EGE Russian language. argument bank

Today in the article we will talk about the problems of the “Bronze Horseman”. Let's look at the main characters, analyze the storylines, and also try to understand the author's main idea.

History of creation

Let's start with the fact that this story was written in the fall of 1833. Alexander Pushkin planned to get a lot of money for three of his works, which he wanted to publish in the famous magazine “Library for Reading”. That is why in the winter of 1833 he sent his story to Nicholas II. The Tsar made several notes, but the author did not want to take them into account, but he was also afraid to print without permission from above. The fact is that the tsar crossed out some words calling the monument to Peter an “idol” and “idol.”

Edits and printing

Probably, such strictness was due to the fact that at that time the main work on the opening was just finishing. In the summer of 1832, there was already a huge rock on Palace Square, which was delivered specially from Finland. In the summer of 1834, the monument to the emperor was opened - the tallest building in the world. This event had not only cultural, but also ideological significance. For Pushkin, the new monument was just another monument; he did not want to hide it. By the way, after a while the Alexander Column began to be ridiculed by many.

The literary elite still believed that the symbol of the city was the monument to Peter. Pushkin, not wanting to make changes, published the introduction to The Bronze Horseman in 1834. However, this short publication did not arouse any interest among the public, but rumors quickly spread that there was some unpublished poem about St. Petersburg. In the summer of 1836, the author decides to publish “The Bronze Horseman” and makes the necessary corrections. It is not known exactly why he had previously refused to make any amendments, but in 1836 he unexpectedly agreed to it. However, this poem was published in 1837, that is, only after Pushkin’s death.

Problems of “The Bronze Horseman”

Now let's talk about the main topic of our article. The issue of “The Bronze Horseman” was considered in great detail by Belinsky, who proposed the most common and understandable version. He said history is about the collision of a historical moment with the destiny of an individual. We see that Peter is doing a significant job, but at the same time absolutely innocent people are suffering from this. After some time, other versions appeared, which we will also talk about below.

Considering the issue of the “Bronze Horseman” in more detail, we note that Alexander Sergeevich knew well that Peter’s monument was not made of copper. Some parts were bronze and iron. That is why the author calls his rider copper, thus drawing attention not only to his physical characteristics, but also to the very essence.

Protocol on the repair of the monument

Note that at the beginning of the last century, more and more people began to think not about the actual, but about the symbolic content of Pushkin’s works. Already in 1909, a striking event occurred that caused a new wave of interest in symbolism in the poet’s works. The Commission for the Repair of Monuments published a protocol in which it was stated that on the hind legs of the horse there was a large forged frame, thanks to which water could not penetrate below and remained in the belly. A total of 125 buckets of water were used. This seemingly ordinary information gave rise to a huge number of different interpretations. It was believed that Peter had mastered the wild elements, and now the water takes revenge on him and mystically penetrates inside the monument. This indicated that in fact the struggle was not over yet.

There was also a version that Pushkin’s poem has a strong subtext in the sense that it actually tells about two horsemen - the copper one and the pale one. The latter personified water. Another interpretation, which occurs quite often, concerns the fact that A. Pushkin wanted to show the weak but proud rebellion of man in his loneliness against the effective forces of history.

Ambiguity

Thus, we understand that the problems of Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman” can be considered from completely different angles. Each person interprets this story in his own way and finds some peculiarities in it. However, it is very difficult to say for sure what the author wanted to convey. Perhaps his opinion is the quintessence of all existing versions. This once again proves that the problems of the poem “The Bronze Horseman” by A. S. Pushkin are very multifaceted and ambiguous. Let us remember that the author wrote this story in rather difficult times, when one could pay for freethinking with one’s life. That is why he uses allegory and imagery.

Subject

We have partially examined the themes and issues of The Bronze Horseman, but it is almost impossible to do this in full without considering the characters and subtext of the work, which is why we will talk a little about the theme of the work. So, the author offers two main themes. The first is St. Petersburg, which Pushkin imagines as a mystical city filled with madmen.

The second topic the author examines is Peter. In his person, he unites the fate of all citizens and Russia itself after Peter’s reforms, and also examines the consequences of Europeanization. The hero of the poem is an ordinary little man, on whom little depends. Note that the appearance of just such a hero was very opportune, since by the time of the creation of Pushkin’s work in Russian literature, the time had just come when it was necessary to talk about an ordinary and modern person: the superman and the exotic faded into the background. Describing Evgeniy, Pushkin says that he is a very ordinary person who, like everyone else, thinks a lot about money and wears a tailcoat. He behaves simply and laxly, he has few funds and friends.

Poetics

To better understand the historical and philosophical issues of the poem “The Bronze Horseman,” let’s talk a little about poetics. It is known that the author himself defined the genre of his work as a “St. Petersburg story.” In this case, we can say that “The Bronze Horseman” began a new and very popular genre, which was later represented by a number of works by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

As for the genre, “The Bronze Horseman” most of all gravitates towards small tragedies, which tell about the rebellion of one person against the whole of history. Also, do not forget that the poem contains symbolic imagery and fantasy. The latter is manifested in the fact that many events are simply a figment of Eugene’s imagination. But this is not meaningless nonsense, but some subtext. The symbolism appears when we learn that the monument was filled with water. Of course, the author actually does not mean this, but the fact that a certain element was raging.

Structural analysis

The problems of the work “The Bronze Horseman” are very multi-layered, as we have already seen for ourselves. We see how the king makes a serious decision that will affect all subsequent history. This exaltation of the figure of the king is contrasted with wild, ruthless nature. At the same time, the image of the king is viewed against a very bleak background. He sees a huge stretching river surrounded by forests. Despite the fact that he looks at what is happening under his nose, the ruler looks to the future. He understands that the country needs to establish itself on the shores of the Baltic in order to prosper in the future.

Author's contradictions

Considering the problems of the poem “The Bronze Horseman”, one cannot help but touch upon the attitude of Pushkin himself towards his creation. In the book, he speaks very enthusiastically about Peter’s new creation and literally confesses his love to him, saying that thanks to his actions, even Moscow has faded. But at the same time, we see that the author still treats him in two ways. This can be seen in other works as well. First, he recognizes the king as the highest example of state power, and then speaks of the cruelty and tyranny of the ruler. This contradiction in Pushkin’s worldview continued during his writing of the poem “The Bronze Horseman.”

In order for the censor to approve this work, the author had to resort to symbolism. However, upon careful reading, one can notice that even when Pushkin praises Peter, a certain anxiety can be heard in his voice.

Images

We have already examined the issues and heroes of the poem “The Bronze Horseman,” but we will dwell in more detail on individual images. First, let's notice how much the image of the city changes. At the beginning of the poem, we see a lively and joyful city, but towards the end it becomes dark and destructive, as it is consumed by elements beyond the control of man. The author says that water destroys everything in its path, washing away traces of the past. However, what did Pushkin mean? The indomitable elements for him were a symbol of popular revolt, but at the same time he emphasized that the rebellion, although it was merciless, did not have much meaning. As a result of the disaster, many people die, but for what?

Impersonality

Considering the characters and issues of The Bronze Horseman, you will notice that there are no last names, no ages, no mention of appearance, character traits or past. All we know about Eugene is that he is an ordinary, ordinary person. The author refuses to reveal any individual traits.

Despite this, in a critical situation, Evgeniy manages to wake up from sleep and stop being a petty, insignificant person; the destructive elements literally drive him crazy, and he cannot stand the questions that appear in his head with increasing force. As a result, he, disheveled and indifferent, wanders around the city, trying to find answers to his questions. Finally, he understands the truth for himself, and his anger falls on the “image.”

Summing up the article about the problems of “The Bronze Horseman”, it is worth noting that this heroic story tells about the creation of Peter I and the tragedy of an ordinary official who became a victim of the historical chariot.

Let us note that dualism is very clearly manifested in this poem. Firstly, there are two Peters (a frozen statue and a living ruler), two Eugenes (a lost petty official and an enlightened man), two Nevas (the main decoration of the city and a huge threat to life), two Petersburgs (a beautiful city and a gloomy place full of poor people and killers).

Actually, this is the main philosophical idea that Pushkin wanted to convey to his readers: everything in the world is dual, and nothing is permanent. This is a wonderful work that is worth getting acquainted with for everyone who wants not only to know the work of A. S. Pushkin, but also to understand the symbolism of his works. This is truly an author who could convey his true thoughts and deep ideas through images.

