In the old days, an old man and an old woman lived in the same village, and they had an only son, Abzalil. The old man and the old woman were very poor. They had no livestock or other wealth. Soon the old people died. Little Abzalil was left alone. From his father he got only an armful of bast.
Once Abzalil took an armful of bast and went to big lake. He plunged an armful of bast into the lake, wetted it, made a bast and began to twist it: he wanted to twist a long rope. While he was pitching it, the owner of the lake came out of the water and asked:
What are you doing, geeta?
Abzalil replied:
But I’ll finish twisting the rope and drag the lake to my home.
The owner of the lake was frightened and said:
Leave it, eget! Don't touch the lakes. I'll give you everything you want.
Abzalil thought. What should he ask of the mighty owner of water? And he decided to ask for what he had long wanted. And he wanted to get a good horse. And this place was famous for good horses.
Give me the best horse, then I will leave the lake in place, - said Abzalil.
No, hey! I can't give you a horse. The horse will leave - I will not have glory, - said the owner of the lake.
As you wish, it's up to you. And I'll drag the lake, - said Abzalil and continued to twist the rope.
The owner of the lake became thoughtful. He thought a little and said to Abzalil:
Eh, eget, if you are such a hero and can drag my lake, let's compete! If you win, I will grant your wish. Let's race around the lake. Overtake me - and your victory!
Okay, Abzalil said. - Only I have a younger brother in the cradle: if you overtake him, then I will compete with you.
Where is your little brother? asked the owner of the lake.
My younger brother is sleeping in the bushes, go there, rustle with brushwood - he will immediately run, - said Abzalil.
The owner of the lake went into the bushes, rustled with brushwood, and a hare ran out from there. The owner of the lake rushed to run after him, but could not catch up with him.
The owner of the lake approached Abzalil and said:
Well, eget, let's compete up to three times! Now we will fight.
Abzalil agreed. He said:
I have an eighty year old grandfather. If you knock him down, the lake will be yours. My grandfather lies in a willow. Go hit him with a stick, then he will fight you.
The owner of the lake went to the willow tree and hit the sleeping grandfather with a stick. And it was a bear. An angry bear jumped up, grabbed the owner of the lake with his mighty paws and immediately knocked him down.
The owner of the lake barely escaped from the bear's paws. He ran to Abzalil and said:
Your grandfather is strong! And I won't fight you!
After that, the owner of the lake said to Abzalil:
I have a sixty-yard piebald mare. Let's carry her around the lake on our shoulders.
Carry you first, and then I'll try, - said Abzalil.
The owner of the lake picked up a sixty-yard piebald mare on his shoulders and carried her around the lake. Then he said to Abzalil:
Well, eget, carry it around now.
Abzalil threw down the rope, went up to the huge mare and said to the owner of the lake:
I see you're not that strong. You lift her on your shoulders, and I'll carry her between her legs.
Abzalil sat on his horse and galloped around the lake.
The owner of the lake sees that now he will have to fulfill his promise. He brought the best horse and gave it to Abzalil. The horse was good: gray, frisky, skittish, with hard hooves, shaggy bangs and a short mane. His grandmothers were tall, thighs like a hare, chest like a kite, narrow croup, high withers, spine like a pike, sharp ears, copper eyes, sunken cheeks, pointed chin.
Abzalil sat on a handsome savras horse and galloped home.
Since then, they say, there are good horses in Abzalilov, and all the egets there are brave fellows.
WHO IS STRONGER
There was once an old man and an old woman, and they had a daughter. When the daughter grew up, the old man and the old woman began to think: what kind of groom would she find?
I will marry her off to the strongest man in the world,” said the old man.
And so, in order to find the strongest, the old man set off. He had to somehow walk on the ice. The ice was slippery, the old man slipped and fell. The old man got angry and said:
Oh, ice, you seem to be very strong! Otherwise, you would not have been able to knock me down so quickly. Be my daughter's fiance!
Ice and says in response:
If I were strong, I wouldn't melt in the sun. Then the old man went to the sun and said:
O sun! Ice melts from you. Therefore, you are stronger than him - be the groom of my daughter!
