Lesson topic: Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn.
Analysis of the story "Matrenin's Dvor".
The purpose of the lesson: try to understand how the writer sees the phenomenon of the “common man”, to understand the philosophical meaning of the story.
During the classes:
History of creation.
The story “Matrenin’s Dvor” was written in 1959, published in 1964. “Matrenin’s Dvor” is an autobiographical and reliable work. The original title is “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous man.” Published in Novy Mir, 1963, No. 1.
This is a story about the situation in which he found himself, returning “from the dusty hot desert,” that is, from the camp. He wanted to “get lost in Russia,” to find a “quiet corner of Russia.” The former camp inmate could only get hired for hard work, but he wanted to teach. After rehabilitation in 1957, S. worked for some time as a physics teacher in the Vladimir region, lived in the village of Miltsevo with the peasant woman Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova.
2. Conversation based on the story.
1) The name of the heroine.
- Which of the Russian writers of the 19th century had the same name as the main character? What female characters in Russian literature could you compare the heroine of the story with?
(Answer: the name of Solzhenitsyn’s heroine evokes the image of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, as well as the images of other Nekrasov women - workers: just like them, the heroine of the story “is dexterous in any work, she had to stop a galloping horse, and into a burning hut come in.” There is nothing of a majestic Slav in her appearance; you can’t call her a beauty. She is modest and inconspicuous.)
2) Portrait.
- Is there a detailed portrait of the heroine in the story? What portrait details does the writer focus on?
(Answer: Solzhenitsyn does not give a detailed portrait of Matryona. From chapter to chapter, only one detail is most often repeated - a smile: “a radiant smile”, “the smile of her round face”, “she smiled at something”, “an apologetic half-smile”. It is important for the author to portray not so much the external beauty of a simple Russian peasant woman, but the inner light flowing from her eyes, and all the more clearly emphasize your thought, expressed directly: “Those people always have good faces who are at peace with their conscience.” what remained was intact, calm, more alive than dead.)
3) The heroine’s speech.
Write down the most characteristic statements of the heroine. What are the features of her speech?
(Answer: Matryona’s deeply folk character is manifested primarily in her speech. Expressiveness and bright individuality give her language an abundance of vernacular, dialect vocabulary and archaism (2 – the days are in time, to the terrible, love, summer, both sexes, to help, troubleshooting). That's what everyone in the village said. Matryona’s manner of speech is just as deeply folkish, the way she pronounces her “kind words.” “They began with some kind of low, warm purring, like grandmothers in fairy tales.”
4) Life of Matryona.
- What artistic details create a picture of Matryona’s life? How are everyday objects connected to the heroine’s spiritual world?
(Answer: Outwardly, Matryona’s life is striking in its disorder (“she lives in desolation”) All her wealth is ficus trees, a lanky cat, a goat, mouse cockroaches, a coat made from a railway overcoat. All this testifies to the poverty of Matryona, who worked all her life, but only with great difficulty she earned herself a tiny pension. But another thing is also important: these meager everyday details reveal her special world. It is no coincidence that the ficus says: “They filled the loneliness of the housewife. They grew freely...” - and the rustling of cockroaches is compared to the distant sound of the ocean. It seems that nature itself lives in Matryona’s house, all living things are drawn to her).
5) The fate of Matryona.
Restore Matryona's life story? How does Matryona perceive her fate? What role does work play in her life?
(Answer: The events of the story are limited to a clear time frame: summer-winter 1956. Restoring the fate of the heroine, her life dramas, personal troubles, one way or another, are connected with the turns of history: With the First World War, in which Thaddeus was captured, with the Great Domestic, with whom her husband did not return, with the collective farm, from whom all her strength was drained and left her without a livelihood. Her fate is a part of the fate of the entire people.
And today the inhumane system does not let Matryona go: she was left without a pension, and she is forced to spend whole days obtaining various certificates; they don’t sell her peat, forcing her to steal, and they also search her based on a denunciation; the new chairman cut gardens for all disabled people; It is impossible to have cows, since mowing is not allowed anywhere; They don't even sell train tickets. Matryona does not feel justice, but she does not hold a grudge against fate and people. “She had a surefire way to restore good spirits - work.” Receiving nothing for her work, she goes at the first call to help her neighbors and the collective farm. Those around her willingly take advantage of her kindness. The villagers and relatives themselves not only do not help Matryona, but also try not to appear in her house at all, fearing that she will ask for help. To each and every one, Matryona remains absolutely alone in her village.
6) The image of Matryona among relatives.
What colors are used in the story of Thaddeus Mironovich and Matryona’s relatives? How does Thaddeus behave when dismantling the upper room? What is the conflict of the story?
(Answer: The main character is contrasted in the story with the brother of her late husband, Thaddeus. Drawing his portrait, Solzhenitsyn repeats the epithet “black” seven times. A man whose life was broken in his own way by inhumane circumstances, Thaddeus, unlike Matryona, harbored a grudge against fate , taking it out on his wife and son. The almost blind old man comes to life when he presses Matryona about the upper room, and then, when he destroys the hut of his former bride, self-interest and the desire to seize the plot for his daughter force him to destroy the house that he once- Thaddeus himself built it. Thaddeus’ inhumanity is especially clearly manifested on the eve of Matryona’s funeral. Thaddeus did not come to Matryona’s funeral. But the most important thing is that Thaddeus was in the village, that Thaddeus was not the only one in the village.
