Brief summary of Saltyks. General lack of school curriculum

BARAN-NEPOMNYASHCHY
The forgetful ram is the hero of a fairy tale. He began to see vague dreams that disturbed him, forcing him to suspect that "the world does not end with the walls of a barn." The sheep began mockingly calling him "wise man" and "philosopher" and shunned him. The ram withered and died. Explaining what had happened, the shepherd Nikita suggested that the deceased "saw a free ram in a dream."

BOGATYR
The hero is the hero of a fairy tale, the son of Baba Yaga. Sent by her to exploits, he uprooted one oak tree, crushed another with his fist, and when he saw the third, with a hollow, he climbed in there and fell asleep, frightening the neighborhood with snoring. His fame was great. The hero was both afraid and hoped that he would gain strength in a dream. But centuries passed, and he was still sleeping, not coming to the aid of his country, no matter what happened to it. When, during an enemy invasion, they approached him to help him out, it turned out that the Bogatyr had long been dead and rotted. His image was so clearly aimed against the autocracy that the tale remained unpublished until 1917.

WILD LANDMAN
The wild landowner is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. Having read the retrograde newspaper Vest, he foolishly complained that "there are too many divorced ... peasants," and tried in every possible way to oppress them. God heard the tearful peasant prayers, and "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner." He was delighted (the “clean” air became), but it turned out that now he could neither receive guests, nor eat himself, nor even wipe the dust from the mirror, and there was no one to pay taxes to the treasury. However, he did not deviate from his "principles" and as a result became wild, began to move around on all fours, lost his human speech and became like a predatory beast (once he did not bully the police officer himself). Worried about the lack of taxes and the impoverishment of the treasury, the authorities ordered "to catch the peasant and put him back." With great difficulty they also caught the landowner and brought him to a more or less decent appearance.

KARAS-IDEALIST
Karas-idealist - the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. Living in a quiet backwater, he is sympathetic and cherishes dreams of the triumph of good over evil, and even of the opportunity to reason with Pike (whom he has never seen) that she has no right to eat others. He eats shells, justifying himself by the fact that "they climb into their mouths" and they have "not a soul, but steam." Having appeared before Pike with his speeches, for the first time he was released with the advice: "Go to sleep!" In the second, he was suspected of "sicilism" and pretty much bitten during interrogation by Okun, and the third time, Pike was so surprised at his exclamation: "Do you know what virtue is?" - that she opened her mouth and almost involuntarily swallowed her interlocutor. "The features of contemporary liberalism are grotesquely captured in the image of Karas.

SANITARY HARE
The sensible hare - the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, "reasoned so sensibly that it fit the donkey." He believed that "every animal has its own life" and that, although "everyone eats" hares, he is "not picky" and "agrees to live in every possible way." In the heat of this philosophizing, he was caught by the Fox, who, bored with his speeches, ate him.

KISSEL
Kissel, the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, "was so flamboyant and soft that he did not feel any inconvenience from what he ate. The gentlemen were so fed up with them that they provided pigs with food, so, in the end, "only jelly was left dried scrapes". In a grotesque form, both peasant humility and the post-reform impoverishment of the village, robbed not only by the "masters" - landlords, but also by new bourgeois predators, who, according to the satirist, like pigs, "satiety ... do not know ".

The generals are characters in "The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals." Miraculously, they found themselves on a desert island in the same nightgowns and with orders around their necks. They couldn’t do anything and, starving, they almost ate each other. Having changed their minds, they decided to look for a peasant and, having found it, demanded that he feed them. In the future, they lived by his labors, and when they got bored, he built "such a vessel so that you could swim across the ocean-sea." Upon returning to St. Petersburg, G. received a pension accumulated over the past years, and a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver were granted to their breadwinner.

