Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a great Russian writer, whose work is difficult to overestimate. He is the author of such works as the novel “Fathers and Sons”, the story “Mumu” and the collection of short stories “Notes of a Hunter”. The story “Singers” is just part of this collection. Most of these stories have a basis in reality. The collection received this name because of the author’s passion for hunting. The author also acts as a narrator. It is important to note that the main part of the characters are peasants.
The story was written in 1850, like most of the stories in the collection. It was then that the writer began to weave a social component into his works. In addition, the author decided to use a special style, when by reading one story you can roughly understand the themes of the others. There is a version that Alexander II read these stories. It was they who influenced the abolition of serfdom.
The meaning of the story "Singers"
The story takes place in the village of Kolotovka. Not far from it lies a tavern called “Pritynny”. This is the most visited tavern in the village, because in this establishment you can often find the kisser Nikolai Ivanovich. This man, an unusually fat man, has lived in this area for over 20 years. He is not distinguished by his courtesy, but he knows how to attract guests, and, accordingly, clients. He knows almost all the gossip and rumors of this village, but he never spills the beans to anyone.
The kisser is respected by all neighbors. He also has a wife and children. His wife is a match for Nikolai Ivanovich - a lively, intelligent and pleasant woman. Her husband relies on her for everything, and drunkards are very afraid of her. Children have inherited only the best qualities from their parents - they are smart and have good health.
The narrator ends up in this village. She is suffering from thirst, so she goes to Nikolai Ivanovich’s tavern. On the threshold, he meets local residents, unwittingly eavesdropping on their conversation. It turns out that the tavern is going to hold a competition between singers and Yashka the Turk, the best singer in the area, is going to show his skills.
A lot of people had already gathered in this establishment, and Yashka also came. Next to him sits his rival, a soldier from Zhizdra, and the Wild Master, the man who manages this competition.
The narrator describes everyone gathered. The first is Evgraf Ivanov. He is a bachelor who has no creative abilities. If he found himself in the thick of things, then he should expect trouble. Almost no one knew about his past. The second is Yakov. He is a Turk, by vocation an artist, and by rank a scooper at a paper mill. The narrator also describes the Wild Master. He loves singing, is highly respected, never drinks wine or dates women.
The first to speak was a soldier from Zhizdra. He sang a dance song, which the audience really liked. And Barin himself was delighted with his singing. Next, Yashka sang, who got excited at the beginning. But he sang in such a way that he made souls tremble. The Russian soul was felt in the performance. The song even caught the attention of the rower, who admitted defeat. Already in the evening everyone was wildly celebrating Yashkin’s victory.
The meaning of the ending of the story “Singers”
The main theme of the story “Singers” is the Russian soul, and how it was able to be reflected in the song of the peasant Yashka Turk. With the help of this song, the national character of a person is revealed. His song flowed from the soul. And even though she was not as professional as her opponent, she was able to win the hearts of all listeners. Even Barina, who was well versed in music.
The author also very successfully describes the flavor of the Russian village. He describes the tavern, because this is almost its main part. Describes the inhabitants - typical Russian men. Some of them are hardworking, and some are drunkards. And the narrator himself understands the characteristics of the people, because he himself often comes into contact with this environment.
A person with such a voice must be very strong in spirit. Otherwise, serfdom would have killed all his talents. Turgenev showed that peasants also know how to appreciate art, it’s just different from that of the nobility. They value traditions and love their country. And the nobles imitate other nations. Because of this, national originality is lost. And it is the peasants who prevent the Russian people from becoming a copy of the French, Germans or British. Their hearts are filled with courage, despite the lordly tyranny.
"Singers"
The story “The Singers” differs significantly from the stories “Khor and Kalinich” and “The Burmister” both in its ideological and emotional orientation, and in the features of composition and artistic speech.If the story “Khor and Kalinich” in a certain sense can be called an apology for the Russian peasantry, since the task of the story was to show the wealth of spiritual forces of the Russian people and thereby the possibility of its further development, why was the main tone of the narrator cheerful, upbeat, if the “Burmist” was exposing the commanding class, and the general tone of the story was satirical, then the elegiac notes are very strong in the story “The Singers”. This is explained by the fact that the main goal of this story was to show the dramatic situation of talented people from the people in the conditions of old feudal Russia.
