Captain Charles Ryder commands a company located in England, which does not take part in the fighting of the Second World War. He receives an order from above to transport his subordinate soldiers to a new place. This place turns out to be Brideshead Manor, where the captain spent his entire life.
Youth. Charles is overcome with memories.
While studying at Oxford and being a first-year college student, he met his peer, Lord Sebastian Flyte, who came from the aristocratic Marchmain family. He was a young man who had extraordinary beauty and loved extravagant pranks. The young people quickly became friends, Charles was delighted with his charming character and appearance, and they spent the whole year in friendly parties and frivolous antics. Ryder spent the beginning of his summer holidays with his father in London. A little later, he received a telegram from Sebastian informing him that he had been crippled.
Charles immediately rushed to his friend in Brideshead, the Marchmain family estate. There he found him with a broken ankle. When Sebastian recovered and could move without assistance, they left for Venice, to visit Sebastian’s father, who was vacationing there with his mistress Kara.
It turned out that Sebastian's father, Lord Alexander Marchmain, hated his wife and had been living separately from her for a long time, although no one could adequately talk about the reasons for his hatred. Sebastian also disliked his mother, mostly because this devout Catholic oppressed everyone around her with her teachings. So were Sebastian's older brother Brideshead and his sisters, Julia and Cordelia. All of them were raised in the Catholic faith. Sebastian's mother demanded strict adherence to religious standards.
After the friends returned to Oxford, they were both overcome with longing for the old fun and absence of any responsibilities. Charles and Sebastian spent the evenings over a bottle of wine, talking on a variety of topics. One day, Julia and her boyfriend Rex Mottram invited them to a holiday in London. After drinking, Sebastian got behind the wheel. He was detained by the police and sent to prison for the night. Rex pulled him out of there. Sebastian faced the oppressive attention of Catholic priests, guardians and teachers. From time to time Lady Marchmain paid him visits. Because of such supervision, Sebastian started drinking and was expelled from Oxford. Charles Ryder, who had long ago decided to become an artist, was in Oxford only because of a friend. Now that he was kicked out, he also dropped out and went to Paris to study painting.
During the Christmas holidays, Charles came to Brideshead to visit his friend. All family members were already there. It turned out that shortly before Charles's visit, Sebastian was traveling around the Middle East with Mr. Samgrass, one of his guardians. Sebastian told his friend that at the end of the trip he ran away from his guardian to Constantinople, settled with a friend and drank. By that time he had already become a full-blown alcoholic, no one and nothing could help him. The whole family was shocked by this behavior of their son, and it was decided to instruct Rex to take Sebastian to Zurich, where Dr. Baretus’ sanatorium was located. Charles was forced to return to Paris to his painting studies after he, having had a good laugh at a friend who was sitting without a cent for a drink, gave him a couple of pounds for a drink in a nearby pub.
However, Rex soon appeared in Paris, looking for Sebastian. He ran away from him on the way to Zurich, robbing his guardian of three hundred pounds. In the evening, Rex and Charles were sitting in a restaurant. Rex talked about how he was going to marry the beautiful Julia Marchmain and about plans to take possession of her dowry, since her mother had resolutely refused it to him. After several months, the wedding of Rex and Julia took place, but it was very modest: it was not attended by members of the royal family, whom Rex so wanted to see. It was as if the young couple had decided to get married on the sly, and it was only a few years later that Charles found out what really happened.
All of Captain Ryder's thoughts focus on Julia, who until now has been only a shadow who has played a mysterious role in Sebastian's fate.
Later, Julia played a huge role in the life of Charles himself. She was a very beautiful girl without the possibility of marrying a brilliant aristocrat. This happened due to the fact that the history of her noble family was overshadowed by her father with his immoral behavior and her Catholic upbringing. Rex was a Canadian who worked his way into the highest political and financial circles in London. He assumed that Julia would be a big win for him and would accelerate the rise of his career, but he cruelly miscalculated by spending all his energy on getting her. Julia really fell in love with him. When the wedding date was set, the cathedral was rented, the cardinals were invited, it suddenly turned out that Rex was already divorced. For Julia's sake, he converted to Catholicism and now, according to the rules of this faith, he could not marry her while his former wife was alive. Heated arguments began between everyone. Unable to bear this fuss, Rex declared that he wanted a Protestant wedding. After living together for several years, the love between the spouses faded: Rex turned out to be “a small part of a person pretending to be a whole human being.” He presented himself as a very real “modern” man - greedy for money and mired in politics. Julia revealed her relationship with Rex to Charles ten years later when a storm broke out in the Atlantic.
