The symbol of which is the bronze horseman. Essay on the topic “The depth of thought of the poem “The Bronze Horseman.” The system of symbols in the poem “The Bronze Horseman”
It is better to choose an asphalt area for the skating rink, which will not require additional leveling. Otherwise, the earthen surface will have to be prepared in the fall by filling holes and bumps with sand. To prevent water from flowing from such an area when pouring, make a snow roller along its diameter, like a curb. In winter, uneven areas in the area will need to be corrected with snow. It's best if you can get a small tractor. The loader, moving in reverse, will perfectly level the surface with its bucket. If you don’t have equipment, arm yourself with shovels.
You should start filling the skating rink in calm, clear weather at an air temperature no higher than -5 degrees. Wind may cause the ice to become uneven. Main question- where to get water? Perfect option, if there is a fire hydrant nearby. Otherwise, you will have to negotiate with the residents of a nearby house. Cooperate with the person in charge of the house and call a general meeting of apartment owners. As a rule, residents will only be happy if someone fills up a small skating rink for them in the yard (and, in addition, a children’s slide). With the consent of the residents, employees of the management organization will let you into the basement, where you can collect water. The water consumption will be recorded by the meter. The amount spent will be divided among all residents of the house.
How to level the ice?
First you need to make the so-called “pillow” - the first layer of ice. For this you will need a regular hose. However, you cannot throw it in the middle of the site and walk away, otherwise the surface will resemble lunar craters. Water should be poured slowly in a thin layer. It is better to direct the stream upward so that the water fills the surface evenly. You can use a special nozzle made from a plastic pipe bent in the shape of a club. Another option is to place the hose on the shovel and move it slowly.
By the time you reach the end of the hockey box in this way, at the beginning the ice will have already frozen and you can go to a new circle. To level out the resulting swelling and build up the ice layer by layer, walk with the hose two to three times. The procedure will have to be repeated for another two to three days, until the ice thickness reaches 10 - 15 centimeters.
The last stage is leveling the ice with warm water. For this purpose, folk craftsmen come up with various devices. One of the options is the so-called drag, into which water flows. The equipment consists of a 160-meter pipe with drilled holes, to which a towel is attached. Another pipe is welded to this pipe, through which water flows from the attached hose. As a result, the hot towel drags along the ice, leveling its surface.
“All our childhood in the hockey section we poured the ice ourselves. The principle is similar, only we didn’t have such a design. Everything was simpler. One man was dragging a woolen blanket folded in half, nailed on one side to a stick. And the second one evenly watered this blanket with warm water from a hose,” says social network user Dmitry Evstratenko. “The wet large blanket was quite heavy and smoothed out the ice better than a rag.”
If you don’t have a hose at hand, you can water such a blanket from a barrel of warm water attached to a sled. In the future, small scratches on the ice can be repaired using a mop with a wet rag, the holes can be filled with wet snow, and the bumps can be cleaned with a scraper. If you actively use the skating rink, you will have to level the ice with warm water every week.
Images on Wikimedia Commons
Bronze Horseman (fragment)
In August 1766, the Russian envoy in Paris, Dmitry Golitsyn, entered into a contract with the French sculptor Falconet, recommended to Catherine II by her correspondent, the enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot. Soon after Falcone's arrival in St. Petersburg, on October 15 (26), work on the creation of the monument began in full swing. The workshop was set up in the former Throne Room. The stone building of the former stables at the palace was adapted for Falconet's housing. At the beginning of 1773, Felten was appointed to help Falconet: he was supposed to replace someone who had been dismissed from work, and, in addition, by this time the supervision of a professional architect was needed for the installation of the monument.
"Thunder Stone" [ | ]
The thunder stone was found in the vicinity of the village of Konnaya Lakhta. After it was removed from the ground, the pit was filled with water, and a reservoir was formed that has survived to this day - Petrovsky Pond (since 2011 - a protected area). The path of the stone to the loading site was 7855 meters.
Transportation of "Thunder Stone"
The winter months were chosen for transporting the stone, when the soil was frozen and could withstand the weight. This unique operation lasted from November 15 (26) to March 27 (April 7). The stone was delivered to the shore of the Gulf of Finland, where a special pier was built for its loading.
