A fable is a story that teaches wisdom. Abstract: Social meaning of I.A.’s fables

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Introduction

1. Translated fables and hidden subtext

2. Original works of social orientation

3. Social injustice and vices

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Who among us does not remember the children's fable “The Dragonfly and the Ant”? It seems that it could be more transparent than the plot underlying it:

Jumping Dragonfly

The red summer sang;

I didn’t have time to look back,

As winter rolls into your eyes...

We understand that this is an allegory and that insects mean people. But let’s think about it, did Dragonfly commit such a terrible crime? Well, she sang and danced, but it did no harm to anyone. And the Ant, a hardworking, decorous, fair, reasonable - a positive hero in all respects, turns out to be incredibly cruel towards the Dragonfly. For the frivolity, empty talk, and short-sightedness of the “jumper,” he punishes her with inevitable death!

So much for “good-natured grandfather Krylov”!

What's the matter? Why is the conflict between work and idleness resolved by Krylov so ruthlessly and categorically? Why does a seemingly friendly conversation between godfather and godfather (that’s what Ant and Dragonfly call each other) reveal an eternal, insoluble antagonism?..

1. Translated fables and hidden subtext

By the beginning of the 19th century, by the time Krylov became exclusively a fabulist, he had already traveled a long creative path. He was the author of comedies, comic operas, tragedies, a satirist-journalist and poet. He had to change types of literary activity due to the difficulty of passing his ideas through censorship. The fable genre offered the greatest opportunities for this.

In 1803, he wrote the “first” fable (of those included in his fable collections) - “The Oak and the Reed”, and after it he “translated” another one from La Fontaine - “The Picky Bride”. At its core, it was Krylov’s own work, independent in all respects - from the ideas and morality of the fable to its language. However, it was convenient to present my own work as a translation. Translations “from the works” of a foreign language author (traditionally encouraged in official circles) for many years became a favorite form in Russian literature for domestic writers (Pushkin, Nekrasov, etc.) to disguise their own politically acute and relevant ideas. But of course, it was not for the sake of the desire to bypass censorship that Russian writers turned to translations and adaptations. There was also a desire to transfer thoughts, motives, plot twists, and images close to the author to his native soil, to introduce his compatriots to them.

Krylov’s fable “The Picky Bride” is his reflection on the writer’s chosen career as a fabulist: Krylov linked his fate with a literary genre that by this time was considered insignificant and had exhausted its possibilities; The fable “The Old Man and the Three Young Men,” written after the first two, was also kept in this spirit. It contains a clear desire to justify the fact that, in the opinion of some, he took on a new task at too late an age - to grow the tree of fable poetry on Russian soil. The soon-to-be-written fable “Larchik” also became a programmatic work.

In the fable “Larchik,” Krylov explains to the reader how to read his fables and how to understand them. In any case, you should not unnecessarily complicate the problem, but first of all you should try to solve it with the most basic and accessible means, that is, try to “simply” “open the box.”

Each of Krylov’s fables is just such a “casket with a secret.” Let's take, for example, the very first of his fables, which he absolutely did not understand (he carefully corrected and reworked it, obviously finding it difficult to pass his ideas through the tsarist censorship as he would have liked), but which the writer especially valued and therefore constantly returned to it , - “Oak and Reed”.

In the fable, the “proud Oak” is on a par with the Caucasus (in versions of the fable it “blocks the sun from the whole valleys”). That’s right: the king of forests and fields in his pride is not like the sun, as is customary to say about kings, but, on the contrary, prevents the sun’s rays, depriving everything around him of light and warmth. The raging wind (in the versions it is called “rebellious”) has not yet overcome Oak, although Trostinka, perhaps with gloating, assures that this will not last forever. Her confidence was justified: in the end the wind

... uprooted

The one who touched heaven with his head

And in the region of shadows he rested his heel.

