How the novel Eugene Onegin was created. Creativity of the Decembrist poets

03.03.2020

A. S. Pushkin wrote the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” intermittently for about nine years. It is the poet's most famous work. Why? Perhaps because it was included in the school curriculum, and all the children, before and after, crammed “I am writing to you, why more,” or maybe because of the abundance of aphoristic lines that became catchphrases: “love for all ages humble”, “we all learned a little”; it is also stated that “Eugene Onegin” is “the most important part of our cultural code, the one that allows us to speak the same language, to equally understand the same jokes, allusions and comparisons.” Whether this is so or otherwise, everyone has their own opinion, but the fact remains that “Eugene Onegin” is a great work by a great poet.

The plot of "Eugene Onegin"

Pushkin was a gentleman and an aristocrat. His hero Eugene Onegin is a typical representative of the same circle. That is, when describing Onegin’s everyday life in St. Petersburg and in the countryside, Pushkin relied on his own experience and was guided by his own life observations. That is why the novel contains so many everyday details of the customs of the capital and provincial Russian nobility of the first third of the 19th century. It’s not for nothing that the literary critic V. Belinsky called “Eugene Onegin” “an encyclopedia of Russian life”, and the main character of the novel “a suffering egoist... an involuntary egoist, (cold) to fruitless passions and petty entertainments”
Any literary work is unthinkable without a love story. In “Eugene Onegin” she is in the relationship between Onegin and Tatyana Larina. First, the girl falls in love with Evgeniy, but turns out to be unnecessary for him, then he seeks reciprocity, but Tatyana is already married
Another plot line of the novel is the conflict between friends Onegin and Lensky, which ended in a duel.

Description of the novel “Eugene Onegin”

The novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" consists of eight chapters, each with 40-60 stanzas (a stanza - 14 lines). The longest chapter is the first - 60 stanzas, the shortest second - 40. In the canonical text of the novel, Pushkin did not include a chapter about Onegin’s journey; it was published specially with a preface by the poet: “The author frankly admits that he omitted an entire chapter from his novel, in which Onegin's journey through Russia was described... P. A. Katenin noticed to us that this exception... harms... the plan of the essay; for through this the transition from Tatiana, a district young lady, to Tatiana, a noble lady, becomes too unexpected and inexplicable. The author himself felt the justice of this, but decided to publish this chapter for reasons that were important to him, and not to the public.” The chapter about Onegin's journey through Russia was the eighth. Pushkin transferred some of the stanzas from it to the chapter following “Wandering” - the ninth, which eventually became the eighth. In 1830, before the exclusion of “Wanderings,” Pushkin wrote the tenth chapter, but in the same year, in prison, he burned it. From this chapter, only the first quatrains of fourteen stanzas, written in a special font, have reached us, for example:

The ruler is weak and crafty
The bald dandy, the enemy of labor
Accidentally warmed by fame
He ruled over us then
…………………….

Roman A.S. Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” is a very powerful poetic work that tells about love, character, selfishness and, in general, about Russia and the life of its people. It took almost 7.5 years to create (from May 9, 1823 to September 25, 1830), becoming a real feat in literary creativity for the poet. Before him, only Byron dared to write a novel in verse.

First chapter

The work began during Pushkin's stay in Chisinau. For her, the poet even came up with his own special style, later called the “Onegin stanza”: the first 4 lines rhyme crosswise, the next 3 - in pairs, from 9 to 12 - through a ring rhyme, the last 2 are consonant with each other. The first chapter was completed in Odessa, 5 months after it began.

After writing, the original text was revised several times by the poet. Pushkin added new and removed old stanzas from an already completed chapter. It was published in February 1825.

Chapter two

The initial 17 stanzas of the second chapter were created by November 3, 1923, and the last ones by December 8, 1923. At this time, Pushkin was still serving under Count Vorontsov. In 1824, being already in Russia, he carefully revised and completed it. The work was published in printed form in October 1826, and was published in May 1830. Interestingly, the same month was marked by another event for the poet - the long-awaited engagement to.

Chapters three and four

Pushkin wrote the next two chapters from February 8, 1824 to January 6, 1825. The work, especially towards completion, was carried out intermittently. The reason is simple - the poet wrote at that time, as well as several fairly famous poems. The third chapter was published in printed form in 1827, and the fourth, dedicated to the poet P. Pletnev (a friend of Pushkin), was published in 1828, already in a revised form.

Chapters five, six and seven

The subsequent chapters were written in about 2 years - from January 4, 1826 to November 4, 1828. They appeared in printed form: part 5 - January 31, 1828, March 6 - 22, 1828, March 7 - 18, 1830 (in the form of a separate book).

Interesting facts are connected with the fifth chapter of the novel: Pushkin first lost it at cards, then won it back, and then completely lost the manuscript. Only a phenomenal memory saved the situation: Lev had already read the chapter and was able to reconstruct it from memory.

Chapter Eight

Pushkin began working on this part at the end of 1829 (December 24), during his trip along the Georgian Military Road. The poet finished it on September 25, 1830, already in Boldin. About a year later, in Tsarskoe Selo, he writes that she got married. On January 20, 1832, the chapter was published in printed form. On the title page it says that it is the last, the work is completed.

Chapter about Evgeny Onegin's trip to the Caucasus

This part has come to us in the form of small excerpts published in the Moskovsky Vestnik (in 1827) and the Literary Gazette (in 1830). According to the opinions of Pushkin’s contemporaries, the poet wanted to tell in it about Eugene Onegin’s trip to the Caucasus and his death there during a duel. But, for unknown reasons, he never completed this chapter.

The novel "Eugene Onegin" in its entirety was published in one book in 1833. The reprint was carried out in 1837. Although the novel received edits, they were very minor. Today the novel by A.S. Pushkin is studied at school and at philological faculties. It is positioned as one of the first works in which the author managed to reveal all the pressing problems of his time.

Jan 24 2011

The novel “Eugene Onegin” was written by Pushkin over the course of 8 years. It describes the events of the first quarter of the 19th century, that is, the time of creation and the time of action of the novel approximately coincide. Reading it, we understand that it is unique, because previously there was not a single novel in verse in the world. The lyric-epic genre of the work involves the interweaving of two plots - the epic, whose main characters are Onegin and Tatyana, and the lyrical, where the main character is a character called the Author, that is, the lyrical hero of the novel. “Eugene Onegin” is a realistic novel. The method of realism presupposes the absence of a predetermined, initial clear plan for the development of the action: the images of the heroes develop not simply at the will of the author, the development is determined by the psychological and historical features that are embedded in the images. Concluding Chapter VIII, he himself emphasizes this feature of the novel:

And the distance of a free romance
Me through a magic crystal
It was still unclear.