Transportation of the stone by water was carried out on a ship specially built according to the drawings of the famous shipwright Grigory Korchebnikov, and began only in the fall. The giant “Thunder Stone”, with a huge crowd of people, arrived in St. Petersburg on Senate Square on September 26 (October 7). To unload the stone from the bank of the Neva, a technique that had already been used during loading was used: the ship was sunk and sat on piles previously driven into the river bottom, which made it possible to move the stone to the shore.
Work on cutting the pedestal was carried out while the stone was moving, until Ekaterina, who visited Lakhta and wanted to see the movement of the stone, prohibited its further processing, wanting the stone to arrive in St. Petersburg in its “wild” form without loss of volume. The stone acquired its final form already on Senate Square, having significantly lost its original dimensions after processing.
Monument [ | ]
Opening of the monument to Peter the Great. Engraving by A.K. Melnikov from a drawing by A.P. Davydov, 1782
The monument to Peter I is already in late XVIII century became the object of urban legends and jokes, and in early XIX century - one of the most popular themes in Russian poetry.
The Legend of Major Baturin[ | ]
There is an assumption that the legend of Major Baturin formed the basis of the plot of A. S. Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman”.
“Poor Pavel!” [ | ]
In St. Petersburg folklore, there is a widespread legend about the vision of the ghost of Peter the Great to the future Emperor Paul I at the place where the Bronze Horseman is now located.
One evening, Pavel, accompanied by his friend Prince Kurakin, was walking through the streets of St. Petersburg. Suddenly a man appeared ahead, wrapped in a wide cloak. It seemed that he was waiting for the travelers and, when they approached, he walked next to them. Pavel shuddered and turned to Kurakin: “Someone is walking next to us.” However, he did not see anyone and tried to convince the Grand Duke of this. Suddenly the ghost spoke: “Paul! Poor Pavel! I am the one who takes part in you.” Then the ghost walked ahead of the travelers, as if leading them along. Approaching the middle of the square, he indicated the place for the future monument. “Goodbye, Pavel,” said the ghost, “you will see me here again.” And when, leaving, he raised his hat, Pavel saw Peter’s face with horror.
As a textual analysis of the legend shows, it dates back to the memoirs of Baroness von Oberkirch. The Baroness describes in detail the circumstances under which Paul himself publicly, albeit against his will, told this story. Bearing in mind the high reliability of the memoirs, based on many years of diary entries and the friendship between the baroness and Maria Feodorovna, Paul’s wife, most likely the source of the legend is indeed the future sovereign himself.
Did Paul view this story as an entertaining anecdote made up for the occasion? From the memoirist's point of view, this is not so. G. von Oberkirch reports that a month and a half after the memorable dinner, Pavel received a letter from St. Petersburg. The letter reported on the grand opening of the monument to Peter the Great, later known as the Bronze Horseman. According to G. von Oberkirch, although the sovereign tried to smile while reading the letter, deathly pallor covered his face.
In culture [ | ]
The Bronze Horseman and the “mystical Petersburg text”[ | ]
The motif of the Bronze Horseman is placed by Russian literature at the very center of the “mystical St. Petersburg text”, imbued with duality and surrealism.
“The Bronze Horseman” owes its name to the work of the same name by A. S. Pushkin. The official Evgeniy, who lost his beloved Parasha in the flood of 1824, wanders around St. Petersburg unconscious. Having stumbled upon a monument to Peter the Great, the hero understands that it was the sovereign who was to blame for his disasters - he founded the city in a place prone to floods and alien to humans. Eugene threatens the monument, and the Bronze Horseman jumps off his pedestal and rushes after the madman. Whether the bronze idol is carried in the sick mind of the official or in reality is unclear.
The same motive is conveyed in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Teenager”: “And what if this fog scatters and goes up, won’t this whole rotten, slimy city go away with it, rise with the fog and disappear like smoke, and will the old Finnish swamp remain, and in the middle of it, perhaps for beauty’s sake, a bronze rider on a hot-breathing, driven horse?” .
Finally, the famous mystic and spirit seer of the 20th century Daniil Andreev, describing one of the hellish worlds in “Rose of the World”, reports that in infernal Petersburg the torch in the hand of the Bronze Horseman is the only source of light, while Peter is sitting not on a horse, but on creepy dragon.
