For the thoughtful reader, seeking to understand and feel the deep nature of the original Russian village, of course, this story can be recommended for reading. Infinitely true and deep in meaning, the work was written by Ivan Bunin. “In the Village” is a conceptual book addressed to both the simple reader and the best minds of the Fatherland. This work was for contemporaries of the classic both a revelation and a warning.
The story "In the Country" - shock therapy
In depth of its presentation, this story is akin to a novel. For the first time, it showed the inconsistency of official views on the peasantry and presented clearly and visibly to the masses of readers the truth about the vulgarity and hopelessness of most of Russia.
Bestial life determines the wretched consciousness of the villagers. The rural lumpen Koshel cannot even tell about his impressions of the Caucasus mountains. All that he manages to mumble is a "mountain on a mountain." In the village, the path to science for children is closed. Their education in elementary school is a former soldier, illiterate and tongue-tied. He, instead of teaching, masts children.
The life of the peasants is illogical, irrational. The top of idiocy is demonstrated by a man named Gray. He builds a hut, but does not harvest firewood on the eve of the cold weather. In winter, heating the house, Gray burns the roof, and then sells the hut itself. Moreover, having the most land, he manages to be the poorest person in the village. Is this episode an allegory of the existing rural way of life throughout Russia?
The master's pen boldly, deeply and vividly shows the panorama of the archaic, "cave", impoverished county life.
Bunin reveals the tragic canvas of the people's vegetation to readers. "In the Village" illuminates the essence of this decline, continuing from serfdom, passing from generation to generation. People suffer in a whirlpool of lack of spirituality. Due to the lies surrounding them, envy, meanness, hatred, theft, even the brightest of them lose their vitality, dreams, aspirations. Those who try to happily build their life are powerless to accomplish this.
He does not embellish, does not idealize the life of the peasant, and does not bring Bunin into artificial and unnatural harmony. "In the Village" is an honest work. It is voluminous and panoramic. The author sometimes with bitter lyrics, but more often with ruthless truth, tells us the life story of two Krasov brothers: Tikhon and Kuzma, living in a village with a characteristic name - Durnovka.
Work on the regression of Russia
This composition, after its publication in November 1910, caused an unprecedentedly sharp controversy in Russian society. Even accused of hatred of Russia was Bunin. The story "In the Village" is a grotesque work that really showed the deification of Russian life. But Bunin truly wrote! The loyal liars, the so-called Narodniks, failed to carry out their fierce persecution against Ivan Alekseevich. Maxim Gorky stood up for the future laureate.
How deeply the author of the story felt the nuances of the people's soul! "We are a wonderful nation! A motley soul! Either a pure dog, a man, or ... He cries over himself."
Summary of the story. Two brothers
In young years, the main characters of the story, the brothers Kuzma and Tikhon, were engaged in trade together.
However, not for long. They were very different. A quarrel arose between them, and each went his own
way of life.Both brothers are insightful people. According to the plot of the story, they are not just participants, extras in surrounding reality, but they also give them a deep assessment.
Tikhon is an economic man. He has the power of will and is able to carry out his plan: having removed the inn, set up a shop there and opened a tavern. Skillfully managing the household, he earned money. The income received served Tikhon as the initial capital in order to acquire a higher social status. He begins to buy land and bread in the vine from landowners who do not have business acumen. As a result of his rational and purposeful management, Tikhon buys a country manor house in Durnovka, where his grandfather was a serf.
Kuzma - talent crushed by poverty and indifference
Two relatives-antagonists outlined in his story Bunin ("In the Village"). The summary of the work regarding the life quest of Kuzma can as a result be expressed in a single word - crisis.
From childhood he was obsessed with the desire to learn. The neighbor, sympathizing, taught him to read and write. A familiar old harmonist instilled in him a love of literature. Kuzma dreamed of becoming a writer, then he tried to compose poetry in order to honestly tell people about the ugliness of life around him ... He sympathetically talks about this character in his work Bunin ("In the Village"). An analysis of the spiritual searches of this naive anarchist, a novice poet of the "Nadson" type, engaged in spiritual self-flagellation in Russian, can not leave anyone indifferent. Kuzma is a tragic character, he is trying to become spiritual in a spiritless society. He initially dooms himself to become a lamb to the slaughter, a talent with “broken wings,” tormented by “fate and want."
Unsuccessful literary career
The story he wrote turned out to be unclaimed. Then Kuzma managed to publish a collection of his poems.
However, he himself understood that his attempts were weak in terms of writing level. In addition, the loser writer is forced to spend more mental energy on earning daily bread than on literature. His desire for creativity did not find support and help. Kuzma washed down, realizing the invincibility of human indifference. For himself, this lonely, disbelieving person defined two perspectives: a monastery or suicide.
It was at this critical moment that Brother Tikhon approached him with reconciliation, offering to become a clerk in the acquired estate. Approaching half a century of age, the older brother decided to reconcile with Kuzma. He forgave him another character and other aspirations.
Kuzma was inspired. Finally, he had a chance to get real income. During the day, he kept books of records, and at night he guarded property. However, he soon realized that his efforts did not lead to profit.
Meanwhile, the economy was not shaky or swirling in the impoverished estate of the village of Durnovka.
The reason for the problems with the household plots
The theme of the village in Bunin's work is realistic and philosophically true: you cannot build happiness on the misfortune of another.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the rural community lost its solidity, stability, which since ancient times has held together all of Russian statehood. Bunin wrote about this alarming tendency ("In the Village"). Reviews of thoughtful readers note that as a result of the material and ideological stratification of rural residents, apocalyptic ones appeared that hated everyone and all the lumpen like Deniski.
