Stay with nothing the author of the work.

This expression has long and firmly entered the Russian language with the sayings “I left with nothing”, “You will have a broken trough”, etc. However, before the "Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" it was not in literature or folklore. Well, and I, looking at him, sadly say: “But not only Pushkin’s old woman, but also current scientists, who still cannot answer the question: where did this trough come from?” Usually they brush it off and say: “Pushkin invented it - that’s all!” However, the more cautious Pushkinists, without at all denying the fact of fiction, are wondering: what could have pushed Pushkin to his “broken trough”? But they don't have an answer...
And another two hundred years will not be! And it won’t happen at all until they recognize the validity of the words of Alexander Latsis “Return the horse!”, expressed about the Pushkin authorship of The Little Humpbacked Horse. Why? Yes, because it is the “Konyok” that is the link in the chain of Pushkin’s hints, and it is in it that the clue associated with the trough is hidden. However, everything is in order.
Of course, remembering the words of Shakespeare “Nothing will come from nothing”, we, in search of the origins of the idea of ​​​​a trough, simply have to look into Russian folklore, on the basis of which in the fall of 1833 Pushkin wrote “The Horse” and Russified “The Fisherman and the Fish”. Earlier, I already gave examples of folk tales from the collection of Afanasiev, where animals were caught with the help of wine poured into a trough. And here is one of the most interesting options: “Cranes got into the habit of flying, pecking peas. “Wait,” the peasant thought, “I will break your legs!” I bought a bucket of wine, poured it into a trough, mixed honey there; put the trough on the cart and went to the field. He came to his lane, put the trough with wine and honey on the ground, and he himself moved away and lay down to rest. Here the cranes flew in, pecked at the peas, saw the wine, and so bumped in that they immediately fell. The man is not a mistake, now he came running and let them knit their legs with ropes. He entangled him with ropes, hitched him to a cart and drove home ”(1).
And here, of course, it can be assumed that some elements from this folk tale were used in The Horse both when describing the capture of a mare (an ambush in the field and the mare stealing what grew on it), and when catching the firebird. Although in the latter case, we are much more interested in what was discarded or changed by the author of The Horse. And above all - the appearance of two troughs instead of one! Moreover, in "The Fisherman and the Fish" throughout almost the entire tale there are also two of them. Well, those who doubt this will have to answer the question: was the old trough, in modern terms, disposed of after the appearance of the new trough? The answer is: of course not, because it was at the very end of the tale. And hence the second question: where, then, after the appearance of a new trough, was the old one? And if someone says that the fish took it for storage, then the third question will immediately appear: does she need it? She, the “empress-fish”, to keep some old and broken trough! Not serious! And most importantly, it's unbelievable. And then the most probable remains: the old trough, after the appearance of the new one, was lying around with the old woman somewhere in the backyard, and when everything donated by the fish disappeared, then it was right there. However, if we found troughs that overlap in number, then an important question arises: where is the broken trough in The Horse, if the author himself does not say anything about it? The answer is: yes, he does not say, but hints! And here's how he does it - we'll figure it out now.
Let's start with the fact that for now we will discard the trough into which Ivan poured wine, since if it were broken, any liquid would quickly flow out of it. And therefore, only the trough, under which Ivan was hiding, will remain suspicious. We turn to this trough and immediately find many oddities associated both with the original verses about him and with further (two!) edits. The first oddity lies in the words of the skate: “And to be closed to you, Sit under another trough” (2). And what is interesting, this strangeness at the very first editing is exacerbated by the option: “You sit next to another trough” (3), which makes it difficult to understand how Ivan (even if sitting!) Could hide not under the trough, but near it. And in general, we begin to wonder: how appropriate is the word “sit down”, if in this position the birds can notice the observer? However, there may be a reader here who wants to argue. Well, since "The criterion of truth is practice," then, of course, I will suggest that such a dull one find some kind of trough and hide under it in a sitting position. Yes, so that it was not visible to others. But no, it won't! Well, for those who do not have a trough, but have an abstract imagination, I will explain the following:
1. Since the depth of all troughs is less than the height of a seated person (we exclude dwarfs and midgets!), In any case, one edge of the trough will rest on the ground, and the other will be raised at an acute angle, resting on the hands, head or shoulders of the seated person.
