Scientific research of the novel Eugene Onegin. Abstract "The novel "Eugene Onegin" in Russian criticism"

Scientific research of the novel “Eugene Onegin”

Roman A.S. Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” is one of the most inexhaustible and profound works of Russian literature, which is confirmed by a huge number of studies by modern literary scholars devoted to the form, genre of the novel in verse, the essence of the plan and its implementation, the ideological, aesthetic, moral and philosophical issues of the novel. These studies began with the critical works of the 19th and 20th centuries. “Author of the first philosophical review of our literature” I.V. Kireyevsky was one of the first to give a serious critical assessment of Pushkin’s work, despite the fact that, in his opinion, “it is difficult ... to find a general expression for the nature of his poetry, which took so many different forms.” However, the critic spoke quite unequivocally about the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”: “Its distinctive features are: picturesqueness, some carelessness, some special thoughtfulness and, finally, something inexpressible, understandable only to the Russian heart.” The critic also spoke about the poet’s desire for originality, which, according to him, is revealed in the work. In conclusion, speaking about “the strong influence that the poet has on his compatriots,” Kireyevsky noted in this regard “another important quality in the character of his poetry - relevance to his time.”

The question of the national and global significance of Pushkin was first raised by V.G. Belinsky. “Pushkin was the perfect expression of his time... the contemporary world, but the Russian world, but Russian humanity.” In the article “Literary Dreams” the critic identified the main issue of literary life - the problem of nationality in literature. Nationality, which consists of freedom from alien influences and “fidelity to the depiction of pictures of Russian life,” acts, as Belinsky rightly points out, as a criterion for Pushkin’s national significance. In Belinsky's fundamental work - a cycle of 11 articles under the general title "Works of Alexander Pushkin" (1843-1846) - a well-known formula appears about "Eugene Onegin" as "an encyclopedia of Russian life and a highly popular work."

Critic A.V. Druzhinin in his article “A.S. Pushkin and the last edition of his works” (1855) approached Pushkin’s work “from the position of the “absolute” principles of art, its “eternal” principles, and it is natural that for him in many ways the super-historical meaning of Pushkin’s work is revealed, which goes far beyond of its time." “Onegin,” the critic wrote, “on the whole seems to be one of the most entertaining novels that has ever occurred to the most highly gifted writers.” Druzhinin noted such features of the novel as “harmoniousness”, “masterful combination of story with lyricism”, “unexpected denouement” and “influence on the reader’s curiosity”. A. Grigoriev, the author of the famous formula “Pushkin is our everything,” believed that “the best that was said about Pushkin” in contemporary criticism “was reflected in Druzhinin’s articles.” He himself rightly spoke of the poet as “the only complete sketch of our national personality,” a “nugget.” Pushkin, in his opinion, is “our original type, already measured against other European types, passing through in consciousness the phases of development that they went through, but fraternizing with them in consciousness.” The nature of the Russian genius, according to A. Grigoriev, responded to everything “to the best of the Russian soul.” This statement anticipated the words of F.M. Dostoevsky about Pushkin’s “worldwide responsiveness”: “he shares this... most important ability of our nationality with our people, and most importantly, he is a people’s poet.”

Criticism of Russian symbolism saw in Pushkin a prophet, a spiritual standard and a moral guideline for the artist. “Pushkin... with a sensitive ear foresaw the future trembling of our modern soul,” V. Bryusov wrote about the genius-prophet, and on the basis of this he put forward the main requirement for the modern poet: the offering of a “sacred sacrifice” “not only in poetry, but with every hour of his life, with every feeling..." "Creativity consists not only in the rattling of an absent-minded hand on the lyre, but also in the painful work of translating images into words,” critics of the early 20th century F. Sologub and Ivanov-Razumnik rightly wrote about the enormous work done by Pushkin during the period of creation novel in verse "Eugene Onegin".

The history of commenting on the novel “Eugene Onegin” is interesting. After all, as soon as Pushkin’s novel transcended its time and became the property of a new reading environment, much in it required additional explanation. In the 20th century, the first post-revolutionary editions of Pushkin’s works generally refused to comment on “Eugene Onegin.” Separate editions of “Eugene Onegin” appeared, equipped with brief comments by G.O. Vinokura and B.O. Tomashevsky and intended mainly for a wide range of readers. Let us note the significant importance of brief footnotes and explanatory articles to the school edition of “Eugene Onegin”, carried out by S.M. Bondi. These comments also influenced the scientific understanding of Eugene Onegin. In 1932, a new commentary was created by N.L. Brodsky. About the goals and objectives of his book “Eugene Onegin”. Roman A.S. Pushkin" Brodsky wrote in the preface to the third edition, stating that the task arose to outline the time that determined the fate and psychology of the main characters of the novel, to reveal the circle of ideas of the author himself in a constantly changing reality. Book by N.L. Brodsky was addressed, in particular, to a literature teacher, on whose level of knowledge about “Eugene Onegin” the presentation of it to students depends. In this sense, the significance of Brodsky's work is very great. However, recognizing Pushkin’s novel as the pinnacle monument of literature of the 19th century, Brodsky views it primarily as a work that has forever become a thing of the past and belongs to him.

In 1978, “Eugene Onegin” was published with comments by A.E. Tarkhova. The goal that the author has set for himself is to analyze the creative history of the novel in unity with the evolution of the hero. Despite the fact that the author pays attention primarily to general textual comments rather than to particulars, his work provides readers of Pushkin’s novel with detailed material for understanding Eugene Onegin, based on the previous scientific tradition.
One of the most significant events in the modern interpretation of “Eugene Onegin” was the publication in 1980 of a commentary by Yu.M. Lotman, addressed, like the work of N. L. Brodsky, to the teaching audience. In the book "Eugene Onegin". Commentary" includes "Essay on the life of the nobility of Onegin's time" - a valuable guide for studying not only "Eugene Onegin", but in general all Russian literature of Pushkin's time. The structure of the book is designed, as the researcher himself notes, for parallel reading with Pushkin’s text. The basis of the scientific commentary by Yu.M. Lotman has deep textual work. The commentary provides two types of explanations: textual, intertextual and conceptual (the author gives historical, literary, stylistic, and philosophical interpretations). The task set by the researcher - “to bring the reader closer to the semantic life of the text” - is solved in this book at the highest level.

Foreign authors have also turned to commentary on “Eugene Onegin” more than once. Among the most famous are the extensive commentary by V.V. Nabokov, characterized by detailed explanations of numerous details of the text of Pushkin’s novel. Here, an important place is occupied by lengthy excursions into the history of literature and culture, versification, as well as translator’s notes and comparisons with previous experiences of translating “Eugene Onegin” into English. The writer explains realities that are incomprehensible primarily to a foreign language reader. His work also has its costs: excessively detailed reasoning, sometimes too harsh polemics with his predecessors. Nevertheless, this commentary represents a significant achievement in Western Pushkin studies - primarily in terms of the thoroughness and scale of commentary on the text of the novel.
In 1999, the Moscow publishing house “Russian Way” published the “Onegin Encyclopedia” in 2 volumes, in the creation of which researchers such as N.I. took part. Mikhailova, V.A. Koshelev, N.M. Fedorova, V.A. Viktorovich and others. The encyclopedia differs from the previously created commentaries on Eugene Onegin in its special organizational principle: it combines articles of different genres (small studies, literary essays, brief explanations of the text of the novel). The encyclopedia is supplied with rich illustrative material. A big advantage of the publication is that it is addressed to both specialists and a wide range of readers. We can say that the compilers of the encyclopedia have come closer to a new understanding of the novel thanks to the wide coverage of the material.

A productive stage in the study of Pushkin’s creativity and in particular the novel “Eugene Onegin” was the fundamental research of S.G. Bocharov (“Pushkin’s Poetics”, “Plan Form”), who pays attention to the stylistic world of the novel, its language, talks about the poetic evolution of the author. N.N. Skatov (author of the large-scale work “Pushkin. Russian Genius”, numerous essays on the life and work of the poet) explores the poetics of Pushkin’s works, speaks out about the enduring significance of the poet’s work as the highest, ideal exponent of Russian national identity. I. Surat made her contribution to Pushkin studies by raising the large-scale problem of “art and religion” and expressing the idea that Pushkin embodied poetry itself in its ontological essence (“Pushkin as a religious problem”). Judgments about Pushkin as an ontological, ethical and aesthetic phenomenon are also expressed by such modern literary scholars as V.S. Nepomnyashchiy, Yu.N. Chumakov, S.S. Averintsev, V.K. Kantor and many others. They develop questions about the significance of the novel “Eugene Onegin” as a unique phenomenon of world art, about its influence on Russian literature of the 19th century and subsequent eras. The attention of researchers is focused on revealing the ontological phenomenology of Pushkin’s novel in the context of world literature.
Currently, the problem of the real place of genius in national history, its role in the spiritual self-awareness of the people, in the destinies of the nation, i.e. its exclusive mission, a special historical task. Following the religious and philosophical criticism of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. (D.S. Merezhkovsky, N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank), who affirmed the idea that “in the Holy Spirit... that combination of grace and freedom occurs that we see in Pushkin’s work,” Pushkin’s phenomenon as a philosophical and methodological The category is considered in his works by V.S. Nepomnyashchy. According to the literary critic, “in order for Pushkin’s genius to appear before us in all its brightness and fullness of life, it is necessary to consider it... in an ontological context as a phenomenon of being.”

So, each era “highlighted” the levels closest to it in the novel, which was reflected in the stages of scientific study. Modern researcher Yu.N. Chumakov rightly believes that now is the time to read the novel “against the backdrop of universality.” The universal content of “Eugene Onegin” reveals itself in the picture of the world, presented as a system of values, as a constantly developing, “ever moving” set of ideas about reality.

“Onegin,” says Belinsky, “is Pushkin’s most sincere work, the most beloved child of his imagination, and one can point to too few works in which the poet’s personality would be reflected with such completeness, light and clarity, as Pushkin’s personality was reflected in Onegin . Here is all his life, all his soul, all his love; here are his feelings, concepts, ideals. To evaluate such a work means to evaluate the poet himself in the entire scope of his creative activity” (Works of Belinsky, vol. VIII, p. 509). Indeed, Onegin is more serious than all of Pushkin’s works; in this novel, the poet comes face to face with modern reality, tries to think about it as deeply as possible and, at least, does not exhaust his imagination in spectacular, but completely fruitless images of young Circassian women, loving khans, highly moral gypsies and incredibly vile traitors who “they do not know holy things and do not remember goodness.”

If Pushkin’s creative activity provides any answers to the questions that real life poses, then, without a doubt, we should look for these answers in Eugene Onegin. Belinsky approached the analysis of Onegin with reverence and, as he himself admits, not without some timidity. Belinsky wrote two large articles about Onegin; he says that “this poem has enormous historical and social significance for us Russians” and that “in it Pushkin is the representative of an awakened social consciousness.”

Let's see how much the novel itself justifies and explains all these delights of our brilliant critic. First of all, we need to solve the question: what kind of person is Eugene Onegin himself? Belinsky defines Onegin as follows: “Onegin is a kind fellow, but at the same time a remarkable person. He is not fit to be a genius, he does not want to be a great person, but the inactivity and vulgarity of life choke him; he doesn’t even know what he needs, what he wants; but he knows and knows very well that he does not need, that he does not want what self-loving mediocrity is so happy with, so happy” (pp. 546, 547). Pushkin himself treats his hero with respect and love:

I liked his features
Involuntary devotion to dreams,
Inimitable strangeness
And a sharp, chilled mind.
I was embittered, he was gloomy;
We both knew the game of passion:
Life tormented both of us;
The heat in both hearts went out,
Anger awaited both
Blind Fortune and People
In the very morning of our days.
He who lived and thought cannot
Do not despise people in your heart;
Whoever felt it is worried
The ghost of irrevocable days.
There's no charm for that
That serpent of memories
He is gnawing at remorse.
All this often gives
Great pleasure to the conversation.
First Onegin's language
It confused me, but I got used to it
To his caustic argument,
And as a joke, with bile in half,
And to the anger of gloomy epigrams.
How often in the summer,
When it's clear and light
The night sky over the Neva,
And the waters are cheerful glass
Diana's face does not reflect
Remembering the novels of previous years,
Remembering my old love,
Sensitive, careless again,
Breath of the favorable night
We reveled silently!
Like a green forest from prison
The sleepy convict has been transferred,
So we were carried away by the dream
Young at the start of life.
(Chapter I. Stanzas XLV, XLVI, XLVII.)

In this passage, Pushkin constantly uses such elastic words that in themselves do not have any specific meaning and into which, as a result, each reader can squeeze in any meaning he wants. A person has a sharp, cooled mind, knows the play of passions, he lived, thought and felt; the heat of his heart went out in him; he is tormented by life; the malice of people and blind Fortune awaits him - all these words can be applied to some very large person, to a remarkable thinker, even to a historical figure who tried to reason with people and who was not understood, ridiculed or cursed by stupid contemporaries. Deceived by good elastic words, the very ones into which he himself, a thinker and activist, was accustomed to invest his living soul, Belinsky looked at Onegin favorably and boldly nominated him from the countless crowd of remarkable personalities. But it seems to me that Belinsky was mistaken. He believed the words and forgot the fact that people very often utter good words without clearly realizing their meaning, or at least giving these words a narrow, one-sided and beggarly meaning. In fact, let’s try to ask ourselves questions: why is Onegin’s mind cooled? What kind of play of passions did he experience? What did he spend and spend the heat of his heart on? What does he mean by the word life when he tells himself and others that life is tormenting him? What does it mean, in the language of Pushkin and Onegin, to think and feel?

We must look for the answer to all these questions in the description of those activities that Onegin indulged in from his earliest youth and which finally drove him into the blues. In the first chapter, starting from stanza XV to XXXVII, Pushkin describes Onegin’s whole day from the minute he wakes up in the morning until the minute he goes to bed, also in the morning. While still in bed, Onegin receives three invitations for the evening; he gets dressed and in his morning attire goes to the boulevard and walks there until

Until the sleeping Breget
Dinner won't ring his bell.

He goes to dinner at Talon's restaurant, and since it happens in winter, then, at this opportunity, his beaver collar silvers with frosty dust; and this memorable circumstance gives Belinsky a reason to note that Pushkin has an amazing ability to “make the most prosaic objects poetic” (p. 387).

If Belinsky had lived to our times, he would have been forced to admit that some artists far surpassed the great Pushkin even in this amazing and specially artistic ability. Our great painters, Messrs. Zaryanko and Tyutryumov, glorify beaver collars with paints and glorify them so inimitably well that every single hair turns into a poetic picture and into a pearl of creation. Having seen the great works of these great painters, Belinsky would have been placed in a tragic alternative. He would either have to bow before the creative greatness of Messrs. Zaryanka and Tyutryumov, or renounce those aesthetic concepts that see the merit of the poet in his amazing ability to glorify beaver collars. Having sung the beaver collar, Pushkin sings of all the dishes of the dinner that Onegin is having at Talon. The dinner is not bad: here there are bloody roast beef, truffles, which Pushkin for some reason calls the luxury of youth, an imperishable Strasbourg pie, live Limburg cheese, golden pineapple and cutlets, very hot, very fatty and exciting thirst, which is quenched by champagne. In what order these poetic objects follow one after another, Pushkin, unfortunately, does not explain this to us, and the direct duty of our antiquarians and bibliophiles is to fill this important gap through careful research. When dinner is not yet finished, when the hot fat of the cutlets is not sufficiently drenched in waves of champagne (which champagne exactly? - this is also a very interesting question for zealous commentators), the ringing of the Breguet informs the diners that a new ballet has begun. As an evil legislator of the theater, as a fickle admirer of charming actresses (there is, of course, nothing to remind commentators about actresses: they, of course, know them all by name, patronymic, surname and according to the most detailed formal lists) and as an honorary citizen of the wings, Onegin flies to ballet. (Here I remember with horror that we absolutely do not know what color Onegin’s horse was, and that this great secret, in all likelihood, will not be revealed to us by any research by commentators.) Entering the theater hall, Onegin begins to reveal the coolness of his mind; Having looked around all the tiers, he, according to Pushkin, saw everything and was terribly dissatisfied with the faces and decoration; then, having bowed to the men, he looked at the stage with great absent-mindedness, then even turned away and yawned, and said:

It's time for everyone to change,
I endured ballets for a long time,
But I’m tired of Didelo too.

Having cited this stern anti-ballet exclamation of the disappointed Onegin, Pushkin himself felt that he was putting his hero in a rather ridiculous position, because people who really have a sharp and chilled mind would not waste their irony on denying the choreographer Didelot and ladies' dresses. Feeling the ridiculous situation of Onegin, Pushkin added the following humorous note to the XXI stanza: “A trait of chilled feeling worthy of Childe Harold. Mr. Didelot's ballets are filled with vivid imagination and extraordinary charm. One of our romantic writers found much more poetry in them than in all French literature.” With this note, Pushkin obviously wanted to show that he himself was making fun of Onegin’s butada and did not take this butada as a symptom of serious disappointment. But this note makes a very weak impression on the attentive and distrustful reader; such a reader sees that, apart from funny butts, Onegin’s sharp and chilled mind does not give rise to absolutely anything. In the XXI stanza of Chapter I, Onegin denies Didelot’s ballets, and in the IV and V stanzas of Chapter III, Onegin denies lingonberry water, the beauty of Olga Larina, the stupid moon and the stupid horizon. And with these few, very innocent antics, the anger of the gloomy epigrams with which Pushkin threatened us in the XLVI stanza of Chapter I is exhausted to the very bottom. We will not hear anything angrier and darker than these epigrams from Onegin until the very end of the novel. If all of Onegin’s epigrams were just as gloomy and just as evil, then it’s no wonder that Pushkin got used to them very soon.

Continuing to show his disappointment, Onegin leaves the theater at a time when cupids, devils and snakes are still jumping and making noise on the stage. Not interested in their jumping and noise, he goes home, dresses for the ball and goes to dance until the morning. While Onegin is changing clothes, Pushkin turns into poetic objects those combs, files, scissors and brushes that decorate the office of the “philosopher at eighteen years old.” Young Onegin turned out to be a philosopher, probably, precisely because he had a lot of combs, files, scissors and brushes; but Pushkin himself, in terms of philosophy, does not want to lag behind Onegin and, as a result, very categorically expresses the philosophical truth, kind to Pavel Kirsanov, that you can be a practical person and think about the beauty of your nails. Pushkin supports this great truth with another truth, even greater. “Why,” he asks, “to argue fruitlessly with the century?” Since the 19th century obviously directs all its efforts towards turning nails into poetic objects, then, of course, to be indifferent to the beauty of nails means to be retrograde and obscurantist... “Custom,” continues the philosopher Pushkin, “is a despot among people.” . Well, of course, and besides, custom will always remain a despot between such philosophers as Onegin and Pushkin. Unfortunately, the number of such precious thinkers is gradually beginning to diminish. Pushkin would have told us many more philosophical truths, but Onegin had already dressed, became like the windy Venus, donning a man’s outfit, and galloped headlong in a Yamsk carriage (probably due to his coolness of mind) to the ball. Pushkin, of course, hurries after him, and the flow of philosophical truths dries up for a while. At the ball we completely lose sight of Onegin and absolutely do not know how his undoubted superiority over the despised crowd was expressed. Having introduced his hero into the ballroom, Pushkin completely indulges in memories of the legs and tells with inimitable passion how he once envied the waves, “running in a stormy succession to lie down with love at her feet.” An incredulous reader may doubt that the waves really lay at her feet with love, but I will answer such an uncouth reader that prosaic waves are transformed here into poetic objects and that therefore it is even very commendable on the part of the poet to attribute to them, for greater poetry, love for a woman in general or for her legs in particular. As for the envy of an inanimate object attached to or approaching a beautiful woman in one way or another, I hope that even the most uncouth reader will not dare to present any skeptical objection to this, because this motive is clarified and developed to the last subtlety by a thoughtful and elegant romance : “Oh, why am I not a log?” - a romance quite well known not only to literate, but even to illiterate Russia. Having explained to the readers that his cute legs attracted him more and even incomparably more than his lips, cheeks and breasts, Pushkin remembers his Onegin, takes him home from the ball and puts him to bed at a time when working Petersburg is already beginning to wake up. When Onegin gets up from sleep, then the same story begins again: a walk, dinner, theater, dressing, a ball and sleep.

