Description of Russian peasants from the notes of a hunter. Types of peasants and peasant life in “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S.

The theme of “Notes of a Hunter” is an image of the Russian province of the late 40s of the 19th century. The collection describes modern Russian reality in an extremely broad way: the author includes in the stories ethnographic details of the peasant life of the Oryol province, pictures of nature, and the various characters of serfs, landowners, and single-lords. The idea of “Notes...” is a condemnation of serfdom, which contradicts the natural laws of nature.

The author pays main attention to the depiction of various representatives of the common people, that is, the depiction of serfs. At the same time, he emphasizes that serfs are often smart, generous, sensitive to nature, and truly understanding people. These high virtues are manifested in men and women, whom the noble state considers only as working animals needed for hard physical work and the reproduction of their own kind. The state does not care at all about the development of these people and thereby impoverishes itself, because many serf talents perish without being revealed.

The first story in the collection, “Khor and Kalinich” (1847), presents two types of peasants. The ferret is a wise owner - he runs his business successfully, gets rich, and raises his children correctly. The author half-jokingly and half-seriously compares him with a great financier. The polecat deeply judges people and circumstances, so it is interesting for a young hunter to talk with him. Kalinich represents a different type of people. He is an artistic person, subtly understands and feels nature, so he wanders through the forest with pleasure, without any self-interest, with his master-hunter.

In the story “The Singers” (1853), Turgenev shows an extremely gifted singer from the people, Yashka the Turk (in different editions the hero’s name has a different spelling: Yashka the Turk or Yashka the Turk). This young factory worker sings in such a way that he moves listeners to tears—the regulars of the Prytynny tavern and the author himself, an educated man who has heard wonderful professional singers in his lifetime. Yashka did not study anywhere, but by nature he has an extraordinary musical talent, which manifested itself in a competition with a contractor (the so-called minor contractor who is responsible only for part of the work) from Zhizdra.

All the listeners present in the tavern are simple, uneducated people, but the author notices how responsive their souls are to beauty. They all smile and even dance when they listen to the cheerful dance song of the rower. And then, listening to the drawn-out lyrical song of Yashka the Turk, they cry, responding to the sad melody. The listeners unanimously, including the self-confident, dapper rower, recognized the victory of Yashka the Turk. Why? Perhaps they intuitively sensed the difference between true talent and craftsmanship. Or maybe a Russian person is closer to “light sadness” than carefree fun.

The story “Peter Petrovich Karataev” (1847) describes the love story of a poor nobleman and the serf Matryona. In this story, Matryona showed, in addition to devoted love, remarkable qualities of her character: strong will, generosity and courage. She sincerely and deeply fell in love with Pyotr Petrovich and gave him happiness, which he remembers with gratitude when telling his story to the hunter. Matryona demonstrates her generosity and sacrifice in her last act, when she herself returns to her mistress. She took pity on Pyotr Petrovich, since he was threatened with very serious trouble for harboring a runaway serf. She also understood that the lady would not forgive or have mercy on her, but, loving Pyotr Petrovich, she did not want him to be tortured by judicial red tape.

In the story “Living Relics” (1874), the author gives the story of another serf - the peasant woman Lukerya. At first, Lukerya’s life was happy, she was a beautiful and healthy girl from a rich peasant family, guys from all over the neighborhood looked at her. A groom was also found whom she was supposed to marry for love. But she fell ill, began to dry out, and after a few years she turned into “living relics.” What surprises and delights the author about Lukerya is that she endures her misfortune with remarkable humility, does not complain about anything, does not curse her fate, and behaves steadfastly and with great dignity. When the hunter wants to help her with something, she calmly replies that she herself does not need anything, but asks for the local peasants, so that they can at least “reduce their rent a little.”

Thus, in these and many other stories, peasants are portrayed with great respect and sympathy. However, the author does not idealize the Russian peasantry, but in a number of stories shows men who are downtrodden, submissive or spoiled, corrupted by power.

The story “The Burmist” (1847) describes a completely hunted old peasant Antip, whom the Burmist Sofron drives to despair: he turns over all three of Antip’s sons as recruits, takes a cow for arrears, and beats his old wife. Antip cannot resist Sofron, he hopes for a fair decision from the master and really complains about the bailiff to Mr. Penochkin, kisses his hands and cries. However, the master is in no hurry to judge fairly his two slaves - the poor man Antipas and the bailiff Sofron. This is how Turgenev shows the ordinary life of peasants, sad and hopeless. In the same story, Sofron himself is presented, a “strong man” appointed by the master Penochkin to rule the village of Shipilovka. This cunning and powerful fist subjugated the entire village. Anpadist, an acquaintance of the hunter, gives a merciless description of Sofron: “A dog, not a man: you won’t find such a dog all the way to Kursk... But Shipilovka is only listed under what you call it, Penkin (! - O.P.) ; after all, it is not he who owns it: Sophron owns it.”

In the story “The Singers,” the author does not hide the fact that after the competition between the rower and Yashka the Turk, the whole company gets very drunk. And if at first all the listeners rejoice and cry, empathizing with the songs, then then everyone cries and laughs, because they are very drunk. If at first Yashka the Turk delighted the narrator with his spiritual appearance, his soulful singing, then it is hard for the author to see the drunken Yashka, with dull eyes, in his shirt unbuttoned on his chest.

In the story “Date” (1851), Turgenev portrays a servant, apparently the spoiled valet of some gentleman. This young man behaves stupidly and pompously, does not notice and does not appreciate Akulina’s love: he, a petty and self-righteous egoist, sees only himself, is interested only in himself.

Next to the serfs, the writer also shows various landowners who are tightly connected with the serfs in Russian life. In the story “Khor and Kalinich,” the landowner Polutykin turns out to be a very mediocre person. He has neither Khor's practical insight nor Kalinich's poetic responsiveness. Pyotr Petrovich Karataev in the story of the same name, for all his kindness, is a weak person, unable to protect either himself or his love. In comparison with his spinelessness, Matryona’s integrity, courage and willpower are even more clearly demonstrated.

Arkady Pavlovich Penochkin, the landowner from the story “The Burmister,” is portrayed satirically by the author. Arkady Pavlovich outwardly looks like an educated, economic landowner, but in reality his education turns out to be superficial, and he understands economic affairs very poorly, and does not want to understand. He is satisfied with his mayor Sofron only because he “has no arrears.” Arkady Pavlovich does not care how his peasants actually live. Outwardly he looks like a liberal landowner, in accordance with the requirements of the time, but in essence remains an ardent serf owner. He, according to the author, never, or almost never, shouts at the servants, but calmly sends the footman Fyodor to a flogging because the wine is not heated enough. When, during a trip to Shipilovka, a wagon with supplies overturned and crushed the cook, Arkady Pavlovich first inquired whether the cook’s hands were intact. So, from under his handsome appearance, “poked out,” according to Belinsky, “a bastard with subtle manners” (V.G. Belinsky “A Look at Russian Literature of 1847”).

So, “Notes of a Hunter” is a work full of anti-serfdom pathos. In the stories in the collection, the idea of the powerless position of serfs, whom landowners do not consider as people, resonates extremely strongly. Meanwhile, serfs are people remarkable in their spiritual qualities and in their talent. According to the author, serfdom is a great evil for Russia: it reduces the people to the status of cattle, and these people have intelligence (Khor), and will (Matryona), and kindness (Lukerya), and a sensitive soul (Kalinich), and various talents (Yashka Turok). Moreover, Turgenev emphasizes the spiritual and moral superiority of some serfs over the landowners.

In “Notes of a Hunter,” Turgenev’s unique creative style, distinguished by restraint and the amazing art of hinting, which literary scholars would later call the “iceberg principle,” clearly manifested itself. In other words, Turgenev expresses his ideas and opinions not directly in instructive phrases, but through the careful construction of story scenes, through the selection of details and apt words.

Types of peasants and peasant life in “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev

Introduction

Main part

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

In Russian literature, the genre of village prose is noticeably different from all other genres. What is the reason for this difference? You can talk about this for an extremely long time, but still not come to a final conclusion. This happens because the scope of this genre may not fit within the description of rural life. This genre can also include works that describe the relationship between people in the city and the countryside, and even works in which the main character is not a villager at all, but in spirit and idea, these works are nothing more than village prose.

