Biography of Eugene Onegin when he was born. Essay “Who is Eugene Onegin in Pushkin’s novel of the same name

Eugene Onegin is the main character of the novel of the same name by A. S. Pushkin, written in the first half of the 19th century. The author gives not only a vivid and accurate description of the character’s image, but also an assessment of the entire secular society of that time.

Below is a description of Eugene Onegin from the novel by A. S. Pushkin.

What is he like: Onegin

In the very first chapter, already in the opening lines, the poet tells the reader who Eugene is. The hero seems to be a somewhat frivolous person, devoid of any passions and in his young years already tired of life. He was given a superficial upbringing, raised in “high circles,” he knew and knew exactly what was valued by those around him, it is written about this here:

He could express himself and write in French perfectly, danced the mazurka easily and bowed at ease...

What else does a person whose pastime includes balls, going to the theater and friendly gatherings need to be able to do? This is how Onegin ends up as a city dweller in the village, after receiving an inheritance from his deceased uncle.

And here the already bored young man is waiting for stories from local mothers about jams and the quiet measured course of life.

Another world

Evgeniy, who had no special attachments, does not understand the feelings of his friend Lensky, who has a tender but deep passion for Olga. He cannot understand the revelations of the pure and thoughtful Tatiana; all Onegin’s answers remind her of excerpts from French novels that were popular at that time.

And now, the time for the duel comes. Of course, Lensky missed, but what stopped Onegin from doing the same? But no, his hand is firm and he kills the one who was closest to him in this world.

In the end, Onegin comes to complete dissatisfaction with life, not understanding it. Realization will come much later, during his confessions to Tatyana, he will finally understand that “freedom and peace” are not “a substitute for happiness.” After all, happiness does not imply loneliness; attachments are extremely important for a person: friends and loved ones.

Eugene Onegin is the hero of the novel of the same name in verse, created by. The character has become one of the most striking, colorful types of Russian classical literature. The character of the hero combines dramatic experiences, cynicism, and an ironic perception of the world. The line of relationship with revealed the hero’s inner world, revealing the weak and strong sides of the nobleman.

History of character creation

The Russian classic began work on the composition in 1823, while in exile in Chisinau. By that time, Pushkin’s work had begun to move away from romantic traditions - the author turned to a realistic style of writing. The novel describes events from 1819 to 1825, the late period of the reign of the Emperor. The critic called Pushkin’s work “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” The characters in the poetic work reliably depict the social strata - nobility, landowners, peasantry - characteristic of the beginning of the 19th century, and the atmosphere of this time is conveyed with incredible accuracy.

While working on the creation of the novel, the author planned to present to the public the image of a hero typical of a secular noble society, contemporary with himself. At the same time, in the story of Eugene one can find features that bring Onegin closer to romantic characters, “superfluous people” who have lost interest in life, are bored, and are prone to bouts of blues. Alexander Pushkin wanted to make the hero a supporter of the Decembrist movement in the future, but due to strict censorship he abandoned this idea.

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The characteristics of the main character are carefully thought out by the writer. Pushkin scholars find in the description of Onegin’s character traits of Alexander Chaadaev, Alexander Griboyedov and the author himself. The hero became a combination of the distinctive features of several prototypes and a collective image of the era. Researchers are still arguing over whether the hero was a “stranger” and “superfluous” person in the era or was an idle thinker who happily lived out his time.

For the genre of novel in verse, the Russian classic chose a special stanza, called “Onegin”. Alexander Sergeevich also introduced lyrical digressions on various topics into the essay. It cannot be said that the poet defines one main idea in the text - there are many of them, since the novel touches on many problems.

The fate and image of Evgeny Onegin

Alexander Sergeevich talks in detail about the hero’s biography of his childhood and youth. Onegin is a nobleman born in St. Petersburg. From childhood, the boy receives an upbringing typical of noble children. The child is raised by invited French tutors madame, monsieur l "Abbé. Their lessons are not particularly strict - the knowledge gained by Eugene is quite enough for years later to shine in the world with his wit, demonstrating “reading”, manners, and the ability to maintain small talk.

The character is a real dandy who knows a lot about fashion. Onegin dresses like an English dandy, and in his office there are “Combs, steel files, / Straight scissors, curved ones / And brushes of thirty kinds / For both nails and teeth. Ironizing the hero's narcissism, the narrator compares the St. Petersburg dandy with the windy Venus.

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Evgeny Onegin and Tatyana Larina

Evgeniy leads an idle lifestyle, is a regular guest at St. Petersburg balls, and attends ballets and performances. The young man is surrounded by the attention of the ladies, but over time, endless novels, the love of “according coquettes” begin to weigh down the hero, like the entire St. Petersburg world. Onegin's father, living in debt, squanders his fortune. Therefore, a letter from a rich uncle who is dying and calling his nephew to the village, which came to the character in the midst of the blues, becomes an opportunity for Onegin to try something new in life.

