Full characteristics of Mitrofan undergrowth. Essays on Russian language and literature

Dante Alighieri

The Divine Comedy

"The Divine Comedy" arose in troubled times early years XIV century from the depths of the national life of Italy seething with intense political struggle. For future generations - near and far - it remains greatest monument poetic culture of the Italian people, erected at the border of two historical eras. Engels wrote: “The end of the feudal Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern capitalist era are marked by a colossal figure. This is the Italian Dante, the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of modern times” (K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 22, 2nd ed., p. 382.).

“Severe Dante,” as Pushkin called the creator of the Divine Comedy, completed his great poetic work during the bitter years of exile and wandering, to which he was condemned by the “black” party, which triumphed in bourgeois-democratic Florence in 1301 - supporters of the pope and representatives of the interests of the nobility. -bourgeois elite of a rich republic. In Florence - this largest center of Italian economic and cultural life Middle Ages - Dante Alighieri was born, raised and matured in an atmosphere incandescent with a thirst for wealth and power, torn apart by political passions and agitated by brutal civil strife. Here, in this anthill of trade, a city of artisans and noble merchants, bankers and arrogant feudal grandees, in a city-state proud of its wealth and long-standing independence, its ancient guild rights and its democratic constitution - the “Institutions of Justice” (1293), one of the largest centers of that powerful socio-cultural movement that constituted ideological content era, defined by Engels as “... the greatest progressive revolution of all that humanity had experienced up to that time..” (K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 20, 2nd ed., p. 346.).

Dante stands on the threshold of the Renaissance, on the threshold of an era “... which needed titans and which gave birth to titans in strength of thought, passion and character, in versatility and learning” (Ibid.). The creator of the Divine Comedy was one of these titans, whose poetic legacy has remained throughout the centuries as a majestic contribution of the Italian people to the treasury of world culture.

A scion of an old and noble Florentine family, a member of the guild of doctors and pharmacists, which included persons of various intelligent professions, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) appears in his life as a representative of a comprehensively educated, active representative of his time and the developed urban structure of his homeland. , strongly connected with local cultural traditions and the public interests of the intelligentsia.

Dante's youth proceeds in brilliant literary circle the young poetic school of the “new sweet style” (dolce stil nuovo), headed by his friend Guido Cavalcanti, and in communication with the outstanding politician and one of the early Florentine humanists - Brunetto Latini. Mature years the author of the Divine Comedy spends his time in the service of the republic, participating in its wars, carrying out its diplomatic missions and, finally (1300), being one of the members of the governing council of priors during the days of the political dominance of the bourgeois-democratic party of the “whites”.

By 1302 - the year of his exile and condemnation in absentia to death by the noble-bourgeois elite (the "black" party) who seized power in Florence - Dante was already a paramount literary figure.

Dante's poetic formation occurs in conditions of turning point and transition from the literary Middle Ages to new creative aspirations. The poet himself occupies one of the defining and high places in this complex and contradictory process. His poetic consciousness fully anticipates the “highest development of art” in the era “... which broke the boundaries of the old orbis and, strictly speaking, discovered the Earth for the first time” (K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 20, ed. 2- e, p. 508.). As the last poet of the Middle Ages, Dante at the same time completes and generalizes the previous philosophical and poetic era, the scholastic world interpretation of which he gave such a grandiose artistic implementation in its creative scale.

By Dante’s own admission, the impetus for the awakening of the poet in him was the reverent and noble love to the daughter of his father's friend Folco Portinari - the young and beautiful Beatrice. The autobiographical confession “New Life” (“Vita nuova”), written at the fresh grave of his beloved, who died in 1290, remained a poetic document of this love. The two dozen sonnets, several canzones and a ballad included in “New Life” contain a refined philosophical interpretation of the experienced and flaming feeling, the blissful image of the beloved. The poems are interspersed with prose, commenting on their sublime content and connecting individual links of poetic confessions and reflections into a consistent autobiographical story, in the diary of a troubled heart and an analyzing mind - the first literary diary personal love and philosophical feelings in the new European literature.

