Analysis of works of Russian literature of the 19th century

Lesson summary on Russian literature on the topic:

"Hero of our time". History of creation

Subject: "Hero of our time". History of creation.

Goals:

1) Educational:to acquaint students with the history of the creation of the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time"; analyze the "Preface" to the novel;

2) Developing: develop note-taking and text analysis skills;

3 ) Educational:to cultivate love and respect for the work of the writer.

Lesson form: lesson-lecture.

Equipment: portrait of the writer, exhibition of books.

During the classes

I. Organizing time. introduction teachers

Teacher: Today we are starting to study the prose of M.Yu. Lermontov, namely to the novel "A Hero of Our Time".

II. Teacher's lecture.

1. The history of the creation of the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov
"Hero of our time".

M. Yu. Lermontov began work on the novel based on the impressions of the first exile to the Caucasus. The novels Bela and Fatalist appeared in the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine in 1839, and later the story Taman was published. In 1840, the novel M by Y. Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time, was published, under this title five stories were combined. The general ideological and plot-forming center of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" was the image of the protagonist Pechorin. The first readers saw a caricature of a modern person, so in 1841 M. Yu. Lermontov created a "Preface" to the novel, in which he explained the features of the author's intention.

2. Features of the composition.

1. Violation of the chronological sequence

2. The independence of each of the stories (plot, semantic and genre completeness) and their simultaneous connection, cyclicity.

3. Change of the subject of the narration (Maxim Maksimych, the narrator, the hero himself).

The author saw his task in revealing the "history of the human soul". To do this, it was necessary not so much to tell about the actions of the hero, but to reveal the reasons that led to them. Violation of the chronological sequence of events is determined by the ideological intent of the author and is subject to movement from the external to the internal, from the actions and deeds of the hero to the motives that prompted him to these actions, from the riddle to the solution. The same role is played by the change in the subject of the narrative (we will express this idea a priori in the introductory lesson and will return to it in the course of studying each of the stories).

(The main points of the lecture are summarized by students in workbooks.)

3. Acquaintance of students with the chronological sequence of the novel.

Around 1830, Pechorin was sent from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus to an active detachment. On the way to the place of his new service, he lingered in Taman, where his clash with smugglers takes place (the story "Taman"). After a military expedition in May - June 1832, he was allowed to use the waters in Pyatigorsk. Then, for a duel with Grushnitsky (the story "Princess Mary"), he was sent to serve in a distant fortress under the command of Maxim Maksimych. After leaving for two weeks in the Cossack village, in December 1832, Pechorin becomes a participant in the story with Vulich (the story "The Fatalist") and returns to the fortress. In the spring of 1833, Bela was abducted, who died 4 months later at the hands of Kazbich (according to the message "Bela"). From the fortress, Pechorin is transferred to Georgia, then he returns to St. Petersburg. Some time later, having again found himself in the Caucasus on the way to Persia, presumably in the autumn of 1837, Pechorin meets with Maxim Maksimych and the narrator (the story "Maxim Maksimych"). Finally, on way back Pechorin dies from Persia ("Preface to Pechorin's Journal")

III. Commented reading of the "Preface" to the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov.

Interview with students on:

Expressively read the “Preface” to the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov “A Hero of Our Time”.

2. How does M. Yu. Lermontov himself explain the role of his "Preface" to the novel? (This is a kind of response to modern criticism.)

3. In what way does the writer see the features of the image of the protagonist? (“The Hero of Our Time, my gracious sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.”)

5. Is M. Yu. Lermontov going to change an immoral, vicious society? (“It will also happen that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - God only knows!”)

IV. Homework.

V. Summing up the lesson, grading.

History of creation.

The only completed novel by Lermontov has a rather complicated and controversial history of creation. It is known that he was preceded by other experiences of the writer in prose. Even before leaving for the Caucasus in 1836, Lermontov began to work on the novel "Princess of Lithuania" from the life of the St. Petersburg society of the 1830s, in which the heroes of his future work, Pechorin and Vera Litovskaya, first appeared. Work on the work was interrupted in 1837, and after the poet was expelled from the capital to the south, Lermontov began work on "A Hero of Our Time", which depicts a hero with the same name, but the scene changes - from the capital it is transferred to the Caucasus. In the autumn of 1837, rough sketches were made for Taman and Fatalist. In 1838-1839. continues active work over the work. First, in March 1839, the story “Bela” was published in the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine with the subtitle “From an officer’s notes about the Caucasus”, then in the November issue the reader got acquainted with the story “The Fatalist”, and in February 1840 Taman was published. At the same time, work continues on the remaining parts of the novel (“Maxim Maksimych” and “Princess Mary”), which appeared in its entirety in the April issue of Notes of the Fatherland for 1840. The title "Hero of Our Time" was suggested by the magazine's publisher A.A. Kraevsky, who recommended that the author replace the former one with him - “One of the heroes of our century”, which resembled the name of a novel that had appeared shortly before French writer A. Musset "Confession of the son of the century" (1836).

At the beginning of 1841, A Hero of Our Time came out as a separate edition, in which another preface was introduced (the preface to Pechorin's Journal was already included in the first edition). It was written in response to hostile critical articles that appeared in print after the first publication. In response to accusations of the far-fetched character of Pechorin and the assessment of this hero as slander “for a whole generation”, the author writes in the preface: “A hero of our time”, my gracious sovereigns, for sure, a portrait, but not one person: this is a portrait made up of vices of our entire generation, in their full development. Thus, Lermontov confirmed the realistic orientation of the work.

"A Hero of Our Time" is the first realistic socio-psychological and moral-philosophical novel in Russian prose about the tragedy of an outstanding personality in Russia in the 30s of the 19th century. Due to the fact that A Hero of Our Time was written when the novel as a genre in Russian literature had not yet been fully formed, Lermontov relied mainly on Pushkin's experience and Western European literary traditions. The influence of the latter was expressed in the features of the romanticism of A Hero of Our Time.

The features of romanticism in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" are in the special closeness of the author and the hero, the lyricism of the narrative, close attention to " inner man”, the obscurity of the hero’s past, the exclusivity of his nature and many situations, the closeness of the plot of “Bela” to romantic poems (“To the Demon”) and the increased expressiveness of the style, which is especially felt in “Taman”. Thus, the image of Pechorin is shrouded in an aura of mystery right up to the confessional second part of the novel, when the situation is more or less cleared up. We can only guess what life circumstances influenced the formation of his character, for what reason he ended up in the Caucasus, etc.

However, A Hero of Our Time is basically a realistic work. First of all, realistic tendencies in the novel are associated with the objectivity of the author's position in relation to the hero, in which Lermontov's novel is similar to Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". Obviously, Pechorin and Lermontov are not the same person, although they are closer to each other than Onegin and Pushkin. In the Preface to the novel, Lermontov emphasizes this idea: “.. Others very subtly noticed that the writer painted his own portrait and portraits of his acquaintances ... An old and pathetic joke!”

The realism of the novel also lies in the staging critical issues modernity and creating the image of a "hero of time", a typical representative of the era - " extra person". The realism of the novel is also manifested in the author's desire to psychologically reliably and accurately explain the features of the hero's nature, linking them with the conditions surrounding life. At the same time, other - secondary - characters of the novel also have typicality. Relations between the individual and society are recreated in it in all their complexity and inconsistency. Reality appeared here in its various spheres, different types life, characters and different points vision.

The genre specificity of Lermontov's work also turned out to be unusual and new. The special uniqueness of the genre nature of this work is given by the combination of features of the realism of the socio-psychological novel and romanticism, manifested in its construction and style. Already Belinsky said that "A Hero of Our Time" is an integral work, although it was composed of individual stories and stories. For the first time in Russian literature, it combined socio-psychological and moral-philosophical issues. For philosophical and psychological insight into the nature of the "hero of time"

and a synthesis of narrative genres was required: travel notes, essay, short story, psychological and philosophical story, diaries, confession. None of these forms, taken separately, was sufficient to explain the contradictory nature of modern man. The first part of the novel - the story "Bela" - is similar in genre to travel notes, "Maxim Maksimych" is a story. "Taman" is a romantic short story with an adventurous plot and an unexpected ending, and the most large part"Princess Mary" - psychological tale. The work ends with the philosophical story "The Fatalist", in which, according to the laws of the genre, the plot is subject to the disclosure of a philosophical idea. In addition, “The Preface to Pechorin’s Journal” is an insert “document” necessary for the further development of the story about the hero, and Pechorin’s Journal itself is a kind of diary consisting of several parts in which the hero talks about different episodes from his life. .

Another distinctive genre feature Lermontov's novel is defined by the words from the author's preface: "the history of the human soul." They show a conscious attitude towards the open psychologism of the work. That is why "A Hero of Our Time" is the first psychological novel in Russian literature, although psychologism was also inherent in other works that appeared earlier, such as the novel "Eugene Onegin". The task that Lermontov set himself was not so much in the image outer life Pechorin, his adventures, although such an element of adventurism is also present here. But the main thing is to show inner life and the evolution of the hero, for which a wide variety of means are used, including not only monologues, dialogues, internal monologues, psychological portrait and landscape, but also the composition of the work itself.

plot and composition.

"A Hero of Our Time" is not like the second book we are used to in literature. half of XIX century classic Russian novel. It does not have a through storyline with a plot and denouement, each of its parts has its own plot and characters involved in it. Nevertheless, this is an integral work, united not only by one hero - Pechorin, but also by a common idea and problems. It is to the protagonist that all the main plot lines of the novel stretch: Pechorin and Bela, Pechorin and Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin and smugglers, Pechorin and Princess Mary, Pechorin and Grushnitsky, Pechorin and the "water society", Pechorin and Vera, Pechorin and Werner, Pechorin and Vulich, etc. Thus, this work, unlike "Eugene Onegin", is monoheroic. All the characters in it, being full-blooded artistic types, written out with varying degrees details are subordinated to the task of revealing the character of the central character.