It is necessary to make a reservation from the very beginning that the elegiac tone of the story, the sad reflection of the author on the fate of Russian nuggets in the era of serfdom, could in no way lead the reader to pessimistic conclusions, since the story was perceived in the general context of “Notes of a Hunter”, imbued with the thought of Turgenev about the bright future of their homeland.
The clarification of Turgenev’s artistic mastery in the story “The Singers” must begin with the question of its construction.
The story consists of three parts: an introductory part, which is an exposition and aims to prepare the reader to understand the main plot, a central part (scenes of a singing competition) and a final part (scenes of drunken revelry in a tavern).
The elegiac tone of the story is clearly heard already in the introductory part, in the exposition, which describes the scene of action (the poor village of Kolotovka), the time (a hot July day), the “Pitynny tavern” and its visitors.
What verbal and artistic means does the narrator use to convey his impression of the village of Kolotovka?
It is difficult to imagine a more inconvenient terrain than the one on which Kolotovka was located. She lies “on the slope of a bare hill”, she is divided in half by a terrible ravine, “which, gaping like an abyss, winds, dug up and washed away, in the very middle of the street”, the sides of the ravine are sandy, and along them “several skinny birches timidly descend” “at the very bottom, dry and yellow as copper, lie huge slabs of clay stone...” “The roofs of the houses in the village are brown, half-scattered,... the pond is black, with a border of semi-high mud,... the dam is knocked on its side...”
“Not a happy look! there’s nothing to say,” this is how the author defines his general impression of Kolotovka. In order to convey to the reader this impression of a poor, abandoned village, the author selects appropriate epithets and comparisons with great skill.
The reader has the right to ask, what is the reason for such a pitiful situation in Kolotovka? The reason must be sought in social conditions, in serfdom. Only the few words with which the author speaks about the past and present of this village have this meaning: the village of Kolotovka once belonged to a landowner famous for her “dashing and lively disposition” (and such “dashing” landowners were prone to whims and tyranny), and “now consists for some St. Petersburg German,” probably with little interest in a remote, poor, incomeless village.
In the same way of preparing the reader to understand the main plot, the author talks about the role played in the life of local peasants by “a small hut, standing alone, separate from the others.” “It is thatched, with a chimney; one window, like a watchful eye, faces the ravine, and on winter evenings, illuminated from the inside, it can be seen far away in the dim fog of frost, and it twinkles as a guiding star for more than one passing peasant.” This is a tavern nicknamed “Pritynny”, which means, as the author says in a footnote, “a cozy place.”
The author's sad irony, evident in the description of this “sheltered place,” further emphasizes the pitiful state of the abandoned village and enhances the elegiac tone of the story.
In an effort to prepare the reader to perceive the main content of the story and create an appropriate “mood” in him, Turgenev paints an “unbearably hot July day” when Kolotovka arouses “a particularly sad feeling.” What epithets and metaphors does the author use? “The sun flared up in the sky, as if growing fierce; it steamed and burned relentlessly; the air was completely saturated with stuffy dust...; rooks and crows, with their noses open, looked pitifully at those passing by...”
Having described the place and time of the action, Turgenev proceeds in the same introductory part of the story to the description of the visitors to the tavern, who will then perform in the main scene of the singers' competition as connoisseurs and judges.
The reader passes one after another very clearly defined images of the kisser (tavern owner) Nikolai Ivanovich, the Wild Master, the Stunner, the Morgach and the “peasant in a narrow, worn-out retinue.” Most of these people are extraordinary, intelligent, energetic people, and all are passionate lovers of singing, but one of them, the Wild Master, the most gifted, turned out to be a failure, others spent their minds and energy on petty personal goals, on acquisitions, and profit.
The narrator moves on to the central part of the story, to the competition between the rower and Yakov. The tone of the story now changes: there are no longer elegiac notes in it (they will sound even more strongly in the third part of the story).
When speaking about the singers, the rower and Yakov, Turgenev uses different intonations. This is already evident in the description of their appearance, their portraits.
