The poetic work The Bronze Horseman was created by Pushkin in the Boldino estate in 1833 during a very fruitful period for the poet. But to my great regret, this magnificent composition did not go through the royal censorship of Nicholas I. Only in the beginning of 1834 was it allowed to print in one of the contemporary literary journals in 1834. After the death of Pushkin in 1837, with the amendments made by V. A. Zhukovsky, the poem still saw the light in the journal Sovremennik. But without all the censorship corrections that distorted the author’s meaning, the work was published only in 1904.
Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman: the protagonist
The poem The Bronze Horseman was the last poetic story of A. Pushkin about the sovereign Russian Peter the Great and the “Petersburg” period in the history of Russia. The main characters of the poem “The Bronze Horseman” - the most ordinary person - a resident of St. Petersburg - and the mythical statue of Peter I. However, here, as always, Pushkin is not so simple.
The work tells of the tragic fate of an ordinary and unremarkable resident Eugene, who suffered during a terrible flood on the Neva River. This plot became the basis for historical and philosophical generalizations, closely related to the role of the Tsar reformer in Russian history and the fate of his main brainchild - St. Petersburg. This work was the first urban poem in Russian literature.
Small man
The poem "The Bronze Horseman" is considered one of the most perfect works of the brilliant poet. It was written by four-footed iambic. It should be noted right away how precisely and artistically Pushkin creates visual and auditory images. First you can hear the festive metropolitan luxury in the splendor and noise of balls and the hiss of glasses, and then - see the poor and shocked Eugene, a step away from madness, he walks along the Neva bridge.
The work is presented as a tragic story in which the unfortunate official is the main character. The Bronze Horseman, on the other hand, symbolizes a state with which an ordinary person who confronts him will never become a winner. The theme of the “little” man, the insignificant and miserable hero was very popular among poets and writers of the late 1920s.
Peter the Great
The very first protagonist to appear is the copper horseman Peter I, who does not appear in the work as a historical character, but is presented as a statue of a deified statue, and there is no question of the time of his reign. His era for the writer became a long period in the history of the Russian state, which did not end after the death of the Tsar Reformer. Pushkin does not turn to the origins of the era of Peter, he is more interested in the results of modernity. He looked at Peter from a high historical point in the events of the recent past - in November 1824, in 1824, when a terrible flood occurred in St. Petersburg, which became the central plot of the work, where there was a conflict between the city and the elements. And this is a historical fact, the documentation of which is confirmed by the author himself in the preface and notes.
Unhappy Eugene
The second main character in the poem The Bronze Horseman and the central character are Eugene. The faces of the rest of Petersburg residents are indistinguishable, it is a crowding "people" on the street, drowning from the flood in the first part, and indifferent and cold people in the second. The real background was the famous Senate Square of the Northern capital, streets and outback, where before the flood was the "dilapidated house" of the beloved girl Eugene - Parasha - and her mother-widow.
Eugene went crazy with the tragedy, when he learned that his beloved died from an unexpectedly surging terrible natural element. He no longer returns to his home, but becomes a miserable city madman.
Mythological protagonist - the Bronze Horseman
The legendary mythological semantic plan plays a rather important role in the work; it is immediately presented in the very title of the poem - The Bronze Horseman. Then, in the introduction with a historical fact, he sets off the plot, telling about the fate of Eugene and the flood.
An idol on a bronze horse from time to time reminds himself of himself and becomes the culmination of a poem in which the protagonist - the bronze horseman - chases after Eugene. Here the image of the main mythological character, which dominates the plot, already appears, and in the meantime Petersburg is already losing its real shape and turning into a conditional and mythological space.
Pushkin specially represents his hero without special signs, as the simplest person from the crowd, dreaming of quiet family happiness. In the finale of the poem, Eugene, poor, lonely and useless to anyone, suddenly regains his sight and finds that “a proud idol” is to blame for all his troubles, and then he brings down his anger at him.
The poem clearly traces the eternal conflict between a state indifferent to the problems of the people and a simple human person, whose solution was never found.