestly, but one day he nevertheless committed a misconduct - he “buffed out” his younger brother Mitriy, and instead of him, the son of Nenila Vlasyevna went to the soldiers.

Since that time, Yermil has become homesick - he does not eat, does not drink, says that he is a criminal. He said that let them (they judge according to their conscience. The son of Nenila Vlasvna was returned, and Mitriy was taken away, a fine was imposed on Yermila. A year after that, he did not go on his own, then resigned from his post, no matter how they begged him to stay.

The narrator advises to go to Girin, but another peasant says that Yermil is in jail. A riot broke out, government troops were needed. To avoid bloodshed, they asked Girin to address the people.

The story is interrupted by the cries of a drunken lackey suffering from gout - now he is suffering from a beating for theft. The strangers leave.

Chapter V Landowner

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev was “ruddy-faced, // portly, stocky, // sixty years old; // Mustaches are gray, long, // Tricks are valiant. He mistook the men for robbers, even drew a pistol. But they told him what it was. Obolduev laughs, gets down from the carriage and tells about the life of the landowners.

First, he talks about the antiquity of his kind, then recalls the old days, when "Not only Russian people, // Russian nature itself // Subdued us." Then the landowners lived well - luxurious feasts, a whole regiment of servants, their own actors, etc. The landowner recalls dog hunting, unlimited power, how he christened with all his patrimony "on bright Sunday."

Now there is a decline everywhere - “The noble estate // As if everything was hidden, // It died out!” The landowner cannot understand in any way why the “idle hacks” urge him to study and work, because he is a nobleman. He says that he has been living in the village for forty years, but he cannot distinguish a barley ear from a rye ear. The peasants think

The great chain is broken

Torn - jumped:

One end on the master,

Others for a man! ..

Last (From the second part)

Wanderers go, they see haymaking. They take the braids from the women, they begin to mow. Music is heard from the river - this is a landowner riding in a boat. The gray-haired man Vlas urges the women - you should not upset the landowner. Three boats moor to the shore, in them the landowner with his family and servants.

The old landowner bypasses the hay, finds fault that the hay is damp, demands to dry it. He leaves with his retinue for breakfast. Wanderers ask Vlas (he turned out to be the burgomaster) why the landowner orders if serfdom is abolished. Vlas replies that they have a special landowner: when he learned about the abolition of serfdom, he had a stroke - the left half of his body was taken away, he lay motionless.

The heirs arrived, but the old man recovered. His sons told him about the abolition of serfdom, but he called them traitors, cowards, etc. Out of fear that they would be deprived of their inheritance, the sons decide to indulge him in everything.

That is why they persuade the peasants to play a comedy, as if the peasants were returned to the landowners. But some peasants did not need to be persuaded. Ipat, for example, says: “And I’m a serf of the Duck princes - and that’s the whole story!” He recalls how the prince harnessed him to a cart, how he bathed him in an ice hole - he dipped him into one hole, pulled him out of another - and immediately gave him vodka.

The prince put Ipat on the goats to play the violin. The horse stumbled, Ipat fell, and the sleigh ran over him, but the prince left. But after a while he returned. Ipat is grateful to the prince that he did not leave him to freeze. Everyone agrees to pretend that serfdom has not been abolished.

Vlas does not agree to be the burgomaster. Agrees to be Klim Lavin.

Klim has a conscience of clay,

And Minin's beards,

Take a look, you'll think

That you can not find a peasant more powerful and sober.

The old prince walks and orders, the peasants laugh at him on the sly. The peasant Agap Petrov did not want to obey the orders of the old landowner, and when he found him cutting down the forest, he told Utyatin directly about everything, calling him a pea jester. The duckling took the second blow. But contrary to the expectations of the heirs, the old prince recovered again and began to demand a public flogging of Agap.

The latter is being persuaded by the whole world. They took him to the stable, put a damask of wine in front of him and told him to shout louder. He shouted so that even Utyatin took pity. Drunk Agap was carried home. Soon he died: “Klim, the shameless one, ruined him, anathema, with a blame!”

Utyatin is sitting at the table at this time. Peasants stand at the porch. Everyone is doing a comedy, as usual, except for one guy - he laughs. The man is a visitor, local orders are ridiculous to him. Utyatin again demands the punishment of the rebel. But the wanderers do not want to blame. Burmistrova's godfather saves the day - she says that her son was laughing - a foolish boy. Utyatin calms down, has fun and swaggers at dinner. Dies after dinner. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But the joy of the peasants was premature: "With the death of the Last, the caress of the lord disappeared."

Peasant woman (From the third part)

The wanderers decide to look for a happy man among women. They are advised to go to the village of Klin and ask for Matrena Timofeevna, nicknamed the "governor". Arriving in the village, the peasants see "wretched houses." The footman who met them explains that "The landowner is abroad, // And the steward is dying." Wanderers meet Matrena Timofeevna.

Matrena Timofeevna A portly woman,

Wide and dense

Thirty-eight years old.

Beautiful; gray hair,

The eyes are large, stern,

Eyelashes are the richest

Stern and swarthy.

Wanderers talk about their goal. The peasant woman replies that she has no time to talk about life now - she has to go harvest rye. The men offer to help. Matrena Timofeevna talks about her life.

Chapter I Before marriage

Matrena Timofeevna was born in a friendly, non-drinking family and lived "like in Christ's bosom." There was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Then Matrena Timofeevna met her betrothed:

On the mountain - a stranger!

Philip Korchagin - St. Petersburg worker,

A baker by skill.

Chapter II Songs

Matrena Timofeevna ends up in a strange house.

The family was big

Grumpy ... I got to hell with a girl's holi!

Husband went to work

Silence, patience advised ...

As ordered, so done:

She walked with anger in her heart.

And the Word did not say too much to anyone.

Filippushka came in winter,

I brought a silk handkerchief Yes, I took a ride on a sled On Catherine's day,

And as if there was no grief! ..

She says that her husband beat her only once, when her husband's sister arrived and he asked to give her shoes, but Matryona hesitated. Philip went back to work, and Matrena's son Demushka was born on Kazanskaya. Life in the mother-in-law's house has become even more difficult, but she endures:

Whatever they say, I work

No matter how they scold - I am silent.

