The characteristic of a landowner in Russia is to live well. The images of the peasants in the poem "To whom in Russia it is good to live

The poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia” was written by Nekrasov in the post-reform era, when the landlord essence of the reform became clear, which doomed the peasants to ruin and new bondage. The main, key idea of ​​the poem is the idea of ​​the inevitability of the collapse of the unjust and cruel autocratic-feudal system. The poem was supposed to lead the reader to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible only without the Obolt-Obolduevs and the Utyatins, when the people become the true master of their lives. Nekrasov defined the main content of the reform in the words of the peasants:
The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others - for a man! ..
In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia,” Nekrasov showed two worlds - the world of masters, landowners and the world of the peasantry. The writer puts the point of view of the peasant as the basis for characterizing the landowners.
One of them is Obolt-Obolduev. Already the name of the landowner is a peculiar characteristic. According to Dahl's dictionary, stunned meant: "an ignorant, uncouth blockhead." Obolt-Obolduev embodies the typical features of the feudal lords. Hero is 60 years old. He radiates with health, he has "valiant tricks", he is distinguished by a passionate love for earthly joys, for her pleasures. He is a good family man, not a tyrant. Nekrasov depicts his negative features (“the fist is my police”, “whoever I want, I will execute”) as class features of the feudal landlords. Everything that the landowner boasts of depreciates, acquires a different meaning. The mocking, hostile attitude that arose between the peasants and the landowner is a sign of class discord. When meeting with the peasants, the landowner grabs his pistol. Obolt-Obolduev refers to his word of honor of the nobility, and the peasants declare: “No, you are not noble to us, noble with a scolding, with a push and with a dent, it is unsuitable for us!”. Obolt-Obolduev treats the liberation of the peasants with mockery, and the peasants speak to him in an independent tone. Two worlds of interests, two irreconcilable camps are in a state of unrelenting struggle and "calibrate" their forces. The nobleman still revels in the "family tree", is proud of his father, who grew up in a family close to the royal family. And the peasants oppose the concept of “family tree” with the everyday, humorous: “We saw any tree.” The writer constructs a dialogue between the peasants and the landlords in such a way that the reader's understanding of the people's attitude towards the nobility becomes extremely clear. As a result of the conversation, the men understood the main thing: what does “the bone is white, the bone is black” and how much “they are different and respected”. The master’s words: “A man loved me” - they contrast the stories of the serfs “about their difficult crafts, alien sides, about St. Petersburg, about Astrakhan, about Kyiv, about Kazan”, where the “benefactor” sent peasants to work and from where “over , eggs and living creatures, everything that was collected for the landowner from time immemorial, voluntary peasants brought us gifts! The solemn story of the landowner about the "good" life is interrupted by an unexpectedly terrible picture. In Kuzminsky they buried the victim of a drunken revelry - a peasant. The wanderers did not condemn, but wished: "Peace to the peasant and the kingdom of heaven." Obolt-Obolduev took the death knell differently: “They are not ringing for a peasant! They call for landlord life! He lives in a tragic time for his class. He has no spiritual, social relationship with the breadwinner. The great chain broke, and “... the peasant is sitting - he won’t move, not noble pride - you feel bile in your chest. In the forest, it’s not a hunting horn, it sounds like a robber’s ax.
Peasants continue to be connoisseurs of events in the chapter "the last one". Wanderers on the Volga saw an unusual picture: the “free” people agreed to play “comedo” with the prince, who believed that serfdom had been returned. It is the joke that helps the poet to discover the failure of old relationships, to punish the past with laughter, which still lives and hopes, despite internal bankruptcy, to be restored. The emasculation of the Last One stands out especially expressively against the backdrop of a healthy Vakhlat world. In the characterization of Prince Utyatin, the question of the further decline of the landlord class acquires a special meaning. Nekrasov emphasizes the physical flabbiness and moral impoverishment of the landowner. "The latter is not only a feeble old man, he is a degenerate type." The writer brings his image to the grotesque. The old man who has gone out of his mind amuses himself with amusements, lives in the world of ideas of "untouched" feudalism. Family members create artificial serfdom for him, and he swaggers over the slaves. His anecdotal orders (on the marriage of an old widow to a six-year-old boy, on the punishment of the owner of an “irrespectful” dog that barked at the master), with all their seeming exclusivity, create a real idea that tyranny is limitless in its absurdity and can only exist under conditions of serfdom.
The image of the Afterlife becomes a symbol of death, a symbol of extreme forms of expression of serfdom.
People hate him and his kind. Despising, the peasants realized: maybe it’s more profitable to endure, “to keep quiet until the death of the old man.” The sons of Utyatin, fearing to lose their inheritance, persuade the peasants to play a stupid and humiliating comedy, pretending that the feudal system is alive. Nekrasov mercilessly exposes all the inhumanity and moral ugliness of this "last child" of feudal times. Peasant hatred for the landowner, for the master, was also reflected in those proverbs with which the peasants characterize the master landowner. Starosta Vlas says:
Praise the grass in a haystack

