What problems does Saltykov Shchedrin raise in fairy tales? The main themes and problems of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales

Themes and problems of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

“The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it.
", a hint at acute problems, important, burning issues. This is a lesson that a wise person will definitely take advantage of. Shchedrin's fairy tales are a special, bright and significant phenomenon in literature. This is a synthesis of the comic and the tragic, a celebration of the grotesque and allegory, a triumph of hyperbole, a skillful example of the use of Aesopian language. What does the author direct his efforts to, using all these artistic techniques? To illuminate all those aspects of contemporary reality to which he remained irreconcilable until his death.

In Shchedrin's fairy tales, stupid, fierce, ignorant rulers of the people coexist and simple men, resourceful, strong, hardworking, talented and at the same time slavishly obedient to their masters and servilely devoted to them. We find an example of this in “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” “The Horse,” and “The Wild Landowner.” In these works, the writer acts not only as a defender of people's interests. He is trying to instill in the common man faith in his uniqueness, significance, inspire him to protect his own dignity and scold him for his patience.

The hero of “The Wild Landowner” is a fool who hated the people and, unexpectedly for himself, became wild without them. The landowner lived for a long time at the expense of other people’s labor, cared for “his own body, white, loose, crumbly,” and could not stand the “servile spirit.” It's a pity to look at him at the end of the fairy tale. ". It will cling to its prey and tear it apart. nails, and so on with all the insides, even the skin, and eat it,” the author writes about him. There is no life for masters without the people: it is the people who are the drinker and breadwinner, the creator of values, and not only material, but also spiritual.

In Shchedrin's fairy tales, the heroes of folk tales about animals also come to life: here the reader will find a cunning fox, a clumsy bear, a cowardly hare, and an evil wolf. Allegorical images help the satirist to speak allegorically about many vices of society. The fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” is indicative in this regard. The Toptygins commit “petty, shameful” atrocities and even “major bloodshed” in their forest, and their regime is no less cruel than the despotic system that existed in Russia at that time.

The fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” depicts “a dunce who doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, doesn’t see anyone, doesn’t share bread and salt with anyone, and only saves his hateful life.” Shchedrin mercilessly castigates such a man in the street. “What joys did he have? Who did he console? Who did you give good advice to? Who did you say a kind word to? whom did you shelter, warm, protect? who has heard of him? who will remember his existence? - asks the author. But this is not the only thing Shchedrin emphasizes. The satirist makes the reader think about his civic position. “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows,” he writes.

The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin have not ceased to be necessary and useful today. From them one can still learn lessons of wisdom, justice, respect for the people, kindness, morality, and citizenship.

“Fairy tales” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, their main themes, fantastic orientation, Aesopian language

• This type of work is not a scientific work, it is not a finished final qualifying work!
• This type of work is a finished result of processing, structuring and formatting collected information intended for use as a source of material for independent preparation of educational work.

If you have a hard time understanding this topic, write to me on WhatsApp, we’ll look into your topic, agree on a deadline, and I’ll help you!

At this link you can find many ready-made biography essay topics:

Check out these similar threads, they might be useful to you:

Introduction:

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin devoted his life to his native literature and, above all, to such a complex direction as satire.

Satire is the work of curious and courageous people. She sees a challenge to common sense in the fact that almost everyone around her still seems reasonable. In the familiar and the ordinary, he distinguishes between the outlandish and the ugly. Fundamentally, he calls for distinguishing deviations from the norms of human society.

Satire is a weapon of class struggle, proven by centuries of literature. Satirical art with merciless laughter fulfills the evil of life in its most harmful, socially dangerous manifestations.

Satirical genres have always been an integral part of folklore.

Saltykov-Shchedrin is able to really help develop social activity, civic maturity and responsibility among teenage schoolchildren, and turn them away from political gullibility, childish negligence and apathy.

