Genre originality. The fairy-tale world of Saltykov-Shchedrin
Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin dedicated his life to native literature, and, above all, such a difficult area as satire.
Satire is the work of inquisitive and courageous people. She sees a challenge to common sense in what almost everyone around seems reasonable. In the familiar and the ordinary, he distinguishes between the outlandish and the ugly. In the ingrained, it invites us to discern deviations from the norms of human society.
Satire is a centuries-old weapon of class struggle in literature. Satirical art, with merciless laughter, executes the evil of life in its most harmful, socially dangerous manifestations.
Satirical genres have always been integral integral part folklore
Saltykov-Shchedrin is able to really help develop social activity, civic maturity and responsibility in a teenage student, and turn him away from political gullibility, infantile carelessness and apathy.
Saltykov-Shchedrin’s noble goal is to awaken an inquisitive, courageous beginning in his serenely resting contemporary. And he does this, as befits a satirist, with a word of negation. But for all its harsh mercilessness, Shchedrin’s satire never leaves a feeling of dead end, disarming, sorrowful confusion. His works are a constant conversation with the reader, full of caustic sarcasm and heartfelt lyricism, honest and trusting, witty and wise...
Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are funny, full of irony and sarcasm, and were created with the mass reader in mind (like Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'?", hence their folklore fairy-tale form). But the entire powerful arsenal of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satirical techniques is put in the service of revolutionary agitation and propaganda.
Relevance of the work: the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are widely known throughout the world. Many literary scholars have been engaged in research and study of the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, as many researchers as there are as many opinions about the uniqueness of the writer’s fairy tales. Therefore, our task is to study the experience of famous literary scholars, analyze it and draw certain conclusions.
When writing this course work We set ourselves the following GOAL:
Studying the genre uniqueness of fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
This goal involves solving the following problems:
Define the concepts of “genre”, “fairy tale”;
Consider the connection between Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales and folklore traditions;
Identify the distinctive features of the writer’s fairy tales.
SCIENTIFIC NOVELTY lies in the study of the genre originality of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales, in an attempt to present our own version between folk tales and the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin.
STRUCTURE OF THE WORK: introduction, 3 sections, conclusions, 15 sources in the list of used literature.
AREA OF APPLICATION: school and university teaching of literature.
RESEARCH METHODS: comparative method, system analysis method.
1. THE CONCEPTS OF “GENRE”, “FAIRY TALE” IN LITERARY STUDIES
Literary genre (from the French Genre - genus, type) - this definition, first of all, has general meaning, uniting the entire literary taxonomy, classification literary works behind different types their poetic structure.
Literary genres, formed as a result of a long historical development verbal art, With minor changes pass from one era to another. Traditional identical genre forms can be used for works of different content, different ideological direction.
Thus, each writer introduces into his works some individual characteristics in the development of a particular genre. Moreover, every famous work has some kind of genre feature that must be determined in historical and literary research. It is in the original works famous masters and changes begin genre forms.
2. FAIRY-TALE WORLD OF SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN
2.1 The connection between fairy tales and folklore traditions
Shchedrin's fairy tales are most often created with the reader in mind, who has gone through the already well-known school of Aesopian allegory, is familiar with the writer's periodic magazine conversations, with the world of his concepts and ideas.
There are signs in Shchedrin’s fairy tales that truly confirm the satirist’s search for a new addressee, indicating the artist’s conscious desire to expand his audience, his intention to attract the attention of new reading circles.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales, at first glance, are more simple-minded and obvious than his satirical essays and novel creations. The author's cherished idea is outlined in them with a more definite, visible outline. And if we talk about their closeness to folklore, then this parallel is possible only in the most general, large and fundamental sense.
Shchedrin's tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis ideological quest satirical There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements, traditional beginnings (“Once upon a time there were”; “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state”; “Once upon a time there was a newspaperman, and there was a reader”), numerals with non-numerical meanings (“ Far Far Away kingdom”, “because of distant lands”), typical sayings (“neither to describe with a pen, nor to say in a fairy tale”, “by pike command", "soon the tale will tell itself", "how long, how short"), constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions (“fed up with honey”, “furious millet”, “rolling snores”, “fierce beasts”), borrowed from folklore of proper names (Militrisa Kirbityevna, Ivanushka the Fool, Tsar Pea), synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry (“ along the way”, “judged and judged”), idiomatic expressions going back to folklore (“to breed on beans”, “you can’t lead with your ears”, “grandmother said in two”), oral poetic vocabulary, numerous proverbs and sayings, etc. .
Stable folk-fairy tale images and details are satirically modernized by Saltykov-Shchedrin not only in the fairy tale genre.
Names appear more than once in Shchedrin’s essays fairy-tale heroes: Ivanushki, Ivanushka the Fool, Ivan the Tsarevich, Baba Yaga - the bone leg. The name of one of Foolov’s mayors, Vasilisk Wartkin, means the fabulous “serpent who kills with his gaze.” Numerous fairy-tale elements are found in “The History of a City,” especially in the description of the “origin of the Foolovites.”
In Saltykov-Shchedrin, once found images, details, and sketches often did not disappear later, but were used in other cycles. IN research literature Many examples of such an evolution of images, including folklore ones, which served as one of the first impulses in the creation of fairy tales, have been systematized.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are noticeably different from folk tales, and the search for parallels, and even more so for direct plot borrowings, always turned out to be untenable.
Saltykov-Shchedrin the storyteller used various genres folk art: tales about animals, magical, satirical, folk puppet show, popular print, proverbs and sayings. It is obvious that the writer’s fairy-tale world does not dissolve in the folk poetic element, that “Shchedrin’s fairy tale arose independently according to the type of folk tales, and the latter contributed to its formation.”
“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner, he lived and looked at the light and rejoiced” - the opening, setting up the usual fairy-tale mood, is immediately neutralized by subsequent lines, and the indefinitely past folklore time switches to Shchedrin’s present: “And there was that The landowner is stupid, he read the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” Landowner stupidity, which results in reading the terry-serf newspaper “Vest”, and landowner stupidity, are both a farcical-comic rapprochement in the folklore spirit, and a social-satirical characteristic. Further, in a comic vein, the story of the very real relations between landowners and peasants after the abolition of serfdom is presented.
The stupid landowner is full of fear that the men will take all his goods. The “liberated” peasants “no matter where they look, everything is impossible, not allowed, and not yours!” The man died. The completely desperate peasants prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to perish even with small children than to toil like this all our lives!” . The next phrase is very important in the overall compositional structure of the fairy tale: the peasants’ wish came true, “the merciful God heard the orphan’s tearful prayer, and there was no more peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” From these lines, readers become living witnesses to a fantastic, fabulous “experiment” proposed by the satirist: what could happen to the landowner if he was deprived of the peasants, left alone with himself, in complete, so to speak, self-sufficiency.
Turn around comic scenes and dialogues in which all the transformations that happen to the stupid landowner are explored: episodes with the actor Sadovsky, with four generals, with a police captain. Each of these passages represents, as it were, a completed anecdotal plot, all the comedy of which is revealed in the general context of the fairy tale. Gradually, from time to time, more and more new “readiness” of the landowner are revealed, which are fully manifested in the final part (complete savagery, transformation into a “bear-man”).
Fantastic changes happen to Shchedrin’s hero: “He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, he walked more and more on all fours and was even surprised how he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and adopted some kind of special victory cry, a cross between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.”
An interesting comparison in this regard fairy tales“The story of how one man fed two generals” and “The Wild Landowner.” In the first case, the stupid, helpless, but accustomed to rule generals, who miraculously find themselves on a desert island, are triggered by the instinct of self-preservation, and they look for, unknown how, a man who got to the island, who drinks and feeds them, saves them from starvation and transports them by boat across the “ocean.” -sea" to St. Petersburg. In the second tale, a stupid and arrogant landowner, on the contrary, dreams of freeing himself from the peasants (“Only one thing is unbearable to my heart: there are too many peasants in our kingdom!”), and they, in turn, pray to God to get rid of the oppression of the landowner. And the entire further course of the tale is, as it were, another probable continuation of the story with the generals (this is what would have happened to them if the man had not been found; they would have gone completely wild, brutalized). Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Wild Landowner” seemed to logical conclusion brings out his fabulously satirical assumptions.
Subsequent situations, sarcastically depicted, bright grotesque images are also inseparable from elements of folklore: constant epithets (“white body”, “printed gingerbread”, “wild animals”), troecracy (three people “honor” the landowner as a fool), sayings (“and began he lives and lives"), etc. And behind all this, the main, no longer fairy-tale hint appears: Russia lives as a peasant, with his labor and worries; forced male labor preserves the landowner's plumpness.
