The storyline of the work reveals the relationship between a predator and its prey, presented in the form of a cowardly hare and a cruel wolf.

The conflict of the fairy tale described by the writer is the fault of the hare, which did not stop at the call of a stronger animal, for which the wolf is sentenced to death, but at the same time the wolf does not seek to destroy the prey at the same second, but enjoys his fear for several days, forcing hare expect death under a bush.

The narration of the tale is aimed at describing the feelings of a hare, who is frightened not only by the disastrous moment, but also worries about the abandoned hare. The writer depicts the whole gamut of suffering of an animal, unable to resist fate, timidly, submissively accepting its own dependence and lack of rights in front of a stronger beast.

The main feature of the psychological portrait of the main character, the writer calls the manifestation of slavish obedience by the hare, expressed in complete obedience to the wolf, overpowering the instincts of self-preservation and elevated to an exaggerated degree of vain nobility. Thus, in a fabulously satirical manner, the writer reflects the qualities typical of the Russian people in the form of an illusory hope for a merciful attitude on the part of a predator, which have been brought up since ancient times by class oppression and elevated to the status of virtue. At the same time, the hero does not even dare to think about any manifestations of disobedience to his tormentor, believing his every word and hoping for his false pardon.

The hare rejects not only his own life, being paralyzed by fears, but also the fate of his hare and future offspring, justifying his actions before his conscience with the cowardice inherent in the hare family and inability to resist. The wolf, watching the torment of his victim, enjoys his apparent dedication.

The writer, using the techniques of irony and a humorous form, shows, using the example of the image of a hare, the need to reform his own self-consciousness, driven into a dead end by fears, obsequiousness, admiration for the almighty and superior, blind obedience to any manifestations of injustice and oppression. Thus, the writer creates a socio-political type of a person who embodies unprincipled cowardice, spiritual narrow-mindedness, submissive poverty, expressed in the perverted consciousness of the people, who have developed harmful servile tactics of adapting to a violent regime.

Option 2

The work "Selfless Hare" M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin tells about the relationship between the strong and weak side of the character.

The main characters of the story are a wolf and a hare. The wolf is a domineering tyrant who boosts his self-esteem at the expense of the weakness of others. The hare is, by nature, a cowardly character, following the lead of the wolf.

The story begins with the bunny hurrying home. The wolf noticed him and called out. Oblique stepped up even more. For the fact that the hare did not obey the wolf, he sentences him to death. But, wanting to mock the weak and helpless bunny, the wolf puts him under a bush in anticipation of death. The wolf scares the hare. If he disobeys him and tries to escape, the wolf will eat his entire family.

The hare is no longer scared for himself, but for his hare. He calmly submits to the wolf. And he just mocks the victim. He lets the poor fellow go to the hare for just one night. The hare must make offspring - the future dinner for the wolf. The cowardly hare must return by morning, otherwise the wolf will eat his whole family. The hare submits to the tyrant, and does everything as ordered.

The hare is the slave of the wolf, fulfilling all his whims. But the author makes it clear to the reader that such behavior does not lead to good. The outcome was still disastrous for the hare. But he did not even try to fight the wolf and show the courage of his character. Fear clouded his brain and swallowed everything without a trace. The hare justified himself before his conscience. After all, cowardice and oppression are inherent in his whole family.

The author describes in the face of a hare a large part of humanity. In modern life, we are afraid to make decisions, to bear responsibility, to go against the foundations and prevailing circumstances. This is the most common type of people who are spiritually limited and do not believe in their own strength. It's easier to adapt to bad conditions. And the outcome remains deplorable. It will be good only for a tyrant. Struggle is the key to success.

We, together with the hare, must fight against violence and injustice. After all, for every action there is a reaction. That's the only way to win.

Some interesting essays

• Composition based on the work of Yushka Platonov (reasoning)

  The story "Yushka" is the story of the life of a man who knew how to love those around him selflessly and disinterestedly. He gave this love all of himself, completely dissolving in it. But it is also a story about the imperfection of this world.

  Probably, there is no such person who would not be offended at least once, and maybe more than once by his relatives or close people, and maybe even strangers. And each person reacts to it differently.

