The artistic originality of satire in the history of one city. The artistic originality of the novel “The History of a City”

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The originality of the genre "Stories of a City"

Saltykov Shchedrin satirical work

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is one of the most famous satirists of the 19th century. The writer has proven himself in many genres of literature, such as novels, stories, stories, essays, and fairy tales.

Almost all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s works have a satirical orientation. The writer was outraged Russian society not the fair attitude of masters towards slaves, the obedience of the common people to higher officials. In his works, the author ridiculed the vices and imperfections of Russian society.

The genre is quite difficult to determine: the author wrote it in the form of a chronicle, but the events depicted here seem absolutely unreal, the images are fantastic, and what is happening is like some kind of nightmare, crazy dream. In the novel "The History of a City" Shchedrin reflects the most terrible aspects of the life of Russian society. In his work, the writer does not directly talk about the problematic situation in our country. Despite the name, behind the image of the people of the city of Foolov, where the life of the main characters passes, a whole country is hidden, namely Russia.

Thus, Saltykov-Shchedrin discovers new techniques and methods satirical image in literature.

Satire is a type of pathos based on a comic plot. The novel "The History of a City" shows the author's sharp negative attitude in the current situation in society, expressed in evil ridicule. “The History of One City” is a satirical work in which the main artistic means in depicting the history of one city of Foolov, its inhabitants and mayors is the grotesque device of combining the fantastic and the real, creating comic situations. Using the grotesque, on the one hand, Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the reader the everyday life of each person, and on the other, a blind, absurd, fantastic situation in which the main characters are the inhabitants of the city of Foolov. However, the novel "The History of a City" is a realistic work; Saltykov-Shchedrin used the grotesque to show the ugly reality modern life. The author also used the grotesque in describing the mayors. For example, when giving a characterization of one of the mayors, Organchik, the author shows qualities that are not characteristic of a person. The organ had a mechanism in its head and knew only two words - “I will not tolerate” and “I will ruin.”

When reading Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work “The History of a City,” unlike other satirical works, the reader himself must understand what kind of reality is hidden behind the semi-fantastic world that is shown in the novel. The writer’s use in his works of such a technique of satirical depiction as “Aesop’s language” confirms that behind the secret that the author wants to hide, his true thoughts are hidden. Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel "The History of a City" is based almost entirely on allegory. For example, under the city of Foolov there is an image of all of Russia. Then, therefore, the question arises: “Who are the Foolovites?” - ordinary people provincial town Stupid. No. As hard as it is to admit, the Foolovites are Russians.

In the work “The History of a City,” when describing the mayors, and throughout the entire novel as a whole, the author shows an exaggeration of certain properties. This is called another way to depict satire as hyperbole.

The fact that one of the mayors ended up with a stuffed head is an exaggeration of the author. The writer uses hyperbole in the novel to create an emotional mood for the reader.

Exposing vices and showing absurdity real life. Saltykov-Shchedrin conveys to the reader a special “evil irony” in relation to his heroes. The writer devoted his entire creative activity to the fight against the shortcomings and vices of Russia.

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Composition

Speaking about the uniqueness of satire in creativity Saltykova-Shchedrin, you need to understand that his satirical style, his techniques and methods of depicting heroes were formed together with the ideological and creative formation of the writer’s views on the people. A man who was vitally and spiritually close to the masses of the people, who grew up among the people, and who, as a result of his duty, was constantly faced with the problems of the people, Saltykov-Shchedrin absorbed the people's spirit, their language, their moods. This allowed him already in his early satirical cycles (“ Provincial essays”, “Pompadours and pompadours”, “Tashkentians”, etc.) very deeply and correctly assess the predatory essence of the serf owners, the nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie and kulaks.