The sun replies:
If I were strong, the cloud could not cover me. Then the old man went to the cloud.
Cloud! Cloud! You cover even the sun, be my daughter's fiance!
Cloud answers:
If I had been strong, the rain would not have penetrated through me. The old man went to the rain and says:
O rain! You seem to be very strong, you even break through a cloud. Be my daughter's fiance!
Rain and says in response:
If I were strong, the earth would not drink me to the drop. Then the old man sank to the ground and addressed her:
Oh earth! You are the strongest of all: you even drink the rain to the drop. Be my daughter's fiance!
And the earth says:
If I were strong, the weed wouldn't break through me. Then the old man went to the grass and said to her:
Grass! You even break through the ground, so you are very strong. Be my daughter's fiance!
Weed says:
If I were strong, the bull wouldn't eat me. The old man went to the bull:
Hey, bull, you are, in any way, very strong - you even eat grass. Be my daughter's fiance!
Bull replies:
If I were strong, the knife wouldn't stab me. The old man went to the knife:
Knife! You prick even a bull. So you are the strongest. Be my daughter's fiance!
The knife says:
If I were strong, a person would not turn me around as he wanted. No, I'm not strong.
The man, it turns out, is the strongest of all, - the old man said then and gave his daughter for a man who was the strongest of all.
HUNTER YULDYBAY
“The one who separates from people will be torn to pieces by a bear, the one who lags behind will be eaten by a wolf,” says an old Bashkir proverb. “When you go to a wild beast, you need to go in agreement with each other, be friendly and help out a comrade,” the old hunters in the Urals say.
Yuldybay's comrades were not like that, which is why the young hunter almost died. Yuldybay was the son of an old, experienced Ural hunter Yankhara. The owner of the forest is a clumsy bear, the lover of other people's calves is a sharp-toothed, thick-tailed wolf, the lover of ducks and chickens is a cunning fox, a cowardly long-eared hare - they were all like obedient rams in the hands of the old hunter Yankhara.
Yankhary lived on the edge of a small aul with his wife; they had an only son, whose name was Yuldybay.
From an early age, Yuldybay went hunting with his father. No matter how much they hunted, the young batyr never got tired. Whatever animal they met, Yuldybai did not coward, but boldly helped his father.
You are a faithful and reliable comrade, - old Yankhary told his son, and this made the young hunter Yuldybai very happy.
But Yuldybai did not have to hunt with his father for long. The old hunter died. Yuldybay was left alone with his mother. They lived in poverty.
Young Yuldybai took his father's quiver and arrow and began to go hunting alone. With this he fed himself and his mother.
One day, two of Yuldybai's peers asked him to go hunting. Yuldybai agreed, and the three of them went into the forest. It was summer. The hunters got into the raspberry bush. As red beads adorn the neck of a girl, so raspberries flaunted on the edge of the forest. Not far from the hunters, near an old elm tree, someone was walking heavily. It was a bear. The bear growled in a terrible voice at the sight of the hunters.
Take out your daggers, all as one, let's attack the clubfoot! - Yuldybai said to his comrades.
He drew his dagger and, like an arrow shot from a bow, rushed at the bear. And Yuldybai's companions got scared and ran back without looking back. They ran home and told Yuldybai's mother that her son had been torn to pieces by a bear.
That's not what friends in trouble do! They left my son to be torn apart by a bear, and they themselves ran away like hares! Yuldybai's mother screamed.
She took her husband's old sword and said:
Where is my son's body? Come along, show me! If you are a coward even in my presence, then I will not throw myself at the bear, but at you!
They went to where Yuldybay stayed with the bear. We went through the raspberries. Quietly approached a huge old lonely elm.
They heard a faint, indistinct groan and heavy sighs.
A dying bear lay under a large tree. A deep-seated dagger stuck into his chest. Bloody Yuldybai was lying near the bear. He was unconscious. The three of them tore off the skin from the bear and wrapped the weakened Yuldybai in it; They smeared his wounds with bear fat and carried him home in their arms.
Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a smithy at the big Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand, and coal to the smithy, fanned the forge with fur, kept hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, put the horse into the machine to forge it, and did all the other work that needed to be done. They called him Yefim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and a beard, sparse gray hair grew separately; his eyes were white, like those of a blind man, and there was always moisture in them, like never-ceasing tears.
Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the smithy, and in the evening he went back to sleep. The owner fed him bread, cabbage soup and porridge for his work, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka did not drink tea and did not buy sugar, he drank water, and wore clothes long years the same without changing: in the summer he went about in trousers and a blouse, black and smoked from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body could be seen, and barefoot, in the winter he put on over his blouse another short fur coat, from his dead father, and shod his feet in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.
When Yushka walked down the street to the smithy early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young. And in the evening, when Yushka went to sleep, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - out and Yushka had already gone to bed.
And small children, and even those who had become teenagers, when they saw old Yushka quietly wandering, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:
There Yushka is coming! There Yushka!
Children picked up dry branches, pebbles, rubbish in handfuls from the ground and threw them at Yushka.
Yushka! the children shouted. Are you really Yushka?
The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, into which pebbles and earthen rubbish fell.
The children were surprised Yushka that he was alive, but he himself was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:
Yushka, are you true or not?
Then the children again threw objects at him from the ground, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he would not scold them, take a twig and chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another such person, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Touching Yushka with their hands or hitting him, they saw that he was hard and alive.
Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - let him be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry at Yushka. It was boring and not good for them to play if Yushka is always silent, does not frighten them and does not chase after them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he responded to them with evil and cheered them up. Then they would run away from him, and in fright, in joy, they would again tease him from afar and call to them, then running away to hide in the dusk of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and orchards. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.
When the children completely stopped Yushka or hurt him too much, he told them:
Why are you, my relatives, what are you, little ones! .. You must love me! .. Why do you all need me?
The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They rejoiced that you can do whatever you want with him, but he does nothing for them.
Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children love him, that they need him, only they do not know how to love a person and do not know what to do for love, and therefore they torment him.
At home, fathers and mothers reproached the children when they studied poorly or did not obey their parents: “Here you will be the same as Yushka! “Grow up and you’ll walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everyone will torment you, and you won’t drink tea with sugar, but only water!”
Adult elderly people, having met Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Grown-up people have had evil grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the smithy or to the courtyard for the night, an adult said to him:
Why are you so blessed, unlike walking around here? What do you think is so special?
Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.
You have no words, what an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, but secretly think nothing! Tell me, will you live like this? You will not? Aha! .. Well, okay!
And after the conversation, during which Yushka was silent, the adult was convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. From the meekness of Yushka, an adult man came to bitterness and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.
Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up himself, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she raised him and took him away with her.
It would be better if you died, Yushka, - said the master's daughter. - Why do you live? Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he
born to live.
It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, their will was, - answered Yushka, - I can’t die, and I help your father in the forge.
There would be another in your place, what an assistant!
Dasha, people love me! Dasha laughed.
You now have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn off, and you say - the people love you! ..
He loves me without a clue, ”said Yushka. - The heart in people is blind.
Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! Dasha said. - Go faster, eh! They love according to their hearts, but they beat you according to calculation.
By calculation, they are angry with me, it's true, - Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk the street and mutilate my body.
Oh, Yushka, Yushka! Dasha sighed. - And you, father said, are not old yet!
How old I am! .. I have been suffering from breastfeeding since childhood, it was I who blundered from the disease and became old ...
Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have lived relatives. Nobody knew who they were.
Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece lived there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and at other times, that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushkin’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, just as gentle and superfluous to people, as Father.
In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack of bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of herbs and forests, looked at the white clouds that were born in the sky, floating and dying in the light air warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers, muttering on stone rifts, and Yushka's sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bowed to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them, so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark on the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles that had fallen dead from the path, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling himself without them. orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hardworking grasshoppers published in the grass funny sounds, and therefore Yushka's soul was light, the sweet air of flowers, smelling of moisture and sunlight, entered his chest.
