Tales of M. E

Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote fairy tales mainly from 1880 to 1886, at the final stage of his work. The form of a fairy tale was chosen by the writer not only because this genre provided the opportunity to hide the true meaning of the work from censorship, but also because it allowed a simple and accessible interpretation of the most complex problems of politics and morality. To the most accessible the masses he seemed to pour into form all the ideological and thematic richness of his satire.

Shchedrin's tales are truly encyclopedic. Everything was reflected in them Russian society post-reform era, all public and social forces of Russia.

The main themes of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales were: denunciation of autocracy (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”), the ruling class (“Wild Landowner”), and liberalism (“ The wise minnow”, “Liberal”, “Crucian idealist”), and also touched upon the problem of the people (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”).

Folklore traditions are clearly visible in Shchedrin's fairy tales. The connection with folklore is established with the help of the traditional “once upon a time,” which is the beginning of the fairy tale. The writer also uses sayings (“By pike command, according to my desire...”), refers to folk sayings presented in a socio-political interpretation.

The plot of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales is also folkloric, since here good is opposed to evil, good is opposed to bad. However, the usual boundaries between these two concepts are blurred, and even positive characters find themselves endowed with negative traits, which are then ridiculed by the author himself.

Saltykov-Shchedrin had to constantly improve his allegorical style in order to make his work accessible to the reader, so his closeness to folklore is also manifested in the figurative structure, which gives him the opportunity to directly use epithets, and when choosing animals for allegory, also rely on the fable tradition. The writer uses roles familiar to both fables and fairy tales. For example, in the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” the Bear-voivode is a major, the Donkey is an adviser, the Parrots are buffoons, and the Nightingale is a singer.

The allegory of Shchedrin’s fairy tales is always as transparent as in Krylov’s fables, where, according to Belinsky, there are no animals, but there are people, “and, moreover, Russian people.” It was no coincidence that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales were called fables in prose, since they clearly showed the tradition of depicting human vices in the images of animals corresponding to this genre. In addition, Shchedrin's fairy tale, like Krylov's or Aesop's fable, always carries a lesson and morality, being a spontaneous educator and mentor of the masses.

In his fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin continues the Russian satirical literary tradition. For example, in a number of fairy tales Gogolian motifs and polemics with Gogol can be traced. In general, Gogol’s satire largely determined the nature of the writer’s further literary activity. For example, both Gogol’s “The Overcoat” and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “The Wise Piskar” show the psychology of a frightened average person. Shchedrin's innovation was that he introduced political satire into fairy tales, which had both a topical and universal resonance. This writer revolutionized the very idea of ​​satire, going beyond Gogol's psychological method, pushed the boundaries of the possibilities of satirical generalization and ridicule. From now on, the subject of satire was not individual, often random events and incidents and not the private individuals involved in them, but the entire life of the state from top to bottom, from the essence of the tsarist autocracy to the dumb slave people, whose tragedy lay in the inability to protest against cruel forms of life. Thus, the main idea of ​​the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” is that the causes of national disasters are not only in the abuse of power, but also in the very nature of the autocratic system. This means that the salvation of the people lies in the overthrow of tsarism.

Shchedrin's satire thus acquires a persistent political overtones.

The satirist fights not against specific phenomena, but against the social system that generates and feeds these phenomena. Saltykov-Shchedrin considers each individual person as a product of the social environment that gave birth to him, deprives the artistic image of all human traits and replaces individual psychology with manifestations of class instinct. Every action of the hero is interpreted by Shchedrin as socially necessary and inevitable.

In all Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales, two levels are organically combined: real and fantastic, life and fiction, and fantasy is always based on real events.

The depiction of the “ghostliness” of political reality required an appropriate form that, by bringing the phenomenon to the point of absurdity, to the point of ugliness, would expose its true ugliness. This form could only be the grotesque (the combination of the incompatible), which is an important source of comic effect in fairy tales. Thus, the grotesque distorted and exaggerated reality, while fantasy gave the most unusual life phenomena the character of familiarity and routine, and the thought of the daily and regular nature of what was happening only strengthened the impression. The excessive cruelty of the political regime and the complete lack of rights of the people really bordered on magic, on fantasy. So, for example, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” Shchedrin in an ugly-comic form showed the apogee of both moral and external “negligence” of man. The landowner “has grown hair, his nails have become like iron,” he began to walk on all fours, “he has even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds,” “but has not yet acquired a tail.” And in “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” the generals find a copy of “Moskovskie Vedomosti” on a desert island.

Shchedrin very actively uses hyperbole. Both the peasant's dexterity and the generals' ignorance are extremely exaggerated. A skilled man cooked a handful of soup, stupid generals don’t know that buns are made from flour, and one even swallowed his friend’s medal.

Sometimes - although not as often and obviously as other means of artistic representation - Saltykov-Shchedrin uses antithesis (contrast). This can be seen in the example of “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals.” The generals “raked in so much money - it’s impossible to say in a fairy tale, not to describe it with a pen,” and the man received “a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver.”

Important in understanding a fairy tale is the author's irony, thanks to which the author's position is revealed. Irony can be seen in all the images present in fairy tales. For example, in “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” the calligraphy teacher cannot distinguish between the cardinal directions.

The language of all Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales is particularly aphoristic. The writer not only actively uses elements of folklore (proverbs, sayings), already established in the language, but also introduces new expressions into it, for example: “Please accept the assurances of my complete respect and devotion,” “Actually, I was not angry, but so, a brute.” "

So, the active use of artistic techniques allowed the writer to more deeply reveal the essence of the autocratic apparatus. In addition, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales had an impact big influence on further development Russian literature and especially the genre of satire.

The plots of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales are based on a grotesque situation, but real social relations are always guessed behind it; reality is shown under the guise of a fairy tale. The grotesque-hyperbolic images of the heroes are essentially metaphors for the actual socio-psychological types of Russia at that time.

Fairy tales contain real people, newspaper names, and references to topical socio-political topics. Along with this, there are also stylized situations that parody reality. In particular, ideological cliches and their typical linguistic forms are parodied.

Animals in fairy tales often perform a typical fable function, rather than a fairy tale one. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses “ready-made” roles assigned to some animals; traditional symbolism is found in his fairy tales.

Saltykov-Shchedrin demonstrates his commitment to the fable tradition; in particular, he includes in some fairy tales a moral, a typical fable device, for example, “let this serve as a lesson to us.”

The grotesque, as Saltykov-Shchedrin’s favorite means of satire, is expressed in the very fact that animals act as people in specific situations, most often associated with

ideological disputes, socio-political issues relevant to Russia in the 1880s. In the depiction of these incredible, fantastic events, the originality of Shchedrin’s realism is revealed, noting the essence of social conflicts and relationships, character traits which are hyperbolized.