In Russia, since ancient times, the peasantry has played the most important role in history. Not in terms of power (on the contrary - the peasants were the most powerless), but in spirit - the peasantry was and, probably, remains the driving force of Russian history to this day. It was from the dark, ignorant peasants that Stenka Razin, and Emelyan Pugachev, and Ivan Bolotnikov came out; it was because of the peasants, or rather because of serfdom, that that cruel struggle took place, the victims of which were tsars, poets, and part of the outstanding Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century. Thanks to this, works covering this topic occupy a special place in the literature.

The famous Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born on October 28, 1818 in Orel. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the general spiritual appearance of Turgenev and the environment from which he directly emerged.

Without the name of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, we cannot imagine the existence of Russian national culture. His works have entered the treasury of world literature; they cannot be confused with anyone else’s; they contain the author’s individuality, his character, worldview, feelings and experiences. When reading his works, clear associations arise with the time in which the writer lived and worked; he seems to convey to us events, new trends in contemporary life, passing through the prism of his own feelings and views on various problems. In Turgenev's true masterpieces, the characters' characters are revealed with great psychological authenticity. The writer is trying to explain their actions and thoughts. Heroes do not exist in isolation from the world around them; they are closely connected with it, are influenced by it, are imbued with newfangled ideas, and sometimes reject them after long searches and mistakes.

Turgenev made his way to his true calling in literature, as if by touch. He started out as a poet, had some success in this field and did not suspect that he was a prose writer. Turgenev published his first story almost by accident, succumbing to the persuasion of his friends. But it was this story that brought him fame and pointed him in the right direction. Together with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Turgenev became one of the three titanic Russian writers who first spoke about the secret life of the human soul. But if for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky the depiction of psychology was most important, then in Turgenev’s works the aroma of time invariably appeared through events and persons. He became a chronicler of the passing noble era in Russia, its way of life and passions, its hobbies and delusions. Turgenev took first place among the literary youth of that time because he directed all the power of his high talent to the most painful place of the pre-reform society - serfdom.

Main part

In 1846, when the Sovremennik magazine passed into the hands of N.A. Nekrasov and V.G. Belinsky, and turned into one of the brightest magazines of the era, Ivan Panaev, the editor of the transformed magazine, turned to Turgenev with a request to give something for the “Mixture” section. Turgenev gave the essay “Khor and Kalinich”. From this day, Turgenev's collaboration with the magazine began, which continued for many years - until in 1860 Turgenev broke with the editors of the magazine due to ideological differences. In the meantime, Panaev provides the young writer’s essay with the subtitle “From the Notes of a Hunter,” in the first issue of Sovremennik for 1847, “Khor and Kalinich” is published and received by readers with delight. The readership success of “Khorya and Kalinich” pushed Turgenev to create new stories, which were later published as a separate book (1852). Turgenev finally entered the solid path of prose, which led him to new artistic discoveries, to a new, unusually plastic artistic language. “Notes of a Hunter” - a cycle of hunting stories. The narrator, a passionate hunter, wanders through the Russian provinces, shoots game, and at the same time meets the surrounding peasants, talks with them, observes their life, listens to their conversations. It's like nothing special. Why did contemporaries wait for the release of each next story in “Notes” with such impatience? Yes, because they were interested. “Notes” is an endless portrait gallery, only those looking from these portraits are not brilliant generals, not disappointed young men, not thoughtful young ladies, not landowners, not officials - ordinary peasants. Men, women, children. Cheerful, cunning, gloomy, generous, crying, sad, wretched, affectionate, cruel, desperate and humble - very different. And very real. This was new to the reader; he had never met such heroes in literature before. Among the enlightened Russian public, there has long been a feeling of fatigue from fanciful romantic fantasies, and indeed from any fiction, from fiction - the public was hungry for the truth. Not the artistic and life truth that is already present in any good literary work, but the truth of the document, the truth about what to talk and write about has not yet been accepted. The response to this need was the emergence of the “natural school,” the main genre of which was the physiological essay. It described the life and lifestyle of people of the lower class of society - a janitor, a street organ grinder, a woman selling her body, a beggar, a merchant, a petty employee. “Notes of a Hunter” largely met the requirements of the “natural school”; Turgenev coincided with the literary fashion of the time. This is also the reason for his success. He spoke to the audience on topics that they had long missed. At the same time, his view of his main character - the peasantry, the people - turned out to be much broader than the “physiological” one. Ten years after the release of the first story “Notes” in Goncharov’s novel, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov will address the writer of the “natural school” with an angry speech: “Depict a thief, a fallen woman, an inflated fool, and don’t forget the man. Where is the humanity?” ?<.>Love him, remember yourself in him and treat him as yourself - then I will read you and bow my head before you." This is exactly what Turgenev managed to do - to portray the peasant not as a bare social function, but as a person. People, the benefit of which was so passionately discussed by the thinking part of society, nevertheless remained an unsolved sphinx for it. The distance between the peasantry and the nobles was enormous. Of course, attempts to overcome or at least reduce it had already been made. Examples of this are well known. “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by A.N. Radishchev pointed out that the peasantry was suffering, that it was crushed by the lack of freedom and arbitrariness of the landowners. But "The Journey" was more likely a description of peasant hardships and misfortunes than the appearance and face of the peasant himself. "Poor Liza" N.M. Karamzina reminded the reader of the equality of all people before feeling, that even simple peasant women can feel deeply and strongly. At one time this was a discovery, by the middle of the 19th century it turned into evidence. The romantics took another step towards bridging the chasm between the nobles and the common people. It was they who began to record folk songs, fairy tales, and customs. But, firstly, songs and fairy tales revealed only one, generally ceremonial side of peasant life, and secondly, the romantics looked at folk culture as an interesting object of study, as exotic, and this inevitably led to distortions. They wanted to see a role model in the peasant. The “natural man,” a child of nature, had a much more harmonious and integral worldview in the romantic system of values than the “man of civilization,” exhausted by reflection. By the middle of the 19th century, the peasant world was still a closed area. Turgenev opened before the reader's eyes a whole unknown country - with its own laws, language, ideals; but what is even more amazing is a country inhabited by people. Not peasants “are also people,” as it was with Radishchev and Karamzin, not peasants “better than us,” as it was with the romantics, but even simpler, even more humane: peasants are people. A peasant is a man. Judging by the success of the stories, this generally trivial truth stunned Turgenev's contemporaries.

“Khor and Kalinich,” the first story, immediately shows the originality of the character of an ordinary man. Here there is a parallel comparison between two peasants. The first of them, Khor, is a wealthy peasant who has embarked on the path of socio-economic development. The main feature is that he handed himself over to the landowner and agreed to pay the quitrent. The landowner set the conditions. In this case, the agreement is carried out bilaterally, that is, each of the parties mutually accepts the agreement concluded by them. Khor managed to get rich and now lives for his own pleasure, regularly fulfilling his obligations. He lives at a distance from the rest of the peasants, which brings him closer in the nature of farming to landownership. That is why he is presented in the story as a man who is self-confident, a man who is free to buy his way out of the status of a peasant. But he doesn’t want to pay off. It follows from this that Khor has no intention of continuing to grow economically. He is simply happy with his condition and wants to live a measured life, because quitrent does not affect him with ruin.

Kalinich appears to us completely differently. This is a typical representative of the peasant population. He lives according to old peasant customs, in a poor hut, wears old clothes. He doesn't care about advanced thoughts. He came to terms with his situation. Kalinich is a simple Russian peasant who does not look far ahead. He is worried about today. That is why Turgenev treats him with great condescension as a person related to nature. But, no matter how great the differences, both Khor and Kalinich are not going to part with their landowner. The first one doesn’t want to because he has found his own benefit, and the second one is simply far from legal labyrinths and realizes that he is not in his power to change anything.

