“Real and fantastic in M.’s fairy tales. To help students

Composition

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin created more than 30 fairy tales. Turning to this genre was natural for the writer. Fairy-tale elements (fantasy, hyperbole, convention, etc.) permeate all of his work. Themes of fairy tales: despotic power (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”), masters and slaves (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” “ Wild landowner"), fear as the basis slave psychology (« The wise minnow"), hard labor ("Horse"), 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 beginnings (“Once upon a time there were two generals...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...”; sayings (“according to pike command", "neither to say in a fairy tale, nor to describe with a pen"); phrases characteristic of folk speech (“thought and thought”, “said and done”); close to vernacular syntax, vocabulary, orthoepy. 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 is no longer a peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” Folk tradition Saltykov-Shchedrin also follows in fairy tales about animals, when in an allegorical form he ridicules the shortcomings of society.

Differences. Interweaving the fantastic with the real and even historically accurate. “A Bear in the Voivodeship” - among the animal characters, the image of Magnitsky, a well-known reactionary in Russian history, suddenly appears: even before the Toptygins appeared in the forest, Magnitsky destroyed all the printing houses, students were sent to be soldiers, academicians were imprisoned. In the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” the hero gradually degrades, turning into an animal. Incredible story The hero’s character is largely explained by the fact that he read the newspaper “Vest” and followed its advice. Saltykov-Shchedrin simultaneously respects the form of a folk tale and destroys it. The magical in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales is explained by the real; the reader cannot escape reality, which is constantly felt behind the images of animals and fantastic events. Fairy-tale forms allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to present ideas close to him in a new way, to show or ridicule social shortcomings.

“The Wise Minnow” is an image of a frightened man in the street who “is only saving his cold life.” Can the slogan “survive and not get caught by the pike” be the meaning of life for a person?

1. Concept and typology of fairy tales.
2. Folk tale and author's fairy tale.
3. Gallery of images of fairy-tale characters.
4. From the landowner and general to the intellectual and the peasant.
5. The influence of Shchedrin’s fairy tales on Russian literature -

A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it...
A. S. Pushkin

A fairy tale is special, fantastic and real world. A small text often contains a special meaning - here you can find real advice for a certain life situation, and see the concept of a worldview, and get banal pleasure from a fascinating, breathtaking plot. Since ancient times, fairy tales have been divided into several types: fairy tales, fairy tales about people and fairy tales about animals. There were fairy tales intended to entertain children, and others for education. There are stories for an adult ear, and there are fairy tales in which everyone can find something exciting, interesting, and useful for themselves.

Fairy tales were treated with great care, trying to convey the meaning while preserving the smallest nuances of meaning. Often, even the order of words carried a special semantic load and could not be changed.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is the successor of the fairy tale tradition of D. I. Fonvizin, A. S. Griboyedov, N. V. Gogol. The position of city governor, which the writer held for quite a long time, showed him all the vices of modern Russian society, gave a good reason to think about future fate Russia. Through the genre of fairy tales, the writer creates a kind of encyclopedia of Russian life. The fairy tales were the result of reflections of forty years of life and resulted in intensive four years of work. They are created from 1882 to 1886.

Shchedrin was prompted to turn to such a seemingly frivolous genre whole line good reasons. On the one hand, the complex political situation in the country, characterized by moral terror, persecution of the intelligentsia by police departments, and the defeat of populism did not allow the writer to directly identify and criticize the existing regime. IN best case scenario such a work would not have been published; at worst, the author of a heretical work would have faced, at the very least, hard labor. On the other hand, the fairy tale genre has always been close in spirit and style to the satirical writer. Hyperbole, fantasy, irony - standard techniques for decorating speech in fairy tales - were also characteristic of Shchedrin's style as a whole. The democracy of this genre made it possible to better convey the meaning of the work to the common people, and treating it as a childish and frivolous work would allow one to avoid responsibility for anti-government thoughts. In his fairy tales, Shchedrin widely uses speech techniques created by the people. Many of his texts begin according to the canons with the beginning (“once upon a time they lived”, “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state”), proverbs, sayings, and sayings are used (“The horse runs - the earth trembles”, “Two deaths cannot happen, but one cannot be avoided” "). The writer is brought closer to folk art and the general concept of the internal space of the work - fantastic images, grotesque characters, traditional repetition of plot elements.