Fairy tale "Selfless Hare". Fairy tale "Sane Hare"

The theme of denunciation of cowardice with the "Wise Minnow" is approached simultaneously with the written "Selfless Hare". These tales do not repeat, but complement each other in exposing the slave psychology, illuminating its different aspects.

The tale of the selfless hare is a vivid example of Shchedrin's crushing irony, exposing, on the one hand, the wolf habits of the enslavers, and, on the other, the blind obedience of their victims.

The tale begins with the fact that a hare was running not far from the wolf's lair, and the wolf saw him and shouted: “Hare! Stop, honey!" And the hare only added more pace. The wolf got angry, caught him, and said: “I sentence you to deprivation of the stomach by tearing it to pieces. And since now I am full, and my wolf is full ... then you sit here under this bush and wait in line. Or maybe ... ha ha ... I will have mercy on you! What is a hare? I wanted to run away, but as soon as he looked at the wolf's lair, "a hare's heart began to pound." The hare sat under a bush and lamented that he had so much left to live and his hare dreams would not come true: ! The bride's brother galloped up to him one night and began to persuade him to run away to the ill hare. More than ever, the hare began to lament about his life: “For what? How did he deserve his bitter fate? He lived openly; But no, the hare cannot even move from its place: “I can’t, the wolf didn’t order!”. And then a wolf and a she-wolf came out of the lair. The hares began to make excuses, convinced the wolf, moved the she-wolf to pity, and the predators allowed the hare to say goodbye to the bride, and leave her brother with the amanat.

A hare released on a visit “like an arrow from a bow” hurried to the bride, ran, went to the bathhouse, wrapped it, and ran back to the lair - to return by the specified date. The way back was hard for the hare: “He runs in the evening, runs in the middle of the night; his legs are cut with stones, his hair hangs in clumps from thorny branches on his sides, his eyes are clouded, bloody foam oozes from his mouth ... ". He after all "a word, you see, gave, and the hare to the word - the master". It seems that the hare is very noble, he only thinks about how not to let his friend down. But nobility towards the wolf stems from slavish obedience. Moreover, he realizes that the wolf can eat him, but at the same time he stubbornly harbors the illusion that "maybe the wolf will have mercy on me ... ha ha ... and have mercy!" This kind of slave psychology overpowers the instinct of self-preservation and is elevated to the level of nobility and virtue.

The title of the tale with surprising accuracy outlines its meaning, thanks to the oxymoron used by the satirist - the combination of opposite concepts. The word hare is always figuratively synonymous with cowardice. And the word selfless in combination with this synonym gives an unexpected effect. Selfless cowardice! This is the main conflict of the story. Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the reader the perversity of human properties in a society based on violence. The wolf praised the selfless hare, who remained true to his word, and issued a mocking resolution to him: “... sit, for the time being ..., and later I will have mercy on you!”.

The wolf and the hare not only symbolize the hunter and the victim with all their corresponding qualities (the wolf is bloodthirsty, strong, despotic, angry, and the hare is cowardly, cowardly and weak). These images are filled with topical social content. Behind the image of the wolf, the exploitative regime is "hidden", and the hare is a layman who believes that a peaceful agreement with the autocracy is possible. The wolf enjoys the position of the ruler, the despot, the whole wolf family lives according to the “wolf” laws: both the cubs play with the victim, and the wolf, ready to devour the hare, pities him in her own way ...

However, the hare also lives according to the laws of the wolf. The Shchedrin Hare is not just cowardly and helpless, but cowardly. He refuses to resist in advance, going to the wolf's mouth and making it easier for him to solve the "food problem". The hare believed that the wolf had the right to take his life. The hare justifies all his actions and behavior with the words: “I can’t, the wolf didn’t order!”. He is accustomed to obey, he is a slave to obedience. Here the author's irony turns into caustic sarcasm, into deep contempt for the psychology of a slave.

A hare from Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Sane Hare”, “although it was an ordinary hare, it was a clever one. And he reasoned so sensibly that it was just right for a donkey. Usually this hare sat under a bush and talked to himself, reasoned on various topics: “Everyone, he says, is given his own life to the beast. Wolf - wolf, lion - lion, hare - hare. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your life, no one asks you: live, that's all, ”or“ They eat us, eat, and we, hares, that year, we breed more ”, or“ These vile people, these wolves - this must be told the truth . All they have is robbery on their minds!” But one day he decided to flaunt his common sense in front of the hare. “The hare spoke and spoke,” and at that time the fox crept up to him and let's play with him. The fox stretched out in the sun, ordered the hare to "sit closer and chat," and she "plays comedies in front of him."

