Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) one of the largest Russian writers of the times of sentimentalism. He was called "Russian Stern". Historian, creator of the first generalizing historical work “History of the Russian State” in 12 volumes.
History of the creation of the work
Wherever the name of N.M. Karamzin appears, his story “Poor Liza” immediately comes to mind. Having glorified the young poet, it is one of the brightest works in Russian. This work is considered the first sentimental story that brought fame and popularity to the author.
In 1792, Nikolai Karamzin, who was 25 years old, worked as the editor of the Moscow Journal. The story “Poor Liza” was first published in it. According to contemporaries, at that time Karamzin lived in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery at Beketov’s dacha. He knew those places well and transferred all their beauty to the pages of his work. Sergius Pond, allegedly dug by S. Radonezh, subsequently became the center of attention for couples in love who came there for walks. Later the pond was renamed “Lizin Pond”.
Literary direction
Since the end of the 17th century, an era with its own clear rules and boundaries of genres has triumphed. Therefore, the sentimentalism that replaced it, with its sensuality and simplicity of presentation, close to simple speech, took literature to a new level. With his story N. Karamzin laid the foundation for noble sentimentalism. He did not advocate the abolition of serfdom, but at the same time showed all the humanity and beauty of the lower class.
Genre
Karamzin is the creator of a short novel - a “sensitive story”. Before this, multi-volume works were widespread in the 18th century. “Poor Liza” is the first psychological story based on a moral conflict.
Creative method and style
The innovative approach in the story is the very image of the narrator. The narration is told on behalf of the author, a person who is not indifferent to the fate of the main characters. His empathy and participation are conveyed in the manner of presentation, which makes the story comply with all the laws of sentimentalism. The narrator sympathizes with the characters, worries about them and does not condemn anyone, although during the course of the story he gives vent to his emotions and writes that he is ready to curse Erast, that he is crying, that his heart is bleeding. Describing the thoughts and feelings of his characters, the author addresses them, argues with them, suffers with them - all this was also new in literature and also corresponded to the poetics of sentimentalism.
Karamzin was also able to show the landscape in a new way. Nature in the work is no longer just a background, it harmonizes and corresponds to the feelings that the heroes of the story experience. Becomes the active artistic force of the work. So, after Erast’s declaration of love, all nature rejoices with Lisa: the birds are singing, the sun is shining brightly, the flowers are fragrant. When the young people were unable to resist the call of passion, a storm roared as a menacing warning, and rain poured from the black clouds.
Problems of the work
- Social: the story of lovers belonging to different social strata, despite all the beauty and tenderness of feelings, leads to tragedy, and not to the happy ending that is accustomed to in old novels.
- Philosophical: the struggle of the mind with strong natural feelings.
- Moral: the moral conflict of the story. Wonderful feelings between the peasant woman Lisa and the nobleman Erast. As a result, after short moments of happiness, the sensitivity of the heroes leads Lisa to death, and Erast remains unhappy and will forever reproach himself for Lisa’s death; It was he, according to the narrator, who told him this story and showed Liza’s grave.
Characteristics of heroes
Lisa. The main character is a peasant girl. The author showed her true image, which is not similar to the general idea of peasant women: “a beautiful villager in body and soul,” “tender and sensitive Lisa,” a loving daughter of her parents. She works, protects her mother from worry, without showing her suffering and tears. Even in front of the pond, Lisa remembers her mother. She decides to take a fatal action, confident that she helped her mother in any way she could: she gave her the money. After meeting Erast, Lisa dreamed that her lover would be born a simple shepherd. This emphasizes the unselfishness of her soul, as well as the fact that she really looked at things and understood that there could be nothing in common between a peasant woman and a nobleman.
Erast. In the novel his image corresponds social society, in which he grew up. A wealthy nobleman with the rank of officer, who led a riotous life in search of joy in social amusements. But not finding what he wanted, he was bored and complained about fate. Karamzin in the image of Erast showed a new type of hero - a disappointed aristocrat. He was not a “cunning seducer” and sincerely fell in love with Lisa. Erast is also a victim of tragedy, and he has his own punishment. Subsequently, many more heroes of works of Russian literature are presented in the image of “ extra person", weak and unadapted to life. The author emphasizes that Erast was a kind person by nature, but a weak and flighty person. He was dreamy, imagined life in roses, having read novels and lyric poems. Therefore, his love did not stand the test of real life.
