The capital's nobility in “Eugene Onegin” - a table with characteristics from Pushkin’s novel

Pushkin's attitude towards the capital's nobility

In his novel, Pushkin unambiguously makes it clear to the reader how much he does not accept the state of morals of the capital's nobility. He has a negative attitude towards many of the foundations of this layer of Russian society. For example, Pushkin does not accept home education. In this case, learning occurs superficially, a person grows up in a narrowly limited intellectual space, he develops a consumerist attitude towards life, art and culture (for example, Evgeny allows himself to yawn in the theater, cannot distinguish “iamb from trochee”), disrespect for work is developed , inability to work.

In the novel "Eugene Onegin" the life of the nobility is described as idle, but the author gives an unflattering assessment of such morals. Walks and dinners, balls and theaters act as a corruption of morals. “You can be a efficient person, but think about the beauty of your nails,” the poet writes, telling the reader that it is pointless to live life without doing anything for society.

However, the author emphasizes his respect for the representatives of the senior noble nobility. He positively evaluates their intelligence and education, attitude to life and noble morals. The characteristics of the senior ranks of the capital's nobles are described by the poet extremely attractively.

Essay: The local nobility in the novel “Eugene Onegin” (A.S. Pushkin)

(655 words) The famous novel by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” describes the life, political views, and habits of various social strata of society. The author depicted the morals and life of both the capital's social stratum and the local nobility of the villages. Let's figure out what are the features and differences between the provincial landowner class and the metropolitan aristocracy in the novel "Eugene Onegin."

The time frame of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is the first half of the nineteenth century. The capital's nobility of that time lived in grand style and squandered their inherited capital on luxury. A real illustrative example is the hero of the work himself - Eugene Onegin. An idle lifestyle required huge expenses. Endless visits, theaters, balls, walking tours around the capital ruined Eugene’s father, and the young hero lived richly only because he was the heir to all his relatives. The young nobleman has everything that makes him a skeptic, a rake and an egoist. However, amid the various entertainments, the “noise of light” and “tinsel” quickly became boring both to the main character and to the author of the novel himself. The monotony of social evenings forced Onegin to flee to the village. The reader followed him and learned a lot of interesting things.

A.S. described in no less detail and detail. Pushkin and the life of the local nobility. Unlike Onegin's father, his uncle did not spend money, but saved it. He increased his capital, because, judging by the situation on his estate, his late uncle was only interested in farming and was very successful in this matter. Eugene inherited a good inheritance. This difference between the two brothers immediately helps us to grasp the main characteristics of the landed nobleman: he is a practical, far-sighted, respectable man who thinks about the future of his family. It is not typical for him to want to show off. He is more modest and active. At the same time, it is characterized by limitations. Uncle Evgeniy, for example, did not read anything, did not go to theaters, did not travel. Apparently, he was only concerned about the state of the crops. These are many of Evgeniy’s new acquaintances. At the table these people discuss practical issues and village rumors. Their narrow-mindedness and “habits of the sweet old times” are disgusting to the capital’s dandy Onegin, who has absorbed the urban style of communication and new trends of foreign origin.

The local nobility in the novel “Eugene Onegin” is also represented by the Larin family. Deceit, commercialism, and cynicism are not characteristic of them. Patriarchal foundations and folk traditions are dear to them.

At Shrovetide they had Russian pancakes; Twice a year they fasted; They loved the round swing, Poblyudny songs, round dance; On Trinity Day, when the people, yawning, listen to the prayer service, touchingly at the ray of dawn, they shed three tears...

These people live quietly and modestly, not for show. That’s why they are so different from metropolitan society. In the village, each family member has his own activities. For example, Tatyana’s mother herself “salted mushrooms during the winter,” “went to work,” “managed expenses” - that is, she worked, which is unthinkable for metropolitan ladies. Tatyana Larina herself was born and raised in such a circle, so she is close to the people and their traditions. She does not sit idly by, but reads, wanders around the garden, and tells fortunes. There is no place for boredom in her life. Apparently, living in the lap of nature makes people purer, because kindness, honesty, the value of family life and patriarchy are characteristic features of the local nobility. It is not ideal in the eyes of the author, but it is still superior to metropolitan society.

