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The image of Pechorin and Onegin comparison. Composition on the topic: “Comparative characteristics of Onegin and Pechorin

Eugene Onegin from novel of the same name in the poems of A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" and Grigory Pechorin from "A Hero of Our Time" by M.Yu. Lermontov, although the heroes are absolutely various works. have similar looks. No wonder VG Belinsky remarked: "Pechorin is the Onegin of our time." Eugene Onegin appears as a reflection of the era of the 20s, the period of the Decembrists and social upsurge, Pechorin is a representative of the third decade of the 19th century, called "cruel". Time defined as common features heroes and their differences.

Both Pechorin and Onegin are representatives of high society. The formation of their characters, education and upbringing took place in the same conditions. In their youth, both heroes were fond of a carefree secular life, they led it idly. They could not realize themselves in life, despite their outstanding abilities. TO true love the heroes are not capable, thus they bring only suffering to the ladies in love with them.

Onegin and Pechorin stand out among the surrounding secular society. They both make friendship out of boredom. From a duel with former friends to which fate leads both, they come out victorious. M.Yu. Lermontov himself, when he gives his hero the surname Pechorin, as if hints at his resemblance to Onegin: Onega and Pechora are rivers flowing in Russia. V. G. Belinsky notes: "Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora. Sometimes in the very name that a true poet gives to his hero, there is a reasonable necessity, although, perhaps, invisible by the poet himself ..."

But we find significant differences in the characters of the characters, their attitude to life and values. Onegin is bored, he is tired of life. The young man does not seek to change anything, disappointed in this world. Pechorin is somewhat different. He is not indifferent, active, "furiously chasing life, looking for it everywhere." Pechorin is a deep, passionate nature, he is a philosopher and thinker. He is interested the world in all its manifestations, he thinks a lot. analyzes, conducts diary entries. The hero is inspired by nature and in his diaries often notes its beauty, which Onegin is simply not able to see due to his character. The attitude of the characters towards society is also different. Onegin fears the condemnation of others and therefore decides to participate in a duel. Although Eugene understands that he must refuse, but public opinion becomes more important to him than friendship. Onegin does not enter into open conflict with society, he avoids people. What about Pechorin? He neglects the opinions of others, always does what he considers necessary. Gregory puts himself above society, treating it with disdain. Pechorin is not afraid to go into direct conflict with others. As for the duel with Grushnitsky, he agrees to it solely out of noble intentions, wanting to protect the honor of Princess Mary and his own name.

Onegin is "an egoist involuntarily." it was his dependence on the conventions of a society he despised and his inability to abandon them that made him so. Pechorin has a contradictory nature, his egoism stems from his own convictions and judgments about the world. Public opinion, the established order does not affect his worldview in any way.

Eugene Onegin and Grigory Pechorin are among the brightest characters in the literature of the 19th century. Comparing the heroes, you can find many similarities and differences in their characters, beliefs and destinies. Each of them is a hero of his time. Both novels were enthusiastically received by the public, widely discussed and criticized. It is also important to note the artistic skill of the writers, who extremely accurately reflected the nature of each of the eras in their works.

Introduction

I. The problem of the hero of time in Russian literature

II. Types of superfluous people in the novels of Pushkin and Lermontov

Spiritual drama of the Russian European Eugene Onegin
Pechorin is a hero of his time.
Similarities and differences between the images of Onegin and Pechorin

Literature

Introduction

The problem of the hero of time has always excited, worried and will excite people. It was staged by classical writers, it is relevant, and until now this problem has interested and worried me ever since I first discovered the works of Pushkin and Lermontov. That's why I decided to turn to this topic in my job. Pushkin's novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" and Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" are the pinnacles of Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century. In the center of these works are people who, in their development, are higher than the society around them, but who are not able to find application for their rich strengths and abilities. Therefore, such people are called "superfluous". AND target my work to show the types of "superfluous people" on the images of Eugene Onegin and Grigory Pechorin, since they are the most characteristic representatives of his time. One of assignments, which I set myself - is to reveal the similarities and differences between Onegin and Pechorin, while referring to the articles of V. G. Belinsky.

I. The problem of the hero of time in Russian literature

Onegin is a typical figure for the noble youth of the 20s of the 19th century. More in the poem Prisoner of the Caucasus" A.S. Pushkin set as his task to show in the hero "that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature younger generation". But the poet, in his own words, did not cope with this task. In the novel "Eugene Onegin" this goal was achieved. The poet created a deeply typical image.

M.Yu. Lermontov is a writer of "a completely different era", despite the fact that a decade separates them from Pushkin.

Years of brutal reaction have taken their toll. In his era it was impossible to overcome the alienation from time, or rather from the timelessness of the 1930s.

Lermontov saw the tragedy of his generation. This is already reflected in the poem "Duma":

Sadly, I look at our generation!

His future is either empty or dark,

Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt,

It will grow old in inaction...

This theme was continued by M.Yu. Lermontov in the novel "A Hero of Our Time". The novel "A Hero of Our Time" was written in 1838-1840 of the 19th century. It was the era of the most severe political reaction that came in the country after the defeat of the Decembrists. In his work, the author recreated in the image of Pechorin, the protagonist of the novel, a typical character of the 30s of the XIX century.