In the 1830s, Pushkin wrote four poems: Little House in Kolomna, Yezersky, Angelo and The Bronze Horseman. The last poem, written in Boldin in October 1833, is the artistic result of his reflections on the personality of Peter, on the “Petersburg period” of Russian history. Two themes meet in the poem: the theme of Peter, the “wonder-working builder,” and the theme of the simple “Little” man, the “insignificant hero” Eugene. The story of the tragic fate of an ordinary resident of St. Petersburg, who suffered during a flood, became the plot basis for historical and philosophical generalizations related to the role of Peter in the modern history of Russia, with the fate of his brainchild - St. Petersburg

"The Bronze Horseman" is one of Pushkin's most perfect poetic works. Like “Eugene,” it is written in iambic tetrameter. The short poem (500 verses) combines history and modernity, the hero’s private life with historical life, reality with myth. The time of action in the poem is the history of St. Petersburg. Not yet, construction is just being planned) and modernity (Flood during the reign of Alexander the First). The space of the poem either expands, covering vast expanses, or narrows to St. Petersburg, a small island or even a modest house.

At the center of the entire poem are several episodes that make up the central conflict between the peaceful and rebellious elements, on the one hand, and its formidable tamer Peter, on the other; between the huge empire, personified in the monument to the autocrat, and the poor, insignificant official.

The conflict takes on an insoluble, tragic character, since, unlike the poem “Angelo” that was being written at the same time, there is no place for mercy in it. Reconciliation of the elements is impossible.

The peaceful element is chaotic, there is no order in it, it is formless, poor and wretched. Peter’s plan is to give shape to the elements, to civilize life, to build a shield city, a threat city, and to solve state problems of both internal and external nature. And now the elements are defeated. But the sublime pathos gives way to a “sad story.” Instead of an ode to the creative genius of Peter, a sad narrative appears about the fate of the poor young official Evgeniy.

Eugene as a private person is given in comparison with the Bronze Horseman, a monument to Peter, in which the state power of the empire is personified. Eugene is no longer opposed by Peter the reformer, but by the autocratic order. A private person and a symbol of statehood - these are the poles of Pushkin’s story.

The appearance of Peter from the “introduction” to the finale changes, loses human features and becomes more and more impersonal, unlike Peter, in Eugene, on the contrary, a personal beginning gradually emerges. Initially, he is an “insignificant person”, his horizons are limited by everyday worries, he is annoyed that he is poor. Then he indulges in dreams of marriage, he does not think about why his family has decayed, his thoughts are connected with patriarchal morals and customs. However, the rebellious elements force him to reflect on this - the death of Parasha brings him madness. For the first time, perhaps, he thought about the world order in general. A man woke up in him, reflecting on his fate in the world and on human fate in the universe. Evgeny, having experienced the collapse of all his ideals, falls into doubt: is human life really worth nothing at all? It cannot be that the world built by God rests on such inhuman foundations. He never decided whether God was to blame for predetermining the fate of mankind and, therefore, for his private destiny. He tries to explain his personal grief by social conditions, he needs a specific bearer of threat - and then a monument to Peter appears before his eyes. And he sees in him not a personal, not a human beginning, but a beginning that is hostile to him, state, majestic, impersonal.

The rebellious element subsided in the city, but was transferred to the Soul of Eugene. The paradox of the truth revealed to Eugene was that it was precisely the reasonable but cruel will of Peter, who founded the city and curbed the elements with order, that seems to Eugene the cause of his misfortune. The gap between the interests of private and public constitutes the main conflict of the poem. This is one of the contradictions of history: the necessary and good transformative activity is carried out mercilessly and cruelly, becoming a terrible reproach to the entire cause of transformation. There is no direct solution to the conflict in the poem; each side puts forward weighty arguments, so a third force must appear, capable of rising above both, in the name of an invisible higher goal. Pushkin's poem in the context of the works of the 1830s confirms his concept of state mercy, necessary for both the authorities and the private person for the rise of

One of the main issues of creativity of A.S. Pushkin was the question of the relationship between the individual and the state, as well as the ensuing problem of the “little man”. It is known that it was Pushkin who seriously developed this problem, which was later “picked up” by N.V. Gogol, and F.M. Dostoevsky.

Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman” reveals the eternal conflict - the contradiction between the interests of the individual and the state. Pushkin believed that this conflict was inevitable, at least in Russia. It is impossible to govern the state and take into account the interests of every “little person”. Moreover, Russia is a semi-Asian country, where despotism and tyranny reigned since ancient times, which was taken for granted by both the people and the rulers.
The poem has a subtitle - “The Petersburg Tale”, followed by a preface emphasizing the reality of everything described: “The incident described in this story is based on the truth. Details of the flood are taken from magazines of the time. The curious can consult the news compiled by V. N. Berkh.”

In the introduction to the poem, a majestic image of Peter I is created, who glorified his name with many deeds. Without a doubt, Pushkin pays tribute to the power and talent of Peter. This tsar “made” Russia in many ways and contributed to its prosperity. On the poor and wild banks of a small river, Peter built a grandiose city, one of the most beautiful in the world. St. Petersburg became a symbol of a new, enlightened and strong power:

...there now

Along busy shores
Slender communities crowd together
Palaces and towers; ships
A crowd from all over the world
They strive for rich marinas...
The poet loves St. Petersburg with all his soul. For him, this is his homeland, the capital, the personification of the country. He wishes this city eternal prosperity. But the following words of the lyrical hero are important and interesting: “May the defeated element make peace with you...”

The hero of the poem, Eugene, is a simple resident of the capital, one of many. His life is narrated in the first part of the work. Evgeniy’s life is filled with pressing everyday concerns: how to feed himself, where to get money. The hero wonders why some are given everything, while others are given nothing. After all, these “others” do not shine at all with either intelligence or hard work, and for them “life is much easier.” Here the theme of the “little man” and his insignificant position in society begins to develop. He is forced to endure injustices and blows of fate only because he was born “small”.

Among other things, we learn that Eugene has plans for the future. He is going to marry a simple girl like him, Parasha. Beloved Evgenia and her mother live on the banks of the Neva in a small house. The hero dreams of starting a family, having children, he dreams that in old age his grandchildren will take care of them.

But Evgeniy’s dreams were not destined to come true. A terrible flood interfered with his plans. It destroyed almost the entire city, but it also destroyed the hero’s life, killed and destroyed his soul. The rising waters of the Neva destroyed Parasha's house and killed the girl herself and her mother. What was left for poor Eugene? It is interesting that the entire poem is accompanied by the definition - “poor”. This epithet speaks of the author’s attitude towards his hero - an ordinary resident, a simple person, with whom he sympathizes with all his heart.

The poem “The Bronze Horseman” was written by Pushkin in 1833. It combines two themes: personality and people and the theme of the “little man”.

The poem has a subtitle - “The Petersburg Tale”. He points to the same two themes: historical and majestic, and also the theme of the common man.
This is followed by the preface: “The incident described in this story is based on truth. Details of the flood are taken from magazines of the time. The curious can consult the news compiled by V. N. Berkh.”

In the introduction to the poem, a majestic image of Peter I is created, who glorified his name with many glorious deeds. “From the darkness of the forests” and “topi blat” he creates a beautiful city. St. Petersburg was the personification of the power and glory of Russia. “To spite an arrogant neighbor,” Peter I strengthened the Russian state on the shores of the Baltic Sea, etc. Even after a hundred years, St. Petersburg is beautiful and majestic. According to the poet, it is the best city on earth. The introduction ends with a hymn to Peter and Petersburg:

Show off, city Petrov, and stand
Invincible, like Russia.

The main part of the poem tells about life contemporary to Pushkin. St. Petersburg is still as beautiful as it was under Peter. But the poet also sees another image of the capital. This city marks a sharp boundary between the “powers that be” and ordinary residents. St. Petersburg is a city of contrasts, where “little people” live and suffer.

One of these people is Evgeniy, the hero of the work. It is described in the first part of the poem. This is an “ordinary man.” He is a descendant of a glorious and ancient family, but now an ordinary Russian man in the street. Evgeniy is an ordinary minor employee. He receives a tiny salary and dreams of rising to the rank of “shtetl.” In addition, the hero also has personal plans: to find quiet family happiness with the girl Parasha, who is as poor as the hero himself. She lives with her mother in a “dilapidated house” on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. But a terrible flood begins, destroying everything in its path. It destroys houses, deprives people of shelter, warmth and even life:

Trays under a wet veil,
Wrecks of huts, logs, roofs,
Stock trade goods,
The belongings of pale poverty,
Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,
Coffins from a washed-out cemetery
Floating through the streets!

Evgeny is worried about his Parasha. Their dilapidated house should be washed away by the waves of the Neva first. At the end of the first part, the hero seems to see this disaster. And above everything, calmly and majestically, rises the monument to Peter.

The second part of the poem depicts the consequences of the flood. For Evgeny they are scary. The hero loses everything: his beloved girl, shelter, hopes for happiness. The distraught Eugene considers the Bronze Horseman, a double of Peter himself, to be the culprit of his tragedy. In his frustrated imagination, the Bronze Horseman is a “proud idol”, “by whose fateful will the city was founded here”, who “raised Russia on its hind legs with an iron bridle”, “he is terrible.”

