Russian national character in Nikolai Leskov’s story “Lefty. “Russian national character in N.S. Leskov’s work “Lefty” What features of Russian character are emphasized in Lefty

And here is a left-hander in St. Petersburg. He obediently, as befits a subject, stood near the palace and waited for what would happen next. At first, Platov ruffled his hair because the craftsmen allegedly ruined a rare thing, but then, when they sorted it out, the left-hander was invited to the palace and personally received praise from the sovereign and was kissed by him.

Indeed, there is something to marvel at here - the craftsmen not only did not spoil the curiosity, but also surpassed the British in skill: they shod the steel flea and wrote their names on the horseshoes. This is such a miniature work that you can see the result with a “small scope”, which magnifies several hundred times, and the craftsmen, lacking a “small scope” due to poverty, did all the delicate work, because they “have such a focused eye.” However, the name of the left-hander was not on the horseshoes, since he considered himself unworthy of it. In his opinion, he didn’t do anything special, because he worked with parts less than shoeing: he forged nails to nail them. For such service, the left-hander was thanked and sent to London to show the British that Russian masters were no worse than foreign ones, but on the contrary, better. And here is a Tula tramp “in little pants, one leg in a boot, the other dangling, and the little leg is old, the hooks are not fastened, are lost, and the collar is torn,” who in this form appeared before the sovereign, was now heading to England without embarrassment or embarrassment. They gave him something to drink, feed, reward, and dress him up. And here he is in London.

However, he still agreed to stay abroad. He looked at their lives and work, paid special attention to how new and old guns were made, and in what condition they were stored. However, he soon got tired of such a boring life, he became homesick, and the British had to let him go. On the ship he met the half-skipper, with whom they began to bet who would outdrink whom. Of course, nothing good came of this. Half the skipper was taken for “treatment” to the embassy house on the embankment, and the left-handed man was knocked drunk onto the floor in the block. Not finding any documents, he was robbed, his gold watch and coat were shining. He ended up in the Obukhov hospital, where he is admitted to die. But, dying, the left-handed man did not think about himself. The only thing he wanted; So this is to see the sovereign, tell him not to clean his guns with bricks. With these words on his lips the Tula master died.

Leskov presents a truly great man: a talented master, with a broad soul, a warm loving heart, and deep patriotic feelings. This is a real Man with a capital P, a man with a national Russian character. His shortcomings, like many Russian people, were a craving for alcohol and a passion for arguing and making bets. These two qualities have ruined a large number of talented people.

In N. S. Leskov’s story “Lefty” the main character is the Tula scythe master, a self-taught lefty. However, the hero does not appear immediately, but in the middle of the story. Lefty is N. S. Leskov’s favorite hero, the author is proud of his hero and respects him. But, despite his positive assessment, during the acquaintance the author does not single out this person: “there are three gunsmiths, the most skilled of them, one is obliquely left-handed, there is a birthmark on his cheek, and the hair on his temples was torn out during training.” N. S. Leskov shows that this Tula master has a truly Russian national character. This is evidenced by descriptions of his work and leisure, and expressions of passionate love for the Motherland. Lefty, one of the three gunsmiths, dutifully worked on the strange flea for two weeks. All this time they sat locked up, keeping their work secret. This is where the strength of spirit manifests itself, since I had to work in difficult conditions: with closed windows and doors, without rest. However, Platov did not believe it when he saw the same flea in the diamond nut, as if the Tula masters could do something better than the British. He got angry, thought that they wanted to trick him, and, ironically, he took the left-hander with him to St. Petersburg, because if something goes wrong, then there will be someone to answer for everything.
And here is a left-hander in St. Petersburg. He obediently, as befits a subject, stood near the palace and waited for what would happen next. At first, Platov ruffled his hair because the craftsmen allegedly ruined a rare thing, but then, when they sorted it out, the left-hander was invited to the palace and personally received praise from the sovereign and was kissed by him.
Indeed, there is something to marvel at here - the craftsmen not only did not spoil the curiosity, but also surpassed the British in skill: they shod the steel flea and wrote their names on the horseshoes. This is such a miniature work that you can see the result with a “small scope”, which magnifies several hundred times, and the craftsmen, lacking a “small scope” due to poverty, did all the delicate work, because they “have such a focused eye.” However, the name of the left-hander was not on the horseshoes, since he considered himself unworthy of it. In his opinion, he didn’t do anything special, because he worked with parts less than shoeing: he forged nails to nail them. For such service, the left-hander was thanked and sent to London to show the British that Russian masters were no worse than foreign ones, but on the contrary, better.
And here is a Tula tramp “in little pants, one leg in a boot, the other dangling, and the little leg is old, the hooks are not fastened, are lost, and the collar is torn,” who in this form appeared before the sovereign, was now heading to England without embarrassment or embarrassment. They gave him something to drink, feed, reward, and dress him up. And here he is in London.

