Real historical figures in the novel Eugene Onegin. Depiction of a historical era in the novel by A.S.

In Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" we are presented with a typical young man of the twenties of the 19th century. Of course, Onegin is a fictional character. However, according to the poet, the image of Onegin is a portrait not of an individual, but of an entire generation against the backdrop of real everyday life.

Therefore, in the novel, along with fictional characters, there are actually existing people: Kaverin, Pushkin’s friend (Onegin spent time in his company), the famous poet Prince Vyazemsky (Tatiana meets with him), and, finally, the author himself appears on the pages of the work.

By appearing in his own work, Pushkin sought first of all to write out Onegin more clearly. Throughout the novel, the author compares systems of views and positions—his own and Onegin’s. In the work, the author and his hero are “buddies.” But what a gulf separates them!

We fully feel how Pushkin, with his ardent, active, life-loving nature, protests against the coldness, indifference and pessimism of Onegin. The author, realizing that society has infected his hero with all these “diseases,” nevertheless strives to prove that Onegin also resides in him. After all, in fact, Pushkin came from the same environment as Onegin. But has his spirit weakened, has his heart grown cold?..

The contrast of characters manifests itself not only in attitude towards life, but also in attitude towards people. If for the subtle and sensitive Pushkin Tatyana is a “sweet ideal,” then Onegin, an icy soul, considers her nothing more than a “naive girl.”

Tatyana, in response to her reverent declaration of love, hears from Onegin only a dry sermon and nothing else. The author never ceases to assert: “I love my dear Tatyana so much.”

And what can we say about Onegin, who, hating society and its laws, nevertheless takes them into account, and as a result Lensky’s life ends tragically? Here we again observe a complete divergence in the positions of Onegin and the author.

Pushkin rejects the moral principles of the world and the notorious noble “laws of honor,” which are sometimes combined with senseless cruelty. Onegin cannot finally break with everything old, obsolete, that binds him hand and foot; the fighter in him has not yet awakened. And almost physically we feel the author’s pain - the pain of a man for his friend, the pain of a great poet for the entire young generation.

Is it only to make the novel more realistic that the image of the author is present in it? Of course not. After all, as has already been said, Onegin is a portrait of the entire “young generation” of that time, it is, one might say, a common name. Here the author's position in relation to modern youth is clearly visible.

Separating his hero from himself, the author does not renounce him, but, on the contrary, accepts him, loves him as he is now. The author sees that not all living things have died in Onegin. At the end of the novel, the hero seems to awaken. The reason for this is, albeit belated, love for Tatyana. The reviving and resurrecting power of love touched some hidden strings in Onegin’s tired soul.

And here Pushkin, as it were, leaves the life of his hero, leaves him in the hope that he will be able to solve all the problems himself, without his help, and find his way in life. The author leaves, but for a long time it seems to us that we are living next to his heroes, and he is following our experiences from afar.

I am sure that Pushkin knew and loved young people, loved the living, healthy element in them. He believed that the younger generation, with its enthusiasm and determination, was able to get rid of old prejudices and the “diseases” of idleness, that it wanted and could change the world. It is not for nothing that Pushkin, the exponent of the hopes and aspirations of the young, was the favorite poet of progressive youth and the Decembrists. The poetry of the great Pushkin still excites the minds and hearts of all the young people in the world.

Roman A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" is called the "encyclopedia of Russian life." In the work, the poet paid great attention to the characteristics of his time. In every detail, Pushkin described the life, way of life and customs of the nobility, creating an accurate portrait of them.
The nobility is the “face” of the nation. By definition, this is its best part, which determines science, culture, and morality. The nobility in Eugene Onegin can be divided into two groups. The first includes advanced nobles. This includes Evgeny Onegin, Vladimir Lensky and, of course, the author himself. The second group includes the so-called provincial nobility, who mostly live in the countryside and travel to the city only on rare occasions. In the novel he is represented by the Larin family, their neighbors on the estate, the Moscow relatives of the Larins.
So, how do the advanced nobles in the novel differ from the provincial ones? Onegin was born and raised in St. Petersburg, leading a lifestyle typical of the capital's noble youth. But on the other hand, he lived the same life as his father. Let us remember that Onegin’s father very quickly squandered his entire fortune. He was the same rake and reveler as his son, Eugene, later became.
The high society of St. Petersburg is completely unpretentious. It values ​​only the superficial ability to make a pleasant impression. No one is going to look deeper. In such a society it is easy for superficial people to shine:
He's completely French
He could express himself and wrote;
I danced the mazurka easily
And he bowed casually;
What do you want more? The light has decided
That he is smart and very nice.
Evgeny Onegin leads a bohemian lifestyle: balls, walks along Nevsky Prospect, visiting theaters. His pastime is no different from the life of the “golden youth” of that time. But Onegin gets tired of all this very quickly. He is bored both at balls and in the theater: “No: the feelings in him cooled down early, He was bored with the noise of the world...”. And gradually the hero comes to disappointment in the interests of secular society and life. He becomes alien to everything that has surrounded him for so long. Onegin becomes depressed.
The hero is trying to engage in some useful activity (“yawning, he took up his pen”). But the lordly perception and lack of habit of work played their role, so Onegin does not complete any of his undertakings. In the village, he tries to organize the life of the peasants. But, having carried out one reform, he happily gives up this occupation too. The main feature of this hero is boredom, the inability to independently captivate himself with anything in life. This is one of the typical features of the advanced nobility of Pushkin's time.
Another typical representative of the progressive nobility is Vladimir Lensky. The author characterizes Lensky as a person with excellent inclinations. He is characterized by “the noble aspiration and feelings and thoughts of the young, tall, gentle, daring,” “a thirst for knowledge and work and a fear of vice and shame.” But the young man lacks knowledge and understanding of reality. “A dear ignoramus at heart,” he perceives people and life as a romantic dreamer. Like Onegin, the society of the provincial nobility is alien to him, but in his dreams he extols Olga, an ordinary girl, elevates her to the rank of ideal. Lensky dies during a duel with Onegin. The author draws us two paths for the hero's future life if death had not overtaken him at such a young age. Lensky could become both a great poet and an ordinary gentleman, an everyman:
Or maybe even that: a poet
The ordinary one was waiting for his fate.
The youthful summers would have passed:
The ardor of his soul would cool.
The local lordship is depicted as the secular metropolitan aristocrat Eugene Onegin saw it. He settles in the village house of his deceased uncle and becomes “a villager, of factories, waters, forests, lands, a complete owner...” This house is a typical dwelling of a provincial gentleman. “The master's secluded house, screened from the winds by a mountain” exists as if outside of time: no new trends of the era have penetrated into it, everything is boring and gray, it seems that there has never been an owner here.
The village “high society” appears in all its glory in the scenes described by Tatyana Larina’s name day. The assembled guests, representing certain types of landowners, pass in front of the reader in a line. “The barking of moseks, the smacking of girls, the noise, the laughter, the crush at the threshold” - this is the atmosphere of a rural holiday, “an idea of ​​rural wit.” Local aces become the object of Pushkin's irony. Here there is “fat Pustyakov” with a telling surname reflecting the “wealth” of his inner world, and Gvozdin, an “excellent owner” whose serfs do not see happiness from this housekeeping and live in poverty. “The Skotinins, a gray-haired couple, with children of all ages, from thirty to two years old,” “retired adviser Flyanov, a heavy gossip, an old rogue, a Glutton, a bribe-taker and a buffoon,” the embodiment of ignorance and vices.
The Moscow relatives of the Larins are not too different from their village relatives. She is also fussy and ignorant, cares only about “daily bread”, strives to marry Tatyana more profitably, without thinking about her feelings.
The historical era in the novel “Eugene Onegin” is presented broadly and very accurately. Its characteristics are given in the portrait of the nobility, metropolitan and provincial.

History of creation

Pushkin began writing the novel "Eugene Onegin" in 1823 year in Chisinau, during the period of southern exile. Work on the work was largely completed in 1830 in Boldin. IN 1831 year, Onegin’s letter to Tatyana was included in the novel. In subsequent years, some changes and additions were made to the text of Eugene Onegin.

Initially, Pushkin did not have a clear plan for the novel. In 1830, while preparing to publish the full text of the work, Pushkin sketched out a general plan for the publication. It was planned to publish nine chapters. However, the eighth chapter, which told about Onegin’s wanderings, was significantly shortened and was not included in the final text of the novel (excerpts from it were published separately, in the author’s notes to the novel). As a result, the ninth chapter ended up in the eighth place. Thus, the final text of the novel has eight chapters.

In addition, there is hypothesis what Pushkin wrote tenth chapter, where he spoke about the secret societies of the Decembrists. The poet burned the manuscript of the tenth chapter in 1830 in Boldin. Some fragments of it have reached us. Scientists are still arguing about whether the tenth chapter existed as such. It is possible that we are dealing with scattered fragments of the draft text of the work that did not form a separate chapter.

Time of action

Pushkin wrote: “In our novel, time is calculated according to the calendar.” According to Yu.M. Lotman, the beginning of events(Onegin goes to the village to visit his sick uncle) falls on summer 1820. The first chapter describes the St. Petersburg winter 1819-1820. Many researchers believe that the novel ends in the spring of 1825. However, there is a hypothesis that the last chapter talks about the post-December era.

Subjects

The main theme of “Eugene Onegin” is life of the Russian nobility in the early 1820s.

In addition, Pushkin recreated in his work the most diverse aspects of life in Russia at that time. Yes, he reflected life not only the nobility, but also other classes, primarily the peasantry.

The novel is widely represented Russian and Western European literature and culture.

In addition, in his work Pushkin showed nature Russia, pictures of Russian life. That's why V.G. Belinsky called "Eugene Onegin" "encyclopedia of Russian life."

Issues

The central problem of the novel is time hero problem. This problem is raised primarily in connection with the image of Onegin, but also in connection with the images of Lensky and the author himself.

The problem of the hero of time correlates with another problem of the work - the problem individuals and society. What is the reason for Onegin's loneliness in society? What is the reason for the spiritual emptiness of Pushkin’s hero: in the imperfection of the surrounding society or in himself?

Let's call it the most important thing in the novel. problem of the Russian national character. This problem is conceptualized by the author primarily in connection with the image of Tatiana (a striking example of the Russian national character), but also in connection with the images of Onegin and Lensky (heroes divorced from national roots).

The novel puts a number of moral and philosophical problems. This the meaning of life, freedom and happiness, honor and duty. The most important philosophical problem of the work is human and nature.

In addition, the poet puts in his work and aesthetic problems: life and poetry, author and hero, freedom of creativity and literary traditions.

Ideological orientation

Reflected in “Eugene Onegin” spiritual evolution of Pushkin: crisis of educational ideas (period of southern exile); awareness of the values ​​of people's life (period of exile in Mikhailovskoye); doubts and mental anguish, the struggle between faith and unbelief (the period of wanderings).

Wherein humanistic ideals- personal freedom, “the inner beauty of man” (Belinsky), rejection of cruelty and selfishness - remain the main ones for the poet in all periods of the creation of the novel.

At the same time, the poet claims spiritual values ​​associated with national roots. This closeness of man to nature, following folk traditions, as well as such Christian virtues as selflessness, fidelity to marital duty. These values ​​are revealed primarily in Tatiana’s character.

Pushkin the poet states in his novel creative attitude to life.

At the same time, Pushkin’s novel was noted and satirical pathos: the poet denounces the conservative noble society, the serfdom that reigns in it, vulgarity, and spiritual emptiness.

"Eugene Onegin" as a realistic work

"Eugene Onegin" - the first realistic novel in Russian literature.

Pushkin's work is distinguished by historicism: here we find a reflection of the era of the first half of the 1820s, the most important trends in the life of the Russian nobility of that time.

In his work, Pushkin showed bright typical characters. In the image of Onegin, Pushkin recreated the type of educated nobleman, who later received the name “superfluous man.” In the image of Lensky, the poet captured the type of romantic dreamer, also characteristic of that era.

