It's amazing how fast things change! Only two centuries ago, when they heard the word “onion”, only representatives of the aristocracy and creative circles recalled Pushkin’s poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”. Ordinary people could simply explain this everyday and everyday name for them. Lukomorye - what kind of place is this, and where can it be? Let's get it together.
Big world in a small masterpiece
In the prologue, “The green oak is near the seashore,” Pushkin managed to present two opposing sides: light and dark forces. The learned cat and the Black Sea, Baba Yaga and Koschey fill this fabulous corner. With the help of metaphors, words used in a figurative meaning (a stupa that “wanders by itself”), a fantastic and fairy-tale world is drawn. The special melodiousness and lightness of the lines of this work remind me of the smooth line of the folk oral legend that the future poet could hear from his nanny - Arina Rodionovna. To enhance the fabulous effect, he uses outdated and uncommon words and phrases, such as "dol", "breg" and others. To make fantastic reality even closer to the reader, Pushkin confirms the reality of what is happening with the ending: “I was there, and I drank honey ...”
Let's look at the versions of modern scholars about what a great poet puts meaning into this word. Pushkin's Lukomorye - what is it and where is it located?
What means?
Thinking over this word, it is easy to find two parts of it: “bow” - bend, bend, arc, and “sea” - the sea coast. Putting it all together, we get a curved seashore. The dictionaries of Ozhegov and Dahl explain the meaning of the word “onion” in approximately the same way.
Taking into account all of the above, it is possible to decipher the onion seashore in more detail, like a bay of a sea curved by an arc or a seashore similar in shape to a bow (ancient weapon) . On the territory of our country, such a description can fit many sea coasts, bays and coastlines. But modern researchers adhere to two main hypotheses about where the onion is located. Pushkin, according to one of the theories, could, under the influence of books written by travelers, and folk tales, place him on the shores of the White Sea or in Siberia. Another theory claims that the poet’s personal impressions of the Crimean peninsula and his visit to Cape Fiolent gave him the word “seashore” and prompted him to write both the poem itself and this poetic introduction.
Slavic myths
Even in ancient times, the Slavs had a legend about the seashore, that this is a reserved corner on the very edge of the Universe, where a world tree grows, whose roots go into the underground depths, and the peak rests in the sky. It is on this tree that the gods descend to Earth, and a mere mortal, if he can get to it, can fall into other worlds.
Agree that there is a certain similarity with how Pushkin described the oak and the onion. Legends and records of travelers of that time indicate the location of this mystical object, which was also called the Kingdom of Ivan, the upper reaches of the Ob River in Western Siberia.
Real miracles worked in this kingdom: for half a year its population lived quietly, but the rest of the year subsided. At the palace of the ruler of this region of Ivan, a fountain was built with living water, which, after drinking, could be transformed from a decrepit old man into a young and healthy person.
Where is it located?
Thanks to legends that partially turned into folk tales, everyone to one degree or another knew about this mysterious land. According to Karamzin, in the 15th century, none of the Muscovites had a question about where the onion was, what kind of place it was. Everyone was sure that it is located on the northern coast of the ocean, where half a year is only day, and the second part is only night.
Medieval European travelers and cartographers confidently showed on their drawings a certain region of Siberia, where it is located. Looking at the maps of Gondius, Mercator, Cantelli and analyzing the 1549 book Notes on Muscovy by the Austrian baron and diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein, you come to understand that a mysterious onion was located in the bend of the Ob River.
Nobody knew what region of the Russian state it was and what peoples live there, and the townsfolk easily believed not quite realistic stories of foreign wanderers.
Lukomorye and the Pushkin clan
And in the XVIII century, it was believed that the onions were in Siberia, and where the city of Tomsk is today, its capital, Gracion, was located. It should be emphasized the special role of the Siberian region in the fates of representatives of the Pushkin clan. According to historical data, in 1601-1602, the governor of Mangazeya was the son of the Tobolsk governor Eustache Pushkin - Savluk. Fedor Semenovich Pushkin in 1601-1603 was a Tyumen governor. In Tyumen from 1625 to 1628, the direct ancestor of the great poet Peter Timofeevich Cherny-Pushkin served.
The great-grandfather of Alexander Sergeyevich - the son of the Ethiopian prince Abram Petrovich Hannibal - after the death of his patron, Emperor Peter I, was exiled to Tobolsk. It is logical to assume that A. S. Pushkin learned from the stories of his relatives the meaning of the word “onion” as a child.
Modern confirmation of legends
Over the years, historians have been building versions of where the inhabitants of the mysterious onions could disappear. Hypotheses were put forward that all residents would go underground - into karst caves or a specially built city.
And in 2000, the media reported that near Tomsk the structures of the ancient capital of the Lukomory, Gracion, were discovered: paved with paving stones and brickwork reinforced underground tunnels, ventilation wells and large iron gates.
We have already found out what the onion seashore means - a sea arched coast. It is not clear why Tomsk and its environs, next to which no seas were noticed, received this name.
Agree, the more logical would be the name "onion." But historians, ethnographers, and linguists suggest that the word “onion” was introduced by peoples who moved from the warm lands to Priobye. There is also a hypothesis that in ancient times the coastline of the northern seas was much farther south than today.
Crimean prototype
It would seem that we have already figured out where the onion is located, what the word means and how it appeared in the field of view of Pushkin. But some literary scholars and historians believe that the great poet was inspired not by ancient legends and folk tales, but by his own aesthetic experiences.
They believe that Alexander Sergeyevich during a visit to the Crimean peninsula visited the monastery located on Cape Fiolent, laid in honor of the appearance of St. George the Victorious and his rescue of sailors from the storm. The poet was struck by the beauty of a hundred-year-old oak tree, which grew on the shore, and the sea bay in the form of onions, due to which such bright lines appeared that preceded the fairy-tale poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”.
Azov version
Pushkin traveled quite a lot across the expanses of Russia, and this allows various areas where there are sea bays and where the poet came to believe that it was their locality that was able to inspire him to write a poem about the sea. Taganrog residents believe that Alexander Sergeevich, following the Caucasus, staying in 1820 with Nikolai Raevsky and his family in the house of the mayor on Grecheskaya Street (today house number 40 on III International Street), could see a beautiful bicentennial oak tree, growing opposite the mansion as times at the very seashore curved by an arc - onion. It was this image that inspired the poet to write an introduction to the poem Ruslan and Lyudmila. Thus, the Taganrog Bay and its coast, located in the north-eastern part of the Sea of Azov, began to be associated with the fairy-tale onion seas described by Pushkin.
It was this image that inspired the poet to write an introduction to the poem Ruslan and Lyudmila. Thus, Taganrog Bay and its coast, located in the north-eastern part of the Sea of Azov, began to be associated with the fairy-tale Lukomory described by Pushkin.
Maybe it's somewhere nearby?
There is another version put forward by S. Geychenko, the keeper of the Pushkin Reserve, in the popular book “At the Lukomorye”: Pushkin’s onion is located in central Russia, not far from the village of Trigorskoye, where the Sorot and Velikaya rivers diverge and form a small quiet bay surrounded by thickets of broom. Thus, a fabulous country where “the Russian spirit ... there smells of Rus!” Is located in the Pskov region. Someone may object that there is no sea there, but the word “onion” is quite applicable to river bends. Of course, if we assume that the fabulous onion can stand not only on the seashore, the number of applicants for such a name will increase many times over.