great poet A.N. Nekrasov and one of his most popular works - the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” appeared before the readers and critics, of course, also hastened to express their opinion about this work.

Velinsky wrote his review in the Kiev Telegraph magazine in 1869. He believed that except for Nekrasov, none of his contemporaries had the right to be called a poet. After all, these words only contain life truth. And the lines of the work can make the reader feel sympathy for the fate of a simple peasant, to whom drunkenness seems the only way out. Velinsky believes that Nekrasov’s idea is an excitement high society sympathy for ordinary people, their problems are expressed in this poem.

In “New Time” in 1870, the opinion of a critic under the pseudonym L.L. was published. In his opinion, Nekrasov’s work is too drawn out and there are absolutely unnecessary scenes that only tire the reader and interfere with the impression of the work. But all these shortcomings are covered by an understanding of life and its meaning. Many scenes of the poem want to be read many times, and the more you reread them, the more you like them.

IN AND. Burenin in No. 68 of St. Petersburg Gazette writes mainly about the chapter “The Last One.” He notes that in the work the truth of life is closely intertwined with the author’s thoughts. And despite the fact that the poem is written in an anecdotal style, its deep philosophical subtext is no less noticeable. The impression of the work is not impaired by the style in which the poem is written.

In comparison with other chapters of the work, Burenin considers “The Last One” to be the best. He notes that other chapters are weak and also smack of vulgarity. And even though the chapter is written in chopped verse, it is easy and expressive to read. But the critic notes that in this, the best chapter, in his opinion, there are lines of “dubious quality.”

Avseenko, in “Russian World,” on the contrary, believes that Burenin’s favorite chapter in the work will not arouse any interest among contemporaries, either in its meaning or in content. And even the author’s well-intentioned idea - to laugh at the tyranny of the landowners and show the absurdity of the old order with a contemporary - does not make any sense. And the plot, according to the critic, is generally “incongruous.”

Avseenko believes that life has long moved forward, and Nekrasov still lives in the times of his glory (the forties and fifties of the nineteenth century), as if he does not see that in those times when there are no serfs anymore, vaudeville propaganda of ideas against serfdom is absurd and gives away backdating.

In “Russian Messenger” Avseenko says that the folk bouquet in the poem comes out stronger than “a mixture of vodka, stables and dust” and only Mr. Reshetnikov was engaged in similar realism before Mr. Nekrasov. And Avseenko finds the colors with which the author paints rural womanizers and beauties not bad. However, the critic calls this new nationality fake and far from reality.

A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov, in a letter to Nekrasov, speaks especially enthusiastically about the last two chapters of the work, specifically mentioning the chapter “The Landowner”. He writes that this poem is a major thing and among all the works of the author it stands in the forefront. Zhemchuzhnikov advises the writer not to rush to finish the poem, not to narrow it.

Critic under the pseudonym A.S. in “New Time” he says that Nekrasov’s muse is developing and moving forward. He writes that in the poem the peasant will find an echo of his aspirations. Because he will find his simple human feeling in lines.

• Life and work of Mikhail Zoshchenko

  The outstanding Soviet satirist and feuilletonist Mikhail Zoshchenko was born in 1894. Misha grew up in St. Petersburg in a talented family with noble roots. The boy's father was an artist, and his mother played on stage and wrote stories for the newspaper.

  Ernest Hemingway - great writer 20th century, is the winner of many prizes and awards in literature. Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in the small provincial town of Oak Park.

Analysis of the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who Lives Well in Rus'"

In January 1866, the next issue of the Sovremennik magazine was published in St. Petersburg. It opened with lines that are now familiar to everyone:

In what year - calculate

In what land - guess...

These words seemed to promise to introduce the reader into an entertaining fairy-tale world, where a warbler bird speaking in human language and a magic tablecloth would appear... So N.A. began with a sly smile and ease. Nekrasov his story about the adventures of seven men who argued about “who lives happily and freely in Russia.”

