Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's poem "" is not an entirely original source. When Pushkin sat down to write it, he was familiar with the original - the poem “To Melpomene” by Horatio, free translations and adaptations of foreign and Russian poets. In Russia, Batyushkov, Derzhavin (whose verse is often with Pushkin’s), and Lomonosov wrote on this topic. Later - Lermontov, A. Fet, Kapnist.
And at the same time, an analysis of the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands” shows that it is not a translation, like the works of Lomonosov, Fet, Kapnist. This is not even an imitation of an ancient Roman poet who lived in pre-Christian times. Although some motifs of Horatio are present in Pushkin’s work. The ancient Roman ode served as a form, a kind of wrapper for Pushkin’s original poem, into which the poet invested his content - feelings and worldview.
The poem was written in 1836, shortly before his death. It was a time of creative flourishing, grandiose literary plans and personal mental crisis.
In this poem, Pushkin, summing up his work, says:
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.
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tunguz, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.
Between the lines one can read the poet’s faith that people will someday be free and educated, and that he, Pushkin, will begin to be translated into other languages. Well, his prophecy came true.
The appeal to the Muse to be obedient to the command of God is a call to the writers who will create after him.
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown,
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently,And don't challenge a fool.
The poem is close to the ode genre; it is written in iambic hexameter. This rhythm corresponds more than others to ancient poetry, and suits the ode. But unlike the ancients literary works, Pushkin’s poem does not read ponderously. On the contrary, the rhythm of the verse is energetic, and the work itself sounds solemn. True, the last stanza is written in iambic tetrameter, which makes it energetic.
The work consists of 5 stanzas, cross rhyme, female rhyme alternates with male rhyme. It can be divided into 3 parts: in the first, the poet says that he erected a monument to himself. In the second part, he explains how he believes he will be “pleasant to the people.” And the third part is a call to the poets who will create after him.
The poem is related to the ode by Old Slavonicisms - head, pillar, piit, existing; and multi-union.
The poem uses means artistic expression, helping to feel the poet’s mood. These are epithets - miraculous, rebellious, great, cherished, proud, kind, wild, cruel.
The poem itself is metaphorical in essence. Everyone knows that Pushkin is not an architect or a sculptor, and did not build anything. He applied inversion. By monument is meant all of his literary work, which will preserve the memory of him among the people. He says that his soul lives in his works. "The soul in the treasured lyre." The lyre is an ancient Greek musical instrument symbolizing poetic creativity. The same idea is confirmed by Annenkov:
"Real, full life him [Pushkin] lies in his very works, generated, so to speak, by the course of it. In them, the reader can study both the soul of the poet and the circumstances of his existence, moving from one artistic image to another. This is how Pushkin wrote his biography... The reader can have the pleasure of tracing this poetic story about himself, starting with the first imitations of our poet by the erotic writers of France, until after a series of powerful creatures he could exclaim in just pride:
I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands:
The people's path to it will not be overgrown.
History of creation. The poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...” was written on August 21, 1836, that is, shortly before Pushkin’s death. In it he sums up his poetic activity, relying on the traditions of not only Russian, but also world literature. The immediate model from which Pushkin started was Derzhavin’s poem “Monument” (1795), which became very famous. At the same time, Pushkin not only compares himself and his poetry with his great predecessor, but also highlights the features characteristic of his work.
Genre and composition. According to genre characteristics, Pushkin's poem is an ode, but it is a special variety of this genre. It came to Russian literature as a pan-European tradition, originating in antiquity. It is not for nothing that Pushkin took the lines from the poem by the ancient Roman poet Horace “To Melpomene” as the epigraph to the poem: Exegi monumentum - “I erected a monument.” Horace is the author of "Satire" and a number of poems that glorified his name. He created the message “To Melpomene” at the end of his creative path. Melpomene in ancient greek mythology- one of the nine muses, the patroness of tragedy, a symbol of performing arts. In this message, Horace evaluates his merits in poetry. Subsequently, the creation of this kind of poems in the genre of a kind of poetic “monument” became a stable literary tradition. It was introduced into Russian literature by Lomonosov, who was the first to translate Horace’s message. Then G.R. made a free translation of the poem with an assessment of his merits in poetry. Derzhavin, calling it “Monument”. It was there that the main genre features such poetic “monuments”. This genre variety was finally formed in Pushkin’s “Monument”.
Following Derzhavin, Pushkin divides his poem into five stanzas, using similar verse form and meter. Like Derzhavin's, Pushkin's poem is written in quatrains, but with a slightly modified meter. In the first three lines, like Derzhavin, Pushkin uses the traditional. The odic meter is iambic 6-foot (Alexandrian verse), but the last line is written in iambic 4-foot, which makes it stressed and puts a semantic emphasis on it.
