Who is the bronze horseman from the poem. A.S

In 1833, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin had already given up hopes for the enlightened reign of Nicholas I, when he presented his reflections on the fate of the people and the Pugachev rebellion in his novel The Captain's Daughter, when he traveled through all of Russia to Orenburg. As a result, he retires to the estate of his wife Boldin to gather his thoughts, where he creates a poem "Bronze Horseman", which he dedicates to the reformer Peter the Great. Pushkin calls his work "Petersburg story" (in drafts - "sorrowful story" and "sad legend") and insists that "the incident described in this story is based on the truth."

In The Bronze Horseman, Pushkin poses two of the most pressing questions of his time: about social contradictions and about the future of the country. To do this, he shows the past, present and future of Russia as an inseparable whole. The impetus for the creation of the poem can be considered Pushkin's acquaintance with the third part of the poem by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz "Dzyady", in the appendix to which there was a poetic cycle "Petersburg".

It included the poem "Monument to Peter the Great" and a few more verses containing harshest criticism Nikolaev Russia. Mickiewicz hated autocracy and had a sharply negative attitude towards Peter I, whom he considered the founder of modern Russian statehood, and he calls the monument to him "a block of tyranny."

The Russian poet opposed his philosophy of history in The Bronze Horseman to the views of the Polish poet. Pushkin's interest in the Petrine era was enormous. He appreciated the progressive activity of Peter, but the appearance of the king emerges in two ways: on the one hand, he is a reformer, on the other, an autocratic king, forcing him to obey with a whip and a stick.

Deep in content, the poem "The Bronze Horseman" was created in the shortest possible time - from October 6 to October 31, 1833. The plot revolves around Eugene, a poor official who challenged the statue of the emperor - the founder of St. Petersburg. This audacity" little man”is explained by the shock that the hero experienced when, after the flood in St. Petersburg, he lost his bride Parasha, who found herself in the flood zone.

All the events described in the poem unfold around the main characters: there are two of them - a petty official Eugene and Tsar Peter I. The introduction to the poem is a detailed exposition to the image of Peter: this is also a clarification historical role sovereign, and a description of his activities. The theme of the glorification of Peter in the introduction is imbued with faith in the future of Russia, it sounds pathetic. The beginning of the first part sounds just as solemnly, where the poet glorifies the young “city of Petrov”.

But next to the sovereign is a poor official, dreaming of the ordinary - of a family and modest prosperity. Unlike other “little” people (Vyrin from or Bashmachkin from The Overcoat), the drama of Yevgeny in The Bronze Horseman lies in the fact that his personal fate is drawn into the cycle of history and is connected with the whole course historical process in Russia. As a result, Eugene confronts Tsar Peter.

The flood is the central episode of the work. The meaning of the flood is the rebellion of nature against the creation of Peter. The furious anger of the rebellious elements is powerless to destroy the city of Peter, but this becomes a disaster for the social lower classes of St. Petersburg. Therefore, rebellious feelings awaken in Eugene, and he throws a reproach to heaven, which created a person too powerless. Later, having lost his beloved, Eugene goes crazy.

A year later, during the same rainy season as before the flood of 1824, Eugene recalls everything he experienced and sees on "Peter's Square" the culprit of all his misfortunes - Peter. Saving Russia, Peter reared her over the abyss and by his own will founded a city over the sea, and this brings death to the life of Eugene, who eked out his miserable age. And the proud idol still stands on an unshakable peak, not considering it necessary to even look in the direction of insignificant people.

Then a protest is born in Yevgeny's soul: he falls to the bars and angrily whispers his threats. The silent idol turns into a formidable king, pursuing Eugene with his “heavy-voiced galloping”, eventually forcing him to reconcile. The rebellion of the "little man" against Peter is defeated, and the corpse of Eugene is buried on a deserted island.

The poem reveals to the reader the attitude of the humanist poet, who recognizes the right of everyone to be happy, to the cruel suppression of the rebellion. The author intentionally evokes sympathy for the fate of "poor Eugene", crushed by historical circumstances, and the finale sounds like a mournful requiem, like a bitter echo of a pathetic prologue.

• "The Bronze Horseman", a summary of parts of Pushkin's poem
• "The Captain's Daughter", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's story

Re-introduced great figure who served only the good of the motherland. For his prophetic gaze, foreseeing the future, the need was clear to “cut a window into Europe” and, “setting a firm foot by the sea”, to create St. Petersburg, the cradle of a new historical life. The great work of Peter required many sacrifices. The suffering of many of them may have been useless for the common good. The whole tragedy of this harsh senseless necessity was felt by Pushkin and expressed by him in The Bronze Horseman.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Portrait by V. Tropinin, 1827

Eugene is a victim of historical necessity

Mazepa in "Poltava" is an egoist, sacrificing everything to his vain desires, and he dies from this. The hero of the poem "The Bronze Horseman", dreaming only of personal well-being, does not rape anyone's life, does not invade history, he cherishes only his little happiness. But fate was pleased to destroy this happiness, and he perished, as an accidental victim of the great deed of Peter, perished from the flood to which Petersburg is subject as a result of its unfortunate geographical location. Before us is one of the "meaninglessness" of history, one of those unnecessary, useless drops of blood, of which a lot is splashed along the path of her slow, majestic march. Relentless and iron, she goes forward, not knowing compassion, not counting her victims. And each such sacrifice, especially unnecessary and useless, inspires immense pity. Pushkin felt this and wrote a deeply touching story of one such victim: a flood shatters Eugene's dreams, his lover dies, and he goes mad.