The noble goal of Saltykov-Shchedrin is to awaken an inquisitive, bold beginning in the serene peace of his contemporary. And he does this, as befits a satirist, with the word of negation. But for all its sharp ruthlessness, Shchedrin’s satire never leaves a feeling of dead end, disarming sorrowful confusion. His works are a constant conversation with the reader, full of caustic sarcasm and spiritual lyricism, honest and confidential, witty and wise.

Saltykov-Shchedrin's stories are funny, full of irony and sarcasm, and were created with a general reader in mind (for example, Nekrasov's poem "Who lives well in Russia?", hence their folklore fairy-tale form). But Saltykov-Shchedrin’s entire powerful arsenal of satirical techniques was put at the service of revolutionary agitation and propaganda.

At first glance, Saltykov-Shchedrin's stories are simpler, more obvious than his satirical essays and novels. The idea of ​​the cherished author is outlined in them with a clearer, more visible outline. And if we talk about their closeness to folklore, then this parallel is possible only in the most general, broad and fundamental sense.

Relevance of the work - Saltykov-Shchedrin’s stories are widely known all over the world. Many literary scholars have studied and studied the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, as many researchers as there are opinions about the originality of the writer’s fairy tales. Therefore, our task is to study the experience of famous literary scholars, analyze it and draw certain conclusions.

When writing this course work, we set ourselves the following goal - to study the genre originality of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales.

This goal involves solving the following tasks:

• define the concepts of “genre”, “fairy tale”;
• consider the connection between Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales and folklore traditions;
• highlight the distinctive features of the writer’s fairy tales.

The scientific novelty lies in the study of the genre originality of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales, in an attempt to present one’s own version between folk tales and the stories of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

The concepts of “genre”, “fairy tale” in literary criticism

Literary genre (from the French genre - genus, type) - this definition, first of all, has a general meaning, uniting all literary systematics, the classification of literary works according to different types of their poetic structure.

Literary genres, formed as a result of the long historical development of verbal art, move from one era to another with minor changes. Traditional identical genre forms can be used for works of different content and different ideological directions.

Thus, each writer brings to his works some individual characteristics in the development of a particular genre. Moreover, every famous work has some kind of genre feature that must be determined in historical and literary research. It is in the original works of famous masters that changes in genre forms begin.

The fairy-tale world of Saltykov - Shchedrin

The connection between fairy tales and folklore traditions

Shchedrin's stories are most often created with the goal of a reader who has gone through the already well-known school of Aesopian allegory, is familiar with the periodic conversations of the journalist, with the world of his concepts and ideas.

There are signs in Shchedrin's stories that truly confirm the satirist's search for a new addressee, which indicates the artist's conscious desire to expand his audience, his intention to attract the attention of new circles of readers.

At first glance, Saltykov-Shchedrin's stories are simpler, more obvious than his satirical essays and novels. The idea of ​​the cherished author is outlined in them with a clearer, more visible outline. And if we talk about their closeness to folklore, then this parallel is possible only in the most general, broad and fundamental sense.

Shchedrin's tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological quest of the satirist. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements, traditional beginnings (“Once upon a time there were”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state”, “Once upon a time there was a newspaperman, and there was a reader”) are noted. numerals with non-numerical meaning (“far away kingdom”, “from distant lands”), typical sayings (“neither to describe with a pen, nor to say in a fairy tale”, “at the behest of a pike”, “soon the tale will tell”, “how long, briefly li"), constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions (“honey-fed”, “fierce millet”, “rolling snores”, “fierce animals”), borrowed from folklore of proper names (Militrisa Kirbityevna, Ivanushka the Fool, Tsar Pea), characteristic of folk poetry of synonymous combinations (“on the road”, “judged and dressed”), idiomatic expressions going back to folklore (“to breed on beans”, “you can’t lead with your ears”, “grandmother said in two”), oral poetic vocabulary, numerous proverbs and sayings, etc.

