Son Vanya asks his father, the general, who built the railway. The general attributes its construction to Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel.
The narrator - a fellow traveler traveling with them in the same compartment - does not agree with the general’s words and begins his story about the real builders of the railway. The narrator tells the boy about the merciless king, who drove the people to construction, about famine.
It was he who drove the masses of people here. Many - in a terrible struggle, calling these barren wilds to life, found a coffin here for themselves.
Listening to the story of his fellow traveler, Vanya falls asleep. In his dreams, he sees ordinary men - real railroad builders. From them the boy learns how difficult the work given to the ordinary Russian people is.
Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland... The Russian people have endured enough, They have also endured this railway road - They will endure everything that God sends!
The locomotive whistle blows and the boy wakes up. The child tells his father about his dream, but he just laughs. He calls the common people barbarians, incapable of creating anything, and reproaches the narrator for telling sad stories to the boy.
The narrator agrees to describe the “bright side” - the work is done, the men are going to the office to pay, but they are not given money, on the contrary, they still owe money. The arriving contractor accepts the work and says that he will give them the arrears, and in addition rolls out a barrel of wine. The men are happy about this too.
Railway
Vanya (in the coachman’s Armenian jacket).
Vanya (in a coachman's jacket). Dad! who built this road? Dad (in a coat with a red lining). Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, my dear! Conversation in carriage
1
Glorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous Air invigorates tired forces; The fragile ice lies on the chilly river, like melting sugar;
Near the forest, as if in a soft bed, you can sleep well - peace and space! The leaves have not yet had time to fade; they lie yellow and fresh, like a carpet.
Glorious autumn! Frosty nights, Clear, quiet days... There is no ugliness in nature! And kochi, and moss swamps, and stumps -
Everything is fine under the moonlight, I recognize my native Rus' everywhere... I quickly fly along cast-iron rails, I think my thoughts...
2
Good dad! Why keep Smart Vanya in his charm? Let me show him the truth in the moonlight.
This work, Vanya, was terribly enormous and beyond the capabilities of one person! There is a king in the world: this king is merciless, Hunger is his name.
He leads armies; Rules ships at sea; herds people into the artel, walks behind the plow, stands behind the shoulders of stonemasons and weavers.
It was he who drove the masses of people here. Many - in a terrible struggle, calling these barren wilds to life, found a coffin here for themselves.
The road is straight: narrow embankments, posts, rails, bridges. And on the sides there are all Russian bones... So many of them! Vanechka, do you know?
Chu! menacing exclamations were heard! Stomping and gnashing of teeth; A shadow ran across the frosty glass... What was there? Crowd of the dead!
Either they overtake the cast-iron road, or they run sideways. Do you hear the singing?.. “On this moonlit night, we love to see our work!
We toiled under the heat, under the cold, With our backs always bent, We lived in dugouts, struggled with hunger, We were frozen and wet, and suffered from scurvy.
The literate foremen robbed us, the bosses flogged us, the need was pressing... We, God's warriors, endured everything, Peaceful children of labor!
Brothers! You are reaping our benefits! We are destined to rot in the earth... Do you remember us poor people kindly, or have you long forgotten us?..”
Do not be horrified by their wild singing! From Volkhov, from mother Volga, from Oka, from different ends of the great state - These are all your brothers - men!
It’s a shame to be timid, to cover yourself with a glove, You’re no longer small!.. With Russian hair, You see, standing, exhausted with fever, A tall, sick Belarusian:
Bloodless lips, drooping eyelids, Ulcers on skinny arms, Standing forever in knee-deep water, Legs swollen; tangles in hair;
I'm digging into my chest, which I've been diligently leaning on the spade all my life, day after day... Look at him, Vanya, carefully: It was hard for the man to earn his bread!
He hasn’t straightened his hunchbacked back even now: he’s stupidly silent And with a mechanical rusty shovel he’s hammering away at the frozen ground!
It wouldn’t be a bad thing for us to adopt this noble habit of work... Bless the people’s work And learn to respect the peasant.
Don’t be shy for your dear fatherland... The Russian people have endured enough, They have also endured this railway road - They will endure everything that God sends!
He will endure everything and pave a wide, clear path for himself. It’s just a pity - neither I nor you will have to live in this beautiful time.
3
At that moment a deafening whistle squealed - the crowd of the dead disappeared! “Dad, I saw an amazing dream,” Vanya said, “five thousand men,
Representatives of Russian tribes and breeds suddenly appeared - and he told me: “Here they are, the builders of our road!..” The general laughed!