Main themes and ideas. Pushkin's poem is. a hymn to poetry. His main topic- glorification of true poetry and affirmation high purpose poet in the life of society. In this, Pushkin acts as the heir to the traditions of Lomonosov and Derzhavin. But at the same time, given the similarity of external forms with Derzhavin’s poem, Pushkin largely rethought the problems posed, and put forward his own idea of the meaning of creativity and its evaluation. Expanding the theme of the relationship between the poet and the reader, Pushkin points out that his poetry is to a greater extent addressed to a wide addressee. This is clear." Already from the first lines. "."The folk path to it will not be overgrown," he says about his literary "monument." The first stanza is a traditional statement of significance poetic monument in comparison with other ways to perpetuate merits.. But Pushkin also introduces here the theme of freedom, which is “cross-cutting” in his work, noting that his “monument” is marked by a love of freedom: “He rose higher as the head of the rebellious pillar of Alexandria.”
The second, the stanza of all the poets who created such poems, affirms the immortality of poetry, which allows the author to continue to live in the memory of descendants: “No, all of me will not die - the soul in the treasured lyre / My ashes will survive and will escape decay.” But unlike Derzhavin, Pushkin, who experienced last years life misunderstanding and rejection of the crowd, emphasizes that his poetry will find a wider response in the hearts of people close to him in spiritual make-up, creators, and we're talking about not only about Russian literature, “about and about poets all over the world: “And I will be glorious, as long as in the sublunary world / At least one drinker will live.”
The third stanza, like Derzhavin’s, is devoted to the theme of the development of interest in poetry among the broadest sections of the people, previously unfamiliar with it, and widespread posthumous fame:
Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And the spirit that is in her will call me. language,
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tungus, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.
The main semantic load is carried by the fourth stanza. It is in it that the poet defines the main thing that constitutes the essence of his work and for which he can hope for poetic immortality:
And for a long time I will be so kind to the people,
That I awakened good feelings with my lyre,
What's in my cruel age I praised freedom
And he called for mercy for the fallen.
In these lines, Pushkin draws the reader’s attention to the humanity and humanism of his works, returning to the most important problem of late creativity. From the poet’s point of view, the “good feelings” that art awakens in readers are more important than its aesthetic qualities. This problem will become the second for literature half of the 19th century century, the subject of heated debate between representatives of democratic criticism and the so-called pure art. But for Pushkin the possibility of a harmonious solution is obvious: the last two lines of this stanza return us to the theme of freedom, but understood through the prism of the idea of mercy. It is significant that in initial version Pushkin, instead of the words “in my cruel age,” wrote “following Radishchev.” Not only because of censorship reasons, the poet refused such a direct reference to political meaning love of freedom. More important for the author " The captain's daughter", where the problem of mercy and mercy was very acutely posed, the idea of goodness and justice in their highest, Christian understanding became established.
The last stanza is an appeal to the muse, traditional for “monument” poems:
By the command of God, O muse, be obedient,
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown,
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently
And don't argue with a fool.
In Pushkin, these lines are filled with a special meaning: they return us to the ideas expressed in the program poem “The Prophet”. Their main idea is that the poet creates according to a higher will, and therefore he is responsible for his art not before people, who are often unable to understand him, but before God. Such ideas were characteristic of Pushkin’s late work and were expressed in the poems “The Poet”, “To the Poet”, “The Poet and the Crowd”. In them, the problem of the poet and society arises with particular urgency, and the fundamental independence of the artist from the opinions of the public is affirmed. In Pushkin’s “Monument” this idea acquires the most succinct formulation, which creates a harmonious conclusion to reflections on poetic glory and overcoming death through divinely inspired art.
Artistic originality. The significance of the theme and the high pathos of the poem determined the special solemnity of its overall sound. The slow, majestic rhythm is created not only due to the odic meter (iamb with pyrrhic), but also the widespread use of anaphora (“And I will be glorious...”, “And he will call me...”, “And the proud grandson of the Slavs...” ", "And for a long time I will be kind to those...", "And mercy to the fallen.."), inversion ("He ascended higher as the head of the rebellious pillar of Alexandria), syntactic parallelism and series homogeneous members(“And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now the wild Tungus...”). Creation high style promotes and selection lexical means. The poet uses sublime epithets (a monument not made by hands, a rebellious head, a treasured lyre, in the sublunary world, a proud grandson of the Slavs), a large number of Slavicisms (erected, head, drink, until). In one of the most significant artistic images The poem uses metonymy - “That I awakened good feelings with the lyre...”. In general everything artistic media create a solemn hymn of poetry.
The meaning of the work.