Of the entire family of her husband, Matryona Timofeevna was pitied only by her grandfather Savely.

Chapter III Savely, Holy Russian Bogatyr

Matrena Timofeevna talks about Savelia.

With a huge gray mane,

Tea, twenty years uncut,

With a big beard

Grandfather looked like a bear ...<…>

... He already knocked,

According to fairy tales, a hundred years.

Grandfather lived in a special room,

Didn't like families

He didn’t let me into his corner;

And she was angry, barking,

His "branded, convict"

He honored his own son.

Savely will not be angry,

He will go into his light,

He reads the holy calendar, is baptized Yes, and suddenly he will say cheerfully:

“Branded, but not a slave!”…

Savely tells Matryona why he is called "branded". In the years of his youth, the serfs of his village did not pay dues, did not go to corvee, because they lived in remote places and it was difficult to get there. The landowner Shalashnikov tried to collect quitrent, but was not very successful in this.

Excellently fought Shalashnikov,

And not so hot great incomes received.

Soon Shalashnikov (he was a military man) was killed near Varna. His heir sends a German governor.

He makes the peasants work. They themselves do not notice how they cut through the clearing, that is, it has now become easy to get to them.

And then hard labor came to the Korez peasant -

Ruined to the bone!<…>

The German has a dead grip:

Until they let the world go

Without leaving, sucks!

This went on for eighteen years. The German built a factory, ordered to dig a well. The German began to scold those who dug the well for idleness (among them was Savely). The peasants pushed the German into a pit and the pit was dug up. Further - hard labor, Savely tried to escape from it, but he was caught. He spent twenty years in hard labor, another twenty in the settlement.

Chapter IV Demushka

Matryona Timofeevna gave birth to a son, but her mother-in-law does not allow her to be with the child, since the daughter-in-law began to work less.

The mother-in-law insists that Matryona Timofeevna leave her son with his grandfather. Savely overlooked the child: “The old man fell asleep in the sun, // He fed Demidushka to the pigs // Stupid grandfather! ..” Matryona blames her grandfather, cries. But it didn't end there:

The Lord got angry

He sent uninvited guests, Unrighteous judges!

A doctor, a camp officer, and the police appear in the village, accuse Matryona of deliberately killing a child. The doctor makes an autopsy, despite the requests of Matryona "without reproach // To an honest burial / / To betray the child." They call her crazy. Grandfather Saveliy says that her madness lies in the fact that she went to the authorities without taking with her "neither a security officer, nor a novina." They bury Demushka in a closed coffin. Matryona Timofeevna cannot come to her senses, Savely, trying to console her, says that her son is now in paradise.

Chapter V The She-Wolf

After Demushka died, Matryona "she was not herself," she could not work. The father-in-law decided to teach her a lesson with the reins. The peasant woman leaned at his feet and asked: "Kill!" The father-in-law retreated. Day and night Matrena Timofeevna is at her son's grave. Closer to winter, my husband arrived. Saveliy after the death of Demushka “For six days he lay hopelessly, // Then he went into the forests. // So sang, so grandpa cried, // What a forest groaned! And in the fall // He went to repentance // To the Sand Monastery. Every year Matryona has a baby. Three years later, the parents of Matrena Timofeevna die. She goes to her son's grave to cry. Meets grandfather Saveliy there. He came from the monastery to pray for "the dema of the poor, for all the suffering Russian peasantry." Savely did not live long - "in the autumn, the old one had some kind of deep wound on his neck, he was dying hard ...". Savely spoke of the share of the peasants:

There are three paths for men:

Tavern, jail and hard labor,

And the women in Russia

Three loops: white silk,

The second - red silk,

And the third - black silk,

Choose any!..

Four years have passed. Matryona resigned herself to everything. Once a pilgrim wanderer comes to the village, she talks about the salvation of the soul, demands from mothers that they do not feed babies with milk on fasting days. Matrena Timofeevna did not obey. “Yes, it is clear that God was angry,” the peasant woman believes. When her son Fedot was eight years old, he was sent to herd sheep. One day Fedot was brought in and told that he had fed a sheep to a she-wolf. Fedot says that a huge emaciated she-wolf appeared, grabbed a sheep and started running. Fedot caught up with her and took away the sheep, which was already dead. The she-wolf looked into his eyes plaintively and howled. From the bleeding nipples it was clear that she had wolf cubs in her lair. Fedot took pity on the she-wolf and gave her the sheep. Matrena Timofeevna, trying to save her son from a flogging, asks for mercy from the landowner, who orders to punish not the shepherd, but the “impudent woman”.

Chapter VI A Difficult Year

Matrena Timofeevna says that the she-wolf did not appear in vain - there was a lack of bread. The mother-in-law told the neighbors that Matryona, who had put on a clean shirt on Christmas, called on hunger.

For a husband, for an intercessor,

I got off cheap;

And one woman was Killed to death with stakes for the same thing.

Don't mess with the hungry!

After the lack of bread came the recruitment. The brother's older husband was taken to the soldiers, so the family did not expect trouble. But the husband of Matrena Timofeevna is taken to the soldiers out of turn. Life gets even harder. Children had to be sent around the world. The mother-in-law became even more grumpy.

Well don't dress up

Don't wash your face

Neighbors have sharp eyes

Vostro tongues!

Walk the street quieter

Carry your head down

When it's fun, don't laugh

Don't cry out of sadness!

Chapter VII The Governor

Matrena Timofeevna is going to the governor. She has difficulty getting to the city, as she is pregnant. Gives a ruble to the porter to let him in. He says to come back in two hours. Matrena Timofeevna comes, the doorman takes another ruble from her. The governor's wife drives up, Matryona Timofeevna rushes to her with a request for intercession. The peasant woman becomes ill. When she comes to, she is told that she has given birth to a child. The governor, Elena Alexandrovna, was very imbued with Matryona Timofeevna, went after her son as if she were her own (she herself had no children). A messenger is sent to the village to sort everything out. The husband was returned.