It was here that the satirist’s weapons began to be honed. N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote about the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin at that time: “Among the masses of the people, the name of Mr. Shchedrin, when it becomes known there, will always be pronounced with respect and gratitude: he loves this people, he sees many kind, noble, although undeveloped or misdirected instincts in these humble, simple-minded workers. He protects them from all sorts of talented people and mediocre shy people; he treats them without any denial. In “Bogomolets” his contrast is magnificent between the simple-minded faith, the living, fresh feelings of common people and the arrogant emptiness of General Daria Mikhailovna or the disgusting fanfare of the tax farmer Khreptyugin.” But in these works Shchedrin does not yet possess the fullness of his satirical palette: psychological portraits officials, bribe takers, bureaucrats, although backed by telling names, like this Khreptyugin - the backbone of the people, do not yet bear the stamp of evil accusatory laughter, with which the heroes of “The History of a City” are already branded. In general, if “The History of a City” were not such a talented and profound work that it is, it could be used as training manual about the forms and methods of using satire. It has everything: techniques of satirical fiction, unbridled hyperbolization of images, grotesque, Aesopian language of allegory, parody of various institutions of statehood and political problems.

"Problems political life- these are the problems in whose artistic interpretation Shchedrin abundantly includes hyperbole and fantasy. The more acute the political problems addressed by the satirist, the more hyperbolic and fantastic his images” 2.224. For example, Saltykov-Shchedrin described the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of government officials engaged in robbing the people before, but only in “The History of a City” does Brudasty appear with his empty head, in which is built an organ with two romances “I’ll Ruin!” and “I won’t tolerate it!” All the contempt that the author was capable of expressing for such figures is expressed in this grotesque image, conveyed in an allegedly fantastic way. But the author’s hint that such figures are not uncommon in Russian reality has a much more acute effect on public opinion. The image of Brudasty is fantastic and therefore funny. And laughter is a weapon. To a smart person it helps to correctly assess a phenomenon or a person, and figures like Brudasty, having recognized themselves, are also forced to laugh, otherwise everyone would not know about their empty head. Here the author, in addition, uses the technique of assigning to his characters speaking names(Brudasty is a special breed of ferocious shaggy dogs) - and here we have the famous Shchedrin character: a stupid, ferocious man with a furry soul.

And then one can imagine what will happen to the people given over to such a ruler. “Unheard of activity suddenly began to boil in all parts of the city; private bailiffs galloped off; the policemen galloped; The guards forgot what it meant to eat, and from then on they acquired the bad habit of grabbing pieces on the fly. They grab and catch, whip and flog, describe and sell... and above all this hubbub, above all this confusion, like the cry of a bird of prey, reigns the ominous “I will not tolerate it!” 44.20. A characteristic feature of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire is that he draws portraits of his heroes with special care, with great psychologism, and only then these heroes, as if independently, based on the portrait drawn by the author, begin to live and act.

All this is reminiscent of a puppet theater, which the author repeatedly mentioned in different periods of his life, as in the fairy tale “The Toy Business of Little People”: “A living doll tramples a living person with its heel.” No wonder contemporary writer artist A.I. Lebedev, in his cartoon drawing, depicted Shchedrin as a collector of dolls, which he mercilessly pins to the pages of his books with his sharp satire. An example of such living dolls in “The History of a City” can be called Wartkin’s tin soldiers, who, having entered the robes, filled with blood and ferocity, attack the houses of the residents of Foolov and in a few moments destroy them to the ground. A real soldier, in the understanding of Saltykov-Shchedrin, as a native of the same people, who is also called upon to protect the people from the enemy, cannot and should not speak out against the people. Only tin soldiers and dolls are able to forget their roots, bringing pain and destruction to their people 10.19. And yet, in “The History of a City” there is one purely fantastic period. This is the period of the reign of the gendarmerie officer - Colonel Pryshch (although in the “Inventory to the Mayors” he is only a major). But even here Saltykov-Shchedrin remains true to his manner: in that Pyshch turned out to have a stuffed head, which was bitten off by a certain voluptuous leader of the nobility, most likely the state councilor Ivanov following Pyshch, who “died in 1819 from strain, trying to comprehend some Senate decree" 44.17; There is nothing unusual in this fact for Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Even before “The History of a City,” the author drew images of officials eating each other. Envy and ingratiation, even to the point of palace coups, are so characteristic feature Russian reality, that, no matter how the author tries to more naturally and more plausibly describe the fantastic eating of a head, doused with vinegar and mustard by the leader of the nobility, none of the readers has any doubt that we are talking about envy, a vile and dirty feeling that pushes a person to meanness and even to kill an opponent who prevents him from taking the sweet spot 10.21.