Disadvantages of the local nobility A.S. Pushkin highlights when he imagines the future of Vladimir Lensky. A dreamer, a poet-admirer, educated in Germany, would degrade in the countryside. For such a mind, the life of a landowner would be too ordinary and mundane. Surrounded by children and under the care of his wife, the hero would become an ordinary person without goals or achievements. The life and customs of the local nobility do not even contain the diversity of social life; they are ordinary and too simple. This is also evident at Tatyana Larina’s name day: ordinary serf-owners, with mundane interests and large families, gather and discuss who will marry whom - that’s all their interests. Tatyana Larina stands out against the general background, because her inner world goes beyond the narrow boundaries of the village horizon.

Thus, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, describing the social strata of society, did not single out the best or the worst, but only emphasized the differences and similarities between them. In the local nobility, the main role was played by traditional moral principles, folk customs and economy. In secular society, the race for ostentatious luxury and foreign fashion supplanted all this, but in return left nothing that could be compared with the integral nature of Tatyana, her father and many other heroes.

Morals of the capital's nobles

Pushkin eloquently describes the foundations of the capital's nobles, showing them from the ugly side. They have distorted many concepts and ideals, which was a global problem for society. Representatives of the capital's nobility carefully followed fashion, but there was no humanity in this. The capital's youth treated love as a science; all their actions were performed for show.

The author emphasizes a special attitude towards friendship. This concept is distorted among the capital’s nobles - they are accustomed to making friends superficially and only for the sake of their own convenience. It was in such an environment that Evgeny grew up, in which Onegin became the person we see in the novel.

The duality of the depiction of secular society in the novel “Eugene Onegin”

Human consciousness and the system of life values, as is known, are largely shaped by moral laws adopted in society. Pushkin writes in the novel about both the capital and the Moscow and provincial nobility. The author of the novel pays special attention to the St. Petersburg nobility, a typical representative of which is Eugene Onegin. The poet describes in every detail the day of his hero, and Onegin’s day is a typical day of a metropolitan nobleman. Thus, Pushkin recreates a picture of the life of the entire St. Petersburg secular society. A fashionable daytime stroll along a specific route (“Wearing a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard...”), lunch at a restaurant, a visit to the theater. Moreover, for Onegin the theater is not an artistic spectacle or even a kind of club, but rather a place of love affairs and behind-the-scenes hobbies. Pushkin gives his hero the following characteristics:

The theater is an evil legislator, a fickle admirer of charming actresses, an honorary citizen of the backstage...

Pushkin describes Onegin's office and his outfit in great detail. The author seems to want to once again emphasize the isolation of young people of that time from the national soil, because from early childhood they were in an atmosphere of a foreign language, people (governesses and tutors were foreigners) and things. (“But trousers, tailcoat, vest, /All these words are not in Russian…”). The day of the young dandy ends with a ball, a favorite pastime of the capital's nobles. Pushkin speaks of St. Petersburg high society with a fair amount of irony and without much sympathy, because life in the capital is “monotonous and colorful,” and “the noise of the world gets boring very quickly.” The local, provincial nobility is represented very widely in the novel. This is Onegin’s uncle, the Larin family guests at Tatiana’s name day, Zaretsky. Onegin’s uncle was a “village old-timer”, he was busy quarreling with the housekeeper, looking out the window, squashing flies and reading the “eighth year calendar”. Prominent representatives of the provincial nobility gather at Tatiana’s name day: Gvozdin, “an excellent owner, the owner of poor men”; Petushkov, “county dandy”; Flyanov, “heavy gossip, old rogue.” If Pushkin introduces real historical figures, for example Kaverin, into the story about the capital’s nobility, then in this case the author uses the names of famous literary characters: Skotinins are the heroes of Fonvizin’s “The Minor,” Buyanov is the hero of V.L. Pushkin’s “Dangerous Neighbor.” The author also uses telling surnames. For example, Triquet means “beaten with a stick” - a hint that he cannot be accepted in high society, but in the provinces he is a welcome guest. Not far from Lensky lives Zaretsky, “once a brawler”, “the head of a rake”, now “a single father of a family”, “a peaceful landowner”. But he cannot be called a decent person, because he loves “to quarrel young friends / And put them on the barrier.” This is what happens in the case of Lensky and Onegin. In general, Zaretsky is responsible for the death of Lensky; although he, as a second, could have prevented the duel, he did everything possible to ensure that it took place. And Vladimir Lensky can be classified as a local nobleman. He is “a romantic and nothing more,” according to Belinsky’s definition. As a romantic, he does not know life at all, he sees people either in a rosy or black light (“He was an ignoramus at heart…”). He is alienated from national culture, perhaps more so than Onegin (his neighbors call Lensky half-Russian). When discussing the future of Vladimir Lensky, Pushkin sees two possible paths. Following the first of them, he could become Kutuzov, Nelson or Napoleon, or even end his life like Ryleev, because Lensky is a passionate man, capable of a reckless, but heroic act (in this he is close to Pushkin). But his trouble is that the environment in which he finds himself is hostile to him, in it he is considered an eccentric. Lensky would rather take the second path:

Or maybe this: a destiny awaited the poet Ordinary.

He would have become an ordinary landowner, like Onegin’s uncle or Dmitry Larin. Larin, about whom Belinsky says that he is “something like a polyp, belonging at the same time to two kingdoms of nature - plant and animal,” was a “kind fellow,” but in general an ordinary person (evidence of this is the Ochakov medal , which was not an individual award, unlike the order). His wife was fond of books in her youth, but this hobby was rather age-related. She got married against her will, was taken to the village, where she “was torn and cried at first,” but then she took up housekeeping and “got used to it and became happy.” The world of the landed nobility is far from perfect, because in it spiritual interests and needs are not decisive, just like intellectual interests (“Their conversation is prudent / About haymaking, about wine; / About the kennel, about their relatives”). However, Pushkin writes about him with more sympathy than about St. Petersburg. In the provincial nobility, naturalness and spontaneity are preserved as properties of human nature (“The neighbors are a good family, / Unceremonious friends”). The local nobles were quite close to the people in terms of their attitude and way of life. This is manifested in the attitude towards nature and religion, in the observance of traditions (“They kept in their peaceful life / The habits of dear old times ...”). Pushkin pays less attention to the Moscow nobility than to the St. Petersburg nobility. Several years have passed since Pushkin wrote the 1st chapter of his novel, and A. S. Griboyedov finished the comedy “Woe from Wit,” but Pushkin adds Griboyedov’s lines to the epigraph of the seventh chapter, thereby emphasizing that since then in Moscow little has changed. The ancient capital has always been patriarchal. So, for example, Tatiana is met at her aunt’s by a gray-haired Kalmyk, and the fashion for Kalmyks was at the end of the 18th century. The Moscow nobility is a collective image, in contrast to the St. Petersburg nobility, where Eugene Onegin is the main character. Pushkin, speaking about Moscow, seems to populate it with the heroes of Griboyedov’s comedy, whom time has not changed (“But no change is visible in them, / Everything about them is like the old model...”). A real historical figure also appears in Moscow society: “Vyazemsky somehow got hooked on her (Tatyana)…”. But in Moscow there is still the same bustle, “noise, laughter, running around, bowing,” which leaves both Tatyana and the author indifferent. The author himself assesses the influence of high society ambiguously. Chapter 1 gives a sharply satirical depiction of light. The tragic 6th chapter ends with a lyrical digression - the author’s reflections on the age limit that he is preparing to cross: “Will I soon be thirty years old?” And he calls on “young inspiration” to save the “soul of the poet” from death, not to let

...to petrify In the deadening ecstasy of light, In this pool where I Swim with you, dear friends! So, a whirlpool that deadens the soul.

But here is the 8th chapter:

...and now for the first time I bring a muse to a social event.

