Who can live well in Rus' is a problem. Moral problems in Nekrasov's poem: Who Lives Well in Rus'? The problem of happiness in the work: Who Lives Well in Rus'
What problems does Nekrasov pose in the work “Who Lives Well in Rus'”? and got the best answer
Answer from Alexey Khoroshev[guru]
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the central and largest work in the work of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. The work, begun in 1863, was written over several years. Then the poet was distracted by other topics and finished the poem already terminally ill in 1877, with a bitter awareness of the incompleteness of his plans: “One thing I deeply regret is that I did not finish my poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” However, the question of the “incompleteness” of the poem is very controversial and problematic. It is conceived as an epic that can be continued endlessly, but you can put an end to any part of its path. We will treat the poem as a finished work that poses and resolves a philosophical question - the problem of the happiness of the people and the individual.
The central characters connecting everyone characters and episodes, there are seven wandering men: Roman, Demyan, Luka, the Gubin brothers - Ivan and Mitrodor, the old man Pakhom and Prov, who set off on a journey no more and no less, how do you find out:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?
The form of travel helps the poet show the life of all layers of society in all its diversity and throughout Russia.
“We have measured half the kingdom,” the men say.
Talking with the priest, the landowner, and the peasants from the chapter “Happy,” Ermila Girin, our travelers do not find a truly happy person, satisfied with his fate, living in abundance. In general, the concept of “happiness” is quite diverse.
The sexton states:
That happiness is not in pastures.
Not in sables, not in gold,
Not in expensive stones.
- What is it?
“In good humor! ”
The soldier is happy:
That in twenty battles I was, and not killed!
The “Olonchan stonemason” is happy that he is endowed by nature with heroic strength, and the slave of Prince Peremetyev is “happy” that he is sick with “noble gout.” But all this is a rather pathetic semblance of happiness. Yermil Girin is somewhat closer to the ideal, but He also “stumbled”, taking advantage of his power over people. And our travelers come to the conclusion that we need to look for a happy woman among women.
Matryona Timofeevna's story is full of drama. The life of a “happy” peasant woman is full of losses, grief, and hard work. The words of Matryona Timofeevna’s confession are bitter:
The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!
Isn't this situation dramatic? Is it really impossible for wandering men to find a truly happy person, satisfied with his life, in the whole world? Our wanderers are depressed. How long do they have to go in search of happiness? Will they ever see their families?
Having met Grisha Dobrosklonov, the men understand that in front of them is a truly happy person. But his happiness does not lie in wealth, contentment, or peace, but in the respect of the people, who see Grisha as their intercessor.
Fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
During their journey, the wanderers grew spiritually. Their voice merges with the opinion of the author. That is why they unanimously call happy the poor and still unknown Grisha Dobrosklonov, in whose image the features of Russian democrats are clearly visible: Chernyshevsky, Belinsky, Dobrolyubov.
The poem ends with a stern warning:
The army is rising - Innumerable!
The strength in her will be indestructible!
This army is capable of much if it is led by people like Grisha Dobrosklonov.
The problem of happiness in N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
The poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is a work that embodies the original, “eternal” features of the Russian national character, touches on acute social problems that arose in Russia [before] after the abolition of serfdom. It is not by chance that the poet turns to this topic; he is very concerned about the fate of the country.
The problem of happiness is central to the poem. The author is extremely concerned about the following philosophical question: “The people are free, but are the people happy?” The heroes of the work, seven men, are trying to find the answer: “Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?” To understand who is truly happy, one should turn to the criteria of happiness, which are stated almost at the very beginning in the chapter “Pop”: “Peace, wealth, honor.” However, by analyzing the poem, you can add to their list and approve main idea that true happiness lies in serving the people. This idea is embodied in the image of Grigory Dobrosklonov.
Thus, the problem of well-being criteria is solved in the episode of the meeting of the men with the priest. However, Luke’s opinion, which is that the happiest person is a worshiper, is refuted, since the priest has no peace, no honor, no wealth.
The priest claims that there used to be profit from the landowners, but now he can only live on the funds of the poor peasants. There is also no honor for him. At the same time, the hero cannot live in peace, since the “arrival” of the priests is “big”: “sick, dying, born into the world.” [It is important to say that] It is hard for the hero to see the suffering of the people; he cannot be happy when other people around him are unhappy.
