According to the author, the Bronze Horseman is. "The Bronze Horseman": excerpt

Subject little man

A. S. Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman” was created in Boldin in 1833. It was not immediately allowed to be published because of the issues raised in it about the superiority of power over an ordinary person. Therefore, the poem was published only after the death of the writer. From the very first lines, the reader is presented with the reformer Tsar Peter I, making the most important decision for all of Russia to build a majestic city on the banks of the Neva, which would subsequently become the capital of the empire for many years. Subsequent chapters show the city in all its glory a hundred years later. Despite the fact that Peter I was no longer alive, he remained in the city in the image of the “Bronze Horseman” - a gigantic idol on a bronze horse with his gaze directed to the future and with his hand outstretched forward.

The main character of the poem is the “little man,” a poor St. Petersburg official Evgeniy, who lives in a dilapidated house and barely makes ends meet. He is very burdened by his situation and tries his best to improve it. Evgeniy connects all his dreams and hopes with poor girl Parasha, who lives with her mother on the other side of the Neva. However, fate was unkind to him and took Parasha away from him. During another natural disaster, the Neva overflowed its banks and flooded nearby houses. Among the dead was Parasha. Evgeniy could not bear this grief and went crazy. Over time, he understood the cause of all his misfortunes and recognized in the bronze statue the culprit, by whose will the city was built here. One night, during another storm, Eugene went to the giant to look into his eyes, but immediately regretted it. As it seemed to him, anger flared in the eyes of the “Bronze Horseman”, and the heavy clatter of copper hooves haunted him all night. The next day, Eugene went to the statue and took off his cap in front of the formidable king, as if apologizing for his action. Soon he was found dead in a dilapidated house after another flood.

Who is to blame for the misfortunes of the “little man”: the state or he himself because he was not interested in the greatness of history? The construction of St. Petersburg on the banks of the Neva was dictated by state interests. The author realizes how dearly he had to pay for this slender appearance of the military capital. On the one hand, he understands and supports Peter's ideas. On the other hand, he tries to show how these dreams influenced ordinary people. Along with high humanity, one can also trace the harsh truth. In the poem “The Bronze Horseman,” a common man with his private interests is opposed to the state. However, in fairness, the author shows that neglecting the interests of the “little man” leads to natural disasters, in in this case, to the revelry of the rebellious Neva.

Poem Bronze Horseman was written in 1833, but during Pushkin’s lifetime it was never published because the emperor banned it. There is an opinion that the Bronze Horseman was supposed to be only the beginning of what Pushkin planned long piece, however, there is no exact evidence on this matter.

This poem is very similar to Poltava, its main themes are Russia and Peter the Great. However, it is deeper, more expressive. Pushkin actively uses such literary devices, as hyperbole and grotesque (the animated statue is a vivid example of this). The poem is filled with typical St. Petersburg symbols: statues of lions, a monument to Peter, rain and wind in the autumn city, floods on the Neva...

Here, more than in other poems, vivid emotional vocabulary is used, thanks to which the reader understands what exactly is happening in the souls of the unfortunate heroes.

Images in the poem “The Bronze Horseman”

The introduction to the poem talks about Emperor Peter: he built St. Petersburg without thinking about ordinary people, not thinking that life in a city in a swamp could be dangerous... But for the emperor, the greatness of Russia was more important.

The main character of the poem- a young man named Evgeniy, an official. He wants little: just to live his life in peace. ordinary life... He has a fiancee - Parasha, a simple girl. But happiness does not come true: they become victims of the St. Petersburg flood of 1824. The bride dies, and Evgeny himself manages to escape by climbing onto one of the St. Petersburg lions. But, even though he survived, after the death of his bride, Evgeny goes crazy.

His madness is caused by the awareness of his own powerlessness in the face of the disaster that happened in St. Petersburg. He begins to be angry with the emperor, who allowed such troubles in the city of his name. And thus he angers Peter: one fine night, when he approaches the monument to the emperor, he imagines that the Bronze Horseman (the equestrian statue of Peter the Great on Senate Square) comes down from his pedestal and chases him all night through the streets of St. Petersburg. After such a shock, Evgeniy cannot stand it - the shock was too strong, and in the end the poor fellow died.

