Analysis of the poem "who lives well in Rus'." All school essays on literature The idea of ​​a poem in Rus' is to live well

“Who can live well in Rus'?” - the poem begins with this question. The heroes who go looking for “who lives happily and freely in Rus'” ask questions to representatives of different classes and receive different answers. Sometimes we are presented with opposing ideals of happiness. However, the main goal of the heroes is to find “peasant happiness.” Who are they, happy ones? How to combine personal happiness with public happiness? The author poses these questions to himself and his characters.

For the landowner Obolt-Obolduev and Prince Utyatin, happiness is a thing of the past. These heroes regret the times of serfdom: “fortification” allowed them to be self-willed, to spend time in idleness and gluttony, the fun of hound hunting... “Peace, wealth, honor” - this is the formula for happiness that the priest deduces, but in reality it turns out that there is no peace, no wealth, no honor in the life of a clergyman.

The peasant world appears before us in the chapter “Happy”. It would seem that now, judging by the title of the chapter, we will receive an answer to the main question of the poem. Is it so? The soldier’s happiness lies in the fact that the poor fellow was not killed in battle, not beaten with sticks, punished for “great and small” offenses. The stonemason is happy that, by working, he drives need away from his family. The Belarusian peasant, having suffered from hunger in the past, rejoices in being full in the present... Thus, happiness for these people consists in the absence of misfortune.

Further in the poem, images of people's intercessors appear. A clear conscience, the trust of people - this is the happiness of Ermila Girin. For Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, endowed with fortitude and self-esteem, the idea of ​​happiness is associated with family and children. For Savely, happiness is freedom. But do they also have what they say?..

No one has a good life in Rus'. Why are there no happy people in Rus'? Is serfdom and the habit of slavery alone to blame? Will the country move towards happiness if memories of serfdom disappear? Grisha Dobrosklonov is inclined to think so. But for Nekrasov this is only part of the truth. Let us remember “Elegy” (“Let the changing fashion tell us...”): “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?..”.

The author translates the problem of happiness into a moral plane. The key theme of the poem is the theme of sin. Numerous peasant sins, combined with the master’s sins, fall heavily on Rus'. Everyone is sinful, even the best: Ermila Girin shielded his brother from recruiting at the cost of a widow’s tears; Savely responded to oppression with murder... Is happiness possible at the expense of another? And what are they anyway - the paths leading to people's happiness? True happiness is the struggle for the people's good. Living for others is the ideal of Grisha Dobrosklonov. From the author’s point of view, the only possible path to happiness is the path of redemption, sacrifice, and asceticism. Matryona Korchagina falls under the lashes, Savely exhausts himself with a vow, Ermila Girin goes to prison, Grisha chooses “the glorious path, the great name of the people’s intercessor, consumption and Siberia.”

Despite everything, the ending of the poem is optimistic. The author leads us to the conclusion that, firstly, the happiness of the people will be possible only when they become the rightful owner of their land. Secondly, only those who fulfill their duty to the people can be happy, who sees the purpose of life in their liberation from the sins of slavery, servility, poverty, drunkenness, savagery, and therefore in universal happiness. Only in the struggle “for the embodiment of the people’s happiness” can a person “live freely and cheerfully in Rus'.”

The theme of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1863-1877) is a depiction of post-reform Russia for ten to fifteen years after the abolition of serfdom. The reform of 1861 is an extremely important event in Russian history, because it radically changed the life of the entire state and the entire people. After all, serfdom determined the economic, political, and cultural situation in Russia for approximately three hundred years. And now it has been canceled and normal life has been disrupted. Nekrasov formulates this idea in the poem as follows:

The great chain has broken,
Torn and splintered:
One way for the master,
Others don't care. ("landowner")

The idea of ​​the poem is a discussion about human happiness in the modern world. It is formulated in the title itself: who lives well in Rus'.

The plot of the poem is based on a description of the journey across Rus' of seven temporarily obliged men. The men are looking for a happy person and on their way they meet a variety of people, listen to stories about different human destinies. This is how the poem unfolds a broad picture of contemporary Russian life for Nekrasov.

