A short story about Bezhin Meadow. "Bezhin Meadow": characteristics of boys

// “Bezhin Meadow”

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is the author of the famous cycle of stories “Notes of a Hunter”, which also includes the work that interests us now. “Bezhin Meadow” is a story that first saw the light in 1851, vividly and imaginatively intertwining the features of the romantic movement and realism. The real life of the heroes on the pages of this creation merges with picturesque pictures of nature, legends and stories.

Well, let's see what this story is about? It was a warm July evening. The narrator was hunting for black grouse. There was a lot of loot, the hero returned home happy. It was getting dark. The hunter lost his way and found himself in a completely unfamiliar place. Hoping only for luck and guided by the stars, he wandered until he found himself on a plain, popularly called the Bezhin Meadow. The man saw a fire in the distance and people sitting around it.

Coming closer, he made out that they were children guarding the horses. Helped them with this not an easy task two dogs. The narrator stayed with them overnight and sat comfortably by the fire. He observed the manifestations of nature at night and listened with interest to the conversation of the boys, of whom there were five: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya.

The hunter not only invites us, the readers, to listen to the boys’ conversation, he vividly and vividly describes the appearance of each of them. Fedya is slender and has delicate facial features. The boy is handsome. Pavlusha, on the contrary, is squat in stature and awkward, his hair is black, and his eyes are gray shade. As for Ilyusha, the narrator immediately notes his elongated face; one gets the impression that the child is a little blind. Kostya is thoughtful and sad, it seemed to the narrator that the boy’s eyes concealed in their depths something greater than what his tongue could express. Only we don’t see a portrait of the youngest boy Vanya, he slept all night.

The boys tell scary stories for entertainment, but the hunter, pretending to be asleep, listens to them carefully. And this is what he finds out.

Ilyusha was the first to tell his story. The boy told how he once spent the night with other children at a paper factory. At night something unimaginable was happening: someone was knocking, walking, throwing open doors. The guys decided that it was a brownie and were very scared.

It's Kostya's turn. The boy remembered a story about a carpenter named Gavrila. One day a man, while collecting nuts in the forest, got lost, and remained lost until nightfall. There was nothing to do, I stayed overnight. The man fell into a sweet slumber, from which he was brought out by someone's shout. It turned out that Gavrila was called by a mermaid nestled in the branches of a tree. The carpenter crossed himself in fright, which greatly angered the night guest. The mermaid brought sadness to Gavrila, and from then on he was constantly unhappy.

The boys' stories were accompanied different sounds, coming from the forest, this added to the horror, but the stories did not end.

The same Ilyusha remembered the late master, who was cramped in his grave and was looking for a gap-grass. He is often seen in Varnavitsy. Kostya was surprised: the boy thought that meeting the dead was possible only on parent’s Saturday.

Night sounds bring different memories to the boys. So after the cry of the heron they suddenly started talking about the goblin. Kostya remembered that he had once heard it. Ilya explained with knowledge: the goblin is mute, he can only clap his hands, so there is no way to hear his screams.

The boys stopped telling scary stories only in the morning. The narrator fell fast asleep. However, he got up before dawn. He didn’t wake up the guys, he just nodded goodbye to the awakened Pavlusha. And he went his way along the river.

There are such literary works, regarding which the words “summary” sound inappropriate. “Bezhin Meadow” by Turgenev is one of them. If you compare this story with a master’s painting, you will not see dense strokes of rich oil paint or carefully “written out” details. Everything is transparent, fleeting, like life itself.

It is no coincidence that Ivan Turgenev chose such changing, maturing characters in his story. “Bezhin Meadow” is both freemen and huge world childhood for the boys: Vanya (7 years old), Ilyusha (12 years old), Kostya (10 years old), Pavlushi (12 years old) and Fedya (14 years old). Ivan Sergeevich individualizes the children with individual touches of the master: Fedya is a slender, handsome boy from a wealthy family; Pavlusha - with an ordinary appearance, but with a tangible inner strength; the short-sighted and hook-nosed Ilyusha is complex and driven by nature; Kostya is thoughtful and sad; Vanya, the smallest one, is tired and falls asleep without participating in the conversation.

