Antipyretics for children are prescribed by a pediatrician. But there are emergency situations with fever when the child needs to be given medicine immediately. Then the parents take responsibility and use antipyretic drugs.

What is allowed to be given to infants? How can you lower the temperature in older children? What medications are the safest?

(The connection between a person and his mother runs like a strong, invisible thread through his entire life. Starting from a quiet song at the cradle, mother becomes the most devoted friend and wise mentor.

Maternal care is not only about washing, cleaning and cooking. Who better than a mother will take pity, caress and reassure? Only gentle, familiar hands with their touch will relieve pain and fatigue. Only warm mother's lips will ease physical and moral suffering.

The baby ran after a flying, colorful butterfly, tripped, fell backward, tore off his palms, and roared in fear and pain. Mom picked him up in her arms, pressed her to her chest, blew on the bleeding wounds, touched her tear-stained eyes with a light kiss, while comforting her in a calm, gentle voice. The child fell silent, sobbing occasionally, wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck, bowed his head on his native shoulder and smiled happily.

A mother, like a bird, carefully covers her child from adversity and danger with a reliable wing. Doesn't sleep at night next to a sick baby's crib. He holds his hand tightly when he is scared or lonely. Helps with school lessons. Advises in the first difficult situations. Teaches human kindness, the ability to be friends and love, help and compassion. Be open, honest and humane. Protect and protect nature and animals in trouble.

Mothers wisely lead through life, and always try to find an excuse for our mistakes, because in their day we always remain children - the most beloved and the best.

Mother's love is a bottomless cup of angelic patience; worldly wisdom; kindness; inexhaustible warmth of the heart; tireless, selfless care and endless devotion.

Then - an example from the text.

Example from life experience or from thin production.

Thus, I can conclude that children should appreciate the love given by their mother, because there is nothing more beautiful than it.

Or another start:

Good parents can give up their careers, risk their lives, they will always come to the rescue, warm you with affection and kindness, understand and forgive.

Example from the literature:

And in Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor” we encounter the main character of the play, Mitrofan. His parents loved him madly, did not give offense, did not force him to do anything, which is why the boy grew up lazy and ill-mannered. In this case, the reader sees that the mother’s love did not benefit the child. . The play is aimed at ridiculing the morals and lifestyle of the Prostakov family, but despite the whole set negative qualities, a bright feeling still lives in Mrs. Prostakova. She dotes on her son. The play begins with the manifestation of care for Mitrofanushka, and this care and love lives in it until latest phenomenon plays. Prostakova’s last remark ends with a cry of despair: “I don’t have a son!” It was painful and difficult for her to endure the betrayal of her son, to whom she herself admitted that “she sees consolation only in him.” Her son is everything to her. How furious she gets when she finds out that her uncle almost beat Mitrofanushka! And already here we see the main features of the image of a mother in Russian literature - this is unaccountable love for her child and not for personal qualities, but because this is her son.

Ready-made arguments for writing the Unified State Exam:

Motherhood problem

Problem blind mother's love

Motherhood as a feat

Possible theses:

Mother's love is the strongest feeling in the world

Being a good mother is a real feat

A mother is ready to do anything for her children

Sometimes mother's love blinds, and a woman sees only good things in her child

D. I. Fonvizin comedy “The Minor”

A striking example of blind maternal love is Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” Prostakova loved her son so much that she saw only good things in him. Mitrofan was allowed to get away with everything, any of his whims were fulfilled, his mother always followed his lead. The result is obvious - the hero grew up as a spoiled and selfish young man who loves no one but himself, and is not indifferent even to his own mother.

L. Ulitskaya story “Daughter of Bukhara”

A real maternal feat is described in Ulitskaya’s story “The Daughter of Bukhara.” Alya, the main character of the work, was a very beautiful girl. Having become Dmitry’s wife, the oriental beauty gave birth to a girl, but it soon became clear that the child had Down syndrome. The father could not accept the handicapped child and left for another woman. But Bukhara, who loved her daughter with all her heart, did not give up and devoted her life to raising the girl, doing everything possible for her happiness, sacrificing her own.

A. N. Ostrovsky play “The Thunderstorm”

Mother's love is not always expressed in affection. In Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” Kabanikha, the main character’s mother-in-law, loved to “educate” her children, giving them punishments and reading morals. It is not surprising that son Tikhon showed himself as a weak-willed, dependent person and a mumbler who could not take a single step without his “mama.” Kabanikha’s constant interference in her son’s life had a negative impact on his life.

F. M. Dostoevsky novel “Crime and Punishment”

In Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, endless maternal love can also be traced. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was most worried about the happiness of her son Rodion and believed him no matter what. For his sake, the woman was ready to sacrifice her daughter. It seems that the son was much more important to Pulcheria than Dunya.

A. N. Tolstoy’s story “Russian Character”

Tolstoy's story "Russian Character" emphasizes the power of maternal love. When tanker Yegor Dremov received burns that disfigured his face beyond recognition, he was afraid that his family would turn their backs on him. The hero visited his relatives under the guise of his friend. But sometimes a mother’s heart sees clearer than her eyes. The woman, despite her alien appearance, recognized the guest as her own son.

V. Zakrutkin’s story “Mother of Man”

Zakrutkin’s story “Mother of Man” tells how big the heart of a real mother can be. During the war, the main character, having lost her husband and son, was left alone with her unborn child on land plundered by the Nazis. For his sake, Maria continued to live, and soon she took in the little girl Sanya and loved her like her own. After some time, the baby died of illness, the heroine almost went crazy, but stubbornly continued her work - to revive what was destroyed, for those who, perhaps, will return. During this time, the pregnant woman managed to shelter seven more orphans on her farm. This act can be considered a real maternal feat.

The theme of maternal love in Russian literature.

“She sincerely, maternally loves her son, loves him only because she gave birth to him, that he is her son, and not at all because she sees glimpses of human dignity in him.” (V.G. Belinsky.)

Speaking about the theme of maternal love in Russian literature, I would like to immediately note that in the works of Russian classics the image of the mother is usually not given the main place; the mother, as a rule, occupies a secondary position, and most often is completely absent. But, despite the fact that writers paid little attention to this topic, the image of the mother in different writers different time, V different works endowed with some common features. We will consider them.

The first work studied at school in which the image of a mother appears is Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor,” written in 1782. The play is aimed at ridiculing the morals and lifestyle of the Prostakov family, but despite the whole set of negative qualities, a bright feeling still lives in Mrs. Prostakova. She dotes on her son. The play begins with the manifestation of care for Mitrofanushka, and this care and love lives in her until the last appearance of the play. Prostakova’s last remark ends with a cry of despair: “I don’t have a son!” It was painful and difficult for her to endure the betrayal of her son, to whom she herself admitted that “she sees consolation only in him.” Her son is everything to her. How furious she gets when she finds out that her uncle almost beat Mitrofanushka! And already here we see the main features of the image of a mother in Russian literature - this is an unaccountable love for her child and not for personal qualities (we remember what Mitrofan was like), but because he is her son.

In “Woe from Wit” (1824), Griboyedov’s mother appears in only one episode. The fussy Princess Tugoukhovskaya with the no less fussy six princesses came to Famusov. This fuss is connected with the search for the groom. Griboyedov paints the scene of their search brightly and funny, and in Russian literature such an image of the mother will subsequently become popular, especially in Ostrovsky's plays. This is Agrafena Kondratievna in “Our People – We Will Be Numbered”, and Ogudalova in “Dowry”. In this case, it is difficult to talk about the love of a mother for her daughter, since it is pushed into the background by worries about marriage, so we will again return to the topic of mother’s love for her son.

IN " The captain's daughter" and "Taras Bulba" both Pushkin and Gogol show the mother at the moment of separation from her children. Pushkin, in one sentence, showed the state of the mother at the moment when she learns about the impending departure of her son: “The thought of an imminent separation from me struck her so much that she dropped the spoon into the saucepan, and tears streamed down her face,” and when Petrusha leaves, she “ in tears he punishes him to take care of his health. Gogol has exactly the same image of his mother. In “Taras Bulba” the author describes in detail the emotional shock of the “old woman”. Only having met her sons after a long separation, she is again forced to part with them. She spends the whole night at their bedside and feels with her mother’s heart that this night is the last time she sees them. Gogol, describing her condition, gives the correct description of any mother: “... for every drop of their blood she would give herself all.” Blessing them, she cries uncontrollably, just like Petrusha’s mother. Thus, using the example of two works, we see what parting with her children means for a mother and how difficult it is for her to bear it.

