Matrenin Dvor summary with quotes. Matrenin Dvor, abbreviated. Main characters of the story

“Matryona’s Dvor” by Solzhenitsyn is a story about the tragic fate of an open woman, Matryona, who is not like her fellow villagers. Published for the first time in the magazine “New World” in 1963. Read summary“Matrenin's Dvor” chapter by chapter is especially relevant for students in grade 9, in which the work is studied.

The story is told in the first person. Main character becomes Matryona's lodger and talks about her amazing fate. The first title of the story, “A Village Is Not Standing Without a Righteous Man,” well conveyed the idea of the work about a pure, unselfish soul, but was replaced to avoid problems with censorship.

Main characters of the story

Main characters:

The narrator is a middle-aged man who served time in prison and wants a quiet, peaceful life in the Russian outback. He settled with Matryona and talks about the fate of the heroine.
Matryona is a lonely woman of about sixty. She lives alone in her hut and is often sick.

Other characters:

Thaddeus is Matryona’s former lover, a tenacious, greedy old man.
Matryona's sisters are women who seek their own benefit in everything; they treat Matryona conscientiously.

“Matrenin Dvor” very brief summary

A. Matrenin Dvor summary for reader's diary:

The author-storyteller, after the war and the camps, finds himself in the depths of Russia, in a small village called Talnovo, where he gets a job as a teacher and lodges with a local resident, Matryona Vasilyevna Grigorieva.

Matryona had a difficult fate: she loved Thaddeus, and married his younger brother Efim. All her children died in infancy, so she was not loved in the village and was considered “spoiled.” She loved her husband’s nephews very much and took in a girl, Kira, whom she supported until her marriage.

Matryona does not think about herself, all her life she works for someone, tries to help everyone without demanding a reward or even a kind word for it. Maybe this is why the villagers consider her blessed. And the end of the story is tragic: Matryona dies on the railway tracks, helping the same Thaddeus move half of her house, which she bequeathed to Kira. No one in the village really grieves about Matryona; the relatives only think about the property they left behind.

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

This is interesting: The story, which grabs the soul and squeezes the heart, is presented in a brief reader’s diary, which every child and adult should periodically read.

A short retelling of Solzhenitsyn's Marin's Court

A. Solzhenitsyn Matrenin Dvor summary:

But it was not possible to live in a village with the wonderful name Vysokoye Polye, because they did not bake bread there or sell anything edible. And then he is transferred to a village with a monstrous name for his ears, Torfoprodukt. However, it turns out that “not everything is about peat mining” and there are also villages with the names Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudny, Shevertny, Shestimirovo...

This reconciles the narrator with his lot, for it promises him “a bad Russia.” He settles in one of the villages called Talnovo. The owner of the hut in which the narrator lives is called Matryona Vasilyevna Grigorieva or simply Matryona.

My husband went missing at the beginning of the war. He loved Matryona and did not beat her, like the village husbands of their wives. But it’s unlikely that Matryona herself loved him. She was supposed to marry her husband's older brother, Thaddeus. However, he went to the front first world war and disappeared. Matryona was waiting for him, but in the end, at the insistence of Thaddeus’s family, she married her younger brother, Efim.

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

The “second Matryona” gave birth to six children to Thaddeus, but the “first Matryona” had all the children from Efim (also six) die without living three months. The whole village decided that Matryona was “corrupted,” and she herself believed it. Then she took in the daughter of the “second Matryona”, Kira, and 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. Matryona has enormous inner strength. For example, she is able to stop a running horse, which men cannot stop.

Gradually, the narrator understands that it is precisely on people like Matryona, who give themselves to others without reserve, that the entire village and the entire Russian land still hold together. But he is hardly pleased with this discovery. If Russia rests only on selfless old women, what will happen to it next?

When relatives bury Matryona, they cry out of obligation rather 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 "Matrenin's Dvor" in 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 possible repairs ways. Passing this section, the train again picked up its previous speed. And the reason for the slowdown was known only to the drivers and the author.