II. Types of superfluous people in the novels of Pushkin and Lermontov

In the first third of the 19th century, the concept of the "hero of time" was associated with the type of "superfluous person". It has undergone a number of transformations without losing main point, which lies in the fact that the hero has always been the bearer of a spiritual idea, and Russia, as a purely material phenomenon, could not accept the best of her sons. This contradiction of spirit and life becomes decisive in the conflict between the hero and the motherland. Russia can offer the hero only a material field, a career, which does not interest him at all. Being cut off from material life, the hero cannot take root in his homeland in order to realize his lofty plans for its transformation, and this gives rise to his wandering, restlessness. The type of "superfluous person" in Russian literature goes back to the romantic hero. A characteristic feature of romantic behavior is a conscious orientation towards one or another literary type. A romantic young man necessarily associated himself with the name of some character from the mythology of romanticism: the Demon or Werther, the hero of Goethe, the young man who was tragically in love and committed suicide, Melmoth, the mysterious villain, the demonic seducer, or Ahasuerus, the Eternal Jew, who abused Christ during his ascent to Golgotha and for that cursed with immortality, Giaur or Don Juan - romantic rebels and wanderers from Byron's poems.

The deep meaning and characterization of the type of "superfluous person" for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nikolaev era was probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the "repositories" of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as "superfluous people" of the 20-30s of the XIX century, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: "The sad type of superfluous ... person - only because he developed in a person, was then not only in poems and novels, but in the streets and living rooms, in villages and cities."

1. Spiritual drama of the Russian European Eugene Onegin

The novel by A. S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” is almost the greatest work first half of the nineteenth century. This novel is one of my favorite and at the same time the most complex works Russian literature. Its action takes place in the 20s of the XIX century. Focus on life metropolitan nobility era of spiritual quest of the advanced noble intelligentsia.

Onegin is a contemporary of Pushkin and the Decembrists. Onegin is not satisfied Savor, career official and landowner. Belinsky points out that Onegin could not engage in useful activities "due to some inevitable circumstances beyond our will," that is, due to socio-political conditions. Onegin, the "suffering egoist" - yet outstanding personality. The poet notes such traits as "involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind." According to Belinsky, Onegin "was not one of the ordinary people". Pushkin emphasizes that Onegin's boredom comes from the fact that he did not have a socially useful business. Russian nobility of that time it was an estate of land and soul owners. It was the possession of estates and serfs that was the measure of wealth, prestige and the height of social position. Onegin's father "gave three balls every year and finally squandered", and the hero of the novel himself, after receiving an inheritance from "all his relatives", became a rich landowner, he is now:

Factories, waters, forests, lands

The owner is complete...

But the theme of wealth turns out to be connected with ruin, the words "debts", "pledge", "lenders" are already found in the first lines of the novel. Debts, remortgaging already mortgaged estates were the work of not only poor landowners, but also many " powers of the world this" left huge debts to descendants. One of the reasons for the general debt was the idea that developed during the reign of Catherine II that "truly noble" behavior consists not only in big expenses, but in spending beyond one's means.

It was at that time, thanks to the penetration of various educational literature from abroad, that people began to understand the perniciousness of serf farming. Among these people was Eugene, he "read Adam Smith and was a deep economy." But, unfortunately, there were few such people, and most of them belonged to the youth. And therefore, when Eugene "with a yoke ... replaced the corvee with an old dues with a light one",

Puffed up in my corner

Seeing in this terrible harm,

His prudent neighbor.

The reason for the formation of debts was not only the desire to "live like a nobleman", but also the need to have free money at your disposal. This money was obtained by mortgaging estates. To live on the funds received when mortgaging the estate was called living in debt. It was assumed that the nobleman would improve his position with the money received, but in most cases the nobles lived on this money, spending it on the purchase or construction of houses in the capital, on balls ("gave three balls annually"). It was on this, habitual, but leading to ruin, that Father Evgeny went. Not surprisingly, when Onegin's father died, it turned out that the inheritance was burdened with large debts.

Gathered before Onegin

Lenders greedy regiment.

In this case, the heir could accept the inheritance and, together with it, take on the father's debts or refuse it, leaving the creditors to settle accounts among themselves. The first decision was dictated by a sense of honor, the desire not to sully the good name of the father or to preserve the family estate. The frivolous Onegin went the second way. Receipt of the inheritance was not the last means to correct the frustrated affairs. Youth, the time of hopes for an inheritance, was, as it were, a legalized period of debts, from which in the second half of life one had to be freed by becoming the heir to "all one's relatives" or by marrying favorably.

Who at twenty was a dandy or a grip,

And at thirty profitably married;

Who got free at fifty

From private and other debts.

For the nobles of that time, the military field seemed so natural that the absence of this feature in the biography had to have a special explanation. The fact that Onegin, as is clear from the novel, never served anywhere at all, made the young man a black sheep among his contemporaries. This reflected a new tradition. If earlier refusal to serve was denounced as selfishness, now it has acquired the contours of a struggle for personal independence, upholding the right to live independently of state requirements. Onegin leads the life young man free from official duties. At that time, only rare young people, whose service was purely fictitious, could afford such a life. Let's take this detail. The order established by Paul I, in which all officials, including the emperor himself, had to go to bed early and get up early, was preserved under Alexander I. But the right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-serving nobleman not only from the common people, but also from village landowner. The fashion to get up as late as possible dates back to the French aristocracy of the "old pre-revolutionary regime" and was brought to Russia by emigrants.

Morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by two or three in the afternoon with a walk. The favorite places for the festivities of St. Petersburg dandies were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva, it was there that Onegin walked: "Having put on a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard." . About four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for dinner. The young man, leading a single life, rarely kept a cook and preferred to dine in a restaurant.

In the afternoon, the young dandy sought to "kill" by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. The theater provided such an opportunity, it was not only a place for artistic spectacles and a kind of club where secular meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs:

The theater is already full; lodges shine;

Parterre and chairs - everything is in full swing;

In heaven they splash impatiently,

And, having risen, the curtain rustles.

Everything is clapping. Onegin enters,

Walks between the chairs on the legs,

Double lorgnette slanting induces

To the lodges of unknown ladies.

The ball had a dual property. On the one hand, it was an area of easy communication, secular recreation, a place where socio-economic differences were weakened. On the other hand, the ball was a place of representation of various social strata.

Tired of city life, Onegin settles in the countryside. important event in his life became a friendship with Lensky. Although Pushkin notes that they agreed "from doing nothing." This eventually led to a duel.

At that time, people looked at the duel in different ways. Some believed that a duel, in spite of everything, is a murder, which means barbarism, in which there is nothing chivalrous. Others - that the duel is a means of protection human dignity, because in the face of a duel, both the poor nobleman and the favorite of the court were equal.

This view was not alien to Pushkin, as his biography shows. The duel implied the strict observance of the rules, which was achieved by appealing to the authority of experts. Zaretsky plays such a role in the novel. He, "a classic and a pedant in duels", conducted his business with great omissions, or rather, deliberately ignoring everything that could eliminate the bloody outcome. Even at the first visit, he was obliged to discuss the possibility of reconciliation. This was part of his duties as a second, especially since no blood offense was inflicted and it was clear to everyone except 18-year-old Lensky that the matter was a misunderstanding. Onegin and Zaretsky break the duel rules. The first is to demonstrate his irritated contempt for the story, into which he fell against his will, in the seriousness of which he still does not believe, and Zaretsky because he sees in a duel funny story, the subject of gossip and practical jokes. Onegin's behavior in the duel irrefutably testifies that the author wanted to make him an unwilling killer. Onegin shoots from a long distance, taking only four steps, and the first, obviously not wanting to hit Lensky. However, the question arises: why, after all, did Onegin shoot at Lensky, and not past? The main mechanism by which the society, despised by Onegin, still powerfully controls his actions, is the fear of being ridiculous or becoming the subject of gossip. In the Onegin era, ineffective duels evoked an ironic attitude. A person who went to the barrier had to show an extraordinary spiritual will in order to maintain his behavior, and not accept the norms imposed on him. Onegin's behavior was determined by the fluctuations between the feelings that he had for Lensky and the fear of appearing ridiculous or cowardly, violating the rules of conduct in a duel. What won us, we know:

Poet, pensive dreamer

Killed by a friendly hand!

Thus, we can say that the drama of Onegin lies in the fact that he replaced real human feelings, love, faith with rational ideals. But a person is not able to live a full life without experiencing the play of passions, without making mistakes, because the mind cannot replace or subdue the soul. In order to human personality developed harmoniously, spiritual ideals should still come first.

The novel "Eugene Onegin" is an inexhaustible source that tells about the customs and life of that time. Onegin himself is a true hero of his time, and in order to understand him and his actions, we study the time in which he lived.

The protagonist of the novel "Eugene Onegin" opens a significant chapter in poetry and in all Russian culture. Onegin was followed by a whole string of heroes, subsequently named “ superfluous people”: Lermontov’s Pechorin, Turgenev’s Rudin and many other, less significant characters, embodying a whole layer, an era in the socio-spiritual development of Russian society.

2. Pechorin is a hero of his time

Pechorin is an educated secular person with a critical mind, dissatisfied with life and not seeing an opportunity for himself to be happy. It continues the gallery of "superfluous people" opened by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Belinsky noted that the idea to portray the hero of his time in the novel does not belong exclusively to Lermontov, since at that moment Karamzin's “Knight of Our Time” already existed. Belinsky also pointed out that many writers early XIX For centuries, this thought has occurred to me.

Pechorin is called a “strange person” in the novel, as almost all other characters say about him. The definition of “strange” takes on the shade of a term, followed by a certain type of character and personality type, and is broader and more capacious than the definition of “an extra person”. There were such “strange people” before Pechorin, for example, in the story “A Walk in Moscow” and in Ryleev’s “Essay on an Eccentric”.

Lermontov, creating the “Hero of Our Time”, said that it was “fun” for him to draw a portrait of a modern person the way he understands him and met us then. Unlike Pushkin, he focuses on the inner world of his characters and argues in the “Preface to Pechorin’s Journal” that “the history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more interesting and not more useful than the history of a whole people.” The desire to reveal the inner world of the hero was also reflected in the composition: the novel begins, as it were, from the middle of the story and is consistently brought to the end of Pechorin's life. Thus, the reader knows in advance that Pechorin's "frantic race" for life is doomed to failure. Pechorin follows the path that his romantic predecessors took, thus showing the failure of their romantic ideals.