Evil, angry ridicule of slave psychology is one of the main objectives of Shchedrin's fairy tales. He not only states these features of the Russian people - their long-suffering, irresponsibility, and not only anxiously seeks their origins and limits.

Saltykov-Shchedrin widely uses the technique of allegory in his works. Including fairy tales. He also masterfully uses the vernacular.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are still contemporary today. Shchedrin's satire is time-tested and it sounds especially poignant in times of social unrest, such as those that Russia is experiencing today.

“The story of how one man fed two generals.”

The plot of the tale is as follows: two generals suddenly, in an unimaginable way, found themselves on a desert island in a completely helpless state. This is the first of the features of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales - a combination of the real and the fantastic. The second feature is irony. The image of these generals is filled with it; their appearance is funny. They are in nightgowns, barefoot, but with an order around their necks. Thus, in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s description, the order is depreciated and loses its meaning, since they received it not for work, but for “sitting for a long time in the department.” The author also speaks ironically about the general’s abilities: he cannot remember them, except perhaps the calligraphic handwriting.

But the general’s stupidity is visible, their ignorance of life is obvious. They don’t know how to do anything, they are used to living at the expense of others, they think that rolls grow on trees. The third visual device used here is hyperbole, that is, exaggeration. Of course, there couldn’t be such stupid generals, but they didn’t receive their salaries based on merit - as much as they wanted. With the help of hyperbole, the author ridicules and depersonalizes this phenomenon. To emphasize the worthlessness of the generals, the author uses the fourth feature - contrast. The generals are not alone: ​​miraculously, a man ended up on the island. A jack of all trades, he fed the insatiable generals. Capable of creating anything: even boiling soup in a handful. Saltykov-Shchedrin is ironic not only about the generals, but also about the peasant. In particular, over his submission to stupid, defenseless generals. They forced him to make a rope for himself - the generals wanted to tie him so that he would not run away. The situation is fabulous, but the author used it to laugh evilly at his contemporary life, namely, at mediocre newspapers. After futile attempts to get food, the generals find one of these newspapers on the island and read it out of boredom. Saltykov-Shchedrin invites the reader to make fun of its content and stupid articles. The fairy tale ends with the man returning the generals to St. Petersburg, and in gratitude they give a glass of vodka and a copper penny. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses a phrase from a folk tale: “It flowed down my mustache, but didn’t get into my mouth.” But here it is used in the same ironic sense - the man got nothing. The masters live by the labor of the peasants, and the latter are ungrateful, and the savior people receive nothing from their labor.

Saltykov-Shchedrin said: “I love Russia to the point of heartache.” It was love and the desire for change that guided him when, with the help of various visual arts painted a really fantastic story about two worthless generals and a smart guy.

“Crucian carp is an idealist.”

This fairy tale Saltykova-Shchedrin, like all his fairy tales, has a telling title. From the title you can already tell that this tale describes a crucian carp who had idealistic views on life. Crucian carp is the object of satire, and in his image people are represented who, like him, hope for a class idyll.

He is pure in soul and says that evil never existed driving force, it devastates our lives and puts pressure on it. And good is the driving force, it is the future.

But immersed in my ideological thoughts, he completely forgot that he lives in a world where there was, is and will be a place for evil. But Saltykov-Shchedrin does not ridicule idealistic views, but the methods by which he wanted to achieve an idyll. In his fairy tales, the author uses threefold repetition. Three times the crucian carp went to debate with the pike. Seeing her for the first time, he was not intimidated; she seemed to him like an ordinary fish, like everyone else, only mouth to ear. He also told her about a happy life, where all the fish would be united, that even she listened to him, but the methods seemed funny to her too. Karas proposed to pass laws prohibiting, for example, pike from eating crucian carp. Yes, the fact is that these laws did not exist and, perhaps, never will. So the pike had three disputes with crucian carp, but accidentally swallowed it with water.

There is irony in this tale, because they secretly mock the crucian carp, saying that he is smart.

The images of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales have entered our everyday life, and now you can see people promoting their ideology, but not knowing how to implement it.

"Sane Hare"

The sane hare, the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, “reasoned so sensibly that it fits a donkey.” He believed that “every animal is given its own life” and that, although “everyone eats hares,” he is “not picky” and “agrees to live in every possible way.” In the heat of this philosophizing, he was caught by the Fox, who, bored with his speeches, ate him.

The heroes of the tale are standard for most fairy tales. You can remember not a single fairy tale where the main characters are a fox and a hare and their confrontation is discussed throughout the entire work. In essence, it is exciting and quite interesting story. That is why Saltykov-Shchedrin focused on these characters in one of his fairy tales.

The main theme of the tale is that when depicting animals, the author wanted each reader to transfer the content to himself, i.e. a fairy tale is like a fable and has a hidden meaning.

In my opinion, if you apply a fairy tale to modern world, then its main idea is that for the most part there are much more stupid people and therefore those who are more literate and educated face many problems and lack of recognition of themselves in society. Also, the hare's intelligence is intertwined with a degree of boasting and talkativeness, which ultimately leads to a disastrous end.

Each of the characters has their own point of view and expresses their thoughts. For excessive talkativeness, the hare was eaten by a fox, although his reasoning cannot be called meaningless and irrelevant.

"Wild Landowner"

The theme of serfdom and the life of the peasantry played important role in the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The writer could not openly protest the existing system. Saltykov-Shchedrin hides his merciless criticism of autocracy behind fairy-tale motives. He wrote his political tales from 1883 to 1886. In them, the writer truthfully reflected the life of Russia, in which despotic and all-powerful landowners destroy hardworking men.

In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects on the unlimited power of landowners, who abuse the peasants in every possible way, imagining themselves almost as gods. The writer also talks about the landowner’s stupidity and lack of education: “that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” Shchedrin also reflects the disenfranchised position of the peasantry in Tsarist Russia in this fairy tale: “There was no torch to light the peasant’s light, there was no rod with which to sweep out the hut.” The main idea of ​​the fairy tale was that the landowner cannot and does not know how to live without the peasant, and the landowner dreamed of work only in nightmares. So in this fairy tale, the landowner, who had no idea about work, becomes dirty and wild beast. After all the peasants abandoned him, the landowner never even washed himself: “Yes, I’ve been walking around unwashed for so many days!”

The writer caustically ridicules all this negligence of the master class. The life of a landowner without a peasant is far from reminiscent of normal human life.

