What should a beginner in hatha yoga think hard about. Quote of the Week: “The best change comes without violent upheaval.

The most striking thing is that with unknown Alexander I did not meet Sergeevich Pushkin at all in a closed archive, leafing through secret dossiers or documents only recently found by zealous historians, but simply taking him from my bookshelf. complete collection essays. It was published quite a long time ago, in 1964 by the Moscow publishing house "Nauka" with a circulation of 200,000 copies. All further references in the text, except where noted, are to the seventh volume of this edition.

Everyone is well aware of Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but very few people know the great Russian poet's Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Isn't it strange?.. For some reason, the first one is unanimously praised as revolutionary democrats of the past, and the current liberal democrats, although in words they are antagonists, irreconcilable enemies.

Their assessment of Alexander Sergeevich is just as similar - they seem to respect him, but they are unanimously silent about his "Journey from Moscow ...". As well as many other things. Why didn't he please them?

Maybe because Alexander Sergeevich disputes what Radishchev wrote on almost all points. The latter’s point of view has been replicated and has become practically “textbook”: everything in Russia is bad, there is darkness and horror everywhere, the people are dark, downtrodden and powerless, and the authorities are criminal, stupid and ruthless…

But A.S. Pushkin acted as an ardent opponent of this. I quote:

“I cannot fail to notice that since the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty, our government has always been ahead in the field of education and enlightenment” (p. 269).

“Fonvizin, who had traveled about fifteen years before in France, says that, in good conscience, the fate of the Russian peasant seemed to him happier than fate French farmer” (p. 289).

"Read the complaints of English factory workers: your hair will stand on end with horror ... We have nothing of the kind" (p. 290).

“Look at the Russian peasant: is there even a shadow of slavish humiliation in his steps and speech? There is nothing to say about his courage and intelligence ... There is no person in Russia who would not have his own home. The beggar, leaving to wander the world, leaves his hut. It doesn't exist in other parts of the world. To have a cow everywhere in Europe is a sign of luxury: with us not to have a cow is a sign of terrible poverty. Our peasant is tidy out of habit and according to the rule: every Saturday he goes to the bathhouse ... The fate of the peasant improves from day to day as enlightenment spreads ”(p. 291) ...

Please note that the situation of the Russian peasant is compared with the working people of those countries that at that time were the most, most "advanced". Reading about the cow, I remembered that we have a car - a "sign of luxury", and abroad even homeless ragamuffins, unemployed, not to mention just not very motorized wealthy people. There is no such acute shortage of housing in "foreign lands" as in modern Russia. And sometimes it was the other way around!

It turns out that we harmed ourselves with social experiments, undermined our condition. And where should we move, how to develop? ..

The great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin has an answer, as if he foresaw a similar question:

“The best and most lasting changes are those that result from a single improvement in morals, without violent political upheavals, terrible for mankind” (pages 291-292).

Just think how concise and precise! He completely rejected revolutionism, great leaps, great turning points, and indicated the need for reforms - a wise gradual improvement of life. If life is getting worse, then these are not reforms, but their opposite!

At one time, our social experimenters did not follow this wise advice of the Russian genius - there is no prophet in his Fatherland! - adopted foreign, overseas theories.

Radishchev, by his writing, brought political upheavals closer - "terrible for mankind." That is why Alexander Sergeevich called the writing of such a book by him "the act of a madman" (p. 353). Here are some other ratings:

"Radishchev drew a caricature" (p. 289).

“He is a true representative of semi-enlightenment. Ignorant contempt for everything that has passed, feeble-minded amazement at one's own age, a blind predilection for novelty, private superficial information randomly adapted to everything - that's what we see in Radishchev" (p. 359).

“What purpose did Radishchev have? What exactly did he want? He himself could hardly have answered these questions satisfactorily” (p. 360).

It turns out that it was Radishchev who was addressed to the poet's words, which became widely known and "winged": "There is no truth where there is no love" (p. 360).

What's right is right. Radishchev did not have love for his Fatherland, for his people, his Faith, his history. Now he would be in a pack of "this wanderers" - those who call Russia "this country", who call the Russian people "slave", who pour dirt on everything that is most sacred to us. Alexander Sergeevich contemptuously called such people "slanderers, enemies of Russia."

