You appeared before me as a fleeting phenomenon. "The genius of pure beauty
I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared before me, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. In the languor of hopeless sadness In the worries of noisy bustle, A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time And I dreamed of sweet features. Years passed. The rebellious gust of storms scattered my former dreams, And I forgot your tender voice, your heavenly features. In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement, my days dragged on quietly, without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love. The soul has awakened: And now you have appeared again, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love have risen again.
The poem is addressed to Anna Kern, whom Pushkin met long before his forced seclusion in St. Petersburg in 1819. She made an indelible impression on the poet. The next time Pushkin and Kern saw each other was only in 1825, when she was visiting the estate of her aunt Praskovya Osipova; Osipova was Pushkin’s neighbor and a good friend of his. It is believed that the new meeting inspired Pushkin to create an epoch-making poem.
The main theme of the poem is love. Pushkin presents a succinct sketch of his life between the first meeting with the heroine and the present moment, indirectly mentioning the main events that happened to the biographical lyrical hero: exile to the south of the country, a period of bitter disappointment in life, in which works of art were created, imbued with feelings of genuine pessimism (“ Demon”, “Desert Sower of Freedom”), depressed mood during the period of new exile to the family estate of Mikhailovskoye. However, suddenly the resurrection of the soul occurs, the miracle of the revival of life, caused by the appearance of the divine image of the muse, which brings with it the former joy of creativity and creation, which is revealed to the author from a new perspective. It is at the moment of spiritual awakening that the lyrical hero meets the heroine again: “The soul has awakened: And now you have appeared again...”.
The image of the heroine is significantly generalized and maximally poeticized; it differs significantly from the image that appears on the pages of Pushkin’s letters to Riga and friends, created during the period of forced time spent in Mikhailovsky. At the same time, the use of an equal sign is unjustified, as is the identification of the “genius of pure beauty” with the real biographical Anna Kern. The impossibility of recognizing the narrow biographical background of the poetic message is indicated by the thematic and compositional similarity with another love poetic text called “To Her,” created by Pushkin in 1817.
Here it is important to remember the idea of inspiration. Love for a poet is also valuable in the sense of giving creative inspiration and the desire to create. The title stanza describes the first meeting of the poet and his beloved. Pushkin characterizes this moment with very bright, expressive epithets (“wonderful moment”, “fleeting vision”, “genius of pure beauty”). Love for a poet is a deep, sincere, magical feeling that completely captivates him. The next three stanzas of the poem describe the next stage in the poet’s life - his exile. A difficult time in Pushkin’s life, full of life’s trials and experiences. This is the time of “languishing hopeless sadness” in the poet’s soul. Parting with his youthful ideals, the stage of growing up (“Dispelled old dreams”). Perhaps the poet also had moments of despair (“Without a deity, without inspiration”). The author’s exile is also mentioned (“In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment ...”). The poet’s life seemed to freeze, to lose its meaning. Genre - message.
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.
Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Analysis of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Pushkin
The first lines of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” are known to almost everyone. This is one of Pushkin's most famous lyrical works. The poet was a very amorous person, and dedicated many of his poems to women. In 1819 he met A.P. Kern, who captured his imagination for a long time. In 1825, during the poet’s exile in Mikhailovskoye, the poet’s second meeting with Kern took place. Under the influence of this unexpected meeting, Pushkin wrote the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.”
The short work is an example of a poetic declaration of love. In just a few stanzas, Pushkin unfolds before the reader the long history of his relationship with Kern. The expression “genius of pure beauty” very succinctly characterizes enthusiastic admiration for a woman. The poet fell in love at first sight, but Kern was married at the time of the first meeting and could not respond to the poet’s advances. The image of a beautiful woman haunts the author. But fate separates Pushkin from Kern for several years. These turbulent years erase the “nice features” from the poet’s memory.
In the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” Pushkin shows himself to be a great master of words. He had the amazing ability to say an infinite amount in just a few lines. In a short verse, a period of several years appears before us. Despite the conciseness and simplicity of the style, the author conveys to the reader changes in his emotional mood, allowing him to experience joy and sadness with him.
The poem is written in the genre of pure love lyrics. The emotional impact is enhanced by lexical repetitions of several phrases. Their precise arrangement gives the work its uniqueness and grace.
The creative legacy of the great Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is enormous. “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is one of the most precious pearls of this treasure.
To the 215th anniversary of the birth of Anna Kern and the 190th anniversary of the creation of Pushkin’s masterpiece
Alexander Pushkin will call her “the genius of pure beauty”, and will dedicate immortal poems to her... And he will write lines full of sarcasm. “How is your husband’s gout doing?.. Divine, for God’s sake, try to get him to play cards and have an attack of gout, gout! This is my only hope!.. How can I be your husband? “I can’t imagine this, just as I can’t imagine heaven,” the lover Pushkin wrote in despair in August 1825 from his Mikhailovsky in Riga to the beautiful Anna Kern.
