To the classic technique - travel literary hero, - in order to show the different layers of the population, the diversity of pictures of Russian life in various historical periods, A. N. Radishchev addressed in his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” and N. V. Gogol in “ Dead souls" But N.A. Nekrasov faces a more difficult task. He uses the method of travel not only as a freer, more natural form of composition of the poem.
According to the precise description of the literary critic V. Bazanov, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is not just a story,
An excursion into the life of different segments of the population of Russia, this is “a debate poem, a journey with propaganda purposes, a kind of “going to the people” undertaken by the peasants themselves.” Looking for the happy one, “who lives cheerfully and at ease in Rus',” the peasants
A tightened province,
Terpigoreva County,
Empty parish,
From adjacent villages -
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Gorelova, Neelova.
Crop failure too
they take their own life as a starting point, and consider those standing above them, the top of the hierarchical ladder, as living freely - the landowner, priest, official, noble boyar, minister of the sovereign
And even the king himself. Moreover, in the poem we encounter a poetic generalization of the class enemies of the peasant, made on behalf of the worker himself:
You work alone
And the work is almost over,
Look, there are three shareholders standing:
God, king and lord.
N.A. Nekrasov shatters to smithereens the idyllic ideas about the supposedly paternal attitude of landowners towards their peasants and about the “great love” of serfs for their masters.
Some images of landowners are depicted in the poem in separate strokes (Pan Glukhovsky, Shalashnikov) or in episodes; others devote entire chapters of the poem (Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin) and “gives them the floor” so that the reader can see for himself who is in front of him and correlate their opinion from the point of view of truth-seeking peasants who realistically assess the phenomenon on the basis of their rich life experience.
It is characteristic that both in the episodes and in Obolt-Obolduev’s “confession” - his story about his “pre-reform” life, all the masters are united by impunity, permissiveness, and a view of the peasants as inalienable property that has no right to their own “I”.
“I decided
Skin you clean,"
Shalashnikov tore excellently.
Here's how other landowners are described:
He took liberties, reveled, drank bitter things.
Greedy, stingy, did not make friends with the nobles,
I only went to see my sister for tea;
Even with relatives, not only with peasants,
Mr. Polivanov was cruel;
Having married my daughter, my husband
He flogged them and drove them both away naked,
In the teeth of an exemplary slave,
Jacob the faithful
As he walked, he blew with his heel.
Pan Glukhovsky grinned: “Salvation
I haven't heard it for a long time,
In the world I honor only a woman,
Gold, honor and wine.
You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves do I destroy?
I torment, torture and hang,
I wish I could see how I’m sleeping!”
Landowner Obolt-Obolduev remembers the past with longing:
There is no contradiction in anyone,
I will have mercy on whomever I want,
I'll execute whoever I want.
Law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
The blow is sparkling,
The blow is tooth-breaking,
Hit the cheekbone!
Anticipating the changes associated with the upcoming reform, the landowner realizes: now is not the time to “tighten the reins”; it is better to be known as a kind of liberal, flirting with the people. Because he
Said: “You yourself know
Isn’t it possible without strictness?
But I punished - lovingly.
The great chain broke -
Now let's not beat the peasant,
But it’s also fatherly
We don't have mercy on him.
Yes, I was strict on time,
However, more with affection
I attracted hearts.
But the stories about how, preserving his “spiritual kinship”, on great holidays “he himself was Christed” with his entire estate, how the peasants saw him as a benefactor and brought the quitrent to his family, will not deceive the peasants, will not force them to believe in the notorious formula official nationality - their real experience of communicating with gentlemen - benefactors is too great. No matter how they take off their hats in front of “their honor,” no matter how respectfully they stand in front of him “until special permission,” the landowner Obolt-Obolduev looks like a diminutive caricature before them:
The landowner was rosy-cheeked,
Stately, planted,
Sixty years old;
The mustache is gray, long,
Well done touches,
Hungarian with Brandenburs,
Wide pants.
Gavrilo Afanasyevich,
He must have gotten scared
Seeing in front of the troika
Seven tall men.
He pulled out a pistol
Just like myself, just as plump,
And the six-barreled barrel
He brought it to the strangers.
He is somehow unreal, unnatural - maybe because his speeches are not sincere, and his liberality is ostentatious, as a tribute to the times? And the surname Obolta-Obolduev itself speaks on the one hand, a surname-nickname, and on the other hand, a transparent allusion to his Tatar origin. This Russian gentleman, at the beginning of a conversation with the peasants, wants to “bring an ideological basis” for his dominance, explaining,
What does the word most mean:
Landowner, nobleman,
talking about your family tree. He is seriously proud of the mention of his ancestors in ancient Russian documents:
that letter: “To the Tatar
Oboltu-Obolduev
Good cloth was given,
The price is two rubles;
Wolves and foxes
He amused the empress
On the royal name day
Released a wild bear
With his own, and Oboldueva
The bear tore him off.