“Khor and Kalinich" are two peasant portraits - the squat, broad-shouldered Khor and the long, thin Kalinich. Unlike Khor, who has accumulated capital, the father of a large and obedient family, Kalinich is homeless, childless, and has no household. Khor stands firmly on feet, has a good sense of reality, gets along with the master, is avidly interested in life abroad. The last detail is Turgenev’s jab at the Slavophiles; in defiance of his ideological opponents, the writer wanted to emphasize: the Russian man “does little about his past and boldly looks forward.” Interesting in this story also that Turgenev in it enters into an argument with the Slavophiles, who argued that the reforms of Peter the Great tore Russia away from the original Russian people and that the main virtue of the Russian people is obedience and humility.In the story it turns out that Khor and Peter the Great are kindred spirits From conversations with Khorem, the author came to the conclusion that “Peter the Great was primarily a Russian man, Russian precisely in his transformations. The Russian man is so confident in his strength and strength that he is not averse to breaking himself; he deals little with his past and boldly looks forward.” This was exactly the character of Khor.

Kalinich is touched only by descriptions of foreign nature, he is dreamy, enthusiastic, idolizes his eccentric and tight-fisted master (Khor has no illusions about him), is well versed in herbs, knows how to charm blood, fear, rabies, breeds bees, “his hand is light” . The difference in character does not prevent the peasants from being friends and does not prevent internal, spiritual kinship - they both sing the same songs. In one of the last scenes of the story, Kalinich plays the balalaika, and Khor sings his favorite song “You are my share, share!”. The common song suddenly unites them, so dissimilar, and its plaintive meaning brings new color to Khor’s portrait: and he, despite despite its practicality, it turns out to be no stranger to daydreaming. The story “Khor and Kalinich” begins with a lengthy author’s discussion about how a peasant in the Oryol province differs from a peasant in the Kaluga province. It seems that already at the very beginning of the story the writer wants to penetrate the secret of the Russian folk character. Turgenev specifically compares two psychological types: the sensible, practical Khor and the dreamy, poetic Kalinich. These are, as it were, two sides of the same coin, two components of a single Russian character. Both externally and internally, Turgenev’s heroes are very different people. Ferret - “bald, short, broad-shouldered and dense. The shape of his face was reminiscent of Socrates: the same high, knobby forehead, the same small eyes, the same snub nose.” Khor was a practical man, a rationalist. He “understood reality, that is, he settled down, saved money, got along with the master.” He spoke little and thought a lot to himself. Khor has a large family, submissive and unanimous: wife, six sons, daughters-in-law. The polecat, as it were, personifies the prose of life, its very basis.

Kalinich is a dreamy, enthusiastic, romantic nature. Kalinich was a man of the most cheerful, meek disposition, constantly humming in a low voice, carefreely looking in all directions.” He has no family, almost no farm of his own. But Kalinich had talents that Khor himself recognized. Kalinich personifies, as it were, the poetry of life. He is closer to nature than Khor: Kalinich comes to his friend with a bunch of strawberries, like an “ambassador of nature.” Khor understood people better, Kalinich understood nature better. But this difference did not interfere with their sincere, devoted friendship: “they form a unity, whose name is humanity.” We can say that in this story by Turgenev, the peasants act as bearers of the best features of the Russian national character. The author admires his heroes and is proud of them. The ultimate goal of this seemingly simple description of two peasants is clear: in both there are unknown depths that are worth looking into, which are worth being amazed at. Turgenev knew the value of a song (“There was a time when I went crazy from folk songs,” he admitted in a letter to Nekrasov), he knew how much it could say to the Russian consciousness: not tenderness, not pity and compassion for the creator people, - not only these feelings gave birth to Turgenev’s “Singers”, but that feeling that elevates the consciousness and soul of a person, which moved him to action, to deed, for it was no longer possible to consider oneself a man while such spiritual beauty remained in “slave form.” Yashka the Turk, one of the folk nuggets, sang about this.

The writer vividly and vividly depicts folk images in one of, perhaps, the most heartfelt stories - “Singers”. The image of the folk singer Yashka Turk is striking, who “sang, and from every sound of his voice there was something familiar and immensely broad. The Russian, truthful, broad soul sounded and breathed in him and grabbed you by the heart, grabbed you right by its Russian strings.” Not beauty, but precisely beauty, the living fusion of the soul of the performer and the soul of the creator people into a single creative impulse - such beauty shakes the very foundations of consciousness and heart, gives birth in a person to a chain connecting beginnings and ends; restores the truth, the deep truth about the Russian people.

Nekrasov, who loved folk songs so much, only said after reading the story “Singers”: “Miracle.” “This work by my beloved writer is truly brilliant,” responded Dostoevsky. The heroes of this story are extraordinary, talented and at the same time tragic people. Among Yashka’s listeners is “Hercules,” whom everyone used to call the Wild Master, although no one knew who he was or where he came from. The Wild Master is an unclear, mysterious figure, but undoubtedly concealing within himself some powerful, elemental forces. It is no coincidence that Turgenev makes the Wild Master the judge in the singing competition. This is a remarkable person who, as it were, “broke out” from his environment.

At the same time, Turgenev's heroes are people, not gods. The writer also notices their weaknesses. His hero, Yakov the Turk, has an amazing gift - he sings so that everyone feels “both sweet and creepy.” “I must admit,” the narrator notes, “I have rarely heard such a voice: it was slightly broken and rang as if cracked; but there was genuine deep passion in him, and youth, and strength, and sweetness, and some kind of fascinatingly carefree, sad sorrow<.>He sang, and from every sound of his voice there was a breath of something familiar and vastly wide, as if the familiar steppe was opening up before you, going into an endless distance.” In a singing competition organized by the men, Yashka easily outsings his opponent, who sings masterfully, but without soul. The competition ends with general revelry, Yakov noisily celebrates his victory and soon becomes dead drunk. “With his chest bare, he sat on a bench and, singing in a hoarse voice some kind of dance, street song, lazily fingered and plucked the strings of the guitar. Wet hair hung in clumps over his terribly pale face.” Turgenev deliberately gives a parallel to the scene of Yashka singing during the day. There is nothing left of the former piercingness and depth. This is not a great singer before us - a pathetic, drunken man. However, in “Notes of a Hunter” another thought flashes - a man drinks out of grief (see the story “Ovsyannikov’s Homestead”). Grief and innocent torment are an integral part of peasant life in Turgenev's stories. His heroes sing, joke, laugh, but cry much more often, their life is very difficult, they are forced not to live - to survive. They are oppressed, offended, not allowed to love their loved ones, given up as soldiers for accidentally spilling chocolate, and flogged. Constant, invisible suffering pervades their entire existence, although most of them do not understand the cause of their misfortunes. The heroes themselves do not blame anyone. But there is someone to blame, and Turgenev knows his name well - serfdom. The writer knew firsthand about the terrible consequences that distort peasant life; even in his youth, he more than once tried to soften the wayward heart of his own mother, who felt like a full-fledged mistress of her serfs, and to ease the lot of the peasants. In his own words, the writer took “Annibal’s oath” (that is, the oath of Hannibal, the Carthaginian commander who swore to fight Rome to the last drop of blood) to fight this sworn enemy to the end.

In 1852, “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev were published as a separate publication and immediately attracted attention. As L.N. accurately noted. Tolstoy, the essential significance and dignity of “Notes of a Hunter” lies primarily in the fact that Turgenev “managed, in the era of serfdom, to illuminate peasant life and highlight its poetic aspects,” in the fact that he found “more good than bad” in the Russian people. Yes, Turgenev knew how to see the beauty of a man’s soul, and it was this beauty that was the writer’s main argument against the ugliness of serfdom. Turgenev did not poeticize the peasant, did not embellish his life, he wrote the truth about him. And in this truth, resting on the writer’s deep conviction that “in the Russian man lies and matures the germ of future great deeds, great national development,” was the main persuasive power of his works.