In Goncharov’s work “Oblomov” we are faced with two characters who are opposite in character and lifestyle. Oblomov is a lazy person, not doing anything, not adapted to activity, but, as his best friend himself says about him, “he is a crystal, transparent soul; there are few such people...”, Stolz himself is an unusually active and energetic person, he knows everything, can do everything, learns something all the time, but is spiritually undeveloped. And Goncharov in the chapter “Oblomov’s Dream” gives us the answer to the question of how this happened. It turns out that they were brought up in different families, and if the mother took the main part in Oblomov’s upbringing, for whom, first of all, it was important that the child was well and nothing threatened him, then the father took on Stolz’s upbringing. German by origin, he kept his son under strict discipline, Stolz’s mother was no different from Oblomov’s mother, she also worried about her son and tried to take part in his upbringing, but the father took on this role, and we got a prim but lively Andrei Stolts and the lazy but sincere Oblomov.

The image of a mother and her love in Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” are incredibly touchingly depicted. The mother of Rodion and Dunya Raskolnikov, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, throughout the entire novel tries to arrange the happiness of her son, tries to help him, sacrificing even Dunya for his sake. She loves her daughter, but she loves Rodion more, and she fulfills her son’s request not to trust anyone, so that they don’t talk about him. She felt in her heart that her son had done something terrible, but she did not miss the opportunity to once again tell even a passerby that Rodion was a wonderful person, and began to tell how he saved children from a fire. She did not lose faith in her son until the last, and how hard this separation was for her, how she suffered not receiving news about her son, she read his article, did not understand anything and was proud of her son, because this is his article, his thoughts, and they were published, and this is another reason to justify my son.

Speaking about maternal love, I would like to talk about its absence. Konstantin from Chekhov’s “The Seagull” writes plays, “looks for new forms,” is in love with a girl, and she reciprocates his feelings, but he suffers from a lack of maternal love and wonders about his mother: “loves, does not love.” He regrets that his mother famous actress, not an ordinary woman. And he remembers his childhood with sadness. At the same time, it cannot be said that Konstantin is indifferent to his mother. Arkadina is horrified and worried about her son when she finds out that he tried to shoot himself, personally puts a bandage on him and asks him not to do that again. This woman chose a career over raising her son, and without maternal love it’s hard for a person, a striking example of which is Kostya, who eventually shot himself.

Using the example of the above works, images and heroes, we can conclude that mother and maternal love in Russian literature are, first of all, affection, care and unaccountable love for the child, no matter what. This is the person who is attached to his child with his heart and is able to feel him at a distance, and if this person is absent, then the hero will no longer become a harmonious person.

Used Books.

1. V.G. Belinsky “Hamlet, Shakespeare’s drama” // Complete. collection cit.: In 13 volumes. M., 1954. T. 7.

2. D.I. Fonvizin “Undergrowth”.// M., Pravda, 1981.

3. A.S. Griboedov “Woe from Wit”.//M., OGIZ, 1948.

4. A.N. Ostrovsky. Drama.//M., OLIMP, 2001.

5. A.S. Pushkin “The Captain’s Daughter”.//Full. Collection cit.: In 10 volumes. M., Pravda, 1981. T.5.

6. N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba”.//U-Faktoriya, Ekt., 2002.

7. I.A. Goncharov “Oblomov”.//Collected. cit.: M., Pravda, 1952.

8. F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment.”//Hud. Lit., M., 1971.

9. A.P. Chekhov "The Seagull". Collection cit.: In 6 vols. M., 1955. T. 1.

Lesson objectives:

• trace how Russian literature, true to its humanistic traditions, depicts the image of a woman-mother
• to instill in students a respectful attitude towards women and mothers
• to educate a patriot and citizen aimed at improving the society in which he lives
• develop the spiritual and moral world of students, their national identity

During the classes

I. Teacher's opening speech

Russian literature is great and diverse. Its civil and social resonance and significance are undeniable. You can draw from this great sea constantly - and it will not become shallow forever. It is no coincidence that we publish books about camaraderie and friendship, love and nature, soldier’s courage and the Motherland... And any of these themes has received its full and worthy embodiment in the deep and original works of domestic masters.

But there is another holy page in our literature, dear and close to any unhardened heart - these are the works about mother.

We look with respect and gratitude at a man who reverently pronounces the name of his mother until his gray hair and respectfully protects her old age; and we will execute with contempt the one who, in her bitter old age, turned away from her, refused her a good memory, a piece of food or shelter.

People measure their attitude towards a person by the attitude of a person to his mother...

II. Determining the purpose of the lesson.

To trace how in Russian literature, true to its humanistic traditions, the image of a woman, a mother, is depicted.

III. The image of the mother in oral folk art

Teacher's word. The image of the mother, already in oral folk art, acquired the captivating features of a keeper of the hearth, a hard-working and faithful wife, a protector of her own children and an invariable caretaker for all the disadvantaged, insulted and offended. These defining qualities of the maternal soul are reflected and sung in Russian folk tales and folk songs.

Student performances (dramatization, singing) folk tales and folk songs.

IV. The image of the mother in printed literature

Teacher's word. In printed literature, which known reasons At first, it was the lot of only representatives of the upper classes; the image of the mother remained in the shadows for a long time. Perhaps the named object was not considered worthy of a high style, or perhaps the reason for this phenomenon is simpler and more natural: after all, then, noble children, as a rule, were taken for education not only by tutors, but also by wet nurses, and children of the noble class, in contrast to children of peasants were artificially removed from their mother and fed with the milk of other women; therefore, there was a dulling of filial feelings, albeit not entirely conscious, which could not ultimately but affect the work of future poets and prose writers.

It is no coincidence that Pushkin did not write a single poem about his mother and so many lovely poetic dedications to his nanny Arina Rodionovna, whom, by the way, the poet often affectionately and carefully called “mummy.”

Mother in the works of the great Russian poet N.A. Nekrasova

Mother... The dearest and closest person. She gave us life, gave us happy childhood. A mother's heart, like the sun, shines always and everywhere, warming us with its warmth. She is ours best friend, wise advisor. Mother is our guardian angel.

That is why the image of the mother becomes one of the main ones in Russian literature already in the 19th century.

The theme of the mother truly and deeply sounded in the poetry of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. Closed and reserved by nature, Nekrasov literally could not find enough vivid words and strong expressions to appreciate the role of his mother in his life. Both young and old, Nekrasov always spoke about his mother with love and admiration. Such an attitude towards her, in addition to the usual sons of affection, undoubtedly stemmed from the consciousness of what he owed her:

And if I easily shake off the years
There are noxious traces from my soul
Having trampled everything reasonable with her feet,
Proud of the ignorance of the environment,
And if I filled my life with struggle
For the ideal of goodness and beauty,
And carries the song composed by me,
Living love has deep features -
Oh, my mother, I am inspired by you!
saved me living soul You!
(From the poem "Mother")

Question to the class:

How did his mother “save the poet’s soul”?

Student performances (reading and analysis of works).

Student 1 - First of all, being a highly educated woman, she introduced her children to intellectual, in particular literary, interests. In the poem “Mother,” Nekrasov recalls that as a child, thanks to his mother, he became acquainted with the images of Dante and Shakespeare. She taught him love and compassion for those “whose ideal is diminished grief,” that is, for the serfs.

Student 2 - The image of a woman - mother is clearly presented by Nekrasov in many of his works “In in full swing village suffering", "Orina, mother of a soldier"

Student 3 - Poem “Hearing the horrors of war”

Student 4 - Poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”...

Teacher's word.“Who will protect you?” - the poet addresses in one of his poems.

He understands that, besides him, there is no one else to say a word about the sufferer of the Russian land, whose feat is irreplaceable, but great!

Nekrasov traditions in the depiction of the bright image of the mother - a peasant woman in the lyrics of S.A. Yesenina

(During the teacher’s lecture, Yesenin’s poems about his mother are performed by students (by heart))

Nekrasov's traditions are reflected in the poetry of the great Russian poet S. A. Yesenin, who created surprisingly sincere poems about his mother, a peasant woman.

The bright image of the poet’s mother runs through Yesenin’s work. Endowed with individual traits, it grows into a generalized image of a Russian woman, appearing even in the poet’s youthful poems, as a fairy-tale image of one who not only gave the whole world, but also made her happy with the gift of song. This image also takes on the concrete earthly appearance of a peasant woman busy with everyday affairs: “The mother can’t cope with the grips, she bends low...”

