Folk life in lyrics is not beautiful. Essay “The theme of the people in the works of N. A. Nekrasov. The function of dreams in the novel “Crime and Punishment”

The theme of the people and the problem national character has become one of the main ones in Russian literature since the times of Griboedov with his comedy “Woe from Wit” and Pushkin, who in the novels " Captain's daughter" and "Dubrovsky", in the lyrics and "Eugene Onegin" raises the question of what constitutes the basis of the Russian national character, how noble culture relates to folk culture.

Gogol’s concept of the Russian person is complex and multifaceted. In the poem “Dead Souls” it consists of two layers: the ideal, where the people are heroes, brave and strong people, and the real one, where the peasants turn out to be no better than their owners, the landowners.

Nekrasov’s approach to the theme of the people is very different from its presentation in the works of his predecessors. The poet expressed in his work the ideals of the democratic movement in Russia in the mid-19th century, and therefore his concept of the people is distinguished by its harmony and accuracy: it is entirely subordinate to its social and political positions.

One of the striking features of Nekrasov’s work is that the people appear in it not as some kind of generalization, but as many living people with their own destinies, characters and concerns. All of Nekrasov’s works are densely “populated”, even their titles speak of this: “Grandfather”, “Schoolboy”, “Mother”, “Orina, the Soldier’s Mother”, “Kalistrat”, “Peasant Children”, “Russian Women”, “Song” Eremushka." All of Nekrasov’s heroes, even those for whom it is now difficult to find real prototypes, are very specific and alive. The poet loves some of them with all his heart, sympathizes with them, and hates others.

Already in early work For Nekrasov, the world is divided into two camps:

Two camps, as before, in God's world;

Slaves in one, rulers in the other.

Many of Nekrasov’s poems represent a kind of “confrontation” between the strong and the weak, the oppressed and the oppressors. For example, in the poem “Ballet” Nekrasov, promising not to write satire, depicts luxurious boxes, the “diamond row”, and with a few strokes sketches portraits of their regulars:

I will not touch any military ranks,

Not in the service of the winged god

The civil aces sat down on their feet.

A starched dandy and a dandy,

(That is, the merchant is a reveler and a spendthrift)

And a mouse stallion (so Gogol

Calls the young elders)

Recorded supplier of feuilletons,

Officers of the Guards regiments

And the impersonal bastard of the salons -

I am ready to pass everyone by in silence!

And right there, before the curtain had even fallen on the stage where the French actress dances the trepak, the reader is confronted with scenes of village recruitment. “Snowy, cold, hazy and foggy,” and gloomy trains of peasant carts pull by.

It cannot be said that the social contrast in the description of pictures of folk life was Nekrasov’s discovery. Even in Pushkin’s “Village,” the harmonious landscape of rural nature is intended to emphasize the disharmony and cruelty of human society, where oppression and serfdom exist. In Nekrasov, the social contrast has more definite features: these are rich slackers and powerless people, who through their labor create all the blessings of life that the masters enjoy.

For example, in the poem “Hound Hunt,” the traditional fun of the nobles is presented from two points of view: the master, for whom it is joy and pleasure, and the peasant, who is unable to share the fun of the masters, because for him their hunt often turns into trampled fields, bullied cattle, and so on. This further complicates his life, which is already full of hardships.

Kory in the novels “The Captain’s Daughter” and “Dubrovsky”, in the lyrics and “Eugene Among Such “ face-to-face betting"of the oppressed and oppressors, a special place is occupied by the poem "The Railway", in which, according to K.I. Chukovsky, “precisely those most typical features of his (Nekrasov’s) talent are concentrated, which together form the only Nekrasov style in world literature.”

This poem contains the ghosts of those who died during construction. railway peasants stand up as an eternal reproach to passing passengers:

Chu! Menacing exclamations were heard!

Stomping and gnashing of teeth;

A shadow came across the frosty glass

What's there? Crowd of the dead!

Such works were perceived by censors as a violation of the official theory of social harmony, and by democratic layers as a call for immediate revolution. Of course, the author’s position is not so straightforward, but the fact that his poetry was very effective is confirmed by the testimony of his contemporaries. Thus, according to the recollections of one of the students of the military gymnasium, after reading the poem “The Railway,” his friend said: “Oh, I wish I could take a gun and go fight for Russian people».

Nekrasov's poetry demanded certain actions from the reader. These are “poems - appeals, poems - commandments, poems - commands,” at least this is how they were perceived by the poet’s contemporaries. Indeed, Nekrasov directly addresses young people in them:

Bless the work of the people

And learn to respect a man!

In the same way he calls upon the poet.

You may not be a poet

But you have to be a citizen.

Nekrasov even addresses those who do not care at all about the people and their problems:

Wake up! There is also pleasure:

Turn them back! Their salvation lies in you!

With all his sympathy for the troubles of the people and his kind attitude towards them, the poet does not at all idealize the people, but accuses them of long-suffering and humility. One of the most striking embodiments of this accusation can be called the poem “The Forgotten Village.” Describing the endless troubles of the peasants, Nekrasov each time cites the answer of the peasants, which has become a saying: “When the master comes, the master will judge us.” In this description of the patriarchal faith of the peasants in the good master, the good king, notes of irony slip through. This reflects the position of Russian Social Democracy, to which the poet belonged.

The accusation of long-suffering is also heard in the poem “The Railway”. But in it, perhaps, the most striking lines are devoted to something else: the topic of people's labor. Here a genuine hymn to the peasant worker is created. It is not for nothing that the poem is constructed in the form of an argument with the general, who claims that the road was built by Count Kleinmichel. This was the official opinion - it is reflected in the epigraph to the poem. Its main text contains a detailed refutation of this position. The poet shows that such a grandiose work is “not up to one person.” He glorifies the creative work of the people and, turning to the younger generation, says: “This noble habit of work / It wouldn’t be a bad thing for us to adopt with you.”

But the author is not inclined to harbor illusions that any positive changes can happen in the near future: “The only thing to know is to live in this wonderful time / Neither I nor you will have to.” Moreover, along with glorifying the creative, noble labor of the people, the poet creates pictures of painful, difficult labor, stunning in their power and poignancy, which brings death to people:

We struggled under the heat, under the cold,

With an ever-bent back,

They lived in dugouts, fought hunger,

They were cold and wet, suffered from scurvy, -

These words in the poem are spoken by the dead - peasants who died during the construction of the railway.