Commemorative coins [ | ]
In 1988, the State Bank of the USSR issued a commemorative coin of 5 rubles with the image of the monument to Peter I (Bronze Horseman) in St. Petersburg. The coin is made of copper-nickel alloy with a circulation of 2 million copies and weighs 19.8 grams
Poem by A.S. Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman” is the artistic result of the poet’s reflections on the personality of Peter I, on the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history. According to Pushkin, the maximum possibilities of autocratic power were embodied in the historical figure of the first Russian emperor. Along with other important philosophical issues, in his work the poet considers the issue of the consequences of the unlimited power of one person over many, the need to observe the eternal laws of morality and morality by the “lords of the world”, therefore Peter is one of the main characters of the poem.
In order to make the image of Peter “the pure embodiment of autocratic power,” in other words, a symbolic image, the poet replaces the personality of the emperor himself with his statue, which is one of the most interesting artistic solutions of the poem. The real-life monument to the emperor by Etienne Maurice Falconet was erected on Senate Square in St. Petersburg by decree of Catherine II. The sculptor’s work is based on an allegory: the rider symbolizes autocracy, and the rearing horse symbolizes Russia, the Russian people, who were “bridled” by Peter. It is noteworthy that with its hind legs the horse crushes a snake (a symbol of Russia’s ill-wishers) and thus Falcone compares the emperor with St. George the Victorious. Pushkin turns the sculptor’s allegory into a symbol: the image of an “idol on a bronze horse” cannot only be understood as the personality of Peter I. This image is much broader and carries “the contours of a great philosophical meaning"(V.G. Belinsky).
Despite the fact that the monument by Falconet is made of bronze, Pushkin calls the statue “The Bronze Horseman”. The epithet “copper” is extremely important for revealing the image of Peter and understanding the ideological meaning of the poem as a whole. Copper has a reddish tint - the color of blood, indicating the cruelty and despotism of the emperor, his indifference to human sacrifice in solving problems of national importance. Literary scholar Yu.B. Borev rightly noted: “Plausible bronze would be out of place here. It is too sonorous, light and noble metal in comparison with heavy, dull and base copper.”
By the time he wrote the poem, Pushkin fully realized the destructiveness of absolutism for Russia. Despite the fact that Eugene does nothing to interfere with either the undivided power of Peter or the course of history, he is destroyed by the state machine and the course of historical progress. The reader sees that absolute power overtakes and destroys the “little man.” From this point of view, the episode of Eugene’s pursuit by a “proud idol” is indicative: the hero “runs and hears behind him - as if thunder roars.” This is exactly how it must feel" small man"under the pressure of the tyrant who controls his fate. Therefore, unlike the monument by Falcone, where Peter is majestic (heroic pathos), in the poem “The Bronze Horseman” he is also terrible and mysterious: “He is terrible in the surrounding darkness! What a thought on my brow! In addition, Pushkin hints at the uncertainty of the future fate of the horse spurred by Peter and rushing swiftly (the symbol of Russia): “Where are you galloping, proud horse, and where will you put your hooves down?” This question, the answer to which the poem does not give, is its main problem.
The Bronze Horseman is a symbol of state will, the energy of power freed from the human principle. Peter is a great reformer, a “wonder-working builder”; at the wave of his hand, Petersburg “ascended”. But the emperor’s brainchild is a miracle created at the cost of human sacrifice. The city, which grew “from the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat”, is ill-suited for life. A catastrophic flood is the result of a collision between civilization and nature, of which poor Evgeniy turns out to be a victim. And the tamer of the elements Peter becomes the culprit of this conflict. “Strict, slender” Petersburg, fraught with destructive power, personifies the personality of its creator.
So, the innovation of Pushkin’s poem lies in the objective depiction historical figure Peter the Great. The main idea that guides the poet in understanding the activities of the autocrat is the following statement: “The difference between the state statements of Peter the Great and his temporary decrees is surprising. The first are the fruits of an extensive mind, full of benevolence and wisdom, the second are often cruel, capricious and, it seems, written with a whip.” (“History of Peter the Great”, 1833). This understanding of the image of the reformer king is reflected in his material embodiment - the majestic and “bloody” Bronze Horseman. Peter, like his “material face,” really “raised Russia on its hind legs,” but he did it with an “iron bridle,” and even “over the very abyss.” Thus, the heroic pathos of Falconet’s allegory in Pushkin’s poem materializes into a tragic one.
