Love, hope, quiet glory The deception did not last long for us, The youthful amusements disappeared, Like a dream, like the morning fog; But desire still burns within us; Under the yoke of fatal power, the impatient soul of the Fatherland listens to the call. We wait with languorous hope for the holy moment of freedom, Just as a young lover waits for the minute of a faithful meeting. While we are burning with freedom, While our hearts are alive for honor, My friend, let us dedicate our Souls to beautiful impulses to the fatherland! Comrade, believe: she will rise, the Star of captivating happiness, Russia will rise from her sleep, And on the ruins of autocracy They will write our names!
The verse “To Chaadaev” is considered the anthem of the Decembrists. Pushkin did not plan to publish it. But written down from the poet’s words during a reading in a narrow circle of friends, the verse was passed from hand to hand until it was published in the almanac “Northern Star” in 1929. Thanks to this verse, Pushkin, who was friendly with many Decembrists, gained the reputation of a freethinker, as a result of which the poet twice went into exile, where he was sent by Tsar Alexander I.
Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev was one of Pushkin’s close friends from the poet’s lyceum years. They had many things in common, although their positions did not always coincide throughout their many years of friendship. But in 1818, the young poet saw in his older friend a man wise with life experience, endowed with a sharp and, at times, sarcastic mind, and most importantly, with freedom-loving ideals that were so in keeping with Pushkin’s mood.
Chaadaev, like many of the poet’s lyceum friends, was a member of the secret Decembrist society “Union of Welfare,” although he subsequently distanced himself from this movement, taking his own very unique position on the issue of state power and the future fate of Russia. For the publication of the “Philosophical Letter”, in which these views were set out, Chaadaev was declared crazy by the government - this is how the autocracy fought against dissent and love of freedom.
The verse “To Chaadaev” begins with lines in which Pushkin recalls his carefree youth:
Love, hope, quiet glory
Deception did not last long for us,
The youthful fun has disappeared
Like a dream, like morning fog.
The poet takes a broad look at the world, which makes him feel responsible for what is happening to his native country. Therefore, he calls on both his friend and all the free-thinking youth of Russia to devote their lives to their homeland. Pushkin expresses the hope that autocracy will be destroyed, that Russia will become a free country and will not forget those who fought against autocracy.
While we are burning with freedom,
While hearts are alive for honor,
My friend, let's dedicate it to the fatherland
Beautiful impulses from the soul!
Comrade, believe: she will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from its sleep,
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names!
History of creation. The poem was written in 1818 - during the St. Petersburg period of Pushkin’s work. It became widely known, especially in Decembrist circles, and began to be distributed in lists. It was for these poems that Pushkin fell into disgrace - he ended up in southern exile. Much later, in 1829, without the poet’s knowledge, this poem was published in a distorted form in the almanac “Northern Star”.
The poem is addressed to a specific person: Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev (1794-1856), one of Pushkin’s close friends from his lyceum years. In addition to this poem, Pushkin’s messages to “Chaadaev” (1821), “Chaadaev” (1824) were addressed to him. The poet had a long-term friendship with Chaadaev: they were both characterized by freedom-loving sentiments, a desire to change life in Russia, and unconventional thinking. Chaadaev, like many of the poet’s lyceum friends, was a member of the secret Decembrist society “Union of Welfare,” although he subsequently distanced himself from this movement, taking his very unique position on the issue of state power and the future fate of Russia, for the publication of the “Philosophical Letter,” in which these views were presented, Chaadaev was declared crazy by the government - this is how the autocracy fought against dissent and love of freedom. Pushkin’s positions, especially in his mature years, did not always coincide with the thoughts of Chaadaev, but in 1818 the young poet saw in his older friend a man wise with life experience, endowed with a sharp and sometimes sarcastic mind, and most importantly, with freedom-loving ideals that were so in keeping with Pushkin’s mood.
Genre and composition.
