The problem of happiness Matryonin Dvor. Essay "Problematics of the story "Matrenin's Dvor"." Problems and arguments of the work

The story “Matryonin’s Dvor” was written by Solzhenitsyn in 1959. The first title of the story is “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous man” (Russian proverb). The final version of the name was invented by Tvardovsky, who was at that time the editor of the magazine " New world", where the story was published in No. 1 for 1963. At the insistence of the editors, the beginning of the story was changed and the events were attributed not to 1956, but to 1953, that is, to the pre-Khrushchev era. This is a bow to Khrushchev, thanks to whose permission Solzhenitsyn’s first story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962) was published.

The image of the narrator in the work “Matryonin’s Dvor” is autobiographical. After Stalin's death, Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated, actually lived in the village of Miltsevo (Talnovo in the story) and rented a corner from Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova (Grigorieva in the story). Solzhenitsyn very accurately conveyed not only the details of the life of the prototype Marena, but also the features of life and even the local dialect of the village.

Literary direction and genre

Solzhenitsyn developed Tolstoy's tradition of Russian prose in a realistic direction. The story combines the features of an artistic essay, the story itself and elements of life. The life of the Russian village is reflected so objectively and diversely that the work approaches the genre of “novel-type story.” In this genre, the character of the hero is shown not only in turning point its development, but also illuminates the history of character, the stages of its formation. The fate of the hero reflects the fate of the entire era and country (as Solzhenitsyn says, the earth).

Issues

At the center of the story is a moral issue. Are many worth it? human lives captured area or dictated human greed decisions not to make a second trip with a tractor? Material assets among the people are valued higher than the person himself. Thaddeus's son and his once beloved woman died, his son-in-law is threatened with prison, and his daughter is inconsolable. But the hero is thinking about how to save the logs that the workers did not have time to burn at the crossing.

Mystical motives are at the center of the story. This is the motive of the unrecognized righteous man and the problem of curse on things touched by people with unclean hands pursuing selfish goals. So Thaddeus undertook to demolish Matryonin’s upper room, thereby making it cursed.

Plot and composition

The story "Matryonin's Dvor" has a time frame. In one paragraph, the author talks about how at one of the crossings and 25 years after a certain event, trains slow down. That is, the frame dates back to the early 80s, the rest of the story is an explanation of what happened at the crossing in 1956, the year of the Khrushchev Thaw, when “something started to move.”

The hero-narrator finds the place of his teaching in an almost mystical way, having heard a special Russian dialect at the bazaar and settling in “condo Russia”, in the village of Talnovo.

The plot centers on the life of Matryona. The narrator learns about her fate from herself (she talks about how Thaddeus, who disappeared in the first war, wooed her, and how she married his brother, who disappeared in the second). But the hero finds out more about the silent Matryona from his own observations and from others.

The story describes in detail Matryona's hut, located in a picturesque place near the lake. The hut plays an important role in the life and death of Matryona. To understand the meaning of the story, you need to imagine a traditional Russian hut. Matryona's hut was divided into two halves: the actual living hut with a Russian stove and the upper room (it was built for the eldest son in order to separate him when he got married). It is this upper room that Thaddeus dismantles in order to build a hut for Matryona’s niece and his own daughter Kira. The hut in the story is animated. The wallpaper that has fallen off the wall is called its inner skin.

The ficus trees in the tubs are also endowed with living features, reminding the narrator of a silent but living crowd.

The development of action in the story is a static state of harmonious coexistence between the narrator and Matryona, who “do not find the meaning of everyday existence in food.” The climax of the story is the moment of destruction of the upper room, and the work ends with the main idea and bitter omen.

Heroes of the story

The hero-narrator, whom Matryona calls Ignatich, makes it clear from the first lines that he came from prison. He is looking for a teaching job in the wilderness, in the Russian outback. Only the third village satisfies him. Both the first and the second turn out to be corrupted by civilization. Solzhenitsyn makes it clear to the reader that he condemns the attitude of Soviet bureaucrats towards people. The narrator despises the authorities who do not grant Matryona a pension, who force her to work on the collective farm for sticks, who not only do not provide peat for the fire, but also forbid asking about it. He instantly decides not to extradite Matryona, who brewed moonshine, and hides her crime, for which she faces prison.

Having experienced and seen a lot, the narrator, embodying the author’s point of view, acquires the right to judge everything that he observes in the village of Talnovo - a miniature embodiment of Russia.

Matryona is the main character of the story. The author says about her: “Those people have good faces who are at peace with their conscience.” At the moment of meeting, Matryona’s face is yellow, and her eyes are clouded with illness.

To survive, Matryona grows small potatoes, secretly brings forbidden peat from the forest (up to 6 bags a day) and secretly mows hay for her goat.

Matryona lacked womanly curiosity, she was delicate, and did not annoy her with questions. Today's Matryona is a lost old woman. The author knows about her that she got married before the revolution, that she had 6 children, but they all died quickly, “so two didn’t live at once.” Matryona's husband did not return from the war, but disappeared without a trace. The hero suspected that he had new family somewhere abroad.