Pushkin's "Monument", continuing the traditions of Lomonosov and Derzhavin, stands at the forefront of Russian literature. special place. He not only summed up Pushkin’s creativity, but also marked that milestone, that height poetic art, which served as a guide for all subsequent generations of Russian poets. Not all of them strictly followed the genre tradition of the “monument” poem, like A.A. Fet, but every time the Russian poet turns to the problem of art, its purpose and assessment of his achievements, he recalls Pushkin’s words: “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...”, trying to get closer to its unattainable height.
I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands,
The people's path to him will not be overgrown,
He ascended higher with his rebellious head
Alexandrian Pillar.
No, all of me will not die - the soul is in the treasured lyre
My ashes will survive and decay will escape -
And I will be glorious as long as I am in the sublunary world
At least one piit will be alive.
Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And every tongue that is in it will call me,
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tungus, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.
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.
By the command of God, O muse, be obedient,
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown,
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently
And don't argue with a fool.
Analysis of the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands” by Pushkin
A draft of the poem was discovered after Pushkin's death. It dates from 1836. It was first published in the posthumous edition of the poet's works (1841).
The poem marked the beginning of a debate that continues to this day. The first question concerns the source that inspired Pushkin. Many considered the work to be a simple imitation of numerous odes by Russian poets on the theme of the monument. A more common version is that Pushkin took the main ideas from Horace’s ode, from which the epigraph to the poem was taken.
A more serious stumbling block was the meaning and significance of the work. The lifetime praise of his merits and the author’s conviction in his future glory caused criticism and bewilderment. In the eyes of contemporaries, this, at a minimum, seemed to be excessive conceit and insolence. Even those who recognized the poet’s enormous services to Russian literature could not tolerate such impudence.
Pushkin compares his fame to a “monument not made by hands”, which exceeds the “Alexandria Pillar” (monument to Alexander I). Moreover, the poet claims that his soul will exist forever, and his creativity will spread throughout multinational Russia. This will happen because throughout his life the author brought people ideas of goodness and justice. He always defended freedom and “called for mercy for the fallen” (probably for the Decembrists). After such statements, Pushkin also reproaches those who do not understand the value of his work (“don’t argue with a fool”).
In justifying the poet, some researchers stated that the verse is a subtle satire of the author on himself. His statements were considered a joke about his difficult position in high society.
Almost two centuries later, the work can be appreciated. The years have shown the poet's brilliant foresight of his future. Pushkin's poems are known all over the world and have been translated into most languages. The poet is considered the greatest classic of Russian literature, one of the founders of the modern Russian language. The saying “I will never die” was completely confirmed. The name of Pushkin lives not only in his works, but also in countless streets, squares, avenues and much more. The poet became one of the symbols of Russia. The poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands” is a well-deserved recognition of the poet, who did not expect this from his contemporaries.
He ascended higher with his rebellious head
Alexandrian Pillar.
A. Pushkin
Pushkin died “in the middle of his great career,” “his talent was just beginning to blossom,” wrote contemporaries of the great Russian poet immediately after his death.
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, sorting through the papers of his murdered friend, found among them many unpublished works - both in draft versions and finished ones. Among the latter is a poem in which Pushkin not only summed up his life and creative path, but also left a poetic testament to his descendants.
The poem was written on August 21, 1836 and was not published during the poet’s lifetime. The poet's elder friend published it only in 1841 in volume IX of the posthumous edition of Pushkin's Works. The poem, known to everyone as “Monument,” was given this name by Zhukovsky when preparing it for publication. Pushkin had no name at all. There was only an epigraph - the first line of Horace’s ode: “I created the monument.”
During publication, Zhukovsky made changes to Pushkin’s text. One of them is in the first quatrain: « I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands, the people’s path to it will not be overgrown.” , where instead of the final lines “He ascended higher as the head of the rebellious pillar of Alexandria” - Zhukovsky wrote: “He rose higher as the head of Napoleon’s rebellious pillar.”
Only forty years later, one of the first Pushkinists, Bartenev, published original text poem and reproduced it in facsimile.
Exigi monumentum
I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands,
The people's path to him will not be overgrown,
He ascended higher with his rebellious head
Alexandrian Pillar.
No, all of me will not die - the soul is in the treasured lyre
My ashes will survive and decay will escape ‒
And I will be glorious as long as I am in the sublunary world
At least one piit will be alive.
Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And every tongue that is in it will call me,
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tungus, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.
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.
By the command of God, O muse, be obedient,
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown;
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently.
And don't argue with a fool.
It is believed that the poet's elder friend made the replacement of the last line of the first quatrain for censorship reasons. Zhukovsky supposedly believed: the proximity of the phrase “Alexandrian Pillar” to the expression “rebellious head” will evoke in the reader associations with the image of the monument to Alexander I, opened in 1834 in St. Petersburg. Although, despite such real or imaginary fears of Zhukovsky, it is quite obvious that the word “Alexandrian " comes from the word "Alexandria", not from the name "Alexander". Pushkin would hardly have deliberately used it for any provocative purposes, otherwise this poem was intended in advance to be placed “on the table” for a very long time. indefinite time or never see the light of day at all.