Chapter VIII A woman's parable

The men ask if Matryona Timofeevna told them everything. She says that everyone, except that they survived the fire twice, got sick three times.

anthrax, that instead of a horse she had to walk "in a harrow." Matrena Timofeevna recalls the words of the holy pilgrim who went to the "Athenian heights":

Keys to female happiness

From our free will Abandoned, lost in God himself!<…>

Yes, they are unlikely to be found ...

What kind of fish swallowed those sacred keys,

In what seas that fish walks - God forgot!

Feast - for the whole world

There is a feast in the village. Organized a feast Klim. They sent for the parish deacon Tryphon. He came along with his sons, seminarians Savvushka and Grisha.

... It was the eldest Already nineteen years old;

Now, as an archdeacon, I looked, and Grigory had a thin, pale face And thin, curly hair,

With a hint of red.

Simple guys, kind,

They mowed, reaped, sowed And drank vodka on holidays On a par with the peasantry.

The clerk and the seminarians began to sing.

Bitter times - bitter songs

Cheerful “Eat prison, Yasha! There is no milk!"

- "Where is our cow?"

Take away, my light!

The master for the offspring Took her home.

"Where are our chickens?" - The girls are yelling.

"Don't scream, fools!

The Zemsky court ate them;

He took another cart Yes, he promised to wait ... "

It is glorious for the people to live In Russia, a saint!

Then the wahlaks sang:

Corvee

Poor, unkempt Kalinushka,

Nothing for him to flaunt

Only the back is painted

Yes, you don’t know behind the shirt.

From the bast shoes to the collar, the skin is all ripped open,

The belly swells from the chaff.

twisted, twisted,

Slashed, tormented,

Hardly Kalina wanders.

It will knock on the feet of the tavern keeper,

Sorrow drowns in wine

Only on Saturday will come back to haunt his wife from the master's stables ...

The men remember the old order. One of the peasants recalls how one day their mistress decided to mercilessly beat the one "who says a strong word." The men stopped swearing, but as soon as the will was announced, they took their souls away so much that "priest Ivan was offended." Another man tells about the serf of the exemplary Jacob the faithful. The greedy landowner Polivanov had a faithful servant Yakov. He was devoted to the master without limit.

Jacob showed up like this from his youth, Only Jacob had joy:

Grooming the master, cherishing, appeasing Yes, the tribal youngster to swing.

Yakov's nephew Grisha grew up and asked the master for permission to marry the girl Arina.

However, the master himself liked her. He gave Grisha to the soldiers, despite the pleas of Yakov. The serf got drunk and disappeared. Polivanov feels bad without Yakov. Two weeks later, the serf returned. Polivanov is going to visit his sister, Yakov is taking him. They go through the forest, Yakov turns into a deaf place - Devil's ravine. Polivanov is frightened - he begs to be spared. But Yakov says that he is not going to get his hands dirty with murder, and hangs himself on a tree. Polivanov is left alone. He spends the whole night in the ravine, screaming, calling people, but no one responds. In the morning a hunter finds him. The landowner returns home, lamenting: “I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!"

After the story, the peasants start a dispute over who is more sinful - tavern owners, landowners, peasants or robbers. Klim Lavin fights with a merchant. Ionushka, the "humble praying mantis", talks about the power of faith. His story is about the holy fool Fomushka, who called people to flee to the forests, but he was arrested and taken to prison. From the cart, Fomushka shouted: “They beat you with sticks, rods, whips, you will be beaten with iron bars!” In the morning a military team came and pacification and interrogations began, that is, Fomushka's prophecy "almost came true to the point." Jonah talks about Efrosinyushka, the messenger of God, who, in her cholera years, “buries, heals, and takes care of the sick.” Iona Lyapushkin - praying mantis and wanderer. The peasants loved him and argued about who would be the first to take him in. When he appeared, everyone brought icons to meet him, and Jonah followed those whose icon he liked best. Jonah tells a parable about two great sinners.

About two great sinners

The true story was told to Jonah in Solovki by Father Pitirim. Howled twelve robbers, whose chieftain was Kudeyar. They lived in a dense forest, plundered a lot of wealth, and killed a lot of innocent souls. From near Kyiv, Kudeyar brought himself a beautiful girl. Unexpectedly, “the Lord awakened the conscience” of the robber. Kudeyar "He took off his mistress's head // And he spotted the captain." He returned home as an “old man in monastic clothes”, day and night he prays to God for forgiveness. A saint of the Lord appeared before Kudeyar. He pointed to a huge oak tree and said: “With the same knife that robbed, // Cut it with the same hand! ..<…>As soon as the tree collapses, / The chains of sin will fall. Kudeyar begins to fulfill what has been said. Time passes, and pan Glukhovsky passes by. He asks what Kudeyar is doing.

The Elder heard a lot of cruel, terrible things about the pan, And as a lesson to the sinner, he told his Secret.

Pan chuckled: “I don’t have tea for a long time,

In the world I honor only a woman,

Gold, honor and wine.

You have to live, old man, in my opinion:

How many slaves I destroy

I torture, I torture and hang,

And I would like to see how I sleep!

The hermit becomes furious, attacks the pan and plunges a knife into his heart. At that very moment, the tree collapsed, and a load of sins fell from the old man.

Both old and new Peasant sin

One admiral for military service, for the battle with the Turks near Ochakovo, the Empress was granted eight thousand souls of peasants. Dying, he gives the casket to Gleb the elder. Punishes the casket to protect, as it contains a will, according to which all eight thousand souls will receive freedom. After the death of the admiral, a distant relative appears on the estate, promises the headman a lot of money, and the will is burned. Everyone agrees with Ignat that this is a big sin. Grisha Dobrosklonov speaks about the freedom of the peasants, that "there will be no new Gleb in Russia." Vlas wishes Grisha wealth, a smart and healthy wife. Grisha in response:

I don't need any silver

No gold, but God forbid

So that my countrymen And every peasant Live freely and cheerfully In all of holy Russia!

A cart of hay is approaching. Soldier Ovsyannikov is sitting on the wagon together with his niece Ustinyushka. The soldier made his living with the help of a raik, a portable panorama showing objects through a magnifying glass. But the tool is broken. The soldier then came up with new songs and began to play on spoons. Sings a song.