This explains another feature of the composition of the novel: its parts are located in violation of the chronological sequence of events. At the same time, there are various sources from which we learn about Pechorin, as well as several narrators who recount the events from different points of view. The range of these points of view on the hero is very wide. First, in the story "Bela" we learn about Pechorin from a simple Russian officer Maxim Maksimych, a kind, honest man who spent a long time with Pechorin and treats him kindly, but completely different from him in spirit and upbringing. He can only note the peculiarities of behavior " strange person”, which remained a mystery to him (and therefore to the reader). In the story “Maxim Maksimych”, the narrator changes: this is an officer, fellow traveler and listener of Maxim Maksimych in “Bel”, clearly closer to Pechorin in age, development, social status, and most importantly - similar in spirit and mindset. He makes an attempt to somehow explain the features of this unusual person. And finally, we get acquainted with the hero's diaries, his kind of confession, which allows you to see his soul, as it were, "from the inside", through self-disclosure, thorough analysis and exposure of the underlying causes of the hero's behavior, his character traits.

there is his biography. From this point of view, the parts should have been arranged as follows: "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Bela", "Fatalist", "Maxim Maksimych", a preface to Pechorin's Journal. But then the novel would not work. Belinsky noted that, after reading all the parts in a different sequence, we get several beautiful stories and two wonderful stories, but not a novel as a single work. The construction of the novel chosen by the writer makes it possible to gradually introduce the reader into peace of mind hero and create a lot of acute situations - like the author's meeting with his future hero and premature (from the point of view of the plot) message about his death.

From all this it follows that the composition of the novel is based not so much on the connection of events, but on the analysis of the feelings and thoughts of Pechorin, his inner world. The independence of the individual parts of the novel is largely due to the point of view chosen by the author: he does not build a biography of the hero, but is looking for a solution to the mystery of the soul, and the soul is complex, bifurcated, in in a certain sense unfinished. The history of such a soul does not lend itself to a strict, logically consistent presentation. Therefore, the order of the stories included in the novel does not correspond to the sequence of events in Pechorin's life. Thus, we can say that the composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" plays a significant role in revealing the image of Pechorin, "the history of the human soul", since it general principle is to move from riddle to riddle. It is one of the main means of creating a reliable portrait of the "hero of time".

Theme and problems.

main topic novel - a person in the process of self-knowledge, the study of the spiritual world of man. This is the theme of all Lermontov's work as a whole. In the novel, she receives the most complete interpretation in revealing the image of its central character - the “hero of time”. Since the mid-1830s, Lermontov has been painfully looking for a hero who could embody the personality traits of a person of his generation. Pechorin becomes such for the writer. The author warns the reader against an unambiguous assessment of this extraordinary personality. In the preface to Pechorin's Journal, he writes: “Maybe some readers will want to know my opinion about Pechorin's character? My answer is the title of this book. “Yes, this is an evil irony!” they will say. - I do not know". Thus, the theme of the "hero of time", familiar to readers from Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin", acquires new features associated not only with another era, but with a special angle of its consideration in Lermontov's novel: the writer poses a problem, the solution of which, as it were, provides readers . As stated in the preface to the novel, the author "just had fun drawing a modern man, as he understands him and, to his misfortune and yours, met too often." The ambiguity of the title of the novel, as well as the very nature of the central character, immediately gave rise to controversy and various assessments, but fulfilled its purpose. main task: to focus on the problem of personality, reflecting in itself the main content of its era, its generation.

Thus, at the center of Lermontov's novel "The Hero of Our Time" is the problem of the individual, the "hero of the time", who, while absorbing all the contradictions of his era, is at the same time in deep conflict with society and the people around him. It determines the originality of the ideological and thematic content of the novel, and many other plot and thematic lines of the work are connected with it. The relationship between the individual and society is of interest to the writer both in socio-psychological and philosophical terms: he puts the hero before the need to solve social problems, and universal, universal problems. The themes of freedom and predestination, love and friendship, happiness and fatal fate are organically woven into them. In "Bel" the hero seems to check on himself whether it is possible to bring the human of civilization and the "natural" closer together. natural man. At the same time, the theme of true and false romanticism also arises, which is realized through the clash of Pechorin - a true romantic - with those heroes who only have external attributes of romanticism: highlanders, smugglers, Grushnitsky, Werner. Relationship Theme exceptional personality and inert environment is considered in the history of the relationship between Pechorin and the "water society". And the Pechorin-Maxim Maksimych line also introduces the theme of generations. The theme of true and false friendship is also associated with these heroes, but in more it develops in "Princess Mary" through the relationship between Pechorin and Grushnitsky.

The theme of love occupies a large place in the novel - it is presented in almost all of its parts. Heroines who embody Various types female characters, designed not only to show different faces this great feeling, but also to reveal Pechorin's attitude towards him, and at the same time to clarify his views on the most important moral and philosophical problems. The situation in which Pechorin finds himself in Taman makes him think about the question: why did fate put him in such a relationship with people that he unwittingly brings them only misfortunes? In "Princess Mary" Pechorin undertakes to solve questions about internal contradictions human soul, contradictions between the heart and mind, feeling and deed, goal and means.

In The Fatalist, the central place is occupied by the philosophical problem of predestination and personal will, the ability of a person to influence the natural course of life. It is closely connected with the general moral and philosophical issues of the novel - the desire of the individual for self-knowledge, the search for the meaning of life. Within the framework of this problem, the novel considers whole line the toughest questions, which do not have unique solutions. What is the true meaning of life? What is good and evil? What is self-knowledge of a person, what role do passions, will, reason play in it? Is a person free in his actions, does he bear moral responsibility for them? Is there some kind of support outside the person himself, or does everything close on his personality? And if it exists, does a person have the right, whatever strong will he neither possessed, to play the life, fate, soul of other people? Is he paying for it? The novel does not give an unequivocal answer to all these questions, but thanks to the formulation of such problems, it allows us to reveal the theme of personality in a comprehensive and multifaceted way.

Pechorin's reflections on these philosophical questions are found in all parts of the novel, especially those included in Pechorin's Journal, but most of all philosophical problems characteristic of its last part - "The Fatalist". This is an attempt to give a philosophical interpretation of Pechorin's character, to find the causes of the deep spiritual crisis of the entire generation represented in his person, and to raise the problem of individual freedom and the possibility of its actions. It acquired particular relevance in the era of "inaction", which Lermontov wrote about in the poem "Duma". In the novel, this problem gets further development, acquiring the character of philosophical reflection.

Thus, in the novel is brought to the fore the main problem- possibility human action, taken in general plan and in its specific application to social conditions of this era. She determined the originality of the approach to the image of the central character and all other characters of the novel.

Main heroes.

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" is monoheroic, and therefore one hero, Pechorin, stands in the center of it. Since the appearance of the novel, the opinion has been established that "Lermontov's Pechorin ... is the Onegin of our time, the hero of our time," as Belinsky confidently concluded, and after him all subsequent generations of critics and readers. And yet, even recognizing in these heroes a similar type of personality, one should also mention very significant differences related both to the time that each of them reflects, and to the peculiarities of the author's interpretation and attitude towards his hero.

It is known that Lermontov planned to create an image of his contemporary as opposed to the character of Onegin. Pechorin does not have that disappointment that leads to "yearning laziness", on the contrary, he rushes around the world in search of true life, ideals, but does not find them, which leads him to skepticism and complete denial of the existing world order. He longs for activity, constantly, relentlessly strives for it, but what he does in life turns out to be petty, meaningless and useless even for himself, because he cannot dispel his boredom.

But it is not so much the hero himself who is to blame for all this, a bright and extraordinary personality, standing out against the general background of the people of that time, capable of genuine freedom of thought and deed. Rather, in accordance with the author's position, the fault lies with the world, the society in which his hero lives. Lermontov in Russia in the 30s of the 19th century clearly feels the Shakespearean situation: “the century has dislocated the joint”, “the connection of times has broken up”. More than once in his work, the writer raises the question of what a person should do in such a situation. The author poses the same question to his hero. It is very reminiscent of the Hamlet question: “What is nobler in spirit - to submit / To the slings and arrows of a furious fate / or, taking up arms against the sea of unrest, to slay them with confrontation?” With all his energy, Pechorin seeks to solve it, but does not find an answer. This is what gives grounds, despite all the differences between Pechorin and Onegin, to say that we have another “Russian Hamlet”, human and social type, doomed to be "smart uselessness", "superfluous person".

Indeed, like all heroes united by the concept of “an extra person”, Pechorin is characterized by egocentrism, individualism, a skeptical attitude towards social and moral values combined with reflection, ruthless self-esteem. He also has an inherent desire for activity in the absence of life purpose. But the important thing is that Pechorin, for all his shortcomings, embodying the "disease of the century", remains precisely the hero for the author. It was a realistic reflection of that socio-psychological type of a person of the 30s of the XIX century, who retained and carried dissatisfaction in himself. existing life, a comprehensive skepticism and denial, so highly valued by Lermontov. After all, only on this basis it was possible to start revising the old worldview and philosophical systems that no longer met the needs of the new time, and thereby open the way to the future. It is from this point of view that Pechorin can be called a "hero of the time", becoming a natural link in the development of Russian society.

At the same time, Pechorin shared the vices and illnesses of his age. Of course, he is sorry, because he, according to him own words while bringing suffering to others, he himself is no less unhappy. But that doesn't make him any less guilty. He analyzes himself, ruthlessly exposing the vices, which, in the author's opinion, represent not just the quality of this individual, but the vices of the entire generation. And yet it is difficult to forgive Pechorin for his “illness” - disregard for the feelings of other people, demonism and egocentrism, the desire to make others a toy in his hands. This was reflected in the story of Maxim Maksimych, led to the death of Bela, to the suffering of Princess Mary and Vera, the death of Grushnitsky, etc.

