Mikhail Zoshchenko: stories and feuilletons of different years. “Satirical works of Zoshchenko Mikhail Zoshchenko is a master of short satirical stories of the exam

The writer, in his own way, saw some of the characteristic processes of modern reality. He is the creator of the original comic novel, which continued the traditions of Gogol, Leskov, and early Chekhov in new historical terms. Z created his own unique thin style.

There are 3 main stages in his work.

1Years of two wars and revolutions (1914-1921) - a period of intensive spiritual growth of the future writer, the formation of his literary and aesthetic convictions.

2The civil and moral formation of Z as a humorist and satirist, an artist of a significant social theme falls on the post-October period. The first falls on the 20s - the heyday of the writer's talent, who honed the pen of the accuser of social vices in such popular satirical magazines of that time as "Begemot", "Buzoter", "Red Raven", "Inspector", "Eccentric", "Funny Man". ". At this time, the formation of Zoshchenko's short story and story takes place. In the 1920s, the main genre varieties in the writer's work flourished: a satirical story, a comic novel and a satirical-humorous story. Already at the very beginning of the 1920s, the writer created a number of works that were highly appreciated by M. Gorky. The works created by the writer in the 1920s were based on specific and very topical facts gleaned either from direct observations or from numerous letters from readers. Their themes are motley and varied: riots in transport and in hostels, grimaces of the New Economic Policy and grimaces of everyday life, the mold of philistinism and philistinism, arrogant pompadourism and creeping servility, and much, much more. Often the story is built in the form of a casual conversation with the reader, and sometimes, when the shortcomings became especially egregious, frankly journalistic notes sounded in the author's voice. In a series of satirical short stories, M. Zoshchenko maliciously ridiculed the cynically prudent or sentimentally pensive earners of individual happiness, intelligent scoundrels and boors, showed in the true light of vulgar and worthless people who are ready to trample on the path to arranging personal well-being to trample on everything truly human ("Matrenishcha", "Grimace of NEP", "Lady with flowers", "Nanny", "Marriage of convenience"). In Zoshchenko's satirical stories, there are no spectacular techniques for sharpening the author's thoughts. They are usually devoid of comedy intrigue. M. Zoshchenko acted here as a denouncer of spiritual Okurovism, a satirist of morals. He chose as the object of analysis the philistine-proprietor, the accumulator and money-grubber, who, from a direct political opponent, became an opponent in the sphere of morality, a hotbed of vulgarity. The main element of the creative work of the 1920s is nevertheless humorous everyday life.

1 In 1920-1921 Zoshchenko wrote the first stories of those that were subsequently published: Love, War, Old Woman Wrangel, Fish female. (1928-1932).

By the mid-1920s, Zoshchenko had become one of the most popular writers. His stories The Bathhouse, The Aristocrat, The Case History, etc., which he himself often read to numerous audiences, were known and loved by all sections of society. activity (custom feuilletons for the press, plays, film scripts, etc.), Zoshchenko's true talent manifested itself only in stories for children, which he wrote for the magazines "Chizh" and "Ezh".

Stories by M.M. Zoshchenko

A significant place in Zoshchenko's work is occupied by stories in which the writer directly responds to the real events of the day. The most famous among them are: "Aristocrat", "Glass", "History of the disease", "Nervous people", "Fitter". It was a language unknown to literature, and therefore not having its own spelling language. Zoshchenko was endowed with absolute pitch and a brilliant memory. During the years spent in the midst of poor people, he managed to penetrate the secret of their conversational construction, with its characteristic vulgarisms, incorrect grammatical forms and syntactic constructions, he managed to adopt the intonation of their speech, their expressions, turns, words - he studied this language to the subtlety and already from the first steps in literature, he began to use it easily and naturally. In his language, expressions such as "plitoire", "okromya", "hresh", "this", "in it", "brunette", "drunk", "for biting", "fuck cry", " this poodle", "a wordless animal", "at the stove", etc. But Zoshchenko is a writer not only of a comic style, but also of comic situations. Not only his language is comical, but also the place where the story of the next story unfolded: a commemoration, a communal apartment, a hospital - everything is so familiar, familiar, everyday. And the story itself: a fight in a communal apartment because of a scarce hedgehog, a scandal at the wake because of a broken glass. Some of Zoshchenko's phrases have remained in Russian literature as euphemisms: "as if suddenly the atmosphere smelled of me", "they will rob me like sticky and throw them away for their kind, even if they are their own relatives", "a lieutenant to himself, but a bastard", "disturbs the riots." Zoshchenko while writing his stories, he himself laughed. So much so that later, when I read stories to my friends, I never laughed. He sat gloomy, gloomy, as if not understanding what he could laugh at.

Having laughed while working on the story, he then perceived it as longing and sadness. I took it as the other side of the coin.

The hero Zoshchenko is a layman, a man with poor morals and a primitive outlook on life. This inhabitant personified the whole human layer of the then Russia. the layman often spent all his strength on fighting all sorts of petty everyday troubles, instead of actually doing something for the good of society. But the writer did not ridicule the man himself, but the philistine features in him.

So, the hero of "The Aristocrat" (1923) was carried away by one person in fildekos stockings and a hat. While he "as an official" visited the apartment, and then walked along the street, experiencing the inconvenience of having to take the lady by the arm and "drag like a pike", everything was relatively safe. But as soon as the hero invited an aristocrat to the theater, "she and

unfolded its ideology in its entirety". Seeing cakes in the intermission, the aristocrat "approaches with a depraved gait to the dish and chop with cream and eats."

The lady has eaten three cakes and is reaching for the fourth.

“The blood hit me in the head.

Lie down, - I say, - back!"

After this climax, events unfold like an avalanche, involving an increasing number of actors in their orbit. As a rule, in the first half of Zoshchenko's short story one or two, many - three characters are presented. And only when the development of the plot passes the highest point, when there is a need and need to typify the phenomenon described, to sharpen it satirically, a more or less written group of people, sometimes a crowd, appears.

Same with Aristocrat. The closer to the finale, the more faces the author brings to the stage. First, the figure of the barman appears, who, to all the assurances of the hero, ardently proving that only three pieces have been eaten, since the fourth cake is on the platter, "keeps indifferent."

No, - he answers, - although it is in the dish, but a bite was made on it and crumpled with a finger.

Here are amateur experts, some of whom "say - the bite is done, others - no." And, finally, the crowd attracted by the scandal, which laughs at the sight of the unlucky theater-goer, convulsively turning out his pockets with all kinds of junk before her eyes.

In the finale, only two characters remain again, finally sorting out their relationship. The story ends with a dialogue between the offended lady and the hero dissatisfied with her behavior.

"And at the house she says to me in her bourgeois tone:

Pretty disgusting of you. Those without money don't travel with ladies.

And I say:

Not in money, citizen, happiness. Sorry for the expression."

As you can see, both sides are offended. Moreover, both sides believe only in their own truth, being firmly convinced that it is the opposite side that is wrong. The hero of Zoshchenko's story invariably regards himself as an infallible, "respectable citizen", although in reality he acts as a swaggering layman.

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Municipal educational institution

Secondary school "Day boarding-84"

with in-depth study of individual subjects

Kirovsky district of Samara

Literature abstract

Features of displaying the reality of the 20s-30s.

in the satirical stories of Mikhail Zoshchenko.

