The topic of fraud in Russian literature of the 19th century. Financial rogues and slackers of Russian literature: a transcript of a discussion on the attitude towards money in classical works

We remember charming literary swindlers, eloquent film heroes, liars and resourceful adventurers, and at the same time think about why we love them so much.

The entire experience of Russian culture asserts that deceivers and crooks are not held in high esteem in our country. The search for truth, morality, conscientiousness, openness and honesty - this is what we are taught from childhood on the example of classical literature and cinema. "A thief should sit in jail!" - Gleb Zheglov categorically declares, and no semitones and additional circumstances interest him. “The power is in truth,” Danila Bagrov is sure, and it would seem difficult to disagree with him. But at the same time, although we agree with their maxims, we do not always admire only positive heroes, their courageous deeds and moral searches. Agree: without charming villains, handsome crooks, petty pranksters and other bad guys, life would be boring. It’s like chewing a fresh rusk with water at room temperature. With whom would our respectable and conscientious knights fight then, and how could we understand what is good and what is bad?

And in general - do rascals always carry evil? Or, on the contrary, with their flowery lies and virtuoso trickery, they in their own way fight against the vices of society? Let's try to answer all these questions.

The great combinator Ostap Bender

Who is the most important rogue, elegant schemer and great schemer in our culture? There can be no two opinions: of course, Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Maria-Benderbey, invented by the writers Ilf and Petrov. Who is he? Even the most confident storyteller will get confused by answering this question. Literally, Bender is, of course, a swindler, an "ideological fighter for banknotes" and an expert on at least 400 ways of cheating.

How is such a figure capable of captivating, who has repeatedly violated the biblical commandment "do not steal"? And here lies the most interesting thing: an ordinary household liar and thief would hardly ever become hero No. 1, but our Ostap absolutely does not fit into the banal criminal framework, he is an extravagant and even creative nature. In addition, Bender is good-looking: a tall brunette, wearing a tight suit, a scarf and lacquered boots "with an orange suede top." He also has a "long noble nose."

As you know, an attractive appearance is half the success, and if you add to it courteous manners, eloquence and the ability to show off, then even the most fantastic scam will be perceived as something natural.

Ostap Bender lies as he breathes, and he is so organic in his lies that it is already unclear whether there is even a grain of truth in it. Were the father of our hero a Turkish citizen and his mother a countess? Was he born in Odessa? Was he Ukrainian, Jewish, or half Turk? Everyone is free to think out for himself. But one thing is clear: Bender's incredible stories captivate the audience like a good theatrical performance. At the same time, each of his machinations is unlike the other: either he reincarnated as an honored artist, a yogi and a brahmin, then he presented himself as the son of Lieutenant Schmidt and received material assistance for a fictitious relationship, then he presented himself as the leader of an organization called upon to overthrow the Soviet regime. Unfortunately, we will not be able to list all 400 “comparatively honest ways of taking away (taking away) money”: how can a common man keep up with the swiftness of a great schemer. It remains only to admire his entrepreneurial spirit and masterly ability to make a performance out of any scam.

Why else do we love Ostap Bender? For incredible hedonism (with our propensity for suffering and reflection, such a character is worth its weight in gold), mental alertness and aphoristic capacity of utterances. “Nobody likes us, except for the criminal investigation department, which doesn't like us either”, “And your janitor is a pretty big vulgar man. Is it possible to get drunk on a ruble like that? "- all these remarks entered the treasury of Russian humor.

By the way, one of the possible prototypes of our hero was Osip Shor, an employee of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department (this is a paradox!) And also an ex-adventurer, a lover of adventure literature, a friend of Yuri Olesha and a dreamer. The most cherished desire of this extraordinary personality was a trip to sunny Rio de Janeiro, in fact, from here his fashionable image was formed: a light suit, a captain's cap and, of course, a scarf. (In any case, the movie Ostap looks like that.)

We cannot but love Bender also because his image was brought to life by wonderful and dissimilar artists: Sergei Yursky, Andrei Mironov, Archil Gomiashvili and many others. Each of us is free to choose our own Ostap, and this versatility is one of the main secrets of the popularity of this truly iconic character.

The king of criminal Odessa - Benya Krik

Odessa is not a city for pessimists. She does not favor pale anemic decadents and dull, silent recluses, but she willingly encourages nimble, adventurous and humorous people. Even if not entirely honest. Take, for example, Babel's Benya Krik, for whom everyone in Odessa knows. (As, however, for his real prototype - "noble thief" Mishka Yaponchik.) What is Benya good at?

Firstly, he is a typical Odessa citizen, which means that no matter what phrase flew from his lips, it always turned out witty and apt. "Daddy, have a drink and a snack, do not worry about these nonsense", "Mania, you are not at work,<...>cold-blooded, Manya "," My brain, along with my hair, stood on end when I heard this news. " We love Benya because he never gets confused and will always win any verbal duel. Second, Crick is a dandy, wears a chocolate blazer, cream pants and crimson boots, and he also knows the social situation, calling everyone "madam" and "monsieur." Thirdly, Benya, despite his criminal activities, has his own code of honor: for example, he does not rob the poor (but he masterfully strips the rich to the bone). He sends his future victim a polite letter asking them to put money under a barrel of rainwater. " In case of refusal, as you have recently begun to allow yourself, a great disappointment awaits you in your family life.", - the King sarcastically adds. Fourthly, Krik is a lover of sensual pleasures and a beautiful life, he is full-blooded and not boring, and such heroes are interesting at all times. Remember the recent success of the modern TV series “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik,” directed by Sergei Ginzburg. Spectators immediately fell in love with the elegant raider with a characteristic dialect and southern flavor, distracting from the endless conveyor belt of cinema sagas about corrupt officials and honest policemen scurrying against the background of the same type of new buildings. On the screen they drink and eat, walk along the azure sea, joke, dance, sing, celebrate weddings and go to funerals. And of course, some of the wealthy citizens are being cheated. Be that as it may, the tragic ending of Yaponchik's life (as, by the way, and Benny Crick's) evokes sympathy from the viewer, which means that this hero is rightfully considered one of the most beloved and charming swindlers in our culture.

Great literary rogues: Chichikov and Khlestakov

Gogol's "Inspector General" has not left the stage for 180 years. The image of the braggart and liar Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov created by the writer is not only not covered with dust, but every time it blooms depending on the director's interpretation and the general context of the era. Why is this character interesting? " Anyone, at least for a minute, if not for a few minutes, was or is being done by Khlestakov", - said Nikolai Vasilievich. And indeed, who of us at least once did not embellish reality, which of us did not try to impress and glorify our own figure in the eyes of the public? That is why the final phrase of the play is so significant: “ Why are you laughing? You are laughing at yourself!”(In the theatrical version it was slightly altered). So the adventures of the protagonist and local officials give us the opportunity to look at ourselves from the outside. Satirically.

« Khlestakov's figure: airy; at any moment she is ready to blur"- wrote the Soviet critic Alexander Voronsky. And this elusiveness (sometimes announced in the county town, then suddenly disappears), and one hundred percent "getting used to" the image of a significant figure make the hero a typical rogue, a flamboyant swindler and a pleasure lover who easily cheats dull-witted and servile officials.

“... According to my Petersburg physiognomy and costume, the whole city took me for the governor-general. And now I live with the mayor, chewing, dragging recklessly after his wife and daughter.<...>They all lend me as much as they want. The originals are scary. Laughing you would die", - says Khlestakov.

And hardly anyone will dare to accuse him of this deception, because intoxicated lies have once again revealed the typical vices of our society.

Another Gogolian rogue, relevant at all times, is the hero of "Dead Souls" Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. He is a dandy, always dressed with a needle and “sprinkled with cologne”, a lover of fast driving, easy money and, of course, a schemer who buys up information about dead peasants and passes them off as living. Local ladies, residents of the city of N, are fascinated by the secular manners of Pavel Ivanovich, call him a charmer and continuously find in him "a bunch of pleasantries and courtesies." And what about Chichikov? Our enterprising hero does not waste time in vain: he is an ace in cheating. And who could have suspected such an educated person as a banal swindler? Of course not. The relevance of the image of this hero lies not in the fact that Dead Souls is an integral work of the school curriculum and theatrical repertoire, the fact is that it is truly universal for any era. For example, the same Bulgakov wrote a witty feuilleton "The Adventures of Chichikov", in which Pavel Ivanovich finds himself in Soviet reality, where instead of a chaise - a car, instead of a hotel - a hostel, and all around " dirt and filth was such that Gogol had no idea". So every time has its own rogue Chichikov - be it the 19th century, the years of perestroika, or the abrupt zero.

The matter is unclean: the cat Behemoth and Woland's retinue

In the novel "The Master and Margarita" Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov succeeded in the unheard of, namely, to take and shift all our moral accents and show that generally recognized evil can do good. Perhaps no one before him has described evil spirits and black magic so easily, ironically and witty. Here, for example, the cat Behemoth - although a demon, but at the same time a cute, charming and cheerful glutton who does not play pranks, does not bother anyone and fixes the primus. Does he scare? Rather no than yes (even though he infernally rips off the head of the same Bengalsky). And you obviously can't deny him the liveliness of his mind: “For some reason, they always say“ you ”to cats, although not a single cat has ever drunk broodershaft with anyone!” “Would I allow myself to pour a lady of vodka? This is pure alcohol! "- says the Behemoth to Margarita at the ball at Woland.

Or remember Koroviev, the owner of a "mocking face" and "ironic and half-drunk eyes." How bright and caricatured the image looms! However, at the end of the novel, Koroviev leaves Moscow with the darkest face; as Woland explains, he was doomed to constantly joke for an unsuccessfully spoken pun about Light and Darkness, and as a result "paid and closed his account."

But let's not go into philosophical subtleties, especially since many researchers consider this episode one of the strangest and most incomplete, something else is important for us. All this demonic company - ridiculous, absurd, extravagant - ends up in Soviet Moscow, not just to play dirty tricks and show off, exposing the ladies in a variety show, but in order to establish justice and punish those who have completely lost their conscience. Actually, that's why we love them.

Dodgers Grigory Gorin

A separate mention is made of the charming adventurer from Western plots, transferred by the playwright and satirist writer Grigory Gorin to Russian soil. Take, for example, Baron Munchausen, whose deceitful tales are familiar to us from childhood. Who is this character? If literally, then a really existing German baron, literary by Rudolf Erich Raspe. He is a great inventor who claimed that a cherry tree once grew on a deer's head (Munchausen talked about all this in a tavern over a glass of hot punch and lighting a fragrant pipe). Meanwhile, screenwriter Grigory Gorin and director Mark Zakharov created their own character, different from the prototype and the original plot. No, the dreamer and the dreamer remained, and the cherry trees still bloomed magnificently on the deer's heads, but the accents shifted. Munchausen, whose image on the screen was embodied by the unsurpassed Oleg Yankovsky, was not just an inventor who met with Shakespeare and Newton: in fact, it turned out that this very heroes opposed their extraordinary thoughts, ideas and dreams to a static society, which was deceitful and hypocritical. And the main dreamer, meanwhile, turned out to be the most truthful and courageous of all, and besides, not so much a comic as a tragic character. In fact, he embodies not a rogue, but a real artist himself, who is so non-standard and lonely that he does not fit into the conventions of society with its false values ​​and is not perceived even by close people. That is why Munchausen's final remark sounds somewhat sad: “ I understand what your trouble is: you are too serious! A clever face is not yet a sign of intelligence, gentlemen. All the stupid things on earth are done with this facial expression. You smile, gentlemen! Smile! "

Another brilliant adventurer and at the same time a mystic who managed to inherit in Russia is the Italian Count Cagliostro from the film "Formula of Love" by Mark Zakharov, filmed according to a script by Grigory Gorin. Of course, he is a skilled swindler, illusionist and businessman, who at the same time himself says: “ Everyone deceives everyone, only they do it too primitively. I alone have turned deception into a great art". And after all, Cagliostro is really talented, witty and ironic (what is the phrase: “ I was warned that staying in Russia has a bad effect on fragile minds."). Thanks to the talented tandem of the director and screenwriter, the controversial figure of the count invariably evokes positive emotions in most of us.

Afterword

The stories of ironic rogues, charming and extraordinary fraudsters captivate our imagination. Because their lies are not always destructive and evil, and besides, they are not boring, insipid and often look more interesting and deeper (and here's a paradox - more honest) than many saints who repeat about their decency. And such heroes not only entertain us and make us laugh, but also offer to look at the situation more broadly, to overestimate something in ourselves and those around us. That is why we can only join the classic, exclaiming: "Smile, gentlemen, smile!"

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The topic of money in Russian literature

Introduction

It seems to me that this particular topic is relevant now and has not lost its novelty. Wherever you look, money is everywhere. And modern literature is certainly no exception. But how is this burning topic viewed and presented? Money is shown mainly as a means of satisfying needs, in almost every book you can read a hymn to wealth. And not a word, not a half word about the moral side of the issue.

Isn't this the ideological "engine" of literature? Therefore, I came up with the idea to consider and compare what the writers of the past centuries thought, said and wrote about the problem of enrichment. The object of the research is the works of Russian writers and the aspect in which they view money, as it is often mentioned, how important they consider the problem of enrichment in the life of society, the influence of money on the souls of people.

Purpose of the study: to show the relevance of this topic at the moment, to draw attention to the angle in which the problems of money were considered by writers of different centuries. To prove that money was, in a sense, public freedom, power, an opportunity to live and love, and until now nothing has changed, and is unlikely to ever change. Each writer and poet sees, understands and depicts this problem in his own way.