In 1926, a general strike occurs. Because of her, Charles returns to London. There he learns that Lady Marchmain is dying. Julia asks to find Sebastian in Algeria, where he has been living for a long time. When Charles finds his old friend, he finds him in the hospital, where he was recovering from a serious illness. Of course, in this state he could not go to London. After his illness, he still refused to leave and leave the German Kurt with a bad leg, who had already become his new friend. He met Kurt in Tangier, where he was dying of hunger. Sebastian took him in and took care of him. Sebastian also continued to drink.
The Marchmains are selling their house in London due to financial problems. They are going to demolish it and build an apartment building. Charles learns about all this when he returns to London. As an architectural painter already well-known in narrow circles, Brideshead decided to capture the house one last time. Charles later leaves for Latin America to bring about changes in his creativity. Before this, thanks to his specialty, he was going through a financial crisis and published three albums of reproductions of English mansions and estates. Charles remains in Latin America for two years, during which time he works to create a series of beautiful paintings that reflect a tropical flavor and are filled with exoticism. Two years later, he asks his wife to come from England to New York to sail back to Europe together. Julia Marchmain also turned out to be returning to England at this time. She ended up in America following the man she thought she loved. But she soon became disillusioned with him. During the return to Europe, the sea begins to storm. Julia and Charles spend a lot of time alone because they are the only people who are not susceptible to seasickness. While communicating with each other, they realized that they had fallen in love. Arriving in London, Charles immediately organized an exhibition, which was a great success. Charles soon informs his wife that they are separating. His wife, however, was not very upset and quickly found herself a new boyfriend. Charles and Julia filed for divorce. Then, after living in Brideshead for two and a half years, they decided to get married.
Julia's older brother, Brideshead, married Beryl, a widow who had three children. Lord Marchman, returning to his family home after hostilities outside England, almost immediately took a dislike to her. He bequeathed the house to Julia, who was engaged to Charles, and Beryl and her husband were unable to settle there.
Julia's younger sister Cordelia, who worked as a nurse in Spain, returns to Brideshead. But the war forced her to return home. On the way, she stopped by Sebastian, who now lived in Tunisia. He turned to faith and now worked as a minister at a monastery. He suffered, being deprived of his own dignity. Cordelia found something in this that reminded her of the torments of the saints.
Lord Marchmain was very ill. Having just arrived in Brideshead, he already looked old and sick. Julia and Charles quarreled over whether to disturb the sick man for the last sacrament or not. Charles was an agnostic and did not see any point in this, but Lord Marchmain himself confessed to all his sins, absolved himself of them and crossed himself. Julia had long been tormented by the idea that she was sinful in her marriage to Rex. Now she could not sin again by getting together with Charles. After breaking up with her fiancé, she returns to the Catholic Church.
And so, Charles Ryder is thirty-nine years old, he is an infantry captain, and he is standing in Brideshead Chapel, looking at the candle burning on the altar. Its fire connects entire eras and burns just as persistently in the souls of modern soldiers as it once burned inside the ancient knights.
The poet set himself the task of understanding and, within one work, capturing peasant Rus', Russian folk character in all its versatility, complexity and inconsistency. And the life of the people in “Who in Rus'...” appears in all the diversity of its manifestations. We see the Russian peasant at work (the speech of Yakim Nagogo, mowing in "The Last One", the story of Matryona) and struggle (the story of Yakim and Ermil, the lawsuit of the Vakhlaks, the reprisal against Vogel), in moments of rest ("Rural Fair", "Feast") and revelry (“Drunk Night”), in a time of grief (“Pop,” Matryona’s story) and moments of joy (“Before Marriage,” “Governor’s Lady,” “Feast”), in the family (“Peasant Woman”) and peasant collective (“Last One” ", "Feast"), in relationships with landowners ("Landowner", "Lastly", "Savely, the hero of the Holy Russian", tales in "Feast"), officials ("Demushka", the story about Ermil) and merchants (the history of Yakim, litigation between Ermil and Altynnikov, fight between Lavin and Eremin).