In addition, [from the point of view of ideological content] the characters assumed that the landowner was also happy, but turning to his image, one can note that he lacks honor. The reform of 1861 made life more difficult for Obolt-Obolduev. Now he has no power over the peasants, who were the main component of his well-being and a means of lordly tyranny (“Whoever I want, I will have mercy, whoever I want, I will execute”). From all this it follows that the landowner is unhappy, since he has no one to manage, he has to do everything himself, while he cannot even distinguish a “rye ear” from a “barley one.”
At the same time, wanderers are interested in finding a happy person from the common people. At the village fair they offer food and vodka to those who are truly happy. However, there were no such people. Not a single person fits the criteria provided by the men earlier: either their happiness is fleeting, or according to the principle “it could be worse.” So, the old woman considers herself happy because of a good turnip harvest, to which the wanderers tell her: “Drink at home, old woman, eat that turnip!” Also the hunter, who is glad that his comrades were killed by bears, but only his cheekbone was broken. All this, on the contrary, confirms the bad life of the Russian people, for whom any luck or everyday pettiness is already happiness.
Among other things, the heroes learn about Yermil Girin, who is famous for respect among the peasants. He represents the type of “people's defender”, as a result of which at first he is considered one of the lucky ones. However, afterwards the characters learn that Yermila is in prison, which destroys the idea of him as a lucky man.
Meanwhile, the men meet a woman, Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, whom the people themselves also consider happy. The heroine has both “honor”, “wealth”, and “honor”:
Not a woman! Kinder
And smoother - there is no woman.
However, she herself Matryona Timofeevna recognizes only one moment of happiness in her life, when her future husband persuaded her to marry him:
While we were haggling,
It must be so I think
Then there was happiness...
And hardly ever again!
It follows from this that a woman’s joy is associated with the premonition of love, because after marriage her life turns into endless reproaches from her mother-in-law and father-in-law, hard work. She, like all other serf women, suffers humiliation and neglect from her husband’s family, which is considered typical among peasants, and the heroine also faces many difficulties in life. It is no coincidence that Matryona sums up her entire story, which is general in nature:
The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!
Thus, it turns out that respect, prosperity and peace are not enough to be happy.
Then let's look at another character who belongs to the type of a truly happy person, Grigory Dobrosklonov. The hero represents the people's interests; in his song he raises the topic of the future of Russia:
The army rises -
Uncountable,
The strength in her will affect
Indestructible!
The character represents the spiritual line of happiness, the essence of which is completely different from the ideas of men. The “great truth” expressed in Grisha Dobrosklonov’s song gives him such joy that he runs home, feeling “immense strength” within himself. The hero chooses the path of serving the people. His path will not be easy, but this constitutes happiness for the soul of the “people's defender,” which lies not in his own well-being, but in unity with the entire people. From the point of view of composition and ideological content, it is this idea that is key in the work.
Thus, in N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” there is no clear answer to the question of who is happy in the country, however, the author shows [, ] how men move from earthly ideas about happiness to the understanding that happiness - a spiritual category and to achieve it, changes are necessary not only in the social, but also in the spiritual structure of every peasant.
N.A.’s work continued for about fourteen years, from 1863 to 1876. Nekrasov on the most significant work in his work - the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”. Despite the fact that, unfortunately, the poem was never completed and only individual chapters of it have reached us, later arranged by textual critics in chronological order, Nekrasov’s work can rightfully be called “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” In terms of the breadth of coverage of events, the detailed depiction of characters, and amazing artistic accuracy, it is not inferior to “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin.
Parallel to the image folk life The poem raises questions of morality, touches on the ethical problems of the Russian peasantry and the entire Russian society of that time, since it is the people who always act as the bearer of moral norms and universal ethics in general.
The main idea of the poem follows directly from its title: who in Rus' can truly be considered happy man?
One of the main categories of morality underlying the concept of national happiness, according to the author. Loyalty to duty to the Motherland, service to one’s people. According to Nekrasov, those who fight for justice and “happiness of their native corner” live well in Rus'.
The peasant heroes of the poem, looking for “happy”, do not find it either among the landowners, or among the priests, or among the peasants themselves. The poem depicts the only happy person - Grisha Dobrosklonov, who devoted his life to the struggle for people's happiness. Here the author expresses, in my opinion, an absolutely indisputable idea that it is impossible to be true citizen of his country, doing nothing to improve the situation of the people who constitute the strength and pride of the Fatherland.
