Analysis of the chapter “Landowner. Characteristics of Obolt-Obolduev in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” Characteristics of Obolt Obolduev in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

By reflecting on what a person should be and what true human happiness should consist of, the first four chapters psychologically prepare the reader for a meeting with Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev. In the chapter “The Landowner,” which returns the development of the plot to the narrative scheme outlined by the “Prologue,” in sharp contrast with the high moral ideals of the people (the image of Yermil), the life of one of those who turned Russian villages into Razutovo and Neelovo, did not give a peasant to sigh (“Nedykhanyev Uyezd”), saw in him a working animal, a “horse.”

As we remember, already in the 40s, the landowner and the peasant appeared to Nekrasov as two polar quantities, antagonists, whose interests were incompatible. In “Who Lives Well in Rus'” he clashed with the landowners and peasant Rus' and with his authorial will he forced Obolt to “confess” to the men, talk about his life, giving it to the people’s judgment.

The satirically drawn image of a landowner - a lover of hound hunting - runs through many of Nekrasov’s works of the 40s (the vaudeville “You Can’t Hide an Awl in a Sack...”, “The Moneylender”, the poems “Hound Hunt”, “Motherland”). It has long been established that the image of the “gloomy ignoramus” in “Motherland” goes back to the real personality of the poet’s father. Alexey Sergeevich Nekrasov was a very typical and colorful figure of the era of serfdom, and researchers (A.V. Popov, V.A. Arkhipov, A.F. Tarasov) are increasingly discerning the features of his appearance in the stingy, gloomy, rude hero of “Hound Hunt” ", and in the image of Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev. Bolta has in common with A.S. Nekrasov the fist method of dealing with serfs, a passion for hunting, and noble ambition. But, as you know, the type is never equal to the prototype. Obolt-Obolduev is a landowner, an image that synthesizes the traits observed by Nekrasov not only in his father, but also in other landowners of the post-reform era.

The image of Obolt is drawn satirically. This determines the author’s choice of the hero’s surname, his features portrait characteristics, the meaning and tone of the landowner's story. The author's work on the hero's name is very interesting. In the Vladimir province there were landowners, the Abolduevs and the Obolduevs. In Nekrasov’s time, the word “stun” meant: “ignorant, uncouth, blockhead.” This satirical tone real name antique noble family and attracted the attention of Nekrasov. And then the poet, again using the actual surnames of Yaroslavl nobles, imbues the surname Obolduev with additional satirical meaning: Brykovo-Obalduev (= an idiot with a temper), Dolgovo-Obalduev (= a ruined idiot) and, finally, modeled after real double surnames— Obolt-Obolduev (= twice a blockhead, for “blockhead” is a synonym for the word “blockhead”).

The image of the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is built by the author on identifying the constant discrepancy between what the hero thinks about himself, what meaning he puts into his words, and the impression he and his story make on listeners - men and the reader. And this impression of insignificance, insignificance, complacency, swagger and comicality of the hero is created by the very first lines depicting Obolt’s appearance. “Some round gentleman appeared before the wanderers. / Mustachioed, pot-bellied,” “ruddy. / Portentous, stocky.” In his mouth he had not a cigar, but a “cigarette”; he pulled out not a pistol, but a “pistol”, the same as the master himself, “plump”. In this context, the mention of the “valiant tricks” takes on an ironic connotation, especially since the hero is clearly not a brave dozen: when he saw the men, he “freaked out” and “pulled out a pistol”

And the six-barreled barrel

He brought it to the wanderers:

- Don't move! If you move,

Robbers! robbers!

I'll put it on the spot!..

Obolt's belligerent cowardice is so dissonant with the intentions of the truth-seekers that it involuntarily causes them to laugh.

The talk is funny. It’s funny when he talks with pathos about the “exploits” of his ancestors, who amused the empress with bears, tried to set fire to Moscow and rob the treasury, when he boasts about his “family tree.” It’s funny when, forgetting about the “glass of sherry”, “jumping up from the Persian carpet”, in front of seven keen observers, in the excitement of the hunt, waves his arms, jumps up, shouts in a wild voice “Hey! hoo-hoo! a-tu!”, imagining that he was poisoning a fox.