The poem gives a clear picture of the economic situation of the post-reform, “free” peasantry (names of villages and counties, stories of the priest and the “lucky ones”, the plot situation of the chapter “Last One”, songs “Veselaya”, “Salty”, “Hungry” and a number of details in the chapter “Feast”) and legal “changes” in his life (“...instead of a master / There will be a volost”).
Nekrasov depicts folk life in a strictly realistic manner. The author does not turn a blind eye to the negative phenomena of people's life. He boldly speaks about the darkness and underdevelopment generated by the “fortress” and the living conditions of the peasantry (illiteracy, belief in “poor” signs), rudeness (“As if he didn’t knock?”), swearing, drunkenness (“Drunk Night”), parasitism and servility servants (Peremetyev's footman, Ipat, servants in the "Prologue" of the chapter "Peasant Woman"), the sin of social betrayal (Gleb the headman, Yegorka Shutov). But the shadow sides of people's life and consciousness do not obscure the main thing in the poem, that which forms the basis of people's life and is decisive for the people's character. Labor is such a basis of people's life in Nekrasov's poem.
Reading “To whom in Rus'...”, we feel the greatness of the labor feat of the Russian peasantry, this “sower and guardian” of the Russian land. The man “works to death”, his “work has no measure”, the peasant navel is cracking from the strain of exorbitant labor, Matryona’s fellow villagers are making “horse strains”, peasant women appear as “eternal toilers”. Through the labor of a peasant, in the spring they are dressed with the greenery of cereals, and in the fall the fields are stripped, and although this labor does not save from poverty, the peasant loves to work (“The Last One”: mowing, the participation of wanderers in it; Matryona’s story). The Russian peasant, as depicted by Nekrasov, is smart, observant, inquisitive (“comedy with Petrushka”, “they care about everything”, “who has ever seen how he listens ...”, “he greedily catches news”), persistent in the pursuit of his goal goals (“man, what a bull...”), sharp-tongued (there are many examples!), kind and sympathetic (episodes with Vavilushka, with Brmil at the fair, the help of the Vakhlaks to Ovsyannikov, the family of the sexton Dobrosklonov), has a grateful heart (Matryona about governor), sensitive to beauty (Matryona; Yakim and pictures). Nekrasov characterizes the moral qualities of the Russian peasantry with the formula: “gold, gold is the people’s heart.” The poem reveals the thirst for justice characteristic of the Russian peasantry, shows the awakening and growth of its social consciousness, manifested in a sense of collectivism and class solidarity (support for Yermil, hatred of the Last One, beating Shutov), in contempt for lackeys and traitors (attitude towards the lackey of Prince Peremetyev and Ipat, to the story about Gleb the Headman), in rebellion (rebellion in Stolbnyaki). The popular environment as a whole is depicted in the poem as “good soil” for the perception of liberation ideas.
The masses, the people, are the main characters of the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Nekrasov not only painted vivid portraits of individual representatives of the people's environment. The innovative nature of Nekrasov’s plan was manifested in the fact that the central place in the work is occupied by the collective image of the Russian peasantry.
Researchers have repeatedly noted the high “population density” of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” In addition to the seven wanderers and the main characters, dozens and hundreds of images of peasants are drawn in it. Some of them are briefly characterized, in the images of others only some characteristic touch is noticed, and others are only named. Some of them are present “on stage”, included in the action, while truth-seekers and the reader learn about others only from the stories of the “stage” characters. Along with individual ones, the author introduces numerous group images into the poem.
Gradually, from chapter to chapter, the poem introduces us to different versions of people's destinies, different types of characters' characters, the world of their feelings, their moods, concepts, judgments and ideals. The variety of portrait sketches, speech characteristics, the abundance of crowd scenes, their polyphony, the introduction of folk songs, sayings, proverbs and jokes into the text - everything is subordinated to the single goal of creating an image of the peasant masses, the constant presence of which is felt when reading every page of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” .