True, Nekrasov’s happiness is very relative: for the “people's protector” Grisha, “fate was preparing... consumption and Siberia.” However, it is difficult to argue with the fact that fidelity to duty and a clear conscience are necessary conditions for real happiness.
The poem also acutely addresses the problem of the moral decline of Russian people, who, due to their horrific economic situation, are placed in conditions in which people lose their human dignity, turning into lackeys and drunkards. Thus, the stories of the footman, the “beloved slave” of Prince Peremetyev, or the servant of Prince Utyatin, the song “About the exemplary slave, the faithful Jacob” are a kind of parables, instructive examples of what spiritual servility and moral degradation led serfdom peasants, and above all, serfs, corrupted by personal dependence on the landowner. This is Nekrasov’s reproach to a great people, powerful in their inner strength, who have resigned themselves to the position of a slave.
Nekrasov’s lyrical hero actively protests against this slave psychology, calls the peasantry to self-awareness, calls on the entire Russian people to free themselves from centuries-old oppression and feel like citizens. The poet perceives the peasantry not as a faceless mass, but as a creative people; he considered the people the real creator of human history.
However, the most terrible consequence of centuries of slavery, according to the author of the poem, is that many peasants are satisfied with their humiliated position, because they cannot imagine another life for themselves, they cannot imagine how they can exist in any other way. For example, the footman Ipat, subservient to his master, talks with reverence and almost with pride about how the master dipped him into an ice hole in winter and forced him to play the violin while standing in a flying sleigh. Prince Peremetyev’s lackey is proud of his “lordly” illness and the fact that “he licked the plates with the best French truffle.”
Considering the perverted psychology of the peasants as a direct consequence of the autocratic serfdom system, Nekrasov also points to another product of serfdom - incessant drunkenness, which has become a real disaster in the Russian countryside.
For many men in the poem, the idea of happiness comes down to vodka. Even in the fairy tale about the warbler, seven truth-seekers, when asked what they would like, answer: “If only we had some bread... and a bucket of vodka.” In the chapter “Rural Fair”, wine flows like a river, people are getting drunk en masse. The men return home drunk, where they become a real disaster for their family. We see one such man, Vavilushka, who drank to the last penny, and who laments that he cannot even buy goatskin boots for his granddaughter.
Another moral problem that Nekrasov touches on is the problem of sin. The poet sees the path to the salvation of a person’s soul in the atonement of sin. This is what Girin, Savely, Kudeyar do; Elder Gleb is not like that. Burmister Ermil Girin, having sent the son of a lonely widow as a recruit, thereby saving his own brother from soldiering, atones for his guilt by serving the people, remaining faithful to them even in a moment of mortal danger.
However, the most serious crime against the people is described in one of Grisha’s songs: the village headman Gleb withholds the news of emancipation from his peasants, thus leaving eight thousand people in the bondage of slavery. According to Nekrasov, nothing can atone for such a crime.
The reader of Nekrasov's poem has a feeling of acute bitterness and resentment for the ancestors who hoped for better times, but forced to live in “empty volosts” and “tightened up provinces” more than a hundred years after the abolition of serfdom.
Revealing the essence of the concept of “people's happiness,” the poet points out that the only true way to achieve it is a peasant revolution. The idea of retribution for the people's suffering is most clearly formulated in the ballad "About Two Great Sinners", which is a kind of ideological key to the whole poem. The robber Kudeyar throws off the “burden of sins” only when he kills Pan Glukhovsky, known for his atrocities. Killing a villain, according to the author, is not a crime, but a feat worthy of a reward. Here Nekrasov’s idea comes into conflict with Christian ethics. The poet conducts a hidden polemic with F.M. Dostoevsky, who asserted the inadmissibility and impossibility of building a just society on blood, who believed that the very thought of murder is already a crime. And I can’t help but agree with these statements! One of the most important Christian commandments reads: “Thou shalt not kill!” After all, a person who takes the life of someone like himself, thereby kills the person in himself, commits a grave crime before life itself, before God.
Therefore, justifying violence from the position of revolutionary democracy, Nekrasov’s lyrical hero calls Russia “to the axe” (in Herzen’s words), which, as we know, led to a revolution that turned into the most terrible sin for its perpetrators and the greatest disaster for our people.
