Heroes of the story

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub

Pulcheria Ivanovna Tovstogub - his wife

also mentioned

Pulcheria Ivanovna's favorite cat.

Yavdokha - housekeeper

Nichipor - clerk

yard girls

indoor boy

Plot

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna are two old men of the “past century”, tenderly loving and touchingly caring for each other. Afanasy Ivanovich was tall, always wore a sheepskin coat, and almost always smiled. Pulcheria Ivanovna almost never laughed, but “there was so much kindness written on her face and in her eyes, so much readiness to treat you to everything that they had best, that you would probably find the smile too sugary for her kind face.” Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna live alone in one of the remote villages, called old-world villages in Little Russia. Their life is so quiet that to a guest who accidentally drops by at a low manor house, immersed in the greenery of a garden, the passions and anxious worries of the outside world will seem not to exist at all. The small rooms of the house are filled with all sorts of things, the doors sing in different tunes, the pantries are filled with supplies, the preparation of which is constantly occupied by the servants under the direction of Pulcheria Ivanovna. Despite the fact that the farm is robbed by the clerk and lackeys, the blessed land produces such quantities that Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna do not notice the thefts at all.

The old people never had children, and all their affection was focused on themselves. It is impossible to look without sympathy at their mutual love, when with extraordinary care in their voices they address each other as “you,” forestalling every desire and even an affectionate word that has not yet been spoken. They love to treat - and if it were not for the special properties of the Little Russian air, which helps digestion, then the guest, without a doubt, would find himself lying on the table after dinner instead of a bed. Old people love to eat themselves - and from early morning until late evening you can hear Pulcheria Ivanovna guessing her husband’s wishes, offering first one dish or another in a gentle voice. Sometimes Afanasy Ivanovich likes to make fun of Pulcheria Ivanovna and will suddenly start talking about a fire or a war, causing his wife to be seriously frightened and cross herself, so that her husband’s words could never come true. But after a minute, the unpleasant thoughts are forgotten, the old people decide that it’s time to have a snack, and suddenly a tablecloth and those dishes that Afanasy Ivanovich chooses at the prompting of his wife appear on the table. And quietly, calmly, in extraordinary harmony of two loving hearts, days go by.

A sad event changes the life of this peaceful corner forever. Pulcheria Ivanovna's beloved cat, who usually lay at her feet, disappears in the large forest behind the garden, where wild cats lure her. Three days later, having lost her feet in search of a cat, Pulcheria Ivanovna meets her favorite in the garden, emerging from the weeds with a pitiful meow. Pulcheria Ivanovna feeds the feral and thin fugitive, wants to pet her, but the ungrateful creature throws herself out the window and disappears forever. From that day on, the old woman becomes thoughtful, bored and suddenly announces to Afanasy Ivanovich that it was death that came for her and they were soon destined to meet in the next world. The only thing the old woman regrets is that there will be no one to look after her husband. She asks the housekeeper Yavdokha to look after Afanasy Ivanovich, threatening her entire family with God's punishment if she does not fulfill the lady's order. Afanasy Ivanovich tries to distract his wife from these thoughts, but in vain.

Pulcheria Ivanovna dies. At the funeral, Afanasy Ivanovich looks strange, as if he does not understand all the savagery of what happened. When he returns to his house and sees how empty his room has become, he sobs loudly and inconsolably, and tears flow like a river from his dull eyes.

Five years have passed since then. The house is decaying without its owner, Afanasy Ivanovich is weakening and is bent twice as much as before. But his melancholy does not weaken with time. In all the objects surrounding him, he sees a deceased woman, he tries to pronounce her name, but halfway through the word, convulsions distort his face, and the cry of a child escapes from his already cooling heart.

It’s strange, but the circumstances of Afanasy Ivanovich’s death are similar to the death of his beloved wife. As he slowly walks along the garden path, he suddenly hears someone behind him saying in a clear voice: “Afanasy Ivanovich!” For a minute his face perks up, and he says: “It’s Pulcheria Ivanovna calling me!” He submits to this conviction with the will of an obedient child. “Place me near Pulcheria Ivanovna” - that’s all he says before his death. His wish was fulfilled. The manor's house was empty, the goods were taken away by the peasants and finally thrown to the wind by the visiting distant relative-heir.