It is in London that his truly Russian national character manifests itself. He loves Russia very much - his homeland - and he refuses invitations from the British to settle in London, study science, visit factories for practice, get a prestigious job, get married, start a family. He also loves his already elderly parents, because they cannot live without him; loves Russian traditions. But this is not just love; the left-hander cannot imagine himself without his homeland.
However, he still agreed to stay abroad. He looked at their lives and work, paid special attention to how new and old guns were made, and in what condition they were stored. However, he soon got tired of such a boring life, he became homesick, and the British had to let him go. On the ship he met the half-skipper, with whom they began to bet who would outdrink whom. Of course, nothing good came of this. Half the skipper was taken for “treatment” to the embassy house on the embankment, and the left-handed man was knocked drunk onto the floor in the block. Not finding any documents, he was robbed, his gold watch and coat were shining. He ended up in the Obukhov hospital, where he is admitted to die. But, dying, the left-handed man did not think about himself. The only thing he wanted; So this is to see the sovereign, tell him not to clean his guns with bricks. With these words on his lips the Tula master died.
Leskov presents a truly great man: a talented master, with a broad soul, a warm loving heart, and deep patriotic feelings. This is a real Man with a capital P, a man with a national Russian character. His shortcomings, like many Russian people, were a craving for alcohol and a passion for arguing and making bets. These two qualities have ruined a large number of talented people.

Romanticism, as a literary movement, is characterized by dissatisfaction with the present, modern reality. This dissatisfaction gives rise to dreams of what should be, of what is desired. But this desired thing, what one would like to see in life, was presented to romantic writers in different ways. Therefore, two main movements emerged in romanticism - conservative and revolutionary. Representatives of revolutionary romanticism are focused on the future, full of liberation ideas, and associated with the struggle for freedom and happiness of people. One of them in Russia was K.F. Ryleev. Ryleev's personality traits are a fiery p

The story “Fire” was published in 1985. In this story, the author continues to examine the life of the people who moved after the flooding of the island from the story “Farewell to Matera.” People were relocated to an urban-type settlement (Sosnovka). The main character of the story, Ivan Petrovich Egorov, feels exhausted morally and physically: “like in a grave.” The situation with the fire in the story allows the author to explore the present and the past. Warehouses and goods that people had not seen on the shelves are burning (sausages, Japanese rags, red fish, a Ural motorcycle, sugar, flour). Some of the people, taking advantage of the confusion, are Rastas

The lyrics of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin are very diverse, but the leading place in it is occupied by the theme of the poet and poetry, because poetic creativity was his main occupation, and he highly appreciated the role and character of the poet. He has written more than a dozen poems that reveal the theme of the poet and poetry from different angles. The most important of them: “The Prophet” (1826), “Conversation between a bookseller and a poet” (1824), “The Poet” (1827), “The Poet and the Crowd” (1828), “To the Poet” (1830), “Echo” (1831) , “From Pendimonti” (1836), “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...” (1836). What, in Pushkin’s understanding, are the purpose of the poet and the tasks of poetry in this

The first writer who comes to his mind is, of course, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The second portrait that appears before the inner gaze of the domestic bookworm is the face of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. But there is one classic who, as a rule, is forgotten in this context (or not mentioned so often) - Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Meanwhile, his works are also saturated with the “Russian spirit,” and they also reveal not only the peculiarities of the Russian national character, but also the specifics of all Russian life.

In this sense, Leskov’s story “Lefty” stands apart. It reproduces with extraordinary accuracy and depth all the flaws in the structure of domestic life and all the heroism of the Russian people. People, as a rule, now do not have time to read the collected works of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but they should find time to open a book on the cover of which it is written: N. S. Leskov “Lefty”.