Pushkin's lyrics are characterized by a desire to transform established genres. In this poem we see a manifestation of such innovation: a friendly message addressed to a specific person develops into a civil appeal to the entire generation, which also includes the features of an elegy. Typically, a poem in the genre of a message is addressed either to a friend or to a lover and is related in theme to intimate lyrics. By changing the addressee of his poem, Pushkin creates a work that is new in genre - a civil message. That is why its construction is based on an appeal to comrades: “Comrade, believe...”, stylistically close to the civil political poems of the times of the Great French Revolution. But at the same time, the composition of the poem, constructed as a thesis - antithesis, implies the presence of contrast. This is exactly how poetic thought develops: from an elegiac beginning, imbued with a mood of sadness and sadness, through the adversative conjunction “but” (“But desire still burns within us...”), the first elegiac part is connected to the second, completely different in mood, feeling and thought. : civil themes and an accusatory attitude prevail here. And the conclusion of the poem, summing up the development of poetic thought, sounds with a bright major chord: “My friend, let’s dedicate our souls to the beautiful impulses!”
Main themes and ideas. The main idea of the poem is a call to like-minded people to move away from private interests and turn to civil problems. Associated with it is the poet’s belief that freedom-loving dreams will be realized, and “the fatherland will awaken from its sleep.” At the end of the poem, there is a very rare idea in Pushkin’s work of the destruction of the entire state system, which, according to the poet’s thoughts, will happen in the near future (“And on the ruins of autocracy / They will write our names!”). The statist poet more often called for gradual changes, coming primarily from the authorities themselves, as in the poems “Liberty” and “Village”. It can be considered that such a radical position of the author in the poem “To Chaadaev” is evidence of youthful maximalism and a tribute to romantic sentiments. The general pathos of the poem is civil, but it contains elements of romantic and elegiac pathos, especially in the first part, which is reflected in the specificity of a number of images.
For the first time in this poem, a combination of civil themes with intimate ones - love and friendship, characteristic of Pushkin's later work - appears. In this regard, the poet raises the problems of civic duty and political freedom in conjunction with issues of individual freedom and private life, which sounded extremely unusual at that time. Let us consider how poetic thought develops. The beginning is imbued with elegiac moods. The lyrical hero, turning to his soulmate, sadly recalls that many of his former ideals turned out to be “deception”, “a dream”:
Love, hope, quiet glory
Deception did not last long for us,
The youthful fun has disappeared
Like a dream, like morning fog.
All poetic vocabulary, all the imagery of the first quatrain is built in the style of romantic elegies: quiet, gentle, sleep, morning fog. What remains of the days of vanished youth? There is no longer any love or hope. But it seems that there is some word missing in this familiar triad? Of course, the first word of this stable combination, “faith,” is missing. This key word will appear in the poem - it is left for the final, shock ending, in order to give it the character of a special, almost religious inspiration and conviction. But the transition from a pessimistic tonality to a major sound occurs gradually. This transition is associated with images of combustion, fire. Typically, the likening of passionate desire to fire was characteristic of love lyrics. Pushkin introduces a completely different sound into the fire motif: it is associated with a civil appeal, a protest against the “oppression of the fatal power”:
But the desire still burns within us,
Under the yoke of fatal power
With an impatient soul
Let us heed the calling of the Fatherland.
What follows is such an unexpected comparison that not all, even the Decembrist friends who were close in their way of thinking and spirit, accepted it. It was believed that the comparison of civil life with private life, the combination of high patriotic motives with sentimental ones was unacceptable. But in this poem Pushkin chooses a truly innovative move: he combines the concepts of “freedom” and “love” into a single and inseparable image. Thus, he shows that love of freedom and civic aspirations are as natural and inherent in every person, as his most intimate feelings - friendship and love:
We wait with languid hope
Holy moments of freedom
How a young lover waits
Minutes of a faithful date.
And then it is quite logical for the image of burning to move from the realm of love feelings to the realm of civic impulses:
While we are burning with freedom,
While hearts are alive for honor,
My friend, let's dedicate it to the fatherland
Souls have wonderful impulses.
It is now obvious that the appeal to a friend has grown into a call for faith in the ideals of freedom and the possibility of achieving them, addressed to the entire young generation of Russia. It is not without reason that in the last quatrain another, higher word is used - “friend” is replaced by “comrade”. And the poetic image of the “star of captivating happiness” that concludes the poem becomes a symbol of hopes for the triumph of the ideals of civil freedom.