Image of Peter in Pushkin’s work is in constant movement and development. In 1833, the poem "The Bronze Horseman" was written.
The poet saw in front of him the Bronze Horseman - a monument to Peter the Great, the founder of the “military capital”, embodied in metal. Pushkin in The Bronze Horseman raises the problem of the relationship between the state and the individual. Pushkin's Peter is a figure who guesses potential forces science and directs them to solve enormous problems at one of the highest and most creative moments of his life, when the brilliant idea of creating a city “on the shore of the desert waves” of the Neva was born.
For Pushkin, the deeds of Peter the Great and the suffering of the unknown Eugene were equally reliable. The world of Peter was close to the author, and the dream of “standing with a firm foot by the sea” was also understandable. He saw how the “defeated elements” humbled themselves before Peter, the “powerful ruler of fate.” But Alexander Sergeevich realized what a high price was paid for this celebration, at what price the harmonious appearance of St. Petersburg was purchased. Therefore, his poem has true depth, high humanity and harsh truth.
The Bronze Horseman is an unusual literary image. It is a figurative interpretation of a sculptural composition that embodies the idea of its creator, the sculptor E. Falcone, but at the same time it is a grotesque, fantastic image, overcoming the boundary between the real (“plausible”) and the mythological (“wonderful”). The Bronze Horseman, awakened by the words of Eugene, falling from his pedestal, ceases to be only an “idol on a bronze horse,” that is, a monument to Peter. He becomes the mythological embodiment of the “formidable king”.
Peter, embodied in the Bronze Horseman, is seen as “a powerful ruler of fate, and not a plaything in her hands.” Affirming an unyielding will, instilling horror, the Bronze Horseman with his greatness refutes thoughts about his powerlessness as a person in the face of fate.
The poet's enthusiastic mood is darkened by the thought of the “contradictions of essentiality” and the sad fate of “small forces”; a new image of Peter appears:
"And with my back turned to him
In unshakable silence,
Over the indignant Neva
Stands with outstretched hand
An idol on a bronze horse..."
The author shows not only the greatness of Peter, but also his shortcomings. In the terrible events of the flood, there is not enough care for the little person. Peter is great in state plans and cruel and pathetic in relation to the individual.
Pushkin created synthetic images of Peter and St. Petersburg. In them, both mutually exclusive mythological concepts complemented each other. The poetic myth about the founding of the city is developed in the introduction, focused on literary tradition, and the myth about its destruction and flooding is in the first and second parts of the poem.
Hero of the poem "The Bronze Horseman" Eugene - a product of the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history. This is a “little” person, whose meaning of life lies in finding bourgeois happiness: a good place, family, home, prosperity:
"...I'm young and healthy,
Ready to work day and night;
I’ll arrange something for myself
Shelter humble and simple
And in it I will calm Parasha..."
Eugene is pathetic in his poverty and great in his love for Parasha, humbled by his position in life and elevated by his dreams of independence and honor, pathetic in his madness and high in his ability to protest. It is precisely the limitation of Evgeniy’s existence to a close circle of family concerns, the lack of involvement in his own past that are traits unacceptable for Pushkin in Evgeniy, and it is they that make him a “little” person. The author deliberately refuses detailed characteristics Evgeniy, he even deprives him of his last name, emphasizing the possibility of putting anyone in its place, since the image of Evgeniy reflected the fate of many people of the “St. Petersburg” period.