In this poem, Pushkin compares two truths: the truth of Eugene, a private person, and the truth of Peter - the state. In fact, the entire poem is their unequal conflict. On the one hand, it is impossible to make an unambiguous conclusion about who is right: both are pursuing their own interests, both positions have the right to exist. However, the fact that in the end Evgeny still gives up (dies) makes it clear that, in the opinion of Pushkin himself, Peter is right. The greatness of the empire is more important than the tragedy of little people. A private person is obliged to submit to the will of the emperor.

It is interesting that in addition to Peter, Alexander the First also appears in the poem. He looks at the flood from the palace balcony and understands: the kings cannot cope with God’s elements. Thus, Pushkin builds a hierarchy: the emperor is higher common man, but God is higher than the emperor.

During the lesson you will read excerpts from A. S. Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”; note the artistic and thematic originality of the work, which was the result of the poet’s thoughts about the personality of Peter I, about the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history.

Subject: From literature of the 19th century century

Lesson: A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman"

As much as Peter I was a great reformer, a powerful statesman who moved Russia forward on a grand scale, Pushkin was the Peter the Great of Russian literature.

The theme of Peter is a “cross-cutting” theme in Russian literature in general, in the works of Pushkin in particular. The poet sees in Peter not just a historical figure, but also the personification of the transformative power of humanity, spreading culture and civilization among uninhabited and homeless spaces.

One of the most famous works Pushkin, dedicated to Peter I, became poem "The Bronze Horseman".

The poem is unusual in that Peter I himself does not act in it, and its main character is a monument (Fig. 1). The Bronze Horseman is an image of St. Petersburg andsymbol of the Northern capital.

Rice. 1. The Bronze Horseman. Monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg. Sculptor E. Falcone ()

The war went on for 21 years, which made it possible to return to Russia the lands along the banks seized in the 17th century Baltic Sea. Russia achieved victory, regained these conquered lands, but they were deserted, and the banks of the Neva were swampy and lifeless. The gloomy forest rustled in the fog, the dwellings of the northern inhabitants were rare and miserable. Peter I accepts to build the city. It was named St. Petersburg.

A.S. Pushkin in his work uses epic methods of depicting a historical figure. The image of the hero is given against the backdrop of a huge space that has to be transformed and conquered.

Rice. 2. St. Petersburg from a bird's eye view ()

On the shore of desert waves

He stood there, full of great thoughts,

And he looked into the distance. Wide before him

The river rushed; poor boat

He strove along it alone.

Along mossy, marshy banks

Blackened huts here and there,

Shelter of a wretched Chukhonian;

And the forest, unknown to the rays

In the fog of the hidden sun,

There was noise all around.

And he thought:

From here we will threaten the Swede,

The city will be founded here

To spite an arrogant neighbor.

Nature destined us here

Open a window to Europe,

Stand with a firm foot by the sea.

Here on new waves

All the flags will visit us,

And we’ll record it in the open air.

Rice. 3. Saint Isaac's Cathedral. Saint Petersburg ()

A hundred years have passed, and the young city,

There is beauty and wonder in full countries,

From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat

He ascended magnificently and proudly;

Where was the Finnish fisherman before?

Nature's sad stepson

Alone on the low banks

Thrown into unknown waters

Your old net, now there

Along busy shores

Slender communities crowd together

Palaces and towers; ships

A crowd from all over the world

They strive for rich marinas;

The Neva is dressed in granite;

Bridges hung over the waters;

Rice. 4. Pevchesky Bridge in St. Petersburg ()

Dark green gardens

Islands covered her,

And in front of the younger capital

Old Moscow has faded,

Like before a new queen

Porphyry widow.

I love you, Petra's creation,

I love your strict, slender appearance,

Neva sovereign current,

Its coastal granite,

Your fences have a cast iron pattern,

of your thoughtful nights

Transparent twilight, moonless shine,

When I'm in my room

I write, I read without a lamp,

And the sleeping communities are clear

Deserted streets and light

Admiralty needle,

And, not letting the darkness of the night

To golden skies

Rice. 5. Neva in winter ()

One dawn gives way to another

He hurries, giving the night half an hour.