In the “New Life”, Dante’s poetic experiences are clothed in the formulas of the “sweet style” of the poetry of his friends and literary mentors - Guido Guinizelli, Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia and the entire circle of young Tuscan poets who glorify great charms in refined words and refined forms of philosophical lyricism inspired, connected to the ideal spheres of love and glorify the excitement of sublime and sweet feelings. And yet - this is the unfading significance of “New Life” - the poetic formula does not obscure its clear aspiration to really significant, plastic, tangible and truly felt life values. Through the measured stanzas of the sonnets with their complicated philosophical imagery, behind the metaphysical calculations of sophisticated, scholastic thought, and especially in the prose story about the circumstances of his love, Dante reveals to the reader his living and vital worldview, if not subordinating the bookish and poetic wisdom of the “sweet style,” then already testifying to new directions in lyricism and new, vital sources of lyrical experiences.

Also in Florentine period Dante diligently studied scholastic philosophy. His thought, naturally, fell into captivity of those ugly mystical fabrications with which the writings of Thomas Aquinas, the most reactionary and pernicious of all the theological “authorities” of the era, are filled. And yet, at the same time, already entering the sphere of awakening humanistic interests, he assimilated the heritage classical literature led by Virgil, who was so revered in the Middle Ages. In exile, these activities apparently expanded and deepened. Wandering around different Italian cities Having even visited Paris, the center of philosophical and theological studies of that time, Dante acquired encyclopedic knowledge in the field of scholastic science and natural philosophy, became familiar with some eastern systems, in particular Arabic, philosophical thought and peered into the broad horizons of the all-Italian national political life, the outlines and directions of which emerged in the rivalry of papal and secular power, in the struggle of city-communes with the absolutist claims of the nobility, in the aggressive aspirations of greedy trans-Alpine neighbors. The movement of Dante’s thought towards mastering the entire sum of knowledge of his time did not go against the traditions of medieval thinking, prone to encyclopedic generalizations, but in this movement the feature that testified to the coming new times clearly emerged - the feature of a rebellious and demanding personality, asserting itself and its anticipations of the future, surrounded by something that has already stopped in its own historical development, formal and frozen culture.

In the scholastic ethical-philosophical treatise “The Feast” and in the Latin Dante's lengthy utopian discourse "Monarchy" fully follows medieval traditions thoughts. In the second of these works, taking the side of the political program of Ghibellinism (Ghibellines are supporters of the power of the emperor and opponents of the temporal power of the pope.) with its aspirations for a universal feudal empire, idealizing this empire as the path to the elimination of fragmentation

According to the monk Gilarius, Dante began to write his poem in Latin. The first three verses were:

Ultima regna canam, fluido contermina mundo,

Spiritibus quae lata patent, quae praemia solvuut

Pro meritis cuicunque suis (data lege tonantis). -

"In dimidio dierum meorum vadam adportas infori." Vulgat. Biblia.

In the middle of the and. roads, i.e., at the 35th year of life, - the age that Dante in his Convito calls the pinnacle of human life. By all accounts, Dante was born in 1265: therefore, he was 35 years old in 1300; but, in addition, from the XXI song of Hell it is clear that Dante assumes the beginning of his journey in 1300, during the jubilee declared by Pope Boniface VIII, on Holy Week on Good Friday, the year he turned 35, although his poem was written much later; therefore, all incidents that happened later than this year are given as predictions.

Dark forest, according to the usual interpretation of almost all commentators, means human life in general, and in relation to the poet - his own life in particular, that is, a life filled with delusions and overwhelmed by passions. Others, by the name of the forest, mean the political state of Florence at that time (which Dante calls trista selva, Clean XIV, 64), and, combining all the symbols of this mystical song into one, give it political meaning. For example: as Count Perticari (Apolog. di Dante. Vol. II, p. 2: fec. 38: 386 della Proposta) explains this song: in 1300, in the 35th year of his life, Dante, elected prior of Florence, was soon convinced of the troubles , intrigues and frenzies of parties, that the true path to the public good is lost, and that he himself is in dark forest disasters and exiles. When he tried to climb hills, the pinnacle of state happiness, he was presented with insurmountable obstacles from his native city (Leopard with a motley skin), pride and ambition of the French king Philip the Fair and his brother Charles of Valois (Leo) and the self-interest and ambitious plans of Pope Boniface VIII (She-wolf). Then, indulging in his poetic passion and placing all his hope in the military talents of Charlemagne, Lord of Verona ( Dog), he wrote his poem, where, with the assistance of spiritual contemplation (donna gentile) heavenly enlightenment (Luchia) and theology ( Beatrice), guided by reason, human wisdom, personified in poetry (Virgil), he goes through places of punishment, purification and reward, thus punishing vices, consoling and correcting weaknesses and rewarding virtue by immersion in the contemplation of the highest good. From this it is clear that the ultimate goal of the poem is to call a vicious nation, torn apart by strife, to political, moral and religious unity.