Completed by: Kabaykina Maria,

11th grade student

Head: Koryagina T.M.,

teacher of Russian language and literature

Samara, 2005
Content.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………3

Chapter 1. The Artistic World of Mikhail Zoshchenko.

1.2. Themes and problems of stories ……………...…………..…………………………7

1.3. The twenties through the eyes of the heroes of Mikhail Zoshchenko...……………………………...10

Chapter 2Artistic originality of Mikhail Zoshchenko's stories.

2.1. Features of the mechanism of the funny in the work of the writer...………………..….13

2.2. The role of the objective detail in showing the inferiority of relations between a man and a woman……………………………………………………………………………………. fifteen

2.3. Linguistic features of stories ……..…………………..……………...……...19

Conclusion.………………………………………………………………………………….20

Bibliography.………………………………………………………………………………..21

Application Why M. Zoshchenko was convicted.………………………………………………...22Introduction

Relevance.

The works of Mikhail Zoshchenko are modern in their problematics and system of images. The writer selflessly loved his country and therefore ached for everything that happened in it in the post-revolutionary years. Zoshchenko's satire is directed against the vices of society: philistinism, narrow-mindedness, social swagger, lack of culture, militant illiteracy, primitive thinking.

Some plots of stories are repeated to some extent in modern life. This is what makes the stories relevant today.

Research problem.

The author of this work considered the following problems: the image of the narrator and the position of the author in the satirical stories of M. Zoshchenko of the 20-30s, the hero's vision of the surrounding reality, the themes and problems of the stories, the way the character of the hero is displayed using various artistic means.

Object of study.

Collections of short stories by Mikhail Zoshchenko, critical articles on the writer's work are the essence of the problems raised.

Target.

The purpose of this work is to identify the most characteristic ways for the writer to reflect the reality of the post-revolutionary period in Russia.

Tasks.

To trace how and with the help of what methods the author portrayed a typical Soviet person, his character of thoughts, actions, ideology, vision of the "new time".

Chapter 1.The main features characteristic of the work of M. Zoshchenko.

Zoshchenko is one of the first writers of the Soviet era, who chose himself as a narrator, in almost all of his works he himself is present, it seems to me that this is because the author has always been a man "from the people", he was worried about everything that happens with his characters and with society as a whole, so he could not, did not want to remain "behind the scenes". The writer seeks and finds a kind of intonation, in which the lyrical-ironic principle (it is an integral part of Mikhail Mikhailovich's work) and an intimate and confidential note, which removes any barrier between the narrator and the reader-listener, have merged together. It is important to note that time made its own: the image of the hero-narrator, like the work of the writer, also changed, at first it was the hero-narrator, a direct participant in the action, in the stories of a later time the narrative is completely “impersonal”, the heroes-narrators changed, differences were erased between them, the characteristic personality traits disappeared completely, but the very form of a fairy tale narrative was not lost, thanks to which a “homely” atmosphere is created, although there are mass appeals to the people and the author is so close to the reader-listener that one wants to listen to him endlessly.

In Zoshchenov's stories, built in the form of a tale, two main varieties can be distinguished. In some, the character coincides with the narrator, including the plot: the hero talks about himself, gives details about his environment and biography, comments on his actions and words (“Crisis”, “Bath”, etc.). In others, the plot is separated from the narrator, the narrator is not the main character, but only an observer of the events and actions described.

The narrator is connected with the person in question (with the character), biographically (comrade or relative) or ideologically (brother in class, in convictions and psychology), clearly sympathizes with his character and "worries" about him. In essence, the narrator in most of Zoshchenko's works is one and the same person, extremely close to his characters, a person with a rather low level of culture, a primitive consciousness, striving to comprehend everything that happens from the point of view of the proletarian, a representative of the main social class, and also at the same time a resident of a densely populated communal apartment, with its petty squabbles and ugly, in the current reader's opinion, way of life.

Gradually, in the work of Zoshchenko, the individual features of the narrator become more and more vague, conditional, the motivation for the narrator's acquaintance with the events he narrates disappears, for example, in the story "Nervous People" the entire prehistory is limited to the phrase "Recently in our there was a fight in a communal apartment.” Instead of a biographically defined narrator (a kind of character), Zoshchenko has a faceless narrator, from a plot point of view, close to the traditional image of the author, who initially knows everything about his characters. However, at the same time, the narrative retains the form of a tale, although the first person may rarely appear in it; the general impression of the narrator's involvement in the life of the characters, their life and ideological and psychological world, the feeling of his unity with them is not lost either.

The writer achieves a striking effect: he manages to reduce to the limit the semantic distance that separates the author from the hero and the reader close to him, as if to dissolve in the world of his heroes and readers-listeners. Hence the fantastic love for Zoshchenko by readers who are prototypes, or maybe already vaguely reminiscent of the heroes of his works, and the condemnation of critics who want to see the distance between the author and his characters (a direct assessment of negative phenomena, contrasting negative types with positive examples, accusatory and angry pathos) . The author, as it were, merged with his heroes, identified with them, which had far-reaching consequences for Zoshchenko himself. At first glance, the frivolous and even sometimes frivolous stories and short stories by Mikhail Zoshchenko did not leave indifferent many contemporary critics who vied with each other to condemn the writer's work, his vision of problems, the style and nature of the works. So, for example, in the Literary Encyclopedia of the 1920s-1930s, the author of the article, N. Svetlov, directly wrote: “Zoshchenko’s main comic technique is the motley and broken language that both the heroes of his short stories and the author-narrator himself speak.<…>Ridiculing his heroes, Zoshchenko, as an author, never opposes himself to them and does not rise above their horizons. One and the same jester's tale colors not only all of Zoshchenko's short stories without exception, but also his author's prefaces and his autobiography. The anecdotal lightness of comedy, the absence of a social perspective mark Zoshchenko's work with a petty-bourgeois and philistine press. Other critics wrote in the same vein, and it should be noted that each subsequent publication of critics became more and more harsh and clearly expressed extreme hostility towards the philistine writer, who defiles not only the “happy” life of a simple person, but also sows doubt in the mind of the proletarian .

The dangerous meaning of this trend was understood by Zoshchenko himself, who wrote: “Criticism began to confuse the artist with his characters. Character moods<…>identified with the mood of the writer. It was a glaring mistake » .

And, nevertheless, the unity of the characters and the narrator is a fundamental setting in the writer's work. The author wants to demonstrate such a narrator who not only does not separate himself from the hero in any way, but is also proud of his kinship with him, his ideological, biographical, psychological, and everyday closeness to him.

1.2. Themes and problems of stories.

What is the satire directed by M. Zoshchenko? According to the apt definition of V. Shklovsky, Zoshchenko wrote about a person who “lives in a great time, and is most of all concerned about plumbing, sewerage and pennies. The man behind the rubbish does not see the forest. Zoshchenko saw his purpose in solving the problem - to open the eyes of the proletariat. This later became the great literary achievement of this writer. In his article “About Myself, About Critics and About My Work”, Mikhail Zoshchenko says that he is a proletarian writer, or rather, he parodies with his things that imaginary, but genuine proletarian writer who would exist in the present conditions of life and in the present environment. Zoshchenko writes: "The themes of my stories are imbued with primitive philosophy, which is just up to my readers." This writer is not far removed from the environment that gave birth to and nominated him. All that his heroes are armed with is that same “naive philosophy”, representing a “hellish mixture” of political demagogy and primitive money-grubbing, the narrowness of the philistine outlook and the claims of the world “hegemon”, the pettiness and quarrelsomeness of interests brought up in the communal kitchen.