Saltykov-Shchedrin satirically modernizes persistent folklore and fairy-tale images and details not only in the genre of fairy tales.

In Shchedrin's works, the names of fairy-tale characters appear more than once: Ivanushka, Ivanushka the Fool, Ivan Tsarevich, Baba Yaga - the bone leg. The name of one of the mayors of Fools, Vasilisk Wartkin, means the fairy-tale “snake that kills him with his gaze.” Numerous fairy-tale elements can be found in the History of the City, especially in the description of the “origin of the Foolovites.”

Saltykov-Shchedrin's images, details and sketches that were once found often did not disappear later, but were used in other cycles. The scientific literature has systematized many examples of such an evolution of images, including folklore ones, which served as one of the first impulses in the creation of fairy tales.

Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are noticeably different from folk tales, and the search for parallels, and even more direct borrowings of the plot, each time turned out to be untenable.

The narrator Saltykov-Shchedrin used different genres of folk art: tales about animals, magic, satires, folk puppet theater, folk engravings, proverbs and sayings. It is obvious that the writer’s fairy-tale world does not dissolve in the folk poetic element, that “Shchedrin’s tale independently arose as folk tales, and the latter contributed to its formation.”

“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there was a landowner, he lived and rejoiced in the light” - a discovery that is set to the usual fairy-tale mood is immediately neutralized by the following lines, and the indefinite past folklore time switches to Shchedrin’s present: “And the landowner was stupid, he read newspaper "Vest", and his body was soft, white and crumbly. “The stupidity of the landowner,” leading to the reading of the terry newspaper “Vest”, and stupid stupidity are both a farcical and comic rapprochement in the folk spirit, and a socio-satirical characteristic. Further, in a comic vein, the story of completely real relations between landowners and peasants after the abolition of serfdom.

The stupid landowner is full of fear that the men will take all his goods. The “liberated” peasants “no matter where they look, everything is impossible, not allowed, and not yours!” The man died. The completely desperate peasants prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to perish even with small children than to toil like this all our lives!” The following phrase is very important in the overall compositional structure of the fairy tale: the peasants’ wish came true, “the merciful God heard the orphan’s tearful prayer, and there was no more peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” From these lines, readers become living witnesses to a fantastic, fabulous “experiment” proposed by the satirist: what could happen to the landowner if he was deprived of the peasants, left alone with himself, in complete, so to speak, self-sufficiency.

Comic scenes and dialogues unfold in which all the transformations occurring with the stupid landowner are explored: episodes with the actor Sadovsky, with four generals, with a police captain. Each of these passages represents, as it were, a complete anecdotal plot, the entire comic of which is revealed in the general context of the story. Gradually, from time to time, more and more “willingness” from the landowner will be revealed, which is fully and forcefully manifested in the final part (complete savagery, transformation into a “bear man”).

Fantastic changes are happening to Shchedrin’s hero: “He stopped blowing his nose long ago, but he walked more and more on all fours and was even surprised how he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most comfortable. He even lost the ability to utter distinct sounds and learned for himself some kind of special victory cry, something between a whistle, hissing and barking.”

In this regard, it is interesting to compare the fairy-tale plots of “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” and “The Wild Landowner.” In the first case, the instinct of self-preservation is triggered among stupid, helpless, but accustomed to rule generals who miraculously found themselves on a desert island, and are looking for the unknown, like a peasant who finds himself on the island, who feeds and drinks them, saves them from hunger and transports them by boat across the “ocean-sea” to St. Petersburg. In the second story, a stupid and arrogant landowner, on the contrary, dreams of being freed from the peasants (“My heart alone is unbearable: there are so many peasants in our kingdom!”) and they, in turn, pray to God to get rid of the oppression of the landowner. And the entire further course of the story is like another probable continuation of the story with the generals (this is what would have happened to them, if the peasant had not been found, they would have become completely angry and committed atrocities). Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Wild Landowner” seems to bring his fabulously satirical assumptions to their logical conclusion.