By replacing the word “Alexandrian” with the word “Napoleonic”, Zhukovsky distorted the meaning put by Pushkin into the phrase “Alexandrian Pillar”. But for what purpose did he make this forgery?
The reader, when reading the first stanza of the poem in Zhukovsky’s interpretation, had specific geometric-spatial associations - with a column cast at the request of Napoleon I in 1807 from Austrian and Russian cannons on the model of Trajan’s Column and installed in Paris on Place Vendôme. At the top there was a statue of Napoleon himself. After the capture of Paris by Russian troops in 1814, it was removed and replaced by White flag Bourbons with lilies. But already in 1833, King Louis Philippe ordered a new statue of Napoleon to be made and placed on a column.
The Vendôme column with the restored statue of Napoleon I immediately became in France, on the one hand, a symbol of Bonapartist worship, and on the other, an object of criticism from Napoleon’s opponents. The replacement of Zhukovsky can be considered unsuccessful for this reason: it is unlikely that Pushkin would have wanted to “rise higher as the head of the rebellious” over these two French parties or take the side of one of them.
Over the past century and a half, several other interpretations of the words “Pillar of Alexandria” have been put forward. But all of them, following the option proposed by Zhukovsky, are spatial-geometric.
According to one of them, Pushkin meant the Colossus of Rhodes - a giant statue of the ancient Greek sun god Helios in the port greek city Rhodes, located on the island of the same name in the Aegean Sea. The bronze giant - a statue of a tall, slender youth - a pagan god with a radiant crown on his head - towered at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes and was visible from afar. The statue was made of clay, had a metal frame, and was covered with bronze sheets on top. The colossus stood for sixty-five years. In 222 BC. The statue was destroyed by an earthquake. As he writes ancient Greek historian Strabo, “the statue lay on the ground, overthrown by an earthquake and broken at the knees.” But even then it caused surprise with its size. Pliny the Elder mentions that only a few could grasp with both hands thumb statue hands ( If the proportions of the human body are observed, this indicates a height of the statue of about 60 m.). But what relation could this monument have to Pushkin’s miraculous work?
According to another version, Pushkin allegedly wanted to “raise” his miraculous monument higher than the column erected in Egyptian Alexandria in honor of the Roman Emperor Pompey.
Let's return to the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg. Erected in honor of the victory of Russian troops over Napoleon, it is, indeed, taller than all similar monuments in the world: the aforementioned Vendome Column in Paris, Trajan's Column in Rome and Pompey's Column in Alexandria. Not only is the column itself taller than, for example, the Vendôme Column, but the figure of the Angel completing the column exceeds in height the figure of Napoleon I on the Vendôme Column. An angel tramples a snake with a cross, which symbolizes the peace and tranquility that Russia brought to Europe, having won the victory over Napoleonic troops. “To ascend with your rebellious head” above the Angel of the Lord and above the symbol of victory of Russian weapons? Let us leave such an invention to the conscience of the “interpreters”.
The figure shows the comparative proportions, in order, from left to right: Alexander's Column, Vendôme Column in Paris, Trajan's Column in Rome, Pompey's Column in Alexandria and Antoninus' Column in Rome. The last four are approximately the same height ( less than 47.5 m - the height of the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg).
They also tried to associate obelisks erected in ancient times in Egypt with Pushkin’s “Alexandrian Pillar”. According to research by Egyptologists, these monuments were not uncommon even in the era Ancient kingdom. Apparently, there is no time before each Egyptian pyramid a similar obelisk rose. During the Middle and New Egyptian kingdoms, entire alleys of obelisks led to the temples. In subsequent centuries, these obelisks were almost all taken out of Egypt by the rulers European countries, whose conquering armies roamed the Egyptian soil.
Believers have always associated these Egyptian obelisks with symbols of idolatry. When one of them was brought to Rome, Pope Sixtus V performed a rite of purification on it so that the “malicious god of Egypt” would lose power over the stone monument and would not harm its successive Christian owners.
In the center of the Parisian Place de la Concorde in France stands the ancient Egyptian Luxor Obelisk, 23 m high. On each of its sides are carved images and hieroglyphs dedicated to the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II.
The Luxor Obelisk has a history of more than three thousand years. It was originally located at the entrance to the Luxor Temple in Egypt, but in the early 1830s, the Viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, gave France two obelisks, one of them the Luxor obelisk. At this time, the Seine and Nile rivers became shallow, and the transportation of the obelisks was delayed. Five years later, they decided to transport the Luxor Obelisk to Paris first, and deliver the Alexandria Obelisk, which was inferior in beauty, later. The Luxor Obelisk was erected on the Place de la Concorde on October 25, 1836.