The fantasy of this period lies in something else: how could it happen that under the rule of the gendarme Pryshch, the city of Foolov “was brought to such prosperity, which the chronicles had not imagined since its very foundation”

The Foolovites suddenly had everything “twice and three times as much as before,” 44.107, and Pimple looked at this prosperity and rejoiced. And it was impossible not to rejoice at him, because the general abundance was reflected in him. His barns were bursting with offerings made in kind; the chests did not hold silver and gold, and the banknotes simply lay on the floor” 44.105. The fantastic nature of such prosperity of the people lies precisely in the fact that in the entire history of Russia there has not been a single period when the people lived calmly and richly. Most likely, Saltykov-Shchedrin, with his characteristic corrosive sarcasm, is depicting here the habit that has taken root in Russia to show off, to build “Potemkin villages”

Other works on this work

In “The History of a City,” M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrin depicts the city of Foolov in the period from “prehistoric” times until “history stopped flowing.” The city of Foolov means all of Russia, depicted satirically by the author. “The History of a City” is a parody work. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin parodies ancient Russian chronicles, works of historiographers, literary works antiquity and XVIII-XIX centuries. “The Story of a City” uses features of many of the works parodied. The preface “From the Publisher” is reminiscent of the prefaces of mostly 19th-century authors to their own novels, stories, short stories, etc. ( typical example is Pushkin's preface to Belkin's Tales).

The entire work has the features of a chronicle (the author, supposedly, is an archivist-chronicler, to whom the “Address to the Reader” that follows the text “From the Publisher” belongs). Note that in “The History of a City” Saltykov-Shchedrin has two masks: a publisher and an archivist-chronicler. This is reminiscent of Pushkin’s principle of using an image-mask: Pushkin has two masks in the novel “ Captain's daughter"(publisher and Grinev) and in "Tales of Belkin" (publisher and Belkin). In both cases, the first mask is the publisher, as in “The History of a City,” and the second is the author of the notes himself.

In "The Story of a City" not only are they parodied literary genres. In the appendices there is also an example of clerical style: “Charter on the kindness inherent in the city ruler. Composed by mayor Benevolensky.” An example of clerical style is also the “Inventory for mayors.” There are parodic moments in almost all sections of “The History of a City.” In the chapter on the origin of the Foolovites, the Ipatiev Chronicle is parodied (the only one where there is a mention of Rurik’s calling to reign in Novgorod). M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin depicts the call of Rurik using Aesopian language, which becomes one of the important artistic means stories: “There is no order, and there is plenty. We tried to compete with our heads again, but we got nothing here either. Then they decided to look for a prince. “He will provide us with everything in an instant,” said the elder of Dobromys, “he will equip our soldiers and the prison will stand as it should!” Let's go, guys! The bunglers are looking for the stupid prince. A folklore triad unfolds: the third, stupidest prince agrees to “lead” the bunglers. The arrival of the prince and the beginning of “historical times” turns out to be not a particularly joyful event for the fools: “And the prince arrived in person in Foolov and cried out:

I’ll screw it up!”

With this began " historical times" But in this case, not only the Ipatiev Chronicle is parodied. The Foolovites soon realize that it was better without the prince than with him. The same thing happens in Aesop’s fable, later translated by Krylov “How the frogs asked the king.” The prince, who, entering a city under his control, shouts: “I’ll lock it up!”, resembles the crane, which in the fable was made king over the frogs. In the chapter “On the Roots of the Origin of the Foolovites,” “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is also parodied. The chapter begins with the words: “I don’t want, like Kostomarov, gray wolf to scour the earth, nor, like Solovyov, to spread like a crazy eagle under the clouds, nor, like Pypin, to spread thoughts throughout the tree...”, etc. The Publisher himself says in the notes: “Obviously, the chronicler is imitating here “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” “: “The prophetic Boyan, if anyone wanted to create a song, his thoughts spread across the tree, like a gray wolf across the earth, like a crazy eagle under the clouds...” At the same time, the chronicler, like the author’s contemporary, mentions the names of historiographers of the 19th century. Deliberate anachronism is one of the elements of parody: the ancient chronicler’s mention of names contemporary with Saltykov-Shchedrin is absurd and creates a comic effect. Just as comical are the so-called “regrettable mistakes” of the chronicler, such as “The glorious Nero, and the Caligula, shining with valor...” In the notes, the publisher says that the reason for such mistakes of the chronicler is ignorance of elementary teaching aids. The chronicler might not have known Derzhavin’s poems quoted by the publisher:

Caligula! your horse in the Senate Could not shine; shining in gold: Good deeds shine!