But Obolt-Obolduev is not only funny to men. Internal hostility and distrust of the landowner are evident in every word, in every remark of the wanderers. They do not believe the “honest, noble” word, opposing it to the “Christian” one, since the word

Noblesse with abuse,

With a push and a punch,

It is hateful for a peasant who is beginning to realize his human and civil rights.

The remarks exchanged between the landowner and the peasants reveal mutual contempt and mockery, poorly hidden in Obolt:

Sit down, GENTLEMEN!...

Please sit down, CITIZENS! —

hidden in sly irony - among men. With ironic remarks they expose the absurdity of Obolt’s class arrogance:

Bone white, bone black,

And look, they are so different...

They evaluate the “exploits” of his ancestors:

Quite a few of them are staggering

Scoundrels and now...

According to the proverb “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Gavrilo Afanasyevich himself is assessed:

And you're like an apple

Are you coming out of that tree?

The hidden, but every now and then erupting hostility of the peasants towards the landowner is justified by the whole meaning of his story about the free life in pre-reform times, when the landowners in Rus' lived “like Christ in the bosom.”

The basis of the feeling of happiness in life for Obolt is the consciousness of owning property: “your villages,” “your forests,” “your fields,” “your fat turkeys,” “your juicy liqueurs,” “your actors, music,” each grass whispers the word “ yours." This self-satisfied rapture in one’s happiness is not only insignificant in comparison with the “concern” of truth-seekers, but is infinitely cynical, because it is asserted “from a position of strength”:

There is no contradiction in anyone,

I will have mercy on whomever I want,

I'll execute whoever I want.

And although Obolt immediately tries to present his relationship with the serfs in patriarchal and idyllic tones (joint prayers in the manor’s house, the celebration of Christ on Easter), the men, not believing a single word of his, ironically think:

You knocked them down with a stake, or what?

Praying in the manor's house?

In front of those who are straining themselves from immeasurable labor (“the peasant navel is cracking”), Obolt swaggeringly declares his inability and unwillingness to work, his contempt for work:

Noble classes

We don't learn how to work...

I smoked God's heaven...

But the “landowner’s chest” breathed “freely and easily” during the times of serfdom, until “the great chain broke”... At the moment of meeting with the truth-seekers, Obolt-Obolduev was filled with bitterness:

And everything went! everything is over!

Chu! Death knell!..

...Through life according to the landowners

They're calling!..

Gavrila Afanasyevich notices the changes that have occurred in public life Russia. This is the decline of the landowner economy (“estates are being transferred”, “dismantled brick by brick / Beautiful house landowner", "the fields are unfinished", the peasant's "robber" ax sounds in the lordly forest), this and the growth of bourgeois entrepreneurship ("drinking houses are springing up"). But most of all, Obolt-Obolduev is angered by the peasants in whom there is no former respect, who " play pranks" in the landowner's forests, or even worse - they rise to revolt. The landowner perceives these changes with a feeling of bitter hostility, since they are associated with the destruction of patriarchal landowner Rus', so dear to his heart.

With all the certainty of the satirical coloring of the image, Obolt, however, is not a mask, but a living person. The author does not deprive his story of subjective lyricism. Gavrila Afanasyevich almost inspiredly paints pictures of hound hunting and family life in “noble nests.” In his speech, pictures of Russian nature appear, high vocabulary and lyrical images appear:

Oh mother, oh homeland!

We're not sad about ourselves,

I feel sorry for you, dear.

Obolt repeats the words twice: “We are not sad about ourselves.” He, in the frustration of his feelings, perhaps really believes that he is sad not about himself, but about the fate of his homeland. But too often in the landowner’s speech the pronouns “I” and “mine” were heard for one to believe for even a minute in his filial love for the Motherland. Oboltu-Obolduev is bitter for himself, he is crying because the broken chain of serfdom has hit him too, the reform heralded the beginning of the end of the landowners.

Marx once wrote that “humanity laughingly says goodbye to its past, to obsolete forms of life.” Obolt precisely embodies those obsolete forms of life to which Russia was saying goodbye. And although Gavrila Afanasyevich is going through difficult moments, his subjective drama is not an objective historical drama. And Nekrasov, whose gaze is directed towards the Russia of the future, teaches laughing to part with the ghosts of the past, which is served by the satirical and humorous coloring of the chapter “The Landowner”.

