Essay: Capital and local nobility in the novel by A. S.

The capital and local nobility in A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”

Sample essay text

In the novel "Eugene Onegin" Pushkin unfolded with remarkable completeness the pictures of Russian life in the first quarter of the 19th century. Before the reader’s eyes, an arrogant, luxurious St. Petersburg, ancient Moscow, dear to the heart of every Russian person, cozy country estates, and nature, beautiful in its variability, pass in a living, moving panorama. Against this background, Pushkin’s heroes love, suffer, are disappointed, and die. Both the environment that gave birth to them and the atmosphere in which their lives take place are deeply and completely reflected in the novel.

In the first chapter of the novel, introducing the reader to his hero, Pushkin describes in detail his ordinary day, filled to the limit with visits to restaurants, theaters and balls. The life of other young St. Petersburg aristocrats was also “monotonous and motley”, all of whose worries consisted of searching for new, not yet boring entertainment. The desire for change forces Evgeny to leave for the village, then, after the murder of Lensky, he goes on a journey, from which he returns to the familiar environment of St. Petersburg salons. Here he meets Tatiana, who has become an “indifferent princess,” the mistress of an elegant drawing room where the highest nobility of St. Petersburg gathers.

Here you can meet pro-Lassians, “who have earned fame for the baseness of their souls,” and “over-starched impudents,” and “ballroom dictators,” and elderly ladies “in caps and roses, seemingly evil,” and “maidens with unsmiling faces.” These are typical regulars of St. Petersburg salons, where arrogance, stiffness, coldness and boredom reign. These people live by strict rules of decent hypocrisy, playing some role. Their faces, like their living feelings, are hidden by an impassive mask. This gives rise to emptiness of thoughts, coldness of hearts, envy, gossip, and anger. That’s why such bitterness can be heard in Tatyana’s words addressed to Evgeniy:

And to me, Onegin, this pomp,

Life's hateful tinsel,

My successes are in a whirlwind of light,

My fashionable house and evenings,

What's in them? Now I'm glad to give it away

All this rags of a masquerade,

All this shine, and noise, and fumes

For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,

For our poor home...

The same idleness, emptiness and monotony fill the Moscow salons where the Larins visit. Pushkin paints a collective portrait of the Moscow nobility with bright satirical colors:

But there is no change in them,

Everything about them is the same as the old model:

At Aunt Princess Elena's

Still the same tulle cap;

Everything is whitewashed Lukerya Lvovna,

Lyubov Petrovna lies all the same,

Ivan Petrovich is just as stupid

Semyon Petrovich is also stingy...

In this description, attention is drawn to the persistent repetition of small everyday details and their immutability. And this creates a feeling of stagnation of life, which has stopped in its development. Naturally, there are empty, meaningless conversations here, which Tatyana cannot understand with her sensitive soul.

Tatyana wants to listen

In conversations, in general conversation;

But everyone in the living room is occupied

Such incoherent, vulgar nonsense,

Everything about them is so pale and indifferent;

They slander even boringly...

In the noisy Moscow world, the tone is set by “smart dandies”, “holiday hussars”, “archival youths”, and self-satisfied cousins. In a whirlwind of music and dance, a vain life rushes by, devoid of any internal content.

They kept life peaceful

Habits of a dear old man;

At their Shrovetide

There were Russian pancakes;

Twice a year they fasted,

Loved Russian swings

Podblyudny songs, round dance...

The author's sympathy is evoked by the simplicity and naturalness of their behavior, closeness to folk customs, cordiality and hospitality. But Pushkin does not at all idealize the patriarchal world of village landowners. On the contrary, it is precisely for this circle that the defining feature becomes the terrifying primitiveness of interests, which manifests itself in ordinary topics of conversation, in activities, and in an absolutely empty and aimlessly lived life. How, for example, is Tatyana’s late father remembered? Only because he was a simple and kind fellow,” “he ate and drank in his dressing gown,” and “died an hour before dinner.” The life of Uncle Onegin passes similarly in the wilderness of the village, who “for forty years scolded the housekeeper, looked out the window and crushed flies ". Pushkin contrasts these good-natured lazy people with Tatyana's energetic and economical mother. A few stanzas contain her entire spiritual biography, which consists of a rather rapid degeneration of a cutesy, sentimental young lady into a real sovereign landowner, whose portrait we see in the novel.

