"A Tale of Shemyakin's Court": a plot, artistic features

The work of interest is almost the most popular monument of the 17th century. His name later even became a saying: "Shemyakin court" denotes an unfair trial, a parody of him. There are poetic and dramatic transcriptions of The Tale of Shemyakin's Court, as well as its popular reproduction. In addition, she gave birth to a famous fairy tale about a poor and rich brother.

Problems of authorship, sources

The author of "The Tale of Shemyakin Court" is unknown, because it is by national origin. Researchers looked for similar works in Indian, Persian literature. It is also known that a well-known writer Mikolai Rey, who lived in the 17th century and received the honorary title "father of Polish literature", worked with a similar plot. In some lists it is directly stated: "From the Polish books" was written "The Story of Shemyakin Court". The questions of its sources, however, remained unresolved. There is no convincing evidence of the connection of the Russian monument with a specific work of foreign literature. Identified roll calls indicate the presence of so-called stray subjects, nothing more. As is often the case with monuments of folklore, jokes, anecdotes can not belong to one people. They successfully migrate from one locality to another, as household conflicts are essentially the same everywhere. This feature makes it particularly difficult to differentiate translated and original monuments of literature from the 17th century.

"The Tale of Shemyakin Court": content

The first part of the story tells about incidents (at the same time hilarious and sad) that happened to the wretched peasant. Everything begins with the fact that his rich brother gives him a horse, but forgets about the yoke. The main character ties the woods to the tail, and he tears. The next misfortune happened to the peasant when he spent the night with a priest on polatyah (that is, on a lounger). Supper, of course, greedy priest did not call. Looking at the table that was breaking from the dishes, the main character accidentally kills the infant, the son of a priest. Now for these offenses the poor fellow is to be tried. From despair, he wants to take his life and rushes off the bridge. And again - failure. The peasant himself remains purposeful, but the old man, to whom the protagonist landed, went to the forefathers.

So, the peasant has to answer for three crimes. The reader expects the culmination - the cunning and unjust judge Shemyaka, having taken a stone wrapped in a handkerchief for generous promises, decides the case in favor of the poor peasant. So, the first victim had to wait until the horse grows a new tail. The priest was offered to give his wife to a peasant, from whom she must bear the child. And the son of the deceased old man as compensation must himself fall from the bridge and hurt the poor peasant. Naturally, from such decisions all the victims decide to pay off.

Specific composition

"The Tale of Shemyakin Court" is divided into two parts. The first part consists of three episodes, described above. In themselves, they are perceived as ordinary funny jokes, which perform the function of tying. Here they are, as it were, taken out of the framework of the main narrative, although classical examples of narratives about ships of this kind are not observed. In addition, all the events described there are narrated in the past tense. And not in the present, than the "Story of Shemyakin court" is different. This feature gives dynamism to the plot of the ancient Russian monument.

The second component of the composition is more complex: in fact, the Shemyaki sentences, which are a mirror image of the poor peasant 's adventures, are preceded by a frame-scene, as the defendant shows the judge a "reward".

Traditions of satire

Satire was very popular in the literature of the XVII century. The fact of its relevance can be explained on the basis of the specifics of the social life of that time. There was an increase in the role of the trade and craft population, but this did not contribute to the development of his civil rights. In the satire, many aspects of the life of the society of those times were subjected to condemnation and conviction: an unfair trial, hypocrisy and hypocrisy of monasticism, extreme social inequality.

"The Tale of Shemyakin Court" fits perfectly into the established tradition. The reader of that time would undoubtedly understand that the story parodies the "Code of Law" of 1649 - a set of laws that proposed to choose a measure of punishment depending on what the crime was of the offender. So, for murder the execution was supposed, and manufacturing of counterfeit money was punished, pouring a throat with lead. That is, "The Story of Shemyakin Court" can be defined as a parody of the Old Russian legal proceedings.

The level of ideas

The story ended for the wretched peasant happily, he wins over the world of injustice and arbitrariness. "Truth" is stronger than the "crooked". As for the judge himself, he took from the incident a valuable lesson: "The Tale of Shemyakin Court" ends with the fact that the hook-jerk learns the truth about the "message". But nevertheless, he even rejoices at his own judgments, because otherwise, with this cobblestone he would have been knocked out of the spirit.

Artistic features

"The Tale of Shemyakin Court" is distinguished by the speed of action, the comic of the situations in which the characters fall, and also the emphatically impassive manner of the narrative, which only strengthens the satirical sound of the ancient Russian monument. These features point to the proximity of the story to magical and social-folk folk tales.