Recently the BBC showed a series based on Tolstoy's War and Peace. In the West, everything is the same as here - there, too, the release of film (television) adaptations sharply increases interest in the literary source. And then Lev Nikolayevich’s masterpiece suddenly became one of the bestsellers, and with it, readers became interested in all of Russian literature. On this wave, the popular literary website Literary Hub published an article “10 Russian literary heroines, which you need to know" (The 10 Russian Literary Heroines You Should Know). It seemed to me that this was an interesting look from the outside at our classics and I translated the article for my blog. I'm posting it here too. Illustrations taken from the original article.

Attention! The text contains spoilers.

_______________________________________________________

We know that all happy heroines are equally happy, and each unhappy heroine is unhappy in her own way. But the fact is that there are few happy characters in Russian literature. Russian heroines tend to complicate their lives. This is how it should be, because their beauty as literary characters largely comes from their ability to suffer, from their tragic destinies, from their “Russianness.”

The most important thing to understand about Russians female characters: their destinies are not stories of overcoming obstacles to achieve “and they lived happily ever after.” Guardians of primordial Russian values, they know that there is more to life than happiness.

1. Tatyana Larina (A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”)

In the beginning there was Tatiana. This is a kind of Eve of Russian literature. And not only because it is chronologically the first, but also because Pushkin occupies a special place in Russian hearts. Almost any Russian is able to recite the poems of the father of Russian literature by heart (and after a few shots of vodka, many will do this). Pushkin's masterpiece, the poem "Eugene Onegin", is the story not only of Onegin, but also of Tatyana, a young innocent girl from the provinces who falls in love with the main character. Unlike Onegin, who is shown as a cynical bon vivant corrupted by fashionable European values, Tatyana embodies the essence and purity of the mysterious Russian soul. This includes a penchant for self-sacrifice and a disregard for happiness, as shown by her famous abandonment of the person she loves.

2. Anna Karenina (L.N. Tolstoy “Anna Karenina”)

Unlike Pushkin's Tatyana, who resists the temptation to get along with Onegin, Tolstoy's Anna leaves both her husband and son to run away with Vronsky. Like a true dramatic heroine, Anna voluntarily does not right choice, a choice for which she will have to pay. Anna's sin and its source tragic fate not that she left the child, but that, selfishly indulging her sexual and romantic desires, she forgot Tatyana’s lesson of selflessness. If you see light at the end of the tunnel, don't be fooled, it could be a train.

3. Sonya Marmeladova (F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”)

In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Sonya appears as the antipode of Raskolnikov. A whore and a saint at the same time, Sonya accepts her existence as a path of martyrdom. Having learned about Raskolnikov's crime, she does not push him away, on the contrary, she attracts him to her in order to save his soul. Characteristic here is the famous scene when they read the biblical story of the resurrection of Lazarus. Sonya is able to forgive Raskolnikov, because she believes that everyone is equal before God, and God forgives. For a repentant killer, this is a real find.

4. Natalia Rostova (L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”)

Natalya is everyone's dream: smart, funny, sincere. But if Pushkin's Tatiana is too good to be true, Natalya seems alive, real. Partly because Tolstoy complemented her image with other qualities: she is capricious, naive, flirtatious and, for the morals of the early 19th century, a little impudent. In War and Peace, Natalya starts out as a charming teenager, exuding joy and vitality. Over the course of the novel, she grows older, learns life lessons, tames her fickle heart, becomes wiser, and her character gains integrity. And this woman, which is generally uncharacteristic of Russian heroines, is still smiling after more than a thousand pages.

5. Irina Prozorova (A.P. Chekhov “Three Sisters”)

At the beginning of Chekhov's play Three Sisters, Irina is the youngest and full of hope. Her older brother and sisters are whiny and capricious, they are tired of life in the provinces, and Irina’s naive soul is filled with optimism. She dreams of returning to Moscow, where, in her opinion, she will find her true love and she will be happy. But as the chance to move to Moscow evaporates, she becomes increasingly aware that she is stuck in the village and losing her spark. Through Irina and her sisters, Chekhov shows us that life is just a series of sad moments, only occasionally punctuated by short bursts of joy. Like Irina, we waste our time on trifles, dreaming of a better future, but gradually we understand the insignificance of our existence.

6. Lisa Kalitina (I.S. Turgenev “The Noble Nest”)

In the novel " Noble Nest"Turgenev created a model of a Russian heroine. Lisa is young, naive, pure in heart. She is torn between two suitors: a young, handsome, cheerful officer and an old, sad, married man. Guess who she chose? Lisa's choice says a lot about the mysterious Russian soul. She is clearly heading towards suffering. Lisa's choice shows that the desire for sadness and melancholy is no worse than any other option. At the end of the story, Lisa becomes disillusioned with love and goes to a monastery, choosing the path of sacrifice and deprivation. “Happiness is not for me,” she explains her action. “Even when I hoped for happiness, my heart was always heavy.”

7. Margarita (M. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”)

Chronologically last on the list, Bulgakov's Margarita, an extremely strange heroine. At the beginning of the novel, she is an unhappily married woman, then she becomes the Master’s mistress and muse, and then turns into a witch flying on a broomstick. For Master Margarita, this is not only a source of inspiration. She becomes, like Sonya for Raskolnikov, his healer, lover, savior. When the Master finds himself in trouble, Margarita turns to none other than Satan himself for help. Having concluded, like Faust, a contract with the Devil, she is still reunited with her lover, albeit not entirely in this world.

8. Olga Semyonova (A.P. Chekhov “Darling”)

In "Darling" Chekhov tells the story of Olga Semyonova, a loving and gentle soul, a simple person who, as they say, lives by love. Olga becomes a widow early. Twice. When there is no one nearby to love, she withdraws into the company of a cat. In his review of “Darling,” Tolstoy wrote that, intending to make fun of a narrow-minded woman, Chekhov accidentally created a very likable character. Tolstoy went even further; he condemned Chekhov for his overly harsh attitude towards Olga, calling for her soul to be judged, not her intellect. According to Tolstoy, Olga embodies the ability of Russian women to love unconditionally, a virtue unknown to men.

