Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) greatly influenced the development of Russian literature, transforming the Russian language, freeing it from complex Latin constructions and Slavicisms, bringing it closer to living human speech.

Features of sentimentalism

The writer’s creativity cultivates feelings, calls for kindness and mercy. This is how a new direction in Russian literature was born - sentimentalism, which assigned the main role to the inner world of man.

Perhaps today the work “Poor Liza” seems somewhat distant from life, and the feelings of the characters seem unnatural. However, it should be remembered that Karamzin worked in And the work “Poor Liza,” written in 1792, served as a source of inspiration for subsequent Russian writers, being an excellent example of this genre. Sentimentalism is characterized by acute conflicts, often leading to the death of the hero, and “Poor Lisa” is no exception. The death of the girl shocks and makes many generations of readers empathize.

New name

In addition to a new genre, Karamzin gave our country a new name and made it popular. Translated, Elizabeth means “who worships God.” This was the name of the mother of the wife of the high priest Aaron. This name was practically not found among Russian writers until the 80s of the 18th century. It is worth noting that in European literature this name was often associated with the image of a maid, a servant, usually frivolous and flirtatious, and was used mainly in comedies. The image of Lisa in the story of the work (read below), however, does not follow this tradition. Breaking the usual framework of the meaning of the word, Karamzin also broke with classicism and its established definitions.

The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” played an important role in the development of Russian literature as a whole, so I would like to dwell on it in more detail. You will see that she was a strong character, not at all the way European authors are used to portraying her. We propose to consider the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” with quotes and a summary of the work.

Characters, plot

But first, let us indicate the other characters in the story and briefly describe its main events. In addition to the peasant woman Lisa, the main characters include: her mother, Erast and the narrator. The plot of the work is generally not new: a man seduces a young girl and then abandons her. However, this story had its own characteristics. The author described a situation typical for Russia in the 18th century: a nobleman, a landowner, knowing his impunity and taking advantage of it, seduces a peasant woman, a young girl. What is striking about this story is that at that time, in this situation, society did not at all seek to condemn the landowner, and in any case the truth was on his side.

Already in the title one can guess the attitude of the author himself towards his heroine: he calls Lisa poor.

First meeting with the heroine

The story begins with a description of Moscow, where some events subsequently take place, and also in the vicinity of which the heroine was subsequently buried.

For the first time on the pages of the work, the author describes Lisa to us through the eyes of the narrator. When talking about her, he uses many epithets (“dear,” “beautiful,” etc.), so that the reader may even get the idea that the narrator loved Lisa. However, the ending of the story makes it clear that he simply feels sorry for her. It should be noted that in this story the narrator expresses the attitude of the author himself towards his heroine. Why does Karamzin love and feel sorry for Liza?

Lisa's past

Let's turn to the heroine's past and briefly describe the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa". This girl is a peasant by birth, lives in a poor hut with her old mother. When our heroine was 15 years old, her father, a “wealthy villager,” died, and after his death the family became poor and was forced to rent out the land for a very small fee. Due to poor health, her mother was unable to work, and Lisa had to work very hard to somehow feed herself and her mother. The girl was engaged in various crafts - she knitted stockings, weaved canvas, collected and sold flowers in Moscow in the spring, and berries in the summer. We don’t know Lisa personally yet, but we already understand that she is selfless, ready to make sacrifices for the sake of her loved ones, and hardworking.

Lisa's character

As the plot develops, the character of the main character, the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” by N. M. Karamzin, is revealed. Poor Lisa is a very attractive heroine. We understand that this is a pure and deep soul with a receptive and soft heart. Lisa was often sad about her father’s death, but she tried not to show it to her mother and tried to appear “calm and cheerful.” The girl is timid and shy by nature. When she first met Erast, she “showed him the flowers and blushed.”