Plot

The story supposedly begins in 1815. Emperor Alexander the First, on a voyage across Europe, also visits England. The British really want to surprise the Emperor, and at the same time show off the skills of their craftsmen, and for several days they take him around different rooms and show him all sorts of amazing things, but the main thing they have in store for the finale is a filigree work: a steel flea that can dance. Moreover, it is so small that without a microscope it is impossible to see it. Our Tsar was very surprised, but his accompanying Don Cossack Platov was not at all. On the contrary, he kept bawling that ours could do no worse.

He soon died, and ascended the throne who accidentally discovered a strange thing and decided to check Platov’s words by sending him to visit the Tula masters. The Cossack arrived, instructed the gunsmiths and went home, promising to return in two weeks.

The masters, including Lefty, retired to the house of the main character of the tale and worked there for two weeks, until Platov returned. Local residents heard the constant knocking, but the craftsmen themselves never left Lefty’s house during this time. They became recluses until the work was done.

Platov arrives. They bring him the same flea in a box. He furiously throws the first craftsman he came across into the carriage (he turned out to be left-handed) and goes to St. Petersburg to see the Tsar “on the carpet.” Of course, Lefty did not get to the king right away; he was first beaten and kept in prison for a short time.

The flea appears before the bright eyes of the monarch. He looks and looks at her and cannot understand what the Tula people did. Both the sovereign and his courtiers struggled with the secret, then the Tsar-Father ordered to invite Lefty, and he told him that he should take and look not at the whole flea, but only at its legs. No sooner said than done. It turned out that the Tula people had shoed the English flea.

Immediately the wonder was returned to the British, and in words something like the following was conveyed: “We, too, can do something.” Here we will pause in the plot presentation and talk about what the image of Lefty is in the tale of N. S. Leskov.

Lefty: between the gunsmith and the holy fool

Lefty’s appearance testifies to his “supremeness”: “he’s left-handed with an oblique look, the hair on his cheek and temples was torn out during training.” When Lefty arrived to the Tsar, he was also dressed in a very peculiar way: “in shorts, one trouser leg is in a boot, the other is dangling, and the leg is old, the hooks are not fastened, they are lost, and the collar is torn.” He spoke to the king as he was, without observing manners and without fawning, if not on an equal footing with the sovereign, then certainly without fear of power.

People who are at least a little interested in history will recognize this portrait - this is a description of the ancient Russian holy fool; he was never afraid of anyone, because Christian Truth and God stood behind him.

Dialogue between Lefty and the British. Continuation of the story

After a short digression, let’s turn again to the plot, but at the same time let’s not forget the image of Lefty in Leskov’s tale.

The British were so delighted with the work that they demanded that the master be brought to them without hesitating for a second. The king respected the British, equipped Lefty and sent him with an escort to them. There are two important moments in the protagonist’s voyage to England: a conversation with the British (Leskov’s story “Lefty” is perhaps the most entertaining in this part) and the fact that, unlike Russians, our ancestors do not clean the barrels of guns with bricks.

Why did the British want to keep Lefty?

The Russian land is full of nuggets, and they don’t pay much attention, but in Europe they immediately see “diamonds in the rough.” The English elite, having once looked at Lefty, immediately realized that he was a genius, and the gentlemen decided to keep our man, teach him, clean him up, enrich him, but that was not the case!

Lefty told them that he didn’t want to stay in England, he didn’t want to study algebra, his education—the Gospel and the Half-Dream Book—was enough for him. He doesn't need money, nor women.

It was with difficulty that the left-handed man was persuaded to stay a little longer and look at Western technologies for the production of guns and other things. Our craftsman was of little interest in the latest technologies of that time, but he was very attentive to the storage of old guns. Studying them, Lefty realized: the British do not clean the barrel of their guns with bricks, which makes the guns more reliable in battle.

Despite this discovery, the main character of the tale still greatly missed his homeland and asked the British to send him home as soon as possible. It was impossible to send by land, because Lefty did not know any languages other than Russian. It was also unsafe to sail on the sea in the fall, because it is restless at this time of year. And yet they equipped Lefty, and he sailed on a ship to the Fatherland.

