Leskov's works make an indelible impression on a person. From school, everyone is familiar with several of his works. One of these is the story “The Enchanted Wanderer,” which is recognized as one of his most famous works.
Leskov created the story from 1872 to 1873. The idea came to the author during a trip to Karelia. Along local waters he went to the island of Valaam to visit the monks. It was there that the work was created and a year later it was ready for printing with the title “Black Earth Telmak”. Then Leskov was rejected, explaining that the plot was extremely uninteresting and unfinished. Then Leskov turned to another magazine, where they agreed to publish him.
The title “Enchanted Wanderer” carries the idea of the protagonist’s journey in search of his own soul and development. He wanders both around Lake Ladoga and through his inner world. The wanderer strives to know his purpose, and most importantly, his place on earth and life. The second word in the title speaks about all this, and the first indicates the ability of the hero’s heart to enchant with his country, nature, the ability to love and appreciate the environment. Often in the story the author uses the phrase “witchcraft” - this means that the hero does not seem to perform various actions himself, but under the influence of something higher.
The work has 20 chapters, but they do not represent a single composition. They seem to be located chaotically, as the author’s inspiration went. We can say that this is a series of random events. Flyagin talks a lot about his life, and it is just as chaotic and chaotic. It is no coincidence that the story contains a whole cycle of legends, because the story contains the biography of one of the saints, whose life was filled with divine signs. This can be seen in the story about the wanderer’s childhood, where God from above shows him the path of fate, and in adulthood his life is filled with allegory and high meaning. The culmination of the entire work is the temptation of the protagonist by demons, which he copes with through faith in God.
Thus, we see how much is contained in Leskov’s story. It was not immediately possible to notice the value of the work, but it was published anyway and was able to guide many readers on the true path. After all, this is very important in the modern world.
Option 2
The author of the work “The Enchanted Wanderer” is N.S. Leskov. It was during a trip to Lake Ladoga that the idea of creating a story appeared. Leskov wrote the story in one breath. It took less than a year to complete this creation.
The main character of the story is a native of the common people - Ivan Flyagin. He was born into a family of courtyard servants. One day, for fun, he beat a monk to death. After this, the deceased begins to haunt Vanya, appearing in his dreams and predicting service to God in the distant future.
Soon Ivan leaves his owner’s house, taking with him a rope and a horse. Realizing his worthless existence, he decides to hang himself. But he fails to carry out his plan. A gypsy saves him by cutting the rope.
After long wanderings through unfamiliar lands, the hero ends up with the Tatars. Without thinking twice, he becomes a participant in a local custom, the meaning of which was as follows - two people sat opposite each other and began to beat their opponent with whips. The one who lasted longer took the horse as a win. Ivan enthusiastically fights with his opponent, wanting to get a wonderful horse. But he overdid it, and inadvertently beat his opponent to death. For this rash act, the Tatars mutilate his legs. From then on, he begins to serve them.
By chance, visitors come to the Tatar settlement. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ivan manages to escape. Wandering for a long time, he reaches Astrakhan. But from there he is sent back to his former owner. Here he begins to look after his horses. In the area, rumors are spreading about Ivan as a wizard, since he could unmistakably, at first glance, identify a good horse. Soon, the local prince finds out about this. He wants to take advantage of his knowledge and takes Ivan to the position of coneser.
A significant moment in the life of the main character is his acquaintance with the beautiful gypsy Grushenka in a tavern. Despite the fact that she was the prince’s mistress, the young people fall in love with each other. The prince prepared a terrible fate for the girl. Soon he was supposed to get married, and Pear, as already unwanted, planned to send him to the bee forest to certain death. The gypsy runs away from the prince's court and comes to Ivan with a terrible request - she asks him to drown her, since she has no other choice. With much thought, he commits this terrible act. Now, left completely alone, Vanya decides to go to war, where, in his opinion, he will end his life, dying at the hands of the enemy.
On the battlefield, Ivan never manages to find death. Returning from the war, he first tries himself as a worker at the address desk, and then as an artist, but even here he does not find himself. Despairing of everything, he goes to the monastery. It is in this place that the main character finds peace, realizing that he made the only right decision in his entire long life.
In "The Enchanted Wanderer" Leskov showed all the difficulties in life that ordinary people face, placing special emphasis on the negative aspects of life.
Analysis 3
The story “The Enchanted Wanderer,” published in 1873, presents the image of a man of amazing destiny. On a ship sailing to Valaam, a black pilgrim, calling himself by the worldly name of Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin, tells his fellow travelers about the wanderings that he had to endure. In appearance, he resembled Russian epic heroes. His amazing, poetic folk language and manner of narration are an old Russian tale, the sequence and presentation of the events of his life are similar to the canonical ancient Russian genre of hagiography. Ivan captivates fellow travelers with the sincerity of his stories about his wanderings.
Many critics, Leskov's contemporaries, perceived this work with hostility, reproaching the author for the fact that his story had neither a logical plot, nor truthfulness in the national character he described, nor the basis of the hero's love for the Russian land. The entire story of the main character about his wanderings was assessed either as “revelation from a fool” or from “clever speech”, and the main character himself was presented as a parody of a person with a Russian character. However, the image of the main character, despite the apparent outward simplicity, is multifaceted and complex. Leskov, recognizing the mysterious depth of the Russian soul, looks for moral impulses in the actions of a sinful person, a frantic truth-seeker, who was often mistaken, but suffering, without losing faith, comes to the path of repentance. Leskov showed that Christian humility is not entirely inherent in Russian people; it is common for him to sin for the sake of justice.
The main character was bequeathed to God by his parents from childhood, because he had a long-awaited and begged-for child. And according to the prediction, he was destined to go to a monastery. Many trials befell Ivan: serfdom, escape, wandering without documents and money, ten years of captivity among Gentiles, fifteen years of recruiting service in the Caucasus, where he was awarded the St. George Cross and an officer rank for his courage. He unwittingly caused the death of three people: a monk who fell under the wheels of a cart, a Tatar who fought for a horse, and a gypsy woman mad with jealousy. He had the opportunity to be a coneser, a nanny, a doctor, a soldier, a clerk in an office, and an actor in a booth. The hero himself considers himself a terrible sinner, but after going through temptations and trials, he finds peace in service and faith. He finds his last refuge in a monastery, but even there he finds the quiet life boring. His soul is in search, it longs to find the purpose of life. He is a tramp, fascinated by life, with a soul as pure as a baby’s, but a strong and independent character.
In A.P. Chekhov's work The Chameleon there are many heroes, both good and bad. Ochumelov, whose last name speaks for itself, is the main character of Anton Pavlovich’s work, which contains the whole essence of a chameleon.