Matryona had a quality that distinguished her from the rest of the village residents: she selflessly helped everyone, even the collective farm, from which she was expelled due to illness. There is a lot of mysticism in her image. In her youth, she could lift bags of any weight, stopped a galloping horse, had a presentiment of her death, being afraid of steam locomotives. Another omen of her death is a cauldron with holy water that disappeared to God knows where at Epiphany.

Matryona's death seems to be an accident. But why are the mice running around like crazy on the night of her death? The narrator suggests that 30 years later, the threat of Matryona’s brother-in-law Thaddeus struck, who threatened to chop Matryona and his own brother, who married her.

After death, Matryona's holiness is revealed. The mourners notice that she, completely crushed by the tractor, has only her right hand left to pray to God. And the narrator draws attention to her face, which is more alive than dead.

Fellow villagers speak of Matryona with disdain, not understanding her selflessness. Her sister-in-law considers her unscrupulous, not careful, not inclined to accumulate goods; Matryona did not seek her own benefit and helped others for free. Even Matryonina’s warmth and simplicity were despised by her fellow villagers.

Only after her death did the narrator understand that Matryona, “not chasing after things”, indifferent to food and clothing, is the basis, the core of all of Russia. On such a righteous person stands the village, the city and the country (“the whole land is ours”). For the sake of one righteous person, as in the Bible, God can spare the earth and save it from fire.

Artistic originality

Matryona appears before the hero as fairy creature, similar to Baba Yaga, who reluctantly gets off the stove to feed the passing prince. She, like a fairytale grandmother, has animal helpers. Shortly before Matryona’s death, the lanky cat leaves the house; the mice, anticipating the death of the old woman, make a particularly rustling noise. But cockroaches are indifferent to the fate of the hostess. Following Matryona, her favorite ficus trees, like a crowd, die: they are of no practical value and are taken out into the cold after Matryona’s death.

Solzhenitsyn's surname these days is associated exclusively with his novel “The Gulag Archipelago” and his scandalous fame. However, he began his journey as a writer as a talented short story writer, who in his stories depicted the fate of ordinary Russian people of the mid-twentieth century. The story "Matryonin's Dvor" is the most striking example early creativity Solzhenitsyn, which reflected his best writing talents. The many-wise Litrecon offers you its analysis.

The history of writing the story " Matrenin Dvor"is a series of interesting facts:

The story is based on Solzhenitsyn’s memories of his life after returning from a labor camp, when he lived for some time in the village of Maltsevo, in the house of the peasant woman Matryona Zakharova. She became the prototype of the main character.
Work on the work began in the summer of '59 in Crimea, and was completed in the same year. The publication was supposed to take place in the magazine “New World”, but the work passed the editorial committee only the second time, thanks to the help of editor A.T. Tvardovsky.
The censors did not want to let a story with the title “A village not stand without a righteous man” (this was the first title of Solzhenitsyn’s work) go into print. They saw in it unacceptable religious overtones. Under pressure from the editors, the author changed the title to a neutral one.
“Matrenin’s Dvor” became Solzhenitsyn’s second work after the book “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” It gave rise to many disputes and disagreements, and after the author emigrated, it was completely banned, like all the books of the dissident writer.
Readers saw the story only in 1989, during the era of Perestroika, when a new principle of USSR policy - glasnost - came into force.

Direction and genre

The story "Matryonin's Dvor" was written within the framework. The writer strives for a reliable depiction of the surrounding reality. The images he created, their words and actions breathe authenticity and naturalism. The reader can believe that the events described in the story could actually happen.

Genre of this work can be defined as a story. The narrative covers a short period of time and includes a minimal number of characters. The problem is local in nature and does not affect the world as a whole. The absence of any specifics only emphasizes the typicality of the events shown.

Meaning of the name

Initially, Solzhenitsyn gave his story the title “A village is not worth without a righteous man,” which emphasized the writer’s main idea about a highly spiritual main character who unselfishly sacrifices herself for the sake of those around her and thereby binds people embittered by poverty together.

However, in the future, in order to avoid Soviet censorship, Tvardovsky advised the writer to replace the title with a less provocative one, which was done. “Matrenin’s Dvor” is both a reflection of the denouement of the work (the death of the heroine and the division of her property), and an indication of the main theme of the book - the life of a righteous woman in a village depleted by wars and the predatory policies of the authorities.

Composition and Conflict

The story is divided into three chapters.

The first chapter is devoted to exposition: the author introduces us to his hero and tells us about Matryona herself.
In the second chapter, the beginning occurs, when the main conflict of the work is revealed, as well as the climax, when the conflict reaches its highest point.
The third chapter is reserved for the finale, in which everything storylines logically complete.

The conflict in the work is local in nature between the righteous old woman Matryona and those around her, who use her kindness for their own purposes. However artistic features stories create a feeling of typicality of this situation. Thus, Solzhenitsyn gives this conflict an all-Russian philosophical character. People have become embittered due to unbearable living conditions, and only a few are able to retain kindness and responsiveness.

The bottom line: what is it about?

The story begins with the fact that the narrator, having spent ten years in exile in a labor camp, settles in the village of Torfoprodukt, in the house of Grigorieva Matryona Vasilievna.