Chapter 1

In the summer of 1956, the author returned from the “burning desert at random just to Russia.” His return “dragged on for about ten years,” and he was in no hurry to go anywhere or to anyone. The narrator wanted to go somewhere into the Russian outback with forests and fields.

He dreamed of “teaching” away from the bustle of the city, and he was sent to a town with the poetic name Vysokoye Pole. The author didn’t like it there, and he asked to be redirected to a place with the terrible name “Peatproduct”. Upon arrival in the village, the narrator understands that “it’s easier to come here than to leave later.”

In addition to the owner, the hut was inhabited by mice, cockroaches, and a lame cat that had been picked up out of pity.

Every morning the hostess woke up at 5 am, fearing to oversleep, since she did not really trust her watch, which had been running for 27 years. She fed her “dirty white crooked goat” and prepared a simple breakfast for the guest.

Once Matryona learned from rural women that “a new pension law had been passed.” 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 just because of one signature.

People in the village lived poorly, despite the fact that peat swamps stretched for hundreds of kilometers around Talnovo, the peat from them “belonged to the trust.” Rural women had to haul bags of peat for themselves for the winter, hiding from the raids of the guards. The soil here was sandy and the harvests were poor.

People in the village often called Matryona to their garden, and she, abandoning her work, went to help them. Talnovsky women almost lined up to take Matryona to their garden, because she worked for pleasure, rejoicing at someone else’s good harvest.

Once every month and a half, the housewife had her turn to feed the shepherds. This lunch “put Matryona at great expense” because she had to buy her sugar, canned food, and butter. Grandmother herself did not allow herself such luxury even on holidays, living only on what her poor garden gave her.

Matryona once told about the horse Volchok, who got scared and “carried the sleigh into the lake.” “The men jumped back, but she grabbed the reins and stopped them.” At the same time, despite her apparent fearlessness, the hostess was afraid of fire and, until her knees trembled, of trains.

By winter, Matryona still received a pension. The neighbors began to envy her. And grandma finally ordered herself new felt boots, a coat from an old overcoat, and hid two hundred rubles for the funeral.

Once, Matryona’s three younger sisters came to Epiphany evenings. The author was surprised, because he had never 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 her pension, my grandmother seemed to come to life, and work was easier for her, and her illness bothered her less often. Only one event darkened the grandmother’s mood: at Epiphany in the church, someone took her pot with holy water, and she was left without water and without a pot.

Chapter 2

The Talnovsky women asked Matryona about her guest. And she passed the questions on to him. The author only told the landlady that he was in prison. I myself didn’t ask about the old woman’s past; I didn’t think there was anything 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 student named Kira. But Matryona’s husband did not return from the war.

That same evening she said that she was supposed to marry him. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Matryona loved Thaddeus. But he was taken to 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 Hungarian captivity.” Matryona threw herself at his feet, and he said that “if it weren’t for my dear brother, he would have chopped you both up.”

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

The author remembered how she came to her landlady and often complained that her husband beat her and offended her. She gave birth to Thaddeus six children. And Matryona’s children were born and died almost immediately. “Damage” is to blame for everything, she thought.

Soon the war began, and Efim 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 took care of her will early, in which she ordered that part of her hut - a wooden outbuilding - be given to her pupil.

Kira came to visit and said that in Cherusty (where she lives), in order to get land for young people, it is necessary to erect some kind of building. Matrenina's bequeathed room was very suitable for this purpose. Thaddeus began to come often and persuade the woman to give her up now, during her lifetime. Matryona did not feel sorry for the upper room, but she was afraid 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 had once built with his father.

The room lay near the house for two weeks because a blizzard covered all the roads. But Matryona was not herself, and besides, three of her sisters came and scolded her for allowing the room to be given away. On those same days, “a lanky cat wandered out of the yard and disappeared,” which greatly upset the owner.