Artistic originality. The message “To Chaadaev” is written in Pushkin’s favorite meter - iambic tetrameter. In addition to genre innovation, which is associated with the peculiarities of the development of the author’s thought and the construction of the poem, it is distinguished by its unusual artistic imagery. This is a marked comparison of the desire for “holy freedom” and love; metaphorical images of “burning”, romantic epithets (“under the yoke of fatal power”, “moments of holy freedom”), high-style metonymy (“Russia will rise from sleep”). Particular attention should be paid to the symbolic image of the star - “the star of captivating happiness”, which entered not only Russian literature, but also became an element of the consciousness of Russian society.
The meaning of the work. The poem became a milestone for Pushkin’s work, identifying the most important theme of freedom for his poetry, as well as its special interpretation. In the history of Russian literature, it was the beginning of a tradition of combining civil, freedom-loving and intimate themes, which is confirmed by the work of Lermontov, Nekrasov, novelism of the second half of the 19th century, and then moves on to such poets of the 20th century as Blok.
To better understand the meaning, before reading the verse “To Chaadaev” by Pushkin, it is worth familiarizing yourself with the history of its creation. The work was written in 1818, just a year after the poet graduated from the Lyceum. It was not intended for publication or a wide range of readers. Pushkin dedicated it to his best friend, mentor, like-minded person, with whom he had known for a long time and trusted even his innermost thoughts. The poem was created in the form of a free message and was addressed to Pyotr Chaadaev as a personal letter. But, after reading it for my closest friends, the incorrect version of the text became public, and in 1829 it was published without the author’s consent.
Some took the poem as a direct message and a stimulus to action. It is believed that it was this that inspired the Decembrists to openly express dissatisfaction with the authorities. Although before this, Pushkin was cautious and did not expose his political views to the public. Most likely, “To Chaadaev” was also not an explicit call. The poet only shared his thoughts with the person whose opinion he listened to, expressing distrust of the ruling elite. The poem sounds the motive of a certain rethinking of basic ideals and aspirations. The poet accepts his growing up, leaving behind youthful views. He understands that some desires were wrong and too utopian, therefore short-lived. Pushkin begins to think about something bigger and more significant than just literary fame. The poet does not renounce his creative calling, but wants to use it for the highest patriotic goals, devoting himself to serving the Motherland by means of words. The author expresses hope that the political situation in the country can still change if the authorities keep their promises. Otherwise, Pushkin is not going to limit himself to just expectations. He believes that you need to believe in the strength of your spirit, the correctness of your ideals and try to make your dreams come true. Relying on one’s own honor, the desire for true freedom, the desire to free oneself from oppressive oppression, one can ensure that the Russian people, disillusioned with the tsar, find new hope. According to the poet, only joint actions can lead to the overthrow of despotic power.
To learn the full text of Pushkin’s poem “To Chaadaev” for a literature lesson (grade 9), you can reread it online or download it from our website.
Love, hope, quiet glory
Deception did not last long for us,
The youthful fun has disappeared
Like a dream, like morning fog;
But desire still burns within us;
Under the yoke of fatal power
With an impatient soul
Let us heed the calling of the Fatherland.
We wait with languid hope
Holy moments of freedom
How a young lover waits
Minutes of a faithful date.
While we are burning with freedom,
While hearts are alive for honor,
My friend, let's dedicate it to the fatherland
Beautiful impulses from the soul!
Comrade, believe: she will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from its sleep,
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names!
It is both difficult and easy to talk about Pushkin’s lyrics. It’s difficult because he is a versatile poet. It’s easy because he is an extraordinarily talented poet. Let us remember how he defined the essence of poetry:
“Free, again looking for a union
Magic sounds, feelings and thoughts.”
By the age of seventeen, Pushkin was already a fully developed poet, capable of competing with such venerable luminaries as Derzhavin and Kapnist. Pushkin's poetic lines, in contrast to Derzhavin's cumbersome stanzas, acquired clarity, grace and beauty. The renewal of the Russian language, so methodically begun by Lomonosov and Karamzin, was completed by Pushkin. His innovation seems imperceptible to us because we ourselves speak this language. There are poets who are “out of their minds.” Their work is cold and tendentious. Others focus too much on form. But Pushkin’s lyrics are characterized by harmony. Everything is normal there: rhythm, form, content.
Pushkin, like no one else, knew how to rejoice in the beauty and harmony of the world, nature, and human relationships, so the theme of friendship is one of the leading ones in the poet’s lyrics. Throughout his life he carried on his friendship with Delvig, Pushchin, Kuchelbecker, which originated in the lyceum.
