“Real and fantastic in M.’s fairy tales. To help students
content:
“Fairy tales” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin occupy a special place in Russian literature. Although their themes are similar to those of the works of many writers, “Fairy Tales” are still unique due to their artistic originality and manner of presentation.
Shchedrin used the fairy tale genre to avoid attacks from censorship, and also to make it easier for the reader to understand the absurdity of the situations depicted in the work. The allegorical manner of narration provides great advantages. After all, a neutral narrative does not create a living picture human vices, does not generate disgust for the existing system. The wise simplicity of the tale allowed the author to present his views on problems and his attitude towards them in a condensed, generalized form, without losing their significance and severity. In addition, of all genres, the fairy tale is closest to popular understanding.
In "Fairy Tales" the writer uses folklore elements, used from time immemorial by the people in their oral creativity. For example, in the beginning of his works, Shchedrin uses the traditional fairy-tale style: “once upon a time there was a minnow,” “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner.” Magic often occurs (for example, the miraculous disappearance of men in “The Wild Landowner”). Magic (or fantasy) allows the author to give the characters sufficient freedom of action and unlimited possibilities. The writer also uses proverbs, sayings, and colloquialisms: “Kuzka’s mother,” “chicken’s son.”
But along with fairy tales and folklore, “Fairy Tales” contains expressions and facts from the writer’s contemporary life: the newspapers “Vest”, “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, Latin phrase“zshShe vipShЪiz sigap1;ig.” The heroes of "Fairy Tales" are representatives of different social strata: officials, landowners, generals and, of course, men.
Shchedrin's "Fairy Tales" were a kind of summary of all his previous work. In them he touches on topics that worried the writer throughout his life and were revealed in one way or another in his works.
One of these topics is quite old; many generations of Russian writers have written about it, and everyone, of course, found some kind of new feature. This is the theme of the relationship between the people and the authorities. And Saltykov gives it a new sound, looks at it from a different angle. According to the author, unlimited power partially deprives a person of the ability to think about his actions, their consequences, makes him lazy, not adapted to anything, narrow-minded, limited.
People in power get used to it and, not feeling the need to do anything on their own, gradually degrade. Such, for example, are the generals from “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” who do not even suspect that “the rolls are not born in the same form as they are served with coffee in the morning,” that “human food in its original form flies , floats and grows on trees." They are naive and ignorant, disconnected from the life of the people, from those very men, with whose hands all material wealth is created, at the expense of which the ruling circles exist.
Shchedrin calls in his “Fairy Tales” for the transformation of Russian reality, for the struggle against the arbitrariness of those in power. But he does not say this directly, but uses satire, irony, hyperbole, and grotesque to express his ideas. Aesopian language. He makes fun of social vices,...thus drawing attention to them. Shchedrin creates exaggerated, grotesque images in his works. All the most extreme manifestations of those negative traits, to which he would like to draw the reader's eye.
Satirical images of heroes are sometimes even ugly, causing a feeling of disgust, and the reader begins to understand the terrible situation of the people in Russian reality. A society with such orders and morals has no future if it is not able to change. For example, in “The Wild Landowner” the ignorance of the landowner himself, his absolute confidence in his superiority over the peasant, and the inability of the people to resist are ridiculed. In “The Wise Piskar” there is fear of the strong, the lack of will of the liberal intelligentsia.
Shchedrin most fully revealed the typical features of various social strata of society in fairy tales about animals. Their characters are birds, animals, fish. Human characters are discernible in their manners and behavior. Under the allegorical description of the tyranny happening in the animal world, we see Russian life with all its unsightly features. For example, in “The Bear in the Voivodeship” the animals are called “forest men.” In each animal, Saltykov-Shchedrin collected various traits of certain types of people. Here are some of them: the stupidity of Donkey, clumsiness, brute and insane strength of Toptygin. These properties echo folklore ideas about these animals. The combination of allegorical and real meaning enhances the sharpness of the satire.
It is no coincidence that Shchedrin portrays senior officials under the guise of predatory animals who plunder in their possessions and, by their nature, cannot do anything else. They operate according to the principle: to govern means to devastate, destroy, ruin, plunder, and commit “special bloodshed.” The officials who come to the places do not understand anything about the matter entrusted to them, do not try to delve into it; they bring with them some of their own preparations, ideas, projects, which sometimes do not correspond to the existing situation, the characteristics of a given area, region.