I love your cruel winter

Still air and frost,

Sleigh running along the wide Neva,

Girls' faces are brighter than roses,

And the shine, and the noise, and the talk of balls,

And at the time of the feast the bachelor

The hiss of foamy glasses

And the punch flame is blue.

I love the warlike liveliness

Amusing Fields of Mars,

Infantry troops and horses

Uniform beauty

In their harmoniously unsteady system

The shreds of these victorious banners,

The shine of these copper caps,

Through those shot through in battle.

I love you, military capital,

Your stronghold is smoke and thunder,

When the queen is full

Gives a son to the royal house,

Or victory over the enemy

Russia triumphs again

Or, breaking your blue ice,

The Neva carries him to the seas

And, sensing the days of spring, he rejoices.

Show off, city Petrov, and stand

Unshakable like Russia,

May he make peace with you

And the defeated element;

Enmity and ancient captivity

Let the Finnish waves forget

And they will not be vain malice

Disturb Peter's eternal sleep!

The introduction was written by Pushkin in the genre of Lomonosov's ode high syllable. In addition, the poem contains oratory techniques, used paraphrase trope. A trope in which several concepts are used instead of one. Word "city" replaced by Pushkin “shelter of a wretched Chukhonian”, “Peter’s creation”, “beauty and diva of the fullest countries”.

In the poem special sound organization of speech. These are imperative intonations, solemnity, use Old Slavonicisms“from here”, “dilapidated”, “hail”.

Vocabulary work

full-fledged - midnight, northern.

Blat - swamps

Porphyry-bearing - dressed in purple, a purple mantle worn by monarchs on ceremonial occasions.

The introduction is intended to lead the reader to an understanding of the conflict, the main conflict of history and personality.

The plot of the poem “The Bronze Horseman” is three-dimensional.

The story about the flood forms the first semantic plan of the poem - historical. The documentary nature of the story is noted in the author’s “Preface” and in the “Notes”. The flood is not just bright for Pushkin historical fact. He looked at it as a kind of final “document” of the era. This is, as it were, the “last legend” in her St. Petersburg “chronicle”, begun by Peter’s decision to found a city on the Neva. Flood - historical background plot and the source of one of the conflicts of the poem - the conflict between the city and the elements.

The second semantic plan of the poem - conventionally literary, fictional - is given under the title: “Petersburg Tale”.

Rice. 6. Illustration for Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman” ()

Eugene is the central character of this story. The faces of the remaining residents of St. Petersburg are indistinguishable. These are the “people” crowding on the streets, drowning during a flood (the first part), and the cold, indifferent St. Petersburg people in the second part. The real background of the story about the fate of Evgeniy was St. Petersburg: Senate Square, the streets and the outskirts where the “dilapidated house” of Parasha stood. Please note that the action in the poem is transferred to the street: during the flood, Evgeny found himself “on Petrova Square”, home, in his “deserted corner”; he, distraught with grief, no longer returns, becoming an inhabitant of the streets of St. Petersburg.

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

Thus, conflict in the poem branched, has several sides. This is a conflict between the little man and the authorities, nature and man, the city and the elements, personality and history, the real and the mythological.

Bibliography

Korovina V.Ya. Didactic materials on literature. 7th grade. — 2008.
Tishchenko O.A. Homework in literature for grade 7 (to the textbook by V.Ya. Korovina). — 2012.
Kuteinikova N.E. Literature lessons in 7th grade. — 2009.
Korovina V.Ya. Textbook on literature. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2012.
Korovina V.Ya. Textbook on literature. 7th grade. Part 2. - 2009.
Ladygin M.B., Zaitseva O.N. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. — 2012.
Kurdyumova T.F. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2011.
Phonochrestomathy on literature for the 7th grade for Korovina’s textbook.

How did Pushkin depict the theme of the “little man” in the poem “The Bronze Horseman”?

Find features of a high, solemn style in the text of the poem.

