Character traits of Matryona Timofeevna. The life story of Matryona in the poem Who Lives Well in Rus' (the fate of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina)

Happy peasant woman Matryona

Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed the Governor, from the village of Klin, is the main character of the third part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov. This is how the men characterize her: “A Kholmogory cow, not a woman! Kinder and smoother - there is no woman.” To answer the question of whether she is happy, Matryona openly tells her life and sums it up: there were happy moments in her life (girlhood, matchmaking of the groom, saving her husband from unrighteous recruitment). She says: “I have not been trampled by feet, not tied with ropes, not stabbed with needles.” But can a woman who has been passed over be happy? a spiritual thunderstorm, the blood of the firstborn, mortal insults and the whip, but she hasn’t tasted the shame of the inexpiable? By irredeemable shame, Matryona means the harassment of the master's manager Sitnikov, who, fortunately for Matryona, died of cholera.

The keys to female happiness, according to the legend that Matryona was told by the old praying woman, were lost to God himself.

Portrait of Matryona Timofeevna

This thirty-eight-year-old stern woman, already considered an old woman, is beautiful in a peasant way: dignified, wide, dense, with large, stern eyes and rich eyelashes. She has graying hair and dark skin. For her portrait, Nekrasov uses epithets. Matryona’s clothes testify to her hard work: a white shirt, a short sundress (to make it more convenient to work).

Matryona's girlhood

Matryona considers her childhood happy. Father woke her up early, but mother felt sorry for her. But peasant life is work from childhood. At the age of seven, Matryona was already running among the herd, bringing breakfast to her father, tending ducks, rowing hay. She liked this kind of life: working in the fields, bathing, working at the spinning wheels with her friends, and sometimes singing and dancing.

Matryona's betrothed was a guy from the other side (forty miles away from her) - stove maker Philip Korchagin. Mother dissuaded Matryona: “It’s cold there, it’s hungry there.” Matryona submitted to fate.

Matryona's fate in someone else's family

Matryona sings the fate of a girl married into someone else's family to her peasant listeners in folk songs. Life in Matryona’s husband’s family was like hell. She had to serve her eldest sister-in-law Martha, keep an eye on her father-in-law so that he wouldn’t go to the tavern, and endure the scolding of her mother-in-law. The husband advised Matryona to remain silent and endure. But we got along with him. Matryona admits that her husband hit her only once, and does not see anything shameful in this: it is inappropriate for a wife to consider her husband’s beatings.

But usually the husband stood up for Matryona, as in the year of famine, when the mother-in-law accused her daughter-in-law of hunger because she put on a clean shirt on Christmas (superstition).

Matryona-mother

Matryona has five sons, one has already been taken as a soldier. Twenty years ago, Matryona gave birth to her first child, a son, Dyomushka, with whom a misfortune happened. Nekrasov describes the misfortune using psychological parallelism. Just as the mother nightingale cries for her burnt chicks, which she did not save because she was not near the nest, so at the behest of her mother-in-law, Matryona left Dyomushka with her husband’s grandfather, a hundred-year-old Savelich, but he did not save him: the pigs ate the baby.

Matryona’s grief is aggravated by “unjust judges” who slander her that she was cohabiting with Savelich, that she killed the child in collusion with him, that she poisoned him.

For a peasant woman, life and death are one continuous process in which everything must be done according to ritual. For her, an autopsy of a body is a reproach, a greater misfortune than death: “I don’t complain... that God took the baby away, but what hurts is why they scolded him.”

Matryona gave birth to three children in 3 years and was immersed in worries: “There is no time to think or be sad,” “you will eat when you have enough left, you will sleep when you are sick.”

A mother's love for her children is boundless; for the sake of her children, she is ready to resist God himself. She did not starve the babies on fasting days, as the pious pilgrim ordered, although she was afraid of God's punishment.

For the sake of her eldest son Fedot, Matryona suffered a lashing. Eight-year-old shepherd Fedot took pity on the hungry pup wolf, who howled as if she were crying. He gave her the already dead sheep, which he first fearlessly tore out of his mouth. When the headman decided to teach Fedot for the sheep, Matryona threw herself at the feet of the landowner, who ordered him to forgive the boy and teach the woman.

