Brief summary of the story matrenin yard. "Matryonin's yard. What happened after the event on the railroad

Ignatich- the guest who leads the story. He comes to the outback to work as a teacher;
Matryona- a single woman of 60 years old, with whom the narrator lived as a lodger; It is she who acts as the main character of his story;
Yefim- Matrona's husband;
Thaddeus- the elder brother of Yefim, who once loved her;
Kira- the adopted daughter of Matryona, her niece;
Masha- A friend of Matryona.

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Ignatich's story begins in the summer of 1956, when he had just returned from Kazakhstan to Russia. Despite his background and difficulties in finding employment, he wanted to work as a teacher. And he was able to find such a job in the Ryazan outback, 184 kilometers from Moscow.

Despite the fact that a teacher guest was a rarity in these parts, who, in addition to additional income, promised a free peat truck for the winter from the school, it was difficult to find an apartment. Almost all the houses were small and, moreover, overcrowded. The only suitable one was the house of the lonely Matrena on the very outskirts.

It was clear that the house was spacious, it was built for a large family, but now a lonely old woman lived here. And she was not to say that she was very pleased with the guests. Lately she has been unwell and has been spending a lot of time on the stove.

The guest settled down on a folding bed near the window, where he also placed a table and books. In addition to them, a rickety cat, as well as flocks of mice and cockroaches, have long lived in the house. Having entered here, Ignatich realized that he would stop here.

Daily chores and the ensuing calm

Matryona got up at 4 in the morning, went out into the yard, milked a goat, and prepared monotonous food: soup, potatoes and barley porridge. But this did not bother Ignatich at all.

This autumn turned out to be difficult and even “offensive” for the hostess. At that time, a new “pension law” came out, according to which it was supposed to “earn” for a pension, since 25 years of work on a collective farm were for workdays, and not for wages. It was also impossible to get disability due to illness. Getting a survivor's pension seemed no less troublesome. The husband - then he was not alive for more than 15 years - where to collect all the certificates about his experience?

All this was accompanied by endless certificates and papers that had to be carried back and forth for tens of kilometers to village councils and social security agencies. This red tape exhausted an already sick woman, and no one canceled the work in the garden and the collection of peat. It was supposed to be judged for peat, since it was not provided for residents and all belonged to the trust. According to Matryona, in order not to freeze, at least 3 cars were needed for the winter. Village women, including the mistress of the house, ran into the forest 5-6 times a day. They were often searched on the roads, but winter approached inevitably every year.

Ignatich often watched Matryona. Her day was filled with many things, and often not only her own. She had to run for peat, store hay for the goat for the winter, and lingonberries and potatoes for herself. For the miserable 15 acres allocated to her by the collective farm, she had to go to work. Neighbors, knowing the good nature of the old woman, called her to help in their gardens. The mistress of the house is not accustomed to refuse. Once every 1.5 months, she had a new concern - to feed the goat herders. All the women of the village did it in turn, so that they were no worse than others. Therefore, Matrena ran to the store for food that she herself had never eaten: canned food, sugar and butter.

At times, she could not get up from an illness, and then her old friend, Masha, took over all household chores. But she had no time to lie down for a long time, so soon she was already doing business. And yet, paperwork was not in vain: Matryona was given a pension of 80 rubles, and the school allocated 100 rubles for a teacher. On this occasion, even 3 sisters showed up with her, who had previously been afraid that they would have to help a relative. The old woman was glad that calm came and even hid 200 rubles for the funeral.

The fate of Matryona

Soon the hostess and the guest got used to each other. It turned out that Ignatich spent a long time in prison, which the old woman already guessed. The fate of Matryona also did not differ in great happiness. She got married a long time ago, even before the revolution, and since then she has lived in this house. She gave birth 6 times, but all the children died before they reached 3 months. The husband went to the front and did not return. But she had, nevertheless, one pupil - Kira.

Occasionally a tall old man, Thaddeus, visited her. As the old woman said later, this is her brother-in-law, whom she was supposed to marry. But I didn’t have time - the war began, and he was taken away. All the revolutions have already passed, but there was no news from him. And she married his brother Yefim, and a few months later Thaddeus also returned from captivity. He did not kill her only because of her brother.