Alexander Sergeevich is presented by them as a kind of liberal, freethinker and rebel, suffering under the "yoke of despotism" and "arbitrariness of a tyrant on the throne." In fact, he was rather a reasonable conservative, a supporter of "smart antiquity", an enlightened monarchy and, of course, an ardent patriot who respects the Russians. folk traditions, manners and Russian Faith.

Pseudo-liberals do not really like to talk about how great poet belonged to the West, before which they servilely fawn. But he had no subservience at all, for he knew the value of his country. Remember his proud words in “Slanderers of Russia”: “Is it new for us to argue with Europe? Or is the Russian weaned from victories? .. "

In the same verses, he, answering the question: why do Western liberal civilizers hate us, gives a worthy answer: “Because on the ruins of burning Moscow we did not recognize the impudent will of the one under whom you were trembling then.”

Here are a few more quotes that do not at all agree with the "textbook" image of A.S. Pushkin:

“Europe is as ignorant as it is ungrateful towards Russia” (p. 306);

“I am convinced of the need for censorship in an educated moral and Christian society under whatever laws and governments it may be” (p. 638).

"Morality (like religion) must be respected by the writer" (p. 306).

The myth about the enmity of the poet with the authorities is widespread. Whether there is this “enmity”, judge for yourself from a quote from a letter (1831) from Alexander Sergeevich to the head of the secret police, A.Kh. Benkendorf:

“If the Sovereign Emperor pleases to use my pen, then I will try with accuracy and diligence to fulfill the will of His Majesty and am ready to serve Him to the best of my ability. In Russia, periodicals are not representatives of various political parties (which do not exist in our country) and the government does not need to have its own official journal; but nonetheless general opinion needs to be controlled. I would gladly take up the editorship of the political and literary magazine, i.e. one in which political and foreign news would be printed. Around him, I would unite writers with talents and thus bring useful people closer to the government, who are still going wild, in vain believing him to be hostile to enlightenment.

Reading a "non-textbook" poet constantly convinces of his extraordinary modernity. His following statements are widely known: “I can scold my Russia with any words, but, God forbid, some foreigner will say something like that - I’ll tear my head off!”, “I’m not at all delighted with everything that I see around me . But I swear on my honor, I would not want to change the Fatherland or have a different history than the history of our ancestors for anything in the world” and “Disrespect for ancestors is the first sign of immorality.”

The libelists are diligently trying to portray him as a kind of freedom lover, an enemy of the church, almost a theomachist, completely ignoring the fact that over the years his religious feeling grew stronger, and one of his most recent statements, made by him shortly before his death: “I want to die a Christian ... "(In his diary, the Tsar wrote that Alexander Sergeevich "died a Christian.")

Characteristically, these pseudo-liberals did not hesitate to use tragic death genius for the same low goals. To this day, "Pushkin scholars" (?!) in many publications and publications continue to slanderously repeat the hatred of the authorities for the poet. They say that only a single obituary in the Literary Additions leaked to the press, and all the others were silent in fear ...

I remember very well that the death of the popularly beloved Vladimir Vysotsky appeared in only ONE publication under the Soviet system, and even then only a few short lines. And then a lot of people wrote about the death of Alexander Sergeevich. Here short quote Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper (No. 25, January 31, 1837): “Russian literature has not suffered such an important loss since the time of Karamzin.” I will add a very significant nuance, this newspaper is official. Approximately, as in the "Soviet" times "Pravda" or "Izvestia".

The newspaper Evening Bee, edited by F. Bulgarin and N. Grech, unloved by the “freedom-loving” public, was called “terry-monarchical” and “security”, both of them were not in contact with him during the life of the poet. better relations, but already on the second day after his death, an obituary full of compassion and sincere grief was printed.

And the last touch, which is not often remembered by "slanderers, enemies of Russia": the considerable posthumous debts of Alexander Sergeevich were paid by the Tsar himself.

only some clarifications and reservations, which meant the need for a stricter consideration in Pushkin's objections of that "experience of history" that Radishchev, who wrote his Journey before the French Revolution, could not yet have.

Radishchev's book entered the circle of Pushkin's immediate interests in the summer of 1833 in connection with his work on The History of Pugachev. This book could not, of course, provide material for specific documentation of certain chapters of a historical monograph. But its significance for the great poet was immeasurably wider, since it was "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", as the most vivid and authoritative generalization of political, socio-economic and everyday data on Russian Empire last third XVIII century, made it possible to come close to understanding the most acute and responsible problems that confronted Pushkin at that time.

