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Analysis of the story "Poor Liza" (N. Karamzin). “The image of Liza in the story “Poor Liza” by N. M. Karamzin Karamzin’s story is poor Liza

Today in the lesson we will talk about the story of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza", we will find out the details of its creation, the historical context, determine what the author's innovation is, analyze the characters of the characters in the story, and also consider the moral issues raised by the writer.

It must be said that the publication of this story was accompanied by extraordinary success, even a stir among the Russian readership, which is not surprising, because the first Russian book appeared, the heroes of which could be empathized in the same way as Goethe's The Sufferings of Young Werther or The New Eloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We can say that Russian literature began to become on the same level with European. The enthusiasm and popularity were such that even a pilgrimage to the place of events described in the book began. As you remember, the case takes place not far from the Simonov Monastery, the place was called "Lizin's pond". This place is becoming so popular that some evil-speaking people even compose epigrams:

Drowned here
Erast's bride...
Get drunk girls
There's plenty of room in the pond!

Well, can you do
Godless and worse?
Fall in love with a tomboy
And drown in a puddle.

All this contributed to the unusual popularity of the story among Russian readers.

Naturally, the popularity of the story was given not only by the dramatic plot, but also by the fact that it was all artistically unusual.

Rice. 2. N. M. Karamzin ()

Here is what he writes: “They say that the author needs talents and knowledge: a sharp, penetrating mind, a vivid imagination, and so on. Fair enough, but not enough. He also needs to have a kind, tender heart if he wants to be a friend and favorite of our soul; if he wants his gifts to shine with a flickering light; if he wants to write for eternity and collect the blessings of the nations. The Creator is always depicted in creation, and often against his will. It is in vain that the hypocrite thinks to deceive the readers and to hide an iron heart under the golden clothes of magnificent words; in vain speaks to us of mercy, compassion, virtue! All his exclamations are cold, without soul, without life; and the nutritious, ethereal flame will never pour from his creations into the tender soul of the reader…”, “When you want to paint your portrait, then first look in the right mirror: can your face be an object of art…”, “You take up the pen and want to be an author: ask yourself, alone, without witnesses, sincerely: what am I? for you want to paint a portrait of your soul and heart…”, “You want to be an author: read the history of the misfortunes of the human race - and if your heart does not bleed, leave the pen, - or it will portray to us the cold gloom of your soul. But if everything that is sad, everything that is oppressed, everything that weeps, the way is open to your sensitive chest; if your soul can rise to a passion for goodness, can nourish in itself a holy desire for the common good, not limited by any spheres: then boldly call on the goddesses of Parnassus - they will pass by the magnificent halls and visit your humble hut - you will not be a useless writer - and none of good people will not look with dry eyes at your grave ... "," In a word: I am sure that a bad person cannot be a good author.

Here is the artistic motto of Karamzin: a bad person cannot be a good writer.

So before Karamzin, no one had ever written in Russia. Moreover, the unusualness began already with the exposition, with a description of the place where the action of the story would take place.

“Perhaps no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as I do, because no one more often than me is in the field, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - where the eyes look - through the meadows and groves, hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauties in old ones. But most pleasant for me is the place on which the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si ... New Monastery rise.(Fig. 3) .

Rice. 3. Lithography of the Simonov Monastery ()

Here, too, there is unusualness: on the one hand, Karamzin accurately describes and designates the place of action - the Simonov Monastery, on the other hand, this encryption creates a certain mystery, understatement, which is very much in line with the spirit of the story. The main thing is the installation on the non-fiction of events, on documentary. It is no coincidence that the narrator will say that he learned about these events from the hero himself, from Erast, who told him about this shortly before his death. It was this feeling that everything happened nearby, that one could be a witness to these events, intrigued the reader and gave the story a special meaning and a special character.

Rice. 4. Erast and Lisa ("Poor Lisa" in a modern production) ()

It is curious that this private, uncomplicated story of two young people (the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Lisa (Fig. 4)) turns out to be inscribed in a very wide historical and geographical context.