Loyalty, constancy of feeling, heartfelt devotion, inexhaustible patience are generalized and poeticized by Yesenin in the image of his mother. "Oh, my patient mother!" - this exclamation came out of him not by chance: a son brings a lot of worries, but his mother’s heart forgives everything. This is how Yesenin’s frequent motive of his son’s guilt arises. On his trips, he constantly remembers his native village: it is dear to the memory of his youth, but most of all he is drawn there by his mother, who yearns for her son.

The “sweet, kind, old, gentle” mother is seen by the poet “at the parental dinner.” The mother is worried - her son has not been home for a long time. How is he there, in the distance? The son tries to reassure her in letters: “The time will come, dear, dear!” In the meantime, “evening untold light” flows over the mother’s hut. The son, “still just as gentle,” “dreams only about returning to our low house as soon as possible out of rebellious melancholy.” In “Letter to a Mother,” filial feelings are expressed with poignant artistic power: “You alone are my help and joy, you alone are my unspeakable light.”

Yesenin was 19 years old when, with amazing insight, he sang in the poem “Rus” the sadness of maternal expectation - “waiting for gray-haired mothers.”

The sons became soldiers, the tsarist service took them to the bloody fields of the world war. Rarely, rarely do they come from “scribbles, drawn with such difficulty,” but “frail huts”, warmed by a mother’s heart, are still waiting for them. Yesenin can be placed next to Nekrasov, who sang “the tears of poor mothers.”

They will not forget their children,
Those who died in the bloody field,
How not to pick up a weeping willow
Of its drooping branches.

Poem "Requiem" by A.A. Akhmatova.

These lines from the distant 19th century remind us of the bitter cry of the mother, which we hear in Anna Andreevna Akhmatova’s poem “Requiem”. Here it is, the immortality of true poetry, here it is, the enviable length of its existence in time!

Akhmatova spent 17 months (1938 - 1939) in prison lines in connection with the arrest of her son, Lev Gumilyov: he was arrested three times: in 1935, 1938 and 1949.

(Excerpts from the poem are heard performed by masters artistic word. Phonochrestomathy. Grade 11)

I've been screaming for seventeen months,
I'm calling you home...
Everything's messed up forever
And I can't make it out
Now, who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long will it take to wait for execution?

But this is not the fate of only one mother. And the fate of many mothers in Russia, who stood day after day in front of prisons in numerous queues with parcels for children arrested by the bearers of the regime, the Stalinist regime, the regime of brutal repression.

Mountains bend before this grief,
The great river does not flow
But the prison gates are strong,
And behind them are “convict holes”
And mortal melancholy.

Mother goes through the circles of hell.

Chapter X of the poem is the culmination - a direct appeal to the gospel issues. The appearance of religious imagery is prepared not only by the mention of saving appeals to prayer, but also by the whole atmosphere of a suffering mother giving up her son to the inevitable, inevitable death. The suffering of the mother is associated with the state of the Virgin Mary; the suffering of a son with the agony of Christ crucified on the cross. The image of “The heavens melted in fire” appears. This is a sign of the greatest catastrophe, a world-historical tragedy.

Magdalene fought and cried,
The beloved student turned to stone,
And where Mother stood silently,
So no one dared to look.

The mother’s grief is boundless and inexpressible, her loss is irreparable, because this is her only son and because this son is God, the only savior for all time. The crucifixion in “Requiem” is a universal verdict on an inhuman system that dooms a mother to immeasurable and inconsolable suffering, and her only beloved, her son, to oblivion.

The tragedy of the image of the mother in works about the Great Patriotic War.

Teacher's word

The image of the mother has always carried the features of drama. And he began to look even more tragic against the backdrop of the great and terrible in its cruelty of the past war. Who suffered more than a mother at this time? About this are the books of mothers E. Kosheva “The Tale of a Son”, Kosmodemyanskaya “The Tale of Zoya and Shura”...

Can you really tell me about this?
What years did you live in?
What an immeasurable burden
It fell on women's shoulders!
(M, Isakovsky).

Student performances

1. based on “The Tale of a Son” by E. Kosheva
2. based on the novel by A.A. Fadeev “Young Guard” (viewing excerpts from the film “Young Guard”)
3. based on “The Tale of Zoya and Shura” by Kosmodemyanskaya

A student reads an excerpt from a poem by Y. Smelyakov

Mothers protect us with their breasts, even at the cost of their own existence, from all evil.

But mothers cannot protect their children from war, and, perhaps, wars are most directed against mothers.

Our mothers not only lost their sons, survived the occupation, worked until exhaustion helping the front, but they themselves died in fascist concentration camps, they were tortured, burned in crematoria ovens.

Question for the class

Why are people, to whom the woman-mother gave life, so cruel to her?

(Answers-speeches, student reflections)

Vasily Grossman's novel “Life and Fate”

In Vasily Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate,” violence appears in different types, and writer creates bright, piercing pictures of the threat it poses to life.

A student reads a letter from the mother of physicist Anna Semyonovna Shtrum, written by her on the eve of the death of the inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto.

Students’ impressions of what they heard (sample answers)

Student 1 - You can’t read it without shuddering and tears. Horror and a feeling of fear overwhelm me. How could people endure these inhuman trials that befell them? And it’s especially scary and uneasy when the mother, the most sacred creature on earth, feels bad.

Student 2 - And the mother is a martyr, a sufferer, she always thinks about the children, even in the last minutes of her life: “How can I finish my letter? Where can I get strength, son? Whether there is a human words capable of expressing my love for you? I kiss you, your eyes, your forehead, your hair.

Remember that on days of happiness and on days of sorrow, mother’s love is always with you; no one can kill it.

Live, live, live forever!

Student 3 - A mother is capable of any sacrifice for the sake of her children! Great is the power of mother's love!

Teacher's word

Vasily Grossman's mother died in 1942 at the hands of fascist executioners.

In 1961, 19 years after his mother's death, his son wrote her a letter. It was preserved in the archives of the writer’s widow.

“When I die, you will live in the book that I dedicated to you and whose fate is similar to your fate” (V. Grossman)

And that hot tear shed by the writer for his old mother and for the Jewish people burns our hearts and leaves a scar of memory on them.

“Mother of Man” by Vitaly Zakrutkin is a heroic poem about the unparalleled courage, perseverance and humanity of a Russian woman - a mother.

Story about Everyday life, the inhuman hardships and adversities of a young woman deep in the German rear grows into a story about mother and motherhood as the embodiment of the holiest thing in the human race, about endurance, perseverance, long-suffering, faith in the inevitable victory of good over evil.

V. Zakrutkin described an exceptional situation, but in it the author saw and was able to convey the manifestation of the typical character traits of a woman-mother. Talking about the misadventures and experiences of the heroine, the writer constantly strives to reveal the public in the private. Maria understood that “her grief was only a drop invisible to the world in that terrible, wide river of human grief, black, illuminated by fires in the river, which, flooding, destroying the banks, spread wider and wider and faster and faster rushed there, to the east, moving away from Maria is what she lived in this world for all her short twenty-nine years...

The last scene of the story is when the regiment commander of the advancing Soviet army, having learned the heroine’s story, in front of the entire squadron, “knelt down in front of Maria and silently pressed his cheek to her limply lowered small, hard hand...” - gives almost symbolic meaning the fate and feat of the heroine.

Generalization is achieved by introducing into the work symbolic image motherhood - the image of the Madonna with a baby in her arms, embodied in marble by an unknown artist.

“I peered into her face,” writes V. Zakrutkin, “remembering the story of a simple Russian woman Maria and thought: “We have a great many people like Maria on earth, and the time will come when people will give them their due...

V. Final words from the teacher. Summarizing.

Yes, such a time will come. Wars will disappear on earth... people will become human brothers... they will find joy, happiness and peace.

It will be so. “And maybe then the most beautiful, most majestic monument will not be erected by grateful people to the fictional Madonna, but to her, the woman worker of the earth. White, black and yellow brother-people will collect all the gold of the world, all the precious stones, all the gifts of the seas, oceans and bowels of the earth, and, created by the genius of new unknown creators, the image of the Mother of Man, our imperishable faith, our hope, our eternal, will shine over the earth love."

People! My brothers! Take care of your mothers. A person is only given a true mother once!

VI. Homework (differentiated):

1. prepare expressive reading(by heart) poems or prose about mother
2. essay “I want to tell you about my mother...”
3. essay - essay “Is it easy to be a mother?”
4. monologue "Mother"
5. film script "The Ballad of Mother"

Speaking about the theme of maternal love in Russian literature, I would like to immediately note that in the works of Russian classics the image of the mother is usually not given the main place; the mother, as a rule, occupies a secondary position, and most often is completely absent. But, despite the fact that writers paid little attention to this topic, the image of the mother in different writers at different times and in different works is endowed with some common features. We will consider them.