The strangeness and duality of Pechorin's character are fixed from the very beginning. “He was a nice fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little strange,” says Maksim Maksimych, ready to explain this strangeness and boredom by French fashion. But Pechorin himself admits to endless contradictions: “In me ... my imagination is restless, my heart is insatiable”; "My life is getting emptier day by day." He is not for a moment free from the question: “Why did I live? for what purpose was I born?.. And, it is true, it existed, and, it is true, I had a high purpose, because I feel immense powers in my soul; but I did not guess this appointment, I was carried away by the bait of empty and ungrateful passions. The “broken connection of times” seems to penetrate inside the “hero of time” and leads to a duality characteristic of him, as well as of Hamlet: “There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him.”

This is how another of the main features of Pechorin manifests itself. It received a special name - reflection, that is, self-observation, a person's understanding of his actions, feelings, sensations. In the era of the 30s of the XIX century, reflection became hallmark"hero of time" About this characteristic feature Lermontov also writes people of his generation in the poem “Duma”, while noting that scrupulous introspection leaves “secret cold” in the soul. At one time, Belinsky pointed out that all at least somewhat deep natures passed through reflection, it became one of the signs of the era. Considering the character of Pechorin, the critic also notes: “Internal questions are incessantly heard in him, they disturb him, torment him, and in reflection he seeks permission for them: he watches every movement of his heart, considers his every thought. He made himself the most curious subject of his observations and, trying to be as sincere as possible in his confession, not only frankly admits his true shortcomings, but also invents unprecedented or falsely interprets his most natural movements.

The state of reflection is terrible, it makes a person think even "... at such a time, / When no one thinks." And this thorough analysis kills the feeling. For example, Pechorin finds out after the duel about Vera's departure, rushes in pursuit, the horse falls under him, and he sobs in impotence. He lost, perhaps, the only person close to him. But after a while, Pechorin already finds that such a manifestation of emotions is even pleasant. Discovering in himself the ability to a new feeling for him, he begins to disassemble it and as a result comes to the conclusion that such unusual tears for him were the result of an empty stomach and a sleepless night.

The reflective hero reveals himself most fully in his confession, in his diary. That is why Pechorin's Journal occupies a central place in the novel. From it we learn that Pechorin also has a state of calm, simplicity, clarity. Alone with himself, he is able to feel the "smell of flowers growing in a modest front garden." “It's fun to live in such a land! Some kind of gratifying feeling is poured into all my veins, ”he writes. Pechorin feels that only in clear and simple words is the truth, and therefore Grushnitsky, who says "quickly and pretentiously," is unbearable to him. Contrary to the analytical mind, Pechorin’s soul is ready to expect first of all good from people: having accidentally heard about the conspiracy of the dragoon captain with Grushnitsky, he “tremblingly” waits for Grushnitsky’s answer. But Pechorin cannot fulfill his “high appointment”, use his “immense forces”.

Lermontov reveals the tragic divergence between inner wealth personality and its real existence. Pechorin's self-affirmation inevitably turns into extreme individualism, leads to tragic separation from people and complete loneliness. And as a result - the emptiness of the soul, no longer able to respond with a living feeling, even in such a small thing that was required of him during his last meeting with Maxim Maksimych. Even then, he understands his doom, aimlessness and fatality of a new and last attempt to change something in himself and his life. That is why the upcoming trip to Persia seems pointless to him. It would seem that the circle of the hero's life is tragically closed. But the novel ends with another - the story "The Fatalist", which opens a new and very important side in Pechorin.

A fatalist is a person who believes in the predestination of all events in life, in the inevitability of fate, fate - fate. This word gave the name to the final part of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" - a philosophical story that raises the question of the freedom of human will and action. In the spirit of his time, which is revising the fundamental issues of human existence, Pechorin is trying to resolve the question of whether the appointment of a person is predetermined by a higher will or a person himself determines the laws of life and follows them. He feels in himself, in his time, liberation from the blind faith of his ancestors, accepts and defends the revealed free will of man, but at the same time he knows that his generation has nothing to bring to replace the "blind faith" of previous eras.

As noted by the philologist Yu.M. Lotman1, the problem of fate, the existence of predestination, posed by Lermontov in the novel, is part of the writer's philosophical concept of the relationship between East and West, which is reflected in all his work. According to this concept, belief in predestination is inherent in man. Eastern culture and faith in own forces- a man of the West. Pechorin, of course, is closer to a person of Western culture. He believes that belief in predestination is a feature of the people of the past, modern man they seem funny. But at the same time, the hero thinks about "what willpower gave them" this faith. His opponent, lieutenant Vulich, is presented as a person connected with the East: he is a Serb, a native of the land that was under the rule of the Turks, endowed with an oriental appearance.

1 Lotman Yu.M. In the school of the poetic word: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol. M., 1988.

As the action of the Fatalist develops, Pechorin receives threefold confirmation of the existence of predestination, fate. Vulich could not shoot himself, although the pistol was loaded. Then he nevertheless dies at the hands of a drunken Cossack, and Pechorin does not see anything surprising in this, since even during the argument he noticed the “seal of death” on his face. And finally, Pechorin himself is trying his luck, deciding to disarm the drunken Cossack, the murderer of Vulich. “... A strange thought flashed through my head: like Vulich, I decided to try my luck,” says Pechorin. But his conclusion sounds like this: “I like to doubt everything: this disposition of the mind does not interfere with the decisiveness of character; on the contrary, as far as I am concerned, I always go forward more boldly when I do not know what awaits me.

The story seems to leave open question about the existence of predestination. But Pechorin still prefers to act and check the course of life with his own actions. The fatalist turned his opposite: if predestination exists, then this should make human behavior even more active: to be just a toy in the hands of fate is humiliating. Lermontov gives just such an interpretation of the problem, without unequivocally answering the question that tormented the philosophers of that time.

Thus, the philosophical story "The Fatalist" plays the role of a kind of epilogue in the novel. Due to the special composition of the novel, it ends not with the death of the hero, which was reported in the middle of the work, but with Pechorin's demonstration at the moment of exiting the tragic state of inactivity and doom, creating a major finale sad story"hero of time" Here, for the first time, Pechorin, disarming a drunken Cossack who killed Vulich and is dangerous to others, does not perform some far-fetched action, designed only to dispel his boredom, but a generally useful act, moreover, not associated with any "empty passions": the theme of love in "The Fatalist" off altogether.

But in other parts of the novel, a love affair is one of the main ones, since the question of the nature of this feeling, the problem of passions, is very important for revealing the character of Pechorin. After all, the “history of the human soul” is manifested most of all precisely in love. And, perhaps, it is here that the contradictions of Pechorin's nature are most noticeable. That's why female images constitute a special group of characters in the novel. Among them stand out Vera, Bela, Princess Mary, the girl Undine from Taman. All these images are of an auxiliary nature in relation to the central character, although each heroine has her own unique personality. Even Lermontov's contemporaries noted some fading of female images in A Hero of Our Time. As Belinsky said, "women's faces are the weakest of all," but this is only partly true. The bright and expressive character of the proud Goryanka is represented in Bel; mysterious, mysterious Undine; charming in her purity and naivety princess Me ri; Vera is selfless and disinterested in her all-consuming love for Pechorin. But all these wonderful female images have one thing in common: among them there is no one that could stand on a par with Pechorin, making up the ideological and moral center of the novel opposing the hero, like Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. With Lermontov, Pechorin retains his priority in all storylines.

A bright, strong, extraordinary personality, Pechorin in the eyes of others, especially women, often appears in a halo romantic hero and has a truly hypnotic effect on them. “My weak heart obeyed the familiar voice again,” Vera writes about this in her farewell letter. Despite the proud and independent character, neither the wild mountain girl Bela nor the secular beauty Mary can resist Pechorin. Only Undine tries to resist his pressure, but her life is destroyed as a result of a collision with him.

But he himself longs for love, passionately looking for it, "chasing furiously" after it around the world. “No one knows how to constantly want to be loved,” Vera says about him. It is in love that Pechorin is trying to find something that could reconcile him with life, but each time a new disappointment awaits him. Perhaps this happens because Pechorin makes him constantly chase after more and more new impressions, to seek new love boredom, not the desire to find a soul mate. "Did you love

me as property, as a source of joys, anxieties and sorrows that alternated mutually, without which life is boring and monotonous, ”Vera rightly notes.

It is obvious that Pechorin's attitude to a woman and to love is very peculiar. "I only satisfied the strange need of the heart, greedily devouring their feelings, their tenderness, their joys and sufferings - and could never get enough." In these words of the hero, undisguised selfishness sounds, and even Pechorin himself suffers from it, but even more so for those women with whom his life has connected him. Almost always, the meeting with him ends tragically for them - Bela dies, Princess Mary becomes seriously ill, the settled way of life of the girl Undine from the short story "Taman" is overturned, Pechorin's love brought Vera suffering and grief. It is Vera who directly connects the concept of evil with Pechorin: “Evil is not so attractive in anyone,” she says. Pechorin himself literally repeats her words in his reflections on Vera's love for him: “Is evil so attractive?”

Thought at first glance, looking paradoxical: evil is usually not perceived as something attractive. But Lermontov had his own special position in relation to the forces of evil: without them, the development of life, its improvement, it is not only the spirit of destruction, but also the thirst for creation. Not without reason in his poetry is important place occupies the image of the Demon, and not so much embittered ("evil bored him"), but lonely and suffering, looking for love, which he was never given to find. It is obvious that Pechorin has the features of this unusual Lermontov Demon, not to mention the fact that the plot of "Bela" largely repeats the story romantic poem"Daemon". The hero of the novel himself sees in himself the one who brings evil to others and calmly perceives it, but still tries to find goodness and beauty, which perish when confronted with him. Why is this happening and is Pechorin the only one to blame for the fact that he is not given the opportunity to find harmony in love?

At first glance, this seems obvious. After all, he himself says that he “does not like women with character”, he needs to command others, always be above everyone - after all, he is a true romantic. But is it possible to hope to find true love, the one where not one, but both lovers are ready to sacrifice their interests, to give, not to take? But on the other hand, his life confronts such women who, despite all their attractiveness, purity and selflessness in love, lack that inner moral core that Tatyana Larina had. Bela comes to terms with the fact that her family is destroyed, her father is dying; Mary is ready for the sake of Pechorin to despise even secular decency, but she cannot completely get rid of her pride; Faith, recognizing the power of evil over her, agrees to violate the sanctity of marriage bonds.