Yes, the fox taunts the "sane" hare in order to eventually eat it. Both she and the hare understand this very well, but they cannot do anything. The fox is not even very hungry to eat a hare, but since "where is it seen that the foxes themselves let go of their dinner," then one has to obey the law willy-nilly. All the clever, justifying theories of the hare, the idea that he has completely mastered the regulation of wolf appetites, are shattered to smithereens on the cruel prose of life. It turns out that hares were created to be eaten, and not to create new laws. Convinced that wolves will not stop eating hares, the sensible "philosopher" developed a project for a more rational eating of hares - so that not all at once, but one by one. Saltykov-Shchedrin here ridicules attempts to theoretically justify slavish "hare" obedience and liberal ideas about adapting to a regime of violence.

The satirical sting of the tale of the "sane" hare is directed against petty reformism, cowardly and harmful populist liberalism, which was especially characteristic of the 80s.

The tale "The Sane Hare" and the tale "The Selfless Hare" preceding it, taken together, give an exhaustive satirical description of the "hare" psychology in both its practical and theoretical manifestations. In "The Selfless Hare" we are talking about the psychology of an irresponsible slave, and in "The Sane Hare" - about a perverted consciousness that has developed a servile tactic of adapting to a regime of violence. Therefore, the satirist treated the "sensible hare" more severely.

These two works are one of the few in the cycle of Shchedrin's fairy tales that end in a bloody denouement (also "Karas the Idealist", "The Wise Gudgeon"). With the death of the main characters of the fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes the tragedy of ignorance of the true ways of fighting evil, with a clear understanding of the need for such a struggle. In addition, these tales were influenced by the political situation in the country at that time - the ferocious government terror, the defeat of populism, the police persecution of the intelligentsia.

Comparing the fairy tales "The Selfless Hare" and "The Sane Hare" in artistic rather than ideological terms, one can also draw many parallels between them.

The plots of both fairy tales are based on folklore, the conversational speech of the characters is consonant. Saltykov-Shchedrin uses elements of living, folk speech that have already become classic. The satirist emphasizes the connection of these fairy tales with folklore with the help of numerals with non-numerical meanings (“far away kingdom”, “because of distant lands”), typical sayings and sayings (“the trail is cold”, “runs, the earth trembles”, “not in a fairy tale to say, not to describe with a pen”, “soon the fairy tale is told ...”, “don’t put your finger in your mouth”, “neither a stake, nor a yard”) and numerous constant epithets and vernacular (“presytehonka”, “slandering fox”, “splurge” , “come back”, “Oh, you, miserable, miserable!”, “hare life”, “make good”, “tasty morsel”, “bitter tears”, “great misfortunes”, etc.).

When reading the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, it is always necessary to remember that the satirist wrote not about animals and about the relationship between predator and prey, but about people, covering them with masks of animals. Similarly, in fairy tales about the "sensible" and "selfless" hares. The language favored by the author of the Aesops gives the tales richness, richness of content and does not in the least make it difficult to understand all the meaning, ideas and morality that Saltykov-Shchedrin puts into them.

In both fairy tales, elements of reality are woven into fantastic, fairy-tale plots. The “sensible” hare daily studies “statistical tables published at the Ministry of Internal Affairs ...”, and they write about the “selfless” hare in the newspaper: “Here in the Moskovskie Vedomosti they write that hares do not have a soul, but steam - but out he's like ... flies away! The "sensible" hare also tells the fox a little about real human life - about peasant labor, about market entertainment, about recruiting. The fairy tale about the “selfless” hare mentions events invented by the author, unreliable, but essentially real: “In one place it rained, so that the river, which the hare swam jokingly a day earlier, swelled and overflowed ten miles. In another place, King Andron declared war on King Nikita, and on the hare's very path the battle was in full swing. In the third place, cholera manifested itself - it was necessary to go around a whole quarantine chain of 100 versts ... ".