The master became so wild that “he was overgrown with hair from head to toe, his nails became like iron, he even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds. But he had not yet acquired a tail.” Life without peasants was disrupted even in the district itself: “no one pays taxes, no one drinks wine in taverns.” “Normal” life begins in the district only when the men return to it. In the image. Saltykov-Shchedrin showed this one landowner the life of all the gentlemen in Russia. And the final words of the tale are addressed to each landowner: “He plays grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes himself only under duress, and moos from time to time.”

This fairy tale is full folk motifs, close to Russian folklore. There are no sophisticated words in it, but there are simple Russian words: “once said and done”, “peasant trousers”, etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin sympathizes with the people. He believes that the suffering of the peasants will not be endless, and freedom will triumph.

"Horse"

In the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the image of the Russian people, which was embodied in the image of a horse, is very well revealed. Konyaga are ordinary people, peasants who work for the benefit of the entire state, who with their labor are able to feed all the inhabitants of Russia. The image of Konyaga is imbued with the pain and fatigue that a difficult task gives him.

If Saltykov-Shchedrin had described verbatim the life of various social classes, then his works would not have been published due to censorship, but thanks to Aesopian language, he achieved a very touching and natural description of the classes. What is Aesopian language? This special kind secret writing, censored allegory, to which fiction, deprived of freedom of expression under conditions of censorship, often turned. In Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Horse,” this technique is widely used, which allows one to expose reality and serves as a means of combating the infringement of the rights of the lower strata of society by political figures. This work shows the difficult, even ugly, life of the Russian people. Saltykov-Shchedrin himself sympathizes with the peasants, but he still shows this terrible picture of a beggarly lifestyle.

The field on which a man and a horse work is limitless, just as their work and importance for the state are limitless. And, apparently, the images of the Idle Dancers contain all the upper strata of the population: gentlemen, officials - who only watch the work of the horse, because their life is easy and cloudless. They are beautiful and well-fed, they are given the food that the horse provides with his hard work and he himself lives from hand to mouth.

Saltykov-Shchedrin calls to think about the fact that such hard work of the Russian people for the benefit of the state does not provide them with freedom from serfdom and does not save them from humiliation in front of officials and gentlemen who live easily, who can afford a lot.

The problem of the people and the bureaucracy is still very relevant in our time, because for modern readers it will be interesting and curious. Also, thanks to the use of such an artistic medium as Aesopian language, the problem of the fairy tale “The Horse” is acute to this day.

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 incorrect state structure. The writer’s works continue the tradition of D. I. Fonvizin, A. S. Griboyedov, N. V. Gogol. In Saltykov’s chronicles and fairy tales we see a reflection of the real history of Russia, and in fairy-tale images they 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 amid the most unbridled play of the imagination, and especially this unshakable common sense, preserved despite the frenzy and exaggeration of the form "
Among Shchedrin's most famous works are fairy tales. Fairy tales are a special literary genre based on folk legends, epics, songs, superstitions. They often use traditional plots, characters (Vasilisa the Beautiful, Ivan Tsarevich, the gray wolf), artistic techniques (fantasy, 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 known human vices and shortcomings.
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 many positive traits of the 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. The transfer of psychological human traits to 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, in Shchedrin’s fairy tales there is a moral conclusion, all the heroes are static (they are the embodiment of certain vices, negative human traits), there is no image positive hero.
The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin 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 other satirical works, so popular in the last century, remain relevant today: true art is eternal, it does not succumb to the influence of time, and social problems, touched upon by the writer, are still important today.

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Introduction……………………………………………………………..3

1. The originality of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales…………………….4

2. Elements of fantasy in “The Story of a City”…………..9

Conclusion……………………………………………………………19

References……………………………………………………………………...20

Introduction

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin in his work chose the satirical principle of depicting reality using elements of fantasy as the right weapon. He became a successor to the traditions of D.I. Fonvizin, A.S. Griboedov, N.V. Gogol in that he made satire his political weapon, fighting with its help the pressing issues of his time.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote more than 30 fairy tales. Turning to this genre was natural for Saltykov-Shchedrin. Elements of fantasy permeate the entire work of the writer. In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, political problems are developed and solved current issues. Defending the progressive ideals of his time, the author acted in his works as a defender of people's interests. Having enriched folklore stories with new content, Saltykov-Shchedrin directed the fairy tale genre to instill civic feelings and special respect for the people.

The purpose of the essay is to study the role of fantasy elements in the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

1. The originality of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales

Saltykov-Shchedrin turns to the fairy tale genre several times in his work: first in 1869, and then after 1881, when historical conditions (the murder of the Tsar) led to stricter censorship.

Like many writers, Saltykov-Shchedrin uses the fairy tale genre to reveal the vices of man and society. Written for “children of a fair age,” the fairy tales are a sharp criticism of the existing system and, in essence, serve as a weapon denouncing the Russian autocracy.

The themes of the fairy tales are very diverse: the author not only opposes the vices of autocracy (“The Bear in the Voivodeship,” “The Bogatyr”), but also denounces noble despotism (“The Wild Landowner”). The satirist especially condemns the views of liberals (“Crucian carp is an idealist”), as well as the indifference of officials (“Idle Conversation”) and philistine cowardice (“The Wise Minnow”).

However, there is a theme that can be said to be present in many fairy tales - this is the theme of an oppressed people. In the fairy tales “How one man fed two generals” and “The Horse” it sounds especially vivid.

Themes and issues determine the variety of characters acting in these sharply satirical works. These are stupid rulers, striking with their ignorance and tyrant landowners, officials and ordinary people, merchants and peasants. Sometimes the characters are quite reliable, and we find specific traits in them historical figures, and sometimes the images are allegorical and allegorical.

Using the folklore and fairy tale form, the satirist illuminates the most pressing issues of Russian life, acts as a defender of people's interests and progressive ideas.

The fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals” stands out from all others due to its special dynamism and variability of plot. The writer uses a fantastic technique - the generals, as if “at the behest of a pike,” are transported to a desert island, and here the writer, with his characteristic irony, shows us the complete helplessness of officials and their inability to act.

“Generals served all their lives in some kind of registry; they were born there, raised and grew old, and therefore did not understand anything. They didn’t even know any words.” Because of their stupidity and narrow-mindedness, they almost died of hunger. But a man who is a jack of all trades comes to their aid: he can both hunt and cook. The image of a “hefty man” personifies both the strength and weakness of the Russian people in this fairy tale. Mastery and his extraordinary abilities are combined in this image with humility and class passivity (the man himself weaves a rope to be tied to a tree at night). Having collected ripe apples for the generals, he takes himself sour, unripe ones, and he was also glad that the generals “favored him, a parasite, and did not disdain his peasant labor.”

