Summary of “Notes of a Hunter” for a reader’s diary
Full name of the author : Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich
Title : Notes of a Hunter
Number of pages : 128. Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich. "Notes of a Hunter." Publishing house "Soviet Russia". 1988
Genre : Collection of stories
Year of writing : 1852
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Analysis of the collection of stories “Notes of a Hunter” by Turgenev
The book was written over three and a half years abroad, in France. Later, in “Literary and Everyday Memoirs,” the author admitted that he would not have created “Notes of a Hunter” if he had remained in Russia. Not only could he not write, but he could not live being next to his “enemy,” which was serfdom and with whom, in his youth, he swore an oath to “fight to the end.”
Thus, Turgenev’s departure, among other reasons, clearly demonstrated the writer’s loyalty to his convictions.
However, as B. Zaitsev quite rightly writes, “Notes of a Hunter” is “poetry, not politics.” Moreover, Turgenev himself did not accept patriotic verbiage. He was essentially a strikingly Russian man, deeply understanding Russia, feeling its charm and beauty.
A world immersed in the blue vastness and earthly silence of rural Russia—this is how the image of the homeland seemed to the writer’s artistic imagination. This is especially clearly seen in Kasyan’s story about the Beautiful Sword, about the native places he left behind.
The green-blue expanse and heights that opened up to our eyes, absorbing and reflecting the natural grandeur of the earth and sky - all that we called nature - animated by people like Turgenev’s Stepushkas, Suchkas, Ermolays, Kasyans, Philofsyas, Kalinichs - is what was revealed in “Notes of a Hunter” is an image of the homeland, contemplated by its author from his distance with enduring love and adoration.
The image of the Motherland embodied in Turgenev’s cycle was revealed to both Russian and world literature by an artist endowed with a rare spirit of imagination, drawn from a long, close contact between nature and man. The most enchanting thing about Turgenev is when he envelops the simplest states of nature in a haze of poetry. In “Notes of a Hunter” the leaves “babble” and “fog up”, the reeds “murmur”, the bird “rings its wings”, the tree “basks” in the fog, quietly blinks “like a carefully carried candle”, a star, the Russian summer night is full of “languorous smell,” and the morning “rustles and rustles,” the clouds resemble “lowered sails,” and a curly tree falls under an ax, like a man, “bowing and extending his arms.”
The poetic inspiration of the author of “Notes of a Hunter,” gleaned from nature, feeds Turgenev’s sophisticated aestheticism, which brings him closer to the plasticity and metaphorical sophistication of the literature of the Silver Age. Much in the green-blue world recreated by Turgenev gave rise to a feeling of delight, beauty and faith in the harmony of the human universe.
One of the foundations of this faith for Turgenev himself was the feeling of complete unity of the common man, the peasant with nature, the mutual dissolution of their lives. This is Foma Biryuk, about whom we can say that he is not just a forester, but the spirit of the forest.
About Turgenev’s Kasyan, it would be correct to note that this “strange old man” was a real Forest Master - the Goblin, who began to fool the hunter and take the game away from him. And he behaves in the forest, as if in his own home, in his own way: he walked “nimbly”, “mimicked, echoed” with the birds. One of the “goblets” did not fail to appear in the thicket of the forest, with a face strikingly similar to the Master’s face: the girl Annushka with a basket of mushrooms in her hand.
Turgenev’s relationship between man and the natural world can also be deeply psychological. This is how the image of the fading evening turning into night and the fate of Arina in the story “Ermolai and the Miller”, a woman with “big and sad” eyes, whose life, as we understand, fades painfully early, are connected with each other.
However, no matter how dramatic human fate may seem, no matter how multi-layered and complex it may be, Turgenev nevertheless strives to show that the universe is still beautifully arranged. The basis of this thought in “Notes of a Hunter” is the affirmation of universal life - “the strong, wise, happy life of nature,” its natural course.
The heroes of “Notes of a Hunter” are united by a common feeling of life - to live with the whole being in every given minute, to surrender to the spontaneous flow of life, to submit to those unchangeable conditions “that nature has laid down for the sun, grass, beast, tree” (Tolstoy). This determines in them an extraordinary integrity of spirit, which, according to Turgenev, a person who has fallen out of nature is deprived of. This is how he perceived himself and the people of his class and saw the spiritual health of the Russian nation in its familiarization with the people’s worldview, which, the writer believed, would help overcome suffering, a person’s feeling of loneliness, weakness, awareness of his own insignificance, fear of natural eternity.
Turgenev saw spiritual support for modern man primarily in concepts close to the people such as patience, humility, meekness, the ability to suffer - to endure one’s hard lot without tears or complaints, concepts closely related to the Orthodox faith and, first of all, to the image of Christ. Thus, Lukerya (“Living Relics”) is endowed with absolute integrity of spirit, nourished by religious faith. Doomed to immobility, she finds the strength to endure her misfortune in humility and boundless patience.
The integrity of the spirit of the heroes of “Notes of a Hunter”, no matter how different they may be: be it the practical Khor or the dreamy Kalinich, the pitiful Stepushka and the mysterious Kasyan, tenacious as grass in a field Ermolai and the stern, duty-filled Biryuk - makes them equal, all equally harmonious.
At the same time, the writer’s focus was on the social side of life of the Russian peasantry and Russian society as a whole. “Notes of a Hunter” was direct and honest prose, filled with echoes and evidence of the need and distress of the people.
But Turgenev's main idea was that the peasant is not the master of his own destiny. Thus, he pronounced sentence on his “enemy” - the cruel, humiliating feudal reality.
