The main character is Onegin. The influence of the noble society of the 19th century on the fate of Eugene Onegin based on the novel by A

Brilliant novel A. S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" captured an entire era in the life of Russian society in the first quarter of the 19th century, touched on many social and moral problems of that time. But the very title of the novel suggests that its central theme was the mental life and quest of the advanced noble intelligentsia. And it is revealed mainly in the image of the main character, Eugene Onegin. It was a reflection of a very common Russian disease in the 1920s: boredom. In fact, wherever Eugene is - in the capital or in the wilderness - his faithful companion - the blues - follows him with depressing consistency. You involuntarily begin to think about the reasons for his constant disappointment and melancholy. Maybe Tatyana is right when she called him “a Muscovite in Harold’s cloak,” and his whole behavior is a pose, a game designed to arouse interest in his person? But let’s re-read the novel of the great poet again. And then, under the bored, impassive mask of a hero, we will discover an inquisitive and inquisitive mind, kindness, decency, tact.

Knowing how young Eugene was brought up under the guidance of a “poor Frenchman” who “taught him everything jokingly,” you get a complete picture of his very superficial education. However, having made friends with Lensky, who studied at the best university in Germany, Onegin argues with him on serious philosophical, historical, political and economic topics. This means that he is thoroughly engaged in self-education, as the list of authors of books that are in the Onegin library convinces us: Rousseau, Smith, Gibbon, Herder, etc. This speaks of the intense mental life of this hero, who was not satisfied with conversations “about wine, about the kennel, about my relatives." Friendship with Lensky reveals in him a deeply hidden kindness and respect for people. For example, listening to the enthusiastic speeches of the romantic Lensky, “he tried to keep the cooling word in his mouth.” Another act of Eugene convinces us of his humane, progressive views. Having become the heir to a rich estate, “he replaced the ancient corvée with a light quitrent with a yoke,” which earned him the indignation of his neighboring landowners.

As soon as he met the Larin sisters, Evgeniy immediately saw the emptiness of pretty Olga and the wealth inner world Tatiana. Having received her tender message, breathing love, he managed to suppress his excitement and acted like a noble man who did not want to take advantage of the naivety and inexperience of a provincial girl. And Onegin’s new meeting with Tatyana in St. Petersburg reveals another unexpected facet of his nature, which he did not suspect in himself. It turns out that he is capable of strong and deep feelings. Let us remember the inspired, excited lines of his letter to Tatyana:

I know: my life has already been measured;
But so that my life may last,
I have to be sure in the morning
That I will see you this afternoon...

Only a loving, suffering person can write such words.

Why, despite many wonderful qualities, is the hero unhappy? At first glance, it seems that fate played a cruel joke on him, giving him love for the woman he once rejected. But the reason for Onegin's tragedy is much deeper. It is rooted in the conditions in which he lives, in the environment that gave birth to him.

Let's return to the first chapter of the novel, in which the author recreates in detail the main stages of Onegin's day: late awakening, a walk along the boulevard, a luxurious lunch in a restaurant, a theater, a ball and returning home in the morning. This is the routine of life of a St. Petersburg nobleman. Does Onegin enjoy this pastime? The episode of visiting the theater provides a comprehensive answer to this question. The “magic land” only causes him fatigue and boredom.

On stage
He looked in great absentmindedness,
He turned away and yawned,
And he said: “It’s time for everyone to change;
I endured ballets for a long time,
But I’m tired of Didelot too.”

Onegin is well aware that his life is “monotonous and motley”, sees its falseness and emptiness. He makes an attempt to fill his existence with some meaning, tries to engage in literary work, but “he was sick of persistent work; nothing came from his pen.” In these two lines, Pushkin brilliantly indicated both cause and effect. Idleness, unaccustomed to work - this is the source of the hero’s empty, meaningless life. Constant blues and concentration on this state make Onegin selfish and indifferent to people. This is especially evident in the scene of Tatyana’s name day. Succumbing to a momentary feeling of irritation, he, without noticing it, breaks the fragile romantic world of his friend and makes the girl in love suffer cruelly. A random whim turned into a tragedy. But Evgeniy had the opportunity to prevent it by talking to Lensky. Why doesn't he do this? Because he was afraid of public opinion, which could accuse him of cowardice, that is, the opinion of those people whom he deeply despised.

This means that he is a slave to society, and his sense of superiority over it was illusory. The murder of Lensky, the only person he loved and respected, became the reason for Onegin’s late epiphany, the severe pangs of conscience from which the hero tries to escape by going on a journey. But a person cannot escape from himself, just as he cannot help but depend on the society in which he lives. This means that the reason for Onegin’s tragic discord is hidden in the social conditions in which he finds himself, and in himself. This is proven, as we have seen, by both the hero’s actions and his fate. Having lost his beloved woman, not having found the meaning, purpose of existence, his place in life, he, in Belinsky’s apt expression, becomes “a smart useless person,” “an extra person.”

