Report of the poem "The Robber Brothers". "The Robber Brothers" as a romantic work by A.S.

Romanticism.
Romanticism is a kind of reaction to the French Revolution (Charles
Marx).
The Great French Bourgeois Revolution ended the Age of Enlightenment.
Writers, artists, musicians witnessed grandiose historical events, revolutionary upheavals that transformed life beyond recognition. Many of them enthusiastically welcomed the changes and admired the proclamation of the ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
But time passed, and they noticed that the new social order was far from the society whose advent was predicted by the philosophers of the 18th century.
The time has come for disappointment.
In the philosophy and art of the beginning of the century, tragic notes of doubt about the possibility of transforming the world on the principles of Reason sounded. Attempts to escape from reality and at the same time comprehend it gave rise to the emergence of a new ideological system - ROMANTICISM.
Romantics often idealized patriarchal society, in which they saw the kingdom of goodness, sincerity, and decency. Poetizing the past, they retreated into ancient legends and folk tales. Romanticism received its own face in every culture: among the Germans - in mysticism; among the English - in a personality that will oppose itself to reasonable behavior; among the French - in unusual stories. What united all this into one movement - romanticism?
The main task of romanticism was to depict the inner world, mental life, and this could be done using the material of stories, mysticism, etc.
It was necessary to show the paradox of this inner life, its irrationality.
Let's consider the difference between romanticism and classicism and sentimentalism. We will see that classicism divides everything in a straight line, into good and bad, into black and white. Romanticism does not divide anything in a straight line. Classicism is a system, but romanticism is not. Now let's turn to sentimentalism. It shows the inner life of a person, in which it is in harmony with the vast world.
And romanticism contrasts harmony with the inner world.
I would like to turn to the merits of romanticism. Romanticism propelled the advancement of modern times away from classicism and sentimentalism. It depicts the inner life of a person. It is with romanticism that real psychologism begins to appear.
Who is a romantic hero and what is he like?
This is an individualist. A superman who lived through two stages: (1) before colliding with reality; he lives in a “pink” state, he is overcome by the desire for achievement, to change the world. (2) after a confrontation with reality; he continues to consider this world both vulgar and boring, but he becomes a skeptic, a pessimist. Having clearly understood that nothing can be changed, the desire for achievement is reborn into the desire for danger.
I want to note that every culture had its own romantic hero, but
Byron, in his work Childe Harold, gave a typical representation of the romantic hero. He put on the mask of his hero (suggests that there is no distance between the hero and the author) and managed to correspond to the romantic canon.
Now I would like to talk about the signs of a romantic work.
Firstly, in every romantic work there is no distance between the hero and the author.
Secondly, the author does not judge the hero, but even if something bad is said about him, the plot is structured in such a way that the hero is not to blame. The plot in a romantic work is usually romantic. Romantics also build a special relationship with nature; they like storms, thunderstorms, and disasters.

ROMANTICISM IN RUSSIA.
In the 19th century, Russia was somewhat culturally isolated. Romanticism arose seven years later than in Europe. We can talk about his some imitation. In Russian culture, the opposition of man to the world and
God wasn't there. Zhukovsky appears, who remakes German ballads in the Russian way: ‘Svetlana’ and ‘Lyudmila’. Byron's version of romanticism was lived and felt in his work first by Pushkin, then by Lermontov. How did they perceive romanticism? What attracted them? What didn't suit you?
First, I would like to analyze Pushkin’s romantic poems, and then move on to Lermontov.
Let us turn to the poem “Prisoner of the Caucasus”.
The plot of the poem is romantic. Pushkin takes on a romantic hero with a vague biography. It seems that everything is going fine, but upon further reading of the poem we pay attention to the fact that there is a violation in the system of images, the autocracy of the hero. The plot is romantic, the hero is romantic, but Pushkin cannot hide behind him, he begins to be interested in another person - a girl, in the end Pushkin himself, in his own person, ‘gets into’ the end of the poem, giving an analysis of the political situation in the Caucasus. So, three heroes were formed: Pushkin, a Caucasian prisoner, a girl. Attention to another person did not allow Pushkin to correspond to the romantic canon. This is how Pushkin himself says about it: ‘This poem showed only one thing, that I am not fit for romance.’
The Robber Brothers is another failed romantic poem. This poem has a romantic plot. Let's turn to composition. Pushkin begins with a description of the robbers: ‘Kalmyk, ugly Bashkir, And red-haired Finn’,….
‘who with a stone soul has gone through all the degrees of villainy’. After a short preface, Pushkin entrusts the proof of what was said to the robber.
Unexpectedly, the robber emphasizes that he and his brother are unhappy people, they had an orphan childhood, and have no experience of selfless love at all.
Let's identify the discrepancy with the canon. Firstly, the romantic hero is not subject to justice, the robber is not a superman. And, of course, there is a distance between the author and the robber. Pushkin had the gift of attention to people; one can say that he writes this work not so much according to romantic laws, but according to his conscience. But she also showed that Pushkin is not suitable for romance.
I wonder if Pushkin has the most romantic of romantic poems?
Yes, this is the ‘Bakhchisarai Fountain’. The plot of this poem is romantic. But three heroes appear in it: Girey, Zarema and Maria. Giray (and maybe himself
Pushkin) chooses the unromantic Maria. ‘Did Mary’s pure soul appear to me, or did Zarema rush about, breathing with jealousy’. The verb ‘was worn’ evokes negative emotions. But still, in this love triangle situation
Pushkin sympathizes with everyone and allows for the presence of romanticism.
Now I would like to talk about the last failed poem
Pushkin - ‘Gypsies’. The plot of this poem is romantic, but there is a violation in the system of images: the collision of two romantic heroes, unable to love unselfishly, leads to dire consequences. Zemfira's father understands and accepts life with its joys and sorrows. He forgives the murder of his daughter, just as he had previously been able to forgive his wife’s betrayal, but he says to Aleko: “You were not born for a wild fate, you only want freedom for yourself.” We can clearly observe that a trial is taking place over the hero.
Pushkin felt and identified the most vulnerable place of a person’s romantic position: he wants everything only for himself. Later, Pushkin would say: “We all look at Napoleons; two-legged creatures are the only weapon for us.”
Now I would like to move on to Lermontov and turn to the poem
‘Mtsyri’, and then draw general conclusions.
There are two romantic heroes in this poem, therefore, if this is a romantic poem, then it is very unique: firstly, the second hero, Jonathan, is conveyed by the author through an epigraph; secondly, the author does not connect with Mtsyri, we see that the hero solves the problem of self-will in his own way, and Lermontov throughout the entire poem only thinks about solving this problem. He does not judge his hero, but he does not justify him either, but he takes a certain position - understanding. He understands
Mtsyri, but sees the consequences of this behavior, it is not without reason that there is a strangeness in the composition: the conclusion, which stands at the beginning (thus, Lermontov does not impose his thoughts on the reader) speaks of a destroyed monastery and general conciliarity. All this is connected with Mtsyri’s act. It turns out that romanticism in Russian culture is transformed into reflection. It turns out romanticism from the point of view of realism.
So, we can say that Pushkin and Lermontov failed to become romantics (though Lermontov once managed to comply with romantic laws - in the drama Masquerade). With their experiments, the poets showed that in
In England, the position of an individualist could be fruitful, but in Russia it was not.
Although Pushkin and Lermontov failed to become romantics, they opened the way for the development of realism. In 1825, the first realistic work was published: 'Boris Godunov', then 'The Captain's Daughter', 'Eugene Onegin',
‘Hero of our time’ and many others.

