Characteristic and image of Peter 1 in the poem "The Bronze Horseman"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The Bronze Horseman is perhaps Pushkin's most controversial work, permeated with deep symbolism. Historians, literary critics and ordinary readers have been arguing for centuries, breaking spears, creating and overthrowing theories about what, in fact, the poet wanted to say. The image of Peter 1 in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" causes particular controversy.

Contrasting Peter 1 to Nicholas 1

The work was written during the reign of Nicholas 1, to which Pushkin had big claims regarding the administration of the state: the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, the creation of a secret police, the introduction of total censorship. Therefore, many scientists see the opposition of the great reformer Peter 1 to the reactionary Nicholas 1. Also, many researchers of Pushkin's work look at analogies between The Bronze Horseman and The Old Testament. A series of floods in St. Petersburg, especially devastating in 1824, prompted the author to think about the global flood, therefore, in the workThe “Bronze Horseman” image of Peter 1 is associated by a number of thinkers with the image of God (deity), capable of creating and destroying.

Grad Petrov

However, even the exact location cannot be named. Let's ask ourselves the question: "In what city does the action of Pushkin's poem dedicated to the flood of 1824 take place?" The question seems to allow for a single answer: of course, it takes place in St. Petersburg, because the image of Peter the Great in Pushkin's art is invariably associated with this city. However, as you can easily see, this answer is not so logical: Petersburg is never called Petersburg in a single line of the poem! In the introduction, descriptive expressions are used: “Peter’s creation” and “city of Petrov”, in the first part the name Petrograd occurs once (“Over the darkened Petrograd …”) and once - Petropolis (“And Petropolis surfaced like Triton …”).

It turns out that there is a city, but it's not real St. Petersburg, but some mythical city of Peter. Even on this basis, researchers have mythologized the image of Peter 1 in the poem "The Bronze Horseman". If we consider the entire text of the poem as a whole, Petersburg is mentioned in it three times: once - in the sub title ("Petersburg story") and twice - in the author's prose notes. In other words, in this way Pushkin makes us understand: despite the fact that “the incident described in this story is based on truth,” the city in which the very action of the poem unfolds is not Petersburg. More precisely, not quite Petersburg - it is, in a sense, three different cities, each ofwhich is correlated with one of the characters in the work.

Proud idol

The names "Peter's creation" and "the city of Petrov" correspond to Peter, the only hero of this part of the poem, and Pushkin portrays Peter as a kind of deity. We are talking about the statue depicting him, that is, the earthly incarnation of this deity. For Pushkin, the very appearance of the monument is a direct violation of the commandment "do not make an idol for yourself." Actually, this is precisely what explains the contradictory attitude of the poet to the monument: despite all its greatness, it is terrible, and it is difficult to recognize the words about the proud idol as a compliment.

The official opinion is that Pushkin was ambivalent about Peter 1 as a statesman. On the one hand, he is great: a reformer, a warrior, a "builder" of St. Petersburg, a creator of the fleet. On the other hand, he is a formidable ruler, at times a tyrant and a despot. In the poem "The Bronze Horseman" Pushkin also interpreted the image of Peter in two ways, elevating him to the rank of God and demiurge at the same time.

Which side is Pushkin on

Culturologists' favorite dispute was the question of whom Pushkin sympathized with: the almighty deified Peter or the "little man" Eugene, personifying a simple city dweller, on whom little depends. In the poetic masterpiece "The Bronze Horseman", the description of Peter 1 - the revived almighty monument - echoes the description of the state. And Eugene is an average citizen, a cog in a huge state machine. A philosophical contradiction arises: is it permissible for the state in itsmovement, the desire for development to sacrifice the lives and destinies of ordinary people for the sake of achieving greatness, some lofty goal? Or is every person an individual, and his personal desires must be taken into account, even to the detriment of the development of the country?

Pushkin did not express his unequivocal opinion either verbally or in verse. His Peter 1 is capable of both creating and destroying. His Eugene is able to both passionately love (the daughter of the widow Parasha), and dissolve in the crowd, in the darkness of the city, becoming a worthless part of the gray mass. And, ultimately, die. A number of authoritative Pushkin scholars believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle: the state does not exist without a person, but it is also impossible to observe the interests of everyone. Perhaps this is what a poetic novel was written about.

Peter 1

The image of Peter haunts culturologists. In Soviet times, dogmas did not allow the great reformer to be represented as some kind of deity, because religion was subjected to oppression. For everyone, it was a “talking bronze statue” living in the sick imagination of the hero of the story, Eugene. Yes, it is symbolic, but a deep analysis of the symbols remained the subject of debate among pundits. Comparing the image of Peter 1 in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" with biblical stories was fraught.