This is the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa". The plan of this image is complemented by one more detail. It is necessary to note the honesty of the heroine. When Erast wanted to buy flowers from her and offered a ruble instead of five kopecks, she said that she didn’t want anything extra. Lisa is naive, sometimes to the extreme: she immediately tells a complete stranger where she lives.

Main character's speech

Analyzing this, we can say that the image of Liza in the story “Poor Liza” was not worked out carefully enough: her speech is sometimes not like that of a peasant woman, but like that of a girl from high society. It is clear that an uneducated simple girl simply could not express herself like that. Despite this, the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Liza” by Karamzin is considered the first image of a woman from the lower class in Russian literature. The depiction of a girl from the people in the 18th century was very progressive and atypical, especially as the heroine of a romance novel. Karamzin put a deep meaning into the image of Liza in the story “Poor Liza”: before God and love there are no classes, all people are equal, “and peasant women know how to love.”

Later, A.S. Pushkin, in his work “The Young Lady-Peasant Woman,” continued this theme, but it was Karamzin who first introduced it into literature.

A new attitude towards women

Another innovation of the writer was his attitude towards women. After all, in the 18th century she was considered lower than a man, she had no freedom. A woman could not love whoever she wanted; her parents were looking for a chosen one for her daughter. Of course, in such a situation it was rare to meet happy married couples. Those who tried to love against the will of their parents were disgraced in the eyes of society; such love was considered immoral. The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” by N. M. Karamzin clearly shows this. Later, the theme was developed by other writers, in particular Ostrovsky.

Lisa's crime was that she dared to fall in love contrary to public opinion. And Russian peasant women have always been able to love passionately, ardently and forever. Refusing to marry a rich peasant son from a neighboring village, Lisa devoted herself entirely to her lover.

Erast's betrayal

But Erast turned out to be a scoundrel, abandoning Lisa. The heroine only accidentally finds out about his betrayal. Having gone to Moscow to buy rose water, she accidentally runs into his carriage on the street. Lisa rushes towards her, but the carriage passes her and stops in the courtyard of a large house. The heroine runs up and hugs her lover, but he calmly announces that he is getting married (as it turns out later, he married a rich widow to improve his situation, since he lost almost all his money at cards during the campaign) and asks to leave him alone, trying pay off Lisa with money. And Karamzin does not justify his hero at all, but openly condemns him. Erast will be punished for his betrayal: he is destined to be unhappy for the rest of his life and blame himself for Lisa’s death. At the end of the work he dies.

Continuing to analyze the image of Lisa in Karamzin's story "Poor Liza", we must note one more important detail - she loved Erast, but at the same time did not forget about her mother, and it was caring for her that stopped Lisa from trying to go to war for her lover . Although the heroine was very worried about Erast, she was afraid that he would be killed in the war. After all, Lisa couldn’t even write messages to her lover, because she simply didn’t know how to do it.

The death of a poor girl

Lisa's suicide is a very important episode in revealing her character. After all, this girl seemed to be the embodiment of Christian virtues. How could such a pure soul decide to commit such a grave sin? The heroine decides to drown herself by throwing herself into the water. But one cannot blame Lisa - grief deprived her of her last strength, and the heroine simply could not stand it. Even before her death, she does not forget about her mother: going to the pond to drown herself, she gives a neighbor girl one hundred rubles with a request to give them to her mother and say that her daughter loved a man, and he cheated on her. Although the writer does not justify the heroine’s suicide, he still forgives Lisa. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin believes that, despite the severity of the crime, Lisa’s soul will go to heaven.

The meaning of the story

Many writers of the 19th century (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Tolstoy) drew inspiration from this image and created many bright female characters, as pure and selfless as the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa”.

In this story, the author touched upon important themes of the imperfection of the structure of society and the shortcomings of human nature. We cannot fix something on our own; we can only accept it as a fact, and it is pointless to condemn and reproach someone. There is no villain in the work, there is only a man belonging to a secular circle, acting in accordance with generally accepted opinions. Erast had a naturally kind heart, but the “artificial” upbringing and education he received spoiled his character. The writer sympathizes with him, since in this situation it is not the person who should be blamed, but the mores of the era and society under which the hero lived.

Immediately after its publication (in 1792), the work aroused great interest, which continued unabated for several decades. Even outright imitations appeared, for example, “Seduced Henrietta” by Svechinsky (1803), “Poor Masha” by Izmailov (1801).

The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa,” a summary of which you have just reviewed, was remembered by readers for a long time. And even now it is not forgotten, because humanistic ideas are always relevant.

Composition

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza” is rightfully considered the pinnacle of Russian prose of sentimentalism. Prose that puts the life of the heart and the manifestation of human feelings at the forefront.

Perhaps in our days, when life values ​​have been displaced, aggression, betrayal and murder are no longer seen, “Poor Liza” will seem to someone a naive work, far from the truth of life, the feelings of the characters implausible, and the whole story smacks of sweet, cloying a taste of excessive sentimentality. But “Poor Liza,” written by Karamzin in 1792, will forever remain the most important step, a milestone in the history of Russian literature. This story is an inexhaustible source of themes, ideas and images for all subsequent Russian authors.

In this essay I would like to dwell on the image of Lisa and the role that this image played for all of Russian literature.

There are several characters in the story: the peasant woman Lisa, her mother, the nobleman Erast and the narrator. The core of the plot is the love story between Erast and Lisa. There are many stories in literature in which a man seduces and then abandons a girl. But the peculiarity of the story of Lisa and Erast is that precisely this balance of power in Russia of the eighteenth century was the most common: a master, landowner, nobleman, taking advantage of his position, without a twinge of conscience, without punishment, and, most importantly, without condemnation of society, seduces a girl, which is below him in social status.

For the first time, Lisa's name appears in the title of the story. Already at this stage we can understand that it is the female image that will become the main one in the work. In addition, from the title we can grasp the author’s attitude towards Lisa: he calls her “poor”.

The second time we meet Lisa in the narrator’s memoirs: “what most often attracts me to the walls of the Si... new monastery is the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa.” Judging by the epithets that the narrator uses when talking about Lisa (“beautiful”, “gracious”), the reader may think that the narrator was a man in love with Lisa, and only after reading the story to the end do we understand that he simply feels sorry for the poor girl. In general, the narrator in the story is an exponent of the author’s attitude, and Karamzin loves his heroine. For what?

Liza is a peasant woman, she lives in a hut “with an old woman, her mother.” Lizin’s father, a “prosperous villager,” died, so “his wife and daughter became impoverished” and “were forced to rent out their land, and for very little money.” Her mother could not work, and “Lisa, who was fifteen years old after her father, was Liza alone, not sparing her tender youth, not sparing her rare beauty, she worked day and night - weaving canvas, knitting stockings, picking flowers in the spring, and in the summer I took the berries and sold them in Moscow.” We are not yet familiar with the heroine, but we already understand that she is hardworking and ready to make sacrifices for the sake of her loved ones.

Gradually, step by step, Karamzin reveals to us the deep and surprisingly pure soul of the main character. She has a very soft and sensitive heart: “often tender Lisa could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to reassure her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and appear calm and cheerful.” She is very shy and timid. At the first meeting with Erast, Lisa constantly blushes with embarrassment: “She showed him the flowers and blushed.”

The main character of the story is extremely honest. Her honesty towards other people is manifested in the episode with the purchase of flowers: when Erast offers Lisa a ruble instead of five kopecks, she replies that she “doesn’t need anything extra.” In addition, the heroine is ridiculously naive: she easily tells where her house is to the first person she meets that she likes.

When describing the main character, attention is drawn to her speech characteristics. It is on this basis that we can say that the image of Lisa as a representative of her class is not developed clearly enough. Her speech reveals her not as a peasant woman living by her own hard work, but rather as an airy young lady from high society. “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, and if he were now driving his flock past me; Oh! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd!” Where are you driving your flock? “And here green grass grows for your sheep, and here flowers grow red, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat.” But, despite this, it was the image of Lisa that became the first image of a woman from the people in Russian literature. In this, progressive for the 18th century, attempt to bring to the stage a heroine not usual for a love story - a young lady, namely a peasant woman, there is a deep meaning. Karamzin seems to destroy the boundaries between classes, pointing out that all people are equal before God and before love, “for even peasant women know how to love.”

Another innovation of Karamzin was the very interpretation of the female image. Let us remember that in the eighteenth century women did not have sufficient freedom. In particular, women did not have the freedom to love as they chose. The choice for the woman was made by her parents. It is easy to imagine that in this state of affairs, happy marriages in which spouses loved each other were unlikely to be a common occurrence. An attempt to love of your own free will, contrary to public opinion, was regarded as a crime against morality. This theme, proposed by Karamzin, will also be reflected in the works of later authors. In particular, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.

But in “Poor Lisa” the author allowed his heroine to fall in love. To love at the behest of your heart, of your own free will. To love passionately, passionately and forever. “When,” Lisa said to Erast, “when you tell me: “I love you, my friend!”, when you press me to your heart and look at me with your touching eyes, ah! Then it happens to me so good, so good that I forget myself, I forget everything except Erast. Wonderful? It’s wonderful, my friend, that without knowing you, I could live calmly and cheerfully! Now I don’t understand this, now I think that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your eyes the bright month is dark; without your voice the nightingale singing is boring; without your breath the breeze is unpleasant to me.”

The author allowed the heroine to love and does not condemn her for it. On the contrary, it is Erast who seems to the reader to be a scoundrel and a villain after he, having deceived, abandons Lisa. The author condemns his hero, who does not pass the test of the strongest feeling on earth - love. This technique of “testing by love” will become very important in the work of the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He will find his most complete embodiment in the novels “Fathers and Sons”, “Rudin”, “The Noble Nest”. In Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” the main character also had to pass the test of love.

Karamzin's hero, Erast, betrayed and killed love. For this he will be punished even after Lisa’s death. He will be unhappy “until the end of his life”: “Having learned about Lizina’s fate, he could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer.” At the end of the story we learn that Erast is dying: the narrator “met him a year before his death.”

Lisa not only passes the test of love. Her image in love is revealed in all its fullness and beauty. “As for Lisa, she, having completely surrendered to him, only lived and breathed for him, in everything, like a lamb, she obeyed his will and placed her happiness in his pleasure...”

In general, Lisa is endowed with almost all Christian virtues. Even in difficult times, in separation from her loved one, she discovers such wonderful qualities as respect for her parents and a willingness to sacrifice everything for her loved one. “What keeps me from flying after dear Erast? War is not scary for me; It's scary where my friend is not there. I want to live with him, I want to die with him, or I want to save his precious life with my death.” “She already wanted to run after Erast, but the thought; “I have a mother!” - stopped her."

One of the most important moments in revealing the image of Lisa is her suicide. The purest, angelic soul commits a sin, which was and is considered one of the most terrible sins in Christianity. The heroine was distraught with grief. “I can’t live,” thought Lisa, “I can’t!.. Oh, if only the sky would fall on me!” If the earth swallowed up the poor!.. No! The sky is not falling; the earth does not shake! Woe is me!". “She left the city and suddenly saw herself on the shore of a deep pond, under the shade of ancient oak trees, which a few weeks before had been silent witnesses to her delight. This memory shook her soul; the most terrible heartache was depicted on her face... she threw herself into the water.”