Bibliography

To prepare this work, materials from the site were used
http://base.ed.ru

UDC 882.091-1

N.P. Zilina

IDEA STRUCTURE OF THE POEM A.S. PUSHKIN “THE ROBBER BROTHERS”^

Consideration of the ideological structure through the plot, plot-compositional and symbolic levels leads the author to the moral issues of Pushkin’s poem. Analysis of mythopoetic and Christian images that embody the symbolism of death shows that in Pushkin’s depiction, robbery, even as a person’s opposition to social evil and injustice, becomes a deviation from the moral law and ultimately leads to spiritual death.

The analysis of the conceptual structure of the plot and symbols of the poem allows the author to clearly describe moral problems, raised in A. Pushkin's poem. The analysis of mythopoetical and Christian images, and the symbolism of death show that brigandage, as A. Pushkin depicts it, even when perceived as a man's struggle with social vices and injustice, is still a violation of moral laws and, in the end, leads to spiritual destruction.

The idea of the poem “The Robber Brothers,” work on which was carried out in 1821 - 1822, during the period of southern exile, was not fully realized, and its main text, burned by Pushkin, did not reach the reader. The surviving excerpt, published by the author in 1825 in Polar Star, was published as a separate book in 1827, and this gives reason to believe that Pushkin himself considered it a completed work. The theme of robbery, introduced by Pushkin, as V.M. noted. Zhirmunsky, “in the poetry of high style, and in particular in the Russian Byronic poem,” has two associative parallels: the gospel story about the repentant and unrepentant robbers and Schiller’s play “The Robbers,” by that time well known in Russia.

The artistic image that opens Pushkin’s poem uses a technique of folklore origin, called psychological parallelism. Its essence lies in creating a direct or inverse (negative parallelism) “parallel formula”, where “the picture of nature extends its analogies to the picture of human life”:

Not a flock of ravens flocked to piles of smoldering bones, beyond the Volga, at night, around the lights, a gang of daring people gathered.

It is unnecessary to emphasize that the choice of a natural image for comparison with a person is semantically important: it is he who determines the connotative orientation of the entire symbolic figure. In this case this is especially clearly visible. The fact is that the raven is, in popular belief, an unclean (devilish, cursed) and ominous bird associated with the world of the dead. “The chthonic nature of these birds is manifested in their connection with the underworld - with the dead, the souls of sinners and the underworld.” Thus, already at the very beginning of the poem, an axiological attitude arises that determines the further perception of everything depicted.

The poem has a two-part composition: the confession of the main character, which occupies the main volume in the overall plot-compositional space, is preceded by an introductory part, where the story is told on behalf of the narrator, who gives a “collective portrait” - not so much of robbers, but of brigandage as a phenomenon. In the description of the bandit gang, what is first striking is that, made up of people of various nationalities and religions, it looks like a model of an entire country (or even all of humanity):

What a mixture of clothes and faces, Tribes, dialects, states!<...>

Among them one sees a fugitive from the shores of the mysterious Don, and a Jew with black locks, and the wild sons of the steppes, a Kalmyk, an ugly Bashkir, and a red-haired Finn, and a gypsy wandering everywhere with idle laziness!

The desire for freedom without any external restrictions, which attracted such different people here, turns out to be the other side: ethical permissiveness, a complete denial of any moral principles (“Here the goal is the same for all hearts - // They live without power, without law”). The narrator notes the most important thing that connects them all: “Danger, blood, debauchery, deception - // The essence of the bonds of a terrible family.” Motives that could serve as a justification or at least an explanation for the actions of the robbers are not indicated, and in the reader’s mind there is only an image of what the members of the “terrible family” are capable of - the weakest, helpless and defenseless become the objects of their attacks:

The one with the stone soul

Passed through all degrees of villainy;

Who cuts with a cold hand

A widow with a poor orphan,

Who finds it funny when children moan?

He who does not forgive does not have mercy,

Who enjoys murder?

Like a young man of love on a date.

In this generalized “psychological portrait,” the most important role is played by the metaphor of the “stone soul,” directly related to Christian anthropology, where its deep meaning is revealed. When a person completely departs from spiritual life and thereby moves away from God, the captivity of his soul by passions worsens, in the heart - the main organ of the soul - love dries up, resulting in bitterness and petrification, or paralysis of the spirit. t 6, p. 172-173].

From the characterization of the narrator, the reader clearly sees that it is not social protest that underlies the behavior of Pushkin’s “daring”, not the desire to restore justice and punish social evil, but completely different reasons, including an anomaly of a purely mental nature - among those “who enjoy murder” . This is how the traditional image of the noble robber, familiar in

works of world literature and folklore. If among Schiller’s robbers one can distinguish various psychological types, from the highly spiritual to the lowest, then Pushkin leaves the reader no doubt about the moral nature of his characters - this is precisely what V.G.’s remark was connected with. Belinsky: “Eg< разбойники очень похожи на Шиллеровых удальцов третьего разряда (курсив наш. - Н.Ж.) из шайки Карла Моора» .

In the straightforwardness and one-dimensionality with which the collective portrait of Pushkin’s characters is drawn, the definite is manifested in all its glory! This is the moral and ethical position of the narrator, in whose consciousness there is an absolutely unconditional clear boundary between the side of good and the side of evil. All the “activities” of the robbers are clearly defined by the narrator as “villainy,” and they themselves as “criminals”: “And ominous dreams fly // Over their criminal heads.”

This characterization of robbers as a “special tribe”, given in one - negative - pictorial key, projected onto the second part of the poem, highlights, first of all, the “low” principle in the main characters of the poem. The deep-seated reasons for the brothers' departure into a bandit gang are revealed in the analytically merciless confession of the elder brother - the main one of these reasons is envy of people awarded a better share, and the desire to change their fate, even at the cost of crime: “We already knew the needs of the voice, / / We endured the bitter contempt, // And early we were worried // The torment of cruel envy."

The motif of envy in European literature is traditionally traced back to the famous biblical parable of Cain and Abel. The eldest son of Adam and Eve, the first person born on earth, envied his brother and being unable to bear his superiority received from God, became the first murderer [Gen. 4:1 - 22]. It is through this motif in Pushkin’s poem that robbery as a phenomenon is psychologically correlated with the terrible sin of fratricide, embodied in the Bible. Thus, the theme of sin and moral law, which appears at the very beginning of the poem, finds its embodiment in its second part. The most important semantic load in this regard is the image of the forest. Drawing attention to the ambiguity of this image, Yu. Mann writes: “Either the “forest” is correlated with “will”, “the air of the fields” and is opposed to the “stuffy walls” of the prison, “chains” - then it finds itself on a par with “dangerous trade” , “at night”, “murder”, “dance of the dead” and contrasts with “peaceful arable land”. Now the forest is a refuge from pursuit, now it is a source of nightmarish visions. “is two-valued, just as “robber’s liberty” is two-valued.”

