The originality of the Russian character in the work. Portrayal of Russian national character

The reasons for the emergence of interest in Russian society in spiritual and material manifestations national identity, the “spirit of the people” are quite well known and described in detail in the specialized literature: the collapse of the philosophy of rationalism in recent decades The 18th century predetermined the transition to new, “idealistic” worldview systems that discovered the intrinsic value of momentary phenomena and their constant dynamism; the establishment of the romantic way of creatively understanding reality made it possible to discover the undoubted aesthetic value national origin, and the Patriotic War of 1812 clearly proved that the concepts of “people”, “national character” are not at all an invention, a philosophical or aesthetic abstraction, but a very real phenomenon, which has a very interesting and dramatic history.

It is not surprising that it is under the sign of “nationality” and the search for forms of its expression that almost the entire “golden age” of Russian literature passes.

If we consider Russian literature of the 19th – early 20th centuries. (at least using the example of the creativity of authors who invariably formed the backbone school curriculum) in relation to the concept of “national character”, the following should be noted.

1. For Russian artists of the 19th - early 20th centuries. national character is a completely objective phenomenon of real life, and not just an artistic generalization, a symbol, a beautiful myth, and therefore folk character deserves careful and detailed study.

2. Like any phenomenon of real life, the national character is complex and contradictory, has both attractive and repulsive features, includes dramatic contradictions of the surrounding reality, acute spiritual problems. This forces us to abandon the schoolboy view of folk character in Russian literature as something absolutely positive, integral, having the value of a model, an ideal, the proximity or distance from which the viability of certain characters is measured. So, in the drama A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" Kabanikha, Dikoy, Katerina, Varvara, Vanya Kudryash - the characters are very different both in content and in ideological and semantic terms, but, of course, “folk”.

3. The consequence of the first two provisions is that in the works of Russian classical literature concept and the “phenomenon” itself, image folk character devoid, in fact, of a clear social-class reference (which is also an ideologeme firmly rooted in the practice of school teaching): manifestations of “nationality”, “folk spirit” can equally be inherent in a nobleman (like Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, M.I. . Kutuzov), and a merchant, and a peasant, and a representative of the “middle class”, the intelligentsia (for example, Osip Stepanovich Dymov in “The Jumper” by A.P. Chekhov). Therefore, it seems, there is profound debate about whether a servant can be considered as typical representative people (for example, Petrushka and Selifan in “Dead Souls”, Zakhara in “Oblomov”), or only a hereditary farmer can lay claim to this role, do not make sense.

This approach allows us to distinguish between the concepts of “national character” and “nationality”. Folk character is a private, individual manifestation of nationality, those very general religious, everyday, moral, aesthetic attitudes that objectively exist in the people’s environment and, in fact, form the latter into a “people.” However, as an aesthetic category in literature, nationality is secondary in relation to the national character, is derived from it and cannot serve as the initial measure of its assessment. This or that literary character is “folk” because the artist correctly depicted its objective, really existing folk features, but not because the latter were already given by one way or another understood “nationality”. At the same time, the provisions stated above allow us to get away from the identification of the concepts of “folk” and “common people”, and from the currently fashionable understanding of folk character exclusively in its national Russian specificity.

Let's take a closer look at the features artistic embodiment and the role of folk character in the works of Russian classics of the 19th century.

In the comedy A.S. Griboedov's "Woe from Wit" the only stage character that can be considered truly folk is Lisa. If we leave aside her role as a soubrette, which dates back to Western European comedy, then the functions this character, especially in terms of expressing the author's idea, are extremely interesting. According to A. S. Griboedov, the world is “stupid,” that is, it is governed by laws that are absurd from the point of view of common sense: society is actually ruled not by men, but by women; in the eyes of people, it is not civic or personal virtues that are valued, but success in life - and it does not matter at what cost it is achieved; private selfish interests will always dominate over “public” ones; it is impossible to love “reasonably”, but love is the goal and meaning of human life, therefore a lover is always “stupid”, and even if a person is prudent and careful, the feeling will force him to take a rash, truly stupid step. In other words, “fools are happy,” or “Silent people are blissful in the world!”

In this regard, it is very significant that Lisa expresses those purely practical, sober, and partly even somewhat cynical views on life that are taken for granted by the majority, in fact, by the people, and do not always coincide with the requirements of a rationalist (and, therefore, maximalist) Chatsky: “And they hear, they don’t want to understand, Well, why would they take away the shutters?”, “Sin is not a problem, rumor is not good.”

She is well versed in the everyday psychology of people (“When they tell us what we want, Wherever we willingly believe!”, “A smile and a few words, And whoever is in love is ready for anything”). Advising Sophia to assume an air (in very Molchalin style) of fun and carelessness in front of her father and Chatsky, and reminding Molchalin exactly how a “bride seeker” should behave (“And you, bride seekers, should not luxuriate and yawn; Prigozh and dear, who doesn’t finish eating and doesn’t sleep until the wedding”). She is observant and practical in her assessments (“I wish he had a son-in-law with stars and ranks, But with the stars, not everyone is rich, between us”, “And a golden bag, and aims to be a general”, “... Speech, but it doesn’t hurt cunning"). She is not at all mistaken about the true nature of the relationship between a man and a woman, especially if they occupy different positions in society (just as Sophia’s aunt inks her hair for the “young Frenchman,” so Molchalin takes on the appearance of a languid and tender lover for his boss’s daughter: everyone is in love tries for himself). Despite her devotion, she does not forget about herself. Far from neglecting her current rather comfortable position as the confidante of the young daughter of a rich and influential owner, Lisa prefers not to get involved in dangerous adventures (“Don’t watch, your power, And what in return for you, of course, I’ll get,” “He’ll ban you, - good, still with me, Otherwise, God have mercy, get me, Molchalin and everyone out of the yard at once,” “...Ah! Far away from the gentlemen, They have troubles ready for themselves at every hour...”, “Well! people in this side! She is to him, and he is to me. And I... I am the only one who is dying of love - How can one not fall in love with the barman Petrusha!"). Lisa is resourceful (“Yes, sir, the young lady’s disposition is unhappy: She can’t watch from the side, How people fall headlong?” she says, cleverly hiding the true reason for Sophia’s fainting), cheerful, sharp-tongued (Chatsky: I would like to kill myself with him. .. Lisa: For company?..; Molchalin: Her position, you... Lisa: Out of boredom! I ask you to keep your hands away!..; “Say, sir, you have great care!” so sensitive, and cheerful, and sharp!.."), but does not understand at all what he says (Sofia: A mixture of languages? Chatsky: Yes, two, you can’t do without it. Lisa: But it’s tricky to tailor one of them, how yours"). This image plays extremely important role in expressing the main author's idea: the world is not governed by the laws of the “mind”, and the one who judges it from the point of view of reason is truly insane.

In the works of A. S. Pushkin ("Eugene Onegin", "The Station Agent", "Dubrovsky", "The Captain's Daughter"), the folk character acquires those visual and ideological qualities that will determine its existence in Russian literature for many years.

On the one hand, the national character is interesting to A.S. Pushkin in aesthetic terms: his amazing integrity despite the apparent external contradiction in good and evil, cruelty and mercy. Typical example- the blacksmith Arkhip in "Dubrovsky", deliberately locking the manor's house and "looking with an evil smile at the fire" and at the clerks trying to escape, risking his life, saves a cat from the fire, while reproaching the village boys: "You are not afraid of God: God's creation is perishing , and you are foolishly happy." The inherent strength and spontaneity of feelings, manifested in the most dramatic situations - in a word, the qualities of folk character precisely as a worthy object of attention of high art, seem interesting to A. S. Pushkin and find their perfect aesthetic embodiment in his works.

On the other hand, “people” (and, accordingly, “national character”) is a phenomenon that exists objectively, regardless of our ideas or conventions accepted as true, this is what exists in reality and in practice (for example, in 1812 d.) has proven its existence, which means that there is something that is invisibly present in the soul of every Russian person and finds its manifestation in the entire way of life, the spiritual and material structure of Russian life.

A. S. Pushkin comes to the depiction and artistic analysis of everything that unites the master and the serf ("Dubrovsky", "The Captain's Daughter"), the nobleman and the runaway Cossack ("The Captain's Daughter"), landowners - mother and daughter - and their a serf, an old nanny (“Eugene Onegin”), a passing official with the low rank of titular councilor, an old retired soldier - a postal station keeper, and a rich, handsome hussar (“The Station Warden”). They are equally capable of loving, perceive this feeling equally and are equally helpless in front of it, and, in fact, love plays the same role in their destinies. For example, the story of the old nanny in "Eugene Onegin": the story of her life and love is an exact analogy of the life and love of both Tatyana Larina and her mother, for the fate of a woman - a peasant woman or a noblewoman - is the same: the same girlish dreams of her betrothed and oh happiness, the same marriage is not for love, but according to the principle “if you endure it, you will fall in love,” the same care in everyday troubles and honest fulfillment of the duty of a wife and mother; The role of folklore epigraphs in “The Captain’s Daughter” is indicative: Masha Mironova speaks almost in the words of a folk song about the impossibility of uniting in marriage with a loved one without the blessing of his parents (the point is not in “customs”, but in the understanding that love is from God).

In “The Station Agent”, for the sake of such a natural right to love, for the right to make a loved one happy, to give everything for him and find his own happiness in this, neither a nobleman nor a person from the people will spare either themselves, or the loved ones of those whom they loved, or even their loved ones themselves. The brilliant hussar captain will deceive Dunya into the city, throw him out of Vyrin’s threshold - and at the same time keep his promise to him. honestly that Dunya will be happy. Dunya will willingly leave with the young nobleman (“Dunya cried, although she seemed to be traveling on her own accord”) and will indeed “get unaccustomed to her previous state,” so much so that she will faint at the sight of her father. Samson Vyrin, blinded by his father's love, will try to return his beautiful daughter - touchingly, selflessly, not sparing either himself or her current happiness and position, for love is cruel, and happiness is selfish, whether for a master or a peasant, and it is not for nothing that the ancients called the god of love Eros is evil, cruel and merciless. Both the nobleman and the commoner know what “honor” is - not formal, but real, natural, synonymous with the concept of “conscience”: justice, gratitude, mercy, loyalty - whether to an oath, a word or a loved one. Heroes who are so different in position and age act according to honor and conscience, such as Pyotr Grinev, his parents, Savelich, the Mironovs and their daughter, the old lieutenant Ivan Ignatievich, Pugachev, the empress - the list goes on. Even such a repulsive character as Khlopusha is not devoid of either mercy or nobility: “Enough, Naumych... You should strangle and cut everyone... You yourself are looking into the grave, and you are destroying others. Isn’t there enough blood on your conscience?.. I destroyed the enemy, and not a guest; at a free crossroads and in a dark forest, not at home, sitting behind a stove; with a flail and a butt, and not with a woman’s slander.” They even speak and write practically the same language. Thus, in the story "Dubrovsky" the speech of the "old Russian gentleman" Kirila Petrovich Troekurov in highest degree folk, replete with characteristic colloquial (and sometimes rude) vernacular: “Great, what’s your name”, “I care about you”, “You’re lying, brother, what kind of documents do you need”, “Tell this monsieur... so that he can I didn’t dare to follow my girls, otherwise I’m his son of a dog...”, “This was no mistake, not a blunder”, “Stop lying, Anton Pafnutich. We know you... at home you live like a pig... ". In the story “The Captain's Daughter,” the letter from a strict and demanding master and the dignified response from a faithful and respectful servant are stylistically the same: the same mixture of rude vernacular and bureaucratic “high calm” with “low”, almost colloquial, right down to the sayings: “Shame on you, old man.” dog, ... that you did not report about my son... I will send you, the old dog, to feed pigs for concealing the truth and for conniving with him! young man...", - also: "... teach you a lesson like a boy, transfer you from Belogorsk fortress somewhere far away, where your nonsense can go away."