Having defined the novel as “a collection of motley chapters,” Pushkin emphasizes another essential feature of a realistic work: the novel is, as it were, “open” in time, each chapter could be the last, but it could also have a continuation. Thus, the reader’s attention is focused on the independent value of each chapter.

What makes this novel unique is that the breadth of reality, the multiplicity of plots, the description of the distinctive features of the era, its color acquired such significance and authenticity that the novel became an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 20s of the last century. By reading the novel, we, as in an encyclopedia, can learn everything about that era: how they dressed and what was in fashion (Onegin’s “wide bolivar” and Tatiana’s crimson beret), the menu of prestigious restaurants, what was shown in the theater (Didelot’s ballets).

Throughout the action of the novel and in lyrical digressions, the poet shows all layers of Russian society of that time: the high society of St. Petersburg, noble Moscow, the local nobility, the peasantry. This allows us to talk about “Eugene Onegin” as a truly folk work. Petersburg at that time gathered the best minds in Russia. Fonvizin “shone there”, people of art - Knyazhin, Istomina. The author knew and loved St. Petersburg well, he is accurate in his descriptions, not forgetting either the “salt of secular anger” or “the necessary impudence.” Through the eyes of a capital resident, Moscow is also shown to us - the “bride fair”. Describing the Moscow nobility, Pushkin is often sarcastic: in the living rooms he notices “incoherent, vulgar nonsense.” But at the same time, he loves Moscow, the heart of Russia: “Moscow... how much has merged in this sound for the Russian heart” (it should be doubly pleasant for a Muscovite to read such lines).

The poet's contemporary Russia is rural. This is probably why the gallery of characters from the landed nobility in the novel is the most representative. Let's look at the characters presented to us by Pushkin. Handsome Lensky, “with a soul straight from Göttingen,” is a romantic of the German type, “an admirer of Kant.” But Lensky's poems are imitative. They are parodic through and through, but they parody not individual authors, but the cliches of romanticism themselves. Tatyana’s mother is quite tragic: “Without asking for advice, the girl was taken to the crown.” She “was torn and cried at first,” but replaced it with a habit: “I picked mushrooms for the winter, kept track of expenses, shaved my foreheads.” The poet gives a colorful description of the retired adviser Flyanov: “A heavy gossip, an old jester, a glutton, a bribe-taker and a rogue.” The appearance of Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” had a huge impact on the further development of Russian literature. It is also important that the main character of the novel, as it were, opens a whole gallery of “superfluous people” in Russian literature: Pechorin and Oblomov will continue it.

With the title of the novel, Pushkin emphasizes the central position of Onegin among other heroes of the work. Onegin is a secular young metropolitan aristocrat who received a typical upbringing for that time under the guidance of a French tutor in the spirit of literature, divorced from national and popular soil. He leads the lives of “golden youth”: balls, walks along Nevsky Prospect, visiting theaters. Although Onegin studied “something and somehow,” he still has a high level of culture, differing in this respect from the majority of noble society. Pushkin's hero is a product of this society, but at the same time he is alien to it. His nobility of soul and “sharp, chilled mind” set him apart from the aristocratic youth, gradually leading to disappointment in the life and interests of secular society, to dissatisfaction with the political and social situation: No, his feelings cooled down early, He was bored with the noise of the world...

The emptiness of life torments Onegin, he is overcome by melancholy and boredom, and he leaves secular society, trying to engage in socially useful activities. The lordly upbringing and lack of habit of work (“he was sick of persistent work”) played their role, and Onegin does not complete any of his undertakings. He lives “without purpose, without work.” In the village, Onegin behaves humanely towards the peasants, but he does not think about their fate, he is more tormented by his own moods, the feeling of the emptiness of life.

Having broken with secular society and being cut off from the life of the people, he loses touch with people. He rejects the love of Tatyana Larina, a gifted, morally pure girl, having failed to unravel the depths of her needs and the uniqueness of her nature. Onegin kills his friend Lensky, succumbing to class prejudices, afraid of “the whispers, the laughter of fools.” In a depressed state of mind, Onegin leaves the village and begins wandering around Russia. These wanderings give him the opportunity to look at life more fully, reevaluate his attitude to the surrounding reality, and understand how fruitlessly he wasted his life. Onegin returns to the capital and encounters the same picture of the life of secular society. His love for Tatyana, now a married woman, flares up in him. But Tatyana unraveled the selfishness and selfishness underlying feelings for her, and rejects Onegin’s love. Through Onegin’s love for Tatyana, Pushkin emphasizes that his hero is capable of moral rebirth, that this is a person who has not cooled down to everything, the forces of life are still boiling in him, which, according to the poet’s plan, was supposed to awaken in Onegin the desire for social activity.

The image of Evgeny Onegin opens up a whole gallery of “extra people.” Following Pushkin, the images of Pechorin, Oblomov, Rudin, and Laevsky were created. All these images are an artistic reflection of Russian reality.

“Eugene Onegin” is a realistic novel in verse, since it presented the reader with truly living images of Russian people of the early 19th century. The novel provides a broad artistic generalization of the main trends in Russian social development. One can say about the novel in the words of the poet himself - it is one in which “the century and modern man are reflected.” V. G. Belinsky called Pushkin’s novel “The Encyclopedia of Russian Life.”

In this novel, as in an encyclopedia, you can learn everything about the era, about the culture of that time: about how they dressed and what was in fashion (“wide bolivar”, tailcoat, Onegin’s vest, Tatiana’s crimson beret), menus of prestigious restaurants (“ bloody steak”, cheese, fizzy ai, champagne, Strasbourg pie), what was on in the theater (Diderot’s ballets), who performed (dancer Istomina). You can even create the exact daily routine of a young man. No wonder P. A. Pletnev, a friend of Pushkin, wrote about the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin”: “Your Onegin will be a pocket mirror of Russian youth.”

Petersburg at that time was the habitat of the best people in Russia - the Decembrists, writers. There “shone Fonvizin, a friend of freedom,” people of art - Knyazhnin, Istomina. The author knew and loved St. Petersburg well, he is precise in his descriptions, not forgetting “the salt of secular anger,” “nor the necessary fools,” “starched impudents,” and the like.

