The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin had a great impact on the further development of Russian literature and especially the genre of satire. N
Saltykov-Shchedrin was a successor to the satirical traditions of Fonvizin, Griboedov, and Gogol. Shchedrin's gubernatorial activities allowed him to better discern the “evils of Russian reality” and made him think about the fate of Russia. He created a kind of satirical encyclopedia of Russian life. The tales summed up the writer’s 40-year work and were created over four years: from 1882 to 1886.
A number of reasons prompted Saltykov-Shchedrin to turn to fairy tales. The difficult political situation in Russia: moral terror, the defeat of populism, police persecution of the intelligentsia - did not allow us to identify all the social contradictions of society and directly criticize the existing order. On the other hand, the fairy tale genre was close to the character of the satirical writer. Fantasy, hyperbole, irony, common in fairy tales, are very characteristic of Shchedrin’s poetics. In addition, the fairy tale genre is very democratic, accessible and understandable wide circles readers, people. The fairy tale is characterized by didacticism, and this directly corresponded to the journalistic pathos and civic aspirations of the satirist.
Saltykov-Shchedrin willingly used traditional techniques folk art. His fairy tales often begin like folk tales, with the words “once upon a time there lived,” “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state.” Proverbs and sayings are often found. “The horse runs - the earth trembles”, “Two deaths cannot happen, but one cannot be avoided.” The traditional method of repetition makes Shchedrin’s fairy tales very similar to folk tales. The author deliberately emphasizes one particular trait in each character, which is also characteristic of folklore.
But nevertheless, Saltykov-Shchedrin did not copy the structure folk tale, but brought something new into it. First of all, this is the appearance of the author’s image. Behind the mask of a naive joker is hidden the sarcastic grin of a merciless satirist. The image of a man is drawn completely differently than in a folk tale. In folklore, a man has intelligence, dexterity, and invariably defeats the master. In the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the attitude towards the peasant is ambiguous. Often it is he who remains the fool, despite his cleverness, as in the fairy tale “How one man fed two generals.” The guy showed himself to be a great guy: he can do everything, he can even cook a handful of soup. And at the same time, he obediently carries out the order of the generals: he makes a rope for himself so that he does not run away!
The writer essentially created new genre - political fairy tale*. The life of Russian society second half of the 19th century century has been imprinted in a rich gallery of characters. Shchedrin showed the entire social anatomy, touched upon all the main classes and strata of society: the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia.
Thus, in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship,” the rudeness and ignorance of the highest authorities and hostile attitude towards education are immediately striking. Another Toptygin, arriving in the voivodeship, wants to find some institute to “burn it down.” The writer makes the Donkey, the embodiment of stupidity and stubbornness, the main sage and adviser to Leo. Therefore, violence and chaos reign in the forest.
Using hyperbole, Shchedrin makes the images unusually vivid and memorable. Wild landowner, who had always dreamed of getting rid of the obnoxious men and their servile spirit, was finally left alone. And... he went wild: “He... was all overgrown with hair..., and his claws became like iron.” And it becomes clear: everything rests on the work of the people.
In satire, reality as a kind of imperfection is contrasted with the ideal as the highest reality. F. Schiller Saltykov-Shchedrin is an original writer of Russian literature, occupying a position in it special place. He was and remains the greatest master social...
All writers, through their works, try to convey to us, the readers, their own innermost thoughts. A real writer, due to his talent and characteristics inner world, the events happening around him always feels more acutely and experiences more deeply...
The talent of the greatest Russian satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin was revealed in all its brilliance in his fairy tales. This genre allows you to hide true meaning works from censorship. In fairy tales, Shchedrin reveals the theme of exploitation of the people, gives devastating criticism to the nobles,...
The theme of autocracy, like the theme of property, was constantly in the focus of attention of Shchedrin the writer. And if serving the ghost of property found its expression in the novel “The Golovlevs,” especially in the image of Judas, then serving the ghost of the state...
Saltykov-Shchedrin was a successor to the satirical traditions of Fonvizin, Griboedov, and Gogol. Shchedrin's gubernatorial activities allowed him to better discern the “evils of Russian reality” and made him think about the fate of Russia. He created a kind of satirical encyclopedia of Russian life. The tales summed up the writer’s 40-year work and were created over four years: from 1882 to 1886.