Ruff is a character in the fairy tale "Karas-Idealist". He looks at the world with bitter sobriety, seeing strife and savagery everywhere. Karas ironically over the reasoning, convicting him of complete ignorance of life and inconsistency (Karas is indignant at Pike, but eats shells himself). However, he admits that “after all, you can talk with him alone to your liking,” and at times even slightly hesitates in his skepticism, until the tragic outcome of the “dispute” between Karas and Pike confirms his innocence.

Liberal is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. “He was eager to do a good deed,” but out of apprehension he moderated his ideals and aspirations more and more. At first, he acted only “if possible”, then agreeing to receive “at least something” and, finally, acting “in relation to meanness”, consoling himself with the thought: “Today I’m wallowing in the mud, and tomorrow the sun will come out, dry the dirt - I’m done again -Well done!" The eagle-philanthropist is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. He surrounded himself with a whole court staff and even agreed to start sciences and arts. However, he soon got tired of it (however, the Nightingale was driven out immediately), and he brutally cracked down on the Owl and the Falcon, who tried to teach him to read and write and arithmetic, imprisoned the historian Woodpecker in a hollow, etc. The wise scribbler is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, “enlightened, moderately -liberal". From childhood, he was frightened by his father's warnings about the danger of getting into the ear and concluded that "you need to live in such a way that no one notices." He dug a hole in order to fit himself, did not make any friends or family, lived and trembled, having received in the end even pike praises: “Now, if everyone lived like that, it would be quiet in the river!” It was only before his death that the “wise man” realized that in such a case “perhaps the entire screech family would have died out long ago.” The story of the wise scribbler in exaggerated form expresses the meaning, or rather the entire nonsense, of the cowardly attempts to "dedicate oneself to the cult of self-preservation," as the book Abroad says. The features of this character are clearly visible, for example, in the heroes of Modern Idyll, in Polozhilov and other Shchedrin heroes. The remark made by the then critic in the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper is also characteristic: “We are all more or less scribblers ...”

WISE PISKAR
The wise scribbler is the "enlightened, moderately liberal" hero of the tale. From childhood, he was frightened by his father's warnings about the danger of getting into the ear and concluded that "you need to live in such a way that no one notices." He dug a hole, just to fit himself, did not make any friends or family, lived and trembled, Having received even pike praise in the end: "Now, if everyone lived like that, it would be quiet in the river!" It was only before his death that the “wise man” realized that in this case, “perhaps the entire piss-kary family would have died out long ago.” The story of the wise scribbler in exaggerated form expresses the meaning, or rather the entire nonsense, of the cowardly attempts to "devote oneself to the cult of self-preservation," as it is said in the book Abroad. The features of this character are clearly visible, for example, in the heroes of "Modern Idyll", in Polozhilov and other Shchedrin heroes. Characteristic is the remark made by the then critic in the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper: "We are all more or less scribblers..."

Pustoplyas is a character in the fairy tale "Konyaga", the "brother" of the hero, unlike him, leading an idle life. The personification of the local nobility. Arguments of idle dancers about Konyaga as the embodiment of common sense, humility, “life, spirit and spirit of life”, etc., are, as a contemporary critic wrote to a writer, “an insulting parody” of the then theories that sought to justify and even glorify “hard labor” peasants, their downtroddenness, darkness and passivity.

Ruslantsev Seryozha - the hero of the "Christmas Tale", a ten-year-old boy. After preaching about the need to live according to the truth, said, as the author seems to remark in passing, “for the holiday,” S. decided to do so. But both the mother, the priest himself, and the servants warn him that "one must live with the truth looking back." Shocked by the discrepancy between high words (indeed - a Christmas tale!) and real life, stories about the sad fate of those who tried to live by the truth, the hero fell ill and died. The selfless hare is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. Caught by the Wolf and meekly sitting in anticipation of his fate, not daring to run even when the brother of his bride comes for him and says that she is dying of grief. Released to see her, he returns, as he promised, receiving condescending wolf praise.