The tale of two generals suggests that the people, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, are the support of the state, they are the creator of material and spiritual values.

The theme of the people is developed in another tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin - “The Horse,” which was created in 1885. In style, it differs from others in its lack of action.

This tale is called the strongest work in the series dedicated to the plight of the Russian peasantry. The image of a hard-working horse is a collective one. He personifies the entire forced working people, he reflects the tragedy of millions of men, this enormous force, enslaved and powerless.

This tale also contains the theme of the people’s submission, their dumbness and lack of desire to fight. A horse, “tortured, beaten, narrow-chested, with protruding ribs and burnt shoulders, with broken legs” - such a portrait is created by an author who mourns the unenviable lot of a powerless people. Thinking about the future and the fate of the people is painful, but filled with selfless love.

In the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, using Aesopian language, elements of fantasy, folklore traditions and satirical techniques various topics are heard.

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.” ); turns of phrase characteristic of folk speech (“thought-thought”, “once said and done”); syntax, vocabulary, orthoepy close to the folk language. Exaggeration, grotesque, hyperbole: one of the generals eats the other; “wild landowner”, like a cat, in an instant, climbs a tree; a man cooks a handful of soup. As in folk tales, a miraculous incident sets the plot in motion: by the grace of God, “there was no man in 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.

The difference: the interweaving of the fantastic with the real and even historically accurate. "Bear in the Voivodeship": among characters- the animals suddenly appear in the image of Magnitsky, a well-known reactionary in Russian history: even before Toptygin began to appear in the forest, Magnitsky destroyed all the printing houses, students were sent to 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 “only saves his hateful 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 civic position man and meaning 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. In the description of the life of the animal kingdom with its inherent details, details of the real life of people are interspersed. In the language, fairy tales are combined fairy tale words and phrases, the colloquial language of the third estate and the journalistic language of that time.

2. Elements of fiction in"HistoryAndone city"

“The History of a City” is the most significant fantastic and satirical work of Russian literature. This book is the only successful attempt in our country to give in one work a picture (parodic and grotesque, but surprisingly accurate) not only of the history of Russia, but also of its contemporary image to the writer. Moreover, while reading “The History of a City,” you constantly catch yourself thinking that this book is about our time, about “post-perestroika” Russia, its socio-political, psychological and artistic discoveries are so topical for us.

Saltykov-Shchedrin could have written something so universal for Russia literary work only in the form of grotesque, fantasy and satire. Contemporary critics of Saltykov-Shchedrin, his fellow writers and ordinary readers held two different opinions about “The History of a City”: some saw in it only an unfair caricature of Russian history and the Russian people (Leo Tolstoy was among the supporters of this point of view), others saw the dawn of a new dawn in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire, happy life(liberal democrats, social democrats). During the Soviet period, official science pretended that the work had nothing in common with Soviet reality. Only now is it becoming clear that “The History of a City” is a book “for all times” and not only about Russia at the end of the 20th century, but also about other countries.

Despite the fact that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s book is the first such significant grotesque-satirical work of Russian literature, the forms of grotesque, fantasy and satire in literature and art themselves are far from new. This, and also, to a certain extent, the essence of these methods is indicated by the very origin of the words: fantastich (fantasy) in Greek in the literal sense of the word - the art of imagining; satira (satura) in Latin - mixture, all sorts of things; grottesco in Italian - “cave”, “grotto” (to denote bizarre ornaments found in the 15-16th centuries during excavations of ancient Roman premises - “grottoes”). Thus, “fantastic grotesque” and satirical works go back to the ancient, so-called “mythological archaic” (“low version” of myth) and to the ancient satirical novel, to the folk fantastic grotesque of the Renaissance. Later, these terms became the subject of special studies in literary criticism and aesthetics. First serious research grotesque as artistic, aesthetic method undertaken more than 200 years ago in 1788 in Germany by G. Schneegans, who first gave a generalized definition of the grotesque. Later, in 1827, the famous French writer Victor Hugo, in his “Preface to Cromwell,” first gave the term “grotesque” a broad aesthetic interpretation and attracted the attention of wide sections of the reading public to it.

Nowadays, “grotesque”, “fantasy”, “satire” are understood as approximately the following. Grotesque in literature is one of the types of typification, mainly satirical, in which real life relationships are deformed, verisimilitude gives way to caricature, fantasy, and a sharp combination of contrasts. (Another, similar definition: Grotesque is a type of artistic imagery that generalizes and sharpens life relationships through a bizarre and contrasting combination of real and fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, tragic and comic, beautiful and ugly. Fiction is a specific method of artistic depiction of life, using artistic form-image (an object, a situation, a world in which elements of reality are combined in a way that is unusual for it - incredible, “miraculous”, supernatural). Satire is a specific form of artistic reflection of reality, through which negative, internally perverse phenomena are exposed and ridiculed; a kind of comic, a destructive ridicule of the person depicted, revealing his internal inconsistency, his inconsistency with his nature or purpose, “idea”. It is noteworthy that these three definitions have something in common. Thus, in the definition of the grotesque, both the fantastic and the comic are mentioned as its elements (a type of the latter is satire). It is advisable not to separate these three concepts, but to speak of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work as satirical, written in the form of a fantastic grotesque. Moreover, the unity of all three artistic methods is emphasized by many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work when they talk about his works as parts of an integral satirical, grotesque world. Analyzing this world (the most striking embodiment of which is “The History of a City”), literary scholars note the following features. The grotesque seems to “destroy” the real country of Russia and its people in “everyday” verisimilitude and creates new patterns and connections. A special grotesque world arises, which is essential, however, for revealing the real contradictions of reality. Therefore, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque consists of two planes, and its perception is dual. What at first glance seems random, arbitrary, in fact turns out to be deeply natural. The nature of the comic in “The Story of a City” does not at all consist in strengthening the farcical principle (in “comic”), but is associated with its two-dimensionality. The comic is released along with the comprehension of the essence of the grotesque, with the movement of the reader's thought from a superficial plane to a deeper one. Moreover, in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City” the grotesque beginning is not just an essential part. On the contrary, the grotesque principle lies at the very basis of the work. The grotesque is often characterized by a desire for extreme generalization, mainly satirical, to comprehend the essence of a phenomenon and extract from it a certain meaning, a concentrate of history. That is why the grotesque turned out to be the only possible form for Saltykov-Shchedrin and the basis of his work. The range of generalized phenomena in “The History of a City” expands to amazingly wide limits - to a generalization of the trend of all Russian history and modernity. Generalization and concentration historical content cause a particularly sharp combination of humor and sarcasm, comic and tragic elements in the grotesque. Reading “The History of a City,” one becomes convinced of the validity of another important conclusion made by philologists: the grotesque is aimed at a holistic and multifaceted expression of the basic, cardinal problems of human life.