Soon the hero becomes the heir to his uncle's village estate. For some time, everything here seemed new to the young man and inspired by its beauty, but on the third day, the familiar views already caused Eugene boredom. At first, the neighboring landowners came to visit the new owner, but later, finding him cold and strange, they stopped visiting. At the same time, a young nobleman Vladimir Lensky arrives in the village. Having studied abroad, filled with freedom-loving speeches and having an ardent soul, the young man becomes interesting to Onegin.

Young people, as different as poetry and prose, become “for want of anything to do” friends. Soon the St. Petersburg dandy is already bored in the company of the young romantic, whose speeches and ideas seem funny. Among other things, Vladimir shares with his friend his feelings for his neighbor’s daughter, and invites his friend to go visit the Larins to introduce his beloved. Without harboring hopes of seeing something interesting in the house of the village landowner, Evgeniy nevertheless agrees.

Olga and her older sister Tatyana evoke conflicting feelings in the character. On the way home, he shares his thoughts with Lensky, surprised that of the two girls he chose Olga, who was not interesting in anything except her beauty. Tatyana Larina seemed to Evgeny to be an interesting person, not like those ladies that the young man had previously seen in the world. Tatyana herself was greatly impressed by the appearance of the capital’s guest in their house. The inexperienced girl, brought up on French novels, immediately saw her betrothed in Evgenia.

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Evgeny Onegin and Vladimir Lensky

Overwhelmed by strong feelings, Tatyana writes a letter to the hero. Onegin, having experience in love affairs, decides not to play with the girl, not to deceive her feelings, but to teach the young landowner a lesson. Arriving again at the Larins, the young man openly tells Olga’s sister that he is not cut out for family life. The nobleman also advises the heroine to learn to control herself, because a dishonest person could be in his place: “Not everyone, like me, will understand you; /Inexperience leads to trouble.”

Time passes, Onegin no longer visits the Larins' house. Tatiana's name day is approaching. On the eve of the celebration, the girl sees a strange dream. She dreams that a bear is overtaking her in the forest. The predator picks up the heroine, emotionlessly submissive, brings her to the house and leaves her on the threshold. Meanwhile, a feast of evil spirits is taking place in the house, and Eugene himself sits at the head of the table. The girl's presence becomes obvious to the feasting guests - everyone wants to take possession of Tatyana. But suddenly all the evil spirits disappear - Onegin himself leads Larina to the bench.

At this moment Lensky and Olga enter the room - their arrival angers the hero. Suddenly the character takes out a long knife and kills Vladimir. Tatiana's dream becomes prophetic - her name day is colored by tragic events. Local landowners arrive at the Larins' house, and Lensky and Onegin are invited here. The poet's wedding to the beautiful Olga is due to take place soon, and the young hero is looking forward to this event. Evgeny, seeing Tatiana’s trembling gaze, gets irritated and decides to entertain himself by flirting with his younger sister.

"Eugene Onegin"(1823-1831) - a novel in verse by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, one of the most significant works of Russian literature.

History of creation

Pushkin worked on the novel for over seven years. The novel was, according to Pushkin, “the fruit of a mind of cold observations and a heart of sorrowful observations.” Pushkin called his work a feat - of all his creative heritage, only “Boris Godunov” he characterized with the same word. Against a broad background of pictures of Russian life, the dramatic fate of the best people of the noble intelligentsia is shown.

Pushkin began work on Onegin in 1823, during his southern exile. The author abandoned romanticism as the leading creative method and began to write a realistic novel in verse, although the influence of romanticism is still noticeable in the first chapters. Initially, it was assumed that the novel in verse would consist of 9 chapters, but Pushkin subsequently reworked its structure, leaving only 8 chapters. He excluded the chapter “Onegin’s Travels” from the work, which he included as an appendix. After this, the tenth chapter of the novel was written, which is an encrypted chronicle of the life of the future Decembrists.

The novel was published in verse in separate chapters, and the release of each chapter became a major event in modern literature. In 1831, the novel in verse was completed and published in 1833. It covers events from 1819 to 1825: from the foreign campaigns of the Russian army after the defeat of Napoleon to the Decembrist uprising. These were the years of development of Russian society, the reign of Tsar Alexander I. The plot of the novel is simple and well known. At the center of the novel is a love affair. And the main problem is the eternal problem of feelings and duty. The novel “Eugene Onegin” reflected the events of the first quarter of the 19th century, that is, the time of creation and the time of action of the novel approximately coincide. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created a novel in verse similar to Byron’s poem “Don Juan”. Having defined the novel as “a collection of motley chapters,” Pushkin emphasizes one of the features of this work: the novel is, as it were, “open” in time, each chapter could be the last, but it could also have a continuation. And thus the reader draws attention to the independence of each chapter of the novel. The novel has become an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 20s of the century before last, since the breadth of the novel’s coverage shows readers the whole reality of Russian life, as well as the multiplicity of plots and descriptions of different eras. This is what gave V. G. Belinsky the basis to conclude in his article “Eugene Onegin”:
“Onegin can be called an encyclopedia of Russian life and a highly folk work.”
In the novel, as in the encyclopedia, you can find out everything about the era: how they dressed, what was in fashion, what people valued most, what they talked about, what interests they lived. “Eugene Onegin” reflects the whole of Russian life. Briefly, but quite clearly, the author showed the fortress village, lordly Moscow, secular Petersburg. Pushkin truthfully depicted the environment in which the main characters of his novel, Tatyana Larina and Evgeny Onegin, live. The author reproduced the atmosphere of the city noble salons in which Onegin spent his youth.