Saltykov-Shchedrin, in order to ridicule all the negative features of these hares, used the appropriate zoological masks. Since a coward, submissive and humble, then this is a hare. This mask the satirist puts on the cowardly inhabitants. And the formidable force that the hare is afraid of - the wolf or the fox - personifies the autocracy and the arbitrariness of royal power.

Evil, angry ridicule of slave psychology is one of the main tasks of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tales. In the fairy tales "The Selfless Hare" and "The Sane Hare" the heroes are not noble idealists, but cowardly townsfolk, hoping for the kindness of predators. Hares do not doubt the right of a wolf and a fox to take their lives, they consider it quite natural that the strong eat the weak, but they hope to touch the wolf's heart with their honesty and humility, and to speak to the fox and convince them of the correctness of their views. Predators are still predators.

Grotesque is a term that means a type of artistic imagery (image, style, genre) based on fantasy, laughter, hyperbole, a bizarre combination and contrast of something with something. In the genre of the grotesque, the ideological and artistic features of Shchedrin's satire were most clearly manifested: its political sharpness and purposefulness, the realism of its fantasy, the ruthlessness and depth of the grotesque, the sly sparkling humor.

"Tales" Shchedrin in miniature contain the problems and images of the entire work of the great satirist. If Shchedrin wrote nothing besides "Fairy Tales", then they alone would give him the right to immortality. Of the thirty-two tales of Shchedrin, twenty-nine were written by him in the last decade of his life (most from 1882 to 1886), and only three tales were created in 1869. Fairy tales, as it were, sum up the forty years of the writer's creative activity. Shchedrin often resorted to the fairy-tale genre in his work. There are also elements of fairy-tale fantasy in The History of a City, while the satirical novel Modern Idyll and the chronicle Abroad include completed fairy tales.

And it is no coincidence that Shchedrin's fairy tale genre flourished in the 1980s. It was during this period of rampant political reaction in Russia that the satirist had to look for a form that was most convenient for circumventing censorship and at the same time the closest, understandable to the common people. And the people understood the political acuteness of Shchedrin's generalized conclusions hidden behind Aesop's speech and zoological masks. The writer created a new, original genre of political fairy tale, which combines fantasy with real, topical political reality.

In Shchedrin's fairy tales, as in all of his work, two social forces confront each other: the working people and their exploiters. The people appear under the masks of kind and defenseless animals and birds (and often without a mask, under the name "man"), the exploiters - in the images of predators. The symbol of peasant Russia is the image of Konyaga - from the fairy tale of the same name. Konyaga is a peasant, a worker, a source of life for everyone. Thanks to him, bread grows in the vast fields of Russia, but he himself has no right to eat this bread. His destiny is eternal hard labor. “There is no end to the work! The whole meaning of his existence is exhausted by work ... ”- the satirist exclaims. Konyaga is tortured and beaten to the limit, but only he is able to liberate his native country. “From century to century, the formidable immovable bulk of the fields freezes, as if guarding a fairy-tale force in captivity. Who will free this force from captivity? Who will bring her into the world? This task fell to two creatures: the muzhik and Konyaga ... This tale is a hymn to the working people of Russia, and it is no coincidence that it had such a great influence on Shchedrin's contemporary democratic literature.

In the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" Shchedrin, as it were, summarized his thoughts on the reform of the "liberation" of the peasants, contained in all his works of the 60s. Here he poses an unusually acute problem of the post-reform relations between the feudal nobility and the peasantry completely ruined by the reform: “A cattle will go to the watering place - the landowner shouts: my water! a chicken will wander out of the village - the landowner shouts: my land! And earth, and water, and air - all of it became! There was no torch for the peasant to light in the light, there was no more rod than to sweep the hut. So the peasants prayed with the whole world to the Lord God: - Lord! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!”

This landowner, like the generals from the tale of two generals, had no idea about labor. Abandoned by his peasants, he immediately turns into a dirty and wild animal. He becomes a forest predator. And this life, in essence, is a continuation of his previous predatory existence. The savage landowner, like the generals, acquires the outward human appearance again only after his peasants return. Scolding the savage landowner for his stupidity, the police officer tells him that the state "cannot exist" without peasant "taxes and duties", that without peasants everyone will starve to death, "it is impossible to buy a piece of meat or a pound of bread in the bazaar" and even money from there will be no sir. The people are the creators of wealth, and the ruling classes are only consumers of this wealth.