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

"The Bronze Horseman" is one of the most perfect poetic works Pushkin. The poem is written, like “Eugene Onegin,” in iambic tetrameter. Pay attention to the variety of its rhythms and intonations, its amazing sound design. The poet creates vivid visual and auditory images, using the richest rhythmic, intonation and sound capabilities of Russian verse (repetitions, caesuras, alliteration, assonance). Many fragments of the poem have become textbooks. We hear the festive polyphony of St. Petersburg life (“And the glitter and noise and talk of balls, / And at the hour of a bachelor’s feast / The hissing of foamy glasses / And the blue flame of punch”), we see the confused and shocked Eugene (“He stopped. / He went back and came back. / He looks... he walks... he still looks. / Here is the place where their house stands, / Here is a willow tree. There was a gate here, / They were blown away, you can see. Where is the house?”), we are deafened by “as if thunder roaring - / Heavy, ringing galloping / Along the shaken pavement.” “In terms of sound imagery, the verse of “The Bronze Horseman” has few rivals,” noted the poet V.Ya. Bryusov, a subtle researcher of Pushkin's poetry.

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

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

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

The second semantic plan of the poem is conventionally literary, fictional- given by the subtitle: “Petersburg Tale.” Eugene is the central character of this story. The faces of the remaining residents of St. Petersburg are indistinguishable. These are the “people” crowding on the streets, drowning during a flood (the first part), and the cold, indifferent St. Petersburg people in the second part. The real background of the story about the fate of Evgeniy was St. Petersburg: Senate Square, the streets and the outskirts where the “dilapidated house” of Parasha stood. Pay attention to. the fact that the action in the poem was transferred to the street: during the flood, Evgeny found himself “on Petrovaya Square”, home, in his “deserted corner”, he, distraught with grief, no longer returned, becoming an inhabitant of the streets of St. Petersburg. “The Bronze Horseman” is the first urban poem in Russian literature.

Historical and conventionally literary plans dominate in realistic story telling(first and second parts).

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

The Bronze Horseman is unusual literary image. It is a figurative interpretation of a sculptural composition that embodies the idea of its creator, sculptor E. Falcone, but at the same time it is a grotesque, fantastic image, overcoming the boundary between the real (“plausible”) and the mythological (“wonderful”). The Bronze Horseman, awakened by the words of Eugene, falling from his pedestal, ceases to be only an “idol on a bronze horse,” that is, a monument to Peter. He becomes the mythological embodiment of the “formidable king”.

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

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

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

The originality of Pushkin's poem lies in the complex interaction of historical, conventionally literary and legendary-mythological semantic plans. In the introduction, the founding of the city is shown in two plans. First - legendary-mythological: Peter appears here not as a historical character, but as an unnamed hero of legend. He- founder and future builder of the city, fulfilling the will of nature itself. However, his “great thoughts” are historically specific: the city is created by the Russian Tsar “to spite an arrogant neighbor”, so that Russia can “cut a window to Europe.” Historical semantic plan underlined by the words “a hundred years have passed.” But these same words envelop historical event mythological haze: in place of the story about how the “city was founded”, how it was built, there is a graphic pause, a “dash”. The emergence of the “young city” “from the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat” is like a miracle: the city was not built, but “ascended magnificently, proudly.” The story about the city begins in 1803 (this year St. Petersburg turned one hundred years old). Third - conventionally literary- the semantic plan appears in the poem immediately after the historically accurate picture of “darkened Petrograd” on the eve of the flood (the beginning of the first part). The author declares the conventionality of the hero’s name, hints at his “literariness” (in 1833 the first complete edition of the novel “Eugene Onegin” appeared),

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

The enraged Neva is compared either to a frenzied “beast,” or to “thieves” climbing through the windows, or to a “villain” who burst into the village “with his ferocious gang.” The story of the flood takes on a folklore and mythological overtones. The water element evokes in the poet stable associations with a riot, a villainous raid of robbers. In the second part, the story about the “brave merchant” is interrupted by an ironic mention of the modern myth-maker - the graphomaniac poet Khvostov, who “was already singing in immortal verse / The misfortune of the Neva banks.”

