Characteristics of Tsar Berendey from the fairy tale Snow Maiden. A.N. Ostrovsky

Read the list of characters in the prologue. What prologue heroes have you met in works of folklore?

There are seven names in the list of characters in the prologue. In works of folklore, especially in fairy tales, you have met many of the main characters of this spring fairy tale. Most often - Santa Claus. But they also contain Spring-Red and Leshy. The birds that are named here are rarely the retinue of Spring in folklore. They are more often independent participants in fairy tales and songs.

Describe the kingdom of the Berendeys. How does his description, which is in the stage directions of the play, differ from the descriptions in fairy tales?

The fairy-tale kingdom of Berendey is described as each of us would talk about a real-life place. This description was created so that artists could depict the kingdom on stage. It differs from the place of events that any fairy tale describes in that it contains detailed description the scenery against which the events will take place.

Let us remember the first remark.

"The beginning of spring. Midnight. Red hill covered with snow. To the right are bushes and a rare leafless birch tree; to the left is a continuous dense forest of large pines and spruces with branches hanging from the weight of the snow; in the depths, under the mountain, a river; The ice holes and ice holes are lined with spruce trees. Beyond the river is Berendeyev Posad, the capital of Tsar Berendey: palaces, houses, huts - all wooden, with intricate painted carvings; lights in the windows. The full moon silvers the entire open area. Roosters are crowing in the distance." This description tells how the set of the prologue to the play “The Snow Maiden” should look like.

Reference. Decoration is the design of the stage of a play, a film set, which creates a visible appearance of where the events take place.

Why does the first remark already talk about the places where the prologue and all four acts of the tale will take place?

We learn that all events will take place in the tiny kingdom of Berendey, which can be taken in at a glance, by reading the entire play. However, already the first remark shows the place of events. This description convinces us that

A. N. Ostrovsky wanted the audience to immediately see the entire fabulous kingdom of the Berendeys.

Many believe that the plot of the play is the decision of Bobyl and Bobylikha to take the Snow Maiden to their place. There is another opinion: the plot is the Snow Maiden’s decision to leave the forest and go to people. You should think about your decision.

How did you imagine the Snow Maiden? What in her views and behavior corresponds to the name of the daughter of Spring and Frost?

Snegurochka is the daughter of Spring and Frost. Therefore, there are signs of her parents in her appearance, views and behavior. The name Snegurochka from her father - Father Frost. But from Mother Vesna - beauty, cheerful disposition and desire to be with people.

What episodes reminded you of folk tales? What folk songs are in the prologue?

The tale is reminiscent of the following episodes in the prologue: Spring falls to the ground, surrounded by its retinue; the meeting of Spring with Frost and their dispute; appearance of Leshy; Snow Maiden's farewell to the forest (trees and bushes bow to Snow Maiden).

In the prologue there is a chorus of birds that is close folk song. The Snow Maiden herself remembered the songs that Lel sang.

Read more carefully into the poetic speech of the play. What artistic device is most often found in her lines? Find a technique called transference in the farewell remarks of Spring and Frost.

Snow Maiden, daughter! They won’t have time to remove the sheaves from the fields before I return. See you.

Spring It's time to change anger to mercy. Quiet the blizzard! The people are taking her, the crowds are seeing off Shiroka...

How many hyphens did you count in these two replicas?

Reference. Hyphenation is the transfer of part of a sentence from one line of a poem to another. This transfer highlights the meanings of individual words.

You can highlight the broken sentences in the given text. We see that in the conversation between Frost and Spring, almost all phrases are divided into parts by hyphenation. Thanks to this, we pause while reading, which emphasize the meaning of each part of the text.

Essay

On the topic of:

The kingdom of the Berendeys in the folklore and mythological drama of A.N. Ostrovsky "Snow Maiden"

Introduction.

Chapter I. Real basis fairy tales by A.N. Ostrovsky “The Snow Maiden” and its main sources

Chapter II. Folklore basis of the tale

Chapter III. Fairy tale conflict

Chapter IV. Kingdom of the Berendeys

Conclusion.

Introduction

There was no better kingdom for me,

like the kingdom of the Berendeys, there was no better

worldview and religion as worship

Yaril-Sun.

Rimsky-Korsakov

Ostrovsky turned to the fairy tale genre in 1867-1868. At this time, he began the fairy tale “Ivan Tsarevich” - something like an extravaganza. Perhaps the Snow Maiden that appeared later has some connection with the said fairy tale, for in the original version of the Snow Maiden, one of the characters was supposed to be Ivan Tsarevich. In the following scenarios, the groom was both Bermyata’s son, proud of his origin, and just a rude fanfare.

Ostrovsky created not a fairy tale-poem, but a fairy tale-drama, and in this regard he was an innovator. He did not use any fairy-tale plot that had existed before him. From separate, different ancient legends, he created an original work poetic art. His fairy tale-drama acquires a completely new poetic and genre quality. This is nothing more than a dramatic tale-epic with the participation not of single heroes, but of an entire organized tribe. And “action” not in the name of achieving selfish goals for single heroes, but in the name of the life of an entire tribe, an entire people.

The originality of Ostrovsky's "Spring Tale" is that it combines two very different independent principles: social realistic content, realistic folk ideal and fantastic form. Moreover, the combination of these principles is so organic that the fantastic-fairy-tale form does not cover or obscure the main, realistic, human-life tendency. Perhaps, on the contrary, she figures it out, reveals it, externalizes it to a particularly convincing brightness. In Ostrovsky’s “The Snow Maiden,” “the fairy-tale world is reproduced so skillfully that some kind of real world is seen and heard” (I.A. Goncharov)

Fabulousness and magic melt and reveal here the power of special suggestion, spells, hypnotic energy for the battle for a dream and for achieving this dream. Thus, a fairy tale, fabulousness for Ostrovsky takes on the meaning of a particularly energetic social action, action with the help of fantastic means.

If we schematize the composition “Snow Maiden”, then it will appear as whole line independent choirs-“actions”, which are then united in a common discordant and varied event and, ultimately, in the chordal odic sound of the finale.

IN " Spring fairy tale“two main, independent and complex conflicts, which then unite into a common conflict, reaching a fever pitch and ultimately discharging into a contradictory synthesis: tragedy and apotheosis. The first private conflict is the collision of personified natural phenomena - Cold and Heat. Here is the source of bad weather and disasters on earth. The second conflict is social. Its result is general disagreement in the lives of people themselves. Both conflicts combine into a stream of actions for well-being and happiness. The end is apotheosis - the conquest of warmth and light, prosperity and happiness through the loss of coldness and disconnection of human hearts.

Chapter I. The real basis of the fairy tale by A.N. Ostrovsky “The Snow Maiden” and its main sources

We have already encountered the name of Tsar Berendey in Russian literature from Zhukovsky (“The Tale of Tsar Berendey”). But in Ostrovsky’s fairy tale there is not only Tsar Berendey, but also the kingdom of the Berendeys. And the king is Berendey because he is the king of the Berendeys, therefore one should look for a justification for the name of the people of the fabulous land of the Berendeys, in which Berendey reigns.

It is hardly worth looking for the answer in historical concept this name, but we’ll give it anyway. The Berendeys are a tribe of Turkic origin, ethnographically close to the Pechenegs. Roamed beyond the eastern borders of Ancient Rus'. Pressed from the east by the Polovtsy, the Berendeys at the end of the 11th century sought protection from the Russians and entered into various alliance agreements with them. According to agreements with the Russian princes, they settled on the borders of Ancient Rus' and often served as guards in favor of the Russian state. But after the invasion of the Tatars they were scattered and partly mixed with the population of the Golden Horde, and partly with the Russians. They did not survive as an independent people. Obviously, these are not the same Berendeys. The answer can be found in the writer's biography.