Memories of the tragedy on the flooded Petrovskaya Square turn Evgeny, filled with hatred and indignation, into a rebel:

And, clenching my teeth, clenching my fingers,
As if possessed by black power,
“Welcome, miraculous builder! -
He whispered, trembling angrily, -
Already for you!..”

But Eugene’s rebellion is just a flash, completely meaningless. The fight with the Bronze Horseman is insane and hopeless: until the morning he pursues the unfortunate Eugene through the streets and squares of St. Petersburg.

As a result, Evgeniy dies next to the destroyed house of Parasha:
At the threshold
They found my madman,
And then his cold corpse
Buried for God's sake.
Problems of the poem by A. S. Pushkin “The Bronze Horseman”
The Transformer appears before us at the moment when he makes the most important decision for all subsequent Russian history: “Here the city will be founded...”.
The author contrasts the monumental figure of the king with the image of harsh and wild nature. The picture against the backdrop of which the figure of the king appears before us is bleak (a lonely boat, mossy and marshy banks, wretched huts of the “Chukhons”). Before Peter’s gaze is a wide-spread river rushing into the distance; There is a forest around, “unknown to the rays of the hidden sun in the fog.” But the ruler's gaze is directed to the future. Russia must establish itself on the shores of the Baltic; this is necessary for the country’s prosperity:

All the flags will visit us,
And we’ll record it in the open air.
A hundred years passed, and Peter’s great dream came true:
...young city,
There is beauty and wonder in full countries,
From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat
He ascended magnificently, proudly...

pronounces an enthusiastic hymn to the creation of Peter, confesses his love for the “young city”, before whose splendor “old Moscow faded.” However, the poet's attitude towards Peter was contradictory. If in “Stanzas” Pushkin sees in the activities of the tsar a model of public service to the Fatherland, then later, in “Notes on Russian History of the 18th Century,” he points out the cruelty of this monarch and the autocratic nature of power during his reign.
This contradiction would trouble Pushkin during his work on the poem “The Bronze Horseman.” Peter the autocrat is presented not in any specific acts, but in the symbolic image of the Bronze Horseman as the personification of inhuman statehood. Even in those lines where Pushkin seems to glorify the work of Peter, an intonation of alarm can already be heard:

Powerful lord of fate!
Aren't you above the very abyss,
At the height, with an iron bridle
Raised Russia on its hind legs?

The image of a shining, lively, lush city is replaced in the first part of the poem by a picture of a terrible, destructive flood, expressive images of a raging element over which man has no control. The element sweeps away everything in its path, carrying away in streams of water fragments of buildings and destroyed bridges, “belongings of pale poverty” and even coffins “from a washed-out cemetery.” The image of indomitable natural forces appears here as a symbol of a “senseless and merciless” popular revolt. Among those whose lives were destroyed by the flood is Eugene, whose peaceful concerns the author speaks of at the beginning of the first part of the poem. Evgeny is an “ordinary man”: he has neither money nor rank, “serves somewhere” and dreams of setting up a “humble and simple shelter” for himself in order to marry the girl he loves and go through life’s journey with her:

And we will live like this until the grave,
We'll both get there hand in hand...

The poem does not indicate the hero's surname or his age; nothing is said about Eugene's past, his appearance, or character traits. Having deprived Evgeny of his individual characteristics, the author turns him into an ordinary, faceless person from the crowd. However, in an extreme, critical situation, Evgeny seems to awaken from sleep and sheds the guise of a “nonentity”. In a world of raging elements, an idyll is impossible. Parasha dies in a flood, and the hero finds himself faced with terrible questions: what is human life? Isn’t she just an empty dream, “the mockery of heaven over earth”?

Eugene's confused mind cannot withstand the "terrible shocks." He goes crazy, leaves his home and wanders around the city in tattered and shabby clothes, indifferent to everything except the “noise of internal anxiety” that fills him. Like an ancient prophet who has reached the unrighteousness of the world, Eugene is fenced off from people and despised by them. The similarity between Pushkin's hero and the prophet becomes especially clear when Eugene, in his madness, suddenly begins to see the light and unleashes his anger on the “proud idol.”

Throughout the entire poem, through its entire figurative structure, there is a duality of faces, pictures and meanings: two Peters (Peter living, thinking, “powerful lord of fate” and his transformation Bronze Horseman, a frozen statue), two Eugenes (petty official, downtrodden, humiliated by power , and a madman who raised his hand against the “miraculous builder”), two Neva (the decoration of the city, the “sovereign flow” and the main threat to the lives of people and the city), two Petersburgs (“Peter’s creation”, “young city” and the city of corners and basements of the poor , killer city). This duality of the figurative structure contains not only the main compositional, but also the main philosophical thought of Pushkin: the Thought about man, his self-worth.

“The Bronze Horseman” is both a heroic poem about the creative activity of Peter I, and a tragic story about a poor St. Petersburg official, a victim of “historical necessity” (it is no coincidence that the author gave the poem a meaningful subtitle: “The Petersburg Tale”).
Poetics

Pushkin himself defined the genre of The Bronze Horseman with the term "Petersburg story", in this case, “The Bronze Horseman” is the beginning of a new and very popular genre in Russian literature, later represented by N.V. Gogol’s “Petersburg Tales”, the works of the authors of the “natural school” (collection “Physiology of Petersburg”), and the works of Dostoevsky (“ Poor People", "Double", "White Nights", etc.), Blok, A. Bely, etc. But in the collected works of Pushkin, "The Bronze Horseman", as a rule, is published in the section of poems, in this case it last poem Pushkin. In both cases, “The Bronze Horseman” is a landmark work that requires special attention.

In terms of genre, “The Bronze Horseman” is close to “small tragedies” - an oxymoron in the title, a similar motif of a statue coming to life, the theme of man’s rebellion against history itself.

Fantasy and symbolic imagery. The fantasy in “The Bronze Horseman” has a realistic motivation - it is a figment of the imagination of the sick Eugene. “Like any realistically motivated fiction, it has a symbolic, completely logically indefinable meaning, suggested, however, by the symbolism of the Falconet monument to Peter itself,” that is, the rider is the king, the horse is his people and state, the snake at his feet is the machinations of the atrocities that hindered Peter . The symbolic imagery of the monument influenced the story about it: in “The Bronze Horseman”, for example, the flood does not mean itself, of course, but some raging element.

What does a giant care about the death of the unknown?

The poem “The Bronze Horseman” was written in Boldin in the fall of 1833. This “Petersburg story” was not completely authorized by Nicholas I for publication, and only the beginning of it was published by Pushkin in the “Library for Reading”, under the title: “Petersburg. An excerpt from the poem” . What didn’t the king like? Pushkin’s portrayal of his great-grandfather, the dubiousness of the main idea and the word “idol” in relation to the emperor. But it is not for nothing that the poet calls Peter “an idol”; he defends this word, then even tries to change it, but abandons the corrections without bringing them to completion.

1. Contrary to its name, “The Bronze Horseman” does not contain a single gram of copper. Monument Peter the Great was cast from bronze, as originally intended. The explanation for this oddity is the simplest - in the 18th-19th centuries in Russian the word “copper” was allowed to be used in relation to bronze.

2. Officially, the author of the monument is considered French sculptor Etienne Falconet which was recommended Empress Catherine the Great philosopher Denis Diderot. However, a whole team of authors worked on the creation of the “Bronze Horseman”: the head of the statue was sculpted Falcone's student Marie Anne Collot, the snake was created by a Russian sculptor Fedor Gordeev, was involved in casting the statue foundry master Fedor Gordeev.

3. “The Bronze Horseman” today is unthinkable without its majestic foundation - the Thunder Stone. In due time for reporting him state-owned peasant Semyon Vishnyakov received a prize of 100 rubles - a very large sum for Russia in the 18th century. In its original form, the stone weighed about 2000 tons, measuring about 13 m in length, 8 m in height and 6 m in width. To transport a giant megalith to St. Petersburg architect Yuri Felten developed a unique machine that made it possible to successfully solve an unusual problem.

4. Before The Bronze Horseman, Etienne Falconet did not personally cast a bronze monument. The invited French casting master, however, was unable to fulfill the sculptor's demands. From that moment on, all preparatory work for casting was carried out by Falconet himself. In 1778, he left Russia without completing the project. Yuri Felten had to complete the construction of the monument. Falcone himself was not even invited to the opening of the monument.