Matryona is a special peasant woman

Matryona, although obedient to her parents, relatives and husband, is capable of analyzing and choosing, and resisting public opinion.

Savely, a former convict, helps Matryona understand how to live in an unjust society. You need to bring offerings to your superiors, you should not seek the truth from God and the king: “God is high, the king is far away.” Savely says that you need to endure, because “you are a serf woman!”

Matryona the Governor

Matryona became famous among the peasants and achieved the respect of her husband’s relatives when she saved her husband from military service, although his older brother had already joined the recruits for his family.

Fearing a difficult future for herself and her fatherless children, who would be “pinched and beaten,” Matryona ran at night to ask for mercy from the governor. Taught by experience, Matryona gave two kopecks to the guard and a ruble to the doorman Makar Fedoseich for taking her to the governor on time.

The circumstances were favorable for Matryona. The peasant woman threw herself at the governor’s feet and told her her complaint: the breadwinner and parent were taken by deception, not in a godly manner. The governor's wife was kind to her, baptized the boy who was born right there with Liodorushka and saved Philip. For this good deed, Matryona orders everyone to glorify and thank Governor Elena Alexandrovna.

• Images of landowners in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

Explores various layers of Russian society: peasants, landowners, clergy. The fate of the Russian peasant woman becomes a special topic, because she turns out to be even more difficult than the fate of the other peasants. “It’s not a matter between women / To look for a happy one,” Matryona Timofeevna, the head of “Peasant Woman,” directly answers the wanderers who turned to her. But a peasant woman, enslaved by both serfdom and the despotism of her husband’s family, worries Nekrasov more.

This type was most fully revealed by Nekrasov in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in the image of Matryona Korchagina. The bitter lot of a peasant woman, eternally humiliated by poverty, working too hard and not seeing, evokes deep sympathy in the poet’s soul, but at the same time, he notes in her character human dignity, pride, and unshakable moral purity. The image of Matryona Timofeevna is presented in the poem in dynamics, in development.

The heroine had a happy, carefree early life, and from the age of five she began to be introduced to feasible work: “I took my father to breakfast, tended ducklings,” “raked hay,” etc. Moreover, she got a good husband. Matryona did not have to, like many other peasant women, live with a “hateful” person and endure beatings. Matryona and her husband lived in love and harmony. It was this harmony in the family that helped the heroine endure troubles and misfortunes. Philip was a stove maker and constantly went to work in St. Petersburg. Matryona had a hard time with the constant separations. She had to adapt to life in someone else's family. A young beautiful woman, in the absence of her intercessor husband, was pursued by the master's manager. The heroine did not find support from any of her relatives, except for her hundred-year-old grandfather Savely.

The character of Matryona Timofeevna is tempered precisely in difficult trials. This is an intelligent, selfless, strong-willed, decisive woman. This is the image of a peasant woman who is not only strong in spirit, but also gifted and talented. Matryona about her life is a story about the fate of any peasant woman, a long-suffering Russian woman. The chapter itself is not named after her, but “Peasant Woman”. This emphasizes that Matryona’s fate is not an exception to the rule, but a typical fate of millions of Russian peasant women. The best spiritual qualities - willpower, the ability to love, loyalty - make Matryona similar to the heroines of the poem “Russian Women”. Matryona Timofeevna's long story about her (still quite prosperous and extremely lucky!) fate is both an ode to the beauty of the soul of a Russian peasant woman and an indictment of those who doomed her to terrible torment.

Like Yermil Girin, Matryona is known throughout the area. But in the poem she talks about her life herself, and only seven wanderers listen to her. The veracity of the story is emphasized by the request of the wanderers: “Give us your soul!” And the heroine of the chapter herself promises: “I won’t hide anything.”

Matryona Timofeevna’s extraordinary creative talent allows her not only to store folklore in her memory, but also to update it. The story is replete with elements of folklore works dedicated to the bitter lot of a woman: songs, proverbs, sayings, laments, lamentations.

