The story of the creation of “Eugene Onegin” - “the fruit of the mind of cold observations and a heart of sorrowful remarks” - by the outstanding Russian classic Alexander Pushkin does not resemble a blitzkrieg. The work was created by the poet evolutionarily, marking his formation on the path of realism. A novel in poetry as an event in art was a unique phenomenon. Prior to this, only one analogue was written in world literature in the same genre - the romantic work of George Gordon Byron, "Don Juan."
The author decides to brainstorm
Pushkin went further than the great Englishman - towards realism. This time, the poet set himself the super task - to show a person who can serve as a catalyst for the further development of Russia. Alexander Sergeyevich, sharing the ideas of the Decembrists, understood that a huge country should be moved, like a locomotive, from the dead end path that led the whole society to a systemic crisis.
The history of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" is determined by a titanic poetic work from May 1823 to September 1830, a creative rethinking of Russian reality in the first quarter of the 19th century. The novel in poems was created during the four stages of the work of Alexander Sergeyevich: the southern exile (1820 - 1824), the stay “without the right of unauthorized abandonment of the Mikhailovsky estate” (1824 - 1826), the period after the exile (1826 - 1830), Boldino Autumn (1830)
A.S. Pushkin, "Eugene Onegin": the history of creation
Young Pushkin, a graduate of the
Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, according to Emperor Alexander I, who “flooded Russia with outrageous poems”, began to write his novel while in exile in Chisinau (thanks to the intercession of friends of escorting to Siberia, it was possible to avoid). By this time he was already an idol of Russian educated youth.
The poet sought to create the image of a hero of his time. In the work, he painfully searched for the answer to the question of what should be the bearer of new ideas, the creator of a new Russia.
Socio-economic situation in the country
Consider the social environment in which the novel was created. Russia won the war of 1812. This gave a tangible impulse to social aspirations for liberation from feudal shackles. First of all, the people longed for the abolition of serfdom. Such his release inevitably entailed a limitation of the powers of the monarch. The community of guard officers that formed immediately after the war in 1816 in St. Petersburg form the Decembrist Union of Salvation. In 1818, the Union of Welfare was organized in Moscow. These Decembrist organizations actively contributed to the formation of liberal public opinion and were waiting for a convenient moment for a coup d'etat. Among the Decembrists there were many friends of Pushkin. He shared their views.
Russia by that time had already become a recognized European power with a population of about 40 million people, within it sprouts of state capitalism were ripening. However, her economic life was still determined by the rudiments of feudalism, noble land tenure and merchants. These social groups, gradually losing public weight, were still powerful and enjoyed influence on the life of the state, prolonging feudal relations in the country. They were champions of a society built on obsolete Catherine noble principles inherent in Russia of the 18th century.
There were characteristic signs of the social and economic crisis of the whole society. Many educated people lived in the country, who understood that the interests of development required great changes and reforms. The story of the creation of "Eugene Onegin" began with personal rejection by the poet around him, in the words of Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, the "dark kingdom"
Having risen after the powerful acceleration set by Peter I and dynamism during the reign of Empress Catherine II, Russia slowed down the pace of development at the beginning of the 19th century. At the time of Pushkin's writing of the famous novel, there were no railways in the country, even steamboats did not sail along its rivers, thousands and thousands of her hardworking and talented citizens were bound hand and foot by bonds of serfdom.
The history of Eugene Onegin is inextricably linked with the history of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century.
Onegin stanza
With special attention, Alexander Sergeyevich, “Russian Mozart from poetry”, reacted to his work. He developed a new series of poems specifically for writing a novel in poetry.
The poet's words do not flow in a free stream, but in a structured way. Every fourteen lines of the four-foot iamba are connected in a specific Onegin stanza. At the same time, rhyming is unchanged throughout the novel and has the following form: CCddEffEgg (where uppercase letters indicate female endings and lowercase letters are male).
Undoubtedly, the story of the creation of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is the story of the creation of the Onegin stanza. It is by varying stanzas that the author succeeds in creating in his work an analogue of prosaic sections and chapters: moving from one topic to another, changing the style of presentation from reflection to dynamic development of the plot. Thus, the author creates the impression of a casual conversation with his reader.
Novel - “collection of motley chapters”
What makes people write works about their generation and about their native land? Why, then, do they give themselves to this work completely, working as if possessed?
The story of the creation of the novel “Eugene Onegin” was originally subordinated to the author’s intention: to create a novel in poems, consisting of 9 separate chapters. Specialists in the work of Alexander Sergeyevich call it “open in time” due to the fact that each of its chapters is independent and can, according to its internal logic, complete the work, although it continues in the next chapter. His contemporary, professor of Russian literature Nikolai Ivanovich Nadezhdin, gave the classic description of “Eugene Onegin” not as a work with a rigid logical structure, but rather as a kind of poetic notebook filled with direct rainbow tints of bright talent.
About the chapters of the novel
The chapters of Eugene Onegin were published from 1825 to 1832. as they were written, they were published in literary almanacs and magazines. They were expected, each of them became a real event in the cultural life of Russia.
