Summary of “Who is Good in Russia”
Poem Nekrasov “To Whom in Russia to Live Well” tells about the journey of seven peasants in Russia in search of a happy man. The work was written in the late 60’s and mid-70’s. XIX century, after the reforms of Alexander II and the abolition of serfdom. It describes the post-reform society, in which not only did many old vices disappear, but many new ones also appeared. According to the plan of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, the pilgrims were to reach St. Petersburg at the end of the road, but because of the illness and the quick death of the author, the poem remained unfinished.
The work “To Whom in Russia Live Well” is written in white verse and is stylized as Russian folk tales.
We offer to read the online summary “Who in Russia live well” Nekrasov by chapters, prepared by the editors of our portal.
Main characters
Roman, Demian, Luka, Gubin’s brothers Ivan and Mitrodor, Pachom, Provs are seven peasants
Other characters
Yermil Jirin – the first “candidate” for the title of fortunate, an honest broker, very respected by the peasants.
Matrena Korchagina is a peasant woman, who in her village is known as a “lucky woman”.
Saveliy is the grandfather of her husband Matryona Korchagina. A century old man.
Prince Utyatin – an old landowner, a tyrant, whom his family, in collusion with the peasants, does not speak of the abolition of serfdom.
Vlas is a peasant, a burlister of a village once owned by Dytin.
Grisha Dobroskolonov is a seminarian, son of a clerk, dreaming of the liberation of the Russian people; The prototype was the revolutionary democrat N. Dobrolyubov.
Summary
Part 1
Prologue
On the “lane” seven peasants converge: Roman, Demian, Luke, Gubin brothers, old Pakhom and Prov. The county from which they originate is called the author Terpigorev, and the “adjacent villages” from which the peasants come are referred to as Zaplatovo, Dyryaevo,
The peasants agreed and argued:
Who is having fun,
Is it free in Russia?
Each of them insists on his own. One screams that the landlord lives most freely, the other is that to an official, the third to a priest, a “bogeyman”, “a noble boyar, a minister to the tsar,” or the tsar.
From the side it seems as if the muzhiks found a treasure on the road and now divide it among themselves. The peasants have already forgotten how they left the house, and they do not know where until the night comes. Only then the peasants stop and, “having dumped misfortune on the dog,” they sit down to rest and continue the argument. Soon it comes to a fight.
Roman tusit Pakhomushku,
Demyan is tinkering Luka.
The fight wrecked the whole forest, the echo woke up, animals and birds were worried, the cow mooed, the cuckoo was waving, the galchata was singing, the fox listening to the peasants decided to run away.
And then there’s a chiffchaff.
With a fright the little bird is tiny.
From the nest fell.
When the fight is over, the peasants pay attention to this bird and catch it. Bird is easier than a peasant, Pakhom says. He would have wings, and he would have flown all over Russia to find out who is best at it. “Do not need and wings,” – add the rest, they would only bread and “bucket would vodka”, as well as cucumbers, kvass and gull. Then they would have measured the whole Rus’-Mother with their feet. “
While the peasants are interpreting this way, a chiffchair flies up to them, and asks to release her chick to freedom. For her, she will give the royal ransom: everything desired by the peasants.
The peasants agree, and the chiffchaff gives them a place in the woods, where a box with a tablecloth-self-cloth is buried. Then she enchants them with clothes, so that she does not get carried away so that the bast shoes do not break, the footcloths are not preli, and the louse does not breed on the body, and flies “with her beloved little bird.” At parting, the chiffchaff warns the peasant: they can ask for food from the tablecloth-self-scrubbing, as many as you like, but you can not ask for more buckets of vodka a day:
And once and twice – will be fulfilled at
your desire,
and in the third be trouble!
Peasants rush into the woods, where they really find a tablecloth-self-cleaning. Delighted, they arrange a feast and give a vow: not to return home until they know for certain, “Who lives happily, is free in Russia?”.
So begins their journey.
Chapter 1. Pop
Far stretches a wide path, furnished with birches. On it, peasants, craftsmen, beggars, soldiers come across mostly peasants. They have travelers do not even ask: what kind of happiness is there? Closer to the evening, the peasants meet a priest. The men obstruct his path and bow low. In response to the silent question of the priest: what do they need?, Luka talks about the start of a dispute and asks: “Is life sweet popovskaya?”.
The priest thinks for a long time, and then answers that, since he murmurs on God’s sin, he will simply describe his life to the peasants, and they will see for themselves whether she is good.
Happiness, according to the priest, is three things: “peace, wealth, honor.” The priest is unaware of any rest: his dignity comes to him with hard work, and then begins no less difficult service, the weeping of orphans, the cries of widows and the moaning of the dying contribute little to peace of mind.