Alas, life is not always fair. People do not always get what they deserve - quite often they are accused of something they did not do or of something they did not want to do, but still did under the pressure of external circumstances.
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is a wonderful Russian writer of the 19th century, a true artist and sorcerer of figurative words. He came to his calling late, at almost thirty years old. Subsequently, he devoted himself entirely to literature, worked without rest and never lacked ideas or material.
Leskov captivated readers with his amazingly versatile knowledge of the life of each class and nationality. He has no equal in his ability to reproduce the speech of different strata of the people.
In his works, the master of artistic expression criticizes Russian reality, landowners - tyrants, and the clergy. Satirically, he sharply denounces bribery, a riotous lifestyle, and sycophancy to superiors.
The writer paid much attention to the problem of the people. He admired the talents, kindness and honesty of the ordinary Russian man, his responsiveness to the grief of others.
History of creation and brief analysis of the story “The Enchanted Wanderer”
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov
The date of writing of the work is 1872. Leskov goes to Valaam, in these holy places the author of truly folk stories comes up with the idea of writing a story about a wanderer.
This is a chronicle of the life of one hero. There is no central event to which the others are drawn together. Various episodes of the story follow each other.
The narrator, Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin, an already elderly man, begins the story of his life from childhood. The difficult trials that befell him are connected by one thread.
The story of the main character is very unusual. This is a folk hero of the era of serfdom, possessing enormous physical strength. He is brave, sincere and straightforward to the point of naivety, responsive to the grief of others.
Ivan Severyanich's talent lies in a heightened sense of beauty. He feels the beauty in nature, in feminine charm, in words. His speech fascinates with its unique poetry. Despite his misdeeds, the reader feels a pure and noble soul in the hero.
Flyagin passionately loves his homeland. With age, his patriotism becomes broader and more conscious. The man has a presentiment of the coming war, he dreams of taking part in it and dying for his native land.
The large number of episodes in the story makes it possible to reveal Flyagin’s character and contrast the folk hero with characters from another environment. Leskov shows the serf man as a strong, bright personality, and the nobles as ignoble and weak people.
The main characters of the story “The Enchanted Wanderer”
Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin (Golovan) – monk, former koneser;
Grushenka is a young beauty - a gypsy.
Minor characters
The Count and Countess are the first owners of Flyagin.
A gentleman from Nikolaev, who took Ivan as a nanny for his little daughter.
The girl's mother and her new husband.
The prince is the owner of the factory, for whom Golovan served as a coneser.
Khan Dzhangar is a steppe horse breeder and horse trader.
Brief retelling of the story by chapters
Chapter 1
The ship's passengers sail along Lake Ladoga and stop at Korela along the way. After visiting the village, the conversation turns to this sad place. An unknown traveler in monastic robes enters into the argument.
With his appearance, the man resembles a real Russian hero. He says that he was a coneser, an expert on horses.
Many times the main character died and still could not die. Amazed listeners ask to tell his life story.
Chapter 2
Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin, the son of a coachman, was born a serf in the Oryol province. His mother begged God for his appearance and died immediately after giving birth. The boy spent his entire childhood in the stables and learned to understand horses very well. When Ivan grew up, he was put as a postilion on six horses.
One day he took the count to visit. On the way, they met a sleeping monk on a haystack. Flyagin accidentally, for the sake of a joke, spotted the unfortunate man to death. At night, the murdered man appeared to Golovanov and said that Ivan was the mother promised to God. The monk voiced a sign: the guy will die many times and will not die; in the end he is destined to become a monk.
After some time, the young coachman took the count and his wife to Voronezh. On the way, he miraculously coped with the disobedient horses, almost died, but saved the masters. By this act the hero earned their special favor.
Chapter 3
At home in the stable, Golovan gets two pigeons. The cat got into the habit of carrying little chicks. Angry, the young man severely flogged the thief and cut off her tail. As punishment, Ivan was severely flogged and forced to break stones for the path. Unable to bear the humiliation, the guy decided to commit suicide. He was saved from death by a gypsy who offered to join him as robbers.
Chapter 4
At the request of the cunning gypsy, Flyagin steals two horses from the master's stable. The young man doesn’t want to steal anymore and decides to go to the assessor like a fugitive. He issues a false passport in exchange for a silver cross. Ivan comes to the city to get a job. There he meets a master who takes Flyagin as a nanny for his little daughter. This gentleman's wife ran away with the repairman.
The doctor advises Golovan to bury the girl in the sand in order to heal and straighten her legs. The young man does this every day during walks to the estuary. There he meets the child's mother. A grief-stricken woman with tears begs to give up her child. The main character refuses out of a sense of responsibility to the owner.
Chapter 5
The lady brings her new husband to the estuary. He offers a thousand rubles in exchange for the girl. Flyagin begins to tease and mock the repairman. It comes to a fight.
A gentleman with a weapon appears on the shore. Ivan, seeing the love of these young people and feeling pity for the woman and child, does not take the money and leaves with the new gentlemen for Penza. He is forced to leave the newlyweds in the city, since he does not have a passport.
The main character goes to the fair. There he sees the horse trader Khan Dzhangar. The Tatar is selling a beautiful mare, for which various gentlemen are offering a lot of money.
Two Asians sit down to flog each other with whips for a bet. As a result of a bloody duel, Chepkun Emgurcheev wins a horse.
Chapter 6
Khan Dzhangar puts up a beautiful horse for sale. The repairman really wants to buy a horse, but he doesn’t have enough money. Flyagin sits down to fight for the master with the Tatar Savakirei and beats the unfortunate man to death. Russian gentlemen want to take the criminal to the police. The Asians hide Ivan and take him with them to the steppe.
Golovan lived in Ryn-Sands for ten years. He treated horses and helped women. To prevent the Russian from escaping, they “bristled” him: they sewed chopped horse mane into the soles of his feet. Overcoming the wild pain, the slave learned to walk on twisted legs, almost on his ankles. The Tatars, in their own way, took pity on him and gave him two wives. The main character lived like this for five years, his wives bore him children, then Ivan ended up in another steppe to Agashimol.
Chapter 7
In his new place, Flyagin again received two wives, who gave birth to eight children from him. The Orthodox captive did not consider them his own, since the offspring were unbaptized.
Over a long period, Ivan was unable to get used to the steppes. He missed his native place. At night, the unfortunate man crawled out behind the headquarters and prayed with tears in his eyes.
Chapter 8
Golovan lost hope of ever returning home. It was as if he had turned into an insensitive statue and no longer wanted to pray.
Two Russian missionaries come to the Tatars. They are trying to convert the Tatars to their faith. But Asians do not believe in a good God; they can only be brought to another religion by fear.
Ivan begs the monks to help him free himself from captivity, but in response he hears a refusal. Later, he finds one of the travelers killed on the lake and buries him according to Christian custom. Ivan was able to find the second one, but he is sure that the Asians killed him too.