Against the background of this peasant mass, the author of the epic painted close-up images of the best representatives of the Russian peasantry. Each of them artistically captures certain aspects, facets of the people’s character and worldview. Thus, the image of Yakim reveals the theme of heroic people’s labor and the awakening of the people’s consciousness, Savely is the embodiment of the heroism and love of freedom of the peasantry, its rebellious impulses, the image of Yermil is evidence of the love of truth, the moral beauty of the people and the height of their ideals, etc. But this commonality is revealed in a unique individuality of fate and character of each. Any character in “To Whom in Rus'...”, be it Matryona, who “revealed” her whole soul to the wanderers, or the “yellow-haired, hunched” Belarusian peasant who flashed in the crowd, is realistically accurate, full-blooded, and at the same time, everyone is some micro-part of the general concept of “people”.
All chapters of the epic are united by the end-to-end image of seven truth-seekers. The epic, generalized, conventional character of this image gives all the real-life events depicted in it special significance, and the work itself - the character of a “philosophy of people’s life.” Thus, the somewhat abstract concept of “people” in the “Prologue” gradually, as the reader gets acquainted with the wanderers, Yakim, Ermil, Matryona, Savely, the many-sided and motley mass of peasants, is filled for him with the brightness of life’s colors, concrete and figurative realistic content.
In “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov wanted to show the process of awakening self-awareness among the masses, their desire to comprehend their situation and find ways out. Therefore, the author constructed the work in such a way that his folk heroes wander, observe, listen and judge, moreover, as the circle of their observations expands, their judgments become more mature and deep. The pictures of life in the poem are refracted through the perception of them by truth-seekers, that is, the author chooses the epic path or way of depicting reality.
The epic breadth of the depiction of life in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is also manifested in the fact that, along with the peasantry, all social groups and classes of Russia are represented here (priests, landowners, officials, merchants, bourgeois entrepreneurs, intelligentsia), moreover, in a wide variety of typical individuals , the intertwining of their destinies, the struggle of their interests.
Nekrasov worked on the creation of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” until the end of his life. The central character of this poem is the people. Nekrasov truthfully portrayed the dark sides of the life of the Russian peasantry. Even the names of the villages speak of poverty, the wretchedness of Russian reality:
We are sedate men,
Of those temporarily obliged,
A tightened province,
Empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Nesytova, Neelova,
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Gorelok, Golodukhino,
Bad harvest too.
Nekrasov shows
Russia, as it were, from both sides. He condemns a poor, downtrodden, hungry country. But, on the other hand, this country has the owner of the land, he is internally and spiritually rich, he cannot be killed or enslaved. These are simple Russian people. In a wretched and downtrodden country, many peasants, poor people who are accustomed to living under the yoke of their masters and enduring humiliation and insults, are just as wretched and downtrodden. They do not even admit the thought that another, human life is possible - without mockery. Prince Utyatin’s lackey, Ipat, says with emotion:
The prince came on vacation,
And, after taking a walk, he bathed,
Me, the latter's slave,
In winter in the ice hole!
It's so wonderful! Two ice holes:
He will lower you into one in a net
In another moment it will pull out -
And he’ll bring you some vodka.
I am the princes Utyatin's slaves -
And that's the whole story!
Prince Peremetyev's lackey also has no self-esteem. He considers himself one of the lucky ones and says proudly:
At Prince Peremetyev's
I was a favorite slave
At the table of His Serene Highness
I stood for forty years
With the best French truffle
I licked the plates
Foreign drinks
I drank from the glasses.
He is happy that he fell ill with the same disease as the master:
A noble disease
What kind of thing is there?
Among the top officials in the empire,
I'm sick, man!
It's called gout!
But in the poem, as in life, the bulk of the peasantry consists of truly Russian men who strive for freedom, for liberation from lordly oppression. The master’s bullying can no longer be tolerated by the “exemplary slave – Yakov the faithful.” All his life he did nothing but “groom, take care of, and please his master.” But there is a limit to everything. Yakov takes revenge on the master with his own death when he sends his beloved nephew Yakov, flattered by his bride, to become a soldier. Only in this way was Yakov able to express his protest. Even among the downtrodden peasants who, for the sake of the promised meadows, agreed to play along with the son of the dying prince, posing as serfs, there were those in whom self-esteem awoke, and a clear protest can be heard in their words.
Agap Petrov speaks angry words to Prince Utyatin’s face:
...by grace
Our peasant stupidity
Today you are in charge
And tomorrow we will follow
Kick, and the ball is over!
The awakening consciousness of the peasant masses is especially clearly reflected in the image of Yakim Nagogo. He passionately says that a man in Rus' is a real hero. He has to feed and clothe the whole country, while he himself vegetates in hunger, poverty, and need. He is sure that the Russian peasant is ready to throw out his hatred and anger, express open protest, and raise a revolutionary storm.
Every peasant
Soul, like a black cloud -
Angry, menacing - and it would be necessary
Thunder will roar from there,
Bloody rains
But Yakim doesn’t know how to achieve a better life, so he drowns out his pain in wine. The main culprits of his suffering and the suffering of the people are “the three shareholders: God, the king and the master!” - he thinks.
Other people who have overcome their fear of the power of masters include those who fight for the happiness of the people. This is Ermil Girin. He is a fair and honest person. For this he was respected and loved by the people. Ermil Girin, thanks to the help of peasants, was able to defend the mill. This act suggests that only the joint struggle of the peasants can improve their existence.
The fate of the Russian peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina is shown as difficult and powerless. She was a slave in her husband's family. How much suffering she endured:
There is no broken bone,
There is no vein that is not pulled.
Eternal humiliation and insults, the threat of hunger and poverty - this is her female lot. And yet Matryona is called happy, because, despite slavery and arbitrariness, she managed to defend her human dignity.
The central place in the poem is given to Savely, the “hero of Holy Russia.” He has enormous strength, as if he was created for revolutionary struggle. Saveliy could not come to terms with his fate, with eternal bullying and humiliation. Together with his friend, he kills the manager, for which he ends up in hard labor for twenty years. These years did not break the spirit of the Russian hero: “Branded, but not a slave!” He clearly understands that freedom can be achieved not with humility, but with an ax. Savely no longer believes in God’s help and the good king: “God is high, the king is far away,” he says.
Grisha Dobrosklonov is a folk hero who knows what awaits him ahead:
Fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender
Consumption and Siberia.
This does not frighten him, he is confident that after a difficult struggle there will come liberation, a happy time:
In moments of despondency, O Motherland!
I fly forward with my thoughts,
You are still destined to suffer a lot,
But you won't die, I know.
In his song “Rus”
Dobrosklonov knows for sure that the people will fight for their happiness:
The army rises
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
He is called a real lucky man because he knows what he is fighting for, this is the meaning of his whole life.
There are no shortage of such people in Rus', which means that a bright future will soon come, which the people themselves will build for themselves.
Nekrasov glorifies the mighty forces hidden in the people, and the spiritual beauty that this hundred-year-old grandfather preserved. He can be touched by the sight of a squirrel in the forest, admire “every flower,” and treat his granddaughter Matryona Timofeevna tenderly and touchingly. There is something epic in this Nekrasov hero; it is not for nothing that they call him, like Svyatogor, “the hero of the Holy Russians.” I would put as an epigraph to Savely’s separate topic his words: “Branded, but not a slave!”
His granddaughter Matryona Timofeevna listens to his grandfather’s words and his biography. It seems to me that in her image Nekrasov also embodied some facet of his aesthetic ideal. The spiritual beauty of the people's character is captured here. Matryona Korchagina embodies the best, heroic traits inherent in a Russian woman, which she carried through suffering, hardship and trials. Nekrasov attached such great importance to this image, enlarged it so much that he needed to devote an entire third part of the poem to it. It seems to me that Matryona Timofeevna has absorbed all the best that was separately outlined in “Troika”, and in “Orina” - the soldier’s mother”, and in Daria from the poem “Frost, Red Nose”. The same impressive beauty, then the same grief, the same unbrokenness. It is difficult to forget the appearance of the heroine:
Matrena Timofeevna -
dignified woman,
Wide and dense
About thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, strict,
The richest eyelashes,
Severe and dark.
The confession of her feminine soul to the wanderers remains in my memory, in which she told about how she was destined for happiness, and about her happy moments in life (“I had happiness in girls”), and about the difficult lot of women. Narrating about Korchagina’s tireless work (shepherding from the age of six, working in the field, at the spinning wheel, chores around the house, slave labor in marriage, raising children), Nekrasov reveals another important side of her aesthetic ideal: like her grandfather Savely, Matryona Timofeevna carried through all the horrors of his life, human dignity, nobility and rebellion.
“I carry an angry heart...” - the heroine sums up her long, hard-won story about a sad life. Her image exudes some kind of majesty and heroic power. No wonder she is from the Korchagin family. But she, like many other people whom the wanderers met in their wanderings and searches, cannot be called happy.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This is an image with which Nekrasov’s idea of a perfect person is also associated. But here the poet’s dream of a perfect life is added to this. At the same time, the ideal of the poet receives modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a commoner by birth, the son of a “unrequited farm laborer,” had to endure a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now that's behind us.
Grisha's life connected him with work, everyday life, the needs of his fellow countrymen, peasants, and his native Vakhlachina. The men help him with food, and he helps out the peasants with his labor. Grisha mows, reaps, sows with the men, wanders in the forest with their children, rejoices in peasant songs, peers at the work of artel workers and barge haulers on the Volga:
About fifteen years old
Gregory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark
Native corner.
Visiting places “where it’s hard to breathe, where grief is heard,” Nekrasov’s hero becomes the spokesman for the aspirations of ordinary people. Vakhlachina, “having given her blessing, placed such an envoy in Grigory Dobrosklonov.” And for him the share of the people, his happiness becomes an expression of his own happiness.
Dobrosklonov’s features resemble Dobrolyubov; origin, roll call of surnames, seminary education, common illness - consumption, penchant for poetic creativity. One can even consider that the image of Dobroklonov develops the ideal that Nekrasov painted in the poem “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, “bringing him down to earth” a little and “warming” him a little. Like Dobrolyubov, fate had prepared for Grisha
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
In the meantime, Grisha wanders in the fields and meadows of the Volga region, absorbing the natural and peasant worlds that open before him. He seems to merge with the “tall curly birch trees”, just as young, just as bright. It is no coincidence that he writes poetry and songs. This feature makes the image of Grisha especially attractive. “Merry”, “The Share of the People”, “In a moment of despondency, O Motherland”, “Burlak”, “Rus” - in these songs it is not difficult to hear the main themes: the people and the suffering, but rising to freedom of the Fatherland. In addition, he hears the song of the angel of mercy "in the midst of the distant world" - and goes - according to her call - to the "humiliated and offended." In this he sees his happiness and feels like a harmonious person living a true life. He is one of those sons of Rus' whom she sent “on honest paths,” since they are marked with the “seal of God’s gift.”
Gregory is not afraid of the upcoming trials, because he believes in the triumph of the cause to which he devoted his whole life. He sees that the people of many millions themselves are awakening to fight.
The army is rising
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
This thought fills his soul with joy and confidence in victory. The poem shows what a strong effect Gregory’s words have on the peasants and the seven wanderers, how they infect them with faith in the future, in happiness for all of Rus'. Grigory Dobrosklonov is the future leader of the peasantry, an exponent of their anger and reason.
If only our wanderers could be under their own roof,
If only they could know what was happening to Grisha.
He heard the immense strength in his chest,
The sounds of grace delighted his ears,
The radiant sounds of the noble hymn -
He sang the embodiment of people's happiness.
Nekrasov offers his solution to the question of how to unite the peasantry and the Russian intelligentsia. Only the joint efforts of revolutionaries and the people can lead the Russian peasantry onto the broad road of freedom and happiness. In the meantime, the Russian people are still only on the way to a “feast for the whole world.”
2. Images of people's intercessors in the works of Nekrasov
A heavy lot fell on him,
But he doesn’t ask for a better life:
He wears it on his body like his own
All the ulcers of your homeland.