But the author’s use of motifs and images from 18th century poetry. just like the mention of the names of historians of the 19th century, it becomes one of the artistic means of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s parody. In a satirical depiction of Russian history, he parodies literary and historical sources from different eras.

Literary sources of the 18th-19th centuries played a significant role in “The History of a City.” The chapter “Worship of Mammon and Repentance” parodies Karamzin’s sentimental stories. The hero of this chapter is the mayor Erast Andreevich Grustilov. His surname, derived from the word “sadness” and referring readers to the languid and sorrowful experiences of sentimentalists, and the name Erast (Erast is the name of the heroes of several stories by Karamzin, as well as the hero of Zagoskin’s sentimental story “Unequal Marriage”) are also significant. Mayor Grustilov is given the following description: “He was a sensitive person, and when he spoke about the mutual relations of the two sexes, he blushed. Just before this, he composed a story called “Saturn Stopping His Run in the Arms of Venus...”. Sensitivity is one of the main traits of heroes of sentimental prose. The sensitive Sastilov himself composes. In this one can see a satirical allusion to the sentimentalists, Karamzin’s followers. In the “Inventory to the Mayors”, Grustilov is called a friend of Karamzin. It is said about him: “He was distinguished by his tenderness and sensitivity of heart, he loved to drink tea in the city grove and could not see black grouse displaying without tears.” Here, too, a parody of sentimentalism is visible. On the other hand, Krylov also parodied sentimentalism in the comedy “Pie”. Uzhima, the heroine of “The Pie,” dreams of a “sentimental breakfast” in the grove, accompanied by the singing of a nightingale. Thus, in this characterization of the mayor Grustilov, an allusion from the Krylovsk “Pie” is also possible, i.e., a double parody.

The parody of Karamzin in “The History of a City” is not accidental. Karamzin was the author not only of sentimental stories, but also of “The History of the Russian State.” “History...” by Saltykov-Shchedrin is a kind of parody of “History...” by Karamzin. On the other hand, the parody “The History of a City” is more closely related to Pushkin’s “The History of the Village of Goryukhin”, which is also a parody of Karamzin’s “History...”. Some of Foolov's mayors were given literary names. So, Ferdyshchenko is the name of one of the heroes of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky. Urus-Kugush-Kildibaev - a possible relative of Urus-Kuchu-ma-Kildibaev, wild landowner from the fairy tale of the same name by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin himself.

Also, many mayors have real historical prototypes (Aesopian language plays a significant role in their depiction). The seventh mayor is given the following description: Pfeiffer Bogdan Bogdanovich, guard sergeant, Holstein native. Having accomplished nothing, he was replaced in 1762 for ignorance*. In 1762, a palace coup took place when Peter III was removed by Catherine II. The pretext for the coup was a swear word spoken by Peter III to Catherine II, i.e. “ignorance.” Pfeiffer's connection with Peter III is also indicated by his Holstein origin.

The Tale of the Six City Leaders probably satirically depicts the empresses who ruled Russia in the 18th century. “Scoundrel Onufriy Ivanovich, former Gatchina stoker” may mean Paul I himself.

The most interesting is Ugryum-Burcheev, the last Foolov mayor. His surname is consonant with the surname of a real historical figure, Alexei Andreevich Arakcheev. Devoted to his boss, Gloomy-Burcheev cuts off his finger as proof of his love for him: “Having done this, he smiled. This was the only time in his entire beaten life when something human flashed in his face.” His action is sincere. As you know, Paul I wrote with his own hand on the coat of arms of Arakcheev “Devoted without flattery.” The boss fell in love with Gloomy-Burcheev a hundredfold “and sent him to Foolov.” In Foolov, Ugryum-Burcheev lives with one idiotic dream - to turn the city into a settlement of barracks with a square in the middle. According to the mayor’s plan, the city authorities must forcibly distribute people into barracks and into families. Citizens should all eat, work, and rest together. Ugryum-Burcheev is disturbed by the flowing river. "For what?" - he asks incomprehensibly, looking at the rolling waves. It is known that Arakcheev had a plan to turn all of Russia into a military settlement, and he began to implement it on the outskirts of the empire.