The poem has many compositional and semantic parallels. Their basis is the relationships established between fictional hero poem, the water element, the city and the sculptural composition - “an idol on a bronze horse.” For example, a parallel to the “great thoughts” of the city founder (introduction) is Eugene’s “excitement of various thoughts” (part one). The legendary He thought about the city and state interests, Eugene - about simple, everyday things: “He will somehow arrange for himself / A humble and simple shelter / And in it he will calm Parasha.” The dreams of Peter, the “miraculous builder,” came true: the city was built, he himself became the “ruler of half the world.” Evgeniy’s dreams of family and home collapsed with the death of Parasha. In the first part, other parallels arise: between Peter and the “late tsar” (Peter’s legendary double “looked into the distance” - the tsar “in his thoughts with sorrowful eyes / looked at the evil disaster”); the king and the people (the sad king “said: “Tsars cannot cope with God’s elements” - the people “see God’s wrath and await execution”). The king is powerless against the elements, the distraught townspeople feel abandoned to the mercy of fate: “Alas! everything perishes: shelter and food! / Where will I get it?

Eugene, sitting “astride a marble beast” in the pose of Napoleon (“his hands clasped in a cross”), is compared with the monument to Peter:

And my back is turned to him

In the unshakable heights,

Above the indignant Neva

Standing with outstretched hand

Idol on a bronze horse.

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

He found himself under the pillars

Big house. On the porch

With a raised paw, as if alive,

The lions stood guard,

And right in the dark heights

Above the fenced rock

Idol with outstretched hand

Sat on a bronze horse.

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

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

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

The poet explains history and modernity, creating a capacious symbolic picture of St. Petersburg. "Grad Petrov" is not only historical scene, in which both real and fictional events unfold. St. Petersburg is a symbol of the Peter the Great era, the “Petersburg” period of Russian history. The city in Pushkin’s poem has many faces: it is both a “monument” to its founder, and a “monument” to the entire Peter the Great era, and an ordinary city in distress and busy with everyday bustle. The flood and the fate of Evgeniy are only part of St. Petersburg history, one of the many stories suggested by the life of the city. For example, in the first part, a plot line is outlined, but not developed, related to the unsuccessful attempts of the military governor-general of St. Petersburg, Count M.A. Miloradovich and Adjutant General A.H. Benckendorf to help the city residents, to encourage them: “In dangerous path in the midst of stormy waters / The generals set off / To save him and overwhelmed with fear / And the drowning people at home.” This was written about in the historical “news” about the St. Petersburg floods, compiled by V.N. Verkh, to which Pushkin refers in the “Preface.”

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

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

The introduction is a panegyric to state and ceremonial St. Petersburg. But the more the poet talks about the lush beauty of the city, the more it seems that it is somehow motionless, ghostly. “Ships in a crowd” are “rushing towards rich marinas,” but there are no people on the streets. The poet sees “sleeping communities / Deserted streets.” The very air of the city is “motionless”. “The running of sleighs along the wide Neva”, “and the shine and noise and talk of balls”, “the hiss of foamy glasses” - everything is beautiful, sonorous, but the faces of the city residents are not visible. There is something alarming hidden in the proud appearance of the “younger” capital. The word “love” is repeated five times in the introduction. This is a declaration of love for St. Petersburg, but it is pronounced like a spell, a compulsion to love. It seems that the poet is trying with all his might to fall in love with the beautiful city, which evokes contradictory, disturbing feelings in him.

The alarm sounds in the wish to the “city of Peter”: “Beauty, city of Petrov, and stand / Unshakable, like Russia. / May the defeated elements make peace with you / And the defeated elements...” The beauty of the stronghold city is not eternal: it stands firmly, but can be destroyed by the elements. In the very comparison of the city with Russia there is a dual meaning: here is both a recognition of the steadfastness of Russia and a feeling of the fragility of the city. For the first time, the image of the water element, which has not been completely tamed, appears: it appears as a powerful living creature. The elements were defeated, but not “pacified.” “The Finnish waves,” it turns out, have not forgotten “their enmity and their ancient captivity.” A city founded “out of spite for an arrogant neighbor” can itself be disturbed by the “vain malice” of the elements.