In the person of Tatiana we see a type of Russian noblewoman. Olga is the type of ordinary provincial young lady. In the images of minor and episodic characters (Tatyana’s mother, the Larins’ guests, Zaretsky, Tatiana’s nanny, the Larins’ Moscow relatives, Tatiana’s husband and others), Pushkin also presented the reader with vivid types of Russian life.

Unlike romantic poems, in Eugene Onegin the author is separated from the heroes, he portrays them objectively, from the outside. At the same time, the image of the author, for all its importance in the novel, does not have self-sufficient significance.

In "Eugene Onegin" we find realistic paintings of nature, numerous details of Russian life, which also indicates the realism of the novel.

Exactly real life(and not abstract romantic ideals) becomes for Pushkin a source of creative inspiration and a subject of poetic reflection. Belinsky wrote: “What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin; what was prose for them was poetry for him.”

The novel has been written living spoken language. Pushkin often uses words and expressions of a “low” style in his work, thereby bringing the verbal fabric of the novel closer to the everyday language of his time.

Genre originality

As is known, novel- This an epic work in which the narrative focuses on the fate of an individual in the process of its formation and development. (In an epic, unlike a novel, the fate of an entire people is in the foreground.)

The uniqueness of the genre of “Eugene Onegin” is that it is not just a novel, but novel in verse. The genre definition of the work was given by Pushkin himself. in a letter to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky dated November 4, 1823: “I’m not writing a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference.”

Belinsky was one of the first to characterize the features of the genre of Pushkin’s novel. Firstly, the critic noted as Pushkin’s greatest merit the creation of a novel in verse at a time when there were no significant prose novels in Russian literature.

Secondly, Belinsky compares Pushkin’s novel with Byron’s poems, identifying both related features of the works of the two authors and Pushkin’s fundamental innovation.

Belinsky names some Byron's traditions in "Eugene Onegin". This poetic form, relaxed manner of storytelling, “a mixture of prose and poetry”, that is, a combination of everyday, prosaic phenomena and high objects, digressions, “the presence of the poet’s face in the work he created.”

At the same time, Belinsky notes innovation Pushkin, which the critic sees as follows. Firstly, this national identity Pushkin's work. Byron, according to Belinsky, “wrote about Europe for Europe... Pushkin wrote about Russia for Russia.” Secondly, this "fidelity to reality" Pushkin - a realist poet - in contrast to the “subjective spirit” of Byron - a romantic poet.

Finally, Pushkin's novel is distinguished by free form. Pushkin speaks about this feature of his work in his dedication to P.A. Pletnev: “Accept the collection of motley chapters...” At the end of “Eugene Onegin,” the poet mentions “the distance of a free novel.” This form of the novel is given by the unique voice of the author, whose inner world finds free, direct expression in the work. The author's digressions, written in a light, relaxed manner, are combined with strict symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters and the “mirroring” of the plot structure.

Composition: general structure of the work

As already noted, the final text of the novel consists of eight chapters.

The plot of “Eugene Onegin” is distinguished by “ specularity", character system - symmetry.

The first and second chapters can be considered as exposition to the main action of the work. In the first chapter, Pushkin introduces the reader to main character Evgeniy Onegin, talks about his upbringing, his life In Petersburg. In the second chapter the narrative moves to village. Here the reader is introduced to Lensky, Olga and Tatyana.

The third chapter contains the beginning of a love affair: Tatyana falls in love with Onegin and writes him a letter. Tatiana's letter to Onegin - the compositional center of the third chapter. Chapter Four, Beginning rebuke Onegin, contains a story about Tatyana's suffering from unrequited love and about Lensky's idyllic relationship with Olga. The fifth chapter talks about Christmas fortune telling, O Tatiana's dream, about her name day, O quarrel Onegin with Lensky.

Chapter six contains climax in the development of the plot - a story about duels Onegin and Lensky. Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatyana's arrival in Moscow. The eighth chapter contains plot resolution. Here the heroes, in accordance with the principle " specularity", "switch places": now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuke, after which the author leaves his hero “at a moment that is evil for him.”

Plays an important compositional role in Eugene Onegin scenery. Descriptions of nature help the author organize the literary time of the novel, “calculate” it according to the calendar.

In the composition of “Eugene Onegin” a special place is occupied by author's digressions. Thanks to them, a holistic picture emerges in the reader’s perception. author's image.

Pushkin's novel is written Onegin stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, and integrity.

Characters. general review

The main characters the novel should be called Onegin And Tatyana.

Lensky and Olga are not among the main characters, but this is also central persons in the work. The fact is that these characters, along with Onegin and Tatyana, perform plot-forming function.

He himself plays an important role in Eugene Onegin. author, speaking sometimes as a character own work.

TO minor characters Let us include those persons who, although not plot-forming, still play some significant role in the development of the action. This Tatiana's mother, Tatiana's nanny, Zaretsky, Tatiana's husband.

Let's also call episodic characters who appear in separate scenes, episodes, or are only mentioned (these are, for example, guests at the Larins’ name day, Onegin’s servant the Frenchman Guillo, Olga’s fiancé Ulan, the Larins’ Moscow relatives, representatives of St. Petersburg society).

It is difficult to draw a clear line between minor, episodic characters and mentioned persons.

Onegin

Eugene Onegin–main character Pushkin's novel. In his image, Pushkin sought to recreate character and spiritual appearance of his contemporary- a representative of the educated part of the noble class.

Onegin is a young aristocrat, born and raised in St. Petersburg, a secular dandy.

This is a person with liberal views, as evidenced by some of the details noted by the author. So, he did not serve anywhere, which at that time was a sign of freethinking; was interested in the theory of Adam Smith; read Byron and other modern authors. He made life easier for the peasants on his estate by replacing the “yoke... of the ancient corvée” with an easy quitrent. Onegin is the face of Pushkin’s circle: he dines with Pushkin’s acquaintance Kaverin, is compared to Chaadaev, and becomes a “good friend” of the author himself, although he does not share his poetic view of the world.

Talking about his hero, Pushkin focuses the reader’s attention on some significant contradictions in his worldview and life principles.

Onegin – educated person, well-read, knowledgeable of the works of ancient and contemporary authors. At the same time, his Onegin's education is divorced from national origins, spiritual traditions. From here - skepticism hero, his indifference to matters of faith, ultimately - the deepest pessimism, loss of meaning in life.

Pushkin's hero - subtle, extraordinary nature. He is distinguished, as the poet notes, by “inimitable strangeness,” “a sharp, cool mind, and the ability to understand people. At the same time, the hero dried up his soul in secular hobbies and turned out to be unable to respond to Tatyana’s deep and sincere feeling.

Onegin, according to Pushkin, “ good guy": an honest, decent, noble person. Meanwhile, it is distinguished extreme selfishness, egocentrism, which manifested itself most clearly in the clash with Lensky.

Hero indifferent to secular society, is burdened by being in a secular crowd. However, the hero turns out to be slave of public opinion which prevents him from avoiding a duel and killing his friend.

All of these contradictions in the character and worldview of the hero are revealed throughout the action of the novel. Onegin passes tests of love and friendship. He can't stand any of them. Lensky dies tragically. At the end of the novel, Tatyana already rejects Onegin. She retained a feeling for the hero in her heart, but refused to share his passion.

Let's look at some artisticmeans of creating the image of Onegin.

Appearance description Onegin does not play any significant role in creating the image of the hero; it only emphasizes his belonging to the fashionable secular youth:

Haircut in the latest fashion,

Like a London dandy, dressed...

Plays a more important role in revealing Onegin’s character interior, in particular descriptions of the hero’s offices in the first and seventh chapters. First description characterizes Onegin as secular dandy. Let's note some substantive details here:

Amber on the pipes of Constantinople,

Porcelain and bronze on the table,

And, a joy to pampered feelings,

Perfume in cut crystal...

Looks different Onegin's village office described in the seventh chapter:

And Lord Byron's portrait,

And a post with a cast iron doll,

Under a hat, with a cloudy brow,

With hands clenched in a cross.

The details of the second description characterize intellectual and spiritual life of the hero:“a pile of books”, “a portrait of Lord Byron”, “a column with a cast-iron doll” - a figurine depicting Napoleon. The last detail is extremely important; it recalls such a personality trait of Onegin as individualism.

Descriptions of nature, unlike the interior, are not so important for revealing the character of the hero. Onegin is surrounded by books and things. He is far from nature, does not feel its beauty.

Only in the eighth chapter, Onegin, in love with Tatiana, is able to feel the awakening power of spring, but this is only a moment in the hero’s mental life:

Spring lives him: for the first time

Your chambers are locked,

Where did he spend the winter like a groundhog?

Double windows, fireplace

He leaves on a clear morning,

Rushing along the Neva in a sleigh.

On blue, scarred ice

The sun is playing; dirty melts

The streets are covered in snow.

So, Onegin combines the typical features of a secular person and the originality of his nature.

Onegin is a hero who failed to find the meaning of life and happiness, doomed to a purposeless existence. He opens gallery of “extra people” in Russian literature: this is a hero,

Lensky

Vladimir Lensky – one of the central characters novel. This is young a poet-freethinker of a romantic nature. Let us note that among the opposition-minded noble youth of the first half of the 1820s there were both cold skeptics, like Onegin, and ardent romantics, like Lensky.

On the one hand, the image of Lensky sets off the image of the main character of the work. On the other hand, it has independent meaning in the novel.

We learn that Lensky studied at the University of Göttingen, one of the most liberal universities in Europe. The young poet was fascinated by the ideas of Kant, who was perceived in Russia as a freethinking philosopher. Lensky’s “freedom-loving dreams” are evidenced by his love for Schiller’s work. The hero received a good education for those times, but it, like Onegin’s education, was divorced from national origins.

Lensky is an honest, sincere, noble man, full of good intentions, but extremely emotional and completely incapable of living in the real world.

RomanticLensky opposed skepticOnegin. The main character of the novel looks at things realistically and judges them soberly. Lensky has his head in the clouds. Onegin, according to Belinsky, is “a real character”; Lensky is divorced from reality.

It is interesting to compare the characters of Lensky and Tatiana. Brings heroes together poetry nature At the same time, Tatyana’s personality is nourished, according to Pushkin’s plan, by deep national and folk roots. Lensky, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not related to national soil.

Lensky's choice of Olga as an object of worship is not accidental. Outwardly attractive, in reality Olga turns out to be very ordinary. The romantic Lensky idealizes his bride, attributing to her spiritual qualities that are absent in reality.

Lensky's fate– important a link not only in the love affair, but also in the plot of the work as a whole. The story of Lensky's love for Olga, which ended in a tragic ending, testifies to the hero's inability to behave soberly and calmly in critical situations. A very insignificant reason pushes Lensky to a duel, to a tragic death. The death of Lensky in the sixth chapter has symbolic meaning. Pushkin shows here the inconsistency of romantic illusions, the lifelessness of ideas divorced from reality. At the same time, Pushkin cherishes the poet’s lofty ideals, his service to “glory and freedom.”

Creating the image of Lensky, Pushkin uses and portrait details(“shoulder-length black curls”), and images of nature, and romantic ones at that:

He fell in love with dense groves,

Solitude, silence,

And the night, and the stars, and the moon...

An important means of creating the image of Lensky are hero poems, deliberately stylized “to resemble romanticism”:

Where, where have you gone,

Are the golden days of my spring?

So, Pushkin recreated in the image of Lensky the type of educated nobleman, no less characteristic of Pushkin’s time than the type of “superfluous man” of Onegin. This is a romantic poet.

Tatiana

Tatyana Larina – main character novel.

In her image, the poet realistically recreated the wonderful type of noblewoman. The author endowed the heroine with striking features of the Russian national character and showed her in the broad context of life in Russia in the 1820s. Belinsky saw the “feat of the poet” in the fact that “he was the first to poetically reproduce a Russian woman in the person of Tatyana.”