Gradually main character learns the whole story of Matryona’s life, about her unsuccessful marriage, about the death of her children and husband, about her conflict with ex-fiance– Thaddeus, about all the difficulties she had to go through. The narrator develops respect for the old woman, seeing in her the support on which not only the local collective farm, but the whole of Russia rests.

At the end of the story, Matryona, under pressure from Thaddeus’s family, gives it to her daughter Kira, whom she raised, as her part of her hut, bequeathed to her. However, while helping to transport the dismantled room, he dies. Matryona's relatives are sad only for show, rejoicing at the opportunity to share the old woman's inheritance.

The main characters and their characteristics

The system of images in the story “Mother’s Court” is presented by the Many-Wise Litrecon in table format.

heroes of the story "Mother's Court"	characteristic
Matryona	an ordinary Russian peasant woman. a kind, sympathetic and submissive old woman who sacrificed herself for others all her life. after her fiancé, Thaddeus, went missing, under family pressure she married his brother, Efim. unfortunately, all her children died before they even lived three months, so many began to consider Matryona “damaged.” Then Matryona took Kira, Thaddeus’s daughter from his second marriage, to raise her, and sincerely fell in love with him, bequeathing part of her hut to her. she worked for nothing and devoted her whole life to people, being content with little.
kira	a simple village girl. Before her marriage, she was raised by Matryona and lived with her. the only person, except for the narrator, who sincerely mourns the deceased. she is grateful to the old woman for her love and kindness, but she treats her family coldly, because she was simply given away like a puppy to a strange woman.
Thaddeus	sixty-year-old Russian peasant. was Matryona's favorite groom, but was captured during the war, and for a long time nothing was heard from him. After returning, he hated Matryona because she did not wait for him. married a second time to a woman also named Matryona. an authoritarian head of the family who does not hesitate to use brute force. a greedy person who strives to accumulate wealth at any cost.
narrator Ignatyich	a kind and sympathetic person, observant and educated, unlike the villagers. At first, the village does not accept him because of his dubious past, but Matryona helps him join the team and find shelter. It is no coincidence that the author indicates the exact coordinates of the village, emphasizing that he was forbidden to approach the city at a distance of 100 km. this is a reflection of the author himself, even his patronymic is similar to the hero’s patronymic - Isaevich.

Topics

The theme of the story “Mother’s Court” is universal and is food for thought for all generations of people:

Soviet village life– Solzhenitsyn portrays the life of Soviet peasants as an ordeal. Village life is difficult, and the peasants themselves are mostly rude and their morals are cruel. A person has to make great efforts to remain himself in such a hostile atmosphere. The narrator emphasizes that people are exhausted by eternal wars and reforms in agriculture. They have a slave position and no prospects.
Kindness– the focus of kindness in the story is Matryona. The author sincerely admires the old woman. And, although in the end those around her use the heroine’s kindness for selfish purposes, Solzhenitsyn has no doubt that this is exactly how one should live - to give one’s all for the good of society and the people, and not to fill bags with wealth.
Responsiveness- V Soviet village, according to the writer, there is no place for responsiveness and sincerity. All peasants think only about their own survival and do not care about the needs of other people. Only Matryona was able to retain her kindness and desire to help others.
Fate– Solzhenitsyn shows that often a person is not able to control his life and must obey circumstances, like Matryona, but only he controls a person’s soul, and he always has a choice: to become embittered at the world and become callous, or to preserve his humanity.
Righteousness– Matryona, in the eyes of the writer, looks like the ideal of a righteous Russian person who gives all of himself for the good of other people, on whom the entire Russian people and Russia rest. The theme of righteousness is revealed in the actions and thoughts of a woman, in her difficult fate. No matter what happens, she does not lose heart and does not complain. She only pities others, but not herself, although fate does not spoil her with attention. This is the essence of the righteous - to preserve the moral wealth of the soul, having gone through everything. life trials, and inspire people to moral deeds.

Problems

The problems of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” are a reflection of the problems of the development and formation of the USSR. The victorious revolution did not make the life of the people easier, but only complicated it:

Indifference- the main problem in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The villagers are indifferent to each other, they are indifferent to the fate of their fellow villagers. Everyone tries to get their hands on someone else's penny, earn extra and live more satisfyingly. All people’s concerns are only about material success, and the spiritual side of life is as indifferent to them as the fate of their neighbor.
Poverty– Solzhenitsyn shows the unbearable conditions in which Russian peasants live, upon whom the difficult trials of collectivization and war fell. People survive, not live. They have neither medicine, nor education, nor the benefits of civilization. Even the morals of people are similar to those of the Middle Ages.
Cruelty– peasant life in Solzhenitsyn’s story is subordinated to purely practical interests. In peasant life there is no place for kindness and weakness; it is cruel and rude. The kindness of the main character is perceived by fellow villagers as “eccentricity” or even a lack of intelligence.
Greed– the focus of greed in the story is Thaddeus, who is ready, during Matryona’s lifetime, to dismantle her hut in order to increase his wealth. Solzhenitsyn condemns this approach to life.
War– the story mentions a war, which becomes another difficult test for the village and indirectly becomes the cause of many years of discord between Matryona and Thaddeus. She cripples people's lives, robs villages and ruins families, taking away the best of the best.
Death– Matryona’s death is perceived by Solzhenitsyn as a catastrophe on a national scale, because along with her that idealistic Christian Rus', which the writer so admired, dies.