Songs play a special role in describing the life of a Russian woman (it is no coincidence that the second chapter of this part of the poem is called “Songs”). Nekrasov depicts the life of a peasant woman in its entirety, from childhood to the moment when she meets the seekers of a happy man. There are several moments in Matryona Timofeevna’s life when those feelings that could lead her to decisive action are about to spill out. The first time is when, contrary to her pleas, the doctors begin an autopsy of Demushka’s body. But the police officer then orders the mother to be tied up. The second is when the headman decides to punish her son Fedotushka, who took pity on the hungry she-wolf.

The master decides to forgive the child, but punish the “impudent woman” herself. And Nekrasov shows a very important feature of the heroine’s strong-willed character: she lies down proudly. under the rod, without stooping to ask for forgiveness, he endures the pain and shame of public punishment. And only the next day she cried out her grief over the river. The only time when Matryona Timofeevna decides to fight for her happiness is when her husband is taken into the army. She turns with a frantic prayer to the Mother of God, and this prayer apparently gives her strength: Matryona Timofeevna finds the courage to turn to the governor’s wife, who not only helps the peasant woman, but also becomes the godmother of her child. After this incident, Matryona begins to be called happy. This, it turns out, is the happiness of a peasant woman: not becoming a soldier, finding the strength to remain silent and endure and raise children.

The keys to female happiness, - From our free will, Abandoned, lost... - this is the sad result of Matryona Timofeevna’s conversation with seven wanderers. Outward appearance, warmth, intelligence, and the fame of a lucky woman make it possible to talk about Matryona Timofeevna as a unique, exceptional person.

By depicting the fate of Matryona Timofeevna, the author makes deep generalizations: Russian women live in constant work, the joys and sorrows of motherhood, in the struggle for family, for home. The theme of women's lot in the poem merges with the theme of the homeland. The female characters of Nekrasov's heroines speak of the strength, purity and incorruptibility of the common people. The inhuman living conditions against which these images emerge indicate an urgent need for changes in the order, style and way of life in the villages and cities of old-regime Russia.

In the works of N.A. Nekrasov’s many works are dedicated to a simple Russian woman. The fate of the Russian woman always worried Nekrasov. In many of his poems and poems, he talks about her difficult lot. Starting from the early poem “On the Road” and ending with the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov talked about “a woman’s share,” about the dedication of the Russian peasant woman, about her spiritual beauty. The poem “Rural Suffering is in Full Height,” written shortly after the reform, gives a true reflection of the inhuman hard work of a young peasant mother:

Share you! - Russian female share!

It couldn't be more difficult to find...

Talking about the difficult lot of the Russian peasant woman, Nekrasov often embodied in her image high ideas about the spiritual power of the Russian people, about their physical beauty:

There are women in Russian villages

With calm importance of faces,

With beautiful strength in movements,

With the gait, with the look of queens.

In Nekrasov’s works, the image of a “majestic Slavic woman” appears, pure in heart, bright in mind, strong in spirit. This is Daria from the poem “Frost, Red Nose”, and a simple girl from “Troika”. This is Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina from the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

The image of Matryona Timofeevna, as it were, completes and unites a group of images of peasant women in Nekrasov’s work. The poem recreates the type of “stately Slavic woman,” a peasant woman from Central Russia, endowed with restrained and austere beauty:

dignified woman,

Wide and dense

About thirty-eight years old.

Beautiful; gray hair

The eyes are large, strict,

The richest eyelashes,

Severe and dark.

The poet trusted her, smart and strong, to tell her about her fate. “Peasant Woman” is the only part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, all written in the first person. Trying to answer the question of truth-seekers about whether she can call herself happy, Matryona Timofeevna tells the story of her life. The voice of Matryona Timofeevna is the voice of the people themselves. That’s why she sings more often than she talks, she sings folk songs. “The Peasant Woman” is the most folklore part of the poem; it is almost entirely built on folk poetic images and motifs. The whole life story of Matryona Timofeevna is a chain of continuous misfortunes and suffering. No wonder she says about herself: “I have a bowed head, I carry an angry heart!” She is convinced: “It’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women.” Why? After all, in this woman’s life there was love, the joy of motherhood, and the respect of others. But with her story, the heroine makes men think about the question of whether this is enough for happiness and whether all those life’s hardships and adversities that befall the Russian peasant woman will outweigh this cup:

For me it is quiet, invisible,

The spiritual storm has passed,

Will you show it?..