Nothing is better with respect and honor: the priest serves as an object for the witticisms of the common people, obscene tales, anecdotes and stories are being written about him, which spoil not only him, but his wife, the assailant, and children.
There remains the last, wealth, but here everything has changed a long time. Yes, there were times when the nobility honored the priest, played lavish weddings and came to their estates to die – that was the work of the priests, and now the “landlords in the far foreign land” were scattered. So it turns out that pop is satisfied with rare copper heels:
The peasant himself needs,
And would gladly give, but there is nothing…
Having finished his speech, the priest leaves, and the disputants throw themselves on Luka with reproaches. They amicably accuse him of being stupid, of the fact that it seemed to him that he looked like a priests’ dwelling place, but he could not get a deeper understanding.
What took? the head is stubborn!
Guys, probably, would have beaten Luka, but then to his happiness on the curve of the road once again shows “the face of the priest strictly” …
Chapter 2. Rural yarn
The peasants continue their journey, and their road goes through empty villages. Finally they meet a rider and are interested in him, where the inhabitants have disappeared.
We went to the village of Kuzminskoe,
Today there is a yoke…
Then the wanderers decide to go to the fair too, but what if the one who lives happily lives there?
Kuzminskoe – a rich, though dirty village. It has two churches, a school, a dirty hotel and even a paramedic. That is why the rich and fair, and most of all there are taverns, “eleven cubs”, and they do not have time to pour all those who wish:
Oh thirst for orthodoxy,
Where you are great!
A lot of drunk people are around. A peasant scolds a broken ax, Vavila’s grandfather is grieving alongside, who promised to bring his shoes to his granddaughter, but drank all the money. People feel sorry for him, but no one can help – they themselves do not have money. Fortunately, there happens to be a “master”, Pavlusha Veretennikov, who also buys shoes for Vavila’s granddaughter.
They trade at the fair and the office, but the most inferior books are in demand, and also the portraits of the generals are “thicker”. And no one knows if the time will come when the man:
Belinsky and Gogol
From the market will carry?
By the evening everyone gets drunk so that even a church with a bell tower seems to be staggering, and the peasants leave the village.
Chapter 3. A Drunken Night
It’s a quiet night. Guys are walking along a “hundred-voice” road and hear scraps of other people’s conversations. They talk about officials, about bribes: “And we’re making fifty rubles a scribe: A Prose has been made,” women’s songs are heard asking to “love”. One drunk guy digs his clothes into the ground, assuring everyone that he “buries the mother.” At the roadside the pilgrims again meet Pavel Veretennikov. He talks with peasants, writes down their songs and sayings. Having written down enough, Veretennikov blames the peasants that they drink a lot – “it’s a pity to look!”. He is objected: the peasant is drinking mainly from grief, and it is a sin to condemn or envy that.
The objectioner is Yakim Naked. His story also writes Pavlusha in a little book. Even in his youth, Yakim bought the son of popular prints and himself liked to look at them no less than a child. When a fire broke out in the hut, he first rushed to tear off the pictures from the walls, and so all his savings, thirty-five rubles, were burnt. For the fused lump, now he is given 11 rubles.
After listening to the stories, the pilgrims sit down to refresh themselves, then one of them, Roman, remains at the bucket of vodka for the guard, and the others again mingle with the crowd in search of a happy one.
Chapter 4. Happy
Wanderers walk in the crowd and are invited to appear happy. If this appears and tells them about his happiness, then he will be treated to vodka with glory.
Sober people chuckle at these speeches, but a lot of queue is building up from drunks. The sexton comes first. His happiness, he said, “in good health” and in “kosushechke”, which poured the peasants. The sexton is banished, and there is an old woman who, on a small ridge, “had a turnip up to a thousand.” The next happiness is trying the soldier with medals, “a little alive, and I want to drink.” His happiness is that as he was tortured in the service, and yet he remained alive. There is also a rocket with a huge hammer, a peasant who broke through in the service, but still, barely alive, drove home, a domestic man with a “gentry” disease – gout. The latter boasts that for forty years he stood at the table with the prince, he licked plates and drank a foreign wine from the wine glasses. Guys also drive him away, because they have a simple wine, “
The queue for pilgrims does not get smaller. The Belarusian peasant is happy that here he eats a full rye bread, because in the homeland the bread was baked only with chaff, and this caused terrible rezi in the stomach. A man with a cheekbone stocky, a hunter, is happy that he survived the fight with the bear, while the rest of his comrades killed the bears. Even beggars come: they are happy that there is alms to feed them.
Finally, the bucket is empty, and the wanderers understand that they will not be able to achieve happiness.
Hey, muzhik’s happiness!
Leaky, with patches,
Brokeback with blisters,
Go home!