Thaddeus soon married, choosing a girl with her own name. She bore him 6 children and was often beaten by her husband. The war broke out, Thaddeus had poor eyesight and was not taken, but Yefim left and did not return. Then, out of loneliness, Matrena “begged” her brother-in-law’s wife for her youngest daughter, Kira, whom she raised as her own and married.

The legacy and death of Matryona

The mistress of the house, suffering from illnesses, bequeathed part of the house to her adopted daughter, who soon came to her. It turned out that her family was allotted a plot in one of the villages where they could build a house, and for this the promised log house would come in handy. Her father seized on this idea and, without thinking twice, on one of the February days, brought 5 sons with axes to the house. For 2 weeks they tried to break down Matrona's house - at that time she completely surrendered, the cat disappeared, and the sisters who encroached on her hut scolded her.

It was decided to carry on 2 sledges, which were pulled by a tractor. It was necessary to cope in one night, and the old woman went with the men to help. A few hours later, railway workers came to the rest of the house.

Masha, a friend who arrived in time, told the terrible news. It turned out that the second sleigh got stuck on the railway tracks, the son of Thaddeus, the tractor driver and Matryona were trying to fix the cable, and at that time a steam locomotive without lights was turned back on the track. He took down all three of them. And no one heard the locomotive, as it was drowned out by a working tractor.

Kira and her husband suffered most of all, who almost hanged himself, realizing that because of this room, his wife's aunt and brother died, and later appeared before the court. As soon as it became known about the misfortune, the division of property began. The sisters seized the house and all the property in it, Thaddeus fussed for himself - he collected all the ruined log house at the crossing, and also acquired Matryona's shed and a goat. The house was boarded up, and Ignatich moved to Matrena's barn, which did not miss the opportunity to humiliate the old woman.

And only then does the man understand that it is on such righteous people who do not ask for anything for themselves, disinterested and timid, that the Russian village still rests. And not only the village, but our whole land.

Test on the story Matrenin Dvor

In the summer of 1956, at the one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow, a passenger got off along the railway line to Murom and Kazan. This is a narrator whose fate is reminiscent of the fate of Solzhenitsyn himself (he fought, but from the front he “delayed with the return of ten years”, that is, he spent time in the camp, which is also evidenced by the fact that when the narrator got a job, every letter in his documents "perepal"). He dreams of working as a teacher in the depths of Russia, away from urban civilization. But living in the village with the wonderful name High Field did not work out, because they did not bake bread and did not sell anything edible there. And then he is transferred to a village with a monstrous name for his hearing Peat product. However, it turns out that “not everything is around peat extraction” and there are also villages with the names Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudni, Shevertni, Shestimirovo ...

This reconciles the narrator with his share, for it promises him "condo Russia". In one of the villages called Talnovo, he settles. The mistress of the hut in which the narrator lodges is called Matryona Vasilievna Grigoryeva, or simply Matryona.

The fate of Matryona, about which she does not immediately, not considering it interesting for a "cultured" person, sometimes in the evenings tells the guest, fascinates and at the same time stuns him. He sees a special meaning in her fate, which is not noticed by fellow villagers and relatives of Matryona. The husband went missing at the beginning of the war. He loved Matryona and did not beat her like village husbands beat their wives. But Matryona herself hardly loved him. She was supposed to marry her husband's older brother, Thaddeus. However, he went to the front in the First World War and disappeared. Matryona was waiting for him, but in the end, at the insistence of the Thaddeus family, she married her younger brother, Yefim. And suddenly Thaddeus returned, who was in Hungarian captivity. According to him, he did not hack Matryona and her husband with an ax just because Yefim is his brother. Thaddeus loved Matryona so much that he found a new bride for himself with the same name. The “second Matryona” gave birth to Thaddeus six children, but the “first Matryona” had all the children from Yefim (also six) died before they even lived for three months. The whole village decided that Matryona was “spoiled”, and she herself believed in it. Then she took up the daughter of the “second Matryona” - Kira, raised her for ten years, until she got married and left for the village of Cherusti.

Matryona lived all her life as if not for herself. She constantly works for someone: for a collective farm, for neighbors, while doing “peasant” work, and never asks for money for it. There is a huge inner strength in Matryona. For example, she is able to stop a rushing horse on the run, which men cannot stop.