Of course, we can only talk about a special stylistic aura of Shchedrin’s fairy tales, close to folklore, which continues the constant themes and images of his satirical and journalistic cycles. Abundantly using typical folklore elements, the writer sought to capture the attention of a new mass audience, well, first-hand, familiar with folk poetry.
But there is also no doubt that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are connected with folklore not only by the presence in them of certain oral poetic details and images that significantly influence the narrative syllable. Dependence on folklore experience is not always literal or quotable. There is something more important in Shchedrin’s fairy tales, which brings them closer to folk poetry: there is a truly folk understanding of the world. It is expressed in the very pathos of fairy tales for the people, in the author’s ideas about good and evil, about poverty and wealth, about right and wrong, about the decisive predominance of forces hostile to the people and at the same time about the inevitable triumph of reason and justice. Let conscience be banished from everywhere, let the pitiful drunkard, the innkeeper, the quarterly overseer, and the financier turn away from it - a “little child” has already appeared in the world, and conscience grows in him along with him. And there will be a little child big man, and there will be a great conscience in him. And then all untruths, deceit and violence will disappear, because the conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything itself” [4;23].
Even where evil clearly and unequivocally prevails over defenselessness, timidity, fear, good-naturedness, passivity (cf. fairy tales “The Selfless Hare”, “Virtues and Vices”, “The Deceiver Newsboy and gullible reader", "Crucian idealist", etc.). the author puts him on trial, pronounces a harsh, non-appealable, satirical verdict, making it clear that along with evil he condemns all his free and unconscious indulgers.
Saltykov-Shchedrin is in no hurry to portray those who maintained commanding heights in life as defeated. On the contrary, he strongly emphasized the absurd, inhumane nature of resolving the overwhelming majority of life’s conflicts.
The audience for Shchedrin's fairy tale is, of course, more massive than for many other works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, but the nature of this mass audience is completely special, fickle, changeable within the entire fairy tale cycle. Either the readership intended by the author is noticeably expanding, freely and naturally including peasants, otkhodniks, and artisans in its probable composition, then it would seem to be again almost exclusively represented by the former Shchedrin reader-intellectual, although understood within the broad framework of the general democratic movement in Russia. The internal multi-genre nature of Shchedrin’s tales (diversity author's definition genre: “Neither a fairy tale, nor a true story”, “Conversation”, “Teaching”, “Tale-elegy”, simply “Fairy Tale”), a wide range of topics, ideas, images allow us to talk about different things for each individual fairy tales to a different reader-addressee.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the nature of satirical imagery, the features of artistic speech directly point to an intelligent reader, to a city dweller who has the opportunity and habit of following newspapers every day, distinguishing between them, living up to date with the latest political news, having general cultural training, a relatively high educational qualification (numerous socio-historical, socio-political, literary and other realities, clericalisms, Latinisms, often found in Shchedrin’s fairy tales).
But another Shchedrin fairy tale turns out to be quite accessible and understandable to a single word to the most mass, peasant, working reader.
The author's voice does not contrast with the speech of his characters. However, the author himself prefaces the dialogue with a short exposition and then reveals himself only in a few remarks to the conversation. It is curious that there is no actual dialogical separation, much less a noticeable confrontation between the characters in the fairy tale. In essence, this is one common peasant, nationwide speech, divided into replicas distributed to two heroes. The characters do not argue, they think out loud, correcting and supplementing each other, looking for more convincing explanations for incomprehensible, confusing issues, and come to a common ending, significantly interrupted by the author:
“Look, Fedya,” said Ivan, laying down and yawning, “there’s so much space in all directions!” There is a place for everyone, but for us...”
In other tales, he deliberately addresses everyone: both the people and the intelligentsia who have not lost their “living soul.” The focus on the heterogeneous reader’s consciousness makes itself felt not only within the boundaries of the entire fairy tale cycle, but in the text of each a separate fairy tale.
One and the same Shchedrin fairy tale requires different reading levels and preparation. This finds its explanation in aesthetic views Saltykov-Shchedrin, quite transparently indicated in many of the satirist’s judgments about the peculiarities of reader psychology. It's about First of all, about the category “reader-friend”, which is difficult for a writer. For all its, at first glance, clarity, it is extremely vague and difficult to grasp. Saltykov-Shchedrin throughout his life does not lose hope that “a reader-friend undoubtedly exists.” There are moments when this reader “suddenly opens up, and direct communication with him becomes possible. Such moments are the happiest that a convinced writer experiences. the hard way his own."
But the voice of this reader is too weak, his share in the total mass of the public is too small, his social experience is small, his practice, in which literary, satirical, journalistic, poetic ideas and words would be melted into a living, concrete, socially significant matter, would be found direct, without concealment or circumspection, sympathy would awaken civic honesty and courage.
Thus, Shchedrin’s tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the satirist’s ideological quest. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements are noted:
Traditional beginnings;
Typical sayings;
Oral-poetic vocabulary;
2.2 Universal sound of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales
Working on fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin poetically realizes his favorite ideas about literature as effective propaganda, as a school civic education. And like any real school, Shchedrin’s
fairy tale (" good fellows lesson!”) has several ascending “steps”, focused on different levels of reader understanding and stimulating reader growth and the transition from “class” to “class”, from “level” to “level”.
First of all, in many fairy tales there is a series of external plot points:
Legendary (“Christ’s Night”);
Household (“Village Fire”);
Close to the fable (Shchedrin’s tales about animals, “Virtues and Vices”, “Kisel”);
Fantastic (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, etc.).
In principle, it is understandable and accessible to everyone: both morality and socio-psychological generalizations of it, without much difficulty, are independently deduced by the reader, who is not alien to the world of folk tales, parables, proverbs and sayings.
Shchedrin's tales about animals are like detailed poetic fables in the spirit of the nationality bequeathed by Krylov, much more densely populated and enriched with stable, but always unexpected in Saltykov-Shchedrin's works, carrying a comic charge with folklore, folk-fairy tale elements. Each of characters, both traditional and new, are given scope for complete self-discovery. The duel, intense and complex dialogue, and conflict characteristic of Krylov’s fables are written out in detail and meticulously, with the addition of details, details, and clarifications that are completely alien to the poetically compressed world of the fable. And at the same time, in the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the inherent conceptuality, purposefulness and significance of the fable are preserved.
Shchedrin's fairy tale is perceived on a par with a fable-lesson, a moral, a maxim, and the satirical writer certainly and seriously takes this level of everyday understanding into account.
The author leads the reader into the depths of the plot, getting him interested in the development of the action, focusing on the struggle of antagonistic life principles. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are not so much designed for an already established worldview, but are capable of awakening the growth of civic, class consciousness. They gradually lead to difficult questions that cannot be solved simply by being guided by truisms.
Intelligence is one of the revered human virtues, but people tend to introduce a wide variety of, often mutually exclusive, contents into this concept. And Saltykov-Shchedrin, an educator, a champion of reason, a bright mind alien to dogmatic inertia, puts into the title of the tale a telling, unambiguously evaluative epithet: “ The wise minnow" At first, one retains faith in the certainty of this definition: both the gudgeon’s parents “were smart,” and they did not ignore his parental advice, and the hero of the fairy tale himself, it turns out, “was smart.” But step by step, tracing the course of the gudgeon’s conclusions, conveyed in the form of improperly direct speech, the author arouses in the reader a sly mockery, an ironic reaction, finally a feeling of disgust, and in the end even compassion for the everyday philosophy of a quiet, voiceless, moderately neat creature.
The tenacious morality of crickets who know their nest. Saltykov-Shchedrin, with almost every tale of his, strives to expose it in the eyes of the readership majority: “But after a quarter of an hour it was all over. Instead of the hare, all that remained were scraps of skin and his sensible words: “Every beast has its own life; for a lion - lion's, for a fox - fox's, for a hare - hare's."
In Shchedrin’s tales one can see what Pushkin noted in Krylov’s fables as “ distinctive feature in our morals": "... some kind of cheerful cunning of the mind, mockery and a picturesque way of expressing itself."
A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable always tells about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed.
To comprehend direct and barely hidden hints at “complacent modernity,” one already needs a certain amount of experience in communicating with newspapers and magazines, awareness of current events in domestic and international life, and a certain political sensitivity. Shchedrin’s Ivanushka the Fool, at the behest of his parents, ended up “in the institution” and studied, “but as the volume of supposed knowledge increased, Ivanushka’s case became more complicated. He did not understand most sciences at all. He did not understand history, jurisprudence, or the science of accumulation and distribution of wealth. Not because he didn’t want to understand, but because he truly didn’t understand. And to all the teachers’ admonitions he answered with one thing: “This cannot be!” . It was assumed that the reader would sense a mockery of the philistine well-intentioned official “sciences” serving the interests of the ruling classes.