Let us pay attention to the epigraph to Chapter I: “And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel” - from P.A. Vyazemsky’s poem “The First Snow”. The epigraph notes the essential side of the hero’s personality and his youth.

Without an introduction, Pushkin immediately gives an episode from the hero’s life: Onegin goes to the village to visit his sick uncle. The author calls Onegin a “young rake,” but immediately speaks of him as his “kind” friend.

The following stanzas talk about Onegin's education and his range of interests.
We all learned a little bit
Something and somehow...
Pushkin notes the randomness and unsystematic nature of ordinary noble upbringing. From further poems it becomes clear, indeed, that Onegin had no systematic education, but Onegin’s range of interests was very wide.

We turn to the following lines:

He had a lucky talent
With the learned air of a connoisseur
No coercion in conversation
remain silent in an important dispute
Touch everything lightly
And make the ladies smile
Fire of unexpected epigrams...

These lines speak of the lack of depth in Onegin’s education. But the mention of “unexpected epigrams” at the same time characterizes the ironic, caustic orientation of Onegin’s conversations. The epigram was often a manifestation of oppositional sentiments and thoughts.
The historical anecdotes that attracted Onegin - stories about incidents from the lives of historical figures - to a certain extent indicate Onegin's interest in history.

As you can see, despite the unsystematic nature of Onegin’s education, he does not remain aloof from cultural, historical and political interests. He has wide circle interests, and the selection of the names of the authors read by Onegin is such that one can say about the oppositional, critical mood of the young Onegin.
Next, we turn to the stanzas depicting Onegin’s ordinary day.
Onegin goes to the boulevard
And there he walks in the open space,
Three houses are calling for the evening...
While the watchful Breget
While in morning dress,
Dinner won't ring his bell.
In the depiction of the dinner, what attracts attention is the list of dishes that are entirely non-Russian cuisine, characterizing a passion for everything foreign.

Next, we read the stanzas devoted to the description of Onegin’s office and his toilet. The list of things decorating Onegin's office (amber, bronze, porcelain, perfume in cut crystal, combs, nail files, etc.) recreates the typical atmosphere of the life of a young man of St. Petersburg society. In stanza XXVI, Pushkin, listing Onegin's clothing items, uses foreign names. In an ironic form, he provides motivation for the need to include foreign words into Russian literary language:
But trousers, a tailcoat, a vest,
All these words are not in Russian.

Stanza XXXV ends the description of the ordinary, ordinary day of a young man of St. Petersburg society. Onegin returns home in the morning,
And St. Petersburg is restless
Already awakened by the drum... -
those. the guards began to be sent out in the military capital. People appear on the streets representing a completely different part of the population: a merchant, a peddler, a cab driver, a milkmaid. The working day of the big city begins.
Stanza XXXVI, as it were, summarizes a number of paintings that have passed before us, indicating that Onegin’s day depicted was an ordinary day for him:
Wake up at noon, and again
Monotonous and colorful.
Until the morning his life is ready,
And tomorrow is the same as yesterday...
And in this stanza the poet moves on to illuminate Onegin’s inner world, posing the question:
But was my Eugene happy?
Free, in the color of the best years,
Among everyday pleasures?
Hundreds, maybe thousands of young nobles were satisfied with this empty life. And Onegin?

Evgeniy is not satisfied with life, he is bored, and he is overcome by the blues. This state of Onegin distinguishes him among young people who were satisfied with the described existence. He is taller and more meaningful than ordinary young people of St. Petersburg society. Some great demands live within him, and an empty social life does not bring him happiness. Involuntary devotion to dreams,
Inimitable strangeness
And a sharp, chilled mind...

This author's characteristic is very important. All these qualities sharply distinguish Onegin from the environment that surrounded him; here Pushkin highly values ​​his hero. The noble secular society was heterogeneous, and along with the mass of empty mediocrity, there were also people of a different type. And Onegin is close to them in some of his personality traits. The poet emphasizes Onegin’s dissatisfaction with those around him in XIV! stanza.
First Onegin's language
And as a joke, with bile in half,
I was embarrassed; but I'm used to it
And to the anger of gloomy epigrams.
To his caustic argument,

So, from Chapter I of the novel we learned about Onegin’s origin, upbringing and education. We found out what environment surrounded him and shaped his views and tastes. We got to know his range of interests. We found out some negative aspects of his life, which could not but leave an imprint on his personality: Onegin lives without work and a specific occupation; it is not associated with native nature, nor with the lives of his people. Starting from his French upbringing and ending with reading mainly foreign books, everything in his life deprives Onegin of the opportunity to get closer to his own, national, Russian. Onegin begins to feel dissatisfied with life and melancholy. He feels the purposelessness of his existence.