There is almost no eventual conflict in the story, because the very character of Matryona excludes conflictual relationships with people. For her, good is the inability to do evil, love and compassion. In this substitution of concepts, Solzhenitsyn sees the essence of the spiritual crisis that struck Russia.
7) The tragedy of Matryona.
What signs foretell the death of the heroine?
(Answer: From the very first lines, the author prepares us for the tragic outcome of Matryona’s fate. Her death is foreshadowed by the loss of a pot of blessed water and the disappearance of a cat. For relatives and neighbors, Matryona’s death is only a reason to slander her until they have the opportunity to profit from her not cunning goods, for the narrator is the death of a loved one and the destruction of an entire world, the world of that people’s truth, without which the Russian land does not stand)
8) The image of the narrator.
What do the fates of the narrator and Matryona have in common?
(Answer: The narrator is a man from a difficult family, with a war and a camp behind him. Therefore, he is lost in a quiet corner of Russia. And only in Matryona’s hut did the hero feel something akin to his heart. And lonely Matryona felt trust in her guest. Only to him does she tell about of his bitter past, only to her will he reveal that the heroes were united by the drama of their fate, and many of their life principles are especially reflected in their speech. And only the death of the hostess made the narrator comprehend her spiritual essence, which is why it sounds so strongly in the finale. story motive of repentance.
9) - What is the theme of the story?
(Answer: The main theme of the story is “how people live.”
Why is the fate of the old peasant woman, told in a few pages, of such interest to us?
(Answer: This woman is unread, illiterate, a simple worker. To survive what Matryona Vasilyevna had to endure, and to remain a selfless, open, delicate, sympathetic person, not to become embittered towards fate and people, to preserve her “radiant smile” until old age - what mental strength is needed for this!
10) -What is the symbolic meaning of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”?
(Answer: Many symbols of S. are associated with Christian symbolism: images are symbols of the way of the cross, a righteous man, a martyr. The first name “Matryona’s yard” directly indicates this. And the name itself is general in nature. The yard, the house of Matryona, is the refuge that The narrator finds it after many years of camps and homelessness. In the fate of the house, the fate of its owner is repeated. Forty years passed here in this house, she survived two wars - German and domestic, the death of six children who died in infancy, the loss of her husband. who went missing during the war. The house is falling apart - the housewife is getting old. The house is being dismantled like a person - Matryona dies along with part of her house. Matryona's house is completely destroyed until spring. like a coffin - buried.
Conclusion:
The righteous Matryona is the writer’s moral ideal, on which, in his opinion, the life of society should be based.
The folk wisdom included by the writer in the original title of the story accurately conveys this author’s thought. Matryonin's yard is a kind of island in the middle of an ocean of lies that holds the treasure of the people's spirit. The death of Matryona, the destruction of her yard and hut is a terrible warning about the catastrophe that can happen to a society that has lost its moral guidelines. However, despite all the tragedy of the work, the story is imbued with the author’s faith in the vitality of Russia. Solzhenitsyn sees the source of this vitality not in the political system, not in state power, not in the power of weapons, but in the simple hearts of unnoticed, humiliated, most often lonely righteous people opposing the world of lies.)
"Magrenip yard"
The hero goes to teach in a small place called “Peat Product”, from which, as the author ironically notes, it was difficult to leave. Neither the monotonous barracks nor the dilapidated five-story buildings attract the main character. Finally, he finds housing in the village of Talnovo. This is how the reader gets acquainted with the main character of the work - a lonely sick woman Matryona. She lives in a darkish hut with a dim mirror through which it was impossible to see anything, and two bright posters about the book trade and the harvest. The contrast between these interior details is obvious. It anticipates one of the key problems raised in the work - the conflict between the ostentatious bravado of the official chronicle of events and the real life of ordinary Russian people. The story conveys a deep understanding of this tragic discrepancy.
Another, no less striking contradiction in the story is the contrast between the extreme poverty of peasant life, among which Matryona’s life passes, and the richness of her deep inner world. The woman worked on a collective farm all her life, and now she doesn’t even receive a pension either for her work or for the loss of her breadwinner. And it is almost impossible to achieve this pension due to bureaucracy. Despite this, she has not lost her pity, humanity, and love of nature: she grows ficus trees and adopted a lanky cat. The author emphasizes in his heroine a humble, good-natured attitude towards life. She does not blame anyone for her plight, she does not demand anything.
Solzhenitsyn constantly emphasizes that Matryona’s life could have turned out differently, because her house was built for a large family: money and grandchildren could sit on stools instead of ficus trees. Through the description of Matryona's life we learn
about the difficult life of the peasantry. The only food in the village is potatoes and barley. The store only sells margarine and combined fat. Only once a year does Matryona buy local “delicacies” for the shepherd at the general store, which she herself does not eat: canned fish, sugar and butter. And when she put on a coat from a worn railway overcoat and began to receive a pension, her neighbors even began to envy her. This detail not only testifies to the miserable situation of all residents of the village, but also sheds light on the unsightly relationships between people.