But Pushkin did not limit himself to this: to this sad story he added one more feature: the victim does not immediately submit to fate, she grumbles. In the name of their personal human feelings, Eugene dares to blame that Peter, who was, in his eyes, the main culprit of his misfortune. And the miserable ant that rebelled against the giant is severely punished: the bronze horseman, with an angry face, on horseback, pursues him on his heels...

Eugene - a representative of the old nobility

It is curious that Pushkin complicated the image of Yevgeny with several more features: we are not only a man who lost his personal happiness “through the fault of Peter”, he is, moreover, a principled enemy of Peter, who humiliated the old Russian nobility with his reforms. Eugene belonged to a run-down landlord family, which in the past counted many glorious names in its ranks. Peter with his table of ranks” gave way to “new people”, and the privileges of origin lost their price. In a curious excerpt from "My Hero's Pedigree" relating to the poem, Pushkin directly expresses regret over the gradual fall of the Russian tribal, but now impoverished, aristocracy. Pushkin himself belonged to it. He was proud of his genealogy and was weary of the humiliated state of his family. From these moods, some of his works came out, where he ridicules " elite”, largely consisting of “new people” who came to the fore only in the 18th century.

Eugene is a Slavophile

But, in addition to such "estate" reasons for Eugene's enmity towards Peter, Pushkin also presented him as a Slavophile nationalist, who saw in the great reformer a "rapist" over the Russian nationality. In the unfinished text of The Bronze Horseman that has come down to you, there is no indication of this “Slavophilism” of Eugene, but Prince Vyazemsky, in reading Pushkin himself, heard Eugene’s monologue (in 30 verses), where Peter was condemned for his extreme Westernism and dislike for European civilization.

In artistic terms, the poem would have lost if Pushkin had emphasized Yevgeny's class enmity towards Peter and included his Slavophilism in it: the tragedy of Yevgeny's fate would have weakened, the main idea of ​​the poem would have faded.

Peter the Great in The Bronze Horseman

In Pushkin's youthful poems, the author's interest is focused on the character of the characters, on descriptions of the peculiar nature of the south. But in the later ones, all attention is focused on clarifying deep historical ideas: the poet is interested in the great cultural civilizing role of Christianity (“Galub”), he is captured by the question of the moral obligations of the individual in history (“Poltava”), about the irrational element of history, expressed in the futility of random victims. ("Bronze Horseman").

A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" combines both historical and social issues. This is the author's reflection on Peter the Great as a reformer, collection different opinions and assessments of his actions. This poem is one of his perfect compositions, having philosophical meaning. We offer for acquaintance brief analysis poems, the material can be used to work on literature lessons in grade 7.

Brief analysis

Year of writing– 1833

History of creation- During his "golden autumn", when Pushkin was forced to stay in the Boldin estate, the poet had a creative upsurge. In that "golden" time, the author created many brilliant works that made a great impression on both the public and critics. One of such works of the Boldino period was the poem "The Bronze Horseman".

Topic– The reign of Peter the Great, the attitude of society to his reforms – main topic"Bronze Horseman"

Composition- The composition consists of a large introduction, it can be considered as a separate poem, and two parts, which deal with the main character, the devastating flood of 1824, and the meeting of the hero with the Bronze Horseman.

Genre- The genre of "The Bronze Horseman" is a poem.

Direction - Historical poem describing actual events, direction- realism.

History of creation

At the very beginning of the history of the creation of the poem, the writer was in the Boldin estate. He thought a lot about history Russian state, about its rulers and autocratic power. At that time, society was divided into two types of people - some fully supported the policy of Peter the Great, treated him with adoration, and the other type of people found in the great emperor a resemblance to evil spirits, considered him a fiend, and treated him accordingly.

The writer listened to different opinions about the reign of Peter, the result of his reflections and the collection of various information, was the poem "The Bronze Horseman", which completed his Boldino heyday of creativity, the year the poem was written was 1833.

Topic

In The Bronze Horseman, the analysis of the work displays one of the main topics- power and a small person. The author reflects on the rule of the state, on the collision of a small man with a huge colossus.

Myself the meaning of the name- "The Bronze Horseman" - contains the main idea of ​​the poetic work. The monument to Peter is made of bronze, but the author preferred another epithet, more ponderous and gloomy. So, through expressive artistic means, the poet describes a powerful state machine, for which the problems of small people suffering from the power of autocratic rule are indifferent.

In this poem, conflict between the little man and the authorities does not have its continuation, a person is so small for the state, when "the forest is cut down - the chips fly."

In different ways one can judge the role of one person in the fate of the state. In his introduction to the poem, the author characterizes Peter the Great as a man of amazing intelligence, far-sighted and decisive. Being in power, Peter looked far ahead, he thought about the future of Russia, about its power and invincibility. The actions of Peter the Great can be judged in different ways, accusing him of despotism and tyranny in relation to the common people. It is impossible to justify the actions of a ruler who built power on the bones of people.

Composition

Pushkin's ingenious idea in the features of the composition of the poem serves as proof of the poet's creative skill. A large introduction dedicated to Peter the Great and the city he built can be read as an independent work.