9. Anna Sergeevna Odintsova (I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”)

In the novel “Fathers and Sons” (often incorrectly translated “Fathers and Sons”), Mrs. Odintsova is a lonely woman mature age, the sound of her last name in Russian also hints at loneliness. Odintsova is an atypical heroine who has become a kind of pioneer among female literary characters. Unlike other women in the novel, who follow the obligations imposed on them by society, Mrs. Odintsova is childless, she has no mother and no husband (she is a widow). She stubbornly defends her independence, like Pushkin's Tatiana, refusing the only chance to find true love.

10. Nastasya Filippovna (F.M. Dostoevsky “The Idiot”)

The heroine of “The Idiot” Nastasya Filippovna gives an idea of ​​how complex Dostoevsky is. Beauty makes her a victim. Orphaned as a child, Nastasya becomes a kept woman and the mistress of the elderly man who took her in. But every time she tries to escape the clutches of her situation and create her own destiny, she continues to feel humiliated. Guilt casts a fatal shadow on all her decisions. According to tradition, like many other Russian heroines, Nastasya has several fate options, associated mainly with men. And in full accordance with tradition, she is not able to make the right choice. By submitting to fate instead of fighting, the heroine drifts towards her tragic end.

_____________________________________________________

The author of this text is writer and diplomat Guillermo Herades. He worked in Russia for some time, knows Russian literature well, is a fan of Chekhov and the author of the book Back to Moscow. So this look is not entirely outsider. On the other hand, how to write about Russian literary heroines without knowing Russian classics?

Guillermo does not explain his choice of characters in any way. In my opinion, the absence of Princess Mary or “ poor Lisa"(which, by the way, was written earlier than Pushkin's Tatiana) and Katerina Kabanova (from Ostrosky's The Thunderstorm). It seems to me that these Russians literary heroes no more famous among us than Liza Kalitina or Olga Semyonova. However, this is my subjective opinion. Who would you add to this list?

In my humble opinion, of course =)

10. Tess Durbeyfield

The main character of the novel English writer Thomas Hardy "Tess of the Urbervilles" A peasant girl who stood out from her friends with her beauty, intelligence, sensitivity and kind heart.

"It was beautiful girl, perhaps no more beautiful than some others, but her moving scarlet mouth and large, innocent eyes emphasized her comeliness. She decorated her hair with a red ribbon and was the only one among the women dressed in white who could boast of such a bright decoration.
There was still something childish in her face. And today, despite her bright femininity, her cheeks sometimes suggested a twelve-year-old girl, her shining eyes a nine-year-old, and the curve of her mouth a five-year-old baby.”

This is the image of Tess from the films.

9. Rosa del Valle

Character from Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits, sister main character Clara. The first beauty of magical realism.

"Her striking beauty dismayed even her mother; she seemed to be made of some other material, different from human nature. Nivea knew that the girl did not belong to this world even before Rose was born, because she saw her in her dreams. Therefore, she was not surprised by the cry of the midwife when she looked at the girl. Rose turned out to be white, smooth, without wrinkles, like a porcelain doll, with green hair and yellow eyes. The most beautiful creature ever born on earth since the time of original sin, as the midwife exclaimed when she was baptized. At the very first bath, Nanny rinsed the girl’s hair with an infusion of manzanilla, which had the property of softening the color of the hair, giving it a shade of old bronze, and then began to take it out into the sun to harden the transparent skin. These tricks were in vain: very soon a rumor spread that an angel had been born in the del Valle family. Nivea expected that as the girl grew, some imperfections would reveal themselves, but nothing of the sort happened. By the age of eighteen, Rose had not gained weight, acne had not appeared on her face, and her grace, bestowed by none other than the sea element, had become even more beautiful. The color of her skin with a slight bluish tint, the color of her hair, the slowness of her movements, and her silence betrayed her as a resident of the waters. In some ways she resembled a fish, and if she had a scaly tail instead of legs, she would clearly have become a siren."

8. Juliet Capulet

No need to say where? ;))) We look at this heroine through the eyes of Romeo, who is in love with her, and this is a wonderful feeling...

"She eclipsed the rays of the torches,
Her beauty shines in the night,
Like the Moor's already incomparable pearls
The rarest gift for the world is too valuable.
And I loved?.. No, deny your gaze
I haven't seen beauty until now."

7. Margarita

Bulgakov's Margarita.

"A naturally curly, black-haired woman of about twenty looked from the mirror at thirty-year-old Magarita, laughing uncontrollably and baring her teeth.”

“His beloved was called Margarita Nikolaevna. Everything that the master said about her was the absolute truth. He described his beloved correctly. She was beautiful and smart. To this we must add one more thing - we can say with confidence that many women do anything , they would give to exchange their life for the life of Margarita Nikolaevna. Childless, thirty-year-old Margarita was the wife of a very prominent specialist, who also made a most important discovery of national importance.”

6. Tatyana Larina

What would it be like without her? Smart, beautiful, modest, feminine...=)) She has it all.

“So, her name was Tatyana.
Not your sister's beauty,
Nor the freshness of her ruddy
She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.
Dick, sad, silent,
Like a forest deer is timid,
She is in her own family
The girl seemed like a stranger."

5. Esmeralda

The gypsy from Hugo's novel, who still captivates our hearts with her beauty and dancing.

“She was short in stature, but she seemed tall - her slim frame was so slender. She was dark-skinned, but it was not difficult to guess that during the day her skin acquired a wonderful golden hue, characteristic of Andalusians and Romans. The little foot was also the foot of an Andalusian woman - she walked so lightly in her narrow, graceful shoe. The girl danced, fluttered, twirled on an old Persian carpet carelessly thrown at her feet, and every time her radiant face appeared in front of you, the gaze of her large black eyes blinded you like lightning. The crowd's eyes were glued to her, all mouths agape. She danced to the rumble of a tambourine, which her round, virgin hands raised high above her head. Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and slender legs occasionally glimpsed from under her skirt, black-haired, quick as a wasp, in a golden bodice that tightly fitted her waist, in a colorful billowing dress, shining with her eyes, she seemed like a truly unearthly creature...”

