An essay on the topic “Onegin and Pechorin as heroes of their time. The characters Onegin and Pechorin as exponents of typical human traits of their time

Onegin and Pechorin - “heroes of their time”

In the nineteenth century, Russia was dominated by the autocratic-serf system. Under this system, the situation of the people was unbearable; the fate of the advanced ones turned out to be tragic thinking people. People richly gifted by nature perished in its stuffy atmosphere or were doomed to inaction. These people with progressive views appeared on the scene too early public life, for their appearance there has not yet been favorable conditions, they were “superfluous” in life, and therefore died. This was reflected in the works of advanced writers of the nineteenth century.

"Hero of Our Time" - the first Russian realistic psychological novel in prose. The hero of the novel is a former guards officer transferred to the Caucasus. The complex nature of Pechorin, very similar to Onegin, is revealed to us. “This is the Onegin of our time... Their dissimilarity is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora,” Belinsky said about Pechorin. Herzen called Pechorin “Onegin’s younger brother.” Indeed, there are many similarities between Pechorin and Onegin. Both of them are representatives of secular society. There are many similarities in the history of their youth: at first the same pursuit of secular pleasures, then the same disappointment in them, the same attempt to engage in science, etc. Both of them are typical representatives of thinking people of their time, critical of life and people.

Onegin and Pechorin are closest in social background, the upbringing received, by character, by views. Onegin received a typical aristocratic upbringing for that time. They taught him “everything in jest,” “something and somehow.” But still, Eugene received the minimum knowledge that was considered mandatory among the nobility. ABOUT early years We know very little about Pechorin. But we can assume that he received the same upbringing as Onegin. Therefore, he is not adapted to life, is not used to labor activity. True, Pechorin received several better education than Evgeniy. This can be seen from his diary. He is no stranger to interest in philosophy and history. He is inclined to a materialistic view of things, although he writes about this, as always, with irony: “I came out of the bath fresh and alert... After that, say that the soul does not depend on the body!” Having completed their education, Onegin and Pechorin enter the world. Impeccable knowledge French, wit, elegance of manners, ability to maintain a conversation in society - all this ensured their success in society. Both are thrown into the whirlpool of noisy social life. Balls, theaters, passion for women - that’s all their entertainment. This lifestyle could satisfy ordinary people. Onegin is a bright, extraordinary personality. This is a person who clearly stands out from the surrounding society with his natural gifts and spiritual needs. Eugene could not be satisfied with the society around him and secular entertainment. Onegin felt like a stranger in society. “He is so superior to the surrounding society that he has come to realize its emptiness,” Dobrolyubov says about Onegin. Against the background of a deceitful hypocritical society, Pechorin’s intelligence, his education, his wealth also stand out spiritual world. He is extremely familiar with world literature and is well read. This is a richly gifted nature. He does not overestimate himself when he says: “I feel immense strength in my soul.” Intelligence, education, and the ability to think critically about his surroundings make Pechorin an extraordinary person who stands out sharply from the bulk of noble society.

Despite the great similarities, there is a considerable difference between Onegin and Pechorin. This is explained by the fact that they lived in different time. The twenties of the nineteenth century, when Onegin lived, were years of socio-political revival, when the Decembrist uprising was brewing. Influenced advanced people Onegin develops progressive views. “...He replaced the ancient corvée with a light quitrent for the old yoke...” This measure gives reason to assume that Eugene joins the liberal trends in the nobility of the twenties. Onegin is shown by Pushkin as a man with a very complex character. The poet does not hide his shortcomings and does not try to justify them. “Prideful mediocrity robbed him of the passion of his heart, the warmth of his soul, and his accessibility to everything good and beautiful.” Onegin came out of a real egoist, a man who thinks only about himself, about his desires and pleasures, who can easily offend, offend, and cause grief to a person. Pushkin emphasizes the sharp, evil tongue Onegin, his manner of speaking harshly and angrily about everything around him. Pechorin is different from Onegin in his spiritual make-up; he lives in different socio-political conditions. Pechorin is a hero of the thirties, the time of the height of reaction, when the Decembrists were defeated and revolutionary democrats had not yet appeared. And with his fate, his sufferings and doubts, and the whole structure of his inner world, he truly belongs to that time. Pechorin could not find like-minded people; he was lonely. Therefore, the image of Pechorin is more tragic than the image of Onegin. Time and reaction killed all the best in Pechorin. Pechorin could not go to the Decembrists, as Onegin could do. That is why Belinsky said that “Onegin is bored, Pechorin is deeply suffering.” Pechorin's situation is all the more tragic because he is by nature more gifted and deeper than Onegin. Nature gave him a deep, sharp mind, a responsive heart, and strong will. He is capable of noble deeds. He correctly judged people, about life, and was critical of himself. Pechorin’s heart is capable of feeling deeply and strongly, although outwardly he remains calm, for “the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts does not allow wild impulses.” But for all his talent, he is a “moral cripple.” There are many oddities in it, which Lermontov persistently emphasizes: Pechorin’s eyes “did not laugh when he laughed! This is a sign of either an evil disposition or a deep, constant sadness. His gaze - short, but penetrating and heavy - left an unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and could have seemed impudent if he had not been so indifferently calm.” Pechorin’s gait “was careless and lazy, but he did not wave his arms - a sure sign of some secretiveness of character,” etc. This inconsistency of Pechorin is “a disease of the generation of that time.” How does it manifest itself? In his attitude to life, the struggle of mind and heart, etc. Pechorin says about himself: “I have long lived not with my heart, but with my head... I weigh, analyze my own passions and actions with strict curiosity, but without participation.” Pechorin says more than once that in the society in which he lives there is no selfless love, nor true friendship, no fair relations between people. Disappointed, he reaches out to nature, which calms him and gives him pleasure. Pechorin has a warm heart, capable of understanding and loving nature. From contact with her, “no matter what grief lies in the heart,” he says, “no matter what anxiety torments the thought, everything will dissipate in a minute, the soul will become light.”

Pechorin is naturally endowed with a warm heart, capable of greatly worrying. In the depths of his soul there is a struggle between sincere feelings and his usual indifference and callousness. Answering Maxim Maksimych’s question about Bela, Pechorin turned away and “forcedly yawned,” but behind this ostentatious indifference he is in a hurry to hide the real excitement that made him turn pale. IN last date With Mary, Pechorin hastens to suppress the emerging feeling of pity for the girl whom he forced to suffer deeply. Pechorin's feelings are much deeper than Onegin's. “... I was not created for bliss...”, Onegin says to Tatyana. Thus, he recognizes his inability to have a strong, deep feeling of love. The basis of his feelings is selfishness.