Toptygin 1st - one of the heroes of the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship". He dreamed of capturing himself in history with a brilliant atrocity, but with a hangover he mistook a harmless siskin for an “internal adversary” and ate it. He became a universal laughing stock and was no longer able to improve his reputation even with his superiors, no matter how hard he tried - “he climbed into the printing house at night, smashed the machines, mixed the type, and dumped the works of the human mind into the waste pit.” "And if he started right from the printing houses, he would be ... a general."

Toptygin 2nd - a character in the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship". Arriving at the voivodeship in the hope of destroying the printing house or burning down the university, he found that all this had already been done. I decided that it was no longer necessary to eradicate the "spirit", but "to be taken straight for the skin." Having climbed up to a neighboring peasant, he pulled up all the cattle and wanted to destroy the yard, but he was caught and planted in disgrace on a horn.

Toptygin the 3rd is a character in the fairy tale "The Bear in the Voivodeship". I faced a painful dilemma: “If you mess up a little, they will ridicule you; if you mess up a lot, they’ll raise it on a horn ... ”Arriving at the voivodeship, he hid in a den, without taking control, and found that even without his intervention everything in the forest was going on as usual. He began to leave the lair only “to receive the appropriated maintenance” (although in the depths of his soul he wondered “why the governor was sent”). Later he was killed by hunters, like "all fur-bearing animals", also in a routine manner.

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin was born on January 15 (27), 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol, Tver province, into an old noble family. The future writer received his primary education at home - a serf painter, a sister, a priest, a governess worked with him. In 1836, Saltykov-Shchedrin studied at the Moscow Noble Institute, from 1838 - at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

Military service. Link to Vyatka

In 1845, Mikhail Evgrafovich graduated from the Lyceum and entered the military office. At this time, the writer is fond of the French socialists and George Sand, creates a number of notes, stories ("Contradiction", "A Tangled Case").

In 1848, in a brief biography of Saltykov-Shchedrin, a long period of exile begins - he was sent to Vyatka for free-thinking. The writer lived there for eight years, at first he served as a clerk, and after that he was appointed an adviser to the provincial government. Mikhail Evgrafovich often went on business trips, during which he collected information about provincial life for his works.

State activity. Mature creativity

Returning from exile in 1855, Saltykov-Shchedrin joined the Ministry of the Interior. In 1856-1857 his "Provincial Essays" were published. In 1858, Mikhail Evgrafovich was appointed vice-governor of Ryazan, and then Tver. At the same time, the writer was published in the journals Russky Vestnik, Sovremennik, and Library for Reading.

In 1862, Saltykov-Shchedrin, whose biography was previously associated more with a career than with creativity, leaves the public service. Having stopped in St. Petersburg, the writer gets a job as an editor in the Sovremennik magazine. Soon his collections "Innocent Stories", "Satires in Prose" are published.

In 1864, Saltykov-Shchedrin returned to the service, taking the post of manager of the state chamber in Penza, and then in Tula and Ryazan.

The last years of the writer's life

Since 1868, Mikhail Evgrafovich retired, actively engaged in literary activities. In the same year, the writer became one of the editors of Otechestvennye Zapiski, and after the death of Nikolai Nekrasov, he took up the post of executive editor of the magazine. In 1869 - 1870, Saltykov-Shchedrin created one of his most famous works - "The History of a City" (summary), in which he raises the topic of relations between the people and power. Soon the collections "Signs of the Times", "Letters from the Province", the novel "Gentlemen Golovlevs" were published.

In 1884, Otechestvennye Zapiski were closed, and the writer began to publish in the Vestnik Evropy magazine.

In recent years, the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin culminates in the grotesque. The writer publishes collections "Tales" (1882 - 1886), "Little Things in Life" (1886 - 1887), "Peshekhonskaya Antiquity" (1887 - 1889).

Mikhail Evgrafovich died on May 10 (April 28), 1889 in St. Petersburg, was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery.

