Analysis of the work hunting for tours. "Death". Analysis of Turgenev's story. Kasyan with a Beautiful Sword

The book was written over three and a half years abroad, in France. Later, in “Literary and Everyday Memoirs,” the author admitted that he would not have created “Notes of a Hunter” if he had remained in Russia. Not only could he not write, but he could not live being next to his “enemy,” which was serfdom and with whom, even in his youth, he swore an oath to “fight to the end.”

Thus, Turgenev’s departure, among other reasons, clearly demonstrated the writer’s loyalty to his convictions.

However, as B. Zaitsev quite rightly writes, “Notes of a Hunter” is “poetry, not politics.” Moreover, Turgenev himself did not accept patriotic verbiage. He was essentially a strikingly Russian man, deeply understanding Russia, feeling its charm and beauty.

A world immersed in the blue vastness and earthly silence of rural Russia—this is how the image of the homeland seemed to the writer’s artistic imagination. This is especially clearly seen in Kasyan’s story about the Beautiful Sword, about the native places he left behind.

The green-blue expanse and heights that opened up to our eyes, absorbing and reflecting the natural grandeur of the earth and sky - all that we called nature - animated by people like Turgenev’s Stepushkas, Suchkas, Ermolays, Kasyans, Philofsyas, Kalinichs - is what was revealed in “Notes of a Hunter” is an image of the homeland, contemplated by its author from his distance with enduring love and adoration.

The image of the Motherland embodied in Turgenev’s cycle was revealed to both Russian and world literature by an artist endowed with a rare spirit of imagination, drawn from a long, close contact between nature and man. The most enchanting thing about Turgenev is when he envelops the simplest states of nature in a haze of poetry. In “Notes of a Hunter” the leaves “babble” and “fog up”, the reeds “murmur”, the bird “rings its wings”, the tree “basks” in the fog, quietly blinks “like a carefully carried candle”, a star, the Russian summer night is full of “languorous smell,” and the morning “rustles and rustles,” the clouds resemble “lowered sails,” and a curly tree falls under an ax, like a man, “bowing and extending his arms.”

The poetic inspiration of the author of "Notes of a Hunter", gleaned from nature, feeds Turgenev's sophisticated aestheticism, which brings him closer to the plasticity and metaphorical sophistication of the literature of the Silver Age. Much in the green-blue world recreated by Turgenev gave rise to a feeling of delight, beauty and faith in the harmony of the human universe.

One of the foundations of this faith for Turgenev himself was the feeling of complete unity of the common man, the peasant with nature, the mutual dissolution of their lives. This is Foma Biryuk, about whom we can say that he is not just a forester, but the spirit of the forest.

About Turgenev’s Kasyan, it would be correct to note that this “strange old man” was a real Forest Master - the Goblin, who began to fool the hunter and take the game away from him. And he behaves in the forest, as if in his own home, in his own way: he walked “nimbly,” “mimicked, echoed” with the birds. One of the “goblets” did not fail to appear in the thicket of the forest, with a face strikingly similar to the face of the Master: the girl Annushka with a basket of mushrooms in her hand.

Turgenev’s relationship between man and the natural world can also be deeply psychological. This is how the image of the fading evening turning into night and the fate of Arina in the story “Ermolai and the Miller’s”, a woman with “big and sad” eyes, whose life, as we understand, fades painfully early, are connected with each other.

However, no matter how dramatic human fate may seem, no matter how multi-layered and complex it may be, Turgenev nevertheless strives to show that the universe is still beautifully arranged. The basis of this thought in “Notes of a Hunter” is the affirmation of universal life - “the strong, wise, happy life of nature,” its natural course.

The heroes of "Notes of a Hunter" are united by a common feeling of life - to live with the whole being in every given minute, to surrender to the spontaneous flow of life, to submit to those unchangeable conditions "that nature has laid down for the sun, grass, beast, tree" (Tolstoy). This determines in them an extraordinary integrity of spirit, which, according to Turgenev, a person who has fallen out of nature is deprived of. This is how he perceived himself and the people of his class and saw the spiritual health of the Russian nation in its familiarization with the people’s worldview, which, the writer believed, would help overcome suffering, a person’s sense of loneliness, weakness, awareness of his own insignificance, fear of natural eternity.

Turgenev saw spiritual support for modern man primarily in concepts close to the people such as patience, humility, meekness, the ability to suffer - to endure one’s hard lot without tears or complaints, concepts closely related to the Orthodox faith and, first of all, to the image of Christ. Thus, Lukerya (“Living Relics”) is endowed with absolute integrity of spirit, nourished by religious faith. Doomed to immobility, she finds the strength to endure her misfortune in humility and boundless patience.