He devoted many years to working on the poem, which the poet called his “favorite brainchild.” He set himself the goal of writing “ folk book”, useful, understandable to the people and truthful. “I decided,” said Nekrasov, “to present in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who Lives Well in Russia.” This will be epic peasant life" But death interrupted this gigantic work; the work remained unfinished. However, uhThese words seemed to promise to introduce the reader into an entertaining fairy-tale world, where a warbler bird speaking human language and a magic tablecloth would appear... So, with a sly smile and ease, N. A. Nekrasov began his story about the adventures of seven men, who argued about “who lives happily and freely in Russia.”

Already in the “Prologue” a picture of peasant Rus' was visible, the figure of the main character of the work stood up - the Russian peasant, as he really was: in bast shoes, onuchakh, an army coat, unfed, having suffered grief.

Three years later, publication of the poem resumed, but each part was met with severe persecution by the tsarist censors, who believed that the poem was “notable for its extreme ugliness of content.” The last of the written chapters, “A Feast for the Whole World,” came under especially sharp attack. Unfortunately, Nekrasov was not destined to see either the publication of “The Feast” or a separate edition of the poem. Without abbreviations or distortions, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was published only after the October Revolution.

The poem occupies a central place in Nekrasov’s poetry, is its ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of the writer’s thoughts about the fate of the people, about their happiness and the paths that lead to it. These thoughts worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through all his poetic work.

By the 1860s, the Russian peasant became the main character of Nekrasov's poetry. “Peddlers”, “Orina, the soldier’s mother”, “ Railway", "Frost, Red Nose" - the most important works poet on the way to the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

He devoted many years to working on the poem, which the poet called his “favorite brainchild.” He set himself the goal of writing a “people's book”, useful, understandable to the people and truthful. “I decided,” said Nekrasov, “to present in a coherent story everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips, and I started “Who Lives Well in Russia.” This will be an epic of peasant life.” But death interrupted this gigantic work; the work remained unfinished. However, despite this, it retains ideological and artistic integrity.

Nekrasov revived the genre of folk epic in poetry. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a truly folk work: both in its ideological sound, and in the scale of the epic depiction of modern folk life, in posing the fundamental questions of the time, and in heroic pathos, and in the widespread use of poetic traditions of oral folk art, the closeness of the poetic language to living speech forms of everyday life and song lyricism.

At the same time, Nekrasov’s poem has features characteristic specifically of critical realism. Instead of one central character The poem depicts, first of all, the folk environment as a whole, the living conditions of different social circles. The people's point of view on reality is expressed in the poem already in the very development of the theme, in the fact that all of Russia, all events are shown through the perception of wandering peasants, presented to the reader as if in their vision.

The events of the poem unfold in the first years after the reform of 1861 and the liberation of the peasants. The people, the peasantry - genuine positive hero poems. Nekrasov pinned his hopes for the future on him, although he was aware of the weakness of the forces of peasant protest and the immaturity of the masses for revolutionary action.

In the poem, the author created the image of the peasant Savely, “the hero of the Holy Russian”, “the hero of the homespun”, who personifies gigantic strength and the resilience of the people. Savely is endowed with the features of the legendary heroes of the folk epic. This image is associated by Nekrasov with central theme poems - the search for ways to people's happiness. It is no coincidence that Matryona Timofeevna says about Savely to wanderers: “He was also a lucky man.” Savely’s happiness lies in his love of freedom, in his understanding of the need for active struggle of the people, who can only achieve a “free” life in this way.

The poem contains many memorable images of peasants. Here is the smart old mayor Vlas, who has seen a lot in his time, and Yakim Nagoy, a typical representative of the working agricultural peasantry. However, Yakim Naga portrays the poet as not at all like the downtrodden, dark peasant of the patriarchal village. With a deep consciousness of his dignity, he ardently defends the people's honor and makes a fiery speech in defense of the people.

An important role in the poem is occupied by the image of Yermil Girin - a pure and incorruptible “protector of the people”, who takes the side of the rebel peasants and ends up in prison.

In the beautiful female image of Matryona Timofeevna, the poet draws the typical features of a Russian peasant woman. Nekrasov wrote many moving poems about the harsh “female share,” but he had never written about a peasant woman so fully, with such warmth and love as is depicted in the poem Matryonushka.