At the beginning of the last century, only seven standing obelisks remained in Egypt: four in Thebes, one on the island of Philae, one in Alexandria and one in Heliopolis. There were four Egyptian obelisks in England, two in France, two in Italian Florence, and two in Istanbul.
The most Egyptian obelisks in Rome are twelve. Near the Cathedral of St. Paul there is an obelisk, the height of the column is 23.5 m. The height of the obelisk of Flaminius, brought by Emperor Augustus and installed in Piazza del Popolo, is 22.3 m.
The height of the main part of the obelisk installed in London, the so-called Cleopatra's Needle, is 17.5 m. Of course, Cleopatra did not give the order to create an obelisk and name the monument after herself. Just to please Caesar, she transported an obelisk similar in outline to a pyramid from Heliopolis, where it adorned the Temple of the Sun, to the capital of Egypt. In 1801, the British, who defeated French units in Egypt, were offered to take the obelisk as a trophy. However, then the command English troops Due to the difficulties of transporting the monument, this idea was abandoned. Later, in 1819, the above-mentioned Muhammad Ali presented the obelisk as a gift to the English Prince Regent.
Cleopatra's Needle got its name back in ancient times. Egyptian priests erected these tall stone structures in the form of needles, called them altars of the gods and immortalized certain secret knowledge on them with mysterious hieroglyphs.
As for all these obelisks, in the 19th century, to rise as a “rebellious head” over any of them was absolutely not relevant and, probably, simply ridiculous. And Pushkin was not so clerical as to present pagan symbols as the main object of his poetic opposition.
The Belgian researcher of the question of the prototype of Pushkin’s “Alexandrian Pillar” Gregoire put forward another hypothesis - they say that the poet meant the Faros lighthouse by it. And in fact, the meaning of the term “pillar” is broader than “columns” or “pillar” - just remember Babel, originally meaning the erection of the Pillar of Babylon. But Pushkin never called the corresponding structure either the Lighthouse of Alexandria, much less the Pillar of Alexandria, but only Pharos. To this it should be added that, conversely, Pushkin could never have called the lighthouse a pillar.
The word “pillar” used by Pushkin indeed evokes associations associated with the widespread famous expression"Babel". (The whole earth had one language and one speech... And they said to each other: Let us make bricks and burn them with fire... And they said: Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, with its height reaching to heaven, and we will make a name for ourselves before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth... And The Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they have begun to do, and let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. Chapter 11.: 1.) Did Pushkin have an association between the Pillar of Alexandria he mentioned for comparison with the Pillar of Babylon? This assumption is very likely.
Yes, but still, what Pillar of Alexandria was Pushkin thinking about when he wrote his poem?
It seems that there is a much more “worthy candidate” for the role of the material embodiment of Pushkin’s Pillar of Alexandria - created in the image and likeness of the classical Egyptian obelisk George Washington Memorial in the capital of the United States of America, Washington. The height of the monument is 169 m, and it is one of the tallest stone structures in the world.
"This is a four-sided stone structure located in Washington ( Columbia region), erected in memory of the "Father of the Nation", General, Founding Father and first President of the United States of America ( from 1789 to 1797) George Washington,” say brochures and guides to the capital of the United States.
The George Washington Monument is the tallest structure in the capital of the United States.
...The first call for the construction of the Washington Monument came during his lifetime, in 1783.
Plans for the construction of the obelisk aroused great interest in the world, including in Russia. The topic was widely discussed in society. Several issues were dedicated to her and published in Russian capital official newspaper"St. Petersburg Vedomosti". An engraving depicting the planned monument was also published.
From the very beginning of the fight English colonies in North America for independence from the metropolis, St. Petersburg Vedomosti covered the events of this war with varying frequency. So, in July 1789 the newspaper published next message: “General Washington, President of the new Confederacy, arrived here on the 22d of April and was received with great expressions of joy. The day before, he was elevated to this new dignity - the title of president - on which occasion he gave a speech.”
This note is about the first US President ( USA) George Washington is the first mention in the Russian press of the heads of this North American republic.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was among the subscribers of St. Petersburg Vedomosti. In his letter to P. A. Vyazemsky, sent from Tsarskoe Selo in the summer of 1831, there is the following phrase: “Don’t ask about literature: I don’t receive any single journal, except for the St. Petersburg Gazette, I don’t read even those”...
However, if you haven’t read it, you’ve at least skimmed it. There is such an episode related to the topic of this article. When the Alexander Column was opened in 1834, Pushkin was not in the city. He learned about the event from friends, eyewitnesses, and also from newspaper reviews. St. Petersburg Vedomosti published materials related to the discovery. At that time, they gave a long, with continuation, ethnographic material about the small peoples of the then Yenisei province - the Tungus, Yakuts, Buryats, Mongols... And it was said that “the tribes, now known as wandering tribes, have been plunged into the deepest ignorance. They have no signs of worship; there are no written traditions and very few oral ones..."
