Dostoevsky is the black pearl of Russian literature. Publishing house native Ladoga

Pearls of Russian literature.

The most precious pearls of Russian folk art are an expression of the people's genius and determine the nature of our self-awareness, which was put at the forefront when laying the foundation of the majestic building of Holy Rus'.

The best representatives of literary and musical creativity have always highly valued these pearls, which so beautifully and fully reflected the creative genius and true character of the people from time immemorial. The greatness of Russian culture, music and ballet is deeply rooted in folk art, which embraces all areas of the life of the great people as a whole.

Russian poets and composers have always listened carefully to the primary sources of the spiritual wealth of their native land and enriched themselves with this treasure for their classical creativity. “It is not we, but the people who are the true creator,” said Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, the founder of Russian national classical music. As you know, ancient folk songs with a colorful musical rite of seeing off Maslenitsa became the decoration of the operas “May Night” and “The Snow Maiden” by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Knowing how difficult it is now to find verbal monuments of Ancient Rus' in order to introduce our youth to the correct assessment of this treasure, we considered it our duty to expound this verbal wealth of our ancestors and show how our historically glorious and great Russia lived, strengthened and developed.

Oral creativity appeared in those distant times when the Russian people could neither read nor write. All this wealth of poetic creativity was spread and passed on from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation.

Our ancestors had a good memory. They memorized proverbs, sayings, epics, fairy tales, beliefs, songs, riddles, which so clearly reflected the rich imagination, intelligence, and practical wisdom of the people. In the process of oral transmission, much was forgotten, omitted, and altered in a new way.

During oral transmission, historical inaccuracies appeared and remained in epics. Vladimir the Saint, for example, fights the Horde, who came to Rus' two centuries after him. Vladimir is helped by his nephew Ermak, the conqueror of Siberia in the 16th century. Such historical inaccuracies are called anachronisms.

Another distinctive feature of oral creativity is its anonymity; The names of the authors are never known to anyone. The collective author of oral poetry is the people.

Not every person could colorfully convey what they heard. This required gifted people, singers and storytellers. Each of them brought something of his own, new, individual into the epic or fairy tale, often conveying his personal thoughts, feelings, beliefs, knowledge based on his personal life experience. But everything individual was gradually obscured and became the general creativity of the people,

How did oral works originate?

Obviously, every single work has its original author, who was the very first to tell it or sing it to others under the howl of a winter snowstorm. Then those who heard it passed it on to others, others to others, and so on endlessly. When transmitted from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, the oral work changed to some extent each time, new, better versions were born.

Later, with the introduction of writing in Rus', and then printing, the personal creativity of individual authors began to be consolidated in writing and in print. This personal book creativity is called literature.

Oral folk poetry was sometimes also called artless creativity, because this creativity is simpler, sometimes poorer than literary creativity, but in folk art there is a peculiar beauty of childish naiveness, pure freshness, spontaneity and rich imagination. Representatives of artistic expression drew attention to oral creativity, and this creativity was gradually recorded in the content that has reached us. Our writers and composers sought renewal, freshness, originality and originality of the Russian spirit in folk art. Fairy tales adapted by Pushkin, fables by Krylov, “Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” by Lermontov, songs by Koltsov - much in Russian literature is taken from the oral creativity of the people.

All this cultural wealth was created and matured over centuries in the people’s struggle against external enemies, during the entire historical development of Holy Rus'.

Now let's look at some types of oral creativity. First, let us dwell on the folk ritual and everyday lyrics that developed among our ancestors even before the adoption of the Christian religion. This religious and ritual lyricism accompanied the entire life of our pagan ancestors. All holidays were divided into cheerful ones, in honor of spring and the sun after the spring equinox, with a turn to summer, and sad holidays, after the autumn equinox, with a turn to winter.

With the adoption of Christianity, all these pagan holidays were very successfully adapted to Christian holidays, since they approximately coincided with the holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Epiphany, Annunciation, Easter, and the Holy Trinity - in time. No matter how the Orthodox Church fought against the remnants of paganism that penetrated into Christian holidays, folk lyrics have retained pagan-Christian dual faith to this day. Here is a striking example: from the Wednesday of Maslenitsa in the Church the repentant prayer “Lord and Master of my life” is already read, and outside the Church a wide Maslenitsa is celebrated noisily and cheerfully with pancakes, this pagan symbol of the sun, in honor of its increasing power.

With the adoption of the Christian faith, Russian people easily moved from the pagan rituals of the funeral of winter and the birth of the physical sun to the celebration of the birth of the Spiritual Sun, which shone over the entire universe of the Sun of Truth - the Savior of the World. And although the former pagans could not contribute anything to the church service, in the home celebration of the Nativity of Christ they retained some pagan rituals and customs in the so-called carols and in dish songs during fortune telling, where a dish often appeared. These fortune tellings are adapted for the New Year.

Our ancestors sang about the complete awakening of the sun after winter sleep in the so-called stoneflies or songs of spring. These songs belong to the most beautiful works of folk poetry, which glorified the flourishing of life, love and youth. These holidays approximately coincided with our cheese or meat week, that is, Maslenitsa and the Annunciation. In pagan times, it was around March 25 that girls usually “called out spring” from morning until late evening.

Girls' choirs from village to village echoed with their stoneflies. With the adoption of Christianity, it was easier for them to switch to the bright celebration of the blue holiday - the Annunciation. The joy of singing and glorifying spring in vesnyanka was replaced by the spiritual joy of the Annunciation, the beginning of spiritual spring and the rebirth of humanity through the soon to be born Savior of the world.

Organically merged and intertwined in the minds of our ancestors, first pagans, and then Christians, both “Red Hill” and “Radunitsa”, that is, cheerful commemorations of the dead, congratulating them on their revival after winter, and “Navy Day” (from the word “Navier” , which means soul, shadow of the dying), when relatives and friends of the dead were remembered. The same dual faith accompanied the ritual songs of “Mermaid or Green Week,” celebrated around Trinity Day and Semik, the seventh Thursday after Easter, dedicated to the remembrance of the dead and mermaids. Pagan fun in cemeteries took place with such enthusiasm that the Hundred Head Cathedral of the 16th century was forced to issue the strictest censure and prohibition of this purely pagan custom of commemoration with the “screaming and jumping” of buffoons, when people stopped crying for the dead and began to jump and dance in the cemetery, beat clap your hands and sing “Sotonin” songs, listening to the buffoons, these deceivers and swindlers. Since then, our ancestors have stopped celebrating pagan funeral feasts in cemeteries.

An important moment of the pagan calendar was the so-called “Marriage of the sun with the earth,” after the summer solstice into autumn and winter. With the adoption of Christianity, this celebration was easily switched to the celebration of the Nativity of John the Baptist (July 7).

The Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist is popularly called the Feast of Ivan Kupala. We find an artistic reproduction of the Kupala rituals of antiquity in Gogol’s story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala.” Wreaths, round dances, swimming, jumping over fires and searching for miraculous herbs (the color of ferns), as well as rolling a lit wheel downhill into the water - these are the usual Kupala rituals. To cleanse livestock of all diseases, they drove it through blazing fires.

In the life of Russian people, the harvest has always been of great importance, the harvest of bread, accompanied by “harvest” rituals and songs glorifying the first ear. The first sheaf was placed under the icon, in the front corner. “Zazhinki”, “Ozhinki”, “Dozhinki” were celebrated; the first sheaf was worshiped, calling it the “birthday boy”. At the end of the harvest, according to tradition, a handful of spring crops were always left unharvested “for the goat’s beard.” Since during the harvest people worked “from dawn to dawn,” the harvest songs were poorer in content than others, summer and autumn. On the first of July, the “Top of Summer” was modestly celebrated. Only on Elijah’s Day did they hold round dances, and at the end of September they celebrated the cutting of cabbage. Everyone was chopping “Mother Cabbage” with chops, chanting and stamping their feet.

Folk ritual lyrics accompanied all important moments in a person’s life, from birth to death. Wedding songs were especially colorful and rich, in which three periods of the social, everyday and legal status of women in ancient times were vividly reflected - kidnapping or kidnapping of the bride; buying and selling a bride; voluntary bringing of the bride, by mutual agreement.

Depending on the period, in the songs of the wedding cycle one can hear either the girl’s murmur against her father and mother, who married her against her will for being “unequal”; that touching and sad farewell of the girl “to her free will,” to her native kindergarten, to the nightingale, to her dear friends. In songs of the first period, with kidnapping or kidnapping of brides, the parental home, the “native side” is contrasted with a foreign side, where the bride was taken against her will. This little side is all sown with grief and watered with tears. In the songs of this cycle, the dear father and dear mother are contrasted with the father-in-law and mother-in-law - “the witch and the witch,” whose heart flares up without fire, their anger heats up without tar. Brothers and sisters are contrasted with brothers-in-law - prickly spitz dogs, and sisters-in-law - stinging nettle. And the groom himself, who has kidnapped or bought his wife, is not a beloved being for her, but a “destroyer”, a “destroyer” of her little bright girlish happiness. In the first two periods of a woman’s social and family status, her life in her husband’s family was compared to the position of a “duck” in a flock of wild geese: “they began to pluck the duck, the duck began to click, and wept bitterly.” The father-in-law beat the young woman with a seven-tailed whip. “If he hits you with a whip, he will kill the body; If it hits you on the cheek, there will be no blush.” A girl who was forced into marriage complains: “I told my father: don’t give me away, father, for an unequal person, don’t rush after great wealth, don’t look at the high mansions! I should not live with a rich man, but with a man! The need is not for mansions, but for love and advice.”