For me, grievances are mortal

Gone unpaid

And the whip passed over me!

Matryona Timofeevna tells her story slowly and deliberately. She lived well and freely in her parents' house. But, having married Philip Korchagin, she ended up with “her maiden will in hell”: a superstitious mother-in-law, a drunken father-in-law, an older sister-in-law, for whom the daughter-in-law had to work like a slave. She was, however, lucky with her husband. But Philip only returned from work in the winter, and the rest of the time there was no one to intercede for her except grandfather Savely. Her first-born Demushka becomes a consolation for the peasant woman. But due to Savely’s oversight, the child dies. Matryona Timofeevna witnesses the abuse of her child's body (to find out the cause of death, the authorities perform an autopsy on the child's corpse). For a long time she cannot forgive Savely’s “sin” that he overlooked her Demushka. But Matryona Timofeevna’s trials did not end there. Her second son Fedot is growing up, and then a misfortune happens to him. Her eight-year-old son faces punishment for feeding someone else's sheep to a hungry wolf as a shepherd. Fedot took pity on her, saw how hungry and unhappy she was, and how the wolf cubs in her den were not fed:

He looks up, raising his head,

In my eyes... and suddenly she howled!

In order to save her little son from the punishment that threatened him, Matryona herself lies down under the rod in his place.

But the most difficult trials befall her in a lean year. Pregnant, with children, she herself is like a hungry wolf. The recruitment deprives her of her last protector, her husband (he is taken out of turn):

...Hungry

Orphan children are standing

In front of me...Unkind

The family is looking at them

They are noisy in the house

There are pugnacious people on the street,

Gluttons at the table...

And they began to pinch them,

Beat your head...

Shut up, soldier mother!

Matryona Timofeevna decides to ask the governor for intercession. She runs to the city, where she tries to get to the governor, and when the doorman lets her into the house for a bribe, she throws herself at the feet of the governor Elena Alexandrovna:

How will I throw myself

At her feet: “Intercede!

By deception, not in God's way

breadwinner and parent

They take it from the kids!”

The governor's wife took pity on Matryona Timofeevna. The heroine returns home with her husband and newborn Liodorushka. This incident secured her reputation as a lucky woman and the nickname “governor”.

The further fate of Matryona Timofeevna is also full of troubles: one of her sons has already been taken into the army, “they were burned twice... God visited with anthrax... three times.” The “Woman’s Parable” sums up her tragic story:

The keys to women's happiness,

From our free will

Abandoned, lost

From God himself!

The life story of Matryona Timofeevna showed that the most difficult, unbearable living conditions could not break the peasant woman. The harsh living conditions honed a special female character, proud and independent, accustomed to relying on her own strength everywhere and in everything. Nekrasov endows his heroine not only with beauty, but with great spiritual strength. It is not submission to fate, not dull patience, but pain and anger that are expressed in the words with which she ends the story of her life:

For me, grievances are mortal

Gone unpaid...

Anger accumulates in the soul of the peasant woman, but faith in the intercession of the Mother of God and in the power of prayer remains. After praying, she goes to the city to the governor to seek the truth. What saves her is her own spiritual strength and will to live. Nekrasov showed in the image of Matryona Timofeevna both a readiness for self-sacrifice when she stood up to defend her son, and strength of character when she did not bow to formidable bosses. The image of Matryona Timofeevna is entirely woven from folk poetry. Lyrical and wedding folk songs and laments have long told about the life of a peasant woman, and Nekrasov drew from this source, creating the image of his beloved heroine.

Written about the people and for the people, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is close to works of oral folk art. The verse of the poem - Nekrasov's artistic discovery - perfectly conveyed the living speech of the people, their songs, sayings, sayings, which absorbed centuries-old wisdom, sly humor, sadness and joy. The whole poem is a truly folk work, and this is its great significance.

The image of a simple Russian peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna is surprisingly bright and realistic. In this image, Nekrasov combined all the features and qualities characteristic of Russian peasant women. And the fate of Matryona Timofeevna is in many ways similar to the fate of other women.