But Saltykov-Shchedrin does not copy the entire fairy-tale space - he creates own world and populates it with modern, relevant characters. First of all, this is unusual for folk epic author's image. He is obscured, covered by the mask of a good-natured narrator with his malicious, sarcastic grin. The main fairy-tale image is depicted differently - the image of a man. The fairy tale is characterized by his undeniable superiority over the master - he always defeats him, leaving the rich man a fool. Shchedrin has ambivalent views on this image. The man in his fairy tales often ends up in the fool, although he is undoubtedly endowed with a fair amount of ingenuity and dexterity. In particular, in the fairy tale “How one man fed two generals,” this same man, having simply fantastic capabilities, makes a fool of himself by tying himself, on the orders of the generals, with a rope and tying himself to a tree with it: “So as not to run away.”

Essentially, Shchedrin manages to create a new, hitherto unprecedented genre of Russian political fairy tale. And in these author's fairy tales they reflect the brightest representatives Russian society late XIX century. The entire social anatomy is shown, all classes of society are represented - from the peasantry and men, to the merchants and representatives of the tsarist government.

The fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” presents a rude, uncouth and uneducated royal power, illiterate governing the country and disregard for education issues. The next Toptygin, holding the rank of governor, feels the desire to immediately find some kind of institution in order to immediately burn it down. The author makes Donkey the main sage and adviser to Leo, the royal personage, a living allegory of stubbornness and stupidity. That is why such devastation is happening in the country.

The author widely uses hyperbole, often giving fairy tales the most unexpected meaning and making their plots original and memorable. Thus, in the story “The Wild Landowner,” a landowner is shown who hates the peasants with all his heart and wants them to disappear. As a result, all the serfs disappear, leaving him alone and desolate. The landowner eats only gingerbread, does not take care of himself: “He is all over... covered with hair... and his claws have become like iron.” Only then does it become clear that his entire economy and prosperous life were based solely on people’s labor.

In “The Wise Minnow” the author portrays such an intelligentsia who consciously moved away from the struggle into the world of personal interests and concerns. The common gudgeon hides from the terrible world around him, walls himself up in a hole and is proud of himself: “he’s outsmarted everyone.” And in the end, his life consists of only one phrase: “He lived and trembled, he died and trembled.”

There are in the gallery of fairy-tale images created by the brilliant mind of Shchedrin, such heroes as an intellectual dreamer (“Crucian the idealist”), and an autocrat playing the role of a philanthropist (“Eagle the Patron”), and worthless generals, and a submissive “selfless hare” , hoping for the mercy of “predators” (here is another side of slave psychology!), and many others who reflected historical era, with its social evil and democratic ideas.

With his works in the fairy tale genre, Shchedrin rightfully deserved his calling. He proved his excellent command of Aesopian language and his incredible strength and diversity of imagination. Original folk fiction fairy-tale space combines with the recognizable realistic image surrounding reality. Exaggeration, satire and irony allow us to highlight those aspects of a person’s life that first of all need to change for the better.

1. Satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin.
2. Genre features fairy tales
3. Heroes.
4. Fantastic motives.

The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are a completely special layer of the writer’s creativity. Almost everything Saltykov-Shchedrin created in last years life. These short works amaze with the variety of artistic techniques, as well as with their social significance. The writer addresses his “fairy tales” to “children of considerable age" Thus, Saltykov-Shchedrin seems to want to debunk the naive illusions of some adults who are accustomed to looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. The writer treats his readers harshly and does not spare them. Saltykov-Shchedrin's satire in fairy tales is especially sharp and merciless. The writer uses fantastic motifs to emphasize social contradictions. He can be poisonous and merciless. But otherwise his works would not be so accurate and truthful. I. S. Turgenev wrote about the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin: “I saw listeners writhing with laughter when reading some of Saltykov’s essays. There was something scary in that laughter. The audience, laughing, at the same time felt like a scourge was lashing itself.” The writer used satire to make readers think about social contradictions, to arouse indignation in their minds about what is happening around them.