The writer reflected in the story “Old World Landowners” the collapse of the old, patriarchal-landowner way of life. With irony - sometimes soft and crafty, sometimes with a tinge of sarcasm - he depicts the life of his “old men of the past century”, the meaninglessness of their vulgar existence. The days of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna pass dullly and monotonously; not a single desire of theirs “flies beyond the palisade surrounding the small courtyard.” No glimmer of spirituality can be suspected in these people. The world in which the heroes of Gogol's story live is small. It is completely enclosed by the boundaries of their small and steadily declining estate. The Tovstogubs lead subsistence farming. It completely satisfies all their simple needs. And these people have no incentive to improve things, to make the land generate more income. They have no interests and no worries. The life of Afanasy Ivanovich Pulcheria Ivanovna flows idly and serenely. And it seems to them that the whole world ends behind the picket fence of their yard. Everything that is there, behind the picket fence, seems strange, distant and infinitely alien to them. Gogol draws the interior of the house in which the Tovstogubs live. Pay attention to one detail here. There are several paintings hanging on the walls of their rooms. What they depict is the only reminder in this house that there is some kind of life outside of it. But, Gogol notes, “I am sure that the owners themselves have long forgotten their contents, and if some of them were taken away, they probably would not have noticed it.” Among the paintings are several portraits: some bishop, Peter III, the Duchess of La Vallière. The meaningless speed of these portraits reflects the meaninglessness of the existence of these owners. Gogol laughs at the ingenuous existence of his heroes. But at the same time, he pities these people, bound by the bonds of patriarchal friendship, quiet and kind, naive and helpless. Pushkin praised this story as “a playful, touching idyll that makes you laugh through tears of sadness and tenderness.” Of course, the idyll here is playful and, in essence, ironic. While sympathizing with his heroes, the writer at the same time sees their emptiness and insignificance. The idyll ultimately turns out to be imaginary. The story is permeated with light, kind, human participation and its heroes. They really could become people in a different reality! But who is to blame that they did not become them, that the human in them was crushed and humiliated? The story is imbued with a sad smile at the fact that the life of old-world landowners turned out to be so empty and worthless. The humanistic meaning of this story is multifaceted: it is expressed both in the writer’s deep sympathy for his characters and in the condemnation of those conditions of social existence that made them what they are. But the same reality could turn a person into a soulless huckster, taking “the last penny from his own fellow countrymen” and making a fair amount of capital from this hefty business. Gogol’s pen acquires a flagellating satirical force when he moves from the patriarchal old men to those “Little Russians who are tearing themselves out of tar and hucksters, filling the chambers and public places like locusts, extorting the last penny from their own fellow countrymen, flooding St. Petersburg with sneakers, finally making capital ..." "Old World Landowners" developed the trend in Gogol's work that first emerged in the second part of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" - in the story "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt." But “Old World Landowners” marked the next and more mature stage in Gogol’s artistic development. The pettiness and vulgarity of Gogol's heroes already grew here into a symbol of the stupid meaninglessness of the entire dominant system of life. The feeling of love, friendship, and spiritual affection characteristic of the heroes of “Old World Landowners” becomes worthless, even to some extent vulgar - because a wonderful feeling is incompatible with the empty, ugly life of these people. The originality of Gogol’s story was subtly noticed by N. V. Stankevich, who wrote to his friend Ya. M. Neverov: “I read one story from Gogol’s “Mirgorod” - it’s lovely! (“Old-Fashioned Landowners” is what it’s called, I think). Read it! How a wonderful human feeling is captured here in an empty, insignificant life! The essence of the matter, however, is that this “beautiful human feeling” itself also turns out to be not real, but imaginary. Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna are tenderly attached to each other. They seem to love each other. But Gogol complicates this impression by reflecting on the fact that in the relationships of the heroes of the story the force of habit prevails: “Whatever it was, but at that time all our passions seemed childish to me against this long, slow, almost insensitive habit.” The quoted lines attracted the attention of contemporary critics of the writer. Shevyrev took up arms against them, noting that he really did not like in the story “the murderous idea of ​​a habit that seems to destroy the moral impression of the whole picture.” Shevyrev said that he would erase these lines. Belinsky spoke in their defense. He wrote that he could not understand “this fear, this timidity before the truth.” The mention of habit really destroyed the “moral impression” originally created by Gogol’s “idyll.” But this impression, according to the writer, should have been destroyed. No illusions! Even in the environment in which it seemed that the high human feeling of the heroes of the story could manifest itself, it is distorted there too. Artistically, “Old World Landowners” differs very noticeably from the romantic stories “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The poetics, and indeed the very stylistics of this work, very clearly testified to the maturing of a new outlook on life and art in Gogol. The principles of depicting characters and their everyday living conditions, the everyday life of “Old World Landowners” - all this foreshadowed the powerful look of Gogol’s realistic work and opened a direct path to “Dead Souls”.

Issues of artistic method N.V. Gogol has always been the center of attention of science and criticism. Critics and researchers of the writer’s work from different periods note the presence in N.V.’s artistic method. Gogol of different principles: both objective and subjective. This allowed some to talk about N.V. Gogol as a realist (V.A. Desnitsky 6, p.9, I.P. Egorova 7, p.67, V.F. Pereverzev 12, p.384-385), others saw predominantly romantic features in his work ( I.V. Kartashova 10, p.140. G.M. Friedlander 16, p.11., others considered N.V. a romantic only at the beginning of his writing career (A.M. Gurevich 5, p.84, I. .V. Sergievsky, V.I. Strazhev) In the first decades of the twentieth century, there were even attempts to write down the author of “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” as the forerunners of modernist movements. The words of D.M. Chizhevsky are indicative in this regard. review of emigrant criticism of Gogol by V.A. Voropaev: “...Gogol was not a “realist” in the usual sense of the word. Any movement or direction of Russian literature could rightfully see in him its “Romantic”, “realist”, “fantasticist”, “surrealist” - such definitions in connection with the name of Gogol make sense - he really was a unique literary phenomenon...” 3, p.202.