Such duality is present not only in this poem. Hard work, which became the cause of suffering and death, is described in the poem “Frost, Red Nose”, the poems “Strada”, “On the Volga” and many others. Moreover, this is not only the labor of forced peasants, but also barge haulers or children working in factories:

The cast iron wheel turns

And it hums and the wind blows,

My head is burning and spinning,

The heart is beating, everything is going around.

This concept of folk labor already developed in Nekrasov’s early works. Thus, the hero of the poem “The Drunkard” (1845) dreams of freeing himself, throwing off the “yoke of heavy, oppressive labor” and giving his whole soul to another work - free, joyful, creative: “And into another work - refreshing - / I would droop with all my soul.”

Nekrasov argues that work is a natural state and an urgent need of the people, without it a person cannot be considered worthy or be respected by other people. So, about the heroine of the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” the author writes: “She doesn’t feel sorry for the poor beggar: / It’s free to walk without work.” The peasant love of work is reflected in many of Nekrasov’s poems: “Hey! Take me as a worker, / My hands are itching to work!” - exclaims the one for whom work has become an urgent, natural need. It’s not for nothing that one of the poet’s poems is called “Song of Labor.”

In the poem “The Uncompressed Strip” an amazing image is created: the earth itself calls for the plowman, its worker. The tragedy is that a worker who loves and values ​​his work, who cares about the land, is not free, downtrodden and oppressed by forced hard labor.

I. Biographical background of the topic.
2. The pettiness and wretchedness of the rich.
3. Moral purity of the people.
4. A sad song of hope.

Already when the cradle rocks, it is decided where the scales of fate will tip.
S. E. Lec

Subject people's fate one of the main themes in the work of N. A. Nekrasov. He, like no one else, was able in his poetic heritage to show all aspects of life and shades of the mental state of the peasantry. The writer was greatly influenced by his childhood years spent on the Volga. Probably, I. E. Repin’s painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga” can be considered an illustration not only of his work, but also of life itself. Throughout its entire length, he carried in his heart a pinching pain for a gifted people, but oppressed by slavery and power.

And there was also an example of this in life - a cruel landowner father. But the writer did not learn moral principles from him. His role model was his mother, a kind, sympathetic woman. That is why he pays close attention to those who are with him. He, like a doctor, understands all their illnesses and sorrows. But the most important thing that appears in his poetic work is not only pain, but also the understanding that a way out of such a difficult situation is possible. But this should be done not only and not so much by the landowners, but by the peasants themselves. They can rise up and realize that their life and happiness largely depend on themselves.

N. A. Nekrasov has many poetic paintings describing peasant life. But one of the brightest is “Reflections at the Front Entrance.” The very title of the work uses the word “reflection”, which is in plural. This suggests that the poet has repeatedly addressed such a pressing issue. But, probably, he cannot find the correct and suitable way out of the current situation. Therefore, he still has the role of an observer and, to some extent, an analyst of what he sees around him every day.

From the very first lines, the lyrical hero presents us with an ordinary picture. Front, main, entrance to special days waiting for his petitioners. But from the first two lines it is clear that the lyrical hero treats them with contempt. He compares rich petitioners to slaves. This is how everything gets mixed up in a poetic picture. Rich people have servile qualities despite the fact that they pride themselves on their relationship and position in society. But in spirit they remain petty, insignificant and dependent people.

Let us note that, despite their position, they are afraid of those to whom they come with a request. But they have a certain vocation that infects the whole city - to put themselves on the lists of petitioners.

Here is the front entrance.
On special days,
Possessed by a servile illness,
The whole city is in some kind of fright
Drives up to the treasured doors;
Having written down your name and rank,
The guests are leaving for home,
So deeply pleased with ourselves
What do you think - that’s their calling!

Next, the lyrical hero divides people into categories, as they come to different days. On weekdays this front entrance is full of sufferers. But they find a response in the heart lyrical hero. Therefore, they appear before us not as a shapeless mass, but in their unique individuality: an elderly old man, a widow, etc. But in the story, the lyrical hero moves on to a specific case. His observations made it possible not only to separate the petitioners, but also to understand

Even their spiritual content. The focus is on a certain incident - Russian village people approach the front entrance. The lyrical hero notices that first they prayed. That is, the soul, like their body, is supported by God himself. He is always in their heart, he supports them in grief and brings them a rich spiritual and moral foundation. The doorman does not see this natural beauty; he judges by appearance, which is far from the cold shine of the gentlemen. But we understand that the appearance speaks of the great diligence and unpretentiousness of the Russian people, capable of bearing not only the heavy burden of slavery, but also a long journey in order to achieve justice.

Tanned faces and hands,
The Armenian boy is thin on his shoulders,
On a knapsack on their bent backs,
Cross on my neck and blood on my feet,
Shod in homemade bast shoes
(You know, they wandered for a long time
From some distant provinces).

The doorman not only did not let the ragged petitioners in, but was not even flattered by their gifts. Then the Russian man did not ask for mercy, but with the words “God judge him,” he was ready to return home. The lyrical hero emphasizes that they, having come such a long way, beating their legs until they bled, were not even heard. Later, the reason for this behavior is revealed to us - the owner of the luxurious chambers was still sleeping. He doesn't care common man, a hard worker, thanks to whom he can afford such luxury.

And then, in a kaledoscopic movement, the life of a carefree rich man flashes before us. But in this crazy run he is always alone. Throughout the entire description, he remains so lonely that even his relatives only wish him death. But the Russian people, in contrast, are represented as a mass, strong, powerful and invincible. Although he is poor in appearance, he is rich spiritually, and the life of each of the members of this society is filled with deep meaning.

Note that the lyrical hero does not idealize the man. It shows not only his strengths, but also weaknesses. For example, he is not averse to drinking everything down to the ruble, because then he faces a new path, full of anxiety and humiliation.

Behind the outpost, in a wretched tavern
All the poor people will drink up to a ruble
And they will go, begging along the road,
And they will groan...

But after this detailed description different categories of petitioners, the lyrical hero turns to his native land, which is capable of bearing such a contradiction on its shoulders. Bitter reflections at the front entrance gradually turn into a passionate appeal to someone who can hear and understand him.

...Native land!
Name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle
Where would your sower and guardian be?
Where would a Russian man not moan?

And the lyrical hero begins to list all those who groan from such a difficult life. It seems that he set out to show all of them and in no case leave anyone out. In the last place in listing the reasons for such behavior, he puts indifference, the greatest evil in the world in relation to any living creature, especially a person.

Moans in every remote town,
At the entrance of courts and chambers.