main idea

In his story, Solzhenitsyn depicted the life of a Russian village in the mid-twentieth century without any embellishment, with all its lack of spirituality and cruelty. This village is contrasted with Matryona, who lives the life of a true Christian. According to the writer, it is thanks to such selfless individuals as Matryona that the whole country, clogged with poverty, war and political miscalculations, lives. The meaning of the story “Matryona’s Dvor” lies in the priority of eternal Christian values (kindness, responsiveness, mercy, generosity) over the “worldly wisdom” of greedy and mired peasants. Freedom, equality and brotherhood could not replace simple truths in the minds of the people - necessity spiritual development and love for one's neighbor.

The main idea in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” is the need for righteousness in everyday life. People won't be able to live without moral values- kindness, mercy, generosity and mutual assistance. Even if everyone loses them, there must be at least one guardian of the soul's treasury who will remind everyone of the importance of moral qualities.

What does it teach?

The story “Matryona’s Court” promotes Christian humility and self-sacrifice, which Matryona demonstrated. He shows that not everyone can live such a life, but he emphasizes that this is exactly how a real person should live. This is the moral laid down by Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn condemns the greed, rudeness and selfishness that reign in the village, calls on people to be kinder to each other, to live in peace and harmony. This conclusion can be drawn from the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”.

Criticism

Alexander Tvardovsky himself admired Solzhenitsyn’s work, calling him a real writer, and his story - a true work art.

Before Solzhenitsyn’s arrival today, I re-read his “Righteous Woman” since five in the morning. Oh my god, writer. No jokes. A writer who is solely concerned with expressing what lies “at the core” of his mind and heart. Not a shadow of a desire to “hit the bull’s eye”, to please, to make the task of an editor or critic easier - whatever you want, get out of it, but I won’t get out of my way. I can only go further

L. Chukovskaya, who moved in journalistic circles, described the story as follows:

...What if they don’t publish Solzhenitsyn’s second work? I liked her more than the first one. She stuns with her courage, astonishes with her material, and, of course, with her literary skill; and “Matryona”... is already visible here great artist, humane, giving back to us native language, loving Russia, as Blok said, with mortally insulted love.

“Matryonin’s Dvor” caused a real explosion in the literary community and often mirror opposite reviews. Today the story is considered one of the most outstanding prose works the second half of the twentieth century and a striking example of the work of early Solzhenitsyn.

Composition

Dali once said: “If you are one of those who believes that contemporary art surpassed the art of Vermeer or Raphael, don’t pick up this book and remain in blissful idiocy” (“Ten instructions for someone who wants to become an artist”) - I think it’s difficult to dispute. Of course, the great Salvador spoke about painting, but this saying also applies to literature. Art (be it literature, painting or music) is a way of self-expression; it helps us look into the most hidden corners of the soul.
I don’t like many works of modern Russian literature due to the lack of any artistic or creative principles. Nowadays, a story, poem or novel is often the result of a violent fantasy, a sick imagination or a distorted perception of the world (those who have an idea of the “Platonic” Second Coming will understand me and, I hope, will support me). Today's writers are trying to prove that their rejection of modern reality and lack of moral ideals is an individual approach to creativity.

But if today the world is ruled by lawlessness and cowardice, this does not mean that faith is over. It will be reborn, because man one way or another returns to his roots, albeit slowly, but with a firm and confident step (restoration of temples, adoption of religion).
Reading the classics, I find a lot of interesting things for myself. After all, at the beginning life path a person does not always manage to meet someone who would best friend and an adviser, so one of the main teachers of each of us is a book. What can modern literature teach us? Admit that you learned about first love not from Solzhenitsyn, but from Turgenev or Pushkin (“First Love”, “Eugene Onegin”), about the revival of the human soul from Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment”), but about the diversity and strangeness of humanity thinking - after all, from Gogol (“ Dead souls"). It should be noted that a classical work always carries a share of optimism. Even in Crime and Punishment, where we are talking about a terrible offense - murder - and the hero, it would seem, has no justification, Dostoevsky makes us understand that Raskolnikov is not at all lost to society. His conscience is not clear, but for him there are such concepts as honor, justice, dignity.
It seems to me that the classics give us hope for spiritual rebirth, and in modern literature this is not the case. Let's try, from the point of view of the above, to consider what constitutes the work of a modern Russian writer, in particular

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. To do this, I propose to analyze one of his stories - “Matrenin’s Dvor”, which, in my opinion, poses the problem of loneliness, a person’s relationship with people around him, and the author’s attitude to life.
So, our hero comes to Russia, to the wonderful Russian hinterland with its eternal mysteries, extraordinary personalities and original characters. What awaits him? He doesn't know. No one expects him, no one remembers. What could he encounter on his way? He just wanted to “get lost” somewhere where radio, television and other achievements of modern civilization could not reach him. Well, luck smiled at him: the second time he managed to find a small village not far from the Torfoprodukt station and live there quietly, teaching the younger generation exact science. There were no problems with housing either. They found a “suitable house” for him, in which, in his words, “it was his lot to settle.”