However, it is this heroine that stands out among other female images, although she is not clearly outlined and the author often uses hints and omissions in her description. Probably, the fact that one of the prototypes of Vera was Varvara Lopukhina, in the marriage of Bakhmetev, was partly affected here. There are suggestions that she was the only true love of Lermontov, carried by him through his whole life. But fate tore them apart jealous husband Varenki categorically opposed any communication between her and Lermontov. In the situation that is drawn in the novel, there are indeed separate features of this story. But the main thing, perhaps, is that Vera is the only woman who is truly dear to Pechorin; she is the only one who managed to understand and understand his complex and contradictory nature. “Why does she love me so, really, I don’t know! - writes Pechorin in his diary. “Moreover, this is one woman who understood me completely, with all my petty weaknesses, bad passions.” This is precisely what her farewell letter, received by Pechorin after his return from the duel, testifies to.

And yet, like other heroines, Vera finds herself under the power of Pechorin, becoming his slave. “You know that I am your slave: I never knew how to resist you,” Vera tells him. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons for Pechorin's failures in love: those with whom his life brought him turned out to be too submissive and sacrificial natures. This power is felt not only by women, before Pechorin all other heroes of the novel are forced to retreat. He, like a Titan among people, rises above everyone, but at the same time remains absolutely alone. Such is fate strong personality unable to enter into harmonious relations with people.

This is also evident in his attitude towards friendship. On the pages of the novel there is not a single hero who could be considered a friend of Pechorin. However, all this is not surprising: after all, Pechorin believes that he has long “unraveled” the formula of friendship: “We soon understood each other and became friends, because I am not capable of friendship: of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although often not one one of them does not admit it to himself ... ". So, the "heart of gold" Maxim Maksimych is only a temporary colleague in a remote fortress, where Pechorin is forced to stay after a duel with Grushnitsky. Unexpected meeting with the old staff captain a few years later, which so alarmed poor Maxim Maksimych, left Pechorin absolutely indifferent. The line Pechorin - Maxim Maksimych helps to understand the character of the protagonist in relation to an ordinary person who has a "golden heart", but is deprived of an analytical mind, the ability to act independently and a critical attitude towards reality.

Dr. Werner has no less skepticism than Pechorin, he also has an analytical mind, but, unlike the "hero of time", he is not able to accept the active manifestation of evil. Werner recoiled from the demonic hero after the assassination of Grushnitsky, which provoked only a skeptical remark from Pechorin about the weakness of human nature.

The novel tells in more detail about the relationship between Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Grushnitsky is the antipode of Pechorin. He, a completely ordinary and ordinary person, tries with all his might to look like a romantic, an unusual person. As Pechorin ironically remarks, "his goal is to become the hero of the novel." From the point of view of revealing the character of the "hero of time", Grushnitsky's pseudo-romanticism emphasizes the depth of the tragedy of the true romantic - Pechorin. On the other hand, the development of their relationship is determined by the fact that Pechorin despises Grushnitsky, laughs at his romantic pose, which causes irritation and anger of the young man, who at first looks at him with delight. All this leads to the development of a conflict between them, which is aggravated by the fact that Pechorin, courting Princess Mary and seeking her favor, finally discredits Grushnitsky.

As a result, this leads to their open clash, which ends in a duel reminiscent of another scene - a duel from Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin". But Lermontov shows that the duel conceived by Grushnitsky is a dirty game from beginning to end. Together with the dragoon captain, even before an open clash with Pechorin, he decided to “teach him a lesson” by exposing a coward in front of everyone. Already in this scene, it is obvious to the reader that Grushnitsky himself is a coward, which is confirmed later when he agrees to the vile offer of the dragoon captain to load only one pistol. Pechorin accidentally learns about this conspiracy and decides to seize the initiative: now he, and not his opponents, is leading the party, planning to check not only the measure of meanness and cowardice of Grushnitsky, but also entering into a kind of duel with his own fate. And Grushnitsky is more interesting to him as a possible rival (“I love enemies, but not in a Christian way”), but he never considered him a friend. That is why the duel for Pechorin is just one of the arguments in his constant dispute with the people around him, with himself and his fate.

Thus, all the secondary characters of the novel, including female images, no matter how bright and memorable they are, serve primarily to reveal the various personality traits of the “hero of time”. Thus, the relationship with Vulich helps to clarify Pechorin's attitude to the problem of fatalism. The lines of Pechorin - mountaineers and Pechorin - smugglers reveal the relationship between the "hero of time" and the traditional heroes of romantic literature: they turn out to be weaker than him, and against their background, the figure of Pechorin acquires the features of not just an exceptional personality, but sometimes demonic. In contrasting Pechorin and the "water society", the problem of social relationships between the "hero of time" and the people of his circle is revealed. In such a peculiar construction of the system of images of the novel, when all the plot lines are drawn to one main character, and the rest of the characters help to present him most fully, one of the artistic features works of Lermontov.

Artistic originality.

The artistic innovation of the novel is due not only to the combination of features of romanticism and realism in it, the specifics of the genre, plot and composition. Having set himself the task of showing the "history of the human soul" and creating the first psychological novel, Lermontov was faced with the need to use traditional novel means in a new way. It is to him that the merit of the discovery in Russian prose of a special kind of portrait, which began to be called a psychological portrait, belongs. Such a portrait connects the appearance of the hero with the peculiarities of his inner world, captures the details of the appearance that carry information about the thoughts, feelings, experiences, and mood of a person. Such is the portrait of Pechorin in Maxim Maksimych: “He was of medium height; his slender, thin frame and broad shoulders proved a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the difficulties of nomadic life and climate change, not defeated either by the debauchery of metropolitan life or spiritual storms ... His gait was careless and lazy, but I noticed that he did not wave hands - a sure sign of some secrecy of character. ...About the eyes, I must say a few more words. First, they didn't laugh when he laughed! Have you ever noticed such strangeness in some people? .. This is a sign - or an evil disposition, or a deep constant sadness". It should also be noted that the psychological portrait of Pechorin is based on antitheses and oxymorons: “strong build” and “feminine tenderness” of pale skin, “dusty velvet frock coat” and “dazzlingly clean underwear” underneath, blond hair and black eyebrows. Such portrait details are designed to emphasize the complexity and inconsistency of the nature of this hero.

Features of the landscape are associated primarily with the genre of each of the parts. "Bela" is written in the form travel notes, and therefore the nature in this part is described with great documentary accuracy. In "Taman", which is an adventurous novella and opens Pechorin's diary, the landscape is designed to intrigue the reader and surround the characters with a mysterious, romantic halo. Another task of the landscape in this part is to contrast the wildness, indomitability of the elements and the fearlessness of the heroes, to emphasize that for them the raging elements - habitat. In "Princess Mary" nature influences people, disposing them to a certain mood. So, a steep cliff in the scene of the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, which at first served as an expressive entourage, eventually becomes the cause of an increase in the tension of the characters: the one they hit will be killed and find their refuge at the bottom of a terrible abyss. Such a function of the landscape is a consequence of the realism of Lermontov's literary method. In the philosophical story "The Fatalist" the description of nature plays the role of a symbol. Here, the starry sky symbolizes the harmony of the worldview and the clarity of the purpose of human existence, which Pechorin lacks in life.

In addition, the landscape also serves as a means of characterizing various characters. The attitude of the hero to nature is a measure of the depth and originality of his nature. Thus, landscape sketches in Pechorin's Journal help to understand his complex, rebellious nature and reveal his subtle mental organization. In his diary, he repeatedly gives almost poetic descriptions of the surrounding landscape: “Today at five in the morning, when I opened the window, my room was filled with the smell of flowers growing in a modest front garden. Branches of flowering cherries look out the window to me, and the wind sometimes strews my desk their white petals.

Great is the significance of the novel A Hero of Our Time, which played an important role in the development of the theme of the search for a “hero of the time” started by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Having shown all the inconsistency and complexity of such a person, Lermontov opens the way for the development of this topic for writers of the second half of the 19th century. Of course, they evaluate the type of "superfluous person" in a new way, seeing his weaknesses and shortcomings rather than his virtues. Such are the heroes of this socio-psychological type in Turgenev's works "The Diary of a Superfluous Man", "Rudin", "The Nest of Nobles", in Nekrasov's poem "Sasha", in Goncharov's novel "Oblomov", Chekhov's story "Duel". And although the type of “superfluous person” belongs to the literature of the 19th century, the very problem of finding a “hero of time” remains relevant not only in the literature of the 20th century, but also in our time.

Lermontov's artistic discoveries are no less important in the history of Russian literature. The "Hero of Our Time" plays a significant role in the development of the genre form of the realistic socio-psychological novel. Writers of the second half of the 19th century would then follow this path. Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, giving their own version of works of this kind. Lermontov's novel played a particularly important role in the formation of Tolstoy's psychological method"dialectics of the soul". The significance of Lermontov for the subsequent development of Russian literature was excellently said by L.N. Tolstoy: "If Lermontov were alive, neither I nor Dostoevsky would be needed."

Lermontovsky Pechorin, immediately after the release of the novel, caused the most controversial opinions and assessments, and disputes about this hero have not subsided to this day. Get acquainted with several statements: some of them may seem unfair to the author and the hero, while others will be close to your position. But in any case, the expressed point of view will help you expand your understanding of this ambiguous hero.

The tone for the negative assessments of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is set by the extremely harsh review of Emperor Nicholas I: "A miserable book that shows the great depravity of the author."

The talented Slavophile critic S.P. Shevyrev, who highly appreciated Lermontov's talent, saw in his hero not a national Russian character, but something that is rather inherent in Western European life. Related to this is his negative assessment of Pechorin:

“Pechorin, of course, has nothing titanic in him; he cannot have it; he belongs to the number of those pygmies of evil, with whom the narrative and dramatic literature West. „.But this is not yet its main shortcoming. Pechorin has nothing essential in himself, relative to purely Russian life, which from its past could not spew such a character. Pechorin is only a ghost thrown at us by the West, a shadow of his illness, flashing in the fantasies of our poets. There he is a hero of the real world, with us only a hero of fantasy - and in this sense a hero of our time.

