Saltykov-Shchedrin’s novel “The History of a City” was written during 1869-1870, but the writer worked not only on it, so the novel was written intermittently. The first chapters were published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski No. 1, where Saltykov-Shchedrin was the editor-in-chief. But until the end of the year, work on the novel stopped, as Saltykov-Shchedrin took up writing fairy tales, completed several unfinished works and continued to write literary criticism.

The continuation of “The History of a City” was published in 5 issues of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1870. In the same year, the book was published as a separate edition.

Literary direction and genre

Saltykov-Shchedrin is a writer of a realistic direction. Immediately after the book was published, critics defined the genre variety of the novel as a historical satire, and treated the novel differently.

From an objective point of view, Saltykov-Shchedrin is as great a historian as he is a wonderful satirist. His novel is a parody of chronicle sources, primarily “The Tale of Bygone Years” and “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”

Saltykov-Shchedrin offers his own version of history, which differs from the versions of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s contemporaries (mentioned by the first chronicler Kostomarov, Solovyov, Pypin).

In the chapter “From the Publisher,” Mr. M. Shchedrin himself notes the fantastic nature of some episodes (the mayor with music, the mayor flying through the air, the mayor’s feet facing backwards). At the same time, he stipulates that “the fantastic nature of the stories does not in the least eliminate their administrative and educational significance.” This satirical phrase means that “The History of a City” cannot be considered as a fantastic text, but as a mythological one that explains the mentality of the people.

The fantastic nature of the novel is associated with the grotesque, which allows one to depict the typical through extreme exaggeration and deformation of the image.

Some researchers find dystopian features in “The History of a City.”

Topics and problems

The theme of the novel is the hundred-year history of the city of Foolov - an allegory of the Russian state. The history of the city is the biographies of mayors and descriptions of their great deeds: collection of arrears, imposition of tribute, campaigns against ordinary people, construction and destruction of pavements, fast travel on postal roads...

Thus, Saltykov-Shchedrin raises the problem of the essence of history, which is beneficial for the state to consider as the history of power, and not the history of compatriots.

Contemporaries accused the writer of revealing the supposedly false essence of reformism, which led to the deterioration and complication of the people's life.

The democrat Saltykov-Shchedrin was concerned about the problem of the relationship between man and the state. Mayors, for example, Borodavkin, believe that the meaning of life for “ordinary people” living in the state (not on earth!) is in pensions (that is, in state benefits). Saltykov-Shchedrin understands that the state and ordinary people live on their own. The writer knew this first-hand, having himself for some time played the role of “mayor” (he was vice-governor in Ryazan and Tver).

One of the problems that worried the writer was the study of the mentality of his compatriots, their national character traits that influence their position in life and cause “insecurity in life, arbitrariness, improvidence, and lack of faith in the future.”

Plot and composition

The composition of the novel from the moment of its first publication in the magazine was changed by the author himself, for example, the chapter “On the root of the origin of the Foolovites” was placed third, following the introductory chapters, which corresponded to the logic of the ancient Russian chronicle, starting with mythology. And the supporting documents (the writings of the three mayors) were moved to the end, as historical documents are often placed in relation to the author’s text.

The last chapter, appendix “Letter to the Editor,” is Shchedrin’s indignant response to a review in which he was accused of “mockery of the people.” In this letter, the author explains the idea of ​​his work, in particular, that his satire is directed against “those features of Russian life that make it not entirely comfortable.”

“Address to the Reader” was written by the last of the four chroniclers, archivist Pavlushka Masloboinikov. Here Saltykov-Shchedrin imitates real chronicles that had several authors.

The chapter “On the Roots of the Origin of the Foolovites” talks about the myths and prehistoric era of the Foolovites. The reader learns about tribes warring among themselves, about the renaming of blockheads into Foolovites, about the search for a ruler and the enslavement of the Foolovites, who found for their ruler a prince who was not only stupid, but also cruel, the principle of whose rule was embodied in the word “I’ll screw up,” which begins the historical period of Foolov. The historical period considered in the novel occupies a whole century, from 1731 to 1825.

“Inventory of mayors” is a brief description of 22 mayors, which emphasizes the absurdity of history by the concentration of the described madmen, of whom the least, “having done nothing,... was removed for ignorance.”

The next 10 chapters are devoted to describing the most prominent mayors in chronological order.

Heroes and images

“The Most Remarkable Mayors” deserved closer attention from the publisher.

Dementiy Varlamovich Brudasty is “more than strange.” He is silent and gloomy, also cruel (the first thing he did was flog all the coachmen), and is prone to fits of rage. Brudasty also has a positive quality - he is managerial, puts in order the arrears left behind by his predecessors. True, he does this in one way - officials catch citizens, flog them and flog them, and seize their property.

The Foolovites are horrified by such rule. They are saved by the breakdown of the mechanism that is located in Brudasty’s head. This is an organ that repeats only two phrases: “I will ruin” and “I will not tolerate.” The appearance of the second Brudasty with a new head relieves the Foolovites from a couple of organs, declared impostors.

Many of the characters are satires on real rulers. For example, the six mayors are empresses of the 18th century. Their internecine warfare lasted 6 days, and on the seventh day Dvoekurov arrived in the city.

Dvoekurov is a “man of the forefront,” an innovator who was engaged in fruitful activities in Glupov: he paved two streets, opened brewing and mead making, forced everyone to use mustard and bay leaves, and flogged the disobedient, but “with consideration,” that is, for the cause.

Three whole chapters are dedicated to Pyotr Petrovich Ferdyshchenko, the foreman. Ferdyshchenko is Prince Potemkin’s former orderly, a simple man, “good-natured and somewhat lazy.” The Foolovites consider the mayor stupid, a fool, they laugh at his tongue-tiedness, and call him a rogue old man.

During the 6 years of Ferdyshchenko's reign, the Foolovites forgot about the oppression, but in the seventh year Ferdyshchenko went berserk and took away his husband's wife Alyonka, after which a drought began. The Foolovites, in a fit of rage, threw Alyonka from the bell tower, but Ferdyshchenko was inflamed with love for the archer Domashka. For this, the Foolovites suffered a terrible fire.

Ferdyshchenko repented before the people on his knees, but his tears were hypocritical. At the end of his life, Ferdyshchenko traveled around the pasture, where he died of gluttony.

Vasilisk Semyonovich Wartkin (satire on Peter 1) is a brilliant city ruler, under him Foolov experiences a golden age. Wartkin was small in stature and not stately in appearance, but he was loud. He was a writer and a brave utopian, a political dreamer. Before conquering Byzantium, Wartkin conquers the Foolovites with “wars for enlightenment”: he reintroduces mustard, forgotten after Dvoekurov, into use (for which he undertakes an entire military campaign with sacrifices), demands to build houses on a stone foundation, plant Persian chamomile and establish an academy in Foolov. The obstinacy of the Foolovites was defeated along with contentment. The French Revolution showed that the education instilled by Wartkin was harmful.

Onufriy Ivanovich Negodyaev, a captain and former stoker, began the era of retirement from wars. The mayor tests the Foolovites for their toughness. As a result of the tests, the Foolovites became wild: they grew hair and sucked their paws, because there was no food or clothing.

Ksaviry Georgievich Mikaladze is a descendant of Queen Tamara, who has a seductive appearance. He shook hands with his subordinates, smiled affectionately, and won hearts “solely through graceful manners.” Mikaladze stops education and executions and does not issue laws.

Mikaladze's reign was peaceful, punishments were mild. The mayor's only drawback is his love for women. He doubled the population of Foolov, but died of exhaustion.

Feofilakt Irinarkhovich Benevolinsky - state councilor, assistant to Speransky. This is a satire on Speransky himself. Benevolinsky loved to engage in lawmaking. The laws he came up with are as meaningless as the “Charter on the Respectable Baking of Pies.” The mayor's laws are so stupid that they do not interfere with the prosperity of the Foolovites, so they become fatter than ever. Benevolinsky was exiled for his connection with Napoleon and called a scoundrel.