Tatyana combines the typical traits characteristic of noblewomen of Pushkin's time with the traits of an extraordinary personality. Pushkin notes in Tatyana the traits of a gifted nature, which distinguish the main character of the novel from her environment. Tatyana is characterized by a lively mind, depth of feelings, and poetic nature. According to the author, Tatyana

...gifted from heaven

With a rebellious imagination,

Alive in mind and will,

And wayward head,

And with a fiery and tender heart.

Like many noble girls, Tatyana was apparently raised by French governesses, hence her knowledge of the French language and her passion for novels by Western European authors, which the heroine read in French.

At the same time, life in the village, in the lap of nature, communication with simple peasants, especially with the nanny, introduced Tatyana to Russian folk culture. Unlike Onegin, the heroine was not divorced from national origins.

Hence the moral values ​​that were characteristic of Tatyana. This living faith in God(Tatiana “sweetened / the melancholy of the worried soul with prayer”), mercy(“she helped the poor”), sincerity,chastity, no doubt about the sanctity of marriage. Moreover, this love for Russian nature, live connection with the people,knowledge of folk customs(“Tatyana believed the legends / of common folk antiquity”); indifference to social life:“The hateful tinsel of life” does not attract the heroine.

Consider Tatyana's place in the system of characters in the novel.

In contrastTatiana Olga The principle of symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters of the work clearly emerges. Olga's external beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time highlights the inner, spiritual beauty of Tatiana.

Tatiana opposed not only to sister Olga, but also mother - Praskovya Larina, an ordinary landowner.

It is also interesting to compare the characters Tatiana and Lensky. The heroes are brought together by the poetry of their natures. At the same time, Tatyana’s personality is nourished, according to Pushkin’s plan, by deep national and folk roots. Lensky, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not related to national soil.

It is important for Pushkin to emphasize such a personality trait of Tatyana as national identity. In this regard, the character system takes on special significance. Tatiana's nanny, shading the image of the main character.

Tatyana's personality is most clearly revealed in her correlation with the personality of Onegin. The main character and the main heroine of Pushkin's novel are in some ways close to each other, in some ways they are completely opposite.

Tatyana, like Onegin, is an extraordinary person. The heroes are brought together by intelligence, depth and subtlety of worldview. At the same time, Onegin is cold towards the world around him and does not feel its beauty. Tatiana, unlike Onegin, is characterized by a love of nature and the ability to feel the beauty of the world around her.

The main thing that distinguishes Tatiana from Onegin is the folk roots of her personality, dedication, and deep faith in God. Christian spiritual values ​​are alien to Onegin. He does not understand Tatyana’s views on marriage, family, and marital fidelity.

The love story of Tatiana and Onegin amounts to the main plot line of the novel. The finale of the work - Tatiana's rebuke to Onegin– allows the reader to clearly understand the spiritual foundations of the heroine’s personality. Tatyana retains a feeling for Onegin in her soul, but fidelity to marital duty is above all for her.

A special role in creating Tatiana’s image is played by pictures of nature: they accompany her throughout the entire action of the work.

Minor and episodic characters. Persons mentioned

As already noted, "Eugene Onegin", according to Belinsky, is "encyclopedia of Russian life". Hence the importance of not only the main, but also secondary and episodic characters. They allow the author of “Eugene Onegin” to reflect the most diverse aspects of Russian reality, to show the diversity of characters and types of Russian life. In addition, these characters shade the main characters of the novel and allow them to reveal their characters in a deeper and more multifaceted way.

Some minor characters in Eugene Onegin are covered in detail. They represent bright types of Russian life.

For example, Tatyana's mother Praskovya Larina- a typical serfdom lady. In her youth, she was a sentimental young lady, read novels, and was in love with a “glorious dandy.” However, after getting married and retiring to the village, she became an ordinary landowner:

She went to work

Salted mushrooms for the winter,

She kept expenses, shaved her foreheads,

I went to the bathhouse on Saturdays,

She beat the maids in anger -

All this without asking my husband...

With images of Praskovya Larina and her late husband Dmitry, only mentioned in the work, is associated with the image of the patriarchal foundations of the provincial nobility:

They kept life peaceful

Habits of a dear old man;

At their Shrovetide

There were Russian pancakes...

In addition, the images of Tatiana’s parents allow us to better understand the character of the main character. Compared to her parents, sister Olga, and the entire provincial nobility, Tatiana looks like an extraordinary person.

Tatiana's nanny is a type of simple Russian peasant woman. Her image is inspired by the poet’s memories of his own nanny Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, a wonderful Russian woman and a talented storyteller.

The poet puts into the nanny’s mouth a story about the difficult fate of a peasant woman: about early marriage, about a difficult life in someone else’s family:

“That’s it, Tanya! These summers

We haven't heard about love

Otherwise I would have driven you away from the world

My deceased mother-in-law.” –

“How did you get married, nanny?” –

“So, apparently, God ordered. My Vanya

Was younger than me, my light,

And I was thirteen years old.

The matchmaker went around for two weeks

To my family, and finally

My father blessed me.

I cried bitterly out of fear;

They unraveled my braid while crying

Yes, they led me to church singing...”

“Tatyana’s conversation with the nanny is a miracle of artistic perfection,” wrote Belinsky.

The image of the nanny sets off the image of Tatiana, emphasizing the national identity of the main character, her connection with folk life.

Plays an important plot role in the work Zaretsky. The surname of this character also evokes a very specific literary association: the reader remembers Griboyedov’s Zagoretsky.

Pushkin characterizes his hero sharply negatively, in sarcastic tones:

Zaretsky, once a brawler,

Ataman of the gambling gang,

The head is a rake, a tavern tribune,

Now kind and simple

The father of the family is single,

Reliable friend, peaceful landowner

And even an honest person:

This is how our century is corrected!

From Pushkin’s characterization of Zaretsky, it becomes clear to the reader that this character is the embodiment of dishonesty and meanness. However, it is people like Zaretsky who rule public opinion. Onegin is most afraid of his gossip. Zaretsky in this case personifies those false ideas about honor, of which Onegin ultimately turns out to be a hostage.

At the end of the seventh chapter, “some important general” is mentioned for the first time - the future Tatiana's husband. In the eighth chapter, he is named by the author as Prince N. Pushkin does not give any detailed description of the heroine’s husband. However, from her words it is clear that this is an honored person; he was probably even a hero of the War of 1812. It is no coincidence that Tatyana tells Onegin that her husband was “mutilated in battle,” that is, he was seriously wounded in battle.

The antithesis “Tatiana’s husband is Onegin” is present in the novel primarily to emphasize Tatiana’s fidelity to marital duty and the ideals of Christian marriage.

Some people are mentioned only once in the novel. For example, Pushkin tells the reader some information about Onegin's teachers:

Eugene's fate kept:

At first Madame followed him,

Then Monsieur replaced her...

The mention of “Madame” and “Monsieur l’Abbé” indicates that aristocratic youths were educated in the French manner; their education was cut off from the national soil.

In the first chapter, the poet describes the morning of working St. Petersburg:

What about my Onegin? Half asleep,

He goes to bed from the ball,

And St. Petersburg is restless

Already awakened by the drum.

The merchant gets up, the peddler goes,

A cabman pulls to the stock exchange,

Okhtinka is in a hurry with the jug,

The morning snow crunches under it.

I woke up in the morning with a pleasant noise,

Shutters open, chimney smoke

Rising like a pillar of blue,

And the baker, a neat German,

In a paper cap, more than once

He was already opening his vasisdas.

Persons named here ( merchant, peddler, cab driver, ohtinka, German baker) are contrasted with idle aristocrats who spend their lives in secular entertainment.

In his work, Pushkin describes pictures of life peasantry. On the pages of the novel flash images of representatives of the people, details of folk life:

On the firewood he renews the path;

His horse smells the snow,

Trotting along somehow;

Fluffy reins exploding,

The daring carriage flies;

The coachman sits on the beam

In a sheepskin coat and a red sash.

Here is a yard boy running,

Having planted a bug in the sled,

Transforming himself into a horse;

The naughty man had already frozen his finger;

He's both hurt and funny

And his mother threatens him through the window...

Describing the guests at Tatyana’s name day, Pushkin creates, as Yu.M. Lotman noted, a special type literary background. It includes well-known heroes of Russian literature:

With his portly wife

Fat Pustyakov arrived;

Gvozdin, an excellent owner,

Owner of poor men;

The Skotinins, the gray-haired couple,

With children of all ages, counting

From thirty to two years;

District dandy Petushkov,

My cousin, Buyanov,

In down, in a cap with a visor

(As you know him, of course)

And retired adviser Flyanov,

Heavy gossip, old rogue,

Glutton, bribe-taker and buffoon.

Really, Gvozdin, “the owner of poor men,” reminds us of Captain Gvozdilov from “The Brigadier” by Fonvizin. Skotinin They bring to mind the characters of another Fonvizin comedy, “The Minor.” Buyanov- the hero of V.L. Pushkin’s poem “Dangerous Neighbor”.

One of the characters in the fifth chapter - Monsieur Triquet. The surname "Triquet" means "beaten with a stick" in French, that is, a swindler or petty sharper.

The introduction of such a literary background helps Pushkin create a vivid satirical picture of life in the Russian province.

In the sixth chapter, along with Zaretsky, Onegin’s hired servant, a Frenchman, is mentioned Monsieur Guillot.

In the seventh chapter of the novel, Pushkin draws vivid satirical images of representatives Moscow nobility. It's obvious here traditions of A.S. Griboyedov. Thus, the poet talks about the life of the Larins’ relatives and acquaintances:

But there is no change in them,

Everything about them is the same as the old model:

At Aunt Princess Elena's

Still the same tulle cap,

Everything is whitewashed Lukerya Lvovna,

Lyubov Petrovna lies all the same,

Ivan Petrovich is just as stupid

Semyon Petrovich is also stingy,

At Pelageya Nikolaevna's

Still the same friend Monsieur Finmouche,

And the same Spitz, and the same husband,

And he, still a good member of the club,

Still just as humble, just as deaf

And he also eats and drinks for two.

In the eighth chapter of the novel, Pushkin draws a satirical picture of the life of high society. So, he shows a social event:

Here, however, was the color of the capital,

And know, and fashion samples,

Faces you meet everywhere

Necessary fools...

Let's give another example:

Prolasov was here, who deserved

Fame for the baseness of the soul,

Dulled in all albums,

St.-Priest, your pencils...

There are many names on the pages of the novel real persons. These are Pushkin's friends Kaverin And Chaadaev. Their mention introduces Onegin into the social circle of Pushkin himself.

On the pages of "Eugene Onegin" we meet authors' names of various eras - from antiquity to the 1820s.

We are especially interested in references to Russian cultural figures. In the first chapter, in one of the author’s digressions, Pushkin talks about the history of Russian theater:

Magic land! There in the old days,

Satire is a brave ruler,

Fonvizin, friend of freedom, shone,

And the overbearing Prince;

There Ozerov involuntary tributes

People's tears, applause

Shared with young Semyonova;

There our Katenin was resurrected

Corneille is a majestic genius;

There the prickly Shakhovskoy brought out

A noisy swarm of their comedies,

There Didelot was crowned with glory,

There, there, under the canopy of the scenes,

My younger days were rushing by.

As you can see, the playwrights are named here D.I.Fonvizin, Ya.B.Knyazhnin, V.A.Ozerov, P.A.Katenin, A.A.Shakhovskoy, tragic actress Ekaterina Semenova, choreographer S. Didelot; a little later the ballerina mentions Avdotya Istomina.

On the pages of “Eugene Onegin” there are the names of famous Russian poets. Pushkin remembers G.R. Derzhavin:

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

And, going into the grave, he blessed.

The fifth chapter, which tells about Tatyana’s dream, is preceded by an epigraph from V.A. Zhukovsky:

Oh, don't know these terrible dreams

You, my Svetlana!

Repeatedly mentioned E.A. Boratynsky- “singer of feasts and languid sadness”, “singer of a young Finnish woman”. Pushkin addresses the author of wonderful elegies N.M. Yazykov: “So you, inspired Yazykov...”

Pushkin's friend prince P.A. Vyazemsky appears in the novel both as the author of the epigraph to the first chapter (“And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel”), and as a character who met Tatyana in the seventh chapter.