Definitely negative heroes. Nekrasov describes various perverted relationships between landowners and serfs. The young lady who whipped men for swear words seems kind and affectionate in comparison with the landowner Polivanov. He bought a village with bribes, in it he “played freely, indulged in drinking, drank bitterly,” was greedy and stingy. The faithful servant Yakov took care of the master, even when his legs were paralyzed. But the master chose Yakov’s only nephew to become a soldier, flattered by his bride.

Separate chapters are devoted to two landowners.

Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev.

Portrait

To describe the landowner, Nekrasov uses diminutive suffixes and speaks of him with disdain: a round gentleman, mustachioed and pot-bellied, ruddy. He has a cigar in his mouth, and he’s carrying a C grade. In general, the image of the landowner is sweet and not at all menacing. He is not young (sixty years old), “portanous, stocky,” with a long gray mustache and dashing manners. The contrast between the tall men and the squat gentleman should make the reader smile.

Character

The landowner was frightened by the seven peasants and pulled out a pistol, as plump as himself. The fact that the landowner is afraid of the peasants is typical for the time this chapter of the poem was written (1865), because the liberated peasants gladly took revenge on the landowners whenever possible.

The landowner boasts of his “noble” origins, described with sarcasm. He says that Obolt Obolduev is a Tatar who entertained the queen with a bear two and a half centuries ago. Another of his maternal ancestors, about three hundred years ago, tried to set fire to Moscow and rob the treasury, for which he was executed.

Lifestyle

Obolt-Obolduev cannot imagine his life without comfort. Even while talking with the men, he asks the servant for a glass of sherry, a pillow and a carpet.

The landowner remembers with nostalgia old times(before the abolition of serfdom), when all nature, peasants, fields and forests worshiped the master and belonged to him. Noble houses competed with churches in beauty. The life of a landowner was a continuous holiday. The landowner kept many servants. In the fall he was engaged in hound hunting - a traditional Russian pastime. During the hunt, the landowner’s chest breathed freely and easily, “the spirit was transferred to the ancient Russian customs.”

Obolt-Obolduev describes the order of landowner life as the absolute power of the landowner over the serfs: “There is no contradiction in anyone, I will have mercy on whomever I want, and I will execute whomever I want.” A landowner can beat serfs indiscriminately (word hit repeated three times, there are three metaphorical epithets for it: spark-sprinkling, tooth-breaking, zygomatic-rot). At the same time, the landowner claims that he punished lovingly, that he took care of the peasants, and set tables for them in the landowner’s house on holidays.

The landowner considers the abolition of serfdom to be similar to breaking the great chain connecting masters and peasants: “Now we don’t beat the peasant, but at the same time we don’t have mercy on him like a father.” The landowners' estates were dismantled brick by brick, the forests were cut down, the men were committing robbery. The economy also fell into disrepair: “The fields are unfinished, the crops are unsown, there is no trace of order!” The landowner does not want to work on the land, and what his purpose is, he no longer understands: “I smoked God’s heaven, wore the royal livery, littered the people’s treasury and thought of living like this forever...”

Last One

This is how the peasants nicknamed their last landowner, Prince Utyatin, under whom the serfdom. This landowner did not believe in the abolition of serfdom and became so angry that he had a stroke.

Fearing that the old man would be deprived of his inheritance, his relatives told him that they had ordered the peasants to turn back to the landowners, and they themselves asked the peasants to play this role.

Portrait

The last one is an old man, thin as hares in winter, white, a beaked nose like a hawk, long gray mustache. He, seriously ill, combines the helplessness of a weak hare and the ambition of a hawk.

Character Traits

The last tyrant, “fools in the old way”, because of his whims, both his family and the peasants suffer. For example, I had to sweep away a ready-made stack of dry hay just because the old man thought it was wet.

The landowner Prince Utyatin is arrogant and believes that the nobles have betrayed their age-old rights. His white cap is a sign of landowner power.

Utyatin never valued the lives of his serfs: he bathed them in an ice hole and forced them to play the violin on horseback.

In old age, the landowner began to demand even greater nonsense: he ordered a six-year-old to be married to a seventy-year-old, to quiet the cows so that they would not moo, to appoint a deaf-mute fool as a watchman instead of a dog.