We can say that “Notes of a Hunter” opened up a new world for the Russian reader - the peasant world. Turgenev undoubtedly continues the traditions of N.V. Gogol, who in his immortal poem “Dead Souls” showed not only the Russia of the Chichikovs, Manilovs, Plyushkins, but also the Russia of the people. Let us remember, for example, the carriage maker Mikheev, the carpenter Stepan Probka and many others. But in Turgenev, men appear not as dead, but as living souls, the true support of the nation; they are sharply opposed to the world of masters. Ivan Sergeevich describes the peasants with great warmth, adhering to his main principle - the authenticity of the image. He often drew from life; his images had real prototypes. And this emphasized naturalism makes Turgenev’s stories especially valuable and interesting for us. The great truth about the plight of the Russian people, the glorification of their love of life and talent, all that, in Turgenev’s opinion, constituted the Russian national character, are reflected in “Notes of a Hunter” .

“Notes of a Hunter” served Turgenev as a wonderful school of writing. Describing the peasants, their relationships and his own hunting travels, Turgenev hones his two main talents as a writer - a psychologist and a landscape painter. Already here he learns to depict the subtle play of feelings without directly naming them, guessing them in external actions and gestures (for example, the story “Date” is a wonderful psychological miniature). In “Notes of a Hunter,” purely Turgenev landscapes appear, painted with amazing vigilance. “The river rolled dark blue waves; the air became thicker, weighed down by the moisture of the night." (“Yermolai and the Miller’s Wife”). “The pale gray sky became lighter, colder, bluer; the stars blinked with faint light and then disappeared; the earth became damp, the leaves began to fog up, in some places living sounds began to be heard, vote." (“Bezhin Meadow”).

Turgenev's descriptions are extremely specific; we can easily determine from them not only the time of year, month, but also the time of day. At the same time, the natural world here is densely populated, it sounds, rings, whistles, it is full of movement and colors: “Hawks, falcons, kestrels whistled over the motionless tops, spotted woodpeckers pounded hard on the thick bark; the sonorous song of the blackbird suddenly rang out through the dense foliage, following the iridescent cry of the oriole; below, in the bushes, robins, siskins and warblers chirped and sang; finches ran nimbly along the paths; the hare crept along the edge of the forest, carefully “crutching”; a red-brown squirrel briskly jumped from tree to tree and suddenly sat down, raising its tail above its head" (“Death”). Such an attentive attitude to nature is understandable, the narrator of “Notes” is a hunter, nature is his first assistant and adviser in his business, and the life of Turgenev's main characters, the peasants, also completely depends on the natural cycle. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev plunged much deeper into the life of the common people than Pushkin. He can rightfully be awarded the title of honorary researcher of the peasant class. In the work “Notes of a Hunter” discussed below, in addition to the naturalistic essay, a special place is occupied by the life of a simple man, a peasant. It is this feature that gives us a chance to look at their life without embellishment. Turgenev's patriotism can be traced in every story. In each short story included in this cycle, a separate side of the peasant life is reflected to one degree or another. life We will consider those stories that most clearly illuminate the topics that interest us.

In "Yermolai and the Miller's Wife" the anti-serfdom line is more strongly pursued. In the person of Yermolai, Turgenev shows the fullness of the injustice of the bitter peasant life. Ermolai actually works for free. The landowner does not perceive it as a living object or part of his farm, but does not forget to demand game from it. There is no talk about any content of Yermolai. They don’t even provide him with shot, not to mention the fact that he spends the night and lives wherever and however he can.

Women's lot is even worse. They use them as they wish. They do not have the right to refuse the landowner's invitation to serve with him. This detail is revealed in the scene in which Mr. Zverkov explains to the narrator why his wife does not keep married maids.

"Raspberry Water" is notable for the fact that it mentions the concept of a freed peasant. Turgenev here wanted to remember or note the decree of Alexander I “On Free Plowmen”, issued in 1803. The most important thing is that the peasant still lives with a landowner, but a different one. This detail shows the fragility and ill-conceivedness of previous solutions to the peasant issue.

The legal insecurity of the peasants is revealed in the last scene of "Raspberry Water", in which the poor man Stas narrates his deplorable situation. After the death of his son, he was no longer able to pay the dues alone and therefore asked the owner to reduce the dues or transfer him to corvée, but he sent him to the clerk, and he, in turn, stated that the peasant still owed. It turns out that the peasants, already unaware of the entire bureaucratic procedure, found themselves mired in debt, and therefore, to any request to make it easier for them to pay, they receive the answer: pay off the arrears. Another question immediately arises: where can these arrears be paid to the peasant if he himself asks for help with financial resources? This is the snag that Turgenev points out.

And yet, it is not worth reducing “Notes of a Hunter” to an anti-serfdom pamphlet; We have already seen that the meaning of these stories is much deeper, the anti-serfdom pathos is dissolved here in the universal, social problems - in the eternal. In addition, the writer repeatedly emphasizes: just as inexorably the nobility dissolved in the life of the landowners, so did slavery enter the flesh and blood of the peasant. Many peasants recall with reverent awe and nostalgia the times when the master was truly self-willed and strict, and any punishment received from his hands is considered deserved and fair (“Raspberry Water”, “Two Landowners”). It is worth mentioning the story “The District Doctor”, if only because it expresses the idea described in the previous paragraph about the quality of life of a peasant coming from the wealth of the landowner. The doctor talks about his method of recognizing the person who calls him by the peasants of the caller. He claims that if a peasant behaves impudently and is decently dressed, then his owner owns a good estate and is wealthy himself: “If the coachman sits like a prince and doesn’t break his hat... feel free to make two deposits.”

"Ovsyannikov's Homestead" is unique in that it shows us the very lawlessness of landowners and bureaucrats in relation to defenseless peasants. Ovsyannikov tells about several landowners. One of them loves to mock serf women, forcing them to sing and dance until the morning, forgetting that they also need to sleep, and the work began in the early morning. Another constantly shouts that every landowner should think about the peasant, that demarcation should, first of all, help and make life easier for the peasants. But in fact, he himself did not donate even a small amount of land, although he did not do anything on it and did not intend to do anything. No less interesting is the scene of the appearance of Ovsyannikov’s nephew Mitya. In Mitya, Turgenev personifies a fighter for fair treatment of peasants and working people. He stands up for the bakery workers, who are being pressured by an official who has decided to profit at the expense of the poor workers. He was counting on a bribe, saying that the results of the inspection were unsatisfactory, which was not true. Only he didn’t receive the bribe, so he got angry and wrote a report. Other peasants suffer because, in the absence of the owner, another landowner plowed up part of his land, declaring that it is now his property. But the peasants who are on quitrent are not satisfied with this state of affairs. How will they pay rent to the owner if they have been deprived of land? Another landowner simply does not want to let the peasant woman go, although she is ready to give him money for herself. And Mitya stands up for all these poor people, without thinking about the bad end of the game against the masters. In this way, Turgenev shows us that there are people who can go against the serfdom that existed then, only there are very few of them, and therefore their efforts are doomed to failure until there are enough like-minded people to overthrow slavery in Russia. Therefore, the censorship took a special look at Turgenev. After all, by the end of the 1840s, anti-serfdom thoughts and movements were taking shape, and this story clearly called for a fight against serfdom.

"Lgov" further reflects the humiliation of man. We see all this in the fate of Bitch. During his life, he served in the service of different masters, and whoever they appointed him to be. He was a fisherman, a coachman, an actor, a shoemaker, etc. Once he was not even called by his native name. Surprisingly, Suchok was not suited to any of the professions assigned to him. He was just trying to follow exactly what they were saying. This atrophied his ability to work, as can be seen in the story. The knot appears before us absolutely incompetent for any work. He is unable to do anything right. Thus, we can say that the free exploitation of peasants by landowners leads to a decline in the working capacity of the labor force. And this confidently led to the desolation of the landowner's economy.

"Bezhin Meadow" illustrates the exploitation of child labor. One of the boys around the fire mentions that he works with his brother in a factory. This statement caused envy in one of those sitting next to him; apparently, his life was even worse. Here Turgenev draws our attention to the difficult childhood life in peasant families.