The rural nouveau riche Tikhon Krasov himself became the product of this decay and decay. Indeed, in essence, he built his wealth during the period of general impoverishment, buying up land and acquiring a manor in the same way. His well-being is short-lived. He feels this and is tormented: even having gained wealth in his own hands, he is powerless to stop this fateful, apocalyptic decadence of all of Russia, unrestrainedly drawing him and the poorest of the Durnovka peasants to the collapse of the entire state system.
Tikhon was never able to establish normal agricultural production in his estate, although he worked hard to organize it. In his failures, he blamed the intransigence and anger of local peasants. Obviously, he will have to sell the estate at an unprofitable price.
Sin of Timothy Krasov
Real, contemporary social processes are described by his story Bunin ("In the Village"). The summary of this work boils down to the fact that the economic Tikhon feels deeply miserable for personal reasons.
He dreamed of a large family, but his wife conceived only girls, and even they were born dead. In fact, the new master of the manor, surviving to fifty, suffered from loneliness. He even started to drink. "Without children, a person is not a person. So, there is some kind of wrap."
Then Tikhon got himself a mistress of young peasants, a cook Avdotya working in the estate. He sinned with her for the sole purpose of wanting to have a child. However, this did not work out either. The peasants in Durnovka soon learned about Avdotya’s connection with Tikhon, and the girl became an outcast. And so his passion went: in a front scarf inside out.
This is not the only episode when Bunin ("In the Village") mentions arbitrariness in a rural community in his novel. The analysis made by the classic touched upon the urgency of education, the enlightenment of peasants. The author calls on the best minds of Russia to contribute to the education of spirituality, charity among ordinary people.
Timothy's realization of his guilt
The rural rich Krasov acted cruelly and selfishly towards the young woman Avdotye, breaking her life because of the desire to have children. He did not love her. Perhaps that is why when his brother Kuzma, working as a clerk, became seriously ill, he received neither help nor sympathy from Avdotya. On the contrary, the woman left the estate, leaving him alone, feeble to the mercy of fate.
In the future, Tikhon, feeling his personal guilt in front of this woman, decides to nevertheless equip her life by marrying her. However, his desire to do good ends with another trouble for Avdotya. The only guy seduced by Tikhon’s money and agreeing to marry was a cursed Denisk. He is quite capable of beating his wife to death. The girl is afraid of this fanatic.
The main question of the story
This work, in spite of its apparent locality (events taking place in the village of Durnovka), made us think about the fate of the whole country. Deeply aware of the impending challenges of the time, Bunin wrote with merciless truthfulness.
In the village (the reviews of the intelligentsia were unanimous), the best forces of Russian society in order to avoid a social catastrophe urgently needed to start reforms. The fact remains: before the “Village” of Bunin, no one in Russia seriously studied the problems of the peasantry. Perhaps that is why the writer was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The most insightful review of the story was given by Maxim Gorky. He understood: Bunin with his work did not write about specific peasants or the village, he asked in all the strength of his talent on the eve of the impending social catastrophe: "To be Russia or not to be?".
Artistic expressiveness by means of composition
Surprisingly holistically Bunin created the work "In the Village". His composition includes many inserted scenes with a variety of secondary characters, grotesquely characterizing the general decline in morals and the emergence of destructive accents in the national character. Landscapes presented by the author of the story give completeness, completeness to the social aspects of the story: “wild-colored church”, “small clay pond”, “dung dam”, “thick yellow water”. And sometimes an element of mysticism even flows into Bunin’s landscape images, as, for example, in the rain scene: “black darkness has opened up”, “dead blue light” has spilled.
An apocalyptic motif permeates the whole story “In the Village”. Bunin maximizes it in the final scene. Wedding sleighs are terribly racing, carrying a wife - an outcast of the village and a fanatic fanatic - in the midst of a terrible blizzard. Guests invited to the wedding make crazy screams, terribly dancing while doing so.
Creative method of the author
Quite expectedly, the question arises: "Why did the classic so narrow the subject of his description?" Indeed, why didn’t an intellectual who deeply understands the life of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century take up an epic canvas akin to “War and Peace”?
The thing is in the creative method used by Bunin. "In the village" answers our question clearly and concisely. The answer is contained in the story itself. One of her characters speaks exhaustively and generalized about the whole of vast Russia: "Yes, she is the whole village ...!"
Book about Russia
It was about all of Russia that Bunin wrote! The story "In the Village" is a story about the whole country, the Krasov brothers are her best men - workers, the salt of her land, capable of changing their life in terms of their potential, business acumen, natural talent. They really can do it. But not in a state where everyone is for himself and everyone is against everyone! The anatomy of annihilation, deactivation of their initial creative positive potential "cave life" shows Bunin. The ideals of the Krasov brothers are gradually fading; they are increasingly beginning to follow compromises with their conscience ...
Conclusion
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin can rightly be called a man kneeling. He, as befits a classic, with his whole soul felt the suffering of the people, the threats and challenges facing him. Realizing the apocalyptic tendencies in Russian society, he boldly, in spite of his ranks and opinions, manly warned his compatriots in a loud voice.
Nobody wrote so systematically before him about the destruction of one of the main pillars of statehood at the beginning of the 20th century. A peasant country at the turn of the century really turned out to be a beggar, having lost its face, having lost the principle of continuity.
The Russian village in the image of Bunin appears before us deeply and in relief. Using the example of the village of Durnovka and the Krasov brothers, the writer was able to show the general crisis of the entire village infrastructure: social, spiritual, moral. The classic foresaw the threat of the impending collapse of the Russian state.