A girl who marries for love has a completely different mood. Such a marriage is called “desired.” In the evening, the bride sings and feeds the horses with selected grain and asks them to take her tomorrow “early and early to her beloved groom, further and further from the priest, closer and closer to her father-in-law in the yard.” However, a girl who voluntarily left her parents’ house, according to the custom of the old days, had to cry, so as not to offend her parents, so that they would not think that she was glad to leave them.

The complex wedding ceremony consisted of matchmaking, conspiracy, bachelorette party and the wedding itself. Persons who knew the wedding “rite” well were chosen as matchmakers. The groom's retinue was called groomsmen, and the bride's friends were called girlfriends. One of the friends who sang wedding laments was called a lament. The eldest of the friends was called the thousand. The matchmakers, appearing as if “by chance” at the bride’s house, did not call a spade a spade, but made some mysterious and symbolic speeches, calling themselves “hunters” or “merchants”, and the bride – “marten” or “goods”. After discussing the bride's dowry, the wedding day is set. The day before, during the bachelorette party, they mourn the maiden will of the bride and her braid. The wedding train for the trip to the church for the wedding and from the church to the groom’s house was furnished with various rituals: showering with grain grains, bowing to the “young” oven in the husband’s house. At the same time, the young woman would place bread or a bunch of bagels or a belt on the stove. This meant that she asked for protection from her husband's ancestors, entering a new family. In some places there was a custom that required the newlywed to take off her husband's boots as a sign of her complete submission to her husband. The newlywed's father handed the whip to his son-in-law, symbolically hitting his daughter with it, and with this action the father's power was transferred to the husband over his wife.

Death, as the final act of human life, was also surrounded by funeral rites and mourning for the deceased. This mourning gradually took on the poetic form of funeral songs and lamentations, which were obligatory during burial. And since not everyone had the ability to improvise and compose lamentations, special mourners or “screamers” or even “cryers” appeared, who were hired by the relatives of the deceased or deceased. The lamentations of northern Rus' were distinguished by rich artistic content, a description of the place of residence of the soul, fate, grief of an orphaned family, as well as a description of the earthly life of the deceased, listing his virtues. Death itself was portrayed as a “villain” who did not knock on the window, but approached slowly, and sometimes flew into the window like a black raven.

The Russian people expressed their faith in the power of words in conspiracies and spells, set out in poetic forms. The people deeply believed in the magical power of conspiracies, but on the condition that all the details of the conspiracies were carried out accurately and in strict sequence. Otherwise their power is lost. Therefore, conspiracies did not change, they were accurately passed on from generation to generation and were a more stable form of folk poetry. No matter how the Church fought these remnants of paganism, people resorted to these conspiracies very often. Trying to reconcile the old pagan and new Christian faiths, in their dual faith, our ancestors introduced Christian names instead of pagan ones into their conspiracies, but they carried out everything according to the conspiracies.

A favorite pastime in Rus' was riddles, which took on a rhythmic and artistic form. Here are some of them:

If only I stood up, I could reach the sky, if I could, I would tell everything (the road).

Kuzma is knotty - you can’t untie the chain.

Not a shirt, but a sewn one; not a tree, but with leaves; not a person, but a story (a book).

Behind grandma's hut hangs a crust of bread (a month).

A red-haired girl is sitting in a dark dungeon, her braid is on the street (carrot).

Peas scattered on a thousand roads (stars).

Small, remote, passed through the earth, found a little red cap (mushroom).

The Russian fairy tale occupies one of the most important places in oral folk art. At the dawn of their development, people understood fairy tales literally, as children understand them, and a fairy tale in ancient times had much greater significance than it does now. The boundless human imagination has always found in fairy tales the same boundless horizons of poetic beauty. Although people said that “A fairy tale is a fold, but a song is reality,” but what does it matter if a fairy tale is made up of individual elements of real life, and real heroes act in it. And the gray wolf, and Baba Yaga, and Koschey the Immortal were so familiar to everyone that they seemed to exist, even almost necessary in real life. Fairy tales were composed back in those days when people spiritualized the entire surrounding nature. From ancient times, mythical tales have been preserved to this day. The people believed in the transformation of humans into trees, plants and other inanimate objects, and the people also believed in the existence of living water. Primitive man idealized animals and exaggerated their strength and wisdom. The animal epic is preserved to this day in fairy tales for children. The most popular animals in these tales are the bear, the fox, the gray wolf who helps Ivan Tsarevich, Sivka Burka - the prophetic Kaurka, white swans, and the dog Pustolaika. Each animal has its own specific character and plays its own specific role. Not only the animal world, but all of nature has human qualities. The sun is red, the month is clear, the wind is violent, the frost is fierce, they appear in human form, marry earthly girls, live in simple huts and even quarrel and compete.

In the fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful, day gives way to night in the form of the running of white, red, black riders on white, red and black horses. The waterman and the goblin, being spirits of water and forest, have their own families and live in huts or tents. Baba Yaga - the bone leg lives in a hut on a chicken leg and is distinguished by the ability to turn people into animals. Usually devouring people, Baba Yaga is sometimes forced to help people and give the heroes of fairy tales supernatural power so that they can get away from trouble with the help of a flying carpet or running boots, or a self-cutting sword.

In later times, fairy tales began to give moral lessons to listeners - “a lesson to a good fellow.” In moral fairy tales, the sympathy of the people is always on the side of the humiliated, humble and weak, on Ivanushka the Fool and on the unloved stepdaughter. Ivanushka in fairy tales is always smarter and more honest than her clever brothers, who are evil, selfish, cowardly and dishonest. The fairy-tale world is always more interesting, beautiful and fair.

The Russian people expressed their practical, worldly wisdom in proverbs and sayings. This genre reflects not only Russian, but also universal wisdom. Faith in the wisdom of the proverb is expressed by the following saying: “The proverb will never break.” The proverb has always been and is the truth of the life of our people. Russian everyday and practical wisdom wittily unravels complex issues with a few truthful and simple words. If our learned “sorrowers” ​​for the common people had gone to the people not to teach them, but to learn worldly wisdom from them, we would not have had a catastrophe, for “our people are gray, but their minds are not eaten by a wolf.”

Russian sayings also reflected the instructive nature of everyday folk wisdom, although not as strongly and authoritatively as in proverbs. That is why people say that a saying is a flower, and a proverb is a berry.

Oral folk art also includes epics or heroic songs about the exploits of Russian heroes. Freed from fear of the environment, our people gradually began to notice strength and power in themselves. Instead of glorifying nature, people glorify their exploits. Under the guise of the exploits of heroes, national heroes, he glorifies the exploits of his entire nation. It is interesting to note that the word “hero” comes from “rich”, from which we have the definition of the highest spiritual Principle and Creator of the universe - God. There is hardly a deeper definition of the highest Principle of good and truth in other languages.

Russian folk heroes, as the personification of the best qualities of the people as a whole, being ideal persons, distinguished not only by physical strength, but also by mental and moral beauty, as great guardians and defenders of the Russian Land, were called heroes and became those epic national heroes that other peoples were revered as demigods. The older the heroes, the more they are endowed with mythical features. Their height is “higher than a standing forest, lower than a walking cloud.” When the elder hero Volga speaks, it’s as if “thunder is thundering,” and when he rides, “the mother of the earth is shaking, the dark forests are shaking.” In the hands of the hero is a club (club) “forty poods”, and sometimes “three hundred poods”. When the hero shoots an arrow, the oak tree scatters “into knife-edges” (into pieces). The senior hero Volga Svyatoslavich is distinguished by his cunning, “he walks like a pike fish in the deep seas,” and flies like a falcon bird “under the clouds.” Dobrynya Nikitich, the youngest hero, is distinguished by his politeness. He knows how to get along with a hero, how to give honor to a hero.

The younger hero Alyosha Popovich, a representative of the clergy, is distinguished by his courage, but morally he is far from ideal. All epics about younger heroes are divided into Kyiv and Novgorod.

The central person around whom the heroes of the Russian Land gather is Grand Duke Vladimir - Red Sun. He does not perform feats himself, does not leave his capital city of Kyiv. He is the moral center, the embodiment of the people's conscience, and around him stand the holy Russian heroes, the guardians of the Orthodox Kingdom.

Ilya Muromets, personifying the most powerful class in Russia - the peasantry, is the most beloved hero. He is endowed with all the bright features of the Russian people. He has spiritual, moral and physical beauty. He is stronger and braver than other heroes. Being crystal clear, honest, noble, warm-hearted, he is a constant protector of widows and orphans. A respectful son of his parents, he takes the blessing of his parents for his heroic feat with humility and meekness:

“It is not the damp oak that bends to the ground, the son spreads out in front of the priest. He asks for a blessing for himself.”

Ilya Muromets is a great patriot. He mercifully releases the three defeated tsars on the condition that they spread the glory of the Russian Land throughout the world: “You will go to your places, you will create such glory everywhere that Holy Rus' does not stand empty. There are strong heroes in Holy Rus'.”

By bowing before their beloved hero, our people developed in themselves love for the fatherland and national pride, or a consciousness of dignity, and not pride, which was alien to the Orthodox people. Our people understood that the Russian state could not stand without the consciousness of its dignity and national feeling. According to popular belief, Ilya received heroic strength miraculously from blind men wandering through holy places, from singers of spiritual verses, or “walking kaliks.” Until he was thirty and three years old, Ilya “sat,” unable to use his legs.

Ilya remembers well his father’s behest to highly value human dignity in every person: “Do not think evil of a Tatar, do not kill a Christian in an open field.” Ilya never shed human blood in vain, but only defending or defending himself, and not attacking peaceful people. Instead of shedding blood, Ilya often struck fear into the “stanishniks” or robbers with the blow of an arrow, which split the cracked oak tree into knife blades.

Ilya was not seduced by either the power that was offered to him in other countries, or the rich ransom for prisoners. If a gold treasure came into his hands, he immediately spent it on the churches of God. Devoting himself to serving the Motherland, Ilya always performed his feats only to “save” his native Russian Land.