During the journey, he found himself a drinking buddy, and they drank all the way, but not out of fun, but out of boredom and fear.

How bureaucracy killed a man

When friends from the ship were put ashore in St. Petersburg, the Englishman was sent to where all foreign citizens are supposed to be - to the “messenger house”, and Lefty was sent in an ill state through the bureaucratic circles of hell. They couldn’t admit him to any hospital in the city without documents, except the one where they were taken to die. Moreover, various officials said that Lefty should be helped, but here’s the problem: no one is responsible for anything and no one can do anything. So the left-handed man died in a hospital for the poor, and on his lips there was only one phrase: “Tell the Tsar Father that guns cannot be cleaned with bricks.” He nevertheless told it to one of the sovereign’s servants, but it never reached the Almighty. Can you guess why?

That's almost all on the topic “N.S. Leskov “Lefty”, brief content.”

The image of Lefty in Leskov’s tale and the model of the fate of a creative person in Russia

After reading the work of the Russian classic, a conclusion involuntarily arises: a creative, brilliant person simply has no hope of surviving in Russia. He will either be tortured by unchristian bureaucrats, or he will destroy himself from within, and not because he has some unresolved issues, but because Russian people are not able to simply live, his lot is to die, burning up in life like a meteorite in the earth’s atmosphere . This is the contradictory image of Lefty in Leskov’s tale: on the one hand, a genius and a craftsman, and on the other hand, a person with a serious destructive element inside, capable of self-destruction in conditions when you least expect it.

And here is a Tula tramp “in little pants, one leg in a boot, the other dangling, and the little leg is old, the hooks are not fastened, are lost, and the collar is torn,” who in this form appeared before the sovereign, was now heading to England without embarrassment or embarrassment. They gave him something to drink, feed, reward, and dress him up. And here he is in London.

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Creative work on literature on the topic:

“Russian national character in N.S. Leskov’s work “Lefty”

Completed by Evgeniy Trubnikov,

student of class 9 “A”

Lyceum No. 369

Scientific director

Epishova Svetlana Fedorovna,

teacher of Russian language and literature

St. Petersburg 2011

Introduction

1. Russian national character

2. Description of Lefty

3. Russian national character of Lefty, the hero of N.S. Leskov’s tale

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The mysterious Russian soul... She, the subject of admiration and curses, sometimes squeezes a man's fist, crushes concrete obstacles. Otherwise it will suddenly become thinner than a petal, More transparent than an autumn web. Otherwise it flies like on the first day of the fishing season, a desperate mountain river.(E. Dolmatovsky)

There is such a thing as Russian national character. Times change, tsars, leaders, presidents change, our country itself changes, but the features of the Russian national character remain unchanged. Both foreign and Russian thinkers constantly turned to the mystery of the “mysterious Russian soul”, because this topic has always remained and will remain relevant and interesting.

To explore this topic in my work, I chose N.S. Leskov’s work “Lefty” because he, using the form of a tale, tells us the story of a man who personifies all Russian people. " Where “left-handed” is written, you should read “Russian people” - Leskov himself spoke.

“A tale is a type of literary and artistic narrative constructed as a story by a person whose position and speech manner are different from the point of view and style of the author himself. The collision and interaction of these semantic and speech positions underlies the artistic effect of the tale”*. A tale involves a first-person narration, and the narrator’s speech should be measured, melodious, and in a manner characteristic of a given person. There is no narrator as such in “Lefty”, but in other respects the work can well be called a tale. The author’s “reprimand” creates the impression that the story is being narrated by some villager, simple, but at the same time (judging by the reasoning) educated and wise. “Lefty” has a similar subtext to fairy tales, because they often contain an unobtrusive, often good-natured, condescending mockery of “those in power.”

1. Russian national character

Among all the traits inherent in the Russian national character, we can highlight some that, in my opinion, are basic: hard work and talent, willpower and kindness, patience and perseverance, courage and boldness, love of freedom and patriotism, religiosity. I considered it necessary to quote the statements of some foreigners who touched upon themes of the Russian national character, because they see us from the outside and evaluate us unbiasedly.

· Hard work, talent.