Of course, the desire to discern in “The Nose” the origins of surrealism and other attempts to firmly connect Gogol with modernity seem to us not entirely substantive, especially taking into account their complete semantic dissonance. At the same time, it is impossible to deny the universality of the writer’s method, which definitely goes beyond the boundaries of realism and romanticism.

A number of researchers in the works of N.V. Gogol also noted the characteristic features of the poetics of sentimentalism. So, V.N. Turbin, speaking about the genre specificity of Gogol’s works, notes that Gogol’s idyll is an all-pervasive genre.

“The idyllic state in which Gogol rules is powerful. The real state is doomed to one-sidedness, it is lonely” 15, p. 162. Researcher V.N. Khokhlacheva attributes N.V. Gogol to realism, but already sees the style of the “Karamzin school” in “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”: “In the descriptive parts of the short stories, exquisite metaphors and colorful epithets predominate, creating a generally conventional literary style close to the style of the “Karamzin school” 17, p. .39.

So, the real practice of analyzing the works of N.V. Gogol encounters artifacts that do not agree with the established idea of ​​the evolution of the writer’s method, and forces us to look at his work more broadly and from different or even different angles. One of the most interesting works in this regard is the story “Old World Landowners.”

It is interesting to note that, even having abandoned vulgar sociological postulates, modern literary criticism is still undecided in its attitude towards the characters in the story. So, according to V.E. Vetlovskaya, N.V. Gogol here, in contrast to Taras Bulba, depicts such a cramped and musty little world that “the slightest breath of wind, the slightest disturbance in the measured idling is enough for the illusory well-being of a ghostly existence to disappear: no love of Pulcheria Ivanovna for Afanasy Ivanovich could withstand “wild” (i.e. the most “natural”) behavior of a cat... The place of a full-blooded life... is taken by an escheat chimera, where... the material, bodily beginning of life, inadmissibly expanding at the expense of the soul, captures its feelings and thoughts with all sorts of nonsense..." 2, p. .14.

A completely opposite opinion is expressed by I.P. Zolotussky, who highly appreciated the feelings of the heroes of the story, putting them on a par with the characters of “Taras Bulba”: “That moment of love... that Gogol captured in the Little Russian Philemon and Baucis is higher and more significant than any coup or cataclysm.

And let Gogol call this love “habit.” It is a thousand times higher than the romantic “passion” that he ridiculed in the same story” 8, p. 176.

The changed view of the content of the story, apparently, predetermined the interpretation of its genre and stylistic originality, about which I.P. Zolotussky writes as follows: “Old world landowners” became a triumph of harmony and reconciliation, a triumph of balance between the real and the ideal, the prosaic and the poetic...” 8, p.176.

An important observation for us is made by I.F. Annensky, who drew attention to the idyllic nature of the relationship between the heroes of the story: “It is based on immortal love, the pure and high Eros of Plato. Remember the death of Pulcheria Ivanovna: how simply she treated the question of her imminent death and with what anxiety she treated the question of the comforts of the companion she was leaving. To this pure heart, immortality itself appears in the form of afterlife care for an old husband” 1, p.617. The researcher calls the idealism of the “Old World Landowners” “sacred.”

The first in literary criticism to note the sentimental type of consciousness of N.V. Gogol, manifested in the story “Old World Landowners,” was Yu.V. Mann:

“It is very important that from the very beginning the story brings into contact two mindsets and attitudes - “sentimental” and “naive.” And when the narrator (as a representative of the first way of life) descends into the sphere of the characters’ lives, it is as if he is renouncing his experience, his complexity. You involuntarily give up, at least for a short time, all daring dreams and imperceptibly pass with all your feelings into a low-lying bucolic life.”

The researcher also considers the type of consciousness of the heroes of the story: “The inhabitants of the bucolic nest seemed ready to move towards developed life - but can they do it? Afanasy Ivanovich “was not one of those old people who tire of eternal praises of the old times or censures of the new. On the contrary, he questioned you, showed great curiosity and participation in the circumstances of your own life, successes and failures, in which all good old people are usually interested, although it is somewhat similar to the curiosity of a child who, while talking to you, is examining your signet. hours". The type of consciousness represented by the character does not aggressively oppose itself to the new; on the contrary, he tries to get closer to him, to understand him, but can he do this? Obviously, no more than a child can understand the affairs and concerns of an adult.”