And the master is in the coffin!
More difficult and at the same time somehow simpler than Obolt-Obolduev and Prince Utyatin, the Shalashnikovs, father and son, as well as their manager, the German Vogel, spoke to the peasants. Matrena Timofeevna tells about them from the words of the Holy Russian hero Saveliy. Vogel acts before us. If Shalashnikov, according to Saveliy, beat the peasants out of quitrent, then the German Vogel “until he let him go around the world, without leaving, he sucks!” Nekrasov deepens the characterization of the nobility and forms of slavery. The Shalashnikovs are Russian serf-owners. The son can give orders: forgive Fyodor's "shepherd of the underage", and "probably punish" Matryona Timofeevna. But serfdom in the hands of a German is an unbearable thing. The German, “slowly, sawed,” sawed every day, without getting tired and without letting the hungry peasants take a break from overwork. In the third part of the poem - "Peasant Woman" Nekrasov contrasted the triumphant despotism of the landlords with the heroism of the people, introduced us to a number of representatives from the peasants, pointed out the weaknesses that are the reason that the victory has not yet come. Two new representatives of the people are depicted in close-up - Matryona Korchagina and grandfather Savely. In the poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia,” Nekrasov resolutely advocates a conscious and active struggle against landlord arbitrariness, for retribution against the oppressors. This was reflected in the new, democratic humanism of the poet, who denied the possibility of "reconciliation" and demanded vengeance for the crimes of the ruling classes.

In search of people's happiness

Not eternal care
Nor the yoke of long slavery,
Not a tavern by ourselves
More Russian people
Limits not set
Before him is a wide path.



Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, stern,
Eyelashes are the richest
Stern and swarthy.

But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This is an image that is also associated with Nekrasov's idea of ​​a perfect man. But here the poet's dream of a perfect life joins this. At the same time, the poet's ideal acquires modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a raznochinets by origin, the son of an "unrequited laborer," had to go through a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now it's over.

What will live for happiness

... The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.