The first work studied at school in which the image of a mother appears is Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor,” written in 1782. The play is aimed at ridiculing the morals and lifestyle of the Prostakov family, but despite the whole set of negative qualities, a bright feeling still lives in Mrs. Prostakova. She dotes on her son. The play begins with the manifestation of care for Mitrofanushka, and this care and love lives in her until the last appearance of the play. Prostakova’s last remark ends with a cry of despair: “I don’t have a son!” It was painful and difficult for her to endure the betrayal of her son, to whom she herself admitted that “she sees consolation only in him.” Her son is everything to her. How furious she gets when she finds out that her uncle almost beat Mitrofanushka! And already here we see the main features of the image of a mother in Russian literature - this is an unaccountable love for her child and not for personal qualities (we remember what Mitrofan was like), but because he is her son.

In “Woe from Wit” (1824), Griboyedov’s mother appears in only one episode. The fussy Princess Tugoukhovskaya with the no less fussy six princesses came to Famusov. This fuss is connected with the search for the groom. Griboyedov paints the scene of their search brightly and funny, and in Russian literature such an image of the mother will subsequently become popular, especially in Ostrovsky's plays. This is Agrafena Kondratyevna in “Our People – We Will Be Numbered”, and Ogudalova in “Dowry”. In this case, it is difficult to talk about the love of a mother for her daughter, since it is pushed into the background by worries about marriage, so we will again return to the topic of mother’s love for her son.

In The Captain's Daughter and Taras Bulba, both Pushkin and Gogol show a mother at the moment of separation from her children. Pushkin, in one sentence, showed the state of the mother at the moment when she learns about the impending departure of her son: “The thought of an imminent separation from me struck her so much that she dropped the spoon into the saucepan, and tears streamed down her face,” and when Petrusha leaves, she “ in tears he punishes him to take care of his health. Gogol has exactly the same image of his mother. In “Taras Bulba” the author describes in detail the emotional shock of the “old woman”. Only having met her sons after a long separation, she is again forced to part with them. She spends the whole night at their bedside and feels with her mother’s heart that this night is the last time she sees them. Gogol, describing her condition, gives the correct description of any mother: “... for every drop of their blood she would give herself all.” Blessing them, she cries uncontrollably, just like Petrusha’s mother. Thus, using the example of two works, we see what parting with her children means for a mother and how difficult it is for her to bear it.

In Goncharov’s work “Oblomov” we are faced with two characters who are opposite in character and lifestyle. Oblomov is a lazy person, not doing anything, not adapted to activity, but, as his best friend himself says about him, “he is a crystal, transparent soul; there are few such people...”, Stolz himself is an unusually active and energetic person, he knows everything, can do everything, learns something all the time, but is spiritually undeveloped. And Goncharov in the chapter “Oblomov’s Dream” gives us the answer to the question of how this happened. It turns out that they were brought up in different families, and if the mother took the main part in Oblomov’s upbringing, for whom, first of all, it was important that the child was well and nothing threatened him, then the father took on Stolz’s upbringing. German by origin, he kept his son under strict discipline, Stolz’s mother was no different from Oblomov’s mother, she also worried about her son and tried to take part in his upbringing, but the father took on this role, and we got a prim but lively Andrei Stolts and the lazy but sincere Oblomov.

The image of a mother and her love in Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” are incredibly touchingly depicted. The mother of Rodion and Dunya Raskolnikov, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, throughout the entire novel tries to arrange the happiness of her son, tries to help him, sacrificing even Dunya for him. She loves her daughter, but she loves Rodion more, and she fulfills her son’s request not to trust anyone, so that they don’t talk about him. She felt in her heart that her son had done something terrible, but she did not miss the opportunity to once again not tell even a passerby that Rodion - wonderful person, and began to tell how he saved children from a fire. She did not lose faith in her son until the last, and how hard this separation was for her, how she suffered not receiving news about her son, she read his article, did not understand anything and was proud of her son, because this is his article, his thoughts, and they were published, and this is another reason to justify my son.

Speaking about maternal love, I would like to talk about its absence. Konstantin from Chekhov’s “The Seagull” writes plays, “looks for new forms,” is in love with a girl, and she reciprocates his feelings, but he suffers from a lack of maternal love and wonders about his mother: “loves, does not love.” He regrets that his mother is a famous actress and not an ordinary woman. And he remembers his childhood with sadness. At the same time, it cannot be said that Konstantin is indifferent to his mother. Arkadina is horrified and worried about her son when she finds out that he tried to shoot himself, personally puts a bandage on him and asks him not to do that again. This woman chose a career over raising her son, and without maternal love it’s hard for a person, a striking example of which is Kostya, who eventually shot himself.

Using the example of the above works, images and heroes, we can conclude that mother and maternal love in Russian literature are, first of all, affection, care and unaccountable love for the child, no matter what. This is the person who is attached to his child with his heart and is able to feel him at a distance, and if this person is absent, then the hero will no longer become a harmonious person.

Used Books.

1. V.G. Belinsky “Hamlet, Shakespeare’s drama” // Complete. collection cit.: In 13 volumes. M., 1954. T. 7.

2. D.I. Fonvizin “Undergrowth”.// M., Pravda, 1981.

3. A.S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”.//M., OGIZ, 1948.

4. A.N. Ostrovsky. Drama.//M., OLIMP, 2001.

5. A.S. Pushkin “The Captain’s Daughter”.//Full. Collection cit.: In 10 volumes. M., Pravda, 1981. T.5.

6. N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba”.//U-Faktoriya, Ekt., 2002.

7. I.A. Goncharov “Oblomov”.//Collected. cit.: M., Pravda, 1952.

8. F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”.//Hud. Lit., M., 1971.

9. A.P. Chekhov "The Seagull". Collection cit.: In 6 vols. M., 1955. T. 1.

Print

There are many stories about the great power of maternal love. But it happens that we, busy with our own affairs and problems, find out too late how ardently and tenderly our mothers loved us. And we repent too late that we have inflicted incurable wounds on our loving mother’s heart... But who knows, maybe, as the song says, “from somewhere above,” our mothers see our belated repentance and forgive their late-wisher children. After all, a mother’s heart knows how to love and forgive like no one else on earth...

Nina was unable to keep the secret of her baptism from her mother for long. Tatyana Ivanovna suspected something was wrong not even because her daughter suddenly stopped wearing jeans and a knitted hat with tassels, replacing them with a long skirt and headscarf. And not because she completely stopped using cosmetics. Unfortunately, Nina, like many young converts, completely ceased to be interested in studying, deciding that it distracted her from “the one thing she needs.” And while she spent days on end studying the Lives of the Saints and the Philokalia, volume after volume, textbooks and notebooks became covered with an increasingly thick layer of dust...

More than once Tatyana Ivanovna tried to persuade Nina not to skip her studies. But everything was useless. The daughter was exclusively occupied with saving her own soul. The closer the end of the school year became, and with its approach the number of detentions Nina had increased to astronomical figures, the more heated the clashes between Nina and her mother became. One day, enraged, Tatyana Ivanovna, gesticulating violently, accidentally brushed away with her hand the icon that was standing on her daughter’s table. The icon fell to the floor. And then Nina, who regarded her mother’s act as blasphemy against a sacred thing, hit her for the first time in her life...

Subsequently, mother and daughter became more and more alien to each other, although they continued to coexist in the same apartment, periodically quarreling. Nina equated her life under the same roof with her mother to martyrdom, and considered Tatyana Ivanovna the main obstacle to her further spiritual growth, since it was she who aroused the passion of anger in her daughter. On occasion, Nina liked to complain to her friends and Fr. Dimitri on his mother's cruelty. At the same time, hoping to evoke their compassion, she decorated her stories with such fantastic details that Tatyana Ivanovna seemed to her listeners to be a kind of Diocletian in a skirt. True, one day Father Dimitri allowed himself to doubt the veracity of Nina’s stories. Then she immediately broke up with her spiritual father and moved to another church, where she soon began singing and reading in the choir, leaving the former psalm-reader, a lonely old Ukrainian woman, almost out of work... Nina liked the new church even more than the old one, because its abbot drilled his spiritual children with penances in the form of dozens, or even hundreds prostrations, which gave no one any reason to doubt the correctness of his spiritual leadership. The parishioners, and especially the parishioners, dressed in black and tied with dark scarves up to their eyebrows, with a rosary on their left wrist, looked not like laywomen, but like novices of some monastery. At the same time, many of them were sincerely proud that, with the blessing of the priest, they had forever expelled from their apartments the “idol and servant of hell,” colloquially referred to as a television, as a result of which they received undoubted confidence in their future salvation... However, the severity of the rector of this temple towards his spiritual children later brought good fruit - many of them, having passed in their parish primary school ascetics, subsequently went to various monasteries and became exemplary monks and nuns.