The end of the reign of Ugryum-Burcheev, i.e. the finale of “The History of a City,” is a kind of satirical image of the Apocalypse: “It has come...” “It will come...” says Ugryum-Burcheev mysteriously before disappearing. “History has stopped flowing.”

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satirical portrayal of Russia is bleak. The actions of many mayors are depicted satirically. For example, about the twelfth mayor Wartkin in the “Inventory of mayors” it is said: “He introduced the game of lamouche and Provençal oil; paved the market square and planted the street leading to public places with birch trees; again applied for the establishment of an academy in Foolov, but, having received a refusal, built a congress house.” The fifteenth mayor Benevolensky “reintroduced mustard into use as useful, bay leaf and Provençal oil.” The actions of Foolov's mayors are petty, meaningless, and useless. They repeat the same mistakes, commit the same iniquities. Historical development itself has no meaning for Foolov. There is no progress, the reigns of all mayors are equally hopeless.

“The History of a City” is one of the first experiences of dystopia in Russian literature. It is no coincidence that the work of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin served as material for such dystopias of the 20th century*) kq.k “City of Grads” by Andrei Platonov and “We” by Evgeny Zamyatin.

The main ideological and artistic features of the work are:

1. The genre parodies historical chronicles (chronicles). The history of the city of Foolov begins, as it should be, with the history of the tribes that inhabited the environs of the future city. Foolov, in a parodic vein, is compared with Rome, which, on the one hand, helps to remember that Rus' is the “Third Rome”, and also to see the absurdity of the claims of “bunglers” and other tribes to a special historical role.
2. An abundance of folk words and expressions, especially in the part that tells about the wanderings of the future Foolovites before the founding of the city. The so-called “unprecedents” and “nonsense” are used (a special type of oral folk art, see sections on folk poetry and ancient Russian literature about the essence of ancient Russian laughter).

The use of these obviously absurd folk maxims (for example, “They kneaded the Volga with oatmeal, dragged a calf to the bathhouse, ... then they greeted the crayfish with the ringing of a bell, then they drove the pike off its eggs, then they went to catch a mosquito eight miles away, and the mosquito sat on the Poshekhonets’ nose ", etc.) has a dual role: firstly, it succinctly and briefly characterizes the effectiveness of the actions of the Foolovites, and secondly, it implicitly ridicules the very “nationality” that was part of the triad of autocracy-Orthodoxy-nationality. Claims to a special historical role (see the previous paragraph) do not allow Foolovites and the compilers of the “chronicle” to take a sensible look at reality. As a result, stupidity and elementary incompetence are presented as some kind of valor, national identity.

1. Power in the city of Foolov already begins with all sorts of outrages, and “historical times” - with the cry of the first mayor “I’ll screw it up!”, i.e. with violence. Thus, it turns out that power is inherently vicious and based on arbitrariness.
2. The appearance of the mayors is drawn using the grotesque: a high position and the insignificance of those who occupy it are combined (combining incompatible things): Lamvrokakis is a runaway Greek who sold soap at the market and was subsequently eaten by clones, “Organchik” is not a person at all, but a mechanism, etc. However, the main evil is the Foolovites themselves, who endure all this and thereby give rise to ever new “monstrous modifications of power” (fear and reverence for the authorities, tenderness at the sight of Ferdyshchenko gorging himself, etc.).

1. The part dedicated to Ugryum-Burcheev contains an element of negative utopia (dystopia), which describes a variant of the structure of society, barracks-regulated to the very last degree. The features of totalitarian socialism are largely predicted: regulation of social and family life, the creation of camps, the militarization of the country, impoverishment and mass death of people, “turning back the rivers” and so on.
2. Paths to liberation have also been outlined. It happens from below:
   1. “Unreliable elements” indicate that Gloomy-Burcheev is an ordinary idiot and help the Foolovites understand this, that is, to understand the essence of the power that controls them, and to abandon their past stereotype in relation to it.
   2. The whirlwind carries Gloomy-Burcheev away (indignation of the people). “History stops flowing,” that is, the vicious circle of this particular history is broken - the history that began with the cry “I’ll screw it up!”