It turned out that the second sleigh, which Thaddeus had attached to the first out of greed, got stuck on the flights and fell apart. At that time, a steam locomotive was moving, you couldn’t see it because of the hillock, you couldn’t hear it because of the tractor engine. He ran into a sleigh, killing one of the drivers, the son of Thaddeus and Matryona. Late at night, Matryona’s friend Masha came, talked about it, grieved, and then told the author that Matryona bequeathed her “faggot” to her, and she wanted to take it in memory of her friend.

Chapter 3

When they transported the ill-fated upper room, the first sleigh with planks 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 was almost losing her mind with grief, he was only worried about how to deliver the sleigh 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 sisters-in-law.” The woman often remembered Matryona, but always with condemnation. And in these memories arose completely new image a woman who was so strikingly different from the people around her. Matryona lived with an open heart, always helped others, and 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 person, without whom, according to the proverb, not a village would stand. Neither the city. Neither the whole land is ours.”

Conclusion

The work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells the story of the fate of a sincere Russian woman, who “had fewer sins than a lame-legged cat.” The image of the main character is the image of that very righteous man, without whom the village cannot stand. Matryona devotes her entire life to others, there is not a drop of malice or falsehood in her. Those around her 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 “Shch-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

The story is told in the first person. The main character becomes Matryona's lodger and talks about her amazing fate. The first title of the story, “A Village Is Not Standing Without a Righteous Man,” well conveyed the idea of the work about a pure, unselfish soul, but was replaced to avoid problems with censorship.

Main characters

Narrator- an elderly man who served some time in prison and wants a quiet, peaceful life in the Russian outback. He settled with Matryona and talks about the fate of the heroine.

Matryona– a single woman of about sixty. She lives alone in her hut and is often sick.

Other characters

Thaddeus- Matryona's former lover, a tenacious, greedy old man.

Matryona's sisters– women who seek their own benefit in everything treat Matryona as a consumer.

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 possible track repairs. Passing this section, the train again picked up its previous speed. And the reason for the slowdown was known only to the drivers and the author.

Chapter 1

In the summer of 1956, the author returned from the “burning desert at random simply to Russia.” His return “dragged on for about ten years,” and he was in no hurry to go anywhere or to anyone. The narrator wanted to go somewhere into the Russian outback with forests and fields.

In addition to the owner, the hut was inhabited by mice, cockroaches, and a lame cat that had been picked up out of pity.

Matryona once told about the horse Volchok, who got scared and “carried the sleigh into the lake.” “The men jumped back, but she grabbed the reins and stopped.” At the same time, despite her apparent fearlessness, the hostess was afraid of fire and, until her knees trembled, of trains.

Chapter 2

One day, when he came home, the narrator saw an old man - Thaddeus Mironovich. He came to ask for his son, Antoshka Grigoriev. The author recalls that for some reason Matryona herself sometimes asked for this insanely lazy and arrogant boy, who was transferred from class to class just so as “not to spoil the performance statistics.” After the petitioner left, the narrator learned from the hostess that it was the brother of her missing husband. That same evening she said that she was supposed to marry him. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Matryona loved Thaddeus. But he was taken to 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 Hungarian captivity.” Matryona threw herself at his feet, and he said that “if it weren’t for my dear brother, he would have chopped you both up.”

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

The room lay near the house for two weeks because a blizzard covered all the roads. But Matryona was not herself, and besides, three of her sisters came and scolded her for allowing the room to be given away. On the same days, “a lanky cat wandered out of the yard and disappeared,” which greatly upset the owner.

One day, returning from work, the narrator saw old man Thaddeus driving a tractor and loading a dismantled room onto two homemade sleighs. Afterwards we drank moonshine and in the dark drove the hut to Cherusti. Matryona went to see them off, but never returned. At one o'clock in the morning the author heard voices in the village. It turned out that the second sleigh, which Thaddeus had attached to the first out of greed, got stuck on the flights and fell apart. At that time, a steam locomotive was moving, you couldn’t see it because of the hillock, you couldn’t hear it because of the tractor engine. He ran into a sleigh, killing one of the drivers, the son of Thaddeus and Matryona. Late at night, Matryona’s friend Masha came, talked about it, grieved, and then told the author that Matryona bequeathed her “faggot” to her, and she wanted to take it in memory of her friend.