Nina was nevertheless expelled from the institute for poor academic performance. She never tried to continue her studies, considering a doctor’s degree a thing unnecessary for eternal life. Tatyana Ivanovna managed to get her daughter a job as a laboratory assistant at one of the departments of the medical institute, where Nina worked, without, however, showing much zeal for her work. Like the heroines of her favorite lives of saints, Nina knew only three roads - to church, to work and, late in the evening, home. Nina never got married, because she definitely wanted to become either a priest’s wife or a nun, and all other options did not suit her. Over the years of her stay in the Church, she read a lot of spiritual books, and memorized the Gospel texts almost by heart, so that in the inevitable disputes and disagreements in parish life, she proved her own rightness, striking down her opponents “with the sword of the words of God.” If a person refused to admit that Nina was right, then she immediately included him in the category of “pagans and publicans”... Meanwhile, Tatyana Ivanovna was getting old and increasingly thinking about something. Sometimes Nina found brochures and leaflets in her bag, which, apparently, were handed to her on the street by Jehovah's Witness sectarians. Nina scoldedly took away the dangerous books from her mother, and, calling her a “sectarian,” tore them into small pieces in front of her eyes and sent them to the trash can. Tatyana Ivanovna remained silent resignedly.

Nina’s suffering, forced to live under the same roof with her unbelieving mother, came to an end after Tatyana Ivanovna retired and began to get sick more and more often. One evening, when Nina, returning from church, was devouring the Lenten borscht her mother had cooked for her, Tatyana Ivanovna said to her daughter:

- That's it, Ninochka. I want to apply for a nursing home. I don't want to interfere with your life anymore. Do you think I should do this?

If Nina had looked into her mother’s eyes at that moment, she would have read in them all the pain of her mother’s suffering heart. But she, without raising her eyes from the plate of borscht, muttered:

- Don't know. Do what you want. I don't care.

Soon after this conversation, Tatyana Ivanovna managed to formalize everything Required documents and moved to live in a nursing home located on the outskirts of the city, taking with her only a small suitcase with the most necessary things. Nina didn’t even consider it necessary to see her mother off. After her departure, she even felt joy - after all, it turned out that the Lord Himself had saved her from the need to continue living with her unloved mother. And subsequently - from caring for her.

After Nina was left alone, she decided that now she could arrange her own destiny the way she had long wanted. In the neighboring diocese there was convent with strict rules and a well-established spiritual life. Nina went there more than once, and in her dreams she imagined herself as a novice of this particular monastery. True, the local abbess did not accept anyone into the monastery without the blessing of the perspicacious elder Alipius from the famous Vozdvizhensky Monastery, located in the same diocese, in the city of V. But Nina was sure that the elder would certainly bless her to enter the monastery. Or maybe even, taking into account her previous work in the temple, she will immediately be tonsured as a ryassophore? And how beautiful she will look in the clothes of a nun - in a black duckweed and hood, trimmed with fur, with long rosary in her hand - a real bride of Christ... With such rosy dreams, Nina went to the elder, buying him an expensive Greek icon as a gift in a silver robe.

To the amazement of Nina, who sought a personal conversation with the elder, he refused to accept her. But she was not going to give up, and managed to get to the elder with a group of pilgrims. When she saw the elder, Nina fell at his feet and began to ask for his blessing to enter the nunnery. But to Nina’s amazement, the perspicacious elder gave her a stern rebuke:

- What did you do with your mother? How can you say that you love God if you hate your mother? And don’t dream of a monastery - I won’t bless you!

Nina wanted to object to the elder that he simply had no idea what a monster her mother was. But, probably from excitement and frustration, she could not utter a word. However, when the first shock passed, Nina decided that Elder Alypius was either not as perspicacious as they say about him, or was simply mistaken. After all, there were cases when even future great saints were denied entry into the monastery...

...About six months have passed since Nina’s mother went to a nursing home. One day at this time, in the church where Nina was singing, an old Ukrainian psalmist died. The neighbors of the deceased brought her notes and notebooks with recordings of liturgical texts to the church, and the rector blessed Nina to review them and select what could be useful in the choir. Nina's attention was attracted by one of the notebooks, with a black oilcloth cover. It contained carols - Russian and Ukrainian, as well as various poems of spiritual content, which are usually called “psalms” by the people. However, there was one poem written in Ukrainian, which was not a “psalm”, but rather a legend. Its plot looked something like this: a certain young man promised his beloved girl to fulfill any of her wishes. “Then bring me your mother’s heart,” demanded the cruel beauty. And the young man, mad with love, fearlessly fulfilled her wish. But when he returned to her, carrying a terrible gift in a scarf - a mother's heart, he stumbled and fell. Apparently, it was the earth that shook under the feet of the matricide. And then the mother’s heart asked her son: “Are you hurt, son?”

While reading this legend, Nina suddenly remembered her mother. How is she? What with her? However, considering the memory of her mother to be a demonic excuse, Nina immediately reflected it with a quote from the Gospel: “... who is My Mother?... whoever does the will of My Heavenly Father is My brother, and sister, and Mother.” (Matthew 12.48, 50) And thoughts about the mother disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.

But at night Nina dreamed unusual dream. It’s as if someone is leading her through a beautiful Garden of Eden, buried in flowers and planted with fruit trees. And Nina sees that in the middle of this garden stands beautiful house, or rather a palace. “So this is the kind of palace the Lord has prepared for me,” Nina thought. And then her companion, as if reading her thoughts, answered her: “no, this is a palace for your mother.” “What then for me?” - asked Nina. But her companion was silent... And then Nina woke up...

The dream she had had confused her. How is it that the Lord, after all that Nina did for Him, did not prepare for her a palace in paradise corresponding to her merits before Him? And why such honor to her mother, an unbeliever and not even baptized? Of course, Nina considered her dream to be an enemy’s obsession. But still, curiosity got the better of her, and, taking with her some gifts, she asked the abbot for leave and went to the nursing home to visit her mother, whom she had not seen for six months.

Since Nina did not know the number of the room in which her mother lived, she decided to start her search from the nurse's station. There she found a young nurse putting pills for patients into plastic cups. Much to Nina’s surprise, she noticed a small icon of the Kazan Church on the cabinet with medicines. Mother of God, and on the windowsill there is a book about Blessed Xenia of Petersburg with a bookmark sticking out. After greeting the nurse, Nina asked her which room Tatyana Ivanovna Matveeva lived in.

— Did you come to visit her? - asked the nurse. - Unfortunately, you are late. Tatyana Ivanovna died two months ago. She took out some magazine, and, having found the right place in it, called Nina the exact date her mother's death. But, apparently, at the same time the nurse remembered something significant for her, and she continued the conversation herself:

- Who will you be for her? Daughter? You know, Nina Nikolaevna, how happy you are! You had a wonderful mother. I didn’t study with her, but I heard a lot of good things about her from her students. Everyone loved her here too. And she died hard - she fell and broke her leg. Then the bedsores started to develop, and I went to bandage her. You know, I have never seen such patients in my life. She didn’t cry, didn’t moan, and thanked me every time. I have never seen people die so meekly and courageously as your mother. And two days before her death, she asked me: “Galenka, bring my father to me, let him baptize me.” Then I called our father Ermogen, and the next day he came and baptized her. And the next day she died. If you could see what her face was like, bright and clear, as if she had not died, but had just fallen asleep... Just like a saint...

There was no end to Nina's amazement. It turns out that her mother believed before her death and died, having been cleansed by Baptism from all her previous sins. And the talkative nurse continued to tell:

- And you know, she often remembered you. And when Father Ermogen baptized her, she asked to pray for you. When she fell ill, I suggested that she call you. But she refused: no need, Galenka, why bother Ninochka. She already has enough to do. Yes, and I am guilty before her... And I also asked you not to tell about my death, so that you would not worry in vain. I obeyed, sorry...

