Around the duel Laskin Semyon Borisovich

Chapter Five "Haughty DESCENDANTS". WHO ARE THEY?

Chapter Five

"HARRY DESCENDANTS". WHO ARE THEY?

So, let's try to touch on another seemingly unexpected mystery. Why, for almost a century and a half, have literary disputes around the textbook poem “The Death of a Poet” not subside? What “flagrant inconsistencies” does Irakli Andronikov talk about when he writes about Lermontov's masterpiece?

Why do scientists continue to confuse the inconsistency of the beginning and end, the epigraph and the sixteen famous lines of the addition?

But aren't there enough questions? Let's turn to the well-known texts.

Revenge, my lord, revenge!

I will fall at your feet:

Be fair and punish the killer

So that his execution in later centuries

Your right judgment proclaimed to posterity,

To see the villains in her example.

Last sixteen lines, addition:

And you, arrogant descendants

By the well-known meanness of the illustrious fathers,

Fifth slave corrected the wreckage

The game of happiness offended childbirth!

You, a greedy crowd standing at the throne,

Freedom, Genius and Glory executioners!

You hide under the shadow of the law,

Before you, the court and the truth - all be silent! ..

But there is also God's judgment, the confidants of debauchery!

There is a formidable judgment: it waits;

He is inaccessible to the sound of gold,

And he knows his thoughts and deeds in advance.

Then in vain you resort to slander -

It won't help you again

And you won't wash away with all your black blood

Poet's righteous blood!

So what stands out when compared?

Indeed, if in the epigraph the author, addressing the monarch, requires him to show justice (“Vengeance, sovereign! .. Be fair ...”), then the addition appears completely unexpected: there is nowhere to expect truth and even more justice in this world (“Before you judge and the truth - all be silent! ..”).

The murderer-outlander, whose execution could serve as a warning to the "villains", in the final lines turns into criminals of a completely different kind, into executioners, executors of someone's evil will. And the "shadow of the law", the "throne", the state serve as a reliable shelter for these people.

In other words, the murderer becomes an executioner, or rather, executioners; possible justice on earth turns out to be impossible; punishability turns into impunity; instead of a Frenchman who came to a foreign country "to catch happiness and ranks", the addition contains "arrogant descendants" with a dubious pedigree, whose fathers were glorified by some "well-known meanness ...".

What is it, a metaphor or an unsolved concreteness? The killer is known to everyone, he has a name, but who are the "descendants" if the conversation, let's say, is about different people? And what kind of "well-known villainy" is Lermontov talking about?

Questions have not yet been answered...

Helplessness in front of the text, oddly enough, forced more than once to make an almost anecdotal decision: they removed the epigraph. Why leave lines that confuse the meaning, make people wonder?

For one hundred and fifty years of the life of the poem, and more than one hundred and twenty-five years since its first publication, about every thirty years the epigraph was placed, then removed.

It won and, unfortunately, wins up to the present time one position, then another. So, from 1860 (the first publication) to 1889, the epigraph was decided not to be printed. It is assumed that the epigraph was added for reasons of censorship, "someone's idle hand."

In 1889, the publisher of the collected works of Lermontov, P. Viskovatov, restored the epigraph, then the poem with the epigraph was reprinted in all editions until 1917.

From 1924 to 1950, Soviet publications also published The Death of a Poet with an epigraph, but from 1950 to 1976, the opinion “that the epigraph was put in order to reduce the political harshness of the final lines” triumphs again, albeit by Lermontov himself. And since, as I. Andronikov concludes, this is a "trick" of the poet himself, it is better to transfer the epigraph to the notes.

“In many complete copies, the epigraph is missing,” wrote Irakli Andronikov in reprinted notes to various collected works of Lermontov, in particular, to the collected works of 1983. “From this it follows that it was not intended for everyone, but for a certain circle of readers related with "yard". There is no epigraph in the copy made by the poet's relatives for A. M. Vereshchagina and, therefore, quite authoritative. But the copy provided with an epigraph appears in the investigative file. There is reason to think that Lermontov himself sought to bring the full text with the epigraph to the III Section. The mention of the throne, surrounded by a greedy crowd of executioners of freedom, a reminder of the impending retribution concerned not only court dignitaries, but also the emperor himself. The epigraph was supposed to soften the meaning of the last stanza: after all, if the poet turns to the emperor with a request for the punishment of the murderer, therefore, Nikolai does not need to take the poem at his address. At the same time, among the general public, the poem went without an epigraph.

Based on the above considerations, in this edition of Lermontov, the epigraph was not reproduced before the text of the poem.

But The poet did not achieve his goal: the epigraph was understood as a way to mislead the government, and this aggravated Lermontov's guilt."

In fairness, it should be said that in some recent editions the epigraph appears again in the text of the poem.

An explanation is introduced in the notes of these collected works: “By its nature, the epigraph does not contradict the sixteen final lines. Appeal to the king with a demand to severely punish the murderer was an unheard-of impudence ... Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the epigraph was written with the aim of softening the sharpness of the final part of the poem. In this edition, the epigraph is introduced into the text.

The variability of opinions in relation to the epigraph suggests that disputes may still continue, that the truth has not been found, that the explanations in the comments for either the removal of the epigraph or its restoration occur without sufficient evidence, according to the internal feeling of the publishers. The poem "The Death of a Poet" occupies an exceptional, one might say, a turning point not only in creative biography Lermontov, but also in his fate.

Why did Lermontov need an epigraph? Maybe even now our knowledge is not perfect enough? It seems to us that we know more about the classics than their contemporaries, and sometimes even more than they themselves, but it is impossible not to understand that we will always lack what contemporaries knew and what the classics knew about themselves. Hence, the search for truth will be endless.

Ah, if only to be near Lermontov, to take part in his dispute with Stolypin, when the poet, “biting the pencil, breaking the stylus”, without waiting for the opponents to leave, begins to write angry final lines about the “confidants of debauchery” guilty of Pushkin’s death. And Stolypin, trying to reduce Michel's anger to a joke, will say: "La po?sie enfante!" (Poetry is released from the burden! - fr.) If!..

Yes, if we were to fill the void of our ignorance with new facts, then perhaps the poem “The Death of a Poet” would amaze us not with its contradictions, which Lermontov scholars still continue to note to this day, but with its integrity.

But it was precisely twice - both without an epigraph and without an addition, and then with an epigraph and with an addition - that Benckendorff and Nicholas I read the poem, in the final version it was delivered to them by agents of the III Department, to such list and there are their tough resolutions-sentences.

Let's try, having collected eyewitness accounts, to imagine the situation in which Lermontov was in those distant days ...

The history of the creation of "The Death of a Poet" is known. Fifty-six lines of the elegy were written by Lermontov on January 30–31, 1837. The found list, dated January 28, is probably erroneous: it is unlikely that the poems appeared during the life of the poet. However, rumors about the death of Pushkin already disturbed St. Petersburg.

"Lermontov's poems are wonderful," A. I. Turgenev wrote in his diary.

“Of the poems that have appeared on his death, Lermontov is more remarkable than the others,” N. Lyubimov wrote on February 3.

“I have now received a poem on the Death of Push[kin], written by one of our classmates, Life Hussar Lermontov. It is written in haste, but with feeling. I know that you will be glad, and I am sending it to you ... ”- M. Kharenko wrote on February 5.

“... Here are the poems that a certain Mr. Lermantov, a hussar officer, composed on his death. I find them so beautiful, there is so much truth and feeling in them that you need to know them.<…>Meshchersky brought these poems to Alexandra Goncharova, who asked them for her sister, who was eager to read everything about her husband, eager to talk about him, blame herself, cry.

But not only the world accepts Lermontov's elegy kindly, they are loyal to poetry and power. Here is how A. I. Muravyov records a conversation with Mordvinov, his brother, head of the office of the III Department:

“Late in the evening, Lermontov came to me and enthusiastically read his poems, which I really liked. I did not find anything particularly sharp in them because I did not hear the last quatrain, which raised a storm against the poet<…>He asked me to speak in his favor to Mordvinov, and the next day I went to my relative.

Mordvinov was very busy and out of sorts. "You're always with old news," he said. “I read these poems to Benckendorff for a long time, and we did not find anything reprehensible in them.” Delighted by this news, I hurried to Lermontov to calm him down, and, not finding him at home, wrote to him word for word what Mordvinov had told me. When I returned home, I found his note in which he again asked for my intercession, because he was in danger.

So, the attitude of the authorities towards the "Death of a Poet" instantly changes with the appearance of the added lines. The response from the reading public is also growing sharply.

The first mention of new lines in the poem "The Death of a Poet" we meet in a letter from A. I. Turgenev to the Pskov governor A. N. Peshchurov.

“I send poems that are worthy of their subject. Other stanzas also go from hand to hand, but they are not of this author and have already brought trouble, they say, to the true author, ”wrote A. I. Turgenev on February 13.

“How beautiful it is, Katish, isn’t it? - writes M. Stepanova in Tyutcheva's album, rewriting Lermontov's poems. “But, perhaps, too free-thinking.”

Finally, the assessment of E. A. Arsenyeva, Lermontov's grandmother:

“Mishynka, out of his youth and frivolity, wrote poems on the death of Pushkin and in the end he wrote indecently on the courtiers’ brush.”

But among the listed evidence, a document stands out of exceptional importance- these are the resolutions of Count A. Kh. Benckendorff and Nicholas I on the list of the poem delivered to the III Department on February 17–18.

“I have already had the honor to inform Your Imperial Majesty that I sent a poem by the hussar officer Lermontov to General Weimart, so that he would interrogate this young man and keep him at the General Staff without the right to communicate with anyone from outside until the authorities resolve the issue of his further fate and about taking his papers both here and at his apartment in Tsarskoye Selo. The introduction to this work is impudent, and the end is shameless free-thinking, more than criminal. According to Lermontov, these poems are distributed in the city by one of his comrades, whom he did not want to name.

A. Benkendorf.

The emperor writes his own opinion:

“Pleasant verses, nothing to say, I sent Weimarn to Tsarskoye Selo to examine Lermontov’s papers and, if more suspicious ones were found, to arrest them. In the meantime, I have ordered the senior medic of the guards corps to visit this gentleman and make sure that he is not crazy; and then we will deal with him according to the law.”

An investigation begins in the case of "inappropriate verses." Lermontov is interrogated "without the right to communicate with anyone", he is detained as a dangerous "freethinker".

But Lermontov's poems were not the only ones in those days. More than twenty poets, among whom were Vyazemsky, and Tyutchev, and Zhukovsky, and Yazykov, and Koltsov, responded with mournful lines. Yet only The Death of a Poet was destined for such a fate.

"The introduction ... is bold, and the end is shameless free-thinking, more than criminal."

“… is he crazy?”