Or in another document:
“Prince Shchepin with Vaska Gusev
(Another letter reads)
Tried to set fire to Moscow,
They thought about plundering the treasury
Yes, they were executed by death.”
Without delving into the intricacies of heraldry, the peasants understood the essence of the representatives of that ancient family:
How can you not understand! With bears
Quite a few of them are staggering,
Scoundrels, and now, -
without doubting for a moment that Obolduev standing in front of them is a worthy heir to these vagabonds and robbers:
And you're like an apple
Are you coming out of that tree?
You knocked them down with a stake, or what?
Praying in the manor's house?
This is the only thought that arose among the wanderers after the “touching” story about how the landowner in a fatherly way gathered peasants in his house for the holidays, and there was also a doubt that the peasants of Obolt-Obolduev lived well in their native patrimony, since they fled to work in foreign lands. And OboltObolduev is not complaining about the drunkenness of the peasants and the abandonment of the lands - he is more saddened by the loss of a carefree existence. He is deeply disgusted by the demand:
Enough of the lordship!
Wake up, sleepy landowner!
Get up! - study! work hard!
The landowner simply elevates his idleness and complete illiteracy in running a household into a principle:
I'm not a peasant lapotnik -
I am by God's grace
Russian nobleman!
Russia is not foreign,
Our feelings are delicate,
We are proud!
Noble classes
We don't learn how to work.
I live almost forever
In the village for forty years,
And from the rye ear
I smoked God's heavens,
Wore the royal livery,
Wasted the people's treasury
And I thought about living like this forever...
Prince Utyatin, who is popularly nicknamed “The Last One” because he is the last serf-owner, cannot come to terms with the loss of the opportunity to command the men, with the loss of unlimited, thoughtless power. The prince's heirs, ostensibly protecting their father, who suffered the first blow as a result of the reform, but in fact fearing that he would not bequeath the estate to others, bribe the peasants of the village of Vakhlaki, which previously belonged to them, so that they continue to pretend to be serfs. On the orders of the tyrant master, they scatter a stack of completely dry hay (the peasants remove the hay for themselves), stage a flogging of the rebel, and listen to long speeches from the prince, who is losing his mind. There are even two elders - a real one and a “clown”, for the benefit of the prince, who was “losing a speck” - not wealth, but his rights as a landowner-oppressor. And not only the flood meadows promised to the village, the community (by the way, never given by the heirs) make the peasants bow to the request of the heirs of Prince Utyatin, but the very consciousness that he is the Last.
And tomorrow we will follow
Kick - and the ball is over!
The end of the landowner Pan Glukhovsky is symbolic in the inserted episode - the legend “About Two Great Sinners”: when the master is killed, a huge oak tree falls - the sins of the robber chieftain Kudeyar are forgiven. In the poem we see not only specific images of the oppressors; Nekrasov blames the entire system of autocracy and serfdom for the existing order.
The earth will give birth to baby snakes,
And the support is the sins of the landowner.
Along with the satirical depiction of landowners in the poem, Nekrasov also denounces representatives of other classes that oppress the people. These are priests, indifferent to the people’s grief, to poverty, thinking only about their own profit:
Our people are all hungry and drunk,
For the wedding, for confession
They owe it for years.
One of these priests, encountered by our truth-seeking peasants, considers his personal, even minor, grievances more than the grievances and misfortunes of the long-suffering people. There are exceptions among people of clergy, such as the “gray-haired priest” who came from the peasantry, telling about the riot in the estate of the landowner Obrubkov, Frightened Province, Nedykhanev district, the village of Stolbnyaki, about the imprisonment of the people’s elector Ermila Girin in prison. He does not think about his peace and wealth - on the contrary, in his life, obviously, due to unreliability, there are many changes at the behest of his superiors:
I've traveled a lot in my life,
Our Eminence
Translate priests
We see episodic images of bribe-taking officials who recruited Philip Korchagin out of turn, considered Matryona Timofeevna crazy, who, in her deep grief over the death of the baby Demushka, came to them without a bribe. Through the mouth of Yakim Nagoy, the poet denounces officials, naming them among those terrible shareholders of peasant labor:
And there is also a destroyer
The fourth is more evil than the Tatar,
So he won’t share
He'll gobble it all up alone!
The figure of the “sovereign sent” to pacify the rebellion appears before us, who “either tries with affection,” or “raises his epaulettes high,” and is ready to command: “Fire.” All of them are responsible for the fact that it is so difficult not only to find a lucky person among a long-suffering people, but also not
Unflogged province,
Uneviscerated parish,
Izbytkova sat down.
The accusatory power of the lines of N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is aimed at forming beliefs about the inevitability of revolutionary transformations and speaks of the highest rise of the liberation struggle of the 60-70s of the 19th century.
Option 2.