The story “Ermolai and the Miller’s Woman” is permeated with unbearable pain for trampled dignity and ruined life. The cruel arbitrariness of the serf mistress Arina (Varvara Petrovna could be seen in her), who denies her slaves personal happiness, dooms her not only to public disgrace, the failure of love, separation from her lover, the loss of a child, but also to the quiet fading of life in this laconic, sad , a beautiful woman.
Turgenev’s other hero, Stepushka (“Raspberry Water”), was simply erased from life: “no one knew about his existence.” Unlike Stepushka, the courtyard Suchok (“Lgov”) was not forgotten by the owners, who assigned him to be a coachman, a cook, a watchman, and a gardener. And now Sochok has been working with the lady as a fisherman for seven years. True, as it later turns out, there are “no fish in the master’s river.” Turgenev talks not only about the meaningless life of the hero, but, as in the case of Arina, about a life ruined by the arbitrariness of the mistress.
Thomas the hero lives a beggarly life full of suffering. Serfdom doomed him to the fate of a “hermit wolf,” a “murderer,” a “bloodsucker,” a “beast,” fiercely hated by the peasants, ruined to the extreme, swollen from hunger. And it condemns Biryuk to painful discord with himself, unbearable mental tossing. Aware of the bitter lot of the peasants, he nevertheless zealously serves his cause.
Turgenev also suggested a possible outcome of Biryuk’s fate. In “Bezhin Meadow,” the boy Pavlusha talks about how “last summer Akim the forester was drowned by thieves, and now you can hear his soul complaining.” Isn’t this the fate that the peasant he caught speaks to Thomas about: “You murderer, beast, there is no death for you... But wait, you won’t reign for long!”
Thus, in “Notes of a Hunter,” the “choral destiny” of the people arises, sung by Jacob the Turk, which sent many peasants, like Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword, to wander the world, seek the truth, and dream of blessed lands where “man lives in contentment and justice.” Until the “warm seas” with the Gamayun bird are found, the peasant is forced to exist with the half-pumpkin and chiffchaff, under the ruthless power of the “krepi”, without having the right to a decent life.
But to Turgenev, despite the pervasive nature of serfdom, the fate of the people seemed full of high meaning. Convinced that the embryo of future great deeds lies hidden in Russian people, he developed in “Notes of a Hunter” V. Belinsky’s thought, similar to his own, about the people - the soil that stores the vital juices of development.
Source: Turgenev at school: a book for teachers / author's compilation. L.A. Kapitanova. — 3rd ed., stereotype. - M.: Bustard, 2010
Main characters
The narrator is a landowner, a middle-aged man, an avid hunter, an honest, fair, noble person with a keen sense of nature and people.
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Plot
Wandering with a gun and a faithful hunting dog, the narrator writes down stories about the life, way of life, and morals of neighboring landowners and surrounding peasants.
"Khor and Kalinich"
A story of friendship between two completely different men. Khor is a rich man, the father of seven heroic sons, hardworking, economical. He got along well with the master and had no intention of being freed. His complete opposite was Kalinich - a romantic, dreamy man, who did not have a penny to his name. He was engaged in breeding bees and was considered a good healer. However, different views on life did not interfere with the strong friendship between the incorrigible romantic and the down-to-earth practitioner.
"Yermolai and the miller's wife"
In this chapter, the narrator became an involuntary witness to a conversation between the serf Ermolai and the miller’s wife, Arina. He learned that the beautiful Arina once worked as a maid in a count's family. She fell in love with the footman and became pregnant. Having learned about this, the Countess did not allow her to marry her loved one. She sent the girl to a distant village, and gave the footman as a soldier. Arina lost her child, and after some time she married a miller.
"County doctor"
When the narrator fell ill, he sent for a doctor. He told him the story of his unhappy love for Alexandra, the daughter of a poor widow landowner. The girl was terminally ill, and while caring for her, the doctor fell in love. The lovers spent three nights together, after which Alexandra died. After a while, the doctor married without love an evil and lazy merchant's daughter with a large dowry.
"Bezhin Meadow"
Having gotten lost in the forest, the narrator at dusk reached a familiar meadow, which the locals called Bezhin. There he met village boys who were tending horses. The man lay down to warm himself by the fire. When the guys got a little used to the stranger, they continued to tell each other stories about mermaids, brownies, goblins and other evil spirits.
"Biryuk"
Having gotten wet in the heavy rain, the narrator found shelter with a forester nicknamed Biryuk. He was a powerful, strong man with a reserved character. Everyone knew about his honesty and integrity. Biryuk lived very poorly. His wife left him with two children, running away with a passing tradesman. Despite his external severity, Biryuk turned out to be a kind, merciful person. Having caught a poor little man who was trying to cut down a tree in the master's forest, the forester released him in peace and felt sorry for him.
"Singers"
Passing by the small village of Kolotovka, the narrator entered a tavern, where he witnessed an unusual competition of local singers. The unconditional victory went to the young performer Yashka, in whose singing all the indescribable shades of the Russian soul were heard.
The series “Notes of a Hunter” - the composition of the collection
The collection consists of 25 stories. “Khor and Kalinich”, “Ermolai and Melnichikha”, “Raspberry Water”, “District Doctor”, “My Neighbor Radilov”, “Ovsyanikov’s Homestead”, “Lgov”, “Bezhin Meadow”, “Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword”, “ Burmaster”, “Office”, “Biryuk”, “Two Landowners”, “Lebedyan”, “Tatyana Borisovna and Her Nephew”, “Death”, “Singers”, “Petr Petrovich Karataev”, “Date”, “Hamlet of Shchigrovsky District” ", "Tchertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin", "The End of Tchertopkhanov", "Living Relics", "Knocking", "Forest and Steppe".
"Khor and Kalinich." Illustration by Elisabeth Böhm. 1883