These words will be written by people who remember well the “impudent” and “criminal freethinkers” who came to Senatskaya Street. It turns out that it is impossible to stop the spread of free-thinking writings.

Then A. I. Turgenev will inform his brother abroad:

"Here are the verses with the criminal stanza, which I learned about much later than the verses."

So, both the introduction and the addition are considered by the emperor and Benckendorff as a crime. And yet, for more than a century, the opinion periodically triumphs that only the last lines of the “Death of a Poet” are “criminal stanzas”.

“The pistol shot,” Herzen wrote in 1856, “that killed Pushkin, awakened the soul of Lermontov. He wrote an elegiac ode in which, denouncing the low intrigues that preceded the duel, the intrigues started by ministers of letters and spy journalists, he exclaimed with youthful indignation: “Vengeance, sovereign, vengeance!” This one inconsistency the poet atoned for his exile to the Caucasus.

In 1861, the collection "Russian Hidden Literature" was published in London, in which the poem is printed without introductory lines. The epigraph was removed by the publishers as contradicting the democratic idea ... of Lermontov himself.

Strange conclusion! It turns out that Lermontov wanted to hide behind the loyal lines of the epigraph, but his compromise seemed insufficient to the government, and Benckendorff ordered Lermontov to be arrested, and Nikolai wanted to make sure that Lermontov was “not crazy”?

No, something is wrong! Why did the arrested Lermontov and Raevsky not use their, one might say, witty trick during interrogations, did not ask for indulgence for themselves, but seemed to forget about the saving lines? Was it not because it was clear to them how little “saving” was in them?!

The absence of an epigraph in Vereshchagin's copy, I think, explains little. Poems were distributed in two periods, it is enough to recall the words of A. I. Turgenev. Did not have an epigraph and a list of S. N. Karamzina.

If we talk about Odoevsky's copy, then it was self-censoring. Odoevsky hoped to publish The Death of a Poet and, of course, as an experienced journalist, he would never offer the latter version to censorship. However, the proposed elegiac text was not allowed to print.

It is hardly possible to agree with the opinion that Lermontov, using the epigraph as a "trick", counted on the circle of readers associated with the court.

The distribution of poetry is an uncontrolled act, it does not depend on the will of the author. The poem was much more rewritten by a democratic reader, officials and students. If we talk about the court, then it was there that Lermontov's poem was called "an appeal to the revolution."

But maybe we do not have enough facts to explain the poem "The Death of a Poet"? Maybe we are not aware of any circumstances that forced Lermontov to not only write the sixteen final lines, but also resort to an epigraph?

Let's try once again to dwell on Lermontov's dispute with the chamber junker N. A. Stolypin, who brought echoes of high-society conversations to the poet's house ...

... The singer's shelter is gloomy and cramped,

And on the lips of his seal.

Seal- a symbol of eternal silence ... "The Chrysostom stopped" - as if the dictionary of V. Dahl is talking about Pushkin.

There is no call for retribution yet, there is hopeless grief. On January 29, Lermontov writes the same thing that many of his contemporaries write in poetry and in letters.

“Dear Alexander!

I will tell you some unpleasant news: yesterday we buried Alexander Pushkin. He fought a duel and died of his wound. A certain Mr. Dantes, a Frenchman, an ex-page of the Duchess of Berry, who was favored by our government, who served in the cavalry guards, was received everywhere with Russian cordiality and paid for our bread and salt and hospitality with a murder.

You have to be a soulless Frenchman to raise a sacrilegious hand against an inviolable poet's life which is sometimes spared by fate itself, the life that belongs to a whole people.<…>

Pushkin made a mistake by getting married because he remained in this pool of great light. Poets with their vocation cannot live in parallel with society, they are not created that way. They need to create a new parnassus for living. Otherwise, they will stumble upon a bullet, like Pushkin and Griboyedov, or even worse, a mockery!!”

BESTUZHEV: "You have to be heartless french, to raise a blasphemous hand on the inviolable life of the poet ... "

LERMONTOV: "His killer coolly He struck a blow ... there is no salvation: empty the heart beats evenly, The pistol did not flinch in the hand.

BESTUZHEV: « <…>the life of a poet<…>a life that belongs to a whole people."

LERMONTOV: “Laughing, he defiantly despised the Earth for a foreign language and customs; He could not spare our glory, I could not understand at this bloody moment, What did he raise his hand to! .. "

BESTUZHEV: "Poets with their vocation cannot live in parallel with society<…>. Otherwise they'll run into a bullet<…>or worse, for a laugh!"

LERMONTOV: “His last moments are poisoned by an insidious whisper mocking ignoramuses…”,"AND for fun kindled a little lurking fire.

Before the appearance of the added lines, the elegy reflected those general conversations that arose everywhere in the days of Pushkin's death.

But in a few days, the “song of sadness,” as Nestor Kotlyarevsky calls The Death of a Poet, will turn into a “song of anger.”

Lermontov and Raevsky are arrested. In prison, they write detailed "explanations".

Most researchers consider the "explanations" of Lermontov and Raevsky sincere, while others, although they confirm sincerity, still see them as "self-defense".

But if the arrested person pursued defensive goals, he had to think about how not to give the enemy dangerous facts. And already caution itself ruled out sincerity. And what sincerity is in the clutches of the police? Both Lermontov and Raevsky understood that each of their sincere words would make the punishment heavier, tougher the sentence. Raevsky's note to Lermontov's valet requires Lermontov not to trust feelings, not to be sincere.

Andrey Ivanovich! Raevsky turned to Lermontov's valet. - Pass this note and papers quietly to Michel. I submitted to the Minister. Need to that he should answer according to her, and then it will end in nothing. And if he starts talking differently, it could be worse.”

Let's compare the texts of "explanations" by Lermontov and Raevsky.

Lermontov:

“I was ill when the news of Pushkin's unfortunate duel spread throughout the city. Some of my acquaintances brought her to me disfigured by various additions, alone, adherents our best poet, they told with lively sadness what petty torments, ridicule, he was persecuted for a long time and, finally, he was forced to take a step contrary to the laws of earth and heaven, defending the honor of his wife in the eyes of a strict world. Others, especially ladies, justified Pushkin's opponents, called him (Dantes. - S. L.) the noblest man, they said that Pushkin had no right to demand love from his wife, because he was jealous, bad-looking - they also said that Pushkin was a worthless person and so on ... Without, perhaps, having the opportunity to protect the moral side of his character, no one did not respond to these latest accusations.

An involuntary but strong indignation flared up in me against these people who attacked a man who had already been slain by the hand of God, who had done them no harm and had once been praised by them: and the innate feeling in the soul of an inexperienced, to defend anyone innocently condemned, stirred in me even more strongly. caused by an irritated nerve disease. When I began to ask on what grounds they rose up so loudly against the murdered man, they answered me: probably in order to give themselves more weight,that the entire upper circle of society is of the same opinion. I was surprised - they laughed at me. Finally, after two days of restless waiting, the sad news came that Pushkin had died; Along with this news came another, comforting for the heart of the Russian: the Sovereign Emperor, despite his previous delusions, generously extended a helping hand to his unfortunate wife and his little orphans. The wonderful contrast of His action with the opinion (I was assured) of the highest circle of society enlarged the former in my imagination and blackened still more the injustice of the latter. I was firmly convinced that the state dignitaries shared the noble and merciful feelings of the Emperor, the God-given protector of all the oppressed, but nevertheless I heard that some people, solely through family ties or as a result of seeking, belonging to the highest circle and enjoying the merits of their worthy relatives - some did not cease to darken the memory of the murdered and dispel various rumors unfavorable to him. Then, as a result of a thoughtless impulse, I poured out the bitterness of my heart onto paper, with exaggerated, incorrect words expressed the discordant clash of thoughts, not believing that he wrote something reprehensible, that many may mistakenly take into account expressions that are not intended for them at all. This experience was the first and last of its kind, harmful (as I thought before and still think) for others even more than for myself. But if there is no excuse for me, then youth and ardor will at least serve as an explanation, for at that moment passion was stronger than cold reason ... "

The dispute, it turns out, was with the ladies, supporters of Dantes, and Lermontov, full of delight and gratitude to the king for the "wonderful opposite of His act," did not at all think ... "reprehensible."

Let's look at Raevsky's "explanation":

“... Lermontov has a special penchant for music, painting and poetry, why did both of us have hours free from service in these classes, especially in the last three months when Lermontov did not leave due to illness.

Pushkin died in Genvar. When on the 29th or 30th this news was communicated to Lermontov with city talk about anonymous letters that aroused Pushkin's jealousy and prevented him from composing in October and November (the months in which Pushkin, according to rumors, wrote exclusively), - that same evening Lermontov wrote elegiac verses that ended with the words:

And on the lips of his seal.

Among them are the words: "Did you not persecute his free wonderful gift" - the nameless letters mean - which is completely proved by the second two verses:

And for fun excited

Slightly lingering fire.

These verses appeared before many and were the best that I learned from the review of the journalist Kraevsky, who told them to V. A. Zhukovsky, princes Vyazemsky, Odoevsky and so on. Lermontov's acquaintances incessantly said greetings to him, and there was even a rumor that V. A. Zhukovsky read them to His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Heir and that He expressed his high approval.

This success pleased me, out of love for Lermontov, and turned Lermontov's head, so to speak, out of a desire for fame. Copies of poems were distributed to everyone, even with the addition of 12 (16) verses containing a trick against persons not subject to Russian court - diplomats and foreigners, and their origin is, as I am convinced, the following:

Lermontov was visited by his brother, a chamber junker, Stolypin. He spoke unfavorably about Pushkin, saying that he behaved indecently among people of high society, that Dantes was obliged to do what he did. Lermontov, being, so to speak, indebted to Pushkin for fame, involuntarily became his partisan and, out of innate ardor, behaved ardently. He and half of the guests they argued, among other things, that even foreigners should spare remarkable people in the state, that Pushkin, despite his insolence, was spared by two sovereigns, and even showered with favors, and that then we should no longer judge his obstinacy.

The conversation got hotter the young chamber junker Stolypin communicated opinions that gave rise to new disputes - and in particular insisted that foreigners do not care about Pushkin's poetry, that diplomats are free from the influence of laws, that Dantes and Gekkern, being noble foreigners, are not subject to either laws or Russian court .

The conversation took a legal direction, but Lermontov interrupted him with words, which he later almost completely placed in verse: “if there is no law and earthly court over them, if they are the executioners of a genius, then there is God’s judgment.”

The conversation stopped, and in the evening, returning from the guests, I found Lermontov's well-known addition, in which the entire dispute was clearly expressed.