The playwright's ancestors are the people of Northern Rus'. At twenty-five years old, Ostrovsky travels to the homeland of his ancestors for the first time. Already halfway from Moscow to Kostroma, he sees the special Russian people. Young Ostrovsky encounters “types of Russian beauty, respectable, which is measured by fathoms and a special kind of broad taste... beauties in Russian taste too, beauties without any reproach, that is, from the side of beauty... Russian courtesy, charming, with a smile; without foreign gloss, but it gets into your soul, and guess what... What types, what beautiful women and girls. That’s where I hit the ground and was torn in half.”

These notes are from impressions after Pereyaslavl. And then Ostrovsky comes to a conclusion in which he even defines the ethnographic border of Northern Rus'. And her distinctive features. “From Pereyaslavl begins Merya - a land abundant with mountains and waters, and a people that is tall, and beautiful, and intelligent, and frank, and obliging, and a free mind, and a wide-open soul.” Historically, Merya is a tribe that lived before the 9th,

10th centuries on the territory of present-day Yaroslavl and Kostroma region. According to its ethnographic origin, it belongs to the Finno-Ugric group. With the increase in the population of the Northern Slavs, with its settlement and increasing strengthening in Northern Rus', it dispersed among the Russians and merged with them. The historically natural process of ethnographic selection has taken place - the formation of a renewed northern group of Slavs. Merya Ostrovsky called the northern Russian people, to which Ostrovsky himself belonged by blood, and was the subject of his surprise and admiration. Later, on the way from Pereyaslavl to Kostroma, he meets Russian Berendeys from the village of Berendeevo. And all the people on this side were christened Ostrovsky Berendeys.

It is quite possible that Ostrovsky knew the poetic folk legend about the Berendey kingdom, which existed among the inhabitants of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. Not far from the town there was the famous Berendeevo swamp, which was once a lake. In the middle of the swamp on the island there were remains ancient settlement- fortifications. It was there, according to legend, that in ancient times there lived a happy tribe of Berendeys, ruled by a wise and kind king. The tale of the Berendeys embodied the centuries-old dream of the peasantry about life in peace, harmony and material prosperity.

The legend of ancient tribe Berendeev Ostrovsky could also learn from the works of A.N. Afanasyev, where not only folk legends were cited, but also chronicle references to him. Berendey, like many Slavic peoples lived in a community, headed by only the wisest and oldest member of the tribe.

"And who is this? Kaftan

Patterned, gold trim

And up to the waist gray beard»

This is the fabulous king, “the wise, great Berendey, the silver-haired ruler, the father of his land” - in terms of seniority and wisdom, the main Berendey of the “promised” country:

Vesely Grady in the land of the Berendeys

Joyful songs through the groves and valleys,

Berendya's power is red in the world...

The dream of peace, wealth, harmony, a kind and just king found its embodiment in the fairy-tale kingdom depicted by Ostrovsky.

One of the sources of writing can be considered the work of Afanasyev “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature”, which collected enormous material from ethnography, history, and mythology of dozens of peoples. Ostrovsky was familiar with this work of Afanasyev and was fond of reading his “Russian Folk Tales,” which undoubtedly enriched the playwright’s poetic imagination.

In Russians folk tales There are versions of the fairy tale about the Snow Maiden, who melts from the flame of a fire. But Ostrovsky created his own Snow Maiden, different from the heroines of the same name, sculpted from snow (Snezhevinochka, Snow Maiden).

The playwright interpreted the Snow Maiden’s fear of the Yarilo-Sun in his own way. “The idea is to make the Snow Maiden inaccessible to the feeling of love, to present in her image the personification of village chastity and innocence, to attribute such a feeling to the awakening of the feeling of love destructive force, this idea is Ostrovsky’s lyrical conjecture. Ostrovsky seemed to create new myth in a poetic form."

It was suggested that one of the sources of the tale was the novel by P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Woods”, where the Russian writer, a friend of Ostrovsky, gave one of the first artistic adaptations poetic myth about the ancient Slavic god Yaril.

Finally, the main source of the tale was the poetry of peasant holidays, the life and way of life of peasants in the vicinity of Shchelykov. Let us pay attention to the playwright's remarks, recreating the setting of the action of "The Snow Maiden". The places of all the "actions" of the fairy tale are the places of the playwright's own possessions, and the Berendey palace is the house of Ostrovsky himself. In the first "explanation" to the "Prologue" Ostrovsky paints a picture of the fairy tale beginning. And this is how it is presented: "The beginning of spring. Midnight. A red hill covered with snow. To the right are bushes and a rare leafless birch forest; to the left is a continuous dense forest of large pines and spruce trees with branches hanging from the weight of the snow; in the depths, under the mountain, a river... "Beyond the river Berendeyev Posad, the capital of Tsar Berendey... there are lights in the windows. " These lights at midnight early spring, when the forest is leafless, from Krasnaya Gorka, located in front of Ostrovsky’s estate on the other side of the river, you can still see it now, despite the overgrown forest on both banks of the river. Not far from Krasnaya Gorka and Yarilina Valley, where the last “action” of the fairy tale is shown.

Those Russian Berendeys whom Ostrovsky so admired and loved so much lived in the northern zone of Russia, where warm summer Briefly speaking cold winter. There are more good, kind years in this direction than bad, unkind ones. In such times, Russian Berendeys can have plenty of everything that their northern land can give. However, there are, and often are, “bad” summers, short, cold, rainy, without clear, warm sun. They “brought” with them dreary, hungry times. Ostrovsky himself experienced all this on the land of the Berendeys. “Due to bad weather, our summer was canceled today, there was no hay, the spring crops were not ripe and were already spoiled by frost, now it is raining continuously and making it difficult to even harvest the straw. Only rye, which is productive, was harvested well, although there was some soaking. Here, manage as best you can." One could imagine the situation in which the peasants found themselves in such years. Often the harvest, and hence the well-being of the farmer of Northern Rus', depended not so much on his labor as on the weather. Warm, long summer - good bread. Cold, rainy summer - no bread.

The main dream is warm sun and bountiful harvest. And two main deities are created: Yarilo - the god of heat and sun and Kostroma - the goddess of fertility. Thoughts and prayers are dedicated to them. They compose songs. For them there are sacrifices and national spring “actions”.

And yet the main deity of the two is Yarilo. Fertility also depends on it. Therefore, it is he who is the most great attention of people.

Celebrations in honor of Yarila existed in the Kostroma region during Ostrovsky’s time. Here, for example, is how one of the Kostroma local historians of that time writes about this in the “Gubernskie Vedomosti”: “The current Yarilov festivities, taking place in Kostroma, on the All Saints' Eve, are no longer accompanied by previously existing rituals, and songs of a mythical nature are no longer heard. However, some songs of recent origin are joined by the chorus: “Lelyu” - the deity of love. As far as one could observe, at present the festivities are limited only to young boys and girls forming circles, singing songs, either standing in one place, or walking around in pairs... Games, but again modern ones, remain the custom. Then the cheerful songs are accompanied by dancing... Love is the main motive of the songs that are sung by the people during Yarilov’s festivities.”

Chapter II. Folklore basis of the tale

“The Snow Maiden” is full of folklore that Ostrovsky could draw from his native Volga region. So, the songs and rituals of the Berendeys are based on Northern Russian folk songs and rituals. We will point out just a few of them.