But practically everyone agrees that money undoubtedly introduces lack of spirituality into people's lives, disfigures, kills everything human, allows people to forget about morality, and contributes to the appearance of “dead souls”. Money gradually replaces everything for a person: conscience, honesty, decency. Why do we need these sublime feelings when everything can be bought? Paid - and you are a famous respected person.

Money (wealth) is one of the "eternal" literary themes. The question of the meaning of money and wealth has a long history. Already Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his "Rhetoric" considered wealth as a blessing: "In man himself there are spiritual and bodily blessings, - outside of him - noble birth, friends, wealth, honor ...". The idea of ​​wealth as a good to which people aspire developed in Western European literature. For domestic literature, a different solution is characteristic, associated with that part of the Biblical texts, which speaks of the sinfulness of wealth, with the thought that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven." These ideas develop in the lives of the saints, whose path to holiness often begins with giving up wealth and giving away their property to the poor.

In the Bible, the words gold, silver are constant epithets, precious metals symbolize wealth and beauty. Golden altars, incense burners, censers, vessels, lamps, etc. are often mentioned here. Precious metals are also a symbol of power, blind worship: Aaron constructs a golden calf from the gold jewelry donated to him (Exodus 32: 2-6). The image erected by King Nebuchadnezzar, who told the nations to worship him, was also made of gold (Dan. 3: 1-7).

Love for money, gold is the source of many human vices. This is also envy (the parable of the winegrower and the workers who grumbled about the unequal pay). Finally, this is the betrayal of Judas for 30 pieces of silver.

The theme of money is typical for many works of Russian literature, however, it is difficult to find a fictional essay devoted exclusively to the question of money. This implies some uncertainty about the role of the theme of money in the art world. The naming of sums of money is not always perceived as an element of the artistic system. However, in many classical works, this topic plays a very significant role. Money, the financial condition of a character - a characteristic of the sphere of action is no less important than an indication of the time and place. The precisely named amounts that the characters have at their disposal largely determine their way of thinking and the logic of behavior. In the works of Russian classics, high ideals are affirmed, base interests are rejected and ridiculed. However, in the classical literature, a variety of judgments are reflected. For example, in "Brideless" by A.N. Ostrovsky's merchant Knurov, inviting Larissa to go with him to Paris to the fair, convinces: “Don't be ashamed, there will be no condemnation. There are boundaries beyond which condemnation does not cross; I can offer you such a tremendous content that the most evil critics of someone else's morality will have to shut up and open their mouths in surprise ”(d. 4, yavl. 8). In other words: there are no moral limits for big money.

Many works have been written on the topic of money, both foreign and domestic. The topic of money is especially widely disclosed in the works of Russian classics.

money fonvizin pushkin ostrovsky

1. The theme of money in DI Fonvizin's comedy "The Minor"

In folklore, ideas about the nature of wealth are peculiarly intertwined with the foundations of Christian doctrine. In Russian proverbs and sayings, the superiority of spiritual values ​​is clearly expressed, there is a firm conviction that money is evil, that a person can be happy even without money (money is not happiness; there is a lot of money, but little reason; money will lead a priest into the pit). Although, in some proverbs and sayings, the thought slips that without money anywhere (money is not God, but protects; money beats a mountain; money is a squabble, but without them it is bad). In tales of rich and poor people, the conflict of wealth and poverty is always resolved in the same way. Wealth is a vice, a rich person always remains a fool, loses everything, while there is some ironic connotation. But the paradox lies in the fact that at the end of the tale the poor heroes receive, now half a kingdom, then suddenly "they will begin to live - to live, and to make good money." This inconsistency is explained by the ambiguous attitude of the people towards money and wealth.

The topic of money is also touched upon in the works of Russian writers. In DI Fonvizin's comedy "The Minor" the motive of money, Sophia's inheritance ("fifteen thousand annual income"), determines the main intrigue of the comedy. Prostakova, having taken Sophia's estate without permission, designates her as a bride for her brother. Having learned about the inheritance, she changes plans, which she did not consider it necessary to devote to Sophia, and wants to marry her son Mitrofanushka to her. Uncle and nephew begin to fight for a rich bride - literally, arranging fights, and figuratively - competing in demonstrating their "merits". A comic scene with teachers is associated with money, especially Tsyfirkin's puzzles. The comic effect of scenes with teachers is associated with the motive of money, especially Tsyfirkin's puzzles:

Tsyfirkin. Three of us found, for example, 300 rubles ... The matter came to a division. See why on your brother?

Prostakova. Found the money, don't share it with anyone ... Don't study this stupid science.

Tsyfirkin. For teaching you reward 10 rubles a year ... It would not be a sin to add 10 more. How much would it be?

Prostakova. I won't add a penny. No money - what to count? There is money - let's count it well without Pafnutich (d. 3, yavl. 7).

Here money is named in its specific, numerical expression (in the form of amounts: "three hundred rubles", "ten rubles") and in a generalizing sense ("there is money ... there is no money", "I will not add a penny", i.e. nothing I'm not giving it). Numbers, division, multiplication are the usual arithmetic operations. For the honest Tsyfirkin, who takes money only for service, arithmetic is the science of the fair division of money, for Prostakova, who is accustomed, by right of the strong, to decide everything in her favor - about multiplication. The solution of simple problems by Mrs. Prostakova, her attitude to money, becomes a clear example of immorality.

Thus, the characters of the comedy are characterized through their attitude to money, it reflects their moral essence. If we continue this thought, it turns out that money is synonymous with certain character traits in comedy. "Selfishness", greedy for money Prostakov, Skotinin - low natures. "Yes, even if you read it for five years, you won't finish reading anything better than ten thousand ..." - says Skotinin (file 1, sluggish. 7); Prostakov, having learned about Sophia's money, "became affectionate to the very base" (d. 2, sluggish. 2).

The goodies have their own understanding of wealth and the role of money. As it follows in the classicist play, in "The Minor" the heroes with the speaking surnames Pravdin and Starodum utter educational truths about the benefits of virtue, about the moral nature of man, about the need to fulfill human and civic duty: "Have a heart, have a soul, and you will be a man in any time "(Starodum); “The direct dignity of man is the soul” (Pravdin, d. 3), etc. But here is the niece, she is the heiress, declares:

The pursuit of money by the greedy landowners Prostakov and Skotinin is the main intrigue of the comedy. The opposition of honest and unselfish Pravdin, Starodum and Milon to them determines the main conflict of the play. Starodum's aphorisms and maxims reflect the ideal of a just organization of private and public life, when "ranks", public recognition and respect ("nobility and respect") are conditioned by work and virtues. In an enlightened society, attempts to obtain money by dishonest means should be suppressed by the state, undeserved wealth is subject to universal condemnation. The very need to repeat these truths in the time of Fonvizin testifies to the discrepancy between the desired and the actual, that in life it was the opposite. This reveals the contours of the general conflict outlined in the play between what is and what should be. A conflict that does not find a definite solution in life.

2. The power of gold in the play by A. Pushkin "The Covetous Knight"

Let's move on to the play by A.S. Pushkin's "The Covetous Knight". It was not for nothing that Pushkin began to develop this theme in the late 1920s. In this era, and in Russia, bourgeois elements of everyday life more and more invaded the system of the feudal system, new characters of the bourgeois type were developed, and a greed for the acquisition and accumulation of money was brought up. "The Miserly Knight" was, in this sense, quite a modern play in the late 1920s. "

In Pushkin's play there are two usurers: the Jew, the lender of Albert, and the Baron himself. Here is the traditional idea of ​​the "growth" of money, ie. about interest, as about deceiving a poor man. Money for the Baron is not gentlemen or servants, but sovereign symbols, "a crown and barmas", they are evidence of his royal dignity. "Obedient to me, my state is strong," he says to himself. The "state" of the Baron, however, is not a geographical concept, for it extends to the whole world. He conquered the world without leaving his home, not by force of arms or subtle diplomacy, but by completely different means, a different "technique" - a coin. She is the guarantor of his independence, his freedom, not only material, but also spiritual, in particular, moral.

The Baron's intoxication with gold, the proud consciousness of his own strength, power is usually interpreted as a figurative expression of potential strength. This interpretation follows from the parallel with the tsar, from the conventional "I just want to", which creates the impression of a compressed spring - if I want, they say, and with a wave of my hand "palaces will be erected," and so on. Everything is so, if you do not notice a certain comic effect, the fact that the Baron is somewhat ridiculous, like an old man playing with biceps. The Baron serves gold, money, coins. The Baron's wealth embodies the idea of ​​the power and power of gold. The core of the main conflict is rooted in the dual nature of wealth: it gives power, but it also enslaves.

As the well-known Soviet researcher wrote, in The Covetous Knight “... is no longer the problem of the father’s stinginess, but the much broader problem of gold as the sovereign master of life” gold as a social wealth ”,“ gold dominates the tragedy ”. The same researcher noted the influence of gold on the spiritual world and the human psyche: “The fact of possession of gold, being refracted in the mind of the old Baron, turns into the idea of ​​individual strength and power of the owner of gold himself. The properties of gold are transferred to the personality of its owner. "

The author tries to comprehend the logic of the avaricious, the demonic power of money that feeds human pride, the illusory conviction that everything is subject to the rich. In his pride, the rich man forgets that only earthly judgment is subject to money, and they buy only human weaknesses. Rather, money generates or only provokes the manifestation of human weakness (greed), it brings evil. Greed entails madness and loss of wealth, human appearance, life. The baron slanders his son (in the first scene the reader learns that Albert has no criminal intentions), imagines himself omnipotent, “like a certain demon,” and for this he is punished by sudden and inexplicable death.

By acquiring gold, power over others, a person no longer has power over himself, becomes stingy, which leads to self-destruction. Therefore, power over others is only an illusion, like the proud reflections of the Baron in the basement at the sight of his chests. Others understand this:

O! My father is not servants or friends

In them he sees, and masters; and serves them himself.

And how does it serve? Like an Algerian slave, Like a chain dog.

G. Gukovsky highlighted the theme of wealth in Pushkin's work: “He wrote a lot about gold and capital. This theme clearly haunted him, put forward before him at every step by pictures, new phenomena of the life of Russia. " For many characters of the tragedy, only gold is important, the life of the Baron, the owner of wealth, chests of gold, becomes a hindrance. Both Albert and the Jew are interested in the death of the stingy knight, to whom the inherited treasures will flow sooner or later. In this sense, in the tragedy of Pushkin, all characters are selfish, all require money (including the innkeeper). Gold is important, not man. The judgment of a higher power was not long in coming. The Baron dies suddenly. He could have lived in the world for "ten, twenty and twenty-five and thirty years," as Solomon listed, calling the condition - if "God willing." Did not give. And so it happens, even before nightfall they will take the soul of the Baron, and the moral of the parable will explain to us why - "this is the case with those who collect treasure for themselves, and not become rich in God."

3. The magic of money - gold in the works of N.V. Gogol

Among the popular ideas about gold (wealth) is Nikolai Gogol's story "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala". On the basis of Little Russian folklore, Gogol's story developed one of the themes characteristic of the work of European romantics - the theme of selling the soul to the devil. At the instigation of Basavryuk, the “devilish man,” and the witch, Petrus must get a treasure, and in order to get a treasure, he must kill an innocent child. So in Gogol's story, gold is a sign of the most expensive, beautiful, desirable - a sign of power, wealth. "Fainted by the accursed devilry" Petrus received gold, for which he paid with his immortal and priceless soul. The motive of gold is directly related to the theme that worried Gogol and other writers in the first third of the 19th century: about the sinfulness of wealth, its "unclean" origin, the harmful effect on the human soul.

The money chest is a symbol of wealth that has an unrighteous, "unclean" origin. Gold requires sacrifice and renunciation. As already noted, the one who finds the treasure, who suddenly received wealth, always turns out to be the one who is most vulnerable, weak, cannot resist the devil's temptation. The desire to preserve and increase enormous wealth grows into mania and leads to a loss of reason. The chest of wealth even passes into the literature of realism, preserving the main features of its "mythological" origin: the ruinousness of wealth for its owner and those around him. True, it is not evil spirits that are destroying the rich man, but his own greed.

In the story "Portrait" many motives and elements of the plot scheme of "Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" are repeated: poverty, lack of fortune to marry a beloved girl; mental weakness of a young man; temptation in the form of "accidental" wealth; foreign usurer; treasure chests ("his iron chests are full of money, jewelry, diamonds and any pledges"); loss of reason and death of the protagonist: “in fits of terrible madness and rage,” the life of those who, in one way or another, comes into contact with the dark forces of evil, is interrupted. In one story, people are tempted by Basavryuk, "the devil in human form" or "devil man." In the other - an alien usurer, in which a devilish presence is also felt: "No one doubted the presence of evil spirits in this person." About a dark complexion, with "unbearable burning eyes" a usurer, the artist "could not resist saying:" The devil, the perfect devil! "

Lack of money is the main prerequisite for the emergence of a comic situation in the comedy of N.V. Gogol "The Inspector General". Each of the characters does not have enough money: Khlestakov - to go further (“If I hadn’t had a drink in Penza, it would have been money to get home,” no. 2). To the governor of state money for the construction of a church at a charitable institution, “for which a sum was allocated five years ago”; the merchant “built a bridge and painted a tree for twenty thousand, while there wasn’t even a hundred rubles” (the governor here “helped to cheat”). Even a non-commissioned officer's widow is busy because the money "would be very useful now" for her. Let us recall that the main sign of Khlestakov's belonging to the “higher spheres” of the bureaucracy was his free handling of money: “He! And he does not pay money, and does not go. Who would be if not him? " (d. 1). This "argument" encircles the comedy: in the first act, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky make a statement, then in the finale the officials recall their words: "" He arrived and does not fetch money! "... found an important bird!" (d. 4). Accordingly, the actions of the characters are associated with money, although it is not the monetary interest that determines the main intrigue of the play.