So, Onegin eats, drinks, criticizes ballets, dances all night long - in a word, he leads a very cheerful life. The predominant interest in this cheerful life is the “science of tender passion,” which Onegin pursues with the greatest zeal and with brilliant success. “But was my Eugene happy?” - asks Pushkin. It turns out that Evgeny was not happy, and from this last circumstance Pushkin draws the conclusion that Eugene stood above the vulgar, despicable and self-righteous crowd. Belinsky agrees with this conclusion, as we saw above; but, to my extreme regret, I am forced here to contradict both our greatest poet and our greatest critic. Onegin's boredom has nothing to do with dissatisfaction with life; in this boredom it is impossible to notice even an instinctive protest against those inconvenient forms and relations with which the passive majority puts up and gets along through habit and force of inertia. This boredom is nothing more than a simple physiological consequence of a very disordered life. This boredom is a modification of that feeling that the Germans call Katzenjammer and which usually visits every reveler the next day after a good drinking session. Man is so designed by nature that he cannot constantly overeat, revel and study the “science of tender passion.” The strongest organism breaks down, or at least is worn out and tired, when it uses the various gifts of nature too luxuriously. Any pleasure dulls, to a greater or lesser extent, for a more or less long time, the ability of our body that perceives this pleasure. If individual methods of pleasure quickly follow one another and if these methods are very strong, then our ability to enjoy is completely dulled, and we say that we are tired or disgusted with this or that pleasant activity. This dulling of one of our abilities occurs independently of any mental considerations and completely independently of any critical views on the activity that we previously loved and to which we later lost interest.

Imagine that you really love some nutritious and healthy food, for example, pudding; one fine day this favorite dish of yours is made especially well; you overeat on it and greatly upset your stomach; after this it can easily happen that you will receive an invincible aversion to pudding, which, of course, will be completely independent of your theoretical concepts about pudding; you know very well the entire composition of the pudding; you know that no toxic substances are put in it; you see that other people eat it with pleasure in front of you, and for all that, you, a former pudding lover, this food does not go down your throat.

Onegin's relationship to the various pleasures of secular tribute is like two peas in a pod to your relationship to pudding. Onegin has eaten too much of everything, and everything makes him sick. If not all secular people are as sick as Onegin, then this is only because not everyone manages to overeat. As a specialist in the “science of tender passion,” Onegin, of course, stands above many of his peers. He is handsome, dexterous, il a la langue bien pendue (He is eloquent (literally: he has a good tongue). Ed.), as the French say, and in these features of his personality lies the whole secret of his disappointment and his imaginary superiority over the despised crowd. Other secular people, leading an empty and cheerful life with Onegin, do not win victories over secular women at all, or win very few of these victories, so they do not have time to dull their feelings on this side. The "science of tender passion" continues to be attractive to them because they encounter in it serious difficulties which they wish and hope to overcome. For Onegin, these difficulties do not exist; he enjoys what others only strive for, and as a result of immoderate pleasure, he dulls his taste and attraction to everything that constitutes the content of social life.

Until now, Onegin’s superiority lies only in the fact that he, better than many others, knew how to “disturb the hearts of courtly coquettes.” It could easily be that Pushkin loves and respects his hero precisely for this feature of his personality. But anyone who has an idea about Belinsky, of course, knows that Belinsky could not have treated Onegin with sympathy if he had seen in him only a skillful seducer of noteworthy coquettes.

So let's see what happens next; Let's see what remedy the overfed Onegin will grab in order to defeat his Katzenjammer and to make peace with life again. When a person is tired of pleasure and when this person at the same time feels young and strong, then he certainly begins to look for work. The time of heavy reflection comes for him, he peers into himself, peers into society; he weighs the quality and quantity of his own strength; he evaluates the properties of those obstacles with which he will have to fight, and those social needs that are in line and awaiting satisfaction. Finally, some decision emerges from his thoughts, and he begins to act; life breaks his theoretical calculations in its own way; life tries to depersonalize him and rework the entire structure of his beliefs according to a general, official standard; he stubbornly fights for his mental and moral independence; and in this inevitable struggle the extent of his personal strength is revealed. When a person has gone through this school of reflection and everyday struggle, then we are able to pose the question: does this person rise above the impersonal and passive mass or does he not rise? But until a person has been through this alteration, until then, mentally and morally, he is for us the same unknown quantity that we see, for example, in an infant. If a person, tired of pleasure, does not even know how to get into the school of reflection and everyday struggle, then we can directly say that this embryo will never become a thinking being and, therefore, will never have a legitimate reason to look with contempt at the passive mass. Onegin also belongs to the number of these eternal and hopeless embryos.

Renegade of stormy pleasures,
Onegin locked himself at home,
Yawning, I took up my pen, -
I wanted to write, but the work is hard
He felt sick; Nothing
It did not come from his pen.
(Chapter I. Stanza XLIII.)

Hanging around restaurants and ballets for several years, then suddenly, out of the blue, sit down at a desk and pick up a pen in order to become a writer - this is a very strange fantasy, to say the least. Taking up the pen while yawning and at the same time expecting the pen to write something more or less tolerable is also not at all witty. Finally, Onegin’s aversion to hard work - an aversion that Pushkin himself admits so openly - constitutes a very sad symptom, according to which we already have the right to predict in advance that Onegin will forever remain an embryo. But let's not rush to pronounce a final verdict. When a person enters a new phase of life, then he inevitably gropes, takes on an unusual task very unskillfully, moves from one mistake to another, experiences many failures, and only through these mistakes and failures learns little by little to work on those issues that urgently require him to permissions.

Onegin saw that he could not be a writer and that becoming a writer was much more difficult than having dinner at Talon's. This tiny piece of worldly experience, which he took away from his first encounter with the question of work, apparently was not in vain for him. At least his second attempt turns out to be much more prudent than the first.

And again, betrayed by idleness,
Languishing with spiritual emptiness,
He sat down with a laudable purpose
To assimilate someone else's mind.
(Stanza XLIV.)

He lined the shelf with a group of books;
I read and read, but to no avail:
There is boredom, there is deception and nonsense,
There is no conscience in that, there is no meaning in that;
Everyone is wearing different chains;
And the old thing is outdated,
And the old are delirious of the newness.
Like women, he left books,
And a shelf with their dusty family
Covered it with mourning taffeta.
(Stanza XLIV.)

If Onegin had dealt so swiftly with only Russian books, then in the poet’s words one could have seen an evil but fair satire on our then sluggish and insignificant literature. But, unfortunately, we know for certain, from other places in the novel, that Onegin knew how to read all sorts of books, French, German (Herder), English (Gibbon and Byron), and even Italian (Manzoni). He had at his disposal all the European literature of the 18th century, and he only managed to cover the shelf with books with mourning taffeta. Pushkin, apparently, wanted to show that Onegin’s insightful mind and indomitable spirit cannot be satisfied with anything and are looking for such perfection that does not even exist in the world. But he showed something completely different. He showed one of two things: either that Onegin did not know how to choose good books for himself, or that Onegin did not know how to appreciate and love the thinkers with whom he met. In all likelihood, Onegin suffered both of these failures, that is, the choice of books was unsatisfactory, and his understanding was very poor. Onegin probably bought himself all sorts of things, began to devour one book after another without a goal, without a system, without a guiding idea, understood almost nothing, remembered almost nothing and finally gave up this stupid reading, convincing himself that he surpassed all human science, that all thinkers are fools and that they should all be hung on the same aspen. This denial, of course, is very courageous and very merciless, but it is also extremely funny and completely harmless for the objects being denied. When a person denies absolutely everything, it means that he denies absolutely nothing and that he doesn’t even know or understand anything. If it is not a child, but an adult, who is engaged in this easy task of complete denial, then one can even safely say that this lively gentleman is gifted with such a motionless and lazy mind that will never assimilate or understand a single sensible thought. Onegin deals with books as he dealt with Didelot’s ballets above and as he will deal with the stupid moon and the stupid horizon in Chapter III. He utters a sharp phrase, which gullible people take for a bold thought. His hostile encounter with books constitutes the last attempt in his life to find work for himself. After this attempt, Onegin and Pushkin are finally convinced that for higher natures there is no exciting work in life and that the smarter a person is, the more bored he should be. To place all blame in this way on the fatal laws of nature is, of course, very convenient and even flattering for those people who are not accustomed and do not know how to think, and who through this blaming can, without further hassle, list themselves from parasites to higher natures. Pushkin especially developed this habit of inventing laws of nature and setting up these fictitious laws as a boundary beyond which no research can penetrate. The question is, for example, why do people get bored? The answer to this is: because they do nothing. Why don't they do anything? Because other people work for them. Why does this happen? You can also find an answer to this question, but, of course, you will have to delve into history, political economy, physiology, and experimental psychology. But Pushkin doesn’t even get to the second question. He has a law of nature ready right now. Pushkin’s Faust says, for example, to Mephistopheles: “I’m bored, demon,” and Mephistopheles immediately explains to him that “this is your limit” and that “all rational creatures are bored.” And Faust trustingly and even with some horror listens to Mephistopheles’ nonsense chatter, and then, for fun, he orders Mephistopheles to sink the Spanish three-masted ship, ready to land on the shores of Holland. This so-called “Scene from Faust” constitutes an excellent commentary on “Eugene Onegin.” In this scene, demonism, as Pushkin understands it, has already been brought to the final boundaries of the absurd and funny. At this point it becomes clear to the reader that Pushkin’s Faust is not Faust at all and not at all a higher nature, but simply a cheerful merchant’s son, who tends not to sink three-masted Spanish ships, but to destroy large mirrors in Russian entertainment establishments. This frisky young man does not have the slightest power over Mephistopheles, but the position of Mephistopheles is corrected by this Russian Faust by a thick wallet filled with credit notes. It is this pocket Mephistopheles that gives him the opportunity to break mirrors in order to diversify his life and drive away fatal boredom for a few minutes. Take away the wallet from the Russian Faust, and he will immediately become quieter than water, lower than the grass, more modest than a red girl. Along with the outbursts of demonic nature, fatal boredom will disappear. Faust will become a laborer and get lost in that gray crowd that he bravely crushed with his trotters during the days of his dominance over the pocket Mephistopheles.

By nature, Onegin is extremely similar to Faust, who in the novel sinks Spanish ships, and in life destroys Russian mirrors. And Onegin’s demonism also sits entirely in his wallet. As soon as his wallet is empty, Onegin will immediately become an official and turn into Famusov. And then the most experienced observer would never be able to distinguish him from the crowd that he despised on the grounds that he supposedly “lived and thought.”

So, Onegin is bored not because he cannot find rational activity for himself, and not because he is a superior nature, and not because “all rational creatures are bored,” but simply because he has easy money in his pocket , which give him the opportunity to eat a lot, drink a lot, engage in the “science of tender passion” and make all sorts of grimaces that he wants to make. His mind is not cooled in any way, it is just completely untouched and undeveloped. He experienced the game of passions to the extent that this game is included in “our tender passions.” He doesn’t even have any idea about the existence of other, stronger passions, passions directed towards an idea, just as Pushkin’s Faust has no idea about them. Onegin spent the heat of his heart on boudoir scenes and masquerade adventures. If Onegin thinks that life is tormenting him, then he is thinking pure nonsense; those who are truly tormented by life will not ride on the post office to collect their inheritance in the village of their dying uncle. To live, in Onegin’s language, means to walk along the boulevard, dine at Talon’s, go to theaters and balls. To think means to criticize Didelot's ballets and scold the moon as a fool for being round. Feeling good means envying the waves that fall at the feet of a pretty lady. Anyone who lived and thought like Onegin, of course, cannot help but despise people who live less luxuriously and who think less originally. Anyone who felt like Onegin is, of course, disturbed by the ghost of irrevocable days, that is, those days when it happened to see close up the legs, cheeks, breasts and various other interesting details of the female body. Thus, I answered all the questions I posed in the first chapter, and we had the unexpected result that Onegin is not at all “the spirit of denial, the spirit of doubt,” but simply an insidious traitor and a cruel tyrant of ladies’ hearts. We will see below that this result is justified by the entire further course of the novel.

Pushkin became friends with Onegin and recognized his right to despise people at a time when Onegin, having comprehended the vanity of science, covered the shelf with books with mourning taffeta. Then Onegin's father died, and Eugene provided the inheritance to the creditors -

I don't see any big loss in that.
Or foreknowledge from afar
The death of my old uncle.

Indeed, my uncle will soon fall ill, and

After reading the sad message,
Evgeniy on a date right away
Swiftly galloped through the mail,
And I already yawned in advance,
Getting ready, for the sake of money,
For sighs, boredom and deception.

Onegin thought about his upcoming classes with his sick uncle:

But, my God, what a bore
Sitting with the patient day and night,
Without leaving a single step.
What low deceit -
To amuse the half-dead,
Adjust his pillows
It's sad to bring medicine,
Sigh and think to yourself:
When will the devil take you!

All this is very natural and presented in very good poetry, but all this, obviously, completely equates Onegin with the most despicable people of the despicable crowd. Why do the most despicable people fuss, bend over, act out and be mean? Why does Molchalin walk on his hind legs in front of Famusov and in front of all his important guests? - Because of the despicable metal that supports mortal existence. And for the sake of what does Onegin gallop around in the mail and prepare to walk on his hind legs in front of his dying relative? “For the sake of money,” Pushkin answers with his characteristic frankness. Onegin humiliates himself before his uncle, Molchalin humiliates himself before his boss; The motive for both is the same. Why on earth does Pushkin give Onegin the right to despise the crowd, in which silence constitutes the darkest and dirtiest side? If Onegin needs to practice contempt, then he should start with himself and even end with himself, that is, concentrate all his contempt forever on his own personality and leave the crowd alone, because even such a petty man of the crowd as Molchalin is all still stands above the brilliant dandy Onegin. Molchalin is dishonest because Russian life is dominated, as Pomyalovsky wittily noted, by a kind of economic law, as a result of which the person who gives the work considers himself the benefactor of the person who receives and performs the work. Very few branches of labor have freed themselves from the rule of this peculiar law, and, of course, the field in which Molchalin works is one of the industries that have not been liberated. By being mean to Famusov, Molchalin only strives to ensure that his work is not taken away from him and that he is paid good money for this work. Whether the work itself is reasonable and useful - Molchalin is not responsible for this, because he did not invent it. Molchalin’s job is to work, and he really works, and his boss, Famusov, admits that Molchalin is a business man. When Onegin is mean to his uncle, then he expects from his uncle not work and not a reasonable salary, but a free handout, which, of course, is incomparably more humiliating for human dignity. Onegin was disgusted with hard work, and as a result, every person capable of working has the full and reasonable right to look at Onegin with contempt, as an eternal immature in mental and moral terms. Having received an inheritance, Onegin improves the situation of the men:

He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
I replaced it with a light quitrent:
The man blessed his fate.

This, of course, is not bad on Onegin’s part. But this only proves, firstly, that Onegin is not Plyushkin or Harpagon, or the Stingy Knight, and secondly, that the inheritance received was quite large. The easy rent, despite all its ease, still gave Onegin the full opportunity to have a “rather fancy dinner” in the village, drink Bordeaux and champagne with Lensky, and then, after Lensky’s death, travel around Russia for two years. If the inheritance had been less significant, then, in all likelihood, the peasant would not have had to bless his fate, because Onegin would hardly have given up Bordeaux, wandering around Russia and various other amenities of life, which should be paid for with a “light quitrent” or “ old corvée." This means that Onegin’s relationship with men adorns our hero only with negative dignity, that is, they save him from the reproach of self-interest.

Two days seemed new to him
Lonely fields
The coolness of the gloomy oak tree,
The murmuring of a quiet stream...
On the third - a grove, a hill and a field
He was no longer interested,
Then they induced sleep.
(Chapter I. Stanza LIV.)

And, of course, the blues began to run after him, “like a shadow or a faithful wife.” To many - including Pushkin - this ability to be bored always and everywhere seems to be the privilege of the strong in mind, who are not able to be satisfied with what constitutes the happiness of ordinary people. Pushkin here, as elsewhere, noticed and described the fact itself absolutely correctly; but, as soon as it comes to explaining the presented fact, Pushkin immediately falls into the most serious mistakes. Indeed, a person like Onegin, spoiled to the marrow by systematic idleness of thought, must be constantly bored; indeed, such a person should rush greedily at any novelty and should grow cold towards it as soon as he has time to take a closer look at it; all this is absolutely true, but all this proves not that he lived, thought and felt too much, but quite the opposite - that he did not think at all, does not know how to think at all, and that all his feelings were always just as shallow and insignificant, like the feelings of a witty gentleman who envies the lucky log on which someone's pretty leg rests. In the realm of thought, Onegin remained a child, despite the fact that he seduced many women and read many books. Onegin, like a ten-year-old child, only knows how to perceive impressions and does not know how to process them at all. That is why he needs a constant influx of fresh impressions; as long as new pictures, unprecedented play of colors, unusual combinations of lines and shadows flash before his eyes, as long as he is calm, does not frown or squeak. His mind, as usual, is inactive; our hero opens his eyes wide and through these open windows completely passively draws in the impressions of the surrounding world; when the scenery changes quickly, then the windows work properly, and the passive absorption of impressions prevents our hero from being alone with himself; when the movement of the scenery stops and when, as a result, aimless staring becomes impossible, then the chronic inactivity of the mind comes to the fore, Onegin is left alone with his mental poverty, and, of course, the feeling of this hopeless poverty plunges him into that mental state called boredom, melancholy or blues. All this is not at all majestic and not at all touching. Onegin, who is bored in the village, becomes a constant interlocutor and friend of his young neighbor,

Named Vladimir Lensky,
With a soul straight from Göttingen,
Handsome, in full bloom.
Kant's admirer and poet.
He's from foggy Germany
He brought the fruits of learning:
Freedom-loving dreams
The spirit is ardent and rather strange,
Always an enthusiastic speech
And shoulder-length black curls.
(Chapter II. Stanza VI.)

The fruits of this gentleman’s learning were, in all likelihood, worthless, because this gentleman was “nearly eighteen years old,” and yet he considered his education to be completed and was only thinking about quickly marrying Olga Larina and producing more children and write more poems about romantic roses and the foggy distance. What were the Göttingen qualities of his soul and what showed his respect for Kant - this remains an eternal mystery for us. We also learn absolutely nothing about his freedom-loving dreams, because during his meetings with Onegin, the Gottingen soul does nothing but drink champagne and lie about erotic nonsense. Thus, Lensky's inalienable property remains long black hair, the always enthusiastic speech and ardor of spirit with a sufficient admixture of strangeness. All this together should have made his company completely unbearable for any more or less serious and thinking person; but Onegin, of course, really liked this half-educated pythia for the simple reason that Onegin, first of all, needed to at least do something to occupy this or that pair of windows, that is, to give some work to either his eyes or his ears. And since Lensky chatted enthusiastically and uncontrollably, it follows that the fate of Onegin’s ears was completely assured.

Pushkin assures us that the conversations of these two thinkers were extremely diverse:

Everything gave rise to disputes between them
And it led me to think:
Tribes of past treaties,
The fruits of science, good and evil,
And age-old prejudices,
And the grave secrets are fatal,
Fate and life take their course,
Everything was subject to their judgment.
(Chapter II. Stanza XVI.)

In these conversations, the peculiarities of the Gottingen soul and the coolness of Onegin’s mind could be revealed; in these conversations the political, moral and all sorts of other convictions of Onegin and Lensky could be outlined from all sides; but, unfortunately, not a single such conversation is presented in the novel, and as a result we have every right to strongly doubt whether these two loitering gentlemen had any convictions.

My readers, in all likelihood, know and remember very well that Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin” talks at extremely length about all sorts of subjects that have very little to do with the matter at hand; here are ladies' legs, and a comparison of ai with Bordeaux, and indignation against the albums of St. Petersburg ladies, and considerations that our northern summer is a caricature of southern winters, memories of the Lyceum gardens and many many other inserts and decorations. Meanwhile, when it is necessary to resolve a really important question, when it is necessary to show that the main characters had certain concepts about life and about human relations, then our great poet gets off with a short and completely vague allusion to some various conversations that allegedly gave rise to controversy and attracted thought. One such dispute, obviously, would have characterized Onegin incomparably more fully than dozens of very nice, but completely unnecessary details about how he played billiards with a blunt cue, how he sat in a bath with ice, what time he had lunch, and so on. We do not see a single such dispute in the novel. And that is not all. Pushkin mentions various conversations in stanza XVIII chapter, and in stanza XV he tells us such details that, perhaps, do the greatest honor to the tenderness of Onegin’s heart, but which at the same time completely destroy the possibility of serious disputes that invite reflection:

The poet's passionate conversation,
And the mind, still unsteady in judgment,
And an eternally inspired gaze -
Everything was new to Onegin;
He's a cooling word
I tried to keep it in my mouth
And I thought: it’s stupid to bother me
To his momentary bliss -
And without me the time will come;
Let him live for now
May the world believe in perfection.