At the same time, these unifying features can have not only positive, but also negative qualities; this is, so to speak, unity in both good and evil. So, Kirila Petrovich Troekurov, the richest and most influential landowner, as befits the people’s understanding of a person of his position and condition, is tough, despotic, proud, arrogant, self-willed and stubborn. However, his peasants and servants are an exact replica of his master: “He treated the peasants and servants strictly and capriciously, but they were vain about the wealth and glory of their master and, in turn, allowed themselves a lot in relation to their neighbors, hoping for his strong patronage.” It is characteristic that the quarrel between Troekurov and his only close friend Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky begins because of the insolence of Troekurov’s hound addressed to the poor nobleman, although the latter seems to speak out in favor of the “oppressed” serf: “No,” he answered (Dubrovsky - A. F.) is harsh, - it’s a wonderful kennel, it’s unlikely that your people will live the same life as your dogs.” One of the hounds was offended. “We don’t complain about our living,” he said, “thanks to God and the master, and what’s true is true; it wouldn’t be a bad thing for another nobleman to exchange his estate for any local kennel. It would be better for him and warmer.” It is curious that Savelich (“The Captain’s Daughter”), lamenting the money foolishly lost by the young master and reproaching himself for this, unexpectedly admits: “I was led astray: I decided to wander to the sexton, to see my godfather. So, I went to my godfather, yes stuck in prison,” after all, this is an accurate summary of everything that happened to both Pyotr Grinev and his faithful servant.
It is also significant that A.S. Pushkin, especially towards the end creative path, in the depiction of folk character, he is increasingly moving away from the traditional Karamzin “and peasant women know how to love,” that is, from the simple recognition of the folk character’s right to strong and deep experiences and rich inner world. A.S. Pushkin reveals the ideological and moral identity of the nobleman and the peasant: in similar concepts about good and evil, about the beautiful and the ugly, about the true and the false, about the possible and the proper, about sin and retribution.

Of course, the national character itself is not an absolute expression of the author’s aesthetic ideal; not all of its aspects are attractive to A. S. Pushkin (although all are interesting to him as an artist): he is repulsed by what F. M. Dostoevsky would later call “unrestrainedness” - the infinity and recklessness of one’s own manifestations in both good and evil. Hearing Kalmyk fairy tale, told by Pugachev: “It’s better to drink living blood once, and then what will God give!”, Grinev does not agree with him on purely moral grounds: “.. To live by murder and robbery means, for me, to peck at carrion.” It is also characteristic that the “old Russian gentleman” Kirila Petrovich Troekurov, who at times cruelly – quite in the spirit of “folk fun” – mocked his guests and was personally convinced of the courage and composure of the young teacher, not only fell in love with him after that and did not even think about it ... try,” but categorically defends Deforge from the police officer’s suspicions: “Eh, brother, ... get away, you know where, with your signs, I won’t give you my Frenchman until I sort out the matter myself. How can you trust Anton’s word. Pafnutich, a coward and a liar..."

A. S. Pushkin does not accept folk traits - arrogant plebeianism, pragmatism, rudeness and cruelty (in "The Captain's Daughter" the unfortunate Vasilisa Egorovna, on the orders of Pugachev - "Put down the old witch!" - is immediately "pacified" by a young Cossack with a saber on the head), contrasting They have something that distinguishes a nobleman from a peasant, which obliges the former to be higher than the latter, to lead and guide the latter. Even the kind and selfless Savelich (“The Captain’s Daughter”) persuades the young officer to undergo “vile humiliation” in order to save his life: “Don’t be stubborn! What’s it worth to you? Spit and kiss the evildoer... (ugh!) kiss his hand.”

In the works of A. S. Pushkin, folk character for the first time acquires independent significance as a full-fledged subject of creative research, and not just an illustration of certain ethical, socio-political, and philosophical ideas.

The folk character in the depiction of M. Yu. Lermontov (“Hero of Our Time”) bears a clear imprint of the author’s ideological and strictly aesthetic quests; he is deep, sincere, uncompromising, frank in his desires, direct and adamant in achieving his goals - and therefore, from an ordinary, everyday point of view, he is often immoral (Yanko, “undine”, Azamat, Kazbich). The national character is “down to earth”, its desires and goals are subordinated to the trivial needs of everyday earthly existence and are determined by effective but primitive laws: if you are deceived - take revenge, if someone has penetrated into your secret - kill, if you like something - achieve possession by any means and at any price (compare Azamat and Pechorin in this regard). What will not change you personally cannot be sold or changed (Kazbich and his Karagyoz), but everything else, including your own life, strength, dexterity, costs money, and they must be sold at a higher price. It is not for nothing that fifteen-year-old Azamat is “terribly hungry for money,” and the fearless Yanko, fully aware that the owner now “will never find such a daredevil,” says: “...If only he had paid better for his work, Yanko would not have left him.. ".

However, M.Yu. Lermontov, turning to the people’s character and drawing the contrast, favorite for romantics, between a “savage”, a person living according to natural laws - the laws of his own heart, and a “civilized” person, endowed with all the advantages and disadvantages " modern culture", in fact, equalizes them, making the main subject of the image not the originality of the national character (the highlanders are Russians), but the specificity of the human character, more precisely, the universal, universal character. It is interesting in this regard that Pechorin’s remark is that “in a Circassian costume on horseback” he is “more similar "like a Kabardian than many Kabardians": in fact, the nature of people is one, and the "costume" is just a change of dress at the masquerade of life. Yes, mountaineers-smugglers, the same Cossacks are simpler and more frank in expressing their feelings and desires, they are closer to nature and, like nature itself, they do not know how and do not want to lie, they are just as natural and non-moral as, for example, the mysterious, ever-waving sea (“Taman”), the mighty inaccessible mountains (“Bela”, “Princess Mary”) or the stars, equally eternal and mysterious in their unattainability (“Fatalist”), they are internally whole and strong in spirit and body, their gaze is simple and clear (“... - What if he drowns?” - “Well? On Sunday). you will go to church without a new ribbon..." - "Taman". Their love (Bela) or hatred (Kazbich, “undine”) is eternal and does not recognize half-tones, and therefore no compassion for one’s neighbor. Azamat is ready to rob his father or secretly sell his sister for the horse he likes. Kazbich, loving Bela, will not think about killing her at a critical moment. Their passions are frantic (".. As soon as he drinks a chikhir, he goes off to crumble whatever he finds..."). But these people are ready to answer for their words and deeds, feelings and desires; having made a choice, they do not look for justification and do not give anyone - including themselves - mercy: Bela, having once fallen in love with Pechorin, will only reproach him in his dying delirium for “falling out of love with his little girl”; The Cossack, who hacked Vulich to death in a drunken frenzy, responds “menacingly” to all conciliatory persuasion and appeals to his Christian conscience: “I will not submit!” They live honestly, but they also die honestly (“honest smugglers”). And therefore they are beautiful, just as nature itself is beautiful, regardless of whether it brings good or evil to a person, and therefore, they are closer to the truth, closer to what the world really is and what a person really is.

A simple, pure soul, Maxim Maksimovich perfectly understands (and accepts!) these people, although he rightly calls them “savages” for their cruelty, cunning, filth and penchant for robbery. “Of course, in their opinion, he was absolutely right,” says Maxim Maksimych, telling about Kazbich’s cruel revenge. He gives preference to the ragged daredevil, the abrek, over the “peaceful” man in the street: “... Our Kabardians or Chechens may be robbers, naked people, but they are desperate, but these have no desire for weapons: you won’t see a decent dagger on any of them,” “The beshmet is always torn, in patches, and the weapon is in silver.” He is simple-minded and faithful to friendship to the end: “After all, he’ll come running now!” - he says, waiting to meet Pechorin). He is not averse to using local fighting tricks, from the European point of view insidious and cruel: the sentry, at the prompting of the staff captain, asked Kazbich, who was prancing on his horse, to stop and immediately shot at him.

But there is one more quality that surprisingly makes the Russian officer similar to local residents, - that he had long ago become accustomed to the beauty around him, as well as to the whistle of Chechen bullets: “And you can get used to the whistle of a bullet, that is, get used to hiding the involuntary beating of the heart...” (“Bela”). He perceives reality clearly, soberly and pragmatically: his cart is moving faster; he knows which signs indicate approaching bad weather and which ones indicate good weather, and knows how to calculate the time of departure and the speed of movement towards the pass; he knows how to behave with local residents, and even when invited to a wedding to his “kunak”, he will prudently note where his horses were placed and will disappear in time from the celebration that has become dangerous (“Bela”). His judgments are simple, logical and are understandable in everyday life: "...And that's it, tea, the French have introduced a fashion for being bored?" - "No, the British." - “Aha, that’s what!... but they were always notorious drunkards!” And therefore, for the main character of Lermontov’s novel (as, indeed, for the author himself), this alone is not enough - it is not enough for him to simply live, it is important for him to determine the goal, the meaning of this life.

For M. Yu. Lermontov, national character is the best, most accurate and aesthetically perfect manifestation of the essence of man in general. That is why similar passions rage in the souls of representatives of completely different social and cultural strata: Mary, like Bela, wants Pechorin to belong only to her, Grushnitsky, noticing that Mary is carried away by Pechorin, spreads defamatory gossip about her and about his recent friend, but after all, Kazbich, in the same way, in revenge, will kill the woman whom he seemed to love; the same Grushnitsky, again out of a sense of revenge, will not hesitate to resort to direct meanness, quite comparable to the robber “cunning”, and will turn to his enemy with words worthy of some savage, an abrek, and not an officer of the imperial army: “If You won’t kill me, I’ll stab you at night from around the corner. There’s no place for the two of us on earth..."

In turn, Pechorin, for the sake of satisfaction own desires will not stop at anything or anyone, for he is a man, the same as all these mountaineers, smugglers, officers and Cossacks, representatives of the “water society” and inhabitants of dirty, smoky dwellings in the mountains (“Bela”). They are equally unhappy, vain and wretched, equally slaves to their passions, equally far from God, from the Truth and equally incapable of understanding it.

Thus, the folk character in the image of M. Yu. Lermontov is attractive, aesthetic, but not associated with the author’s aesthetic ideal, although there was a time when the folk character was the direct embodiment of the writer’s aesthetic ideal in such works as “Borodino” and “Song about the Tsar” Ivan Vasilievich...").

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When studying works of Russian classics, I try to penetrate into the “secrets” of the student’s soul. I will give several examples of such work. Russian verbal and artistic creativity and the national sense of the world are so deeply rooted in the religious element that even movements that have outwardly broken with religion still find themselves internally connected with it.

F.I. Tyutchev in the poem “Silentium” (“Silence!” - Lat.) speaks of special strings human soul who are silent in everyday life, but clearly declare themselves in moments of liberation from everything external, worldly, and vain. F.M. Dostoevsky in “The Brothers Karamazov” recalls the seed sown by God into the soul of man from other worlds. This seed or source gives a person hope and faith in immortality. I.S. Turgenev felt brevity and fragility more acutely than many Russian writers human life on earth, the inexorability and irreversibility of the rapid flight of historical time. Sensitive to everything topical and momentary, able to capture life in its beautiful moments, I.S. Turgenev simultaneously possessed a generic feature of any Russian classic writer - a rare sense of freedom from everything temporary, finite, personal and egoistic, from everything subjectively biased, clouding visual acuity, breadth of vision, completeness artistic perception. In the troubled years for Russia, I.S. Turgenev creates a prose poem “Russian Language”. The bitter consciousness of the deepest national crisis that Russia was then experiencing did not deprive I.S. Turgenev of hope and faith. Our language gave him this faith and hope.

Russian realism is also able to see something invisible, which rises above the visible world and directs life towards good.

On one of the sleepless nights, in difficult thoughts about myself and disgraced friends, N.A. was created. Nekrasov lyric poem“A Knight for an Hour” is one of the most heartfelt works about the poet’s filial love for his mother, for his homeland. The poet, in the harsh hour of judgment, turns for help to maternal love and intercession, as if merging the human mother with the Mother of God into one image. And then a miracle occurs: the image of the mother, freed from the corruptible earthly shell, rises to the heights of unearthly holiness. This is no longer the poet’s earthly mother, but a “deity of purest love.” In front of him the poet begins a painful and merciless confession, asking to lead the lost one onto the “thorny path” into the “camp of those who perish for the great cause of love.”

Peasant women, wives, and mothers, in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasova, in critical moments of her life, invariably turns to the Heavenly Patroness of Russia for help. Unhappy Daria, trying to save Proclus, goes to Her for her last hope and consolation. In severe misfortune, Russian people least of all think about themselves. No grumbling or groaning, no bitterness or complaints. Grief is absorbed by an all-conquering feeling of compassionate love for the person who has passed away, up to the desire to resurrect him with a kind word. Relying on the divine power of the Word, household members invest in it all the energy of selfless, resurrecting love: “Splash, beloved, with your hands, / Look with a hawk’s eye, / Shake your silken curls, / Dissolve sugary lips!” (Nekrasov N.A. Complete collection of works and letters: In 15 volumes-L. 1981.-T.2).

In the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” Daria undergoes two tests. Two blows follow each other with fatal inevitability. After the loss of her husband, her own death overtakes her. But Daria overcomes everything with the power of spiritual love that embraces everything. God's peace: nature, land-nurse, grain field. And dying, she loves Proclus, children, and work in God’s field more than herself.

The people carried this amazing property of the Russian national character through the darkness of harsh hard times from “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” to the present day, from the crying of Yaroslavna to the crying of the heroines V. Belov, V. Rasputin, V. Krupin. V. Astafiev, who lost their husbands and sons.