The word "money", as well as the numerical expression of the amount of money in the comedy is used very often and has almost no synonyms (except for the word "amount"). But verbs denoting the actions of characters with money are extremely rich in semantic shades. You can pay or not pay money, squander or restrain, profint, borrow and promise to give, tip and donate, ask, slip (give a bribe), screw up, throw out (win at cards). The arithmetic of the "innocently" greedy Khlestakov is comical, in his calculations he is the direct successor of Mrs. Prostakova: not 200, but 400, - I don't want to take advantage of your mistake, - so, perhaps, and now the same, so that it is exactly 800 (takes money) ... After all, this, they say, is new happiness when new pieces of paper ”( yavl. 16).

The situation is not so simple in the world of officials, where money is counted in hundreds and thousands. Whether or not money is used changes a lot. But since bribery is condemned by law, it is not so frankly committed. For example, officials are looking for a transparent excuse to hand over money to an “auditor”. The only problem is how to name the money for which the auditor is “bought”. Ridiculous and common sense funny options create a comedic mood. In the third act, money is the main subject with which the heroes' manipulations are associated. Officials hand over money to Khlestakov, sweating out of fear, dropping banknotes, shaking out change from holes, etc. For them, the transfer of money is a material form of concluding certain relations. Both the giver and the taker pretend that money is only a manifestation of a good attitude, a sign of friendly disposition.

It is impossible not to mention such a work of Gogol as "Dead Souls". The portrayal of stinginess in the poem is growing at first as one of the weaknesses, character traits: coarse, like Sobakevich, or comical, like Korobochka, until it turns out to be an idea that completely enslaved a person, a way of life, like Plyushkin's. In the fact that the acquaintance with the landowners begins with Manilov and ends with Plyushkin (Ch. 6.), the researchers see a "special logic", each character plays a role in the main theme of the poem. In this sense, the image of the "ordinary" Plyushkin is the culmination of the theme of greed in Dead Souls. His name remains in the memory of readers as a symbol of this vice. Avarice, greed, prudence to varying degrees are characteristic of almost all the main characters of the poem "Dead Souls". The author speaks with irony about the magic of not only gold, money, but also the words themselves that denote them: “Millionaire” - “in one sound of this word, past every money bag, there is something that acts on the people of scoundrels, and neither one nor the other, and good people, in a word, it affects everyone ”(Ch. 6). This word alone gives rise to "disposition to meanness."

The main character of the poem has a special kind of greed. From childhood, believing that “you can do everything and break everything in the world with a penny,” “this thing is more reliable than anything in the world,” Chichikov becomes an acquirer. The desire to profit from everywhere, to save money, to underpay, to take over everything that comes into view, provokes lies and hypocrisy, "double" bookkeeping and morality for oneself and for others.

5. Marriage swindles as a means of enrichment in the comedies of A. N. Ostrovsky

Russian culture of the middle of the century is beginning to be attracted by the themes of marriage scams - stories that have spread in society due to the emergence of initiative people with character, ambitions, but no generic means for the embodiment of desires. The heroes of Ostrovsky and Pisemsky are not similar in their demands for peace, but they are united in the chosen means: in order to improve their financial situation, they do not stop before the annoying pangs of conscience, they fight for existence, compensating for the flawed social status with hypocrisy. The ethical side of the issue worries the authors only to the extent that all parties to the conflict are punished. There are no obvious casualties here; the money of one group of characters and the activity of the seeker of a "profitable place" in life, regardless of whether it is a marriage or a new service, are equally immoral. The plot of family and household commerce excludes a hint of compassion for the victim, it simply cannot be where financial conflicts are resolved, and the results are equally satisfactory for everyone.

A. N. Ostrovsky immerses the reader in the exotic life of the merchant class, commenting on the themes of previous literature with the help of farce. In the play "Poverty is not a vice", the problem of fathers and children is completely mediated by monetary relations, the images of nobly unhappy brides are accompanied by frank conversations about the dowry ("Guilty without guilt"). Without much sentimentality and frankly, the characters discuss money problems, all kinds of matchmakers willingly arrange weddings, seekers of rich hands walk around the living rooms, trade and marriage deals are discussed.

The first comedy of Ostrovsky "Our people - numbered!" is devoted to the process of financial fraud - false, "malicious", bankruptcy (its original name is "Bankrupt"). The main idea of ​​the merchant Bolshov is that, having borrowed money, transfer all his real estate ("house and shop") to the name of a "faithful" person, declare himself indigent, and return only twenty-five kopecks for each borrowed ruble (a quarter of the total debt, assigning the rest). Quick enrichment allegedly will not harm anyone: after all, the merchant has "creditors are all rich people, what can they do!" (d. 1., yavl. 10). This way of making money is illegal, but, as you know, it remains popular to this day.

All characters "work" and go to different tricks for the money, which is the main driving force behind all actions in the comedy. The solicitor "goes about" small matters and "sometimes does not bring home a half of silver". The matchmaker receives "where the gold is, where more will roll over - it is known what it costs, looking according to the strength of the opportunity" (d. 2, yavl. 6), referring to his "employers", calls them "silver", "pearl" , "Emerald", "ychontovaya", "brilliant", giving tangibility and concreteness to the "precious" qualities of the merchant Bolshova and her daughter Lipochka.

All the characters in the comedy strive for money, constantly think about it, consider both their own and other people's income. Even the boy on the parcels, Tishka, is doing his “business”, collecting everything that is bad: “Poltina in silver is now Lazar gave. In the finale of the comedy for a swindler-merchant, all salvation is in money: “You need money, Lazar, money. Nothing else to fix. Either money or Siberia. ”Money divides characters into those who serve and those who are served. In the first act, Bolshov “commands” and kinks, while Podkhalyuzin curses and asks, in the last act, on the contrary, Bolshov, having lost his fortune, asks “for Christ's sake” from Podkhalyuzin.

The desire for money in a comedy is characteristic not only of a rich merchant, but also of poor people (matchmaker, lawyer). Because of greed, they are ready for any dishonest actions. This feature of weak people is understood and used by Podkhalyuzin, promising each two thousand rubles, and the matchmaker and a sable fur coat in the bargain. The deceivers hope to get very big money not for their work, the low price of which they know, but for services of a dubious nature. In the end, both the one and the other get paid in "one hundred rubles in silver", but they feel cheated. The desire to get a lot of money at once turns into disappointment and anger.

6. The element of money in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky

In FM Dostoevsky's work Crime and Punishment, all the heroes of the novel, one way or another, are covered by the element of money, and this element can be expressed in poverty or wealth: Raskolnikov and his family, his friend Razumikhin, Marmeladovs are very poor - they suffer from hunger and cold, subject to petty passions, gambling, alcohol. But the landowner Svidrigailov is rich, but his vices are no less, and even more than the vices of the poor. Depravity and permissiveness lead him to suicide. And what is better than the life of Luzhin, who wants to marry Raskolnikov's sister Duna, who "... more than anything in the world loved and appreciated ..., earned by labor and all kinds of means, his money: they equated him with everything that was higher than him ..."? Thus, Dostoevsky tries to emphasize the destructive power of money, equally killing a person's spirituality and pushing him onto the path of crime.

In the work itself, the word "money" is mentioned countless times in dialogues and descriptions. The author even gives a detailed description of the number of coins in Raskolnikov's pocket. Counting pennies and forever depending on money, thinking about them is the main concern of the poor and disadvantaged. Each of the heroes, as well as real people, faces a dilemma: how to survive in a world of poverty and humiliation without sinning, without breaking one of the Commandments. The image of an old woman is this collective image of a usurer who profits from the grief of others. Everything in the old woman's life is ruled by money, and she has more than enough of it, in fact, she does not need it. But she takes even pitiful pennies from her half-sister.

The character of Raskolnikov is not unambiguous, as is his fate. Goodness and faith still glimmer in him, he is able to respond and help others, that at least for a moment we return hope to him. The power of money is destructive, but it is subjective and a person can fight it, having the will and desire for it.

“Yesterday I gave all the money you sent me ... to his wife ... for the funeral. Now a widow, a consumptive, pitiful woman ... three little orphans, hungry ... the house is empty ... and there is another daughter ... Maybe you would have given it yourself, if you had seen ... I, however, I had no right, I confess, especially knowing how you yourself got this money. To help, you must first have the right to have such a thing ... ”. Raskolnikov himself constantly needs money. As soon as he receives a certain amount, he immediately distributes it. The text of the novel carefully describes each act of Raskolnikov's mercy. But it is precisely without money, and even a small specter of their power and destructive power, in hard labor in an atmosphere of hardship and suffering, Raskolnikov nevertheless repents and turns to eternal values ​​that can heal his soul. He is helped by the love of Sonya, who, like him, escaped the element of money.

Leaving the power of money makes the main character free from his deceptive, inhuman theories. The meaning of his life is love, faith and honest work, thanks to which he may not become rich, but he will not be able to die of hunger and live with his beloved woman.

The experiences of the heroes, the constant threat of true poverty hanging over them, create an atmosphere of tension and drama in the story "Poor People". The actions of the characters, in one way or another, are connected with money, they sell, buy, pay, receive, ask for a loan. Devushkin takes his salary in advance, unsuccessfully tries to borrow money, unexpectedly receives one hundred rubles from the general. Varvara sends Makar fifty kopecks, thirty kopecks in silver, Gorshkov asks “at least some dime,” “at least ten kopecks”; Ratazyaev for his “creativity” “asks for seven thousand,” and so on. A feeling of hopelessness is caused by the experiences of the heroes associated with material losses: a new uniform is sold, an old coat is next, boots are torn, buttons are torn off, rubles and kopecks are passing from hand to hand. Every "hryvnia" matters.

Fleeing from the last poverty and nakedness, Varvara and Makar are parted despite their feelings. Poor people, almost beggars Makar and Varvara, having improved their financial affairs, at the end of the story remain "poor", that is, unhappy and wretched.

The main event of the play by A. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard", around which the action is built, is the sale of the estate. “The cherry orchard will be on sale on 22 August. Think about it! .. Think! .. "- Lopakhin insists. The love line (Anya and Trofimov) is clearly on the periphery of the main action, barely outlined. Tension to the action is given by the auction, the auction - the forced sale of Ranevskaya's name day. The event seems to be catastrophic and incredible for its participants. From the very beginning of the play, the situation is referred to as extremely difficult and unexpected. Anya tells Vary that Lyubov Andreevna already has nothing, “she has already sold her dacha ... there is nothing left. I don't have a penny left either. " The feeling of extreme poverty is being whipped up: several times it is said that “people have nothing to eat”. There is no question of the possibility of paying interest: “Where is there,” Varya hopelessly answers. Gaev says that in order to save the possession of funds, "essentially not a single one." This is actually a complete collapse of the surname.

The motive of small money - their eternal shortage, borrowing, winning, repaying debt, begging - sounds like a comic in every scene of the play - is present already at an early stage of the implementation of the idea. As well as the motive of lack of money. Bidding, interest, promissory note, loan, mortgage - all this is directly related to the main action and the main collision of the play.

Money in the play is a thing that unites the characters: money passes from hand to hand, it is borrowed, given, given, offered, received (like Petya for a translation). This is one of the main threads from which the canvas of comedy is woven. Money in the artistic world of the play "belittles" the characters, discredits each of them. Varya is avarice personified, its definition in economics logically completes the image. Gaev is infantile, "they say he ate all his fortune on candy", Ranevskaya's husband "made debts and died from champagne." Lopakhin, who counts and multiplies his fortune, will soon be a millionaire - he works with money, does not arouse sympathy, despite his loyalty to his mistress, or his wallet always open for her, or hard work, which he talks about in detail. Trofimov proudly refuses financial assistance, which Lopakhin kindly offers him: "Give me at least 200,000, I won't take it. I am a free man. And everything that you all, poor and rich, value so highly, does not have the slightest power over me. like fluff that flies through the air. I can do without you, I can pass you, I am strong and proud. "

The play shows an interesting psychological phenomenon: the attractiveness of lightness, grace, beauty, generosity and, conversely, a repulsive impression that makes a heavy; (responsible), calculating, rational attitude to life. Direct, soft, hardworking Lopakhin is unpleasant (annoyingly tactless). Ranevskaya, selfish, easily misappropriating other people's money (loans from Lopakhin, money of "Yaroslavl grandmother"), leaving loved ones to their fate, evokes sympathy, sympathy and even pity of those who, through her fault, were left without everything (Gaev, Varya, Anya, Firs ). We can say that the play shows the charm visible to the world and selfishness invisible to the world, bordering on cruelty.

7. Money is an illusion of reality in the stories of A. P. Chekhov

The topic of money in the stories of A. P. Chekhov not only contributes to the creation of the illusion of reality of what is happening: in the objective world of stories, all things have a “believable” price, the characters have a corresponding income. In many cases, the sum of money, which is directly or indirectly referred to (be it 200 rubles from the story "In a shelter for the sick and the elderly" or 75,000 in the story of the same name), turns out to be a measure of humiliation, moral decline, moral degradation.