This is well illustrated by the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship.” Bears come with the goal of ruining, destroying, carrying out “bloodshed” and believe that this is the meaning and purpose of power. What about the people? But the people do not see anything monstrous in the actions of the authorities; this is normal for them, usually, everyday, as it has been for centuries. The people are resigned, obey any order from above, since they consider this the only possible behavior. And this readiness of the people to fulfill all the whims was sometimes brought by Saltykov-Shchedrin even to the point of absurdity.
Unlike other writers, Saltykov-Shchedrin satirically depicts not only landowners and generals, but also peasants. After all, in men he saw unclaimed enormous power, which could change the existing system, create favorable conditions for the life of the people, if awakened. But to do this, you need to convince the peasant that you cannot put up with the domination of “wild landowners”, mayors, governors, you need to fight for your rights.
Conciseness, clarity, ruthless satire, accessibility to the common people made "Fairy Tales" one of the most significant works XIX century. Many of the problems identified in them still exist today. And that’s why Shchedrin’s satire remains relevant to this day.
FICTION AS A MEANS OF SATIRE. “I love Russia to the point of heartache,” said the great satirist M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. And all his work is imbued with anger, resentment and pain for the fate of Russia, for the bitter life of its people. Everything that he subjected to satirical denunciation aroused in him justifiable indignation. And although he understood that it was impossible to rid society overnight of cruelty, violence, and injustice, he nevertheless saw in satire an effective “ powerful weapon”, which can make people think about ways to change their lives for the better. In “The Story of a City,” he draws a caricature of a standard provincial Russian town. The action takes place in the stunningly fantastic city of Foolov, personifying the absurdity and parody of the existing way of life Russian life. This is facilitated by the extraordinary diversity artistic forms, which it uses
Showing Foolov's mayors, the author skillfully uses techniques of grotesque, fantastic distortion of reality. Thus, characterizing the mayor Brudasty, nicknamed Organchik, the writer says that he has a certain primitive mechanism installed in his head that reproduces only two words: “I will not tolerate it!” and “I’ll ruin you!” And Ivan Matveyevich Baklan “boasts that it comes in a direct line from Ivan the Great” (the famous bell tower in Moscow). The Marquis de Sanglot flies “through the air and the city garden,” Major Pimple carries a “stuffed head” on his shoulders.
Each of the twenty-two mayors of the city of Foolov has his own surname-nickname, is endowed with an absurd, memorable appearance and is marked by the same absurd “deeds”: mayor Benevolensky composes laws like the “Charter on Respectable Pie Baking”, which prohibits making pies from mud, clay and other building materials; The basilisk Wartkin introduces (against bedbugs) mustard, Provençal oil and chamomile, and wages wars with the help of tin soldiers and dreams of conquering Byzantium, and Gloomy-Burcheev arranges life in Foolov like a military camp, having previously destroyed the old city and built a new one in its place. The rulers of Foolov are sent into oblivion for reasons that are absurd, curious or shameful: Dunka the Thick-Footed is eaten to death by bedbugs at a bedbug factory, Pimple’s stuffed yearling was eaten away by the leader of the nobility; one died from gluttony, another - from the effort with which he tried to overcome the Senate, the third - from lust... And the most “terrible” of all the mayors - Gloomy-Burcheev - melted in the air when the mysterious “it” approached from nowhere.
In the novel, the author contrasts the satirically depicted mayors, mayors and Foolovites with symbolic image a river that embodies the element of life itself, which no one can either abolish or conquer. Not only does she not submit to the wild gaze of the basilisk Ugryum-Burcheev, but she also demolishes a dam made of garbage and manure.
The life of the city of Foolov for many centuries was a life “under the yoke of madness,” so the author depicted it in an ugly-comic form: everything here is fantastic, incredible, exaggerated, everything is funny and at the same time scary. “From Gloopov to Umnev the road lies through Buyanov, and not through semolina porridge“- wrote Shchedrin, hinting that he sees the only way out of the current situation in revolution. And therefore he sends a formidable “it” to the city - something reminiscent of a tornado sweeping over Foolov in anger - a raging element that sweeps away all the absurdity of the social order of life and the slavish obedience of the Foolovites. Fiction occupies a huge place in satirical tales Saltykov-Shchedrin, who became logical conclusion his creativity. They most closely intertwine reality and fantasy, the comic and the tragic.
The relocation of the generals to a desert island may at first glance seem like something fantastic, and the writer actually generously uses the device of a fantastic assumption, but it turns out to be deeply justified in this tale. Retired officials who rose to the rank of general in the St. Petersburg chancellery, suddenly finding themselves without servants, “without cooks,” demonstrate their absolute inability to perform useful activities.
All their lives they have existed thanks to the labor of ordinary “men”, and now they cannot feed themselves, despite the surrounding abundance. They turned into hungry savages, ready to tear each other to pieces: an “ominous fire” appeared in their eyes, their teeth chattered, a dull growl came out of their chests. They began to slowly crawl towards each other and in an instant they became frantic.” One of them even swallowed the order of the other, and it is unknown how their fight would have ended if a man had not magically appeared on the island. He saved the generals from starvation, from complete savagery. And he got fire, and caught hazel grouse, and prepared swan fluff so that the generals could sleep in warmth and comfort, and learned to cook soup in a handful. But, unfortunately, this dexterous, skillful, possessing limitless possibilities a person is accustomed to meekly obeying his masters, serving them, fulfilling all their whims, content with “a glass of vodka and a nickel of silver.” He cannot imagine any other life. Shchedrin laughs bitterly at such slavish resignation, submission and humility.
The hero of the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” who groomed and cherished his “soft, white, crumbly” body, became worried that the man might not “eat up” all his “goods,” and decided to expel the common people, in a special way, “according to the rules.” oppressing him. The men prayed, seeing the lordly tyranny: it would be easier for them to perish, “than to toil like this all their lives,” and the Lord heard their prayer. And the landowner, left alone, turned out to be, like the generals, helpless: he went wild, turned into a four-legged predator, rushing at animals and people. He would have disappeared completely, but the authorities intervened, since not a piece of meat or a pound of bread could be bought at the market, and most importantly, taxes had stopped flowing into the treasury. Amazing ability Saltykova-Shchedrin The use of fantastic techniques and images was also evident in other works. But Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fiction does not take us away from real life, does not distort it, but, on the contrary, serves as a means of deeper knowledge of it and satirical exposure of the negative phenomena of this life.
Saltykov-Shchedrin valued realistic concreteness and therefore exposed flaws and irregularities, based on real facts, convincing life examples. But at the same time, he always animated his satirical analysis with a bright thought and faith in the triumph of goodness, truth and justice on earth.
With his creativity, Saltykov-Shchedrin significantly enriched not only Russian culture, but also world literature. I.S. Turgenev, defining global significance“Stories of a City” compared Shchedrin’s style with the works of the Roman poet Juvenal and Swift’s cruel humor, introducing the work of the Russian writer into a pan-European context. And the Danish critic Georg Brandes thus characterized the advantages of the great Shchedrin over all the satirists of his time: “... the sting of Russian satire is unusually sharp, the end of its spear is hard and red-hot, like the point stuck by Odysseus in the giant’s eye...”
Composition
M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin created more than 30 fairy tales. Turning to this genre was natural for the writer. Fairy-tale elements (fantasy, hyperbole, convention, etc.) permeate all of his work. Themes of fairy tales: despotic power (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”), masters and slaves (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” “The Wild Landowner”), fear as the basis slave psychology(“The Wise Minnow”), hard labor (“The Horse”), etc. The unifying thematic principle of all fairy tales is the life of the people in its correlation with the life of the ruling classes.
What brings Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales closer to folk tales? Typical fairy tale beginnings (“Once upon a time there were two generals...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...”; sayings (“according to pike command", "neither to say in a fairy tale, nor to describe with a pen"); phrases characteristic of folk speech (“thought and thought”, “said and done”); close to vernacular syntax, vocabulary, orthoepy. As in folk tales, a miraculous incident sets the plot in motion: two generals “suddenly found themselves on a desert island”; by the grace of God, “there is no longer a peasant throughout the entire domain of the stupid landowner.” Folk tradition Saltykov-Shchedrin also follows in fairy tales about animals, when in an allegorical form he ridicules the shortcomings of society.
