Поэма «Медный Всадник» - это одна из самых емких, mysterious and complex poems of Pushkin. She wrote it in the fall of 1833 in the famous Baldin. This place and time gave extraordinary inspiration to Alexander Sergeyevich. The idea of the "Bronze Horseman" Pushkin clearly echoes the works of writers who lived much later and dedicated their creations, firstly, to the theme of St. Petersburg, and secondly, to the theme of the collision of a great sovereign idea and interests of the "little man." In the poem there are two opposing heroes and an insoluble conflict between them.
The Bronze Horseman: the story of the creation of the poem
Pushkin worked on the poem intensively and finishedits very fast - in just twenty-five october days. In this fruitful period of creativity, Alexander Sergeevich also worked on The Queen of Spades, written by him in prose, and on the poetic story Angelo. The stunning “Bronze Horseman” organically fit in here, the creation history of which is closely connected not only with realistic motifs and documents of the epoch, but also with the mythology that has developed around a great man and a city that has arisen from his highest will.
Censorship restrictions and disputes around the poem
The Petersburg Tale, as the author designatedthe genre was censored by Emperor Nicholas I himself, who returned the manuscript with nine pencil marks. The vexed poet printed the text of the introduction to the poem The Bronze Horseman (the story of the creation of the poetic novel is clouded by this fact) with eloquent voids in place of the tsar's marks. Later, Pushkin did rewrite these places, but in such a way that the meaning invested in them did not change. Reluctantly, the sovereign authorized the publication of the Bronze Horseman poem. The history of the creation of the work is also connected with the hot controversy that flared up around the poem after its publication.
Viewpoints of literary scholars
Disputes do not subside to this day.Traditionally it is customary to speak of three groups of interpreters of the poem. The first group includes researchers who affirm the “state” aspect with which the Bronze Horseman poem shines. This group of literary critics, led by Vissarion Belinsky, put forward the theory that Pushkin, in a poem, substantiated the right to do the fateful things for the country, sacrificing the interests and life itself of an inconspicuous person.
Humanistic interpretation
Representatives of another group led by a poetValery Bryusov, Professor Makagonenko and other authors, fully took the side of another character - Yevgeny, arguing that the death of even one most insignificant person from the point of view of the sovereign idea cannot be justified by great accomplishments. This view is called humanistic. Many literary scholars tend to evaluate the Bronze Horseman story, the story of the poem, which is based on the personal tragedy of a “little” person suffering from the results of a strong-willed decision by the authorities, which is confirmed.
Eternal conflict
Представители третьей группы исследователей express a belief system about the tragic insolubility of this conflict. They believe that Pushkin gave an objective picture in the story The Bronze Horseman. History itself judged the eternal conflict between the “builder of the miraculous” Peter the First and the “poor” Eugene - an ordinary citizen with his modest inquiries and dreams. Two truths - a simple man and a statesman - remain equal, and neither is inferior to the other.
Scary events and the poem "The Bronze Horseman"
The story of the creation of the poem is certainly firmlyfits into the cultural and historical context of the time when it was created. These were times of controversy about the place of a person in history and the influence of great transformations on the fate of ordinary people. This topic has worried Pushkin since the end of the 1820s. Based on the documentary information about the flood that occurred in St. Petersburg on November 7, 1824, about which newspapers were printed, a brilliant poet and thinker comes to major philosophical and social generalizations. The personality of the great and brilliant reformer Peter, who "reared Russia" appears in the context of the personal tragedy of the insignificant official Yevgeny with his narrow-bourgeois dreams of his little happiness, not so unconditionally great and worthy of chanting. The poem "The Bronze Horseman" by Pushkin is therefore not limited to the odic praise of the converter that opened the "window to Europe".
Contrast Petersburg
The northern capital came into being thanks to the strong-willedthe decision of Tsar Peter the Great after the victory over the Swedes. Its foundation was intended to affirm this victory, to show the strength and power of Russia, and also to open ways for a free cultural and trade exchange with European countries. The city in which the grandeur of the human spirit, manifested in a strict and slender architectural appearance, speaking symbolism of sculptures and monuments, was felt, appears in the story The Bronze Horseman. The history of creation of Petersburg is based, however, not only on greatness. Built on the “swamp blat” in which the bones of thousands of unknown builders lay, the city is engulfed in an ominous and mysterious atmosphere. The oppressive poverty, high mortality, supremacy and suicide supremacy - this is the other side of the lush crowned capital during the times Alexander Pushkin wrote about. Two faces of the city, appearing through one another, reinforce the mythological component of the poem. The “transparent dusk” of the pale urban lighting gives the inhabitants a feeling that they live in a kind of mysteriously symbolic place where monuments and statues can come to life and with an ominous determination. And with this, to a large extent, is connected with the story of the creation of the "Bronze Horseman". Pushkin, as a poet, could not but occupy such a transformation, which became the culmination of the plot. In the artistic space of the story, a cold bronze monument galloping along the desert pavement came to life, chasing the distraught of grief after the loss of her beloved and the collapse of all hopes of Eugene.