In the work of the great satirist one can see, on the one hand, the elements of folk artistic creativity and folk comedy, on the other, an expression of the inconsistency and complexity of life. Images of folk grotesque, built on the unity of polar, contrasting (and in their contrasting fusion, comical) elements, capture the essence of a sharply contradictory life, its dialectics. The reduction of laughter, the bringing together of contrasts, seems to abolish all unambiguity, exclusivity and inviolability. The grotesque world realizes a kind of folk laughter utopia. The entire content of “The History of One City” is condensed into the “Inventory for City Governors”, therefore “Inventory for City Governors” best illustrates the techniques with which Saltykov-Shchedrin created his work.

It is here, in the most concentrated form, that we encounter “bizarre and contrasting combinations of the real and the fantastic, verisimilitude and caricature, the tragic and the comic,” characteristic of the grotesque. Probably never before in Russian literature has such a compact description of entire eras, layers of Russian history and life been encountered. In “Inventory” the reader is bombarded with a stream of absurdity, which, oddly enough, is more understandable than the real contradictory and phantasmagorical Russian life. Let's take the first mayor, Amadeus Manuilovich Clementy. Only seven lines are dedicated to him (about the same amount of text is devoted to each of the 22 mayors), but every word here is more valuable than many pages and volumes written by Saltykov-Shchedrin’s contemporary official historians and social scientists. A comic effect is created already in the first words: the absurd combination of the foreign, beautiful and high-sounding name for the Russian ear Amadeus Klementy with the provincial Russian patronymic Manuilovich speaks volumes: about the fleeting “Westernization” of Russia “from above”, about how the country was flooded with foreign adventurers, about how alien the morals imposed from above were to ordinary people and about much more. From the same sentence, the reader learns that Amadeus Manuilovich became a mayor “for skillfully cooking pasta” - a grotesque, of course, and at first it seems funny, but after a moment the modern Russian reader realizes with horror that in the one hundred and thirty years that have passed since writing “The History of a City”, and in the 270 years that have passed since the time of Biron, little has changed: and before our eyes, numerous “advisers”, “experts”, “creators of monetary systems” and the “systems” themselves were signed up from the West, signed up for chattering foreign chatter, for a beautiful, exotic surname for the Russian ear... And they believed, they believed, like Foolovites, just as stupidly and just as naively. Nothing has changed since then. Further, the descriptions of the “city governors” almost instantly follow one another, pile up and get confused in their absurdity, together making up, oddly enough, an almost scientific picture of Russian life. From this description it is clearly visible how Saltykov-Shchedrin “constructs” his grotesque world. To do this, he really first “destroys” the verisimilitude: Dementy Vaolamovich Brudasty had “some special device” in his head, Anton Protasyevich de Sanglot flew through the air, Ivan Panteleevich Pyshch ended up with a stuffed head. In the “Inventory” there is also something not so fantastic, but still very unlikely: the mayor Lamvrokakis died, eaten by bedbugs in bed; Brigadier Ivan Matveevich Baklan was broken in half during a storm; Nikodim Osipovich Ivanov died from strain, “striving to comprehend some Senate decree,” and so on. So, the grotesque world of Saltykov-Shchedrin is constructed, and the reader has a good laugh at it. However, soon our contemporary begins to understand that the absurd, fantastic world of Saltykov is not as absurd as it seems at first glance. More precisely, it is absurd, it is absurd, but the real world, the real country is no less absurd. In this “high reality” of Shchedrin’s world, in the modern reader’s awareness of the absurdity of the structure of our life, lies the justification and purpose of Shchedrin’s grotesque as an artistic method. Organchik The detailed account of the “acts” of the mayors and the description of the behavior of the Foolovites that follows the “Inventory” more than once compels modern reader involuntarily exclaim: “How could Saltykov-Shchedrin 130 years ago know what was happening to us at the end of the twentieth century?” The answer to this question, as Kozintsev puts it, must be looked for in the dictionary for the word “genius.” In places the text of this chapter is so stunning and so testifies to the exceptional visionary gift of Saltykov-Shchedrin, supported by the methods of hyperbole, grotesque and satire he used, that it is necessary to provide several quotes here. “The residents rejoiced... They congratulated each other with joy, kissed, shed tears... In a fit of delight, the old Foolovian liberties were remembered. The best citizens..., having formed a national assembly, shook the air with exclamations: our father! Even dangerous dreamers appeared. Guided not so much by reason as by the movements of a noble heart, they argued that under the new mayor trade would flourish and that, under the supervision of quarterly overseers, sciences and arts would emerge. We couldn't resist making comparisons. They remembered the old mayor who had just left the city, and it turned out that although he, too, was handsome and smart, but that, for all that, the new ruler should be given priority for this alone, because he was new. In a word, in this case, as in other similar ones, both the usual Foolovian enthusiasm and the usual Foolovian frivolity were fully expressed... Soon, however, the townsfolk became convinced that their rejoicings and hopes were, at least, premature and exaggerated. .. The new mayor locked himself in his office... From time to time he ran out into the hall... saying “I will not tolerate it!” - and again disappeared into the office. The Foolovites were horrified... suddenly the thought dawned on everyone: well, how can he flog an entire people in this manner!... they became agitated, made noise and, inviting the caretaker of the public school, asked him a question: have there been examples in history of people giving orders and waging wars? and concluded treatises with an empty vessel on their shoulders?” Much has already been said about the “organ”, the mayor Brudast, from this amazing chapter. No less interesting, however, is the description of the Foolovites in this chapter.

During the time of Saltykov-Shchedrin, and even now, the grotesque image of the Russian people he created seemed and still seems to many to be strained, and even slanderous. Monarchists, liberals, and social democrats tended to idealize the people in many ways and attribute to them certain sublime, abstract qualities. Both liberals and socialists considered it incredible that the broad masses of the population could endure for centuries a long line of “organs” and “former scoundrels,” sometimes bursting into outbursts of unfounded enthusiasm or anger. This situation was considered a “historical error” or “a contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production” and seemed correctable by introducing representative democracy or putting into practice the theories of Marxism. Only later did it gradually become clear that the seemingly paradoxical, absurd and grotesque features of the national Russian character were confirmed by serious scientific analysis. Thus, we see that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s grotesque and satire were not only expressive means with which he solved artistic problems, but also a tool for analyzing Russian life - contradictory, paradoxical and seemingly fantastic, but internally holistic and containing only negative features, but also elements of sustainability and a guarantee of future development. In turn, the very foundations of the contradictory Russian life dictated to Saltykov-Shchedrin the need to use precisely the forms of the fantastic grotesque.