School essay
Nekrasov conceived the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as a “people's book.” He began writing it in 1863 and ended up terminally ill in 1877. The poet dreamed that his book would be close to the peasantry.
At the center of the poem is a collective image of the Russian peasantry, the image of a guardian native land. The poem reflects a man's joys and sorrows, doubts and hopes, thirst for freedom and happiness. All the most important events in the life of a peasant were contained in this work. The plot of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is close to the folk tale about the search for happiness and truth. But the peasants who set out on the journey are not pilgrim pilgrims. They are a symbol of awakening Russia.
Among the peasants depicted by Nekrasov, we see many persistent seekers of truth. First of all, these are seven men. Their main goal is to find “peasant happiness.” And until they find him, the men decided
Don't toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys...
But besides them, in the poem there are seekers of national happiness. One of them is shown by Nekrasov in the chapter “Drunken Night”. This is Yakim Nagoy. In his appearance and speech one can feel his inner dignity, unbroken by any hard work, nor a powerless situation. Yakim argues with the “smart master” Pavlusha Veretennikov. He defends men from the reproach that they “drink until they stupefy.” Yakim is smart, he understands perfectly why life is so difficult for peasants. His rebellious spirit does not resign himself to such a life. A formidable warning sounds in the mouth of Yakim Nagoy:
Every peasant
Soul, like a black cloud,
Angry, menacing - and it should be
Thunder will roar from there...
The chapter “Happy” tells about another man - Ermil Girin. He became famous throughout the region for his intelligence and selfless devotion to the interests of the peasants. The story about Ermil Girin begins with a description of the hero's litigation with the merchant Altynnikov over the orphan mill. Ermila turns to the people for help.
And a miracle happened
Throughout the market square
Every peasant has
Like the wind, half left
Suddenly it turned upside down!
Yermil is endowed with a sense of justice. Only once did he stumble when he excluded “his younger brother Mitri from recruiting.” But this act cost him severe torment; in a fit of repentance, he almost committed suicide. At a critical moment, Ermila Girin sacrifices her happiness for the sake of the truth and ends up in prison.
We see that the heroes of the poem understand happiness differently. differently. From the point of view of the priest, this is “peace, wealth, honor.” According to the landowner, happiness is an idle, well-fed, cheerful life, unlimited power over the peasants. In search of wealth and power, “a huge, greedy crowd is heading towards temptation,” writes Nekrasov.
In the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" Nekrasov also touches on the problem of women's happiness. It is revealed through the image of Matryona Timofeevna. This is a typical peasant woman of the Central Russian strip, endowed with restrained beauty, filled with self-esteem. On her shoulders fell not only the entire burden of peasant labor, but also responsibility for the fate of the family, for raising children. The image of Matryona Timofeevna is collective. She experienced everything that can befall a Russian woman. The difficult fate of Matryona Timofeevna gives her the right to say to wanderers on behalf of all Russian women:
The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will,
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!
Nekrasov reveals the problem of people's happiness in the poem also with the help of the image of the people's intercessor Grisha Dobrosklonov. He is the son of a sexton who lived “poorer than the last shabby peasant” and “an unrequited farmhand.” A hard life gives rise to protest in this person. From childhood he decides that he will devote his life to the search for national happiness.
About fifteen years old
Gregory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark
Native corner
Grisha Dobrosklonov does not need wealth and personal well-being. His happiness lies in the triumph of the cause to which he devoted his entire life. Nekrasov writes what fate had in store for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
But he does not back down from the challenges ahead. Grisha Dobrosklonov sees that millions of people are already awakening:
Ratp rises innumerable,
The strength in her will be indestructible!
And this fills his soul with joy. He believes in a happy future for his native land and this is precisely the happiness of Gregory himself. To the question of the poem, Nekrasov himself answers that fighters for people’s happiness live well in Rus':
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.
The problem of happiness in the poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
One of Nekrasov’s central works is the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” It reflected most of the motives and ideas that can be traced in Nekrasov’s works throughout his entire career. creative path: problems of serfdom, features of the Russian national character, motives for people's suffering and people's happiness - all this can be seen on the pages of the poem. A kind of depth is also created by the “incompleteness” of the poem, because the scale of the narrative and the lack of a clear ending forces readers to look at the questions posed by Nekrasov as general historical ones. Thanks to this, the narrow time frame described in the poem expands, covering several centuries of the history of the Russian people, reflecting all aspects of the life of the peasant class. And the definition of national happiness requires especially deep and serious consideration.