God, how he missed ordinary people who have not lost that spiritual simplicity that each of us is endowed with from birth. How much tenderness and delight an ordinary village woman selling milk, her appearance, her voice, her characteristic accent, evokes in his soul. And with what sympathy he treats the mistress of the house, Matryona. He respected and understood her as she was: big, merciless, soft, sloppy and yet somehow sweet and dear. The unfortunate woman lost all her children and her beloved, having “ruined” her youth, she was left alone. And of course, I couldn’t help but arouse pity. She is not rich, not even prosperous. She is as poor as a “church mouse”, sick, but cannot refuse help. And the author notes a very important quality in her - selflessness. It was not because of money that old Matryona dug potatoes for her neighbors and raised her niece Kirochka not for the sake of gratitude either, but simply loved children. She is a woman after all.
When the war began, poor Matryona did not suspect that it (the war) would divorce her from her “dear” man, and the heroine “goes” to marry her fiancé’s younger brother. But the husband soon leaves the village, goes to war and does not return. And now Matryona is left with nothing. The children died one after another before reaching the age of one year. And at the end of her life she was doomed to loneliness. Only a “bumpy cat”, a “dirty white crooked goat”, mice and cockroaches inhabited her “skewed hut”. Matryona took in her niece Kirochka, and this was her last consolation. But, apparently, Matryona is not destined to while away her days in peace. There was an urgent need to move the room to another village, otherwise Kirochka would miss out on a good place. It would seem that our heroine should not interfere with the transportation of her own house (the last thing she has left), but should prevent it in every possible way. But no - she decides to help transport the logs. And if Matryona had not gone to the railway and had not pushed the cart over the rails, she would have been alive.
How did she end her life? Terrible. Stupid. Tragic, I don't see any justification for her death.

In this work, as in others (“Procession”), Solzhenitsyn expresses his attitude towards people. He doesn’t like the people and tries to depersonalize them, turning them into a *gray mass.” It seems to him that the people around him are “nothing.” They are not able to understand goodness, they don’t care who is next to them. But the author is another matter. He immediately recognizes a “righteous man” in Matryona, but in fact he himself comes to this conclusion too late.
We must pay tribute to the author of the story: in revealing the image of the heroine, he tries to emphasize her kindness and boundless love for people.
What can I say about this work? I’m not happy - one, I don’t like it - two, because I can’t understand author's position: Why did Solzhenitsyn embodied so much evil and dirt in his “creation”? (Remember the depressing environment at home and the attitude of people towards each other.)
Naturally, the writer’s work is inextricably linked with his biography. Many years spent in captivity influenced Solzhenitsyn, but not everyone, even the more unfortunate ones, pour out all their grievances and anger in stories and novels. In my opinion, creative work should express only the best that is in a person in order to show: “This is the good that is in me, feel it and understand!”
Art (literature in particular) should bring bright feelings into the human soul. The reader should empathize with the characters, feel the pain of insults, disappointments and even cry (which, by the way, happened to me), but it’s not good if you have an unpleasant aftertaste in your soul after reading. This is probably some other art that I personally don’t understand.

Why then write at all? It's better to draw in the apocalypse style. All the same, the emotions in these two activities (writing about bad things and drawing) are the same, and you can admire the result more person (if the author wanted it). After all, earlier masters created their works precisely so that people would be horrified by the scenes of general death they saw. And when placing such creations right on the streets (meaning churches), people associated with religion also foresaw that those who could not read would also know about the terrible punishment.

But what cannot be taken away from Solzhenitsyn is that he writes about life based on personal experience, writes specifically about himself, about what he experienced and saw. The author shows us life as it is (in his understanding). Although, when reading his works, one gets the impression that this man never saw anything other than the bad, the ignorant and the unfair. But that's not the main point. Solzhenitsyn's goal is to reveal to us all the “charm” of existence, using a description of a wretched home, evil neighbors and ungrateful relatives.
Solzhenitsyn talks about injustice, as well as weakness of character, excessive kindness and what this can lead to. He puts his thoughts and his attitude towards society into the author’s mouth. The author (the hero of the story) experienced everything that Solzhenitsyn himself had to endure.
Describing the village, Matryona, the harsh reality, he simultaneously gives his assessment, expressing own opinion. How much bitterness and sarcasm can be heard in the description of the station: on the “gray wooden barracks there was a stern inscription: “Only board the train from the station!” Scrawled on the boards with a nail was: “And without tickets.” And at the ticket office... there was a knife scrawl: “No tickets.” Introducing us to Chairman Gorshkov, the author does not forget to mention how he (Gorshkov) received the Hero of Socialist Labor.