So, the depiction of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature as a whole. The search for a hero who is morally harmonious, who clearly understands the boundaries of good and evil, who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers. The twentieth century (especially the second half) felt the loss of the moral ideal even more acutely than the nineteenth: the connection of times fell apart, the string broke, which A.P. Chekhov so sensitively grasped (the play “The Cherry Orchard”), and the task of literature is to realize that we not “Ivans who do not remember kinship.”

I would especially like to dwell on the depiction of the folk world in the works of V.M. Shukshina. Among the writers of the late twentieth century, it was V.M. Shukshin turned to the people’s soil, believing that people who retained their “roots,” albeit subconsciously, but were drawn to the spiritual principle inherent in the people’s consciousness, contained hope and testified that the world had not yet perished.

The originality of the folk world is reflected by the type of hero created by Shukshin - the “eccentric” hero, a character unlike all the others, spiritually connected with the folk soil, rooted in it. This connection is unconscious, however, it is precisely this that makes the hero a special person, the embodiment of a moral ideal, a person in whom lies the author’s hope for the preservation of traditions and the revival of the people’s world. “Freaks” often evoke an ironic smile, even laughter from readers. However, their “eccentricity” is natural: they look around with wide open eyes, their soul feels dissatisfaction with reality, they want to change this world, improve it, but they have at their disposal means that are unpopular among people who have well mastered the “wolf” laws of life. Speaking of “eccentrics,” we dwell on the story “Creacle,” whose hero’s name was Vasily Yegorych Knyazev, and he worked as a projectionist, but we learn these meager biographical facts only at the end of the story, because this information does not add anything to the character’s characterization. The important thing is that “something was always happening to him. He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got into some kind of story - minor, however, but annoying.” He commits actions that cause bewilderment and sometimes even discontent.

Analyzing the episodes associated with his stay visiting his brother, we grasp the moral strength that the people's soil gave him. The weirdo immediately feels hatred, waves of anger that emanate from his daughter-in-law. The hero does not understand why they hate him, and this worries him very much.

The weirdo goes home to his village, his soul cries. But in native village he felt how happy he was, how close the world with which he was connected was to him, nourishing his pure, vulnerable, misunderstood, but so necessary for the world, soul.

“Freak” heroes unite many of Shukshin’s stories. In class we analyze the stories “Styopka”, “Microscope”, “I Believe” and others. The hero-“eccentric” is contrasted with a “strong man”, a man who is cut off from the people’s soil, to whom folk morality is alien. We consider this problem using the example of the story “A Strong Man.”

Concluding the conversation about the depiction of the people's world V.M. Shukshin, we come to the conclusion that the writer deeply comprehended the nature of the Russian national character and showed in his works what kind of person the Russian village yearns for. About the soul of a Russian person V.G. Rasputin writes in the story “Izba”. The writer draws readers to the Christian norms of simple and ascetic life and, at the same time, to the norms of brave, courageous action,” creation, and asceticism. We can say that the story returns readers to the spiritual space of the ancient, maternal culture. The tradition of hagiographic literature is noticeable in the narrative. Agafya’s harsh, ascetic life, her ascetic work, love for native land, to every hummock and every blade of grass, erecting “mansions” in a new place - these are the moments of content that make the story about the life of a Siberian peasant woman related to life. There is also a miracle in the story: despite the “addiction,” Agafya, having built a hut, lives in it “twenty years without one year,” that is, she will be awarded longevity. And the hut built by her hands, after Agafya’s death, will stand on the shore, will preserve the foundations of centuries-old peasant life for many years, and will not allow them to perish in our days.

The plot of the story, the character of the main character, the circumstances of her life, the story of the forced move - everything refutes the popular ideas about the laziness and commitment to drunkenness of the Russian person. The main feature of Agafya’s fate should also be noted: “Here (in Krivolutskaya) Agafya’s Vologzhin family settled from the very beginning and lived for two and a half centuries, taking root in half the village.” This is how the story explains the strength of character, perseverance, and asceticism of Agafya, who is building her “house”, a hut, in a new place, after which the story is named. In the story of how Agafya set up her hut in a new place, V.G. Rasputin’s story comes close to the life of Sergius of Radonezh. It is especially close in the glorification of carpentry, which was owned by Agafya’s voluntary assistant, Savely Vedernikov, who earned an apt description from his fellow villagers: he has “golden hands.” Everything that Savely’s “golden hands” do shines with beauty, pleases the eye, and glows. “Damp plank, and how board to board lay on two shiny slopes, playing with whiteness and newness, how it shone already at dusk, when, having hit the roof with an ax for the last time, Savely went down, as if the light was streaming over the hut and it stood up to its full potential. growth, immediately moving into the residential order.”

Not only life, but also fairy tales, legends, and parables resonate in the style of the story. As in the fairy tale, after Agafya’s death the hut continues their common life. The blood connection between the hut and Agafya, who “endured” it, is not broken, reminding people to this day of the strength and perseverance of the peasant breed.

At the beginning of the century, S. Yesenin called himself “the poet of the golden log hut.” In the story by V.G. Rasputin, written at the end of the 20th century, the hut is made of logs darkened by time. There is only a glow under the night sky from the brand new plank roof. Izba - a word-symbol - was fixed at the end of the 20th century in the meaning of Russia, homeland. The parable layer of V.G.’s story is connected with the symbolism of village reality, with the symbolism of the word. Rasputin.

So, moral problems traditionally remain the focus of Russian literature; our task is to convey to students the life-affirming foundations of the works being studied. The portrayal of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature; the search for a hero who is morally harmonious, clearly aware of the boundaries of good and evil, and who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers.

The story “The Enchanted Wanderer” was written by Leskov in 1873, during the most productive period of his work. This is a programmatic work, that is, it contains something that is later implemented in other works. Along with “The Councilors” and “The Sealed Angel,” “The Enchanted Wanderer” can be called a masterpiece of Russian novella of the 19th century. In one work, the author showed the most different spheres of Russian life: here is the serf life on the count’s estate, and the southern steppe, of which the hero of the story became a captive, and here is a striking depiction of the relationship between animal and human. This is life rolling on a roller: childhood, adolescence, territorial movements, fantastic elements, suffering, love stories, man and animal. And the special mission of the hero, Ivan Severyanych, is the atonement of his own sin. A chain of adventures and fatality. “The Enchanted Wanderer” is one of those stories that cannot be abandoned halfway thanks to the manner of storytelling, when facts and characters cling to each other. And the whole story is presented in an elementary, frivolous form.

Maybe some researchers are right to some extent: “The Enchanted Wanderer” absorbed a lot from the adventurous story of the West and Russia. The hero's childhood is extraordinary: he was promised to God, but this promise does not come true. A boy, trying to establish justice in the animal world, gets pigeons. He accomplishes the feat of saving the count's couple while riding mad horses, and then flees from the count's house in protest against the injustice of the punishment. Meeting with a gypsy. Deceived by him, without money, without a home, thrown overboard of life, he ends up in the police, where he is deceived again. Next - the way to the fair and fascination with horses. Shocked by the beauty of the horse, which will go to the winner of a unique whip fight,

Ivan, essentially still a boy, whips his opponent. According to Tatar custom, he is now the owner of a horse, a wife, and a respected person by all. But according to our laws, he is a “murderer” and deserves hard labor. The Tatars save him and take him to the ulus. Now he is a prisoner: “Yakshi Urus, you will live with us. Treat horses. You will have everything - wives, horses, everything. We’ll just trim the skin on the heels and put bristles there so that he doesn’t run away...”

Leskov can convey heat, heated air and complete silence - Asian peace, completely inaccessible to Europeans. Steppe. A Russian person is placed here, he adapts to these conditions: he begins to understand the Tatar language. All day long he looks at the hot Asian sky, at its transitions from blue to dark purple, until night falls and the stars light up. His short life is all before him. Memory takes him back to the count's estate, and the decision to run away grows stronger in his soul. Here is a happy occasion - Russian missionaries visit the ulus to convert the infidels. However, they refuse his request: you cannot interfere in the internal life of the people, if you are captured - be patient, it is God’s will. In addition, one missionary’s head was cut off, and the second disappeared to an unknown location... The aching melancholy does not leave our hero. And here are the new missionaries, these are Buddhists. The fate of their predecessors frightens them. Having hastily shown the Golden Serpent to the infidels, they left the dangerous limits, forgetting in their haste the box with pyrotechnics. Ivan Severyanych’s practical mind immediately turned on, he gave the Tatars such a fiery feast that they lay down on the ground and began to wait for the end. He was running (he dealt with the stubble in his heels himself). The count's estate, flogging and again a fair where horses are traded. Human. Freedom. Horses. Element. Finding will. And again unity with the horse.

There is something eternally poetic in the communication between a Russian man and a horse: he rides on it and plows, they feed each other, the horse carries it out of battle, out of the fire, and will not leave you in trouble. A man rides around a horse. For Ivan Severyanych, this is his whole life. Where did Leskov get the horse-beast from? From fairy tales, epics, songs? No, this is just the background. This horse is both the reality that surrounded Leskov and the creation of his poetic imagination, thirsting for shocks.

There is no similar image of a horse in Russian literature; it is almost a humanization of the animal: grace, beauty, variety of “characters” revealed in communication with a person - all this is described in detail. Ivan Severyanych Flyagin is an equestrian, or rather, an equestrian poet. He spends the best part of his life among horses and finds a response to his spiritual impulses in them. The animal always helps him out. This is a completely different world - the world of man and animal. Here, man is also an animal, they merge, they have the same character, habits, perception of the world.

The meeting with the prince is the next stage in the hero's life. Although he lived spontaneously, he lived in a special world - in an enchanted one. And he himself had a special attractive force; everyone, everyone wanted him to work for them. The prince is not overjoyed at his “coneser”. If Ivan Severyanych buys a horse, then it will be a horse for all horses. And yet, a new element bursts into the life of our hero and captures him.

Ivan Severyanych is a huge baby, a man with a child’s soul and heroic strength. He went through all the trials: fire, war, love. But what kind of love is this? The beginning of the spree is a meeting with a magnetizer. Gypsies, Grushenka. Her voice, hands, hair, thin parting, touch. “It’s as if it touches your lips with a poisonous brush and burns all the blood to the very heart with pain.” What other people's money is that! The prince's "swans" swarmed in flocks at Grushenka's feet. She is a deity, Madonna. This is not an adventurous story; there are no such motives as renunciation of earthly happiness, reverence, admiration for feminine beauty. A special world opened up to Ivan Severyanich - an unprecedented world of the first feeling, where earthly passion merged with the unearthly, painfully beautiful. Leskov was extremely successful in describing rampant force platonic love hero, as if he himself was captured by this gypsy.

But the author slowed down in time and gave a trivial outcome with drawn cloth: delirium tremens, a conversation with the prince. Passion is curbed, a new theme begins - the affinity of souls, a new stage in the relationship between Ivan Severyanych and Grusha. She set the prince on edge. He marries money, neglecting dignity and decency.

The prince is a whistler, a mercantilist, a vile little soul. Leskov gave a distorted, vile Pechorin. Pechorin has nobility, the prince does not. Pechorin can kill Grushnitsky, the prince cannot, but he can deceive everyone. This is not a story, this is insert element. Leskov does not make rude attacks against modern authorities. This is not Dostoevsky (who called Prince Myshkin Lev Nikolaevich to annoy Tolstoy, and called the novel “The Idiot”; you can’t say it to his face, but in a novel you can). Leskov will not allow this rude ridicule, but he shows Pechorin’s degeneration with pleasure.

Flyagin, returning from a trip on princely affairs, encounters Grusha, who is equally close to suicide and murder, and carries it out last will, in order to prevent her from committing a sin - like a gypsy, with a knife, to deal with a completely innocent homewrecker. He pushes her off a cliff into the river.

And the plot is still winding. The hero, by the will of the author, will have to enter military service instead of the peasant son of inconsolable parents, distinguish himself there by committing a heroic act in the war, and receive a promotion. Ivan Severyanych became a nobleman because he wears the St. George Cross. But what kind of nobleman is this - a thousand responsibilities and no rights! Then he will have to go to the “fita”, become a monk (here an epic story about life in the monastery unfolds), and there, to his own and everyone’s surprise, begin to prophesy. We tried to wean him off the harmful misfortune with severity - it helped, but not for long. Then, on the advice of the doctor, they sent him to travel. Ivan Severyanych sets off for Holy Rus'. So he sails on a ship to Solovki, and if there is a war, he will change his “hood” to an “amunichka” and lay down his belly for the fatherland. This is how the story ends, told by the hero himself at the request of the passengers of the ship. The beginning and end of the story merge.