Chronological table

Other biography options

While studying at the Lyceum, Saltykov-Shchedrin published his first poems, but quickly became disillusioned with poetry and left this occupation forever.
Mikhail Evgrafovich made popular the literary genre of a socio-satirical fairy tale aimed at exposing human vices.
The exile to Vyatka was a turning point in the personal life of Saltykov-Shchedrin - there he met his future wife E. A. Boltina, with whom he lived for 33 years.
While in exile in Vyatka, the writer translated the works of Tocqueville, Vivien, Cheruel, and made notes on Beccari's book.
In accordance with the request in the will, Saltykov-Shchedrin was buried next to the grave

Genre: story

Main characters: landowner, Ferapont- young serf Sganarelle- bear

Plot

The landowner was a hard-hearted and stern man. Everyone on the estate was afraid of him. He liked to entertain guests by hunting bears - trained dogs were allowed to attack them, which, clinging to the prey, would not let it go. Peaceful cubs were left to roam freely around the yard, and for 5 years Sganarelle has been playing this role, and Ferapont has been looking after him. They bonded with each other and became very close friends. But the bear began to run wild - he attacked pets, and then a person. The landowner arranged a hunt for him with guests, but Ferapont helped Sganarelle to escape into the forest. In the evening, the priest talked for a long time about the righteous and mercy, and the landowner pardoned the serf and gave him freedom. Ferapont remained to serve him despite his freedom.

Conclusion (my opinion)

Cruelty and severity do not make a person happy, they do not give peace of mind, no matter how callous a person is, he feels deep down the emptiness and bitterness of his behavior, and mercy and kindness save a person, as Ferapont saved a bear and a landowner.

Konyaga, unlike his brother, has to work in difficult conditions. The brother is only surprised at the survivability of Konyaga - you can’t catch him with anything.

Konyaga's life is not easy, all that is in it is hard everyday work. That work is tantamount to hard labor, but for Konyaga and the owner this work is the only way to earn a living. True, we were lucky with the owner: the man does not beat him in vain, when it is very difficult - he supports him with a shout. He releases the skinny horse to graze on the field, but Konyaga uses this time to rest and sleep, despite the painfully stinging insects.

For all, nature is a mother, for him alone she is a scourge and torture. Every manifestation of her life is reflected on him with torment, every flowering - with poison.

His relatives pass by the dormant Konyaga. One of them, Hollow Dance, is his brother. The father prepared a hard fate for the horse for his uncouthness, and the polite and respectful Pustoplyas is always in a warm stall, feeding not on straw, but on oats.

The empty dancer looks at Konyaga and marvels: nothing can get through him. It would seem that Konyaga's life should already end from such work and food, but no, Konyaga continues to pull the heavy yoke that has fallen to his lot.

This story is a "genuine" chronicle of the city of Glupov, "Glupovsky Chronicler", embracing the period from 1731 to 1825, which was "successively composed" by four of Stupov's archivists. In the chapter "From the Publisher" the author especially insists on the authenticity of the "Chronicler" and invites the reader to "catch the physiognomy of the city and follow how its history reflected the various changes that simultaneously took place in the higher spheres."

The Chronicler opens with "An address to the reader from the last archivist-chronicler." The archivist sees the task of the chronicler in "being a depiction" of "touching correspondence" - the authorities, "daring in measure", and the people, "thankfully giving thanks". History, therefore, is the history of the reign of various city governors.

First, a prehistoric chapter “On the Root of the Origin of the Foolovites” is given, which tells how the ancient people of the bunglers defeated the neighboring tribes of walrus-eaters, onion-eaters, kosobryukhy, etc. But, not knowing what to do so that there was order, the bunglers went to look for a prince . They turned to more than one prince, but even the most stupid princes did not want to “rule the stupid” and, having taught them with a rod, let them go with honor. Then the bunglers called in a thief-innovator who helped them find the prince. The prince agreed to "rule" them, but did not go to live with them, sending a thief-innovator instead. The prince himself called the bunglers "stupid", hence the name of the city.