Lisa's mother. The image of Lisa's mother often remains out of sight, since the reader's main attention is focused on the main characters. Nevertheless, we should not forget that Karamzin’s famous words “even peasant women know how to love” refer not to Lisa, but to her mother. It was she who devotedly loved her Ivan, lived with him in happiness and harmony long years and took his death very hard. The only thing that kept her on earth was her daughter, whom she could not leave alone, so she dreams of marrying Lisa off in order to be calm about her future. The old woman cannot stand the grief that befalls her - the news of Lisa's suicide - and dies.
Plot and composition
All the events of the story take place over three months. However, the author talks about them as events that happened thirty years ago. In addition to the psychology of the heroes, which is revealed to the smallest detail in the story, the ending is also influenced by external events, pushing the main character to take a decisive step.
The story begins and ends with a description of the surroundings of the Simonov Monastery, which remind the narrator of the deplorable fate of poor Lisa. Near her grave, he likes to sit thoughtfully under the shade of trees and look at the pond. This description was made by Karamzin so accurately and picturesquely that a pilgrimage of fans of the story to the monastery began, a search for the place where the hut was, a search for Lisa’s grave, etc. Readers believed that this story really happened in reality.
What was new and unusual in the story was that instead of the expected (according to usual novels) happy ending, the reader encountered the bitter truth of life.
As Karamzin said about the story “Poor Liza”: “The fairy tale is not very complicated.” Erast, a young, rich nobleman, falls in love with the daughter of a settler, Lisa. But due to class inequality, their marriage is impossible. He is looking for a friend in her, but friendly communication develops into deeper mutual feelings. But he quickly lost interest in the girl. While in the army, Erast loses his fortune and, in order to improve his financial situation, marries a rich elderly widow. Having accidentally met Erast in the city, Lisa decides that his heart belongs to someone else. Unable to come to terms with this, Lisa drowns herself in the very pond near which they once met. Erast remains unhappy until the end of his days; he suffers from the pangs of repentance for many years and reveals this story to the narrator a year before his death. “Now maybe they have already reconciled!” - Karamzin concludes his story with these words.
Meaning of the work
N. M. Karamzin, having created “Poor Liza,” laid the foundation for a cycle of literature about “little people.” He created a modern literary language, which was spoken not only by nobles, but also by peasants. Bringing the story closer to colloquial speech, which further added reality and intimacy to the reader to the plot.
Article menu:
Karamzin’s incredibly sincere and emotional work does not leave anyone indifferent - in the story the author described the typical feelings of people in love, outlining a picture from the very beginning to the decline of the feelings of one of the lovers.
The philosophical overtones and psychological basis make this work look like a legend - a sad tale based on real events.
Characteristics
Karamzin's story does not have a significant list of heroes. There are only five of them:
- Lisa;
- Lisa's mother;
- Erast;
- Annushka;
- Author.
The image of Lisa is depicted in the best traditions of sentimentalism - she is a sweet and sincere girl, gentle and impressionable: “pure. a joyful soul shone in her eyes.”
The girl is somewhat similar to an angel - she is too innocent and virtuous: “beautiful in soul and body.” It seems that she grew up in another world, because she was able, despite all the difficulties of society and the era, to preserve goodness and humanity.
At the age of 15, Lisa was left without a father. Life with my mother was difficult financially, but easy in psychological aspect– a friendly, trusting relationship has been established between mother and daughter. The mother, being a compassionate woman, constantly worries about her beloved daughter, like all parents, she wishes her better fate. The woman could not survive the loss of her daughter - the news of Lisa’s death became fatal for her.
Erast is a nobleman by birth. He's smart and educated person. His life is typical for a young man of his age and class - dinner parties, balls, card games, theater, but it doesn’t bring him much joy - he’s pretty tired of all the entertainment. Meeting Lisa noticeably changes him and, instead of boredom, he develops an aversion to the trappings of social life.
Lisa’s harmonious life allowed him to consider other aspects of existence: “with disgust he thought about the contemptuous voluptuousness that his feelings had previously reveled in.”
The image of Erast is not without positive qualities– he is a gentle and courteous person, but the young man’s selfish spoiledness did not allow him to become as harmonious as Lisa.