The pinnacle of creativity N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” All his life Nekrasov nurtured the idea of a work that would become a people's book, that is, a book “useful, understandable to the people and truthful,” reflecting the most important aspects of his life.
Nekrasov gave the poem long years life, putting into it all the information about the Russian people, accumulated, as the poet said, “by word” for twenty years. Severe illness and death interrupted Nekrasov’s work, but what he managed to create puts the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” on a par with the most remarkable creations of Russian literature.
With all the variety of types depicted in the poem, its main character is the people. “The people have been liberated. But are the people happy? - this main question, which worried the poet all his life, stood before him when creating the poem.
Truthfully depicting the painful situation of the people in post-reform Russia, Nekrasov posed and resolved the most important questions of his time: who is to blame for the people’s grief, what should be done to make the people free and happy? The reform of 1861 did not improve the situation of the people, and it is not without reason that the peasants say about it:
You are good, royal letter,
Yes, you are not writing about us...
Some round gentleman;
Mustachioed, pot-bellied,
With a cigar in his mouth...
The diminutive suffixes traditional in folk poetry here enhance the ironic sound of the story and emphasize the insignificance of the “round” little man. He speaks with pride about the antiquity of his family. The landowner recalls the old blessed times, when “not only Russian people, but Russian nature itself submitted to us.” Remembering his life under serfdom - “like Christ in his bosom,” he proudly says:
It used to be that you were surrounded
Alone, like the sun in the sky,
Your villages are modest,
Your forests are dense,
Your fields are all around!
Residents of the “modest villages” fed and watered the master, provided with their labor his wild life, “holidays, not a day, not two - for a month,” and he, with unlimited power, established his own laws:
I will have mercy on whomever I want,
I'll execute whoever I want.
The landowner Obolt-Obolduvv recalls his heavenly life: luxurious feasts, fat turkeys, juicy liqueurs, his own actors and “a whole regiment of servants.” According to the landowner, peasants from everywhere brought them “voluntary gifts.” Now everything has fallen into decay - “the noble class seemed to have all gone into hiding and died out!” Manor houses are being torn down into bricks, gardens are being cut down, timber is being stolen:
Fields are unfinished,
Crops are not sown,
There is no trace of order!
The peasants greet Obolt-Obolduev’s boastful story about the antiquity of his family with outright ridicule. He himself is good for nothing. Nekrasov’s irony resonates with particular force when he forces Obolt-Obolduev to admit his complete inability to work:
I smoked God's heavens,
He wore royal livery.
Wasted the people's treasury
And I thought about living like this forever...
The peasants sympathize with the landowner and think to themselves:
The great chain has broken,
It tore and splintered:
One end for the master,
Others don't care!..
The weak-minded “last child” Prince Utyatin evokes contempt. The very title of the chapter “Last One” has a deep meaning. It's about not only about Prince Utyatin, but also about the last landowner-serf. Before us is a slave owner who has lost his mind, and there is little humanity left even in his appearance:
Nose beak like a hawk's
Mustache is gray and long
And different eyes:
One healthy one glows,
And the left one is cloudy, cloudy,
Like a tin penny!
Mayor Vlas talks about the landowner Utyatin. He says that their landowner is “special” - “he’s been weird and foolish all his life, and suddenly a thunderstorm struck.” When he learned about the abolition of serfdom, at first he did not believe it, and then he became ill from grief - the left half of his body was paralyzed. The heirs, fearing that he would deprive them of their inheritance, begin to indulge him in everything. When the old man felt better, he was told that the men were ordered to be returned to the landowner.
The old man was delighted and ordered a prayer service to be served and the bells to be rung. Since then, the peasants begin to put on a comedy: pretend that serfdom not cancelled. The old order has returned to the estate: the prince gives stupid orders, gives orders, gives the order to marry a widow of seventy years old to her neighbor Gavril, who has just turned six years old. The peasants laugh at the prince behind his back. Only one man, Agap Petrov, did not want to obey the old order, and when his landowner caught him stealing timber, he told Utyatin everything directly, calling him a fool.