Portraits of singers show the reader that in front of him are people of completely different types. The rower was “a stocky man... pockmarked and curly-haired, with a blunt upturned nose, lively brown eyes and a thin beard.” His behavior before the competition indicates that this village tenore di grazia (lyric tenor), as Turgenev calls him, is accustomed to success, therefore he is self-confident and does not worry. Not so - Yakov. “His sunken cheeks, large, restless gray eyes, straight nose with thin, mobile nostrils, white sloping forehead with light brown curls thrown back, large but beautiful, expressive lips - his whole face revealed an impressionable and passionate man.” And his behavior before the competition was different from that of the rower. “He was in great excitement; blinked his eyes, breathed unevenly, his hands trembled as if in a fever - yes, he definitely had a fever, that alarming, sudden fever that is so familiar to all people who speak or sing in front of a meeting.”
With great skill, Turgenev contrasted two completely different singing styles of competing singers.
The rower spoke first. The narrator’s attitude towards his singing is twofold: he calls his voice “pleasant and sweet”, pays tribute to the technique of his singing art, but emphasizes in this technique the features of artificiality and even mannerism: “he played and wagged this voice like a top, constantly poured and shimmered from top to bottom and constantly returned to the top notes... fell silent, and then suddenly picked up the same tune with some kind of rollicking, arrogant prowess...” The rower’s desire for technical extravagance grew as he became convinced of his success: “encouraged by the signs of general pleasure, the rower became completely whirlwind and... began to trim curls... clicked and drummed his tongue... frantically played with his throat.”
Thus, by selecting extremely expressive epithets, metaphors and comparisons imbued with irony, the narrator gives a direct description of the rower’s singing style. He also gives an indirect characterization, describing the impression that the rower made on the listeners. His singing brought pleasure to everyone, which each of them expressed in his own way, but did not deeply affect anyone, did not really move anyone.
Turgenev uses a different system of expressive verbal means when he depicts the inspired singing of Yakov. Yakov differs from the rower in the same way that Pushkin’s Mozart differed from Salieri: he, as Turgenev says about him, was “an artist by heart.” From the very first trembling, ringing sound, Yakov’s singing captivated the listeners not with technical skill, but with the strong emotions of the singer, coming from the depths of the soul, in whose voice there was “genuine deep passion, and youth, and strength, and sweetness, and some kind of captivating - careless, sad grief."
When creating the story “The Singers,” Turgenev set out to show in the characters of the rower and Yakov, in the different manners of their singing skills, typical phenomena characteristic of the people. This is evident from the great attention Turgenev paid to the choice of songs performed by the two singers.
The soldier's song in this sense did not raise any doubts in him. “He sang a cheerful, dancing song,” says Turgenev, “the words of which, as far as I could catch through the endless decorations, added consonants and exclamations, were as follows:
I’ll open up the young Zemlytsy a little. I will sow a young, young Alenka Flower.”
According to the competent opinion of M.K. Azadovsky*, the shopkeeper’s song is described very correctly from an ethnographic point of view. It was a popular folk song, known back in the records of the 18th century, designated by song collectors as “dance” or “evening”. Its content boils down to the fact that the girl’s friend cheated on her, but she does not remain in debt and sends a letter to a new friend. In Kireyevsky’s version, recorded in the Oryol province, the girl is credited with the words: “Love, my soul, love whoever you want, I go for walks myself, but I won’t tell you with whom.”
* (M.K. Azadovsky. "Singers" by Turgenev. “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Literature and Language,” vol. XIII, no. 2, ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. M., 1954.
)
It is clear that the performance of this song by the rower, as “fun, dancing”, fully corresponds to its content.
M.K. Azadovsky considers the question of Jacob’s song more difficult. In the text of the story, published in 1850 in Sovremennik, Yakov sang a song:
Near the valley stood Kalina and broke it.
Only in 1852, in a separate edition of “Notes of a Hunter,” instead of this song, “More than one path ran through the field” appeared. What caused this replacement?
M.K. Azadovsky quite convincingly shows that this was caused by Turgenev’s desire to strengthen the artistic integrity and typicality in the story.