Meanwhile, the courage of the narrative, according to Yu.V. Manna lies in exposing the bottomless depths of limited bucolic life. This is a description of Afanasy Ivanovich's reaction to the death of Pulcheria Ivanovna. The scientist here says that for any other writer (especially a romantic, a contemporary of Gogol), the reason for bitter memories of the deceased would have been the book she read, the melody she loved, that is, images of higher spiritual movements. At N.V. For Gogol, such an occasion is his favorite food. For many writers, the grief of a contrite person would be expressed with the help of signs of psychological experience - tears, sighs, etc. N.V. For the same purpose, Gogol, with amazing courage, mixes up the series: on the one hand, a lofty image of tears, a “non-silently flowing fountain,” and on the other, a characterization of the process of eating in all its everyday, almost physiological prosaicness, the process of eating, suspended and upset by an unbearable attack of grief . “Here it is clearly visible,” says the researcher, “that the images of food, physiological and natural movements begin to mean more than was initially implied, and in the very moment of the transition of these images into another emotional and semantic channel, the secret of an irresistible effect is hidden... In “Old World Landowners” changes images of physiological and natural movements indicate the strength and power of the spiritual principle. Images of food begin to testify not to the emotions of the initial, “heroic” stage of collective life, but to affection, love, immeasurable sorrow - that is, a strong, individualized feeling.” Therefore, the scientist sees the motives of sentimentality precisely in the images of food, in the food. He also notes that images of food have “the power of constancy and self-concentration”: “... the images that interest us convey a simple, seemingly undeveloped “bucolic” feeling, which, however, reveals the irresistible power of constancy and self-concentration. "God! I thought... five years of all-destroying time... and such hot sadness? What is stronger over us: passion or habit? Whatever it was, at that time all our passions against this long, slow, almost insensitive habit seemed childish to me.”

So, we can conclude that N.V. Gogol’s artistic method does not fit into the framework of only one direction. It is much wider and richer. Researchers' observations about the presence in the writer's artistic world of the style of the "Karamzin school", lyrical feeling, idyll as an all-pervasive genre, allow us to speak about the presence in the artistic method of N.V. Gogol's principles of reflecting life, characteristic of sentimentalism.

We will try to prove the presence of a large number of sentimentalist reminiscences in the text of “Old World Landowners” through a comparative analysis of Gogol’s story with the story by N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza". The comparison will be based on the main features of this method.

The problem of aesthetics and poetics of sentimentalism is widely considered in modern literary criticism. In particular, the following researchers are engaged in it: N.P. Verkhovskaya, V.I. Sorokin, G.N. Pospelov, P.A. Orlov, L.I. Timofeev, S.V. Turaev and others.

As a result of the work done, we found out that scientists identify the following basic principles of depicting reality that characterize the literary movement - sentimentalism:

1. Depiction of the life of ordinary people;

2. Smoothing out the severity of social contradictions between landowners and peasants;

3. Depiction of the private family and everyday life of ordinary people;

4. The scene is small provincial towns, villages;

5. Depiction of pictures of rural, unartificial nature that evoke deep emotional experiences - cemeteries, ruins, deserted places, etc.

6. The desire to show that “even peasants know how to love,” that ordinary people are characterized by deep and pure noble human feelings;

7. Reflection of a person’s inner world, his feelings and experiences;

8. The influence of sentimentalists on the reader, the desire to evoke his response to the events described;

9. The idea of ​​a non-class human personality;

10. Celebrating love and friendship;

11. Depiction of a modest life with family and true friends, honest work;

12. The search for what is unique in each person, making him different from other people;

13. Positive and negative heroes are not sharply opposed;

14. The desire of sentimentalist writers to morally join the life of “urban people”;

15. The writer’s constant reminder of his author’s will, that this is fiction.

The results of the comparative analysis of the two stories are reflected in the table.

We examined the traditions of the poetics of sentimentalism in the creative method of N.V. Gogol using the example of one story, but this is the key to a deeper and more careful study of his entire work.

References

1. Annensky I. F. Selected works. – L.: Fiction, 1988. – 734 p.

2. Vetlovskaya V.E. Gogol's creativity through the prism of the problem of nationality. //Russian literature. – 2001. - No. 2. – P.3-24.

3. Voropaev V.A. Gogol in criticism of Russian emigration // Russian literature. – 2002. - No. 3. – P.192-211.

4. Gogol N.V. Mirgorod. – M.: Soviet Russia, 1985. – 250 p.

5. Gurevich A.M. Romanticism of Gogol / Gurevich A.M. Romanticism in Russian literature. – M.: Education, 1980. – P. 84-93.

6. Desnitsky V.A. Gogol - the great Russian realist writer / Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after. A.I. Herzen. – Scientific notes. – T.107. – L., 1995. – 377 p.

7. Egorova I.P. Lunacharsky about the satire of Russian classical writers / Philological collection. Issue 1. – Khabarovsk, 1959. – 270 p.

8. Zolotussky I.P. Gogol. – M.: Mol. Guard, 1979. – 511 p.

9. Karamzin N.M. Stories. – M.: Soviet Russia, 1979. – 142 p.

10. Kartashova I.V. Romanticism in the works of N.V. Gogol / Russian Romanticism; Ed. prof. N.A. Gulyaeva. – M.: Higher School, 1974. – 359 p.

11. Mann Yu. V. Poetics of Gogol. – M.: Fiction, 1978, 397 p. 12. Pereverzev V.F. At the origins of Russian realism. – M.: Sovremennik, 1989. – 750 p. 13. Sergievsky I.V. N.V. Gogol: life and work. – M.: GIDL, 1956. – 190 p. 14.Strazhev V.I. N.V. Gogol. – M.: UCHPEDGIZ, 1951. – 64 p.