The writer is certainly a fatalist, so he creates a romantic feeling of the uniqueness and irreversibility of this summer evening. After all, the boys will grow up and become different. Isn’t it in this grace of “drawing on the sand” that the story contains its summary?! “Bezhin Meadow” by Turgenev captured in the words of a hunter who, by chance, overheard a child’s conversation by the fire, this night, the reflections of the flame, the inspired faces of the little storytellers, the manes of horses fluttering in the wind, the stars burning out in their pupils. Later, the impression of fleetingness, “watercolor”, will be strengthened by the fact that, reading the mini-epilogue of the story, we learn that Pavel will soon kill himself by falling from a horse.

Let us follow the idea of ​​the story by presenting its brief content. Turgenev’s “Bezhin Meadow” begins with the fact that the narrator “from the author,” while hunting near Tula in the Chernsky district, got lost and in the evening came to steppe expanse. He saw the above-mentioned guys who had taken their horses out at night to graze in the steppe (at night). The boys told various naive and mysterious stories. Ilyusha - about the brownie whom he heard while spending the night at a paper factory. Kostya - about the meeting of the carpenter Gavrila with the mermaid. Ilyusha - infernal “horror stories” about the huntsman Ermil and about the woman Ulyana. Ilyusha - about Trishka, who appears at solar eclipse. All this seems mysterious and significant to the boys. Already in the morning, after talking about the night, they try to determine the difference between a goblin and a water goblin. Kostya tells the story of a boy who was dragged away by a merman. Only in the morning do the guys fall asleep. Formally, the author defines the summary by the above sequence of stories. “Bezhin Meadow” by Turgenev, thus, appears as a kind of prose poem - about nature, about childhood, and in in a broad sense- about the beauty of the Motherland.

Let us return to the analogy of Turgenev’s story with watercolors - light, fleeting and therefore beautiful. The work is not documentary. There is no analytical reasoning in it. But it certainly carries a mood. An adult reader will probably feel sadness that his childhood has passed, and he is already far from the ingenuous and pure boyish dreams and fantasies, that he cannot hide under the steppe feather grass at night, that he cannot jump on a horse in the middle of the night and rush across the steppe towards him. the wind following the boys. He will feel sad that his childhood is gone, like night fog melting under the morning rays of the sun.

One can probably say about Turgenev’s story “Bezhin Meadow” in the words of the great Pushkin that the “Russian spirit” is piercingly felt in it. Both in the description of the night steppe and in the muffled conversation of the boys, “Russia smells” is elusively and harmoniously Turgenev-like. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote about Turgenev in approximately the same way, noting that after becoming acquainted with the works of Ivan Sergeevich, “it’s easy to believe,” “it’s easy to breathe,” life seems more harmonious and more perfect.

BEZHIN LUG

(from the collection of stories “Notes of a Hunter”)

“It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that only happen when the weather has settled for a long time. From the very early morning the sky is clear, the morning dawn does not blaze with fire: it is distinguished by a gentle blush. The sun - not fiery, not hot, as during a sultry drought, not dull purple, as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant - floats up peacefully under a narrow and long cloud, shines freshly and plunges into its purple fog. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud will sparkle with snakes; their shine is like the shine of forged silver..."

The narrator was hunting in the forest. He "found and shot quite a lot of game."

After that, he decided to return home, but got lost and went to a place known as “Bezhin Meadow.” There was a fire burning, near which there were peasant children. They guarded the herd.

“To drive out the herd before the evening and bring in the herd at dawn is a great holiday for peasant boys.” The hunter sat down with the boys.

A conversation ensued. It was an amazingly beautiful night. And the fire was very beautiful. “The picture was wonderful: near the lights, a round reddish reflection trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness; the flame, flaring up, occasionally threw quick reflections beyond the line of that circle; a thin tongue of light will lick the bare branches of the vine and disappear at once; Sharp, long shadows, rushing in for a moment, in turn reached the very lights: darkness fought with light.”

There are five boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya.

The author describes them in detail. They are all completely different, but they have a lot in common - rigor, self-confidence, hard work. The boys are boiling potatoes in a pot. There is a leisurely conversation about evil spirits.