The questions that worried Radishchev continued to be, in the words of Belinsky, "the most lively, modern national questions" and in last years Pushkin's life. Despite the fact that the process of disintegration of the serf economy was becoming more and more clear, the legal norms that regulated the life of the landlord state remained unchanged for another half a century. have not undergone significant changes and forms of struggle between the “wild nobility” or “great otchinniks,” as Radishchev called the large landowners, with all sorts of attempts not only to eliminate the serf system, but also with any measures that would prepare for this liquidation. It is natural, therefore, that Pushkin in the mid-30s. with the same justification as Radishchev in 1790, and the Decembrists in the 1920s, does not pin any hopes on the possibility of a liberation initiative coming from the landlords themselves, and just like his teachers and predecessors, soberly takes into account the political prospects for the liquidation serf relations either from above, “at the behest of the tsar”, or from below - “from the very burden of enslavement”, that is, as a result of the peasant revolution.

Of course it would big mistake put an equal sign between the political concepts of Pushkin and Radishchev, even at the time of their well-known rapprochement. We must not forget that while the author of "Journey from St. Petersburg

to Moscow" did not harbor any illusions that the interests of the autocratic landlord state were incompatible with the aspirations of the working people, Pushkin tried, after the defeat of the Decembrist movement, to somehow separate the autocracy as a legal institution from its class base and from its own military bureaucratic apparatus. In this regard, the great poet was wrong, but on the other hand, he much more clearly than Radishchev separated in his political concepts the top of the ruling class, hated by both of them, the court and local aristocracy, from the noble intelligentsia, or, in his terminology, the "enlightened nobility" . The Russian noble intelligentsia, according to Pushkin's forecasts, was destined to fulfill the role that in France in 1789-1793. successfully played the "third estate". “What does it mean,” Pushkin noted in his diary of December 22, 1834, “our ancient nobility with estates destroyed by endless fragmentation, with enlightenment, with hatred against the aristocracy and with all claims to power and wealth? There is no such terrible element of riots in Europe either. Who were on the square on December 14? Some nobles. How many will there be at the first new perturbation? I don’t know, but it seems like a lot” (see vol. 7).

That is why the names of Radishchev and Pugachev are at the center of Pushkin's attention both as a novelist, and as a historian, and as a publicist. From Pugachev to Radishchev and from Radishchev again to Pugachev - such was the circle of Pushkin's interests during the entire last three years of his career.

When copying in 1835 a draft of an article written in 1833-1834, Pushkin shortened and softened his statements in a number of places, adapting them to censorship conditions and widely using the forms of the so-called Aesopian language. The narration in both the first and second editions was, however, from the very beginning not on behalf of the author, that is, Pushkin himself, but on behalf of a Moscow liberal gentleman, a man of completely different intellectual data and socio-political views than Pushkin. This made it easier for the latter the thankless task of polemics with Radishchev, relieving him of responsibility both for some deliberate inconsistency of this polemic and for that emphatically well-intentioned platform from which the new “traveler” did not leave in this discussion.

Page 378. Highway.- The original version of the title, this chapter: "Road comrade."

Page 380. ..."Clarice" is very tiring."— About Richardson's novel " Clarissa Harlow"(1748) see Pushkin's judgments in the "Novel in Letters" (vol. 5, pp. 477-478).

Moral satirical novel- one of Bulgarin's novels.

I opened it and read the title: Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. - Pushkin's library has preserved a unique copy of this book, which he apparently used while working on his article. The inscription on the copy that belonged to Pushkin reads: “The copy that was in the Secret Chancellery was paid two hundred rubles. A. Pushkin. The book, bound in red with gold embossed morocco, has a number of remarks and underlinings made in the margins with a red pencil. As V. L. Burtsev proves, all these marks belonged to Catherine II and were used as a kind of guide to action during the interrogations of Radishchev (“Birzhevye Vedomosti” dated December 13, 1916, No. 15981).

