Essay on the Russian language about a person. Writing a portrait essay
Personalities
Essays about interesting people
Viktor Krotov
© Viktor Krotov, 2017
ISBN 978-5-4483-4009-3
Created with the intelligent publishing system Ridero
On the cover: father Alexander Men, photo by Maria Romanushko.
"Personality does not disappear."
Father Alexander MenAlexander Men:
power and glory
1. If you write about him ...
If I were to write about this man, I would have to choose my words very carefully. You can say a lot of unnecessary, unimportant, purely your own. And I would like to talk about it.
Each person appears to us in many forms. But one of them becomes like a tuning fork of memory. If you were to write about Father Alexander, what image of him would become central? The main one among those preserved by memory - or soul ... Probably this one ... If only to decide to return there ...
The train doors open. The next stop is Sergiev Posad. There is a Lavra, pilgrims, ancient prayer temples. And here - just summer or winter, spring or autumn.
Steep stairs from the platform up. Asphalt narrow path, from which the woods slightly retreated to the right and left. And breathe easily in the forest.
No no! nothing has been here yet, there is no need to talk about it yet ...
Easy to breathe, easy to walk. Even when at the end you have to turn off the asphalt path, walk twenty meters along the roots and along the boards that cover the puddles, you do not lose heart.
Here is the gate with the bell button, which will be heard in the house. A ceremony to hold a dog honestly trying to feign indignation.
Canopy, where shelving has already begun - with magazines. Out "Questions of Philosophy", out "Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy" ...
On a narrow platform, there are also shelves, also books, and a meter-long figurine of a crusader with the inscription "CREDO". To the left of the platform is a door, heavily padded to shut out the noise.
It opens, this cherished door, and closes behind you. It's even easier to breathe here. Attic, with a sloping ceiling, repeating the slope of the roof. Red corner, lamp. The cassock hanging by the door is always ready ... A large window. The office is lined with bookshelves. Wall of books on the table. And the high cupboard, which separates the nook from the door with a narrow sofa, is full of books on both sides. From the front - philosophical, religious, encyclopedic. From the inside, from the side of the sofa hidden behind the closet, - fantasy and adventure.
To the right is a coffee table and a pair of comfortable armchairs. This is for guests. And to the left, at the desk, on a working swivel chair, next to a typewriter, with stacks of books and folders - he, father Alexander, Alexander Vladimirovich. He looks for something in the drawer and waves to the chair: “Sit down, Victor, relax ... Look at the table over there, they sent me recently ...” I take a magazine or a book, it’s terribly interesting, but he still remains the most interesting of all, Father Alexander ...
Many parishioners consider him a full-blooded Greek. He is swarthy, his hair is wavy, black, barely beginning to turn gray. The eyes are brown, lively, with a smiling sparkle. He does not peer, does not hypnotize, he does not pretend to be anyone, he does not try to give himself significance. On the contrary, he tries to divert the attention of the interlocutor from himself to more important, more necessary things. He talks about this and that, he has something to tell about life, and about books, and about people ...
He often falls silent, but not in anticipation of response phrases. The pause does not force you to speak, it seems to encourage you: nothing, nothing, it is not necessary to keep the conversation going, I will now tell you one more curious thing ... But if you started talking, all the attention of Father Alexander belongs to you. Fatherly attention - if you came to him as a father. Friendly attention - to everyone.
He is not very tall and a little overweight. In an everyday environment, his movements are fraught with a slight charming clumsiness. He seems to chuckle softly at this masquerade of everyday worries. And remains free and independent from this masquerade, no matter how necessary it would be to take part in it ...
This was written in December 1990. I thought I would write more and more. But could not.
2. Strength and glory of Father Alexander
Early in the morning of September 9, 1990, one of the most remarkable people of our country and our century, priest Alexander Men, was killed with an ax on the head.
Historians who will analyze the moral history of our century will mark the date of September 9, 1990 as a tragic milestone in the life of the agonizing atheistic order. “Now anything can happen,” we said to each other, unable to recover from the terrible news.
And indeed, anything has begun. The state pretended to be unable to find the killers. Nine months later, a measly five thousandth prize was announced. Did not help. Even the mighty Committee of State Security suddenly turned out to be powerless before the degenerate with a hatchet. The country's two top political leaders have pledged to keep the matter under their control. Did not help. Public opinion grumbled, as it should, and remained half-forgotten, never realizing the scale of the tragedy.
Soon another priest was killed, then another. Needless to say, the killers were not found. And the style of killing was deliberately the same: with a heavy object on the head. On the head, on the head...
Is it necessary to talk about what the political events turned out to be - round after round - which painted subsequent years in black and red tones ...
Historians will comprehend this event many times. We, the contemporaries of this man, it is important to preserve the memory of him. And maybe even before historians, we need to understand what happened on the ninth of September to all of us.
I would like to tell you about one of the pages of this wonderful life. Discuss the translation of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. And not so much about translation, but about the amazing linkage of creativity and fate, which allows you to feel some lines of force that go beyond the scheme of simple coincidences.
Father Alexander wrote many profound books. They have already entered the golden fund of our culture, although not everyone is inclined to admit this. Many of these books are truly encyclopedic in nature and require colossal work. How did he manage to combine it with a rich priestly and preaching activity, with pedagogical activity, with a large correspondence, with human unhurried communication? .. - all this is on the verge of a miracle. And suddenly Father Alexander takes up the translation of the novel!