What kind of sensible argument, what kind of serious exchange of thoughts is possible when one of the interlocutors constantly tries to refrain from cooling words and when the other interlocutor is constantly on fire, that is, constantly in need of cooling? If we reconsider those subjects of conversation that are listed by Pushkin in the XVI stanza, then we will immediately be convinced that disputes about these subjects were completely impossible without cooling words from Onegin. If these disputes really attracted reflection, then they should have consisted almost exclusively in the fact that Lensky fantasized and indulged in sweet optimism, and Onegin uttered various sad truths and cooling words. Really, what was on their mind? Firstly - the tribes of the past treaties. Although this expression is very unfortunate and unclear, however, one can understand that we are talking about historical issues here. It is clear that Lensky, as an idealist and as a poet, had to build various beautiful and touching theodicies in the field of history, and Onegin, as a skeptic, had to destroy these constructions with cooling arguments. Even if we accept the word agreements in its exact and literal meaning, then even then the dispute is unlikely to proceed without cooling words. One can, of course, talk about the Peace of Antalcis or the treaty of Oleg with the Greeks completely safely and impartially, but, in all likelihood, our friends did not go back to such ancient times: if they were talking about some newer treaty, for example, about the Holy Alliance , or about the Vienna Congress, or about the Carlsbad conferences, then Lensky could with great convenience indulge in unfounded enthusiasm, against which it was necessary to act with cooling words. Secondly, the fruits are different. It all depends on what kind of fruits they are. One can discuss the mathematical works of Euler or Lagrange without cooling words. But if only our friends took something livelier, for example, Laplace’s world system or Lamarck’s theory of rebirth, then cooling words became inevitable, because scientists like Laplace and Lamarck destroy many misconceptions that are very precious to young idealists and romantics. And since our friends hardly talked about analytical geometry and since, in all likelihood, they chose those fruits of science that, one way or another, touch upon general questions of the worldview, then, therefore, it was impossible to argue about the fruits of science without cooling words Thirdly, good and evil, that is, the foundations of morality. Here the clash of opposing beliefs is completely inevitable, and the need for cooling words is so obvious that there is no need to dwell on it. Fourthly, prejudices are age-old. If there was a dispute about age-old prejudices, then this dispute could take one of two main forms: either Onegin considered some opinion to be a prejudice, and Lensky proved its reasonableness, or, conversely, Lensky attacked the prejudice, and Onegin defended it. In the first case, Lensky, as a young man and poet, took under his protection various beautiful illusions, which Onegin, as a man who had become acquainted with life, denied and ridiculed. In the second case, Lensky, as a young and ardent representative of pure theory, not inclined to any compromises, condemned, from the height of his ideas, various minor weaknesses of society, which Onegin, as an experienced person, considered excusable or even inevitable. In both cases, Onegin would have to completely abandon the argument if he wanted to refrain from cooling words. Fifthly, the secrets of the coffin are fatal. It doesn't get any easier hour by hour. If any dispute is possible about the fatal secrets of the coffin, then this argument can only occur about the immortality of the soul. Between Onegin and Lensky, the dispute, without a doubt, should have started in such a way that Onegin denied, and Lensky affirmed. By starting such a dispute, Onegin obviously touched upon a subject that constituted the greatest and most inviolable treasure for the young idealist. No matter how gently and carefully Onegin expressed himself, in any case, the very fact that he put a question mark where Lensky put a period or an exclamation mark, this fact alone, I say, should have made a much more stunning impression on the unfortunate poet than all kinds of cooling words. Sixthly - fate and life. Well, this expression is so unclear and so loose that there is nothing to say about it.

I have already shown above that with this policy, serious conversations about subjects that provoke thought are completely impossible. And since Pushkin really does not tell us a single such conversation, we have every right to assert that Onegin and Lensky were completely incapable of serious reasoning and that Pushkin, wanting to put them on a pedestal, mentioned in passing about various lofty subjects, to which neither he himself nor his heroes ever cared. Tribal treaties, age-old prejudices, fatal secrets - all these are just words that the critic must treat with extreme distrust.

It is interesting to note that graceful gentleness betrays Onegin precisely when it was needed and when the cooling word was not only very impolite, but also completely useless. This is how Onegin talks about Olga, with whom, as he knows, Lensky has long been in love:

Olga has no life in her features,
Exactly like Vandice's Madonna:
She's round and red-faced,
Like this stupid moon
On this stupid sky.
(Chapter III. Stanza V.)

This tirade, obviously, was made only in order to admire the mocking coldness of his view of nature and life. Lensky found this rude and stupid attack against Olga very unpleasant, and, apart from this completely fruitless unpleasantness, absolutely nothing came out and could not come out of the cooling word spoken by Onegin either to the village or to the city, to please his own ears. However, it must also be said that Lensky himself is asking for such insolence: he comes to Onegin with such confidential conversations about Olga, which are completely incompatible with the serious respect of a loving man for his beloved woman. With a glass of champagne, he analyzes Olga from a plastic point of view, and he indulges in this activity after Onegin compared this Olga to the stupid moon. Here are his actual words:

Oh, darling, how prettier you are
Olga has shoulders, what a chest!
What a soul!
(Chapter IV. Stanza XLVIII.)

When Bazarov said a few words to his friend about the shoulders of the woman he saw for the first time, then our critics and our public decided that Bazarov was a terrible cynic. But if critics and the public had bothered to re-read Eugene Onegin, they would have seen that the idealist and romantic Lensky far outdid the materialist and empiricist Bazarov. Bazarov spoke about an unfamiliar woman, Lensky, on the contrary, about the girl with whom he had been in love since childhood; Bazarov spoke only about shoulders, and Lensky - about shoulders and chest. Therefore, the reproach of cynicism applies by all rights to the fiery idealists of the twenties, and not to the cold realists of our time. However, this is completely natural, because, as we know even from copybooks, idleness is the mother of all vices, and in the matter of idleness, Bazarov, of course, has a hard time competing with Onegin and Lensky. Onegin's idleness is so colossal that he even

At home all day
Alone, immersed in calculations,
Armed with a blunt cue,
Billiards with two balls
Plays since the morning.
(Chapter IV. Stanza XL1V.)

With such inaction of thought, lying on various topics is, of course, one of the best decorations of life.

To complete the personality of Lensky, it is necessary to analyze his duel with Onegin. Here the reader absolutely does not know who to give the palm in terms of stupidity - Onegin or Lensky. The only possible explanation for this most absurd incident is that both of them, Lensky and Onegin, were completely stunned from idleness and deadening boredom. Onegin wanted to enrage Lensky and thus take revenge on him for the fact that the Larins had many guests gathered for Tatiana’s name day, while Lensky told Onegin that there would be no strangers. To fulfill his intention, Onegin dances with Olga first a waltz, then a mazurka, then a cotillion. While dancing he

Leaning over, he whispers to her tenderly
Some vulgar madrigal
And he shakes hands and bursts into flames
In her proud face
The blush is brighter.
(Chapter V. Stanza XLIV.)

But, one wonders, what could he see? That Onegin leaned towards Olga and whispered something to her, there seems to be nothing criminal in this. Gentlemen usually talk to ladies during dances, and no one obliges them to speak so loudly that every word can be heard in all parts of the hall. Lensky could neither see nor hear the vulgar madrigal, because it was uttered in a whisper. It was also impossible to notice the handshake, because this muscle movement is completely imperceptible to the eye. That Olga was smiling and blushing - Lensky, of course, could see; but, firstly, no one frowns while dancing; and secondly, Olga could become flushed precisely from the movement; finally, even if Lensky could be firmly convinced that Onegin compliments Olga about her appearance and that Olga smiles and blushes with pleasure, then even then he would have no reason to be angry with either Onegin or Olga. In the twenties, compliments were still in full swing, and ladies were still so naive that they found them flattering and pleasant. Consequently, neither Onegin nor Olga allowed themselves absolutely anything that would go beyond the level of accepted customs. But Lensky climbs the walls:

Lensky is unable to bear the blow;
Cursing women's pranks,
Comes out and demands a horse
And he jumps. A couple of pistols
Two bullets - nothing more -
Suddenly his fate will be resolved.
(Chapter V. Stanza XLV.)

And the whole blow was that Olga did not go to dance the cotillion with him. But she didn’t go for the legitimate reason that Onegin had already invited her in advance. It may easily be that in the twenties there really were such eccentrics who mistook such events for cruel blows. But in this case, it will be necessary to admit that the romantics of the twenties had their own original logic in their heads, about which we currently can form almost no idea. In addition, it does not hurt to note that the wives of these sensitive and fiery romantics had, in all likelihood, a very bad life in the world.

The tragedy over the cotillion occurs a little over a week before the date set for the wedding of Lensky, who knew and loved his bride since childhood. If Lensky dares to offend with senseless suspicions that girl whom he has known from an early age, and if these suspicions can arise from every glance cast by Olga at a stranger, then the question arises, when and under what conditions will reasonable relations be established between husband and wife? based on mutual trust? And if the Göttingen soul, who reads Schiller and worships Kant, has no idea about a reasonable view of a woman, then, one asks, what difference exists between the Göttingen soul and the Vyatka or Simbirsk soul? And what kind of desire did Pushkin have to send Lensky to foggy Germany for the fruits of learning and for some freedom-loving dreams, when this Lensky was destined only to say and write in a novel a few planes, which he could with the greatest convenience learn not only in his village, but even in some Bukey horde? As for the long hair, which Lensky, according to Pushkin, also brought with him from foggy Germany, it seems to me that, with careful care, it could grow in Russia.

Arriving home after the betrayal of the insidious Olga, Lensky sends Onegin:

...Pleasant, noble,
Short call, il cartel.

Unfortunately, Pushkin does not present us with the letter that the “admirer of Kant and poet” wrote on this occasion. Pushkin only says that

Courteously, with cold clarity
Lensky invited his friend to a duel.

But since the challenge must be motivated by something, it would be very interesting to see how Lensky got out of this task, that is, how he managed to write to Onegin about an unprecedented insult. However, a fisherman sees a fisherman from afar. Lensky probably had a presentiment that any vulgarity would certainly find a sympathetic response in the soul of his former friend and that, therefore, in relations with this former friend one could completely fearlessly violate all the rules of ordinary human logic. Lensky, apparently, understood that Onegin, as a secular person, is first of all a machine, which, with a certain touch, must certainly produce a certain movement, even if this movement under the given conditions was completely meaningless and even extremely inappropriate. Of course, Onegin fully lives up to the hopes of his worthy friend. Having received a “pleasant, noble, short challenge,” he, like an educated dandy, does not require any further explanation and answers pleasantly, nobly, briefly, “that he is always ready.” Lensky's second immediately leaves, and Onegin, “alone with his soul,” begins to realize that this soul has done a lot of stupid things. Onegin is dissatisfied with himself. Pushkin says:

And rightly so: in strict analysis,
Having summoned himself to a secret trial,
He blamed himself for many things:
First of all, he was wrong
What is above timid, tender love?
So the evening joked casually.
And secondly, let the poet
Fooling around: at eighteen
It's forgivable. Eugene,
Loving the young man with all my heart,
Had to prove myself
Not a ball of prejudice,
Not an ardent boy fighter,
But a husband with honor and intelligence.
He could discover feelings
And don't bristle like an animal:
He had to disarm
Young heart. "But now
It's too late, time has flown by...
Besides - he thinks - in this matter
The old duelist intervened;
He is angry, he is a gossip, he is loud...
Of course there must be contempt
At the cost of his funny words,
But the whispers, the laughter of fools...
And here is public opinion!..
Spring of honor, our idol!..
And this is what the world revolves on!”
(Chapter VI. Stanza X, XI.)

Eugene, as you see, loves the young man with all his heart; in addition, a strict analysis carried out at the secret court of conscience tells him that the husband, with honor and intelligence, would not bristle like an animal and would not allow himself to shoot at an eighteen-year-old boy who was playing out. On one side of the scale, Onegin puts the life of the young man whom he loves with all his heart, and, in addition, the sound demands of the mind and honor - those demands that are formulated by the strict analysis of the secret court. On another cup, Onegin puts the whispers and laughter of fools, who will be set off by an old duelist and an evil gossip, worthy, in the opinion of Onegin himself, of the most complete contempt. The second cup immediately overwhelms, and the quick-witted reader can immediately form a very clear idea of ​​how much Onegin knows how to love and how highly he values ​​his own respect. “I must kill my friend,” Onegin reasons, I must face the secret court of my conscience as a man without honor and without intelligence, I must do this without fail, because otherwise, the fools whom I despise will whisper and laugh.

From this process of thought we see clearly that the words: “friend”, “conscience”, “honor”, ​​“mind”, “fools”, “despise” do not have any tactile meaning for Onegin. Just as a Negro, crushed by backbreaking labor, severe hardships and daily beatings, loses the ability to love, hate, despise and reason, turns into a stupid beast of burden, capable only of passive obedience and mechanical work under pressure, so Onegin, crushed by mental emptiness and under the oppression of secular prejudices, he forever lost the strength and ability to feel, think and act, without asking permission from the crowd that he majestically despises. Onegin's personal concept, personal feelings, personal desires are so weak and sluggish that they cannot have any tangible influence on his actions. In any case, he will act as the secular crowd demands of him; he will not even wait for this crowd to clearly express its demand; he will guess it in advance; with the refined obsequiousness of a slave raised in slavery from the cradle, he will forestall all the desires of this crowd, which, like a spoiled ruler, of course, will not even pay attention to the efforts and sacrifices of its faithful slave, Onegin, who bought himself the right to remain in its in the eyes of a gentleman of the most impeccable colorlessness. And the crowd acts quite rightly when it does not pay attention to the efforts and sacrifices of the faithful slave; a faithful servant is faithful only because he does not dare to become unfaithful; he is afraid of his master and at the same time, together with other equally cowardly and faithful slaves, scolds him behind his back every minute, just as all lackeys, imbued with the spirit of lackeyness to the marrow of their bones, do. This lackey's manner of scolding a stern gentleman behind his back explains the contempt for the crowd that Onegin drapes himself with. This beautiful contempt is a completely platonic feeling; it disappears entirely in words; as soon as one has to act, this contempt is immediately replaced by the flattest and most servile reverence.

The question now is, how should the poet have reacted to this trait in Onegin’s character? It seems to me that he had to understand all the deep comedy of this trait, he had to use all the forces of his talent to notice and develop in this trait all its funny sides, he had to ridicule, vulgarize and trample into the dirt without the slightest compassion that base cowardice that makes a smart person to play the role of a harmful idiot, in order not to be subjected to the timid and indirect ridicule of real idiots, worthy of complete contempt. In doing so, the poet would have rendered a real and serious service to public consciousness; he would make the crowd laugh at those formulas of stupidity and impersonality, which, due to their slowness and inertia of thought, they were accustomed to look not only indifferently, but even favorably.

Is this what Pushkin did? No, he did just the opposite. In his view of Onegin’s position, he himself turned out to be a man of the secular crowd and used all the strength of his talent to turn a petty, cowardly, spineless and loitering dandy into a tragic personality, exhausted in the fight against the insurmountable demands of the century and the people. Instead of telling the reader: how empty, ridiculous and insignificant my Onegin is, killing his friend to please fools and scoundrels, Pushkin says: “and this is what the world revolves on!”, as if to refuse a meaningless challenge means to break the world law.

Thus elevating in the eyes of the reading masses those types and those character traits that in themselves are low, vulgar and insignificant, Pushkin with all the forces of his talent lulls that social self-consciousness that a true poet should awaken and educate with his works. Blaming shameful mistakes, from which every intelligent and energetic person can protect himself by the strength of his own personality, on general causes, on inexorable fate and on world laws, Pushkin justifies and supports with his authority the timidity, carelessness and slowness of individual thought. It suppresses personal energy, disarms personal protest and strengthens those social prejudices that every thinking person is obliged to destroy with all the strength of his mind and the entire stock of his knowledge. “And this is what the world revolves on!” How do you like this naive admission by Pushkin that for him the whole world is concentrated in those small circles of fashionable society in which people who adore the “spring of honor”, ​​out of reverence for this spring, shoot with their friends against their own desire and against their own conviction?

Having made the remarkable discovery that the world revolves on the spring of honor, Pushkin far surpasses Louis-Philippe, who coined the witty expression “le pays legal” (The legal country. Ed.) to designate those French who enjoyed the right to vote in the elections of deputies. In Louis Philippe, the vast majority of the French remain outside the borders of legal France, while in Pushkin, the vast majority of people remain outside the existing world - which, no doubt, is much more witty.

Onegin remains the most insignificant vulgar until the very end of his story with Lensky, and Pushkin continues to glorify his actions as grandiose and tragic events until the very end. Thanks to the excellent story of our poet, the reader constantly sees not the inner worthlessness and pettiness of motives, but the outer beauty and majesty of cold-blooded courage and impeccable gentlemanliness.

...In cold blood,
Not yet aiming, two enemies
With a firm gait, quietly, evenly
Walked four steps
Four mortal stages.
His pistol then Evgeniy,
Without ceasing to advance,
He was the first to quietly raise it.
Here are five steps still taken
And Lensky, squinting his left eye,
I also began to aim, but just
Onegin fired... They struck
Time clock: poet
Silently drops the pistol.
Quietly puts his hand on his chest
And falls.
(Chapter VI. Verses XXX, XXXI)

Lord, how beautiful! People walk with a firm gait exactly four steps, four mortal steps. Two people unnecessarily go to their death and look into its eyes without showing the slightest emotion. It is so beautiful and so carefully sung that the reader, frozen in horror and bowing before the valor of the brave heroes, will not even dare and will not be able to think about how stupid this whole incident is and to what extent the majestic heroes are similar, observing firmness and the silence of their gait, the pathetic trained gladiators who spent all their energy in their death throes to please the audience with a beautiful body pose. Meanwhile, these spectators were the worst enemies of the gladiators, and if the gladiators had directed their energy not to beautiful poses, but to the stupid lovers of these poses, it could easily have happened that they would have forever saved themselves from the sad need to amuse idle fools with beautiful poses . We must assume that the gladiators were very stupid and that their stupidity, unfortunately, did not die with them.

But, in addition to the general gladiatorial stupidity, Onegin’s behavior in the duel scene also contains its own, completely special stupidity or trashiness, which until now, as far as I know, has been overlooked by the most attentive critics. The fact that he accepted Lensky’s challenge and came to the duel can still be explained to some extent, although, of course, not justified, by the influence of secular prejudices that became second nature for Onegin. But the fact that he, “to everyone; loving the young man with his heart” and realizing himself to be guilty all around, he aimed at Lensky and killed him, can only be explained either by extreme cowardice, or by incomprehensible stupidity. Secular prejudice obliged Onegin to go towards danger, but secular prejudice in no way forbade him to withstand Lensky’s shot and then discharge the pistol into the air. With this course of action, the wolves would be well-fed and the sheep would be safe. The reputation of the brave gladiators would have been saved: Lensky, completely satisfied and disarmed, would have invited Onegin to be the best man at his wedding, and Onegin, who told Olga a vulgar madrigal and turned out to be a ball of prejudice, would have been punished for all these insolences with that unpleasant feeling that gives everyone for a decent person to contemplate the barrel of a pistol pointed directly at his own person. Of course, Lensky could kill or seriously wound Onegin, who in this case would not have to be the best man at the upcoming wedding, but this prospect should not have embarrassed Onegin at all, unless he was really tired of life and was quite sincerely burdened by its emptiness. Onegin should not have hesitated for a single minute when he had to decide in practice the question of who should live, him or Lensky? He should not for one minute put his own life, which had disgusted him, on the same level as the fresh life of a young man in love. However, he did just the opposite. He was the first to raise his pistol and fired at the very time when Lensky began to take aim.

