What distinguishes Romashov from other officers. What is Romashov's tragedy? The main character in the assessment of criticism

The writer Alexander Kuprin became known to everyone after the story “The Duel” was published in one of the collections in the spring of 1905. The book quickly sold out, and after about a month the work had to be reprinted. The author shows the royal army in the story, those inhumane conditions that exist in it ordinary soldiers. Everything he writes about, Alexander Kuprin saw when he served in the army. In the depiction of Lieutenant Kuprin, life in the army has long been vulgarized, and has a dulling effect on a person.

But then the author says that it is difficult to escape from such a life. And the officer must either continue to think about his studies at the military academy, or pull this burden further, hoping to retire with the assigned pension salary. The life of the officers is scheduled: drills and classes to study army regulations, drinking, relationships with women, balls, obligatory card games and trips to a brothel. But sometimes, for variety, parades and maneuvers were held.

The story shows many officers: Vetkin is a kind fellow and does not strive for anything, Plum is a company commander, a stupid captain, Osadchiy is an officer who believes that war can change everything, Zegrzhet is a widowed lieutenant who barely has enough money for his maintenance small children, and he has four of them, Rafalsky is a lieutenant colonel, whose name is Bram, she came from a passion for the menagerie, Bobetinsky is trying to pretend to be a socialite, but he is actually a dummy, Archakovsky is cheating at cards, and others. All the officers that Alexander Kuprin shows do not evoke any sympathy. Thus, officer Rafalsky beats a soldier-bugler just because he is tired and plays a different signal on his instrument.

The action of Kuprin's story takes place at the end of the 19th century. At that time, duels were very popular, especially between officers. But the author dwelled in more detail on the scenes of beating and humiliation of soldiers. In a bright way The soldier of the people is the soldier Khlebnikov, whom the soldiers constantly mock. A. Kuprin not only denounces the order that reigns in the army, but main meaning lies in the devastation and inhumanity of people who find themselves in army conditions. The author contrasts two heroes: Romashov and Nazansky.

Romashov is a second lieutenant; many critics found similarities in his features with the author. He was born and raised in small town Narovchata Penza province. Little is known about his family: his mother lives in Moscow, the hero does not remember his father. Second lieutenant studied at cadet corps, where he began to get involved in writing. A charming young man attracts the reader's attention with the purity of his soul. He is a compassionate soldier and naive, but such a person will not be able to live long in an army environment. Service is a burden to him, since there are moral monsters around him. He dreams of breaking out of this inhumanity.

Romashov is supported in his humanistic dreams by his friend officer Nazansky. And the second lieutenant’s humanism is manifested in every scene of Kuprin’s story: Romashov condemns the cruel punishment of the soldiers, his acquaintance with Khlebnikov, who has already despaired, the way he protects a woman and at the same time is burdened by his vulgar connections with Raisa Peterson, and in his pure love to Alexandra Petrovna. Kuprin's hero is dreamy, but he is only twenty years old. He dreams of changing the world, but maintaining honor and faith in his fatherland.

The same dreams, but more mature ones, also arise in officer Nazansky. A cheerful officer tries to enjoy all the joys of life, but he does not like the army. He idolizes women, and he considers love for them sacred. He speaks enthusiastically about unrequited love to a woman. Romashov considers him his teacher, he sees him as a sage. Nazansky accuses the officers of not striving for a new life and remaining blind and deaf to it. The officer does not believe in the biblical commandments, and does not want to accept thoughts about serving or fulfilling his duty. According to the hero, you need to love only yourself and serve yourself. He believes that the time will come when people themselves will become gods. But these thoughts can be regarded as simple selfishness.

Nazansky and Romashov are united by their disgust for the traditions and orders that exist in tsarist army, where officers forget about honor, and common man humiliate and suppress. But there is also a difference in their views. Nazansky despises weak people, and Romashov treats him with care. Romashov believes that every person has three main recognitions that he must realize. This is art, science and physical labor, but at will. But in Russia, where autocratic and serfdom reigned, no free labor was possible.

