Read the complicated matter of Saltykov Shchedrin. Shchedrin: from stories in the spirit of the “natural school” (“Contradiction”, “Entangled Affair”) to a satirical epic

Date of publication or update 12/15/2017

The beginning of life is a wise element.

An ancient Greek saying says: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” But why only in the river? Into the lake too. After all, it is also constantly changing in its endless movement and carries its waters, filled with life, through time.

Rostov residents cannot imagine either themselves or their city without a lake. And even though several of its names have changed over the last thousand years, for the residents of Rostov and coastal villages it was and is the Lake, the beginning of beginnings, the source of everything that exists around.

The shores of the Lake, whose age is about 500 thousand years, were formed by a glacier that melted here, according to some sources, 60, according to others, 20 thousand years ago. Oh, how huge and deep it was in those days! The lake filled the entire present-day lake basin and occupied 750 square meters. km. Its modern dimensions and outlines took shape about 5 thousand years ago. And today it's the same big lake Yaroslavl region. Its length coastline- about 48 km, greatest width - 8 km, greatest length- 12 km, area - 54 sq. km. But the greatest depth is only 4 m, with an average of slightly more than 1 m. The bottom of the Lake is multi-meter (up to 20 m) silty deposits.

The lake shores are marshy and low, abundantly overgrown with cattail, susak, telores, reeds, reeds, and willows.

Despite the fact that the lake is flowing, in summer most of it is overgrown with algae, which is called “tarnava” here. This may be why the water from the Lake is tasteless and not suitable for drinking. Although before late XIX V. most residents of Rostov were forced to use it. There is an extremely expressive statement about the properties of the Rostov area: “The land is damp, the water is rotten. The people are like an oak.”

The lake is fed by 17 rivers and rivulets, the names of which are reminiscent of the Meri people who once lived here: Ishnya, Kuchibosh, Varus, Mazikha, Chucherka, Unita, Suda... The largest of the rivers flowing into it is the Sara, in its lower reaches the name Gda . Its powerful stream (local name is “sastruga”) passes through the entire Lake and flows out of it by the Veksa River, which, connecting with the Ustye River, forms the Kotorosl River (formerly Kotorost). In Yaroslavl it flows into the Volga.

In its southwestern part, the Lake forms several bays - Varus, Klyuchi, Makarikha, Bateevo. Levski Island is located near Varus. The second island is located opposite Rostov and is called Gorodskaya. They are both low, swampy, and flooded during the spring flood. At the base of City Island lies a huge stone monolith brought here by glacier, its height is 20 m.

The first people appeared in the Lake Basin 6 thousand years ago. Numerous people talk about this archaeological finds- Neolithic stone and bone tools labor, ceramic fragments.

The first local inhabitants whose name was conveyed to our time Old Russian chronicles, there was a Finno-Ugric tribe called Meri (VII-XI centuries). Obviously, it was they who gave him the first two names of the Lake - Kaovo and Nero. Modern linguistics gives the following interpretations to these names: Kaovo - “the place where seagulls live” (and indeed, they still live here), Nero - “a muddy, swampy place,” which is also true.

In the future (and very for a long time!) The lake was officially called simply “Rostov” - after the name of the ancient Russian city of Rostov, which arose on its northern shore and was first mentioned in the chronicle in 862. And from that time on, the City and the Lake are united and inseparable.

Paradoxically, until 1917 the Lake did not belong to Rostov. IN different times it was owned by: the State Treasury, landowners, and later - peasants of the lakeside villages of Ugodichi and Poreche-Rybnoye.

The lake abounded in fish. An old song says this:

“Oh, you goy, muddy sea,

The sea is muddy, you are alien,

Why are you called lake?

That's why they call me lake

That there is no sand at the bottom of me,

And that there are no foreign fish in me,

Only the ruff and pike live in me,

Small raft with crucian carp,

Redfin perch with burbot,

Another catfish when it complains,

From the fast Volga River,

With ide fish and bream.”

Note that fishing on the Lake was clearly distributed and regulated by decrees.

Until the end of the 17th century. in Rostov there was a Fishing Settlement, the inhabitants of which were obliged to supply fish: pike, tench, carp, perch to the royal table. The rest of the residents had the right to fish only with a fishing rod.

Peasants of the village had the exclusive right to transport goods and people. Please. For a fee, they delivered passengers from one shore to another on large rowing and sailing boats - “catfish”.