But Pechorin is not a heartless egoist. He is capable of deep love. He loves Vera dearly, values her love, wants to catch up with her, see her in last time, shake her hand, afraid of losing her forever. She became to him “more precious than anything in the world, more valuable than life, honor, happiness." Left without a horse in the steppe, he “fell on the wet grass and cried like a child.” With a bitter feeling, he regards himself as a “moral cripple” whose better half of his soul has “dried up, evaporated, died.” Before dying, he involuntarily asks himself: why did I live? for what purpose was I born?.. He was deprived high activity, could not bring any benefit to anyone, wherever he appeared, he brought nothing but misfortune to everyone. Despite the ability to strong sincere feeling, Pechorin's love is selfish. He kidnaps Bela, achieves Mary’s love, and then abandons her, disturbs the peace of “peaceful” smugglers, and kills Grushnitsky.

Pechorin is distinguished by his dual nature. “There are two people in it: the first acts, the second looks at the actions of the first and reasons about them, or, better said, condemns them, because they are really worthy of condemnation. The reasons for the split nature are the contradiction between the flexibility of nature and the pitifulness of the actions of the same person.”

Who is to blame for the fact that Pechorin has turned into a “smart useless person”, into a “superfluous person”? “My soul is spoiled by light,” says Pechorin himself, i.e. secular society in which he lived and from which he could not escape. “My colorless youth passed in a struggle with myself and the world, my best feelings, fearing ridicule, I buried in the depths of my heart; they died there.”

The theme of "superfluous people" is one of the main themes of nineteenth-century literature. The gallery of “extra people” includes Pushkin’s Onegin, Lermontov’s Pechorin, Bazarov, Rudin, Turgenev’s Insarov.

Onegin typical representative"superfluous people" of the twenties. There were many like him. Pushkin says that he was “just a kind fellow, like you and me, like the whole world.” Onegin is the first in the line of “superfluous people.” A whole gallery of images follows. Pechorin was also typical of his time, about whom Lermontov said that in it he gave a portrait of “not just one person: this is a portrait made up of the prophets of our entire generation.” Pechorin continues the gallery of images that Onegin begins.

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The problem of the hero of time has always worried, worries and will worry people. It was staged by classic writers, it is relevant and until now this problem has interested and worried me since the time when I first discovered the works of Pushkin and Lermontov. That's why I decided to address this topic in my essay. A.S. Pushkin's novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" and Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" are the pinnacles of Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century. At the center of these works are people who, in their development, are superior to the society around them, but who do not know how to find application for their rich strengths and abilities. That's why such people are called "superfluous".

Onegin is a typical figure for noble youth of the 20s of the 19th century. Still in the poem" Prisoner of the Caucasus“A.S. Pushkin set himself the task of showing in the hero “that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the younger generation.” But the poet, according to him in my own words, failed to cope with this task. In the novel "Eugene Onegin" this goal was achieved. The poet created a deeply typical image.

Onegin is a contemporary of Pushkin and the Decembrists. Onegins are not satisfied Savor, career of an official and landowner. Belinsky points out that Onegin could not engage in useful activities “due to some inevitable circumstances not dependent on our will,” that is, due to socio-political conditions. Onegin, the “suffering egoist,” is still an extraordinary person. The poet notes such features as “involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind.” According to Belinsky, Onegin “was not one of the ordinary people". Pushkin emphasizes that Onegin’s boredom comes from the fact that he did not have a socially useful job. Russian nobility of that time was the class of land and soul owners. It was the ownership of estates and serfs that was the measure of wealth, prestige and height social status. Onegin’s father “gave three balls every year and finally squandered it,” and the hero of the novel himself, after receiving an inheritance from “all his relatives,” became a rich landowner, he is now

Factories, waters, forests, lands

The owner is complete...

But the theme of wealth turns out to be connected with ruin; the words “debts”, “collateral”, “lenders” are found already in the first lines of the novel. Debts and remortgaging of already mortgaged estates were the work not only of poor landowners, but also of many " the mighty of the world this" left their descendants with huge debts. One of the reasons for the general debt was the idea that developed during the reign of Catherine II that "truly noble" behavior consisted not just in large spending, but in spending beyond one's means.

It was at that time, thanks to the penetration of various educational literature from abroad, that people began to understand the harmfulness of serfdom. Evgeniy was one of these people; he “read Adam Smith and was a deep economist.” But, unfortunately, there were few such people, and most of them belonged to young people. And therefore, when Eugene “replaced the yoke ... the ancient corvée with an easy quitrent,”

In his corner he sulked,

Seeing this as terrible harm,

His calculating neighbor.

The reason for the formation of debts was not only the desire to “live like a nobleman,” but also the need to have free money at one’s disposal. This money was obtained by mortgaging estates. Living on funds received by mortgaging an estate was called living in debt. It was assumed that with the money received the nobleman would improve his position, but in most cases the nobles lived off this money, spending it on the purchase or construction of houses in the capital, on balls (“gave three balls annually”). It was along this familiar path, but leading to ruin, that Evgeniy’s father took. It is not surprising that when Onegin’s father died, it turned out that the inheritance was burdened with large debts.

Gathered in front of Onegin

Lenders are a greedy regiment.

In this case, the heir could accept the inheritance and, together with it, take on his father’s debts or refuse it, leaving the creditors to settle the accounts among themselves. The first decision was dictated by a sense of honor, the desire not to tarnish the good name of the father or to preserve the family estate. The frivolous Onegin took the second path. Receiving an inheritance was not the last resort to straighten out troubled affairs. Youth, the time of hopes for an inheritance, was, as it were, a legalized period of debts, from which in the second half of life one had to free oneself by becoming the heir to “all one’s relatives” or by marrying favorably.

Who at twenty was a dandy or a smart guy,

And at thirty he is profitably married;

Who was freed at fifty

From private and other debts.

For the nobles of that time, the military field seemed so natural that the absence of this feature in the biography had to have a special explanation. The fact that Onegin, as is clear from the novel, never served anywhere at all, made the young man a black sheep among his contemporaries. This reflected a new tradition. If earlier refusal to serve was denounced as selfishness, now it has acquired the contours of a struggle for personal independence, defending the right to live independently of state demands. Onegin leads life young man free from official duties. Only rare young people, whose service was purely fictitious, could afford such a life at that time. Let's take this detail. The order established by Paul I, in which all officials, including the emperor himself, had to go to bed early and rise early, was preserved under Alexander I. But the right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-employee nobleman not only from the common people, but also from a village landowner. The fashion of getting up as late as possible dates back to the French aristocracy of the “old pre-revolutionary regime” and was brought to Russia by emigrants.

The morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by a walk at two or three in the afternoon. Favorite places The festivities of St. Petersburg dandies were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva, it was there that Onegin walked: “Wearing a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard.” Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. The young man, leading a single lifestyle, rarely had a cook and preferred to dine in a restaurant.

The young dandy sought to “kill” the afternoon by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. The theater provided such an opportunity; it was not only a place of artistic performances and a kind of club where social meetings took place, but also a place love affairs:

The theater is already full; the boxes shine;

The stalls and the chairs are all in full swing;

In paradise they splash impatiently,

And, rising, the curtain makes noise.

Everything is clapping. Onegin enters

Walks between the chairs along the legs,

The double lorgnette points sideways

To the boxes of unknown ladies.

