Malanya - the head of a lamb

Leskov's tale tells the story of the life of a poor woman named Malanya. She lived on top of a mountain, at the foot of which there is a village inhabited by wealthy fishermen and arable farmers. Practical villagers considered the modest Malanya stupid and indiscreet " because she thought about others more than herself, " ^[1] . She earned a living as a side job from wealthy neighbors. Selfless Malanya never refused to help anyone and in an orphanage, she settled in her cramped hut two alien abandoned children: dry-eyed Erashka and legless Zhivulechka. She had no native children. But the cruel and mocking villagers for her self-sacrifice nicknamed Malanya "The Head of the Sheep." Once, an old man, Living soul, asked to sleep in the village. As usual in such cases, the rich villagers, in whose huts " expensive good lies, " the old man was escorted to Malanya. In her modest housing, Malanya readily arranged an old man for the night. Waking up in the morning, the Living soul realized that the sacrificial mistress had ceded his place to him, and she herself had not slept all night, doing spinning ^[2] .

The living soul for all life could not find a living soul among people. Only merciful Malanya without hesitation sheltered the restless old man. Struck by her disinterestedness and kindness, the allegorical old man exclaimed: " Now tell me for one word what you have in desire - and I will ask you from God and I will beg it." But she did not begin to beg Malanya for any earthly goods: “ What am I missing? I’m always joyful anyway, but I only wish that the death of my threshold does not cross, and if it does, so that I’ll die outside the door ” ^[1] . A fabulous old man promised to fulfill her wish, and when Death really came to the woman’s house, Malanya forced her to dry before the threshold, and then closed Death from prying eyes with dry brushwood. It would seem that life without death should be a blessing, but since then everything has gone awry in the village: “the strong weak presses and beats without mercy, and there is no threat to the villain in his cruel heart ”; the weak ones groan and call death upon themselves: “ Mother dear, where did you covert! why did the world leave! come, protect us from our merciless villains - without you they would be arrogant! " ^[2] .

Then Malanya realized that she had interfered in God's business in vain, removed brushwood from the face of Death and admonished her: “ Go, where God has sent you! ". After that, the long-awaited funeral ringing rang out in the village: “ You cannot ruin and rule the century! “Together with the good and unkind inhabitants of the village, Erashka and Zhivulechka died, who at that time had exceeded one hundred years. And only Malanya - the head of the lamb continued to live, as before. The righteous herself had already forgotten her name, so Death, who came after Malania, was forced to ask heaven, what is her name. In response to this, “a white stone, like snow, fell from the sky, a pure stone, like a heart turned, and the name:“ Love “burns with fiery gold ”. The parable ends with the words of Death: " You are not mine - your name is not in my order: love does not die ... " ^{[1] [2]} .

The history of writing the tale is unknown, the time of its writing is estimated around 1888 ^[3] . The editor of the children's magazine " Toy " A.N. Toliverova (Jacobi) in 1895 in an obituary to Leskov informed that work on the fairy tale continued in the early 1890s:

In 1890, he again made a contribution to the collection published in memory of the decade of the Toy, an excerpt from the childhood memories of The Goat, and finally, in <18> 91, the story The Fool; this story was translated into French the same year. Then he prepared for my magazine the story “Malanya - the head of a lamb”, but this story probably remained not rewritten and is in his manuscripts.

- A. N. Peshkov-Toliverov, “In memory of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov” (From my memoirs). - "Toy", 1895, September, No. 9, p. 393.

As you can see, Toliverova accurately remembered the name of the tale, but mistakenly called it a story. The work was intended by the writer as a gift for her daughter Vera Tyufyaeva ^[4] . However, after Leskov’s death, the publisher of Niva, A. F. Marx, received from the heirs of the writer “ in full and eternal property ” the right to publish the works of the deceased. This happened in 1896. In 1899, several posthumous manuscripts of Nikolai Semenovich were published on the pages of Niva simultaneously with Leo Tolstoy ’s novel The Resurrection . However, sharp and bile in the judgments of N. S. Leskov during his lifetime in private correspondence called the magazines "Niva" and "Toy" shit. In another letter (to S. N. Shubinsky ) he wrote: “ I was still leafing through the Niva and I was looking there for good seeds to seed young souls and I did not find them: everything is an old, musty lie that has long proved its powerlessness and provokes one opposition in materialism . It would be interesting to read any clever and tolerable criticism of publications of this type, which drown family reading in streams of old slops that have long proved their worthlessness and hypocrisy. I can’t understand for myself what can be respected here ?! Is it possible that it might be possible to publish worse than that ... but maybe it is impossible. However, judging by the “Toy” it is possible ” ^[5] .

Further publishing fate of the tale was not easy. A.F. Marx included the parable in the Complete Works of N. S. Leskov 1902-1903. (third edition) as part of the thirty-third volume. Since then, the parable was not reprinted until the 1980s. Compilers of the fundamental 11-volume Collected Works of N. S. Leskov 1956-1958 for some reason, they released a fairy tale from the composition of literary texts, as the reviewer of the Russian Literature magazine K. P. Bogaevskaya reacted negatively: “It is not clear why such stories as“ Antuka “,“ Flaming Patriot “,“ Yearning for the spirit “,” the Unchangeable ruble “,“ fool “,“ Malanya, the head of a lamb “?” ^[6] . The parable-tale of Leskov was published only in 1981 in the fifth volume of the 5-volume Collected Works of N. S. Leskov by Pravda Publishing House without any comment.