Along with the peasant characters of the poem, who evoke love and sympathy, Nekrasov also depicts other types of peasants, mainly courtyards - lordly hangers-on, sycophants, obedient slaves and outright traitors. These images are drawn by the poet in the tones of satirical denunciation. The more clearly he saw the protest of the peasantry, the more he believed in the possibility of their liberation, the more irreconcilably he condemned slavish humiliation, servility and servility. Such are the “exemplary slave” Yakov in the poem, who ultimately realizes the humiliation of his position and resorts to pitiful and helpless, but in his slavish consciousness, terrible revenge - suicide in front of his tormentor; the “sensitive lackey” Ipat, who talks about his humiliations with disgusting relish; informer, “one of our own spy” Yegor Shutov; Elder Gleb, seduced by the promises of the heir and agreed to destroy the will of the deceased landowner about the liberation of eight thousand peasants (“Peasant Sin”).

Showing the ignorance, rudeness, superstition, and backwardness of the Russian village of that time, Nekrasov emphasizes the temporary, historically transitory nature of dark sides peasant life.

The world poetically recreated in the poem is a world of sharp social contrasts, clashes, and acute contradictions in life.

In the “round”, “ruddy-faced”, “pot-bellied”, “mustachioed” landowner Obolte-Obolduev, whom the wanderers met, the poet reveals the emptiness and frivolity of a person who is not used to thinking seriously about life. Behind the guise of a good-natured man, behind the courteous courtesy and ostentatious cordiality of Obolt-Obolduev, the reader sees the arrogance and anger of the landowner, barely restrained disgust and hatred for the “muzhich”, for the peasants.

The image of the landowner-tyrant Prince Utyatin, nicknamed by the peasants the Last One, is marked with satire and grotesquery. A predatory look, “a nose with a beak like a hawk,” alcoholism and voluptuousness complement the disgusting appearance of a typical representative of the landowner environment, an inveterate serf owner and despot.

At first glance, the development of the plot of the poem should consist in resolving the dispute between the men: which of the persons they named lives happier - the landowner, the official, the priest, the merchant, the minister or the tsar. However, developing the action of the poem, Nekrasov goes beyond the plot framework set by the plot of the work. Seven peasants are no longer looking for happiness only among representatives of the ruling classes. Going to the fair, in the midst of the people, they ask themselves the question: “Isn’t he hiding there, who lives happily?” In "The Last One" they directly say that the purpose of their journey is to search for people's happiness, the best peasant share:

We are looking, Uncle Vlas,

Unflogged province,

Ungutted parish,

Izbytkova village!..

Having begun the narrative in a semi-fairy-tale humorous tone, the poet gradually deepens the meaning of the question of happiness and gives it an increasingly acute social resonance. The author's intentions are most clearly manifested in the censored part of the poem - “A feast for the whole world.” The story about Grisha Dobrosklonov that began here was to take a central place in the development of the theme of happiness and struggle. Here the poet speaks directly about that path, about that “path” that leads to the embodiment of national happiness. Grisha’s happiness lies in the conscious struggle for a happy future for the people, so that “every peasant can live freely and cheerfully throughout all holy Rus'.”

The image of Grisha is the final one in the series of “people's intercessors” depicted in Nekrasov’s poetry. The author emphasizes in Grisha his close proximity to the people, live communication with the peasants, in whom he finds complete understanding and support; Grisha is depicted as an inspired dreamer-poet, composing his “good songs” for the people.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the highest example of the folk style of Nekrasov poetry. The folk-song and fairy-tale element of the poem gives it a bright national flavor and is directly related to Nekrasov’s faith in the great future of the people. The main theme of the poem - the search for happiness - goes back to folk tales, songs and others folklore sources, which talked about the search for a happy land, truth, wealth, treasure, etc. This theme expressed the most cherished thought of the masses, their desire for happiness, the age-old dream of the people about a just social system.

Nekrasov used in his poem almost the entire genre diversity of Russian folk poetry: fairy tales, epics, legends, riddles, proverbs, sayings, family songs, love songs, wedding songs, historical songs. Folk poetry gave the poet the richest material for judging peasant life, life, and the morals of the village.