The atmosphere of human decay and stupefaction covers not only officers. Officers' wives live boring life, they are ignorant and narrow-minded. Kuprin's prominent representative of such an officer's wife is Raisa Peterson. The author begins the reader's acquaintance with this woman with letters that she writes and sends to Romashov. The content is stupid and vulgar, they are both sentimental and angry at the same time. But from them you can easily imagine the heroine herself. When Romashov informs her that he is breaking off this vulgar relationship, she begins to take revenge on him, disgustingly and vilely. Raisa writes anonymous letters, which become the culprits of Romashova’s death in a duel.

The image of Nikolaeva is drawn differently. IN image of Shurochka Alexander Kuprin contributed all his talent and sensitivity. Alexandra Petrovna is charming and beautiful in appearance, she is smart, a woman has both a sense of tact and sensitivity. That is why Romashov falls in love with her. Nazansky is in love with him too. But beautiful woman she is frightened by what awaits her ahead: children, a small salary and the rank of an officer’s wife, and poverty. But she always dreams of dressing well, looking beautiful and graceful, so that people will worship her. In the meantime, she lives with her husband, whom she does not love at all, he is disgusting to her, but she demands that he enter the academy so that he can make a career in the future.

To achieve this, she is ready to sacrifice Nazansky’s love, and even betray both the love of the second lieutenant and Romashov himself. For the sake of her goals, she gives herself to Romashov in order to deprive him of his will. Therefore, the image of Shurochka is shown by the author as distorted, devoid of humanity. Its main life goal- go out into high society, where she would be successful, and escape from this province. Alexandra Petrovna is depicted by the author as selfish.

The story by Alexander Kuprin is a strong and vibrant work. In it, a person who is cheerful and philanthropic is contrasted with a society where the individual is humiliated and suppressed. And this was the real, real way of life in Russia at that time. Therefore, “The Duel” also contains a humanistic meaning. And the writer’s criticism of the army turns to criticism of the system of life that gives rise to such anti-human relations. Kuprin ends his story with a report about Romashov’s duel, in which he was killed. The author ends his story with a fatal shot for the main character.

Oct 27 2010

The story by A.I. Kuprin was published in May 1905. The author continued his description army life. From sketches of the life of a provincial garrison grows a social generalization of the decomposition of not only the army, but also the country as a whole, state system. This is about the crisis that has engulfed various areas Russian life. The universal hatred that is corroding the army is a reflection of the enmity that has engulfed Tsarist Russia. In “The Duel,” as in none of his other works, Kuprin with great artistic power depicted moral decay officers, showed stupid commanders, devoid of any glimpses of civil service. He showed muzzled, intimidated soldiers, dull from senseless drill, such as the puny left-flank soldier Khlebnikov.

Even if they met humane officers, they were subjected to ridicule, died senselessly, like Second Lieutenant Romashov, or became drunkards, like Nazansky. Kuprin made his hero a humane, but weak and quiet man who does not fight evil, but suffers from it. Even the last name - Romashov - emphasized the gentleness and gentleness of this man.

Kuprin draws Georgy Romashov with compassion and sympathy, but also with the author's irony. Romashova, externally connected with the army, is not just the story of a young officer. This is history young man, who is experiencing what Kuprin calls “the period of maturation of the soul.” Romashov grows morally throughout the story and finds answers to questions that are very important to him. He suddenly comes to the conclusion that the army is unnecessary, but he understands this very naively. It seems to him that all of humanity should say “I don’t want to!” - and it will become unthinkable and the army will die out. Second Lieutenant Romashov decides to break with those around him and understands that every soldier has his own “I”. He outlined completely new connections with the world. The title of the story has the same generalizing solution as its main conflict.

Throughout the story there is a duel between the young man, reborn for the new, and the various forces of the old. Kuprin writes not about a duel of honor, but about murder in a duel. The final treacherous blow was dealt to Romashov in love. Disdain for the weak, hatred of the feeling of pity, which sounded in Nazansky’s speeches, is carried out in practice by Shurochka. Despising environment and her morality, Shurochka Nikolaeva turns out to be an integral part of her. The plot of the story ends symbolically: against a man who has begun to spread his wings, old world throws all his strength.

In the summer and autumn of 1905, Kuprin's story stirred up readers in the Russian army and throughout the country, and very soon its translations appeared in the main European languages. The writer receives not only the broadest all-Russian fame, but also all-European fame.