And how much “warmth”, “sensitivity”, “sincereness” is felt in the description of Matryona’s modest home and its inhabitants: “Sometimes the cat and cockroaches ate, but this made her feel unwell. The only thing that the cockroaches respected was the line of the partition that separated the mouth from... the clean hut... the kitchen was swarming at night... - the entire floor, the bench, and even the wall were almost completely brown and were moving... »
Note that Gogol’s description of a hotel in the city of N., where cockroaches are also found, does not evoke a feeling of disgust. However, the author cannot do without something “like that.”
Not without hidden pleasure, he writes about his “modesty and tact” when he describes the hostess’s cooking: all these cockroach legs in monotonous food, in his words, “not entirely tasty.” “I obediently ate everything that was cooked for me, patiently putting it aside if I came across something unusual... I didn’t have the courage to reproach Matryona...”

In my opinion, the author likes to describe someone’s grievances and failures (this story is meant): “... Matryona had a lot of grievances...” Again, grievances. If you write not about your own people, then about strangers. And pity. The narrator presses for pity. He is trying to touch a nerve (since he personally couldn’t touch me with anything else). But pity pity is discord...
“No Matryona. Killed dear person. And on the last day I reproached her for wearing a padded jacket.” The author wants to show us how sensitive and compassionate he is. However, inside he is a hard and dry person. I barely had the strength to read description of the dead Matryona, her mutilated body. Written without emotion, just a statement of fact. This is hard to understand. But what else can be born in a person’s head under the “gnashing of mice”, “rustling of cockroaches” and under the impression of seeing a dead woman? This is comforting.
But the most “fun” thing is the end. In a person, no knowledgeable about life, the thought will appear: “Don’t trust.” The sad picture that we see after the death of the heroine proves this to us. Yes, I agree: the relatives were only thinking about what they could take away from the house. It got to the point that the house itself was taken away. The narrator does not believe in the sincerity of Kira's tears. And the neighbor is of the opinion that Matryona was stupid, and her husband did not love her. In a word, there is emptiness and injustice all around. The author probably believes that everything is bad and that in the end misfortune will befall us. And the people around us are soulless, and they don’t see the beauty in others, and they don’t believe in goodness, and in general, except for him, no one saw kindness, modesty and selflessness in Matryona. “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand. Neither the city. Neither the whole land is ours.”

The writer simply imposes his pessimistic views on the world on us and tries to prove something. He is a skeptic and will never be able to create something beautiful simply because of his life-warped beliefs. However, this is just my opinion.

Other works on this work

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"Magrenip yard"

The action of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn's "Matrenin's Dvor" takes place in the mid-50s of the 20th century. The events described in it are shown through the eyes of the narrator, an unusual person who dreams of getting lost in the very interior of Russia, while the bulk of the population wants to move to big cities. Later, the reader will understand the reasons why the hero strives for the outback: he was in prison and wants a quiet life.

The hero goes to teach in a small place called “Peat Product”, from which, as the author ironically notes, it was difficult to leave. Neither the monotonous barracks nor the dilapidated five-story buildings attract the main character. Finally, he finds housing in the village of Talnovo. This is how the reader gets to know the main character works - a lonely sick woman Matryona. She lives in a darkish hut with a dim mirror through which it was impossible to see anything, and two bright posters about the book trade and the harvest. The contrast between these interior details is obvious. It anticipates one of the key problems raised in the work - the conflict between the ostentatious bravado of the official chronicle of events and the real life of ordinary Russian people. The story conveys a deep understanding of this tragic discrepancy.

Another, no less striking contradiction in the story is the contrast between extreme poverty peasant life, among which Matryona’s life passes, and the wealth of her deep inner world. The woman worked on a collective farm all her life, and now she doesn’t even receive a pension either for her work or for the loss of her breadwinner. And it is almost impossible to achieve this pension due to bureaucracy. Despite this, she has not lost her pity, humanity, and love of nature: she grows ficus trees and adopted a lanky cat. The author emphasizes in his heroine a humble, good-natured attitude towards life. She does not blame anyone for her plight, does not demand anything.

Solzhenitsyn constantly emphasizes that Matryona’s life could have turned out differently, because her house was built for a large family: money and grandchildren could sit on stools instead of ficus trees. Through the description of Matryona's life we learn

about the difficult life of the peasantry. The only food in the village is potatoes and barley. The store only sells margarine and combined fat. Only once a year does Matryona buy local “delicacies” for the shepherd at the general store, which she herself does not eat: canned fish, sugar and butter. And when she put on a coat from a worn railway overcoat and began to receive a pension, her neighbors even began to envy her. This detail not only testifies to the miserable situation of all residents of the village, but also sheds light on the unsightly relationships between people.

It’s paradoxical, but in the village called “Torfoprodukt” people don’t even have enough peat for the winter. Peat, of which there was a lot around, was sold only to the authorities and one car at a time - to teachers, doctors, and factory workers. When the hero talks about this, his heart aches: it’s scary to think to what degree of downtroddenness and humiliation can be brought in Russia common man. Due to the same stupidity of economic life, Matryona cannot have a cow. There is a sea of grass all around, and you can’t mow it without permission. So the old sick woman has to look for grass for her goat on the islands in the swamp. And there’s nowhere to get hay for a cow.