Ivan Panteleevich Pryshch does not make laws and governs simply, in the spirit of “limitless liberalism.” He rests himself and persuades the Foolovites to do so. Both the townspeople and the mayor are getting richer.

The leader of the nobility finally realizes that Pimple has a stuffed head, and eats it without a trace.

Mayor Nikodim Osipovich Ivanov is also stupid, because his height does not allow him to “accommodate anything extensive,” but this quality of the mayor benefits the Foolovites. Ivanov either died of fright, having received a “too extensive” decree, or was fired due to his brain drying out from their inaction and became the founder of microcephaly.

Erast Andreevich Grustilov is a satire on Alexander 1, a sensitive person. The subtlety of Grustilov's feelings is deceptive. He is voluptuous, in the past he hid government money, he is debauched, “in a hurry to live and enjoy,” so that he inclines the Foolovites towards paganism. Grustilov is arrested and dies of melancholy. During his reign, the Foolovites lost the habit of working.

Gloomy-Burcheev is a satire on Arakcheev. He is a scoundrel, a terrible person, “the purest type of idiot.” This mayor exhausts, scolds and destroys the Foolovites, for which he is nicknamed Satan. He has a wooden face, his gaze is free from thought and shameless. Gloomy-Burcheev is impassive, limited, but full of determination. He is like the force of nature, going ahead in a straight line, not recognizing reason.

Gloomy-Burcheev destroys the city and builds Nepreklonsk in a new place, but he fails to control the river. It seems that nature itself is ridding the Foolovites of him, carrying him away in a tornado.

The arrival of Gloomy-Burcheev, as well as the phenomenon that follows him, called “it”, is a picture of an apocalypse that ceases the existence of history.

Artistic originality

Saltykov-Shchedrin skillfully changes the speech of different narrators in the novel. The publisher M.E. Saltykov stipulates that he corrected only the “heavy and outdated style” of the Chronicler. In the address to the reader of the last archivist chronicler, whose work was published 45 years after it was written, there are outdated words of high style: if, this, such. But the publisher allegedly did not correct this particular appeal to readers.

The entire address of the last chronicler is written in the best traditions of the oratory art of antiquity, contains a series of rhetorical questions, and is replete with metaphors and comparisons, mainly from the ancient world. At the end of the introduction, the chronicler, following the biblical tradition widespread in Rus', humiliates himself, calling him a “meager vessel,” and compares Foolov with Rome, and Foolov benefits from the comparison.

Elements of fiction in “The Story of a City”

“The History of a City” is the most significant fantastic and satirical work of Russian literature. This book is the only successful attempt in our country to give in one work a picture (parodic and grotesque, but surprisingly accurate) not only of the history of Russia, but also of its contemporary image to the writer. Moreover, while reading “The History of a City,” you constantly catch yourself thinking that this book is about our time, about “post-perestroika” Russia, its socio-political, psychological and artistic discoveries are so topical for us.

Saltykov-Shchedrin could write such a universal literary work for Russia only in the form of grotesque, fantasy and satire. Contemporary critics of Saltykov-Shchedrin, his fellow writers and ordinary readers held two different opinions about “The History of a City”: some saw in it only an unfair caricature of Russian history and the Russian people (Leo Tolstoy was among the supporters of this point of view), others saw in the satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin the dawn of a new, happy life (liberal democrats, social democrats). During the Soviet period, official science pretended that the work had nothing in common with Soviet reality. Only now is it becoming clear that “The History of a City” is a book “for all times” and not only about Russia at the end of the 20th century, but also about other countries.

Despite the fact that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s book is the first such significant grotesque-satirical work of Russian literature, the forms of grotesque, fantasy and satire in literature and art themselves are far from new. This, and also, to a certain extent, the essence of these methods is indicated by the very origin of the words: fantastich (fantasy) in Greek in the literal sense of the word - the art of imagining; satira (satura) in Latin - mixture, all sorts of things; grottesco in Italian - “cave”, “grotto” (to denote bizarre ornaments found in the 15-16th centuries during excavations of ancient Roman premises - “grottoes”). Thus, “fantastic grotesque” and satirical works go back to the ancient, so-called “mythological archaic” (“low version” of myth) and to the ancient satirical novel, to the folk fantastic grotesque of the Renaissance. Later, these terms became the subject of special studies in literary criticism and aesthetics. The first serious study of the grotesque as an artistic, aesthetic method was undertaken more than 200 years ago in 1788 in Germany by G. Schneegans, who first gave a generalized definition of the grotesque. Later, in 1827, the famous French writer Victor Hugo, in his “Preface to Cromwell,” first gave the term “grotesque” a broad aesthetic interpretation and attracted the attention of wide sections of the reading public to it.

Nowadays, “grotesque”, “fantasy”, “satire” are understood as approximately the following. Grotesque in literature is one of the types of typification, mainly satirical, in which real life relationships are deformed, verisimilitude gives way to caricature, fantasy, and a sharp combination of contrasts. (Another, similar definition: Grotesque is a type of artistic imagery that generalizes and sharpens life’s relationships through a bizarre and contrasting combination of real and fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, tragic and comic, beautiful and ugly. Fiction is a specific method of artistic representation of life, using the artistic form - image (an object, a situation, a world in which elements of reality are combined in a way unusual for it - incredibly, “miraculously”, supernaturally). Satire is a specific form of artistic reflection of reality, through which negative, internally perverse phenomena are exposed and ridiculed; a type of comic, destructive ridicule of the depicted, revealing its internal inconsistency, its inconsistency with its nature or purpose, the “idea". It is noteworthy that these three definitions have something in common. Thus, in the definition of the grotesque, both the fantastic and the comic are mentioned as its elements ( the latter type is satire). It is advisable not to separate these three concepts, but to speak of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work as satirical, written in the form of a fantastic grotesque. Moreover, the unity of all three artistic methods is emphasized by many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work when they talk about his works as parts of an integral satirical, grotesque world. Analyzing this world (the most striking embodiment of which is “The History of a City”), literary scholars note the following features. The grotesque seems to “destroy” the real country of Russia and its people in “everyday” verisimilitude and creates new patterns and connections. A special grotesque world arises, which is essential, however, for revealing the real contradictions of reality. Therefore, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque consists of two planes, and its perception is dual. What at first glance seems random, arbitrary, in fact turns out to be deeply natural. The nature of the comic in “The Story of a City” does not at all consist in strengthening the farcical principle (in “comic”), but is associated with its two-dimensionality. The comic is released along with the comprehension of the essence of the grotesque, with the movement of the reader's thought from a superficial plane to a deeper one. Moreover, in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City” the grotesque beginning is not just an essential part. On the contrary, the grotesque principle lies at the very basis of the work. The grotesque is often characterized by a desire for extreme generalization, mainly satirical, to comprehend the essence of a phenomenon and extract from it a certain meaning, a concentrate of history. That is why the grotesque turned out to be the only possible form for Saltykov-Shchedrin and the basis of his work. The range of generalized phenomena in “The History of a City” expands to amazingly wide limits - to a generalization of the trend of all Russian history and modernity. The generality and concentration of historical content determine a particularly sharp combination of humor and sarcasm, comic and tragic elements in the grotesque. Reading “The History of a City,” one becomes convinced of the validity of another important conclusion made by philologists: the grotesque is aimed at a holistic and multifaceted expression of the basic, cardinal problems of human life.

In the work of the great satirist one can see, on the one hand, the elements of folk artistic creativity and folk comedy, on the other, an expression of the inconsistency and complexity of life. Images of folk grotesque, built on the unity of polar, contrasting (and in their contrasting fusion, comical) elements, capture the essence of a sharply contradictory life, its dialectics. The reduction of laughter, the bringing together of contrasts, seems to abolish all unambiguity, exclusivity and inviolability. The grotesque world realizes a kind of folk laughter utopia. The entire content of “The History of One City” is condensed into the “Inventory for City Governors”, therefore “Inventory for City Governors” best illustrates the techniques with which Saltykov-Shchedrin created his work.