The integrity of the spirit of the heroes of "Notes of a Hunter", no matter how different they may be: be it the practical Khor or the dreamy Kalinich, the pitiful Stepushka and the mysterious Kasyan, tenacious as grass in a field Ermolai and the stern, duty-filled Biryuk - makes them equal, all equally harmonious.

At the same time, the writer’s focus was on the social side of life of the Russian peasantry and Russian society as a whole. "Notes of a Hunter" was direct and honest prose, filled with echoes and evidence of the need and distress of the people.

But Turgenev's main idea was that the peasant is not the master of his own destiny. Thus, he pronounced sentence on his “enemy” - the cruel, humiliating feudal reality.

The story “Ermolai and the Miller’s Woman” is permeated with unbearable pain for trampled dignity and ruined life. The cruel arbitrariness of the serf mistress Arina (Varvara Petrovna could be seen in her), who denies her slaves personal happiness, dooms her not only to public disgrace, the failure of love, separation from her lover, the loss of a child, but also to the quiet fading of life in this laconic, sad , a beautiful woman.

Turgenev’s other hero, Stepushka (“Raspberry Water”), was simply erased from life: “no one knew about his existence.” Unlike Stepushka, the yard Suchok ("Lgov") was not forgotten by the owners, who assigned him to be a coachman, a cook, a watchman, and a gardener. And now Sochok has been working with the lady as a fisherman for seven years. True, as it later turns out, there are “no fish in the master’s river.” Turgenev talks not only about the meaningless life of the hero, but, as in the case of Arina, about a life ruined by the arbitrariness of the mistress.

Thomas the hero lives a beggarly life full of suffering. Serfdom doomed him to the fate of a “hermit wolf”, a “murderer”, a “bloodsucker”, a “beast”, fiercely hated by the peasants, ruined to the extreme, swollen from hunger. And it condemns Biryuk to painful discord with himself, unbearable mental tossing. Aware of the bitter lot of the peasants, he nevertheless zealously serves his cause.

Turgenev also suggested a possible outcome of Biryuk’s fate. In “Bezhin Meadow,” the boy Pavlusha talks about how “last summer Akim the forester was drowned by thieves, and now you can hear his soul complaining.” Isn’t this the fate that the peasant he caught speaks to Thomas about: “You murderer, beast, there is no death for you... But wait, you won’t reign for long!”

Thus, in “Notes of a Hunter,” the “choral destiny” of the people arises, sung by Jacob the Turk, which sent many peasants, like Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword, to wander the world, seek the truth, and dream of blessed lands where “man lives in contentment and justice.” Until the “warm seas” with the Gamayun bird are found, the peasant is forced to exist with the half-pumpkins and chiffchaffs, under the ruthless power of the “fortress”, without the right to a decent life.

But to Turgenev, despite the pervasive nature of serfdom, the fate of the people seemed full of high meaning. Convinced that the embryo of future great deeds lies hidden in Russian people, he developed in “Notes of a Hunter” V. Belinsky’s thought, similar to his own, about the people - the soil that stores the vital juices of development.

Here is a complete picture of Russia, illuminated by the author’s loving, poetic attitude towards his native land, reflections on the present and future of its talented people. There are no scenes of torture, but it is the everyday pictures of serf life that testify to the anti-human essence of the entire social system. In this work, the author does not offer us bright plot moves with active action, but pays great attention to the portrait characteristics, manners, habits and tastes of the heroes. Although the overall plot is still present. The narrator makes a voyage across Russia, but its geography is very limited - this is the Oryol region. He meets various types of people along the way, as a result of which a picture of Russian life emerges. Turgenev attached great importance to the arrangement of stories in the book. This is how not a simple selection of thematically homogeneous stories appears, but a single work of art, within which the patterns of figurative interconnection of essays operate. “Notes of a Hunter” opens with two thematic “phrases”, each of which includes three stories. First, variations on a folk theme are given - “Khor and Kalinich”, “Ermolai and the miller’s wife”, “Raspberry water”. The next three stories develop the theme of the ruined nobility - “The District Doctor”, “My Neighbor Radimov”, “Ovsyanikov’s Homesteader”. The following stories: “Lgov”, “Bezhin Meadow”, “Kasyan with a Beautiful Sword” - again develop the theme of the people, but in them the motives of the decaying harmful influence of serfdom on the souls of people appear and sound more and more persistently, this is especially felt in the essay “Lgov” "

In the stories “The Burmister”, “The Office” and “Biryuk” the theme of the nobility is continued, but in a sharply updated version. In “Burmistra,” for example, a type of landowner of a new formation is presented, and the image of a lord’s servant is also given here. The “Office” gives curious results of the transfer of old noble business habits to new forms of public institutions and new types of office servants from the peasants. The essay “Biryuk” describes a strange, mysterious man who personifies the powerful elemental forces that still unconsciously roam in the soul of the Russian person.