Soldier's Toshen light,

There is no truth

Life is boring

The pain is strong.

German bullets,

Turkish bullets,

French bullets,

Russian sticks!

Klim notices that in his yard there is a deck on which he chopped firewood from his youth. She is "not as wounded" as Ovsyannikov. However, the soldier did not receive full board, as the doctor's assistant, when examining the wounds, said that they were second-rate. The soldier reapplies.

Good time - good songs

Grisha and Savva take their father home and sing:

The share of the people

his happiness.

Light and freedom First of all!

We ask God a little:

An honest thing To do skillfully Give us strength!

Working life -

A direct road to the heart of a friend,

Away from the threshold

Coward and lazy!

Isn't it heaven!

The division of the people

his happiness.

Light and freedom First of all!

Father fell asleep, Savvushka took up the book, and Grisha went into the field. Grisha has a thin face - in the seminary they were underfed by the housekeeper. Grisha remembers his mother Domna, whose favorite son he was. Sings a song:

In the midst of the world below For a free heart There are two ways.

Weigh the proud strength

Weigh firm will, -

How to go?

One spacious road - tornaya,

The passions of a slave

On it is huge,

To the temptation of the greedy Crowd goes.

About sincere life

About the lofty goal There the thought is ridiculous.

Grisha sings a song about the bright future of his homeland: "You are still destined to suffer a lot, / But you will not die, I know." Grisha sees a barge hauler, who, having completed his work, clinking coppers in his pocket, goes to a tavern. Grisha sings another song.

You are poor

You are abundant

You are powerful

You are powerless

Mother Russia!

Grisha is pleased with his song:

He heard immense strength in his chest, His gracious sounds delighted his ears, The radiant sounds of the noble anthem - He sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people! ..

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A poem by N.A. Nekrasov's "Who Lives Well in Russia", on which he worked for the last ten years of his life, but did not have time to fully realize, cannot be considered unfinished. It contains everything that made up the meaning of the spiritual, ideological, life and artistic searches of the poet from youth to death. And this "everything" found a worthy - capacious and harmonious - form of expression.

What is the architectonics of the poem "Who should live well in Russia"? Architectonics is the “architecture” of a work, the construction of a whole from separate structural parts: chapters, parts, etc. In this poem, it is complex. Of course, the inconsistency in the division of the huge text of the poem gives rise to the complexity of its architectonics. Not everything is added, not everything is uniform and not everything is numbered. However, this does not make the poem less amazing - it shocks anyone who is able to feel compassion, pain and anger at the sight of cruelty and injustice. Nekrasov, creating typical images of unjustly ruined peasants, made them immortal.

The beginning of the poem -"Prologue" - sets the tone of the whole work.

Of course, this is a fabulous beginning: no one knows where and when, no one knows why seven men converge. And a dispute flares up - how can a Russian person be without a dispute; and the peasants turn into wanderers, wandering along an endless road to find the truth hidden either behind the next turn, or behind the nearby hill, or not at all achievable.

In the text of the Prologue, whoever appears, as if in a fairy tale: a woman is almost a witch, and a gray hare, and small jackdaws, and a chick, and a cuckoo ... Seven eagle owls look at the wanderers in the night, the echo echoes their cries, an owl, a cunning fox - everyone has been here. In the groin, examining a small birdie - a chick of a warbler - and seeing that she is happier than a peasant, he decides to find out the truth. And, as in a fairy tale, the mother warbler, helping out the chick, promises to give the peasants plenty of everything they ask for on the road, so that they only find the truthful answer, and shows the way. The Prologue is not like a fairy tale. This is a fairy tale, only literary. So the peasants give a vow not to return home until they find the truth. And the wandering begins.

Chapter I - "Pop". In it, the priest defines what happiness is - “peace, wealth, honor” - and describes his life in such a way that none of the conditions for happiness is suitable for it. The calamities of the peasant parishioners in impoverished villages, the revelry of the landowners who left their estates, the desolated local life - all this is in the bitter answer of the priest. And, bowing low to him, the wanderers go further.

Chapter II wanderers at the fair. The picture of the village: "a house with an inscription: school, empty, / Clogged tightly" - and this is in the village "rich, but dirty." There, at the fair, a familiar phrase sounds to us:

When a man is not Blucher

And not my lord foolish—

Belinsky and Gogol

Will it carry from the market?

In Chapter III "Drunken Night" bitterly describes the eternal vice and consolation of the Russian serf peasant - drunkenness to the point of unconsciousness. Pavlusha Veretennikov reappears, known among the peasants of the village of Kuzminsky as a “master” and met by wanderers there, at the fair. He records folk songs, jokes - we would say, he collects Russian folklore.

Having recorded enough

Veretennikov told them:

"Smart Russian peasants,

One is not good

What they drink to stupefaction

Falling into ditches, into ditches—

It's a shame to look!"

This offends one of the men:

There is no measure for Russian hops.

Did they measure our grief?

Is there a measure for work?

Wine brings down the peasant

And grief does not bring him down?

Work not falling?

A man does not measure trouble,

Copes with everything

Whatever come.

This peasant, who stands up for everyone and defends the dignity of a Russian serf, is one of the most important heroes of the poem, the peasant Yakim Nagoi. Surname this - speaking. And he lives in the village of Bosov. The story of his unthinkably hard life and ineradicable proud courage is learned by wanderers from local peasants.

Chapter IV wanderers walk around in the festive crowd, bawling: “Hey! Is there somewhere happy? - and the peasants in response, who will smile, and who will spit ... Pretenders appear, coveting the drink promised by the wanderers "for happiness". All this is both scary and frivolous. Happy is the soldier who is beaten, but not killed, did not die of hunger and survived twenty battles. But for some reason this is not enough for the wanderers, although it is a sin to refuse a soldier a glass. Pity, not joy, are also caused by other naive workers who humbly consider themselves happy. The stories of the "happy" are getting scarier and scarier. There is even a type of princely "slave", happy with his "noble" illness - gout - and the fact that at least it brings him closer to the master.