Zoshchenovsky "proletarian writer" exposes himself, he openly makes it clear that his work is a parody of proletarian writers who sought to present the people with a perfect ideology of thought and a stencil for the behavior of a "true proletarian", "a real citizen of a great country." It is this parody, and, mind you, not imitation, that makes the author's work extremely comical, paradoxical and provocative, reveals the complete inconsistency of the claims of the ideologists of thought and Rappovites to the first place in literature, and their heroes from the working class to a leading role in society. Zoshchenko called this extraordinary and unique literary and psychological technique, developed and substantiated by the writer himself, "the restructuring of readers."

“... I stand for the restructuring of readers, not literary characters,” Zoshchenko answered his correspondents in the press. “And that is my task. Rebuilding a literary character is cheap. But with the help of laughter, to rebuild the reader, to force them to give up certain petty-bourgeois and vulgar skills - this will be the right thing for a writer.

The topics of his stories are unsettled life, kitchen squabbles, the life of bureaucrats, townsfolk, officials, comical life situations not only in the hero’s house, but also in public places, where the character shows himself “in all his glory”, moreover, he is convinced that he is right, because is a simple honest man who "holds the whole country." Zoshchenko is in no way inferior to the venerable writers of Russian literature. He masterfully describes the living environment of people in the 20s and 30s, we see communal apartments, cramped communal kitchens with smoky stoves. Swearing and fights are not uncommon in Zoshchenov's works. In the story "Nervous People", the neighbors in the communal kitchen are arguing; one of the residents arbitrarily used the personal grater of another tenant, he is ready to tear his neighbor and shouts indignantly: “I work hard at the enterprise for exactly an elephant for my 65 rubles and I won’t let my property be used for anything!”

The satirist writer describes every "vulgar little thing" that can unbalance the ordinary proletarian. To this day, the reader laughs with Zoshchenko at careless grooms who are ready to marry without even really considering the bride, or who take into account absurd, in modern eyes, conditions. So, for example, in the story "The Bridegroom" a few days ago, the widowed Yegorka Basov chooses his bride exclusively for working in the garden, because. “the time was hot - to mow, carry and collect bread”, and the hero’s wife made friends - she died at the wrong time. Having already loaded the butterfly’s meager belongings on the cart, he suddenly notices that the bride is limping, and the negligent groom immediately refuses to marry, explaining that the time is hot, and she will carry water - she will spill everything.

Without thinking twice, he throws the “bride’s” feather bed to the ground, and while she was picking up her property, Yegorka Basov quickly left.

This is how Zoshchenko's heroes see obstacles for themselves in every little thing, and this pettiness of all proletarians depresses, makes one think: why did so much blood be shed in revolutions, after all, the essence of man remains the same anyway?

Satire, like a spotlight, highlights and shows everyone all the shortcomings, vices of society. Zoshchenko's "new people" are ordinary people, of which there are many around: in an overcrowded communal apartment, in a grocery line, in a tram, in a bathhouse, in a theater, everywhere. “... I took, if not a typical inhabitant, then, in any case, a person who can be found in a multitude. These people are depersonalized by a long life in humiliating conditions, while they do not always realize the reason for their impersonality.

So, in the stories of M. Zoshchenko, on the one hand, a low level of culture, consciousness, morality of the heroes, boorishness, impudence of the conqueror can be seen; on the other hand, the feeling of class superiority over the “aristocrats” and “bourgeois”, the intelligentsia, the conviction in one’s proletarian “purebred”, which automatically makes a person higher, better, is hammered into consciousness by means of communist propaganda and agitation.

This is one of the main contradictions of the time, defining the problems of Zoshchenko's stories.

The “new man” is imbued with a new life to the marrow of his bones, he considers himself an integral part of this world, but, in fact, it turns out to be new only in form, from a purely external side, but from the inside he remains the same, little changed, understanding nothing about politics , but actively involved in public relations - sharply politicized, filled with pathos, agitational. There was a destruction of the past values ​​and norms that had been established in pre-revolutionary times.

The heroes of such stories as “Rich Life”, “Victim of the Revolution”, “Aristocrat”, “Nervous People”, “Patient”, “Self-supporting”, “Working Suit”, “Charms of Culture”, “Fitter” are narrow-minded people, not very literate, deprived of certain moral and political foundations, ideological principles. These people are citizens of the new Russia, drawn into the whirlpool of history by the revolution, who felt their involvement in it, voluntarily quickly learned all the practical benefits and social consequences of their new, class-privileged position of “workers”, “ordinary people” from the bottom, “new people” representing Soviet society.

1.3. The twenties through the eyes of the heroes of Mikhail Zoshchenko.

The life of society in the twenties of the last century can be studied from the works of Mikhail Zoshchenko, full of variety of characters, images, plots. The author believed that his books should be understandable to the people themselves, so he wrote in simple language, the language of the streets, communal apartments, and the townsfolk. "... Zoshchenko makes the author see some new literary right - to speak "on his own", but not in his own voice. The author, as an artist, carefully depicts the reality of the 1920s. In Zoshchenko's humorous stories, the reader can feel "... latent sadness, a subtle hint of the presence of philosophizing about life, which appeared in an unexpected and unusual form".

Zoshchenko clearly notes the remnants of the old system. The consciousness of people cannot be changed immediately. Zoshchenko sometimes worked at the state farm, faced with the fact that the peasants mistook him for a master, bowed low and even kissed his hands. And this happened after the revolution. The peasant masses still did not clearly imagine what a revolution was, they were not educated and continued to live in the old way.
Often people in the revolution saw permissiveness, impunity for committed acts. In Westinghouse's Brake, the "slightly numb" hero boasts that, by virtue of his lineage, he can get away with anything. He breaks the brake of the train, but the car does not stop. The hero attributes such impunity to the exclusivity of his origin. "... Let the public know - the origin is very different." In fact, the hero remains unpunished, as the brake is faulty.
It is difficult for ordinary people to see the full historical significance of the revolutionary events. For example, Efim Grigoryevich in the story "Victim of the Revolution" perceives this large-scale event through the prism of rubbed floors. “I rubbed them (the count - O.M.) floors, say, on Monday, and on Saturday the revolution took place ...”. Efim Grigoryevich asked passers-by what happened. They answered that “the October Revolution. He runs around the military camp in order to inform the count that Efim Grigorievich put the watch in a jug of powder.

Zoshchenko noted that the revolution was not perceived by ordinary people as an epoch-making event. For Efim Grigorievich, his personal experiences are more important, they are not connected in any way with the events of changes in the country. He talks about the revolution in passing, in passing. It "... narrows down to the size of an unremarkable event that barely disturbed the rhythm of life." And only then the hero proudly ranks himself among the general mass of people who took a direct part in the revolution.