It remains to answer the question - who should be meant by a flexible cane? It is clear that this is not the people whose spontaneous uprising the author sought to represent in the image of a “rebellious” wind.” She is Trostinka, the author himself, and more broadly, the intelligentsia, ideologically close to him. She bows to the rebellious wind, rather than opposing herself to it. And she doesn’t ask for Oak’s protection, despite all his offers to hide her in his “thick shadow” and “protect her from bad weather.” The reed prophesies:

It’s not for myself that I fear the whirlwinds; Although I bend, I don’t break; So storms do little harm to me...

In his first book of fables, which was published in 1809, Krylov, for the only time in his life, managed to publish an unconditional statement that the best form of government is “government by the people.” In the fable “Frogs Asking for a Tsar,” he argued that only in a fit of madness is it possible to refuse to live “freely.” The successive series of kings acquired by frog society convinces the reader that only the very first can be the best - “ the aspen “log”, the tsar is completely inactive, but any other version of autocracy is a replacement of one tyranny by another; one bloody arbitrariness - even more cruel.

In another fable - “The Sea of Beasts” - the Lion is directly called the king and is shown in full agreement with other predators, strong “either in claw or in tooth” in relation to the simple and defenseless people. When it comes to sins and their remission, all the predators - led by Leo - turn out to be “on all sides, not only right, almost holy.”

Both last fables were not included in the first book when the final text of all the fables was compiled: their program was no longer literary and creative in nature, but directly socio-political, with all the consequences arising from their publication...

This program - both literary and creative, and socio-political, clear to readers already in the first fables of the 1809 edition, was followed by Krylov in all the other books of his fables (as he henceforth began to call the sections of his fable collections). The fame of a remarkable fabulist was strengthened in the same year for Krylov by a laudatory article-review by V. A. Zhukovsky.

2. Original workssocialfocus

Universal recognition as a master of fables and a writer who expressed popular views on the Patriotic War of 1812 brought Krylov his fables “The Wolf in the Kennel,” “Wagon Train,” “Crow and Chicken,” “Pike and Cat,” “Division,” “Cat and Cook”, “The Peasant and the Snake”, which forever became the subject of special attention of readers, a special page in the history of Russian literature and social thought in Russia. Support for Kutuzov's strategy and disdain for Alexander I and the self-interested Nobility are characteristic of these fables.

The most famous of them, “The Wolf in the Kennel,” is about how Napoleon, trying to save his army from final defeat, entered into negotiations with Kutuzov for the immediate conclusion of peace. Krylov, having written a fable, sent it to Kutuzov, and he read it aloud after the battle of Krasny to the officers who surrounded him. At the words “you are gray, and I, friend, am gray,” he, as eyewitnesses say, took off his cap and exposed his gray head, showing that if the grinning Wolf is Napoleon, then the wise Hunter, who knows the wolf’s nature, is himself.

It goes without saying that these fables could not be “translated”. Although Krylov created his fables from time to time on the formal basis of translation, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they were original in all respects, expressing Russian national and popular consciousness.

Before 1825, which brought defeat to the Decembrists, Krylov wrote most of his fables. After the tragedy of December 14, he, who saw with his own eyes everything that happened on Senate Square, where he was in the thick of the people, almost completely stopped his creative activity for three years, and having turned to it again, he created only a little over three dozen works in the twenty years of his remaining life.

However, the writer, who in his youth became close to Radishchev and was one of the most courageous, radical satirists in Russia in the 18th century, did not change his program even after the collapse of hopes for democratic changes, unlike many who were disillusioned with educational ideals and reconciled with the meanness of the surrounding life. Even the very last of the fables created by Krylov - “The Nobleman” (and closing the last, ninth book of fables) directly echoes one of the first - “Frogs Asking for the Tsar”. The hero of the fable, a certain satrap, posthumously ascended to heaven for his inaction and stupidity, is awarded as a benefactor of the people, the savior of the country from ruin and pestilence:

What if with such power

Unfortunately, he got down to business -

After all, he would destroy the whole region!..