He himself was as if surprised by this, spoke about his translation with a slight smiling embarrassment. I happened to meet him quite often during that period and become happy listener of the whole novel: referring to the illegible handwriting, Father Alexander each time read the next chapter aloud.
Then we talked with him about everything that the content of this chapter led us to - and the novel seemed to expand, absorbing the life of today's world.
Now I am listening to my memory again (I never read this novel with my eyes, although it was later published in someone else's translation) - and its scenes are almost inseparable from the one who read them to me.
I will try this way, from memory, maybe not very accurately, to convey some impressions about this novel, combined with the memory of an extraordinary translator who saw in this book something important for himself and for all of us.
* * *Father Alexander was a great book reader. He read in many languages. complex there was no literature for him. At the same time, he also liked that fascinating genre, which is usually denoted by the words “adventure and fantasy” (how can one not remember the back of the cabinet by the sofa). A genre that weaves a parable and a symbol into everyday circumstances. A genre that uses the movement of the plot instead of edification. The genre is ironic and unpredictable.
It is not surprising that Father Alexander loved the books of Graham Greene - the highest professional in the adventure genre and at the same time a master who knows how to fill his books with what it is worth writing them for: understanding life. A Christian writer (a Catholic, but this did not frighten Father Alexander, who puts Christianity above confessional barriers). A writer who is especially attentive to the world of social hopes and illusions.
Power and Glory is a novel about a priest. About the priest in the country of the victorious revolution. The revolution is present here, first of all, as a kind of spontaneous faceless phenomenon that turns over the usual human life. Religion is prohibited. Priests are either married, thereby forcing them to break their vow of celibacy and leave their rank, or they are executed. There is another way out for the priest - to run away from the country.
Instruction
The essay is one of the most time-consuming journalistic materials. In the center of the portrait - personality, character. Starting to write a work, designate for yourself two vectors, two objects of the upcoming biography. The first is the social relationship of your character with his environment, the second is his inner life.
Writing an essay is preceded by collecting materials about your hero. Conversations with him and those who know him well are the main sources of information. The main thing is what you will write about, feel it, find out about what he is, what he is proud of in this life and what he regrets most of all. Choose key points.
The essay cannot do without a reference to the main milestones of the biography, but the main thing here is not to replace an interesting story with a presentation of personal data. The reader is interested in human nature in action. You should tell about the positive character traits of your hero (honesty, hard work, perseverance, and others) not with a simple enumeration, but with facts. Show how he behaved in extraordinary situations, in dramatic moments of his life.
Describing this or that act of the hero of your essay, show his motivation. At the same time, it is important to figuratively comment on individual and typical character traits, psychological characteristics of a person. Both you and the reader should be interested in the original thoughts of the person you have chosen.
Each person is inevitably connected with the socio-political, economic, and socio-moral processes taking place in society (how non-academic it sounds). It is important to be able to show a connection with these processes, an attitude towards them in this or that event of an individual life. Try to relate your character's social experience to that of his generation. Perhaps you will be able to make some kind of reconstruction of a historical event through a fact, a vivid detail of his biography.
If your choice is a person with great social merit, emphasize with examples the significance of all achievements. The journalistic component in such an essay will be significant, and the theme of spiritual quest, creativity - one of the main ones. A good essay has one remarkable quality. It gives the reader not only knowledge of someone else's life, other life experience, mistakes and dreams, but also pushes them to comprehend their own.
note
Novice essayists are often concerned about the question: is the author's fiction acceptable in an essay? A fantasy that has nothing to do with real events in a person's life is unacceptable. But conjecture as an artistic technique is appropriate if there is no distortion of the fact itself. A classic example is the description of a person's mood in a given situation. Only the person himself can know for sure. But it is possible to assume and figuratively describe the emotions of the hero in specific circumstances.
Helpful advice
Be attentive to details and any uniqueness in the life of the hero of your essay. Try to discover special character traits in the selected individual, a “zest” in a profession or hobby, originality in relationships with family and friends. Try to describe his unusual view of familiar things. Any “talking” touch can make the image lively and attractive.
Sources:
- portrait sketch example
What is an essay and why is it interesting? Firstly, this is one of the genres of literature - a small work that describes events or a person. Secondly, this genre is a symbiosis of artistic and journalistic styles. Thirdly, it is desirable to write it if there is an example of an essay at hand. For a better understanding of the genre, you can reread Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter or Chekhov's Sakhalin Island. The famous travel essays by Radishchev or Pushkin will also become wonderful examples.
Genre Features
An essay is a type of short story that is written in a semi-fiction-semi-documentary genre and describes real people and real events. In a word, fantasy does not run wild here. It is difficult to write such a work, even if there is an example of an essay, because you need to take into account the main structural components, genre features and a penchant for truth. It has some traditional distinguishing characteristics:
- Written in short narrative form.
- Describes only real people and events.
- Focuses on social issues.
- It is 80-90 percent a description from nature.
- Adheres to undeniable facts.
- Allows the writer to express his opinion and engage in dialogue with the reader.
Thus, an essay is a kind of text that tells about a real event or person, while paying attention to a certain social problem (if possible, the reader is also involved in the discussion). All this is presented as an artistic text, saturated with elegant images. Even having an example of an essay with you, it is difficult to write a worthy work the first time.
Varieties
There are several types of essays in the literature. They can be:
- Portrait.
- Problematic.
- Travel.
- Sociological.
- Publicistic.
- Artistic.
What are their features?
