In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the heroes, simple Russian men, walk the earth and look for a person who can call himself happy. The events of the work take place some time after serfdom was abolished. The poet’s plans included writing several more parts about the life of the peasant people, but a serious illness did not allow his plans to be brought to life, and Nekrasov’s poem remained unfinished. The writer’s large-scale work about the life of an entire people can confidently be classified as a novel.
Story
(Rybnikov’s illustration for Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Russia”)
The poem was first published in 1866 in the Sovremennik magazine. The publication of the poem was resumed three years later, but the tsarist censorship, seeing the content as an attack on the autocratic regime, did not allow it to be published. The poem was published in full only after the revolution in 1917.
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” became the central work in the work of the great Russian poet; it is his ideological and artistic pinnacle, the result of his thoughts and reflections on the fate of the Russian people and on the roads leading to their happiness and well-being. These questions worried the poet throughout his life and ran like a red thread through his entire literary activity. Work on the poem lasted 14 years (1863-1877) and in order to create this “folk epic”, as the author himself called it, useful and understandable for the common people, Nekrasov made a lot of efforts, although in the end it was never finished (8 chapters were planned, 4 were written). A serious illness and then the death of Nekrasov disrupted his plans. Plot incompleteness does not prevent the work from having an acute social character.
Read more: N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: the history of the creation of the poem
Main storyline
The poem was begun by Nekrasov in 1863 after the abolition of serfdom, so its content touches on many problems that arose after the Peasant Reform of 1861. The poem has four chapters, they are united by a common plot about how seven ordinary men argued about who lives well in Rus' and who is truly happy. The plot of the poem, touching on serious philosophical and social problems, is structured in the form of a journey through Russian villages, their “speaking” names perfectly describe the Russian reality of that time: Dyryavina, Razutov, Gorelov, Zaplatov, Neurozhaikin, etc. In the first chapter, called “Prologue,” the men meet on a highway and start their own dispute; in order to resolve it, they go on a trip to Russia. On the way, the disputing men meet a variety of people, these are peasants, merchants, landowners, priests, beggars, and drunkards, they see a wide variety of pictures from people’s lives: funerals, weddings, fairs, elections, etc. .
Meeting different people, the men ask them the same question: how happy they are, but both the priest and the landowner complain about the deterioration of life after the abolition of serfdom, only a few of all the people they meet at the fair admit that they are truly happy.
In the second chapter, entitled “The Last One,” wanderers come to the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki, whose inhabitants, after the abolition of serfdom, in order not to upset the old count, continue to pose as serfs. Nekrasov shows readers how they were then cruelly deceived and robbed by the count's sons.
The third chapter, entitled “Peasant Woman,” describes the search for happiness among the women of that time, the wanderers meet with Matryona Korchagina in the village of Klin, she tells them about her long-suffering fate and advises them not to look for happy people among Russian women.
In the fourth chapter, entitled “A Feast for the Whole World,” wandering seekers of truth find themselves at a feast in the village of Valakhchin, where they understand that the questions they ask people about happiness concern all Russian people, without exception. The ideological finale of the work is the song “Rus”, which originated in the head of a participant in the feast, the son of the parish sexton Grigory Dobrosklonov:
“You are poor, you are abundant, you are the all-powerful Mother Rus'!”
Read more: N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: plot and summary of the chapters of the poem
Analysis of the chapter “The Last One”
It seems that immersion in the psychology of the landowner, a person who recognizes the previous order of things as natural and fair - the undivided ownership of the destinies and souls of other people, forced Nekrasov to deviate from the planned scheme of searching for the next candidate for the happy and talk about the landowner - the “last one” who did not recognize the legality of the abolition of serfdom rights. Researchers of the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” write that the source of the idea for the chapter “The Last One,” which tells about a generally unique case - the voluntary consent of men to portray serfs to please a dying master, is rooted in real incidents: he spoke about a similar case Decembrist Poggio. It is possible that the impetus for the idea was also the story of Nekrasov’s father: never having come to terms with the abolition of serfdom, he tried to force the peasants after the reform to carry out illegal orders, until the court ordered him to abandon this idea. But these, and quite possible similar examples, Nekrasov clearly exaggerates and satirically sharpens.