Speaking about the originality of satire in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, you need to understand that his satirical style, his techniques and methods of depicting heroes were formed along with the ideological and creative formation of the writer’s views on the people. A man who is vitally and spiritually close to the masses of the people, who grew up among the people, and who, as a result of his duty, is constantly faced with the problems of the people, Saltykov-Shchedrin absorbed the people’s spirit, their language, their moods. This allowed him, already in his early satirical cycles (“Provincial Sketches”, “Pompadours and Pompadours”, “Tashkent People”, etc.) to very deeply and correctly assess the predatory essence of the serf owners, the nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie and kulaks.
It was here that the satirist’s weapons began to be honed. N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote about the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin at that time: “Among the masses of the people, the name of Mr. Shchedrin, when it becomes known there, will always be pronounced with respect and gratitude: he loves this people, he sees many kind people, noble, though undeveloped or misdirected instincts in these humble, simple-minded workers. He protects them from all sorts of talented people and mediocre shy people; he treats them without any denial. In “Bogomolets” his contrast is magnificent between the simple-minded faith, the living, fresh feelings of common people and the arrogant emptiness of General Daria Mikhailovna or the disgusting fanfare of the tax farmer Khreptyugin.” But in these works Shchedrin does not yet possess the fullness of the satirical palette: the psychological portraits of officials, bribe-takers, bureaucrats, although supported by telling names, like that of this Khreptyugin, the backbone of the people, do not yet bear the stamp of evil accusatory laughter, with which the heroes are already branded “ Stories of one city.” In general, if “The History of a City” were not such a talented and profound work that it is, it could be used as a textbook on the forms and methods of using satire. It has everything: techniques of satirical fiction, unbridled hyperbolization of images, grotesque, Aesopian language of allegory, parody of various institutions of statehood and political problems.
“Problems of political life are those problems in whose artistic interpretation Shchedrin abundantly includes hyperbole and fantasy. The more acute the political problems addressed by the satirist, the more hyperbolic and fantastic his images” 2.224. For example, Saltykov-Shchedrin described the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of government officials engaged in robbing the people before, but only in “The History of a City” does Brudasty appear with his empty head, in which is built an organ with two romances “I’ll Ruin!” and “I won’t tolerate it!” All the contempt that the author was capable of expressing for such figures is expressed in this grotesque image, conveyed in an allegedly fantastic way. But the author’s hint that such figures are not uncommon in Russian reality has a much more acute effect on public opinion. The image of Brudasty is fantastic and therefore funny. And laughter is a weapon. It helps an intelligent person to correctly assess a phenomenon or a person, and figures like Brudasty, having recognized themselves, are also forced to laugh, otherwise everyone would not know about their empty head. Here, the author, in addition, uses the technique of assigning telling surnames to his characters (Brudasty is a special breed of ferocious shaggy dogs) - and here we get the famous Shchedrin character: a stupid, ferocious man with a furry soul.
And then one can imagine what will happen to the people given over to such a ruler. “Unheard of activity suddenly began to boil in all parts of the city; private bailiffs galloped off; the policemen galloped; The guards forgot what it meant to eat, and from then on they acquired the bad habit of grabbing pieces on the fly. They seize and catch, flog and flog, describe and sell... and above all this hubbub, above all this confusion, like the cry of a bird of prey, the ominous “I will not tolerate it!” reigns. 44.20. A characteristic feature of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s satire is that he draws portraits of his heroes with special care, with great psychologism, and only then these heroes, as if independently, based on the portrait drawn by the author, begin to live and act.
All this is reminiscent of a puppet theater, which the author repeatedly mentioned in different periods of his life, as in the fairy tale “The Toy Business of Little People”: “A living doll tramples a living person with its heel.” It is not without reason that the contemporary artist A.I. Lebedev, in his cartoon drawing, depicted Shchedrin as a collector of dolls, which he mercilessly pins to the pages of his books with his sharp satire. An example of such living dolls in “The History of a City” can be called Wartkin’s tin soldiers, who, having entered the robes, filled with blood and ferocity, attack the houses of the residents of Foolov and in a few moments destroy them to the ground. A real soldier, in the understanding of Saltykov-Shchedrin, as a native of the same people, who is also called upon to protect the people from the enemy, cannot and should not speak out against the people. Only tin soldiers and dolls are able to forget their roots, bringing pain and destruction to their people 10.19. And yet, in “The History of a City” there is one purely fantastic period. This is the period of the reign of the gendarme officer - Colonel Pryshch (although in the “Inventory to the Mayors” he is only a major). But here, too, Saltykov-Shchedrin remains true to his manner: in that Pyshch turned out to have a stuffed head, which was bitten off by a certain voluptuous leader of the nobility, most likely the state councilor Ivanov following Pyshch, who “died in 1819 from strain, trying to comprehend some Senate decree” 44.17; there is nothing unusual in this fact for Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Even before “The History of a City,” the author drew images of officials eating each other. Envy and collusion, even to the point of palace coups, are such a characteristic feature of Russian reality that, no matter how the author tries to more naturally and more plausibly describe the fantastic eating of a head, doused with vinegar and mustard by the leader of the nobility, none of the readers has any doubt that the speech it is precisely about envy, a vile and dirty feeling that pushes a person to meanness and even to kill an opponent, preventing him from taking a sweet spot 10.21.
The fantasy of this period lies in something else: how could it happen that under the rule of the gendarme Pryshch, the city of Foolov “was brought to such prosperity, which the chronicles had not imagined since its very foundation”
The Foolovites suddenly had “two and three times as much as before,” 44.107, and Pimple looked at this prosperity and rejoiced. And it was impossible not to rejoice at him, because the general abundance was reflected in him. His barns were bursting with offerings made in kind; the chests did not hold silver and gold, and the banknotes simply lay on the floor” 44.105. The fantastic nature of such prosperity of the people lies precisely in the fact that in the entire history of Russia there has not been a single period when the people lived calmly and richly. Most likely, Saltykov-Shchedrin, with his characteristic corrosive sarcasm, is depicting here the habit that has taken root in Russia to show off, to build “Potemkin villages”