A.I. Solzhenitsyn consistently shows what difficulties the life of an ordinary hard-working peasant woman is fraught with. Even if she tries to improve her plight, there are obstacles and prohibitions everywhere.

At the same time, in the image of Matryona A.I. Solzhenitsyn embodied the best features of a Russian woman. The narrator often admires her kind smile and notes that the cure for all the heroine’s troubles was work, which she easily got involved in: either digging potatoes or going to the distant forest to pick berries. 11th immediately, only in the second part of the story, we learn about Matryona’s past life: she had six children. For eleven years she waited for her missing husband from the war, who, as it turned out, was not faithful to her.

In the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn is harshly criticized every now and then local authorities: winter is just around the corner, and the chairman of the collective farm is talking about everything except fuel. You won’t be able to find the secretary of the village council locally, and even if you do get some paperwork, you’ll have to redo it later, since all these people who are called upon to ensure law and order in the country work carelessly, and you won’t find any government for them. A.I. writes with indignation. Solzhenitsyn said that the new chairman “first of all cut off the gardens of all disabled people,” even though the cut-off acres were still empty behind the fence.

Matryona did not even have the right to mow the grass on the collective farm land, but when there was a problem on the collective farm, the chairman’s wife came to her and, without saying hello, demanded that she go to work, and even with her pitchfork. Matryona helped not only the collective farm, but also her neighbors.

Near artistic details A.I. Solzhenitsyn emphasizes in the story how far the achievements of civilization are from real life peasant in the Russian outback. The invention of new machines and artificial satellites of the Earth is heard on the radio as wonders of the world, which will add no sense or benefit. The peasants will still load peat with pitchforks and eat empty potatoes or porridge.

Also, A.I. tells along the way. Solzhenitsyn and the situation in school education: a straight-A student, Antoshka Grigoriev, didn’t even try to learn anything: he knew that he would still be transferred to the next class, since the main thing for the school is not the quality of students’ knowledge, but the struggle for a “high percentage of academic performance.”

The tragic end of the story is prepared during the development of the plot by a remarkable detail: someone stole Matryona’s pot of holy water at the blessing of water: “She always had holy water, but this year she didn’t have any.”

In addition to the cruelty of state power and its representatives towards people, A.I. Solzhenitsyn raises the problem of human callousness towards others. Matryona's relatives force her to dismantle and give the upper room to her niece (adopted daughter). After this, Matryona’s sisters cursed her as a fool, and the lanky cat, the old woman’s last joy, disappeared from the yard.

While taking out the upper room, Matryona herself dies at a crossing under the wheels of the train. With bitterness in her heart, the author tells how Matryona’s sisters, who had quarreled with her before her death, flocked to share her wretched inheritance: a hut, a goat, a chest and two hundred funeral rubles.

Only a phrase from one old woman transfers the narrative plan from the everyday to the existential: “There are two riddles in the world: how I was born - I don’t remember, how I die - I don’t know.” People glorified Matryona even after her death. There was talk that her husband didn’t love her, he walked away from her, and in general she was stupid, since she dug up people’s gardens for free, but never acquired any property of her own. The author’s point of view is extremely succinctly expressed by the phrase: “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand.”

In December 1961, A.I. Solzhenitsyn presented the second story (for review) to the editor-in-chief of the Novy Mir magazine Tvardovsky. It was called “A village does not stand without a righteous man,” but almost immediately it was renamed “Matrenin’s Dvor.” The problem was not only the content of the work, but also the title, which contained a “religious term.” The story was published only a year later - in the January 1963 issue of the most widely read literary magazine in the USSR.

Plot plot

That time is usually called the thaw. There were certain reasons for this: many millions of recent prisoners of Stalin’s camps and exiles left places with severe frosty or desert climates and went to the European part of the Union - not to large cities (they were not allowed there), but to villages and towns in the middle zone. Here, among the softly rustling forests, near the flowing quiet rivers, everything seemed sweet and cozy to the long-suffering people. Nevertheless, life even in these parts was not easy. Getting a job turned out to be difficult, although it was easier than quite recently, when even a former prisoner wouldn’t be trusted with a car. These circumstances did not bother the narrator, on whose behalf the story is told. He felt an urgent need for quite simple things, namely: get a job as a mathematics teacher in a rural school, find a place to live. These were his “primary tasks and problems raised.” He was brought to Matrenin's yard by a casual acquaintance who was selling milk at the railway station. There were no other options; only an elderly woman had a free seat. Her name was Matryona. This is how they met.

Pension

So, it was 1956, a lot was changing in the country, but life on the collective farm remained miserable. Many aspects of peasant life in the post-Stalin era were illuminated, as if in passing, by Alexander Isaevich in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor.” His landlady's problem to the modern reader may seem trivial, but in the first Khrushchev years it stood before many villagers of the vast country. The collective farm pension - a beggarly one, eighty rubles (8 rubles new, post-reform) - even that was not due to a woman who had worked honestly all her life. She went through the authorities, collected some information about the income of her late husband, faced with constant dull callousness and unfriendly bureaucratic indifference, and, in the end, achieved her goal. She was given a pension, and taking into account the additional payment for housing the teacher (Ignatyich, on whose behalf the story is told), her income acquired, by rural standards, colossal proportions - as much as one hundred and eighty rubles (after 1961, 18 rubles) - “there is no need to die "

And also a peat machine...

