In the novel "Eugene Onegin" Pushkin describes his time, noting for life everything that was essential for the life of generations: the life and customs of people, the state of their souls, popular philosophical, political and economic trends, literary preferences, fashion. Throughout the novel and digressions the poet shows all layers of Russian noble society: elite Petersburg, local and Moscow nobility.
The author of the novel pays special attention to the Petersburg nobility, a typical representative of which is Eugene Onegin. The poet describes in detail the day of his hero, and Onegin's day is a typical day of the capital's dandy. Thus, Pushkin recreates a picture of the life of the entire Petersburg secular society. Fashionable daytime walk along a specific route:
Wearing a wide bolivar,
Onegin goes to the boulevard
And there he walks in the open,
Until the dormant breguet
Lunch will not ring for him.
Then lunch at a restaurant, a visit to the theater:
The theater is an evil legislator,
Fickle Admirer
charming actresses,
Honorary Citizen Backstage…
Pushkin describes Onegin's office and his outfit in great detail:
But pantaloons, tailcoat, vest,
All these words are not in Russian ...
So, Eugene Onegin is a typical young " secular lion", a representative of a freedom-loving and at the same time dissatisfied, bored youth. We are confronted by a "young rake", an egoist and a skeptic with a sharp with an evil tongue. The environment to which Eugene belonged, and the mores of that society, formulated his convictions, morals and interests. Pushkin speaks of the St. Petersburg nobility with a fair amount of irony and without much sympathy, for life in the capital is "monotonous and motley", and "the noise of the world" gets boring very quickly. Thus, we see that the life of the nobility in St. Petersburg from morning to night is filled with entertainment, but it should be noted that the provincial society is also represented in the novel quite widely.
A prime example of fine local nobility is the family of Tatyana Larina, Uncle Onegin and guests at Tatyana's name day. The Larin family is the environment in which Tatyana grew up, having absorbed all the kindness, simplicity, patriarchy and cordiality of local customs and way of life. Her mother loved Richardson, but "not because she read it," but because her cousin Alina often talked about him. She got married involuntarily:
Her husband, but by captivity;
She sighed for a friend
Who in heart and mind
She liked much more...
Tatyana's mother was at first unhappy in marriage, but "the habit has sweetened the grief, which cannot be repelled by anything ...". She revealed the secret of how to manage her husband, and she herself managed the expenses, "salted mushrooms for the winter", "went to the bathhouse on Saturdays." But, as Pushkin says, "her husband loved her heartily." Often guests came to the Larins, the same small-scale nobles. The author gives us a description of them at Tatyana's name day:
With his stout wife
The fat Trifle has arrived;
Gvozdin, an excellent host,
Owner of poor men;
Skotinins, gray-haired couple,
With children of all ages, counting
Thirty to two years;
County dandy Petushkov,
My cousin, Buyanov,
In down, in a cap with a visor
(As you, of course, know him),
And retired adviser Flyanov,
Heavy gossip, old rogue,
A glutton, a bribe taker and a jester.
Here the author uses speaking surnames endowing the landowners with mostly negative traits: they are ruthless feudal lords, people of low culture, with base interests, all their conversations are "about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about their relatives."
Differs from small landowners, perhaps, only Lensky. He is "a romantic and nothing else," according to Belinsky. "With a soul directly from Goettingen," because Vladimir was educated in Germany. Pushkin himself sees two ways out, talking about the future of Lensky. The author believes that Vladimir could become either a famous Russian poet or an ordinary landowner, such as Onegin's uncle or Dmitry Larin.
The world of the local nobility is far from perfect, because in it spiritual interests and needs are not decisive. However, Pushkin writes about the local nobility with more sympathy than about St. Petersburg. It is the local nobility that lives in close proximity to the people, and therefore it probably contains the idea of revival.
Pushkin pays less attention to the Moscow nobility than to the Petersburg nobility. He speaks of him rather harshly, sharply saterically, thus giving very unflattering characteristics:
But there is no change in them;
Everything in them is on the old sample:
At Aunt Princess Elena's
All the same tulle cap;
Everything is whitening Lukerya Lvovna,
All the same Lyubov Petrovna lies,
Ivan Petrovich is just as stupid
Semyon Petrovich is just as stingy...
In the living room everyone is occupied with "incoherent, vulgar nonsense":
They slander even boringly;
In the barren dryness of speeches,
Questions, gossip and news
Thoughts will not flash for a whole day ...
All around reigns unrestrained melancholy, so Moscow society are busy talking about nothing. Tatyana herself is stuffy in a secular environment, she wants to escape from this fuss:
Tatyana looks and does not see
The excitement of the world hates ...