Chapter 9
A year later, two strange people from Khiva came to headquarters, who did not know a word of Russian or any other language understandable to Asians. They wanted to buy horses.
The strangers began to scare the Tatars with their fiery god Talafa. At night, the visitors disappeared, and Flyagin found the box they left behind. There were fireworks in it.
Ivan intimidated the Tatars, frightened by the explosions, and forced them to accept the Orthodox faith. Using caustic earth, he erased the stubble from his feet and escaped from captivity.
For three days Golovan walked along the steppe and came to the river bank to the fishermen. All night he drank vodka with them and talked about himself. In the morning, the former prisoner went to Astrakhan.
In the city he began to drink heavily and woke up in prison. From prison he is sent home. The widowed count ordered Ivan to be flogged, then gave him a passport and set him free.
Chapter 10
Free Ivan begins to go to fairs. He makes money by helping rich gentlemen choose good horses. The gypsies are angry with the expert and want to take revenge on him.
Golovan meets a master who hires him as a coneser. At times the main character goes on a drinking binge, but really wants to put an end to this bad deed. The master completely trusts Ivan; large sums of money are always kept in the custody of the coneser.
Chapter 11
One day Flyagin goes to a tavern, having a lot of money with him. In a tavern he meets a strange man. He declares that he has a special talent and can wean Ivan from drunkenness. To do this, he forces Ivan to drink with him. Together they get very drunk, both are kicked out of the establishment.
Chapter 12
Under the influence of the conspiracy, the man begins to imagine various devilry. The man with whom Ivan was drinking in a tavern performs various hypnotic actions on him. Golovan is afraid that he will take the money from him, but it is safe. Suddenly he sees that he is left alone and goes into the first house he comes across.
Chapter 13
He finds himself in a hut with a huge number of people. There Ivan sees a very beautiful gypsy Grusha. The girl charms him with her songs. The lover spends all the master’s money on her, and he had about 5 thousand.
Chapter 14
After the magnetizer's spells, Flyagin no longer drinks. The prince tells him that he also fell in love with a gypsy and spent five thousand for her. Now the beauty lives in his house.
Chapter 15
The kind but fickle master quickly lost interest in Grusha, who was uneducated and monotonous. He increasingly leaves her alone with Golovan. The gypsy does not know that the prince has an ex-wife in the city, who never became official, Evgenia Semyonovna, with whom he has a daughter.
Once a deceived woman, she is very kind and loved by many residents of the city. The prince gave his daughter an apartment building, and this is how they live. But the prince’s main thought is now about his new passion.
Ivan comes to the city and stays with Evgenia Semyonovna. Its owner should be there soon too.
Chapter 16
Flyagin overhears the conversation between Evgenia Semyonovna and the prince. He tells the woman that he wants to buy a cloth factory and marry the leader’s daughter. He decides to marry the gypsy to his coneser.
Golovan is involved in the affairs of the factory in the city. Returning home, he learns that the prince has taken Grusha somewhere, who is about to give birth.
Chapter 17
Before the master's wedding, the gypsy comes to the call of Ivan, who is looking for her in the forest. She cries and says that she came back for death.
Chapter 18
The grief-stricken girl says that the prince secretly took her into the forest and assigned three guards to her. The unfortunate woman managed to deceive them and escaped.
Pear asks to help her - to kill her: “If you don’t kill me, I will become the most shameful woman in revenge for all of you.” Ivan tries to dissuade Grusha. She assures that she will not be able to live after the traitor’s marriage. She threatens to kill the newlyweds. All in a frenzy
Pear wants to swim across the lake and kill the bride. The conversation takes place on the steep shore of the lake, and on the other shore a brightly lit house is visible and music can be heard - a wedding is being celebrated there.
Ivan pushes Grusha, she slips on the slippery bank and falls off the cliff into the river.
Chapter 19
In horror, Ivan runs away from that place, it seems to him that a demon is chasing him. Along the way he meets a couple of old men. The husband and wife are saddened that their son is being drafted into the army. Flyagin takes pity on older people, calls himself Pyotr Serdyukov and becomes a recruit.
The main character ends up in the Caucasus and serves there for 15 years. The Colonel praises him for his heroism in battle. Ivan replies that he is not a fine fellow at all, but a great sinner, and tells the officer his story.
For his military merits, Golovan is given a rank, an order and sent into retirement. His service at the address desk is not going well, and the man decides to become an artist. There he stands up for the young actress, Ivan is kicked out of the troupe.
Left without food and shelter, the wanderer finally decides to go to a monastery, begging for his sins and praying for the soul of the murdered girl. He becomes a novice; Flyagin considers himself unworthy for senior tonsure.
Chapter 20
Listeners ask if Ivan was tempted by a demon in the monastery. He says that the devil appeared to him in the guise of a young gypsy woman. One day, because of visions, Golovan knocked down all the candles near the icon. As punishment, he was put in a cellar. There the novice discovered the gift of prophecy.
Now the enchanted wanderer sails to Solovki for prayer. He is going to war and wants to worship the saints before dying.
This ends the amazing life story of Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin, a detailed list of his good and bad deeds. The main character travels around the world in search of the meaning of his earthly existence. A difficult road leads him to God. This is the main idea of the tragicomedy of the great Russian writer.
The text is abridged here, but it makes it clear what the story is about. To feel all the magic of Leskov’s literary word, to understand the meaning and characteristics of all the images and characters, you need to read the text of the work in full.
The biography of a wanderer who went through many incredible adventures on the path to God. A story in which Leskov comes to his own language, stylized as folk speech, and begins a cycle about Russian righteous people.
comments: Tatyana Trofimova
What is this book about?
A group of random fellow travelers gathers on a steamship sailing on Lake Ladoga. Among them is either a monk or a novice with the appearance of an epic hero - in the world Ivan Flyagin. In response to questions from curious companions, Flyagin talks about his amazing life: Tatar captivity, the fatal gypsy, miraculous salvation in the war and much more. With this story, Leskov begins his cycle about the righteous - but not canonical righteous people, but folk ones, whose lives do not fit into the usual framework and become the subject of rumors, myths and legends.
Nikolai Leskov. 1892
When was it written?
The story was apparently conceived during Leskov’s travels in 1872 along Lake Ladoga, calling at Valaam. By the end of the same year, its first completed version appeared, and in 1873 the story was ready for publication. For Leskov, this time is a milestone: having completed the monumental “Soborians”, he finally moves away from the novel form. “The Enchanted Wanderer” is not Leskov’s first story: “The Life of a Woman,” “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” and “Musk Ox” have already been written; shortly before The Enchanted Wanderer, The Imprinted Angel is published. The writer bases his stories on observations of people’s life, accumulated over years of wandering around Russia; Later they will lead him to the idea of the so-called cycle of the righteous. Tellingly, Leo Tolstoy was also moving in this direction, who at the turn of the 1860-70s also showed interest in folk stories and processed them in order to eventually create the “ABC” based on them. The same trend is supported by populist writers Writers who share the ideology of populism - the rapprochement of the intelligentsia with the peasantry in search of folk wisdom and truth. Populist writers include Nikolai Zlatovratsky, Philip Nefyodov, Pavel Zasodimsky, and Nikolai Naumov. Among the literary magazines in which their works were published were “Notes of the Fatherland,” “Slovo,” “Russian Wealth,” and “Testaments.” with their semi-essay prose.
Korela fortress in Priozersk. XIX century. Here the action of the story begins: “There is such an excellent place on the Ladoga shore as Korela, where any free-thinking and free-thinking cannot resist the apathy of the population and the terrible boredom of the oppressive, stingy nature.”
Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Konevsky Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery. 1896 In Konevets, where this cathedral is located, Ivan Flyagin boards the ship
How is it written?
The story has a frame structure. The main plot - Ivan Flyagin's story about his travels - is contained in the second, which is formed by the conversation of random fellow travelers on the ship. At the same time, we do not have a consistent novel plot: although Flyagin presents his biography in chronological order, it consists of more or less separate short stories, strung together according to cumulative Gradually accumulating, adding up over time. principle. As soon as the hero finishes the story about one episode of his life, his fellow travelers ask him a new question - and he launches into a story about the next, without any visible connection or cross-cutting characters. The motif of “death” remains unchanged in every story, through which Ivan Flyagin must go through in the process of realizing his destiny. By including the story in the cycle about the righteous, Leskov actually gave it the status of a hagiography - before us is indeed a paradoxical, tortuous, full of internal resistance, but still the hero’s path to God. If you focus on the adventures that Ivan Flyagin constantly gets involved in in order to get out of them in an incredible way, then his life turns out to be almost an adventurous novel. Such a symbiosis of seemingly incompatible genres, as well as a language rich in different styles, will become a distinctive feature of Leskov’s tale.
What influenced her?
Despite the apparent simplicity of the story (a hero from the people, while passing the time on the road, tells the story of his life), “The Enchanted Wanderer” was created by Leskov at the intersection of several traditions. The most obvious of them is hagiographical. A number of characteristic elements remind us of her: for example, Flyagin is the “prayerful son” promised by his mother to God at birth; the simple-minded hero overcomes many trials in order to ultimately fulfill his destiny and come to the monastery; hence his visions and temptation by demons. The hagiographical tradition is supplemented by the epic: in addition to the characteristic features of the hero’s appearance, such as his remarkable height, there are references, for example, to traditional motifs of taming miracle horses or a duel with an infidel. In addition, Leskov uses the structure of a travel novel, and deliberately emphasizes this in different versions of the title. The original name - "Black Earth Telemachus" - referred to the wanderings of the son of Odysseus, who went in search of his father. The second version, with which the story was first published - “The Enchanted Wanderer, His Life, Experiences, Opinions and Adventures” - is typical for a Western novel of this type. One of the main commentators on Leskov’s texts, Ilya Serman, also notes the influence on the story of “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol with all of Chichikov’s trips to the landowners. Finally, the text contains romantic motifs—both Pushkin’s and Lermontov’s—which were captured by both contemporaries and researchers of Leskov’s work.
Do you know, dear friend: never neglect anyone, because no one can know why someone is tormented and suffers with what passion
Nikolay LeskovThe first publication of The Enchanted Wanderer caused difficulties that were unexpected even for the author himself. By the time the story was completed, Leskov had already been collaborating with the magazine for several years. "Russian Messenger" Literary and political magazine (1856-1906), founded by Mikhail Katkov. At the end of the 50s, the editors took a moderately liberal position; from the beginning of the 60s, Russian Messenger became more and more conservative and even reactionary. Over the years, the magazine published the central works of Russian classics: “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky, “On the Eve” and “Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev, “Soborians” Leskova. and just published “The Sealed Angel” in it. In the winter of 1872/73, Leskov read his new texts, including The Enchanted Wanderer, in the house of the general and patron of writers Sergei Kushelev, and the publisher of the Russian Messenger was present at the reading. Mikhail Katkov Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov (1818-1887) - publisher and editor of the literary magazine "Russian Bulletin" and the newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti". In his youth, Katkov was known as a liberal and a Westerner, and was friends with Belinsky. With the beginning of the reforms of Alexander II, Katkov's views became noticeably more conservative. In the 1880s, he actively supported the counter-reforms of Alexander III, waged a campaign against ministers of non-titular nationality and generally became an influential political figure - and his newspaper was read by the emperor himself. the story made, in his own words, “the most wonderful impression.” But when it came to the decision to publish, the publisher suddenly began to point out to Leskov the “rawness” of the material and advised him to wait until the story took shape into something complete. According to the editors of the magazine, Katkov was mainly confused by the ambiguity of the hero and the mention of specific clergy in the text: for the “protective” and conservative “Russian Messenger” such things could be extremely inconvenient. As a result, Leskov changed the title of the story and took it to the newspaper "Russian World" Conservative daily newspaper published in St. Petersburg from 1871 to 1880. Its founder was General Mikhail Chernyaev. In the late 1870s, the newspaper launched a weekly literary supplement. In 1880, Russkiy Mir merged with the Birzhevoy Vestnik newspaper and began to be published under the name Birzhevye Vedomosti. , where it was published throughout October and November 1873. Leskov himself was not very pleased with such fragmentation, but he also did not want to wait and rewrite the text, citing a lack of strength and the fact that, in the end, the public at the readings liked the story.
Trotting horse. Engraving. 1882
NNehring/Getty Images
How was she received?