“The Snow Maiden” is a song play, the material is ancient folk.

The entire song fund that the playwright uses in his plays is divided into the following genres: folk songs, romances and stylizations of both. The stylization of ancient songs includes amazing artistic skill songs of the guslars in "The Snow Maiden".

Already the first pages of the story greet us with a choir of birds, which the playwright borrowed from folk song:

The birds were gathering

Singers gathered

In herds, in herds.

The birds were landing

The singers sat down

Rows, rows...

Eagle Voivode,

Hill quail,

Up, up...

The repertoire of Lelya, a singer, includes songs that are, if not quotes, then paraphrases of original folklore. "Strawberry-berry." (Songbook 1780):

Strawberry-berry

Ripe without heat,

Orphan girl

I grew up without supervision,

My Lado, Lado!

“Like the sound of a forest.” (Avdeeva’s Songbook, 1848):

As the forest rustles through the forest,

Behind the forest the shepherd sings,

My expanse!

Elnik, my little fir-tree,

My frequent one, Berezniki,

My pleasure!

“Clouds and thunder conspired”:

In the grove the girlfriends scattered apart,

Some along the bushes, some along the spruce tree,

They took the berries and shouted

There is no such thing as a dear friend;

All the girls burst into tears:

Wasn't our friend eaten by a wolf?

Lel, my Lel! Leli-leli, Lel!

Ostrovsky had ample opportunities for a detailed study of rituals. In addition to book sources, he drew folklore directly from life. Ostrovsky's trips, especially to Shchelykovo, provided him with a lot of material. From huge amount rituals Ostrovsky chose very large and important rituals for depiction in his plays: calendar and wedding ones. The playwright did not set out to give a detailed description of them; his goals are not ethnographic, but artistic and literary. The playwright depicts in detail the winter-spring holiday - Maslenitsa. The ritual of seeing off Maslenitsa, inserted into the prologue of “The Snow Maiden”, with a mythological basis - the burning (death) of winter with the onset (birth) of spring - is one of the most ancient and extremely widespread. In Ostrovsky, the scarecrow is not destroyed: it personifies a certain time of the year, which, even if it passes (“dies”), will come again (“comes to life”). The scarecrow himself speaks about this in “The Snow Maiden,” listing the memorable dates of the mythological calendar: “The bathing lights will burn out,” “See Karachun off,” “The frosty time will come, frosty carols: Click the Oatmeal carol.” The scarecrow promises: “Then wait for me again.”

Each act of “The Snow Maiden” is inserted into a wreath of stylized or genuine folk poetry. The compositional frame of the third act is the rituals associated with the celebration of Semik (Thursday in the seventh week after Easter), one of the main summer holidays. On this day, they curled wreaths and floated them on the water with fortune telling about a possible marriage, dressed up a felled tree (usually a birch), danced in circles, and sang songs. Here is the song of the boys and girls in “The Snow Maiden”:

Hey, there's a liponka in the field.

There is a white tent under the linden tree.

There is a table in that tent.

There's a girl at that table.

I picked flowers from the grass.

I wove a wreath from a yacht.

Who should wear the wreath?

Wear a wreath for your sweetheart.

Ostrovsky gives this song as an illustration of the course of action: The Snow Maiden wove a wreath and gave it to Lelya.

To further enhance characteristics Semitic rite Ostrovsky included Brusila’s play song in it: “The beaver was swimming”

Let's play in front of the people

Your game that you taught for two years,

Quietly from everyone, buried in barns

The song is accompanied by the mimic play of the Smoking Room. Similar song-games, being, as it were,

the “grain” of a dramatic spectacle, accompanied by imitation of the movements of the beast.

Since ancient times, festivities have been held in honor of Yarila, accompanied by various dramatic events. The entire radiant spring tale ends with the image of the appearance of the sun, Yarila, to whom the Berendeys sing a hymn of praise.

Light and power

God Yarilo.

Our red sun!

There is no one more beautiful in the world than you.

Grant, god of light,

Warm summer.

Our red sun!

There is no more beautiful person in the world

Krasnopogodnoe,

Summer is grainy.

Our red sun!

There is no one more beautiful in the world than you.

Except calendar rituals, Ostrovsky used elements of wedding ceremony. There is an episode in the play in which there is an echo of the ancient form of the marriage process, like buying and selling. This is the ransom of Kupava by Mizgire:

Darling maidens,

The destroyer of maiden beauty has arrived.

With girlfriends, with relatives, a separator.

Don't give your girlfriend away, bury her!

But hand him over for a great ransom.

Chapter III. Fairy tale conflict

The conflict of the tale is based on the collision and poetic development of the opposing forces of heat and cold. The beginning of the conflict is in the world of elements, between Frost and Spring, the union of which is unnatural by its very nature. I would like to leave Frost to Spring, but the trouble is, “he and the old man have a daughter, Snegurochka.”

In Frost there is no love either for the world of living nature or for the world of people:

According to plagues, according to nomadic yurts,

According to the wintering grounds of fur hunters

I’ll come in, wander around, witchcraft,

They will bow to my waist.

The arrogance of the all-powerful tyrant, the cold, chilling power make Moroz evil, demonic in contrast to Yarila - the kind and warm deity of the Berendeys.

"Light and strength,

God Yarilo

Our red sun!

There is no more beautiful person in the world,”

The Berendei sing a welcoming song to Yarila.

In the artist’s thoughts, cold is personified and takes on a menacing guise. Unkind, evil is its essence. The colder Frost is, the more he “likes” it:

My life is not bad. Berendey

They won’t forget about this winter,

She was cheerful; the sun danced

From the cold to morning dawn,

And in the evening I woke up with ears full of ears.

I’ll think about going for a walk, I’ll take a club,

I’ll clarify, I’ll make the night silverier,

That's why I need freedom and space.

The omnipotent master of winter, Frost haunts the Land of the Berendeys even in summer. Going north, he wants to leave, and leaves here, a piece of himself. And from the north, from afar, he sends thick clouds to the land of the Berendeys to block the sun from the earth; he sows cold rains and fogs to close off any possibility of fruiting on the earth.

Summer is the time of Yarila. Yarilo drives Moroz out of the land of the Berendeys. But Frost doesn’t give up so easily. He retreats, but with a fight. And often snatches out a piece of victory. Yarilo is Frost's sworn enemy. Eternal enemy. And to him - all the indignation of Frost. Especially in those times when it comes, Yarila, the time of power here, on the land of the Bereyadeev.

Evil Yarilo,

The scorching god of the lazy Berendeys,

To please them, he swore a terrible oath

Destroy me wherever he meets me. Drowns, melts

My palaces, kiosks, galleries,

Fine work of jewelry,

Details of the smallest carving,

The fruits of labor and plans.

In the fight against Frost, Yarila has a cunning plan: to send Spring, with beauty and love. Conquer and relax Frost with charm and affection. The idea succeeds. But the commodity Frost and his love turned into evil for both Yarila and the Berendeys. He leaves his daughter from Spring, Snow Maiden, a beauty in Spring, cold in Frost, for the summer in the forests of the country of the Berendeys. And this makes this unfortunate earth colder. The Snow Maiden is fifteen years old. For fifteen years she has been living secretly in the forests of the Berendeys. For fifteen years in a row, the Berendeys have had misfortune. The Snow Maiden becomes the involuntary cause of “everywhere cold hearts,” disasters and cold for the Berendeys, for her birth violated the laws of nature and life.