Page 383. Poor Moscow! - It is further crossed out in the draft manuscript: “Now there is no popular opinion in Moscow: now disasters or the glory of the fatherland do not resonate in this heart. It was sad to hear the gossip of Moscow society during the last Polish indignation. It was disgusting to see the soulless reader of French newspapers smiling at the news of our failures. In this regard, the entry in the diary of N. A. Mukhanov dated July 5, 1832 about his meeting with Pushkin and F. I. Tolstoy on July 5, 1832 in St. Petersburg is very characteristic: “About Vyazemsky, he<Пушкин>said that he is a bitter man, aigri, who does not like Russia because he does not like it<...>. Tolstoy said that Androsov despises Russia, about the unfortunate humiliation with which our writers speak of the fatherland, that they are in opposition not to the government, but to the fatherland. Pushkin really tried this and said that it was necessary to make a journal article about it ”(“ Russian Archive ”, 1897, No. 4, p. 657).

Page 384. ...on the side of Moscow. - Further crossed out: "G. A. starts a magazine because he is set aside from a favorable place. G. V. writes a novel because the novel is in price. Critics are written because at the edges newspaper sheet needed feuilleton 1 ½ inches, like a border around the edges of a shawl.

Shevyrev, Kireevsky, Pogodin and others have written several experiments worthy of standing alongside the best articles in the English Reviews.- Pushkin is referring to the articles by Pogodin and Shevyrev in the Moskovsky Vestnik magazine of 1827-1830. (See about this his letters to Pogodin dated July 1, 1828 and to Pletnev dated March 26, 1831). A high assessment of the article by I. V. Kireevsky "Review of Russian Literature in 1828" was given by Pushkin in the "Literary Gazette" (see p. 53). For Kireevsky's articles in the European magazine, see Pushkin's letter to their author dated January 4, 1832<февраля - V.L.>. (vol. 10).

...with the best articles from English Reviews. - Further crossed out: “Even in a journal belonging to purely commercial enterprises, even here the advantage is on the side of the Moscow publisher: what cleverness in the choice of translated articles! what resourcefulness in judgments about subjects that are completely alien to the concepts of the critic! what a wicked charlatan! Where can the St. Petersburg merchants keep up with ours!

German philosophy ... begins to give way to a more practical spirit. - Pushkin has in mind the range of ideas that began to be defined in Moscow literary and philosophical circles around 1831 (see the article by I. V. Kireevsky "The Nineteenth Century" in the journal "European", 1832, book 1) and subsequently received expression in the controversy between Shevyrev and Nadezhdin. “My opinion is,” Shevyrev asserted, “that in our present teaching, the era of synthetic speculations and logical constructions should give way to a clear and detailed analysis and historical study objects in themselves, without logical prejudices that cloud the vision. It is time to free ourselves from the influence of German speculation and look at objects with our own eyes” (“Moscow Observer”, 1836, part VII, May, book 2, pp. 270-271).

Moscow and Petersburg. - Pushkin is referring to Gogol's article "Moscow and Petersburg (From Notes of the Road)", published in 1837 under the title "Petersburg Notes". This article was at the disposal of Pushkin and was intended in 1835 for inclusion in Journey from Moscow to Petersburg, and in 1836, when trying to publish it in Sovremennik, it was banned. See about this the documents published by Yu. G. Oksman in the newspaper Literaturny Leningrad on March 31, 1934, No. 15.

Page 386. ... the report he submitted to Shuvalov ...- In the autograph, this report, published in the Moscow Telegraph, 1827, No. 2, was not written out, but was preserved in Pushkin's papers in a clerk's copy.

Page 390. Not many people know his poetic skirmish ... on the occasion of the "Hymn to the Beard" ... - Lomonosov's satire "The Hymn to the Beard", Metropolitan Dimitry Sechenov's answer to it "The Beard in Disguise, or the Hymn to the Drunk Head" and "Lomonosov's Objection" in copies made by Pushkin's hand, have been preserved in the archives of P. A. Vyazemsky ("Pushkin's Hand", M. - L. 1935, pp. 563-575).

Page 392. We have, as M-me de Staël noted ... - Further, Pushkin quotes her book Dix années d'exil (1820) not entirely accurately.