Matrena Timofeevna was born into a large peasant family. The very first years of my life were truly happy. All her life Matryona Timofeevna remembers this carefree time, when she was surrounded by the love and care of her parents. But peasant children grow up very quickly. Therefore, as soon as the girl grew up, she began to help her parents in everything. Gradually, the games were forgotten, less and less time was left for them, and hard peasant work took first place. But youth still takes its toll, and even after a hard day of work the girl found time to relax.

Matryona Timofeevna recalls her youth. She was pretty, hardworking, active. It's no surprise that guys were staring at her. And then the betrothed appeared, to whom the parents gave Matryona Timofeevna in marriage. Marriage means that the girl’s free and free life is now over. Now she will live in someone else's family, where she will not be treated in the best way. When a mother gives her daughter in marriage, she grieves for her and worries about her fate:

The mother cried:

“...Like a fish in a blue sea

You'll scurry away! like a nightingale

You'll fly out of the nest!

Someone else's side

Not sprinkled with sugar

Not drizzled with honey!

It's cold there, it's hungry there,

There's a well-groomed daughter there

Violent winds will blow around,

The shaggy dogs bark,

And people will laugh!”

In these lines one can clearly read the sadness of the mother, who perfectly understands all the hardships of life that will befall her married daughter. In someone else's family, no one will show concern for her, and the husband himself will never stand up for his wife.

Matryona Timofeevna shares her sad thoughts. She did not at all want to exchange her free life in her parents' home for life in a strange, unfamiliar family.

From the very first days in her husband’s house, Matryona Timofeevna realized how difficult it would be for her now:

The family was huge

Grumpy... I'm in trouble

Happy maiden holiday to hell!

Relations with her father-in-law, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were very difficult; in her new family, Matryona had to work a lot, and at the same time no one said a kind word to her. However, even in such a difficult life that the peasant woman had, there were some simple and simple joys:

In winter Philippus came,

Brought a silk handkerchief

Yes, I went for a ride on a sled

On Catherine's day,

And it was as if there was no grief!

Sang as I sang

In my parents' house.

We were the same age

Don't touch us - we're having fun

We always get along.

The relationship between Matryona Timofeevna and her husband was not always cloudless. A husband has the right to beat his wife if something does not suit him in her behavior. And no one will come to the defense of the poor thing; on the contrary, all the relatives in the husband’s family will only be happy to see her suffering.

This was the life of Matryona Timofeevna after marriage. The days dragged on, monotonous, gray, surprisingly similar to each other: hard work, quarrels and reproaches of relatives. But the peasant woman has truly angelic patience, therefore, without complaining, she endures all the hardships that befall her. The birth of a child is the event that turns her whole life upside down. Now the woman is no longer so embittered towards the whole world, love for the baby warms and makes her happy.

Philip at the Annunciation

He left and went to Kazanskaya

I gave birth to a son.

How written was Demushka

Beauty taken from the sun,

The snow is white,

Maku's lips are red,

The sable has a black eyebrow,

In Siberian sable,

The hawk has eyes!

All the anger from my soul, my handsome man

Driven away with an angelic smile,

Like the spring sun

Clears the snow from the fields...

I didn't worry

Whatever they tell me, I work,

No matter how much they scold me, I remain silent.

The peasant woman's joy at the birth of her son did not last long. Working in the field requires a lot of effort and time, and then there’s a baby in your arms. At first, Matryona Timofeevna took the child with her to the field. But then her mother-in-law began to reproach her, because it is impossible to work with a child with complete dedication. And poor Matryona had to leave the baby with grandfather Savely. One day the old man neglected to pay attention and the child died.

The death of a child is a terrible tragedy. But peasants have to put up with the fact that very often their children die. However, this is Matryona’s first child, so his death was too difficult for her. And then there’s an additional problem - the police come to the village, the doctor and the police officer accuse Matryona of killing the child in collusion with the former convict Grandfather Savely. Matryona Timofeevna begs not to perform an autopsy in order to bury the child without desecration of the body. But no one listens to the peasant woman. She almost goes crazy from everything that happened.