A contemporary of Pushkin, Gogol created his works in the historical conditions that developed in Russia after the failure of the first revolutionary speech - the Decembrist speech in 1825. The new socio-political situation posed new tasks for figures of Russian social thought and literature, which were deeply reflected in Gogol’s work . Having turned to the most important social problems of his time, the writer went further along the path of realism, which was opened by Pushkin and Griboedov. Developing the principles of critical
Realism. Gogol became one of the greatest representatives of this trend in Russian literature. As Belinsky notes, “Gogol was the first to look boldly and directly at Russian reality.” One of the main themes in Gogol’s work is the theme of the Russian landowner class, the Russian nobility as the ruling class, its fate and role in public life. It is characteristic that Gogol’s main way of depicting landowners is satire. The images of landowners reflect the process of gradual degradation of the landowner class, revealing all its vices and shortcomings. Gogol's satire is tinged with irony and “hits right in the forehead.” Irony helped the writer speak directly about things that were impossible to talk about under censorship conditions. Gogol's laughter seems good-natured, but he spares no one, every phrase has a deep, hidden meaning, subtext. Irony is a characteristic element of Gogol's satire. It is present not only in the author’s speech, but also in the speech of the characters. Irony is one of the essential signs of Gogol’s poetics; it gives the narrative greater realism, becoming artistic medium critical analysis of reality. In Gogol’s largest work, the poem “Dead Souls,” the images of landowners are presented most fully and multifacetedly. The poem is structured as the story of the adventures of Chichikov, an official who buys “ dead Souls" The composition of the poem allowed the author to talk about different landowners and their villages. Almost half of volume 1 of the poem (five chapters out of eleven) is devoted to the characteristics of various types of Russian landowners. Gogol creates five characters, five portraits that are so different from each other, and at the same time, in each of them the typical features of a Russian landowner appear. Our acquaintance begins with Manilov and ends with Plyushkin. This sequence has its own logic: from one landowner to another the process of impoverishment deepens human personality, is unfolding more and more scary picture disintegration of serf society. Manilov opens the portrait gallery of landowners (Chapter 1). His character is already evident in his surname. The description begins with a picture of the village of Manilovka, which “not many could lure with its location.” With irony, the author describes the master's courtyard, with a claim to an “English garden with an overgrown pond,” sparse bushes and with the pale inscription “Temple of Solitary Reflection.” Speaking about Manilov, the author exclaims: “God alone could say what Manilov’s character was.” He is kind by nature, polite, courteous, but all this took on ugly forms in him. Manilov is beautiful-hearted and sentimental to the point of cloying. Relations between people seem to him idyllic and festive. Manilov did not know life at all; reality was replaced by empty fantasy. He loved to think and dream, sometimes even about things useful to the peasants. But his projecting was far from the demands of life. He did not know and never thought about the real needs of the peasants. Manilov considers himself a bearer of spiritual culture. Once in the army he was considered the most educated man. The author speaks ironically about the situation in Manilov’s house, in which “something was always missing,” and about his sugary relationship with his wife. When talking about dead souls, Manilov is compared to an overly smart minister. Here Gogol's irony, as if accidentally intrudes into a forbidden area. Comparing Manilov with the minister means that the latter is not so different from this landowner, and “Manilovism” is a typical phenomenon of this vulgar world. The third chapter of the poem is devoted to the image of Korobochka, which Gogol classifies as one of those “small landowners who complain about crop failures, losses and keep their heads somewhat to one side, and meanwhile little by little collect money in colorful bags placed in dresser drawers!” This money comes from selling a wide variety of products. subsistence farming. Korobochka realized the benefits of trade and, after much persuasion, agrees to sell such an unusual product as dead souls. The author is ironic in his description of the dialogue between Chichikov and Korobochka. The “club-headed” landowner for a long time cannot understand what they want from her, infuriates Chichikov, and then bargains for a long time, fearing “just not to make a mistake.” Korobochka’s horizons and interests do not extend beyond the boundaries of her estate. The household and its entire way of life are patriarchal in nature. Gogol depicts a completely different form of decomposition of the noble class in the image of Nozdryov (Chapter IV). This typical person “Jack of all trades.” There was something open, direct, and daring in his face. He is characterized by a peculiar “breadth of nature.” As the author ironically notes: “Nozdryov was in some respects a historical person.” Not a single meeting he attended was complete without stories! Nozdryov, with a light heart, loses a lot of money at cards, beats a simpleton at a fair and immediately “squanders” all the money. Nozdryov is a master of “pouring bullets”, he is a reckless braggart and an utter liar. Nozdryov behaves defiantly, even aggressively, everywhere. The hero’s speech is full of swear words, while he has a passion for “fouling his neighbor.” In the image of Nozdrev, Gogol created a new socio-psychological type of “Nozdrevism” in Russian literature. In the image of Sobakevich, the author’s satire takes on a more accusatory character (Chapter V of the poem). He bears little resemblance to previous landowners - he is a “kulak landowner,” a cunning, tight-fisted huckster. He is alien to the dreamy complacency of Manilov, the violent extravagance of Nozdryov, and the hoarding of Korobochka. He is laconic, has an iron grip, has his own mind, and there are few people who could deceive him. Everything about him is solid and strong. Gogol finds a reflection of a person’s character in all the surrounding things of his life. Everything in Sobakevich’s house was surprisingly reminiscent of himself. Each thing seemed to say: “And I, too, are Sobakevich.” Gogol draws a figure that is striking in its rudeness. To Chichikov he seemed very similar “to a medium-sized bear.” Sobakevich is a cynic who is not ashamed of moral ugliness either in himself or in others. This is a man far from enlightenment, a die-hard serf owner who cares about the peasants only as labor force. It is characteristic that, apart from Sobakevich, no one understood the essence of the “scoundrel” Chichikov, but he perfectly understood the essence of the proposal, which reflects the spirit of the times: everything is subject to purchase and sale, benefit should be derived from everything. Chapter VI of the poem is dedicated to Plyushkin, whose name has become a common noun to designate stinginess and moral degradation. This image becomes the last step in the degeneration of the landowner class. Gogol begins to introduce the reader to the character; as usual, with a description of the village and the landowner's estate. “Some kind of special disrepair” was noticeable on all the buildings. The writer paints a picture of the complete ruin of the once god - that landowner's economy. The reason for this is not the extravagance or idleness of the landowner, but morbid stinginess. This is an evil satire on the landowner, who has become “a hole in humanity.” The owner himself is a sexless creature, reminiscent of a housekeeper. This hero does not cause laughter, but only bitter disappointment. So, the five characters created by Gogol in “Dead Souls” diversely depict the state of the noble-serf class. Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin - all these are different forms of one phenomenon - the economic, social, spiritual decline of the class of feudal landowners.