A number of reasons prompted Saltykov-Shchedrin to turn to fairy tales. The difficult political situation in Russia: moral terror, the defeat of populism, police persecution of the intelligentsia - did not allow us to identify all the social contradictions of society and directly criticize the existing order. On the other hand, the fairy tale genre was close to the character of the satirical writer. Fantasy, hyperbole, irony, common in fairy tales, are very characteristic of Shchedrin’s poetics. In addition, the fairy tale genre is very democratic, accessible and understandable to a wide range of readers and people. The fairy tale is characterized by didacticism, and this directly corresponded to the journalistic pathos and civic aspirations of the satirist.
Saltykov-Shchedrin willingly used traditional techniques of folk art. His fairy tales often begin like folk tales, with the words “once upon a time there lived,” “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state.” Proverbs and sayings are often found. “The horse runs - the earth trembles”, “Two deaths cannot happen, but one cannot be avoided.” The traditional method of repetition makes Shchedrin’s fairy tales very similar to folk tales. The author deliberately emphasizes one particular trait in each character, which is also characteristic of folklore.
But nevertheless, Saltykov-Shchedrin did not copy the structure of a folk tale, but introduced something new into it. First of all, this is the appearance of the author’s image. Behind the mask of a naive joker is hidden the sarcastic grin of a merciless satirist. The image of a man is drawn completely differently than in a folk tale. In folklore, a man has intelligence, dexterity, and invariably defeats the master. In the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the attitude towards the peasant is ambiguous. Often it is he who remains the fool, despite his cleverness, as in the fairy tale “How one man fed two generals.” The guy showed himself to be a great guy: he can do everything, he can even cook a handful of soup. And at the same time, he obediently carries out the order of the generals: he makes a rope for himself so that he does not run away!
The writer essentially created a new genre - a political fairy tale*. The life of Russian society in the second half of the 19th century is captured in a rich gallery of characters. Shchedrin showed the entire social anatomy, touched upon all the main classes and strata of society: the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia.
Thus, in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship,” the rudeness and ignorance of the highest authorities and hostile attitude towards education are immediately striking. Another Toptygin, arriving in the voivodeship, wants to find some institute to “burn it down.” The writer makes the Donkey, the embodiment of stupidity and stubbornness, the main sage and adviser to Leo. Therefore, violence and chaos reign in the forest.
Using hyperbole, Shchedrin makes the images unusually vivid and memorable. The wild landowner, who had always dreamed of getting rid of the obnoxious men and their servile spirit, was finally left alone. And... he went wild: “He... was all overgrown with hair..., and his claws became like iron.” And it becomes clear: everything rests on the work of the people.
In “The Wise Minnow,” Shchedrin paints an image of the intelligentsia that succumbed to panic and abandoned active struggle into the world of personal concerns and interests. The common gudgeon, fearing for his life, walled himself up in a dark hole. Outwitted everyone! And the result of his life can be expressed in the words: “He lived and trembled, he died and trembled.”
In the gallery of images of Saltykov-Shchedrin there is an intellectual dreamer (“Crucian the idealist”), and an autocrat playing the role of a philanthropist (“Eagle the Patron”), and worthless generals, and a submissive “selfless hare” hoping for the mercy of “predators” ( here is another side of slave psychology!), and many others, reflecting historical era, with its social evil and democratic ideas.
In fairy tales, Shchedrin proved himself to be a brilliant artist. He showed himself to be a master of Aesopian language, with the help of which he was able to convey to the reader a sharp political thought and convey social generalizations in allegorical form.
Thus, starting from the fantasy of a folk tale, Shchedrin organically combines with a realistic depiction of reality. Extreme exaggeration in the description of characters and situations allows the satirist to focus attention on the dangerous aspects of the life of Russian society.
The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin had a great impact on further development Russian literature and especially the genre of satire.
Many writers and poets have used the fairy tale as a genre in their work. With its help, the author identified one or another vice of humanity or society. The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are sharply individual and not similar to the fairy tales of other authors. Satire in the form of a fairy tale was Saltykov-Shchedrin’s weapon as a writer and citizen.
