A friend of the poet Gabriel Derzhavin, the hospitable prince Meshchersky , died. The poet was saddened by his departure so much that he responded with an ode. Despite the lack of odic dimensions and grandeur inherent in the genre, these eighty-eight lines are so touching the reader’s soul that inevitably the search for information about who Prince Meshchersky is and what he is known for begins? It turns out - nothing. The most ordinary person, although a representative of an ancient clan. Prince Alexander, whom Derzhavin was so grieving for, was far surpassed in fame by his descendant, Vladimir, who wrote as a publicist and also published and edited the journal Citizen. But Prince Vladimir began publishing in 1887, and the Derzhavin ode "To the death of Prince Meshchersky" was written in 1779, almost a hundred years ago.
Oh yeah
Death and eternity - two topics that concern each and constantly intersecting in Derzhavin’s ode, unprecedented sincerity and penetration of lyrics - that’s why these verses quickly became famous and loved by the reader. In their lines lies a deep philosophy of a relatively insignificant human being and a huge incomprehensible universe, inside of which Prince Meshchersky is still alive. It is comforting for the reader that Derzhavin shows humanity as part of nature that is eternal, and therefore people are part of this eternity, although each individual life is unconditionally finite, short-lived and transient. After all, any person - noble and insignificant - will surely die.
The genius of Derzhavin managed to combine life with death in the joyful sensation of the first and the tragic experience of the latter, and the deceased prince Meshchersky with the light hand of the poet received an eternally pleasing life - the poet so deeply and passionately empathized with his close acquaintance. Death is gloomy, inexorable, it is indifferent to the fact that the whole life of the hero of the lines of the Derzhavin ode was festive, filled with beauty and contentment, luxury and bliss. The drama intensifies to the limit with precisely this contrast: it is impossible to respond to the death of Prince Meshchersky with the word "exhausted." The collision itself, unfolding in an ode, is in conflict, as is the figurative system used by the author.
The conflict embedded in the structure of the ode leads to the understanding that the dialectical essence of the universe is contradictory and cannot be brought into unity with a single human destiny. "Where the table was dishes - there is a coffin ..." - a verse exceptional in its richness. "On the death of Prince Meshchersky" - an ode to eleven stanzas, where in every line life tries to resist death.
Confrontation
Eight lines of any stanza of this ode necessarily declare the opposition of life and death. This is affirmed at various levels of poetic material. A figurative series, the construction of syntactic constructions, changes in the rhythmic patterns of sound, and so on. Derzhavin very abundantly uses the paths - poetic allegories, which over time, already in the work of his followers, will take shape as an oxymoron. This is a rather complicated path, but also extremely expressive: “Dead Souls” by Gogol, “Living Corpse” by Tolstoy, “Hot Snow” by Bondarev - the names themselves convey the ambiguity of emotions, feelings, emotional states in the transmission of certain events.
Derzhavin became the founder of this means of expression in the literary language. In the same image, absolutely opposite meanings coexist - this is an oxymoron. Ambiguity, contradictions in everything - not only in each person’s act, in his behavior, but his whole life - is only an oxymoron, hence the high degree of truthfulness in the lines of this ode. Analysis of the poem "On the death of the prince of Meshchersky" clearly shows those principles that will subsequently be developed, improved and will maximize the psychological load of the work. For example, the phrase: "Today is God, and tomorrow is dust." This means the following: we will be born in order to die, and along with life our death is acceptable. This is the main idea and the supertask performed by Derzhavin in this work.
Prince Alexander Meshchersky
Ode, composed by Derzhavin and published anonymously in the St. Petersburg Bulletin of 1779, made this man famous. Young Ivan Dmitriev was so impressed with these lines that he certainly wanted to get acquainted with the author, and not only him. The city, and later the country, was buzzing, exchanging raptures. Even Pushkin, many years after the publication of this work, was so impressed that he took the Derzhavin line as an epigraph to the head of Dubrovsky. After all, it would seem impossible to express thoughts about life and death more concretely and shorter. The whole picture of human being extends to boundless limits. Aphoristically chased lines convey almost nothing life-storying about their lyrical, suddenly deceased hero.
The son of luxury, a man of prosperity and good health. What was striking was his death for friends, relatives and acquaintances. Oda is usually written about historically significant persons, at least that is prescribed by all the laws of classicism. And here - just a friend of the poet. An ordinary mortal, not outstanding among the total number of contemporaries. This is not Suvorov, not Potemkin, but an ordinary prince. Why did Derzhavin’s poem “On the Death of the Prince of Meshchersky” make such an indelible impression not only on his contemporaries, but also on distant descendants? This is also an innovation: at that time not a single poet showed the omnipotence and commonality of the laws of the universe through the fate of the most ordinary of people on such a scale.
Image of death
Death was written out by Derzhavin in all its power - in detail and colorfully. Her image is shown in dynamics - sequentially and deployed. From gnashing of teeth to truncation of the oblique days of human life - in the first stanza. From swallowing whole kingdoms and smashing mercilessly everything around is in the second.
Further, the scope takes on cosmic dimensions: the stars lament, the sun goes out, death threatens all worlds. There is also some "grounding" in order not to fly into this space irrevocably. Derzhavin switches the reader to a life understanding with a small mocking scene: death looks, smiling, at the kings, at the magnificent rich, at the proud wise men - and sharpening, everything sharpens the blade of his scythe.