The language of the poem has absorbed all genre originality emphasizing the attitude of the author to the events he describes. In the description of Peter and Petersburg, the language is pretentious, majestic, completely in harmony with the appearance of the emperor, great and powerful.

A completely different language is the story of a simple Eugene. Narrative speech about the hero is in the usual language, reflects the essence of the "little man".

The greatest genius of Pushkin is clearly visible in this poem, it is all written in the same meter, but in different parts of the work, it sounds completely different. The two parts of the poem following the introduction can also be considered a separate work. These parts talk about ordinary person who lost his girlfriend in a flood.

Eugene blames the monument to Peter for this, implying in it the emperor himself - the autocrat. A person who dreams of simple human happiness has lost the meaning of life, having lost the most precious thing - he has lost his beloved girl, his future. It seems to Evgeny that the Bronze Horseman is chasing him. Eugene understands that the autocrat is cruel and ruthless. Crushed by grief, the young man goes crazy, and then dies, left without the meaning of life.

It can be concluded that in this way the author continues the theme of the “little man”, developed at that time in Russian literature. By this he proves how despotic government is in relation to the common people.

main characters

Genre

The work "The Bronze Horseman" belongs to the genre of a poetic poem with a realistic direction.

The poem is large-scale in its deep content, it includes both historical and philosophical issues. There is no epilogue in the poem, and the contradictions between the little man and the whole state remain open.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is an outstanding Russian poet, a classic of the Golden Age. His famous "The Bronze Horseman", an analysis of which will be offered below, is a remarkable work of literature.

It is dedicated to Peter the Great and his main creation - the city on the Neva, St. Petersburg. The analysis of the poem "The Bronze Horseman" is always very difficult, because not everyone has an unambiguous attitude towards the great reformer and his offspring. A. Pushkin is a master of poetic form, and that is why it was not difficult for him to portray history in this particular form.

"The Bronze Horseman": analysis of the poem

The poem was written in 1833. By that time, the opinion of the author himself about the transformations of the great tsar-builder had changed, because it was Peter the Great who was the hero in the Battle of Poltava. The poem initially did not pass the cruel censorship of Nicholas 1, but after that it was allowed for publication.

The focus is on two heroes - a young man named Eugene and the Bronze Horseman himself. This poem is easy to read, which allows you to quickly make an analysis. The Bronze Horseman is the one whom the young man blames for his misfortune (after a severe flood, the hero runs to the house of his beloved girl and sees that it is disaster affected his fate - Parasha is no more).

What is said in the first part of this poetic story? It tells about the beautiful autumn St. Petersburg. A young and hardworking Eugene lives there, who is very worried and upset by his fate. He has a girlfriend - Parasha, whom he has not seen for many days and misses her very much. It was a normal day, Eugene was walking home from work and thinking about Parasha. At night, a severe flood begins, after which he learns that his beloved is no more. After this incident, the hero ceases to "live": he leaves work, leaves the apartment, lives on the pier. One autumn day, for some unknown reason, he goes to the Bronze Horseman.

The Bronze Horseman (analysis poem of the same name the great Russian classic A. Pushkin always makes everyone think) rises majestically on Senate Square. Pushkin uses personification techniques to show the connection between the hero and the monument. It begins to seem to Eugene that after his accusations, Peter the Great himself is chasing him (Eugene hears the sound of rushing hooves). The author himself calls his hero a "madman", and majestically characterizes the Bronze Horseman: "... he is full of great thoughts."

The poem "The Bronze Horseman", analysis and detailed analysis which will help to plunge into the atmosphere described by A. Pushkin is a great work. This became possible thanks to an amazing sense of style and words, precise techniques and competent coordination of words. The use of Slavicisms gives the work a real Russian character and emphasizes precisely the Russian nature of Eugene (brow, cold), while for Peter Pushkin uses a completely different stylistic coloring of the words - “the ruler of half the world”. The poem "The Bronze Horseman" has become symbolic for the city on the Neva. It was after the publication of this poem, addressing St. Petersburg, they began to say: “Show off, city of Petrov ...”

The last poem written by Pushkin in Boldin in October 1833 is the artistic result of his reflections on the personality of Peter I, on the "Petersburg" period of Russian history. Two themes “met” in the poem: the theme of Peter, “the miraculous builder,” and the theme of the “simple” (“little”) man, “an insignificant hero,” which worried the poet from the late 1820s. narration about tragic fate an ordinary resident of St. Petersburg, who suffered during the flood, became the plot basis for historical and philosophical generalizations related to the role of Peter in recent history Russia, with the fate of his offspring - Petersburg.

The Bronze Horseman is one of Pushkin's most perfect poetic works. The poem is written, like Eugene Onegin, in iambic tetrameter. Pay attention to the variety of its rhythms and intonations, amazing sound. The poet creates vivid visual and auditory images, using the richest rhythmic, intonation and sound possibilities of Russian verse (repetitions, caesuras, alliterations, assonances). Many fragments of the poem have become textbooks. We hear the celebratory polyphony of Petersburg life (“And the brilliance and noise and the talk of balls, / And at the hour of the feast, the idle / The hiss of foamy glasses / And the blue flame of punch”), we see Evgeny, confused and shocked (“He stopped. / Went back and turned back. / Looks ... walks ... still looks. / Here is the place where their house stands, / Here is a willow. There were gates here, / It was blown away, you can see. Where is the house?), We are deafened "as if by thunder - / Heavy-voiced galloping / On the shaken pavement. “In terms of sound figurativeness, the verse of The Bronze Horseman knows few rivals,” the poet V.Ya. Bryusov, a subtle researcher of Pushkin's poetry.