Essays originated during the Renaissance. Then on the pages of English satirical magazines for the first time appeared moral writings. A few decades later, such essays became widespread in European literature. They had great success in France. Honore de Balzac, Jules Janin were the first representatives of this genre in French literature.
In Russia, the first essayist who laid the foundations was N. Novikov, who published in the satirical magazines Truten and Zhivopisets. The heyday of this type of creativity came in the 1840s. Already in the next decade, essays became the leading genre in literature. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin and V. Sleptsova are considered the most outstanding authors in Russia. Therefore, there are many examples of essays in the literature. When writing your own work, you can use them.
How to compose a text
Before moving on to viewing examples of essays, it is worth giving some practical advice to novice authors. Where to begin? What to finish? These questions will torment performers even if they review all the examples available in the literature. How to write an essay?
The first thing to do is to choose a theme. You need to find a fascinating story that the author himself will like. Explore it, learn additional facts, and decide on the type of essay. For example, you can develop the situation and compose an interesting text that will arouse sympathy in the reader. It can also be a biographical or educational essay, historical, travel or revealing. The main thing is that the text can captivate the reader.
Next, you need to decide on who this essay will be intended for, that is, with the target audience. It depends on her what words the text will be written in. If all these stages are passed, you can prepare for writing.
The second important point is to decide on the format of the text. Essays do not have a strictly regulated format, which greatly facilitates the work of the authors. For example, you can start by describing a dramatic moment, use a story-within-a-story format, or write from two points of view that find common ground. Next is the size. Examples of essay texts range from 250 to 5000 words. Maybe less, maybe more. The main thing is to fully open the topic.
Having decided on organizational issues, you need to think about how to attract the attention of the reader, interest him and intrigue. Some essayists believe that for this it is necessary not to tell, but to show - more emotions, more images, more intrigue. When creating a text, do not get carried away with quoting. As a rule, readers do not appreciate this, and you need to create exclusively in their language. This is a step by step example of how to write an essay. Now we can move from theory to practice.
portrait essay
As mentioned above, this type of creativity is the most artistic. That is, in it you can give the reader any interesting details from the life of the person being described. In the example of a portrait essay, you can talk about your contemporary, friend, or historical figure. Regardless of who will be discussed, it is worth touching on some problem. It may concern modern society or a group of specific people. An example essay about a person might look like this.
“I am all in a handful of the brain, and I devour so many books that the world cannot contain them. I can't satisfy my greedy appetite. I'm dying of hunger all the time" - Tommaso Campanella. The son of a shoemaker, a failed lawyer, a monk and a criminal who spent 27 years in the prisons of the Inquisition.
Until the age of 34, he wandered around the monastic cells, spent 27 years in prison. While in prison, he intensively engaged in literary work. The prisoners were not given parchment and ink, but Campanella managed to find them. His works were confiscated, but he stubbornly restored them from memory, himself translated into Latin.
City of Sun
During his imprisonment, Campanella managed to write several fundamental works on philosophy, theology, astrology, astronomy, medicine, physics, mathematics, and politics. In total, 100 treatises with a total volume of 30 thousand pages came out from under his pen. Chief among them is the "City of the Sun".
Our hero has been writing for 27 long years about a world in which a fertile utopia reigns. There, people work only 4 hours a day, and devote the rest of the time to their hobbies. There are no disagreements, wars and repressions. It was this treatise that was mostly considered heresy, it was because of it that Campanella spent half his life in the clutches of the Inquisition. He was repeatedly asked to give up his thoughts about utopia, but he stubbornly insisted on his own. Until the very end, until his last breath, he believed in his convictions.
For some time he was an honored guest at the royal court, but the whole world took up arms against him. Campanella never backed down from anything. Torture, hunger, cold, dampness, illness did not break him. He had something to tell the world about."
This is one example of a portrait essay. There is a description of a person, his fate, character, and a problem is mentioned. Now you can move on to the next example of text, a problematic essay.
Problem essay
This is a rather difficult kind of creativity. You can take it up only to the smallest detail by delving into the problem presented to the judgment of readers. Otherwise, the author will look ridiculous. We provide one of the examples of the text of the problem essay, which touches upon the problem of the family. In the past, everyone wanted to have it. Modern people have become completely different. They value their own freedom more than a stamp in their passport. Let's see what an example of a problem essay looks like.
“Does modern man need a family? If you look at the statistics of divorce proceedings, you can doubt this. Modern girls are not in a hurry to get married. They can provide for themselves, while remaining free from obligations. Why are they getting married? To take care of the man who lives with them under the same roof? Cook for him, wash his socks and shirts, iron his trousers and handkerchiefs? A husband is unlikely to give flowers and expensive jewelry, endure whims and fulfill any desire in order to spend the night with his wife. It is a completely different matter when a woman is free, and a man plays the role of a lover.
About happiness and meaning
Why are families created? For some, this is the meaning of life. A family is created when love appears in the heart, when you want to take care of your loved one and be responsible for him.
People seek spiritual joy and intimacy. A happy family is a place where you recuperate, relieve stress and enjoy. Once Leo Tolstoy wrote: "Happy is he who is at home!" It really is. Isn't it happiness to run home, realizing that they are waiting there? The family is the foundation of a happy couple's life.
Should I play a wedding and put a stamp in my passport or live for my own pleasure, taking care only of myself? Everyone must decide for himself what is more important to him.
Road
As for a travel essay, an example text might look like this.