The reaction of critics to “The Enchanted Wanderer” was generally the same as to Leskov’s subsequent stories: either ignorance or bewilderment. Criticism Nikolai Mikhailovsky managed to combine both - he wrote about the story only many years after its release: noting the brightness of individual episodes, he compared them to beads strung on a thread, which can easily be swapped. When Leskov published several more stories from the future cycle about the righteous, including “The Immortal Golovan,” in the collection “Russian Discord,” he met not only misunderstanding, but also aggression. Some critics pointed out that the language was too bizarre, others were cynically interested in the state of the mental health of the author, who, while talking about all sorts of “devilish things,” assures that he is telling the “truth.” Such a severe critical reaction was partly predetermined by the truly unusual choice of plots and language of presentation, but it was much more influenced by the writer’s reputation. Leskov began his literary career in the democratic “Notes of the Fatherland” with essays on economic topics, and it seemed to his contemporaries that he sympathized with leftist views. When did his articles begin to appear in the ultra-conservative newspaper? "Northern Bee" A newspaper published in St. Petersburg from 1825 to 1864. Founded by Thaddeus Bulgarin. At first, the newspaper adhered to democratic views (it published the works of Alexander Pushkin and Kondraty Ryleev), but after the Decembrist uprising it sharply changed its political course: it fought against progressive magazines like Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski, and published denunciations. Bulgarin himself wrote in almost all sections of the newspaper. In the 1860s, the new publisher of the Northern Bee, Pavel Usov, tried to make the newspaper more liberal, but was forced to close the publication due to the low number of subscribers. , and soon in "Library for reading" The first large-circulation magazine in Russia, published monthly from 1834 to 1865 in St. Petersburg. The publisher of the magazine was bookseller Alexander Smirdin, and the editor was writer Osip Senkovsky. The “Library” was intended mainly for provincial readers; in the capital it was criticized for its protectiveness and superficiality of judgment. By the late 1840s, the magazine's popularity began to decline. In 1856, critic Alexander Druzhinin was called to replace Senkovsky, who worked in the magazine for four years. The novel “Nowhere” was published, in which the writer ridiculed revolutionary communes; his reputation in democratic circles was in question. After this, Leskov tried to return to Otechestvennye zapiski with the first version of the chronicle “Soboryan”, but could not even complete the publication of the text due to a conflict with the publisher of the magazine Andrey Kraevsky Andrey Aleksandrovich Kraevsky (1810-1889) - publisher, editor, teacher. Kraevsky began his editorial career at the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, and after Pushkin’s death he was one of the co-publishers of Sovremennik. He headed the newspaper “Russian Invalid”, “Literary Gazette”, “St. Petersburg Gazette”, the newspaper “Golos”, but gained greatest fame as the editor and publisher of the magazine “Domestic Notes”, in which the best publicists of the mid-19th century were involved . In the literary community, Kraevsky had a reputation as a stingy and very demanding publisher. . The release of the bright anti-nihilistic novel “On Knives” in the conservative “Russian Messenger” only made matters worse. When Katkov also refused Leskov, considering him not quite “one of his own,” the writer found himself in a situation of permanent conflict with almost all major literary publications. It is not surprising that Leskov’s new texts no longer aroused sympathy among their critics.
In 1874, a year after the newspaper publication, “The Enchanted Wanderer” was published as a separate publication, and was later included by Leskov in the cycle about the righteous. After the revolution, the fate of the story, like Leskov’s entire work, was largely determined by his controversial literary reputation. On the one hand, stories about the lives of ordinary people were perceived favorably by the Soviet authorities, and the works of democratic writers like Gleb Uspensky and Nikolai Pomyalovsky were actively and widely republished in the Soviet years. On the other hand, it was difficult to ignore Leskov’s anti-nihilistic demarches, as well as his interest in the righteous, which was inappropriate in the Soviet context. Therefore, for a long time, the writer’s work received virtually no attention, with the exception of a surge of interest in the 1920s, largely associated with the study of the skaz tradition. The situation changed during the Great Patriotic War, when Leskov entered the pantheon of Russian classics: his forgotten story “Iron Will”, a satire on an absurdly stubborn German dying in Russia, was republished in a huge edition; his fate is compared to the fate of an ax stuck in dough. In the wake of the thaw, in the second half of the 1950s, a collection of works was published in 11 volumes, although the novel “On Knives” was not included there. This time the interest, apparently fueled by the emerging village prose, turned out to be more stable. In 1963, “The Enchanted Wanderer” was first filmed as a teleplay, and in 1990, a full-length film based on the story was shot. But the main thing is that a systematic study of Leskov’s work by literary scholars began, and the contours of the writer’s “righteous” theme were outlined. In the late Soviet years, “The Enchanted Wanderer” was one of Leskov’s most reprinted works. In 2002, the story appeared in a somewhat unexpected form: the premiere of the opera, written by Rodion Shchedrin based on his own libretto based on Leskov’s text, took place in New York. Two versions were created - a concert version, first presented in Russia at the Mariinsky Theater under the direction of Valery Gergiev, and a stage version. An audio recording of the opera, released in 2010, was even nominated for a Grammy Award, although it did not receive it.
What does "enchanted" mean?
In the text of the story, this definition appears three times, but each time there is no context around it that would help to calculate its meaning. Ivan Severyanich’s “fascination” is often interpreted as the ability to respond to beauty, “nature’s perfection.” Moreover, beauty is understood in its broad manifestation - this is, first of all, natural beauty, but also the beauty of spontaneity, self-expression and a sense of harmony. “Fascination” with beauty, precisely in this understanding, forces Ivan Flyagin to commit completely reckless actions: to give government money for the singing of a gypsy in order to “experience all the power of beauty over himself,” to enter into a whip fight with a Tatar for a Karak foal, “which cannot be described.” ”, out of “postilion mischief” and a feeling of the fullness of life, accidentally detecting a monk before his death. The hero himself admits to his listeners on the ship that in his “vast flowing vitality” he “did a lot of things not even of his own free will.” In this sense, we can talk about the second meaning of the word “enchanted” - being under the influence of some kind of spell. One can recall the vow of the hero’s mother, who had no children for a long time and finally begged for a “prayer son,” and the prophecy of the monk he killed, who reminds him that he was “promised to God” and will “perish many times,” but will never die, and when If “real destruction” comes, then he will go to the Chernetsy. And no matter what Ivan Flyagin does, he is not completely in control of his life, which is also controlled by a kind of spell, which ultimately leads him to the monastery.
What do you think, if I give up this habit of drinking, and someone picks it up and takes it: will he be happy about it or not?
Nikolay LeskovWhat does Telemachus have to do with Leskov’s story?