AT short poem(less than 500 verses) combined history and modernity, private life a hero with a historical life, reality with a myth. Perfection poetic forms and innovative principles of the artistic embodiment of the historical and modern material made "The Bronze Horseman" a unique work, a kind of "monument not made by hands" to Peter, Petersburg, the "Petersburg" period of Russian history.

Pushkin overcame the genre canons of the historical poem. Peter I does not appear in the poem as historical character(he is an "idol" - a statue, a deified statue), nothing is said about the time of his reign. The Petrine era for Pushkin is a long period in the history of Russia, which did not end with the death of the reformer tsar. The poet refers not to the origins of this era, but to its results, that is, to the present. The high historical point from which Pushkin looked at Peter was the event of the recent past - the St. Petersburg flood on November 7, 1824, " terrible time", about which, as the poet emphasized, "there is a fresh memory." This is a living, not yet “cooled down” history.

The flood, one of many that have hit the city since its founding, is the central event of the work. A tale of flood shapes the first semantic plan of the poem is historical. The documentary nature of the story is noted in the author's "Foreword" and in "Notes". In one of the episodes, the “late tsar”, the unnamed Alexander I, appears. The flood for Pushkin is not just a bright historical fact. He looked at it as a kind of final "document" of the era. This is, as it were, the "last tale" in her Petersburg "chronicle", begun by Peter's decision to found a city on the Neva. The flood is the historical basis of the plot and the source of one of the conflicts of the poem - the conflict between the city and the elements.

The second semantic plan of the poem is conditionally literary, fictional- given the subtitle: "Petersburg Tale". Evgeniy - central character this story. The faces of the rest of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg are indistinguishable. This is the "people" crowding the streets, drowning during the flood (the first part), and the cold, indifferent people of St. Petersburg in the second part. The real background of the story about the fate of Eugene was Petersburg: Senate Square, the streets and the outskirts, where Parasha's "ramshackle house" stood. Pay attention to. the fact that the action in the poem is transferred to the street: during the flood, Eugene found himself “on Petrova Square”, home, in his “desert corner”, he, distraught with grief, no longer returns, becoming an inhabitant of St. Petersburg streets. The Bronze Horseman is the first urban poem in Russian literature.

Historical and conditional-literary plans dominate in realistic storytelling(first and second parts).

Plays an important role the third semantic plan is legendary and mythological. It is given by the title of the poem - "The Bronze Horseman". This semantic plan interacts with the historical one in the introduction, sets off the plot narrative about the flood and the fate of Yevgeny, from time to time reminding of himself (primarily by the figure of the “idol on a bronze horse”), and dominates in the climax of the poem (the pursuit of Yevgeny by the Bronze Horseman). A mythological hero appears, a revived statue - the Bronze Horseman. In this episode, Petersburg seems to lose its real shape, turning into a conventional, mythological space.

Bronze Horseman - Unusual literary image. It is a figurative interpretation of the sculptural composition, embodying the idea of ​​its creator, the sculptor E. Falcone, but at the same time it is a grotesque, fantastic image, overcoming the border between the real (“believable”) and the mythological (“wonderful”). The Bronze Horseman, awakened by the words of Eugene, breaking off his pedestal, ceases to be only an "idol on a bronze horse", that is, a monument to Peter. He becomes the mythological embodiment of the "terrible king".

Since the founding of St. Petersburg real story city ​​was interpreted in a variety of myths, legends and prophecies. The “City of Peter” appeared in them not as an ordinary city, but as the embodiment of mysterious, fatal forces. Depending on the assessment of the personality of the tsar and his reforms, these forces were understood as divine, good, endowing the Russian people with a city-paradise, or, on the contrary, as evil, demonic, and therefore anti-people.

In the XVIII - early XIX century. In parallel, two groups of myths developed, mirroring each other. In some myths, Peter was presented as the “father of the Fatherland”, a deity who founded a certain intelligent cosmos, a “glorious city”, a “beloved country”, a stronghold of state and military power. These myths arose in poetry (including odes and epic poems by A.P. Sumarokov, V.K. Trediakovsky, G.R. Derzhavin) and were officially encouraged. In other myths that developed in folk tales and the prophecies of the schismatics, Peter was the offspring of Satan, the living Antichrist, and Petersburg, founded by him, was a “non-Russian” city, satanic chaos, doomed to inevitable disappearance. If the first, semi-official, poetic myths were myths about the miraculous foundation of the city, from which the "golden age" began in Russia, then the second, folk, myths about its destruction or desolation. “Petersburg to be empty”, “the city will burn and drown” - this is how the opponents of Peter answered those who saw in Petersburg the man-made “northern Rome”.

Pushkin created synthetic images of Peter and Petersburg. In them, both mutually exclusive mythological concepts complemented each other. The poetic myth of the founding of the city is unfolded in an introduction oriented towards literary tradition, and the myth of its destruction, flooding - in the first and second parts of the poem.