In search of people's happiness

Nekrasov's high ideas about a perfect life and a perfect person made him write a great poem "Who in Russia should live well." Nekrasov worked on this work for many years. The poet gave part of his soul to this poem, putting into it his thoughts about Russian life and its problems.
The journey of the seven wanderers in the poem is a search for a beautiful person who lives happily. At least, this is an attempt to find one in their long-suffering land. It seems to me that it is difficult to understand Nekrasov's poem without understanding Nekrasov's ideal, which is somewhat close to the peasant's ideal, although it is much broader and deeper.
A particle of the Nekrasov ideal is already visible in the seven wanderers. Of course, in many ways they are still dark people, deprived of correct ideas about the life of the "tops" and "bottoms" of society. Therefore, some of them think that an official should be happy, others - a priest, a "fat-bellied merchant", a landowner, a tsar. And for a long time they will stubbornly adhere to these views, defending them, until life brings clarity. But what sweet, kind men they are, what innocence and humor shine on their faces! These are eccentric people, or rather, with an eccentric. Later, Vlas will tell them this: "We are strange enough, and you are more wonderful than us!"
Wanderers hope to find a corner of paradise on their land - Untouched province, Undisturbed volost, Redundant village. Naive, of course, desire. But that's why they are people with a weirdo, to want, to go and look. In addition, they are truth-seekers, one of the first in Russian literature. It is very important for them to get to the bottom of the meaning of life, to the essence of what happiness is. Nekrasov greatly appreciates this quality among his peasants. Seven men are desperate debaters, they often "shout - they won't come to their senses." But it is precisely the dispute that pushes them forward along the road of boundless Russia. "They care about everything" - everything that they see, they wind it on their mustache, they notice it.
Tenderly and lovingly wanderers relate to the nature around them. They are sensitive and attentive to herbs, bushes, trees, flowers, they can understand animals and birds and talk to them. Turning to the bird, Pahom says: "Give us your wings. We will fly around the whole kingdom." Each of the wanderers has its own character, its own view of things, its own face, and at the same time together they represent something soldered, united, inseparable. They often even speak in unison. This image is beautiful, not without reason the sacred number seven unites the peasants.
Nekrasov in his poem draws a real sea of ​​\u200b\u200bpeople's life. Here are beggars, and soldiers, and artisans, and coachmen; here is a peasant with rims, and a peasant who overturned a wagon, and a drunken woman, and a bear hunter; here are Vavilushka, Olenushka, Parashenka, Trofim, Fedosey, Proshka, Vlas, Klim Lavin, Ipat, Terentyeva and many others. Without closing his eyes to the hardships of people's life, Nekrasov shows the poverty and destitution of the peasants, recruitment, exhausting work, lack of rights and exploitation. The poet does not hide the darkness of the peasants, their drunken spree.
But we clearly see that even in slavery the people managed to save their living soul, their golden heart. The author of the poem conveys diligence, responsiveness to other people's suffering, spiritual nobility, kindness, self-esteem, daring and gaiety, moral purity, characteristic of a peasant. Nekrasov claims that "good soil is the soul of the Russian people." It is hard to forget how the widow Efrosinya selflessly takes care of the sick during cholera / how the peasants help Vavila and the disabled soldier with "work, bread". In various ways, the author reveals the "gold of the people's heart", as it is said in the song "Rus".
The craving for beauty is one of the manifestations of the spiritual wealth of the Russian people. The episode when, during a fire, Yakim Nagoi saves not the money he collected with such difficulty, but the pictures he loved so much, has a deep meaning. I also remember the peasant singer, who had a very beautiful voice, with which he "captivated the hearts of the people." That is why Nekrasov so often, speaking of peasants, uses nouns with endearing suffixes: an old woman, soldiers, children, a clearing, a path. He is convinced that neither the burdensome "work"
Not eternal care
Nor the yoke of long slavery,
Not a tavern by ourselves
More Russian people
Limits not set
Before him is a wide path.
The heartfelt anger that sometimes manifests itself in action among the peasants, in their decisive struggle against the oppressors, is of particular importance for Nekrasov. It shows people full of thirst for social justice. These are Ermil Girin, Vlas, Agap Petrov, the peasants who hate the Last, participating in the rebellion in Stolbnyaki, Kropilnikov, Kudeyar.
Savely occupies an important place among these characters. The poet gives him the features of a hero. They are already evident in the appearance of old Korchagin: with his “great gray mane .., with a huge beard, grandfather looked like a bear.” he went alone on a bear. But the main thing is that he despises slavish obedience and courageously stands for the interests of the people. It is curious that he himself notes heroic traits in a peasant: "The back ... dense forests passed through it - they broke ... The hero endures everything !" But sometimes he does not tolerate it. From silent patience, Savely and his friends from Korezhin pass to passive, and then to open, active protest. This is evidenced by the story of the German bully Vogel. The story is cruel, but its ending is caused by that popular anger, The result was twenty years of penal servitude and lashes, “twenty years of settlement.” But Savely endures and overcomes these ordeals.