At that time, due to strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show all the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of considerable age“Saltykov-Shchedrin was able to convey to people his sharp criticism of the existing order. Censorship missed the tales of the great satirist, failing to understand their purpose, revealing power, challenge the existing order. When writing fairy tales, the author used grotesque, hyperbole, and antithesis. Important also had an Aesopian language. Trying to hide the true meaning of what was written from censorship, one had to use this technique. The writer loved to come up with neologisms that characterized his characters (for example, words such as “pompadours and pompadours”, “foam dispenser” and others). Let us consider the features of the writer’s fairy tale genre using the example of several of his works. In “The Wild Landowner” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman who finds himself without servants can sink. This tale uses hyperbole. At first cultured person, the landowner turns into a wild animal feeding on fly agarics. Here we see how helpless a rich man becomes without a simple man, how unfit and worthless he is. With this tale, the author wanted to show that an ordinary Russian person is a serious force.
A similar idea is put forward in the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals.” But here the peasant’s resignation, his humility, and unquestioning submission to the two generals are emphasized. Oh he even ties himself with a rope, which once again indicates his downtroddenness and enslavement. This tale uses both hyperbole and grotesque. Saltykov-Shchedrin prompts the reader to think that it is time for the peasant to wake up, think about his situation, and stop submissively obeying the master. In “The Wise Minnow” the hero is an everyman, afraid of everything in the world. “ The wise minnow” he constantly sits locked up, afraid to go out into the street again, to talk to someone, to get to know someone. He leads a closed, boring life. with their own life principles he resembles another hero from A.P. Chekhov’s story “The Man in a Case” by Belikov. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? He lived and trembled and died - he trembled.” And only at the end of a uselessly lived life does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.
The writer shows the terrible philistine alienation and self-isolation in “The Wise Minnow.” Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people. Reading Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales is quite difficult. Therefore, perhaps many did not understand their meaning. But most “children of a fair age” appreciated the work of the great satirist as it deserved.
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- Saltykov-Shchedrin was a successor to the satirical traditions of Fonvizin, Griboedov, and Gogol. Shchedrin's gubernatorial activities allowed him to better discern the “evils of Russian reality” and made him think about the fate of Russia. He created a kind of satirical encyclopedia of Russian life. The tales summed up the writer’s 40-year work and were Read More......
- At the end of his creative path Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to the fairy tale genre. Here he got the opportunity to use such a technique as allegory, “Aesopian language.” This allowed the writer, under the guise of fictitious stories, to talk about the vices modern life. So, in Shchedrin’s fairy tales, as in Read More......
- Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are usually defined as the result of his satirical creativity. And this conclusion is to some extent justified. Fairy tales chronologically complete the satirical work of the writer. As a genre, Shchedrin's fairy tale gradually matured from the fantastic and figurative elements of his satire. There are a lot of them Read More......
- This tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin, like all his tales, self-explanatory name. You can already tell by the title that this tale describes a crucian carp that had idealistic views for life. Crucian carp is the object of satire, and people are represented in its image Read More......
- Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Evgrafovich (1826-1889) - Russian satirist writer. Democrat-educator, ideological student of V. G. Belinsky... Creativity is directed against the autocratic serfdom system (“ Provincial essays", "Pompadours and pompadours", " Poshekhonskaya antiquity”, “Fairy tales”, etc.). Big encyclopedic Dictionary Many writers and poets used fairy tales in their work. Read More......
- Fairy tales “for children of a fair age” - this is how Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin described his satirical work. The following lines could also be added: “A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, good fellows- lesson." At a time of strict censorship, the writer wrote his satirical tales Read More ......
- 1. Satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin. 2. Genre features fairy tales 3. Heroes. 4. Fantastic motives. The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are a completely special layer of the writer’s creativity. Almost everything Saltykov-Shchedrin created in the last years of his life. These short works amaze with their variety. artistic techniques, and so Read More ......
- Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are often called political satire tales. In these short works the writer, with the help of metaphorical images and hints, showed the vices of the autocratic system. In total, Saltykov-Shchedrin created more than 30 fairy tales, most of them in the 80s of the 19th century. The form of the tale was Read More......
Fairy tales with their allegorical images, in which the author was able to say more about Russian society of the 60-80s of the 19th century than the historians of those years. Saltykov-Shchedrin writes these fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” that is, for an adult reader whose mind is in the state of a child who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for those who are ridiculed in it.