Considering everything that has already been said by scientists, it is still necessary to pay attention to one more important detail: in the mythopoetic ideas of the ancients, “the forest is one of the main locations of forces hostile to man; the path to the world of the dead passes through the forest.” It is no coincidence that in the minds of his younger brother the forest is associated with temptation, and in his painful dreams, thinking that his brother has abandoned him, he expresses reproaches and complaints: “Didn’t he himself lure me away from peaceful arable land // into the dense forest // And at night there , powerful and terrible, // Was he the first to teach murder?” . The motive of temptation, the enticement of a pure, inexperienced soul and its inclination to sin has its correspondence in the Gospel, embodied in the famous words of Christ: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck.” and they drowned him in the depths of the sea.

Woe to the world from temptations, for temptations must come; but woe to that man through whom temptation comes” [Matt. 18:6-7].

The most painful memory from the life of a robber, arising in the painful delirium of the younger brother, is the murder of the old man. In symbolic and metaphorical terms, this image can be interpreted as the embodiment of the father lost by his orphan brothers in early childhood. In this case, it becomes clear why this crime burdens the soul of the young man more than others - we are talking about the sin of parricide. A sick imagination again and again reproduces the image of an old man “stabbed to death long ago” by his brothers. Turning to his older brother with a request to spare him, the young man explains: “Don’t torment him - maybe with prayers / / He will soften God’s wrath for us!..”. This is how the motive of conscience reveals itself, directly related to the theme of sin.

In the scientific literature, the opinion has already been expressed that “the romantic problematics of the poem are determined by two motives - the desire of the robbers for freedom in the most general sense of the word and oblivion of conscience, that is, moral depravity.” Continuing his thoughts, the researcher writes: “Freedom and self-will in their connections with humanity - this is the dramatic knot of the poem.” Accepting this idea, it is impossible, however, not to take into account that both freedom and self-will are embodied in the poem not regardless of their ethical content, not as abstract values, but precisely and primarily as categories of Christian philosophy. According to Dahl’s dictionary, where this concept is defined in strict accordance with Christian ideas, “conscience is moral consciousness, moral instinct or feeling in a person; inner consciousness of good and evil; the secret place of the soul, in which approval or condemnation of every action is echoed; the ability to recognize the quality of an action, a feeling that encourages truth and goodness, and turns away from lies and evil; involuntary love for good and truth; innate truth, in varying degrees of development." The “boring torment of the conscience” that took possession of the young man in prison during his illness becomes a manifestation of the highest moral law, which at one time was rejected by him. However, the concept of conscience has real content in the minds of not only the younger, but also the older brother: telling how they decided to change their lot, he notes: “They forgot timidity and sadness, // And they drove away conscience.”

The initial alienation of the main characters from the world, caused by both social and psychological reasons, was not absolute - the final discord in the soul of the older brother occurs after the death of the younger brother, outwardly manifested in complete indifference to former joys: “Feasts, merry nights // And our violent raids - // My brother’s grave took everything.” The loss of a beloved being, the only loved one in the world, not only deprives the main character of the cheerfulness that was inherent in him earlier (“I’m dragging around gloomy, lonely”), but confronts him with the problem of the meaning of life, raising his consciousness to a different level of world perception and comprehension of reality. It is now, already in the hero’s confession, that the metaphor of “petrification” appears again: “My cruel spirit has petrified, // And pity has died in my heart.” But the moral law continues to live in his heart, embodied in the idea of sin: “... I made a sinful prayer // Over my brother’s pit.”

Considering the death of the younger brother as the central event of the poem, M. Kagan comes to the conclusion: “Everything is given in the poem as if repentance is required of us - repentance for the lack of brotherhood as the basis of historical life.” This inherently correct conclusion is preceded by another thought, which is difficult to agree with: “The deceased is no longer a robber, but a victim. The charge against him is dropped: this is how the charge against the entire element of robbery is dropped, and the reasons for what feeds it must be revealed.” It is unnecessary to prove that the idea of total social determination is not applicable to Pushkin’s heroes; they are free and internally strong individuals who make a free choice and therefore bear full responsibility for it. The younger brother's involvement in the sin of murder (the main evidence of which is his sick conscience) forces us to consider him not only as a victim, but also as a criminal.

The author's position, clearly manifested in the depiction of robbery, becomes proof that Pushkin is primarily interested not in the social causes of this phenomenon (they lie on the surface), but in moral and psychological ones. The entire artistic structure of the poem, its entire plot development, leads to a certain conclusion: robbery even as a person’s opposition to social evil and

injustice dooms him to deviate from the moral law and ultimately leads to spiritual death.

The symbolism of death (embodied in the images of a raven, a forest, a stone soul) is most directly related to the phenomenon of robbery, which appears in the poem as the sin of fratricide. The word brother in Russian has not only the meaning of direct, blood relationship (“each of the sons of the same parents, to each other”), but also another, universal meaning - “neighbor, we are all each other.”

Looking at the title of the work from this angle, one can discover new, previously hidden, semantic facets in it. If the first semantic level of the title is limited directly to the plot-plot core of the work, drawing the reader’s attention primarily to its main characters, blood brothers who became robbers, to their lives, their fate, then at the second semantic level the range expands to the scale of all humanity. It is here that the title takes on an oxymoronic sound (brothers are relatives, robbers are enemies), creating fluctuations and a play of meanings: people, being initially brothers to each other, turn into robbers and become enemies. An image emerges of humanity infected with a universal illness, healing from which is possible only under one condition: renunciation of the slavery of sin and a return to the highest moral law - the law of love commanded by the Savior.

Bibliography

1. Pushkin A.S. Complete collection cit.: In 10 volumes. M., 1957. T. 4.

2. Zhirmunsky V.M. Byron and Pushkin. L., 1978.

3. Veselovsky A.N. Psychological parallelism and its forms in reflections of poetic style // Veselovsky A.N. Historical poetics. M., 1989. S. 101 - 154.

4. Slavic antiquities: Ethnolinguistic dictionary: In 5 volumes. M., 1995. Vol. 1.

5. Slavic mythology: Encyclopedic dictionary. M., 1995.

6. Hierotheus (Vlahos), metropolitan. Orthodox psychotherapy: Patristic course of healing the soul. Sergiev Posad, 2004.

7. Belinsky V.G. Collection of works: In 9 volumes. M., 1981. T. 6.

8. Mann Yu.V. Poetics of Russian romanticism. M., 1976.

9. Myths of the peoples of the world: In 2 vols. M, 1991. T. 2.

10. Korovin V.I. Romanticism in Russian literature of the first half of the 20s of the XIX century. Pushkin // History of romanticism in Russian literature: The emergence and establishment of romanticism in Russian literature (1790 - 1825). M., 1979.

11. Dal V.I. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language: In 4 volumes. M., 1955.

12. Kagan M. About Pushkin’s poems // In the world of Pushkin: Sat. articles. M., 1974.

N.P. Zilina - Ph.D. Philol. Sciences, Associate Professor, Immanuel Kant Russian State University, [email protected].