The ball had a dual quality. On the one hand, it was an area of relaxed communication, social recreation, a place where socio-economic differences were weakened. On the other hand, the ball was a place for representation of various social strata.

Tired of city life, Onegin settles in the village. An important event Friendship with Lensky became his life. Although Pushkin notes that they agreed “there was nothing to do.” This eventually led to a duel.

At that time, people looked at the duel differently. Some believed that a duel, no matter what, is murder, and therefore barbaric, in which there is nothing chivalrous. Others say that a duel is a means of protecting human dignity, since in the face of a duel both the poor nobleman and the favorite of the court were equal.

Such a view was not alien to Pushkin, as his biography shows. The duel implied strict adherence to the rules, which was achieved by appealing to the authority of experts. Zaretsky plays such a role in the novel. He, “a classic and a pedant in duels,” conducted the matter with great omissions, or rather, deliberately ignoring everything that could eliminate the bloody outcome. Even on his first visit, he was obliged to discuss the possibility of reconciliation. This was part of his duties as a second, especially since there was no blood offense and it was clear to everyone except 18-year-old Lensky that the matter was a misunderstanding. Onegin and Zaretsky violate the rules of the duel. The first - to demonstrate his irritated contempt for the story, in which he found himself against his will, in the seriousness of which he still does not believe, and Zaretsky because he sees in a duel funny story, the subject of gossip and practical jokes. Onegin's behavior in the duel irrefutably indicates that the author wanted to make him a murderer against his will. Onegin shoots from a long distance, taking only four steps, and being the first, clearly not wanting to hit Lensky. However, the question arises: why did Onegin shoot at Lensky, and not just past him? The main mechanism by which society, despised by Onegin, nevertheless powerfully controls his actions, is the fear of being funny or becoming the subject of gossip. In the Onegen era, ineffective duels evoked an ironic attitude. The person who came to the barrier had to show extraordinary spiritual will in order to maintain his behavior and not accept the norms imposed on him. Onegin's behavior was determined by fluctuations between the feelings he had for Lensky and the fear of appearing funny or cowardly by violating the rules of conduct in a duel. We know what won:

Poet, thoughtful dreamer

Killed by a friend's hand!

The novel "Eugene Onegin" is an inexhaustible source telling about the morals and life of that time. Onegin himself is a true hero of his time, and in order to understand him and his actions, we study the time in which he lived.

M.Yu. Lermontov is a writer of “a completely different era,” despite the fact that a decade separates them from Pushkin.

Years of brutal reaction have taken their toll. In his era, it was impossible to overcome the alienation from time, or rather, from the timelessness of the 30s.

Lermontov saw the tragedy of his generation. This was already reflected in the poem “Duma”:

I look sadly at our generation!

His future is either empty or dark,

Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt,

It will grow old in inaction...

This topic was continued by M.Yu. Lermontov in the novel "Hero of Our Time".

Pechorin is a hero of the transitional time, a representative of the noble youth, who entered into life after the defeat of the Decembrists. Lack of highs social ideals - bright line this historical period. The image of Pechorin is one of Lermontov's main artistic discoveries. The Pechorinsky type is truly epoch-making. In it we got our concentrated artistic expression fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era, in which, according to Herzen, on the surface, “only losses are visible,” but inside “the great work.... deaf and silent, but active and continuous." This striking discrepancy between the internal and external and at the same time the conditionality of the intensive development of spiritual life is captured in image-type Pechorina. However, his image is much broader than what is contained within him into the universal, the national into the universal, the socio-psychological into the moral and philosophical. Pechorin in his journal repeatedly talks about his contradictory duality. Usually this duality is considered as a result of the secular upbringing Pechorin received, the destructive influence of the noble-aristocratic sphere on him, and the transitional nature of his era.

Explaining the purpose of creating “A Hero of Our Time,” M.Yu. Lermontov, in the preface to it, makes it quite clear what the image of the main character is for him: “A hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” . The author set himself an important and difficult task, wanting to depict the hero of his time on the pages of his novel. And here before us is Pechorin - truly tragic figure, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself a painful question: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?” In Lermontov's portrayal, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time, position, socio-cultural environment, with all the ensuing contradictions, which are explored by the author with full artistic objectivity. This is a nobleman - an intellectual of the Nicholas era, its victim and hero in one person, whose “soul is spoiled by the light.” But there is something more in him that makes him a representative not only of a certain era and social environment. Pechorin's personality appears in Lermontov's novel as unique - an individual manifestation in it of the specific historical and universal, specific and generic. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of awareness of himself and his attitude to the world. Pechorin in to a greater extent than Onegin, thinker, ideologist. He is organically philosophical. And in this sense, he is the most characteristic phenomenon of his time, in the words of Belinsky, “the century of the philosophizing spirit.” Pechorin's intense thoughts, his constant analysis and self-examination, in their significance, go beyond the boundaries of the era that gave birth to him; they also have universal significance as a necessary stage in the self-construction of a person, in the formation of an individual-tribal, that is, personal, principle in him.

Pechorin's indomitable efficiency reflected another important aspect of Lermontov's concept of man - as a being not only rational, but also active.

Pechorin embodies such qualities as developed consciousness and self-awareness, “fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts,” perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but also of the entire history of mankind, spiritual and moral freedom, active self-affirmation of an integral being, etc. But, being a son of his time and society, he bears their indelible mark on himself, which is reflected in the specific, limited, and sometimes distorted manifestation of the generic in him. In Pechorin’s personality there is a contradiction, especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, between his human essence and existence, “between the depth of nature and the pitifulness of the actions of the same person.” (Belinsky) However, in life position and the activities of Pechorin more meaning than it seems at first glance. The stamp of masculinity, even heroism, is marked by his never-stopping denial of a reality unacceptable to him; in protest against which he relies only on his own strength. He dies, without sacrificing his principles and convictions, although without having accomplished what he could have done under other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct social action, Pechorin nevertheless strives to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his “own need”, contrary to the prevailing “official need”. For the first time in Russian literature, Lermontov brought to the pages of his novel a hero who directly posed the most important, “last” questions. human existence- about the purpose and meaning of a person’s life, about his purpose. On the night before the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “I run through my entire past in my memory and involuntarily ask myself: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? But surely it existed, and it is true that I had a high purpose, because I feel in my soul "My strength is immense; but I did not guess this purpose. I was carried away by the lures of empty and ungrateful passions; from their furnace I emerged hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations, the best color of life." Bela becomes a victim of Pechorin's willfulness, forcibly torn from her environment, from the natural course of her life. The beautiful in its naturalness, but fragile and short-lived harmony of inexperience and ignorance, doomed to inevitable death in contact with reality, even “natural” life, and even more so with the “civilization” that is increasingly intruding into it, has been destroyed.