The situations shown by Chekhov in the considered and many other stories of the 1880s are based on the multidirectional interests of the main characters. Moreover, if one side in its actions, hopes and expectations proceeds from considerations of family attachment, responsibility and family well-being, then the other is guided only by considerations of personal benefit. The moment of an unexpected collision of two different ways of thinking, the realization of commercialism in a specific action or word, constitutes the central event in the plot of the stories, their culmination. Chekhov's heroes try to profit from everything, even from adultery, as in the story "The Chief of the Station". The motive of money in Chekhov's stories plays a major role in creating a situation of embarrassment, disappointment and despair.

Conclusion

Money - this topic is relevant now and has not lost its novelty. Wherever you look, money is everywhere. And modern literature is certainly no exception. But how is this burning topic viewed and presented? Money is shown mainly as a means of satisfying needs, in almost every book you can read a hymn to wealth. And not a word, not a half word about the moral side of the issue. Isn't this the ideological "engine" of literature? Each writer and poet sees, understands and depicts this problem in his own way. But practically everyone agrees that money undoubtedly introduces lack of spirituality into people's lives, disfigures, kills everything human, allows people to forget about morality, and contributes to the appearance of “dead souls”. Money gradually replaces everything for a person: conscience, honesty, decency. Why do we need these sublime feelings when everything can be bought? Paid - and you are a famous respected person.

In my opinion, the test of money, power or fame can be put on a par with the test of love, friendship. After all, a person in such situations manifests himself very brightly, often something dormant in him is revealed until the "test" comes. And, unfortunately, only a few with honor go through trials, without destroying their souls, without staining their consciences. In the world, the idol of which the “golden calf” is the idol, the preservation of the human soul is perhaps one of the most important tasks. But how to solve this problem? Unfortunately, there is no answer to this question yet. So, summing up, I would like to note the important role of money in the society of past centuries, as well as the present century, which means that this topic occupies a special place. It is impossible to imagine life without money, which is proved in the works of not only the classics considered here, but also many other authors. Thus, I believe that the topic of money in literature, both past and modern, given the peculiarities of the national character, is worth paying more attention to.

Bibliographic list

1. N. V. Gogol. Dead Souls. - M., 1985.

2. F. M. Dostoevsky. T. 5. Leningrad "SCIENCE"., 1989.

3.GI Romanova. The motive of money in Russian literature. "Flint": "Science" .- M., 2006.

4. Commentary by S. Bondi to "The Covetous Knight" in the book: A.S. Pushkin. Dramas (book for reading with commentary) .- M. 1985.

5. Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment. - M .: Eksmo, 2006.

6.A.S. Pushkin. Selected works. Detgiz. - M., 1959.

7. A. Ostrovsky. Dramaturgy. AST-OLYMPUS. - M., 1998.

8. A. I. Chekhov. Stories and stories. " Russian language". - M., 1980.

9. Tomashevsky BV Theory of literature. Poetics. M., 2000.

10. Belinsky V.G. Sobr. Op. T. 11.

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Russian culture of the middle of the century is beginning to be attracted by the themes of marriage scams - stories that have spread in society due to the emergence of initiative people with character, ambitions, but no generic means for the embodiment of desires. The heroes of Ostrovsky and Pisemsky are not similar in their demands for peace, but they are united in the chosen means: in order to improve their financial situation, they do not stop before the annoying pangs of conscience, they fight for existence, compensating for the flawed social status with hypocrisy. The ethical side of the issue worries the authors only to the extent that all parties to the conflict are punished. There are no obvious casualties here; money of one group of characters and activity of the seeker "Profitable place" in life, whether it is marriage or a new service, are equally immoral. The plot of family and household commerce excludes a hint of compassion for the victim, it simply cannot be where financial conflicts are resolved and the results, in the end, suit everyone equally.

Ostrovsky immerses the reader in the exotic life of the merchant class, commenting on the themes of previous literature with the help of farce. In the play "Poverty is not a vice", the problem of fathers and children is completely mediated by monetary relations, the images of nobly unhappy brides are accompanied by frank conversations about the dowry ("Guilty without guilt"). Without much sentimentality and frankly, the characters discuss money problems, all kinds of matchmakers willingly arrange weddings, seekers of rich hands walk around the living rooms, trade and marriage deals are discussed. Already the titles of the playwright's works - "There was not a penny, but suddenly altyn", "Bankrut", "Mad money", "Profitable place" - indicate a change in the vector of cultural development of the phenomenon of money, offer various ways to strengthen social status. More radical recommendations are discussed in Shchedrin's "Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg", the fourth chapter of which presents a picturesque catalog of options for enrichment. The stories about people who have achieved wealth are framed by the dream genre, which allows one to present human enterprise without false social modesty and bypassing pathetic assessments: "Black-haired" that prays to God so earnestly before dinner, "He took away the maternal estate from his own son", brought some sweets from Moscow to his other dear aunt, and "She, having eaten them, gave her soul to God in two hours", the third financial fraud with the serfs "Arranged in the best possible way", with remained a profit. The devilish phantasmagoria of sleep was required by the author in order, avoiding edification, to reveal the universal law of life: “We rob - not ashamed, but if something grieves us in such financial transactions, it is only a failure. The operation was successful - use it for you, good fellow! failed - gaping! "

In the "Diary of a Provincial ..." there is a sense of adherence to the tendencies that occupied the literature of the second half of the 19th century. There are motives already familiar from Goncharov. For example, in The Ordinary History, the difference between metropolitan and provincial mores is indicated by the attitude to phenomena given, it would seem, to the complete and free possession of a person: “You breathe fresh air all year round,- edifyingly admonishes the elder Aduev the younger, - but here this pleasure also costs money - that's right! perfect antipodes! " Saltykov-Shchedrin plays up this theme in the context of the motive for theft, explained as follows: “Obviously, he has already contracted the St. Petersburg air; he stole without provincial immediacy, but calculating in advance what chances he might have for acquittal ".

Criminal extraction of money, theft is introduced into the philosophical system of human society, when people begin to divide into those who are rich and deaths, and those who are for the right to become heirs. "Like twice two is four", capable "Pour poison, suffocate with pillows, hack to death with an ax!"... The author is not inclined to categorical accusations of those in need of money; on the contrary, he resorts to comparisons with the animal world in order to somehow clarify the strange feeling felt by the poor towards the rich: “The cat sees in the distance a piece of bacon, and since the experience of the past days proves that she cannot see this piece as her ears, she naturally begins to hate it. But alas! the motive for this hatred is false. She hates not lard, but fate separating him from him ... Fat is such a thing, which is impossible not to love. And so she begins to love him. To love - and at the same time to hate ... "

The categorical vocabulary of this pseudo-philosophical passage is very distant, but it reminds the syllogisms of Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?" Calculations, numbers, commercial calculations, balancing are somehow confirmed by moral summaries, certifying the truth of a total accounting view of a person. Perhaps only the dreams of Vera Pavlovna are free from calculation, they are devoted to the contemplation of fantastic events. It can be assumed that the future, as it is seen in the dreams of the heroine, does not know the need for money, but no less convincing will be the assumption that Vera Pavlovna is resting in her dreams from a calculating theory; Another good thing is that in it one can free oneself from the need to economize, curry, and count. But there is still a strange circumstance why the heroine is abandoned by her pragmatic genius, it is enough for her to close her eyes. Shchedrin, as if arguing with Chernyshevsky, saturates the dream plot with hyper-commercial operations; frees the feelings of the characters from the yoke of public protective morality, allowing them to listen to the financial voice of the soul.

Chernyshevsky's novel offers two plans for the realization of the heroine's life - a rational present and an ideal future. The past is associated with a dark time, not connected with the new reality, the idea of ​​conscious self-comprehension and rationalization of all spheres of individual existence. Vera Pavlovna successfully learned the lessons of the pragmatic worldview that had spread in Russia. The handicraft production that she started, reminiscent of the industrial experiments of the West, is deliberately idealized by the author, who provides evidence of the prospects of the enterprise. The only thing that is unclear is the psychological well-being of the female workers, who devote working and personal time to the rational philosophy of communist labor. There are enthusiastic apologies for living together in the novel, but without even questioning them, it is difficult to assume that for anyone, excluding the hostess, the likelihood of individual improvisation is allowed within the rigid structure of prescribed duties. At best, the apprenticeship of female workers can be crowned with the opening of their own business or re-education: this is not bad at all, but it narrows the space for private initiative. At the level of a probable formula, Vera Pavlovna's experiment is good, as a reflection of reality, it is utopian and turns the story itself more into a fantastic recommendation “how to honestly make your first million” than to an artistic document of the customs of people making money.

In portraying merchants and "other financial people", the dramatic scenes of the play "What is Commerce" by Saltykov-Shchedrin are an example of an attempt to encyclopedically present the history of hoarding in Russia. Characters are selected domestic merchants, already rich, and a beginner, only dreaming "About the possibility of becoming a" negotiator "over time"... An introduction to the text of another hero - "Loitering" - allows you to connect the play of Saltykov-Shchedrin with the creative tradition of N.V. Gogol - "A gentleman of suspicious character, engaged in ... the composition of moral-descriptive articles a la Tryapichkin"... Over tea and a bottle of Tenerife, there is a leisurely conversation about the art of commerce, costs and benefits. A merchant's plot, in contrast to the small-scale plot from What Is to Be Done ?, is inconceivable without a permanent projection of the past onto the present. The future is vague here, it is not written out in joyful tones, as it contradicts the business-like patriarchal wisdom: "Happiness is not what you rave about at night, but what you sit and ride on."... Those gathered nostalgically recall the bygone times when they lived "As if in girlhood, they did not know grief", capital profited from the deceit of the peasants, and "In old age they atoned for sins before God"... Now both manners and habits have changed, everyone, - the merchants complain, - “He strives to snatch his share and make fun of the merchant: bribes have increased - before it was enough to get drunk, but now the official is swaggering, he can’t get drunk, so“ Come on, he says, now give the river Shinpan water! ”.

Gogol's idle Tryapichkin listens to a story about how profitable it is for the treasury to supply goods and deceive the state, covering a successful business with a bribe to Stanovoy's clerk, who sold state bread to the side "For a quarter" described so "...what am I, - the merchant Izhburdin admits, - he even wondered himself. And the flood and shallow water here: only the invasion of the enemy was not "... In the final scene "lounging" sums up what he heard, evaluating the activities of merchants in emotional terms that ideally express the essence of the question: "Fraud ... cheating ... bribes ... ignorance ... stupidity ... general disgrace!" In general terms, this is the content of the new "Inspector General", but there is no one to donate its plot, except perhaps to Saltykov-Shchedrin himself. In The History of a City, the writer conducts a large-scale revision of the entire Russian Empire, and the chapter “Adoration of Mammon and Repentance” pronounces a caustic verdict on those who, already in the consciousness of the end of the 20th century, will personify the sovereign conscience and disinterested love for the high; by the very same merchants and those who care about the welfare of the people in power, who built their blissful image, taking more into account the descendants forgetful of the bad memory and completely ignoring those who are poor from "Consciousness of their poverty": “... if a person who made alienation in his favor in the amount of several million rubles later becomes even a philanthropist and builds a marble palazzo in which he will concentrate all the wonders of science and art, then he still cannot be called a skillful public figure, but should call it only a skillful swindler "... The writer notes with sarcastic despair that "These truths were not yet known" in the mythical Foolov, and as for the native Fatherland, it has been persistently proven at all times: "Russia is a vast, abundant and rich state - but someone else is stupid, dying of hunger in an abundant state.".

Russian thought is faced with the task of determining the place of money in the essential coordinates of social and individual life, the problem of finding a compromise has long been ripe. It is no longer possible to indiscriminately deny the role of economic factors in shaping national character. Slavophiles' poeticization of patriarchal everyday life and morality collides with reality, which is increasingly inclining towards a new type of consciousness, so unpleasantly reminiscent of Western models of self-realization, erected on the philosophy of calculation. Contrasting them as antagonistic ideas of spirituality does not seem very convincing. The idealization of the merchant class by the early Ostrovsky unexpectedly reveals a frightening set of properties, even more terrible than European pragmatism. The urban theme reveals conflicts initiated by monetary relations that cannot be ignored. But how to portray a portrait of a new national type of merchant who has undoubted advantages over the classical characters of the culture of the beginning of the century, who have long discredited themselves in public life? The merchant is interesting as a person, attractive by a strong-willed character, but "petty tyrant", - says Ostrovsky, - and "Outspoken thief", - insists Saltykov-Shchedrin. Literature's search for a new hero is a spontaneous phenomenon, but reflects the need to discover prospects, that goal-setting, which acts as a paradigm of national thought, becoming a significant link in a new hierarchy of practical and moral values. Russian literature of the middle of the century is carried away by the merchant, the man who created himself, yesterday's peasant, and now the owner of the business; the most important thing is that by its authority and the scale of the enterprise, it can prove the viciousness of the myth about the beautiful little and poor man. Writers sympathize with poverty, but they also realize the dead end of its artistic contemplation and analysis, as if anticipating an impending catastrophe in the form of a philosophical objectification of poverty, destroying the classical totality of ideas about universals - freedom, duty, evil, etc. With all the love, for example, Leskov to to characters from the people in the writer's works, a keen interest in the trading people is no less obvious. Shchedrin's invectives are somewhat softened by Leskov, he does not look so far as to discover a thieves' nature in future patrons of the arts. The author of the novel "Nowhere" moves aside in the position of one of the heroines from philosophical discussions and looks at dramatically complicated issues through the eyes of everyday life, no less truthful than the views of the poets.