Gradually, the narrator realizes that it is precisely on people like Matryona, who give themselves to others without a trace, that the whole village and the whole Russian land still rests. But this discovery hardly pleases him. If Russia rests only on selfless old women, what will happen to her next?

Hence the absurdly tragic end of the story. Matryona dies helping Thaddeus and his sons to drag part of their own hut, bequeathed to Kira, across the railroad on a sleigh. Thaddeus did not want to wait for the death of Matryona and decided to take the inheritance for the young during her lifetime. Thus, he unwittingly provoked her death. When relatives bury Matryona, they cry more out of duty than from the heart, and think only about the final division of Matryona's property.

Thaddeus doesn't even come to the wake.

You have read the summary of the story Matrenin Dvor. We invite you to visit the Summary section for other essays by popular writers.

Solzhenitsyn's "Matryona Dvor" is a story about the tragic fate of an open woman, Matryona, who is not like her fellow villagers. First published in Novy Mir in 1963. Reading the summary of “Matryona Dvor” chapter by chapter is especially important for students in grade 9, in which the work is being studied.

The story is told in the first person. The protagonist becomes Matrena's tenant and talks about her amazing fate. The first title of the story, “A village is not worth without a righteous man,” conveyed the idea of a work about a pure, disinterested soul well, but was replaced in order to avoid problems with censorship.

The main characters of the story

Main characters:

The narrator is a middle-aged man who has served time in prison and wants a quiet, peaceful life in the Russian outback. Settled at Matryona and talks about the fate of the heroine.
Matrena is a lonely woman in her sixties. She lives alone in her hut, often gets sick.

Other characters:

Thaddeus is a former lover of Matryona, a tenacious, greedy old man.
Matryona's sisters are women who seek their own benefit in everything, Matryona is treated as a consumer.

"Matrenin Dvor" very brief content

A. Matrenin dvor summary for the reader's diary:

After the war and the camps, the author-narrator finds himself in the depths of Russia, in a small village called Talnovo, where he gets a job as a teacher and stays with a local resident Matryona Vasilievna Grigorieva.

Matryona had a difficult fate: she loved Thaddeus, and married his younger brother Yefim. All of her children died in infancy, so she was disliked in the village and considered "spoiled". She loved her husband's nephews very much and took in the upbringing of the girl Kira, whom she kept until her marriage.

Matrena does not think about herself, all her life she works for someone, she tries to help everyone without demanding any reward or even a kind word for it. Maybe for this in the village she is considered blessed. And the end of the story is tragic: Matryona dies on the railroad tracks, helping the same Thaddeus to drag half of her house, which she bequeathed to Kira. No one in the village really grieves about Matryona, relatives think only about the abandoned property.

The story is told in the first person, the author himself introduces himself as a narrator and shows elements of his own destiny in the story. The meeting with Matrena opened his eyes to such simple and, at first glance, ordinary women, on whom the whole world rests.

This is interesting: The story, grasping the soul and squeezing the heart, is set out in a short reader's diary, which every child and adult should periodically read.

A short retelling of Solzhenitsyn's "Marinin Dvor"

A. Solzhenitsyn Matrenin Dvor summary:

But living in the village with the wonderful name High Field did not work out, because they did not bake bread and did not sell anything edible there. And then he is transferred to a village with a monstrous name for his hearing Peat product. However, it turns out that “not everything is around peat extraction” and there are also villages with the names Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudni, Shevertni, Shestimirovo ...

The husband went missing at the beginning of the war. He loved Matryona and did not beat her like village husbands beat their wives. But Matryona herself hardly loved him. She was supposed to marry her husband's older brother, Thaddeus. However, he went to the front in the First World War and disappeared. Matryona was waiting for him, but in the end, at the insistence of the Thaddeus family, she married her younger brother, Yefim.

And suddenly Thaddeus returned, who was in Hungarian captivity. According to him, he did not hack Matryona and her husband with an ax just because Yefim is his brother. Thaddeus loved Matryona so much that he found a new bride for himself with the same name.