The main problem of Shchedrin's fairy tales is the relationship between the exploiters and the exploited. The writer created a satire on Tsarist Russia. The reader is presented with images of rulers (“Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Eagle Patron”), exploiters and exploited (“Wild Landowner”, “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”), ordinary people (“The Wise Minnow”, “ Dried roach").
Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales not only because it was necessary to bypass censorship, which forced the writer to turn to Aesopian language, but also in order to educate the people in a form familiar and accessible to them.
a) In my own way literary form and style of Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy tale characters: talking animals, fish, Ivan the Fool and many others. The writer uses the beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary characteristic of a folk tale, constant epithets, words with diminutives suffixes. As in folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear temporal and spatial framework.
b) But using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition. He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, French words. The pages of his fairy tales include episodes of modern public life. This is how styles mix, creating comic effect, and connecting the plot with the problems
modernity.
Thus, enriching the tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire.
The tale "The Wild Landowner" (1869) begins as ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...” But then an element of modern life enters the fairy tale: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest” - a reactionary-serf newspaper, and the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The abolition of serfdom aroused anger among the landowners towards the peasants. According to the plot of the fairy tale, the landowner turned to God to take the peasants from him:
“He reduced them so that there is nowhere to stick your nose out: no matter where you look, everything is prohibited, not allowed, and not yours!” Using Aesopian language, the writer depicts the stupidity of the landowners who oppress their own peasants, at the expense of whom they lived, having a “loose, white, crumbly body.”
There were no more peasants throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner: “Where the peasant went, no one noticed.” Shchedrin hints at where the man might be, but the reader must guess this for himself.
The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid: “...even though their landowner is stupid, he has been given great intelligence.” There is irony in these words. Next, representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky with his “actors” invited to the estate: “However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! Who gives you a wash, stupid one?”; the generals, whom instead of “beef” he treated to printed gingerbread and candy: “However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!”; and, finally, the police captain: “You are stupid, Mr. Landowner!” The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, since “you can’t buy a piece of meat or a pound of bread at the market,” the treasury is empty, since there is no one to pay taxes, “robbery, robbery and murder have spread in the district.” But the stupid landowner stands his ground, shows firmness, proves his inflexibility to the liberal gentlemen, as his favorite newspaper Vest advises.
He indulges in unrealistic dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve prosperity in the economy. “He’s thinking about what kind of cars he’ll order from England,” so that there won’t be any servile spirit. “He’s thinking about what kind of cows he’ll breed.” His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?..” In the further development of the plot, showing the gradual savagery and bestiality of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorts to the grotesque. At first, “he was overgrown with hair... his nails became like iron... he walked more and more on all fours... He even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds... But he had not yet acquired a tail.” His predatory nature was manifested in the way he hunted: “like an arrow, he will jump from a tree, grab onto his prey, tear it apart with his nails and so on with all the insides, even the skin, and eat it.” The other day I almost killed the police captain. But then the final verdict was passed on the wild landowner new friend bear: “...only, brother, you destroyed this guy in vain!
And why?
But because this man was far more capable than your nobleman brother. And therefore I’ll tell you straight: you’re a stupid landowner, even though you’re my friend!”
So in the fairy tale the technique of allegory is used, where under the mask of animals they perform human types in their inhumane relationship. This element is also used in the depiction of peasants. When the authorities decided to “catch” and “install” the peasant, “as if on purpose, at that time, through provincial town an emerging swarm of men flew and showered the entire market square.” The author compares peasants to bees, showing the hard work of peasants.
When the peasants were returned to the landowner, “at the same time, flour, meat, and all kinds of livestock appeared at the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, just clasped his hands in surprise and cried out:
And where do you scoundrels get it from!!!” How much bitter irony there is in this exclamation! And they caught the landowner, washed him, cut his nails, but he never understood anything and learned nothing, like all the rulers who ruin the peasantry, rob the workers and do not understand that this could result in ruin for themselves.
The significance of satirical tales is that in a small work the writer was able to combine the lyrical, epic and satirical beginning and express extremely sharply your point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem era - the problem of the fate of the Russian people.