“Russian people have many talents and abilities in almost all areas of public life. He is characterized by observation, theoretical and practical intelligence, natural ingenuity, ingenuity, and creativity. The Russian people are great workers, creators and creators.” The sharp practical mind of the Russian person is the source of varied experience and varied abilities. Hence - the rich development of the spirit and an abundance of talents. The talent of the Russian person was manifested in the very successful development of science and technical inventions, and the love of beauty and the gift of creative imagination contribute to the high development of Russian art.

· Love of freedom

“For the Russian people, freedom is above all.
The word “will” is closer to the Russian heart, understood as independence,

freedom in the manifestation of feelings and in the commission of actions, and not freedom as a conscious necessity, that is, as the possibility of a person expressing his will on the basis of awareness of the law”*.

According to the philosopher N.O. Lossky among the primary properties of the Russian people, along with religiosity, the search for absolute good and willpower, includes love for freedom and its highest expression - freedom of spirit. He who has a free spirit is inclined to put every value to the test, not only in thought, but even in experience. This property is associated with the search for absolute good. In the real world it does not exist, therefore, each person makes an independent choice for himself of the best method of action, his own path.

Freedom of spirit, breadth of nature, the search for perfect goodness and the associated test of values through thought and experience led to the fact that the Russian people developed the most diverse, and sometimes opposite, forms and methods. The search for absolute good has developed among the Russian people a recognition of the high value of each individual.

The Russian people had to endure many trials during their difficult history, and in each of them they showed courage and courage. Among the primary basic properties of the Russian people is powerful willpower. The higher the value, the stronger feelings and energetic activity it evokes in people with a strong will. This explains the passion of the Russian people, manifested in political life, and even greater passion in religious life. The willpower of the Russian people, as N.O. writes. Lossky, is also revealed in the fact that a Russian person, having noticed any shortcoming of his and morally condemning it, obeying a sense of duty, overcomes it and develops a quality that is completely opposite to it.

· Kindness

Often Russian people help those whom they should hate with all their souls, with whom they, in theory, cannot have decent relations. For example, the Austrian German Otto Berger, who was a prisoner in Russia from 1944 to 1949, wrote in his book that while living in Russia, the prisoners understood “What a special people the Russians are. All workers, and especially women, treated us as unfortunate people in need of help and protection. Sometimes the women would take our clothes, our linen, and return it all ironed, washed, mended. The most amazing thing was that the Russians themselves lived in monstrous need, which should have killed their desire to help us, their yesterday’s enemies.”. Our Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky agrees with the opinion of a foreigner: “Russian people do not know how to hate for a long time and seriously,” he wrote about Russian kindness.

The kindness of the Russian people in all layers of them is expressed in the absence of rancor. “Often a Russian person, being passionate and prone to maximalism, experiences a strong feeling of repulsion from another person, but when meeting him, if specific communication is necessary, his heart softens and he somehow involuntarily begins to show his spiritual softness towards him, even sometimes condemning himself for this if he believes that the person in question does not deserve to be treated kindly.”*

· Patriotism

The Russian people have always been distinguished by their patriotism. Russian people could remain dissatisfied with Russia among themselves, but as soon as it was necessary to defend it, to defend the honor of the Motherland, they united and together repulsed the enemy or simply did not allow ridicule of it.

· Patience and Fortitude

“Russians have limitless patience, an amazing ability to endure difficulties, hardships and suffering. In Russian culture, patience and the ability to endure suffering are the ability to exist, the ability to respond to external circumstances, this is the basis of personality.”*

· Religiosity

Religiosity is a feature of the Russian national character that practically determined the entire Russian mentality. In my opinion, if the Russian people were not so religious, then, most likely, their history would have turned out differently. After all, many of the defining features of the Russian national character were formed precisely thanks to her. In his book “The Character of the Russian People,” Russian philosopher N.O. Lossky considers the main and deepest feature of the Russian people to be their religiosity and the associated search for absolute truth. “Russians can talk about religion for six hours straight. The Russian idea is a Christian idea; in the foreground there is love for those who suffer, pity, attention to the individual personality…” writes N.O. Lossky in his book.

2. Description of Lefty

Distinctive properties of N.S.’s prose Leskov - fairy-tale motifs, the interweaving of the comic and tragic, the ambiguity of the author's assessments of the characters - were fully manifested in one of the writer's most famous works, “Lefty”.