Unlike Obolduev, Utyatin does not learn about his changed status and dies “as he lived, as a landowner.”

• The image of Savely in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
• The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
• The image of Matryona in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

It would be wrong to say that every meeting makes heroes poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” wiser. So, meeting the “round gentleman” - landowner Obolt-Obolduev, the peasants continue their same speech:

Tell us in a divine way,
Is the life of a landowner sweet?
How are you - at ease, happily,
Are you living as a landowner?

The behavior and reaction of the wanderers to the landowner’s story testifies to how difficult the process of real liberation - already moral - of the Russian peasants is: their timidity in front of the landowner, reluctance to sit in his presence - all these details add up to the characteristics of “village Russian people” who are accustomed to this that they are people of “low birth”.

In essence, the entire chapter is a “master’s measure” - the landowner’s opinion about the landowner class and the peasants is mainly presented here. And at the same time, the men are not silent witnesses to the story: not daring to object to the landowner, they are free in their thoughts. And these thoughts allow us to compare the “master’s measure” with the “peasant measure”, to see the other side of the idyllic life of landowners and peasants under serfdom depicted by Obolt-Obolduev, and at the same time to comprehend the peasant soul.

The chapter reveals the abyss that has formed during the years of slavery: the landowner and peasants speak different languages, the same event is perceived differently by them. What the landowner considers “good” for the peasant does not seem “happiness” to the wanderers. The peasants and the landowner have different understandings of “honor,” which opens up a conversation about genealogy. It is no coincidence that the author begins the conversation about the “happiness” of the landowner with the history of his family. The history of Obolt-Obolduev's ancestors reveals, with all its satirical sharpening, the real features of Russian life: the arbiters of peasant destinies received nobility for their ability to amuse the Russian sovereign. “Honor” for the landowner is the antiquity of the family, and not his true services to the state, to the people.

Listening to the landowner's idyllic story about the past "prosperity", the peasants perceive this "prosperity" in their own way, especially when the story concerns the "patrimony". They do not argue with the landowner, do not object to him. But the thoughts of the men conveyed by the author reveal the true meaning of the “idyll”, behind which stand the same humiliation of the peasants and violence against their souls. Thus, when the landowner paints a picture of the “spiritual kinship” of landowners and peasants who prayed together in the manor’s house during “every revered twelfth holiday,” the peasants, agreeing out loud, are perplexed to themselves:

“You knocked them down with a stake, or what?”
Pray in the manor’s house?..”

What constituted the “happiness” of the landowner in his recent life? The first thing that the landowner is so proud of, which he calls “honor,” is the obedience of the peasants and even nature itself:

Will you go to the village -
The peasants fall at their feet,
You'll go through the forest dachas -
Centenary trees
The forests will bow down!

His story really convinces: “he lived like Christ in his bosom”: holidays, hunting, free and idle life made up the “happy” life of the landowners. But the people were also “happy,” the landowner assures. His “happiness,” as Obolt-Obolduev believes, lay in the affection of the landowner, in pleasing the landowner. Remembering the recent past, when he was the undivided owner of the estate (“There is no contradiction in anyone, / I will have mercy on whomever I want, / I will execute whoever I want. / The law is my desire! / The fist is my police!”<...>"), he is sincerely convinced that before he “lived well” with his “patrimony.”

But the “lord’s standard” does not coincide with the peasant standard. Agreeing that the landowner’s “life” was indeed enviable, the wandering peasants listen very skeptically to his stories about the “happiness” of the estate. It is no coincidence that to Obolt-Obolduev’s question: “So, benefactors, / I lived with my estate, / Isn’t it good?..”, the peasants in their answer recognize only the landowner’s life as “good”: “Yes, it was for you landowners, / Life is much enviable, / No need to die!”

However, the landowner's current misfortunes do not seem far-fetched or funny to the wanderers. Behind the landowner's complaints there really is a very important problem Russian life. Entire generations of the Russian nobility, who lived off the free labor of others, turned out to be absolutely incapable of a different life. Having remained the owners of the land, but having lost free laborers, they perceive the land that belongs to them not as a mother-breadwinner, but as a “stepmother”. For them, work is incompatible with “delicate feelings” and “pride.” To paraphrase Nekrasov, we can say that “the habit is strong even over the landowner” - the habit of an idle life. And therefore, the reproaches to the organizers of the reform, sounding from the lips of the landowner, are not so much funny as they are filled with drama - behind them is a certain attitude to life that has been formed over the centuries:

And if indeed
We misunderstood our duty,
And our purpose
It’s not that the name is ancient,
Noble dignity
Willingly to support
Feasts, all kinds of luxury
And live by your labor,
It should have been like this before
Say... What did I study?