Once it occurred to us that the verses are obscure, that one could suffer for them, because they can be reinterpreted at will, but, realizing that the name Lermontov fully subscribes to them, that the highest censorship would have stopped them long ago if they considered it necessary and that the Sovereign Emperor showered the Pushkin family with favors, next. valued him - they assumed that, therefore, it was possible to scold Pushkin's enemies - they left it to go on as it was<…>.

<…>Political thoughts, and even more so contrary to the order established by age-old laws, we did not have and could not have.

<…>We are both Russian souls and even more loyal subjects: here is another proof that Lermontov is not indifferent to the glory and honor of his Sovereign ... "

So, Lermontov's "ladies", who defended Dantes' right to love, turned into Raevsky's chamber junker Stolypin, who defends the right of noble foreigners not to reckon with Russian laws.

Lermontov speaks of some people, “solely by family ties or as a result of searching, belonging to the highest circle and enjoying the merits of their worthy relatives." (But what about those glorified by “a certain meanness”?!)

Even more revealing are the drafts of Raevsky's "explanation" attached to the "case":

“He [and his desk] proved by the way. And half of the guests argued among other things that [everyone] even a foreigner [should] even foreigners should spare people who are remarkable in the state.

“The young chamber junker Stolypin [and who else I don’t remember] [transmitted]<…>»

"The conversation took a [sex] legal direction<…>».

Raevsky's drafts are self-revealing. Which "half" of the guests? Who was with Lermontov except Stolypin? What “political<…>direction" accepted the dispute between Lermontov and his opponents? What does "Lermontov's party" mean? Isn't this a circle of "dangerous freethinkers" just like him and Raevsky? And what does it mean: “Who - I don’t remember” ?!

There are enough reservations to expand the "case", for additional interrogation of Stolypin, but ... the investigation ends quickly.

Raevsky is expelled to the Olonets province, Lermontov - to the Caucasus, which is not considered too severe a punishment.

Let us remember the caution of those arrested, their forced, understandable repentance, in this situation, of course, trick.

Why didn't the III Section seem to notice the discrepancy between the testimonies of those arrested and the content of The Death of a Poet?

Literary critic V. Arkhipov finds the easiest explanation - he calls Benckendorff a "narrow-minded" person. But, firstly, it is well known that Benckendorff was the most experienced and cunning policeman, and he would have had the sense to detect insincerity in his testimony, to reduce the explanation to insignificant particulars, to a harmless conversation with "ladies" about love. Yes, and not only Benckendorff was in the III Department - it is no coincidence that Lermontov draws a wolf profile of Dubelt on the margins of the list of "Death of a Poet".

But if we assume that the III Division - in that acute situation of January-February 1837 - was simply disadvantageous continue the trial of an unknown poet, it is unprofitable to expand the investigation, attract new faces, make confrontations, but vice versa, where more profitable regard the prank of a twenty-two-year-old cornet unknown to anyone as a trifle, try to stop the process as soon as possible, expel both arrested people from St. calm down public opinion? And is concretization necessary - who did the poet suspect in each line of the addition? Where to put the lines about the "confidants of debauchery", "standing at the throne"? Who are they, "the executioners of Freedom, Genius and Glory"? Lermontov did not speak about secular "ladies". It is not at all a secret that knowledge of the particular, the concrete, can in some cases more deeply and more clearly reveal the extent of the general evil. But, moreover, the path of the artist to the truth lies in different ways. And for Lermontov, the move from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the broad generalization is quite possible.

I. Andronikov in the well-known work “Lermontov and the Party ...” cites an entry on the list “The Death of a Poet”, owned by an employee of Moscow University, N. S. Dorovatovsky. This list, Andronikov points out, "came from the circle of people close to Herzen."

N. S. Dorovatovsky, considering who Lermontov meant when speaking of “confidants of debauchery” and “arrogant descendants”, lists a number of possible surnames:

“Favorites of Catherine II: 1) Saltykov. 2) Poniatowski. 3) Gr. Orlov (Bobrinsky, their son, brought up in the house of a stoker, and then chamberlain Shkurin). 4) Vysotsky. 5) Vasilchikov. 6) Potemkin. 7) Zavadovsky. 8) Zorich - 1776.

Elizabeth and Razumovsky have a daughter, Princess Tarakanova.

The killers Peter III: Orlov, Teplov, Baryatinsky. Roman Vorontsov has three daughters: 1) Ekaterina, mistress of Peter III. 2) Dashkova. 3) Buturlina ...

Pavel's mistress Sofya Osipovna Chartoryzhskaya, she has a son Simeon - 1796. The murderers of Ivan Antonovich are Vlasyev and Chekin, the conspirator Mirovich.

I. Andronikov does not stop at a single name. Dorovatovsky's list was also considered by other researchers and declared it "accidental".

Meanwhile, the list contains the name of the regicide (more precisely, the regicide). The life paths of their direct descendant repeatedly intersected with the life paths of Lermontov.

I'm talking about Prince Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky, the future Field Marshal, Lermontov's classmate in the school of guards ensigns and cavalry cadets, Lermontov's worst and long-term enemy.

The malicious attitude of Baryatinsky towards Lermontov throughout Baryatinsky's long life still seems incomprehensible.

Let us turn to the biography of the “conqueror of the Caucasus”. Wouldn't memories of him help to unravel the riddle of a few added lines of the poem "Death of a Poet"?

Baryatinsky's personal biographer Zisserman wrote about his hero this way:

“All the junkers (at the school of guards ensigns. - S. L.) there were two hundred and forty-five people, but only two of them gained general, high-profile fame: one is Lermontov, as a wonderful poet, who unfortunately died early, the other is a natural talent, conqueror of the Caucasus and a statesman.

The military careers of both junkers are somewhat similar in their beginnings. But if Lermontov, having studied at Moscow University, decides to enter the school of guards ensigns, then Baryatinsky is only being prepared for the university, however, without entering there, he changes his mind.

Unlike Lermontov, Baryatinsky studies at the cadet school extremely poorly, however, it is not knowledge, but other qualities that provide Baryatinsky with leadership in the military environment. Here is how Insarsky, manager of his estates, tells about these years of A.I. Baryatinsky:

“Prince Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky told me that he studied at the guards school in the most disgusting way. Time passed in revelry and pranks, mostly intricate inventions. Dragging was also not the last occupation<…>. When the time came for graduation, the prince turned out to be completely untenable, and he was asked to enter the army or, if he wanted, to serve in the guards, but remain for another year at the guards school<…>. Thus, at the end of 1833, he entered the Gatchina Life Cuirassier Regiment, but this step did not in any way destroy his shortest ties with his former comrades, so that he only belonged to the Cuirassier Regiment in form, but in soul and heart - to the Cavalier Guard. The interests of not the Cuirassier, but the Cavalier Guard Regiment were dear to him. Everything that was done in this regiment was incomparably more expensive for him than what happened in Cuirassier. He considered himself belonging to the society of cavalry guard officers and shared their views, convictions and various demonstrations. Everything that pleased the Cavalier Guard Regiment also pleased him; everything that the cavalry guard officers liked - and he liked it. In a word, he was the most zealous member of the cavalry guard family.

Insarsky's testimony is not much different from Zisserman's characterization.

“The two-year service in the Gatchina cuirassiers was, in accordance with the then cavalry rules, a series of revelry, pranks of idle secular life. All this, however, was not considered anything reprehensible, not only in the eyes of comrades and acquaintances, but also in the eyes of the highest authorities, on the contrary, as the consequences of youth, daring, characteristic of a young man in general, and a cavalryman in particular, all these revels and hangings did not contain anything dishonorable, they gave the highest authorities a special kind of pleasure, hidden under the guise of severity ... "

Of the famous pranks of the young Baryatinsky, two cases of cheerful “burials” of people are known, something unpleasant for the whole “company” of his friends, cavalry guard officers. One "funeral" - an organized procession towards the cemetery with empty coffin as if the commander of the cavalry guard regiment, Yegor Grunwald, who had calmly dined on his veranda and looked at this fun with indignation.

The second "funeral" was arranged for the chamber junker Borch, the same "non-replaceable secretary of the order of cuckolds." However, I wrote about Borja in previous chapters.

The punishment of Baryatinsky, his arrest, turns out to be only an excuse for the continuation of high-society amusements.

“Having examined the room,” Insarsky said, “assigned to him, the prince at the same hour ordered that furniture makers, upholsterers, etc., come the next day and clean the room in the most luxurious and magnificent way. One of the famous restaurants was ordered to prepare an elegant dinner for ten to twenty people every day ... The prince said that the time of his arrest was the most fun and ruinous for him ... "

The guardhouse did not turn out to be a hindrance to communication with the "mothers" of the neighboring educational house.

Here is an excerpt from the artist Gagarin's letter to his parents:

"March 6, 1834. You often talk to me about the society of young people. I would not like you to get the wrong idea about him, firstly, I devote little time to them, but sometimes I go to spend the rest of the evening at the Trubetskoys, where a small company of exceptionally kind and honest young men gathers, very friendly with each other. Everyone here brings his little talent and, to the best of his ability, contributes to having fun and free fun, much better than in all prim salons ... Sometimes we do gymnastics, wrestling and various exercises. I discovered here that I am much stronger than I thought. After a ten-minute intense struggle, with the loud approval of the rest of society, I threw Alexander Trubetskoy, who was considered the strongest of the entire company, to the floor.<…>.

Members of this circle Alexander and Sergey Trubetskoy, officers of the Cavalier Guard Regiment, Baryatinsky - officer of the Cuirassier Regiment<…>, sometimes Dantes, the new cavalry guard, who is full of wit and very funny.

Trubetskoy's "eternal" commitment to the history of Pushkin's duel, his friendship with Georges d'Anthes, and the Empress' undeniable affection for him make Trubetskoy's figure not only exceptionally important, but also make us take a closer look at Lermontov's acquaintance with Trubetskoy and his closest friends, among whom the personality of the prince is especially noticeable. Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky.

As a characteristic of the relationship between A. I. Baryatinsky and M. Yu. Lermontov - an event that took place in the house of the Trubetskoy. I will cite a curious episode described by the biographer of Prince Alexander Ivanovich.

“In 1834 or 1835, once in the evening, Prince T[rubetskoy] had a fairly large meeting of young officers, cavalry guards and from other regiments. Among them were Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky and Lermontov, former comrades in the cadet school. The conversation was lively, about various subjects, by the way, Lermontov insisted on his constant thought that a person who has the strength to fight mental illness unable to overcome the physical pain. Then, without saying a word, Baryatinsky took off the cap from the burning lamp, took the glass in his hand and, without adding speed, with quiet steps, pale, walked across the whole room and put the lamp glass on the table whole; but his hand was burned to the bone, and for several weeks he wore it in a sling, suffering from a severe fever.