Nekrasov glorifies the mighty forces lurking among the people, and the spiritual beauty that this centenary grandfather has preserved. He can be touched at the sight of a squirrel in the forest, admire "every flower", treat his granddaughter, Matryona Timofeevna, tenderly and touchingly. There is something epic in this Nekrasov hero, it is not for nothing that they call him, like Svyatogora, "the hero of the Holy Russian." I would put an epigraph to a separate theme of Saveliy's words: "Branded, but not a slave!"
To the words of the grandfather, his granddaughter Matrena Timofeevna listens to his biography. It seems to me that in her image Nekrasov also embodied some facet of his aesthetic ideal. The spiritual beauty of the national character is captured here. Matryona Korchagina embodies the best, heroic traits inherent in a Russian woman, which she carried through suffering, hardship and trials. Nekrasov attached such great importance to this image, enlarged it so much that he needed to devote a whole third of the poem to it. It seems to me that Matryona Timofeevna absorbed all the best that was planned separately in Troika, and in Orina, the soldier’s mother, and in Daria from the poem Frost, Red Nose. The same impressive beauty, then the same grief, the same unbrokenness.It is hard to forget the appearance of the heroine:
Matryona Timofeevna - Possessive woman,
Wide and dense, Thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful, gray hair,
The eyes are large, stern,
Eyelashes are the richest
Stern and swarthy.
The confession of her female soul to the wanderers remains in memory, in which she told about how she was intended for happiness, and about her happy moments of life (“I had happiness in girls”), and about the difficult female fate. Narrating the tireless work of Korchagina (shepherding from the age of six, working in the field, behind a spinning wheel, household chores, slave labor in marriage, raising children), Nekrasov reveals another, important side of his aesthetic ideal: like her grandfather Savely, Matrena Timofeevna carried through all the horrors of her life human dignity, nobility and disobedience.
“I carry an angry heart...” - the heroine sums up her long, hard-won story about a sad life. Some kind of majesty and heroic power emanates from her image. No wonder she is from the Korchagin family. But she, like many other people met by wanderers in their wanderings and searches, cannot be called happy.
But Grisha Dobrosklonov is a completely different matter. This is an image with which Nekrasov's idea of ​​a perfect man is also associated. But here the poet's dream of a perfect life joins this. At the same time, the poet's ideal acquires modern everyday features. Dobrosklonov is exceptionally young. True, he, a raznochinets by origin, the son of an "unrequited laborer," had to go through a hungry childhood and a difficult youth while studying at the seminary. But now it's over.
Grisha's life connected him with work, everyday life, the needs of his fellow countrymen, peasants, and his native Vakhlachina. The peasants help him with food, and he rescues the peasants with his labor. Grisha mows, reaps, sows with the peasants, wanders in the forest with their children, rejoices in peasant songs, peers at the work of artel workers and barge haulers on the Volga:
... fifteen years old Grigory already knew for sure
What will live for happiness
Wretched and dark native corner.
Being there, "where it is difficult to breathe, where grief is heard," Nekrasov's hero becomes the spokesman for the aspirations of ordinary people. Vakhlachina, “with her blessing, placed such a messenger in Grigory Dobrosklonov.” And for him the share of the people, their happiness become an expression of their own happiness.
With his features, Dobrosklonov resembles Dobrolyubov: origin, surnames, seminary education, general illness - consumption, a penchant for poetic creativity. It can even be considered that the image of Dobrosklonov develops the ideal that is drawn by Nekrasov in the poem "In Memory of Dobrolyubov", a little "lowering him to the ground" and a little "warming" him. Like Dobrolyubov. Fate prepared Grisha
... The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
In the meantime, Grisha wanders in the fields, meadows of the Volga region, absorbing the natural and peasant worlds that open up to the front. He seems to be merged with "high curly birches", just as young, just as bright. It is no coincidence that he writes poetry and songs. This feature of him makes the image of Grisha especially attractive. "Merry", "The share of the people", "In a moment of despondency, oh motherland", "Burlak", "Rus" - in these songs it is easy to hear the main themes: the people and the suffering, but rising to freedom of the Fatherland. In addition, he hears the song of the angel of mercy "among the far world" and goes - according to her call - to "the humiliated and offended." In this he sees his happiness and feels like a harmonious person living a true life. He is one of those sons of Russia, whom she sent "on honest paths", as they are marked with the "seal of the gift of God."
Gregory is not afraid of the upcoming trials, because he believes in the triumph of the cause to which he devoted his whole life. He sees that the people of many millions themselves are awakening to struggle.
The army rises innumerable,
The power in it will be indestructible!
This thought fills his soul with joy and confidence in victory. The poem shows what a strong effect the words of Gregory have on the peasants and on the seven wanderers, what they infect with faith in the future, in happiness for all of Russia. Grigory Dobrosklonov - the future leader of the peasantry, the spokesman for his anger and reason.
Our wanderers would howl under their native roof,
If only they could know what happened to Grisha.
He heard immense strength in his chest,
Gracious sounds delighted his ears,
Sounds of the radiant hymn of the noble -
He sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people.
Nekrasov offers his own solution to the question of how to unite the peasantry and the Russian intelligentsia. Only the joint efforts of the revolutionaries and the people can lead the Russian peasantry onto the broad road of freedom and happiness. In the meantime, the Russian people are only on their way to "a feast for the whole world."


Images of landowners in the poem "Who in Russia should live well"

In his great poem, Nekrasov looks at the landowners through the eyes of peasants. This is how, for example, Obolt-Obolduev is depicted (what is his last name alone!):

Some kind of round gentleman,

mustachioed, pot-bellied,

With a cigar in my mouth...

Diminutive and endearing forms, traditional in folk poetry, here enhance the ironic sound of the story, emphasize the insignificance of the "round" person.

In peasant speech, a mockery of bars is often heard.

We corvee have grown

Under the snout of the landowner, -

say the peasants, and one word "snout" is enough to understand their attitude towards their master.

The ideal of happiness, which is embodied in the story of Obolt-Obolduev, speaks of his spiritual poverty:

I smoked the sky of God,

He wore the livery of the king,

Littered the people's treasury

And I thought to live like this for a century ...

With undisguised triumph, Nekrasov draws the collapse of the ideal of landlord happiness in the chapter "Last Child". Its very name has a deep meaning. We are talking not only about Prince Utyatin, but also about the last landowner-serf, and his death symbolizes the death of the serf system. No wonder it causes such joy among the peasants. In the image of the Last Child, Nekrasov achieves an exceptional sharpness of satirical denunciation. This is a slave owner who has gone out of his mind, and there is nothing human even in his outward appearance:

The nose is beaked like a hawk.

Mustache gray, long

And - different eyes:

One healthy - glows,

And the left one is cloudy, cloudy,

Like a pewter!

But the Last One is not only funny - he is also scary. This is a cruel feudal torturer. Corporal violence has become a habit with him, the sounds of beatings coming from the stable give him pleasure.

With malicious sarcasm, images of other enemies of the people are also drawn: governors, officers - "unrighteous judges", merchants, contractors.

Priests are also among the enemies of the people. Even a kind-hearted and sympathetic priest is forced to exploit them. He himself complains:

Live from the same peasants

Collect worldly hryvnia...

Nekrasov also creates a different image of the priest - a ruthless extortionist who does not at all sympathize with the people. This is Pop Ivan. He is indifferent to the grief of a peasant woman: even when the corpse of her son Demushka is opened, he jokes. And having drunk together with the guards, he scolds the peasants:

Our people are all naked and drunk.

For a wedding, for a confession

Due to years.

The poem convincingly proves that old Russia is changing its appearance, but the feudal lords have remained the same. Fortunately, their slaves are gradually beginning to change. The people are awakening, and the poet hopes:

Russia does not stir

Russia is dead!

And lit up in it

The crowning achievement of N. A. Nekrasov is the folk epic poem “Who should live well in Russia”. In this monumental work, the poet sought to show as fully as possible the main features of contemporary Russian reality and reveal the deep contradictions between the interests of the people and the exploitative essence of the ruling classes, and above all the local nobility, which in the 20-70s of the XIX century had already completely outlived itself as an advanced class. and began to hinder the further development of the country.

In a dispute between peasants about “who lives happily, freely in Russia,” the landowner was declared the first contender for the right to call himself happy. However, Nekrasov significantly expanded the plot framework outlined by the plot of the work, as a result of which the image of the landowner appears in the poem only in the fifth chapter, which is called “The Landowner”.