For Moroz, Yarilo is “an evil, scorching god,” who is just waiting to plant the fire of love in the Snow Maiden’s heart with “his ray.” That is why Lel, whose songs the Snow Maiden listens to, is hated by Frost, since “he is penetrated through and through by the ardent sun.”

The sun was revered as a good, merciful deity, and his name became synonymous with happiness. This explains the mythological connection of the sun with fate, in whose hands human happiness is.

Yarilin's anger promises bad things:

Cold winds and dry winds,

Honey dews unprofitable spoilage,

Incomplete filling of grains,

Stormy harvesting – poor harvest,

And early autumn frosts

It’s a hard year and the granaries are scarce.

God is the fertilizer, the representative of the blessed spring was called Yarilo among the Slavs, he was recognized as the patron of love and marriages:

On Yarilin's day...

...the Berendeys will come together;

...And then let them merge

In a single cry, hello towards the sun

There is no sacrifice more pleasing to Yarila.

Rain and clear weather depended on it.

…our summer,

Short, shorter from year to year

It’s getting colder, and the spring is getting colder, -

Foggy, damp, juicy autumn,

Sad.

The meaning of Yarila is fully explained from his very name and the surviving legends about him. The root – yar combines the concepts of 1) spring light and warmth; 2) young, impetuous, wildly excited strength; 3) love passion and fertility.

Chapter IV. Kingdom of the Berendeys

The misfortune of the Berendeys is not so much from the “evils” of nature, but from themselves. Evil is in their deeds, in their relationships with each other, in the structure of their lives. People themselves cannot restore order on their land. They themselves divided the wealth unequally, and created both lordship and servitude for themselves. Here sympathy and participation are lost. Here, a person’s misfortune is someone else’s misfortune.

Ostrovsky hears a dialogue between the king of the Berendeys and one of his confidants, Bermyata. It contains a caustic, ironic assessment of the “well-being” within his country.

The great pair of happy Berendeys,

Live forever! From a joyful morning,

From your subjects and from me

Hello to you! In your vast kingdom

As long as everything is fine.

Is it true?

Truly.

I don’t believe it, Bermyata. \

There is a noticeable ease in your judgments. \

More than once to you both by word and decree.

It is ordered, and I repeat again,

So that you look deeper at things, into the essence

I tried to penetrate them into the depths.

You can’t easily, fluttering like a moth,

Touch only the surface of objects.

Superficiality is a vice in honorable persons,

Placed high above the people.

Don't think that everything is fine,

When people are not hungry, they do not wander

With knapsacks, he doesn’t rob on the roads.

Don't think that if there are no murders

And theft...

They steal a little.

And do you catch it?

Why catch them?

Lose your work? Let them steal for themselves.

Someday they will get caught; by virtue of

Popular proverbs: “How long does a thief

You can’t escape the whip if you steal.”

So, we move on to the first person in the land of the Berendeys; the king, Berendey, is “settled” in the play. He is fabulous and, like a king, unusual. The threads of all the vital principles of his country are concentrated in him. And what is completely unusual is that in his mind and heart there are “threads” from human thoughts and feelings: from the minds and hearts of the Berendeys.

Berendey is not just the focus of human moods; thought is active in him, controlling, ordering and directing these moods. Berendey combines wisdom and simplicity, justice and kindness, love for people and chastity, royal power and naive modesty. Berendey is a real fairy-tale king, this is how Ostrovsky wanted to see him.

Wise and good essence Tsar Berendey’s sense of the complex, conflict-ridden life of his people, in assessing the causes of people’s misfortune, in searching for ways to eradicate such causes to achieve general well-being.

Berendey is sensitive to the mood of life. He hears a human groan. He wants to enter the people's life, understand the people's troubles, the causes of these troubles. And help arrange a life without troubles and misfortunes.

Like all people of the “kingdom,” Bereyaday sees the first cause of misfortunes in bad weather, in the absence of summer warmth, and this is his first concern.

Well-being is a great word!

I haven’t seen him among the people for a long time,

I haven't seen you for fifteen years. Our summer,

Short, shorter from year to year

It's getting colder and the spring is getting colder, -

Foggy, damp, like autumn,

Sad. Until half summer

The snow lies in ravines and ice fields,

Fogs creep out of them in the morning,

And in the evening the evil sisters come out -

Shaking and pale kumokhs,

And wander around the villages, breaking

Chilling people...

In the basics of community life, in human selfishness and in relationships built on selfishness. In the loss of human kinship, in the loss of love between people, the loss of the sense of beauty.

In the hearts of people I noticed that I was cooling

Not small; fervor of love

I haven’t seen the Berendeys for a long time.

The service of beauty has disappeared in them...

In short, friend, cool your heart

Everywhere, - hearts have grown cold,

And here is the answer to our misfortunes

And the cold: for the cold of our feelings

And Yarilo-Sun is angry with us

And he takes revenge with the cold. It's clear?

And here that very “fantastic” idea of action is born. If the reasons for the people's misfortune are clear, why not destroy them? To unite separated people, to destroy hostility, to overcome human coldness, to decorate human life with love - this is the task. To accomplish this great deed means to achieve universal happiness in the land of the Berendeys.

Tormented by insomnia,

I thought about it all night, until the morning,

And that's where I stopped: tomorrow,

On Yarilin's day, in a reserved forest,

By dawn the Berendeys will gather;

We order you to gather what is in my people,

Girls-brides and boys-grooms

And all at once an indissoluble union

Let's connect as soon as the sun shines

Ruddy rays on green

Tree tops And then let them merge

In a single cry of greetings to meet the Sun

And the wedding solemn song.

There is no sacrifice more pleasing to Yarila!

Ostrovsky brings the struggle of the gods down to earth. Here on earth, their continuations are children: Snegurochka and Lel, the daughter of Frost and the son of Yarila - the Sun. And the essence of the conflict here on earth is earthly, everyday, human. Lel and Snegurochka are young, beautiful people, boy and girl. Fate brings them together for a reason. They must love each other. And if only it were so! Then the eternal struggle between heat and cold would end. The torment of the Berendeys would end. However, can such a connection take place? After all, it would mean the death of the Snow Maiden! She would have melted from the hot love of Yarila’s son!.. And so it should be. This is a good thing. This is the plan of the god Yarila.

Some Slavic peoples called spring Lyalya or Leleya, which coincided with the ancient Lada, the goddess of love and spring fertility. It is obvious that the name Lelya is related to the name of the Snow Maiden’s mother, Vesna, as well as the relationship of their “souls.”

Spring - Lel, Spring - Snow Maiden, Snow Maiden - Lel. The daughter of Spring, Snegurochka is attracted to the warm and vibrant elements of life. This is the key to the Snow Maiden’s childhood attachment to the shepherdess.

The Snow Maiden, without realizing it, acts childishly and selfishly towards Lel: “Get away from us, get away from us, Lel! / It’s not I who drive, need dictates.” The Snow Maiden is a child who may or may not play with her favorite toy (Lelem), but protects it from others with painful jealousy: “... stop hanging out with other girls, you caress them, but it hurts my heart, you kiss them, and I look and cry " But the “beloved son of the Sun” and the daughter of Frost will not be together, since they are different not only in nature, but also in relation to life. The Snow Maiden's icy heart is not only incapable of love, but also incapable of compassion and pity, which are characteristic of most Berendeys, including Lelya.

In the country of the Berendeys, unions without love are formed. It seems that Lel loves the Snow Maiden, but she is cold, she cannot love. It seems that Kupava and Mizgir fell in love with each other. But it only seems so, but there is no love! The impossibility of happy unions is revealed at their very inception. The destruction of the emerging alliances occurs before the onset of celebrations in honor of Yarila. But the whole point is not in destruction, but in connection! In connecting people on the basis of love. Exactly - on the basis of love. This is the miracle that is about to happen. Ostrovsky creates this miracle.