In the next eight stories, thematic phrases are mixed, and a kind of thematic diffusion occurs. However, at the very end of the cycle, the elegiac note of two stories about the nobleman Tchertopkhanov is replaced by a folk theme in the essays “Living Relics” and “Knocking.”

“Notes of a Hunter” depicts provincial Russia, but one can feel the deadening pressure of those spheres of life that weigh on the Russian province and dictate their terms and laws to it.

The first story in this series is called “Khor and Kalinich.” The author-narrator meets the landowner Polutykin, a passionate hunter, who invites him to his estate, where he introduces him to his peasants, whom he values ​​quite highly. The first character is Khor, whose image is based on a certain type, quite common among the people. Khor was well acquainted with the practical side of the matter; common sense was visible in his actions and work. He is in the position of a serf, although he has the opportunity to pay off his master.

His friend Kalinich is his complete opposite. He once had a wife, but now lives alone. Hunting became the meaning of his life, giving him the opportunity to contact nature.

The characters look at life differently, perceive different situations, even their manners are completely opposite.

The author does not idealize the peasants. Turgenev saw in popular types people of common sense, whose tragedy lies in the fact that they cannot realize their talents and capabilities. Khor saw a lot, knew and understood the psychology of human relationships well. “While talking with Khorem, for the first time I heard the simple, intelligent speech of a Russian peasant.” But Khor could not read, and Kalinich could, but he was devoid of common sense. These opposites in real life do not contradict each other, but complement each other and thereby find a common language. Here the author acted as a mature master of folk storytelling, here the peculiar serfdom pathos of the entire book was determined, depicting strong, courageous, bright folk characters, whose existence transformed serfdom into the disgrace and humiliation of Russia, into a social phenomenon incompatible with the national dignity of the Russian people. In the essay “Khor and Kalinich”, the character of the landowner Polutykin is sketched only with light strokes, his passion for French cuisine is briefly reported, and also mentions the lord’s office. But this element is by no means accidental. In the essay “The Office” similar French predilections are presented in the image of the landowner Foam, and the destructive consequences of this element are shown in the story “The Burmister”.

This work mercilessly exposes the destructive economic consequences of the so-called civilizing activities of the elite. Their way of farming undermines the foundations of the peasant’s work on the land. The essay “Two Landowners,” for example, tells about the economic activities of one important St. Petersburg dignitary, who decided to sow all his fields with poppy seeds, “since it costs more than rye, so it is more profitable to sow it.” The activities of this dignitary echo the management of the land of the landowner Pantelei Eremeevich Tchertopkhanov, who began to rebuild peasant huts according to a new plan. In addition, he ordered all his subjects to be numbered and each one had his number sewn on his collar. In such atrocities of a provincial landowner, other actions of an all-Russian, state scale are visible. Here the author hints at the activities of Arakcheev, the organizer of peasant military settlements.

Gradually, the book develops an artistic idea about the absurdity of the centuries-old serfdom. For example, in the story “Ovsyanikov’s Homesteader,” the story of the transformation of the illiterate French drummer Lejeune into a music teacher, tutor, and then into a Russian nobleman is given.

In "Notes of a Hunter" there are stories that gravitate towards satire, as they contain an anti-serfdom theme. For example, the story “Lgov” talks about a peasant nicknamed Suchok, who during his life served his masters as a coachman, fisherman, cook, actor in the home theater, and bartender Anton, although his real name was Kuzma. Having several names and nicknames, the personality turned out to be completely impersonal.

Different destinies, combining and echoing others, participate in the creation of a monumental image of the serfdom, which has a disastrous effect on the life of the nation.

This image complements and enhances nature. A lifeless landscape runs like a red thread throughout the book. For the first time he appears in the essay “Khor and Kalinich”, where the Oryol village located next to the ravine is mentioned. In the story “The Singers,” the village of Kolotovka is dissected by a terrible ravine right in the middle of the street. In the essay “Bezhin Meadow,” a lost hunter experiences a “terrible feeling” when he finds himself in a hollow that looks like a cauldron with shallow glasses. The image of a terrible place cursed by people appears repeatedly in the story. Landscapes of this kind concentrate centuries-old folk troubles and hardships associated with Russian serfdom.