Through the eyes of a capital resident, Moscow is shown to us - the “bride fair”. Moscow is provincial, somewhat patriarchal. Describing the Moscow nobility, Pushkin is often sarcastic: in the living rooms he notices “incoherent vulgar nonsense.” But at the same time, the poet loves Moscow, the heart of Russia: “Moscow... How much has merged in this sound for the Russian heart.” He is proud of Moscow in 12: “In vain did Napoleon, intoxicated with his last happiness, wait for Moscow on its knees with the keys of the old Kremlin.”

The poet's contemporary Russia is rural, and he emphasizes this with a play on words in the epigraph to the second chapter. This is probably why the gallery of characters from the landed nobility in the novel is the most representative. Let's try to consider the main types of landowners shown by Pushkin. As a comparison immediately suggests itself with another great study of Russian life of the 19th century - Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”.

Handsome Lensky, “with a soul straight from Gottingham,” a romantic of the German type, “an admirer of Kant,” if he had not died in a duel, could, in the author’s opinion, have the future of a great poet, or in twenty years turn into a kind of Manilov and end his life as old Larin or Uncle Onegin.

The tenth chapter of Onegin is entirely devoted to the Decembrists. Pushkin unites himself with the Decembrists Lunin and Yakushkin, foreseeing “in this crowd of nobles the liberators of the peasants.” The appearance of Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” had a huge impact on the further development of Russian literature. The soulful lyricism inherent in the novel has become an integral feature of “The Noble Nest”, “And the World”, “The Cherry Orchard”. It is also important that the main character of the novel, as it were, opens a whole gallery of “superfluous people” in Russian literature: Pechorin, Rudin, Oblomov.

Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "Creative history of the creation of the novel "Eugene Onegin". Literary essays!

The novel “Eugene Onegin” is a work of amazing creative destiny. It was created for more than seven years - from May 1823 to September 1830. But work on the text did not stop until the appearance of the first complete edition in 1833. The last author's version of the novel was published in 1837. Pushkin has no works that would have an equally long creative history. The novel was not written “in one breath,” but was composed of stanzas and chapters created at different times, in different circumstances, in different periods of creativity. Work on the novel covers four periods of Pushkin’s work - from southern exile to the Boldino autumn of 1830.

The work was interrupted not only by the twists of Pushkin’s fate and new plans for the sake of which he abandoned the text of Eugene Onegin. Some poems (“Demon”, “Desert Sower of Freedom...”) arose from drafts of the novel. In the drafts of the second chapter (written in 1824), Horace’s verse “Exegi monumentum” flashed, which 12 years later became the epigraph to the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...”. It seemed that history itself was not very kind to Pushkin’s work: from a novel about a contemporary and modern life, as the poet intended “Eugene Onegin,” after 1825 it became a novel about a different historical era. The “internal chronology” of the novel covers about 6 years - from 1819 to the spring of 1825.

All chapters were published from 1825 to 1832 as independent parts of a larger work and, even before the completion of the novel, became facts of the literary process. Perhaps, if we take into account the fragmentary, intermittent nature of Pushkin’s work, it can be argued that the novel was for him something like a huge “notebook” or a poetic “album” (“notebooks” is what the poet himself sometimes calls the chapters of the novel). Over the course of more than seven years, the records were replenished with sad “notes” of the heart and “observations” of a cold mind.

It was covered with writing and drawings

Onegin's hand all around,

Between the incomprehensible mess

Thoughts, remarks flashed,

Portraits, numbers, names,

Yes letters, the secrets of writing,

Excerpts, draft letters...

The first chapter, published in 1825, pointed to Eugene Onegin as the main character of the planned work. However, from the very beginning of work on the “big poem,” the author needed the figure of Onegin not only to express his ideas about “modern man.” There was another goal: Onegin was intended to play the role of a central character who, like a magnet, would “attract” diverse life and literary material. The silhouette of Onegin and the silhouettes of other characters, the barely outlined plot lines gradually became clearer as we worked on the novel. From under the thick layers of rough notes, the contours of the destinies and characters of Onegin, Tatyana Larina, Lensky appeared (“drawn in”), and a unique image was created - the image of the Author.

The novel “Eugene Onegin” is Pushkin’s most difficult work, despite its apparent lightness and simplicity. V.G. Belinsky called “Eugene Onegin” “an encyclopedia of Russian life,” emphasizing the scale of Pushkin’s “many years of work.” This is not critical praise of the novel, but its succinct metaphor. Behind the “variegation” of chapters and stanzas, the change in narration techniques, hides the harmonious concept of a fundamentally innovative literary work - a “novel of life”, which has absorbed a huge amount of socio-historical, everyday, literary material.

This feature of the novel was noticed by its first critics. So, N.I. Nadezhdin, denying him unity and harmony of presentation, correctly defined the external appearance of the work - “a poetic album of living impressions of talent playing with its wealth.” An interesting “image-summary” of “Eugene Onegin”, complementing Pushkin’s judgments about the “free” novel, can be seen in the crossed out stanza of the seventh chapter, where it was said about Onegin’s album:

It was covered with writing and drawings

Onegin's hand all around,

Between the incomprehensible mess

Thoughts, remarks flashed,

Portraits, numbers, names,

Yes letters, the secrets of writing,

Excerpts, draft letters...

The Author's portrait is hidden. Try to imagine his appearance - except for a white spot, nothing will appear in front of you. We know a lot about the Author - about his fate and spiritual world, about literary views and even about the wines that he loves. But the Author in “Eugene Onegin” is a man without a face, without appearance, without a name.

The author is the narrator and at the same time the “hero” of the novel. The Author reflects the personality of the creator of “Eugene Onegin”. Pushkin gave him much of what he experienced, felt and changed his mind. However, identifying the Author with Pushkin is a grave mistake. It must be remembered that the Author is an artistic image. The relationship between the Author in Eugene Onegin and Pushkin, the creator of the novel, is exactly the same as between the image of any person in a literary work and his prototype in real life. The image of the Author is autobiographical, it is the image of a person whose “biography” partially coincides with the real biography of Pushkin, and the spiritual world and views on literature are a reflection of Pushkin’s.

Studying a novel requires a special approach: you must first of all carefully re-read it, having a commentary at hand (for example, the book by Y.M. Lotman “A.S. Pushkin’s Novel “Eugene Onegin.” Commentary”), find out the history of its creation, and achieve the most complete understanding text: it contains many realities, allusions and allegories that require explanation. You should study the structure of the novel (dedication, epigraphs, sequence and content of chapters, the nature of the narrative, interrupted by the author's digressions, author's notes). Only after this can one begin to study the main images of the novel, plot and composition, system of characters, author’s digressions and the image of the Author.

