Poetry once flourished in ancient Goryukhin. To this day, the poems of Arkhip-Lysy have been preserved in the memory of posterity.
They will not yield in tenderness to the eclogs of the famous Virgil, in the beauty of the imagination they far surpass the idylls of Mr. Sumarokov. And although they are inferior in style to the latest works of our muses, but equal with them ingenuity and wit.
Let's give an example of this satirical poem:
To the boyar court
Anton the headman goes, (2)
Bears tags in the bosom (2)
Gives the boyar,
And the boyar looks,
Understands nothing.
Oh you, Elder Anton,
Robbed the boyars around,
The village let the world go,
He gave the old man a gift.
In this way acquainting my reader with the ethnographic and statistical state of Goryukhin and with the morals and customs of its inhabitants, let's get down to the story itself.
BASNOTE TIMES
Elder Tryphon
The form of government in Goryukhin changed several times. It was alternately ruled by the elders, chosen by the world, clerks, appointed by the landlord, and finally, directly under the hand of the landlords themselves. The advantages and disadvantages of these various forms of government will be developed by me during my story..
The foundation of Goryukhin and the original population of it are covered with a darkness of obscurity. Dark legends say, that Goryukhino was once a rich and vast village, that all its inhabitants were prosperous, that the rent was collected once a year and sent to someone unknown on several wagons. At that time everything was bought cheap, but sold dearly. There were no bailiffs, the elders did not offend anyone, the inhabitants worked little, but lived
chanting, and the shepherds guarded the flock in boots. We must not delude ourselves with this charming picture. The thought of a golden age is akin to all peoples and only proves, that people are never happy with the present and, having little hope for the future from experience, decorate the irreversible past with all the colors of their imagination. That's what is authentic:
The village of Goryukhino since ancient times belonged to the famous Belkin family. But my ancestors, owning many other fathers, did not pay attention to this very distant country. Goryukhino paid a small tribute and was ruled by foremen, elected by the people at the council, worldly gathering called.
But over the course of time, the Belkin family's possessions disintegrated and fell into decay.. The impoverished grandchildren of a rich grandfather could not wean themselves from their luxurious habits and demanded the previous full income from the estate, tenfold already reduced. Formidable precepts followed one after another. The old man read them in the evening; foremen flirted, the world was worried, and gentlemen, instead of double rent, received sly excuses and humble complaints, written on greasy paper and sealed with a penny.
A gloomy cloud hung over Goryukhin, but no one thought about her. In the last year of Tryphon's reign, the last headman, the chosen people, on the very day of the temple feast, when all the people noisily surrounded the entertainment building (a tavern in common parlance called) or wandered the streets, embracing each other and loudly singing the songs of Arkhip-Lysy, a covered wicker chaise entered the village, laid by a pair of nags barely alive; a ragged Jew was sitting on the box, and a head in a cap stuck out of the chaise and, it seemed, looked with curiosity at the cheering people. Residents greeted the cart with laughter and rude ridicule. (NB. Rolling up the pipe of the garment, madmen sneered at the Jewish charioteer and exclaimed ridiculously: "Jew, Jew, eat pork ear!..»Chronicle of the Goryukhinsky deacon.) But how amazed they were, when the chaise stopped in the middle of the village and when the visitor, jumping out of it, in an imperious voice demanded the elder Tryphon. This dignitary was in the amusement building, from where two foremen respectfully led him out by the arms. Stranger, looking at him menacingly, gave him a letter and told him to read it immediately. The Goryukhinsky elders used to never read anything themselves. The headman was illiterate. They sent for the Zemsky Avdey. He was found nearby, sleeping in the alley under the fence, and led to a stranger. But by drive or by sudden fright, or from a sad foreboding, letters letters, clearly written, seemed to him bewildered, and he was not able to make out them. Stranger, sending the elder Tryphon and Zemsky Avdey to sleep with terrible curses, postponed reading the letter until tomorrow and went to the clerk hut, where did the Jew carry him and his little suitcase.
Goriukhintsy looked at this extraordinary incident with silent amazement, but soon the chaise, the Jew and the stranger were forgotten. The day ended loudly and cheerfully, and Goryukhino fell asleep, did not foresee, what awaited him.
With the rise of the morning sun, the inhabitants were awakened by knocking on the windows and calling for a worldly gathering. Citizens one after another came to the courtyard of the command hut, veche area. Their eyes were dim and red, faces are swollen; they, yawning and scratching, looked at a man in a cap, in an old blue caftan, importantly standing on the porch of the command hut, and tried to remember his features, once seen by them. The elder Tryphon and the Zemsky Avdey stood beside him without a hat, with an air of servility and deep sorrow. "Is everything here?"- asked the stranger. "Everybody is here?"- repeated the headman. "All one hundred", - answered the citizens. Then the headman announced, that a diploma was received from the master, and ordered the Zemsky to read it into the hearing of the world. Avdey spoke and read loudly the following. (NB. "This very grave letter I have copied from Tryphon the elder, he also kept it in an ark along with other monuments of his dominion over Goryukhin. ". I could not find this curious letter.)
Trifon Ivanov!
The presenter of this letter, my attorney **, goes to my homeland, the village of Goryukhino, to enter the management thereof. Immediately upon his arrival, gather the men and declare my lordly will to them, namely: The orders of my attorney ** them, men, listen, as my own. And all, whatever he demands, obey without question, otherwise he has ** deal with them with all the severity. To this, their shameless disobedience and your, Trifon Ivanov, rogue indulgence.
Signed NN.
’ **, spreading his legs like a dick letter and akimbo like a fert, gave the following short and expressive speech: "Look, you are with me, don't be very clever; you, I know, spoiled people, Yes, I’ll beat the stuff out of your heads, I suppose, rather than yesterday’s hops ”. There was no hops in any head anymore. Goriukhintsy, like thunder, hung their noses and went home in horror.
Clerk's board **
** took over the reins and began to execute his political system; she deserves special consideration.
Its main basis was the following axiom: Than a man is richer, the more spoiled he is, the poorer, the more humble. Because of this ** tried about the meekness of the fiefdom, as the main peasant virtue. He demanded an inventory of the peasants, divided them into rich and poor. 1) The arrears were spread among the well-to-do men and were collected from them with all sorts of severity.. 2) Insufficient and idle revelers were immediately planted on arable land, if, according to his calculation, their labor turned out to be insufficient, then he gave them to other peasants as farm laborers, for which they paid him a voluntary tribute, and those given to servitude had every right to pay off, paying in excess of arrears double annual rent. Every social obligation fell on well-to-do men. The recruitment was a triumph for the greedy ruler; because all the rich men paid off from him in turn, until finally the choice fell on the scoundrel or the ruined.[4] Worldly gatherings were destroyed.
He collected rent a little and all year round.. More than that, he started inadvertent fees. Men, it seems, paid and not too much against the former, but could not work out in any way, nor save enough money. At the age of three, Goryukhino was completely impoverished.
Goryukhino was depressed, the bazaar is empty, Arkhip-Bald's songs fell silent. The kids went around the world. Half of the men were arable, and the other served as farm laborers; and the day of the temple feast became, in the words of the chronicler, not a day of joy and jubilation, but the anniversary of sadness and remembrance of the woe.
Where can I read ,,The history of the village of Goryukhina”