Chapter 3

The next morning they were going to bury Matryona. The narrator describes how her sisters came to say goodbye to her, crying “to show” and blaming Thaddeus and his family for her death. Only Kira truly grieved for her deceased adoptive mother, and “Second Matryona,” Thaddeus’s wife. The old man himself was not at the wake. When they transported the ill-fated upper room, the first sleigh with planks 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 was almost losing her mind with grief, he was only worried about how to deliver the sleigh 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 sisters-in-law.” The woman often remembered Matryona, but always with condemnation. And in these memories a completely new image of a woman arose, who was so strikingly different from the people around. Matryona lived with an open heart, always helped others, and never refused help to anyone, even though her health was poor.

Conclusion

Because brief retelling“Matrenin’s Dvor” does not convey the original author’s speech and the atmosphere of the story; it is worth reading it in full.

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Matryonin yard

In the summer of 1956, at the one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow, a passenger gets off along the railway line to Murom and Kazan. This is the narrator, whose fate resembles the fate of Solzhenitsyn himself (he fought, but from the front he was “delayed in returning for ten years,” that is, he served in a camp, which is also evidenced by the fact that when the narrator got a job, every letter in his documents were "groped"). He dreams of working as a teacher in the depths of Russia, away from urban civilization. But it was not possible to live in a village with the wonderful name Vysokoye Polye, because they did not bake bread there or sell anything edible. And then he is transferred to a village with a monstrous name for his ears, Torfoprodukt. However, it turns out that “not everything is about peat mining” and there are also villages with the names Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudny, Shevertny, Shestimirovo...

Matryona's fate, about which she does not immediately, not considering it interesting for a “cultured” person, sometimes tells the guest in the evenings, fascinates and at the same time stuns him. He sees a special meaning in her fate, which Matryona’s fellow villagers and relatives do not notice. My husband went missing at the beginning of the war. He loved Matryona and did not beat her, like the village husbands of their wives. But it’s unlikely that Matryona herself 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 Thaddeus’s family, she married her younger brother, Efim. And then Thaddeus, who was in Hungarian captivity, suddenly returned. According to him, he did not hack Matryona and her husband to death with an ax only because Efim is his brother. Thaddeus loved Matryona so much that he found a new bride with the same name. The “second Matryona” gave birth to six children to Thaddeus, but all the children from Efim (also six) of the “first Matryona” died without even living for three months. The whole village decided that Matryona was “corrupted,” and she herself believed it. Then she took in the daughter of the “second Matryona”, Kira, and raised her for ten years, until she got married and left for the village of Cherusti.

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

Thaddeus doesn't even come to the wake.

In the summer of 1956, the narrator returned to Russia from Kazakhstan. Apparently he was in a camp there, because according to him, he stayed for about 10 years. No one was waiting for him at home. He was traveling with the goal of becoming a mathematics teacher.

When I arrived, I went to the personnel department and said that I wanted to work at a school that was located further away from railway. Those working in the HR department were surprised by this, since at that time everyone, on the contrary, wanted to work in the center. But they still found a place for him. This was the High Field. The name of the town alone made the author very happy.

Arriving in this village, he really liked this place. It was beautiful, nice and cozy there. But, unfortunately, they didn’t bake bread there or sell anything edible. And the only way out was to go to the distant central mountains for food. The author decides to go back to the HR department. They doubted the translation for a long time. But they still gave me a place. They put a stamp with the inscription “Peat product”. This was the name of the station. Where it was easy to come, but difficult to leave. A gloomy village consisting of barracks and houses. And no forest at all. After spending the night on a station bench, the author decided to move on. He saw the market. It was early and therefore there was no one there except one woman who was selling milk. The narrator approached her and bought milk. I started drinking right away. In a conversation with her, he learned that in addition to the gray village of Torfprodukt, behind the hill there is a village called Talnovo. And behind it there is a whole bunch of such villages: Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudny, Shevertny, Shestimirovo - all quieter, away from the railway, towards the lakes. The author began to hope that his dream would come true, that he would find what he came from Asia for. He asked the saleswoman after the market to take him to Talnovo and find him housing. Despite the fact that the narrator seemed to be a profitable tenant, it was difficult to find housing. But that woman led him to a place where it was very beautiful all around. And she said that there is one woman Matryona. She is not doing so well because she is sick and has neglected the house. But you can try.