(function(w, d, n, s, t) ( w[n] = w[n] || ; w[n].push(function() ( Ya.Direct.insertInto(86107, "yandex_ad", ( stat_id: 3, site_charset: "utf-8", ad_format: "direct", font_size: 1, type: "horizontal", limit: 3, title_font_size: 1, site_bg_color: "FFFFFF", header_bg_color: "FFFFFF", title_color: "295485", url_color: "666666", all_color: "295485", text_color: "000000", hover_color: "CC0000" )); )); t = d.documentElement.firstChild; s = d.createElement("script" ); s.type = "text/javascript"; s.src = "http://an.yandex.ru/system/context.js"; s.setAttribute("async", "true"); t.insertBefore (s, t.firstChild); ))(window, document, "yandex_context_callbacks"); This work is devoid of patriarchal beauty, since it touches on the all-Russian social conflict, and also two national images of the world, two Russias - official, deadening life, and folk-peasant, living and poetic - collide and argue with each other. In addition, all the heroes gravitate towards two different poles - dead or alive. Nature also plays an active role in creating a holistic image of living Russia. The best heroes of this work are not just depicted against the backdrop of nature, but also act as its continuation. In this way, the book achieves a poetic sense of the mutual connection of all living things: man, river, forest, steppe. The soul of this unity is the personality of the author, fused with the life of the people, with the deep layers of Russian culture. Nature here is not indifferent to man; on the contrary, she is very strict in her relations with him, since she takes revenge on him for being too unceremonious and rational intrusion into her secrets, as well as for being excessively bold and self-confident with her. The peculiarity of the national character is revealed in the story “Death”, which lists tragic stories about the death of the contractor Maxim, the peasant, the miller Vasil, the commoner-intellectual Avenir Sokoloumov, and the old landowner. But all these stories are united by one common motif: in the face of death, heart strings appear in a Russian person. All Russian people “die amazingly,” because in the hour of the last test they think not about themselves, but about others, about loved ones. This is the source of their courage and mental endurance.

There is a lot that attracts the writer in Russian life, but there is also a lot that repels him. However, there is one quality in it that the author places very highly - it is democracy, friendliness, a living talent for mutual understanding, which was not exterminated from the people's environment, but, on the contrary, was sharpened by the centuries of serfdom, the severe trials of Russian history.

There is another leitmotif in “Notes of a Hunter” - the musical talent of the Russian people, which was first stated in “The Choir and Kalinich”. Kalinich sings, and the businesslike Khor sings along with him. The song unites even such opposite natures in a general mood. The song is the beginning that brings people together in the joys and sorrows of life.

In the essay “Raspberry Water,” the characters have common traits: they are all losers. And at the end of the essay, on the other side, an unfamiliar singer began to sing a sad song, which brings people together, since through individual destinies it leads to an all-Russian fate and thereby makes the heroes related to each other.

In the story “Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword,” a mournful chant is heard among the fields, which calls for a journey, away from the land where untruth and evil reign, to the promised land, where all people live in contentment and justice.

Jacob’s song from the story “The Singers” calls the heroes to the same country. Here, not only Jacob’s singing is poeticized, but also the spiritual connection that his song establishes in characters very different in position and origin. Yakov sang, but the souls of the people around him sang along with him. The entire Prytynny tavern lives by song.

But Turgenev is a realist writer, so he will show how such an impulse is replaced by mental depression. What follows is a drunken evening, where Yakov and the whole world in the tavern become completely different.

The collection contains stories imbued with special lyricism. For example, “Bezhin Meadow” is sharply different in elegance from other short stories in this cycle. The author pays a lot of attention here to the elements of nature. Towards evening, the traveler lost his way and decided to choose a place to stay for the night. He comes out to a fire burning near the river, near which peasant children are sitting, grazing their horses. The hunter witnesses their conversation. He is delighted with the folk stories with which he became acquainted. Kostya’s story about Gavril, a suburban carpenter who encountered a mermaid, is interesting. He went to meet her, but inner strength stopped him, he laid down the cross, after which she stopped laughing and began to cry, saying: “You will kill yourself until the end of your days.” Here satanic power is defeated by the sign of the cross, but it is capable of introducing sadness into a person.

“Notes of a Hunter” ends with the essay “Forest and Steppe.” There are no heroes here, but there is a subtle lyrical description of the natural elements, the beauty of nature and human existence in it. These two opposites do not crowd or interfere, but mutually complement each other. Both the forest and the steppe delight the traveler; he likes them at the same time. Man must also fit harmoniously into nature. The essay is imbued with a life-affirming optimistic mood, since all this is important for the healthy existence of people.

Thus, the central conflict of this book is complex and deep. Undoubtedly, social antagonisms are depicted here quite sharply. Of course, the burden of serfdom falls primarily on the shoulders of the peasant, because it is he who has to endure physical torture, hunger, poverty and spiritual humiliation. However, Turgenev looks at serfdom from a broader, national point of view, as a phenomenon painful at the same time for both the master and the peasant. He sharply condemns the cruel serf owners and sympathizes with those nobles who themselves were victims of the serfdom yoke. It is no coincidence that the singing of Yakov the Turk evokes a “heavy tear” from the eyes of the Wild Master.