According to the plot, seven men meet “on a high street”:
They came together and argued:
Who has fun?
Free in Rus'?
While arguing, they did not notice how “the red sun had set” and evening came. Realizing that they were “about thirty miles away” from the house, the men decided to spend the night “under the forest along the path.” In the morning, the argument continued with renewed vigor, and the men decide that they will not return home “until they find out” that they are truly happy in Rus'.
They go in search of a happy person. Here it makes sense to note that their criteria for happiness are quite vague, because “happiness” is a rather multifaceted concept. It is quite possible that men do not notice a happy person simply because their concepts of happiness differ from this person. This is precisely why wanderers do not see a happy person in anyone they meet. Although, for example, the sexton says:
...happiness is not in pastures,
Not in sables, not in gold,
Not in expensive stones.
“And what?” - “In complacency!..”
The happiness of a soldier lies in the fact that he has been in many battles, but remained intact, that he did not starve or be beaten to death with sticks:
...firstly, happiness,
That in twenty battles I was killed and not killed!
And secondly, more important than that,
Even in times of peace I walked neither full nor hungry,
But he didn’t give in to death!
And thirdly - for offenses,
Great and small
I was beaten mercilessly with sticks,
Just touch it - it's alive!
In turn, the landowner Gavrila Afanasyich Obolt-Obolduev has completely different values:
...Your villages are modest,
Your forests are dense,
Your fields are all around!
Will you go to the village - the peasants will fall at your feet,
You will go through forest dachas - Forests will bow to hundred-year-old trees!..
Too different ideas about happiness are found in the poem. The reader can find in the work reflections on peasant happiness,
the landowner's happiness, but there is no female happiness in “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” And Matryona Timofeevna explains this to us exhaustively:
The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will Abandoned, lost from God himself!
By introducing readers to various concepts of happiness, Nekrasov not only shows the ambiguity of the problem, but also explains the existence of a huge gap between classes that has persisted in Russia for many centuries. The question of the source of people's suffering is also ambiguous here. It would seem that the answer is obvious: the existing tsarist regime, popular poverty and oppression and, of course, serfdom, the abolition of which in no way changed or simplified the painful existence of the peasants, are to blame for everything:
You work alone
And the work is almost over,
Look, there are three shareholders standing:
God, king and lord!
However, the author's position here is somewhat different. Nekrasov does not deny the terrible burden of peasant labor, but he also portrays the men themselves as powerful, unbending, capable of withstanding any work. He shows that all misfortunes happen to men by chance, as if regardless of the oppression of the landowners: Yakim Nagoy suffers from a fire, and Savely, having accidentally dozed off, loses Demushka.
By this Nekrasov wants to show that real reasons the people's suffering lies much deeper and that the Russian peasant will not find happiness in gaining freedom. From the author’s point of view, true happiness requires something completely different.
The reader can see this completely different, true happiness in the image of Grigory Dobrosklonov - a character in which Nekrasov combined the features of the leading people of that time, the features of people who were especially close to the author (among them was N. G. Chernyshevsky):
Fate had prepared a glorious path for him, a great name
People's Defender,
Consumption and Siberia.
Grigory Dobrosklonov, being people's defender, is for real a happy person, Nekrasov believes. Despite his difficult fate, he does not become a slave to circumstances, but continues his difficult path. Love for his homeland is the most natural feeling for him, comparable to love for his mother:
And soon in the boy’s heart With love for his poor mother Love for all the Vakhlachina Merged...
The hero's real happiness lay in this boundless love and struggle for the happiness of the people:
“I don’t need any silver or gold, but God willing,
So that my fellow countrymen and every peasant may live freely and cheerfully throughout all holy Rus'!”
Dobrosklonov understands that society requires radical changes, that Russian people must destroy their slavish submission to fate and fight to improve the lives of themselves and those around them:
Enough! Finished with past settlement,
The settlement with the master has been completed!
The Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be citizens.
This is how the author sees the problem of national happiness in a multifaceted way. In addition to the ambiguity of the very concept of “happiness,” the reader sees different ways his achievements. In addition, in the poem one can see the most beautiful idea happiness, coupled here with the achievement of the public good. Nekrasov did not complete the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” but pointed out the right path to achieving civil ideals, as well as freedom and personal happiness of people.