This is what Nina found out about last days his mother's life. Having given away the gifts she had brought to the nurse and the old women from the neighboring rooms, she went home on foot to calm down at least a little. She wandered along deserted snowy streets, not making out the road. But what depressed her was not at all the fact that she had now lost her only loved one, but the fact that she could not come to terms with how God had given such beautiful place in heaven not to her, who labored all her life for His sake, but to her mother, who was baptized just a day before her death. And the more she thought about it, the more a murmur against God rose in her soul: “Lord, why should she, and not me? How did you allow this to happen? Where is Your justice? And then the earth opened up under Nina’s feet and she fell into the abyss.

No, it was not a miracle at all. Simply, immersed in her thoughts, Nina did not notice the open sewer hatch and fell straight into a gaping hole. From surprise, she did not have time to scream, or pray, or even be afraid. No less unexpected was the fact that her feet suddenly rested on something hard. It was probably some kind of box that someone dropped into the hatch and got stuck in it. After that, someone's strong hands grabbed Nina and dragged her upstairs. She didn't remember what happened next.

When Nina came to her senses, people crowded around her, scolding the mayor's office and the thieves who had stolen the metal manhole cover, and wondered how Nina managed to get out without outside help. Nina mechanically looked into the hatch and saw how at its bottom, deep, deep, water was splashing and some kind of pipe was sticking out. But there is no trace of any box inside. And then she lost consciousness again...

She was taken to the hospital, examined, and, finding no injuries, was sent home, advising her to take a sedative. Once at home, Nina took the pill, having previously crossed it and washed it down with holy water, and soon fell asleep. She dreamed that she was falling into an abyss. And suddenly she hears: “Don’t be afraid, daughter,” and her mother’s strong, warm hands pick her up and carry her somewhere up. And then Nina finds herself in the very garden that she dreamed about yesterday. And he sees wonderful trees and flowers. And also the palace where she was told her mother lived. And next to this palace, indeed, stands her mother, young and beautiful, as in photographs from an old album.

-Are you hurt, daughter? - asks Nina’s mother.

And then Nina realized what saved her from inevitable death. It was motherly love and mother's prayer, which “raises from the bottom of the sea.” And Nina began to sob and began to kiss her mother’s feet, watering them with her belated tears of repentance.
And then her mother, bending over her, began to affectionately stroke her already graying hair:

- Don’t cry, don’t cry, daughter... May the Lord forgive you. And I forgave you everything a long time ago. Live, serve God and be happy. Just remember: “God is love...” (1 John 4.16) If you love and have pity on people, we will meet again and will never part again. And this house will become your home.

“Once upon a time there lived a mother and son. Their folder was killed in the war. And the post-war times were hungry. Mom doted on her son, she loved him so much. The best goes to him! He will tear him away from himself, but will not offend his son. It used to be that they would treat her to candy at work, but she wouldn’t eat it herself – she would bring it to Slavik. And then he’s also capricious, like, why one and not two!?
Mom tried her best to make her son feel good. Either he will do some renovation, then he will buy a new toy, or he will get the shortage.
Everything for him, everything!

The child grew up, thank God, quite healthy, and was not seriously ill.
It’s hard for a woman to raise a child alone. What's it like without a man in the house?!
She could, of course, get married, and there were suitors, but her son was so jealous that it led to a nervous breakdown. How can a loving mother do anything to the detriment of her child?
So she remained a widow.
Well, okay! If only my son had a good time!

The last bell at school has already rung, and the institute is not far away.
She nurtured her beloved Slavochka, taught her, and released her into the world as a young specialist with a high education. She went, asked, persuaded, and they took my son to work at a closed research institute. It’s not right to put it in a mechanical shop, to sharpen and saw all sorts of dirty pieces of iron!?
As time went.
They slowly acquired property - a one-room apartment, a small dacha, some furniture, various household appliances.
In general, not bad.

The son entered into manhood. Started getting married. But of course! Anyone for him, just whistle! Handsome! Blood with milk!
Mom thought and joined the housing cooperative for an apartment for Slavik.
And on time!
In general, she gave the newlyweds the keys to a brand new apartment for their wedding.
I didn’t have time to save up for a car, but my granddaughter Alyonka was already three years old. On this occasion, the son wanted to have a serious conversation with his mother.
- My granddaughter is already big, but the apartment is too small. It’s a young business, but here she is spinning around. It’s inconvenient, you know...
- I was saving for a car. If so, take what you have. You can exchange your apartment for a larger one with an additional payment! But for now I’ll take Alyonka with me.
The son hid the money in his pocket and answered as follows.
- How can you, mom!? The child must be with his parents. What did we think? Let's change our apartments to one.
- Also good. Look, I’ll live with my granddaughter.
- I’m telling you, it’s so cramped, I have to drag you there too!
- Where am I going?! - Mom was surprised.
- What's the use of a dacha?! She's warm. And the air is fresh! You'll have a good time there!
And my mother began to live in the country.

Everything would be fine, but only the dashing “nineties” broke out. When my son lost his job, he went into business. But either he didn’t have business acumen, or he was caught by unscrupulous partners, only he burned to the ground, and he still had to stay!
I went to my mother.
- Mom! I sold the car, but the debt still hangs.
- My poor thing!? How can I help?
- We need to sell the dacha!
- It’s necessary, it’s necessary! I'll move in with you!
- No, mom! I agreed, you will go to a nursing home. I've already paid the fee. One year ahead, for now. Everything is so expensive, it's scary!
- Okay, son! - Mom said, but she couldn’t help but cry.
- Just do not cry! When I get up, I’ll buy you a house... with a swimming pool.

Three months later, Slavik arrived at the nursing home and told his mother that he was again completely in debt, like silk. That his wife left him, taking Alena with her, and at the same time the apartment.
The mother sighed heavily, feeling sorry for her son, took out a shabby rag from her bosom and handed it to her son with words.
- Take it! I have nothing else! I got it from my mother, and she got it from my grandmother.
The son unfolded the rag and saw a platinum ring with a large diamond.
- And you were silent?! – he shouted angrily at his mother.
He spat at her feet and left.
And my mother died in the evening.”

What a sad tale! - said Vanyatka.
- This is not a fairy tale at all, but the life story of your great-great-grandmother. – Baba Alena answered with a sad smile and stroked her grandson on the head.
- How interesting! What happened to my son? Did that ring help him?
- From this moment the real fairy tale begins.
- Like this?!
- They say that mother's love is blind, but superficial people say this. A mother's love for her children is stronger than any diamond because she loves her children as they are, whether they are good or bad. Does not expect gratitude and does not demand anything in return. That's why her love is more valuable than anyone's gemstone or metal, and therefore has no price. But, like any phenomenon, this love also has a downside.
- Which?! – the grandson impatiently interrupted the grandmother.

Take your time and think about what I'm about to say. If a mother's love is not reciprocated by her children, they will not be happy. Never!
- I think I understand! That’s why you and your mother often go to your grandmothers’ graves!
- You clever! - said Baba Alena and kissed Vanyatka on the warm top of her head. – The memory of the departed is one of the manifestations of mutual love.
- Granny! What about miracles? What is a fairy tale without miracles?
- My son gave the ring to creditors for debts. But when they unwrapped the rag, there was no ring in it, and they decided that the debtor wanted to deceive them. In the end, the beaten Slavik ended up in the city landfill, where he ended his life ingloriously.
- Where did it go?!
- Here it is! - and Baba Lena took a clean rag from the chest of drawers, in it lay a platinum ring with a large diamond.
- Indeed, miracles! Where!?

Don't know! I found it in my childhood locker the day after your great-great-grandmother's funeral. I was 8 years old then. But I think I know why it ended up with me.
- Why!?
- You see! My mother, your great-grandmother, did very bad things to your great-great-grandmother. After all, it was partly her fault that she ended up in a nursing home, because she didn’t want her to live with them. And the wonderful thing about the ring is that it cannot be sold, pawned, or turned into money in any way. It can only be protected and stored as the embodiment of maternal love. Your great-great-grandmother died because she gave absolutely everything she had, and could not live without her love.
***
- Why aren’t you sleeping? It's too late!? - Mom said, entering the room. She just returned from work.
- We talked about love! – answered Baba Lena.
- Isn’t it too early!?
- Just right! - Granny objected, got up and went to the chest of drawers, wrapping the ring in a rag as she went.
- Aah! You're talking about this! - Mom realized, watching her mother’s actions. - Oh, I forgot, they treated me to an apple! Take it, Vanyush, eat it.
The son took the apple, thoughtfully turned it in his fingers, then cut it in half and handed the halves to his grandmother and mother with words.
- It is harmful for children to eat at night. I'd rather drink milk.