The first version of the title of the story - “Black Earth Telemacus” (there was also a variant “Russian Telemachus”), on the one hand, referred to the myth about the son of Odysseus and Penelope, who went to look for his father, who had not returned from the Trojan War. On the other hand, a much more likely reference for Leskov was a novel by a French writer Francois Fenelon Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) - French writer, theologian, preacher. In 1687 he published the book “On the Education of Girls,” in which he substantiated the need for female education. In 1699, the novel “The Adventures of Telemachus”, which became one of the most popular books in Europe at that time, its translations were repeatedly published in Russia. Fenelon was the tutor of the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV, and Duke Philip of Anjou, the future king of Spain. In the 1680s, Fenelon became a follower of quietism, a mystical-ascetic Catholic movement; his book in defense of quietism was condemned by the official church. “The Adventures of Telemachus”, so popular among contemporaries and descendants that it was followed by many imitations in different languages. This version is supported by the fact that in the second version of the title of Leskov’s story the word “adventure” was already present. Having based the novel on the same myth about Telemachus, Fenelon fills the hero’s wanderings with additional meaning: using numerous examples that Telemachus encounters during his wanderings, the writer reflects on what a wise ruler should be, and the hero himself is spiritually transformed and realizes that he is ready to be just that. ruler and put the good of his people above all else. Ivan Flyagin, unlike Telemachus, does not look for his father in his wanderings and generally does not have a clear goal, and in what is happening to him there is a much more distinct adventurous and even comic element, but a spiritual transformation also happens to him. Finding himself in the steppes, then in the Caucasus, then in St. Petersburg, then in the northern regions of Lake Ladoga, Ivan Flyagin not only finds himself in different stories, but also secretly solves a much larger problem - he seeks his own destiny and comes to God. One way or another, for contemporaries the connection between Leskov’s story and the wanderings of Telemachus was, indeed, not obvious, which also emerged in the negotiations between the writer and the publisher of the Russian Messenger regarding possible publication. As a result, Leskov changed the name, although at first he was against it.
What kind of profession is this - coneser?
“I am a coneser,” says the hero to his fellow travelers on the ship. “Whaaaaat?” - they ask again. From this dialogue alone one can judge that even if such a profession existed in Russia in the 19th century, it was not very widespread. In fact, the word “coneseur” is a transcription from the French connaisseur, which means “connoisseur.” That is, in Leskov’s time such a word could have been used to describe any person who was professionally versed in anything, not necessarily horses. The hero's specialization is quite broad - he is both a coachman and takes care of the horses in the stable, he understands thoroughbred horses, helps buy them and rides them. “I am an expert in horses and worked with repairmen to guide them,” explains the hero. Repairers were people who purchased horses for the army or simply replenished private stables and herds. So, although the hero’s profession was quite common and widespread, its designation is more similar to Leskov’s word creation: in the French word connaisseur you can hear the Russian “horse”. In this case, the French word is integrated into a number of neologisms, with the help of which Leskov reconstructs the common language, such as “buremeter” or “nymphosoria”. This method also did not cause delight among his contemporaries - they liked to reproach the writer that he was spoiling the Russian language.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery. 1880
Why does The Enchanted Wanderer need a frame plot?
Writers resort to frame composition, that is, a story within a story, for different purposes, and the characters stated in the “external” story do not always appear in the “internal” story. Most often, the “external” plot is used to clarify the circumstances of the appearance of the “internal” one. In this case, the effect of verisimilitude arises: Flyagin’s story was not composed by him in advance, but consists of answers to questions from fellow travelers. With the help of a frame plot, Leskov seems to blur the boundaries between the artistic world and the real world, not only creating in the reader the illusion of the possibility and even the mundaneness of meeting such a hero during a trip, but also, as it were, anticipating the reader’s reaction to his story. An intermediate authority arises between Ivan Flyagin and the reader, similar to off-screen laughter in modern sitcoms: the hero’s fellow travelers as he tells the story cannot resist expressing horror, surprise, admiration and other immediate emotions.
In addition, it is important for Leskov to place the hero’s fellow travelers also in a state of wandering - this way they, in a sense, synchronize with Ivan Severyanych. He talks about his lifelong journey, and during the story his fellow travelers experience their own internal evolution, starting with the desire to pass the time with funny details from the life of an unusual passenger and ending with empathy for his story. The author himself does not show his attitude towards the hero in any way throughout the story, as if placing the reader on a par with Flyagin’s fellow travelers and inviting him to form his own opinion.
Nikolai Rosenfeld. Illustration for “The Enchanted Wanderer.” 1932
Why is the work written in such a strange language? And why couldn’t you use the usual literary one?
The question of why it is impossible to write more simply also worried Leskov’s contemporaries, who reproached the writer for stylistic excess, littering the language with non-existent words and too much concentration of oddities in the text. Since Ivan Flyagin is a simple man from the people, it is logical to expect that he will tell his story in peasant vernacular. However, in the case of Leskov, we do not have an exact reproduction of the folk dialect - the creators of sketches of folk life often tried to go this way since the time natural school The literary movement of the 1840s, the initial stage of the development of critical realism, is characterized by social pathos, everyday life, and interest in the lower strata of society. Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov are considered to be among the natural school; the formation of the school was significantly influenced by the work of Gogol. The almanac “Physiology of St. Petersburg” (1845) can be considered a manifesto of the movement. Reviewing this collection, Thaddeus Bulgarin used the term “natural school” for the first time, and in a disparaging sense. But Belinsky liked the definition and subsequently stuck. , - but rather a stylization of it: on the pages of his stories, Leskov practiced quite a lot in pseudo-folk word creation. Having taken up the search for a new artistic form, focused on folk themes, Leskov gradually developed a special form of storytelling - the skaz, as it would later be called in literary criticism.
It is believed that this form was first described in 1919 in the article “The Illusion of a Tale” by Boris Eikhenbaum in relation, however, not to the work of Leskov, but to Gogol’s “The Overcoat”. Here the focus on the process of storytelling and oral speech was recorded, and it was noted that the plot in this case becomes a secondary matter. When linguists, in particular, joined the discussion Victor Vinogradov Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov (1895-1969) - linguist, literary critic. In the early 1920s he studied the history of the church schism, and in the 1930s he took up literary studies: he wrote articles about Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Akhmatova. He had a long-term friendship with the latter. In 1929, Vinogradov moved to Moscow and founded his linguistic school there. In 1934, Vinogradov was repressed, but was released early to prepare for Pushkin’s anniversary in 1937. In 1958, Vinogradov headed the Institute of Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was an expert for the prosecution in the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel. , it became clear that a tale is not only the process of storytelling and oral speech, which are fully represented in ordinary dialogues. A tale is also an imitation of the actual process of speaking and a reproduction of the setting of the story. That is, the tale introduces colloquial style into the literary text with all its colloquialisms, jargon and irregularities, and the listener must immerse himself in the situation as much as possible. In 1929, the famous work of the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Creativity,” appeared, where he added a fundamentally new one to the already known characteristics of the skaz: a skaz is an alien voice, which, in addition to linguistic features, introduces an alien worldview, and the author deliberately uses this voice in in your text. In subsequent literary works, the tradition of skaz in Russian literature was built - and Leskov with his stories took a place in it along with Gogol, Zoshchenko and Babel.