Dante escaped this life, full of passions and delusions, especially the discord of the party, into which he had to plunge as the ruler of Florence; but this life was so terrible that the memory of it again gives rise to horror in him.

In the original: “It (the forest) is so bitter that death is a little more painful.” – The eternally bitter world (Io mondo senia fine amaro) is hell (Paradise XVII. 112). – “Just as material death destroys our earthly existence, so moral death deprives us of clear consciousness, the free manifestation of our will, and therefore moral death a little better than real death itself.” Streckfuss.

Dream means, on the one hand, human weakness, darkening of the inner light, lack of self-knowledge, in a word - sleep of the spirit; on the other hand, sleep is a transition to spiritual world(See Ada III, 136).

Hill, according to the explanation of most commentators, it means virtue, according to others, ascent to the highest good. In the original, Dante awakens at the foot of a hill; base of the hill- the beginning of salvation, that minute when a saving doubt arises in our soul, the fatal thought that the path along which we have followed until this moment is false.

The limits of the vale. The vale is a temporary area of ​​life, which we usually call the vale of tears and disasters. From the XX Song of Hell, Art. 127–130, it is clear that in this vale the flickering of the month served as the poet’s guiding light. The month signifies the faint light of human wisdom. You save.

The planet that leads people on a straight path is the sun, which, according to the Ptolemaic system, belongs to the planets. The sun here has not only the meaning of a material luminary, but, in contrast to the month (philosophy), it is complete, direct knowledge, divine inspiration. You save.

Even a glimpse of divine knowledge is already able to reduce in us partly the false fear of the earthly vale; but it completely disappears only when we are completely filled with the fear of the Lord, like Beatrice (Ada II, 82–93). You save.

When climbing, the leg on which we rely is always lower. “Ascending from the lower to the higher, we move forward slowly, only step by step, only then, as we firmly and truly stand on the lower: spiritual ascent is subject to the same laws as physical.” Streckfuss.

Leopard (uncia, leuncia, lynx, catus pardus Oken), according to the interpretation of ancient commentators, means voluptuousness, Leo - pride or lust for power, She-Wolf - self-interest and stinginess; others, especially the newest ones, see Florence and the Guelphs in Leo, France and especially Charles Valois in Leo, the Pope or the Roman Curia in She-Wolf, and, according to this, give the entire first song a purely political meaning. According to Kannegiesser's explanation, Leopard, Leo and She-Wolf mean three degrees of sensuality, moral corruption of people: Leopard is awakening sensuality, as indicated by its speed and agility, motley skin and persistence; The lion is a sensuality that has already awakened, prevailing and not hidden, demanding satisfaction: therefore he is depicted with a majestic (in the original: raised) head, hungry, angry to the point that the air around him shudders; finally, the She-Wolf is the image of those who have completely given themselves over to sin, which is why it is said that she has already been the poison of life for many, and therefore she completely deprives Dante of peace and constantly drives him more and more into the vale of moral death.

In this terzina the time of the poet’s journey is determined. It, as stated above, began on Good Friday in Holy Week, or March 25: therefore, around the spring equinox. However, Philalethes, based on the XXI canto of Hell, believes that Dante began his journey on April 4. – Divine love, according to Dante, there is a reason for the movement of celestial bodies. – A crowd of stars denotes the constellation Aries, into which the sun enters at this time.