Steamship traffic on the Lake opened on April 23, 1883. The owner of the first steamship was the Rybinsk merchant Emelyanov, who paid peasants from the village for the right to transport. Give a certain amount.

But Rostov residents were never forbidden to ride around the Lake in their boats; boat trips were their favorite pastime. From the Lake, Rostov is amazingly beautiful.

Its numerous domes float above the water, forming a fabulous necklace: in the east one can see the oldest Epiphany Abraham Monastery in Russia (XVI - XIX centuries), in the center - the Nativity Maiden Monastery (XVII - XIX centuries), and the majestic ensemble of the Kremlin (XVI- XVIII centuries), in the west - the most famous of the Rostov monasteries - Spaso-Yakovlevsky Dimitriev Monastery (XVII - XIX centuries).

In addition to Rostov, on the shores of the Lake there are ancient villages: Vorzha, Ugodichi, Porechye-Rybnoye, Lviv, etc.

From the Rostov coast in clear weather, the village of Ugodichi (in ancient times Ugozh) is clearly visible - one of the oldest villages, equal in age to Rostov, the traditional center of Rostov gardening. The bell tower of the Church of the Epiphany and St. Nicholas Church (18th century) have been preserved here to this day.

To the right, on the same bank, rises the famous “Poretsk Tower” - the bell tower of the Church of St. Nikita the Martyr p. Porechye. The five-tiered structure easily shot up, and expressive silhouette visible for many kilometers. The bell tower was built in 1772-79. local self-taught architect A.S. Kozlov. Its height is 94 m, which is 6 m higher than the famous Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the Moscow Kremlin.

“And the bell tower is like a royal bride!

Will the Almighty not hear her bells?

I won't say that there is no better place in the world,

But no slimmer. And she is not higher

Throughout Holy Rus'. Well, how can you not marvel?!

And, one must assume that this takeoff was necessary,

Not to belittle the dignity of the capital,

But to show that we are no worse!”

Both of these villages - Ugodichi and Porechye - have long been arguing for the right to be called “the birthplace of Rostov gardening.” Growing (or, as they said here, “raising”) vegetables was the main occupation of the peasants of the entire lake basin, the lands of which are distinguished by high fertility and in the old days were even called “Rostov scrofula.”

The “arrogant Rostovites” did not disdain gardening either. There is a well-known expression that came to us from the Census Books of the 17th century. And it became winged - “... plows the onion and garlic, and that’s what it feeds on.” That is, the cultivation of vegetables here had a truly commercial character. It’s not for nothing that local gardeners still call all the vegetables they grow for sale simply “commodity.” But the famous Rostov onion brought special fame to local gardening. The technology of its cultivation has been developed for centuries. And only in Rostov onion seeds are called “chernushka”, the onion of the first field (year) is called “senchik”, and subsequent years are called “selection”. Rostov onion is still considered one of the best varieties for central Russia, since its main advantage is “multi-family”, i.e. You can get up to eight from one sample bulb. It’s funny that in the old days, a rich bride here was called the “Rostov onion.” The people’s ability to poeticize the most ordinary things and phenomena is amazing! The Lake itself is covered with many fairy tales, legends and traditions.

Even before the scientific interpretation of the name “Nero” appeared, legends were known in Rostov that explained it. According to one of them, during an enemy raid Rostov was destroyed to the ground, and its inhabitants fled. Time passed, the city rose from the ashes, but the enemies did not know about it. And when they again moved to Russian soil under the leadership of an old warrior and came out of the forest thicket to the shore of the lake, they unexpectedly saw a beautiful city above its surface.

The old warrior was so amazed that the words involuntarily escaped him: “This is not Ro...” - he wanted to say “this is not Rostov.” But he didn’t have time: an arrow shot from the fortress wall pierced his throat, and he collapsed on the shore of the lake. So it became known as Nero.

Another legend tells that Tsar Ivan the Terrible, angry with the Rostovites, decided to take the Lake from them and assign it to the village. Please your patrimony. He called the clerk and began to dictate to him a decree: “From now on, consider the lake not Rostov, but Ugodic.” But suddenly he was struck by muteness, and he only managed to say “And from now on, consider the lake not Ro...”.

And there is a belief in Rostov: his owner Vodyanoy lives at the bottom of the Lake in the thickets of the Garnava. He collects tribute from fishermen: he will not “close” or “open” lakes without human casualties.

And indeed, every year in late autumn and early spring, people still drown in the lake, despite its insignificant depth.