The destructiveness of autocracy in any of its varieties, enlightened or barbaric, is the cross-cutting theme of Krylov’s entire fable work. Walking the path of denouncing autocracy more consistently and selflessly than many of his contemporaries, Krylov inevitably encountered obstacles erected by the tsarist censorship, which in some cases proved insurmountable. The tsarist censorship did not allow the fable “The Spotted Sheep” to pass at all. Other fables had to be remade many times in accordance with censorship requirements.

So, for example, it was the case with the fable “The Fish Dance”. In it, in an artistically generalized form, he depicted a real historical fact: how the king, having encountered the cruelest, destructive exploitation of the people, approved of his officials and complacently set off on his further journey.

“During one of his travels around Russia,” said an eyewitness, “Emperor Alexander I, in some city, stayed in the governor’s house. As he was preparing to leave, he saw from the window that quite a large number of people were approaching the house across the square. When asked by the sovereign what this meant, the governor replied that this was a deputation from residents who wanted to bring gratitude to His Majesty for the well-being of the region. The Emperor, in a hurry to leave, rejected the reception of these persons. Afterwards, rumors spread that they were coming with a complaint against the governor, who had meanwhile received an award.”

They demanded that Krylov end the fable with the words that he had condemned his criminal officials and dealt with them. And Krylov remade the ending. But he changed the title: instead of “Fish Dance” - “Fish Dances” If such dances - not an isolated case, as some readers might think, but a constant phenomenon, which means that the exception is a fair decision of the king. Then, in the first edition, the words “tsar” and “sovereign” were written with a lowercase letter, and in the second - with a capital letter. This once again emphasized that we are talking about human society.

On the contrary, the role of an official who oppresses the people in the second edition is played not by a faceless elder-man, but by a predatory governor - the Fox. In general, the fable turned into a lesson to the Tsar (tsars) on how to rule (as opposed to how Alexander I actually ruled). It can be seen that the Lion Tsar punishes the Voivode, however, not in the name of justice, but simply “because he could no longer tolerate ... obvious lies.” Moreover, the fate of the “fish” is not clear. Apparently, Leo gave them the opportunity to “dance” in the frying pan as before, but only “to the music.”

3. Social injustice and timeOki

The picture of society recreated by Krylov in his fables has a distinct social character. If we are talking about Sheep, then next to them - as if specifically to stop their existence - Wolves and other predators live (“Motley Sheep”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Sheep and Dogs”, etc.). If there is a conversation about Breams, then Pike breed side by side with them, and the master, in whose pond Breams were found, specially lets Pike in to them, explaining this by the fact that he is not at all a “hunter of Breams” (“Breams”). The relationship between the strong and the weak, predators and their victims is irreconcilable. The brutal struggle for existence is life and death.

Seeing the fate of the serf peasantry, Krylov in the fable “The Peasant and Death” showed that only death could be worse than such a life. Extreme exploitation and widespread robbery of the people are vividly depicted in such fables as “The Lady and the Two Maids,” “The Peasants and the River,” “The Wolves and the Sheep,” “The World’s Gathering,” “The Wolf and the Mouse,” and “The Bear and the Bees.” The fable “The Peasants and the River,” for example, talks about the ruin of the peasants in which they finally “lost patience” and went to “ask for justice” from the highest authorities. But, having looked into it, we came to the conclusion:

Why should we waste our time?

You won’t find guidance there among the younger ones,

Where they are divided in half with the elder.

In such fables as “Leaves and Roots”, “The Pig under the Oak”, the exploiters of the people not only parasitize at their expense, but also treat them with disdain and contempt.

The typical face of the bribery tsarist administration in Russia has always been a judge. Wrongful trials are depicted by Krylov in many fables. Especially characteristic are “Wolf and Lamb”, “Pike”, “Peasant and Sheep”. When making their wrong verdict, the judges first of all did not forget themselves: “Execute the Sheep, and give the meat to the court, and take the skin to the plaintiff!” The peasantry in this fable (“The Peasant and the Sheep”), as in many others, is traditionally depicted in the form of sheep. In other cases, the people are allegorically represented in the form of small fish, frogs...