It can be assumed that the union of Lel and Kupava is even determined by their names. A long time ago, the festival of Yarila was called the Kupala holidays. The names Kup-alo (Kup-ava) denoted the same fruitful deity of summer. This means that “Kupava”, like “Yarilo”, can mean “light”, “warmth”, “sun”.

And Lel? “Its (the sun’s) warmth is in my speeches... in my blood and in my heart.” Kupava means “sunny”, and Lel means “beloved son of the Sun”. Their union seems to be sanctified by the most pagan deity, and they are of the same breed - Berendey.

Through the pagan flavor of the people's unrestrained life in the “spring fairy tale” there passes the thought of Christian love - spiritualized love, which is based not on passion, but on compassion and pity. In the old days in Rus' they said: “If you feel sorry, it means you love”

The Snow Maiden, whose heart has not yet thawed, cannot understand Lelya’s act - a popular kiss with Kupava, which is based on compassion and understanding of someone else’s grief.

It is no coincidence that Moroz chose the Bobyls, for whom happiness lies only in “having wealth in their hands.” Frost prefers the worst to the best, cold hearts to hot ones. After all, to Bobyl, “that day is a feast, that morning is a hangover - this is the most legitimate life!” In the cold of the Bobyls, Frost thinks, the cold naivety of the Snow Maiden will also remain.

Is it possible to find similarities between the Snow Maiden and Mizgir, who is accustomed not to give, but to buy love. He, like the Snow Maiden, who is just going to take from her mother “a little warmth of the heart, so that her heart will just warm up a little,” does not know true love, although I saw a lot of beauties. What he called love is not a passionate feeling, but only infatuation. Therefore, having met " the best beauty“, he, without hesitation, leaves the old one - Kupava: “I loved you, now I love another - Snegurochka.”

Mizgir is the same breed as Moroz: domineering, cold, selfish. He is one of those who does not stop before fulfilling his desires and whims and does not think about his actions: “The heart is used to ordering... He is free to love and stop loving.” Mizgir is ready to pay for love: “Love me... I will shower your priceless beauty with priceless gifts,” “take priceless pearls and give me love.”

For Mizgir, the Snow Maiden is not like all the Berendey girls who “love without looking back,” and “embrace with both hands,” and “look cheerfully.” Mizgir likes the unusualness of the Snow Maiden:

Bashful eyes are lowered,

Covered with eyelashes; only furtively

A tenderly pleading gaze will flash through them...

He holds his friend jealously with one hand,

The other one pushes him away.

Deprived of warmth, and therefore strangers to the Berendeys, Snegurochka and Mizgir were rejected by the Slobozhans.

But for the first time, a real, true feeling of love awakens in Mizgir’s soul. And although there is no answer to this feeling yet, since the Snow Maiden has not yet been given the gift of love, sincere feeling in itself for Mizgir is the highest reward. Because it is precisely this that awakens the human in a person.

The final scenes of “A Spring Tale” are shown in the forest “Yarilina Glade” at night. All the Berendeys gathered here. And before sunrise, amazing transformations occur. People unite and connect in common fun. Connected by souls and hearts.

However, these connections are not accomplished without obstacles and without drama. There is a particularly passionate, great struggle for love. Lel becomes the fire that ignites this passion of love and struggle; he finds his love. Love is reciprocated, ardent. Shepherd Lel, whom Murash did not allow to his doorstep, found the sincere love of his daughter, Kupava. Kupava’s father, Murash, is sincerely happy for his daughter’s love. What previously seemed impossible has happened.

“Betrayal” Lelya insults Snegurochka. A feeling of anxious envy of someone else's love is born in her. She wants to bring Lelya back to her, to bring him back at any cost; She pursues Lel everywhere, begging him to return to her.

However, the Snow Maiden’s torment is not from lost love. She, love, did not exist and does not exist. She is incapable of love. And therefore her passion is not love. And passion, and torment, and her actions - from the mind, and not from the heart, from insult, from the infringement of her pride.

Despair, which flared up along with insight, drives the Snow Maiden to Mother Vesna. To cry out grief, to beg for a loving heart.

Darling, in tears of melancholy and grief

The abandoned daughter is calling you.

Come from the still waters to hear the groans

And your Snow Maiden’s complaints.

I want to love, but I don’t know the words of love,

And there is no feeling in my chest...

Tormenting jealousy

I found out without knowing love yet.

Father Frost and you, Spring-Red,

It's bad for me envious feeling ""

In return for love, they gave an inheritance...

Oh mom, give me love!

I ask for love, girlish love.

When the Snow Maiden's heart is filled with love, the miracle that happens in the Snow Maiden turns out to be a miracle in the hearts of the Berendeys.

The apotheosis of the picture that completes the fairy tale lies in the cleansing of human destinies from vicious morals, in the enrichment of the people themselves with high humanity.

The Snow Maiden's love spreads like life-giving moisture into the souls of the Berendeys. And warms them up. And unites them.

“The Spring Tale” ends with the word of Tsar Berendey and the chorus of all the Berendeys to the song of Yarila’s son.

Snow Maiden's sad death

And the terrible death of Mizgir

They cannot disturb us; The sun knows

Whom to punish and have mercy on? Finished

Truthful trial!..

Let's drive away the last trace of cold

From our souls we turn to the Sun.

Conclusion

So, we examined the kingdom of the Berendeys, its realistic and folklore foundations, we examined the Berendeys themselves and their king, and we also examined the forces of nature ruling over them.

The fairytale kingdom of the Berendeys was created by Ostrovsky within the genre of fairy tale-drama, which has an original plot. We can name several sources that served as the basis for the fairy tale and the fairy-tale kingdom itself: this is the life of the northern Russian people, their songs and rituals, these are Russian folk tales, myths, legends, these are the works of the folklorist Afanasyev, with whom Ostrovsky was familiar, these are the northern Russian nature.

The Berendey kingdom is under the rule of two forces of nature: Frost and the Sun, Yarila. The struggle of these two forces determines the life of the Berendeys. The war between heat and cold is transferred to the earth itself, into the hearts of people, among them live living incarnations, extreme expressions of these forces - Snegurochka and Lel. In this work, we tried to consider the path of the Berendeys from cold alienation to their unification in the face of Yarila the sun.

List of used literature.

1) Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P., Russian Folklore: a textbook for higher educational institutions. – 5th ed. – M,: Flint: Science, 2003

2) Malozemova L. Yu., “Snow Maiden”, “spring fairy tale” by A. N. Ostrovsky // Literature at school, 1994 No. 5

3) Mironov A.V., The Great Sorcerer in the Land of the Berendeys. – Yaroslavl, Verkh.-Volzh. book ed., 1973

4) Orlov A.I., A.N. Ostrovsky and folklore of the Ivanovo region. – OGIZ, Ivanovo regional publishing house, 1948

5) Ostrovsky A.N., The Snow Maiden: Play / Intro. article, text preparation and notes by L.M. Lotman. – L.: Sov. writer, 1989

6) Revyakin A.I., The art of dramaturgy A.N. Ostrovsky. – M., Education, 1974

“The Snow Maiden” is perhaps the least typical of all Alexander Ostrovsky’s plays, which stands out sharply among his other works for its lyricism and unusual themes (instead of social drama, the author paid attention to personal drama, identifying it as central theme theme of love) and absolutely fantastic surroundings. The play tells the story of the Snow Maiden, who appears before us as a young girl desperately yearning for the only thing she never had - love. Remaining faithful to the main line, Ostrovsky simultaneously reveals several more: the structure of his half-epic-half fairy world, the morals and customs of the Berendeys, the theme of continuity and retribution, and the cyclical nature of life, noting, albeit in an allegorical form, that life and death always go hand in hand.