One of Pushkin's first poems, which reflects the theme of friendship, was written by the poet at the age of fifteen. This is a humorous poem "Feasting Students". It contains light poetic portraits of friends gathered at the festive table:
Writer for his sins!
You seem to be more sober than everyone else;
Wilhelm, read your poems,
So that I can fall asleep faster.
The theme of friendship is revealed with particular completeness by Pushkin in his poetic masterpiece “October 19,” written in 1825. The poet dedicated this poem to the anniversary of the opening of the lyceum. His opening lines are filled with sadness caused by the circumstances of his personal life.
The forest drops its crimson robe,
Frost will silver the withered field,
The day will pass as if in captivity,
And it will disappear beyond the edge of the surrounding mountains.
Burn, fireplace, in my deserted cell;
And you, wine, are a friend of the autumn cold,
Pour a gratifying hangover into my chest,
A momentary oblivion of bitter torment.
At this time, Pushkin was in exile and was deprived of the opportunity to meet with friends on a significant day in their lives. But in spirit he was close to them.
The bitterness of loneliness softens when images of people dear to his heart appear in the poet’s imagination.
My friends, our union is wonderful!
He, like the soul, is inseparable and eternal -
Unshakable, free and carefree,
He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.
Wherever fate throws us
And happiness wherever it leads,
We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us;
Our Fatherland is Tsarskoe Selo.
A year after graduating from the Lyceum, Pushkin began to develop new views. The poet begins to take a broader look at the world, which makes him feel responsible for what is happening to his native country. Therefore, many of Pushkin’s free-thinking poems are addressed to friends and like-minded people. This is the poem “To Chaadaev”. Pushkin encourages his older friend to devote his soul’s wonderful impulses to the homeland:
While we are burning with freedom,
While hearts are alive for honor,
My friend, let's dedicate it to the fatherland
Beautiful impulses from the soul!
An equally unambiguous call for uprising is contained in Pushkin’s famous ode “Liberty.” The main idea of the ode is that “freedom” is possible in a monarchical state if the monarch and the people strictly follow the laws, including moral ones. Pushkin calls, but at the same time sounds a warning to tyrants:
"Tyrants of the world! tremble!”
Poetic curses addressed to them occupy an entire stanza:
Autocratic villain!
I hate you, your throne
Your death, the death of your children.
I see it with cruel joy.
They read on your forehead
Seal of the curse of the nations.
You are the horror of the world, the shame of nature,
You are a reproach to God on earth.
The poem “Village” is built on the ominous contrast of serene nature and the horrors of serfdom. The work can be roughly divided into two parts. The theme and mood of the first part differs sharply from the theme and mood of the second, but despite this, the parts are closely related to each other. They are related and united by the idea contained in the poem.
The first part is a “shelter of tranquility”, where everything is full of “happiness and oblivion”.
These lines exude silence, peace and coolness:
Greetings, deserted corner,
A haven of peace, work and inspiration,
Where the invisible stream of my days flows
In the bosom of happiness and oblivion!
It would seem that from the tone of the first part nothing foreshadows an explosion of indignation.
But the second part of the poem has an anti-serfdom orientation:
But a terrible thought here darkens the soul:
Among flowering fields and mountains
A friend of humanity sadly remarks
Everywhere ignorance is a disastrous shame.
Without seeing the tears, without listening to the groan,
Chosen by fate for the destruction of people,
Here the nobility is wild, without feeling, without law,
Appropriated by a violent vine
And labor, and property, and the time of the farmer.
In this part of the poem, the tone of the author's speech changes dramatically. The poet’s words contain anger and indignation. Pushkin vehemently exposes and condemns lordly violence against the labor of the serf people. The final lines of the poem contain the author’s thoughts:
I'll see, oh friends! people are not oppressed
And slavery, which fell due to the king’s mania,
And dedicated to the fatherland of freedom
Will the beautiful dawn finally rise?
But the king did not heed the poet’s calls. Pushkin was awaiting exile. True, thanks to Zhukovsky, the northern exile was replaced by the southern one. Pushkin felt like an exile, and this could not help but affect his work.