It is here, in the most concentrated form, that we encounter “bizarre and contrasting combinations of the real and the fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, the tragic and the comic,” characteristic of the grotesque. Probably never before in Russian literature has such a compact description of entire eras, layers of Russian history and life been encountered. In “Inventory” the reader is bombarded with a stream of absurdity, which, oddly enough, is more understandable than the real contradictory and phantasmagorical Russian life. Let's take the first mayor, Amadeus Manuilovich Clementy. Only seven lines are dedicated to him (about the same amount of text is devoted to each of the 22 mayors), but every word here is more valuable than many pages and volumes written by Saltykov-Shchedrin’s contemporary official historians and social scientists. A comic effect is created already in the first words: the absurd combination of the foreign, beautiful and high-sounding name for the Russian ear Amadeus Klementy with the provincial Russian patronymic Manuilovich speaks volumes: about the fleeting “Westernization” of Russia “from above”, about how the country was flooded with foreign adventurers, about how alien the morals imposed from above were to ordinary people and about much more. From the same sentence, the reader learns that Amadeus Manuilovich became a mayor “for skillfully cooking pasta” - a grotesque, of course, and at first it seems funny, but after a moment the modern Russian reader realizes with horror that in the one hundred and thirty years that have passed since writing “The History of a City”, and in the 270 years that have passed since the time of Biron, little has changed: and before our eyes, numerous “advisers”, “experts”, “creators of monetary systems” and the “systems” themselves were signed up from the West, signed up for chattering foreign chatter, for a beautiful, exotic surname for the Russian ear... And they believed, they believed, like Foolovites, just as stupidly and just as naively. Nothing has changed since then. Further, the descriptions of the “city governors” almost instantly follow one another, pile up and get confused in their absurdity, together making up, oddly enough, an almost scientific picture of Russian life. From this description it is clearly visible how Saltykov-Shchedrin “constructs” his grotesque world. To do this, he really first “destroys” the verisimilitude: Dementy Vaolamovich Brudasty had “some special device” in his head, Anton Protasyevich de Sanglot flew through the air, Ivan Panteleevich Pyshch ended up with a stuffed head. In the “Inventory” there is also something not so fantastic, but still very unlikely: the mayor Lamvrokakis died, eaten by bedbugs in bed; Brigadier Ivan Matveevich Baklan was broken in half during a storm; Nikodim Osipovich Ivanov died from strain, “striving to comprehend some Senate decree,” and so on. So, the grotesque world of Saltykov-Shchedrin is constructed, and the reader has a good laugh at it. However, soon our contemporary begins to understand that the absurd, fantastic world of Saltykov is not as absurd as it seems at first glance. More precisely, it is absurd, it is absurd, but the real world, the real country is no less absurd. In this “high reality” of Shchedrin’s world, in the modern reader’s awareness of the absurdity of the structure of our life, lies the justification and purpose of Shchedrin’s grotesque as an artistic method. Organchik The detailed account of the “acts” of the mayors and the description of the behavior of the Foolovites that follows the “Inventory” more than once makes the modern reader involuntarily exclaim: “How could Saltykov-Shchedrin 130 years ago know what was happening to us at the end of the twentieth century?” The answer to this question, as Kozintsev puts it, must be looked for in the dictionary for the word “genius.” In places, the text of this chapter is so stunning and so testifies to the exceptional visionary gift of Saltykov-Shchedrin, supported by the methods he uses of hyperbole, grotesque and satire, that it is necessary to provide several quotes here. “The residents rejoiced... They congratulated each other with joy, kissed, shed tears... In a fit of delight, the old Foolovian liberties were remembered. The best citizens..., having formed a national assembly, shook the air with exclamations: our father! Even dangerous dreamers appeared. Guided not so much by reason as by the movements of a noble heart, they argued that under the new mayor trade would flourish and that, under the supervision of quarterly overseers, sciences and arts would emerge. We couldn't resist making comparisons. They remembered the old mayor who had just left the city, and it turned out that although he, too, was handsome and smart, but that, for all that, the new ruler should be given priority for this alone, because he was new. In a word, in this case, as in other similar ones, both the usual Foolovian enthusiasm and the usual Foolovian frivolity were fully expressed... Soon, however, the townsfolk became convinced that their rejoicings and hopes were, at least, premature and exaggerated. .. The new mayor locked himself in his office... From time to time he ran out into the hall... saying “I will not tolerate it!” - and again disappeared into the office. The Foolovites were horrified... suddenly the thought dawned on everyone: well, how can he flog an entire people in this manner!... they became agitated, made noise and, inviting the caretaker of the public school, asked him a question: have there been examples in history of people giving orders and waging wars? and concluded treatises with an empty vessel on their shoulders? “A lot has already been said about the “organ”, the mayor Brudast, from this amazing chapter. No less interesting, however, is the description of the Foolovites in this chapter.

During the time of Saltykov-Shchedrin, and even now, the grotesque image of the Russian people he created seemed to many to be strained, and even slanderous. Monarchists, liberals, and social democrats tended to idealize the people in many ways and attribute to them certain sublime, abstract qualities. Both liberals and socialists considered it incredible that the broad masses of the population could endure for centuries a long line of “organs” and “former scoundrels,” sometimes bursting into outbursts of unfounded enthusiasm or anger. This situation was considered a “historical error” or “a contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production” and seemed correctable by introducing representative democracy or putting into practice the theories of Marxism. Only later did it gradually become clear that the seemingly paradoxical, absurd and grotesque features of the national Russian character were confirmed by serious scientific analysis. Thus, we see that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque and satire were not only expressive means with which he solved artistic problems, but also a tool for analyzing Russian life - contradictory, paradoxical and seemingly fantastic, but internally holistic and containing only negative features, but also elements of sustainability and a guarantee of future development. In turn, the very foundations of the contradictory Russian life dictated to Saltykov-Shchedrin the need to use precisely the forms of the fantastic grotesque.