Introducing us to the main character, the author does not demonstrate his attractiveness, just a few details: “ left-handed with an oblique eye, a birthmark on his cheek, and the hair on his temples torn out during training.” However, Lefty is a skilled Tula craftsman, one of those Tula gunsmiths who managed to forge the English “nymphosorium” and, thereby, surpass the English masters.

When meeting the king himself, Lefty is not afraid, but “ he walks in what he was wearing: in shorts, one trouser leg is in a boot, the other is dangling, and the collar is old, the hooks are not fastened, they are lost, and the collar is torn; but it’s okay, don’t be embarrassed" Lefty, an unprepossessing little man, is not afraid to go to the sovereign, because he is confident in his rightness and in the quality of his work. Indeed, there is something to marvel at here - the craftsmen not only did not spoil the curiosity, but also surpassed the British in skill: they shod the steel flea and wrote their names on the horseshoes. This is such a miniature work that you can see the result with a “small scope”, which magnifies several hundred times, and the craftsmen, due to poverty, did all the delicate work without a “small scope”, because they “have such a focused eye.” However, Lefty's name was not on the horseshoes, since he considered himself unworthy of it. In his opinion, he didn’t do anything special, because he worked with parts less than shoeing: he forged nails to nail them.

Lefty is ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of the Fatherland, in the name of the cause. He goes to England without documents, hungry (he’s on the road “ At each station, the belts were also tightened by one badge so that the intestines and lungs did not get mixed up”, to show foreigners Russian ingenuity and skill, and earns the respect of the British by his reluctance to remain in their country.

Lefty's skill and skill aroused well-deserved respect among the British, but, unfortunately, he was deprived of the technical knowledge available to English masters, and, as a result, the savvy Lefty and his comrades can no longer dance: “ It's a shame- the British regret, - It would be better if you knew at least four rules of addition from arithmetic, then it would be much more useful to you than the entire Half-Dream Book. Then you could realize that in every machine there is a calculation of force; Otherwise, you are very skillful in your hands, but you didn’t realize that such a small machine, like the one in the nymphosoria, is designed for the most accurate precision and cannot carry its shoes. Because of this, the nymphosoria now does not jump and does not dance.”

When Lefty returns to his homeland, he falls ill and dies, useless to anyone. Thrown on the floor in a “common people’s” hospital, he personifies the inhumanity, short-sightedness and ingratitude of state power - the reason for the unsettled state of Russia, according to the author.

From the entire story, it becomes obvious that Leskov sympathizes with Lefty, feels sorry for him, and the author’s comments are filled with bitterness. The image of Lefty reflected Leskov’s search for a positive national hero, and, in my opinion, this image is very close to the goal.

3. Russian national character of Lefty, the hero of N.S. Leskov’s tale

Leskov does not give a name to his hero, thereby emphasizing the collective meaning and significance of his character. The image of Lefty combines the main features of the Russian national character.

· Religiosity

The religiosity of the Russian people is manifested in the episode when Tula craftsmen, including Levsha, before starting work, went to bow to the icon of “Nikola of Mtsensk” - the patron of trade and military affairs. Also, Lefty’s religiosity is “intertwined” with his patriotism. Lefty's faith is one of the reasons he refuses to stay in England. “ “Because,” he answers, “our Russian faith is the most correct, and just as our rightful fathers believed, our descendants should believe just as accurately.”

· Willpower, courage and courage

Lefty, one of three gunsmiths, worked hard on the strange flea for two weeks. All this time they sat locked up, keeping their work secret. This is where the strength of spirit manifests itself, since I had to work in difficult conditions: with closed windows and doors, without rest, so that during work I would never leave their “close mansion”, in which “ the breathless work in the air created such a sweaty spiral that an unaccustomed person with a fresh wind could not breathe even once.”

· Patience and Fortitude

Many times Lefty shows patience and perseverance: and when Platov “ caught the left-hander by the hair and started tossing it back and forth so that tufts flew.”, and when Lefty, sailing home from England, despite bad weather, sits on the deck to quickly see his homeland:

“As soon as we left the bay into the Solid Earth Sea, his desire for Russia became such that it was impossible to calm him down. The flooding has become terrible, but the left-handed man doesn’t go downstairs to the cabins - he sits under the gift, pulls his cap down and looks towards his fatherland. Many times the English came to a warm place to call him down, but so as not to be bothered, he even began to lash out.”