Sometimes it's so hard to say what will happen to you in the next second! So for Sashulya Aleshina, a banal walk with the dog turned into a real adventure. The four-legged friend brought in a flash drive with a recording of a brilliant song, and meanwhile Sashulya met an amazing guy. And now the super detective from 8 "A" must solve two problems: find the owner of the flash drive, whom she really wants to meet famous singer, and understand how to behave with Leshka. After all, the guy of her dreams set a date with her best friend...

Vera Ivanova
Flash drive for the star

Tanyusik and I are preparing for the concert

For those who are not yet in the know, I’ll tell you a little about myself.

My name is Aleshina Alexandra Andreevna, or simply Sashulya, nicknamed Alekha. My other nickname – Nyushka (not to be confused with Nyusha from “Smeshariki”!) – was given to me because of my extraordinary sense of smell. I can smell smells better than a Perfumer! (For those who are not in the know, this is main character the novel by P. Suskind "Perfume" and a similar film.) I am 13 years old, I study in the 8th "A" grade of a regular Moscow school (in the class magazine under number "2"), in physical education I stand last among the girls, I sit on the second desk by the window, favorite lessons - literature and history, best friend– Tychinko Tatyana Vladimirovna (or simply Tanusik), best friends- classmates Smysh Mikhail Evgenievich and Brykalov Arseny Illarionovich, with whom we formed the Union of Musketeers. Smysh - Athos, Krykalo - Porthos, Tanusik - Aramis, and I - that's right, D'Artagnan. Beloved parents - mom and dad, favorite perfume - "Premier Jure" by Nina Ricci, favorite hobby– adventures and private investigations.

Well, and most importantly, I am not just a girl, but a close relative of two national celebrities: singers Tima Milan and Sergei Puzyrev. Yes, yes, you may not believe it, but I have photographs of them, which they themselves inscribed in their own hand: “To my little sister Sasha.”

Here they are, these photographs, standing in frames on a shelf in my room. Tima has a turquoise frame with yellow birds, Sergei has a brown frame with gold stripes. And next to it is a mother-of-pearl box with other treasures. Among them are two candies, a chain with a gold leopard and two business cards.

On one of them, in beautiful silver letters, is written: “Tima.” And below is a mobile phone number. On the other side - the same thing in English. Short and stylish. Well, of course, you understand that nothing else is needed, because Tim is our one and only. IN notebook on my mobile phone it is written as Tim Mil.

On the second business card, in strict black letters in two languages, it is written: “Puzyrev Sergey Borisovich.” Below is a mobile number, landline number, fax number, email number and something else. In general, solid, impressive, detailed. Yes, that’s what he is, my second older brother: reliable, solid and balanced – “positive”, as my mother would say. In my mobile phone it is Ser Puz.

Treasures appeared in the box after one incredible adventure, as a result of which I acquired star brothers. But I wrote about this in another diary, pink with white hearts. And now I have a blue one with golden angels. I hope it won't be empty either.

And today, Saturday, Tim Milan invited Tanusik and me to his concert. This phrase in itself is worthy of being framed and hung on the wall, but Lately I've already started to get used to such things. But Tanusik is not there yet. When she found out about the invitation, she was terribly worried - she was afraid that we wouldn’t get tickets. And I didn’t believe that we were on the invitation list and we didn’t need tickets.

– Are you saying that we will go to such a concert for free?!

Tanusik did not calm down until I spoke with Tima in front of her. We listened with both ears to my mobile phone, where it came from:

– Just come and say that you are on the invitation list. By the way, if you want, come straight to the sound check! Whenever you decide, call me and I’ll arrange everything.

- Oh, mommies! I'm going to fall! – Tanusik got nervous. – We will be at the sound check in Milan!

In fact, Tim invited all four of us - along with Misha Smysh and Senya Brykala, but Misha flew to Singapore with his parents yesterday, and Senya said that he doesn’t listen to any bullshit, and besides, he has bouldering training. (For those who don't already know, "bouldering" is rock climbing.)

So Tanusik and I had to go together.

“I’ll wear high-heeled boots and a checkered jacket,” Tanusik said when we were in her room figuring out how to dress.

- Will there be anything else? – I inquired.

Instead of answering, Tanusik threw the toy penguin Pigosha at me and hissed:

- Of course it will be! Yellow scarf.