In the center of the story is the story of the Vakhlaks, the “fool’s gum” - a game of serfdom, started at the request of the heirs of Prince Utyatin, the reward for which should be meadows. What was the norm, the law of life for many generations of Russian peasants, their tragedy, becomes a game. The terrible pictures of serfdom cease to be, at first glance, scary. It is no coincidence that the men call what is happening “gum”. Vakhlaks have different attitudes towards “comedy”: some show extraordinary acting abilities, portraying obedience to the master, others, like the courtyard Ipat, need to be persuaded not to participate in the game - he cannot even imagine life without pleasing the master. And even the sedate and conscientious mayor Vlas, who condemned what was happening in his soul, was “touched” by the “Vakhlatsky tomfoolery.” Playing the “stupid gum,” the peasants had a lot of fun, ridiculing the crazy master and his ridiculous orders behind his back.
It is characteristic that one of the words often found in the chapter are “odd” and “fooled.” These words refer not only to the present, but also to the past. Prince Utyatin was always “stupid” and “foolish”: it is no coincidence that the author includes stories about Utyatin’s youth and about the prince’s “foolishness” that was sad for the servants. He continues to act weird even after the abolition of serfdom. The Vakhlak men are also weird and foolish. The mediator, when asked by the Vahlaks whether they should agree to “gum” for the water-bearing meadows, answers: “Be fooling around.” “We were joking, fooling around,” says Vlas in response to the bewilderment of the wandering peasants. But the love of tomfoolery appears as not only a “Vakhlatsky” trait. “You, too, are wonderful people,” Vlas says to the wanderers. “Tomfoolery” could be defined as a trait, in general, characteristic of Russian people - both men and gentlemen. But all the master’s “eccentricities”, which will be discussed in this and in other chapters, for example, in “A Feast for the Whole World,” are mockeries of the peasants. Men's fun is more harmless. So, the residents of Koryozhina, described in the chapter “Peasant Woman,” will also, in their own way, “amuse themselves” with the master Shalashnikov. “Fun” for them is the ability to endure a flogging, and then count the “forelocks” not received by the master for the quitrent. But peasant tomfoolery is harmless only at first glance. It is no coincidence that the “gum,” Nekrasov shows, also turned into a tragedy - the death of Agap, who was insolent to the Last One and could not tolerate the subsequent humiliation - a comedic flogging at the request of the “world.”
In “The Last One,” through the eyes of wanderers, we look at the everyday life of a post-reform village and the “gum” started by the “Vakhlak” men, which returns both the heroes themselves and the readers to the recent past. It should be noted that, as in other chapters, the beginning plays an important role in understanding the author's intention. The story about the “last child” and the “stupid comedy” played by his former serfs begins with a description of “broad mowing” and a man drinking water after work. An everyday scene takes on a deeply symbolic meaning: a man, standing on a haystack he has just swept, drinks a huge jug of water. This scene itself confirms the wanderers’ initial opinion about the inhabitants of the village of Bolshiye Vakhlaki: “Here are the heroic people!” “Tomfoolery” appears as a strange contradiction to this heroism. The reader also looks at the “foolishness” through the eyes of wanderers, the same peasants, but who neither in soul nor in mind accepted the game of serfdom. Their reaction to Vlas’s explanation is very important: “Are you not people with God?” What is happening for them is not a “gum”, not fun, not eccentricity or tomfoolery, but a violation of God’s laws. Taking a rare incident from Russian life as the basis of the plot, the author poses an important problem, reveals one of the sides of the people's character: the willingness to give up freedom, agree to humiliation and injustice for the sake of future prosperity. It is no coincidence that later, after the death of Utyatin, the Vakhlak men took so close to their hearts the story of Ignatius in “A Feast for the Whole World” about peasant sin, about Gleb the headman, who for money destroyed the free rights of eight thousand peasants. It seems that the words from the song of the angel of mercy “In the midst of the low world” about the “huge, greedy crowd that is tempted by temptation” apply not only to the “tops”, but also to the “bottoms”.
The decision to amuse the dying prince, who has never come to terms with the abolition of serfdom, is made by the “peace” - all the Vakhlaks. The theme of “peace”, “patrimony” - peasant unanimity in resolving major issues occupies a very important place in the chapter. “The world ordered”, the world decided to “keep silent”, the world allowed “the dismissed master to show off for the remaining hours”, “the world thought for a long time” - this is. “I have done good for the world,” Klim Lavin will later say, who voluntarily took on the role of bailiff - the main answerer to the master. But the “world” in this chapter does not appear as the bearer of the people’s conscience, the people’s truth. The unity of opinion does not prove its truth, but becomes evidence of a general deviation from the truth. The same motive of general evasion from the truth will be continued in “The Peasant Woman,” where the whole “world” is silent, seeing how the mayor breaks the law and takes Philip Korchagin as a soldier. “I bowed at the feet of the world, / But what kind of world do we have?” - this is what the father-in-law says to Matryona Timofeevna, explaining the futility of his efforts to establish the truth.
It is characteristic that in “The Last One” the wandering men define the purpose of their search differently:
We are looking, Uncle Vlas, for the unworn province, the ungutted volost, the village of Izbytkov!..
Not one lucky man who does not know what poverty and humiliation is, but an entire province, whose inhabitants live richly, regardless of the authorities - this is what now, after many meetings with “lucky” and “unlucky” people, constitutes “happiness” for men.
► Other articles devoted to the analysis of the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” :
- The history of creation and the problem of the concept of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
- Genre and composition of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
- Analysis of the chapters “Pop”, “Rural Fair”, “Drunken Night”
- Analysis of the chapter “Happy”
- Analysis of the chapter “Landowner”
- Analysis of the chapter “Peasant Woman”
- Analysis of the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”
- Songs and their role in the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World”
- Image of Grigory Dobrosklonov
► Go to the table of contents of the book Russian poetry of the 19th century
Main characters
The question of who is the main character of the poem remains open, formally these are the men who argued about happiness and decided to go on a trip to Russia to decide who is right, however, the poem clearly shows the statement that the main character of the poem is the entire Russian people , perceived as a single whole. The images of the wandering men (Roman, Demyan, Luka, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin, the old man Pakhom and Prov) are practically not revealed, their characters are not drawn, they act and express themselves as a single organism, while the images of the people they meet, on the contrary, are painted very carefully, with a lot of details and nuances.
One of the brightest representatives of a man from the people can be called the son of the parish clerk Grigory Dobrosklonov, who was presented by Nekrasov as a people's intercessor, educator and savior. He is one of the key characters and the entire final chapter is devoted to the description of his image. Grisha, like no one else, is close to the people, understands their dreams and aspirations, wants to help them and composes wonderful “good songs” for people that bring joy and hope to those around them. Through his lips, the author proclaims his views and beliefs, gives answers to the pressing social and moral questions raised in the poem. Characters such as seminarian Grisha and honest mayor Yermil Girin do not seek happiness for themselves, they dream of making all people happy at once and devote their entire lives to this. The main idea of the poem follows from Dobrosklonov’s understanding of the very concept of happiness; this feeling can be fully felt only by those who, without reasoning, give their lives for a just cause in the fight for people’s happiness.
The main female character of the poem is Matryona Korchagina; the entire third chapter is devoted to a description of her tragic fate, typical of all Russian women. Drawing her portrait, Nekrasov admires her straight, proud posture, simple attire and the amazing beauty of a simple Russian woman (large, stern eyes, rich eyelashes, stern and dark). Her whole life is spent in hard peasant work, she has to endure beatings from her husband and brazen attacks from the manager, she was destined to survive the tragic death of her first-born, hunger and deprivation. She lives only for the sake of her children, and without hesitation accepts punishment with rods for her guilty son. The author admires the strength of her maternal love, endurance and strong character, sincerely pities her and sympathizes with all Russian women, for the fate of Matryona is the fate of all peasant women of that time, suffering from lawlessness, poverty, religious fanaticism and superstition, and lack of qualified medical care.