On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a roadside tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested, having recovered his breath in the field, he no longer remembered the illness and walked merrily on, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but the disease had long tormented him and made him old before his time, so that he seemed to everyone to be decrepit.
AT harsh years severe trials that befell the people during the Great Patriotic War, the writer turns to the theme of childhood in order to find and show the most intimate sources in a person.
In the stories "Nikita", "Still Mom", " iron old woman", "Flower on the ground", "Cow", "Little soldier", "At the dawn of foggy youth", "Grandfather-soldier", "Dry bread", creating images of children, the writer consistently holds the idea that a person is formed as a social, moral being in early childhood.
“Still Mom” was first published in the magazine “Vozhaty”, 1965, No. 9. “A mother, giving birth to a son, always thinks: are you the one?” Platonov wrote in his notes. Memories of his first teacher A. N. Kulagina acquire in Plato's prose the inherent high symbolic meaning. "Mother" in the world of artistic Platonic prose is a symbol of the soul, feelings, "necessary homeland", "salvation from unconsciousness and oblivion." That is why the "still mother" - the one who introduces the child into the "beautiful and furious" world, teaches to walk along its roads, gives moral guidelines.
The behavior of an adult as a patriot, defender of his homeland, the writer explains by this most important and defining childhood experience. For a small person, the knowledge of the surrounding world turns out to be a difficult process of knowing oneself. In the course of this cognition, the hero must take a certain position in relation to his social environment. The choice of this position is extremely important, since it determines all subsequent human behavior.
Platonov's world of childhood is a special cosmos, entry into which is not allowed to everyone on an equal footing. This world is a prototype of a large universe, its social portrait, blueprint and outline of hopes and great losses. The image of a child in the prose of the 20th century is always deeply symbolic. The image of a child in Platonov's prose is not only symbolic - it is poignantly concrete: it is ourselves, our life, its opportunities and its losses ... truly, "great is the world in childhood ...".
“A child learns to live for a long time,” writes in notebooks Platonov, - he is self-taught, but he is also helped by older people who have already learned to live, to exist. Watching the development of consciousness in a child and his awareness of the surrounding unknown reality is a joy for us.
Platonov is a sensitive and attentive researcher of childhood. Sometimes the very name of the story ("Nikita") is given by the name of the child - the protagonist of the work. In the center of the July Thunderstorm are nine-year-old Natasha and her brother Antoshka.
"The Origin of the Master" before the reader in unforgettable detail pass the childhood, adolescence and youth of Sasha Dvanov, unique children's images in other Platonic stories. Afonya from the story “A Flower on the Earth”, Aydym from the story “Dzhan”, easily remembered, although not named, children from the stories “The Motherland of Electricity”, “Fro”, “Moon Bomb” ...
Each of these children is endowed from birth with precious properties necessary for harmonious physical and spiritual growth: an unconscious sense of the joy of being, greedy curiosity and irrepressible energy, innocence, goodwill, the need to love and act.
“... In youth,” Platonov wrote, “there is always the possibility of the noble greatness of the coming life: if only human society does not mutilate, distort, destroy this gift of nature, inherited by every baby.”
However, not only a special interest in childhood and youth as decisive moments human life, the preferred image of a young hero or frank instructiveness, but also by the very essence of his talent, striving to cover the whole world, as if with a single, unprejudiced and all-pervading look, Platonov is close to the young. It is not for nothing that his first books and The Secret Man (1928) were published by the Young Guard publishing house, and the last lifetime collections Soldier's Heart (1946), The Magic Ring (1950) and others were published by the Children's Literature publishing house.
It would seem that the circumstances of the life of two poor little fellows, Sasha and Proshka Dvanov, who live in a poor peasant family, differ little. The only difference is that Sasha is an orphan, adopted in Proshkin's house. But this is enough to gradually form characters that are basically diametrically opposed: the disinterested, honest, recklessly kind and open to all people Sasha and the cunning, predatory, smart, dodgy Proshka
Of course, the point is not that Sasha is an orphan, but that, with the help of good people- Proshkina's mother, but most of all Zakhar Pavlovich - Sasha overcomes his biographical orphanhood, and social orphanhood. "The country of former orphans" called Soviet Russia Platonov in the 30s. As if about Sasha Dvanov, independent, who has known the true price of bread and human kindness, Mikhail Prishvin said, looking back from the forties, in the story-tale “Ship Thicket”: “The time of our national orphanhood is over, and new person goes down in history with a feeling of selfless love for his mother - his native land - not a full consciousness of his cultural world dignity.