Plot

The novel begins with a grumpy speech by the young nobleman Eugene Onegin, dedicated to the illness of his uncle, which forced him to leave St. Petersburg and go to the sick bed in the hope of becoming the heir of the dying man. The narrative itself is told on behalf of the nameless author, who introduced himself as a good friend of Onegin. Having thus outlined the plot, the author devotes the first chapter to a story about the origin, family, and life of his hero before receiving news of a relative’s illness.

Evgeny was born “on the banks of the Neva,” that is, in St. Petersburg, in the family of a typical nobleman of his time -

“Having served excellently and nobly, his father lived in debt. He gave three balls every year and finally squandered it.” The son of such a father received a typical upbringing - first by the governess Madame, then by a French tutor who did not bother his pupil with an abundance of science. Here Pushkin emphasizes that Evgeniy’s upbringing from childhood was carried out by people who were strangers to him, and foreigners at that.
Onegin's life in St. Petersburg was full of love affairs and social amusements, but now he faces boredom in the village. Upon arrival, it turns out that his uncle died, and Eugene became his heir. Onegin settles in the village, and soon the blues really take hold of him.

Onegin’s neighbor turns out to be eighteen-year-old Vladimir Lensky, a romantic poet, who came from Germany. Lensky and Onegin converge. Lensky is in love with Olga Larina, the daughter of a landowner. Her thoughtful sister Tatyana is not like the always cheerful Olga. Having met Onegin, Tatyana falls in love with him and writes him a letter. However, Onegin rejects her: he is not looking for a calm family life. Lensky and Onegin are invited to the Larins. Onegin is not happy about this invitation, but Lensky persuades him to go.

“[...] He pouted and, indignant, vowed to enrage Lensky, and to take revenge in order.” At dinner with the Larins, Onegin, in order to make Lensky jealous, unexpectedly begins to court Olga. Lensky challenges him to a duel. The duel ends with Lensky's death, and Onegin leaves the village.
Two years later, he appears in St. Petersburg and meets Tatyana. She is an important lady, the wife of a prince. Onegin was inflamed with love for her, but this time he was rejected, despite the fact that Tatyana also loves him, but wants to remain faithful to her husband.

Storylines

1. Onegin and Tatiana:
   • Meet Tatyana
   • Conversation with the nanny
   • Tatiana's letter to Onegin
   • Explanation in the garden
   • Tatiana's dream. Name day
   • Visit to Onegin's house
   • Departure to Moscow
   • Meeting at a ball in St. Petersburg after 2 years
   • Letter to Tatyana (explanation)
   • Evening at Tatiana's
2. Onegin and Lensky:
   • Dating in the village
   • Conversation after the evening at the Larins'
   • Lensky's visit to Onegin
   • Tatiana's name day
   • Duel (Death of Lensky)

Characters

• Eugene Onegin- the prototype Pyotr Chaadaev, a friend of Pushkin, was named by Pushkin himself in the first chapter. The story of Onegin is reminiscent of the life of Chaadaev. An important influence on the image of Onegin was exerted by Lord Byron and his “Byronian Heroes”, Don Juan and Childe Harold, who are also mentioned more than once by Pushkin himself.
• Tatyana Larina- prototype Avdotya (Dunya) Norova, Chaadaev’s friend. Dunya herself is mentioned in the second chapter, and at the end of the last chapter, Pushkin expresses his grief over her untimely death. Due to the death of Dunya at the end of the novel, the prototype of the princess, matured and transformed Tatiana, is Anna Kern, Pushkin’s beloved. She, Anna Kern, was the prototype of Anna Kerenina. Although Leo Tolstoy copied Anna Karenina’s appearance from Pushkin’s eldest daughter, Maria Hartung, the name and story are very close to Anna Kern. Thus, through the story of Anna Kern, Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina is a continuation of the novel Eugene Onegin.
• Olga Larina, her sister is a generalized image of a typical heroine of a popular novel; beautiful in appearance, but lacking deep content.
• Vladimir Lensky- Pushkin himself, or rather his idealized image.
• Tatiana's nanny- probable prototype - Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, Pushkin’s nanny
• Zaretsky, duelist - Fyodor Tolstoy the American was named among the prototypes
• Tatyana Larina's husband, not named in the novel, is an “important general,” General Kern, Anna Kern’s husband.
• Author of the work- Pushkin himself. He constantly intervenes in the course of the narrative, reminds of himself, makes friends with Onegin, in his lyrical digressions he shares with the reader his thoughts on a variety of life issues, and expresses his ideological position.