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Essay on literature on the topic: Satirical depiction of landowners
Other writings:
- A contemporary of Pushkin, Gogol created his works in the historical conditions that developed in Russia after the failure of the first revolutionary speech - the Decembrist speech in 1825. The new socio-political situation posed new tasks for the figures of Russian social thought and literature, which found Read More ... ...
- He who has not become a man first of all is a bad citizen. V. G. Belinsky In his poem, Gogol mercilessly castigates officials with the light of satire. They are like a collection of strange and unpleasant insects collected by the author. Not a very attractive image, but are the officials themselves pleasant? If Read More......
- N. A. Nekrasov conceived “Who Lives Well in Rus'” as a “people's book.” He wanted to include in it all the information about people’s life, accumulated “by word of mouth” over the course of twenty years. The poet dreamed that his book would reach the peasantry and be Read More......
- In N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we see a whole gallery of images of landowners, whom the author looks at through the eyes of peasants. The poet creates these characters without any idealization and at the same time with a certain amount of sympathy. Satirically and angrily tells Read More......
- “Dead Souls” is one of the brightest works of Russian and world literature. Belinsky called Gogol’s poem “a creation snatched from the hiding place of people’s life, mercilessly pulling back the veil from reality.” The idea for “Dead Souls,” like “The Inspector General,” was suggested by Pushkin. “Dead Souls” is the pinnacle of artistic Read More ......
- Gogol is a great realist writer, whose work has become firmly entrenched in Russian literature. classic literature. His originality lies in the fact that he was one of the first to give a broad picture of the district landowner-bureaucratic Russia. In his poem “Dead Souls,” Gogol extremely exposes the contradictions of contemporary Russian Read More ......
- Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” is one of the brilliant works of Russian literature of the nineteenth century. This work was created under the conditions of the new political situation in the country, which are reflected here. In it, Gogol wanted to show all of Russia, with all its Read More......
- “Dead Souls” is a novel called a poem. A permanent resident of all anthologies on Russian literature. A work of classics that is as topical and relevant today as it was a century and a half ago. “Try to remember in detail the plot and ending of Dubrovsky,” one of the researchers noted. – Read More......
A satirical depiction of landowners in N. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”
A contemporary of Pushkin, Gogol created his works in the historical conditions that developed in Russia after the failure of the first revolutionary uprising of the Decembrists in 1825.
The new socio-political situation posed new tasks for figures in Russian social thought and literature, which were deeply reflected in Gogol’s work. Having turned to the most important social problems of his time, the writer went further along the path of realism, which was opened by Pushkin and Griboedov. Developing the principles of critical realism. Gogol became one of the greatest representatives of this trend in Russian literature.
As Belinsky notes, “Gogol was the first to look boldly and directly at Russian reality.” One of the main themes in Gogol’s work is the theme of the Russian landowner class, the Russian nobility as the ruling class, its fate and role in public life. It is characteristic that Gogol’s main way of depicting landowners is satire. The images of landowners reflect the process of gradual degradation of the landowner class, revealing all its vices and shortcomings. Gogol's satire is tinged with irony and “hits right in the forehead.” Irony helped the writer speak directly about things that were impossible to talk about under censorship conditions. Gogol's laughter seems good-natured, but he spares no one, every phrase has a deep, hidden meaning, subtext. Irony is a characteristic element of Gogol's satire. It is present not only in the author’s speech, but also in the speech of the characters. Irony is one of the essential signs of Gogol's poetics; it gives the narrative greater realism, becoming an artistic means of critical analysis of reality.
In Gogol’s largest work, the poem “Dead Souls,” the images of landowners are presented most fully and multifacetedly. The poem is structured as the story of the adventures of Chichikov, an official who buys “dead souls.” The composition of the poem allowed the author to talk about different landowners and their villages. Almost half of volume 1 of the poem (five chapters out of eleven) is devoted to the characteristics of various types of Russian landowners. Gogol creates five characters, five portraits that are so different from each other, and at the same time, in each of them the typical features of a Russian landowner appear.