In further chapters of the novel, the image of Onegin develops and undergoes some changes. The author puts Onegin in new situations, confronts him with new people, and in these collisions in a number of new circumstances, the essence of the image, its social meaning, typical of some of the youth of the 20s, reflected in the image of Onegin, is fully revealed.
At the end of Chapter I and Chapter II, Onegin’s life in
village.
Two days seemed new to him
Then they induced sleep;
Secluded fields...
Then he saw clearly
That in the village there is the same boredom...
...On the third grove, hill and field
He was no longer occupied;

“Boredom” and “blueness” do not leave Onegin even in new living conditions. Nature does not attract him, he is not involved in farming. As a landowner, Onegin must enter into some kind of relationship with the peasants. There is only one message about this in the novel:
In his wilderness the desert sage,
I replaced it with easy quitrent;
He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
and the slave blessed fate.

However, this was done “just to pass the time.” How did the surrounding landowners react to Onegin’s “reform”:
...sulked in his corner,
The other smiled slyly
Seeing this as terrible harm,
And everyone decided out loud,
His calculating neighbor:
That he is a most dangerous weirdo.
What kind of relationship was established between Onegin and his neighboring landowners? Onegin closed in on himself and clearly separated himself from his neighbors.
And they, in turn, considered him an “eccentric,” a “farmazon,” and “they stopped their friendship with him.”

In Chapter I, Onegin was singled out by the author from the environment of secular metropolitan nobility. In Chapter II he is sharply distinguished from the usual circle of landowners, into whose midst he fell by the will of fate.
It is worth paying attention to Onegin’s friendship with Lensky. With all the differences in characters and temperaments, they nevertheless contain something in common: they are both opposed to the Buyanovs, Petushkovs, Prostakovs, Mizinchikovs, Durins. What they have in common is great demands for life, broad mental interests. There is history, philosophical and moral issues, and reading literary works.
In Chapter III - Onegin's first meeting with Tatyana. Let us pay attention to the dialogue between two friends when they are “flying at full speed on the shortest route home.” From the conversation it is clear that Onegin did not pay attention to Olga: “I would choose another,” i.e. Tatyana. Onegin knows how to understand people; he was not attracted to the meaningless, empty Olga. And the fact that Onegin immediately made an extraordinary impression on Tatyana cannot be attributed only to her dreamy imagination, brought up on reading sentimental novels.

However, along with all this, as if elevating the hero, we should not forget about his selfishness and coldness - a consequence of the conditions of his upbringing and social life.
In Chapter IV, our attention will be drawn to the stanza about the first impression that the received letter made on Onegin: But, having received Tanya’s message,
Onegin was deeply touched...

These and subsequent lines indicate that the soul of the “fashionable tyrant” is not completely devastated and has not completely become calloused. However, Onegin is unable to respond to Tatiana’s love, and his decency does not allow him to “drag around” or “flirt.” Of course, Eugene’s problem is that, despite his intelligence and dissatisfaction with the entire structure of life of the people in his circle, he cannot break with it and look for the meaning of life in something else, or set himself some significant task. However, a vague awareness that it is not a narrow circle of “domestic” interests, but some other life that could give meaning to his existence, lives in him.
“But I was not created for bliss...” - and Onegin ironically unfolds the picture family life which he is incapable of. In this “sermon”, despite its thoughtfulness and some arrogance, there is, however, some kind of sadness. Onegin feels sorry for Tatyana, but he also feels sorry for himself.

Living in the wilderness of the village, bored and languishing, Onegin shows the ability to respect the provincial girl who fell in love with him, and does not want to play with serious and great feelings.
Onegin's behavior at Tatiana's name day does not add anything new to his image. However, Onegin’s disdain for people and his selfishness appear again.
The eccentric, having found himself at a huge feast,
I was really angry...
Although he had nothing to be angry about, both Lensky and the Larins were disposed towards him. And Onegin not only “began to draw caricatures of all the guests in his soul,” but frivolously offends his friend while courting Olga. In Chapter VI, the episode of challenge and duel eloquently characterizes Onegin.
Having accepted "without unnecessary words"challenge, Onegin
Alone with your soul
And rightly so: in strict analysis,
He was unhappy with himself.
Having summoned himself to a secret trial,
He blamed himself for many things...

And then - honest, true thoughts about being wrong. So, a high and noble idea of ​​human relations and harsh self-condemnation. Suddenly, honor again turns out to be the reason that the hero gives up his humane, noble positions and floats with the flow of events. But this is a different honor, not the one Onegin thought about before. This is a false honor, regulated by the “public opinion” of noble society. And she defeats Onegin: he, with all his contempt for the noble-secular circle, is himself its product and cannot break beyond its boundaries, break with it. Onegin yields to “public opinion” on an important issue. This does not prevent him from laughing at the traditions of his circle in matters of small scale.

And he takes with him a French footman as a second:
Even though he is an unknown person,
But of course the guy is honest.

In the picture of the duel, we note Onegin’s restraint and composure, and after the murder of Lensky, the remorse and shock he experienced:
In the anguish of heart remorse,
Hand clutching the pistol,
Evgeniy looks at Lensky...
Such is the age-old litigation, the duality of consciousness, typical of the noble intellectual of that time.