Subsequent situations, sarcastically depicted, bright grotesque images are also inseparable from elements of folklore: constant epithets (“white body”, “printed gingerbread”, “wild animals”), troecracy (three people “honor” the landowner as a fool), sayings (“and began he will live and live"), etc. And behind all this, the main, no longer fairy-tale, hint emerges: Russia lives by the peasant, by his labor and worries; forced male labor preserves the landowner's plumpness.

Of course, we can only talk about the special stylistic aura of Shchedrin’s fairy tales, close to folklore, continuing the constant themes and images of his satirical and journalistic cycles. Abundantly using typical folklore elements, the writer sought to attract the attention of a new mass audience, well, first-hand, familiar with folk poetry.

But there is no doubt that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are connected with folklore not only by the presence in them of certain oral poetic details and images that significantly influence the narrative style. Dependence on folklore experience is not always a literal quote. There is something more important in Shchedrin’s fairy tales, which brings them closer to folk poetry: there is a truly popular worldview. This is expressed in the very pathos of fairy tales for people, in the author’s ideas about good and evil, about poverty and wealth, about justice and evil, about the decisive predominance of forces hostile to the people and at the same time about the inevitable triumph of reason and justice. Let conscience be expelled from everywhere, let the miserable drunkard, the innkeeper, the quarterly overseer and the financier turn away from him - “a small child has already appeared in the world, and conscience is growing in him along with him. And the little child will be a great man, and he will have a great conscience. And then all lies, deceit and violence will disappear, because conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything independently.”

Even where evil clearly and unequivocally prevails over defenselessness, timidity, fear, good-naturedness, passivity (fairy tales “The Selfless Hare”, “Virtues and Vices”, “The Deceiver Newspaper Man and the Gullible Reader”, “Crucian Crucian Idealist”, etc. ). The author puts him on trial, pronounces a harsh, non-appealable, satirical verdict, making it clear that along with evil he condemns all his free and unconscious indulgers.

Saltykov-Shchedrin is in no hurry to portray those who have maintained commanding heights in life as defeated. On the contrary, he strongly emphasized the absurd, inhuman nature of resolving the vast majority of life's conflicts.

The audience of Shchedrin's fairy tale is undoubtedly more extensive than that of many other works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, but the character of this popular character is completely special, fickle, changeable throughout the entire fairy tale cycle. Either the reader's intended audience broadens markedly, freely and naturally including peasants, otkhodniks and artisans in its likely composition, then it seems again to be almost exclusively represented by Shchedrin's former intellectual readership, albeit understood within the broad framework of the general democratic movement in Russia. The internal multi-genre nature of Shchedrin’s fairy tales (the variety of the author’s definition of the genre: “Neither a fairy tale, nor a true story”, “Conversation”, “Teaching”, “Tale-elegy”, simply “Fairytale”), a wide range of topics, ideas, images allow us to talk about different sizes, for each individual tale the reader-addressee does not match.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the nature of satirical images, the features of artistic speech directly indicate an intellectual reader, a city dweller who has the ability and habit of following newspapers every day, distinguishing between them, living in the latest political news, has a common cultural background, and relatively high educational qualifications ( numerous socio-historical, socio-political, literary and other realities, clericalisms, Latinisms, often found in Shchedrin’s stories).

But another fairy tale by Shchedrin turns out to be quite accessible and understandable in one word for the most mass, peasant, working-class reader.

The author's voice does not contrast with the speech of his characters. However, the author himself introduces the dialogue with a brief summary, and then reveals himself only in a few remarks to the conversation. It is curious that there is no actual dialogical separation, let alone any noticeable opposition between the characters in the story. In fact, this is one general, general speech, divided into lines distributed to two heroes. The heroes do not argue, they think out loud, correcting and complementing each other, looking for more convincing explanations of incomprehensible, confusing issues and coming to a common ending, significantly cut off by the author: “Look, Fedya,” Ivan said, lying down and yawning, “in all directions, so much space! There is a place for everyone here, but for us...”