In an 18th century manuscript. The fairy tale about Ersha Shchetinnikov has come down to us, composed in the same way that ancient court papers were written.

“Boyar son, Bream of the Rostov Lake with his comrades hits the judges with his forehead: Sturgeon, Beluga and White fish on Ruff Shchetinnikov, who impudently took possession of the Rostov Lake, that he, Ruff, stabs them with bristles and drives them out of the hereditary Rostov Lake.

Ruff is a whistleblower (defendant), a lot of witnesses are called in his case, some of them give in their testimony excellent characterization accused. The judges interrogate Ruff. Ruff replies that Rostov Lake was still behind his grandfathers, and that he himself is known for good man in Moscow and in other great cities, princes and boyars, stewards and nobles, clerks and clerks:

“They buy me,” he says, “at a high price and cook me with pepper and saffron and put me before them honestly.”

Bream puts forward Whitefish on the Narva River and Loduga in the Volkhov River as witnesses to his case.

And Ruff takes these witnesses away: they, he says, are the same rich people as Bream, and will take his side. Then Bream points out another witness - Herring from Lake Pereyaslavl.

Ruff tried to take this witness away too:

“And Whitefish, and Loduga, and Herring are related and live in the same neighborhood, eat and drink together,” but the judges still sent the bailiff-Okun with witnesses - Burbot, Golovl and Yazem - for Herring to Lake Pereyaslavl.

And Herring showed at the trial:

“Bream and his comrades know. Bream is a good man and a Christian of God, lives by his own, and not someone else’s, strength, and Ruff, gentlemen, evil person, Bristleblood." Judge Sturgeon said: he himself heard about Ruff, “that they boil him in the ear, but don’t eat him as much as they spit him out,” and he told how Ruff offended him: he deliberately led him into a net, and then laughed at him. And all the judges judged:

“Give the plaintiff Bream that Ruff with his head and order him to be executed by trade execution. At the court case there were: Catfish with a large mustache and the closer Karas, and the list of the court case was written by Vyun, and Rak printed it with his back claw, and Snyatok (Vandysh) of Pereyaslavl sat at the seal. Ersh listened to the court's decision and said:

“Gentlemen judges! You did not judge according to the truth, you judged according to bribes. Bream and his comrades were cleared, but I was accused.” Ruff spat in the judges' eyes and jumped into the brushwood; only that Ruff was seen.”

From generation to generation in Rostov, stories are passed on about supposedly countless treasures lying at the bottom of the lake - golden gates, rich church utensils, jewelry, weapons, etc. True, no one has yet found even the smallest fraction of them.

But the Rostovites were and still are attracted to the lake not by its ghostly treasures. There is something inexplicably attractive about him. Like the ancient pagans, it appears to us as a living being, with which everything around us is connected by invisible, but quite tangible threads. Capable of somehow incomprehensibly influencing the climate, nature, city, people, animals...

Source material: State Museum-Reserve"Rostov Kremlin".

First published in the magazine " Domestic notes", 1848.

The entire complex of socio-psychological problems of “Entangled Case” is inextricably linked with the tense situation of the second half of the forties, when the question of “the fate of the lower classes” became one of the “most important issues of our time” 1.

The main motive of Saltykov’s work also becomes the contrast between the poor man exhausted by need and rich slackers, “greedy wolves” who have taken over life. IN " A complicated matter“This idea about the tragic side of poverty became the ideological and artistic center of the story about the death of Ivan Samoilich Michulin, “as if he were superfluous in the world.”

In interpreting the everyday philosophy of the “poor man,” Saltykov again echoed Milyutin, who analyzed not only the economic, but also the moral nature of “pauperism” in order to “give true concept about the real depth of this social wound." “If a poor person,” Milyutin emphasized, “sees prosperity, abundance and even luxury everywhere around him, then comparing his fate with the fate of other people should naturally further intensify his torment and add moral suffering to physical suffering.” It is these tragic contrasts that are the source of Michulin’s sad thoughts, embodied in his allegorical dreams. The power of exposing social inequality increases with each new vision of Michulin.