The novel also mentions ancient authors(For example, Homer, Theocritus, Juvenal, Ovid). Pushkin calls Western European writers and poets, political figures. So, Schiller And Goethe are mentioned in connection with the characteristics of Lensky and his “German” education. Richardson and Rousseau named like the authors of novels that Tatyana was fond of. Byron And Napoleon reflect Onegin’s passions (in his village office there hung a portrait of Byron and a statuette of Napoleon).

On the pages of the novel they are called and fictional persons, among them literary heroes And mythological characters. Many literary heroes are mentioned in Eugene Onegin. This Lyudmila And Ruslan, characters from Pushkin himself. These are the heroes of other authors ( Child Harold, Gyaur, Juan- Byron's heroes Grandison- Richardson's hero, Julia- heroine of Rousseau, Griboyedovsky Chatsky,Svetlana Zhukovsky).

Pushkin also names mythological characters. This Venus, Apollo, Terpsichore, Melpomene.

In Tatyana's wonderful dream they appear Russian folklore characters, confirming the fact that “Tatiana believed the legends / of the common people of old times...”

All the indicated characters and real and fictitious persons mentioned on the pages of the novel expand the spatial and temporal boundaries of the work.

Analysis of individual chapters, episodes and other elements of the composition of the work

First chapter contains exposition of the image of Onegin; here the reader also gets acquainted with by the author novel. All this happens against the background pictures of life in St. Petersburg.

Epigraph The first chapter is accompanied by a quote from P.A. Vyazemsky’s poem “The First Snow”: “And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel.” The epigraph sets a cheerful, life-affirming tone for the story.

In the first chapter, Pushkin tells about the upbringing, education, reading range of the main character, his interests, lifestyle. Using the example of Onegin's education, Pushkin shows the peculiarities of educating secular youth. Education there were mostly young nobles at that time homemade. It was carried out tutors-French and it was divorced from the values ​​of Russian national culture. Pushkin writes about Onegin:

Eugene's fate kept:

At first Madame followed him,

Then Monsieur replaced her.

The superficial nature of Onegin’s education can be judged by those qualities that he needed in social life. Pushkin writes ironically about his hero:

He's completely French

He could express himself and wrote,

I danced the mazurka easily

And he bowed casually.

What do you want more? The light has decided

That he is smart and very nice.

In the first chapter, Pushkin also describes day of a secular young man. First, the author talks about waking up late Onegin:

Sometimes he was still in bed,

They bring notes to him.

What? Invitations? Indeed,

While in morning dress,

Putting on a wide bolivar,

Onegin goes to the boulevard

And there he walks in the open space,

While the watchful Breget

Dinner won't ring his bell.

After the walk Onegin Dining at Talon's, owner of a fashionable restaurant:

He rushed to Talon: he is sure

What is Kaverin waiting for him there?

After lunch follows visiting the theater. Pushkin remarks here with irony:

The theater is an evil legislator,

Fickle Adorer

Charming actresses

Honorary Citizen of the Backstage,

Onegin flew to the theater.

Onegin ends his day at the ball:

Has entered. The hall is full of people;

The music is already tired of thundering;

The crowd is busy with the mazurka;

There is noise and cramped conditions all around...

Onegin returns home in the morning, when working Petersburg is already getting up to get to work:

What about my Onegin? Half asleep,

He goes to bed from the ball,

And St. Petersburg is restless

Already awakened by the drum...

Talking about Onegin, the poet emphasizes the emptiness and monotony of social life. Pushkin writes about his hero:

Wake up at noon, and again

Until the morning his life is ready,

Monotonous and colorful.

And tomorrow is the same as yesterday.

Last topic narratives in the first chapter–Onegin's acquaintance and friendship with the author. The poet gives a remarkable psychological description of the hero, comparing his personality traits and peculiarities of his worldview with his own view of the world:

Having overthrown the burden of the conditions of light,

How does he, having fallen behind the bustle,

I became friends with him at that time.

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 died down in both hearts;

Anger awaited both

Blind Fortune and People

In the very morning of our days.

In this psychological portrait of Onegin one can see features of Pushkin himself, who was experiencing a severe mental crisis at the time of writing the first chapter (end of 1823). Meanwhile, the author does not forget to emphasize “ difference"between himself and the hero: despite disappointment in previous ideals, the author did not lose his poetic view of the world, did not change his love for nature, did not abandon the poetic creativity dear to his heart. The crisis of 1823-1824 was only a stage in Pushkin’s spiritual evolution, and unlike skeptic Onegin, the author of the novel remains in the deepest foundations of his own personality optimist.

In the second chapter the narrative is transferred to the village.Double epigraph – “Oh rus!” (“Oh village!”) from Horace and “O Rus'!” – connects the topic village life with the theme Russian national identity, reveals problem of Russian national character as one of the leading characters in the work.

The second chapter introduces the reader to Lensky, Olga and Tatyana.

In the sixth stanza it is given exposition of Lensky's image:

To my village at the same time

The new landowner galloped up

And equally strict analysis

In the neighborhood there was a reason,

Named Vladimir Lensky,

With a soul straight from Göttingen,

Handsome man, 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.

Lensky, like Onegin, aroused a feeling of mistrust among the neighboring landowners with his liberal sentiments. The hero’s “freedom-loving dreams” were clearly alien to them.

Here, in the second chapter, it is outlined line Lensky – Olga, the artistic role of which is to reveal the characters of these heroes and, most importantly, to highlight the love story of Tatiana and Onegin.

Finally, the second chapter gives exposure of the imageTatiana. The author draws attention to Name« Tatiana”, which in Pushkin’s time many considered common people. The poet deliberately calls his heroine this way:

For the first time with such a name

Tender pages of the novel

We willfully sanctify.

Talking about Tatyana, Pushkin compares his heroine with her sister Olga:

Not your sister's beauty,

Nor the freshness of her ruddy

She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

In contrast to Tatiana, Olga clearly emerges symmetry principle in the arrangement of the central characters of the work. Olga's external beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time highlights the inner, spiritual beauty of Tatiana.

Here, in the second chapter, Pushkin outlines such character traits of the heroine as daydreaming,love of nature,penchant for reading novels.

So, Pushkin talks about his heroine:

Thoughtfulness, her friend

From the most lullabies of days,

The flow of rural leisure

Decorated her with dreams.

The poet emphasizes Tatiana's closeness to nature:

She loved on the balcony

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her.

She fell in love with deceptions

Both Richardson and Russo.

As already noted, the plot of the work is built on the principle "mirroring".Tatiana falls in love with Onegin, writes to him letter and as a result gets rebuke. At the end of the work, the characters “switch places”: now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuke.

Chapter Three the novel contains the beginning of a love story. Not by chance epigraph to the third chapter is taken from the French author (“Elle était fille, elle était amoureuse” 1, Malfilâtre). Pushkin reminds the reader of the heroine’s upbringing in the French manner, her reading of novels, and the fact that Tatyana’s very thoughts about Onegin are inspired by her romantic ideas about literary heroes.

Onegin appears in the imagination of the lover Tatyana hero of the books she read:

Lover of Julia Volmar,

Malek-Adele and de Linard,

And Werther, the rebellious martyr,

And the incomparable Grandison,

Which makes us sleep, -

Everything for the tender dreamer

They have clothed themselves in a single image,

Merged into one Onegin.

Tatyana also thinks about herself heroine of the novel:

Imagining a heroine

Your beloved creators,

Clarissa, Julia, Delphine,

Tatyana in the silence of the forests

One wanders around with a dangerous book...

Tatiana's letter–compositional center of the third chapter. According to researchers, for example Yu.M. Lotman, the heroine’s letter is distinguished by its genuine sincerity,sincerity. It is from this letter that we learn about the innermost secrets of Tatyana’s soul - O her sincere faith in God, about the joy of prayer, about compassion for the poor, about loneliness among the people around her.

However, the letter contains turns of phrase, gleaned from Pushkin’s heroine from what I read by her books. Tatyana, like many of her noblewomen of the same age, had little command of written language in her native language, and chose French to declare her love.

As already noted, national identity of Tatiana's nature emphasized by her image nannies. From this point of view, to understand the character of the main character, such an element of composition as Tatyana's conversation with the nanny, filled, according to Belinsky, with true nationality.

Important episode fourth chapter–Onegin's rebuke.Ironic the author’s attitude towards this hero’s monologue is already given epigraph: “Lamoraleestdanslanaturedeschoses” 1 (Necker). The meaning of a rebuke much deeper than Onegin’s formal explanation of the reasons for his refusal to respond to Tatyana’s feelings. As we know, Onegin declared to the heroine that he was not worthy of her love, and most importantly, that he was “not created for bliss,” that is, he was not ready for family life. Onegin was partly sincere: in fact, his soul became shallow, dried up in secular intrigues, and his excellent mastery of the “science of tender passion” turned into spiritual devastation for him. There was, however, another, main reason, which Onegin will remember later, in his own letter to Tatyana: “I didn’t want to lose my hateful freedom.” Selfishness, thoughts only about his own freedom kept the hero from taking a decisive step.

Against the backdrop of the spiritual sorrows of the rejected Tatiana, idyllic paintings Lensky's courtship of his bride. There seems to be no sign of trouble.

The fifth chapter tells about Christmas fortune telling, O Tatiana's dream, about her name day, O Onegin's quarrel with Lensky.

Epigraph from V.A. Zhukovsky’s ballad “Svetlana” (“Oh, don’t know these terrible dreams / You, my Svetlana!”) immerses the reader in the element of folk beliefs. Svetlana is mentioned more than once in Pushkin’s novel, and this is no coincidence. Pushkin’s contemporaries already perceived Zhukovsky’s heroine as Tatyana’s literary predecessor, and her dream as a prototype of Tatyana’s dream. Romantic image of Svetlana, created by Pushkin’s literary mentor, his older brother in writing, was associated with deep national roots and marked the invasion of the folk poetic element into Russian poetry. Pushkin generously multiplied the traditions of Zhukovsky - in realistic image of Tatiana, connected not only with folk beliefs and legends, but also with the specific historical realities of Russian life in the twenties of the 19th century.

Tatiana's dream occupies a special place in the composition of the work. On the one hand, the dream reveals deep folk foundations of Tatiana’s character, connection between the heroine’s worldview and folk culture.

On the other hand, Tatyana's dream has prophetic meaning: It predicts the tragic events of the sixth chapter.

Scenes from Tatiana's name day represent a wonderful a picture of the morals of the provincial nobility, once again emphasizing such a property of Pushkin’s work as encyclopedic.

The fifth chapter contains an important plot twist: It tells about Onegin's courtship of Olga, about Lensky's anger and his decision to challenge Onegin to a duel.

Chapter Six contains the climax of the plot. It tells about the duel between Onegin and Lensky.Epigraph the sixth chapter was inspired by the words of Petrarch: “La,sottoigiorninubilosiebrevi, /Nasceunagenteacuil’morirnondole” 1.

IN duel situations clearly revealed the inconsistency of the moral structure of Onegin’s soul.

On the one hand, Onegin is a “kind fellow”, sincerely attached to his young comrade. Onegin appreciates Lensky's education, the sublime impulses of youth, and treats his poems condescendingly.

However, “loving the young man with all my heart,” Onegin cannot suppress the desire to take revenge on Lensky for an invitation to a boring holiday with the Larins and takes care of Olga, which angers the ardent and impressionable young man. Onegin is also unable to challenge the impressionable secular prejudices; He afraid of public opinion, does not dare refuse the duel. As a result - its inevitability, tragic death of Lensky and serious Onegin's mental anguish.

Onegin's murder of Lensky in a duel - the climax in the development of the plot. This tragic event finally separates Onegin from Tatiana. The hero, torn by mental anguish, cannot remain in the village any longer.

At the same time, the duel shows “lifelessness” of Lensky’s character, the hero's isolation from reality.