The next episode, “Tatyana in Onegin’s office,” raises a number of literary and life associations that speak of the complexity and inconsistency of the hero’s image, of the reflection of the “spirit of the times” in his personality. Again and again Tatyana comes to Onegin’s office. She sorts through books, “with a greedy soul” she “indulges” in reading. Onegin’s selection of books and marks in the margins reveal to her much about the hero’s personality.

The eccentric is sad and dangerous,
It's clearer now - thank God -
The creation of hell or heaven,
The one for whom she sighs
This angel, this arrogant demon,
What is he? Is it really imitation?
interpretation of other people's whims,
An insignificant ghost, or else
Fashion words complete vocabulary?..
Muscovite in Harold's cloak,
Isn't he a parody?
There are no answers to the questions.

Let us turn to Onegin in Chapter VIII. It contains a new cycle of events in Onegin’s life, opening with a meeting in St. Petersburg with Tatyana. Onegin at a social event:
But who is this in the chosen crowd?
Stands silent and foggy?
He seems alien to everyone.

Onegin therefore turned out to be superfluous, a stranger among the social gathering.
Pushkin sincerely feels sorry for his hero, with all his wealth
personality who turned out to be superfluous, alien, who has not found his place in life. His fate is deeply tragic.

The meeting with Tatyana awakens Onegin. Many years have passed, he has experienced a lot, he has changed his mind since he “read instructions” to the district young lady. Eugene has changed, his worldview has become more serious, but the hero is still not happy with life. Finally, a meeting with Tatyana awakens an unknown feeling in him.
Onegin's love story is in its own way a repetition of Tatiana's love story, but only the roles have changed. Eugene’s letter was written sincerely, with passion, without social etiquette. Finally, last date, but now Onegin listens to Tatyana’s rebuke. There is a whole “storm of sensations” in Onegin’s soul. The novel ends.

And here is my hero,
Reader, we will now leave,
In a moment that is evil for him,
For a long time... forever...

Pushkin understood that the denouement in Chapter VIII leaves the question of the hero’s fate open. With this denouement, he seemed to point to the endless variety of options for this fate in a complex and contradictory reality.