“But the most pleasant for me is the place where the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si ... new monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost all of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater»

Word amphitheater Karamzin singles out, and this is probably no coincidence, because the scene becomes a kind of arena where events unfold, open to the eyes of everyone (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. Moscow, XVIII century ()

“A magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays blaze on countless golden domes, on countless crosses, ascending to the sky! Below are fat, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, on yellow sands, a bright river flows, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the helm of heavy plows that float from the most fruitful countries of the Russian Empire and endow greedy Moscow with bread.(Fig. 6) .

Rice. 6. View from Sparrow Hills ()

On the other side of the river, an oak grove is visible, near which numerous herds graze; there the young shepherds, sitting under the shade of the trees, sing simple, melancholy songs, and thereby shorten the summer days, so uniform to them. Farther away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; still farther, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills turn blue. On the left side, you can see vast fields covered with bread, forests, three or four villages, and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.

Curiously, why does Karamzin frame private history with this panorama? It turns out that this history is becoming a part of human life, a part of Russian history and geography. All this gave the events described in the story a generalizing character. But, giving a general hint at this world history and this extensive biography, Karamzin nevertheless shows that private history, the history of individual people, not famous, simple, attracts him much more strongly. 10 years will pass, and Karamzin will become a professional historian and begin to work on his "History of the Russian State", written in 1803-1826 (Fig. 7).

Rice. 7. Cover of the book by N. M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State" ()

But for now, the focus of his literary attention is the story of ordinary people - the peasant woman Lisa and the nobleman Erast.

Creation of a new language of fiction

In the language of fiction, even at the end of the 18th century, the theory of three calms, created by Lomonosov and reflecting the needs of classicism literature, with its ideas about high and low genres, still dominated.

The theory of three calms- classification of styles in rhetoric and poetics, distinguishing three styles: high, medium and low (simple).

Classicism- an artistic direction focused on the ideals of ancient classics.

But it is natural that by the 90s of the 18th century this theory was already outdated and became a brake on the development of literature. Literature demanded more flexible language principles, there was a need to bring the language of literature closer to the spoken language, but not a simple peasant language, but an educated noble one. The need for books that were written the way people in this educated society speak was already very acute. Karamzin believed that the writer, having developed his own taste, could create a language that would become the spoken language of a noble society. In addition, another goal was implied here: such a language was supposed to displace French from everyday use, in which the predominantly Russian noble society was still expressed. Thus, the language reform carried out by Karamzin becomes a general cultural task and has a patriotic character.

Perhaps the main artistic discovery of Karamzin in "Poor Liza" is the image of the narrator, the narrator. We are talking on behalf of a person who is interested in the fate of his heroes, a person who is not indifferent to them, who sympathizes with other people's misfortunes. That is, Karamzin creates the image of the narrator in full accordance with the laws of sentimentalism. And now this is becoming unprecedented, this is the first time in Russian literature.

Sentimentalism- this is a worldview and a tendency of thinking aimed at identifying, strengthening, emphasizing the emotional side of life.

In full accordance with Karamzin's intention, the narrator does not accidentally say: “I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!”

The description in the exposition of the fallen Simonov Monastery, with its collapsed cells, as well as the crumbling hut in which Liza and her mother lived, introduce the theme of death into the story from the very beginning, creates that gloomy tone that will accompany the story. And at the very beginning of the story, one of the main themes and favorite ideas of the figures of the Enlightenment sounds - the idea of the extra-class value of a person. And it sounds weird. When the narrator talks about the history of Liza's mother, about the early death of her husband, Liza's father, he will say that she could not be consoled for a long time, and will utter the famous phrase: "... for even peasant women know how to love".

Now this phrase has become almost catchy, and we often do not correlate it with the original source, although in Karamzin's story it appears in a very important historical, artistic and cultural context. It turns out that the feelings of common people, peasants are no different from the feelings of noble people, nobles, peasant women and peasants are capable of subtle and tender feelings. This discovery of the extra-class value of a person was made by the figures of the Enlightenment and becomes one of the leitmotifs of Karamzin's story. And not only in this place: Liza will tell Erast that there can be nothing between them, since she is a peasant woman. But Erast will begin to console her and will say that he does not need any other happiness in life, except for Lisa's love. It turns out that, indeed, the feelings of ordinary people can be as subtle and refined as the feelings of people of noble birth.