Matryona's house was on the outskirts. He was big but already old. It was built a long time ago and soundly, for a large family, but now there lived one lonely woman of about sixty. The author’s new friend opened the gate and they went into the yard. And then into the house itself. Matryona was lying on the stove, her face was yellow and sick. Apparently the illness has completely exhausted her. She was not very happy about the tenant. Since he is sick, he cannot help but bring him anything. But she said, let him live. Although she advised the author to follow some women who could also shelter him. As a result, the narrator walked around those houses. But he still knew that he would live with Matryona Vasilievna. And when he returned to her. She even seemed to greet him with joy. They discussed the price and that the school where he would work should provide him with peat.

Matryona Ivanovna never received a ruble from the state or from her relatives. No pension was paid. On the collective farm I worked for sticks in the work book. Her family didn't help her much. In general, the author settled with Matryona Vasilievna. In addition to him, there lived in the house a cat with a sore paw, mice and cockroaches. And there was electricity in the house. The author has become accustomed to everything in this house. Even with the rustling of mice and cockroaches behind the wall. Matryona Ivanovna got up at 4-5 in the morning. I lit the stove. She fed her only animal on the farm, a goat, and carried three buckets of water for herself, the goat, and the author. The narrator always woke up later than her and said “good morning Matryona Vasilyevna.” And I always heard a friendly answer. And then she called him to breakfast. It wasn't always tasty. Often it was burnt or under-salted. And in most cases, this food left plaque or heartburn on the teeth. But this was not the fault of the hostess, it was all due to the lack good products. But the author always ate everything. Patiently put aside either a hair or a cockroach leg. And I never dared to reproach Matryona Vasilievna. Yes, and she herself understood everything.

That autumn the hostess had a lot of troubles. A new pension law has been released. She tried to get her pension paid. But due to the fact that she worked on a collective farm, and not at a factory, she could not get it. Only if for the loss of a husband as a breadwinner. But he had not been alive since the war, so she could no longer collect the necessary documents. For Matryona Vasilievna the most the best remedy from a bad mood - there was work. This was always the only way she saved herself. She calls the author Ignatich. Little peat was allocated to local residents, and they had to steal. But to the narrator, as a teacher, the machine of this goodness stood out. This woman always had many different worries, like going to bring peat, or stumps, or something else. But the goat took the most effort and time. Since she needed to pick grass every day, she still needed to be found, which is why she had only her on the farm. And the local chairman completely took away part of the residents’ lands. And his wife forced him to help the collective farm, including Matryona. Moreover, she also told them to take their pitchforks, shovels and other tools. And no one was interested in the fact that this woman lived without a husband and was sick. But, no matter what, she always helped everyone. She was trouble-free in household work.

That winter, Matryona Vasilievna’s life improved a little. She began to receive money. Pension - about 80 rubles. And 100 and a few kopecks from the tenant, i.e. the author and from the school. Thanks to these funds, she ordered new felt boots to be rolled up, bought a padded jacket, altered her coat and sewed 200 rubles into the lining for the funeral. And her life became a little more cheerful. She began to go to her friend Masha more often. And she rarely invited guests over, only on holidays. One day she went to church for baptism with a bowler hat. She blessed the water, but then did not find the pot in the church. And she was left without sacred water that year. And this despite the fact that Matryona was rather a pagan. I believed in signs. Although she always said, before any business, “well, God bless you.”