“A journey, even a very short one, is like a breath of fresh air. Every time you return from another city, you seem to change, become a slightly different person. I do not have a clear schedule, where it would be indicated when and where I should go. Just from time to time I have a desire to go somewhere. Then I go to the station and take a ticket for the next train to the fifth stop. After getting off the train, I can go to the regular buses and go to a distant wilderness, or wander the streets of a big city, which bears the loud name of a metropolis.
That's what happened this time as well. I drove towards remote villages and accidentally stumbled upon an abandoned village. Strange, but many residents of the surrounding villages were not even aware of its existence. This village is no longer on the map. No one remembers its name, even in the archives there is very little information about it.
Light
There are practically no houses left. For a long time, nature has destroyed what man has created. If you count, then there are three more or less surviving houses left in the whole village. Entering one of them, I expected to see empty rooms, broken furniture and mountains of garbage. This usually happens in abandoned buildings.
These examples of essay essays can be taken as a basis in your work. But still it is better not to try to imitate anyone's texts. The main thing is to really feel the problem under consideration and put your feelings into the text. This is how the reader can be touched.
How to write an essay
“A good essay makes readers remember
who they are in essence, what they want, what they dream about”
K. Paustovsky
Feature article - one of the most interesting genres. It exists at the intersection of journalism and literature. Unfortunately, most schoolchildren and students write essays the way they would write essays or articles for the school newspaper.
An essay is one of the varieties of a small form of epic literature - a story, which differs from its other form, a short story, by the absence of a single, acute and quickly resolved conflict and a greater development of a descriptive image. Both differences depend on the features of the problematics of the essay. This is a semi-fiction semi-documentary genre that describes real events and real people.
The essay is both a documentary-scientific understanding of reality and an aesthetic exploration of the world. It is no coincidence that the essay is compared with works of art and even with painting, emphasizing: if the story is a picturesque picture, thensketch - a graphic drawing or sketch for a picture. It is, as it were, on the verge between a document and a generalized artistic image.
The essay introduces the reader to new, emerging forms of life and its daily course, awakens public opinion and forms an understanding of the right to put forward and defend advanced thoughts, combining an objective assessment of reality with subjective opinion, comparisons and parallels between them.
The main feature of the essay- writing from nature.
There are three main types of essay - portrait, problem and travel.
in the center of the portrait essay - the personality of a person, his life, his aspirations, joys and sorrows. In addition to interest in the hero (if this is a famous person), portrait essays are needed by readers in order to compare their system of moral values with the views of another person. A portrait essay is a compressed story about someone's life. Well-known journalist Yuri Rost said about this: “I try to feel my interlocutor. I ask him what he regrets most in life, what he is proud of. My interest is sincere, and it helps me to create, first inside myself, and then on paper, the image of my hero.”
in troubled In the essay, some problem is in the center of attention; in the essay it can act as a conflict that its characters are trying to resolve. Parallels and deviations from the topic are appropriate in the problematic essay, the analysis of the problem is carried out more with the help of artistic means than statistical information.
Travel an essay is a description of some events, incidents, meetings with people that occur during the author's journey. This is a genre that allows the author to show imagination and literary skill to the greatest extent. The main problem is always the selection of information, because there are usually a lot of impressions as a result of trips, and the task is to select the most interesting and important. A travel essay can have several purposes - for example, to show how people live in other cities and countries.
Note:
If the essay contains elements of dialogue, then the speech of the characters should bear the imprint of their social environment. (So, for example, a homeless child says the word "aunt" and does not say "woman"). The author has the right to correct speech if the characters communicate with invectives.
Helpful Hints:
Brilliant publicist Mikhail Koltsov at one time he advised novice authors to pay attention to two things: composition and language.
The essay should touch on socially important topics. The author must rely on facts, draw logical conclusions, clearly indicate his author's position.
Before writing an essay, it is necessary to outline its structure: identify a social problem, analyze how it is solved, connect the author's reasoning with the characters of the most striking characters. You can start an essay with an artistic sketch, with a description of the scene, with sociology and statistics. The essay is interesting in that it almost does not limit the author's imagination and his curiosity.
Dry official phrases and speech stamps should be avoided. And read Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Gilyarovsky. Gilyarovsky is one of the brilliant essay writers and journalists of the 19th century.
When preparing an essay, artistic and visual means play a huge role. The strength of the essayist lies in the wide and skillful use of landscape, portrait, dialogue, description, speech characteristics, etc.
But even the most colorful and sophisticated artistic images, metaphors and comparisons will not help you if your intention and the structure of the text are not clear.
“Colourfulness” does not at all consist in adding fat to the “dish”, but in constructing an essay, in the ability to somehow endlessly arrange the material in a new way, so that its individual pieces and particles electrify each other, so that they add up to a common structure and this structure would not only rush forward, but would itself keep in place(M. Koltsov).
What is the purpose of the essay in the text?
Firstly , documentary. It is necessary to strive to present in detail what happened, without missing a single significant detail. But the fact itself is not important. The main thing is how typical it is for a journalistic idea, the problem of an essay.
Secondly , the subject of the essay is a typical case, classic in the conditions of the present. That is, a case that vividly characterizes and illustrates the stage of social development.
Third , this typical case is a manifestation of an explicit or hidden conflict (contradiction). Drama is an inherent feature of the essay.
Fourth , the image is of great importance in the essay. Emotional, dramatic and organically rich, it is a "generalization of life and an assessment of life phenomena."
Particular attention should be paid to language.
Essay work plan (example):
1. Problem
A portrait essay is not just a description of a person, it is a material written in connection with the awareness of some socially significant problem.
Formulate and describe in general terms the problem that you will develop in the essay.