The story about Ugryum-Burcheev is probably the most widely quoted chapter of “The History of a City” during perestroika. As is known, the immediate prototypes of the image of Gloomy-Burcheev were Arakcheev and Nicholas I, and the prototype of the barracks city of Nepreklonsk were military settlements of the Nicholas era, and literary scholars Soviet period paid attention to this. However, reading this chapter, you clearly see the striking similarities between Nepreklonsk and barracks socialism of the Stalinist type. Moreover, Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to point out the main features of the society built by the “levellers”, and even such details of this society that, it seems, were absolutely impossible to predict 60 years before. The accuracy of Saltykov-Shchedrin's foresight is amazing. In his book, he foresaw both the “barracks” look of the society to which the “idea of ​​universal happiness” would lead, elevated into “a rather complex administrative theory that is not free of ideological tricks,” and the enormous sacrifices of the Stalin era (“the resolved issue of general extermination,” “ a fantastic failure in which “everyone and everyone disappeared without a trace”), and the wretched straightforwardness of the ideology and “theory” of barracks socialism (“Having drawn a straight line, he planned to squeeze the entire visible and invisible world into it” - how can one not recall here the primitive theories gradual “erasing of edges” and “improving” everything), and annoying collectivism (“Everyone lives together every minute...”), and much more. And the more specific features of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “society of the future” are like two drops of water similar to the reality of the Stalinist dictatorship. Here is the low origin of the “mayor”, and his incredible, inhuman cruelty towards members own family, and two official ideological holidays in Nepreklonsk in spring and autumn, and spy mania, and Gloomy-Burcheev’s “plan for the transformation of nature,” and even details of the illness and death of Gloomy-Burcheev... When you think about how Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to do it with such precision foresee the future of Russia, you come to the conclusion that it literary method studying the world and the country, based on the artistic logic of fantastic hyperbole, turned out to be much more accurate and powerful than scientific methods forecasts that guided social scientists and philosophers, the writer’s contemporaries. Moreover, in the chapter on Gloomy-Burcheev, he gave a more accurate diagnosis of the society of barracks socialism than most Russian scientists of the twentieth century! This aspect of the problem also attracts attention. When Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote his “dystopia,” much of what he said about Nepreklonsk seemed and was for that time precisely fantasy, hyperbole and grotesque. But 60 years later, the writer’s most fantastic predictions turned out to be realized with amazing accuracy. Here we have an example of how (perhaps for the only time in the history of literature) fantastic grotesquery and artistic hyperbole of such proportions absolutely become real life. In this case, the fantastic grotesque allowed the writer to reveal hidden for the time being, but inexorable mechanisms of transformation of society. The reason that Saltykov-Shchedrin turned out to be more perspicacious than all the major philosophers of his time lay, obviously, in the very nature of his artistic creativity and method: the method of fantastic grotesque allowed him to highlight the essential elements and patterns of the historical process, and his great artistic talent allowed him to simultaneously (Unlike social sciences) preserve the totality of details, accidents and features of living, real life. Art world, designed in this way by Saltykov-Shchedrin, turned out to be a reflection of such a real force that over time it inexorably and menacingly made its way into life. Instead of a conclusion: “It” The final lines of “The History of a City” contain a gloomy and mysterious prediction, not deciphered by the author: “The north darkened and became covered with clouds; From these clouds something was rushing towards the city: either a downpour, or a tornado... It was getting closer, and as it got closer, time stopped running. Finally the earth shook, the sun darkened... the Foolovites fell on their faces. An inscrutable horror appeared on all faces and gripped all hearts. It has arrived...” Many researchers of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work write that by “it” the writer meant social revolution, “Russian rebellion”, and the overthrow of the autocracy. The fantastic nature of the image of “it” emphasizes in Saltykov-Shchedrin the tragedy of the social cataclysms he expects. It is interesting to compare the prophecy of Saltykov-Shchedrin with the forecasts of other Russian writers. M.Yu. Lermontov in his poem, which is called “Prediction,” wrote: The year will come, Russia’s black year, When the kings’ crown falls; The mob will forget their former love for them, And the food of many will be death and blood;... It is significant that Pushkin described similar events with much greater optimism regarding changes in society itself, and welcomed the most “radical” measures against the tsar, his family and children: Autocratic villain! I hate you, your throne, I see your death, the death of children with cruel joy. Finally, Blok in “Voice in the Clouds” also looks into the future with a fair amount of optimism: We fought with the wind and, with frowning eyebrows, In the darkness we could hardly discern the path... And so, like an ambassador of a growing storm, A prophetic voice struck the crowd. - Sad people, tired people, Wake up, find out that joy is close! There, where the seas sing about a miracle, There the light of the lighthouse is directed! As we see, the opinions of the great Russian poets regarding future Russian vicissitudes differed radically.

It is known that the forecasts of events in Russia made by other great Russian writers - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov - turned out to be much less accurate than the visions of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Conclusion

Like his works, the figure of Saltykov-Shchedrin still remains one of the most paradoxical in the history of Russian literature. While many literary scholars and the “general reader” often place him much lower than Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, connoisseurs of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work consider him a successor to the traditions of the titans of Renaissance and Enlightenment literature: Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift.

Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the help of elements of fantasy, was able to see and reflect in his fairy tales not only the concrete and passing troubles of his time, but also eternal problems relations between the people and the authorities, shortcomings of the people's character.

Perhaps centuries will pass, and the work of our great satirist writer will be as relevant as it was a hundred years ago, as it is now. In the meantime, together with him, we “laughingly say goodbye to our past” and peer with anxiety and hope into the future of our great and unfortunate Motherland.

Bibliography

1. Efimov A.I. The language of Saltykov-Shchedrin's satire. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 1953.

2. Makashin S.A. Saltykov, Mikhail Evgrafovich. // KLE. T.6. - M.: SE, 1971.

3. Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Evgrafovich // Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Who is Who / Ed. V. Gakova. - Minsk: IKO Galaxias, 1995.