A short exposition of the plot is placed in the prologue of the poem:

In what year - calculate
Guess what land?
On the sidewalk
Seven men came together:
Seven temporarily obliged,
A tightened province,
Terpigoreva County,
Empty parish,
From adjacent villages -
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razugova, Znobishina,

Gorelova, Neelova,
Bad harvest too.

The men met by chance, because each was going about his own business: one had to go to the blacksmith, another was in a hurry to invite the priest to a christening, the third was going to sell honeycombs at the market, the Gubin brothers had to catch their stubborn horse, etc. The plot of the poem begins with the oath of the seven heroes:

Don't toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see any of your wives.
Not with the little guys
Not with old people.
As long as the matter is moot
No solution will be found -
Who lives happily?
Free in Rus'? (prologue)

Already in this dispute between the men, Nekrasov presents a plan for the development of the plot action in the work - who the wanderers will meet:

Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
Luke said: ass.
To the fat-bellied merchant! —
The Gubin brothers said,
Ivan and Metrodor.
Old man Pakhom pushed
And he said, looking at the ground:
To the noble boyar,
To the sovereign minister.
And Prov said: to the king. (prologue)

As you know, Nekrasov did not finish the poem, so the planned plan was not fully completed: the peasants talked with the priest (chapter “Pop”), with the landowner Obolt-Obolduev (chapter “Landowner”), observed the “happy life” of the nobleman - Prince Utyatin (chapter "Last One") All the travelers’ interlocutors cannot call themselves happy; they are dissatisfied with their lives, everyone complains about difficulties and deprivations.

However, even in the unfinished poem there is a climax in the meeting of the men in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World” (in different editions the title of the chapter is written differently - “A Feast for the Whole World” or “A Feast for the Whole World”) with a happy man - Grisha Dobrosklonov. True, the men did not understand that they were seeing a happy man in front of them: this young man looked very unlike a man who, according to peasant ideas, could be called happy. After all, the wanderers were looking for a person with good health, with income, with a good family and, of course, with a clear conscience - that’s what happiness is, according to the men. Therefore, they calmly pass by the beggar and unnoticed seminarian. Nevertheless, it is he who feels happy, despite the fact that he is poor, in poor health, and, according to Nekrasov, has a short and difficult life ahead of him:

Fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia. (“Feast for the whole world”)

So, the climax is literally in the last lines of the poem and practically coincides with the denouement:

If only our wanderers could be under their own roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha. (“Feast for the whole world”)

Consequently, the first feature of the composition of the poem is the coincidence of the climax and denouement. The second feature is that, in fact, the entire poem, excluding the prologue, where the plot is located, represents the development of an action constructed in a very complex manner. The general plot of the poem described above is threaded with numerous life stories of heroes met by travelers. The individual stories within the poem are united by the cross-cutting theme of the road and the main idea of ​​the work. This construction has been used more than once in literature, starting with Homer’s “Odyssey” and ending with N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls.” In other words, the poem is compositionally similar to a motley mosaic picture, which is made up of many pebble pieces. Collected together, individual stories heard by wanderers create a broad panorama of post-reform Russian reality and the recent serf past.

Each private story-story has its own more or less complete plot and composition. The life of Yakim Nagogo, for example, is described very briefly in the chapter “Drunk Night.” This middle-aged peasant worked hard and a lot all his life, as his portrait definitely indicates:

The chest is sunken; as if pressed in
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth

Bends like cracks
On dry ground...

He bought it for his son
Hung them on the walls
And he himself is no less than a boy
Loved looking at them.

It is Yakim who gives the answer to Mr. Veretennikov when he reproaches the peasants for drunkenness:

There is no measure for Russian hops,
Have they measured our grief?
Is there a limit to the work?

More detailed stories with a detailed plot are dedicated to Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina; Saveliy, the Holy Russian hero; Ermila Girin; Yakov the faithful exemplary slave.

The last hero, the devoted servant of Mr. Polivanov, is described in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World.” The plot of the action is outside the scope of the story: even in his youth

Yakov had only joy:
To groom, protect, please the master
Yes, rock my little nephew.