With all the breadth of its themes, the novel “Eugene Onegin” is, first of all, a novel about the mental life and quests of the Russian noble intelligentsia of the 20s of the 19th century, before the Decembrist uprising of 1825. Main
its theme is an advanced personality in its relation to noble society and the people. Pushkin reveals this theme in the images of representatives of the progressive noble intelligentsia - Onegin, Lensky and Tatyana.
By naming his novel after one of the characters, Pushkin thereby emphasized the central position among them (and in the entire novel) of Eugene Onegin.
Onegin is a “secular St. Petersburg young man”, a metropolitan aristocrat.
Drawing the image of his hero, Pushkin speaks in detail about his upbringing and education, about life in the St. Petersburg “society”. “A child of fun and luxury,” Onegin received home education and upbringing under the guidance of a French tutor, typical of aristocratic youth of that time. He was brought up in the spirit of aristocratic culture, divorced from national and popular soil.
The corrupting influence of the “light” further removed Onegin from the people. Onegin leads a life typical of the “golden youth” of that time: balls, restaurants, walks along Nevsky Prospect, visiting theaters. It took him eight years.
But Onegin by his nature stands out from total mass aristocratic youth. Pushkin notes his “involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, cooled mind,” a sense of honor, and nobility of soul. This could not but lead Onegin to disappointment in the life and interests of secular society, to dissatisfaction with the political and social situation that developed in Russia after Patriotic War 1812, during the years of intensifying reaction, during the years of the dominance of Arakcheevism. Blues and boredom took possession of Onegin. Having left secular society, he tries to engage in some useful activity. Nothing came of his attempt to write: he did not have a vocation (“yawning, he took up the pen”) and no habit of work, his lordly upbringing took its toll (“he was sick of persistent work”). An attempt to combat “spiritual emptiness” through reading also proved unsuccessful. The books he read either did not satisfy him or turned out to be in tune with his thoughts and feelings and only strengthened them.
Onegin is trying to organize the life of the peasants on the estate, which he inherited from his uncle:
He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
I replaced it with a light quitrent...
But all his activities as a landowner-owner were limited to this reform. The old moods, although somewhat softened by life in the lap of nature, continue to possess him.
Onegin's extraordinary mind, his freedom-loving sentiments and critical attitude to reality placed him high above the crowd of nobles, especially among the local lords, and doomed him, in the absence social activities, to complete loneliness.
Having broken up with secular society, in which he found neither high morals nor real feelings, but only a parody of them, and being cut off from the life of the people, Onegin loses his connection with people.
Onegin could not be saved from “spiritual emptiness” by the strongest feelings that unite man with man: love and friendship. He rejected Tatyana’s love, since he valued “freedom and peace” above all else, and failed to unravel the full depth of her nature and her feelings for him. He killed his friend Lensky because he could not rise above the public opinion of the local nobility, which he inwardly despised. Class prejudices prevailed in the hesitations that he experienced after receiving a challenge to a duel. He was afraid of “the whispers, the laughter of fools,” the gossip of the Zaretskys.
In a depressed state of mind, Onegin left the village. He “began to wander,” but this did not dispel him.
Returning to St. Petersburg, he met Tatyana as a married woman, the wife of his relative and friend. Love for her flared up in him, but Tatyana unraveled the selfishness that underlay his feelings for her: he again did not understand the depth of her requests. The novel ends with the scene of Onegin's meeting with Tatyana. ABOUT future fate Onegin says nothing. However, Pushkin thought about continuing the novel. In the fall of 1830, he wrote the tenth chapter, in which he was going to talk about the emergence of the first secret societies of the Decembrists. But due to censorship conditions, he could not publish it; Moreover, it was dangerous to keep it at home. And Pushkin burned what he had written that same fall. Only a few, scattered pieces of the initial stanzas of the chapter have been preserved in the poet’s papers.
How did Pushkin think about unfolding the action in Chapter X? Would he have brought Onegin into the Decembrist society? There is evidence from one of Pushkin’s acquaintances that, according to the poet, “Onegin should have either died in the Caucasus or become one of the Decembrists.” But how accurate this evidence is is unknown. In the person of Onegin, Pushkin was the first writer to portray the type of enlightened nobleman that emerged in Russia in the 20s of the 19th century and was widely known in the years following the defeat of the Decembrists. Onegin is a typical representative of this enlightened part of the noble intelligentsia, who was critical of the way of life of noble society and government policy. It was the noble intelligentsia who avoided serving tsarism, not wanting to join the ranks of the silent ones, but they also stood aloof from socio-political activities. And such a path, although it was a kind of protest against the socio-political system, inevitably doomed to inaction, to withdrawal from the people, to isolation.
into a narrow circle of selfish interests. This naturally led such people to “spiritual emptiness” and deprived their life of a high goal, a positive program. Belinsky said beautifully about Onegin and thereby about people of this type: “The inactivity and vulgarity of life choke him, he doesn’t even know what he needs, what he wants, but he... knows very well what he doesn’t need, what he I don’t want what self-loving mediocrity is so happy with, so happy.”
The absence of a positive program dooms Onegin to inaction. Herzen rightly said about him:
“...The young man does not meet any lively interest in this world of servility and petty ambition. And yet he is condemned to live in this society, since the people are even more distant from him... but there is nothing in common between him and the people...”
The image of Onegin has enormous generalizing power. “The fact is that we are all more or less Onegin, since we do not prefer to be officials or landowners,” said Herzen. Onegin’s typicality was so strong that from that time on, according to Herzen, “every novel, every poem had its own Onegin, that is, a man condemned to idleness, useless, led astray, a stranger in his family, a stranger in to his country, unwilling to do evil and powerless to do good, ultimately doing nothing, although he takes on everything, except, however, for two things: firstly, he never takes the side of the government, and. secondly, he never knows how to take the side of the people.”
In the image of Onegin, Pushkin showed the path that part of the noble intelligentsia of his time followed - a quest in isolation from society and the people. Pushkin condemned this path of the individualist hero, which makes him socially useless, a “superfluous” person.

Give urgent rehabilitation to Evgeniy!

Onegin, who rejected the love of a village girl and then became inflamed with passion for a social beauty, was not condemned only by the lazy. IN school essays this unseemly act of his is being dismantled piece by piece for the second century in a row...

Give urgent rehabilitation to Evgeniy!

We talked with a candidate of medical sciences about the wave of pedophilia that swept the country this year.

What to do?

– Take an example from Evgeny Onegin!- said the doctor. “He didn’t seduce young Tatyana, although the girl offered herself to him. Onegin should become a model for schoolchildren. Look guys, this is a real man! There would be fewer pedophiles in the country...

Now every day there are reports of child victims of violence. The State Duma is already proposing to give life imprisonment to those who committed sexual acts with teenagers under 14 years of age. And Tatyana was 13!

- Can't be! – I was amazed.

And I heard a new and, frankly speaking, slightly stunned interpretation of the novel - from the point of view of a sexologist. Here she is.

Lensky introduces Onegin to the Larin sisters. Give urgent rehabilitation to Evgeniy!

“It’s time to finally restore justice!” A 26-year-old man quite naturally refused a 13-year-old, and the progressive public condemns him for this noble act! Let's turn to the novel. After 17 years, Evgeniy began attending balls. Had many sexual relations with married women. And with the girls to whom he “gave lessons privately in silence.” He was a genius in the science of tender passion. He had a strong sexual constitution.

At the age of 26, he found himself in a remote village, registering the inheritance of a wealthy uncle.

All the mistresses remained in St. Petersburg. Experienced forced sexual abstinence. And then the 13-year-old landowner’s daughter offers herself to him. “It is the will of heaven: I am yours!” He refuses. Evidence that he had a normal psychosexually oriented libido by gender and age.

I was drawn to mature women, sexually mature girls. But not for girls! There were no romantic feelings for Tatyana either. I appreciated that her feelings were also immature. The girl has read a lot romance novels, decided to realize her romantic libido. Came up here mysterious man from the capital. And after all, Evgeny kept the very fact of the letter secret, did not boast and compromise Tatyana. A real man!

- Why then did our ideal burn with passion for the married Tatyana?

– After long wanderings, he returned to St. Petersburg. At the very first ball I saw the most beautiful lady in the capital, immediately fell in love with her and tried to get closer. Risking my reputation and the reputation of Tatyana and her husband. This means that normal libido has been preserved.

He didn’t react to the girl, but to the grown-up beauty - instantly! He hardly recognized that same Tatyana. Another confirmation. If she had been an adult girl at their first meeting, she would hardly have changed beyond recognition. And the 13-year-old girl changed after 3-4 years. By the way, in early XIX centuries, completely different morals reigned. And if Onegin had become close to Tatyana, it would have been perceived normally. But, unfortunately, there is an opinion that Tatyana is a victim, a sufferer. Onegin, a womanizer, caused her deep emotional trauma. In fact, he is a hero of our time.

...I listened to the sexologist’s fantastic version, and one thought was beating in my head: “It can’t be! Tatiana, the Russian soul, cannot be 13 years old!” The sexologist made a mistake! I think that readers are also in shock. Returning home, I was surrounded by the works of Pushkin, the memoirs of his contemporaries, the works of Pushkinists, literary scholars, starting with the frantic Vissarion Belinsky. I even dug up Ovid Nazon, who suffered for the science of tender passion. I studied and compared for three days. And this is what was revealed to me...

Tatyana asks the nanny about love. The poet's truth.

First of all, I opened the fourth chapter of Onegin, which the sexologist referred to. It begins with the famous lines:

“The less we love a woman,
The easier it is for her to like us.”

But usually no one delves into the sequel, although they contain the solution to the mystery of the novel.

“And the more likely we destroy her
Among seductive networks.
Debauchery used to be cold-blooded
Science was famous for love,
Trumpeting about myself everywhere
And enjoying without loving.
But this is important fun
Worthy of old monkeys
Grandfather’s vaunted times... “

(In a letter to his younger brother Lev, the 23-year-old poet expressed himself more specifically: “The less they love a woman, the sooner they can hope to possess her, but this fun is worthy of an old monkey of the 18th century.” He had not yet sat down to write Onegin.)

Who isn't bored of being a hypocrite?
Repeat one thing differently
It is important to try to assure that
What everyone has been sure of for a long time,
All the same objections to hear,
Destroy prejudices
Which were not and are not
A GIRL IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD!
That’s exactly what my Eugene thought...

Don't confuse Tanya and the nanny.

So, main question: where did the THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl in the novel come from that our hero was thinking about when he received Larina’s letter? Who is she? Tatiana's nanny? (All the teachers and just intellectuals I interviewed instantly pointed to the old woman!) She really went down the aisle at the age of 13, but there was no smell of the debauchery of old monkeys. Husband Vanya was even younger! And Onegin did not know about the early marriage of some nanny - Tatyana did not write about her, and personally, before the explanation in the garden, she did not speak to her beloved at all. Accidental typo?

I opened the pre-revolutionary collected works of Pushkin of the 19th century with yats. Also – “thirteen”. Is there a word inserted for rhyme? You could just as well have written “fifteen” and “seventeen.” The girl is an abstract figure, to put it simply?

But There is nothing accidental in Pushkin’s poetry. He is always accurate, even in details.

It turns out that Tatyana Larina was 13 years old when she sent Evgeniy a letter?! After all, her age is not indicated anywhere else in the novel. And Pushkin always reported the age of his heroines. Even the old Queen of Spades. (The exceptions are the old woman with a broken trough and Lyudmila, Ruslan’s fiancée. But those are fairy tales.)

And in the main novel of his life, he could not break the tradition. I haven't forgotten about the men. Lensky is “nearly eighteen years old.” For the first time we also see Onegin himself as a “philosopher at eighteen”, getting ready for a ball. At the balls, the hero “killed eight years, losing the best color of life.” It turns out 26.

Exactly according to Pushkin: “Having lived without a goal, without work until the age of twenty-six.”

There are also frank hints in the novel about Tatyana’s young age. “She seemed like a stranger in her own family.” She didn’t play with dolls or burners, and she didn’t go to the meadow with the youngest Olenka and her “little friends.” And I read romance novels avidly.

British Muse of Tall Tales
The girl's sleep is disturbed.

(A youth, a young woman - ages from 7 to 15 years, says the famous explanatory dictionary Vladimir Dal. Doctor Dal was a contemporary of the poet; he was on duty at the bedside of the mortally wounded Pushkin.)

Inflamed with passion for Onegin, the girl asks the nanny if she was in love?

And that's it, Tanya! THIS SUMMER
We haven't heard about love;
Otherwise I would have driven you away from the world
My deceased mother-in-law.