The girl, named Anna and born in February 1800 in the house of her grandfather, Oryol governor Ivan Petrovich Wulf, “under a green damask canopy with white and green ostrich feathers in the corners,” was destined for an unusual fate.
A month before her seventeenth birthday, Anna became the wife of division general Ermolai Fedorovich Kern. The husband was fifty-three years old. Marriage without love did not bring happiness. “It is impossible to love him (my husband), I am not even given the consolation of respecting him; I’ll tell you straight - I almost hate him,” only the diary could young Anna believe in the bitterness of her heart.
At the beginning of 1819, General Kern (in fairness, one cannot help but mention his military merits: more than once he showed his soldiers examples of military valor both on the Borodino field and in the famous “Battle of the Nations” near Leipzig) arrived in St. Petersburg on business. Anna also came with him. At the same time, in the house of her aunt Elizaveta Markovna, née Poltoratskaya, and her husband Alexei Nikolaevich Olenin, president of the Academy of Arts, she first met the poet.
It was a noisy and cheerful evening, the youth were amusing themselves with games of charades, and in one of them Queen Cleopatra was represented by Anna. Nineteen-year-old Pushkin could not resist complimenting her: “Is it permissible to be so lovely!” The young beauty considered several humorous phrases addressed to her impudent...
They were destined to meet only after six long years. In 1823, Anna, leaving her husband, went to her parents in the Poltava province, in Lubny. And soon she became the mistress of the wealthy Poltava landowner Arkady Rodzianko, a poet and friend of Pushkin in St. Petersburg.
With greed, as Anna Kern later recalled, she read all Pushkin’s poems and poems known at that time and, “admired by Pushkin,” dreamed of meeting him.
In June 1825, on her way to Riga (Anna decided to reconcile with her husband), she unexpectedly stopped in Trigorskoye to visit her aunt Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova, whose frequent and welcome guest was her neighbor Alexander Pushkin.
At Auntie’s, Anna first heard Pushkin read “his Gypsies,” and literally “wasted with pleasure” both from the marvelous poem and from the poet’s very voice. She retained her amazing memories of that wonderful time: “...I will never forget the delight that gripped my soul. I was in ecstasy...”
And a few days later, the entire Osipov-Wulf family set off on two carriages for a return visit to neighboring Mikhailovskoye. Together with Anna, Pushkin wandered through the alleys of the old overgrown garden, and this unforgettable night walk became one of the poet’s favorite memories.
“Every night I walk through my garden and say to myself: here she was... the stone on which she tripped lies on my table near a branch of withered heliotrope. Finally, I write a lot of poetry. All this, if you like, is very similar to love.” How painful it was to read these lines to poor Anna Wulf, addressed to another Anna - after all, she loved Pushkin so passionately and hopelessly! Pushkin wrote from Mikhailovsky to Riga to Anna Wulf in the hope that she would convey these lines to her married cousin.
“Your arrival in Trigorskoye left an impression on me deeper and more painful than that which our meeting at the Olenins once made on me,” the poet confesses to the beauty, “the best thing I can do in my sad village wilderness is to try not to think.” more about you. If there was even a drop of pity for me in your soul, you, too, should wish this for me...”
And Anna Petrovna will never forget that moonlit July night when she walked with the poet along the alleys of the Mikhailovsky Garden...
And the next morning Anna was leaving, and Pushkin came to see her off. “He came in the morning and, as a farewell, brought me a copy of Chapter II of Onegin, in uncut sheets, between which I found a quarter-folded sheet of paper with poems...”
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.
Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Then, as Kern recalled, the poet snatched his “poetic gift” from her, and she forcibly managed to return the poems.
Much later, Mikhail Glinka would set Pushkin’s poems to music and dedicate the romance to his beloved, Ekaterina Kern, Anna Petrovna’s daughter. But Catherine will not be destined to bear the name of the brilliant composer. She will prefer another husband - Shokalsky. And the son who was born in that marriage, oceanographer and traveler Yuli Shokalsky, will glorify his family name.
And another amazing connection can be traced in the fate of Anna Kern’s grandson: he will become a friend of the son of the poet Grigory Pushkin. And all his life he will be proud of his unforgettable grandmother, Anna Kern.
Well, what was the fate of Anna herself? The reconciliation with her husband was short-lived, and soon she finally broke with him. Her life is replete with many love adventures, among her fans are Alexey Wulf and Lev Pushkin, Sergei Sobolevsky and Baron Vrevsky... And Alexander Sergeevich himself, in no way poetic, reported his victory over an accessible beauty in a famous letter to his friend Sobolevsky. The “Divine” inexplicably transformed into the “Whore of Babylon”!