The years 1820-1822 in Pushkin’s work are the heyday of romanticism. Probably the most suitable example of the poet’s romantic orientation is the poem “The Prisoner.”
The main content of romanticism is the expression of the suffering of the soul from the discrepancy between reality and ideals: the world is not as it should be. And the romantic hero, acutely aware of this discrepancy, feels like a stranger in this gray, everyday world. He is alone, he is caged. Hence the central motifs of romanticism - the theme of freedom, escape from prison into some other, unattainable and alluring world. People seem to be a faceless mass, the hero is looking for his world outside the crowd: where the sky is, the sea is an element.
We are free birds; it's time, brother, it's time!
There, where the mountain turns white behind the clouds,
To where the sea edges turn blue,
Where we walk only the wind... yes I!..
During the Decembrist uprising, Pushkin lived in Mikhailovskoye. Here he was caught by the news of the cruel reprisal against them. He writes a wonderful poem “To Siberia,” which he conveys to the Decembrists through Alexandra Muravyova. The poet calls on them to “keep proud patience”, says that their “sorrowful work” will not be wasted, that their work will be continued by like-minded people and that “the desired time will come” - freedom.
Pushkin was not only a like-minded person of the Decembrists, his poems inspired them. One of the Decembrists, Alexander Odoevsky, writes to Pushkin in the poem “Our Answer”:
Our sorrowful work will not be wasted:
A flame will ignite from a spark,
And our enlightened people
Will gather under the holy banner.
Each new work was an event, copied from hand to hand. This is stated in the poem “Arion”, written in 1927:
...And I am full of careless faith, -
I sang to the swimmers...
The singer turns out to be the only one who survived the “thunderstorm”. But he remains true to his convictions: “I sing the same hymns.”
Also in the lyrics of A. S. Pushkin we find reflections on the meaning of the poet and poetry and we can try to understand what answers the great Russian poet gives to some of these difficult questions.
When considering this topic in the works of A. S. Pushkin, first of all we need to turn to his poetic masterpiece “The Prophet,” written in 1826.
The hero of this poem is in a dejected state, he is tormented by “spiritual thirst,” and then the messenger of God, the “six-winged seraphim,” appears to him. Suddenly, wonderful but painful transformations occur to the poet. He is endowed with an acuity of vision of the surrounding world that is unusual for humans. His feelings are described in the following lines:
With fingers as light as a dream,
He touched my eyes.
The prophetic eyes have opened,
Like a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears,
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the sky tremble,
And the heavenly flight of angels,
And the reptile of the sea underwater,
And the distant vine vegetates.
Now the poet is initiated into the secrets of the universe and gifted with a subtle sense of perception of the external world in all its diversity. He is freed from doubt and fear, but this is not enough to become a prophet:
And he cut my chest with a sword,
And he took out my trembling heart,
And coal blazing with fire,
I pushed the hole into my chest.
The opportunities that have opened up for the poet, on the one hand, elevate him above people, and on the other hand, place a difficult task on him. “God’s voice” calls to the poet:
Arise, prophet, and see and listen,
Be fulfilled by my will
And, going around the seas and lands, burn the hearts of people with the verb.
This is how Pushkin sees his mission. He does not try to correct people, to teach them how to act, but, being a poet, he addresses our hearts. We can say that Pushkin reveals in this poem the role of poetry as something sublime, standing above people, but not edifying.
In 1836, Pushkin wrote the poem “Monument”, where he talks about his role as a poet. Pushkin expresses confidence that the “monument not made by hands” he erected gives him immortality. The great poet believes that he has completed his responsible mission:
And for a long time I will be so kind to the people,
That I awakened good feelings with my lyre
That in my cruel age I glorified freedom
And he called for mercy for the fallen.
To be with friends in trouble is the sacred duty of every person. High feelings of love and friendship invariably accompany Pushkin and do not allow him to fall into despair. For Pushkin, love is the highest tension of all spiritual forces.
No matter how depressed and disappointed a person is, no matter how gloomy reality may seem to him, love comes - and the world is illuminated with a new light. The most amazing poem about love, in my opinion, is the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.” Pushkin knows how to find amazing words to describe the magical effect of love on a person:
The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
Even the general contours of the female image create the impression of something sublime and extraordinarily beautiful.