Why did he do this? Either because he did not realize in advance what he should have done, or because the sense of self-preservation prevailed over all preliminary considerations. The first assumption is very implausible; it was no wonder; if Onegin cannot think even when the life of the young man whom he loves with all his heart depends on his thoughts, then it means that he is completely incapable of using his brain. It is difficult to agree with this, although, of course, Onegin’s mental abilities are very lackluster and completely spoiled by inaction. The second assumption remains, which, in my opinion, is completely reasonable. Onegin, despite his chronic yawning and despite his habit of scolding life with all sorts of nasty words, loves this very life very much and will in no way agree to exchange it not only for the “peace of non-existence,” but even for some other life, more reasonable and more active. He doesn’t want to die at all, because no matter how much you scold our vale of disasters, this vale still has oysters, lobsters, Bordeaux, Clicquot, and the fair sex for the rich owner. He also doesn’t want to arrange some new life for himself, because he is not suitable for any other life. He, with his eternal boredom, can live very calmly, pleasantly and comfortably until he is eighty years old, and when Lensky began to take aim, then Onegin realized in one second that it is permissible to scold and curse sweet boredom, but that one should not part with it prematurely.

Pushkin describes petty feelings, trashy thoughts and vulgar actions so beautifully that he managed to bribe not only the simple-minded mass of readers in favor of the insignificant Onegin, but even such a wonderful person and such a subtle critic as Belinsky. “We,” says Belinsky, “in no way justify Onegin, who, as the poet says, had to prove himself not a ball of prejudice, not an ardent boy fighter, but a husband with honor and intelligence; but tyranny and despotism! secular and everyday prejudices are such that they require heroes to fight them. The details of Onegin’s duel with Lensky are the height of artistic perfection” (p. 563).

And it's all! Good verdict. He does not justify Onegin, but meanwhile he immediately asserts that only a hero in Onegin’s place would have acted differently. This means that it completely justifies, because we have no right to demand from ordinary people such feats of moral courage that exceed the average level of ordinary human strength. But is this true? Is it really necessary to be a hero in order to be able to love your friend and not to kill with your own hands, out of base cowardice, those people whom we love with all our hearts? By expressing the wild idea that these negative exploits are accessible only to heroes, Belinsky humiliates human nature and, unnecessarily, is a defender of moral rottenness and rags. And what leads him into this grave sin is his extreme impressionability, bribed by the fact that “the details of Onegin’s duel with Lensky are the height of artistic perfection.” If Belinsky had bothered to ask himself the question of what this artistic perfection was spent on and where it was heading, he would immediately be convinced that such artistic tricks should not be praised, but strictly condemned. Calderon's fanatical dramas may have been artistically excellent, but their influence on Spanish society was in any case disgusting.

Belinsky treats Lensky very fairly and without the slightest tenderness, probably because he himself had to meet romantics in real life. “People like Lensky,” said Belinsky, “with all their undeniable merits (?), are not good in that they either degenerate into perfect philistines, or, if they retain their original type forever, become those outdated mystics and dreamers who are so They are also unpleasant, like ideal old maids, and who are more enemies of all progress than people who are simply, without pretensions, vulgar. Eternally delving into themselves and making themselves the center of the world, they calmly look at everything that is happening in the world, and repeat that happiness is within us, that our souls should strive towards the supra-stellar side of dreams and not think about the vanities of this earth, where there is and hunger, and need, and... The Lenskys have not died out even now: they have only been reborn. There was nothing left in them that was so charmingly beautiful (?) in Lensky; they do not contain the virgin purity of his heart (?), they only contain claims to greatness and a passion for dirtying paper. They are all poets, and the poetic ballast in the magazines is supplied by them alone. In a word, these are now the most intolerable, most empty and vulgar people” (pp. 564 and 565).

I completely agree with these words of Belinsky; I just don’t see any undeniable merits in Lensky; I don’t find anything charmingly beautiful in him and I don’t know how to admire the virgin purity of his heart, because I absolutely don’t understand who needs this virgin purity, what benefit it can bring and what strong qualities of mind and character protect it from the polluting and corrupting touches of real life. If from the quote I have given we take away the undeniable merits, charmingly beautiful and virgin purity, then what remains is an energetic and strict verdict of a consistent realist not only against the romantics, but also against all artists who ignore the grief and need of modern reality. If, in Belinsky’s opinion, those people who strive with their souls to the supra-stellar side of dreams are intolerable, empty and vulgar, then, obviously, there is nothing to have mercy on those people who strive with their souls into the dead silence of the historical past. Both those and others equally turn away from the vanity of this earth, “where there is hunger, and need, and...”, and it is in this contempt for the vanity of the earth that their real guilt lies. Once they have already turned away from the bustle of the earth, then it absolutely doesn’t matter in which direction they look. Then they are already a cut-off piece, and one can quite rightly say about them, together with Belinsky, that “these are now the most intolerable, the most empty and vulgar people.”

It also doesn’t hurt to note that these words of Belinsky extremely hurt Pushkin himself, who throughout his entire poetic activity constantly and systematically ignored hunger, need, and all the other ills of real life. When he accidentally came across some tiny sore, then he usually took it under his protection, that is, he tried to prove its fatal necessity. This, perhaps, will be even worse than striving with your soul in the superstellar side of dreams.

After the death of Lensky, Onegin goes to wander around Russia, frowns and squeaks everywhere, everywhere looks with senseless contempt at the activities of the vain crowd and, finally, reaches such an absurdity that he begins to envy the sick whom he sees in the Caucasian mineral waters.

Feeding bitter thoughts,
Among their sad family,
Onegin with a look of regret
Looks at the smoky streams
And he thinks, clouded with sadness:
Why wasn’t I wounded by a bullet in the chest?
Why am I not a frail old man?
How is this poor tax farmer?
Why, as the Tula assessor,
Am I not lying in paralysis?
Why can’t I feel it in my shoulder?
Even rheumatism? Ah, creator!
I am young, the life in me is strong;
What should I expect! Melancholy, melancholy!

Belinsky's thoughts on these senseless complaints are extremely interesting; they give us the most clear idea of ​​the deep sincerity of our great critic, of his extraordinary truthfulness and of his amazing ability to take every human word at face value, even those in which it is very easy to recognize the grossest lie and the most impudent charlatanism. “What a life! - Belinsky exclaims. - Here it is, that suffering about which so much is written both in poetry and in prose, about which so many complain, as if they really knew it; here it is, true suffering, without buskin, without stilts, without drapery, without phrases - suffering, which often does not take away either sleep, appetite, or health, but which is even more terrible!.. Sleeping at night, yawning during the day, seeing that everything they are busy with something, they are busy with something, one with money, another with marriage, a third with illness, a fourth with need and the bloody sweat of work, to see around you both joy and sadness, laughter and tears, to see all this and feel alien to all this, like the Eternal Jew, who, amid the life agitated around him, recognizes himself as alien to life and dreams of death as his greatest bliss; This suffering is not entirely understandable, but that is no less terrible. Youth, health, wealth, connected with the mind, heart; what would seem to be more for life and happiness? This is what the stupid mob thinks and calls such suffering a fashionable fad” (p. 554).

Without the slightest hesitation, I enroll in the ranks of the stupid rabble and, together with this stupid rabble, I radically deny and mercilessly ridicule the terrible suffering over which Belinsky so good-naturedly laments. The Russian landowner Onegin does not resemble the Eternal Jew at all, and there is not the slightest need to compare them with each other. The Eternal Jew, they say, was so constructed that he could not die; As a result of this strange feature of his body, he really had every reason to dream of death as the greatest bliss. But Onegin does not have this basis at all, and the fantastic figure of the Eternal Jew, who embodied such suffering that far exceeds the dimensions of human strength and human patience, is tied here neither to the village nor to the city. Belinsky himself suspects that “Onegin’s suffering” does not take away either sleep, appetite, or health, but, due to his generous gullibility, our critic believes that it is even more terrible.

Yes, really terrible! Inconsolable widows suffer such suffering in vaudeville, who during the play cry about their husbands and through tears flirt with the young officer, and just before the curtain falls, they wipe their eyes with a handkerchief and announce to the touched audience in the final verse that saving time and new love heal the deepest wounds of the torn. widows' hearts. For these dear widows, suffering also sits in the very depths of the soul, so deep that it cannot have any influence on the various functions of the physical body. The widow's heart is broken, but her body grows fat and prospers to its fullest. Simple human suffering, not vaudeville or Onegin, does not climb into such unattainable depths and, as a result, corrodes and burns through the organism in which it nests. I must admit that, as a crude realist, I only consider this last, crude and not deep suffering to be true. When the unfortunate sufferer sleeps eight hours a day, eats like a healthy barge hauler, and gets fat from deep sadness, then I dare to say that this blooming martyr is a great joker, throwing out the most hilarious jokes. Judge for yourself: isn’t this Onegin a joker? He decided to assure us that he envies the sick and wounded! But he won't deceive us. We know very well that envy is possible only when it is directed at an object that the envious person cannot appropriate for himself on his own. A sick person may envy a healthy person because the sick person is not able to become healthy of his own free will. A beggar may envy a millionaire for the same reason. But in the opposite direction, envy does not make any sense, because a healthy person can, whenever he pleases, upset his health, and a millionaire at any given moment can turn into a beggar. Why, says Onegin, am I not wounded by a bullet in the chest? Well, isn't he a fool? He speaks this in the Caucasus and speaks at a time when the Caucasus has not yet been conquered and pacified. But who is stopping him from enlisting as a cadet in the active army and receiving not only one bullet in the chest, but, perhaps, even at least a dozen? But he doesn’t want to have a bullet in his chest; he only wants to talk about the pleasure of being wounded, about the bliss of the Tula assessor lying in paralysis, and about the great misfortune of that man who is young and feels the presence of strong life in himself. He discusses all these subjects completely unhindered; gullible people take his words at face value; they look at him as a mysterious person; he is separated from the crowd not as a fool, but as a superior nature; This means that he rolls around like cheese in butter, and Belinsky’s contrition over his non-existent suffering has absolutely no basis. Belinsky, obviously, mistook Onegin for someone else, even, for example, for Beltov, for that official who did not reach the buckle for fourteen years and six months. But Beltov did not waste his youth seducing courtly coquettes; Beltov was not capable of killing a friend out of low cowardice; Beltov never dreamed of the pleasure of having a bullet in his chest and never envied either the Tula assessor or the poor tax farmer. In a word, Beltov is as far from Onegin as the creator of Beltov is far from Pushkin.

I absolutely cannot explain to myself how Belinsky mixed these two completely different types. Onegin is none other than Mitrofanushka Prostakov, dressed and combed in the metropolitan fashion of the twenties; they even have almost the same external techniques. Mitrofanushka says: I don’t want to study, I want to get married, and Onegin studies the “science of tender passion” and covers all the thinkers of the 18th century with mourning taffeta. Beltov, on the contrary, together with Chatsky and Rudin, portrays the painful awakening of Russian self-consciousness. These are people of thought and ardent love. They, too, are bored, but not from mental idleness, but because the questions long ago resolved in their minds cannot yet even be posed in real life.

The time of the Beltovs, Chatskys and Rudins has passed forever from the moment the appearance of the Bazarovs, Lopukhovs and Rakhmetovs became possible; but we, the newest realists, feel our blood relationship with this outdated type; we recognize our predecessors in him, we respect and love our teachers in him, we understand that without them we could not exist. But we have absolutely nothing to do with the Onegin type; we owe him nothing; This is a sterile type, incapable of either development or rebirth; Onegin's boredom cannot produce anything but absurdities and disgusting things. Onegin is bored, like a fat merchant's wife who has drunk three samovars and regrets that she cannot drink thirty-three of them. If the human belly had no limits, then Onegin’s boredom could not exist. Belinsky loves Onegin due to a misunderstanding, but on Pushkin’s part there are no misunderstandings here.

Now I begin to analyze the character of Tatyana and her attitude towards Onegin. Introducing us into the Larin family, Pushkin immediately tries to predispose us in favor of Tatyana; This, they say, the eldest, Tatyana, let her be an interesting person, a superior nature and a heroine, and let the younger one, Olga, be an uninteresting person, a simple nature and a gingerbread figure. Trusting readers, of course, are immediately predisposed and begin to look at every act and every word of Tatyana in a completely different way than how they would look at the same actions and the same words done and spoken by Olga. It's really impossible. Mr. Pushkin is deigned to be a famous writer. Therefore, if Mr. Pushkin deigns to love and favor Tatyana, then we, small reading people, are obliged to have tender and respectful feelings for the same Tatyana. However, I will try to detach myself from these preconceived feelings of love and respect. I will look at Tatyana as a girl completely unfamiliar to me, whose intelligence and character should be revealed to me not in the author’s recommendatory words, but in her own actions and conversations.

Tatyana's first act is her letter to Onegin. The act is very large and so expressive that it immediately reveals the whole character of the girl. We must give complete justice to Pushkin: the character is maintained excellently until the end of the novel; but here, as elsewhere, Pushkin completely misunderstands those phenomena that he depicts absolutely correctly. Imagine a painter who, wanting to paint a blooming young man, would take a consumptive patient as his model on the grounds that this patient has a very bright blush on his cheeks. Pushkin does exactly the same thing. In his Tatyana, he depicts with delight and compassion such a phenomenon of Russian life, which can and should be painted only with deep compassion or with sharp irony. That I am not slandering Pushkin by attributing admiration and sympathy to him, I can prove this with numerous quotes. For the first case, it will be enough to quote the XXXI stanza of Chapter III:

Tatiana's letter is in front of me;
I cherish it sacredly,
I read with secret longing
And I can’t read enough.
Who inspired her with this tenderness,
And words of kind negligence?
Who inspired her with touching nonsense,
Crazy heart conversation
Both fascinating and harmful?
I can not understand. But here
Incomplete, weak translation,
From a living picture the list is pale
Or the played "Freischitz"
The fingers of timid students.

In order for readers to understand the last phrase, I must remind them that, as Pushkin says in stanza XXVI, Tatyana’s letter was written in French. Let's now see what kind of letter this is and under what conditions Tatyana explained the need to write to Onegin.

Onegin, throughout the continuation of the novel, visited the Larins three times. The first time was when Lensky introduced him and then they were both treated to jam and lingonberry water. The second time was when he received Tatyana's letter. And for the third time on Tatiana’s name day. Conveying Onegin’s invitation to the Larins’ name day, Lensky tells him:

Otherwise, my friend, judge for yourself:
I looked twice, and there
You can’t even show your nose to them.

This means that before the name day there were really only two visits, and we have no way to assume that some of Onegin’s visits were passed in silence in the novel. This means that Tatyana fell in love with Onegin immediately and decided to write a letter to him, imbued with the most passionate tenderness, having seen him only once. But what happened on this first date? In what actions, in what conversation were the charming features of Onegin’s mind and character revealed?

If “Eugene Onegin” had been composed by me, then perhaps I would be able to answer these questions, which must inevitably arise in the mind of every attentive reader who is not able to be satisfied with the sonority and smoothness of the verse alone. But since I am innocent of the composition of “Eugene Onegin,” then, in response to these inevitable questions, I can only write out the story about this first visit, which destroyed the lovely Tatiana in the flower of her youth.

...Others galloped
Appeared; they are lavished
Sometimes difficult services
Hospitable old times.
Ritual of famous treats:
They carry jam on saucers,
They put a waxed one on the table
Jug with lingonberry water.
(Chapter III. Stanza III.)

Then follows five lines of dots, and then: “they are flying at full speed along the shortest road home.” Flying home, they talk to each other, and from their conversation we learn that Onegin drank some lingonberry water and is afraid of bad consequences from it. Complaining about the lingonberry water, Onegin asks: “Tell me, which one is Tatyana?” Lensky answers:

Yes, the one who is sad
And silent, like Svetlana,
She came in and sat by the window.

The acquaintance was obviously the most superficial, when Onegin does not even know “who I am Tatyana.” It could easily be that Onegin did not say a single word to Tatyana; this circumstance is all the more plausible since Lensky calls Tatyana silent; in all likelihood, old woman Larina was constantly in charge of the conversation; On the way back, Onegin speaks about her:

By the way: Larina is simple,
But a very sweet old lady.

This means that he managed to form a fairly definite concept for himself about only one old woman. And in a conversation with a simple old woman, he obviously could not express anything so remarkable that would justify or explain the emergence of a sudden and passionate feeling in the soul of an intelligent and sensible girl. Be that as it may, the result of Tatyana’s first, completely superficial acquaintance with Onegin was that famous letter, which Pushkin sacredly cherishes and reads with secret longing. Tatyana begins her letter quite moderately; she expresses a desire to see Onegin at least once a week, just to hear his speeches, to say a word to him, and then to think about him day and night until they meet again. All this would be very good if we knew what kind of speeches Tatyana liked so much and what word she wants to say to Onegin. But, unfortunately, we know for certain that Onegin could not say any wonderful speeches to the old woman Larina and that Tatyana did not utter a single word. If she wants to say words similar to those with which she fills her letter, then, really, there is no need for her to invite Onegin once a week, because these words have no meaning and there can be no relief from them either to the one who utters them, nor to the one who listens to them. Tatyana, apparently, has a presentiment that Onegin will not go to them once a week to give her speeches and listen to her words; as a result, gentle reproaches begin in the letter; if, they say, you, an insidious tyrant, will not come to us once a week, then there was no need to show up with us; Without you, I might have become a faithful wife and a virtuous mother, but now, by your mercy, I, a cruel man, must disappear. All this, of course, is stated in the most noble tone and squeezed into the most impeccable iambic tetrameter. I don’t want to marry anyone, Tatyana continues, but I even really want to marry you, because “it’s destined in the highest council... then the will of heaven, I’m yours” and because you were sent to me by God and you are my guardian to the grave of my life . Here Tatyana seemed to come to her senses and probably thought to herself: why am I writing such nonsense, and why on earth did I get so excited about it? After all, I only saw him once. But no, she continues: more than once; I’m not, in fact, such a crazy fool as to hang myself on the neck of the first person I meet: I fell in love with him because he is my ideal, and I’ve been dreaming about an ideal for a long time, which means I’ve seen him many times; hair, mustache, eyes, nose - everything is as it is, as the ideal should be; and, moreover, in the highest council it is destined to be so; and, besides, this is done in all the novels of Madame Cotten and Madame Genlis; That means there’s nothing to talk about: I’m madly in love with him, I’ll be faithful to him in this life and in the next, I’ll dream about him day and night, and I’ll write to him such a fiery letter that will make the most insensitive heart tremble. Then Tatyana throws aside the last remnants of her common sense and begins to level the most implausible lies against the unfortunate Onegin. “You appeared in my dreams.”

What is my fault? - Onegin will think. - Who knows what she could have dreamed? I can’t answer for any stupidity that she saw in her dreams!

Here's your time! Not even a dream. Now she will tell me that I came to her in reality. And she really makes a fuss about it:

You spoke to me in silence
When I helped the poor
Or she delighted me with prayer
The longing of a worried soul

It is very commendable of you, Tatyana Dmitrievna, that you help the poor and fervently pray to God, but why are you making up fables? From my childhood I have never spoken to you either in silence or in noise, and you yourself know this very well. - With each further line of the letter, Tatyana lies worse and worse, according to the Russian proverb: the further into the forest, the more firewood:

And at this very moment
Isn't it you, sweet vision,
Flashed in the transparent darkness,
Quietly leaning against the headboard?

Stop it, finally, Tatyana Dmitrievna! After all, you already agreed to hallucinations. Firstly, I am not a vision at all, but your neighbor, the Russian nobleman and landowner Onegin, who came to the village to receive an inheritance from his uncle. This matter is completely practical, and no cute visions deal with such matters. Secondly, why the devil will I flash at night in the transparent darkness and quietly cling to your headboard! Flashing is a very boring and useless thing; and a quiet embrace would have brought indescribable horror to your kind mother, whom I respect from the bottom of my heart for her simplicity. And finally, I can tell you once and for all that I do not flicker at night, but sleep, especially since all my interesting suffering, according to Belinsky’s fair remark, consists in the fact that I sleep at night and yawn during the day. This means that I have no time to flash, and I can tell you in all conscience that if you had imitated my prudent example, that is, slept soundly at night, instead of dreaming about handsome men and reading annoying novels, then you would never have convinced me is that you saw me in a dream, that my voice was heard in your soul and that I was clinging to your headboard. You would then understand very well that all this is empty, funny and stupid chatter.