The widespread decay of the tsarist bureaucracy is shown in the fable “The Fox and the Marmot”, “The Mirror and the Monkey”. The moral of the first one:

Even though you can’t prove it in court,

But no matter how you sin, you won’t say:

That he has fluff on his snout -

like the moral of almost all of Krylov’s fables, it became a proverb - in other words, it returned to the people.

By using fables to recreate the animal morals and customs of his contemporary society, Krylov makes it clear to his reader that even in those cases when the tsarist government and its administration act as if “with good intentions,” nothing good for the people usually comes of it - as a result of lack of management, ignorance, arrogance, inadequacy of one’s purpose, or even simply stupidity. This is discussed in the fables “Quartet”, “Swan, Pike and Cancer”, “Donkey and Man”, “Elephant in the Voivodeship”. The last of these fables tells how the Elephant, appointed to the voivodeship, without knowing it, with the best intentions, gave the Sheep to be brutally massacred by the Wolves. And the author in the final part of the fable (in the moral) states:

Who is noble and strong,

I'm not smart

It’s so bad if he has a good heart.

Krylov responded with the fable “Quartet” to the transformation of the State Council in 1810. Krylov said to the heads of all his departments: “you, friends... are not fit to be musicians” - and mockingly depicted their dispute over places instead of the real deal.

The unsightly picture of society consists of Krylov’s apt characteristics of the classes and estates operating in Russia. Krylov compares the illegality of the privileges of the nobility with the claims to nobility of the Geese, whose ancestors allegedly “saved Rome.” The author adds:

Leave your ancestors alone:

The honor was right for them;

And you, friends, are only good for roasting.

This fable could be explained more-

Yes, so as not to irritate the geese.

It was impossible to pronounce the word “nobles” more directly, asserting their uselessness.

As to how Krylov represented the moral qualities of the owners of a “million,” there is no doubt after his fable “The Merchant,” which talks about merchants and those who are “above the shops”:

Almost everyone has the same calculation in everything:

Who better to guide

And who will deceive whom more cunningly.

And in the fable “Funeral” it is said even more sharply and categorically:

There are many rich people whose death is only one

Good for something.

The unexpected acquisition of untold wealth is depicted in a number of fables. In the fable “Poor Rich Man” it “flows like a river”; in “Fortune and the Beggar” “ducats of gold” are raining down; in the fable “The Miser”, a person can, without counting, spend from a huge treasure, and the miser in the fable “The Miser and the Hen” has a hen that lays and lays golden eggs; in the fable “The Farmer and the Shoemaker,” the shoemaker receives a bag of chervonets for a living... One way or another, the flow of enrichment did not bring anyone even the simplest luck. Happiness returned to the Shoemaker only when he gave the Farmer his gold with the words:

“... I don’t need a million for songs and sleep.”

For Krylov, happiness does not lie in personal enrichment; it is generally impossible outside of society. First of all, this is satisfaction from the consciousness of the benefit that a person brings to people and society (“The Crow”, “The Frog and the Ox”).

Today in our lives there is not a trace left of those historical phenomena that were the immediate reason for writing this or that particular fable by I. A. Krylov. But the writer’s fable work has outgrown the concrete historical boundaries of the era that it represented and expressed, and has gone beyond the limits of a simple political allegory. This revealed the true greatness of the brilliant Russian fabulist.

Conclusion

The plots and characters, motives and images of Krylov’s fables are universal. And not only because they reveal the “eternal problems” of good and evil, friendship and deceit, truth and lies, heroism and cowardice in their abstract manifestations. Not only because they crystallized the folk wisdom of centuries-old views on the nature of human society and human characters. Krylov's fables are an example of extremely capacious formulas of acutely political thinking, which have acquired artistic independence and aphoristic completeness.

That is why Krylov’s ideas and images, applied to a new political situation, to new political types, events, etc., each time acquire a new life.