Pushkin emphasizes the typical characteristics of the derived faces with a variety of examples that fit under one general definition- Griboedovskaya Moscow. It is not for nothing that the author introduces Griboedov's lines into the epigraph to the seventh chapter, thereby emphasizing that nothing has changed in Moscow since then. Thus, in the novel "Eugene Onegin" Pushkin painted for us Russian society in "one of the most interesting moments of its development", recreating a truly realistic picture of the manners and customs of Russia in the first quarter XIX century.
The novel "Eugene Onegin" - central work A. S. Pushkin. It is associated with a turn of great importance in the writer's work and in all Russian literature - a turn towards realism. In the novel, according to the author himself, “the century is reflected and modern man is depicted quite correctly.”
Pushkin's novel laid the foundation for Russian social novel such artistic generalizations as the images of Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larina. All of them are typical representatives of the noble youth of that time.
So, in the image of Onegin, the author summarized all the strong and weak sides secular nobility, dissatisfied with reality, bored, but doing nothing to overcome this boredom, leading an idle life.
The author introduces the reader to the hero already on the first pages of the novel. He goes into detail about his upbringing, typical of the time:
The fate of Eugene kept:
At first Madame followed him,
Then Monsieur replaced her.
The child was sharp, but sweet.
Monsieur lAbbe, poor Frenchman,
So that the child is not exhausted,
Taught him everything jokingly...
The author notes the superficial education that secular young people received. Onegin, like many nobles of that time, lacks the “depth of knowledge”, about which the author ironically:
Onegin was, according to many
(Judges resolute and strict),
A small scientist, but a pedant:
He had a lucky talent
No compulsion to speak
Touch everything lightly
With a learned air of a connoisseur
Keep silent in an important dispute
And make the ladies smile
The fire of unexpected epigrams.
However, the author's mention of "unexpected epigrams" characterizes the ironic, caustic orientation of his conversations. In a light, playful form, it is said about Onegin's other interests:
He had no desire to rummage
In chronological dust
Genesis of the earth;
But the days of the past are jokes
From Romulus to the present day
He kept it in his memory.
These lines speak of the hero's interest in history. Onegin does not write poetry, which was typical for the educated youth of that time. We can judge the reading circle of the hero by the list that the author gives us: Juvenal, Adam Smith, Ovid, Nason and other authors. Pushkin describes in detail the pastime of his hero:
He used to be in bed:
They carry notes to him.
What? Invitations? Indeed,
Three houses are calling for the evening ...
What follows is a description of lunch at a restaurant near Talon. Onegin is waiting there Kaverin, a hussar officer who was famous in the time of Pushkin for participating in revels and friendly drinking parties, a member of the Union of Welfare. Mentioning him as a friend of Onegin helps to understand the inconsistency of the appearance of Onegin himself. On the one hand - the emptiness of the life of a secular person, on the other - serious reading and great demands of the mind, wide circle interests. The hero lives with a devastated soul, knowing everything in life and tired of it. Neither wealth nor position in society interests or attracts him. He protests against the reality around him, but does nothing to find a use for his powers. Despising the world, he nevertheless obeys its laws, prejudices environment. It was the environment that shaped beliefs, morals and interests
hero.
Onegin's role in development social conflict comparable to the role of Tatyana Larina. Her character, as well as the character of Onegin, is shown in development. She is a typical representative of the local nobility, was brought up on the estate of her parents, among Russian nature and folk life. The Larin family, a patriarchal noble family, was faithful to the “habits of dear antiquity”. Great influence on the formation inner world the heroine was provided by her nanny, the prototype of which was the author's nanny Arina Rodionovna.
Tatyana grew up as a lonely girl: “In her own family, she seemed like a stranger girl.” She did not like to play with her peers, she was immersed in her thoughts and dreams. Trying to understand the world around her, she turned not to adults, from whom she did not find answers to her questions, but to
books:
She liked novels early on;
They replaced everything for her;
She fell in love with deceptions
Both Richardson and Rousseau.
Proximity to the people, to nature developed in her soul such qualities as spiritual simplicity, sincerity, artlessness. By nature she was
gifted:
Rebellious imagination.
Mind and will alive,
And wayward head
And with a fiery and tender heart...
This makes her stand out among the landowners and secular society. She understands the emptiness of the life of the local nobility; idleness, tinsel, brilliance and emptiness of secular society also does not attract her.
Tatyana dreams of a person who would bring meaning to her life, high content, would be like heroes romantic novels which she read. This is how Onegin seemed to her: “Everything is full of them; all the virgin is cute incessantly magic power talking about him." She writes a love confession to Onegin, thereby violating the moral and ethical laws of that society and time, the first confesses her love to a man, but receives a sharp refusal. Love brought Tatiana nothing but suffering. Later, reading books with the owner's notes in Onegin's office, she discovers new world, new heroes, she realizes that she was mistaken in mistaking Onegin for her hero, but you can’t order your heart.
