Tatyana is Pushkin's favorite heroine: he often and in detail dwells on her characterization, and this characterization is imbued with a feeling of lively sympathy. “I love my dear Tatyana so much!” he exclaims.
Tatyana was brought up in the patriarchal setting of an old landowner's house. Her father, a retired brigadier, was, in Pushkin's words, "a kind fellow, belated in the last century"; he left all the household chores to his wife, "and he ate and drank in his dressing gown."
When neighbors-landlords came to the Larins' hospitable house, their conversations invariably revolved in the area of ordinary interests: "about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about their relatives"; they did not know other, higher interests. It is clear that life in such an environment could not fully satisfy Tatyana, an outstanding nature, naturally endowed with a subtle impressionability and a vague desire for a different, more reasonable and meaningful life. Therefore, since childhood, she grew up alone, kept aloof from her peers and "in her own family she seemed like a stranger girl."
Alien to reality, she always lived in the world of her fantasy. The life and people around her did not attract her; she lived in a special, ideal world that she created in her imagination based on her favorite novels. In these novels, her natural dreaminess and sensitivity found abundant food. Reading was her favorite pastime. Pushkin says:
She liked novels early on;
She fell in love with deceptions
They replaced everything for her;
Both Richardson and Rousseau...
Reading novels opened Tatyana's soul mainly to foreign influence. But there were conditions in the environment that contributed to the development of national character traits and thanks to which Tatyana, despite her foreign upbringing, nevertheless remained, in Pushkin's words, "Russian in soul", and did not become "an interpretation of other people's whims", which was Onegin. This national, native influence came mainly from her old nanny, in whose person Pushkin portrayed his own nanny, the famous Arina Rodionovna. From her, Tatyana heard a lot of Russian folk tales, songs, beliefs. She was not even a stranger to some superstitions, "believed in the legends of the common people of antiquity - and dreams, and card fortune-telling, and predictions of the moon." While reading Rousseau and Stern, at the same time, she often looked into the book of dream interpretation. Tatyana's "dream" itself reflects her close acquaintance with folk tales; individual features of her dreams are inspired by various fabulous images that obviously filled her imagination.
Thus, the sentimental novels that Tatyana was fond of aroused her sensibility even more, not in the least acquainting her either with real life or with people whom she did not know and whom she judged only from novels. Meanwhile, the reality surrounding her and the neighbors-landlords looked too little like her ideal ideas about life and people, which she made up for herself.
Therefore, she felt alone, unsatisfied and worried with vague expectations. This mood most contributed to her rapid passion for Onegin. The unfavorable rumors of the neighbors about him and the enthusiastic reviews of Lensky about his new friend aroused in her an interest in Onegin, as in a person unlike everyone else. Already at the first meeting, Onegin made a strong impression on her. His disappointment, feigned coldness, originality of manners and harshness of judgment - all this was new for Tatyana, inspired her with a high opinion of Onegin. She saw in him the hero of that romantic world in which her fantasy lived. Inexperienced in life and unfamiliar with people, she, of course, could not correctly guess Onegin, and was carried away by him; it seemed to her that "this is he", a "kindred soul", which she did not find among those around her and who would understand her own feelings and aspirations.
As a straight nature, not tolerating lies and pretense, Tatyana herself decides to open herself in her feelings to Onegin and writes him her famous letter. Much in this letter was inspired by literary samples, certain thoughts and expressions were borrowed, for example, from Rousseau, but everything is imbued with such sincerity, such a deep feeling that even the indifferent Onegin "was touched by Tanya's message." But this did not prevent him, during an explanation with her in the garden, to flaunt before the poor girl his fashionable disappointment ("There is no return to dreams and years - I will not renew my soul") and his generosity ("learn to rule yourself - not every one of you like me, will understand ... ").
However, even this explanation with Onegin did not open Tatyana's eyes to his true character. Only later, after the death of Lensky and the departure of Onegin, visiting the abandoned house and reading the books he left behind in his study, Tatyana got to know his personality, his views and sympathies more closely and more fully. The very choice of books testified to the prevailing interests and tastes of Onegin. Among his favorite writers and works, she found:
Singer Giaur and Juan
With his immoral soul
Yes, with him two or three more novels,
Selfish and dry
In which the century is reflected
A dream betrayed immeasurably,
And modern man
With his embittered mind,
Depicted quite right
Boiling in action empty.
At first, this selection of books seemed “strange” to her, because it did not correspond to her idea of \u200b\u200bOnegin's inclinations and sympathies. But then, according to the marks on the pages, Tatyana could form a more accurate idea of his views and characteristic features. She saw how much coldness, selfishness, arrogance, contempt for people and that selfishness in him.