It’s paradoxical, but in the village called “Torfoprodukt” people don’t even have enough peat for the winter. Peat, of which there was a lot around, was sold only to the authorities and one car at a time - to teachers, doctors, and factory workers. When the hero talks about this, his heart aches: it’s scary to think to what degree of downtroddenness and humiliation an ordinary person can be reduced in Russia. Due to the same stupidity of economic life, Matryona cannot have a cow. There is a sea of grass all around, and you can’t mow it without permission. So the old sick woman has to look for grass for her goat on the islands in the swamp. And there’s nowhere to get hay for a cow.
A.I. Solzhenitsyn consistently shows what difficulties the life of an ordinary hard-working peasant woman is fraught with. Even if she tries to improve her plight, there are obstacles and prohibitions everywhere.
At the same time, in the image of Matryona A.I. Solzhenitsyn embodied the best features of a Russian woman. The narrator often admires her kind smile, notes that the cure for all the heroine’s troubles was work, which she easily got involved in: either digging potatoes or going to the distant forest to pick berries. 11th immediately, only in the second part of the story, we learn about Matryona’s past life: she had six children. For eleven years she waited for her missing husband from the war, who, as it turned out, was not faithful to her.
In the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn constantly sharply criticizes the local authorities: winter is just around the corner, and the collective farm chairman talks about everything except fuel. You won’t be able to find the secretary of the village council locally, and even if you do get some paperwork, you’ll have to redo it later, since all these people who are called upon to ensure law and order in the country work carelessly, and you won’t find any government for them. A.I. writes with indignation. Solzhenitsyn said that the new chairman “first of all cut off the gardens of all disabled people,” even though the cut-off acres were still empty behind the fence.
Matryona did not even have the right to mow the grass on the collective farm land, but when there was a problem on the collective farm, the chairman’s wife came to her and, without saying hello, demanded that she go to work, and even with her pitchfork. Matryona helped not only the collective farm, but also her neighbors.
A number of artistic details by A.I. Solzhenitsyn emphasizes in the story how far the achievements of civilization are from the real life of a peasant in the Russian outback. The invention of new machines and artificial satellites of the Earth is heard on the radio as wonders of the world, from which no sense or benefit will be added. The peasants will still load peat with pitchforks and eat empty potatoes or porridge.
Also, A.I. tells along the way. Solzhenitsyn and about the situation in school education: Antoshka Grigoriev, a complete failure student, did not even try to learn anything: he knew that he would be transferred to the next class anyway, since the main thing for school is not the quality of students’ knowledge, but the struggle for a “high percentage of academic performance” .
The tragic end of the story is prepared during the development of the plot by a remarkable detail: someone stole Matryona’s pot of holy water at the blessing of water: “She always had holy water, but this year she didn’t have any.”
In addition to the cruelty of state power and its representatives towards people, A.I. Solzhenitsyn raises the problem of human callousness towards others. Matryona's relatives force her to dismantle and give the upper room to her niece (adopted daughter). After this, Matryona’s sisters cursed her as a fool, and the lanky cat, the old woman’s last joy, disappeared from the yard.
While taking out the upper room, Matryona herself dies at a crossing under the wheels of the train. With bitterness in her heart, the author tells how Matryona’s sisters, who had quarreled with her before her death, flocked to share her wretched inheritance: a hut, a goat, a chest and two hundred funeral rubles.
Only a phrase from one old woman transforms the narrative plan from the everyday to the existential: “There are two riddles in the world: how I was born - I don’t remember, how I die - I don’t know.” People glorified Matryona even after her death. There was talk that her husband didn’t love her, he walked away from her, and in general she was stupid, since she dug up people’s gardens for free, but never acquired any property of her own. The author’s point of view is extremely succinctly expressed by the phrase: “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand.”
Teacher's word
A writer is judged by his best works. Among Solzhenitsyn’s stories published in the 60s, “Matrenin’s Dvor” was always put in first place. It was called “brilliant,” “a truly brilliant work.” “The story is true,” “the story is talented,” the critics noted. “Even among Solzhenitsyn’s stories, it stands out for its strict artistry, integrity of poetic embodiment, consistency of artistic taste.”
Question
Where does the story take place?
Answer
At “one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow.” The exact location is important. On the one hand, it gravitates towards the center of European Russia, towards Moscow itself, on the other hand, the remoteness and wilderness of the regions described in the story are emphasized. This is the place that is most characteristic of Russia at that time.
Question
What is the name of the station where the events of the story take place? What's so absurd about this name?
Answer
The production and prosaic name of the station “Torfoprodukt” hurts the ear: “Ah, Turgenev didn’t know that it was possible to write something like that in Russian!”
The lines following this ironic phrase are written in a completely different tone: “A wind of calm blew over me from the names of other villages: Vysokoye Pole, Talnovo, Chaslitsy, Shevertny, Ovintsy, Spudni, Shestimirovo.”
This inconsistency of toponymy is the key to the subsequent understanding of the contrasts of everyday life and being.
Question
From whose perspective is the story told? What is the role of the narrator?
Answer
The narrator, leading the narration, being an intellectual teacher, constantly writing “something of his own” at a dimly lit table, is placed in the position of an outside observer-chronicler, trying to understand Matryona and everything “that happens to us.”
Teacher's comment
“Matrenin’s Dvor” is an autobiographical work. This is Solzhenitsyn’s story about himself, about the situation in which he found himself when he returned in the summer of 1956 “from the dusty hot desert.” He “wanted to worm his way in and get lost in the very interior of Russia,” to find “a quiet corner of Russia away from the railways.”