Pechorin is a hero of the transitional period, a representative of the noble youth, who entered life after the defeat of the Decembrists. The absence of high social ideals is a striking feature of this historical period. The image of Pechorin is one of the main artistic discoveries Lermontov. The Pechorin type is truly epochal. In it, the fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era received their concentrated artistic expression, in which, according to Herzen, "only losses are visible on the surface", while inside "great work was being done .... deaf and silent, but active and uninterrupted ". This striking discrepancy between the internal and the external, and at the same time the conditionality of the intensive development of spiritual life, is captured in the image - the type of Pechorin. However, his image is much broader than what is contained in him in the universal, national - in the world, socio-psychological in the moral and philosophical. Pechorin in his journal repeatedly speaks of his contradictory duality. Usually this duality is considered as a result of the secular education received by Pechorin, the destructive influence of the noble-aristocratic sphere on him, and the transitional nature of his era.

Explaining the purpose of creating the "Hero of Our Time", M.Yu. Lermontov, in the preface to it, quite clearly makes it clear what the image of the protagonist is for him: "The hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development" . The author has set himself an important and difficult task, wishing to display the hero of his time on the pages of his novel. And here we have Pechorin - truly tragic personality, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself a painful question: "Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?" In the image of Lermontov, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time, position, socio-cultural environment, with all the contradictions that follow from this, which are investigated by the author in full artistic objectivity. This is a nobleman - an intellectual of the Nikolaev era, its victim and hero in one person, whose "soul is corrupted by light." But there is something more in him, which makes him a representative of not only a certain era and social environment. The personality of Pechorin appears in Lermontov's novel as unique - an individual manifestation in it of the concrete historical and universal, specific and generic. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of self-awareness, his attitude to the world. Pechorin, to a greater extent than Onegin, is a thinker, an ideologist. He is organically philosophical. And in this sense, he is the most characteristic phenomenon of his time, according to Belinsky, "the age of the philosophizing spirit." Pechorin's intense thoughts, his constant analysis and introspection in their meaning go beyond the era that gave birth to him, they also have universal significance as a necessary stage in the self-construction of a person, in the formation in him of an individually-generic, that is, personal, beginning.

In the indomitable effectiveness of Pechorin, another important side of Lermontov's concept of man was reflected - as a being not only rational, but also active.

Pechorin embodies such qualities as a developed consciousness and self-awareness, "fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts", the perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but of the entire history of mankind, spiritual and moral freedom, active self-affirmation of an integral being, etc. But, being the son of his time and society, he bears on himself their indelible stamp, which is reflected in the specific, limited, and sometimes distorted manifestation of the generic in him. In Pechorin's personality, there is a contradiction between his human essence and existence, which is especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, according to Belinsky, "between the depth of nature and the pitiful actions of one and the same person." However, in life position and Pechorin's activities make more sense than it seems at first glance. The seal of masculinity, even heroism, marks his unstoppable denial of reality unacceptable to him; in protest against which he relies only on his own strength. He dies in nothing, without giving up his principles and convictions, although without doing what he could do in other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct public action, Pechorin strives, nevertheless, to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his "own need", contrary to the prevailing "state need".

Lermontov, for the first time in Russian literature, brought to the pages of his novel a hero who directly set himself the most important, "last" questions of human existence - about the purpose and meaning of human life, about his purpose. On the night before the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “I run through my memory of all my past and involuntarily ask myself: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? my strength is immense; but I did not guess this destination. I was carried away by the baits of empty and ungrateful passions; from their crucible I came out hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations, the best color of life. Bela becomes a victim of Pechorin's self-will, forcibly torn from her environment, from the natural course of her life. Beautiful in its naturalness, but fragile and short-lived harmony of inexperience and ignorance, doomed to inevitable death in contact with reality, even if it is “natural” life, and even more so with the “civilization” invading it more and more powerfully, has been destroyed.

During the Renaissance, individualism was a historically progressive phenomenon. With the development of bourgeois relations, individualism loses its humanistic basis. In Russia, the deepening crisis of the feudal-serf system, the emergence in its depths of new, bourgeois relations, the victory in Patriotic war 1812 caused a truly renaissance upsurge of the sense of personality. But at the same time, all this is intertwined in the first third of the 19th century with the crisis of the noble revolutionary spirit (the events of December 14, 1825), with the fall of authority not only religious beliefs, but also educational ideas, which ultimately created a fertile ground for the development of individualistic ideology in Russian society. In 1842, Belinsky stated: "Our century ... is a century ... of separation, individuality, an age of personal passions and interests (even mental ones) ...". Pechorin, with his total individualism, is an epoch-making figure in this regard. Pechorin's fundamental denial of the morality of his contemporary society, as well as his other foundations, was not only his personal merit. It has long matured in the public atmosphere, Pechorin was only its earliest and most vivid spokesman.