In 1883, the famous “The Wise Minnow” appeared, which over the past hundred-plus years has become Shchedrin’s textbook fairy tale. The plot of this fairy tale is known to everyone: once upon a time there was a gudgeon, which at first was no different from its own kind. But, a coward by nature, he decided to live his whole life without sticking out, in his hole, flinching from every rustle, from every shadow that flashed next to his hole. So life passed me by - no family, no children. And so he disappeared - either on his own or some pike swallowed him. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived - he trembled and he died - he trembled.” Only before death does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him. But this is the plot, the external side of the fairy tale, what is on the surface. And the subtext of Shchedrin’s caricature in this tale of the morals of modern bourgeois Russia was well explained by the artist A. Kanevsky, who made illustrations for the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “...everyone understands that Shchedrin is not talking about fish. The gudgeon is a cowardly man in the street, trembling for his own skin. He is a man, but also a minnow, the writer put him in this form, and I, the artist, must preserve it. My task is to combine the image of a frightened man in the street and a minnow, to combine fish and human properties. It is very difficult to “comprehend” a fish, to give it a pose, a movement, a gesture. How to display forever frozen fear on a fish’s “face”? The figurine of the minnow-official gave me a lot of trouble....”
3. I.A. Bunin about the fate of the Russian peasantry. “Village”, “Merry Yard”, “Zakhar Vorobyov”. Features of the writer's realism (using the example of one of the works).
Destructive lifestyle the writer did not accept. Moral values he found in the depths of the soul that nature had preserved the aspirations given to man. This bright motif is the essence of many stories: “The Cheerful Yard” (1911), “Zakhar Vorobyov” (1912), “The Thin Grass” (1913), “Lyrnik Rodion” (1913). The inner appearance of the hero is revealed here in a local temporary situation - the fire of spiritual beauty burns briefly, but brightly. And the external, corrupting environment is given sparingly and distanced from the individual.
Social dissonances are by no means obscured. But the author looks at the transitory from the standpoint of the highest purpose of people - their birth in the name of nurturing new life on the ground. Those who, in contempt for selfish, mercantile inclinations, radiate warmth and love on this ways, roads to the writer. These, in his opinion, are the prospects for peace, salvation from the terrible inertia of collapse. Bunin does not idealize his heroes. The familiar Bunin thought is heard again: you can touch the Beautiful only by overcoming your habitually limited interests. In “The Thin Grass” and other stories of the 1910s. sophisticated states of mind characteristic of those who live an ordinary fate. The writer emphasizes this point through various means. The narration reinforces the impression of the authenticity of what is happening by reference to the “real” scene of action, often to the opinion of “old-timers.” These are the beginnings of “The Merry Yard” and “Zakhar Vorobyov”. The transitions from an event to the hero’s understanding of it, from thinking about a person’s purpose to everyday scenes. Complex psychological processes freely included during everyday existence. And these processes themselves, for all their depth and significance, originate from the simplest experiences. That is why the artistic collision of stories becomes so expressive - the character’s summing up of his life’s results. The specificity of the recreated world can divert attention from the writer’s true quest. This often happens. Bunin believed that “Zakhar Vorobyov” would protect him from the attacks of critics who attributed to the author of “The Village” lordly attitude to the people. And in this story they find only Zakhar’s unfulfilled dream of a feat and his humiliating death from drinking too much vodka. The content of the work is incomparably richer and more tragic.
Zakhar Vorobyov is constantly looking for warm, trusting contacts with people. First he tries to find an interlocutor who will listen and understand him. But conversations with random people they meet are crowned with complete and stupid indifference to him. TO suits people he went to the village of Zhiloye (ironic name), and there “it was deathly quiet. Not a single soul anywhere." Zakhar wants to shake “the little people hidden in the huts.” IN a short story“The Merry Yard” is the story of two lives and two deaths: the old peasant woman Anisya and her son Yegor. Anisya dies in literally from hunger: there wasn’t even a crust of bread for her (her yard was called “cheerful” by her neighbors in mockery of her miserable, unlucky existence). Egor, an empty talker who quit long ago parents' house, “who does not recognize either family, property, or homeland,” ends his senseless wanderings with suicide. The mother’s meek endurance rises to selflessness in the name of the lost Yegor. At the moment of her starvation death (a stray, semi-feral dog recognizes the unfortunate woman as “an equal”!) Anisya, “to the point of trembling in her arms and legs,” longs for “sweet happiness” - to begin a “new streak” of “existence in this world.” There is no trace of complacency or detachment in the dying woman’s feelings. Everything is given over to the passionate desire to “see the morning, love your son, go to him.” Yegor’s condition is contradictory, he is still characterized by stupid conceit, and next to him there is growing painful bewilderment, “dumb irritation” against everyone and everything. Yegor experiences “two series of feelings and thoughts: one is ordinary, simple, and the other is alarming, painful,” forcing “to think something that did not lend itself to the work of the mind.” The insurmountable duality, which makes the unthinking birds envy, is acutely and dramatically resolved with the death of Anisya. Yegor is now losing all connections with the world: “And the earth - the whole earth - seemed to be empty.”