The song “Standing in the Valley” existed in two main versions and, accordingly, was sung differently. In one version of the song, the plot of which is the forced separation of a young man from his sweetheart, the elements of a joke were strong, and it turned into a dance song, although “with motives of cheerful irony and ridicule, mournful, sad notes are also mixed in it.” In other versions, in particular the one recorded by Kireevsky in the Oryol province, “motives of a dramatic nature predominate,” says M.K. Azadovsky, and “its melody is very lyrical.”
Due to the fact that readers with the song “At the Valley Stood” could have ideas that did not fit with Yakov’s singing style, Turgenev listened to the critical comments made to him and to the proposal to replace “At the Valley” with another song - “There is more than one path in the field.”
In order to check the correctness of this proposal, as L. A. Zhemchuzhnikov* talks about it in his memoirs, Turgenev arranged in his apartment a competition between two well-known performers of folk songs in his time, one of whom, the artist K. A. Gorbunov, chose to sing “Oh, there was more than one path in the field.”
* (L. Zhemchuzhnikov, From the cadet corps to the Academy of Arts, 1828-1852, ed. M. and S. Sobashnikov, M" 1926.
)
This “experience” convinced Turgenev of the advisability of a replacement, which he did, preparing “Notes of a Hunter” in 1852 for a separate publication.
How Turgenev understood the typicality of the song’s lyrics and the manner of its performance is evidenced by his characterization of Yakov’s voice:
“The Russian, truthful, ardent soul sounded and breathed in him, and just grabbed you by the heart, grabbed you right by its Russian strings.”
What was typically Russian about Yakov’s singing? Typical was this combination of contradictory, seemingly incompatible feelings: deep passion, youth and strength, on the one hand, and sad (and at the same time fascinatingly carefree) grief, on the other. In this definition of the Russian song, reflecting the “Russian, truthful, ardent soul,” Turgenev followed in the footsteps of Pushkin, who also heard in the coachman’s songs, “then daring revelry, then heartfelt melancholy,” and Gogol, who considered the combination of bold daring and deep sorrow itself characteristic feature of Russian music.
Such a fusion of contradictory sentiments was characteristic of the Russian people, languishing in the chains of fortress, but full of unspent strength, passion and confident in their future. That is why Yakov’s song “Not the only path ran through the field” was close to the Russian people, “grabbed the heart... for its Russian strings.”
The description of Yakov's singing and the feelings that he aroused in his listeners is the most vivid page of the story, in which Turgenev's lyricism reaches such a height that artistic prose becomes insufficiently expressive for him, and he involuntarily moves on to musical ri. His voice trembled, “but with that barely noticeable inner trembling of passion that pierces like an arrow into the soul of the listener... I saw... on the seashore, “a large white seagull rustling menacingly and heavily in the distance.”
Particularly interesting is the following phrase, characteristic of the rhythmic melody of the story “The Singers”:
“He sang, and from every sound of his voice there was a breath of something familiar and vastly wide, as if the familiar steppe was opening up before you, going into an endless distance.”
This phrase contains 4 rhythmic pieces: 1) “He sang, and from every sound...”, 2. “it smelled like something familiar,” 3. “like a familiar steppe...”, 4. “going off into an endless distance.” These rhythmic pieces are interspersed with non-rhythmic speech: 1) “his voice”, 2) “and immensely wide”, 3) “revealed before you.” These changes in rhythmic and ordinary speech, giving the description complete naturalness, once again testify to Turgenev’s inherent artistic tact.
To understand the depth of the impact of Yakov’s singing on those around him, it is useful to compare the different vocabulary that Turgenev uses when he talks about the impressions caused by one and another singer.
Here are a number of such comparisons:
Listening to the clerk
1) The stunner began to pick him up, pull him up, shout in a low voice... finally he stomped, scurried with his feet, shook his shoulder...
2) Nikolai Ivanovich shook his head left and right approvingly...
3) It’s good,” Nikolai Ivanovich’s wife noticed and looked at Yakov with a smile...
4) One Wild Master did not change his face and still did not move; but his gaze, fixed on the clerk, softened somewhat, although the expression on his lips remained contemptuous.