UDC 882.091 (438)

I. Mianowska

PROSE OF RUSSIAN EMIGRATION OF THE THIRD WAVE IN POLISH STUDIES (FAMOUS AND NEW NAMES)

The author characterizes the current state of studying Russian emigrant prose of the last thirty years in Poland, paying special attention to names that are little known to the Polish reader and have not been sufficiently studied. Among them, I. Mianowska singles out Alexander Minchin, who lives in the USA, the creator of erotic-philosophical novels and two books of interviews. A detailed description of Minchin's work and research literature about him is given.

The author presents a survey of contemporary research on Russian immigration prose in Poland during the last thirty years, paying special attention to the names, little known to the Polish reader. Among them the author distinguishes Alexander Minchin, the author of erotic and philosophical novels, who has also written two books of interviews. A. Minchin now lives in the USA. A detailed analysis of A. Minchin's works and related research literature is presented in the article.

Russian foreign literature has become the subject of serious research in Poland only since the late 1980s. In 1990, the research group “Literature of Russian Abroad” at the Jagiellonian University began developing a long-term program, which resulted in three books published in 1993 - 1997. All of them were published under the editorship of Professor L. Suchanek, who proposed the special term “emigrantology”. Nowadays, research related to the literature of Russian emigration, and the third wave in particular, is being conducted at the Department of Russian Studies at the Jagiellonian University.

L. Suchanek believes that the third wave of Russian literary emigration began in 1966, when Valery Tarsis was expelled from the USSR for political beliefs and for publishing works abroad. Russian criticism (V. Agenosov, B. Lanin, D. Myshalova, E. Zubareva and many others) dates the beginning of this wave to the 70s.

Historical, political and personal destinies, aesthetic views, depth of talent, number of translations determined the relatively greater or lesser fame of the third wave emigrant writers in Poland. Among the famous prose writers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was awarded a monograph back in 1994. In the book by I. Kovalskaya-Pasht, which examines the third wave of emigration in a typological aspect, many pages are devoted to autobiographical and documentary prose of the author of the book “Two Hundred Years Together”. L. Suchanek, in a review article devoted to the third wave of emigration and the diversity of views of emigrant writers on Russia, also pays attention to A. Solzhenitsyn ^10]. Among the Polish “emigrantologists” must certainly be named A. Duda - works on V. Maksimov, as well as L. Suchanek - studies on A. Zinoviev and E. Limonov, L. Jankowski - E. Sevele, K. Pietrzycka-Bogusiewicz - about G. Vladimov, A. Vozniak - about A. Terts-Sinyavsky.

One of the first books about prose writers of the third wave of Russian emigration in Poland was a study by Alicia Volodzko, who turned to the prose of V. Maksimov, Z. Zinik, F. Gorenstein, S. Dovlatov,

Y. Milkslavskogk, Y. Aleshkkvskkgk and the lesser known M. Girshina and A. Lvov. This topic is continued by her monograph on the modern development of Russian prose; The researcher's focus is on the works of A. Solzhenitsyn in the 1990s, S. Dkvlatkv as a literary personality, Yu. Druzhnikkv, who exposes the myths of Pavlik Morozov and A. Pushkin. Creativity ^E. Druznikkva generally arouses great interest in Poland. In the series “Russia and Poland on the threshold of the 21st century,” a joint collection “The Phenomenon of Yuri Druzhnikkva” was released. Its authors consider the main task of the emigrant class to be “the reunification of disparate links, various fragments and individual trends of one or another national literature at the international, intellectual level.” At the international conference in Krakow, dedicated to the picture of the world and man in the works of the third literary wave, the work of V. Maksimov and Y. Druznikkva was given a special place.

Dina Rubina, an emigrant since 1990, has also taken her place in Polish studies. By the last decade of the 20th century, Soviet dissidents and dissidents had already managed to leave the USSR. The emigration of Dina Rubinka, as noted in the monograph dedicated to her, was dictated by her self-awareness and sense of national identity; the departure was thought out and carried out for years. In the cultural aspect, the author of the book examines Rubinky’s story “High Water of the Venetians”, the novel “On the Upper Maslovka”, the story “One intellectual sat down on the road”. According to one of the reviewers, “the analysis carried out is acutely problematic, since it does not shy away from a direct discussion of the turns of history described by Rubina; aesthetic because it focuses on issues of craftsmanship, style, artistic tradition; dialogical because the research is carried out in constant connection with the opinions of others; rich in contexts from different eras and cultures...”

Most of the third wave writers found their place in Polish dictionaries and indexes. However, there is not yet a separate encyclopedic publication dedicated to emigrants of the 1970s and 80s, except for a small reference book published in 1995 in Bydgkszcz. It presents the names of seventeen prose writers of the third wave in publications in Russian. Information about each writer includes three sections: “Books,” “Publication in periodicals,” and “Literature about the writer’s work.” The index includes data up to June 1994. Since the directory is already outdated, it would be advisable to compile a new one, including new names, covering new archival materials.

The emigrant writers of the third literary wave deservedly entered Polish textbooks in the 90s of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. In Russia and Poland, Russian literature of the twentieth century is considered as a single process with several “branches”. In the textbooks edited by A. Dravich, S. Pkremba and G. Pkrembina, I. Myankvsky, B. Mucha, the literature of the third wave of the exodus was reflected to a lesser or greater extent, and a selective analysis of the work of a number of writers of the 1970s and 80s was carried out. The book, edited by Professor L. Suchanek in 2004, deserves special mention, comprehensively covering geography, history, religion, language, culture, art, theater, cinema, music, as well as literature of Russia from the 11th to the end of the 20th century. This is the first academic publication in Poland that covers such a wide range of Russian studies, including the literature and culture of Russian emigration. I would like to believe that thanks to the recently opened access to memoirs and archival materials, a textbook on Russian literature of the twentieth century will finally appear in Poland, taking into account the extensive experience of emigration, satisfying the needs of not only researchers, but primarily students who will willingly study the work of Russian emigrants.

There remained, however, a large circle of authors of the third wave, little studied or not studied at all. Among the unknown prose writers in Poland it is worth mentioning Eduard Topol, mentioned only in the “Lexicon” translated into Polish by the German V. Kazak, as well as Boris Sichkin. It is a pity that the books of Topol and Sichkin (and the latter’s humor, without exaggeration, can be compared with Babel’s) were ignored by the translators. Sergei Yurjenen is little known in Poland, having so far received only one article analyzing the “imperial” theme in his work 1351.

Among the unknown (I think, not only in Poland) prose writers of the third wave of emigration, it is worth mentioning Alexander Minchin (aka Alexander Mirchev, aka Alexander Nevin), who became famous first in America, and in the 1990s in Russia. His name is not in reference books, dictionaries or indexes - both Russian and Polish. Graduate of two universities - Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. Lenin and the University of Michigan - he has been in exile since 1977. In 1981, he made his debut with the novel Psycho (1981), about the horrors of the Soviet

repressive psychiatry and soon continued the theme in the acclaimed novel “Faculty of Pathology.” Minchin’s work is discussed in detail in a monograph dedicated to him, the author of which identified two main themes of the writer’s work: “the pathology of life” and “a woman in a man’s life,” which, according to I. Skrkkpankvoy, Minchin usually directs to criticize totalitarian orders.