N. A. Nekrasov
Nekrasov was a poet of the revolutionary struggle, a poet-citizen. It is not surprising that a huge place in his work is occupied by images of people's intercessors: both real figures (his friends) and literary heroes created by him. The poems “Grandfather” and “Russian Women” are dedicated to the instigators of the Russian revolutionary movement and their selfless wives. These are works about the Decembrists, people who, “leaving their homeland, went to die in the deserts” in the name of the triumph of the goodness and happiness of their people.
But Nekrasov himself was destined to be friends not with noble revolutionaries, but with commoner democrats. Amazing respect and great love permeate the poems dedicated to Belinsky, the teacher of Nekrasov, and other fighters of the 50s and 60s.
Nekrasov says:
You taught us to think humanely,
Almost the first to remember the people,
You were hardly the first to speak
About equality, about brotherhood, about freedom...
This is the unfading merit of the frantic Vissarion!
The poems dedicated to the poet’s comrades: Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev are amazing in their strength, skill and feeling. One of them doomed himself to eternal exile for the people's happiness, others died in the prime of life! Poems “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, “Don’t cry so madly over him...”, “N. G. Chernyshevsky,” written in different years, seem to represent a single whole, because all three fighters were inspired by a single goal - to fight for freedom and a better future for the people! What has been said about one of them applies fully to the other two. “As a woman, you loved your homeland,” “Living for yourself is only possible in the world, but dying is possible for others!” This is about Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky.
The poem “Don’t cry so madly over him...”, dedicated to Pisarev, says that “Russian genius has long crowned those who live little.” Yes, this is the tragic fate of the people's defenders.
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - the crown of Nekrasov’s creativity - every name is human character. People's intercessors also occupy a prominent place in it. These are the “heroes of the Holy Russians,” such as Savely, who, together with other men, rebelled against the German tormentor, not broken by either rods or hard labor. These are defenders of the honor of the working people, such as Yakim Nagoy. These are honest, truthful people who bring happiness to others, like Ermila Girin and others. But, of course, the image of the people's defender is best seen in Grisha Dobrosklonov. Although this hero appears only in the book of the poem and his character is not fully revealed, everything important about him has already been said. The son of a poor village sexton and a hard-working peasant woman, Grisha already charted his path in his early youth:
And at the age of fifteen, Gregory already knew for sure
Who will he give his whole life to?
And for whom he will die.
In his heart there is great love for the people, for poor “Vakhlachina”. And Nekrasov writes: Fate prepared for him a glorious Path, a loud name for the People's Intercessor, Consumption and Siberia.
But Grisha is not afraid of such a fate. He has already “weighed the proud strength” and the “firm will.” This young folk poet resembles Dobrolyubov in many ways (it’s not for nothing that their surnames are so similar). Grisha Dobrosklonov is a fighter for people’s happiness, he wants to be where “it’s hard to breathe, where grief is heard.” His songs sound faith in the Russian people, in their liberation:
The army rises -
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
In the poem we do not see exactly how Gregory fights for the people’s happiness. But, reading his songs dedicated to the homeland and people from the people, you feel his ardent love for the fatherland, his readiness to give his life and blood drop by drop in order to alleviate the people's suffering, so that Rus' can only be omnipotent and abundant! His songs inspire the peasants.
As if playing and running, my cheeks flare up,
This is how the poor, the downtrodden rise in spirit from a good song, -
says Dobrosklonov.
Nekrasov and other people's defenders fervently believed that the Russian people had not yet been set limits. And, looking into the distant future, they correctly felt that “the Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be citizens...”.
3 “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?”
Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was, as it were, a departure from the general idea of many works of that time - the revolution. In addition, in almost all works the main characters were representatives of the upper classes - the nobility, merchants, and philistines. In the poem, the main characters are former serfs who became free after the decree of 1861. And the main idea of the novel was to search for happy people in Russia. The seven men, the main characters of the poem, put forward different hypotheses about the happiest person in Russia, and these were, as a rule, rich people who were obliged to be happy - merchants, nobles, landowners, boyars, the tsar. But the men went to the people to look for happiness. And the people are those same newly liberated peasants. Peasants are the poorest and most powerless class, and it is more than strange to look for a happy one among them. But there is happiness among the peasants, but at the same time they have much more misfortunes. The peasants are happy, of course, with their freedom, which they received for the first time in hundreds of years. Happy for various reasons: some are happy with an unusually large harvest, others with their great physical strength, others with a successful, non-drinking family. But nevertheless, it is difficult to call the peasants happy, even a little bit. Because with their release they had a lot of their own problems. And the happiness of peasants is usually very local and temporary.