Michulin's first dream about his unexpected transformation into a “darling of fortune,” despite the sad ending, is presented in Gogolian, sympathetically mocking tones. The second dream was essentially a detailed illustration of Nagibin’s sorrowful thoughts regarding the fate of a poor man who decided to have a family. Rethinking the plot of Nekrasov’s poem “Am I Driving Down a Dark Street at Night” 2, Saltykov painted a picture “full of burning, unbearable despair,” strengthening the denunciation and protest by introducing the allegorical motif of “greedy wolves” who “must be killed,” “every one of them.” These gloomy visions are completed by the image of a social pyramid, symbolizing repression, lack of rights, “mental pauperism,” “moral poverty” of the oppressed masses, personified by Michulin, whose head was “so disfigured by the weight weighing over it that it lost even the signs of its human character.”

In his portrayal of Michulin, Saltykov proceeded from traditional ideas about “ little man", formed under the influence of Gogol and Dostoevsky. The episode with the stolen overcoat, the description of Michulin’s death, his first dream, which palpably echoed Piskarev’s dreams, the characterization of St. Petersburg with its ugly poverty and insane luxury, went back to Gogol’s stories in “An Entangled Case.” However, Saltykov did not repeat Gogol: his Michulin was a kind of synthesis of a dispossessed “poor man” and a reflective philosopher like Nagibin. This was the same “poor man” in whom “education,” according to Milyutin, “developed... a consciousness of self-worth and a wide variety of needs” 3 . Michulin is trying to comprehend his “plight” and find some way out of the “circumstances” that are “so bad, so bad that it’s easy to get into the water.”

Michulin is also significantly different from Dostoevsky’s “poor people,” although, in comparison with Gogol’s “little man,” the hero of “Entangled Affair” is much closer to the reasoning Devushkin or Golyadkin than to the silently submissive Bashmachkin. Saltykov sought to show in “An Entangled Case” the complexity of the poor man’s mental world with his “outward timidity” and “hidden ambition,” his “murmur and liberal thoughts» , “expressing an individual’s protest against external violent pressure.” However, the nature of the protest in Saltykov’s story differs significantly from the position of Dostoevsky with his broad interpretation of humanism, devoid of the harsh intransigence that was inherent in “A Confused Affair.” The scene of Michulin’s collision with the “right person”, reminiscent of Gogol’s “ significant person“(cf. “The Overcoat”), contrasted with the idyllic description of the meeting of Devushkin, “loyal to his superiors,” with “His Excellency,” who not only “took pity” on the unfortunate official and helped him with money, but, in the words of Makar Alekseevich, “themselves to me, straw, a drunkard, you deigned to shake my unworthy hand” (“Poor People”, 1846).

The analysis of Michulin’s oppressed psyche was subordinated by Saltykov to the comprehension and “research” of social reality, the reflection and consequence of which was Michulin’s “sick” soul, exhausted by thoughts about “the meaning and significance of life, about final causes, and so on.” Michulin, in essence, was solving the same “damned questions” that Nagibin asked Valinsky in the story “Contradictions,” demanding an explanation, “why is it that some people ride in carriages, while you and I walk through the mud.”

But now Saltykov’s hero is intensely looking for an opportunity to act, so as not to at least die of hunger. In desperation, he even decides to violate his “father’s code” of “humility, patience and love,” entering into angry arguments with the “right person.” However, Michulin’s attempts to find “his role” in life ended in tears - “there is no place for him, no, no and no.”

One of the objects of Saltykov’s criticism was the ideas characteristic of the teachings of utopian socialists about the possibility of establishing a just social order by promoting ethical ideals, in particular the Christian commandment to love one's neighbor. “Society itself,” declared, for example, Petrashevsky following Saint-Simon and Feuerbach on the pages of the “Pocket Dictionary foreign words”, must become “the practical implementation of the covenant of brotherly love and communication left to us by the Savior; in a word, so that everyone consciously love your neighbor as yourself»

The ironic theme of “open arms” runs through the entire story, from the allusion to the “truth about open arms” that Michulin’s father imagined, and ending with Ivan Samoilich’s meeting with the “son of nature”, who proposed to “unite in one common embrace.” A poisonous caricature of the theorists of dreamy “love” for humanity” and “embraces” is given in the image of the poet Alexis Zvonsky. According to the assumption of P.N. Sakulin, Saltykov used for satirical characterization Zvonsky some details from the biography of the Petrashevsky poet A. N. Pleshcheev with his “anonymous enthusiasm” and “social sadness” 1. V.I. Semevsky joined this hypothesis, pointing out that “a minor from the nobility” Zvonsky, like Pleshcheev, did not complete a university course and published feuilletons in newspapers 2 .