Listening to Jacob
1) Stunned (stood), all softened....'
2) Nikolai Ivanovich looked down...
3) Dull, restrained sobs suddenly struck me... the kisser’s wife was crying, leaning her chest against the window...
4) A heavy tear slowly rolled down the iron face of the Wild Master, from under his completely furrowed eyebrows.
The listeners reacted differently to Yakov’s singing, each in accordance with his own character, but how deeply different their experiences were from those they experienced while listening to the technically perfect, but devoid of deep feeling, singing of the rower, and with what skill Turgenev briefly but expressively shows this .
The elevated lyrical tone with which the scene of the competition of singers and especially the singing of Jacob is described, in the third part of the story, in the description of the scene of drunken revelry, is again replaced by an elegiac tone, but only now taking the form of acute pity and sorrow. This scene is preceded by a landscape that has a symbolic meaning and, as it were, prepares for what the narrator will see in the evening in the tavern: “The heat was unbearable as before... everything was silent; there was something hopeless, suppressed in this deep silence of exhausted nature.”
The same impression of something oppressed and powerless is produced by Yakov and the other participants in the night drinking session, when for them the moments of creative enthusiasm and fascination with art have passed, and they again find themselves at the mercy of their usual, rough life.
It is worth paying attention to who exactly Turgenev primarily described in this scene as the most active participants in the drinking party. This is Yakov, humming “in a hoarse voice some kind of dance street song,” Stunned, completely “loose” and without a caftan, and a peasant in a gray army coat, who forgot everything in the world and, “smiling senselessly through his tousled beard, occasionally waved one hand, as if wanting to say: “Wherever it goes!”
Morgach and Nikolai Ivanovich are mentioned in passing, but the Wild Master was not in the tavern.
Why did Turgenev single out Yakov, Stunned and a peasant in a gray overcoat in the drinking scene, that is, a worker, a servant and a peasant? Why in this case was he little interested in Morgach, why did Turgenev need to show the role of drunken dope in the life of forced people, shackled by the chains of serfdom?
Obviously, because for these people, drunkenness was really the main means of oblivion from a hopeless life, because on their life’s path the illuminated window of the tavern, as Turgenev said at the beginning of the story, was the only “guiding star.” This forced the narrator to call the picture of the drinking party, despite the “fierce laughter” of its participants, “a sad picture.” This made him turn away and move away from the village.
The final scene, which ends the story, is new proof of Turgenev’s compositional skill.
“I was walking with long strides along the road along the ravine, when suddenly, somewhere, far away in the plain, the sonorous voice of a boy was heard. “Antropka! Antropka-ah! - he shouted with persistent and tearful despair...
- Wha-o-o-o?
The boy's voice immediately shouted with joyful anger:
- Come here, damn it, you devil!
- Why do we eat? - he answered after a long time.
“And then because your father wants to flog you,” the first voice hastily shouted.
The second voice no longer responded, and the boy again began to call on Antropka...
“Anthropka-ah!” — still seemed to be in the air filled with the shadows of the night.”
Logically, this scene is in no way connected with the main plot of the story, but it is very closely connected with it psychologically, with its general mood, general elegiac tone. She talks about the lack of culture of the old peasant life, about that lack of culture that was shown with such force in the previous main scene, and therefore the scene with Antropka is perceived by the reader not as something artificial, alien to the story, but as its very successful conclusion.
But it would be a mistake to say that in the story “The Singers” the compositional harmony is brought to the end, that Turgenev subordinated all the parts, all the details of the story to the main idea to the extent that he did this, for example, in the stories “The Burmister”, “ Date" or in the somewhat later written "Mumu".
In these works of Turgenev, the law that we consider mandatory for a story was fully implemented: the subordination of parts to the whole, the absence of deviations that interfere with the development of the plot and the identification of the ideological meaning of the work. In the story “The Singers,” the influence of the transitional genre form (from essay to story) that Turgenev used during the creation of “Notes of a Hunter” is still noticeable: in “The Singers”, to a certain extent, we see descriptions and characteristics that are of independent everyday interest, but are more relevant in an essay than in a story. Thus, Turgenev tells biographies in excessive detail and gives characteristics of the kisser, and Stupid, and Morgach, and the Wild Master, and considers it necessary to emphasize that he uses the facts of real life: “The lives of some of them,” he says, “were already known to me.” when I met them in the Prytynny tavern; I collected information about others later.”