Zoshchenko tried to penetrate into the life and consciousness of the common man. The inertia of human nature has become the main object of the writer's work. The social circle was large: workers, peasants, employees, intellectuals, NEPmen and "former". Zoshchenko exposes a special type of consciousness, petty-bourgeois, which does not determine the estate, but becomes a household word for everyone. The scene in the car (“Grimace of the NEP”) reflects the reflection of the broad social movement of the 1920s for the implementation of the norms of the Labor Code. Seeing the rude exploitation of the old woman, the people in the car understand that the norm regarding the "old-timer man" has been violated. But when it turns out that the offended old woman is “only a reverend mother,” the situation changes. The offender becomes the accuser, referring to the Labor Code. This document serves to cover up rudeness and cynicism. Taken outside the official framework, the world loses its meaning.
Zoshchenko's characters are characterized by a self-satisfied sense of involvement in the events of the century. “Even when the NEP was introduced in the era of war communism, I did not protest. NEP so NEP. You know better". ("The Charms of Culture"). Zoshchenko's "little man" within the new culture no longer considers himself to be such, but says that he is average. He is characterized by a proud attitude to business, involvement in the era. “You never know what the average person has to do in the world!” he says. The deeply hidden moralism of the writer behind his hidden satirical plots shows the author's desire for the reformation of morals in the new conditions. It touches upon the problem of the death of the human in man. Now the man of the new era feels superior to the "bourgeois", the offspring of the old world. But internally he remains the same, with his vices, victories and failures in life. The ideology of Bolshevism glorified the average worker, saw in him the support of the world, and therefore small, it would seem, people declare themselves proudly, not because of personal merits, but under the guise of ideology. “If we collect all the satirical stories of the writer of the 20s into one narrative, the reader will see a picture of social decay, the collapse of all ties, the perversion of principles and values, the degradation of man under the influence of inhuman conditions and events.”
Zoshchenko was attacked by the authorities and writers subordinate to them. Many critics of the 1920s saw in Zoshchenov's man a hero of the old times, uneducated, selfish, stingy, endowed with all the human vices that are peculiar only to people of the old culture. Others believed that Zoshchenko embodies how one should not live, that a person on the path of building communism is hindered by his petty-bourgeois nature.

The author turns to universal themes, exposes the vulgarity and baseness of people's actions. Zoshchenko's works reflect the life of people, their relationships, everyday needs, awareness of the new reality. Thus, the Zoshchenovsky man lives in unworthy conditions for him, the author often emphasizes the poverty of the life of the townsfolk. The disorder of life of people is observed in everything. In the story "Love", the author focuses on the inability of a small person with his petty-bourgeois consciousness to experience a high feeling.

Chapter 2. Artistic originality of Mikhail Zoshchenko's stories.

2.1. Features of the mechanism of the funny in the writer's work.

The main discovery of Zoshchenko's prose was his heroes, the most ordinary, inconspicuous people who do not play, according to the writer's sadly ironic remark, "roles in the complex mechanism of our days." These people are far from understanding the causes and meaning of the ongoing changes, they cannot, due to their habits, views, intellect, adapt to the emerging relations between society and man, between individuals, they cannot get used to new state laws and orders. Therefore, they end up in ridiculous, stupid, and sometimes deadlock situations, from which they cannot get out on their own, and if they still succeed, then with great moral and physical losses.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, demonstrating to his students how a person behaves under the influence of certain life circumstances, took a puppet and pulled the strings, and she took unnatural poses, became ugly, pathetic, and funny. Zoshchenov's characters are like this puppet, and the rapidly changing circumstances (laws, orders, social relations, etc.) to which they cannot adapt and get used are the threads that make them defenseless or stupid, pitiful or ugly, insignificant or arrogant. All this causes a comic effect, and in combination with vernacular, jargon, verbal puns and blunders, specific Zoshchenov phrases and expressions (“an aristocrat is not a woman at all for me, but a smooth place”, “we are not assigned behind holes”, “sorry, then sorry”, “please see”, etc.) cause, depending on their concentration, a smile or laughter, which, according to the writer’s intention, should help a person understand what is “good, what is bad, and what is mediocre”.

What are these circumstances (threads) that are so ruthless to Zoshchenko's heroes? In the story "Bath" - these are the orders in the city communal services, based on a disdainful attitude towards the common man, who can only afford to go to the "ordinary" bath, where they take a dime for entry. In such a bath “they give two numbers. One for underwear, the other for a coat with a hat. And where should a naked man put his numbers? So the visitor has to tie "a number to his feet so as not to lose it at once." And it’s inconvenient for the visitor, “the numbers are clapping on the heels - it’s boring to walk,” he looks ridiculous and stupid, but what remains to be done ... “don’t go ... to America.”

In the stories "Medic" and "History of the disease" - a low level of medical care. What remains for the patient to do, how not to turn to a healer if he is threatened by a meeting with a doctor who “performed an operation with filthy hands”, “he dropped his glasses from his nose into the intestines and cannot find” (“Medic”)? In Case History, the patient is forced to take a bath with an old woman, as the nurse explains this by saying that this old woman has a high fever and does not react to anything.

In the miniature "Cat and People", the tenants are forced to live in an apartment with a stove, from which "the family always burns out." Where to look for justice for the “damn zhakt”, which “refuses to make repairs. Saves. For another waste"?

The characters of M. Zoshchenko, like obedient puppets, resignedly submit to circumstances. Being an optimist, Zoshchenko hoped that his stories would make people better, and those, in turn, would improve social relations. The "threads" will break, making a person look like a disenfranchised, pitiful, spiritually wretched puppet.

Everything that is so funny to the reader is actually sad, and sometimes seems hopeless, but the author hopes that through satire, harsh remarks and characteristics, he will be able to direct people to improve themselves and the world around.

2.2. The role of the subject detail in showing the inferiority of the relationship between a man and a woman.

M. Zoshchenko wrote a lot about love, in the "Blue Book" a whole section is devoted to this topic, but in some satirical stories that were not included in it, one can also trace the line of love relationships between a man and a woman. The author does not forget that even when the "new time" came, when Russia embarked on the "great path of communism", the character, as before, needs lofty feelings, such as were sung in sentimental love stories. But suddenly it turns out that a simple proletarian is not capable of such feelings, although he himself does not realize this.

At the beginning of the story, the author usually presents the reader with some kind of idyll: two people who love or sympathize with each other are trying to start a romantic relationship, the main character demonstrates to the chosen one beautiful feelings, good intentions, the ability to sacrifice, but as soon as the characters meet any small ones on their way, In essence, even insignificant interference, the love haze dissipates, and the character demonstrates to everyone his ignorance and wretchedness of feelings. Moreover, the whole tragedy lies in the fact that the hero does not realize this, he is sure that he is an example of a “new person”, but in fact he is a flawed “subject”, with petty-bourgeois manners ineradicable by any new ideology. So, in the story “Love”, the hero Vasya Chesnokov goes to see off a young lady after a party, Vasya, madly in love, wants to provide Mashenka with evidence of his tender feelings for her: “Tell me, lie down, Vasya Chesnokov, on the tram track and lie there until the first tram, I, by God, go to bed! Because I have the most tender feelings for you. Mashenka laughs, and he continues: “Here you are laughing and baring your teeth, but I still love you very much, so to speak. Just order, jump, Vasya Chesnokov, from the bridge, I really will jump! Vasya ran up to the railing and pretended to what climbs. But then suddenly a dark figure appears, which approaches the couple and, threatening, forces Vasya to give up his coat and boots. The hero has nowhere to go, but at the same time, the once selfless "knight" begins to mutter: "... she has both a fur coat and galoshes, and I undress ...". After the robber fled, Vasya left the girl, while angrily declaring: "I'll see her off, I'll lose my property! ...". Thanks to this dialogue, the author achieves his characteristic tragicomic effect.