She went to work

Salted mushrooms for the winter,

She kept expenses, shaved her foreheads,

I went to the bathhouse on Saturdays,

She beat the maids in anger -

All this without asking my husband.

With his portly wife

Fat Pustyakov arrived;

Gvozdin, an excellent owner,

Owner of poor men...

These heroes are so primitive that they do not require a detailed description, which may even consist of one surname. The interests of these people are limited to eating food and talking “about wine, about the kennel, about their relatives.” Why does Tatyana strive from luxurious St. Petersburg to this meager, wretched little world? Probably because he is familiar to her, here she can not hide her feelings, not play the role of a magnificent secular princess. Here you can immerse yourself in the familiar world of books and wonderful rural nature. But Tatyana remains in the light, perfectly seeing its emptiness. Onegin is also unable to break with society without accepting it. The unhappy fates of the novel's heroes are the result of their conflict with both the capital and provincial society, which, however, generates in their souls submission to the opinion of the world, thanks to which friends fight duels, and people who love each other part.

This means that a broad and complete depiction of all groups of nobility in the novel plays an important role in motivating the actions of the heroes, their destinies, and introduces the reader to the range of current social and moral problems of the 20s of the 19th century.

Depiction of the life of the local and metropolitan nobility. Pushkin's novel “Eugene Onegin” is the first Russian realistic novel, truthfully and widely showing Russian life in the 20s of the 19th century. This was a time of rising national self-awareness, awakened by the War of 1812, and increasing dissatisfaction of the advanced noble intelligentsia with the autocratic serfdom system.

Pushkin, a leading man of his era, could not ignore the most pressing issues of the day and responded to them with the novel “Eugene Onegin,” rightly called by the critic Belinsky “an encyclopedia of Russian life.”

One of the questions raised on the pages of the novel was the question of the Russian nobility, provincial and metropolitan. In his novel, Pushkin truthfully showed the way of life, life, and interests of the nobility and gave an apt description of the representatives of this society. Behind the author's good nature there is often a very ironic description of this or that hero. For example, when it comes to Onegin’s uncle, who lives on his estate, the poet writes:

For about forty years he was quarreling with the housekeeper,

I looked out the window and squashed flies.

With the same irony, the poet speaks about the “peaceful life” of the Larin family, but he likes their “habits of the dear old times.” And for this closeness to folk customs, Pushkin treats the Larin family with sympathy. The winds of light have not yet reached them, and they still dashingly dance the mazurka, bake pancakes for Maslenitsa, “fast twice a year” and “carry dishes according to rank.” Larin Dmitry himself “...was a kind fellow, belated in the last century.” He did not read books, did not delve into the household, raising children, “ate and drank in his dressing gown” and “died an hour before dinner.”

The poet very figuratively showed us the Larins’ guests who had gathered for Tatiana’s name day. Here are “fat Pustyakov”, and “Gvozdin, an excellent owner, owner of poor peasants”, and “county dandy Petushkov”, and “retired councilor Flyanov, a heavy gossip, an old rogue, a glutton, a bribe-taker and a buffoon”. “The Skotinins - a gray-haired couple” - seemed to migrate from “The Minor” to Pushkin’s novel. This is the provincial nobility of the 19th century, not far removed in their views and way of life from the nobility of the 18th century.

The landowners lived the old fashioned way, did not bother themselves with anything, and led an empty lifestyle. They cared only about their well-being, had “a whole line of drinks” and, having gathered together, they talked “... about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about their relatives” and condemned each other. Their interests did not go beyond these conversations. Unless they talk about new people who appeared in their society, about whom a lot of fables were written. The landowners dreamed of marrying off their daughters profitably and literally caught suitors for them. So it was with Lensky: “All their daughters were foretold for their half-Russian neighbor.”