At the beginning of the story, another very important topic will sound. We see that in the exposition of his work, Karamzin concentrates all the main themes and motives. This is the theme of money and its destructive power. At the first date of Lisa and Erast, the guy will want to give her a ruble instead of the five kopecks requested by Lisa for a bouquet of lilies of the valley, but the girl will refuse. Subsequently, as if paying off Liza, from her love, Erast will give her ten imperials - one hundred rubles. Naturally, Liza will automatically take this money, and then she will try through her neighbor, a peasant girl Dunya, to transfer it to her mother, but this money will also be of no use to her mother. She will not be able to use them, because upon the news of Lisa's death, she herself will die. And we see that, indeed, money is the destructive force that brings misfortune to people. Suffice it to recall the sad story of Erast himself. For what reason did he refuse Lisa? Leading a frivolous life and losing at cards, he was forced to marry a wealthy elderly widow, that is, he, too, is actually sold for money. And this incompatibility of money as an achievement of civilizations with the natural life of people is demonstrated by Karamzin in Poor Liza.

With a fairly traditional literary plot - a story about how a young rake-nobleman seduces a commoner - Karamzin nevertheless solves it not quite traditionally. It has long been noted by researchers that Erast is not at all such a traditional example of an insidious seducer, he really loves Lisa. He is a man with a good mind and heart, but weak and windy. And it is this frivolity that destroys him. And destroys him, like Lisa, too strong sensitivity. And here lies one of the main paradoxes of Karamzin's story. On the one hand, he is a preacher of sensitivity as a way of moral improvement of people, and on the other hand, he also shows how excessive sensitivity can bring detrimental consequences. But Karamzin is not a moralist, he does not call to condemn Liza and Erast, he calls on us to sympathize with their sad fate.

Just as unusual and innovative Karamzin uses landscapes in his story. The landscape for him ceases to be just a scene of action and a background. The landscape becomes a kind of landscape of the soul. What happens in nature often reflects what happens in the soul of the characters. And nature seems to respond to the characters on their feelings. For example, let's remember a beautiful spring morning when Erast first sails along the river in a boat to Lisa's house, and vice versa, a gloomy, starless night, accompanied by a storm and thunder, when the heroes fall into sin (Fig. 8). Thus, the landscape also became an active artistic force, which was also an artistic discovery of Karamzin.

Rice. 8. Illustration for the story "Poor Liza" ()

But the main artistic discovery is the image of the narrator himself. All events are presented not objectively and dispassionately, but through his emotional reaction. It is he who turns out to be a genuine and sensitive hero, because he is able to experience the misfortunes of others as his own. He mourns his too sensitive heroes, but at the same time remains true to the ideals of sentimentalism and a faithful adherent of the idea of \u200b\u200bsensibility as a way to achieve social harmony.

Bibliography

Korovina V.Ya., Zhuravlev V.P., Korovin V.I. Literature. Grade 9 Moscow: Enlightenment, 2008.
Ladygin M.B., Esin A.B., Nefyodova N.A. Literature. Grade 9 Moscow: Bustard, 2011.
Chertov V.F., Trubina L.A., Antipova A.M. Literature. Grade 9 M.: Education, 2012.

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Homework

Read the story "Poor Liza".
Describe the main characters of the story "Poor Liza".
Tell us, what is Karamzin's innovation in the story "Poor Liza".