· Patriotism

While in England, Lefty rejects lucrative offers from the British: to settle in London, study science, visit factories for practice, get a prestigious job, get married, start a family. (“ Stay with us, we will give you great education, and you will become an amazing master”, “The British named themselves so that they could send money to his parents”, “we will marry you”, because he loves his homeland, loves its customs, its traditions. Lefty cannot imagine his life outside of Russia. “ “We,” he says, “are committed to our homeland, and my little brother is already an old man, and my parent is an old woman and is accustomed to going to church in her parish,” “but I would rather go to my native place, because otherwise I might go crazy.” get it.”

Left-handed is a true patriot, a patriot at heart, gifted from birth, he is characterized by high morality and religiosity. He went through many trials, but even in his death hour he remembers that he must tell the military secret of the British, ignorance of which negatively affects the combat effectiveness of the Russian army.

· Kindness

Despite his strong attachment to his homeland, Lefty refuses the British's request to stay very politely, trying not to offend them. He does this in such a way that his refusal not only did not upset the British, but even earned them respect. And he forgives Ataman Platov for his rude treatment of himself. “Even though he has Ovechkin’s fur coat, he has the soul of a man,” says the “Aglitsky half-skipper” about his Russian comrade.

· Hard work and talent

One of the main themes in the story is the theme of the creative talent of the Russian person. Talent, according to Leskov, cannot exist independently; it must necessarily be based on the moral and spiritual strength of a person. The plot itself, the very history of this tale tells how Lefty, together with his comrades, was able to “outdo” the English masters without any acquired knowledge, only thanks to talent and hard work. Extraordinary, wonderful skill is the main property of Lefty. He wiped the noses of the “Aglitsky masters”, shod the flea with such small nails that you couldn’t see it even with the strongest microscope. In the image of Lefty, Leskov proved that the opinion put into the mouth of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich was incorrect: foreigners “have such a nature of perfection that once you look at it, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are no good for our importance.”

Lefty's own name, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity, but his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which is accurately and accurately captured. The image of Lefty, according to the writer, recalls those times when “inequality of talents and talents” mattered, and makes one look with sadness at the present time, when, “while favoring an increase in earnings, machines do not favor artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the limit, inspiring folk imagination to compose fabulous legends similar to the current ones.”

Conclusion

In this work, we examined the Russian national character using the example of N.S. Leskov’s work “Lefty”. Analyzing this work, finding signs of Russian national character in its main character, we discovered that “Lefty” is a work in which Leskov, an unsurpassed master of the tale, skillfully identified the main features of the Russian national character and showed them through the example of his heroes, especially Lefty . To do this, the author uses various linguistic means of expression, such as the use of “folk” words (“nymphosoria” - ciliates, “ukushetka” - couch, etc.). This gives “Lefty” a special “charm”.

Lefty is a symbol of the Russian people. Lefty personifies the Russian people; he is religious, patriotic, hardworking, kind and freedom-loving. Leskov presents a truly great man: a talented master, with a broad soul, a warm loving heart, and deep patriotic feelings.

Thus, at the end of this work, it should be said that the Russian national character, of course, has its own characteristic features, different from the features inherent in other peoples and so incomprehensible to them. That inner strength, spirituality and sacrifice of the people, their kindness, spiritual simplicity, compassion and selflessness and, at the same time, inertia, illogicality and irrationality of actions, behavior justified most often only by intuition, all this makes the Russian people unlike any other people in the world. Russia, where such an extraordinary people lives, is unlike any other country in the world.

work left-handed Russian national character

Bibliography

1. Leskov N.S. Lefty. - Astrel, AST, 2006

2. Vyunov Yu.A. “A Word about Russians.” M., 2002.

3. Vereshchagin E.M. Kostomarov V.G. “Language and Culture”. M, 1990.

4. Ter-Minasova S.G. “Language and intercultural communication.” M., 2000.

5. “Great Soviet Encyclopedia”. M, Soviet Encyclopedia, 1970.

6. Lossky N. O. About the Russian character. M., 1990.