The story "What the nightingale sang about" is a subtly parodic stylized work that tells the story of the explanations and languor of two passionately in love heroes. Without changing the canons of a love story, the author sends a test to lovers, albeit in the form of a childhood illness (mumps), with which Bylinkin unexpectedly falls seriously ill. The heroes stoically endure this formidable invasion of fate, their love becomes even stronger and purer. They walk a lot, holding hands, often sitting over a cliff of a river with a somewhat undignified name - Kozyavka.

And what explains the sad outcome in the story "What the nightingale sang about"? Liza did not have a mother's chest of drawers, on which the hero counted so much. This is where the “muzzle of the tradesman” comes out, which before that - though not very skillfully - was covered by “haberdashery” treatment.

Zoshchenko writes a magnificent finale, which reveals the true value of what at first looked like a reverently magnanimous feeling. The epilogue, sustained in elegiac tones, is preceded by a scene of violent scandal.

In the structure of Zoshchenko's stylized-sentimental story, caustic sarcastic inclusions appear. They give the work a satirical flavor, and, unlike the stories where Zoshchenko openly laughs, here the writer, using Mayakovsky's formula, smiles and mocks. At the same time, his smile is most often sad and sad.

This is how the epilogue of the story "What the nightingale sang about" is built, where the author finally answers the question posed in the title. As if returning the reader to the happy days of Bylinkin, the writer recreates the atmosphere of love ecstasy, when Lizochka, frustrated "from the chirping of insects or the singing of a nightingale," ingenuously asks her admirer:

Vasya, what do you think this nightingale sings about?

To which Vasya Bylinkin usually answered with restraint:

He wants to eat, that's why he sings."

The peculiarity of "Sentimental Tales" is not only in the more meager introduction of elements of the comic proper, but also in the fact that from work to work there is a growing feeling of something unkind, embedded, it seems, in the very mechanism of life, which interferes with its optimistic perception.

The disadvantage of most of the heroes of "Sentimental Tales" is that they slept through a whole historical period in the life of Russia and therefore, like Apollo Perepenchuk ("Apollo and Tamara"), Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov ("People") or Michel Sinyagin ("M.P. . Sinyagin"), have no future. They rush about in fear through life, and every even the smallest case is ready to play a fatal role in their restless fate. The case takes the form of inevitability and regularity, determining a lot in the contrite spiritual mood of these heroes.

The fatal slavery of trifles corrodes the human beginnings of the heroes of the stories "The Goat", "What the Nightingale Sang About", "A Merry Adventure". If there is no goat, the foundations of Zabezhkin's universe collapse, and after that Zabezhkin himself dies. They don’t give mother’s dresser to the bride - and the bride herself is not needed, to whom Bylinkin sang so sweetly. The hero of "Merry Adventure" Sergei Petukhov, who intends to take a familiar girl to the cinema, does not find the necessary seven hryvnias and because of this he is ready to kill the dying aunt. In the story "Love", the author focuses on the inability of a small person with his petty-bourgeois consciousness to experience a high feeling. Relations with relatives and friends are also formed on the basis of petty-bourgeois benefits.

The artist paints petty, philistine natures, busy mindlessly spinning around dull, faded joys and habitual sorrows. Social upheavals bypassed these people, who call their existence "wormy and meaningless." However, it sometimes seemed to the author that the foundations of life remained unshaken, that the wind of the revolution only agitated the sea of ​​\u200b\u200bworldly vulgarity and flew away without changing the essence of human relations.

2.3. Language features of stories.

The stories of M. Zoshchenko of the 1920s are strikingly different from the works of other famous authors, both his contemporaries and predecessors, and later ones. And the main difference lies in the inimitable, one might say, unique language that the writer uses not for a whim and not because in this way the works acquire the most ridiculous coloring characteristic of satire. Most critics spoke negatively about Zoshchenko's work, and the broken language was largely the reason for this.

“They usually think,” he wrote in 1929, “that I am distorting the “beautiful Russian language”, that for the sake of laughter I take words not in the meaning that life gives them, that I purposely write in broken language in order to make the most respectable audience laugh .

This is not true. I hardly distort anything. I write in the language that the street now speaks and thinks. I say - temporarily, since I really write so temporarily and in a parodic way.

The writer tries to create the most comical character possible with the help of ridiculous, in our opinion, turns, incorrectly pronounced and used in a completely inappropriate context of words, because the main figure in Zoshchenko's work is a tradesman, poorly educated, dark, with petty, vulgar desires and a primitive philosophy of life. .

Zoshchenko often achieves a comic effect by playing around with words and expressions gleaned from the speech of an illiterate tradesman, with its characteristic vulgarisms, incorrect grammatical forms and syntactic constructions ("plitoir", "okromya", "hres", "this", "in it", "brunette", "orange peel, from which you vomit beyond measure", "for biting", "fuck cry", "dog of the poodle system", "animal dumb", "at the stove", etc.).

One of the characteristic features in Zoshchenko's satire was the use of foreign words by his heroes, the meaning of which, of course, they, the heroes, only guessed, due to their narrow outlook. So, for example, in the story “Victim of the Revolution”, the former countess was hysterical because of the loss of a gold watch, often used the French expression comme ci comme ca, which means “so-so” in translation, and it was completely inappropriate, which gave the dialogue a comic and silly meaning:

Oh, - he says, - Yefim, komsi-komsa, didn't you steal my ladies' watch, sprinkled with diamonds?

What are you, - I say, - what are you, a former countess! Why, - I say, - do I need a ladies' watch if I'm a man! It's funny, I say. - Sorry for the expression.

And she is crying.

No, - he says, - not otherwise, as you stole, komsi-koms.

Moreover, it is also important to note that the heroes of the works, despite their more or less noble origin, combine jargon with feigned manners. Zoshchenko thus points to ignorance, which there is no longer any hope of eradicating in this generation.

Some writers tried to write “under Zoshchenko”, but, in the apt expression of K. Fedin, they acted simply as plagiarists, taking off what was convenient to take off from him - clothes. However, they were far from comprehending the essence of Zoshchenov's innovation in the field of skaz.

Zoshchenko managed to make the tale very capacious and artistically expressive. The hero-narrator only speaks, and the author does not complicate the structure of the work with additional descriptions of the timbre of his voice, his demeanor, and the details of his behavior.

Many phrases of M. Zoshchenko have become winged, fans of his work, as well as those who simply saw the famous film adaptation of his stories "It Can't Be," use such peculiar and capacious phrases in everyday life.

Nevertheless, such an unusual and broken language is only an auxiliary means, an external cosmetic shell of his works. Gradually, the writer will move away from his chosen manner of describing the action with the help of vivid speech, incorrectly constructed turns and illiterate distorted language. Zoshchenko understood that behind the sharp satire, behind the heaped up vulgar, petty-bourgeois phrases, one cannot see the essence, topicality and threat of the problem that really worries the author.

In the mid-30s, the writer declared: “Every year I shoot and remove exaggeration from my stories more and more.

Conclusion

The work of Mikhail Zoshchenko is an original phenomenon in Russian Soviet literature. The writer, in his own way, saw some of the characteristic processes of contemporary reality, brought under the blinding light of satire a gallery of characters that gave rise to the common noun "Zoshchenovsky hero". Being at the origins of Soviet satirical and humorous prose, he acted as the creator of an original comic novel that continued the traditions of Gogol, Leskov, and early Chekhov in new historical conditions. Finally, Zoshchenko created his own, completely unique artistic style.