5. “The Bronze Horseman” is a classic example of Russian slowness when building something. 16 years passed from the development of the first sketches to the opening of the monument. Empress Catherine II, having put forward the idea of ​​a monument to Peter the Great, was able to get what she wanted only on the 20th anniversary of her reign. But the opportunity arose to coincide the opening of the monument with the 100th anniversary of the accession of Peter I to the throne.

6. For the first half century of its existence, the monument to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg did not have any special name. Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman,” written in 1833 and first published in 1837, changed everything. The name turned out to be extremely successful, and now the equestrian statue of Peter the Great is not called anything else.

7. During its history, the Bronze Horseman has undergone several restorations. During the first of them, in 1909, a hatch in the horse's rump was opened, after which 150 buckets of water, which had penetrated inside through numerous cracks, were removed. During a large-scale restoration in 1976, in which the best Soviet specialists were involved, most of the cracks that threatened the monument were repaired.

8. According to legend, St. Petersburg will not fall or be destroyed while the Bronze Horseman takes his place. During the siege of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War, the monument to Peter I was sheathed with logs and boards and bags of sand and earth were placed around it. The monument itself escaped Nazi bombs and shells, and the city was not taken by the Germans.

Why in Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman” is much not what it seems?

Text: Natalya Lebedeva/RG
Collage: Year of Literature.RF

What does it take to recognize a work as “realistic”? After all, all people have different ideas about reality itself, which means there is no single reality for everyone. And if we look carefully at the literary texts of the 19th century, we will see that there are many illusions and in reality everything is not at all simple.

What reality is hidden in Pushkin’s famous poem “The Bronze Horseman”? In what meaning does the author use the word “feast”? And why are the words “magnificent” and “proud” in Pushkin’s language not always positive characteristics? The illusions of the “Bronze Horseman” are revealed by a candidate of philological sciences, in 2004–2011. - Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Literature of the State Institute of Russian Language named after. A. S. Pushkin, since 2011 - Associate Professor of the Department of History of Russian Literature of the 20th Century, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosova Pavel Evseevich Spivakovsky.

Illusions of the Bronze Horseman

TEXT OF LECTURE

Illusions of the Bronze Horseman

So, we are starting a short series of five lectures called “Reality as an Illusion.” Where does this name come from? The fact is that, from the point of view of modern humanitarian science, the phenomenon of reality itself is problematized: what in the 19th century was taken for granted (for the most part this was associated with widespread ideas that there is a certain “only true” positivistically perceived reality, and all other ideas are inadequate to one degree or another), is now being called into question...

Not everyone, of course, shared this kind of views before, but, in general, they still prevailed. So, in the 20th century, serious doubts began to arise on this score. For example, Roman Jakobson in his article “On Artistic Realism” questions such a criterion as life-likeness.

Previously, it was believed that life-likeness was a sufficient argument to recognize a work as “realistic.” But it turns out that people’s ideas about life, about “reality” are extremely different, and there is simply no common understanding of this same life-likeness. This means that what is either considered to be reality, or someone perceives as reality, is more reasonable to perceive as a problem. It’s not that there is no reality at all, but it’s more likely that there is no reality that is the same for everyone. And therefore it takes a long and difficult time to deal with it.

And in this regard, it is interesting to look not only at modern literary texts, but also at.

Suddenly it turns out that there are many illusions there too, that everything is very complicated there and is often not at all what it seems. And in this regard, it makes sense to think about Pushkin’s famous poem “The Bronze Horseman”.

The text of the poem was mainly written by Boldinskaya in the fall of 1833; later Pushkin tried to alter something, but there were few alterations, and therefore the text of 1833 is still mostly in use, although some clarifications can be found in later amendments. But, in general, this is not our topic.

So, “The Bronze Horseman”. The poem begins with the words:

On the shore of desert waves
He stood, full of great thoughts,
And he looked into the distance.

In most editions of this poem, the pronoun “he” is written with a lowercase letter and italicized, but if we turn to a textologically more carefully prepared edition of the poem in the “Literary Monuments” series, we will see that in Pushkin’s poem the pronoun “He” is given twice, and without any italics and with capital letters. That is, the way it is traditional to write about God. Naturally, we are talking about Peter I here, and this writing is very significant for the artistic concept of the entire poem.

The fact is that Peter I, as he is presented in this work, claims to be an earthly god

with all the ensuing unpleasant consequences.

Actually, we can say (and in this it makes sense to agree with Valentin Nepomniachtchi) that

“The Bronze Horseman” actually begins with how Pushkin’s poem “Anchar” ends.

In “Anchar” we see two people: “The man / Sent the man to the anchar with an imperious glance”. What is this talking about? The fact that they are both equally human, they are equal in the face of the author, and, in general, in the face of God. Moreover, one of them is an invincible ruler with almost undivided power, and the other is a poor slave. The poor slave brings the poisoned tree, “and the prince imbued his obedient arrows with this poison / And with them he sent death / To neighbors in foreign lands”. True, in some publications, instead of “prince,” they try their best to print “tsar,” although when Pushkin sent the poem to the printing house, and there, instead of “prince,” they mistakenly typed “tsar,” the author sharply protested. It would seem, indeed, logically, there should be a “king”: he has such great power... Most likely, the prince was needed in order for an association to arise with the prince of this world. That is, before us is precisely a person, and not a demon at all, but this person actually serves the forces of the prince of this world.

So, before us is an “invincible ruler”, who in “Anchar” also acts as a contender for the role of earthly god, but this man has a problem: his neighbors are very disturbing to him. It is “to the neighbors” that he sends out his poison, and within the framework of Pushkin’s artistic world this poison is incredibly strong, and therefore it poisons everything around. In fact, in the poem “Anchar” we find ourselves in a poisoned world, where it is impossible to be: before us is a kind of ontological dead end, caused by the man-divine claims of the prince.

So, let's return to the text of The Bronze Horseman. The landscape that unfolds before Peter is miserable, but peaceful, calm:

Wide before him
The river rushed; poor boat
He strove along it alone.
Along mossy, marshy banks
Blackened huts here and there,
Shelter of a wretched Chukhonian;
And the forest, unknown to the rays
In the fog of the hidden sun
There was noise all around.

Nothing particularly scary happens here, the picture is quite balanced. And now the will of the emperor bursts into this world:

And He thought:
From here we will threaten the Swede,
The city will be founded here
To spite an arrogant neighbor.

"To spite", - this is exactly how, separately, Pushkin writes. At this moment, an artistic myth about St. Petersburg arises, which was built “out of evil,” and this will have the most serious consequences.

Nature destined us here

Open a window to Europe,
Stand with a firm foot by the sea.
Here on new waves
All the flags will visit us,
And we’ll record it in the open air.

Nature... An interesting question: why, in fact, does Peter refer to nature? It would seem that at the level of manifestation he submits to the forces of nature. Yes, but he somehow strangely obeys her, because in the text of the poem we see that it is nature that is severely wounded by his intervention, and so much so that it takes revenge even 100 years after the events described. Therefore, it cannot be said that Peter is subject to the forces of nature. This is simply not true.

Then why is he saying this? Knowing Pushkin’s views and his attitude towards deism, which was extremely popular in his time, we can say with confidence that here we have before us an attempt to build a deist picture of the world. Deism is a philosophical doctrine according to which God created the world, and then does not interfere with anything, and everything develops according to natural law. That is, in fact, it turns out that for a person, de facto, it makes no difference whether God exists or He does not exist. If God doesn’t interfere in anything anyway and will never interfere, then what difference does it make?

Pushkin very sharply did not accept this anti-Christian teaching, largely popularized by French enlighteners (for example, he was a deist). So, in 1830, he wrote the poem “To the Nobleman,” describing in it how Russian travelers became acquainted with the ideology of the French enlighteners, and they taught them either atheism or deism:

You came to Ferney - and the cynic turned gray,
The leader of brains and fashion is sly and brave

[a very negative characteristic, I must say],

Loving your dominion in the North,
He greeted you with a grave voice.

The study was done for a time, your idol:
You were secluded. For your harsh feast
Now a devotee of providence, now a skeptic, now an atheist,
Diderot sat down on his shaky tripod

[we are talking about Denis Diderot, who wavered in his views],

He threw his wig and closed his eyes in delight.
And he preached. And modestly you listened
Over a slow cup of atheus or deist,
Like a curious Scythian to an Athenian sophist.

The deist-atheist teaching was perceived extremely naively and completely uncritically, because at that time there was no decent education in Russia.

As for Peter, when he places faceless nature in the place of God, he actually puts himself above everyone else. You don’t have to think about anyone, don’t think about it, and do whatever you want: this is a very convenient, essentially atheistic model of the world.

It is also significant that Pushkin is not inventing anything here: Boris Uspensky has a wonderful article “The Tsar and God,” which talks about Peter I’s attempts to present himself as some kind of earthly deity. What can I say?