And now, in order... The peasants are freed. This is a happiness that they have not seen for hundreds of years, and perhaps that they have never seen at all. Happiness itself fell quite unexpectedly, many were not ready for it and, once free, were birds hatched in a cage and then released into the wild. As a result, the new class of temporarily obliged, freed peasants became the poorest. The landowners did not want to give away their land, and almost all peasant land belonged either to the landowners or to the community. The peasants did not become free, they only acquired a new type of dependence on themselves. Of course, this dependence is not the same as serfdom, but it was dependence on the landowner, on the community, on the state. It is very difficult to call this complete freedom or happiness. But the Russian people, accustomed to everything, could find happy moments here too. For a Russian man, the greatest happiness is vodka. If there is a lot of it, then the man becomes very happy. For Russian women, happiness is a good harvest, a clean house, a fed family. This happened quite rarely, so women were less happy than men. The peasant children were also not very happy. They were forced to work for an adult, but at the same time eat for a child, run for vodka, they constantly received from drunken parents and, growing up, became one. But there were individuals who considered themselves happy - people who rejoiced at what an ordinary person might find disgusting or incomprehensible. One rejoiced that his landowner had a “favorite slave.” He and his retinue drank the best overseas wines, ate the best dishes and suffered from the “royal” disease - gout. He was happy in his own way and his happiness should be respected, but ordinary men didn’t like it very much. Others were happy about at least some kind of harvest that could feed them. And this was truly happiness for those peasants who were not at all happy, they were so poor. But this was not the kind of happiness that the seven wanderers were looking for. They were looking for true, complete happiness, and therefore one in which nothing else was needed. But such happiness cannot be found. This doesn’t even talk about peasants; the upper classes always have their own problems too. The landowners cannot possibly be happy because their time has passed. Serfdom was abolished and the landowners at the same time lost the enormous influence of their class, which means that Nkha did not have any happiness in her life. But these are landowners, and we were talking about peasants...
Conclusion
Nekrasov’s lofty ideas about a perfect life and a perfect person forced him to write the great poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Nekrasov worked on this work for many years. The poet gave part of his soul to this poem, putting into it his thoughts about Russian life and its problems.
The journey of the seven wanderers in the poem is a search for a beautiful person living happily. At least, this is an attempt to find one on our long-suffering land. It seems to me that it is difficult to understand Nekrasov’s poem without understanding the Nekrasov ideal, which in some ways is close to the peasant ideal, although it is much broader and deeper.
A particle of Nekrasov’s ideal is already visible in the seven wanderers. Of course, in many ways they are still dark people, deprived of correct ideas about the life of the “tops” and “bottoms” of society. Therefore, some of them think that an official should be happy, others - a priest, a “fat-bellied merchant,” a landowner, a tsar. And for a long time they will stubbornly adhere to these views, defending them until life brings clarity. But what sweet, kind men they are, what innocence and humor shine on their faces! These are eccentric people, or rather, eccentric people. Later Vlas will tell them this: “We are weird enough, but you are weirder than us!”
Wanderers hope to find a piece of paradise on their land - the Unflogged Province, the Ungutted Volost, the Izbytkovo Village. A naive desire, of course. But that’s why they are people with an eccentricity, to want, to go and search. In addition, they are truth-seekers, one of the first in Russian literature. It is very important for them to get to the bottom of the meaning of life, to the essence of what happiness is. Nekrasov greatly values this quality among his peasants. The seven men are desperate debaters; they often “scream and never come to their senses.” But it is precisely the dispute that pushes them forward along the road of vast Russia. “They care about everything” - everything they see, they take note of everything. "questions who is happy" To whom on Rus' live Fine” - Savelia - reader... support for this “house” by the people... At the request of official circles... everything is suffering Russian peasantry". Nekrasov creates image huge generalizing...