IN THIS (that is, Tanya) SUMMER, the nanny has already walked down the aisle. And let me remind you, she was 13 years old. Onegin, returning from the ball, where he saw the general’s wife, a society lady, for the first time, asks himself: “Is it really the same Tatyana? That GIRL... Is this a dream? That GIRL whom he neglected in his humble lot?” “Wasn’t it news to you that a humble GIRL loves you?” – Tatyana herself reprimands the hero.

Onegin acted nicely.

Let's continue reading the fourth chapter, where a 13-year-old girl appeared.

...having received Tanya's message,
Onegin was deeply touched...
Perhaps the feeling is an ancient ardor
He took possession of it for a minute;
But he didn't want to deceive
The gullibility of an innocent soul.

It turns out that Evgeny did not want, like an old depraved monkey, to destroy an innocent girl. And that’s why he refused. Tactfully taking all the blame on himself so as not to injure Tatyana.

And at the end of the date he gave it to the girl good advice:

Learn to control yourself;
Not everyone will understand you like I do;
Inexperience leads to trouble.

I read Alexander Sergeevich carefully and suddenly realized what stupidity we were forced to do at school, tormented over essays about the relationship between Evgeny and Tatyana! Pushkin explained everything himself and himself assessed the actions of his hero.

You will agree, my reader,
What a very nice thing to do
Our friend is with sad Tanya.
The Russian girl is not a person!

How old was Olga then, whom 17-year-old Lensky was going to marry? Maximum 12. Where is this written? In this case, Pushkin only indicated that Olya was the younger sister of 13-year-old Tatyana. A little boy (about 8 years old according to Dahl), Lensky was a touched witness of her INFANT amusement. (Infant - up to 3 years old. From 3 to 7 - child). We consider: if he was 8 years old, then she was 2-3 years old. By the time of the duel he was almost 18, she was 12.

Do you remember how indignant Lensky was when Olya danced with Onegin?

Just out of diapers,
Coquette, flighty child!
She knows the trick,
I've learned to change!

Of course you are shocked. At this age - and get married?! Don't forget what time it was. This is what Belinsky wrote in an article about Onegin: “A Russian girl is not a woman in the European sense of the word, not a person: she is something else, like a bride... She is barely twelve years old, and her mother, reproaching her for laziness, for inability to hold on..., says to her: “Aren’t you ashamed, madam: you’re already a bride!” And at 18, according to Belinsky, “she is no longer the daughter of her parents, not the beloved child of their hearts, but a burdensome burden, goods ready to linger, excess furniture, which, just behold, will fall off the price and will not get away with it.”

“This attitude towards girls and early marriages are explained not by the savagery of customs, but by common sense,” says sexologist Kotrovsky. - Families then, as a rule, had large families - the church prohibited abortion, and reliable contraception there wasn't.

The parents tried to quickly marry the girl (“an extra mouth”) into someone else’s family, while she looked young. And the dowry required for her was less than for a withered maiden. (The age-old girl is like an autumn fly!) In the case of the Larins, the situation was even more acute. The girls' father died, the brides had to be arranged urgently!

Yuri Lotman, a famous literary critic, wrote in his comments to the novel: “Young noblewomen got married early in the early 19th century. True, the frequent marriages of 14–15-year-old girls in the 18th century began to go out of common practice, and 17–19 years became the normal age for marriage. Early marriages, which were the norm in peasant life, were not uncommon at the end of the 18th century for provincial noble life not affected by Europeanization.

A. Labzina, an acquaintance of the poet Kheraskov, was married off when she was barely 13 years old.

Gogol's mother was married at 14. However, the young novel reader's first hobbies began much earlier. And the surrounding men looked at the young noblewoman as a woman already at that age at which subsequent generations would have seen in her only a child.

23-year-old poet Zhukovsky fell in love with Masha Protasova when she was 12.

The hero of “Woe from Wit” Chatsky fell in love with Sophia when she was 12–14 years old.”

* Everything seems to be working out smoothly. And yet, I confess, dear reader, I was constantly tormented by one question. Why, why did Pushkin assign his beloved heroine to be 13 years old? All his other heroines in love were older. Dunya, daughter stationmaster, ran away with a hussar after 14 years. The peasant young lady Liza, Dubrovsky’s beloved Masha Troekurova, Marya Gavrilovna from “The Snowstorm” turned 17. The captain's daughter Masha is all 18. And here...

And suddenly it dawned on me! Yes, he deliberately made Tatyana so young! If Onegin had rejected the love of 17-year-old Larina, questions could really arise for him. Callous man! But it was precisely at her young age that Pushkin was able to emphasize the morality of his beloved hero, whom he largely copied from himself. So, maybe sexologist Kotrovsky really is right?

"is rightly called the "encyclopedia of Russian life." The author reflected in it the life of various layers of Russian society, accurately and expressively illuminated the features of the economy and culture of Russia of his time. And yet, first of all, this is a novel about the spiritual quest of noble youth, of which Eugene Onegin was a prominent representative. She painfully searched for her place in life, expressing her protest by demonstrative non-participation in official social institutions.