- Giraffe? – I asked, grabbing Pigosha.

“It’ll do,” I approved, tossing it to Pigosh. - And I want to wear sneakers and an arafat.

Action " Divine Comedy"begins from the moment when the lyrical hero (or Dante himself), shocked by the death of his beloved Beatrice, tries to survive his grief by expressing it in poetry in order to record it as specifically as possible and thereby preserve the unique image of his beloved. But here it turns out that her immaculate personality is already not subject to death and oblivion. She becomes a guide, the savior of the poet from inevitable death.

Beatrice, with the help of Virgil, an ancient Roman poet, accompanies the living lyrical hero- Dante - bypassing all the horrors of Hell, making an almost sacred journey from existence to non-existence, when the poet, just like the mythological Orpheus, descends into the underworld to save his Eurydice. On the gates of Hell it is written “Abandon all hope,” but Virgil advises Dante to get rid of fear and trepidation of the unknown, because only with with open eyes Man has the power to comprehend the source of evil.

Sandro Botticelli, "Portrait of Dante"

Hell for Dante is not a materialized place, but a state of soul of a sinned person, constantly tormented by remorse. Dante inhabited the circles of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided by his likes and dislikes, his ideals and ideas. For him, for his friends, love was the highest expression of the independence and unpredictability of the freedom of the human person: this is freedom from traditions and dogmas, and freedom from the authorities of the church fathers, and freedom from various universal models human existence.

On foreground Love comes out with capital letters, aimed not at the realistic (in the medieval sense) absorption of individuality into a ruthless collective integrity, but towards unique image the truly existing Beatrice. For Dante, Beatrice is the embodiment of the entire universe in the most concrete and colorful image. And what could be more attractive to a poet than the figure of a young Florentine woman, accidentally met on a narrow street? ancient city? This is how Dante realizes the synthesis of thought and concrete, artistic, emotional comprehension of the world. In the first song of Paradise, Dante listens to the concept of reality from the lips of Beatrice and is unable to take his eyes off her emerald eyes. This scene is the embodiment of deep ideological and psychological shifts when artistic comprehension actually strives to become intellectual.

Illustration for The Divine Comedy, 1827

The afterlife appears before the reader in the form of a solid building, the architecture of which is calculated in the smallest details, and the coordinates of space and time are distinguished by mathematical and astronomical accuracy, complete numerological and esoteric overtones.

The number three and its derivative, nine, appear most often in the text of the comedy: a three-line stanza (terzina), which became the poetic basis of the work, which in turn is divided into three parts - cantics. Minus the first, introductory song, 33 songs are devoted to the depiction of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and each part of the text ends with the same word - stars (stelle). To the same mystical number series one can also include the three colors of clothes in which Beatrice is clothed, three symbolic beasts, three mouths of Lucifer and the same number of sinners devoured by him, the triple distribution of Hell with nine circles. This entire clearly constructed system gives rise to a surprisingly harmonious and coherent hierarchy of the world, created according to unwritten divine laws.

The Tuscan dialect became the basis of the literary Italian language

Speaking about Dante and his “Divine Comedy”, one cannot help but note the special status that the great poet’s homeland – Florence – had in a host of other cities of the Apennine Peninsula. Florence is not only the city where the Accademia del Chimento raised the banner of experimental knowledge of the world. This is a place where nature was looked at as closely as anywhere else, a place of passionate artistic sensationalism, where rational vision replaced religion. They looked at the world through the eyes of an artist, with elation and worship of beauty.

The initial collection of ancient manuscripts reflected a shift in the center of gravity of intellectual interests to the device inner world and the creativity of man himself. Space ceased to be the habitat of God, and they began to treat nature from the point of view of earthly existence, they looked for answers to questions understandable to man, and took them in earthly, applied mechanics. New look thinking - natural philosophy - humanized nature itself.

The topography of Dante's Hell and the structure of Purgatory and Paradise follow from the recognition of loyalty and courage as the highest virtues: in the center of Hell, in the teeth of Satan, there are traitors, and the distribution of places in Purgatory and Paradise directly corresponds moral ideals Florentine exile.