Lisa's suicide makes her image vital and tragic. Lisa appears before us differently, unable to withstand grief, broken, abused. The most important thing in her life, purpose and highest meaning - love - was killed. And Lisa dies. It's amazing how the author treats the death of his heroine. Although Karamzin, remembering that suicide is a sin, does not give Liza’s soul any rest. In the empty hut “the wind howls, and the superstitious villagers, hearing this noise at night, say; “There is a dead man groaning there; Poor Liza is moaning there! But the writer forgives his heroine. The narrator’s mysterious phrase is “When we see each other there, in a new life, I will recognize you, gentle Lisa!” - reveals to us all the author’s love for his heroine. Karamzin believes that his Liza, this purest soul, will go to heaven, to a new life.

For the first time in Karamzin, a woman acts as the highest moral ideal. It was precisely for women that Karamzin intended to introduce into Russian literature such an important and defining theme as the elevation of the human spirit through suffering. And finally, it was Karamzin who determined that female characters in Russian literature will be educators of feelings.

A new life for Lisa, or rather for her image, began much later, in the next century. Lisa was reborn again in the heroines of Pushkin, Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, Tolstoy. The image of poor Liza anticipated a whole gallery of beautiful female Russian characters: from Pushkin’s Liza from “The Young Lady the Peasant” and Dunya from “The Station Agent” to Katerina Kabanova from “The Dowry” and Katyusha Maslova from “Resurrection.”

Other works on this work

Karamzin N M

Poor Lisa

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

On the other side of the river one can see an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of trees, sing simple, sad songs and thus shorten the summer days, so uniform for them. Further away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; even further, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills are blue. On the left side you can see vast fields covered with grain, forests, three or four villages and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.

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

But most often what attracts me to the walls of the Si...nova Monastery is the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa. Oh! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!

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

Lizin's father was a fairly prosperous villager, because he loved work, plowed the land well and always led a sober life. But soon after his death, his wife and daughter became poor. The lazy hand of the mercenary poorly cultivated the field, and the grain ceased to be produced well. They were forced to rent out their land, and for very little money. Moreover, the poor widow, almost constantly shedding tears over the death of her husband - for even peasant women know how to love! - day by day she became weaker and could not work at all. Only Lisa, who remained after her father for fifteen years, - only Lisa, not sparing her tender youth, not sparing her rare beauty, worked day and night - weaved canvas, knitted stockings, picked flowers in the spring, and took berries in the summer - and sold them in Moscow. The sensitive, kind old woman, seeing her daughter’s tirelessness, often pressed her to her weakly beating heart, called her divine mercy, nurse, the joy of her old age, and prayed to God to reward her for all that she does for her mother.

“God gave me hands to work with,” said Lisa, “you fed me with your breasts and followed me when I was a child; now it’s my turn to follow you. Just stop being upset, stop crying; our tears will not revive the priests.” .

But often tender Liza could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to reassure her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and seem calm and cheerful. “In the next world, dear Liza,” answered the sad old woman, “in the next world I will stop crying. There, they say, everyone will be cheerful; I’ll probably be cheerful when I see your father, Only now I don’t want to die - what’s wrong with you?” without me? Who will I leave you with? No, God grant that I will find a place for you first! Then, after blessing you, my dear children, I will cross myself and lie down calmly in the damp earth.”