Differences. Interweaving the fantastic with the real and even historically accurate. "Bear in the Voivodeship" - among characters- animals suddenly appears the image of Magnitsky, a well-known reactionary in Russian history: even before the Toptygins appeared 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 maintains his form at the same time folk tale and destroys it. The magical in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tales is explained by the real; the reader cannot escape reality, which is constantly felt behind the images of animals and fantastic events. Fairy-tale forms allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to present ideas close to him in a new way, to show or ridicule social shortcomings.
“The Wise Minnow” is an image of a frightened man in the street who “is only saving his cold life.” Can the slogan “survive and not get caught by the pike” be the meaning of life for a person?
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 forty years creative activity writer.
Shchedrin often resorted to the fairy-tale genre in his work. Elemental fairy tale fiction is also in “The History of a City,” and the satirical “Modern Idyll” and the chronicle “Abroad” include complete fairy tales.
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 free home 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 an anthem working people Russia, and it is no coincidence that it had this big 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 hope for 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 is me." haha. and will have mercy!" 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 they sank into my soul thinking people Russia, the passionate words of the great democrat: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows.” 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. Transfer human traits- both psychological and political - created on the animal world comic effect, 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 paints a concrete social type: a domineering, rude eagle, a beautiful-hearted idealistic crucian carp, an evil reactionary bastard, a prude 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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Option I
In the 80s of the 19th century, the persecution of literature by government censorship became especially cruel, and as a result, the closure of the magazine “ Domestic notes", edited by Shchedrin. Shchedrin, a master of “Aesopian language”, a bright satirist, subtly noticing human vices and ridiculing the nature of their occurrence, was forced to look for new uniform communication with the reader to bypass censorship. His tales, which reflected, first of all, the class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 19th century centuries, appeared the perfect solution from the current situation.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was born into the family of a serf-owning landowner and, in his own words, was raised by “serf mothers” and “taught to read and write by a serf literate.” From childhood, an observant and sensitive teenager awakens to protest against cruelty and inhumanity towards the common people, and later he will say: “I saw all the horrors of centuries-old bondage ... in their nakedness.” Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects all observations and beliefs in his works. Shchedrin, one might say, creates new genre fairy tales are political, where fantasy and topical political reality overlap.
We can say that Shchedrin’s fairy tales show the confrontation between two social forces: the people and their exploiters. The people in fairy tales are depicted under the masks of kind and defenseless animals and birds, and the exploiters are portrayed as predators.
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” reveals a burning problem of that time: the relationship between post-reform peasants and landowners. The landowner, fearing that the man might “eat up all his goods,” tries to get rid of him: “...And not just somehow, but everything according to the rule. Whether a peasant chicken wanders into the master's oats - now, as a rule, it is in the soup; Whether a peasant gathers to chop wood in secret in the master’s forest... this same firewood will go to the master’s yard, and, as a rule, the chopper will be fined.” In the end, “the merciful God heard the tearful prayer,” and “there was no man in the entire domain of the stupid landowner.”
And then it turns out that the landowner has no life without a peasant, because all he is used to is taking care of his “soft,” “white,” “crumbly” body, and without a peasant there is no one to wipe off the dust , there is no one to cook the food, not even a mouse, and he knows that “the landowner cannot do him any harm without Senka.” The author thus makes it clear that the people, who are mocked as if they are being tested for survival, are the only thing that does not allow the landowner to turn into an animal, as happened in the fairy tale (“He is all overgrown from head to toe.” hair... and his nails became like iron... he walked more on all fours and was even surprised how he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and... comfortable").
In the fairy tale “The Eagle Patron”, the author mercilessly ridicules the tsar and his regime using allegorical language. The distribution of positions gives an idea of the “remarkable” intelligence of the eagle ruler: the magpie, “luckily she was a thief, they entrusted the keys to the treasury.”
The bird kingdom went through all the stages of the formation of the state: first, joy and carelessness from a bright future, then “the tension in relations, which intrigue hastened to take advantage of,” then the vices of the royal power came to the surface: careerism, selfishness, hypocrisy, fear, censorship. Having felt the punishing finger of the latter in real life, the author expresses his position here. Education is a sufficient argument to “put a woodpecker in shackles and imprison him in a hollow forever.” But silence can also be punishable: “Even a deaf black grouse was suspected of having a “way of thinking,” on the grounds that he is silent during the day and sleeps at night.”