4. Assol

I don’t even know, maybe she wasn’t a beauty, but for me Assol is the living embodiment of a Dream. Isn't the Dream beautiful?

"Behind the walnut frame, in the bright emptiness of the reflected room, stood a thin, short girl, dressed in cheap white muslin with pink flowers. A gray silk scarf lay on her shoulders. Half-childish, in a light tan, her face was mobile and expressive; beautiful, somewhat serious for her age her eyes looked with the timid concentration of deep souls. Her irregular face could touch you with the subtle purity of its outlines; every curve, every bulge of this face, of course, would have found a place in many female faces, but their totality, style, was completely original, originally sweet. ; we’ll stop there. The rest is beyond words, except the word “charm.”

3. Scarlett O'Hara

Every woman has something of Scarlett in her. But as a hero of a literary work, she is unique. No one has yet been able to replicate such a strong female image.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not a beauty, but men were unlikely to realize this if, like the Tarleton twins, they became victims of her charms. The refined features of her mother, a local aristocrat of French origin, and the large, expressive features of her father, a healthy Irishman, were very intricately combined in her face. Scarlett's wide-cheeked, chiseled face involuntarily attracted the eye. Especially the eyes - slightly slanted, light green, transparent, framed by dark eyelashes. On a forehead as white as a magnolia petal - ah, this white skin that the women of the American South are so proud of, carefully protecting it with hats, veils and mittens from the hot Georgia sun! - two immaculately clear lines of eyebrows quickly flew up obliquely - from the bridge of the nose to the temples."

2. Arwen

For me, Arwen is the embodiment of magical beauty. She combines all the best from people and magical creatures. She is Harmony and Light itself.

“Opposite Elrond, in a chair under a canopy, sat a beautiful guest, like a fairy, but in the features of her face, feminine and gentle, the courageous appearance of the owner of the house was repeated, or rather guessed, and, looking more closely, Frodo realized that she was not a guest , and a relative of Elrond. Was she young? Yes and no. The frost of gray did not silver her hair, and her face was youthfully fresh, as if she had just washed herself with dew, and her light gray eyes shone with the pure sparkle of the pre-dawn stars. , but in them lay mature wisdom, which only gives life experience, only the experience of the years lived on Earth. In her low silver tiara, round pearls shone softly, and along the collar of her gray, unadorned dress stretched a barely noticeable garland of leaves embroidered with a thin silver thread. This was the daughter of Elrond, Arwen, whom few mortals saw - in her, as popular rumor said, the beauty of Lucien returned to Earth, and the elves gave her the name Andomiel; for them she was the Evening Star."​\ Sienna Guillory as Elena.

Favorites

Reading range of literary characters in the Russian classical novel

1. What and how did the heroes of Russian classics read? Review of works and their heroes

A book is a source of knowledge - this widespread belief is familiar to, perhaps, everyone. Since ancient times, respected and revered educated people who knew their way around books. In the information that has survived and survived to this day about Metropolitan Hilarion, who made huge contribution in the development of Russian spiritual and political thought in his treatise “The Word on Law and Grace”, it is noted: “Larion is a good man, a faster and a scribe.” It is “bookish” - the most apt and most capacious word, which, probably, in the best possible way describes all the advantages and benefits educated person in front of the others. It is the book that opens the difficult and thorny path from the Cave of Ignorance, symbolically depicted by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic,” to Wisdom. All the great Heroes and Villains of mankind drew the thick and fragrant jelly of knowledge from books. The book helps answer any question, if, of course, there is an answer to it at all. The book allows you to do the impossible, if only it is possible.

Of course, many writers and poets of the “golden age,” when characterizing their heroes, mentioned certain literary works, the names and surnames of great authors whom the artistic characters either raved about, admired, or lazily read from time to time. Depending on certain characteristics and qualities of the hero, his book preferences and attitude towards the process of reading and education in general were also covered. Going a little beyond the time frame of the given topic, the author considers it appropriate to make a short excursion into history in order to use some examples of earlier literature to understand what and how the heroes of Russian classics read.

For example, take the comedy by D.I. Fonvizin's "Minor", in which the author ridiculed the narrow-mindedness of the landowner class, the simplicity of its life attitudes and ideals. The central theme of the work was formulated by its main character, the undersized Mitrofan Prostakov: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married!” And while Mitrofan painfully and unsuccessfully tries, at the insistence of teacher Tsyfirkin, to divide 300 rubles between three, his chosen one Sophia is engaged in self-education through reading:

Sophia: I was waiting for you, uncle. I was reading a book now.

Starodum: Which one?

Sophia: French, Fenelon, about raising girls.

Starodum: Fenelon? The author of “Telemacus”? Okay. I don’t know your book, but read it, read it. Whoever wrote “Telemacus” will not corrupt morals with his pen. I fear for you the sages of today. I happened to read everything from them that was translated into Russian. They, however, strongly eradicate prejudices and uproot virtue.

The attitude towards reading and books can be traced throughout the comedy “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboedova. “The most famous Muscovite of all Russian literature,” Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov, is quite critical in his assessments. Having learned that his daughter Sophia “reads everything in French, aloud, locked,” he says:

Tell me that it’s not good to spoil her eyes,

And reading is of little use:

She can't sleep from French books,

And the Russians make it hard for me to sleep.

And he considers the reason for Chatsky’s madness solely to be teaching and books:

Once evil is stopped:

Take all the books and burn them!

Alexander Andreevich Chatsky himself reads only progressive Western literature and categorically denies authors respected in Moscow society:

I don't read nonsense

And even more exemplary.

Let's move on to more recent works of literature. In the "encyclopedia of Russian life" - the novel "Eugene Onegin" - A.S. Pushkin, characterizing his heroes as they get to know the reader, pays special attention to their literary preferences. The main character “had his hair cut in the latest fashion, like a London dandy,” “could speak and write in French perfectly,” that is, he received a brilliant education by European standards:

He knew quite a bit of Latin,

To parse epigrams,

Talk about Juvenal,

At the end of the letter put vale,

Yes, I remembered, although not without sin,

Two verses from the Aeneid.

Scolded Homer, Theocritus;

But I read Adam Smith

And there was a deep economy.