Minchin is a Nabokov fan, which is obvious in all of his work. He calls himself an “American Russian writer”, since his books are written in Russian and English. Several of his novels are named after women: “Natalia”, “Eugenia”, “Lita” (truncated “Lolita”), and one of the characters is given the surname Sirin. Minchin's goal, according to the reviewer, is “...not an apology for debauchery, but a statement of the philosophy of hedonism.” At the same time, Minchin, as noted in the monograph, was unable, either in depicting the psychology of his characters or in other aspects, to even come close to the masterly nuance of the great novelist of the 20th century. However, he wrote his own page in the book of Russian foreign literature and deserves that this page not be forgotten.

In this sense, one cannot ignore Minchin’s book “Twenty Interviews,” published in Moscow in 2001. It is partly based on the material of the New York book “Fifteen Interviews” (1989), published under the pseudonym A. Mirchev and including conversations with the largest cultural figures of the 20th century - O. Efremov (the book is dedicated to his memory), Yu. Lyubimov, N. Mikhalkov, L. Navrozov, I. Brodsky, E. Neizvestny, u. Styron, K. Vonnegut, Jacqueline Bisset.

Let us note that in his works of art Minchin devotes a lot of space to Russian and foreign literature. Both Russian heroes and Americans show interest in Russian literature in his prose. This unique treatise on Russian literature was continued by Minchin in “Twenty Interviews”. In a self-interview, he introduces himself as an expert on Russian and foreign literature. It is impossible not to notice that Minchin is again approaching his beloved Nabokov, the author of lectures on Russian literature. But Nabokov never wrote about the outstanding figures of his era (Akhmatova, Bulgakov, Mandelstam and others), while Minchin in his interviews turns to contemporary writers. The most important value that Minchin ultimately finds is freedom: “I paid dearly for it: with loved ones, language, culture, friends, the world of my youth, the sweetest in my memories.”

The main plot of Minchin's latest novels ("Actress", "Lita", "Girl from the Screen") is sex, refined eroticism, with a desire for originality, turning into cynicism and rudeness. Following O. Dark, who calls the three vices of eroticism - metaphorical, romantic and culturally destructive (directed against norms of behavior), we can define the eroticism of “Girls from the Screen” as refined and perverted. “The Second American Sirin”, a poseur who expresses contempt for everyday morality, declaring Nabokov as his predecessor, parodies, first of all, himself. Descriptions

nudity, sexual acts reduced to bodily mechanics, and the abundance of obscene language depresses the reader. The heroes of his works often commit suicide (“Psycho,” “Eugenia,” “Girl from the Screen”). Minchin's Psychic Odyssey continues; each new novel of his becomes a risky experiment. But the object of analysis can be not only masterpieces, but also simply texts that reflect modern life in the mirror of literary talent. And there, in the words of B. Okudzhava, “everyone writes how he breathes.”

At the international conference in Olomunets in 2005, the name of another representative of the Russian emigration was mentioned - Slava Kurilov, who lived in Israel. Russian-language literature in Israel is an important phenomenon, but it has been studied very little. Kurilov, according to V. Aksenov, “belonged to a small tribe of daredevils who dared against the vile authorities.” This “enchanted wanderer” (definition by S. Ignatova), author of the documentary novel “Alone on the Ocean,” in search of spiritual freedom, plans to escape while traveling on a Soviet tourist liner. The “spiritual wanderer”, “spiritual seer”, mystic tries in his work to justify man, to know him ontologically, to maintain a balance between the spiritual, astral and etheric bodies. Everything he writes about is an allegory of spiritual journeying. In his novel, Kurilov showed how a conscious departure from the world of everyday life into esotericism occurs, in which the human soul joins its ancestral home - the world cosmic element.

Thus, Polish “emigrantology” continues to cover an increasingly wide range of unknown names in the literature of the third wave of Russian emigration, bearing in mind that only in the relationship between the known and the unknown can one truly appreciate the versatility of the creative aspirations of writers of different destinies and creative individuals.

Bibliography

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13. Suchanek L. Parias i heros: Twórczosc Eduarda Limonowa. Krakow, 2001.

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15. Pietrzycka-Bohosiewicz K. W poszukiwaniu autentyzmu: Twórczosc prozatorska Georgija Wladimowa. Krakow, 1999.

16. Wozniak A. Uluda i cud w swiecie sztuki Andrieja Siniawskiego - Abrama Terca. Lublin, 2004.

17. Wolodzko A. Pasierbowie Rosji. O prozaikach trzeciej emigracji. Warsaw, 1995.

18. Wolodzko-Butkiewicz A. Od pieriestrojki do laboratoriów netliteratury: Przemiany we wspólczesnej prozie rosyjskiej. Warsaw, 2004.

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I. Myanowska - Doctor of Philology. Sciences, University. Casimir the Great, Bydgoszcz (Poland), [email protected]

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“The Robber Brothers” as a romantic work by A.S. Pushkin

brother the robber poem Pushkin

Introduction

1.1 "Robber Brothers"

4.1 Night and robbers

4.2 Prison

4.3 Nature after the escape

5.1 First version

5.2 Second version

5.3 Third version

Conclusion

Introduction

Previous studies of this topic based on the poem “The Robber Brothers”.

June 13, 1936 at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen, a PhD thesis was defended on the topic “The Robber Brothers” by Pushkin by graduate student V.A. Zakrutkin. The poem “Robber Brothers,” noted V.A. in his speech. Zakrutkin, has not yet been the subject of special research. The reasons for Pushkin’s destruction of the unfinished poem, the style and social functions of the published excerpt were not established. Researchers of “The Robber Brothers” have not yet gone further than studying the text of the poem itself and its comparison with Byron’s “eastern” poems.

Let's start with the fact that the theme of “robbery” was very popular in European literature and understanding “The Robber Brothers” is impossible without studying the history of the development of “robbery” genres in European and Russian literature, without taking into account the specific historical situation that determined the content of the poem, without taking into account the robbery folklore of the serf peasantry and determining the degree of its influence on the poem, without studying the style and social functions of the poem and determining its place both in the general literary background and in the work of Pushkin himself. The figures of robbers were depicted in different ways: part of the German burghers (Goethe and Schiller of the era of Sturmund Drang "a, Kleist) and advanced representatives of the English nobility gave in their work an artistic image of a robber-fighter who hated the “vile world” around him, a romantic image of an exile rejected by the law , who opposed himself to the “world of slaves” and established “trampled justice” on earth through robberies; on the other hand, the reactionary part of the German burghers (Zschocke, Spiess, Kramer, Kotzebue) and the English aristocracy (Walpole, Radcliffe, Lewis) - created the image of a robber - a villain drenched in the blood of his victims, a criminal who violates the “laws of morality.” In addition to these two main ways of developing “robber genres,” the European petty bourgeoisie and its suppliers cultivated the pulp novel of “mysteries and horrors,” replete with plot intricacies, incredible adventures and fantasy ( Vulpius, Marechal, Buchholz). In Russian noble literature of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The image of the robber did not receive artistic embodiment, since it was considered “an object unworthy of poetry.” Representatives of the “third estate” Chulkov and M. Komarov created original works about robbers, but only the translated “robber novel” was widespread in pre-Pushkin literature. At the same time, as in the folk art of Western European countries (the legends of Robin Hood, Simplicissimus, Ulenspiegel), the “robber” song has long been widespread in the Russian folklore of the serf peasantry, which created the image of the robber-hero, intercessor, avenger of the people’s grief.