The novel also mentions the father - Dmitry Larin - and the mother of Tatyana and Olga; “Princess Alina” - Moscow cousin of Tatyana Larina’s mother; Onegin's uncle; a number of comical images of provincial landowners (Gvozdin, Flyanov, “Skotinins, the gray-haired couple”, “fat Pustyakov”, etc.); St. Petersburg and Moscow light.
The images of provincial landowners are mainly of literary origin. Thus, the image of the Skotinins refers to Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor,” Buyanov is the hero of the poem “Dangerous Neighbor” (1810-1811) by V. L. Pushkin. “Among the guests there were also “important Kirin”, “Lazorkina - a widow-widow”, “fat Pustyakov” was replaced by “fat Tumakov”, Pustyakov was called “skinny”, Petushkov was a “retired clerical worker”.

Poetic features

The novel is written in a special “Onegin stanza”. Each stanza consists of 14 lines of iambic tetrameter.
The first four lines rhyme crosswise, lines five through eight rhyme in pairs, lines nine through twelfth are connected in a ring rhyme. The remaining 2 lines of the stanza rhyme with each other.

History of creation

Pushkin worked on the novel for over eight years. The novel was, according to the poet, “the fruit of a mind of cold observations and a heart of sorrowful observations.” Pushkin called his work a feat - of all his creative heritage, only “Boris Godunov” he characterized with the same word. The work, against a broad background of pictures of Russian life, shows the dramatic fate of the best people of the noble intelligentsia.

Pushkin began work on Onegin in 1823, during his southern exile. The author abandoned romanticism as the leading creative method and began to write a realistic novel in verse, although the influence of romanticism is still noticeable in the first chapters. Initially, it was assumed that the novel in verse would consist of 9 chapters, but Pushkin subsequently reworked its structure, leaving only 8 chapters. He excluded the chapter “Onegin’s Travels” from the main text of the work, leaving it as an appendix. One chapter also had to be completely removed from the novel: it describes how Onegin sees military settlements near the Odessa pier, and then there are comments and judgments, in some places in an overly harsh tone. It was too dangerous to leave this chapter - Pushkin could have been arrested for revolutionary views, so he destroyed it.

The novel was published in verse in separate chapters, and the release of each part became a big event in Russian literature of that time. The first chapter of the work was published in 1825. In 1831, the novel in verse was completed and published in 1833. It covers events from 1825 to 1825: from the foreign campaigns of the Russian army after the defeat of Napoleon to the Decembrist uprising. These were the years of development of Russian society, the reign of Alexander I. The plot of the novel is simple and well known, with a love story at its center. In general, the novel “Eugene Onegin” reflected the events of the first quarter of the 19th century, that is, the time of creation and the time of action of the novel approximately coincide.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created a novel in verse similar to Lord Byron’s poem “Don Juan”. Having defined the novel as “a collection of motley chapters,” Pushkin highlights one of the features of this work: the novel is, as it were, “open” in time (each chapter could be the last, but could also have a continuation), thereby drawing the readers’ attention to the independence and integrity of each chapters. The novel has truly become an encyclopedia of Russian life in the 1820s, since the breadth of topics covered in it, the detail of everyday life, the multiplot of composition, the depth of description of the characters’ characters still reliably demonstrate to readers the features of life of that era.

Belinsky

First of all, in Onegin we see a poetically reproduced picture of Russian society, taken at one of the most interesting moments of its development. From this point of view, “Eugene Onegin” is a historical poem in the full sense of the word, although there is not a single historical person among its heroes.

In his poem, he was able to touch on so much, hint at so many things that belong exclusively to the world of Russian nature, to the world of Russian society. Onegin can be called an encyclopedia of Russian life and a highly folk work.

Research by Yu. M. Lotman

"Eugene Onegin" is a difficult work. The very lightness of the verse, the familiarity of the content, familiar to the reader from childhood and emphatically simple, paradoxically create additional difficulties in understanding Pushkin’s novel in verse. The illusory idea of ​​the “understandability” of a work hides from the consciousness of the modern reader a huge number of words, expressions, phraseological units, hints, and quotes that are incomprehensible to him. Thinking about a poem that you have known since childhood seems like unjustified pedantry. However, once we overcome this naive optimism of the inexperienced reader, it becomes obvious how far we are from even a simple textual understanding of the novel. The specific structure of Pushkin’s novel in verse, in which any positive statement by the author can immediately and imperceptibly be turned into an ironic one, and the verbal fabric seems to slide, transmitted from one speaker to another, makes the method of forcibly extracting quotes especially dangerous. To avoid this threat, the novel should be considered not as a mechanical sum of the author’s statements on various issues, a kind of anthology of quotes, but as an organic artistic world, the parts of which live and receive meaning only in relation to the whole. A simple list of problems that Pushkin “raises” in his work will not introduce us to the world of Onegin. An artistic idea implies a special type of transformation of life in art. It is known that for Pushkin there was a “devilish difference” between poetic and prosaic modeling of the same reality, even while maintaining the same themes and problematics.