Reflecting on the possible future of Lensky (if he had not died in a duel), Pushkin outlines two paths for his hero. Lensky could become outstanding poet:

Perhaps he is for the good of the world

Or at least was born for glory;

His silent lyre

Loud, continuous ringing

In centuries I could lift...

However, Lensky could have expected life is vulgar and ordinary:

Or maybe even that: a poet

The ordinary one was waiting for his fate.

The youthful summers would pass,

The ardor of his soul would cool.

He would change in many ways

I would part with the muses, get married,

In the village, happy and horny,

I would wear a quilted robe;

I would really know life...

Death of Lensky in a duel has and symbolic meaning for the poet himself. Saying goodbye to Lensky at the end of the sixth chapter, the author of the novel says goodbye with your own youth, marked by romantic dreams.

But so be it: let’s say goodbye together,

Oh my easy youth! –

exclaims the poet.

Duel Onegin and Lensky - a turning point in the development of the plot. From the seventh chapter we learn that Onegin leaves the village, Olga marries a lancer, and Tatyana is taken to Moscow to the “bride fair.”

Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatyana's visit to Onegin's house and reading his books. Belinsky called this event an “act of consciousness” in Tatiana’s soul. The meaning of Tatyana's reading of Onegin's books is that she understands the hero's character more deeply and tries to comprehend his contradictory nature.

The Central Theme of Chapter Seven novel - Moscow. Its importance is evidenced three epigraphs, taken from the works of various authors - Pushkin’s contemporaries.

Moscow, Russia's beloved daughter,

Where can I find someone equal to you? –

solemnly asks I.I. Dmitriev.

How can you not love your native Moscow? –

E.A.B asks the question with love, but at the same time with irony O Ratynsky

An excerpt from “Woe from Wit” reminds us of Griboyedov’s satire on the Moscow nobility:

Persecution of Moscow! What does it mean to see the light!

Where is better?

Where we are not.

Epigraphs convey the poet's ambiguous attitude towards the ancient capital.

On the one side, Moscow–homelandpoet. Pushkin recalls his meeting with her after his exile in Mikhailovskoye in the following lines:

When churches and bell towers

Gardens, palace semicircle

Suddenly opened up before me!

In my wandering destiny,

Moscow, I was thinking about you!

For the Russian heart it has merged!

How much resonated with him!

Moscow for Pushkin it was also symbol of Russia's victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812:

Napoleon waited in vain

Intoxicated with the last happiness,

Moscow kneeling

With the keys of the old Kremlin:

No, my Moscow did not go

To him with a guilty head.

Not a holiday, not a receiving gift,

She was preparing a fire

To the impatient hero...

On the other hand, Pushkin satirically depicts life Moscow nobility. Here it is especially obvious traditions of Griboyedov,reminiscences from “Woe from Wit” (“But no change is visible in them...”).

Pushkin's critical attitude towards the Moscow world is not accidental. Pushkin finished the seventh chapter, like the eighth, after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising. Returning to Moscow after exile, Pushkin did not meet many of his former friends. It is characteristic that in the seventh chapter, Vyazemsky alone “managed” to “occupy” Tatyana’s soul. Although this chapter takes place before 1825, "glow" of the post-December era obvious here.

Chapter Eight contains plot resolution And words of farewell the author with the characters and with the reader. The motive of farewell is also present in the epigraph from Byron: “Fare thee well, and if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well” 1.

In the eighth chapter, the action of the novel is again transferred to Petersburg.Satirical pathosin the image of high society Petersburg in this chapter is strikingly different from the soft irony that dominates the first chapter. The fact is that here, as in the seventh chapter, which tells about Moscow, there is a “glimmer” of the era after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising: those comrades to whom the poet “in a friendly meeting” read the first stanzas of the novel have already passed away or ended up in hard labor . From here the sad mood of the author in the last chapter his creations.

Talking about Onegin in the eighth chapter, Pushkin conveys the hero's difficult mental state after the murder of Lensky:

He was overcome with anxiety

Wanderlust

(A very painful property,

Few voluntary cross).

He left his village

Forests and fields solitude,

Where is the bloody shadow

Appeared to him every day

And he began wandering without a goal...

The mental anguish of the protagonist is most clearly reflected in the dream-memory 2, which makes up the contents of the XXXVI and XXXVII stanzas of the eighth chapter:

So what? His eyes read

But my thoughts were far away;

Dreams, desires, sorrows

They pressed deep into the soul.

It's between the printed lines

Read with spiritual eyes

Other lines. He's in them

Was completely deep.

Those were secret legends

Heartfelt, dark antiquity,

Unrelated dreams

Threats, rumors, predictions,

Or a long fairy tale is living nonsense,

Or letters from a young maiden.

And gradually into a sleep

And he falls into feelings and thoughts,

And before him is the imagination

The motley pharaoh sweeps his mosque.

That's what he sees: on the melted snow,

As if sleeping for the night,

Then he sees forgotten enemies,

Slanderers and evil cowards,

And a swarm of young traitors,

And the circle of despised comrades,

That's a rural house - and at the window

She sits... and that's it!

The culminating event of the entire work - the tragic death of Lensky - is emphasized in this way in the last, eighth chapter, becoming, along with the outbreak of passion for Tatyana, the most important component of the inner life of the protagonist. Onegin's dream clearly enhances the effect of " specularity"compositions of the novel. Onegin's Dream retrospectively recreates the same tragic event (the murder of Lensky) that was predicted in prophetic Tatiana's dream.

In addition, Onegin's dream contains images, directly referring the reader to Tatiana’s state of mind in the middle chapters of the novel (“secret legends of the heartfelt, dark antiquity,” “predictions,” “living nonsense fairy tales,” “letters from a young maiden”).

At the same time, the fairy-tale images from Tatiana’s dream, which are based on folklore roots and emphasize Tatiana’s living connection with the elements of folk life, can be contrasted with a metaphorical image of pharaoh 1 from Onegin’s dream (“before him, in his imagination, the motley mosque of Pharaoh”). As you know, Pharaoh is the name of a gambling card game, symbolizing in Pushkin’s work the power of demonic forces over the human soul (remember “The Queen of Spades”). Onegin's soul was completely at the mercy of these forces, and the ominous image of the pharaoh gives the hero's dream a gloomy flavor. The world of evil that dominates Onegin’s dream includes “forgotten enemies”, and “slanderers”, and “evil cowards”, and “a swarm of young traitors”, and “a circle of despised comrades”. These faces from Onegin's past, like the image of the pharaoh, become a symbol of undue existence hero.

In the eighth chapter, in accordance with the principle “ specularity", the heroes change places. Now already passion flares up in Onegin's soul. In Onegin’s feelings for Tatyana one can see not only a life-giving force that cleanses the hero’s soul. Rather it's "passion is a dead trail" according to the figurative definition of the poet. This passion could not heal Onegin’s soul; it only intensified his mental anguish caused by the murder of his friend.

Onegin's letter to Tatiana–the most important ideological center the entire novel. In his letter, Onegin exclaims bitterly:

I thought: freedom and peace

Substitute for happiness. My God!

How wrong I was, how I was punished...

The meaning of the denouement the novel is that Tatyana rejects Onegin:

I love you (why lie?),

But I was given to someone else

I will be faithful to him forever.

The denouement allows the reader to clearly understand not only the meaning of the moral crisis experienced by the hero, but also the spiritual foundations of the heroine’s personality. Tatyana retains a feeling for Onegin in her soul, but fidelity to marital duty is above all for her. Tatyana contrasts Onegin's unbridled passion Christian submission to fate(“my fate is already decided”) and moral strength.

It is significant that Pushkin shows his heroes in his novel in spiritual evolution.

Tatyana turns from a dreamy village girl into a brilliant society lady. At the same time, she retains in her soul those deep moral values ​​that were embedded in her in her youth. The heroine tells Onegin about her attitude towards social life:

And to me, Onegin, this pomp,

Life's hateful tinsel,

My successes are in a whirlwind of light,

My fashionable house and evenings, -

What's in them? Now I'm glad to give it away

All this rags of a masquerade,

All this shine, and noise, and fumes

For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,

For our poor home,

For those places where for the first time,

Onegin, I saw you,

Yes for the humble cemetery,

Where is the cross and the shadow of the branches today?

Over my poor nanny...

Having not fallen in love with the St. Petersburg society, Tatyana nevertheless patiently bears her cross, remaining a devoted wife and fulfilling the role of a high society lady that she dislikes.

The changes that occur in Onegin’s soul throughout the novel are also obvious. At the beginning of the work, Onegin appears before us as a frivolous secular dandy. Then - a skeptic, disappointed in social life, obsessed with despondency, melancholy. At the end of the novel we see a man who has lost the meaning of life.

At the end of the work, the author leaves Onegin “at a moment that is evil for him.” What will happen to the hero next is unknown. denouement, carrying an element understatements,incompleteness, –innovative feature compositions of Pushkin's novel.

Nature in the novel

Images of nature occupy a large place in the work, constituting the most important facet of the “encyclopedia of Russian life.” In addition, the landscape serves several other essential functions.

As noted above, descriptions of nature help the author organize the artistic time of the novel. The action of the work begins in the summer. Onegin flies “in the dust at the post office” to the village to visit his sick uncle. In the second chapter, Pushkin paints a picture of rural nature:

The master's house is secluded,

Protected from the winds by a mountain,

He stood over the river. In the distance

Before him they dazzled and bloomed

Golden meadows and fields...

Summer gives way to autumn:

The sky was already breathing in autumn,

The sun shone less often,

The day was getting shorter;

Mysterious forest canopy

With a sad noise she was naked...

Finally, winter comes:

That year the weather was autumn

I stood in the yard for a long time,

Winter was waiting, nature was waiting.

Snow only fell in January...

At the beginning of the seventh chapter, Pushkin describes the awakening of spring:

Driven by spring rays,

There is already snow from the surrounding mountains

Escaped through muddy streams

To the sunken meadows...

In addition, in the descriptions of nature we observe the creative evolution of the author, his path from romanticism to the “poetry of reality”.

As you know, Pushkin began to write his work in southern exile, during the romantic period of his creativity. In the first chapter we meet romantic images of nature:

Adriatic waves,

Oh Brenta! No, I'll see you

And, full of inspiration again,

I will hear your magical voice!

However, in general, the novel is dominated by realistic paintings of nature, often containing details of Russian life. As an example, here is a description of the Russian winter in the fifth chapter of the work:

Winter!.. The peasant, triumphant,

On the firewood he renews the path...

Pushkin himself comments on such paintings as follows:

But maybe this kind

Pictures will not attract you;

All this is low nature;

There's a little grace here.

At the same time, the reader understands that it was in the pictures of simple Russian nature that the author knew how to find true poetry. “What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin; What was prose for them, was poetry for him,” wrote Belinsky.

Pushkin draws in his work and cityscape. The image of the white nights in St. Petersburg in the first chapter is presented in romantic key. The poet talks about how he walked with Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, “when it is transparent and light / The night sky over the Neva / And the cheerful glass of water / Does not reflect the face of Diana...” City landscape in the eighth chapter emphasized realistic, even prosaic: “On the blue, carved ice / The sun plays; It’s dirty melting / The snow is dug up in the streets.”

Your creative evolution from romanticism to realism Pushkin comprehends in Onegin's Travels.

First, the poet writes about the romantic images of nature that excited him in his youth:

At that time I seemed to need

Deserts, edges of pearly waves,

I need other paintings:

I love the sandy slope,

There are two rowan trees in front of the hut,

A gate, a broken fence...

Besides, images of nature in the novel are the most important means of characterizing heroes; in addition, they help to understand the author’s own worldview.

Two days seemed new to him

Lonely fields

The coolness of the gloomy oak tree,

The babbling of a quiet stream;

On the third grove, hill and field

He was no longer occupied;

For village silence:

More vivid creative dreams.

As for Lensky, he sees nature in romantic outlines:

He fell in love with dense groves,

Solitude, silence,

And the night, and the stars, and the moon...

She loved on the balcony

To warn the dawn of the rising, -

Pushkin writes about Tatyana in the second chapter. In the fifth chapter, the poet tells how Tatyana meets winter:

Waking up early

Tatiana saw through the window

In the morning the white yard...