Idea of entry
But before we hear the earth shudderunder the hoof of an iron horse, we have to go through the sad and cruel events that have happened in the life of unfortunate Eugene, who blames the great Builder for putting the city on lands subject to destructive flooding, as well as to realize the bright and majestic introduction, which opens the poem "Copper Rider".
Peter stands on the bank of a wild river, on the waveswhich swings a fragile boat, and dense dark forests roar around, in some places squalid hukhonts huts stick out. But the founder of the northern capital already sees in his mind’s gaze a “marvelous city”, ascended “proudly” and “magnificently” above the granite-clad Neva, a city associated with future state successes and great accomplishments. Pushkin does not name Peter - the emperor is mentioned here with the help of the pronoun “he”, and this underlines the ambiguity of the odic structure of the entry. Reflecting on how Russia will “threaten a Swede” sometime from this place, the great leader doesn’t see the current Finnish fisherman, who threw his old net into the water. The sovereign sees the future in which the ships are directed to the rich marinas from all over the world, but do not notice those who sail in a lone canoe and huddle in rare huts on the shore. Creating a state, the ruler forgets about those for whom it is created. And this painful inconsistency feeds the idea of the Bronze Horseman poem. Pushkin, the story for which was not just a collection of archival documents, but a bridge, thrown into the present and the future, particularly keenly feels and expressively conveys this conflict.
Why was the bronze rider in the mouth of the poet copper?
Дело, конечно, не только в том, что литераторы 19 century did not see a significant semantic difference between bronze and copper. It is deeply symbolic that this is the Bronze Horseman. The story of writing a poem in this case is interlocked with biblical allegory. It is not by chance that the poet calls the statue of Peter “the idol” and “idol” - the same words the authors of the Bible say when telling about the golden calves, which the Jews worshiped instead of the Living God. Here the idol is not even gold, but only copper - so the author reduces the brilliance and grandeur of the image, sparkling with external dazzling luxury, but concealing the inside is not a precious content. These are the subtexts of the story of the Bronze Horseman.
Pushkin can not be suspected of unconditionalsympathy for the sovereign idea. Ambiguous, however, his attitude to the fictional idyll, designed in the dreams of Eugene. The hopes and plans of the “little man” are far from deep spiritual quest, and in this Pushkin sees their limitations.
The climax and the denouement of the plot
After a colorful introduction and declaration of love forPushkin warns the city that further the discussion will deal with the events of the "terrible". A hundred years after what is happening on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, a St. Petersburg official Yevgeny returns home after the service and dreams of his bride Parasha. He is no longer destined to see her, since her, like her modest little house, will be carried away by the “frenzied” waters of the “furious” Neva. When the elements stop, Eugene will rush in search of his beloved and will make sure that she is no longer alive. His mind does not stand the blow, and the young man goes mad. He wanders around the unfriendly city, becomes a target for ridicule of local children, completely forgets the way home. In his troubles, Eugene blames Peter, who built the city in the wrong place and thereby put people in mortal danger. In desperation, a madman threatens a bronze idol: "Oh, you! .." After that inflamed consciousness, he hears a heavy and sonorous "jumping" on the pavement stones and sees the Horseman racing behind him with his outstretched hand. After a while, Eugene is found dead at his doorstep and buried. So ends the poem.
Element as a full hero
What role does the element here play that is notdepends on human will and can destroy everything to the ground? The researchers of the story are convinced that, by separating people, it links the times with some kind of metaphorical cause-effect chain. She united two stories of the story - external and internal - event and symbolic. The conflict of interests as if awakens the energy of the elements, which in the external plan destroys the fate and prevents the happiness of man. The resolution of this conflict lies in the fact that the gap between the greatness of sovereign intentions and the spiritual space of the personality of the common man has been overcome, closed. Such are the problems of Pushkin’s work The Bronze Horseman, the story of the creation of the poem and the beginning of the mystical sequence of Petersburg stories and novels that the creators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries will saturate with Russian literature.
Poem and monument
Opening of the monument to Peter the Great on the SenateSquare in St. Petersburg took place in the late summer of 1782. The monument, impressive grace and grandeur, was put by Catherine II. The sculptors Etienne Falconet, Marie Ann Collot and the Russian master Fedor Gordeyev, who carved a bronze snake under the furious hoof of Petrova horse, worked on the creation of the equestrian statue. At the foot of the statue set a monolith, nicknamed the thunder-stone, its weight was slightly less than two and a half tons (the whole monument weighs about 22 tons). From the place where the boulder was discovered and found to be suitable for the monument, the stone was carefully carried for about four months.
After the publication of the poem by Alexander Pushkin,the hero of which the poet made this particular monument, the sculpture was called the Bronze Horseman. The residents and guests of St. Petersburg have a great opportunity to contemplate this monument, which, without exaggeration, can be called a symbol of the city, almost in the original architectural ensemble.