A.I. Kuprin entered Russian literature as a singer of bright and healthy human feelings, as a successor to democratic and humanistic ideas great Russian literature of the 19th century century. Critical realism, whose glorious traditions were adopted by Kuprin, was a progressive phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century. Bright natural talent, a huge stock of life observations and a sharply critical image of reality - this is what determined the great public resonance of his works during the preparation and conduct of the first Russian revolution. At this time, Kuprin was working on the story “The Duel,” which he began writing in 1902. Published in the sixth collection of the magazine “Knowledge” in 1905, the story “The Duel” evoked a wide response. The pathos of exposing bourgeois society, high artistic merit put “The Duel” on a par with the largest works of Russian literature at the turn of two centuries.

The story takes place in the 90s of the 19th century. In “The Duel,” the author explains the reasons for the defeat of the tsarist army in the inglorious war with Japan. This “agony of old Russia” is the main theme of the story. However, in this work one should distinguish several thematic lines, which, intertwined, give a holistic picture of the officer environment, the barracks life of the soldiers, the personal relationships of Romashov and Kazansky, Romashov and Shurochka Nikolaeva, and finally, the relationship of the hero with the soldiers.

Main actor story - second lieutenant Romashov. This image most fully embodied the features of the Kuprin hero - a truth-seeker, a humanist, a lonely dreamer. Among the officers, Romashov feels lonely, since he does not share the views of the officers around him. Romashov protests with all his soul against the nightmare called “military service,” as he comes to the conclusion that “all military service, with its illusory valor, was created by a cruel, shameful, universal misunderstanding.” “How can there exist a class,” Romashov asked himself, “which in peacetime, without bringing a tiny bit of benefit, eats other people’s bread and meat, dresses in other people’s clothes, lives in other people’s houses, and war time- goes to senselessly kill and maim people like themselves?”

A person with a fine mental organization, possessing a sense of self-worth and justice, he is easily vulnerable, sometimes almost defenseless against the evils of life. Already at the beginning of the story, we notice Romashov’s “unadaptability” to army life, his lack of understanding of “military discipline.” The painful emptiness of army life pushes him into a casual relationship with the regimental “seductress” Raisa Peterson, who soon becomes unbearable for him. Garrison life with drunkenness and provincial squalor increasingly alienates Romashov. The dream of beautiful and fairy-tale love makes Romashov idealize the image of a young, attractive woman- Shurochka Nikolaeva. For the hero of the story, she is “a ray of light in dark kingdom" His dreams and hopes are connected with her. Blinded by love, Romashov did not see that Shurochka’s beauty, her charm, willpower, talent - all this was intended for the struggle for her personal, small, selfish happiness: to break out of the bourgeoisie by any means. army environment and find the highest happiness in the “brilliant” life of metropolitan society.

The love tragedy in “The Duel” grows out of a social tragedy. In the relationship between Romashov and Shurochka, two characters collide, two worldviews that arose within the framework of bourgeois society and testify to the disintegration taking place in it. Why is it impossible for Shurochka and Romashov to be happy? Yes, only because Shurochka is trying with all her might to strengthen her position, and Romashov is gradually losing ground under his feet, because spiritual and moral values this society.

The final love tragedy Romashov is visited by Shurochka at night. She came to deceive - to deceive basely and shamelessly, to offer conditions for a duel with her husband and at the cost of Romashov’s life to buy her future well-being and happiness. Romashov guesses the purpose of her coming and agrees to all the conditions of the fatal duel with Shurochka’s husband. He speaks about this calmly and coldly: “Okay, so be it. I agree". In these in simple words there is a whole story - history tragic love a restless dreamer to a woman in whose soul the morality of “living for oneself” has eradicated human feelings. Romashov understood everything; in his firmly spoken words there was a cold awareness that life had lost its value for him. And here the spiritual superiority of Romashov over Shurochka Nikolaeva, as well as over other inhabitants of the bourgeois world around him, becomes obvious.

