"Living Russia" in the poem "Dead Souls. Living Russia in the poem N

In the poem by N. V. Gogol " Dead Souls"reflected" all the good and bad that is in Russia from us "(N. Gogol).

The images of living souls are created in the poem exclusively at the lyrical level. Living and dead souls cannot collide at the story level.

How were the images of living souls embodied in the poem?

Secondly, the poem presents images of people from the people who carry within themselves just a living principle: in the author's lyrical digression at the beginning of the seventh chapter, peasants bought by Chichikov from Sobakevich, Korobochka come to life before our eyes ... The author, as if intercepting internal monologue of his hero, speaks of them as if they were alive, showing the truly living soul of the dead or fugitive peasants. Among the landlords and officials, one nonentity replaces another. But above this gathering of “non-smokers” the image of Russia rises. The living principle of Russian life, the future of the country, the writer connects with the people. Serfdom disfigures and cripples people, but it is not able to kill the living soul of a Russian person, which lives both in the “smart, lively” Russian word, and in sharp mind, and in the fruits of labor of skillful hands. AT digressions Gogol creates images of boundless, wonderful Russia and the heroic people. Therefore, the poem ends with the image of Russia-troika. What will be the future of Russia, Gogol does not know. But the very pathos of this movement, which is associated with the soul of a Russian person, is important in the poem.

For an "ideal" world, the soul is immortal, for it is the embodiment divine beginning in a person. And in the “real” world, there may well be a “dead soul”, because for him the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person. In the episode of the prosecutor's death, those around him guessed that he "had definitely a soul" only when he became "only a soulless body." This world is insane - it has forgotten about the soul, and lack of spirituality is the reason for the collapse. Only with an understanding of this reason can the revival of Russia begin, the return of lost ideals, spirituality, and soul. The "ideal" world is the world of spirituality. It cannot contain Plyushkin, Sobakevich, Nozdrev, Korobochka. It has souls - immortal human souls. He is perfect in every sense of the word. And therefore this world cannot be recreated epic. Spiritual world describes a different kind of literature - lyrics. That is why Gogol defines the genre of the work as lyrical-epic, calling "Dead Souls" a poem.

On the pages of the poem, the peasants are depicted far from pink colors. Footman Petrushka sleeps without undressing and "always carries with him some special smell." The coachman Selifan is not a fool to drink. But it is precisely for the peasants that Gogol has good words and warm intonation when he speaks, for example, about Pyotr Disrespect-Trough, Ivan Koleso, Stepan Probka. These are all the people whose fate the author thought about and asked the question: “What have you, my hearts, been doing in your lifetime? How did you get along?”

"Gogol was the first to look boldly at Russian reality"

V.G. Belinsky

The theme of exposing bureaucracy runs through all of Gogol's work: it stands out both in the Mirgorod collection and in the comedy The Inspector General. In the poem "Dead Souls" it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom. The poem depicts feudal Russia, a country in which all the land with its wealth, its people belonged to the ruling noble class - serfs who provide their masters with an idle and carefree life. tragic fate enslaved people is especially strongly felt in the images of serfs. With them, Gogol speaks of the dullness and savagery that slavery brings to man. It is in this light that one must consider the images of Uncle Mityai, the girl Pelageya, who could not distinguish between right and left, Plyushkin's Proshka and Mavra, who were downtrodden to the extreme. Social depression and humiliation were imprinted on Selifan and Petrushka. The latter even had a noble impulse to read books, but he was more attracted not by what he read about, but by the process of reading itself, that some word always comes out of the letters, which sometimes the devil knows what it means.

Gogol, as in a mirror, reflected the whole disgusting essence of the noble-bureaucratic system with this wild police order, the morality of the feudal lords and the arbitrariness of the landowners. In this regard, Chichikov's discussions about serfs and runaway peasants in the seventh chapter of the poem are of deep significance.

Korobochka has a pretty village, her yard is full of all kinds of birds, there are "spacious vegetable gardens with cabbage, onions, potatoes", there are apple trees and other fruit trees.