All the hardships of a hard peasant life, the death of a child, still cannot break Matryona Timofeevna. Time passes and she has children every year. And she continues to live, raise her children, do hard work. Love for children is the most important thing a peasant woman has, so Matryona Timofeevna is ready to do anything to protect her beloved children. This is evidenced by the episode when they wanted to punish her son Fedot for an offense.

Matryona throws herself at the feet of a passing landowner so that he can help save the boy from punishment. And the landowner ordered:

“Guardian of a minor

Out of youth, out of stupidity

Forgive... but the woman is impudent

Approximately punish!”

Why did Matryona Timofeevna suffer punishment? For his boundless love for his children, for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. The readiness for self-sacrifice is also manifested in the way Matryona rushes to seek salvation for her husband from conscription. She manages to get to the place and ask for help from the governor’s wife, who really helps Philip free himself from recruitment.

Matryona Timofeevna is still young, but she has already had to endure a lot, a lot. She had to endure the death of a child, a time of famine, reproaches and beatings. She herself speaks about what the holy wanderer told her:

“The keys to women's happiness,

From our free will

Abandoned, lost

God himself!”

Indeed, a peasant woman cannot be called happy. All the difficulties and difficult trials that befall her can break and lead a person to death not only spiritually, but also physically. Very often this is exactly what happens. The life of a simple peasant woman is rarely long; very often women die in the prime of life. It is not easy to read the lines telling about the life of Matryona Timofeevna. But nevertheless, one cannot help but admire the spiritual strength of this woman, who endured so many trials and was not broken.

The image of Matryona Timofeevna is surprisingly harmonious. The woman appears at the same time strong, resilient, patient and tender, loving, caring. She has to independently cope with the difficulties and troubles that befall her family; Matryona Timofeevna does not see help from anyone.

But, despite all the tragic things that a woman has to endure, Matryona Timofeevna evokes genuine admiration. After all, she finds the strength to live, work, and continues to enjoy those modest joys that befall her from time to time. And let her honestly admit that she cannot be called happy, she does not fall into the sin of despondency for a minute, she continues to live.

The life of Matryona Timofeevna is a constant struggle for survival, and she manages to emerge victorious from this struggle.

He didn't carry his heart in his chest,
Who did not shed tears over you.

In the works of N.A. Nekrasov’s many works are dedicated to a simple Russian woman. The fate of the Russian woman always worried Nekrasov. In many of his poems and poems, he talks about her difficult lot. Starting from the early poem “On the Road” and ending with the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov talked about “a woman’s share,” about the dedication of the Russian peasant woman, about her spiritual beauty. The poem “Rural Suffering is in Full Height,” written shortly after the reform, gives a true reflection of the inhuman hard work of a young peasant mother:

Share you! - Russian female share!
It couldn't be more difficult to find...

Talking about the difficult lot of the Russian peasant woman, Nekrasov often embodied in her image high ideas about the spiritual power of the Russian people, about their physical beauty:

There are women in Russian villages
With calm importance of faces,
With beautiful strength in movements,
With the gait, with the look of queens.

In Nekrasov’s works, the image of a “majestic Slavic woman” appears, pure in heart, bright in mind, strong in spirit. This is Daria from the poem “Frost, Red Nose”, and a simple girl from “Troika”. This is Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina from the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

The image of Matryona Timofeevna, as it were, completes and unites a group of images of peasant women in Nekrasov’s work. The poem recreates the type of “stately Slavic woman,” a peasant woman from Central Russia, endowed with restrained and austere beauty:

dignified woman,
Wide and dense
About thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful; gray streaked hair,
The eyes are large, strict,
The richest eyelashes,
Severe and dark.

The poet trusted her, smart and strong, to tell her about her fate. “Peasant Woman” is the only part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, all written in the first person. Trying to answer the question of truth-seekers about whether she can call herself happy, Matryona Timofeevna tells the story of her life. The voice of Matryona Timofeevna is the voice of the people themselves. That’s why she sings more often than she talks, she sings folk songs. “The Peasant Woman” is the most folklore part of the poem; it is almost entirely built on folk poetic images and motifs. The whole life story of Matryona Timofeevna is a chain of continuous misfortunes and suffering. No wonder she says about herself: “I have a bowed head, I carry an angry heart!” She is convinced: “It’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women.” Why? After all, in this woman’s life there was love, the joy of motherhood, and the respect of others. But with her story, the heroine makes men think about the question of whether this is enough for happiness and whether all those life’s hardships and adversities that befall the Russian peasant woman will outweigh this cup:

For me it is quiet, invisible,
The spiritual storm has passed,
Will you show it?..
For me, grievances are mortal
Gone unpaid
And the whip passed over me!