It would be very nice and very useful for Tatyana if Onegin answered her verbally or in writing in that sharply mocking and coldly sober tone in which I wrote several phrases on his behalf. Such an answer, of course, would make Tatiana shed countless tears; but if only we allow the assumption that Tatyana was not stupid by nature, that her innate mind was not yet completely destroyed by stupid novels and that her nervous system was not completely upset by night dreams and sweet dreams, then we will come to the conviction that bitter the tears she shed over the prosaic answer of a cruel ideal should have produced a necessary and extremely beneficial revolution in her entire mental life. The deep wound inflicted on her vanity would instantly destroy her fantastic love for her charming neighbor. Well, she would have thought, it must really not be he who flashed in the transparent darkness. And if not him, then who? Yes, no one must have flashed. And why did I write him so many nonsense? And why do I think so much about various nonsense? And why do I dream at night? And why do I read such books, in which they write only about dreams, flickering and touching?

Tatyana would have seen clearly that her love for Onegin, which burst like a soap bubble, was only a counterfeit of love, a funny and pathetic parody of love, a fruitless and painful play of idle imagination; she would have understood at the same time that this mistake, which cost her many tears and made her blush with shame and annoyance, was a natural and necessary conclusion from the entire structure of her concepts, which she drew with passionate greed from her disordered reading; she would have realized that she needed to insure herself in the future against the repetition of such mistakes and that for such insurance she needed to break up and rebuild the entire world of her ideas. It is necessary either to find another, healthy reading, or at least to lean on real life, on some good and reasonable deed that could constantly maintain mental sobriety in her and distract her from the foggy area of ​​narcotic dreams. Such a good and reasonable thing is not difficult to find; a hint of it exists even in Tatyana’s absurd letter; she says that she helps the poor - well, help, but just take this matter seriously and look at it as a constant and beloved work, and not as a cheap means of erasing some microscopic sins from your conscience. When helping, keep in mind the actual needs of people in need, and not just give the poor a penny and then pat yourself on the back for it. In a word, despite the emptiness and colorlessness of the life to which Tatyana was condemned from childhood, our heroine still had the opportunity to act in this life with benefit for herself and for others, and she would certainly have taken up some modest, but useful activity, if only there was an intelligent person who, with an energetic word and sharp ridicule, would throw it out of the poisonous atmosphere of fantastic visions and stupid novels.

But, of course, Onegin, who was on the same level of mental development as Pushkin himself and Tatyana, could not with his influence cool the disordered impulses of her heated imagination. Onegin really liked the extravagant letter from the fantasizing young lady.

...Having received Tanya’s message,
Onegin was deeply touched:
The language of girlish dreams
He was disturbed by a swarm of thoughts;
And he remembered dear Tatyana
Both pale in color and dull in appearance;
And into a sweet, sinless dream
He was immersed in his soul...
(Chapter IV. Stanza XI.)

Onegin had the opportunity to arrange his relationship with Tatyana according to one of the following four plans: firstly, he could marry her; secondly, in his explanation with her he could ridicule her letter; thirdly, in the same explanation he could delicately reject her love, telling her at this opportunity many pleasantries about her wonderful qualities; fourthly, he could play with her like a cat plays with a mouse, that is, he could torture, dishonor and then abandon her.

Onegin did not want to get married, and he himself very naively explains to Tatyana the reason for his reluctance: “No matter how much I love you, once I get used to it, I will stop loving you immediately.” He also does not want to seduce her, partly because he is not a scoundrel, and partly because this matter leads to tears, scenes and a lot of unpleasant troubles, especially when the protagonist is such an energetic and enthusiastic girl like Tatyana. In Onegin's times, the level of moral requirements was so low that Tatyana, having gotten married, at the end of the novel considers it her duty to thank Onegin for treating her nobly. And all this nobility, which Tatyana cannot forget, consisted in the fact that Onegin did not turn out to be a thief in relation to her. So, two plans, the first and fourth, were rejected. The second plan is impossible for Onegin: he is not able to ridicule Tatyana’s letter, because he himself, like Pushkin, found this letter not funny, but touching. Mockery would seem to him profanation and cruelty, because neither Onegin nor Pushkin have any idea of ​​that highest and fully conscious humanity that very often forces a thinking person to utter a bitter and offensive word. Such a word would have burned Tatyana, but it would have been incomparably more useful for her than all the sweets scattered in Onegin’s speech. But Onegin’s time was not the time of that “gottliche Gronheit” (divine rudeness. Ed.), which Berne quite rightly extols. Onegin decided to give Tatyana a gold-plated pill, which could not have a beneficial effect on her precisely because it was gold-plated. Onegin's speech, which occupies five stanzas in the novel, is entirely, as if on purpose, aimed at making Tatyana's poor head even more dizzy and confused. I, says Onegin, -

I read
Souls of trusting confession,
Innocent outpouring of love;
I love your sincerity

(the tone is quite sultanic!)

She got excited
Feelings that have long been silent.

From the very beginning, Onegin makes a gross and irreparable mistake: he takes Tatiana’s love for a truly existing fact; and he, on the contrary, had to tell and prove to her that she did not love him at all and could not love him, because at first sight people only fall in love in stupid novels...

When would a family picture

(Onegin continues)

I was captivated for just one moment,
That would be true, except for you alone,
I was looking for no other bride.

This is all for a stupid letter; Of course, after these words, Tatyana herself will look at her message as an exemplary work, reflecting the most genuine feeling, the most wonderful mind. These flattering and, unfortunately, sincere words of Onegin should have the same effect on poor Tatiana as his victory over the barber and the conquest of the copper basin, which was immediately renamed the helmet of Mambrin, had on the unfortunate Don Quixote. Having obtained a trophy for himself, Don Quixote obviously had to establish himself in the sad delusion that he is really a knight errant and that he really can and should perform great feats. Having listened to Onegin's compliments, Tatyana should also have been confirmed in the equally sad delusion that she was very much in love, very suffering and very similar to the unfortunate heroine of some tormenting novel. Each further word of Onegin brings new Mambrin helmets to the unfortunate Don Quixote. Onegin announces to his interlocutor “without madrigal sparkles” that he has found his “former and deed” in her, but that, to his extreme regret, he, due to the flabbiness of his heart, cannot take advantage of this pleasant find:

Your perfections are in vain:
I am not worthy of them at all.
. . . . . . . . . . .
...And that’s what they were looking for
You are a pure fiery soul,
When with such simplicity,
Did they write to me with such intelligence?
. . . . . . . . . . .
I love you with the love of a brother
And maybe even more tender.

Onegin’s long hymn of praise ends with a flat and colorless moral teaching, which is in irreconcilable discord with all previous compliments and which, as a result, of course, will be ignored by Tatyana:

Learn to control yourself:
Not everyone will understand you like I do...
Inexperience leads to trouble.

What trouble? - Tatyana must think. - Thanks to my inexperience, I wrote a letter to him, in which he found a lot of intelligence and a lot of simplicity; thanks to my inexperience, I revealed my perfections to him, I revealed to him the pure ardor of my soul, I fell into the same ideals and aroused in him the love of a brother and, perhaps, another love, even more tender. If I hadn’t written this letter, none of this would have happened. And if he says that not everyone will understand me, then I don’t care about anyone. My heart is filled forever with my unhappy love, and until the doors of the cold grave I will drag this unhappy love in my tormented heart along the thorny path of my painful life.

That Tatyana reasons in precisely this way and that her thoughts take on precisely such pompous forms in her head - we see this, by the way, from the reflections that she engages in at night after her name day, when she sits

Alone, sadly under the window
Illuminated by Diana's ray. —
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I'll die, Tanya says:
But death from him is kind.
I don't complain: why complain?
He cannot give me happiness.

The unfortunate girl's head is so clogged with all sorts of rubbish and heated up to such an extent by Onegin's stupid compliments that the absurd words - "death from him is kind" - are pronounced with deep conviction and very conscientiously put into practice. To forget Onegin, to drive away the thought of him with some practical activities, to think about some new feeling, and in general to turn by some means from an unfortunate sufferer into an ordinary, healthy and cheerful girl - all this the sublime Tatyana considers for herself the greatest dishonor; this, in her opinion, would mean falling from heaven to earth, mixing with a vulgar crowd, plunging into the dirty pool of everyday prose. She says that “death from him is kind,” and therefore finds that it is much more magnificent to suffer and languish in the world of imaginary love than to live and have fun in the sphere of despised reality. And in fact, she manages to bring herself to complete exhaustion with tears, sleepless nights and sad reflections under Diana’s beam.

Alas, Tatyana is fading,
It turns pale, goes dark and is silent!
Nothing occupies her
Her soul doesn't move.

And all this was largely the result of her conversation with Onegin.

What was the consequence of the date?
Alas, it’s not hard to guess!
Love's mad suffering
Haven't stopped worrying
Young soul, greedy sadness;
No, more than a joyless passion
Poor Tatyana is burning.

The reader now sees that Onegin’s refined courtesy brought the richest fruits.

After Onegin’s departure from the village, Tatyana, trying to maintain the unquenchable fire of her eternal love within herself, repeatedly visits the office of the departed ideal and reads his books with great attention. With particular curiosity she peers and ponders those pages on which Onegin’s hand has made some kind of mark. So she read Byron's works and several novels,

In which the century is reflected
And modern man
Portrayed quite accurately.

“And another world opened up to her,” Pushkin announces to us. The words “another world” should, apparently, denote a new look at human life in general and at the personality of Onegin in particular. Then Pushkin continues:

And it starts little by little
My Tatyana understand
It's clearer now, thank God
The one for whom she sighs
Condemned by an imperious fate:
The eccentric is sad and dangerous,
The creation of hell or heaven,
This angel, this arrogant demon,
What is he? Is it really imitation?
An insignificant ghost, or else
Muscovite in Harold's cloak,
interpretation of other people's whims,
A complete vocabulary of fashion words?..
Isn't he a parody?
Have you really solved the riddle?
Has the word been found?
(Chapter VII. Stanzas. XXIV, XXY.)

It is impossible to understand why Pushkin imposed all these critical reflections on Tatiana and why he wants to assure us that a different world has opened up to her. This “other world” and these thoughts about the Muscovite in Harold’s cloak do not reveal the slightest influence either on Tatiana’s fantastic love or on her actions. Before the discovery of the new world, she imagined that she was in love to death; after her discovery she remains with the same conviction. Before the discovery of the new world, she unquestioningly obeyed her mother; and after the discovery she continues to obey also unquestioningly. This is very commendable on her part, but in order to obey mother in the most important cases of life, there was not the slightest need to open a new world, because our old world was based entirely on humility and obedience.

While Tatiana is discovering new worlds in Onegin’s office, one of the inhabitants of the old world advises her mother to take her daughter “to Moscow, to the brides’ fair.” Larina agrees with this idea, and when Tatyana finds out about this decision, then she, for her part, does not present any objections. One must assume that the “bride fair” occupies a very honorable place in the new world that Tatyana discovered. But if the new world allows for a bride fair, then it would be interesting to know how it differs from the old world and what was the need to open it?

In Moscow, Tatyana behaves exactly as a well-bred young lady should behave, brought by a caring parent to a brides fair. Of course

She's stuffy here... she's a dream
Strives for life in the field,
To the village, to the poor villagers,
To a secluded corner,
Where a bright stream flows,
To your flowers, to your novels,
And into the darkness of the linden alleys, -
Where he appeared to her.
(Chapter VII. Stanza LIII.)

But these are all empty words, and the reader who would take them at face value would be naive. Wherever she strives with her dreams, it is absolutely the same. Her body, pulled into a corset, in any case is where it is told to be, and makes exactly the movements that it is ordered to do. As she rushes into the darkness of the linden alleys, two aunties instruct her to look to the left, at the fat general, and she does. Then she is ordered to marry this fat general, and she marries him.

If all these actions are in strict accordance with the laws of her new world, then I dare to think that she could more conveniently save herself the trouble of making her discoveries, because all these discoveries had long since been made by her most distant ancestors. I believe that Onegin’s books did not make any revolution in Tatiana’s mental life. Tatiana, until the end of the novel, remains the same sad knight as we saw her in her letter to Onegin. Her painfully developed imagination constantly creates for her fake feelings, fake needs, fake responsibilities, a whole artificial program of life, and she carries out this artificial program with that amazing tenacity that is usually distinguished by people obsessed with some kind of monomania. She imagined that she was in love with Onegin, and really fell in love with him, began to glow with passion and do stupid things like the somersaults of a loving Don Quixote in the mountains of the Sierra Morena. Then she imagined that her life was in ruins and, as a result, she began to lose weight and turn pale. Then, seeing that she was unable to die, she imagined that now she was indifferent to everything; then she put herself at the complete disposal of her relatives, who brought her to the brides' fair and there sold her, like good goods, to the fat general. Finding herself in the hands of her new master, she imagined that she had been turned into a decoration for the general's house; then all the forces of her mind and her will were directed towards that goal, so that not a single speck of dust would fall on this decoration. She put herself under a glass bell and obliged herself to stand under this bell throughout her life. And she herself looks at herself from the outside and admires her inviolability and the strength of her character. I, she thinks, am very bored under the hood, but I still won’t come out from under it for anyone in the world, because I am the decoration of the general’s house; and the general did not acquire me so that I could live for my own pleasure.

Onegin meets her in St. Petersburg at a time when she, draped in her inviolability, is already decorating the fat general’s home with her virtuous special features. Seeing that the decoration of the general's house glitters with the brightest colors, Onegin is imbued with a reprehensible desire to pull this decoration out from under the glass cover. But the decoration does not move from its place and, remaining under the hood, reads from there to the enterprising dandy a sermon that gives him very little pleasure. As is known, the entire novel ends with this sermon. Tatyana's famous monologue contains the following meaning: why didn't you fall in love with me before? Now you are courting me because I have turned into a brilliant decoration of a rich house. I still love you, but I ask you to get the hell out; The world is disgusting to me, but I intend to unconditionally fulfill all its demands.

This monologue clearly proves that Tatiana and Onegin are worthy of each other: both of them have distorted themselves to such an extent that they have completely lost the ability to think, feel and act as human beings. Tatyana's monologue is distinguished by the most complete frankness, and it is for this reason that it is entirely composed of irreconcilable contradictions. Suspecting Onegin of petty vanity, she obviously denies him her respect, and at the same time, not respecting him, she loves him, and at the same time, loving him, she pushes him away; pushing him away out of respect for the demands of the world, she despises “all this rags of a masquerade”; despising all this rags, she deals with it from morning to evening. All these contradictions prove quite clearly that she loves nothing, respects nothing, despises nothing, thinks about nothing, but simply lives from day to day, obeying the routine and dispelling her impenetrable boredom with various tiny semblances of feelings and thoughts, such similarities that can squeeze a few tears out of beautiful eyes, but which will never create a single decisive action. In itself, Tatyana’s feeling is shallow and flabby, but in relation to its object this feeling is exactly what it should be; Onegin is a completely worthy knight of such a lady who sits under a glass bell and sheds burning tears; Onegin would not even have been able to withstand another, more energetic feeling; such a feeling would frighten and put our hero to flight; crazy and unhappy would be the woman who, out of love for Onegin, would decide to violate the majestic decorum of the general’s house. Onegin himself would probably have recoiled from her as from a raging fury, and in any case, Onegin would have acted with her according to the program that he naively revealed to Tatyana in the linden alley, that is, having gotten used to it, he would have stopped loving immediately. It’s really worth starting a scandal in the general’s house in order to give Onegin a few pleasant minutes and take advantage of his favor until he gets used to it!

Tatyana asks Onegin a question: why didn’t you love me before, when I was better and younger, and when I loved you? This question is posed very successfully, and if Onegin wanted and knew how to answer it completely sincerely, then he would have to say: because people like me are only capable of joking and having fun with women. When you were a girl, then I had to take on serious responsibilities in relation to you; I then had to take upon myself the care of your happiness, that is, the satisfaction of all your material and mental needs; Once I had taken on this concern, I would no longer have the opportunity to transfer it to anyone else; and such a prospect terrified me, because I am not capable of any serious business, I am not even capable of caring about the material and mental well-being of the woman who gives me pleasant moments. Now it's a completely different matter. Now I can have a fun affair with you, with mysterious dates, with fiery hugs and without any everyday, that is, serious and calm friendships. This affair will continue for five or six months, and then I will pay my respects to you, without paying any attention to whether you love me or not.

When Onegin wrote passionate letters to Tatiana and when he threw himself at her feet in her house, then, of course, he was only seeking an affair. Pushkin had a very convenient opportunity to measure the depth and strength of Onegin’s love. But Pushkin, of course, did not take advantage of this opportunity, because he did not have the slightest desire to flaunt the most petty and trashy sides of Onegin’s character. This complete exposure of an insignificant personality would have been inevitable if in Tatyana’s place there had been an energetic woman who loved Onegin with real, and not fictitious, love. If this woman had thrown herself on Onegin’s neck and told him: I’m yours for life, but, by all means, take me away from my husband, because I don’t want and can’t play a vile comedy with him, - then Onegin's delight would have cooled very much in one minute. Perhaps he would be ashamed to reveal at once all his cowardice, all his inadequacy in the face of serious concern; perhaps he would not have dared to recoil immediately from the woman in front of whom he himself had been on his knees a minute before; Perhaps, even feeling the impossibility of retreat, he would have decided, reluctantly, to take this woman somewhere abroad, but between the unwitting kidnapper and the unfortunate victim such a creaky and painful relationship would immediately begin that no decent woman could withstand. It would have ended with her running away from him, having learned to despise him to the depths of her soul; and, of course, the poor, disgraced woman would either have to die in the most terrible poverty, or be drawn involuntarily into the most miserable debauchery. If Pushkin had wanted and been able to write such a chapter, then, it seems to me, it would have depicted the Onegin type more clearly, more fully and more fairly than the entire novel now depicts it. But in order to subject the Onegin type to such cruel and well-deserved humiliation, Pushkin himself, obviously, had to stand above this type and treat him completely negatively.

Belinsky devoted an entire separate article to characterizing Tatyana. In this article, as usual, he expressed many excellent thoughts, which even now, after twenty years, can still amaze and horrify incorrigible philistines. But, giving complete justice to the excellent details of this article, I must note that, in its main idea, in its view of Tatyana’s character, it turns out to be completely untenable. Belinsky puts Tatyana on a pedestal and ascribes to her such virtues to which she has no right and with which Pushkin himself, with his superficial and childish view of life in general and of women in particular, did not want and could not endow the beloved creature of his fantasy.

The main reason for Belinsky’s unfounded predilection for Tatyana is, in my opinion, that Belinsky has to defend both Pushkin himself and Tatyana against the stupid and vulgar attacks of the philistinism of that time. In the fascination with polemics, it is difficult to constantly maintain a sober critical eye. Refuting the stupid remarks of the philistines, Belinsky often goes to the opposite extreme. Philistines say, for example: such and such an act is disgusting. Belinsky, in defiance of them, claims that he is magnificent. And upon closer examination it turns out that the philistines, of course, are spouting terrible nonsense, but that Belinsky is completely wrong, because there is nothing either disgusting or magnificent in the act being analyzed. This influence of philistine talk on the thought process taking place in the head of the great fighter Belinsky was expressed very clearly in many places in his critical articles about Pushkin. Here, for example, is how Belinsky talks about Tatyana’s letter to Onegin:

“Tatiana suddenly decides to write to Onegin: the impulse is naive and noble, but its source lies not in consciousness, but in unconsciousness: the poor girl did not know what she was doing. Later, when she became a noble lady, the possibility of such naively generous movements of the heart completely disappeared for her.” This is followed by several aesthetic remarks about the form in which Tatyana’s feelings were expressed. Then the battles with philistinism begin. “It’s remarkable,” Belinsky continues, “with what effort the poet tries to justify Tatyana for her determination to write and send this letter; it is clear that the poet knew too well the society for which he wrote.”

After excerpting several stanzas from Onegin, Belinsky continues: “One cannot help but feel sorry for the poet who sees himself forced in this way to justify his heroine to society - and in what way? - in what constitutes the essence of a woman, her best right to exist - that she has a heart, and not an empty pit covered with a corset! But it is even more impossible not to regret the society, before which the poet saw himself forced to justify the heroine of his novel, in that she is a woman, and not a piece of wood, carved in the likeness of a woman” (pp. 591, 593, 595).