Then one of the people approaching them advises “to ask Yermil Girin”, because if he is not happy, then there is nothing to look for. Ermila is a simple peasant who deserves the great love of the people. Wanderers tell the following story: once Yermila had a mill, but she was sold for debts. Bidding began, the mill was very much wanted to buy merchant Altynnikov. Ermila was able to kill his price, but the trouble – money to make a deposit, he was not with him. Then he asked for a postponement per hour and ran to the trading floor to ask money from the people.
And a miracle happened: Ermila was taken money. Very soon, a thousand needed for the purchase of the mill was with him. A week later, on the square, the spectacle was even more wonderful: Ermil “counted the people”, the money was distributed all honestly. There was only one extra ruble left, and Ermil asked before sunset where he was.
Wanderers are perplexed: what witchcraft Ermil received such confidence of the people. They are told that this is not witchcraft, but the truth. Jirin served as clerk in the office and never took anyone from kopecks, but he helped with advice. Soon the old prince died, and the new ordered the peasants to choose the burgomaster. Unanimously, “six thousand souls, with all fiefdom” Yermila shouted – though young, but loves the truth!
Only once “yelled” Ermil, when he did not recruit his younger brother, Mitriya, replacing him with his son Nenily Vlasyevna. But the conscience after this act so tortured Ermila that soon he tried to hang himself. Mitria was surrendered to recruits, and her son Nenila was returned to her. Ermil also went for a long time not his own, “resigned from his post”, and rented a mill instead and became “more than the old people anyway.”
But here the priest interferes in the conversation: all this is true, but it’s useless to go to Ermil Girin. He is in prison. The priest begins to tell how it was – the village of Stolbnyaki rebelled and the authorities decided to call Ermil – his people will listen.
The story is interrupted by shouts: caught a thief and flogged. The thief is the same lackey with a “noble illness”, and after flogging he flees as if he completely forgot about his illness.
The priest, meanwhile, says goodbye, promising to finish the narration of history at the next meeting.
Chapter 5. The landlord
On their further way the peasants meet landowner Gavril Afanasyitch Obolt-Obolduyev. The landowner at first is frightened, having suspected in them robbers, but, having understood, in what business, laughs and starts to tell the history. He leads his noble family from the Tatar Obolduya, whom the bear was torn to the delight of the empress. She also granted the Tartar cloth for it. Such were the noble ancestors of the landowner…
Then Oblt-Obolduyev mourns for the former, free life of the master, when everything around him belonged, the peasants bowed, he alone was a judge and a lord.
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
However, not all strictness, the landowner admits that he more “caressed the heart” more! All his servants loved him, gave him presents, and he was like his father. But everything changed: the peasants and the land were taken from the landowner. The knock of an ax is heard from the woods, everyone is ruined, in exchange for the mansion there are breeding houses, because now the letter is absolutely useless to anyone. And the landlords shout:
Wake up, the landowner is asleep!
Get up! – Learn! work hard! ..
But how to work the landowner, from an early childhood habitual to another? They did not learn anything, and “thought of living this century”, but it turned out differently.
The landowner sobbed, together with him the good-natured peasants nearly cried, thinking:
The great chain was torn,
Torn – jumped:
One end by the master,
Another by the peasant! ..
Part 2
After
The next day, the peasants go to the bank of the Volga, to a huge haymaking meadow. As soon as they got to talking with the local people, music was heard and three boats moored to the shore. They are a noble family: two gentlemen with wives, little barchites, servants and a gray-haired old man-master. The old man examines the mowing, and everyone bowed to him almost to the ground. In one place, he stops and orders to sweep the dry haystack: the hay is still damp. A nosy order is executed immediately.
Wanderers marvel:
Grandfather!
What a wonderful old man?
It turns out that the old man – Prince Utyatin – when he learned of the abolition of serfdom, “fooled”, and sleed with a blow. His sons were told that they betrayed the landlord ideals, they could not defend them, and if so, they remain without inheritance. The sons were frightened and persuaded the peasants to fool the landowner a little, so that after his death they would give the village meadows. The old man was told that the tsar ordered the serfs to return the landlords back to the landlords, the prince rejoiced and rose to his feet. So this comedy continues to this day. Some peasants are even happy about this, for example, the courtyard Ipat:
Ipatus said: “Dabble in you!
And I princes Duck’s Holocaust
– and all this is a story!”
But Agap Petrov can not put up with the fact that in the will they will be pushed. Once he told the master all right, and that one hit was enough. When he woke up, he ordered Agapa to be cut, and the peasants, in order not to disclose the deceit, led him to the stable, where they put a wine bottle in front of him: drink and shout loudly! Agap died the same night: it was hard for him to bow…
Wanderers are present at the feast of the Afterdaughter, where he talks about the benefits of serfdom, and then lies down in a boat and falls asleep in song to her in eternal sleep. The village of Vakhlaaki sighs with sincere relief, but no one gives them to me – the trial lasts until today.