Ignatich (under this name the author appears before us) feels the delicacy of his position: a former camp inmate (Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated in 1957) could only be hired for hard work - carrying stretchers. He had other desires: “But I was drawn to teaching.” Both in the structure of this phrase with its expressive dash, and in the choice of words, the mood of the hero is conveyed, the most cherished is expressed.
Question
What is the theme of the story?
Answer
The main theme of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” is “how people live.” This is what Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn wants to understand and what he wants to talk about. The entire movement of the plot of his story is aimed at understanding the secret of the character of the main character.
Exercise
Tell us about the heroine of the story.
Answer
The heroine of the story is a simple village woman Matryona. She suffered numerous misfortunes - the capture of her fiancé, the death of her husband, the death of six children, serious illness and grievances - deception when paying for hellish work, poverty, exclusion from the collective farm, deprivation of a pension, the callousness of bureaucrats.
Matryona's poverty looks out from all angles. But where will wealth come to a peasant's house?
“I only found out later,” says Ignatich, “that year after year, for many years, Matryona Vasilievna did not earn a ruble from anywhere. Because she was not paid a pension. Her family didn't help her much. And on the collective farm she did not work for money - for sticks. For sticks of workdays in the accountant’s dirty book.”
These words will be supplemented by the story of Matryona herself about how many grievances she suffered while worrying about a pension, about how she extracted peat for the stove and hay for the goat.
Teacher's comment
The heroine of the story is not a character invented by the writer. The author writes about a real person - Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova, with whom he lived in the 50s. Natalya Reshetovskaya’s book “Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Reading Russia” contains photographs taken by Solzhenitsyn of Matryona Vasilievna, her house, and the room that the writer rented. His story-memoir echoes the words of A.T. Tvardovsky, who remembers his neighbor Aunt Daria,
With her hopeless patience,
With her hut without a canopy,
And with an empty workday,
And with labor - not completely...
With all the trouble -
Yesterday's war
And the current grave misfortune.
It is noteworthy that these lines and Solzhenitsyn’s story were written at approximately the same time. In both works, the story about the fate of a peasant woman develops into thoughts about the brutal devastation of the Russian village during the war and post-war times. “Can you really tell us about this, in what years you lived...” This line from M. Isakovsky’s poem is consonant with the prose of F. Abramov, who talks about the fate of Anna and Liza Pryaslin, Marfa Repina... This is the literary context in which the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” falls "!
But Solzhenitsyn’s story was not written just to once again talk about the suffering and troubles that the Russian woman endured. Let us turn to the words of A. T. Tvardovsky, taken from his speech at a session of the Governing Council of the European Writers Association: “Why is the fate of an old peasant woman, told on a few pages, of such great interest to us? This woman is unread, illiterate, a simple worker. And yet, her spiritual world is endowed with such a quality that we talk to her as if we were talking to Anna Karenina.”
Having read this speech in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Solzhenitsyn immediately wrote to Tvardovsky: “Needless to say, the paragraph of your speech relating to Matryona means a lot to me. You pointed to the very essence - to a woman who loves and suffers, while all the criticism was always scouring the surface, comparing the Talnovsky collective farm and the neighboring ones.”
Question
How can we characterize Matryona? How did the troubles affect her character?
Answer
Despite the misfortunes she suffered, Matryona managed to retain exceptional kindness, mercy, humanity, selflessness, readiness to always come to the aid of others, great diligence, kindness, patience, independence, and delicacy.
That’s why she married Efim, because he didn’t have enough hands. That’s why she took Kira into her upbringing, because it was necessary to ease Thaddeus’s fate and somehow connect herself with his family. She helped any neighbor, she harnessed the sixth to the plow while plowing, and she always went out for general work, not being a collective farmer. To help Kira acquire a plot of land, she gave away her upper room. She even picked up a lame cat out of compassion.
Due to her delicacy, she did not want to interfere with another, she could not burden anyone. Out of her kindness, she rushed to help the men who were taking away part of her hut.
This kind soul lived for the joys of others, and that is why a radiant, kind smile often illuminated her simple round face.
To survive what Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova experienced and remain a selfless, open, delicate, sympathetic person, not to become embittered at fate and people, to preserve her “radiant smile” until old age... What mental strength is needed for this?!
Question
How is the character of the heroine revealed in the story?
Answer
Matryona reveals herself not so much in her everyday present as in her past. She herself, remembering her youth, admitted to Ignatich: “It’s you who haven’t seen me before, Ignatich. All my bags were five pounds each and I didn’t count them as weight. The father-in-law shouted: “Matryona! You’ll break your back!” The Divir did not come to me to put my end of the log on the front.”
Young, strong, beautiful, Matryona was from that breed of Russian peasant woman who “will stop a galloping horse.” And this happened: “Once the horse, out of fear, carried the sleigh into the lake, the men galloped away, but I, however, grabbed the bridle and stopped it...” says Matryona. And at the last moment of her life, she rushed to “help the men” at a crossing - and died.