Onegin’s village neighbor, the young landowner Vladimir Lensky, “with a soul straight from Göttingen,” brought “the fruits of learning” from Germany, where he was brought up on the works of German philosophers. The mind was especially worried young man reflections on Duty and Justice, as well as Immanuel Kant's theory of the Categorical Imperative.

Pushkin’s favorite heroine, “dear Tatyana,” was brought up in the spirit characteristic of her time and in accordance with her own romantic nature:

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her;

She fell in love with deceptions

Both Richardson and Russo.

Her father was a kind fellow,

Belated in the past century;

But I saw no harm in the books;

He never reads

I considered them an empty toy

And didn't care

What is my daughter's secret volume?

I dozed under my pillow until morning.

His wife was herself

Richardson is crazy.

N.V. Gogol in the poem " Dead Souls", when introducing us to the main character, says nothing about his literary preferences. Apparently, the collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov did not have any of those at all, for he was "not handsome, but not of a bad appearance, not too fat, not too thin ; one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young": a gentleman of average quality. However, about the first one to whom he went for dead souls Chichikov, the landowner Manilov, knows that “in his office there was always some kind of book, bookmarked on page fourteen, which he had been constantly reading for two years.”

The triumph and death of “Oblomovism” as the limited and cozy world of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, against the backdrop of whose metamorphoses flows with an irrepressible surge active life Andrei Stolts, highlighted in his novel by I.A. Goncharov. Undoubtedly, the difference in the revaluation of the values ​​of the two heroes casts its shadow on their attitude towards reading and books. Stolz, with his characteristic German tenacity, showed special wish read and study even in childhood: “From the age of eight he sat with his father at geographical map, sorted through the warehouses of Herder, Wieland, biblical verses and summed up the illiterate accounts of the peasants, townspeople and factory workers, and with his mother he read the Sacred History, learned Krylov’s fables and sorted through the warehouses of Telemak.

Once Andrei disappeared for a week, then he was found sleeping peacefully in his bed. Under the bed is someone's gun and a pound of gunpowder and shot. When asked where he got it, he answered: “Yes!” The father asks his son if he has a translation ready from Cornelius Nepos into German. Finding out that he was not, his father dragged him by the collar into the yard, gave him a kick and said: “Go back where you came from. And come again with a translation, instead of one, two chapters, and teach your mother the role from the French comedy that she asked: without this don't show yourself!" Andrey returned a week later with a translation and a learned role.

The process of reading Oblomov as the main character I.A. Goncharov pays a special place in the novel:

What was he doing at home? Read? Did you write? Studied?

Yes: if he comes across a book or a newspaper, he will read it.

If he hears about some wonderful work, he will have an urge to get to know it; he searches, asks for books, and if they bring them soon, he will begin to work on them, an idea about the subject begins to form in him; one more step - and he would have mastered it, but look, he is already lying, looking apathetically at the ceiling, and the book lies next to him, unread, incomprehensible.

If he somehow managed to get through a book called statistics, history, political economy, he was completely satisfied. When Stolz brought him books that he still needed to read beyond what he had learned, Oblomov looked at him silently for a long time.

No matter how interesting the place where he stopped was, but if the hour of lunch or sleep found him at this place, he put the book down with the binding up and went to dinner or put out the candle and went to bed.

If they gave him the first volume, after reading it he did not ask for the second, but when they brought it, he read it slowly.

Ilyusha, like others, studied at a boarding school until he was fifteen. “Of necessity, he sat upright in class, listened to what the teachers said, because there was nothing else he could do, and with difficulty, with sweat, with sighs, he learned the lessons assigned to him. Serious reading tired him.” Oblomov does not accept thinkers; only poets managed to stir his soul. Stolz gives him books. “Both were worried, cried, made solemn promises to each other to follow a reasonable and bright path.” But nevertheless, while reading, “no matter how interesting the place where he (Oblomov) stopped was, if the hour of lunch or sleep found him at this place, he put the book down with the binding up and went to dinner or put out the candle and went to bed.” . As a result, “his head represented a complex archive of dead affairs, persons, eras, figures, religions, unrelated political-economic, mathematical or other truths, tasks, provisions, etc. It was as if a library consisting of only scattered volumes on different parts of knowledge." “It also happens that he will be filled with contempt for human vice, for lies, for slander, for the evil spilled in the world and is inflamed with the desire to point out to a person his ulcers, and suddenly thoughts light up in him, walk and walk in his head like waves in the sea , then they grow into intentions, ignite all the blood in him. But, look, the morning flashes by, the day is already approaching evening, and with it Oblomov’s tired forces tend to rest.”

reading hero russian novel

The apogee of the erudition of the heroes of a literary work is, without a doubt, the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". The pages are simply replete with names, surnames, titles. There are Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang Goethe, whom Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov respects. Instead of Pushkin, the “children” give Nikolai Petrovich “Stoff und Kraft” by Ludwig Buchner. Matvey Ilyich Kolyazin, “preparing to go to the evening with Mrs. Svechina, who then lived in St. Petersburg, read a page from Candillac in the morning.” And Evdoksiya Kukshina really shines with her erudition and erudition in her conversation with Bazarov:

They say you started praising George Sand again. A retarded woman, and nothing more! How is it possible to compare her with Emerson? She has no ideas about education, physiology, or anything. She, I am sure, has never heard of embryology, but in our time - how do you want without it? Oh, what an amazing article Elisevich wrote on this subject.

Having reviewed the works and their characters regarding the literary preferences of the latter, the author would like to dwell in more detail on the characters of Turgenev and Pushkin. They, as the most striking exponents of literary passions, will be discussed in the following parts of the work.

"The Cherry Orchard"A.P. Chekhov: the meaning of the name and features of the genre

Consciously depriving the play of “events,” Chekhov directed all attention to the state of the characters, their attitude to the main fact - the sale of the estate and garden, to their relationships and clashes. The teacher should draw the students' attention to...

Analysis of the novel "Crime and Punishment" by F.M. Dostoevsky

The main character of the novel is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student. “He was remarkably good-looking, with beautiful dark eyes, dark blond, above average height, thin and slender. But soon he seemed to fall into deep thought, even...