Part 3
Peasant woman
“Not everything between men To
find the happy,
Feel the bab!” –
With these words strange
Iki go to Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna, governor, a beautiful woman of 38 years old, who, however, already calls herself an old woman. She talks about her life. Then she was just as happy as she grew up in her parents’ house. But the girl quickly flew past, and Matryona was already wooing. Her crucified is Philip, handsome, rosy and strong. He loves his wife, but soon goes to work, and leaves her with his big, but stranger Matryona, his family.
Matryona works for the elder sister-in-law, for the strict mother-in-law, and for the father-in-law. She had no joy in life until her eldest son was born, Demushka.
In the whole family, only old Grandpa Saveliy, “the hero of the Holy Trinity”, who lives his life after twenty years of hard labor, feels sorry for Matryona. On hard labor, he fell for the murder of a German governor, who did not give peasants a single free minute. Savely told Matrena a lot about his life, about “Russian heroism”.
The mother-in-law forbids Matryona to take Demushka in the field: with him she does not work very much. The grandfather looks after the child, but one day he falls asleep, and the pig is eaten by the child. After a while, Matryona meets Demushka Savelia, who went to penitence in the Sand Monastery, at the grave. She forgives him and takes him home, where the old man soon dies.
There were Matryona and other children, but she could not forget Demushka. One of them, the shepherd Fedot, once wanted to carve for a wolf carried away by a wolf, but Matryona accepted the punishment. When she was pregnant with Lyodorushka, she had to go to the city, ask for the return of her husband taken away in the soldiers. Straight in the waiting room Matryona and gave birth, and the governor, Elena Alexandrovna, for whom the whole family is now praying, helped her. Since then, Matryona and “have been cheated fortunate, nicknamed the governor.” But what happiness is there?
This is how Matrenushka tells wanderers and adds: they will never find a happy woman among women, the keys to women’s happiness are lost, and even God does not know where to find them.
Part 4
A feast for the whole world
A feast is taking place in the village of Vakhlachina. Everyone gathered there: wanderers, Klim Yakovich, and Vlas the elder. Among the feasting there are also two seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, good common guys. They, at the request of the people, sing a “cheerful” song, then a turn comes for different stories. There is a story about the “servant of the exemplary – Yakov faithful”, who spent his entire life following the master, fulfilled all his whims and rejoiced even in the barbaric beatings. Only when the gentleman gave his nephew to the soldiers, Yakov washed down, but soon returned to the master. And yet Jacob did not forgive him, and he was able to take revenge on Polivanov: he brought him, with legs removed, into the forest, and there he hanged himself on a pine tree above the master.
There comes a dispute about who is the most sinful. God’s wanderer Jonah tells the story of “two sinners”, about the robber Kudeyar. The Lord awakened his conscience in him and imposed on him penance: to cut down a huge oak tree in the forest, then his sins will be forgiven him. But the oak fell only when Kudeyar sprinkled him with the blood of the cruel Pan Glukhovsky. Ignatius Prokhorov objects to Jonah: the peasant sin is still greater, and tells the story of the headman. He concealed the last will of his master, who decided before his death to let his peasants free. But the elder was tempted with money and broke free.
The crowd is crushed. Sing songs: “Hungry”, “Soldier”. But there will be time in Russia and for good songs. Confirmation of this – two brothers, a seminarian, Savva and Grisha. Seminarist Grisha, the son of the sexton, has known since the age of fifteen that he wants to devote his life to the happiness of the people. The love for the mother merges into his heart with love to the whole bag. Grisha goes along his edge and sings a song about Russia:
You and the wretched,
You and plentiful,
You and the mighty,
You and the powerless,
Mother Rus!
And his plans will not be lost: fate prepares Grisha “a glorious path, the name of a loud national defender, consumption and Siberia.” And while Grisha sings, and it’s a pity that wanderers do not hear him, because then they would understand that they already found a happy man and could return home.
Conclusion
This ends the unfinished chapters of Nekrasov poem. However, even from the surviving parts, the reader is faced with a large-scale picture of post-reform Russia, which learns to live with anguish in a new way. The range of problems raised by the author in the poem is very wide: the problems of widespread drunkenness, the ruining Russian people’s problems of women, ineradicable slave psychology and the main problem of people’s happiness. Most of these problems, unfortunately, to some extent and still retain their relevance, which is why the work is very popular, and a number of quotes from it have been included in everyday speech. The compositional reception of the journey of the main characters brings the poem closer to the adventure novel, thanks to which it is read easily and with great interest.
A brief retelling of “To whom to live well in Russia” conveys only the most basic content of the poem, for a more accurate idea of the work, we recommend that you read the full version of “Who Lives Well in Russia”.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)