The story "The Burmister" shows a real picture of cruel treatment of peasants. The owner entrusted his land to the management of the mayor Sofron. He is pleased with his man's work. However, the landowner did not see the real picture at all due to the fact that every time on the day of his arrival in his domain, the mayor carefully hid unwanted people. However, the story describes the moment when Sofron failed to cover up all traces. The peasant still waited to meet the master. The poor man complains to the gentleman about his poor accommodation and the terrible tricks of the mayor. The owner cannot believe that the person he appointed would arrange such a thing, so the peasant gets all the wrath. Only at the end of the story are the true face of the “respectable” official revealed to us: “The peasants all around owe him; they work for him like farm laborers: some he sends with the convoy, some he slows down completely.”

The story "The Office" tells about landowner cruelty and immorality. In one of the scenes, the office attendant explains to the narrator why life is better with the merchants, arguing that the merchants, at least a little, care. Speaking about landowners, he singles out in them unreasonable aggression, pettiness, excessive pickiness, in general, those conditions under which it is impossible to live.

The words of the office attendant, landowner Stegunov, from the story “Two Landowners” are illustrated. Living according to his father's old traditions and signs, Stegunov does not spare his peasants. His principle is that the peasant will never wait for the mercy of the master. After all, Stegunov believes that whoever was born a peasant should live like a peasant, and whoever is a master should live as a gentleman should. The most terrible thing lies in the fact that, as Turgenev emphasizes in the story, Stegunov himself does not intend to change for the better, and considers his lifestyle ideal.

The peasants expelled by the landowners turned into homeless drunkards, regulars at establishments where they could drown their sorrows in a sea of alcohol. This side is reflected in "Singers" in one of the characters called Stupid. He is one of those who was abandoned by his owners on the street without a means of subsistence. And where should he go if not to drinking establishments, where someone will treat him to a drink? The extravagance of the landowners is demonstrated in "Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin." We are talking about Tchertopkhanov’s father, a terrible person. He implemented his architectural ideas with peasant houses. Forced them to learn articles by heart. And the most inhuman act depicted in the story is his idea to number the peasants. From this it is clear that the peasant was not considered a human being. It was Nobody, a vessel without a soul.

The story "Living Relics" continues this theme. Old woman Lukerya is forced to wait in silence for her death. They refused to treat her because not a single remedy helped, and it made no sense to leave an incapacitated woman in service. And she died alone, humbly praying.

Tracing the formation of the image of the Russian farmer - the peasant and the landowner - in Russian classical literature, the way his way of existence, his worldview is refracted on the pages of the works of Turgenev, Goncharov, Leskov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov and other writers, you remain , like Bazarov, in the conviction that the Russian peasant never ceases to be for the Russian writer “that same mysterious stranger” whom neither educated gentlemen nor he himself understands. And this despite the indisputable position that Russian literature of the 19th century. is unthinkable without an appealing, questioning, pathetic and compassionate gaze “into the depths of Russia,” where “that same mysterious stranger” is found.

I.S. Turgenev is one of our first writers, in whose works the Russian peasant appeared as a kind of individuality, as a special world of life and contemplation. We, of course, remember Radishchev’s peasants from our school days from the artistic and journalistic wanderings of the Russian enlightener, brought up on Western European ideological “bread”; we remember “The Village” by A.S. Pushkin and his remark in the textbook novel that Onegin, finding himself in the village, out of boredom, “replaced the yoke ... the ancient corvée with an easy quitrent; And the slave blessed his fate.”

But most of the images of Russian peasants did not go beyond the framework of educational-classical abstractions; in any case, all these images were devoid of an individual face. In contrast to this approach, the world of Turgenev’s peasants is a special, real world, with its own gesture and word, even exotic in its own way. We are talking, of course, first of all about “Notes of a Hunter,” a book, more precisely and deeper than which, perhaps, nothing has been written about the Russian farmer - the peasant and the landowner. In any case, the continuation of the “peasant” theme in Chekhov, and then in Bunin and, finally, in the prose of our current “villagers,” in our opinion, does not go beyond the boundaries outlined by Turgenev’s “Notes...”. Let's try to define these boundaries.

An inevitable condition for the construction of an artistic image in Turgenev’s collection of stories is that the image of the peasant world is formed, so to speak, in the field of influence of the master, landowner-noble world. The perspective proposed by the writer implies showing the peasant worldview through the vision of a current or former landowner, nobleman. A peasant’s word, and most often a gesture, is a reflected and transformed master’s word. Of course, Turgenev’s peasant world is not the world of Karamzin’s “Poor Liza,” entirely built according to the standards of the worldview of the noble intelligentsia of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, which A.S. was quick to “expose” and parody. Pushkin in “The Peasant Young Lady” (“The Tale of the Late I.P. Belkin”). However, Turgenev’s peasant, for all the concreteness and volume of the image, is not at all the subject of the narrative, but its object, shown from the point of view of the narrator, an enlightened, democratically oriented nobleman of the mid-nineteenth century. And if for him the peasant world is still in many ways exotic, attracting not so much an analytical, but a sincerely interested look, then the master’s world is seen with a much more sober, and sometimes even merciless, eye.

The landowner world, as it appears in “Notes...”, and indeed in Turgenev’s prose, is a shaken world, on the verge of transformation, radical, irreversible and, for the most part, catastrophic. This is a world marked by degeneration. Symbolic, from this point of view, is perhaps one of the most attractive and at the same time tragic characters in the collection - the landowner Panteley Tchertopkhanov, an irrepressible, spontaneous and, in this sense, a very Russian figure, whose nature cannot come to terms with the insidious transformations of his contemporary peace. Tchertop-hanov would rather leave this world than accept its unsteady, unfounded values.

The world of the nobility of the mid-century, as having lost its support, appears in a kind of gallery of landowners depicted by one of Turgenev’s heroes - the seventy-three-year-old single-lord Ovsyanikov. Luka Petrovich will not praise the “old times”, no matter how much you provoke him to do so. He will more willingly accept the present, where the former power is no longer given to the landowner. But, on the other hand, in his opinion, the new times have a considerable flaw: all the small estates “have either been in the service or are not sitting still,” and those who are larger, although “sociable and polite,” are unlike “the old days.” “, although “they have learned all the sciences, they speak so smoothly that the soul is touched,” but “they don’t understand the present, they don’t even feel their own benefit: their serf, the clerk, bends them wherever he wants, like an arc.” “It’s time to come to your senses,” continues Ovsyanikov. “But here’s the thing: the young gentlemen are being too clever. They treat a peasant like a doll: they turn him around, turn him around, break him, and even abandon him. And the clerk, a serf, or a manager from German natives, again he will take the peasant into his clutches. And at least one of the young gentlemen set an example, showed: here, they say, how to manage! How will this end? Am I really going to die and not see new orders?. What kind of parable? The old extinct, but young things are not born!”

“Borderliness” marks each of the noble characters in the collection. This is Vasily Nikolaevich Lyubozvonov - an image that looks far ahead and seems to promise the emergence of that catastrophic mutual misunderstanding between peasants and masters, which will mercilessly appear in Chekhov’s later prose (“New Dacha”, “Men”, “In the Ravine”, etc.). And the figure of the Narrator himself is very ambiguous, since he is not the owner and is unlikely to be an enterprising landowner. He is a wanderer who does not know his place, permanent, soil. “The borderliness,” the displacement of the landowner’s world echoes in the peasant world, where the same loss of support, soil, or rather, natural labor attachment to it, is felt. But here’s what’s curious: in depicting this side of the peasant worldview, Turgenev, as already said, is much more lenient than when it comes to landowners. This happens, perhaps, because the way of life of a peasant, seen so closely by the writer, strikes him as something still not very familiar, since it was observed partly from the outside, from afar. Does Turgenev notice in the “close-ups” of his essays that the peasant’s “displacement” deprives him of a positive labor attachment to the subject of his labor? Perhaps only a few of the peasant characters in “Notes…” are seriously engaged in productive work.

One of the few is Khor. But he, too, is “marginal”! He went somewhere to the swamps, where he enthusiastically works with his powerful sons. He is “a positive, practical, administrative head, rationalist.” But he also leans towards Kalinich, an “idealist”, a “romantic”, a person “enthusiastic and dreamy”. Khor is very inclined to sing out his beloved “You are my share, your share!” to Kalinich’s balalaika accompaniment in a plaintive voice. And with all his practicality, he is friends with a person of absolutely opposite character! Who knows, maybe he would like to become such a romantic!?