Matryona will be revealed most fully in the dramatic episodes of the second part of the story. They are connected with the arrival of the “tall black old man,” Thaddeus, the brother of Matryona’s husband, who did not return from the war. Thaddeus came not to Matryona, but to the teacher to ask for his eighth-grader son. Left alone with Matryona, Ignatich forgot to think about the old man, and even about her. And suddenly from her dark corner she heard:
“I, Ignatich, once almost married him.
She got up from the wretched rag bed and slowly came out to me, as if following her words. I leaned back and for the first time I saw Matryona in a completely new way...
- He was the first to marry me... before Efim... He was the elder brother... I was nineteen, Thaddeus was twenty-three... They lived in this very house then. It was their house. Built by their father.
I involuntarily looked back. This old gray rotting house suddenly, through the faded green skin of the wallpaper, under which mice were running, appeared to me with young, not yet darkened, planed logs and a cheerful resinous smell.
- And you him?.. So what?..
“That summer... we went with him to sit in the grove,” she whispered. - There was a grove here... I didn’t get out without a little, Ignatich. The German war has begun. They took Thaddeus to war.
She dropped it - and the blue, white and yellow July of 1914 flashed before me: a still peaceful sky, floating clouds and people boiling with ripe stubble. I imagined them side by side: a resin hero with a scythe across his back; her, rosy, hugging the sheaf. And - a song, a song under the sky...
“He went to war and disappeared... For three years I hid, waited. And no news, and not a bone...
Tied with an old faded handkerchief, Matryona’s round face looked at me in the indirect soft reflections of the lamp - as if freed from wrinkles, from an everyday careless outfit - frightened, girlish, faced with a terrible choice.
Answer
The former lover and groom appears as a kind of “black man”, foreshadowing misfortune, and then becomes the direct culprit in the death of the heroine.
Solzhenitsyn generously uses the epithet “black” seven times within one paragraph at the beginning of the second chapter. The ax in the hands of Thaddeus (Ignatius clearly imagines it in the hands of this man) gives rise to associations with the ax of Raskolnikov, who kills an innocent victim, and at the same time with the ax of Lopakhin.
The story also evokes other literary associations. “The Black Man” also resembles Pushkin’s gloomy alien in “Mozart and Salieri.”
Question
Are there other symbols in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”?
Answer
Many of Solzhenitsyn’s symbols are associated with Christian symbolism: images-symbols of the way of the cross, a righteous man, a martyr.
Question
What is the symbolic meaning of the story?
Answer
The courtyard, Matryona’s house, is the “shelter” that the narrator finally finds in search of “interior Russia” after many years of camps and homelessness: “I have never liked this place in the whole village.” It was no coincidence that Solzhenitsyn called his work “Matrenin’s Dvor.” This is one of the key images of the story. The description of the yard, detailed, with a lot of details, is devoid of bright colors: Matryona lives “in desolation.” It is important for the author to emphasize the inseparability of a house and a person: if the house is destroyed, its owner will also die.
“And the years passed as the water floated...” As if from a folk song, this amazing proverb came into the story. It will contain Matryona’s entire life, all the forty years that have passed here. In this house she will survive two wars - German and World War II, the death of six children who died in infancy, the loss of her husband, who went missing during the war. Here she will grow old, remain lonely, and suffer need. All her wealth is a lanky cat, a goat and a crowd of ficus trees.
The symbolic likening of the house to Russia is traditional, because the structure of the house is likened to the structure of the world.
Teacher's word
The righteous Matryona is the writer’s moral ideal, on which, in his opinion, the life of society should be based. According to Solzhenitsyn, “the meaning of earthly existence is not prosperity, but the development of the soul.” Connected with this idea is the writer’s understanding of the role of literature and its connection with the Christian tradition.
Solzhenitsyn continues one of the main traditions of Russian literature, according to which the writer sees his purpose in preaching truth, spirituality, and is convinced of the need to pose “eternal” questions and seek answers to them. He spoke about this in his Nobel lecture: “In Russian literature, we have long been ingrained in the idea that a writer can do a lot among his people - and should... Once he has taken up his word, he can never evade: a writer is not an outside judge of his compatriots and contemporaries, he is a co-author of all the evil committed in his homeland or by his people.”
Literature
N.V. Egorova, I.V. Zolotareva. Literature of the Thaw. Creativity of A.I. Solzhenitsyn. // Lesson developments in Russian literature. XX century Grade 11. II half of the year. M., 2004
V. Lakshin. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // New World. – 1964. – No. 1
P. Palamarchuk. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Guide. – M., 1991
Georges Nivat. Solzhenitsyn. – M., 1993
V. Chalmaev. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: life and work. – M., 1994
E.S. Rogover. Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn // Russian literature of the 20th century. St. Petersburg, 2002
The theme of righteousness is heard in the works of literary artists of different times. Modern writers did not remain indifferent to it either. A. I. Solzhenitsyn gives his vision of this problem in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”.
“Matrenin’s Dvor” is a work that is completely autobiographical and authentic. The story described by Solzhenitsyn took place in the village of Miltsevo, Kuplovsky district, Vladimir region. Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova lived there.
The heroine of Solzhenitsyn's story is modest and inconspicuous. The author gives her a discreet appearance and does not give the reader a detailed portrait of her, but he constantly draws attention to Matryona’s smile, radiant, bright, kind. This is how Solzhenitsyn emphasizes Matryona’s inner beauty, which is much more important to him than external beauty. Matryona's speech is unusual. It is replete with colloquial and outdated words, dialect vocabulary. In addition, the heroine constantly uses words invented by herself (If you don’t know how, if you don’t cook, how will you lose it?”). Thus, the author reveals the idea of the national character of Matryona.