15.Turbin V.N. Pushkin. Gogol. Lermontov. On the study of literary genres. – M.: Education, 1978. – 239 p.

16. Friedlander G.M. Gogol: origins and achievements //Russian literature. – 1994. - No. 2. – P.3-27.

17. Khokhlacheva V.N. Observation of the language and style of some of Gogol’s works // Russian language at school. –1959. – No. 2. – P.39-45.

Marina Pavlova

Marina Anatolyevna PAVLOVA (1965) - literature teacher at the NOU “Nadezhda” (Moscow).

Russian Philemon and Baucis

To study the story by N.V. Gogol "Old World Landowners"

The other day I heard from a colleague who teaches in the 8th grade: “For some reason, “Old World Landowners” are not working for us.” The guys don’t understand and don’t accept them.” But really, what can become close to modern teenagers in the story of the last years of an elderly couple who once lived a long time ago in a remote village in Little Russia? How can old people feel, what makes their life interesting? Why is this story interesting to Gogol? Why did Pushkin call the story his favorite? Let’s ask the question: “Do you know any cases where people who lived a long life together continued to love each other?” There will definitely be at least one person in the class who will talk about their grandparents. So this doesn't just happen to Romeo and Juliet?

Careful reading of the story by N.V. Gogol’s “Old World Landowners” can begin with the question: “Have you ever read works that begin with a declaration of love?” What can we remember besides Pushkin’s “I loved you...”? Or his “Confessions” - “I love you, even though I’m mad...”? But it is with the confession “I love you very much” that the story opens. And the second sentence begins with a repetition of “I sometimes love...” It turns out that the genre is not just a story, but an extended love confession. What does our narrator confess his love for? Let's reread the beginning of the story. The first sentences, filled with repetitions, sound like music: I love - I sometimes love, for a minute - for a minute, solitary owners - solitary life, those around - those around. The first sentence is divided into two parts by the words “perfect opposite,” which gives the reader one of the keys to understanding the text. The technique is a contrast; before us are two “ways of life.” I love: modest, secluded, remote, picturesque, unusually solitary life, so quiet, so quiet. Here there is everything that could be in the Garden of Eden. Before us is a kind of Eden.

We invite students to conduct research - to find signs of Gogol's Eden. Here there is modesty, and solitude (“extraordinary”), picturesqueness, the fulfillment of all desires (after all, not one of them flies over the palisade), a garden filled with fruit trees, and life is so quiet, so quiet... And in the garden there is a carpet laid out for relaxation , and abundance, abundance of everything, and peaceful coexistence of people and animals (a long-necked goose with goslings as soft as feathers and a lazily lying ox). And most importantly - the owners of this corner themselves, on whose faces “such kindness, such cordiality and sincerity are always written”! From their faces you can “read their whole life, a clear, calm life.” And even the rain in this garden is “beautiful”, it makes a “luxurious” noise, and the rainbow (and this is the road to heaven) “in the form of a vault... shines with matte seven colors.” There are no “restless creatures of an evil spirit disturbing the world.” From somewhere far away, as if from outer space, the narrator looks at this Garden of Eden, protected from the outside world. It’s as if magical enchanted circles protect him: a “sphere”, a palisade, village huts, trees, a gallery going around the entire house, so that during thunder and hail it is possible to close the window shutters without getting wet by the rain. This wonderful world is like a “sphere” into which our narrator descends “for a minute” (from where and why? But more on that later). What do these circles surround (or around what axis are they located)? What does this world revolve on? This is the love of two modest old-world landowners - Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna. Their hospitality allows the narrator to call them “Russian Philemon and Baucis.” By the way, who are they? Here is another task that will make the children think about the so-called iconic images in literature (Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Childe Harold, Oblomov and others) and turn, for example, to the “Mythological Dictionary” . Then the guys will find out that this was the name of the heroes of Greek mythology, poor spouses from Phrygia. One day, the village where Philemon and Baucis lived was visited by Zeus and Hermes under the guise of wanderers. But they were not allowed into any of the houses. Only hospitable spouses invited the wanderers to their hut and shared the last thing they had. The gods punished the wicked inhabitants of the village, turning the village into a pond, and themselves into frogs. Only the dwelling of Philemon and Baucis survived and turned into a beautiful temple, of which the spouses became priests. As a reward for their hospitality, the gods granted their wish by granting them longevity and allowing them to die at the same time. When the time of death came, the old people turned into two trees growing from one root.