Another thing is also significant: Pechorin's individualism is far from pragmatic egoism adapting to life. In this sense, the comparison of individualism, say, Pushkin's Herman from " Queen of Spades"with Pechorin's individualism. Herman's individualism is based on the desire to win a place under the sun at all costs, that is, to rise to the top rungs of the social ladder. He rebels not against this unjust society, but against his humbled position in it, which is inappropriate, as he believes, his inner significance, his intellectual and volitional capabilities.For the sake of winning a prestigious position in this unjust society, he is ready to do anything: step over, “transgress” not only through the fate of other people, but also through himself as an “inner” person " . Pechorin's individualism is not like that. The hero is full of truly rebellious rejection of all the foundations of the society in which he is forced to live. He is least concerned about his position in it. More than that, in fact, he has, and could easily have even more of what Herman is so striving for: he is rich, noble, all the doors of high society are open before him, all roads on the way to brilliant career, honors. He rejects all this as purely external tinsel, unworthy of the aspirations living in him for the true fullness of life, which he sees, in his words, in "the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts", in gaining a significant life goal. He considers his conscious individualism as something forced, since he has not yet found an alternative acceptable to him.

There is another feature in the character of Pechorin, which makes in many ways to take a fresh look at the individualism he professed. One of the dominant internal needs of the hero is his pronounced desire to communicate with people, which in itself contradicts individualistic worldviews. In Pechorin, the constant curiosity for life, for the world, and most importantly, for people, is striking.

Pechorin, it is said in the preface to the novel, is the type of "modern man" as the author "understands him" and as he has met him too often.

3. Similarities and differences between the images of Onegin and Pechorin

The novels "Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" were written in different time, and the duration of these works is different. Eugene lived in an era of rising national and social consciousness, freedom-loving sentiments, secret societies, and hopes for revolutionary transformations. Grigory Pechorin is the hero of an era of timelessness, a period of reaction, a decline in social activity. But the problem of both works is the same - spiritual crisis noble intelligentsia, critically perceiving reality, but not trying to change, improve the structure of society. The intelligentsia, which is limited to a passive protest against the lack of spirituality of the surrounding world. The heroes withdrew into themselves, wasted their strength aimlessly, realized the meaninglessness of their existence, but did not possess either a social temperament, or social ideals, or the ability to sacrifice themselves.

Onegin and Pechorin were brought up in the same conditions, with the help of fashionable French tutors. Both received a fairly good education for those times, Onegin communicates with Lensky, talks on a wide variety of topics, which indicates his high education:

Tribes of past treaties,

The fruits of science, good and evil,

And age-old prejudices

And fatal secrets of the coffin,

Fate and life...

Pechorin freely discusses with Dr. Werner the most difficult problems modern science, which testifies to the depth of his ideas about the world.

The parallelism between Onegin and Pechorin is obvious to the point of triviality, Lermontov's novel intersects with Pushkin's not only due to the main characters - their correlation is supported by numerous reminiscences. Many considerations could be given regarding the reflection of the antithesis Onegin - Lensky in the pair Pechorin - Grushnitsky (it is significant that back in 1837 Mr. Lermontov was inclined to identify Lensky with Pushkin); about the transformation of the narrative principles of Onegin in the system of A Hero of Our Time, which reveals a clear continuity between these novels, etc. Pechorin, repeatedly considered from Belinsky and Ap. Grigoriev to the works of Soviet Lermontov scholars. It is interesting to try to reconstruct on the basis of the figure of Pechorin how Lermontov interpreted the Onegin type, how he saw Onegin.

The principle of self-understanding of heroes through the prism of literary clichés, characteristic of Onegin, is actively used in A Hero of Our Time. Grushnitsky's goal is "to become the hero of the novel"; Princess Mary strives "not to get out of her accepted role"; Werner informs Pechorin: "In her imagination, you have become the hero of a novel in a new taste." In Onegin, literary self-understanding is a sign of naivety, belonging to a childish and untrue outlook on life. As they mature spiritually, the heroes are freed from literary glasses and in the eighth chapter they no longer appear as literary images famous novels and poems, but as people, which is much more serious, deeper and more tragic.

In A Hero of Our Time, the emphasis is different. Heroes outside the literary self-coding - characters like Bela, Maxim Maksimovich or smugglers - simple people. As for the characters of the opposite row, all of them - both high and low - are encoded literary tradition. The only difference is that Grushnitsky is the character of Marlinsky in real life, while Pechorin is encoded with the Onegin type.

In a realistic text, a traditionally coded image is placed in a space that is fundamentally alien to it and, as it were, extra-literary space (“a genius chained to a desk”). The result of this is a shift in plot situations. The self-perception of the hero turns out to be in contradiction with those surrounding contexts that are given as adequate to reality. A striking example Such a transformation of the image is the correlation between the hero and plot situations in Don Quixote. Titles like "Knight of Our Time" or "Hero of Our Time" throw the reader into the same conflict.

Pechorin is encoded in the image of Onegin, but that is why he is not Onegin, but his interpretation. Being Onegin is a role for Pechorin. Onegin is not an "extra person" - this definition itself, just like Herzen's "smart uselessness", appeared later and is some kind of interpretive projection of Onegin. Onegin of the eighth chapter does not think of himself as a literary character. Meanwhile, if the political essence of the “superfluous person” was revealed by Herzen, and the social essence by Dobrolyubov, then the historical psychology of this type is inseparable from experiencing oneself as the “hero of the novel”, and one’s life as the realization of some plot. Such self-determination inevitably raises the question of man's "fifth act" - the apotheosis or death that completes the play of life or its human novel. The theme of death, the end, the “fifth act”, the finale of his novel becomes one of the main ones in the psychological self-determination of a person of the romantic era. How literary character“lives” for the sake of the final scene or the last exclamation, so the man of the Romantic era lives “for the sake of the end.” “We will die, brothers, oh, how glorious we will die!” - A. Odoevsky exclaimed, going out on December 14, 1825 to Senate Square.