The cultural demands of the provincial nobles were also very low. Pushkin, in just a few words, gives an apt and complete description of the cruelty of the landowners. So, Larina “shaved the foreheads” of the guilty peasants, “she beat the maids in anger.”

A cruel and greedy serfwoman, she forced girls to sing while picking berries, “so that wicked lips would not secretly eat the master’s berries.”

When Evgeniy, having arrived in the village, “replaced the yoke... of the old corvee with a light quitrent,” then “... in his corner, his calculating neighbor sulked, seeing in this a terrible harm,” probably such as the Skotinins or the same Gvozdin. Everything the poet talks about is true; this and his personal observation of the life of the provincial nobility; in exile in Mikhailovskoye, he saw it all with his own eyes.

The novel also depicts the life of the capital's aristocratic society. The life of the nobles is a continuous holiday. It was the system of autocratic-serfdom that allowed them to lead such a lifestyle. Theaters, balls, restaurants are the main occupation of the capital's nobility. They did not want to work, because “they were sick of persistent work.” An empty, inactive life in secular society was considered normal. The author of the novel introduced us in detail to “the activities of Eugene Onegin and, using the example of one day spent by him, showed that the life of society was very “monotonous and motley, and tomorrow is the same as yesterday.” Pushkin, who is critical of such a life, satirically draws typical representatives of high society. The color of the capital is “necessary fools”, “angry gentlemen”, “dictators”, “seemingly evil ladies” and “unsmiling girls”. Without a goal, without moving forward - this is how we saw the noble aristocrats who filled the secular living rooms of St. Petersburg and Moscow:

Everything about them is so pale and indifferent:

They slander even boringly

In the barren dryness of speech,

Questions, gossip and news

Thoughts will not flash for a whole day.

Whether by chance or at random.

Both the local nobility and the metropolitan nobility worshiped everything foreign. In every nobleman's house there were foreign luxury goods, which Paris and “scrupulous London... bring to us for timber and lard.” Everywhere they wore clothes in a foreign style and spoke French:

But trousers, a tailcoat, a vest,

All these words are not in Russian.

Tatyana, “Russian in soul,” having found herself in St. Petersburg society, learned the science of “controlling oneself,” which Onegin told her about. High society can re-educate anyone into a secular person, as he should be in the understanding of “decisive and strict judges”, so that they “repeated about him for a whole century: what a wonderful person.”

From early childhood, the nobles were instilled with the traits of a kirierist man, who must be smart or dandy, so that “he could endure the cold of life with the years,” so that “he would not be shunned by the secular rabble,” and at the age of thirty, “he would be advantageously married.”

The characterization of the nobles given by the poet shows that they had one goal in front of them - to achieve fame and rank. Pushkin is true to his principles and always condemns this kind of people in his works. In the novel "Eugene Onegin" he satirically denounces the lifestyle of the local and metropolitan nobility. At the same time, the poet accurately points to the main enemy that allows the nobility to lead such a lifestyle - the autocratic serf system.

In this article we bring to your attention an essay on the nobility as Pushkin shows it in the novel “Eugene Onegin”.

Nobility (High Society) in the novel "Eugene Onegin".

A.S. Pushkin in his novel “Eugene Onegin” depicted the life of the Russian nobility in the twenties of the 19th century. According to V. G. Belinsky, “ he decided to present to us the inner life of this class ».

The author of the novel pays special attention to the St. Petersburg nobility, a typical representative of which is Eugene Onegin. The poet describes in every detail the day of his hero, and Onegin’s day is a typical day of a metropolitan nobleman. Thus, Pushkin recreates a picture of the life of the entire St. Petersburg secular society.

Pushkin speaks about St. Petersburg high society with a fair amount of irony and without much sympathy, because life in the capital is “monotonous and colorful,” and the “noise of the world” gets boring very quickly.