XVIII century, which glorified many remarkable people, including the writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. By the end of this century, he publishes his most famous creation - the story "Poor Liza". It was it that brought him great fame and great popularity among readers. The book is based on two characters: the poor girl Liza and the nobleman Erast, which appear in the course of the plot in their attitude towards love.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin made a huge contribution to the cultural development of the fatherland at the end of the 18th century. After numerous trips to Germany, England, France and Switzerland, the prose writer returns to Russia, and while relaxing at the dacha of the famous traveler Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov, in the 1790s he takes on a new literary experiment. The local surroundings near the Simonov Monastery greatly influenced the idea of the work "Poor Lisa", which he hatched during his travels. Nature was of great importance for Karamzin, he truly loved it and often changed the bustle of the city for forests and fields, where he read his favorite books and immersed himself in thought.

Genre and direction

"Poor Liza" is the first Russian psychological story that contains a moral disagreement between people of different classes. Lisa's feelings are clear and understandable to the reader: for a simple bourgeois, happiness is love, so she loves blindly and naively. Erast's feelings, on the contrary, are more confused, because he himself cannot understand them in any way. At first, the young man wants to simply fall in love just like in the novels he read, but it soon becomes clear that he is not able to live love. City life, full of luxury and passion, had a huge impact on the hero, and he discovers a carnal attraction that completely destroys spiritual love.

Karamzin is an innovator, he can rightfully be called the founder of Russian sentimentalism. Readers took the work admiringly, as society has long wanted something like this. The audience was exhausted by the moralizing of the classic direction, the basis of which is the worship of reason and duty. Sentimentalism, on the other hand, demonstrates the emotional experiences, feelings and emotions of the characters.

About what?

According to the writer, this story is “a rather uncomplicated fairy tale.” Indeed, the plot of the work is simple to genius. It begins and ends with an outline of the area of the Simonov Monastery, which evokes in the memory of the narrator thoughts about the tragic turn in the fate of poor Liza. This is a love story of a poor provincial woman and a wealthy young man from the privileged class. The acquaintance of the lovers began with the fact that Lisa was selling lilies of the valley collected in the forest, and Erast, wanting to start a conversation with the girl he liked, decided to buy flowers from her. He was captivated by Lisa's natural beauty and kindness, and they began dating. However, soon the young man was fed up with the charm of his passion and found a more profitable party. The heroine, unable to withstand the blow, drowned herself. Her lover regretted it all his life.

Their images are ambiguous, first of all, the world of a simple natural person, unspoiled by city fuss and greed, is revealed. Karamzin described everything in such detail and picturesquely that readers believed in this story and fell in love with his heroine.

Main characters and their characteristics

The main character of the story is Lisa, a poor village girl. At an early age, she lost her father and was forced to become a breadwinner for her family, accepting any job. The hardworking provincial is very naive and sensitive, she sees only good features in people and lives with her emotions, following the call of her heart. She takes care of her mother day and night. And even when the heroine decides on a fatal act, she still does not forget about her family and leaves her money. Lisa's main talent is the gift of love, because for the sake of her loved ones she is ready to do anything.
Lisa's mother is a kind and wise old woman. She experienced the death of her husband Ivan very hard, as she devotedly loved him and lived happily with him for many years. The only consolation was the daughter whom she sought to marry to a worthy and wealthy man. The character of the heroine is internally solid, but a little bookish and idealized.
Erast is a wealthy nobleman. He leads a wild life, thinking only about fun. He is smart, but very fickle, spoiled and weak-willed. Without thinking about the fact that Lisa is from a different class, he fell in love with her, but still he cannot overcome all the difficulties of this unequal love. Erast cannot be called a negative hero, because he admits his guilt. He read and was inspired by novels, was dreamy, looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Therefore, his real love did not stand such a test.

Subject

The main theme in sentimental literature is the sincere feelings of a person in a collision with the indifference of the real world. Karamzin was one of the first to decide to write about the spiritual happiness and suffering of the common people. He reflected in his work the transition from the civil theme, which was common in the Enlightenment, to the personal one, in which the main subject of interest is the spiritual world of the individual. Thus, the author, having described in depth the inner world of the characters together with their feelings and experiences, began to develop such a literary device as psychologism.
Theme of love. Love in "Poor Liza" is a test that tests the heroes for strength and loyalty to their word. Liza completely surrendered to this feeling, her author exalts and idealizes for this ability. She is the embodiment of the feminine ideal, one that completely dissolves in the adoration of her beloved and is faithful to him until her last breath. But Erast did not stand the test and turned out to be a cowardly and miserable person, incapable of self-giving in the name of something more important than material wealth.
Contrasting city and countryside. The author prefers the countryside, it is there that natural, sincere and kind people who do not know temptation are formed. But in big cities they acquire vices: envy, greed, selfishness. Erast's position in society was more precious than love, he was fed up with it, because he was not able to experience a strong and deep feeling. Lisa, on the other hand, could not live after this betrayal: if love died, she follows her, because without her she cannot imagine her future.

Problem

Karamzin in the work "Poor Liza" touches on various problems: social and moral. The problematic of the story is based on opposition. The main characters differ both in quality of life and in character. Liza is a pure, honest and naive girl from the lower class, and Erast is a spoiled, weak-willed, young man belonging to the nobility who thinks only about his own pleasures. Lisa, having fallen in love with him, cannot go a single day without thinking about him, while Erast, on the contrary, began to move away as soon as he got what he wanted from her.

The result of such fleeting moments of happiness for Lisa and Erast is the death of a girl, after which the young man cannot stop blaming himself for this tragedy and remains unhappy until the end of his life. The author showed how class inequality led to an unhappy ending and served as a reason for the tragedy, as well as the responsibility a person bears for those who trusted him.

the main idea

The plot is not the most important thing in this story. Emotions and feelings awakening while reading deserve more attention. The narrator himself plays a huge role, because he tells about the life of a poor rural girl with sadness and sympathy. For Russian literature, the image of an empathic narrator who knows how to empathize with the emotional state of the characters turned out to be a discovery. Any dramatic moment makes his heart bleed, as well as sincerely shed tears. Thus, the main idea of the story "Poor Lisa" is that one should not be afraid of one's feelings, love, experience, sympathize with the full breast. Only then can a person overcome immorality, cruelty and selfishness in himself. The author starts with himself, because he, a nobleman, describes the sins of his own class, and gives sympathy to a simple village girl, urging people of his position to become more humane. The inhabitants of poor huts sometimes outshine the gentlemen from old estates with their virtue. This is the main idea of Karamzin.

The attitude of the author to the protagonist of the story also became an innovation in Russian literature. So Karamzin does not blame Erast when Lisa dies, he demonstrates the social conditions that caused the tragic event. The big city influenced the young man, destroying his moral principles and making him corrupt. Liza, on the other hand, grew up in the village, her naivety and simplicity played a cruel joke on her. The writer also demonstrates that not only Liza, but also Erast was subjected to the hardships of fate, becoming a victim of sad circumstances. The hero experiences guilt throughout his life, never becoming truly happy.

What does it teach?

The reader has the opportunity to learn something from the mistakes of others. The clash of love and selfishness is a hot topic, since anyone at least once in their life experienced unrequited feelings, or experienced the betrayal of a loved one. Analyzing Karamzin's story, we learn important life lessons, become more humane and more responsive to each other. The creations of the era of sentimentalism have a single property: they help people to enrich themselves spiritually, and also bring up the best humane and moral qualities in us.

The story "Poor Lisa" has gained popularity among readers. This work teaches a person to be more responsive to other people, as well as the ability to sympathize.

Karamzin N M

Poor Lisa

Perhaps no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as I do, because no one is more often than me in the field, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - where the eyes look - through meadows and groves. over hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauties in old ones. But most pleasant for me is the place on which the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si ... new monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost all of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater: a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays blaze on countless golden domes, on countless crosses ascending to heaven! Below are fat, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, on yellow sands, a bright river flows, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the helm of heavy plows that float from the most fruitful countries of the Russian Empire and endow greedy Moscow with bread.

On the other side of the river, an oak grove is visible, near which numerous herds graze; there the young shepherds, sitting under the shade of the trees, sing simple, melancholy songs, and thereby shorten the summer days, so uniform to them. Farther away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; still farther, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills turn blue. On the left side one can see vast fields covered with bread, woods, three or four villages, and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.

I often come to this place and almost always meet spring there; I also come there in the gloomy days of autumn to grieve together with nature. The winds howl terribly in the walls of the deserted monastery, between the coffins overgrown with tall grass, and in the dark passages of the cells. There, leaning on the ruins of tombstones, I listen to the muffled groan of times swallowed up by the abyss of the past - a groan from which my heart shudders and trembles. Sometimes I enter a cell and imagine those who lived in them - sad pictures! Here I see a gray-haired old man, kneeling before the crucifixion and praying for a speedy resolution of his earthly fetters, for all pleasures have disappeared for him in life, all his feelings have died, except for the feeling of illness and weakness. There, a young monk - with a pale face, with a languid look - looks into the field through the bars of the window, sees cheerful birds floating freely in the sea of air, sees - and sheds bitter tears from his eyes. He languishes, withers, dries up - and the dull ringing of the bell announces to me his untimely death. Sometimes on the gates of the temple I look at the image of miracles that happened in this monastery, where fish fall from the sky to saturate the inhabitants of the monastery, besieged by numerous enemies; here the image of the Mother of God puts the enemies to flight. All this renews in my memory the history of our fatherland - the sad history of those times when the ferocious Tatars and Lithuanians devastated the outskirts of the Russian capital with fire and sword and when unfortunate Moscow, like a defenseless widow, expected help from God alone in her fierce disasters.

But more often than not, the memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza, attracts me to the walls of the Si ... new monastery. Oh! I love those items that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!

Seventy sazhens from the monastery wall, near a birch grove, in the middle of a green meadow, stands an empty hut, without doors, without windows, without a floor; The roof has long since rotted and collapsed. In this hut, thirty years before, the beautiful, amiable Liza lived with her old woman, her mother.

“God gave me hands to work,” Liza said, “you fed me with your breast and followed me when I was a child; now it’s my turn to follow you. .

But often tender Lisa could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to calm her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and appear calm and cheerful. “In the next world, dear Liza,” answered the sorrowful old woman, “in the next world I will stop crying. There, they say, everyone will be cheerful; without me? Who will I leave you with? No, God forbid first to attach you to a place! Maybe a good person will soon be found. Then, blessing you, my dear children, I will cross myself and lie down calmly in the damp earth. "

Two years have passed since the death of Lizin's father. The meadows were covered with flowers, and Lisa came to Moscow with lilies of the valley. A young, well-dressed, pleasant-looking man met her in the street. She showed him the flowers - and blushed. "Do you sell them, girl?" he asked with a smile. "Selling," she replied. "What do you need?" - "Five kopecks?" - "It's too cheap. Here's a ruble for you." Liza was surprised, dared to look at the young man, blushed even more and, looking down at the ground, told him that she would not take a ruble. "For what?" "I don't need too much." - "I think that beautiful lilies of the valley, plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl, are worth a ruble. When you don't take it, here's five kopecks for you. I would always like to buy flowers from you; I would like you to pick them just for me," Liza handed over the flowers, took five kopecks, bowed and wanted to go, but the stranger stopped her by the hand; "Where are you going, girl?" - "Home", - "Where is your house?" Lisa said where she lives, said and went. The young man did not want to hold her back, perhaps because the passers-by began to stop and, looking at them, smiled slyly.

But most pleasant for me is that place, the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si ... new monastery rise to some extent. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost all of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater: a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays blaze on countless golden domes, on countless crosses, ascending to the sky! Below are fat, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, on yellow sands, a bright river flows, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the helm of heavy plows that float from the most fruitful countries of the Russian Empire and endow greedy Moscow with bread. On the other side of the river, an oak grove is visible, near which numerous herds graze; there the young shepherds, sitting under the shade of the trees, sing simple, melancholy songs, and thereby shorten the summer days, so uniform to them. Farther away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; still farther, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills turn blue. On the left side one can see vast fields covered with bread, woods, three or four villages, and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.