V.M. Shukshin - a nugget of Altai land

Shukshin carried through his entire life and work the main thought and idea - serious research folk character. All his heroes are simple people living their lives, searching, thirsting, creating...

The significance of Shevyrev’s criticism for Russian journalism of the 19th century

For the first time in Russian literature, the word “critic” was used by Antioch Cantemir in 1739 in the satire “On Education.” Also in French - critique. In Russian writing it will come into frequent use in the mid-19th century...

North's image early works Oleg Kuvaev

During his student years, Kuvaev first became interested in the North: he begins to collect literature about this region. The works of the famous Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen had a strong influence on the young man...

M.A. Bulgakov and his novel "The Master and Margarita"

A). Yeshua and Woland. In the novel “The Master and Margarita” the two main forces of good and evil, which, according to Bulgakov, should be in balance on Earth, are embodied in the persons of Yeshua Ha-Notsri from Yershalaim, close in image to Christ...

The motive of the road and its philosophical meaning in the literature of the 19th century

1.1 The symbolic function of the road motif The road is an ancient image-symbol, the spectral sound of which is very wide and diverse. Most often, the image of the road in a work is perceived as the hero’s life path...

People's War in the novel "War and Peace"

In the novel, Tolstoy expresses his thoughts about the reasons for Russia’s victory in the War of 1812: “No one will argue that the reason for the death of Napoleon’s French troops was, on the one hand...

The role of allusions to Johann Wolfgang Goethe's novel "Sorrow" young Werther" in Ulrich Plenzdorf's story "The New Sorrows of Young V."

So, in the novel by J.V. Goethe we have the following characters: Werther, Charlotte (Lotta), Albert (fiancé, and later Lotte’s husband) and Werther’s friend Wilhelm (the addressee of the letters, an off-stage character, so to speak, because...

The originality of the writer E.L. Schwartz

Contemporary Russian literature. Roman Zamyatin "We"

Modern literary process Literature is an integral part of a person’s life, his unique photograph, which perfectly describes all internal states, as well as social laws. Like history, literature evolves...

A work of art as an intercultural mediator

For students studying in schools in Belarus, Russian literature is the second after their native Belarusian literature, studied with the aim of effectively implementing interethnic contacts, familiarizing themselves with the achievements of world culture...

In world literature, there have been many images of female heroines who sank into the reader’s soul, fell in love, and began to be quoted.Some works of world literature are filmed and the viewer believes that the film is successful if the plot of the bookis fully revealed in the film, and the actors correspond to the beloved literary hero.
A woman is given a very important and extraordinary role in literature: she is an object of admiration,a source of inspiration, a longed-for dream and the personification of the most sublime in the world.
Undoubtedly, the beautiful women of world literature different fate: someone is an eternal ideal, like Juliet,some are fighters and simply beautiful women, like Scarlett O'Hara, while others are forgotten.How long the heroine of a literary work will linger in the reader’s memory is directly related to her appearance,character and actions. A literary heroine, as in life, must be self-sufficient, pretty,patient, purposeful, with a sense of humor and, of course, wise.
Our website decided to compile Rating of the most beautiful literary heroines. In some photos famous actresses or models who have not starred in the roles of the presented literary heroines, but, in our opinion, are very suitable for these roles. Descriptions of the appearance of the heroines are taken from books by authors of world literature in England, France, Australia, America, Turkey and Russia. Some books we love have not yet been filmed,but we sincerely believe that this time will not be long in coming.

15. TO Arla Saarnen ("Shantaram", Gregory David Roberts)

The main character meets Karla during his early days in Bombay.This marks the beginning of the protagonist's entry into Mafia circles. Karla Saaranen is characterized bythe main character as a wise and mysterious beautiful woman. Carla is a brunette with green eyes and has oriental roots.Many philosophical considerations and sayings in the book belong to her.

14. Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy)

She was a beautiful girl, perhaps no more beautiful than some others, but her moving scarlet mouth and large, innocent eyes emphasized her comeliness. She decorated her hair with a red ribbon and was the only one among the women dressed in white who could boast of such a bright decoration. There was still something childish in her face. And today, despite her bright femininity, her cheeks sometimes suggested a twelve-year-old girl, her shining eyes a nine-year-old, and the curve of her mouth a five-year-old baby.
You can guess the color of her face from the dark brown strands of hair that escaped from under her cap... Her face is the oval face of a beautiful young woman, deep dark eyes and long heavy braids that seem to cling pleadingly to everything they touch.

13. Helen Kuragina (Bezukhova) ("War and Peace", L. Tolstoy)

Helen Kuragina (Bezukhova) - outwardly ideal female beauty, the antipode of Natasha Rostova.Despite her external beauty, Helen contains all the vices characteristic of secular society: arrogance, flattery, vanity.

12. Rebecca Sharp (Vanity Fair by William Thackeray)

“Rebecca was small, fragile, pale, with reddish hair; her green eyes were usually downcast, but when she raised them, they seemed unusually large, mysterious and alluring...”

11. Maggie Cleary (The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough)

Maggie's hair, like a true Cleary's, glowed like a beacon: all the children in the family, except Frank, got this punishment - they all had red curls, only in different shades.Maggie's eyes were like "molten pearls", silver-gray.Maggie Cleary had... Hair of such a color that words cannot describe it - not copper-red, and not gold, some rare alloy of both... Silver-gray eyes, amazingly clear, shining, like melted pearls.... Maggie's gray eyes... They shimmer in all shades of blue, violet, and deep blue, the color of the sky on a clear sunny day, the velvety green of moss and even a slightly noticeable dark yellow. And they glow softly, as if matte gems, framed by long curled eyelashes, so shiny as if they had been washed with gold.

10. Tatyana Larina ("Eugene Onegin", A.S. Pushkin)

From the first meeting the heroine captivates the reader with her spiritual beauty, lack of pretense.

So, she was called Tatyana.

Not your sister's beauty
Nor the freshness of her ruddy
She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.
Dick, sad, silent,
Like a forest deer is timid,
She is in her own family
The girl seemed like a stranger.

