The image of the left-hander in the tale Leskova NS And features of the n national character

When the reader in our country thinks about the Russian national character, the first writer who comes to his mind is, of course, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. The second portrait, appearing before the inner gaze of the domestic book reader, is the face of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. But there is one classic, which in this context, as a rule, is forgotten (or not so often mentioned) - Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Meanwhile, his works are also full of "Russian spirit", and they also reveal not only the features of the national national character, but also the specifics of all Russian life.

In this sense, Leskov's story "Lefty" stands apart. In it with extraordinary accuracy and depth all the flaws in the device of domestic life and all the heroism of the Russian people are reproduced. People, as a rule, now do not have time to read the collected works of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but they must find the time to open a book on the cover of which it is written: NS Leskov "Lefty."

Plot

The narrative begins presumably in 1815. Emperor Alexander the First, making a voyage across Europe, visits and England. The British really want to surprise the emperor-emperor, and at the same time to boast of the skills of their masters and for several days drive him to different rooms and show all sorts of amazing things, but the main thing is that they have brought to the finale a filigree work: a steel flea who knows how to dance. Moreover, it is so small that it can not be considered without a microscope. Our king was very surprised, but his attendant - the Don Cossack Platov absolutely not. He, on the contrary, all the time buhtel, that our, they say, can not be worse.

Soon Alexander the First died, and Nikolai the First ascended to the throne , who accidentally discovered a strange thing and decided to check the words of Platov, equipping him with the Tula masters for a visit. The Cossack came, instructed the gunsmiths and went home, promising to return in two weeks.

The masters, including Lefty, retired to the house of the main hero of the skaz and did something for two weeks, until Platov returned. Local residents heard an uninterrupted knock, and the masters themselves during this time so from the lefty's home never came out. They turned into hermits until the work was done.

Platov arrives. He is taken out the same flea in the box. He throws himself in a frenzy in the carriage of the first handy craftsman (he turned out to be a left-hander) and goes to Petersburg to the king "on the carpet." Of course, Lefty got to the king not immediately, he was pre-beaten and held for a short time in prison.

Bloch appears before the bright eyes of the monarch. He looks-looks at her and can not understand what the Tula people did. And the prince and his courtiers fought over the secret, then the king-father ordered to invite Left-handed, and he told him that he should take and look not at the whole flea, but only at her feet. No sooner said than done. It turned out that the Tula people shod the English flea.

Then the curiosity was returned to the British, and in words was given roughly the following: "We also can do something." Here we pause in the storyline and talk about what the image of the Left-hander in Leskov's fairy tale NS

Left-handed: between the armourer and the holy fool

The appearance of the Left-hander testifies to his "supremacy": "The oblique left-hander, the patch on the cheek is a birthmark, and on the temples the hair is torn off at the temples". When Lefty came to the king, he was also dressed in a very peculiar way: "in a shirt, one trousers in a boot, the other is winding, and the old knife is old, the hooks are not clasped, lost, and the collar is torn." He spoke with the king as it is, not observing manners and not sneering, if not on an equal footing with the sovereign, then certainly without fear of power.

People who are even slightly interested in history will recognize this portrait - this is a description of the ancient Russian holy fool, he never was afraid of anyone, because he was followed by the Christian Truth and God.

Dialogue between the Left-hander and the English. Continuation of the plot

After a small digression, we turn again to the plot, but we will not forget the image of the Left-hander in Leskov's tale.

The English were so delighted with the work that they demanded the master to serve them, without hesitation for a second. The king respected the English, equipped the left-hander and sent them to the escort. In the voyage of the protagonist to England there are two important points: a conversation with the English (Leskov's story "Left-hander" is perhaps the most entertaining in this part) and the fact that Margaret Thatcher's ancestors , unlike Russians, do not clean the gun barrels with bricks.

Why did the English want to leave Lefty?

The Russian land is full of nuggets, and they do not pay much attention to it, and in Europe they immediately see "unrestricted diamonds". The English elite, once looking at Left-handed, immediately realized that he was a genius, and they decided to leave our gentleman in his place, to learn, to clean, to enrich, but there it was!

Left-handed them said that he does not want to stay in England, he does not want to study, he lacks his education - the Gospel and the "Half-Sleeper." He does not need money, women, too.

The left-hander was hardly persuaded to stay a little longer and to look at Western technologies for the production of guns and other things. The latest technologies of that time were not very interesting for our craftsman, but he took very close attention to the storage of old guns. Studying them, Lefty understood: the British do not clean the gun barrels with bricks, which makes the guns more reliable in combat.

Despite this discovery, the protagonist of the story still yearned for the Motherland and asked the British to send him home as soon as possible. On land it was impossible to send, for Lefty did not know any languages, except Russian. By sea, to swim in autumn, too, was unsafe, because it is uneasy at this time of year. And yet they equipped Levsha, and he sailed on the ship to the Motherland.

During the journey he found himself a drinking companion, and they drank with him all the way, but not from merriment, but from boredom and fear.

How the bureaucracy killed a man

When friends on the ship were seated ashore in St. Petersburg, the Englishman was sent to the place where all foreign citizens should be, to the "messenger house", and Lefty was sent in a sick state through the bureaucratic circles of hell. No one in the city hospital could attach it without documents, except for the one where they were supposed to die. Moreover, different officials said that Levsha should be helped, but the trouble is: no one is responsible for anything and no one can do anything. So the left-hander died in a hospital for the poor, and on his lips there was only one phrase: "Tell the king-father that the guns can not be cleaned with bricks." He still told one of the servants of the sovereign, but she never reached the Almighty. Can you guess why?

This is almost all on the topic "NS. Leskov "Lefty", the content is short. "

The image of the Left-hander in Leskov's tale and the model of the fate of a creative person in Russia

After reading the work of the Russian classic, the conclusion involuntarily arises: there is simply no hope of surviving with a creative, ingenious person in Russia. His or nehristi-bureaucrats will be tortured, or he will destroy himself from the inside, and not because he has some unresolved psychological problems, but because a Russian person is not able to simply live, his share is to die, burning in life like a meteorite In the atmosphere of the earth. This is how Lefty's image in Leskov's fairy tale turns out to be contradictory: on the one hand, genius and craftsman, and on the other hand, a person with a serious destructive element inside, capable of self-liquidation in conditions when this is least expected.