Chapter ten

On November 26, 1949, the chief bibliographer of the Leningrad State Public Library named after M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Daniil Alshits, discovered a manuscript from the second half of the 19th century, presumably with the text of Chapter X of Onegin. As David Samoilov argued, “not a single serious literary critic believed in the authenticity of the text” - the style is too unlike Pushkin and the artistic level is low.

Editions of the novel

Comments on the novel

One of the first comments on the novel was a small book by A. Volsky, published in 1877. The comments of Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Brodsky, Yuri Lotman, S. M. Bondi have become classic.

In miniature

"Eugene Onegin". Size 8x9 mm

One of the Russian printing houses in 1837 published the novel “Eugene Onegin” in miniature - the last lifetime edition of A. S. Pushkin. The printing house's plans were such that in one year the entire circulation (5,000 copies) could be sold for 5 rubles per book. But due to the sensation - the sad outcome of the life of the author of the work - the entire edition was sold out within a week. And in 1988, the Kniga publishing house released a facsimile edition of the book with a circulation of 15,000 copies.

One of the smallest complete editions of “Eugene Onegin” is a micro-edition in 4 volumes measuring 8x9 mm, 2002 Omsk, A. I. Konenko.

Translations

“Eugene Onegin” has been translated into many languages ​​of the world:

Influence on other works

In literature

The type of “superfluous man”, developed by Pushkin in the image of Onegin, influenced all subsequent Russian literature. The closest obvious example is Lermontov's "Pechorin" from “A Hero of Our Time,” whose surname, like Onegin’s surname, is derived from the name of a Russian river. Both characters are close in many psychological characteristics.

In the modern Russian novel "The Onegin Code", written by Dmitry Bykov under the pseudonym Brain Down, we are talking about the search for the missing chapter of Pushkin’s manuscript. In addition, the novel contains bold assumptions regarding Pushkin's true pedigree.

The genre of a full-fledged “novel in verse” inspired A. Dolsky to create the novel “Anna,” which was completed in 2005.

In music

In cinema

• "Eugene Onegin" (1911). B&W, mute. In the role of Onegin - Pyotr Chardynin
• "Onegin" (1999). In the role of Eugene Onegin - Ralph Fiennes, Tatyana Larina - Liv Tyler, Vladimir Lensky - Toby Stephens

• "Eugene Onegin. Between the past and the future" - documentary film (), 52 min., director Nikita Tikhonov

opera adaptations:

• "Eugene Onegin" (1958). Film adaptation of the opera. The role of Onegin is played by Vadim Medvedev, the vocal part is performed by Evgeny Kibkalo. The role of Tatiana is played by Ariadna Shengelaya, voiced by Galina Vishnevskaya. In the role of Olga - Svetlana Nemolyaeva
• "Eugene Onegin" (1994). In the role of Eugene Onegin - Wojciech Drabowicz
• "Eugene Onegin" (2002). In the role of Evgeny Onegin - Peter Mattei
• "Eugene Onegin" (2007). In the role of Evgeny Onegin - Peter Mattei

In education

In Russian schools, Eugene Onegin is included in the compulsory school literature curriculum.

In addition, a number of passages describing nature (“The sky was already breathing in autumn...”, “Here is the north, the clouds are catching up...”, “Winter! Peasant, triumphant...”, “Driven by the spring rays...”). used in elementary grades for learning by heart without connection with the work as a whole.

Notes

On 14.1936, Samed Vurgun translated A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” into Azerbaijani and for this translation he was awarded the Medal “A. S. Pushkin."

Links

• V. Nepomnyashchy “Eugene Onegin” The series on the “Culture” channel is read and commented by V. Nepomnyashchy.
• Pushkin A. S. Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse // Pushkin A. S. Complete Works: In 10 volumes - L.: Science. Leningr. department, 1977-1979. (FEB)
• “Eugene Onegin” with full comments by Nabokov, Lotman and Tomashevsky on the “Secrets of Craft” website

One of the most famous works of A. S. Pushkin both in Russia and abroad is his novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, written between 1823 and 1830 of the 19th century. Much of the novel's enduring popularity is due to its status as an integral part of the compulsory school curriculum. To write a high-quality essay on a work, we advise you to read the novel, perhaps not at first in one gulp, in excerpts, but to use quotes from “Eugene Onegin” to show that you really know the material.

Eugene Onegin. Explanation with Tatyana in the village

The narration is told on behalf of the friend of the main character of the novel, who is Evgeny Onegin, a native of St. Petersburg, 26 years old:

“...Onegin, my good friend, was born on the banks of the Neva...”

“... having lived without a goal, without work, until the age of twenty-six...”

Onegin was born into a noble family, which gradually went bankrupt due to the fault of the head of the family, who sought to live beyond his means, but provided his son with a decent upbringing, by the standards of that time:

“...His father lived in debt, gave three balls every year, and finally squandered it.”

“... at first Madame followed him, then Monsieur replaced her”

"...fun and luxury child..."

The result of Eugene’s upbringing and training was his knowledge of languages ​​(French, Latin, Greek), history, the foundations of philosophy and economics, rules of good manners, and the ability to dance:

“He could express himself and write in French perfectly, danced the mazurka easily and bowed at ease.”