Thanks to the donkey screams of the philistines, the whole question about Tatyana was shifted to the side and posed completely incorrectly. Belinsky proves that, loving Onegin, Tatyana had every right to write a letter to him. This is beyond doubt, and only philistines can argue against it. But the essence of the question is not this at all, but this: can and should a smart girl fall in love with a man at first sight? Belinsky looks at Tatyana very favorably because she has a heart in her chest, and not an empty hole covered with a corset. This is very commendable on her part, but, carried away by this dignity of her personality, Belinsky completely forgets to inquire about whether there was a sufficient amount of brain in her beautiful head, and if so, in what position this brain was located. If Belinsky had asked himself these questions, he would have immediately realized that the amount of brain was very insignificant, that this small amount was in the most deplorable state, and that only this deplorable state of the brain, and not the presence of the heart, explains the sudden outburst of tenderness, manifested in the composition of an extravagant letter. Belinsky thanks Tatyana for being a woman and not a piece of wood; here our critic obviously went overboard and, swinging at the philistines, lost his balance himself. Is it really necessary to be a piece of wood in order not to fall at his feet after a first date with a handsome dandy? And does being a woman mean writing hateful letters to strangers?

Belinsky, with remarkable power of analysis, outlines the type to which Tatyana belongs; he calls this type the type of ideal virgins; he notices all his funny sides and treats him completely negatively. Reading this description of ideal virgins, you expect that he will immediately bring Tatyana under this category and ridicule in the most merciless manner all her stupid sighs about Onegin. Not so! Belinsky strains all the forces of his great talent to draw a sharp dividing line between the horde of ideal maidens and the personality of Pushkin’s heroine; but this task turns out to be insoluble, and all of Belinsky’s arguments remain very unconvincing for the simple reason that they do not find any support for themselves in the facts of the novel itself. “Tatyana,” says Belinsky, “is an exceptional being, a deep, loving, passionate nature. Love for her could be either the greatest bliss or the greatest disaster of life, without any conciliatory middle. With happiness of reciprocity, the love of such a woman is an even, bright flame, otherwise it is a stubborn flame, which willpower may not allow to break out, but which is the more destructive and burning, the more it is compressed inside. A happy wife, Tatyana would calmly, but nevertheless passionately and deeply love her husband, would completely sacrifice herself to the children, would devote herself entirely to her maternal responsibilities, but not out of reason, but again out of passion, and in this sacrifice, in the strict fulfillment of her duties, with this calmness, with this external dispassion, with this external coldness, which constitute the dignity and greatness of deep and strong natures. This is Tatyana” (p. 582).

Yes, this is Tatyana, composed by Belinsky, but Tatyana Pushkina is not at all like this. The whole depth of Pushkin's Tatiana lies in the fact that she sits at night under Diana's beam. All her exclusivity lies in the fact that she wanders through the fields

With sad thoughts and eyes,
With a French book in hand.

All her passion boils away completely in one enthusiastic letter. Having written this letter, she finds that she has paid a sufficient tribute to her youth and that then she can only turn into an unapproachable society lady. In the entire novel we see only two actions of Tatyana: firstly, her letter, secondly, her final monologue; Only from these two moments in her life should we form an idea of ​​​​her character; in the intermission between two decisive moments, she only dreams, loses weight, is sad, yearns and generally behaves, on the one hand, like an ideal maiden, and on the other hand, like a passive commodity that can be taken to a fair and sold with her face. As for the two outstanding points in her life, based on them, one can only apply Pushkin’s famous words to Tatyana:

Blessed is he who was young from his youth;
Blessed is he who matures in time.

In her youth, Tatyana was distinguished by eccentric antics; and having matured, it turned into the embodiment of solidity. The most desperate philistines go through such transformations, who during their student years are usually the most defeated burshes. Belinsky himself perfectly understands the possibility of this transformation: “Many of them,” he says about ideal virgins, “would not mind getting married, and at the first opportunity they suddenly change their beliefs and from ideal virgins become the simplest women” (p. 575). Tatyana became not the simplest woman, but the most brilliant lady. The difference does not seem to be very significant, and the transformation of a broken bursh into a respectable philistine is as certain in the second case as in the first.

What would happen to Tatyana if she married out of passionate love - we know absolutely nothing about this, but we can notice that Belinsky himself has a very curious contradiction on this score. Considering Tatyana's character separately and remaking it at his own discretion, Belinsky claims that she can be an excellent wife and an exemplary mother. But, analyzing the same character in connection with the character of Onegin, Belinsky comes to the conclusion that Onegin should not have married Tatyana, because Tatyana would have been the most unhappy woman with him and would have become an unbearable burden for him. “What would he find later in Tatyana? - asks Belinsky. - Or a whimsical child who would cry because he cannot, like her, have a childish look at life and childishly play at love - and this, you see, is very boring; or a being who, carried away by his superiority, would so submit to him, not understanding him, that he would have neither his own feelings, nor his own meaning, nor his own will, nor his own character. The latter is calmer, but more boring” (p. 553). You see how inconvenient it is for an intelligent person (Belinsky considers Onegin to be an intelligent person) to marry Tatyana. Wherever you throw it, it’s all a wedge. Meanwhile, she believes that she is in love with him and, moreover, in love for life, and does not want to hear about any other love. If, having married this beloved man, she must inevitably become an intolerable burden for him, then, one asks, what conditions are necessary so that she can develop her ability to be an excellent wife and an exemplary mother? What recipe should be used to create the person with whom she could fall in love and whom, moreover, she could make happy with her love? It seems to me that Tatyana cannot make anyone happy and that if she had married not a fat general, but a mere mortal who wanted to find in her not a decoration of the house, but a kind and intelligent friend, then her family life would have been arranged according to the following program , very wittily compiled by Belinsky for some ideal virgins: “More terrible than all the others,” says Belinsky, “are those ideal virgins who not only do not shun marriage, but in marriage with the object of their love they see the highest earthly bliss: with a limited mind, in the absence of any moral development, with the corruption of their imagination, they create their own ideal of a marriage union - and when they see the impossibility of realizing their absurd ideal, they take out the bitterness of their disappointment on their husbands” (p. 575). Exactly; and therefore, the best and safest thing for the ideal maiden Tatyana Dmitrievna Larina was to go to the bride fair, so that she could later turn into the simplest woman or the most brilliant society lady.

To think that Pushkin is capable of creating the type of exemplary wife and excellent mother means positively slandering our playful favorite of the muses and graces. Pushkin is absolutely innocent of such a serious idea. He looks at a woman solely from the point of view of her cuteness. “Women,” he says in one letter, “have no character; they have passions in youth; that’s why it’s not difficult to derive them” (“Materials for the biography and evaluation of the works of A. Pushkin,” p. 135). In marriage, he sees only “a series of tedious pictures, a novel in the style of La Fontaine.” By the way, “married” - he certainly has two constant rhymes “robe” and “horned”. Marriage, in his opinion, inevitably follows vulgarization; and those people who are capable of becoming vulgar turn out to be the worst husbands and live with their wives like a cat and a dog. Indeed, one must be a highly developed person, one must be a fanatic of a great idea and fruitful work, in order to understand and express all the endless poetry of constant love. In our country, all novels usually end where the family life of young spouses begins. Having brought his hero to the wedding, the novelist says goodbye to him forever. When a married couple is introduced in a novel, it is introduced either to depict the storms of family life, or to depict a sleepy kingdom, like “Old World Landowners.”

At the beginning of this article, I cited several enthusiastic reviews of Belinsky about the enormous historical and social significance of Eugene Onegin. Now, having analyzed the main characters of the novel, I can decide, in my extreme understanding, the question of whether these enthusiastic reviews of Belinsky are justified by the actual merits of Pushkin’s “most sincere work”? Belinsky says that Onegin can be called an “encyclopedia of Russian life.” This poem was, in his opinion, “an act of consciousness for Russian society, almost the first, but what a great step forward for it! This step was of heroic proportions, and after it standing in one place became impossible” (p. 605).

If the consciousness of society must consist in society being fully and strictly aware of its own needs, sufferings, prejudices and vices, then “Eugene Onegin” in no case and from any point of view can be called an act of consciousness. If the movement of society forward should consist in society clarifying its needs, studying and eliminating the causes of its suffering, renouncing its prejudices and branding its vices with contempt, then “Eugene Onegin” cannot be called either the first, or the great, or in general, any step forward in the mental life of our society. As for the heroic scope and the impossibility of standing in one place after Eugene Onegin, then, of course, the reader, when encountering such bold and purely fantastic hyperboles, can only smile, shrug and remember the recent past, which every minute, like a stubborn and a poorly treated illness makes itself felt in the present.

Pushkin’s attitude towards the depicted phenomena of life is so biased, his concepts about the needs and moral duties of man and citizen are so vague and incorrect that the “beloved child” of Pushkin’s muse was supposed to act on readers like a soporific drink, by the grace of which man forgets what he needs to constantly remember, and comes to terms with what he must fight tirelessly against. The entire “Eugene Onegin” is nothing more than a bright and brilliant apotheosis of the most bleak and most meaningless status quo. All the pictures in this novel are painted with such bright colors, all the dirt of real life is so carefully pushed aside, the major absurdities of our social mores are described in such a majestic form, tiny errors are ridiculed with such imperturbable good nature, the poet himself lives so cheerfully and breathes so easily - that an impressionable reader must certainly imagine himself as a happy inhabitant of some Arcadia, in which, from tomorrow, a golden age must certainly be established.

In fact, what kind of human suffering was Pushkin able to notice and consider it necessary to sing about? Firstly, boredom or blues; and secondly, unhappy love, and thirdly... thirdly... nothing more, no more suffering appeared in Russian society of the twenties. At first, Onegin is bored because he is too happy, enjoys all the blessings of life too limitlessly; then Tatyana suffers because Onegin does not want to marry her; Then Onegin suffers because Tatyana does not want to become his mistress. This means that in Russian society of the twenties there were two major vices, two such vices to which the greatest poet of Russia certainly had to pay his enlightened attention. Firstly, in Russia at that time there were too many blessings of life, so Russian youths could overeat with them, upset their stomachs and, as a result, fall into the blues. Secondly, Russian men and Russian women were designed in such a way by nature that they did not always fall in love with each other at the same time: it happened, for example, that a woman was already on fire, and a man was just beginning to warm up; then the man burns, and the woman has already burned to the ground and goes out. Such an inconvenient device caused a lot of grief to both enlightened Russians and charming Russian women. Pushkin's novel cast a bright light on both major ills of Russian life; since this novel was of heroic proportions, it was no longer possible to stand in one place after its appearance, and Russian society, having delved into the suffering of Onegin and Tatyana, immediately made the necessary orders, firstly, that the amount of life’s blessings be brought to strict proportionality with the volume of youthful stomachs, and secondly, about the fact that enlightened Russians and charming Russian women are inflamed with mutual love at the same time. When this balance came into proper strength, then melancholy and unhappy love were destroyed; a golden age has arrived in Russia; the young men began to enjoy the blessings of life with prudent moderation, and the virgins, thanks to these moderate young men, became; in due course of time transform into happy wives and excellent mothers. But the golden age disappeared like a light dream; and the young descendants of the Arcadian inhabitants look at the heroic scope of “Eugene Onegin” as a completely incongruous dream, which after waking up is difficult not only to understand, but even to remember. And these depraved descendants realize that if “Eugene Onegin” is an encyclopedia of Russian life, then it means that the encyclopedia and Russian life are not at all similar to each other, because the encyclopedia is in itself, and Russian life is also in itself.

According to some dark legends and some deep historical research, it is permissible, for example, to think that in Russia in the twenties there existed that phenomenon of social life that is now known under the name of serfdom. It would be interesting to know how this phenomenon of Russian life was reflected in the encyclopedia? We cope and learn that Onegin, having arrived in the village, replaced the yoke of the ancient corvee with a light quitrent and that the peasant blessed his fate; that the old woman Larina “beat the maids, getting angry,” “shaved their foreheads” and “began to call the old Selina Akulka,” that the maids, while picking berries, sang songs at the master’s orders, so that “so that evil lips would not secretly eat the master’s berries”; that “the peasant, triumphant, renews the path on wood”; that the yard boy runs around the yard, “placing a bug in a sled, transforming himself into a horse”; what's on Christmastide

Maids from all over the court
They wondered about their young ladies
And they were promised every year
Military men and the campaign.

That's all we can glean from the encyclopedia regarding serfdom. We must tell the truth, this information has the lightest pink coloring: the landowner makes the peasant’s situation easier, the peasant blesses fate, the peasant triumphs when winter appears - which means he loves winter, which means he is warm in winter and has plenty of bread, and since it’s a Russian winter lasts at least six months, which means the man spends at least half of his life in triumph and complacency. The yard man's son also rejoices and is amused; This means that no one beats him, he is fed well, dressed warmly, and from an early age he is not turned into a Cossack, forced to hang out on a horse in the footman's room and every minute run for a handkerchief, then for a glass of water, then for a pipe, then for a snuffbox. The light pink color is darkened a little by the unexpected news that Larina beat the maids; but, firstly, She beat them only “out of anger,” and she probably got angry very rarely and only for a reason, because if she was capable of getting angry often and unreasonably, then, of course, the insightful Onegin, friend and favorite author of the encyclopedia, and would not say about Larina that she is “a very sweet old lady.” Secondly, it was impossible not to beat the maids, because, as we learn from the same encyclopedia, they were very big scoundrels; they were capable of stealing the master's berries, and the lady, in order to protect the sacred property and to protect the vile maids from a vile crime, was forced to bother her master's head and come up with that intricate means, which is called in the encyclopedia the idea of ​​rural wit and which taught the maids to prefer high aesthetic pleasures , - somehow singing, - low material objects, namely berries. Thirdly, the maids were not beaten painfully, because neither the beatings nor the memories of them prevented them from spending Christmastide in chants, in which they had the opportunity to improve during the summer, during their frequent collisions with low material objects, that is, with berries .

So, based on the evidence of the encyclopedia, we have every right to conclude that serfdom brought a lot of benefit and pleasure to both landowners and peasants. The landowners had the opportunity to reveal their generosity, the men had the opportunity to learn selflessness from them, the maids developed an aesthetic sense and the ability of moral self-control - in a word, everyone prospered and mutually improved each other.

If you want to know what the most educated part of Russian society did in the twenties, then the encyclopedia of Russian life will answer you that this most educated part ate, drank, danced, visited theaters, fell in love and suffered either from boredom or from love. - But only? - you ask. - But only! - the encyclopedia will answer. - This is very funny, you might think, but not entirely believable. Was there really nothing else in Russia at that time? Didn’t young people really dream of careers and didn’t try to pave their way to wealth and honor in one way or another? Was every single person content with his position and not lifting a single finger to improve this situation? Did Onegin really have to despise people just because they clicked their heels very loudly during a mazurka? And were there really no people in the society of that time who did not cover the thinkers of the 18th century with mourning taffeta and who could look at Onegin with the same contempt with which Onegin himself looked at Buyanov, Pustyakov and various other representatives of the provincial fauna? - The encyclopedia answers the last question completely negatively. At least we see that Onegin looks down on everyone and that no one looks at him that way. All other questions are left completely unanswered.

But the encyclopedia gives us very detailed information about the capital’s restaurants, about the dancer Istomina, who flies around the stage “like fluff from the lips of Aeolus”; that the jam is served on saucers, and the lingonberry water is in a jug; that the ladies spoke Russian with grammatical errors; about what poems are written in the albums of county young ladies; that champagne is sometimes replaced in villages by Tsimlyansky; that the cotillion is danced after the mazurka, and so on. In a word, you will find a description of many small customs, but from these tiny pieces, suitable only for a notebook antiquary, you will extract almost nothing for the physiology or pathology of the society of that time; you absolutely will not know what ideas or illusions this society lived by; you absolutely will not know what gave him meaning and direction or what supported his nonsense and apathy. You won't see the historical picture; you will see only a collection of antique costumes and hairstyles, antique price lists and posters, antique furniture and antique antics. All this is described extremely vividly and cheerfully, but this is not enough; to paint a historical picture, one must not only be an attentive observer, but also, in addition, a remarkable thinker; from the diversity of faces, thoughts, words, joys, sorrows, stupidities and meannesses that surround you, you need to choose exactly that which concentrates in itself the whole meaning of a given era, that leaves its stamp on the whole mass of secondary phenomena, that squeezes into its framework and modifies with its influence all other sectors of private and public life.

Griboyedov really accomplished such a huge task for Russia in the twenties; as for Pushkin, he did not even come close to this task; Then I didn’t form an approximately correct idea about her. To begin with, the choice of hero is extremely unfortunate. In such a novel, which must depict the life of an entire society at a given moment, the hero must certainly be either a person who concentrates in his personality the meaning and typical features of the status quo, or one who carries within himself the strongest desire for the future and the clearest understanding real social needs. In other words: a hero must certainly be either a knight of the past, or a knight of the future, but in any case an active person who has some goal in life, pushing among people, fussing with the crowd, deploying and straining in one way or another, in an honest or dishonest in fact, all the powers of your mind and your energy. Only the life of such an active person can show us in a clear example the advantages and disadvantages of the social mechanism and public morality.

What benefits do the majority pursue, what means lead to the desired success, how does public opinion relate to various means, what are the constituent elements of this public opinion, where does routine end and where protest begins, what are the comparative strengths of routinists and Protestants, how great is the mutual relationship between them? bitterness - all these and many other questions that must be posed and resolved in the encyclopedia of social life can only be addressed when the fighter and worker is made the focus of the whole picture, and not the sleepy figure of a loitering rogue. Chichikov, Molchaliv, Kalinovich can be made heroes of a historical novel, but Onegin and Oblomov - under no circumstances. Chichikov, Molchalin, Kalinovich, as people who achieve something, are connected with society by the strongest ties, because they can only fulfill their desires in society and through society. Forcing them to follow one path or another, forcing them to lie in one place, cheat in another, make a sensitive speech in a third, make a low bow in a fourth - society hews them into its own image and likeness, changes their characters, defines their concepts. and little by little prepares from them typical representatives of a given time, a given people and a given environment. On the contrary, Onegin and Oblomov, people secure in their material existence and not gifted by nature with either great minds or strong passions, can almost completely separate from society, submit exclusively to the demands of their temperament and thus reflect neither bad nor good in their character aspects of this social order. These people, as individuals, are of absolutely no interest to the thinker who studies the physiology of society. They acquire significance only when they, by their multiplicity, become a noticeable statistical fact. If in the most educated part of any society hundreds or thousands of Onegins and Oblomovs are encountered at every step, that is, people who ignore the existence of society and have no idea about any public interests, then, of course, such a fact can lead a thinking observer to very instructive reflections. This observer will have every right to think that the movement of social life is extremely sluggish and weak, because this movement does not attract and carry with it those people who live in a given society. But even in this case, a thinking writer has no need to undertake a special study of the proliferating Onegins and Oblomovs. No matter how numerous they may be, they still constitute a passive product, and not an active cause of social stagnation. It’s not because the cellar is damp because woodlice live in it, but because woodlice got into it because it was damp. And why it was damp is another question, in the study of which woodlice should be completely pushed aside. It is not because social life moves slowly that there are many Oblomovs and Onegins in society, but, on the contrary, Oblomovs and Onegins have multiplied in society for the reason that social life moves slowly. And why it moves slowly is another question, when studying which one must keep in mind not the Oblomovs and Onegins, but the Chichikovs, Silents, Kalinovichs, on the one hand, and the Chatskys, Rudins, Bazarovs, on the other hand.

Thus, in the work of a thinking writer who has decided to paint a picture of a given society, figures like Onegin can only be admitted as introductory figures standing in the background, as, for example, Zagoretsky and Repetilov stand in Griboedov’s comedy. The first places in all fairness belong to Famusov and Skalozub, who give the reader the key to understanding an entire historical period and who, with their typical and sharply defined physiognomies, explain to us Molchalin’s sycophancy, Sophia’s stupid sentimentality, and Chatsky’s sterile eloquence. Griboedov, in his analysis of Russian life, reached that extreme limit beyond which a poet cannot go without ceasing to be a poet and without turning into a scientific researcher. Pushkin, on the contrary, did not even begin any analysis; He says with complete sincerity and very commendable modesty in Chapter VII of Onegin: “I sing about Mladov’s friend and his many quirks.” Indeed, this is his whole task. Why did he turn his attention specifically to this “friend of Mladov” and not to someone else - don’t ask him about that. That’s why he’s a poet, to do whatever he wants from the field of his creativity, without giving an account of it to anyone in the world, not even to himself. What explains this friend's quirks is something he is not at all interested in either.