The style of the poem is characterized by a wealth of emotional sounds, a variety of poetic intonation: the sly smile and leisurely narration in the “Prologue” is replaced in subsequent scenes by the ringing polyphony of a seething fair crowd, in “The Last One” - satirical ridicule, in “The Peasant Woman” - deep drama and lyrical emotion, and in “A Feast for the Whole World” - with heroic tension and revolutionary pathos.

The poet subtly feels and loves the beauty of the native Russian nature of the northern strip. The poet also uses the landscape to create an emotional tone, for a more complete and vivid characterization state of mind character.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has a prominent place in Russian poetry. In it, the fearless truth of pictures of folk life appears in an aura of poetic fabulousness and the beauty of folk art, and the cry of protest and satire merged with the heroism of the revolutionary struggle. All this was expressed with great artistic force in immortal work ON THE. Nekrasova.

In February 1861, Russia abolished serfdom. This progressive event greatly agitated the peasants and caused a wave of new problems. Nekrasov described the main one in the poem “Elegy,” which contains the aphoristic line: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?” In 1863, Nikolai Alekseevich began working on the poem “Who lives well in Rus'”, which addresses the problems of all segments of the country's population after the abolition of serfdom.

Despite the rather simple, folklore style of narration, the work is quite complex for correct perception, since it touches on serious philosophical questions. Nekrasov has been looking for answers to many of them all his life. And the poem itself, which took 14 long years to create, was never completed. Of the planned eight parts, the author managed to write four, which do not follow one another. After the death of Nikolai Alekseevich, publishers were faced with a problem: in what sequence to publish parts of the poem. Today we are getting acquainted with the text of the work in the order proposed by Korney Chukovsky, who scrupulously worked with the writer’s archives.

Some of Nekrasov's contemporaries argued that the author had the idea for the poem back in the 50s, before the abolition of serfdom. Nikolai Alekseevich wanted to fit into one work everything he knew about the people and heard from many people. To some extent, he succeeded.

For the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” a lot was selected genre definitions. Some critics claim that this is a “travel poem”, others refer to it as a “Russian Odyssey”. The author himself considered his work epic, since it depicts the life of the people in crucial moment stories. Such a period could be a war, a revolution, or in our case, the abolition of serfdom.

The author sought to describe the events taking place through the eyes of ordinary people and using their vocabulary. As a rule, an epic does not have a main character. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” fully meets these criteria.

But the question about main character The poem has been raised more than once; it haunts literary critics to this day. If we approach it formally, then the main characters can be considered disputing men who went looking for happy people in Rus'. Perfect for this role and Grisha Dobrosklonov- people's educator and savior. It is quite possible to admit that the main character in the poem is the whole Russian people. This is clearly reflected in the mass scenes of festivities, fairs, and haymaking. Important decisions are made in Rus' by the whole world; even a sigh of relief after the death of the landowner escaped the peasants at the same time.

Plot The work is quite simple - seven men accidentally met on the road and started an argument on the topic: who lives well in Rus'? To solve it, the heroes go on a journey across the country. IN long road they meet the most different people: merchants, beggars, drunkards, landowners, priest, wounded soldier, prince. The debaters also had a chance to see many pictures from life: a prison, a fair, birth, death, weddings, holidays, auctions, elections of a burgomaster, etc.

The seven men are not described by Nekrasov in detail; their characters are practically not revealed. Wanderers go together towards one goal. But the supporting characters (the village headman, Savely, the slave Yakov and others) are drawn vividly, with many small details and nuances. This allows us to conclude that the author, represented by seven men, created a conventionally allegorical image of the people.

Problems that Nekrasov raised in his poem are very diverse and relate to the lives of different layers of society: greed, poverty, illiteracy, obscurantism, arrogance, moral degradation, drunkenness, arrogance, cruelty, sinfulness, the difficulty of moving to a new lifestyle, limitless patience and thirst for rebellion, oppression.

But the key problem of the work is the concept of happiness, which each character solves according to his own understanding. For rich people, such as priests and landowners, happiness is personal well-being. It is very important for a man to be able to escape from troubles and misfortunes: he was chased by a bear, but did not catch him, he was beaten severely at work, but was not beaten to death, etc.