Saltykov-Shchedrin repeatedly emphasizes the wretchedness, stupidity, and short-sightedness of representatives of the ruling class. For example, the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” makes you think about how helpless the generals are and how strong and savvy the common man is. The generals cannot do without his help, and he himself lives well alone. Saltykov-Shchedrin endows animals with human traits and reproduces any social situation. In the fairy tale " Selfless hare“The hare is cowardly, weak, indecisive. He is a typical victim, humiliated and helpless. The wolf is vested with power, personifies the master. The hare puts up with his position as a slave and does not try to do anything to change his life. The despot wolf revels in power, humiliating the unfortunate victim. People are visible under the masks of animals. Tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin - realistic works. The writer calls a spade a spade using allegory. In the fairy tale “The Selfless Hare,” the wolf says: “Because you didn’t stop at my first word, here’s my decision for you: I sentence you to be deprived of your belly by being torn to pieces. And since now I’m full, and my wolf is full, and we have enough reserves for another five days, then sit under this bush and wait in line. Or maybe... ha ha... I’ll have mercy on you.” He is clearly mocking the victim. But the trouble is that the victim deserves such treatment. After all, a slavishly obedient hare is devoid of pride and self-respect. He represents the common people, patient, humble and helpless. From the point of view of Saltykov-Shchedrin, all these qualities deserve reproach. The writer considered satire effective and effective weapon, capable of opening eyes to various social and personal vices.

The writer's fairy tales occupy a very important place in the treasury of Russian literature. Their relevance is obvious even now, when a lot of time has passed since they were written. There are also phenomena in society that deserve sharp condemnation.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a satirist writer. All his work is aimed at criticizing the existing order in the country and, first of all, at the wrong government structure. The writer’s works continue the tradition of D. I. Fonvizin, A. S. Griboyedov, N. V. Gogol. In the chronicles and tales of Saltykov we see a reflection real story Russia, and in fairy tale images appear before us statesmen, rulers, officials. I. S. Turgenev wrote about the features of Saltykov’s satire: “There is something Swiftian in Saltykov: this serious and malicious humor, this realism, sober and clear among the most unbridled play of imagination, and especially this unshakable common sense, preserved despite the violence and exaggeration of the form.”
Among the most famous works Shchedrin - fairy tales. Fairy tales are special literary genre, based on folk legends, epics, songs, superstitions. They often use traditional plots and characters (Vasilisa the Beautiful, Ivan Tsarevich, Gray wolf), artistic techniques(fiction, stable phrases, sayings, stable epithets, antithesis). But Saltykov’s fairy tales are a special phenomenon in Russian literature. At their core, these works are political pamphlets, and fairy tale plot- just a form of presentation.
The first acquaintance with the work of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin begins with the fairy tales “The Wild Landowner”, “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “ The wise minnow”, “Selfless Hare”, “Eagle Patron”, “Faithful Trezor” and others. All these fairy tales are familiar to us from childhood. A large role in the writer’s work is given to tales about animals. After all, behind the images of animals there are famous human vices and disadvantages.
The author paints for the reader images of ordinary people who have humbled themselves before the authorities. For example, in the fairy tale “The Selfless Hare”. It makes you think about important questions. Why does a simple worker so quickly accept his fate? Why is he so submissive and defenseless? Why do ordinary people consider oppression and exploitation legitimate? Saltykov shows a lot positive traits hare: nobility, love for neighbors, honesty, directness, but all of them are meaningless in front of slavish obedience and fear of disobeying the wolf (power).
In the fairy tale “The Eagle Patron” under the mask bird of prey the author shows the stupidity and arrogance of the rulers. The eagle is the enemy of science, art, the defender of darkness and ignorance. He destroyed the nightingale for his free songs, “dressed the scientist woodpecker in shackles and imprisoned him in a hollow forever,” and completely ruined the crow men. But retribution for injustice and cruelty awaited the Eagle: the crows rebelled and flew away, leaving the Eagle to starve to death.
“Faithful Trezor” is a fairy tale-satire on the servile obedience and “dog-like devotion” of men to their landowners. Trezor's devotion did not prevent the merchant Vorotilov from drowning the dog when he stopped coping with his duties.
The symbol of all peasant Russia is the image of Konyaga. Horse is a hard worker, a source of life for everyone. His destiny is eternal hard labor. “No end to work! Work exhausts the whole meaning of his existence.”
All of Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales were subject to censorship persecution. After all, animal masks could not completely hide the true content of these works. Transference of psychological human traits on the animal world clearly exposed the absurdity of existing reality.
Only because the author uses animal masks in his works can they be called fairy tales. In fact, this is just a slightly veiled political satire. Saltykov's merit to Russian literature lies in the fact that he created a new, original genre of political fairy tale, in which fantasy is combined with reality. Saltykov-Shchedrin's political tales are in many ways similar to fables. As in fables, Shchedrin’s fairy tales have a moral conclusion; all the heroes are static (they are the embodiment of certain vices, negative traits person), there is no image positive hero.
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales depict not just evil or good people, but they give an idea of real life Russia in the second half of the 19th century. After all, it was then that class differences and the basic properties of the exploiting classes became especially acute. Shchedrin himself did not bequeath his work to new generations. He says about it this way: “...my writings are so imbued with modernity, they adapt so closely to it, that if one can think that they will have any value in the future, then it is precisely and solely as an illustration of this modernity.” . But “Fairy Tales” by Saltykov-Shchedrin and others satirical works, so popular in the last century, remain relevant today: true art is eternal, it is not influenced by time, and social problems, touched upon by the writer, are still important today.