Conclusion

So, what could be called the worldview of the Russian peasant, as modeled by Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter,” is something that is formed on the border between the textbook Khorem and Kalinich, with a clear tilt towards the latter. The entire artistic world of the collection - from Khorya and Kalinich to Lukerya from "Living Relics" and the not-so-villainously good robbers from "Knocking!" - this entire world, presented to the reader through the worldview and worldview of its heroes, could in the most literal sense be dubbed marginal, that is, taking shape “at the edges” of a certain integral and integral world.

Already in Turgenev’s stories it is clear that the holistic and integral world he depicts, which begins beyond the boundaries of the real world, is only an idealization, a myth living in the consciousness of the Russian landowner and peasant. So, for the single-palace Ovsyanikov, as we remember, these are some “new orders”, which he, naturally, does not live up to, about which he desperately grieves. The dreamed world of Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword is even more clearly indicated in its mythical otherworldliness. In his description, these are the steppes beyond Kursk, which go “to the warmest seas, where the sweet-voiced bird Gamayun lives, and leaves do not fall from the trees either in winter or in autumn, and golden apples grow on silver branches, and every person lives in contentment and justice..." And this peace, desired and long-awaited, is sought and cannot be found by the peasants who “walk in bast shoes, wander around the world, looking for the truth.” The earthly destiny of the Russian peasant, in Turgenev’s understanding, is wandering, the search for truth or, as in Nekrasov, those “who live well in Rus'.” A search that exhausts earthly existence. Hence - a certain strangeness, eccentricity of Turgenev’s men and women, which already in the middle of the twentieth century turned into the so-called “Shuksha freaks”.

The aspiration to the unreal, dreamed world is revealed through singing. Yashka the Turk from Turgenev’s “Singers” sings, the already mentioned Khor and the holy fool Kasyan sing. A sad song sounds in "Raspberry Water". Fyodor Mikheich from “My Neighbor Radlov” sings out the song in a “hoarse and wild” voice. The motionless and almost holy Lukerya from “Living Relics” sings. For Turgenev’s heroes, singing is not fun, but almost the only way to express themselves, to make public their impulse to go there, to those lands where the Kursk steppes go and where, according to Pavel from “Bezhin Meadow,” the Easter cakes fly. This is an impulse devoid of a rational-active basis, an irrational aspiration of a soul staggering “at the edges” of the heavenly world. And as if following the song, people are also moving, moving incessantly, spontaneously, wandering, restless, not attached to the land and cultivating it only to the minimum necessary extent to what is required for their own meager food, and to fulfill obligations towards landowner. In this loose world, not attached to anything, there is no housing, no thing, no other object that has a complete, rationally advanced form and is adapted for economical use. A thing in a shaky world is just as shaky, no one knows what it’s holding on to. Here, for example, is Yermolai’s hunting rifle, which from the first to the last page accompanies the Narrator of “Notes of a Hunter” as a unique and, at the same time, very eccentric huntsman. “He had a single-barreled gun, with a flint, and endowed, moreover, with the nasty habit of cruelly “giving away,” which is why Yermolai’s right cheek was always plumper than his left.” Or, for example, a plank, borrowed by the narrator from a man nicknamed Suchok and necessary for duck hunting. In the midst of the hunt, this dilapidated vessel begins to plunge into the water and a moment later the hunters find themselves up to their necks in water, surrounded by the floating bodies of dead birds... It is noteworthy that none of the owners of these boats, tools and other things with any of their almost primitive things would ever will not want to part with it, like the same Ermolai with his amazing gun. Why? Because such is the consciousness of these people and their ideas about their things as particles of that special world in which they live - peasants and landowners. For them, abandoning familiar things and replacing them with something more rational would mean a shift in their holistic worldview, in which the real world is something unimportant, not basic, and transitory. Turgenev showed us a picture of the decline of Russia due to serfdom. Defenseless peasants made up a huge proportion of the country's population. Therefore, Ivan Sergeevich draws our attention to what will happen if the landowners and the emperor himself do not take up the solution of the peasant issue. To summarize, it should be said that Pushkin and Turgenev together make an excellent duo when studying serfdom in 19th-century literature. Pushkin leans heavily on the nobles, and Turgenev is more concerned with the fate of the peasants, which, in general, provides comprehensive material on the relations between peasants and landowners.

Bibliography

1. Pumpyansky L.V. Turgenev’s novels and the novel “On the Eve”. Classical tradition // Collection of works on the history of Russian literature. M., 2000. P.381-402.

2. Turgenev I.S. Fathers and Sons. St. Petersburg, 2000 / Preparation of the text, article and comments by A.I. Batyuto.

3. Roman I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” in Russian criticism. L., 1986.

4. Collection of critical articles of the 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated to Turgenev’s novel. A.G. Tseitlin "The Mastery of Turgenev the Novelist". M.; 1958

5. I.S. Turgenev. - M.: Artist. lit., 1983.

6. History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 2. -M.; VLADOS, 2005.

7. Turgenev I. S. “Notes of a Hunter”. - M.; Artist lit., 1979.

And observes their lives. Many things surprise him, he is pleasantly surprised. Although many literary critics believe that the people in “Notes of a Hunter” are embellished, “this imaginary embellishment” of the image of the peasants is deciphered as a feature of Turgenev’s creative realistic method, associated with his desire to artistically exaggerate the main and fundamental thing in the spiritual appearance of the people, to reveal it enlarged...

The main figure of the time was the Russian peasant, crushed by poverty, “the grossest superstitions,” it seemed blasphemous to “talk” about art, “unconscious creativity” when “it’s about our daily bread.” In Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons,” two strong, vibrant characters collided. According to his views and convictions, Pavel Petrovich appeared before us as a representative of a “binding, chilling force...

The content (a truthful, realistic depiction of the life of peasants and landowners) and the ideological purposefulness of the stories, their anti-serfdom orientation. In addition to the ideological unity of the stories in “Notes of a Hunter,” the artistic outline, poetry and emotionality of the drawing play an important role. At the heart of the artistic harmony of “Notes of a Hunter” is the image of the narrator (hunter), on whose behalf...

The poem “Smoke” is an allegory in which he expressed the hope that the “dreary, endless smoke” that covered the “mighty and beautiful<…>forest," - Turgenev's creativity - will dissipate, and the forest will again "turn green," "magical and dear." In the mid-1870s, Turgenev created his last novel, "Nov," which was published in 1877. In it, Turgenev depicted populist revolutionaries trying...

Introduction

Main part

Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Pumpyansky L.V. Turgenev’s novels and the novel “On the Eve”. Classical tradition // Collection of works on the history of Russian literature. M., 2000. P.381-402.

2. Turgenev I.S. Fathers and Sons. St. Petersburg, 2000 / Preparation of the text, article and comments by A.I. Batyuto.

3. Roman I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” in Russian criticism. L., 1986.

4. Collection of critical articles of the 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated to Turgenev’s novel. A.G. Tseitlin "The Mastery of Turgenev the Novelist". M.; 1958

5. I.S. Turgenev. - M.: Artist. lit., 1983.

6. History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 2. -M.; VLADOS, 2005.

7. Turgenev I. S. “Notes of a Hunter”. - M.; Artist lit., 1979.

REVIEW TOPICS ON RUSSIAN LITERATURE

THE IMAGE OF THE PEASANT IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE

In literary works we find images of people, their lifestyles, and feelings. By the 17th-18th centuries, two classes had emerged in Russia: peasants and nobles - with completely different culture, mentality and even language. That is why in the works of some Russian writers there are images of peasants, while others do not. For example, Griboedov, Zhukovsky and some other masters of words did not touch upon the topic of the peasantry in their works.

However, Krylov, Pushkin,

Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Yesenin and others created a whole gallery of immortal images of peasants. Their peasants are very different people, but there is also much in common in the writers’ views on the peasant. All of them were unanimous that peasants are hard workers, creative and talented people, while idleness leads to moral decay of the individual.