But there are characters in the work who do not seek happiness only for themselves, they strive to make all people happy. Such heroes are Ermil Girin and Grisha Dobrosklonov. In Gregory’s mind, love for his mother grew into love for the whole country. In the guy's soul, the poor and unhappy mother became identified with the same poor country. And seminarian Grisha considers the purpose of his life to be the education of the people. From the way Dobrosklonov understands happiness, it follows main idea poem: this feeling can be fully felt only by that person who is ready to devote his life to the struggle for the happiness of the people.

Main artistic medium poems can be considered oral folk art. The author makes extensive use of folklore in pictures of the life of peasants and in the description of the future protector of Rus' Grisha Dobrosklonov. Nekrasov uses folk vocabulary in the text of the poem in different ways: as direct stylization (the prologue is composed), the beginning of a fairy tale (a self-assembled tablecloth, the mythical number seven) or indirectly (lines from folk songs, links to different legends and epics).

The language of the work is stylized as a folk song. The text contains a lot of dialectisms, numerous repetitions, diminutive suffixes in words, stable constructions in descriptions. Because of this, the work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is perceived by many as folk art. In the mid-nineteenth century, folklore was studied not only from a scientific point of view, but also as a way of communication between the intelligentsia and the people.

Having analyzed in detail Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus',” it is easy to understand that even in its unfinished form it is literary heritage and is of great value. And today the poem arouses keen interest among literary critics and readers. Studying the historical characteristics of the Russian people, we can conclude that they have changed a little, but the essence of the problem has remained the same - the search for one’s happiness.

• Images of landowners in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

Centuries change, but the name of the poet N. Nekrasov - this knight of the spirit - remains unforgettable. In his work, Nekrasov revealed many aspects of Russian life, spoke about the grief of the peasants, and made one feel that under the yoke of need and darkness, heroic forces that had not yet developed were hidden.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the core work of N.A. Nekrasov. It is about peasant truth, about “old” and “new”, about “slaves” and “free”, about “rebellion” and “patience”.

What is the history of the creation of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? The 60s of the 19th century are characterized by increased political reaction. Nekrasov had to defend the Sovremennik magazine and the course that the publication followed. The struggle for the purity of the chosen direction required the activation of Nekrasov’s muse. One of the main lines that Nekrasov adhered to, and which met the tasks of that time, was popular, peasant. The work on the work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the main tribute to the peasant theme.

The creative tasks that Nekrasov faced when creating the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” should be considered in the focus of literary and public life 60-70s XIX century. After all, the poem was created not in one year, but more than ten years, and the moods that possessed Nekrasov in the early 60s changed, just as life itself changed. The writing of the poem began in 1863. By that time, Emperor Alexander II had already signed a manifesto on the abolition of serfdom.

Work on the poem was preceded by years of collecting bits and pieces creative material. The author decided not just to write a work of art, but a work that is accessible and understandable ordinary people, a kind of “people's book”, which shows with utmost completeness an entire era in the life of the people.

What is genre originality poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? Literary experts identify this work by Nekrasov as an “epic poem.” This definition goes back to the opinion of Nekrasov’s contemporaries. An epic is a major work of fiction of an epic nature. The genre of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a lyric-epic work. It combines epic principles with lyrical and dramatic ones. The dramatic element generally permeates many of Nekrasov’s works; the poet’s passion for drama is reflected in his poetic work.

The compositional form of the work “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is quite unique. Composition is the construction, arrangement of all elements work of art. Compositionally, the poem is structured according to the laws of classical epic: it is a collection of relatively autonomous parts and chapters. The unifying motif is the motif of the road: seven men (seven is the most mysterious and magic number), they are trying to find an answer to a question that is essentially philosophical: who can live well in Rus'? Nekrasov does not lead us to a certain climax in the poem, does not push us towards the final event and does not intensify the action. His task, as a major epic artist, is to reflect aspects of Russian life, to draw the image of the people, to show the diversity of people's roads, directions, paths. This creative work of Nekrasov is a large lyric-epic form. There are many characters involved and many storylines unfold.