Feofan Prokopovich, an associate of Peter I, in his work “On the Glory and Honor of the Tsar” calls the Tsar Christ and God.

Just... Feofan Prokopovich was, of course, a very subtle person, he knew how to say so as not to formally turn out to be a heretic and at the same time to flatter the tsar as much as possible.

But why Christ? Χριστός in Greek is “anointed”, the king is God’s anointed, therefore, why not use this word?..

Or about the word “god”. Let's remember Psalm 81: “I said: you are gods and sons of the Most High, all of you.”(Ps 81:6). This means, of course, not gods in the literal sense, but people created by God, like sons of God. At the same time, it seems that it is possible to formally say everything that Feofan Prokopovich claimed. Although, of course, we are faced with not just papocaesarism, but also an undisguised attempt to deify the emperor.

And so it was: in particular, during the Easter service, Peter took away the right of the patriarch to depict Christ and depicted Him himself, trying to symbolically emphasize that he had the right to act as an earthly deity...

And this is very serious, this is what lays something dark and terrible in the very basis of Peter’s activities. The point is not about Westernization as such; Westernization of Russia, of course, was needed, but under Peter it was carried out in a rather wild way. If it were gentle and gradual, it would be welcome, it would be wonderful. As, however, this was done in the 17th century. Under Peter, everything changed extremely radically.

In fact, traditional ancient Russian culture was banned, and in its place it was originally supposed "something Dutch".

In such cases I tell students: “Imagine that tomorrow the president, let’s say Putin, will tell us: from today, Russian culture is completely prohibited, and instead there will be Chinese culture. Everyone should study Chinese, Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature and speak Chinese.”. The same thing happened with the absolutely incomprehensible Dutch culture.

“And we’ll lock it in the open air”. The word “feast” in Pushkin is also quite ambiguous. For example, three years before The Bronze Horseman, in 1830, he wrote Little Tragedies, which are permeated by the motif of a disastrous feast. Naturally, “A feast during the plague” - it’s clear what kind of feast there is. The feast of Mozart and Salieri is also clear: the one at which Mozart will be poisoned. “The Stone Guest” is a feast between Don Guan and Donna Anna, during which the hero dies. Well, in “The Miserly Knight” the baron opens his chests and says that in this way he arranges a feast for himself. In a word, a feast is a rather ambivalent phenomenon.

So, something very bad is being laid into the very foundation of St. Petersburg. But this does not mean that a beautiful city is not being created. It is being created...

A hundred years have passed, and the young city,
There is beauty and wonder in full countries,
From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat
Ascended magnificently, proudly<…>.

“Pompous” and “proud” in Pushkin’s language are, it must be said, not at all positive characteristics. “Humble” is undoubtedly closer to the mature Pushkin. Even in the early poem “To the Sea,” a flock of beautifully equipped ships sinks, but the “humble sail of fishermen” does not touch the sea. So “magnificent” and “proud” is something very suspicious. Despite the fact that he himself, of course, loves this great city very much...

Where was the Finnish fisherman before?
Nature's sad stepson
Alone on the low banks
Thrown into unknown waters
Your old net, now there
Along busy shores
Slender communities crowd together
Palaces and towers; ships
A crowd from all over the world
They strive for rich marinas;
The Neva is dressed in granite;
Bridges hung over the waters;
Dark green gardens
Islands covered her,
And in front of the younger capital
Old Moscow has faded,
Like before a new queen
Porphyry widow.
I love you, Petra's creation,
I love your strict, slender appearance,
Neva sovereign current,
Its coastal granite<…>.

Yes, there is no doubt that Pushkin loves this city. But here, too, if you look closely, there is some strange ambiguity. The fact is that five years before The Bronze Horseman, in 1828, Pushkin wrote a poem

The city is lush, the city is poor,
Spirit of bondage, slender appearance,
The vault of heaven is green and pale,
Boredom, cold and granite -
Still, I feel a little sorry for you,
Because here sometimes
A little leg walks
A golden curl curls.

Even the rhymes are similar: "strict, slender look", “its coastal granite”- that is, in the poem the assessment is rather negative, but in the poem it seems to be rather positive. But at the same time, Pushkin “dissolves” the poem of 1828 in the text of the poem.

I love your cruel winter
Still air and frost,
Sleigh running along the wide Neva,
Girls' faces are brighter than roses.

It's cold. Instead of a small leg and a curl, we see faces, but in general the figurative system is almost the same. The emphasis in this case is rather on the positive aspects, which, undoubtedly, also exist. The problem, however, is that they are not the only ones.

I love the warlike liveliness
Amusing Fields of Mars,
Infantry troops and horses
Uniform beauty
In their harmoniously unsteady system
The shreds of these victorious banners,
The shine of these copper caps,
Through those shot through in battle.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

Pushkin also loves this Petersburg. In general, he was to a large extent an imperialist.

How wonderfully Georgy Fedotov said about him, "singer of empire and freedom".

Pushkin felt a contradiction between one and the other. Before us is an official, powerful imperial city, and Pushkin felt that it was putting pressure, in particular, on himself: "The city is lush, the city is poor...", of course, that’s exactly what it’s about. At the same time, joy over imperial victories was also characteristic of Pushkin: this is “Poltava”, and “Borodin Anniversary”, and even in the early “Prisoner of the Caucasus”: “Humble yourselves, Caucasus: Ermolov is coming!” All this, of course, also happened, but at the same time Pushkin feels that there is something terrible and overwhelming in imperial greatness. “Slender communities” also embody something dangerous.

Neva in The Bronze Horseman is depicted as a living creature.

<…>breaking your blue ice,
The Neva carries him to the seas
And, sensing the days of spring, he rejoices.
Show off, city Petrov, and stand
Unshakable like Russia,
May he make peace with you
And the defeated element;
Enmity and ancient captivity
Let the Finnish waves forget
And they will not be vain malice
Disturb Peter's eternal sleep!

So, ancient enmity and ancient captivity. This is how this symbol appears in the poem. Looking ahead, we can say that Pushkin associates the image of the Neva waves with the elements of popular rebellion, with something like Pugachevism. And the author was very interested in her, looked at her very seriously. He saw this as a danger.

So, if we take what has been said literally, then the Finnish waves, who were dressed in granite, have lost their freedom and want to take revenge, they are rebelling against the slavery to which they were doomed. If we recall the historical context, it is worth recalling that

Peter I introduced human trafficking (such a small trifle). In addition, Peter’s cultural revolution itself (and I think that Klyuchevsky is right when he is inclined to believe that Peter was not a reformer, but a revolutionary) gave rise to a very great social danger.

The fact is that before that there was only one, integral ancient Russian culture. Suppose a boyar, who sat in the Boyar Duma, and the simplest serf - they, in principle, were carriers of the same culture. There could be more of it, there could be less of it, but the culture by its nature was united. Peter focused all his “reforms” only on the educated society; he did not touch the peasants at all. Therefore, peasant culture after Peter remained almost unchanged (besides, it is generally super-traditionalist), and educated society began to speak foreign languages ​​and focus on European models. And this is wonderful, it gave birth to the Russian culture that we all know and love. The only problem is that

representatives of Russian culture of the Western type and traditional peasant culture almost ceased to understand each other.

They began to speak literally and figuratively in different languages.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

At the beginning of the 19th century, nobles most often spoke French. But even if they spoke Russian...

Pushkin has a very interesting article “Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg”, this is a very sharp criticism of Radishchev, and there the author says:

“They once asked an old peasant woman if she married her husband out of passion.”[in Pushkin this is exactly the case, separately]? “Out of passion,” answered the old woman, “I was stubborn, but the headman threatened to whip me.””. Such passions are ordinary,”- Pushkin notes.

In general, they talked, and, it seemed, in the same language. But at the same time, everyone had something different in mind, and they completely did not understand each other.

In other words, the illusion of communication arises, but communication as such did not exist and is not expected. And this is an extremely dangerous situation: within the framework of one country, seemingly one religion, one people, two cultures arise, the representatives of which almost do not understand each other. Pushkin thought a lot about this and really wanted to connect these cultures. In his opinion, this was possible among the Russian provincial nobility: only in the village these two cultures meet, only there can one understand each other. This is Tatyana Larina, and “The Young Lady-Peasant”, these are the Grinevs and Mironovs...

But one way or another, the separation of cultures occurred. And this, in turn, was fraught with a powerful social explosion, because if the peasants do not understand the nobles, then it is very easy to attribute the most terrible things to them, and this is a reason for unrest, for a riot, senseless and merciless.

In fact, it turns out that with its cultural revolution

Peter plants a bomb in Russia, which will most likely explode sooner or later. This happened in 1917, and Pushkin was one of the first to seriously think about it.

He is very concerned about this issue, he acutely senses these dangers, feels that something truly terrible is approaching.