The main features characteristic of his work of the 20s-30s are a confidential note present in each of his works, the reader always feels the closeness of the author, who, in turn, respects and loves his reader. The life of ordinary people is described in detail in his stories and short stories; by his heroes one can judge not only the time in which they lived, but also their thinking. Everyday life is a limited space for a limited proletarian who has not yet understood the full significance of the revolutions of the 20th century, who does not want to break free, become better, look at his actions from the outside instead of trying everywhere to prove his significance with his fists and abuse.

Zoshchenko knew who his reader was, so he did not want to describe an environment alien to the people, incredible situations and extraordinary people, all his work is permeated through and through with a desire to get close to the reader, to gain confidence in him, for this he uses slang expressions and direct communication with the reader in the form of a tale. He sees one of the main tasks of his work in highlighting, like a searchlight, all the shortcomings of a person, all the inferiority of the worldview, the inability to high feelings and self-sacrifice. The slavery of trifles does not allow the heroes to feel happy, despite the "imperfect system", it confuses them, preventing them from developing and changing for the better. And all this petty-bourgeois thinking is framed by an expressive, with a bright negative connotation, sometimes abusive characterization of the heroes who claim to be the main chosen class.

The author tries to convey to the reader everything that he saw around him, for which he was worried and wanted to correct, he wanted to influence the world around him in a particular beloved country, but he understood that much more time should pass than the ten minutes it takes to read his satirical story.

Bibliography

1. Belaya G. A. Patterns of style development of Soviet prose. M., Nauka, 1977.

2. Zoshchenko M. About myself, about critics and about my work. - In the book: Mikhail Zoshchenko. Articles and materials. L., Academia, 1928.

3. Mikhail Zoshchenko. 1935-1937. Stories. Tales. Feuilletons. Theatre. Criticism. L., GIHL, 1940.

4. Kagan L. Zoshchenko. Literary Encyclopedia. M., 1930, T. 4.

5. Fedin K. Writer. Art. Time. M. Modern Writer, 1973.

6. Shneiberg L. Ya., Kondakov I. V. From Gorky to Solzhenitsyn. "Little Man" as a Mirror of Soviet Reality. Higher School, 1994.

Application

Why was Zoshchenko convicted?

During the only long meeting between the writer Yuri Nagibin and Mikhail Zoshchenko, the conversation turned to why the most harmless things, like the cute children's story "The Adventures of a Monkey", were chosen to defeat Mikhail Mikhailovich. The following dialogue followed. Zoshchenko:
"But there were no" dangerous "things. Stalin hated me and was waiting for an opportunity to get rid of it. "Monkey" was printed before, no one paid attention to it. But then my hour came. It could not have been "Monkey", but " A Christmas tree was born in the forest "- it didn’t play any role. The ax hung over me from the pre-war period, when I published the story "Sentry and Lenin". But Stalin was distracted by the war, and when he freed himself a little, they took me up."
Nagibin:
"What's criminal there?"
Zoshchenko:
"You said that you remember my stories by heart."
Nagibin:
"That's not the story."
Zoshchenko:
"Perhaps. But do you remember at least the man with the mustache?"
Nagibin:
"Who yells at the sentry that he does not let Lenin through without a pass to Smolny?"
Zoshchenko nodded.
“I made an unforgivable mistake for a professional. I used to have a man with a beard. But everything turned out to be Dzerzhinsky. I didn’t need the exact address, and I made a man with a mustache. Who didn’t wear a mustache at that time? an inalienable sign of Stalin. "Mustached dad" and the like. As you remember, my mustachioed man is tactless, rude and impatient. Lenin scolds him like a boy. Stalin recognized himself - or he was fooled - and did not forgive me for this.
Nagibin:
"Why weren't you dealt with in the usual way?"
Zoshchenko:
“This is one of Stalin’s mysteries. He hated Platonov, but he didn’t put him in jail. All his life Platonov paid for “Doubtful Makar” and “For the future”, but at large. Even with Mandelstam they played cat and mouse. But Mandelstam, unlike everyone else, really told Stalin the truth to his face. Tormenting the victim was much more interesting than cracking down on her."
At the end of the conversation, Nagibin gave useful, but somewhat belated advice:
"And you would just write 'some person'.
Zoshchenko:
"This is no good. Every person is marked by something, well, separate him from the crowd. Bad writers will certainly choose injury, damage: lame, one-armed, lopsided, crooked, stutterer, dwarf. This is bad. Why insult a person who is not at all You know? Maybe he is crooked, but spiritually better than you. "
In M. Zoshchenko's posthumous two-volume book, the mustachioed brute nevertheless turned into "some kind of person." In such a simple way, the editor defended Stalin (already deceased and convicted of a personality cult) from "slanderous insinuations."

The writing

Born in the family of an artist. In 1913 he graduated from the gymnasium and entered the St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Law. Without completing the course, he volunteers for the front. He was wounded, gassed and demobilized with the rank of staff captain. In 1918, Zoshchenko volunteered for the Red Army, demobilized in 1919 and changed several professions over the course of several years: he was a shoemaker, an actor, a telephone operator, a criminal investigation agent, and an accountant. Zoshchenko's first story was published in 1921 in the Petersburg Almanac.

Zoshchenko's first book, The Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov (1922), is a collection of short humorous short stories, where, on behalf of the hero-narrator, various amusing incidents are narrated, the characters of which are mostly philistines trying to get used to the new revolutionary conditions.

These people in Zoshchenko naively believe that the revolution is “a holiday on their street” and was carried out only in order to provide them with the possibility of a privileged and carefree existence. It was the "little people" of the new time, who made up the majority of the country's population, who claimed the role of masters of life, the main characters. Therefore, the fitter in the story of the same name believes that the number one figure in the theater is, of course, he, Ivan Kuzmich Myakishev, and not a tenor and not a conductor. “In the general group, when the whole theater ... was filmed on a card, this fitter was shoved somewhere on the side - they say, the technical staff. And in the center, on a chair with a back, they put a tenor.

Monter says: “Oh, so he says. Well, I refuse to play. I refuse, in a word, to cover your production. Play without me. Look then, which of us is more important and who to shoot from the side, and who to put in the center" - and "turned off the lights throughout the theater ..." Assistant chief of police of a small town, comrade Drozhkin ("Administrative delight"), to the surprise of the public, "among population walks in person ... With his wife ... well, just like mere mortals. They don't hesitate." “Comrade Drozhkin”, invested with power, sees himself in the image of an almighty, to whom everything is permitted: to shoot someone’s pig on the spot, which turned out to be “among ... a common pedestrian sidewalk”, and “send to the department” his own “careless spouse”, who dared “ interfere with the actions and orders of the police”, “grab by the sleeve ...”

The arbitrariness of the authorities is completely uncontrolled and unpunished. The people in Zoshchenko's stories are many-sided, verbose, active, participating in impromptu performances and spectacles; however, when a weighty word is required of him, he falls silent, at the slightest danger or responsibility, he gives in. The characters of the story "Grimace of the NEP", the passengers of the train, are outraged by the behavior of the young man, who "shouts and commands", as it seems to them, the servant - an old woman hung with bales, and characterize his actions as "a uniform grimace of the NEP".