During the Renaissance, individualism was a historically progressive phenomenon. With the development of bourgeois relations, individualism is deprived of its humanistic basis. In Russia, the deepening crisis of the feudal-serf system, the emergence in its depths of new, bourgeois relations, the victory in Patriotic War The year 1812 evoked a truly Renaissance upsurge in the sense of individuality. But at the same time, all this is intertwined in the first thirds of the XIX century with the crisis of noble revolutionism (events of December 14, 1825), with the fall in authority not only religious beliefs, but also educational ideas, which ultimately created fertile ground for the development of individualistic ideology in Russian society. In 1842, Belinsky stated: “Our age... is an age... of separation, individuality, an age of personal passions and interests (even mental ones) ...". Pechorin, with his total individualism, is an epoch-making figure in this regard. Pechorin’s fundamental denial of the morality of his contemporary society, as well as its other foundations, was not only his personal dignity. It has long matured in the public atmosphere; Pechorin was only its earliest and most striking exponent.

Another thing is also significant: Pechorin’s individualism is far from pragmatic egoism adapting to life. In this sense, the comparison of the individualism of, say, Pushkin's Herman from " Queen of Spades"with Pechorin's individualism. Herman's individualism is based on the desire to win his place in the sun at all costs, that is, to rise to the upper steps of the social ladder. He rebels not against this unjust society, but against his humiliated position in it, which does not correspond to as he believes, his internal significance, his intellectual and volitional capabilities. In order to gain a prestigious position in this unjust society, he is ready to do anything: to step over, to “transgress” not only through the destinies of other people, but also through himself as an “inner” person." . This is not Pechorin’s individualism. The hero is full of truly rebellious rejection of all the foundations of the society in which he is forced to live. He is least concerned about his position in it. Furthermore, in fact, he has, and could easily have even more of what Herman is striving for: he is rich, noble, all the doors of high society are open to him, all roads on the way to brilliant career, honors. He rejects all this as purely external tinsel, unworthy of the aspirations living in him for the true fullness of life, which he sees, in his words, in “the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts,” in the acquisition of significant life goal. He views his conscious individualism as something forced, since he has not yet found an acceptable alternative to it.

There is one more feature in Pechorin’s character, which forces us to take a fresh look at the individualism he professes. One of the dominant internal needs of the hero is his pronounced attraction to communicate with people, which in itself contradicts individualistic worldviews. What is striking about Pechorin is his constant curiosity about life, about the world, and most importantly, about people.

Pechorin, says the preface to the novel, is a type of " modern man“, how the author “understands” him and how he has met him too often.

So, before us are two heroes, both representatives of their difficult times. Wonderful critic V.G. Belinsky did not put an equal sign between them, but he did not see a big gap between them either.

Calling Pechorin the Onegin of his time, Belinsky paid tribute to the unsurpassed artistry of Pushkin’s image and at the same time believed that “Pechorin is superior to Onegin in idea,” although, as if muting some categoricalness of this assessment, he added: “However, this advantage belongs to our time, and not Lermontov". Starting from 2 half of the 19th century century, Pechorin’s definition of “superfluous man” became firmly established. Deep meaning and the characteristic of the type of “superfluous person” for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nicholas era was probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the “vaults” of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as “superfluous people” of the 1820-30s, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: “The sad type of superfluous... person - only because he developed in a person, appeared then not only in poems and novels , but on the streets and in living rooms, in villages and cities."

And yet, with all his closeness to Onegin, Pechorin, as a hero of his time, marks completely new stage in the development of Russian society and Russian literature. If Onegin reflects the painful, but in many ways semi-spontaneous process of transformation of an aristocrat, a “dandy” into a person, the formation of a personality in him, then Pechorin captures the tragedy of an already established, highly developed personality, doomed to live in a noble-serf society under an autocratic regime. According to Belinsky, “Hero of Our Time” is “a sad thought about our time,” and Pechorin “is a hero of our time. Their dissimilarity is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora.” "Eugene Onegin" and "Hero of Our Time" - bright artistic documents of their era, and their main characters personify for us the futility of trying to live in society and be free from it.

hero Onegin Pechorin Pushkin Lermontov

Literature

1. N.A. Demin "Studying the works of A.S. Pushkin in the 8th grade", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1971.

2. M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", Moscow, " Soviet Russia", 1981

3. M.Yu. Lermontov “Works”, Moscow, publishing house “Pravda”, 1988.

4. V.G. Marantsman " Fiction", "Enlightenment", 1991.

5. A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin", Moscow, "Fiction", 1984.

6. B.T. Udodov "Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1989.

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abstract, added 04/11/2012

The role and significance of the novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" in Russian literature. The image of Evgeny Onegin, his character and contradictory views on life and society. "Eugene Onegin" as a novel is not only about Pushkin himself as an author, but also about him as a person.

abstract, added 03/27/2010

All aspects of Russian social and literary life of that time in the novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". Realism and fidelity to historical and artistic truth. The main characters of the novel in verse. Mysterious image Tatiana Larina, her Russian soul.

abstract, added 06/19/2010

Analysis of the inner world and experiences of the main characters of Lermontov’s story “A Hero of Our Time” - Pechorin and Grushnitsky, Comparative characteristics. The opinion of literary scholars Marchenko and Belinsky about Grushnitsky as a “distorting mirror” of Pechorin, justification.

article, added 09/21/2010

Main character novel by M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", his friends and enemies. The episode of the duel is one of the key ones in the novel. The night before the duel. "Demonic" properties of Pechorin's nature. The place of the image of Grushnitsky in the novel. Diary entries of the hero.

Onegin and Pechorin as heroes of their time Plan

I. The problem of the hero of time in Russian literature.

II. Types of extra people in the novels of Pushkin and Lermontov

a) Onegin is a contemporary of Pushkin and the Decembrists.

- “suffering egoist”, “reluctant egoist”

Rich landowner

A person free from official duties

Schedule

b) Pechorin is a hero of his time.

Absence high ideals

A truly tragic figure

Nobleman

His "soul is corrupted by light"

Active personality

Fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts

- "his powers are immense"

His individualism

III. "Eugene Onegin" and "Hero of Our Time" are the best artistic documents of their era.

Onegin is Russian, he is possible only in Russia, in Russia he is needed and he is greeted at every step...

Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" is his younger brother.

A.I. Herzen

Onegin is a typical figure for noble youth of the 20s of the 19th century. Even in the poem “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” A.S. Pushkin set himself the task of showing in the hero “that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the younger generation.” But the poet, in his own words, failed to cope with this task. In the novel "Eugene Onegin" this goal was achieved. The poet created a deeply typical image.

Onegin is a contemporary of Pushkin and the Decembrists. The Onegins are not satisfied with social life, the career of an official and a landowner. Belinsky points out that Onegin could not engage in useful activities “due to some inevitable circumstances not dependent on our will,” that is, due to socio-political conditions. Onegin, the “suffering egoist,” is still an extraordinary person. The poet notes such features as “involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind.” According to Belinsky, Onegin “was not one of the ordinary people.” Pushkin emphasizes that Onegin’s boredom stems from the fact that he had no socially useful work. The Russian nobility of that time was a class of land and soul owners. It was the ownership of estates and serfs that was the measure of wealth, prestige and height of social status. Onegin’s father “gave three balls every year and finally squandered it,” and the hero of the novel himself, after receiving an inheritance from “all his relatives,” became a rich landowner, he is now

Factories, waters, forests, lands

The owner is complete...