As you know, Lermontov's novel was highly appreciated by the critic V.G. Belinsky, who devoted an article to the analysis of this work “A Hero of Our Time. The work of M. Lermontov ”, published in the journal Fatherland Notes in 1840. It convincingly proved that Pechorin is a truly realistic type, characteristic of Russian life of that era:

“So, “A Hero of Our Time” is the main idea of the novel. ...You say against him that he has no faith. Fine, but that's the same as blaming a beggar for not having gold... Are you saying he's selfish? “But doesn’t he despise and hate himself for it?” Doesn't his heart yearn for pure and unselfish love?.. No, this is not selfishness: selfishness does not suffer, does not blame itself, it is pleased with itself, pleased with itself. Egoism knows no torment: suffering is the destiny of love alone. Pechorin's soul is not rocky soil, but the earth dried up from the heat of fiery life: let suffering loosen it and irrigate the blessed rain, and it will grow out of itself lush, luxurious flowers of heavenly love ...

This man does not indifferently, not apathetically bear his suffering: he is madly chasing after life, looking for it everywhere; he bitterly blames himself for his delusions. Internal questions are incessantly heard in him, they disturb him, torment him, and in reflection he seeks their resolution ... "A hero of our time" is a sad thought about our time ... "

Critics of the second half of the 19th century began to evaluate Pechorin somewhat differently: for them, he was no longer a “hero of the time”, and therefore, without denying his realism, they were inclined to see, first of all, his shortcomings, but evaluated them depending on own positions. So, a critic close to the Slavophiles, Ap.A. Grigoriev in the first article from the series "A look at Russian literature from the death of Pushkin", published in the journal " Russian word» in 1859, considered negative sides Pechorin from a spiritual and moral point of view:

“Thus, even after the moment has come, from which a correct, that is, a comical attitude to one’s own pettiness and weakness, should begin in moral nature, instead of a direct turn, pride offers us a twist. The trick is to put the impotent passion of the soul on stilts, to recognize its demands as right after all: having experienced moments of contempt for oneself and for one's personality, however, to maintain enmity and contempt for reality. ... In essence, what is Pechorin? A mixture of Arbenin's lawlessness with secular coldness and lack of conscience of Zvezdich, whose all unsplendid and disadvantageous sides went into the creation of Grushnitsky, who exists in the novel solely so that Pechorin, looking at him, admires himself as much as possible, and so that others, looking at Grushnitsky, more admired Pechorin. What is Pechorin? A completely ambivalent being... The impotence of personal arbitrariness put on stilts! Arbenin, with his unbridled selfish demands, failed in the so-called world: he appeared again in the costume of Pechorin, tempted by self-doubt, more cunning than arrogant - and the so-called world bowed to him ... "1

1 Cit. according to the book: Russian literature of the 19th century in the mirror of criticism: Reader of literary critical materials. Saratov, 1996.

Pechorin N.A. considered otherwise. Dobrolyubov, a critic of the revolutionary-democratic trend, comparing Lermontov's hero with representatives of the "superfluous person" type that appeared in Russian literature by 1859, when his article "What is Oblomovism?" was written, published in the Sovremennik magazine:

“It has long been noted that all the heroes of the most wonderful Russian stories and novels suffer from the fact that they do not see a goal in life and do not find a decent activity for themselves. As a result, they feel bored and disgusted with any business, in which they are strikingly similar to Oblomov. In fact, open, for example, Onegin, A Hero of Our Time, Who is to blame? , almost literally similar to Oblomov's features.

So what, it seems, Pechorin, and even then he believes that happiness, perhaps, lies in peace and sweet rest. In one place of his notes, he compares himself with a man tormented by hunger, who “falls asleep in exhaustion and sees sumptuous food and sparkling wine in front of him; he devours with delight the aerial gifts of the imagination, and it seems to him easier ... but as soon as he wakes up, the dream disappears, there remains a double hunger and despair ... fate, where quiet joys and peace of mind awaited me? He himself believes - because "his soul has become accustomed to storms and yearns for vigorous activity" ... But he is always dissatisfied with his struggle and himself incessantly expresses that he starts all his lousy debauchery only because he finds nothing better to do. .. And if he does not find work and, as a result, does nothing and is not satisfied with anything, it means that he is more inclined towards idleness than to business ... The same Oblomovism ... "2

2 Cit. according to the book: N.A. Dobrolyubov. Favorites. Saransk, 1974.

Other materials on the work of Lermontov M.Yu.

Summary of the poem "Demon: An Oriental Tale" by Lermontov M.Yu. by chapters (parts)
Ideological and artistic originality of the poem "Mtsyri" by Lermontov M.Yu.
The ideological and artistic originality of the work "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, a young guardsman and a daring merchant Kalashnikov" Lermontov M.Yu.
Summary "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, a young guardsman and a daring merchant Kalashnikov" Lermontov M.Yu.
"The pathos of Lermontov's poetry lies in the moral questions about the fate and rights of the human person" V.G. Belinsky

History of creation. The only completed novel by Lermontov has a rather complicated and controversial history of creation. It is known that he was preceded by other experiences of the writer in prose. Even before leaving for the Caucasus in 1836, Lermontov began to work on the novel “Princess Ligovskaya” from the life of the St. Petersburg society of the 1830s, in which the heroes of his future work, Pechorin and Vera Litovskaya, first appear. Work on the work was interrupted in 1837, and after the poet was expelled from the capital to the south, Lermontov began work on "A Hero of Our Time", which depicts a hero with the same name, but the scene changes - from the capital it is transferred to the Caucasus. In the autumn of 1837, rough sketches were made for Taman and Fatalist: In 1838-1839. active work on the work continues. First, in March 1839, the story “Bela” was published in the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine with the subtitle “From an officer’s notes about the Caucasus”, then in the November issue the reader got acquainted with the story “The Fatalist”, and in February 1840 Taman was published. At the same time, work continues on the remaining parts of the novel ("Maxim Maksimych" and "Princess Mary"), which appeared in its entirety in the April issue of Notes of the Fatherland for 1840. The title "Hero of Our Time" was suggested by the magazine's publisher A.A. Kraevsky, who recommended that the author replace the former one with it - "One of the Heroes of Our Century", which resembled the title of the novel by the French writer A. Musset "Confession of the Son of the Century" (1836), which had appeared shortly before that.

At the beginning of 1841, A Hero of Our Time came out as a separate edition, in which another preface was introduced (the preface to Pechorin's Journal was already included in the first edition). It was written in response to the hostile critiques that appeared in the press after the first publication. In response to accusations of the far-fetched character of Pechorin and the assessment of this hero as slander “for a whole generation”, the author writes in the preface: “A hero of our time”, my gracious sovereigns, for sure, a portrait, not just one person: this is a portrait made up of vices of our entire generation, in their full development”, Tom thereby Lermontov confirmed the realistic orientation of the work.

Direction and genre. "A Hero of Our Time" is the first realistic socio-psychological and moral-philosophical novel in Russian prose about the tragedy of an outstanding personality in Russia in the 30s of the 19th century. Due to the fact that A Hero of Our Time was written when the novel as a genre in Russian literature had not yet been fully formed, Lermontov relied mainly on Pushkin's experience and Western European literary traditions. The influence of the latter was expressed in the features of the romanticism of A Hero of Our Time.

Features of romanticism in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" lie in the special closeness of the author and the hero, the lyricism of the narration, close attention to the “inner man”, the obscurity of the hero’s past, the exclusivity of his nature and many situations, the closeness of the plot of “Bela” to romantic poems (“The Demon”) and the increased expressiveness of the style, which is especially felt in Taman. Thus, the image of Pechorin is shrouded in an aura of mystery right up to the confessional second part of the novel, when the situation is more or less cleared up. We can only guess what life circumstances influenced the formation of his character, for what reason he ended up in the Caucasus, etc.

However, A Hero of Our Time is basically a realistic work. First of all, realistic tendencies in the novel are associated with the objectivity of the author's position in relation to the hero, in which Lermontov's novel is similar to Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". Obviously, Pechorin and Lermontov are not the same person, although they are closer to each other than Onegin and Pushkin. In the Preface to the novel, Lermontov emphasizes this idea: “... Others very subtly noticed that the writer painted his portrait and portraits of his acquaintances ... An old and pathetic joke!”

The realism of the novel also consists in posing the most important problems of our time and creating the image of a "hero of time", a typical representative of the era - "an extra person". The realism of the novel is also manifested in the author's desire to psychologically reliably and accurately explain the features of the character's nature, linking them with the conditions of the surrounding life. At the same time, other - secondary - characters of the novel also have typicality. Relations between the individual and society are recreated in it in all their complexity and inconsistency. Reality appeared here with its different spheres, different types of life, characters and from different points of view.

Genre specificity Lermontov's works also turned out to be unusual and new. The special uniqueness of the genre nature of this work is given by the combination of features of the realism of the socio-psychological novel and romanticism, manifested in its construction and style. Already Belinsky said that "A Hero of Our Time" is an integral work, although it was composed of separate stories and short stories. For the first time in Russian literature, it combined socio-psychological and moral-philosophical problems. For the philosophical and psychological penetration into the nature of the “hero of time”, a synthesis of narrative genres was required: travel notes, essay, short story, psychological and philosophical story, diaries, confession. None of these forms, taken separately, was sufficient to explain the contradictory nature of modern man. The first part of the novel - the story "Bela" - is similar in genre to travel notes, "Maxim Maksimych" is a story, "Taman" is a romantic short story with an adventurous plot and an unexpected ending, and the largest part of "Princess Mary" is a psychological story. The work ends with the philosophical story "The Fatalist", in which, according to the laws of the genre, the plot is subject to the disclosure of a philosophical idea. In addition, “The Preface to Pechorin’s Journal” is an insert “document” necessary for the further development of the story about the hero, and Pechorin’s Journal itself is a kind of diary consisting of several parts in which the hero talks about different episodes from his life. .