The poem also describes the images of landowners, their wives and sons (princes, nobles), depicts the landowners' servants (lackeys, servants, courtyard servants), priests and other clergy, kind governors and cruel German managers, artists, soldiers, wanderers, a huge number secondary characters who give the folk lyric-epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” that unique polyphony and epic breadth that make this work a real masterpiece and the pinnacle of Nekrasov’s entire literary work.
“Who lives well in Rus'” - the main characters of Nekrasov’s poem
Conceiving the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” N. A. Nekrasov intended to depict the life of the people in all its fullness and integrity - and all in living action, in faces, images, paintings. He completely succeeded in this. The poet called his creation “the epic of modern peasant life” - it really contains a huge number of peasant images, the most striking of which are the images of Ermila Girin, Yakim Nagogo, Savely, Matryona Timofeevna, Vlas, Agap Petrov, Klim Lavin, Vavila, etc. But not only the world of the peasantry appears before the reader of “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The poem is full of images of landowners (Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin, his black-moustached sons and their wives, Shalashnikov), landowner servants (lackeys, servants, doormen), priests (in the chapters “Priest”, “Happy”, “Demushka” in “Peasant Woman” "), and there is also a kind governor's wife, and a cruel German manager, and the artists of "Petrushka", and soldiers, and a soldier's wife, and "people's intercessors", and various kinds of wanderers, and many, many more images of Russian people, providing polyphony and the epic breadth of Nekrasov’s great work. The poem as a whole is characterized by the epic unity of all its characters; at the same time, it contains many bright, individualized images.
Seven wanderers: Roman, Demyan, Luka, brothers Ivan and Metrodor Gubin, old man Pakhom, Prov. The seven wanderers are the heroes who unite the chapters of the poem into one whole. N.A. Nekrasov is generally characterized by the desire for epic unity of all the characters in the poem. This is evidenced, in particular, by the word “people” repeated many times in the author’s speech: “visibly and invisibly to the people”, “the people have gathered and are listening”, “the people are coming and falling”, “the people are counting”. Even more common is the word “peasants”, which is close in meaning and in some cases is its synonym: “the peasants listened to that speech”, “sorry for the poor peasant”, “the peasant needs spring”, “don’t measure the peasant by the master’s measure”, “at every peasant’s soul is like a black cloud,” etc. The words “man” and “men” are often used with the same general meaning. The epic unity of the seven wanderers is especially emphasized. With the exception of Luka (“Luka is a stocky man / With a wide beard, / Stubborn, eloquent and stupid ...”), they are not given portrait characteristics, nothing is told about the features of their inner world. If one of the men is named, then the name does not matter; instead it could be any of the seven (for example: “Here is a small lark, / Stuck in flax, / Roman carefully unraveled, / Kissed: “Fly!” / And the bird flew up into the air, / Touched men / The men were watching her..."). And this is no coincidence. Their dispute does not reveal individuality or character; it expresses the foundations of national self-awareness.
The epic unity is also reflected in the almost verbatim repeated appeal of the peasants to the priest, the landowner, the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, the elder Vlas and other persons. With very rare exceptions, the individual subject of speech is not identified in these addresses. After the generalized formula “the men said,” a “collective” monologue is given for dozens of verses. In this case, the form of individually undifferentiated speech turns out to be appropriate and legitimate. Raised to a norm in the characters' questions and addresses, it is perceived as a norm by the reader, prepared for such an understanding by oral folk poetry.
The number “seven”, which was considered magical in folk poetry, is not accidental. By the way, among the fantastic elements of the Prologue are seven eagle owls on seven trees.
At the same time, seven fairy-tale heroes turn out to be real modern peasants. However, the importance of the subject of the dispute and the inflexibility in achieving the goal give the men’s actions a high character, despite the author’s irony in depicting the external side of this dispute. Before the significance of their goal, everything small, private, and individual disappears. The consciousness of the Russian peasant of the post-reform era is characterized with all depth by the poet, whose heroes are not just looking for happiness in Rus', but ultimately trying to find ways to people's happiness.