This is precisely the meaning of I. A. Krylov’s fable “The Dragonfly and the Ant.” In an allegorical form, the fabulist expressed his view of the moral ideal of the peasant worker (Ant), whose motto is: to work tirelessly in the summer in order to provide food for oneself in the cold winter -

And on the slacker

(Dragonfly). In winter, when the Dragonfly came to the Ant asking for help, he refused the “jumper,” although he probably had the opportunity to help her.

On the same topic, much later, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote the fairy tale “About how a man fed two generals.” However, Saltykov-Shchedrin solved this problem differently than Krylov: the idle generals, having found themselves on a desert island, could not feed themselves, but the peasant, the man, voluntarily not only provided the generals with everything they needed, but also twisted a rope and tied himself up. Indeed, in both works the conflict is the same: between a worker and a parasite, but it is resolved in different ways. The hero of Krylov’s fable does not allow himself to be offended, and the man from Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale voluntarily deprives himself of his freedom and does everything possible for the generals who are unable to work.

There are not many descriptions of peasant life and character in the works of A. S. Pushkin, but he could not help but capture very significant details in his works. For example, in his description of the peasant war in “The Captain’s Daughter,” Pushkin showed that it was attended by the children of peasants who had left agriculture and were engaged in robbery and theft; this conclusion can be drawn from Chumakov’s song about “the little peasant son” who “stole” and “ held the robbery,” and then was hanged. In the fate of the hero of the song, the rebels recognize their fate and feel their doom. Why? Because they abandoned labor on earth for the sake of bloodshed, and Pushkin does not accept violence.

Russian writers' peasants have a rich inner world: they know how to love. In the same work, Pushkin shows the image of the serf Savelich, who, although a slave by position, is endowed with a sense of self-worth. He is ready to give his life for his young master, whom he raised. This image echoes two images of Nekrasov: with Savely, the Holy Russian hero, and with Yakov the faithful, an exemplary slave. Saveliy loved his grandson Demochka very much, looked after him and, being an indirect cause of his death, went into the forests and then into a monastery. Yakov the faithful loves his nephew as much as Saveliy loves Demochka, and loves his master as Savelich loves Grinev. However, if Savelich did not have to sacrifice his life for Petrusha, then Yakov, torn by a conflict between the people he loved, committed suicide.

Pushkin has another important detail in “Dubrovsky”. We are talking about contradictions between the villages: “They (the peasants of Troekurov) were vain about the wealth and glory of their master and, in turn, allowed themselves a lot in relation to their neighbors, hoping for his strong patronage.” Isn’t this the theme sounded by Yesenin in “Anna Onegina”, when the rich residents of Radov and the poor peasants of the village of Kriushi were at enmity with each other: “They are axed, so are we.” As a result, the headman dies. This death is condemned by Yesenin. The topic of the murder of a manager by peasants was already discussed by Nekrasov: Savely and other peasants buried the German Vogel alive. However, unlike Yesenin, Nekrasov does not condemn this murder.

With Gogol’s work, the concept of a peasant hero appeared in fiction: carriage maker Mikheev, brickmaker Milushkin, shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov and others. After Gogol, Nekrasov also had a clearly expressed theme of heroism (Savely). Goncharov also has peasant heroes. It is interesting to compare Gogol’s hero, the carpenter Stepan Probka, and the carpenter Luka from Goncharov’s work “Oblomov”. Gogol’s master is “that hero who would be fit for the guard,” he was distinguished by “exemplary sobriety,” and the worker from Oblomovka was famous for making a porch, which, although shaky from the moment of construction, stood for sixteen years.

In general, in Goncharov’s work, everything in the peasant village is quiet and sleepy. Only the morning is spent in a busy and useful way, and then comes lunch, a general afternoon nap, tea, doing something, playing the accordion, playing the balalaika at the gate. There are no incidents in Oblomovka. The peace was disturbed only by the peasant widow Marina Kulkova, who gave birth to “four babies.” Her fate is similar to the difficult life of Matryona Korchagina, the heroine of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” who “every year, then has children.”

Turgenev, like other writers, speaks of the peasant’s talent and creative nature. In the story “The Singers,” Yakov Turok and a clerk compete in singing for an eighth of beer, and then the author shows a bleak picture of drunkenness. The same theme will be heard in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov: Yakim Nagoy “works to death, drinks to death...”.

Completely different motives are heard in the story “The Burmist” by Turgenev. He develops the image of a despot manager. Nekrasov will also condemn this phenomenon: he will call the sin of Gleb the elder, who sold the free people of other peasants, the most serious.

Russian writers were unanimous that the majority of peasants have talent, dignity, creativity, and hard work. However, among them there are also people who cannot be called highly moral. The spiritual decline of these people mainly occurred from idleness and from material wealth acquired from the misfortunes of others.

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THE IMAGE OF THE PEASANT IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE

In the work “Notes of a Hunter,” portraits of peasants who must pull the burden of serfdom are presented in abundance. In this way, the author showed Russian society a new world in all its nakedness, the world of people on whose work powerful Russia was based.

In the stories “Notes of a Hunter,” the portraits of peasants drawn by the author are characterized by the following features: they are poor, unkempt, careless and lazy people. But once they get out of their plight, they become hardworking owners. Although narrow-minded and simple-minded in appearance, the man turns out to be cunning in reality. The man is phlegmatic, but at the same time stubborn, rude, and sometimes cruel. If he manages to achieve a higher position, the peasant often treats his younger brother with pride and even contempt, but he constantly has reverence for the master and always expresses slavish obedience. True, ignorance and a tendency to drunkenness lead him to death, but he is indifferent to everything, to his own and others’ grief and even to death. However, the peasants in “Notes of a Hunter” also have sympathetic sides of “hidden virtue,” so they arouse sympathy and pity. Turgenev understood perfectly well why the peasant’s character developed this way and not otherwise, and therefore his work served as an ardent protest against serfdom, against the despotic attitude of landowners towards serfs, against the abnormal position of the peasant and, mainly, against the widespread opinion that the peasant is not capable of feeling that he is not a person.

Wealthy owners

Some peasants in “Notes of a Hunter” achieved a relatively better financial situation and became quite prosperous owners. These are practical peasants, such as Khor in the story “ Khor and Kalinich"and Nikolai Ivanovich, the hero of the story "Singers". The master himself calls Khor a smart man; and indeed, he turns out to be a far-sighted man. The ferret clearly realizes that it is better for him to be away from the master and, thanks to his resourcefulness and common sense, receives permission to settle in the forest, in the swamp. Khor is quite convinced that the master dreams exclusively of getting as much rent as possible from him, and the hero regularly pays the landowner one hundred rubles a year. Living with "butter and tar", this hero has saved up some money, but is not redeemed for freedom due to special calculations. He believes that it is more profitable for him to be a master, “you will end up among completely free people - then whoever lives without a beard will be the greatest Horus.” It should be noted that Khor does not like to express his opinions about freedom, and the author says about him: “You are strong-tongued and a man of your own mind.” He looks with contempt at women, who, in his opinion, should be constantly completely dependent on men. A distinctive feature of Khor is his attitude towards the landowner. He seems to recognize the injustice of the abnormal relationship between the master and the peasant. So, Khor argues with Kalinich, proves to him that the master should give Kalinich some boots, since he constantly drags him to hunt. Khor's conversation with the author of the story is somewhat condescending and ironic. Khorya’s conclusion is very simple: the master’s life is very easy in the world: he has nothing to do, since others do it for him; let him have fun.

A striking type of practical owner is Nikolai Ivanovich, the hero of the story “ Singers" Nikolai Ivanovich is known throughout the area as a friendly and good-natured owner, and therefore you can always find many guests in his tavern. With his handsome features, this hero gained the favor of his environment and even enjoyed a certain influence.

"Inn": summary

However, from the “Notes of a Hunter” it is clear that nothing guaranteed the practical peasant from the various vicissitudes of his dependent position. Consider the story" Inn". Its summary is as follows.