The originality of Pushkin's poem lies in the complex interaction of historical, conventional literary and legendary mythological semantic planes. In the introduction, the foundation of the city is shown in two plans. The first - legendary mythological: Peter appears here not as a historical character, but as a nameless hero of the legend. He- the founder and future builder of the city, fulfilling the will of nature itself. However, his “great thoughts” are historically concrete: the city is being created by the Russian tsar “for the evil of an arrogant neighbor”, so that Russia could “cut a window into Europe”. Historical semantic plan underlined with the words "a hundred years have passed." But these same words envelop historical event mythological haze: in place of the story about how the “city was founded”, how it was built, there is a graphic pause, a “dash”. The emergence of the "young city" "from the darkness of the forests, from the swamp of blat" is like a miracle: the city was not built, but "ascended magnificently, proudly." The story about the city begins in 1803 (this year St. Petersburg turned a hundred years old). Third - conditionally literary- the semantic plan appears in the poem immediately after the historically reliable picture of "gloomy Petrograd" on the eve of the flood (the beginning of the first part). The author states that the name of the hero is conventional, hints at his “literary character” (in 1833 the first complete edition of the novel “Eugene Onegin” appeared),

Note that in the poem there is a change of semantic plans, and their overlap, intersection. Let us give several examples illustrating the interaction of historical and legendary-mythological planes. The poetic "report" on the violence of the elements is interrupted by a comparison of the city (its name is replaced by a mythopoetic "pseudonym") with a river deity (hereinafter, our italics - Auth.): “waters suddenly / Flowed into underground cellars, / Channels poured to the gratings, / And Petropolis surfaced like a Triton, / Immersed in water up to the waist».

The enraged Neva is compared now with a frenzied "beast", then with "thieves" climbing through the windows, then with a "villain" who burst into the village "with his ferocious gang." The story of the flood takes on a folklore-mythological coloring. The water element evokes in the poet stable associations with a riot, a villainous raid of robbers. In the second part, the story of the "brave trader" is interrupted by an ironic mention of a modern myth-maker - the graphomaniac poet Khvostov, who "already sang with immortal verses / The misfortune of the Nevsky banks."

There are many compositional and semantic parallels in the poem. Their basis is the relationship established between the fictional hero of the poem, the water element, the city and the sculptural composition - "an idol on a bronze horse." For example, a parallel to the “great thoughts” of the founder of the city (introduction) is “unrest different thoughts» Eugene (part one). The legendary He thought about the city and state interests, Eugene - about the simple, worldly: "He will somehow arrange for himself / A humble and simple shelter / And he will calm Parasha in him." The dreams of Peter, "the miraculous builder", came true: the city was built, he himself became the "ruler of half the world." Eugene's dreams of a family and a home collapsed with the death of Parasha. In the first part, other parallels arise: between Peter and the "late tsar" (the legendary double of Peter "looked into the distance" - the tsar "in thought with mournful eyes / Looked at the evil disaster"); king and people sad king“He said: “With the elements of God / Kings cannot be co-ruled” - the people “see God's wrath and await execution”). The tsar is powerless against the elements, the dismayed townspeople feel abandoned to the mercy of fate: “Alas! everything perishes: shelter and food! / Where will you get it?

Eugene, sitting "on a marble beast" in the pose of Napoleon ("hands clasped in a cross"), is compared with the monument to Peter:

And turned his back on him

In the unshakable height

Over the indignant Neva

Standing with outstretched hand

Idol on a bronze horse.

A compositional parallel to this scene is drawn in the second part: a year later, the insane Yevgeny again found himself on the same “empty square”, where waves splashed during the flood:

He found himself under the pillars

Big house. On the porch

With a raised paw, as if alive,

There were guard lions,

And right in the dark sky

Above the walled rock

Idol with outstretched hand

He sat on a bronze horse.

AT figurative system poems, two seemingly opposite principles coexist - the principle of similarity and the principle of contrast. Parallels and comparisons not only indicate the similarities that arise between different phenomena or situations, but also reveal unresolved (and unresolvable) contradictions between them. For example, Eugene, fleeing the elements on a marble lion, is a tragicomic "double" of the guardian of the city, "an idol on a bronze horse", standing "in an unshakable height." The parallel between them emphasizes the sharp contrast between the greatness of the “idol” raised above the city and the miserable position of Eugene. In the second scene, the “idol” himself becomes different: losing his grandeur (“He is terrible in the surrounding darkness!”), He looks like a prisoner, surrounded by “watch lions”, “above the fenced rock”. The "unshakable height" becomes "dark", and the "idol" in front of which Eugene stands, turns into a "proud idol".

The majestic and “terrible” appearance of the monument in two scenes reveals the contradictions that objectively existed in Peter: the greatness of a statesman who cared for the good of Russia, and the cruelty, inhumanity of the autocrat, many of whose decrees, as Pushkin noted, were “written with a whip”. These contradictions are merged in the sculptural composition - the material "double" of Peter.

The poem is a living figurative organism that resists any unambiguous interpretations. All images of the poem are multi-valued images-symbols. The images of St. Petersburg, the Bronze Horseman, the Neva, “poor Eugene” have an independent meaning, but, unfolding in the poem, they enter into a complex interaction with each other. The seemingly “cramped” space of the small poem is expanding.