Solving the eternal question for people's life and for the people's consciousness about truth and falsehood, about grief and happiness, men turn into truth-seeking wanderers. With a truly peasant desire to get to the root, they set off on a journey: “A man like a bull: he’ll get into the head / What a whim - / You can’t knock it out with a stake from there / You won’t knock it out: they stubbornly stand, / Everyone stands on his own! / Is this the kind of dispute they started, / What do passers-by think - / The kids found the treasure / And they’re dividing it among themselves...” But it’s not the treasure that interests the men - they turned out to be obsessed with a huge social, moral idea. They make vows for themselves, take a vow of asceticism: “Forward, do not fight in vain, / As the matter is really controversial / According to reason, according to God, / On the honor of the story - / Do not toss and turn in little houses, / Do not see your wives, / Nor small children, / Not with old people, / Until they find a solution to the controversial matter, / Until they find out / No matter what - for certain.”
It was the men who formulated the refrain - “Who lives cheerfully, at ease in Rus',” which will run through the entire poem as a constant reminder. Ordinary peasants grasping at a wonderful question: who is having fun in Rus'? - go on a journey, endlessly repeating, varying and deepening the question: who is happy in Rus'? They turn out to be a symbol of the entire post-reform people's Russia that has set off and is waiting for change.
Savely. When Matryona Timofeevna, starting the story about Savely the grandfather, says: “Well, that’s it! The speech is special. / It’s a sin to remain silent about grandfather, / He was also happy...”, then these words seem to be perceived as bitter irony both towards his and her happiness. So, perhaps, the reader is really confronted again with one of many tax collectors, wretched people, like those who have already passed, for example, in the chapter “Happy” of the church?
However, is Savely called a lucky man only ironically? After all, these bitter words, the last words of the second chapter, are directly followed by the not at all ironic title of the third - “Savely, the hero of the Holy Russian.” For the first time, the theme of national heroism, which finds support in epic history, entered the poem with such force and will not leave it until the end. Nekrasov’s definition of “Svyatorussky” immediately appealed to the Russian heroic epic, to the image of the hero of heroes - Svyatogor. But, starting with the epic word “holy Russian hero...”, N. A. Nekrasov gives it another continuation - “holy Russian hero.” The word is given a generalized, all-Russian meaning, and it is not applied to the traditional image of a hero, but to the image of a peasant. The definition from the sphere of military epic is redirected to a simple man named Savely - the name is also not at all traditionally heroic. However, N.A. Nekrasov not only does not thereby reduce the epic epic to peasant life, but elevates peasant life itself to the rank of high heroism.
But Savely is not only a rebel. He is also a kind of folk philosopher. His thoughts about the heroic patience of the people are tragic. He does not simply condemn the people's ability to endure and does not simply approve of it. He sees the complex dialectic of people’s life and does not undertake to give the final answers and make final decisions: “I don’t know... / I don’t know, I can’t think of it, / What will happen? God knows!
Savely is presented not only as a hero-rebel. He is also a hero of the spirit, an ascetic who saves himself in a monastery. Folk religiosity has always attracted the attention of N. A. Nekrasov, but not by itself. Usually it appears to him as a symbol of high national morality, a way of atonement for guilt and the ability to gain greatness in suffering itself, which is why Savely is called Holy Russian.
And already at the very end of this part he was captured and, as it were, immortalized in a kind of monument. When in the last chapter Matryona Timofeevna goes to the city to ask for her husband Philip, she sees a monument there. N.A. Nekrasov does not name the city itself, although he points out an exceptional sign of the city of Kostoroma - a monument to Ivan Susanin: “It stands forged from copper, / Exactly Savely, grandfather, / The man in the square. / “Whose monument?” - / “Susanina”.