One of the scenes in the work presents a discussion at home about the destiny of a woman; comes to the proofs of life, stories are told that would horrify the heroes of the first half of the century and which will be called frankly vicious more than once - about the happy marriage of a girl and a general that "Though not old, but in real years"... Discussion "Real" love, condemnation of young husbands ( "There is no use, everyone only thinks of themselves") is interrupted by candor "Sentimental forty-year-old landlady", a mother of three daughters, listing practical reasons and doubts about their family improvement: “Noblemen rich today are quite rare; officials depend on the place: a profitable place, and well; otherwise there is nothing; scientists receive little support: I decided to give all my daughters for merchants ".

There is an objection to such a statement: "Will there only be their inclination?", causing a categorical rebuke of the landlord to Russian novels, instilling, and in this she is sure, bad thoughts to readers. Preference is given to French literature, which no longer exerts such an influence on girlish minds as at the beginning of the century. Zarnitsyn's question: "And who will marry the poor people?" does not confuse a mother with many children, who remains true to her principles, but outlines a serious theme of culture: the literary typology, proposed by the artistic model of reality, the standard of not always obligatory, but must in the organization of thought and deed, created by the novels of Pushkin and Lermontov, exhausts itself, loses the norm-setting focus. The absence in real life of rich noblemen, culturally identical to classical characters, frees up the space of their existential and mental habitation. This place turns out to be vacant, which is why the model of the reader's literary and practical self-identification is destroyed. The hierarchy of literary types, ways of thinking and embodiment is being destroyed. The type of so called extra person turns into a cultural relic, loses its lifelikeness; the rest of the levels of the system are adjusted accordingly. Small man, previously interpreted primarily from an ethical standpoint, lacking balance in the destroyed discrediting extra person a figure of balance, acquires a new vital and cultural status; he begins to be perceived in the context not of potential moral goodness, but in the concrete reality of the opposition “poverty - wealth”.

The characters of the novels of the second half of the century, if they retain the features of classical typology, then only as traditional masks of external forms of cultural existence. Money turns into an idea that reveals the vitality of the individual, his existential rights. The question of obligations does not arise immediately and distinguishes the plebeian plot of a petty official and a commoner, whose story lines boil down to miserable attempts at survival. The genre of physiological essay reduces the problem of poverty-wealth to a natural-philosophical criticism of capital and does not solve the dilemma itself. The statement seems too superficial: wealth is evil, and poverty requires compassion. The objective economic factors that led to such a state of society are not taken into account. On the other hand, cultural interest in the psychology of poverty and wealth is intensifying. If earlier both of these hypostases were only defined as a given, now there is an increased attention to the existential nature of antinomies.

Poverty turns out to be more accessible for artistic research, it is clothed in moral concepts, centered in sovereign ethical categories. An apology is created for the marginal state of a person who deliberately does not compromise with his conscience. This plot also exhausts the peasant images of literature. The theme of wealth is completely displaced from the moral continuum of the integrity of the world. Such a position, based on a radical opposition, may not suit for long a culture interested in the forms of contacts between two marginal boundaries. Intra-subject relations between honest poverty and vicious wealth are beginning to be investigated, and it is found that a convincing paradigm does not always correspond to the true position of people on the conventional axis of ethical coordinates. The moment of unpredictability of the seemingly socially programmed behavior of the heroes is explored by Leskov in the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District". The merchant Zinovy ​​Borisovich, whom the author sympathizes with, is strangled by folk characters - Ekaterina Lvovna and Sergei. On their own conscience, the poisoned old man and the mortified baby. Leskov does not oversimplify the conflict. Passion and money are cited as reasons for the murders. The saturation of intrigue with such unequal concepts raises the plot to a mystical picture that requires its consideration from a point of view different from the ordinary one. The co-creation of two heroes, as if emerging from Nekrasov's poems, leads to the total destruction of the world. Expositionally inert people join the idea of ​​passion, this is not just an impulse to feel or money, but a concentrated image of a new meaning, an ecstatic sphere of application of forces, beyond which the significance of everyday experience is lost, a feeling of release from reflexive patterns of behavior comes. One reason (money or love) would be enough to illustrate the idea of ​​passion. Leskov deliberately combines both motives in order to avoid identifying the actions of the heroes with plots approved by culture. The resulting integrity of the unity of aspirations in the metaphysical plan allows money to be brought out of the simulation, optional space of individual life activity to the level of the beginning, equal in terms of the parameters of love, which previously exhausts the content of the idea of ​​passion.

The falsity of this synonymy is revealed only in the bloody ways of achieving the goal, the criminal implementation of plans: the radicalism of the very dream of becoming rich and happy is not questioned. If the heroes had to strangle the villains, the idea of ​​passion would have many readers' excuses. Leskov's experiment consists in an attempt to endow the heroine with the intention to comprehend infinitely complete being, having gained much-needed freedom. The impracticability of the goal lies in the inversion of moral dominants, an attempt on the unacceptable and incomprehensible. A positive experience, if I may say so about a plot oversaturated with murders (I mean, first of all, the philosophical disclosure of the monetary plot of Leskov's text), lies in an attempt to push the boundaries of equally global emotions, through the false forms of self-realization of the characters to come to the formulation of the idea of ​​passion as rationalized and in that the same measure of the chaotic type of activity, regardless of what it is aimed at - love or money. Equalized concepts exchange their genetic fundamentals and can equally act as a prelude to a vice or a person's existential design.

Shakespeare's allusion, noted in the title of the work, becomes a thematic exposition of the disclosure of the Russian character. Lady Macbeth's will to power suppresses even hints of other desires; Herogni's plot focuses on the dominant drive. Katerina Lvovna is trying to change the world of objective laws, and the volitional inferiority of her chosen one corrects little in her ideas about morality. Shakespeare's concentration of the image implies the disclosure of an integral character in the process of devastating the surrounding world. Everything that interferes with the achievement of the intended is physically destroyed, the self-sufficient character displaces the nonviable from the sphere that is criminally created to calm the soul, carved out by the idea of ​​passion.

Russian literature has not yet known such a character. The selflessness of classic heroines is associated with a one-time act arising from the impulsiveness of the decision. Katerina Lvovna differs from them in her consistency in making her dreams come true, which undoubtedly testifies to the emergence of a new character in culture. The flawed score of self-manifestation indicates spiritual degradation, while simultaneously denoting the ability to assert one's own identity to an unattainable goal. In this respect, Leskova's heroine marks the beginning of a qualitative transformation of a dilapidated literary typology. The general classification paradigm "rich-poor" is confirmed by the appearance of a character that gives the scheme of images a special philosophical scale. The rich no longer appear as opposition to poverty, but are revealed in a thirst for power over circumstances. The merchant plot points to a related phenomenon, but a chain of petty machinations and compromises opens the topic of a merchant person for social satire, externalizing and exaggerating the global philosophy of acquisitions, deceptions and crimes, leading to freedom and the ability to dictate one's will. The appearance of Leskov's heroine provoked the culture to ideological experimentation, unthinkable without an ideological impulse, directly or indirectly based on a pragmatic basis, then displaced by a borderline psychological state beyond the boundaries of spiritual and practical experience. A year later, Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment will be published, in which the semantics of the will of being aware of itself will be revealed in the transcendental uncertainty of perspectives (punishment) and the concreteness of the measurement of empirical reality (crime). Raskolnikov, in terms of the reflexivity of consciousness, can be likened to Shakespeare's Macbeth, in whom logos triumphs over rationality. "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" expands the interpretive horizon of Raskolnikov's plot with a naturalistic-pragmatic version of the realization of a global, individual utopia that extends to the universe.

In Dostoevsky's novel, one can feel the presence of textual memory, an integral set of motives outlined by Leskov. The tragedy of Katerina Lvovna is in hypertrophied will, Raskolnikov's defeat is in an atrophied character, painful self-perception and world perception. The writers offer two hypostases of the philosophy of action, equally based on the image of money; they are teas, but they turn out to be insignificant, since they are supplanted by ethical concepts. Russian literature reveals the line that will begin to separate the sphere of absolute subjectivity of the spirit from objectified forms "Commercial" self-realization of characters. After the dramatic experience of Katerina Lvovna and Raskolnikov, a new period of mastering the topic of money begins. Now they are offered as a pretext for talking about the supratemporal and are not condemned, but ascertained as a consequence of some other-being meaning. On the other hand, the financial plot gets a new sound, becoming a symbolic territory, excluding superficial satirical commentary, organically accepting the mythological signs of sacred categories - love, will, power, law, virtue and vice. In this list of ontological parameters of being, money acts as a unit of their measurement, an operational number that creates the sums of human and cosmological scales and splits the concrete and empirical nature into negligible values.

It should be noted, however, that money in "Lady Macbeth ..." and "Crime and Punishment" does not play the main role, they only mediate plot situations, dramatically determine them. The financial side of life does not exhaust the activity of the characters, being only the background of the plot world. The philosophy of thoughts and actions of the heroes is unusually mobile, transforming in relation to circumstances. An example of a different type of human existence is presented in Leskov's Iron Will. German Hugo Karlovich Pectoralis demonstrates a radical pattern of behavior, erecting money, as well as principles, in the paradigm of self-realization. Constant declarations of a hero of his own "Iron will" give projected dividends at first; the desired amount has finally been raised, and great production prospects are opening up: "He set up a factory and at every step he followed his reputation as a man who above circumstances and everywhere puts everything on his own."... Everything is going well as long as "iron will" German does not face Russian weakness, poverty, gentleness, arrogance and carelessness. The position of the antagonist Vasily Safronovich, due to whose reckless unprincipledness the dispute arose, is folklore unwise: “... we are ... Russian people- with heads are bony, fleshy below. This is not like German sausage, you can chew it all, all of us will be left with something ".

For a reader accustomed to literary glorifications of the German businesslike attitude, familiar with Goncharovsky Stolz and the students of European economists, preachers of reasonable egoism - the heroes of Chernyshevsky, it is not difficult to imagine how Pectoralis's litigation with "Bony and fleshy"... The German will achieve his goal, that is why he is a good worker, and stubborn, and an intelligent engineer, and an expert in laws. But the situation is far from unfolding in favor of Hugo Karlovich. Leskov, for the first time in Russian literature, signs the plot of the idle life of a worthless person for the interest, sued from an implacable opponent. Readers' expectations are not even deceived, the phantasmagoric story destroys the usual stereotypes of culture. Russian "Maybe", hope for a case, coupled with a familiar clerk Zhiga, make up a capital of five thousand rubles "Lazy, sluggish and careless" Safronich. True, money does not benefit anyone. Leskov's story reveals the original, not yet investigated trends in the movement of the financial plot. It turns out that pragmatism, reinforced by ambition and will, is not always successful in the art of making money. The purposeful German goes bankrupt, the spineless Safronych provides himself with daily trips to the tavern. Fate disposes that the vast Russian space for financial initiative turns out to be extremely narrowed, it is focused on a person who does not trust calculation and more relies on the usual course of things. The scene of the discussion of the plan of the new house by the police chief and Pectoralis is not accidental in this respect. The essence of the discussion - is it possible to place six windows on a facade of six fathoms, "And in the middle there is a balcony and a door"... The engineer objects: "The scale will not allow"... To which he gets the answer: "But what is the scale in our village ... I tell you, we do not have a scale".

The irony of the author reveals the signs of reality, not subject to the influence of time; poor patriarchal reality does not know the wisdom of capitalist accumulation, it is not trained in Western tricks and trusts more desire than profit and common sense. The conflict between Leskov's heroes, like the duel between Oblomov and Stolz, ends in a draw, the heroes of Iron Will die, which symbolically indicates that they are equally useless to the Russian "Scale"... Pectoralis was never able to abandon the principles "Iron will", too defiant and incomprehensible to others. Safronych is drunk with the happiness of a free life, leaving behind a literary heir - Chekhov's Simeonov-Pischik, who is constantly under the threat of complete ruin, but thanks to another accident he is correcting his financial affairs.

In Leskov's story, the issue of German entrepreneurship is too often discussed for this cultural and historical fact to be confirmed once again in the plot. Russian literature of the 70s. XIX century. felt the need to say goodbye to the myth of a foreign merchant and an overseas founder of large enterprises. The image of the German has exhausted itself and transferred the already fairly weakened potential to domestic merchants and industrialists. The answer to the question of why Leskov confronts the interests of a businesslike German with a banal philistine, and not a figure equal to Goncharovsky Stolz, lies in the writer's attempt to free up literary space for depicting the activities of the future Morozovs, Shchukins, Prokhorovs, Khludovs, Alekseevs and hundreds of other initiative domestic entrepreneurs, acquaintances with Russian "Scale" and showing the wonders of perseverance and resourcefulness in achieving the goal. The German turns out to be too straightforward to understand all the intricacies of relations prevailing in the provinces. What is needed here is a mobile mind, ingenuity, everyday cunning, valiant enthusiasm, and not a manifestation of iron will and principles. The author of the story deliberately juxtaposes the energy of a self-builder and a life steeped in entropy: such a striking contrast in Chernyshevsky's interpretation would turn out to be an ideal sphere for cultivating life for a very effective idea. Such decisions are also necessary for culture, engaged preaching of beautiful and too calculating views in one way or another reflects the essence of the world outlook of social reality. Tactical literary conflicts cannot exhaust all of its cultural, historical and philosophical content. Leskov's artistic experience belongs to the strategic level of commenting on problems; the classification of the qualities and properties of people, their unification in a new literary conflict destroy the well-known typological models, polemicize with unconditional thematic myths.