In Tatyana’s love for the Russian winter, the poet sees a vivid manifestation of the original Russian soul:

Tatiana (Russian soul,

Without knowing why)

With her cold beauty,

I loved Russian winter...

The poet touchingly describes Tatyana’s farewell to nature, to village life in the seventh chapter of the novel:

Sorry, peaceful valleys,

And you, familiar mountain peaks,

And you, familiar forests;

Sorry, heavenly beauty,

Sorry, cheerful nature,

Changing the sweet, quiet light

To the noise of brilliant vanities...

Finally, nature in the novel is also a source of the author’s philosophical reflections on the transience of life, the continuity of generations, and the connection of times. Thus, the poet reflects on the change of generations at the end of the second chapter:

Alas! On the reins of life

Instant generational harvest

By the secret will of Providence

They rise, mature and fall;

Others are following them...

So our windy tribe

Growing, worried, seething

And he presses towards the grave of his great-grandfathers.

Our time will come, our time will come,

And our grandchildren in good time

They will push us out of the world too!

Describing the awakening of spring in the seventh chapter, the poet again returns to thoughts about passing youth, about the transience of life:

How sad your appearance is to me,

Spring, spring! It's time for love!

What languid excitement

In my soul, in my blood!

With what heavy tenderness

I enjoy the breeze

Spring blowing in my face

In the lap of rural silence!

Or, not happy about the return

Dead leaves in autumn,

We remember the bitter loss

Listening to the new noise of the forests;

Or with nature alive

We bring together the confused thought

We are the fading of our years,

Which cannot be reborn?

Thus, the artistic role of images of nature in Eugene Onegin is multifaceted. The landscape performs a compositional function, helping the author organize artistic time in the novel; descriptions of nature reflect the creative evolution of the author, his path from romanticism to the “poetry of reality”; landscape is a means of characterizing characters, a way of self-expression of the author; finally, nature in Pushkin’s work is the source of the poet’s philosophical thoughts about life, about fate, about the continuity of generations, about the connection of times.

In the eighth article from the series “Works of Alexander Pushkin,” Belinsky wrote: “'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, light and it is clear how 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.”

As you know, “Eugene Onegin” is a work of an unusual genre. In a letter to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, Pushkin noted: “I am not writing a novel, but a novel in verse: a devilish difference.”

A novel in verse - a lyric epic work, in which not only are important author's narration about events and heroes, but also lyrical digressions, in which the poet’s inner world finds free, direct expression.

In "Eugene Onegin" we find various types of derogations:autobiographical, morally descriptive, historical, journalistic, philosophical.

Let us briefly describe the topic of the digressions. Most of the digressions in the novel are of autobiographical content: the author tells the reader about his life, starting from his lyceum years and ending with his arrival in Moscow, and then in St. Petersburg after exile to Mikhailovskoye.

In the digressions we also find the author’s philosophical reflections on the transience of life and the change of generations. The poet shares with the reader his thoughts about love and friendship, about duels and murder in a duel, while expressing a sharp rejection of individualism and selfishness (“We all look like Napoleons...”).

The poet's opinions about Russian and Western European literature and culture are interesting. Here we should, in particular, note the digressions about theater in the first chapter, about literary heroes in the third, about the poetic genres of elegy and ode in the fourth.

The poet expresses his opinions about contemporary poets (about Yazykov, Boratynsky), about the Russian language, about the albums of district young ladies and metropolitan ladies, about modern youth, their education, about the tastes and morals of Pushkin’s contemporary society, about social entertainment, about balls, about cuisine of that time, even about the types of wines!

Among the journalistic digressions, we will mention the poet’s reflections in the seventh chapter about roads in Russia and the future of the country. We especially note the historical digression about Moscow in the seventh chapter, where Pushkin admires the feat of the inhabitants of the ancient capital in the war of 1812 (“Napoleon waited in vain...”).

The author’s thoughts about his own novel are also interesting: the poet talks about the plan of the work, about the characters, introduces readers to them; says that the “fifth notebook” of the novel needs to be “cleared of digressions”; Finally, he says goodbye to the reader and the characters.

Author's digressions serve several functions. Let's name the main ones. Firstly, they help the poet create an “encyclopedia of Russian life” (Belinsky). Secondly, they reveal to the reader the personality of the author himself.

The image of the author of “Eugene Onegin” is multifaceted. The author appears before us in several of his guises: autobiographer,creator of the novel, commentator on his own work, hero of the novel, philosopher, poet.

In “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin introduces the reader to the facts of his biography. He describes his own life and creative path in most detail in a digression on the Muse at the beginning of the eighth chapter.

First, the poet recalls his lyceum years:

In those days when in the gardens of the Lyceum

I blossomed serenely

I read Apuleius willingly,

But I haven’t read Cicero,

In those days in the mysterious valleys,

In spring, when l ikah ​​swan,

Near the waters shining in silence,

The Muse began to appear to me.

The poet recalls his first successes, the lyceum exam, which was attended by G.R. Derzhavin. The poet speaks about himself and his Muse:

And the light greeted her with a smile,

Success inspired us for the first time,

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

I brought the playful Muse

To the noise of feasts and violent disputes...

It is known that at this time the poet participated not only in friendly feasts, but also in bold discussions among radical youth.

How often on the rocks of the Caucasus

She is Lenora, in the moonlight,

And here she is in my garden

She appeared as a district young lady,

With a sad thought in my eyes,

With a French book in hand.

At the end of the digression about the Muse, the poet recalls how she reappeared in St. Petersburg:

She likes order and slender

oligarchic conversations,

And the coldness of calm pride,

And this mixture of ranks and years.

Autobiographical digressions are also present in other chapters of the novel. For example, in the first chapter, the poet remembers St. Petersburg at a time when he himself is in southern exile:

I once walked there too,

But the north is bad for me.

Will the hour of my freedom come?

"It's time, it's time!" - I appeal to her;

I'm wandering over the sea, waiting for the weather,

Manyu sailed the ships.

Here the poet hints at his plan to escape abroad. Here, in the first chapter, he recalls his youthful infatuation with Maria Raevskaya:

I remember the sea before the storm:

How I envied the waves

Running in a stormy line

Lay down with love at her feet!

But in the fourth chapter, Pushkin talks about his life in Mikhailovsky:

But I am the fruit of my dreams

And harmonic undertakings

I read only to the old nanny,

A friend of my youth...

The poet had a vivid impression of his new meeting with Moscow, where he arrived after exile:

Ah, brothers! How pleased I was

When churches and bell towers

Gardens, palace semicircle

Suddenly opened up before me!

How often in sorrowful separation,

In my wandering destiny,

Moscow, I was thinking about you!

Moscow... So much in this sound

For the Russian heart it has merged!

How much resonated with him!

As mentioned above, the author appears in the work both as the creator of the novel, and as a commentator on his own work (remember that Pushkin himself wrote notes for it), and as a philosopher reflecting on the transience of human life, on the change of generations (“Alas! On life’s reins...").

The poet also appears before us as the hero of his own novel. In the first chapter, he talks about how he walks with his “good friend” Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, in the third - about Tatyana’s letter, which he keeps with him:

Tatiana's letter is in front of me,

I cherish it sacredly...

Finally, let’s define the main, most significant facet of the author’s image. The author appears in the novel as a poet.

It is precisely as a poet that he contrasts himself with Onegin, who could not distinguish an iambic from a trochee and to whom “persistent work” “was sick.” But the point is not only that Onegin, unlike the author, did not know how to write poetry.

Onegin is a skeptic. He cannot fully appreciate the beauty of the world around him. The author has a special, poetic attitude towards life. Even in the ordinary, he knew how to see beauty. As Belinsky noted about Pushkin, “he contemplated nature and reality from a special angle, and this angle was exclusively poetic.”

Onegin is indifferent to nature. This is what Pushkin writes about Onegin’s first impressions in the village (“Two days seemed new to him / The solitary fields...”).

I was born for a peaceful life

For village silence:

Creative dreams come alive...

On days of fun and desires

I was crazy about balls...

So, Onegin’s indifference to life is contrasted with the poetic view of the world of the author of the novel.

He sang separation and sadness,

And something, and the foggy distance,

And romantic roses...

And this is no coincidence. Romanticism for Pushkin is a passed stage in his own creative biography. And at the same time, Lensky - an exalted, poetic nature - is in many ways closer to the author than the skeptic Onegin. Lensky's spiritual image is connected with memories dear to Pushkin of his own romantic youth, her freedom-loving dreams, unfulfilled hopes, and lofty ideals. Pushkin’s thoughts about Russian romantic poets, friends of the author of Eugene Onegin, are also connected with Lensky. It is no coincidence that in the digression at the end of the sixth chapter, where the author says goodbye to Lensky, who died in a duel, he says goodbye to his own youth: “But so be it: let’s say goodbye together, / O my easy youth!”).

Tatiana, dear Tatiana!

With you now I shed tears, -

writes Pushkin in the third chapter, talking about how Tatyana fell in love with Onegin.

Why is Tatyana more guilty?

Because in sweet simplicity

She knows no deception

And believes in his chosen dream?

Forgive me: I love you so much

The author-poet appears on the pages of the novel in his creative And spiritualevolution. As you know, Pushkin began writing his work in 1823, during the period of southern exile, at the time of the heyday of romanticism in his own work. It is no coincidence that in the first chapter of the novel we find romantic images (“Adriatic waves...”).

At that time I seemed to need

Deserts, edges of pearly waves,

And the noise of the sea, and piles of rocks,

And the ideal of a proud maiden...

Romantic illusions are a thing of the past, and they have been replaced by a different view of the world (“I need different pictures...”).

The pages of the novel reflect not only the creative, but also the spiritual evolution of the poet.

Pushkin began writing his work in 1823 in southern exile, while still a very young man. The poet was keenly agitated by passions; he still yearned for balls, the theater, and other social entertainments that he had left behind in St. Petersburg. At the same time, the poet was experiencing an ideological crisis associated with disappointment in the educational ideas that he had previously shared with his friends - the future Decembrists.

The subsequent chapters were written by Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, where the poet began to develop new life guidelines for him (the beauty of Russian nature, the spiritual values ​​of the common people). Hence the author’s special interest in the spiritual appearance of Tatyana, who became the poet’s “sweet ideal.”

The seventh and eighth chapters were written by Pushkin during a period of wanderings, everyday disorder and painful spiritual quest.

It is important to note the fact that the poet completed the novel after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, when Pushkin’s beloved friends ended up in hard labor. Hence the “glow” of the post-December era that we observe in the last chapters of the work. The last stanza of “Eugene Onegin” is significant in this regard:

But those who in a friendly meeting

I read the first verses...

There are no others, and those are far away,

As Sadi once said.

Without them, Onegin was completed...

Let's draw conclusions. In a work of such a genre as a novel in verse, the role of the author's digressions and the image of the author is extremely important. Digressions, written in a light, relaxed manner, organically accompany the narrative. The author's “I” becomes the most important prerequisite for the artistic unity of the novel in verse.

Digressions perform two important functions: with their help, an “encyclopedia of Russian life” is created and the multifaceted image of the author himself is revealed - the creator of the novel, his commentator, hero, philosopher, autobiographer, and finally, the poet, who appears before the reader in creative and spiritual evolution.

Onegin stanza

Pushkin's novel is written in Onegin's stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, and integrity. The Onegin stanza consists of fourteen verses of iambic tetrameter, connected by a certain sequence of rhymes. Let's imagine the rhyme system in the Onegin stanza using the following scheme, where capital letters indicate female rhymes, lowercase letters indicate male rhymes: AbAbVVggDeeJj.

The first four lines are connected by cross rhyme. The next four lines have adjacent (paired) rhymes. Lines nine through twelve are connected by a girdle (enveloping, ring) rhyme. The last two lines are connected by a pair of rhymes.

Most of the stanzas in Eugene Onegin represent a complete artistic whole. Typically, the first four lines contain exposition, an introduction to the topic. In the following lines the theme develops and reaches its climax. Finally, the final couplet often contains a spectacular, aphoristic ending.