For example, in the poem “It was time: our holiday is young...” he describes the past, writes enthusiastically about Alexander I, whom he previously did not like very much, wrote very angry epigrams about him, but then, over time, he appreciated his largely liberal reforms and began to treat him incomparably better. And then

<…>a new king, stern and powerful
At the turn of Europe he became cheerful,
And new clouds came over the earth,
And a hurricane of them

We look into the future and feel that something terrible is coming.

Late Pushkin is generally full of gloomy forebodings.

In particular, this is manifested in “The Bronze Horseman”.

It was a terrible time
The memory of her is fresh...
About her, my friends, for you
I'll start my story.
My story will be sad.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

Pushkin addresses his friends - why? Yes, in general, because there is very little hope for understanding. At the end of Onegin, he thinks about what kind of readers expect his work. Those looking for grammatical errors? Or those who are looking for material for a magazine controversy? There are others, but they are very few.

Or the poem “To the Poet”: “Poet! do not value people’s love...” Pushkin, especially the late Pushkin, writes very complexly: the simplicity of his poetics is deceptive. And in 1830, he was faced with a choice: either to please the public, who do not understand him, who say that “Onegin” lacks action, etc., or to write with the expectation that descendants will understand, but this is very difficult psychologically for the writer. Yes, he chooses the second, but this does not add optimism at all.

Further. Part one.
Over darkened Petrograd
November breathed the autumn chill.
Splashing with a noisy wave
To the edges of your slender fence,
Neva was tossing around like a sick person
Restless in my bed.

Before us is the Neva again: with the help of comparison, she is depicted as a living being, this line continues.

At that time from the guests home
Young Evgeniy came...
We will be our hero
Call by this name. It
Sounds nice; been with him for a long time
My pen is also friendly.

We are, of course, talking about Eugene Onegin. Yuri Lotman writes that Pushkin’s choice of the name “Eugene” is associated with literary tradition. This is Alexander Izmailov’s novel “Evgeny, or the Disastrous Consequences of Bad Education and Community,” where a hero named Evgeny Negodyaev is depicted. Or “Satires” by Cantemir. In both cases, Eugene is a young man of a noble family, unworthy of his noble ancestors; he is significantly worse than them for one reason or another.

We don't need his nickname,
Although in times gone by
Perhaps it shone
And under the pen of Karamzin
In native legends it sounded;
But now with light and rumor
It's forgotten.

So, the essential things are being said here. Evgeniy is a man of a very noble family, and in Pushkin’s era this is by no means a trifle. By the middle of the 19th century, noble origin will gradually lose its weight, but for now it is extremely important. However, it is not the formal affiliation with the nobility that is important. So, Griboyedov’s Molchalin, of course, received the nobility, but this does not mean anything, they did not care about it. Of course, everyone perceives him as a commoner, and, of course, Chatsky despises him primarily for this, like the other commoners who are mentioned there, in particular from Repetilov’s circle. This is a completely typical position for a nobleman of that time.

And vice versa, if even such a poor person as Eugene belongs to a noble family, this means that he can be received in the best houses. This means that, in principle, it should be taken very seriously. The hero of the poem has such an opportunity, he does not use it, but Eugene’s belonging to a noble family here, in the artistic construction of the poem, is extremely important.

On the other hand, the hero leads the life of a little person.

Our hero
Lives in Kolomna; serves somewhere
He shies away from the nobles and does not bother
Not about deceased relatives,
Not about forgotten antiquities.
It seems that this is all he wants. He has a fiancee, Parasha, he thinks about her:
“Perhaps a year or two will pass -
I’ll get a place, Parashe
I will entrust our family
And raising children...
And we will live, and so on until the grave
We'll both get there hand in hand
And our grandchildren will bury us..."
These are the thoughts of a purely private person, the psychology of a petty official.
It’s interesting that in Pushkin’s draft version there was:
You can get married - I'll arrange it
A humble corner for yourself
And in it I will calm Parasha -
Friend - kindergarten - cabbage soup pot -
Yes, he is big - why should I care?

“Yes, there’s a pot of cabbage soup, it’s a big one,”- I think you remember: these are the words of the author in Onegin’s Travels, about himself. Let this be said as a joke, but there is some kind of echo here.

And yet Evgeniy is very far from the author here. Eugene's immediate literary predecessor was Ivan Yezersky from the unfinished poem "Yezersky". In a sense, in style, this is a transitional work from The Bronze Horseman. And there Pushkin complains that

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

From the bar we climb into tiers étât
[third estate],
That our grandchildren will be poor,
And thank us for that
It seems no one will say.”

This is a purely noble position, which was very characteristic of Pushkin,

he defended the exceptional importance of the noble class and really did not want its representatives to lose the memory of their origin.

And it seems that Evgeniy is the “directly opposite” image. He has the psychology of a petty official. Well, what is a little man? This is a literary character whose psychology and behavior are determined by his extremely low social position. And it seems that everything is almost like this. Almost, but not quite.

What was he thinking about? About,
That he was poor, that he worked hard
He had to deliver to himself
Both independence and honor<…>.

But independence and honor are already categories of the psychology of a nobleman, something that is unusual for a small person. But for now, in the actant that we observe here, this seems to be unimportant, because the beginning associated with the little man dominates, and everything else is forgotten.

Or almost forgotten.
A new day is coming.
Terrible day!
Neva all night
Longing for the sea against the storm,
Without overcoming their violent foolishness...
And she was unable to argue...
In the morning over its banks
There were crowds of people crowded together,
Admiring the splashes, mountains
And the foam of angry waters.
But the strength of the winds from the bay
Blocked Neva
She walked back, angry, seething,
And flooded the islands...
The weather became more ferocious
The Neva swelled and roared,
A cauldron bubbling and swirling,
And suddenly, like a wild beast,
She rushed towards the city. In front of her
Everything ran, everything around
Suddenly it was empty - suddenly there was water
Flowed into underground cellars,
Channels poured into the gratings,
And Petropol surfaced like Triton,
Waist-deep in water.
Siege! attack! evil waves,
Like thieves, they climb into windows.

Look at the description. "Siege! attack!" - obviously, this is similar to the description of the storming of the Belogorsk fortress in The Captain's Daughter. “Like thieves climbing through windows,” that is, water does not just destroy something, it is the actions of a criminal and a robber.

Chelny
From the run the windows are smashed by the stern.
Trays under a wet veil,
Wrecks of huts, logs, roofs,
Stock trade goods,
The belongings of pale poverty,
Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,
Coffins from a washed-out cemetery
Floating through the streets!

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

On the one hand, Pushkin sought to describe the flood as accurately as possible, he emphasizes this in his comments. This is an externally perceived reality. On the other side,

All the time, a plot is unfolding before us, created with the help of metaphors and comparisons, a plot associated with the elements of popular rebellion.

Moreover, the comparisons “line up in one line” and thus through one image, through one focalization we can see a completely different one. This is an absolutely stunning literary device that would do credit to a modern writer. You can’t say at all that this is such a 19th century...

People
He sees God's wrath and awaits execution.
Alas! everything perishes: shelter and food!
Where will I get it?

The people see in what happened a manifestation of God’s wrath, that is, it is not the element of the Neva waves itself that is something of God, of course, this is not so, but the fact that God allows this to happen turns out to be significant, and in this the people see a manifestation of God’s wrath. Why not? Perhaps the people are right...

In that terrible year
The late Tsar was still in Russia
He ruled with glory. To the balcony
Sad, confused, he went out
And he said: “With God's element
Kings cannot control.”

This place is extremely important because it is here that the position of Alexander I is actually opposed to the position of Peter. If Peter does not want to see anything above him except the faceless forces of nature, and in fact tramples on nature, then Alexander clearly sees God’s will above him and believes that it is obviously higher than the will of the king. Humbly admits this. And when he says this, the excitement subsides.

He sat down
And in the Duma with sorrowful eyes
I looked at the evil disaster.
There were stacks of lakes,
And in them there are wide rivers
The streets poured in. Castle
It seemed like a sad island.
The king said - from end to end,
Along nearby streets and distant ones
On a dangerous journey through stormy waters
The generals set off
To save and overcome with fear
And there are drowning people at home.

So, if we take what is depicted literally, then we have a documentary reproduction of what happened in 1824; Pushkin writes in a special note that generals were sent.

It's clear why. Since there is chaos and confusion on the streets as a result of the flood, there can be theft and anything else. We need an army to restore order so that there are no troubles.

Yes, but on another level, where the elements of popular rebellion are depicted, generals are also needed there... As you know, Pugachevism was suppressed, in particular, by Suvorov himself.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

Then, on Petrova Square,
Where a new house has risen in the corner,
Where above the elevated porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
There are two guard lions standing<…>.
A specific house is described here, and now Pushkin scholars are arguing about which of the lions Eugene was sitting on.
Riding a marble beast,
Without a hat, hands clasped in a cross,
Sat motionless, terribly pale
Eugene.