The raven petitioner turns to all the highest authorities of his state in turn, begging to improve the unbearable life of the raven men, but in response he hears only “cruel words” that they cannot do anything, because under the existing system, the law is on the side of the strong. “Whoever overcomes is right,” the hawk instructs. “Look around - everywhere there is discord, everywhere there is strife,” the kite echoes him. This is the "normal" state of a proprietary society. And although "the crow lives in society, like real men," it is powerless in this world of chaos and predation. The men are defenseless. “Everything is fired at them from all sides. Now the railway will shoot, then a new car, then a crop failure, then a new requisition. And they just know they flip. How did it happen that Guboshlepov got the way, after that they lost a hryvnia in their wallet - how can a dark person understand this? * the laws of the world around them.

The carp from the fairy tale "Karas-idealist" is not a hypocrite, he is truly noble, pure in soul. His ideas as a socialist deserve deep respect, but the methods of their implementation are naive and ridiculous. Shchedrin, being himself a socialist by conviction, did not accept the theory of the utopian socialists, he considered it the fruit of an idealistic view of social reality, of the historical process. “I don’t believe... that struggle and strife were a normal law, under the influence of which everything living on earth is supposedly destined to develop. I believe in bloodless prosperity, I believe in harmony ... ”- the crucian ranted. It ended up that the pike swallowed it, and swallowed it mechanically: it was struck by the absurdity and strangeness of this sermon.

In other variations, the theory of the idealist crucian was reflected in the fairy tales "The Selfless Hare" and "The Sane Hare". Here, the heroes are not noble idealists, but cowardly townsfolk, hoping for the kindness of predators. Hares do not doubt the right of the wolf and fox to take their lives, they consider it quite natural that the strong eat the weak, but they hope to touch the wolf's heart with their honesty and humility. “Maybe the wolf… ha ha… will have mercy on me!” Predators are still predators. Zaitsev is not saved by the fact that they "did not allow revolutions, did not go out with weapons in their hands."

Shchedrin's wise gudgeon, the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, became the personification of the wingless and vulgar philistine. The meaning of life for this "enlightened, moderately liberal" coward was self-preservation, avoiding clashes, avoiding struggle. Therefore, the minnow lived to a ripe old age unharmed. But what a humiliating life it was! It all consisted of continuous trembling for its own skin. "He lived and trembled - that's all." This fairy tale, written during the years of political reaction in Russia, struck without a hitch at the liberals who grovel before the government because of their own skin, at the townsfolk hiding in their holes from the social struggle. For many years, the passionate words of the great democrat sunk into the souls of the thinking people of Russia: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows. Such "minnows"-townsfolk Shchedrin showed in the novel "Modern Idyll".

The Toptygins from the fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, sent by the lion to the voivodeship, set the goal of their rule to commit as much “bloodshed” as possible. By this they aroused the anger of the people, and they suffered "the fate of all fur-bearing animals" - they were killed by the rebels. The same death from the people was accepted by the wolf from the fairy tale "Poor Wolf", which also "robbed day and night." In the fairy tale "The Eagle-Maecenas" a devastating parody of the king and the ruling classes is given. The eagle is the enemy of science, art, the protector of darkness and ignorance. He destroyed the nightingale for his free songs, literate woodpecker "dressed ... in shackles and imprisoned in a hollow forever", ruined the raven-muzhiks to the ground. It ended up that the ravens rebelled, "the whole herd took off and flew away", leaving the eagle to die of starvation. “Let this serve as a lesson to the eagles!” - the satirist concludes the tale meaningfully.

All of Shchedrin's tales were subjected to censorship and many alterations. Many of them were published in illegal publications abroad. The masks of the animal world could not hide the political content of Shchedrin's fairy tales. The transfer of human features - both psychological and political - to the animal world created a comic effect, clearly exposed the absurdity of the existing reality.