The author briefly describes the thirty-three years of the wild life of Mr. Polivanov, until his legs became paralyzed. Yakov, like a kind nurse, looked after his master. The climax of the story comes when Polivanov “thanked” his faithful servant: he gave Yakov’s only relative, his nephew Grisha, as a recruit, because this fellow wanted to marry a girl who the master himself liked. The denouement of the story about the exemplary slave comes quite quickly - Yakov takes his master to the remote Devil's Ravine and hangs himself in front of his eyes. This denouement simultaneously becomes the second climax of the story, since the master receives a terrible moral punishment for his atrocities:

Hanging
Yakov swings rhythmically over the master,
The master rushes about, sobs, screams,
One echo responds!

So the faithful servant refuses, as he did before, to forgive the master everything. Before death, human dignity awakens in Yakov, and it does not allow him to kill a legless disabled person, even one as soulless as Mr. Polivanov. The former slave leaves his offender to live and suffer:

The master returned home, wailing:
“I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!
You, master, will be an exemplary slave,
Jacob the faithful
Remember until judgment day!

In conclusion, it should be repeated that Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is compositionally constructed in a complex way: the overall plot includes complete stories that have their own plots and compositions. The stories are dedicated to individual heroes, primarily peasants (Ermil Girin, Yakov the faithful, Matryona Timofeevna, Saveliy, Yakim Nagoy, etc.). This is somewhat unexpected, because in the dispute between the seven men, representatives of all classes of Russian society are named (landowner, official, priest, merchant), even the tsar - everyone except the peasant.

The poem was written over about fifteen years, and during this time its plan changed somewhat in comparison with the original plan. Gradually, Nekrasov comes to the conclusion that the main figure in Russian history is the peasant who feeds and protects the country. It is the mood of the people that plays an increasingly noticeable role in the state, therefore, in the chapters “Peasant Woman”, “Last One”, “Feast for the Whole World” people from the people become the main characters. They are unhappy, but have strong characters (Savely), wisdom (Yakim Nagoy), kindness and responsiveness (Vahlaks and Grisha Dobrosklonov). It is not for nothing that the poem ends with the song “Rus”, in which the author expressed his faith in the future of Russia.

The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was not finished, but it can be considered as a complete work, since the idea stated at the beginning found its complete expression: Grisha Dobrosklonov turns out to be happy, who is ready to give his life for the happiness of ordinary people. In other words, while working on the poem, the author replaced the peasant understanding of happiness with a populist one: the happiness of an individual is impossible without the happiness of the people.

Before you is an excellent argumentative essay for grade 10 on the topic “Nekrasov’s poem “Who can live well in Rus'?” - encyclopedia of folk life." The essay is intended primarily for 10th grade students, but can also be used in other grades.

This essay analyzes the main theme of the work - the life of the common people in Rus'. The author of the essay pays attention to the stylistics of the poem, analyzing those artistic means that help Nekrasov achieve poetic accuracy in creating this encyclopedia of folk life.

Essay-reasoning “Nekrasov’s poem “Who can live well in Rus'?” — encyclopedia of folk life"

Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” It is commonly called an epic poem. An epic is a work of art that depicts with maximum completeness an entire era in the life of a people. At the center of Nekrasov’s work is the image of post-reform Russia. Nekrasov wrote his poem for twenty years, collecting material for it "by word of mouth"". The poem covers folk life unusually widely. The author wanted to depict all social strata in it: from the peasant to the king. But, unfortunately, the poem was never finished; the poet’s death prevented it. Thus the main theme of the work remained the life of the people, the life of the peasants.

This life appears before us with extraordinary brightness and clarity. All the hardships and troubles that the people have to endure, all this difficulty and severity of their existence. Despite the reform of 1861, which freed the peasants, they found themselves in an even worse situation: without their own land, they fell into even greater bondage.

This motive of the hungry life of the poor man, whom “ melancholy - trouble tormented “sounds with particular force in folk songs, of which there are quite a few in the work. In an effort to recreate the complete picture of folk life, Nekrasov uses all the richness of folk culture, all the diversity of oral folk art.

However, recalling folk talent with expressive songs, Nekrasov does not soften the colors, immediately showing poverty and rudeness of morals, religious prejudices and drunkenness in peasant life. The position of the people is depicted with extreme clarity by the names of the places where the truth-seeking peasants come from:

Terpigoreva County,

Empty parish,

From adjacent villages -

Zaplatova, Dyryavina,

Razutova, Znobishina,

Gorelova, Neelova -

Bad harvest too...