Ilya’s assistant was Dobrynya Nikitich, who is sometimes called “sub-ataman” of Ilya Muromets and his deputy. As a representative of the princely class, Dobrynya Nikitich is sometimes called the nephew of Prince Vladimir. Polite, well-mannered, honest and brave, Dobrynya Nikitich, on behalf of Prince Vladimir, “clears the straight roads” of enemies. Dobrynya's main feat was the victory over the serpent Gorynych and the liberation of Prince Vladimir's niece Zabava Putyatishna and with her forty kings and princes, kings of princes. In epics and fairy tales, the Serpent Gorynych was the name given to a monstrous winged serpent that kidnapped women.

During the long absence of Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich wooes his wife Nastasya Nikulishna and tells her that Dobrynya has been killed. Since Prince Vladimir himself was the matchmaker, Nastasya Nikulishna agreed to marry Alyosha Popovich. But during the wedding feast, Dobrynya unexpectedly appeared, disguised as a buffoon and guslar. At the right moment, Alyosha Popovich unexpectedly received from Dobrynya “a lesson on the road.” “Everyone, brothers, gets married forever, but God forbid that Alyosha gets married.”

Alyosha Popovich is no less brave than Ilya Muromets and is called his “esaul.” Sometimes Alyosha uses cunning. He forced Tugarin Zmeevich to look back and at that moment cut off his head, which fell on the damp ground like a “beer cauldron.” Alyosha has many negative sides: “Envious eyes, raking hands.” Sometimes he can be very rude and angry. He throws a knife at Ilya Muromets because Prince Vladimir put Ilya in first place.

According to Christian understanding, the heroes were transferred to Rus' for their pride. No wonder Pushkin realized that Russian truth lies in humility: “Humble yourself, proud man, break your pride. Then you will save yourself and save others.” According to popular belief, once after the victory over the Tatars, the heroes began to boast that they could cope with anyone, even with “foreign” power. Then the beaten Tatars were resurrected and “heavenly power” appeared. The heroes got scared and fled to the Kyiv caves and were “petrified” there.

Novgorod epics reflect the life of “Mr. Veliky Novgorod”. The personification of the merchants is Sadko “The Rich Guest,” a wonderful guslar who entertained not only the Novgorodians at feasts, but also the sea king. Having accumulated a “countless treasury,” Sadko buys up all the goods in Novgorod, down to the shards of broken pots. According to other options, he could not buy all the goods. Although he is very rich, “richer than his glorious Novgorod.”

Vasily Buslaevich, or simply Vaska Buslaev, was the personification of the Novgorod freemen and youth. Not a single fight could take place without him, a daring young man. On his light boats - ears, he robbed trade caravans along the northern rivers. While still young, he was distinguished by his wild life and great strength: “Whoever holds the hand, the hand is off the shoulder. Whoever holds the leg - the leg is from the knees. Whoever goes for his head, his head is off...”

With his squad of equally daring fellows, Vaska challenges the whole of Novgorod to a “great fight” and beats many. The only authority for Vaska is his mother. Only a mother could stop “her dear child,” put him in a deep cellar and lock him with strong locks. Having smashed these castles, Vaska continues a great fight with all of Novgorod and even kills his godfather, “Elder Pilgrimishche,” at the moment when he wanted to calm down his godson who was running rampant. Vaska recognizes only brute physical force.

According to folk epics, the Kyiv heroes are better than the Novgorod ones. They serve the common Russian cause, protect the Motherland from external and internal enemies. The Novgorodians, on the other hand, pursue their own personal interests and even enter into a fight with their native people.

Epic stories about older heroes have also reached us. They are called elders because they surpass all other heroes in their size and strength. These epics were compiled by our people back in those days when the Russian people did not separate themselves from nature and did not yet notice their personal spiritual and physical merits. The elder heroes are the personification of the power of the earth, its pristine greatness.

Here is Svyatogor the hero. It is so heavy that “the earth carries it with its strength.” He lives on the Holy Mountains, which is why he is called Svyatogor. He rides out on a gigantic horse, “resting his head under a walking cloud.” The mother of cheese, the earth beneath him shakes. Forests are falling, rivers are overflowing from their steep banks. The blows of the strong Ilya Muromets seem to him like “mosquito bites.” Svyatogor puts Ilya Muromets in his pocket. Svyatogor is the embodiment of primitive, elemental power, devoid of everything spiritual. Svyatogor himself is not happy that he is like this. He himself is “heavy from the strength” as if from a heavy burden. He doesn’t know how to use this power, how to get rid of it. Svyatogor died from his pride. He began to boast: “If I had found the traction, I would have lifted the whole earth.” So he finds a “small saddle bag” in the field. She had an “earthly craving.” Raising it, Svyatogor sank into the ground up to his knees, and then completely disappeared. “That’s where he ended.” According to other epics, he found a stone tomb, lay down in it and closed the lid, but could no longer lift it. He asked the hero Ilya, with whom he had fought, to break the lid with a sword, but after each blow from Ilya, the lid did not break, but a new iron hoop grew and pulled the coffin even tighter. Having handed over part of the heroic silushka and his sword to Ilya, he dies.

Another senior hero was Mikula Selyaninovich - the personification of people's strength during the sedentary period of the life of the Russian people, when they were engaged in agricultural work. He is a representative of the peasant class, like Ilya Muromets. Mikula is a strong plowman. We see him all the time plowing with his inseparable fry and the “nightingale mare” (light yellow color and white mane).

Once Mikula Selyaninovich was walking “infantry” (on foot) with his saddle bag, and Svyatogor was chasing him on horseback and could not catch up with him. Then Svyatogor shouted for Mikula to wait for him. Mikula stopped and put his purse on the ground.

"What's in your purse?" – asks Svyatogor.
“Here, lift her,” says Mikula.

But Svyatogor could not move her from her place. The more effort he made, the deeper he went into the ground. In this handbag, which Mikula carried so easily, there was all the “earthly craving” that the Russian people could raise only during the period when they began to plow the land and became more powerful and terrible for their enemies.

Svyatogor was the personification of the blind, mighty force of prehistoric times, when the people led a nomadic lifestyle. Mikula, who represented the agricultural, sedentary period, turned out to be capable of not only lifting, but also carrying “earthly cravings.”

Another senior hero, Volga Svyatoslavich (Volkh Vseslavich), could not lift this bag either. A handbag with earthly cravings is a symbol of hard agricultural labor, on which all the well-being of the people rested and flourished.

The senior hero Volga Svyatoslavich, an ancient pagan prince, recruited a “good squad” and engaged in “hunting and trapping” with them, raiding neighboring countries, from which he took “tributes.” The people endowed Volga Svyatoslavich with miraculous abilities to turn into various animals, to walk like a pike fish in the deep seas, to scour open fields like a gray wolf.

During the conquest of the Indian kingdom, and later - the “Turk-land”, Volga turns himself and the entire squad into “goosebumps” and penetrates the impregnable wall of the kingdom and rolls out mountains of gold and silver from there, drives out whole herds of horses and cows, so that each warrior, when sharing the loot goes to “one hundred thousand.”

Although Orthodoxy illuminated the soul of the people with a new light and introduced into its infant worldview the ideals of Divine love, faith, and self-denial, for a long time the people retained remnants of old pagan beliefs and remained dual-faith. He reflected this dual faith in the so-called spiritual verses, for the content of which he took material from the Holy Scriptures, the lives of saints, from pious legends and apocrypha that came to us from Byzantium and from the southern Slavs. The people supplemented this material with their rich imagination, often distorting events and names. He calls the Prophet David Evseevich; the persecutor of Christians, the Roman emperor Diocletian - Demyanish and Rude; George the Victorious - Yegor the Brave, portraying him as an epic hero. Despite all these historical errors, spiritual poems are distinguished by their poetic charm and naive, childish belief in everything written. These poems were composed and sung by clergy and passers-by. Spiritual poetry began to spread especially in Holy Rus' under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, after he took harsh measures against secular folk songs and buffoons. Alexey Mikhailovich willingly listened to spiritual poetry. They told about the beginning and end of the world, about the fate of the soul in the afterlife and about the origin of all things in the world.

The most common was the verse about the Dove Book. This huge book, which fell from the sky, provides the answer to all the world's secrets. The length of this book is “forty cubits.” Across - “thirty cubits”. The thickness is “nine cubits.” The content of the Dove Book is so rich and profound that we “cannot comprehend it with our minds.” The prophet Isaiah wrote this book, and Ivan the Theologian read it. He read for exactly three years, but only read three pages.

The “forty kings and crown princes” who had gathered to see this book began a conversation about the origin of things. David answers questions from memory, as if from literacy, and then he opened it and began to read.

What started the white light, the red sun, the young and bright moon? - On behalf of God.
Are the stars frequent? - From the garments of God.
Dawn? - From the eyes of God.
Rubbish rain? - From the tears of Christ.
Telesa? - From the earth. Bones? - From the stone.
Who is the King of kings? - The Lord Himself.
Which city is the father of cities? - Jerusalem.
What land is the mother of all lands? – The Holy Russian Land is a land for all lands, because it is adorned with the churches of God.
Which tree is the tree of all trees? – Cypress, because the Life-Giving Cross is made from it.
What fish is the mother of all fish? - Keith. The earth stands on three pillars.
When they asked: what do whales hold on to? - On three pillars.
What about the pillars? - On three men.
What about the men? - Here the answerer’s patience ran out, and he answered: on three fools - people like you.

The Dove Book ends with a parable about Truth and Falsehood. Falsehood out-argued the Truth, and the Truth went to Heaven, to God.

Falsehood spread throughout our entire land, and from it a people became “wrong and vindictive.” The Dove Book, being ancient in origin, was popular in Rus'.

