Short tales of Saltykov Shchedrin summary

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “... Literature, for example, can be called Russian salt: what will happen if salt ceases to be salty, if it adds voluntary self-restraint to restrictions that do not depend on literature ...”

This article is about the fairy tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin "Konyaga". In a brief summary, we will try to understand what the author wanted to say.

about the author

Saltykov-Shchedrin M. E. (1826-1889) - an outstanding Russian writer. Born and spent his childhood in a noble estate with many serfs. His father (Evgraf Vasilyevich Saltykov, 1776-1851) was a hereditary nobleman. Mom (Zabelina Olga Mikhailovna, 1801-1874) was also from a noble family. Having received elementary education, Saltykov-Shchedrin entered the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. After graduation, he began his career as a secretary in the military office.

In life, moving up in the service, he traveled a lot through the provinces and observed the desperately plight of the peasantry. Having a pen as a weapon, the author shares what he has seen with his reader, denouncing lawlessness, tyranny, cruelty, lies, immorality. Revealing the truth, he wanted the reader to be able to consider a simple truth behind a huge shaft of lies and myths. The writer hoped that the time would come when these phenomena would decrease and disappear, since he believed that the fate of the country was in the hands of the common people.

The author is outraged by the injustice happening in the world, the powerless, humiliated existence of serfs. In his works, he sometimes allegorically, sometimes directly denounces cynicism and callousness, stupidity and megalomania, greed and cruelty of those in power and authority at that time, the plight and hopeless situation of the peasantry. Then there was strict censorship, so the writer could not openly criticize the established state of affairs. But he could not endure in silence, like a "wise gudgeon", so he clothed his thoughts in a fairy tale.

Tale of Saltykov-Shchedrin "Konyaga": a summary

The author writes not about a slender horse, not about a submissive horse, not about a fine mare, and not even about a hard worker horse. And about the goner-horse, poor fellow, hopeless, meek slave.

How does he live, Saltykov-Shchedrin wonders in Konyaga, without hope, without joy, without the meaning of life? Where does he get strength for the daily hard labor of endless labor? They feed him and let him rest only so that he does not die and can still work. Even from the brief content of the fairy tale "Konyaga" it is clear that the serf is not a person at all, but a labor unit. “... It is not his well-being that is needed, but a life capable of enduring the yoke of work ...” And if you do not plow, who needs you, only damage to the economy.

Weekdays

In a brief summary of the “Konyaga”, first of all, it is necessary to tell how the stallion all year round does its job monotonously. From day to day the same thing, furrow after furrow, with the last of his strength. The field does not end, do not plow plow. For someone field-space, for the horse - bondage. Like a "cephalopod", it sucked and pressed, taking away strength. Hard bread. But he doesn't exist either. Like water in dry sand: it was and is not.

And probably there was a time when a horse frolic like a foal on the grass, played with the breeze and thought how beautiful, interesting, deep life is, how it sparkles with different colors. And now he lies thin in the sun, with protruding ribs, with shabby hair and bleeding wounds. Mucus flows from the eyes and nose. Before the eyes of darkness and lights. And around the flies, gadflies, stuck around, drinking blood, climb into the ears, eyes. And you have to get up, the field is not plowed up, and there is no way to get up. Eat, they tell him, you won't be able to work. And there’s no strength to reach out to food, he won’t even move his ear.

Field

Wide expanses, covered with greenery and ripe wheat, conceal a huge magic power life. She is chained in the ground. Freed, she would have healed the horse's wounds, removed the burden of worries from the peasant's shoulders.

In a brief summary of the "Konyaga" one cannot fail to tell how a horse and a peasant work on it day after day, like bees, giving their sweat, their strength, time, blood and life. For what? Wouldn't even a small fraction of the great power be enough for them?

Waste dances

In the summary of Saltykov-Shchedrin's "Konyaga" one cannot help but show horses-dancing. They consider themselves the chosen ones. Molded straw is for horses, and for them only oats. And they will be able to substantiate this competently, and convince that this is the norm. And their horseshoes are probably gilded and their manes are silky. They frolic in the expanse, creating for everyone the myth that the father-horse planned it that way: for one everything, for the other only a minimum, so that labor units do not die. And suddenly it is revealed to them that they are alluvial foam, and the peasant with the horse, who feed the whole world, are immortal. "How so?" - empty dancers will cackle, they will be surprised. How can a horse with a peasant be eternal? Where does their virtue come from? Each empty dance inserts its own. How can such an incident be justified for the world?

“Yes, he’s stupid, this man, he plows in the field all his life, where does the mind come from?” - something like this says one. In modern terms: "If so smart, why no money?" And what about the mind? The strength of the spirit is enormous in this frail body. “Labor gives him happiness and peace,” the other reassures himself. “Yes, he won’t be able to live in any other way, he’s used to the whip, take it away and he’ll disappear,” develops the third. And having calmed down, they joyfully wish, as if for the good of the disease: “... That's who you need to learn from! Here's who to imitate! N-but, hard labor, n-but!