2. If at the same time the trough is raised in front (ie from the side of the birds that need to be caught), then the person sitting under it will be very visible to the birds.
3. If the trough is raised from behind, then the birds will not see the person sitting under it, but even he will not be able to fully observe them.
4. If he peeks out from the side of the trough, then even here the birds can notice him and fly away.
Considering all these problems associated with Ivan’s sitting posture, the author of “Konok” eventually reacted correctly, since the inappropriate word “sit down”, although in the third edition, was nevertheless removed, leaving the final version: “You crawl under that trough” . But at the same time, he left us the question: why was all this fuss started around the word “sit down”? One of the answers is as follows: the author made a deliberate mistake in order to bring together the scenes of an ambush on a firebird and a white mare, when Ivan, as we remember, "sits under a bush." I emphasize: SIT down! The persistence of the author in correcting the mistake with the word “sit down” can be explained by the fact that with a one-time edit that excludes this word, someone could quite naturally suspect a typo, which, of course, is not so. Well, if we also notice the same way of catching (by the tail!), And the mare’s tendency to “Beloyar millet”, which is also liked by the firebirds, then our version of the common main prototype of the caught firebird and the white mare will be confirmed once again. In addition, in the 4th edition of the tale, in order to coordinate the time of the midnight appearance of the firebirds and the mare, the author remade the verse “Suddenly a horse neighed in the field” into the verse “Suddenly at midnight the horse neighed”, which also increased the number of corresponding roll calls.
But if the word “sit down” did not pass in the text, then there should be the word “lie down”! And indeed, Ivan, who could not initially fulfill the strange instruction of the skate about a sitting position, lay down under the trough. At the same time, this more comfortable position no longer leads us to catching a mare when Ivan was sitting under a bush, but to an ambush set up to kidnap the Tsar Maiden, when the horse says to Ivan, “Lie down behind the tent yourself.” Ivan, of course, does this, which is confirmed by the verse: "Ivan huddled behind the tent." However, the word “beat up” is immediately alarming, since Pushkin used it relatively recently in his “Saltan”, writing about Gvidon: “The prince turned into a bumblebee, flew and buzzed; He caught up with the ship at sea, Slowly sank into the stern - and hid in the gap "and" Slowly sank into the ship - and hid in the gap "(4). And, of course, we notice a certain general entourage, when before the eyes of Ivan, who “huddled” behind the tent, there is both the sea and a small boat in the form of a boat.
But with all this, the quick-witted Ivan understands that for a successful abduction, he still needs to see the future prey, which is why he begins to “twist the hole in order to peep the princess.” And here we begin to guess that when catching a firebird, to improve visibility, Ivan lying under the trough would also need to “turn the hole”. But he does not twirl any holes! Or rather, it doesn't drill. Moreover, it is difficult to drill oak troughs even with a good drill. But there is no drill in the fairy tale, but "Our Ivan is closed from them, Watching the birds from under the trough." And here the question arises: how could he look? Well, okay, when he peeped at the princess through a hole in the tent, or, sitting, like Derzhavin's Eros under a bush, watched the mare through the leaves. But from here it should also be clear that, being under the trough, even sitting, even lying, he must have seen the birds. But he could see them (attention!) only if there was a gap. Well, on what trough could she be? That's right - on BROKEN!
However, not understanding this and completely ignoring the words “closed from them”, some illustrators draw Ivan peeping in a position where he lifted the trough towards the birds. And even the famous artist V.A. Milashevsky managed to draw a trough that lies across Ivan's lower back! But, on reflection, this artist subsequently guessed that in such a situation, the meaning of the trough, which does not cover Ivan and which, it turns out, was brought in vain, is completely lost. And so Milashevsky removed his awkward illustration. We, dear readers, understand that the birds do not notice Ivan because he is completely hidden from them under a broken trough, through the crack of which he watches them. To some extent, the analogy of such a shelter in our time can be the shield of the riot police, which has a slot for viewing the raging crowd. In the “Horse”, instead of a crowd, a noisy flock of birds rush about, tasting wine and millet from another trough, and Ivan takes time so that, if, as they say in a folk tale, they don’t “get drunk”, then at least get tipsy and lost their vigilance.
And if the bush-shelter indicated in the original version of Derzhavin’s “Ptitselov” did not disappear anywhere from the thrifty author of “Horse”, then in the scene of catching the firebird he replaced it with one of the troughs, which after a long transportation could break. But it could, this does not mean that it was really damaged, since it could also be broken when it was received from the royal servants. And so the question of where and how the trough broke, we will leave open for now. Well, Pushkin-Plyushkin, of course, could not just throw away the two troughs that Ivan had left at the place of fishing after his departure, and therefore he calmly transferred them to Rybak and Rybka. The owner is a gentleman!