Many spiritual poems are dedicated to the end of the world and the Last Judgment. Of the Old Testament verses, my favorite was “Adam’s Lament,” where Adam complains about the loss of Paradise: “My Paradise, my beautiful Paradise. It was created for my sake, but it was imprisoned for Eve’s sake.”

From the New Testament verses we know about the Nativity of Christ, the Passion, and the Ascension. Particularly loved were the poems about the Virgin Mary's journey through torment, as well as about the Rich Man and Lazarus. The verse about the Rich Man and Lazarus was so popular that singing spiritual verses in general was called “singing Lazarus.” The verse about Alexei, the man of God, was very popular. All the Kaliki passing by knew this verse. Alexei's refusal of luxury in his father's house was considered by the Kaliki to be an unattainably high ideal.

In spiritual verses about the Ascension, the poor brethren mourn the ascending Christ and ask: “What will we eat?” Christ wants to leave them a golden mountain and a honey river. But John Chrysostom asks the Savior to leave them the Name of Christ, because the rich and powerful will take the gold from them. For such a wise request, Christ gives him golden lips. The presence of many variations indicates that this verse was very popular.

The poem about Yegor the Brave was especially famous. Here's his fabulous look:

“Knee-deep in pure silver.
Arms up to the elbows in red gold.
Yegory's head is all pearl.
Stars are frequent throughout Yegoria.”

Perhaps the creation of this image was influenced by the decorations on the icon of St. George the Victorious. Tsar Demyanishche, who captured Jerusalem, demands that Yegoriy bow to idols. Yegory refuses. He is tortured and imprisoned in deep cellars. The people exclaim in grief: “Egory will not be in Holy Rus'; Yegoria will not see white light; Yegoria won’t hear the bell ringing; Yegoria will not hear church singing.” But by God’s command the martyr is freed and goes “across the Russian Land to affirm the Christian faith.” The portrayal of George as a warrior influenced his epic character. He has a heroic horse, harness - like that of Ilya Muromets. Yegoriy cleansed the Christian land, confirmed the faith of Christ, killed Demyanishche, and freed the sisters. Like the epic robber nightingale, Demyanishche screams like an animal. But Yegoriy was not afraid and cut off his head.

Our ancestors also sang poems about the Russian saints - Boris and Gleb, about the princes Mikhail and Theodore of Chernigov, tortured by the horde.

Poems were composed about Dmitrievskaya (parental) Saturday, when the soldiers who died in the Battle of Kulikovo are remembered.

Lyrical spiritual poems are devoted to issues of death and the afterlife. The consciousness of sinfulness and the thirst for repentance grips a person in the face of death. “Man, why do they want to wash your body? You did not wash yourself with tears before the Lord. Man, why do they want to put a robe on you? I did not prepare spiritual garments for myself. Man, why do they light a candle in front of you? You did not light a lamp diligently before the Lord.”

In the verses about repentance, the soul is reproached for the fact that “I did not plow on Wednesdays and Fridays, did not bark at the great fast, skipped mass on Sundays, went to the games a lot, danced a lot at the games and amused Satan.” The soul is also condemned for the fact that “it mowed someone else’s strip, twisted the creases in the straw” (in order to destroy someone else’s harvest).

These verses reflect the belief in witchcraft and conspiracies, in the corruption of the “young,” and preach the motives of “righteous living,” humility, patience, and mercy to obtain bliss.

Spiritual poems were often based on pious legends and apocrypha. The verse about the Virgin Mary's journey through torment was based on one of the most interesting apocrypha. According to this apocrypha, the Mother of God prayed and asked the Archangel Michael to show her the torments of hell. Then hell opened up, and the Mother of God saw how sinners were tormented. Popular fantasy tells of these torments in naive detail. After everything she had seen, the Mother of God began to ask Her Son that sinners would have peace day and night and not suffer from Thursday of Holy Week until the Holy Trinity. For the sake of the prayers of the Mother of God, God the Father sent the Son to alleviate the hellish torments of sinners from Easter to Trinity.

Already in the days of writing in Rus', the people still continued their oral creativity and composed several historical songs. In the song about Ksenia Godunova, the people are entirely on the side of the unfortunate girl Ksenia, deprived of “the royal life for her mother’s lack of prayer.” The people loved to idealize Ivan the Terrible in their songs as a defender of the people from the boyars who treated the people badly.

He condemned the people in the historical songs “Grishka the bobby-haired man and the heretic Marinka Mnishka,” but he loved Prince Pozharsky, Skopin Shuisky, who died a mysterious death in 1610.

The personality of Peter the Great could not help but strike the popular imagination. In their songs about Peter the Great, people noted his simplicity and called him “The Carpenter-Worker Tsar.” However, Peter’s people do not like him because he is of the current faith, not the ancient one. Peter's son, Alexei, who was sentenced to death by Peter for fleeing abroad, is loved by the people as a defender of the ancient faith. The people stand for ancient piety, which Peter violated with his reforms, destroying the patriarchate.

Concluding this brief overview of oral folk art, let’s say a few words about the beauty of the language of oral folk poetry. It is not for nothing that our poets and writers greedily drew from this treasury of the folk language.

Our folk language is primarily rich in epithets. Prince Vladimir is always called affectionate; Cossack Ilya Muromets - old Cossack; the girl is red; the field is clean; sea ​​– blue; oak – raw; well done - cheerful, daring, kind; the sun is red; month – clear; shoulders - powerful; cheeks - scarlet; eyebrows – black, sable.

Repetition also brings a kind of beauty to folk art: to perform a faithful service; think a great thought; click cry; free will. Prepositions that are often repeated:

"Under the glorious city near Kiev
On those royal walls
There was a heroic outpost.”

Our ancestors loved to decorate their speech with negative comparisons:

“The dawn was breaking,
It was not the red sun that rolled out -
A good fellow came out here,
Good fellow - Ilya Muromets.

Russian folklore is the “mother of the damp earth” on which our great creators grew up - the Krylovs and Gogols, the Pushkins and Dostoevskys. The Glinkas and Tchaikovskys, the Vasnetsovs and the Surikovs grew up on folklore. Russian folklore, born together with our great people, was so humane and beautiful even in pre-Christian times that with the advent of Christianity in Rus' it grew into Christianity. He became so “Orthodox” that he became the foundation of Orthodox Russian culture.

Through the untold beauty of Russian folklore we see the untold beauty of the entire Russian people.

Dedicated to the memory of Nadezhda Alexandrovna Teffi

“This is how she was throughout her life - brave, sharp-tongued, ironic, smart, charming, exceptional, incomparable.”
Art. Nikonenko

The current generation is hardly familiar with more than half a century of work by Nadezhda Alexandrovna Teffi*, which occurred in the first half of the last century. But in pre-revolutionary Russia her works were widely known. Teffi, even in exile, where she spent 34 years of her life, managed to successfully continue her favorite work, winning a worthy place among the Russian writers of her time. In the chronicles of Russian literature, Teffi is included in the category of not only a writer, but also a poet, memoirist, and translator.

The place of birth of N.A. Teffi has not yet been precisely established. According to one version, it could be St. Petersburg, according to another, the Volyn province. She was born on May 21, 1872** in the family of a criminal lawyer, professor Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky. Nadia's mother is French by birth. Noer was her maiden name. Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya received an excellent education at home and graduated from high school. With a high degree of probability, it can be argued that all the young shoots in the Lokhvitsky family inherited literary abilities from their ancestors. So, for example, according to family legends, my great-grandfather and paternal grandfather undoubtedly had these abilities***. In this regard, Nadezhda’s father and mother are no exception. Alexander Vladimirovich came from an old noble family. Professor of criminology and lawyer, publisher and editor of the journal “Judicial Bulletin”, an excellent speaker, a witty person, he was the author of numerous works on jurisprudence. Mother was not only interested in, but also had an excellent knowledge of European literature, especially poetry.

It is not surprising, therefore, that children’s passion for literary creativity manifested itself at a fairly early age. Nadya, like her three sisters and brother, loved to write poetry. Sisters Lena, Masha and Varvara, in addition to poetry, wrote plays. As a result, some time later, sister Masha became a famous poetess – Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called the “Russian Sappho”. And Nadezhda, having started with poetry at the age of 13****, then switched mainly to prose, becoming famous for writing stories, essays, literary portraits, plays, memoirs... Teffi won her fame, glory and recognition as a result of a successful period of her literary activity in for 51 years in Russia and emigration. According to the opinion that has formed by now, the beginning of her systematic study of literary creativity can be dated back to 1900. It was this year that she moved to St. Petersburg after divorcing her husband, Vladislav Buchinsky, from his estate in Tikhvin. The eight-year marriage with Buchinsky was interrupted, despite the fact that by that time their family had three children: two girls and one boy. The children stayed with their father*****.

By the time she moved to St. Petersburg, Nadezhda Alexandrovna had already developed her own preferences for classical Russian literature. Since childhood, her idols were A.S. Pushkin and L.N. Tolstoy. And later she was powerfully influenced by the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, N.V. Gogol, as well as F. Sologub and A. Averchenko. She had behind her, albeit relatively small, but important experience in versification. Most likely, this circumstance was the reason why she initially showed herself as a poetess. Her literary debut was marked by the appearance on September 2, 1901 in the weekly magazine “North” of the poem “I had a dream, crazy and beautiful...”, for which the aspiring author received a monetary reward.