The story about Ugryum-Burcheev is probably the most widely quoted chapter of “The History of a City” during perestroika. As is known, the immediate prototypes of the image of Gloomy-Burcheev were Arakcheev and Nicholas I, and the prototype of the barracks city of Nepreklonsk was the military settlements of the Nicholas era, and literary scholars of the Soviet period paid attention to this. However, reading this chapter, you clearly see the striking similarities between Nepreklonsk and barracks socialism of the Stalinist type. Moreover, Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to point out the main features of the society built by the “levellers”, and even such details of this society that, it seems, were absolutely impossible to predict 60 years before. The accuracy of Saltykov-Shchedrin's foresight is amazing. In his book, he foresaw both the “barracks” look of the society to which the “idea of ​​universal happiness” would lead, elevated into “a rather complex administrative theory that is not free of ideological tricks,” and the enormous sacrifices of the Stalin era (“the resolved issue of general extermination,” “ a fantastic failure in which “everyone and everyone disappeared without a trace”), and the wretched straightforwardness of the ideology and “theory” of barracks socialism (“Having drawn a straight line, he planned to squeeze the entire visible and invisible world into it” - how can one not recall here the primitive theories gradual “erasing of edges” and “improving” everything), and annoying collectivism (“Everyone lives together every minute...”), and much more. And the more specific features of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “society of the future” are like two drops of water similar to the reality of the Stalinist dictatorship. Here are the low origins of the “mayor”, and his incredible, inhuman cruelty towards members of his own family, and two official ideological holidays in Nepreklonsk in the spring and autumn, and spy mania, and Burcheev’s gloomy “plan for the transformation of nature”, and even details of the disease and death of Ugryum-Burcheev... When you reflect on how Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to foresee the future of Russia with such accuracy, you come to the conclusion that his literary method of studying the world and the country, based on the artistic logic of fantastic hyperbole, turned out to be much more accurate and more powerful than the scientific methods of forecasting that guided social scientists and philosophers, the writer’s contemporaries. Moreover, in the chapter on Gloomy-Burcheev, he gave a more accurate diagnosis of the society of barracks socialism than most Russian scientists of the twentieth century! This aspect of the problem also attracts attention. When Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote his “dystopia,” much of what he said about Nepreklonsk seemed and was for that time precisely fantasy, hyperbole and grotesque. But 60 years later, the writer’s most fantastic predictions turned out to be realized with amazing accuracy. Here we have an example of how (perhaps for the only time in the history of literature) fantastic grotesquery and artistic hyperbole of such proportions absolutely become real life. In this case, the fantastic grotesque allowed the writer to reveal hidden for the time being, but inexorable mechanisms of transformation of society. The reason that Saltykov-Shchedrin turned out to be more perspicacious than all the major philosophers of his time lay, obviously, in the very nature of his artistic creativity and method: the method of fantastic grotesque allowed him to highlight the essential elements and patterns of the historical process, and his great artistic talent allowed him to simultaneously (unlike the social sciences) to preserve the totality of details, accidents and features of living, real life. The artistic world, constructed in this way by Saltykov-Shchedrin, turned out to be a reflection of such a real force that over time it inexorably and menacingly made its way into life. Instead of a conclusion: “It” The final lines of “The History of a City” contain a gloomy and mysterious prediction, not deciphered by the author: “The north darkened and became covered with clouds; From these clouds something was rushing towards the city: either a downpour, or a tornado... It was getting closer, and as it got closer, time stopped running. Finally the earth shook, the sun darkened... the Foolovites fell on their faces. An inscrutable horror appeared on all faces and gripped all hearts. It has arrived...” Many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work write that by “it” the writer meant social revolution, “Russian rebellion”, and the overthrow of the autocracy. The fantastic nature of the image of “it” emphasizes in Saltykov-Shchedrin the tragedy of the social cataclysms he expects. It is interesting to compare the prophecy of Saltykov-Shchedrin with the forecasts of other Russian writers. M.Yu. Lermontov in his poem, which is called “Prediction,” wrote: The year will come, Russia’s black year, When the kings’ crown falls; The mob will forget their former love for them, And the food of many will be death and blood;... It is significant that Pushkin described similar events with much greater optimism regarding changes in society itself, and welcomed the most “radical” measures against the tsar, his family and children: Autocratic villain! I hate you, your throne, I see your death, the death of children with cruel joy. Finally, Blok in “Voice in the Clouds” also looks into the future with a fair amount of optimism: We fought with the wind and, with frowning eyebrows, In the darkness we could hardly discern the path... And so, like an ambassador of a growing storm, A prophetic voice struck the crowd. - Sad people, tired people, Wake up, find out that joy is close! There, where the seas sing about a miracle, There the light of the lighthouse is directed! As we see, the opinions of the great Russian poets regarding future Russian vicissitudes differed radically.

It is known that the forecasts of events in Russia made by other great Russian writers - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov - turned out to be much less accurate than the visions of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Maritime College

Literary project

“Fiction and reality in the works of N.V. Gogol,

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and M.A. Bulgakov"

student of group P-215

Emil Abibullaev Olegovich

Project Manager

teacher

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Autonomous Educational

institution of higher education

"Sevastopol State University"

Maritime College

Explanatory note
to a literary project

“Fiction and reality in works

N.V. Gogol, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and M.A. Bulgakov"

Introduction

1. Fantasy, definition.

2. Elements of fiction in “The Story of a City”

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

Introduction

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin in his work chose the satirical principle of depicting reality using elements of fantasy as the right weapon. He became a successor to the traditions of D.I. Fonvizin, A.S. Griboedov, N.V. Gogol in that he made satire his political weapon, fighting with its help the pressing issues of his time.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales. Turning to this genre was natural for Saltykov-Shchedrin. Elements of fantasy permeate the entire work of the writer. In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, political problems are developed and current issues are resolved. Defending the progressive ideals of his time, the author acted in his works as a defender of people's interests. Having enriched folklore stories with new content, Saltykov-Shchedrin directed the fairy tale genre to instill civic feelings and special respect for the people.

The purpose of the essay is to study the role of fantasy elements in the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Fantastic

Science fiction is a genre of literature and cinema that talks about what actually does not exist, and sometimes cannot exist.

Fiction is, to put it simply, fiction.

Fictional creatures can be creatures in a book or film, life on other planets, incomprehensible mystical phenomena, or even some scientific inventions, instruments, weapons that no one has yet invented.

But sometimes science fiction becomes reality after many decades.

And what people invent in their works is then actually invented.

Elements of fiction in “The Story of a City”

“The History of a City” is the most significant fantastic and satirical work of Russian literature. This book is the only successful attempt in our country to give in one work a picture (parodic and grotesque, but surprisingly accurate) not only of the history of Russia, but also of its contemporary image to the writer. Moreover, while reading “The History of a City,” you constantly catch yourself thinking that this book is about our time, about “post-perestroika” Russia, its socio-political, psychological and artistic discoveries are so topical for us.

Saltykov-Shchedrin could write such a universal literary work for Russia only in the form of grotesque, fantasy and satire. Contemporary critics of Saltykov-Shchedrin, his fellow writers and ordinary readers held two different opinions about “The History of a City”: some saw in it only an unfair caricature of Russian history and the Russian people (Leo Tolstoy was among the supporters of this point of view), others saw in the satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin the dawn of a new, happy life (liberal democrats, social democrats). During the Soviet period, official science pretended that the work had nothing in common with Soviet reality. Only now is it becoming clear that “The History of a City” is a book “for all times” and not only about Russia at the end of the 20th century, but also about other countries.

Despite the fact that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s book is the first such significant grotesque-satirical work of Russian literature, the forms of grotesque, fantasy and satire in literature and art themselves are far from new. This, and also, to a certain extent, the essence of these methods is indicated by the very origin of the words: fantastich (fantasy) in Greek in the literal sense of the word - the art of imagining; satira (satura) in Latin - mixture, all sorts of things; grottesco in Italian - “cave”, “grotto” (to denote bizarre ornaments found in the 15-16th centuries during excavations of ancient Roman premises - “grottoes”). Thus, “fantastic grotesque” and satirical works go back to the ancient, so-called “mythological archaic” (“low version” of myth) and to the ancient satirical novel, to the folk fantastic grotesque of the Renaissance. Later, these terms became the subject of special studies in literary criticism and aesthetics. The first serious study of the grotesque as an artistic, aesthetic method was undertaken more than 200 years ago in 1788 in Germany by G. Schneegans, who first gave a generalized definition of the grotesque. Later, in 1827, the famous French writer Victor Hugo, in his “Preface to Cromwell,” first gave the term “grotesque” a broad aesthetic interpretation and attracted the attention of wide sections of the reading public to it.

Nowadays, “grotesque”, “fantasy”, “satire” are understood as approximately the following. Grotesque in literature is one of the types of typification, mainly satirical, in which real life relationships are deformed, verisimilitude gives way to caricature, fantasy, and a sharp combination of contrasts. (Another, similar definition: Grotesque is a type of artistic imagery that generalizes and sharpens life’s relationships through a bizarre and contrasting combination of real and fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, tragic and comic, beautiful and ugly. Fiction is a specific method of artistic representation of life, using the artistic form - image (an object, a situation, a world in which elements of reality are combined in a way unusual for it - incredibly, “miraculously”, supernaturally). Satire is a specific form of artistic reflection of reality, through which negative, internally perverse phenomena are exposed and ridiculed; a type of comic, destructive ridicule of the depicted, revealing its internal inconsistency, its inconsistency with its nature or purpose, the “idea". It is noteworthy that these three definitions have something in common. Thus, in the definition of the grotesque, both the fantastic and the comic are mentioned as its elements ( the latter type is satire). It is advisable not to separate these three concepts, but to speak of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work as satirical, written in the form of a fantastic grotesque. Moreover, the unity of all three artistic methods is emphasized by many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work when they talk about his works as parts of an integral satirical, grotesque world. Analyzing this world (the most striking embodiment of which is “The History of a City”), literary scholars note the following features. The grotesque seems to “destroy” the real country of Russia and its people in “everyday” verisimilitude and creates new patterns and connections. A special grotesque world arises, which is essential, however, for revealing the real contradictions of reality. Therefore, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque consists of two planes, and its perception is dual. What at first glance seems random, arbitrary, in fact turns out to be deeply natural. The nature of the comic in “The Story of a City” does not at all consist in strengthening the farcical principle (in “comic”), but is associated with its two-dimensionality. The comic is released along with the comprehension of the essence of the grotesque, with the movement of the reader's thought from a superficial plane to a deeper one. Moreover, in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City” the grotesque beginning is not just an essential part. On the contrary, the grotesque principle lies at the very basis of the work. The grotesque is often characterized by a desire for extreme generalization, mainly satirical, to comprehend the essence of a phenomenon and extract from it a certain meaning, a concentrate of history. That is why the grotesque turned out to be the only possible form for Saltykov-Shchedrin and the basis of his work. The range of generalized phenomena in “The History of a City” expands to amazingly wide limits - to a generalization of the trend of all Russian history and modernity. The generality and concentration of historical content determine a particularly sharp combination of humor and sarcasm, comic and tragic elements in the grotesque. Reading “The History of a City,” one becomes convinced of the validity of another important conclusion made by philologists: the grotesque is aimed at a holistic and multifaceted expression of the basic, cardinal problems of human life.