The women secretly looked at each other and smiled quietly at each other.

MOTHER'S LOVE. STORY

There are many stories about the great power of maternal love. But it happens that we, busy with our own affairs and problems, find out too late how ardently and tenderly our mothers loved us. And we repent too late that we have inflicted incurable wounds on our loving mother’s heart... But who knows, maybe, as the song says, “from somewhere above,” our mothers see our belated repentance and forgive their late-wisher children. After all, a mother’s heart knows how to love and forgive like no one else on earth...

Nina was unable to keep the secret of her baptism from her mother for long. Tatyana Ivanovna suspected something was wrong not even because her daughter suddenly stopped wearing jeans and a knitted hat with tassels, replacing them with a long skirt and headscarf. And not because she completely stopped using cosmetics. Unfortunately, Nina, like many young converts, completely ceased to be interested in studying, deciding that it distracted her from “the one thing she needs.” And while she spent days on end studying the Lives of the Saints and the Philokalia, volume after volume, textbooks and notebooks became covered with an increasingly thick layer of dust...

More than once Tatyana Ivanovna tried to persuade Nina not to skip her studies. But everything was useless. The daughter was exclusively occupied with saving her own soul. The closer the end of the school year became, and with its approach the number of detentions Nina had increased to astronomical figures, the more heated the clashes between Nina and her mother became. One day, enraged, Tatyana Ivanovna, gesticulating violently, accidentally brushed away with her hand the icon that was standing on her daughter’s table. The icon fell to the floor. And then Nina, who regarded her mother’s act as blasphemy against a sacred thing, hit her for the first time in her life...

Subsequently, mother and daughter became more and more alien to each other, although they continued to coexist in the same apartment, periodically quarreling. Nina equated her life under the same roof with her mother to martyrdom, and considered Tatyana Ivanovna the main obstacle to her further spiritual growth, since it was she who aroused the passion of anger in her daughter. On occasion, Nina liked to complain to her friends and Fr. Dimitri on his mother's cruelty. At the same time, hoping to evoke their compassion, she decorated her stories with such fantastic details that Tatyana Ivanovna seemed to her listeners to be a kind of Diocletian in a skirt. True, one day Father Dimitri allowed himself to doubt the veracity of Nina’s stories. Then she immediately broke up with her spiritual father and moved to another church, where she soon began singing and reading in the choir, leaving the former psalm-reader, a lonely old Ukrainian woman, almost out of work... Nina liked the new church even more than the old one, because his abbot drilled his spiritual children with penances in the form of dozens, or even hundreds of prostrations, which gave no one any reason to doubt the correctness of his spiritual leadership. The parishioners, and especially the parishioners, dressed in black and tied with dark scarves up to their eyebrows, with a rosary on their left wrist, looked not like laywomen, but like novices of some monastery. At the same time, many of them were sincerely proud that, with the blessing of the priest, they had forever expelled from their apartments the “idol and servant of hell,” colloquially referred to as a television, as a result of which they received undoubted confidence in their future salvation... However, the severity of the rector of this temple towards his spiritual later brought good results to children - many of them, having completed the primary school of asceticism in their parish, subsequently went to various monasteries and became exemplary monks and nuns.

Nina was nevertheless expelled from the institute for poor academic performance. She never tried to continue her studies, considering a doctor’s degree a thing unnecessary for eternal life. Tatyana Ivanovna managed to get her daughter a job as a laboratory assistant at one of the departments of the medical institute, where Nina worked, without, however, showing much zeal for her work. Like the heroines of her favorite lives of saints, Nina knew only three roads - to church, to work and, late in the evening, home. Nina never got married, because she definitely wanted to become either a priest’s wife or a nun, and all other options did not suit her. Over the years of her stay in the Church, she read a lot of spiritual books, and memorized the Gospel texts almost by heart, so that in the inevitable disputes and disagreements in parish life, she proved her own rightness, striking down her opponents “with the sword of the words of God.” If a person refused to admit that Nina was right, then she immediately included him in the category of “pagans and publicans”... Meanwhile, Tatyana Ivanovna was getting old and increasingly thinking about something. Sometimes Nina found brochures and leaflets in her bag, which, apparently, were handed to her on the street by Jehovah's Witness sectarians. Nina scoldedly took away the dangerous books from her mother, and, calling her a “sectarian,” tore them into small pieces in front of her eyes and sent them to the trash can. Tatyana Ivanovna remained silent resignedly.

Nina’s suffering, forced to live under the same roof with her unbelieving mother, came to an end after Tatyana Ivanovna retired and began to get sick more and more often. One evening, when Nina, returning from church, was devouring the Lenten borscht her mother had cooked for her, Tatyana Ivanovna said to her daughter:

- That's it, Ninochka. I want to apply for a nursing home. I don't want to interfere with your life anymore. Do you think I should do this?

If Nina had looked into her mother’s eyes at that moment, she would have read in them all the pain of her mother’s suffering heart. But she, without raising her eyes from the plate of borscht, muttered:

- Don't know. Do what you want. I don't care.

Soon after this conversation, Tatyana Ivanovna managed to complete all the necessary documents and moved to live in a nursing home located on the outskirts of the city, taking with her only a small suitcase with the most necessary things. Nina didn’t even consider it necessary to see her mother off. After her departure, she even felt joy - after all, it turned out that the Lord Himself had saved her from the need to continue living with her unloved mother. And subsequently - and from caring for her.

After Nina was left alone, she decided that now she could arrange her own destiny the way she had long wanted. In the neighboring diocese there was a convent with strict rules and a well-established spiritual life. Nina went there more than once, and in her dreams she imagined herself as a novice of this particular monastery. True, the local abbess did not accept anyone into the monastery without the blessing of the perspicacious elder Alipius from the famous Vozdvizhensky Monastery, located in the same diocese, in the city of V. But Nina was sure that the elder would certainly bless her to enter the monastery. Or maybe even, taking into account her previous work in the temple, she will immediately be tonsured as a ryassophore? And how beautiful she will look in the clothes of a nun - in a black duckweed and hood, trimmed with fur, with long rosary in her hand - a real bride of Christ... With such rosy dreams, Nina went to the elder, buying him an expensive Greek icon as a gift in a silver robe.

To the amazement of Nina, who sought a personal conversation with the elder, he refused to accept her. But she was not going to give up, and managed to get to the elder with a group of pilgrims. When she saw the elder, Nina fell at his feet and began to ask for his blessing to enter the nunnery. But to Nina’s amazement, the perspicacious elder gave her a stern rebuke:

- What did you do with your mother? How can you say that you love God if you hate your mother? And don’t dream of a monastery - I won’t bless you!

Nina wanted to object to the elder that he simply had no idea what a monster her mother was. But, probably from excitement and frustration, she could not utter a word. However, when the first shock passed, Nina decided that Elder Alypius was either not as perspicacious as they say about him, or was simply mistaken. After all, there were cases when even future great saints were denied entry into the monastery...

…About six months have passed since Nina's mother went to a nursing home. One day at this time, in the church where Nina was singing, an old Ukrainian psalmist died. The neighbors of the deceased brought her notes and notebooks with recordings of liturgical texts to the church, and the rector blessed Nina to review them and select what could be useful in the choir. Nina's attention was attracted by one of the notebooks, with a black oilcloth cover. It contained carols - Russian and Ukrainian, as well as various poems of spiritual content, which are usually called “psalms” by the people. However, there was one poem written in Ukrainian, which was not a “psalm”, but rather a legend. Its plot looked something like this: a certain young man promised his beloved girl to fulfill any of her wishes. “Then bring me your mother’s heart,” demanded the cruel beauty. And the young man, mad with love, fearlessly fulfilled her wish. But when he returned to her, carrying a terrible gift in a scarf - a mother's heart, he stumbled and fell. Apparently, it was the earth that shook under the feet of the matricide. And then the mother’s heart asked her son: “Are you hurt, son?”

While reading this legend, Nina suddenly remembered her mother. How is she? What with her? However, considering the memory of her mother to be a demonic excuse, Nina immediately reflected it with a quote from the Gospel: “... who is My Mother?... whoever does the will of My Heavenly Father is My brother, and sister, and Mother.” (Matthew 12.48, 50) And thoughts about the mother disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.

But at night Nina had an unusual dream. It’s as if someone is leading her through a beautiful Garden of Eden, buried in flowers and planted with fruit trees. And Nina sees that in the middle of this garden there is a beautiful house, or rather a palace. “So this is the kind of palace the Lord has prepared for me,” Nina thought. And then her companion, as if reading her thoughts, answered her: “no, this is a palace for your mother.” “What then for me?” - asked Nina. But her companion was silent... And then Nina woke up...