Matryona Timofeevna tells her story slowly and deliberately. She lived well and freely in her parents' house. But, having married Philip Korchagin, she ended up with “her maiden will in hell”: a superstitious mother-in-law, a drunken father-in-law, an older sister-in-law, for whom the daughter-in-law had to work like a slave. She was, however, lucky with her husband. But Philip only returned from work in the winter, and the rest of the time there was no one to intercede for her except grandfather Savely. Her first-born Demushka becomes a consolation for the peasant woman. But due to Savely’s oversight, the child dies. Matryona Timofeevna witnesses the abuse of her child's body (to find out the cause of death, the authorities perform an autopsy on the child's corpse). For a long time she cannot forgive Savely’s “sin” that he overlooked her Demushka. But Matryona Timofeevna’s trials did not end there. Her second son Fedot is growing up, and then a misfortune happens to him. Her eight-year-old son faces punishment for feeding someone else's sheep to a hungry wolf as a shepherd. Fedot took pity on her, saw how hungry and unhappy she was, and how the wolf cubs in her den were not fed:

He looks up, raising his head,
In my eyes... and suddenly she howled!

In order to save her little son from the punishment that threatened him, Matryona herself lies down under the rod in his place.

But the most difficult trials befall her in a lean year. Pregnant, with children, she herself is like a hungry wolf. The recruitment deprives her of her last protector, her husband (he is taken out of turn):

Hungry
Orphan children are standing
In front of me...
Nelaskovo
The family is looking at them
They are noisy in the house
There are pugnacious people on the street,
Gluttons at the table...
And they began to pinch them,
Beat your head...
Shut up, soldier mother!

Matryona Timofeevna decides to ask the governor for intercession. She runs to the city, where she tries to get to the governor, and when the doorman lets her into the house for a bribe, she throws herself at the feet of the governor Elena Alexandrovna:

How will I throw myself
At her feet: “Intercede!
By deception, not in God's way
breadwinner and parent
They take it from the kids!”

The governor's wife took pity on Matryona Timofeevna. The heroine returns home with her husband and newborn Liodorushka. This incident secured her reputation as a lucky woman and the nickname “governor”.

The further fate of Matryona Timofeevna is also full of troubles: one of her sons has already been taken into the army, “they were burned twice... God visited with anthrax... three times.” The “Woman’s Parable” sums up her tragic story:

The keys to women's happiness,
From our free will
Abandoned, lost
From God himself!

The life story of Matryona Timofeevna showed that the most difficult, unbearable living conditions could not break the peasant woman. The harsh living conditions honed a special female character, proud and independent, accustomed to relying on her own strength everywhere and in everything. Nekrasov endows his heroine not only with beauty, but with great spiritual strength. It is not submission to fate, not dull patience, but pain and anger that are expressed in the words with which she ends the story of her life:

For me, grievances are mortal
Gone unpaid...

Anger accumulates in the soul of the peasant woman, but faith in the intercession of the Mother of God and in the power of prayer remains. After praying, she goes to the city to the governor to seek the truth. What saves her is her own spiritual strength and will to live. Nekrasov showed in the image of Matryona Timofeevna both a readiness for self-sacrifice when she stood up to defend her son, and strength of character when she did not bow to formidable bosses. The image of Matryona Timofeevna is entirely woven from folk poetry. Lyrical and wedding folk songs and laments have long told about the life of a peasant woman, and Nekrasov drew from this source, creating the image of his beloved heroine.

Written about the people and for the people, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is close to works of oral folk art. The verse of the poem - Nekrasov's artistic discovery - perfectly conveyed the living speech of the people, their songs, sayings, sayings, which absorbed centuries-old wisdom, sly humor, sadness and joy. The whole poem is a truly folk work, and this is its great significance.