Of course, Gogol would not be himself if this story were not imbued with irony. But its irony is light and kind. “It was impossible to look at their mutual love without sympathy. They never told each other You, but always You... “Did you push through the chair, Afanasy Ivanovich?” - “Nothing, don’t be angry, Pulcheria Ivanovna: it’s me.” How do grandmothers most often express their love for their grandchildren? They are trying to cook something tasty. So the good old lady treats her husband and guests to dumplings with berries, jelly, pies, salted saffron milk caps, and even a slice of watermelon. And to all this Afanasy Ivanovich answers her: “Both that is good, and that is good.” Something Old Testament sounds in the words of the old man. “And God saw that it was good.” Invite the children to find other examples of Gogol's irony. The world of old-world landowners is filled with miracles that they themselves do not notice (ask them to find these miracles). Here is an inexhaustible abundance that the clerk and the voyat cannot take away or eat by pigs, sparrows and crows, and the heavenly “carpet in front of the sofa with birds that look like flowers, and flowers that look like birds,” and the wonderful room of Pulcheria Ivanovna
with chests, boxes, drawers and chests, and, of course, wonderful singing doors. As long as the old people are alive, the world rotates and holds on. They die and the world collapses. Let's reread the ending of the story. And the end of the last sentence - all that remains is that “... all of its wholesale does not exceed the price of one ruble.”

Now let's go back to the beginning of the story. Where does the narrator “love to descend for a moment into the sphere” of this humble life? Let's find signs of that other world. It exists according to different laws. Everything here is vanity, passions, unsatisfied desires, subject to an evil spirit, excitement and indignation. Emptiness and futility. Why do you have to live in this world? Is it because in the place of the happy garden there is now a dead pond - and not even a temple remains on the site of the dwelling of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna, unlike the one into which the hut of their literary predecessors, Philemon and Baucis, turned? Are the times of true love over?

What creative writing assignments can be offered to students while studying Gogol's story? For example, write a stylized letter on behalf of Pulcheria Ivanovna or Afanasy Ivanovich, in which they invite their neighbor to visit. Or let the guys tell you which of the authors of the above quotes they agree with and which they don’t, and why.

“...an idyll that makes us laugh through tears of sadness and tenderness”(A. Pushkin).

“Oh, poor humanity! miserable life! And yet you still feel sorry for Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna! You cry for them, for them who drank and ate and then died!”(V. Belinsky).

“That moment of love that Gogol captured in the story of the Little Russian Philemon and Baucis is higher and more significant than any world revolution or cataclysm.”(I. Zolotussky).

“In “Old World Landowners” you see empty, insignificant and pitiful people, but at least kind and hospitable...”(V. Belinsky).

“You don’t want small things, you don’t dream up big things”(N. Gogol).

An unexpected but interesting conclusion to work on Gogol’s story can be a reflection on Sasha Cherny’s poem “The Dog Hairdresser” (1930). This poem is part of the “City Miracles” series, and discussing the topic of miracles in everyday life will help our students be more attentive to the world around them. I quote the text of the poem because it is more difficult to find than the text of “Old World Landowners,” and it is desirable that it be on every desk.

Dog groomer

In a huge city it is so difficult to find
A piece of romance - rest for tired eyes:
By the muddy Seine,
Along the jagged wall,
Where the bridge turns round with its last arch, -
Canopy, bench and table.
An old man with a poet's face,
Bending over to the poodle, he trims the fleece into a ridge.
The hand gestures are so noble and smooth,
The eyes are so kind
What it seems: didn’t he find
The most wonderful calling in the world?
And the dog, the scoundrel, is pleased -
He puts his side up,
He rolled his eyes and waved his brush...
In the heat we are shaggy goblin
It's not easy to wander around
And being handsome is flattering;
He's smart, he understands that.
Ready!
The client jumped up as if disheveled and fell to the ground.
You dog lion! Sly Don Juan
With a gray goatee on his face...
Through the ribbed fur the skin turns slightly pink,
On the neck there is a muff in a lush wave, -
The owner of the poodle looked at him lovingly
And, like an enchanted prince,
Leads away on a chain.
From the balcony the cat squints with contempt...
And the hairdresser put it on the table
An old lapdog, a half-maiden dog,
A spread out caterpillar in tatters...
The scissors flashed, the shaft rumbled in the Seine,
The sun laughs with glasses.

My wife came with an enamel bowl,
A faded and quiet friend.
I brushed the fur off the dog table,
The newspaper was spread out...
Three tones brightened the darkness of the canopy:
Pale green, scarlet and amber -
Lettuce, tomatoes, bread.
Old people pass on to each other
With decorous sophistication
Either a knife or salt...
They are silent, they have talked a long time ago.
And only meek eyes
Without looking away they look into the distance
On the clouds are gray ships,
Floating over dirty houses:
From blue hatches
Through the shreds of steam
Their past comes to light in a disturbing way.
I, a passerby,
I look at them from the green slope
Through the weeds
And I also remember:
There, in my homeland, once upon a time
I read about them in an old story -
Their “old world landowners” were called...
Maybe not theirs - others, but the symbol is the same,
And the same faded kind eyes,
And the same clear attentiveness to each other, -
Two old hearts, welded together forever.