If only critics and the public understood Pushkin’s novel the way he himself understood it; if they looked at him as an innocent and aimless little thing, like “Count Nulin” or “Little House in Kolomna”; if they had not put Pushkin on a pedestal, to which he has not the slightest right, and had not forcibly imposed on him great tasks that he does not know how to do and does not want to solve or even ask himself, then I would not even think of outrage the sensitive hearts of Russian aestheticians with my irreverent articles about the works of our so-called great poet. But, unfortunately, the public of Pushkin's time was so undeveloped that it mistook good poetry and vivid descriptions for great events in their mental life. This public, with equal zeal, rewrote both “Woe from Wit” - one of the greatest works of our literature, and “The Bakhchisarai Fountain”, in which there is absolutely nothing but pleasant sounds and bright colors.

20 years later, the question of Pushkin was taken up by an excellent critic, an honest citizen and a wonderful thinker, Vissarion Belinsky. It seems that such a person could solve this question satisfactorily and give Pushkin the modest place that should belong to him in the history of our mental life. It turned out, however, the opposite. Belinsky wrote eleven excellent articles about Pushkin and scattered in these articles many of the brightest thoughts about human rights and responsibilities, about relations between men and women, about love, about jealousy, about private and public life, but the question of Pushkin in the end turned out to be completely darkened. It seemed to readers, and perhaps to Belinsky himself, that it was Pushkin who gave birth to all these wonderful thoughts with his works, which, however, belonged entirely to the critic and which, in all likelihood, would not have pleased the poet in question. Belinsky exaggerated the significance of all of Pushkin’s main works and attributed to each of these works such a serious and deep meaning that the author himself could not and did not want to put into them.

Belinsky's articles about Pushkin, in themselves, as independent literary works, were extremely useful for the mental development of our society; but like praising an old idol, like inviting one to an old temple, in which there was a lot of food for the imagination and in which there was no food for the mind, these very articles could and did bring their share of harm. Belinsky loved the Pushkin he created for himself; but many of Belinsky’s ardent followers began to love the real Pushkin, in his natural and unrefined form. They began to extol precisely those weaknesses in him that Belinsky obscured or reinterpreted in his own way. As a result, the name of Pushkin became the banner of incorrigible romantics and literary philistines. All criticism of Apollo Grigoriev and his followers was based on the exaltation of that all-encompassing love that allegedly permeated all of Pushkin’s works. Extolling the meek and loving Pushkin, romantics and philistines almost completely ignore Griboedov and are almost hostile to Gogol. Some magazines have repeatedly expressed the amusing opinion that Gogol did not know Great Russian life. If we add to this that some Little Russian writers reproach Gogol for ignorance of Little Russian life, it turns out that Gogol knew nothing at all and that he made a complete revolution in Russian literature precisely because of his ignorance.

Admiring their beloved Pushkin as the greatest representative of the philistine view of life, our romantics at the same time hide behind the great name of Belinsky, as a reliable lightning rod saving them from any suspicion of philistine tastes and tendencies. We are at one with Belinsky, say the romantics, and you, nihilists, or realists, you are just proud boys trying to attract the attention of the public with your daring attitude towards unforgettable authorities.

The reverence of romantics for Pushkin sometimes leads them to the most ridiculous and absurd extremes. Apollon Grigoriev once wrote in one of his letters, published by Strakhov, that he considers the last three great poets to be Byron, Mitskevich and Pushkin. The fact that Mitskevich and Pushkin are placed next to Byron is quite funny. This is absolutely the same as putting Kaidanov and Smaragdov next to Schlosser. But even more amusing is the fact that Mitskevich and Pushkin were included in the list of great poets, but Heine was not included. This is understandable. He does not deserve this honor because he was a whistler and a denier. It is also clear why Pushkin’s panegyrists are silent about Griboyedov and do not like Gogol. Both Griboyedov and Gogol stand much closer to the reality around us than to the peaceful and quiet bedrooms of romantics and philistines.

Since the struggle of literary parties has now become stubborn and irreconcilable, since the spirit of the party now determines the views of the writing people on former writers, even in those organs of our press that themselves cry out against the spirit of the party, then the realists, fighting for their ideas, are forced to look take a closer look, from our point of view, at those old literary idols and at those venerable names behind which our very fierce, but very cowardly persecutors are hiding. We hope to prove to our society that old literary idols fall apart from their dilapidation at the first touch of serious criticism. As for the venerable name of Belinsky, it will turn against our literary enemies. While we disagree with Belinsky in our assessment of individual facts, noticing in him excessive credulity and too strong impressionability, at the same time we come much closer than our opponents to his basic beliefs.

NOTES

The article “Pushkin and Belinsky” was first published in the magazine “Russian Word”, 1865, April and June. In the magazine it is divided into two articles with the following titles: the first article had the title “Eugene Onegin”, the second - “Pushkin’s Lyrics”.

“The Romance of the Log” was widespread in the 60s; Pisarev further hints at these verses of the romance further in this article:

Suddenly I see someone's leg
Leaned on a log
I was in love with this leg, -
But you don't care...
And I said through the window:
Oh! Why am I not a log!

Peace of Antalcid (387 BC) - a peace between Persia and Sparta, under the terms of which the Greek cities in Asia Minor came under Persian rule.

The agreement between Oleg (the first Kiev prince from the Rurik family) and the Greeks took place after Oleg’s successful campaign in 907 against Tsar Grad (Constantinople), when Oleg hung his shield “on the gates of Tsar Grad”.

The Holy Alliance was concluded by Germany. Austria and Russia in September 1815 to unite the forces of monarchical and feudal reaction.

Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) - a congress of representatives of European states after the victory over Napoleon; The activities of the congress were reactionary in nature.

Carlsbad Conference (1819), convened on the initiative of Metternich, one of the organizers of the Holy Alliance, to combat revolutionary and opposition sentiments in Europe. These conferences cemented the triumph of reaction in German foreign and domestic policy.

Bukeevskaya Horde is a steppe region of the Astrakhan region on the left bank of the Volga. At the end of the 18th century. one of the Kyrgyz khans Bukey, with the permission of the Russian government, brought here and visited more than thirty thousand Kyrgyz.

Kalinovich is the hero of Pisemsky's novel "A Thousand Souls".

Letters from Ap. Grigoriev to N.N. Strakhov were published in the magazine "Epoch", 1864, book. IX.

D. I. Pisarev. Literary critical articles. Favorites. Introductory article, comments, notes and editing by N. F. Belchikov. State Publishing House "Fiction", M., 1940

Description of the presentation of the novel “Eugene Onegin” in Russian criticism based on slides

The novel “Eugene Onegin” in Russian criticism of the 11th century Criticism is the determination of the attitude towards the subject (sympathetic or negative), the constant correlation of the work with life, the expansion and deepening of our understanding of the work by the power of the critic’s talent

First reviews of the novel The editor of the Moscow Telegraph magazine N. Polevoy welcomed the genre of Pushkin’s work and noted with delight that it was written not according to the rules of “ancient literature, but according to the free demands of the creative imagination.” The fact that the poet describes modern mores was also positively assessed: “We see our own, hear our native sayings, look at our quirks. »

First reviews of the novel “You have not talent, but genius... I read Onegin... incomparably!” V. A. Zhukovsky

Decembrists about the novel “I don’t know what Onegin will be next, but now it is lower than The Bakhchisarai Fountain and The Prisoner of the Caucasus...” K. F. Ryleev

Decembrists about the novel Why do you spend the delights of the sacred hours for songs of love and fun? Throw off the shameful burden of sensual bliss! Let others fight in the magic nets of Jealous beauties - let them seek other Rewards with poison in their cunning eyes! Save direct delight for the heroes! A. A. Bestuzhev - Marlinsky

Conflicting judgments about the novel As new chapters are published, the motive for rejection of the novel, an ironic and even sarcastic attitude towards it, begins to sound more and more clearly in the evaluations. "Onegin" turns out to be the target of parodies and epigrams. F. Bulgarin: Pushkin “captivated and delighted his contemporaries, taught them to write smooth, pure poetry... but did not carry his age along with him, did not establish the laws of taste, did not form his own school. “In the parody “Ivan Alekseevich, or the New Onegin,” both the composition and the content of the novel are ridiculed: Everything is there: about legends, And about cherished antiquity, And about others, and about me! Don’t call it a vinaigrette, Read on, - and I’m Warning you, friends, That I follow fashionable poets.

Conflicting judgments about the novel “I really love the extensive plan of your Onegin, but most people do not understand it. they are looking for a romantic connection, looking for the unusual and, of course, they don’t find it. The high poetic simplicity of your creation seems to them the poverty of fiction, they do not notice that old and new Russia, life in all its changes passes before their eyes.” E. A. Baratynsky

V. G. Belinsky about the novel “Eugene Onegin” “Onegin” is Pushkin’s most sincere work, the most beloved child of his imagination, and one can point to too few works in which the poet’s personality would be reflected with such completeness, lightly and clearly, as Pushkin’s personality was reflected in Onegin. Here is all his life, all his soul, all his love, here are his feelings, concepts, ideals.” According to the critic, * the novel was an “act of consciousness” for Russian society, a “great step forward” * the poet’s great merit lies in the fact that he “brought out of fashion the monsters of vice and the heroes of virtue, drawing instead of them just people” and reflected the “true reality picture of Russian society in a certain era" (encyclopedia of Russian life") ("Works of Alexander Pushkin" 1845) V. G. Belinsky

D. Pisarev in the novel “Eugene Onegin” Pisarev, analyzing the novel from the point of view of immediate practical benefit, argues that Pushkin is a “frivolous singer of beauty” and his place is “not on the desk of a modern worker, but in the dusty office of an antique dealer” “Elevating in the eyes of the reading masses those types and those character traits that in themselves are low, vulgar and insignificant, Pushkin with all the forces of his talent lulls to sleep that social self-awareness that a true poet must awaken and educate with his works" Article "Pushkin and Belinsky" (1865) D I. Pisarev

F. M. Dostoevsky about the novel “Eugene Onegin” F. M. Dostoevsky calls the novel “Eugene Onegin” an “immortal, unattainable poem” in which Pushkin “appeared to be a great national writer, like no one ever before him. He immediately, in the most accurate, most insightful way, noted the very depths of our essence...” The critic is convinced that in “Eugene Onegin” “real Russian life is embodied with such creative power and such completeness as never happened before Pushkin.” Speech at the opening of the monument to Pushkin (1880) F. M. D Dostoevsky

Critics about Onegin V. G. Belinsky: “Onegin is a kind fellow, but at the same time a remarkable person. He is not fit to be a genius, he does not want to be a great person, but the inactivity and vulgarity of life are strangling him”; “suffering egoist”, “reluctant egoist”; “The powers of this rich nature were left without application, life without meaning...” D. I. Pisarev: “Onegin is nothing more than Mitrofanushka Prostakov, dressed and combed in the metropolitan fashion of the twenties”; “an extremely empty and completely insignificant person,” “pathetic colorlessness.” F. M. Dostoevsky: Onegin is an “abstract man”, “a restless dreamer throughout his life”; “an unhappy wanderer in his native land”, “sincerely suffering”, “not reconciled, not believing in his native soil and in its native forces, ultimately denying Russia and himself”

Critics about Tatyana V. G. Belinsky: “Tatiana is an exceptional being, a deep, loving, passionate nature”; “Eternal fidelity to such relationships that constitute a profanation of the feelings and purity of femininity, because some relationships that are not sanctified by love are extremely immoral” D.I. Pisarev: “The head of the unfortunate girl... is clogged with all sorts of rubbish”; “she loves nothing, respects nothing, despises nothing, thinks about nothing, but simply lives from day to day, obeying the routine”; “She put herself under a glass bell and obliged herself to stand under this bell throughout her life” F. M. Dostoevsky: “Tatyana is the type of a completely Russian woman who has protected herself from false lies”; her happiness “in the highest harmony of spirit”

Conclusions Interest in Pushkin’s work was not always the same. There were moments when it seemed to many that the poet had exhausted his relevance. More than once they tried to assign him a “modest place... in the history of our mental life” or even suggested “throwing him off the ship of modernity.” The novel “Eugene Onegin”, initially enthusiastically received by his contemporaries, was sharply criticized in the 30s of the 11th century . Yu. L. Otman: “Pushkin went so far ahead of his time that his contemporaries began to feel that he was behind them.” In the era of revolutionary upheavals (for example, the 60s of the 11th century), when the socio-political struggle reached the highest point of tension, the humane Pushkin suddenly turned out to be uninteresting and unnecessary. And then interest in him flared up with renewed vigor. F. A Brahmov: “It was necessary to go through trials, through rivers and seas of blood, it was necessary to understand how fragile life is in order to understand the most amazing, spiritual, harmonious, versatile person that Pushkin was. When a person faces the problem of moral improvement, questions of honor, conscience, justice, turning to Pushkin is natural and inevitable

The poet’s work, from the moment of its publication to the present day, has been subjected to serious study and comprehension not only by readers, but also by professional critics.

Since the publication of the novel was carried out as the poet wrote the next chapter, the first reviews of critics periodically changed depending on the assessment of the work as a whole.

The main qualitative comprehensive analysis of the work is carried out by the domestic critic V.G. Belinsky, who in his treatise gives detailed characteristics of the novel, calling it an encyclopedia of Russian life and assessing the main characters as people placed by life in certain conditions. The critic expresses high praise for the work depicting Russian society of the modern period, considering the possible human rebirth of the main character in the person of Onegin, and also highlighting the image of the main character Tatyana, emphasizing the integrity, unity of her life, deep, loving nature. The reviewer brings to the readers' consciousness the poet's achievement of freedom-loving artistic forms, moving away from romantic creativity to realistic presentation.

Reviews of the novel are also given by many of the poet’s contemporaries, such as Herzen A.I., Baratynsky E.A., Dobrolyubov N.A., Dostoevsky F.M., emphasizing the revolutionary spirit of the work, which reveals the concept of the superfluous person in society. However, from the point of view of Dostoevsky F.M. The image of Onegin looks like a tragic hero who feels like an outcast in existing life.

A positive characterization of the novel is expressed by I.A. Goncharov, paying special attention in the poet’s description of two types of representatives of Russian women, sisters Tatyana and Olga, revealing their opposite girlish natures in the form of a passive expression of reality and, on the other hand, the ability for originality and reasonable self-awareness.

From the point of view of poets belonging to the Decembrist movement, in the person of Bestuzhev A.A., Ryleev K.F., paying tribute to the great poetic talent of the author, in the image of the main character they planned to see an exceptional person, different from the crowd, and not a cold dandy.

Reviewer Kireevsky I.V. systematically examines the development of Pushkin's creativity and singles out the novel as the beginning of the newest stage of Russian poetry, characterized by picturesqueness, carelessness, special thoughtfulness, poetic simplicity and expressiveness, however, the critic does not realize the main meaning of the work, as well as the nature of the main characters.

A negative attitude towards the work is expressed by D.I. Pisarev, who enters into a critical dispute with V.G. Belinsky, who is a supporter of pure art and an adherent of nihilistic views, who considers Onegin to be worthless, incapable of movement and development, and equates the image of Tatyana to one spoiled by romantic books essence. Having ridiculed the heroes of the work, the critic tries to prove the discrepancy, visible only to him, between the presentation of the sublime content of the novel in a reduced form. However, the literary critic is forced to recognize the great style of Pushkin’s forms of Russian versification.

Among the indignant critics who scold the poet for numerous digressions, for the not fully revealed character of Onegin, as well as a careless attitude towards the Russian language, F.V. Bulgarin, who adheres to conservative literary views and is a representative of the ruling power, is especially distinguished. The critic does not accept a work written in the style of realism, demanding from literature a sublime character and charm, not wanting to plunge into the details of describing the life of ordinary people.

During the Soviet period, literary scholars also closely studied the work, giving an artistic assessment of the poetic intent and means of expression. Among the critical works, the works of A.G. Tseitlin, as well as G.A. Gukovsky deserve special attention. and Lotman Yu.M., who studied the novel as a new literary genre and deciphered for modern readers the meaning of obscure expressions and phrases, as well as the author’s hidden hint. From the point of view of Lotman Yu.M., the novel is a complex and paradoxical creation in the form of an organic world, while light verse and familiar content demonstrate the creation of a new genre, different from prose novels and romantic poems. The reviewer points out the poet’s use of a huge number of unknown words, quotes, phraseological units

Particularly noteworthy is the article by N.A. Polevoy, who evaluates the novel as a living, simple Pushkin creation, distinguished by the signs of a joke poem, while being a true national work, in which the features inherent in the Russian people are clearly visible. But at the same time, the critic negatively accepts the first chapters of the novel, pointing out little things in the descriptions and focusing on the absence of an important idea and meaning.

Many reviewers distinguish the work as a folk creation, but some of them find in the content of the novel signs of unsuccessful imitation of Byron, not recognizing the original author’s reading, which depicted the main character not as an ideal, but as a living human image.

According to E.A. Baratynsky, everyone who reads the novel understands it from his own point of view and, despite different reviews, the work has a colossal number of people who want to read it.

Multifaceted criticism considers the distinctive feature of the novel to be the presence of unsolved contradictions in it, as well as numerous dark places that give the work an unfinished philosophy.

Despite numerous critical articles containing both flattering, positive reviews and negative criticism, all literary critics unanimously evaluate the poet’s work as a creation of historical and national value for Russian poetry, expressing truly Russian traits of national character.

Option 2

Pushkin worked on the novel “Eugene Onegin” for eight whole years. In letters to Vyazemsky, Alexander Sergeevich says with a bit of irony that writing an ordinary novel in prose and writing a novel in verse are a devilish difference. This novel was written in a difficult time for Pushkin - this work symbolizes a kind of transition from romanticism in the work of the great writer to realism.

"Eugene Onegin" was a very read work at that time. Reviews about it were very peculiar - the novel was scolded and praised, a flurry of criticism fell on the work, but all of Pushkin’s contemporaries were engrossed in it. The society discussed literary characters from “Eugene Onegin” and argued over interpretations of the characters’ images.

The main character himself was presented to readers in different ways. Some people did not see anything outstanding in the image of Eugene Onegin. For example, Bulgarin said that he met people like Onegin in St. Petersburg “in batches.” Not every critic could fully penetrate the spirit of the novel of that time and appreciate the literary discovery of A. S. Pushkin, as well as delve into the peculiarities of writing this literary work. Pushkin wrote this work with deliberate carelessness, which caused not admiration, but censure from some critics. Some of the critics and writers, for example, Polevoy and Mitskevich, immediately accused Pushkin of “Byronicism” and classified the novel as a “literary capriccio” - a humorous poem. Belinsky considered the novel a modern tragedy and called it a sad work.

The meaning of the novel “Eugene Onegin” was revealed to the reader gradually. Each new generation, unlike Pushkin’s contemporaries, saw in the image of the main character more and more new facets of his character. For the history of literary types and for the history of world literature, the novel “Eugene Onegin” is of great importance. It lifts the curtain for our contemporaries and they can at least partially understand the worldview of the great poet himself by studying in detail the characteristics of the heroes of the novel and analyzing their actions. In the novel “Eugene Onegin” you can see a reflection of the life of a separate era, writes R.V. Ivanov-Rozumnik in his article in 1909.

I. V. Kireevsky characterized the main character of the work of the same name as “an ordinary and completely insignificant creature.” However, Tatyana's character was praised by Kireevsky and called the poet's best creation.

When writing the novel “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin used a literary device that was not very clear to his contemporaries. Critics of that time considered the descriptions and dialogues too simple and “folk,” almost bordering on primitive expressions. The deliberate ease and carelessness of the presentation in the novel and the poet’s mixing of literary words with folk ones aroused righteous anger among his contemporaries. However, all contemporaries were engrossed in Eugene Onegin, and the heroes of this work left no one indifferent as contemplatives of all the passions described in the novel.

This fact proves the great writer’s skill in evoking the reader’s ability to empathize with the heroes of his novel. The images of Onegin and Tatiana did not leave without a range of emotions both Pushkin’s contemporaries and readers of different eras, including in our days.