The main idea of ​​the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is that the people deserve happiness and it makes sense to fight for happiness. The poet was sure of this, and with his entire work he presented evidence of this. The happiness of one individual is not enough, this is not a solution to the problem. The poem calls for thoughts about the embodiment of happiness for the whole people, about a “Feast for the whole world.”

The poem begins with a “Prologue”, in which the author tells how seven men from different villages met on a highway. A dispute arose between them about who would live better in Rus'. Each of those arguing expressed his opinion, and no one wanted to give in. As a result, the debaters decided to go on a journey to find out first-hand who lives in Rus' and how they live and to find out which of them was right in this dispute. From the warbler bird, the wanderers learned where the magic self-assembled tablecloth was located, which would feed and water them in long journey. Having found a self-assembled tablecloth and convinced of its magical abilities, seven men set off on a long journey.

In the chapters of the first part of the poem, seven wanderers met people from different classes on their way: a priest, peasants at a rural fair, a landowner, and asked them the question - how happy are they? Neither the priest nor the landowner thought that their life was full of happiness. They complained that after the abolition of serfdom, their life worsened. Fun reigned at the rural fair, but when the wanderers began to find out from the people leaving after the fair how happy each of them was, it turned out that only a few of them could be called truly happy.

In the chapters of the second part, united by the title “The Last One,” the wanderers meet the peasants of the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, living in a rather strange situation. Despite the abolition of serfdom, they portrayed serfs in the presence of the landowner, as in the old days. The old landowner was sensitive to the reform of 1861 and his sons, fearing to be left without an inheritance, persuaded the peasants to play serfs until the old man died. At the end of this part of the poem it is said that after the death of the old prince, his heirs deceived the peasants and started a lawsuit with them, not wanting to give up valuable meadows.

After communicating with the Vakhlak men, the travelers decided to look for happy people among the women. In the chapters from the third part of the poem, under the general title “Peasant Woman,” they met with a resident of the village of Klin, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, who was popularly nicknamed “the governor’s wife.” Matryona Timofeevna told them without concealment her entire long-suffering life. At the end of her story, Matryona advised wanderers not to look for happy people among Russian women, telling them a parable that the keys to women's happiness are lost, and no one is able to find them.

The wandering of seven men, seeking happiness throughout Rus', continues, and they end up at a feast thrown by the residents of the village of Valakhchina. This part of the poem was called “A Feast for the Whole World.” At this feast, seven wanderers come to the realization that the question for which they went on a campaign across Rus' occupies not only them, but the entire Russian people.

IN last chapter the author of the poem gives the floor to the younger generation. One of the participants in the folk feast, the son of the parish sexton, Grigory Dobrosklonov, unable to sleep after heated arguments, goes to wander around his native expanses and the song “Rus” is born in his head, which became the ideological finale of the poem:

"You and the wretched one,
You are also abundant
You're downtrodden
You are omnipotent
Mother Rus'!

Returning home and telling his brother this song, Grigory tries to fall asleep, but his imagination continues to work and is born new song. If the seven wanderers could find out what this new song is about, they with a light heart could return home, because the goal of the journey would be achieved, since Grisha’s new song was about the embodiment of people’s happiness.

Regarding the issues of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we can say the following: two levels of issues (conflict) emerge in the poem – socio-historical (the results of the peasant reform) – the conflict grows in the first part and persists in the second, and deep, philosophical (salt national character), which appears in the second and dominates the third part. Problems raised by Nekrasov in the poem
(the chains of slavery have been removed, but whether the peasant’s lot has been eased, whether the oppression of the peasants has stopped, whether the contradictions in society have been eliminated, whether the people are happy) - will not be resolved for a long period.

When analyzing N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” it is important to say that the main poetic meter of this work is unrhymed iambic trimeter. Moreover, at the end of the line after the stressed syllable there are two unstressed syllables (dactylic clause). In some places in the work, Nekrasov also uses iambic tetrameter. This choice of poetic size was determined by the need to present the text in a folklore style, but while preserving the classical literary canons of that time. Included in the poem folk songs, as well as songs by Grigory Dobrosklonov, are written using three-syllable meters.