The psychology of the “superfluous person” is the psychology of a person whose entire life role was aimed at death and who, nevertheless, did not die. The novel plot catches the “superfluous person” after the end of the fifth act of his life play, devoid of a scenario for further behavior. For the generation of Lermontov's "Duma" the concept of the fifth act is still filled with historically real content - this is December 14th. In the future, it turns into a conditional point of the plot reference. Naturally, activity after activity turns into continuous inactivity. Lermontov very clearly revealed the connection between the failed death and the aimlessness of further existence, forcing Pechorin in the middle of "Princess Mary" to say goodbye to life, settle all accounts with her and ... not die. “And now I feel that I still have a long time to live.” L. N. Tolstoy later showed how this literary situation becomes a program of real behavior, doubling again ( romantic hero how a certain program of behavior, being realized in the real actions of a Russian nobleman, becomes an “extra person”; in turn, the "superfluous person" becomes, having become a fact of literature, a program for the behavior of a certain part of the Russian nobles.

III. "Eugene Onegin" and "Hero of Our Time" - the best artistic documents of their era

What a short period separates Pushkin's Onegin and Lermontov's Pechorin! First quarter and forties of the 19th century. And yet these are two different eras, separated by an unforgettable event in Russian history - the uprising of the Decembrists. Pushkin and Lermontov managed to create works that reflect the spirit of these eras, works that touched upon the problems of the fate of the young noble intelligentsia, who could not find application for their forces.

According to Belinsky, "A Hero of Our Time" is "a sad thought about our time," and Pechorin is "a hero of our time. Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora."

"Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" are vivid artistic documents of their era, and their main characters personify for us all the futility of trying to live in society and be free from it.

Conclusion

So, we have two heroes, both representatives of their difficult time. The remarkable critic V.G. Belinsky did not put an "equal" sign between them, but he did not see a big gap between them either.

Calling Pechorin the Onegin of his time, Belinsky paid tribute to the unsurpassed artistry of Pushkin's image and at the same time believed that "Pechorin is superior to Onegin in theory", although, as if muffling some categoricalness of this assessment, he added: "However, this advantage belongs to our time, and not Lermontov". Starting from the 2nd half of the 19th century, the definition of "an extra person" was strengthened for Pechorin.

The deep meaning and characterization of the type of "superfluous person" for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nikolaev era was probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the "repositories" of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as "superfluous people" of the 1820-30s, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: "The sad type of superfluous ... person - only because he developed in a person, was then not only in poems and novels but in the streets and living rooms, in villages and cities.

And yet, with all the proximity to Onegin, Pechorin, as a hero of his time, marks completely new stage in the development of Russian society and Russian literature. If Onegin reflects the painful, but in many ways semi-spontaneous process of turning an aristocrat, a "dandy" into a person, becoming a personality in him, then Pechorin captures the tragedy of an already established highly developed personality, doomed to live in a noble-serf society under an autocratic regime.

Literature

Demin N.A. The study of the work of A.S. Pushkin in the 8th grade. - Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1971
Lermontov M.Yu. Hero of our time. - Moscow: " Soviet Russia", 1981
Lermontov M.Yu. Works. Moscow, publishing house "Pravda", 1988
Pushkin A.S. "Eugene Onegin", Moscow: Fiction, 1984
Udodov B.T. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1989
Manuilov V.A. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time" Commentary. - Leningrad: "Enlightenment", 1975
Shatalov S.E. Heroes of the novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". - M.: "Enlightenment", 1986
Gershtein E. "A Hero of Our Time" M.Yu. Lermontov. - M.: Fiction, 1976
Lermontov Encyclopedia - M.: Sov. encyclopedia, 1981
Belinsky V. G. Articles about Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol - M .: Education, 1983
Viskovatov P. A. Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov: Life and work - M .: Book, 1989
Nabokov V. V. Comments on "Eugene Onegin" by Alexander Pushkin - M .: NPK "Intelvak", 1999
Lotman Yu. M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin": Commentary: A guide for the teacher. - L .: Education., 1980
Pushkin A. S. Favorites - M .: Education, 1983

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Since the second half of the 19th century, primarily due to fiction, the concept of "an extra person" comes into use (for the first time this term was used by A. S. Pushkin in one of his draft sketches for "Onegin"). A whole series appears works of art, whose heroes are united by a special status given to them in society - "superfluous people" who were critical of the established order and their role in the social structure, but they did not accept public opinion. Onegin, Pechorin, Beltov, Rudin - that's far from full list characters, considered by critics to be "superfluous people". At the same time, criticism clearly distinguishes the individual traits of these heroes.

Comparing Pechorin with Onegin, Chernyshevsky wrote: "Pechorin is a man of a completely different character and a different degree of development. His soul is really strong, longing for old age; his will is really strong, capable of energetic activity, but he takes care of himself." Herzen paid much attention to the problem of "superfluous people": "The Onegins and Pechorins were absolutely true, they expressed the real sorrow and fragmentation of the then Russian life. The sad fate of the superfluous, lost person then appeared not only in poems and novels, but on the streets and in living rooms, in villages and towns."