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"Eugene Onegin" in Russian criticism

Head: Petkun Lyudmila Prokhorovna

Introduction

1. “Eugene Onegin” in the life of A.S. Pushkin

2. “Eugene Onega in Russian criticism”

2.1 N.Ya. Nightingale "Eugene Onegin"

2.2 A. Slonimsky “Pushkin’s Mastery”

2.3 V.G. Belinsky "Eugene Onegin"

3. Comments on the novel “Eugene Onegin”

3.1 Yu.M. Lotman "Eugene Onegin"

3.2 N.L. Brodsky "Eugene Onegin"

4. A.S. Pushkin about “Eugene Onegin” in letters to friends

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The novel “Eugene Onegin” occupies a central place in the poet’s work. This is his largest, most popular work, which had a strong influence on the fate of Russian literature. While working on a novel, the poet writes to Vyazemsky: “Now I’m not writing a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference.” Indeed, working on a novel is a colossal effort. Pushkin worked on this novel for 8 years. His characters, plot, and writing style developed and grew with him. Work on the novel coincided with the transition from romanticism to realism in the creative life of A.S. Pushkin. No wonder V.G. Belinsky called the novel “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” This work reflected the life and style of life of society at the beginning of the 19th century, in the person of the main characters - typical representatives of that time. “In the person of Onegin, Lensky and Tatyana, Pushkin depicted Russian society in one of the phases of its formation, its development, and with what truth, with what fidelity, how fully and artistically he depicted it,” said Belinsky.

In general, what is literary criticism? Literary criticism is a field of literary creativity on the verge of art (fiction) and the science of literature (literary criticism). Engaged in the interpretation and evaluation of works of literature from the point of view of modernity (including pressing problems of social and spiritual life) and the personal views of the critic; identifies and approves the creative principles of literary trends; has an active influence on the literary process, as well as directly on the formation of public consciousness; relies on the theory and history of literature, philosophy, aesthetics. It is often journalistic, political and topical in nature, intertwined with journalism.

Abstract objectives:

1. Get acquainted with criticism of the novel “Eugene Onegin”.

2. Find out the attitude of critics towards the novel, their opinions.

3. Analyze critical articles.

4. Draw a conclusion.

1 . “Eugene Onegin” in the life of A.S.Pushkin

literary criticism Onegin Pushkin

Pushkin began writing “Eugene Onegin” in May 1823 in Chisinau, and finished it on September 25, 1830 in Boldino. In 1831, Pushkin again turned to the novel. According to the plan, the novel was supposed to have nine chapters, but subsequently the author removed the eighth chapter and put the ninth in its place. The tenth chapter was also written, but the poet burned it. In 1833, the novel was published and contained eight chapters.

Since Pushkin wrote the novel for about 8 years, it is difficult to give a detailed history of writing. However, in the book by Yu.M. I found some references to Lotman:

Period in Mikhailovsky (1824-1826):

“On September 26, 1824, Pushkin wrote the poem “Conversation of a Bookseller with a Poet,” which he published as a preface to a separate edition of the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin.” It was a declaration of the poet’s right to a truthfully prosaic attitude towards life.” “In February 1825, the first chapter of the novel was published...” During his stay at Mikhailovsky, Pushkin finishes the third chapter of the novel and works on the fourth, fifth and sixth. “Creative thinking follows complex paths: at the beginning of January 1826, Pushkin finally ends the fourth chapter of Eugene Onegin with humorous verses about the preference that he has been giving for some time to Bordeaux wine compared to Ai champagne. Then, with feverish haste, the fifth and then the sixth chapter of the novel are written, stanzas dedicated to Odessa, which were later included in Onegin’s Travels.

“The duality of his attitude towards the world was deeply unusual for Pushkin and filled him with inner restlessness and dissatisfaction with himself. An interesting paradox emerges in the relationship between life and creativity: while in “Poltava” truth is equated with a calm historical view in the perspective of a century-long distance (“A hundred years have passed...”), while the rebellious Onegin is condemned and contrasted with Tatiana’s wise humility...”

Later, Pushkin realized that the movement begun in Mikhailovsky needed to be stopped. 1830 was a year of completion: “Eugene Onegin” was completed, small tragedies conceived at Mikhailovsky were written, the first completed prose works were “Belkin’s Tales”.

2 . "Eugene Onegin" in Russianth criticism

In criticism and literary criticism, the assessment of “Eugene Onegin” as the central work of Pushkin has long been strengthened. Therefore, the novel received considerable attention even from those critics who, due to their conservative ideological and aesthetic positions, denied it serious social and literary significance. "Eugene Onegin" - the first realistic novel in the history of literature - became a work around which debates were held about the tasks and directions of art, about artistic method, about genres, and style. The severity of the controversy surrounding “Eugene Onegin”, the clash of different points of view in illuminating its concept and images, the special attention to it in the history of Russian social thought - all this is explained by its exceptional social, artistic, and general cultural significance. Reproducing the Russian life of the era, reflecting the most pressing issues of our time, Pushkin at the same time put forward in his novel problems that go far beyond the time of its creation and have a broad nationwide, national and universal resonance - problems of the meaning of life, the relationship between man and the social environment , civic and moral duty, nationality and humanism. As we will see later, it was precisely these problems that arose in one form or another in Russian criticism and literary criticism when covering and interpreting the novel.

The literature about “Eugene Onegin” is truly immense. There are almost no studies about Pushkin’s work that would not, to one degree or another, concern the novel, its content or images. In this chapter we will touch only on the main directions in understanding the novel and works that most clearly reflect the history of its assessment and study, as well as express various trends in the development of problems related to it.

2.1 N.Ya Solovey “Eugene Onegin”

Nikolai Yakovlevich Solovey is a Russian playwright.

In his critical article N.Ya. Nightingale paid great attention to the birth of the concept of “Eugene Onegin”: “The novel in verse was conceived at a time when the poet became disillusioned with romanticism, but did not immediately come to an understanding of the new, realistic tasks of fiction.” Speaking about the romantic crisis in the work of A.S. Pushkin, Nikolai Yakovlevich draws a parallel between romantic works, for example “The Demon”, “The Sower”, and paid much attention to the poem “Gypsies”.

“Eugene Onegin is the central character of the novel in verse. Pushkin worked on understanding this image and its artistic embodiment for over ten years. The difficulty of implementing the plan was that for the first time in the history of Russian literature, a contemporary became the central image of a work of art of a large genre form” - these are the words of N.Ya. The Nightingale begins the chapter about Onegin. The critic identified 5 stages of Pushkin’s work on this image:

Stage I:

This stage refers to the creation of the first to fourth chapters (1823-1825). “Already in the first chapter, Pushkin describes in detail the actions of a young man who lived eight years of distracted social life in St. Petersburg.” In general, this stage is devoted to creating the image of the main character; in these chapters, the concept of Onegin’s character is further developed. Solovey notes that society played a big role in Onegin’s disappointment in life: “The influence of the social environment on the formation of such properties of the hero as disappointment in life, selfishness, individualism is shown in the first four chapters of the novel.”

Stage II:

The second stage of work on the image began in 1826. It is worth noting that at this time important events were taking place in the public life of Russia: the Decembrist uprising was suppressed (December 14, 1825), the investigation and trial of its participants took place, and the leaders of the uprising were executed.

N.Ya. Solovey says that in this chapter the poet “for the first time depicts the provincial nobility in sufficient detail as part of the social environment where Onegin’s life takes place.” Onegin has almost no effect at the beginning of the fifth chapter, he only “appears in Tatyana’s ominous dream as a fatal figure in relation to Lensky.” However, in the second part, Onegin already appears “in a real-life, not a fantasy situation” at Tatiana’s name day. In the actions of the hero, the egoistic peculiarity of his character is again felt.

In the sixth chapter, where the duel is described, Pushkin shows “the dependence of the behavior of a contemporary person on public opinion, on the morals of the environment.”

Stage III:

The third stage is associated with the work on the seventh chapter (1827-1828). In this chapter, Onegin does not appear on the pages of the novel; he is characterized through the perception of Tatyana, who is trying to unravel him. She reads books belonging to Onegin, who:

“Although we know that Eugene has long ceased to love reading, However, he excluded several creations from disgrace: The Singer Gyaour and Juan Yes, with him two or three more novels, In which the century is reflected And modern man is Portrayed quite correctly With his immoral soul, Selfish and dry, immensely devoted to dreams, with his embittered mind, seething in empty action.”

This chapter traces the similarities between Onegin and Byron's heroes. So isn't Onegin a parody? “For Pushkin, Onega is not a parody. The poet takes under the protection of his hero with his “inimitable strangeness.”

Stages IV and V:

These stages relate to the period 1829-1830. These are the final chapters of the novel, eighth, ninth and tenth.

The eighth chapter was entitled "The Journey", which was not included in the canonical text. The author took a new step in the development of the hero’s relationship with society: “Already in the first stanzas of the chapter “Wandering,” the theme of Onegin as an “extra” person in noble society was outlined and developed.” The same theme is repeated in chapter nine.

The last, tenth chapter is the final (eighth chapter) in the final version of the novel. In this chapter, Onegin’s inner world is characterized by his letter to Tatyana. “Only the changed Onegin could fall in love with Tatyana, and his letter is the most vivid evidence of the changes that have taken place in him.

Lensky's death made life in the village painful for him:

“From everything that is dear to the heart, Then I tore my heart away; Strange to everyone, not bound by anything, I thought: freedom and peace are a substitute for happiness. My God! How wrong I was, how I was punished!”

Indifference to everything, living only for himself did not give him satisfaction. Onegin sees his happiness and salvation in love:

“No, to see you every minute, to follow you everywhere, a smile of the mouth, a movement of the eyes.

To catch you with loving eyes, to listen to you for a long time, to understand with your soul all your perfection, to freeze before you in agony, to turn pale and fade away... that’s bliss!” Thus, having examined the stages of work on creating the image of Onegin, N.Ya. Nightingale traced the evolution of the development of the main character, and consideration of the concept of the work helped him to better understand the character of Onegin.

2 .2 A.Slonimsky “The Mastery of Pushkin”

The work of A. Slonimsky is called “The Mastery of Pushkin.” This book provides detailed descriptions of many of the poet's works, including Eugene Onegin.

Slonimsky immediately begins by analyzing the image of the author: “The author in the first chapter acts as a “good friend” of Onegin. At times he even displaces his hero, attributing to him his own thoughts and moods:

“I was embittered, he was sullen; We both knew the game of passion: Life tormented both of us; The heat died down in both hearts; Both were awaited by the malice of Blind Fortune and people in the very morning of our days.”

This is a biography of Pushkin himself, and, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with Onegin, because, as can be seen from the foregoing, he was not haunted in his youth by any “malice of blind Fortune and people.” On the contrary, in the world he was greeted warmly from the first steps:

“...The world decided that he was smart and very nice.”

The next stage in the analysis of “Eugene Onegin” is the image of Tatiana. Slonimsky writes: “Tatyana is a “county young lady”, one of those about whom Pushkin wrote later (in “The Young Lady - Peasant”).” “Tatiana’s beauty is not in her “marble”, plastic beauty, but in that inner “life”, the absence of which Onegin notices in her sister: “Olga has no life in her features.”

Slonimsky pays great attention to the love story of Tatiana and Onegin: “The love story of Tatiana and Onegin does without major events. It all takes place in a peaceful environment and is made up of small psychological moves.”

According to A. Slonimsky, “Onegin occupies a passive position in the action of the novel: Tatyana declares his love to him, Lensky challenges him to a duel, but there is almost no sign of his own initiative.”

As for Lensky, Slonimsky mentions him in passing and does not focus much attention on him. However, he dwelled in detail on his poems, refuting the opinion that they are parodies: “Lensky’s poems receive parody against the background of Pushkin’s speech, they are preceded by the following lines:

“Takes a pen; his poems, Full of love nonsense, resound and flow. He reads them aloud, in lyrical fervor, like Delvig drunk at a feast.”

A. Slonimsky concludes his article with the speech of the characters: “Each character (in addition to his direct speech) brings into the author’s story his own speech structure (which, of course, entails a certain structure of concepts and ideas): Onegin - ironic, Tatyana - village, estate , Lensky - romantic, all the others (Larins, Zaretsky, etc.) - everyday, characteristic of one or another environment - landowner, army, etc., such as, for example, the “dashing” transition to Zaretsky:

“Forward, forward, my story! A new face is calling us.”

Thus, it can be noted that the peculiarity of A. Slonimsky’s article is that he did not specifically describe each character, but followed the chronology of the novel. He traced the relationship between the characters, revealed the peculiarities of their speech and manner of conversation.

2 .3 V.G. Belinsky "Eugene Onegin"

V. G. Belinsky called Pushkin’s novel “an encyclopedia of Russian life and a highly popular work,” revealing in two articles entitled “Pushkin’s Works” the enormous merits of the novel, making it a great work of Russian literature.

Belinsky calls the novel historical, folk, national: “Eugene Onegin” is a historical poem.” “Pushkin was national at heart; he found national elements in a life half accustomed to forms alien to it.” "Eugene Onegin" is the first national work of art."

Belinsky compares the works of Pushkin and Byron, and concludes that “the form of Eugene Onegin was invented by Byron, but when comparing we do not find anything in common except this form and manner of writing. Byron wrote about Europe - for Europe, Pushkin about Russia - for Russia.”

Speaking about the images of the main characters, Belinsky noted that “in the person of Onegin, Lensky and Tatyana, Pushkin depicted Russian society in one of the phases of its education, its development...”

Characterizing Onegin, Belinsky notes that most of the public completely denied the soul and heart in Onegin, saw in him a cold, dry and selfish person by nature. However, in his opinion, this is not entirely true: “Onegin is neither cold, nor dry, nor callous, there is poetry in his soul...”, “Secular life did not kill Onegin’s feelings, but only cooled them.” “The inactivity and vulgarity of life choke him, he doesn’t even know what he needs, what he wants, but he knows that he doesn’t need, what he doesn’t want,” writes Belinsky. Dissatisfaction with oneself and the environment is characteristic of Pushkin's hero. This dissatisfaction is evidence of how superior Onegin is to secular society. Belinsky calls his egoism suffering from egoism, egoism involuntarily, due to historical circumstances.

In the image of Tatyana, Belinsky sees “a somewhat complex, but deep nature.” A simple village girl, then a society lady, Tatyana retains her inner essence in all life situations, she is “an exceptional being; deep, loving, passionate nature.” The dramatic fate of the noble youth of the Decembrist era is expressed not only in the image of Onegin, but also in the image of Lensky. Tatyana is opposed to Onegin and Lensky in the novel, she is close to her native people, Russian nature, her image helps to reveal the main idea of ​​the novel: only communication with the people can save the intelligentsia, make their life meaningful, their work useful. In his article, Belinsky realistically presented his opinion and the opinion of the society of his time. Having analyzed and analyzed the novel from a historical point of view, he came to the conclusion that “Eugene Onegin” is “an encyclopedia of Russian life.”

3 . Comments to poman "Eugene Onegin"

The main task of the commentary is to provide an opportunity to expand

evaluate the value of the text, clarify unclear points or express disagreement with the author. However, in some cases, comments can be more valuable than the text itself. Typically, comments are your own thoughts, partially expressing the opinion of the commentator. Less often - quotes from any sources or images. Comments are often speculative or personal judgments and are not necessarily accurate.

Literary commentaries most often explain some lines or passages from the text. This helps the reader understand what the author wanted to say and understand the idea contained in this passage.

3 .1 Y.M. Lotman “Eugene Onegin”.A comment

In this article, Lotman explains lines from the novel “Eugene Onegin”. However, there are some elements of criticism at the beginning.

The first place Lotman's commentary begins is with the internal chronology of Eugene Onegin. In this part, the critic talks about the time of the events that occurred in the novel: “1811-1812 - the end of Onegin’s “study” and his release into the world.” Counting the time from the winter of 1819 - spring of 1820 (the time of action of Chapter I), Pushkin writes:

“This is how he killed eight years old,

Having lost the best light of life.”

Y. Lotman talks in detail about the life of the nobility, about their interests and activities, about housing, entertainment and balls: “Dancing takes up a significant place in the novel; The author’s digressions are devoted to them; they play a large role in the plot.”

A very interesting article by Y. Lotman about the title of the work: “Eugene Onegin - the choice of the title and name of the main character was not accidental. This choice determined the genre nature of the text and the nature of the reader's expectations. The inclusion in the title of not only the first name, but also the surname of the hero, moreover, not conventionally literary, but actually everyday, was possible only in a relatively small circle of genres focused on modern content and creating the illusion of the truth of incidents.”

The main part of Y. Lotman's commentary is occupied by the analysis of each chapter. In these analyses, Y. Lotman explains lines from the novel.

In general, this article cannot be called completely criticism, but its elements are present. Y. Lotman's comments help us understand the novel, study it to the smallest detail, and form our opinion on this matter.

3 .2 N.L. Brodsky "Eugene Onegin"

Unlike Yu.M. Lotman's commentary by Brodsky is more complete. In his commentary, Brodsky explains each fragment of the text, and not some individual words.

The bulk of his work is devoted to epigraphs, he begins with a definition: “An epigraph is one word or saying, in prose or verse, taken from some famous writer, or one’s own, which the authors place at the beginning of their work and thereby express the general the idea of ​​the work or your attitude to the depicted reality.” Next comes the analysis of the epigraphs: “And he is in a hurry to live and in a hurry to feel” - this epigraph is taken from a poem by P.A. Vyazemsky “First Snow” (1819). In the 1825 edition of the first chapter, the epigraph was missing. Pushkin borrowed it from a couplet in which Vyazemsky gave a generalized description of youth and its thirst for life:

This is how young ardor glides through life:

And he’s in a hurry to live and he’s in a hurry to feel!

So, in the light of these verses, it becomes obvious that the epigraph does not refer to an individual portrait of Onegin, but characterizes the mood typical of young people of that time.”

Thus, analysis of epigraphs helps us understand the main idea of ​​a certain chapter, because it is precisely in the epigraph that it is contained, and the main text is its disclosure.

4 . A.S. Pushkin about “Eugene Heegin" in letters to his friends

A.S. Pushkin mentioned his novel in letters to his friends. From these letters one can trace the stages of work on the novel and Pushkin’s feelings about censorship. I will give a couple of excerpts from the letters.

In letters of 1823, Pushkin speaks about the beginning of work:

Letter to P.A. Vyazemsky November 4, 1823: “As for my studies, I am now writing not a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference! Like Don Juan. There’s nothing to think about printing: I write carelessly.”

Letter to A.A. Delvig November 16, 1823:“Now I’m writing a new poem, in which I’m babbling to the utmost... God knows when we’ll read it together...”

Letter to A.I. Turgenev December 1, 1823:“In my spare time I’m writing a new poem, Eugene Onegin, in which I’m choking on bile. Two songs are already ready.”

In his letters, Pushkin does not speak specifically about the characters or actions, does not describe the novel itself, but talks about the stages of work. However, in a letter to P.A. On May 27, 1826, the poet wrote to Vyazemsky: “...My deaf Mikhailovskoye makes me sad and furious. In the 4th song of Onegin I depicted my life...” This makes us understand that there are still elements of autobiography in the image of Onegin.

Also, from a letter to A. Bestuzhev on March 24, 1825, you can still feel Pushkin’s attitude towards his work: “Your letter is very smart, but still you are wrong; you are looking at Onegin from the wrong point; after all, it is my best work...”

Conclusion

“Eugene Onegin” is a great work of Russian and world literature. We see that this creation worried many people, not only critics, but also writers and poets, because this is only a small part of critical articles.

Each critic analyzed this work in his own way: someone analyzed every chapter, every word (this is called a commentary), and someone simply expressed their opinion about the work (this is criticism). Also, the manner and structure of the articles were different: some paid much attention to the characters, while others focused on vocabulary and syntax. Different attitudes towards heroes and events.

In general, criticism helps us form our opinion, find out the opinions and attitudes of other people, think and compare and come to a final opinion.

As for me, I really enjoyed working with criticism, because I learned a lot about the novel: the stages of writing, formed my opinion about the characters and events, supplemented it with new information, and it was also interesting to read excerpts from Pushkin’s letters in which he talks about novel.

List of used literature

1. N.Ya. Nightingale “Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin".

2. A. Slonimsky “The Mastery of Pushkin.”

3. Yu.M. Lotman “Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"

4. N.L. Brodsky "Eugene Onegin". Roman A.S. Pushkin."

5. V.G. Belinsky "Eugene Onegin".

6. A.S. Pushkin in the memoirs of his contemporaries (a series of literary memoirs).

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