The dream she had had confused her. How is it that the Lord, after all that Nina did for Him, did not prepare for her a palace in paradise corresponding to her merits before Him? And why such honor to her mother, an unbeliever and not even baptized? Of course, Nina considered her dream to be an enemy’s obsession. But still, curiosity got the better of her, and, taking with her some gifts, she asked the abbot for leave and went to the nursing home to visit her mother, whom she had not seen for six months.

Since Nina did not know the number of the room in which her mother lived, she decided to start her search from the nurse's station. There she found a young nurse putting pills for patients into plastic cups. To Nina’s considerable surprise, she noticed a small icon of the Kazan Mother of God on the medicine cabinet, and on the windowsill - a book about Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg with a bookmark sticking out. After greeting the nurse, Nina asked her which room Tatyana Ivanovna Matveeva lived in.

- Have you come to visit her? - asked the nurse. - Unfortunately, you are late. Tatyana Ivanovna died two months ago. She took out a magazine and, having found the right place in it, told Nina the exact date of her mother’s death. But, apparently, at the same time the nurse remembered something significant for her, and she continued the conversation herself:

- And who will you be for her? Daughter? You know, Nina Nikolaevna, how happy you are! You had a wonderful mother. I didn’t study with her, but I heard a lot of good things about her from her students. Everyone loved her here too. And she died hard - she fell and broke her leg. Then the bedsores started to develop, and I went to bandage her. You know, I have never seen such patients in my life. She didn’t cry, didn’t moan, and thanked me every time. I have never seen people die so meekly and courageously as your mother. And two days before her death, she asked me: “Galenka, bring my father to me, let him baptize me.” Then I called our father Ermogen, and the next day he came and baptized her. And the next day she died. If you could see what her face was like, bright and clear, as if she had not died, but had just fallen asleep... Just like a saint...

There was no end to Nina's amazement. It turns out that her mother believed before her death and died, having been cleansed by Baptism from all her previous sins. And the talkative nurse continued to tell:

- And you know, she often remembered you. And when Father Ermogen baptized her, she asked to pray for you. When she fell ill, I suggested that she call you. But she refused: no need, Galenka, why bother Ninochka. She already has enough to do. Yes, and I am guilty before her... And I also asked you not to tell about my death, so that you would not worry in vain. I obeyed, sorry...

This is what Nina learned about the last days of her mother's life. Having given away the gifts she had brought to the nurse and the old women from the neighboring rooms, she went home on foot to calm down at least a little. She wandered along deserted snowy streets, not making out the road. But she was not at all depressed by the fact that she had now lost her only relative, but by the fact that she could not come to terms with how God had given such a wonderful place in heaven not to her, who had labored all her life for Him, but to her mother, baptized just a day before her death. And the more she thought about it, the more a murmur against God rose in her soul: “Lord, why should she, and not me? How did you allow this to happen? Where is Your justice? And then the earth opened up under Nina’s feet and she fell into the abyss.

No, it was not a miracle at all. Simply, immersed in her thoughts, Nina did not notice the open sewer hatch and fell straight into a gaping hole. From surprise, she did not have time to scream, or pray, or even be afraid. No less unexpected was the fact that her feet suddenly rested on something hard. It was probably some kind of box that someone dropped into the hatch and got stuck in it. After that, someone's strong hands grabbed Nina and dragged her upstairs. She didn't remember what happened next.

When Nina came to her senses, people crowded around her, scolding some the mayor's office, others the thieves who had stolen the metal manhole cover, and wondered how Nina managed to get out without outside help. Nina mechanically looked into the hatch and saw how at its bottom, deep, deep, water was splashing and some kind of pipe was sticking out. But there is no trace of any box inside. And then she lost consciousness again...

She was taken to the hospital, examined, and, finding no injuries, was sent home, advising her to take a sedative. Once at home, Nina took the pill, having previously crossed it and washed it down with holy water, and soon fell asleep. She dreamed that she was falling into an abyss. And suddenly she hears: “Don’t be afraid, daughter,” and her mother’s strong, warm hands pick her up and carry her somewhere up. And then Nina finds herself in the very garden that she dreamed about yesterday. And he sees wonderful trees and flowers. And also the palace where, as she was told, her mother lives. And next to this palace, indeed, stands her mother, young and beautiful, as in photographs from an old album.

- Are you hurt, daughter? - asks Nina’s mother.

And then Nina realized what saved her from inevitable death. It was maternal love and maternal prayer, which “raises you from the bottom of the sea.” And Nina began to sob and began to kiss her mother’s feet, watering them with her belated tears of repentance.
And then her mother, bending over her, began to affectionately stroke her already graying hair:

- Don’t cry, don’t cry, daughter... May the Lord forgive you. And I forgave you everything a long time ago. Live, serve God and be happy. Just remember: “God is love...” (1 John 4.16) If you love and have pity on people, we will meet again and will never part again. And this house will become your home.

Vasily Sukhomlinsky

The Tale of the Goose

On a hot summer day, a goose took her little yellow geese for a walk. She showed the kids Big world. This world was green and joyful - a huge meadow spread out in front of the goslings. The goose taught the children to pluck the tender stems of young grass. The stems were sweet, the sun was warm and gentle, the grass was soft, the world was green and singing with many voices of bugs, butterflies, and moths. The goslings were happy.

Suddenly dark clouds appeared and the first drops of rain fell to the ground. And then large hailstones, like sparrow eggs, began to fall. The goslings ran to their mother, she raised her wings and covered her children with them. It was warm and cozy under the wings, the goslings heard as if from somewhere far away came the roar of thunder, the howl of the wind and the sound of hailstones. They even began to have fun: something terrible is happening behind their mother’s wings, and they are warm and comfortable.

Then everything calmed down. The goslings wanted to quickly go to the green meadow, but the mother did not raise her wings. The goslings squealed demandingly: let us out, mom.

The mother quietly raised her wings. The goslings ran out onto the grass. They saw that the mother’s wings were wounded and many feathers were torn out. The mother was breathing heavily. But the world around was so joyful, the sun shone so brightly and tenderly, the bugs, bees, and bumblebees sang so beautifully that for some reason it never occurred to the goslings to ask: “Mom, what’s wrong with you?” And when one, the smallest and weakest gosling came up to his mother and asked: “Why are your wings wounded?” - She answered quietly: “Everything is fine, my son.”

The yellow goslings scattered on the grass, and the mother was happy.

Vasily Sukhomlinsky

The Legend of Mother's Love

The mother had an only son. He married a girl of amazing beauty. But the girl’s heart was black and unkind.

The son brought his young wife into the house. The daughter-in-law did not like the mother-in-law and told her husband: “Let the mother not come into the hut, let her live in the entryway.”

The son settled his mother in the entryway and forbade her to enter the hut... But even this was not enough for the daughter-in-law. She says to her husband: “So that even the spirit of the mother does not smell in the house.”

The son moved his mother into the barn. Only at night did the mother come out for air. One evening a young beauty was resting under a blooming apple tree and saw her mother come out of the barn.

The wife became furious and ran to her husband: “If you want me to live with you, kill my mother, take the heart out of her chest and bring it to me.” The filial heart did not tremble; he was bewitched by the unprecedented beauty of his wife. He says to his mother: “Come on, mom, let’s swim in the river.” They go to the river along a rocky bank. The mother tripped over a stone. The son got angry: “Look at your feet. So we will go to the river until evening.”

They came, undressed, and swam. The son killed his mother, took the heart out of her chest, put it on a maple leaf, and carried it. A mother's heart trembles.

The son tripped over a stone, fell, hit himself, the hot mother’s heart fell on a sharp cliff, bled, started and whispered: “Son, didn’t you hurt your knee? Sit down, rest, rub the bruised area with your palm.”

The son began to sob, grabbed his mother’s heart in his palms, pressed it to his chest, returned to the river, put the heart into his torn chest, and poured it with hot tears. He realized that no one loved and could love him as devotedly and unselfishly as his own mother.

So enormous was the mother's love, so deep and ever strong was the desire of the mother's heart to see her son happy, that the heart came to life, the torn chest closed, the mother stood up and pressed her son's head to her chest. After this, the son could not return to his wife; she became hateful to him. The mother did not return home either. The two of them walked across the steppes and became two mounds. Every morning rising Sun its first rays illuminate the tops of the mounds...