For the first time, the landowner appears to the reader as the peasants saw him: "Some gentleman is round, mustachioed, pot-bellied, with a cigar in his mouth." With the help of diminutive forms, Nekrasov conveys the condescending, contemptuous attitude of the peasants towards the former owner of living souls. The following author's description of the appearance of the landowner Obolt-Obolduev (Nekrasov uses the meaning of a surname) and his own story about his "noble" origin further enhances the ironic tone of the narration.

The basis of the satirical image of Obolduev is a striking contrast between the significance of life, nobility, learning and patriotism, which he attributes to himself with “dignity”, and the actual insignificance of existence, extreme ignorance, emptiness of thoughts, baseness of feelings. Grieving about the pre-reform time, dear to his heart, with "every luxury", endless holidays, hunting and drunken revelry, Obolt-Obolduev takes the absurd pose of the son of the fatherland, the father of the peasantry, who cares about the future of Russia. But let us remember his confession: "He littered the people's treasury." He makes ridiculous "patriotic" speeches: "Mother Russia, willingly lost her chivalrous, warlike, majestic appearance." The enthusiastic story of Obolt-Obolduev about the life of landlords under serfdom is perceived by the reader as an unconscious self-exposure of the insignificance and meaninglessness of the existence of former serfs.

For all his comicality, Obolt-Obolduev is not so harmlessly funny. In the past, a convinced serf-owner, even after the reform he hopes, as before, "to live by the labor of others", in which he sees the purpose of his life.

However, the times of such landlords are over. This is felt both by the feudal lords themselves and by the peasants. Although Obolt-Obolduev speaks to the peasants in a condescending, patronizing tone, he must endure the unequivocal peasant mockery. Nekrasov also feels this: Obolt-Obolduev is simply unworthy of the author's hatred and deserves only contempt and unfriendly ridicule.

But if Nekrasov speaks of Obolt-Obolduev with irony, then the image of another landowner in the poem - Prince Utyatin - is described in the chapter "Last Child" with obvious sarcasm. The very title of the chapter is symbolic, in which the author, sharply sarcastically using to some extent the technique of hyperbolization, tells the story of a tyrant - a "last child" who does not want to part with the feudal orders of landlord Russia.

If Obolt-Obolduev nevertheless feels that there is no return to the old, then the old man Utyatin, who has gone out of his mind, even in whose appearance there is little human left, over the years of lordship and despotic power, has become so imbued with the conviction that he is the "divine grace" master, to whom "on it is written to the family to watch over the stupid peasantry”, that the peasant reform seems to this despot something unnatural. That is why it was not difficult for relatives to assure him that "the peasants were ordered to turn back the landowners."

Talking about the wild antics of the "last child" - the last feudal lord Utyatin (which seem especially wild in the changed conditions), Nekrasov warns of the need for a decisive and final eradication of all remnants of serfdom. After all, it was they who, preserved in the minds of not only former slaves, ultimately killed the “intractable” peasant Agap Petrov: “If it were not for such an opportunity, Agap would not have died.” Indeed, unlike Obolt-Obolduev, Prince Utyatin, even after serfdom, remained in fact the master of life (“It is known that it was not self-interest, but arrogance that cut him off, he lost Mote”). Ducks are also feared by wanderers: “Yes, the master is stupid: sue later ...” And although Posledysh himself - the “holy fool landowner”, as the peasants call him, is more ridiculous than scary, Nekrasov’s ending of the chapter reminds the reader that the peasant reform did not bring a genuine liberation to the people and real power still remains in the hands of the nobility. The heirs of the prince shamelessly deceive the peasants, who in the end lose their water meadows.

The whole work is imbued with a sense of the inevitable death of the autocratic system. The support of this system - the landowners - are depicted in the poem as "last-born" living out their lives. The ferocious Shalashnikov has long been gone from the world, Prince Utyatin died a "landowner", the insignificant Obolt-Obolduev has no future. The picture of the deserted manor estate, which is taken away brick by brick by the servants, has a symbolic character (chapter "Peasant Woman").

Thus, opposing in the poem two worlds, two spheres of life: the world of the gentlemen of the landowners and the world of the peasantry. Nekrasov, with the help of satirical images of landowners, leads readers to the conclusion that the happiness of the people is possible without Obolt-Obolduev and the Utyatins, and only when the people themselves become the true masters of their lives.