Finally, someone sends the wanderers to Yermil Girin: if he is not happy, then who is! The story of Yermila is important for the author: the people raised money so that, bypassing the merchant, the peasant would buy a mill on the Unzha (a large navigable river in the Kostroma province). The generosity of the people, giving their last for a good cause, is a joy for the author. Nekrasov is proud of the men. After that, Yermil gave everything to his own, there was a ruble not given away - the owner was not found, and the money was collected enormously. Ermil gave the ruble to the poor. The story follows about how Yermil won the trust of the people. His incorruptible honesty in the service, first as a clerk, then as a lord's manager, his help for many years created this trust. It seemed that the matter was clear - such a person could not but be happy. And suddenly the gray-haired priest announces: Yermil is in prison. And he was planted there in connection with the rebellion of the peasants in the village of Stolbnyaki. How and what - the strangers did not have time to find out.

In Chapter V - "The Landlord" - the carriage rolls out, in it - and indeed the landowner Obolt-Obolduev. The landowner is described comically: a plump gentleman with a "pistol" and a paunch. Note: he has a "speaking", as almost always with Nekrasov, name. “Tell us Godly, is the landowner’s life sweet?” the strangers stop him. The landowner's stories about his "root" are strange to the peasants. Not feats, but disgrace to please the queen and the intention to set fire to Moscow - these are the memorable deeds of illustrious ancestors. What is the honor for? How to understand? The story of the landowner about the charms of the former master's life somehow does not please the peasants, and Obolduev himself bitterly recalls the past - it is gone, and gone forever.

To adapt to a new life after the abolition of serfdom, one must study and work. But labor - not a noble habit. Hence the grief.

"The Last". This part of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Russia" begins with a picture of haymaking in water meadows. The royal family appears. The appearance of an old man is terrible - the father and grandfather of a noble family. The ancient and vicious prince Utyatin is alive because, according to the story of the peasant Vlas, his former serfs conspired with the lord's family to depict the former serfdom for the sake of the prince's peace of mind and so that he would not refuse his family, by a whim of an senile inheritance. The peasants were promised to give back the water meadows after the death of the prince. The "faithful slave" Ipat was also found - at Nekrasov, as you have already noticed, and such types among the peasants find their description. Only the peasant Agap could not stand it and scolded the Last One for what the world was worth. Punishment in the stable with whips, feigned, turned out to be fatal for the proud peasant. The latter died almost before the eyes of our wanderers, and the peasants are still suing for the meadows: "The heirs compete with the peasants until this day."

According to the logic of the construction of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia”, then follows, as it were, herThe second part , entitled"Peasant Woman" and having its own"Prologue" and their chapters. The peasants, having lost faith in finding a happy man among the peasants, decide to turn to the women. There is no need to retell what and how much "happiness" they find in the share of women, peasants. All this is expressed with such a depth of penetration into the suffering woman's soul, with such an abundance of details of the fate, slowly told by a peasant woman, respectfully referred to as "Matryona Timofeevna, she is a governor", that at times it touches to tears, then it makes you clench your fists with anger. She was happy one of her first women's nights, but when was that!

Songs created by the author on a folk basis are woven into the narrative, as if sewn on the canvas of a Russian folk song (Chapter 2. "Songs" ). There, the wanderers sing with Matryona in turn, and the peasant woman herself, recalling the past.

My disgusting husband

Rises:

For a silk whip

Accepted.

choir

The whip whistled

Blood splattered...

Oh! leli! leli!

Blood splattered...

To match the song was the married life of a peasant woman. Only her grandfather, Saveliy, took pity on her and consoled her. “There was also a lucky man,” recalls Matryona.

A separate chapter of the poem "To whom it is good to live in Russia" is dedicated to this powerful Russian man -"Savelius, Holy Russian hero" . The title of the chapter speaks of its style and content. The branded, former convict, heroic build, the old man speaks little, but aptly. “To not endure is an abyss, to endure is an abyss,” are his favorite words. The old man buried alive in the ground for the atrocities against the peasants of the German Vogel, the master's manager. The image of Saveliy is collective:

Do you think, Matryonushka,

The man is not a hero?

And his life is not military,

And death is not written for him

In battle - a hero!

Hands twisted with chains

Legs forged with iron

Back ... dense forests

Passed on it - broke.

And the chest? Elijah the prophet

On it rattles-rides

On a chariot of fire...

The hero suffers everything!

Chapter"Dyomushka" the worst thing happens: the son of Matryona, left at home unattended, is eaten by pigs. But this is not enough: the mother was accused of murder, and the police opened the child in front of her eyes. And it’s even worse that Saveliy the Bogatyr himself, a deep old man who fell asleep and overlooked the baby, was innocently guilty of the death of his beloved grandson, who awakened the suffering soul of his grandfather.

In chapter V - "She-wolf" - the peasant woman forgives the old man and endures everything that is left for her in life. Chasing after the she-wolf who carried away the sheep, Matryona's son Fedotka the shepherd pity the beast: the hungry, powerless, with swollen nipples mother of the wolf cubs sits down in front of him on the grass, suffers beatings, and the little boy leaves her the sheep, already dead. Matryona accepts punishment for him and lays down under the whip.

After this episode, Matryona’s song lamentations on a gray stone above the river, when she, an orphan, calls a father, then a mother for help and comfort, complete the story and create a transition to a new year of disasters -Chapter VI "A Difficult Year" . Hungry, “Looks like kids / I was like her,” Matryona recalls the she-wolf. Her husband is shaved into the soldiers without a term and out of turn, she remains with her children in the hostile family of her husband - a "parasite", without protection and help. The life of a soldier is a special topic, revealed in detail. Soldiers flog her son with rods in the square - you can’t even understand why.

A terrible song precedes the escape of Matryona alone on a winter night (Head of the Governor ). She rushed backward onto the snowy road and prayed to the Intercessor.

And the next morning Matryona went to the governor. She fell at her feet right on the stairs so that her husband would be returned, and she gave birth. The governor turned out to be a compassionate woman, and Matryona returned with a happy child. They nicknamed the Governor, and life seemed to get better, but then the time came, and they took the eldest as a soldier. “What else do you want? - Matryona asks the peasants, - the keys to women's happiness ... are lost, ”and cannot be found.