Another distinctive genre feature of Lermontov's novel is determined by the words from the author's preface: "the history of the human soul." They show a conscious attitude towards the open psychologism of the work. That is why "A Hero of Our Time" is the first psychological novel in Russian literature, although psychologism was also inherent in other works that appeared earlier, such as the novel "Eugene Onegin". The task that Lermontov set himself was not so much in depicting Pechorin's external life, his adventures, although such an element of adventurousness is also present here. But the main thing is to show the inner life and evolution of the hero, for which a wide variety of means are used, including not only monologues, dialogues, internal monologues, a psychological portrait and landscape, but also the composition of the work itself.

plot and composition. "A Hero of Our Time" is not like the classic Russian novel that we are used to in the literature of the second half of the 19th century. It does not have a through storyline with a plot and denouement, each of its parts has its own plot and characters involved in it. Nevertheless, this is an integral work, united not only by one hero - Pechorin, but also by a common idea and problem. It is to the main character that all the main storylines of the novel stretch: Pechorin and Bela. Pechorin and Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin" and smugglers, Pechorin and Princess Mary, Pechorin and Grushnitsky, Pechorin and the "water society", Pechorin and Vera, Pechorin and Werner, Pechorin and Vulich, etc. Thus, this work, unlike from "Eugene Onegin", mocoheroic.All the characters in it, being full-blooded artistic tins, written out with varying degrees of detail, are subject to the task of revealing the character of the central character.

This explains another feature of the composition of the novel: its parts are located in violation of the chronological sequence of events. At the same time, there are various sources from which we learn about Pechorin, as well as several narrators who recount the events from different points of view. The range of these points of view on the hero is very wide. First, in the story "Bela" we learn about Pechorin from a simple Russian officer Maxim Maksi-mych, a kind, honest man who spent a long time with Pechorin and treats him kindly, but completely different from him in spirit and upbringing. He can only note the peculiarities of the behavior of the “strange person”, which remains a mystery to him (and, therefore, to the reader). In the story “Maxim Maksimych”, the narrator changes: this is an officer, fellow traveler and listener of Maxim Maksimych in “Bel”, clearly closer to Pechorin in age, development, social status, and most importantly, similar in spirit and mindset. He makes an attempt to somehow explain the features of this unusual person. And finally, we get acquainted with the hero’s diaries, his kind of confession, which allows you to see his soul, as it were, “from the inside”, through self-disclosure, thorough analysis and exposure of the underlying causes of the hero’s behavior, his character traits.

From the point of view of the time sequence of the presentation of events, we observe the intersection of two chronological movements. One of them goes in accordance with the arrangement of the parts of the novel: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", the preface to the "Pechorin's Journal", followed by this journal: "Taman", "Princess Mary" and "The Fatalist". With this construction, we gradually learn how a certain officer-narrator travels to the Caucasus, meets for the first time with Maxim Maksimych, then the second time, when he receives Pechorin's diaries from him, having managed to see their author, and finally, having learned about his death publishes these notes. Another line is the chronology of events for 11echorip, that is, his biography. From this point of view, the parts should have been arranged as follows: "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Bela", "Fatalist", "Maxim Maksimych", a preface to Pechorin's Journal. But then the novel would not work. Belinsky noted that, having read all the parts in a different order, we will get several excellent stories and two wonderful stories, but not a novel as a single work. The construction of the novel chosen by the writer makes it possible to gradually introduce the reader into the spiritual world of the hero and create many acute situations - such as the author's meeting with his future hero and the premature (from the point of view of the plot) message about his death.

From all this it follows that the composition of the novel is based not so much on the connection of events, but on the analysis of Pechorin's feelings and thoughts, his inner world. The independence of the individual parts of the novel is largely due to the point of view chosen by the author: he does not build a biography of the hero, but is looking for a clue to the secret of the soul, and the soul is complex, bifurcated, in a certain sense, unfinished. The history of such a soul does not lend itself to a strict, logically consistent presentation. Therefore, the order of the stories included in the novel does not correspond to the sequence of events in Pechorin's life. Thus, we can say that the composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" "plays a significant role in revealing the image of Pechorin," the history of the human soul ", since its general principle is in movement from riddle to riddle.It is one of the main means of creating a reliable portrait of the "hero of time".

Theme and problems. The main theme of the novel is the personality in the process of self-knowledge, the study of the spiritual world of man. This is the theme of all Lermontov's work as a whole. In the novel, she receives the most complete interpretation in revealing the image of its central character - the “hero of time”. Since the mid-1830s, Lermontov has been painfully looking for a hero who could embody the personality traits of a person of his generation. Pechorin becomes such for the writer. The author warns the reader against an unambiguous assessment of this extraordinary personality. In the preface to Pechorin's Journal, he writes: “Maybe some readers will want to know my opinion about Pechorin's character? My answer is the title of this book. “Yes, this is an evil irony!” they will say. - I do not know". Thus, the theme of the "hero of time", familiar to readers from Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin", acquires new features associated not only with another era, but with a special angle of its consideration in Lermontov's novel: the writer poses a problem, the solution of which, as it were, provides readers . As stated in the preface to the novel, the author "just had fun drawing a modern man, as he understands him and, to his misfortune and yours, met too often." The ambiguity of the title of the novel, as well as the very character of the central character, immediately gave rise to controversy and various assessments, but fulfilled its main task: to focus on the problem of the individual, reflecting the main content of his era, his generation.

Thus, at the center of Lermontov's novel "The Hero of Our Time" is the problem of the individual, the "hero of the time", who, while absorbing all the contradictions of his era, is at the same time in deep conflict with society and the people around him. It determines the originality of the ideological and thematic content of the novel, and many other plot and thematic lines of the work are connected with it. The relationship between the individual and society is of interest to the writer both in socio-psychological and philosophical terms: he confronts the hero with the need to solve social problems, and universal, universal problems. The themes of freedom and predestination, love and friendship, happiness and fatal fate are organically woven into them. In "Bel" the hero seems to check on himself whether it is possible to bring together a man of civilization and a "natural", natural man. At the same time, the theme of true and false romanticism also arises, which is realized through the clash of Pechorin - a true romantic - with those heroes who only have external attributes of romanticism: highlanders, smugglers, Grushnitsky, Werner. The theme of the relationship between an exceptional personality and an inert environment is considered in the history of the relationship between Pechorin and the “water society”. And the Pechorin-Maxim Maksimych line also introduces the theme of generations. The theme of true and false friendship is also associated with these characters, but to a greater extent it develops in "Princess Mary" through the relationship between Pechorin and Grushnitsky.

The theme of love occupies a large place in the novel - it is presented in almost all of its parts. The heroines, in which various types of female characters are embodied, are called upon not only to show the different facets of this great feeling, but also to reveal Pechorin's attitude towards him, and at the same time to clarify his views on the most important moral and philosophical problems. The situation in which Pechorin finds himself in Taman makes him think about the question: why did fate put him in such a relationship with people that he unwittingly brings them only misfortunes? In "Princess Mary" Pechorin undertakes to resolve issues of internal contradictions, the human soul, contradictions between the heart and mind, feeling and deed, goal and means.

In The Fatalist, the central place is occupied by the philosophical problem of predestination and personal will, the ability of a person to influence the natural course of life. It is closely connected with the general moral and philosophical issues of the novel - the desire of the individual for self-knowledge, the search for the meaning of life. Within the framework of this problem, the novel deals with a number of complex issues that do not have unambiguous solutions. What is the true meaning of life? What is good and evil? What is self-knowledge of a person, what role do passions, will, reason play in it? Is a person free in his actions, does he bear moral responsibility for them? Is there some kind of support outside the person himself, or does everything close on his personality? And if it exists, does a person have the right, no matter how strong his will, to play with life, fate, the soul of other people? Is he paying for it? The novel does not give an unequivocal answer to all these questions, but thanks to the formulation of such problems, it allows us to reveal the theme of personality in a comprehensive and multifaceted way.

Pechorin's reflections on these philosophical questions are found in all parts of the novel, especially those included in Pechorin's Journal, but most of all philosophical problems are characteristic of his last part - The Fatalist. This is an attempt to give a philosophical interpretation of Pechorin's character, to find the causes of the deep spiritual crisis of the entire generation represented in his person, and to raise the problem of individual freedom and the possibility of its actions. It acquired particular relevance in the era of "inaction", which Lermontov wrote about in the poem "Duma". In the novel, this problem is further developed, acquiring the character of philosophical reflection.

Thus, the chapter is brought to the fore in the novel. The main problem is the possibility of human action, taken in the most general terms and in its specific application to the social conditions of a given epoch. She determined the originality of the approach to the image of the central character and all other characters of the novel.

Main heroes. The novel "A Hero of Our Time" is mono-heroic, and therefore in the center of it there is one hero - Pechorin. Since the appearance of the novel, the opinion has been established that "Lermontov's Pechorin ... is the Onegin of our time, the hero of our time," as Belinsky confidently concluded, and after him all subsequent generations of critics and readers. And yet, even recognizing in these heroes a similar type of personality, one should also mention very significant differences related both to the time that each of them reflects, and to the peculiarities of the author's interpretation and attitude towards his hero.

It is known that Lermontov planned to create an image of his contemporary as opposed to the character of Onegin. In Pechorin, there is no such disappointment that leads to “yearning laziness”, on the contrary, he rushes around the world in search of true life, ideals, but does not find them, which leads him to skepticism and complete denial of the existing world order. He longs for activity, constantly, relentlessly strives for it, but what he does in life turns out to be petty, meaningless and useless even for himself, because he cannot dispel his boredom.