The author uses " x-ray", highlighting the deep current inner life. The composition of stories, the change and detail of episodes - everything expresses the chosen approach. Perhaps most clearly it appears in the speech element of the narrator and characters. Expressions derived from certain supporting concepts, persistently repeating themselves, immediately determine the leading melody of the work. In “The Thin Grass,” for example, there is a whole scattering of words-“signs” of difficult thoughts: “knowledge”, “mental abilities”, “thinking something of your own”, “poor memories”, “I don’t know anything”, “I don’t know why lived”, etc. This stream, of course, is not the only one; another flows towards it, conveying sensations of beauty and love. The semantic condensation of the text is achieved by these means.
A number of Bunin’s works are dedicated to a ruined village, ruled by hunger and death. The writer looks for an ideal in the patriarchal past with its old-world prosperity. The desolation and degeneration of noble nests, the moral and spiritual impoverishment of their owners evoke in Bunin a feeling of sadness and regret about the lost harmony of the patriarchal world, about the disappearance of entire classes (“Antonov Apples”). In many stories of 1890-1900, images of “new” people appear. These stories are imbued with a premonition of imminent alarming changes,
In the early 1900s, lyrical style early prose Bunina is changing. The story “The Village” (1911) reflects the writer’s dramatic thoughts about Russia, about its future, about the fate of the people, about the Russian character. Bunin reveals a pessimistic view of the prospects for people's life...
Critics noted the merits of Bunin’s language, his art of “raising everyday phenomena of life into the world of poetry.” There were no “low” topics for the writer. A reviewer for the magazine “Bulletin of Europe” wrote: “In terms of pictorial accuracy, Mr. Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets.” His sense of the Motherland, language, and history was enormous. One of the sources of his creativity was folk speech. Many critics compared Bunin's prose with the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, noting that he introduced new features and new colors into the realism of the last century, enriching it with the features of impressionism.
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Thus, in the story there is a peculiar interweaving of the fantastic and real plans, and the real plan is embodied in the previously known form of rumors, which the author constantly mentions. These are rumors that the nose is either walking along Nevsky Prospekt or along Tauride Garden, then he seemed to be in the store, etc. Why was this form of communication introduced? While maintaining a form of mystery, the author ridicules the carriers of these rumors.
Many critics have noted that the story “The Nose” is the brightest example Gogol's fiction, a parody, a wonderful mockery of all modern prejudices and belief in supernatural forces.
Everything terrible, fantastic, ugly that Gogol described: be it a quarrel between Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich, or a nose in the uniform of a state councilor, or an overcoat that became a symbol of the life of a little official, and it was stolen; or trade dead souls, the doubts of the landowner Korobochka, whether she had sold herself cheap in this trade - everything is described by Gogol with one single purpose, which Nekrasov defined as follows: “He preached love with a hostile word denial." We see in the author a bright realist, a subtle lyricist, and a bold satirist.
“Fairy tales” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin as a satirical genre of literature.
“Fairy tales” belong to the group best works Shchedrin. Like all his works, they are imbued with modernity and are devoted to the main issues of Russian life. But they showed with particular force the depth of Shchedrin’s satire, civic courage, and the writer’s humanism. Most of fairy tales were created in the “terrible era” (as he himself called the 80s years XIX centuries). After the brutal murder of Alexander II, the tsarist government paid special attention to the fight against “seditious” thought. Saltykov-Shchedrin's position was extremely difficult. “At present there is no writer more hated than me,” he wrote in one of his letters. It was during this period that Shchedrin found a very effective way of fighting: he created a political fairy tale-satire.