But the groan slowly turns into a sad song that can be heard on the Volga. Such a transition to a similar image allows the lyrical hero to compare the people's grief with the breadth of the great river. And in the end, one gets the feeling that the people and the groan are simply inseparable from each other.

Go out to the Volga: whose groan is heard
Over the great Russian river?
We call this groan a song -
The barge haulers are walking with a towline!..
Volga! Volga!.. In spring, full of water
You're not flooding the fields like that,
Like the great sorrow of the people
Our land is overflowing,
Where there are people, there is a groan...

But the lyrical hero is confident that such a powerful, strong people will find the strength to open the chains that have shackled them for many years. He will be able to build his own world, full not of grief and humiliation, but of hard work and respect.

...Oh, my dear!
What does your endless groan mean?
Will you wake up full of strength...

But notes of doubt creep into the heart of the lyrical hero. He begins to think that since the people are still suffering so much humiliation, then he is not ready to create a new song that can change this world. He will also remain surrounded by humiliation and moaning.

...Or, fate obeying the law,
You have already done everything you could,
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?..

Note that the poem ends with an ellipsis and a question mark. The lyrical hero does not answer the question he poses. At the same time, by putting an ellipsis at the end of the text, he shows that everything can be different in life. That is, he believes in the mighty Russian people, capable of not only bearing the burden of humiliation on their shoulders, but also opening the gates to new life, A. Ya. Panaeva talked about how this poem is based on real events. Observing the scene alone at first, she invited N.A. Nekrasov to see how events would develop: “He approached the window at the moment when the janitors of the house and the policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. Nekrasov pursed his lips and nervously pinched his mustache; then he quickly moved away from the window and lay down again on the sofa. About two hours later he read me the poem “At the Front Entrance.” Despite the fact that the poet reworked the plot and introduced his own thoughts into it, we see that N. A. Nekrasov could not remain indifferent and simply pass by what he accidentally saw. A storm of protest lurked in his soul, which later found a way out in a poetic and truthful picture, describing the realities and fate of the Russian person, capable of overcoming all obstacles in his path.

The people in Nekrasov's lyrics of the 1850s. Poetic "polyphony". Nekrasov turned the entire first section of the 1856 collection into a poem about the people and their future destinies. This poem opened with a poem "On the Road", and ended "Schoolboy". The poems echoed each other. They were united by the image of a country road, the conversations of the master in the first poem with a coachman, in the last with a peasant boy.

We sympathize with the driver's mistrust of the gentlemen who really killed his unfortunate wife Grusha. But this sympathy clashes with the driver’s deep ignorance: he distrusts enlightenment and sees in it an empty master’s whim:

Everyone is looking at some portrait

Yes, he is reading some book...

Sometimes fear, you hear, aches me,

That she will destroy her son too:

Teaches literacy, washes, cuts hair...

A sober look at the possibility of peasant “happiness” in a serf-like way of life modern Russia, the ability to see the connection between an individual phenomenon and a certain general, deep cause that gave birth to it, sometimes gives rise in the soul of the lyrical author not only sympathy for the fate of the disadvantaged lower classes, but also merciless irony at the faith in the “good” master, deeply ingrained in the peasant consciousness, happiness bestowed “from above”, through the efforts of those in power. The famous poem “The Forgotten Village” (1855), the genre of which can be defined as a patriarchal dystopia, is dedicated to the debunking of such patriarchal illusions. The phrase that runs through the entire poem as a refrain: “When the master comes, the master will judge us” has become popular in the modern lexicon. It reveals the inconsistency of the Russian people’s ideas about local life as a kind of universal “brotherhood” of masters and servants, where social discord recedes into the background before the community of faith and national traditions. Faith in a kind and fair master prevents the peasants from realizing the injustice of the existing order as a whole; patterns seem to them to be easily solvable accidents.

Nekrasov the poet is very sensitive to the changes that are taking place in the people's environment. In his poems, peasant life is depicted in a new way, not like that of his predecessors and contemporaries. There were many poems based on the plot chosen by Nekrasov, in which daring troikas raced, bells rang under the arc, and songs of coachmen sounded. At the beginning of his poem "On the Road" Nekrasov reminds the reader of precisely this:

Boring! Boring!.. Daring coachman,

Dispel my boredom with something!

A song or something, buddy, binge

About recruitment and separation...

But immediately, abruptly, decisively, he breaks off the usual and familiar course in Russian poetry. What strikes us in this poem? Of course, the driver’s speech is completely devoid of the usual folk song intonations. It seems as if bare prose has unceremoniously burst into poetry: the driver’s speech is clumsy and rude, full of dialecticisms. What new opportunities does such a “down-to-earth” approach to depicting a person from the people open up for Nekrasov the poet?

Perhaps none of Nekrasov’s contemporaries dared to get so close and intimate with the man on the pages of a poetic work. Only he was then able not only to write about the people, but also to “speak to the people,” letting in peasants, beggars, artisans with their different perceptions of the world, in different languages into your poems. And such poetic audacity cost Nekrasov dearly: it was the source of the deep drama of his poetry. This drama arose not only because it was painfully difficult to extract poetry from such vital prose, which no poet had penetrated before Nekrasov, but also because such an approach of the poet to the popular consciousness destroyed many of the illusions by which his contemporaries lived. The “soil” was subjected to poetic analysis, the strength was tested, in the inviolability of which people of different directions and parties believed in different ways, but with equal uncompromisingness. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov strengthened their faith in the peasant socialist revolution, idealizing the communal way of life of the people, associating with it the socialist instincts in the character of the Russian peasant. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky believed in the inviolability of other, patriarchal-Christian principles of folk morality. Is this why the people in their great novels are an integral unity, a world from which neither the “round” Platon Karataev, nor the whole Sonechka Marmeladova are inseparable.

His faith in the people was subject to much greater temptations than the faith of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, on the one hand, or Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, on the other. But on the other hand, people’s life is also on its pages. poetic works turned out to be more multi-colored and varied, and the ways of its poetic reproduction were more diverse. The first section of the poetry collection of 1856 defined the forms of depicting folk life. The poem "On the Road" is initial stage: here Nekrasov’s lyrical “I” is still largely removed from the coachman’s consciousness. The driver's voice is left to its own devices, and so is the author's voice. But as high moral content is revealed to the poet in folk life, lyrical disunity is overcome. Let's listen to how the same voices sound in the poem "Schoolboy":

Well, let's go, for God's sake!

Sky, spruce forest and sand

A sad road...

Hey! sit down with me, my friend!