But the theme of wealth turns out to be connected with ruin; the words “debts”, “collateral”, “lenders” are found already in the first lines of the novel. Debts and remortgaging of already mortgaged estates were not only the work of poor landowners, but also many “powers of this world” left huge debts to their descendants. One of the reasons for the general debt was the idea that developed during the reign of Catherine II that “truly noble” behavior consisted not simply in large spending, but in spending beyond one’s means.

In his corner he sulked,

Seeing this as terrible harm,

His calculating neighbor.

Gathered in front of Onegin

Lenders are a greedy regiment.

Who at twenty was a dandy or a smart guy,

And at thirty he is profitably married;

Who was freed at fifty

From private and other debts.

For the nobles of that time, the military field seemed so natural that the absence of this feature in the biography had to have a special explanation. The fact that Onegin, as is clear from the novel, never served anywhere at all, made the young man a black sheep among his contemporaries. This reflected a new tradition. If earlier refusal to serve was denounced as selfishness, now it has acquired the contours of a struggle for personal independence, defending the right to live independently of state demands. Onegin leads the life of a young man, free from official duties. Only rare young people, whose service was purely fictitious, could afford such a life at that time. Let's take this detail. The order established by Paul I, in which all officials, including the emperor himself, had to go to bed early and rise early, was preserved under Alexander I. But the right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-employee nobleman not only from the common people, but also from a village landowner. The fashion of getting up as late as possible dates back to the French aristocracy of the “old pre-revolutionary regime” and was brought to Russia by emigrants.

The morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by a walk at two or three in the afternoon. The favorite places for celebrations of St. Petersburg dandies were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva, it was there that Onegin walked: “Wearing a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard.” Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. The young man, leading a single lifestyle, rarely had a cook and preferred to dine in a restaurant.

The theater is already full; the boxes shine;

The stalls and the chairs are all in full swing;

In paradise they splash impatiently,

And, rising, the curtain makes noise.

Everything is clapping. Onegin enters

Walks between the chairs along the legs,

The double lorgnette points sideways

To the boxes of unknown ladies.

Tired of city life, Onegin settles in the village. An important event in his life was his friendship with Lensky. Although Pushkin notes that they agreed “there was nothing to do.” This eventually led to a duel.

Such a view was not alien to Pushkin, as his biography shows. The duel implied strict adherence to the rules, which was achieved by appealing to the authority of experts. Zaretsky plays such a role in the novel. He, “a classic and a pedant in duels,” conducted the matter with great omissions, or rather, deliberately ignoring everything that could eliminate the bloody outcome. Even on his first visit, he was obliged to discuss the possibility of reconciliation. This was part of his duties as a second, especially since there was no blood offense and it was clear to everyone except 18-year-old Lensky that the matter was a misunderstanding. Onegin and Zaretsky violate the rules of the duel. The first - to demonstrate his irritated contempt for the story, in which he found himself against his will, in the seriousness of which he still does not believe, and Zaretsky because he sees in the duel a funny story, a subject of gossip and practical jokes. Onegin's behavior in the duel irrefutably indicates that the author wanted to make him a murderer against his will. Onegin shoots from a long distance, taking only four steps, and being the first, clearly not wanting to hit Lensky. However, the question arises: why did Onegin shoot at Lensky, and not just past him? The main mechanism by which society, despised by Onegin, nevertheless powerfully controls his actions, is the fear of being funny or becoming the subject of gossip. In the Onegen era, ineffective duels evoked an ironic attitude. The person who came to the barrier had to show extraordinary spiritual will in order to maintain his behavior and not accept the norms imposed on him. Onegin's behavior was determined by fluctuations between the feelings he had for Lensky and the fear of appearing funny or cowardly by violating the rules of conduct in a duel. We know what won:

Poet, thoughtful dreamer

Killed by a friend's hand!

M.Yu. Lermontov is a writer of “a completely different era,” despite the fact that a decade separates them from Pushkin.

Years of brutal reaction have taken their toll. In his era, it was impossible to overcome the alienation from time, or rather, from the timelessness of the 30s.

Lermontov saw the tragedy of his generation. This was already reflected in the poem “Duma”:

I look sadly at our generation!

His future is either empty or dark,

Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt,

It will grow old in inaction...

This topic was continued by M.Yu. Lermontov in the novel "Hero of Our Time".

Pechorin is a hero of the transitional time, a representative of the noble youth, who entered into life after the defeat of the Decembrists. The absence of high social ideals is a striking feature of this historical period. The image of Pechorin is one of Lermontov's main artistic discoveries. The Pechorinsky type is truly epoch-making. In it, the fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era received their concentrated artistic expression, in which, according to Herzen, on the surface, “only losses are visible,” but inside “great work was being accomplished ... deaf and silent, but active and continuous.” This striking discrepancy between the internal and external, and at the same time the conditionality of the intensive development of spiritual life, is captured in the image-type of Pechorin. However, his image is much broader than what is contained within him into the universal, the national into the universal, the socio-psychological into the moral and philosophical. Pechorin in his journal repeatedly talks about his contradictory duality. Usually this duality is considered as a result of the secular upbringing Pechorin received, the destructive influence of the noble-aristocratic sphere on him, and the transitional nature of his era.

Explaining the purpose of creating “A Hero of Our Time,” M.Yu. Lermontov, in the preface to it, makes it quite clear what the image of the main character is for him: “A hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” . The author set himself an important and difficult task, wanting to depict the hero of his time on the pages of his novel. And here before us is Pechorin - a truly tragic personality, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself a painful question: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?” In Lermontov's portrayal, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time, position, socio-cultural environment, with all the ensuing contradictions, which are explored by the author with full artistic objectivity. This is a nobleman - an intellectual of the Nicholas era, its victim and hero in one person, whose “soul is spoiled by the light.” But there is something more about him that makes him a representative not only of a certain era and social environment. Pechorin's personality appears in Lermontov's novel as unique - an individual manifestation in it of the specific historical and universal, specific and generic. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of awareness of himself and his attitude to the world. Pechorin is more of a thinker and ideologist than Onegin. He is organically philosophical. And in this sense, he is the most characteristic phenomenon of his time, in the words of Belinsky, “the century of the philosophizing spirit.” Pechorin's intense thoughts, his constant analysis and self-examination, in their significance, go beyond the boundaries of the era that gave birth to him; they also have universal significance as a necessary stage in the self-construction of a person, in the formation of an individual-tribal, that is, personal, principle in him.

Pechorin's indomitable efficiency reflected another important aspect of Lermontov's concept of man - as a being not only rational, but also active.