In Turgenev, not only peasants are endowed with nationally Russian traits; Some landowners who escaped the corrupting influence of serfdom are also Russian by nature. Pyotr Petrovich Karataev is no less a Russian person than the peasants. National character traits are also emphasized in Tchertopkhanov’s moral character. He is a landowner, but not a serf owner. Such is Tatyana Borisovna, a patriarchal landowner, but at the same time a simple creature, with a “straightforward, pure heart.”

The author sees the living forces of the nation in both the peasant and noble environment. Admiring the poetic talent or, conversely, the efficiency of the Russian person, the writer comes to the conclusion that serfdom is contrary to national dignity, and all living Russia, not only peasant, but also noble, must take part in the fight against it.

The story “Raspberry Water” was published in the magazine “Sovremennik” No. 2 for 1848. It combines the ideas of two essays, which Turgenev called “Fog” and “Stepushka” in plans. The story was written in Paris in the autumn of 1847.

In the first magazine publication, the story was subject to significant censorship edits. In the 1852 edition of “Notes of a Hunter,” the original text was restored.

Literary direction and genre

The story “Raspberry Water” is realistic and has an anti-serfdom orientation. The reader observes a number of typical images of peasants and landowners. In its descriptiveness, the story is similar to an essay; it does not have a pronounced climax. In its richness of characters and events, the story approaches a novella.

Issues

The main problem of the story is related to serfdom, which makes both peasants and landowners unhappy in their own way and deprives them not only of dignity, but also of their humanity.

Plot and composition

The story “Raspberry Water” is part of the series “Notes of a Hunter”, united by the hero-narrator. The title of the story is dedicated to a source, a spring called “Crimson Water,” gushing from a crevice in the Istra River.

The unprecedented August heat that accompanies the heroes throughout the story leads the hunter to the source. The exposition of the story is a summer landscape and a description of the key, near which the narrator meets two old men - Stepushka and Tuman.

Having talked about Stepushka, the hunter comes closer and recognizes another old man, Fog, with whom he recalls the order under the old count. Thus, through a monologue (the narrator’s reasoning about Stepushka) and dialogue (with Tuman), the reader learns about the life of not only these peasants, but also the master Pyotr Ilyich.

The story seems to end with this dialogue. But it is followed by a landscape in which the feeling of heat and stuffiness is even more intense. He plays the role of a kind of interlude, after which a new character is introduced into the action - the peasant Vlas.

From Fog’s dialogue with the approaching Vlas, who had recently lost his son, the reader learns that life with the count’s son, Valerian Petrovich, is even more difficult.

The sad song at the end on the other side of the river matches the mood of the characters. The ending of the story is open; the fate of none of the characters is determined.

Heroes of the story

Stepushka is the most pitiful creature that could have been generated by serfdom. This is a man without a past, who came from nowhere in the village of Shumikhino and lives with the gardener Mitrofan, whom the landowners settled on the site of a manor house that had once burned down.

Only after talking about Stepushka’s life, the author describes his appearance, emphasizing that Stepushka is a small man not only figuratively, but also in the literal sense: “His face is small, his eyes are yellow, his hair goes all the way to his eyebrows...” Childish, primitive appearance complements the hero's speech. Stepushka spoke hesitantly, “as if he was moving pounds with his tongue.”

Stepushka not only was not a servant, did not receive any salary or benefits, but he could not even be considered a person. Stepushka had no position in society, no connections, no relatives, no one knew about him, he didn’t even have a past. And he was not listed according to the audit, that is, he was a dead soul.

Stepushka lived like an animal in a cage behind the chicken coop, in winter - in the dressing room or in the hayloft. He ate what good people served. The author compares Stepushka to an ant who bothers only for food. His movements are fussy, he is ready to hide at any moment.

Fog is the nickname of the freedman Mikhail Savelyev, who used to be the butler of Count Pyotr Ilyich. He was a seventy-year-old man with a regular and pleasant face. He spoke a little through his nose, “good-naturedly and majestically,” did everything slowly, even blew his nose and sniffed tobacco. With pleasure, Tuman talks about different aspects of the life of landowners: about dogs and hound hunting, about the rich lordly receptions, clothing and even the master’s morality. He is dissatisfied with the loss of his position under the master, because at the same time he lost his importance.

The third peasant the narrator meets is Vlas. This is a man of about fifty. His dusty traveling clothes and knapsack reveal him as a man who has traveled a long way. Vlas suffered greatly from serfdom. He lost his son and could no longer pay the rent “ninety-five rubles from taxes.” Therefore, he went to Moscow to see the master Valerian Petrovich, the son of Pyotr Ilyich. But the master refused to transfer him to corvee, ordering him to first pay the arrears. Vlas treats life’s injustice as something natural, as if we are talking about something else.