Keynotes
The clarity of the division into stanzas does not violate the smoothness of the narrative. Derzhavin put himself at the service of a number of special artistic techniques for this purpose. The stanzas seem to flow from one to another (the technique used for the first time in Russian literature is so complete and clear). Concentrating the main idea in the last line of the stanza, the poet repeats it in the first line of the next, then developing and strengthening it. The thought and image that are repeated throughout the text are called the leitmotif, and Derzhavin used it. Ode "To the death of the prince Meshchersky" precisely because of this turned out to be such a harmonious and consistent work. The main leitmotifs were indifferent and dispassionate death and fleeting life, like a dream.
Metaphysical text
Prince Meshchersky was not given high positions, prominent posts, he did not become famous in any way - neither in the military, nor in the administrative, nor in the art department. A person without special talents, with the pleasant features of a purely Russian hospitality (which, in principle, then practically everyone had). The first name Derzhavin gave his work attributed it to the genre of poetic message, but not to the canonical ode: "To S. V. Perfiliev, to the death of Alexander Ivanovich Meshchersky." However, the pathos of the true ode, sounding a bell ring, issued a genre affiliation from the first stanza: "The verb of the times! Metal ringing!".
And then metaphysical issues become clear. The death of any - even completely unknown person makes humanity a little less complete, and every living person a little less full. The death of a friend is shown as an existential event in streams of amazing poetic revelations. Talking about the death of the prince, Derzhavin clearly compares it with his own. The unity of each person with all of humanity - this is the metaphysics of this idea. And at the same time, the ode "To the death of the Prince of Meshchersky" speaks of confronting death, since each line prompts reflection on the meaning of a particular person in the general universe, despite his intrepid laws.
Semantic structure
Original metamorphoses await the reader in each verse: the pioneer of Russian poetry first introduced completely new categories to literature: high-low, eternal-temporary, private-general, abstract-concrete. Of course, all this has been known since Aristotle. But only with Derzhavin do these categories cease to sound mutually exclusive, entering into synthesis.
The odic, elated, enthusiastic sound states his most disappointing postulates. Human life and its meaning: only a mortal does not think to die. Such oxymorons are numerous, and all of them in this ode are tragic, as Derzhavin feels them. "To the death of Prince Meshchersky" - an ode that confronted the reader in the face of death as the only constant, since any entity tomorrow or after a thousand years, like a baobab, still dies.
Warning to reader
The existence of such a constant is doubtful and illusory, because being does not seem to make sense, and, therefore, the essence is not true if there are no traces in it in the future. Derzhavin added meaning to the well-fed, but for the most part, meaningless existence of his acquaintance, an ode to the death of Prince Meshchersky.
The analysis of this work was made not only by philologists, but also by philosophers, where all its details are connected with the model of the universe, where there is no self-validity of the individual’s being, because the individual is devoid of beingness. However, the poet’s inner experience is inevitably in dispute, as if warning the reader that he is on the edge of the abyss, that the chain of transformations will not be interrupted, that everything and everyone will disappear in this cosmic mystery without the slightest trace.
Another prince Meshchersky
Derzhavin could not have a relationship with Prince Meshchersky Vladimir Pavlovich, although his ancestor was awarded an ode to his death. Prince Alexander Ivanovich was a state adviser, he served in the customs office. He loved literature and the St. Petersburg English Society (club). The Meshchersky clan came from the Tatar princes of the thirteenth century, in the fourteenth and fifteenth it owned the Meshchera, among the representatives of the clan there were governors - city and regimental. This and all that is known about the princes of the Meshchersky is nothing special. But in 1838, the grandson of Karamzin, Prince Vladimir Meshchersky, was born, a person not odious. This is one of the main heroes of the public life of Russia in the nineteenth century, the character of not only breathtaking rumors, but also raging jokes. He worked hard, published a magazine (later - a newspaper), wrote "Conservative Speeches", which were quite famous among contemporaries.
His father is the Guard Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr Meshchersky, his mother is the eldest daughter of the famous historiographer and writer Nikolai Karamzin. Parents are morally beautiful people, enlightened and believing in ideals. The son, in his own words, had both a bad character and a nature. Dreamed of exploits in the name of the Fatherland and of sexual attention from outsiders. The literary path was chosen by him by chance. In 1981, he described the emperor’s visit to the Potemkin, with whom he was in friendship. Soon, Prince Meshchersky was granted chamber junkers. And work in the Ministry of the Interior, after which the road opened to the famous circle formed nearby. And the rapid rise of the prince to the elite of Russian statehood began.
Advisor to the Emperor
Prince Meshchersky liked the heir’s educator, Count Stroganov, so the prince’s circle of contacts is located on the heights of the sky-high - he became a close friend of Tsarevich Nikolai (the very meaning is enclosed here, despite the attitude towards the future Russian monarch). Secular life was given to Vladimir Meshchersky not as easy as it seems: either Stroganov would call him a "bad courtesan", then behind his back they would whisper too loudly and giggle. However, the adviser for the entire environment of the heir and for himself Meshchersky still became. The prince was deeply ill, and the prince accompanied him to Europe for treatment, for which the chief of the department of internal affairs, Valuev, called him "intimate at court."
After the death of Nicholas (they talked about suicide on the basis of homosexuality), Meschersky was given another prince, in the future, Alexander III, who had feelings for the cousin of the prince. Meshchersky managed to neutralize this affection of the future monarch by taking fire on himself, for which the imperial family remained very grateful to him. By this time, the writer's itch had become very annoying to the prince, and with the help of the prince, a real stronghold of the autocracy was established - the journal Citizen. Thanks to the excellent recipients, the founder of the magazine remained in human memory. After all, such people as Dostoevsky, Tyutchev, Maykov continued his work. And on the pages of the Citizen Meshchersky himself mercilessly fought with secular education, a zemstvo, a jury, peasant self-government and intellectual Jews. "Sodom is the prince and citizen of Gomorrah," according to Vladimir Solovyov.