The “second Matryona” gave birth to Thaddeus six children, but the “first Matryona” had all the children from Yefim (also six) died before they even lived for three months. The whole village decided that Matryona was “spoiled”, and she herself believed in it. Then she took up the daughter of the “second Matryona” - Kira, raised her for ten years, until she got married and left for the village of Cherusti.

When relatives bury Matryona, they cry more out of duty than from the heart, and think only about the final division of Matryona's property.

Thaddeus doesn't even come to the wake.

The plot of the story "Matryona Dvor" by chapters

One hundred and eighty-four kilometers from Moscow, on the road to Kazan and Murom, train passengers were always surprised by a serious decrease in speed. People rushed to the windows and talked about the possible repair of the tracks. Passing this section, the train picked up its previous speed again. And the reason for the slowdown was known only to the machinists and the author.

Chapter 1

In the summer of 1956, the author was returning from "a burning desert at random just to Russia." His return "was dragged on for ten years," and he had no where, no one to rush to. The narrator wanted to go somewhere in the Russian hinterland with forests and fields.

He dreamed of "teaching" away from the bustle of the city, and he was sent to the town with the poetic name High Field. The author did not like it there, and he asked to be redirected to a place with a terrible name "Peat product". Upon arrival at the village, the narrator understands that it is "easier to come here than to leave later."

In addition to the hostess, mice, cockroaches, and a lame cat picked up out of pity lived in the hut.

Every morning, the hostess woke up at 5 am, afraid to oversleep, because she did not really trust her watch, which was already 27 years old. She fed her "dirty white crooked-horned goat" and prepared a simple breakfast for the guest.

Somehow Matryona learned from rural women that "a new pension law has come out." And Matryona began to seek a pension, but it was very difficult to get it, the different offices to which the woman was sent were located tens of kilometers from each other, and the day had to be spent, because of one signature.

People in the village lived poorly, despite the fact that peat bogs stretched for hundreds of kilometers around Talnovo, the peat from them "belonged to the trust." Rural women had to drag bags of peat for themselves for the winter, hiding from the raids of the guards. The land here was sandy, yielded by the poor.

People in the village often called Matryona to their garden, and she, leaving her business, went to help them. Talnovo women almost lined up to take Matryona to their garden, because she worked for pleasure, rejoicing at a good harvest from others.

Once a month and a half, the hostess had a turn to feed the shepherds. This dinner “driven Matryona into a big expense,” because she had to buy sugar, canned food, and butter. The grandmother herself did not allow herself such a luxury even for the holidays, living only on what the wretched garden gave her.

Matrena once told about the horse Volchka, who got scared and "carried the sleigh into the lake." “The men jumped back, and she grabbed the bridle and stopped.” At the same time, despite the seeming fearlessness, the hostess was afraid of the fire and, to the point of trembling in her knees, the train.

By the winter, Matryona nevertheless counted her pension. Neighbors began to envy her. And my grandmother finally ordered new felt boots for herself, a coat from an old overcoat, and hid two hundred rubles for the funeral.

Once, three of her younger sisters came to Matryona at Epiphany evenings. The author was surprised, because he had not seen them before. I thought maybe they were afraid that Matryona would ask them for help, so they didn’t come.

With the receipt of a pension, the grandmother seemed to come to life, and the work was easier for her, and the disease bothered less often. Only one event darkened my grandmother's mood: at Epiphany in the church, someone took her pot of holy water, and she was left without water and without a pot.

Chapter 2

Talnovo women asked Matryona about her lodger. And she passed questions to him. The author told the hostess only that he was in prison. He himself did not ask about the old woman's past, did not think that there was something interesting there. I only knew that she got married and came to this hut as a mistress. She had six children, but they all died. Later she had a pupil Kira. And Matrona's husband did not return from the war.

Somehow, having come home, the narrator saw an old man - Faddey Mironovich. He came to ask for his son - Antoshka Grigoriev. The author recalls that for this insanely lazy and arrogant boy, who was transferred from class to class just so as not to "spoil academic performance statistics", sometimes for some reason Matryona herself asked. After the petitioner left, the narrator learned from the hostess that it was the brother of her missing husband.