Our acquaintance begins with Manilov and ends with Plyushkin. This sequence has its own logic: from one landowner to another, the process of impoverishment of the human personality deepens, an ever more terrible picture of the decomposition of serf society unfolds. Manilov opens the portrait gallery of landowners (Chapter 1). His character is already evident in his surname. The description begins with a picture of the village of Manilovka, which “not many could lure with its location.” The author ironically describes the manor's courtyard, with the pretense of an "English garden with an overgrown pond", sparse bushes and with the pale inscription "Temple of Solitary Reflection." Speaking about Manilov, the author exclaims: “God alone could say what Manilov’s character was.” He is kind by nature, polite, courteous, but all this took on ugly forms in him. Manilov is beautiful-hearted and sentimental to the point of cloying. Relations between people seem to him idyllic and festive. Manilov did not know life at all; reality was replaced by empty fantasy. He loved to think and dream, sometimes even about things useful to the peasants. But his projecting was far from the demands of life. He did not know and never thought about the real needs of the peasants. Manilov considers himself a bearer of spiritual culture. Once in the army he was considered the most educated man. The author speaks ironically about the atmosphere of Manilov’s house, in which “something was always missing,” and about his sugary relationship with his wife. When talking about dead souls, Manilov is compared to an overly smart minister. Here Gogol's irony, as if accidentally intrudes into a forbidden area. Comparing Manilov with the minister means that the latter is not so different from this landowner, and “Manilovism” is a typical phenomenon of this vulgar world.
The third chapter of the poem is devoted to the image of Korobochka, which Gogol classifies as one of those “small landowners who complain about crop failures, losses and keep their heads somewhat to one side, and meanwhile little by little collect money in colorful bags placed in dresser drawers!” This money comes from the sale of a wide variety of subsistence products. Korobochka realized the benefits of trade and, after much persuasion, agrees to sell such an unusual product as dead souls. The author is ironic in his description of the dialogue between Chichikov and Korobochka. The “club-headed” landowner cannot understand for a long time what they want from her, she infuriates Chichikov, and then bargains for a long time, fearing “just not to make a mistake.” Korobochka's horizons and interests do not extend beyond the boundaries of her estate. The household and its entire way of life are patriarchal in nature.
Gogol depicts a completely different form of decomposition of the noble class in the image of Nozdryov (Chapter IV). This is a typical "jack of all trades" person. There was something open, direct, and daring in his face. He is characterized by a peculiar “breadth of nature.” As the author ironically notes: “Nozdryov was in some respects a historical person.” Not a single meeting he attended was complete without stories! Nozdryov, with a light heart, loses a lot of money at cards, beats a simpleton at a fair and immediately “squanders” all the money. Nozdryov is a master of “pouring bullets”, he is a reckless braggart and an utter liar. Nozdryov behaves defiantly, even aggressively, everywhere. The hero’s speech is full of swear words, while he has a passion for “messing up his neighbor.” In the image of Nozdrev, Gogol created a new socio-psychological type of “Nozdrevism” in Russian literature. In the image of Sobakevich, the author’s satire takes on a more accusatory character (Chapter V of the poem). He bears little resemblance to the previous landowners; he is a “kulak landowner,” a cunning, tight-fisted huckster. He is alien to the dreamy complacency of Manilov, the violent extravagance of Nozdryov, and the hoarding of Korobochka. He is laconic, has an iron grip, has his own mind, and there are few people who could deceive him. Everything about him is solid and strong. Gogol finds a reflection of a person’s character in all the surrounding things of his life.
Everything in Sobakevich’s house was surprisingly reminiscent of himself. Each thing seemed to say: “And I, too, are Sobakevich.” Gogol draws a figure that is striking in its rudeness. To Chichikov he seemed very similar “to a medium-sized bear.” Sobakevich is a cynic who is not ashamed of moral ugliness either in himself or in others. This is a man far from enlightenment, a die-hard serf owner who cares about the peasants only as labor force. It is characteristic that except for Sobakevich, no one understood the essence of the “scoundrel” Chichikov, but he perfectly understood the essence of the proposal, which reflects the spirit of the times: everything is subject to purchase and sale, profit should be derived from everything.
Chapter VI of the poem is dedicated to Plyushkin, whose name has become a household name to denote stinginess and moral degradation. This image becomes the last step in the degeneration of the landowner class. Gogol begins to introduce the reader to the character; as usual, with a description of the village and the landowner's estate. “Some kind of special disrepair” was noticeable on all the buildings. The writer paints a picture of the complete ruin of the once godly landowner’s economy. The reason for this is not the extravagance or idleness of the landowner, but morbid stinginess. This is a vicious satire on the landowner who has become “a hole in humanity.” The owner himself is a sexless creature, reminiscent of a housekeeper. This hero does not cause laughter, but only bitter disappointment.