In the spring of 1835, Baryatinsky leaves as a “hunter” for the Caucasus, where he is seriously wounded. The situation is critical. Baryatinsky draws up a will in which he bequeaths a ring to Alexander Trubetskoy, a horse to Sergei Trubetskoy.

However, the wounded man recovers and, like a hero, returns to St. Petersburg. Thanks to the friendship of Baryatinsky’s mother, Baroness Keller, with the Empress, to whom she “went whenever she wanted, easily,” Baryatinsky is visited by the Tsarevich and enlisted in his personal retinue. By this time, Baryatinsky was already a staff captain.

Together with the appointment to the retinue, “constituting (according to Dolgorukov. - S. Ya.)<…>the object of the ardent desires of all guards officers, ”Baryatinsky’s circle of friends is significantly narrowing. The closest are Trubetskoy, Kurakin, Nesselrode, Dantes, "ultra-fashionable", children of dignitaries.

Baryatinsky's position after the duel is extremely important to us. Like Trubetskoy, Baryatinsky is not embarrassed by the "sobbing" and "pathetic" babble of the secular crowd; he publicly proclaims the act of d'Anthes chivalrous.

Baryatinsky's letters to Dantes in the guardhouse, published by Shchegolev, are striking in their cynicism.

“I am missing something since I have not seen you, my dear Gekkern, believe me that I did not of my own free will stop my visits, which brought me so much pleasure and always seemed to me too short, but I had to stop them due to the severity of guard officers.

Think about it, twice outrageously I was sent away from the gallery under the pretext that this was not a place for my walks, and two more times I asked permission to see you, but I was refused. Nevertheless, continue to believe in my sincere friendship and the sympathy with which our entire family treats you.

Your devoted friend

Baryatinsky.

Of course, Baryatinsky's position seems defiant to many. In the salon of Nesselrode, in the circle of his friends, Baryatinsky speaks openly in support of Dantes. The light is “silent”, but rather sympathetically silent, realizing what power this person has behind him.

Before deciding whether the name of Baryatinsky is connected with the well-known words of the Lermontov addition, let's try to evaluate in more detail the relationship between Lermontov and Baryatinsky after January 1837.

The first biographer of Lermontov, P. A. Viskovatov, who spent about two years under Prince A. I. Baryatinsky, more than once heard the sharply negative reviews of the prince about the great poet.

P. A. Viskovatov, and after him other biographers, suggested that Baryatinsky could not forget his classmate of his Junker poem.

“Ulansha, the most modest of these poems,” wrote P. A. Viskovatov, “depicts the transition of the cavalry squadron of the cadet school to Peterhof and a nightly halt in the village of Izhora. The protagonist of the adventure is the uhlan cadet "Lafa" (Polivanov. - S. L.) sent forward by the lodger. The heroine is a peasant girl.

The "Hospital" describes the adventures of fellow junkers: the same Polivanov, Shubin and Prince Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky.

All these works of Lermontov, of course, were intended only for a close circle of comrades, but they penetrated, as we said, beyond the walls of the “school”, walked around the city, and those of the heroes mentioned in them, who had to play an uncommendable, funny or offensive role, resented Lermontov. This indignation grew along with the fame of the poet, and, thus, many of his school comrades turned into his worst enemies. One of these is a person who later achieved an important state position, - came into indignation every time we spoke with him about Lermontov. He called him "the most immoral man" and "a mediocre imitator of Byron" and wondered how anyone could be interested in him to collect materials for his biography. Much later, when we got our hands on school works our poet, we understood the reason for such malice. These people even hindered him in his service career, which they themselves successfully passed.

Baryatinsky, being in the retinue of the Tsarevich, could, of course, do a lot of harm to the "disgraced" Lermontov.

Viskovatov repeats his assumption about the reasons for the offense of Prince A.I. Baryatinsky more than once.

“Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky,” Viskovatov wrote in Russian Antiquity, “played a very unenviable role in a Don Juan adventure of a very unattractive nature, offered by a boastful young man on a bet for half a dozen champagnes ...”

And here is the commentary of one of the first publishers of the collected works of Lermontov - Efremov, who placed some lines of the "Hospital" in the second volume.

“At M. I. Semevsky, we saw one number of the handwritten journal No. 4 “Magazine School Dawn”. This number begins with Lermontov's poem "Ulansha" and ends with his own poem "Hospital", under which he also signs "Count Darbeker".

The last poem describes the adventures of two school comrades Lermontov: Prince A. I. Baryatinsky and N. I. Polivanov (Laf).

Prince Baryatinsky in the dark mistakenly hugs a blind, decrepit old woman instead of a beautiful maid, she screams, a servant runs in with a candle, rushes at the prince and beats him. Polivanov, who was with the beauty, comes to the rescue and rescues the prince.

On the pages of Russian Thought, P. A. Viskovatov again repeats Baryatinsky’s opinion about Lermontov:

"Field Marshal Prince Baryatinsky, Mongo's comrade in the school of guards ensigns<…>spoke very unfriendly of him, as well as of Lermontov. But there were other reasons for that.

Already at the beginning of our century, a student of Viskovatov, E. A. Bobrov, published excerpts from Viskovatov's letter to him about the relationship of Prince Baryatinsky to Lermontov. The letter, according to Bobrov, was of a personal nature and was not subject to "publication in its entirety," so most of it is set out in retelling.

“A more important issue is the attitude of Lermontov ... towards Prince Baryatinsky. Viskovatov knew the latter very closely, because for more than one year he was with him as a personal secretary.

Baryatinsky, according to Viskovatov, was very smart and out of the ordinary talented. But if a person has “a fathom of mind and a fathom with an inch of pride, then in the end the fool in him will defeat the smart person.” All such overly conceited people did not tolerate Lermontov. There was another special reason for Baryatinsky's dislike of Lermontov.

Lermontov and Stolypin (Mongo, - S. L.) managed to save one lady from the importunity of a certain dignitary. The latter was suspected of Baryatinsky's trick, because he was courting this lady. And personal failure, and indignation at him high face prompted Baryatinsky to hate Stolypin and Lermontov. But by myself the main reason Baryatinsky’s inextinguishable hatred of Lermontov, nevertheless, must be considered the description of the prince’s failures in the erotic poem The Hospital. With this poem, Baryatinsky was wounded in the very Achilles heel, because the incident was transmitted, although cynically, but quite truly, only insignificant juicy details. Could Baryatinsky ever forget and forgive, with his immense pride, this poem, placed in a handwritten journal and made Baryatinsky a laughing stock in the eyes of his comrades.

From what has been said, it is clear how unpleasantly surprised the prince was, who very much wanted Viskovatov to compose his biography, which had already been started, when one day his secretary, having talked with him about Lermontov, informed him that he was going to write a biography of the great poet. Baryatinsky was sincerely surprised at how there are people who consider collecting materials about such a person, about Lermontov. He did not imagine that posterity could judge Mikhail Yuryevich differently than his schoolmates ridiculed. Baryatinsky began to persistently dissuade his young secretary from this enterprise, saying that Lermontov's biography should not be written. “Here, talk to Smirnova about this,” he advised. "I'll introduce you to her." “He introduced me to Smirnova,” writes Viskovatov. “And she, of course, at the request of Baryatinsky, also dissuaded me from writing a biography of Lermontov.”

Baryatinsky explained the dislike for Lermontov on the part of Nikolai Pavlovich himself with such an original comparison, allegedly at that time they looked at the country as at billiards, and did not like anything that exceeded the monotonous expanse of the billiard surface, and Lermontov, although he himself was highly unpleasant personality, but still stood out above the level. This was recognized by Baryatinsky with all his sincere hatred for the great poet. In the same way, that is, by the fact that he “stands out”, Baryatinsky explained his well-known dislike for himself ... "

Baryatinsky's friends also treated Lermontov badly. So, Count Adlerberg, adjutant of the Tsarevich, like Baryatinsky, spoke extremely badly about Lermontov. “I will never forget,” D. Merezhkovsky wrote, “how in the eighties, during my own youthful passion for Lermontov, my father gave me a review of him by Count Adlerberg, Minister of the Court under Alexander II, an old man who was personally acquainted with Lermontov : "You can't imagine what a dirty man he was!"

Let's look at fragments of the "Hospital", a Junker poem, published either in separate lines, or with abbreviations in various editions.

In fact, Lermontov's poem was completely remembered only by Lermontov's junker classmates, one of whom it was transferred to the Lermontov Museum.

Here are the lines about Baryatinsky:

One day, after a long discussion

And having drained three bottles,

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Great Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, artist, officer.

Quote: 120 - 136 out of 210

But there is also God's judgment, the confidants of debauchery!
There is a formidable judgment: it waits;
He is not available to the sound of gold,
And he knows his thoughts and deeds in advance.
Then in vain will you resort to slander:
It won't help you again
And you won't wash away with all your black blood
Poet's righteous blood!

But who hasn't done stupid things in their life!

Well? where it will not be better, there it will be worse, and again it is not far from bad to good. (*Hero of our time*)

O selfishness! you are the lever with which Archimedes wanted to raise the globe!

ABOUT! our history is a terrible thing; whether you acted noble or low, right or wrong, could have avoided or could not, but your name is involved in history ... anyway, you lose everything: the favor of society, career, respect of friends ... get caught in history! Nothing could be worse than this, no matter how this story ends! There is private fame sharp knife for society, you made people talk about you for two days. Suffer twenty years for this. (*Princess Ligovskaya*, 1836)

What women don't cry about: Tears are their offensive and defensive weapons. Annoyance, joy, impotent hatred, impotent love have one expression for them. (*Princess Ligovskaya*, 1836)

Resentment is such a pill that not everyone with a calm face can swallow; some swallow, chewing in advance, here the pill is even bitterer.

One is a slave of man, the other is a slave of fate. The first can expect a good master or has a choice - the second never. He is played by blind chance, and his passions and the insensitivity of others are all connected to his death. (Vladimir Arbenin) (*Strange Man*, 1831)

Some revere me worse, others better than I really ... Some will say: he was a kind fellow, others - a bastard. Both will be false. Is it worth living after this? and yet you live - out of curiosity: you expect something new ... Ridiculous and annoying! (*Hero of our time*, 1838-1839)

Some revere me worse, others better than I really ... Some will say: he was a kind fellow, others - a bastard. Both will be false. Is it worth living after this? but you still live - out of curiosity: you expect something new ... Ridiculous and annoying! ("A Hero of Our Time", 1838-1839)

He knew that it was easy to make people talk about himself, but he also knew that the world did not deal with the same person twice in a row: he needed new idols, new fashions, new novels ... veterans of secular glory, like all other veterans, most pitiful creatures. (*Princess Ligovskaya*, 1836)

He does not know people and their weak strings, because he has been busy with himself all his life. ("Hero of our time")

He sowed evil without pleasure.
Nowhere to your art
He met no resistance
And evil bored him.