“I was recently within the walls of the Vatican, I wandered around the Colosseum for two nights, I saw St. Stephen in Vienna, Well... did the people create all this?
Excuse me for this impudent laugh, your logic is a little wild. Or is Apollo Belvedere worse than a stove pot for you?
Here are your people - these thermal baths and baths, a miracle of art - they took everything away!
“Your Slav, Anglo-Saxon and German Do not create - destroy the master, Barbarians! a wild crowd of drunkards!.. However, it’s time to take care of Vanyusha;
You know, it’s a sin to outrage a child’s heart with the sight of death and sadness. You should now show the child the Light Side...”
4
Glad to show you! Listen, my dear: the fatal labors are over - the German is already laying the rails. The dead are buried in the ground; the sick are hidden in dugouts; working people
They gathered in a tight crowd at the office... They scratched their heads tightly: Everyone owes the contractor a stay, Absentee days have become a penny!
The foremen wrote everything down in a book - Whether he took it to the bathhouse, or was lying sick: “Maybe there is a surplus here now, But here you go!..” They waved their hand...
In a blue caftan - a venerable meadowsweet, Fat, stocky, red as copper, A contractor is riding along the line on a holiday, Going to see his work.
The idle people make way decorously... The merchant wipes the sweat from his face and says, with his arms akimbo, in a picturesque manner: “Okay... nothing... well done!.. well done!..
With God, now go home - congratulations! (Hats off - if I say!) I put out a barrel of wine to the workers And - I give the arrears!..”
Someone shouted “hurray”. They picked it up Louder, more friendly, more drawn out... Lo and behold: The foremen were rolling the barrel with a song... Here even the lazy one could not resist!
The people unharnessed the horses and the merchant with a cry of “Hurray!” rushed along the road... It seems difficult to draw a more gratifying picture, general?..
Theme and mood
Particular attention should be paid to the themes that are revealed throughout the entire work. The poem raises a number of questions:
- The main theme of the work is the suffering of ordinary peasants and the inhumanity of officials who turn a blind eye to the suffering of workers. The society of that era can be compared to a medal, on one side of which there are peasants, and on the other - the noble society. They are opposites and can never intersect. Sometimes one gets the impression that ordinary people live on one plane, and their “masters” on another. Nikolai Nekrasov looked at what was happening with sadness and seemed to feel that because of such inequality, a revolution would come in 1917.
- Social inequality. The poem presents two opposing sides - peasants and gentlemen. They will never be able to understand each other, since none of them has ever been on the side of their “enemy.” The hero Vanechka was one of the representatives of the nobles and looked at the future as a kind of fairy tale. His father has exactly the same positive opinion about the construction of a new railway. However, the peasants and their children know the truth and understand that they will be doomed to a painful life until their death.
- Escape from reality. Higher officials have always hidden the truth about how certain actions take place. If you listen only to their voices, you may get the impression that everything appears magically. However, we should not forget that behind every building and every business there is priceless work, which, most often, goes unnoticed. It takes a lot of effort to achieve the desired result.
The mood of the poem is ambiguous. On the one hand, the reader is shown all the horror that befell ordinary peasants during the construction of new tracks. On the other hand, a ready-made railway is shown, along which trains rush all day long, and the passengers sitting on them do not even think about how hard these tracks were built.
Paths and images
The first part is written in the best traditions of landscape poetry. Nature is characterized by the epithets glorious autumn, healthy, vigorous air, fragile ice, icy river, clear, quiet days
. Nekrasov uses vivid comparisons: ice is like melting sugar; you can sleep in the leaves, like in a bed.
To describe hunger as the root cause of people's misfortunes, Nekrasov uses personification. Words with diminutive suffixes contrast with the terrible picture of death: little road, columns, Vanechka - and Russian bones
. Nekrasov showed true skill in describing portraits of the unfortunate. It is impossible to forget the tall, sick Belarusian. This detail is especially touching: even after death, the ghost of a Belarusian mechanically chisels the frozen earth with a shovel. The habit of work has become automatic among the people. The second part ends with a symbolic image of a wide, clear road and a beautiful time.
In the third part, the general's monologue, there are almost no tropes. The general’s speech is clear, unambiguous and devoid of images; logic prevails in it. Only epithet bright side
is vague, which the narrator is in a hurry to take advantage of.
In the fourth part, maintaining the general’s concise and logical style, the lyrical hero describes the “bright future” of the workers.