Thus, this reading opened Tatyana's eyes to the real Onegin, and she saw that he did not at all resemble the ideal image that was created in her imagination under the influence of novels. This was a heavy blow for Tatyana, a painful disappointment, but, despite the fact that Onegin lost his former halo in her eyes, turning out to be a “Muscovite in Harold’s cloak,” he nevertheless remained still dear to her, she was unable to forget and fall out of love with him, as she herself admits in her last explanation with him.
But the serious, thoughtful reading that Tatyana indulged in in Onegin's office had another, no less important meaning for her: it broadened her horizons, helped develop her views on life and people, and from that time "another world opened up to her", in the words of Pushkin, she began to relate more consciously to her surroundings, and her character was finally established. This was the change in her that so struck Onegin at a new meeting, in the St. Petersburg "light". But this change concerned more Tatyana's appearance, her manners and techniques. Having married at the request of her mother (because “for poor Tanya, all the lots were equal”) and becoming a noble lady, she necessarily submitted to the conditions and customs of secular life. But in the depths of her being, she did not change at all and remained "the former Tanya", with a truthful, dreamy and tender soul. The pomp, brilliance and honor surrounding her do not please her at all, but, on the contrary, often become a burden to her. She frankly confesses to Onegin:
Now I'm happy to give
For those places where for the first time,
All this rags of masquerade
Onegin, I saw you
All this brilliance, and noise, and fumes
Yes, for a humble cemetery,
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,
Where is now the cross and the shadow of the branches
For our poor home.
Over my poor nanny...
Thus, despite her wealth and high social position, Tatyana is not satisfied with her life, she suffers internally. “And happiness was so possible, so close!” she says to Onegin. But although she still loves him and feels unhappy, she does not want to violate her duty, she does not want to buy happiness for herself at the cost of someone else's suffering.
In the scene of the last explanation with Onegin, all the depth and nobility of her character clearly stand out and her moral superiority over Onegin is revealed. These depths and nobility of nature, inner integrity, directness and independence are the characteristic features of Tatyana, which are the reason for Pushkin's special sympathy for this creation of his creative genius. In the person of Tatiana, Pushkin for the first time painted the ideal image of a Russian woman, as he understood it; moreover, this image was taken by him from the elements of reality, and not invented or composed: that is why this image is distinguished by its complete vitality and concreteness.
In total, 179 people took part in the survey, a significant part of which, judging by the heated discussion, are teachers and teachers of literature (which is not surprising). The results were distributed as follows:
1. Tatyana is faithful to the oath before the altar (81, 45.25%).
2. Tatyana respects her husband and is grateful to him (77, 43.02%).
4. Tatyana is faithful to her family debt (66, 36.87%).
To give - in addition to the listed options or as an alternative to them - 42 people (23.46%) preferred their answer.
Of course, I did not try to statistically determine the most correct or most popular answer with this poll. I was interested in something else: there is some contradiction between the proposed answers, connected, among other things, with well-known discussions about what the goal of literary education is. The 1st, 2nd and 4th answer options reflect the approach to the plot of the work as a kind of everyday case, and to the character of the characters as the character of real people, and not to the author's fiction, albeit built on knowledge of life and observation on relation to the motives of human behavior and personality traits. The 3rd and 5th options are based on the understanding of a work of art as an author's creation, in which everything, even the behavior of the characters, is subject to the author's intention, his ideas and values, and therefore is explained not so much by the laws of life as by their construction on the part of the author, the laws creativity and writer's imagination.
The modern school is often reproached for ignoring the aesthetic nature of the literary text: in the classroom, teachers and their students mainly retell plots and discuss the behavior of characters - as happens on television talk shows.
The gradual replacement of books with film versions of the classics also speaks in favor of the fact that the literary, verbal form of works in itself is no longer the most important when studying them at school. The survey showed that the majority shares this approach to the characters as to living people, which, in general, is nothing wrong: yes, this approach is called “naive-realistic” and it is also characteristic of the perception of, say, picturesque, theatrical or cinema art. Even readers who do not like to read or who limit themselves to reading a brief retelling are not averse to arguing about the motives for Tatyana Onegin's refusal. The most popular ones are the religiosity of the heroine (curiously, the first place in popularity of this version, which appeared relatively recently in school textbooks, although Pushkin himself pays almost no attention to it), respect and gratitude to her husband, as well as family duty, they also add (in descending order of popularity):
The unwillingness to change something in an established life, the maturity of the heroine - no longer a young person;
Distrust of the feelings of an unlucky lover, and even:
Revenge on him;
The absence of past feelings - which is actually what the heroine mourns in the final scene;
Her innocence and inability to dissemble, the integrity of nature;
Unwillingness to build one's happiness on the misfortune of another (the popular version of Dostoevsky is referring to Tatyana's husband, since Onegin's misfortune is inevitable in this case, well, he himself is to blame, he should have thought before).