Conclusion

The perception of the fairy tale "Konyaga" by Saltykov-Shchedrin is different for each reader. But in all his works the author regrets common man or denounces shortcomings ruling class. In the image of Konyaga and Peasant, the author has resigned, oppressed serfs, a huge number of working people who earn their little penny. “... How many centuries he bears this yoke - he does not know. How many centuries it is necessary to carry it ahead - does not count ... ”The content of the fairy tale“ Konyaga ”is like a brief digression into the history of the people.

Konyaga's life is not easy, all that is in it is hard everyday work. That work is tantamount to hard labor, but for Konyaga and the owner this work is the only way to earn a living. True, we were lucky with the owner: the man does not beat him in vain, when it is very difficult - he supports him with a shout. He releases the skinny horse to graze on the field, but Konyaga uses this time to rest and sleep, despite the painfully stinging insects.

For all, nature is a mother, for him alone she is a scourge and torture. Every manifestation of her life is reflected on him with torment, every flowering with poison.

His relatives pass by the dormant Konyaga. One of them, Hollow Dance, is his brother. The father prepared a hard fate for the horse for his uncouthness, and the polite and respectful Pustoplyas is always in a warm stall, feeding not on straw, but on oats.

The empty dancer looks at Konyaga and marvels: nothing can get through him. It would seem that Konyaga's life should already end from such work and food, but no, Konyaga continues to pull the heavy yoke that has fallen to his lot.

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Summary of the fairy tale by Saltykov-Shchedrin “Konyaga”

Cloudless life of the landowner

Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev, a middle-class landowner, moderately rich and very stupid. He lives serenely, spending his days playing solitaire, in card debates, and reading the local newspaper Vest. Once, having nothing to do, the landowner asked to save him from annoying peasant peasants. But God was much smarter than the prince and did not "hear" his requests. Reading the newspaper, the landowner began to look for ways to fine the peasants. And the life of the peasants became so difficult that they prayed to God - having heard them, God delivered the landowner from the peasants.

Manor without peasants

The landowner was delighted that in one day all the peasants disappeared from his possessions. That's just, everyone comes and calls him a fool. I tried to play solitaire - I won (from which I concluded that I was not stupid at all). And the landowner began to indulge in dreams of how to turn his farm into a large estate. The landowner dreamed, dreamed - but the garden was overgrown, hunger tormented him and all the cattle fled.

Once a police chief came to the landowner and saw that everything around was abandoned, the cattle were not fed, there was no meat or bread in the market, and the landowner was not going to pay taxes. The prince was frightened that his estate could be taken away for debts, but he did not give up his dreams. The landowner began to slowly run wild - he stopped washing and cutting his hair, he began to hunt birds and a hare, he began to talk with a bear.

Return of the men

As the provincial authorities found out about the disappearance of the peasants, they began to look around the world for peasants. At this time, just a bunch of men flew over the city. The peasants were lowered to the ground and taken to the landowner - to be brought back to life.

The first thing the peasants did was to take away the newspaper “Vest” from the landowner so that he would no longer dream of exorbitant fines and German cars. The men quickly put the household in order, and the prince was washed and re-taught how to play solitaire.

Test according to the fairy tale Wild landowner

Sheep-not remembering

The forgetful ram is the hero of a fairy tale. He began to see vague dreams that disturbed him, forcing him to suspect that "the world does not end with the walls of a barn." The sheep began mockingly calling him "wise man" and "philosopher" and shunned him. The ram withered and died. Explaining what had happened, the shepherd Nikita suggested that the deceased "saw a free-ram in a dream."

Bogatyr

The hero is the hero of a fairy tale, the son of Baba Yaga. Sent by her to exploits, he uprooted one oak tree, crushed another with his fist, and when he saw the third, with a hollow, he climbed in there and fell asleep, frightening the neighborhood with snoring. His fame was great. The hero was both afraid and hoped that he would gain strength in a dream. But centuries passed, and he was still sleeping, not coming to the aid of his country, no matter what happened to it. When, during an enemy invasion, they approached him to help him out, it turned out that the Bogatyr had long been dead and rotted. His image was so clearly aimed against the autocracy that the tale remained unpublished until 1917.

wild landlord

The wild landowner is the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. Having read the retrograde newspaper Vest, he foolishly complained that "there are too many divorced ... peasants," and tried in every possible way to oppress them. God heard the tearful peasant prayers, and "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner." He was delighted (the “clean” air became), but it turned out that now he could neither receive guests, nor eat himself, nor even wipe the dust from the mirror, and there was no one to pay taxes to the treasury. However, he did not deviate from his "principles" and as a result, he became wild, began to move on all fours, lost human speech and became like a predatory beast (once he did not bully the police officer himself). Worried about the lack of taxes and the impoverishment of the treasury, the authorities ordered "to catch the peasant and put him back." With great difficulty they also caught the landowner and brought him to a more or less decent appearance.