The poet explains history and modernity, creating a capacious symbolic picture of St. Petersburg. "Grad Petrov" is not only a historical stage on which both genuine and fictional events. Petersburg is a symbol of the Petrine era, the "Petersburg" period of Russian history. The city in Pushkin's poem has many faces: it is both a "monument" to its founder, and a "monument" to the entire Peter the Great era, and an ordinary city in distress and busy with everyday bustle. The flood and the fate of Yevgeny are only part of St. Petersburg's history, one of the many stories suggested by the life of the city. For example, in the first part, it is outlined, but not deployed story line, associated with the unsuccessful attempts of the military governor-general of St. Petersburg Count M.A. Miloradovich and Adjutant General A.Kh. Benkendorf to help the inhabitants of the city, to cheer them up: drowning people at home. This was written in the historical "news" about the St. Petersburg floods, compiled by V.N. Verkh, to which Pushkin refers in the Preface.

The Petersburg world appears in the poem as a kind of closed space. The city lives according to its own laws, drawn by its founder. It's like new civilization, opposed to both wild nature and former Russia. The “Moscow” period of its history, symbolized by “old Moscow” (“porphyry-bearing widow”), is a thing of the past.

Petersburg is full of sharp conflicts, insoluble contradictions. A majestic, but internally contradictory image of the city is created in the introduction. Pushkin emphasizes the duality of St. Petersburg: he "ascended magnificently, proudly", but "from the darkness of the forests, from the swamp of blat." This is a colossal city, under which there is a swampy swamp. Conceived by Peter as a spacious place for the coming "feast", it is cramped: along the banks of the Neva, "slender masses crowd". Petersburg - " military capital”, but parades and the thunder of cannon salutes make it so. This is a "stronghold" that no one storms, and the Fields of Mars are fields military glory- "fun".

The introduction is a panegyric to state Petersburg, the front door. But the more the poet talks about the magnificent beauty of the city, the more it seems that he is some kind of motionless, ghostly. “Ships in a crowd” “are striving for rich marinas”, but there are no people on the streets. The poet sees "sleeping masses / Deserted streets". The very air of the city is "immovable". “Running sleds along the wide Neva”, “and the glitter and noise and the sound of balls”, “the hiss of foamy glasses” - everything is beautiful, sonorous, but the faces of the inhabitants of the city are not visible. There is something unsettling hidden in the proud appearance of the “younger” capital. The word “I love” is repeated five times in the introduction. This is a declaration of love for Petersburg, but it is pronounced like a spell, a compulsion to love. It seems that the poet is trying with all his might to love a beautiful city evokes in him conflicting, disturbing feelings.

Anxiety sounds in the wish to the “city of Peter”: “Show off, city of Petrov, and stand / Unshakable, like Russia. / May he make peace with you / And the conquered elements...» The beauty of the city-stronghold is not eternal: it stands firmly, but can be destroyed by the elements. In the very comparison of the city with Russia, there is a dual meaning: there is both a recognition of Russia's unshakable nature and a feeling of the city's unsteadiness. For the first time, the image of the water element that has not been tamed to the end appears: it appears as a powerful living being. The element is defeated, but not “reconciled”. "Finnish Waves", it turns out, have not forgotten "enmity and their old captivity." A city founded "on the evil of an arrogant neighbor" itself can be disturbed by the "futile malice" of the elements.

The introduction outlines the main principle of the image of the city, implemented in two parts of the "Petersburg story" - contrast. In the first part, the appearance of St. Petersburg changes, as if mythological gilding is falling off it. "Golden skies" disappear, they are replaced by "haze rainy night' and 'Pale day'. This is no longer a magnificent “young city”, “beauty and wonder of the midnight countries”, but “gloomy Petrograd”. He is dominated by the "autumn cold", the howling wind, the "angry" rain. The city turns into a fortress besieged by the Neva. Please note: the Neva is also part of the city. He himself hid evil energy, which is released by the "violent nonsense" of the Finnish waves. The Neva, stopping its "sovereign course" in the granite banks, breaks free and destroys the "strict, slender appearance" of St. Petersburg. As if the city itself takes itself by storm, tearing its womb. Everything that was hidden behind the front facade of the “city of Peter” in the introduction is exposed, as unworthy of odic delights:

Trays under a wet veil,

Fragments of huts, logs, roofs,

thrifty commodity,

Relics of pale poverty,

Storm-blown bridges

A coffin from a blurry cemetery

Float through the streets!

People appear on the streets, "pressed in heaps" on the banks of the Neva, on the balcony Winter Palace the tsar comes out, Eugene looks with fear at the raging waves, worrying about Parasha. The city has changed, filled with people, ceasing to be only a city-museum. The entire first part is a picture of a national disaster. Petersburg is besieged by officials, shopkeepers, poor inhabitants of huts. There is no rest for the dead. For the first time, the figure of an “idol on a bronze horse” appears. The living king is powerless to resist the "divine element." Unlike the imperturbable "idol", he is "sad", "confused".