We meet again with Tatyana in St. Petersburg, when she became “an indifferent princess, an impregnable goddess of the luxurious, regal Neva,” before whom everyone bows. But her moral rules still firm and unchanging. In high society, she is still alone. Speaking with Onegin, she expresses her attitude to secular life:
Now I'm happy to give
All this rags of masquerade
All this brilliance, and noise, and fumes
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,
For our poor home...
In the scene of Tatyana's last meeting with Onegin, the depth of the character of the heroine is even more fully revealed. She remains faithful to her marital duty, despite the fact that she still continues to love Onegin. Both heroes: Onegin and Tatyana suffer deeply. The author in the novel leads the reader to the idea that the life of the characters is determined by the laws of the society in which they live, its morality. All heroes are a product of a certain era and environment, their typical representatives. The merit of Pushkin is that he managed in his novel in verse to bring out the true images of the Russian people of the first quarter of the 19th century.
The novel "Eugene Onegin" occupies a central place in the work of Pushkin. Work on the novel lasted eight years, from 1823 to 1831, but the events taking place in the work are contained in other historical framework- from 1819 to the Decembrist uprising. And it was not for nothing that Belinsky called "Eugene Onegin" "an encyclopedia of Russian life". Indeed, in his novel in verse, Pushkin was able to depict almost all aspects of Russian life in the 19th century, all sectors of society.
One of the main places in the work is the description of the nobility. The first chapter is devoted to the description of Onegin's life in St. Petersburg. Here Pushkin shows his hero in the environment of the St. Petersburg nobility, from which he emerged. Having absorbed all the norms of his environment, Onegin leads an idle lifestyle: he goes out at night, drives around balls, takes walks along Nevsky Prospekt, visits theaters. But soon “feelings cooled down” in Onegin, “he got bored with light and noise”, he was attacked by the blues - a disease of rich young people of that time and his circle, aimlessly burning their lives. And Onegin decided to leave for the village.
Pushkin depicts the life of the nobility capaciously and fully with just a few strokes and characteristic details. Here, dandyism, the pursuit of inheritance, revelry are quite acceptable. Thus, the life of the nobility is shown as idle, full of entertainment, far from folk simplicity and therefore empty. Onegin, on the one hand, is shown as a full-fledged representative of the noble society, and on the other, as a man tired of his own environment. True Values he realizes only when he acquires a simple but real human love, whose roots are not secular, but natural, natural.
Representatives of the local nobility in the novel are Onegin's uncle and the Larin family. Uncle Onegin led a life characteristic of all local nobles in the village: “for forty years he scolded the housekeeper, looked out the window and crushed flies”, “kept a notebook of expenses, drank apple liqueurs and, except for the calendar, did not look at other books.” For Onegin, brought up on new teachings, on the books of Adam Smith, this way of life was unacceptable: he decided to establish in his household " new order"-" he replaced the corvée with dues, "which caused discontent among his neighbors, who decided that he was" the most dangerous eccentric. Here Pushkin draws a parallel between Griboedov's Chatsky and Onegin. Just as Chatsky was declared insane by Moscow society, the opinion of the local nobility about Onegin was the same: "our neighbor is an ignoramus, crazy."
Especially colorful Pushkin describes the life and customs of the local nobility on the example of the Larin family and their guests at Tatyana's name day. The life of the Larins is attractive to the author for its simplicity:
They kept in a peaceful life
Sweet old habits.
In relation to others noble families there is obvious irony and even some disdain:
Lay mosek, smacking girls,
Noise, laughter, crowd at the threshold.
The names of the guests are not devoid of irony: Pustyakov, Petushkov, Buyanov, Flyanov, Karlikova. Pushkin portrays the local nobility as unnatural, pretending to secularism, with pretentious manners.
Among the guests appear Monsieur Triquet - a "true Frenchman" from Tambov, whose image echoes Griboyedov's "Frenchman from Bordeaux". The author is ironic about how, after Triquet's "false singing", "shouts, splashes, greetings" rained down on him. Thus, Pushkin once again emphasizes the moral emptiness, stupidity and hypocrisy of the guest landowners. Thus, depicting the habits and customs of the local nobility, Pushkin to some extent compares it with the St. Petersburg nobility.
The Moscow nobility is shown from a slightly different point of view. The poet emphasizes the conservatism of the way of life of the Moscow nobility: “But there is no change in them ...” - in many respects comparing it with Griboedov's Moscow. However, Pushkin's Moscow is kinder, although just as soulless and pragmatic.