The artistic speech in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is structured in such a way that the person following the external event conflict is simultaneously initiated into some significant and often eluding “secrets of modernity” in life. Most of the heroes of Shchedrin's fairy tales have their own social class “registration”: rich and poor, men and gentlemen, “sirs” and “Ivashki”.
Every now and then the author seems to push the reader into sudden comparisons and unusual analogies. The reader is faced with the need to correlate what is depicted with reality; a world of caustic satirical allegories and topical reminiscences opens up to him. This type of perception, to which many of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales lead, can conditionally be called comparative. What is reported in the fairy tale is involuntarily transferred to the circle of loved ones, acquaintances, experiences and impressions experienced by the reader himself. This is probably one of the inevitable stages on the path to improving reading skills and tastes. Saltykov-Shchedrin,
Of course, he counted on touching the reader’s heart with an interest in the real, concrete political aspects of everyday life and existence.
But artistic speech with its semantic and emotional depth and relief, it takes away from overly straightened literal timing. Otherwise, the text turns into a special kind of cipher, and the reader’s task is reduced to guessing it.
Saltykov-Shchedrin was always alien to pamphleteering, and through the fable- or legendary-plot series, through the chain of allusive signs, the satirist’s uninterrupted large universal theme clearly shines through, raising the reader’s consciousness to a new and higher level, when, according to the successful definition of A. S. Bushmin , the evil of the day reaches the evil of the century. The writer does not lead his wise, sensitive reader to a clearly delineated conclusion or outcome, but to a state of anxiety, to a search for truth. Shchedrin's fairy tale becomes for a real reader-friend, as the writer ideally imagined him, moral support, imparts perspective to thought and feeling, infects him with a thirst for the struggle for the reconstruction of this crazy, cruel, unjust world, for the revival of Man.
Through all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales there are words-leitmotifs that mean to him something more than just words: mind, conscience, truth, history...
Saltykov-Shchedrin connects his hopes for the inevitable future triumph of truth with history, the “call signs” of which every now and then cut through unusual, fairy-tale narratives. History in Shchedrin’s tales is both an unbroken chain of times and fair retribution that overtakes the villains, the “Stoeros Bourbons,” the Majors Toptygins. History preserves the most cherished and wise human traditions: “That evil has never been a founding force - history testifies to this.” History is “a story of liberation, a story about the triumph of good and reason over evil and madness.”
In Shchedrin's tales, History can speed up its course, but it does not interrupt it, does not stop it. The author of fairy tales is convinced that History is the present, preserving the memory of the past and gaining in this considerable strength for discerning the future: “But the time will come when every breath becomes clear the limits within which its life must take place - then the strife will disappear by itself, and along with them, all the little “personal truths” will dissipate like smoke. The real, united and binding Truth will be revealed; will come and the whole world will shine.”
Refuting the vulgar everyday morality, arousing interest in “our public life", Shchedrin's tales help the reader gain a free, unbiased attitude to life, a sensitive historical approach to it. In fairy tales there is hope for a young reader with an “unslammed” soul, with an undestroyed conscience, for a “child” who is growing up by leaps and bounds.
Thus, a folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable always tells about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed.
CONCLUSIONS
Thus, the following conclusions can be drawn:
· As a genre, the Shchedrin fairy tale gradually matured in the writer’s work from the fantastic and figurative elements of his satire. There are also a lot of folklore headpieces in them, starting from the use of the form of a long-past tense (“Once upon a time”) and ending with an abundant number of proverbs and sayings with which they are peppered. In his fairy tales, the writer touches on many issues:
Social;
Political;
Ideological.
Thus, the life of Russian society is depicted in them in a long series of miniature paintings. Fairy tales present the social anatomy of society in the form of a whole gallery of zoomorphic, fairy-tale images.
· Shchedrin began his fairy tale cycle in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show all the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of considerable age“Shchedrin was able to convey to people sharp criticism of the existing order.
· Shchedrin's tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological quest of the satirist. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements are noted:
Traditional beginnings;
Numerals with non-numerical meaning;
Typical sayings;
Constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions;
Proper names borrowed from folklore, synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry, idiomatic expressions dating back to folklore;
Oral-poetic vocabulary;
Numerous proverbs and sayings, etc.
· A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable always tells about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed.
LIST OF REFERENCES USED
1. V.V. Prozorov. Saltykov - Shchedrin. – M., 1988. – 170 p.
2. A. Bushmin. Tales of Saltykov - Shchedrin. – L., 1976. – 290 p.
3. A.S. Pushkin. Full collection cit.: In 10 volumes - M., 1964. - T. 7. - 379 p.
4. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin. collection Op.: In 20 volumes - M., 1965-1977. - T. 10.–320 pp.
5. M. E. Saltykov–Shchedrin. collection Op.: In 20 volumes – M., 1965–1977. – T. 16.–370 p.
6. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin in Russian criticism. – M., 1959. – 270 p.
7. M.E. Saltykov–Shchedrin in the memoirs of contemporaries. –M., 1975.–430 p.
8. V. Bazanova. Tales of M.E. Saltykova - Shchedrin. – M., 1966. – 347 p.
9. A.S. Bushmin. Satire Saltykov - Shchedrin. – M., 1959. – 280 p.
10. A.S. Bushmin. Tales of M.E. Saltykova - Shchedrin. – M., 1976. – 340 p.
11. V. A. Myslyakov. The art of satirical storytelling: The problem of the narrator in Saltykov-Shchedrin. – Saratov, 1966. – 298 p.
12. D. Nikolaev. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin: Life and creativity: Essay. – M., 1985. – 175 p.
13. E.I. Pokusaev, V.V. Prozorov.M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin: Biography of the writer. – L., 1977. – 200 p.
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The fairy tale is one of the most popular folklore genres. This type of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction has a long history. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are associated not only with folklore tradition, but also with satirical literary fairy tales of the 18th-19th centuries. Already in his declining years, the author turned to the fairy tale genre and created the collection “Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age.” They, according to the writer, are called upon to “educate” these very “children”, to open their eyes to the world around them.
Saltykov-Shchedrin turned to fairy tales not only because it was necessary to bypass censorship, which forced the writer to turn to Aesopian language, but also in order to educate the people in a form familiar and accessible to them.
a) In their literary form and style, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy-tale characters: talking animals, fish, Ivan the Fool and many others. The writer uses the beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions characteristic of a folk tale, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes. As in a folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear time and spatial framework.
b) But using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition. He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, and French words into the narrative. Episodes of modern social life appear on the pages of his fairy tales. This is how styles are mixed, creating a comic effect, and the plot is connected with problems.
modernity.
Thus, having enriched the fairy tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire.
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” (1869) begins as an ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...” But then an element of modern life enters the fairy tale: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper Vest " is a reactionary-serf newspaper, and the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The abolition of serfdom aroused anger among the landowners towards the peasants. According to the plot of the fairy tale, the landowner turned to God to take the peasants from him:
“He reduced them so that there is nowhere to stick your nose out: no matter where you look, everything is prohibited, not allowed, and not yours!” Using Aesopian language, the writer depicts the stupidity of the landowners who oppress their own peasants, at the expense of whom they lived, having a “loose, white, crumbly body.”
There were no more peasants throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner: “Where the peasant went, no one noticed.” Shchedrin hints at where the man might be, but the reader must guess this for himself.
The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid: “...even though their landowner is stupid, he has been given great intelligence.” There is irony in these words. Next, representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky with “actors”, invited
on the estate: “However, brother, you stupid landowner! Who gives you a wash, stupid one?”; the generals, whom instead of “beef” he treated to printed gingerbread and candy: “However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!”; and, finally, the police captain: “You are stupid, Mr. Landowner!” Stupidity
the landowner is visible to everyone, since “not a piece of meat or a pound of bread can be bought at the market,” the treasury is empty, since there is no one to pay taxes, “robberies, robbery and murder have spread in the district.” And the stupid landowner
stands his ground, shows firmness, proves to the liberal gentlemen his inflexibility, as his favorite newspaper Vest advises.