That evening she told him that she was to marry him. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Matrena loved Thaddeus. But he was taken to the war, where he went missing. Three years later, Thaddeus's mother died, the house was left without a mistress, and Thaddeus's younger brother, Efim, came to woo the girl. No longer hoping to see her beloved, Matryona got married in the hot summer and became the mistress of this house, and in the winter Thaddeus returned “from the Hungarian captivity”. Matryona threw herself at his feet, and he said that "if it were not for my brother, I would have chopped you both."

He later took “another Matryona” as his wife, a girl from a neighboring village, whom he chose as his wife only because of her name.

The author recalled how she came to the hostess and often complained that her husband beats and offends her. She bore Thaddeus six children. And Matryona's children were born and died almost immediately. It's the corruption, she thought.

Soon the war began, and Yefim was taken away from where he never returned. Lonely Matryona took little Kira from the "Second Matryona" and raised her for 10 years, until the girl married a driver and left. Since Matryona was very ill, she soon took care of the will, in which she awarded the pupil part of her hut - a wooden annex room.

Kira came to visit and said that in Cherusty (where she lives), in order to get land for young people, it is necessary to build some kind of building. For this purpose, the bequeathed Matryona chamber was very suitable. Thaddeus began to come often and persuade the woman to give her away now, during her lifetime. Matryona did not feel sorry for the upper room, but it was terrible to break the roof of the house. And so, on a cold February day, Thaddeus came with his sons and began to separate the upper room, which he once built with his father.

For two weeks the chamber lay near the house, because the blizzard covered all the roads. But Matryona was not herself, besides, her three sisters came and scolded her for allowing her to give up the upper room. In the same days, "the rickety cat wandered out of the yard and disappeared," which greatly upset the hostess.

Once, returning from work, the narrator saw how the old man Thaddeus drove a tractor and loaded a dismantled upper room onto two makeshift sledges. After they drank moonshine and in the dark they drove the hut to Cherusti. Matryona went to see them off, but never returned. At one in the morning the author heard voices in the village.

It turned out that the second sleigh, which, out of greed, Thaddeus attached to the first, got stuck on flights, crumbled. At that time, a steam locomotive was moving, because of the hillock it was not visible, because of the tractor engine it was not audible. He ran into a sleigh, one of the drivers, the son of Thaddeus and Matryona, died. Late at night, Matryona's friend Masha came, told about it, grieved, and then told the author that Matryona bequeathed her "bundle" to her, and she wants to take it in memory of her friend.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Matryona was going to be buried. The narrator describes how the sisters came to say goodbye to her, crying "for show" and blaming Thaddeus and his family for her death. Only Kira grieved sincerely for the deceased foster mother, and the “Second Matryona”, the wife of Thaddeus. The old man himself was not at the wake.

When they were transporting the ill-fated upper room, the first sleigh with boards and armor remained standing at the crossing. And, at a time when one of his sons died, his son-in-law was under investigation, and his daughter Kira almost lost her mind with grief, he only worried about how to deliver the sled home, and begged all his friends to help him.

After Matryona's funeral, her hut was "filled up until spring," and the author moved in with "one of her sister-in-laws." The woman often remembered Matryona, but all with condemnation. And in these memories a completely new image of a woman arose, which was so strikingly different from the people around. Matryona lived with an open heart, always helped others, never refused help to anyone, even though her health was poor.

A. I. Solzhenitsyn ends his work with the words: “We all lived next to her, and did not understand that she was the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, not a village stands. Neither city. Not all our land."

Conclusion

The work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells about the fate of a sincere Russian woman, who "had fewer sins than a rickety cat." The image of the main character is the image of that very righteous man, without whom the village cannot stand. Matryona devotes her whole life to others, there is not a drop of malice or falseness in her. People around take advantage of her kindness, and do not realize how holy and pure this woman's soul is.

This is interesting: Solzhenitsyn wrote the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1959. The original author's title of the work is the story "Sch-854" (the serial number of the main character Shukhov in the correctional camp). On our website you can read a summary of the story "". The work brought Solzhenitsyn world fame and, according to researchers, influenced not only literature, but also the history of the USSR.

Video summary Matrenin Dvor Solzhenitsyn

to Central Russia. Thanks to new trends, a recent convict is now not refused to become a school teacher in the Vladimir village of Miltsevo (in the story - Talnovo). Solzhenitsyn settles in the hut of a local resident, Matryona Vasilievna, a woman of about sixty, who is often ill. Matryona has neither a husband nor children. Her loneliness is brightened up only by the ficuses planted everywhere in the house, and the rickety cat picked up out of pity. (See description of Matrona's house.)