The plot basis of the poem is the search for the happy in Russia. N. A. Nekrasov aims to cover as widely as possible all aspects of the life of the Russian village in the period immediately after the abolition of serfdom. And therefore, the poet cannot do without describing the life of Russian landowners, especially since who, if not them, in the opinion of the peasant walkers, should live “happily, freely in Russia”. The peasants and the master are irreconcilable, eternal enemies. “Praise the grass in a haystack, and the master in a coffin,” says the poet. As long as gentlemen exist, there is not and cannot be happiness for the peasant - this is the conclusion to which N. A. Nekrasov leads the reader of the poem with iron consistency.

Nekrasov looks at the landlords through the eyes of the peasants, without any idealization and sympathy, drawing their images. The landowner Shalashnikov is shown as a cruel tyrant and oppressor, subjugating his own peasants by “military force”. Mr. Polivanov is cruel and greedy, unable to feel a sense of gratitude and accustomed to doing only as he pleases.

Episodic references to “masters” are present throughout the entire text of the poem, but in the chapter “Landlord” and part “Last Child”, the poet completely shifts his gaze from folk Russia to landowner Russia and introduces the reader to a discussion of the most critical moments of Russia's social development.

The meeting of the peasants with Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev, the hero of the chapter "The Landowner", begins with the landowner's misunderstanding and irritation. It is these feelings that determine the whole tone of the conversation. Despite the fantastic nature of the situation when the landowner confesses to the peasants, N. A. Nekrasov manages to very subtly convey the experiences of the former serf-owner, who cannot bear the thought of the freedom of the peasants. In a conversation with the seekers of the truth, Obolt-Obolduev constantly “breaks down”, his words sound mockingly:

... Put on your hats,

Sit down, gentlemen)

The poet angrily tells satirically about the life of the landowners in the recent past, when "the chest of the landowner breathed freely and easily." Obolt-Obolduev speaks of those times with pride and sadness. The master, who owned “baptized property”, was a sovereign king in his patrimony, where everything “subdued” him:

No contradiction,

Whom I want - I have mercy,

Whom I want - I execute, -

recalls the former landowner. In conditions of complete impunity, the rules of behavior of the landlords, their habits and views were formed:

Law is my wish!

The fist is my police!

sparkling blow,

a crushing blow,

Cheekbone blow!..

But the landowner immediately stops short, trying to explain that strictness, in his opinion, came only from love. And he recalls, perhaps, even scenes dear to the heart of the peasant: a common prayer with the peasants during the all-night service, the gratitude of the peasants for the lord's mercy. It's all gone. “Now Russia is not the same!” - Obolt-Obolduev says bitterly, talking about the desolation of estates, drunkenness, thoughtless cutting down of gardens. And the peasants do not interrupt, as at the beginning of a conversation, the landowner, because they know that all this is true. The abolition of serfdom really hit "one end on the master, the other on the peasant."

The chapter "The Landowner" brings the reader to an understanding of the reasons why serf Russia could not be happy. N. A. Nekrasov leaves no illusions, showing that a peaceful solution to the age-old problem of landowners and peasants is impossible. Obolt-Obolduev is a typical image of a feudal lord who was accustomed to living according to special standards and considered the labor of the peasants a reliable source of his abundance and well-being. But in the part “Last Child”, the poet shows that the habit of ruling is just as characteristic of the landowners as the peasants - the habit of submitting. Prince Utyatin is a gentleman who "has been acting weird all his life, fooling around." Even after the 1861 reform, he remained a cruel feudal despot. The news of the royal decree causes Utyatin to have a stroke, and the peasants play a ridiculous comedy, helping the landowner to remain convinced that serfdom has returned. The “last child” becomes the personification of the master's arbitrariness and the desire to outrage the human dignity of the serfs. Completely unaware of his peasants, the prince gives ridiculous orders: he orders a six-year-old boy to be married to a seventy-year-old widow, he appoints a deaf-mute as a watchman, he orders the shepherds to calm the herd so that the cows do not wake up the master with their lowing. Not only are the orders of the “last child” absurd, even more absurd and strange is he himself, stubbornly refusing to come to terms with the abolition of serfdom.