The third part shows Petersburg after the flood. But the urban contradictions have not only not been removed, but have become even more intensified. Peace and tranquility are fraught with a threat, the possibility of a new conflict with the elements (“But the victory is full of triumph, / The waves were still seething viciously, / As if a fire smoldered under them"). The Petersburg outskirts, where Eugene rushed, resembles a "battlefield" - "a terrible view", but the next morning "everything went back to the old order." The city again became cold and indifferent to people. This is a city of officials, prudent merchants, "evil children" throwing stones at the insane Yevgeny, coachmen whipping him with whips. But it is still a "sovereign" city - an "idol on a bronze horse" hovers over it.

The line of realistic depiction of St. Petersburg and the "little" man is developed in the "Petersburg stories" by N.V. Gogol, in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. The mythological version of the Petersburg theme was taken up by both Gogol and Dostoevsky, but especially by the Symbolists of the early 20th century. - Andrei Bely in the novel "Petersburg" and D.S. Merezhkovsky in the novel "Peter and Alexei".

Petersburg is a huge "man-made" monument to Peter I. The contradictions of the city reflect the contradictions of its founder. The poet considered Peter an exceptional person: a true hero of history, a builder, an eternal "worker" on the throne (see Stanzas, 1826). Peter, Pushkin emphasized, is an integral figure in which two opposite principles are combined - spontaneous revolutionary and despotic: "Peter I is at the same time Robespierre and Napoleon, the Revolution Incarnate."

Peter appears in the poem in his mythological "reflections" and material incarnations. He is in the legend about the founding of St. Petersburg, in the monument, in the urban environment - in the “huge masses of slender” palaces and towers, in the granite of the Neva banks, in bridges, in the “warlike liveliness” of the “amusing Fields of Mars”, in the Admiralty needle, as if piercing the sky. Petersburg is, as it were, the materialized will and deed of Peter, turned into stone and cast iron, cast in bronze.

The images of the statues are impressive images of Pushkin's poetry. They were created in the poems “Memories in Tsarskoye Selo” (1814), “To the Bust of the Conqueror” (1829), “Tsarskoye Selo Statue” (1830), “To the Artist” (1836), and the images of statues that come to life, destroying people, are in tragedy "The Stone Guest" (1830) and "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" (1834). The two material "faces" of Peter I in Pushkin's poem are his statue, "an idol on a bronze horse," and the revived statue, the Bronze Horseman.

To understand these Pushkin images, it is necessary to take into account the idea of ​​the sculptor, embodied in the very monument to Peter. The monument is a complex sculptural composition. Its main meaning is given by the unity of the horse and the rider, each of which has an independent meaning. The author of the monument wanted to show "the personality of the creator, legislator, benefactor of his country." “My king does not hold any rod,” Etienne-Maurice Falconet noted in a letter to D. Diderot, “he stretches out his beneficent hand over the country he is touring. He rises to the top of the rock that serves him as a pedestal - this is the emblem of the difficulties he has overcome.

This understanding of the role of Peter partly coincides with Pushkin's: the poet saw in Peter a "powerful lord of fate" who managed to subjugate the elemental power of Russia. But his interpretation of Peter and Russia is richer and more significant than the sculptural allegory. What is given in sculpture in the form of a statement sounds like a rhetorical question in Pushkin, which does not have an unequivocal answer: “Are you right above the abyss, / At a height, with an iron bridle / Russia reared up?”. Pay attention to the difference in the intonations of the author's speech, addressed in turn to the "idol" - Peter and to the "bronze horse" - the symbol of Russia. “He is terrible in the surrounding darkness! / What a thought on the forehead! What power is hidden in it!” - the poet recognizes the will and creative genius of Peter, which turned into the cruel power of the "iron bridle" that reared Russia. “And what a fire in this horse! / Where are you galloping, proud horse, / And where will you lower your hooves? - the exclamation is replaced by a question in which the poet's thought is addressed not to the country curbed by Peter, but to the riddle of Russian history and to modern Russia. She continues her run, and not only the elements of nature, but also popular riots disturb Peter's "eternal sleep".

The bronze Peter in Pushkin's poem is a symbol of the state will, the energy of power liberated from the human principle. Even in the poem "Hero" (1830), Pushkin called: "Leave your heart to the hero! What will / He be without him? Tyrant...". "The idol on a bronze horse" - "the pure embodiment of autocratic power" (V.Ya. Bryusov) - is devoid of a heart. He is a “wonderful builder”, at the wave of his hand Petersburg “ascended”. But the brainchild of Peter is a miracle created not for man. A window to Europe was opened by the autocrat. The future Petersburg was conceived by him as a city-state, a symbol of autocratic power, alienated from the people. Peter created a "cold" city, uncomfortable for the Russian people, elevated above it.

Having pushed the bronze Peter and the poor St. Petersburg official Yevgeny together in the poem, Pushkin emphasized that government and man are separated by the abyss. Equalizing all estates with one "club", pacifying the human element of Russia with an "iron bridle", Peter wanted to turn it into a submissive and pliable material. Eugene was to become the embodiment of the autocrat's dream of a puppet man, deprived of historical memory, who forgot both "native legends" and his "nickname" (that is, surname, family), which "in times past" "perhaps shone / And under the pen of Karamzin / It sounded in native legends. Part of the goal was achieved: Pushkin's hero- a product and victim of St. Petersburg "civilization", one of the countless officials without a "nickname", who "serve somewhere", without thinking about the meaning of their service, dream of "petty-bourgeois happiness": a good place, home, family, well-being. In sketches for the unfinished poem Yezersky (1832), which many researchers compare with The Bronze Horseman, Pushkin gave a detailed characterization of his hero, a descendant of a noble family who turned into an ordinary St. Petersburg official. In The Bronze Horseman, a story about the genealogy and Everyday life Eugene is extremely laconic: the poet emphasized the generalized meaning of the fate of the hero of the "Petersburg story".