Isn’t this where the “now wild Tungus”, mentioned in Pushkin Monument»?
...The cornerstone of the monument was laid on July 4, 1848 (American Independence Day), and the same shovel was used that Washington himself had used 55 years earlier when laying the foundation for the Capitol in future capital. Speaker of the House of Representatives Robert Winthrop, speaking at the obelisk laying ceremony, called on American citizens to build a monument that “would express the gratitude of all the American people... Build it to the sky! You cannot surpass the heights of Washington's principles." Why not the biblical Pillar of Babylon!
Tourists visiting the current capital of the United States, the city of Washington, where the obelisk to George Washington is erected, cross the bridge over the Potomac River and find themselves in an ancient town with a population of 111 thousand inhabitants. This is Alexandria, a historical and tourist center associated with the life and work of George Washington ( his house museum is located here). For US History " Old city» Alexandria has a special value because it was here that important state councils, the “Founding Fathers” of the States met, and George Washington himself served in a small church in the city. From 1828 to 1836, Alexandria was home to one of the largest slave markets in the country. More than a thousand slaves were sent from here each year to work on the plantations of Mississippi and New Orleans.
In the history of America, the city of Alexandria is also known for the fact that during Civil War In 1861, the first blood was shed here.
In the “old city”, monuments from the era of the formation of American democracy are carefully preserved. Among them: an exact copy of George Washington's house...
It began to acquire the appearance that the historical center has now in 1749. In 1801, the city of Alexandria became part of the officially formed federal district Columbia, which, in addition to Alexandria, also included the city of Washington, which became the capital of the United States, the city of Georgetown, Washington County and Alexandria County.
For the capital federal district an area of 260 square meters was allocated. km. Choosing the capital of the new state was difficult, since many cities were vying for this role. The issue of building the capital has been discussed in the Senate since 1783. However, only by 1790 did congressmen come to a compromise and decided that the capital would be located on the Potomac River - between the South and North of the then 13 North American colonies. In July 1790, the US Congress decided to provide territory in the states of Maryland and Virginia for construction new capital, whose functions were previously performed by Philadelphia. A year later, George Washington personally selected a plot of land on the Potomac River – sketches made by his hand have been preserved coastline rivers.
It is a well-known fact that George Washington, being a Freemason, on the occasion of laying the first stone of the Capitol in 1793, publicly put on a Masonic apron and picked up a silver hammer and trowel. The first chief architect of the city, a military associate of Washington, the Frenchman Pierre-Charles Lanfant, was a compatriot and like-minded person of the Marquis de Lafayette, French revolutionary and a convinced Freemason. The same de Lafayette who sailed to America from France on a ship he hired became the boss General Staff from George Washington, fought under his command, was treated kindly by him and, enriched, returned to France. De Lafayette led the anti-Russian party in National Assembly France, which made calls in 1831 to declare war on Russia in connection with the suppression of a riot in Warsaw by Russian troops.
Pushkin dedicated his poem “What are you making noise about, people’s revolutionaries?” to this campaign. The poet ironically called the rich deputies “people’s” and “vitii” - this is the name given not only to talkers, but also to younger, low-degree members of Masonic lodges (the first who drew the attention of the authors of this article to this circumstance was Nikolai Petrovich Burlyaev), bearing in mind that behind them are hidden the “puppeteers” remaining in the shadows, more high degree dedication.
The main attraction of the “old city” of Alexandria is Tents Hill, topped by the Masonic Memorial to George Washington.
If you draw a line on the map from the George Washington Masonic Memorial directly north, then, after crossing the Potomac River, after a little more than 6 km, it will first run into the George Washington obelisk, and then, having passed it, into The White house. As intended by the founders of the US capital, the city of Alexandria was on the same line as the three other main symbols of the American capital and American democracy - the Capitol, the White House and the Washington Obelisk.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s attitude towards democracy in general and American democracy in particular is well known. It finally crystallized and became sharply negative precisely in the last year of his life.
In a letter to Chaadaev dated October 19, 1836, Pushkin mentioned that in the third book of the Sovremennik magazine he published in 1836, he published his article “John Tenner.” In it, he gave a very unflattering assessment of the contemporary state of the American state:
« For some time now, the North American States have been attracting the attention of the most thoughtful people in Europe. Political events are not to blame for this: America calmly carries out its mission, until now safe and prosperous, strong in the world, strengthened by its geographical position, proud of its institutions. But several profound minds have recently taken up the study of American customs and customs, and their observations have again aroused questions that were believed to have long been resolved.