The main thing that the author wanted to convey with this poem is the bright memory of love, the joy of an unexpected, and therefore sweeter, meeting with what seemed lost forever.
The poem “I Loved You” shows that true love is not selfish. This is a bright, selfless feeling, this is the desire for the happiness of your beloved. Pushkin finds amazing lines, although the words are completely simple, everyday. The author uses only one metaphor: “Love has not completely faded away.” Probably, it is in this simplicity and everyday life that the beauty of feelings and moral purity are manifested:
I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly,
How may God grant your beloved to be different
I would like to draw special attention to the poem “Madonna”. Pushkin dedicated this work to his wife. The joy and happiness from the long-awaited marriage were expressed in the lines:
My wishes came true. Creator
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
The purest beauty, the purest example
To summarize, we can say that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin not only revealed the theme of the role of the poet in his poetry, but also proved with all his creativity that a poet can really be a prophet. Much of what Pushkin dreamed of and called for in his poems came true. And most importantly, his poetry still serves to awaken the highest and brightest feelings in us.
The central motif of Pushkin’s poem “To Chaadaev,” as well as in the ode “Liberty,” is the languid anticipation of “The Holy Minute of Liberty” (this is the tenth line, which occupies a central place in the 21-line poem). The message is addressed to a like-minded person who does not need to explain his position in detail. With him, the lyrical hero shares experiences that arose at a turning point in age.
At the same time, generalization emerges behind psychological specificity, since it is a reflection of the general animation that colors the worldview of an entire generation. The lyrical hero is not alone; he can, outlining the specifics of his condition, hope that he will be understood (“...deception has afflicted us...", "...desire still burns in us...", "We are waiting ...,” “our names”), will support, respond to “wonderful impulses.” He sees his task as strengthening his friend’s faith in the imminent onset of the era of “captivating happiness”, without doubting his choice, because they are all “burning” with freedom, waiting for its arrival, ready to fulfill the duty of honor (“As long as hearts are alive for honor... "), considering the memory of their contribution to the fight against “autocracy” as a reward.
In terms of content, the poem “To Chaadaev” by Pushkin, the analysis of which interests us, is divided into two parts. In the first (it occupies a quatrain with cross rhyme) youthful illusions about happiness in love, about the realization of hopes, and achieving fame are recalled. They “live” the imagination, filled the soul, but, “like a dream,” they dissipated with the advent of maturity:
Love, hope, quiet glory
Deception did not last long for us,
The youthful fun has disappeared
Like a dream, like morning fog...
Illusions are deceptive (the word itself comes from the Latin “to deceive”), but in being carried away by them, the soul’s ability to “burn” with ideals, live by enduring values, and listen to unearthly voices was revealed. This property of the inner world has not disappeared, but other concepts have come to the fore. The opposite union is not only constantly implied in the antithesis of two periods in a person’s life, it separates the parts of the poem (“But desire still burns within us...” - the fifth line, so important that the sound correspondence to it appears not only in the rhyming line of the quatrain - 8th, but also in the following, 9th and 12th this is a reminder of the main idea).
There is no division into stanzas in the message; the unity of the text, written in iambic tetrameter, helps create the impression that the hero’s monologue is consistently moving towards the final confirmation of the timeless significance of “burning”, “hope”, “impulses” caused by the thirst for liberation of the fatherland from the “yoke of fatal power” (“And on the ruins of autocracy/They will write our names!”). Freedom is not only recognized as a rational (from the Latin “reasonable”) requirement, it becomes the content of spiritual life, filling the world of feelings. Love for the homeland has replaced youthful hobbies; the lyrical hero is ready to devote himself entirely to it:
But the desire still burns within us,
Under the yoke of fatal power
With an impatient soul
Let us heed the calling of the Fatherland.
The word “heed” (first person plural: “we listen or heed”) is now rarely used, so its meaning needs to be specially said. To listen is to listen carefully, listen, absorb what you hear or read, direct your mind and will to reach a speculative conclusion. Pushkin affirms an effective attitude towards the misfortunes of the homeland, the need of the younger generation to intervene in the course of history, correcting mistakes, influencing the course of events.
The intensity of feelings and the intensity of the search for a way out of the historical impasse are conveyed through comparison and hyperbole. Waiting for the “minute of freedom,” the lyrical hero languishes, as if before a love date:
We wait with languid hope
Holy moments of freedom
How a young lover waits
Minutes of a faithful date.