He indulges in unrealistic dreams that without the help of the peasants he will achieve prosperity in the economy. “He’s thinking about what kind of cars he’ll order from England,” so that there won’t be any servile spirit. “He’s thinking about what kind of cows he’ll breed.” His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?..” further development plot, showing the gradual savagery and bestiality of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorts to the grotesque. At first, “he was overgrown with hair... his nails became like iron... he walked more and more on all fours... He even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds... But he had not yet acquired a tail.” His predatory nature was manifested in the way he hunted: “like an arrow, he will jump from a tree, grab onto his prey, tear it apart with his nails and so on with all the insides, even the skin, and eat it.” The other day I almost killed the police captain. But then the final verdict was passed on the wild landowner new friend bear: “...only, brother, you destroyed this guy in vain!
And why?
But because this man was far more capable than your nobleman brother. And therefore I’ll tell you straight: you’re a stupid landowner, even though you’re my friend!”
Thus, the fairy tale uses the technique of allegory, where human types appear in their inhuman relationships under the guise of animals. This element is also used in the depiction of peasants. When the authorities decided to “catch” and “install” the peasant, “as if on purpose, at that time a swarm of peasants flew through the provincial town and showered the entire market square.” The author compares peasants to bees, showing the hard work of peasants.
When the peasants were returned to the landowner, “at the same time, flour, meat, and all kinds of livestock appeared at the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, just clasped his hands in surprise and cried out:
And where do you scoundrels get it from!!!” How much bitter irony there is in this exclamation! And they caught the landowner, washed him, cut his nails, but he never understood anything and learned nothing, like all the rulers who ruin the peasantry, rob the workers and do not understand that this could result in ruin for themselves.
The significance of satirical tales is that in a small work, the writer was able to combine the lyrical, epic and satirical principles and extremely acutely express his point of view on the vices of the class of those in power and on the most important problem of the era - the problem of the fate of the Russian people.
INTRODUCTION Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin dedicated his life to his native literature, and, above all, to such a difficult area as satire. Satire is the work of inquisitive and courageous people. She sees a challenge to common sense in what almost everyone around seems reasonable. In the familiar and the ordinary, he distinguishes between the outlandish and the ugly. In the ingrained, it invites us to discern deviations from the norms of human society. Satire is a weapon of class struggle in literature, tested over centuries. The art of satire, with merciless laughter, executes the evil of life in its most harmful, socially dangerous manifestations.
Satirical genres have always been an integral part of folklore. Saltykov-Shchedrin is able to really help develop social activity, civic maturity and responsibility in a teenage student, and turn him away from political gullibility, infantile carelessness and apathy. The noble goal of Saltykov-Shchedrin is to awaken an inquisitive, courageous beginning in his serenely resting contemporary. And he does this, as befits a satirist, with the word of negation.
But despite all the sharp mercilessness, Shchedrin’s satire never leaves a feeling of dead end, disarming, sorrowful confusion. His works are a constant conversation with the reader, full of caustic sarcasm and heartfelt lyricism, honest and trusting, witty and wise fairy tales Saltykov-Shchedrin are funny, full of irony and sarcasm, created with the mass reader in mind (like Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?”, hence their folklore fairy-tale form). But the entire powerful arsenal of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satirical techniques is put in the service of revolutionary agitation and propaganda.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales, at first glance, are more simple-minded and obvious than his satirical essays and novel creations. The author's cherished idea is outlined in them with a more definite, visible outline. And if we talk about their closeness to folklore, then this parallel is possible only in the most general, large and fundamental sense. RELEVANCE OF THE WORK: Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales are widely known all over the world. Many literary scholars have been engaged in research and study of the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, as many researchers as there are as many opinions about the uniqueness of the writer’s fairy tales.
Therefore, our task is to study the experience of famous literary scholars, analyze it and draw certain conclusions. When writing this course work, we set ourselves the following GOAL: - study the genre uniqueness of M.E.’s fairy tales. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
This goal involves solving the following TASKS: - define the concepts of “genre”, “fairy tale”; - consider the connection between Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales and folklore traditions; - highlight the distinctive features of the writer’s fairy tales. SCIENTIFIC NOVELTY lies in the study of the genre uniqueness of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales, in an attempt to present our own version between folk tales and Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales. STRUCTURE OF THE WORK: introduction, 3 sections, conclusions, 15 sources in the list of used literature.
AREA OF APPLICATION: school and university teaching of literature. RESEARCH METHODS: comparative method, system analysis method. 1. THE CONCEPTS OF “GENRE”, “FAIRY TALE” IN LITERARY STUDIES Literary genre (from French. Genre - genus, species) - this definition, first of all, has a general meaning, uniting the entire literary taxonomy, the classification of literary works according to different types of their poetic structure. Literary genres, formed as a result of the long historical development of verbal art, with minor changes go from one era to another.
Traditional identical genre forms can be used for works of different content and different ideological directions. Thus, each writer introduces into his works some individual characteristics in the development of a particular genre. Moreover, every known work has some kind of genre feature, which must be determined in historical and literary research.
It is in the original works of famous masters that changes in genre forms begin. 2. THE FAIRY-TALE WORLD OF SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN 2.1 The connection between fairy tales and folklore traditions Shchedrin's fairy tales are most often created with the reader in mind, who has gone through the already well-known school of Aesopian allegory, is familiar with the writer's periodic magazine conversations, with the world of his concepts and ideas. There are signs in Shchedrin's fairy tales that truly confirm the satirist's search for a new addressee, indicating the artist's conscious desire expand your audience, the intention to attract the attention of new readership.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales, at first glance, are simpler and more obvious than his satirical essays and novels. The author's cherished idea is outlined in a more definite, visible outline. And if we talk about their closeness to folklore, then this parallel is possible only in the most general, large and fundamental sense.
Shchedrin's tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological quest of the satirist. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements, traditional beginnings (“Once upon a time there were”; “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state”; “Once upon a time there was a newspaperman, and there was a reader”), numerals with non-numerical meaning (“far away kingdom”, “from distant lands”), typical sayings (“neither to describe with a pen, nor to say in a fairy tale”, “at the behest of a pike”, “soon the tale will tell”, “how long, briefly li"), constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions (“fed honey”, “fierce millet”, “rolling snores”, “fierce beasts”), borrowed from folklore of proper names (Militrisa Kirbityevna, Ivanushka the Fool, Tsar Pea), characteristic of folk poetry of synonymous combinations (“on the road”, “judged and dressed”), idiomatic expressions going back to folklore (“to breed on beans”, “you can’t lead with your ears”, “grandmother said in two”), oral poetic vocabulary, numerous proverbs and sayings, etc. Stable folk-fairy tale images and details are satirically modernized by Saltykov-Shchedrin not only in the fairy tale genre.
More than once in Shchedrin's essays the names of fairy-tale heroes flash: Ivanushka, Ivanushka the Fool, Ivan Tsarevich, Baba Yaga - the bone leg. The name of one of Foolov’s mayors, Vasilisk Wartkin, means the fabulous “serpent who kills with his gaze.” Numerous fairy-tale elements are found in “The History of a City,” especially in the description of the “origin of the Foolovites.” In Saltykov-Shchedrin, once found images, details, and sketches often did not disappear later, but were used in other cycles.
The research literature has systematized many examples of such an evolution of images, including folklore ones, which served as one of the first impulses in the creation of fairy tales.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are noticeably different from folk tales, and the search for parallels, and even more so for direct plot borrowings, always turned out to be untenable.
Saltykov-Shchedrin the storyteller used various genres of folk art: tales about animals, magic, satirical, folk puppet theater, popular prints, proverbs and sayings. It is obvious that the writer’s fairy-tale world does not dissolve in the folk poetic element, that “Shchedrin’s fairy tale arose independently according to the type folk tales, and the latter contributed to its formation." “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner, he lived and looked at the light and rejoiced” - the opening, setting up the usual fairy-tale mood, is immediately neutralized by subsequent lines, and the indefinitely past folklore time switches to Shchedrin’s present: “And there was that The landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” Landowner stupidity, which results in reading the terry-serf newspaper “Vest”, and landowner stupidity, are both a farcical-comic rapprochement in the folklore spirit, and a social-satirical characteristic.
The stupid landowner is full of fear that the men will take all his goods. The “liberated” peasants “no matter where they look, everything is impossible, not allowed, and not yours!” The peasant died. Finally, the desperate peasants prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to perish even with small children than to toil like this all our lives!” . The next phrase is very important in the overall compositional structure of the fairy tale: the peasants’ wish came true, “the merciful God heard the orphan’s tearful prayer, and there was no more peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” From these lines, readers become living witnesses to a fantastic, fabulous “experiment” proposed by the satirist: what could happen to the landowner if he was deprived of the peasants, left alone with himself, in complete, so to speak, self-sufficiency.