Among them, fermentation begins: “This is ... exploitation of overgrown people! You can’t shout and command like that in front of the public! This humiliates her old lady dignity”, “... it is impossible to allow such actions. This is a mockery of an unfree person.” The man “who has a mustache” is accused of bourgeois manners, of “violating the criminal code of labor”: they say that those days are over, and it’s time to end the NEP. However, when it turns out that the old woman is the mother of the young man, “there was some confusion among the public.

Some embarrassment: they say, they interfered in their own affairs. ... It turns out that this is just a mother.” There are two main varieties of Zoshchenko's stories. In some, the character coincides with the narrator: the hero talks about himself, gives details about his environment and biography, comments on his actions and words (“Crisis”, “Bath”, etc.). In others, the plot is separated from the narrator (the hero is not a narrator, but only an observer of the events and actions described). But here, just as in the first case, the story itself, with its characteristics and evaluations, is motivated by the personal properties of the narrator. Such, for example, are the stories "Unfortunate Case", "Working Suit", etc. The narrator is connected with the person about whom he narrates, biographically or ideologically, clearly sympathizes with his hero and worries about him. The unity of the characters and the narrator is a fundamental setting in Zoshchenko's work.

In the face of the author-narrator, Zoshchenko displays a certain type of writer, closely merged with his hero. He stipulates its paradoxicality (“it will seem strange and unexpected”): “The fact is that I am a proletarian writer. Rather, I parody with my things that imaginary but genuine proletarian writer who would exist in the present conditions of life and in the present environment. ... I'm only parodying. I temporarily replace the proletarian writer. The combination of the self-evident "parody", the stylization of "proletarian literature" with the lack of distance between the character, the author and the reader makes such self-exposing in the eyes of the reader especially visual and comical.

Zoshchenko called this peculiar literary and psychological technique, developed and substantiated by the writer himself, "the restructuring of readers." “... I stand for the restructuring of readers, not literary characters,” the writer answered his correspondents in the press. - And this is my task. Rebuilding a literary character is cheap. But with the help of laughter, to rebuild the reader, to force the reader to abandon certain petty-bourgeois and vulgar habits - this will be the right thing for a writer. In addition to satirical works, Zoshchenko has things of an autobiographical nature: children's stories and the unfinished story Before Sunrise (1943). A significant place in the writer's work is occupied by feuilletons, which are direct responses to "messages from the field" and letters from readers.

Zoshchenko's major works are diverse in genre and manner of narration. The story "Michel Sinyagin" (1930) differs from humorous stories only in its extended plot; Youth Restored (1933) can only be called a satirical story, since the author depicts his hero in it - an elderly professor in love with a frivolous girl and trying to regain his youth - mockingly, but at the same time sympathetically. . The Blue Book (1934) is a collection of humorous short stories and comments on them, united by a common idea, which, according to the author, draws a "brief history of human relations" given through the eyes of a satirist. In the mid-40s, Zoshchenko's satirical works ceased to appear in print. Lack of work. Poverty. Hunger. Sale of household items. Shoe making. Alienation from the reader's environment, isolation from many of yesterday's friends and acquaintances who, when meeting Zoshchenko, crossed to the opposite side of the street or did not recognize him. “In essence, the fate of Zoshchenko,” wrote V. Kaverin, “almost does not differ from the countless fates of the Stalinist terror. But there is also a difference, perhaps characteristic of the life of the whole society as a whole: the camps were strictly classified, and Zoshchenko for a long time, for years, for example, was tied to a pillory in the square and publicly spat upon.

Then, after the death of Stalin, one of the most insurmountable phenomena that hindered the development of the natural life of the country came into force - inertia, fear of change, a thirst for self-repetition. They got used to Zoshchenko's situation. The work of his humiliation and destruction continued as before quite openly - thousands of people, a new generation, already participated in it. Now it has happened silently, silently…”

Zoshchenko's characters are reminiscent of the inhabitants of the immortal city of Glupov Saltykov-Shchedrin: they are just as humiliated, with the same trampled self-esteem, with the same slavish psychology, just as "neglected" and "confused" ... And most importantly, they are poor, as he said Shchedrin, consciousness of his own poverty. Addressing readers like two drops of water similar to his characters, Zoshchenko helped them open their eyes to themselves.

Laughing at someone else's stupidity, narrow-mindedness, escheat, readers learned to laugh at themselves, they saw from themselves, and it did not look too insulting: after all, the author sympathized with them. They, that is, we, today's readers, also recognized the vulgarity that Zoshchenko knew how to designate. The only reader who was allowed to speak at Zoshchenko's funeral said: "You not only made us laugh, you taught us how to live..."

As you wish, comrades, I sympathize with Nikolai Ivanovich very much.

This nice man suffered for all six hryvnias, and he did not see anything particularly outstanding for this money.

Only that his character turned out to be soft and compliant. Another person in his place would have scattered all the movies and smoked the audience out of the hall. Therefore, six hryvnias do not lie on the floor every day. Need to understand.

And on Saturday, our darling, Nikolai Ivanovich, drank a little, of course. After pay.

And this man was highly conscious. Another drunk person began to buzz and get upset, and Nikolai Ivanovich decorously and nobly walked along the avenue. Sang something like that.

Suddenly he looks - in front of him is a movie.

“Give it to me, I think it’s all the same - I’ll go to the cinema. A man, he thinks, I am cultured, semi-intelligent, why should I talk drunkenly on the panels and hurt passers-by? Give, he thinks, I'll watch the tape in a drunken state. I never did".

He bought for his pure ticket. And sat in the front row.

He sat down in the front row and looked decorously and nobly.

Only, maybe, he looked at one inscription, suddenly he went to Riga. Therefore, it is very warm in the hall, the audience breathes and the darkness has a positive effect on the psyche.

Our Nikolai Ivanovich went to Riga, everything is decorous and noble - he does not touch anyone, the screen is not enough with his hands, he does not unscrew the light bulbs, but sits for himself and quietly goes to Riga.

Suddenly, the sober public began to express dissatisfaction with, therefore, Riga.

- Could, - they say, - comrade, for this purpose, take a walk in the foyer, only, they say, you distract those watching the drama with other ideas.

Nikolai Ivanovich - a man of culture, conscious - did not, of course, argue and get excited in vain. And he got up and walked quietly.

“What, he thinks, to mess with the sober? You can't avoid scandal from them."

He went to the exit. Returns to the cashier.

“Just now,” he says, “lady, I bought a ticket from you, I ask you to return the money back.” Because I can’t look at the picture - it drives me in the dark.

Cashier says:

“We can’t give the money back, if you are being driven around, go to sleep quietly.”

There was an uproar and an uproar. Another would have been in the place of Nikolai Ivanych by the hair would have dragged the cashier out of the cash register and returned his most pure ones. And Nikolai Ivanovich, a quiet and cultured man, only once shoved the cashier:

“You,” he says, “understand, infection, I haven’t looked at your tape yet. Give, he says, my pure ones.

And everything is so decorous and noble, without scandal, - he asks to return his own money in general. This is where the manager comes in.

- We, - he says, - do not return the money back - once, he says, it's taken, be kind enough to watch the tape.

Another would have spat in Nikolai Ivanovich's place and would have gone to inspect for his purest ones. A Nikolay

Ivanovich became very sad about the money, he began to explain himself fervently and went back to Riga.

Here, of course, they grabbed Nikolai Ivanovich like a dog, dragged him to the police. They kept it until the morning. And in the morning they took a three-ruble fine from him and released him.