“...a philosopher at eighteen years old...”

“He knew enough Latin to parse epigraphs, talk about Juvenal, put vale at the end of a letter, and he remembered, although not without sin, two verses from the Aeneid.”

“...he kept in his memory the anecdotes of days gone by from Romulus to the present day”

“...read Adam Smith and was a deep economist...”

Eugene does not like or understand poetry; on occasion, he can easily compose an epigram on the topic of the day:

“...He could not distinguish iambic from trochee, no matter how hard we fought. Scolded Homer, Theocritus..."

“...He had the lucky talent...to arouse ladies’ smiles with the fire of unexpected epigrams.”

Onegin is distinguished by restlessness; in principle, he cannot do anything for a long time:

“... he was sick of persistent work...”

“...He has his hair cut in the latest fashion, like a London dandy is dressed...”

“...In his clothes there was a pedant, and what we called a dandy. He spent at least three hours in front of mirrors..."

All these qualities of a character become the key to a favorable attitude towards him in the light of:

“Onegin was, in the opinion of many... a learned fellow, but a pedant...”

“The world decided that he was smart and very nice”

A life full of entertainment quickly gets boring for the main character; for a while, Eugene’s only passion remains love adventures, but they gradually bore him:

“But what was his true genius, what he knew more firmly than all the sciences, what was for him from childhood and labor, and torment, and joy, what occupied his melancholy laziness all day - was the science of tender passion...”

“...Beauties were not the subject of his habitual thoughts for long, they managed to tire of betrayals...”

“...He no longer fell in love with beauties, but was somehow attracted ...”

“Similar to the English spleen, in short: the Russian melancholy took possession of him little by little...”

Despite the fact that society as a whole is boring to the main character, he takes into account its rules, which ultimately costs Lensky his life, because even realizing the meaninglessness and uselessness of the duel, Onegin cannot refuse it:

“...but wildly secular enmity is afraid of false shame...”

“...but the whispers, the laughter of fools... And here is public opinion! Spring of honor, our idol!

At the time of the story, the young man is the last heir of the family, whose representatives include himself and his uncle:

“...Heir to all his relatives...”

Despite the fact that his father squandered his fortune, the material assets remaining in the family are apparently enough to provide the main character with a comfortable existence without the need to serve or lead a secular lifestyle:

“languishing in idle leisure, without service, without a wife, without business, I did not know how to do anything...”

“...three houses are calling for the evening...”

"...honorary citizen of the scenes..."

Onegin is quite calculating. Having learned about his uncle’s imminent death, Onegin does not feel sympathy for him, but is quite ready to pretend to be so in order to receive an inheritance:

“Having read the sad message, Evgeny immediately galloped headlong to the post office date and was already yawning in advance, preparing himself for the sake of money, for sighs, boredom and deception.”

His behavior in society becomes more and more distant and discourteous:

“...when he wanted to destroy his rivals, how he sarcastically slandered...”

“...to his caustic argument, and to his joke, with bile in half, and the anger of gloomy epigrams...”

“... he pouted and, indignant, vowed to enrage Lensky and take revenge in order...”

Gradually, society’s opinion about Onegin is transformed:

“...a cold and lazy soul...”

“...this gloomy eccentric...”

“...a sad and dangerous eccentric...”

“Our neighbor is ignorant; crazy; he's a pharmacist..."

“He doesn’t suit ladies’ arms...”

He perceives himself as a gloomy and indifferent person, even trying to exaggerate when speaking about his own person:

“...always frowning, silent, angry and coldly jealous! That's how I am"

“...You will start crying: your tears will not touch my heart, but will only enrage it...”

“... No matter how much I love you, once I get used to it, I will immediately stop loving you...”

However, in this image there is a lot of ostentation and panache. Onegin knows how to understand people and appreciate them:

“...even though he knew people, of course, and generally despised them, but (there are no rules without exceptions) he distinguished others very much and respected the feelings of others...”

“... my Eugene, not respecting the heart in him, loved both the spirit of his judgments and his common sense about this and that”

“I would choose another if I were like you, a poet...”

Even his “rebuke” to young Tatyana is caused by his reluctance to cause her even greater suffering than the pain of rejection:

“...but he did not want to deceive the gullibility of an innocent soul...”

He tries to be delicate with her and tries to warn the girl against careless impulses in the future, although a share of panache and narcissism is still present in his words:

“Learn to control yourself; Not everyone will understand you like I do; inexperience leads to disaster..."

In fact, he is quite capable of experiencing compassion and tenderness:

“...her embarrassment and fatigue gave birth to pity in his soul”

“...the gaze of his eyes was wonderfully tender...”

In his relationship with Lensky, realizing that they are too different for true friendship, Onegin for the time being spares the poet’s feelings and does not try to ridicule his enthusiastic ideas about life:

“...He tried to keep the cooling word in his mouth...”

There is nobility and self-esteem in his character, and those around him recognize this:

“...I know: in your heart there is both pride and direct honor”

“How can your heart and mind be a petty slave to feelings?”

“...in that terrible hour you acted nobly...”

“...not for the first time here he showed the soul direct nobility...”

As the work progresses, it becomes obvious that Eugene knows how to love and suffer:

“...Eugene is in love with Tatiana like a child...”

“...Onegin is drying up - and almost suffering from consumption”

“... He drives up every day; he chases after her like a shadow..."

“...but he is stubborn, doesn’t want to fall behind, still hopes, works hard...”

Onegin can be truly strict with himself:

“...alone with my soul I was dissatisfied with myself...”

“...in a strict analysis, calling himself to a secret trial, he accused himself of many things...”

“In the anguish of heart remorse...”

Able to admit his mistakes:

“...how I made a mistake, how I was punished”

Tatyana Larina

Tatyana Larina. Explanation with Onegin in St. Petersburg

A girl from a noble family living in the province:

“...in the wilderness of a forgotten village...”

Poor family:

“...we don’t shine with anything...”

“...a simple, Russian family...”

“...oh, my father, I don’t have enough income...”

“Neither her sister’s beauty, nor the freshness of her ruddy complexion would have attracted the eye.”

As a child, she was very different from her peers in behavior:

“Wild, sad, silent, like a timid forest deer, she seemed like a stranger in her own family.”

“She didn’t know how to caress...”

“The child herself, she didn’t want to play and jump in a crowd of children...”

“But even in these years Tatyana did not pick up dolls...”

“And children’s pranks were alien to her...”

In her youth she is dreamy and thoughtful:

“Thoughtfulness, her friend... the flow of rural leisure adorned her with dreams”

“...terrible stories in the winter in the dark of night captivated her heart more...”

“She liked novels early on...”

“She loved to warn the sunrise on the balcony...”

She acutely feels her difference:

“Imagine: I’m here alone, no one understands me...”

The girl is quite smart, although capricious:

“... Alive in mind and will...”

“...And a wayward head...”

Tatyana has very developed intuition, to the point that she has prophetic dreams:

“...suddenly Evgeniy grabs a long knife, and Lensky is instantly defeated...”

Romantic and enthusiastic, she fell in love with Onegin at first sight only because:

“It’s time, she fell in love”

“The soul was waiting for... someone”

Her letter to Eugene is written in French, in a very exalted tone, with pompous “bookish” turns:

“I know you were sent to me by God, you are my keeper until the grave...”

“It’s destined in the highest council... Then it’s the will of heaven: I’m yours...”

“Your wonderful gaze tormented me...”

“Who are you, my guardian angel, or an insidious tempter...”

In fact, she writes not to a living person, but to an invented image, and deep down in her soul she understands this:

“Perhaps this is all empty, a deception of an inexperienced soul!”

“But your honor guarantees me...”

However, one should pay tribute to her courage. She writes, despite the fact that she is endlessly scared:

“I’m frozen with shame and fear...”

Over time, it turns out that the love that Tatyana feels for Evgeniy is not an easy, quickly passing love:

“...Tatiana loves seriously...”

She not only cherishes unhappy love in her soul, but tries to understand Onegin’s character, comes to his abandoned village house, reads his books:

“Is it possible to see the manor’s house?”

“Then I started reading books”

“...their choice seemed strange to her”

“And little by little my Tatyana begins to understand... the one for whom she was condemned to sigh by the imperious fate”

They woo her, but all the suitors are refused:

“Buyanov wooed: refusal. Ivan Petushkov too. Hussar Pykhtin visited us..."

At the family council, it was decided to go to Moscow, to the “bride fair,” but Tatyana remains indifferent to social life there:

“...Tanya, just like in a dream, hears their speeches without sympathy...”

“...Tatyana looks and doesn’t see, she hates the excitement of the light; she feels stuffy here...

Not everyone thinks she herself is an attractive bride:

“...they find her somewhat strange, provincial and cutesy, and somehow pale and thin, but, by the way, very pretty...”

“A crowd of young men look at Tanya primly and speak unfavorably about her among themselves.”

The girl doesn’t strive for everyone’s attention at all, but she gets noticed:

“Some sad jester finds her ideal...”

“... somehow Vyazemsky sat down with her...”

“...the old man inquires about her, straightening his wig.”

“Meanwhile, some important general keeps his eyes on her.”

She gets married at the insistence of her family, without love, to a man she doesn’t like very much:

"Who? Is this general fat?”

Since her marriage, the social manners of the already reserved Tatyana acquire a shade of even friendliness towards everyone, which is impossible to look behind:

“...She was leisurely, not cold, not talkative...”

“... sweet with carefree charm...”

Not participating in any intrigues, not competing with anyone, Tatyana commands the respect of society, her husband is very proud of her:

“The ladies moved closer to her; the old women smiled at her; the men bowed lower..."

“...and the general who entered with her raised everyone’s nose and shoulders higher...”

In the time that has passed since her first meeting with Onegin, Tatyana has learned, on his advice, to control herself:

“And no matter what troubled her soul, no matter how much she was surprised and amazed, nothing changed her: she retained the same tone, her bow was just as quiet.”