And what? She likes the harmonious order of oligarchic conversations, And the coldness of calm pride, And this mixture of ranks and years. Y. Lotman very correctly explains this contradiction: “The image of light received a double illumination: on the one hand, the world is soulless and mechanistic, it remained an object of condemnation, on the other hand, as the sphere in which Russian culture develops, life is inspired by the play of intellectual and spiritual forces, Poetry, pride, like the world of Karamzin and the Decembrists, Zhukovsky and the author of “Eugene Onegin” himself, it retains unconditional value. Society is heterogeneous. It depends on the person himself whether he will accept the moral laws of the cowardly majority or the best representatives of the world.”

Nobility in the capital

At the beginning of the 19th century, V. Belinsky’s work about Eugene Onegin was called an encyclopedia of Russian life. The honorary nobility was described by Pushkin in his literary work using the examples of two capitals quite fully and colorfully. The message about the character and life values of the nobles is surprisingly truthful.

The author's attitude towards the capital's nobility

In the novel in verse, the reader is told, without additional meaning, to what extent the author is outraged by the morals of the capital's nobility. Pushkin is indignant at many of the rules and customs of this Russian society.

For example, education at home is, according to the writer, a negative manifestation of the privileged class, since this knowledge is superficial . A person in a noble family is brought up within a limited framework; with home schooling, the horizons are narrower, the intellectual space is curtailed. The child develops a consumer approach to life, culture and objects of art; for example, the main character Evgeniy yawns in the theater and finds it difficult to distinguish iambic from trochee. Denial of respect for work is brought up; there are no work skills, but only laziness and boredom.

In the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" the capital's nobility leads an idle lifestyle, Pushkin expresses his negative attitude towards this. Breakfasts and lunches, long walks and empty conversations, entertainment theaters and balls - all this corrupts; there is little meaning or benefit here.

In turn, the author speaks respectfully about the society of “senior” nobles. They are quite intelligent and educated, have a correct attitude towards life, and their aspirations are noble.

Characteristics of the capital's nobles

The author describes in detail the morals of the capital's nobility, emphasizing their “ugly” features. Their values are largely erroneous and distorted, which represents a global problem for the Russian public in the table of priority issues. The capital's nobles follow fashion too closely, in love relationships everything is done for show, friendships are made superficially and for their own benefit. Evgeniy is accustomed to such customs and life.

Portrait of a nobleman from the capital:

appearance in the latest fashion;
hypocrisy;
idleness;
laziness;
deceit;
search for benefits.

The characters are only partly the author's invention. Alexander Pushkin is well acquainted with the nobility; his characters have real prototypes from real everyday life . In reality, among the noble nobility there were a large number of parasites and dependents. The picture of the nobility is more truthful than fictional.

It was no coincidence that Tatyana ended up in Moscow. She specially went to the “bride fair”. There are close relatives of the Larins in the capital, they hospitably received Tatyana and her mother. At balls, the Moscow nobility is prim, casting arrogant and arrogant glances at the provincial young lady. They are not a stranger to slander, they are not averse to gossip. The reader is presented with Moscow noble society from the negative side.

At the beginning of the work, when Eugene first appears, the nobility of St. Petersburg appears to the reader as a frivolous and stupid society. They are not embarrassed by idleness and idleness, believing that this is the norm for St. Petersburg life. Day after day they go to dinner parties and balls. Everywhere everything is colorful, everyone strives for fashion, a smile rarely flashes on their face. The high society of St. Petersburg is impudent and empty-hearted. It should be noted that, of course, there were truly worthy nobles in the Russian Empire. But the author strives to expose the vices of aristocratic society in order to be instruction and morality for the reader. Of course, the public's reception of the novel was uncertain, and there were those who were dissatisfied.

Gathering at festive balls and dinners, nobles discuss absurd topics in conversations. It becomes clear that despite the outward splendor, inside the capital’s nobility is corrupt and immoral. The life of the nobility in the capital is full of nothing but entertainment all day long.

“Habits of dear old times...” (Local nobility in the novel “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin)