A robbery story? The creation of the novel "Dubrovsky"

Several films were put on this text, its plot became the basis of the famous opera. At the same time, for many contemporaries of Pushkin and the most eminent researchers of his work, this is just an adventurous story, the creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" by many is declared a delusion, a clear mistake of the great poet. Is it so?

Russian Robin Hood

Pushkin's genius made him set new and new tasks. In verse was the language that became the basis of great literature, great culture. In prose this language - simple, clear, expressive - was written "The Tales of Belkin," which is difficult to call purely prosaic texts, because in them so poetic precisely verified place for each word, for each sound.

From the "Lady-peasant women" to "Dubrovsky"

Although two years after the "Young Lady-peasant woman" in Dubrovsky, young lovers from neighboring estates again appear, they even seem to communicate-leaving the necessary message in the hollow of the tree, the story of the creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" shows us the new Pushkin. The matured author looks at the world in a completely different way.

Beginning in the summer of 1831, for Pushkin, the creation of a prose work of a different character becomes more and more urgent, where the main content is the story that is fascinatingly told. The creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" could begin with a desire to create a Russian cue for adventurous novels, so popular in Western European literature. But to consider Pushkin's text only as an echo of Walter Scott's novels or reasoning on the "robber" theme proposed by Schiller is unacceptably corny for Alexander Sergeevich's level. Perhaps the first stimulating thoughts could have a similar form, but then they became much more significant.

Dubrovsky - Ostrovsky?

It was Ostrovsky originally planned to name the main character Pushkin. Such an impression was made on him by a story told by a good Moscow friend P.V. Nashchokin. The creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" is largely determined by Pushkin's acquaintance through Nashchokin with the circumstances of the case of the Belarusian landowner Pavel Ostrovsky.

The papers for possession of a small villager in twenty souls, which was in the Minsk province, were burned during the Napoleonic invasion. This was taken advantage of by a rich neighbor, who seized the village from an impoverished landowner. For some time he was forced to engage in home teachers, but soon in those places attacks on bailiffs and other officials began. Arrested Ostrovsky, according to some reports, managed to escape, having shackled chains on shackles, and his trail was lost. Before us is an almost exact plot of Pushkin's novel.

The case of Lieutenant Muratov

In the second chapter of "Dubrovsky" Pushkin puts a document that sums up the lawsuit Troyekurova with an ex-boyfriend. This verdict seems an author's composition, so impressive are his chancellarisms and heavy turns. But it turns out that this is a copy of the document from the court case about the alienation of the estate of Lieutenant Martynov in favor of his neighbor - Colonel Kryukov. Pushkin enclosed a copy of the document in the drafts of the novel, only making pencil edits - changed the real names to those with which he endowed the heroes of Dubrovsky.

In drafts the place is designated - Kozlovsky district of Tambov province, where this story happened. The creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" is largely based on similar processes that took place on the expanses of the empire. The final version of the name of the protagonist was decided for Pushkin when he became acquainted with similar cases in the Nizhny Novgorod province, where the famous Pushkin estate Boldino was located. Among real people he met a landowner with such an expressive name. It was this name that became the title of an unfinished novel, when it was decided to publish it in a posthumous collection of works.

The People's Revolt

Of course, it is difficult to imagine Pushkin's work as a blind compilation based on real everyday events. The story of the creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" can not be so. Pushkin was interested in more significant phenomena of social life. How could he pass by silence the armed speeches of 1830 in Paris and Lille, the Polish national liberation movement directed against Nicholas I, and in the modern Russian Empire, cholera riots flared up here and there.

Pushkin's work on the history of the Pugachev war left its imprint. What history of the creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" - a story about a noble robber who fought with government troops - could do without references to the peasant war not forgotten in the people . In the Kistenevsky Grove, men are gathering, very similar to those Pushkin sent to the army of Pugachev in the "Captain's Daughter." Also we do not see the author's full approval of the element of rebellion - in the incomplete Dubrovsky, the young robber dissolves his gang, which seems quite logical.

The result

Even the very brief history of the creation of the novel "Dubrovsky" renders untenable the pejorative opinion of the most respected writers about this work of Pushkin. To define it as an unsuccessful attempt to earn money by creating a lightweight reading, it is necessary to be very arrogant about the great name. Alexander Sergeevich, who is trying to reach the level of Zagoskin, Lazhechnikov or Bulgarin (this is how he is represented in Dubrovsky by some critics), is too pathetic to be true.

It is not known how the author would have finished his novel, but what is limited to the point he has set is enough to really disturb today's and future reader.