The creative person always strives to be in the thick of events concerning the fate of the country and people. Many poets dedicate verses to their homeland, praise or reproach power, and express their opinion on any events. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, power in Russia completely ceased to be understood by the people, and such an attitude towards people could not but affect the work of many poets. The favorite of Empress Catherine II Gabriel Derzhavin also could not stay away. The poet was distinguished by a warm and fair character, so he was outraged by the lawlessness around him.
A challenge to autocracy and lawlessness
The analysis of “Rulers and Judges” shows how unusual for that time it was to argue with the authorities, to show their disobedience. From the first lines of the work it becomes clear that it is impossible to live like that, even God is not able to look at earthly rulers. The author believes that kings should help widows, orphans and other unfortunates, but they only hear and protect the strong. The homeland is shaken by atrocities, but government officials do not see this.
The analysis of “Rulers and Judges” suggests that Gabriel Romanovich wanted to reveal all the vices of power. For the Russian people, the monarchy, indifferent to the life of ordinary people, is a real tragedy. Kings do not resemble gods in their actions or in life. At the end of the poem, the poet disbelieved that everything can be corrected by educating the monarchs, because the concepts of honor and conscience are not familiar to the rulers and judges. An analysis of the poem shows that the poet is convinced that only God's judgment can save Russia.
The artistic originality of the verse
The analysis of “Rulers and Judges” makes it possible to understand how innovative Gabriel Derzhavin was. In his time, most lyricists wrote poetry for certain sections of society. For ordinary people, sublime and pathos were not understood, so Gavriil Romanovich decided to simplify the language a little and add spoken language, accessible to the understanding of most people, in his poems. The author called the rulers and judges the angry ode. He took the biblical text as the basis - Psalm 81.
The poet created the ceremonial style with the help of rhetorical exclamations, appeals, questions, the abundance of Slavism. The analysis of “Rulers and Judges” shows that the author managed to achieve oratorical sound. In his ode, the poet expressed the bitterness of the perversity of the modern world, he tried to awaken from the reader not only anger, but also the desire to purify and change life for the better.
The meaning of the poem "Rulers and Judges"
Derzhavin (analysis shows that the author did not invest a revolutionary impulse in his work) was convinced that he was a monarchist and was very nice to Empress Catherine II. Even when writing the ode to “Rulers and Judges,” he did not oppose the ruler, because he was convinced of her virtue. The officials surrounding the empress are to blame for the lawlessness reigning in the country - this is what Gabriel Romanovich wanted to warn her about. Despite this, many perceived the poem as a call for a change of power. The trend was continued in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov and other poets of the 19th century.