V. I. Lenin brilliantly used Krylov’s apt characteristics and his catchphrases in his journalism, finding unexpected political applications for them.

With his fables, Krylov entered everyday speech and the life of the people. In a variety of situations and situations in life, Krylov’s images and aphorisms come to mind. However, the modern meaning of the great fabulist is not only in this multitude of expressions and apt words sparkling with wit and irresistible logic. In addition to them, we have at our disposal a large work of art by Krylov, depicting a whole panorama of social life in its most diverse manifestations - his, as they say, the Main Book.

Krylov did not write fables in the last years of his life; Since 1843, he took up what he considered to be a much more difficult task - he prepared for publication a collection of his fables in nine books. From separate books of fables, he compiled one - a single integral work with its own composition, with such an arrangement of fables that their alternation and proximity did not interfere with their understanding, but, on the contrary, in especially difficult cases gave, according to his will, correct explanations.

The book was the result of his literary activity, the result of his entire life, his appeal to readers and people. Immediately after the death of the great fabulist, many St. Petersburg residents received a book of his fables as a gift with a printed inscription: “An offering in memory of Ivan Andreevich. According to his wishes, St. Petersburg, 1844 November 9 at 8 o’clock in the morning.” The latest information is the date of his death. This gesture, calculated in advance by the fabulist, is a gift to loved ones and at the same time something else, more. He used his very death to canonize and preserve for the people the book of his fables as he himself wanted it to be.

What kind of book this is, about which such care was needed, we must understand by reading the best fables of the great Krylov.

Bibliography

1. Alexandrov, I. B. Ivan Andreevich Krylov - fabulist / I. B. Alexandrov // Russian speech. - 2004. - No. 6. - P.3-6

2. Arkhipov, V. A. I. A. Krylov (Poetry of folk wisdom) / V. A. Arkhipov. - M.: Moscow worker, 1974. - 288 p.

3. Desnitsky A.V. Ivan Andreevich Krylov. M., Education, 1983. - 143 p.

4. Ivan Andreevich Krylov. Problems of creativity / Serman I.Z. - M.: Publishing house "Nauka", 1975. - 280 p.

5. Stepanov, N. L. Krylov’s fables / N. L. Stepanov. - M. - Publishing house "Fiction", 1969. - 112 p.

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Composition

The powerful always have the powerless to blame. This expression begins the fable “The Wolf and the Lamb” (1808). The work of Ivan Krylov itself was written based on a traveling plot popular in world literature, to which the most prominent fabulists of the world turned: Aesop, Phaedrus, J. de La Fontaine, etc. The Hungry Wolf found a Lamb in the forest and ate it, and before that he tried to justify his action by inventing The lamb has various accusations. The Lamb tries to refute them as baseless and untruthful, so the Wolf makes the last argument - he just wants to eat and therefore uses his right to be stronger.

The expression characterizes the actions and actions of helpful, but not very smart people, who with their help do not bring any benefit, but cause damage, interfere, and worsen the situation. There is no beast stronger than a cat. The origin of the expression is connected with the fable “The Mouse and the Rat” (1816). According to the plot of the work, the Mouse joyfully tells the Rat that the lion caught the cat, but this news does not console her at all:
The Rat says in response to her:

The expression emphasizes the inconsistency between people who are doing a common task, their lack of joint efforts, which prevents them from working efficiently.

“A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.” Expression of posture from the fable “The Hermit and the Bear” (1808). The work tells how the Hermit and the Bear became friends. One day the Hermit lay down to sleep, and the Bear protected his sleep and carefully drove the flies away from his friend. One of the flies turned out to be annoying: it sat first on the hermit’s cheek, then on his nose, and when it landed on his forehead, the Bear flew into a rage and, grabbing a stone, hit the fly with such force that he only killed it, but also cracked the skull of his comrade.
We hear countless examples of this in History,
"Don't rejoice, my light"
Even though he wears a caftan like this,
But we don’t write History;
What strength do you have - to grab a friend in the forehead with a stone!
I don’t have the energy to tell you again.
It truly is a chamber of miracles!
Yes, but things are still there.
And together the three all harnessed themselves to it;
Some are like emerald, others are like coral!
And you, friends, no matter how you sit down;
The luggage would seem light to them:

The expression is used in different versions in relation to people who pay attention to little things, but do not notice the most significant and important things.
Who is to blame and who is right is not for us to judge;
The Nightingale answers them, -
He grabbed a heavy cobblestone into his paws,
Yes, the Swan rushes into the clouds,
The cancer moves back, and the Pike pulls into the water.
“Dear friend, great! Where have you been?"
He cut the coattails and the floors,
And Misha’s friend stayed there for a long time!
I saw everything, looked out; out of surprise

An expression from the fable “Quartet” (1811). Its characters - Monkey, Donkey, Goat and Bear - decided to form a musical quartet, but did not know how to play the instruments they got and did not know a lot about notes. Assuming that things are not going well for them because they are sitting incorrectly, the animals change seats several times, but still the game does not work out for them, they go to Nightingale for advice, asking him to help them sit down, to which he answers them:
Here is Mishenka, without saying a word,
And your ears are gentler, -
If it reaches their claws,
Nature is no stranger to inventions!

The expression denotes situations when incompetent and unprepared people take on a certain task and therefore fail.
I am tea, did you think that you met a mountain?”

The expression is used in cases when someone is mistakenly, groundlessly, biasedly considered the most authoritative, the most important, the strongest in something, better than others.
He himself thinks: “Be quiet, I’ll blow your mind!”
They are doing their best, but the cart is still moving!
What butterflies, insects,
“Is he really there?” - "There".
“And don’t hope in vain!
How tiny the cows are!
Squatted down, doesn’t take a breath,
The blow was so deft that the skull split apart,
The powerful are always to blame for the powerless:
That is true, the lion will not be alive:
There are, really, less than a pinhead!”
But what they say in Fables
You’re still not fit to be musicians.”

I didn’t even notice the elephant. The origin of the expression is connected with the fable “The Curious” (1814). The fable tells about a meeting of two friends, during which one of them shares his impressions of visiting a museum, where he saw a lot of interesting things:

Yes, the Swan rushes into the clouds, the Cancer moves back, and the Pike pulls into the water. An expression from the fable “The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish” (1816), which talks about how the main characters set out to pull a loaded cart together, but were never able to do this due to the fact that each was eager for his own element and moved according to his nature:

At the end of the work, the author draws a parallel between Trishka and some gentlemen who are trying to improve their financial situation in a similar way. The expression is used to figuratively designate a person who tries to improve or correct some matters or circumstances at the expense of others, which inevitably causes damage and leads to the deterioration of both.
“To be a musician, you need skill
Which is longer and camisoles.
You're not fit to be a musician

The expression is used as an ironic explanation for the fact that physically stronger people with higher positions and opportunities offend the weaker ones, using their advantages over them, abusing the rights and opportunities of the stronger one.

Trishkin caftan. Phraseologism from the satirical fable of the same name (1815). The main character of the fable, Trishka, has worn out his caftan at the elbows, and he cuts his sleeves to patch the holes. Everyone laughs at him, then Trishka finds another way out:
What animals, what birds I have never seen!
“In the Kunstkamera, my friend! I walked there for three hours;
I didn’t even notice the elephant.”
“Have you seen an elephant? What do you look like?
Boogers, flies, cockroaches!
There is no stronger beast than a cat!”
And, on a friend’s forehead, there was a fly lying in wait,
I adjusted my sleeves, and my Trishka is cheerful,
“Well, brother, it’s my fault:
Would you believe it, there will be no skill

Russia, who lived back in the 18th and 19th centuries, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, made the genre of fables not only a satirical work, but also added the deepest meaning to them, raising them to unprecedented heights. He not only created highly artistic and original masterpieces, he gave them a meaning that is relevant for all times. Even now, reading any of his works, we can find something applicable to our era. For example, it is not for nothing that the fable “Quartet” is included in the school curriculum. She teaches us to work hard and develop our talents.