The fantasy of Shchedrin's fairy tales is real, carries a generalized political content. Eagles are "predatory, carnivorous...". They live “in alienation, in impregnable places, they are not engaged in hospitality, but they rob” - this is what the fairy tale about the medenat eagle says. And this immediately draws the typical circumstances of the life of the royal eagle and makes it clear that we are not talking about birds at all. And further, by combining the atmosphere of the bird world with things that are by no means bird-like, Shchedrin achieves high political pathos and caustic irony. There is also a fairy tale about the Toptygins, who came to the forest to “pacify their inner adversaries”. Do not obscure the political meaning of the beginnings and endings, taken from magical folk tales, the image of Baba Yaga, Leshy. They only create a comic effect. The discrepancy between form and content contributes here to a sharp exposure of the properties of the type or circumstance.

Sometimes Shchedrin, having taken traditional fairy-tale images, does not even try to introduce them into a fairy-tale setting or use fairy-tale tricks. Through the lips of the heroes of the fairy tale, he directly sets out his idea of ​​social reality. Such, for example, is the fairy tale "Neighbors".

The language of Shchedrin's fairy tales is deeply folk, close to Russian folklore. The satirist uses not only traditional fairy tale tricks, images, but also proverbs, sayings, sayings (“If you don’t give a word, be strong, but if you give it, hold on!”, “There will be no two deaths, one cannot be avoided”, “Ears do not grow above the forehead” , “My hut on the edge”, “Simplicity is worse than theft”). The dialogue of the characters is colorful, the speech draws a specific social type: an imperious, rude eagle, a beautiful-hearted idealist crucian, an evil reactionary in a pinch, a hypocrite priest, a dissolute canary, a cowardly hare, etc.

The images of fairy tales came into use, became common nouns and live for many decades, and the universal types of objects of satire by Saltykov-Shchedrin are still found in our lives today, you just need to take a closer look at the surrounding reality and think.

The work of the great Russian satirist M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a significant phenomenon, generated by special historical conditions in Russia in the 50s-80s of the XIX century.

A writer, a revolutionary democrat, Shchedrin is a vivid representative of the sociological trend in Russian realism and, at the same time, a deep psychologist, in the nature of his creative method, different from the great writers-psychologists of his day. In the 80s, a book of fairy tales was created, since with the help of fairy tales it was easier to convey revolutionary ideas to the people, to reveal the class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, in the era of the formation of the bourgeois system. The Aesopian language helps the writer in this, with the help of which he disguises his true Intentions and feelings, as well as his heroes, so as not to attract the attention of censorship. In the early work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, there are fabulous images of "zoological assimilation." In the "Provincial essays", for example, sturgeon and piskari act; provincial aristocrats manifest the properties of either a kite or a toothy pike, and in the expression of their faces one can guess "that she will remain without objection." Therefore, the writer explores in fairy tales the types of social behavior shown by time.

He ridicules all kinds of adaptations, hopes, unrealizable hopes dictated by the instinct of self-preservation or naivety. Neither the dedication of a hare sitting under a bush according to the "wolf's resolution", nor the wisdom of a squeaker, hiding in a hole, save from death. What better way, it seems, has adapted to the policy of "hedgehogs" dried vobla.

“Now I have no extra thoughts, no extra feelings, no extra conscience - nothing like that will happen,” she rejoiced. But according to the logic of the time, “vague, unfaithful and cruel”, the vobla was also “gobbled up”, since “it turned from a triumphant into a suspect, from a well-intentioned one into a liberal”. Shchedrin ridiculed the liberals especially mercilessly. In letters of this time, the writer often likened the liberal to an animal. “... If only one liberal pig expressed sympathy! ”- he wrote about the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski. "There is no animal more cowardly than the Russian liberal."

And in the artistic world of fairy tales, indeed, there was no animal equal in meanness to a liberal. It was important for Shchedrin to name the social phenomenon he hated in his own language and to stigmatize him for all time (“liberal”). The writer treated his fairy-tale characters in different ways. His laughter, both angry and bitter, is inseparable from the understanding of the suffering of a person doomed to "stare his forehead at the wall and freeze in this position." But with all the sympathy, for example, for the idealist carp and his ideas, Shchedrin took a sober look at life.