Landowners occupy a special place in the gallery of realistic types of the Russian village. Count Pyotr Ilyich, “a nobleman of the old century,” lived in the village of Troitsky in a huge wooden house with 2 floors. The Count loved to receive guests, enjoying their servility. He convened the entire province and lived in grand style, but having gone bankrupt, he went to St. Petersburg to look for a place for himself and died in oblivion in a hotel.

The reader learns the details of the count's life from the story of his butler. The fog admires the splendor of the master's banquets. As an example of Count Tuman’s kind soul, he cites an apparently ordinary story: “He used to beat you, and look, he’s already forgotten.”

Fog considers as wisdom the tyranny of the master, who kicked out the bandmaster from the Germans, who wanted to eat with the gentlemen at the same table, because the musicians (and there were 40 of them, a whole orchestra) already “understand their job.” According to Tuman, the master was ruined by the matreskis (mistresses) who had power over him.

The narrator is an exponent of the author's attitude towards serfdom. If the men do not understand the full tragedy of their forced existence and justify the masters, then the narrator sincerely sympathizes with the serfs. This is reflected in the details: he calls the peasant “my poor Vlas” and asks Tuman uncomfortable questions about the severity of the late master.

Turgenev condemns the system, from which a person (Styopushka) falls out and ceases to be a person at all.

Stylistic features

The story is poetic and even musical. With the help of psychological parallelism, Turgenev describes the internal state of the heroes. The increasing heat corresponds to the heightened emotions of the peasants: the completely indifferent Stepushka, the timidly indignant Fog and the desperate Vlas.

Details in the story are important for the psychological characteristics of the characters. The fog is embarrassed when the narrator forces him to admit that the current order is better than the previous one, because he misses the “good times.” Vlas laughs and is cheerful, but his face betrays grief from the loss of his son, resentment towards the master: there are tears in his eyes, his lips are twitching, his voice is breaking.

Turgenev's peasants are bright individuals. They even speak differently: Styopushka inarticulately, Tuman correctly and reasonably, maintaining the conversation like a lord, Vlas - briefly, holding back his offense.

“Raspberry Water” is a famous story included in the collection “Notes of a Hunter.” It is in this work that ideas from the essays “Stepushka” and “Fog” are successfully combined. The story reveals the peculiarities of life of the rural population, whose representatives strive to improve their lives and strengthen the economy of their country, but at the same time are engaged in solving fairly simple everyday issues.

The basis of the plot of the story “Raspberry Water”

The main character of the story is Mikhailo Savelyev, known as Fog. Mikhailo Savelyev is a freedman of Count Pyotr Ilyich, who previously worked as a butler. Now the former butler is already 70 years old. The fog honors the late master for whom he worked hard.

Stepushka is a poor, rootless man who does not even have a home, but he also retains deep respect for his master.

Mikhailo and Stepushka talk about their master with particular eagerness:

The treat was offered from Paris;

He held a musical group and a bandmaster;

I tried to take a special approach to welcoming each guest.

The main characters remember the count’s love of love. The way the mistresses, who came from a low class, lived under him. Particularly memorable is Akulina, a simple and feisty girl.

Unfortunately, the end of a happy and measured life came after the master went bankrupt and left for St. Petersburg to look for work. The plans were not destined to come true, and the master died in an ordinary hotel room.

Friends of the writer Ivan Turgenev and his provincial circle noted that the image of the count from the story “Raspberry Water” turned out to be special. Readers found character traits about rich people and tyrants, among whom Vasily Ivanovich Protasov stood out. In fact, there were significant reasons to find Protasov’s traits in the gentleman from “Raspberry Water”. The estates of both were called Troitsky, and the Protasovsky estate was located near the mouth of the Ista River, where the Raspberry Water spring flowed. It is the correspondence of the name that immediately evokes associations. In addition, Turgenev often hunted near the Ista River, so his life experience could subsequently find expression in one of the most famous stories, which was presented under the mysterious title “Raspberry Water,” which has a relationship with the lands familiar to the poet and their geographical names.

There were enough other reasons for the appearance of legends about Pyotr Ilyich, who looks like Vasily Protasov. The fate of the hero of the work is reminiscent of the life of Protasov, who died in 1807 and could not have been familiar to Ivan Turgenev. However, many residents of the province talked about the master’s special antics. Turgenev met numerous relatives of Protasov, so he could form the correct opinion and successfully present it in a vivid story.

Plot of the story

The main theme of the story is the relationship between the peasant population and landowners, revealing the inappropriateness of serfdom.

At the very beginning of the story, the story is told with the participation of Count Pyotr Ilyich, who had a special character:

Tyranny and inability to admit obvious shortcomings;

Passionate homage to hound hunting;

The desire to hold banquets to which even women from the lower strata of society were invited;

Frequent fireworks displays.