Link to a historical event

Krylov more than once in his fables criticized not only the government and greedy officials, but also the tsarist government. Masterfully using Aesopian language, he hid obvious truths that were easily read between the lines. He not only satirically depicted high-ranking individuals of the time, but also ridiculed specific historical events. The fable “Quartet” tells the story of the newly established State Council and its leaders. The latter not only turned out to be incapable and helpless in solving political problems, but also exposed themselves as talkers and ignoramuses, which Krylov drew attention to.

Plot development and characters

The fable mentions four animals, by analogy with four high-born nobles placed at the head of each department. Prince Lopukhin introduced himself to Ivan Andreevich as a Goat, Zavadovsky as a Donkey, Mordvinov as a Monkey, and Count Arakcheev himself as a Bear. And so, having gathered, the heroes of the fable “Quartet” decide to play music, but nothing comes of it. And they sit this way and that, but there’s no point. In fact, this was the case; the nobles had to change places several times and argue for a long time about who should manage which department. In the end, everyone sat down, seemingly as they should, but they were unable to do anything meaningful.

What's the secret?

Finally, Nightingale comes to the aid of desperate animals; in Krylov’s understanding, these are ordinary people who see what the catch is. The main condition for the correct and harmonious playing of a quartet is the presence of talent among the musicians. Transferring everything to the State Council - the problem is the lack of professionalism among officials; none of them properly understood the area assigned to them. The fable “Quartet” became the source of a funny aphorism; it became the last words of the Nightingale that if you don’t sit down, you won’t become a musician without talent and you won’t be able to extract melody from the instrument. Krylov, on behalf of all sensible people and the people as a whole, is trying to convey a simple truth. But the essence is this: it is not enough just to be from the upper class by birth in order to

To manage public affairs and politics in general, a sharp mind, natural abilities and, of course, special education are required. The nobles about whom the fable “Quartet” narrates had none of the above.

Veiled Thoughts

There is a work that continues this theme - “Swan, Cancer and Pike”. Due to the fact that the heroes pulled the cart in different directions, they were never able to move it; they lacked coherence. In terms of volume, the fable is much smaller than the Quartet, but this does not make it worse; in terms of its semantic load, it is very capacious. The title itself sometimes tells the reader in which direction to think. After all, in Krylov’s time it was not so easy to express all your thoughts openly; you had to disguise them in every possible way. Perfectly suited for this purpose, which the author wields so skillfully. His contemporaries perfectly understood his hidden allegories. Moreover, the writer does not even have to characterize his characters; all the images are borrowed from folklore and, as a rule, they are associated with already established stereotypes. But the most important distinguishing feature of any Krylov fable is its universality; written once for a specific event, it, due to its significance, is still relevant now. For example, the moral of the fable “Quartet” calls on us to fight hypocrisy, arrogance, unprofessionalism and irresponsibility.

In one not so thick book

Frogs and fishermen came together,

Donkeys, bears and monkeys,

Robbers and men.

There is Pug, Swan, Cancer and Pike,

Here are Trishka and Demyan with fish soup, -

Everything so that science

How to live without becoming dry.

So that in a semi-fairytale guise

The fable was livelier

To the gospel parable

Or rather, it touched my soul.

Monk Lazar (Afanasiev)

February 13, 2014 marks the 245th anniversary of the birth of the Russian poet, fabulist, writer, translator I.A. Krylova.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov was an employee of the Imperial Public Library, State Advisor, Full Member of the Imperial Russian Academy, and an ordinary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the Department of Russian Language and Literature. He wrote more than 200 fables from 1809 to 1843; they were published in nine parts and were republished in very large editions for those times.