History of creation

The appearance of the play in Russian literary world owes it to a happy accident: at the very beginning of 1873, the Maly Theater building was closed for major repairs, and a group of actors temporarily moved to the Bolshoi. Having decided to take advantage of the opportunities of the new stage and attract spectators, it was decided to organize an extravaganza performance, unusual for those times, using the ballet, drama and opera components of the theater team at once.

It was with the proposal to write a play for this extravaganza that they turned to Ostrovsky, who, taking the opportunity to implement a literary experiment, agreed. The author changed his habit of looking for inspiration in unsightly sides real life, and in search of material for the play turned to the creativity of the people. There he found a legend about the Snow Maiden girl, which became the basis for his magnificent work.

In the early spring of 1873, Ostrovsky worked hard to create the play. And not alone - since stage production is impossible without music, the playwright worked together with the then very young Pyotr Tchaikovsky. According to critics and writers, this is precisely one of the reasons for the amazing rhythm of “The Snow Maiden” - words and music were composed in a single impulse, in close interaction, and were imbued with each other’s rhythm, initially forming one whole.

It is symbolic that last point Ostrovsky staged The Snow Maiden on his fiftieth birthday, March 31. And a little more than a month later, on May 11, the premiere performance took place. It received quite different reviews among critics, both positive and sharply negative, but already in the 20th century literary scholars firmly agreed that “The Snow Maiden” is the brightest milestone in the playwright’s work.

Analysis of the work

Description of the work

The plot is based on the life path of the Snow Maiden girl, born from the union of Frost and Spring-Red, her father and mother. The Snow Maiden lives in Berendey's kingdom, invented by Ostrovsky, but not with her relatives - she left her father Frost, who protected her from all possible troubles, - but in the family of Bobyl and Bobylikha. The Snow Maiden longs for love, but cannot fall in love - even her interest in Lelya is dictated by the desire to be one and only, the desire for the shepherd boy, who equally gives warmth and joy to all the girls, to be affectionate with her alone. But Bobyl and Bobylikha are not going to shower her with their love; they have a more important task: to cash in on the girl’s beauty by marrying her off. The Snow Maiden indifferently looks at the Berendey men who change their lives for her, reject brides and violate social norms; she is internally cold, she is alien full of life Berendeys - and therefore attracts them. However, misfortune also befalls the Snow Maiden - when she sees Lel, who is favorable to another and rejects her, the girl rushes to her mother with a request to let her fall in love - or die.

It is at this moment that Ostrovsky clearly expresses the central idea of his work: life without love is meaningless. The Snow Maiden cannot and does not want to put up with the emptiness and coldness that exists in her heart, and Spring, which is the personification of love, allows her daughter to experience this feeling, despite the fact that she herself thinks it’s bad.

The mother turns out to be right: the beloved Snow Maiden melts under the first rays of the hot and clear sun, having, however, managed to discover a new world filled with meaning. And her lover, who had previously abandoned his bride and was expelled by Tsar Mizgir, gives up his life in the pond, striving to reunite with the water, which the Snow Maiden has become.

Main characters

(Scene from the ballet performance "The Snow Maiden")

Snow Maiden - central figure works. Young woman extraordinary beauty, desperately wanting to know love, but at the same time cold at heart. Pure, partly naive and completely alien to the Berendey people, she turns out to be ready to give everything, even her life, in exchange for knowledge of what love is and why everyone craves it so much.
Frost is the father of the Snow Maiden, formidable and strict, trying to protect his daughter from all kinds of troubles.

Vesna-Krasna is the mother of a girl who, despite a premonition of trouble, could not go against her nature and her daughter’s pleas and endowed her with the ability to love.

Lel is a windy and cheerful shepherd who was the first to awaken some feelings and emotions in the Snow Maiden. It was precisely because she was rejected by him that the girl rushed to Vesna.

Mizgir is a trade guest, or, in other words, a merchant who fell in love with the girl so much that he not only offered all his wealth for her, but also left Kupava, his failed bride, thereby violating the traditionally observed customs of the Berendey kingdom. In the end, he found reciprocity with the one he loved, but not for long - and after her death he himself lost his life.

It is worth noting that despite a large number of characters in the play, even minor characters turned out to be bright and characteristic: that Tsar Berendey, that Bobyl and Bobylikha, that the former bride of Mizgir Kupava - all of them are remembered by the reader, have their own distinctive features and features.

“The Snow Maiden” is a complex and multifaceted work, including both compositionally and rhythmically. The play is written without rhyme, but thanks to the unique rhythm and melodiousness present in literally every line, it sounds smoothly, like any rhymed verse. “The Snow Maiden” is also decorated with the rich use of colloquial expressions - this is a completely logical and justified step by the playwright, who, when creating the work, relied on folk tales telling about a girl made of snow.

The same statement about versatility is also true in relation to the content: behind the seemingly simple story of the Snow Maiden (she went out into the real world - she rejected people - she received love - she was imbued with human world- died) hides not only the statement that life without love is meaningless, but also many other, no less important aspects.

Thus, one of the central themes is the interrelation of opposites, without which the natural course of things is impossible. Frost and Yarilo, cold and light, winter and the warm season outwardly oppose each other, enter into irreconcilable contradiction, but at the same time, a red line through the text runs the idea that one does not exist without the other.

In addition to the lyricism and sacrifice of love, the social aspect of the play, displayed against the backdrop of fairy-tale foundations, is also of interest. The norms and customs of the Berendey kingdom are strictly observed; violation is punishable by expulsion, as happened with Mizgir. These norms are fair and to some extent reflect Ostrovsky’s idea of an ideal old Russian community, where loyalty and love for one’s neighbor, life in unity with nature are valued. The figure of Tsar Berendey, the “good” Tsar, who, although forced to make harsh decisions, regards the fate of the Snow Maiden as tragic, sad, definitely evokes positive emotions; It is easy to sympathize with such a king.

At the same time, in Berendey’s kingdom, justice is observed in everything: even after the death of the Snow Maiden as a result of her acceptance of love, Yarila’s anger and dispute disappears, and the Berendeyites can again enjoy the sun and warmth. Harmony triumphs.

Essay

On the topic of:

The kingdom of the Berendeys in the folklore and mythological drama of A.N. Ostrovsky "Snow Maiden"

Introduction.

Chapter I. The real basis of the fairy tale by A.N. Ostrovsky “The Snow Maiden” and its main sources

Chapter II. Folklore basis of the tale

Chapter III. Fairy tale conflict

Chapter IV. Kingdom of the Berendeys

Conclusion.

List of used literature.

Introduction

There was no better kingdom for me,

like the kingdom of the Berendeys, there was no better

worldview and religion as worship

Yaril-Sun.

Rimsky-Korsakov

Ostrovsky created not a fairy tale-poem, but a fairy tale-drama, and in this regard he was an innovator. He did not use any fairy-tale plot that had existed before him. From separate, different ancient legends, he created an original work of poetic art. His fairy tale-drama acquires a completely new poetic and genre quality. This is nothing more than a dramatic tale-epic with the participation not of single heroes, but of an entire organized tribe. And “action” not in the name of achieving selfish goals for single heroes, but in the name of the life of an entire tribe, an entire people.