Comic scenes and dialogues unfold in which all the transformations happening to the stupid landowner are explored: episodes with the actor Sadovsky, with four generals, with the police captain.
Each of these passages represents, as it were, a completed anecdotal plot, the entire comedy of which is revealed in the general context of the fairy tale. Gradually, from time to time, more and more new “readiness” of the landowner are revealed, which are fully manifested in the final part (complete savagery, transformation into a “man-bear”). Fantastic changes happen to Shchedrin’s hero: “He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, he walked more and more on all fours and was even surprised how he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient.
He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and adopted some kind of special victory cry, a cross between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.” It is interesting in this regard to compare the fairy-tale plots of “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” and “The Wild Landowner.” In the first case, the stupid, helpless, but accustomed to rule generals, who miraculously find themselves on a desert island, are triggered by the instinct of self-preservation, and they look for, unknown how, a man who got to the island, who drinks and feeds them, saves them from starvation and transports them by boat across the “ocean.” -sea" to St. Petersburg.
In the second tale, a stupid and arrogant landowner, on the contrary, dreams of freeing himself from the peasants (“Only one thing is unbearable to my heart: there are too many peasants in our kingdom!”), and they, in turn, pray to God to get rid of the oppression of the landowner.
And the entire further course of the tale is, as it were, another probable continuation of the story with the generals (this is what would have happened to them if the man had not been found; they would have gone completely wild, brutalized). Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Wild Landowner” seems to bring his fabulously satirical assumptions to their logical conclusion.
Subsequent situations, sarcastically depicted, bright grotesque images are also inseparable from elements of folklore: constant epithets (“white body”, “printed gingerbread”, “wild animals”), troecracy (three people “honor” the landowner as a fool), sayings (“and began he lives and lives"), etc. And behind all this, the main, no longer fairy-tale hint appears: Russia lives as a peasant, with his labor and worries; forced male labor preserves the landowner's plumpness.
Of course, we can only talk about a special, close to folklore, stylistic aura of Shchedrin’s fairy tales, continuing the constant themes and images of his satirical and journalistic cycles. Abundantly using typical folklore elements, the writer sought to capture the attention of a new mass audience, well, first-hand, familiar with folk poetry . But there is also no doubt that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are connected with folklore not only by the presence in them of certain oral poetic details and images that significantly influence the narrative syllable. Dependence on folklore experience is not always literal or quotable.
In Shchedrin's fairy tales there is something more important, which brings them closer to folk poetry: there is a truly popular understanding of the world. It is expressed in the very pathos of fairy tales for the people, in the author's ideas about good and evil, about poverty and wealth, about right and wrong, about decisive the predominance of forces hostile to the people and at the same time about the inevitable triumph of reason and justice.
Let conscience be banished from everywhere, let the pitiful drunkard, the innkeeper, the quarterly overseer, and the financier turn away from it - a “little child” has already appeared in the world, and conscience grows in him along with him. And the little child will be a big man, and he will he has a great conscience. And then all untruths, deceit and violence will disappear, because the conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything itself” [4;23]. Even where evil clearly and unequivocally prevails over defenselessness, timidity, fear, good-naturedness, passivity (cf. fairy tales “The Selfless Hare”, “Virtues and Vices”, “The Deceptive Newspaper Man and the Gullible Reader”, “Crucian Crucian Idealist” and etc.). the author puts him on trial, pronounces a harsh, non-appealable, satirical verdict, making it clear that along with evil he condemns all his free and unconscious indulgers.
Saltykov-Shchedrin is in no hurry to portray those who maintained commanding heights in life as defeated.
On the contrary, he strongly emphasized the absurd, inhumane nature of resolving the overwhelming majority of life’s conflicts. The audience for Shchedrin's fairy tale is, of course, more massive than for many other works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, but the nature of this mass audience is completely special, fickle, changeable within the entire fairy tale cycle. The readership intended by the author is noticeably expanding, freely and naturally including in its probable composition of peasants, otkhodniks, artisans, then it would seem to be again almost exclusively represented by the former Shchedrinsky reader-intellectual, although understood within the broad framework of the general democratic movement in Russia.
The internal multi-genre nature of Shchedrin’s fairy tales (the variety of the author’s definition of the genre: “Neither a fairy tale, nor a true story”, “Conversation”, “Teaching”, “Tale-elegy”, simply “Fairy Tale”), a wide range of themes, ideas, images allow talk about a different reader-addressee for each individual fairy tale.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the nature of satirical imagery, the features of artistic speech directly point to an intelligent reader, to a city dweller who has the opportunity and habit of following newspapers every day, distinguishing between them, living up to date with the latest political news, having general cultural training, a relatively high educational qualification (numerous socio-historical, socio-political, literary and other realities, clericalisms, Latinisms, often found in Shchedrin’s fairy tales). But another Shchedrin fairy tale turns out to be quite accessible and understandable to a single word to the most mass, peasant, working reader.
The author's voice does not contrast with the speech of his characters. However, the author himself prefaces the dialogue with a short exposition and then reveals himself only in a few remarks to the conversation. It is curious that there is no actual dialogical separation, much less a noticeable confrontation of the characters in the fairy tale. In essence, this is one common peasant, nationwide speech, divided into replicas distributed to two heroes.
The heroes do not argue, they think out loud, correcting and supplementing each other, looking for more convincing explanations for incomprehensible, confusing questions, and come to a common ending, significantly interrupted by the author: “Look, Fedya said Ivan, laying down and yawning in all directions for as long as he could.” space! There is a place for everyone, but for us.” The author is not an observer, not a demonstrator of this speech, he does not in the slightest degree separate himself from it, on the contrary, he merges, coincides with it, draws closer to the peasant point of view on the world, on the course of things.
In other tales, he deliberately addresses everyone: both the people and the intelligentsia who have not lost their “living soul.” The focus on the heterogeneous reader's consciousness makes itself felt not only within the boundaries of the entire fairy tale cycle, but in the text of each individual fairy tale. One and the same Shchedrin fairy tale presupposes different reading levels and preparations. This is explained in the aesthetic views of Saltykov-Shchedrin, quite transparently indicated in many of the satirist’s judgments about the characteristics of reader psychology.
We are talking primarily about the category “reader-friend”, which is difficult for a writer. For all its, at first glance, clarity, it is extremely vague and difficult to grasp. Saltykov-Shchedrin throughout his life does not lose hope that “a reader-friend undoubtedly exists.” There are moments when this reader “suddenly opens up, and direct communication with him becomes possible.
Such moments are the happiest that a convinced writer experiences on his difficult path.” But the voice of this reader is too weak, his share in the total mass of the public is too small, his social experience is small, his practice, in which literary, satirical, journalistic, poetic ideas and words would be melted into a living, concrete, socially significant matter, would be found direct, without concealment or circumspection, sympathy would awaken civic honesty and courage.
Thus, Shchedrin’s tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the satirist’s ideological quest. There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements are noted: - traditional beginnings; - numerals with non-numerical meaning; - typical sayings; - constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions; - proper names borrowed from folklore, synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry, idiomatic expressions dating back to folklore; - oral and poetic vocabulary; - numerous proverbs and sayings, etc. 2.2 The universal sound of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales Working on fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin poetically realizes his favorite ideas about literature as effective propaganda, as a school of civic education.
And like any real school, Shchedrin’s fairy tale (“a lesson to the good fellows!”) has several ascending “steps”, focused on different levels of reader understanding and stimulating reader growth and the transition from “class” to “class”, from “level” to “ step." First of all, in many fairy tales there is a series of external plots: - legendary (“Christ’s Night”); - household (“Village fire”); - close to fable (Shchedrin’s tales about animals, “Virtues and Vices”, “Kisel”); - fantastic (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, etc.). In principle, it is understandable and accessible to everyone: both morality and socio-psychological generalizations of it, without much difficulty, are independently deduced by the reader, who is not alien to the world of folk tales, parables, proverbs and sayings.
Shchedrin's tales about animals are like detailed poetic fables in the spirit of the nationality bequeathed by Krylov, much more densely populated and enriched with stable, but always unexpected in Saltykov-Shchedrin's works, carrying a comic charge with folklore, folk-fairy tale elements.
Each of the characters, both traditional and new, is given scope for full self-discovery.
The duel, intense and complex dialogue, and conflict characteristic of Krylov’s fables are written out in detail and meticulously, with the addition of details, details, and clarifications that are completely alien to the poetically compressed world of the fable. And at the same time, in the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the inherent conceptuality, purposefulness and significance of the fable are preserved.