Fedya asks Ilyusha questions about the brownie:

Well, did you see the brownie?

No, I haven’t seen him, and you can’t even see him,” Ilyusha answered hoarsely and in a weak voice, the sound of which could not have been more consistent with the expression of his face - but I heard it... And I’m not the only one.

Where is he? - asked Pavlusha.

In the old roller.

Do you go to the factory?

Well, let's go. My brother, Avdyushka and I are members of the fox workers.

Look, factory workers!..”

Ilyusha talks about how the brownie is coughing, most likely “from dampness.”

The boys are very interested in talking about evil spirits. Then Kostya talks about Gavril, a suburban carpenter. All the boys know him.

Gavrila is distinguished by a rare gloominess. He is always silent. His condition is explained by wind with evil spirits. “So he went into the forest for nuts, and got lost; I went - God knows where I went. He walked and walked, my brothers - no! can't find the way; and it’s night outside. So he sat down under a tree; “Come on, I’ll wait until morning,” he sat down and dozed off. He fell asleep and suddenly heard someone calling him. He looks - no one. He dozed off again - they called him again. He looks again and looks: and in front of him on a branch the mermaid sits, sways and calls him to her, and she herself is dying of laughter, laughing... And the month is shining strongly, so strongly, the month is shining clearly - everything, my brothers, is visible. So she calls him, and all bright and white herself sits on a branch, like some kind of little raft or gudgeon - and then there’s the crucian carp that’s so whitish and silver...”

The mermaid called Gavrila to her. He went first. But then he changed his mind and crossed himself. It was very difficult for him to lay the cross. But after he crossed himself, the mermaid no longer laughed, but cried. Gavrila asked her: “Why are you, forest potion, crying?” And the mermaid answered: “You shouldn’t be baptized,” he says, “man, you should live with me in joy until the end of your days; but I cry, I am killed because you were baptized; Yes, I won’t be the only one who will kill myself: you too will kill yourself until the end of your days.” Kostya continued: “Then she, my brothers, disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how he could get out of the forest, that is, get out... But since then he has been walking around sadly.”

Everyone present is interested in the story. They discuss whether there are mermaids nearby.

Then Ilyusha talks about what happened at Varnavitsy. A drowned man is buried there. This man drowned a long time ago, when the pond was deep. His grave is still visible. The local clerk sent the huntsman Ermila to the post office.

He stayed in the city. I went back, not quite sober. When he drove past the pond, he saw a lamb on the grave. This lamb was very beautiful, white, curly. Yermil decided to take it.

However, the horse behaved very strangely: it stared, shook its head, and resisted. But Yermil still took the lamb. He goes and takes him with him. Yermil looks at the lamb and notices that the lamb is looking straight into his eyes.

The man felt terrified. He began to stroke the lamb and say: “Byasha, byasha.” And the ram bared his teeth in response and also said: “Byasha, byasha.”

As soon as the boy told this story, the dogs suddenly jumped up and ran away somewhere, barking loudly. The children were scared. But then it turned out that the dogs simply sensed something. Pavel assumed that they sensed a wolf. The boys continue their conversation. We are talking about a dead man, an old gentleman. It turns out that he often appears in the area and is looking for something. One day Grandfather Trofimych saw him and asked: “What, Father Ivan Ivanovich, do you want to look for on earth?”

And the late master replied that he was looking for a gap - grass. He needs her because “the grave is pressing” and the master “wants to get out...”.

Ilyusha says that on Parents' Saturday you can see on the porch those who are destined to die this year. Last year, Grandma Ulyana went to the porch. She sat for a long time, but then suddenly she saw a boy. He walked and did not raise his head. He died in the spring. Then Ulyana saw herself. Fedya objects that Baba Ulyana is not dead yet. But Ilyusha replied that the year was not over yet. If you look at it, it will not be clear “in what the soul is held.”

The boys saw a white dove and assumed that it was a righteous soul flying to heaven.

Kostya asked who Trishka was. Ilyusha replied that this amazing person who will come when they come last times. Nothing can be done to him; he will seduce the people. Trishka is the Antichrist.

During a solar eclipse, severe panic began. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that from a distance everyone saw a man with a strange head. Everyone thought it was Trishka coming. “And the man was our cooper, Vavila: he bought himself a new jug and put an empty jug on his head and put it on.”