Krylov's popularity in his homeland exceeded all conceivable limits. According to his fables, representatives of the upper classes and children from ordinary families learned to read and write. The circulation of Ivan Andreevich's works many times exceeded the circulation of the works of contemporary writers and poets. Many expressions from Krylov's fables entered the Russian language as catchphrases.

To understand Krylov’s religious wisdom, let us remember another of his fables - “The Atheists.”

It tells about one people who, “to the shame of the tribes of the earth,” became so “hardened in their hearts” that they armed themselves against heaven itself. But the Master of earth and sky says: “Let’s wait.”

If these people do not calm down in their militant unbelief and persist, then they, of course, will be “executed for their deeds.”

Vladimir Odoevsky, giving a toast on February 2, 1838 at a historic dinner dedicated to the 50th anniversary of literary activity

I.A. Krylov, said: “I belong to the generation that learned to read from your fables and still rereads them with new, always fresh pleasure.” This is said about the generation to which many Decembrists, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, and Alexander Pushkin belong. It was probably not without reason that Nicholas I once gave his heir a bust of the fabulist on New Year’s Day.

The Optina elders revered the fables of Ivan Krylov and more than once instructed their spiritual children with statements from them. Thus, Archimandrite Agapit (Belovidov) in the biography of the Venerable Elder Ambrose of Optina writes that in the elder’s hut, in the room of his cell attendant, there was a book of Krylov’s fables.

Father Ambrose often in the middle of the day, when receiving many people, entered the room of his cell attendant, Father Joseph, and had a quick lunch here.

At the same time, he asked me to read one or two of Krylov’s fables aloud. It was read by those who were present here at that time - a visitor or visitor. Father loved Krylov's fables, finding them moral, and often resorted to them to teach his wise advice. So he ordered one visitor, a nun from the Shamordino monastery, to read aloud a fable entitled “The Stream”:

How many streams flow so peacefully and smoothly

And so they murmur sweetly for the heart,

Only because there is not enough water in them!

And in 1877, the Monk Anatoly Optinsky (Zertsalov) wrote to one of his spiritual children: “Remember the young horse Krylov: he could not understand not only others, but also himself. And when he started to push something - now in the side, now in the back - well, he showed dexterity, for which the owner’s pots paid.” This is the horse from the fable “Oboz”:

As in people, many have the same weakness:

Everything in another seems like a mistake to us;

And you will get down to business yourself,

So you'll do something twice as bad.

Another time, the Monk Anatoly wrote to a young woman in Yelets, who was his spiritual child and was going to a monastery: “And Krylov, a secular writer, said his “Dragonfly” not to you alone and not to me, but to the whole world, that is, whoever dances the summer, will It will be bad in winter. Whoever, in the prime of his life, does not want to take care of himself, has nothing to wait for when his strength is depleted and with the influx of infirmities and illnesses.”

A deep Christian thought is contained in the fable “The Writer and the Robber,” where the Writer, who...

...the subtle one poured poison into his creations,

He instilled unbelief, rooted depravity,

He was like a Siren, sweet-voiced,

And, like Siren, he was dangerous, -

After his death in hell, he received a greater punishment than a highway robber. And the writer screams in the midst of torment that...

...he filled the light with glory

And if I wrote a little freely,

He was punished too painfully for that;

That he did not think of being a more sinful Robber.

However, if the sinful deeds of the Robber ended with his death, then the “poison of the creations” of the Writer “not only does not weaken, but, spreading, grows fiercer from time to time.” This is why he received a harsher sentence:

Look at all the evil deeds

And to the misfortunes that are your fault!

There are children, shame on their families, -

Despair of fathers and mothers:

Who poisoned their minds and hearts? - by you.

Reading Krylov’s works, you involuntarily think about the fact that perhaps it is the Christian meaning of his fables that makes these works immortal. So let us touch this “unstolen wealth” more often.

Elena Dobronravova

Newspaper “Panteleimon Blagovest”, parish bulletin of the church in the name of the holy great martyr and healer Panteleimon in Zhukovsky, No. 2 (180), February 2014.