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Fairy tales sum up the entire satirical work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Fairy tales show all aspects of social and political life Russia of the 60-80s of the twentieth century. Saltykov-Shchedrin exposed social inequality, the arbitrariness of the autocracy, and the cruel exploitation of the people. These themes are reflected in the fairy tales “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Patron Eagle”, “The Poor Wolf”, “The Wild Landowner”, “Neighbors”, “The Petitioner Raven” and others. Outraged by the selfishness and cruelty of the oppressors, Saltykov-Shchedrin treats the people with warmth and love. At the same time, he condemns his humility, his naive belief that truth and protection can be found in power (fairy tales “The Horse”, “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “The Way and the Road”, “Village Fire” ”, “Idle talk” and others). Saltykov-Shchedrin also stigmatizes liberals who distract the people from the struggle with empty rantings. The author condemns the selfish philistine wisdom of “dried vobl” and minnows, begging for handouts by selfless and sensible hares. Saltykov-Shchedrin believed in social equality, harmony, and universal happiness. These ideas are presented in his tales. A striking example is the fairy tale “Crucian carp the idealist.” The author immediately warns that everything in life is much more complicated than it seems at first glance; there will always be those who will resist any positive idea. In the fairy tale, this is reflected in the words: “That’s what the pike is for, so that the crucian carp doesn’t sleep.” The idealist crucian acts as a preacher. He is eloquent and persuasive in preaching brotherly love: “Do you know what virtue is? – The pike opened its mouth in surprise. She mechanically drew water and... swallowed the crucian carp.” The way pikes are designed is that they must eat the weakest. In any society there are strong who eat, and weak who eat. The fairy tale reflected the social philosophy of the world of oppressors and the oppressed. But was it only at that time that the fairy tale was relevant? It seems to me that it is also applicable to the modern world.

In Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales, the characters are animals, birds, and fish that act like people. “The gudgeon does not receive a salary and does not keep a servant,” dreams of winning two hundred thousand. In the fairy tale “The Eagle the Patron”, the Eagle is the king of birds, but he is endowed with the character traits of people who act as patrons of the arts in the field of education. The eagle decided to introduce science and art at court. However, he soon got tired of playing the role of a philanthropist: he destroyed the nightingale-poet, put shackles on the learned woodpecker and imprisoned him in a hollow, and ruined the crows. “Searchs, investigations, trials” began, and “the darkness of ignorance” set in. In this tale, the writer showed the incompatibility of tsarism with science, education and art, and concluded that “eagles are harmful to education.”

The wise gudgeon embodied the character traits of a typical man in the street who is always afraid of something. All his life the gudgeon was afraid that a pike would eat him, so he sat in his hole for a hundred years, away from danger. The gudgeon “lived and trembled, and died and trembled.” But even he, at the end of his life, thought about his existence. Before his death, the gudgeon tries to comprehend: why did he tremble and hide all his life? “What joys did he have? Whom did he console? Who will remember his existence?” Saltykov-Shchedrin sets out the moral of the tale as follows: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens and, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows. They make no one feel warm or cold, they live, take up space for nothing and eat food.”

In the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship,” the tsar, ministers and governors are ridiculed. Three Toptygins successively replace each other in the voivodeship, where the lion sent them with the goal of “pacifying the internal adversaries.” The first dealt with small “shameful atrocities”, the second with large “brilliant” ones. But after he stole the peasant’s horse, cow and a couple of sheep, the men killed him. The third Toptygin was the most bloodthirsty, but acted more cautiously than others. Long years he took honey, chickens, and piglets from the peasants. In the end, the men's patience ran out and Toptygin was put on a spear. Saltykov-Shchedrin shows that the reason for the poverty and lack of rights of the people is not only in the abuse of power, but also in the very nature of the autocratic system. The whole system is vicious and needs to be overthrown - this is the idea of ​​​​the fairy tale.

If ministers, officials and other government officials act as predators (bear, eagle), then a simple worker who drags out his miserable existence is compared to a horse. “Well-fed idle dancers” talk about the reasons for Konyaga’s immortality. One suggests that Konyaga is strong because “a lot of common sense has accumulated in him from constant work,” another sees in Konyaga “the life of the spirit and the spirit of life,” the third claims that Konyaga “work gives .... peace of mind,” the fourth, that Konyaga is simply accustomed to his fate and only needs a whip. The horse works, the “idle dancers” shout: “B-but, convict, b-but!”

Saltykov-Shchedrin does not always portray people in the form of animals; often the landowner acts as a landowner, the peasant plays the role of a peasant. In the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” the main characters are a man and two idle generals. Two completely helpless generals miraculously ended up on a desert island, and got there straight from bed - in their nightgowns and with orders around their necks. The generals almost eat each other, because they cannot not only catch fish or game, but also pick fruit from the tree. In order not to perish from hunger, they decide to look for a man. And here he is: sitting under a tree and shirking work. The “huge man” turns out to be a jack of all trades. He got apples from the tree, and dug potatoes out of the ground, and prepared a snare for the hazel grouse from his own hair, and got fire, and prepared provisions, and collected swan fluff. And what? He gave the generals a dozen apples each, and took one for himself – “sour.” He even made a rope so that his generals could tie him to a tree with it. Moreover, he was ready to “please the generals for the fact that they, a parasite, favored him and did not disdain his peasant work.” No matter how much the generals scold the peasant for parasitism, the peasant “keeps rowing and rowing and feeding the generals with herring.” The author shows the man's passivity, his slave psychology, willingness to endure and feed the generals who are robbing him.

The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin have not lost their relevance in our time. And now you can find crucian carp that pikes eat, men who feed generals, dried roach and other characters from this writer’s fairy tales.

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10. 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 the imagination, and especially...
11. It is no coincidence that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “Fairy Tales” is called the author’s final work. They raise with all their severity those problems of Russia in the 60-80s. XIX century, which worried the advanced intelligentsia. In disputes about future paths...
12. All writers, through their works, try to convey to us, the readers, their own innermost thoughts. A real writer, due to his talent and characteristics inner world, the events taking place around him always feel more acutely and...
13. A fairy tale is one of epic genres literature, which is characterized by deep subtext, we read fairy tales not only to have fun - “there is a lie in a fairy tale, but there is a hint in it...” Exactly...
14. TALES OF SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN Shchedrin resorted to zoological images throughout his entire work, resorted to them more and more often over time, and finally came to create a whole series satirical tales in the shape of...
15. The name of Saltykov-Shchedrin ranks with such world-famous satirists as Mark Twain, Francois Rabelais, Jonathan Swift and Aesop. Satire has always been considered an “ungrateful” genre - the state regime has never...
16. THE ORIGINALITY OF M. E. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN'S FAIRY TALES In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner, he lived and looked at the world and rejoiced. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Literary style Saltykov-Shchedrin was formed in the process of constantly overcoming...
17. Pushkin’s phrase can be attributed to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin: “Satire is a brave ruler.” These words were spoken by A.S. Pushkin about Fonvizin, one of the founders of Russian satire. Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov, who signed...
18. The ideological meaning and artistic originality of the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin I. “It was a writer-fighter who stood on the Jurassic” (I. S. Turgenev). II. Master of socio-political satire. 1. “I grew up in the lap of serfdom. I have seen...
19. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are distinguished not only by caustic satire and genuine tragedy, but also by their original construction of plot and images. The author approached writing “Fairy Tales” already in mature age, when a lot was comprehended,...
20. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are called prose fables; folklore and Russian satirical literary traditions are clearly visible in them. His tales truthfully reveal the problems of the people. The satirist evilly denounces autocracy, liberalism and the dominant...
21. Comment on the opinion of S. Makashin: “In terms of content, “Fairy Tales” are a kind of “microcosm” - a “small world” of Saltykov’s entire work.” At the beginning of your essay, note that M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a master of satirical...
22. SOCIAL PATHOS OF M. E. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN'S FAIRY TALES The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin testified to the new rise of the author's mighty talent and were a kind of result of his work. Many questions and problems, many topics and...
23. Russian literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century “Escaped” heroes of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is known to readers primarily as a writer who ridicules all the shortcomings of reality, castigating human vices. Such works of his... Works about peasants and landowners occupy a significant place in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Most likely this happened because the writer encountered this problem at a young age. Saltykov-Shchedrin spent his childhood... Folklore traditions in “The History of One City” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (chapter “On the Root of Origin of the Foolovites”) “The History of One City” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is written in the form of a narrative by a chronicler-archivist about the past of the city of Foolov, but...
24. A brilliant satirist of the second half of the 19th century, “A man of extraordinary gaiety,” “a master of unique laughter, laughing with which a person became wiser” (V. Lunacharsky). M. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote, indeed, very witty. D. Pisarev even reproached him...