However, one of them, devoted to the protagonist’s journey to military settlements in the Odessa marina area, containing critical judgments, the disgraced author chose to withdraw in order to avoid reprisals against himself, and then destroyed her only manuscript.
Also, completely devoting himself to work, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak later worked on his “Doctor of Zhivago,” Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov also wrote about his generation. Pushkin himself called his more than seven-year work on this novel in verse a feat.
The main character
The description of Yevgeny Onegin, according to literary scholars, recalls the personality of Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadayev, the author of Philosophical Letters. This is a character with powerful energy, around which the plot of the novel unfolds and other characters manifest themselves. Pushkin wrote of him as a "good friend." Eugene received a classic noble education, completely devoid of "Russianness". And although a sharp but cold mind burns in him, he is a man of light, following certain opinions and prejudices. The life of Eugene Onegin is sparse. On the one hand, the morals of light are alien to him, he sharply criticizes them; and on the other, he is subject to his influence. The hero cannot be called active; rather, it is a smart observer.
Features of the image of Onegin
His image is tragic. Firstly, he could not stand the test of love. Eugene listened to reason, but not to his heart. At the same time, he acted nobly, respectfully treating Tatyana, letting her know that he was not able to love.
Secondly, he could not stand the test of friendship. By challenging his friend, the 18-year-old romantic youth Lensky, to duel, he blindly follows the concepts of light. It seems to him more decent not to provoke the evil tongue of the old note duelist Zaretsky, than to stop a completely stupid quarrel with Vladimir. By the way, Pushkin scholars consider the young KĂĽchelbecker a prototype of Lensky.
Tatyana Larina
The use of the name Tatyana in the novel by Eugene Onegin was a know-how from Pushkin. Indeed, at the beginning of the XIX century this name was considered common and irrelevant. Moreover, dark-haired and not ruddy, thoughtful, uncommunicative, she did not correspond to the ideals of the beauty of light. Tatyana (like the author of the novel) loved folk tales, which the nanny generously told her. However, her particular passion was reading books.
Heroes of the novel
In addition to the aforementioned plot-forming protagonists, secondary ones pass before the reader. These images of the novel "Eugene Onegin" do not form the plot, but complement it. This is Tatyana’s sister Olga, an empty socialite with whom Vladimir Lensky was in love. The image of the nanny of Tatyana, an expert on folk tales, has an explicit prototype - the nanny of Alexander Sergeyevich himself, Arina Rodionovna. Another nameless hero of the novel is her husband, “an important general”, acquired by Tatyana Larina after a fight with Yevgeny Onegin.
The host of landowners seemed to be imported into Pushkin’s novel from other Russian classical works. These are the Skotinins (The Undergrowth by Fonvizin) and Buyanov (The Dangerous Neighbor by V. L. Pushkin).
Folk art
The highest praise for Alexander Sergeyevich was the assessment given to the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin" by the man whom the poet considered his teacher - Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. The opinion was extremely concise: "You are the first in Russian Parnassus ..."
The novel, in poetry, encyclopedically correctly reflected the Russian reality of the beginning of the 19th century, showed the way of life, characteristic features, and the social role of various layers of society: the Petersburg high society, the nobility of Moscow, landowners, landowners, and peasants. Perhaps that is why, and also because of Pushkin’s all-encompassing and subtle display of values, customs, views, fashion of that time, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky gave him such an exhaustive characterization: “a highly national work” and “encyclopedia of Russian life”.
Pushkin wanted to change the plot
The history of the creation of “Eugene Onegin” is the evolution of a young poet who took up global work at 23 years old. Moreover, if such sprouts were already in prose (we recall the incognito published book of Alexander Radishchev, “Traveling from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), then realism in poetry at that time was an undoubted innovation.
The final idea of ​​the work was formed by the author only in 1830. He was clumsy and tortured. To give the traditional solid look to his creation, Alexander Sergeyevich decided to either send Evgeny Onegin to fight in the Caucasus, or turn him into a Decembrist. But Eugene Onegin - the hero of the novel in poetry - was created by Pushkin on one inspiration, as a "collection of motley chapters", and this is his charm.
Conclusion
The work "Eugene Onegin" is the first realistic novel in Russian history in verse. It is a landmark for the XIX century. The novel was recognized by society as deeply popular. An encyclopedic description of Russian life is adjacent to it with high artistry.
However, according to critics, the main character of this novel is still not Onegin at all, but the author of the work. This character does not have a specific appearance. This is a kind of white spot for the reader.
Alexander Sergeyevich in the text of the work hints at his link, saying that he is "harmful to the North", etc. Pushkin is invisibly present in all actions, summarizes, makes the reader laugh, enlivens the plot. His quotes hit not in the eyebrow, but in the eye.
By the will of fate, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin reviewed the second full edition of his novel in verse in 1937 (the first was in 1833), being already mortally wounded on the Black River near the Commandant's dacha. The circulation of 5000 copies was planned to be sold throughout the year. However, readers sold it out in a week. Subsequently, the classics of Russian literature, each for his time, continued the creative search of Alexander Sergeyevich. They all tried to create a hero of their time. And Mikhail Lermontov in the image of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin ("Hero of our time"), and Ivan Goncharov in the image of Ilya Oblomov ...