Reality of the image The author repeatedly emphasized Eugene and his spiritual closeness on the pages of the novel: “Onegin, my good friend,” “I liked his features: involuntary devotion to dreams, non-imitative strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind.” Eugene Onegin was born in St. Petersburg into a bankrupt aristocratic family, and received a typical secular upbringing and education:

• 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 this assessment the unpretentiousness of an aristocratic society is emphasized, requiring only compliance with the external attributes of the level of civilized communication: knowledge of French, dancing, bowing, grace and the ability to maintain small talk. But Pushkin, critically assessing the typical noble education (“we all learned a little something and somehow”), paid tribute to Onegin’s interest in certain sciences. His knowledge of ancient literature was rather mediocre; Onegin did not understand poetic technique at all, but was interested in political economy, understood the economic laws of social development, and, following the progressive bourgeois economist Adam Smith, believed that money is dead capital.

Onegin in his youth led the usual lifestyle for “golden youth”: night balls, sleeping until lunch, theaters, restaurants, love affairs, walks along Nevsky Prospekt. Despite the success in secular salons and the indulgence of St. Petersburg beauties, the “fun and luxurious child” soon realized that his life was “monotonous and colorful”, and critically assessed the lack of spirituality and emptiness of idle pastime. All this dried out his soul, dulled his senses, did not provide food for his sharp mind - melancholy and disappointment took possession of Evgeniy.

Illness, whose cause would have been found long ago,” it’s time, similar to the English spleen, In short: the Russian melancholy took possession of him little by little... Onegin is disgusted by the monotony of this colorful celebration of life, his active nature craves creation, and not consumer use of the fruits of civilization. Eugene tried to put his views on paper, “but he was sick of hard work; nothing came from his pen.” The lack of habit of systematic work, the inability to overcome oneself - the costs of a disorderly upbringing - did not allow Onegin to engage in creativity. Then, “devoted to idleness, languishing in spiritual emptiness,” Eugene tried in books to find answers to the questions tormenting him about the meaning of life, the purpose of man, methods of self-realization, but the grains of wisdom scattered in the fruits of the “alien mind” were so small and rare that collecting them seemed useless to the hero. Onegin painfully seeks a way out of his mental crisis, tries to understand how to give meaning to life, fill it with real content, but cannot overcome a critical perception of reality, and criticism, as a rule, is not constructive:

• First Onegin's language
• I was embarrassed; but I'm used to it
• To his caustic argument,
• And as a joke, with bile in half,
• And the anger of gloomy epigrams.

Evgeny Onegin in terms of intellectual development, of course, he is above his environment and cannot limit himself to the vegetable existence of the “golden youth”, but he also cannot break out of the system, since he does not know an alternative social doctrine. V, G. appreciated it that way moral state hero, the psychological origins of his mental anxiety: “The inactivity and vulgarity of life choke him, he doesn’t even know what he needs, what he wants, but he... knows very well what he doesn’t need, what he doesn’t want, what he’s so happy with, so happy is self-loving mediocrity.”

Having inherited his uncle’s estate, Onegin was very glad that he “changed his previous path for something”: he enjoyed the contemplation of peaceful nature and “village silence.” But the feeling of internal dissatisfaction, the awareness of the lack of spirituality of the landowner’s way of life, “where a village old-timer of forty years old scolded his housekeeper, looked out the window and crushed flies,” again renewed attacks of melancholy in him. Trying to diversify his life, languishing from boredom and inactivity, Onegin carried out social transformations accessible to him:

• In his wilderness the desert sage,
• He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
• I replaced it with easy quitrent;
• And the slave blessed fate.

Despite On progressive economic views, Onegin did not attach much importance to his transformations: the life of the serf peasantry did not really worry the newly-minted reformer. Of course, he made life easier for his subjects, which aroused the critical attitude of prudent neighbors, and he did this for reasons of justice and taking into account modern views on the effectiveness of liberated labor. But for the hero’s disappointed soul, this noble act did not become salvation, the beginning of overcoming the crisis and turning to an active life. But he is too busy with his mental torment, too turned inward for a specific life goal to become decisive and absorb him entirely.

Having met With the young enthusiastic poet Vladimir Lensky, a neighbor on the estate, Onegin, “even though he, of course, knew people and generally despised them,” became close friends with him. was the complete opposite of Onegin: ardent, dreamy, “he was ignorant at heart,” “he believed that his friends were ready to accept chains for his honor.” The youthful enthusiasm and idealism of the poet was alien to the disappointed, sophisticated egoist. But the rejection of the soulless, mundane world of the district nobility made Onegin related to Lensky. They endlessly argued about the most complex problems of existence, and Onegin listened to Vladimir’s enthusiastic speech with a smile of superiority, and partly with envy at the freshness of feelings and spontaneity of spiritual impulses.