With warm, lyrical sympathy, AI Solzhenitsyn describes the difficult life of Matryona. For many years she did not have a single ruble of earnings. On the collective farm, Matrena works "for the sticks of workdays in the filthy accountant's book." The law that came out after Stalin's death finally gives her the right to seek a pension, but even then not for herself, but for the loss of her husband, who went missing at the front. To do this, you need to collect a bunch of certificates, and then take them to the social security and the village council many times, 10-20 kilometers away. Matrona's hut is full of mice and cockroaches that cannot be bred. From living creatures, she keeps only a goat, and feeds mainly on “kartovy” (potatoes) no larger than a chicken egg: her sandy, unfertilized garden does not give a larger one. But even with such a need, Matryona remains a bright person, with a radiant smile. A good mood helps her to maintain work - hiking for peat in the forest (with a two-pound bag over her shoulders for three kilometers), mowing hay for a goat, chores around the house. Due to old age and illness, Matryona has already been released from the collective farm, but the formidable wife of the chairman now and then orders her to help at work for free. Matryona easily agrees to help her neighbors in the gardens without money. Having received a pension of 80 rubles from the state, she puts on new felt boots, a coat from a worn railway overcoat - and believes that her life has noticeably improved.

"Matrenin Dvor" - the house of Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova in the village of Miltsevo, Vladimir Region, the scene of the story by A. I. Solzhenitsyn

Soon Solzhenitsyn also learns the story of Matrena's marriage. In her youth, she was going to marry her neighbor Thaddeus. However, in 1914 he was taken to the German war - and he disappeared without a trace for three years. So without waiting for news from the groom, in the belief that he was dead, Matryona married Thaddeus' brother, Yefim. But a few months later, Thaddeus returned from Hungarian captivity. In his hearts, he threatened to chop Matryona and Yefim with an ax, then he cooled off and took another Matryona, from a neighboring village, for himself. They lived next door to her. Thaddeus was known in Talnovo as an imperious, stingy peasant. He constantly beat his wife, although he had six children from her. Matryona and Yefim also had six, but not one of them lived more than three months. Yefim, having gone to another war in 1941, did not return from it. Matryona, friendly with his wife Thaddeus, begged her youngest daughter, Kira, for ten years raised her as her own, and shortly before Solzhenitsyna appeared in Talnovo, she married her to a locomotive driver in the village of Cherusti. The story of her two fiancés Matryona told Alexander Isaevich herself, being worried at the same time, like a young one.

Kira and her husband in Cherusty had to get a piece of land, and for this they had to quickly put up some kind of building. Old Thaddeus in the winter suggested moving there the upper room, attached to the mother's house. Matryona was already going to bequeath this room to Kira (and three of her sisters were marking the house). Under the persistent persuasion of the greedy Thaddeus, after two sleepless nights, Matryona agreed during her lifetime, breaking part of the roof of the house, dismantling the upper room and transporting it to Cherusti. Before the eyes of the hostess and Solzhenitsyn, Thaddeus with his sons and sons-in-law came to the matryona yard, clattered with axes, creaked with torn boards and dismantled the upper room into logs. The three sisters of Matryona, having learned how she succumbed to the persuasion of Thaddeus, unanimously called her a fool.

Matrena Vasilievna Zakharova - the prototype of the main character of the story

A tractor was brought in from Cherusti. The logs of the chamber were loaded onto two sledges. The thick-faced tractor driver, in order not to make an extra trip, announced that he would pull two sleds at once - so it turned out to be more profitable for him in terms of money. The disinterested Matryona herself, fussing, helped to load the logs. Already in the dark, the tractor with difficulty pulled a heavy load from the mother's yard. The restless worker did not sit at home here either - she ran away with everyone to help along the way.

She was not destined to return alive ... At the railway crossing, the cable of an overloaded tractor burst. The tractor driver with his son Thaddeus rushed to get along with him, and Matryona was carried along with them. At this time, two coupled locomotives approached the crossing, backwards and without turning on the lights. Unexpectedly flying in, they smashed to death all three who were busy at the cable, mutilated the tractor, fell off the rails themselves. A fast train with a thousand passengers almost got into the wreck, approaching the crossing.