The author is not an observer, not a demonstrator of this speech, he in no way separates himself from it, on the contrary, he merges, coincides with it, approaches the peasant point of view on the world, the course of things.

In other stories, he consciously addresses everyone: both people and the intelligentsia who have not lost their “living soul.” The orientation towards a heterogeneous reading consciousness is manifested not only within the boundaries of the entire fairy tale cycle, but also in the text of each individual fairy tale.

The same Shchedrin story suggests different reading levels and backgrounds. This finds its explanation in the aesthetic views of Saltykov-Shchedrin, which are quite transparently indicated by many of the satirist’s judgments about the peculiarities of the reader’s psychology. First of all, we are talking about the “reader-friend” category, which is difficult for a writer. For all its clarity, at first glance, it is extremely vague and difficult to understand. Saltykov-Shchedrin throughout his life did not lose hope that “a reader-friend undoubtedly exists.” There are moments when this reader “suddenly opens up and direct communication with him becomes possible. Such moments are the happiest that a committed writer experiences on his difficult path.”

But the voice of this reader is too weak, his share in the total mass of the public is too small, his social experience is small, his practice, in which the ideas and words of the literary, satirical-journalistic, poetic are dissolved into a living, concrete, socially significant act, will find a direct, without hesitation and sympathy for backwardness, will awaken civic honesty and courage.

Thus, Shchedrin’s tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a unique result, a synthesis of the ideological quest of the satirist. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition.

In particular, all or almost all cases of the use of folklore elements by Saltykov-Shchedrin are noted:

• traditional beginnings;
• numerals with non-numerical meaning;
• typical sayings;
• constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions;
• proper names borrowed from folklore, synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry, idiomatic expressions dating back to folklore;
• oral and poetic vocabulary;
• numerous proverbs and sayings, etc.

The universal sound of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales

Working on fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin poetically realizes his favorite ideas about literature as effective propaganda, as a school of civic education. And like any real school, Shchedrin’s fairy tale (“a lesson to the good fellows!”) has several ascending “steps”, focused on different levels of reader understanding and stimulating reader growth and the transition from “class” to “class”, from “level” to “ step."

First of all, in many fairy tales there is a series of external plot points:

• legendary (“Christ’s Night”);
• domestic (“Village Fire”);
• close to the fable (Shchedrin’s tales about animals, “Virtues and Vices”, “Kisel”);
• fantastic (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, etc.).

In principle, this is understandable and accessible to everyone: both moral and socio-psychological generalizations of this can be independently derived without much difficulty by a reader who is not alien to the world of folk tales, parables, proverbs and sayings.

Shchedrin's stories about animals are like extended poetic fables in the spirit of the people, bequeathed by Krylov, much more densely populated and enriched with stables, but always with Saltykov-Shchedrin, unexpected, carrying a comic charge of folklore, folklore. fairy tale elements. Each of the characters, both traditional and new, is given room to fully express themselves. The duel, typical of Krylov's fable, the intense and complex dialogue, the conflict are written thoroughly and meticulously, with the addition of details, details, explanations that are completely alien to the poetic, seemingly compressed fable of the world. At the same time, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales retain the conceptuality, purposefulness and meaningfulness inherent in the fable.

Shchedrin's tale is perceived together with a fable, a moral, a maxim, and the satirical writer undoubtedly takes seriously this level of everyday understanding.

The author leads the reader into the depths of the plot, getting him interested in the development of the action, focusing on the fight against antagonistic life principles. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are not so much designed for an already established worldview, but rather capable of awakening the growth of civic, class consciousness. They gradually raise complex questions that cannot be solved by simple truths.