In 2014, the Irkutsk Regional Puppet Theater staged the play "Living Soul" directed by puppeteer Yuri Utkin. The artist of the play is Natalya Pavlishina ^[1] . In 2015, based on the tale, director Igor Pisarenko at the film studio named after Gorky created the animated film "Malanya" ^[7] . The film was conceived as an instructive tale told by a grandfather to a little girl. Cartoon artist Elena Pisarenko, composer - Lyubov Rodionova. “ The plot is very deep. Love is stronger than death, it has power over it, but at the same time, the need for death is revealed due to depravity, the sinfulness of people. We are making an author's non-profit film, it is assumed that the film travels to festivals. For us, this is a good chance to express ourselves widely , ”the authors of the film tell about their work ^[8] . In the Russian Federation, the work began to be included in extracurricular reading programs in Russian literature classes for high school students ^[9] .

In Leskov’s work, there is a cycle of children's works (“Goat”, “ Scarecrow ”), in which the writer inspired the young readers with the ideal of human behavior, since the formation of a young character, correcting mistakes without an ideal is impossible. Based on this, the tale "Malanya - the head of a lamb" can be attributed to this category of instructive works for young people ^[10] . On the other hand, in terms of its ideological content, the tale is close to the Leskov “adult” cycle about the righteous (“ The Deadly Golovan ”, “ Hour of the Will of God ”, “The Enchanted Wanderer ”, “ Lefty ”), created mainly in the 1880s ^{[11 ]} .

Like other parables of Leskov ("The Fool ", " Pustoplyasy "), it was created under the strong influence of the ideas of Leo Tolstoy . The man of the Lesbian parable is extremely simple, he is characterized only by his actions. Leskov does not give the reader an analysis of the inner world of heroes. Description of the appearance of the characters is also missing. Fantastic creatures (Death) act on a par with earthly characters. The narrative of the Leskov parable has a religious and moralistic subtext, which is openly resolved at the end of the parable. The language of the fairy tale is stylized according to folk speech, saturated with folklore images, sayings, jokes: “ they live for an hour with kvass, and sometimes with water ”, “ Christ tolerated and ordered us to ”, “ God will give us a day, and will give us food for a day ”, etc. . ^[3] .

According to Yu. V. Shmeleva, the image of Leskov's Malany dates back to the image of St. Julian from The Tale of Ulyaniy Osorgina. The righteous Julian, merciful to all wanderers and the poor, in tireless efforts and good deeds does not have time to go to church, however, with her righteous life she was able to earn the kingdom of God ^[12] . Malanya is the personification of love, kindness and mercy. Wealthy fishermen and farmers, people of cruel customs, are contrasted with her compositionally ^[8] . EA Terekhova notes that the foolishness of the main characters of Leskov turns into holiness, and stupidity - wisdom. In this regard, " fools ", " fools " and " simple people ", and in fact - the righteous Leskov, can be brought closer to the good heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky , as well as "holy fools", "eccentrics" and "idiots" ^[13] . Malanya, like other heroines of the righteous Leskov, according to A. A. Novikova, in some ways resembles the spiritual-compassionate female faces of Russian icons ^[14] .

Since the 1980s the tale "Malanya - the head of a lamb" was repeatedly reprinted. Gradually, the work came into the attention of literary critics and critics. So, V. A. Bogdanov believes that, on the whole, the righteous of Leskov do not win the victories necessary for the “ good hero ”. The case described in the fairy tale “Malanya is the head of a lamb” is almost the only one when Leskov allows his ideal to triumph: “ You are not mine - your name is not in my order: love does not die; you will survive until truth and mercy meet, and the wolf lies with the lamb and does not offend him ” ^[15] . Vladimir Bibikhin refers to the semantics of Leskov’s expression “it’s bad to be” from the tale “Malanya is the head of a lamb” ^[16] . Olga Grzhibovskaya gives the following genre definition of a work: a philosophical tale, a Christian tale ^[8] .

L. V. Pumpyansky in the book "Classical Tradition", comparing Gogol 's idyll " Old World Landlords " and the semi-idyllic tale "Malanya is the head of a lamb", prefers Gogol's idyll: " There is a holy name in Russian literature; There is one heavy, sinful man who founded semi-idyll on the sillyness of a blessed girl: N. S. Leskov. But such stories as “Malanya - the head of a lamb” are the essence of semi-idylls, because an idyllic face is a justification for someone else's sinful action. Two worlds are no less distinctly separated than in ancient tragedy . Therefore, his religious idylls, aesthetically, are lower than the Old World Landowners, where there is no plot at all ” ^[17] . According to V. P. Pazilova, the idea of ​​the Leskov parable echoes the judgment of the old man Luke in his monologue of the Gorky play “ At the Bottom ” ^[18] .

The critic Sergey Zakharyan writes that finding a new story that speaks for eternity, allowing you to think and talk about the most important thing in yourself is a rare success: “ Leskov has a gigantic, incredible even for great Russian literature word capacity: on three pages of a fairy tale - the whole world, entire life. And a word that can reach people of all ages - if you find the exact sound and beauty for it ” ^[1] .

• Complete works of N. S. Leskov. The third edition, with a critical biographical sketch by R.I. Sementkovsky and with a portrait of Leskov engraved on steel by F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig. Volume thirty-three. - Appendix to the journal "Niva" in 1903. - St. Petersburg: Edition of A. F. Marx, 1903. - S. 196-201.
• N. S. Leskov. Collected works in 5 volumes. Compiled and edited by V. S. Troitsky. Volume 5: Tales and Stories 1887–1894: Buffoon Pamphalon. Malanya is the head of a lamb. Vale. Corral. Winter day. Lady and Phefela. Bunny remise. - M. Pravda, 1981. - 384 pp. 57–62.

• "Malanya." Cartoon