- “It’s stuffy! Without happiness and will...", analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
- “Farewell”, analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
- “The heart breaks from torment,” analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
The poem "The Railway" was written in 1864, three years after the abolition of serfdom. However, the question inevitably arises: has much changed during this time in Russia, and has it changed at all?
The folk theme in the poetic work of N. A. Nekrasov acquires dramatic features. The poet very closely followed public life and could not remain silent about the cruel injustice against the people, which, with the abolition of serfdom, not only did not decrease, but took on even more horrific forms. For Nekrasov, the People were the “foundation” of national existence, a part of himself. In his poems, people's life is depicted not quite the same as that of his predecessors and colleagues in the literary field. He does not provide folk song elements, but presents the reader with bare prose. And this technique, this “down-to-earth” approach allowed the poet to get as close as possible to the people. But it also becomes the source of the deepest drama. This is fully confirmed in the above poem. The heroes of the poem are the boy Vanya, his father is a general, and the lyrical hero.
The narrative opens with a magnificent landscape sketch:
Glorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous Air invigorates tired forces; The fragile ice lies on the chilly river, like melting sugar...
The richly colored pictures of natural luxury in the poem clearly contradict all further descriptions of the hardships and misfortunes of peasant life, the difficult lot of the working people, the slave people. In the poem, the people are also a special hero, the most important character. The word “vigorous”, unusual for a lyrical description of nature, creates the impression of fresh, crystal air; we can almost physically feel its taste. The author very clearly draws a parallel between the harmony in nature and the world where the laws of inequality, cruelty, and lack of freedom reign. He hints at this very clearly: “There is no ugliness in nature!” And only among people it exists.
There is a king in the world: This king is merciless, Hunger is his name. He leads armies; Rules ships at sea; herds people into the artel, walks behind the plow, stands behind the shoulders of stonemasons and weavers.
Hunger rules people and forces them to face certain death. They get a piece of bread at a high price. In order to show the hard work of the people in all its shocking nakedness and ugliness, Nekrasov uses a well-known technique - the “sleep” technique. The excited, inflamed imagination of the boy Vanya creates pictures of stunning clarity. “Barren wilds”, “the stomping and gnashing of teeth”, the image of a “sick Belarusian” (“Bloodless lips, fallen eyelids, Ulcers on skinny hands”), “crowds of the dead” - all this flashes before us like footage of some that's a fantastic movie. The author speaks with bitterness about those who called these impenetrable jungles to life, and who themselves found their grave here. Full of inexpressible melancholy the question sounds in the poem:
Brothers! You are reaping our benefits! We are destined to rot in the earth... Do you all remember us poor people kindly, or have you forgotten us long ago?..
And really, why did thousands of people sacrifice their lives?
So that grateful descendants would say that the railway was built by “Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, darling?!” Here Nekrasov introduces the image of a general, who appears in the third part of the poem. The general acts as a defender of aesthetic values. The author is in no hurry to interrupt him and lets him speak to the end. Nekrasov uses the technique of self-characteristics. The monologue clearly shows the general's indifference to the people, his contemptuous attitude: - Your Slav, Anglo-Saxon and German Do not create - destroy the master, Barbarians!
a wild crowd of drunkards!.. In the mouth of General N.A. Nekrasov puts an indictment not just of the Russian people, but of the people in a larger sense, peoples in whom he sees only an ignorant crowd, slavishly devoted and submissive. The people are content with little, they act without reasoning. We can find confirmation of this in the text - this is the entire 4th part of the poem, where “the working people gathered in a close crowd at the office...” Exhausted, half-dead people still remained and owed the contractor. The entire 4th part of the poem is constructed according to the general’s ideas. This is the “bright side”, in his opinion. But against the backdrop of the entire narrative, it becomes the most dramatic, gloomy, hopeless.
Here the results are summed up, not only of the work done, but of the entire serf system as a whole. Here is the whole psychology of the people, his whole life. “In a blue caftan - a venerable storehouse, fat, squat, red as copper...” goes to see his work. How much irony, how much satire Nekrasov puts into these lines! The contractor generously forgives people's debts, and even puts out a barrel of wine. The people do not complain, not a sound of objection! Where there!
The people unharnessed the horses and the merchants with a cry of “Hurray!” rushed along the road...
The poem ends with a rhetorical question: Material from the site
It seems difficult to paint a more gratifying picture, General?..