They live prosperously, almost in abundance, eighty souls,

They eat quite, satisfyingly sweet: there are a lot of apples, pears,

Pigs, cows, geese, turkeys, honey, bast and hemp,

Horses, laying hens, wheat and rye flour...

Korobochka is followed by another representative of the landlords, Nozdryov, in Gogol's gallery of feudal lords. This is a fidget, a hero of fairs, drinking parties and a card table. His business is extremely neglected. Only the kennel is in excellent condition. Among dogs, he is like a "father", among big family. The income received from the peasants, he immediately drinks away. This speaks of his moral decline, indifference to people.

Nozdryov's estate helps to better understand both his character and the miserable condition of his serfs, from whom he beats everything he can. Therefore, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion about the disenfranchised and impoverished position of the serfs of Nozdryov. Unlike Korobochka, Nozdryov is not prone to petty hoarding. His ideal is people who always know how to have fun living life, not burdened with any worries. There are few details in the chapter about Nozdryov that reflect the life of his serfs, but the description of the landowner itself provides comprehensive information about this, since for Nozdryov serfs and property are equivalent concepts.

Speaking of Plyushkin, Gogol exposes the horrors of serfdom. Gogol reports that Plyushkin is a swindler, he starved all people to death, that convicts live better in prison than his serfs. He considered the chapter on him one of the most difficult. After all, Plyushkin not only completes the gallery of landlord "dead souls" - this man bears the most obvious signs of an incurable deadly disease. The fate of Plyushkin's serfs speaks particularly impressively of the tragic fate of the Russian people, ruled by greedy, greedy, empty, wasteful and out of their mind people. That's why Gogol's poem inevitably makes one think about what a terrible evil serfdom has been in Russia for centuries, how it has crippled and broken the fate of people, slowed down the economic and cultural development countries.

With the practical landowner Sobakevich, the hoarding peculiar to Korobochka turned into genuine kulaks. The unbridled passion for enrichment pushes him to cunning, makes him seek more and more new means of profit. This is what makes him actively innovate: he introduces a cash quitrent on his estate. He looks at the serfs only as labor force and, even though he set up huts for peasants, marvelously cut down, he will tear off three skins from them. Some of the peasants he transferred to a monetary system of quitrent, which was beneficial to the landowner. Sobakevich takes care of his serfs, of course, not out of philanthropy, but out of consideration: if you offend a peasant, "it will be worse for you." Sobakevich (in this he differs from Plyushkin and most other landowners) has a certain economic streak (does not ruin his own serfs, achieves a certain order in the economy, sells profitably Chichikov dead souls, perfectly knows business and human qualities their peasants).

Sobakevich is an ardent feudal lord who never misses his advantage, even when it comes to dead peasants. Shameful bargaining because of the "dead souls" reveals the defining feature of his character - an uncontrollable desire for profit, greed, money-grubbing. When describing the image of Sobakevich, the writer widely uses the technique of hyperbolization. Suffice it to recall his monstrous appetite or portraits of commanders with thick legs and "unheard of mustaches" that adorned his office.

Unlike other landowners, he immediately understood the essence of Chichikov. Sobakevich is a cunning rogue, an impudent businessman who is difficult to deceive. He evaluates everything around him only from the point of view of his own benefit. In his conversation with Chichikov, the psychology of a kulak is revealed, who knows how to make the peasants work for themselves and extract the maximum benefit from this.

Gogol endowed each landowner with original, specific features. Whatever the hero, then a unique personality. But at the same time, his heroes retain ancestral, social signs: short cultural level, lack of intellectual inquiries, desire for enrichment, cruelty in the treatment of serfs, moral uncleanliness, lack of an elementary concept of patriotism. These moral monsters, as Gogol shows, are generated by feudal reality and reveal the essence of feudal relations based on the oppression and exploitation of the peasantry. Gogol's work stunned, first of all, the ruling circles and the landowners. The ideological defenders of serfdom argued that the nobility is the best part of the population of Russia, passionate patriots, the backbone of the state. Gogol dispelled this myth with images of landlords. Herzen said that the landowners "pass before us without masks, without embellishment, flatterers and gluttons, obsequious slaves of power and ruthless tyrants of their enemies, drinking the life and blood of the people ... "Dead Souls" shocked all of Russia."

