The story of a serf boy (collection) - Alekseev Sergey Petrovich
Sergey Alekseev
The story of a serf boy
From the author
I am often asked the question: how did I become a writer?
As a child, I dreamed of many professions. I wanted to be a rural cab driver, a fireman, a geologist, an engine builder, and a diplomat. But I never thought that I would start writing books for children. Much in life happens by chance...
I was born in 1922, in Ukraine, in the family of a rural doctor. My homeland is that part of Ukraine called Podolia. This is an amazing land, inhabited by wonderful people, a land full of terrible historical events, remarkable legends and traditions. The liberation wars of Bohdan Khmelnytsky raged here. The nobility and fighting prowess of the Ukrainian Cossacks, so wonderfully sung by Gogol in Taras Bulba, competed. Here the Southern Society of Decembrists was born and the legendary Chernigov regiment made its heroic campaign in search of “miracle freedom”. The red horsemen of Semyon Budyonny rushed through my native village with their sabers drawn, breaking through the enemy front, and then went through the harsh battles of the Great Patriotic War. In the neighboring village of Borshchagovka, Kochubey, an enemy of Mazepa and a supporter of Peter and the alliance with Russia, was executed. In another village - Verkhovna, on the estate of the Polish magnates Gansky, the great French writer Honore de Balzac spent the happiest years of his life.
Story. Story. Story. She breathed from the neighboring fields and became my first love.
Second love is aviation. My youth coincided with that heroic time when, through the efforts of our pilots, our country broke through into the sky. Here are just some of the brave names: Valery Chkalov, Mikhail Gromov, who flew over the North Pole to the United States of America; our heroine pilots Valentina Grizodubova and her friends, who quickly flew across the entire country without landing from Moscow to the eastern shores of our state. Polar pilots who became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, saving the famous Chelyuskinites from the ice captivity of the frozen Northern Ocean.
Thousands of my peers wanted to become pilots. I dreamed too. While still a schoolboy, I learned to fly, albeit on a small, albeit slow-moving in modern times, but a real airplane. Then he became a cadet at the military aviation pilot school. Soon the Great Patriotic War began. Our school was located near the German border. On the very first day of the war, we entered into an unequal battle with the Nazis. Almost all of our planes and many of my comrades were killed. The difficult days of retreat began. I survived both death and captivity. He was sent to a new flight school. He graduated from it and became a pilot instructor, that is, he began teaching others how to fly.
I thought that my entire future life would be connected with aviation. But... Flying work is not a safe business. The trouble did not escape me either. After a serious accident, the doctors’ merciless verdict followed: “Not fit to fly.” Many years have passed since then. But to this day, when I hear the rumble of an airplane, I always raise my head up. A second - and I’m already there: soaring in the heights. There is sky and space all around. And the earth runs, runs, runs below...
I entered civilian life with a diploma in history. As a pilot, he graduated in absentia from the history department of the Pedagogical Institute. In those years, a competition was held in the country to create a new school textbook on the history of the USSR for primary schools. I took part in this competition and, together with Professor V.G. Kartsev, emerged as the winner. By chance, the textbook fell into the hands of the wonderful children's writer Sergei Mikhalkov, and he advised me to write a book of historical stories for children. I tried. The book turned out great. She was published from afar. It was a book about Tsar Peter I, “The Unprecedented Happens.” I immediately wrote a second book - “The History of a Serf Boy.” It was also published, and in the same year I was accepted as a member of the Writers' Union. So, without thinking, without guessing, I began to write historical books for children. I've been writing for many years. The books were published and reprinted. Translated into many foreign languages.
You have one of these books in your hands. It's called "One Hundred Stories from Russian History." The book begins with stories about Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. This was one of the outstanding sovereigns. Under him, our country grew stronger and expanded. New cities began to be built. Arkhangelsk, Samara, Kursk, Voronezh, Saratov, Tsaritsyn (modern Volgograd) and many others were founded precisely under Tsar Ivan IV. It was under him that the first printed book appeared in Rus'. The first geographical map of Russia was drawn up, and Siberia joined Russia. A lot of other things happened in our country during the reign of Ivan IV. He was a stern, demanding man. It was not for nothing that they called him the Terrible. And one more thing: before the Tsar, Ivan IV, the rulers of Russia bore the title of Grand Dukes. Having ascended the throne, Grand Duke Ivan IV was the first to call himself Tsar. It was from him that the tsars came to Russia.
In the 17th century, a wave of popular uprisings swept through Russia. Unrest swept across the Don and almost the entire Volga. The rebels went to war against the then existing order. At the head of the dissatisfied was the decisive Don Cossack Stepan Timofeevich Razin. With great difficulty, the royal troops managed to cope with the rebellious ones. “Stories about Stepan Razin, the Cossacks and the Rebellious People,” which made up the second chapter of this book, will introduce you to those turbulent years.
The activities of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great, called the Great, played a huge role in the history of our country. About the first years of his reign, about the fight against enemies for access to the shores of the Baltic Sea, about the founding of the city of St. Petersburg, about the construction of new plants and factories, about the publication of the first Russian newspaper, about how they studied in Rus' during the reign of Peter the Great, and you will read about much more in the third section of the book, which is called “Stories about Tsar Peter and his time.”