The poem very vividly depicts the joyless, powerless, hungry life of the people and “ peasant happiness, holey with patches, hunchbacked with calluses ", And " hungry servants, abandoned by the master to the mercy of fate " - all people " those who did not eat their fill, who slurped without salt «.

Before us stands a whole network of bright, varied images: along with inactive serfs like Yakov, Gleb, Sidor, Ipat, there appear images of Matryona Timofeevna, the hero Savely, Yakim Nagogo, Yermil Girin, the elder Vlas, the seven truth-seekers and others who have preserved genuine humanity and spiritual nobility. These best of the peasants in the poem retained the ability for self-sacrifice, each of them has their own task in life, their own reason to “seek the truth,” but they all together testify that peasant Rus' has already awakened and come to life. There are already people who can sincerely say the following words:

I don't need any silver

Not gold, but God willing,

So that my fellow countrymen

And every peasant

Lived freely and cheerfully

All over holy Rus'!

For example, in Yakima Nagom presents the unique character of the people's truth-seeker, the peasant righteous man. Yakim Nagoy is able to deeply understand what the strength and weakness of the peasant soul is:

Every peasant

Soul, like a black cloud,

Angry, menacing - and it should be

Thunder will thunder from there,

Bloody rains

And it all ends with wine!

Yakov Nagoy lives the same hardworking, beggarly life as the rest of the peasantry. But, endowing him with a rebellious disposition and a craving for the sublime (story with pictures), Nekrasov tries to outline in this image the desire of the peasantry for spiritual life, to show that a protest against existing living conditions is already brewing in the souls of the people. But so far it is little noticeable and does not declare itself.

Ermil Girin is also noteworthy. A competent man, he served as a clerk and became famous throughout the region for his justice, intelligence and selfless devotion to the people. Yermil showed himself to be an exemplary headman when the people elected him to this position. However, Nekrasov does not make him an ideal righteous man. Yermil, feeling sorry for his younger brother, appoints Vlasyevna’s son as a recruit, and then, in a fit of repentance, almost commits suicide. Ermil's story ends sadly. He is jailed for his speech during the riot. The image of Yermil tells us about the spiritual forces hidden in the Russian people, the wealth of moral qualities of the peasant.

However, the peasant protest turns directly into a riot in the chapter “ Saveliy - Holy Russian hero". The murder of the German oppressor, which occurred spontaneously, personifies large peasant revolts, which also arose spontaneously, as a response to cruel oppression by the landowners.

Savely the hero is the most positive image in the poem. The spirit of a rebel lives in him, hatred of oppressors, but at the same time such human qualities as sincere love, fortitude, a sense of human dignity, understanding of life and the ability to deeply empathize with the grief of others are preserved.

It was precisely such heroes, and not meek and submissive ones, that were close to Nekrasov. The poet saw that the consciousness of the peasantry was awakening, a stormy protest against oppression was brewing. With pain and bitterness, he realized the suffering of the people, but still looked with hope into their future, sometimes in “ hidden spark » powerful internal forces:

The army rises

Uncountable,

The strength in her seems indestructible.

The peasant theme in the poem is inexhaustible, multifaceted, the main motive of the poem is the motive of searching for peasant happiness. Here we can also recall the “happy” peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna, whose image absorbed everything that a Russian peasant woman could survive and experience. Her enormous willpower, despite so many sufferings and hardships, was characteristic of all Russian women, the most disadvantaged and downtrodden creatures in Rus'.

Of course, there are many more interesting images in the poem: “ servant of the exemplary Jacob the Faithful “who managed to take revenge on his master; hard-working peasants from the chapter “The Last”, who are forced to put on a comedy in front of the old Prince Utyatin, pretending that there was no abolition of serfdom, and many other images.

All these images, even episodic ones, create a mosaic, bright canvas of the poem and echo each other. That’s why, I think, it’s possible to call Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” encyclopedia of folk life. The poet, as an epic artist, strove to completely recreate life, to reveal the entire diversity of folk characters. The poem, based on folklore material, gives the impression of being sung by many voices.