In the work of the great satirist one can see, on the one hand, the elements of folk artistic creativity and folk comedy, on the other, an expression of the inconsistency and complexity of life. Images of folk grotesque, built on the unity of polar, contrasting (and in their contrasting fusion, comical) elements, capture the essence of a sharply contradictory life, its dialectics. The reduction of laughter, the bringing together of contrasts, seems to abolish all unambiguity, exclusivity and inviolability. The grotesque world realizes a kind of folk laughter utopia. The entire content of “The History of One City” is condensed into the “Inventory for City Governors”, therefore “Inventory for City Governors” best illustrates the techniques with which Saltykov-Shchedrin created his work.

It is here, in the most concentrated form, that we encounter “bizarre and contrasting combinations of the real and the fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, the tragic and the comic,” characteristic of the grotesque. Probably never before in Russian literature has such a compact description of entire eras, layers of Russian history and life been encountered. In “Inventory” the reader is bombarded with a stream of absurdity, which, oddly enough, is more understandable than the real contradictory and phantasmagorical Russian life. Let's take the first mayor, Amadeus Manuilovich Clementy. Only seven lines are dedicated to him (about the same amount of text is devoted to each of the 22 mayors), but every word here is more valuable than many pages and volumes written by Saltykov-Shchedrin’s contemporary official historians and social scientists. A comic effect is created already in the first words: the absurd combination of the foreign, beautiful and high-sounding name for the Russian ear Amadeus Klementy with the provincial Russian patronymic Manuilovich speaks volumes: about the fleeting “Westernization” of Russia “from above”, about how the country was flooded with foreign adventurers, about how alien the morals imposed from above were to ordinary people and about much more. From the same sentence, the reader learns that Amadeus Manuilovich became a mayor “for skillfully cooking pasta” - a grotesque, of course, and at first it seems funny, but after a moment the modern Russian reader realizes with horror that in the one hundred and thirty years that have passed since writing “The History of a City”, and in the 270 years that have passed since the time of Biron, little has changed: and before our eyes, numerous “advisers”, “experts”, “creators of monetary systems” and the “systems” themselves were signed up from the West, signed up for chattering foreign chatter, for a beautiful, exotic surname for the Russian ear... And they believed, they believed, like Foolovites, just as stupidly and just as naively. Nothing has changed since then. Further, the descriptions of the “city governors” almost instantly follow one another, pile up and get confused in their absurdity, together making up, oddly enough, an almost scientific picture of Russian life. From this description it is clearly visible how Saltykov-Shchedrin “constructs” his grotesque world. To do this, he really first “destroys” the verisimilitude: Dementy Vaolamovich Brudasty had “some special device” in his head, Anton Protasyevich de Sanglot flew through the air, Ivan Panteleevich Pyshch ended up with a stuffed head. In the “Inventory” there is also something not so fantastic, but still very unlikely: the mayor Lamvrokakis died, eaten by bedbugs in bed; Brigadier Ivan Matveevich Baklan was broken in half during a storm; Nikodim Osipovich Ivanov died from strain, “striving to comprehend some Senate decree,” and so on. So, the grotesque world of Saltykov-Shchedrin is constructed, and the reader has a good laugh at it. However, soon our contemporary begins to understand that the absurd, fantastic world of Saltykov is not as absurd as it seems at first glance. More precisely, it is absurd, it is absurd, but the real world, the real country is no less absurd. In this “high reality” of Shchedrin’s world, in the modern reader’s awareness of the absurdity of the structure of our life, lies the justification and purpose of Shchedrin’s grotesque as an artistic method. Organchik The detailed account of the “acts” of the mayors and the description of the behavior of the Foolovites that follows the “Inventory” more than once makes the modern reader involuntarily exclaim: “How could Saltykov-Shchedrin 130 years ago know what was happening to us at the end of the twentieth century?” The answer to this question, as Kozintsev puts it, must be looked for in the dictionary for the word “genius.” In places, the text of this chapter is so stunning and so testifies to the exceptional visionary gift of Saltykov-Shchedrin, supported by the methods he uses of hyperbole, grotesque and satire, that it is necessary to provide several quotes here. “The residents rejoiced... They congratulated each other with joy, kissed, shed tears... In a fit of delight, the old Foolovian liberties were remembered. The best citizens..., having formed a national assembly, shook the air with exclamations: our father! Even dangerous dreamers appeared. Guided not so much by reason as by the movements of a noble heart, they argued that under the new mayor trade would flourish and that, under the supervision of quarterly overseers, sciences and arts would emerge. We couldn't resist making comparisons. They remembered the old mayor who had just left the city, and it turned out that although he, too, was handsome and smart, but that, for all that, the new ruler should be given priority for this alone, because he was new. In a word, in this case, as in other similar ones, both the usual Foolovian enthusiasm and the usual Foolovian frivolity were fully expressed... Soon, however, the townsfolk became convinced that their rejoicings and hopes were, at least, premature and exaggerated. .. The new mayor locked himself in his office... From time to time he ran out into the hall... saying “I will not tolerate it!” - and again disappeared into the office. The Foolovites were horrified... suddenly the thought dawned on everyone: well, how can he flog an entire people in this manner!... they became agitated, made noise and, inviting the caretaker of the public school, asked him a question: have there been examples in history of people giving orders and waging wars? and concluded treatises with an empty vessel on their shoulders? “A lot has already been said about the “organ”, the mayor Brudast, from this amazing chapter. No less interesting, however, is the description of the Foolovites in this chapter.

During the time of Saltykov-Shchedrin, and even now, the grotesque image of the Russian people he created seemed to many to be strained, and even slanderous. Monarchists, liberals, and social democrats tended to idealize the people in many ways and attribute to them certain sublime, abstract qualities. Both liberals and socialists considered it incredible that the broad masses of the population could endure for centuries a long line of “organs” and “former scoundrels,” sometimes bursting into outbursts of unfounded enthusiasm or anger. This situation was considered a “historical error” or “a contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production” and seemed correctable by introducing representative democracy or putting into practice the theories of Marxism. Only later did it gradually become clear that the seemingly paradoxical, absurd and grotesque features of the national Russian character were confirmed by serious scientific analysis. Thus, we see that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque and satire were not only expressive means with which he solved artistic problems, but also a tool for analyzing Russian life - contradictory, paradoxical and seemingly fantastic, but internally holistic and containing only negative features, but also elements of sustainability and a guarantee of future development. In turn, the very foundations of the contradictory Russian life dictated to Saltykov-Shchedrin the need to use precisely the forms of the fantastic grotesque.