Shchedrin's fairy tale is perceived on a par with a fable-lesson, a moral, a maxim, and the satirical writer certainly and seriously takes this level of everyday understanding into account. The author leads the reader into the depths of the plot, getting him interested in the development of the action, focusing on the struggle of antagonistic life principles. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are not so much designed for an already established worldview, but are capable of awakening the growth of civic, class consciousness. They gradually lead to difficult questions that cannot be solved simply by being guided by truisms.
Intelligence is one of the revered human virtues, but people tend to introduce the most diverse, often mutually exclusive content into this concept. And Saltykov-Shchedrin, an educator, a champion of reason, a bright mind alien to dogmatic inertia, puts into the title of the tale a telling, unambiguously evaluative epithet: "The wise minnow." At first, one retains faith in the certainty of this definition: both the gudgeon’s parents “were smart,” and they did not ignore his parental advice, and the hero of the fairy tale himself, it turns out, “was smart.” But step by step, tracing the course of the gudgeon’s conclusions, conveyed in the form of improperly direct speech, the author arouses in the reader a sly mockery, an ironic reaction, finally a feeling of disgust, and in the end even compassion for the everyday philosophy of a quiet, voiceless, moderately neat creature.
The tenacious morality of crickets who know their nest.
Saltykov-Shchedrin, with almost every tale of his, strives to expose it in the eyes of the readership majority: “But after a quarter of an hour it was all over. Instead of the hare, only scraps of skin and his sensible words remained: “Every beast has its own life; for a lion - lion's, for a fox - fox's, for a hare - hare's." Shchedrin’s tales reveal what Pushkin noted in Krylov’s fables as “a distinctive feature in our morals”: “some kind of cheerful cunning of the mind, mockery and a picturesque way of expressing ourselves.” A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable always tells about what happens.
Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present, and every now and then signs of a “non-fairytale” time reveal themselves in it. To comprehend direct and barely hidden hints at “complacent modernity” one already needs a certain amount of experience in communicating with the newspaper and magazine word, and awareness of current events in domestic and international life, and a certain political sensitivity.
Shchedrin’s Ivanushka the Fool, at the behest of his parents, ended up “in the institution” and studied, “but as the volume of supposed knowledge increased, Ivanushka’s case became more complicated. He did not understand most sciences at all. He did not understand history, jurisprudence, or the science of accumulation and distribution of wealth. Not because he didn’t want to understand, but truly didn’t understand. And to all the admonitions of the teachers he answered one thing: “This cannot be!” . It was assumed that the reader would sense a mockery of the philistine well-intentioned official “sciences” serving the interests of the ruling classes.
The artistic speech in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is structured in such a way that the person following the external event conflict is simultaneously initiated into some significant and often eluding “secrets of modernity” in life. Most of the heroes of Shchedrin's fairy tales have their own social class “registration”: rich and poor, men and gentlemen, “sirs” and “Ivashki”. Every now and then the author seems to push the reader into sudden comparisons and unusual analogies.
The reader is faced with the need to correlate what is depicted with reality; a world of caustic satirical allegories and topical reminiscences opens up to him. This type of perception, to which many of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales lead, can conditionally be called comparative. What is reported in the fairy tale is involuntarily transferred to the circle of loved ones, acquaintances, experiences and impressions experienced by the reader himself. This is probably one of the inevitable stages on the path to improving reading skills and tastes.
Saltykov-Shchedrin, of course, counted on the reader's interest in the real, concrete political aspects of everyday life and being touching the reader's heartstrings. But artistic speech, with its semantic and emotional depth and relief, leads away from overly straightened literal timing. Otherwise, the text turns into a special kind of cipher, and the reader’s task is reduced to guessing it. Pamphleteering was always alien to Saltykov-Shchedrin, and through the fable- or legendary-plot line, through the chain of allusions, the satirist’s uninterrupted large universal theme clearly shines through, raising the reader's consciousness to a new and higher level, when, according to the successful definition of A. S. Bushmin, the topic of the day reaches the topic of the century. The writer does not lead his wise, sensitive reader to a clearly delineated conclusion or outcome, but to a state of anxiety, to a search for truth.
Shchedrin's fairy tale becomes for a real reader-friend, as the writer ideally imagined him, moral support, imparts perspective to thought and feeling, infects him with a thirst for the struggle for the reconstruction of this crazy, cruel, unjust world, for the revival of Man.
Through all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales there are words-leitmotifs that mean to him something more than just words: mind, conscience, truth, history. Saltykov-Shchedrin connects his hopes for the inevitable future triumph of truth with history, the “call signs” of which are constantly appearing unusual, fabulous stories.
History in Shchedrin’s tales is both an unbroken chain of times and just retribution that overtakes villains, “Stoeros Bourbons”, Majors Toptygins. History preserves the most cherished and wise human traditions: “That evil has never been a founding force - history testifies to this.” . History is “a story of liberation, a story about the triumph of good and reason over evil and madness.” In Shchedrin's tales, History can speed up its course, but it does not interrupt it, does not stop it.
The author of fairy tales is convinced that History is the present, preserving the memory of the past and gaining in this considerable strength for discerning the future: “But the time will come when every breath will become clear the limits within which its life must be carried out, then strife will disappear by itself, and together with them all small “personal truths” will disappear like smoke. The real, united and binding Truth will be revealed; will come and the whole world will shine.” Refuting the vulgar everyday morality, arousing interest in “our social life,” Shchedrin’s fairy tales help the reader gain a free, unbiased attitude to life, a sensitive historical approach to it. In fairy tales there is hope for a young reader with an “unslammed” soul, with an undestroyed conscience, for a “child” who is growing up by leaps and bounds.
Thus, a folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable about what happens. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present, and every now and then signs of a “non-fairytale” time reveal themselves in it.
CONCLUSIONS Thus, we can draw the following conclusions: As a genre, the Shchedrin fairy tale gradually matured in the writer’s work from the fantastic and figurative elements of his satire. There are also a lot of folklore themes in them, starting from the use of the form of a long past tense (“Once upon a time”) and ending with an abundant number of proverbs and sayings with which they are sprinkled. In his fairy tales, the writer touches on many problems: - social; - political; - ideological.
Thus, the life of Russian society is depicted in them in a long series of miniature paintings. Fairy tales present the social anatomy of society in the form of a whole gallery of zoomorphic, fairy-tale images. Shchedrin began his fairy tale cycle in 1869. The tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show the entire inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus.
And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order. To write fairy tales, the author used grotesque, hyperbole and antithesis. Aesopian language was also important for the author. Trying to hide from censorship true meaning written, I had to use this technique. Shchedrin's tales, according to the unanimous opinion of readers and researchers, were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological quest of the satirist.
There are many works on their connection with the oral folk poetic tradition. In particular, all or almost all cases of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of folklore elements are noted: - traditional beginnings; - numerals with non-numerical meaning; - typical sayings; - constant epithets and ordinary folklore inversions; - proper names borrowed from folklore, synonymous combinations characteristic of folk poetry, idiomatic expressions dating back to folklore; - oral and poetic vocabulary; - numerous proverbs and sayings, etc. A folk tale always tells about what happened, a fable - about what happens.
Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale is deliberately turned to today, to the present; in it, signs of a “non-fairy tale” time are constantly revealed. LIST OF REFERENCES 1. V.V. Prozorov. Saltykov - Shchedrin. – M 1988. – 170 p. 2. A. Bushmin. Tales of Saltykov - Shchedrin. – L 1976. – 290 p. 3. A.S. Pushkin.Full. collection cit.: In 10 vols. – M 1964. – T. 7. – 379 p. 4. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin. collection Op.: In 20 volumes – M 1965-1977. – Vol. 10.–320 pp. 5. M. E. Saltykov–Shchedrin. collection Op.: In 20 volumes – M 1965–1977. – T. 16.–370 p. 6. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin in Russian criticism. – M 1959. – 270 p. 7. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the memoirs of contemporaries. –M 1975.–430 p. 8. V. Bazanova.
Tales of M.E. Saltykova - Shchedrin. – M 1966. – 347 p. 9. A.S. Bushmin. Satire Saltykov - Shchedrin. – M 1959. – 280 p. 10. A.S. Bushmin. Tales of M.E. Saltykova - Shchedrin. – M 1976. – 340 p. 11. V. A. Myslyakov.