Like this old man
With such a face, significant and subtle,
Started cutting dogs?
Or in a huge life
Didn't you find anything else to do?
Or roulette is evil
This lot gives us this and that lot,
Without inquiring at all about our tastes?
Don't know…
But there is bitterness in the old man's eyes
I, a secret spy, didn’t notice...
Perhaps in ancient times he would have been a sage,
In the corner of the square sat, shaggy, in a barrel
And told the foolish passers-by the truth
For a handful of beans...
But the modernity of evil:
Fellow citizens go their own way,
Beans have risen in price -
Dogs grow fur
And someone needs to cut them.
We had lunch. The table is empty, hands free.
A girl with a Chinese ghoul approaches,
And we need to come to an agreement with her,
How to decorate your favorite creature according to fashion...

Probably, a few words should be said about Sasha Cherny, about his satirical poems and ironic attitude towards Russian reality, about the emigration to which he left after the revolution, where one of his last poems, “The Dog Hairdresser,” was written.

One might ask what the students see in common in these two works. The attentive reader will find the everyday world (a muddy river, a jagged wall), and old heroes, and a narrator-observer with his own attitude towards the heroes, and a reference to Ancient Greece (here is a fleece and a barrel of Diogenes), and reflections on human fate, and sadness for the past, and a direct appeal to Gogol’s story in the very center of the composition, and the author’s gentle irony. And what is the “secret spy” looking for in a huge city (this is the image of the writer, poet, not only Sasha Cherny)? A miracle in everyday life - “rest for tired eyes (read: soul)”? Or is he trying to understand why there is no “bitterness” in the old man’s eyes? Or is he looking for those whose “hearts are welded together forever”? Or does he want to find “the most wonderful calling in the world”? As usual, there are more questions than answers. But asking the right question is half the answer. This means you can continue to think and look for miracles in everyday life.

After the success of the romantic-fantastic book “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, Gogol published the collection “Mirgorod”, in which most of the works are quite realistic. These include the short story “Old World Landowners.” It is completely different from the bright, exciting and full of emotions stories from the previous book.

What could be special about the description of the life and death of two old men from the Little Russian outback? Pushkin called the story “a playful idyll.” Belinsky believed that the author ridiculed in this work the empty and spiritual existence of the provincial nobility. In a word, Nikolai Vasilyevich’s contemporaries perceived his work differently.

Even the most talented and sensitive brothers in the pen did not always understand, could not discern the depth of Gogol’s creativity, which can be explained in one word - humanism. The writer loved people with their strengths and weaknesses, exposed their vices with the sole purpose of making humanity better. Therefore, “Old World Landowners” is not a chronicle of the life of dear provincial old men, not a harsh exposure of the emptiness and dullness of their worthless existence. This is a unique, ironic parable about old age, death and love, full of sadness and charm.

Compositionally, the work consists of two parts. In the first, Gogol describes in detail the house of the Tovstogub couple and the way of life adopted there, and gives detailed characteristics of his characters. The reader learns about the monotonous course of life of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna. They have two entertainments - to eat deliciously and to receive guests. The writer lovingly paints pictures of the nature of his small homeland: a lush garden, a forest with centuries-old oak trees, a pond, wide fields. He talks in no less detail about the home environment of the Tovstogubs, right down to listing the paintings. Everything here creates an atmosphere of ancient comfort and peace, which Gogol contrasts with the rapid flow of metropolitan life. The author admits that in such places he rests his soul.

The main events of the story unfold in the second part. Pulcheria Ivanovna interprets the behavior of her beloved cat rather strangely. The landowner suddenly decided that the animal ran away from the house for a reason; now all that was left was to wait for death. We see the rapid decline of the woman and the great grief of Afanasy Ivanovich, who survived his wife. The work ends touchingly and sadly; the reader is presented with a picture of the complete ruin of the estate.

Gogol reports practically nothing about the past of the married couple, only casually noting that thirty-year-old Second Major Tovstogub secretly took Pulcheria Ivanovna away, since her parents were against such a union. But this short remark clarifies a lot in the relationship between older spouses. Their marriage was based on great love, because deciding to run away, to go against her parents’ will, is a very brave act for a girl.

It is not for nothing that the writer indicates the age of Afanasy Ivanovich and his wife. A simple arithmetic calculation makes it clear that this was not a hasty impulse of two young creatures, but a balanced decision of a thirty-year-old man and a twenty-five-year-old woman. Thirty years of their life together have passed, but the feelings have not faded away. Gogol calls this a “habit,” but the reader understands that only loving people can take care of each other in this way. And the writer himself notes at the beginning of the story: “It was impossible to look at their mutual love without sympathy.”

Afanasy Ivanovich good-naturedly makes fun of his wife, notes with alarm that she has lost weight, and Pulcheria Ivanovna strives to feed her husband something tasty and worries that there will be no one to look after him after her death. The landowners have no children, so the elderly couple is focused on each other.

Of course, Gogol does not idealize this couple. The irony is clearly visible in the description of Afanasy Ivanovich’s endless “snacks” and his attempts to give instructions to the clerk. Pulcheria Ivanovna's economic activity is no less superficial and boils down to preparing a huge amount of supplies, which are stolen and eaten by the servants. The author ironically calls her a “great housewife” for her desire to store little things in different drawers, chests and bags that may be needed no one knows when or why. The description of the lady's only trip to inspect the land is one of the most comical episodes of the story.