2. Collective image
If you simply describe your desk mate, you won't get a portrait essay. This can be called a description or a sketch. Your task is to see the connection between the image of a particular person and the collective image of a modern representative of the younger generation. Show the general on the particular, and show the particular on the general.
Write down as many characteristics of the collective image of a representative of the younger generation as possible.
3. Controversy
The essence of the essay image is a contradiction. The essay will not come out if you fail to see and show the full drama of the collision and coexistence of opposing qualities.
In two or three sentences, “draw” a positive and negative portrait of the hero of our time.
4. Accents
As a rule, "newspaper portraits" are sketchy: 3-4 details plus a "leading" detail that characterizes the character. It is no coincidence that the word “essay” is believed to have come from the word “delineate”, that is, literally outline with strokes, features.
Write down 3-4 details that, in your opinion, are the most important for characterizing the hero. Try to find the dominant, "leading" detail.
5. Description of the character
Describe the face, clothes, movements, facial expressions of your hero, his manner of holding, communicating.
6. Character Traits
Write down as many character traits of your hero as possible: what is he like at home, in the classroom, at work, in an informal setting.
7. Situation
This or that situation characterizes a person in the best possible way. Recall a time when your character behaved in an unexpected way.
8. Bundles: hero - image - problem
Write a sentence or several sentences that will connect the image of your hero with a collective image and a designated problem.
9. Ratings
State your attitude towards the character. Your task is to unobtrusively and even imperceptibly convey your assessment to the reader in a few words included in the text of the essay. What words can these be?
You need to be able to give an essay like this
didactic character,
awakens the thought and makes the reader
to contemplate the material with you,
confront him internally.
Mikhail Koltsov
Essay Evaluation Criteria
1. Is there an attractive, unique heading that reflects the main idea of the essay? (TITLE)
2. Is there a unique idea in the essay - the main paragraph containing the main idea (culminating phrase) of the work? (IDEA)
3. Is the image of the hero/object of research fully represented? (STUDY)
4. Is the sphere of the main interests of the hero shown, where he realizes the meaning of his life / the role and significance of the object in the socio-cultural situation of our time? (COMPETENCE)
5. Is there any sensational, unique information about the hero and his activities? Doesn't the essay sound like a dry summary? (NON-STANDARD)
6. Is there a clear composition, a logical sequence of paragraphs? (LOGICS)
8. Proficiency in Russian
Criterion | Competitor Requirements | Maximum Points |
Knowledge and understanding of theoretical material | Defines the concepts under consideration clearly and completely, giving appropriate examples; | |
Analysis and evaluation of information | Competently applies the categories of analysis; | |
Building judgments | Clarity and clarity of presentation; | |
Russian language proficiency | Spelling and punctuation literacy |
The study of journalistic text genres can be organized in the form of a creative workshop.
With the help of a teacher, students get acquainted with a new genre concept, analyze samples, select material on their own, and try to write the text of an essay. We offer material for studying the portrait sketch.
Work in the creative workshop
I. Introduction of the concept of "portrait sketch".
Guys, suggest your progress on the concept of "portrait sketch".
You can look in dictionaries, find a keyword, find associations...
1. Vocabulary work.
Vocabulary work is carried out by students, looking for
The origin of the keyword according to the etymological dictionary (“portrait” comes from the French “portrait”, which means the image of the original, “trait pout trait” - “line to line”, “line by line”);
The meaning according to the explanatory dictionary (“portrait” is a polysemantic word: 1) a picturesque, photographic or other image of a person, 2) a description of the appearance of a character in a literary work, the image of a literary hero, 3) the characteristic features of a person (transl., colloquial)).
Conclusions from observations: the portrait as a genre of fine art is not considered by us. Let's go to the details. The adjective "portrait" correlates with the noun "portrait", that is, it denotes correspondence to the appearance of a person, "portrait" was the name given to a room in noble houses where portraits hung. But all these data do not bring us closer to the concept of "portrait sketch".
2. Brainstorming.
Put forward your guesses.
In the phrase, the word "portrait" has a very special meaning. The key word here is likely to be "essay".
An essay is a genre of journalism addressed to a person's personality, telling about a person's activities, his life and views.
Does a portrait essay look like a biography? And what is different?
Yes, the essay and biography are close, because this is a biography of a person. But the important difference is that the essay has an author who expresses his attitude towards the person he is talking about.
In a biography, the main thing is what a person did and when.
In a portrait essay there is a description of appearance, but in a biography this element is optional.
In the biography there is no characterization of a person by other persons who knew him, worked with him.
Sometimes his own speech, some vivid statements, will tell a lot about the person himself.
An essay is essentially like a story. The essay combines the types of speech known to us: a story about a person’s life, a description of his appearance, a discussion about the principles and position of someone who is engaged in any professional activity.
Can a biography convey the inner world of a person, his feelings, moods?
Conclusions from the discussions: from the assumptions made, it is already possible to determine the theme of the portrait essay, the goals and objectives of the author, compositional parts, style and even types of speech.
II. Hypothesis testing.
1. Analysis of the first portrait sketch (the name is hidden from the students).
What hypotheses are supported by this text?
How did you introduce Grigory Alexandrovich Gukovsky?
What is the title of this text?
FATHER
His name is Grigory Alexandrovich Gukovsky. He was a famous scientist, crowds flocked to his lectures... But I am not writing about a scientist whom friends and students know better than me, I am writing about my father and the culture of fatherhood that he possessed.