Yet Pushkin's Peter 1 is a bronze statue or a deity? In one of the Soviet editions of Pushkin's poems to the line "The idol on a bronze horse" there is the following comment by the classic of Pushkin studies S. M. Bondi: "The idol in Pushkin's language means" statue ". Meanwhile, Pushkin scholars noticed that when the word"idol" is used by Pushkin in a literal, not figurative sense, it almost always means a statue of a god. This circumstance can be traced in many verses: "The poet and the crowd", "To the nobleman", "Vesuvius opened …" and others. Even Emperor Nicholas 1, who personally reviewed the manuscript, noticed this circumstance and wrote several high remarks in the margins. On December 14, 1833, Pushkin made an entry in his diary, where he lamented that the sovereign had returned the poem with remarks: "The word "idol" was not passed by the highest censorship."

Bible Motives

The echoing of the images of Peter and the Bronze Horseman with biblical images is literally in the air. This is pointed out by the revered Pushkin scholars Brodotskaya, Arkhangelsky, Tarkhov, Shcheglov and others. The poet, calling the rider an idol and an idol, directly points to the biblical heroes. It has been noticed that Pushkin constantly associates with the figure of Peter the idea of a mighty force close to God and the elements.

Not only the image of Peter 1 in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" is associated with a biblical character. Eugene is also a direct analogue of another Old Testament character - Job. His angry words addressed to the "builder of the world" (bronze horseman) correspond to Job's grumbling against God, and the menacing pursuit of the revived rider resembles the appearance of "God in a storm" in the Book of Job.

But if Peter is the God of the Old Testament, and Falcone's statue is a pagan statue that replaced him, then the flood of 1824 is a biblical flood. At least, such bold conclusions are made by manyspecialists.

Punishment for sins

There is another characteristic of Peter. The Bronze Horseman would not be a great work if it could be so easily deciphered. The researchers noticed that the horseman acts on the side of the irresistible force of nature as a force punishing Eugene for sins. He himself is terrible. It is surrounded by darkness, it hides a huge and, according to the logic of Pushkin's description, an evil force that has raised Russia on its hind legs.

The figure of the Bronze Horseman in the poem defines the image of his historical action, the essence of which is violence, inexorability, inhumanity of unprecedented proportions in the name of realizing his grandiose plans through suffering and sacrifice. It is in the Bronze Horseman that the reason for the disastrous nature of his world lies, the irreconcilable enmity of stone and water, which is unexpectedly indicated in the finale of the introduction after the utopian picture of the majestic, beautiful, fertile city, conjugated with Russia.

Pushkin as a prophet

Rethinking the work, the thought comes that bad deeds will be punished. That is, copper Peter resembles the horsemen of the Apocalypse, committing retribution. Perhaps Pushkin hinted to Tsar Nicholas 1 about the inevitability of punishment, that "having sowed the wind, you will reap the whirlwind."

Historians call the Decembrist uprising a harbinger of the 1917 revolutions. Nicholas 1 brutally suppressed dissent: some of the Decembrists were hanged, some lived out their lives as convicts in Siberia. However, the social processes that led to the uprising were not taken into account by the authorities. Ripe conflictcontradictions, half a century later turned into the fall of tsarism. In this light, Pushkin acts as a prophet who predicted the indomitable popular elements that flooded the "city of Petrov", and Peter himself in a copper guise committed retribution.

Conclusion

The poem "The Bronze Horseman" is not at all simple. The image of Peter is extremely contradictory, the plot is simple and clear at first glance, but the text is filled with explicit and hidden symbols. It is no coincidence that the work was severely censored and was not immediately published.

The poem has two main lines of its development, connected with the fate of the city of Petra and the fate of Eugene. In ancient myths, there are many descriptions of how the Gods destroy cities, lands, people, often as a punishment for bad behavior. Here, too, Pushkin's transformation of this scheme can be traced in the "Petersburg Tale": Peter, personifying the demiurge, conceives the construction of the city solely in the name of the state good. In the transformation of nature, in the conclusion of the Neva River in stone, there is an analogy with the transformation of the state, with the direction of life processes in the sovereign channel.

However, the figurative-event system of the poem shows how and why creation turns into a disaster. And this is connected with the essence of the Bronze Horseman, which is depicted by Pushkin, first of all, in the episode of Evgeny's insight, flowing into the scene of his persecution by the revived statue. The city, erected on a piece of land taken from nature, was eventually flooded by the “conquered elements.”

Was Pushkin a prophet? What kindmotives forced him to write such a complex controversial creation? What did he want to tell readers? Generations of Pushkinists, literary critics, historians, and philosophers will still argue about this. But something else is important - what a particular reader will take out of the poem, the very screw without which the state machine will slip.