By the way, everything we know about Dante’s life is known to us from his own memoirs, set out in The Divine Comedy. He was born in 1265 in Florence and remained loyal to his hometown all his life. Dante wrote about his teacher Brunetto Latini and his talented friend Guido Cavalcanti. The life of the great poet and philosopher took place in the circumstances of a very long conflict between the emperor and the Pope. Latini, Dante's mentor, was a man with encyclopedic knowledge and based his views on the sayings of Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle and, of course, the Bible - general ledger Middle Ages. It was Latini who most influenced the formation of the personality of Buddhism. a great Renaissance humanist.

Dante's path was replete with obstacles when the poet faced the need difficult choice: So, he was forced to contribute to the expulsion of his friend Guido from Florence. Reflecting on the theme of the vicissitudes of his fate, Dante in the poem “ New life» dedicates many fragments to his friend Cavalcanti. Here Dante drew the unforgettable image of his first youthful love- Beatrice. Biographers identify Dante's lover with Beatrice Portinari, who died at the age of 25 in Florence in 1290. Dante and Beatrice became the same textbook embodiment of true lovers as Petrarch and Laura, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet.

Dante spoke to his beloved Beatrice twice in his life

In 1295, Dante entered the guild, membership in which opened the way for him into politics. Just at this time, the struggle between the emperor and the Pope intensified, so that Florence was divided into two opposing factions - the “black” Guelphs, led by Corso Donati, and the “white” Guelphs, to whose camp Dante himself belonged. The Whites were victorious and drove their opponents out of the city. In 1300, Dante was elected to the city council - it was here that the poet’s brilliant oratory abilities were fully revealed.

Dante increasingly began to oppose himself to the Pope, participating in various anti-clerical coalitions. By that time, the “blacks” had stepped up their activities, burst into the city and dealt with their political opponents. Dante was summoned several times to testify before the city council, but each time he ignored these demands, so on March 10, 1302, Dante and 14 other members of the “white” party were sentenced in absentia to death penalty. To save himself, the poet was forced to leave hometown. Disillusioned with the possibility of changing the political state of affairs, he began to write his life's work - The Divine Comedy.

Sandro Botticelli "Hell, Canto XVIII"

In the 14th century, in The Divine Comedy, the truth revealed to the poet who visited Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is no longer canonical, it appears to him as a result of his own, individual efforts, his emotional and intellectual impulse, he hears the truth from the lips of Beatrice . For Dante, an idea is the “thought of God”: “Everything that will die and everything that will not die is / Only a reflection of the Thought to which the Almighty / With His Love gives existence.”

Dante's path of love is the path of perception of divine light, a force that simultaneously elevates and destroys a person. In The Divine Comedy, Dante placed special emphasis on the color symbolism of the Universe he depicted. If Hell is characterized by dark tones, then the path from Hell to Heaven is a transition from dark and gloomy to light and shining, while in Purgatory there is a change in lighting. For the three steps at the gates of Purgatory, symbolic colors stand out: white - the innocence of a baby, crimson - the sinfulness of an earthly creature, red - redemption, the blood of which whitens so that, closing this color range, white appears again as a harmonious combination of the previous symbols.

“We do not live in this world for death to find us in blissful laziness.”

In November 1308, Henry VII became king of Germany, and in July 1309, the new Pope Clement V declared him king of Italy and invited him to Rome, where the magnificent coronation of the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire took place. Dante, who was an ally of Henry, returned to politics, where he was able to use his literary experience productively, writing many pamphlets and speaking publicly. In 1316, Dante finally moved to Ravenna, where he was invited to spend the rest of his days by the city's lord, philanthropist and patron of the arts, Guido da Polenta.

In the summer of 1321, Dante, as ambassador of Ravenna, went to Venice with a mission to make peace with the Doge's Republic. Having completed an important assignment, on the way home Dante falls ill with malaria (like his late friend Guido) and suddenly dies on the night of September 13-14, 1321.

Sometimes it's so hard to say what will happen to you in the next second! So for Sashulya Aleshina, a banal walk with the dog turned into a real adventure. The four-legged friend brought in a flash drive with a recording of a brilliant song, and meanwhile Sashulya met an amazing guy. And now the super detective from 8 “A” must solve two problems: find the owner of the flash drive, whom the famous singer really wants to meet, and understand how to behave with Leshka. After all, the guy of her dreams set a date with her best friend...

