The history of the creation of "Eugene Onegin", the analysis of the work

The story of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" - "the fruit of the mind of cold observations and the heart of woeful notes" - the outstanding Russian classic Alexander Pushkin does not resemble blitzkrieg. The work was created by the poet evolutionarily, marking its emergence on the path of realism. The novel in verse as an event in art was a unique phenomenon. Prior to this, only one analogue, the romantic work of George Gordon Byron, Don Giovanni, was written in the world literature in the same genre.

The author decides to brainstorm

Pushkin went beyond the great Englishman - to realism. This time, the poet set himself a super task - to show a man capable of serving as a catalyst for the further development of Russia. Alexander Sergeevich, sharing the ideas of the Decembrists, understood that a huge country should be moved, as a locomotive, from a dead-end road that led the whole society to a systemic crisis.

The history of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" is determined by the titanic poetic work from May 1823 to September 1830, the creative rethinking of the Russian reality of the first quarter of the XIX century. The novel in verse was created during four stages of Alexander Sergeevich's work: the southern exile (1820 - 1824), the stay "without the right to leave the Mikhailovskoye estate unauthorized" (1824 - 1826), the period after exile (1826 - 1830) Boldinskoy Autumn (1830)

A.S. Pushkin, "Eugene Onegin": the history of creation

Young Pushkin, a graduate of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, according to the words of Emperor Alexander I, "flooded Russia with outrageous verses", began to write his novel, staying in exile in Chisinau (thanks to the intercession of friends, the transfer to Siberia was avoided). By this time he was already an idol of the Russian educated youth.

The poet sought to create an image of the hero of his time. In the work he painfully sought an answer to the question of what should be the bearer of new ideas, the creator of a new Russia.

Socio-economic situation in the country

Consider the social environment in which the novel was created. Russia won the war of 1812. This gave a tangible impetus to the social strivings for liberation from feudal fetters. First of all, the people thirsted for the abolition of serfdom. Such his release inevitably entailed a restriction of the monarch's powers. Formed immediately after the war, the community of guards officers in St. Petersburg in 1816 form the Decembrist "Union of Salvation." In 1818, the "Union of Welfare" was organized in Moscow. These Decembrist organizations actively contributed to the formation of liberal public opinion and were waiting for a convenient time for a coup d'état. Among the Decembrists there were many friends of Pushkin. He shared their views.

Russia by that time had already become a recognized European power with a population of about 40 million people, within it germs of state capitalism were ripening. However, its economic life was still determined by the rudiments of feudalism, aristocratic landownership and merchants. These social groups, gradually losing their social weight, were still powerful and enjoyed influence over the life of the state, prolonging feudal relations in the country. They were advocates of a society built on obsolete Catherine's noble principles inherent in Russia of the XVIII century.

There were characteristic signs of the social and economic crisis of the whole society. There were many educated people in the country who understood that the interests of development require great changes and reforms. The history of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" began with a personal rejection of the poet by the surrounding, in the words of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, "the dark kingdom"

Rising after the powerful acceleration set by Peter I and dynamism during the reign of Empress Catherine II, Russia in the early 19th century slowed down the pace of development. At the time of Pushkin's writing of the famous novel in the country, there were no railways yet, steamships were not floating along its rivers, thousands of her hardworking and talented citizens were bound by the bonds of serfdom.

The history of "Eugene Onegin" is inseparably linked with the history of Russia at the beginning of the XIX century.

Onegin stanza

With special attention, Alexander Sergeevich, "Russian Mozart from poetry," reacted to his work. He developed a new poetic series specifically for writing a novel in verse.

The poet's words flow not in a free stream, but in a structured way. Each fourteen lines of the four-legged iamba are combined into a specific Onegin stanza. In this case, rhyming invariably throughout the entire novel and has the following form: CCddEffEgg (where uppercase letters denote female endings, and lowercase - male).

Undoubtedly, the history of the creation of the novel "Eugene Onegin" is the story of the creation of the Onegin stanza. It is through varying stanzas that the author succeeds in creating an analogue of prosaic sections and chapters: to move from one topic to another, to change the style of presentation from reflection to the dynamic development of the plot. Thus, the author creates the impression of a casual conversation with his reader.

The novel is "a collection of motley chapters"

What makes people write works about their generation and their native land? Why do they give themselves to this work completely, working as if possessed?

The history of the creation of the novel "Eugene Onegin" was originally subordinated to the author's intention: to create a novel in verse, consisting of 9 separate chapters. Specialists in the work of Alexander Sergeevich call it "open in time" because each of its chapters is independent, and can, according to its internal logic, complete the work, although it finds its continuation in the next chapter. His contemporary - a professor of Russian literature, Nikolai Ivanovich Nadezhdin - gave a classic description of "Eugene Onegin" not as a work with a rigid logical structure, but rather as a poetic notebook filled with immediate iridescent surges of bright talent.

About the chapters of the novel

The chapters of "Eugene Onegin" were published from 1825 to 1832. As they were written and published in literary almanacs and journals. They were expected, each of them became a real event in the cultural life of Russia.

However, one of them, dedicated to the journey of the protagonist to military settlements in the area of the Odessa quay, containing critical judgments, disliked the author in order to avoid reprisals against himself, and then destroyed his only manuscript.

Also, completely giving himself up to work, later worked on his "Doctor Zhivago" Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, also wrote about his generation, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov. Pushkin himself called his more than seven-year work on this novel in verse a feat.

Main character

Description Eugene Onegin, in the opinion of literary critics, reminds the personality of Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev - the author of "Philosophical Letters." This is a character with a powerful energy around which the story unfolds and other characters show themselves. Pushkin wrote about him as a "good friend". Eugene received a classical noble education, completely devoid of "Russianness". And although he has an acute but cold mind, he is a man of light, following certain opinions and prejudices. The life of Eugene Onegin is meager. On the one hand, the morals of the world are alien to him, he sharply criticizes them; And on the other - he is subject to his influence. The hero can not be called active, rather, it is an intelligent observer.

Features of the image of Onegin

His image is tragic. Firstly, he could not stand the test of love. Eugene listened to the reason, but not to his heart. At the same time he acted nobly, respectfully referring to Tatiana, letting her know that he was not capable of loving.

Secondly, he could not stand the test of friendship. Summoned to the duel of his friend, 18-year-old romantic young man Lensky, he blindly follows the concepts of light. It seems to him more decisive not to provoke the malicious language of the old notary duelist Zaretsky than to stop a completely stupid quarrel with Vladimir. By the way, Pushkin scholars consider the young Kiichelbecker prototype of Lensky.

Tatyana Larina

The use of the name Tatiana in the novel by Eugene Onegin was the know-how from Pushkin. After all, at the beginning of the XIX century this name was considered common and irrelevant. Moreover, dark-haired and not ruddy, thoughtful, uncommunicative, she did not correspond to the ideals of the beauty of light. Tatiana (like the author of the novel) loved folk tales, which the nurse told her generously. However, her special passion was reading books.

Heroes of the novel

In addition to the aforementioned plot-forming protagonists, the secondary characters pass before the reader. These images of the novel "Eugene Onegin" do not form the plot, but complement it. This is Tatiana's sister Olga, an empty socialite, in whom Vladimir Lensky was in love. The image of Tatyana's nurse, a connoisseur of folk tales, has a clear prototype - the nurse of Alexander Sergeevich himself, Arina Rodionovna. Another unnamed hero of the novel is Tatiana Larina, who was found by her husband after Yevgeny Onegin's quarrel - "an important general".

A host of landowners seem to have been imported into Pushkin's novel from other Russian classical works. This is Skotinin ("The Incomplete" of Fonvizin), and Buyanov ("The Dangerous Neighbor" by VL Pushkin).

The work of the people

The highest praise for Alexander Sergeevich was the evaluation given to the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin" by a man whom the poet considered his teacher, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. The opinion was extremely laconic: "You are the first in Russian Parnassus ..."

The novel in verse encyclopedically correctly reflected the Russian reality of the beginning of the nineteenth century, showed the way of life, characteristic features, the social role of various strata of society: the Petersburg high society, the nobility of Moscow, the landowners-landowners, peasants. Perhaps, therefore, and also because of the all-embracing and subtle reflection of Pushkin's values, mores, views, fashion at that time, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky gave him such an exhaustive description: "a highly popular work" and an "encyclopedia of Russian life."

Pushkin wanted to change the plot

The history of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" is the evolution of a young poet who took up 23 years for global work. And if in prose such sprouts have already been (recall the incognito published book by Alexander Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"), then realism in poetry at that time was an undeniable innovation.

The final design of the work was formed by the author only in 1830. He was clumsy and exhausted. To give the traditional solid look to his work, Alexander decided to send Eugene Onegin to fight in the Caucasus, or turn it into a Decembrist. But Eugene Onegin - the hero of the novel in verse - was created by Pushkin at one inspiration, as "a collection of motley chapters", and this is his charm.

Conclusion

The work "Eugene Onegin" is the first realistic novel in verse in Russian history. It is a landmark for the XIX century. The novel was recognized by society as deeply popular. Encyclopaedic description of Russian life adjoins it with high artistic quality.

However, in the opinion of critics, the main hero of this novel is still not Onegin, but the author of the work. This character does not have a certain appearance. This is a kind of white spot for the reader.

Alexander Sergeevich under the text of the work hints at his link, saying that "the North is harmful to him," etc. Pushkin is invisibly present in all actions, sums it up, makes the reader laugh, enlivens the plot. His quotes do not strike the eyebrow, but in the eye.

By the will of fate Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin reviewed the second complete edition of his novel in verse in 1937 (the first was in 1833), being already mortally wounded on the Black River near the Commandant's Dacha. The circulation of 5,000 copies was planned to be sold throughout the year. However, readers sold it in a week. In the future, the classics of Russian literature, each for its time, continued the creative search of Alexander Sergeevich. All of them tried to create a hero of their time. And Mikhail Lermontov in the image of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin ("The Hero of Our Time"), and Ivan Goncharov in the image of Ilya Oblomov ...