The boys laughed and fell silent. A heron screams over the river, the children pay attention to its cry.

Pavlusha remembers that thieves drowned Akim the forester in a hole with water the year before last, and his soul complains.

Therefore, if you pass by, you can hear a groan.

The boys begin to talk about the devil, about frogs. The conversation captivates them, they argue. Pavel went to fetch water. Ilyusha warns him, says that he might be dragged away by the merman.

This is exactly what happened to Akulina after which she went crazy.

Then Kostya remembers the boy Vasya, who drowned in the river. His mother, Feklista, loved her son very much. She seemed to have a presentiment that her son would die from the water. He drowned just when his mother was nearby. Since then, Feklista has lost her mind.

Pavel returns and says that he heard Vasya’s voice. He called him. However, Pavel managed to leave and even got some water. Fedya says that the merman called him. Ilyusha notices that this is a bad omen. However, Paul objects: “you cannot escape your fate,” so you should not pay attention.

Children listen to the sounds of the night, the cries of birds. Coming wonderful morning, which is described in great detail. The author leaves the fire. Later author I learned that Pavel died that same year. “He did not drown: he was killed by falling from a horse.” The author says with pity that Pavel was a wonderful guy.

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Title of the work: Bezhin meadow
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Year of writing: 1850
Genre of the work: story from the series “Notes of a Hunter”
First publication: 1851
Main characters: Author-narrator and shepherd boys: Fedya about 14, Pavlusha And Ilyusha 12 years old Kostya about 10 years old, and the youngest, Vanyusha- 7 years old.

The author of the story got lost in the forest, at dusk he came to a fire made by a group of village boys. What happened to him next will help you find out the summary of the story “Bezhin Meadow” for the reader’s diary.

Plot

The boys were terrified, talking about evil spirits at night. The bravest of them, Pavlusha, left the fire to see that he was alone with the horses, and then went to the river for water. Those who remained remembered the drowned boy they knew. Pavlusha returned and said that he imagined that the same boy called him from the water to him. Such signs are not good.

After this, the narrator fell asleep. In the morning he thanked him for the shelter and left. After some time, the sad news reached him - Pavlusha died, hurt himself by falling from a horse.

Conclusion (my opinion)

Turgenev's story "Bezhin Meadow" was first published in 1851 in the magazine Sovremennik. The work was included in the series of stories by the author of “Notes of a Hunter”. The essay refers to literary direction realism, but it also contains features of romanticism (vivid descriptions of nature, legends and beliefs that are intertwined with real life heroes).

The work is studied in the 6th grade literature program; on our website you can read a summary of “Bezhin Meadow” online.

Main characters

Narrator- a hunter, the story is told on his behalf.

Ilyusha- a boy of about 12 years old, who knows many popular beliefs and stories about evil spirits.

Pavlusha- a boy about 12 years old, “he looked very smart and direct, and there was strength in his voice.”

Other heroes

Fedya- a boy of 14 years old, the oldest of the children, by all signs - a native of rich family. I went with other guys for fun.

Kostya- a 10-year-old boy.

Vanya- a seven-year-old boy who slept almost all night.

On one of the warm July days The narrator was hunting for black grouse in the Chernsky district of the Tula province. He shot “quite a lot of game” and returned home in the evening. Lost in the twilight, the narrator first walked past an aspen tree, then found himself in an unfamiliar plowed ravine.

Without trying to make out the roads, he followed the stars and suddenly found himself in front of a “huge plain” called Bezhin Meadow, which was surrounded by a wide river. At the foot of the hill, the man noticed two fires and people.

The narrator went down to the fires - near them were peasant children from neighboring villages, guarding a herd of horses with two large dogs. The narrator asked them to spend the night, lay down by the fire and, watching the night nature, listened to the boys’ conversations.

There were five boys in total: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. The narrator describes the boys' appearance. Fedya - “a slender boy, with beautiful and subtle features faces". Pavlusha - with black hair, gray hair, pockmarked pale face and an awkward, squat body. Ilyusha - with a hook-nosed, elongated, dim-sighted face that “expressed some kind of dull, painful solicitude.” Kostya is a boy with a thoughtful and sad look, his eyes “seemed to want to express something, why in the language,<…>- there were no words." The youngest, Vanya, slept under the matting all night.