9. Lara (Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak)

She was a little over sixteen, but she was a fully formed girl. She was given eighteen years or more. She had a clear mind and an easy-going character. She was very pretty.She moved silently and smoothly, and everything about her—the imperceptible speed of her movements, her height, her voice, her gray eyes, and her blond hair color—matched each other.

8. Christine Daae (The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux)

Christina Daae had Blue eyes and golden curls.

7. Esmeralda ("Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris", Victor Hugo)

Esmeralda is a beautiful young girl who earns money by dancing and performing with her trained goat, Jalli.She is the embodiment of chastity and naivety, not at all like the others.Even the fact that she has to dance for a living does not corrupt her. She has a good heart.

“She was short in stature, but she seemed tall - her slim frame was so slender. She was dark, but it was not difficultguess that during the day her skin acquired a wonderful golden hue, characteristic of Andalusians and Romans. Smallthe leg was also the leg of an Andalusian woman - she walked so lightly in her narrow, graceful shoe. The girl danced, fluttered,spinning on an old Persian carpet carelessly thrown at her feet, and every time her radiant faceappeared in front of you, the gaze of her large black eyes blinded you like lightning. The crowd's eyes were fixed on her,all mouths are open. She danced to the rumble of a tambourine, which her round virgin hands raised high abovehead. Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and slender legs occasionally flashing from under her skirt,black-haired, fast as a wasp, in a golden, tight-fittingher waist corsage, in a colorful billowing dress, shining eyes, she seemed like a truly unearthly creature..."

6. Mercedes (“The Count of Monte Cristo”, A. Dumas)

"A beautiful young girl, with jet-black hair, with velvet eyes like a gazelle...".

5. Carmen ("Carmen", Prosper Merimee)

She had a large bouquet of jasmine in her hair. She was dressed simply, perhaps even poorly, in all black... She dropped the mantilla that covered her head onto her shoulders, I saw that she was short, young, well-built and that she had huge eyes... Her skin, really , immaculately smooth, the color closely resembled copper. Her eyes were slanted, but wonderfully cut; the lips were a little full, but beautifully defined, behind them were visible teeth, whiter than peeled tonsils. Her hair, perhaps a little coarse, was black, with a blue tint like a raven's wing, long and shiny... She was wearing a very short red skirt, allowing you to see white silk stockings and pretty red morocco shoes tied with fiery-colored ribbons.

4. Irene Forsyth (The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy)

The gods gave Irene dark brown eyes and golden hair - a peculiar combination of shades that attracts the eyes of men and, as they say, indicates weakness of character. And the smooth, soft whiteness of her neck and shoulders, framed by a golden dress, gave her some kind of extraordinary charm.Golden-haired, dark-eyed Irene looks like a pagan goddess, she is full of charm, distinguished by sophistication of taste and manners.

3. Scarlett O'Hara (Gone with the Wind by Margarett Mitchell)

Scarlett O'Harane was a beauty, but men were hardly aware of this if they, like the Tarleton twins, became victims of her charms. The refined features of her mother, a local aristocrat of French origin, and large, expressive features were very bizarrely combined in her face father - an Irishman bursting with health. Scarlett's wide cheekbones, with a chiseled chin, involuntarily attracted the eye. , which the women of the American South are so proud of, carefully protecting it with hats, veils and mittens from the hot Georgia sun - two immaculately clear lines of eyebrows quickly flew up obliquely - from the bridge of the nose to the temples! Hergreen eyes - restless, bright (oh how much willfulness and fire there was in them!) - entered into an argument with polite, secular restraint of manners, betraying the true essence of this nature...

2. Feride ( "The Kinglet Songbird", Reshad Nuri Guntekin)

The legendary Turkish actress Aydan Sener starred in the role of Feride (biography, photo)

Feride was short in stature, but had an early formed figure. In her youth, her cheerful, carefree eyes...

Light blue... They seemed to consist of golden dust dancing in transparent light.When these eyes are not laughing, they seem large and deep, like living suffering. But once they sparkle with laughter,they become smaller, the light no longer fits into them, it seems that small diamonds are scattered across the cheeks.What beautiful, what delicate facial features! In the paintings, such faces touch you to tears. Even in its shortcomings...I saw some kind of charm... Eyebrows... They start out beautifully - beautifully, subtly, subtly, but then they go astray...Curved arrows stretched to the very temples. The upper lip was slightly short and slightly exposed a row of teeth.Therefore, it seemed that Feride always smiled a little. ... A young creature, fresh as an April rose,strewn with drops of dew, with a face as clear as the morning light.

1. Angelique ("Angelique", Anne and Serge Gollon)

French actress Michelle Mercier starred in the role of Angelica (biography, photo)

Artistic series literary works tells the story of Angelique, a fictional beauty adventurer from the 17th century. The novel focuses on her golden hair and incredibly mesmerizing green eyes.Angelica is wise, adventurous, impressionable, always striving for love and happiness.

I continue the series “Literary Heroes” that I once started...

Heroes of Russian literature

Almost every literary character has its own prototype - a real person. Sometimes it is the author himself (Ostrovsky and Pavka Korchagin, Bulgakov and the Master), sometimes it is a historical figure, sometimes it is an acquaintance or relative of the author.
This story is about the prototypes of Chatsky and Taras Bulba, Ostap Bender, Timur and other heroes of the books...

1.Chatsky "Woe from Wit"

The main character of Griboyedov's comedy - Chatsky- most often associated with a name Chaadaeva(in the first version of the comedy Griboedov wrote “Chadsky”), although the image of Chatsky is in many ways social type era, "hero of the time."
Petr Yakovlevich Chaadaev(1796-1856) - participant Patriotic War 1812, was on a trip abroad. In 1814 he joined the Masonic lodge, and in 1821 he agreed to join a secret society.

From 1823 to 1826, Chaadaev traveled around Europe, comprehended the latest philosophical teachings. After returning to Russia in 1828-1830, he wrote and published a historical and philosophical treatise: “Philosophical Letters.” The views, ideas, and judgments of the thirty-six-year-old philosopher turned out to be so unacceptable for Nicholas Russia that the author of “Philosophical Letters” suffered an unprecedented punishment: by the highest decree he was declared crazy. It so happened that literary character did not repeat the fate of his prototype, but predicted it...