The date appears faithful, he has no doubt about the coming of the kingdom of freedom, but the minutes leading up to it drag on like centuries, which is why it is so important to instill hope in his comrade-in-arms, to encourage him not to give up trying to bring the ideal to life. The wonderful impulses of his soul will not go unnoticed, since they are like a signal fire, the beating of the heart is a countdown of the moments until the main event. Artistic exaggeration (hyperbole) appears in the poem “To Chaadaev” by Pushkin due to the fact that the meaning of civic feelings is sharpened, they require self-sacrifice: impatience becomes “burning”, a high goal colors existence as a whole, turns it into a life “for honor”. The call to dedicate the best movements of the soul to the fatherland is a continuation of the thought of love for it as the content of the inner world of a mature person who has abandoned “youthful amusements”:
While we are burning with freedom,
While hearts are alive for honor,
My friend, let's dedicate it to the fatherland
Beautiful impulses from the soul!
Along with comparison and hyperbole, metaphors and stylistic turns are important in the figurative series of the poem, where the properties of one object are transferred to another by similarity or contrast (hidden). The metaphor is the expression “we burn with freedom.” Here you can see two planes: objective (flame) and figurative (animation). They are compared, intersected, merged into one image. This is a hidden comparison (devoted to the ideal of freedom, which has captured us completely, burns us as if we were in flames), however, the absence of separation between plans, their merging in one expression, which becomes the meaning of the metaphor, introduces new shades. The metaphor conveys not only an impression so vivid and tangible that one phrase can be used to judge the spiritual world of the lyrical hero’s peers, but also the aesthetic value, important for the poet, of their ideals. The reflections of a fire are beautiful, they are likened to the impulses of the soul, and, conversely, high feelings resemble tongues of flame rising to the sky. The convergence of the signs of the two phenomena has long been noticed, which is expressed in the everyday metaphor of “fiery feelings,” but in Pushkin’s poem it is concretized and, in this regard, characterizes socio-political aspirations. Thanks to her, the motive of sacrifice, the expectation of death at the stake, is introduced into the understanding of one’s future. A tragic reflection falls on modernity, and therefore friends and like-minded people are perceived as a generation of heroes who consciously chose their path, foreseeing that for fighters against autocracy the only reward will be memory. Their fighting spirit should be supported by the knowledge that they are fulfilling a great mission - they are awakening Russia from an age-old sleep, bringing closer the sunrise, the ray of which will disperse the “condensed darkness”, “eternal darkness” (A.N. Radishchev. “Liberty”, stanza 54 ) bondage. In this they become like the “creator” of the world himself and create a new reality (ibid.). Their special gift is also the ability to perceive the captivity of their tragic fate as true happiness:
Comrade, believe: she will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from its sleep,
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names!
The last statement is highlighted due to two features: rising intonation and end-to-end rhyme (on, our, names), consonant with the male rhymes of the previous quatrain (she, sleep). The sentence in it is not completed; the fifth, final line is its continuation. A transfer effect occurs (a stylistic device consisting of emphasizing a word located on the border of lines included in one sentence, but divided metrically as parts that make up a stanza; here there is no breakdown into stanzas, the poem is divided into quatrains in connection with the rhyme scheme, the appearance of a pentaverse disrupts it, which helps highlight the “extra” line). Attention is drawn to the significance of the opposing side; the enemy in the battle for the freedom of the fatherland is autocracy, embodying the power of evil, hated by the lyrical hero (“the oppression of fatal power” is an image that continues the generalizations in Pushkin’s ode “Liberty”: “unjust power” “fatal” misfortune of the people life “everywhere”, stanza 3).