The introduction outlines main principle images of the city, realized in two parts of the “Petersburg story”, - contrast. In the first part, the appearance of St. Petersburg changes, as if its mythological gilding is falling off. The “golden skies” disappear and are replaced by “the darkness of a stormy night” and “a pale day.” This is no longer a lush “young city”, “full of beauty and wonder of the land”, but “darkened Petrograd”. He's in power" autumn chill", howling wind, "angry" rain. The city turns into a fortress, besieged by the Neva. Please note: The Neva is also part of the city. He himself harbored evil energy, which was released by the “violent foolishness” of the Finnish waves. The Neva, stopping its “sovereign flow” in the granite banks, breaks free and destroys the “strict, harmonious appearance” of St. Petersburg. It’s as if the city itself is taking itself by storm, tearing its womb apart. Everything that was hidden behind the front facade of the “city of Peter” is exposed in the introduction, as unworthy of odic delight:

Trays under a wet veil,

Wrecks of huts, logs, roofs,

Stock trade goods,

The belongings of pale poverty,

Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,

Coffins from a washed-out cemetery

Floating through the streets!

People appear on the streets, “crowd in heaps” on the banks of the Neva, the Tsar comes out onto the balcony of the Winter Palace, Eugene looks with fear at the raging waves, worrying about Parasha. The city was transformed, filled with people, ceasing to be just a museum city. The entire first part is a picture of a national disaster. Petersburg was besieged by officials, shopkeepers, and poor hut dwellers. There is no rest for the dead either. The figure of an “idol on a bronze horse” appears for the first time. A living king is powerless to resist the “divine element.” Unlike the imperturbable “idol”, he is “sad”, “confused”.

The third part shows St. Petersburg after the flood. But the city's contradictions have not only not been eliminated, but have become even more intensified. Peace and tranquility are fraught with a threat, the possibility of a new conflict with the elements (“But the victories are full of triumph, / The waves were still seething angrily, / As if there was a fire smoldering underneath them"). The outskirts of St. Petersburg, where Evgeny rushed, resembles a “battlefield” - “the view is terrible,” but the next morning “everything returned to the same order.” The city again became cold and indifferent to people. This is a city of officials, calculating merchants, “evil children” throwing stones at the mad Eugene, coachmen lashing him with whips. But this is still a “sovereign” city - an “idol on a bronze horse” hovers above it.

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

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

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

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

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

This understanding of the role of Peter partly coincides with Pushkin’s: the poet saw in Peter a “powerful lord of fate” who was able to subjugate the spontaneous power of Russia. But his interpretation of Peter and Russia is richer and more significant than the sculptural allegory. What is given in sculpture in the form of a statement, in Pushkin sounds like a rhetorical question, which does not have a clear answer: “Aren’t you right above the abyss, / At the height, with an iron bridle / You raised Russia on its hind legs?” Pay attention to the difference in intonation of the author’s speech, addressed alternately to the “idol” - Peter and to the “bronze horse” - the symbol of Russia. “He is terrible in the surrounding darkness! / What a thought on my brow! What power is hidden in him! - the poet recognizes the will and creative genius of Peter, which turned into the brutal force of the “iron bridle” that reared up Russia. “And what fire there is in this horse! / Where are you galloping, proud horse, / And where will you land your hooves?” - the exclamation is replaced by a question in which the poet’s thought is addressed not to the country bridled by Peter, but to the mystery of Russian history and to modern Russia. She continues her run, and not only natural disasters, but also popular riots disturb Peter’s “eternal sleep.”