The art of satirical storytelling: The problem of the narrator in Saltykov-Shchedrin. – Saratov, 1966. – 298 p. 12. D. Nikolaev. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin: Life and creativity: Essay. – M 1985. – 175 p. 13. E.I. Pokusaev, V.V. Prozorov. M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin: Biography of the writer. – L 1977. – 200 p. 14. M.S. Olminsky. Articles about Saltykov - Shchedrin. – M 1959. – 210 p. 15. S. Makashin. Saltykov - Shchedrin. Biography. – M 1951. – T.1. – 340.
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Initially genre originality folk tale- This:
- enlivening the forces of nature,
- fantastic element,
- a happy ending,
- posing eternal problems,
- positive and negative heroes,
- optimism,
- imagery,
as well as the poetics of folklore:
- repeat, steady speed,
- standard beginning and ending
- comparisons, images-symbols,
- parallelism, constant epithets,
- humorous element.
Folklore tales are divided into magical, everyday, anecdotal, and tales about animals.
The originality of Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales
Turning to the fairy tale genre not only corresponded to Saltykov-Shchedrin’s talent, not only allowed him to pass the slingshots of tsarist censorship, but also most organically corresponded to the author’s tasks - to speak openly about those social issues and problems that worried the writer himself and his contemporaries.
"...an unchanging subject literary activity There has always been a protest against arbitrariness, double-mindedness, lies, predation, betrayal, idle thinking, etc.” (Saltykov-Shchedrin)
Heroes and recipients
By its genre nature, this writer’s “Fairy Tales” are a fusion of fairy tales and fables. The free form of presentation, magical transformations, time and place of action (“in a certain kingdom”, “once upon a time”), the poetics of folklore were taken by the writer from the genre of folk tales. From the fable came images of animals, behind which the character of a certain person is hidden, its heroes - a selfless hare, a patron eagle, a bear in the province, a horse, as well as people who are also represented in general terms - a wild landowner, two generals, a peasant.
"children of a fair age"
that is, those who retained the naive illusions of a beautiful youth. Shchedrin makes fun of such people, shows them the cruel reality.
The language of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales - artistic techniques
The originality of his tales lies in the techniques that the author used. First of all, this is a technique of Aesopian language - the technique of half-hints, allegories. So, for example, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” which begins with the words
“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...”
It is further said that this landowner loved to read the newspaper “Vest”, the very reactionary newspaper of that time, which immediately determines the hero’s worldview. The author also uses the techniques of irony, sarcasm (caustic, evil irony). So in the same fairy tale, the peasants say about the landowner:
“...even though our landowner is stupid, he has been given great intelligence.”
The writer also uses (images in an exaggerated or understated ugly-comic form): a portrait of a wild landowner left without peasants:
“...overgrown with hair...his nails became like iron...he walked more and more on all fours. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and acquired a special victory cry, a cross between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.”
Depicting human types under animal masks, Shchedrin at the same time uses stereotypes of reader perception (the eagle as the king of birds), putting new content into them. Thus, in the fairy tale “The Patron Eagle,” the writer opposes the romanticization of the powers that be, who are called eagles. Admiration for predators is dangerous in any human society.
Fairy tale themes
Fairy tales are mainly devoted not to eternal, but to topical topics for the writer. In particular, the writer opposes the slavish obedience of the Russian people
(“How one man fed two generals”, “Horse”),
against beautiful-minded intellectuals
(“Crucian idealist”),
against rudeness, rudeness, ignorance of those in power
("Bear in the Voivodeship")
The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are the pinnacle of the Russian second half of the 19th century. This satire was supposed to call for action against slavery and oppression, against the obedience of slaves and the despotism of the oppressors, and was supposed to form fighters against the social structure of Russia.
Did you like it? Don't hide your joy from the world - share itGenre features of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin
Plan:
- Introduction (3-4 pages)
Features of S.-Shch's fairy tales (page 5)
- “Wild Landowner” (6-7 pages)
“The Wise Minnow” (7-9 pages)
“The story of how one man fed two generals” (9-10 pages
“Crucian idealist” (10-12 pages)
Bibliography
Application
Introduction
Saltykov-Shchedrin, a storyteller, used various genres of folk art: tales about animals, fairy tales, satirical tales, folk puppet theater, proverbs and sayings. It is obvious that the writer’s fairy-tale world does not dissolve in the folk poetic element, that “Shchedrin’s fairy tale arose independently according to the type of folk tales, and the latter contributed to its formation.”
“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner, he lived and looked at the light and rejoiced” - the opening, setting up the usual fairy-tale mood, is immediately neutralized by subsequent lines, and the indefinitely past folklore tense switches to Shchedrin’s present: “And there was that the landowner is stupid, he read the newspaper “Vest” and his body is soft, white, crumbly.” Landowner stupidity, which results in reading the terry-serf newspaper “Vest”, and landowner stupidity, are both a farcical and comic rapprochement in the folklore spirit, and a social-satirical characteristic. Further, in a comic vein, the story of completely real relations between landowners and peasants after the abolition of serfdom is presented.
The stupid landowner is full of fear that the men will “come to him” with all their goods. The “liberated” peasants “no matter where they look, everything is impossible and not allowed. Not yours! The man died. The completely desperate peasants prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children, to suffer like this for weeks all our lives!” The following phrase is very important in the overall compositional structure of the fairy tale: the peasants’ wish came true, “the merciful God heard the orphan’s tearful prayer, and there was no more peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” From these lines, readers become living witnesses to a fantastic, fabulous “experiment” proposed by the satirist: what could happen to the landowner if he was deprived of the peasants, left alone with himself, in complete, so to speak, self-sufficiency.
The ideological and artistic features of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire were most clearly manifested in the fairy tale genre. If Saltykov-Shchedrin had not written anything other than “fairy tales,” then they alone would have given him the right to immortality. Fairy tales were created in the era of reaction (1881 - the assassination of Tsar Alexander II). The form of a fairy tale was chosen because this genre is most understandable and close to the common reader. These were fairy tales for children from 7 to 70 years old, fairy tales “for children of a fair age.” Children are adults in need of teaching. In the fairy tale, one could, in a veiled form, draw attention to the most pressing issues of public life and stand up for the defense of people's interests. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are also called the “small encyclopedia of satire,” and Saltykov-Shchedrin himself is called the “prosecutor of Russian reality.” The satirical writer in his fairy tales puts on the mask of a storyteller, a good-natured, ingenuous joker. Behind the mask lies a sarcastic grin (sarcasm) of a person wise by bitter life experience.
In his fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin uses hyperbole (a means of artistic expression based on exaggeration), grotesque (a type of comic that combines the terrible and funny, the ugly and the sublime in a fantastic form; as a rule, images of the grotesque carry tragic meaning), fantasy (non-existent in reality, created by fantasy, imagination), allegory (depiction of an abstract concept or phenomenon through a concrete image; for example, in fables, certain persons or social phenomena are allegorically depicted under the guise of animals). Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are written in Aesopian language (artistic speech, full of omissions and ironic allusions, forced allegory).
Main part
M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales. Turning to this genre was natural for Saltykov-Shchedrin. All his work is permeated with fairy-tale elements. Fairy tale themes: despotic power, masters and slaves, fear as a basis slave psychology, hard labor, etc. The unifying thematic principle of all fairy tales is the life of the people in its correlation with the life of the ruling classes.
What brings Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales closer to folk tales? Typical fairy tale openings: turns of phrase characteristic of folk speech; syntax and vocabulary close to the folk language. Exaggeration, grotesque, hyperbole: one of the generals eats the other; the “wild landowner,” like a cat, climbs a tree in an instant; a man cooks a handful of soup. As in folk tales, a miraculous incident sets the plot in motion: two generals “suddenly found themselves on a desert island”; By the grace of God, “there was no man in the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” Saltykov-Shchedrin also follows the folk tradition in fairy tales about animals, when in an allegorical form he ridicules the shortcomings of society.
“The Wise Minnow” is an image of a frightened man in the street, who “only takes care of his profane life.” Can the slogan “survive and not get caught by the pike” be the meaning of life for a person?
The theme of the tale is connected with the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya, when many representatives of the intelligentsia, frightened, withdrew from public affairs. A type of coward, pathetic, and unhappy is being created. These people did no harm to anyone, but lived their lives aimlessly, without impulses. This tale is about a person’s civic position and the meaning of human life. In general, the author appears in a fairy tale in two faces at once: a folk storyteller, a simpleton joker and at the same time a person wise with life experience, a writer-thinker, a citizen. The description of the life of the animal kingdom with its inherent details intersperses details real life of people. The language of a fairy tale combines fairy-tale words and phrases, colloquial the third estate and the journalistic language of that time.