Beginning with Leskov, culture no longer solves the specific problems of characters getting used to society or the universe, but diagnoses categorical hierarchies of the bodily-spiritual, material-sensual, private-national. The mythology of the Russian character is being revised, painfully familiar themes and images are being revised.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

SATYRICAL SKILLS OF M.E.SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN

Early stories ("Contradictions", "Confused Business") and philosophical discussions 50-60 years. XIX century:

a) the theme of social injustice and images of despair;

b) interpretation of Gogol's motives.

1. "The History of a City" as a grotesque panorama of Russia:

   a) the barracks life of the inhabitants, the despotic rule of Gloom-Grumblev;

   c) a farcical gallery of those in power: the semantic spectacle of surnames, the absurdity of innovations, a kaleidoscope of crazy ideas;

   d) the conflict between the dead and the ideal: a specific refraction of the Gogol tradition in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

2. "Fairy tales" in the context of social and aesthetic issues:

   a) an allegorical solution to the question of the relationship between the national and the universal, the author's understanding of the nationality;

   b) satirical principles of narration: modeling an image of a high degree of convention, deliberate distortion of the real contours of a phenomenon, an allegorical image of an ideal world order;

   c) shift of attention from individual to social psychology of human behavior, travesty of the ordinary and picturesque personification of vice.
   

1. Turkov A. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. - M., 1981

   Bushmin A.S. The artistic world of Saltykov-Shchedrin. - L., 1987

   Prozorov V.V. Saltykov-Shchedrin. - M., 1988

   Nikolaev D.P. Shchedrin's laugh. Essays on satirical poetics. - M., 1988

A radical fight against corruption has begun in Russia. The statement seems super modern, but it was first made in 1845, during the reign of Nicholas I. Since then, the fight against bribery, embezzlement and covetousness has only intensified, and Russian literature has acquired plot after plot.

Here, my wife, - said a man's voice, - how they get to the ranks, and what have come to me, that I serve blamelessly ... By decrees, it was ordered to reward for respectable service. But the king favors, but the huntsman does not. So that's our Mr. Treasurer; already another time, on his submission, I was sent to the criminal chamber (they put me on trial - "Money")…

Do you know why he doesn't love you? For the fact that you are exchanged (the fee charged when exchanging or exchanging one money for another. - "Money") you take from everyone, but you don't share with him.

The hero of Radishchev's Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow, written in the 1780s, who overheard this conversation, learns in the morning that the jury and his wife spent the night in the same hut with him.

“And what have come to me, that I serve blamelessly ...” - Alexander Radishchev's “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” was perceived by his contemporaries as a sentence to a regime based on bribery

The heroine of the work, dated 1813, who was in the chicken coop by the judge, was "expelled for bribes", rushes from there at full speed, but tries to prove to Surk, who met on the road, that she "is in vain." Marmot believes reluctantly, for "I often saw" that Fox's stigma is in the cannon. Krylov in "Fox and Surk" formulates "the moral of this fable" as follows:

“Someone sighs like that at the place,

As if the last ruble survives.

... And you look, little by little,

Either he builds a house, then he buys a village. "

And finally, the 1820s. Father's feeble estate was taken away by a rich tyrant neighbor. Without any legal basis, but the court takes bribes and decides in favor of the strong and the rich. The father is dying of grief. The son, deprived of his fortune, is sent to the robbers. Robbing and killing people. Remember the school curriculum? How many were killed, Pushkin does not report, he only writes that when the Dubrovsky gang was surrounded by 150 soldiers, the robbers fired back and won. Corruption gives rise to a whole chain of troubles.

Lev Lurie in the book “Petersburgers. Russian capitalism. The first attempt "states that bribes were taken everywhere in Nicholas Russia, and embezzlement became a habit:" The chief manager of communications, Count Kleinmichel, stole money intended to order furniture for the burnt-out Winter Palace. The director of the office of the Committee for the Wounded, Politkovsky, in front of and with the participation of senior dignitaries, spent all the money of his committee. Petty Senate officials all over the place built stone houses for themselves in the capital, and for a bribe they were ready both to acquit the murderer and to put an innocent to hard labor. But the champions in corruption were the quartermasters, who were responsible for supplying the army with food and uniforms. As a result, during the first 25 years of the reign of Nicholas I, 40% of the soldiers of the Russian army - more than a million people - died from diseases (while the War Ministry shamelessly lied to the emperor, which improved the soldiers' salaries nine times).

They all steal!

In Gogol's "Inspector General", written in 1836, all officials steal and take bribes. The mayor "saws" the budget: "... if they ask why a church was not built at a charitable institution, for which a sum was allocated a year ago, then do not forget to say that it began to be built, but burned down ... foolishly say that it never started. " And besides, he put a tribute on the merchants. “There has never been such a mayor... He mends such insults that it is impossible to describe ... What follows on the dress of his wife and daughter - we do not stand against it. No, you see, all this is not enough for him ... he will come to the shop and, whatever he gets, he takes everything. The cloth sees the piece, says: "Eh, dear, this is a good cloth: take it to me" ... And in the piece there will be at most fifty arshins ... that ... the inmate will not eat, but he will put a whole handful there. His name days happen to Anton, and, it seems, you will apply everything, you do not need anything; no, give him some more: he says, and Onufriy is his name day, ”the merchants complain to Khlestakov.

The mayor's version: the merchants cheat, therefore the "kickback" is fair: on a contract with the treasury, they "inflate" it by 100 thousand, supplying rotten cloth, and then donate 20 yards. The "justification" for bribery is his "lack of wealth" ("the government salary is not even enough for tea and sugar") and the modest size of the bribe ("if there were any bribes, then just a little: something to the table for a couple of dresses" ).

All the officials and merchants of the small town, where Khlestakov turned up, bribe him under the guise of loan money. The mayor is the first to manage: “Well, thank God! took the money. Things seem to be going smoothly now. I screwed him instead of two hundred and four hundred ”. As a result, an impressive sum is collected: “This is from the judge three hundred; this is from the postmaster three hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred ... What a greasy piece of paper! Eight hundred, nine hundred ... Wow! Over a thousand has passed ... ”After this counting, the mayor gives more, and his daughter favors a Persian carpet, so that it would be more convenient for the hero to go further. Only the landowners Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are diligently trying to dodge bribes; these two had only 65 rubles "on loan". Maybe because they had nothing to blame?

Honest official

In Alexander Pushkin's story "Dubrovsky", corruption in court gives rise to a whole chain of troubles

33 years pass, and the image of an honest official appears in Russian literature. This is Aleksashka Ryzhov, a quarter of the district town of Soligalich, Kostroma province - the hero of Leskov's story "Odnodum" from the cycle "The Righteous." "The state salary for this fourth position in the state was supposed to be only ten rubles in bank notes a month, that is, about two rubles eighty-five kopecks in the current account." (We are talking about more ancient times - Ryzhov was born under Catherine II.) The quarterly place, although not very high, “was, however, quite profitable, if only the person occupying it knew how to pull off a log of firewood, a couple of beetroot or a head of cabbage. " But the quarter behaves strangely by local standards and is considered "damaged".

His task is to "observe the correct weight and measure full and shaken" at the bazaar where his mother sold pies, but he put his mother in a bad place and rejected the offerings of the "cabbage women" who came to bow. Ryzhov does not come with congratulations to the eminent townspeople - because he has nothing to put on his uniform, although at the former quarter's office they saw "both a uniform with a collar, and retuza, and boots with a tassel." He buried his mother modestly, he did not even order a prayer. He did not accept gifts either from the mayor - two sacks of potatoes, nor from the priest - two shirt-fronts of his own handicraft. The bosses are trying to marry him, because "from a married man ... even if he hangs a rope, he will endure everything, because he will lead the chicks, and he will regret the woman too." Aleksashka marries, but does not change: when his wife took salt for a tub of milk mushrooms from the tax farmer, he beat his wife, and gave the mushrooms to the tax farmer.

Once a new governor visits the city and asks local officials about Ryzhov, who is now “and. O. mayor ": is he moderate about bribes? The mayor reports that he lives only on a salary. According to the governor, "there is no such person in all of Russia." At a meeting with the mayor himself, Ryzhov does not flatter, even daring. To the remark that he has “very strange actions,” he replies: “it seems strange to everyone, which is not typical for himself,” he admits that he does not respect the authorities, because they are “lazy, greedy and crooked before the throne,” says that he does not afraid of arrest: "In the prison they eat their satiety." And in addition, he offers the governor himself to learn how to live on 10 rubles. per month. The governor is impressed by this, and he not only does not punish Ryzhov, but also does the impossible: through his efforts Ryzhov is awarded “the Vladimir cross, the first Vladimir cross granted to the nobility,”.

From bribery to covetousness

A radical fight against corruption at the level of laws in the Russian Empire began in the late reign of Nicholas I with the introduction in 1845 of the “Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments.

Receiving a reward for acting without violating the "duty of service" was considered bribery, with violations - covetousness, which was distinguished by three types: illegal extortion under the guise of state taxes, bribes from petitioners and extortion. The latter was considered the most difficult. A bribe could not be taken either through relatives or friends. It was even a crime to agree to accept a bribe until the very fact of the transfer. It could be considered a bribe to receive a benefit in a veiled form - in the form of a card loss or a purchase of goods at a low price. Officials could not conclude any deals with persons who took contracts from the department where they serve.

The punishment for bribery was relatively mild: a pecuniary penalty with or without removal from office. The extortionist could be sent to prison for a period of five to six years, deprived of all "special rights and advantages", that is, honorary titles, nobility, ranks, insignia, the right to enter the service, enroll in the guild, etc. In the presence of aggravating circumstances The extortionist was threatened with hard labor from six to eight years and deprivation of all rights and wealth. The legislation demanded that when imposing punishment on a covetous person, ranks and previous merits should not be taken into account.

There was little sense in packing. So, according to the data cited by Lurie, in the 1840-1850s, tax farmers (who won the competition for monopoly trade in vodka in taverns throughout the province) spent an average of 20 thousand rubles a year on bribing provincial officials, while the governor's annual salary in those days it was from 3 to 6 thousand. “In a small town, up to 800 buckets of vodka were supplied in the form of bribes to the mayor, private bailiffs and district overseers (local police),” writes Lurie.

During the reign of Nicholas I, the champions in corruption were quartermasters who were responsible for supplying the army with food and uniforms.

There is also literary evidence that practically nothing has changed since the publication of the code. In Pisemsky's novel People of the Forties, published in 1869, the protagonist Pavel Vikhrov, a young landowner who was exiled to serve "in one of the provinces" for his freethinking writings, confronts bribery. Vikhrov discovers that corruption permeates all relationships between subjects and the state. His first business is to catch and pacify the schismatic priests. He goes to a remote village together with the "solicitor of state property." Vikhrov would be glad not to find traces of the fact that the priests did not pray according to the Orthodox rite, because he considers persecution based on the principle of religion to be wrong, but he has a witness. He, however, is also not averse to drawing up a paper on the absence of violations: he tore off 10 rubles from the main "seducer of peasants into a split". gold for himself and the same amount for Vikhrov, but since he does not take bribes, he kept everything for himself. The next case - "about the murder of his wife by the peasant Ermolaev" - the secretary of the district court calls the case "about the suddenly deceased wife of the peasant Ermolaev", because there is no evidence of the murder. Exhumation of the body by Vikhrov shows that the "deceased" has fractured skull and chest, one ear is half torn off, lungs and heart are damaged. The police chief, who was conducting the investigation, did not notice any signs of violent death: he bought Ermolaev for 1000 rubles. a rich man, for whom he undertook to serve in the army. When Vikhrov goes on another case, the peasants collect 100 rubles for a bribe. Vikhrov not only does not take them, but also requires a receipt that he did not take them. It will be useful to him, because an honest person is inconvenient - they will try to expose him as a bribe-taker. It is clear from the context that these events take place in 1848, that is, after the adoption of the code.

The mysterious hand feeding city and district doctors is a bribe, "Nikolai Leskov wrote in the article" A few words about police doctors in Russia

Almost documentary evidence that all categories of bribe-takers had side incomes, so to speak, greatly overlapped the main ones - Leskov's article "A few words about police doctors in Russia" in 1860. In it, the author assures that the official annual income of a doctor is 200 rubles, but “the mysterious hand feeding city and district doctors is a bribe,” and “neither trade nor industry, across the state, is supposed to flourish”. In a city with 75 thousand inhabitants, two city doctors have seven items of permanent income: “1) 4 living bazaars, 40 lockers each, 3 rubles each. from the locker - only 480 rubles. silver 2) 6 pastry shops, 50 rubles each. from each - 300 rubles. 3) 40 bakeries, 10 rubles each. from each - 400 rubles. 4) Two fairs indiscriminately 2000 rubles. 5) 300 shops and shops with food supplies and grape wines, 10 rubles each ... - 3000 rubles. silver. 6) 60 butcher shops, 25 rubles each. from each, - 1500 rubles. and 7) ... the total income from all women who have turned obscenity into a craft ... about 5,000 rubles. silver a year. Thus, the entire current annual levy will be equal to 12,680 rubles. silver ... and after the deduction of 20 percent in favor of influential persons of the medical and civilian units ... will amount to a net income of 9510 rubles, that is, 4255 rubles each. on a brother. These incomes come only for non-interference ... all emergency bribes ... also make up a significant figure ... Such income is the essence: acts of examinations, which constitute a sensitive article in a country where there are many holidays spent in drunkenness and fights, forensic autopsies, bringing stale and suspicious products, cattle driving and, finally, recruitment kits, when these happen to the tears of mankind and to the joy of city and district doctors ... "

"The mysterious hand feeding city and district doctors is a bribe," Nikolai Leskov wrote in his article "A few words about police doctors in Russia."

In Leskov's story "Laughter and Grief", published in 1871, the action takes place in the 1860s: the main character lives on redemption certificates - interest-bearing securities issued during the 1861 reform. They find a forbidden text - "Duma" by Ryleev, and the hero faces arrest. An obsessive acquaintance undertakes to smear it off: “… would you like me to get you a certificate that you are in the second half of your pregnancy? ... They took forty rubles from my brother at the dressing station in the Crimea so that he could be credited with a shell shock on his full pension when he was not even bitten by a mosquito ... talk nonsense ... Agree? ... Do you agree to give one hundred rubles too? " The hero is ready for three hundred, but that is impossible: it will "spoil" the prices in St. Petersburg, where for three hundred "they will be married to their own mother and they will give you a document in that."

As a result, the hero finds himself in his native province, where he is included in the zemstvo life. One of the projects is to build a school in every village. It is a noble cause, but they want to build at the expense of the peasants and with their hands, but now they cannot be forced into bondage, and the peasants themselves do not understand the benefits of teaching. Things are going hard. And then it turns out that there is one administrator in the province, who is all right. He, "an honest and incorruptible person", "took bribes with schools." “The society complains about the landlord or neighbors,” and before delving into the matter, he asks to build a school and then come. Bribery is perceived as the norm, the men humbly "give a bribe", and he has "literally built up the entire area with schools."

It seemed that if the bribe was destroyed ... then suddenly rivers of milk and honey would flow, and the truth would be added to them in addition

In real life, 5-6% of officials fell under investigation, however, cases came to accusations very rarely, and the highest ranks were even under investigation in isolated cases. Apparently, Saltykov-Shchedrin sarcastically over this in his satirical sketches of Pompadours and Pompadours (1863-1874): “It is known that at the end of the fifties a very strong persecution was set up against bribe-takers. At that time, the concept of "bribery" was associated with the idea of ​​some kind of ulcer that allegedly eats away at the Russian bureaucracy and serves as a considerable hindrance to the people's success. It seemed that if the bribe was destroyed ... then suddenly rivers of milk and honey would flow, and the truth would be added to them in addition. " The result of the "persecution", however, was the opposite: society "from a penny bribe directly goes to the thousandth, ten thousandth", the boundaries of the bribe "got completely different outlines", she "finally died, and in her place a" kush "was born." According to Saltykov-Shchedrin, a corrupt official is convenient for the authorities: "for the sake of being able to steal an extra penny," a bribe-taker "is ready to get along with any kind of internal policy, to believe in any God."

Railway bribe

According to Lurie, in the second half of the 19th century, when railways are being actively laid in Russia, obtaining concessions for this construction becomes the most bribe-intensive. “Each contractor had a secret or obvious high-ranking shareholder lobbying in the Winter Palace the interests of his“ confidant ”. For the Bashmakov brothers, this is the Minister of the Interior, Count Valuev and the Empress's brother, the Duke of Hesse, for Derviz and Mecca, the Minister of the Court, Count Adlerberg, for Efimovich, the sovereign's favorite Princess Dolgorukaya. And although the proposed cost of a mile of railway track, the elaboration of the project, the experience of the engineer and contractors were formally evaluated at the competitions, in fact there was a competition of influential patrons. "

The most senior nobles do not disdain to bribery. The Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich turns to the chief of the gendarmes, Count Shuvalov, with a request to arrange so that at the hearings in the Cabinet of Ministers a certain railway concession will go to a certain person. When asked why His Highness wants to deal with such matters, the prince replies: “... If the committee speaks in favor of my proteges, then I will receive 200 thousand rubles; is it possible to neglect such a sum, when I even get into a noose from debts. "

Judging by the story of Garin-Mikhailovsky "Engineers", which takes place during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, and half a century later the intendants remained corrupt. For the main character, railway engineer Kartashev, who works on the construction of a railway in Bendery, "the most unpleasant ... was the relationship with the commissariat." His uncle explains that the quartermasters need to “feed and water as much as they want” and give them “kickbacks”: “for each cart, for the corresponding number of days, they will give you a receipt, and in their favor they keep two rubles from each cart ... If you have a receipt for, say, ten thousand rubles, you will sign that you received ten, and you will receive eight. " After all, if "they give a good price, you can separate two rubles, but if you don't separate it, the whole thing will perish."

Other bribe-takers are also not particularly shy: one engineer in front of Kartashev bribes the police, explaining: “He said that we will build a road, that the police will receive from us, that we will pay him twenty-five rubles a month, and for special incidents separately ... "This is not enough for a policeman:" And when you take reference prices, how will it be considered - especially? " I had to disappoint him: "Reference prices are available only from military engineers and in the water and highway departments."

Raiders of the 19th century

At the end of the 19th century, concessions for the construction of railways brought many millions of rubles to bribe-takers and covetous people.

Photo: Universal Images Group / DIOMEDIA

Corruption was also used for raiding. The novel by Mamin-Sibiryak "Privalov Millions" of 1883 tells about the schemes of seizing the business of the middle of the nineteenth century using the "administrative resource". After the death of his wife, Alexander Privalov, a wealthy Ural gold miner, owner of the Shatrovsky factories, went on a spree and married the prima donna of the gypsy choir, who did not remain faithful to him for long, and, being exposed, killed her husband. Privalov's son Sergei - the main character - was only eight at that time. The gypsy woman married a lover who became the guardian of the young heirs. For five years, he "drained the last capitals that remained after Privalov" and "almost started all the factories under the hammer." But a friend of the family and an honest industrialist Bakharev vigorously intercepts for the young heirs, and the guardian "is forced to confine himself to a pledge of non-existent metal in the bank": "First, a black blank was laid, then the first redistribution of it, and, finally, the final finished high-grade iron." This clever combination gave a whole million, but soon the story was revealed, the organizer of the scam was put on trial.

The debts of the swindler-guardian are transferred to the inheritance of the ward, and the factories are transferred to the state guardianship. The business is profitable, but the swindler-manager "in one year slammed a new million-dollar debt on the factories." When the adult Sergei Privalov begins to deal with the factories, these two debts with interest already amount to about four million. The first and most important condition for a successful raider takeover is secured - the asset is overlaid with debts.

For some time, the factories are managed by Bakharev, they begin to bring in up to 400 thousand rubles. annual income, and then everything goes the same way: at the helm of Polovodov is a manager who thinks only of his own pocket. According to his report, the "dividend" is only 70 thousand, and these figures are too high. From them it is necessary to exclude 20 thousand for the sale of metal left after Bakharev, 15 thousand zemstvo tax, which Polovodov did not even think to pay. In total, only 35 thousand remain. Further, Polovodov, as an attorney, is due 5% of the net income: this will amount to three and a half thousand, and he took as many as ten.

A memorandum is drawn up to the governor, the authors of which "did not regret paints to describe the exploits of Polovodov." At first, the governor turns things abruptly, and Polovodov is dismissed. There is a hope of bringing him to criminal responsibility for fraud, but the victory does not last long: soon Polovodov was reinstated in his powers again, and the governor received Privalov rather dryly: “some skillful clerical hand has already managed to put the case in its own way”. It is worth heroic efforts to once again convince the governor of the need to take measures to protect the interests of the heirs of the factories. "Two-week troubles for all sorts of clerical ordeals" lead to another removal of Polovodov from office, but he manages to take out a large sum from the factories: "he has three hundred thousand naked in his pocket ..."

“In a small town, up to 800 buckets of vodka were delivered in the form of bribes to the mayor, private bailiffs and district overseers,” writes Lev Lurie in the book “Piterschiki. Russian capitalism. First try"

The situation with the payment of debts is aggravated, but everything would be fixable if the owner himself had managed the Shatrovsky factories, because there was no point in stealing from himself. This, however, is not allowed. The factories are still formally under state protection, and the state, by its sole decision, puts them up for competition and sells them to cover the debt. They were bought by "some company", "the factories went at the price of the state debt, and it seems to the heirs of compensation, it seems, forty thousand ..." It seems that this whole company is a figurehead serving as a cover for a clever bureaucratic swindle. "

And all this despite the fact that during the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881), the anti-corruption policy was tightened. They began to publish data on the state of the property of officials, and it included the property assigned to the wife. The prohibition to hold public office extended to the children of noble officials convicted of corruption. Further more. Under Alexander III (1881-1894), new bans were introduced for officials that corresponded to the spirit of the times: on membership in the boards of private joint-stock companies, on receiving a commission by the official himself when placing a state loan, etc. The fight against corruption continued ...

"Woe from Wit." The maid Lisa

Lisa is a classic type of servant who arranges her love affairs for the mistress. She is a serf of the Famusovs, but in the house of her masters Liza is in the position of a servant-friend of Sophia. She is sharp on the tongue, she has free manners and liberty in dealing with Chatsky and Sophia. Since Lisa grew up with her educated young lady, her speech is a mixture of common people and cutesy, so natural in the lips of a maid. This half-lady, half-servant plays the role of Sophia's companion. Liza is an active participant in the comedy, she is cunning, shielding the young lady, and laughs at her, avoiding the lordly courting Famusova says: "Let go, you windies yourself, come to your senses, you old people." She recalls Chatsky, with whom Sophia was brought up together, regretting that the young lady had grown cold towards him. Molchalin is on an equal footing with Liza, trying to look after her until the young lady sees it.

She to him, and he to me,

And I ... I'm the only one in love that crushes to death.

And how not to fall in love with the barman Petrusha!

Fulfilling the instructions of her young lady, Lisa almost sympathizes with the love intrigue and even tries to reason with Sophia, saying that "there will be no such good in love." Liza, unlike Sophia, understands perfectly well that Molchalin is not a match for her mistress and that Famusov will never give Sophia to Molchalin as a wife. He needs a son-in-law with a position in society and a fortune. Fearing a scandal, Famusov will send Sophia to her aunt in the wilderness of Saratov, but after a while he will try to marry a man of his circle. More brutal reprisals await the serfs. Famusov first of all rips off evil on the servants. He orders Lisa: "Please go to the hut, march, go for birds." And the doorman Filka threatens to be exiled to Siberia: "To work you, to settle you." From the mouth of the servant-master, the servants hear their own sentence.

"Captain's daughter". "Dubrovsky". Anton, nanny

Anton and nanny ……… .- servants from the work “Dubrovsky”. They are representatives of serfs, courtyards, who were loyal to their masters to the point of selflessness, who respected them for their high honesty and loyalty. Despite the difficult living conditions, these servants retained a warm human heart, a bright mind, and attention to people.

In the image of Anton, Pushkin captured the sober and sharp mind of the people, self-esteem and independence, the gift of wit and a well-aimed and vivid speech. In his speech, there is an abundance of proverbs, figurativeness of speech: "often he is his own judge", "he does not give a penny", "on parcels", "not only the skin, but also the meat will take away."

Anton knew Vladimir as a child, taught him how to ride a horse, amused him. He was strongly attached to Vladimir, whom he remembered as a child and then fell in love, but at the same time he expresses his feelings for Vladimir in a form familiar to him as a serf ("bowed to him to the ground")

Anton has no slavish fear in relation to masters. He, like other serfs, hates the cruel landowner Troekurov, he is not going to submit to him, he is ready to fight him.

Nanny of Vladimir Dubrovsky She was a kind woman, attentive to people, although she was far from thinking about the possibility of fighting the landowners.

She was very attached to the Dubrovsky family: this is pity and concern for old Dubrovsky, concern about his affairs, about the court's decision, love for Vladimir, whom she nursed and affectionately calls in her letter "my clear falcon." In her letter, expressions are also indicated that were familiar to a serf when addressing a master and which were explained by his servitude ("your faithful slave", "and we are yours from time immemorial", "does he serve you well"). But when meeting with Vladimir, the nanny does not behave like a gentleman, but like a loved one (“she hugged her with crying ...”).

"The Captain's Daughter" Servant Savelich.

One of the most striking images of the people is the servant Savelich ("The Captain's Daughter"). Without a "shadow of slavish humiliation" Savelich appears before us. The great inner nobility, spiritual wealth of his nature is fully revealed in the completely disinterested and deep human affection of a poor, lonely old man for his pet.

Pushkin Savelich, I am convinced that serfs must faithfully serve their masters. But his devotion to his masters is far from slavish humiliation. Let us recall his words in a letter to his master Grinev-father, who, having learned about the duel of his son, reproaches Savelich for oversight. The servant, in response to rude, unjust reproaches, writes: "... I am not an old dog, but your faithful servant, I obey the master's orders and have always served you diligently and lived to gray hair." In the letter, Savelich calls himself a "slave", as was customary then when serfs addressed their masters, but the whole tone of his letter breathes a sense of great human dignity, is imbued with a bitter reproach for an undeserved offense.

A serf, a courtyard man, Savelich is full of a sense of dignity, he is smart, intelligent, he has a sense of responsibility for the task entrusted to him. And a lot has been entrusted to him - he is actually engaged in raising the boy. He taught him to read and write. Forcibly deprived of his family, Savelich felt truly paternal love for the boy and the young man, showed not servile, but sincere, heartfelt concern for Pyotr Grinev.

More acquaintance with Savelich begins after the departure of Pyotr Grinev from the parental home. And every time Pushkin creates situations in which Grinev commits acts, mistakes, and Savelich helps him out, helps, saves him. The next day after leaving the house, Grinev got drunk, lost a hundred rubles to Zurin, "dined at Arinushka's." Savelich "gasped" when he saw the drunken master, Grinev called him "bastard" and ordered to put himself to bed. The next morning, showing the master's power, Grinev orders to pay the lost money, telling Savelyich that he is his master. This is the moral justifying Grinev's behavior.

The landowner's "child" deliberately assumes "adult" rudeness, wishing to escape from the care of the "uncle", to prove that he is "not a child" anymore. At the same time, he is “sorry for the poor old man”, he experiences remorse and “silent repentance”. After a while, Grinev directly asks Savelich for forgiveness and makes peace with him.

When Savelich finds out about Grinev's duel with Shvabrin, he rushes to the place of the duel with the intention of protecting his master, Grinev not only did not thank the old man, but also accused him of denouncing his parents. If not for the intervention of Savelich at the time of the trial and the oath of allegiance to Pugachev, Grinev would have been hanged. He was ready to take Grinev's place under the gallows. And Pyotr Grinev will also risk his life when he rushes to the rescue of Savelich captured by the Pugachevites.

Savelich, unlike the rebellious peasants, is betrayed by the Grinevs, he defends their good and, like the gentlemen, considers Pugachev a robber. A striking episode of the work is Savelich's demand to return the things taken by the rebels.

Savelich left the crowd to hand over his register to Pugachev. Kholop Savelich knows literacy. The rebel and leader of the uprising is illiterate. "What's this?" - asked Pugachev importantly. - "Read it, you will deign to see," Savelich answered. Pugachev accepted the paper and looked for a long time with a significant air. "What are you writing so tricky?" - he said at last - “Our bright eyes cannot make out anything here. Where is my chief secretary? "

The comic behavior of Pugachev and the childishness of his game do not humiliate the rebel, but Savelich, thanks to the created situation, does not humiliate himself with a servile request to return the stolen master's robes, linen Dutch shirts with cuffs, a cellar with tea utensils. The scope of interests of Pugachev and Savelich is incommensurable. But in defending the plundered goods, Savelich is right in his own way. And the old man's courage and dedication cannot leave us indifferent. Boldly and fearlessly he turns to the impostor, not thinking about what the demand to return the things “stolen by the villains” threatens him with. Grinev's generous gift to the unknown "peasant" who saved the heroes during a blizzard, Savelich's ingenuity and dedication will be salutary for both the servant and the young officer.

"Dead Souls". Parsley, Selifan.

Selifan and Petrushka are two serfs. They are given as a convincing example of the destructive influence of the serfdom system on the people. But neither Selifan nor Petrushka can be regarded as representatives of the peasant people as a whole.

The coachman Selifan and the footman Petrushka are two serfs of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, they are servants, that is, serfs, torn off by the master from the land and taken into personal service. In order for them to take better care of the master, the courtyards were very often not allowed to marry (and women were not allowed to marry). Their life is hard.

Petrushka “even had a noble impulse to enlightenment, that is, to read books, the content of which did not bother him: he did not care at all whether the adventures of a hero in love, just a primer or a prayer book, he read everything with equal attention ... Although Gogol humorously describes the process of reading serf Chichikov, his "passion for reading", but nevertheless the fact of the spread of literacy among serfs is important in itself. In all of Petrushka's appearance and behavior, in his gloomy appearance, silence, drunkenness, his deep dissatisfaction with life and hopeless despair are reflected.

Chichikov shows much more “sympathy” for the dead peasants than for the living Selifan or Petrushka belonging to him.

Petrushka's friend Selifan is also curious. We can learn something about Selifan's concepts when he, in blissful drunkenness, carries his master from the Robin and, as usual, talks to the horses. He praises the venerable chestnut horse and the brown Judge, who are "doing their duty" and reproaches the crafty sloth Chubary: "Uh, barbarian! You damned Bonaparte! .. No, you live in truth, when you want to be respected. "

Chichikov's servants also have that “on their minds” the secrecy of the peasants, who appear when the gentlemen talk to them and ask them something: here the “men” pretend to be fools, because who knows what the gentlemen are thinking, but certainly something bad. This is what Petrushka and Selifan did when officials of the city of NN began to elicit information about Chichikov from them, because “this class of people has a very strange custom. If you ask him directly about something, he will never remember, he will not take everything into his head and even, simply, will answer that he does not know, and if you ask about something else, then he will braid him and tell him with such details , though you don't want to know.

In his works, for the first time, he raised the topic of “idiocy” of slavery, downtrodden, powerless and hopeless existence; this theme is embodied in the image of Petrushka with his strange way of reading books and his all the features of his dull appearance, and partly in Selifan, in his usual patience, his conversations with horses (with whom he can talk, if not with horses!) and his reasoning about the dignity of his master and about the fact that it is not harmful to whip a man.

"Inspector". Osip.

Osip's words about the delights of life in the capital, in essence, give an idea of ​​St. Petersburg, in which tens of thousands of courtyards, huddled in the pitiful closets of noble mansions, lead a servile, idle, in essence bitter and hateful existence.

Osip's monologue takes a significant place in the comedy. It is in him that some aspects of Petersburg life arise, the product of which was Khlestakov. Osip reports that Khlestakov is not an auditor, but an elist, and this gives all further action an acutely comic coloring.

Osip pronounces the first lines of his monologue with annoyance. He seems to be complaining about the unlucky master, because of whom the servant must experience hunger and humiliation.

Annoyed and grumpy Osip narrates about Khlestakov. But when he remembered a village where you can lie on the beds for the whole century and eat pies, his intonation changes, it becomes dreamily melodious. However, Osip does not have antipathies to Petersburg either. Talking about "delicate conversations" and "haberdashery" of Petersburgers, Osip becomes more and more animated and reaches almost to delight.

The memory of the owner makes him anxious and angry again, and he begins to read Khlestakov's morality. The collision of the situation is obvious: Khlestakov is not in the room. Osip himself eventually realizes the helplessness of his teachings, addressed to the absent person, and his tone becomes sad, even dreary: “Oh, my God, at least some cabbage soup! Seems to have eaten the whole world now. "

The appearance of Khlestakov, scenes with Osip make it possible to notice in Khlestakov a strange mixture of begging and arrogant arrogance, helplessness and self-confident contempt, frivolity and exactingness, courteous courtesy and arrogance.

Internal tension is born of another conflict, deep and not only comic. It is a conflict between truth and deception, delusion and truth. The plot of this conflict is the monologue of Osip, who, after the gossip of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky about the passing inspector, tells us about Khlestakov, makes us understand how little his owner resembles the "incognito accursed." Obviously, it is no coincidence that Gogol instructs Osip to reveal the conflict between truth and deception, a man of the people with clear common sense and an independent mind.

Oblomov. Zakhar.

The image of Zakhar, valet, servant of Ilya Ilyich since childhood, also helps to better understand the image of the protagonist. Zakhar is the second Oblomov, his kind of double. The techniques for revealing the image are the same. The novel traces the fate of the hero, his relationship with the master, character, addictions. A detailed description of the room, a portrait of the hero is given. Several details are interesting in the description of Zakhar's appearance. The author highlights the sideburns. They are also mentioned at the end of the novel: "The sideburns are still big, but wrinkled and tangled like felt."... Just like a robe and a sofa, Oblomov's constant companions, a bed and a frock coat are Zakhar's irreplaceable things. These are symbolic details. Lezhanka tells us about laziness, contempt for work, a frock coat (by the way, with a hole) about reverence for the master; it is also a memory of his beloved Oblomovka. Goncharov describes in detail the character of Zakhar, noting his laziness, impracticality (everything falls out of hand) and devotion to the master. Devotion is noted not only in the story about the service in the Oblomov house, but also in the comparison of Zakhar with the faithful dog: "To the master's hail" Zakhar! " you can hear exactly the grumbling of a chain dog "... As in Oblomov, in Zakhara there is both good and bad. Despite his laziness and untidiness, Zakhar does not cause disgust, Goncharov describes him with humor. (For example: "... Zakhar could not bear the reproach written in the eyes of the master and lowered his gaze to his feet: here again in the carpet soaked in dust and stains, he read a sad certificate of his diligence") The writer, as it were, makes fun of Zakhar, watching him, his life. And the hero's fate is tragic. Zakhar, like his master, is afraid of change. He believes that what he has is the best. He felt impracticality and his wretchedness when he married Anisya, but this did not make him any better. He did not change his lifestyle, even when Stolz suggested that he change his vagrant lifestyle. Zakhar is a typical Oblomovite. We have before us yet another sad result of the corrupting influence of the nobility and serfdom on man.

Comparison of Savelich's servant from "The Captain's Daughter"

with servant Zakhar from "Oblomov"

If we compare the servant of Savelich from "The Captain's Daughter" with the servant Zakhar from "Oblomov", then both of them are representatives of serf courtyards, to the selflessness of devotees to their masters, servants of the household, filling our ideal of a servant, inscribed in the "Domostroy" priest Sylvester. But there is a big difference between them, which can be explained very simply: after all, Savelich is seventy to eighty years older than Zakhar. Savelich, indeed, was a member of the family, the gentlemen respected his high honesty and loyalty. He treated Pyotr Andreevich Grinev more like a mentor to his young pupil, not forgetting at the same time that he was his future serf. But this consciousness manifests itself not in the form of a purely slavish, fearful attitude towards him, but in the fact that he considers his barchuk above all other masters. To the unfair letter of Andrey Petrovich, he replies with his own, expressing complete obedience to his will, he is ready to be a swineherd; this expresses the age-old dependence of the Russian peasant on the landowner, the age-old submissiveness of the serf, Savelich does not do this out of fear, he is not afraid of death or deprivation (it is enough just to remember his words: “but for example and for fear, they led at least me, an old man, to be hanged! ”), But motivated by his inner conviction that he is a servant of the Grinyov family. Therefore, when young Grinev strictly demands obedience from him, he obeys, although he grumbles, regrets about the involuntary waste of property. His worries in this respect sometimes reach the ridiculous, mixed with the tragic. Forgetting about his safety, he presents Pugachev with a bill for the items spoiled and taken by him and his gang; for a long time he is about the lost hundred rubles and the hare sheepskin coat given to Pugachev. But he takes care not only of property: he spends 5 days permanently over the head of the wounded Pyotr Andreyevich, does not write to his parents about his duel, not wanting to disturb them in vain. We have already had occasion to speak about his self-sacrifice. In addition, Savelich is perfectly honest, does not conceal a penny from the lord's good for himself; he does not lie, does not talk in vain, behaves simply and sedately, showing, however, youthful vitality when it comes to the benefit of the masters. In general, it is difficult to find unattractive features in his character.

Zakhar, in the words of Goncharov, is also a lackey knight, but a knight already with fear and reproach. He is also loyal to the Oblomov family, considers them to be real bars, often does not allow even comparisons between them and other landowners. He is ready to die for Ilya Ilyich, but he does not like work, he does not even bear it at all, and therefore he would not be able to take care of the patient the way Savelich does. He once and for all set himself a circle of responsibilities and would never do more, unless after repeated orders. Because of this, he has constant bickering with Oblomov. Accustomed to Ilya Ilyich, whom he courted when he was a child, and knowing that he would not punish him otherwise than with a “pitiful word,” Zakhar allows himself to be rude towards the master; This rudeness is a consequence of his rather complex nature, which is full of contradictions: Zakhar, for example, does not give Tarantiev's coat, despite Oblomov's order, and at the same time does not hesitate to steal change from his master, which Savelich would never have done; in order to hide his tricks, get rid of work, brag, Zakhar constantly resorts to lies, differing here from the frank, truthful Savelich. He does not take care of the lordly good, constantly breaks dishes and spoils things, goes out with friends in a tavern, “runs to a godfather of a suspicious nature,” while Savelich not only does not allow himself to have a fun, but also keeps his master from revelry. Zakhar is extremely stubborn and will never change his habits; if, suppose, he usually sweeps the room only in the middle, without looking into the corners, then there is no way to force him to do this; there is only one remedy left; repeat the order every time, but even after repeating a hundred times Zakhar will not get used to a new kind of duties.

Aversion to work in connection with the need to do at least something gave rise to gloom and grumpiness in Zakhara; he does not even speak, as people usually say, but somehow wheezes and hisses. But behind this rough, dirty, unattractive appearance lies a kind heart in Zakhara. For example, he is able to play for hours with the guys who mercilessly nibble on his thick sideburns. In general, Zakhar is a mixture of serf patriarchy with the roughest, outward manifestations of urban culture. After comparing him with Savelich, the integral, sympathetic character of the latter is outlined even more vividly, his typical features, as a real Russian serf servant - a household in the spirit of "Domostroi", stand out even more sharply. In the type of Zakhar, the unattractive features of the later liberated, often dissolute courtyards, who served the masters already at the beginning of hiring, are already strongly noticeable. Having received the will, some were not prepared for it, they used it to develop their bad qualities, until the softening and ennobling influence of a new era, already free from the bonds of serfdom, penetrated into their midst.