Peasant Akim Semenov started as a cab driver, got rich, and started an inn, but his passion for women was the main reason for his unhappy fate. Being already a completely elderly man, Akim Semenov suddenly fell in love with the young lady’s maid and married her almost against her will. The life of the couple flows peacefully and calmly, but suddenly a misfortune befalls Akim Semenov, the culprit of which is the small merchant Naum Ivanovich. The latter managed to seduce Akim’s wife, and subsequently this scoundrel, using the money Akim demanded from Avdotya, buys from his mistress an inn belonging to Akim, and the bill of sale was written in her name. This circumstance makes a depressing impression on Akim, who is completely lost; his own inn, which for several years was his only source of income, is taken over by a stranger with his own money. In addition, a stranger buys real estate not from him, but from his landowner, who unscrupulously uses a very dubious right to the property of her serfs.
This grief completely knocked Akim off his feet. Akim cannot get anything from his landowner; he believes that he is not able to correct the problem. Out of grief, the hero drank for two days with the sexton Efrem, a desperate drunkard, who accidentally met him. Under the influence of wine fumes, he decides to take revenge on the new owner and intends to set fire to the yard, into which Naum Ivanovich and his employees have already moved. The latter turns out to be too far-sighted: he sleeps lightly and catches Akim at the crime scene, and a smoldering firebrand and a kitchen knife are immediately present. Akim is put in a basement for the night with the intention of taking him to the city the next day. Our hero sobers up, and overnight a revolution occurs with him: he no longer makes any claims against Naum Ivanovich, but attributes all the misfortunes that befell him to personal sins. Akim leaves Naum Ivanovich alone and indulges in a wandering lifestyle. He becomes piously ideal; he completely forgave Naum Ivanovich and Avdotya, to whom he gave all the remaining property, and the lady. This is how the story “The Inn” ends, the summary of which we have just described.

Idealist peasants, dreamers

Another category of people consists of idealistic peasants, dreamers who do not care at all about improving their financial situation and are quite content with the opportunity to live and contemplate the beauty of God’s world. This includes two types drawn by Turgenev in “Notes of a Hunter”: Kalinich and Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword. Both of them are poetic natures among the Russian people. Kalinich has a good-natured, clear gaze, an eternally cheerful and gentle disposition; he is an idealist, a romantic, a perfect child of nature. He doesn't know people and never will. His noble and gentle soul demands affection. He respects and loves Khor, and looks after the master like a child. The feeling in him overpowers all other spiritual forces. He speaks passionately about all subjects. Kalinich is not involved in housekeeping, as he is distracted by hunting with his master, whom he treats with respect and reverence. Kalinich is completely satisfied with his position, blindly believes that everything should be this way and that everything is fine. Kalinich's mind requires food; but he did not receive an education, and he has a peculiar view of nature. He blindly believes in various natural phenomena, since there is no one to ask about their true meaning. Kalinich knows how to charm blood, rabies, fear, and drive out worms; his bees don’t die, his hand is light. Kalinich has no will of his own. He feels good under the auspices of Khor, for whom he has respect and love. This fact confirms that the author discovers such traits about a peasant, the existence of which he did not suspect before: a peasant, it turns out, can not only feel, but even nurture a tender feeling caused not by some physiological reasons, but by the fact that he is a person . But at the same time, with such human traits, Kalinich combines a lack of self-esteem. He is slavishly devoted to Poputykin and is convinced that fulfilling all the whims of his master is his direct responsibility. This, of course, is a consequence of his serfdom and the serf environment surrounding him.

Turgenev brings out the type of Russian peasant similar to Kalinich, close to nature, in his face Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword. This little black old man, with his sometimes sly, sometimes trusting, sometimes inquisitive and penetrating gaze, is also a man without practical meaning. He is a bad worker; He doesn’t have a family, he doesn’t earn a living, he doesn’t earn anything, as he himself puts it. True, Kasyan catches nightingales, but not for sale, but gives them to good people for consolation and fun. When the hero starts talking about nature, his speech flows freely, with animation. “His speech is not a man’s speech,” says the author. However, Kasyan does not consider it a sin to kill a “tame creature”, which is “from the ancient fathers”: it was “ordained by God for man.” He does not treat man in general with special respect, not because “there is no justice in man,” but he believes and is even convinced that there is somewhere a blessed country where all people live in justice and contentment. Kasyan cannot reach this country in any way, even though he has traveled a lot, looking for justice, like “many other peasants walk around in bast shoes, wander around the world, looking for the truth.” Kasyan is literate, although, understandably, uneducated. With education he would probably have suffered more from his situation. He teaches his daughter Annushka to read and write. But he is quite upset and upset. Along with other peasants, Kasyan was suddenly relocated from his homeland to a new, foreign place. Here, in cramped conditions, cut off from his native nest, the hero is completely lost. But despite all this, Kasyan is a philosopher, a poet, a doctor, and knows how to speak. He knows the properties of some herbs and heals, but his medical beliefs have much in common with the widespread theory of the self-healing action of nature. Kasyan admits that healing occurs by itself, and a person can only contribute to it or hinder it, putting it in certain conditions. If a person does not recover, then nothing can be helped: Maxim the carpenter, for example, could not be helped, since he was “not a dweller on earth.” Kasyan treats conspiracies with great caution: “And they help, but it’s a sin,” he says about unclean herbs. Since the hero did not have the opportunity to change his position, he concealed spiritual strength within himself and lives more in a dream world than in a real one, which does not satisfy him at all. He dreams of finding himself in those countries where the sun shines more welcomingly, and “God knows man better, and sings better,” where there is freedom and God’s grace, where every person lives with justice and experiences complete pleasure. This is Kasyan, but he too is the property of the landowner.

Peasants untouched by civilization

The third group consists of peasants who have not been touched by civilization at all. That's how Biryuk. Broad-shouldered, tall, he has enormous physical strength. The men are afraid of him. He prevents the fagots from being carried away by the brushwood. No matter what time the men try to steal something, Biryuk is always right there, and nothing can bribe him. Biryuk does not show himself to be cruel towards the peasant: he is only stern and strict: “No one can steal,” he lectures a peasant caught at the scene of a crime, although deep down, undoubtedly, he sympathizes with the poor man, whose “need” and “hunger "pushed into stealing. Biryuk lets him go, but not right away. He knows that he is also a forced person, and they will exact punishment from him.

Turgenev's main task in creating these images was to prove that the peasant was the same person as the landowner or any representative of the upper class, that he understood and felt the same. If this man is dirty, hungry, rude, ignorant; if the concepts of morality, aesthetics and ideal virtue are more or less alien to this inhabitant of the village, then it is not he who is to blame, but the one who, without any right to do so, took possession of him, turned him into his own property, instilled in him a feeling of slavish obedience and at the same time, he developed various kinds of shortcomings in him and, like a spider, sucks the juices from him and prospers at the expense of his work.

For example, let’s take a tragic scene from the story “Biryuk”. Here we meet a ragged, hungry man, whom extreme poverty forced him to go into a strange forest to buy a tree to sell, but the thief was caught by Biryuk. From the dialogue between Biryuk and the peasant we hear the words of the latter: “Let me go... from hunger... let me go...” What a difficult picture of the bitter peasant life confronts us during this conversation. Each of them is right in their own way. Biryuk is inexorable, since he often has to listen to such explanations, but Biryuk has one answer to everything: stealing is not a trace to anyone.

Amazingly cute type of peasant girl presents a sketched portrait sharks in the story "Date". Akulina is burdened by her village position, although she has not seen anything else, but only heard from her lover, the master’s valet Viktor Alexandrovich, about the wonders of St. Petersburg. “The society, the education, it’s just amazing,” he says. Akulina listens with devouring attention, her lips slightly parted, like a child, and he tries to prove that she is not even able to understand this, but she objects: “Why, Viktor Alexandrovich? I understood: I understood everything.” It becomes a terrible pity for this nice, loving and inquisitive girl, who becomes the victim of a corrupted “educated” city lackey.

Description of Russian peasants from the notes of a hunter. Types of peasants and peasant life in “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S.

Wealthy owners

"Inn": summary

Peasants untouched by civilization

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