Saltykov-Shchedrin M. E.

An essay on a work on the topic: “The artistic originality of one of the fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin”

In the genre of fairy tales, ideological and artistic features Shchedrin's satire: its political sharpness and purposefulness, the realism of its fiction, the ruthlessness and depth of the grotesque, the sly sparkle of humor. Saltykov-Shchedrin's "Fairy Tales" in miniature contain the problems and images of the entire work of the great satirist. If Shchedrin had not written anything other than “Fairy Tales,” then they alone would have given him the right to immortality. Fairy tales seem to sum up the writer’s forty years of creative activity.

Shchedrin often resorted to the fairy-tale genre in his work. There are also elements of fairy-tale fiction in “The History of a City,” and complete fairy tales are included in the satirical “Modern Idyll” and the chronicle “Abroad.”

And it is no coincidence that Shchedrin’s fairy-tale genre flourished in the 80s of the 19th century. It was during this period of rampant political reaction in Russia that the satirist had to look for a form that was most convenient for circumventing censorship and at the same time the closest and most understandable to the common people. And the people understood political urgency Shchedrin's generalized conclusions hidden behind Aesopian speech and zoological masks. He created a new, original genre of political fairy tale, which combines fantasy with real, topical political reality.

In Shchedrin's fairy tales, as in all of his work, two social forces confront each other: the working people and their exploiters. The people appear under the masks of kind and defenseless animals and birds (and often without a mask, under the name “man”), the exploiters act in the guise of predators. The symbol of peasant Russia is the image of Konyaga from the fairy tale of the same name. Horse is a peasant, a worker, a source of life for everyone. Thanks to him, bread grows in the vast fields of Russia, but he himself has no right to eat this bread. His destiny is eternal hard labor. “There is no end to work. Work exhausts the whole meaning of his existence!” - exclaims the satirist. Konyaga is tortured and beaten to the limit, but only he is able to liberate his native country. “From century to century, the formidable, motionless bulk of the fields stands frozen, as if it were guarding a fairy-tale power in captivity. Who will free this power from captivity? Who will call it into the light? Two creatures have fallen to this task: the peasant and the Horse.” This is a hymn to the working people of Russia, and it is no coincidence that it had such a great influence on Shchedrin’s contemporary democratic literature.

The crucian carp from the fairy tale “Crucian carp the idealist” is not a hypocrite, he is truly noble, pure in soul. His socialist ideas deserve deep respect, but the methods of their implementation are naive and ridiculous. Shchedrin, being himself a socialist by conviction, did not accept the theory of utopian socialists, considering it the fruit of an idealistic view of social reality, historical process. “I don’t believe that struggle and quarrel are a normal law, under the influence of which everything living on earth is supposedly destined to develop. I believe in bloodless success, I believe in harmony.” - ranted the crucian carp. It ended with the pike swallowing him, and swallowing him mechanically: she was struck by the absurdity and strangeness of this sermon.

"Selfless Hare" and "Sane Hare". Here the heroes are not noble idealists, but ordinary cowards who rely on the kindness of predators. The hares do not doubt the right of the wolf and the fox to take their lives; they consider it quite natural that the strong eat the weak, but they hope to touch the wolf’s heart with their honesty and humility. “Or maybe the wolf will have mercy on me, ha ha!” Predators remain predators. The Zaitsevs are not saved by the fact that they “didn’t start revolutions, didn’t go out with weapons in their hands.” Shchedrinsky became the personification of wingless and vulgar philistinism wise minnow- the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. The meaning of life for this “enlightened, moderate-liberal” coward was self-preservation, avoiding conflicts and fighting. Therefore, the gudgeon lived to a ripe old age unharmed. But what a humiliating life it was! She consisted entirely of continuous trembling for her skin. "He lived and trembled - that's all." This fairy tale, written during the years of political reaction in Russia, hit without a miss on the liberals, groveling before the government for their own skin, on the townsfolk, hiding in their holes from social struggle. For many years, the passionate words of the great democrat sank into the souls of thinking people in Russia: “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 useless minnows to say the least." Shchedrin also showed such “minnows” in his novel “Modern Idyll.”

All of Shchedrin's fairy tales were subject to censorship persecution and many alterations. Many of them were published in illegal publications abroad. The masks of the animal world could not hide the political content of fairy tales. The transfer of human traits - both psychological and political - to the animal world created a comic effect and clearly exposed the absurdity of existing reality.

The language of Shchedrin's tales is deeply folk, close to Russian folklore. The satirist uses not only traditional fairy-tale techniques and images, but also proverbs, sayings, sayings (“If you don’t give a word, be strong, but if you give, hold on!”, “You can’t have two deaths, you can’t avoid one,” “Ears don’t grow higher than your forehead.” , “My house is on edge”, “Simplicity is worse than theft”). The dialogue of the characters is colorful, the speech depicts a specific social type: an imperious, rude eagle, a beautiful-hearted idealist crucian carp, an evil reactionary robber, a bigoted priest, a dissolute canary, a cowardly hare, etc.

The images of fairy tales have come into use, become household names and live for many decades, and the universal types of objects of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire are still found in our lives today, you just need to take a closer look at the surrounding reality and reflect.

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