By the fate of his fairy tale characters, he showed that the refusal to fight for the right to life, any concession, reconciliation with the reaction is tantamount to the spiritual and physical death of the human race. Intelligibly and artistically convincing, he inspired the reader that the autocracy, like a hero born of Baba Yaga, was rotten from the inside and it was pointless to expect help or protection from him (“Bogatyr”). Moreover, the activities of the tsarist administrators are invariably reduced to "atrocities." "Atrocities" can be "shameful", "brilliant", "natural", but they remain "atrocities" and are due not to the personal qualities of the "Toptygins", but to the principle of autocratic power, hostile to the people, disastrous for the spiritual and moral development of the nation as a whole ( "Bear in the Voivodeship"). Let the wolf once let go of the lamb, let some lady donate “chunks of bread” to the victims of the fire, and the eagle “forgave the mouse”.

But “why, however, did the eagle “forgive” the mouse? She ran across the road on her business, and he saw, swooped in, crumpled and ... forgave! Why did he "forgive" the mouse, and not the mouse "forgave" him? - the satirist directly puts the question. Such is the “anciently established” order, in which “wolves skin hares, and kites and owls pluck crows”, bears ruin the peasants, and “bribe-takers” rob them (“Toy business people”), idle talk, and horses sweat persons are working ("Konyaga"); Ivan the Rich even on weekdays eats cabbage soup “with slaughter”, and Ivan Poor and on holidays - “with empty” (“Neighbours”). It is impossible to correct or soften this order, just as it is impossible to change the predatory nature of a pike or a wolf.

The pike, unwillingly, “swallowed the crucian”. And the wolf, not of its own accord, “is so cruel, but because its complexion is tricky: it can’t eat anything but meat.

And in order to get meat food, he cannot act otherwise than to deprive a living being of life. In a word, he undertakes to commit villainy, robbery. Predators are subject to destruction, Shchedrin's fairy tales simply do not suggest any other way out. The personification of the wingless and vulgar philistine was Shchedrin's wise scribbler - the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. The meaning of the life of this "enlightened, moderately liberal" coward was self-preservation, avoiding the struggle.

Therefore, the scribbler lived unharmed to a ripe old age. But what a miserable life it was! It all consisted of continuous trembling for its own skin. He lived and trembled - that's all.

This fairy tale, written during the years of political reaction in Russia, hit the liberals, who kowtowed before the government because of their own skins, and the townsfolk who hid in their holes from the social struggle without a miss. For many years, the passionate words of the great democrat sunk into the souls of the thinking people of Russia: “Those who think that only those scribblers can be considered worthy are wrong. my citizens, who, mad with fear, sit in holes and tremble. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless scribblers. The fantasy of Shchedrin's fairy tales is real, carries a generalized political content.

Eagles are "predatory, carnivorous...". They live "in alienation, in impregnable places, they are not engaged in hospitality, but they rob" - this is what the fairy tale about the eagle-philanthropist says.

And this immediately draws the typical circumstances of the life of the royal eagle and makes it clear that we are talking about birds. And further, by combining the atmosphere of the bird's world with things that are by no means bird-like, Shchedrin achieves a comic effect and caustic irony.

("Selfless Bunny")

"The Selfless Hare" was written in 1883 and is organically included in the most famous collection of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Tales". The collection is provided with an explanation of the author: "Tales for children of a fair age." "The Selfless Hare", as well as the fairy tales "Poor Wolf" and "The Sane Hare" within the entire collection constitute a kind of trilogy, which belongs to the group of fairy tales that are sharp political satire on the liberal intelligentsia and bureaucracy.

It turns out that the selflessness of the hare lies in the fact that he does not want to deceive the wolf who sentenced him to death, and, hastily getting married, overcoming terrible obstacles (the flood of the river, the war of King Andron with King Nikita, the cholera epidemic), rushed to the lair with his last strength wolf by the appointed time. The hare, identifying the liberal-minded bureaucracy, does not even think that the wolf has no right to pass sentence: "... I sentence you to deprivation of the stomach by tearing to pieces." The writer angrily exposes the slavish obedience of enlightened people to those in power, even Aesopian language does not prevent the reader from understanding that the hare with its far-fetched selflessness looks like a nonentity. All the newly-appeared relatives of the hare, to whom the wolf gave two days to marry, approves the decision of the hare: “You, oblique, said the truth: without giving a word, be strong, but after giving it, hold on! It has never happened in all our hare family that hares cheated! The satirist writer leads the reader to the conclusion that verbal husks can justify inaction. All the energy of the hare is directed not to resisting evil, but to fulfilling the order of the wolf.