And, it would seem, the topic of the trough can be closed here, if ... If the author of "Konok" did not give a comparison where Ivan is compared with the murdered one: "And Ivan, groaning, crawled Under the oak trough And lies there like a dead man." So-so-so ... Covered Ivan is compared with the murdered one, i.e. with the dead. But then it is easy to imagine this trough in the form of a coffin lid! Well, since the “Konyok” is not in vain called the “Russian fairy tale” in the subtitle, we immediately check our guess through Russian folklore. And, of course, we find the following riddle in the Dahl Dictionary: “They carry a trough, is it covered by another?” Well, what is it? And it's a GROB! And it turns out that if Ivan covered himself with his lid, then the main coffin means the whole trough, which he previously filled with “millet-wine”.
At the same time, in the Horse itself, in addition to this implied coffin, consisting of two troughs, there is another coffin, about which the saying to the 2nd part says:
Like on the ocean
And on the island of Buyan
A new coffin stands in the forest,
The girl lies in the coffin
And this, as the Yershovists themselves admit, is a clear echo of Pushkin's "The Dead Princess". But if this is so, then after all, the coffin in which “the girl lies” must be crystal! Those. the way it was with the German princess Snow White and Pushkin's "dead princess". However, stop stop! After all, initially the gnomes still put Snow White in an ordinary coffin, which, presumably, could have been oak, and only three days later, seeing her freshness, “ordered another transparent crystal coffin for her.” But in Pushkin, the heroes initially put the dead princess in a “crystal coffin” and, unlike the German gnomes, who “carried the coffin to the top of the mountain”, hid it “under the mountain”. But the mountain peak did not disappear anywhere near Pushkin, because. in “Horse” Ivan climbed to the top of the mountain, as the verses say: “Here is a skate along the slope He climbed this mountain.” And at the same time he got up with two troughs, from which one can conditionally make one oak coffin! As you know, the crystal coffin with the princess Pushkin's Elisha, nevertheless, was found:
And about the coffin of the bride dear
He hit with all his might
The coffin was broken. Virgo suddenly
Revived. Looks around
Astonished eyes
And, swinging over the chains,
Sighing, she said:
“How long have I been sleeping!”
And she rises from the grave...
Do you notice anything? But if the princess rises from the coffin after it has crashed, then it is easy to understand that it was not all of it that crashed, but only from above, i.e. from the lid! And we see that in The Dead Princess, which was written at the same time as The Horse and The Fisherman and the Fish, Pushkin, in the form of a broken lid of a crystal coffin, clearly hints at some kind of “broken trough”. And this is in contrast to the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, where the crystal coffin remained intact, since Snow White "opened her eyes, lifted the lid of the coffin and herself rose alive in it."
Well, now let's check our version of the broken crystal lid and the trough in relation to the place where Ivan caught the firebird. So, having previously established this place near Goryachevodsk in the subtext of “Horse”, we will carefully look at how in “Journey to Arzrum” Pushkin recalls his first visit to this resort in 1820: “In my time, the baths were in huts, hastily built. Sources ... beat, smoked and flowed down from the mountains ... We scooped boiling water with a ladle from the bark or the bottom of a broken bottle ”(5). I emphasize: "broken"! What is the bottle itself? And this, as V.I.Dal says, is “a narrow-necked glass vessel in which grape wines are kept and served.” Well, if only the bottom remains of the bottle, then it is absolutely clear that its neck was previously beaten off! And in this case, according to the remaining “bottom of a broken bottle”, and also according to the word “glass”, which directly echoes crystal (and Dahl says about it that it is “clean, white glass”!), We may well find a hint of a crystal coffin in which the dead princess lay. But the upper part of the bottle, from the side of which, in fact, it is closed, is not mentioned by Pushkin, although the epithet “broken” can be safely attributed to it. Those. exactly what happened to Pushkin with a broken trough in his "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" happens. And we understand that it is the missing upper part of the “broken bottle” that echoes the broken lid of the coffin by Elisha. And we are not at all surprised at their fragility, since both the bottle and the crystal lid are made of glass.
By the way, how appropriate is it to draw water with the “bottom of a broken bottle”? Completely inappropriate, tk. you can cut yourself on the sharp edges! And, of course, another deliberate mistake is hidden here, made in order to attract the attention of researchers, who, in turn, should guess that the “broken trough” from Pushkin’s fairy tale, albeit indirectly, i.e. through a crystal coffin, but still echoes the “broken bottle” from “Journey to Arzrum”! But no one notices or knows anything.
So, Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams in her book "The Life of Pushkin" (6) quotes the words about the "broken bottle" without any comments. True, her contemporary Ivan Novikov, who, as the annotation to his novel “Pushkin in Exile” says: “More than a quarter of a century he gave to this novel, which required careful and lengthy study of many diverse sources ...”, allowed himself to dream a little, writing about Pushkin in 1820 th year the following: “a boy was still alive in him, drinking with pleasure the water of the spring from a birch bark ladle or a broken bottle; and the way the bark smelled fresh at the same time or the glass shone in the sun - all these lovely trifles delighted and amused him ”(7). However, we are forced to correct Novikov, since Pushkin's ladle, judging by his hints, should not be birch bark, but oak. Or rather - from oak bark, because. Ivan nevertheless brought oak troughs to the place where the firebird was caught, and it was from one of them that the birds ate and drank directly. Those. how would people do it, but not with the help of a trough, but a wooden (oak?) ladle.
And we understand that the oak troughs from The Horse are one of the keys to unraveling the subtext of Pushkin's works, because, although under the direct influence of Russian folklore, they were still made by Pushkin from the coffin of Snow White. And in this case, the following sequence of actions is possible:
1. Noticing in the fairy tale about Snow White an ordinary coffin thrown by the Grimm brothers, Pushkin-Plyushkin does not forget it and, remembering from Russian folklore that a coffin can be defined as “a trough covered by others”, creates on this basis a fairly stable roll call of the type “one coffin - two troughs."
2. Wanting to show the old woman not only greedy, but also bloodthirsty in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, Pushkin, with the help of two troughs, forming two parts of the same coffin in the subtext, hints at the image of the old woman-Death.
3. But at the same time, he does not forget about Snow White's crystal coffin, which he immediately uses in his "Dead Princess".
4. He brings both coffins intended for Snow White (that is, a complete set from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm!), He brings to the “Horse”, where the coffin, which should be crystal, is placed on Buyan Island, and the usual coffin under the guise of two wooden trough leaves at the place where Ivan caught the firebird. And at the same time, he does not forget to leave us a hint of a trough-coffin in the form of a comparison “like a dead man”.
5. Faced in the scene of catching the firebird with the difficulties of Ivan's vision of future prey, Pushkin splits the trough, which in the subtext represents the lid of the coffin, after which he transfers this brokenness to the old trough from The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.
6. Later, in Journey to Arzrum, Pushkin, referring to Goryachevodsk as the scene of the “Dead Princess” and “Horse”, secretly alludes to the oak coffin with the words about the “scoop of bark”, and on the broken crystal coffin - with the words about the “broken bottle” . The reason for this convergence of the coffins is that at the time of writing Journey to Arzrum, Pushkin actively ruled the Horse, in which both coffins were present. And this is in contrast to The Dead Princess and The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, which were not edited and in which there are no two coffins as such.
7. In contrast to Grimm's dwarfs, who installed a crystal coffin on the top of their mountain, Pushkin hides his crystal coffin with the princess for some reason at the bottom of the mountain, placing it in a "deep hole". At the same time, on the top of the mountain in the “Horse”, he places two wooden troughs, which make up, as it were, one coffin. And the reasons for all these movements, of course, deserve a separate and thorough consideration.
Well, in the meantime, I will note that in his “Journey to Arzrum” Pushkin did not even lose Grimm’s “shack”, mentioning it among others in the same Goryachevodsk. And if in the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm the fisherman's wife, who lived in a shack, immediately asks for a new hut, then Pushkin's old woman first of all asks for a new trough, which, together with the old one, as we already understand from the subtext, can make up a coffin set! And all this despite the fact that her dugout is worse than a German shack! But at the same time, Pushkin's allusion to the fact that his old woman, it turns out, is not only greedy, but also very scary, becomes clear to us. from the very beginning brings death with it! Or her premonition.
And from here it becomes clearer for us the longing that seized the young Petrusha Grinev after he arrived at the Belogorsk fortress and on the very first day he saw wretchedness there and how “The old woman, standing on the porch with a trough, called pigs ...” (8). And forebodings did not deceive Grinev, because. subsequently turned into bloody events associated with his duel with Shvabrin, and with the uprising of Pugachev. Well, when we know that the glorious city of Petersburg is hiding under the Belogorsk fortress, then we guess that the longing of the young Grinev to some extent echoes the blues that Onegin had while living in the capital.