It is no coincidence that in the center of the chapter there is a symbolic picture of a funeral bell ringing. The landowner perceives the funeral bell for a deceased peasant as a farewell to the life of the landowner: “They are not ringing for the peasant! / Through the life of a landowner / They call!.. Oh, life is wide! / Sorry - goodbye forever! / Farewell to landowner Rus'!” And, what is important, this drama of the landowner is also recognized by the peasants: it is their thoughts about general troubles that the chapter ends with:

The great chain has broken,
It tore and splintered:
One end for the master,
Others don't care!..

One of bright heroes The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev.

Obolt-Obolduev appears suddenly. This is the landowner whom the main characters of the work meet on their way. The character's image is not entirely clear; let's pay closer attention to it.

Firstly, the very name of the hero - Obolt-Obolduev - tells the reader a lot. The very word “bewitch” appears to us as a characteristic of a stupid, ignorant person. Obolt-Obolduev, asking himself the question of what he studied, shows us the correctness of his surname. It is worth saying that Nekrasov did not take the surname out of thin air; the author took it from the library of the Vladimir province.

Nekrasov describes Obolt-Obolduev to us as a round, ruddy man. He doesn't seem like an angry person, he likes to joke and laugh. His pride in his origin makes him smile; in his opinion, his ancestor was a certain Tatar Obolduev. With the peasants, Obolt-Obolduev behaves in a fatherly, affectionate manner.

The hero painfully remembers the old days when he sat with the peasants at one festive table, for them he was, as they say, on board. He had conversations with men who had returned from work, and with childish curiosity expected gifts: sweets, wine and fish. A special surprise in the hero is his certain poetry. With the real skill of a good storyteller, he knows how to tell the heroes about the glorious old times, when the word “landowner” sounded proud, when these same landowners were the sole owners of their land.

Obolt-Obolduev admires the beauty of nature and the Russian land. During the story of this character, boundless wheat fields, noisy forests, rivers, bottomless lakes, rich landowners' huts, the life of peasants and, of course, hound hunting, which, according to Obolt-Obolduev, is an original Russian, even knightly, fun. The reader understands all the bitterness of the character. Obolt-Obolduev understands that the old days can no longer be returned; everything that was good in his life is left far behind. But our hero regrets not only this, not only his once-former power, he also grieves for the departed, once great, real Rus', whose son he is.

Option 2

In the poem, the action unfolds around seven men who accidentally met on a highway. During the conversation, a debate flared up on the topic: “who lives best after the adoption of the reform on the abolition of serfdom in Russia.”

The workers, carried away by the dispute, walked about thirty kilometers, after the meal they swore, at all costs, to prove their point and continued on their way to meet and see for themselves every representative of the ruling class, namely: the tsar, the sovereign’s minister, the priest, the landowner, the nobleman masters they met along the way. Since we are talking about a specific hero of the poem, we will lose sight of the other characters and proceed to the narration of Obolt-Obolduev himself.

On the way, they met a landowner from a neighboring village named Obolt. A conversation ensued and, in response to a pressing question, the master began a heartfelt and sensual story about his former life with the peasants. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov quite rightly named our hero Obolt-Obolduev. As you immediately understood, the author directly tells the reader that “Stunned” is ill-mannered, stubborn, stupid... The semantic load of the word most accurately conveys the true attitude of the peasants towards the landowners in Rus'. It is also of interest that Nekrasov takes this surname from reliable sources - books from the Vladimir province.