Peat

Yes, this type of fuel is often used for heating in areas with swampy climates. It seems that there should be enough of it for everyone, but in the harsh Soviet reality of the fifties there was a shortage of everything that people needed. This situation remained largely the same throughout Soviet era. In Vysokoye Polye they did not bake bread, they did not sell food, all this had to be carried in bags from the regional center. But, in addition to supplying the population with food, A.I. Solzhenitsyn talks about another important aspect of peasant life in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor.” The management of the collective farm completely transferred the heating problem to the village residents, and they solved it independently and as best they could: they stole peat. Ignatyich naively believed that a truckload of fuel was a lot of fuel, that it would last for the whole winter, but in reality three times more was required. All the women of the village carried the peat on themselves - with the risk of being caught, hiding the stolen goods from the chairman, who, of course, took care of the warmth in his house.

Personal life

Matryona owned a spacious house, once a good one, but due to time and lack of male hands fallen into disrepair. The history of this real estate goes back to pre-revolutionary times. The owner was married, lived here for a long time, gave birth to six children, none of whom survived. Matryona raised her niece as her own daughter, taking her from large family her husband's brother. There was also a backstory: as a bride, she was going to marry Thaddeus, her current “divir,” but it didn’t work out. He disappeared in Germanskaya without a trace, but she didn’t wait and married his brother. Thaddeus showed up later and was very angry, but Matryona was left with Yefim.

Real estate rights became the cause of a conflict that arose between relatives who were already deciding how they would divide Matrenin’s yard. The problems and arguments raised by the future heirs became the cause of many contradictions and mystically led to the death of the woman.

Life and loneliness

The village is a special world, governed by its own unwritten laws. Many consider Matryona stupid. She does not run the household in the same way as almost everyone else does. Hostesses financial problems in the work “Matrenin’s Dvor” are illustrated by the absence of a cow and a pig, which villagers usually cannot do without. She is criticized for this, although, it would seem, who cares how a lonely elderly woman lives? She herself quite clearly explains the reason for such negligence. She gets milk from a goat, which has much less trouble feeding her (she is not at all happy about the prospect of feeding a shepherd, and her health leaves much to be desired). Among the living creatures she has are mice, a lame cat and cockroaches, of which there are many - that’s the whole “Matrenin’s yard”. The problem of senile loneliness has been, is and will be.

Righteousness

Now we should remember original version story titles. What does a righteous man have to do with it, and why is this Orthodox concept applicable to the most ordinary peasant woman, living in poverty, loneliness and little different from many millions of women like her in total? Soviet Union? How is it different from others? It’s not for nothing that Alexander Isaevich wanted to call his work that? What problems does he raise in the story “Matryonin’s Dvor”?

The fact is that Matryona has an important human quality. She never refuses to help others, without making a distinction between “good” and “bad.” The chairman’s wife, an important lady, came and with aplomb demanded (not asked) to go to work, “to help the collective farm.” She doesn’t even say hello, she just tells you what you need to take with you. The sick elderly woman seems to want to refuse, but immediately asks what time to come. As for the neighbors, there is no need to ask Matryona - she is always ready to harness herself, not even considering it a service on her part and refusing any material reward, although it would in no way harm her. Ignatyich never heard her say a word of condemnation of anyone’s actions; his mistress never gossips.

Death of Matryona

The notorious " housing issue"really spoils ours, in general, good people. And the characters in the work also suffer from this problem. In Solzhenitsyn’s story “Matrenin’s Dvor,” the old man Thaddeus became an exponent of fussy greed and excessive thriftiness. He can't wait to receive part of the bequeathed inheritance, and right now. There are problems with the scaffolding: the old woman doesn’t need the extension, he wants to dismantle it and move it to his place. In itself it does not express anything bad, but it is important to note here that Thaddeus knows that Matryona will not be able to refuse. The problems raised in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” exist in society regardless of the level of income. Stinginess and haste ultimately lead to a tragic accident. An overloaded coupling of a sleigh with building materials breaks off at a crossing; the drivers do not notice it and collide with a tractor. People are dying, including Matryona, who, as always, decided to help.

Funeral and commemoration

Subtle psychologism, irony and even gloomy humor are present in the scene of farewell to the main character of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The problems and arguments encoded in the funeral laments and laments of various characters are deciphered by clarifying their true background. The reader involuntarily becomes offended that such sophisticated and intriguing streams of information rush over the roughly hewn coffin of Matryona, a kind and simple-minded woman during her life. There are, however, people who loved the deceased; they cry sincerely. Thaddeus, meanwhile, is busy: he urgently needs to remove the property before it is lost, and he “resolves this issue” by rushing to the wake, which, as often happens, ends with an almost cheerful feast. All this primarily exposes moral problems.

In the story “Matrenin's Dvor”, as in other works of A. I. Solzhenitsyn, the writer’s annoyance at the vain and selfish and faith in the good righteous principle merge together.