In general, the poem is an excerpt - an introduction to the large poem “Robbers”, destroyed by Pushkin himself. The poet wrote on June 13, 1823. A. Bestuzhev, who together with Ryleev published the almanac “Polar Star”: “I burned the robbers - and rightly so. One passage survived in the hands of Nikolai Raevsky; if domestic sounds: tavern, whip, prison - do not frighten the tender ears of the readers of “Polar Star”, then print it." Two plans for the poem “The Robbers” have been preserved, that it was a romantic poem (somewhat reminiscent of Byron’s “Corsair”), in which the ataman of the Volga robbers acted as a tragic, gloomy and disappointed hero. The action of the poem, judging by the first plan, developed in this way: the chieftain has disappeared, the captain is worried. The chieftain's mistress cries and persuades the robbers to go in search and help him. They sail along the Volga and sing. Apparently they find him - this is not mentioned in the plan. A merchant ship is crashed near Astrakhan, the ataman falls in love with the merchant's daughter and takes her prisoner. The former lover is going crazy with jealousy. The new one does not love him and soon dies (the plan does not indicate why). Embittered by these misfortunes, the chieftain “indulges in all sorts of atrocities” and dies as a victim of the betrayal of the captain. There was no episode about the robber brothers yet in this early plan.

About its origin, Pushkin himself wrote to Vyazemsky on November 11, 1823: “A true incident gave me a reason to write this passage. In 1820, while I was in Yekaterinoslavl, two robbers, chained together, swam across the Dnieper and were saved. Their rest on an island, drowning I did not invent one of the guards." At first, Pushkin wanted to make a small ballad out of this, a “Moldavian song” like “The Black Shawl”:

We were two brothers, we grew up together,

And we spent our miserable youth in need...

The final verses of the passage, not included in the printed text:

He fell silent and with a wild head,

The robber drooped in sorrow,

And he cried like a burning river,

A ferocious face lit up.

Laughing, the comrades said:

You are crying! that's enough, give up your sorrows,

Why remember the dead?

We are alive: we will feast,

Well, treat your neighbor to your neighbor!

And the mug went around again;

The conversation died down for a moment,

Revived again by wine;

Everyone has their own story,

Everyone praises his well-aimed flail.

Noise, scream. Conscience lies dormant in their hearts:

She will wake up on a rainy day.

“The Robber Brothers” was conceived by Pushkin as a large work from the life of the Volga robbers, which received artistic embodiment in a variety of peasant songs, fairy tales and legends.

Since before Pushkin there were almost no stories, much less poems, about robbers in Russian literature, Pushkin needed to create an image of a Russian robber, to imagine what he was like, what subjected him to such a life.

The poet often adds a national touch to his works and characters, and he also does the same in “The Robber Brothers,” while making it a romantic work.

Chapter 1. Pushkin’s creation of a nationality and a special style of his works. "The Robber Brothers" as a romantic work

Pushkin collected, recorded, and studied works of folk art. Already a famous poet, he had to live for two years on his father’s Pskov estate - the village of Mikhailovskoye. He spent long winter evenings with his old nanny Arina Rodionovna and, as in childhood, listened with enthusiasm to her “fables, epics.” “What a delight these tales are! Each one is a poem!” - he wrote to his brother. “What a luxury, what a meaning, what a point in every saying of ours! What gold!” - he told the writer V.I. I will.

The life of his native people, his grandmother’s stories, his nanny’s fairy tales - all this sank into the poet’s memory and soul and became a powerful source of creativity.

He later wrote about the nanny's tales:

She was a craftswoman,

And where did you get what from?

Where are jokes reasonable?

Sentences, jokes,

Fables, epics,

Orthodox antiquity!..

It’s so heart-warming to listen,

And I wouldn’t drink or eat,

Everyone would listen and sit.

Who came up with them so well?

Pushkin's fairy tales reflected the rich experience, wisdom of the people and the colorful world of folk fantasy, and the folk language sounded in all its beauty.

In 1820, his first poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” was published. He turns to ancient Russian legends, reads with delight “The History of the Russian State” by N.M. Karamzin, Russian chronicles. Later he created the tragedy “Boris Godunov”, dedicated to historical events of the late 16th century, a historical novel from the era of Peter “Arap of Peter the Great”, poems “Poltava” and “The Bronze Horseman”.

In all these works, folk life, Russian life and customs, characters and the richness of the language are widely and fully presented. They can rightly be called folk. Pushkin's work absorbed the achievements of all previous Russian poetry. “The poet’s predecessors relate to him as small and great rivers relate to the sea, which is filled with their waves,” wrote Belinsky. Most Russian writers of the 19th century experienced his fruitful influence. Pushkin’s nationality seemed to be passed on to other authors by inheritance. “Everything good I have, I owe it all to him,” said Gogol. Turgenev called himself a student of Pushkin. Leo Tolstoy also noted the influence of Pushkin’s prose on his work. Pushkin completed the process of creating the Russian national literary language. “There are few words,” Gogol writes about his style, “but they are so precise that they mean everything. There is an abyss of space in every word; every word is immense, like a poet.”

Nationality in a writer is a virtue that may well be appreciated by some compatriots - for others it either does not exist, or may even seem like a vice. Climate, mode of government, faith give each people a special physiognomy, which is more or less reflected in the mirror of poetry. There is a way of thinking and feeling, there is a darkness of customs, beliefs and habits that belong exclusively to some people.

1.1 "Robber Brothers"

"The Robber Brothers" differs from other romantic poems in its style and language. Pushkin moves from a romantically elevated lyrical style to a lively vernacular (it was not without reason that he joked in a letter to Bestuzhev about the “tender ears of female readers”). In some places in the poem, Pushkin tries to get closer to the style of a folk song (the poems “Ah youth, daring youth” and so on), and these vernacular and folk expressions, unlike “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” are devoid of comic overtones.

In addition to the attempt to approach the folk language and style, the very content of the poem was also significant in “The Robber Brothers”. Peasants who became robbers due to extreme poverty - this was a hot topic at that time. The central episodes of the poem - prison, the thirst for liberation and escape from prison - found a warm response in the hearts of progressive readers, who even saw an allegorical meaning in this.

This poem has a romantic plot. Let's turn to composition. Pushkin begins with a description of the robbers: “A Kalmyk, an ugly Bashkir, and a red-haired Finn, who with a stony soul went through all the degrees of villainy.

After a short preface, Pushkin trusts the evidence told to the robber. Unexpectedly, the robber emphasizes that he and his brother are unhappy people, they had an orphan childhood, and have no experience of selfless love at all. Let's identify the discrepancy with the canon. Firstly, the romantic hero is not subject to jurisdiction, the robber is not a superman. And, of course, there is a distance between the author and the robber. Pushkin had the gift of attention to people; one can say that he writes this work not so much according to romantic laws, but according to his conscience.