...the last of the scribblers, ready for any private meanness...writes nameless libels on the people before whom he spreads himself in their office. - Pushkin has in mind Bulgarin, which is also proved by the note to this place of the article in the draft edition (Ak. ed., vol. XI, p. 228). The note mentioned the message "To the nobleman" (1829<- 1830 - V.L.>), after which, "as one journalist says, the glory of *** fell completely." Pushkin here clearly referred readers to Bulgarin’s article “On the Character and Dignity of A.S. Pushkin’s Poetry”, where it was said: “A lot of ordinary works have weakened the public’s attention to the poet, and some of Pushkin’s short-sighted critics and ill-wishers have already proclaimed the complete decline of his talent - the truth that was necessary strong faith in this talent, so as not to doubt his decline after such a play as, for example, "Message to Prince Yusupov" ("Son of the Fatherland", 1833, No. 6, p. 324).

Page 393. Russian hut. - With the very title “Russian Hut,” Pushkin skillfully masks the subject of this section of his article, hoping to lull the vigilance of censorship by shifting attention from Radishchev’s political conclusions in the chapter “Pawns” to his everyday sketches. Ostensibly intent on undermining Radishchev's general conclusions, Pushkin sneers at his "sugary and ridiculous" comparison of the Russian

a peasant with "unfortunate African slaves", about his "caricature" description of the conditions of life of a Russian peasant. Pushkin emphasizes his unwillingness to be unfounded and, in contrast to Radishchev, mobilizes a large and diverse comparative historical material - from Meyerberg's Journey to Muscovy and sketches of the French village in the books of La Bruyère and Madame de Sevigny to Fonvizin's Letters from France.

And indeed, some parallels drawn from these sources gave grounds to assert that the life of the French plowman of the 17th-18th centuries was not better, but worse than the living conditions of the Russian peasant of the same time. But putting forward this thesis, which is comforting for the thinking of the apologists for the serfdom, Pushkin, as if casually, on the move, introduces a reservation into his conclusions that completely annuls the purpose of all previous comparisons. Indeed, if the fate of the Russian peasant "seemed happier than the fate of the French farmer" to Fonvizin, if, according to authoritative evidence from other observers, "the fate of the French peasant did not improve" neither in the reign of Louis XV, nor in the reign of his son, then later, according to Pushkin , "all this, of course, has changed." In the initial version of the chapter, these lines had an even more expressive ending: "And I believe that the French farmer is now happier than the Russian peasant." Pushkin does not speak directly about the reasons for this radical change in the conditions of life of the "French farmer", but from the context it is quite clear that the French peasant has become happier. after the reign of the "successor of Louis XV", that is, translated from Aesopian phraseology into a commonly understood language, after the execution of Louis XVI and the liquidation of noble land ownership by revolutionary means.

So, if the fate of the French peasant was made “happy” by the revolution, then in the fate of the Russian peasant since the time of Fonvizin and Radishchev no changes for the better have occurred. Pushkin even claims that "nothing is so unlike a Russian village in 1662 as a Russian village in 1833."

Page 396. The best and most enduring changes are those that result from the mere improvement of morals, without violent political upheavals, terrible for mankind...- This wording is borrowed, in its main part, from

In 1836, the "traveler's" maxim about "the best and most lasting changes" migrated from Pushkin's article on Radishchev to The Captain's Daughter (Chapter VI). When considering this political formulation both in a journalistic article and in a historical story, one must not forget that Pushkin does not give it on his own behalf, but as a maxim characteristic of conservative noble thinking, as one of those common truths with which he himself does not at all solidarized. True, in the book of the English traveler K. F. Frankland, who visited Russia in 1830-1831, there is a record of his conversation with Pushkin in Moscow on May 8 (20), 1831 about the situation of Russian serfs and the prospects for their emancipation, which contradicts both as if it were information about negative attitude poet to Karamzin's formulation. Frankland argued, in the words of Pushkin, that "no great and significant change can take place in the political and social order this vast and heterogeneous empire otherwise than by gradual and cautious steps, each of which must be placed on a firm foundation of cultural upsurge; or, in other words, on the enlightenment of human views and on the expansion of understanding. Much remains to be done among the upper classes; when they have learned to understand their true interests and the interests of their poor serfs, then something can be done to improve the situation of the latter - all this takes time. No change can be lasting unless it rests on a good and firm foundation” (“Narrative of visit to the courts of Russia and Sweden, in the years 1830 and 1831. By captain C. Colville Frankland”, London, 1832. We quote the translation B. V. Kazansky in the “Vremennik of the Pushkin Commission” - vol. 2, 1936, p. 308). We have no reason to believe that Frankland could distort Pushkin's true statements, but we must not forget that, talking with a foreigner,

whom he knew little and whose modesty he could not count on, Pushkin did everything to ensure that this conversation could not harm him. The mask of a moderately liberal gentleman, assimilated by Pushkin in his conversation with Frankland, helped him two or three years later, when he made the same problem the main part of his article on Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Characteristically, in the draft version of the article, the question of the position of the Russian peasant was considered in a special study "Conversation with an Englishman" (see pp. 432-434).