Nadezhda Alexandrovna's literary activity in the pre-revolutionary period in Russia lasted for almost 18 years. Essentially, as critics assess, her work during this long period of time was fruitful and successful. Soon after her debut in the weekly Sever, her works began to appear in the supplement to the Niva magazine. During the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907), a number of satirical magazines published her topical poems, parodies, epigrams, and feuilletons. It was during these years that the main genre of her work was formed - a humorous story. At first, her feuilletons were especially often published in the newspaper Rech and in Exchange News. It has been repeatedly noted that with these talentedly written satirical works she attracted the attention of numerous readers and that, thanks to them, she became widely known throughout Russia. At the same time, her stories were no less popular, published with enviable consistency in such newspaper and magazine publications as “The Coming Russia”, “Zveno”, “Modern Notes”, “Russian Notes”, “Satyricon”, and after its closure - "New Satyricon". In addition to these two publications, she collaborated with the newspaper “Russian Word” until its closure in 1918. For a relatively short time she was part of the editorial staff of the Bolshevik newspaper publications “Forward” and “New Life”, but her work in these publications did not leave a noticeable mark on her work.

As a gifted writer, Teffi found recognition not only among different classes, but also at the royal court. One of the admirers of her talent was Tsar Nicholas II. It is known, for example, that when asked which contemporary writer should be invited to participate in the anniversary collection dedicated to the tercentenary of the House of Romanov, celebrated in 1913, the Tsar replied: “Teffi, only Teffi.”

Compared to the first book of poems, “Seven Lights” (1910), which remained almost unnoticed, the collection “Humorous Stories”, published in the same year, was received more favorably by critics and readers. These stories, like Teffi’s other prose works that followed them, enjoyed resounding success. In total, 16 collections were published before emigration. Among them: the two-volume “Humorous Stories” (1911), “And So It Became”, “Carousel”, “Life-Being”, “Tender Beast”, “Eight Miniatures”... Her plays, staged on the stages of leading theaters, made a similar impression countries: “The Women’s Question”, etc. The events that took place in 1917 and partly in 1918 were reflected in the essays and stories “Managers of Panic”, “Petrograd Life”, “Reason on a String”, “Street Aesthetics” and etc. In pre-revolutionary times, she was called “the pearl of Russian humor.”

In her “Memoirs,” Teffi spoke about the details of her departure from Russia at the end of 1918 to emigrate. Let us only emphasize that the decision to emigrate was made spontaneously after a year and a half of wandering around the Russian south, where her joint public literary performances were planned together with A. Averchenko. She reached Constantinople, and then from Turkey came to Paris. On the one hand, she had hope for a quick return to her homeland. On the other hand, she was overcome by fear of the cruel reality that had arisen in Russia. She wrote: “Of course, it wasn’t death that I was afraid of. I was afraid of angry mugs with a flashlight pointed directly at my face, of stupid idiotic anger. Cold, hunger, the sound of rifle butts on the parquet, screams, crying, gunshots and the death of others...”

Her creative activity during the period of emigration was intense, fruitful and successful. The facts speak for themselves. She managed to continue her collaboration with many newspapers and magazines, which willingly published her, albeit a few poetic works, and most importantly, prose. Her essays and stories appeared in such emigrant publications as “Common Cause”, “Renaissance”, “Rul”, “Segodnya”, “Link”, “Modern Notes”, “Firebird”... Her stories reflected, in particular , sketches of pre-revolutionary Russia. From the thirties until the fifties, she turned to the memoir genre. This is how the autobiographical stories “First Visit to the Editorial Office”, “Pseudonym”, “How I Became a Writer”, “45 Years” appeared... A special place in her work was occupied by a series of artistic essays - literary portraits of writers, poets, and political figures. Mostly they were dedicated to those with whom she met, or was well acquainted, friends or friends. She left for posterity vivid memories of A. Averchenko, L. Andreev, I. Bunin, K. Balmont, Z. Gippius, A. Kerensky, A. Kuprin, V. Lenin, V. Meyerhold, G. Rasputin, I. Repin , I. Severyanine, F. Sologub, F. Shalyapine and others. During more than thirty years of stay abroad, at least 19 books were published, among which, for example, were collections of stories “Lynx”, “About Tenderness”, “The Book of June” , “All About Love”, “Earthly Rainbow”, plays “Moment of Fate” and “Nothing Like This”, two collections of poetry “Shamram” and “Passiflora”, as well as a single novel, “Adventurous Romance” (1931). The reading public showed great interest in everything Teffi wrote. At the same time, most of the readers singled out her stories “Kefer?” (“What to do?”) and “Demonic Woman,” while the writer herself considered the collection of her stories “The Witch” to be the best.

In emigrant circles, she was also well known because she was the organizer of the literary salon, a participant in the “Wednesdays” at the “tower” of Vyacheslav Ivanov, as well as the “Green Lamp” literary meetings, was in collaboration with the Union of Theater and Film Workers, and was a member of the board Parisian Union of Russian Writers and Journalists...

For many women, this kind of dedication and incredible busyness did not leave a single chance for a personal life. For Teffi, everything turned out differently. Her civil marriage with P.A. Theakston, unfortunately, was relatively short (Theakston died in 1935), turned out to be happy for both of them and was accompanied by mutual tender, deep love. Thixton was a close and devoted friend to Teffi.

It was already mentioned above that many of her works were imbued with humor. It is not superfluous to add to this that in terms of wit and humor she was compared with A. Averchenko and S. Cherny. At the same time, emphasizing the originality of her humor, literary scholars note that Teffi has never been a supporter of pure humor. Evidence of this is its combination with sadness, and subsequently even with tragic notes. The writer herself said about this: “I, like on the pediment of an ancient Greek theater, have two faces: laughing and crying.” And here is what St. writes. Nikonenko in the preface to N.A. Teffi’s book “My Chronicle”: “She, unlike many humorists, does not invent funny situations to get a comic effect. She notices the really funny things in life, in everyday everyday situations, in people’s relationships.” He is echoed by other critics, arguing that “she is distinguished by a subtle understanding of human weaknesses, kindness and compassion for her characters.”

In her works she showed subtle psychologism and love towards children. One way or another, she gained a reputation as an extraordinary, witty, observant and good-natured writer, whose talent was appreciated by many fellow writers. A.I. Kuprin emphasized the impeccability of her Russian language, harmony, purity, agility, thriftiness of phrases...

Among the many admirers of Teffi’s talent was I.V. Bunin. About her best stories, published in Satyricon, he said that they were written “great, simply, with great wit, observation and wonderful mockery.” G. Ivanov, paying tribute to her sense of humor, spoke of her as a cultured, intelligent, good writer. B. Panteleimonov wrote the following text on his book “Saint Vladimir”: “To Nadezhda Alexandrovna Teffi, charming, incomparable, intelligent, exceptional - grateful B. Panteleimonov.” K. Balmont dedicated several poems to Teffi. A. Vertinsky repeatedly performed songs based on her poems. There were several such songs: “To the Cape of Joy”, “Three Pages”, “Black Dwarf”, “Song of All the Tired”...

During the German occupation of France during World War II, Teffi remained in Paris due to illness. Since the number of Russian emigrant publications sharply decreased, she was not able to maintain her financial situation at the same level. She had to live in the cold and suffer from hunger. However, despite this, she did not collaborate with any collaborator publications. Only occasionally did she agree to read her works to Russian emigrants.

By mid-1952, N.A. Teffi’s health had deteriorated sharply. The day of her death was October 6, 1952. Two days later she was buried in Alexander Nevsky Cathedral V Paris and was buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

Vitaly Ronin

* She used the pseudonym “Taffy” for the first time, signing humorous stories and the play “The Women’s Question,” published in 1907. There are two versions of how it arose, set out by Nadezhda Alexandrovna in the story “Pseudonym”.

** The birthday of N.A. Lokhvitskaya has not been definitively established. Several encyclopedic sources give different dates: May 3, 6, 9, 21.

*** In her biography questionnaire, Teffi wrote: “I can consider the heredity of my writing gift to be atavistic, because my great-grandfather Kondraty Lokhvitsky... wrote mystical poems, some of which, under the general title “On the Mother of God’s Philadelphia,” were preserved in the historical works of the Kyiv Academy.” The writer’s grandfather, Vladimir Kondratyevich, combined the talents of a philosopher and a writer.

**** In her first essay, “First Visit to the Editorial Office,” which opens the book “My Chronicle,” Nadezhda Aleksandrovna wrote: “I dreamed of being an artist.” Apparently, this desire of hers preceded the development of an attraction to literary creativity. Her interest in painting, apparently, determined her future friendship with the artist A. Benois.

***** In the last years of her life, Teffi developed a close relationship with her eldest daughter Valeria.

Report: The quality of pearls of Russian literature.

Recorded from the words of Sergei Podgornykh.

I felt sick just now. I’m sitting on the porch of her church, in the upper part of Nizhny all the homeless people know her. In the morning there is a desire to eat, my stomach is already growling, but they serve little and more and more to Semyon, he looks more pitiful. Here a lady, all dressed up, dumps a grocery bag out of her bag from the church. They sell these in our church shop to serve to the homeless.

I gave it to Semyon. Semyon, don’t be a fool, go the same way to the church, exchange the food from the nuns for money back and run to the pharmacy for cheap alcohol. And I’m a homeless person who doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke, they don’t serve me the bags well. Do not notice.

And this lady noticed that there was no more bag, I was sorry for the money, and she put a thick book in my cap. Griet, “feed spiritually, young man,” and let’s quickly get out of the church.
The book is noble and beautiful. Well, I think it’s gone. I scroll through and read, and the phrase struck a chord: “an abyss of hungry eyes.” My eyes, I think, like me, also want to eat.

In general, I quickly left the church, I urgently need to push the book, my stomach demands it.
I offer literature to everyone, but they don’t take it. They look and don’t take it. The non-reading people left. Here I look at the library, that’s exactly where they’ll buy books, that’s where they are. A book for a book, a sausage for a crust, a sandwich for a crust. I want to eat, I have no strength.