With great force, Gogol indicted the feudal system, the whole way of life, in which Manilovism, Nozdrevschina, Plyushkin squalor are typical and everyday life phenomena. The poem shocked all of Russia, as it awakened the self-consciousness of the Russian people.

Gogol portrayed the image of the Motherland realistically, but with anger. Serfdom hindered the development of Russia. neglected villages, dull life, serfdom did not increase the dignity of Russia, did not exalt her, but dragged her into the past. Gogol saw a different Russia in his dreams. The image of a triple bird is a symbol of the power of his homeland. It has a leading role in world development.

1. Ambiguous assessment poems by critics.
2. " Alive soul» Russia and its components are the essence of the idea of ​​the poem Dead Souls.
3. The image of a troika bird as a symbol of the amazing vitality of Russia.

Creation is purely Russian, national, snatched from hiding places folk life...
V. G. Belinsky

These words of the critic-democrat V. G. Belinsky about N. V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" are the result of a deep insight into the essence of the intention of the creator of "Dead Souls". Gogol himself admitted in a letter to A. S. Pushkin that in this work he wanted to show "all of Russia" as it really is.

Many impartial words were heard against the writer from critics of the Slavophile persuasion that the poem contains only one negative. At first glance, this is true. Shown heroes: landowners, residents of the provincial city, central character Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, even the people, are far from perfect. What do we see through the eyes of Chichikov - rickety huts, mismanaged dreamers, windbags and brawlers, the emptiness and venality of officials, senseless hoarding and loss human dignity. The common people appear illiterate and downtrodden, living as they please and doing nothing to improve their situation. Chichikov's servant Petrushka, the coachman Selifan, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay, Plyushkin's Proshka and Mavra, the girl Pelageya, who does not distinguish between "right and left", drunken two peasants at the tavern, from whose dispute whether the carriage will reach Moscow or not, the poem begins - exist in their own narrow, narrow world. Even doing something, they either do not achieve a result, or simply do not understand the purpose of this activity. For example, Petrushka seems to be reading, but he does not follow the content and the meaning inherent in it, but how the letters form into words. Like him, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay cannot breed horses that are entangled in the traces.

However, this picture is an important, but not the main element of the poem. Its essence lies elsewhere. N. G. Chernyshevsky very accurately said about Gogol: “None of our great writers expressed the consciousness of their patriotic significance so vividly and clearly as in Gogol. He directly considered himself a man called to serve not art, but the fatherland; he thought to himself: "I'm not a poet, I'm a citizen." One can argue with the democratic writer in assessing the artistic gift of Gogol, who, in my opinion, was and remains one of consummate masters words in Russian literature. But Chernyshevsky is right about something else - this poem was civil feat Gogol the writer.

N.V. Gogol said that in his comedy "The Inspector General" there is one positive character - laughter. In the first volume of "Dead Souls" goodie is the "living soul" of Russia. Only here pain, bitterness and hope join the writer's laughter. The "living soul" of Russia, according to Gogol, is enclosed in its great history, her boundless expanse, her majesty, talent and wisdom of her people.

Dead Souls is a poem about Russia and for Russia. The author showed the ugliness of modern existence in order to awaken in readers a sense of rejection of this "dead" reality, in order to make them think about the meaning of their existence, about the future of the country. The concept of "dead souls" is multifaceted, it constantly changes the plane of perception and interpretation: these are both dead serfs and spiritually dead landowners and officials. Moreover, the first do not exist in the world, but the memory of them, their deeds, their work is alive, the second, it would seem, live, but their interests and way of life are dead. They will not exist, and no one will remember them, not even their descendants. So on whom does modern Russia rely, who is the source of its present and future aspirations?