Page 398. The monster, leaning on the cradle of children... - Lines from Zhukovsky's message "To Emperor Alexander" (1814).

Page 399. ...and don't fraternize with him.- Further crossed out: “The power of the landlords, in the form in which it now exists, is necessary for recruiting. Without it, the government in the provinces could not have collected even a tenth of the required number of recruits. This is one of the thousand reasons that command us to be present in our villages, and not go bankrupt in the capitals under the pretext of zeal for the service, but in fact out of a single love for absent-mindedness and for ranks.

Simple thinker in the comedy Knyazhnin ... - Pushkin quotes Ya. B. Knyazhnin's comedy "Bouncer" (act. I, vyvl. V).

But this prohibition had its disadvantageous side ... - The arguments about the sale of serfs into recruits put by Pushkin into the mouth of his “traveler” are very close to the arguments of N. M. Karamzin (N. M. Karamzin, Note on the Ancient and new Russia, St. Petersburg. 1914, pp. 77-78).

Page 401. A. Kh. Vostokov defined it ... - in "Experience on Russian versification" (1817).

Probably, our future epic poet will choose him and make him popular. - This prediction was very soon confirmed by the "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov", published by Lermontov in 1838.

Page 402. One of the French publicists ... - Benjamin Constant in Reflections on Constitutions and Guarantees (1814).

Jan 31 2013

And here it is - the appeal of the “old old man” Pyotr Andreich that responds to the epigraph: “Young! if my notes fall into your hands, remember that the best and most lasting changes are those that come from the improvement of morals, without any violent upheavals. * * * It is here, in the middle of the story, that his moral nerve is located.

On the eve of the description of Pugachev's atrocities in the Belogorsk fortress, Pushkin considered it necessary to stipulate his attitude to any violent upheavals. It will remain unchanged until the very end of the novel, regardless of how the fate of the man himself, who quite unequivocally imprinted the actions and his accomplices: “God forbid to see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless!” Pushkin does not lose sight of all this when he selects an epigraph from folk song about the execution of the archer ataman: My head, little head, Serving head! My little head served Exactly thirty years and three years.

Ah, the little head has not earned itself No self-interest, no joy, No matter how good a word is to itself And no high rank to itself; Only the little head has survived Two high columns, A maple crossbar, Another silk loop. The same old Bashkirian who yesterday (in the previous chapter) shocked Grinev with his appearance disfigured by torture, today "find himself on horseback" on the crossbar of the gallows. "He held a rope in his hand, and a minute later I saw poor Ivan Kuzmich, pulled up into the air." Following the commandant, lieutenant Ivan Ignatich was hanged because he, like the captain, not only refused to swear allegiance to Pugachev, but called him a thief and an impostor.

They also ordered Petrusha to be hanged, on the orders of Pugachev, to whom Shvabrin, who had gone over to him, said “a few words in his ear.” And they would have hanged them if they hadn't thrown themselves at Pugachev's feet. “And did you recognize, sir, the chieftain?” he asks his young master in the next chapter.

“No, I did not know; and who is he?” Petrusha is surprised. “How, father?

Have you forgotten that drunkard who lured your sheepskin coat out of you at the inn? The hare sheepskin coat is brand new ... ”And he confirms to Grinev that he“ would have swayed on the crossbar if it weren’t for your servant. I immediately recognized the old bastard." It should be recognized that Shvabrin's impatient desire to see Grinev hanged also played a role in the fact that Petrusha remained alive.

After all, "a few words" said by Shvabrin to Pugachev saved Petrush from the need to "repeat", as he prepared, "the answer of my magnanimous comrades." We can only guess what a terrible accusation Shvabrin's words sounded to Grinev for Pugachev, if he, without looking at Petrusha, ordered him to be hanged. But if it weren’t for these Shvabrinsky words, Pugachev would have heard from Grinev, standing in front of the crowd in the square, the same thing that he had heard from two other officers of the fortress, and he would hardly have been able to keep him, even having recognized, thanks to Savelich, the one who once gave him a hare coat ! Yes, the epigraph of the chapter does not directly correlate with the fate of Grinev. He mourns the captain and lieutenant Ivan Ignatich, the courageous defenders of the Belogorsk fortress who did not change their oath, who preferred death to dishonor.