The narrator pretended to be asleep and the boys started talking by the fire. Ilyusha told how once he spent the night with the guys at a paper factory, they heard a brownie. At night, someone knocked and walked above them, and then came down the stairs towards them, opened the doors, but the guys did not see anyone at the door. Here the shape of one vat began to move, and of another, the hook was removed from the nail and snapped back into place. “Then it was as if someone came to the door and suddenly started coughing and choking.” The boys were very scared.

Kostya told the following story - about the suburban carpenter Gavril. Once a man went into the forest to get lost, got lost and decided to spend the night in the forest. But as soon as he dozes off, he wakes up as if someone was calling him. Finally, Gavrila saw a mermaid sitting on a branch, who was calling him to her. The man crossed himself - immediately the mermaid, who had previously laughed merrily, burst into tears: “You should not be baptized,” he says, “man, you should live with me in joy until the end of your days; but I cry, I am killed because you were baptized; Yes, I won’t be the only one who will kill myself: you too will kill yourself until the end of your days.” Then she disappeared. And from then on Gavrila became gloomy.

In the distance a “lingering, ringing, almost moaning sound” was heard. The boys shuddered, Ilya whispered: “The power of the cross is with us!” .

After the guys calmed down, Ilyusha started talking about a recent incident at a broken dam - an “unclean, remote place” where a drowned man was buried. The boy said that once the clerk sent the huntsman Yermil to the post office, but the man was delayed and returned at night. While crossing the dam, he noticed a lamb on the grave of a drowned man. The man took the animal with him, but while he was driving, he noticed that the lamb was looking intently into his eyes. He began to stroke his fur like that, and said: “Byasha, byasha!” And the ram suddenly bares his teeth, and he too: “Byasha, byasha...”.

Suddenly, “both dogs stood up at once, rushed away from the fire with convulsive barking and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were scared." Pavlusha ran after the dogs, but soon galloped up on horseback and said that he thought that the dogs had smelled the wolf, but there was nothing there.

The boys continued their conversation. Ilyusha said that in Varnavitsy they often met a late gentleman who was looking for a gap in the grass, because the grave was pressing hard on him. Kostya was surprised - he thought that the dead could only be seen on parental Saturday. Ilyusha replied that on Parents' Saturday you can also find out who will die soon: you need to sit on the church porch and see who will pass by you. So Baba Ulyana, sitting on the porch, saw herself walking.

The boys became quiet. A white dove flew over them. The guys remember the “celestial foresight” that recently happened in Shalamov - a solar eclipse. Ilyusha retells the belief about Trishka - a crafty man who will appear during an eclipse and who can neither be caught nor put in prison.

Suddenly, the sharp cry of a heron was heard twice over the river. The boys started talking about the goblin - Kostya thought he somehow heard his screams. Ilya objected: the goblin does not scream, he is mute - “he only claps his hands and cracks.”

Pavlusha got up and went to the river for water. At this time, Ilyusha told the boys that when a person draws water from the river, a merman can grab him by the hand and drag him away. The guys remembered Akulina the fool, who was “spoiled” by the merman, and also about Vasya, who, while playing on the shore, accidentally drowned. When he returned, Pavlusha said that when he was getting water, Vasya’s voice called to him as if from under the water.

By morning, the boys' conversation gradually died down, and the narrator dozed off. The man woke up before dawn and, nodding to the awakened Pavlusha, walked “along the smoking river.” “Unfortunately, I must add that Pavel passed away that same year. He did not drown: he was killed by falling from his horse. It’s a pity, he was a nice guy!”

Conclusion

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's story “Bezhin Meadow” reveals to the reader the world of folk poetic signs and tales about all kinds of “evil spirits”: brownies, mermaids, goblins, water creatures, ghosts. In the work, legends and beliefs are harmoniously complemented by pictures of picturesque nature, and the composition of the essay itself refers the reader to the vernacular genre “ scary story», characteristic feature which contains elements of mysticism and an inexplicable, mysterious tragic end.

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