“The Enchanted Wanderer” is the life of one person. Before us is a whole chain of completed stories told by the hero himself. He captivated the audience: at first they listened in disbelief, then they were fascinated by his story, and finally they were enchanted. “He confessed the stories of his past with all the frankness of his simple soul.” This story could very well be a novel; it contains romantic elements. But there is no novel here. Some researchers compare it with an adventure novel: murders, romantic love, geographical displacement, elements of hoax or mysticism, typical heroes- adventurers of various stripes. But this is purely external.

Ivan Severyanich is a simple Russian man. This is not a hero, not a knight. This is a knight every day, he is not looking for adventure, but they are looking for him. He is not St. George the Victorious, but he wins all the time. Murders, if you try to classify them, are as follows: the murder of a monk - out of stupidity, out of mischief; killing a Tatar - in a competition, a fair fight; Pears - at her request. We have to acquit this man of all murders except the first case. On the other hand, the main feature of the hero is his sacrifice: he saved the count and countess, saved the girl, because he felt sorry for the mother. He cannot survive the murder of Grusha, he feels like a sinner (he leaves without looking and not knowing where). He becomes a soldier instead of a recruit - in the name of atonement for his sin. And in this, an adventurous story of a European type does not stand up to opposition.

The trait of sacrifice and repentance is generally characteristic of the Russian national character. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov - they all have repentance.

In the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” this trait has a dominant meaning. This makes us think that this is not an adventure story, which has no equivalent in European literature. All the moments are there, but there is no remorse. Last time I presented material related to the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” solely in order to crystallize the national character of the hero. The elements of criminality in this story are not leading. Unusual character - that's it bright line. Everything revolved around him. Ivan Severyanych Flyagin became for us the only point on which all our attention was concentrated. Leskov likes to give an image that is not ideal, but real, even overly real. In terms of his mental abilities, Ivan Severyanych is a person “a little of that”; he is not a rationalist, a dreamer. He is an artist at heart. Seemingly somewhat silly and at the same time unusually practical, he is a kind of unique person in the world of ordinary people, capable of feeling extraordinary strength. By nature, Ivan Severyanich is an artist. He understands a lot not through consciousness, but through sensation and intuition. Leskovsky’s hero knows, that is, he feels, what needs to be done, what to say, what to answer, he never thinks (except for an intellectual hero, which is Tuberozov). But Leskov never has a work with one hero; his hero is always surrounded by an environment, or, as we would say now, a team, which forces him to reveal himself fully. In “The Enchanted Wanderer,” this particular technique of revealing the character of the main character is used. Not just a description of him, not just his characterization or portrait - all this is there, but that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that Ivan Severyanich Flyagin is placed in a series of circumstances that themselves force him to open up, in these circumstances he acts completely differently, in a unique way, I would say, in an original way. And the reader gradually forgets that this is a story, that he is dealing with a literary work. He is simply carried away by one, two, three adventures that befall Leskov’s hero. That is why many researchers consider the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” as an adventure story. But this is the only work of its kind. "The Enchanted Wanderer". Think about this name. We can talk for a long time about the poetics of the titles of Leskov’s works. Ostrovsky, for example, often used sayings as the titles of his plays. Leskov never, it’s different for him. The title is the thesis of the entire work. The names of his pieces play on various facets of the meaning of the work. “The Enchanted Wanderer”... This title is the key to the story. The wandering of a poetic soul, unconsciously drawn to beauty, capable of feeling its perfection - and a person is in the grip of a spell, bewitched. Dependent on charm, unable to control himself due to his endless impressionability, weak despite all his epic heroic strength. How can you blame him?

But another name is “Sealed Angel”... There is both an angel and a seal. And the ethereal ideal beginning - and the soullessness, the mechanical blasphemy of the state machine, capable of making holes in a masterpiece and putting a stamp on the face of the Archangel. Here is the impressionability of a seeking soul, gravitating towards spiritual perfection, defenseless. There is great skill here - the ability to capture the ideal.

When you read Leskov, you are so captivated by the text that it is impossible to imagine that the author did not experience what he writes so fascinatingly about. There are very few writers who describe what they have not seen. This is the strength of the artist’s conviction: we accept Kutuzov as he is described by Tolstoy, and Richelieu as he is described by Dumas. In Leskov’s story “At the End of the World,” the nature of the North is described very accurately. But Leskov was not there, but he conveyed the feeling of frosty air, breathtaking. This is the gift of insight. He discovered this gift in The Sealed Angel.

Leskov wrote the story “The Captured Angel” (1873), one of his brightest and most perfect works, based on a thorough study of scientific and documentary materials, representing two layers of knowledge: the life of schismatics and art history - ancient Russian icon painting of the 15th-17th centuries. Leskov prepares material of two levels: historical and scientific-educational - for the series of essays “With People of Ancient Piety” (1863). And then he creates the story “The Captured Angel,” where scientific material becomes the subject of artistic interpretation. He reincarnates this material and gives a second life to a work that already exists, but which he changes. And one gets the impression that in the story he writes about the environment that he knows. This world fascinates him. This is a special world of ideas, skills, ways of different cities: Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Volga region, Zhostovo. The writer is interested in how life is reflected in art: the world of isographers, the composition of paints, the style of painting, the character of the painters. Many pages are devoted specifically to this world of art and concern everything: from the characters of the icon painters to the composition of the gesso. The subject of the image becomes the very material of the icon painter.

But Leskov is not creating an art criticism treatise; there must be a narrative plot, intrigue. Therefore, here the artist becomes twice an artist. Leskov describes adventures in an unusual world from art history and everyday points of view. It starts with a story, but it turns into action and the narrator disappears.

And now - a short historical excursion into the area of the Old Believers. It arose in the 17th century in response to the innovations of Patriarch Nikon. Russian life was very colorful then. When Michael sat on the throne, everything depended on his father, the patriarch, who returned from captivity and ruled it. It was harder for his son, Alexei Mikhailovich. The government was supposed to be autocratic, and the ground was shaking underfoot (Polish intervention, Swedish war, civil strife), there was nothing to rely on. No matter what they say, the support for power is always ideology, and from time immemorial it has been in the Russian Orthodox Church. But the disorder in the church was enormous: under the influence of the Poles, Catholicism penetrated, under the influence of the Swedes - Lutheranism, and the Tatars - Muslimization. It's all intertwined. All this had to be neutralized. The Church remained orthodox, but its foundations were shaken. Then Alexey Mikhailovich decides to create a “Circle of Zealots of Piety,” which was supposed to take care of the good behavior of the church service and strict adherence to its consistency. And then the unimaginable happened (and Kurbsky ridiculed this at one time): the service was going on, and someone was immediately singing, another was reading, a third was praying near the icon brought from home. A ban followed: do not wear your icons to church! The service time was limited and simultaneous singing and speaking were abolished.

But life goes on as usual - the old patriarch died, Nikon was elected, a decisive, tough man, a reformer by nature, whom the tsar, distinguished by his gentle and sociable disposition, considered his friend. Nikon initially refused to be a patriarch. Then the king in the Assumption Cathedral, in front of the relics of St. Philip, bowed at Nikon’s feet, begging him to accept the patriarchal rank. And he agreed on the condition that he would be honored as an archpastor and allowed to build a church. The Tsar, and everyone behind him - both the spiritual authorities and the boyars - swore to him of this. Nikon immediately changed everything by order. To return to Byzantine primary sources, you need to re-read all the ancient church books and correct errors! This event was decisive and tragic, and all the misfortunes began with it. The Russian clergy knew Greek very poorly. For three centuries, scribes made mistakes, and those who corrected them introduced new distortions. For example, in the Nomocanon it is written: “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, glory to you, O God,” but in another copy “Alleluia” is repeated only twice, which means it needs to be corrected. But how many saints prayed from these books! This made them sacred and holy. “What does Byzantium have to do with it? - the supporters of antiquity were angry. “She fell under the sabers of the Turks, was desecrated by Islam, submitted to Mohammed, she cannot instruct us!” Nikon was a very smart and resourceful person, he objected: “And we will take interpreters from Ukraine.” We found specialists at the Mogilev College (Peter Mogila with with great difficulty created the Collegium - the Poles did not allow it to be called the Academy; Dmitry Rostovsky and Innokenty came out from there, and interpreters poured into Russia. The Holy of Holies - church books were verified with primary sources in ancient Greek and corrected. In the eyes of the supporters of the old order, this was a sacrilegious violation of ancient piety. Nikon announces three-fingered baptism, and the old people contemptuously say: “They sniff tobacco.”

Do you remember the painting “Boyaryna Morozova” by Surikov? There in the background, in the direction of the movement of her hand, there is a small peaked building - this is a church. In the old architecture there were towers running upward, made of wood. So, Nikon forbade the construction of such churches, ordered the construction of five-domed, foreign ones, like in Byzantium. The reform also affected music. They began to sing not according to hooks, but according to notes. Old Believer singing on hooks is very tuneless for unaccustomed ears. Singers appeared in the church, and something like a concert was taking place. Iconography has also changed. It has become more refined, but no longer so penetrating to the soul. The ancient faces with their endless sadness and silence were becoming a thing of the past. The icon combines a human and non-human appearance: big eyes, thin arms, a turn of the body, sadness in the eyes, endless sadness... How to depict God? In the Old Russian icon, everything carnal is lost and the superhuman is left, there is no volume. And there is nothing superhuman in the new images. Gods were made by people, prayers were made into concerts, buildings were not the same. This was the spiritual basis for disagreement and opposition.

But in order to carry out reforms, enormous amounts of money are needed. Patriarch Nikon, as an intelligent man, from the people, a representative of the middle stratum of the clergy, poor priests, knew very well that you couldn’t get much from the boyars and merchants, but the rural priest would take everything he needed from the peasants. He imposed taxes on the church. Now Nikon is like a king, he has his own court. Alexey Mikhailovich cannot ignore him. But the peasants had little regard for him. And the rural priests were already saying: “Nikon is a wolf!” And a terrible split occurred between the church and the Old Believers. The state, Alexey Mikhailovich, should have taken Nikon’s side, since this was an advanced direction. Transformations were necessary for Russia.

The split brought ruin to the country. And the clergy languished from taxes, and the men. At the head of the Old Believers was Archpriest Avvakum, an exceptionally interesting personality. His fierce sermons against Patriarch Nikon were heard. “I bark him, he’s the Antichrist!” - wrote Avvakum. And he was eventually burned along with his closest followers in Pustozersk (there is a platform with his name and a cross behind the forest). Whole villages of people went into the forests. The boyars (Urusovs, Morozovs) took part in the schism. Why? And because under Nikon they lost their former political significance, the loss of power offended them. Part of the boyars, offended by court intrigues and having lost their political significance, clutched at the split like a straw.

Habakkuk was destroyed. Later, Nikon is tried and exiled. The new church dispensation was established, but the Old Believers did not lose their vitality. In the 18th century, persecution of Old Believers led to self-immolations: the hut was burning, and they stood inside and sang the canon. What can the authorities do about such disregard for death? Peter I didn’t care about all this - just let them pay. If you want to wear a beard, go ahead (Christ had a beard too!), but just be sure to pay for the beard.

Within the schism there were many sects: Bespopovtsy, Runners (ran from all authority), Jumpers (jumped from officials, police - so to speak, elusive athletes), Khlysty (this was a terrible sect). Something had to be done: sectarianism is a terrible thing.

In the 19th century, the Kiev Metropolitan Platon (in the world Nikolai Ivanovich Gorodetsky) tried to “tame” the Old Believers. He came up with an idea: let the Old Believers remain Old Believers, but it is necessary to introduce common faith. Since the Old Believers did not have a bishop (they elected their own priests, and thus there was no grace for them), Plato suggested to them: “We will give you real priests, they will conduct the service according to your books, the way you need.” The priests were eager and interested in this endeavor, but the Old Believers were not at all interested. Another priest waits, waits for them for the service, and then goes to the neighboring forest and finds them there praying. The most disgusting thing is that the police were involved in this matter. This is exactly the time that Leskov writes about in “The Captured Angel.” Metropolitan Platon saw that you couldn’t easily convince schismatics, that they were organizing debates, and there you couldn’t beat them, the scolders.

These disputes have existed in our time. Once about 50 years ago, on a summer night before the feast of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, I saw how schismatics and Orthodox Christians gathered near Lake Svetloyar in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Some walked in black, others in white. Both of them carried a log in their hand. Frankly, this puzzled me. People in white with logs and in black with logs were located in separate groups. Everyone sang their own psalm. When it got dark, everyone attached a lighted candle to their log and set it floating on the water. The lake is in a hollow, there is no wind. What a beauty it was! For some reason, the logs closed in a circle, and in the middle of the lake two luminous rings from burning candles formed - real and reflected, no less bright. And then they began to sing... A ring of candles and hook singing - fear and delight!