They got used to each other. Matryona was not at all curious, like all women. And even when the author said that he was in prison, she simply shook her head. The author also knew almost nothing about the mistress of the house. Only later did he find out that Matryona got married before the revolution and immediately became the mistress of the house in which they now live, since she did not have anyone as a mother-in-law. She had six children, but they died one after another. Then there was some kind of pupil Kira. The husband did not return from the war, either he was captured or died. But the body was not found, or maybe he got married somewhere abroad and already forgot the Russian language.

One day, after returning from school, the author saw a guest in the house. It turned out to be the son of the narrator’s student, whose name was Antoshka Grigoriev. This boy was lazy, he understood perfectly well that in any case he would be transferred to the next class, and because of this he did not study, he laughed more at the teachers. But the author gave him only two grades and nothing higher than them. The boy's father came to find out about his son's poor performance and said that he was now checking his diary and even beating him. This man, who looked more like Antoshka’s grandfather than his father, was called Fadey Mironovich. The author recalls that once Matryona herself asked the narrator to give good grades to Antoshka Grigoriev. But then the author did not attach any importance to this. And now she stood in the doorway and was again a petitioner. After the guest left, the author learned from Matryona that this Antoshka turned out to be the son of her missing husband’s brother. And after that their conversation stopped.

A couple of hours later, when the author was sitting at work, Matryona came into the house and sharply declared that she almost once married this Fadey Mironovich. That he was the older brother of her husband, whose name was Efim. She was 19 then, and Fadey was 23. They took him to the German war. For three years there was no news from him. As a result, Matryona’s younger brother Efim proposed marriage, and she agreed. And after some time, Fadey returned from captivity. He said that if it weren’t his brother, he would have chopped them both up. There were so many girls he could marry, but he said that he would only marry the one whose name would be Matryona. And I found one that still lives today. He just hits her hard. The author recalls a woman who constantly comes to complain to Matryona Vasilyevna about her husband. Yefim never hit Matryona, he only hit Matryona on the forehead once with a spoon, she was offended and ran into the forest, and didn’t touch her again. However, Fadey and that Materna also had six children, and all of them were alive. But Matryona Vasilyevna and Efim had six, but not one of them lived to be three months old. And because of this, everyone in the village believed that Matryona had damage. In '41, Fadey was not taken to the war because of blindness, but Efim, on the contrary, was taken. And he did not return from it. And then Matryona asked that Fadeev Matryona for a piece of Fadey - the youngest daughter Kira. And the girl lived with her for about 10 years, then she married a young driver. And only from her does the mistress’s help come. She will give her either sugar or salsa. And Matryona then bequeathed the upper room to Kira, but three more sisters laid claim to it.

And then this Kira arrived. Yes, Fadey, in order to get this plot, began to think that the young people needed to build something. And he was more excited about it than Kira and her husband. From then on, he began to come to Matryona more and more often, and persuade her to give up the upper room during her lifetime. She did not feel sorry for giving it away, but still she bequeathed it to Kira, and not Faedei. And one day in February. Fadey and his sons came and began to dispossess the house. His eyes sparkled. After a short break due to frost, the room began to be dismantled and transported again. They loaded everything onto a tractor sled. And after that they organized a party in Matryona’s house. Then everyone dispersed, and Matryona went to see them off. However, after that she did not return for a long time. The author thought that she was with her friend Masha, but she was not there until one o'clock.

The narrator woke up from noises on the streets. People in greatcoats came to him and began to loudly ask where the owner was and whether the people who had transported the room on a tractor were drinking here. The author did not understand what was going on. One realized that Matryona could be arrested for making moonshine. Ignatich convinced these people that there was no party in this house. As a result, they left the house without explaining anything. And only near the gate they said something incomprehensible about how they had been torn apart and that they couldn’t be put back together. And something about the twenty-first soon. Then the author began to clean the kitchens. And I heard that someone came in, I thought that Matryona Vasilievna had returned. But no, her friend Masha came in. She was all teary. And she said that the sleigh got stuck at the crossing. And in all this confusion they did not hear the sound of the approaching train. As a result, he crushed three, including Matryona.