But it is not so much the hero himself who is to blame for all this, a bright and extraordinary personality, standing out against the general background of the people of that time, capable of genuine freedom of thought and deed. Rather, in accordance with the author's position, the fault lies with the world, the society in which his hero lives. Lermontov in Russia in the 30s of the 19th century clearly feels the Shakespearean situation: “the century has dislocated the joint”, “the connection of times has broken up”. More than once in his work, the writer raises the question of what a person should do in such a situation. The author poses the same question to his hero. It is very reminiscent of the Hamlet question: “What is nobler in spirit - to submit / To the slings and arrows of a furious fate / or, taking up arms against the sea of unrest, to slay them with confrontation?” With all his energy, Pechorin seeks to solve it, but does not find an answer. This is what gives grounds, despite all the differences between Pechorin and Onegin, to say that we have another “Russian Hamlet”, a human and social type, doomed to be “smart uselessness”, “an extra person”.

Indeed, like all heroes united by the concept of “an extra person”, Pechorin is characterized by egocentrism, individualism, a skeptical attitude towards social and moral values, combined with reflection, merciless self-esteem. He also has an inherent desire for activity in the absence of a life goal. But the important thing is that Pechorin, for all his shortcomings, embodying the "disease of the century", remains precisely the hero for the author. He was a realistic reflection of that socio-psychological type of a person of the 30s of the XIX century, who retained and carried in himself dissatisfaction with the existing life, comprehensive skepticism and denial, so highly valued by Lermontov. After all, only on this basis it was possible to start revising the old worldview and philosophical systems that no longer met the needs of the new time, and thereby open the way to the future. It is from this point of view that Pechorin can be called a "hero of the time", becoming a natural link in the development of Russian society.

At the same time, Pechorin shared the vices and illnesses of his age. Of course, he is sorry, because, in his own words, while suffering to others, he himself is no less unhappy. But that doesn't make him any less guilty. He analyzes himself, ruthlessly exposing the vices, which, in the author's opinion, represent not just the quality of this individual, but the vices of the entire generation. And yet it is difficult to forgive Pechorin for his “illness” - disregard for the feelings of other people, demonism and egocentrism, the desire to make others a toy in his hands. This was reflected in the story of Maxim Maxi Mych, led to the death of Bela, to the suffering of Princess Mary and Vera, the death of Grushnitsky, etc.

The strangeness and duality of Pechorin's character are fixed from the very beginning. “He was a nice fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little strange,” says Maksim Maksimych, ready to explain this strangeness and boredom by French fashion. But Pechorin himself admits to endless contradictions: “In me., Restless imagination, insatiable heart”; "My life is getting emptier day by day." He is not for a moment free from the question: “Why did I live? for what purpose was I born?.. And, it is true, it existed, and, it is true, I had a high purpose, because I feel immense powers in my soul; but I did not guess this appointment, I was carried away by the bait of empty and ungrateful passions. The “broken connection of times” seems to penetrate inside the “hero of time” and leads to a duality characteristic of him, as well as of Hamlet: “There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him.”

This is how another of the main features of Pechorin manifests itself. It received a special name - reflection, that is, self-observation, a person's understanding of his actions, feelings, sensations. In the era of the 30s of the XIX century, reflection became a hallmark of the "hero of time". Lermontov also writes about this characteristic feature of the people of his generation in the poem “Duma”, while noting that scrupulous introspection leaves a “secret cold” in the soul. At one time, Belinsky pointed out that all at least somewhat deep natures passed through reflection, it became one of the signs of the era. Considering the character of Pechorin, the critic also notes: “Internal questions are incessantly heard in him, they disturb him, torment him, and in reflection he seeks permission for them: he watches every movement of his heart, considers his every thought. He made himself the most curious subject of his observations and, trying to be as sincere as possible in his confession, not only frankly admits his true shortcomings, but also invents unprecedented or falsely interprets his most natural movements.

The reflective hero reveals himself most fully in his confession, in his diary. That is why Pechorin's Journal occupies a central place in the novel. From it we learn that Pechorin also has a state of calm, simplicity, clarity. Alone with himself, he is able to feel the "smell of flowers growing in a modest front garden." “It's fun to live in such a land! Some kind of gratifying feeling is poured into all my veins, ”he writes. Pechorin feels that there is truth only in clear and simple words, and therefore Grushnitsky, who says "quickly and pretentiously," is unbearable to him. Contrary to the analytical mind, Pechorin’s soul is ready to expect first of all good from people: having accidentally heard about the conspiracy of the dragoon captain with Grushnitsky, he “tremblingly” waits for Grushnitsky’s answer. But Pechorin cannot fulfill his “high appointment”, use his “immense forces”.

Lermontov reveals a tragic discrepancy between the inner wealth of the individual and his real existence. Pechorin's self-affirmation inevitably turns into extreme individualism, leads to tragic separation from people and complete loneliness. And as a result - the emptiness of the soul, no longer able to respond with a living feeling, even in such a small thing that was required of him during his last meeting with Maxim Maksimych. Even then, he understands his doom, aimlessness and fatality of a new and last attempt to change something in himself and his life. That is why the upcoming trip to Persia seems pointless to him. It would seem that the circle of the hero's life is tragically closed. But the novel ends with another - the story "The Fatalist", which opens a new and very important side in Pechorin.

Fatalist- this is a person who believes in the predestination of all events in life, in the inevitability of fate, fate - fate. This word gave the name to the final part of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" - a philosophical story that raises the question of the freedom of human will and action. In the spirit of his time, which is revising the fundamental issues of human existence, Pechorin is trying to resolve the question of whether the appointment of a person is predetermined by a higher will or a person himself determines the laws of life and follows them. He feels in himself, in his time, liberation from the blind faith of his ancestors, accepts and defends the revealed free will of man, but at the same time he knows that his generation has nothing to bring to replace the "blind faith" of previous eras.

As noted by the philologist Yu.M. Lotman1, the problem of fate, the existence of predestination, posed by Lermontov in the novel, is part of the writer's philosophical concept of the relationship between East and West, which is reflected in all his work. According to this concept, faith in predestination is characteristic of a person of Eastern culture, and faith in one's own strength is characteristic of a person of the West. Pechorin, of course, is closer to a person of Western culture. He believes that belief in predestination is a feature of the people of the past, they seem ridiculous to a modern person. But at the same time, the hero thinks about "what willpower gave them" this faith. His opponent, lieutenant Vulich, is presented as a person connected with the East: he is a Serb, a native of the land that was under the rule of the Turks, endowed with an oriental appearance.

The story seems to leave open the question of the existence of predestination. But Pechorin still prefers to act and check the course of life with his own actions. The fatalist turned his opposite: if predestination exists, then this should make human behavior even more active: to be just a toy in the hands of fate is humiliating. Lermontov gives just such an interpretation of the problem, without unequivocally answering the question that tormented the philosophers of that time.

Thus, the philosophical story "The Fatalist" plays the role of a kind of epilogue in the novel. Due to the special composition of the novel, it ends not with the death of the hero, which was reported in the middle of the work, but with Pechorin's demonstration at the moment of exiting the tragic state of inactivity and doom, creating a major finale of the sad story of the "hero of time". Here, for the first time, Pechorin, disarming a drunken Cossack who killed Vulich and is dangerous to others, does not perform some far-fetched action, designed only to dispel his boredom, but a generally useful act, moreover, not associated with any "empty passions": the theme of love in "The Fatalist" off altogether. .

But in other parts of the novel, a love affair is one of the main ones, since the question of the nature of this feeling, the problem of passions, is very important for revealing the character of Pechorin. After all, the “history of the human soul” is manifested most of all precisely in love. And, perhaps, it is here that the contradictions of Pechorin's nature are most noticeable. That is why female images constitute a special group of characters in the novel. Among them stand out Vera, Bela, Princess Mary, the girl Undine from Taman. All these images are of an auxiliary nature in relation to the central character, although each heroine has her own unique personality. Even Lermontov's contemporaries noted some fading of female images in A Hero of Our Time. As Belinsky said, "women's faces are the weakest of all," but this is only partly true. The bright and expressive character of the proud Goryanka is represented in Bel; mysterious, mysterious Undine; Princess Mary, charming in her purity and naivety; Vera is selfless and disinterested in her all-consuming love for Pechorin. But all these wonderful female images have one thing in common: among them there is no one that could stand on a par with Pechorin, making up the ideological and moral center of the novel opposing the hero, like Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. With Lermontov, Pechorin retains his priority in all storylines.

A bright, strong, extraordinary personality, Pechorin in the eyes of others, especially women, often appears in the halo of a romantic hero and has a truly hypnotic effect on them. “My weak heart obeyed the familiar voice again,” Vera writes about this in her farewell letter. Despite the proud and independent character, neither the wild mountain girl Bela nor the secular beauty Mary can resist Pechorin. Only Undine tries to resist his pressure, but her life is destroyed as a result of a collision with him.

But he himself longs for love, passionately looking for it, "chasing furiously" after it around the world. “No one knows how to constantly want to be loved,” Vera says about him. It is in love that Pechorin is trying to find something that could reconcile him with life, but each time a new disappointment awaits him. Perhaps this happens because Pechorin makes him constantly chase after more and more new impressions, to look for a new love is boredom, and not the desire to find a soul mate. “You loved me as a property, as a source of joys, anxieties and sorrows that alternated mutually, without which life is boring and monotonous,” Vera rightly notes.

Thought at first glance, looking paradoxical: Evil is not usually perceived as something attractive. But Lermontov had his own special position in relation to the forces of evil: without them, the development of life, its improvement, it is not only the spirit of destruction, but also the thirst for creation. It is not for nothing that the image of the Demon occupies such an important place in his poetry, and not so much embittered (“evil bored him”), but lonely and suffering, looking for love, which he was never given to find. It is obvious that Pechorin has the features of this unusual Lermontov's Demon, not to mention the fact that the plot of "Bela" largely repeats the history of the romantic poem "The Demon". The hero of the novel himself sees in himself the one who brings evil to others and calmly perceives it, but still tries to find goodness and beauty, which perish when confronted with him. Why is this happening and is Pechorin the only one to blame for the fact that he is not given the opportunity to find harmony in love?