The author of the folk poem could not help but highlight this, the only monument to a simple peasant in the country at that time. The monument to Ivan Susanin (sculptor V.I. Demut-Malinovsky) in Kostroma was erected in 1851. The monument looked like this: at the foot of a six-meter column, topped with a bust of Mikhail Romanov, there was a kneeling figure of Ivan Susanin. When visiting Kostroma, N.A. Nekrasov saw this monument more than once. Although the real monument turned out to be more of a monument to the Tsar than to Ivan Susanin, N. A. Nekrasov gives his “project” of the monument in the poem: the poet does not mention the column with the bust of the Tsar, but Susanin, “forged from copper,” stands at full height. By comparing the Kostroma peasant Susanin with the Kostroma rebel Saveliy, the poet seemed to disavow his poems to “Osip Ivanovich Komissarov.” At the same time, comparison with the hero of Russian history Ivan Susanin put the finishing touch on the monumental figure of the Holy Russian peasant Savely.
N.A. Nekrasov does not just declare Savely’s heroism. He shows on what this heroism is based: the hero’s mind, will, and feelings are formed in trials. His whole life is the formation and internal release of character: “... Branded, but not a slave,” Savely says about himself.
By the way, the image of Savely is important not only in itself. He seems to accompany throughout almost the entire part the image of the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, so that, in essence, two strong, heroic characters appear before the reader.
Peasant Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina . “Matryona Timofeevna / A dignified woman, / Broad and dense, / About thirty-eight years old. / Beautiful; gray hair, / Large, stern eyes, / Rich eyelashes, / Severe and dark. / She’s wearing a white shirt, / And a short sundress, / And a sickle over her shoulder.” A peasant woman who was “glorified as a lucky woman”, “the governor” for an extraordinary incident that happened to her, when she was lucky enough to save her husband from soldiering, and even give birth in the arms of the governor herself, who became the godmother of her son. However, Matryona Timofeevna’s story about her life to seven wanderers shows that all she had was happiness - a few minutes when her future husband wooed her. She speaks about herself like this: “For a mother who was scolded, / Like a trampled snake, / The blood of the firstborn passed through, / For me, mortal grievances / Passed unrequited, / And the lash passed through me! / I just haven’t tasted it - / Thank you! Sitnikov died - / Of irredeemable shame, / Of the last shame! In addition, “Shouldn’t I tell you, / That we were burned twice, / That God visited us with anthrax / Three times? / The efforts of the horses / We carried; I walked / Like a gelding in a harrow!..” The image of Matryona Timofeevna is both individual and generalized. She expressed the formula: “you started / It’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women.”
Grisha Dobrosklonov . “Good times - good songs” is the final part of the last chapter of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” It is the focus on the future that explains a lot in this chapter, which is not accidentally called “Songs”, because they contain its entire essence. Here the man who writes and sings these songs appears - Grisha Dobrosklonov. The image of Grisha is at the same time very real, and at the same time a very generalized and even conventional image of youth, looking forward, hoping and believing. Hence its certain uncertainty, only intended.
The very introduction of this new character into the poem is associated with a new solution to the main question posed in “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” This character simply had nothing to do in the poem until the concept of the poem changed. Everything that is said about Grisha Dobrosklonov, starting with the draft texts, is connected with a new, and not with the previous, solution to the main issue. This new solution is the same one given by N. G. Chernyshevsky in his novel “What is to be done?” Both works were conceived at approximately the same time, posed the same question - about the possibility of happiness in Russia at that time for people from wealthy classes, proceeded from the same understanding of happiness, but solved the question posed in the opposite way: N. G. Chernyshevsky affirmatively , N.A. Nekrasov negative. The heroes of N. G. Chernyshevsky are happy both subjectively - in their own minds, and objectively - in the author’s assessment. They are happy because they think wisely and live wisely: honestly, fruitfully, striving to be useful to the people and do what they can for as many people as possible and for the future happiness of mankind, without denying themselves any joys - reasonable ones, of course. N. G. Chernyshevsky emphasizes in the novel that his heroes are cheerful and happy. And this was constantly noted by criticism. N. N. Strakhov even titled his article about the novel “What to do?” - "Happy people". We are talking about ordinary, albeit “new” people. This understanding of happiness is not limited to literary characters. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a letter from N. G. Chernyshevsky to his wife from Siberian penal servitude, in which he talks about his attitude towards his fate: “For you, I regret that it was like this. For myself I am completely satisfied. I thought about others - about these tens of millions of beggars, I rejoice that without my will and merit, more than the previous strength and authority was given to my voice, which will someday sound in their defense.”