The third part of the poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia”, which is not called that, but has all the signs of an independent part - a dedication to Sergei Petrovich Botkin, an introduction and chapters - has a strange name -"Feast for the whole world" . In the introduction, a kind of hope for the freedom granted to the peasants, which is still not visible, illuminates the face of the peasant Vlas with a smile for almost the first time in his life. But the first chapter"Bitter Time - Bitter Songs" - represents either a stylization of folk couplets telling about famine and injustice under serfdom, then mournful, “drawn-out, sad” Vahlat songs about inescapable forced anguish, and finally, “Corvee”.

Separate chapter - story"About an exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful" - begins as if about a serf of the slavish type that Nekrasov was interested in. However, the story takes an unexpected and sharp turn: unable to bear the insult, Yakov first took to drink, fled, and when he returned, he brought the master into a swampy ravine and hanged himself in front of him. A terrible sin for a Christian is suicide. The wanderers are shocked and frightened, and a new dispute begins - a dispute about who is the most sinful of all. Tells Ionushka - "humble praying mantis".

A new page of the poem opens -"Wanderers and Pilgrims" , for her -"About two great sinners" : a tale about Kudeyar-ataman, a robber who killed an uncountable number of souls. The story goes in an epic verse, and, as if in a Russian song, the conscience wakes up in Kudeyar, he accepts hermitage and repentance from the saint who appeared to him: to cut off the century-old oak with the same knife with which he killed. The work is many years old, the hope that it will be possible to complete it before death is weak. Suddenly, the well-known villain Pan Glukhovsky appears on horseback in front of Kudeyar and tempts the hermit with shameless speeches. Kudeyar cannot withstand the temptation: a knife is in the pan's chest. And - a miracle! - collapsed century-old oak.

The peasants start a dispute about whose sin is heavier - "noble" or "peasant".In the chapter "Peasant sin" Also, in an epic verse, Ignatius Prokhorov talks about the Judas sin (sin of betrayal) of a peasant headman who was tempted to pay a heir and hid the will of the owner, in which all eight thousand souls of his peasants were set free. The listeners shudder. There is no forgiveness for the destroyer of eight thousand souls. The despair of the peasants, who admitted that such sins are possible among them, pours out in a song. "Hungry" - a terrible song - a spell, the howl of an unsatisfied beast - not a man. A new face appears - Grigory, the young godson of the headman, the son of a deacon. He consoles and inspires the peasants. After groaning and thinking, they decide: To all the fault: grow stronger!

It turns out that Grisha is going "to Moscow, to Novovorsitet." And then it becomes clear that Grisha is the hope of the peasant world:

"I don't need any silver,

No gold, but God forbid

So that my countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Russia!

But the story continues, and the wanderers become witnesses of how an old soldier, thin as a chip, hung with medals, drives up on a hay cart and sings his song - “Soldier's” with the refrain: “The light is sick, / There is no bread, / There is no shelter, / There is no death,” and to others: “German bullets, / Turkish bullets, / French bullets, / Russian sticks.” Everything about the soldier's share is collected in this chapter of the poem.

But here's a new chapter with a peppy title"Good time - good songs" . The song of new hope is sung by Savva and Grisha on the Volga bank.

The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a sexton from the Volga, of course, combines the features of Nekrasov's dear friends - Belinsky, Dobrolyubov (compare the names), Chernyshevsky. They could sing this song too. Grisha barely managed to survive the famine: his mother's song, sung by peasant women, is called "Salty". A piece watered with mother's tears is a substitute for salt for a starving child. “With love for the poor mother / Love for the whole vakhlachin / Merged, - and for fifteen years / Gregory already knew for sure / That he would live for happiness / Poor and dark native corner.” Images of angelic forces appear in the poem, and the style changes dramatically. The poet moves on to marching three lines, reminiscent of the rhythmic tread of the forces of good, inevitably crowding out the obsolete and evil. "Angel of Mercy" sings an invocative song over a Russian youth.

Grisha, waking up, descends into the meadows, thinks about the fate of his homeland, and sings. In the song, his hope and love. And firm confidence: “Enough! /Finished with the past calculation, /Finished calculation with the master! / The Russian people gathers strength / And learns to be a citizen.

"Rus" is the last song of Grisha Dobrosklonov.

Source (abridged): Mikhalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: Grade 10. At 2 o'clock. Part 1: account. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitsev. - M.: Bustard, 2018

Written in blank verse and stylized as old legends, the poem tells about a long journey through the lands of mother Russia of seven travelers who asked themselves the question “who in Russia should live well”. Nekrasov wrote his work in the second half of the 19th century as a review of the reforms of Alexander II, who abolished serfdom. The way of the wanderers was supposed to end in St. Petersburg, but due to illness and the sudden death of the writer, the poem remained unfinished.

Brief retelling of the plot of the poem "Who lives well in Russia"

A long time ago, seven men from adjacent villages met on a country road. These were poor people who did not become happier with the abolition of serfdom in Russia. A dispute ensued between the travelers - who lives well in their native lands? Such a hot conversation came out that the men waved 30 miles together and did not notice.

We stopped for the night, added vodka and a fire to the trip, got into a fight, but never got the truth. Apparently fate itself connected these people - the men went on a long journey in search of a happy person. We met a lot of people, listened to dozens of stories. The people in Russia are strong, patient, but happiness seems to bypass it ...

List and brief description of the characters of the poem "Who lives well in Russia"

• Seven male travelers:

1. Roman - there is no data about him in the poem, there is no characteristic;
2. Demyan - the most "educated" of the travelers, can read in syllables;
3. Luka is a stupid, bearded peasant;
4. Ivan Gubin and his brother
5. Mitrodor Gubin - drunkards, versed in horses;
6. Old man Pahom - a beekeeper, a quick-witted elderly uncle;
7. Prov is a gloomy man of strong physique.