Whose words are we hearing? A Russian intellectual, a nobleman riding along our sad country road, or a peasant coachman urging tired horses? Apparently, both, these two voices merged into one:

I know: father for son

I spent my last penny.

This is what his village neighbor could say about the schoolboy’s father. But Nekrasov is speaking here: folk intonations, the speech pattern itself vernacular he accepted into his soul.

And at the end of the section, the road stretches again - “sky, spruce forest and sand.” Outwardly, she is just as gloomy and unfriendly as in the first poem. But in the meantime, a beneficial revolution is taking place in the popular consciousness:

I see a book in the knapsack.

So, you're going to study...

I know: father for son

I spent my last penny.

The road stretches on, and before our eyes peasant Rus' changes, brightens, rushing towards knowledge, towards the university. In Nekrasov, the image of the road that permeates the poems acquires not only an everyday, but also a conventional, metaphorical meaning: it enhances the feeling of change in the spiritual world of the peasant.

Nekrasov's poetry on the eve of the reform of 1861. On the eve of the peasant reform of 1861, the question of the people and their historical possibilities, like the question “to be or not to be?”, arose before people of a revolutionary democratic way of thinking. Having become disillusioned by 1859 with the prospects for reforms “from above,” they expected liberation “from below” and hoped for a peasant revolution. Nekrasov had no doubt that it was the people, the multimillion-dollar peasantry, who were the main and decisive historical force of the country. And yet, he called the most sincere poem about the people, written in 1857, “Silence.”

The poem strengthens Nekrasov's faith in the forces of the people, in the ability of the Russian peasant to be a hero of national history. But when will the people wake up to consciously fight for their interests? There is no definite answer to this question in “Silence,” just as there is no answer in “Reflections at the Front Entrance” or in “The Song of Eremushka,” which became the anthem of several generations of Russian democratic youth.

The fact is that patriarchal moral ideals, rooted in the spiritual structure of the people's Orthodox consciousness, despite all their utopianism, at the same time had for Nekrasov the meaning of some kind of absolute moral norm, independent of transient historical conditions. These were the same “eternal” values ​​that the people did not change even despite the demands of the moment. historical truth. And Nekrasov perfectly understood the spiritual heights of such a position. Sometimes these two positions - criticism and idealization of the religious worldview of the people - are difficult to combine within the framework of the author's consciousness and form a whimsical polyphony (polyphony) of points of view on what is happening. This happens in the famous poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” (1858).

The composition “Reflections at the Main Entrance”, as is known, is three-part. The first part presents a lively sketch of an everyday street scene: a doorman drives away peasant petitioners from the doors of an “important” government institution. This “random” fact, as if snatched from the bustle of the city, in the plot of the poem receives a generalized, deeply symbolic meaning. And all thanks to the image of the author-storyteller. On the one hand, we see a collective image of bureaucratic St. Petersburg, obsessed with the “servile disease.” On the other hand, in contrast, a collective image of another “illness” appears, embodied in the humble figures of the people’s walkers: “Allow it,” they say with an expression of hope and torment.” The narrator gives their portrait, including their speech, as if one for all. Already in this picture, the petitioners-“slaves” and the petitioners-“pilgrims” (wanderers) are both brought together and at the same time opposed to each other. They are brought together by the very fact of human need, which led them to the same “front door”, and are separated by class arrogance and arrogance, which prevents us from seeing each other as “brothers in misfortune.”

And only the author’s gaze, rising above this “vanity of vanities,” makes it possible to discover in it some reconciling meaning. The voices of everyone seem to be woven into a single author’s monologue. characters street incident. First, we can clearly distinguish the angry-sarcastic tone of the author himself. Then the official intonations of bureaucratic jargon are wedged into the author’s narration: “having written down your name and rank”, “poor persons”, “projector”, “widow”, etc. Then, with the appearance of the men, the calmly respectful voice of the narrator is heard, calling the peasants “village Russian people.” However, this voice immediately slips into a slightly different, folk-song stylistic register: “having their fair-haired heads hanging,” “the pilgrims untied their koshli,” “meager mite.” This is how in historical songs and spiritual poems the people themselves call their “intercessors”, “kalik passers-by”, wanderers. Before the narrator has time to strike his characteristic “suffering” note (for example, about the peasants: “they speak with an expression of hope and torment”), she is interrupted by the bourgeois reprimand of the doorman: “he looked at the guests: they are ugly to look at!”, “thin Armenian”, “know , we walked for a long time.” Such polyphony will be characteristic of the author’s speech until the end of the poem. The author's consciousness turns out to be able to accommodate the consciousness of people of different classes, which speaks of the responsiveness of his soul. He equally mourns for the “servile illness” of high-ranking petitioners, and for the insulting servility of the doorman, and for the expression of “hope and torment” on the faces of the walkers. The author does not divide Russia into “peasant” and “rest”. His heart aches for everything. The whole of Russia, with all the good and bad that is in it, is knocking on the cherished doors of the “front entrance”.

The second part - a portrait of a “happy” nobleman - is contrasted with the picture of the life of the “unfortunate” in the first part. The portrait of the “owner of luxurious chambers” is as generalized as possible, which gives the contrast of the “unfortunate” and the “happy” a universal meaning that cannot be reduced only to the “spite of the day.”

The fact is that if the misfortune of the people is a harsh truth, then the “serene Arcadian idyll” of the nobleman’s life is an illusion, carefully instilled in him by flatterers, as well as by his “dear and beloved” family, “waiting for his death” “with impatience.” And again, one conclusion suggests itself: the “lower classes” and the “higher classes,” the unhappy and the so-called happy ones, are, in essence, deeply lonely. The callousness and indifference of others equally threaten both. The “owner of luxurious chambers” experiences the same drama of misunderstanding that the wanderers he had just driven away experienced. One unfortunate person rudely pushes away other equally unfortunate people, not realizing that he is driving away his own sympathizers:

Wake up! There is also pleasure:

Turn them back! their salvation lies in you!

But the happy are deaf to goodness...

The attitude of the Russian people towards the wanderer is respectful, bordering on admiration for his asceticism. He is perceived not as an ordinary person, but as a “man of God”, to offend whom is a sin. Therefore, the “owner of luxurious chambers” is guilty not only before these specific men, but also before the entire “Baptized Russia” (“And you will go to your grave... a hero,/Secretly cursed by the fatherland...”). And he is not committing some kind of official crime, but a crime against conscience, against God (“The thunder of heaven does not frighten you...”).