Based on this, the very image of Obolt - Obolduev in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” begins to be recreated. The boyar, at first glance, seems to be a cheerful and good-natured person. This is indicated by his “ruddy” face, “round” physique, “valid manners” and that he loves to laugh. The landowner is naively proud of his pedigree, which causes no more than a grin from his interlocutors. Obolt himself - Obolduev does not know how to do anything with his own hands without outside help, which confirms the author’s intention when choosing a surname. He suffers greatly from the old days, because now for him his favorite hunt with dogs seems like a luxury. In the work, he mentioned his children and his wife, about idle festivities and how he christened with the peasants, perceiving them as his relatives, talked friendly with the men after work and innocently expected gifts from his living souls, made by hand. Obolduev is not deprived of the gift of poetry, which manifests itself in the description of lakes, meadows, dense forests, everyday life, the estate and his favorite hunt with dogs. As we can see, the author to some extent presents him in a tragic image.

At the same time, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov does not forget to mention reverse side life of landowners in those days. All these entertainments were paid for by peasant labor beyond their strength. Based on this, we understand why the seven men grin at Obolt’s diligent story. Let's remember the exhausted Yakim Nagoy and the “ruddish” landowner ceases to evoke pity every second. A collective satirical image immediately appears.

Nekrasov teaches through this image, laughing to part with the remnants of the past, which is what the satirical and humorous coloring of the chapter “The Landowner” serves.

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The landowner was rosy-cheeked,
Stately, planted,
Sixty years old;
The mustache is gray, long,
Well done...

Mistaking the wanderers for robbers, the landowner snatches a pistol. Having learned who they are and why they are traveling, he laughs, sits down comfortably (a pillow, a carpet, a glass of wine) and tells the story of his family. Most ancient ancestor his father “amused the empress with wolves and foxes.” His maternal ancestor is Prince Shchepkin, who, together with Vaska Gusev, “tried to set fire to Moscow, they thought of plundering the treasury, but they were executed by death.”

Obolt-Obolduev recalls with delight the old days, his own actors, feasts, hunting, the amount of landowner power: I will have mercy on whomever I want,

I'll execute whoever I want,
Law is my desire!
The fist is my police!

He emphasizes that he punished out of kindness (“punishment - loving”), that on holidays peasants were allowed into his house for prayer. Now, the manor houses are being dismantled, gardens are being cut down, forests are being stolen, and instead of estates, “drinking houses are being set up”:

They give water to the dissolute people,
They are calling for zemstvo services,
They imprison you, teach you to read and write, -
He needs her!

He complains to the wanderers that he is called to work, but he, having lived in the village for forty years, cannot distinguish barley from rye.

As in the entire poem, this chapter reflects class contradictions, contradictions in the peasant consciousness, contradictions between the rebellious spirit of the people and the servile consciousness. Moreover, this chapter raises the question

Are the people who have received freedom happy?

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev is sincerely unhappy. Of course, “the fields are unfinished, the crops are under-seeded, there is no trace of order!” What a pity that the “boyar times” have passed, when “the landowner’s chest breathed freely and easily” and when Obolt-Obolduev could dispose of the serfs.

If you think about it and correlate Nekrasov’s poem with what awaits the Russian peasant in the future, then you can argue with the poet. It is known what the power of beggars and slaves led to, how all strong “farmers” were recorded as kulaks and destroyed, which led to the fact that Russia was forced to buy bread abroad. The bazaars and shops that were abundant in the period of Old Rus' are now filled with bad products synthesized abroad; there is practically no peasantry as such. The same fact that the poem depicts cruel tyrants does not at all mean that the majority of landowners and nobles were like that. On the contrary, they were part of the elite Russian people. It was the nobles who came to Senate Square, it was they who were exiled “to the depths of the Siberian ores,” where they maintained proud patience. Not drunken peasants, not peasant cattle capable only of bloody riots, but “princes of the graphic arts.”

But this point of view is highly controversial. During Nekrasov's time, the pathos of his poem was bold and innovative. Nekrasov wanted to understand why the people who received freedom were unhappy.

The poem is not finished. Seven wandering men - symbolic image Russia. In the work, written diligently, like a journalistic article, many social problems of that time found expression. Class contradictions (“Landowner”, “Last One”); contradictions in the peasant consciousness (the working people and the people - a drunken, ignorant crowd); contradictions between the spirituality of the people and their ignorance (the author’s dream that the man “not my lord’s stupid”, but “will carry Belinsky and Gogol from the market”, remained a dream: the current “man” carries Marinina and Dotsenko from the market mixed with Chinese rags and self-made vodka); contradictions between the rebellious spirit and slavish obedience (images of Savely and Yakov).