So, the five characters created by Gogol in “Dead Souls” diversely depict the state of the noble-serf class. Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin are all different forms of one phenomenon: the economic, social, spiritual decline of the class of feudal landowners.
The pinnacle of creativity N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” All his life Nekrasov nurtured the idea of a work that would become a people's book, that is, a book “useful, understandable to the people and truthful,” reflecting the most important aspects of his life. Nekrasov devoted many years of his life to the poem, putting into it all the information about the Russian people, accumulated, as the poet said, “by word of mouth” for twenty years. Severe illness and death interrupted Nekrasov’s work, but what he managed to create puts the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” on a par with the most remarkable creations of Russian literature.
With all the variety of types depicted in the poem, its main character is the people. “The people have been liberated. But are the people happy? - this main question, which worried the poet all his life, stood before him when creating the poem. Truthfully depicting the painful situation of the people in post-reform Russia, Nekrasov posed and resolved the most important questions of his time: who is to blame for the people’s grief, what should be done to make the people free and happy? The reform of 1861 did not improve the situation of the people, and it is not without reason that the peasants say about it:
You are good, royal letter,
Yes, you are not writing about us...
Some round gentleman;
Mustachioed, pot-bellied,
With a cigar in his mouth...
The diminutive suffixes traditional in folk poetry here enhance the ironic sound of the story and emphasize the insignificance of the “round” little man. He speaks with pride about the antiquity of his family. The landowner recalls the old blessed times, when “not only Russian people, but Russian nature itself submitted to us.” Remembering his life under serfdom - “like Christ in his bosom,” he proudly says:
It used to be that you were surrounded
Alone, like the sun in the sky,
Your villages are modest,
Your forests are dense,
Your fields are all around!
Residents of the “modest villages” fed and watered the master, provided with their labor his wild life, “holidays, not a day, not two - for a month,” and he, with unlimited power, established his own laws:
I will have mercy on whomever I want,
I'll execute whoever I want.
The landowner Obolt-Obolduvv recalls his heavenly life: luxurious feasts, fat turkeys, juicy liqueurs, his own actors and “a whole regiment of servants.” According to the landowner, peasants from everywhere brought them “voluntary gifts.” Now everything has fallen into decay - “the noble class seemed to have all gone into hiding and died out!” Manor houses are being torn down into bricks, gardens are being cut down, timber is being stolen:
Fields are unfinished,
Crops are not sown,
There is no trace of order!
The peasants greet Obolt-Obolduev’s boastful story about the antiquity of his family with outright ridicule. He himself is good for nothing. Nekrasov’s irony resonates with particular force when he forces Obolt-Obolduev to admit his complete inability to work:
I smoked God's heavens,
He wore royal livery.
Wasted the people's treasury
And I thought about living like this forever...
The peasants sympathize with the landowner and think to themselves:
The great chain has broken,
It tore and splintered:
One end for the master,
Others don't care!..
The weak-minded “last child” Prince Utyatin evokes contempt. The very title of the chapter “Last One” has a deep meaning. We are talking not only about Prince Utyatin, but also the last landowner-serf. Before us is a slave owner who has lost his mind, and there is little humanity left even in his appearance:
Nose beak like a hawk's
Mustache is gray and long
And different eyes:
One healthy one glows,
And the left one is cloudy, cloudy,
Like a tin penny!
Mayor Vlas talks about the landowner Utyatin. He says that their landowner is “special” - “he’s been weird and foolish all his life, and suddenly a thunderstorm struck.” When he learned about the abolition of serfdom, at first he did not believe it, and then he became ill from grief - the left half of his body was paralyzed. The heirs, fearing that he would deprive them of their inheritance, begin to indulge him in everything. When the old man felt better, he was told that the men were ordered to be returned to the landowner. The old man was delighted and ordered a prayer service to be served and the bells to be rung. Since then, the peasants have begun to play tricks: pretend that serfdom has not been abolished. The old order has returned to the estate: the prince gives stupid orders, gives orders, gives the order to marry a widow of seventy years old to her neighbor Gavril, who has just turned six years old. The peasants laugh at the prince behind his back. Only one man, Agap Petrov, did not want to obey the old order, and when his landowner caught him stealing timber, he told Utyatin everything directly, calling him a fool. Ducky got the second blow. The old master can no longer walk - he sits in a chair on the porch. But he still shows his noble arrogance. After a hearty meal, Utyatin dies. The last one is not only scary, but also funny. After all, he has already been deprived of his former power over peasant souls. The peasants only agreed to “play serfs” until the “last child” dies. The inflexible man Agap Petrov was right when he revealed the truth to Prince Utyatin:
...You are the last one! By grace
Our peasant stupidity
Today you are in charge
And tomorrow we will follow
Kick - and the ball is over!