Is it possible, speaking about Pushkin’s freedom-loving lyrics, to replace the concept of “lyrical hero” with the word “author”? Undoubtedly, they are close; the worldview outlined in the poems was characteristic of those representatives of Pushkin’s generation who saw the purpose of their life in counteracting social trends that were unacceptable to them, in supporting the interests of the oppressed strata. The autobiographical nature is also obvious due to the fact that the message is addressed to a specific person, Pushkin’s senior friend P.Ya. Chaadaev (1794-1856). The poet met him in 1816, when he was still a lyceum student, and Chaadaev graduated from Moscow University and then entered military service. As a hussar officer, he took part in the Patriotic War (in the battles of Borodino, Tarutino, Leipzig and other battles). After the war, he returned to the capital, where he became famous as a person sharply critical of the existing social order. Chaadaev was a member of the Decembrist Northern Society, but while abroad in 1823-1826, he did not take part in the uprising. The impressions from meetings with this bright personality were reflected not only in Pushkin’s lyrics, but also in the comedy of A.S. Griboyedov's "Woe from Wit", the prototype of the main character of which was Chaadaev (the surname Chatsky is an echo of his name). Several Pushkin poems were dedicated to him, showing how highly the poet valued his friend. Their socio-political views had a lot in common; Chaadaev could be called the lyrical hero of the message, a comrade in the fight against the “fatal power.” In another poem, he is compared with M.Yu., who participated in the murder of the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar and led the Republicans in opposition to the second triumvirate. Brutus, as well as with the Athenian leader of the democratic group Pericles:
He is the highest will of heaven
Born in the shackles of royal service.
He would be Brutus in Rome, Pericles in Athens,
And here he is a hussar officer.
(“To the portrait of Chaadaev”, 1820)
Carrying out the analysis, it should be noted that Pushkin attached great importance to friendship with Chaadayev, speaking of it as “happiness” (entry in the “Kishinev Diary”, April 1821), and therefore it is no coincidence that the address to him in the message appears as one whose name will stand on a par with others in the characteristics of a generation “burning” with freedom. And yet neither the author nor Chaadaev are depicted in the poem in all the complexity of their spiritual world. One of his features is in the foreground, and the main attention is paid to it. The peculiarities of the worldview of the fighters for the coming of the “chosen” day (A.N. Radishchev) of liberation are prototypical for creating the image of a lyrical hero, perceived in the context of this work, similar to the characters of Pushkin’s poems, other images of freedom-loving lyricism, each of which nevertheless retains originality. Even between the authors in the ode “Liberty” and in the message “To Chaadaev” there is a difference due to the difference in artistic goals.
If in the ode the lyrical hero seeks to confirm educational truths using historical examples, expressing his personal attitude towards the vices of power and the long-suffering of its slaves, then in a message to a friend it is important to determine the origins of the commonality between them. They are connected primarily by emotional (from the Latin “excitement”) factors. The main one is the delight of knowing that the fate of heroes awaits them, that the road of “honor” is ahead of them, an activity that will bring fame. All the values learned in early youth pale in comparison to the new attitude to fight fate itself (the “fatal” force). The desire “burns” in them to prove their love for their homeland by sacrificial service to it, hope turns into “languishing hope”, fame will make them known to their descendants. All this is not a deception of a child’s dream, but a reality, dangerous, but accepted by the “impatient soul” with joyful anticipation of the “sure date.”
The poetic artistic means used in the poem made it possible to highlight the dominant attitude. It is important not only for characterizing the figurative structure of this message, but also in general for characterizing the lyrical hero of Pushkin’s early poetry. Freedom for him is a necessary condition of life, the impulse towards it is wonderful, despite the fact that you cannot reach it, like a star. The key metaphor of the message (“the star of captivating happiness”) emphasizes the similarity between the spiritual and social planes. No matter how far ideal aspirations are from everyday life, a person is assessed by the lyrical hero depending on his ability to subordinate his life to the achievement of lofty goals, to sacrifice youth to the common cause, giving up excellent aspirations if they contradict him. Thus, already in the early lyrics, there is a noticeable affirmation of the rightness of life, history, to know which is the task of a thinking person, and to express the beauty of the laws of the world is the happiness of the artist. At the same time, for the lyrical hero of Pushkin, a person is important in all the uniqueness of his thoughts and feelings, directing volitional efforts to overcome imperfection, which he feels as injustice, the domination of darkness. He strives to bring happiness to people by opening the way to light, a star rising (“it will rise”) over the earthly community of people, like the sun. The dawn, unnoticed by many people immersed in their worries, is anticipated by those who are confident of its imminent arrival, but the lyrical hero is ready to tirelessly prove its inevitability, to find ever new colors to describe what has befallen them. These are sacrifices, losses, suffering, but also finding the meaning of life, “captivating happiness.”