Of course, Mikhailo and Stepushka revered their master, who tried to provide gifts and the opportunity to attend musical evenings for his people. However, these handouts did not allow one to count on confidence in the future, they could not give confidence in material well-being, so the revelation of serfdom still occurs from negative sides.

Pyotr Ilyich's cultural horizon is limited to prescribing Parisian cologne, which aroused the admiration of Mikhail and Stepushka. At the same time, ordering cologne from Paris, the capital of France, is a manifestation of low cultural development, but ordinary extravagance.

Pyotr Ilyich showed wastefulness and indifference to the tragic fate of the peasant population. One could say that he becomes a victim of his own ignorance. His death in an ordinary hotel room is the peak of the manifestation of negativity, created on the basis of the selfishness of the counts and complete indifference to serfdom.

Family qualities in Pyotr Ilyich’s family are inactivity and tyranny. These character traits were passed on to the son of Pyotr Ilyich. The young master displays a cruel attitude towards his serfs. This is shown in the example of the peasant Vlas. A poor man, Vlas asks to reduce his rent, explaining his situation as hopelessness, but is faced with amazing cruelty.

At the same time, a story is being told about the life of freedman Mikhail Savelyev (Tuman). This hero, who was formerly the master's butler, is depicted as a tall man. Stepushka, another main character, is described as thin and skinny. The development of the story confirmed that Turgenev tried to present the main characters in a special way:

Tall Mikhailo always endures life's difficulties with courage and shows strength of character;

Low Stepushka bends under the tests.

The story confirms that Turgenev especially pities Mikhailo and Stepushka, but at the same time does not understand why they do nothing to improve their lives.

The story “Raspberry Water” emphasizes how cruel serfdom could be. The various fates of the heroes, which often turn out to be tragic, are explained by tyranny and the lack of the ability to hear a neighbor.

Features of the collection “Notes of a Hunter” and the story “Raspberry Water”

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev had a special artistic outlook, which developed on the basis of the school of German classical philosophy. It was this school that was completed while receiving higher education at the University of Berlin.

Russia responded in a special way to the philosophical thought of Western Europe. As we were able to note, the burden of the difficulties of realizing people's dreams was absorbed in a special way.

Ivan Turgenev and his friends in Berlin attended Stankevich's circle. Russian traditions indicate that young writers talked about the advantages of popular representation in the state. At the same time, it was noted that many Russian people still remain serfs, and they are not able to enjoy state, universal human rights. In this regard, special emphasis was placed on the need to deliver ordinary people from serfdom and further mental development.

In January 1847, the essay “Khor and Kalinich” appeared in the Sovremennik magazine, which managed to win positive responses from readers. It was in this essay that Turgenev presented the main forces of the Russian nation: practicality and the desire for poetry, spiritual development, understanding of the value of freedom. Other stories published in the Sovremennik magazine turned out to be truly worthy literary works. In addition, in 1852, the collection “Notes of a Hunter” was first published as a separate publication and received a second life for itself.

The story “Raspberry Water” corresponds to other works included in the collection “Notes of a Hunter.” The use of literary images of provincial Russia is envisaged, with Turgenev revealing the scenes and allowing us to understand what the real life of many people might be like. Reading the story “Raspberry Water”, one can understand that the serf-like way of life is incongruous and absurd, since it involves the infringement of the rights of many peasants.

The artistic value of the story “Raspberry Water”

The story “Raspberry Water,” as already noted, corresponds to the basic principles of Turgenev’s composition and the collection “Notes of a Hunter.”

The main facets were manifested in the following characteristic features of the story:

Refined transfer of beautiful moments of life;

Liberation from the personal and selfish;

Compliance with the way of life of a certain era and even ahead of it;

Manifestation of an impartial and unselfish love of life, deep faith in a better future;

A manifestation of the strength of the Russian national character;

The inappropriateness of trust in emotional impulses and violent passions, the need for wise calm and restrained manifestation of physical and spiritual strength.

“Raspberry Water” is another confirmation of what Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev considered the tragic circumstances of life in which ordinary people find themselves. He showed the problem of serfdom from all sides. Not only the reluctance of the masters to hear their serfs, but also the immaturity of the Russian people, a complete lack of understanding of the situation.

And a strong Russia can only be created thanks to honest, strong and enlightened people.

“Death” was published in Sovremennik No. 2 for 1848. The story was included in the series “Notes of a Hunter” and reflected the stories that happened to Turgenev during his hunting journeys, family legends of the Turgenevs. For example, the Zusha River, mentioned at the beginning, flows not far from Spassky-Lutovinov. The lady who was going to pay the priest for the funeral prayer has a prototype. This is Turgenev’s grandmother Katerina Ivanovna Somova.