But even Anna Kern’s numerous novels never ceased to amaze her former lovers with her reverent reverence “before the shrine of love.” “These are enviable feelings that never get old! – Alexey Vulf sincerely exclaimed. “After so many experiences, I did not imagine that it was still possible for her to deceive herself...”
And yet, fate was merciful to this amazing woman, gifted at birth with considerable talents and who experienced more than just pleasures in life.
At the age of forty, at the time of mature beauty, Anna Petrovna met her true love. Her chosen one was a graduate of the cadet corps, a twenty-year-old artillery officer Alexander Vasilyevich Markov-Vinogradsky.
Anna Petrovna married him, having committed, in the opinion of her father, a reckless act: she married a poor young officer and lost the large pension that she was entitled to as the widow of a general (Anna’s husband died in February 1841).
The young husband (and he was his wife’s second cousin) loved his Anna tenderly and selflessly. Here is an example of enthusiastic admiration for a beloved woman, sweet in its artlessness and sincerity.
From the diary of A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky (1840): “My darling has brown eyes. They look luxurious in their wonderful beauty on a round face with freckles. This silk is chestnut hair, gently outlines it and shades it with special love... Small ears, for which expensive earrings are an unnecessary decoration, they are so rich in grace that you will fall in love. And the nose is so wonderful, it’s lovely!.. And all this, full of feelings and refined harmony, makes up the face of my beautiful one.”
In that happy union, a son, Alexander, was born. (Much later, Aglaya Alexandrovna, née Markova-Vinogradskaya, would give the Pushkin House a priceless relic - a miniature depicting the sweet appearance of Anna Kern, her grandmother).
The couple lived together for many years, enduring poverty and adversity, but never ceasing to tenderly love each other. And they died almost overnight, in the bad year of 1879...
Anna Petrovna was destined to outlive her adored husband by only four months. And as if in order to hear a loud noise one May morning, just a few days before his death, under the window of his Moscow house on Tverskaya-Yamskaya: sixteen horses harnessed to a train, four in a row, were dragging a huge platform with a granite block - the pedestal of the future monument to Pushkin.
Having learned the reason for the unusual street noise, Anna Petrovna sighed with relief: “Ah, finally! Well, thank God, it’s high time!..”
A legend remains to live: as if the funeral cortege with the body of Anna Kern met on its mournful path with a bronze monument to Pushkin, which was being taken to Tverskoy Boulevard, to the Strastnoy Monastery.
That's how they last met,
Remembering nothing, not grieving about anything.
So the blizzard blows with its reckless wing
It dawned on them in a wonderful moment.
So the blizzard married tenderly and menacingly
The mortal ashes of an old woman with immortal bronze,
Two passionate lovers, sailing separately,
That they said goodbye early and met late.
A rare phenomenon: even after her death, Anna Kern inspired poets! And the proof of this is these lines from Pavel Antokolsky.
...A year has passed since Anna's death.
“Now the sadness and tears have already ceased, and the loving heart has ceased to suffer,” complained Prince N.I. Golitsyn. “Let us remember the deceased with a heartfelt word, as someone who inspired the genius poet, as someone who gave him so many “wonderful moments.” She loved a lot, and our best talents were at her feet. Let us preserve this “genius of pure beauty” with a grateful memory beyond his earthly life.”
Biographical details of life are no longer so important for an earthly woman who has turned to the Muse.
Anna Petrovna found her last refuge in the churchyard of the village of Prutnya, Tver province. On the bronze “page”, soldered into the gravestone, are the immortal lines:
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me...
A moment and an eternity. How close are these seemingly incommensurable concepts!..
"Farewell! Now it’s night, and your image appears before me, so sad and voluptuous: it seems to me that I see your gaze, your half-open lips.
Goodbye - it seems to me that I am at your feet... - I would give my whole life for a moment of reality. Farewell…".
Pushkin’s strange thing is either a confession or a farewell.
Special for the Centenary
“I remember a wonderful moment...” Alexander Pushkin
I remember a wonderful moment...
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.In the languor of hopeless sadness
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Analysis of Pushkin’s poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment”
One of the most famous lyrical poems by Alexander Pushkin, “I remember a wonderful moment...” was created in 1925, and has a romantic background. It is dedicated to the first beauty of St. Petersburg, Anna Kern (nee Poltoratskaya), whom the poet first saw in 1819 at a reception in the house of her aunt, Princess Elizaveta Olenina. Being a passionate and temperamental person by nature, Pushkin immediately fell in love with Anna, who by that time was married to General Ermolai Kern and was raising a daughter. Therefore, the laws of decency of secular society did not allow the poet to openly express his feelings to the woman to whom he had been introduced just a few hours earlier. In his memory, Kern remained a “fleeting vision” and a “genius of pure beauty.”