I stumbled into the library, and there was face control. I haven’t been to libraries since Soviet times; I didn’t know what the rules were now. I'm a little lost here, my stomach always turns when I see security.

A guard with a saber at the door grabbed me and said: “Who are you? What's their name?" And my nickname is simple, unpretentious - Writer. There was a time when a black man worked part-time for a famous writer, and from then on the urge became attached to me.
“A writer,” I say. - Famous". So suddenly I wanted to shit something out of fright and otherwise I would have blurted it out.
The guard with the saber, look at my book, - “So you came with a report on the Oldies? Let's hurry up, everyone is waiting for you."
I don’t know why these old guys, but I wanted to shit even more and I quickly rushed sideways into the corridor to look for the closet.

Yes, I almost didn’t have time, some guy got ahead of me and ducked into the library toilet earlier. He also probably wanted to shit like me out of fright. I was in such a hurry that I dropped this little yellow daddy. I picked up daddy knowingly, maybe it will come in handy later, and pulled the handle on the toilet. Yes, I didn’t calculate the strength, take the handle and break it off. Here the guard with the saber is above me again.

“What are you doing? Let’s get on stage quickly,” he waves his saber and moves his hungry eyes. Something made me completely sick, and I forgot to shit and didn’t want to eat. Sniff through the door, and there is an exit to the stage. There is a red podium in the middle, a poster in the entire hall “Greetings to the participants of the congress of philology students!”, a pedestal with awards: - two swords stuck in it - bronze and gold, and the festival grand prix - a wooden spear - with the inscription “Wooden Capuchei”.

I hear: “The famous Nizhny Novgorod writer is giving a report: “The work of the writer Henry Lyon Oldie, like the pearls of modern literature.” Then the entertainer looks at me and rolls his eyes wildly. Like, what is your name, dear man.

“Sergey...ooornykh. Literature nerd,” was all he could squeeze out of himself. I choked a little on air from excitement, I wanted to eat, and I couldn’t voice my own last name. For three years now, after all, he had been wanted, so he introduced himself as a writer whom he had once hated.

I don’t remember how I got to the podium. The hall is full of young people. Everyone is angry and looking at me. Here I completely got cold feet. I stood up at the podium and was crazy with excitement.

I heard a voice in the hall saying, “The speaker is a bit stinky.” But I immediately felt better. I think we need to get the fuck out. I'm not a speaker about literature. True, we had a master of industrial practice at Petau, so before our school he worked as a philologist, and no, no, but instead of electrical engineering, he pushed us to take a philology course. But either the course, or a full hall of four hundred people, and a guard with a saber behind his back.

I had already noticed the open window, I thought - it wasn’t there - I pulled it, but changed my mind. I saw from behind the curtains two men in a kimono. I don’t know much about Japanese uniforms, but these seem to be holding such thin daggers - they’re called katals.

“Why are they all walking around here with edged weapons? “I think it’s kind of creepy.”

Moreover, some bespectacled student is standing on the road to the safety window, nervously breathing in the fresh city air. Apparently I was poisoned by my vigilance.

I think it’s not fate to leave now, we need to take time, maybe the opportunity will present itself.

I started reading the report. What else is there to do? Either I give a report on literature, or they will cut me into thin sausages with Japanese cutters.
But I can’t decide whether the report should be scolded or praised? I vaguely remember the master philologist. It seems that the report is a criticism. But criticism is exactly scolding, any old woman on the street will say - there are no options.

True, I have only one book from literature, the one that was handed to me just now. I see, my mother is a woman! Well, this is a book by that same Henry, whose last name is Oldie, on whom you need to give a report.

I perked up and opened the book. Look at the author's list of books.
Well, I think I’ll go through the list and criticize it.

The people in the hall are already buzzing, the critics are tired of waiting. Now, I think, you will receive criticism.

I tapped the glass on the decanter, cleared my throat and said: “This is what our domestic literature has been brought to.” Writers have completely forgotten how to write titles. For example, our Henry Lion Oldie writes in the title “Waiting at the Crossroads.” How is this possible? The waiter waits at several, so to speak, crossroads at the same time, or maybe at all? And most importantly, who is waiting and why? Unclear. Or take “Living for the Last Time.” Well, what kind of name is this? What happens to those who live for the penultimate time? Or are they not living for the last time? Unclear. Or, for example, “I’ll take it myself.” I just want to add “I’ll take myself.” The author is unclear what he wanted to say. What is this “Abyss of Hungry Eyes”? You can’t help but wonder what, according to the author, is an abyss? And the hungry eyes? - here I swallowed again, - that these eyes somehow live separately in the abyss? It's not going well. An ugly picture is emerging with hungry eyes, comrades.”

I feel the hall is silent. Apparently I liked my criticism. Well, I took up the names more than ever.

"The Way of the Sword" And where did you get this sword, and which way did it go? I dare say that swords don’t move, a sword is a legless creature, and you can’t roll it like a ball across a field. Or take this nonsense cycle. Well, what kind of nepotism. The author reports whose son is Odysseus, and who is the grandson of Perseus, and who is the grandfather, or even the son of the lame Alcaeus. The author lacks imagination, so he included the entire family tree in the titles? As my master of production, that is, philological training, taught me, the title is a showcase of the work. And what do we see in the window from Oldie - Puppeteer. Doll. Puppet master? It's not clear, in general. Or “She and her men.” It seems like a clear name, but the picture that emerges is completely indecent.”

Here I made a dramatic pause and looked around the room. The hall was not only silent, there was deathly silence. A fly in the next room could be heard making love to another fly. For some reason, the men in kimonos sank, but the guard with the saber, on the contrary, perked up.

“This is success,” I thought.

Then the annoying bespectacled man at the window quietly left.
- Why are you attached to the names, you will speak out about the essence of the report. About Oldie's work.

And then I got carried away. Of Henry's works, I only had the book in question, I quickly skimmed the first page and continued.

“Here again is an incomprehensible title - “There must be only one Hero,” - I waved the book over my head for authenticity.

“From my philological experience I tell you that a hero should not be alone. Alone, other philologists will instantly clean up the hero’s face. But let’s leave the incomprehensible names on the conscience of the author and move on, in fact, to the very content of this work. And then a surprise awaits us in the very first lines.

The work begins with a description of the darkness, which, according to the author’s idea, is dense and viscous, and for some reason with flickering reflections, in the sickly warm air, which also causes chills.
Well, he calls and calls, God bless him.
But the flashes! The flashes did not leave, they pursued me.
Everything is saturated with pathos, the entire text is fertilized with flashes.

"Dark.
Flashes.
Chilling stuffiness.
The roar of water.
All".

“Everything, but not everything. I just want to add. Night, street, pharmacy. A. A. Blok."

If you don’t like it, don’t read it,” I hear from the bespectacled man, whose badge on his chest is shaking nervously.

“So, gentlemen philologists, let us follow the heroes of the book further. And again.
"Dark.
Flashes.
Chilling stuffiness.
All".

I would like to add that this is not all.

"Dark.
Flashes.
Dark".

And then suddenly.

“The elder is silent.
The elder is silent for a long time.
The middle one doesn't answer."

And finally, we get to the finale.

“The lights blinked puzzledly and went out.”

Following the flashes, we blinked in puzzlement and continued. Is it that the author is leading us by the nose in such a perverted way? Flashes are good in moderation, you need to be able to choose epithets. Yes, epithets - even adjectives must be applied to the place.

“...It happened two hours before dawn, at that damned time when the light-winged Dream-Hypnos reigns supreme.”

We ask ourselves, why is this time actually cursed? Unclear. It turns out that for the sake of a catchphrase, the author will not spare even a hypnotic sleep.

In fairness, it is worth noting that for the most part the author copes with the task, especially when it comes to the colloquial, non-descriptive part of the text. It is also true that conversations are the main component of the book. But as soon as Henry moves on to the descriptions, it immediately comes out that “her chest was wet and hot,” or even “the tangled mane of her black hair gleamed faintly in the twilight of the bedchamber.”

Who is this anyway? - I hear from the hall.

Wow, they are already interested in my information, they probably want to take my autograph. I want to immediately, immediately start the autograph session, but I pull myself together, gather all my philological experience into a fist, and continue.

“When creating a phrase, especially a metaphor, one must clearly imagine this very abyss of hungry eyes. Understand what an abyss is, go to its edge, look, and maybe even throw a stone. And without waiting for the echo of the fall, we understand that there is no bottom to the abyss and therefore we will never again see the carved eyes of hungry people, and other creatures, in it.”

On this epic note, I finished the report and just before effectively raising my hands in a call to more carefully look for pearls in literature, I glanced briefly at the little yellow daddy, who suddenly turned out to be the report I was looking for.
Quickly skimming through the text, I picked out the phrases in the corner of my mind: “good books, excellent author, excellent language, star of Russian science fiction, the inimitable Henry Lyon Oldie.”

A feeling of detachment flashed through my head.
“P...t, hit it! I should have praised him."

Here I felt the inevitability of retribution. The philological spectators, taking advantage of my confusion, silently, like ghouls from the film “Viy,” climbed onto the stage. The guys in the kimono behind me made bayonets, the guard with the saber grabbed the award spear. Even the student nervously clutched his badge.

But you can’t fool me with chaff, and you won’t easily eat me. With a cry: “I’ll kill you!”, I threw the blessed volume at the bespectacled man who was standing in my way. I never thought that you could kill with a book, but the bespectacled man collapsed as if he had been killed, and in three leaps I found myself near the window and soared to freedom like a swallow.

Only behind the metro bridge did a crowd of indignant philology students fall behind me. Having passed the station at a brisk trot, occasionally breaking into a gallop, I raced to the saving Sormovo and lay down on my native heating main.

And only then did I think: “Henry Lyon Oldie wrote a good book, a weighty one. Thank him very much. Consider that you saved me from death.”