Pechorin embodies such qualities as developed consciousness and self-awareness, “fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts,” perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but also of the entire history of mankind, spiritual and moral freedom, active self-affirmation of an integral being, etc. But, being a son of his time and society, he bears their indelible mark on himself, which is reflected in the specific, limited, and sometimes distorted manifestation of the generic in him. In Pechorin’s personality there is a contradiction, especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, between his human essence and existence, “between the depth of nature and the pitifulness of the actions of the same person.” (Belinsky) However, there is more meaning in Pechorin’s life position and activities than it seems at first glance. The stamp of masculinity, even heroism, is marked by his never-stopping denial of a reality unacceptable to him; in protest against which he relies only on his own strength. He dies, without sacrificing his principles and convictions, although without having accomplished what he could have done under other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct social action, Pechorin nevertheless strives to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his “own need”, contrary to the prevailing “official need”. Lermontov, for the first time in Russian literature, brought to the pages of his novel a hero who directly posed the most important, “last” questions of human existence - about the purpose and meaning of human life, about his purpose. On the night before the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “I run through my entire past in my memory and involuntarily ask myself: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? But surely it existed, and it is true that I had a high purpose, because I feel in my soul "My strength is immense; but I did not guess this purpose. I was carried away by the lures of empty and ungrateful passions; from their furnace I emerged hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations, the best color of life." Bela becomes a victim of Pechorin's willfulness, forcibly torn from her environment, from the natural course of her life. The beautiful in its naturalness, but fragile and short-lived harmony of inexperience and ignorance, doomed to inevitable death in contact with reality, even “natural” life, and even more so with the “civilization” that is increasingly intruding into it, has been destroyed.

During the Renaissance, individualism was a historically progressive phenomenon. With the development of bourgeois relations, individualism is deprived of its humanistic basis. In Russia, the deepening crisis of the feudal-serf system, the emergence in its depths of new, bourgeois relations, and the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 caused a truly renaissance upsurge in the sense of personality. But at the same time, all this was intertwined in the first third of the 19th century with the crisis of noble revolutionism (the events of December 14, 1825), with the decline in the authority of not only religious beliefs, but also educational ideas, which ultimately created fertile ground for the development of individualistic ideology in Russian society . In 1842, Belinsky stated: “Our age... is an age... of separation, individuality, an age of personal passions and interests (even mental ones) ...". Pechorin, with his total individualism, is an epoch-making figure in this regard. Pechorin’s fundamental denial of the morality of his contemporary society, as well as its other foundations, was not only his personal dignity. It has long matured in the public atmosphere; Pechorin was only its earliest and most striking exponent.

Another thing is also significant: Pechorin’s individualism is far from pragmatic egoism adapting to life. In this sense, the comparison of the individualism of, say, Pushkin's Herman from The Queen of Spades with the individualism of Pechorin is indicative. Herman's individualism is based on the desire to win his place in the sun at any cost, that is, to rise to the upper steps of the social ladder. He rebels not against this unjust society, but against his humiliated position in it, which, as he believes, does not correspond to his internal significance, his intellectual and volitional capabilities. In order to gain a prestigious position in this unjust society, he is ready to do anything: to step over, to “transgress” not only through the destinies of other people, but also through himself as an “inner” person." This is not Pechorin’s individualism. The hero is full of truly rebellious rejection of all the foundations of society , in which he is forced to live. He is least concerned about his position in it. Moreover, in fact, he has, and could easily have even more of what Herman is striving for: he is rich, noble, all the doors of the highest are open to him light, all the roads on the path to a brilliant career, honors... He rejects all this as purely external tinsel, unworthy of the aspirations living in him for the true fullness of life, which he sees, in his words, in “the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts,” in acquiring a significant life goal.He views his conscious individualism as something forced, since he has not yet found an acceptable alternative to it.

Pechorin, says the preface to the novel, is the type of “modern man” as the author “understands” him and as he has met too often.

So, before us are two heroes, both representatives of their difficult times. Wonderful critic V.G. Belinsky did not put an equal sign between them, but he did not see a big gap between them either.

The deep meaning and characteristics of the type of “superfluous person” for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nicholas era were probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the “vaults” of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as “superfluous people” of the 1820-30s, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: “The sad type of superfluous... person - only because he developed in a person, appeared then not only in poems and novels , but on the streets and in living rooms, in villages and cities."

And yet, with all his closeness to Onegin, Pechorin, as a hero of his time, marks a completely new stage in the development of Russian society and Russian literature. If Onegin reflects the painful, but in many ways semi-spontaneous process of transformation of an aristocrat, a “dandy” into a person, the formation of a personality in him, then Pechorin captures the tragedy of an already established, highly developed personality, doomed to live in a noble-serf society under an autocratic regime.

According to Belinsky, “Hero of Our Time” is “a sad thought about our time,” and Pechorin “is a hero of our time. Their dissimilarity is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora.”

"Eugene Onegin" and "Hero of Our Time" are vivid artistic documents of their era, and their main characters personify for us the futility of trying to live in society and be free from it.

Literature

1) N.A. Demin "Studying the works of A.S. Pushkin in the 8th grade", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1971.

2) M.Yu. Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”, Moscow, “Soviet Russia”, 1981.

3) M.Yu. Lermontov “Works”, Moscow, publishing house “Pravda”, 1988.

4) V.G.Marantsman “Fiction”, “Enlightenment”, 1991.

5) A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin", Moscow, "Fiction", 1984.

6) B.T. Udodov "Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1989.

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We managed to capture it in life and translate it into literary images the most essential features of a young man of his time, to give a typical character with all its negative and positive features. In the preface to the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” Lermontov himself speaks about the typicality of his hero: “... This is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” Pushkin also mentions his typicality, saying: “Onegin is a kind fellow, like you and me, like the whole world.” Both authors write images of their heroes in development.

The social origins of the heroes are the same. Both of them were brought up in secular society and received appropriate education. Pushkin shows that Onegin’s intelligence and erudition are broad, although superficial: he strives to make up for the shortcomings of his education by independent reading.

Onegin reads books famous writers And contemporary to Pushkin almanacs. But over time, he left the books, “covered them with mourning taffeta,” because he did not find in them the answers to the questions that worried him. Pechorin's memory is also full of information from literature and history.

In his diary we find quotes from Griboyedov and Pushkin. Onegin's mind is manifested in his understanding of human psychology. So, in a conversation with Lensky about the Larins, Onegin says that if he were a poet, he would choose his older sister: “Olga has no life in her features,” her face is “Like this stupid moon in this stupid sky.” He was also a subtle psychologist.

This is proven by his statement about Werner: “His appearance was one of those that strikes you unpleasantly at first glance, but which you later like when the eye learns to read in the irregular features the imprint of a tried and high soul.” The ability to understand people certainly contributed to the accurate portrayal of the heroes, the conveyance of their deceit and hypocrisy. Dissatisfied with life in “high society,” the heroes are looking for a use for their powers and knowledge. Onegin is trying to find himself by doing housekeeping and managing the estate.

Even “he replaced the ancient corvée with a light quitrent for the yoke” under the influence of the ideas of the Decembrists. But, not accustomed to systematic WORK, he quickly abandons this activity. Pechorin, in turn, is trying to find himself in a new environment. He is glad to be transferred to the Caucasus.