And only now, having closed all the bitterness of hopeless grief on the “deaf to good,” the author begins his famous epic “cry” that crowns the poem. Here the author's voice completely merges with the rhythm of folk recitative. Woven from an endless chain of anaphoras, beginning with the same “Moans,” this “cry” is epic primarily because it is addressed not only to the “people” itself. It is addressed to the Motherland: “Native land! Name me such a monastery...” And that means to all the “pilgrims”, and to all the “owners”, and... to myself.

IN "Song to Eremushka" Two songs collide and argue with each other: one is sung by the nanny, the other by a “passing city passerby.” The nanny's song affirms a servile, lackey's morality, while the song of the "passer-by" calls for a revolutionary cause under the slogans of "brotherhood, equality and freedom." It is difficult to judge which path Eremushka will take in the future: the poem both opens and ends with the nanny’s song about patience and humility. This conceals a significant difference between the people's poet Nekrasov and his friends Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, who at that moment were great optimists regarding possible popular indignation.

Lyrics by Nekrasov of the late 60s. It was this deep faith in the people that helped the poet subject people’s life to harsh and strict analysis, as, for example, in the finale of the poem "Railway". The poet was never mistaken about the immediate prospects for revolutionary peasant liberation, but he also never fell into despair:

The Russian people have endured enough

He took out this railway too,

He will endure whatever the Lord sends!

Will bear everything - and a wide, clear

He will pave the way for himself with his chest.

It’s just a pity to live in this wonderful time

You won't have to - neither me nor you.

Thus, in an atmosphere of brutal reaction, when the faith in the people of their very intercessors was shaken, Nekrasov retained confidence in the courage, spiritual fortitude and moral beauty of the Russian peasant. Following "Frost" appeared "Orina, mother of a soldier" a poem glorifying maternal and filial love, which triumphs not only over the horrors of the Nicholas soldiery, but also over death itself.

“Green Noise” appeared with a spring feeling of renewal, “light breathing”; nature, which slept in winter, is revived to life, and the human heart, frozen in evil thoughts, thaws. The faith in the renewing power of nature, of which man is a part, born of peasant labor on the land, saved Nekrasov and his readers from complete disappointment in difficult years celebrations in state-owned Russia of “drums, chains, an axe” (“The heart is torn from agony...”).

Lyrics by Nekrasov of the 70s. In his later work, Nekrasov the lyricist turns out to be a much more traditional, literary poet than in the 60s, for now he is looking for aesthetic and ethical support not so much in the ways of direct access to people's life, but in turning to the poetic tradition of his great predecessors. Poetic images in Nekrasov's lyrics are updated: they become more capacious and generalized. A kind of symbolization of artistic details occurs; from everyday life the poet rapidly takes off to a broad artistic generalization. Thus, in the poem “To Friends,” a detail from peasant everyday life—“wide folk bast shoes”—acquires poetic ambiguity and turns into an image-symbol of labor peasant Russia:

You are not idle, noble friends,

To live and go to such a grave,

To wide folk bast shoes

Paths have been paved to her...

Folk life in Nekrasov's lyrics of the 70s is depicted in a new way. If earlier the poet approached the people as closely as possible, capturing all the diversity, all the diversity of unique folk characters, now the peasant world in his lyrics appears in an extremely generalized form. This is, for example, his " Elegy" addressed to the young men:

Let him tell us changing fashion,

That the old theme is "the suffering of the people"

And that poetry should forget her,

Don't believe it, boys! she doesn't age.

The opening lines are Nekrasov's polemical rebuke to the official views that were spreading in the 70s, which claimed that the reform of 1861 finally resolved the peasant question and directed people's life along the path of prosperity and freedom. This assessment of the reform, of course, also penetrated into the gymnasiums. The younger generation was instilled with the idea that the theme of popular suffering had now become obsolete. And if a high school student read Pushkin’s “Village,” its accusatory lines related in his mind to the distant pre-reform past and were in no way connected with the present. Nekrasov decisively destroys such a “cloudless” view of the fate of the peasantry in “Elegy”:

Alas! bye peoples

They languish in poverty, submitting to the whips,

Like skinny herds across mown meadows,

The Muse will mourn their fate and serve them...

Resurrecting in "Elegy" poetic world"Villages", Nekrasov gives both his and Pushkin's old poems an enduring, ever-living and relevant meaning. Relying on generalized Pushkin images, Nekrasov in “Elegies” moves away from everyday descriptions, from specific, detailed facts and pictures of people’s grief and poverty. The purpose of his poems is different: it is important for him now to prove the correctness of the poet’s very appeal to this eternal topic. And the old, archaic, but consecrated form by Pushkin himself corresponds to this lofty task.

The spirit of Pushkin hovers over Nekrasov’s “Elegy” and beyond. The poet’s “most sincere and beloved” poems are a poetic testament, Nekrasov’s version of “Monument”:

I dedicated the lyre to my people.

Perhaps I will die unknown to him,

But I served him - and my heart is calm...

Task 3. Based on what you read, answer the following questions.

What is the significance of the theme of the people in Nekrasov’s lyrics?

What feelings do thoughts about the people evoke in the poet?

What contradictory traits does Nekrasov note among the people?

What is unique about Nekrasov’s portrayal of the people compared to other writers?

Independent work № 6

Creativity A.K. Tolstoy

Objectives: to introduce key facts of the life and work of A.K. Tolstoy; get acquainted with the key poetic works of the poet.

Task 1.

Read the textbook material dedicated to A.K. Tolstoy. Accompany your acquaintance with educational material reading the mentioned poems.

Literature:

Literature: textbook for students. secondary school / ed. G.A. Obernikhina. – M.: Academy, 2008. – P. 200-204.

Task 2.

Read the poems listed below by A.K. Tolstoy. Learn one of them by heart.

“Two camps are not a fighter”, “In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance...”, “It was in early spring...”, “A tear trembles in your jealous gaze...”, “If you love, you are crazy...”

Independent work No. 7

The function of dreams in the novel “Crime and Punishment”

Objectives: to consider the content and function of dreams in the novel “Crime and Punishment”; analyze one of the dreams, identifying its psychological and symbolic content.

Read theoretical material, jot it down in a notebook for independent work.

M. M. Bakhtin rightfully asserts that in all European literature there is no writer in whose work dreams would play such a large role as in Dostoevsky. According to Bakhtin, Dostoevsky’s work is dominated by the “crisis variation of sleep,” that is, a dream leading to a sharp change in life. inner life of a person, to his rebirth or renewal. Dostoevsky believed that in dreams, people’s forgotten experiences emerge into spheres controlled by consciousness, and therefore the heroes’ dreams reveal their inner essence - the one that their waking mind does not want to notice. The hero's dreams serve two functions. On the one hand, they are a means of psychologism and help to deeper reveal the contradictory nature of the hero. On the other hand, the heroes' dreams condense key ideas and text images. The motives given in them have an independent development in the novel, independent of the consciousness of the hero.