I often come to this place and almost always meet spring there; I also come there in the gloomy days of autumn to grieve together with nature. The winds howl terribly in the walls of the deserted monastery, between the coffins overgrown with tall grass, and in the dark passages of the cells. There, leaning on the ruins of tombstones, I listen to the muffled groan of times swallowed up by the abyss of the past - a groan from which my heart shudders and trembles. Sometimes I enter a cell and imagine those who lived in them—sad pictures! Here I see a gray-haired old man, kneeling before the crucifixion and praying for a speedy resolution of his earthly fetters, for all pleasures have disappeared for him in life, all his feelings have died, except for the feeling of illness and weakness. There, a young monk - with a pale face, with a languid look - looks into the field through the bars of the window, sees cheerful birds floating freely in the sea of air, sees - and sheds bitter tears from his eyes. He languishes, withers, dries up - and the dull ringing of the bell announces to me his untimely death. Sometimes on the gates of the temple I look at the image of miracles that happened in this monastery, where fish fall from the sky to saturate the inhabitants of the monastery, besieged by numerous enemies; here the image of the Mother of God puts the enemies to flight. All this renews in my memory the history of our fatherland - the sad history of those times when the ferocious Tatars and Lithuanians devastated the outskirts of the Russian capital with fire and sword and when unfortunate Moscow, like a defenseless widow, expected help from God alone in her fierce disasters.

But more often than not, I am drawn to the walls of the Si ... new monastery - the memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza. Oh! I love those items that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!

Lizin's father was a rather prosperous peasant, because he loved work, plowed the land well and always led a sober life. But soon after his death, his wife and daughter were impoverished. The lazy hand of the mercenary worked the field poorly, and the bread ceased to be born well. They were forced to rent out their land, and for very little money. In addition, the poor widow, shedding tears almost incessantly over the death of her husband - for even peasant women know how to love! - day by day she became weaker and could not work at all. Only Liza - who remained after her father fifteen years - only Liza, not sparing her tender youth, not sparing her rare beauty, worked day and night - weaved canvases, knitted stockings, picked flowers in spring, and in summer she took berries - and sold them in Moscow. The sensitive, kind old woman, seeing her daughter’s indefatigability, often pressed her to her weakly beating heart, called her divine mercy, nurse, the joy of her old age and prayed to God to reward her for everything she does for her mother. “God gave me hands to work,” Lisa said, “you fed me with your breast and followed me when I was a child; Now it's my turn to follow you. Stop just crashing, stop crying; our tears will not revive the priests. But often tender Lisa could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to calm her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and appear calm and cheerful. “In the next world, dear Liza,” answered the woeful old woman, in the next world I will stop crying. There, they say, everyone will be cheerful; I'm sure I'll be happy when I see your father. Only now I don’t want to die - what will happen to you without me? To whom to leave you? No, God forbid first attach you to the place! Maybe a good person will soon be found. Then, blessing you, my dear children, I will cross myself and calmly lie down in the damp earth.

Two years have passed since the death of Lizin's father. The meadows were covered with flowers, and Lisa came to Moscow with lilies of the valley. A young, well-dressed, pleasant-looking man met her in the street. She showed him the flowers and blushed. "Do you sell them, girl?" he asked with a smile. “Selling,” she replied. “What do you need?” - "Five cents." “It's too cheap. Here's a ruble for you. - Liza was surprised, she dared to look at the young man, - she blushed even more and, looking down at the ground, told him that she would not take the ruble. - "For what?" "I don't need too much." “I think that beautiful lilies of the valley, plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl, are worth a ruble. When you don't take it, here's five kopecks for you. I would always like to buy flowers from you; I would like you to tear them just for me. - Liza gave the flowers, took five kopecks, bowed and wanted to go, but the stranger stopped her by the hand. “Where are you going, girl?” - "Home". - "Where is your house?" – Lisa said where she lives, said and went. The young man did not want to hold her back, perhaps so that those passing by began to stop and, looking at them, smiled slyly.