In the flood scene, Eugene sits behind the Bronze Horseman, with his hands clasped in a cross (a parallel with Napoleon), but without a hat. She and the Bronze Horseman are looking in the same direction. However, Peter's gaze is directed back into the depths of centuries (he solves historical problems without caring about the fate of people), and Evgeniy looks at the house of his beloved. And in this comparison of Eugene with the bronze Peter, the main difference is revealed: Eugene has a soul and a heart, he is able to feel and worry about the fate of the person he loves. He is the antipode of the “idol on a bronze horse”, he has what the bronze Peter lacks: a heart and soul, he is capable of sadness, dreaming, torment. Thus, despite the fact that Peter is busy thinking about the fate of the country, that is, in fact, in an abstract sense, improving the lives of people (including Evgeniy himself as a future resident of St. Petersburg), and Evgeniy is passionate about his own, purely personal, everyday interests, in In the eyes of the reader, it is this little person who becomes more attractive and evokes active participation.
The flood, which turned into a tragedy for Eugene, makes him (a nondescript person) a Hero. He goes crazy (which, undoubtedly, brings his image closer to the image of the hero of romantic works, because madness is a frequent attribute romantic hero), wanders through the streets of a city hostile to him, but “the rebellious noise of the Neva and the winds resounded in his ears.” It is the noise of the natural elements, combined with the “noise” in Eugene’s soul, that awakens in the madman what for Pushkin was the main sign of a person - memory; and it is the memory of the flood he experienced that brings him to Senate Square, where for the second time he meets the “idol on a bronze horse.” Through Pushkin's magnificent description we see that this was a tragically beautiful moment in the life of a poor, humble official.
Eugene’s spiritual evolution gives rise to the naturalness and inevitability of protest. Eugene's transformation is artistically convincingly shown. The protest raises him to a new, lofty, tragic life, fraught with imminent and inevitable death. Evgeniy dares to threaten Peter with future retribution. And this threat is terrible for the autocrat, because he understands what a formidable force is hidden in a protesting person who has started a rebellion.
At the moment when Eugene “sees the light,” he becomes a Man in his generic essence (it should be noted that the hero in this passage is never called Eugene, which makes him to some extent faceless, like everyone, one of everyone). We see the confrontation between the “formidable king,” the personification of autocratic power, and a Man with a heart and endowed with memory. In the whisper of a Man who has regained his sight one can hear a threat and a promise of retribution, for which the revived statue, “instantly burning with anger,” punishes the “poor madman.” At the same time, it is clear that this is an isolated protest, and, moreover, uttered in a “whisper.” The definition of Eugene as a madman is also symbolic. Madness, according to Pushkin, is an unequal dispute. The action of a loner against the powerful power of the autocracy is insane, from the point of view common sense. But this is “holy” madness, since silent humility is disastrous. Only protest will save an individual from moral death in conditions of violence.
Pushkin, it seems to us, emphasizes that, despite the conventionality and tragicomic nature of the situation (Eugene, a little man who has nothing, and at the same time has gone crazy, dares to “challenge”, threaten the sovereign - and not the real one, but the bronze one his monument), action, resistance, an attempt to raise a voice, to be indignant has always been and will be a better way out than submission to cruel fate.
Evgeny as a type - result historical development society. His personal tragedy (unlike Vyrin) does not receive an everyday justification, but is inserted by the author into the circle of spontaneous and historical-social events.
Eugene's madness is not the last stage of personality destruction. The main conflict is the clash between Eugene and the Bronze Horseman. The riot is the climax of the poem. The spiritual state of the hero is given in development; Pushkin conveys the smallest portrait details (forehead, eyes, heart, hands). The hero remembers the past, a terrible clarification of thoughts occurs before the final fall into the abyss of madness. Against whom and in the name of what is Evgeniy rebelling? Much in the poem is symbolic, and in this - artistic originality poems.
Throughout the entire poem, through its entire figurative structure, there is a duality of faces, pictures and meanings: two Peters (Peter living, thinking, “powerful ruler of fate” and his transformation Bronze Horseman, a frozen statue), two Eugenes (petty official, downtrodden, humiliated by power , and a madman who raised his hand against the “miraculous builder”), two Neva (the decoration of the city, the “sovereign flow” and the main threat to the lives of people and the city), two Petersburgs (“Peter’s creation”, “young city” and the city of corners and basements of the poor , killer city). This duality of the figurative structure contains not only the main compositional, but also the main philosophical thought of Pushkin: the Thought about man, his self-worth.