2.Taras Bulba
Taras Bulba is written so organically and vividly that the reader cannot leave the feeling of his reality.
But there was a man whose fate was similar to the fate of Gogol’s hero. And this man also had the surname Gogol!
Ostap Gogol born at the beginning of the 17th century. On the eve of 1648, he was the captain of the “panzer” Cossacks in the Polish army stationed in Uman under the command of S. Kalinovsky. With the outbreak of the uprising, Gogol, along with his heavy cavalry, went over to the side of the Cossacks.

In October 1657, Hetman Vygovsky with the general foreman, of which Ostap Gogol was a member, concluded the Korsun Treaty of Ukraine with Sweden.

In the summer of 1660, Ostap's regiment took part in the Chudnivsky campaign, after which the Slobodishchensky Treaty was signed. Gogol took the side of autonomy within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he was made a gentry.
In 1664, an uprising broke out against the Poles and the hetman in Right Bank Ukraine Teteri. Gogol initially supported the rebels. However, he again went over to the enemy's side. The reason for this was his sons, whom Hetman Potocki held hostage in Lvov. When Doroshenko became hetman, Gogol came under his mace and helped him a lot. When he fought with the Turks near Ochakov, Doroshenko proposed at the Rada to recognize the supremacy of the Turkish Sultan, and it was accepted.
.
At the end of 1671, Crown Hetman Sobieski took Mogilev, Gogol's residence. One of Ostap’s sons died during the defense of the fortress. The colonel himself fled to Moldova and from there sent Sobieski a letter of his desire to submit.
As a reward for this, Ostap received the village of Vilkhovets. The certificate of the estate's salary served the grandfather of the writer Nikolai Gogol as evidence of his nobility.
Colonel Gogol became Hetman of Right Bank Ukraine on behalf of King John III Sobieski. He died in 1679 at his residence in Dymer and was buried in the Kiev-Mezhigorsky Monastery near Kyiv.
Analogy with the story is obvious: both heroes are Zaporozhye colonels, both had sons, one of whom died at the hands of the Poles, the other went over to the side of the enemy. Thus, a distant ancestor of the writer and was the prototype of Taras Bulba.

3.Plyushkin
Oryol landowner Spiridon Matsnev he was extremely stingy, walked around in a greasy robe and dirty clothes, so that few could recognize him as a rich gentleman.
The landowner had 8,000 peasant souls, but he starved not only them, but also himself.

N.V. Gogol brought this stingy landowner to “ Dead souls"in the image of Plyushkin. “If Chichikov had met him, so dressed up, somewhere at the church door, he would probably have given him a copper penny”...
“This landowner had more than a thousand souls, and anyone else would try to find so much bread in grain, flour and simply in storerooms, whose storerooms, barns and drying rooms were cluttered with so many linens, cloth, dressed and rawhide sheepskins...” .
The image of Plyushkin became a household name.

4. Silvio
“Shot” A.S. Pushkin

Silvio's prototype is Ivan Petrovich Liprandi.
Pushkin's friend, the prototype of Silvio in "The Shot".
Author of the best memoirs about Pushkin's southern exile.
The son of a Russified Spanish grandee. Participant in the Napoleonic wars since 1807 (from the age of 17). Colleague and friend of the Decembrist Raevsky, member of the Union of Welfare. Arrested in the Decembrist case in January 1826, he was in a cell with Griboyedov.

“...His personality was of undoubted interest due to his talents, fate and original way of life. He was gloomy and gloomy, but he loved to gather officers at his place and entertain them widely. The sources of his income were shrouded in mystery to everyone. A book reader and book lover, he was famous for his brawling, and a rare duel took place without his participation."
Pushkin "Shot"

At the same time, Liprandi turned out to be an employee of military intelligence and the secret police.
Since 1813, the head of the secret political police under Vorontsov’s army in France. He communicated closely with the famous Vidocq. Together with the French gendarmerie, he participated in the disclosure of the anti-government “Pin Society”. Since 1820, the chief military intelligence officer at the headquarters of Russian troops in Bessarabia. At the same time, he became the main theorist and practitioner of military and political espionage.
Since 1828 - head of the Higher Secret Foreign Police. Since 1820 - directly subordinate to Benckendorf. Organizer of provocation in the Butashevich-Petrashevsky circle. Organizer of Ogarev's arrest in 1850. Author of a project to establish a spy school at universities...

5.Andrey Bolkonsky

Prototypes Andrey Bolkonsky there were several. His tragic death was “copied” by Leo Tolstoy from the biography of a real prince Dmitry Golitsyn.
Prince Dmitry Golitsyn was registered for service in the Moscow archive of the Ministry of Justice. Soon Emperor Alexander I granted him the rank of chamberlain cadet, and then actual chamberlain, which was equivalent to the rank of general.

In 1805, Prince Golitsyn entered military service and, together with the army, fought the campaigns of 1805-1807.
In 1812, he submitted a report with a request to enlist in the army, became an Akhtyrsky hussar; Denis Davydov also served in the same regiment. Golitsin took part in border battles as part of the 2nd Russian army of General Bagration, fought at the Shevardinsky redoubt, and then found himself on the left flank of the Russian formations on the Borodino field.
In one of the skirmishes, Major Golitsyn was seriously wounded by a grenade fragment., he was carried from the battlefield. After the operation in the field hospital, it was decided to take the wounded man further east.
"Bolkonsky House" in Vladimir.


They made a stop in Vladimir, Major Golitsyn was placed in one of the merchant houses on a steep hill on Klyazma. But, almost a month after the Battle of Borodino, Dmitry Golitsyn died in Vladimir...
.....................

Soviet literature

6. Assol
The gentle dreamer Assol had more than one prototype.
First prototype - Maria Sergeevna Alonkina, secretary of the House of Arts, almost everyone living and visiting this House was in love with her.
One day, while climbing the stairs to his office, Green saw a short, dark-skinned girl talking with Korney Chukovsky.
There was something unearthly in her appearance: flying gait, radiant look, ringing happy laugh. It seemed to him that she looked like Assol from the story “ Scarlet Sails", which he was working on at the time.
The image of 17-year-old Masha Alonkina occupied Green's imagination and was reflected in the extravaganza story.