According to legend, the city of Kitezh drowned in Lake Svetloyar, and a pious person, if he walks around the lake, will see that city.

Early Russian capitalism took shape in the Old Believer environment. Since the Old Believers were persecuted people, they needed to be provided with money. Their environment is a world where everyone stands up for each other. Such cohesion helped them survive in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From there - the Mamontovs, Alekseevs (Stanislavsky), Shchukins, Morozovs. Our patrons are from the Old Believer environment (Bakhrushin from the tanners, Morozov from the manufacturers). This environment was exceptionally healthy, talented, hard-working, strong in its mutual support and cohesion, rich. They worked conscientiously, without betraying their faith, living an ideally pure family life. (As long as your wife is alive, you don’t dare remarry, otherwise you will be crushed, crushed economically.) The Old Believer could not drink vodka, otherwise he would simply be thrown out of the community and considered a nonentity. He doesn't smoke (it's hard to be an Old Believer!). They built themselves a house, away from the authorities, surrounded by trees, a river, and in the depths of the house - a favorite room in which icons were laid out (they never parted with them). And they live and work with prayer. The Old Believers are, in essence, a strong economic union with the support of religion. The masters have golden hands, the leaders also have clear heads, so they united in an artel, a professional and economic union, sanctified by a single faith. Invincible people! But they had one weak spot...

This vulnerable spot was also present in the team of masons (bridge builders) that Leskov talks about in “The Sealed Angel.” Artel workers are skilled people, but helpless in some things. They needed an intermediary between themselves and the authorities, an organizer who would keep all their documentation, provide them with provisions, and transfer money to their families by mail. Leskov also has such a character. Pimen, of course, is a scoundrel, a “emptiness,” but it’s impossible without him. In appearance, he is handsome, the city authorities like him, he knows how to find a loophole for them, but in essence he is talkative inappropriately, and lies, and is not too honest. Leskov knows how to portray such people; he saw them when he served under A.Ya. Shcott.

An artel of masons erected eight bulls on the Dnieper, and the Old Believers-artel workers lived their usual lives, very happy with their location. There were pointed poplars, and they fascinated them with their resemblance to the drawings in the margins of their prayer books. And they were pleased with how the work progressed, and most importantly, with how nice their favorite icons looked in the secret room - “The Most Holy Lady Praying in the Garden” and “Guardian Angel”, by Stroganov. Peace, silence, cleanliness, everything is decorated with white towels - such grace that you don’t want to leave. And then a misfortune happened: the icon of an angel fell from the lectern. How she fell is unknown, but that’s how it all started.

Leskov said that he was not a writer, but a secretary of life, transmitting and recording facts. In the city, Jews sell contraband, officials go for an inspection. The head of the audit went and really covered everyone up. He gave a seal for a bribe so that the Jews would seal their shops. The traders took out the contraband, waited a day or two and demanded money from him, or else threatened to sue for disruption of commerce. They rushed to the Old Believers for money, but they had nowhere to take it from. This is where everything started to boil down. The inspector’s wife sent gendarmes to the Old Believers, they came and took away the icons, sealing them with sealing wax, and the icon of the angel too: “this divine divine face was red and imprinted, and from under the seal the drying oil, which melted a little from the top under the fire resin, streamed down in two streams, like blood dissolved in a tear...” Then the artel workers decide to replace the icons. And for this you need to find a master, an isographer, who will paint a new icon.

Then a new story begins in the story. Leskov very often has several stories in one thing. For Leskov, the story is the main genre, and he almost flaunts it: a story within a story; a story pretending to be history; a story in the nature of a love adventure or tragedy. Sometimes it is difficult for Leskov, he cannot stop: “The Life of a Woman” he writes as his contemporaries wrote - Levitov, Uspensky, Reshetnikov. But they wrote local stories, while Leskov has many pages connected by light bridges that are almost indistinguishable. Researchers compared his stories with the tales of the Arabian Nights.

A new plot twist: the narrator Mark and the youth Levontius go in search of an isographer. Along the way, the Old Believers meet the hermit Pamva. He is a heretic, that is, of a new faith, he cannot have any truth, but the opinion of the narrator. But “Levontius wants to see what the grace of the dominant church is.” Pamva is not talkative. Pa always answers: “Thank God.” A silent dialogue takes place: Levontii and Pamva say something to each other without words. Mark understands that Pamva will calm the devils even in hell: “he asks to go to hell, he responds to everything with humility, he will turn all the demons to Nog, it’s not for nothing that I feared him.” “This man is irresistible.” A person is devoid of all malice, as if he were not a person. And Pamva sowed doubt in the soul of the wanderer Mark: “It means that the church is strong if there is such faith.”

The story “The Sealed Angel” delighted everyone until the ending was printed. The ending is unexpected and almost implausible: the revelation of the miracle is unconvincing. The Englishwoman stuck a piece of paper, but it flew off. With Leskov, everything is on the verge of chance. He shows that miracles are only accidents, coincidences, funny and at the same time tragic. The writer does not succeed in miracles: he is a down-to-earth person, despite the poetry of his works. The measure of fiction and the measure of fantasy do not go beyond the scope of reality. The writer himself admitted that he had to redo the ending. This is one of those things in which Leskov could not or did not want to resolve the conflict.

The researcher wants to see a masterpiece in the work being studied. Leskov may have been afraid of this masterpiece. Proseism is one of the best aspects of his work. In “The Captured Angel” there is prosaism on prosaism.

There is one idea in this story - to find the truth. Through what? Through the image of an angel. “They laugh at us, as if an Englishwoman slipped us on a piece of paper under the church. But we do not argue against such arguments: as everyone believes, let him judge, but for us it makes no difference in what ways the Lord seeks a person and from what vessel he gives him to drink, as long as he seeks and quenches his thirst for unanimity with the fatherland.”

Depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov

Introduction

It was special person and a special writer

A. A. Volynsky

The problem of the Russian national character became one of the main ones for the literature of the 60-80s of the 19th century, closely connected with the activities of various revolutionaries, and later populists. The writer N.S. also paid attention to her. Leskov.

Leskov belonged to those writers of the second half of the 19th century centuries, which, without a clear progressive worldview, possessed a kind of spontaneous democracy and believed in popular forces.

The period of Leskov’s creativity is characterized by the writer’s desire to find positive ideals in Russian life and contrast them with all forms of personal suppression.

N.S. Leskov wrote: A writer’s voice training lies in the ability to master the language and voice of his hero and not stray from altos to basses. I tried to develop this skill in myself and, it seems, achieved that my priests speak spiritually, nihilists speak nihilistically, men speak like peasants, upstarts speak with tricks, etc. For myself, I speak in the language of ancient fairy tales and church folk in purely literary speech. Now you only recognize me in every article, even if I didn’t sign for it. It makes me happy. They say it's fun to read me. This is because we all: both my heroes and myself, have our own voice...

Hard work, high honesty, selflessness are the qualities that distinguish many of Leskov’s heroes. The author's realism at the turn of the 60s and 70s of the 19th century borders on romance: his artistic world is inhabited by eccentrics, originals with genuine love for humanity, doing good unselfishly, for the sake of good itself. Leskov deeply believes in the spiritual strength of the people and sees in it the salvation of Russia.

The topic of my essay: The portrayal of Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov.

The purpose of the work can be seen in the choice of the topic of the essay: to consider the depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov.

I set myself the following tasks:

Study the character of the Russian people in the works of N. S. Leskov.
Learn Leskov's language.

N. S. Leskov worked in literature for 35 years, from 1860 to 1895. We find an interpretation of the essence of the character of a Russian person in many of his works. The period of Leskov’s work in the 70s and mid-80s is characterized by the writer’s desire to find positive ideals in Russian life and contrast them with all forms of personal suppression. Leskov saw good and bright sides in Russian people. And this is partly reminiscent of the search for ideally beautiful people by F. M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy. But, creating his righteous people, Leskov takes them directly from life, does not endow them with any ideas of a previously accepted teaching; they are simply morally pure, they do not need moral self-improvement. His righteous go through difficult life trials and endure many hardships and grief. And even if the protest is not actively expressed, their very bitter fate is a protest.

A righteous man, according to public assessment, is a small man, all of whose property is often in a small shoulder bag, but spiritually, in the minds of the reader, he grows into a legendary epic figure. This is the hero Ivan Flyagin in The Enchanted Wanderer, reminiscent of Ilya Muromets. The conclusion from his life was this: the Russian man can handle everything.

The most striking work on the theme of the righteous is the Tale of the Tula Scythe Lefty and the Steel Flea. The righteous charm people with themselves, but they themselves act as if enchanted. Give them a second life, they will live through it too. The tale of Lefty develops this motif.

Leskov is the author of a huge number of works of various genres, an interesting publicist whose articles have not lost their relevance to this day, an excellent stylist and an unsurpassed expert on the most diverse layers of Russian speech, a psychologist who has penetrated into the secrets of the Russian national character and shown the role of national historical foundations in the life of the country, writer, who, in the apt expression of M. Gorky, pierced all of Rus'

I read a lot of interesting literature, which helped me better understand Leskov’s personality, character and worldview. The books that made a great contribution to my work were: The History of Russian Literature of the 19th Century by V. I. Kuleshov and The Life of Nikolai Leskov in two volumes by Andrei Leskov, a son’s book about his father. These books became the basis of my work, because they helped me study the life of Leskov and the people who surrounded him down to the smallest detail.

From the cradle to writing. The beginning of a creative journey.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Federal state budget educational institution higher professional education

"TAGANROG STATE PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE named after A.P. Chekhov"

Department of Literature

Course work

Portrayal of Russian national character

Completed by a student of __ course

Faculty of Russian Language and Literature

Zubkova Olesya Igorevna

Scientific director

Ph.D. Philol. Sciences Kondratyeva V.V.

Taganrog, 2012

Introduction

3 The problem of Russian national character in “The Tale of Tula’s Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea”

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The research topic of this course work is “Image of Russian national character.”

The relevance of the topic is caused by the acute interest these days in writers with a pronounced national consciousness, which includes Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. The problem of the Russian national character has become particularly acute in modern Russia, and in the world national identity is currently being updated by active processes of globalization and dehumanization, the establishment of mass society and the increase in socio-economic and moral problems. In addition, studying the stated problem allows us to understand the writer’s worldview, his concept of the world and man. In addition, the study of the stories of N.S. Leskova in school allows the teacher to draw students' attention to their own moral experience, contributing to the education of spirituality.

Goals and objectives of the work:

1)Having studied the existing research literature available to us, to identify the originality of N.S.’s creativity. Leskov, his deeply folk origins.

2)Identify the features and traits of the Russian national character that are captured in artistic creativity N.S. Leskov as a certain spiritual, moral, ethical and ideological integrity.

The work is based on the study of literary criticism, critical literature; the conclusions obtained in the work were made on the basis of observations of literary texts - the stories “The Enchanted Wanderer” (1873) and “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea” (1881).

The structure of the work includes an introduction, two parts, a conclusion and a list of references.

The significance of the work is associated with the possibility of using it in studying this author in a literature course at school.

Part 1. The problem of Russian national character in Russian philosophy and literature of the 19th century

“The mysterious Russian soul”... What epithets have been bestowed upon our Russian mentality. Is the Russian soul so mysterious, is it really so unpredictable? What does it mean to be Russian? What is the peculiarity of the Russian national character? How often have philosophers asked and asked these questions in scientific treatises, writers in works of various genres, and even ordinary citizens in table discussions? Everyone asks and answers in their own way.

The character traits of the Russian person are very accurately noted in folk tales and epics. In them, the Russian man dreams of a better future, but he is too lazy to make his dreams come true. He keeps hoping that he will catch a talking pike or catch a goldfish that will fulfill his wishes. This primordial Russian laziness and love of dreaming about the advent of better times has always prevented our people from living. A Russian person is too lazy to grow or make something that his neighbor has - it is much easier for him to steal it, and even then not himself, but to ask someone else to do it. A typical example of this is the case of the king and rejuvenating apples. All Russian folklore is based on the fact that being greedy is bad and greed is punishable. However, the breadth of the soul can be polar: drunkenness, unhealthy gambling, living for free, on the one hand. But, on the other hand, the purity of faith, carried and preserved through the centuries. A Russian person cannot believe quietly and modestly. He never hides, but goes to execution for his faith, walking with his head held high, striking his enemies.