She was at an age when it was still not ashamed to follow her, and it became difficult to fall in love with her; in those years when some windy or careless dandy no longer considers it a sin to assure jokingly of deep passion, so that later, for laughter, compromise the girl in the eyes of her friends, thinking by this to give himself more weight ... to assure everyone that she has no memory of him and tries to show that he pities her, that he does not know how to get rid of her ... poor, anticipating that this is her last adorer, without love, out of sheer pride, she tries to keep the naughty as long as possible at her feet her ... in vain: she becomes more and more confused, - and finally ... alas ... behind this period there remain only dreams of a husband, some kind of husband ... only dreams. (about Lizaveta Nikolaevna, *a fading woman* 25 years old) (*Princess Ligovskaya*, 1836)

From now on I will enjoy
And in passion I will swear by everything;
I will laugh with everyone
And I don't want to cry with anyone;
I'll start to deceive shamelessly
So as not to love, as I loved, -
Or it is possible to respect women,
When did an angel cheat on me?
I was ready for death and torment
And call the whole world to battle
To your young hand -
Madman! - once again shake!
Not knowing the insidious betrayal,
I gave my soul to you;
Did you know the price of such a soul?
You knew - I didn't know you!

Commentary on the poem:
First published (under the title "On the Death of Pushkin") in 1858 in the "Polar Star for 1856" (book 2, pp. 33 - 35); in Russia: without 16 final verses - in 1858 in the "Bibliographic Notes" (vol. I, No. 2, st. 635 - 636); in full - in 1860 in the collected works edited by Dudyshkin (vol. I, pp. 61 - 63).
The poem was written on the death of Pushkin (Pushkin died on January 29, 1837). Autograph full text the poem has not survived. There are also the first part of it up to the words "And you, arrogant descendants." The second part of the poem has been preserved in copies, including in a copy attached to the investigative file "On the impermissible verses written by the cornet of the Life Guards Hussars regiment Lermantov, and on the distribution thereof by the provincial secretary Raevsky." Only in copies is there an epigraph to the poem, taken from the tragedy of the French writer Rotru "Venceslav" in the alteration of A. A. Gendre. With an epigraph, the poem began to be printed in 1887, when the investigative materials on the case “On Inadmissible Poems ...” were published, and among them a copy of the poem. By its nature, the epigraph does not contradict the 16 final lines. An appeal to the tsar with a demand to severely punish the murderer was an unheard-of impudence: according to A. Kh. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that the epigraph is attributed with the aim of softening the sharpness of the final part of the poem. In this edition, the epigraph is introduced into the text.
The poem had a wide public response. The duel and death of Pushkin, slander and intrigues against the poet in the circles of the court aristocracy caused deep indignation among the advanced part of Russian society. He expressed these sentiments in courageous, poetic verses, which were sold in many lists among his contemporaries.
The name of Lermontov, as a worthy heir to Pushkin, received national recognition. At the same time, the political poignancy of the poem caused alarm in government circles.
According to the stories of contemporaries, one of the lists with the inscription "Appeal to the Revolution" was delivered to Nicholas I. Lermontov and his friend S. A. Raevsky, who participated in the distribution of poetry, were arrested and brought to justice. On February 25, 1837, by the highest command, a sentence was pronounced: “L-Gussar regiment of Cornet Lermantov ... transfer the same rank to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment; and the provincial secretary Raevsky ... to be kept under arrest for one month, and then sent to the Olonets province for use in the service, at the discretion of the local civil governor. In March, Lermontov left St. Petersburg, heading to the active army in the Caucasus, where at that time the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment was located.
In the verses “His killer in cold blood” and the following, we are talking about Dantes, the killer of Pushkin. Georges Charles Dantes (1812 - 1895) - a French monarchist who fled to Russia in 1833 after the Vendée rebellion, was the adopted son of the Dutch envoy in St. Petersburg, Baron Gekkeren. Having access to the salons of the Russian court aristocracy, he participated in the persecution of the poet, which ended in a fatal duel on January 27, 1837. After the death of Pushkin, he was exiled to France.
In verse "Like that singer, unknown, but cute" and the following Lermontov recalls Vladimir Lensky from Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" .
"And you, arrogant descendants" and the next 15 verses, according to S. A. Raevsky, were written later than the previous text. This is Lermontov's response to an attempt by government circles and the cosmopolitan nobility to denigrate Pushkin's memory and justify Dantes. The immediate reason for the creation of the last 16 poems, according to Raevsky, was Lermontov’s quarrel with a relative, a chamber junker, who, having visited the sick poet, began to express to him the “unfavorable” opinion of the courtiers about Pushkin and tried to defend Dantes.
A similar story is contained in a letter from A. M. Merinsky to P. A. Efremov, the publisher of Lermontov's works. There is a list of the poem, where an unknown contemporary of Lermontov named a number of surnames, allowing you to imagine who the lines are talking about. "And you, the arrogant descendants of the famous meanness of the famous fathers". These are counts Orlov, Bobrinsky, Vorontsov, Zavadovsky, princes Baryatinsky and Vasilchikov, barons Engelhardt and Frederiks, whose fathers and grandfathers achieved a position at court only with the help of seeking, intrigue, love affairs.
"There is a formidable judgment: it awaits"- this verse in the edition of Lermontov's works edited by Efremov (1873) was first published with different interpretations: "There is a formidable judge: he is waiting." There is no reason to change the original reading of this verse. The faint mention of the autograph, which allegedly formed the basis of the full text of the poem in this edition, is due to the fact that Efremov made a number of amendments to the text according to the letter of A. M. Merinsky, who kept a list of the poem, made by him from the autograph in 1837, immediately after Lermontov wrote it. Merinsky's letter to Efremov has been preserved, but it does not contain an amendment to the verse "There is a formidable judgment." Obviously, Efremov corrected it arbitrarily.
In some editions of Lermontov's works (edited by Boldakov in 1891, in several Soviet publications starting in 1924) the reading of Efremov was repeated - “judge” instead of “court”. Meanwhile, in all copies of the poem that have come down to us and in the first publications of the text, “court” is read, and not “judge”. A poem by the poet P. Gvozdev, who studied with Lermontov at the cadet school, has also been preserved. Gvozdev wrote on February 22, 1837, containing lines confirming the correctness of the original reading of the controversial verse:

Didn't you say: "There is a terrible judgment!"
And this court is the court of offspring...

If you have never encountered extreme cynicism and hypocrisy in your life, then you have never had to deal with the Ukrainian authorities. Especially the one that carried out an armed coup in Ukraine almost a year ago. Everyone who participated in the events of February 21-22 last year in Kiev is well aware that everyone is facing at least long prison terms. Therefore - "we live alone, walk the flaw!" They allow themselves whatever they want.

In particular, the killings of Donetsk residents and the destruction of the capital of Donbass. The blasphemers committed their crimes on Epiphany, one of the greatest Orthodox holidays. On this day in Donetsk, they killed several people, wounded about a dozen, smashed the children's and cardiology department of the city hospital No. 3 with shells (thank God, the doctors managed to take little patients to the shelter), a gas station of the Parallel chain, damaged one of the chain's supermarkets Amstor. Well, and, of course, they got into several dozen houses.

Donetsk. Orthodox church after shelling

The children's department of the hospital after the shelling

The cynicism and hypocrisy of the Ukrainians lies in the fact that they continue to bomb the city at the very time when they call on the Russian Federation to put pressure on the DPR militias in order to continue to comply with the Minsk agreements. Moreover, within the boundaries of November 13, 2014. This means that it is necessary to return the ruins of the Donetsk airport to them, to leave Pesok and Avdiivka. Traitors by nature, the Kiev rulers also offer the authorities of the DPR to deceive their people, to betray the memory of those who fell for the liberation of the region from the Nazi invasion.

Ukrainians are trying, according to the behest of their first president, Kravchuk, a participant in the collapse of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, to run "between the raindrops." They shout towards the EU and the UN “oh, they are beating us”, towards the OSCE - “yes, you are looking in the wrong direction, close your eyes to our crimes”, to Moscow - “give gas, coal / forget debts, and then we will supply NATO bases to you on the borders." But the meanest thing is shouting to the Donbass people who are beating them both in the tail and in the mane - “yes, no one shot, it’s you yourself with air conditioning, like in Luhansk ...”.

Well, to what edge of meanness do you have to reach in order to shout about the observance of the Minsk agreements, and violate these very agreements, firing today from everything that survived yesterday on the rebellious republics?

To this, we will remind them, who do not believe in any god, except for the golden calf, the verse of the great Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov:

But eat And God's court, confidants depravity!

There is a formidable judgment: it waits;

He is not available to the sound of gold,

He knows both thoughts and deeds in advance.

After all, in fact, this sickeningly sugary performance with the “peace march” in Kiev did not deceive anyone: normal sane people (and they are always in the majority) understood that Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and Turchinov outraged the truth and the memory of the Donbass people who died near Volnovakha. Those who gave the order to unleash terror against the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics shed crocodile tears over the graves of people killed by their own efforts!

One of the remaining adequate in the perception of what is happening in Ukraine and in the Donbass of Kiev made a wonderful entry in his blog on this subject: “Poroshenko with a piece of paper “I am Volnovakha”, this is the same as Truman with a piece of paper “I am Hiroshima” . I don't think you can say it better!

Oleg Izmailov
Journalist, historian, Donetsk

One of the most interesting riddles Russian literature: what happened to Lermontov in 1837, why did he change his writing style so drastically? In short: how did he become a genius from a temperamental graphomaniac?
My main contender for the role of midwife is Belinsky. Most likely, it was between them that a very tough conversation took place. And the "young genius" (in 1837 the poet was 23 years old) had a very high quality face on the table.
Here is from an article of 1841 "Poems of M. Lermontov":
"If by the word "inspiration" I mean moral intoxication, as if from the intake of opium or the action of wine hops, the frenzy of feelings, the fever of passion, which compel the uncalled poet to depict objects in some kind of crazy whirling, to express themselves in wild, strained phrases, unnatural turns of speech , to attach a violent meaning to ordinary words - then how will you enlighten me that "inspiration" is a state of spiritual clairvoyance, a meek but deep contemplation of the mystery of life, that it, as if with a magic wand, evokes bright images full of life from the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthought inaccessible to the senses and deep meaning, and the reality surrounding us, often gloomy and discordant, is enlightened and harmonious? .. "
Doesn't it look like it? "frenzy of feelings", "fever of passion", "crazy whirling", "stretched phrases", "unnatural turns of speech" - all one in one characterizes the young "other Byron", and "spiritual clairvoyance", "mild but deep contemplation of the mystery of life "- this is he, but after February 37th.
But the trouble is, by 1837 one single poem by Lermontov, "On the Death of a Poet", was widely known. The trouble is not that it was rather this poem, “holy” for Lermontov, in which “he put his whole soul”, “all his anger” and, in general, “all of himself” was smeared on the wall by the frantic Vissarion. The trouble is that this last experience of graphomania has been forced to be memorized at school for almost a century, completely spoiling the children's taste.
Among the signs of graphomania not mentioned by Belinsky, there is one more: a lie. The "poet" lies in his creation, describing something. He writes not as it was, but as prettier.