Essay on literature on the topic: The artistic originality of the novel “The History of a City”

Other writings:

1. The difficult sixties of the last century for Russia turned out to be the most fruitful and important for M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. For ten years (from 1858 to 1868), excluding two and a half years (1862-1864), Saltykov served as vice-governor in Tver and Ryazan, chairman of the state Read More ......
2. The work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, a democrat for whom the autocratic-serf system reigning in Russia was absolutely unacceptable, had a satirical orientation. The writer was outraged by the Russian society of “slaves and masters”, the outrages of the landowners, the obedience of the people, and in all his works he exposed the “ulcers” of society, cruelly ridiculed its vices Read More ......
3. The story of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “The History of a City” is a cycle of stories that are not related to each other by plot or the same characters, but are combined into one work due to a common goal - a satirical depiction of the political structure of Russia contemporary to Saltykov-Shchedrin. “The story of one Read More......
4. The novel “The History of a City” (1869-1870) is a complex and ambiguous work. Immediately after its publication, Saltykov-Shchedrin was accused of insulting the Russian people and distorting national history. The author himself asserted: “I am not ridiculing history at all, but the well-known order Read More ......
5. Saltykov resorts only to this kind of caricature, which exaggerates the truth as if through a magnifying glass, but never completely distorts its essence. I. S. Turgenev. The indispensable and first means of satire in “The History of a City” is hyperbolic exaggeration. Satire is a kind of Read More ......
6. The history of the city of Foolov, told by Saltykov-Shchedrin, has an ending no less significant than the entire previous story. Sad, evoking compassion for the Russian people and indignation at the rule of numerous mayors, the book of the democratic writer was directed against Russian autocratic despotism, bourgeois hypocritical and predatory satiety, human thoughtlessness, Read More......
7. Saltykov-Shchedrin is an original writer who occupies a special place in Russian literature. In his work, he showed the social shortcomings of the social structure of Russia, painted life without embellishment, but not only gave a list of vices and abuses, but also caustically ridiculed them. Saltykov-Shchedrin worked in Read More......
8. The main themes of the works of M. E, Saltykov-Shchedrin are the denunciation of the autocracy, the ruling class, as well as the problem of the people. Folklore traditions are strong in fairy tales and in the novel “The Story of a City.” Many fairy tales begin like Russian folk art: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner” Read More ......