Essentially, “The Robber Brothers,” no matter how different they are from Pushkin’s other southern poems, is a completely romantic work, but the poem “The Robber Brothers” carries in its content and style the original elements of Pushkin’s realism.

The heroes are of a romantic nature - two brothers-robbers, inseparable and loving each other, placing themselves outside the usual norms and usual morality.

Features of romanticism are also visible in the plot: poetry of freemen and a rebellious spirit, captivity-prison, escape from prison to freedom, terrible torment and visions of the hero, his death, presented in romantic tones: “He called me, shook my hand, his extinguished gaze depicted the overwhelming torment ; his hand trembled, he sighed and fell asleep on my chest.” All this does not exclude the bright originality of “The Robber Brothers”. This work is romantic, but for Pushkin it marked a search for new paths in romantic art.

Chapter 2. Description and creation of the image of the two main characters of the poem

From the dissertation of V.A. Zakrutkina:

The historical background of “The Robber Brothers” by V.A. Zakrutkin considers, first of all, “the real features of Novorossiysk and Bessarabian reality.” New Russia and Bessarabia in the 20s of the 19th century. were places where, after their conquest by the tsarist government, thousands of serfs poured in, fleeing from their landowners. To the attempts of the government and landowners to partly enslave the fugitives in new places, and partly to return them to their former owners, the peasants responded with both a major uprising in the Yekaterinoslav province (which Pushkin witnessed) and numerous robberies that terrorized the Bessarabian landowners for decades.

Looking closely at the specific features characteristic of the Bessarabian robbers and their adventures, Pushkin chose serfs who fled from the landowner to the “green oak forest” as the heroes of his poem. Thanks to this, Pushkin, for the first time in Russian literature, touched upon a topic of great social urgency that was unusual at that time, a topic that obliged him to raise the question of poetic language, the possibility of enriching literary speech with vocabulary, syntax and poetics of folk art, which found its place in “ Brother-robbers."

With the “robber brothers” Pushkin opened a series of works that ran through all his work, in which the image of a Protestant robber, an avenger for social injustice, either in the form of a serf, running with a knife in his hands from the master’s plow, or in the form of a nobleman, armed robbery protesting against arbitrariness, received its artistic embodiment.

Pushkin's poem was not alone in Russian literature of the 19th century. The image of a robber, expressing a protest against slavery, personifying a living desire for freedom, was of interest to advanced noble writers associated with Decembrism (A. Bestuzhev) and its traditions (early Yazykov, Lermontov), representatives of the liberal nobility, who rose to the height of sharp satire against feudal reality ( Narezhny) and revolutionary democrats (Nekrasov). On the other hand, representatives of the “official nationality” created their own type of “robber” genres; the line of these genres, begun by Skobelev, found its completion in “The Robber Churkin” by Pastukhov.

There are also several more interesting facts and versions about the two robber brothers.

“...A true incident gave me the reason to write this passage. In 1820, when I was in Yekaterinoslavl, two robbers, chained together, swam across the Dnieper and escaped. Their rest on the island and the drowning of one of the guards were not invented by me.”

It is believed that Pushkin conceived the poem “The Robber Brothers” during his stay in Yekaterinoslav in May 1820, after witnessing the escape described in it. True, at one time there was a version in scientific circles that ignored the personal confession of the poet, that the plot was connected with the escape of two robbers from a Chisinau prison. It was argued even by such a famous researcher of Pushkin’s life as D. Blagoy.

Pushkin never said that he personally saw the escape. It is possible that, as historians mention, the poet was told about the incident at a dinner with Vice-Governor Shemiot. Pushkin became interested and the next day went, as they say, to the crime scene. Trying to follow the brothers’ path to the island, he caught a cold and came down with a high fever. This cold, in fact, was the reason for the premature, with the permission of the trustee, office of guardianship of the Novorossiysk foreign settlers of General I.N. Inzov, the departure of the exiled poet from Yekaterinoslav (June 5).

It is believed that these brothers were the side sons of the landowner Zasorin, acquired from a serf peasant woman and former famous peasant rebels.

It is interesting that after their successful escape, the Zasorin brothers led one of the most powerful peasant uprisings, which during their stay in the city of Pushkin literally shook the Ekaterinoslav province. This uprising was the largest after the Pugachevism of 1773-1775. The fact is that in the 20s of the XIX century. Novorossia and Bessarabia were places where, after their conquest by the tsarist government, thousands of serfs poured in, fleeing from their landowners. To the government’s attempts to partly enslave the fugitives in new places, and partly to return them to their former owners, the peasants responded with both a major uprising in the Yekaterinoslav province (which Pushkin witnessed) and numerous robberies that terrorized the landowners for decades. The entire province was flooded with troops. In Yekaterinoslav itself, prisons were overcrowded. Well, after that the restless brothers started an uprising on the Don.

The strange thing is that, having written the poem, Pushkin burned it, which he had never done with his works either before or after. Only individual chapters and a general plan remain. This mystery, unfortunately, will never be solved. But the remaining chapter about the Ekaterinoslav freemen became a kind of ideological anthem of the Decembrists.

Chapter 3. Techniques for creating Pushkin’s brothers’ robber life and freedom

Ideas of freedom permeate all of Pushkin's lyrics. Their content is replenished, rethought and modified throughout the poet’s entire creative path. So, for example, in the early period of his literary activity, during his lyceum years, the ideas of freedom were imbued with the spirit of independence and rebellion, fervor. And this is no coincidence: Pushkin was greatly influenced by the special atmosphere of the lyceum, where independence of judgment and action was cultivated among lyceum students. A significant role was also played by the fact that he was the unloved child in the family, and he apparently lacked communication with his elders.

Pushkin touches on issues of serfdom and autocracy, so it makes sense to talk about the development in his work of ideas related specifically to political freedom. The problem of freedom and slavery, freedom and tyranny is now the central world problem; it has always been the central theme of Russian philosophy and Russian literature. Pushkin is, first of all, a singer of freedom.

The fullness of life, the fullness of personality is the fullness of creative freedom. Anyone who has not experienced it cannot philosophize about freedom. And Pushkin depicts this experience at all its degrees: from simple self-movement and spontaneity of life, from the unconditional reflex of liberation characteristic of all living things, from the unconscious instinct of freedom - right up to the highest consciousness of creative freedom as service to the Divine, as a response to the Divine call. There is no word more often found in Pushkin’s poetry than liberty and freedom; and there seems to be no more meaningful word in the human language; and so, truly, he unfolds all its meanings, allows one to experience all the diversity, inexhaustibility and contradictoriness of freedom. Everything that he denies and hates is associated with bondage, violence, coercion, tyranny, autocracy. Everything that he loves, values, admires, that attracts his attention, is connected with freedom, is its embodiment, its symbol, or itself.

But of course, it is not just spontaneous or individual, creative freedom that Pushkin praises; he knows that it is inseparably connected with civil and political freedom. In it lies the true strength and glory of nations.