The Bronze Horseman, a monument sculpted by Falconet, was an allegorical image of Peter and his deeds. Long before the opening of the monument, back in 1768, by order of Catherine II, its plaster model was put on public display, and the newspapers published the official interpretation of the allegory and listed the “properties” of the monument. “To know the properties of the statue now being made by Mr. Falconet, one must know that Emperor Peter the Great is depicted running quickly up the steep mountain that forms the base, and stretching out his right hand to his people. This stone mountain, which has no other decoration other than its natural appearance, symbolizes the difficulties suffered by Peter I; with the galloping of a runner - the rapid course of his affairs. The Right Hand of the Fatherland requires no explanation.”
The Bronze Horseman - an image-symbol - is the ideological center of the poem. All the events of the St. Petersburg story are connected with it, Eugene’s life irresistibly leads him to the monument, the theme of the city naturally closes on the monument to the one by whose “fatal will” the city was founded. Finally, the flood that broke out in the capital also threatened the monument; “the flood played” in the square where the Bronze Horseman stood, and “predatory waves crowded, rioting angrily around him.” The “vicious rebellion” of the “predatory waves” against the bronze horseman highlighted the main metamorphosis of the image of Peter. The living personality of Peter in the Introduction turned into a monument, an idol in the Petersburg Tale. The living is contrasted with the dead, standing out in its bronzed imperial grandeur.
This is just a statement of duality. The question is: why has St. Petersburg become a city of bondage? – is not put, yes, and was not yet realized by Pushkin. In “The Bronze Horseman” the question is posed and the answer is given: the spirit of bondage is characteristic of the city as a citadel of autocracy. This answer, as a result of artistic research, is most fully given in the symbolic image of the monument.
Radishchev was the first to introduce the huge theme of the Bronze Horseman into literature: he was present at the opening of the monument on August 7, 1782 and in “A Letter to a Friend Living in Tobolsk, but to the Duty of His Title” he gave a description of the “powerful horseman”, and most importantly, not limiting himself to guessing “the thoughts of the sculptor ” and the meaning of his allegory (which means “the steepness of the mountain”, the snake “lying on the way”, the head “crowned with laurels”), wisely interpreted the activities of Peter I.
- The city is lush, the city is poor,
- Boredom, cold and granite.
- Spirit of bondage, slender appearance,
- The vault of heaven is green and pale,
The thought of the dual nature of St. Petersburg had long tormented and worried Pushkin. She broke through in a small lyric poem in 1828:
After the Introduction, the Petersburg Tale begins, the plot of which is the life and death of a resident of the capital, the little official Eugene. And immediately the appearance of the city changes - the image-symbol acquires even greater scale, its content is enriched and intensified - it appears in its new face.
A new image-symbol appears - a monument, a statue, an idol on a bronze horse. He, too, turns out to be merged with the new face of the city - the stronghold of autocracy, highlighting the different face of Peter - the emperor. In the two faces of the city, appearing in the image-symbol, the contradictory figure of Peter is manifested - a wise man-doer and an autocratic emperor. What the people created turned out to be turned against them - the capital of the empire personifies the power of the autocrats, their inhumane policies. The symbolic image of the city acquired an acutely political character when the symbol of the capital city intersected and interacted with the symbolic image of the monument, the Bronze Horseman.
What is this new face of the city? Petersburg appears as a stronghold of Russian autocracy, as a stronghold of autocracy; it is fundamentally and consistently hostile to man. The capital of Russia, created by the people, turned into a hostile force both for himself and for the individual V person. That is why gloomy, dark colors appear, rivers that disturb the imagination (“Over the darkened Petrograd November breathed the autumn chill”), the Neva became formidable, foreshadowing misfortune (“Splashing with a noisy wave At the edges of its slender fence, the Neva rushed about like a sick person in its bed restless"), the streets were homeless and anxious (“It was already late and dark; The rain beat angrily on the window, And the wind blew, howling sadly”).
Radishchev gave an answer to the question why any monarch, including an enlightened one, cannot express the interests of the people: “And I will say that Peter could have been more glorious, exalting himself and exalting his fatherland, asserting private freedom; but if we have examples of kings leaving their dignity in order to live in peace, which happened not from generosity, but from the satiety of their dignity, then there is no example until the end of the world, perhaps there will be no example of a king voluntarily letting go of anything from his power, sitting on the throne"