Reread? -

The poet died! - slave of honor -
Pal...
It's true.

With lead in my chest...
It is not true. Pushkin was wounded in the stomach.

And a thirst for revenge
It is not true. Before his death, Pushkin forgave Dantes. He especially asked Princess E.A. Dolgorukov to go to the Dantes and tell them that he forgives them.

Hanging your proud head!
The metaphor must be correct in both directions (and so that it looks like, and so that the metaphristic meaning does not contradict the direct one), otherwise there is what is called the dog effect in poetry.ru: a dog can squeal - and this is creepy, you can squeal in an inhuman voice - and this too creepy, but a dog cannot squeal in an inhuman voice - because it's funny.
And to die, "drooping his head" ... Pushkin was dying in bed - I can't imagine how, lying down, you can "droop". Is it possible to die without lying down?
And in this phrase there is a contradiction: either die proudly, or bow your head. Or ... go to a duel - proudly, and after the duel - break down and "droop". As far as I understand, there was neither one, nor the other, nor the third: Pushkin did not die "proudly": he asked the tsar for his family, and there was no self-abasement. The poet simply accepted death.

The soul of the poet could not bear
The shame of petty insults,
It is not true. The grievances were far from petty.

He rebelled against the opinions of the world
It is not true. His duel was not - a challenge to the world.
On the one hand, the tsar was wholly and completely on the side of Pushkin. After the first call, he even took a promise from him that there would be no more duels, that in which case he would be contacted. Yes, and all of Pushkin's entourage, as best they could, tried to keep him from a duel.
On the other hand, the fatal letter to Gekkern became ... Pushkin succumbed to provocation, he played by the rules of the world. By the rules, not against them.

One...
It is not true. During the duel, Pushkin had a wife and children. There were friends who were ready to help him, even if it threatened their personal well-being - the same Danzas was tried after a duel for participating in it as a second. And there were love adventures, too, Pushkin did not abandon them after his marriage either.

Alone as before...
This is all the more untrue. In my opinion, Pushkin's lyrics do not even contain motives of loneliness. Like very few of the poets. Faithful friends, cheerful girlfriends, romantic lovers ... "the hiss of foamy glasses and blue flame punch." He doesn't even seem to know what loneliness is.

Killed! .. Why sob now,
Empty praise unnecessary choir
And the pathetic babble of excuses?
Fate's verdict has come true!
Contradiction. Sarcasm about the "babble of justification" is disavowed by the last line - if the verdict of fate has come true, then there is no one to justify and there is nothing to justify.

Didn't you at first so viciously persecuted
His free, bold gift
Not true. Pushkin is one of the most successful poets in our history. At the age of 17 he was noticed by the old man Derzhavin. Then he received the first fee (gold watch) from the future empress. Further, adult teachers recognized their favorite student as the winner, then he was the first in our history to become a professional. That is, he tried to live by literary work, poetry. He did not succeed very well, but in his time no one else tried ... Fame, recognition, success - it's all about him.

And for fun inflated
Slightly hidden fire?
Also not true. Neither those who "wept" nor those who "praised in chorus" - did not fan the slightly lurking fire. Intrigues around his family were weaved by only a few villains who did not admit to that. The rest - the tsar, Zhukovsky, friends, former lovers - did their best to put out this fire. In outright enemies, only Poletika appeared. Even Dantes, even years later, tried to explain himself, tried to justify himself that he didn’t want that he was aiming at his legs ...

Well? have fun... He's tormented
I couldn't bear the last
This is an unnatural turn of speech.

Withered solemn wreath
Interestingly, in the time of Lermontov - it sounded the same cliché as it does today? That's exactly what it sounded like. Already.

His killer in cold blood
Got hit...
This is not true: Dantes did not strike - he fired offhand:
"Lieutenant Colonel Danzas waved his hat, and Pushkin, quickly approaching the barrier, took aim to shoot for sure. But Dantes fired earlier, not reaching the barrier" (
Empty heart beats evenly
The pistol did not waver in his hand.
But Pushkin also went to a duel - not to shoot in the air. He went to kill. Dantes wanted to shoot into the air, but when he saw Pushkin's eyes, he shot at the enemy. And Pushkin himself - the gun did not flinch. Even mortally wounded, he hit Dantes. What saved him - a button or chain mail, is another question.

And what a marvel? ... from afar,
Like hundreds of fugitives
To catch happiness and ranks
Abandoned to us by the will of fate;
Again, the same contradiction: either - he dragged himself to catch the ranks, or - he was dragged by the will of fate.

Laughing, he defiantly despised
Land foreign language and customs;
Dantes behaved according to the same rules by which all of Europe lived at that time ... Re-read "Dangerous Liaisons" by Choderlos de Laclos, and then once again the story of this damned duel ... Dantes lived by the rules, according to which in his younger years it was fun Cricket himself spent his time. Yes, this whole story: Pushkin - his wife - Dantes, looks like a distorted mirror, like a karmic reflection of another "romantic" story: Pushkin - Vorontsova - her husband. An old husband, a beautiful wife, and a young, devilishly charming rogue abandoned to them by unknown winds.

He could not spare our glory;
I could not understand at this bloody moment,
What did he raise his hand to?
We know more than Lermontov... And it didn't help him... Martynov was Russian.

And he's killed...
It's true

And taken by the grave
What is this expression supposed to mean? what is buried?

Like that singer...
How Lensky was buried, we do not know, this is not described.

Unknown but cute
The prey of jealousy is deaf,
It is not true. "Deaf" jealousy is jealousy of a woman, to whom you have no right to express jealousy, this is an old jealousy ... But what about Lensky?

"... The poet is waiting for the end of the mazurka
And calls her to the cotillion.

But she can't. It is forbidden? But what?
Yes, Olga has already given her word
Onegin. Oh god, god!
What does he hear? She could...
Is it possible? A little from diapers
Coquette, windy child!
She knows the trick
Already learned to change!
Lenskaya is unable to bear the blow;
Cursing women's pranks,
Goes out, requires a horse
And he jumps. A pair of pistols
Two bullets - nothing more -
Suddenly, his fate will be decided"

Pay attention to the line "Women's cursing pranks" - why is there "deaf"?

Sung by him with such wondrous power,
It's true.

Struck, like him, by a ruthless hand.
It is not true. He could re-read "Eugene Onegin".

Enemies! How long apart
Was their bloodlust taken away?
How long have they been hours of leisure,
Meal, thoughts and deeds
Shared together? Now it's wicked
Like hereditary enemies,
As in a terrible, incomprehensible dream,
They are each other in silence
Prepare for death in cold blood...
Do not laugh at them until
Their hand did not turn red,
Do not part amicably? ..
But wildly secular feud
Fear of false shame
...
In anguish of heart remorse,
hand holding a pistol,
Yevgeny looks at Lensky.
"Well, what? Killed," the neighbor decided.
Killed!.. With a terrible exclamation
Struck, Onegin with a shudder
He leaves and calls people.
And where is the "ruthless hand" here?

Why from peaceful bliss and simple-hearted friendship
He entered this light envious and stifling

This is also not about Pushkin. Or is "peaceful bliss" a euphemism for two Don Juan lists of Alexander Sergeevich? And "simple friendship"? Does this definition fit the visit of the brilliant future Minister of Foreign Affairs Gorchakov to the disgraced supervised poet? Or the poet's answer to the tsar to the question: "Pushkin, would you take part in December 14 if you were in St. Petersburg?" - "Certainly, sir, all my friends were in a conspiracy, and I could not help participating in it."

Why did he give his hand to the insignificant slanderers,
Why did he believe the words and caresses false,
He, who from a young age comprehended people? ..
And removing the former wreath - they are the crown of thorns,
Wreathed in laurels, they put on him:
But secret needles are harsh
They wounded a glorious brow;
I keep thinking, what is so "impermissible" found in the poem "The poet died ..." the king? (This is about the case "On the impermissible verses written by the cornet of the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment Lermontov and on the distribution thereof by the provincial secretary Raevsky"). Did only the last 16 lines infuriate Nikolai? Or they finally explained to His Majesty that a crown entwined with laurels - a crown, to put it simply - can only be welcomed by a crowned ...

Poisoned his last moments
Insidious whisper of mocking ignoramuses
How were these lines supposed to be perceived by those who spent his last moments with Pushkin, whose whisper he could hear - Dal, Zhukovsky, Pletnev?

I will not rewrite the final sixteen lines of the poem. Confidants of debauchery, executioners of Freedom, greedy crowd, black blood, slave heel... - stamps, stamps, stamps
(Yes, and there it’s a lie. “You lurk under the shadow of the law ...” - The law didn’t hide them under its “shadow”: Dantes was tried and expelled, it was impossible to judge Gekkern - they simply expelled, scandalously, without a farewell audience. The rest of the perpetrators of the duel and are now unknown).
I repeat Belinsky:
"If by the word "inspiration" I mean moral intoxication, as if from the intake of opium or the action of wine hops, the frenzy of feelings, the fever of passion, which compel the uncalled poet to depict objects in some kind of crazy whirling, to express themselves in wild, strained phrases, unnatural turns of speech , to give ordinary words a violent meaning, then how will you enlighten me ... "
And now I will quote the well-known lines of the memoirist:
“Stolypin convinced him that it was impossible to judge the foreigner Dantes according to Russian laws, he was a representative of the diplomatic corps.
Lermontov became more and more inflamed and, finally, shouted: "If there is no earthly court over him, then there is the court of God!" These words became the leitmotif of the final 16 lines of the poem "The Death of a Poet". Calling Stolypin an enemy of Pushkin, Lermontov grabbed a sheet of paper and, breaking one pencil after another, began to write. Fifteen minutes later, the famous lines were ready: "And you, arrogant descendants ..." ""

In conclusion, let me remind you of 2 editions of one poem - an early one and an alteration, an edit made AFTER February 1837:

1.
I do not love you; passions
And the old dream rushed off the torment;
But your image in my soul
Everything is alive, although he is powerless;
Others indulging in dreams
I couldn't forget him;


1831

2.
We parted, but your portrait
I keep on my chest:
Like a pale ghost best years,
He pleases my soul.

And, devoted to new passions,
I couldn't stop loving him.
So the temple left - all the temple,
Idol defeated - everything is God!
1837

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P.S.
During the discussion of the article, two specific arguments against were put forward:

1. Lermontov could not know what, thanks to almost two centuries of Pushkin studies, we know;
2. This poem... "Death of a Poet" is not about Pushkin. This poem is about a certain generalized poet - about a symbol.