Nekrasov always dreamed that the Russian peasant would take at least the first step towards liberation: he would comprehend his fate, understand the reasons for his misfortunes, and think about the ways of liberation.

In this poem, the poet accomplishes the impossible, turning his dream into reality. That is why the poem turned out to be fabulous, very close to folklore.

The plot of the fairy tale poem is that seven men - temporarily obliged peasants - abandon their economic worries and affairs and, having agreed and argued with each other to their heart's content, set off across Rus' to look for the happy, or, as they themselves say, “who lives happily, at ease in Rus'."

First, their starting understanding of happiness is naive and primitive: at the beginning of the poem they understand happiness exclusively as wealth and contentment. Therefore, the first “suspects” are the landowner, the priest, even the tsar. On their way, they learn many destinies, get acquainted with the life stories of people of various classes and incomes, from the social bottom to the very top. Their idea of ​​happiness is gradually corrected, and the travelers themselves receive not only the necessary life experience, but also pleasure from their search.

In essence it is a fairy tale poem, in form it is a travel poem. Traveling not only in space (across Rus'), but also in spheres of life, from bottom to top.

Main Character Groups

Peasants-truth-seekers, wanderers, thinking about their fate and looking for a happy life in Rus'.

Peasant serfs, voluntary slaves, arousing contempt or pity. Among them are “an exemplary slave - Yakov the faithful,” the courtyard servant Ipat, Gleb the elder.

The masters of life, the oppressors of the people, depicted with evil, and sometimes with sympathy.

Among them are landowners, priests, etc.

People's defenders who took the first steps towards the struggle for people's happiness.

This poem became Nekrasov's main book. He conceived and began it in 1863, shortly after the abolition of serfdom, and wrote until his death, almost 15 years, but never finished it.

Of the four large fragments, only “part one” was thought of by Nekrasov as finished, completed. The chapters “The Last One” and “A Feast for the Whole World,” which are interconnected both plot-wise and in terms of time of action, have the author’s notes “from the second part,” and “The Peasant Woman” has the subtitle “from the third part.” Almost nothing else is unclear. By looking at the parts, we must guess at the possible whole.

Today, the chapters are usually arranged in the order of the author’s work on them: “Part One” - “The Last One” - “The Peasant Woman” - “A Feast for the Whole World.” It is precisely this composition that is suggested by the logic of the changing ideas of truth-seeking peasants about a happy person, although Nekrasov never managed to arrange the parts and chapters in the order he needed.

Poem idea

The main idea of ​​the poem is that the reform of 1861 did not bring relief or happiness to either the “master” or the “peasant”:

The great chain has broken,

Torn and splintered:

One end - according to the master,

To others - man!..

For the priest, happiness lies in the serfdom past, when the church was supported by rich landowners, and the ruin of the landowners led to the impoverishment of the peasants and the decline of the clergy.

Two landowners Obolt-Obolduev (chapter V1 of the part) and Utyatin-Prince (chapter “The Last One”) yearn for the forever lost paradise of serf Rus', when noble happiness lay in idleness, luxury, gluttony, self-will and autocracy. The wealth of the “progressive” landowner is based on exactions from quitrent peasants, and the peace of the landowner is faith in the idyll of a single family of the serf-landowner (father) and peasants (children), where the father can punish in a fatherly way, and can also generously pardon. The happiness of Utyatin the Prince from the chapter “The Last One” lies in the satisfaction of his lust for power and in tyranny, vain pride in his origin. And now - wealth is lost, peace is lost (there are peasant robbers all around), no one favors the noble honor (strangers call the landowners “scoundrels”), and the landowner himself received a telling surname, which combines blockhead, fool and fool.

What is happiness in the eyes of the people? In the chapter “Happy”, those who like to drink a free glass talk about their happiness as the absence of misfortune (“Rural Fair”). The soldier is happy because in twenty battles “I was, not killed,” “I was beaten mercilessly with sticks,” but I remained alive. The old woman is glad that she will not die of hunger, since many turnips were born “in a small ridge.” The bricklayer, who overstrained himself at work, is glad that he finally made it to his native village:

Hey, man's happiness!