The Foolovites were a submissive people, but the Novotor needed riots to pacify them. But soon he was stealing so much that the prince "sent a noose to the unfaithful slave." But the Novotor “and then dodged: ‹…› without waiting for the loop, he stabbed himself with a cucumber.”

The prince also sent other rulers - an Odoev, an Orlov, a Kalyazin - but they all turned out to be sheer thieves. Then the prince "... arrived in his own person to Foolov and yelled:" I'll screw it up! With these words began historical times.

In 1762, Dementy Varlamovich Brodasty arrived in Foolov. He immediately struck the Foolovites with his sullenness and reticence. His only words were "I won't stand it!" and "I'll ruin it!" The city was lost in conjecture, until one day the clerk, entering with a report, saw a strange sight: the body of the mayor, as usual, was sitting at the table, while his head was completely empty on the table. Foolov was shocked. But then they remembered about the watch and organ affairs of master Baibakov, who secretly visited the mayor, and, having called him, they found out everything. In the head of the mayor, in one corner, there was an organ that could play two pieces of music: “I will ruin!” and "I will not stand it!". But on the way, the head got damp and needed to be repaired. Baibakov himself could not cope and turned to St. Petersburg for help, from where they promised to send a new head, but for some reason the head was delayed.

Anarchy ensued, ending with the appearance of two identical mayors at once. “The impostors met and measured each other with their eyes. The crowd dispersed slowly and in silence. A messenger immediately arrived from the province and took away both impostors. And the Foolovites, left without a mayor, immediately fell into anarchy.

The anarchy continued throughout the next week, during which six mayors changed in the city. The townsfolk rushed from Iraida Lukinichna Paleologova to Clementine de Bourbon, and from her to Amalia Karlovna Stockfish. The claims of the first were based on the short-term activity of the mayor of her husband, the second - of her father, and the third - she herself was a mayor's pompadour. The claims of Nelka Lyadokhovskaya, and then Dunka the fat-footed and Matryonka the nostrils, were even less substantiated. In between hostilities, the Foolovites threw some citizens from the bell tower and drowned others. But they are also tired of anarchy. Finally, a new mayor arrived in the city - Semyon Konstantinovich Dvoekurov. His activity in Foolovo was beneficial. “He introduced mead and brewing and made the use of mustard and bay leaves obligatory,” and also wanted to establish an academy in Foolov.

Under the next ruler, Peter Petrovich Ferdyshchenko, the city flourished for six years. But in the seventh year, "Ferdyshchenko was embarrassed by the demon." The mayor was inflamed with love for the coachman's wife Alenka. But Alenka refused him. Then, with the help of a series of successive measures, Alenka's husband, Mitka, was branded and sent to Siberia, and Alenka came to her senses. A drought fell upon the Foolovs through the sins of the mayor, and famine followed it. People started dying. Then came the end of Foolov's patience. First they sent a walker to Ferdyshchenko, but the walker did not return. Then they sent a petition, but this did not help either. Then they finally got to Alenka, and they threw her off the bell tower. But Ferdyshchenko did not doze off either, but wrote reports to his superiors. No bread was sent to him, but a team of soldiers arrived.

Through the next hobby of Ferdyshchenko, archer Domashka, fires came to the city. Pushkarskaya Sloboda was on fire, followed by Bolotnaya Sloboda and Scoundrel Sloboda. Ferdyshchenko again shied away, returned Domashka to the “optism” and called the team.

The reign of Ferdyshchenko ended with a journey. The mayor went to the city pasture. In different places, the townspeople greeted him and dinner was waiting for him. On the third day of the journey, Ferdyshchenko died of overeating.