The author went to bed, having locked the door before doing so. He lay there, and it seemed to him that Matryona was in the house, rushing around him, saying goodbye to every centimeter. Then he remembered her story about Fadey, how he threatened to chop her and his brother, but did not do it in the end. And yet his words came true.

At dawn, the women brought everything that was left of Matryona on a sleigh. No arms, no legs, everything was mixed up. Only the face and right hand stayed. They took all the flowers out of the house, hung a mirror and placed a coffin near the window. To whom the villagers came to say goodbye to her. Everyone cried, although their crying seemed to be scripted. Her sisters cried and wailed especially hard. Who had already taken everything and the chest, and even flogged 200 rubles for the funeral. And everyone, crying, accused that the upper room had ruined her, that she had not listened to them. And that Matryona, whom Fadey later took as his wife, also cried theatrically. Kira also cried because of her aunt and because her husband was about to be tried. Since he was doubly guilty of both the fact that he was transporting a roomer and the fact that he was a driver and knew the rules of unguarded crossings. But the most important thing is that Fadey did not suffer so much from the fact that his son and the woman he once loved were gone. He was more worried that Matryona's sisters might take the rest of the house.

While the coffins stood in the houses, Fadey ran around and tried to get permission to take away the rest of the room. And he was given this permission. Matryona was buried on Sunday. Then the wake. But Fadey did not come to them. Then they divided the property. And having agreed, it turned out that the sister alone took the goat, the shoemaker and his wife took the hut, and Fadey was credited with the upper room that he had long appropriated for himself.

Later the author moved in with one of her husband's sisters. Who often told nasty things about Matryona. That her husband did not love her, and that he took a mistress. And that Matryona did not take care of herself and did not start a household.

And only then did the narrator conclude that Matryona Vasilievna was the very righteous man without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand.

Solzhenitsyn began writing the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” in the period from July-August 1959, and he finished it in December of the same year. The story is based on the stories of a woman, Matryona Timofeevna Zakharova, whom the author met during his stay in the Vladimir region. The first publication of the story was in 1963 in the magazine “New World”. The first title of the story was “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous man”, and was replaced under the editorship with “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The editor thought the original title was too preachy for the reader.

Main characters

Ignatyich- a middle-aged man moves into Matryona’s house;
Matryona -a lonely old woman, about 60 years old;
Thaddeus -Matryona's former boyfriend, a greedy old man.

Summary of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” by chapters

The narration is told exclusively from the perspective of the narrator Ignatyich. In many ways, A. Solzhenitsyn compares himself to the narrator. The story includes 3 chapters describing the life of the woman Matryona.

Chapter 1

Ignatyich returns from exile, which lasted more than 10 years. A man decides to find a job as a mathematics teacher. He comes to the personnel department and is sent to different places. After searching for the right job, Ignatyich is sent to work in the village of Talnovo. While walking through the bazaar, the narrator meets a woman. He asks her to advise who he can rent a room from, the woman leads him to Matryona.House Matryona, although large, fell into disrepair - mice and cockroaches were running everywhere, the logs were rotten.Matryona was not particularly happy with the new guest, complained about her illnesses, but still allowed Ignatyich to live. The narrator was entitled to a peat machine for the winter from school. This peat was part of the room price. Matryona lived poorly, without a pension, and her relatives practically did not help her. This is how the narrator began to live with the old woman with mice and cockroaches. The old woman got up early in the morning, milked the goat and prepared breakfast for the tenant - jacket potatoes and “cardboard” soup. Due to the lack of products in the store, the dishes did not change. One day Matryona Vasilievna heard from her neighbors that a new pension law had been passed, according to which she would be able to receive a pension. The woman began visiting offices and applying for a pension.

Important! Ignatyich describes a Russian village - poor, falling apart and half-starved. Even the nearest peat processing plant, “Torfoprodukt,” had no impact on rural life. All the money from processing went to the bosses, the workers quietly carried away the peat from the plant.