The local, provincial nobility is represented very widely in the novel. This is Onegin’s uncle, the Larin family, guests at Tatyana’s name day, Zaretsky.

Prominent representatives of the provincial nobility gather at Tatiana’s name day: Grozdin, “ excellent owner, owner of poor men "; Petushkov, " district dandy "; Flyanov, " heavy gossip, old rogue ". If Pushkin introduces real historical figures, for example, Kaverin, into the story about the capital’s nobility, then in this case the author uses the names of famous literary characters: Skotinins are the heroes of Fonvizin’s “The Minor,” Buyanov is the hero of V.L.’s “Dangerous Neighbor.” Pushkin. The author also uses telling surnames. For example, Triquet means " beaten with a stick " - a hint that he cannot be accepted in high society, but in the provinces he is a welcome guest.

The world of the landed nobility is far from perfect, because in it spiritual interests and needs are not decisive, just as their conversations are not distinguished by intelligence:

Their conversation is sensible

About haymaking, about wine,

About the kennel, about my family.

However, Pushkin writes about him with more sympathy than about St. Petersburg. The provincial nobility retains naturalness and spontaneity as properties of human nature.

A good family of neighbors,

Unceremonious friends.

The local nobles were quite close to the people in terms of their attitude and way of life. This is manifested in the attitude towards nature and religion, in the observance of traditions. Pushkin pays less attention to the Moscow nobility than to the St. Petersburg nobility. Several years have passed since Pushkin wrote the 1st chapter of his novel, and A.S. Griboyedov finished the comedy “Woe from Wit,” but Pushkin adds Griboyedov’s lines to the epigraph of the seventh chapter, thereby emphasizing that little has changed in Moscow since then. The second capital has always been patriarchal. So, for example, Tatiana is met at her aunt’s by a gray-haired Kalmyk, and the fashion for Kalmyks was at the end of the 18th century.

The Moscow nobility is a collective image, in contrast to the St. Petersburg nobility, where Eugene Onegin is the main character. Pushkin, speaking about Moscow, seems to populate it with the heroes of Griboyedov’s comedy, whom time has not changed:

But there is no change in them,

Everything about them is the same as the old model...

A real historical figure also appears in Moscow society:

Vyazemsky somehow sat down with her (Tatyana) ...

But in Moscow there is still the same bustle, “ noise, laughter, running, bowing ", which leave both Tatyana and the author indifferent

Pushkin managed to give in “Eugene Onegin” a detailed picture of the life of the noble class, and at the same time, according to Belinsky, the entire society “in the form in which it was in the era he chose, that is, in the twenties of the current 19th century.”

Here is an essay characterizing high society in the novel “Eugene Onegin”.

In his work, Pushkin paid attention to both the capital and local nobility. He opposed home education, since it could not provide the nobles with all the knowledge. The author was irritated by the morals of the capital's nobility of those times. Its representatives followed fashion trends, while treating love as a science; they performed actions for show, and not out of sincere motives. The concept of friendship was distorted in their minds, because they called everyone who belonged to the same metropolitan nobility friends as friends. It was in this environment that Onegin developed as a person.

The Larin family belongs to the local nobility. Their life is extremely different from the life of the capital's nobles. They talk not about fashion trends and social events, but about haymaking, relatives, crops, etc. Despite the fact that the Larins were nobles, they were close to the common people. In his metropolitan society, Onegin was accustomed to various delicacies, and in the Larins’ house only traditional Russian dishes were prepared. Their house was always open to guests.

However, the local nobility was less educated, as it was located far from the capital. But Pushkin shows that in the life of both the capital and the local nobility there are dark and bright sides. Everywhere there are good people who are ready to help, as well as deceitful, evil and petty people.

Times change, and we change with them.

R. Owen

In the 20s of the 19th century, after the Patriotic War of 1812, an ideological stratification occurred in Russian society into people with progressive views and those who still remained in the last century. This was a time of rising national self-awareness and growing dissatisfaction with the autocracy.