The heroine lives “in the wilderness.” Matryona’s house “with four windows in a row on the cold, non-red side, covered with wood chips,” “the wood chips were rotting, the logs of the log house and the gates, once mighty, had turned gray from age, and their cover had thinned out.” The heroine’s life is unsettled: mice, cockroaches. She acquired nothing except ficus owls, a goat, a languid cat, and a coat made from an overcoat. Matryona is poor, although she has worked all her life. She even obtained a tiny pension for herself with great difficulty. Nevertheless, the description of the heroine’s life gives a sense of the harmony that fills her poor home. The narrator feels comfortable in her house; the decision to stay with Matryona comes to him immediately. He notes about Matryonin’s courtyard: “.. there was nothing evil in it, there was no lie in it.”
Matryona lived a difficult life. Her fate was affected by the events of the First World War, in which Thaddeus was captured, and the events of the Great Patriotic War, from which her husband did not return. Collectivization was not spared either: the heroine worked on the collective farm all her life, and “not for money, but for sticks.” Even in recent days, her life has not been easy: all day long she has been going through the authorities, trying to get certificates to apply for a pension, she has big problems with peat, her new chairman has cut off her garden, she cannot get a cow because Mowing is not allowed anywhere; it is even impossible to buy a train ticket. It would seem that a person should have long ago become embittered, hardened against the circumstances of life. But no - Matryona does not hold a grudge against people or her lot. Her main qualities are her inability to do evil, love for her neighbor, and the ability to sympathize and have compassion. While still alive, the heroine gives up her upper room for scrapping for Kira, because “Matryona never spared either her labor or her goods.” She finds solace in work and is “dexterous in all work.” The narrator notes: “..she had a sure way to regain her good mood - work.” Matryona gets up every day at four or five in the morning. She digs “carts,” goes for peat, “for berries in the distant forest,” and “every day she had some other task.” At the first call, the heroine comes to the aid of the collective farm, her relatives, and her neighbors. Moreover, she does not expect or demand remuneration for her work. Work is a pleasure for her. “I was digging, I didn’t want to leave the site,” she says one day. “Matryona returned already enlightened, happy with everything, with her kind smile,” the narrator says about her. This behavior of Matryona seems strange to those around her. Today they call her for help, and tomorrow they condemn her for not giving up. They speak of her “cordiality and simplicity” “with contemptuous regret.” The villagers themselves don’t seem to notice Matryona’s problems; they don’t even come to visit her. Even at Matryona’s wake, no one talks about her. Those gathered have one thing on their minds: how to divide her simple property, how to grab a larger piece for themselves. The heroine was lonely during her life, and she remained lonely on that mournful day.
Matryona is contrasted with the other heroes of the story, and with the entire world around her too. Thaddeus, for example, is embittered, inhuman, and selfish. He constantly tortures his family, and on the day of the tragedy he thinks only about how to “save the logs of the upper room from the fire and from the machinations of his mother’s sisters.” Matryona is contrasted with her friend Masha, and her sisters, and her sisters-in-law.
The basis of relationships in the world surrounding the heroine is lies and immorality. Modern society has lost its moral guidelines, and Solzhenitsyn sees its salvation in the hearts of such lonely righteous people as Matryona. She is the same person, “without whom, according to the proverb, a village is not worthwhile.” Neither the city. Neither the whole land is ours.”
A. Solzhenitsyn is a continuer of Tolstoy’s tradition. In the story “Matryonin’s Dvor,” he affirms Tolstoy’s truth that the basis of true greatness is “simplicity, goodness and truth.”
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 1
1. The story "Matryonin's Dvor":
B) based on fiction;
C) is based on eyewitness accounts and contains elements of fiction.
2. The narration in the story is:
A) in the first person;
B) from a third party;
B) two narrators.
3. Function of exposition in a story:
A) introduce the reader to the main characters;
B) intrigue the reader with a mystery that explains the slow movement of a train along a section of railway track;
C) introduce the scene of action and indicate the narrator’s involvement in what happened
events.
4. The narrator settled in Talnovo, hoping to find patriarchal Russia:
A) and was upset when he saw that the residents were unfriendly towards each other;
B) and did not regret anything, because I recognized the folk wisdom and sincerity of the residents of Talnovo;
B) and stayed to live there forever.
5. The narrator, paying attention to the description of everyday life, talking about an elderly cat, a goat, mice and cockroaches living freely in Matryona’s house:
A) did not approve of the housewife’s sloppiness, although he did not tell her about it so as not to offend her;
B) emphasized that Matryona’s kind heart pitied all living things, and she sheltered in the house those
who needed her compassion;
B) showed details of village life.
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 2
1. In contrast to the detailed description of Thaddeus, the portrait of Matryona is stingy in detail:
“Tied with an old faded handkerchief, Matryona’s round face looked at me in the indirect soft reflections of the lamp...” This allows:
B) indicate that she belongs to the villagers;
C) see the deep subtext in the description of Matryona: her essence is revealed not by the portrait, but by the way she lives and communicates with people.