Ferdyshchenko's successor, Vasilisk Semyonovich Borodavkin, took up his post resolutely. Having studied the history of Glupov, he found only one role model - Dvoekurov. But his achievements were already forgotten, and the Foolovites even stopped sowing mustard. Wartkin ordered that this mistake be corrected, and added Provence oil as punishment. But the fools did not give in. Then Borodavkin went on a military campaign against Streletskaya Sloboda. Not everything in the nine-day campaign was successful. In the dark, they fought with their own. Many real soldiers were fired and replaced with tin soldiers. But Wartkin survived. Having reached the settlement and not finding anyone, he began to pull the houses into logs. And then the settlement, and behind it the whole city, surrendered. Subsequently, there were several more wars for enlightenment. In general, the reign led to the impoverishment of the city, which finally ended under the next ruler, Negodyaev. In this state, Foolov found the Circassian Mikeladze.

No events were held during this period. Mikeladze stepped aside from administrative measures and dealt only with the female sex, to which he was a great hunter. The city was resting. "The visible facts were few, but the consequences are innumerable."

The Circassian was replaced by Feofilakt Irinarkhovich Benevolensky, a friend and comrade of Speransky in the seminary. He had a passion for law. But since the mayor did not have the right to issue his own laws, Benevolensky issued laws secretly, in the house of the merchant Raspopova, and scattered them around the city at night. However, he was soon dismissed for relations with Napoleon.

The next was Lieutenant Colonel Pryshch. He did not deal with business at all, but the city flourished. The harvests were huge. The fools were worried. And the secret of Pimple was revealed by the leader of the nobility. A big lover of minced meat, the leader sensed that the head of the mayor smelled of truffles and, unable to stand it, attacked and ate the stuffed head.

After that, state councilor Ivanov arrived in the city, but “he turned out to be so small that he could not contain anything spacious,” and died. His successor, the immigrant Vicomte de Chario, constantly had fun and was sent abroad by order of his superiors. Upon examination, it turned out to be a girl.

Finally, State Councilor Erast Andreevich Sadtilov appeared in Foolov. By this time the Foolovites had forgotten the true God and clung to idols. Under him, the city was completely mired in debauchery and laziness. Hoping for their happiness, they stopped sowing, and famine came to the city. Sadtilov was busy with daily balls. But everything suddenly changed when she appeared to him. The wife of the pharmacist Pfeifer showed Sadtilov the path of goodness. The holy fools and the wretched, who experienced hard days during the worship of idols, became the main people in the city. The Foolovites repented, but the fields remained empty. The Glupovsky beau monde gathered at night to read Mr. Strakhov and "admiration", which the authorities soon found out about, and Sadtilov was removed.

The last Foolovsky mayor, Ugryum-Burcheev, was an idiot. He set a goal - to turn the Foolovs into "the city of Nepreklonsk, eternally worthy of the memory of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Igorevich" with straight, identical streets, "companies", identical houses for identical families, etc. Ugryum-Burcheev thought out the plan in detail and proceeded to execution. The city was destroyed to the ground, and it was possible to start building, but the river interfered. She did not fit into the plans of Ugryum-Burcheev. The indefatigable mayor led an offensive against her. All the garbage, all that was left of the city, was put into action, but the river washed away all the dams. And then Moody-Grumbling turned around and walked away from the river, leading the Foolovites with him. A completely flat lowland was chosen for the city, and construction began. But something has changed. However, the notebooks with the details of this story were lost, and the publisher gives only the denouement: "... the earth shook, the sun faded ‹ ...> It came." Without explaining what exactly, the author only reports that “the scoundrel instantly disappeared, as if dissolved in thin air. History has stopped flowing."

The story is closed by "acquittal documents", i.e., the writings of various city governors, such as: Borodavkin, Mikeladze and Benevolensky, written as a warning to other city governors.

Summary of the “History of a City” by Saltykov-Shchedrin

Portal for the student. Self-training

Brief summary of Saltyks. General lack of school curriculum

Military service. Link to Vyatka

State activity. Mature creativity

The last years of the writer's life

Chronological table

Other biography options

Plot

Conclusion (my opinion)

Other essays on the topic:

Portal for the student. Self-training

Military service. Link to Vyatka

State activity. Mature creativity

The last years of the writer's life

Chronological table

Other biography options

Plot

Conclusion (my opinion)

Other essays on the topic:

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