Pechorin communicates with people of different social status and views on . But everywhere, when the first impressions pass, he feels the same boredom and dissatisfaction with life. Pushkin shows his hero on the eve of the Decembrist uprising, as if thereby giving Onegin the opportunity to use his powers in noble cause.

Despite the progressiveness of Onegin’s views, he is a skeptic who does not believe “in the world’s perfection,” his mind is sharp and chilled. He is unlikely to become a Decembrist, since he does not know how to sacrifice his peace for the sake of highest goal. Such people, according to Herzen, “never take the side of the government” and “never know how to take the side of the people.”

The novel “A Hero of Our Time” takes place after the Decembrist uprising, during the period of reaction. And the hero of this time does not have the opportunity to find a worthy use for his powers. Therefore, Belinsky says: “Onegin is bored, but Pechorin suffers deeply.”

Both poets, trying to depict the characters’ characters as clearly as possible, place them in extreme situations. During Onegin's duel with Lensky, the hero's cold egoism is revealed. He does not care about Lensky's fate, but is only concerned about the opinion of the world about his person. Lermontov, depicting Pechorin's duel with Grushnitsky, also shows his indifference to Grushnitsky's suffering.

Pechorin acts as a cold egoist in relation to the fates of Bela, Maxim Maksimovich, Vera. Pechorin himself admits his selfishness: “In truth, we are quite indifferent to everything except ourselves”; “I look at the sufferings and joys of others only in relation to myself.” However, the main accusation is the lack of a life goal, the futility of existence. The hero himself thinks about the purpose of his life. He wrote in the “journal”: “It’s true, she existed, and it’s true that I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul...

"Thinking about the meaning of life was typical to the younger generation copyright

Need a cheat sheet? Then save - “Onegin and Pechorin as heroes of their time. Literary works!

“... Onegin is Russian, he is possible only in Russia, in Russia he is needed and he is greeted at every step... Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time” is his younger brother.”

(A.I. Herzen)

Introduction

In the nineteenth century, Russia was dominated by the autocratic-serf system. Under this system, the situation of the people was unbearable; The fate of progressive thinking people turned out to be tragic. People richly gifted by nature perished in its stuffy atmosphere or were doomed to inaction. These people with progressive views appeared on the arena of public life too early; there were no favorable conditions for their appearance; they were “superfluous” in life, and therefore died. This was reflected in the works of advanced writers of the nineteenth century. “Eugene Onegin” and “Hero of Our Time” are the best works of art of his era. At the center of events are people from high society who cannot find application for their abilities and skills.

“In his poem, he was able to touch on so much, hint at so many things that belong exclusively to the world of Russian nature, to the world of Russian society. "Onegin" can be called an encyclopedia of Russian life and highest degree folk work."

(V.G. Belinsky)

"Eugene Onegin"

Onegin is a typical representative of the noble youth of the 20s of the 19th century. The poet created an image that reflects “that premature old age of the soul that has become the main feature of the younger generation.” Onegin is a contemporary of both the author and the Decembrists. The main character is not interested in social life, the career of an official, he is bored with everything. According to V.G. Belinsky, Onegin “was not one of the ordinary people,” but Pushkin says that Onegin’s boredom is due to the fact that he has no useful work to do. Onegin is a “suffering egoist,” but still an extraordinary person. The Russian nobility of that time was a class of landowners and landowners. Ownership of estates and serfs was a kind of measuring tape for wealth and prestige, as well as high social status. Eugene’s father “gave three balls every year and finally squandered it,” and the main character himself, after receiving an inheritance from “all his relatives,” became a rich landowner and...

Factories, waters, forests, lands

The owner is complete...

But wealth is also associated with ruin and debt. By mortgaging already mortgaged estates, debts were not only the business of poor landowners, but also of many “powers of this world.” One of these reasons in this situation was the idea that developed during the reign of Catherine II: “true noble behavior consists not only in large expenses, but also in spending beyond one’s means.” Thanks to the appearance of various educational literature from abroad, people, namely the younger generation, began to understand the harmfulness of serfdom, including Evgeniy. He “read Adam Smith and was a deep economist.” Unfortunately, there were few such people, therefore, when Onegin, under the influence of the ideas of the Decembrists, “he replaced the ancient corvée with a light quitrent for the yoke,”

...In his corner he sulked.

Seeing this as terrible harm,

His calculating neighbor.

In this case, the heir can accept the inheritance and take on the debts with it or refuse it, leaving the creditors to settle the accounts among themselves. Youth is a time of hope for inheritance. In the second half of life, one should free oneself from debts by becoming the heir of “all one’s relatives” or by marrying favorably.

Who was a smart guy at twenty years old?

And at thirty he is profitably married;

Who was freed at fifty

From private and other debts.

For the nobles of that time military service was natural, and the absence of this trait had to have a special explanation. Onegin, as is clear from the novel, never served at all, which made Eugene a black sheep among his contemporaries. In this case it is shown new tradition. Previously, refusal to serve was called selfishness, but now refusal began to take the form of a struggle for personal independence and upholding the right to live independently of state requirements. So Onegin leads a life free from official duties. Not everyone could afford such a life at that time. Let us take as an example the order of early to bed and early to rise, which not only the official, but also the emperor had to obey. This was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-serving nobleman from the common people and village landowners. But the fashion of getting up, as late as possible, originated from the French aristocracy and was brought to Russia by emigrants. Favorite places for walks were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment, it was there that Onegin walked “putting on a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard.” An opportunity in the afternoon to fill the gap between the restaurant and the ball was the theater. The theater was not only a place of entertainment, but also a kind of club where small talk was held.

The theater is already full; the boxes shine;

The stalls and the chairs - everything is in full swing;

Everything is clapping. Onegin enters

Walks between the chairs along the legs.

The double lorgnette points sideways

To the boxes of unknown ladies.

Tired of city life, Onegin settles in the village. There the friendship of Onegin and Lensky begins, who, as Pushkin says, came together “with nothing to do.” This ultimately led to a duel.

The novel “Eugene Onegin” is an inexhaustible source telling about the morals and life of that time. Onegin himself is a true hero of his time, and in order to understand him we study the time in which he lived.

“There is a lot of falsehood in Pechorin’s ideas, there are distortions in his feelings; but all this is redeemed by his rich nature"

(V.G. Belinsky)

"Hero of our time"

Pechorin is a hero of a completely different transitional time, a representative of the noble youth, who entered life after the defeat of the Decembrists. G.A. Pechorin is one of the main artistic discoveries of M.Yu. Lermontov. In it the fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era received their artistic expression. The image and type of Pechorin capture a striking discrepancy between the external and inner world. He repeatedly speaks in his diary about his inconsistency and duality. This duality was considered as a result of secular upbringing and the influence on him of the noble sphere, the transitional nature of his era.