At first glance, this seems obvious. After all, he himself says that he “does not like women with character”, he needs to command others, always be above everyone - after all, he is a true romantic. But is it possible at the same time to hope to find true love, one where not one, but both lovers are ready to sacrifice their interests, to give, not to take? But on the other hand, his life confronts such women who, despite all their attractiveness, purity and selflessness in love, lack that inner moral core that Tatyana Larina had. Bela comes to terms with the fact that her "family is destroyed, her father is dying; Mary is ready to despise even secular decency for the sake of Pechorin, but cannot completely get rid of her pride; Vera, recognizing the power of evil over her, agrees to violate the sanctity of marriage bonds.

However, it is this heroine that stands out among other female images, although she is not clearly outlined and the author often uses hints and omissions in her description. Probably, the fact that one of the prototypes of Vera was Varvara Lopukhina, in the marriage of Bakhmetev, was partly affected here. There are suggestions that she was the only true love of Lermontov, carried by him through his whole life. But fate separated them, and Varenka's jealous husband categorically opposed any communication between her and Lermontov. In the situation that is drawn in the novel, there are indeed separate features of this story. But the main thing, perhaps, is that Vera is the only woman who is truly dear to Pechorin; she is the only one who managed to understand and understand his complex and contradictory nature. “Why does she love me so, really, I don’t know! - writes Pechorin in his diary. “Moreover, this is one woman who understood me completely, with all my petty weaknesses, bad passions.” This is precisely what her farewell letter, received by Pechorin after his return from the duel, testifies to.

And yet, like other heroines, Vera finds herself under the power of Pechorin, becoming his slave. “You know that I am your slave: I never knew how to resist you,” Vera tells him. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons for Pechorin's failures in love: those with whom his life brought him turned out to be too submissive and sacrificial natures. This power is felt not only by women, before Pechorin all other heroes of the novel are forced to retreat. He, like a Titan among people, rises above everyone, but at the same time remains absolutely alone. Such is the fate of a strong personality, unable to enter into harmonious relations with people.

This is also evident in his attitude towards friendship. On the pages of the novel there is not a single hero who could be considered a friend of Pechorin. However, all this is not surprising: after all, Pechorin believes that he has long “unraveled” the formula of friendship: “We soon understood each other and became friends, because I am not capable of friendship: of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although often not one one of them does not admit it to himself ... ". So, the "heart of gold" Maxim Maksimych is only a temporary colleague in the separated fortress, where Pechorin is forced to stay after a duel with Grushnitsky. An unexpected meeting with the old staff captain a few years later, which so alarmed poor Maxim Maksimych, left Pechorin absolutely indifferent. The line Pechorin - Maxim Maksimych helps to understand the character of the protagonist in relation to an ordinary person who has a "golden heart", but is deprived of an analytical mind, the ability to act independently and a critical attitude towards reality.

Dr. Werner possesses no less skepticism than Pechorin, he also has an analytical mind, but, unlike the "hero of time", he is not able to accept the active manifestation of evil. Werner recoiled from the demonic hero after the assassination of Grushnitsky, which provoked only a skeptical remark from Pechorin about the weakness of human nature.

The novel tells in more detail about the relationship between Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Grushnitsky is the antipode of Pechorin. He, a completely ordinary and ordinary person, does his best to look like a romantic, an "unusual person." As Pechorin ironically remarks, "his goal is to become the hero of the novel." From the point of view of revealing the character of the "hero of time", Grushnitsky's pseudo-romanticism emphasizes the depth of the tragedy of a true romantic - Pechorin On the other hand, the development of their relationship is determined by the fact that Pechorin despises Grushnitsky, laughs at his romantic pose, which causes irritation and anger of the young man, who at first looks at him with delight.All this leads to the development of a conflict between them, which is aggravated by the fact that Pechorin, courting Princess Mary and seeking her favor, completely discredits Grushnitsky.

As a result, this leads to their open clash, which ends in a duel reminiscent of another scene - a duel from Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin". But Lermontov shows that the duel conceived by Grushnitsky is a dirty game from beginning to end. Together with the dragoon captain, even before an open clash with Pechorin, he decided to “teach him a lesson” by exposing a coward in front of everyone. Already in this scene, it is obvious to the reader that Grushnitsky himself is a coward, which is confirmed later when he agrees to the vile offer of the dragoon captain to load only one pistol. Pechorin accidentally learns about this conspiracy and decides to seize the initiative: now he, and not his opponents, is leading the party, planning to check not only the measure of meanness and cowardice of Grushnitsky, but also entering into a kind of duel with his own fate. And Grushnitsky is more interesting to him as a possible rival (“I love enemies, but not in a Christian way”), but he never considered him a friend. That is why the duel for Pechorin is just one of the arguments in a hundred constant dispute with the people around him, with himself and his fate.

Thus, all the secondary characters of the novel, including female images, no matter how bright and memorable they are, serve primarily to reveal the various personality traits of the “hero of time”. Thus, the relationship with Vulich helps to clarify Pechorin's attitude to the problem of fatalism. The lines of Pechorin - mountaineers and Pechorin smugglers reveal the relationship between the "hero of time" and the traditional heroes of romantic literature: they turn out to be weaker than him, and against their background, the figure of Pechorin acquires the features of not just an exceptional personality, but sometimes demonic. In contrasting Pechorin and the "water general gva", the problem of social relationships between the "hero of time" and people of his circle is revealed. One of the artistic features of Lermontov's work consists in such a peculiar construction of the system of images of the novel, when all the plot lines are drawn to one main character, and the rest of the characters help to represent him most fully.

Artistic originality. The artistic innovation of the novel is due not only to the combination of the features of romanticism and realism, the specifics of the genre, plot and compositions. Having set himself the task of showing the "history of the human soul" and creating the first psychological novel, Lermontov was faced with the need to use traditional novel means in a new way. It is to him that the merit of the discovery in Russian prose of a special kind of portrait, which began to be called a psychological portrait, belongs. Such a portrait connects the appearance of the hero with the peculiarities of his inner world, captures the details of the appearance that carry information about the thoughts, feelings, experiences, and mood of a person. Gakov's portrait of Pechorin in Maxim Maksimych: “He was of medium height; his slender, thin frame and broad shoulders proved a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the difficulties of nomadic life and climate change, not defeated either by the debauchery of metropolitan life or spiritual storms ... His gait was careless and lazy, but I noticed that he did not wave hands - a sure sign of some secrecy of character. ...About the eyes, I must say a few more words. First, they didn't laugh when he laughed! Have you ever noticed such strangeness in some people? .. This is a sign - either an evil disposition, or a deep constant sadness. It should also be noted that the psychological portrait of Pechorin is based on antitheses and oxymorons: “strong build” and “feminine tenderness” of pale skin, “dusty velvet frock coat” and “dazzlingly clean underwear” underneath, blond hair and black eyebrows. Such portrait details are designed to emphasize the complexity and inconsistency of the nature of this hero.

Features of the landscape are associated primarily with the genre of each of the parts. "Bela" is written in the form of travel notes, and therefore the nature in this part is described with great documentary accuracy. In "Taman", which is an adventurous novella and opens Pechorin's diary, the landscape is designed to intrigue the reader and surround the characters with a mysterious, romantic halo. Another task of the landscape in this part is to contrast the wildness, indomitability of the elements and the fearlessness of the heroes, to emphasize that for them the raging elements are their natural environment. In "Princess Mary" nature influences people, disposing them to a certain mood. So, a steep cliff in the scene of the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, which at first served as an expressive entourage, eventually becomes the cause of an increase in the tension of the characters: the one they hit will be killed and find their refuge at the bottom of a terrible abyss. Such a function of the landscape is a consequence of the realism of Lermontov's literary method. In the philosophical story "The Fatalist" the description of nature plays the role of a symbol. Here, the starry sky symbolizes the harmony of the worldview and the clarity of the purpose of human existence, which are precisely what is lacking; Pechorin in life.

In addition, the landscape also serves as a means of characterizing various characters. The attitude of the hero to nature is a measure of the depth and originality of his nature. So, the landscape sketches in Pechorin's Journal help to understand his complex, rebellious nature and reveal his chic spiritual organization. In his diary, he repeatedly gives almost poetic descriptions of the surrounding landscape: “Today at five in the morning, when I opened the window, my room was filled with the smell of flowers growing in a modest front garden. Branches of flowering cherries look out the window to me, and the wind sometimes strews my desk with their white petals.

The above description allows you to see those features of the language of the novel, which allowed many of Lermontov's contemporaries to give the highest assessment of the author's artistic skills. “No one has ever written with us in such a correct, beautiful and fragrant prose,” said N.V. Gogol. No less enthusiastic review of the language of Lermoton's prose belongs to the writer D.V. Grigorovich: “Take Lermontov's story Taman, you won't find a word in it that could be thrown out or inserted; all of it from beginning to end sounds like one harmonic chord: what a wonderful language! Excellent stylist AL. Chekhov also noted the merits of Lermontov's prose: "I don't know the language better than Lermontov's."

The value of the work. Great is the significance of the novel A Hero of Our Time, which played an important role in the development of the theme of the search for the “hero of time”, begun by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Having shown all the inconsistency and complexity of such a person, Lermontov opens the way for the development of this topic for writers of the second half of the 19th century. Of course, they evaluate the type of "superfluous person" in a new way, seeing his weaknesses and shortcomings rather than his virtues. Such are the heroes of this socio-psychological type in Turgenev's works "The Diary of a Superfluous Man", "Rudin", "The Nest of Nobles", in Nekrasov's poem "Sasha", in Goncharov's novel "Oblomov", Chekhov's story "Duel". And although the type of “superfluous person” belongs to the literature of the 19th century, the very problem of finding a “hero of time” remains relevant not only in the literature of the 20th century, but also in our time.

Lermontov's artistic discoveries are no less important in the history of Russian literature. The "Hero of Our Time" plays a significant role in the development of the genre form of the realistic socio-psychological novel. Writers of the second half of the 19th century would then follow this path. Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, giving their own version of works of this kind. Lermontov's novel played a particularly important role in the formation of Tolstoy's psychological method of "dialectics of the soul". The significance of Lermontov for the subsequent development of Russian literature was excellently said by L.N. Tolstoy: "If Lermontov were alive, neither I nor Dostoevsky would be needed."