If we schematize the composition of “The Snow Maiden”, then it will appear as a whole series of independent choirs-“actions”, which are then united in a general discordant and varied event and, ultimately, in the chordal odic sound of the finale.

In “The Spring Tale” there are two main, independent and complex conflicts, which then combine into a common conflict, reaching a heated intensity and ultimately discharging into a contradictory synthesis: tragedy and apotheosis. The first private conflict is the collision of personified natural phenomena - Cold and Heat. Here is the source of bad weather and disasters on earth. The second conflict is social. Its result is general disagreement in the lives of people themselves. Both conflicts combine into a stream of actions for well-being and happiness. The end is apotheosis - the conquest of warmth and light, prosperity and happiness through the loss of coldness and disconnection of human hearts.

Chapter I. The real basis of the fairy tale by A.N. Ostrovsky “The Snow Maiden” and its main sources

It’s hardly worth looking for the answer in the historical concept of this name, but we’ll give it anyway. The Berendeys are a tribe of Turkic origin, ethnographically close to the Pechenegs. Roamed beyond the eastern borders of Ancient Rus'. Pressed from the east by the Polovtsy, the Berendeys at the end of the 11th century sought protection from the Russians and entered into various alliance agreements with them. According to agreements with the Russian princes, they settled on the borders of Ancient Rus' and often served as guards in favor of the Russian state. But after the invasion of the Tatars they were scattered and partly mixed with the population of the Golden Horde, and partly with the Russians. They did not survive as an independent people. Obviously, these are not the same Berendeys. The answer can be found in the writer's biography.

These notes are from impressions after Pereyaslavl. And then Ostrovsky comes to a conclusion in which he even defines the ethnographic border of Northern Rus'. And its distinctive features. “From Pereyaslavl begins Merya - a land abundant with mountains and waters, and a people that is tall, and beautiful, and intelligent, and frank, and obliging, and a free mind, and a wide-open soul.” Historically, Merya is a tribe that lived before the 9th,

10th centuries on the territory of the current Yaroslavl and Kostroma regions. According to its ethnographic origin, it belongs to the Finno-Ugric group. With the increase in the population of the Northern Slavs, with its settlement and increasing strengthening in Northern Rus', it dispersed among the Russians and merged with them. The historically natural process of ethnographic selection has taken place - the formation of a renewed northern group of Slavs. Merya Ostrovsky called the northern Russian people, to which Ostrovsky himself belonged by blood, and was the subject of his surprise and admiration. Later, on the way from Pereyaslavl to Kostroma, he meets Russian Berendeys from the village of Berendeevo. And all the people on this side were christened Ostrovsky Berendeys.

It is quite possible that Ostrovsky knew the poetic folk legend about the Berendey kingdom, which existed among the inhabitants of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. Not far from the town there was the famous Berendeevo swamp, which was once a lake. In the middle of the swamp on the island there were the remains of an ancient settlement - a settlement. It was there, according to legend, that in ancient times there lived a happy tribe of Berendeys, ruled by a wise and kind king. The tale of the Berendeys embodied the centuries-old dream of the peasantry about life in peace, harmony and material prosperity.

Ostrovsky could have gleaned the legend about the ancient Berendey tribe from the works of A.N. Afanasyev, where not only folk legends were cited, but also chronicle references to him. The Berendeys, like many Slavic peoples, lived in a community, headed by only the wisest and oldest member of the tribe.

"And who is this? Kaftan

Patterned, gold trim

And a waist-deep gray beard"

This is the fabulous king, “the wise, great Berendey, the silver-haired ruler, the father of his land” - in terms of seniority and wisdom, the main Berendey of the “promised” country:

Vesely Grady in the land of the Berendeys

Joyful songs through the groves and valleys,

Berendya's power is red in the world...

The dream of peace, wealth, harmony, a kind and just king found its embodiment in the fairy-tale kingdom depicted by Ostrovsky.

In Russian folk tales there are versions of the fairy tale about the Snow Maiden, who melts from the flame of a fire. But Ostrovsky created his own Snow Maiden, different from the heroines of the same name, sculpted from snow (Snezhevinochka, Snow Maiden).

The playwright interpreted the Snow Maiden’s fear of the Yarilo-Sun in his own way. “The idea of making the Snow Maiden inaccessible to the feeling of love, of presenting in her image the personification of rural chastity and innocence, of attributing such a destructive force to the awakening of the feeling of love, this idea is Ostrovsky’s lyrical speculation. Ostrovsky, as it were, created a new myth in a poetic image.”

It was suggested that one of the sources of the tale was the novel by P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Forests”, where the Russian writer, a friend of Ostrovsky, gave one of the first artistic adaptations of the poetic myth about the ancient Slavic god Yaril.

Finally, the main source of the tale was the poetry of peasant holidays, the life and way of life of peasants in the vicinity of Shchelykov. Let's pay attention to the playwright's stage directions, recreating the setting of the action of "The Snow Maiden". The places of all the "actions" of the fairy tale are the places of the playwright's own possessions, and the Berendey palace is the house of Ostrovsky himself. In the first "explanation" to the "Prologue" Ostrovsky paints a picture of the fairy tale beginning. And this is how it is presented: "The beginning of spring. Midnight. A red hill covered with snow. To the right are bushes and a rare leafless birch forest; to the left is a continuous dense forest of large pines and spruce trees with branches hanging from the weight of the snow; in the depths, under the mountain, a river... "Beyond the river Berendeyev Posad, the capital of Tsar Berendey... there are lights in the windows. " These lights at midnight in early spring, when the forest is leafless, from Krasnaya Gorka, located in front of the Ostrovsky estate on the other side of the river, can be seen even now, despite the overgrown forest on both banks of the river. Not far from Krasnaya Gorka and Yarilina Valley, where the last “action” of the fairy tale is shown.

At the end of 1881, at one of the evenings, members of the Mamontov circle read by roles spring fairy tale play“The Snow Maiden” by A.N. Ostrovsky. Vasnetsov had the job of reading “Father Frost”, and then, when it was decided to stage “The Snow Maiden” on stage, this role also remained with him. But what was most important was that Mamontov commissioned Vasnetsov to create the scenery and costume designs for the production. There was no point in making excuses, and Viktor Mikhailovich, although he had never painted theatrical scenery, set to work.

“Since it was just before Christmas,” he said in his memoirs, “we had to rush and quickly make drawings of the scenery, costumes, and learn the role, which was a little difficult when we weren’t used to it. The drawings are approved, Savva Ivanovich cheerfully encourages, the energy grows. I wrote four sets with my own hands - the Prologue, Berendeyev Posad, Berendeyev Palace and Yarilin Valley. I wrote them again and had no idea how scenery is written. Until one or two in the morning, it used to be that you were painting with a wide paint brush on a canvas spread on the floor, and you didn’t know what would come out. You lift the canvas, and Savva Ivanovich is already here, looking with the clear eye of a falcon, saying cheerfully, animatedly: “That’s good!” If you look, it really does look good. And you won’t understand how it was possible.”

But not only the scenery was good, but Vasnetsov himself was good in the role of the master of the Russian winter. He walked around the stage in a long, spacious canvas shirt, stitched here and there with silver, wearing mittens, with a lush head of white hair standing on end, with a large white shaggy beard and chanted in his Russian accent with the “o”:

“...I will reach out to the dwellings from the ravines into clearings,
I'll creep up, I'll creep up in the fogs,
Smoke curls over the village,
One way dies;
I am a gray fog
I'll freeze the smoke
How he stretches
It will stay that way.
Over the field, over the forest
advantage.
I love it
Love, love, love.”