The novel “Eugene Onegin” reflects all aspects of Russian life at the beginning of the 19th century, so the novel can be called an “encyclopedia of Russian life.” Against the background of changes in the life of Russia, Pushkin depicts the life and customs of different groups of nobility.

In the 20s, the best part of the Russian nobility opposed serfdom and absolute monarchy. L.S. Pushkin depicted Russian society at the beginning of the 19th century in his novel.

Provincial society is also embodied in the novel. Thus, Russia of the 19th century is depicted in the novel by A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” using the example of representatives of provincial and metropolitan society.

Pictures of the life of the capital and local nobility are organically included in Pushkin’s realistic depiction of various aspects of the era. We are talking about a person’s relationship with his era and his society. A.S. Using the example of the main character, Pushkin reveals the lifestyle of the “golden noble youth.”

Onegin, tired of the noise of the ball, returns late and wakes up only “after noon.” The poet describes in detail the main character’s pastime, his office, more like a ladies’ boudoir:

Perfume in cut crystal;

Combs, steel files,

Straight scissors, curved

And brushes of thirty kinds

For both nails and teeth.

Evgeny's life is monotonous and colorful: balls, theaters, restaurants and more balls. Such a life could not satisfy an intelligent, thinking person, so one can understand why Onegin was disappointed in the surrounding society; he was overcome by the “blues.”

Evgeny Onegin is a “superfluous” person, “smart uselessness.” He has progressive views, broad mental interests, and the ability to perceive beauty.

The high society in the novel consists of people who are selfish, indifferent, and devoid of high thoughts. Their life is artificial and empty. Knowledge and feelings here are shallow. People spend time inactive in the midst of external hustle and bustle. Pushkin describes such a society in more detail:

And know, and fashion samples,

Faces you meet everywhere

Necessary fools...

This is the highest light. It is not difficult to understand why Onegin, a man of progressive views, gets tired of this society. He becomes bored, he is cold towards everything, his soul is empty; he becomes indifferent.

So life goes on in the Larins’ house without change. Everyone is doing their usual household chores. In the evenings they sometimes throw balls or simply invite guests. Life in the village passes slowly, without changes, so there is nothing special to talk about. And if any news appears, they will talk about it for a very long time. It's the same thing at balls. Conversations do not go beyond such topics as haymaking, wine, and kennels. It is no coincidence that Pushkin represents the local nobles as monsters in Tatyana’s dreams. They have become so impoverished in intelligence that they are little different from animals.

The guests at Tatyana's name day are the clearest example of the landowner breed. The author reveals their essence in the surnames: Skotinins, Buyanov. Tatyana is just as bored in the circle of this provincial society as Evgeny is in the circle of the capital. She is fond of novels in which she imagines her future chosen one.

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her;

She fell in love with deceptions

And Richardson and Russo.

She sees her betrothed in her dreams. Reading is her favorite pastime, which distinguishes her from Olga, who since childhood loved to play and frolic in the yard with the children. She is more talkative and sociable than Tatyana. Olga is a vivid image of simple and cutesy provincial young ladies. Native nature nourishes Tatiana’s spiritual world; she loves to “prevent the dawn from rising.”

At the beginning of the novel, Tatyana is a young provincial noblewoman, at the end of the work we see her as a magnificent society lady. But from the first to the last pages, Pushkin in this image reveals the best features of the Russian character: moral purity, integrity, poetry, simplicity.

I would like to say that in order to show off your upbringing, in order to be known in Russian society as an intelligent and sweet person, you had to have a little: an excellent knowledge of the French language, the manners of a socialite, the ability to dance, “bow naturally” and “with a learned air of a connoisseur // Remain silent in an important dispute." It is in high society that a person truly learns to “slanderly slander”, to hide his true feelings and thoughts, and to be a hypocrite. Everything here is false, there is no sincerity, there are scoffers and egoists all around who consider “everyone as zeros, // And themselves as ones.” In this society, life is filled with endless balls and dinners, card games, and intrigue. Years pass, people grow old, but no change is visible in them...