In the last chapter, advising his wife to leave the fortress with her daughter, captain Mironov told her, in particular, based, obviously, on the rumors about their atrocities ahead of the Pugachevites: “... for nothing that you are an old woman, but look what will happen to you, if they take the fort by attack. The seventh chapter fully confirmed these rumors, showed that the bandits led by Pugachev had nothing human left: “At that moment a woman's cry was heard. Several robbers dragged Vasilisa Yegorovna onto the porch, disheveled and stripped naked.

One of them has already dressed up in her shower jacket. But the most terrible shock for Vasilisa Yegorovna was to see her husband on the gallows. And it is no coincidence that the epigraph of the seventh chapter echoes the sobbing words of the old Vasilisa Yegorovna, sustained in the genre of folk lamentation: “You are my light, Ivan Kuzmich, a daring soldier's little head! neither Prussian bayonets nor Turkish bullets touched you; not in a fair fight did you lay down your stomach, but perished from a fugitive convict!

» Looking for an epigraph to the chapter, the publisher sought to reveal the meaning of its title in the most voluminous way: "Attack". In Russian, this word means not only the siege of, say, a fortress or its assault, but also “set to work, start” (V. Dal). The fact that the Belogorsk fortress was besieged by the Pugachevites and this siege lasted for some time is an undoubted fact. Indeed, even at dawn, Shvabrin was among the officers of the fortress, and at the time of their execution, he, “cut in a circle and in a Cossack caftan,” was already “among the rebellious foremen” of Pugachev. And here is the assault that commandant Mironov predicted: “Now stand strong, there will be an attack ...

", did not have. Captain Mironov urged his soldiers to follow him on a sortie: the gates were opened, "the commandant, Ivan Ignatich and I instantly found ourselves behind the ramparts, but the timid garrison did not move." The Pugachevites who came running broke into the fortress without any effort, capturing its officers. But about all this is only half a small chapter, while the other half describes executions and violence. And the chapter ends with a new crime of Pugachev, who, having heard how Vasilisa Yegorovna is being killed for her husband, ordered: “Calm down the old witch!

“Here,” writes Petrusha, “a young Cossack hit her on the head with a saber, and she fell dead on the steps of the porch. Pugachev left; people rushed after him. In other words, having burst into the fortress, Pugachev and his gang set about their usual work - brutal reprisals against those who dared to oppose them. True, in the next chapter, Petrusha, who, against his will, found himself at the same table with Pugachev and his associates, listens to their conversation: "The conversation was about the morning attack, about the success of the indignation and about future actions."

It is clear that the Pugachevites themselves understood by the “attack”. “Everyone boasted,” continues to talk about it, “offered his opinion and freely challenged Pugachev.” None of them would boast of atrocities - most likely, each exaggerated their role in the capture of the Belogorsk fortress (it is quite possible that they also talked about its successful assault), which fell, as we saw, not thanks to their military talents, but from -for the betrayal of the Cossacks, the garrison and Shvabrin.

"The Uninvited Guest" is the title of this chapter. Pushkin provided it with an epigraph that unambiguously characterizes who is meant here. “An uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar,” Pushkin put it in the epigraph proverb. And we, the readers, understand that since Pyotr Andreevich was visiting Pugachev at the invitation of the latter, such a guest cannot be called uninvited. But Pugachev himself and his comrades, feasting in the commandant's house of the Mironovs they killed, no one called there.

What was Pugachev's name and in Belogorsk fortress, where he and his gang behaved really “worse than a Tatar”, that is, worse than the governor of the khan at the time Tatar-Mongol yoke. And Grinev, fixing this in the previous chapter, will give in chapter VIII not only a horrifying picture of the looting and devastation of officers' houses, but will consider it necessary to draw the attention of readers to several "Bashkirs who crowded around the gallows and pulled off the boots from the hanged", and to creepy picture, which Petrusha saw, approaching the commandant's house at dusk, where Pugachev was drinking: “The gallows with its victims turned terribly black. The body of the poor commandant's wife was still lying under the porch ... "And the fate of Masha, who was delirious and feverish, not recognizing anyone, lay in the house of Father Gerasim and his wife who sheltered the orphan? Popadya called Masha her niece, and Shvabrin, who was present during her conversation with Pugachev, did not refute this version.