Nekrasov strove to ensure that the language of the poem was understandable to ordinary Russian people. Therefore, he refused to use the vocabulary of classical poetry of that time, saturating the work with words of common speech: “village”, “breveshko”, “idle dance”, “fairground” and many others. This made it possible to make the poem understandable to any peasant.

In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov uses numerous means artistic expression. These include such epithets as “red sun”, “black shadows”, “poor people”, “free heart”, “calm conscience”, “indestructible force”. There are also comparisons in the poem: “jumped out as if disheveled”, “yellow eyes burn like... fourteen candles!”, “like the men fell asleep like those killed,” “rainy clouds like milk cows.”

Metaphors found in the poem: “the earth lies”, “spring... friendly”, “the warbler is crying”, “a stormy village”, “the boyars are cypress-bearing”.

Metonymy - “the whole road became silent”, “the crowded square became silent”, “When a man... Belinsky and Gogol are carried away from the market.”

In the poem there was a place for such means of artistic expression as irony: “... a tale about a holy fool: he hiccups, I think!” and sarcasm: “The proud pig: itched about the master’s porch!”

There is also in the poem stylistic figures. These include appeals: “Well, uncle!”, “Wait!”, “Come, what you desire!..”, “Oh people, Russian people!” and exclamations: “Choo! horse snoring!”, “At least not this bread!”, “Eh! Eh!”, “At least swallow a feather!”

Folklore expressions - at the fair, apparently and invisibly.

The language of the poem is peculiar, decorated with sayings, sayings, dialects, “common” words: “mlada-mladashenka”, “tselkovenky”, “honk”.

I remember the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” because, despite the difficult times in which it was created and which it describes, a positive, life-affirming beginning is visible in it. The people deserve happiness - this is the main theorem proven by Nekrasov. The poem helps people understand, become better, fight for their happiness. Nekrasov is a thinker, a person with a unique social instinct. He touched the depths of people's life, pulled out from its depths a scattering of original Russian characters. Nekrasov was able to show the fullness of human experiences. He sought to comprehend the full depth of human existence.

Nekrasov solved his creative problems in an unconventional way. His work is imbued with the ideas of humanism.

On February 19, 1861, a long-awaited reform took place in Russia - the abolition of serfdom, which immediately shook up the entire society and caused a wave of new problems, the main of which can be expressed in a line from Nekrasov’s poem: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?..”. The singer of folk life, Nekrasov did not stand aside this time either - in 1863, his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” began to be created, telling about life in post-reform Rus'. The work is considered the pinnacle of the writer’s work and to this day enjoys the well-deserved love of readers. At the same time, despite its seemingly simple and stylized fairy tale plot, it is very difficult to understand. Therefore, we will analyze the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in order to better understand its meaning and problems.

History of creation

Nekrasov created the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” from 1863 to 1877, and individual ideas, according to contemporaries, arose from the poet back in the 1850s. Nekrasov wanted to present in one work everything that, as he said, “I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips,” accumulated “by word” over 20 years of his life. Unfortunately, due to the death of the author, the poem remained unfinished; only four parts of the poem and a prologue were published.

After the death of the author, the publishers of the poem were faced with challenging task– determine in what sequence to publish the disparate parts of the work, because Nekrasov did not have time to combine them into one whole. The problem was solved by K. Chukovsky, who, relying on the writer’s archives, decided to print the parts in the order in which they are known to the modern reader: “The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman,” “A Feast for the Whole World.”

Genre of the work, composition

There are many different genre definitions of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - they talk about it as a “travel poem”, “Russian Odyssey”, even such a confusing definition is known as “the protocol of a kind of all-Russian peasant congress, an unrivaled transcript of debates on a pressing political issue " However, there is also author's definition genre that most critics agree with: the epic poem. An epic involves depicting the life of an entire people at some decisive moment in history, be it a war or other social upheaval. The author describes what is happening through the eyes of the people and often turns to folklore as a means of showing the people's vision of the problem. An epic, as a rule, does not have one hero - there are many heroes, and they play more of a connecting role than a plot-forming role. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” fits all these criteria and can safely be called an epic.