The entire text of the novel is written in the Onegin stanza, except for the letters of the heroes in the third and eighth chapters, as well as the songs of the girls at the end of the third chapter, which emphasizes the originality of these elements of the literary text.

Questions and tasks

1. Where and when did Pushkin begin work on “Eugene Onegin”? When did he basically complete the novel? When was Onegin's letter to Tatiana written? How did the plan of the novel change during its creation? How many chapters are there in the final text of the work? How did Pushkin publish fragments from Onegin's Travels?

2. Why could Pushkin claim that in his novel time is “calculated according to the calendar”? What is the chronological framework of the events that make up the plot of the work?

3. Outline the range of topics covered in Eugene Onegin. Why did Belinsky call Pushkin’s work “an encyclopedia of Russian life”?

4. Formulate the central problem of Pushkin’s novel. What other socio-historical problems are raised in Eugene Onegin? Highlight the range of moral, philosophical and aesthetic problems of the work.

5. How did the evolution of Pushkin’s worldview in the 1820s affect the ideological orientation of “Eugene Onegin”? What universal human values ​​does Pushkin affirm in his novel? How are the ideas of the work related to national roots? What life principles does Pushkin the poet affirm? Can we say that “Eugene Onegin” is also marked by satirical pathos?

6. What realistic principles can you note in Pushkin’s novel? What is the difference between a realistic novel in verse and romantic poems?

7. What genre definition did Pushkin himself give to “Eugene Onegin”? What traditions of Byron did Belinsky note in Pushkin’s novel? What, according to the critic, is Pushkin’s fundamental innovation compared to Byron? How did Pushkin himself characterize the form of “Eugene Onegin”?

8. What distinctive features characterize the plot of “Eugene Onegin” and the arrangement of the central characters? Briefly describe the exposition, plot, climax, and denouement of the novel. What elements of the work, in addition to plot structure, play an important role?

9. Which of the novel’s heroes can be called main, secondary, episodic? Which characters are central to the plot? Can the author be considered one of the characters in the novel?

10. Why can Onegin be called a hero of time? Describe the character’s social status, his views, interests. What brings Onegin closer to opposition-minded youth? Why can we say that Onegin is the face of Pushkin’s circle? What contradictions distinguish the hero’s worldview and character? Why is Onegin called the “superfluous man”? Note some artistic means of creating his image.

11. What type of Pushkin’s era is recreated in the image of Lensky? Tell us about the hero’s education, about his personality. Why does the death of Lensky acquire symbolic meaning in the novel? Briefly describe the artistic means of creating his image.

12. Why did Belinsky define the creation of the image of Tatyana as a feat of Pushkin? What features of the Russian national character were combined in Tatyana? What is the uniqueness of her nature? How do other characters in the novel set off Tatiana? What is Tatiana's role in the plot of the work? Why does the author call Tatyana a “sweet ideal”?

13. Review the minor and episodic characters of Eugene Onegin. What role do they play in creating the “encyclopedia of Russian life”? What real historical figures, literary heroes and mythological characters are mentioned on the pages of Pushkin's novel? What is their significance in the work?

14. Describe the compositional functions of individual chapters of Eugene Onegin. Identify the meaning of epigraphs, the main events that make up the plot of the work. Pay special attention to such elements of the composition as the letters of the characters, Tatiana’s dream, the duel episode, Onegin’s dream-vision, the last explanation of the characters. What has changed in the worldview of Onegin and Tatyana over the course of the novel? How does the “understatement” of the work’s denouement manifest itself?

15. Tell us about the main functions of images of nature in the work. How does landscape help the author organize artistic time in a novel and reveal the characters’ characters? How is the author’s worldview and his creative evolution revealed through images of nature?

16. Name the main types and themes of the author’s digressions in “Eugene Onegin”. Give examples of deviations of a different nature. What facets of the author's image are revealed on the pages of the novel? Characterize them by identifying the relationship between the author’s image and the characters’ images. How do the pages of the work reflect the poet’s life path, creative and spiritual evolution?

17. What is the Onegin stanza? What is its construction? What elements of the text of “Eugene Onegin” are not written in Onegin’s stanza?

18. Make an outline and prepare an oral report on the topic: “Eugene Onegin as an encyclopedia of Russian life.”

19. Write an essay on the topic: “Moscow in A.S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” and in A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.”

“Eugene Onegin” is the first realistic Russian novel, which “reflected the century and modern man,” according to the author himself. It is already familiar to us that such works depict typical heroes in typical circumstances. But in the era of the creation of this work, when romanticism still dominated, and realism was just beginning to define its features in the works of Pushkin and Griboyedov, much in the novel seemed unusual, even strange, to readers. It is no coincidence that Pushkin so persistently sought to separate the author from the hero,

Because the reader is accustomed to the fact that in the works of romanticism there is one person. The creator of “Eugene Onegin” even uses such an unusual technique as including in the artistic world of the work a unique author-character who is friends with Onegin, keeps letters from the heroes, and is part of their circle of acquaintances. Along with this, directly on the pages of the novel, the author also acts as its creator, discussing with the reader how he creates his characters, what plot twists are expected in the future, etc. And becoming a lyrical hero, the author speaks in lyrical digressions about his life, feelings, thoughts and experiences, complementing the overall picture of life in Russia of that era and creating a genuine “encyclopedia of Russian life.” All this emphasizes the unusual relationship between real facts and fiction in “Eugene Onegin,” and therefore the question of the prototypes of the heroes from the moment readers first became acquainted with the novel began to be widely discussed. In the report, we will consider how modern scientists approach the problem of prototypes of the heroes of Pushkin’s novel and what realities of life are actually reflected in it.
Many of Pushkin's contemporaries A >>> they found traits of their acquaintances, sometimes even themselves, in the heroes of the work; among the possible prototypes of Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky, Olga, a variety of people of that era were named. But later, when the specifics of realism were comprehended - as an artistic method that allows the author to create his characters based on a generalization of a wide range of life phenomena, it became clear that in the literal sense prototypes, that is, those real people from whom this or that image is drawn , in such a work are impossible. As noted by the famous Pushkinist Yu. M. Lotman. And yet, such attempts were made repeatedly, and not only in Pushkin’s era: after all, that creative laboratory of the writer, which allows him to create truly living images, still remains a mystery to us.
Conventionally, we can divide assumptions about the prototypes of the novel’s heroes into two groups. The first includes very naive statements by Pushkin’s contemporaries, and sometimes later evidence that he painted a portrait of this or that person. The second includes serious research and deep judgments by experts on Pushkin’s work that some individual traits of his heroes could be based on the characteristic features of a specific personality. Let's look at the most typical examples of each group.
The first group includes, first of all, memoirs. So, a lot has been written about Tatyana Larina’s prototypes. Among them was Anna Petrovna Kern, known to everyone from her famous message (“I remember a wonderful moment...”). Other contemporaries of Pushkin named Elizaveta Ksaveryevna Vorontsova, the wife of Count M.S. Vorontsov, Governor General, Pushkin’s boss during the poet’s southern exile, as a prototype for Tatyana. He met this famous social beauty in 1823 in Odessa and became passionately interested in her. This feeling left its mark in such wonderful poems as “Burnt Letter”, “Keep Me, My Talisman”, “Farewell”. Indeed, the moment of meeting this woman coincides with the beginning of work on “Eugene Onegin,” but is this enough to draw such an obvious parallel? Vorontsova’s fate in marriage, indeed, resembles the fate of Tatyana Larina, but the character of this real woman was completely different. Rather, on the contrary, Pushkin’s contemporaries, amazed at the accuracy of the creation of typical characters, found analogies with them in real people. So, for example, Alexander Nikolaevich Raevsky, an acquaintance of Pushkin from the southern exile, in a letter to the poet called “Tatyana” a woman close to both of them, as some researchers believe, namely E.K. Vorontsova.
A. N. Raevsky himself was also put forward as the prototype of the hero of the novel - Eugene Onegin. The eldest son of General N.N. Raevsky, with whose family Pushkin traveled around the Crimea in 1820, Alexander Nikolaevich had a strong influence on the young romantic poet. Many poems are dedicated to him, the most famous of which is “The Demon” (1823), although Pushkin’s friendship with him subsequently ceased, as clearly evidenced by the poem “Insidiousness,” written in the fall of 1824 shortly after his arrival in Mikhailovskoye. The reason for the cooling between former friends was that, probably, it was A. N. Raevsky, like Pushkin, passionately in love with E. K. Vorontsova, who contributed to the poet’s removal from Odessa. The traits of the intelligent, skeptical, Byronic, disappointed and devastated by unhappy love Alexander Raevsky could well have been used by Pushkin when creating the image of Onegin.
But other famous personalities were also put forward as the prototype of the hero, for example, Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev. One of the most educated and brilliant people of his time, a future philosopher and publicist. Chaadaev met Pushkin back in 1816 in Tsarskoe Selo, where the regiment in which Chaadaev then served was stationed. Friendship with him continued throughout Pushkin’s life, but he had a particularly strong influence on the young poet. Chaadaev’s “freedom-loving dreams” influenced him in the early period of his creativity. The famous message “To Chaadaev” (1818) and a number of other poems are dedicated to him. However, Chaadaev was famous among his contemporaries not only for his love of freedom, independence and sharp judgment, but also for his refined aristocracy and panache in clothes. It is in this latter capacity that he is ironically mentioned on the pages of Eugene Onegin. Although the parallel can be drawn here on a more serious level. It is known that Chaadaev was one of the prototypes of another literary character - Chatsky from A. S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit”. Moreover, it is believed that Griboyedov, introducing a line of gossip about the hero’s madness as an expression of the struggle of a conservative society against dissent, in some way foresaw the fate of a real person - Chaadaev. After the publication of the Philosophical Letter in 1836, which contained a sharp assessment of the history of Russia and its current state, Chaadaev was officially declared insane and placed under house arrest. Based on this, Onegin’s rapprochement with the hero of Griboyedov’s comedy in the eighth chapter (“...and ended up, like Chatsky, from a ship to a ball”) suggests that the independence and originality of Chaadaev’s mentality and behavior were also reflected in the image of Onegin.
Versions have been put forward regarding the prototypes and other heroes of the novel, sometimes very naive. Thus, an acquaintance of Pushkin, whom he first met during Mikhailovskaya exile, the son of the mistress of the neighboring Trigorskoye estate, Alexei Nikolaevich Wulf, wrote in his diary in 1833: “I was even a character in the descriptions of Onegin’s village life.”
It is difficult to agree with such straightforwardness of the parallels put forward, but it should still be noted that, indeed, the features of the inhabitants and surroundings of Trigorsky were reflected on the pages of the novel. It is not for nothing that visitors to the Pushkin Nature Reserve are still shown the “Onegin Bench,” which was so named by the Osipov-Wulf family. They believed that it was in such a corner of the park that the memorable explanation between Onegin and Tatyana could have taken place. The family of Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova-Wulf consisted of her son Alexey and two more daughters from her first marriage - the eldest Anna and the younger Eupraxia Wulf, two little daughters from her second marriage - Maria and Ekaterina Osipova, as well as Alexandra Osipova's stepdaughter - Alina, as everyone called her here, and niece Anna Ivanovna Wulf. The features of Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova were largely reflected in the image of Tatyana Larina’s mother. Having remained the head of a large family after the death of her husband, Praskovya Alexandrovna took upon herself all the economic concerns of the estate, just like the mother of Tatyana and Olga in the novel.
Daughters from her first marriage, sisters Anna and Eupraxia (Zizi - as she was called at home) are those whom Alexey Wulf calls the prototypes of Tatyana and Olga. Are there real reasons for making such comparisons? The cheerful and nimble fifteen-year-old Zizi was the subject of Pushkin’s constant jokes and pranks and his innocent courtship. She had a thin waist. One day, as a joke, Pushkin decided to measure his belt with her. “Our waists were found, identical,” he writes in a letter to his brother. - Consequently, one of two things: either I have the waist of a 15-year-old girl, or she has the waist of a 25-year-old man. Eupraxia is sulking and very sweet.” It was this trait of a real girl that was reflected on the pages of “Eugene Onegin”
Pushkin developed a more serious feeling for another “Trigorsk maiden” - Alina. His famous poem “Confession” is dedicated to her, in which there is a joke, a game, and a deeply hidden feeling: “I love you, even though I’m mad...”. As for Anna Nikolaevna Vulf, the eldest of the sisters, named by Alexei Vulf as a prototype, the situation here is more complicated. Not at all like the frisky Zizi, Anna is a serious, poetic, musical girl, prone to daydreaming and thoughtfulness. She had a deep and serious feeling for the poet, to which she remained faithful until the end of her life. Pushkin, without sharing this feeling, nevertheless appreciated the smart, well-read girl; Knowing about her passion for Byron, he gave her a portrait of the poet. Maybe he courted a little, as he did with other Trigorsk young ladies. Their correspondence has been preserved, in which the girl’s feelings were clearly expressed. Here is an excerpt from her message to the poet: “What should I tell you and where should I start my letter? And at the same time, I feel such a need to write to you that I am unable to obey either reflection or prudence.” Let us remember Tatyana’s letter: “I am writing to you - what more!” What more can I say? Let us note that Anna Wulf, in a letter dated September 11, 1826, from which an excerpt is given, could not yet know these pages of the novel, but the similarities are obvious. Probably, here, as in other cases, we are not talking about a prototype, but about the special nature of the creative process of a realist writer, who melted real life impressions into unforgettable images and characters.
Perhaps we can agree with this point of view. According to scientists who studied Pushkin’s work and found more and more parallels between the heroes of his novel and the poet’s contemporaries, “the main characters of Eugene Onegin had no direct prototypes.” But on the other hand, they themselves “became psychological standards for their contemporaries: comparing themselves and their loved ones with the heroes of the novel became a means of explaining their own and their characters.” It is no coincidence that Yu. N. Tynyanov, who wrote a novel about Pushkin’s era “Kyukhlya,” finds a completely fruitful comparison: he puts forward the version that Lensky’s prototype could be Pushkin’s Lyceum friend, the poet-Decembrist V. K. Kyuchelbecker. Pushkin, while in Mikhailovsky exile, called him “my dear brother by muse, by destiny.” Indeed, individual features of this man could have been used to create the image of Lensky. But what is even more interesting is that Kuchelbecker himself, who knew Pushkin well, expressed a paradoxical, but on the whole very correct thought: “The poet in his 8th chapter is similar to Tatyana. The feeling with which Pushkin is filled is noticeable everywhere, although he, like his Tatiana, does not want the whole world to know about this feeling.”
Indeed, all disputes about the prototypes of the heroes of “Eugene Onegin” are ultimately resolved by the fact that this is “Pushkin’s most sincere work, the most beloved child of his imagination.” This is what the critic V. G. Belinsky wrote back in the middle of the 19th century, but the validity of his judgments about the main novel of the great Russian poet is only confirmed by the latest studies of his work.