In the work of Lermontov, the image of Pechorin was not accidental. The theme of "an extra person" can be traced in the poet's lyrics. Almost simultaneously with Pushkin, Lermontov in the dramas "People and Passions", "Strange Man", and then in "Two Brothers", trying to connect his hero with the real Russian reality surrounding him, comes to disappointing conclusions. So, Yu. Volin is shown as a young man who went through a sad path of disappointments and turned into a lost faith "strange" person. He says about himself to a friend: "The one in front of you is only a shadow; a half-dead man, almost without a present and without a future." Pechorin also characterizes himself as a "half-dead" person, one part of whose soul is buried forever: "I have become moral cripple: one half of my soul did not exist, it dried up, evaporated, died, I cut it off and threw it away.

Taking into account the fact that the literature of that time was a reflection of reality, the thoughts and orders prevailing in society, the main means of shaping public opinion (in our time, these functions are performed by television, radio, print publications), it should be noted: the problem of "excess people" in the 20 The 40s of the 19th century were really acute. Indeed, both in Onegin and in Pechorin, a whole generation of young people was embodied - gifted, thinking, thirsty for activity, but forced to do nothing. Belinsky also drew attention to the parallelism of the sound and meaning of the names Onegin and Pechorin: "Lermontov's Pechorin ... this is the Onegin of our time, the hero of our time. Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora ... In the very name that a true poet gives to his hero, there is a reasonable necessity, although perhaps not visible to the poet himself. It can be assumed that with the name Pechorin, Lermontov emphasized the spiritual relationship of his hero with Onegin, but Pechorin is a man of the next decade. So, the heroes are united by their alienation from society, the rejection of the orders and laws adopted in it, boredom from the pleasures that can be obtained for money, the desire for sincere, open relationships and disbelief in the prospect of friendship, love, marriage.

The dissimilarity between Onegin and Pechorin is determined not so much by the time period of their lives as by the differences in their characters. No wonder Dobrolyubov wrote: "... We could not help but see the difference in temperament, for example, in Pechorin and Oblomov, just as we cannot help but find it in Pechorin and Onegin ... It is very likely that under other living conditions, in a different society, Onegin was If they were truly good fellows, Pechorin and Rudin would do great deeds.

Pechorin is energy, active, purposeful, although, perhaps, the last definition is somewhat exaggerated. Indeed, Pechorin is ready, firstly, to create difficulties and obstacles for himself, and secondly, to successfully overcome them. But at the same time, he does not have some common goal that would give meaning to his earthly existence: “I run through my memory of all my past and ask myself involuntarily: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? , I had a high appointment, because I feel immense strength in my soul ... "

Pechorin admits that he did not guess this appointment, exchanging it for empty passions, regrets that he "played the role of an ax in the hands of fate." His love did not bring happiness to anyone, because he did not sacrifice anything for those whom he loved. After all, Pechorin loved for his own pleasure: "... I only satisfied the strange need of the heart, greedily absorbing their feelings, their tenderness, their joys and sufferings - and could never get enough." In contrast to Pechorin, Onegin finds pleasure in complete inaction, self-elimination from all life problems and passions:

... early feelings in him cooled down;

He was tired of the light noise;

The beauties didn't last long

The subject of his habitual thoughts;

Treason managed to tire;

Friends and friendship are tired ...

Beauties from high society with their false smiles, empty words disgusted Onegin. But the love of the innocent, sincere Tatyana also leaves him indifferent (and Pechorin is gradually disappointed in his love for Bela). Rejecting the girl's love, he refers to the fear of marriage (however, like Pechorin):

Believe me (conscience is a guarantee),

Marriage will be torture for us.

As much as I love you,

When I get used to it, I fall in love immediately.

Unites heroes and passion for travel, constant movement around the world - away from the disgusting world, towards new sensations (as we know, Pushkin released a whole chapter from his novel, in which Onegin's journey was described).

It is interesting that both Pushkin and Lermontov put contrasting figures near the main characters - Lensky and Grushnitsky, respectively. The contrast between Onegin and Lensky, Pechorin and Grushnitsky, at first glance, seems insignificant. They apparently live in the circle of the same interests, they feel like people of the same generation, the same cultural environment. In fact, their seeming closeness is an imaginary closeness: a real - psychological, cultural, social - abyss is soon revealed between them.

Grushnitsky is an enthusiastic but somewhat mundane young man. He is accustomed to producing an effect (junker overcoat, so similar to a soldier's, pretentious phrases, etc.). Lensky is an enthusiastic romantic, a poet. With all the ironic attitude towards Lensky, Pushkin noted his education, wide circle intellectual interests, his heated debates on philosophical themes with Onegin. However, the usual way of enthusiastic romantics in Russia is to become a layman: "In their old age they become either peaceful landowners or drunkards, sometimes both." These are the words of Lermontov, Pushkin also thought about a similar life path of Lensky:

In many ways, he would have changed. I would part with the muses, get married, In the village I would be happy and horned I would wear a quilted robe.

Meanwhile, the life path of these romantics was interrupted by "superfluous people" - Onegin and Pechorin. Each of the heroes perceives the upcoming duel in his own way: Onegin regrets that "that the evening carelessly played a joke on timid, tender love." And that public opinion forces him to make the final decision about the duel.

