A satirical depiction of reality appeared in Saltykov-Shchedrin (along with other genres) and in fairy tales. Here, as in folk tales, fantasy and reality are combined. Thus, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s animals are often humanized; they personify the vices of people.
But the writer has a cycle of fairy tales where people are the heroes. Here Saltykov-Shchedrin chooses other techniques for ridiculing vices. This is, as a rule, grotesque, hyperbole, fantasy.

This is Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”. In it, the stupidity of the landowner is taken to the limit. The writer sneers at the master’s “merits”: “The men see: although their landowner is stupid, he has a great mind. He shortened them so that there was nowhere to stick his nose; No matter where they look, everything is impossible, not allowed, and not yours! The cattle go to water - the landowner shouts: “My water!” The chicken goes outside the outskirts - the landowner shouts: “My land!” And the earth, and the water, and the air - everything became his!”

The landowner considers himself not a man, but a kind of deity. Or at least a person of the highest rank. For him, it’s normal to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor and not even think about it.

The men of the “wild landowner” are exhausted from hard work and cruel need. Tortured by oppression, the peasants finally prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to perish even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!” God heard them, and “there was no man in the entire domain of the stupid landowner.”

At first it seemed to the master that he would now live well without the peasants. And all the noble guests of the landowner approved of his decision: “Oh, how good it is! - the generals praise the landowner, - so now you won’t have that slave smell at all? “Not at all,” the landowner answers.”

It seems that the hero does not realize the deplorability of his situation. The landowner only indulges in dreams, empty in essence: “and so he walks, walks from room to room, then sits down and sits. And he thinks everything. He thinks what kind of cars he will order from England, so that everything is steam and steam, and so that there is no servile spirit at all; he thinks what a fruitful garden he will plant: here there will be pears, plums...” Without his peasants, the “wild landowner” did nothing but caress his “loose, white, crumbly body.”

It is at this moment that the climax of the tale begins. Without his peasants, the landowner, who cannot lift a finger without a peasant, begins to run wild. In Shchedrin's fairy tale cycle, full scope is given for the development of the motif of reincarnation. It was the grotesque in the description of the process of the landowner’s savagery that helped the writer show with all clarity how greedy representatives of the “conducting class” can turn into real wild animals.

But if in folk tales the process of transformation itself is not depicted, then Saltykov reproduces it in all its details. This is the unique artistic invention of the satirist. It can be called a grotesque portrait: a landowner, completely wild after the fantastic disappearance of the peasants, turns into a primitive man. “He was all overgrown with hair, from head to toe, like the ancient Esau... and his nails became like iron,” Saltykov-Shchedrin slowly narrates. “He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, walked more and more on all fours, and was even surprised that he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and adopted some kind of special victory cry, a cross between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.”

Under the new conditions, all the severity of the landowner lost its force. He became helpless, like a small child. Now even “the little mouse was smart and understood that the landowner could not do him any harm without Senka. He just wagged his tail in response to the landowner’s menacing exclamation and a moment later he was looking at him from under the sofa, as if saying: wait a minute, stupid landowner! or else there will be more! I will not only eat the cards, but also your robe, as soon as you oil it properly!”

Thus, the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” shows the degradation of man, the impoverishment of his spiritual world (did he even exist in this case?!), and the withering away of all human qualities.
This is explained very simply. In his fairy tales, as in his satires, for all their tragic gloom and accusatory severity, Saltykov remained a moralist and educator. Showing the horror of human fall and its most sinister vices, he still believed that in the future there would be a moral revival of society and times of social and spiritual harmony would come.

When analyzing the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, which the author wrote back in 1869, it is worth paying attention to the style of presentation of the work.

The fairy tale is a series of phantasmagoric images that combine the characteristics of representatives of the ruling class and people characteristic of Russia.

The author's story is easy to understand, but is fraught with many hidden allegories that, unfortunately, have not lost their relevance in our time. The purpose of this analysis is an attempt to take a fresh look at a well-known work.

The history of the creation of the work “Wild Landowner”

Maintaining the form of a folk tale, weaving fantastic elements into the plot, the writer finds the opportunity to simply talk about complex problems. Even the “strong” censorship of Tsarist Russia does not find a reason to prohibit the publication of a fairy tale.

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin (real name Saltykov, pseudonym Nikolai Shchedrin, 1826 - 1889) - Russian writer, journalist, editor of the magazine "Otechestvennye Zapiski", Ryazan and Tver vice-governor.

However, in the literary magazine Otechestvennye zapiski (in which the story was published for the first time), the function of editor-in-chief at that time was performed by Mikhail Evgrafovich’s good friend, Nikolai Nekrasov.

Year the fairy tale was written: 1869, the work was published after the abolition of serfdom. But the life of a simple peasant (as before, dependent on the landowner), enmeshed in taxes and duties, did not become much easier.

The main characters and their characteristics

Urus Kuchum Kildibaev - main character works. A typical representative of the ruling elite of Russia.

He is active in his own way and full of plans for the future, but the problem is that he is not used to living without a man, but at the same time the Russian peasant is disgusting to him.

He dislikes its appearance and smell. The landowner comes to a paradoxical conclusion: he has no use for simple, “unwashed people.”

It is noteworthy that he turns to God with a request to deliver him from the village peasant, but his request was not heard, which is confirmed by the quote: “but God knew that the landowner was stupid, and did not heed his request.” Then the landowner decides to survive the slaves, oppressing them and complicating their working life in every possible way.

A man is a collective image of the Russian people. At the time the fairy tale was written, Orthodoxy in Russia had the rank of state ideology. It is not surprising that people also turn to God for help.

Exhausted by the oppression of a cruel landowner, people ask to be spared their torment. The peasants are disappearing.

Police Captain- representative of the regulatory authority. Despite his sympathy for the landowner, he puts state interests at the forefront. There is no man, there are no taxes, and overall there is no order. The resolution is to bring the man back!

Saltykov-Shchedrin “Wild Landowner” - summary

One day the landowner felt that the man had disappeared from his possessions and was delighted.

However, it soon became clear that along with the peasantry, food and any opportunity to improve their life disappeared.

It is interesting that in order to strengthen his resilience, the unlucky “village leader” turns to the state printed organ - a newspaper, in reading which he finds solace and support for his fanatical stupidity.

Soon his friends and acquaintances - actors and generals - turn away from him. The essence of their claims is simple - a reduction in the income of the receiving party. The tables are not set and there is no entertainment. There is no one and nothing.

The landowner begins to slowly but surely run wild. As a result, the poor fellow finds a comrade in the face of a forest bear. However, he does not give up his idea even after the police captain visited him.

The authorities begin to worry, the man miraculously returns. A wild landowner who has lost his human appearance can no longer return to normal life. Here the meaning of the title of the work is revealed - “Wild Landowner”.

Analysis of the work

Let's analyze the satirical tale by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Main idea

It lies in the reluctance of the ruling elite to take into account the interests of ordinary people, which can lead to the death of both the elite itself and the state as a whole.

People say it more simply - “you can’t cut the branch you’re sitting on.”

The composition of the essay consists of three parts and represents a standard plan for a work of art:

• introduction;
• main part;
• conclusion.

The volume of the work is small. The tale takes up only three pages of text.

Genre and direction

The story is artificially stylized as a work of oral folk art. Genre - satirical fairy tale, direction - epic.

"The Wild Landowner" is an example of sharp social satire. This is an original epic that does not lose its relevance today.

Plot Features

Using bright satirical techniques, the author exposes the vices of our society and poses a number of important questions to the reader, the answers to which he will have to look for himself.

Unlike folk tales, the writer’s work with the text is visible in the narrative.

The images and personalities of the characters are written succinctly and colorfully. In the work it is easy to find examples of irony not only addressed to the landowner, but also to the social structure of Tsarist Russia.

The work makes full use of such expressive means as:

• irony;
• grotesque;
• allegory;
• comparison;
• illogic;
• hyperbola.

Issues

Despite its apparent simplicity, the fairy tale has many hidden meanings and rather raises questions than gives answers to them. Thoughtful reading of the text leads to reflection on complex philosophical categories. What is stupidity, human morality, justice and God, the state and the people? What does a fairy tale teach?

As the ancient prophets said, “a person can turn away from society, but if society turns away from a person, his complete degradation will occur.”

The main theme and idea of ​​the work is attitude of power towards ordinary people, which are the foundation of any state.

Conclusion

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin is an excellent example of a true Russian writer, in whom his talent and gift for writing are as well developed as his sense of being a citizen of his country.

Analysis of a fairy tale "Wild Landowner" Saltykova-Shchedrin

The theme of serfdom and the life of the peasantry played an important role in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The writer could not openly protest the existing system. Saltykov-Shchedrin hides his merciless criticism of autocracy behind fairy-tale motives. He wrote his political tales from 1883 to 1886. In them, the author truthfully reflected the life of Russia, in which despotic and all-powerful landowners destroy hardworking men.

In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects on the unlimited power of landowners, who abuse the peasants in every possible way, imagining themselves almost as gods. The writer also talks about the landowner’s stupidity and lack of education: “that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” Shchedrin also expresses the powerless situation of the peasantry in Tsarist Russia in this fairy tale: “There was no torch to light the peasant’s light, there was no rod with which to sweep out the hut.” The main idea of ​​the fairy tale was that the landowner cannot and does not know how to live without a peasant, and the landowner dreamed of work only in nightmares. So in this fairy tale, the landowner, who had no idea about work, becomes a dirty and wild beast. After all the peasants abandoned him, the landowner never even washed himself: “Yes, I’ve been walking around unwashed for so many days!”

The writer caustically ridicules all this negligence of the master class. The life of a landowner without a peasant is far from reminiscent of normal human life.

The master became so wild that “he was covered with hair from head to toe, his nails became like iron, he even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds. But he had not yet acquired a tail.” Life without peasants in the district itself has become disrupted: “nobody pays taxes, no one drinks wine in taverns.” “Normal” life begins in the district only when the peasants return to it. In the image of this one landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin showed the life of all the gentlemen in Russia. And the final words of the tale are addressed to each landowner: “He plays grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes himself only under duress, and moos from time to time.”

This tale is full of folk motifs and is close to Russian folklore. There are no sophisticated words in it, but there are simple Russian words: “said and done”, “peasant trousers”, etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin sympathizes with the people. He believes that the suffering of the peasants will not be endless, and freedom will triumph.

Saltykov-Shchedrin's satire on the landed nobility occupies a significant place in Russian literature of the nineteenth century. Vivid images and bold decisions allowed the writer to wittily but mercilessly brand the reactionary nobility, which had exhausted its usefulness for Russia and had become its ballast. His fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is a classic of Russian satire and one of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s most famous creations on the theme of the peasant question in Russia, in which he revealed the relationship between two classes: the landed nobility and the peasantry. The many-wise Litrekon offers you an analysis of the work.

The history of writing the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” boasts interesting facts about the work:

1. Like many other works, “The Wild Landowner” was inspired by the writer’s short-term exile to the Vyatka region, where he could observe the life of people in the Russian province in its entirety.
2. The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” was written in 1869 as a response to disappointment in the peasant reform of the year sixty-five, which did not solve the land issue. In this situation, Saltykov-Shchedrin returned to those images that, it would seem, had already disappeared from everyday life, but in fact existed on the territory of Russia for a long time.
3. The author managed to publish his work in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski thanks to the media editor Nikolai Nekrasov. He also held oppositional views on the fate of Russia. To publish daring literary works, he bribed censors with hunting trips and sumptuous dinners. At the cost of a bribe, he managed to publish the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner.”

Direction and genre

The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” was created within the framework of the direction. Despite some fantastic assumptions, the writer set as his goal a naturalistic depiction of the surrounding reality. The images he created are quite realistic, although somewhat exaggerated. The reader can believe that the characters described in this tale could actually exist.

The genre of “The Wild Landowner” can be defined as a satirical fairy tale. The plot is based on a fantastic assumption, designed to disguise and soften the harsh ridicule of the nobility, characteristic of all satirical works. The fairy-tale atmosphere is emphasized by phrases characteristic of folklore, such as “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state” and “once upon a time.”

Table: Features of a fairy tale in the work “The Wild Landowner”

Composition

1. Plot: acquaintance with the landowner and his hostility towards the peasants;
2. Climax: disappearance of peasants;
3. Development of action: degradation of a nobleman;
4. Denouement: the return of the master to the fold of civilization and the return of slaves.

The point: what is the fairy tale about?

The plot tells us about a certain rich landowner who suffered from irrational hatred of the peasants and prayed to God that all commoners would disappear from his domain.

Having decided to eliminate the peasants on his own, the landowner began to drive his peasants out of the world through numerous fines and oppression. When they prayed to God for deliverance, he heeded their grief and took all the peasants from the landowner’s possessions.

The hero's initial joy was somewhat shaken by the cold reaction of those around him, who called him a fool. There was no one left to manage the house, clean the estate, or even wash the master himself. However, he still did not want to admit his mistake, considering his struggle with the common people a manifestation of firmness and fortitude and dreaming of purchasing steam engines from England to replace the men.

After some time, the landowner's possessions fall into decay and desolation, and the main character himself finally loses his human appearance. He grows hair, begins to walk on all fours, eats raw meat, becomes friends with a bear, and even loses the ability to speak human language.

In the end, the provincial authorities decide to stop this madness, find the missing men and return them to the landowner's possessions. The landowner himself was eventually captured and forcibly returned to the fold of civilization, but until the end of his days he never learned to speak again, greatly yearning for his old life in the forest.

The main characters and their characteristics

The system of images in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is described by the Many-Wise Litrecon in table format:

heroes of the fairy tale "wild landowner"	characteristic
landowner	an arrogant, but rude and simple-minded nobleman. an unimaginably stupid person, unable to even understand what his wealth rests on. despises the common people and wishes them only harm. a person who is not independent and not adapted to real life. incapable of any physical labor or economic activity. without care and service from her men, she quickly loses her human appearance. The life of an animal seems to him much preferable to the life of a person.
guys	the Orthodox Russian peasantry, providing a comfortable existence for the tyrant landowner. economic people who, in a matter of days, eliminated all the damage caused by the master to the household. at the same time, they are dependent and inert, they prefer to blindly obey their superiors, and instead of fighting injustice, turn to God for help.

Topics

The theme of the book “The Wild Landowner” does not seem archaic to us. All the main topics are still relevant:

1. People- simple Russian peasants in the work are presented as talented and economic people, but at the same time they are deprived of any willpower and self-respect, becoming mute slaves of a system that sees them only as living tools.
2. Homeland– Saltykov-Shchedrin sees enormous potential in Russia and the Russian people, which, however, is limited by landlord and state oppression, as well as the inertia of the peasantry, which silently endures all injustices.
3. Contrasting the nobility with the peasantry– in the person of the peasants the entire Russian peasantry is represented, which is endowed with skill and intelligence, but deprived of rights and will, and therefore is forced to carry the privileged noble minority, represented in the image of a stupid, insignificant and evil landowner.
4. Life and customs of Russia- in his fairy tale, the writer makes fun of the way of life and customs that reigned in Russia during his time. The huge and clumsy bureaucratic apparatus that allowed such an absurd situation to happen, social inequality and noble oppression - all this was a sad everyday occurrence for the Russian Empire even after the abolition of serfdom.
5. Folklore motives- in the text of the fairy tale there are often verbal expressions characteristic of folk art, such as “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state”, “once upon a time”, “he looked at the light and rejoiced”. All this is necessary in order to emphasize the deep nationality of this work.

Problems

The problematic of the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is a product of the state system in Russia of that period. Officials solved personal, not public problems, so the common people were left to themselves and their tormentors (if the section needs additions, write about it to the Many-Wise Litrekon):

1. Social inequality- in his fairy tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin perfectly depicted the gap between the peasant and noble classes, which consisted not only in material wealth, but also in worldview. The peasants had a “servile mentality” and were hostages of their long-suffering and ignorance. Their masters were just as stupid and even stupider, but bolder and more cunning.
2. Serfdom– the work reflects the entire absurdity of serfdom, considered by Saltykov-Shchedrin, as a terrible abomination in the history of the Russian people, not only causing enormous harm to the economy of the Russian Empire and breeding poverty, but also disfiguring human souls, making them faceless slaves of the system.
3. Ignorance of the ruling class- Describing the thoughts of a stupid landowner, the writer thereby emphasizes the insignificance of the landowner nobility, its limitations and ignorance. Therefore, the situation seems even more unfair that it is people like the wild landowner who determine the fate of the Russian Empire and its people.

Meaning

The landowner's peasants personify the entire Russian peasantry, which is endowed with intelligence and talents, but is forced to eke out a slave existence due to its own inertia and inability to realize its interests and fight for them.

The main idea of ​​the author of the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is that the enslaving dependence of the peasants on the nobles harms both sides: if ordinary people turn into stupid slaves and spend their lives in the darkness of ignorance, then the aristocrats also degrade and become pests for their own country.

What does it teach?

Using the example of the landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin condemns ignorance, rudeness and tyranny. The writer defends the idea of ​​equality, believing that it is not origin or rank that determines a person, but his own skills and real achievements. The moral of the tale brings us closer to the ideal of Peter the Great's times, when a simple person could achieve success and high status through work and knowledge.

The writer praises the thriftiness and hard work of the common people. He is trying to convey to the reader the idea of ​​how important it is to respect oneself, to be aware of one’s interests, and not to blindly obey the state machine. A person who does not fight for his rights, but simply goes with the flow, will remain a powerless slave. This is the conclusion from the work “The Wild Landowner”.

Means of expression

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin built the entire tale on hyperbole and absurdity. So, the landowner became friends with the bear, grew bigger and began to live in the forest, like a wild animal. Of course, the writer exaggerated, and in reality this could not have happened, but the genre of the book gave him a lot of room for imagination.

Another important artistic device is the antithesis: the peasants are hardworking, kind and modest, but the landowner is lazy, angry and arrogant, although he has absolutely nothing to be proud of.

artistic means in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”

Criticism

Contemporaries greeted The Wild Landowner as warmly as other works by Saltykov-Shchedrin that were published in the same period. Already during his lifetime, the writer stood on the same level as such a classic as Turgenev.

Nowadays, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire allows us to understand how the Russian intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century thought and lived.

>Essays based on the work The Wild Landowner

Meaning of the name

In my opinion, the author used the title “Wild Landowner” in order to show the true vices of the noble class of the late 19th century. This is ignorance, and a feeling of laziness, and pompousness, and backwardness, and moral inferiority. All these qualities are fully inherent in the main character of the fairy tale, who himself is rather stupid and dependent, but thinks that he can manage without the help of his peasants. However, the meaning of the name is not immediately revealed. We see how, over time, the landowner Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev really becomes like a wild beast.

He stops washing his face, cutting his hair, and taking care of himself. It begins to grow hair and run on all fours, returning to the origins of evolution. Over time, he even stops pronouncing words clearly, replacing them with some wild sounds, a victory cry, or something “between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.” Eating only gingerbread and candy, he becomes weak and begins to go hunting in the forest. Having gone completely wild, he even finds a friend in the face of a bear. In a word, the name “Wild Landowner,” if not immediately, then as events develop, justifies itself.

When the provincial authorities notice that something wrong is happening in this district, they order the “swarm of men” to be returned to their place. Only after the peasants return does everything become clear again. Meat and bread appear in the markets, and money appears in the treasury. The wild landowner is brought back to normal, after which he continues to play his grand solitaire. At times he misses forest life and moos. Caustic satire slips through this work by Saltykov-Shchedrin. So he ridicules the negligence of the master class and elevates the role of the peasants from the life of the country.