I will answer.
1. Yes, Lermontov might not have known in detail about Pushkin’s conversation with Nicholas I (or he might have known: he was friends with Natalie’s brother Ivan Goncharov, who knew for sure about the audience at the Anichkov Palace in November 1836), could not know about the “justifications "Dantes - did not live, but he could know everything else for sure.
Pushkin said to himself: "I am a public person." Today, a similar term means - to live under the eternal supervision of paparazzi and television cameras, then it meant - eternal gossip and rumors. Upper light is a very narrow circle. Everyone knew about everyone, knew everything. And Lermontov, moreover, served in the Life Guards, and some of his colleagues were part of Pushkin's circle.
Just one example. I was blamed that Lermontov could not know about the nature of Pushkin's injury. So here it is:

"ARENDT Nikolai Fedorovich (1785--1859), surgeon, life physician of Nicholas I. He treated Lermontov in 1832, when a horse hit him in the arena of the Junker School right leg, breaking it to the bone, and he lay in the infirmary, and then in the house of E. A. Arsenyeva. In 1837, he supervised the treatment of the wounded A. S. Pushkin and was an intermediary between him and Nicholas I. At the end of January, he was with the ill Lermontov, told him the details of the duel and Pushkin's death.
Fundamental Electronic Library "RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE"

Lermontov knew that Pushkin had been wounded in the stomach. But "with lead in the chest" is prettier.

2. That in the poem "The poet died", the poet is not Pushkin, in my opinion, I proved. Who? Symbol? Symbol of what? What poet's symbol? Let's reread Lensky:

"... What is the coming day preparing for me?
My gaze catches him in vain,
He lurks in deep darkness.
No need; the law of fate.
Will I fall, pierced by an arrow,
Or she will fly by,
All goodness: wakefulness and sleep
The hour is coming,
Blessed is the day of worries,
Blessed is the arrival of darkness!
XXII.
"The ray of morning light will shine in the morning
And the bright day will play;
And I - maybe I am the tomb
I will descend into the mysterious canopy,
And the memory of the young poet
Swallow the slow Summer..."

Will I fall pierced by an arrow, / bowing my proud head ...
... And I - perhaps I am a tomb / I will descend into a mysterious canopy,
... Well, have fun, he could not endure the torment / the last ...

Everything is the same - both the vocabulary and the construction of phrases. But Pushkin himself concluded this "elegy" with a caustic quatrain:

So he wrote dark and sluggish
(What we call romanticism,
Although there is not enough romance
I don't see; what's in it for us?)

No, Lermontov did not write about the death of Pushkin, as about the death of Lensky. He, according to the habit of all "romantics", put an invented himself in the place of a living hero. And there are no generalizations, no symbols - there is a "Muscovite in Harold's cloak ..." who has "a full lexicon of fashionable words."

Faded like a beacon, marvelous genius,
Withered solemn wreath

These two metaphors do not develop each other and are not related to each other, they are just two buzzwords standing side by side.

And about the last 16 lines.

"You, a greedy crowd standing at the throne,


Before you is the court and the truth - everything is silent! .. "

Just think about what kind of Russian court you could say that? Greedy crowd standing at the throne?
Under Ivan III - no. They were building a state, they were erecting a cowardly tsar-father to break with the Horde with all the "community".
Under Grozny? Unless it was his early youth, and then - that's why he is Terrible.
In times of trouble? So then there was no throne.
During the quietest times? I don’t know ... Russia was then restored piece by piece to the "greedy crowd" then there was not much to snatch.
With Peter? Well, there was no need to surround yourself with upstarts. But they not only made fortunes for themselves, they also went to the forefront of the attacks of Narva, and raised regiments against the Swedes in an attack.
Under Elizabeth-Catherine? Remember Famusov's famous monologue: "that's why we are all proud" and the remembrance of the "fathers"? And who did Great Russia, defeated the Turks and Friedrichs? This is how these "nobles in the case" got the titles of the most serene - together with Königsberg, together with the Crimea.
With Alexander? With Nicholas himself? Well no...
Only a short period of interregnum comes to mind - various German Annas Ioanovnas ...
And the Executioners of Glory at the throne crowded only in Soviet times when there was only one verdict from the marshal to execution, when Mandelstam was dying at the camp fire, Tsvetaeva hanged herself from hopelessness, Mayakovsky shot himself, Yesenin wrote with blood on the wall ...
But Lermontov really could not know about them. In general, these lines are nothing about anything. Compare them at least with Pushkin's "My Genealogy":

My grandfather did not sell pancakes,
Didn't wax the king's boots,
I did not sing with the court deacons,
I didn’t jump from Ukrainians to princes,
And he was not a runaway soldier
Austrian powder squads;
So should I be an aristocrat?
I am, thank God, a tradesman.
No abstract "deputies of debauchery", no "slave heels trampling on the rubble" - specific indications of specific surnames.

My grandfather when the rebellion rose
In the middle of the Peterhof courtyard,
Like Minich, he remained faithful
The fall of the third Peter.
They fell in honor of the Orlovs then,
And my grandfather is in the fortress, in quarantine.
And subdued our stern race,
And I was born a tradesman.

Not without reason, to learn the last tangled sixteen lines of a famous poem is a death torment for students. What to me in my time, what is now to my son.
I repeat once again: there are no symbols here, there are boyish ideas copied from the Byrons about the "persecuted poet." And there is a poem written in the "romantic" style ridiculed by Pushkin.
Reality was far from romantic:
- these are debts of 120,000 rubles (including - and almost half! - card debts) with Pushkin's annual income of 40,000;
- this is a beautiful wife who needs to be beautifully dressed and put on shoes;
- these are children who need to be fed now and arranged in life later;
- this is that he outgrew his readers, who still expected "romance" from him in the style of "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", and he wrote "Count Nulin";
- this is the royal "attention" to Natalie, which the whole "society" considered natural and non-negotiable, which after a few years will be easily accepted by Lansky, but Pushkin is a free Pushkin, and not a disciplined retired officer.
And all this is not a childish "shame of petty insults", but very adult problems. Not without reason, there is a hypothesis that this duel was for Pushkin a well-thought-out legalized suicide.
No wonder there is a hypothesis that the notorious "Patent for the title of cuckold" was written by Pushkin himself in order for the duel to take place! So that Nicholas I was forced to send the poet into exile! To get away from Peter, from balls, kings - "to the village, to the wilderness, to Saratov." That is, in Mikhailovskoye.
But 120,000 debts is not poetic! And instead of a real drama, Lermontov wrote ... wrote an operetta: "his killer in cold blood struck, there is no escape." Well, not an operetta - an opera. Also a popular genre.
And the grateful public smashed his creation in "tens of thousands of scrolls."

I’ll answer right away: yes, Lermontov could not have known that Pushkin had exactly 120 thousand debts, but he could not help but know that the poet was in debt, like in silks ... like in his Natalie’s silks.
2009
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This poem would not be taught by heart at school, but studied in the first year of literary faculties, on the subject of how poetry should not be written. With a competition, who will find the most errors in it.
I. And as an introduction, invite the gentlemen of the students to present the following picture: in 1930, the day after the death of Vladimir Mayakovsky, poems by an unknown poet are distributed in Moscow:

Don't tell me "he's dead" - he's alive
Let the altar be broken, the fire still burns.
Let the rose be plucked - it still blooms,
The path of the harp is broken - the chord is still crying! ..
(Nadson "On the Death of a Poet")

Poems scatter in thousands of lists, they talk about poetry everywhere, and there are rumors that even in the Kremlin they paid attention to the young poet.
And having decorated the picture with all these colors, ask the question: what would Vladim Vladimych's friends say to this poet, meeting with him?
“Well, maybe they wouldn’t have stuffed his face…” the future writer would begin to answer, even if he knew a little about the bawler-leader and his futurist friends.
"- Why so severely?"
"- Therefore, from such verses, he would have turned over in his grave!"
And it is true. Because "... the revolution threw into the street the clumsy dialect of millions, the jargon of the outskirts poured through the central avenues; the relaxed tongue of the intelligentsia with its emasculated words: "ideal", "principles of justice", "divine principle", "transcendental face of Christ and Antichrist" - all these whispered speeches in restaurants are crumpled. This is the new element of language. How to make it poetic? The old rules with "dreams, roses" and Alexandrian verse do not work. How to introduce colloquial language into poetry and how to derive poetry from these conversations?..." (Mayakovsky "How to make poetry")
And to make a name for yourself on Mayakovsky precisely with Alexandrian verse and precisely with "roses-harps"! ... For this, indeed, one could be in the face ...

And here Pushkin and Lermontov's "Death of a Poet"? Yes, ask any graduate preparing for the exam, what is Pushkin's literary path, and the boy, without hesitation, will report: from romanticism to realism.
Pushkin laid down his life to write "simply, briefly and clearly." His first poems were sharply divided into those with which he indulged his fellow peers - frivolities written in simple words, and those with which he would like to become famous, that is, put up for sale - all sorts of "Ode to Liberty" there. I will give an excerpt from it, because, although we also taught this Pushkin ode, it is also impossible to remember it:

"Alas! wherever I look -
Everywhere scourges, glands everywhere,
Laws disastrous shame,
Bondage weak tears;
Unrighteous Power Everywhere
In the condensed haze of prejudice
Sat down - Slavery formidable Genius
And Glory's fatal passion"

And How? doesn't remind you of anything? This is very different from:

You, a greedy crowd standing at the throne,
Freedom, Genius and Glory executioners!
You hide under the shadow of the law,
Before you is the court and the truth - everything is silent! ..

But Pushkin was then 18 years old ...
And at the age of 23, at the age of Lermontov, 37, among the "serious" poems of Pushkin, there are already such:

F a u s t
What is white there? speak.

M e f i s t o f e l
Spanish three-masted ship,
Land in Holland ready:
There are hundreds of bastards on it,
Two monkeys, barrels of gold,
Yes, a load rich in chocolate,
Yes, a fashionable disease: it
Recently given to you.

F a u s t
Drown everything.

M e f i s t o f e l
Now.
(Disappears.)

That is, "simple, short and clear." And not romantic.
And among the last poems, poems of the last year - the famous
"From Pindemonti":

I do not grumble about the fact that the gods refused
I'm in the sweet lot of challenging taxes
Or prevent the kings from fighting with each other;

Another, better, I need freedom:
Depend on the king, depend on the people -
Don't we all care? God is with them. Nobody
Do not give a report, only to yourself
Serve and please, for power, for livery
Do not bend either conscience, or thoughts, or neck ...
Find here at least one exclamatory look, at least one shabby metaphor like "withered wreath", at least one pitiful cry: "there is no salvation!"
But millions of children commemorate Pushkin every year with the "shame of petty insults" ... Poor Alexander Sergeevich ....