If you approach, armed with this theoretical knowledge, Leskov’s stories, including “The Enchanted Wanderer,” both the absence of an obvious cross-cutting plot and the fragmented nature of the episodes become clearer. Nikolai Mikhailovsky Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky (1842-1904) - publicist, literary critic. From 1868 he published in Otechestvennye zapiski, and in 1877 he became one of the editors of the magazine. At the end of the 1870s, he became close to the People's Will organization and was expelled from St. Petersburg several times for connections with revolutionaries. Mikhailovsky considered the goal of progress to increase the level of consciousness in society, and criticized Marxism and Tolstoyism. By the end of his life he had become a well-known public intellectual and a cult figure among the populists. likened to beads both the unliterary language of Ivan Flyagin and the desire to present this story without any authorial intervention. In creating his own tale style, Leskov goes significantly further than Gogol, for whom, in Eikhenbaum’s interpretation, the tale had to do exclusively with the manner of storytelling - full of awkward details, puns and elements of the grotesque. For Leskov, the tale also becomes a way of organizing the text - the setting and the storytelling process itself are reproduced with all the fullness of associative digressions, vernacular language and non-linear plotting.
Wanderer. Photo by Maxim Dmitriev. 1890s
State Archive of Audiovisual Documentation of the Nizhny Novgorod Region
Gypsy. Photo by Maxim Dmitriev. 1890s
MAMM meeting
What is the cycle about the righteous?
The idea of the cycle was artistically described by Leskov himself in the preface to the story “Odnodum” in 1879. “Without the three righteous, the city cannot stand” - with this folk wisdom, the author begins the retelling of his conversation with the famous writer Alexei Pisemsky. Pisemsky is once again in anguish because theater censorship does not allow his play, where he presented titled persons “one worse and more vulgar than the other.” Leskov points out to his colleague the predictability of such an outcome, to which Pisemsky replies: “Brother, what I see is what I write, but I see only nasty things.” Leskov objects: “It’s your vision disease,” and thinks: “Is it really that everything good and good that the artistic eye of other writers has ever noticed is just fiction and nonsense?” After which he goes among the people in search of those same three righteous ones. Work on the cycle did not have a clear beginning, and after the death of the writer, the heirs and researchers proposed their own composition options. However, Leskov himself unambiguously included in the cycle about the righteous the stories “The Enchanted Wanderer,” “Onodum,” “Lefty,” “The Immortal Golovan,” “Russian Democrat in Poland,” “Sheramur” and “The Man on the Clock.” The writer thought a lot about the criteria of righteousness, ideas about which at different stages included the desire for justice, the integrity of the individual in his aspirations, individual asceticism, and social service. It was these qualities, along with an unclear chronological framework, that became the basis for a further expanded interpretation of the cycle, including the inclusion of the novel “On the Knives” and the chronicle “The Cathedral People.”
Nikolai Rosenfeld. Illustration for “The Enchanted Wanderer.” 1932
What kind of hero is righteous if he is a thief and a murderer?
To begin with, Leskov, in general, does not promise that he will present the reader with completely impeccable, beneficent saints. In the preface to the series, the writer admits that he decided not to choose heroes at his own discretion, but simply to write down stories about those people whom the people, for some reason, would call righteous. “But wherever I turned, whoever I asked, everyone answered me in the same way that they had never seen righteous people, because all people were sinners, and so, both of them knew some good people. I began to write it down,” is how Leskov formulated the principle of selection. In addition, Leskov does not seek religious justifications for righteousness. In one article, he describes the righteous as undoubtedly living in the world “a long life, without lying, without deceiving, without being deceitful, without causing grief to a neighbor, and without biasedly judging an enemy.” In another article, he is ready to call those who perform “amazing deeds not only without any assistance from the authorities, but even with their most diligent opposition” as righteous. Thus, the list of Leskov’s righteous people includes the quarterly overseer and folk interpreter of the Bible Alexander Ryzhov from “Odnodum”, the Tula craftsman Lefty, best known for being able to make horseshoes for the English “nymphosoria”, the guard sentry Postnikov, who pulled an officer out of the hole and not only to anyone who did not talk about his feat, but was also punished for leaving his post without permission. But if we simply know only good things about them (even if it is doubtful that their actions are enough for righteousness), then in the case of Ivan Flyagin the picture is complicated by moral and ethical ambiguity. However, he fully satisfies Leskov’s own criteria with his understanding of righteousness. And the behavior of the hero, who in the monastery begins to act strangely, predict the coming war and cry about the destruction of the Russian land, hints at the long Russian tradition of foolishness: righteousness is not always equivalent to understandable universal morality. One can also recall the long line of saints, starting with the Gospel “prudent thief” and the Apostle Paul, who until the very moment of Divine revelation led the life of great sinners.
And you begin to pray... and you pray... you pray so much that even the snow under your knees will melt and where the tears fell - in the morning you will see grass
Nikolay LeskovWhy does Leskov need an episode with a magnetizer?
The episode of Ivan Flyagin’s meeting in a tavern with a stranger who promises to cure him of alcohol addiction is indeed one of the most controversial in the story. First of all, it is completely unclear what is happening: either the stranger is a charlatan, or he really knows how to do something extraordinary, or he is simply a figment of the hero’s imagination. “Some kind of rogue”, “empty man” - this is how the characterization of the stranger in the tavern begins. After Ivan Flyagin treats the stranger, he reports that he has the gift of “magnetism” - the ability to “reduce drunken passion from any person in one minute.” Flyagin asks to provide him with this service, and what happens next is like an obsession: Flyagin mistakes the stranger for an evil spirit, sees a muzzle instead of his face and feels as if he wants to “get into his head.” Considering how much both characters drink along the way, it’s natural to assume that Ivan Flyagin is just drunk and he’s imagining it all. Although, perhaps, in front of him is really an overseas doctor-magnetizer. And if we remember that before going to the tavern, the hero goes to church, where he shakes his fist at the image of the devil in the Last Judgment scene, then this episode can be interpreted as a folk tale about a meeting and even a deal with evil spirits. But Leskov in no way makes it clear which interpretation is correct. This technique - the absence of a final judgment when several points of view are expressed - Leskov uses more than once in the stories of the cycle about the righteous; This is undoubtedly part of Leskov’s tale, built at the intersection of different traditions. The reader is free to interpret the episode in line with the tradition that is closer to him.
On the other hand, in his story Leskov, although he followed the trends of the time, solved a different problem - his hero, begged by his mother and promised to God by a son, in his own words, as if led through life by an incomprehensible force, so that he is not even sure by whose will he performs certain actions. This manifests itself both when he is fascinated by the beauty of life, and when he does something under the influence of an inexplicable momentary impulse. Thus, the text contains details of the harsh taming of horses, a bloody scene of a fight with whips at a fair, the accidental death of a monk under the whip of Ivan Flyagin, and much more. There is even a theory that throughout the story there is, as it were, a struggle between two principles for the hero - the devilish and the divine, and his unseemly actions are just a consequence of the “dark” influence, and an attempt to wash away his sin by replacing a recruit with himself, dangerous service in the Caucasus and a feat river - “bright”. Considering that during his life the hero manages to meet the devil in a tavern and come to God in a monastery, and the author does not intervene to clarify which of this is considered true, such a theory is also quite plausible.