Other, more exotic interpretations are also offered, but even a cursory review of them shows that it is impossible to bring them together - each indifferent reader gets his own Tatiana, in accordance with his life experience, values and preferences. An attempt to choose the most correct of them will certainly turn into a fierce controversy - and you need to be a school textbook to avoid disputes here: a cursory review of textbooks showed us that most of them seek to give the young reader their own, consistent concept of Tatyana's image, at best offering to compare, to for example, a critical assessment of it by Belinsky and an apologetic one by Dostoevsky (as if Dostoevsky, a non-contemporary of Pushkin, had the right to it - from his position, and we, today, have the right only to choose from what is available).
The second group of these answers suggests seeing the author as a master of composition: this version refutes the popular notion that for Pushkin himself, Tatyana's marriage was a surprise - since Onegin's refusal in response to Tatyana's confession had to be balanced by Tatyana's refusal in response to Onegin's confession, and thereby give them to switch roles. This version maintains the "made" of the novel, emphasizes its aesthetic nature - and requires the reader to enjoy the skill of the author, and not just the vitality of the intrigue embodied in the novel. It has less innocence, it requires more analytical skills from the reader - and it is very interesting that she bypassed the version in popularity that proposes to see in Tatyana the embodiment of the author's ideal of a smart, conscious wife, sacrificing her heartfelt affection for the benefit of her husband and family (such as will soon turn out to be the chosen one of the poet's heart - although here, as you know, disputes do not subside).
Of the other aesthetic, and not psychological, explanations proposed by the survey participants, we can mention the indication of her prototype - Princess M. Volkonskaya, whom Pushkin portrayed (also an aesthetic task in her own way), and the preparation of the future image of the selfless "captain's daughter" Masha Mironova; the ideological evolution of Pushkin from Onegin to Tatyana - from the West to the East, from cosmopolitanism to patriotism; even the author's love for his heroine, which he is ready to give to the general (whose prototype, in fact, Pushkin himself, perhaps, was), but not to the "fashion tyrant" Onegin. It can be seen that there are many contradictions in these versions - as well as between the "organic" and "aesthetic" approaches to the image of the heroine, which does not prevent readers from combining both approaches.
Probably, this conjugation of two approaches - (naively-) realistic and aesthetic - is the goal of literary education: the first of them develops the emotional sphere (“I will shed tears over fiction”) and teaches empathy; the second one helps to maintain the necessary distance in relation to the author's fiction and enjoy the experiences of a different, aesthetic order. Only now, perhaps, we should honestly admit that even among adults there are always the majority of those who are quite content with the first approach, what can we say about ordinary schoolchildren who have the habit of opening a book at least sometimes!
Yes, and the state, through the mouths of its officials regularly announcing the "educational role of the classics", sees this educational role rather in admiration for the assessment of the selfless act of married Tatyana ("traditional family values") than in the plasticity of the "Onegin stanza" ¬¬– and will gladly sacrifice aesthetics for the sake of ethics. This is evidenced, for example, by the history of the three-year planting of the December so-called “final essay”, which reduces any work of art to a moralizing, educational and patriotic case.
"Tatyana Russian soul..."
Sample essay text
A. S. Pushkin created in the novel "Eugene Onegin" a captivating image of a Russian girl, which he called his "true ideal." He does not hide his love for the heroine, his admiration for her. The author is worried and sad with Tatyana, accompanies her to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Drawing in the novel the images of Onegin and Lensky as the best people of the era, he, however, gives all his sympathy and love to this provincial young lady with a discreet appearance and the common name Tatyana.
Perhaps this is the special attraction and poetry of her image, associated with the common people's culture, lurking in the bowels of the Russian nation. It develops in the novel in parallel with the noble culture, oriented towards Western European literature, philosophy, and science. Therefore, both the external and internal appearance of Onegin and Lensky does not make it possible to see Russian people in them. Vladimir Lensky can be quickly mistaken for a German "with a soul directly Goettingen", who "brought the fruits of learning from foggy Germany." Clothing, speech and demeanor of Onegin make him look like an Englishman, then a Frenchman. The poet calls Tatyana "Russian soul". Her childhood and youth passed not among the cold stone masses of St. Petersburg or Moscow cathedrals, but in the bosom of free meadows and fields, shady oak forests. She early absorbed the love of nature, the image of which, as it were, completes her inner portrait, giving special spirituality and poetry.