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

Having pitted the bronze Peter against the poor St. Petersburg official Eugene in the poem, Pushkin emphasized that government and man are separated by the abyss. By leveling all classes with one “club”, pacifying the human element of Russia with an “iron bridle,” Peter wanted to turn it into submissive and pliable material. Eugene was supposed to become the embodiment of the autocrat’s dream of a puppet man, deprived of historical memory, who had forgotten both “native traditions” and his “nickname” (that is, surname, family), which “in bygone times” “perhaps shone / And under the pen of Karamzin / It sounded in native legends.” The goal was partly achieved: Pushkin’s hero is a product and victim of St. Petersburg “civilization”, one of countless officials without a “title”, who “serve somewhere”, without thinking about the meaning of their service, dream of “philistine happiness”: a good place, home, family, prosperity. In the sketches of the unfinished poem “Yezersky” (1832), which many researchers compare with “The Bronze Horseman,” Pushkin gave a detailed description of his hero, a descendant of a noble family who turned into an ordinary St. Petersburg official. In “The Bronze Horseman,” the story about Eugene’s genealogy and everyday life is extremely laconic: the poet emphasized the generalized meaning of the fate of the hero of the “St. Petersburg Tale.”

But Evgeny, even in his modest desires, which separate him from the imperious Peter, is not humiliated by Pushkin. The hero of the poem - a captive of the city and the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history - is not only a reproach to Peter and the city he created, the symbol of Russia, numb from the angry gaze of the “formidable king”. Evgeniy is the antipode of the “idol on a bronze horse.” He has what the bronze Peter lacks: heart and soul. He is capable of dreaming, grieving, “fearing” for the fate of his beloved, and exhausting himself from torment. Deep meaning the poem is that Eugene is compared not with Peter the man, but with Peter’s “idol”, with a statue. Pushkin found his “unit of measurement” of unbridled, but metal-bound power - humanity. Measured by this measure, the “idol” and the hero become closer. "Insignificant" in comparison real Peter, “poor Eugene,” juxtaposed with a dead statue, finds himself next to the “miraculous builder.”

The hero of the “Petersburg story”, having become a madman, lost his social certainty. Evgeniy, who has gone mad, “dragged out his unhappy life, neither beast nor man, / Neither this nor that, nor inhabitant of the world, / Neither ghost dead...". He wanders around St. Petersburg, not noticing humiliation and human anger, deafened by the “noise internal anxiety" Pay attention to this remark of the poet, because it is the “noise” in Eugene’s soul, which coincided with the noise of the natural elements (“It was gloomy: / The rain was dripping, the wind howled sadly”) awakens in the madman what for Pushkin was the main sign of a person - memory : “Eugene jumped up; remembered vividly / He remembered the past horror.” It is the memory of the flood he experienced that brings him to Senate Square, where he meets the “idol on a bronze horse” for the second time.

This climactic episode of the poem, which ended with the Bronze Horseman chasing the “poor madman,” is especially important for understanding the meaning of the entire work. Starting with V.G. Belinsky, it was interpreted differently by researchers. Often in the words of Eugene addressed to the bronze Peter (“Good, miraculous builder! - / He whispered, trembling angrily, - / It’s too bad for you!..”), they see a rebellion, an uprising against the “ruler of half the world” (sometimes analogies were drawn between this episode and the Decembrist uprising). In this case, the question inevitably arises: who is the winner - statehood, embodied in the “proud idol,” or humanity, embodied in Eugene?

However, it is hardly possible to consider the words of Eugene, who, having whispered them, “suddenly set off headlong / to run,” a rebellion or an uprising. The words of the mad hero are caused by the memory that has awakened in him: “Eugene shuddered. The thoughts became clearer in him.” This is not only a memory of the horror of last year's flood, but above all historical memory, seemingly etched into him by Peter’s “civilization.” Only then did Eugene recognize “the lions, and the square, and the One / Who stood motionless / In the darkness with a copper head, / The One by whose fatal will / The city was founded under the sea.” Once again, as in the introduction, the legendary “double” of Peter appears - He. The statue comes to life, what is happening loses its real features, the realistic narrative becomes a mythological story.

Like a fairy tale mythological hero(see, for example, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights,” 1833), the stupid Eugene “comes to life”: “The eyes became foggy, / A flame ran through the heart, / The blood boiled.” He turns into a Man in his generic essence (note: the hero in this fragment is never called Eugene). He, "formidable king", the personification of power, and Human, having a heart and endowed with memory, inspired by the demonic power of the elements (“as if overcome by black power”), came together in a tragic confrontation. In the whisper of a man who has regained his sight, one can hear a threat and a promise of retribution, for which the revived statue, “instantly burning with anger,” punishes the “poor madman.” A “realistic” explanation of this episode impoverishes its meaning: everything that happened turns out to be a figment of the sick imagination of the insane Eugene.