The complete naivety of old people in conducting business turns into widespread, horrific theft. They steal everything from the Tovstogubs: the governor, the clerk, the lackeys, the courtyard girls and even the guests. But the life of the landowners is simple, all their interests revolve around food, and the rich Little Russian land produces generous harvests, so there is enough for everyone.

Gogol does not say anything about how the married couple spends their leisure time. Apart from walks in the garden and the household chores of Pulcheria Ivanovna, the landowners have no activities. Therefore, the Tovstogubs are sincerely happy to have guests and always try to serve them. The writer notes the complete absence of servility, cloying, and servility in the “guileless souls”; he several times calls the heroes: “Kind, dear old men.”

Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasy Ivanovich are really very kind. They do not oppress the serfs, they are hospitable, polite and attentive to each other, and modest in their everyday life. Old people are not grumpy, not envious, and do not quarrel with their neighbors. The Tovstogubs live in their own quiet, secluded little world. They give nothing to society, but they also do not demand anything from it, “not a single desire flies beyond the picket fence surrounding the small courtyard.” Yes, we see a soulless, empty, aimless existence, but have the spouses caused harm to anyone?

In “Old World Landowners,” Gogol makes you think about the meaning of life, inevitable old age and death. Is it given to everyone to burn to the end and leave a bright mark on the earth? Gogol believes that there is nothing reprehensible in living his last years in provincial seclusion among nature, remaining hospitable “dear old people.”

• "Old World Landowners", a summary of Gogol's story

From the very beginning of the story, Gogol confesses his love for Little Russia: its nature, morals, customs, people... The heroes, the old man and the old woman, live simply, thinking only about food, fearing change. A frequent guest in their house, Nikolai Vasilyevich sympathizes with the death of the old woman Pulcheria, who imagined that in the form of her roaming cat, death itself came to her. Without his wife, old man Afanasy lives for another ten years in a neglected house, but he cannot come to terms with the sad thought. Gogol cites, for contrast, the story of a young man who, because of the death of his beloved, stubbornly tried to commit suicide, but after a while he calmed down, got married, and lived happily... Devotion should not always be associated with youth and ardor.

Main idea

A story about the simple beauties of a place and people, about loyalty to the memory of someone who is gone. There are no clear answers here, who is right - old people or young people, romantics or realists, this is the mystery.

Read the summary Gogol Old World Landowners

The descriptions with which the story begins are very beautiful and appetizing. Food is practically the only thing that old people care about. All life is subordinated to it: in the morning we ate this or that, then we snacked on this... From what the old woman offers for lunch, they always choose both options. And at night in a hot room the old man groans - his stomach hurts. So the treatment is again in eating: I drank sour milk and immediately felt better. Indeed, liqueurs, for example, are perceived by me as medicines. This one is for itching, that one is for aching.

If guests come, then the old people have a feast. They treated the author, revealing all their secrets: pickles, drinks... He ate too much, but it was simply impossible to restrain himself. The guest was always left to spend the night, frightened by robbers. By the way, my grandfather loved to scare his quiet wife. For example, what happens if their house burns down? And Pulcheria Ivanovna was so afraid of losing peace - their peaceful life.

And there were so many supplies in the house that, even though all the servants ate until they were sick, stole, and took it to guests, there was still plenty. The old people seemed to be trying to control economic processes, but were content with external ones. They believed the deceivers who stole their timber and everything else.

One day, the cat that Pulcheria was pampering ran away. A few days later she returned feral. She ate and disappeared again. And for some reason Pulcheria decided that the time had come. Apparently, it really has come, since I came up with such a thing. She began to methodically prepare for death: she gave instructions about the housework, collected her dress, and said goodbye to the old man. Pulcheria has a unique understanding of what’s next, she said, do it my way, otherwise I’ll be next to Christ, so I’ll tell him everything about you if you disobey. And she fell ill, and within a few days she was burned. Afanasy Ivanovich could not believe in her death. Everything became indifferent to him, he could not, like a small child, eat without getting dirty. At that time, Gogol came to see him and sympathized with the dramatically aged Afanasy, who could not talk about Pulcheria without tears. Gogol was not surprised that the old man soon died. By the way, before his death, he allegedly heard his dead wife calling him in the garden. His departure was similar to what happened to his wife.

For contrast, the writer cites the story of a young man whose beloved was taken away by death early. Nothing else interested him. His family locked him up at home and hid sharp objects from him. And yet, a couple of times he tried to commit suicide... But years passed, the crippled hero married again, he is happy and cheerful. It may be right that the young man has not lost his taste for life, but this makes the author sad. Sometimes simpler, down-to-earth people display more elevated feelings.

This story became the first in Gogol’s “Mirgorod” cycle.

Picture or drawing of Old World landowners

Other retellings for the reader's diary

• Summary Sophie Styron's Choice

  The events of the novel begin in the post-war period, in 1947, and the setting is New York. The story is told from the perspective of the young writer Stingo.