There are so many things mixed into a Russian person that you can’t even count them on your fingers. Russians are so eager to preserve what is theirs that they are not ashamed of the most disgusting aspects of their identity: drunkenness, dirt and poverty. Such a trait of the Russian character as long-suffering often goes beyond the bounds of reason. From time immemorial, Russian people have resignedly endured humiliation and oppression. The already mentioned laziness and blind faith in a better future are partly to blame here. Russian people would rather endure than fight for their rights. But no matter how great the patience of the people is, it is still not limitless. The day comes and humility transforms into unbridled rage. Then woe to anyone who gets in the way. It’s not for nothing that Russian people are compared to a bear - huge, menacing, but so clumsy. We are probably rougher, certainly tougher in many cases. Russians have cynicism, emotional limitations, and a lack of culture. There is fanaticism, unscrupulousness, and cruelty. But still, mostly Russian people strive for good. The Russian national character has many positive traits. Russians are deeply patriotic and possess high strength spirit, they are able to defend their land to the last drop of blood. Since ancient times, both young and old have risen to fight against invaders.

Speaking about the peculiarities of the Russian character, one cannot fail to mention the cheerful disposition - a Russian sings and dances even in the most difficult periods of his life, and even more so in joy! He is generous and loves to go out on a grand scale - the breadth of the Russian soul has already become the talk of the town. Only a Russian person can give everything he has for the sake of one happy moment and not regret it later. Russian people have an inherent aspiration for something infinite. Russians always have a thirst for a different life, a different world, they always have dissatisfaction with what they have. Due to greater emotionality, Russian people are characterized by openness and sincerity in communication. If in Europe people are quite alienated in their personal lives and protect their individualism, then a Russian person is open to being interested in him, showing interest in him, caring for him, just as he himself is inclined to be interested in the lives of those around him: both his soul wide open and curious - what is behind the soul of the other.

A special conversation about the character of Russian women. Russian woman has unbending strength spirit, she is ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of a loved one and follow him to the ends of the earth. Moreover, this is not blindly following a spouse, like oriental women, but quite conscious and independent decision. This is what the wives of the Decembrists did, going after them to distant Siberia and dooming themselves to a life full of hardships. Nothing has changed since then: even now, in the name of love, a Russian woman is ready to spend her entire life wandering around the most remote corners of the world.

The works of Russian philosophers made an invaluable contribution to the study of Russian national character. turn of the XIX century- XX centuries - N.A. Berdyaev (“Russian Idea”, “Soul of Russia”), N.O. Lossky (“The Character of the Russian People”), E.N. Trubetskoy (“The Meaning of Life”), S.L. Frank (“The Soul of Man”), etc. Thus, in his book “The Character of the Russian People,” Lossky gives the following list of the main features inherent in the Russian national character: religiosity and the search for absolute good, kindness and tolerance, powerful willpower and passion, and sometimes maximalism . The philosopher sees the high development of moral experience in the fact that all layers of the Russian people show a special interest in distinguishing between good and evil. Such a feature of the Russian national character as the search for the meaning of life and the foundations of existence, according to Lossky, is excellently illustrated by the works of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky. Among such primary properties, the philosopher includes the love of freedom and its highest expression - freedom of spirit... Those who have freedom of spirit are inclined to put every value to the test, not only in thought, but even in experience... As a result of the free search for truth, it is difficult for Russian people to come to terms with each other ... Therefore, in public life The love of freedom of Russians is expressed in a tendency towards anarchy, in repulsion from the state. However, as N.O. rightly notes. Lossky, positive qualities often have negative sides. The kindness of a Russian person sometimes prompts him to lie so as not to offend his interlocutor, due to the desire for peace and good relations with people at all costs. Among the Russian people there is also the familiar “Oblomovism”, that laziness and passivity that is excellently depicted by I.A. Goncharov in the novel “Oblomov”. Oblomovism in many cases is the flip side of the high qualities of the Russian person - the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of our reality... Among the especially valuable properties of the Russian people is a sensitive perception of other people's states of mind. This results in live communication between even unfamiliar people. “The Russian people have highly developed individual personal and family communication. In Russia there is no excessive replacement of individual relationships with social ones, there is no personal and family isolationism. Therefore, even a foreigner, having arrived in Russia, feels: “I am not alone here” (of course, I am talking about normal Russia, and not about life under the Bolshevik regime). Perhaps these are the properties main source recognition of the charm of the Russian people, so often expressed by foreigners who know Russia well...” [Lossky, p. 42].

ON THE. Berdyaev in the philosophical work “Russian Idea” presented the “Russian soul” as the bearer of two opposite principles, which reflected: “the natural, pagan Dionysian element and ascetic monastic Orthodoxy, despotism, hypertrophy of the state and anarchism, freedom, cruelty, a tendency to violence and kindness, humanity, gentleness, ritualism and the search for truth, a heightened consciousness of the individual and impersonal collectivism, pan-humanity, ... the search for God and militant atheism, humility and arrogance, slavery and rebellion” [Berdyaev, p. 32]. The philosopher also drew attention to the collectivist principle in the development of national character and in the fate of Russia. According to Berdyaev, “spiritual collectivism”, “spiritual conciliarity” is a “high type of brotherhood of people”. This kind of collectivism is the future. But there is another collectivism. This is “irresponsible” collectivism, which dictates to a person the need to “be like everyone else.” The Russian person, Berdyaev believed, is drowning in such collectivism; he feels immersed in the collective. Hence the lack of personal dignity and intolerance towards those who are not like others, who, thanks to their work and abilities, have the right to more.

So, in the works of Russian philosophers at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, as well as in modern studies (for example: N.O. Kasyanova “On Russian National Character”), three leading principles stand out among the main characteristics of the traditional Russian national mentality: 1) religious or quasi-religious character ideology; 2) authoritarian-charismatic and centralist-power dominant; 3) ethnic dominance. These dominants - religious in the form of Orthodoxy and ethnic - were weakened during the Soviet period, while the ideological dominant and the power dominant, with which the stereotype of authoritarian-charismatic power is associated, became more strengthened.

IN Russian literature XIX century, the problem of Russian national character is also one of the main ones: we find dozens of images in the works of A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontova, N.V. Gogol and M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, I.A. Goncharov and N.A. Nekrasova, F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, each of whom bears the indelible stamp of Russian character: Onegin and Pechorin, Manilov and Nozdryov, Tatyana Larina, Natasha Rostova and Matryona Timofeevna, Platon Karataev and Dmitry Karamazov, Oblomov, Judushka Golovlev and Raskolnikov, etc. You can’t list them all.

A.S. Pushkin was one of the first to pose in Russian literature the problem of the Russian national character in its entirety. His novel “Eugene Onegin” became a highly popular work, “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” Tatyana Larina, a girl from a noble environment, is the one in whom the primordial nationality was most significantly reflected: “Russian soul, /On her own, without knowing why, /With her cold beauty/ loved the Russian winter.” This twice repeated “Russian” speaks about the main thing: the domestic mentality. Even a representative of another nation can love winter, but only a Russian soul can feel it without any explanation. Namely, she can suddenly see “frost in the sun on a frosty day,” “the radiance of pink snow,” and “the darkness of Epiphany evenings.” Only this soul has an increased sensitivity to the customs, mores and legends of the “common antiquity” with its New Year’s card fortune-telling, prophetic dreams and alarming signs. At the same time, the Russian beginning for A.S. Pushkin is not limited to this. To be “Russian” for him is to be faithful to duty, capable of spiritual responsiveness. In Tatyana, like in no other hero, everything that was given merged into a single whole. This is especially evident in the scene of explanation with Onegin in St. Petersburg. It contains deep understanding, sympathy, and openness of soul, but all this is subordinated to the observance of necessary duty. It does not leave the slightest hope for the loving Onegin. With deep sympathy, Pushkin also talks about the sad serfdom of nanny Tatyana.

N.V. Gogol, in the poem “Dead Souls,” also strives to vividly and succinctly portray the Russian people, and for this he introduces into the narrative representatives of three classes: landowners, officials and peasants. And although greatest attention is given to the landowners (such vivid images as Manilov, Sobakevich, Korobochka, Plyushkin, Nozdryov), Gogol shows that the real bearers of the Russian national character are the peasants. The author introduces into the narrative the carriage maker Mikheev, the shoemaker Telyatnikov, the brickmaker Milushkin, and the carpenter Stepan Probka. Special attention is paid to the strength and sharpness of the people's mind, the sincerity of folk songs, the brightness and generosity of folk holidays. However, Gogol is not inclined to idealize the Russian national character. He notes that any meeting of Russian people is characterized by some confusion, that one of the main problems of the Russian person: the inability to complete the work begun. Gogol also notes that a Russian person is often able to see the correct solution to a problem only after he has performed some action, but at the same time he really does not like to admit his mistakes to others.

Russian maximalism in its extreme form is clearly expressed in the poem by A.K. Tolstoy: “If you love, it’s crazy, / If you threaten, it’s not a joke, / If you scold, it’s rash, / If you chop, it’s wrong!” / If you argue, it’s too bold, / If you punish, then it’s a good thing, / If you ask, then with all your soul, / If you feast, then you feast like a mountain!”

ON THE. Nekrasov is often called the people's poet: he, like no one else, often addressed the topic of the Russian people. The vast majority of Nekrasov's poems are dedicated to the Russian peasant. In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” a generalized image of the Russian people is created thanks to all the characters in the poem. These are central characters (Matryona Timofeevna, Saveliy, Grisha Dobrosklonov, Ermila Girin), and episodic ones (Agap Petrov, Gleb, Vavila, Vlas, Klim and others). The men came together with a simple goal: to find happiness, to find out who has a good life and why. A typical Russian search for the meaning of life and the foundations of existence. But the heroes of the poem failed to find a happy man; only landowners and officials were free in Rus'. Life is hard for the Russian people, but there is no despair. After all, those who know how to work also know how to rest. Nekrasov expertly describes village holidays, when everyone, young and old, starts dancing. True, unclouded fun reigns there, all worries and labors are forgotten. The conclusion that Nekrasov comes to is simple and obvious: happiness lies in freedom. But freedom in Rus' is still very far away. The poet also created a whole galaxy of images of ordinary Russian women. Perhaps he romanticizes them somewhat, but one cannot help but admit that he managed to show the appearance of a peasant woman in a way that no one else could. For Nekrasov, a serf woman is a kind of symbol of the revival of Russia, its rebellion against fate. The most famous and memorable images of Russian women are, of course, Matryona Timofeevna in “Who Lives Well in Rus'” and Daria in the poem “Frost, Red Nose.”

The Russian national character also occupies a central place in the works of L.N. Tolstoy. Thus, in the novel “War and Peace” the Russian character is analyzed in all its diversity, in all spheres of life: family, national, social and spiritual. Of course, Russian traits are more fully embodied in the Rostov family. They feel and understand everything Russian, because feelings play main role in this family. This is most clearly manifested in Natasha. Of the entire family, she is most endowed with “the ability to sense shades of intonation, glances and facial expressions.” Natasha initially has a Russian national character. In the novel, the author shows us two principles in the Russian character: militant and peaceful. Tolstoy discovers the militant principle in Tikhon Shcherbat. The militant principle must inevitably appear during a people's war. This is a manifestation of the will of the people. A completely different person is Platon Karataev. In his image, Tolstoy shows a peaceful, kind, spiritual beginning. The most important thing is to attach Plato to the earth. His passivity can be explained by his inner belief that, in the end, good and just forces win and, most importantly, one must hope and believe. Tolstoy does not idealize these two principles. He believes that a person necessarily has both a militant and a peaceful beginning. And, depicting Tikhon and Plato, Tolstoy depicts two extremes.

A special role in Russian literature was played by F.M. Dostoevsky. Just as in his time Pushkin was the “starter,” so Dostoevsky became the “finisher” of the Golden Age of Russian art and Russian thought and the “starter” of the art of the new twentieth century. It was Dostoevsky who embodied in the images he created the most essential feature of the Russian national character and consciousness - its inconsistency, duality. The first, negative pole of the national mentality is everything “broken, false, superficial and slavishly borrowed.” The second, “positive” pole is characterized by Dostoevsky by such concepts as “simplicity, purity, meekness, broadness of mind and gentleness.” Based on the discoveries of Dostoevsky, N.A. Berdyaev wrote, as already mentioned, about the opposite principles that “formed the basis for the formation of the Russian soul.” As N.A. said Berdyaev, “To understand Dostoevsky to the end means to understand something very significant in the structure of the Russian soul, it means to get closer to the solution to Russia” [Berdyaev, 110].

Among all the Russian classics of the 19th century, M. Gorky pointed specifically to N.S. Leskov as a writer who, with the greatest effort of all the forces of his talent, sought to create a “positive type” of a Russian person, to find among the “sinners” of this world a crystal clear person, a “righteous person.”