Poor Lisa (novel)

Poor Lisa
O. A. Kiprensky, "Poor Lisa", 1827
Genre:

Original language:
Year of writing:
Publication:	1792, "Moscow Journal"
Special edition:
in Wikisource

History of creation and publication

Plot

After the death of her father, a "wealthy peasant", young Liza is forced to work tirelessly to feed herself and her mother. In the spring, she sells lilies of the valley in Moscow and there she meets the young nobleman Erast, who falls in love with her and is ready even for the sake of his love to leave the world. Lovers spend all evenings together, share a bed. However, with the loss of innocence, Liza lost her attractiveness for Erast. One day, he reports that he must go on a campaign with the regiment and they will have to part. A few days later, Erast leaves.

Several months pass. Liza, once in Moscow, accidentally sees Erast in a magnificent carriage and finds out that he is engaged (he lost his estate in cards and is now forced to marry a rich widow). In desperation, Liza throws herself into the pond.

Artistic originality

Simonov Monastery

The plot of the story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to "Russian" soil. The author hints that he is personally acquainted with Erast (“I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Liza’s grave”) and emphasizes that the action takes place precisely in Moscow and its environs, describes, for example , Simonov and Danilov monasteries, Sparrow Hills, creating the illusion of authenticity. For Russian literature of that time, this was an innovation: usually the action of the works unfolded "in one city." The first readers of the story perceived the story of Liza as a real tragedy of a contemporary - it was no coincidence that the pond under the walls of the Simonov Monastery was called Liza Pond, and the fate of Karamzin's heroine was a lot of imitations. The oaks growing around the pond were dotted with inscriptions - touching ( “In these streams, poor Liza died days; If you are sensitive, passerby, take a breath!”) and caustic ( “Here Erast's bride threw herself into the pond. Drown yourself, girls: there's plenty of room in the pond!") .

However, despite the apparent plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Lisa and her mother have a refinement of feelings and perception, their speech is literate, literary and does not differ in any way from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of the poor villagers resembles a pastoral:

Meanwhile, a young shepherd was driving his flock along the river bank, playing the flute. Lisa fixed her eyes on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, and if he now drove his flock past me: ah! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd boy! Where are you driving your flock? And here green grass grows for your sheep, and flowers bloom here, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat. He would look at me with an affectionate air - he would, perhaps, take my hand ... A dream! The shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and with his motley flock hid behind a nearby hill.

The story became a model of Russian sentimental literature. In contrast to classicism with its cult of reason, Karamzin asserted the cult of feelings, sensitivity, compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!” . Heroes are important, first of all, by the ability to love, to surrender to feelings. There is no class conflict in the story: Karamzin equally sympathizes with both Erast and Liza. In addition, unlike the works of classicism, "Poor Liza" is devoid of morality, didacticism, edification: the author does not teach, but tries to arouse the reader's empathy for the characters.

The story is also distinguished by a “smooth” language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavonicisms, grandiloquence, which made the work easy to read.

Criticism about the story

“Poor Lisa” was received with such enthusiasm by the Russian public because in this work Karamzin was the first to express the “new word” that Goethe said to the Germans in his Werther. Such a “new word” was the suicide of the heroine in the story. The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to comforting outcomes in the form of weddings, believing that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished, for the first time in this story met with the bitter truth of life.

"Poor Lisa" in art

In painting

Literary reminiscences

dramatizations

Screen adaptations

1967 - "Poor Lisa" (teleplay), director Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, cast: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrey Myagkov.
- "Poor Lisa", director Idea Garanin, composer Alexei Rybnikov
- "Poor Liza", directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.

Literature

Toporov V. N."Poor Liza" Karamzin: Reading experience: On the occasion of the bicentennial from the date of publication. - Moscow: RGGU, 1995.

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "Poor Lisa (story)" is in other dictionaries:

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Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 1826) an outstanding writer and literary figure, the head of Russian sentimentalism (see). R. and grew up in the estate of his father, a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman, a descendant of the Tatar Murza Kara Murza. He studied with a rural deacon, later ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich - .… … Dictionary of the Russian language of the 18th century