And now let's approach from the other side and note that if the old woman from the "Captain's Daughter" was going to feed the pigs from the trough, then after all, then it should be whole. In addition, if we also pay attention to the porch, which obviously cannot be in the dugout, then we will understand that here in the subtext there is a direct echo with that moment from “The Fisherman and the Fish”, when the old woman begged for herself not only a new trough , but also a new hut. At the same time, if Pushkin also mentions pigs next to the trough, then this is an allusion to the well-known proverb “If there were a trough, there would be pigs”! But through the pigs that appeared next to the old woman and her trough, as well as through the Belogorsk fortress, under which Petersburg is hiding, we have the opportunity to at least a little unravel the oddities with Pushkin's "pig Petersburg". Indeed, the transition from the odic exaltation of Petersburg in The Bronze Horseman, written in the autumn of 1833, to the words “pig Petersburg” from two letters to his wife in 1834 looks rather abrupt: “Do you really think that pig Petersburg is not disgusting to me? that it’s fun for me to live in it between lampoons and denunciations? (9), and "think about what kind of nasty talk will go around swine Petersburg" (10).
Well, now more specifically about whole troughs. As you know, firebirds pecked from the first one in the Horse, but Pushkin did not tell anything in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish about the intended use of the second trough, presented to the old woman by a goldfish, although he extended a thread to the Belogorsk fortress, where the old woman called to the trough of pigs. So-so-so: in the “Horse”, it turns out, birds fed from the trough, and in the “Captain's Daughter” - pigs! Well, the theme of pigs and a trough, I repeat, has long been known to us through the proverb “It would be a trough, but there will be pigs.” But did Pushkin know this proverb? Of course, he knew, and in the autumn of 1833 he even mentioned her in a letter when he wrote about his wife's coquetry (11). However, Pushkin used the same proverb about the trough and pigs last autumn in his Dubrovsky, since it was said by the coachman Anton, who met Dubrovsky and spoke to him about Troekurov and his guests (12).
But why does Pushkin apply the same proverb to completely different people? After all, he himself previously wrote “It is impossible to harness a horse and a quivering doe into one cart,” but here he suddenly took it and brought the malevolent Troekurov and his beautiful wife together! No, something is not right here. I put on glasses and look through the eyes of the investigator. So-so-so... And why did Pushkin not only shorten the text of the proverb, but at the same time also distort it? After all, this proverb in its full form, as V.I. Dal says, sounds: “It would be a trough, but it would be in a trough, but there will be pigs.” And Pushkin in both cases for some reason: "It would be a trough, but there will be pigs." True, abbreviations of proverbs are common, but why does Pushkin write “will be” instead of the word “there will be”? Let's think, but for now let's try to unravel the meaning of applying this proverb to Natalya Nikolaevna. Here are excerpts from a letter to her: “Look: it’s not for nothing that coquetry is not in fashion ... You rejoice that males are running after you, like after a bitch ..., it’s easy to teach single ballers to run after you; It is worth divulging that I am a big hunter. That's the whole secret of coquetry. It would be a trough, but there will be pigs.
We immediately look at the place and date of this letter: the village of Boldino on October 30, 1833. And what is Pushkin writing at this time? And until November 4, he continues to write “The Tale of the Dead Princess”, where he calls the princess, who is already “prettier than everyone, rouge and whiter than everyone”, also with the words “my soul”. And what did Pushkin write to his wife shortly before his arrival in Boldino, i.e. August 21, 1833? And he wrote to her the following: “Have you looked in the mirror, and have you made sure that nothing in the world can be compared with your face - and I love your soul even more than your face” (13). Those. Pushkin, as we see, brings his wife closer to the future image of the dead princess (incomparable beauty, soul, mirror, etc.). But at the moment of direct writing about the same princess, for some reason he manages to bring Natalya Nikolaevna closer to some kind of trough, to which, under the guise of "single sharomyzhnikov", some pigs strive! What's the matter?
And the point is in the middle part of the proverb discarded by Pushkin, consisting of the words: "Yes, it would be in the trough." And indeed, it is not the trough, which in itself is inedible, that usually attracts pigs, but first of all, its contents. Well, since we, having already dug up Pushkin’s “trough-coffin” connection, know that it was in the coffin that the fairy-tale princess with whom Pushkin had previously brought his beloved wife together was placed, then it becomes clearer for us the hint that to compare something Natalya Nikolaevna is needed not with the “trough-coffin” itself, but with its contents! Or rather, with that beautiful princess who was in this “trough-coffin” and for whom the prince Elisha arrived. True, here an interesting problem arises with Elisha: isn’t he the “pig” that strives for such a bait as a dead princess lying in her conditional “coffin-trough”? Moreover, Yelisei, by his long search for a bride, more justifies Pushkin’s use of the word “will be” at the end of this proverb instead of the word “there will be.” And all the more so because in the singular “there is” directly echoes the word “to be found” (“And the bridegroom was found by her, Prince Elisha”). Although, of course, we must not forget that there were also single heroes around the coffin of the princess for three days, who, in turn, although indirectly, can also claim the conditional title of “pigs” or “single sorcerers”, i. To. earlier, they all already wooed the princess. True, live...