With no less irony, the story outlines the image of Zvonsky’s friend, the “candidate of philosophy” Wolfgang Antonich Beobachter (in German - observer), who “certainly demanded destruction” and hinted “with a tiny movement of his hand from top to bottom” to the fall of the guillotine knife. Calls for uprising and revolutionary terror in the conditions of Russian reality of the forties seemed to Saltykov as utopian as appeals to “universal” love, so he directly pointed out that the “disagreements” between Beobachter and Zvonsky were “only in details,” but “in the main they both adhere to the same principles,” remaining within the limits of contemplative theory. Like Zvonsky, Beobachter turned out to be completely powerless in the face of Michulin’s “confused matter,” recommending to him, instead of real help, “a tiny book of those that in Paris, like mushrooms in a rainy summer, spring up in the thousands.”

Michulin came to the consciousness of social injustice and spontaneous protest under the influence of life itself, and not book ideas about it. Having become convinced in practice that “silent bowing of the head” threatens starvation, Michulin begins to think about “Beobachter’s way of thinking.” These moods took hold of Michulin with particular force in the theater, when, under the influence of heroic music, he dreamed of the “charming smoke” of the uprising and the indignant crowd that he would like to see in reality. Dressing Michulin’s “rebellious” thoughts in the form of sleep, dreams, and delirium, Saltykov emphasized the vagueness and uncertainty of his freedom-loving intentions, shading their illusory nature with an ironic description of the inhabitants of the “side dish” and Michulin’s unexpected allies, who robbed him after assurances of “love and brotherhood.” By the very death of Michulin, who had never resolved the question of his “life purpose,” Saltykov once again pointed out that the Michulin case remains “confused” and awakened the idea of ​​the need for fundamental changes in the situation of “suffering humanity.”

In his second story, Saltykov more deeply assimilated the ideological and aesthetic principles “ natural school" Instead of Nagibin’s “intricate syllogisms” and abstract reasoning about A, B and C, “calmly and without difficulty enjoying life,” in “An Entangled Affair,” very specific colorful figures appear, depicted in sharply accusatory tones. Owners of the "dandy droshky", irritable " the right person", the formidable "big one", the angry Wartkin, the "gloomy" clerk and the old red tape from Michulin's dreams - all of them, from different sides, demonstrated intransigence social contradictions in the forms of real life.

The severity of the problem, the anti-serfdom orientation (see Perezhiga’s stories about the cruel treatment of serfs and the massacre of peasants against the police chief), the saturation of politically bold reminiscences from progressive philosophical and socio-economic literature (see hints at the denial of God by Feuerbach, the disputes between Beobachter and Zvonsky, Aesop’s description conversation in the carriage) immediately attracted the attention of both progressive and conservative circles of the Russian public to Saltykov’s story.

“Among the general panic” in connection with French revolution“An Entangled Case” and “The Thieving Magpie” by Herzen, according to M. N. Longinov, “became the grounds for criminal proceedings against literature” 2 . Saltykov was arrested by the authorities and, by decision of Nicholas I, exiled to Vyatka as the author of stories - they were also talking about “Contradictions” - “the entire presentation” of which “reveals a harmful way of thinking and a destructive desire to spread ideas that have already shaken the whole Western Europe and overthrew the authorities and public peace."

Radical youth, excited revolutionary events in France, saw in “A Confused Affair” a direct attack against the autocratic-serf system. In I. I. Vvedensky’s circle, which included Chernyshevsky, Blagosvetlov and others, “they knew very well and took to heart... Saltykov’s exile.”

“A tangled matter” that, according to Chernyshevsky, has caused “ big noise"in the forties, continued to "arouse interest in people younger generation" In the mid-fifties, Dobrolyubov, along with Herzen’s story “Who is to Blame?”, tried to propagate Saltykov’s work among young people, explaining the reasons and significance of the success of “The Confused Affair” among democratic readers in the article “Downtrodden People”: “Not in any of the “Provincial “in his essays” we did not find such a living, painfully heartfelt attitude towards poor humanity as in his “Intricate Affair”, published 12 years ago. It is clear that there were different years, different forces, different ideals. It was a living and active direction, a truly humane direction, not confused or weakened by various legal and economic maxims... and if this direction had continued, it would, without a doubt, be more fruitful than all those that followed it.” Contrasting “A Confused Affair” with liberal accusatory fiction, Dobrolyubov further argued that Saltykov’s story not only indicated the main source of evil, but also awakened a “courageous thought” about the fight against it.