Romashov dies because Shurochka makes the conditions of the duel unequal (she promises Romashov that her husband, knowing the conditions of the duel, will shoot to the side). The inevitability of a tragic outcome follows here from deep social reasons. The hero of the story is not able to exist in the whirlpool of bourgeois society, built on hypocrisy and deception, but he is also not able to find a place for himself among the people, to draw strength for a new life from its midst. This is precisely what makes the image of Romashov tragic. The writer, without understanding true reasons the evil he portrayed, could not find a way to overcome it. Without recognizing military service, denying the morality of the “aristocratic” stratum of army officers, Romashov felt powerless before life, since he could not leave military service. The honesty and subtlety of the spiritual organization make him feel his powerlessness especially painfully. He finds illusory consolation in the world of uncontrollable, naive dreams. In this world, Romashov is no longer a poor second lieutenant, but a hero, daring, fearless, beautiful. But a dream does not serve as a source of creative inspiration, but primarily as a means of escape, an escape from reality.

The fate of Romashov continued to worry Kuprin for a long time. After the publication of the story, the author continued to be tormented by the fate of the main character and could not part with him. Kuprin intended to re-write the duel scene, save Romashov’s life and show his hero in the thick of it folk life. From the memoirs of Kuprin's wife M.K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya one could find out about future fate Romashova: “And here he is in Kyiv. The days of unemployment, wandering, fierce need, changing professions, and at times downright beggary begin..." However, the writer's plan - to create a new work, "Beggars", which is a continuation of "The Duel", with Romashov as the main character - remained unfulfilled. The history of the idea indicated that Kuprin intended to show only the gloomy and tragic in his contemporary reality. In his search for a hero, the creator of “The Duel” came to a point that was difficult for him to cross. In life, the type of truth-seeker-fighter had already been formed, but the writer could not part with the type of truth-seeker-sufferer. This was noted by A.M. Gorky, who once said to Kuprin: “What is this! Why are you all mourning your Romashov! He did a smart thing when he finally decided to die and untie your hands. Tell me what he would do in your novel, why would this intellectual, incapable of anything except whining, exist there...” To which Kuprin answered with his characteristic frankness: “He hoped to make me a herald of the revolution, which completely owned them. But I was not imbued with a fighting mood, and I could not foresee in advance what direction my future work would take.”

“Love is the brightest and most understandable reproduction of my

The story by A.I. Kuprin was published in May 1905. The author continued in it with a description of army life. From sketches of the life of a provincial garrison emerges a social generalization of the decomposition of not only the army, but also the country as a whole, and the state system. This is a story about a crisis that has engulfed various spheres of Russian life. The general hatred corroding the army is a reflection of the hostility that gripped Tsarist Russia. In “The Duel,” as in none of his other works, Kuprin depicted with great artistic force the moral decay of the officers, showing stupid commanders deprived of any glimpses of civil service. He showed muzzled, intimidated soldiers, dull from senseless drill, such as the puny left-flank soldier Khlebnikov.

Even if they met humane officers, they were subjected to ridicule, died senselessly, like Second Lieutenant Romashov, or became drunkards, like Nazansky. Kuprin made his hero a humane, but weak and quiet man who does not fight evil, but suffers from it. Even the hero’s surname - Romashov - emphasized the gentleness and gentleness of this person.

Kuprin draws Georgy Romashov with compassion and sympathy, but also with the author’s irony. The story of Romashov, externally connected with the army, is not just the story of a young officer. This is the story of a young man who is going through what Kuprin calls “the period of maturation of the soul.” Romashov grows morally throughout the story and finds answers to questions that are very important to him. He suddenly comes to the conclusion that the army is unnecessary, but he understands this very naively. It seems to him that all of humanity should say “I don’t want to!” - and war will become unthinkable and the army will die out. Second Lieutenant Romashov decides to break with those around him and understands that every soldier has his own “I”. He outlined completely new connections with the world. The title of the story has the same generalizing solution as its main conflict.

Throughout the story there is a duel between the young man, reborn for the new, and the various forces of the old. Kuprin writes not about a duel of honor, but about murder in a duel. The final treacherous blow was dealt to Romashov in love. Disdain for the weak, hatred of the feeling of pity, which sounded in Nazansky’s speeches, is carried out in practice by Shurochka. Despising the environment and its morality, Shurochka Nikolaeva turns out to be an integral part of it. The plot of the story ends symbolically: the old world throws all its might against the man who has begun to spread his wings.

In the summer and autumn of 1905, Kuprin's story stirred up readers in the Russian army and throughout the country, and very soon its translations appeared in the main European languages. The writer receives not only the broadest all-Russian fame, but also all-European fame.