Russian folk sayings hide a lot of interesting things. Their interpretation is an exciting activity for both specialists and non-professionals. We propose to consider in our article the well-known saying: “My hut is on the edge, I don’t know anything” - its meaning and significance.
Fear the silence of indifferent people
There is a maxim that teaches that indifference should be feared more than negative emotions, it seems like this: "With the tacit consent of the indifferent, all troubles on earth occur." It’s not that we defend those who don’t care about everything, but we remind you that the indifferent preach non-action and cannot, for example, do evil. So, of course, they may be to blame, but on an equal footing with someone else.
The saying "my hut is on the edge, I know nothing" pursues the same vice.
Usually people who lived on the very edge of the village said so, that is, their hut was really on the edge. Then, over time, such a physical location turned into an almost metaphysical andfigurative and began to express a certain principle of the way of life.
Russian people and famous saying
Actually, as N. A. Berdyaev: "The soul of a Russian person is of a collective nature, and the soul of a European is of an individual nature." And it is true. Remember the peasant communities, the Soviet Union, when people were almost forcibly tied to the collective and turned inside out and presented to the public even the most intimate and secret events of their personal lives. There was, for example, such a thing as "comrades' court". Its main meaning is to make some moral assessment of a person's behavior, even his personal, private life. Then many would probably like to say: “My hut is on the edge, I don’t know anything” - but it was impossible.
Proverb and modernity
Now we have the opposite: people help each other only in borderline, crisis situations, when it is impossible not to help. Otherwise, they prefer to stay in the shadows and go about their business. On the one hand, we can publicly censure such representatives of our nation, but on the other hand, such an increase in individualism is justified. Firstly, because the speed of our life leaves almost no time to solve other people's problems, we would be able to cope with our own. Secondly, there is a possibility that if a person is trouble-free, like a Kalashnikov assault rifle, then he will simply be used whenever the opportunity arises. Therefore, sometimes it's safer to say: "My hut is on the edge, I don't know anything" - and "pretend to be a hose." And now it's time for unexpected literary rapprochements.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zhvanetsky
Our famous humorist and satirist played on a well-known proverb in his work “Fenya, my wife”. There the plot is as follows: a man tells in the first person how he successfully married. When he is blamed for his indifference to almost everything, from political events to the granny who fell on the street, the hero answers in a truly authorial style, when the reader does not understand: Mikhal Mikhalych is joking, or he is completely serious. It's all the same that it's so funny that something like that. If the hero is asked about something, why is this, why is that, he says: "This is not for me, this is for Fenechka." Everything ends eloquently, with the words: “Everything up to Fenichka!”. And it could have ended like this: “My hut is on the edge!” A proverb, as we see, for all occasions. "Hut" Zhvanetsky stylistically does not fit in this context.
Albert Camus. "Outsider"
Now we move on to another author and genre. In his famous novel, the famous Frenchman brought out the image of a person who is indifferent to everything. The novel's refrain is: "I don't care." Camus had his own tasks, he wanted to create a visual image of a man of the absurd, but only specialists know about this. The average reader sees only a very apathetic person in front of him.
The novel begins with the well-known lines “Mom died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. At the funeral, he is tormented by the heat, and in front of the coffin, he is mortally hungry for coffee and a smoke, and an even stronger smoke. In other words, grief does not interest him much. Meursault is not going to dropa tear in the eyes of strangers, and he does not feel a special loss, his relationship with his mother was cool.
With love the same story. Only the proximity of death brings the hero out of the existential stupor.
Thus, we hope we have managed to show that the saying "my hut is on the edge" has a universal meaning. In principle, it can be used by both Russian and French, but it is closer to us both in spirit and style.