Ostrovsky’s wonderful images were especially close to Vasnetsov, and the theme of “The Snow Maiden” was also close to him - a story about a peaceful happy country Berendeev, where he lives “honest and good people“, where they work having fun, worship light and warmth, and where there is no place for people with a cold and evil heart.

“Let us banish the trace of the last cold
From our souls and turn to the sun...” -

says in the final lines of the play. In “The Snow Maiden,” as in Vasnetsov’s favorite fairy tales, there was a dream of national happiness that always worried the artist. Vasnetsov and Ostrovsky were especially related by the fact that both of them drew their ideas from one inexhaustible source - folk art. The artist’s paintings were born from songs and epics, short story turned into a play by the writer - folk drama. Both the artist and the playwright created the most fabulous images based on reality.

Ostrovsky gave the inhabitants of the kingdom of Berendey the features of the ancient pagan Slavs who worshiped the sun god Yarila. Vasnetsov, in carrying out his sketches of costumes and scenery, followed Ostrovsky’s instructions, but brought in a lot of new and original things. These completely finished watercolor drawings cannot even be called sketches; they can serve as independent illustrations for a fairy tale. Vasnetsov amazingly captured the feeling of festivity, the joy of life, the cheerful spirit that reigns in the Berendeyev settlement, throughout the entire country of the Berendeyevs. It seems as if the spring wind has blown in the air and now a choir of young voices will be heard praising nature. And at the same time, the sketches are full of fabulous poetic charm.

Here Zarechnaya settlement Berendeyevka. End village street with a starling on a high pole. In the distance are patches of fields, and on both sides - like toy houses - friendly towers with chiseled painted frames. In the foreground is a carved bench and a bright yellow sunflower. Everything breathes calmness and contentment. And even the house of the hapless reveler Bakula looks cozy under a thatched roof.

“Merry towns in the land of the Berendeys,
The world is the glory of Berendey’s state!”

Almost best sketch- "Berendeev's Chamber". This is a canopy open to the garden royal palace, through the arches of which one can see the tops of the trees and the wooden carved towers of other buildings rising above them. The architecture of the chamber is also wooden, ancient Russian. Spindle-like pillars support the hipped ceilings; pours from the upper semicircular windows above the gallery bright light, under which shimmers of gold and bright colors the ceilings and beams, walls and pillars of the chamber, decorated with flowers, shine, human figures, images of luminaries and animals. Their meaning is explained to the two “fools” buffoons by Tsar Berendey himself, who painted the mansions with his own hands:

“The chamber letter makes sense.
Decorated with heavenly circles
Subscribers in the wards ceilings
Tall; they write in narrow walls
Joy for the eyes - azure flowers
Between the green grasses; and turii
Powerful and sinewy legs -
On door lintels, footstools
Straight pillars on which
A heavy mother's load rests.
On the eve, so that the guests have more fun
They entered the house, the scribes painted
People like you, jesters and fools..."

The patterns of the Berendeyev Chamber are varied and bizarre, which are never repeated twice. In the center of the ceiling, on a black background, the sun with a human face, surrounded by a month and stars, illuminates mysterious city. The pillars are all different: there is a pink one, painted with giant cornflowers, sunflowers and strawberries, there are also red ones, with the image of the Sirin bird or a warrior slaughtering a deer, there are also simple, log ones, against which forget-me-nots are blue. And above the pillars, on the blue slopes of the tents, a sterlet curled up in a ring, magic cat with huge glowing eyes, crayfish, roosters, gingerbread antlered deer and much, much more. “Never before has anyone’s imagination,” Stasov wrote about “Berendey’s Chamber,” “gone so far and so deeply in recreating architectural forms and ornaments ancient Rus', fabulous, legendary, epic. Everything that remains with us in fragments of everyday life from ancient Russian life, in embroidery, popular prints, gingerbread cookies, ancient wooden carvings - all this is combined here into a wonderful, incomparable picture.”

“Yarilina Valley” - scenery-landscape. Summer is coming into its own and hot Sun rays pierce the dense thicket, illuminating ancient trees, a forest lake overgrown with sedge and the top of a mountain on the shore. Rich, ringing colors convey the joyful mood of the Berendeys and Berendeys who gathered in the valley to glorify the “red-weather, grain-bearing summer.” But there is also a brooding, fairy-tale mystique in the landscape. And, looking at the bizarre silhouette of a driftwood sticking out of a creek or the white cups of water lilies, we remember the short youth of the fragile Snow Maiden, who melted in the brilliance of a summer morning.

When the composer Rimsky-Korsakov wrote music for the fairy tale play and “The Snow Maiden” was decided to be transferred to the stage organized by Mamontov in 1885 opera house, Vasnetsov supplemented and revised his sketches. Throughout the summer preceding the production, materials for costumes were studied in Abramtsevo - Ryazan and Tula clothes, hats, ancient embroideries and drawings. The costumes turned out well, but the discerning artist did not limit himself to a purely mechanical transfer of examples of folk decorative art to the stage.

He populated fairyland Berendeyev alive real people with varied personalities and appearances. Tender, modest Snow Maiden in an old sundress and little shoes; the amorous and ardent trading guest Mizgir in an embroidered shirt, a rich caftan and elegant morocco boots with heels; young shepherd Lel with a wreath of spring flowers on his head, with a birch bark pipe under his arm and a staff; proud beauty Kupava, dressed in a patterned elegant dress, with monists and beads. Here are buffoons and guslars, the tsar and boyars, biryuchi, berendei and poor peasants - a whole gallery of everyday images of ancient Rus', endowed with typical national features.

The impression from the performance was grandiose. Participant in Mammoth productions, N.V. Polenova recalls how the artist Surikov, who was present at the first performance, was beside himself with delight. When Bobyl and Bobylikha came out and with them a crowd of Berendeys with a wide carnival, with a wooden goat, when the old man in a white peasant's armyak danced, his broad Russian nature could not stand it and he burst into frantic applause, taken up by the entire theater.

Despite the serious success of the production and rave reviews, Vasnetsov no longer painted scenery. He was fascinated by other - monumental - works, but the heroes of Berendey's kingdom still occupied a place in his imagination. And much time later, in 1899, he created two paintings on the theme of Ostrovsky’s fairy tale: “The Snow Maiden” and “The Blind Guslars.”

The Snow Maiden - the child of Frost and Spring - is depicted in the forest, at the moment when she said goodbye to her parents and goes to the people, to the country of the Berendeys. The landscape resembles a sketch made by Vasnetsov for the “Prologue” of the play: the paws of spruce trees, heavy with snow, and thick white snowdrifts everywhere, illuminated with a greenish moonlight. And the girl herself, like Ostrovsky:

“Hawthorn! Is she alive? Alive.
In a sheepskin coat, in boots, in mittens.”

Leaving behind her traces in the snow, the Snow Maiden moves towards Berendeyev Posad, and her serious, wary face, her whole sweet appearance are full of anxiety and anticipation of an unknown, but desired new life among people.

"Guslars" repeat watercolor drawing 1885-1886. On a wooden bench, against the backdrop of the arch of the Berendey Chamber overlooking the garden, sit, “casting their darkened eyes down,” an old man and two young guslars. Picking the strings, the button accordions sing that in the surrounding kingdoms there is war and ruin, “the cities groan, the fields are trampled,” and only in Berendey’s country is peace and quiet.

"Prophetic sonorous strings rumble
Loud glory to Tsar Berendey."

Notes

Matitsa (an obsolete word) is the main beam that supports the ceiling deck of wooden buildings.