The happiness of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s heroes is “the happiness of noble minds.” N. A. Nekrasov comes to an understanding of the possibility of such happiness at the end of his work on “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”
Grisha Dobrosklonov is a happy person both in his own mind and in the author’s assessment. But, if N.A. Nekrasov dreamed of continuing and finishing the poem, Grisha Dobrosklonov and others like him should have been brought together with the seven wanderers and recognized as happy with their decision.
The main formal connection between the parts of the epic is the participation of seven wanderers in the action. In the first part and in “The Peasant Woman” they ask about happiness; in other parts there are no surveys, but the seven peasants remain on the stage: they see everything or hear about everything, they are witnesses to what is happening - “they care about everything.” But in the last part of “A Feast for the Whole World” (“Good times - good songs”) Grisha Dobrosklonov becomes the hero. Wanderers do not hear his songs.
There is a limit to centrifugality: Grisha’s line had to either connect further with the line of wanderers, or break away from it and begin a new poem about a revolutionary-minded young man and his future fate. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in this case would obviously be torn off.
But if this were so, could N.A. Nekrasov insist on publishing “A Feast for the Whole World”, and not consider it only as a draft? Could he have dreamed of such a continuation of the poem as he has in mind in his letter to Malozemova? G. V. Plekhanov wrote: “... it turned out from N. A. Nekrasov that only those representatives of the radical intelligentsia who sacrifice themselves for the people live cheerfully and freely in Russia: “If only our wanderers could be under their own roof, / If only we knew they could, what was going on with Grisha...” But the fact of the matter is that the wanderers - peasants from different villages who decided not to return home until they decided who was living happily and freely in Rus' - did not know what was happening to Grisha, and could not have known. The aspirations of the radical intelligentsia remained unknown and incomprehensible to the people. Its best representatives, without hesitation, sacrificed themselves for his liberation; but he remained deaf to their calls and was sometimes ready to stone them, seeing in their plans only new machinations of his hereditary enemy - the nobility.”
G.V. Plekhanov is right in his reasoning about the populists and the people, but in this case it is important how N.A. Nekrasov looked at these relations. Is “if only they could know” and “if only they could understand” really equivalent? If N.A. Nekrasov considered such an understanding hopeless, why did he introduce the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov into the poem and give it such significance? Why was it necessary to display images of friends of the people in further parts if they could not be recognized as happy by the court of the people's representatives, to whom this court was entrusted from the beginning of the poem?
Direct propagandists of the revolution could not have success among the people, but the “sedentary”, “peaceful” populists could count on their sympathy. And if N. A. Nekrasov removed the words about the revolutionary future of Grisha Dobrosklonov (“Fate had prepared for him / A glorious path, a great name / for the people’s intercessor, / Consumption and Siberia”) not only for censorship reasons, the reason for removing these words could be the desire not to clarify the nature of Grisha Dobrosklonov’s future activities - precisely because she was supposed to receive the sympathy and approval of the people.
Analysis of the poem
The problems raised in the work are diverse and complex, they affect the lives of various strata of society, including a difficult transition to a new way of life, problems of drunkenness, poverty, obscurantism, greed, cruelty, oppression, the desire to change something, etc.
However, the key problem of this work is the search for simple human happiness, which each of the characters understands in their own way. For example, rich people, such as priests or landowners, think only about their own well-being, this is happiness for them, poorer people, such as ordinary peasants, are happy with the simplest things: staying alive after a bear attack, surviving a beating at work, etc. .
The main idea of the poem is that the Russian people deserve to be happy, they deserve it with their suffering, blood and sweat. Nekrasov was convinced that one must fight for one’s happiness and it is not enough to make one person happy, because this will not solve the entire global problem as a whole; the poem calls for thinking and striving for happiness for everyone without exception.