The idea of ​​"Dead Souls" is constructed in such a way that the description of the Russia of the people, Russia of the living is given in much smaller volumes than the description of the Russia of the landlords. But in terms of its poetic tension and emotional intensity, the place occupied by living Russia in the poem far surpasses everything else. In lyrical digressions, reflections on the fate of the people, one hears greatest humanism writer. As the researchers figuratively noted, his sad song, rushing “over the whole face of the Russian land.” With special warmth and cordiality, the author describes the images of the dead and runaway peasants lost in the vast expanses of Russia.

Gogol admires their industriousness, endurance, physical strength, inner beauty. The crews of Mikheev's carriage driver were famous throughout the district for their extraordinary strength and beauty. The carpenter-bogatyr Stepan Cork "came all over the province with an ax in his belt and boots on his shoulders." The stove maker Milushkin could put a stove in any house. Talented shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov - "what pierces with an awl, then boots." Even in his early work, N.V. Gogol spoke with admiration and love about the abilities of the people, their courage, beauty, prowess, hard work: “A Russian person is capable of everything and will get used to any climate. Send him to live in Kamchatka, give me only warm mittens, he will clap his hands, an ax in his hands, and went to cut himself a new hut.

At the same time, Gogol also has the following phrase: "... there is no life for a Russian person, all Germans interfere, but Russian landowners tear their skin." The thirst for freedom and oppression are pushing the peasants to flee either into robbers, or into rebels, or into barge haulers, "dragging a strap to one endless song, like Russia." The songs of the people are a special theme for Gogol: "It is still a mystery - this immense revelry, which, one hears in our songs, rushes somewhere past life and the song itself, as if burning with the desire for a better homeland, for which man yearns from the day of creation."

The theme of peasant riots is also presented in the poem. Unspent energy, an inner strength that does not find an outlet can lead to a "binge of a wide life." This is the writer's warning and fear. But this is also the salvation of Russia, the path to revival: “Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful far away I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you, open, deserted and even everything in you; ... but what incomprehensible ... force attracts you? Why is your melancholy... song being heard and resounded? What does this vast expanse prophesy? Is it not here, in you, that an infinite thought is born, when you yourself are without end? Is it not possible for a hero to be here when there are places where he can turn around and walk around for him?

In lyrical digressions, Russia appears in symbolically triple bird, personifying power and inexhaustibility internal forces. This symbol of Russia turned out to be the exact expression of its path, its amazing vitality and aspiration to the future.

Even greatest genius he would not go far if he wanted to produce everything from himself ... If there is anything good in us, it is the power and ability to use the means of the external world and make them serve our highest goals.

The poem "Dead Souls" is the pinnacle of N.V. Gogol's work. In it, the great Russian writer truthfully depicted the life of Russia in the 30s years XIX century. But why does Gogol call his work a poem? After all, usually a poem is understood as a large poetic work with a narrative or lyrical plot. But before us prose work written in the genre of a travel novel.

The thing is that the writer's intention was not fully realized: the second part of the book was partially preserved, and the third was never written. The finished work, according to the author's intention, was to be correlated with “ Divine Comedy” Dante. The three parts of "Dead Souls" were supposed to correspond to the three parts of Dante's poem: "Hell", "Purgatory", "Paradise". In the first part, the circles of Russian hell are presented, while in other parts the reader was supposed to see the moral cleansing of Chichikov and other heroes.

Gogol hoped that with his poem he would really help the “resurrection” of the Russian people. Such a task required a special form of expression. Indeed, already some fragments of the first volume are endowed with a high epic content. So, the troika, in which Chichikov leaves the city of NN, imperceptibly transforms into a “bird troika”, and then becomes a metaphor for all of Russia. The author, together with the reader, seems to take off high above the ground and from there contemplate everything that happens. After the mustiness of the ossified way of life movement, space, a feeling of air appear in the poem.