Leaky with patches,

Humpbacked with calluses.

In the concept of happiness, the people are content with little, taking even minor luck for it. The gallery of the happy among the people ends with an ironic paradox: the parade of the “lucky” is completed by the beggars, for whom happiness lies in receiving alms.

But the peasant Fedosey from the village of Dymoglotov calls the wanderers happy - Ermil Girin. At first he is a clerk, then he is elected mayor. He retreated from the truth only once, saving his “little brother Mitri” from conscription, but then he publicly repents, receives forgiveness, successfully fights for the mill with the merchant Altynnikov, collecting money from everyone, and then honestly returns it to those who donated. The end of Girin’s story is shrouded in mystery: he was called upon to help pacify the peasants of the “landowner Obrubkov,” and then it is reported that “he is sitting in prison” (obviously, he was on the side of the rebels).

In the chapter “Peasant Woman,” Nekrasov creates a wonderful image of Matryona Timofeevna, who has gone through all possible trials for a Russian woman: family “hell” in her husband’s house, the terrible death of a child, public punishment at the whim of a tyrant landowner, her husband’s soldiery. But she continues to rule the house and raise children. The author saw the happiness of the Russian peasant woman through the eyes of wanderers in unbending perseverance and great patience.

Another “lucky one” is Savely, the Holy Russian hero: “branded, but not a slave!” - he endured and endured, but his patience came to an end, however, after 18 years of humiliation. For cursing the German manager, nine men, led by Savely, bury him alive in the ground, for which he receives years of hard labor. Having served his sentence, Savely becomes an involuntary culprit in the death of his grandson, goes to wander, repents and dies, having lived to be “one hundred and seven years old.”

There are three paths for men:

Tavern, prison and hard labor...

Only in the epilogue does a truly happy character appear - Grigory Dobrosklonov. Growing up in the family of a sexton, he lives an ordinary difficult peasant life, but with the help of his fellow villagers he enters the seminary and chooses his own path, in which the main weapon is the word. This is the path of the poet - the people's intercessor.

Nekrasov’s happiest person turns out to be not a tsar, not a drunk, not a slave, not a landowner, but a poet who sings radiant hymns about people’s happiness. The songs composed by Grisha are one of the most powerful places in the poem.

Thus, following Gogol’s questions “Rus', where are you rushing?”, Herzen’s “Who is to blame?”, Chernyshevsky’s “What to do?” Nekrasov poses another eternal Russian question: “Who can live well in Rus'?”

The poem "Who lives well in Rus'?" From the very beginning, Nekrasov himself assessed it as the pinnacle of his creative path. This monumental work contains almost all the motives of the poet’s lyrics; one can say that it was his testament to subsequent generations of Russian people. However, Nekrasov not only gives a description of the entire great Rus' and reflects on its future. Like Gogol in his poem “Dead Souls,” Nekrasov in “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” pays special attention to the present situation of the people, notices and draws the attention of readers to vices and shortcomings, and takes pity on long-suffering people. The main goal of the author is to understand the life of a simple person, to look into his soul. Therefore, “Who can live well in Rus'?” - truly a folk epic poem. But what else does this manifest itself in?

The very concept of the work, which becomes clear from the title, speaks volumes. The author sets the goal of finding a happy person in all of vast Rus', but in this search, a picture of the everyday life of the entire Russian people appears before the reader. Therefore, the concept of the work can be called global.

Nekrasov decided that the travel genre was most suitable for realizing this idea. But, unlike the author of “Dead Souls,” Nekrasov made the main characters, through whose eyes we see the whole of Russia, not an official, but a whole group of truly folk heroes - peasants “temporarily obliged” who live in “Empty volost, Terpigorev district.” The main characters cannot be given an unambiguous assessment: on the one hand, these are very real characters, which is emphasized by indicating their social status, which actually existed in post-reform Russia. On the other hand, the names of the volost and the district are obviously not only fictitious, but also generalizing, that is, we are already looking at half-fairy-tale, half-epic characters. Epic motifs are especially noticeable at the beginning of the poem: the heroes “came together at a crossroads and argued,” then “they decided to go home and not toss and turn” until they found a happy person. The plot is apparently taken from folklore.