“...she sits calm and free”

Her true feelings will appear only in the final scene, when she, suffering, expresses her painful feelings to Onegin, reproaching him for the past and pointing out to him the real motives of his current feelings for her:

“The princess is in front of him, alone, sitting, not dressed, pale, reading some letter and quietly shedding tears like a river.”

“Why do you have me in mind? Is it not because I must now appear in high society; that I am rich and noble?... Is it because my shame would now be noticed by everyone, and could bring you a tempting honor in society?”

Now she is showing nobility of character. Admitting that she continues to love Onegin, Tatiana reminds both him and herself that she must remain faithful to her husband:

“I love you (why lie?), but I am given to someone else; I will be faithful to him forever"

Vladimir Lensky

Vladimir Lensky

A young nobleman, 18 years old, attractive in appearance, rich:

“...Almost eighteen years old...”

“...Handsome, in full bloom...”

“...And shoulder-length black curls...”

“...rich, good-looking...”

Parents died:

“...and there, with the inscription of a sad father and mother, in tears, he honored the patriarchal ashes...”

Philosopher and poet:

“...an admirer of Kant and a poet...”

An enthusiastic nature, even to the point of exaltation, not fully formed:

“...and a mind still unsteady in judgment, and an eternally inspired gaze...”

“...freedom-loving dreams, an ardent and rather strange spirit, always an enthusiastic speech...”

He came from Germany straight to the village, because he does not accept the rules by which high society exists:

“...he brought the fruits of learning from foggy Germany...”

“...I hate your fashionable world, I prefer the home circle...”

Trusting and simple-minded:

“...he innocently exposed his trusting conscience...”

Believes in friendship and loyalty:

“...he believed that his friends were ready to accept his chains for honor...”

“...there are sacred friends chosen by the destinies of people...”

Rural society perceives him as an eligible bachelor:

“...Lensky was accepted everywhere as a groom...”

However, since childhood, Vladimir was engaged to the youngest daughter of the Larins’ neighbors, Olga, and at the time of the story he was in love with her and was going to marry her:

“And the children were destined for crowns by their friends and neighbors, their fathers...”

“...the admirer Olga has arrived...”

“Oh, he loved, as in our years people don’t love anymore...”

“...he believed that his dear soul should unite with him, that, languishing joylessly, she was waiting for him every day...”

“...in two weeks the happy date was appointed”

His love is platonic in nature:

“...he was a dear ignoramus at heart...”

“... in the confusion of tender shame, he only sometimes dares, encouraged by Olga’s smile, to play with his developed curl or kiss the hem of his clothes...”

“... and meanwhile, two, three pages... he skips, blushing...”

After the challenge to a duel, seeing Olga and realizing that she doesn’t even understand what happened, Lensky forgives her and no longer takes revenge on Onegin, but only wants to protect the bride from the corrupting influence:

“...I will be her savior. I will not tolerate the corrupter tempting a young heart with fire and sighs and praises...”

Olga Larina

Vladimir Lensky and Olga Larina

Tatiana's younger sister:

“Are you really in love with the smaller one?”

Charming chubby, ruddy blonde with doll-like appearance:

"...full of innocent charm..."

“...flax curls...”

“...Eyes as blue as the sky...”

“She’s round and red in the face...”

“Oh, darling, how prettier Olga’s shoulders are, what a chest!”

According to Onegin, she is beautiful, but absolutely uninteresting:

“Olga has no life in her features. Exactly like Vandice's Madonna"

The younger Larina’s mind is not particularly developed; she is simple-minded, to the point of stupidity:

“...how the life of a poet is simple-minded...”

“Before this clarity of vision, before this tender simplicity, before this playful soul!”

Because of this, the girl cannot appreciate Lensky’s nature and his attitude towards her:

“Vladimir would have written odes, but Olga would not have read them”

Olga is the fiancée of Vladimir Lensky, willingly spends time with him and encourages his advances, but is unlikely to be capable of strong feelings, which she says quite directly

“In her chamber they sit in the dark, the two of them...”

“They are in the garden, hand in hand, walking in the morning…”

“...Encouraged by Olga’s smile...”

“He was loved... or so he thought...”

Vetrena, does not know how to behave in society, compromises both herself and her fiancé by flirting with another:

“...and the blush in her proud face glowed brighter”

“Coquette, flighty child!”

“She knows cunning, she’s already learned to change!”

Sincerely does not understand the problematic situation:

“Olenka jumped from the porch to meet the poor singer, like a windy hope, playful, carefree, cheerful, well, exactly the same as she was.”

“Why did you disappear so early tonight?” There was Olenka’s first question.”

In the farewell scene before the duel, Olga, looking into the face of Lensky, whose heart is breaking with melancholy, simply asks, “What’s the matter with you?” and having received the answer “Yes,” he releases him without further questions.

After the death of the groom in a duel, the girl quickly falls in love with another and marries him:

“She didn’t cry for long...”