But Eugene, even in his modest desires that separate him from the domineering Peter, is not humiliated by Pushkin. The hero of the poem - a prisoner of the city and the "Petersburg" period of Russian history - is not only a reproach to Peter and the city he created, a symbol of Russia, numb from the angry look of the "terrible Tsar". Eugene is the antipode of the "idol on a bronze horse." He has something that the bronze Peter is deprived of: heart and soul. He is able to dream, grieve, "fear" for the fate of his beloved, to languish from torment. deep meaning of the poem is that Eugene is compared not with Peter the man, but precisely with the "idol" of Peter, with the statue. Pushkin found his "unit of measurement" of unbridled, but metal-bound power - humanity. Measured by this measure, the "idol" and the hero draw closer. “Insignificant” in comparison with the real Peter, “poor Eugene”, compared with a dead statue, turns out to be next to the “miraculous builder”.

The hero of the "Petersburg story", having become a madman, has lost social certainty. Evgeny, who went mad, "dragged out his unfortunate age / Neither beast nor man, / Neither this nor that, nor a dweller of the world, / Nor a dead ghost ...". He wanders around St. Petersburg, not noticing the humiliation and malice of people, deafened by the "noise of inner anxiety." Pay attention to this remark of the poet, because it is the “noise” in Yevgeny’s soul, which coincided with the noise of the natural elements (“It was gloomy: / It was raining, the wind was howling sadly”) awakens in the madman what for Pushkin was the main sign of a person - memory : “Eugene jumped up; remembered vividly / He is a past horror. It is the memory of the experienced flood that leads him to Senate Square, where he meets the "idol on a bronze horse" for the second time.

This climactic episode of the poem, which ended with the Bronze Horseman chasing the "poor fool", is especially important for understanding the meaning of the whole work. Beginning with V. G. Belinsky, it has been interpreted differently by researchers. Often in the words of Eugene, addressed to the bronze Peter (“Good, miraculous builder! - / He whispered, trembling angrily, - / Already to you! ..”), they see a rebellion, an uprising against the “ruler of the semi-world” (sometimes analogies were made between this episode and the uprising of the Decembrists). In this case, the question inevitably arises: who is the winner - statehood, embodied in the "proud idol", or humanity, embodied in Eugene?

However, it is hardly possible to consider the words of Eugene, who, having whispered them, “suddenly headlong / Set off to run”, a riot or an uprising. The words of the insane hero are caused by the memory awakened in him: “Eugene shuddered. The thoughts have cleared up / There are terrible thoughts in him. This is not only a memory of the horror of last year's flood, but above all historical memory, seemingly etched in it by Peter's "civilization". Only then did Eugene recognize "and the lions, and the square, and the One, / Who stood motionless / In the darkness with a copper head, / The one whose fateful will / Under the sea, the city was founded." Again, as in the introduction, the legendary "double" of Peter appears - He. The statue comes to life, what is happening loses its real features, a realistic narrative becomes a mythological story.

Like a fairy tale mythological hero(see, for example, "The Tale of dead princess and of the Seven Bogatyrs", 1833), the brainless Eugene "comes to life": "The eyes were clouded, / A flame ran through the heart, / The blood boiled." He turns into a Man in his generic essence (note: the hero in this fragment is never named Eugene). He, "terrible king", the personification of power, and Human, having a heart and endowed with memory, inspired by the demonic power of the elements (“as possessed by black power”), came together in a tragic confrontation. In the whisper of the awakened Man, a threat and a promise of retribution are heard, for which the revived statue, "instantly burning with rage," punishes the "poor madman." The "realistic" explanation of this episode impoverishes its meaning: everything that happened turns out to be the fruit of the sick imagination of the insane Yevgeny.

In the chase scene, the second reincarnation of the “idol on a bronze horse” takes place - He turns into Rider of the Copper. A mechanical creature jumps after Man, which has become pure incarnation power that punishes even a timid threat and a reminder of retribution:

And illuminated by the pale moon,

Stretch your hand up high

Behind him rushes the Bronze Horseman

On a galloping horse.

The conflict is transferred to the mythological space, which emphasizes its philosophical significance. This conflict is fundamentally unsolvable; there can be no winner or loser in it. “All night”, “everywhere” behind the “poor madman” “The Bronze Horseman / With a heavy stomping galloped”, but the “heavy-voiced galloping” does not end with anything. A senseless and fruitless pursuit, reminiscent of "running in place", has a deep philosophical meaning. The contradictions between a person and power cannot be resolved or disappear: a person and power are always tragically connected with each other.

Such a conclusion can be drawn from Pushkin's poetic "research" of one of the episodes of the "Petersburg" period of Russian history. The first stone in its foundation was laid by Peter I, the “powerful lord of fate”, who built Petersburg and new Russia, but failed to pull a man with an "iron bridle". Power is powerless against "human, too human" - the heart, memory and elements human soul. Any "idol" is only a dead statue, which a Human can crush or, at least, force to break away in unrighteous and impotent anger.