Details

Fairy tale by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, which you read. Real and fantastic in a fairy tale

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin is a direct follower literary traditions N.V. Gogol. The satire of the great writer found its continuation in the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, it gained new uniform, but has not lost its sharpness and relevance.

Creativity M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is extremely diverse. But among the satirist’s enormous legacy, his fairy tales are perhaps the most popular. The form of folk tale was used by many writers before Shchedrin. Literary tales, written in verse or prose, recreated the world of folk poetry, and sometimes contained satirical elements. The form of the fairy tale met the writer’s objectives, because it was accessible, close to the common people, and because fairy tales have always been characterized by didacticism and a satirical orientation, the satirist turned to this genre because of censorship persecution. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales in miniature contain the problems and images of the entire work of the great satirist.

What brings Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales closer to folk tales? Typical fairy tale beginnings (“Once upon a time there were two generals...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...”; sayings (“at the command of a pike,” “neither to say in a fairy tale, nor to describe with a pen.” ); phrases characteristic of folk speech (“thought-thought”, “said-done”); syntax, vocabulary, spelling close to the folk language. 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 he ridicules the shortcomings of society in an allegorical form.

Fairy tales differ from folk tales primarily by intertwining the fantastic with the real and even historically accurate. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin introduces topical political motives into the world of fairy tales and reveals complex problems of our time. It can be said that ideological content And artistic features satirical tales aimed at instilling respect for the people and civic feelings in Russian people. The main evil that the author condemns is serfdom, destroying both slaves and masters.

In “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” there is a fantastic situation when the generals end up on a desert island. The writer's sarcasm in this tale reaches its peak. The reader laughs at the helpless generals who are capable of dying of hunger amid the abundance of food, and only a “slacker man” who appears out of nowhere saves them from inevitable death. The naivety of the generals is also fantastic. “Who would have thought, Your Excellency, that human food, in its original form, flies, swims and grows on trees? - said one general." The man is dexterous and dexterous, and has reached the point where he can cook soup in a handful. He is capable of any task, but this character evokes more than one admiration from the author and readers.

Together with Saltykov-Shchedrin, we mourn the bitter fate of the people, who are forced to shoulder the care of parasite landowners, generals, officials - quitters and slackers who can only push others around and force them to work for themselves.

The writer leads his readers to the idea of ​​the need for decisive changes in society. Saltykov-Shchedrin set the abolition of serfdom as the main condition normal life society. The end of “The Tale...” is surprisingly consonant with Nekrasov’s “ Railway”, when instead of gratitude the hero is sent “a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver: have fun, man!” According to contemporaries, Saltykov-Shchedrin hated the self-righteous and indifferent, and considered violence and rudeness to be the main evils. With all his work, the writer uncompromisingly fought against these vices, trying to eradicate them in Russia.