Prishvin's thought is organically close to Platonov. Mother - Motherland - Father - Fatherland - family - home - nature - space - earth - this is another series of basic concepts characteristic of Plato's prose. “Mother ... is the closest relative of all people,” we read in one of the writer's articles. What amazingly poignant images of the mother are captured on the pages of his books: Vera and Gulchatai ("Jan"), Lyuba Ivanova ("Return"), the nameless ancient old woman in the "Motherland of Electricity" ... It seems that they embody all the hypostases of motherhood, which yourself and love, and selflessness, and strength, and wisdom, and forgiveness.
The history of the formation of a person as a spiritualized personality is the main theme of A. Platonov's stories, the heroes of which are children. Analyzing the story "Nikita", where the hero of this story, the peasant boy Nikita, overcoming age-related egocentrism with difficulty and difficulty, reveals himself from the side of his kindness, is formed as a "Kind Whale" (under this title the story was published in the magazine "Murzilka").
The image of the complex process of the transition of a hotel person to life "with everyone and for everyone" is dedicated to A. Platonov's story "Still Mom". The hero of this story, the young Artem, through the image of his mother, learns and comprehends the whole world, joins the great community of people of his homeland.
In the stories "The Iron Old Woman" and "The Flower on the Ground" the same hero - a little man, but under a different name - Egor, Afonya, in the process of knowing the world for the first time encounters good and evil, determines for himself the main life tasks and goals - finally defeat the greatest evil - death ("The Iron Old Woman"), discover the secret of the greatest good - eternal life ("Flower on Earth").
The path to a feat in the name of life on earth, its moral origins and roots are manifested in the wonderful story "At the Dawn of Misty Youth", which testifies to the unity of the problematics and detailing in the writer's work of the war and pre-war years.
On the connections of creativity. A. Platonov with folklore was written by both folklorists and ethnographers, without focusing on the fact that the narrator's thought is aimed primarily at revealing the moral side of the actions of the heroes of the tale. The connection between A. Platonov's creativity and folklore is much deeper and more organic. In a number of stories ("Nikita", "Still Mom", "Ulya", "Fro"). A. Platonov refers to the compositional scheme fairy tale described in the classic work of V. Ya. Propp. A. Platonov does not write fairy tales, but stories, but they are based on archaic genre structures. In that genre originality many stories of A. Platonov, which is explained not only by the stability of genre forms, but also by the peculiarities of the writer's artistic thinking, focused on the analysis and depiction of the root causes and fundamental principles of human existence.
Usually such stylistic means of creation artistic expressiveness, as a metaphor, metonymy, personification are considered as elements of poetics. With regard to a number of works by A. Platonov ("Nikita", "The Iron Old Woman", "Still Mom", "At the Dawn of Misty Youth"), we can talk about the usual use of these techniques as stylistic devices it is forbidden. The peculiarity of their use by A. Platonov lies in the fact that in the stories, the heroes of which are children, they have become a natural and organic form of perception of the world. It should not be about metaphor, but metaphorization, not about metonymy, but metonymization, not about personification, but about personifying apperception and its varieties. This "style" appears especially clearly in the story "Nikita". The way of cognition and perception of the world through one or another emotionally colored and ethically significant image-concept is almost the norm for the heroes of A. Platonov's works.
So, the hero of the story "Still Mom" "makes" his way into Big world people of their homeland, armed with a single "tool" - the image-concept of their own mother. The hero, metaphorically and metonymically trying it on to all unknown creatures, things and phenomena of the surrounding world, through this image expands his inner world. This is how A. Platonov depicts the first meeting of a person with his homeland, a complex and difficult path of self-knowledge and socialization of a person.