Did the Tatars really kidnap Russians?
First of all, it must be said that in those days a fairly wide range of nationalities, mainly Muslims, were called Tatars. In particular, these could be Kazakhs, Kalmyks or Kyrgyz, who led a nomadic lifestyle, moved from the Volga to Altai, formally obeyed the emperor and the laws of the Russian Empire, but in practice existed within their own hierarchy. Even the Caucasian highlanders were called "Tatars" by Russian authors (including Lermontov and Leo Tolstoy) on the grounds that they were Muslims. But, as is often the case with Leskov, in The Enchanted Wanderer, along with incredible plot twists and turns, there are references to specific facts - this is how Leskov gives the stories realism. For example, we can well localize the story with the “Tatars”, who in fact turn out to be Kazakhs - who, however, were called Kyrgyz in the Russian Empire. Ivan Flyagin says that for ten long years he was taken by them to Ryn-Sands - that was the name of the desert area in the lower reaches of the Volga. In addition, Khan Dzhangar appears in the history of the wanderer - a historical figure, under whose leadership he roamed the Astrakhan province Bukeevskaya Kyrgyz Horde The Kazakh Khanate, which was part of the Russian Empire (the Kazakhs were then often called the Kyrgyz). Existed on the territory of the Astrakhan region. Due to civil strife among the Kazakh khans, in 1801, Khan Bukey, having received permission from Paul I, migrated to the Volga steppe along with five thousand families. In 1845, the khan's power in the horde was abolished. According to the results of the 1897 census, more than 100 thousand people lived in the horde. , aka the Inner Kyrgyz Horde. Khan Dzhangar did trade horses at fairs, and the sale of cattle was a significant source of income for this horde. But kidnapping people was not part of her interests, since, subordinate to the Russian Empire, she simultaneously enjoyed its military protection during raids by “external Tatars” and in exchange even tried to facilitate the return of people or livestock stolen by them. Such abductions sometimes happened, but they were carried out mainly by representatives of the Khiva Khanate, hostile to Russia. In Khiva, captured Russians were indeed sold into slavery at the market, although the Khiva authorities tried to ban this practice in 1840. However, the Russians could go to the steppes along with the “Tatars” and of their own free will - this is what Ivan Flyagin does, who faces criminal prosecution for being a screwed-up Tatar.
The growing popularity of folk themes and folk writers seems to require writers to rethink the experience accumulated in fiction. And if since the beginning of the 1840s, literature has been quite closely interested in the life of ordinary people and documents it with almost ethnographic accuracy, then the previous romantic period in this sense is far from folk themes. Major authors of the late 19th century are trying to bring it closer to the people, remaster and reread it.
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- Yemets G. The motive of a deal with the devil in the poetics of N. S. Leskov’s story “The Enchanted Wanderer” // https://galinaemets.livejournal.com/1387.html
- Kosykh G. A. Righteousness and the righteous in the works of N. S. Leskov of the 1870s: Dis. ... Ph.D. Volgograd: Volgograd State Pedagogical University, 1999.
- Leskov A. N. The life of Nikolai Leskov according to his personal, family and non-family records and memories: In 2 volumes. M.: Khud. lit., 1984.
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Full list of references
“The Enchanted Wanderer” is one of the most famous works of the talented Russian writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. The author came up with the idea for the story during a trip along Lake Ladoga to the island of Valaam, where monks live to this day. The first essays were written by Leskov under the title “Black Earth Telemacus” at the end of 1872. And in September 1873, some time after the author returned from the trip, the story was published in the Russkiy Mir newspaper under the title “The Enchanted Wanderer, His Life, Experiences, Opinions and Adventures.” The work is part of Leskov’s cycle of legends about Russian righteous people.
The analyzed work belongs to such a popular literary movement in the 19th century as critical realism. It is expressed in the author’s desire to reliably depict all the difficulties of the life of an ordinary person, to describe the life of the Russian people without embellishment. Leskov pays more attention to the negative aspects rather than the positive ones in order to make the reader think about difficult things. “The Enchanted Wanderer” belongs to the genre of the story, as it depicts a chain of episodes that make up the period of life of the main character, and, unlike novels, has a single plot line. However, in this creation by N. Leskov, epic motifs can also be traced. The composition of the work is linear, but the logic of the narrative is based not on the chronology of events, but on the associations and memories of the narrator. The story consists of several closed episodes; it is noteworthy that hagiographies and adventure novels have the same structure. Elements of both genres appear in “The Enchanted Wanderer,” which was an innovation by N. Leskov at the end of the 19th century.
The writer's colorful language distinguishes his style from other Russian prose writers of that time. The author's colorful lines, full of vernacular, are not at all similar to the classical literary techniques of Pushkin and Turgenev. Leskov wrote in the language in which simple, hard-working people spoke: filled with all kinds of dialects, incorrect, harsh. And yet his texts do not seem at all illiterate or empty; on the contrary, they have a special charm that enriches the Russian language.
The story “The Enchanted Wanderer” has a single storyline that is inextricably linked with the image of the main character, Ivan Flyagin. Over the course of twenty chapters, into which the story is divided, the character goes through all sorts of trials, difficulties and temptations, and grows spiritually. The result of all his adventures and hardships is his departure to a monastery, in which the hero found peace. Flyagin was cleansed of the sins of the past: the murder of his beloved woman and an innocent monk, although these crimes were not committed out of villainous motives. It would seem that evil fate haunted the main character throughout his life: this corresponds to N. Leskov’s idea to depict all the hardships of the life of a simple Russian person.
Ivan Flyagin is not ideal: in many of his actions one can read both recklessness and rudeness. Nevertheless, Leskov classifies him among the righteous. Despite his negative sides, this controversial character has high morality, piety, and the ability to take on someone else's sin - this is especially noticeable in the episode with the death of the gypsy Grushenka. The image of this heroine is also very interesting: using her example, Leskov was one of the first to talk about the lack of rights of women in Russia in the 19th century. The tragic fate of a passionately loving woman who prayed to be spared the sin of suicide cannot but evoke sympathy among readers.
It is difficult to estimate the number of problems raised by Leskov in his famous work. The story gives answers to many moral and ethical questions about kindness and love, reveals the national character of the Russian people, and makes you think about the problem of finding happiness. No wonder it is considered one of the pearls of Russian literature.
- “The Enchanted Wanderer”, a summary of the chapters of Leskov’s story
- “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, analysis of Leskov’s story
- “The Man on the Clock”, analysis of Leskov’s story