“-I, your honor, will come running ... I will turn around in an instant ... that's how holy God will come running! - the convict hurried and, so that the wolf would not doubt ... he suddenly pretended to be such a good fellow that the wolf himself admired him and thought: “If only my soldiers were like that!” Animals and birds marveled at the agility of the hare: “Here in the Moskovskie Vedomosti they write that the hares do not have a soul, but steam, and how he flies away!” On the one hand, the hare, of course, is a coward, but, on the other hand, the bride's brother remained hostage to the wolf. However, this is not, according to the writer, a reason for meek fulfillment of the wolf's ultimatum. After all, the gray robber was full, lazy, he did not keep hares in captivity. One wolf cry was enough for the hare to voluntarily agree to accept its evil fate.

“The selfless hare” does not have a fabulous beginning, but there are fairy sayings (“neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen”, “soon the fairy tale is told ...”) and the expression (“It runs, the earth trembles”, “far away kingdom”). Fairy tale characters, as in folk tales, are endowed with the properties of people: the hare got married, went to the bathhouse before the wedding, etc. "," fell in love with another, "the wolf ate", "the bride is dying"), proverbs and sayings ("caught in three jumps", "grabbed by the scruff", "drink tea-sugar", "fell in love with all my heart", " rubs with fear”, “don’t put your finger in your mouth”, “shot like an arrow from a bow”, “it spills with bitter tears”). All this brings the tale "The Selfless Hare" closer to folk tales. In addition, the use of the magical fairy-tale number "three" (three obstacles on the way back to the wolf's lair, three enemies - wolves, foxes, owls, three hours should have remained with the hare in reserve, the hare drove himself three times with the words: , not to tears ... just to snatch a friend out of the wolf's mouth! he will take it “to Uru”; the river - he doesn’t even look for a ford, it scratches right into the swim; a swamp - he jumps from the fifth bump to the tenth, “neither mountains, nor valleys, nor forests, nor swamps - he doesn’t care about anything ”, “shouted like a hundred thousand hares together”) enhance the resemblance to a folk tale.

“Self-sacrificing hare” there are concrete everyday details and signs of real historical time, which does not happen in folk tales (the hare dreamed that he became an “official for special assignments” under the wolf, the wolf, “while he runs on revisions, visit his hare walks”, “he lived openly, did not let revolutions, did not go out with a weapon in his hands”, “conspiracy of sentries to escape”, hares called the wolf “your honor”). Thirdly, the writer uses the words and expressions of book vocabulary, and the more insignificant the occasion, the higher the vocabulary is used (“luminous wolf’s eye”, “condemned for a moment seemed to be transformed”, “praises the hare for nobility”, “his legs are excised with stones ”,“ bloody foam oozes at the mouth”, “the east turned red”, “splashed with fire”, “the heart of a tortured beast”). The originality of the fairy tale by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin lies precisely in the features of the difference from the folk tale. The folk tale strengthened the belief of ordinary people that evil would someday be defeated, thereby, according to the writer, accustomed people to the passive expectation of a miracle. The folk tale taught the simplest things, its task was to amuse, amuse. The satirist writer, preserving many features of the folk tale, wanted to ignite the hearts of people with anger, to awaken their self-awareness. Open calls for revolution, of course, would never be allowed to be published by censors. Using the technique of irony, resorting to the Aesopian language, the writer in the fairy tale "The Selfless Hare" showed that the power of wolves rests on the slavish habit of hares to obedience. A particularly bitter irony sounds at the end of the tale:

"- Here am I! Here! - Shouted oblique, like a hundred thousand hares together.

"Poor wolf". Here is its beginning: “Another beast, probably, would have been touched by the dedication of a hare, would not have limited himself to a promise, but now would have had mercy. But of all the predators found in temperate and northern climates, the wolf is the least capable of generosity. However, it is not by his own will that he is so cruel, but because his complexion is tricky: he cannot eat anything but meat. And in order to get meat food, he cannot act otherwise than to deprive a living being of life. The compositional unity of the first two tales of this peculiar trilogy helps to understand the politically active position of the satirist writer. Saltykov-Shchedrin believes that social injustice is inherent in the very nature of man. It is necessary to change the thinking not of one person, but of the whole nation.