Intelligence is one of the revered human virtues, but people tend to introduce a wide variety of, often mutually exclusive, content into this concept. And Saltykov-Shchedrin, an educator, a champion of reason, a bright mind, alien to dogmatic inertia, inserts a telling, unambiguously evaluative epithet into the title of the tale: “The Wise Minnow.” At first, one retains faith in the certainty of this definition: both the gudgeon’s parents “were smart,” and they did not ignore his parental advice, and the hero of the fairy tale himself, it turns out, “was smart.” But step by step, tracing the course of the gudgeon’s conclusions, conveyed in the form of improperly direct speech, the author arouses in the reader a sly mockery, an ironic reaction, finally a feeling of disgust, and in the end even compassion for the everyday philosophy of a quiet, voiceless, moderately neat creature.

The morality of the crickets who know their six is ​​tenacious. Saltykov-Shchedrin strives to reveal this in the eyes of the majority of readers in almost every fairy tale: “But after a quarter of an hour it was all over. Instead of the hare, all that remained were scraps of skin and his sensible words: “Every animal has its own life: for the lion - the lion’s, for the fox - the fox’s, for the hare - the hare’s.”

In Shchedrin’s stories one can see what Pushkin noted in Krylov’s fables as “a distinctive feature of our morality”: “... some kind of cheerful cunning of the mind, mockery and a picturesque way of expression.”

A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed.

To understand the direct and subtle allusions to "complacent modernity" requires a familiarity with the words of newspapers and magazines, as well as an awareness of current domestic and international events and a certain political sensitivity. Ivanushka the Fool of Shchedrinsky ended up in the institution “by the will of his parents” and studied, “but with the increase in the amount of supposed knowledge, Ivanushka’s case began to become more complicated. He didn't understand most of the sciences at all. I did not understand history, law, or the science of accumulation and distribution of wealth. Not because I didn’t want to understand, but I didn’t really understand. And to all the teachers’ advice, he answered one thing: “This cannot be! “The reader should have heard ridicule from the philistine good intentions of the official “sciences” that serve the interests of the ruling classes.

The artistic speech in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is structured in such a way that the person following the external event conflict is simultaneously initiated into some significant and often eluding “secrets of modernity” in life. Most of the heroes of Shchedrin's fairy tales have their own social class “registration”: rich and poor, men and gentlemen, “sirs” and “Ivashki”.

Every now and then the author seems to push the reader to unexpected comparisons and unusual analogies. The reader is faced with the need to correlate what is depicted with reality; the world of caustic satirical allegories and topical memories opens up to him. This type of perception, to which many tales about Saltykov-Shchedrin lead, can conditionally be called comparative. What is told in a fairy tale is involuntarily conveyed to the circle of relatives, acquaintances, experiences and impressions experienced by the reader himself. This is probably one of the inevitable steps in improving reading skills and tastes. Saltykov-Shchedrin, undoubtedly, he counted on great interest in the real, concrete political aspects of everyday life and offending the reader.

But artistic speech, with its semantic and emotional depth and relief, leads away from overly straightened literal restrictions. Otherwise, the text turns into a special kind of cipher, and the reader’s task is reduced to guessing it.

Saltykov-Shchedrin's brochure has always been alien, and thanks to a fable or a legendary series of plots, through a chain of allusive signs, the large universal theme of the satirist, which is not interrupted, raises the reader's consciousness to a new and higher level when, according to the apt definition of A.S. Bushmin, the evil of the day reaches the evil of the century. The author leads his wise, sensitive reader not to an unambiguously stated conclusion or result, but to a state of anxiety, to a search for truth. Shchedrin's fairy tale turns into a real friend-reader, since the writer, who ideally represented him, morally supports him, conveys the perspective of thoughts and feelings, and infects him with a thirst for the fight for the restoration of this crazy, cruel, unjust world, for the revival of man.

Through all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales there are words-leitmotifs that mean to him something more than just words: reason, conscience, truth, history...