One of the most beloved heroes of Russian history was and remains our great commander Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov. It was he who taught Russian soldiers to win “not by numbers, but by skill.” He said: “The brave are always in front, the coward is always killed behind”, “Die yourself, but save your comrade”, “The fewer the troops, the more brave.” You will learn from the fourth chapter how Suvorov knew how to defeat enemies, how he stormed the Turkish fortress of Ishmael, how at the age of seventy he made a heroic transition with his soldiers through the high Alpine mountains, as well as why the soldiers loved Suvorov so much and the enemies were so afraid of him. "Stories about Suvorov and Russian soldiers."
A difficult test befell our homeland in 1812. The troops of the French Emperor Napoleon I attacked Russia. The enemies were going to conquer Moscow. The Patriotic War of 1812 began. Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was placed at the head of the Russian army. “Kutuzov came to beat the French,” said the Russian soldiers. The Russians defeated Napoleon, drove the enemies across Europe to the very French border and entered the capital of France, the city of Paris, as victors (“Stories about the Patriotic War of 1812”).
The last section of the book is called “Stories about the Decembrists.” For a long time, serfdom existed in Russia. Many millions of inhabitants of our country - peasants - belonged to landowners. Serfs could be bought, sold, exchanged, flogged to death. In Russia there were people who opposed such orders. They wanted to destroy the tsarist power in Russia and give freedom to the peasants. The uprising against the Tsar took place in December 1825. Therefore, its participants began to be called Decembrists. However, the forces were unequal. The king defeated the rebels. Five of them were executed. Many were sent to distant Siberia for hard labor. Thirty-six years after the Decembrist uprising, serfdom in Russia was abolished.
Dear Guys! Here is a book for those who love their native history, who are proud of our great past, who, having become adults, will not spare their efforts to create a rich and fair state on our ancient land.
Good luck and good health to you.
Sergey Alekseev
Chapter first. Lady Mavra Ermolaevna
Mitya Myshkin lived in the village of Zakopanka. When the boy was ten years old, trouble happened - the lady decided to sell the entire Myshkin family. The auction took place at the market in Chudovo, in the row next to the cattle barn. Crooked Savva, who was also being sold, taught Mitka to roar as soon as the buyer approached - then, you see, they won’t buy. The day was coming to an end, and there was no demand for Zakopane men. Mitka had already calmed down, but then an old lady came up and wanted to buy one boy, although the whole family was for sale. Mitka roared in vain, his mother Aksinya cried in vain, they bought the boy for three rubles.
Lady Mavra Ermolaevna was a poor landowner. She had no children, her officer husband died in the war, and the lady lived on her pension. There were two serfs on the farm, Arkhip and Varvara. Life in Mavra Ermolaevna’s house was boring and painful. The lady got up at dawn, looked after the household, fed the geese, rested after dinner, and went to bed at eight in the evening. On Saturdays, she flogged her serfs with rods, “so that they would be respected.”
Mitka felt sorry for Arkhip and Varvaara, and hid the rods under the master's feather bed. Mavra Ermolaevna immediately suspected the boy and put him in the goose barn until he confessed. Mitka got scared of the evil gander, waved his stick and broke his neck. And then the lady found the rod. They spanked Mitka long and painfully. Then the lady took the boy into the house, into her service. It was hard for Myshkin: the lady has insomnia, and he couldn’t sleep. And Mitka got hit more than once. The boy decided to run away, began asking the lady where the road from the estate led, ran into another spanking, but did not change his mind about running.
"Good gentleman"
Having learned the summary of three chapters of “The Stories of a Serf Boy,” it’s time to figure out how this book ended.
After his escape, Myshkin wandered around the capital in search of food. At the market, he accidentally met a serf from Zakopanka, the crooked Savva. He said that the former owners went bankrupt and sold almost all the peasants and land. The boy's parents are now owned by General Yusupovsky, who is known for his good disposition.
Savva took the boy to his father and mother, who considered him dead.
The new master had some mental problems due to a head wound. Therefore, he constantly forced the boy to play his strange games and pretend to be either a soldier or a queen. Despite this, Mitya lived well.
A year later, the master remembered that he had never completed the documents for the purchase of Myshkin and sent his manager to Count Gushchin. A soldier came from there to arrest the boy for arson. Realizing that things would not end well, the boy ran away on his master's sled.
"Guards Lieutenant"
Having examined the summary of the first two chapters of “The Story of a Serf Boy,” it is worth finding out what the third is about.
Finding himself on the road after escaping, the main character almost froze to death - it was winter, after all. He was rescued by a passing officer. He wanted to hand over the fugitive to the authorities, but Mitya managed to win over the military man, and he kept the boy with him.
The new owner, Alexander Vasilyevich Vyazemsky, was a lieutenant in the Imperial Life Guards regiment. The boy became his orderly and became very attached to him.
Because of the duel, Vyazemsky was sent to war with the Turks. Fearing for the life of the young servant, he wanted to leave him on his estate, but Mitya decided to stay with the master.
Taking part in the battle for the capture of Ishmael, the young officer showed courage, but was injured and almost died. Fortunately, Myshkin made his way to the battlefield and pulled out the wounded owner. Suvorov himself found out about this and awarded the young hero a medal.
Returning to St. Petersburg, Vyazemsky, in gratitude for the rescue, vowed never to sell the boy. But one day, while playing cards, the officer bet Mitya. The disappointed boy did not wait for the outcome of the game and ran away.