Unfortunately, the heroes of Saltykov-Shchedrin did not fade into oblivion, since today we are faced with hypocrisy, irresponsibility, and stupidity. A passionate and indignant satirical writer helps us overcome these vices.
Option 2
IN satirical works M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin there is a combination of the real and the fantastic. Fiction is a means of revealing the patterns of reality.
Fairy tales are a fantastic genre. But the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are permeated with the real spirit of the time and reflect it. Under the influence of the spirit of the times, traditional fairy-tale characters are being transformed. The hare turns out to be “sane” or “selfless,” the wolf is “poor,” and the eagle is a philanthropist. And next to them appear unconventional images brought to life by the author’s imagination: an idealistic crucian carp, a wise minnow, and so on. And all of them - animals, birds, fish - are humanized, they behave like people, and at the same time remain animals. Bears, eagles, pikes administer justice and reprisals, conduct scientific debates, and preach.
A bizarre fantasy world emerges. But while creating this world, the satirist simultaneously explores types of human behavior and various types of adaptive reactions. The satirist mercilessly ridicules all unrealistic hopes and expectations, convinces the reader of the meaninglessness of any compromise with the authorities. Neither the dedication of a hare sitting under a bush according to a “wolf resolution”, nor the wisdom of a minnow huddled in a hole, nor the determination of an idealistic crucian carp who entered into a discussion with a pike about the possibility of establishing social harmony peacefully, can save you from death.
Saltykov-Shchedrin especially mercilessly ridiculed the liberals. Having given up struggle and protest, they inevitably come to meanness. In the fairy tale “Liberal,” the satirist named a phenomenon he hated own name and branded him for all time.
Intelligibly and convincingly, Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the reader that autocracy, like a hero, born from Baba Yaga, is unviable because it is “rotten from the inside” (“God-tyr”). Moreover, the activities of the tsarist administrators inevitably boil down to “atrocities.” Crimes can be different: “shameful”, “brilliant”, “natural”. But they are determined not by the personal qualities of the Toptygins, but by the very nature of power, hostile to the people (“Bear in the Voivodeship”).
The generalized image of the people with the greatest emotional power is embodied in the fairy tale “The Horse”. Saltykov-Shchedrin refuses any idealization folk life, peasant labor and even rural nature. Life, work, and nature are revealed to him through the eternal suffering of the peasant and the horse. The fairy tale expresses not just sympathy and compassion, but an understanding of the tragic hopelessness of their endless labor under the scorching rays of the sun: “How many centuries he carries this yoke - he does not know; He doesn’t calculate how many centuries he will have to carry it ahead.” The suffering of the people grows to a universal scale, beyond the control of time.
There is nothing fantastic in this tale, except for the symbolic image of eternal work and eternal suffering. A sober thinker, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not want and cannot invent a special fabulous power that would ease the suffering of the people. Obviously, this strength lies in the people themselves? But will she wake up? And what will its manifestations turn out to be? All this is in the fog of the distant future.
In the words of N.V. Gogol, “a fairy tale can be a lofty creation when it serves as an allegorical garment, clothing a lofty spiritual truth, when it tangibly and visibly reveals even to a commoner a matter that is accessible only to a sage.” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin valued the accessibility of the fairy tale genre. He brought both the commoner and the sage the truth about Russian life.
Option 3
The publishers called the collection of fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “Fairy Tales for Children” of considerable age”, that is, for adults, or rather, for those who not only think about life, but also “learn to be a citizen.” Why did the writer choose this particular genre? Firstly, caustic accusatory satire required an allergic form. Secondly, any fairy tale contains folk wisdom. Thirdly, the language of fairy tales is precise, vivid, and figurative, which allows the idea of the work to be clearly and succinctly conveyed to the reader.
In the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin contemporary to the writer life is intertwined with fabulous events. Animal heroes behave, at first glance, as animals should. But suddenly something appears in their characteristics that is inherent to a person, and even belonging to a certain class and living in a very specific time. historical time. Generals on a desert island read Moskovskie Vedomosti, " wild landowner"invites the actor Sadovsky to visit, and " wise minnow" enlightened, moderately liberal, “doesn’t play cards, doesn’t drink wine, doesn’t smoke tobacco, doesn’t chase red girls.”
