Consider a topic that interests so many high school students - “Farewell to Pushkin.” An exposition of its main theses may be required in a literature lesson, since this topic is quite interesting and extensive. Moreover, sources containing a description of this tragic event, it is desirable to use a variety of different. The main thing here is to depict, as accurately as possible, how the people perceived the news of the death of the poet and how the farewell to Pushkin took place. The presentation can be based on the recollections of eyewitnesses. About this, in particular, a lot of relatives and friends of the poet wrote: Prince P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. I. Turgenev and others. We will rely on their texts in the future.
Farewell to Pushkin. Where to find the statement?
Now, from the memories of the life and death of a great talent, we will try to restore those days and those emotions that everyone who loved Pushkin and was tenderly attached to him had to endure.
The tragic news of his wounding in a duel quickly spread throughout St. Petersburg. On January 28, crowds of people of various classes began to come to the Moika embankment, where the poet’s house was located. Familiar and unfamiliar, they went up to the front door and called, hoping to find out the good news. There were so many visitors that Zhukovsky was forced to hang up a ballot in which it was written that the patient was in extremely serious condition, and this sounded like a funeral bell.
Farewell to Pushkin. Text of presentation
But people did not disperse. Meanwhile, the poet's pulse was barely noticeable. His life with every passing minute was forever gone. In the office where he was dying, all his relatives gathered. Zhukovsky sat and sobbed silently. Natalya Nikolaevna, finding an excuse, was deduced. His friends stood silently next to the bed of the dying man, when he suddenly got up on the bed and said: "Life is over." His face was shackled in a mask of death, in these minutes it began to express solemn calm. Zhukovsky went to the crowd and announced that Alexander Sergeyevich had passed away. Sorrowful silence hung in the air. Twilight was approaching, soft thick snow began. It happened on January 29 (February 10), 1837.
V.A. Zhukovsky
Zhukovsky described all this in detail in his letter to the father of a deceased friend, Sergei Lvovich, which was published under the heading "The Last Minutes of Pushkin."
Prince P. A. Vyazemsky wrote to Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich on February 14, 1837, that after Alexander’s death, only 300 rubles were found in his entire house, Count Stroganov immediately hastened to announce that he would bear the burial costs and wanted to arrange a very solemn the funeral. However, soon he received completely different orders.
P. A. Vyazemsky
Continuing the theme of “Farewell to Pushkin,” the presentation should be continued with the fact that the body was ordered to be carried out at night without torches and taken to the Stable Church. Allegedly, this was necessary for public safety. About ten people came to say goodbye to a friend. Vyazemsky described his indignation on this subject. On the day of Pushkin’s funeral, there were a lot of gendarmerie in the house and on the street, and this was instead of close people and admirers of his talent! This was due to the fact that Nicholas I ordered a parade at the Winter Palace from the 60,000th cavalry and infantry, which was the pretext for transferring the funeral of Pushkin's body from St. Isaac's Cathedral to the Stable Church.
Natalie, not listening to the objections of the courtiers, buried her husband in a tailcoat, and not in a cell-junk uniform - “striped caftan”, as he was also called by Pushkin. He once dropped one phrase in her letter that she remembered: “It’s not enough comfort for me to be buried in a striped caftan.”
A. I. Turgenev
Turgenev recalled that closer to midnight the body of the deceased was taken out of the Stables Church. Among the escort in the wagon were Turgenev himself, a postman, a gendarme and a servant of the deceased. The coffin of the great Russian poet raced on the sleigh, wrapped in matting and hidden under a straw.
On the way, they stopped at Trigorskoye, beloved by Pushkin, where his neighbor on the estate and a great friend, Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova and her daughters lived. One of them recalled that they had heard of Pushkin’s duel, but knew nothing more. And on February 5, 1837, Alexander Ivanovich and another man drove in to them, they drove a box in a long sleigh and, not knowing the road to the Svyatogorsky monastery, decided to turn into their estate. Strongly vegetated, they wanted to rest, because the frosts in those days were terrible.
Everything seemed to happen on purpose, because Pushkin could not help saying goodbye to the adorable Trigorsky. Mother sheltered the guests at night and in the morning equipped the men from Trigorsky and Mikhailovsky to the Holy Mountains to dig a grave.
The funeral
Pushkin was buried by several monks along with the abbot of the monastery, Turgenev and two young ladies. In the spring, Osipova P.A. ennobled the poet's crypt, since none of the relatives had visited the grave of Alexander Sergeyevich, and the poet's wife arrived only two years later.
That was farewell to Pushkin. Pupils write this topic on a given source. Most often, the latter is represented by the texts of memoirs that we presented.