The innovation of the “novel in verse” was manifested primarily in the fact that Pushkin found a new type of problematic hero - the “hero of the time.” Evgeny Onegin became such a hero. His fate, character, relationships with people are determined by the totality of the circumstances of modern reality, extraordinary personal qualities and the range of “eternal”, universal problems that he faces.

Onegin's personality was formed in the St. Petersburg secular environment. In a detailed background (chapter one), Pushkin noted the main social factors that determined his character. This is belonging to the highest stratum of the nobility, upbringing, training, usual for this circle, the first steps in the world, the experience of a “monotonous and motley” life for eight years. The life of a “free” nobleman, not burdened with service, is vain, carefree, full of entertainment and love affairs, fits into one tiringly long day. Onegin in his early youth is “a fun and luxurious child,” “a kind fellow, / Like you and me, like the whole world.”

At this stage of his life, Onegin is an original person in his own way, witty, a “learned fellow,” but still quite ordinary, obediently following the secular “decent crowd.” The only thing in which Onegin “was a true genius”, that “he knew more firmly than all sciences,” as the Author notes, not without irony, was the “science of tender passion,” that is, the “art” of loving without loving, imitating feelings and passions, while remaining cold and prudent. However, Onegin is interesting to Pushkin not as a representative of a common social and everyday type, the whole essence of which is exhausted by a positive characteristic given out by the light-wasp rumor: “N. N. is a wonderful person.”

Onegin's character and life are shown in movement and development. In the first chapter, we see a turning point in his fate: he was able to abandon the stereotypes of secular behavior, from the noisy, but internally empty “rite of life.” Pushkin showed how a bright, extraordinary personality suddenly emerged from a faceless crowd that demanded unconditional obedience. Social instinct prompted the poet that it is not life “on the old model”, but precisely the ability to overthrow the “burden” of its conditions, to “get behind the bustle” - the main sign of a modern person.

Onegin's seclusion - his undeclared conflict with the world in the first chapter and with the society of village landowners in the second through sixth chapters - only at first glance seems to be a “quirk” caused by purely individual reasons: boredom, “Russian blues”, disappointment in the “science of tender passion” . This is a new stage in the hero's life. Pushkin emphasizes that Onegin’s “inimitable strangeness” is a kind of protest against social and spiritual dogmas that suppress a person’s personality, depriving him of the right to be himself. The emptiness of the hero's soul was a consequence of the emptiness and emptiness of secular life. Onegin is looking for new spiritual values, a new path: in St. Petersburg and in the village he diligently reads books, tries to write, communicates with a few like-minded people (among them are the Author and Lensky). In the village, he even tried to “establish a new order” by replacing corvee with “light rent.”

Pushkin does not simplify his hero. The search for new life truths lasted for many years and remained unfinished. The internal drama of this process is obvious: Onegin is painfully freed from the burden of old ideas about life and people, but the past does not let him go. It seems that Onegin is the rightful master of his own life. But this is just an illusion. In St. Petersburg and in the countryside, he is equally bored - he still cannot overcome spiritual laziness, cold skepticism, demonism, and dependence on “public opinion.”

The hero is by no means a victim of society and circumstances. By changing his lifestyle, he accepted responsibility for his destiny. His actions depend on his determination, will, and faith in people. However, having abandoned secular vanity, Onegin became not a figure, but a contemplator. The feverish pursuit of pleasure gave way to solitary thoughts. The two tests that awaited him in the village - the test of love and the test of friendship - showed that external freedom does not automatically entail liberation from false prejudices and opinions.

In his relationship with Tatyana, Onegin showed himself to be a noble and mentally sensitive person. He managed to see in the “maiden in love” genuine and sincere feelings, living, and not bookish passions. You cannot blame the hero for not responding to Tatyana’s love: as you know, you cannot order your heart. But the fact is that Onegin listened not to the voice of his heart, but to the voice of reason. Even in the first chapter, the Author noted in Onegin a “sharp, chilled mind” and an inability to have strong feelings. Onegin is a cold, rational person. This mental disproportion became the cause of the drama of failed love. Onegin does not believe in love and is not capable of loving. The meaning of love is exhausted for him by the “science of tender passion” or the “home circle” that limits human freedom.

Onegin also could not stand the test of friendship. And in this case, the cause of the tragedy was his inability to live a life of feeling. It is not for nothing that the author, commenting on the hero’s state before the duel, notes: “He could have discovered his feelings, / Instead of bristling like an animal.” Both at Tatiana’s name day and before the duel, Onegin showed himself to be a “ball of prejudice,” deaf to both the voice of his own heart and Lensky’s feelings. His behavior at the name day is the usual “secular anger”, and the duel is a consequence of indifference and fear of the evil tongue of the “old duelist” Zaretsky and the neighboring landowners. Onegin did not notice how he became a prisoner of his old idol - “public opinion.” After the murder of Lensky, Onegin was overcome by “anguish of heartfelt remorse.” Only tragedy could open to him a previously inaccessible world of feelings.

In the eighth chapter, Pushkin showed a new stage in the spiritual development of Onegin. Having met Tatiana in St. Petersburg, Onegin was completely transformed. There is nothing left in him of the former, cold and rational person - he is an ardent lover, not noticing anything except the object of his love (and in this he is very reminiscent of Lensky). Onegin experienced real feeling for the first time, but it turned into a new love drama: now Tatyana was unable to respond to his belated love. A unique explanation of the psychological state of Onegin in love, his inevitable love drama, is the author’s digression “All ages are submissive to love...” (stanza XXIX). As before, in the foreground in the characterization of the hero is the relationship between reason and feeling. Now the mind has already been defeated - Onegin loves, “without heeding the mind to strict penalties.” He “almost went crazy / Or didn’t become a poet,” the Author notes, not without irony. In the eighth chapter there are no results of the spiritual development of the hero, who believed in love and happiness. Onegin did not achieve the desired goal; there is still no harmony in him between feeling and reason. Pushkin leaves his character open, unfinished, emphasizing Onegin’s very ability to abruptly change value orientations and, note, readiness for action, for action.

Notice how often the Author reflects on love and friendship, on the relationship between lovers and friends. For Pushkin, love and friendship are two touchstones on which a person is tested; they reveal the richness of the soul or its emptiness. Onegin closed himself off from the false values of the “empty light”, despising their false shine, but neither in St. Petersburg nor in the village did he discover true values - universal values. The author showed how difficult it is for a person to move towards simple and understandable, seemingly life truths, what tests he must go through in order to understand - both with his mind and heart - the greatness and significance of love and friendship. From class limitations and prejudices instilled by upbringing and an idle life, through rational demonic nihilism, which denies not only false, but also genuine life values, to the discovery of love, the high world of feelings - this is the path of the hero’s spiritual development that Pushkin draws.

Lensky and Tatyana Larina are not only plot partners of the title character. These are full-blooded images of contemporaries, whose fate also “reflected the century.”

Romanticist and poet Lensky seems to be the spiritual and social antipode of Onegin, an exceptional hero, completely divorced from everyday life, from Russian life. Everyday inexperience, the ardor of love feelings for Olga, “rivers” of elegies written in the spirit of “sad romanticism” - all this separates the eighteen-year-old landowner from the former St. Petersburg rake. The author, reporting on their acquaintance, first raises the differences between them to an absolute degree (“They came together. Wave and stone, / Poetry and prose, ice and fire / Are not so different from each other”), but immediately points out that exactly “mutual diversity” they liked each other. A paradoxical friendship “with nothing to do” arose.

Not only extremes united the heroes - they have a lot in common. Onegin and Lensky are alienated from the landowner environment, each of them expresses one of the tendencies of Russian spiritual life: Onegin - disappointment and skepticism, Lensky - romantic dreaminess and impulse towards the ideal. Both trends are part of European spiritual development. Onegin's idols are Byron and Napoleon. Lensky is a fan of Kant and Schiller. Lensky is also looking for the purpose of life: “the purpose of our life for him / Was a tempting riddle, / He puzzled over it / And he suspected miracles.” And most importantly, Lensky’s character, like Onegin’s character, is disharmonious and incomplete. The sensitive Lensky is as far from Pushkin's ideal of human harmony as the rationalist Onegin.

With Lensky, the novel includes themes of youth, friendship, heartfelt “ignorance,” devotion to feelings, youthful courage and nobility. In an effort to protect Olga from the “corrupter,” the hero is mistaken, but this is a sincere mistake. Lensky is a poet (another poet in the novel is the Author himself), and although the author’s commentary on his poems contains a lot of irony, good-natured ridicule, and teasing, the Author notes in them the authenticity of feelings and wit:

Lensky writes not madrigals

In the album Olga is young;

His pen breathes with love,

It does not coolly shine with sharpness;

Whatever he notices or hears

About Olga, he writes about this:

And, full of living truth,

Elegies flow like a river.

The unusual character of the hero is explained by the author from a social position. Lensky’s soul did not fade from the “cold depravity of the world”; he was brought up not only in “foggy Germany”, but also in the Russian village. There is more Russian in the “half-Russian” dreamer Lensky than in the crowd of surrounding landowners. The author writes with sadness about his death, twice (in the sixth and seventh chapters) he leads the reader to his grave. What saddens the Author is not only the death of Lensky, but also the possible impoverishment of youthful romanticism, the hero’s growing into the inert environment of the landowners. The fates of the lover of sentimental novels, Praskovya Larina, and the “village old-timer”, Uncle Onegin, ironically “rhyme” with this version of Lensky’s fate.

Tatyana Larina - “dear Ideal” of the Author. He does not hide his sympathy for the heroine, emphasizing her sincerity, depth of feelings and experiences, innocence and devotion to love. Her personality manifests itself in the sphere of love and family relationships. Like Onegin, she can be called a “genius of love.” Tatyana is a participant in the main plot action, in which her role is comparable to the role of Onegin.

Tatyana's character, just like Onegin's character, is dynamic and developing. People usually pay attention to the sharp change in her social status and appearance in the last chapter: instead of a village young lady, spontaneous and open, a majestic and cold society lady, a princess, “legislator of the hall” appeared before Onegin. Her inner world is closed from the reader: Tatiana does not utter a word until her final monologue. The author also keeps the “secret” about her soul, limiting herself to the “visual” characteristics of the heroine (“How harsh! / She doesn’t see him, not a word with him; / Oh! how she is now surrounded / by Epiphany cold!”). However, the eighth chapter shows the third, final stage of the heroine’s spiritual development. Her character changes significantly already in the “village” chapters. These changes are connected with her attitude towards love, towards Onegin, and with ideas about duty.

In the second through fifth chapters, Tatyana appears as an internally contradictory person. It combines genuine feelings and sensitivity inspired by sentimental novels. The author, characterizing the heroine, points first of all to her reading range. Novels, the author emphasizes, “replaced everything” for her. Indeed, dreamy, alienated from her friends, so unlike Olga, Tatyana perceives everything around her as an unwritten novel, and imagines herself as the heroine of her favorite books. The abstraction of Tatyana’s dreams is shaded by a book-everyday parallel - the biography of her mother, who in her youth was also “crazy about Richardson”, loved “Grandison”, but, having married “involuntarily”, “torn and cried at first”, and then turned into an ordinary landowner. Tatyana, who was expecting “someone” similar to the heroes of the novels, saw in Onegin just such a hero. “But our hero, whoever he was, / Surely was not Grandison,” the Author sneers. The behavior of Tatiana in love is based on novel models known to her. Her letter, written in French, is an echo of the love letters of the heroines of the novels. The author translates Tatyana’s letter, but his role as a “translator” is not limited to this: he is constantly forced to free the heroine’s true feelings from the captivity of book templates.

A revolution in Tatiana's fate occurs in the seventh chapter. External changes in her life are only a consequence of the complex process that took place in her soul after Onegin’s departure. She was finally convinced of her “optical” deception. Reconstructing Onegin’s appearance from the “traces” left in his estate, she realized that her lover was an extremely mysterious and strange man, but not at all the one she took him for. The main result of Tatiana’s “research” was her love not for a literary chimera, but for the real Onegin. She completely freed herself from bookish ideas about life. Finding herself in new circumstances, not hoping for a new meeting and reciprocity from her lover, Tatyana makes a decisive moral choice: she agrees to go to Moscow and get married. Note that this is the free choice of the heroine, for whom “all lots were equal.” She loves Onegin, but voluntarily submits to her duty to her family. Thus, Tatyana’s words in the last monologue are “But I was given to another; / I will be faithful to him forever” - news for Onegin, but not for the reader: the heroine only confirmed the choice made earlier.

We should not simplify the question of the influence of the new circumstances of her life on Tatyana’s character. In the last episode of the novel, the contrast between secular and “domestic” Tatiana becomes obvious: “Who wouldn’t recognize the old Tanya, poor Tanya / Now in the princess!” However, the heroine’s monologue testifies not only to the fact that she retained her former spiritual qualities, loyalty to her love for Onegin and her marital duty. “A Lesson to Onegin” is full of unfair remarks and ridiculous assumptions. Tatyana does not understand the hero’s feelings, seeing in his love only social intrigue, a desire to lower her honor in the eyes of society, accusing him of self-interest. Onegin’s love is “small” for her, “a petty feeling,” and in him she sees only the slave of this feeling. Once again, as once in the village, Tatyana sees and “does not recognize” the real Onegin. Her false idea of him is generated by the world, by that “oppressive dignity”, the methods of which, as the Author noted, she “soon accepted.” Tatyana's monologue reflects her inner drama. The meaning of this drama is not in the choice between love for Onegin and loyalty to her husband, but in the “corrosion” of feelings that occurred in the heroine under the influence of secular society. Tatyana lives by memories and is not able to even believe in the sincerity of the person who loves her. The disease from which Onegin was so painfully freed also struck Tatyana. “Empty light,” as the wise Author reminds us, is hostile to any manifestation of living, human feeling.

The main characters of “Eugene Onegin” are free from predicament and monolinearity. Pushkin refuses to see in them the embodiment of vices or “examples of perfection.” The novel consistently implements new principles for depicting heroes. The author will make it clear that he does not have ready answers to all the questions about their destinies, characters, and psychology. Rejecting the traditional Roma role of an “omniscient” narrator, he “hesitates,” “doubts,” and is sometimes inconsistent in his judgments and assessments. The author invites the reader to complete the portraits of the characters, imagine their behavior, and try to look at them from a different, unexpected point of view. For this purpose, numerous “pauses” (missing lines and stanzas) were introduced into the novel. The reader must “recognize” the characters, correlate them with his own life, with his thoughts, feelings, habits, superstitions, books and magazines read.

The appearance of Onegin, Tatyana Larina, Lensky is formed not only from the characteristics, observations and assessments of the Author - the creator of the novel, but also from gossip, gossip, and rumors. Each hero appears in the aura of public opinion, reflecting the points of view of a variety of people: friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighboring landowners, secular gossips. Society is the source of rumors about heroes. For the author, this is a rich set of everyday “optics”, which he turns into artistic “optics”. The reader is invited to choose the view of the hero that is closer to him and seems the most reliable and convincing. The author, recreating the picture of opinions, reserves the right to place the necessary accents and gives the reader social and moral guidelines.

"Eugene Onegin" looks like an improvisation novel. The effect of a casual conversation with the reader is created primarily by the expressive capabilities of iambic tetrameter - Pushkin’s favorite meter and the flexibility of the “Onegin” stanza created by Pushkin especially for the novel, which includes 14 verses of iambic tetrameter with strict rhyming CCdd EffE gg(capital letters indicate female endings, lowercase letters indicate masculine endings). The author called his lyre “chatty,” emphasizing the “free” nature of the narrative, the variety of intonations and styles of speech - from the “high,” bookish style to the colloquial style of ordinary village gossip “about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about one’s relatives.”

A novel in verse is a consistent denial of the well-known, generally accepted laws of the genre. And it’s not just a matter of daring rejection of the usual prosaic speech for a novel. In Eugene Onegin there is no coherent narrative about the characters and events that fits into the predetermined framework of the plot. In such a plot, the action develops smoothly, without breaks or retreats - from the beginning of the action to its denouement. Step by step, the author moves towards his main goal - creating images of heroes against the backdrop of a logically verified plot scheme.

In “Eugene Onegin” the Author-narrator continually “steps back” from the story about heroes and events, indulging in “free” reflections on biographical, everyday and literary topics. The heroes and the Author constantly change places: either the heroes or the Author find themselves in the center of the reader’s attention. Depending on the content of specific chapters, there may be more or fewer such “intrusions” by the Author, but the principle of a “landscape”, externally unmotivated, combination of plot narration with the author’s monologues is preserved in almost all chapters. The exception is the fifth chapter, in which more than 10 stanzas are occupied by Tatyana’s dream and a new plot knot is tied - Lensky’s quarrel with Onegin.

The plot narration is also heterogeneous: it is accompanied by more or less detailed authorial “remarks to the side.” From the very beginning of the novel, the author reveals himself, as if peeking out from behind the characters, reminding us of who is leading the story, who is creating the world of the novel.

The plot of the novel superficially resembles a chronicle of the lives of the heroes - Onegin, Lensky, Tatyana Larina. As in any chronicle story, there is no central conflict. The action is built around conflicts that arise in the sphere of private life (love and friendly relationships). But only a sketch of a coherent chronicle narrative is created. Already in the first chapter, containing Onegin’s background, one day of his life is described in detail, and the events associated with his arrival in the village are simply listed. Onegin spent several months in the village, but many of the details of his village life did not interest the narrator. Only individual episodes are reproduced quite fully (the trip to the Larins, the explanation with Tatyana, the name day and the duel). Onegin's almost three-year journey, which was supposed to connect two periods of his life, is simply omitted.

Time in the novel does not coincide with real time: it is sometimes compressed, compressed, and sometimes stretched. The author often seems to invite the reader to simply “turn over” the pages of the novel, quickly reporting on the actions of the characters and their daily activities. Individual episodes, on the contrary, are enlarged, stretched out in time - attention lingers on them. They resemble dramatic “scenes” with dialogues, monologues, and clearly defined scenery (see, for example, the scene of Tatiana’s conversation with the nanny in the third chapter, the explanation of Tatiana and Onegin, divided into two “phenomena”, in the third and fourth chapters).

The author emphasizes that the life time of his characters, plot time, is an artistic convention. The “calendar” of the novel, contrary to Pushkin’s half-serious assurance in one of the notes - “in our novel, time is calculated according to the calendar,” is special. It consists of days that are equal to months and years, and months, or even years, which have received several comments from the Author. The illusion of a chronicle narrative is supported by “phenological notes” - indications of the changing seasons, weather and seasonal activities of people.

The Author either simply remains silent about many events, or replaces a direct depiction of events with a story about them. This is the most important principle of storytelling. For example, Onegin's disputes with Lensky are reported as a constant form of friendly communication, the topics of the disputes are listed, but none of them are shown. The same technique of keeping silent about events or simply listing them is used in the eighth chapter, where the Author talks about Onegin’s unsuccessful attempts to communicate with Tatyana. More than two years pass between the events of chapters seven and eight. This gap in the narrative is particularly noticeable.

The plot of the eighth chapter is separate from the plot of the first seven chapters. The character system has changed. In the first, “village” chapters, it was quite branched: the central characters are Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky, the secondary ones are Olga, Praskovya Larina, the nanny, Zaretsky, Princess Alina, episodic characters appear in the fifth and seventh chapters: guests at the name day, outlined in one or two strokes, Moscow relatives of the Larins. In the eighth chapter, the character system is much simpler: Onegin and Tatyana remain the central characters, Tatyana’s husband appears twice, and there are several nameless episodic characters. The eighth chapter can be perceived as a completely independent plot narrative, which, however, does not have as detailed an exposition as the plot of the first seven chapters, and does not have a denouement of action: Onegin was abandoned by the Author “in an evil moment for him,” nothing is reported about his further fate.

Many plot situations in the novel are outlined, but remain unrealized. The author creates the impression that he has in his hands many options for the development of events, from which he chooses the necessary one or completely refuses the choice, leaving it to the reader himself. The principle of plot “multivariance” is set already in the first stanzas of the novel: Onegin (and the reader) does not know what awaits him in the village - the languid expectation of his uncle’s death, or, on the contrary, he will arrive as the owner of a “lovely corner” (later the Author reports on another, unrealized, option life of the hero: “Onegin was ready with me / To see foreign countries”). At the end of the novel, literally “abandoning” Onegin, the Author seems to invite the reader to choose for himself among the many possible options for completing the plot.

Traditional novel schemes - overcoming obstacles that arise between lovers, love rivalry, happy endings - Pushkin outlines, but decisively rejects. In fact, no external obstacles arise in front of Onegin and Tatyana, Lensky and Olga, nothing prevents the seemingly happy conclusion of their relationship. Tatyana loves Onegin, he sympathizes with Tatyana. All the neighbors unanimously predict Onegin to be her groom, but the Author chooses a path dictated not by the logic of the “family” novel, but by the logic of the characters’ characters. Lensky and Olga are even closer to the “mystery of the wedding bed,” but instead of a wedding and pictures of family life - Lensky’s duel and death, Olga’s short-lived sadness and her departure with the uhlan. The fulfilled version of Lensky's fate is supplemented by two more, unrealized ones. After the death of the hero, the Author reflects on his two “destinations” - the lofty, poetic, about life “for the good of the world,” and the completely ordinary, “prosaic”: “I would part with the muses, get married, / In the village, happy and horned, / I would wear a quilted robe.”

All options for plot action, at first glance, contradict each other. But the narrator needs them equally. He emphasizes that a novel arises from sketches, drafts, from novel situations already “worked out” by other writers. It is in his hands that the “staff” prevents the plot from wandering at all angles. In addition, unrealized plot options become important elements of the characters’ characteristics, indicating possible prospects for the development of their destinies. An interesting feature of the novel is the “plot self-awareness” of the heroes: not only Onegin, Lensky, Tatyana, but also minor characters - Tatyana’s mother, Princess Alina - are aware of unrealized options for their lives.

Despite the obvious fragmentation, intermittent, “contradictory” nature of the narrative, “Eugene Onegin” is perceived as a work that has a well-thought-out structure, a “plan form”. The novel has its own internal logic - it is consistently maintained principle of narrative symmetry.

The plot of the eighth chapter, despite its isolation, is a mirror image of part of the plot of the first seven chapters. A sort of “castling” of characters takes place: Onegin appears in the place of the loving Tatyana, and the cold, inaccessible Tatyana takes the role of Onegin. The meeting of Onegin and Tatyana at a social event, Onegin’s letter, the explanation of the characters in the eighth chapter - plot parallels to similar situations in the third and fourth chapters. In addition, the “mirroring” of the eighth chapter in relation to the first is emphasized by topographical and biographical parallels. Onegin returns to St. Petersburg, visits the house of an old friend, Prince N. His love “romance” with Tatyana outwardly resembles his half-forgotten secular “romances”. Having failed, “he again renounced the light. /In the silent study / He remembered the time / When a cruel melancholy / Was chasing him in a noisy light...” The author, as in the finale of the first chapter, recalls the beginning of work on the novel, about the friends to whom “he read the first stanzas” .

Inside the “village” chapters the same principle of symmetry applies. The seventh chapter is symmetrical to the first: if in the first chapter only Onegin is shown, then all the Author’s attention in the seventh chapter is focused on Tatyana - this is the only chapter where the main character is absent. A plot parallel arises between the pairs Onegin - Tatyana and Lensky - Olga. After the episode that ends the short love conflict between Onegin and Tatyana, the narrative switches sharply: The author wants to “amuse the imagination / With a picture of happy love” of Lensky and Olga. An implicit, hidden parallel is drawn between Tatyana’s phantasmagoric dream, filled with terrible monsters that came from two worlds - folklore and literary, and the “merry name day holiday”. The dream turns out to be not only “prophetic” (it predicts a quarrel and a duel), but also, as it were, a fantastic “draft” for a village ball.

The contradictions of improvisational narration and the compositional symmetry of chapters, episodes, scenes, descriptions - principles close to the technique of literary "montage" - do not exclude, but complement each other. Their interaction makes the novel a dynamic, internally unified literary text.

The artistic uniqueness of the novel is largely determined by the special position that the Author occupies in it.

The author in Pushkin's novel is not a traditional narrator, leading a narrative about characters and events, clearly separating himself from them and from the readers. The author is both the creator of the novel and at the same time its hero. He persistently reminds readers of the “literary quality” of the novel, that the text created by it is a new, life-like reality that must be perceived “positively,” trusting its story. The characters in the novel are fictional; everything that is said about them has no relation to real people. The world in which the heroes live is also a fruit of the Author’s creative imagination. Real life is only material for a novel, selected and organized by him, the creator of the novel world.

The author conducts a constant dialogue with the reader - shares “technical” secrets, writes the author’s “criticism” of his novel and refutes possible opinions of magazine critics, draws attention to the turns of the plot action, to breaks in time, introduces plans and drafts into the text - in a word, not makes it possible to forget that the novel has not yet been completed, has not been presented to the reader as a book “ready to use” that just needs to be read. The novel is created right before the reader’s eyes, with his participation, with an eye on his opinion. The author sees him as a co-author, addressing the many-faced reader: “friend”, “foe”, “buddy”.