Vera Ivanova
Flash drive for the star

Tanyusik and I are preparing for the concert

For those who are not yet in the know, I’ll tell you a little about myself.

My name is Aleshina Alexandra Andreevna, or simply Sashulya, nicknamed Alekha. My other nickname – Nyushka (not to be confused with Nyusha from “Smeshariki”!) – was given to me because of my extraordinary sense of smell. I can smell smells better than a Perfumer! (For those who are not in the know, this is the main character of P. Suskind’s novel “Perfume” and a similar film.) I am 13 years old, studying in the 8th “A” grade of an ordinary Moscow school (in the class magazine under number “2” ), in physical education I am the last among the girls, I sit on the second desk by the window, my favorite lessons are literature and history, my best friend is Tatyana Vladimirovna Tychinko (or simply Tanyusik), my best friends are classmates Smysh Mikhail Evgenievich and Brykalov Arseny Illarionovich, with whom we formed the Union of Musketeers. Smysh is Athos, Krykalo is Porthos, Tanusik is Aramis, and I am right, D’Artagnan. Favorite parents are mom and dad, favorite perfume is “Premier Jury” by Nina Ricci, favorite pastime is adventures and private investigations.

Well, and most importantly, I am not just a girl, but a close relative of two national celebrities: singers Tima Milan and Sergei Puzyrev. Yes, yes, you may not believe it, but I have photographs of them, which they themselves inscribed in their own hand: “To my little sister Sasha.”

Here they are, these photographs, standing in frames on a shelf in my room. Tima has a turquoise frame with yellow birds, Sergei has a brown frame with gold stripes. And next to it is a mother-of-pearl box with other treasures. Among them are two candies, a chain with a gold leopard and two business cards.

On one of them, in beautiful silver letters, is written: “Tima.” And below is a mobile phone number. On the other side - the same thing in English. Short and stylish. Well, of course, you understand that nothing else is needed, because Tim is our one and only. In the address book of my mobile phone he is written as Tim Mil.

On the second business card, in strict black letters in two languages, it is written: “Puzyrev Sergey Borisovich.” Below is a mobile number, landline number, fax number, email number and something else. In general, solid, impressive, detailed. Yes, that’s what he is, my second older brother: reliable, solid and balanced – “positive”, as my mother would say. In my mobile phone it is Ser Puz.

The treasures appeared in the box after one incredible adventure, as a result of which I acquired star brothers. But I wrote about this in another diary, pink with white hearts. And now I have a blue one with golden angels. I hope it won't be empty either.

And today, Saturday, Tim Milan invited Tanusik and me to his concert. This phrase in itself is worthy of being framed and hung on the wall, but lately I have already begun to get used to such things. But Tanusik is not there yet. When she found out about the invitation, she was terribly worried - she was afraid that we wouldn’t get tickets. And I didn’t believe that we were on the invitation list and we didn’t need tickets.

– Are you saying that we will go to such a concert for free?!

Tanusik did not calm down until I spoke with Tima in front of her. We listened with both ears to my mobile phone, where it came from:

– Just come and say that you are on the invitation list. By the way, if you want, come straight to the sound check! Whenever you decide, call me and I’ll arrange everything.

- Oh, mommies! I'm going to fall! – Tanusik got nervous. – We will be at the sound check in Milan!

In fact, Tim invited all four of us - along with Misha Smysh and Senya Brykala, but Misha flew to Singapore with his parents yesterday, and Senya said that he doesn’t listen to any bullshit, and besides, he has bouldering training. (For those who don't already know, "bouldering" is rock climbing.)

So Tanusik and I had to go together.

“I’ll wear high-heeled boots and a checkered jacket,” Tanusik said when we were in her room figuring out how to dress.

- Will there be anything else? – I inquired.

Instead of answering, Tanusik threw the toy penguin Pigosha at me and hissed:

- Of course it will be! Yellow scarf.

- Giraffe? – I asked, grabbing Pigosha.

“It’ll do,” I approved, tossing it to Pigosh. - And I want to wear sneakers and an arafat.