From the pictures of the past, N. A. Nekrasov moves on to the post-reform years and convincingly proves that old Russia is changing its appearance, but the feudal lords have remained the same. Fortunately, their slaves are gradually beginning to change, although there is still a lot of humility in the Russian peasant. There is still no movement of popular strength that the poet dreams of, but the peasants are no longer waiting for new troubles, the people are awakening, and this gives the author reason to hope that Russia will be transformed.

“The Legend of the Two Great Sinners” sums up the original reflections of N. A. Nekrasov about sin and happiness. In accordance with the ideas of the people about good and evil, the murder of the cruel pan Glukhovsky, who, boasting, teaches the robber:

You have to live, old man, in my opinion:

How many slaves I destroy

I torture, I torture, I hang,

And I would like to see how I sleep! -

becomes a way to cleanse your soul from sins. This is a call addressed to the people, a call to get rid of tyrants.

N.A. Nekrasov wrote a wonderful poem “Who should live well in Russia”. Its writing began in 1863, two years after the abolition of serfdom in Russia. It is this event that stands at the center of the poem. The main question of the work can be understood from the title - this is the problem of happiness. As planned, Nekrasov showed all social strata in the poem: from the peasant to the king. I will focus on the middle class - on the landowners.

Their life is represented in the poem by four characters: G.A.Obolt-Obolduev, Utyatin (last child), Shalashnikov and H.Kh.Vogel.

In the course of the work, the first person we meet is Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev. To the question of wanderers “Is the life of the landowner sweet?” he gives a very detailed answer. At first, he explains how the life of a landowner differs from that of a peasant - by a family tree: “The older the noble tree is, the richer, more honorable the nobleman is.” Then Gavrila Afanasyevich begins to recall his former life: “We lived like in Christ’s bosom, and we knew honor.” He also talks about his patrimony, the richness of its nature. Obolt-Obolduev recalls that earlier noble houses were huge estates (“Houses with greenhouses, with Chinese gazebos, and English parks ...”), in which there were “a whole regiment” of servants. Holidays in the old days were famous for their splendor and immensity. The following is a description of the persecution of the beast. It was such a wide event that it could not be compared with any other in its size. According to the landowner, hunting could be equated with a military campaign: “Each landowner has a hundred hounds in the loose, each has a dozen greyhounds on horseback, each with cooks, with provisions, a convoy.”

After describing all kinds of celebrations, Gavrila Afanasyevich starts talking about the peasants. As if even before the abolition of serfdom, he did not enslave the peasants, but “attracted hearts more with affection”, cited a number of examples confirming this.

But everything he told recently ceased to exist (“And everything passed, and everything passed”). Now there are few representatives left of the large landlord class, and they do not live the way they used to: the peasant is completely out of hand, the land is neglected, forests are being cut down, estates are being transferred. And the reason for everything that happened, according to Obolt-Obolduev, was the reform of 1861.

This is how the first representative of the “noble estate” describes the life of the landlord. Then another landowner meets - Prince Utyatin. He, like all subsequent ones, is shown as an oppressor, tormentor, money-grubber. His life is free, because he does not have to work: dependent peasants do all the work. It was due to their efforts that he amassed "exorbitant wealth." But all this was before 1861. After the reform, both his life and the life of the peasants had to change, like that of Obolt-Obolduev. But it was not there: Utyatin did not recognize the new order and continued to lead an idle life until his death.

In the third part of the poem, two more landowners are presented. But their life passed a century before the reform. First, it tells about the landowner Shalashnikov. This character was more greedy than power-hungry. For the dues paid on time, he left the village alone, and he could immediately cancel any punishment for a bribe.

Another contemporary of Shalashnikov, Khristian Khristianovich Vogel, was more cunning and far-sighted. At first he lived modestly, he did not burden the peasants with taxes. But after the implementation of his plan, the peasants "came to penal servitude." The German got rich, became wealthy, built a factory. He also made his fortune through the labor of the peasants.

After analyzing the lives of four landowners, I concluded that they lived the same way both before 1861 and after. The reform did not introduce major changes in the life of the peasants and the life of the landowners. The latter continued to lead an idle life, not at all caring about the peasants.