In 1825, fate brought Alexander Pushkin and Anna Kern together again. This time - in the Trigorsky estate, not far from which was the village of Mikhailovskoye, where the poet was exiled for anti-government poetry. Pushkin not only recognized the one who captivated his imagination 6 years ago, but also opened up to her in his feelings. By that time, Anna Kern had separated from her “soldier husband” and was leading a rather free lifestyle, which caused condemnation in secular society. There were legends about her endless novels. However, Pushkin, knowing this, was still convinced that this woman was an example of purity and piety. After the second meeting, which made an indelible impression on the poet, Pushkin created his poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment...”.
The work is a hymn to female beauty, which, according to the poet, can inspire a man to the most reckless feats. In six short quatrains, Pushkin managed to fit the entire story of his acquaintance with Anna Kern and convey the feelings that he experienced at the sight of the woman who captivated his imagination for many years. In his poem, the poet admits that after the first meeting, “a gentle voice sounded to me for a long time and I dreamed of sweet features.” However, as fate would have it, youthful dreams remained a thing of the past, and “the rebellious gust of storms scattered the former dreams.” During the six years of separation, Alexander Pushkin became famous, but at the same time, he lost his taste for life, noting that he had lost the acuity of feelings and inspiration that was always inherent in the poet. The last straw in the ocean of disappointment was the exile to Mikhailovskoye, where Pushkin was deprived of the opportunity to shine in front of grateful listeners - the owners of neighboring landowners' estates had little interest in literature, preferring hunting and drinking.
Therefore, it is not surprising when, in 1825, General Kern’s wife came to the Trigorskoye estate with her elderly mother and daughters, Pushkin immediately went to the neighbors on a courtesy visit. And he was rewarded not only with a meeting with the “genius of pure beauty,” but also awarded her favor. Therefore, it is not surprising that the last stanza of the poem is filled with genuine delight. He notes that “divinity, inspiration, life, tears, and love were resurrected again.”
However, according to historians, Alexander Pushkin interested Anna Kern only as a fashionable poet, covered in the glory of rebellion, the price of which this freedom-loving woman knew very well. Pushkin himself misinterpreted the signs of attention from the one who turned his head. As a result, a rather unpleasant explanation occurred between them, which dotted all the i's in the relationship. But even despite this, Pushkin dedicated many more delightful poems to Anna Kern, for many years considering this woman, who dared to challenge the moral foundations of high society, to be his muse and deity, whom he bowed and admired, despite gossip and gossip.
Pushkin was a passionate, enthusiastic person. He was attracted not only by revolutionary romance, but also by female beauty. Reading the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin means experiencing the excitement of beautiful romantic love with him.
Regarding the history of the creation of the poem, written in 1825, the opinions of researchers of the work of the great Russian poet were divided. The official version says that A.P. was the “genius of pure beauty.” Kern. But some literary scholars believe that the work was dedicated to the wife of Emperor Alexander I, Elizaveta Alekseevna, and is of a chamber nature.
Pushkin met Anna Petrovna Kern in 1819. He instantly fell in love with her and for many years kept the image that struck him in his heart. Six years later, while serving his sentence in Mikhailovskoye, Alexander Sergeevich met with Kern again. She was already divorced and led a fairly free lifestyle for the 19th century. But for Pushkin, Anna Petrovna continued to remain a kind of ideal, a model of piety. Unfortunately, for Kern, Alexander Sergeevich was only a fashionable poet. After a fleeting romance, she did not behave properly and, according to Pushkin scholars, forced the poet to dedicate the poem to himself.
The text of Pushkin’s poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is conventionally divided into 3 parts. In the title stanza, the author enthusiastically talks about his first meeting with an amazing woman. Delighted, in love at first sight, the author is perplexed, is this a girl, or a “fleeting vision” that is about to disappear? The main theme of the work is romantic love. Strong, deep, it absorbs Pushkin completely.
The next three stanzas tell the story of the author's exile. This is a difficult time of “languishing hopeless sadness,” parting with former ideals, and confronting the harsh truth of life. Pushkin of the 20s was a passionate fighter who sympathized with revolutionary ideals and wrote anti-government poetry. After the death of the Decembrists, his life seemed to freeze and lose its meaning.
But then Pushkin again meets his former love, which seems to him a gift of fate. Youthful feelings flare up with renewed vigor, the lyrical hero seems to awaken from hibernation, feels the desire to live and create.
The poem is taught in a literature lesson in 8th grade. It is quite easy to learn, since at this age many experience first love and the poet’s words resonate in the heart. You can read the poem online or download it on our website.
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.
Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