This was our family tradition: the upbringing of children was led by a man. Whether that's right or not, I don't know. But it happened. And for me, my father has always been the main person.
For as long as I can remember, my father has always worked. In winter, when I got up in the dark, his light was on for a long time - he was sitting at the table. Or he was no longer there: he went to the university to lecture. I had breakfast by myself and went to school with the knowledge that I was also going to work.
Gradually, I began to understand that he had been writing since early morning at his desk. About "Undergrowth", about Krylov and Derzhavin. About the literature of the XVIII century. That is why there are so many old books on its shelves, which I am allowed to touch with the indispensable condition of putting them in the same place.
He loved his books selflessly. I had the right to read them, but neither I nor my mother were allowed to take part in the priesthood: my father always cleaned the books himself. Twice a year he climbed the stairs in the morning with a damp cloth and carefully wiped each little book.
We lived in a wooden house. The stoves in the rooms were old, tiled: mine was blue, his was green. My father stoked these stoves, cleaned the chimneys himself. When I climbed into the pipe after him, he did not drive away, only asked to change clothes. He knew how to do everything ... When my son first climbed the stairs and changed the burnt cork, I felt happy. Until now, a man who does not know how to do any housework with his own hands causes me squeamish bewilderment.
Father honored the concept of home, family. Family was a holiday. The house was led, of course, by the mother. Father loved everything that mother did, and joyfully obeyed her.
I loved him without memory - like a father. But besides that, he was my ideal man. I know: he was ugly, but I understand women who still claim that he was handsome: these are students, those who saw him at work. He taught me to feel like a woman: he moved a chair, always let the door pass in front of him; I don’t remember a single time that when I returned from a trip, I didn’t find flowers in my room ...
There was no topic that he would avoid in conversations with me. Once or twice a month he would spend an entire evening with me reading aloud. Until now, I hear his voice when I re-read Poltava, The Bronze Horseman, Woe from Wit ... - yes, probably almost all Russian classics. He didn't raise me at all. I do not remember a single moralizing, reprimand, no lectures. He was angry with me, as one is angry with an equal person. And he did not hide his life from me - on the contrary, he introduced me, drew me into it, infected me with his life. As a child, I was happy with this.
The father was the strongest, the smartest, the most courageous of all men. Now, having read his letters to friends, I know how difficult, sometimes scary and lonely he used to be, how he grabbed any job so that we would not experience hardships. Then I didn't see it. He was the center of the world, people boiled around him, everyone was interested in him, everyone needed him, he helped everyone.
(According to N.G. Dolinina.)
The text deals with the personality of a well-known literary scholar, his activities, attitude towards family, acquaintances.
This is not a biography, because there are a lot of evaluative words.
Before us is the image of a caring father, an attentive man, a passionate book lover, a philologist.
Conclusions from the analysis of the text: the subject of the essay is a person about whom a certain idea is given, the value orientations of the hero of the essay are shown.
2. Analysis of the second portrait sketch (the title was presented to the students).
Read the text and find out if the title matches the goals and objectives of the author.
Prove that this text is a portrait sketch.
What new elements of the portrait sketch did you notice?
HOUSE ON SOROTI
He gets up at dawn. Fires up the oven. Morning paints crimson tops of window panes. The house, the last one on the estate, begins to blow a light smoke. From the window you can see silver-clad oaks and lindens, snow-covered Sorot, a green-black forest in the distance.
And pichuga gather in the yard. And they are waiting for a person to open the window and pour out onto the roof of the extension, which is located under the window, the daily habitual “ration”, which is so necessary for them, who do not fly away from the northern regions for the winter. Sparrows and tits, bullfinches and jackdaws - how many of them were here at this early hour ... It happens that the owner of the house, Semyon Stepanovich Geichenko, after working late, allows himself to get up an hour later. However, it wasn't there! Politely, but persistently, they will knock on the window: knock-knock-knock... “Have you forgotten? Get up!
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” and the window opens.
In spring and summer, from morning to night, in the forests, groves, in the blue of the sky and over the fields, intertwined with the noise of foliage and the murmur of streams, a discordant jubilant hymn of life flows.
Pushkin, who discovered Russian nature for himself here, having listened, forgot his hardships. And then...
In harmony my rival
There was the noise of the forests, or a violent whirlwind,
Ile orioles melody alive ...
On June 6, 1941, Semyon Stepanovich Geychenko, a museum worker in Leningrad, with a mandate authorized by the Academy of Sciences to organize the Pushkin holiday, ruled the Mikhailovskaya meadow. And maybe then these places, keeping the invisible presence of the poet, sunk into the heart of Geychenko.
The war was still raging when he, thin and pale, after being seriously wounded, in a tunic without shoulder straps, with an empty sleeve, returned here forever.
There was no guardian. The Nazis, retreating, burned down the poet's house. Mines and barbed wire are everywhere in the surrounding groves. Under a three-hundred-year-old oak, the patriarch of the local forests, a pillbox was equipped. Only thanks to the rapid onslaught of our troops, the Nazis did not manage to destroy the Svyatogorsk Monastery, near the white walls of which the ashes of the poet rest.
Everything was in ruins then. People lived in dugouts. But at the beginning of June 1945, people gathered in Mikhailovskaya Glade. A tall, impetuous man, who had just been appointed director of the reserve, was reading Pushkin.
