The image of St. Petersburg in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" of Pushkin

Petersburg is an amazing city, which left a big mark in Russian history. He varied and incredibly greatly influenced our life, our society! And, of course, the image of St. Petersburg inspired many Russian writers and poets. Geniuses such as Gabriel Derzhavin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lomonosov, Konstantin Batyushkov, Mikhail Lermontov, often used the theme of Petersburg in their works, but the completed and holistic image of the city was created by none other than Alexander Pushkin. He gave Petersburg the power of independent existence, described the spiritual beginning of a city that lives its own life, then calm and quiet, then full of misery and suffering. The magnificent creation of Peter the Great exists beautifully and formidably on the bones and marsh, according to its laws, and no one is able to fight with its mighty elements.

Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman". The image of Petersburg

The poem begins with the history of the city's formation. Previously, in its place reigned water and wind, but it was here that Peter the First decided to lay a new capital. Petersburg rises "magnificently, proudly," to spite nature itself. And now, it seems, there is not even a small reminder of the chaos that once reigned here: "bridges hung over the waters", "the Neva was dressed in granite". The image of St. Petersburg in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" demonstrates the triumph of man over natural forces, but deceptively this impression: the city during the flood is more an accomplice of the elements than a winner.

Riot of water

Personified in the image of the Neva, water first appears before the reader as a conquered element: "Neva was tossing about like a sick woman." Then the author depicts it in the image of the beast, which crushes and sweeps everything in its path. Destructions after the flood are similar to the consequences of a "senseless and ruthless" riot. That's the fate of people fall into dependence on the elements. She takes away with the blind illegibility of the most precious person from Eugene, the hero of the poem The Bronze Horseman. The image of Petersburg now seems to him merciless, disastrous. Life Eugene loses all meaning, he can not cope with the misfortune and goes mad. In the person of this hero, fatal doom and the pattern of destinies and other "little people" are reflected, whose existence depends entirely on the geopolitical aspirations of the authorities and the tsar. When Peter the First decided to found a new capital, he thought in general about the people and the state, but not about every concrete person.

Thus, the image of St. Petersburg in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" reveals one of the components - "a small man", humiliated and dependent.

Peter the Great

The theme of the city is inextricably linked with its creator. In the introduction Alexander Pushkin does not name the king, but uses the pronoun "he": "On the shore of the desert waves he stood, the thoughts of great great ..." St. Petersburg was built by the sole will of Peter by the work of many nameless workers. Therefore, the image of the king is present all the time in the pages of the poem "The Bronze Horseman." The description of St. Petersburg is closely intertwined with the figure of the ruler. Here he, cast from bronze, during the flood watches over the outrages of the Neva, even as if approving them: "It is worth with an outstretched hand the idol on a bronze horse". Even in the name of the monument, Pushkin purposely omits the name of the king and calls it "the brass rider", "then the powerful lord of destiny". Thus, the image of Peter the Great looms sinister, gloomy.

City of living statues

Pushkin used various legends associated with St. Petersburg to create the poem. For example, there was a myth that a ghost of Paul the First is wandering in Mikhailovsky Castle . Here and in the clouded brain of Eugene also there is a ghost of the king, but only Peter the Great. And the monument "The Bronze Horseman" in St. Petersburg is a seemingly animated statue and becomes the embodiment of the ruthless will and unlimited power of the sovereign. Tsar Peter appears as an unattainable and inconceivable deity, mighty and formidable, and Petersburg itself is a mysterious and mysterious city, destroying people and suppressing their will.

Duality of the image

At the same time, St. Petersburg in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" is revealed not only in an ominous, but also in a positive halo. It is a beautiful, majestic city, full of graceful forms, amazing splendor. It is full of graceful outlines: "the masses are slender palaces and towers," "rich piers," which seek "ships from all corners of the earth" ... Among all the unique features of Petersburg, one can not help noticing the amazing descriptions of Pushkin's white nights. For this, the author finds unique comparisons, uses perfected words: "Your pensive nights are a transparent gloom, a moonless shine ..." I must say that Pushkin's contemporaries were lucky, because at that time the architectural appearance of the city was much more perfect. You can only envy people who saw with their own eyes that beautiful and mysterious Petersburg, and even could recognize it in the verses that had just come out from the pen of Alexander Pushkin.

For us, the image of St. Petersburg, in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" described by the poet, drowned in the "old times", and only his creations are now the guide for the city of the times of Pushkin's life. Contemporaries Alexander Sergeevich claimed that he was much brighter than other writers, managed to recreate the appearance of an amazing city on the Neva. We can only agree with this.

The true life of the Northern capital

The image of St. Petersburg in the poem The Bronze Horseman is portrayed in a variety, both beautiful and terrifying. Pushkin reflected in her both the material and spiritual life of the city. In unsurpassed verses, St. Petersburg appears different, but the outlines, acquaintances and relatives of today's residents of the Northern capital are notable: the cast-iron fence of the river, the marvelous grille of the Summer Garden, the Admiralty Needle ... And always in the city description there is the Neva as something inseparable , As the heart of Petersburg.

Instead of concluding

The "Bronze Horseman" poem would not have been complete without the spiritual completion of the Northern Palmyra image, shown at different times of the day, of the year, in different parts of it: on the outskirts and in the center. The reader sees in the work an ambiguous Petersburg: rich and poor, raging and silent, menacing and beautiful. The poem reflects the difficulties of the birth of this city, the despotic nature of the ruler who created it, the slavery of the people.

In essence, St. Petersburg is a city on human bones. And all these features can not be clearly revealed by Pushkin in his brilliant work. Alexander Sergeyevich made a whole world out of Petersburg, and everyone who wanted to say his own word about this city should be reckoned with.