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1. The idea of ​​the novel. Stages of working on a novel. Reasons for the slow progress of work. Plan of the novel. "Onegin's Travels". The role of chapter 10 in the novel. Reasons for the destruction of chapter 10 (in which Onegin becomes a Decembrist). Historical events,...
2. Pushkin's original intention for the novel Eugene Onegin was to create a comedy similar to Griboyedov's Woe from Wit. In the poet's letters one can find sketches for a comedy in which the main character was portrayed...
3. The great Russian critic V. G. Belinsky admired A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.” And he repeatedly emphasized that the novel has not only aesthetic and artistic value, but also historical. ""Eugene...
4. THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THE NOVEL IS EUGENE ONEGIN The image of the main character of A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” embodied the type of “modern man” of Pushkin’s era. Pushkin worked on the comprehension and artistic embodiment of this image...
5. CLASSICS A. S. PUSHKIN EVGENY ONEGIN – THE HERO OF A. S. PUSHKIN’S NOVEL Evgeny Onegin... How many times have I heard these words, even before I read the novel. In everyday life it's...
6. A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” leads us to many thoughts. This work was written more than 150 years ago, but it still worries us. In it we find...
7. The image of Tatiana is Pushkin’s favorite female image. We have already encountered this image in the poet’s work: Masha Troekurova in “Dubrovsky”, Masha Mironova in “The Captain’s Daughter” - but these were only...
8. The novel “Eugene Onegin” is distinguished by a variety of scenes and pictures of social life, rural and urban life. But in this “encyclopedia of Russian life”, descriptions of nature that appear on the pages also occupied a prominent place...
9. “Eugene Onegin” is a realistic novel in verse; it presents the reader with authentic and living images of Russian people of the early 19th century. The work provides a broad artistic generalization of the main development trends...
10. It would not be an exaggeration to say that “Eugene Onegin” is Pushkin’s most sincere work, the most beloved child of his imagination. This, by the way, was the opinion of V. G. Belinsky. “Here is all life, all soul, all love...
11. Russian literature of the 1st half of the 19th century “What is the reason that the relationship between Onegin and Tatyana developed so absurdly tragically?” (G. A. Gukovsky). (Based on the novel by A. S. Pushkin “Eugene...
12. The novel “Eugene Onegin” was created over the course of eight years. Pushkin began writing his novel when the social movement was gaining strength, during the heyday of freedom-loving ideas, and finished writing it during the terrible years...
13. Written in the 20-30s of the nineteenth century, the novel “Eugene Onegin” is not only the pinnacle of the poet’s work, but also the most important event in the history of Russian literature. The novel became the first work in which the author...
14. V. G. Belinsky called Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” After all, the novel, like a mirror, reflected “the century and modern man.” But what is he like, a contemporary of Pushkin? When you read and...
15. CLASSICS A. S. PUSHKIN DEPICTION OF THE CAPITAL AND LOCAL NOBILITY IN THE NOVEL: A. S. PUSHKIN “EUGENE ONEGIN” It was no coincidence that the great Russian critic V. G. Belinsky called A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene...
16. There are books that are re-read from generation to generation... They resemble safe conduct letters of the Russian language, history, culture, since they contain something elusively reverent that connects us with the traditions of the Russian people...
17. A. S. Pushkin worked on his most significant creation for more than seven years. The poet began the novel in 1823, and finished it in 1830, however, the famous “Letter of Onegin” was written even later...
18. A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, written in 1823-1831, reflected the life of Russian society at one of the most interesting moments in its development - in the era of awakening self-awareness in society after the Patriotic War...
19. The great Russian critic and thinker V. G. Belinsky wrote about Tatyana Larina, the heroine of A. S. Pushkin’s novel, that she is “an exceptional being, a deep, loving, passionate nature.” They often talk about “Turgenev’s...
20. A. S. Pushkin sincerely admires Moscow as the embodiment of national culture, identity, the Russian spirit, and the keeper of the historical memory of the people. The poet is proud of ancient castles, the Kremlin, witnesses to the glory of Russian weapons, symbols of the triumph of the idea of ​​national... Olga is one of the main characters of the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”. For the first time on the pages of the novel we meet Olga not directly, but through the perception of the sublime, noble, romantic Lensky. Oh, he...
21. The author described the provincial nobility most fully using the example of the Larin family of landowners. Pushkin, not without irony, calls the head of the family, Tatyana’s father, “a kind fellow, belated in the last century.” He was indifferent to...
22. Before introducing the reader to the people inhabiting Moscow, with their morals and interests, the poet cannot help but touch upon the heroic past of this ancient city, and recall the years of hard times that Napoleon had in store for Moscow....
Do you share the opinion of researchers that “The Captain’s Daughter” by A. S. Pushkin is the “seed” of the Russian epic novel? Answering the question posed, note that many of the works of A. S. Pushkin, being...
23. The work “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” is the first realistic novel, and it is the first not only in the creative work of Dickens, but also in all the literature of England of the 19th century. The novel is a clear reflection of democracy...
24. Village prose occupies one of the leading places in Russian literature. The main themes touched upon in novels of this genre can be called eternal. These are questions of morality, love of nature, good attitude towards...

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Historicism, as the main characteristic of the work, is multifaceted. History and time are the true heroes of the process of creating a novel. For Pushkin, the historical conditionality of the motives of behavior and the destinies of the characters was fundamentally significant. You can determine the chronological milestones of the characters' biography. Onegin was born in 1795. First appeared in the world in 1811. Meeting with the Author (action of the 1st chapter) - 1819.

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The history of “Eugene Onegin” is inextricably linked with the history of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. The history of the creation of “Eugene Onegin” is determined by a titanic poetic work in the period from May 1823 to September 1830, a creative rethinking of Russian reality in the first quarter of the 19th century. The novel in verse was created during four stages of Alexander Sergeevich’s work: southern exile (1820 – 1824), stay “without the right to leave the Mikhailovskoye estate without permission” (1824 – 1826), the period after exile (1826 – 1830), Boldino Autumn (1830) The poet sought to create the image of a hero of his time. In the work, he painfully searched for the answer to the question of what should be the bearer of new ideas, the creator of the new Russia. Socio-economic situation in the country Russia won the War of 1812. This gave a tangible impetus to public aspirations for liberation from feudal shackles. First of all, the people longed for the abolition of serfdom. Such his release inevitably entailed a limitation of the powers of the monarch. The communities of guards officers that formed immediately after the war in 1816 in St. Petersburg formed the Decembrist “Union of Salvation.” In 1818, the Union of Prosperity was organized in Moscow. These Decembrist organizations actively contributed to the formation of liberal public opinion and waited for an opportune moment for a coup d'etat. Among the Decembrists there were many friends of Pushkin. He shared their views.

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What real historical figures are mentioned in Chapter 1 of the novel? 1. “The second Chadaev, my Evgeny” Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev is a contemporary of Griboedov and Pushkin. 2. “What is Kaverin waiting for him there?” P. P. Kaverin is a Göttingen man, a hussar, a reveler and a duelist, a member of the Union of Welfare.

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Magic land! There, in the old days, the brave ruler of Satire, Fonvizin, the friend of freedom, shone, And the overbearing Prince... KNYAZHNIN Yakov Borisovich (1742 - 1791), Russian playwright, poet, member of the Russian Academy (1783). Representative of classicism. Tragedies “Dido” (1769), “Rosslav” (1784), “Vadim Novgorodsky” (1789). FONVIZIN Denis Ivanovich (1744 - 1792), Russian writer, educator. In the comedy “The Brigadier” (staged in 1770), he satirically depicted the morals of the noble class and its passion for everything French.

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There Ozerov involuntarily tributes People's tears, applause With young Semyonova he shared... OZEROV Vladislav Alexandrovich (1769-1816), Russian playwright. Tragedies “Oedipus in Athens” (1804), “Fingal” (1805), “Dimitri Donskoy” (1807); Ozerov's dramaturgy combines the features of classicism and sentimentalism. SEMYONOVA Ekaterina Semenovna (1786 - 1849), famous actress, daughter of a serf girl and a teacher who placed her in a theater school. The artist's first great success was the first performance of Ozerov's tragedy "Oedipus in Athens" (1804).

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There our Katenin resurrected Corneille's majestic genius; There, the caustic Shakhovskaya brought out his comedies in a noisy swarm... KATENIN Pavel Alexandrovich (1792-1853), Russian poet, translator, critic, theater figure, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1841). Translated tragedies by J. Racine and P. Corneille. SHAHOVSKY Alexander Alexandrovich (1777-1846), prince, playwright and theater figure, member of the Russian Academy (1810), honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1841). Shakhovsky's plays contributed to the formation of Russian national comedy.

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There Didelot was crowned with glory... There, there, under the canopy of the curtains, My younger days rushed by. DIDELO Charles Louis (1767-1837), French ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher. One of the largest representatives of the choreographic art of con. 18 - beginning 19th centuries In 1801-29 (with interruptions) he worked in St. Petersburg. He contributed to the promotion of the Russian ballet theater to one of the first places in Europe.