Part 2. Creativity of N.S. Leskova and the problem of Russian national character

1 Review of the creative path of N.S. Leskova

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born on February 4 (old style) 1831. in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province, in the family of a minor judicial official, who came from the clergy and only before his death received documents of personal nobility. Leskov spent his childhood in Orel and on his father’s estate Panin, Oryol province. Leskov’s first impressions are also connected with Third Noble Street in Orel. The “earliest pictures” that opened on the next steppe carriage were “soldiers’ drill and stick fighting”: the time of Nicholas I excluded “humanitarianism”. Leskov encountered despotism of a different kind - direct serfdom in the village of Gorokhov, where he spent several years as a poor relative in the house of the old rich man Strakhov, to whom a young beauty - Leskov's aunt - was married. The writer attributed his “painful nervousness from which he suffered all his life” to Gorokhov’s “terrible impressions” [Skatov, p. 321]. However, close acquaintance with serf peasants and communication with peasant children revealed to the future writer the originality of the people's worldview, so different from the values and ideas of educated people from the upper classes. Panino awakened the artist in the boy and brought him the feeling of being flesh of the people. “I didn’t study the people from conversations with St. Petersburg cab drivers,” said the writer in one of the first literary polemics, “but I grew up among the people on the Gostomel pasture, with a cauldron in my hand, I slept with it on the dewy grass of the night under a warm sheepskin coat, yes in Panin’s busy crowd behind circles of dusty manners... I was one of the people with the people, and I have many godfathers and friends in them... I stood between the peasant and the rods tied to him...” [Leskov A., p. 141]. Childhood impressions and stories from my grandmother, Alexandra Vasilyevna Kolobova, about Orel and its inhabitants were reflected in many of Leskov’s works.

Primary education N.S. Leskov received a place in the house of wealthy relatives of the Strakhovs, who hired Russian and foreign teachers for their children. From 1841 to 1846 he studied at the Oryol gymnasium, but did not complete the course, because the thirst for independence and attraction to books interfered with normal learning at the gymnasium. In 1847 he entered service in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, and in 1849 he transferred to the Kyiv Treasury Chamber. Living with uncle S.P. Alferyev, professor of medicine at Kyiv University, Leskov found himself among students and young scientists. This environment had a beneficial effect on the development of the mental and spiritual interests of the future writer. He read a lot, attended lectures at the university, mastered the Ukrainian and Polish languages, and became closely acquainted with Ukrainian and Polish literature. Civil service weighed heavily on Leskov. He did not feel free and did not see any real benefit to society in his own activities. And in 1857 He joined a business and commercial company. As N.S. himself recalled. Leskov, commercial service“required constant travel and was sometimes kept... in the most remote outbacks.” He “traveled Russia in a wide variety of directions”, collected “a large abundance of impressions and a stock of everyday information” [Leskov A., p. 127].

Since June 1860 N.S. Leskov began to collaborate in St. Petersburg newspapers. In “St. Petersburg Gazette”, “Modern Medicine”, “Economic Index” he published his first articles of an economic and social nature. In 1861 The writer moves to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow, where he becomes an employee of the newspaper “Russian Speech”. His articles also appear in “Book Bulletin”, “Russian Disabled”, “ Domestic notes", "Time". In December 1861 N.S. Leskov returned to St. Petersburg and from January 1862. For two years, Leskov was an active contributor to the bourgeois-liberal newspaper “Northern Bee. N.S. Leskov headed the internal life department at the Northern Bee and spoke on the most pressing problems of our time. He wrote about the progress of reforms in various areas of Russian life, the state budget, openness, relations between classes, the status of women, and the ways of further development of Russia. Having shown himself to be a passionate polemicist, Leskov entered into an argument with both the revolutionary-democratic “Contemporary” of Chernyshevsky and the Slavophile “Day” of I. S. Aksakov. In 1862, his first work of fiction was published - the story “The Extinguished Cause” (“Drought”). This is a kind of essay from folk life, depicting the ideas and actions of ordinary people that seem strange and unnatural to an educated reader. Following him, “The Robber” and “In the Tarantass” (1862) appear in “The Northern Bee”, “The Life of a Woman” (1863) in “Library for Reading”, and “Caustic” (1863) in “Anchor”. The writer's first stories contain features characteristic of more later works writer.

N. S. Leskov worked in literature for 35 years, from 1860 to 1895. Leskov is the author of a huge number of works of various genres, an interesting publicist, whose articles have not lost their relevance to this day, an excellent stylist and an unsurpassed expert on the most diverse layers of Russian speeches, a psychologist who penetrated into the secrets of the Russian national character and showed the role of national-historical foundations in the life of the country, a writer, in the apt expression of M. Gorky, “pierced all of Rus'” [Skatov, p. 323].

We find an interpretation of the essence of the character of a Russian person in many of his works. The period of Leskov's work from the 1870s to the mid-80s is characterized by the writer's desire to find positive ideals in Russian life and contrast them with all forms of personal suppression. Leskov saw good and bright sides in Russian people. And this is partly reminiscent of F.M.’s search for ideally beautiful people. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy. At the turn of the 70-80s. Leskov created a whole gallery of righteous characters. Such is the quarterly Ryzhov, rejecting bribes and gifts, living on one meager salary, boldly truth teller in the eyes of high authorities (story “Odnodum”, 1879). Another righteous man is the Oryol tradesman, milkman Golovan from the story “The Non-Lethal Golovan” (1880); The story is based on stories Leskov heard as a child from his grandmother. Golovan is a savior, helper and comforter of the suffering. He defended the narrator in early childhood when he was attacked by an unchained dog. Golovan takes care of the dying during a terrible pestilence and dies in the great Oryol fire, saving property and the lives of townspeople. Both Ryzhov and Golovan in Leskov’s portrayal both embody the best features of the Russian folk character and are contrasted with those around them as exceptional natures. It is no coincidence that the residents of Soligalich consider the selfless Ryzhov a fool, and the residents of Oryol are convinced that Golovan is not afraid to care for those suffering from the plague, because he knows a magical remedy that protects him from the terrible disease. People do not believe in Golovan’s righteousness, falsely suspecting him of sins.

Creating his “righteous people,” Leskov takes them directly from life, does not endow them with any ideas of a previously accepted teaching, like F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy; Leskov's heroes are simply morally pure, they do not need moral self-improvement. The writer proudly declared: “The strength of my talent lies in positive types.” And he asked: “Show me another writer with such an abundance of positive Russian types?” [cit. according to Stolyarov, p.67]. His “righteous” go through difficult life trials and endure a lot of adversity and grief. And even if protest is not actively expressed, their very bitter fate is protest. The “Righteous Man,” according to public assessment, is a “little man,” whose entire property is often in a small shoulder bag, but spiritually, in the reader’s mind, he grows into a legendary epic figure. The “Righteous” bring people fascination with themselves, but they themselves act as if enchanted. This is the hero Ivan Flyagin in The Enchanted Wanderer, reminiscent of Ilya Muromets. The most striking work on the theme of the “righteous” is “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea.” The tale of Lefty develops this motif.

2 The search for the righteous in the story “The Enchanted Wanderer”

Summer of 1872<#"justify">Leskov Russian national character

2.3 The problem of Russian national character in “The Tale of Tula’s Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea”

This work was first published in the magazine “Rus”, in 1881 (No. 49, 50 and 51) under the title “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea (Workshop Legend).” The work was published as a separate edition the following year. The author included the story in his collection of works “The Righteous”. IN separate publication the author indicated that his work is based on the legend of Tula gunsmiths about the competition between Tula craftsmen and the British. Literary critics believed this message from the author. But in fact, Leskov invented the plot of his legend. Critics assessed the story ambiguously: radical democrats saw in Leskov’s work a glorification of the old order, a loyal work, while conservatives understood “Lefty” as an exposure of the resigned submission of the common man to “all kinds of hardships and violence.” Both of them accused Leskov of a lack of patriotism and of mocking the Russian people. Leskov responded to critics in the note “About the Russian Lefty” (1882): “I just cannot agree that in such a plot there is any flattery of the people or a desire to belittle the Russian people in the person of the “lefty.” In any case, I had no such intention” [Leskov N., vol. 10. p. 360].

The plot of the work mixes fictional and real historical events. Events begin around 1815, when Emperor Alexander I, during a trip to Europe, visited England, where, among other wonders, he was shown a tiny steel flea that could dance. The emperor bought a flea and brought it home to St. Petersburg. A few years later, after the death of Alexander I and the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, a flea was found among the things of the late sovereign and for a long time they could not understand what the meaning of “nymphosoria” was. Ataman Platov, who accompanied Alexander I on a trip to Europe, appeared at the palace and explained that this was an example of the art of English mechanics, but immediately noticed that Russian craftsmen knew their business no worse. Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich, who was confident in the superiority of the Russians, instructed Platov to carry out a diplomatic trip to the Don and at the same time visit factories in Tula while passing through. Among the local craftsmen one could find those who could adequately answer the challenge of the British. In Tula, Platov called three of the most famous local gunsmiths, led by a craftsman nicknamed “Lefty,” showed them a flea and asked them to come up with something that would surpass the British idea. On his way back from the Don, Platov again looked into Tula, where the trio continued to work on the order. Taking Lefty with his unfinished work, as the dissatisfied Platov believed, he went straight to St. Petersburg. In the capital, under a microscope, it turned out that the Tula people had surpassed the British by shod the flea on all its legs with tiny horseshoes. Lefty received the award, the Tsar ordered the savvy flea to be sent back to England to demonstrate the skill of Russian masters, and Lefty to be sent there too. In England, Lefty was shown local factories, work organization and offered to stay, tempting him with money and a bride, but he refused. Lefty looked at the English workers and was jealous, but at the same time he was eager to go home, so much so that on the ship he kept asking where Russia was and looking in that direction. On the way back, Lefty made a bet with the half-skipper, according to which they had to outdrink each other. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, half the skipper was brought to his senses, and Lefty, having not received medical assistance in time, died in the common people's Obukhvin hospital, where “everyone of an unknown class is accepted to die.” Before his death, Lefty told Doctor Martyn-Solsky: “Tell the sovereign that the British don’t clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean ours either, otherwise, God bless war, they’re not good for shooting.” But Martyn-Solsky was unable to convey the order, and, according to Leskov: “And if they had brought the leftist’s words to the sovereign in due time, the war with the enemy in Crimea would have taken a completely different turn.”

The tale about “Lefty” is a sad work. In it, under a cheerful selection of funny anecdotes, playful perky words, one can always hear irony - the pain, the writer’s resentment that such wonderful Tula masters should do stupid things, that the people’s forces are dying in vain. At the center of the story is the motif of competition characteristic of the fairy tale. Russian craftsmen, led by the Tula gunsmith Levsha, shoe a dancing steel flea made in England without any complex tools. The victory of Russian craftsmen over the British is simultaneously presented both seriously and ironically: Lefty, sent by Emperor Nicholas I, causes amazement because he was able to shoe a flea. But the flea, savvy by Lefty and his comrades, stops dancing. They work in a disgusting environment, in a small cramped hut, in which “the breathless work in the air created such a spiral that an unaccustomed person with a fresh wind could not breathe even once.” The bosses treat the craftsmen savagely: for example, Platov takes Lefty to be shown to the Tsar at his feet, thrown by the collar into a stroller like a dog. The master’s dress is beggarly: “in rags, one trouser leg is in a boot, the other is dangling, and the collar is old, the hooks are not fastened, they are lost, and the collar is torn.” The plight of the Russian artisan in the story is contrasted with the embellished position of the English worker. The Russian master liked the English rules, “especially regarding work content. Every worker they have is constantly well-fed, dressed not in rags, but each wearing a capable vest, shod in thick boots with iron knobs, so that his feet won’t get hurt anywhere; he works not with boilies, but with training, and has ideas for himself. In front of everyone hangs a multiplication dot in plain view, and under their hand is an erasable tablet: that’s all. which the master makes - he looks at the dot and compares it with the concept, and then he writes one thing on the board, erases another and puts it together neatly: what is written on the numbers is what comes out in reality.” This work “according to science” is precisely contrasted with the work of Russian masters - by inspiration and intuition, instead of knowledge and calculation, and by psalter and semi-dream book, instead of arithmetic.