The museum-reserve healed the wounds. In the forests and groves, paths trodden by people coming to Pushkin again appeared. The director and chief custodian of Pushkinogorye moved from the dugout to a house on the edge of the estate. He, too, has been restored, like Pushkin's house, the nanny's house and everything around. Trigorskoye opened, where Pushkin had so many happy moments. Petrovskoye, the estate of the poet's ancestors, was opened. Raised the floors of the district center Pushkinskiye Gory and turned into a modern cozy town.
And many times they suggested to Semyon Stepanovich that he move to a well-appointed apartment, where you don’t have to chop wood and heat the stove, where the rooms don’t get cold in the morning, like in his old house, where you don’t have to walk on water. And he doesn't want to hear about it. Convenience, of course, is a good thing, but will he have what fate has sent him?
In the evening, when the last excursion groups leave the estate, it becomes unusually quiet in Mikhailovsky. The working day is over, full of worries and affairs related to a large household. The director of the reserve again sits down at the window overlooking Sorot. On the table is another manuscript, letters, books. And perhaps at this hour, Alexander Sergeevich himself invisibly and habitually enters. Throwing off his fur coat, he stretches out his chilled hands to the flaming stove. And they have a conversation that began even when the keeper of Pushkinogorye was a little over forty.
Irakli Andronikov, who knew Semyon Stepanovich well, noticed that he lives in some amazing spiritual state of Pushkin's time. For him, our great poet is a contemporary. He seems to know everything about him, as if he had lived with him all his life. He breathes the air that Pushkin breathed, hears the birds that sang to him, sees the same Sorot, the same boundless distances, drinks water from the same well, lives and works side by side with the descendants of those who lived near Pushkin, sang songs to him, told fairy tales, confided his troubles and joys.
All this gave the curator of the museum a happy opportunity to present with the greatest completeness and authenticity the Mikhailov period, which played a huge role in Pushkin's work, the period when he grew from the first poet of his time into the greatest national poet.
“Pushkin and Pushkinogorye live in our minds inseparably, like a native home, native land, native history,” writes S. S. Geichenko, prefaced by one of his books. Everything Pushkin is sacred.
In everything that is done in protected areas, every detail is verified many times, every stroke is not accidental. And therefore the estate and everything around appear as they could have been under Pushkin. And behind all this was the many years of selfless work of the main curator of the museum - Semyon Stepanovich Geichenko.
(According to V. Vorobyov.)
The title contains a certain riddle, a metaphor: the house on Soroti exists thanks to the efforts of the amazing ascetic S.S. Geichenko.
This text is a portrait essay, because it is based on a description of the life path and activities of the director of the Pushkin Reserve. The character of the hero is deployed against the backdrop of an unusual situation - the restoration of the poet's estate. The author admires the talent, perseverance, hard work of his hero.
At the beginning of the essay there is an insert - a landscape sketch.
Conclusion one: a landscape as an element of a portrait essay is needed:
1. as a contrasting comparison between the internal state of the hero and the nature around him,
2. as a means of revealing human character,
3. as a background for a portrait of a hero,
4. as a technique in revealing the worldview positions of the hero.
There are many important details and associations associated with Pushkin's world.
Second conclusion: out of the abundance of impressions, a supporting detail stands out, which serves to create a symbolic image of Pushkin.
Techniques for playing up details in a portrait sketch:
1. figurative interpretation of certain events,
2. creation of associative links,
3. transfer of features of external and internal human manifestations.
In this essay, the image of a person is created through an external and internal portrait.
External portrait properties
The selection of some external details and the opportunity to look into the world of the human soul, into the world of his emotions and feelings.
Communication with the psychological characteristics of the individual.
The manner of dressing, habitual postures, gestures, facial expressions.
Documentary display fidelity.
Properties inner portrait
The character of the hero is given in a non-trivial situation.
It is important to discover such a "section" on the life path of the hero, which contains extraordinary difficulties.
Description of talent, perseverance, diligence and other significant personality traits.
You can use the method of conditionality or resort to associations.
III. Stages of work on a portrait sketch.
Recall the main stages of work:
1. Choosing a hero.
2. Study of sources.
4. Ways of registration.
Let's start in order.
1. Choosing a hero.
What hero can you choose?
You can write about a well-known, close person, about a stranger or a famous person.
People who have fulfilled their destiny, achieved something significant in life.
Heroes affirm certain cultural values.
By a person one can judge the nature of the era, one can take an example of solving life problems from him.
2. Study of sources.
The sources that may be needed are someone's statements, including interviews or quotes from the hero of the future essay, documentary evidence, memoirs, public opinion.
1) Vivid quote.
2) Life path (family, education, hometown, travel, what is famous for).
3) Field (success in creativity, profession).
4) Life principles, credo.
5) Achievements, awards.
6) Plans for the future (realized or not).
4. Ways of registration.
In order for the essay to take place, it is necessary to check its design:
1) Come up with and critically evaluate a title that reflects the main idea.
2) Check the sources to which you will refer, make a list of them.
3) It is not necessary to strive for a complete description of the image of the hero, you can bypass any aspect of the activity, highlighting the main one.
4) Connect the content of the essay with the main idea, giving it originality and novelty.
5) Clearly highlight paragraphs, come up with links between them, observe logic and consistency.
6) Be ethically correct.
7) Verify all facts and statements.
IV. Independent work on the essay at home.
Students' essays
Lisova Ekaterina
Love for native village
At the end of his days, Fedor Alekseevich Abramov, a Russian writer and publicist, said to himself: "... We, peasant children, are poisoned by an inferiority complex for life." It would seem that what could make an accomplished, successful person, a laureate of the State Prize and a happy family man, say such words?
