The work we are interested in is perhaps the most popular monument of the 17th century. Its name subsequently even became a proverb: “Shemyakin court” denotes an unfair trial, a parody of it. The poetic and dramatic arrangements of The Tale of the Shemyakin Court are well known, as well as its popular print. In addition, she spawned the famous tale of a poor and rich brother.
Authorship Problems, Sources
The author of The Tale of the Shemyakin Court is unknown, because she is of national origin. Researchers searched for similar works in Indian and Persian literature. It is also known that the famous writer Mikołaj Rey, who lived in the 17th century and received the honorary title “Father of Polish Literature”, worked with a similar plot. Some lists explicitly state: "The Tale of the Shemyakin Court" was written out from Polish books. The questions of its sources, however, remained unresolved. There is no convincing evidence about the connection of the Russian monument with a specific work of foreign literature. Identified roll calls indicate the presence of so-called stray plots, nothing more. As often happens with the monuments of folklore, jokes, jokes cannot belong to one people. They successfully migrate from one locality to another, since everyday collisions everywhere are essentially the same. This feature makes it particularly difficult to distinguish between translated and original 17th-century literature.
“The Tale of the Shemyakin Court”: contents
The first part of the story tells about the incidents (both hilarious and sad) that occurred with a poor peasant. It all starts with the fact that his rich brother gives him a horse, but forgets about the collar. The protagonist ties firewood to the tail, and he breaks. The next misfortune happened to the peasant when he spent the night at the priest in the dark (that is, on a sunbed). Naturally, the greedy pop did not call for dinner. Looking at the table that was full of food, the main character accidentally kills a baby, the son of a priest. Now for these offenses the poor fellow is to face trial. Out of desperation, he wants to take his own life and rushes off the bridge. And again, failure. The peasant himself remains intact, but the old man, on whom the main character landed, went to the forefathers.
So, the peasant will have to answer for three crimes. The culmination awaits the reader - the cunning and unjust judge Shemyak, taking a stone wrapped in a scarf for a generous promise, decides the case in favor of the poor peasant. So, the first victim had to wait until the horse has a new tail. The priest was offered to give his wife to the peasant, from whom she should bear the child. And the son of the deceased old man, as compensation, must fall off the bridge and kill the poor peasant. Naturally, from such decisions all the victims decide to pay off.
Composition specifics
The Tale of the Shemyakin Court is divided into two parts. The first part consists of three episodes described above. By themselves, they are perceived as ordinary funny jokes that serve as a tie. Here they seem to have been moved beyond the framework of the main narrative, although this is not observed in the classic examples of court narratives. In addition, all the events described there are narrated in the past tense. And not in the present, what is the difference between The Tale of the Shemyakin Court. This feature gives dynamism to the plot of the ancient Russian monument.
The second component of the composition is more complicated: in fact, the sentences of Shemyaki, which are a mirror image of the adventures of the poor peasant, are preceded by a frame - a scene where the defendant shows the judge “reward”.
Satire Traditions
Satire was very popular in 17th century literature. The fact of its relevance can be explained on the basis of the specifics of social life of that time. An increase in the role of the trade and craft population was observed, but this did not contribute to the development of its civil rights. In satire, many aspects of the life of the society of those times were subjected to condemnation and conviction - an unjust court, the hypocrisy and hypocrisy of monasticism, extreme social inequality.
The Tale of the Shemyakin Court fits into the established tradition. A reader of that time would undoubtedly understand that the story parodies the “Code” of 1649 - a set of laws that suggested choosing a measure of punishment depending on what the offender’s crime was. So, execution was supposed to be for the murder, and the manufacture of counterfeit money was punished by pouring lead into the throat. That is, "The Tale of the Shemyakin Court" can be defined as a parody of the old Russian legal proceedings.
Ideological level
The story ended for the wretched peasant happily, he conquers the world of injustice and arbitrariness. “Truth” is stronger than “falsehood”. As for the judge himself, he learned from the incident a valuable lesson: “The Tale of the Shemyakin Court” ends with the fact that the trickster learns the truth about the “promise”. Nevertheless, he even rejoices in his own sentences, because otherwise, the spirit would have been kicked out of him by this cobblestone.
Artistic features
The Tale of the Shemyakin Court is distinguished by its speed of action, the comic nature of the situations in which the characters fall, and also emphasized by the dispassionate manner of narration, which only enhances the satirical sound of the ancient Russian monument. These features indicate the proximity of the story to magical and social everyday folk tales.