The story about Ugryum-Burcheev is probably the most widely quoted chapter of “The History of a City” during perestroika. As is known, the immediate prototypes of the image of Gloomy-Burcheev were Arakcheev and Nicholas I, and the prototype of the barracks city of Nepreklonsk was the military settlements of the Nicholas era, and literary scholars of the Soviet period paid attention to this. However, reading this chapter, you clearly see the striking similarities between Nepreklonsk and barracks socialism of the Stalinist type. Moreover, Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to point out the main features of the society built by the “levellers”, and even such details of this society that, it seems, were absolutely impossible to predict 60 years before. The accuracy of Saltykov-Shchedrin's foresight is amazing. In his book, he foresaw both the “barracks” look of the society to which the “idea of ​​universal happiness” would lead, elevated into “a rather complex administrative theory that is not free of ideological tricks,” and the enormous sacrifices of the Stalin era (“the resolved issue of general extermination,” “ a fantastic failure in which “everyone and everyone disappeared without a trace”), and the wretched straightforwardness of the ideology and “theory” of barracks socialism (“Having drawn a straight line, he planned to squeeze the entire visible and invisible world into it” - how can one not recall here the primitive theories gradual “erasing of edges” and “improving” everything), and annoying collectivism (“Everyone lives together every minute...”), and much more. And the more specific features of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “society of the future” are like two drops of water similar to the reality of the Stalinist dictatorship. Here are the low origins of the “mayor”, and his incredible, inhuman cruelty towards members of his own family, and two official ideological holidays in Nepreklonsk in the spring and autumn, and spy mania, and Burcheev’s gloomy “plan for the transformation of nature”, and even details of the disease and death of Ugryum-Burcheev... When you reflect on how Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to foresee the future of Russia with such accuracy, you come to the conclusion that his literary method of studying the world and the country, based on the artistic logic of fantastic hyperbole, turned out to be much more accurate and more powerful than the scientific methods of forecasting that guided social scientists and philosophers, the writer’s contemporaries. Moreover, in the chapter on Gloomy-Burcheev, he gave a more accurate diagnosis of the society of barracks socialism than most Russian scientists of the twentieth century! This aspect of the problem also attracts attention. When Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote his “dystopia,” much of what he said about Nepreklonsk seemed and was for that time precisely fantasy, hyperbole and grotesque. But 60 years later, the writer’s most fantastic predictions turned out to be realized with amazing accuracy. Here we have an example of how (perhaps for the only time in the history of literature) fantastic grotesquery and artistic hyperbole of such proportions absolutely become real life. In this case, the fantastic grotesque allowed the writer to reveal hidden for the time being, but inexorable mechanisms of transformation of society. The reason that Saltykov-Shchedrin turned out to be more perspicacious than all the major philosophers of his time lay, obviously, in the very nature of his artistic creativity and method: the method of fantastic grotesque allowed him to highlight the essential elements and patterns of the historical process, and his great artistic talent allowed him to simultaneously (unlike the social sciences) to preserve the totality of details, accidents and features of living, real life. The artistic world, constructed in this way by Saltykov-Shchedrin, turned out to be a reflection of such a real force that over time it inexorably and menacingly made its way into life. Instead of a conclusion: “It” The final lines of “The History of a City” contain a gloomy and mysterious prediction, not deciphered by the author: “The north darkened and became covered with clouds; From these clouds something was rushing towards the city: either a downpour, or a tornado... It was getting closer, and as it got closer, time stopped running. Finally the earth shook, the sun darkened... the Foolovites fell on their faces. An inscrutable horror appeared on all faces and gripped all hearts. It has arrived...” Many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work write that by “it” the writer meant social revolution, “Russian rebellion”, and the overthrow of the autocracy. The fantastic nature of the image of “it” emphasizes in Saltykov-Shchedrin the tragedy of the social cataclysms he expects. It is interesting to compare the prophecy of Saltykov-Shchedrin with the forecasts of other Russian writers. M.Yu. Lermontov in his poem, which is called “Prediction,” wrote: The year will come, Russia’s black year, When the kings’ crown falls; The mob will forget their former love for them, And the food of many will be death and blood;... It is significant that Pushkin described similar events with much greater optimism regarding changes in society itself, and welcomed the most “radical” measures against the tsar, his family and children: Autocratic villain! I hate you, your throne, I see your death, the death of children with cruel joy. Finally, Blok in “Voice in the Clouds” also looks into the future with a fair amount of optimism: We fought with the wind and, with frowning eyebrows, In the darkness we could hardly discern the path... And so, like an ambassador of a growing storm, A prophetic voice struck the crowd. - Sad people, tired people, Wake up, find out that joy is close! There, where the seas sing about a miracle, There the light of the lighthouse is directed! As we see, the opinions of the great Russian poets regarding future Russian vicissitudes differed radically.

It is known that the forecasts of events in Russia made by other great Russian writers - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov - turned out to be much less accurate than the visions of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Conclusion

Like his works, the figure of Saltykov-Shchedrin still remains one of the most paradoxical in the history of Russian literature. While many literary scholars and the “general reader” often place him much lower than Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, connoisseurs of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work consider him a successor to the traditions of the titans of Renaissance and Enlightenment literature: Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift.

Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the help of elements of fantasy, was able to see and reflect in his fairy tales not only the concrete and passing troubles of his time, but also the eternal problems of relations between the people and the authorities, and the shortcomings of the people's character.

Perhaps centuries will pass, and the work of our great satirist writer will be as relevant as it was a hundred years ago, as it is now. In the meantime, together with him, we “laughingly say goodbye to our past” and peer with anxiety and hope into the future of our great and unfortunate Motherland.

Bibliography

1. Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Evgrafovich // Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Who is Who / Ed. V. Gakova. – Minsk: IKO Galaxias, 1995.

Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satirical novel “The History of a City” is one of the most striking works of Russian literature of the 19th century. The grotesque depiction of the political system in Russia, a parody of the hierarchy that reigns in the state, caused a mixed reaction in society. “The History of a City” requires a deep and detailed analysis, since this work may seem like light reading only at first glance. It will be especially useful when preparing for a literature lesson in 8th grade and writing essays on a given topic.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing-1870

History of creation– The writer had long been nurturing the idea of ​​writing a novel about autocracy. Work on the work was carried out intermittently, since Saltykov-Shchedrin simultaneously wrote several books at once.

Subject- Exposing the vices of the social and political sphere in the life of Russia, as well as revealing the peculiarities of the relationship between the people and the authorities under the autocracy.

Composition– The novel consists of 16 chapters. The peculiarity is that they were all allegedly written by different authors, and only the first and last were written by the publisher himself. According to the writer’s version, “The History of a City” is only a publication of the notebook of the “Foolish Chronicler”, accidentally found in the city archive.

Genre- Novel.

Direction- Realism.

History of creation

Saltykov-Shchedrin nurtured the idea of ​​the novel for quite a long time. The image of the fictional city of Foolov as the embodiment of the autocratic-landowner system in Russia first appeared in the writer’s essays in the early 60s, when the liberation struggle of the common people was experiencing its rise in the vastness of the Russian Empire.

In 1867, the writer published his fantastic “The Story of the Governor with a Stuffed Head,” which later formed the basis for the chapter “The Organ.” A year later, Mikhail Evgrafovich began work on a full-scale novel, which he completed in 1870. When writing the book “The History of a City,” the writer suspended work for some time for the sake of fairy tales and some other works.

Initially, the novel had a different title - “The Foolov Chronicler”, but then the author changed it to “The History of the Old City”. The literary work was published in parts in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, in which Saltykov-Shchedrin was the editor-in-chief. In the same 1870, the full version of the book was published.

After the publication of the novel, a wave of indignant criticism hit the writer. Saltykov-Shchedrin was accused of distorting Russian history and insulting the entire Russian people, and interest in his work noticeably declined. The reflection of the realities of life of the Russian people and long-standing problems in society, the practically undisguised criticism of the autocracy was frankly frightening, and not everyone was ready to accept the truth in its true light.

Subject

“The History of a City” is an innovative work that goes far beyond the scope of artistic satire. Saltykov-Shchedrin, as a true patriot of his country, could not remain an indifferent observer of what was happening in Russia.

In his novel he touched upon a rather acute topic- exposing the imperfections of the political structure of the Russian state, in which the oppressed people humbly accept their slave position and consider this the only correct and possible one.

Using the example of the fictional city of Gupov, Saltykov-Shchedrin wanted to show that the Russian people simply cannot exist without a tough and, at times, outright cruel ruler. Otherwise, he immediately finds himself in the grip of anarchy.