At dawn, everything that was left of Matryona was brought from the crossing on a sled under a dirty bag thrown over. The body had no legs, no half of the torso, no left arm. And the face remained intact, calm, more alive than dead. One woman crossed herself and said:

- The Lord left her the right hand. There will be prayers to God...

The village began to gather for the funeral. Women relatives lamented over the coffin, but self-interest was visible in their words. And it was not hidden that Matrena's sisters and her husband's relatives were preparing for a fight for the legacy of the deceased, for her old house. Only the wife of Thaddeus and the pupil of Cyrus sobbed sincerely. Thaddeus himself, who lost his once beloved woman and son in that catastrophe, clearly thought only of how to save the logs of the upper room scattered during the crash near the railway. Asking for permission to return them, he continually rushed from the coffins to the station and village authorities.

AI Solzhenitsyn in the village of Miltsevo (in the story - Talnovo). October 1956

On Sunday Matryona and son Thaddeus were buried. The memorials are over. In the coming days, Thaddeus pulled out a barn and a fence from his mother's sisters, which he immediately dismantled with his sons and transported on a sled. Alexander Isaevich moved in with one of Matryona's sister-in-laws, who often and always spoke with contemptuous regret about her cordiality, simplicity, about how she was "stupid, helped strangers for free", "didn't chase after the equipment and didn't even keep a pig." For Solzhenitsyn, it was precisely from these disdainful words that a new image of Matryona surfaced, which he did not understand her, even living side by side with her. This stranger to her sisters, funny to her sister-in-law, a non-possessive woman who did not save up property for death, buried six children, but did not like her sociable one, felt sorry for the rickety cat, and once at night, during a fire, she rushed to save not the hut, but her beloved ficuses - and there is the same righteous man, without which, according to the proverb, the village does not stand.

A. Solzhenitsyn began work on the story in the summer of 1959. At this time, the writer was in the village of Chernomorsky in the Crimea, where he arrived at the invitation of his friends. The story ended in December 1959.

After 2 years, Solzhenitsyn handed over his work to A. Tvardovsky, who immediately concluded that such a story could not be published. Most of all, Tvardovsky did not like the original name (“There is no village without a righteous man”), and he suggested replacing it with “Matryonin Dvor”. To avoid problems with censorship, the author changed the time of action in the story, moving it to 1953. The work was published in 1963. The second time “Matryonin Dvor” was published in the late 80s in the Ogonyok Magazine. The story was published without the consent of the author, in connection with which Solzhenitsyn declared the publication illegal.

The story received a mixed reception from critics and caused a wave of controversy that began in the winter of 1964. The discussions began with an article by the young writer L. Zhukhovitsky entitled “I am looking for a co-author!”. Most of the criticism was caused by the author's position in the story.

The fate of the narrator Ignatich is in many ways similar to the fate of the author himself. He also fought, was in the camp and exile. When Ignatich got a job, "every letter" of his biography was "touched": the former prisoner was not trusted. The narrator wants to live somewhere in the outback and become an ordinary school teacher. First, Ignatich settled in the village of Vysokoe Pole. But he didn't like it here. The villagers were forced to go to the city for groceries. Ignatich chooses a village called Torfoprodukt. The dissonant name becomes the reason why the narrator refuses to live in this settlement. In the end, the former prisoner moves to the village of Talnovo.

Ignatich settled in a hut, the mistress of which was called Matryona Vasilievna. The narrator immediately became interested in this woman. He wants to know more about Matryona. However, the hostess is in no hurry to talk about herself, believing that such a person as her new guest will be completely uninterested in the fate of a simple Russian woman. But over time, Matryona Vasilievna still decides to tell about her life. What the woman told surprised and amazed the narrator. Ignatich is sure that the fate of Matryona has a special meaning that others do not notice.