Fairy tale "Wild Landowner"
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is directed against the entire social system, based on exploitation, anti-people in its essence. Preserving the spirit and style of a folk tale, the satirist talks about real events his contemporary life. The work begins as an ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...” But then the element modern life: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest”.” “Vest” is a reactionary-serf newspaper, so the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The landowner considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev. The whole meaning of his existence comes down to pampering his body, “soft, white and crumbly.” He lives at the expense of his men, but he hates and is afraid of them, and cannot stand the “servile spirit.” He rejoices when, by some fantastic whirlwind, all the men were carried away to who knows where, and the air in his domain became pure, pure. But the men disappeared, and such hunger set in that it was impossible to buy anything at the market. And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He was all overgrown with hair, from head to toe... and his nails became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago and walked more and more on all fours. I’ve even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds...” In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all its entrails, even the skin.” The savagery of the landowner indicates that he cannot live without the help of the peasant. After all, it was not without reason that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “flour, meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared at the market.”
The stupidity of the landowner is constantly emphasized by the writer. The first to call the landowner stupid were the peasants themselves; representatives of other classes called the landowner stupid three times (a technique of threefold repetition): the actor Sadovsky (“However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! Who gives you a wash, stupid?”) generals, whom he instead of “beef -ki” treated him to printed gingerbread cookies and lollipops (“However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!”) and, finally, the police captain (“You are stupid, Mr. Landowner!”). The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, and he indulges in unrealistic dreams that he will achieve prosperity in the economy without the help of the peasants, and thinks about English machines that will replace the serfs. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own. And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?” If we compare the famous folk tales about the master and the peasant with the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example with “ Wild landowner”, then we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is very close to folklore, and the men, on the contrary, differ from those in fairy tales. In folk tales, a quick-witted, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master. And in “The Wild Landowner” there arises collective image workers, breadwinners of the country and at the same time patient martyrs and sufferers. Thus, modifying a folk tale, the writer condemns the people's long-suffering, and his tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview.
Gudgeon
It is useful to start the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” with a question about the meaning of its title. It is worth thinking about the meaning of the epithet “wise”, choosing synonyms and antonyms for this word (synonyms: smart, wise, intelligent; antonyms: stupid, stupid, stupid).
Saltykov-Shchedrin calls his gudgeon hero “wise,” but the meaning of this word is undoubtedly ironic. “Wise” in the mouth of the author of the fairy tale sounds unfunny and sarcastic.
At first, the author, without much ironic “pressure,” calls the young minnow smart (“Both his father and mother were smart...”, “And the young minnow had a mind”). The first six paragraphs create the illusion of a story about “ordinary” fairy-tale fish, about the kingdom of fish: here big fish swim, and crayfish live, and water fleas and minnows live in whole herds, and the mentioned fishing artel with a net, and, finally, sad and the gudgeon father's depressing memories of the fish soup he almost tasted. In short, fish are fish. Only they communicate with each other, as it should be in fairy tales, in a human manner, and even give each other instructions on how to live: “Look, son,” said the old gudgeon, dying, “if you want to chew on life, then keep your eyes open!” .
Soon, a new motif enters into Shchedrin’s tale, clarifying our reader’s idea of the wise minnow: “He was an enlightened minnow, moderately liberal, and very firmly understood that living life is not like licking a whorl.” These additions are very significant, they contain a direct hint at intelligent, knowledgeable people, educated people, professing the principle of complete non-interference in the course of life (“You have to live in such a way that no one notices,” he said to himself, “otherwise you’ll just disappear!” - and began to get settled”).
The gudgeon didn’t even dare to get married and “didn’t have children, although his father had a large family,” and immediately a purely fabulous continuation follows: “He reasoned like this: “My father could have lived by joking!” At that time, the pike were kinder, and the perches were no different from us small fry. And although once he was about to get caught in the ear, there was an old man who rescued him! And now, as the fish in the rivers have increased, the minnows are in honor. So there’s no time for family, but how to just live on your own!” Immediately after this, a purely everyday ironic transition: “He has no friends, no relatives; neither he is to anyone, nor anyone is to him. He doesn’t play cards, doesn’t drink wine, doesn’t smoke tobacco, doesn’t chase hot girls - he just trembles and thinks only one thing: “Thank God! It seems to be alive!
The tale sparingly and expressively includes signs of a specific historical time. This is a mention of the political “face” of the fairy-tale hero (“he was a minnow...moderately liberal”), about his dream of purchasing a “winning ticket” and winning “two hundred thousand” with it, this is also the author’s idea that the minnows “not alienated from the public” and would be “worthy citizens.”
Step by step tracing the course of the gudgeon's conclusions, the author arouses in the reader either sly ridicule, or a sarcastic response, or a feeling of disgust. In the finale, there may even be compassion for the pitiful fate of a quiet, timid - silent, moderately - neat creature. Shchedrinsky's minnow, summing up the results of his long life, reveals a bitter and dreary truth: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows. They give no one warmth or cold, no honor, no dishonor, no glory, no infamy...they live, take up space for nothing and eat food.” A swarm of questions confuses the minnow: “What joys did he have? Who did you give good light to? To whom kind word said? Whom did you shelter, warm, protect? Who did he console? Who has heard of him? Who will remember his existence? The gudgeon is gnawed by resentment that other fish, who every now and then “sneak past his hole,” call him nothing more than a “dumb,” “fool,” “disgrace,” sincerely wondering “how the water tolerates such idols.”
The fairy tale carries an important moral lesson: cowardice, fear, philistine indifference to everything in the world except one’s own person sooner or later deprive human life of all meaning, worldly “wisdom” kills the mind, honor, and conscience in people. The fairy tale teaches honesty, civic courage and nobility, and reminds us of the price human life, about its meaning.
The story of how one man fed two generals
In the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” the author shows two generals as helpless, stupid and arrogant. “Generals served all their lives in some kind of registry; they were born there, raised and grew old, therefore, they did not understand anything,” “each had his own cook and received a pension.” Both generals were accustomed to receiving everything ready-made and lived without worrying about anything. They couldn’t even understand “that human food in its original form flies, floats and grows on trees,” they thought “that rolls will be born in the same form as they are served with coffee in the morning.” The generals did not find a better way to arrange their life on the island other than to find a man who would “serve buns, and catch hazel grouse, and fish.” The thought that they were on a desert island, where there was no one but them, did not occur to them, since they were sure that if there are generals, then there must be a man. “Just as there is no man, there is a man everywhere, you just have to look for him! He’s probably hidden somewhere and is shirking work!” - this is how the generals reason. After they became well-fed and cheerful, a new problem appeared: “here they live on everything ready, and in St. Petersburg, meanwhile, their pensions keep accumulating and accumulating.” Now that they no longer have to worry about what to eat, where to get it, the generals reflect on life, remember how they lived on Podyacheskaya, read the Moskovskie Vedomosti: “They will find the number, sit under the shade, read from board to board, how we ate in Moscow, ate in Tula, ate in Penza, ate in Ryazan - and nothing, I don’t feel sick!” On the island they still have the same familiar idle way of life to which they are accustomed at home.
The generals believe that a man - a healthy fellow - shirks from work and tries to run away, he is constantly scolded for parasitism and laziness. But despite this, he is happy with his life. The man is dexterous and dexterous to the point that he even cooks soup in a handful. All he needs to be happy is a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver. “Have fun, man!” Soon the generals became bored and wanted to return home, and again they have no doubt that the man will be able to take them to St. Petersburg, that he will take care of everything in the best possible way. They are confident that it should be this way and not otherwise.
The author shows the bitter fate of the people, accustomed to solving the problems of generals who themselves are absolutely helpless, consider it completely natural to sit back, while pushing others around, forcing them to work for themselves. Saltykov Shchedrin in his fairy tales shows the need for changes in life, he is convinced that the issue of abolition of serfdom is ripe. He believed that the people, who had until now been excluded from solving the main issues of the country's development, should finally receive liberation. Saltykov Shchedrin hopes that the hour is not far when the people will awaken and become the arbiter of the country's destinies.
M.E. Saltykov Shchedrin hated complacency and indifference, violence and rudeness. With all his creativity he tried to eradicate them in Russia.
Much in the description of the life of the generals is reliable and believable. At the same time, there are details and actions that seem strange, unusual and fantastic. For example, the fact that “a man just picked wild hemp, soaked it in water, beat it, crushed it - and by evening the rope was ready. The generals tied the man to a tree with this rope so that he would not run away..."
The fiction of Saltykov Shchedrin is not an escape from reality, from its burning problems and pressing issues, but a special form of posing these problems and questions, a special form of satirical reflection of life.
"Crucian idealist"
etc.................