Valentin Rasputin

RUSSIA NEEDS LITERATURE WORTHY OF PUSHKIN AND DOSTOEVSKY

THE WORD SPEAKED ON THE ANNIVERSARY DAYS OF FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY

We involuntarily, from constant communication with them, create visible and monumental images of the greatest artists in literature: Pushkin, shining with talents, like knightly armor, in spirit and way of life a true knight, who highly raised the importance and honor of literature, who defended the honor of Russia and his own personal honor; Gogol is like a ruffled prophetic bird that has flown to our long-suffering land from unknown heights; Tolstoy is like the rhizome of a huge oak tree, which has sunk its gnarled and muscular paws of roots deep into the ground and absorbs all the beginnings of life and all the teachings of the world... Tolstoy, an orphan without a cross on his grave hill... And Dostoevsky with his hands crossed on his knees and a martyr's face , with eyes intently directed forward, as in the famous portrait of Perov, and in deep thought, betraying the enormous work of the mind and soul. Tolstoy is a natural, epic work, similar to the mythological Pan, which, for all its power, remained unfinished; Dostoevsky is a spiritual work, not rooted, but fruitful and in thought, in the nature of the work, perfect. Its depths are the immensity of the human soul, the unbridled passions of its heroes are comparable to a hot splash of lava from neglected and sin-burdened layers; a humble and piercing ray of love miraculously reaches them and causes an eruption, after which either death from unbearable pain or transformation must follow. Dostoevsky has the face of a confessor, preoccupied with the organization of spiritual depths; everything he says, he says confidentially, leaning towards your ear, sometimes confused, in a hurry, because there are many who want to approach him, but, without losing confidence, he finishes speaking to the end. It was this interview, which required full attention, that was recognized by those who did not know how to listen as a “painful impression.” The language in the temple is different than on the street. You have to prepare your soul for reading Dostoevsky, like for confession, otherwise you won’t understand anything.

Dostoevsky is a prophet, Dostoevsky is an artist who amazed the world with his violent and verified psychologism. All this is undeniable. Of course, a prophet who foresaw a lot and said a lot forever. In essence, everything in his work, with the exception of two or three political articles in the Diary, is said forever, and an official entering the civil service should be examined whether he read Dostoevsky and what he took from Dostoevsky. But for us it’s somehow not so important that he is a prophet, for us a prophet is a distant, heavenly concept that we can’t reach, and we don’t want to let Fyodor Mikhailovich leave us and lose his closeness and trust. His prophecy is explained by the fact that he was an intelligent and attentive caretaker of Russian life and, as a confessor, he knew where to look for a person in a person. He has dozens of revelations that surpass the human mind, even the most insightful, and which, it seems, cannot be of earthly origin, but the insight knows in which vessel to shine.

The most important thing, perhaps, for us today is to remember that from his eternity Fyodor Mikhailovich speaks about the people from which he came, about the literature he served, about the life he observed. He says:

“All our Russian writers, absolutely all of them, did nothing but expose various monsters. Only Pushkin, well, yes, maybe Tolstoy, although it seems to me that he too will end up like this... The rest all just pilloried them, or pitied them and whined. Did they really not find anyone in Russia about whom they could say a good word, except for themselves, the accuser?.. Why did no one have the courage (many had talent) to show us in full stature a Russian man who could bow? They didn’t find him or something!..”

It didn't hurt to look for him. After Dostoevsky, literature became even more diligent in reorganizing social life; like wood-boring beetles, the artists crumbled, touching during breaks the familiar paintings around, familiar faces and native songs. They are touched - and back to work. The building collapsed (which is why one would like to think that if Dostoevsky had lived to Tolstoy’s age, this would not have happened with such swiftness and recklessness, with some kind of barge hauler “oh, whoosh!” - although common sense dictates that he would not have been able to stop it either unaccountable destructive impulse, but Dostoevsky’s authority was so great, his name shone with such an encouraging halo, that enlightened Russian people imagined that even the funeral of Fyodor Mikhailovich, thousands of people, which showed enormous combined pain and will, managed to stop the impending revolution) - but the building collapsed, they began to build something new, the style in literature was changed from critical to socialist, the latter demanding a “hero of our time” by ideological standards. Later, after the war, literature managed to bow to the warrior, the defender of the Fatherland. Even later, she found the appropriate feelings and language to bow to the old people, the guardians of folk traditions and language, faith and conscience, who carried Russia out of hunger, cold and disorder on their shoulders in unspeakable torment, but literature bowed to them already from the brink of the grave, in which the Russian village was leaving. And then again, and with even greater passion, with even greater frenzy, the reproach of the people began, which does not stop to this day: both this and that.

Yes, both this and that...

“But the people also preserved the beauty of their image,” answers Dostoevsky. “Whoever is a true friend of humanity, who has at least once had a heart beat for the suffering of the people, will understand and forgive all the impenetrable alluvial mud in which our people are immersed, and will be able to find a diamond in this mud. I repeat: judge the Russian people not by the abominations that they so often commit, but by those great and holy things for which even in their very abomination they constantly sigh. But not all of the people are scoundrels; there are saints, and what kind of saints too: they themselves shine and light the way for all of us!”

It is well said by Aglaya Epanchina in “The Idiot”: “There are two minds - the main one and the non-main one.” Dostoevsky’s view of Russia and its people was precisely the main mind, seeing beyond the images before his eyes, penetrating through time, illuminated by love and compassion, confirmed by their spiritual significance.

Dostoevsky is our contemporary. Not such a discovery, every great writer is greater than the time in which he lives, since extraordinary talent is a storehouse with many doors and these are truths that open up, like flowers in every spring, before each new generation. But Dostoevsky, like Pushkin, is closer and more contemporary to us than a number of other greats, more precise, broader, more heartfelt and deeper. Even those who regularly read Fyodor Mikhailovich know: his lines have the ability to grow into the previous text. It wasn’t - and suddenly it was revealed, revealed in amazing consonance with the events taking place. He spoke about educational reform, and about unbridled freedoms, and about foreignness, and about the national question, and about brotherhood, and about Russians, torn from their homeland, but remaining Russian, and that our global path does not lie through Europe ( and he considered Europe his second homeland), but through our nationality. More than 120 years ago, he said absolutely everything that is considered topical today...

Two forces - native faith and native literature - spiritually formed the Russian man, gave him scale and opened him up. Such influence and such significance of literature cannot be seen in any other people. When faith was forcibly rejected, for almost a century literature, albeit insufficiently, albeit in parables and allegorically, continued the spiritual work of nurturing and did not allow the people to forget their prayers. Now, under different orders, literature of the Russian type is rejected. In our literature, the Smerdyakovs could be literary heroes, but they could not be authors, rulers of thoughts. Now they, a kindred crowd, encouraging and pushing each other, rushed to vying with each other to say Smerdyakov’s: “Russia, Marya Kondratyevna, is nothing but ignorance. I think that this damned Russia needs to be conquered by foreigners.” Whether faith, in turn, will be able to support literature is difficult to say. For Russia, for its moral and spiritual salvation and elevation, needs not just good, honest, pure literature - it needs strong and influential literature, sacrificial realism, worthy of Pushkin and Dostoevsky.

“Literature Lessons” 2002. - No. 3

Pearls were one of the most common and favorite jewelry in Rus'. They used it to embroider both royal clothes and peasants' festive outfits. The image of pearls as a significant detail of artistic narrative appears in the works of Russian classics of different eras (about the existence of the word pearl and its derivatives in Russian culture, see the article by A.N. Shustov “Margarine is the brother of pearl barley” // Russian speech. 1997. No. 4).

In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” the mention of pearls is associated with two stable associations. On the one hand, pearls have long become a symbol of spiritual purity. And the author of the “Tale” tells the following about Prince Izyaslav, who was abandoned by his brothers in difficult times and died defending the land from enemies: “There was no such thing as brother Bryachiaslav, nor his friend Vsevolod; necklace" (Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus'. XII century. M., 1980. P. 382). On the other hand, unable to explain the true origin of pearls, ancient people considered them to be the tears of mermaids. Therefore, according to popular belief, even a dream about pearls was perceived as a harbinger of future misfortunes and tears. In the Lay, the Kiev prince Svyatoslav confides to those close to him his prophetic dream, full of bad omens. And one of them is the “great woman”, which was allegedly showered on the prince (Ibid. P. 378). That same morning he will hear the sad news of the death of Igor’s squad in the distant Polovtsian steppe. And then the Polovtsians will rush into Rus' with a devastating raid. On this occasion, Svyatoslav will utter his “golden word, mixed with tears” (Ibid. p. 380).

ON THE. Nekrasov, in the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” narrating how the widowed Daria grieved in the forest, directly likens her tears to pearls:

Another eyelash will fall off

And it will fall on the snow in a big way -

It will reach the very ground,

It will burn a deep hole;

He will throw another one onto a tree,

On the die - and, look, she

It will harden like a large pearl -

White and round and dense.

(Nekrasov N.A. Complete collection of works and letters: In 15 volumes, L., 1982. T. 4. P. 93). “My tears are not pearls. The tears of a grief-stricken widow,” Daria laments (Ibid. p. 97).

The traditional comparison in human perception of pearls and tears has led to the development of an ambivalent attitude towards this jewel in Russian everyday culture. Heirloom, inherited pearls were family pride, but using pearls as a gift was undesirable, so as not to bring trouble to the person. A.S. Pushkin, who knew folk beliefs and omens well, played up the fatal role of gifted pearls in his tragedy “The Mermaid.” The prince, leaving the girl he deceived, puts a pearl necklace on her as parting. And she suddenly almost physically feels the oppressive power of an unkind gift:

A cold snake is pressing on my neck...

He entangled me like a snake, like a snake,

Not pearls.