TO issues In the novel, the author also attributes a distortion of the essence of history, which is extremely beneficial for the state to present as the history of individual power, but not as the history of compatriots. In "The Story of a City" Main characters- mayors, and in each of them recognizable features of historical figures are visible. In some cases, mayors are collective images of statesmen who at one time occupied high positions.

Main thought The work lies in the fact that the unconscious worship of the people of autocratic power and the reluctance to take responsibility for what is happening in the country are an indestructible barrier to the well-being of the state.

The meaning of “The History of a City” is not a mockery of Russia, but the author’s desire to open society’s eyes to what is happening in the country and encourage the decisive eradication of vices in society.

Composition

The novel "The History of a City" consists of 16 chapters, and they are all written by different authors. After the first publication, the author carried out a thorough analysis of the work, during which its composition was changed. So, Mikhail Evgrafovich swapped some chapters, and also added an appendix “Letter to the Editor”, in which he responded to criticism addressed to him.

The novel begins with the words of Saltykov-Shchedin himself, who allegedly accidentally came across a historical chronicle about the fictional city of Foolov and its inhabitants.

After a short introduction, a story begins from the perspective of a fictional chronicler about the origin of the Foolovites. The reader gets acquainted with the history of the emergence of the state system in Foolov. Tribal feuds, the search for a ruler, and the further enslavement of citizens occupy a whole century in the novel.

The “Inventory of City Governors” presents a brief description of 22 city governors who at different times had power over all the Foolovites.

The following chapters describe the most prominent mayors - the rulers of Foolov: Velikanov, Baklan, Brudasty, Dvoekurov, Negodyaev, Grustilov and others.

At the end of the novel, “Exculpatory Documents” are published, which, in essence, represent an edification to other mayors.

Main characters

Genre

"The Story of a City" is satirical novel. Mikhail Evgrafovich has always been a faithful follower of this genre, and many of his works are written in the spirit of caustic satire. Grotesque, irony, humor - the novel is replete with these artistic techniques.

However, “The History of a City” is a very ambiguous work: it is written in the form of a chronicle, but all the characters seem fantastic, and the events that take place are more reminiscent of a delusional dream than reality.

However, the fantasy in the work is very truthful and realistic; only the outer shell of the images and events is unreal. That is why the novel “The History of a City” is related to realism in its direction.

Work test

Rating Analysis

Average rating: 4.2. Total ratings received: 664.

In 1869-1870. The action takes place in a city that has the telling name of stupid. This is a kind of generalized image that absorbs the features of many district, provincial and even capital cities of Russia. Foolov's townspeople and rulers are also a generalization of the entire Russian people and authorities at various levels. Behind Foolov, the contours of the Russian state emerge with all its despotic rulers and voiceless, oppressed inhabitants.

The writer creates a picture not only of modern Russia, but also of its historical past: from 1731 to 1826. memories of certain historical events are contained in a fantastic context. The figures of the mayors ruling Foolov resemble some of the rulers of Russia in the 18th-19th centuries: for example, mayor Grustilov looks like Alexandra I(“... Karamzin’s friend. He was distinguished by his tenderness and sensitivity of heart, loved to drink tea in the city grove and could not see black grouse mating without tears... died of melancholy in 1825”). The proximity of the surnames also suggests some analogies: Benevolensky - Speransky; Gloomy-Burcheev - Arakcheev. Nevertheless, most of Foolov’s mayors are fictional characters, and Saltykov himself rejected the understanding of his book as historical satire: “I don’t care about history, and I only mean the present. The historical form of the story is convenient for me because it allowed me to more freely address known phenomena of life.”

Turning to history in his book, connecting the past and present, the writer tried to find the foundations for the future. In a complex interweaving of past and present, fantastic and real, history and modernity, grotesque, satirical images were created that reflected the essence of Russian reality. With its unusualness and audacity, “The History of One City” caused bewilderment among the reader: is this a parody of Russian history, an exposure of the modern writer of the order of things, science fiction or something else? The writer himself did not give a direct answer to these questions. “Whoever wants it, let him understand it that way,” he said.

Genre and composition.

The narrative opens with two introductions - on behalf of the publisher and on behalf of the archivist-chronicler, which explain the purpose and nature of the content books. The publisher points out the fantastic nature of many characters and situations (one mayor flew through the air, another had his legs turned back with his feet, and he almost escaped from the mayor’s office), but notes that “the fantastic nature of the stories does not in the least eliminate their administrative and educational significance and that the recklessness the arrogance of the flying mayor may even now serve as a saving warning for those modern administrators who do not want to be prematurely dismissed from office.” What follows is the prehistory of the city of Foolov, which is a kind of exposition of the work, which reports on the roots of the origin of the city and its inhabitants. Story about the life of the Foolovites under the rule of various mayors opens with the “Inventory to the mayors,” which allows us to understand the nature of the subsequent narrative.

“The book does not have a cross-cutting plot in the traditional sense of the word: each chapter is, as it were, a completely finished work that has an independent, complete storyline,” notes D. Nikolaev. - At the same time, these chapters are closely connected with each other not only by the commonality of problems, the location of action and the collective image of the Foolovites, but also by something else. This something is the story of Foolov, which appears in the book as its plot... Thanks to such a plot, the reader can get acquainted with various socio-historical situations and an extensive gallery of rulers who controlled the fate of Foolov throughout the century.”

The concept of the work is also associated with the difficulty of defining its genre. Various researchers define it as satirical essays reflecting the peculiarities of Russian reality in the 60s of the 19th century, others consider the work a satirical historical chronicle, since chronicles and works of major historians (N.M. Karamzin, S.M. Solovyov) about history of Russia, and still others call “The History of a City” a grotesque satirical novel. There is another genre definition for “The Story of a City” - dystopia, as opposed to

utopia, which depicts the ideal structure of society. The most important function of the dystopian genre is a warning, derived from the sad experience of the past and present and aimed at the future, which is the true pathos of the satirist’s works. Saltykov-Shchedrin himself did not give an exact genre definition to his work and called it a book.

Images of Mayors.

The satirist's attention was attracted by what has long darkened Russian life, what should be eliminated, but continued to be present in it, despite the changes taking place; him satire, in his words, is directed “against those characteristic features of Russian life that make it not entirely comfortable.” In “The History of One City,” Saltykov-Shchedrin primarily highlights two phenomena of Russian life: despotic, tyrant, unlimited power and the resignation, obedience of the people, allowing them to do whatever they want to themselves. Foolov's mayors are a phenomenon not only of the past, but also of the present. The power concentrated in their hands still determines the foundations of life. The tyrannical nature of this government is already reflected in the list of city governors that opens the narrative - a significant part of them are devoid of human traits and have vices that are incompatible with holding the position of ruler of the city, on whom human destinies depend.

The history of Foolov is represented by the change of mayors, and not by the development of people's life, which is characteristic of the social structure of Russia and, in general, of the historiographical view. In Shchedrin’s satirical review, using the example of Foolov’s life, questions about the relationship between the people and the authorities are explored, whether changes in these relations are possible, what is the future of the people, etc. The narrative about life in Foolov opens with the reign of the mayor Brudasty, nicknamed “The Organ”.

Over time, it turns out that the mayor’s head is a box containing a small organ capable of performing simple musical pieces: “I’ll ruin it!” and “I won’t tolerate it!” But gradually the pegs of the instrument became loose and fell out, and the mayor could only say: “P-lu!” The help of a master was needed. It was then that the truth was revealed. The most remarkable thing is that even when the mayor’s head was under repair, he still continued to rule the city, but without a head.

The story about “Organchik” aroused the indignation of the reviewer of “Bulletin of Europe”. “But if instead of the word ‘Organchik’ the word ‘Fool’ had been put,” Shchedrin objected, “then the reviewer probably would not have found anything unnatural.”

Another mayor, Lieutenant Colonel Pyshch, introduced a simplified system of administration in the city. Oddly enough, it was precisely this period of rule that was marked by the extraordinary prosperity of the Foolovites, who received unlimited freedom of action.