At the same time, the movement itself is called "God's miracle", and the rushing Russia is referred to as "inspired by God." The strength of the movement is growing, and the writer exclaims: “Oh, horses, horses, what horses! Are whirlwinds sitting in your manes? Does your sensitive ear burn in every vein of yours? .. "Russia, where are you rushing to? Give an answer. Does not give an answer. A bell is filled with a wonderful ringing; the air, torn into pieces, rumbles and becomes a wind; everything that is on earth flies past, and, squinting, step aside and give her way to other peoples and states.

Now it becomes clear why Chichikov acts as a “lover of fast driving”. It was he who, according to Gogol's plan, was to be spiritually reborn in the next book, to merge with the soul of Russia. In general, the idea of ​​"traveling all over Russia with the hero and bringing out a wide variety of characters" made it possible for the writer to build the composition of the poem in a special way. Gogol shows all layers of Russia: officials, serf-owners and ordinary Russian people.

The image of the simple Russian people is inextricably linked in the poem with the image of the Motherland. The Russian peasants are in the position of slaves. Lords can be sold, exchanged; how a simple commodity is valued by a Russian peasant. Landowners do not see serfs in people. The box says to Chichikov: "Perhaps I'll give you a girl, she knows the way from me, only you look! Don't bring her, the merchants have already brought me one." The hostess is afraid of losing part of her household, not thinking at all about human soul. Even dead peasant becomes an object of purchase and sale, a means of profit. The Russian people are dying of hunger, epidemics, and the arbitrariness of the landowners.

The writer figuratively speaks of the downtroddenness of the people: "The police captain, even though he does not go himself, but send only one cap to his place, then this one cap will drive the peasants to their very place of residence." In the poem, you can meet Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minya, who are not able to breed horses on the road. Yard Pelageya does not know where the right side is, where the left is. But what could this unfortunate girl learn from her "club-headed" mistress?! Indeed, for officials and landlords, peasants are drunkards, stupid, incapable of anything people. Therefore, some serfs flee from their masters, unable to endure such a life, prefer prison to return home, like the peasant Popov from the Plyushkin estate. But Gogol paints not only terrible pictures of the people's lot.

The great writer shows how a Russian person is talented and rich in soul. Images of wonderful craftsmen, craftsmen stand before the eyes of the reader. With what pride Sobakevich speaks of his dead peasants! Karetnik Mikheev made excellent crews and performed his work conscientiously. "And Cork Stepan, the carpenter? I'll lay my head down if you find such a man somewhere," Chichikova Sobakevich convinces, talking about this heroic build. Bricklayer Milushkin "could put a stove in any house", Maxim Telyatnikov sewed beautiful boots, and "if only in the mouth of a drunkard." The Russian peasant was not a drunkard, says Gogol. These people were accustomed to work well, they knew their craft.

Ingenuity and resourcefulness are emphasized in the image of Yeremey Sorokoplekhin, who "traded in Moscow, brought five hundred rubles each dues." The gentlemen themselves recognize the efficiency of ordinary peasants: "Send him even to Kamchatka, give only warm mittens, he will clap his hands, an ax in his hands, and went to cut himself a new hut." Love for the working people, the peasant breadwinner is heard in every author's word. Gogol writes with great tenderness about the "agile Yaroslavl peasant" who gathered the Russian troika, about the "brisk people", the "brisk Russian mind".

The Russian man is remarkably able to use wealth vernacular. "It is expressed strongly Russian people!" exclaims Gogol, saying that there is no word in other languages, "which would be so bold, brisk, so bursting out from under the very heart, so seething and vibrant, like a well-spoken Russian word."

But all the talents and virtues common people set off even more strongly - a difficult situation. "Oh, the Russian folk! Doesn't like to die a natural death!" - Chichikov argues, looking through the endless lists of dead peasants. The bleak but true present was painted by Gogol in his poem.

However, the great realist writer had a bright conviction that life in Russia would change. N. A. Nekrasov wrote about Gogol: “He preaches love with a hostile word of denial.”

A true patriot of his country, passionately desiring to see the Russian people happy, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol scourged the Russia of his day with devastating laughter. Denying feudal Russia with its "dead souls", the writer expressed in the poem the hope that the future of the Motherland is not with the landowners or "knights of the penny", but with the great Russian people, who keep in themselves unprecedented opportunities.