Read the indicated fragments of the novel. Briefly (in one or two sentences) state the content of your dreams.

The first dream – part 1, chapter V

Second dream - part 1, chapter VI

The third dream – part 2, chapter II

The Fourth Dream – Part 3, Chapter VI

The fifth dream - epilogue, chapter II

Match the dream with an indication of its type (definitions are presented in the novel or suggested by researchers):

1) delusional hallucinations;

2) dream-nightmare;

3) “scary”, “ugly” dream;

4) prophetic dream, dream-apocalypse;

5) “strange dreams.”

Answer the questions for one of the dreams (of your choice).

First dream

Researchers identify four groups of heroes in this dream: the rapist, the victim, observers (the crowd), and the intercessor. In a dream, Raskolnikov chooses one of the paths. What other roles has the hero tried on? How do dream images appear in the novel?

Material for observations.

Return of Raskolnikov after the murder: “Having undressed and trembling all over, like a driven horse, he lay down on the sofa, pulled on his overcoat and immediately forgot...”

Death of Katerina Ivanovn s: “That’s enough!.. It’s time!.. Goodbye, wretched man!.. The nag has gone away!.. It’s torn! “she screamed desperately and hatefully and slammed her head onto the pillow.”

Characteristics of Mikolka, who took upon himself the murder of the old money-lender: “Do you know that he is one of the schismatics, and not just a schismatic, but simply a sectarian; There were runners in his family, and he himself, just recently, for two whole years, in the village, was with a certain old man under the spiritual direction. He had zeal, prayed to God at night, read and became engrossed in old, “true” books. St. Petersburg had a strong effect on him, especially the female gender, and the wine. Receptive, sir, and the old man, and forgot everything. Do you know, Rodion Romanych, what it means for some of them to “suffer?” It’s not that it’s for someone else, it’s just “you have to suffer”; suffering means accepting it, and even more so from the authorities. So, I now suspect that Mikolka wants to “accept suffering” or something like that.”

Second dream

Raskolnikov's dream images refer to a number of literary and cultural symbols. What fate does this dream foreshadow for Raskolnikov?

Observation material

Cultural symbols

The symbolism of water is due to the fact that it is an essential nutritional component of all living things, especially relevant for desert regions. In Judaism, water is traditionally associated with the Torah, since it attracts all who are thirsty, spreads throughout the earth, serves as a source of life, comes from heaven, renews the soul, purifies it, flows from top to bottom, turning a simple vessel into a jewel, and serves as food for growth. In the same way, parallels were established between water and the teachings of Christ. Water plays a key role in the rite of Christian baptism. In it, she symbolizes renewal, cleansing and sanctification.

The poetry of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is entirely dedicated to Russia and the Russian people. The great poet developed and strengthened the motives of nationality and citizenship, continuing the traditions of Pushkin. Throughout his life, Nekrasov wrote only about Russia, about its great and long-suffering people.

The theme of the Motherland and the theme of the people in Nekrasov’s lyrics are inseparable. The poet creates in his poems terrible but true pictures of the life of a common man in Rus'. People's Russia The author contrasts it with the world of cruel feudal landowners and soulless officials. The poem “Motherland” is dedicated to the poet’s native Volga expanses. But Nekrasov’s memories of his childhood disgust the poet. He talks about the life of gentlemen who spent their time in feasts, debauchery and abuse of serfs. Nekrasov says this about the unfortunate common people:

Where is the swarm of depressed and trembling slaves
He envied the lives of the last master's dogs.

The title of this poem emphasizes that such life was characteristic of all feudal Russia. In Nekrasov’s soul, love for the Fatherland and hatred of the injustice reigning in it collide. An example of this is the poem “On the Volga”. The poet speaks of his childhood love for the great Russian river and considers the Volga a “cradle.” Nekrasov would never part with the Volga,

If only, oh Volga! above you
This howl was not heard!

Before the poet’s eyes there appears a terrible picture, seen in childhood and remaining in his memory for the rest of his life. The Volga barge haulers excited the young soul and made Nekrasov forget about the beauty of his native places. Now he calls the Volga “the river of slavery and melancholy.” This is one of many poems written based on Nekrasov’s personal observations.

The famous poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” was created in a similar way. Village petitioners at the house of a rich dignitary are the embodiment of the entire humiliated and powerless Russian people. The Russian peasant has no protection anywhere, he cannot find truth and justice. The author directly accuses the owners of “luxury chambers”. Nobles don't care about fate ordinary people, and therefore the Russian people only have to moan and endure. Nekrasov shows that the small episode seen by the poet is a reflection of what is happening in Russia:

Native land!
Name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle.
Where is your sower and guardian?
Where would a Russian man not moan?

The poet again recalls the Volga and the barge haulers groaning on its banks. The Russian land is filled with people's grief. Nekrasov is concerned whether the Russian people will be able to change their lives, or whether they are destined to continue to suffer and endure.

A working person is in a slave position; he does not receive happiness from his work. This idea sounds vividly in the poem “Railroad”. Nekrasov shows the true builders of the railway, who were driven to construction by the terrible Tsar Famine. The crowd of dead people outside the carriage windows makes you feel love and respect for the workers and hatred for the oppressors. For the poet, the road builders are his brothers. Nekrasov does not hide his feelings. The author's sympathy and pain are heard in the description of the tall, sick Belarusian. The poet calls:

Bless the people's work
And learn to respect a man.

This poem is imbued with the author's faith in the great future of Russia and its people. The patience and slavish obedience of the common man arouse Nekrasov's anger. But the author is convinced that the Russian people will be able to overcome all troubles and sorrows, will stand and win the fight against their misfortune. Nekrasov calls the future of Russia a wonderful time. People's Rus' will pave a “broad and clear” road to happiness.
The great Russian poet and citizen Nekrasov could rightfully say about himself: “I dedicated the lyre to my people.”

The poet's patriotism, his love for the common people are manifested in every line of Nekrasov's poems. His poetry is an example of service to Russia and the Russian people, to whom the author devoted his entire life, all the strength of his noble and honest soul.