Saltykov-Shchedrin connects his hopes for the inevitable future triumph of truth with history, the “call signs” of which every now and then cut through unusual, fabulous narratives. History in Shchedrin’s stories is an unbreakable chain of times and fair retribution that overtook the villainy of the “Stoeros Bourbons,” Major Toptygin. History preserves the most cherished and wise human legends: “This evil has never been a generating force - this is what history testifies to.” This story is “a story of liberation, a story of the victory of good and reason over evil and madness.”

In Shchedrin's stories, History can speed up its course, but it does not interrupt it, it does not stop it. The author of fairy tales is convinced that history is the present, preserving the memory of the past and acquiring significant forces in it to enlighten the future: “But the time will come when the boundaries within which his life should be clear to every breath, then discord will disappear by itself, and along with with them all small “personal truths” will dissipate like smoke. The true, the only and obligatory Truth will be declared, will come and the whole world will shine.”

Refuting vulgar everyday morality, awakening interest in “our social life,” Shchedrin’s stories help the reader gain a free, unbiased attitude to life, and a sensitive historical approach to it. In fairy tales there is hope for a young reader with an “unblocked” soul, with an immortal conscience, for a “child” who grows by leaps and bounds.

Thus, a folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed.

Conclusion

Thus, the following conclusions can be drawn.

As a genre, Shchedrin's fairy tale gradually matures in the writer's work from the fantastic and figurative elements of his satire. They also have a lot of folkloric headdresses, ranging from the use of a form of a long-past tense (“Once upon a time”) to the large number of proverbs and sayings with which they are interspersed.

In his stories the writer touches on many issues:

• social;
• political;
• ideological.

So, the life of Russian society is depicted in them in a long series of miniature paintings. In fairy tales, the social anatomy of society is presented in the form of a whole gallery of zoomorphic, fairy-tale images.

Shchedrin began his fairy tale cycle in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative searches of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author was unable to fully expose the vices of society and show the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “For older children,” Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order.

To write fairy tales, the author used grotesque, hyperbole and antithesis. Aesopian language was also important to the author. In an attempt to hide the true meaning of what was written from the censors, I had to use this technique.

Shchedrin's stories, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the satirist's ideological searches. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition.

In particular, all or almost all cases of the use of folklore elements by Saltykov-Shchedrin are noted:

• traditional beginnings;
• numerals with non-numerical meaning;
• typical sayings;
• constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions;
• proper names borrowed from folklore, synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry, idiomatic expressions dating back to folklore;
• oral and poetic vocabulary;
• numerous proverbs and sayings, etc.

A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable about what happens. In the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the fairy tale deliberately turned into today, at the present time, in this there are signs of a “non-fairytale” time.

The main problems of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

Saltykov-Shchedrin’s book “Fairy Tales” includes thirty-two works. Fairy tales are usually defined as the result of his satirical work.

Saltykov-Shchedrin touched upon many social, political, ideological and moral problems in these small works. He broadly presented and deeply illuminated the life of Russian society in the second half of the 19th century, reproduced its entire social anatomy, and touched upon all the main classes and groupings.

The works of Shchedrin's fairy tale cycle are united by some common ideas and themes. These general ideas and themes, penetrating each other, give a certain unity to the entire cycle and allow us to consider it as a holistic work, covered by a common ideological and artistic concept.

The most general meaning in the problems of “Fairy Tales” lies in the development of the idea of ​​​​the irreconcilability of class interests in society, in the desire to understand the self-awareness of the oppressed, in the promotion of socialist ideals and the need for a nationwide struggle.

The idea of ​​class irreconcilability and the struggle against social inequality is especially clearly expressed in the fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle Patron”, “Crucian Idealist”, “Poor Wolf”, etc. The satirist, on the one hand, paints a picture of class contradictions and arbitrariness authorities and the suffering of the oppressed, on the other hand, it exposes and stigmatizes the inconsistency and harm of all recipes for the peaceful settlement of class interests. The artistic mirror of “Fairy Tales” presents: 1) a satire on the government leaders of the autocracy and exploiters; 2) satire on the behavior of different layers of the intelligentsia; 3) the situation of the masses; 4) moral problems and problems of revolutionary worldview.