The pinnacle of the work of the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov becomes the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” in which the author, with vivid imagery and authenticity, wanted to show and showed the relationship between the ruling class and the peasantry in the 20-70s of the 19th century.
Note that the first candidate for the happy one is precisely one of the main characters of the poem - the landowner. Representatives of the peasantry, who are always in his service, still, after the abolition of serfdom, consider his life free and happy.
But Nekrasov does not stop there. He expands the plot framework, fully reveals his idea and gives further development the image of the landowner in the fifth chapter, which is called “The Landowner”. In this chapter, we are introduced to a certain representative of the landowner class, Obolt-Obolduev (let us pay attention to the surname, which in some way helps Nekrasov to show even more clearly his mockery of the depicted class), whose description is first given by the peasants:
Some round gentleman
pot-bellied,
with a cigar in his mouth.
There is mockery and irony in these words. The once important, sedate gentleman turns into a target for bullying and ridicule. The same intonation continues to sound in the subsequent description of the landowner, already through the mouth of the author himself: “ruddy, dignified, planted,” “well done.” This is the kind of landowner who got a C grade.
The hero appears to us as a “clown”, at whom even former serfs laugh. And he pretends to be an important gentleman and speaks with bitterness and resentment about the old days:
We lived
Like Christ in his bosom,
And we knew honor.
He speaks of the nobility and antiquity of his family, boasts of this, and he himself is the subject of ridicule both by the peasants and the author. Light laughter in some moments is accompanied by open sarcasm:
Law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
Sparkling blow,
The blow is tooth-breaking,
Hit the cheekbone!
But I punished - lovingly!
The landowner considers himself to have the right to offend and humiliate the peasants, because they are his property. But that time has passed, and the bells are already ringing for the life of the landowners. Rus' is not his mother, but his stepmother now. And now it’s time to work, but the landowner doesn’t know how to do it. All his life he lived without grieving, “smoking God’s heaven.” But now everything has changed, and I really don’t want to come to terms with these orders, but I have to:
The great chain has broken!
Broke through - split:
One end for the master,
Others don't care!..
These words can be attributed to a greater extent to the landowner from the chapter “The Last One”: “Our landowner: Duck Prince!”
The title of the chapter “The Last One” is symbolic. Her hero is somewhat hyperbolic and, at the same time, allegorical: the landowner does not want to part with the old order, with the old power, so he lives with the remnants of the past.
Unlike Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin could not come to terms with the abolition of serfdom:
Our landowner is special,
Exorbitant wealth
An important rank, a noble family,
I've been acting weird and fooling all my life
Yes, suddenly a thunderstorm struck.
Prince Utyatin was paralyzed with grief after the terrible news - then his “heirs” came to him. The hero vomits and rants, does not want to admit the obvious. The “heirs” were afraid that their inheritance would be lost, but they persuaded the peasants to pretend that Prince Utyatin was still their master. Absurd and funny:
Believe me: it’s easier than anything
The child has become an old lady!
I started crying! Before the icons
He prays with the whole family.
How strong is the desire of the landowner to control the peasants, to make their lives more miserable! After all, when the prince woke up from a terrible “dream”, he began to treat the peasant even more than before, and again took up his own work: judging and punishing the people. And the peasant does not have the will and strength to resist this. From time immemorial this has been inherent in the Russian people - reverence for their master and service to him.
The "heirs" of the former serfs were cleverly deceived. After all, after the death of the prince, they began to sue the peasants to prove that this land belonged to them. The writer deduces the bitter truth from the description of this landowner and his last days life: even though the landowners have ceased to be serf owners, they still have their power over the peasants. The Russian people have not yet truly liberated themselves. Yes, Prince Utyatin died, and who knows how many more such “lasts” there are throughout Mother Rus'.
Let us note that it was no coincidence that Nekrasov showed all the landowners: the first has come to terms with the inevitable, but decides to continue living for someone else’s labor; the second almost died after learning about the reform; and the third type of landowner is the master who constantly mocks the peasant, serf or not. And there are still many of them left in Rus'. But, nevertheless, Nekrasov writes that the autocratic system is coming to an end, and the landowners will no longer be able to say with greatness:
By the grace of God I
And with the ancient royal charter,
Both by birth and merit
Master over you!..
The time of master and slave has passed, and although the peasants have not yet completely freed themselves from the oppression of the landowners, the Obolt-Obolduevs, Utyatins and Shalashnikovs are already living out their days. The “last-born” will soon completely leave the Russian land, and the people will breathe freely. Symbolic in this regard is the picture of an empty manor house being torn apart brick by brick by servants (chapter “Peasant Woman”).
With his poem, I think, Nekrasov wanted to show that the time of landowner Rus' has passed. Depicting satirical images of landowners, the author boldly and fearlessly asserts: happiness of the people is possible without landowners, but only after the people themselves free themselves and become masters of their own lives.