Karas-idealist

Karas-idealist - the hero of the fairy tale of the same name. Living in a quiet backwater, he is sympathetic and cherishes dreams of the triumph of good over evil, and even of the opportunity to reason with Pike (whom he has never seen) that she has no right to eat others. He eats shells, justifying himself by the fact that "they climb into their mouths" and they have "not a soul, but steam." Having appeared before Pike with his speeches, for the first time he was released with the advice: "Go to sleep!" In the second, he was suspected of "sicilism" and pretty much bitten during interrogation by Okun, and the third time, Pike was so surprised at his exclamation: "Do you know what virtue is?" - that she opened her mouth and almost involuntarily swallowed her interlocutor. "The features of Karas are grotesquely depicted modern writer liberalism. Ruff is also a character in this tale. He looks at the world with bitter sobriety, seeing strife and savagery everywhere. Karas ironically over the reasoning, convicting him of complete ignorance of life and inconsistency (Karas is indignant at Pike, but eats shells himself). However, he admits that "after all, you can talk with him alone to your liking," and at times even slightly hesitates in his skepticism, until the tragic outcome of the "dispute" between Karas and Pike confirms his innocence.

sane hare

The sensible hare - the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, "reasoned so sensibly that it fit the donkey." He believed that "every animal has its own life" and that, although "everyone eats" hares, he is "not picky" and "agrees to live in every possible way." In the heat of this philosophizing, he was caught by the Fox, who, bored with his speeches, ate him.

Kissel

Kissel, the hero of the fairy tale of the same name, "was so flamboyant and soft that he did not feel any inconvenience from what he ate. The gentlemen were so fed up with them that they provided pigs with food, so, in the end, "only jelly was left dried scrapes", In a grotesque form, both peasant humility and the post-reform impoverishment of the village, robbed not only by the "lord" landowners, but also by new bourgeois predators, who, according to the satirist, like pigs, "satiety ... do not know ".

The book "Tales" includes thirty-two works that were created over four years (1883-1886). For Shchedrin's satire, the methods of artistic exaggeration, fantasy, allegory, and the convergence of the exposed social phenomena with the phenomena of the animal world are common. In the situation of government reaction, fairy tale fiction to some extent served as a means of artistic disguise for the most acute ideological and political ideas of the satirist. In the complex ideological content of the writer's tales, three main themes can be distinguished: satire on the governmental elite of the autocracy and on the exploiting classes ("The Bear in the Voivodeship", "The Wild Landowner"), the depiction of the life of the masses in Tsarist Russia ("The Tale of how one peasant fed two generals”) and denunciation of the behavior and psychology of the philistine-minded intelligentsia (“The wise scribbler”, “Liberal”, “Karas-idealist”). In his fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin continues the traditions (folklore, fable, satirical, combinations of the real and the fantastic) that were formed in Russian literature before him. In The Tale of How One Peasant Feeded Two Generals, Shchedrin, using the techniques of witty fairy tale fiction, shows that the source of not only material well-being, but also the so-called noble culture is the work of the peasant. Parasite generals who are accustomed to living on the labor of others, finding themselves on desert island without servants, discovered the habits of hungry wild animals, ready to devour each other. The appearance of the muzhik saved them from the final brutalization and returned them to their usual "general" appearance. With bitter satire, the satirist portrayed the slavish behavior of the peasant. By depicting the pitiful fate of the hero of the fairy tale "The Wise Scribbler", distraught with fear, who walled himself up in a dark hole for life, the satirist publicly shamed the philistine intellectual, expressed contempt for those who, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, moved away from active social struggle into the narrow world of personal interests .

Summary Once upon a time there was a piskar. Before his death, his parents bequeathed him to live, looking at both. Piskar feels that trouble lies in wait for him everywhere, which can come from piskar neighbors, from big fish, from a person. The scribbler's father was nearly boiled in the ear. Piskar makes himself such a dwelling that only he could fit in it, and in such a place; where no one gets. At night he goes in search of food. All day long he “trembles” in his dwelling, suffers hardships, but tries to save his life. His life is threatened by crayfish, pike, but he manages to stay alive. A piskar cannot start a family for practical reasons: "I would like to live on my own." Piskar lived in loneliness and fear "for more than a hundred years." The pikes praise the squash for his caution, hoping that he will relax and they will be able to eat him. But the scribbler values his life and is therefore vigilant. He thinks about the words of the pikes: “If only everyone lived like this wise scribbler lives ...”, and it becomes obvious to him that if all squeakers lived like him, then there would be no scribblers for a long time. His life is barren and useless. Such scribblers "live, take up space for nothing and eat food." Piskar decides to get out of his home and once in a lifetime swim along the river. But he is so afraid that he does not carry out his plan. And dying, the scribbler is in fear. No one asks him how you can live a hundred years. He is called not wise, but "stupid". Piskary disappears. “Most likely, he died himself, because what sweetness is it for a pike to swallow an ailing, dying scribbler, and besides, a wise one?”

Summary On a desert island, there were two generals who had served all their lives “in some kind of registry; there they were born, brought up and grew old, therefore, they did not understand anything. They didn’t even know any words, except: “Receive the assurance of my perfect respect and devotion.” Waking up, the generals tell each other that they dreamed that they were on a desert island.