Respect for this new people and for their way of life, the fruit of the latest enlightenment, has greatly wavered. They saw with amazement democracy in its disgusting cynicism, in its cruel prejudices, in its intolerable tyranny. Everything noble, selfless, everything that elevates the human soul - suppressed by inexorable egoism and passion for comfort; the majority, brazenly oppressing society; Negro slavery in the midst of education and freedom; genealogical persecution among a people without nobility; on the part of voters, greed and envy; timidity and servility on the part of managers; talent, out of respect for equality, forced into voluntary ostracism; a rich man putting on a tattered caftan so as not to offend on the street the arrogant poverty he secretly despises: this is the picture American States, recently exposed to us».
Let's compare the dates again. On August 21, 1836, Pushkin wrote the poem “Monument”, and in September 1836 ( exact date unknown, autograph not preserved) – an article about American democracy.
Zhukovsky, having found a poem in the poet’s papers, understands that, published with the words “The Pillar of Alexandria,” it will be compared with the publication of the article “John Tenner” in Sovremennik. And after Pushkin’s death, when Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, who never forgot about his affiliation with the Freemasons and about Pushkin’s Masonic past, put a white Masonic glove in the poet’s coffin, Zhukovsky already had to justify himself to the head of the III department, Benckendorff.
Pushkin was declared the head of the Russian party, opposing the party of foreigners at court. A white glove placed in a Mason's coffin meant a sign of vengeance. They could consider that the Freemasons had a hand in the death of Pushkin.
It may be objected that the Washington Monument was not built then. Yes, he was not embodied in stone. But it was only a matter of time and money. Pushkin looked forward.
And his miraculous monument, his Poetry, his “soul in the treasured lyre,” as he foresaw, “escaped decay” and rose above all man-made monuments, both built and still being designed in someone’s sophisticated minds.
Vladimir Orlov, Zaryana Lugovaya
Published
What is a verse? Rhymed lines conveying some kind of thought, nothing more. But if poems could be broken down into molecules and the percentage of their components examined, then everyone would understand that poetry is a much more complex structure. 10% text, 30% information and 60% feelings - that's what poetry is. Belinsky once said that in every feeling of Pushkin there is something noble, graceful and tender. It was these feelings that became the basis of his poetry. Was he able to convey them in full? This can be said after the analysis “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands” - last work great poet.
remember me
The poem “Monument” was written shortly before the poet’s death. Here lyrical hero Pushkin himself spoke. He reflected on his difficult fate and the role he played in history. Poets tend to think about their place in this world. And Pushkin wants to believe that his work was not in vain. Like every representative creative professions, he wants to be remembered. And with the poem “Monument” he seems to sum up his creative activity, as if to say: “Remember me.”
The poet is eternal
“I erected a monument to myself not made by hands”... This work reveals the theme of the poet and poetry, the problem of poetic fame is comprehended, but most importantly, the poet believes that fame can defeat death. Pushkin is proud that his poetry is free, because he did not write for the sake of fame. As the lyricist himself once noted: “Poetry is a selfless service to humanity.”
While reading the poem, you can enjoy its solemn atmosphere. Art will live forever, and its creator will certainly go down in history. Stories about him will be passed on from generation to generation, his words will be quoted, and his ideas will be supported. The poet is eternal. He only person who is not afraid of death. As long as people remember you, you exist.
But at the same time, the solemn speeches are saturated with sadness. This verse is last words Pushkin, who put an end to his work. The poet seems to want to say goodbye, finally asking for the very least - to be remembered. This is the meaning of Pushkin’s poem “Monument”. His work is full of love for the reader. Until the end he believes in strength poetic word and hopes that he managed to fulfill his responsibility.
Year of writing
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin died in 1837 (January 29). After some time, a draft version of the poem “Monument” was found among his notes. Pushkin indicated the year of writing as 1836 (August 21). Soon the original work was handed over to the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who made some literary corrections to it. But only four years later this poem saw the world. The poem “Monument” was included in the posthumous collection of the poet’s works, published in 1841.
Disagreements
There are many versions of how this work was created. The history of the creation of Pushkin’s “Monument” is truly amazing. Researchers of creativity still cannot agree on any one version, putting forward assumptions ranging from extremely sarcastic to completely mystical.
They say that A. S. Pushkin’s poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands” is nothing more than an imitation of the work of other poets. Works of this kind, the so-called “Monuments,” can be traced in the works of G. Derzhavin, M. Lomonosov, A. Vostokov and other writers of the 17th century. In turn, adherents of Pushkin’s work claim that he was inspired to create this poem by Horace’s ode Exegi monumentum. The disagreements between Pushkinists did not end there, because researchers can only guess about how the verse was created.