However, in the characteristics of all these people there is one feature that allows us to establish their compositional connection with the main characters.
It is noteworthy that the listeners of the singers, and the singers themselves, are people of the most varied social origins and status: in addition to the worker (Yakov), the servant (Obalduy), the peasant (the peasant in the tattered scroll), there was also a merchant-entrepreneur (Morgai ), and a tavern keeper (Nikolai Ivanovich), and a small landowner (Dikiy Barin). One thing unites all these people: they were all lovers of singing. It is quite likely to assume that Turgenev, selecting connoisseurs of the art of singing from people of different social composition, wanted to show that in Yakov’s song, and in the way it was perceived by listeners, the Russian soul really was reflected, that love and understanding of music were accessible not only to the privileged classes, but to the entire Russian people, all Russian people, that this is one of the manifestations of the Russian national character.
Singers summary
Turgenev the story in 1850. The work is included in the collection of essays by the writer “Notes of a Hunter.” On the website you can read online a summary of “The Singers”. The retelling is suitable for a reader's diary, for preparing for a literature lesson.
Main characters The narrator is a landowner, a hunter; The story is narrated on his behalf. Yashka the Turk – 23 years old, “thin and slender”; “descended from a captured Turkish woman.” Ryadchik - 30 years old, a man from Zhizdra, “short, pockmarked and curly-haired.” Other characters Nikolai Ivanovich is a kisser (as the seller in a tavern was previously called), the owner of the “Pritynny” tavern. Wild Master (Perevlesov) – 40 years old, “broad-shouldered, wide-cheeked” with Tatar eyes. Stupid (Evgraf Ivanov) - “a spree, single man” who was abandoned by the gentlemen. Morgach - tradesman, former coachman; “a grated kalach who knows people.” Summary
In the small village of Kolotovka, lying on the “slope of a bare hill”, a small hut stood separately from the others - the “Prytynny” tavern. It was famous thanks to its owner, the kisser Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich was “quick and quick-witted” and had the gift of “attracting and keeping guests.” He knew a lot about everything that was “important or interesting for a Russian person.” Nikolai Ivanovich was respected by his neighbors, he was a “man of influence,” he had a wife and children. On a hot July day, the narrator decided to go to a tavern. Even on the threshold I heard the men talking about how Turok-Yashka and the rower would compete in singing - they had bet on an octam of beer. The narrator has heard more than once about Yashka the Turk “as the best singer in the area.”
In the tavern “a fairly large company had gathered,” which the narrator describes in detail. The stunner did not have any position, did not receive a salary, but knew how to “have fun at someone else’s expense.” It was known about Morgach that “he was once a coachman” for an old lady, he ran away from her, then returned, after the death of the landowner he was released, registered as a bourgeois and soon became rich. Yakov the Turk “was an artist by heart, and by rank a scooper at a paper mill.” The past of the Wild Master was unknown, but the man “enjoyed enormous influence throughout the entire district.”
The narrator noticed that Yashka was worried. To determine who would sing first, lots were cast. It fell to the rower. The rower stepped forward and “sang in the highest falsetto.” “His voice was quite pleasant and sweet.” The rower sang a cheerful dance song. Those present sang along with him and afterwards praised him very much.
Next we should sing to Yakov. He covered his face with his hand, and when he opened it, “it was pale, like a dead man’s.” Sighing, Yakov started the mournful song “There was more than one path in the field.” His voice “ringed as if cracked.” “The Russian, truthful, ardent soul sounded and breathed in him and just grabbed you by the heart, grabbed you right by its Russian strings.” The narrator's eyes welled up with tears. Everyone understood that Yakov had won.
In order not to spoil the impression, the narrator went to sleep in the hayloft. At night, passing by the tavern again, he heard that the festivities were continuing there - Yakov was singing some kind of dance song. The narrator “with quick steps began to descend from the hill on which Kolotovka lies,” from a distance some boy loudly called Antropka.