By calling Nekrasov a national poet, researchers reveal the deep meaning of this definition. "Nekrasov - folk poet, - N.N. rightly asserts. Skatov - not only because he spoke about the people, but because the people told them. Hence all its features: heroes, themes, images, rhythms."

One of Nekrasov’s discoveries, which turned out to be so significant both for contemporary poets and for subsequent poetic generations, is the multi-heroic nature of his poetry. Along with the lyrical hero, the lyrical “I” of Nekrasov, in his poetry people with different characters and destinies. The poet opened for readers new world- the complex, contradictory world of Russian life, allowed us to look into the soul of the people, into the hidden corners of the hearts of peasants, petty officials, and the urban poor: they spoke in his poems about their love and their misfortune, their hopes and their suffering.

Researchers explain the writer’s keen interest in another person, the desire to open the soul and heart of many people to the reader with a “sense of sociality.” “For the inner appearance of the author in Nekrasov’s lyrics, the sense of sociality is one of the most defining,” writes B.O. Corman. - The author’s lyrical world has expanded incredibly. A man from the people, different from the author, entered his consciousness and grew into his soul. In this living, passionate interest in the fate of others, in this focus of lyrical feeling not only on oneself, but also on another - a person from the people - lies the new quality of the lyricism of Nekrasov’s poetry<...>».

One of the first such confessional poems is "On the Road"(1845). Turning to a plot that is quite popular in Russian literature - the confession of a coachman telling about unhappy love, Nekrasov found his own - new, special aspects in this dramatic theme. The tragic love story of the coachman, like a mirror, reflected the tragedy of Russian life. One of Nekrasov’s contemporaries, the poet and critic Apollon Grigoriev, very precisely said that Nekrasov’s poem “combined, compressed into one poetic form an entire era of the past” and, “like any powerful work, casts its nets into the future.”

Despite all the peculiarities of the destinies of the heroes - the coachman and his wife Grusha, they are not exceptional: time itself, with the social and moral relations characteristic of Russia, stands behind their destinies. The “servant”, the girl Grusha, who was taken into the manor’s house, was “learned” together with the young lady “in all noble manners and tricks.” Raised together with the daughter of a landowner, the peasant girl not only learned to play the organ, read, not only dressed differently than peasant girls - “sundress girls”, but also acquired other desires and aspirations, other thoughts and feelings. Driven out to the village by his heir after the master's death and forcibly married to a serf, Grusha cannot get used to this life. It is not laziness, but the lack of labor skills that peasant children acquire gradually, from an early age, that makes any work beyond her strength:

No mowing, no walking after the cow!..
It’s a sin to say that you’re lazy,
Yes, you see, the matter was in good hands!
Like carrying firewood or water,
As I went to corvée - it became
Sometimes I feel sorry for Indus... so much! -
You can’t console her with a new thing:
Then the cats rubbed her feet,
So, listen, she feels awkward in a sundress<...>

Years of grief and torment were contained in this short story. But the tragedy of the young woman is intensified by her loneliness and misunderstanding by her loved ones. “Someone is looking at the patret / And reading some book” - these words of the coachman about his wife reveal complex human relations: inability, impossibility of understanding between people brought up in different conditions, living, in fact, in different worlds. What seems to a husband to be an unnecessary whim: reading a book or taking care of his little son, for his wife is a need without which it is impossible to live, with which it is impossible to part. Pear’s upbringing made him a “white-faced” and “white-handed” one. And the reader, together with the narrator, sympathizing with the sad fate of his wife, could say: “The gentlemen ruined her, / And she would have been a dashing woman!” But, listening to the coachman’s sadly simple story about the “villainous wife,” a story in which sympathy is combined with complaints about one’s own lot and with indifference and misunderstanding, the reader understands the essence of the story differently than the narrator. Not only the whim of the landowners ruined the young woman, but also those close to her - without guilt, but to blame. And most importantly, what destroyed Grusha and her family happiness was the backbreaking peasant life itself, which turns a person only into a worker, killing all other desires in him:

Hear how thin and pale the sliver is,
He walks, just by force,
He won’t eat two spoons of oatmeal a day -
Tea, we’ll end up in the grave in a month...
And why?.. God knows, I didn’t languish
I am her tireless work...
Dressed and fed, did not scold without a way,
Respected, just like that, willingly...
And, listen, I almost never hit you,
Unless under the influence of a drunken...

But, in essence, no less tragic is the fate of the husband, who was forcibly married to the “white-handed” Grusha:

As luck would have it, nineteenth year
At that time it happened to me... I was imprisoned
Because of the tax, they married her...

In this work, Nekrasov’s most tragic theme was heard for the first time: the theme of women’s fate. It would be wrong to say that in the poet’s lyrics tragedy is associated only with the fate of the peasant woman. In Nekrasov’s poems, both the daughters of officials and landowners (“Cheap Purchase”) and the rich and noble housewives of salons (“Princess”) experience their tragedy. One of the most tragic is the fate of the mother of the lyrical hero (“Recluse”, “From the poem: “Mother” (Excerpts)”). It can be assumed that it was her fate that largely determined the tragic perception female share in the works of Nekrasov.

Many female characters, women's destinies appear in Nekrasov's lyrics. But there are some similarities in these dramas. Whether raised in a rich family or born into a serf family, a woman is doomed to an unhappy fate. Short-lived love is quickly replaced by cooling and indifference, a clear awareness of the difference in characters, and bitter disappointment in the chosen one. Nekrasov's heroines are gentle and loving, peasant women and noblewomen, who become slaves and victims of a despot husband or a picky husband. In one of his last works the poet will say:

But all my life I have suffered for a woman.
The path to freedom is denied her;
Shameful captivity, all the horror of a woman’s lot,
Left her little strength to fight<...>

These words apply to all Nekrasov’s contemporaries. But the social lack of rights of the peasant woman made the “horror of women’s lot” even sadder and more painful. Talking about the fate of a peasant woman, the poet leaves no illusion to the reader about a happy change in her life. The narrator's voice always sounds stern and unyielding. Thus, reflecting on the possible fate of a beautiful peasant girl in the poem “Troika” (1846), Nekrasov paints different pictures of her future life, but they are all tragic in their own way. Describing the beauty of the “black-browed savage” at the beginning of the poem, the author knows: beauty cannot bring her happiness. Two paths await a peasant beauty: to become the short-lived whim of an “old man” or “young man” or the legal wife of a “slob man”:

One glance of a black-browed savage,
Full of spells that set the blood on fire,
The old man will be ruined for gifts,
Love will rush into the young man's heart.