Nekrasov failed to realize his plan to the end; he died before finishing the poem. But, although the work remained unfinished, all of Rus', all of its people, truly appeared in it. Of course, the author wanted to show the life of literally all classes of Russia, from peasants to the tsar. It was possible to illuminate, in addition to the life of the peasants, the life of the clergy and landowners. It would seem that these two classes have always oppressed the working people, but the author is fair; he does not idealize the priest and the landowner, but he does not scold them either. The descriptions of the lives of these heroes fit harmoniously into the overall structure of the work, thanks to them the reader sees Russia through the eyes of other representatives of its people, because, for example, the landowner has his own tragedy: he understands that people are becoming smaller, patriarchal Rus' is collapsing before our eyes, burying the bad, and good. In addition, with the help of the image of the landowner, the author introduces the theme of serfdom, expresses the idea that “a great chain has broken: one end for the master, the other for the peasant.”

A special place in the work is occupied by the generalized image of a peasant woman - Matryona Timofeevna. Nekrasov was always concerned about the bitter fate of the Russian woman, and in his poem he pays a lot of attention to describing the life of the “governor”. Matryona knows how to find joy in her difficult life, but the author more than once emphasizes the horrors and hardships that Russian peasant women endure. The description of Matryona’s fate ends with the statement that the peasants “didn’t start a business” - to look for happy people among women.

Individual typical representatives of the people are discussed both in the story “about Yakov the faithful, the exemplary slave” and in the descriptions of the “rural fair”. Again and again the motif of deprivation to which the common people are subjected is heard; Yakov’s cruel revenge on his master, the soldier’s story about the war - all this evokes in the reader not just sympathy and compassion, but outright pain for innocent people. The images of Vlas and Klim are also interesting, although they are, in general, opposed to each other, they have one problem - the arbitrariness that is happening in Russia, this is the problem of the entire people.

Along with generalized images, Nekrasov also describes groups of people. First of all, these are, of course, Vakhlaks.

Their game with the Posledysh is in fact nothing more than a model of the relationship between peasants and the landowner in the era of serfdom. With caustic irony and anger, the author describes Utyatin’s tyranny. This topic is being continued. The author specifically describes the life of peasants before and after death. The sons of the deceased do not want to give up the promised meadows; it is emphasized that even after the abolition of serfdom, the landowners deceived the peasants, and, unfortunately, this also corresponded to the realities of the people’s lives.

The description of the life of serfs without a master in the part “Peasant Woman” makes a depressing impression. Here the common people are criticized, Nekrasov makes it clear that the people are, after all, the architect of their own happiness and are themselves to blame for many of their troubles.

The epic theme takes on a new sound when describing folk characters that are no longer entirely real. This is, of course, Savely and Grisha Dobrosklonov. Saveliy is a representative of patriarchal Rus', a true “Holy Russian hero,” which is emphasized in his portrait. Grisha is a hero of a new type. It is not without reason that Nekrasov mentions Ivan Susanin in connection with Saveliy. The time of mighty heroes has passed, now it’s the turn of smart and selfless fighters, ready to save the people not only from invaders, but also from oppressors.

Fate had in store for him

The path is glorious, the name is loud

People's Defender,

Consumption and Siberia.

Grisha is a new folk hero. Nekrasov puts his own ideas into his mouth, he becomes the bearer of truth.

You're miserable too

You are also abundant

Mother Rus'!

Grisha is one of the few who looks into the future with hope, he is ready to fight for it, he believes in his homeland.

In the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'?" Nekrasov showed the entire life of the Russian people without embellishment. But this work could not be called a folk epic poem if the voice of the author himself did not sound in it.

Eat the prison, Yasha,

There’s no milk, -

Where is our cow? –

Taken away, my light.

Master for offspring

Took her home.

It's nice to live for the people

Saint in Rus'!

The main idea of ​​the entire work is expressed here: there is no happy person in all of Russia, grief reigns everywhere.

"Who can live well in Rus'?" - this is a mirror of the soul of Russia, N.A. Nekrasov continued the traditions of Radishchev and Gogol in depicting the life of ordinary people, and brought out several interesting images that became symbols of the Russian people.