Conclusion The story “The Singers” is written in the tradition of realism (a trend in Russian literature). In the work, the author touches on the theme of folk art that exists in the ordinary, dark life of peasants. We advise you to read not only a short retelling of “The Singers ,” but also the full version of the work.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Depiction of Russian life and Russian characters in the story “Singers”
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. The story "Singers".
Depiction of Russian life and Russian characters in the story.
The image of the narrator. Ways to express the author's position
The work “Singers” was written in 1850 and was included in the cycle of stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev “Notes of a Hunter”.
Their peculiarity is in their vivid descriptions: landscapes, portraits, stories of heroes. The narrator tells the story slowly, thoroughly, without missing a single detail.
“Rarely have two difficultly combined elements been united to such a degree, in such complete balance: sympathy for humanity and artistic feeling.”
,” Fyodor Tyutchev admired “Notes of a Hunter.”
The story was originally called “The Pityn Zucchini.” The title “Singers” probably belongs to Nikolai Nekrasov and is inscribed in the white autograph instead of the original one, crossed out by his hand. Other substitutions were made with the same hand in the white autograph in pencil and ink - for censorship reasons.
In a letter from St. Petersburg to Pauline Viardot, Ivan Turgenev announced the addition of a new story to “Notes of a Hunter”, in which he “is in a slightly embellished form”
depicted a competition between two folk singers, which he himself witnessed
“two months ago.”
Naturalistic descriptions of the life of pre-reform Russia in “Notes of a Hunter” result in reflections on the mysteries of the Russian soul. The peasant world grows into myth and opens up into nature, which turns out to be a necessary background for almost every story. Poetry and prose, light and shadows intertwine here in unique, whimsical images.
By bringing to the fore in “The Singers” the dramatic fate of a talented artist from the people, Turgenev thereby deepened the ideological and artistic meaning of the story. The theme of the destructive impact of feudal reality on the human personality gave the story a new meaning, and the fate of its heroes was seen in a new way: it became clear why the timid little peasant was so downtrodden and intimidated, why the Stunned Man drank himself to death and became a lost man, while Morgach and the kisser, on the contrary, prospered .
In the story “The Singers,” the story is told from the perspective of a nobleman-hunter. The central event of the work is the singing competition between Yakov Turk, a scooper from a paper mill, and a rower from Zhizdra. But before we talk about the competition, the narrator gives several long descriptions of the scene - the village of Kolotovka:
“The small village of Kolotovka ... lies on the slope of a bare hill, cut from top to bottom by a terrible ravine, which, gaping like an abyss, winds, dug up and washed out, along the very middle of the street and more than the river, separating both sides of the poor village. Several skinny willow trees timidly descend along its sandy sides... It’s a sad look, there’s nothing to say, but meanwhile all the surrounding residents know the road to Kolotovka well: they go there willingly and often.”
The wretchedness of the surroundings causes the narrator excruciating boredom, but it turns out that all the surrounding residents are well aware of this road. “The reason for this is the owner of the tavern, the kisser Nikolai Ivanovich.”
It would seem that if Nikolai Ivanovich lures people to a place like Kolotovka, then there must be something wonderful about it. Turgenev intrigues the reader by saying that Nikolai Ivanovich had “a special gift for attracting and keeping guests.”
, and gives a very detailed portrait of him, in which there is nothing remarkable and there is even a touch of comedy:
“an unusually fat, already gray-haired man with a tear-stained face”
had thin legs!
On the one hand, the description of the kisser, his family, and habits creates the impression that Nikolai Ivanovich is one of the main characters (but later it turns out that he takes almost no part in the action!),
on the other hand, a detailed portrait of Nikolai Ivanovich, “a picture of a village”, “at no time of the year did it present a gratifying sight”
, slowly build up tension.
tension itself
appears in several places: approaching the tavern, the hunter arouses
“tense, meaningless contemplation”
; from the thin lips of Morgach, leaving the hut,
“a tense smile did not leave, already in the tavern, when they drew lots for who would sing first,” “all faces expressed tense anticipation
.