The action of the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" ends in St. Petersburg. At the end of his work, Pushkin again depicts the Petersburg nobility, comparing it with the image of Petersburg given at the beginning of the novel. But not so much Petersburg itself has changed, but Onegin's attitude towards it. Now the protagonist of the novel is looking at secular entertainment from the outside, now he already feels not so much fatigue as alienation from this society. Love for Tatyana helped him understand the emptiness of relations between people in the world, the falsity of the splendor and splendor of the balls. To focus the reader's attention on this, Pushkin describes the St. Petersburg nobility not with slight irony, as at the beginning of the novel, but in a harshly satirical way.
Thus, in his novel in verse, Pushkin managed to show all sides noble life, the immoderation of her morals and the vulgarity of the foundations, whether it be the local nobility or the city. The work implicitly shows the idea that it was the environment, the vicious environment that ruined Onegin and he received his sight too late, for which he was punished, having lost his personal happiness.
"Eugene Onegin" - realistic novel in verse, in it truly living images of Russian people of the early 19th century appeared before the reader. The novel gives a broad artistic generalization of the main trends in Russian community development. One can say about the novel in the words of the poet himself - this is a work in which "the century and modern man are reflected and depicted quite correctly." “The encyclopedia of Russian life” called Pushkin's novel by V. G. Belinsky.
In this novel, as in an encyclopedia, you can learn everything about the era, about the culture of that time: about how they dressed and what was in fashion (“wide bolivar”, tailcoat, Onegin’s vest, Tatiana’s crimson beret), menus of prestigious restaurants (“ bloody beef steak”, cheese, bubbly ai, champagne, “Strasbourg pie”), what was going on in the theater (Didelot's ballets), who performed (the dancer Istomina).
You can even draw up the exact daily routine of a young man. No wonder P. A. Pletnev, a friend of Pushkin, wrote about the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin”: “Your Onegin will be a pocket mirror of Russian youth.”
Throughout the course of the novel and in lyrical digressions, the poet shows all layers of Russian society of that time: the high society of St. Petersburg, noble Moscow, the local nobility, the peasantry - that is, the whole people. This allows us to speak of "Eugene Onegin" as a true folk work.
Petersburg of that time was the habitat the best people Russia - Decembrists, writers. There “shone Fonvizin, a friend of freedom”, people of art - Knyaznin, Istomina. The author knew and loved St. Petersburg well, he is accurate in his descriptions, not forgetting either the “salt of secular anger”, or the “necessary fools”, “starched impudent ones”, and the like.
Through the eyes of a resident of the capital, Moscow is shown to us - a “fair of brides”, Moscow is provincial, somewhat patriarchal. Describing the Moscow nobility, Pushkin is often sarcastic: in the living rooms he notices "incoherent vulgar nonsense." But at the same time, the poet loves Moscow, the heart of Russia: "Moscow ... how much this sound has merged for the Russian heart." He is proud of Moscow in 1812: “Napoleon waited in vain, intoxicated with his last happiness, for Moscow kneeling with the keys of the old Kremlin.”
Modern to the poet Russia is rural, and he emphasizes this with a play on words (rus - village in Latin, and Rus) in the epigraph to the second chapter. This is probably why the gallery of characters of the local nobility in the novel is the most representative.
Let's try to consider the main types of landowners shown by Pushkin. A comparison immediately suggests itself with another great study of Russian life in the 19th century - Gogol's poem “ Dead Souls”.
The handsome Lensky, “with a soul straight from Goettingen,” is a German romantic, “an admirer of Kant,” if he had not died in a duel, he could, according to the author, have the future of a great poet or, in twenty years, turn into a kind of Manilov and end his life like this like old Larin or Uncle Onegin.
The tenth chapter of "Eugene Onegin" is entirely devoted to the Decembrists. Pushkin identifies himself with the Decembrists Lunin and Yakushkin, foreseeing "in this crowd of nobles the liberators of the peasants."
The appearance of Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" had a huge impact on further development Russian literature. The penetrating lyricism inherent in this work has become an integral feature " noble nest”, “War and Peace”, “The Cherry Orchard”.
It is also important that the protagonist of the novel, as it were, opens a whole gallery. extra people” in Russian literature: Pechorin, Rudin, Oblomov.
Analyzing the novel "Eugene Onegin", Belinsky pointed out that in early XIX century, the educated nobility was that estate “in which the progress of Russian society was almost exclusively expressed” and that in “Onegin” Pushkin “decided to present to us inner life of this estate, and at the same time society in the form in which it was in the era chosen by it.