The left-handed man cannot object to the English, who, admiring his skill, at the same time explain to him: “It would be better if you knew at least four rules of addition from arithmetic, then it would be much more useful for you than the whole half-dream book. Then you could have realized that in every machine there is a calculation of force, otherwise you are very skilled in your hands, but you didn’t realize that such a small machine as in the nymphosorium is designed for the most accurate accuracy and cannot carry its shoes.” The left-hander can only refer to his “devotion to the fatherland.” The difference in the civil rights of an Englishman and a subject is briefly and clearly shown. Russian monarchy. The captain of the English ship and Lefty, who were betting at sea on who would outdrink whom, were carried out of the ship dead drunk, but... “they took the Englishman to the envoy’s house on Aglitskaya embankment, and Lefty to the quarter.” And while the English skipper was well treated and lovingly put to sleep, the Russian master, after being dragged from one hospital to another (they are not accepted anywhere - there is no document), was finally taken “to the common people's Obukhvin hospital, where everyone of an unknown class is accepted to die.” They undressed the poor guy, accidentally dropped the back of his head on the parapet, and while they were running around looking for Platov or the doctor, Lefty was already gone. And so the wonderful master died, who even before his death thought only that he had to tell the military secret of the British, who told the doctor “that the British don’t clean their guns with bricks.” But an important “secret” did not reach the sovereign - who needs the advice of a commoner when there are generals. Leskov's bitter irony and sarcasm reach the limit. The author does not understand why Rus', which gives birth to craftsmen, geniuses of craftsmanship, deals with them with its own hands. As for guns, this is a non-fictional fact. The guns were cleaned with crushed bricks, and the authorities demanded that the barrels sparkle from the inside. And inside there was a carving... So the soldiers destroyed it out of excess zeal.

Lefty is a skilled craftsman who personifies the amazing talents of the Russian people. Leskov does not give a name to his hero, thereby emphasizing the collective meaning and significance of his character. The hero of the story combines both the virtues and vices of a simple Russian person. What features of the Russian national character does the image of Lefty embodies? Religiosity, patriotism, kindness, fortitude and perseverance, patience, hard work and talent.

Religiosity is manifested in the episode when Tula craftsmen, including Levsha, before starting work, went to bow to the icon of “Nikola of Mtsensk” - the patron of trade and military affairs. Also, Lefty's religiosity is intertwined with his patriotism. Lefty's faith is one of the reasons he refuses to stay in England. “Because,” he answers, “our Russian faith is the most correct, and just as our right-wingers believed, our descendants should believe in the same way.” Lefty cannot imagine his life outside of Russia; he loves its customs and traditions. “We,” he says, “are committed to our homeland, and my aunt is already an old man, and my mother is an old woman and is accustomed to going to church in her parish,” “and I wish to quickly native place, because otherwise I might get a form of insanity.” Lefty went through many trials and even in his death hour he remained a true patriot. The left-hander is characterized by natural kindness: he refuses the British’s request to stay very politely, trying not to offend them. And he forgives Ataman Platov for his rude treatment of himself. “Even though he has Ovechkin’s fur coat, he has the soul of a man,” says the “Aglitsky half-skipper” about his Russian comrade. When Lefty, together with three gunsmiths, worked hard on an outlandish flea for two weeks, his strength of spirit is revealed, as he had to work in difficult conditions: without rest, with windows and doors closed, keeping his work secret. Many times, in other cases, Lefty shows patience and perseverance: both when Platov “caught Lefty by the hair and began to toss him back and forth so that tufts flew,” and when Lefty, sailing home from England, despite bad weather, sits on the deck, to see his homeland as soon as possible: True, his patience and selflessness are inextricably linked with downtroddenness, with a feeling of his own insignificance in comparison with Russian officials and nobles. Lefty is accustomed to the constant threats and beatings that the authorities threaten him with in his homeland. And finally, one of the main themes of the story is the theme of the creative talent of the Russian person. Talent, according to Leskov, cannot exist independently; it must necessarily be based on the moral and spiritual strength of a person. The plot of this tale itself tells how Lefty, together with his comrades, was able to “outdo” the English masters without any acquired knowledge, only thanks to talent and hard work. Extraordinary, wonderful skill is the main property of Lefty. He wiped the noses of the “Aglitsky masters”, shod the flea with such small nails that you couldn’t see it even with the strongest microscope.

In the image of Lefty, Leskov proved that the opinion put into the mouth of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich was incorrect: foreigners “have such a nature of perfection that once you look at it, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our significance.”

4 Creativity N.S. Leskova and the problem of Russian national character (generalization)

In search of the positive principles of Russian life, Leskov, first of all, pinned his hopes on the moral potential of the Russian person. The writer’s faith was exceptionally great that the good efforts of individual people, united together, can become a powerful engine of progress. Throughout all creativity runs the idea of the personal moral responsibility of each person to his country and other people. With his works, and especially the gallery of “righteous people” he created, Leskov appealed to his contemporaries with a call to increase the amount of goodness in ourselves and around us by all means within our power. Among the heroes of Leskov, who spent all his life trying to create a “positive type” of Russian people, active natures prevailed, actively interfering in life, intolerant of any manifestations of injustice. Most of Leskov's heroes are far from politics and from the struggle against the foundations of the existing system (as, for example, Saltykov-Shchedrin). The main thing that unites them is an active love for people and the belief that a person is called to help a person with what he temporarily needs, and to help him get up and go, so that in turn he will also help another who requires support and help. Leskov was convinced that you cannot change the world without changing a person. Otherwise, evil will be reproduced again and again. Socio-political changes alone, without moral progress, do not guarantee an improvement in life.

Leskov's “righteous people” act more than they think (unlike the heroes of F.M. Dostoevsky or L.N. Tolstoy). These are integral natures, devoid of internal duality. Their actions are impulsive, they are the result of a sudden good impulse of the soul. Their ideals are simple and unpretentious, but at the same time touching, majestic in their desire to provide for the happiness of all people: they demand human living conditions for every person. And even if these are only the most basic requirements for now, but until they are met, further movement along the path of true, and not imaginary, progress is impossible. Leskov’s “righteous people” are not saints, but completely earthly people, with their own weaknesses and shortcomings. Their selfless service to people is not a means for personal moral salvation, but a manifestation of sincere love and compassion. “The righteous were the guardians of those high standards of morality that the people developed over the centuries. Their existence served as proof of the strength of the national foundations of Russian life. Their behavior seems strange, they look like eccentrics in the eyes of the people around them. It does not fit into the generally accepted framework, but not because it contradicts common sense or moral principles, but because the behavior of the majority of people around them is abnormal. Leskov's interest in original people is a rather rare phenomenon in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. After Leskov's death, eccentrics will be resurrected on the pages of Gorky's works, who will highly appreciate his predecessor. And in the Soviet era - in the works of V.M. Shukshina. The writer asks the question what qualities are needed for a person to survive the struggle with life and help others, in order to preserve the person in himself and win. Unlike Tolstoy, Leskov does not show a person in his formation, in the development of his character, and in this he, it would seem, gets closer to Dostoevsky. More than the slow spiritual growth of a person, Leskov was interested in the possibility of a sudden moral revolution, which could radically change both a person’s character and his destiny. Leskov believed that the ability for moral transformation distinctive feature Russian national character. Despite his skepticism, Leskov hoped for the victory of the best sides people's soul, the guarantee of which, in his view, was the existence of individual bright personalities among the people, real folk heroes, embodying the best features of the Russian national character.

Studying the creativity of N.S. Leskov began almost immediately after his death. Interest in his original works especially intensified during the transitional eras - in the 1910s, 1930s and 1970s. One of the first studies of the writer’s work was the book by A.I. Faresova “Against the Currents. N.S. Leskov" (1904). In the 1930s, monographs by B.M. appeared. Eikhenbaum, N.K. Gudziy and V.A. Desnitsky, dedicated to Leskov, and a biography of the writer was also compiled by his son Andrei Nikolaevich Leskov (1866-1953). In the post-war period, the most significant contribution to the study of Leskov’s work was made by L.P. Grossman and W. Goebel. In the 1970s, Leskovianism was replenished with the fundamental works of L.A. Anninsky, I.P. Viduetskaya, B.S. Dykhanova, N.N. Starygina, I.V. Stolyarova, V.Yu. Troitsky and other researchers.

Conclusion

The works of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov are distinguished by their originality and originality. He has his own language, style, his own understanding of the world, the human soul. Leskov pays a lot of attention to human psychology in his works, but if other classics try to understand a person in connection with the time in which he lives, then Leskov draws his heroes separately from time. L.A. Anninsky spoke about this feature of the writer: “Leskov looks at life from some other level than Tolstoy or Dostoevsky; the feeling is that he is more sober and bitter than them, that he looks from below or from the inside, or rather, from the “inside”. From an immense height they see in the Russian peasant... the unshakably strong foundations of the Russian epic - Leskov sees the living instability of these supports, he knows in the soul of the people something that the celestials of the spirit do not know, and this knowledge prevents him from building a complete and perfect national epic "[Anninsky, p. 32].

The heroes of Leskov’s work differ in their views and destinies, but they have something in common, which, according to Leskov, is characteristic of the Russian people as a whole. “The Righteous” by N. S. Leskov brings people fascination with themselves, but they themselves act as if enchanted. Leskov is a creator of legends, a creator of common noun types that not only capture a certain characteristic in the people of his time, but groping for the cross-cutting, cardinal, hidden, underlying, fundamental features of Russian national consciousness and Russian destiny. It is in this dimension that he is now perceived as a national genius. The first legend that brought Leskov from a writer of everyday life and anecdotist to a myth-maker was the scythe Lefty, who shod a steel flea. Next they stepped into the Russian national synodik Katerina - a gas chamber for love; Safronich, who put the German to shame; unpredictable hero Ivan Flyagin; the artist Lyuba is the doomed-betrothed of the Tupaya serf artist.

Stories and novellas written at the time of N. S. Leskov’s artistic maturity give a fairly complete picture of his entire work. Different and about different things, they are united by the thought of the fate of Russia. Russia is here multifaceted, in a complex interweaving of contradictions, wretched and abundant, powerful and powerless at the same time. In all manifestations of national life, its trifles and anecdotes, Leskov looks for the core of the whole. And it is found most often in eccentrics and poor people. The story “The Enchanted Wanderer” is Leskov’s most textbook, most emblematic work. In terms of the number of publications, it is far ahead of other Leskov masterpieces both here and abroad. This is the calling card of “Russianness”: the embodiment of heroism, breadth, power, freedom and righteousness hidden at the bottom of the soul, the hero of the epic in the best and highest sense of the word. It must be said that epicness is embedded in the very basis of the story's concept. Folklore paint was introduced into the palette from the very beginning The Enchanted Wanderer - a fact not very characteristic of Leskov; usually he does not display national-patriotic emblems, but hides them under neutral names. Certainly, The Enchanted Wanderer - the name is not entirely neutral, and the mystical touch in it was sensitively captured by critics of those times.

The Russian character is complex and multifaceted, but that’s what makes it beautiful. He is beautiful in his breadth and openness, cheerful disposition and love for his homeland, childish innocence and fighting spirit, ingenuity and peacefulness, hospitality and mercy. And we owe this entire palette of the best qualities to our homeland - Russia, a fabulous and great country, warm and affectionate, like the hands of a mother.

Bibliography

1.Leskov N.S. “The Enchanted Wanderer” // Collection. Op. in 11 volumes. M., 1957. T. 4.

2.Leskov N.S. “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea (Workshop Legend)” // Collected Works in 5 volumes. M., 1981. T. III

3.Leskov N.S. Collection Works: In 11 volumes - M., 1958 T.10.

.Anninsky L.A. Leskovsky necklace. M., 1986.

.Berdyaev N.A. Russian idea. The fate of Russia. M., 1997.

.Vizgell F. Prodigal sons and wandering souls: “The Tale of Misfortune” and “The Enchanted Wanderer” by Leskov // Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS. - St. Petersburg, 1997. - T.1

.Desnitsky V.A. Articles and research. L., 1979. - p. 230-250

8.Dykhanova B.S. “The Sealed Angel” and “The Enchanted Wanderer” by N.S. Leskova. M., 1980

.Kasyanova N.O. About the Russian national character. - M., 1994.

10.Lebedev V.P. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov // “Literature at school” No. 6, 2001, pp. 31-34.

.Leskov A.N. The life of Nikolai Leskov according to his personal, family and non-family records and memories. Tula, 1981

.Lossky N.O. The character of the Russian people.// Questions of philosophy. 1996. No. 4

.Nikolaeva E.V. Composition of the story by N.S. Leskova “The Enchanted Wanderer” // Literature at school No. 9, 2006, pp. 2-5.

.Skatov N.N. History of Russian Literature of the 19th century (second half). M., 1991.

.Stolyarova I.V. In search of the ideal (creativity of N.S. Leskov). L., 1978.

.Cherednikova M.P. Old Russian sources of N.S. Leskov’s story “The Enchanted Wanderer” // Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS: Textology and poetics of Russian literature of the 11th-11th centuries. - L., 1977. - T. XXX11

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