This “tense anticipation”
is expressed through the appearance of the heroes:
“the Wild Master himself squinted, the little man in the tattered scroll craned his neck
.
The narrator describes the rowdy's singing objectively, without saying anything about his emotions, but only about the reaction to the singing of those around him. And when talking about Jacob’s song, the narrator describes his feelings, and they coincide with the feelings of the rest of the listeners:
“I felt tears boiling in my heart and rising to my eyes; <...> I looked around - the kisser’s wife was crying, leaning her chest against the window.”
Yakov’s song unites all the visitors to the tavern; the narrator, being a nobleman, says “we” to himself and ordinary men: “this sound had a strange effect on all of us”
.
The rower’s song is neither lexically nor emotionally separated from the rest of the text of the story: “So, the rower stepped forward and sang in the highest falsetto.”
For the rower himself, singing does not evoke feelings; and he is worried only because he is afraid that the listeners will not like him. Yakov, when he came out, “was silent, covered himself with his hand, and when he opened his face, it was pale, like a dead man’s.”
.
After Yakov’s song, the listeners remain silent for some time: they were so amazed by the singing. Thus, Jacob's song is separated on both sides from the rest of the text by "excited silence"
.
The clerk’s voice was “quite pleasant and sweet”
, in Yakov’s voice
“there was genuine deep passion, and youth, and strength, and sweetness, and some kind of fascinatingly carefree, sad sorrow
.
Sweetness is the essence of the rower’s voice and only one of the shades of Yakov’s multifaceted voice. Yakov’s voice contained a “Russian, truthful, ardent soul”
.
The rower wagged his voice like a top; Yakov’s voice evokes in the narrator’s memory the image of a seagull on the seashore.
The rower, trying to please, “simply went out of his way”;
Yakov, timid at first, began to sing and
“surrendered himself entirely to his happiness.”
Singing is happiness for Yakov; he doesn’t try to please anyone, he just sings.
“...I don’t know how the general yearning would have been resolved if Yakov had not suddenly finished with a high, unusually subtle sound - as if his voice had stopped. ...he looked around everyone with a questioning gaze and saw that the victory was his...
We all stood there dumbfounded. The clerk quietly stood up and approached Yakov. “You... your... you won,” he finally said with difficulty and rushed out of the room.
I looked at Yakov again and left. I didn't want to stay - I was afraid of ruining my impression. I reached the hayloft and lay down on the freshly mown but already almost dry grass. For a long time I could not doze off; Yakov’s irresistible voice sounded in my ears for a long time..."
After some time, the narrator comes to the window of the tavern and sees a drunken Yakov, humming “some kind of dance song in a hoarse voice.”
. Having drunk, Yakov becomes like the rower who sang the same dance song during the competition in the same hoarse voice.
Going down the hill, the narrator hears a boy shout: “Antropka! Antropka-ah!
The voice of the boy calling Antropka sounds like a song, and on this note the story ends.
“Singers” is one of the first works in Russian literature that provides an artistic, detailed and ethnographically accurate depiction of the performance of folk songs and the art of folk singers.
The impact of the sound of Yakov’s voice, the “Russian, truthful, ardent” soul that sounded in him, for a short time united everyone, who certainly realized that they were not very happy Russian people. Thanks to this artistic solution, in the interpretation of Turgenev’s author’s position, a poignant theme of the Russian man’s defenselessness before fate in his own familiar Russian space appears.
Turgenev is a great storyteller. He personally met his heroes. That is why the images of people are drawn so vividly and believably.
Each of the heroes of the “Notes of a Hunter” series is interesting in its own way. But the narrator himself is no less curious. After all, not every person has the talent to communicate on equal terms with representatives of a wide variety of social groups. Ivan Turgenev succeeds in this.
The narrator in “Notes of a Hunter” is an inquisitive, harmonious and sensitive person. His interest in others is sincere, and this cannot but admire. For him, all the people he had the chance to meet, without exception, are equally interesting.
The undoubted merit of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is that he was able to show simple everyday events in such a way that interest in “Notes of a Hunter” does not fade even today.