The main themes of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales

The cycle of literary works written by the writer in the form of sharply satirical fairy tales contains more than thirty short stories, which were the result of many years of observations of the author.
The main themes of the fairy tales, revealed by the writer in his ideological and political plan, are a satirical depiction of the government leaders of the autocracy and the exploiting classes (“Wild Landowner”), a description of the life of representatives of the simple downtrodden Russian people (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”). , as well as the characteristic state of ordinary people who consider themselves to be an advanced intelligentsia (“Crucian the idealist”).

The writer reveals the key themes of the works through the use of various artistic techniques of satire in the form of exaggeration (hyperbole), allegorical expressions, grotesques, allegory, using folklore, fable folk traditions in the narrative, as well as combining reality and fantasy, man and animal.

The description of the heroes of fairy tales in the form of representatives of the animal world (greedy wolf, cowardly hare, cunning fox, stupid bear) allows the writer to display typical characters from various strata of society, encoding in their images the characteristic features of autocratic despotic rule.

The content of the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” reveals the author’s attitude to the philistine life of the intelligentsia, concerned only with their own self-preservation, living in constant fear for their well-being, and, telling about the story that happened with a peasant and two generals, the writer talks about the slavish behavior of the hunted Russian people , who through backbreaking labor creates material well-being for the spoiled ruling elite.

In the image of a wild landowner, the author portrays the helplessness and stupidity of a parasitic government that does not want to recognize the people as the basis and support of the state system, which creates the main material and spiritual values ​​of the country.

Masterfully describing the images of ordinary people, hardworking, talented, the writer does not hide his own sympathy for the difficult life of his native people, exploited by the authorities, but at the same time, in his attitude towards ordinary people there is a condemnation for the display of resignation and patience by men, comparing them with bees, which are an unconscious herd .

The key meaning of the entire cycle of the writer’s satirical tales is reflection on the true purpose of human life and its various manifestations, revealing the topical problems of the real existence of modern society.

History of creation

Mikhail Evgrafovich was always extremely sensitive to the plight of the peasants who were forced to be in lifelong servitude to the landowners. Many of the writer’s works, which openly touched upon this topic, were criticized and not allowed to be published by censorship.

However, Saltykov-Shchedrin still found a way out of this situation by turning his attention to the outwardly quite harmless genre of fairy tales. Thanks to the skillful combination of fantasy and reality, the use of traditional folklore elements, metaphors, and bright aphoristic language, the writer managed to disguise the evil and sharp ridicule of the landowners' vices under the guise of an ordinary fairy tale.

In an environment of government reaction, only through fairy-tale fiction was it possible to express one’s views on the existing political system. The use of satirical techniques in a folk tale allowed the writer to significantly expand the circle of his readers and reach the masses.

The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” was first published in 1869 in the popular literary magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

At that time, the magazine was headed by the writer’s close friend and like-minded person, Nikolai Nekrasov, and Saltykov-Shchedrin did not have any problems with the publication of the work.

Brief Analysis

Before reading this analysis, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the work The Wild Landowner itself.

Year of writing : 1869

History of creation - Unable to openly ridicule the vices of autocracy, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorted to an allegorical literary form - a fairy tale.

Theme – In Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work “The Wild Landowner,” the theme of the situation of serfs in the conditions of Tsarist Russia, the absurdity of the existence of a class of landowners who cannot and do not want to work independently, is most fully revealed.

Composition – The plot of the tale is based on a grotesque situation, behind which the real relations between the classes of landowners and serfs are hidden. Despite the small size of the work, the composition is created according to a standard plan: beginning, climax and denouement.

Genre : Satirical fairy tale.

Direction – Epic.