Structural and compositional features
The compositional form of the work is distinctive; it is built in accordance with the laws of classical epic, i.e. each chapter can exist independently, and all together they represent a single whole work with a large number of characters and storylines.
The poem, according to the author himself, belongs to the genre of folk epic, it is written in unrhymed iambic trimeter, at the end of each line after stressed syllables there are two unstressed syllables (the use of dactylic casula), in some places there is iambic tetrameter to emphasize the folklore style of the work.
In order for the poem to be understandable to the common man, many common words and expressions are used in it: village, breveshko, fair, empty popple, etc. The poem contains a large number of different examples of folk poetry, these are fairy tales, epics, various proverbs and sayings, folk songs of various genres. The language of the work is stylized by the author in the form of a folk song to improve ease of perception; at that time, the use of folklore was considered the best way of communication between the intelligentsia and the common people.
In the poem, the author used such means of artistic expression as epithets (“the sun is red”, “black shadows”, a free heart”, “poor people”), comparisons (“jumped out as if disheveled”, “the men fell asleep like the dead”), metaphors ( “the earth lies”, “the warbler is crying”, “the village is seething”). There is also a place for irony and sarcasm, various stylistic figures are used, such as addresses: “Hey, uncle!”, “Oh people, Russian people!”, various exclamations “Chu!”, “Eh, Eh!” etc.
Quotes
“The bird is small, and the marigold is great!” If I breathe, you’ll roll off your palm, If you sneeze, you’ll roll into the fire, If you click, you’ll roll around dead, But you, little bird, are stronger than a man! The wings will soon get stronger, bye bye! wherever you want, that’s where you’ll fly!” Pakhom
“In the village of Basovo, Yakim Nagoy lives, He works himself to death, He drinks until he’s half to death!..” Barin
“The share of the people, their happiness, light and freedom above all!” Author
Read more: N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: quotes from the heroes and the author of the poem
Quotes from the book “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” tells us the deep meaning of a problem that still exists today. Quotes from it are quite popular. It so happened that people in Russia are forced to work hard, survive, and constantly be in search of income. People have practically no time for themselves, family, and especially entertainment. Since ancient times, it has been the custom that men work, and then come home from work and drink.
But you can relax in another way. For example, through your favorite hobbies, time devoted to yourself. But how can a person indulge in a hobby when there is practically no time to sleep? From this, alcohol comes as a replacement for hobbies, since it is the simplest means to relax a person’s brain. It is unfortunate that people use alcohol as an alternative to a hobby, but each person decides his own destiny.
Don’t dress well, don’t wash your face white, your neighbors have sharp eyes and sharp tongues! Walk the streets more quietly, carry your head lower, if you are having fun, don’t laugh, don’t cry out of sadness!.. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov.
My handsome man drove away all the anger from my soul with an angelic smile, Like the spring sun Drives away the snow from the fields...
Hey, man's happiness! / Leaky with patches, / Humpbacked with calluses...
Matryona Timofeevna A dignified woman, broad and dense, about thirty-eight years old. Beautiful; gray hair, large, stern eyes, rich eyelashes, stern and dark. She’s wearing a white shirt, a short sundress, and a sickle over her shoulder.
He works himself to death, drinks until he is half to death!...
In someone else's family - sleep is short!..
There is no measure for Russian hops. Have they measured our grief? Is there a limit to the work? Wine brings down the peasant, but grief doesn’t bring him down? Work isn't going well?
Final conclusion
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the highest example of a work executed in the folk style of Nekrasov’s entire literary heritage. The elements and images of Russian folklore used by the poet give the work a bright originality, colorfulness and rich national flavor. The fact that Nekrasov made the search for happiness the main theme of the poem is not at all accidental, because the entire Russian people have been searching for it for many thousands of years, this is reflected in his fairy tales, epics, legends, songs and in other various folklore sources as the search for treasure, a happy land, priceless treasure.
The theme of this work expressed the most cherished desire of the Russian people throughout its existence - to live happily in a society where justice and equality rule.