In the chase scene, the second reincarnation of the “idol on a bronze horse” takes place - He turns into Horseman of the Bronze. A mechanical creature gallops after Man, having become the pure embodiment of power, punishing even a timid threat and a reminder of retribution:

And illuminated by the pale moon,

Stretching out your hand on high,

The Bronze Horseman rushes after him

On a loudly galloping horse.

The conflict is transferred to the mythological space, which emphasizes its philosophical significance. This conflict is fundamentally insoluble; there cannot be a winner or a loser. “All night”, “everywhere” behind the “poor madman” “The Bronze Horseman / Jumped with a heavy stomp,” but the “heavy, ringing galloping” does not end with anything. A senseless and fruitless chase, reminiscent of “running in place,” has a deep philosophical meaning. The contradictions between man and power cannot be resolved or disappear: man and power are always tragically connected.

This conclusion can be drawn from Pushkin’s poetic “study” of one of the episodes of the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history. The first stone in its foundation was laid by Peter I - the “powerful lord of fate”, who built St. Petersburg and new Russia, but failed to pull a person with an “iron bridle”. Power is powerless against “human, all too human” - the heart, memory and elements human soul. Any “idol” is only a dead statue that a Man can crush or, at least, make him fall from his place in unrighteous and impotent anger.

A. S. Pushkin, like any other writer recognized by readers, put into his works the most pressing problems and questions of the era, of his entire life.

In the poem “The Bronze Horseman,” Pushkin turns to the historical past of Russia in order to find in it explanations for the events of the present. Therefore, the author compositionally combines two time periods in the poem (the era of Peter I and the days of the flood of 1824), pitting Eugene - the “little man” - against historical force and predetermined fate.

The key figure of the lyric-epic work is Peter I, and A.S. Pushkin reflects on the consequences of whose activities. Thus, in the introduction, the author turns to the historical past, creating the image of Peter I as a great transformer and wise autocrat.

The city will be founded here...

Nature destined us here

Open a window to Europe...

A.S. Pushkin praises the emperor, recognizes the need for the transformations he once made, including in the poem contrasting descriptions of the region and the city that later arose in this place. “From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat,” a capital emerges, the beauty of which proves the rationality of the activities of Peter I.

O mighty lord of fate!

Aren't you above the very abyss,

At the height, with an iron bridle,

Raised Russia on its hind legs!

It was the construction of the city “under the sea” that predicted that St. Petersburg would often experience floods, and that the people who built the future capital would die.

The author reveals his idea using the example of a minor official, Evgeniy. The city for the hero is presented differently by A.S. Pushkin: “beauty and wonder” are replaced by poor outskirts, dilapidated houses, “the belongings of poor poverty.” Creating the image of an “ordinary man,” the author writes about the unremarkability of the hero’s life, about his simplest human dreams: a house, a wife, children...

But the aspirations of the “small” official collide with state necessity of the past. According to the plot, the flood causes not only the death of Eugene’s bride, but also all his dreams. So, although the main action of the poem takes place long after the death of Peter I, when only the “proud idol” and the “idol on a bronze horse” remain, the emperor’s violence still returns to the inhabitants in the form of an element.

Therefore, according to the author’s idea, Eugene blames the Bronze Horseman for everything - a symbol of the greatness of the deeds of Peter I. And this “rebellion” of Eugene carries within itself the birth of another, more terrible one - a popular revolt. It is no coincidence that A.S. Pushkin compares the elements with an uprising - it is also uncontrollable, merciless and, most importantly, predetermined by the deeds of the first emperor.

Thus, the poem “The Bronze Horseman” covers not only the present time for A.S. Pushkin, but also the past and the future. The author in the work was able to reveal the contradictions in the personality of Peter I, to find in his affairs the basis for everything that happened, is happening and will happen in the history of Russia.

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