The villagers loved Matryona Vasilyevna and often asked her to help. The woman was in great demand when work in the garden came up - everything that was planted by Matryona always grew and gave good harvest. Matryona also helped the shepherds - once every month and a half she brought them canned food, butter and sugar, although she never allowed herself such luxury. After a long visit to the authorities, Matryona managed to get a pension; her neighbors began to envy the old woman.Matryona, who was not offended by them, bought felt boots and a coat with her first pension. Her younger sisters came to Matryona Vasilievna’s baptism. The narrator thinks that they came only because of their pension, since he had not seen them before. After receiving her pension, the old woman became happier, stopped complaining about her illnesses, she was upset only by one thing: someone stole her pot of blessed water from the church during the service.

Chapter 2

Residents of the village of Talnovo ask Matryona about her tenant; she asked Ignatyich all the questions, and then passed them on to her neighbors. The narrator says little about himself; we learn the fact that he was in prison. In turn, the tenant asks Matryona about her life. Matryona Vasilyevna got married and moved to this house with her husband. She had 6 children, but none lived long. Matryona Vasilievna’s husband died in the war.

One day, Thaddeus Mironovich comes to visit Ignatyich, he asks to transfer his son Antoshka, a rather stupid boy, to the 6th grade. Matryona also asks the narrator for the same service. Ignatyich is surprised why Matryona stands up for Antoshka so much. The woman says that before the war, when she was 19 years old, Thaddeus wooed her. But he was taken to war, and he was gone for more than three years. Everyone thought he was missing or dead. Matryona was wooed by Thaddeus's younger brother, Efim, who asked Matryona to be the mistress of their house, since the brothers' mother had died. Matryona Vasilyevna agreed and married her younger brother Thaddeus. Thaddeus returned from captivity, in which he spent 3 years. Thaddeus, offended by his brother and Matryona, married a woman with the same name from another village. Matryona believed that the death of her children was due to the fact that Thaddeus caused damage. Thaddeus also had 6 children, and in order to somehow help him, Matryona takes in her niece Kira and bequeaths part of her house to her. Kira grew up and moved to another village, where she married a tractor driver. Kira arrives and says that they, as a young family, are allocated land, but with the condition that there will be a residential building there. Thaddeus insists on dismantling the annex that Matryona bequeathed to Kira. Matryona, after two sleepless nights, agrees. One day Ignatyich returns late in the evening from work and sees that Thaddeus has brought a tractor to dismantle the outbuilding. Thaddeus loaded the logs onto the sleigh and went to the village of Cherusti. Matryona, upset, followed them. The tractor driver said that he did not want to waste time, so he would carry two sleighs with logs at once.

Important! On the way to another village, a tragedy occurred that claimed the lives of Thaddeus’s son, Matryona and the tractor driver. This happened because the cable to which the sled was tied could not withstand the load and burst right on the railway tracks. At this time, two locomotives approached from behind without identification marks..

Chapter 3

There was almost nothing left of Matryona Vasilyevna, only one right hand was undamaged. Someone from the crowd will say at the funeral that the Lord left this for her to pray. Fellow villagers begin to gather for the funeral. Only Kira and her mother are crying sincerely. Matryona's three sisters were already mentally dividing their sister's house and household among themselves, Thaddeus was only thinking about how he could collect the remains of the logs and transport them to Cherusti. The victims were buried on Sunday. The fence and barn were dismantled by Thaddeus. One of the old woman’s sisters-in-law moved into the house, who considered Matryona stupid for helping others, and that in her entire life she had neither had a pig nor saved money. The author reflects at the end of the story about how distant a person can be to his closest relative, and how close he can be to a complete stranger. It was important to Matryona that she was helping another person selflessly, she was not interested in money or acquired property, she wanted to live according to her conscience, first of all, before herself. And even when Matryona told Ignatyich about the fire that happened in her hut, she didn’t care about the house itself, she saved the ficus trees. In the video you will also find an audio version of the contents of this work in brief.