In the 80s, the fairy tale genre was widespread in Russian literature. At this time they appear folk stories L.N. Tolstoy, fairy tales and allegories by V.M. Garshin, legends by V.G. Korolenko. When creating their works, writers use the possibilities inherent in the fairy-tale style of storytelling in different ways. One thing remains in common: in the historical situation of those years, it is most appropriate to turn specifically to the genre of fairy tales. The fabulous manner of presentation allowed, touching upon the sharpest socio-political questions, bypass censorship barriers. The form of a fairy tale, with its wise simplicity, turned out to be the most convenient means of communicating with the people. Perhaps it was main reason, which caused the spread fairy tale genre in literature. And “Fairy Tales” by Saltykov-Shchedrin rightfully became the pinnacle of Russian satire.
The word “fairy tale” may initially deceive the reader. And although there is really a lot of Saltykov in “fairy tales” traditional stories, images borrowed from Russian folklore, but they represent “a completely special, independently created folklore basis satirical genre in his work." Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are based on modern writer material. Raising political, philosophical-historical and moral problems of their time, these small works helped the reader to comprehend the social and moral foundations of human life.
Thematically, fairy tales can be divided into three groups: 1) satires directed against the policies of the Russian autocracy and the ruling classes; 2) satires depicting the life of the people in Russia; 3) satires exposing the psychology of the philistine intelligentsia and its behavior.
A bold exposure of autocracy was the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship,” published only after the 1905 revolution. The fairy tale “The Eagle Patron,” criticizing the activities of the authorities in the field of education, also appeared in print after 1905. The conclusion of the fairy tale is “eagles are harmful for enlightenment”; but no less harmful are “unprincipled cultural figures who servile before the authorities in the name of their careerist goals and material benefits, represented in the images of a nightingale, a bullfinch and a woodpecker.”
In addition to criticizing everything negative in Russia, Shchedrin explores social foundations supporting this system. The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”, mocking main support autocracy - by noble landowners - does not avoid the “sore” issue of the underdevelopment of the masses.
The theme of people's disasters is heard in “The Wild Landowner”, and in “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, and in the fairy tale-parable “Kissel”. But it is raised with particular tragedy by Shchedrin in “The Horse.” “In the fairy tale “The Horse,” wrote the critic E. Garshin, “with the vividness and epic power of the epic about Mikul Selyaninovich, the real one is embodied in a concrete image people's labor, around which Slavophiles, Westerners, Narodniks, and world-eaters walk around with their judgments, the satirist threw the most caustic sarcasm into the faces of all of them, presenting their speeches in the most offensive parody and forcing them at the end of the tale to yell at Konyaga: “But, convict , But…""
The fairy tale “Crucian carp the idealist” was also important for Saltykov-Shchedrin, the main theme of which is “the irreconcilability of social contradictions and unsuccessful attempts eliminate them." Karas is an honest, selfless champion of the ideas of social equality. Shchedrin himself shares his ideals. However, the crucian carp’s faith in “bloodless prosperity” and its hope for the awakening of conscience in the pike are naive. Is it possible to achieve social harmony through only the moral re-education of predators? Until the end of his life, Saltykov pinned his hopes on a “persuasive word,” rejecting revolutionary violence, and looked for a way out of this “dramatic contradiction,” but he never found it.
The “sedition” of Shchedrin’s tales was obvious. How original they were in form, how skillfully Shchedrin used the “fairy-tale style” of narration in them, so strong were they in their satirical exposure.
Saltykov-Shchedrin, using typically folklore expressions, fills his tale with ideological and political meaning. The subject of his satirical ridicule is not only the stupid, helpless and greedy generals, but also the man who meekly obeys them. After all, the people, Saltykov-Shchedrin was convinced, most of all needed a clear awareness of their own deprivation. Only then will he gain strength and his age-old dream of justice will come true.
Tsarist censorship persecuted Saltykov-Shchedrin with cruel consistency. “What they didn’t do to me!” he wrote, “they cut it out, and curtailed it, and reinterpreted it, and completely banned it, and publicly declared that I was harmful, harmful, harmful.” In the fight against censorship, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to Aesopian speech. Aesop's speech is a whole system of deceptive techniques designed to express an artistic and journalistic thought not directly, but allegorically. Aesop's speech is the artist's victory over external oppression, a witty bridge to the reader, not subject to hostile literature, legal provisions, and requiring special efforts from the reader himself, beyond the usual.
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