Tatyana (Russian soul,
I don't know why.)
With her cold beauty
I loved Russian winter.
For a "tender dreamer" nature is full of secrets and mysteries. Even before the "deceptions of Richardson and Russo" begin to occupy her mind, Tatyana easily and naturally enters the magical world of Russian folklore. She shunned the noisy children's amusements, since "terrible stories in the winter in the darkness of nights captivated her heart more." Tatyana is inseparable from the national folk element with its beliefs, rituals, divination, divination, prophetic dreams.
Tatyana believed the legends
common folk antiquity,
And dreams, and card fortune-telling,
And the predictions of the moon.
Even Tatyana's dream is all woven from the images of old Russian fairy tales. Thus, Tatyana's personality was shaped by the environment in which she grew up and was brought up not under the guidance of a French governess, but under the supervision of a serf nanny. The development of Tatyana's soul, her morality takes place under the influence of folk culture, life, mores and customs. But books have a significant influence on the formation of her mental interests - first sentimental love stories, then romantic poems found in the Onegin library. This leaves an imprint on the spiritual appearance of Tatyana. It is the enthusiasm for the fictional life of the works of English and French authors that develops in the heroine a bookish idea of reality. This does Tatiana a disservice. Seeing Onegin for the first time, she falls in love with him, mistaking Yevgeny for the enthusiastic hero of her favorite books, and declares her love to him. And after her illusions and dreams disappear, she again tries to understand Onegin's character with the help of the books he read. But Byron's romantic poems with their gloomy, embittered and disappointed characters again lead her to an erroneous conclusion, forcing her to see in her beloved a "Muscovite in Harold's cloak", that is, a miserable imitator of literary patterns. In the future, Tatyana has to gradually get rid of these airy romantic dreams in herself, to overcome the idealistic bookish attitude to life. And it helps her in this healthy vital basis, which she absorbed along with the way of life, customs and culture of the Russian people, with her native nature. In one of the most difficult moments in her life, tormented by love for Onegin, Tatyana turns for help and advice not to her mother or sister, but to an illiterate peasant woman, who was the closest and dearest person to her. While waiting for a meeting with Onegin, she hears the artless folk "Song of the Girls", which, as it were, expresses her feelings.
Pictures of native nature, dear to Tatiana's heart, remain with her in cold high-society St. Petersburg. Forced to hide her feelings, Tatyana sees with her inner eye the familiar rural landscape, devoid of exoticism, but fanned with unique charm.
Tatyana looks and does not see
The excitement of the world hates;
She's stuffy here... she's a dream
Strives for the life of the field,
To the village, to the poor villagers
To a secluded corner.
This means that the mask of the "indifferent princess" hides the face of a "simple maiden" with the same aspirations. The world of moral values has not changed. She calls the splendor of a luxurious living room, success in the world "rags of a masquerade", because "this brilliance, and noise, and fumes" cannot hide the emptiness and inner squalor of metropolitan life.
All Tatyana's actions, all her thoughts and feelings are colored by folk morality, which she absorbed from childhood. In accordance with folk traditions, Pushkin endows his beloved heroine with exceptional spiritual integrity. Therefore, having fallen in love with Onegin, she is the first to declare her love to him, transgressing the conventions of noble morality. Under the influence of folk traditions that inspire children with respect and reverence for their parents, Tatyana marries, obeying the will of her mother, who wants to arrange her life.
Forced to live according to the hypocritical laws of secular society, Tatyana is honest and frank with Onegin, because she loves him and trusts him. The moral purity of the heroine is especially clearly manifested in her answer to Eugene, which is also sustained in the spirit of folk morality:
I love you (why lie?),
But I am given to another;
I will be faithful to him forever.
These words reflected all the best features of the heroine: nobility, honesty, a highly developed sense of duty. Tatyana's ability to refuse the only person she loves and will love speaks of her strong will and moral purity. Tatyana is simply not capable of lying to a person who is devoted to her, or dooming him to shame in order to connect with a loved one. If Tatyana had responded to Onegin's love, then the integrity of her image would have been violated. She would cease to be Tatyana Larina, turning into Anna Karenina.
Thus, Tatyana appears in the novel "Eugene Onegin" as the embodiment of the national Russian spirit and Pushkin's ideal. In her image, the best aspects of the noble and common people's culture were harmoniously combined.