Irony and debt
In turn, Pushkin’s contemporaries received his “Monument” rather coolly. They saw in this poem nothing more than a praise of their poetic talents. And this was, at the very least, incorrect. However, admirers of his talent, on the contrary, considered the poem as a hymn to modern poetry.
Among the poet’s friends there was an opinion that there was nothing in this poem but irony, and the work itself was a message that Pushkin left for himself. They believed that in this way the poet wanted to draw attention to the fact that his work deserves greater recognition and respect. And this respect should be supported not only by exclamations of admiration, but also by some kind of material incentives.
By the way, this assumption is in some way confirmed by the records of Pyotr Vyazemsky. He was on good terms with the poet and could safely say that the word “miraculous” used by the poet had a slightly different meaning. Vyazemsky was confident that he was right and repeatedly stated that the poem was about status in modern society, and not about cultural heritage poet. The highest circles of society recognized that Pushkin had remarkable talent, but they did not like him. Although the poet’s work was recognized by the people, he could not earn a living from this. To provide himself with a decent standard of living, he constantly mortgaged his property. This is evidenced by the fact that after Pushkin’s death, Tsar Nicholas the First gave the order to pay all the poet’s debts from the state treasury and assigned maintenance to his widow and children.
Mystical version of the creation of the work
As you can see, studying the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands,” an analysis of the history of creation suggests the existence of a “mystical” version of the appearance of the work. Supporters of this idea are sure that Pushkin felt his imminent death. Six months before his death, he created a “monument not made by hands” for himself. He put an end to his career as a poet by writing his last poetic testament.
The poet seemed to know that his poems would become a role model, not only in Russian, but also in world literature. There is also a legend that once a fortune teller predicted his death at the hands of a handsome blond man. At the same time, Pushkin knew not only the date, but also the time of his death. And when the end was already near, he took care to sum up his work.
But be that as it may, the verse was written and published. We, his descendants, can only guess what caused the poem to be written and analyze it.
Genre
As for the genre, the poem “Monument” is an ode. However this special variety genre. The ode to oneself came to Russian literature as a pan-European tradition, dating back to ancient times. It’s not for nothing that Pushkin used lines from Horace’s poem “To Melpomene” as an epigraph. IN literal translation Exegi monumentum means "I have erected a monument." He wrote the poem “To Melpomene” at the end of his creative career. Melpomene is ancient Greek muse, patroness of tragedies and performing arts. Addressing her, Horace tries to evaluate his merits in poetry. Later, works of this kind became a kind of tradition in literature.
This tradition was introduced into Russian poetry by Lomonosov, who was the first to translate Horace's work. Afterwards, relying on ancient works, G. Derzhavin wrote his “Monument”. It was he who determined the main genre features of such “monuments”. This genre tradition received its final form in the works of Pushkin.
Composition
Speaking about the composition of Pushkin’s verse “Monument”, it should be noted that it is divided into five stanzas, where the original forms and poetic meters. Both Derzhavin and Pushkin’s “Monument” is written in quatrains, which are somewhat modified.
Pushkin wrote the first three stanzas in the traditional odic size- iambic hexameter, but the last stanza is written in iambic tetrameter. When analyzing “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands,” it is clear that it is on this last stanza Pushkin makes the main semantic emphasis.
Subject
The work “Monument” by Pushkin is a hymn to the lyrics. Its main theme is the glorification of real poetry and the affirmation of the poet’s honorable place in the life of society. Even though Pushkin continued the traditions of Lomonosov and Derzhavin, he largely rethought the problems of the ode and put forward his own ideas regarding the assessment of creativity and its true purpose.
Pushkin is trying to reveal the theme of the relationship between the writer and the reader. He says his poems are for the masses. This can be felt from the first lines: “The people’s path to him will not be overgrown.”
“I erected a monument to myself not made by hands”: analysis
In the first stanza of the verse, the poet asserts the significance of such a poetic monument in comparison with other merits and monuments. Pushkin also introduces here the theme of freedom, which is often heard in his work.
The second stanza, in fact, is no different from that of other poets who wrote “monuments”. Here Pushkin exalts the immortal spirit of poetry, which allows poets to live forever: “No, all of me will not die - the soul is in the cherished lyre.” The poet also focuses on the fact that in the future his work will find recognition in more wide circles. In the last years of his life, he was not understood or accepted, so Pushkin pinned his hopes on the fact that in the future there would be people close to him in spirituality.
In the third stanza, the poet reveals the theme of the development of interest in poetry among ordinary people who were unfamiliar with it. But it’s the last stanza that deserves the most attention. It was in it that Pushkin explained what his creativity consisted of and what would ensure his immortality: “Praise and slander were accepted indifferently and do not challenge the creator.” 10% text, 30% information and 60% feelings - this is how Pushkin turned out to be an ode, a miraculous monument that he erected to himself.