The author is the creator of the novel world, the creator of the plot narrative, but he is also its “destroyer”. The contradiction between the Author - the creator and the Author - the “destroyer” of the narrative arises when he, interrupting the narrative, himself enters the next “frame” of the novel - for a short time (with a remark, a remark) or fills it entirely (with the author’s monologue). However, the Author, breaking away from the plot, does not separate himself from his novel, but becomes its “hero”. Let us emphasize that “hero” is a metaphor that conventionally designates the Author, because he is not an ordinary hero, a participant in the plot. It is hardly possible to isolate an independent “plot of the Author” in the text of the novel. The plot of the novel is one, the Author is outside the plot action.

The Author has a special place in the novel, defined by his two roles. The first is the role of the narrator, the storyteller, commenting on everything that happens to the characters. The second is the role of a “representative” of life, which is also part of the novel, but does not fit into the framework of the literary plot. The author finds himself not only outside the plot, but also above the plot. His life is part of the general flow of life. He is the hero of the “novel of life”, about which it is said in the last verses of “Eugene Onegin”:

Blessed is he who celebrates life early

Left without drinking to the bottom

Glasses full of wine,

Who hasn't finished reading her novel?

And suddenly he knew how to part with him,

Like me and my Onegin.

Individual intersections between the Author and the heroes (meetings of Onegin and the Author in St. Petersburg, which are mentioned in the first chapter, Tatyana’s letter (“I cherish him sacredly”) that came to him) emphasize that the heroes of “my novel” are only part of that life, which the Author represents in the novel.

Image of the Author is created by means other than the images of Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky. The author is clearly separated from them, but at the same time, correspondences and semantic parallels arise between him and the main characters. Without being a character, the Author appears in the novel as the subject of statements - remarks and monologues (they are usually called author's digressions). Speaking about life, about literature, about the novel that he creates, the Author either approaches the heroes or moves away from them. His judgments may coincide with their opinions or, conversely, oppose them. Each appearance of the Author in the text of the novel is a statement that corrects or evaluates the actions and views of the characters. Sometimes the Author directly points out the similarities or differences between himself and the heroes: “We both knew the passion game; / Life tormented both of us; / The heat has faded in both hearts”; “I am always glad to notice the difference / Between Onegin and me”; “That’s exactly what my Eugene thought”; “Tatiana, dear Tatyana! / Now I’m shedding tears with you.”

Most often, compositional and semantic parallels arise between the author’s statements and the lives of the characters. The appearance of the author's monologues and remarks, although not externally motivated, is connected with plot episodes by deep semantic connections. The general principle can be defined as follows: the action or characteristic of the hero gives rise to a response from the Author, forcing him to talk about a particular subject. Each statement of the Author adds new touches to his portrait and becomes a component of his image.

The main role in creating the image of the Author is played by his monologues - author's digressions. These are fragments of text that are completely complete in meaning, have a harmonious composition and a unique style. For ease of analysis, they can be divided into several groups.

Most of the digressions are lyrical and lyrical-philosophical. In them, saturated with various life impressions, observations, joyful and sorrowful “notes of the heart,” philosophical reflections, the spiritual world of the Author is revealed to the reader: this is the voice of a wise Poet, who has seen and experienced a lot in life. He experienced everything that makes up a person’s life: strong, sublime feelings and the coldness of doubts and disappointments, the sweet pangs of love and creativity and the painful melancholy of everyday vanity. He is either young, mischievous and passionate, or mocking and ironic. The author is attracted to women and wine, friendly communication, theater, balls, poetry and novels, but he also notes: “I was born for a peaceful life, / For village silence: / In the wilderness, the lyrical voice is louder, / Creative dreams are more vivid.” The author acutely senses the changing ages of a person: the cross-cutting theme of his thoughts is youth and maturity, “a late and barren age, / At the turn of our years.” The author is a philosopher who learned a lot of sad truths about people, but did not stop loving them.

Some digressions are imbued with the spirit of literary polemics. In an extensive digression in the third chapter (stanzas XI-XIV), an ironic “historical and literary” background is first given, and then the Author introduces the reader to the plan of his “novel in the old way.” In other digressions, the Author gets involved in debates about the Russian literary language, emphasizing loyalty to the “Karamzinist” ideals of youth (chapter three, stanzas XXVII-XXIX), polemicizes with the “strict critic” (V.K. Kuchelbecker) (chapter four, stanzas XXXII-XXXX ). By critically assessing the literary opinions of opponents, the Author determines his literary position.

In a number of digressions, the Author ironizes ideas about life that are alien to him, and sometimes openly ridicules them. Objects of the author's irony in the digressions of the fourth chapter (stanzas VII-VIII - “The less we love a woman...”; stanzas XVIII-XXII - “Everyone has enemies in the world...”; stanzas XXVIII-XXX - “Of course you don’t once we saw / A district young lady's album..."), the eighth chapter (stanzas X-XI - "Blessed is he who was young from a young age...") - vulgarity and hypocrisy, envy and ill will, mental laziness and depravity, disguised by secular good manners. Such digressions can be called ironic. The author, unlike the “honorable readers” from the secular crowd, does not doubt the true life values and spiritual qualities of people. He is faithful to freedom, friendship, love, honor, and looks for spiritual sincerity and simplicity in people.

In many digressions, the Author appears as a St. Petersburg poet, a contemporary of the novel’s heroes. The reader learns little about his fate, these are only biographical “points” (lyceum - St. Petersburg - South - village - Moscow - St. Petersburg), slips of the tongue, hints, “dreams” that make up the external background of the author’s monologues. All the digressions in the first chapter, some of the digressions in the eighth chapter (stanzas I-VII; stanzas ХLIХ-LI), in the third chapter (stanzas XXII-XXIII), in the fourth chapter (stanza XXXV), the famous digression at the end of the sixth chapter have an autobiographical nature , in which the Author-poet says goodbye to his youth (stanzas ХLIII-ХLVI), a digression about Moscow in the seventh chapter (stanzas ХXXVI-XXXVII). Biographical details are also “encrypted” in literary and polemical digressions. The author takes into account that the reader is familiar with modern literary life.

The fullness of spiritual life, the ability to perceive the world holistically in the unity of light and dark sides are the main personality traits of the Author, distinguishing him from the heroes of the novel. It was in the Author that Pushkin embodied his ideal of a man and a poet.