In general, one cannot turn to the futurist Mayakovsky with verses of the sublime Romance style, because it was with this style that he struggled all his life. Poems to Anna Akhmatova should not be written with a ladder, because after the creator of the ladder "cleaned Akhmatova out of poetry for three years," she was not printed for almost twenty years. And it was not worth writing "dull-romantic" lines about Pushkin, because it looks ... if not a mockery, then a revenge.
Here is Lermontov:

Faded like a beacon, marvelous genius,
Withered solemn wreath.

But Pushkin:

And his song was clear
Like the thoughts of a simple-hearted maiden,
Like a baby's dream, like the moon...

That Lermontov's light has nothing to do with a wreath, that Pushkin's is impossible to fit the thoughts of a blonde, a baby's dream and the moon into one frame. And here is how Bakhtin commented on this passage (Bakhtin M. From the history of the novel word "):
“In the four lines cited above, the song of Lensky himself sounds, his voice, his poetic style, but they are permeated here with the author’s parodic-ironic accents; therefore, they are not separated from the author’s speech either compositionally or grammatically. Before us is really the image of Lensky’s song, but not poetic in the narrow sense, but a typically novelistic image: it is an image of a foreign language, in this case an image of a foreign poetic style (sentimental-romantic).The poetic metaphors of these lines ("like a baby's dream, like the moon", etc.) are here the primary means of representation (what they would be in a direct, serious song by Lensky himself); they themselves become here the subject of an image, namely, a parodic-stylizing image. This novel image of someone else's style (with direct metaphors included in it) in the system of direct authorial speech (which we postulate) is taken in intonational quotation marks, namely, parodic-ironic ones ... The author himself is almost completely outside the language of Lensky (only his o parodic-ironic accents penetrate this "foreign language").
And in the same language - in a foreign language for Pushkin, almost a parody language for Pushkin - all this memorial poem was written.

II. If you are going to write about a person, then you should at least know a little about him. At least a little... Otherwise (see the first part of the article) of the entire poem, the only true fact fits in two words: "The poet died ...". The rest - and Pushkin is not Pushkin, and Lensky is not Lensky, and Eugene is not Onegin.

III. And one should not at all ascribe to an adult genius one's boyish feelings.

IV. And you have to work on the lyrics. That is, in fifteen minutes, having written sixteen lines, (and in two or three hours - the previous fifty-six), then - with a cooled mind! - you have to read everything. And first - place commas, then - correct spelling errors, then stylistic ones, then the rest - general literary ones. However, the sequence can be any.

Let's read it again:

Pal...
Great start. Beautiful sound and...
"a slave of honor" is a hidden quote from Pushkin's poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus":

But the Russian is indifferently mature
These bloody games.
He loved before the game of glory
And burning with a thirst for death.
Slave of merciless honor,
He saw his end up close,
In fights, hard, cold,
Encountering fatal lead.

As you can see, here is a link to another duel described by Pushkin. In which, by the way, Pushkin gave his standard of behavior in a duel: not to moan: "There is no salvation!" In a duel with Dantes, our great poet so it was.
That is, at the beginning of the poem, Lermontov laid out an extremely accurate image.
But.
The system of images of the work must also be consistent. And if the image of the "slave" at the beginning of the poem bears a reflection of a high essence, then it must remain so until the end, otherwise a comic effect arises.
(As in the joke:
- Well, you are an oak, Vasily Ivanovich!
- Yes, Petka, I am powerful.)

And now we will bring the 1st line closer to the 59th:

The poet is dead! -- slave of honor --
... Fifth slave corrected the wreckage ...
So what about the slave's heel? Not a slave?

With metaphors in this poem - just a disaster.
Metaphor, most often, adds multimedia to the text: it adds visual to the sound range. Every time the word "how" sounds, the reader is invited "in the eyes of his soul" to see the image that stands behind this phrase.
For example:

"Love, hope, quiet glory
The deceit did not live long for us,
Gone are the funs of youth
Like a dream, like a morning mist...
Pushkin

Here, the semantic series is complemented by a visual one: the young man wakes up and the morning fog around him dissipates. And remember how the poem ends?
"Russia will wake up from sleep!"
The metaphorical series is one. We have a romantic but harmonious work.

And now Lermontov:

And for fun inflated
Slightly lingering fire...

Faded like a beacon, marvelous genius,

And now you can guess: does a bad fire that has flared up have anything to do with a good dying light.
And at the same time, to tell fortunes: is it so bad to fan the fire if:

This light is envious and stuffy
For a free heart and fiery passions?

Or is fire bad and flame good? A fiery passion for someone else's wife - for Vorontsova - is it good, but is the fire of jealousy for your own - for Natalie - bad?

Withered solemn wreath ...

Presented the poet as a withered solemn wreath? Now read on:

And removing the former wreath - they are the crown of thorns,
Wreathed in laurels, they put on him ...

Well, what can you imagine here ... How is another wreath removed from one and the third one is put on? And what did Lermontov represent? Most likely nothing. He simply inserted with pleasure another fashionable phrase into the poem - from that same "complete lexicon" that is obligatory for a "Muscovite in Harold's cloak."

Yet:
The singer's shelter is gloomy and cramped,

Have you imagined a gloomy cramped coffin? And what about the lying Pushkin, nickels in front of his eyes? Now read on:

And on the lips of his seal.

This is called the reification of a metaphor: the "seal" loses all its metaphorical quality, it becomes as material as nickels. But nickels, by virtue of their commonness, are at least not funny.

But these are not all the requirements for metaphors... The visual series must somehow correlate with the semantic series. As in the above quoted from Pushkin: captivity - sleep, fog, freedom - dawn.
Or like Mayakovsky's famous metaphor:

Your body
I will cherish and love
like a soldier
shattered by war
unnecessary,
nobody's
saves his only leg.

Why disabled? Because the poet is crippled by love.

Why is Pushkin Lermontov a beacon? Because it's a buzzword. The word used by everyone is a stamp. Let's prove that - stamp:
Here is by no means a brilliant poet Kuchelbecker:

What anguish and anguish I felt,
What grief in this blessed hour?
Did you remember parting with someone you love,
Whose light of life has gone out for the time being?

And here is not a poet at all, but simply a secular lady Daria Fedorovna Fikelmon (from the diaries):
"1837. January 29. Today Russia has lost its dear, dearly beloved poet Pushkin, this wonderful talent, full of creative spirit and strength! And what a sad and painful catastrophe made this beautiful, shining light, which seemed to be destined more and more illuminate everything that surrounded him, and which, it seemed, had in front of him another long years!"
A stamp is a stamp. "In the morning in the newspaper - in the evening in the verse."

Let's go to the line:

But there is also God's judgment, the confidants of debauchery!

This line kills the poem.
Firstly, because Pushkin was not a model of Puritan virtue either. Pushkin's handwritten Don Juan list contains about forty names. At one time, the still young poet received a complaint to the police from the owner of a fashionable brothel in St. Petersburg, as "an immoral person who corrupts her sheep."). I repeat: it was not the head teacher of some boarding school for noble maidens who complained, but the owner of a brothel. Of course, Lermontov hardly knew about this denunciation, but, for example, about Pushkin's novel - after his marriage! - with Countess Dolly Ficquelmont, gossip walked widely.
Secondly, and most importantly: the expression "God's judgment" ...

In the 19th century they knew about this term. Not to mention other things, the novel "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott was published in 1819 and by the year 37 had long reached Russia ("In the autumn of 1963, the collection of Pushkin's autographs stored in the Pushkin House was replenished with several unknown autographs of the poet. These are notes and drawings on book: Ivangoe, or Return from crusades. Written by Walter Scott. Part two. St. Petersburg (PD, N 1733 "Year of publication of the book (1826)...". http://feb-web.ru/feb/pushkin/serial/v66/v66-0052.htm).
The key scene in the novel is the judicial duel, "God's judgment". Duel. They were challenged to a duel not to avenge the insult, but for God to decide which of the two is right.
The result of this duel is known: Dantes fired offhand and mortally wounded Pushkin, Pushkin carefully aimed, did not even miss ... and Dantes remained unharmed ... In whose favor was "God's judgment" - the conclusion is obvious.
So, Lermontov, loudly shouting about a cold-blooded killer, and then he refutes himself, hinting that God's judgment has come true. According to the poem - "the verdict has come true", and Dantes was just an instrument of fate: "abandoned to us by the will of fate."
That is, in this Lermontov's metaphors were consistent.
And that's all about metaphors.

From Gorky's article "On Beginning Writers":
“Indicating to one writer, the author of a long novel, how an unnecessary and often funny third is formed from two words carelessly placed side by side, I reminded him of the saying: “The gut tells the gut the fig.” He published a conversation with me and repeated the saying in this form: "The gut seems to be a fig", not noticing that the last two words of the proverb are formed for the third time "gut-same", - a game of language, which makes the saying interesting in addition to its figurativeness. Such deafness is very common among young writers".
Let me quote the second line of the poem:

With lead in my chest and a thirst for revenge...

I already wrote about the thirst for revenge, which was not there at the time of death, but here pay attention to the first half of this line.
The novice poet Lermontov (at that time, as a poet, he was unknown) also did not hear: "With wine in his chest ..."

Stylistic mistakes.

"I could not understand at this bloody moment, / Why? He raised his hand! / And he was killed ..." - so who was killed?

"... arrogant descendants / Known meanness of the famous fathers" - the descendants of the fathers? These are children, right? They don’t write “he walked with his feet”, because, how could it be otherwise? They write simply: he walked. And they write - the descendants of people, and not the descendants of fathers, grandfathers or great-grandmothers, because if a great-grandmother is mentioned, then only one of her descendants is meant - her beloved great-granddaughter. Although I'm wrong: a great-grandson may be unloved. And not just one...

So...
Why is this poem "sold in tens of thousands of scrolls"? (Let me remind you, for comparison, the circulation of the first edition of Ruslan and Lyudmila, according to researchers, is no more than one thousand copies. (See NIK. SMIRNOV-SOKOLSKY "Stories about Pushkin's lifetime editions" http://feb-web.ru/feb/pushkin /biblio/smi/smi-001-.htm) Because instead of a lump of life - dirty and rude, she was offered a sweet legend - about a suffering poet, hunted down by the then oligarchs.
Why don't I want children to learn this fairy tale? Because she was molded painfully hastily and clumsily.
And how did Pushkin work on poetry? Find any page of his drafts on the Internet and see for yourself

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