You will live and celebrate to your heart's content,
Life will be full and easy...
But that’s not what befell you:
You'll marry a man for a slob.

In this reflection there is no antithesis: a happy - an unhappy lot. Undoubtedly, there is bitter irony in the author’s words about the “easy” lot of kept women. But the fate of a married woman seems no less tragic. The peasant lot, hard work, the malice of neighbors - disfigure a woman both physically and morally. The symbol of a joyless lot - a life filled with hard work and devoid of happiness - becomes in the poem the image of an “unwaking sleep.” A clear contrast between the young heroine, whose face is “full of life”, “full of movement”, and her future life-dream, life without life, appears in the author’s reflection:

Having tied an apron under the arms,
You will tighten your ugly breasts,
Your picky husband will beat you,
And my mother-in-law will die to death.

From work both menial and difficult
You will fade before you have time to bloom,
You will fall into a deep sleep,
You will babysit, work and eat.

And in your face, full of movement,
Full of life - will suddenly appear
An expression of dull patience
And senseless, eternal fear.

The inclusion in the author's reflection of images and motifs from folk songs about the lot of a married woman (an evil mother-in-law, a fastidious husband) makes it more visible and convincing: the poet is not mourning for just one ruined life - it is a cry for a Russian peasant woman. It is characteristic that, starting the poem with a question addressed to a peasant girl: “Why are you looking greedily at the road?”, Nekrasov also ends it with an appeal in which there is not a question, but a statement, an unkind prophecy: “Don’t look longingly at the road / And don’t rush after the troika<...>/ You can’t catch up with the crazy three<...>" The troika, madly rushing along the road, in this poem is a symbol of life, full, rich, bright, but inaccessible to the peasant beauty. From birth, she is doomed to a “hard path” or to a “deep sleep” - a life without life.

One of the most dramatic themes in Nekrasov’s lyrics is mother theme. Probably, none of the Russian poets said so many heartfelt, sincere words about motherhood as Nekrasov. But he sang not the joy of motherhood, but “great sadness” - the tragedy of mothers who lost their sons in the war, military service, while hunting, showed all the horror of lonely old age. Each such story, told by Nekrasov, and most often told by the mother herself, appears not as the tragedy of one family, but becomes the embodiment of a universal misfortune, a common female destiny.

It is no coincidence that the poet replaces the original title of the poem “The Grief of Old Orina” with another one - “Orina, the soldier’s mother,” thereby giving the story about the hero Ivanushka, who was killed in the soldiery, and the grief of his mother an extraordinary breadth of generalization: all the soldiers’ mothers cry along with old Orina.

It is known how Nekrasov worked on this poem: according to the recollections of the poet’s sister, Nekrasov “made a detour several times to talk” with his unhappy mother, “otherwise he was afraid to fake it.” But the “falsehood” would be terrible not only in Orina’s “crying”. It is characteristic that the poem is two-voice, it is a dialogue: another voice is woven into old Orina’s cry - the narrator, questioning, sympathizing and crying with her. These voices different people, With different destinies, of different social origins, sound strikingly alike, in unison:

Why are you frowning, gossip!
Have you thought about death?
Give it up! This is an empty thought!

Did Kruchinushka visit?
Let me know - maybe I’ll open it.” -
And Orinushka told
I feel great sadness.

There are few words, but a river of grief,
Bottomless river of grief!..

But their closeness is just as obvious to the people’s crying. They seem to be a continuation of those words from the folk song, which Nekrasov took as an epigraph: “Day after day is my sad woman, / In the night - a night pilgrim, / For centuries is my dry woman.”

Orina talks about the last days of the life of her son Ivanushka, but individual details and fragmentary memories of Ivanushka’s youth make it possible to fit into this story the entire short life of the young peasant. Called up as a soldier, the handsome and heroic man returns eight years later to die in his home. Ivanushka’s beauty and his heroic strength, which amazed even the general, further emphasize the whole tragedy of the family’s ruined life: his beauty is not to the joy of Ivanushka and Orina, and his heroic strength is not fortunate. With dignity and courage, the hero accepts the idea of ​​inevitable death: the greatness of suffering appears in the description of his last days:

I didn’t like to tell you, sir.
He's talking about his military life,
It’s a sin to show the laity
A soul doomed to God!<...>

Dumbness before death
Befits a Christian.
God knows what hardships
They crushed Vanina's strength!

I didn't try to find out.
Without judging anyone,
He only words are comforting
He told me while dying.

Walked quietly around the yard
Yes, he tapped with a hatchet,
He ruined the dilapidated hut,
The garden was surrounded by a fence<...>

The mother’s story about Ivanushka’s farewell to the red sun, the house, the “cattle”, and the “clearing” sounds like a sad song-cry. Soldier's service, those eight years that broke Ivanushka's heroic strength, appear only in the description of the hero's unconsciousness, in the abrupt words of the hero, raving before his death, conveyed by his mother. But behind this a short story- years of harsh drills and inhumane treatment of soldiers:

Everything for him before his death
This service was presented.

Walks around, cleans ammunition,
I whitened the soldiers' belts,
Signals played with my tongue,
He sang songs - so catchy!

The article was thrown away with a gun
So that the whole house trembled;
Like a crane standing on a leg
On one, the sock was pulled out.

Suddenly he rushed... looks pitifully...
He fell down - he cried, he repented,
He shouted: “Your Honor!
Yours!..” I see he’s choking.

Neither the story-memoir of Ivanushka himself, nor the author’s descriptions of the soldier’s everyday life would have acquired such amazing authenticity as the abrupt words of the dying man. But, truthfully telling about the terrible fate of her son, Orina herself, like her hero son, will not say a word of condemnation. People's patience - special topic for Nekrasov. This is both a subject of admiration (“This is Russian heroism,” Savely, the Holy Russian hero, will later say about patience), and a source of bitter thoughts for writers, but also the basis for hope for a better future for the people.

The topic of the future of the people is one of the most important for Nekrasov. True, the poet was least inclined to console his readers by contrasting the sad present and utopian pictures of a happy future people. Like F.M. Dostoevsky, he saw organic connection between the fate of a people and its character. A happy future cannot come only on its own, only through external efforts individuals, its source is the people's soul, the people's character, conscientiousness, hard work and amazing patience of the Russian people. In many of Nekrasov’s works, the image of the people’s soul-soil appears, “good soil” and yearning only for a sower who will sow the seeds of the “reasonable, good, eternal.” The character of the people and their fate - two famous Nekrasov works are devoted to this topic - the poem “Reflection at the Main Entrance” and the poem “The Railway”.