Theme and idea of ​​the work, characters, issues

The plot of the poem is simple: “on pillar path“Seven men come together and argue about who has the best life in Rus'. To find out, they go on a journey. In this regard, the theme of the work can be defined as a large-scale narrative about the life of peasants in Russia. Nekrasov covered almost all spheres of life - during his travels the men will meet different people: priest, landowner, beggars, drunkards, merchants, a cycle will pass before their eyes human destinies- from a wounded soldier to a once all-powerful prince. The fair, the prison, hard work for the master, death and birth, holidays, weddings, auctions and elections of the burgomaster - nothing escaped the gaze of the writer.

The question of who should be considered the main character of the poem is ambiguous. On the one hand, formally it has seven main characters - men wandering in search of happy person. The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov also stands out, in whose person the author portrays the future people's savior and educator. But besides this, the poem clearly shows the image of the people as the image of the main actor works. The people appear as a single whole in scenes of fairs and mass celebrations (“ drunken night", "Feast for the whole world"), haymaking. The whole world makes various decisions - from the help of Yermil to the election of the burgomaster, even a sigh of relief after the death of the landowner escapes from everyone at the same time. The seven men are not individualized either - they are described as briefly as possible, do not have their own individual traits and characters, pursue the same goal and even speak, as a rule, all together. Minor characters(servant Yakov, village headman, Savely) are described by the author in much more detail, which allows us to talk about the special creation of a conditionally allegorical image of the people with the help of seven wanderers.

The lives of the people are, in one way or another, affected by all the problems raised by Nekrasov in the poem. This is the problem of happiness, the problem of drunkenness and moral degradation, sin, the relationship between the old and new way of life, freedom and lack of freedom, rebellion and patience, as well as the problem of the Russian woman, characteristic of many of the poet’s works. The problem of happiness in the poem is fundamental and is understood different characters differently. For the priest, the landowner and other characters endowed with power, happiness is represented in the form of personal well-being, “honor and wealth.” A man's happiness consists of various misfortunes - a bear tried to kill him, but could not, they beat him in the service, but did not kill him to death... But there are also characters for whom there is no personal happiness separate from the happiness of the people. This is Yermil Girin, the honest burgomaster, and this is the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov who appears in the last chapter. In his soul, love for his poor mother outgrew and merged with love for his equally poor homeland, for the happiness and enlightenment of which Grisha plans to live.

From Grisha’s understanding of happiness arises the main idea of ​​the work: true happiness is possible only for those who do not think about themselves, and are ready to spend their whole life for the happiness of everyone. The call to love your people as they are and to fight for their happiness, without remaining indifferent to their problems, sounds clearly throughout the poem, and finds its final embodiment in the image of Grisha.

Artistic media

An analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov cannot be considered complete without considering the means of artistic expression used in the poem. This is mainly the use of oral folk art - both as an object of depiction, to create a more reliable picture of peasant life, and as an object of study (for the future people's defender, Grisha Dobrosklonova).

Folklore is introduced into the text either directly, as stylization: stylization of the prologue as a fairy-tale beginning (the mythological number seven, a self-assembled tablecloth and other details eloquently speak about this), or indirectly - quotes from folk songs, references to various folklore subjects (most often to epics).

The speech of the poem itself is stylized as a folk song. Let us pay attention to the large number of dialectisms, diminutive suffixes, numerous repetitions and the use of stable constructions in descriptions. Thanks to this, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” can be perceived as folk art, and this is not accidental. In the 1860s, there was an increased interest in folk art. The study of folklore was perceived not only as scientific activity, but also as an open dialogue between the intelligentsia and the people, which, of course, was close to Nekrasov in ideological terms.

Conclusion

So, having examined Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we can confidently conclude that, despite the fact that it remained unfinished, it is still of enormous literary value. The poem remains relevant to this day and can arouse interest not only among researchers, but also among ordinary readers interested in the history of problems of Russian life. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has been repeatedly interpreted in other forms of art - in the form of a stage production, various illustrations (Sokolov, Gerasimov, Shcherbakova), as well as a popular print on this subject.

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