So, he sits astride a lion “without a hat, his hands clasped in a cross” - just below it says that the wind “suddenly tore his hat off.” For Pushkin's contemporaries, the literary reference was completely obvious. Here you can simply quote “Eugene Onegin”, a description of the main character’s office:

And a post with a cast iron doll
Under a hat, with a cloudy brow,
With hands clenched in a cross.

In Pushkin’s era, there was no need to explain who he was; everyone recognized Napoleon immediately. Almost everyone wrote about him, and often pointedly kept silent about who they were talking about. He was already recognized by these mythologized features.

What does the figure of Napoleon mean here? Onegin says:

Having destroyed all prejudices,
We respect everyone as zeros,
And in units - yourself.
We all look at Napoleons;
There are millions of two-legged creatures
For us there is only one weapon<…>.

The mature Pushkin was characterized by a rather negative attitude towards the figure of Napoleon, as the embodiment of an atheistic-deist axiology. It is in this regard that Napoleon turns out to be a negative figure, although Pushkin admires him as a genius, and despite the very harsh characteristics of Peter in The Bronze Horseman. The late Pushkin writes “The Feast of Peter the Great,” where he admires how the tsar makes peace with his subject. That is, the poet fundamentally shares his attitude towards man and his attitude towards the activities of the emperor.

Here he brings Eugene closer to Napoleon. Firstly, Eugene is on the verge of rebellion, and Napoleon is a usurper, a man who seized power. And here it is especially significant that Eugene is a noble nobleman. In general, the logic of Eugene’s rebellion is connected with the logic of noble disobedience to authority. There is a dispute over which island Eugene was buried on.

So, Akhmatova believed that this was Goloday Island, on which the bodies of five executed Decembrists were buried. There are different opinions on this matter.

Personally, I am more inclined to join the point of view of Yuri Borev, who says that, regardless of which island is depicted in the poem, the artistic logic of the work points to the Decembrist theme, which Pushkin was forced to hide very carefully, because the slightest mention of it was prohibited.

In addition, Eugene riding a lion resembles the Bronze Horseman himself: he is also a kind of horseman...

But Evgeniy is not yet rebelling.
His desperate glances
Pointed to the edge
They were motionless. Like mountains
From the indignant depths
The waves rose there and got angry,
There the storm howled, there they rushed
Debris... God, God! there -
Alas! close to the waves,
Almost at the very bay -
The fence is unpainted, but the willow
And a dilapidated house: there it is,
Widow and daughter, his Parasha,
His dream... Or in a dream
Does he see this? or all ours
And life is nothing like an empty dream,
The mockery of heaven over earth?

We have the point of view of the hero of the poem, and we see that before he rebels against Peter, Eugene rebels against God.

And he seems to be bewitched
As if chained to marble,
Can't get off! Around him
Water and nothing else!
And with my back turned to him,
In the unshakable heights,
Above the indignant Neva
Stands with outstretched hand
Idol on a bronze horse.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

The poem was not published during Pushkin’s lifetime: it was too clearly an anti-Petrine work.

After his death, censorship corrections were introduced by V.A. Zhukovsky, and here instead of the word “idol” the word “giant” appears. Obviously, the word “idol” is associated with a pagan idol: "Don't make yourself an idol"(Deut 5:8).

In this case, it turns out that Peter creates an idol out of himself...

Further. Part two.
But now, having had enough of destruction
And tired of insolent violence,
The Neva was drawn back,
Admiring your indignation
And leaving with carelessness
Your prey. So villain
With his fierce gang
Having burst into the village, he breaks, cuts,
Destroys and robs; screams, gnashing,
Violence, swearing, anxiety, howling!..
And, burdened with robbery,
Afraid of the chase, tired,
The robbers are hurrying home,
Dropping prey on the way.

The image of the elements of popular revolt continues again. All these characteristics of the water element - villain, robbers - all these words were mentioned when talking about the Pugachevites. And here we see a continuation of the same plot. In fact, one can imagine (but in Pushkin’s era it was impossible) like film stills, when a translucent other is visible through one image:

through one plot we see a completely different one.

Further. Eugene, at the risk of his life, hires a ferryman and sails on a boat through the raging waves in order to find the house of his bride. He sees that everything there is destroyed, everything is terrible, the house was demolished, dead bodies are lying around.

Eugene
Headlong, not remembering anything,
Exhausted from torment,
Runs to where he is waiting
Fate with unknown news,
Like with a sealed letter.

The time will come when he will receive this terrible letter.

And suddenly hitting his forehead with his hand,
I started laughing.
<…>
Morning ray
Because of the tired, pale clouds
Flashed over the quiet capital,
And I haven’t found any traces
Yesterday's troubles; purple
The evil was already covered up.
Everything returned to the same order.
The streets are already free
With your cold insensibility
People were walking.

The description of the city is distinctly ominous. Yes, Pushkin loves it, yes, this city is beautiful, but at the same time it is monstrous.

As you know, what is commonly called the St. Petersburg text begins with The Bronze Horseman. This is a complex of myths in which St. Petersburg is conceptualized as a mystical, ominous city, gradually destroying all living things.

Here's an interesting detail:
Brave trader,
Not discouraged, I opened
Neva robbed basement<…>.

Look, if the Neva simply flooded this basement, its contents would simply be ruined. But he was robbed, that is, before us is an image of people’s actions. These are the features of that second plot, which hides behind the appearance of reality, which, however, is also present, it is even significant in its own way, but only the other is incomparably more significant.

Count Khvostov,
Poet beloved by heaven
Already sang in immortal verses
The misfortune of the Neva banks.

Count Khvostov is the epigone of classicism, the kindest man, rich, who published his works in his own printing house. Romantics made fun of him because the way he wrote looked like an absurd anachronism. Pushkin also laughs in the poem “You and I”:

You are rich, I am very poor;
You are a prose writer, I am a poet;
<…>
Aphedron, you're so fat
You wipe with calico;
I'm a sinful hole
I don't indulge in children's fashion
And Khvostov’s harsh ode,
Even though I wince, I struggle.

Illustrations by A. N. Benois (1870–1960) for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”

This is hooliganism, of course: it’s inconvenient to rub, because Khvostov’s paper is good, thick...

Here our epigone is depicted, it would seem, from a very, very positive perspective: before us is a kind of poetic quick response service. An event has just happened, and he is already singing about it, and in completely immortal verses...

But my poor, poor Evgeniy...
Alas! His confused mind
Against terrible shocks
I couldn't resist. Rebellious noise
The Neva and the winds were heard
In his ears.

It turns out that Eugene’s rebellion is provoked, in particular, by a popular revolt. Approximately this situation is depicted by Pushkin in Dubrovsky. First, the peasants want to rebel, and at the same time the nobles also want to rebel.

He was tormented by some kind of dream.
A week passed, a month - he
He did not return to his home.

Eugene leads the lifestyle of a homeless tramp; he, it would seem, does not at all look like a rebellious nobleman.

He'll be out soon
Became alien. I wandered on foot all day,
And he slept on the pier; ate
A piece served into the window.
His clothes are shabby
It tore and smoldered. Angry children
They threw stones after him.
Often coachman's whips
He was whipped because
That he didn't understand the roads
Never again; it seemed he
Didn't notice. He's stunned
Was the noise of internal anxiety.
And so he is his unhappy age
Dragged, neither beast nor man,
Neither this nor that, nor the inhabitant of the world,
Not a dead ghost...

So, what's going on with Eugene? He completely falls out of the social system, dependence on which was previously so important for him. What makes a little person different? Extremely high dependence on his low social position, on his superiors, on the social pyramid that is above him. But now there is nothing above Evgeniy. Yes, he leads the most miserable, most wretched life, that’s all, but there is no longer any authority over him. And therefore, we can no longer assume that we have a small person in front of us. The little man disappears, and only the rebellious nobleman remains.

Grim Shaft
Splashed on the pier, grumbling fines
And hitting the smooth steps,
Like a petitioner at the door
Judges who don't listen to him.

Look: the same plot continues again. The popular revolt was crushed, and now petitioners, relatives of those who took part in the uprising, are walking around and asking for their relatives: “He is not guilty, forgive him, he was stupid...” This plot consistently continues all the time.