• Matryona Timofeevna - Matryona's life is difficult, she lost her parents early, survived the death of her son. She steadfastly meets the machinations of fate, but she definitely cannot be attributed to the lucky ones.
• Bogatyr Savely - Matryona also told travelers about the sad fate of Savely.
• Pop is a priest with a difficult service in the village church.
• Ermil Girin is a young, smart, kind and hardworking peasant. He was the burgomaster, but he made a mistake and could not come to terms with it.
• Obold Obolduev is a landowner who really lacks serfdom.
• Prince Utyatin is an old prince who did not recognize the abolition of serfdom.
• Grisha Dobrosklonov is a 15-year-old son of a deacon, a smart and kind fellow, living in poverty, forced to constantly starve.

Summary of Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" by chapter

PART I

Prologue

Seven men met - Demyan, Roman, Luka, Mitrodor, Ivan, Pahom and Prov - from adjacent villages in the Terpigorev district with "talking" names: Dyryaevo, Razutovo, Zaplatovo, Znobishino, Neelovo, Gorelovo, Neurozhayko.

The peasants started a dispute "who lives better: the priest, the official, the landowner, the tsar." They argued all the way together, reached the forest and grappled in a fight. And then they caught the chick. His mother, a bird, in order to “ransom” her cub, told the peasants where the self-assembled tablecloth was hidden and bewitched their clothes so that they would never fray. The travelers unfolded the tablecloth, ate and drank, and promised each other that they would not return home until they found someone who lived well in Russia. And so began their long journey...

Chapter 1. Pop

Travelers walked along the birches for a long time. On the way they came across poor peasants and other "small" people. It was stupid to ask them about happiness - where does it come from ?!

Finally, met the disputants pop. Luka asked him if he was having a good time. Pop considered it a sinful thing to complain about life and simply told how and by what it exists. For him, happiness is "peace, wealth and honor." But from the story of the clergyman, seven men concluded that all three of these values ​​are absolutely unattainable for a new acquaintance. There is nothing good in the life of a priest in Russia.

Chapter 2

Along the way, the peasants come across many deserted villages. It turns out that in one village, the richest, there is a fair. Travelers decide to wander there and look for happy villagers. But they do not find anything good - only dirt, poverty and unrestrained booze.

Chapter 3

On a hundred-voiced road, the peasants come across drunk and talkative people. One of these, Yakin Goly, tells them his story: how he saved popular prints from a burning house and lost all his savings. Then the travelers stop to rest and again “join” the crowd to look for the lucky Russians.

Chapter 4

The wanderers went for a little trick. They began to shout to the people that if a “happy one” comes up to them, they will treat him to vodka for that. People immediately line up. And everyone is happy, as if by choice: the soldier is glad that he barely alive returned from the hellish service, the grandmother is delighted with the turnip harvest, and so on. So they handed out a whole bucket of vodka, but they didn’t find a happy one.

One of the queue peasants told the story of Ermila Girin, who may be the lucky one. Ermila managed to rise to the ruling rank, he is respected and loved by all the common people. But where is he? The “lucky one” is in prison, and for what the priest promised to tell, but a thief was caught in the crowd and everyone rushed to the screams.

Chapter 5

The next on the path of the seekers of happy people was the landowner Gavrila Obolt-Obolduev. And he told casual acquaintances about his fate. How well he lived under serfdom and how hard without it. At the end of the story, the landowner burst into tears.

PART II

Last

The men met the new day on the banks of the Volga River. In front of them stretched a huge meadow with mowed hay. Three boats landed on the shore, and in them a family of nobles. With the oldest of them, everyone around fawned, including the peasants freed from serfdom.

It turned out it was not easy. Prince Utyatin, or the Last (nickname), as he learned that the serfs were being liberated, promised to deprive his sons of their inheritance, since they did not defend the ideals of the landowners. Boyar children persuaded the peasants to play along with them and soon announced to the priest that everything was back to normal. The peasants were promised a lot of lordly land for the performance. The old man died, the peasants were left with nothing.

PART III

peasant woman

Wanderers visit the governor Matryona Korchagina, who is 38 years old, but she calls herself an old woman. The woman tells them her difficult fate. She was happy for a long time and only when she lived in girls with her father and mother. Then she got married, her husband went to work, and she stayed in his family to live. She served everyone, but only old grandfather Savely regretted it. Pigs ate Matryonin's firstborn, then there were still children, and even her husband was begged home from military service. Summing up her speech, Matryona admitted to travelers that the concept of “female happiness” simply does not exist in Russia.

PART IV

A feast for the whole world

There is a feast for the whole village of Vakhlacheno. Here: Klim Yakovlich, the head of Vlas, and young seminary students Savvushka and Grisha, who sing good songs. Stories are again told at the table, for example, about the faithful serf Yakov. He served the master and loved him, endured everything until he gave his nephew to military service. The serf drank down, and when he was remorseful, he returned to the master and after a while severely avenged himself. Gradually, conversations turn to sad, bloody stories, people begin to sing sad songs.

But the day will come when Russia will sing only good songs and there will be no need to look for happy ones - everyone will be happy. The first bricks for this day have been laid, and they are two seminarians at a common table. Grisha, the son of a deacon, from a very young age decided to devote himself to the struggle for the happiness of the people. He loves his native village as much as his mother. And he walks through his native land with a song on his lips. His plans and dreams will come true, this boy will have a difficult but noble life. It is a pity that the travelers do not hear how Grisha sings about Russia, then they would not have gone further, but went home, as they would have realized that they had found the one they went to look for.

This is how Nekrasov's poem ended, but even from its unfinished chapters it becomes clear to the reader how hard it was for the people after the reforms in Russia.

The history of the creation of Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Russia"

The plot of the poem was conceived by the author in the 1850s, and the last point was put by him in 1877. For almost 15 years, Nekrasov worked closely on this work and, unfortunately, death did not allow him to complete his work. The editors and publishers received the manuscript in a scattered form, since the writer did not have time to put it together in the right order. A version of the poem known to contemporaries was prepared for publication by K. Chukovsky, based on the notes, diaries and drafts of Nekrasov.

“Not everyone between men is looking for a happy one, let's feel the women!” - decide the strangers. They are advised to go to the village of Klin and ask Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, whom everyone called the "governor's wife". Wanderers come to the village:

Whatever the hut - with a prop, Like a beggar with a crutch; And from the roofs the straw is fed to the Cattle. Stand like skeletons, Wretched houses.