2. The technique of arranging images with a gradual increase in significance, which the author uses at the end of the story ( ), called:
3. What the author says: “But it must have come to our ancestors from the very Stone Age because, once heated before daylight, it stores warm feed and swill for livestock, food and water for humans all day long. And sleep warmly."
5. How does the fate of the narrator of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” resemble the fate of the author A. Solzhenitsyn?
5. When was the story “Matryonin’s Dvor” written?
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 3
1. Matryona told the narrator Ignatich the story of her bitter life:
A) because she had no one to talk to;
B) because he also had to go through difficult times, and he learned to understand and sympathize;
B) because she wanted to be pitied.
2. A short acquaintance with Matryona allowed the author to understand her character. He was:
A) kind, delicate, sympathetic;
B) closed, taciturn;
B) cunning, mercantile.
3. Why was it difficult for Matryona to give up the upper room during her lifetime??
4. What did the narrator want to do in the village?
5. Indicate on whose behalf the narration is told in Solzhenitsyn’s story “Matryonin’s Dvor”
B) objective narration
D) an outside observer
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 4
A) went for holy water at Epiphany;
B) cried when she heard Glinka’s romances on the radio, taking this music to her heart;
B) agreed to give the upper room for scrapping.
2. Main theme of the story:
A) Thaddeus’s revenge on Matryona;
B) the alienation of Matryona, who lived secluded and lonely;
C) the destruction of Matryona’s courtyard as a haven of kindness, love and forgiveness.
3. Waking up one night in the smoke that Matryona rushed to save?
4. After Matryona’s death, her sister-in-law said about her: “...stupid, she helped strangers for free.” Were people strangers to Matryona? What is the name of this feeling, on which Rus' still rests, according to Solzhenitsyn?
5. Indicate the second title of Solzhenitsyn’s story “Matryonin’s Dvor”
A) “The incident at Krechetovka station”
B) "Fire"
C) “A village is not worthwhile without the righteous”
D) “business as usual”
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 5
A) highlight the hero’s solidity, dignity, and strength.
B) show the resilience of the once “resin hero” who did not waste his kindness and generosity;
C) more clearly reveal the hero’s anger, hatred, and greed.
2. The narrator is:
A) an artistically generalized character showing the full picture of events;
B) the character of the story, with his own life story, self-characterization and speech;
B) neutral narrator.
3. What did Matryona feed her tenant??
4. Continue.“But Matryona was by no means fearless. She was afraid of fire, she was afraid of lightning, and most of all for some reason....”
a) “Torfoprodukt Village”
b) “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous person”
c) “Tulleless Matryona”
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 6
1. Depicting the crying of relatives for the deceased Matryona,
A) shows the closeness of the heroes to the Russian national epic;
B) shows the tragedy of events;
C) reveals the essence of the heroine’s sisters, who are crying over Matryona’s inheritance.
2. A tragic omen of events can be considered:
A) the loss of a lame cat;
B) loss of home and everything connected with it;
C) discord in relations with sisters.
3. Matryona’s clock was 27 years old and it was in a hurry all the time, why didn’t this bother the owner??
4. Who is Kira?
5. What is the tragedy of the ending? What does the author want to tell us? What worries him?
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 7
1. Solzhenitsyn calls Matryona a righteous woman, without whom the village cannot stand, according to the proverb. He came to this conclusion:
A) since Matryona always said the right words, they listened to her opinion;
B) because Matryona observed Christian customs;
C) when the image of Matryona became clear to him, close, like her life without the race for goodness, for clothes.
2. What words do the story “Matryonin’s Dvor” begin with?
3. What connects the story “Matryonin’s Dvor” and?
4. What was the original name of the story “Matryonin’s Dvor”?
5. What was hanging “on the wall for beauty” in Matryona’s house?
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 8
1. Matryona cooked food in three cast iron pots. In one - for himself, in the other - for Ignatich, and in the third -...?
3. What was the surest way for Matryona to regain her good mood?
4. What event or omen happened to Matryona at Epiphany?
5. Say Matryona’s full name .
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 9
1. What part of the house did Matryona bequeath to her pupil Kira??
2. What historical period is the story about?
a) after the revolution
b) after World War II
3. What music heard on the radio did Matryona like??
4. What kind of weather did Matryona call duel?
5. " From the red frosty sun, the frozen window of the entryway, now shortened, glowed slightly pink, and Matryona’s face was warmed by this reflection. Those people always have good faces, who....” Continue.
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 10
1. What was Thaddeus thinking as he stood at the tombs of his son and the woman he had once loved?
2. What is the main idea of the story?
a) depiction of the hardship of life of the peasantry of collective farm villages
b) the tragic fate of a village woman
c) loss of spiritual and moral foundations by society
d) displaying the type of eccentric in Russian society
3.
Continue: “Misunderstood and abandoned even by her husband, who buried six children, but did not have a sociable disposition, a stranger to her sisters and sisters-in-law, funny, stupidly working for others for free - she did not accumulate property for death. A dirty white goat, a lanky cat, ficus trees...
We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the one....”
4.