I feel very sorry for Nikolai Ivanovich now. Such, you know, an unfortunate case: a person, one might say, did not even look at the tape, he just held on to a ticket - and please chase three six hryvnias for this petty pleasure. And for what, one wonders, three six hryvnia?

Zoshchenko would not be himself if it were not for his manner of writing. It was a language unknown to literature, and therefore not having its own spelling language. Zoshchenko was endowed with absolute pitch and a brilliant memory. During the years spent in the midst of poor people, he managed to penetrate the secret of their conversational construction, with its characteristic vulgarisms, incorrect grammatical forms and syntactic constructions, he managed to adopt the intonation of their speech, their expressions, turns, words - he studied this language to the subtlety and already from the first steps in literature, he began to use it easily and naturally. In his language, expressions such as “plitoir”, “okromya”, “hresh”, “this”, “in him”, “brunette”, “drunk”, “for biting”, “fuck cry”, “ this poodle", "silent animal", "at the stove", etc. But Zoshchenko is a writer not only of a comic style, but also of comic situations. Not only his language is comical, but also the place where the story of the next story unfolded: a commemoration, a communal apartment, a hospital - everything is so familiar, familiar, everyday. And the story itself: a fight in a communal apartment because of a scarce hedgehog, a scandal at the wake because of a broken glass.

In the 1920s, the main genre varieties of the writer's work flourished: a satirical story, a comic novel and a satirical-humorous story. Already at the very beginning of the 1920s, the writer created a number of works that were highly appreciated by M. Gorky. Published in 1922 "Stories of Nazar Ilyich Mr. Sinebryukhov"

Got everyone's attention. Against the background of the short stories of those years, the figure of the hero-storyteller, the grated, experienced man Nazar Ilyich Sinebryukhov, who went through the front and saw a lot in the world, stood out sharply. M. Zoshchenko seeks and finds a kind of intonation, in which the lyrical-ironic beginning and the intimate-confiding note are fused together, removing any barrier between the narrator and the listener. Sometimes the narrative is quite skillfully built on the type of a well-known absurdity, beginning with the words "a tall man of short stature was walking." Such inconsistencies create a certain comic effect. True, while he does not have that distinct satirical orientation, which he will acquire later. In Sinebryukhov's Tales, such specific Zoshchenko turns of comic speech appear for a long time, which remained in the reader's memory, as "as if suddenly the atmosphere smelled of me", "they will rob me like sticky and throw them away for their kind, even if they are their own relatives", "second lieutenant wow, but bastard", "breaks the riots", etc. Subsequently, a stylistic game of a similar type, but with an incomparably sharper social meaning, will manifest itself in the speeches of other heroes - Semyon Semenovich Kurochkin and Gavrilych, on behalf of whom the narration was conducted in a number of the most popular comic short stories by Zoshchenko in the first half of the 20s. The works created by the writer in the 1920s were based on specific and very topical facts gleaned either from direct observations or from numerous letters from readers. Their themes are motley and varied: riots in transport and in hostels, grimaces of the New Economic Policy and grimaces of everyday life, the mold of philistinism and philistinism, arrogant pompadourism and creeping servility, and much, much more. Often the story is built in the form of a casual conversation with the reader, and sometimes, when the shortcomings became especially egregious, frankly journalistic notes sounded in the author's voice. In a series of satirical short stories, M. Zoshchenko maliciously ridiculed the cynically prudent or sentimentally pensive earners of individual happiness, intelligent scoundrels and boors, showed in the true light of vulgar and worthless people who are ready to trample on the path to arranging personal well-being to trample on everything truly human ("Matrenishcha", "Grimace of NEP", "Lady with flowers", "Nanny", "Marriage of convenience"). In Zoshchenko's satirical stories, there are no spectacular techniques for sharpening the author's thoughts. They are usually devoid of comedy intrigue. M. Zoshchenko acted here as a denouncer of spiritual Okurovism, a satirist of morals. He chose as the object of analysis the philistine-proprietor, the accumulator and money-grubber, who, from a direct political opponent, became an opponent in the sphere of morality, a hotbed of vulgarity. The circle of persons acting in Zoshchenko's satirical works is extremely narrow, there is no image of the crowd, the mass, visibly or invisibly present in humorous short stories. The pace of plot development is slow, the characters are deprived of the dynamism that distinguishes the heroes of other works of the writer. The heroes of these stories are less rude and uncouth than in humorous short stories. The author is primarily interested in the spiritual world, the system of thinking of an outwardly cultured, but all the more disgusting in essence, tradesman. Oddly enough, but in Zoshchenko's satirical stories there are almost no caricatured, grotesque situations, less comic and no fun at all. However, the main element of Zoshchenko's creativity of the 20s is still humorous everyday life. Zoshchenko writes about drunkenness, about housing affairs, about losers offended by fate. Zoshchenko has a short story "The Beggar" - about a hefty and impudent subject who got into the habit of regularly going to the hero-narrator, extorting fifty kopecks from him. When he was tired of all this, he advised the enterprising earner to drop in less often with uninvited visits. “He didn’t come to see me again - he must have been offended,” the narrator remarked melancholy in the finale. Breaking the connection between cause and effect is the traditional source of the comic. It is important to capture the type of conflicts characteristic of a given environment and era and convey them by means of satirical art. Zoshchenko is dominated by the motive of discord, worldly absurdity, some kind of tragicomic inconsistency of the hero with the pace, rhythm and spirit of the times. Sometimes Zoshchenko's hero really wants to keep up with progress. A hastily assimilated modern trend seems to such a respected citizen not only as a ride of loyalty, but as an example of organic adaptation to revolutionary reality. Hence the predilection for fashionable names and political terminology, hence the desire to assert their "proletarian" insides through bravado with rudeness, ignorance, and rudeness. The dominance of a trifle, the slavery of trifles, the comicality of the absurd and absurd - this is what the writer pays attention to in a series of sentimental stories. However, there is also much here that is new, even unexpected for the reader who knew Zoshchenko the novelist. Satire, like all Soviet fiction, changed significantly in the 1930s. The creative fate of the author of "The Aristocrat" and "Sentimental Tales" was no exception. The writer who exposed philistinism, ridiculed philistinism, wrote ironically and parodicly about the poisonous scum of the past, turns his eyes in a completely different direction. Zoshchenko is fascinated by the tasks of socialist transformation. He works in the large-circulation newspapers of Leningrad enterprises, visits the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, listening to the rhythms of the grandiose process of social renewal. There is a turning point in all his work: from the worldview to the tonality of the narrative and style. During this period, Zoshchenko was seized by the idea of ​​​​merging satire and heroism together. Theoretically, this thesis was proclaimed by him at the very beginning of the 1930s, and practically implemented in "Returned Youth" (1933), "The Story of a Life" (1934), the story "The Blue Book" (1935) and a number of stories of the second half: 30s. The satirist saw the amazing tenacity of life of all kinds of social weeds and by no means underestimated the ability of the tradesman and the layman to mimicry and opportunism. However, in the 1930s, new prerequisites arose to solve the eternal question of human happiness, due to gigantic socialist transformations, the cultural revolution. This has a significant impact on the nature and direction of the writer's work. Zoshchenko has teaching intonations that did not exist at all before. The satirist not only and even not so much ridicules, castigates, as patiently teaches, explains, interprets, referring to the mind and conscience of the reader. High and pure didactics was embodied with particular perfection in a cycle of touching and affectionate stories for children written in 1937-1938.