The image of Russia in the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls".

work on" Dead souls Gogol began back in 1835 on the advice of Pushkin and on the plot suggested by him. The writer himself repeatedly emphasized the grandeur and breadth of his plan: “... what a huge, what original plot! What a varied bunch! All Russia will appear in it!” - he informed Zhukovsky in 1836.
AT " Dead souls” Gogol posed the most acute and painful questions modern life. He showed the decay of the serfdom, the historical doom of its representatives. At the same time, Gogol gave a devastating assessment of those manifestations of new, bourgeois tendencies, the desire for enrichment, the bearer of which is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. The very name of the poem - “Dead Souls” - had a tremendous revealing power, carried in itself, according to Herzen, “something terrifying”, “he could not call it otherwise; not revisionists - dead souls, but all these Nozdrevs. The Manilovs and all those like them are dead souls, and we meet them at every step”
“County sentimental dreamer”, “scumbag”, in the words of Belinsky. Manilov, it would seem, is not only harmless, but also pleasant in his treatment. He is helpful, kind, hospitable. Manilov dreams of "the well-being of a friendly life", makes fantastic plans for future improvements. But this is an empty phrase-monger, a "non-smoker", whose words are at odds with deeds.
Korobochka is a greedy hoarder, a “clubhead,” as Gogol called her, a money-grubbing woman devoid of any other feelings. Meanness, stinginess, petty greed, suspicion, and a complete lack of any interest distinguish this provincial landowner, one of those mothers of small landowners who cry over crop failures, losses and hold their heads somewhat on one side, and meanwhile they collect a little money in motley bags placed on chest of drawers."
A bright type, combining arrogance, deceit, importunity, unscrupulousness and complete promiscuity in the means to achieve their own selfish and vile goals, is the rogue and scoundrel Nozdryov.
The landowner Sobakevich, as it were, symbolizes the gloomy and heavy serfdom. This is an inveterate and convinced serf-owner, cynically exposing his rude and misanthropic nature. He is hostile to everything new, the very thought of “enlightenment” is hateful for him.
Closes this gallery Plyushkin - the limit of human fall, a terrible caricature of the owner. Among the world's images of the miser, created by Shakespeare, Moliere, Pushkin, Balzac. Plyushkin occupies a special place, standing out for the loss of everything human. Avarice became his disease, his passion. This is not so much a comic as a tragic figure.
Terrible in its immobility and inertia, the world of landlords, clinging to the old, living in the sphere of patriarchal-serf foundations, is opposed by the clever and enterprising swindler Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, on the purchase of which “dead souls” - serfs, still listed in the audit lists, the plot of the poem is based.
Chichikov is a man of a new formation. He is a businessman, an “acquirer”, a “knight of a penny”, in which negative traits penetration into Russia of new bourgeois-capitalist trends, the growing importance monetary relations. The ostentatious well-being of Chichikov is just a mask covering boundless selfishness and spiritual uncleanliness.
Satire, Gogol's "laughter" in "Dead Souls" are imbued with bitter reflection, intense, mournful feeling of the author. Showing all the ugliness and spiritual poverty of his heroes, he constantly experiences the loss of a human principle in them. This is “laughter through tears”, as the writer defined the originality of his creative method.
The poem was enthusiastically welcomed by Belinsky, who saw in it “a creation purely Russian, national, snatched from the hiding place of people’s life, as true as it is patriotic, mercilessly pulling off the veil from reality and breathing with passionate, bloody love for the fruitful grain of Russian life: an immensely artistic creation. ..”.

Tasks and tests on the topic "The Image of Russia in the poem by N.V. Gogol Dead Souls."

• Spelling - Important topics for repeating the exam in the Russian language

  Lessons: 5 Assignments: 7

• NGN with subordinate adverbial clauses (subordinate comparisons, modes of action, measures and degrees) - Complex sentence Grade 9

  Lessons: 3 Assignments: 7 Tests: 1