The words of N. A. Nekrasov about the Russian people resonate with pain and bitterness. How much patience does he have left? It has long been the custom in Rus': people believe in a “bright future”, devote all their strength to its “construction”, believe that just a little more, a completely different life will come, a new, happy one. This was the case before the abolition of serfdom, and then, before the revolutionary events of the beginning of the next, 20th century. Progressive, thinking people, who were not indifferent to the fate of the people, understood that there was nothing to expect for immediate changes. Hence the severe pessimism of Nekrasov, who understands that a lot of time will pass until slavish obedience leaves the people’s soul, until the worker becomes truly free, not only in society, but also in the soul.
The theme of the future in the poem is closely related to the image of the boy Vanya. It is not for nothing that the lyrical hero turns to him:
It wouldn’t be a bad thing for us to adopt this noble habit of work... Bless the people’s work And learn to respect the peasant.
Respect for the people, sincere love for them is the key to Russia’s rapid advancement on the path of historical progress.
Plan
- Pictures of nature.
- The lyrical hero tells the boy Vanya about the hardships of people's labor.
- The general's monologue about the people: the people are barbarians.
- The "bright side" of work. Results of the work. Submission to the people.
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Theme, main idea and composition
The poem consists of 4 parts. They are united by the plot, the image of the lyrical hero-narrator and his neighbors in the carriage: the general and his son Vanya, whose dialogue about the road builder is the epigraph.
The first part is a description of Russian autumn nature, which the narrator sees from the train window. There is no ugliness in nature, it is perfect.
The second part contrasts with the first. This is a monologue by the narrator, revealing the imperfections of society. Vanya paints a picture of the suffering of the railway builders - the Russian people. The narrator describes a host of poor people who died during construction, so that the impressionable boy even becomes shy. The main idea is contained in the last three stanzas: you need to respect hardworking people, because they have endured a lot and thanks to this endurance they will come to a happy future. Nekrasov accurately notices the mentality of a people capable of enduring suffering for centuries. Today the phrase “It’s just a pity - I won’t have to live in this beautiful time - neither me nor you” has acquired the ironic meaning of “never”, which Nekrasov did not put into his poems.
The third part is the objections of the father general. In his opinion, people prone to drunkenness are not capable of creating anything great, but can only destroy. Dad offers to show Vanya the bright side.
In the fourth part, the narrator tells Vanya that after the construction of the road, the workers’ reward was a barrel of wine and forgiveness of the arrears that the cunning contractors calculated for everyone.
Genre
The genre of a poem is determined by the topic to which it is dedicated - this is civil poetry. Confirmation of this is a reflection of real reality, not embellished in any way. The poet worries about the Russian people, people forced to work in unimaginably difficult conditions, condemns the leadership, which strives to achieve its goals at any cost.
The poem is written in a three-syllable meter - dactyl. Various types of rhyme are used: exact (beds - had time, nights - kochi), inaccurate (space - carpet, alone - him), masculine (people - weavers), feminine (huge - merciless), the method of rhyming is cross.
Genre, direction and size
The verse belongs to the genre of “civil poetry”. The poetic meter is dactyl, which uses both masculine and feminine rhyme.
The direction of the work is realism, since the author was able to accurately convey the life of peasants in that era.
Nekrasov showed how hard the common people earned their bread. They suffered, endured hunger and mockery for the sake of miserable pennies. However, even at the cost of their lives, people were still deceived. High-ranking officials took advantage of their vulnerability and believed that they could use their labor for their own benefit.
Nekrasov’s poem became one of the few works of the 19th century in which the author talks about the life of peasants with sympathy.
History of creation
The poem “The Railway” was written in 1864. The history of the creation of this work is connected with the construction of railways in the Russian Empire. The peasants who worked on the tracks were in difficult conditions, starved, got sick, and died. Their lives were not thought or cared for, the only goal was to finish the job quickly. For the poet, who cared about ordinary people and tried to reflect reality as it is, it was painful and insulting to see this. His experiences are embodied in this poem.
Composition
The poem consists of four distinct parts. All of them are interconnected and represent a combination of several images of people sitting in a train carriage: the lyrical hero, the general and his son Vanya.
The description is completely built on antithesis: in the first part we see autumn landscapes, thin ice on the river, forest, yellow leaves, moonlight. The author says that “there is no ugliness in nature.” Then we are presented with completely different pictures: hunger, death, and terrible working conditions for people. There “stands, exhausted by fever... a sick Belarusian: bloodless lips, drooping eyelids, ulcers on his skinny arms...”. Here we see the leaders of the work: “in a blue caftan... fat, stocky... contractor.”