But when a shortened and slightly altered proverb by Pushkin in the form of “It would be a trough, but there will be pigs” is said in Dubrovsky in relation to the malevolent Troekurov, then we must understand that here we are talking about something else, by no means crystal, but about an ordinary wooden "trough-coffin", in which all the guests of the wayward landowner can eventually find themselves. And including the greedy landowner Spitsyn, whom Troekurov himself called "a pig is a pig." And, of course, the police officer, since the coachman Anton mentioned him next to the proverb about the trough and pigs. Probably, it is possible to attribute to the "pigs" Troekurov and the widow Globova sitting at his table. Well, after Pushkin read “Princess Milusha” by Katenin in 1834, where the sorceress turns the protagonist Golitsa into a wild boar, it cannot be ruled out that some Pushkin hero can also fall under the concept of “pig” , generally classified as positive. Yes, in fact, Pushkin himself could say “a pig is a pig” when he wrote in a letter: “A Russian person does not change clothes on the road and, having reached the place of a pig, a pig, he goes to the bathhouse, which is our second mother” (14). Or jokingly write about the artist Genzerik: “How could this pig express his canal, brilliant thought, he is a bastard, a beast” (15). And at the same time, we must learn to distinguish normal "pigs" from those who prevented Pushkin from "living between lampoons and denunciations."
Well, in "Horse" Pushkin's hero, who is generally classified as positive, is, of course, Ivan. And if you look at the fact that the verse about him “And Ivan, groaning, crawled up” originally sounded like “Ivan the Fool crawled up”, then the question immediately arises: where did the word “groaning” come from when editing? For an answer, we look that Ivan is preparing to catch the firebird, which, as we already know, will be the bird under the mask of which Countess Vorontsova is hidden. Well, where else does Pushkin have a groaning character, ready to grab the heroine with the main prototype in the face of Vorontsova? The answer is: in the fifth chapter of Onegin! And from there the corresponding words about Tatyana Larina: “She, not daring to look back, Hasty quickens her step; But from the shaggy lackey Can't run away in any way; Groaning, the unbearable bear knocks down ”(16). Well, then this grunting bear "grabs and carries" the heroine to Onegin. Grabs the firebird and Ivan grunting before. True, in the presence of other birds, which for some reason do not notice anything. The very word “knocks down” in relation to a bear makes us recall the saying from Dahl’s Dictionary: “I rolled like a pig to a trough” and at the same time admit that Ivan can be not only under the image of a bear, but also under the image of some Pushkin pig . But this is a separate issue.
And returning to the topic of the trough, we, of course, should notice for the future such an expression from the Dahl Dictionary: “A trough is a tricky business: whoever does not know will call it a ship!”. Well, since we are already familiar with the “trough-coffin” connection, we will take a closer look at the fact that Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman” has “coffins from a blurry cemetery” floating along the flooded streets of St. Petersburg. And seeing these coffins with the dead floating like ships, we will not miss the riddle from V.I. Well, since this whale, unlike the whale from "Horse", still acted "by God's command", then there can certainly be no claims against it. Well, when in the same “Horse” we see that it is the tsar who is the owner of two troughs, one of which, as we found out, can be broken, then the roll call between this tsar and the old woman from “The Fisherman and the Fish” becomes clear, the owner of the same two troughs. And at the same time, a hint is highlighted that the tsar, like the old woman, could begin his reign primarily with the concept of “coffin”, which carries with it murder. But here’s the question: “Where is this murder hidden in the Horse?”, I’ll leave open for now to give you, dear readers, the opportunity to find the appropriate hints yourself. And I'll tell you, there are two of them!
In conclusion, I note that from the "trough-coffin" there is a rather powerful direction to all Pushkin's coffins, carrying with them the theme of death. And in particular, the death of Kochubey, where at the place of his execution “Two Cossacks lifted an oak coffin onto a cart” (17). The manufacturer of all these oak, pine and other coffins is well known to us from Adrian Prokhorov, the undertaker from the story of the same name by Pushkin.