At the gate, the wanderers meet a lackey, who explains that "the landowner is abroad, and the steward is dying." Some men catch small fish in the river, complaining that there used to be more fish. Peasants and courtyards take away whoever can:

One courtyard was tormented At the door: copper handles Unscrewed; the other carried some kind of tiles ...

The gray-haired courtyard offers to buy foreign books for wanderers, is angry that they refuse:

What do you need smart books for? Drinking signs for you Yes, the word "forbidden", What is found on the poles, Enough to read!

The wanderers hear how a beautiful bass sings a song in an incomprehensible language. It turns out that “the singer of Novo-Arkhangelskaya, the gentlemen lured him from Little Russia. They promised to take him to Italy, but they left. Finally, the wanderers meet Matrena Timofeevna.

Matrena Timofeevna A portly woman, Broad and thick, Thirty-eight years old. Beautiful; hair with gray hair, Big, strict eyes, Eyelashes of the richest, Harsh and swarthy.

The wanderers tell why they set off on their journey, Matrena Timofeevna replies that she has no time to talk about her zhiani - she has to reap rye. The wanderers promise to help her harvest the rye, Matrena Timofeevna "began to open her whole soul to our wanderers."

before marriage

I was lucky in the girls:

We had a good

Non-drinking family.

For father, for mother,

Like Christ in the bosom,

There was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Finally, “the betrothed appeared”:

On the mountain - a stranger!

Philip Korchagin - St. Petersburg worker,

A baker by skill.

The father took a walk with the matchmakers, promised to give his daughter away. Matryona does not want to go after Philip, he persuades, says that he will not offend. In the end, Matrena Timofeevna agrees.

Chapter 2 Songs

Matryona Timofeevna ends up in a strange house - to her mother-in-law and father-in-law. The narrative is interrupted from time to time by songs about the hard lot of a girl who got married "to the wrong side."

The family was huge, Grumpy... I got to Hell from a girl's Holi! Husband went to work

Silence, patience advised ...

As ordered, so done:

Walked with anger in my heart

And didn't say too much

Word to nobody.

Filippushka came in winter,

Bring a silk handkerchief

Yes, I took a ride on a sled

On Catherine's day

And as if there was no grief! ..

Wanderers ask: “It’s like you didn’t beat it?” Matrena Timofeevna replies that only once, when her husband's sister arrived and he asked to give her shoes, and Matrena Timofeevna hesitated. On the Annunciation, Philip again goes to work, and on Kazanskaya, Matryona had a son, who was named Demushka. Life in the house of her husband's parents has become even more difficult, but Matryona endures:

Whatever they say, I work, No matter how they scold me, I keep quiet.

Of the whole family of her husband, One Saveliy, grandfather, Parent of father-in-law, took pity on me ...

Matrena Timofeevna asks the wanderers whether to tell about grandfather Savely, they are ready to listen.

Chapter 3 Savely, Holy Russian Bogatyr

With a huge gray mane,

Tea, twenty years uncut,

With a big beard

Grandpa looked like a bear...

He already hit

According to fairy tales, a hundred years.

Grandfather lived in a special room,

Didn't like families

He didn’t let me into his corner;

And she was angry, barking,

His "branded, convict"

He honored his own son. Saveliy will not be angry, He will go into his small room, Read the holy calendar, cross himself And suddenly he will say cheerfully: “Branded, but not a slave” ...

One day, Matryona asks Saveliy why he is called branded and hard labor. Grandfather tells her his life. In the years of his youth, the peasants of his village were also serfs, “but we didn’t know either the landlords or the German managers then. We didn’t rule the corvee, we didn’t pay dues, and so, when we judge, we’ll send it three times a year. ” The places were deaf, and no one could get there through the thickets and swamps. “Our landowner Shalashnikov through animal paths with his regiment - he was a military man - he tried to approach us, but he turned his skis!” Then Shalashnikov sends an order - to appear, but the peasants do not go. The police swooped down (there was a drought) - “we are a tribute to her with honey, fish”, when they arrived another time - with “animal skins”, and the third time they did not give anything. They put on old bast shoes, full of holes, and went to Shalashnikov, who was stationed with a regiment in the provincial town. They came and said there was no dues. Shalashnikov ordered them to be flogged. Shalashnikov thrashed him hard, and he had to “split them up”, get the money and bring half a cap of “lobanchiks” (semi-imperials). Shalashnikov immediately calmed down, even drank with the peasants. They set off on their way back, the two old men laughed that they were carrying home hundred-ruble notes sewn in the lining.

Excellently fought Shalashnikov, And not so hot great Incomes received.

Soon a notification arrives that Shalashnikov has been killed near Varna.

The heir invented a remedy: He sent a German to us. Through dense forests, Through swampy marshes, A rogue came on foot!

And at first he was quiet: "Pay what you can." - We can't do anything!

"I'll notify the gentleman."

Notify! .. - That ended.

The German, Christian Christian Vogel, meanwhile gained confidence in the peasants, saying: "If you can't pay, then work." They are interested in what the job is. He replies that it is desirable to dig in the swamp with grooves, cut down the trees where it is planned. The peasants did as he asked, they see - it turned out to be a clearing, a road. Caught up, it's too late.

And then came the hardship

Korean peasant -

Ruined to the bone!

And he fought ... like Shalashnikov himself!

Yes, he was simple: pounce

With all military strength,

Think it will kill you!

And sun the money - fall off,

Neither give nor take bloated

Tick ​​in a dog's ear.

The German has a dead grip:

Until they let the world go

Without leaving, sucks! This life continued for eighteen years. The German built a factory, ordered to dig a well. It was dug by nine people, including Savely. After working until noon, we decided to rest. Then a German appeared, began to scold the peasants for idleness. The peasants pushed the German into the pit, Savely shouted "Naddy!", and Vogel was buried alive. Then there was “hard labor and whips in advance; they didn’t tear it out - they anointed it, there’s a bad rag there! Then ... I fled from hard labor ... Caught! They didn’t pat on the head either.”

And life was not easy.

Twenty years of strict hard labor.

Twenty years of settlement.

I saved money

According to the royal manifesto

Went home again

Built this burner

And I have been living here for a long time.

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