5. What artistic details help the author create the image of the main character?
a) lumpy cat
b) potato soup
c) a large Russian stove
d) silent but lively crowd of ficus trees
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 11
1. What is the meaning of the namestory?
a) the story is named after the place of action
b) Matrenin’s yard is a symbol of a special structure of life, a special world
c) a symbol of the destruction of the world of spirituality, goodness and mercy in the Russian village
2. What is the main idea of this story? What Solzhenitsyn puts into the image of the old woman Matryona?
3. What is the peculiarity of the image systemstory?
a) built on the principle of pairing characters
b) the heroes surrounding Matryona are selfish, callous, they took advantage of the kindness of the main character
c) emphasizes the loneliness of the main character
d) designed to highlight the character of the main character
4. Write what Matryona's fate was.
5. How did Matryona live? Was she happy in life??
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 12
1. Why didn't Matryona have children?
2. What was Thaddeus worried about after the death of his son and his former beloved woman?
3. What did Matryona bequeath?
4. How can you characterize the image of the main character?
a) a naive, funny and stupid woman who has worked for others for free all her life
b) an absurd, poor, wretched old woman abandoned by everyone
c) a righteous woman who has not sinned in any way against the laws of morality
a) in artistic details
b) in a portrait
c) the nature of the description of the event underlying the story
e) the heroine’s internal monologues
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 13
1. Which type of traditional thematic classification does this story belong to?
1) Village 2) military prose 3) intellectual prose 4) urban prose
2. What type of literary heroes can Matryona be classified as?
1) an extra person, 2) a small person, 3) a premature person 4) a righteous person
3. The story “Matryonin’s Dvor” was written in the traditions of:
4. The house destruction episode is:
1) plot 2) exposition 3) climax 4) denouement
5. Traditions of what ancient genre can be found in the story “Matryonin’s Dvor”?
1) parables 2) epics 3) epics 4) lives
Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin's yard"
Option 14
1. What is the original title of the story?
1) “Life is not based on lies” 2) “A village is not worth it without a righteous person” 3) “Be kind!” 4) “The Death of Matryona”
2. The specific subject of the narrative, designated by the pronoun “I” and the first person of the verb, the protagonist of the work, the mediator between the image of the author and the reader is called:
3. Words found in the story "problem", “to the terrible”, “upper room” are called:
1) professional 2) dialectal 3) words with figurative meaning
4. Name the technique that the author uses when depicting the characters of Matryona and Thaddeus:
1) antithesis 2) mirror composition 3) comparison
5. The technique of arranging images with a gradual increase in significance, which the author uses at the end of the story ( village - city - all the land is ours), called:
1) hyperbole 2) gradation 3) antithesis 4) comparison
Answers:
Option 1
1 – a
3 – in
4 – a
5 B
Option 2
2-gradation
3 - About the Russian stove.
Option 3
3. “I didn’t feel sorry for the upper room itself, which stood idle, just as Matryona never felt sorry for her work or her goods. And this room was still bequeathed to Kira. But it was scary for her to start breaking the roof under which she had lived for forty years.”
4. teacher
Option 4
3. She began to throw ficus trees on the floor so that they would not suffocate from the smoke.
4. Righteous
Option 5
1. V
2. 2.
3. “Unhulled cardboard soup”, “cardboard soup” or barley porridge.
4. Trains.
5. b
Option 6
3. If only they didn’t lag behind, so as not to be late in the morning.”
4. Kindergarten
5. Matryona perishes - Matryonin’s yard perishes - Matryonin’s world is the special world of the righteous. The world of spirituality, kindness, mercy, which was also written about. No one even thinks that with the departure of Matryona, something valuable and important leaves life. Righteous Matryona is the writer’s moral ideal, on which the life of society should be based. All of Matryona’s actions and thoughts were consecrated with a special holiness, not always understandable to those around her. The fate of Matryona is firmly connected with the fate of the Russian village. There are fewer and fewer Matryons in Rus', and without them “ don't stand the village" The final words of the story return to the original title - “ A village is not worth it without a righteous man"and fill the story about the peasant woman Matryona with a deep generalizing, philosophical meaning. Village- a symbol of moral life, the national roots of man, the village - all of Russia.
Option 7
1. IN
2. “At one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow along the line that goes to Murom and Kazan, for a good six months after that all the trains slowed down, as if to the touch.”
3. It was he who gave it this name.
4. A village cannot stand without a righteous man.”
5. Ruble posters about the book trade and the harvest.
Option 8
1. Kose.
2. About electricity.
3. Job.
4. The pot with holy water has disappeared.
5. Grigorieva Matryona Vasilievna.
Option 9
1. Upper room.
2. d) 1956
2. Romances by Glinka.
3. Blizzard.
4. “At peace with your conscience.”
Option 10
1. “His high forehead was darkened by a heavy thought, but this thought was to save the logs of the upper room from the fire and from the machinations of the Matryona sisters.”
2. V)
3. “...a righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village does not stand.”
4. What are Matryona's strengths and weaknesses? What did Ignatich understand for himself?
5. e) “radiant”, “kind”, “apologetic” smile
Option 11
1. V
2. the moral ideal of the writer on which the life of society should be based. All of Matryona’s actions and thoughts were consecrated with a special holiness, not always understandable to those around her. The fate of Matryona is firmly connected with the fate of the Russian village. There are fewer and fewer Matryons in Rus', and without them “ don't stand the village»
Option 12
1. They died
2. save the logs of the upper room from the fire and from the machinations of the Matryon sisters.”
3. The true meaning of life, humble
4. IN