The writer's life has been difficult since childhood. They grew up without a father, and the mother had to raise five children alone. In the third year of study at the Faculty of Philology, the war forced Abramov to go to the front, where something terrible, but surprising at the same time, happened to him.
Fyodor Alekseevich was killed by bullets in his legs during one operation. Almost all of his comrades who took part in it died. And in the evening, when the dead were being collected, one fighter unexpectedly spilled water on the face of Abramov, who was lying motionless, and he groaned. If not for this happy accident, then, perhaps, Fedor Alekseevich would not have survived. And the writer himself considered this incident a real miracle and great luck. Another miracle he considered the event when, when driving along the Road of Life from besieged Leningrad, only the car in which he was driving survived. And all his subsequent life, Fedor Alekseevich worked tirelessly in the name of his dead comrades.
After the war, Abramov continued his studies, entered graduate school, and defended his dissertation. In those years, he met his wife, Lyuda Krutikova, who became for him not only a beloved woman, but also a faithful companion ...
Wherever the life of Fyodor Alekseevich took him, only life in the village excited his heart. He was one of the so-called village writers. In each of his works, love for nature, simple rural people and their lives is visible. The village of Pekashino, described by him in the tetralogy "Brothers and Sisters", became a kind of prototype of his native village of Verkola. And throughout his life, Abramov believed that a lot of things can be changed in the life of society with a word, therefore he often raised sharp questions in his publications, raised problematic topics, and pointed out to people the mismanagement in the village. Responses to such articles came from everywhere.
Fyodor Alekseevich lived only 63 years. He was buried in his native village, near the house built by his hands. They told how the singing of cranes over Verkola was heard at the funeral. The birds seemed to see off the native village writer on his last journey...
Smolyaninov Dmitry
About science fiction writer Kira Bulychev
"Kirill Bulychev" is a pseudonym, and the real name of the famous science fiction writer is Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko. Why was this pseudonym chosen? And everything is very simple: it is composed of the name of the wife and the maiden name of the writer's mother. Later, the name "Kirill" on the covers of freshly published volumes began to be shortened to "Kir", and this is how the well-known today "Kir Bulychev" turned out.
Let's briefly talk about the life of this good-natured gray-bearded old man with dark eyes. He graduated from the Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages, worked as a translator and correspondent in Burma for two years, and after returning to his homeland became a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy and continued to work in this organization until his last days. During his life, he presented world literature with more than four hundred works in the genre of scientific, children's and humorous fiction.
The author of all these wonderful books was not taken seriously by critics for quite a long time. In his own words, "the science fiction writer loses in advance the comparison with the author of essays about rural life, for example, about the plight of steelworkers or about some other revolutionary tragedy." The writer can be understood - he lived and worked in the Soviet Union under the strict gaze of censorship.
And yet, when in the 1980s the magazine "Children's Literature" sent out a questionnaire to libraries asking "Who is the most widely read author?", the answer was almost unanimous: Kir Bulychev. Often young writers added: "Kir Bulychev is the best writer of all time!"
In the last years of his life, the writer turned to historical fiction, wrote several novels from the unfinished cycle "Chronos River", and also published a memoir called "How to become a science fiction writer."
On September 5, 2003, Igor Mozheiko died of cancer. He left, but his covenant remained in our hearts and will burn brightly in them like a dancing spark. This covenant is simple - you just need to tell the truth about the world and man.
Proskurina Tatiana
Vivacious book writer
Cheerfulness, perseverance, smiling, optimism - these words can describe the creed of the modern writer Victoria Tokareva. She was born in Leningrad. As a child, however, young Victoria had little interest in literature and was more attracted to medicine. But - here is the paradox! - She received a musical education.
After her marriage, already in Moscow, working as a singing teacher at a children's music school, she began to write prose. Tokareva attracted the attention of readers with her very first story, which was called "A Day Without Lies."
It is enough to look at the photo of this woman, and the mood is already rising. It seems to me that the secret of the writer's success is 90% in her love of life. According to the statements of Victoria Tokareva, it immediately becomes clear that age for her is just numbers. She herself says this: "Fifty-five years is the youth of old age."
The name of this writer for many has become a kind of symbol of the generation. Tokareva's works are funny and bright. She writes about ordinary people. In them we can recognize ourselves, our actions, we can laugh at some, regret about some. I find her writing to be enjoyable and easy to read. You can open the first page and then not notice how you read everything to the end.
Do not forget that Victoria Tokareva also showed herself as an excellent screenwriter. Many people know her from the films "Mimino" and "Gentlemen of Fortune". Despite her career success, Victoria Samoilovna can be safely called a family man. Although she does not like to talk about her personal life, she does not make a secret of it either. She assures that she went through a lot with her husband, but they managed to save the family and she highly appreciates it.
Readers of Tokareva's book like it for its versatility and emotionality. She truthfully and accurately notices important details, points out those “unpleasant moments” that we ourselves know in the depths of our souls, but are afraid to admit to ourselves. The writer is excited by ordinary, everyday things, from a comical situation she helps to draw deep philosophical conclusions.
Literature
- Gorokhov V.N. Newspaper and magazine genres. - M., 1993.
- Kim M.N. Technology of creating a journalistic work. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of Mikhailov V.A., 2001.
- Portrait sketch / http://rudn.monplezir.ru/ocherk_kak_napisat.htm
- Sulitskaya N.M. Portrait essay / http://festival.1september.ru/articles/504793/
- Shostak M.I. Journalist and his work. - M., 1998.