Soon the Foolovites learned that their mayor had a stuffed head. The mayor is literally eaten. This is how the writer implements the linguistic metaphor: To eat someone means to kill, to eliminate.

An organ or a mayor with a stuffed head are metaphorical images of headless rulers. History provides many examples, the writer notes, when “people made orders, waged wars and concluded treaties with an empty vessel on their shoulders.” For Shchedrin, the idea that “a mayor with a stuffed head does not mean a person with a stuffed head, but a mayor who controls the destinies of many thousands of people” is also important. Not by chance writer speaks of a certain “city-ruling substance” that has supplanted human content. Outwardly, the mayors retain an ordinary human appearance, they perform actions characteristic of humans - they drink, eat, write laws, etc. But the human in them has atrophied, they are filled with some other, far from human, content, which is enough to fulfill their main purpose. functions - suppression. Naturally, they pose a threat to normality. natural life.

All the actions of the mayors are completely fantastic, senseless and often contradict one another. One ruler paved the square, another paved it, one built a city, another destroyed it. Ferdyshchenko traveled to the city pasture, Wartkin waged wars for education, one of the goals of which was the forcible introduction of mustard into the use, Benevolensky composed and scattered laws at night, Intercept-Zalikhvatsky burned the gymnasium and abolished the sciences, etc. Despite the diverse nature of their madness , there is something in common that underlies their activities - they all whip ordinary people. Some “absolutely flog”, others “explain the reasons for their management by the requirements of civilization”, and still others “wish the townsfolk to rely on their courage in everything.” Even historical times in Foolov began with a cry: “I’ll screw it up!”

The “History of a City” ends with the reign of Uryum-Burcheev, the mayor, who terrified with his appearance, actions, way of life and was called a scoundrel not only because he held this position in the regiment, but because he was a scoundrel “with all his being, with all his thoughts " His portrait, the writer notes, “makes a very difficult impression.”

“The mayoral substance” of Gloomy-Burcheev gave rise to “a whole systematic nonsense.” The idea of ​​“universal happiness” through the barracks structure of society resulted in the destruction of the old city and the construction of a new one, as well as in the desire to stop the river. Gloomy-Burcheev did not need “neither a river, nor a stream, nor a hillock - in a word, nothing that could serve as an obstacle to free walking...”. He destroyed the city, but the river did not succumb to the madman. The barracks government of “Gloomy-Burcheev” absorbs the most striking signs of reactionary, despotic political regimes of different countries and eras. Its image represents a broad generalization. Shchedrin warns: “There is nothing more dangerous than the imagination of a scoundrel, not restrained by a bridle.”

Through various images of mayors, readers are presented with the true nature of Russian power, which sooner or later must exhaust itself and disappear, as shown in Shchedrin’s history of the city of Foolov.

Image of the people.

In the book, not only city governors are subjected to satirical ridicule, but also the people in their slavish readiness to endure. Talking about the origins of the residents of the city of Glupov, Saltykov writes that they were once called “bunglers.” (They “had the habit of ‘smacking’ their heads against everything they encountered along the way. If they come across a wall, they’ll stomp against a wall; when they start praying to God, they’ll stomp on the floor.”) After the founding of the city, they began to be called “Foolovites,” and this name reflects them essence. Unable to exist on their own, the Foolovites searched for a prince for a long time and finally found one who opened his reign with the cry “I’ll lock it up!” With this word, historical times began in the city of Foolov. The delights and tears of the Foolovites are described with bitter irony as they greet the next ruler, organize riots, send walkers, willingly hand over the instigators after the riot, grow fur and suck their paws from hunger.

Serfdom no longer exists, but the essence of the relationship between the people and the government, the slavish consciousness of people remains the same. The Foolovites tremble under any power, they obediently carry out any fantastic nonsense of the mayors, which has no boundaries. Satirical laughter develops into bitterness and indignation when it comes to the disastrous fate of the people, suffering under the yoke of the authorities and yet continuing to live like that. The patience of the Foolovites is endless. “We are accustomed people!.. we can endure. If we are now all piled up in a heap and set on fire at all four ends, we won’t even say the opposite word.”

“Despite their insurmountable firmness, the Foolovites are pampered and extremely spoiled people,” the author ironically notes. - They love for the boss to have a friendly smile on his face... There were truly wise mayors... but since they did not call the Foolovites either “brothers” or “robots,” their names remained in oblivion. On the contrary, there were others... who did average things... but since they always said something kind, their names were not only included on the tablets, but even served as the subject of a wide variety of oral legends.”
The Foolovites do not need a wise ruler - they are simply not able to appreciate him.

Saltykov rejected accusations against him of aimless mockery of the people. If this people produces Wartkins and Gloomy-Burcheevs, he said, then there can be no question of sympathy for them. The main reason for the people's misfortunes is their passivity. The Foolovites have not yet committed any actions “by which one could judge the degree of their maturity.” The writer cannot help but admit this bitter truth.

The main thing that distinguishes the Foolovites from their rulers is that they are not devoid of human content, they remain human and evoke living sympathy. Despite everything, the Foolovites continue to live, which indicates their enormous inner strength. When will this force break through? - the writer asks a question. Only with the arrival of Gloomy-Burcheev with his attempts to tame nature did the Foolovites begin to realize the savagery of what was happening. “Exhausted, cursed and destroyed,” they looked at each other - and suddenly they were ashamed. And the tail no longer scared the Foolovites, it irritated them. The Foolovites have changed. The scoundrel’s activities made them shudder, and they wondered “if they had a history, if there were moments in this history when they had the opportunity to show their independence.” And they didn’t remember anything.

The ending of the book, when it appears full of anger, is symbolic and ambiguous. What is this? Disaster? God's punishment? Riot? Or something else? Shchedrin does not give an answer. The end of such a structure of life is inevitable, but, naturally, the writer did not know how it would happen.

Artistic mastery of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

The artistic features of the narrative are determined by the tasks that the satirical writer set for himself. In order to more deeply comprehend the features of Russian reality, to depict them more vividly, Shchedrin is looking for new forms of satirical typification, new means of expressing the author’s position, gives his images a fantastic character, and uses a variety of artistic techniques.

In “The Story of a City,” throughout the entire narrative the real is intertwined with the fantastic. Phapmasmics becomes a method of satirical depiction of reality. Incredible situations, incredible incidents emphasize the irrationality and absurdity of reality.

The writer masterfully uses the technique of thunder and hyperbole. Researchers note that Shchedrin’s grotesque is no longer just a literary device, but a principle that determines the artistic structure of a work. In the life of the Foolovites, everything is incredible, exaggerated, funny and scary at the same time. A city can be ruled by a man with a stuffed head or a ruler who speaks only two words and has a mechanism in his head. grotesque descriptions of situations, fantastic exaggerations emphasize the illusory nature and madness of the real world, allow one to expose the very essence of social relations, and help to more clearly feel what is happening in the surrounding reality.

One of the important artistic techniques of Saltykov-Shchedrin is uropia, which allows the author to express his attitude towards what is depicted. The characters are endowed with meaningful surnames that immediately indicate the essence of the characters. The portrait, the speech, the incredible enterprises of the mayors help the writer create frightening images of the rulers on whom the fate of many people and the Russian state itself depends. A terrible portrait of the gloomy Burcheev is given against the background of the corresponding landscape: “a desert in the middle of which there is a fort; above, instead of the sky, hung a gray soldier's overcoat..."

The language of the narrative is determined by a combination of different stylistic layers: the naive-archaic style of an ancient chronicler, the living story of a contemporary and speech patterns characteristic of journalism of the 60s. Capacious satirical generalizations were not created by Shchedrin in order to amuse the reader. The comic is inextricably linked in Shchedrin’s narrative with the tragic. “Depicting life under the yoke of madness,” he wrote, “I was counting on arousing in the reader a bitter feeling, and not at all a cheerful disposition...” Drawing fantastic images and situations, Shchedrin examined reality, in his words, as if through a magnifying glass, comprehending the inner essence of the phenomenon under consideration, but without distorting it.