In the poem “The Robber Brothers” he does not talk about freedom as freedom of speech or freedom of movement. Everything here is much more complicated, this is inner freedom, freedom of the soul, mind, heart. Two brothers grew up orphans, in poverty and hunger. They wanted to understand what it means to be an independent person, not materially, but spiritually. Do not depend on your position in life, on suffering, on the cruelty of fate. The two brothers were happy, all they had was themselves, and it seemed that nothing else was needed.

It’s wonderful when you don’t need wealth, or a higher position in society, or other things that people so often fixate on and make them more important than simple human relationships. If only someone closest and understanding was nearby.

A brother had a brother, and when one died, for the second the life of a bandit now became only a way to exist. Somewhere that passion, that desire disappeared, everything was no longer the same as before, the freedom of soul and consciousness was gone.

Chapter 4. Creating the color of the natural landscape, prison, and other places where the poem takes place

The poem has several vivid descriptions: night and robbers around the fire, prison and a description of nature after the escape.

4.1 Night and robbers

Pushkin describes them in general terms, without singling out anyone separately. Although of course they are all different, they are all different from each other, but they are united by one goal. They all “live without power, without law.”

What a mixture of clothes and faces,

Tribes, dialects, states!

From huts, from cells, from prisons,

They flocked together to make money!

The poet also notes that they may be thieves and murderers. They do not spare other people for the sake of money, for the sake of profit, they respect each other, are not afraid to sleep at night, share food, stolen goods, listen to each other with interest and accept new people, such as one of the heroes of the poem.

4.2 Prison

There is no description of the prison itself in the text of the poem, but in the conversation between the brothers, one of them describes life in freedom, which is contrasted with bars and walls. Reading about freedom, you immediately feel hatred for confinement, you understand the feelings of two people, free by nature, who are not accustomed to it.

“It’s stuffy here... I want to go to the forest...

He said: “Where have you hidden?

Where did you direct your secret path?

Why did my brother leave me?

In the midst of this stinking darkness?

Isn't he himself from peaceful arable lands,

He lured me into a dense forest,

And at night there, powerful and terrible,

Did you teach me murder first?

Now he is free without me,

One is walking in an open field,

He waves his heavy flail,

And I forgot in an enviable lot,

It's about a friend at all!.."

4.3 Nature after the escape

Nature, as in every work, is important here; it repeats, or even copies the feelings and emotional excitement of the characters.

It is assumed that the robber brothers swam across the Dnieper. At the moment of their escape, the river was agitated, just like them. They had been preparing their escape for a long time, and their hearts were filled with so many emotions.

Fulfill a long-standing desire;

The river rustled to the side,

We come to her - and from the high banks,

Bang! swam in deep waters.

But still, the river is not their ally; the younger brother dies because of it. The Dnieper seems to warn of future misfortune.

And labor and waves of autumn cold,

He was deprived of his recent strength:

Again his illness broke him,

And evil dreams visited.

Chapter 5. Several facts about the real-life brothers whom Pushkin saw

There are three versions about the location of the escape.

5.1 First version

Researcher Mikhail Shatrov (Stein) in his book “The City on Three Hills” (1965) names the main prison of Yekaterinoslav, which was then located on Ostrozhnaya Square (where the Opera and Ballet Theater is now), as the place of escape. These were four massive buildings near the Dnieper. True, the river in this place is very different from the one described in the poem.

The Dnieper bank near that fort is not high, but gently sloping, and the Dnieper is quiet, not noisy, in these places. And not an island, but a wide sandy spit, memorable to the older generations of Dnepropetrovsk residents, lay here a hundred meters from the right bank... Behind it is the wide blue road of the main Dnieper channel and the distant, alluring left bank of the saving forest thicket. To dare to overcome the sleeve, and even in the conditions of a chase, you need to be excellent, strong and courageous swimmers.

5.2 Second version

The area in Mandrykovka, where Pushkin is believed to have settled in one of the huts of the “Gypsy Kut”, seemed to look much more: here the bank is steeper, and the river is noisy and rapids.

Grigory Meklenburtsev writes: “In Mandrykovka, near the Dnieper, there was a prison from which, during Pushkin’s stay, two brothers of the prisoner, side children of the landowner Zasorin, escaped, about whom Alexander Sergeevich wrote the famous poem “The Robber Brothers.” Nowadays the estate belongs to Mr. Kulabukhov, who has the data for all the above” (“Dnieper Region”, 1899, February 6, No. 392).

5.3 Third version

Around the estate where the poet lived, there was a wide, overgrown meadow steppe, with three windmills in the distance. There was a sandbank near Stanovoy Island, 80-90 meters from the shore. Stanovoy Island (later Vorontsovsky Island, since Count Vorontsov-Dashkov became its owner) was covered with forest, and nearby there were small nameless islands and the Silver Spit. The rocky banks of the Dnieper were covered with bushes, steep slopes among large boulders led to the shore. Escape in such conditions was much more realistic. And the narrower branch of the river and the presence of islands made things much easier.

However, the poet did not claim that the brothers escaped from prison. The escape took place while:

“One day we walked along the streets,

In chains, for the city jail,

We collected alms together.”

And during the “feeding” the stage could end up at the Mandrykovskaya settlement, where the island comes very close to the shore.

After the construction of the Dneprodzerzhinsk dam in 1960. the water flooded the small islands and the spit where the robber brothers took a break. The current sandbank, stretching along the Grebnoy Canal, was created in the 70s. So the area completely changed its appearance.

We beat the waves with friendly feet,

We see a sandy island,

And, cutting through the fast current,

We're heading there.

But we are already setting foot on the island,

We break the shackles with a stone,

We tear shreds of each other's clothes,

Weighed down by water...

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, this is a very interesting work that deserves attention. The brothers may be robbers, but Pushkin managed to show them on the good side, that they also know how to be sensitive and caring. I think the readers even show some kind of sympathy and sympathy for them.

The poem is not large, but Pushkin managed to fit into it so many of his ideas and thoughts, both Decembrist plans, serfdom and his favorite theme of freedom.

By the way, the poet embodied the idea of the work “Robbers” in the poem “Bakhchisarai Fountain”.

Conclusion of the speech by V.A. Zakrutkina:

Pushkin’s positive attitude towards his hero and the features of social protest in the actions of the robber contributed to the fact that “The Robber Brothers” played a large role in strengthening the political mood of the Decembrists, who placed Pushkin’s poem on a par with the most acute poems of Ryleev. The essence of “The Robber Brothers” determined the history of critical understanding of the poem: if Ryleev, Bestuzhev, Belinsky, Ogarev, Chernyshevsky highly appreciated the poem precisely for its deep pathos of struggle, effectiveness and realistic features, then reactionary criticism saw Pushkin’s hero as having illegally appeared in literature “ the farmer who slashes those he meets and crosses,” “the criminal,” and “the villain.”

Bibliography

1. Publisher: Classic Book Fund, 2009. Series "Classics Book Fund". Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich (1799-1837)

2. Article from the magazine “KP”, candidate of art history Sergei Revsky answered questions

3. Dissertation on “The Robber Brothers” by V.A. Pushkin. Zakrutkin

5. Article. B.P. Vysheslavtsev. The variety of freedom in Pushkin's poetry

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