Matryona Vasilievna lost her husband at the beginning of the war. He went missing. The woman believes that she was lucky with her husband. He never beat her, which is very rare for the village. Matryona admits that she did not love her husband the way he loved her. Ignatich learns that his new friend was supposed to marry Thaddeus, her husband's older brother. But Thaddeus disappeared long ago, having gone to the front in the First World War. The woman was given in marriage to Yefim, the younger brother. After some time, Thaddeus suddenly returns. It turned out that all this time the elder brother was in Hungarian captivity.

Matryona bore her husband six children. However, not a single child could live more than three months. Superstitious fellow villagers believed that damage was directed at Matryona Vasilievna, and the woman herself believed in it. Thaddeus was in love with his brother's wife. Going to marry, he chose a bride with the name of his beloved. The "second" Matryona also gave birth to six children. Not having the opportunity to become a mother, Matryona Vasilievna took up Kira, the daughter of Thaddeus, and raised her until the girl got married.

At the end of the story, the reader learns about the death of Matryona. The woman bequeathed her hut to her adopted daughter. However, Thaddeus decided not to wait until Matryona died, and took the hut. Helping her husband's brother to move his house, the woman died. At the funeral, relatives mourn Matryona Vasilievna, but they do it only out of obligation. In fact, all these people are waiting for the final division of property.

Character characteristics

Narrator Ignatich

A. Solzhenitsyn did not have to invent the main characters for his story. The author "copied" Ignatich from himself. Having learned about the life of the narrator, the reader can also learn about the fate of Solzhenitsyn himself.

The man who defended the fatherland ended up in prison, returning to his homeland. Ignatich went through many ordeals in his native land. Everywhere they look at him as a traitor, they despise him. The only way out is to escape to the village. The narrator is sure that no one will offend him in the outback. He wants nothing for himself but peace and quiet.

In Matryona Vasilievna, Ignatich finds a woman whom, perhaps, he has missed all his life. Like Matryona herself, the narrator is no longer young. He does not need passions and passionate feelings. Spiritual intimacy and human warmth are much more important to Ignatich.

The main character of the story is also not fiction. Matryona Vasilievna really existed. In the story, she is mentioned under the name Grigorieva. In real life, her last name was Zakharova. The described events took place in the village of Miltsevo. In the house where the woman lived, it was planned to open a museum. However, it burned down in 2012. The most likely cause of the fire is arson. The building was restored in 2013. As planned, a museum was opened there.

The author genuinely admires the main character. This courageous woman devoted her whole life to other people, working for her neighbors and for the collective farm. For her hard work, Matryona never asked for money. In terms of her physical strength, the main character surpasses even men. She is able to stop a galloping horse, which none of her male fellow villagers can do.

The author is even more admired by the strength of the spirit of this woman, who first lost her children, and then her husband. The narrator gradually comes to the conclusion that it is not people and circumstances that force Matryona to sacrifice herself. The main character is naturally altruistic. She simply does not know how and does not want to live for herself, there is not even a shadow of selfishness in her. Having no need to take, Matryona Vasilievna has an irresistible need to give. She must certainly dissolve in someone's life, give someone all the best that is in herself.

Stop a galloping horse...

It is no coincidence that the narrator mentions the unusual ability of Matryona Vasilievna to stop a horse at a gallop. This is one of the abilities that, according to the saying, every Russian woman should have. Matryona Grigorieva, like her prototype, is the embodiment of such a woman.

Woe to Russia

The spiritual and physical weakness of the male population of the country has given rise to very special women, who can only be found in Russia. The narrator sympathizes with all Russian women in the person of the main character. Most of them live a life that is far from ideal, full of deprivation, torment and suffering. It is on these fragile, labor-weary creatures that the whole country rests.

Russian women have long been the only support of the Russian land. The narrator bitterly notes that this role went to the weaker sex, and not to men. Even the title of the story mentions a woman, the hostess. No less regretful for the narrator is the fact that women do not even receive gratitude for their daily feat. Instead, they are often beaten and insulted.

In his novel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes the inhuman treatment of prisoners in Soviet prison camps, the unfair treatment and violence that has invariably flourished in the country at all times.

However, the narrator's empathy should not be confused with humiliating pity. Russian matryonas do not deserve this. Strong and generous, they are worthy of worship and love. Their husbands, fathers and brothers deserve pity. Men should be pitied if only because they are not able to appreciate their wives, daughters and sisters.