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

Rated the book

"Poor Lisa"
What a naive story. If in some incomprehensible way you managed to avoid knowledge about the fate of poor Lisa, then from the first lines it is still completely clear what will happen next and why. But do you know what feeling you get when reading? Tenderness. Was there really such naivety, could there really be such love? And one more thing... if Lisa is such a pure and noble girl, how could she doom her mother to a lonely old age? In general, the most interesting thing when reading this story was drawing up in my head the image of an ideal woman according to Karamzin. What is she like? It seemed to me that something like this: love a man with all your heart, trust him in everything, don’t care about everyone else, be innocent, modest, etc. Are there such things? Definitely not  Poor Karamzin...
"Natalia, boyar's daughter"
I heard somewhere that when Catherine the Great was brought a newspaper, which, on her orders, was printed in St. Petersburg, she was indignant that journalists were describing what was bad and said something like: “Why do you write only about bad things? I already know what’s wrong with us. You’d better write what’s good about us!” I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quote, but I conveyed the meaning correctly. We won’t talk about the literalness of the perception of her words, and several centuries later we won’t talk now, and it’s not so clear, let’s talk about something else. Karamzin writes about good things. Firstly: the whole story is simply permeated with love for Russia, faith in the Tsar, longing for real and specifically Russian people. Secondly: the images of the heroes of the story are so ideal that it is difficult to believe in the reality of their existence, and it is not necessary. Thirdly: faith in justice and in pure, eternal love is a leitmotif that, despite all the fabulousness, captivates even a very cynical modern writer. It seems to me that this story by Karamzin should be perceived as a fairy tale, and a fairy tale, as we know, should not be believable, much less real. She should just be kind and talk about something good (having a princess and a prince, whoever they are, is a must).
"Martha the Posadnitsa"

Wild peoples love independence, wise peoples love order, and there is no order without autocratic power

And the people of free Novgorod could listen to the royal messenger, but they liked listening more to a woman offended by fate. And offended, and especially lonely women, are bad advisers. Thanks to the advice of the “freedom-loving” Madame Marfa, she was not the only one who became lonely; almost all the women of Veliky Novgorod added to her loneliness, and all together it was no longer so sad. Hmm... When the free inhabitants starved, fought with the royal army and drank hard, they became uninterested in free life and they joyfully greeted Ivan the Terrible, who decided on this very Martha and her daughter (apparently for sure). So, no matter how you look at it, all roads lead to autocracy, no matter how formidable it may be.

Rated the book

About "Martha the Posadnitsa..."
And I liked this “fairy tale,” especially after we examined this work from different points of view during lectures on the history of Russian culture.
In my opinion, this historical story has every chance of success, so to speak - it is interesting, very dynamic, and the language is quite digestible even for a modern reader. However, there is a significant drawback (which, of course, should be written down not for Karamzin, but for the modern reader) - anyone who wants to get acquainted with “Martha the Posadnitsa” must become familiar with real historical events. After this, reading will become even more interesting, because comparing reality and fiction is always interesting, especially if the author does not position his work as a purely historical chronicle.
In addition, in addition to the historical action, Karamzin’s point of view on various aspects of life (wealth, for example) is also interesting.
Plus, this story is purely oppositional for its time, which also cannot leave anyone indifferent. Karamzin's idea that the only correct form of government for Russia is autocracy cannot fail to attract the attention of an enlightened and interested public. (5/5)

About "Poor Lisa".
To understand and perceive this work without an aching jaw and exclamations of “God, what an idiot,” you need to be a man of your time. I'm terribly sentimental, but this piece gave me a creepy reaction. Precisely because I live in a different time, which means I simply cannot understand many of the actions and thoughts of those times. Romanticism - yes, but not sentimentalism. (2/5)

Poor Lisa (story)

Poor Lisa
O. A. Kiprensky, “Poor Liza”, 1827
Genre:
Original language:
Year of writing:
Publication:	1792, “Moscow Magazine”
Separate edition:
in Wikisource

History of creation and publication

Plot

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

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

Artistic originality



Simonov Monastery

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

However, despite the apparent plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Liza and her mother have sophistication of feelings and perceptions, their speech is literate, literary and no different from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of poor villagers resembles a pastoral:

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

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

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

Criticism about the story

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

"Poor Lisa" in art

In painting

Literary reminiscences

Dramatizations

Film adaptations

• 1967 - “Poor Liza” (television play), directed by Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, starring: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrei Myagkov.
• - “Poor Lisa”, director Idea Garanina, composer Alexey Rybnikov
• - “Poor Lisa”, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.

Literature

• Toporov V. N.“Poor Liza” by Karamzin: Reading experience: To the bicentenary of its publication. - Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.

Notes

Links




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