Literary direction and genre

Turgenev, as a realist, explores the peculiarities of the Russian character, highlighting a simple and cold attitude towards death as a national trait. The psychological story has the characteristics of a philosophical essay; it is a kind of ode to death and to those who accept it with dignity.

Issues

The story is dedicated to one feature of the Russian people - their attitude towards death as something ordinary and familiar. Turgenev analyzes various cases and comes to a generalization: an unusual attitude towards death is a feature of the Russian mentality. “The Russian man is dying amazingly... Russian people are dying amazingly.” An attentive reader will see behind the descriptions of various deaths the social reasons for this attitude, but contemporary reviewers did not see them.

Plot and composition

The exposition of the story is the narrator's visit to the forest in which he walked as a child with his French tutor. The forest suffered from frost in 1840. The technique of contrast allows us to compare the former living and cool forest with the current dead one.

The narrator calls the oaks and ash trees old friends and describes them as sick or dead people: “Withered, naked, here and there covered with consumptive greenery... lifeless, broken branches... dead branches... fell down and rotted like corpses, on the ground".

The exposition sets the reader up to talk about human death, as quiet as the death of trees. Turgenev chooses different deaths: accidents (hit by a tree, burned), illness (strained himself, died of consumption) and death from old age. The death of people of different classes and professions is described: contractor, peasant, miller, teacher, landowner.

The death of the landowner is the climax, a kind of parable with a moral: “Yes, Russian people die surprisingly.” This refrain is the main idea of ​​the story.

Heroes of the story

The author of the story is interested in the hero's meeting with death. The reason for reflection was the death of the contractor Maxim, who was killed in the forest by a falling ash tree, cut down by peasants. There is nothing ugly in the death of Maxim (as well as other heroes). Despite the fact that the branches of the falling tree broke Maxim’s arms and legs, he hardly moaned, bit his blue lips, and looked around “as if in surprise.” His trembling chin, hair stuck to his forehead, and unevenly rising chest make him look like a romantic hero in great excitement. He is really worried about facing death, which he feels is approaching.

But for Turgenev, what is important is not what the hero looks like, but what he thinks and feels at the moment of death. Maxim’s first thought is that he himself is to blame for his death: God punished him for telling the men to work on Sunday. Then Maxim makes arrangements for the property, not forgetting the horse he bought yesterday, for which he gave a deposit, and asks the men for forgiveness. The narrator described the death of the Russian peasant in this way: “He dies as if he were performing a ritual: coldly and simply,” but not stupidly or indifferently, as it might seem from the outside.

Another man courageously awaiting death is a burnt neighbor’s peasant. The narrator is struck not so much by the man’s behavior as by his wife and daughter, who sit in deathly silence in the hut and are also waiting for death, so the narrator “could not stand it and left.” At the same time, other family members treat the approaching death of a relative as something ordinary, and do not even stop their daily activities.

Lybovshinsky miller Vasily Dmitrich, who suffered a hernia, only came to the paramedic for help on the 10th day: “And should I die because of this kind of rubbish?” The miller utters an almost anecdotal phrase that it is better to die at home, where in his absence “the Lord knows what will happen.” The miller does not have any panic in the face of death; on the way home he bows to those he meets, and this is 4 days before his death!

The narrator describes the death of his friend Avenir Sorokoumov, who taught the children of the landowner Gur Krupyanikov. Sorokoumov had an infantilely pure soul. He rejoiced at the successes of his comrades, did not know envy or pride. Avenir enjoys the days allotted to him: he reads his favorite poems, remembers Moscow and Pushkin with his guest, talks about literature and theater and feels sorry for his dead friends. Sorokoumov is satisfied with the life he has lived, he does not want to leave and receive treatment, because “it doesn’t matter where you die.” Krupyanikov informed about Sorokoumov’s death in a letter, adding that he died “with the same insensibility, without expressing any signs of regret.” That is, Sorokoumov took death for granted.

The situation of the death of an old landowner who tried to pay the priest for her own waste and was dissatisfied with the fact that the priest shortened the required prayer looks quite anecdotal.

Stylistic features

The story is full of absurdities and paradoxes. The narrator's neighbor's cousin had a great heart, but no hair. In response to a French poem on the occasion of the opening of a Krasnogorsk hospital by a lady in an album, in which someone obsequiously called the hospital a temple, a certain Ivan Kobylyatnikov, thinking that it was about nature, wrote that he also loved it.

The sick are tamed in the hospital by the crazy carver Pavel, a withered woman works as a cook, who is even crazier than Pavel, beats him and forces him to guard the turkeys. The behavior of the dying landowner is absurd at the plot level. But the most absurd thing is the veracity of all the incredible stories.