"I don't know how much years will pass, only in Kaperna will one fairy tale blossom, memorable for a long time. You will be big, Assol. One morning, in the sea distance, a scarlet sail will sparkle under the sun. The shining bulk of the scarlet sails of the white ship will move, cutting through the waves, straight towards you..."

And in 1921 Green met with Nina Nikolaevna Mironova, who worked for the Petrograd Echo newspaper. He, gloomy and lonely, was at ease with her, he was amused by her coquetry, he admired her love of life. Soon they got married.

The door is closed, the lamp is lit.
She will come to me in the evening
There are no more aimless, dull days -
I sit and think about her...

On this day she will give me her hand,
I trust quietly and completely.
A terrible world is raging around,
Come, beautiful, dear friend.

Come, I've been waiting for you for a long time.
It was so sad and dark
But the winter spring has come,
Light knock...My wife came.

Green dedicated the extravaganza “Scarlet Sails” and the novel “The Shining World” to her, his “winter spring.”
..................

7. Ostap Bender and the Children of Lieutenant Schmidt

The person who became the prototype of Ostap Bender is known.
This - Osip (Ostap) Veniaminovich Shor(1899 -1979). Shor was born in Odessa, was an employee of the UGRO, a football player, a traveler…. Was a friend E. Bagritsky, Y. Olesha, Ilf and Petrov. His brother was the futurist poet Nathan Fioletov.

The appearance, character and speech of Ostap Bender are taken from Osip Shor.
Almost all the famous “Bendery” phrases - “The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury!”, “I will command the parade!”, “My dad was a Turkish subject...” and many others - were gleaned by the authors from Shor’s vocabulary.
In 1917, Shor entered the first year of the Petrograd Technological Institute, and in 1919 he left for his homeland. He got home almost two years, with many adventures, which I talked about the authors of "The Twelve Chairs".
The stories they told about how he, unable to draw, got a job as an artist on a propaganda ship, or about how he gave a simultaneous game in some remote town, introducing himself as an international grandmaster, were reflected in “12 Chairs” practically unchanged.
By the way, the famous leader of the Odessa bandits, Bear-Japanese, which UGRO employee Shor fought, became the prototype Benny Krika, from " Odessa stories" by I. Babel.

And here is the episode that gave rise to the creation of the image "children of Lieutenant Schmidt."
In August 1925, a man with an oriental appearance, decently dressed, wearing American glasses, appeared at the Gomel Provincial Executive Committee and introduced himself Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Uzbek SSR Fayzula Khojaev. He told the chairman of the provincial executive committee, Egorov, that he was traveling from Crimea to Moscow, but his money and documents were stolen on the train. Instead of a passport, he presented a certificate that he was really Khodzhaev, signed by the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Crimean Republic, Ibragimov.
He was received warmly, given money, and began to be taken to theaters and banquets. But one of the police chiefs decided to compare the Uzbek’s personality with the portraits of the chairmen of the Central Election Commission, which he found in an old magazine. This is how the false Khojaev was exposed, who turned out to be a native of Kokand, traveling from Tbilisi, where he was serving his sentence...
In the same way, posing as a high-ranking official, the former prisoner had fun in Yalta, Simferopol, Novorossiysk, Kharkov, Poltava, Minsk...
It was a fun time - the time of the NEP and such desperate people, adventurers as Shor and the false Khojaev.
Later I will write separately about Bender...
………

8.Timur
TIMUR is the hero of the film script and A. Gaidar’s story “Timur and His Team.” One of the most famous and popular heroes of Soviet children's literature of the 30s - 40s.
Under the influence of the story by A.P. Gaidar “Timur and his team” in the USSR arose among pioneers and schoolchildren in the early years. 1940s "Timurov movement". Timurovites provided assistance to military families, the elderly...
It is believed that the “prototype” of Timurov’s team for A. Gaidar was a group of scouts that operated back in the 10s in the dacha suburb of St. Petersburg.“Timurovites” and “scouts” really have a lot in common (especially in the ideology and practice of children’s “knightly” care for the people around them, the idea of ​​doing good deeds “in secret”).
The story Gaidar told turned out to be surprisingly consonant with the mood of a whole generation of guys: the fight for justice, an underground headquarters, a specific alarm system, the ability to quickly gather “in a chain,” etc.

It is interesting that in the early edition the story was called "Duncan and his team" or “Duncan to the rescue” - the hero of the story was - Vovka Duncan. The influence of the work is obvious Jules Verne: yacht "Duncan""At the first alarm signal I went to the aid of Captain Grant.

In the spring of 1940, while working on a film based on an unfinished story, the name "Duncan" was rejected. The Cinematography Committee expressed bewilderment: “A good Soviet boy. A pioneer. He came up with such a useful game and suddenly - “Duncan”. We consulted with our comrades here - you need to change your name.”
And then Gaidar gave the hero the name of his own son, whom he called “little commander” in life. According to another version - Timur- the name of the neighbor boy. Here's a girl Zhenya got the name from adopted daughter Gaidar from his second marriage.
The image of Timur embodies ideal type teenage leader with his desire for noble deeds, secrets, pure ideals.
Concept "Timurovets" firmly entered into everyday life. Until the end of the 80s, Timurites were children who provided selfless help to those in need.
....................

9. Captain Vrungel
From the story Andrey Nekrasov "The Adventures of Captain Vrungel"".
A book about the incredible sea adventures of the resourceful and resilient captain Vrungel, his senior mate Lom and sailor Fuchs.

Christopher Bonifatievich Vrungel- main character and the narrator on whose behalf the story is told. An experienced old sailor, with a solid and prudent character, not lacking in ingenuity.
The first part of the surname uses the word "liar". Vrungel, whose name has become a household name, is the naval equivalent of Baron Munchausen, telling tall tales about his sailing adventures.
According to Nekrasov himself, the prototype of Vrungel was his acquaintance with the surname Vronsky, lover of telling maritime fables with his own participation. His last name was so suitable for the main character that the book was originally supposed to be called " The Adventures of Captain Vronsky", however, for fear of offending a friend, the author chose a different surname for the main character.
................