Pechorin also thought for a long time about his irresistible desire to punish the insolent Grushnitsky, but, in the end, he convinces himself that he is right: “Mr. Grushnitsky! Your hoax will not work for you ... We will switch roles: now I will have to look for signs of secret fear on your pale face ". Onegin Pechorin is an extra person

The heroes are united by the fact that until the end of their days they never found either peace or that higher destiny that the mind whispered to them about. Their lives can serve good example how not to live. In my opinion, it was not the social structure that caused the spiritual hardships of the heroes: only their own efforts would help them get out of the state of conflict with the environment. We agree that it is difficult to be a witness to the moral squalor of others, but Onegin and Pechorin, before diagnosing the whole society, had to take apart the inner content of their own souls and minds.

Belinsky said about Pechorin: “This is the Onegin of our time, the hero of our time.

Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora.

Herzen called Pechorin "Onegin's younger brother".

similarity of characters.

members of the secular society.

What is common in the history of the life of heroes: at first, the pursuit of secular pleasures, then disappointment in them and this way of life.

Then an attempt to find an application for his spiritual strength in any occupation: reading books, housekeeping, but disappointment in this too.

Heroes are seized by boredom (spleen).

They are critical not only of the people around them, but also mercilessly judge themselves and their actions.

How Pechorin differs from Onegin.

Pechorin is a man of the 30s (reaction time). A gifted, extraordinary personality that manifests itself in the mind, strong passions, will. His character and behavior are contradictory: rationality struggles with the demands of the feelings of the mind and heart. Capable of deep love (attitude towards the Faith). A typical hero of his time.

Onegin and Pechorin.

Perhaps it is very rare in the history of literature when two literary geniuses are born almost simultaneously and in almost the same place. Pushkin and Lermontov. It was the time of the birth of the Great Russian Literature and at the same time the time of the beginning of the great crisis of Russian society.
The crisis of society is best manifested in its ideals. Both Pushkin and Lermontov understood this very well, therefore, in their main works - the novels "Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time", they sought to manifest these ideals in their main characters - Onegin and Pechorin.
Lermontov reflected his understanding of the image of Pechorin both in the title of the novel and in the preface. For Lermontov, "A Hero of Our Time" is "a portrait made up of the vices of our time, in their full development." However, for the title, the author chose the term “hero”, and not some other term - “anti-hero”, “villain”, etc. What is this? Mocking, irony or author's whim? It seems to me - neither one nor the other, nor the third ... In fact, Lermontov portrays the hero of the society that gave birth to him, shows those of his qualities that are most respected in this society, most of all appreciated.
This is precisely where the deep continuity of the image of Pechorin with his literary predecessor, Eugene Onegin, lies.
On the one hand, they have a lot in common. Fate led them along similar paths: both of them were the “cream” of secular society, both were dead tired of it, both despised this society.
Their lives coincided for some time not by chance: obviously, such was the fate of any rich and handsome young rake:

“What more: the light decided
That he is smart and very nice."

But this life, which in "Eugene Onegin" was the content of the novel, for Pechorin remained only in memories. We can say that Pechorin was once Onegin, but in the novel he is already different, and this difference is the most interesting point in the comparative analysis of these images, since it allows us to assess the trends in the movement of society, the gradual shift of its ideals.
In Onegin we still find, if not compassion and repentance, then at least a cold, mental realization that they should be. Onegin is still capable, if not of love, then at least of passion, albeit extremely selfish, but ardent.
Pechorin is not even capable of such manifestations of human feelings. He tries to awaken them in himself and cannot:
“As I did not look for even a spark of love for dear Mary in my chest, but my efforts were in vain”
In his soul, even love for life (and therefore for himself) is absent. If Onegin still lived, "languishing in the inactivity of leisure", then Pechorin lives simply "out of curiosity: you are expecting something new ..."
However, Pechorin, unlike Onegin, is able to think in spiritual categories, his indifference is close to despair (it is no coincidence that he is looking for death). He suffers from his indifference, he sees it!
Onegin, in this sense, is completely blind, and at the same time he does not notice his own blindness. There is no despair in his indifference. His passion for Tatyana is saturated with selfishness, but he does not notice this and takes her for love.
According to Belinsky, "Lermontov's Pechorin is the Onegin of our time." But not in the sense that they are similar, but in the sense that one is a logical continuation of the second.
Secular society is rapidly losing its last ideals: neither love, nor compassion, nor honor is valued anymore. There is only one curiosity left: what if there is something “sharp”, “tickling” nerves that can amuse and distract at least for a while ...

Comparing the images of Onegin and Pechorin, we see what a terrible end such innocent hobbies as idleness, selfishness, the pursuit of fashion, and how they can be reborn into such a terrible state of mind, which is commonly called spiritual death.

All this is not alien, unfortunately, to our society. And it’s scary if we are not able, like Onegin, to see our inferiority, and look down on Onegin: we are not like that - we go to theaters, discos, surf the Internet, in general, we live a full-fledged cultural life. And we do not notice how this complacency inevitably leads to the same devastated indifference to everything except himself, to which Onegin came, and to the same unrepentant hardness of the heart, to which Pechorin came.

Truly, the images of Pechorin and Onegin are the images of the heroes of our time.

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