(Pushkin A.S. Complete collection of works: In 16 volumes. M., 1948. T. 7. P. 196). Having torn the necklace and torn off the expensive bandage from her head, the girl throws herself into the river.

The poet also develops the same plot in the ballad “Yanysh the Prince,” which is included in the cycle “Songs of the Western Slavs”: The prince Yanysh fell in love

Young beauty Elitsa,

He loves her for two red summers,

In the third summer he decided to get married

On Lubus, the Czech princess.

He goes to say goodbye to anyone he used to say goodbye to.

He brings her chervonets,

Two gold rattling earrings,

Yes, a triple pearl necklace...

(Ibid. P. 360).

The number of pearl strings seems to personify the fatal number for the heroine: Yanysh leaves her in the third year of dating. Elitsa will repeat the fate of the heroine of "Rusalka". And in both cases, a necklace of “mermaid tears” not only becomes a harbinger of misfortune - broken love and the death of the heroines - but seems to bewitch them, opening the way to the mermaid kingdom.

Later F.M. Dostoevsky in his novel “The Idiot” uses a recognizable Pushkin motif. The rich man Totsky, having decided to get married, is looking for an opportunity to part decently, without scandalous publicity, with Nastasya Filippovna, who was once seduced by him. General Epanchin, who helped him in this, presents Nastasya Filippovna with a similar gift - “an amazing pearl that cost a huge amount.” It is no coincidence that the young woman’s expensive gift “was received with too cold a courtesy, and even with some kind of special grin” (Dostoevsky F.M. Complete collected works: In 30 vol. L., 1973. Vol. 8. With 44, 116). That same evening, in front of the guests, she will return the pearls to the general. However, this will no longer save her from a tragic fate. Like Pushkin's heroines, death awaits her.

The hero of the story N.S. Leskova “Pearl Necklace” Vasiliev, known for his wealth and stinginess, on the eve of the wedding of his beloved daughter Mashenka gives her “a completely unacceptable and ominous gift. He himself put a rich pearl necklace on her in front of everyone at dinner...”. The effect was unexpected: “Masha, having received the gift, began to cry.” And one guest angrily reproached Vasiliev for his carelessness: “He was reprimanded for the gift of pearls because pearls signify and foreshadow tears (Leskov N.S. Collected works: In 11 vol. M., 1958. T. 7. P. 442). It turned out that the owner himself knew this sign. He declares: “I, madam, also went through these subtleties in my time, and I know what cannot be given.” With the confidence of an expert who understands these things, he even introduces clarification: such beliefs mostly apply to sea pearls, but may not apply to freshwater pearls; on the contrary, they are beneficial to humans.” Proving that legends and prohibitions regarding pearls are “empty superstitions,” Vasiliev cites the example of Mary Stuart, who, out of superstition, wore only freshwater pearls, “from Scottish rivers, but they did not bring her happiness.” Vasiliev makes a mysterious promise to his daughter: “But you, my child, don’t cry and get out of your head that my pearls bring tears. This is not like that. On the next day of your wedding I will reveal the secret of these pearls, and you will see that you have no There is nothing to be afraid of prejudices...” (Ibid. pp. 442-443).

However, the example of Mary Stuart was unsuccessful; her tragic fate only confirmed the rumor about the evil properties of pearls. And the ending of the story, telling about Masha’s happy marriage, also did not refute popular beliefs. It’s just that the pearls turned out to be fake and therefore have no magical powers. On the one hand, Vasiliev wanted to test his son-in-law’s selflessness in this way. But on the other hand, no matter how hard he tried to appear in words as an opponent of “prejudices,” he nevertheless did not dare to step over the signs approved for centuries.

In some works, pearls act as a symbol of love temptation. So, in the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Snow Maiden" "trading guest" Mizgir, who returned from distant lands, boasts to the Snow Maiden that he got pearls,

Which is not in the crowns of kings,

Neither the queens in wide necklaces.

You can't buy it; worth half a kingdom

Pearl. Take turns? Things equal

You won't pick it up. Its price is equal to

Snow Maiden, your only love.

Let's take turns, take priceless pearls,

Give me love.

But the simple-minded hearts of the Berendeys live by different laws, and the Snow Maiden answers:

Priceless pearl

Keep it for yourself; I don't value it dearly

My love, but I won’t sell it:

I change from love to love.

But not with you. Mizgir.

(Ostrovsky A.N. Collected works: In 10 volumes. M., 1960. T. 6. P. 420).

Later I.S. Turgenev will write the story “The Song of Triumphant Love” and, perhaps, not without the influence of the play “The Snow Maiden”, will make an insert in the white autograph telling about the expensive gift that Mucius, having returned from distant countries, presented to his friend’s wife. Among the exotic rarities he brought was “a rich pearl necklace, received by Mucius from the Persian Shah for some great and secret service; he asked Valeria’s permission to place this necklace on her neck with his own hand; it seemed to her heavy and endowed with some strange warmth... it is so and clung to the skin" (Turgenev I.S. Complete collection of works and letters: In 30 volumes. M., 1982. T. 10. P. 51). With this gift the mysterious magic of seduction began, the influence of which brought Valeria, against her will, into the arms of Mucius.

Both in “The Snow Maiden” and in “The Song of Triumphant Love” the equivalent of rare “royal” pearls is love. But in Turgenev this theme receives a new development. If in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” the human soul was likened to pearls (“pearl soul”), then in the fantastic context of Turgenev’s story, the pearls seem to be infused with the unquenchable heat of Mucius’s soul. And the necklace, as if alive, acquires a “strange warmth”, clings to Valeria, just as Mucius strives for her with all his thoughts. With the death of Mucius, the witchcraft spells dissipate, and Valeria thinks that she knows how to break the invisible connection that connected her with Mucius. She asks her husband: “Take this thing!” She pointed to the pearl necklace lying on the night table, the necklace given to her by Mucius, “and throw it immediately into our deepest well.” Turgenev also plays on the widespread belief that pearls become tarnished if their owner falls ill or dies: “Fabius took the necklace - the pearls seemed tarnished to him” (Ibid. p. 64).

It is characteristic that both Ostrovsky and Turgenev emphasize the “overseas” origin of pearls. Mucius was given it by the “Shah of Persia”. Mizgir obtained it “near the island of Gurmyza, where there is a warm, raging sea...” (Ibid. P. 420). On the one hand, the theme of oriental exoticism was organically woven into the artistic context of both Ostrovsky’s “spring tale” and Turgenev’s fantastic story. But it should also be noted that both works were created in the 70s of the 19th century. The post-reform era with the rapid development of the capitalist economy has adversely affected the Russian ecology. Caravans of ships and barges, timber rafting, and coastal factories uncontrollably polluted Russian rivers. And pearl shells, found only in clean water, were on the verge of complete extinction. According to Brockhaus and Efron, Russia, on the eve of the reform, sold abroad pearls worth 181,520 rubles, and a decade later, in 1870, only 1,505 rubles (Brockhaus F.A., Efron I.A. Encyclopedic Dictionary). At this time, pearls began to be subconsciously perceived as a fabulous rarity that could only be found in some distant countries, untouched by European civilization.

A.N. Ostrovsky in his play “The Comedian of the 17th Century,” restoring the everyday realities of the past of pre-Petrine Rus', also recalls the fact that then the abundance and cheapness of Russian pearls made them accessible to people of all classes. When guests come to the house of the widow-gold seamstress Perepechina to woo her daughter Natalya to Yakov, the clerk’s son, the inspection of the bride’s dowry begins with a casket filled with pearls. Perepechina boasts: “There’s some loose grain in the casket. Look for yourself - Rolly and clean.” Everyone carefully examines the contents of the chest. And Natalya, who has long been in love with Yakov, feeling that the price of pearls is becoming the price of her happiness, remarks with displeasure: “They are bargaining like they are selling a horse” (Ostrovsky A.N. Op. op. pp. 254-255). But even in this plot of the play, popular beliefs about the evil properties of pearls are played out. It is because of him that discord begins between the matchmakers and Perepechina, which almost ends in a complete quarrel.

In the play L.A. In "The Tsar's Bride" pearls are also an object of bargaining and the theme of pearls is also intertwined with the theme of love, but in a different version. Lyubasha offers her treasured pearl necklace to the doctor Bomelius in exchange for a potion that could “dry up” Marfa Sobakin, whose beauty attracted the heart of Grigory Gryazny. However, Bomelius demands that Lyubasha pay for his service with her love. Grigory, together with the guardsmen, kidnapped Lyubasha from her home, but soon lost interest in her. The pearls and emerald ring that the girl promised Bomelius were gifts from Gregory.

Thus, in May’s play, Pushkin’s motif was also realized: the pearls given to Lyubasha turn out to be a harbinger of sadness and imminent separation from her lover. In another episode of the play, pearls act as a love spell talisman. Saburova told how the choice of the tsar’s bride took place in the palace and how the beauties presented to the tsar were dressed up: “What a waste of pearls! If only they could be sprinkled all over, Well, really, there will be four! On Koltovskaya alone it’s so scary...” The unprecedented abundance of pearls that adorned the girl attracted the sovereign’s attention to her: “... He deigned to joke with Koltovskaya, That he pulled her pearls, tea, and hands away” (May L.A. Selected Works. L., 1972. P. 389-390).
And although this time the tsar’s choice fell on Marfa Sobakina, the viewer, familiar with Russian history, remembered that after Marfa’s sudden death, Ivan the Terrible made Anna Koltovskaya his wife. But hardly anyone could envy her fate.

Thus, the image of pearls, surrounded by an aura of mystery and inextricably linked with dramatic love conflicts, became in Russian literature a symbol of women’s sadness as eternal as the world.

Gracheva I.V. Russian speech No. 3 (..2002)