Notes.
1. Collection of folk tales Afanasyev, No. 419.
2. 1st edition of the tale.
3. 2nd edition from the 4th edition.
4. CA 280.638.
5. PA 447.16.
6. M., "Young Guard", ZhZL, 2004, vol. I, p.244.
7. I.A. Novikov "Pushkin in exile", M., "Soviet writer", 1962, p.34.
8. KD 296.20.
9. Ps 947.22 around May 29, 1834, from St. Petersburg.
10. Ps 951.50 dated 06/11/1834, from St. Petersburg.
11. Ps 854.9 dated 10/30/1833 Boldino.
12. D 174.20.
13. Ps 838.34.
14. Ps 773.2bis.
15. Ps 1193.42 of May 11, 1836 wife from Moscow.
16. EO V 13.5.
17. II 445.

Reviews

"there are two of them in "The Fisherman and the Fish" throughout almost the entire tale.
At the beginning and end of the tale - one broken trough. After the first walk of the old man to the fish - one new trough. In the remaining episodes of the tale about the trough, there is not a word.
"the old trough, after the appearance of the new one, lay with the old woman somewhere in the backyard"
Nothing is said about the old or the new. As well as about the old man's net. All this is no longer necessary for the story. The old trough appears in the tale in the same way as the dugout - the action returns to the initial situation. Did you expect a dilapidated dugout with a new trough in the final?
"and where is the broken trough in "Horse" if the author himself does not say anything about it"
Yes, why should there be an old trough in the "Horse"? What, the king does not have serviceable troughs or what? Or is it only one for the entire royal palace?
"However, there may be a reader here who wants to argue."
Of course there is. This is a fairy tale, not social realism or science fiction. How Ivan hid under the trough and how he managed to jump out from under the trough without scaring away the birds, these are all conventions of the genre, and it will be extremely strange if readers, adults and children, after reading the corresponding scene, declare: "So in life can not be".
"And returning to the topic of the trough ..."
For God's sake, don't, maestro, close the topic!
The crystal coffin is a very ancient feature and the subject of a funeral rite described by Herodotus ("a hollow column of transparent stone"); the plot of the fairy tale about the Dead Princess is also very traditional and beaten, not to mention "Snow White", in "A Thousand and One Nights", "Pentameron" and Shakespeare in "Cymbeline".
A.S. Pushkin has nothing else to do but try to hint to future generations with the bottom of a broken bottle that HE is the author of the Horse, and not this mediocrity Ershov.
"The manufacturer of all these oak, pine and other coffins is well known to us from Adrian Prokhorov, the undertaker from Pushkin's story of the same name."
Gross silence.

With nothing Express. (To appear, to find oneself) with nothing, having lost everything acquired, available. Mom, in her habit of teaching people, as she said, “honest and prudent actions”, wrote them long letters with her advice, persuasion and references to her life experience. From the outside, it was touching and hard when the old unfortunate woman, who found herself with a broken trough, taught others to live correctly(Paustovsky. Tale of life).

Phraseological dictionary of the Russian literary language. - M.: Astrel, AST. A. I. Fedorov. 2008 .