Evgeny jumped up; remembered vividly
He is a past horror; hastily
He got up; went wandering, and suddenly
Stopped and around
He quietly began to move his eyes
With wild fear on your face.
He found himself under the pillars
Big house. On the porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
The lions stood guard,
And right in the dark heights
Above the fenced rock
Idol with outstretched hand
Sat on a bronze horse.
“In the Dark Heights”: darkness from above...
Evgeny shuddered. cleared up
The thoughts in it are scary. He found out
And the place where the flood played,
Where the waves of predators crowded,
Rioting angrily around him,
And Lviv, and the square, and Togo

[“Togo” again with a capital letter: our earthly deity is like this...],

Who stood motionless
In the darkness with a copper head,
The one whose will is fatal
The city was founded under the sea...

“Under the sea” - what does it mean? Firstly, this is due to the fact that St. Petersburg was built below sea level: the most unfavorable place in terms of geographical conditions was chosen. It's swampy and will flood. In general, “we are destined by nature to be here...”. Granite banks were necessary, gradually this granite was built higher and higher, and yet St. Petersburg periodically floods.

But there is something else here.

The 23rd Psalm, well known in Pushkin’s era, since it is included in the rule read before Communion: “The earth is the Lord’s and the things that fill it, the world and everything that lives in it, for He founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers.”(Ps 23:1–2). God founded the earth on seas and rivers, but the self-proclaimed earth god does the exact opposite. This is such a demiurge, even great in his own way, but what he does is initially with a wormhole...

He is terrible in the surrounding darkness!
[this is the center of darkness again]
What a thought on the brow!
What power is hidden in it!
And what fire there is in this horse!
Where are you galloping, proud horse?
And where will you put your hooves?
O mighty lord of fate!
Aren't you above the abyss?
At the height, with an iron bridle
Raised Russia on its hind legs?

He raised Russia on its hind legs over the abyss, keeping it from falling. It’s good, of course, that he kept it, but the question only arises: who brought her to the abyss?

Around the foot of the idol
[this word “idol” is repeated again - a pagan idol]
The poor madman walked around
And brought wild glances
On the faces of the ruler of half the world.

For now, let’s remember this line about “the ruler of half the world.”

His chest felt tight. Chelo
It lay down on the cold grate
[it is clear that it is associated with a feeling of lack of freedom],
My eyes became foggy,
A fire ran through my heart,
Blood boiled. He became gloomy
Before the proud idol<…>.

An idol is a soulless idol. And in the censored version, Zhukovsky says simply wonderful: “Before the marvelous Russian giant,” which, by the way, caused Belinsky to be wildly delighted and gave rise to a magnificent interpretation of the poem, supposedly telling about the conflict between the individual and the state. Allegedly, Peter I embodies state necessity, and Eugene is a person who suffers. But still, state necessity is more important... So, based on the censored text, a very strange interpretation arose, which, alas, is still alive today.

And, clenching my teeth, clenching my fingers,
As if possessed by black power,
“Welcome, miraculous builder! -
He whispered, trembling angrily, -
Already for you!..”

The word “good” in the mouth of Eugene is a clever antithesis to the words “for evil” at the beginning of the poem, which we hear from the lips of Peter. This is “good” in which there is not a drop of good: the evil generated by Peter, in turn, gives rise to reciprocal evil on the part of Eugene, whose rebellion Pushkin, of course, does not sympathize with. The description here is quite negative: “As if possessed by black power,” “trembling angrily.”

Pushkin did not approve of the noble rebellion. He ideologically disagreed with the Decembrists even during the writing of “Boris Godunov” in 1824–1825,

this is already evident in the poem “October 19” of 1825, where a lyrical subject psychologically very close to the author raises a toast to the Tsar, which is extremely unlikely from a pro-Decembrist oriented person. In fact, from that time on, Pushkin became a monarchist, albeit with complex reservations. But at the same time he becomes a very unorthodox monarchist,
inclined to criticize a lot - a monarchist who often irritates the tsar himself. At some point, Pushkin was even going to go over to the opposition... Everything was very complicated there.

But in general, Pushkin’s political orientations were rather monarchical: he did not like democracy, and, reading Tocqueville, he perceived his book about democracy in America with horror. In no case did Pushkin want anything like this for Russia. However, in a predominantly peasant country there could be no democracy, and in this sense the poet was situationally right. Democracy arises in countries where the majority of the population lives in cities, where there is a powerful middle class, this implies a completely different situation. In Russia at that time, nothing like this was even planned, and therefore

Pushkin did not approve of the Decembrist rebellion. Another thing is that he very much supported the Decembrists as his friends.

Moreover, he felt guilty that they had suffered very seriously, while he, who had shared their ideas for several years, suffered almost no harm at all. So the relationship was not easy.

Pushkin considered it right to be friends with both the Tsar and the Decembrists. And when the poet was accused of flattery to the king, he gave an angry rebuke to this - the poem “To Friends.” Pushkin, of course, was not a flatterer; he had his own difficult position, which many did not accept, but it was what it was.

And suddenly headlong
He started to run. It seemed
He is like a formidable king,
Instantly ignited with anger,
The face quietly turned...

The Bronze Horseman's head turns. Obviously, this looks like a scene from The Stone Guest.

And its area is empty
He runs and hears behind him -
It's like thunder roaring -
Heavy ringing galloping
Along the shaken pavement.
And, illuminated by the pale moon,
Stretching out your hand on high,
The Bronze Horseman rushes after him
On a loud galloping horse.

"Illuminated by the pale moon". Here we see a very interesting technique, generally characteristic of Pushkin. Pushkin was not very fond of frontal, straightforward references, especially since censorship was also not very conducive to this kind of love. And yet, when reading this text, an association naturally arises with the famous fragment of the “Apocalypse”: “I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider, whose name was “death”; and hell followed him; and he was given authority over the fourth part of the earth<…>» (Rev 6:8). In Pushkin, Peter is hyperbolically called “the ruler of half the world.”

“Pale horse” is a very controversial question as to how to correctly translate this word. In Greek (more precisely, in Koine, the popular simplified version of the Greek language in which the New Testament is written) it is “χλωρός” (can be understood as “pale”, or “pale green”, there are other options). In Pushkin, the moon turns out to be pale, the reference here is demonstratively not direct. By the way, in the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...” we see something similar. “He ascended higher with the head of the rebellious / Pillar of Alexandria”. Alexandrian is from the word Alexandria, and not from the word Alexander. Back in 1937, Henri Gregoire drew attention to this. The Pillar of Alexandria is, formally speaking, the Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. It is also worth considering that Pushkin’s poem refers us to Horace. However, on the other hand, as Oleg Proskurin convincingly showed, the word “pillar” in the Pushkin era and by Pushkin himself was used precisely in the meaning of a pillar, and not a pyramid, although, in principle, such a meaning was possible. And yet Alexandrian. Proskurin, in particular, says that Alexandrian motifs may also be present here, yes, but in any case, we have an indirect reference that works in such a way that on the external level this is the Faros lighthouse, but one cannot remember the structure, which was not called “Alexandrian Pillar”, but “Alexander’s Pillar”, was impossible. It was impossible not to see this hidden reference.

These kind of indirect textual parallels are, in principle, characteristic of Pushkin, and, most likely, the same thing happened with the island of Goloday. Moreover, in the prose oral passage “The Secluded House on Vasilievsky” gives a topographical description of Goloday, without calling him by name: he was clearly interested in this place.

So the Bronze Horseman pursues the rebellious nobleman, and then the riot is put down.

And from the time when it happened
He should go to that square,
His face showed
Confusion. To your heart
He hastily pressed his hand,
As if subduing him with torment,
A worn out cap,
Didn’t raise embarrassed eyes
And he walked aside.

In Pushkin’s draft, instead of “cap” there is “kalpak” - not with an “o”, but with an “a”. The kalpak evokes associations with the holy fool’s cap, so perhaps there is a more meaningful option hidden here.

And then on the “small island” we see the deceased Eugene. So, what is the meaning of what is revealed to us?

In fact, we have before us a combination, the superposition of two revolts on top of each other - the common people-peasant and, albeit disguised, but still noble.

Why is this so? Pushkin does not approve of either rebellion. He describes them rather with horror.

The poet is full of gloomy forebodings, and, apparently, we are talking primarily about the fact that if these two revolts coincide, then Russia may not be able to resist.

As a matter of fact, this is what will happen during the revolution.

There is another symbolism here. The flood of 1824, which is described here, occurred on November 7, although according to the old style. Pushkin, of course, could not understand this ontological symbolism.

But in general, what happened happened. Thank you.

Pavel Evseevich Spivakovsky - Candidate of Philological Sciences, 2004–2011. - Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Literature of the State Institute of Russian Language named after. A. S. Pushkin, since 2011 - Associate Professor of the Department of History of Russian Literature of the 20th Century, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. In the 2012/2013 academic year, Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Published with the permission of the copyright holders - Pravmir Lecture Hall, which contains unique lectures on literature, culture, archeology, and social studies.