Original taken from nikolaevec in Quote of the Week: "The best change comes without violent upheavals"

Read the complaints of English factory workers: your hair will stand on end with horror. How many disgusting tortures, incomprehensible torments! what cold barbarism on the one hand, and what terrible poverty on the other! You will think that it is about the construction of the Pharaoh's pyramids, about the Jews working under the whips of the Egyptians. Not at all: it's about Mr. Smith's cloth or Mr. Jackson's needles. And note that all this is not abuse, not crime, but takes place within the strict limits of the law. It seems that there is no more unhappy English worker in the world, but look what happens there when a new machine is invented, which suddenly relieves five or six thousand people from hard labor and deprives them of their last means of subsistence ... We have nothing of the kind. Duties are not burdensome at all. The poll is paid in peace; corvée is determined by law; The dues are not ruinous (except in the vicinity of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the variety of industrial turnover intensifies and irritates the greed of the owners). The landowner, having imposed dues, leaves it to the will of his peasant to get it, how and where he wants. The peasant does what he pleases and sometimes travels 2,000 versts to earn his own money... There are many abuses everywhere; criminal cases are terrible everywhere.

Take a look at the Russian peasant: is there even a shadow of slavish humiliation in his steps and speech? There is nothing to say about his courage and intelligence. His receptivity is known. Agility and dexterity are amazing. The traveler travels from region to region in Russia, not knowing a single word of Russian, and everywhere he is understood, his requirements are fulfilled, and conditions are concluded with him. You will never meet in our people what the French call un badaud; you will never notice in him either rude surprise or ignorant contempt for someone else's. There is no person in Russia who does not have his own home. The beggar, leaving to wander the world, leaves his hut. It doesn't exist in other parts of the world. Having a cow everywhere in Europe is a sign of luxury; we do not have a cow is a sign of terrible poverty. Our peasant is tidy out of habit and according to the rule: every Saturday he goes to the bathhouse; he washes himself several times a day... The fate of the peasant improves from day to day as enlightenment spreads... The well-being of the peasants is closely connected with the well-being of the landowners; it is obvious to everyone. Of course: there are still great changes to come; but time must not be hastened, and without that it is already quite active. The best and most enduring changes are those that result from the mere improvement of morals, without violent political upheavals, terrible for mankind...

A.S. Pushkin. Journey from Moscow to Petersburg. 1833-1835

February 23rd, 2017 01:49 pm

In "Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg" A.S. Pushkin we find:

“Look at the Russian peasant: is there even a shadow of slavish humiliation in his steps and speech? There is nothing to say about his courage and intelligence. His permissiveness is known. Agility and dexterity are amazing. in Russian, and everywhere they understand him, fulfill his demands, conclude conditions with him.You will never meet in our people what the French call un badaud;1) you will never notice in him either rude surprise or ignorance

1) rotosey (French)

contempt for others. There is no person in Russia who does not have his own home. The beggar, leaving to wander the world, leaves his hut. It doesn't exist in other parts of the world. Having a cow everywhere in Europe is a sign of luxury; we do not have a cow is a sign of terrible poverty. Our peasant is tidy out of habit and according to the rule: every Saturday he goes to the bathhouse; he washes himself several times a day... The fate of the peasant improves from day to day as enlightenment spreads... The well-being of the peasants is closely connected with the well-being of the landowners; it is obvious to everyone. Of course: there are still great changes to come; but time must not be hastened, and without that it is already quite active. The best and most lasting changes are those that come from a mere improvement in morals, without violent political upheavals, terrible for mankind ... "

The last phrase is borrowed from Karamzin's "Letters of a Russian Traveler": "Utopia (or the kingdom of happiness)," wrote Karamzin, "will always be a dream good heart or it can be fulfilled by the inconspicuous action of time, through the slow but sure, safe successes of the mind, enlightenment, education of good morals ... All violent upheavals are disastrous, and every rebel prepares a scaffold for himself ”(Part III, letter from Paris dated 1790 ).