See what "At a broken trough" is in other dictionaries:

AT THE BROKEN TRUCK- who to be; stay; end up with nothing. This means that a person or a group of persons (X) lost everything they had, or could not realize what was planned: their calculations and hopes did not materialize, their efforts did not bring the expected results. Speaks with... ... Phraseological dictionary of the Russian language

at the broken trough- on beans, in fools, with a nose, with nothing, with such, with peak interest Dictionary of Russian synonyms. at a broken trough adverb, number of synonyms: 6 fools (7) ... Synonym dictionary

Stay with a broken trough- The original source "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" (1833) by A. S. Pushkin (1799 1837): Look: again in front of him is a dugout; On the threshold sits his old woman, And in front of her is a broken trough. Ironically: to be left with nothing; suffer the collapse of all your hopes. ... ... Dictionary of winged words and expressions

stranded- adj., number of synonyms: 2 returned to nothing (2) left with nothing (3) Dictionary ... Synonym dictionary

be with a broken trough- return to the broken bark / that; To be (stay) at the break / that trough Having lost everything acquired, to be left with nothing (an expression from the Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish by A.S. Pushkin) ... Dictionary of many expressions

Stay / stay (find yourself, turn out, sit) with nothing (with a broken trough)- Razg. To be left with nothing, to lose everything acquired, acquired (usually as a fair reprisal for wrong deeds, excessive claims). /i> The expression arose on the basis of "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" by A. S. Pushkin. BMS 1998, 307; F 1, 257; BTS,… …

with nothing- Cm … Synonym dictionary

TROUGH- Stay / stay (find yourself, turn out, sit) with nothing (with a broken trough). Razg. To be left with nothing, to lose everything acquired, acquired (usually as a fair reprisal for wrong deeds, excessive claims). /i>… … Big dictionary of Russian sayings

The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish- Illustration by Ivan Bilibin ... Wikipedia

in the cold- with a nose, at peak interest, on beans, with such, with nothing, without salty slurping, at a broken trough Dictionary of Russian synonyms. fools adverb, number of synonyms: 7 on beans (6) ... Synonym dictionary

Books

• Aborted flight "Edelweiss". Luftwaffe on the offensive in the Caucasus. 1942, Degtev D. On April 16, 1942, General E. von Manstein reported to Hitler a plan for an operation to defeat the Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula called "Hunting for bustards." He approved of everything except...

Stay with a broken trough
The original source is "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" (1833) by A. S. Pushkin (1799-1837):
Look: again in front of him is a dugout;
On the threshold sits his old woman,
And in front of her is a broken trough.
Ironically: to be left with nothing; suffer the collapse of all your hopes.

• - a conditional definition of the compacted surface of the subgrade with or without side rollers, on which the pavement is directly arranged ...

  Construction dictionary

• - to whom and for whom. This part is for you...

  Management in Russian

• - stay vb., sv., use...

  Dictionary of Dmitriev

• - General Slav. Return form to stay "leave", pref. derivative by the way...

  Etymological dictionary of the Russian language

• - Express. with nothing, having lost everything acquired, available ...

  Phraseological dictionary of the Russian literary language

• - whose. Narodn. Jottle-iron. About a distant relative, distant relationship. DP, 389...
• - STAY, -anus, -anesh; sovereign 1. Continue stay, stay somewhere. O. for the winter in the countryside. O. to spend the winter on an ice floe. O. visiting for another hour. O. in the second year class. 2. Save, don't disappear...

  Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

• - STAY I will stay, stay, owl. . 1. Being in some kind of. place, do not change it to another, do not leave. "You, Yegor Alekseevich, stay in the front." Turgenev...

  Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

• - stay I owl. neperekh. see stay I II owls. not over...

  Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova

• - stay, - "anus, -" ...

  Russian spelling dictionary

• - Like a well-fed piglet runs from the trough ...
• - We eat from the trough, but satiety; and you from the dish, but thin ...

  IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

• - See FAMILY -...

  IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

• - There is a tree, a bird grabs flowers on a tree, throws it into a trough, does not fill the trough and does not detract from the flowers ...

  IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

• - Razg. To be left with nothing, to lose everything acquired, acquired. /i> The expression arose on the basis of "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" by A. S. Pushkin. BMS 1998, 307; F 1, 257; BTS, 707; FSRYA, 208; SPP 2001, 47...

  Big dictionary of Russian sayings

• - adj., number of synonyms: 2 returned to nothing left with nothing ...

  Synonym dictionary

"Stay with a broken trough" in books

Chapter 15 With a Broken Trough

Chapter 15 With a Broken Trough I was ready to say goodbye to Russia, but I postponed the trip for a few days - Josie asked me to help sort out the documents for the apartment. As she said, she did not like the "formalities" and the abundance of words in the documents. - I have a terrible allergy

At the broken trough