Explaining the purpose of creating the novel, M.Yu. Lermontov, even in the preface, makes it clear what the image of Pechorin is for him: “The hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” The author set himself the task of wanting to portray on the pages of the novel a hero of his time. And here before us is Pechorin - a tragic personality, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself the question “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born? In Lermontov's portrayal, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time. This is a nobleman-intellectual of the Nicholas era, its victim and hero in one person, whose soul is corrupted by the light. Pechorin's personality is presented in the novel as a unique individual manifestation of the universal human species and clan. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of awareness of himself and his attitude to the world. Pechorin is more of a thinker and ideologist than Onegin. He is organically philosophical. In this respect, he is a characteristic representative of his time, in Belinsky’s words, “the century of the philosophizing spirit.” Pechorin embodies such qualities as developed consciousness and self-awareness, the perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but of the entire history of mankind as a whole. But being a son of his time and society, he also bears their indelible mark. In Gregory’s personality, there is a contradiction between his human essence and existence, which is especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, according to V.G. Belinsky “between the depth of nature and the pitifulness of the same person.” However, Pechorin’s activities make more sense than it seems at first glance. He dies in no way, without yielding to his principles and convictions, although without having accomplished what he could have done under other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct social action, Pechorin strives to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his “own need.” For the first time in Russian literature, Lermontov brought to the pages of a novel a hero who directly posed the most important questions of human existence - about the purpose and meaning of life. On the night of the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “My entire past runs through my memory, and I involuntarily ask myself: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? And it’s true that I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul; but I did not guess this purpose. I was carried away by the lure of empty and ungrateful passions; I emerged from their furnace, hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations, the best color of life.” Bela becomes a victim of Pechorin’s willfulness, forcibly torn from her environment, from the natural course of her life. During the Renaissance, individualism was a historically progressive phenomenon. With the development of bourgeois relations, their humanistic basis. In Russia, the crisis of the feudal-serf system is deepening, and new bourgeois relations are emerging in it. In 1842 V.G. Belinsky said: “Our century... is a century... of separation, individuality, a century of personal passions and interests...”.

Pechorin, with his total individualism and denial of the morality of his contemporary society, as well as its other foundations, was not only his personal dignity. Discontent had long been ripening in the public atmosphere; Pechorin was simply its early and bright spokesman. It is significant that Gregory is far from pragmatic egoism adapting to life. The hero is full of truly rebellious rejection of all the foundations of the society in which he is forced to live. He is least concerned about his position in society; he rejects all this as purely external tinsel, unworthy of the aspiration that lives in him for the true fullness of life, in acquiring a significant life goal. He views his conscious individualism as something forced, since he has not yet found an acceptable alternative for himself. Another important feature of the hero is a constant curiosity about life, about the world, and most importantly about people. He has a pronounced desire to communicate with people. Grigory Aleksandrovich, as they say in the preface, is the type of “modern person”, as the author “understands” him and as he has often met.

Conclusion

So, before us are two heroes, both representatives of their difficult times. Wonderful critic V.G. Belinsky didn’t put an equal sign between them, but he didn’t see a big gap either. Pushkin and Lermontov were able to capture in life and embody in literary images the most significant features of a young man of their time, to give a typical character with all its negative and positive traits. In the preface to the novel “Hero of Our Time,” the author gives exact description to his hero: “...This is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” Pushkin also mentions the typicality of his hero, saying: “Onegin is a kind fellow, like you and me, like the whole world.” Both authors write images of their heroes in development, whose social origins are the same. Both of them were brought up in a secular society and received appropriate education. Pushkin shows that Onegin’s intelligence and erudition are broad, although superficial. He reads books by famous writers and almanacs contemporary to Pushkin. Pechorin's memory is also full of information from literature and history. In his diary you can find quotes from “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov or from “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Onegin's mind is manifested in his understanding of human psychology. So, in a conversation with Lensky about the Larins’ Onegin, he says that if he were a poet, he would choose his older sister: “Olga has no life in her features,” her face is “like this stupid moon in this stupid sky.” Pechorin was also a subtle psychologist. This is proven by his statement about Werner: “His appearance was one of those that strikes you unpleasantly at first glance, but which you later like when the eye learns to read in the irregular features the imprint of a tried and high soul.”

The ability to understand people certainly contributed to the accurate portrayal of the characters, conveying their deceit and hypocrisy. Dissatisfied with life in “high society,” the heroes are looking for a use for their powers and knowledge. Onegin is trying to find himself by doing housekeeping and managing the estate. But, not accustomed to systematic work, he quickly abandons this occupation. Pechorin, in turn, is trying to find himself in a new environment. He is glad to be transferred to the Caucasus. But everywhere, when the first impressions pass, he feels boredom and dissatisfaction with life.

Pushkin shows his hero on the eve of the Decembrist uprising, as if giving Onegin the opportunity to use his powers in a noble cause. Evgeniy, despite his progressive views, is a skeptic with a sharp and chilled mind. According to Herzen, people like Onegin “never take the side of the government” and “never know how to take the side of the people,” because they do not know how to sacrifice their peace for the sake of a higher goal. Therefore, such a person is unlikely to become a Decembrist. The novel "A Hero of Our Time" takes place after the uprising. And the hero of this time does not have the opportunity to find a worthy use for his powers. Therefore, Belinsky says: “Onegin is bored, but Pechorin suffers deeply.” Both poets, trying to portray the characters’ characters as clearly as possible, put them in extreme situations. During the duel between Onegin and Lensky, the hero shows cold egoism. He does not care about Lensky's fate, but is only concerned about the opinion of the world about his person. Lermontov, depicting the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, also shows indifference to Grushnitsky’s suffering. Pechorin acts as a cold egoist in relation to the fates of Bela, Maxim Maksimovich and Vera. However, the main accusation against Pechorin is the lack of a life goal, the futility of existence, but the hero himself thinks about the purpose of his life. He wrote this down in the journal: “But it’s true that she existed, and it’s true that I had a high purpose, because in my soul I feel immense strength in my soul...”. Thinking about the meaning of life was typical of the young generation of the 30s of the 19th century. It was characteristic of all Lermontov’s contemporaries, who did not find use for their “immense powers.” For Onegin, this problem is not so relevant. He can act, participate in the Decembrist movements. But Onegin is not able to use this opportunity, therefore, like Pechorin, he becomes an “extra” person. Pechorin and Onegin are superfluous not in the fate of Russia, but in their society, since they are alien to them. Condemning his hero for inaction, Pushkin, to some extent, condemns those social and political conditions in which a man, far from the people and far from the noble revolutionaries, arose and developed. The title of Lermontov's novel conceals deep irony, since even in the 1930s the names of the true heroes of their time were known: Belinsky, Herzen, Ogarev, and Lermontov himself. Onegin and Pechorin are close to each other, like the eldest and younger brothers. Both of them are disappointed in life. They are joylessly waiting for its end. It’s especially sad to realize this when you read Pechorin’s phrase: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?.. And it’s true, it existed, and it’s true that I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul... But I didn’t guess this purpose... My love didn’t bring happiness to anyone , because I did not sacrifice anything for those I loved: I loved for myself, for my own pleasure.”

Onegin could well subscribe to this phrase. So it turned out that completely different heroes living in different historical eras, came to the same result: one started, and the other continued the gallery of “extra people”.