We invite you to familiarize yourself with what came from the pen of the classic author N. Karamzin.
The image of Annushka in the story is fragmentary - we meet this character already at the end of the work: having learned about Erast's wedding, Lisa realizes that she cannot come to terms with it and does not understand her life without this person - the option of committing suicide seems to her one of the most acceptable. At this time, Lisa notices Annushka, the neighbor’s daughter, and instructs her to give the money to her mother. After this, Lisa throws herself into the pond.
Criticism
Karamzin's story was repeatedly called a breakthrough of its time; the motif, so typical of European literature, was for the first time transferred to the plane of Russian culture, which was already an innovation. The public's particular interest in the work was also caused by the introduction of a new direction - sentimentalism.
Literary critics and researchers highly appreciated Karamzin’s story and noted that the author managed to recreate “living” reality for the reader - the work was surprisingly realistic, devoid of artificial emotions and images.
Russian scientist, professor-philologist V.V. Sipovsky believed that Karamzin was “Russian” Goethe - his living word contributed to a breakthrough in literature.
Karamzin, according to the scientist, provided readers with reverse side medals, showing that a person’s life, even if he is just an invention of the author, should not always be filled with idyll, sometimes it can have fatality and tragedy: “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 she encountered the bitter truth of life.”
A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, analyzing the significance of “Poor Lisa,” focused on the European basis of the story, both in terms of plot and in terms of sentimentalism, which had not yet spread to Russia, but was already widespread in Europe. “Everyone sighed until they fainted” - this is how he assesses the influence on the public of the work, and quite ironically notes that after the release of “Poor Lisa” everyone began to “drown in a puddle.”
G. A. Gukovsky also speaks about the same effect, noting that after reading “Poor Liza,” crowds of young people began to appear near the Simonov Monastery and admire the surface of the lake, in which, according to Karamzin’s idea, the girl drowned.
In his opinion, nature in the story fulfills its special function– it tunes the reader to a lyrical perception of reality. Poor Liza is not so much a real peasant woman as an ideal opera heroine, and her sad story should not outrage, but only create a lyrical mood.”
V.N. Toporov claims that “Poor Liza” became a significant work not only in Russian literature, but also in the work of Karamzin - it was this work that opened the era of “breakthrough” both in the work of the literary figure and in historical development literature in general.
“Poor Liza” is precisely the root from which the tree of Russian classical prose has grown, whose powerful crown sometimes hides the trunk and distracts from reflection on the historically very recent origins of the very phenomenon of Russian literature of the New Age.”
Catchphrases from the story
I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!
Every person is sentimental to one degree or another. Some people show their sentimentalism with early age, others acquire this feeling after some time, having acquired sufficient life experience.
The special emotions that arise in a person during contact with objects of material or spiritual culture help create the effect of catharsis - emotional relief.
Peasant women know how to love!
Until a certain point, it was believed that peasants were not emotionally and mentally similar to aristocrats. The essence of this statement was not the lack of education of the peasants, but the conviction that the peasants, even with education, would not be able to become similar in spiritual development on representatives of the aristocracy - they are uncharacteristic high manifestations feelings, in fact, it turned out, based on this theory, that the peasants are guided exclusively by instincts, they are characterized only by the most simple emotions. Karamzin showed that this is not so. Serfs can show different feelings and emotions, and theories that they are several steps lower in their development are prejudices.
It is better to feed yourself by your own labors and not take anything for nothing.
This phrase shows moral principles an honest person - if you haven’t earned money for a certain thing, then you have no right to claim it.
Old people can be suspicious
Due to his age and life experience, old people try to protect young people from the mistakes of their youth. Since young people are often in no hurry to share their problems and concerns with the older generation, the only way to find out about the upcoming problem is to analyze the individual’s behavior, and for this you need to be observant.
How good everything is with the Lord God! It is necessary that the Heavenly King should love a person very much when he removed the local light so well for him.
In the natural world everything is harmonious and aesthetically pleasing. A person with a sensual soul cannot help but notice these subtleties and admire them. In spring and summer, the feeling of the beauty of nature is felt especially vividly - nature, which slept in winter, comes back to life and delights with its beauty the world. Creatures who have the opportunity to contemplate all this beauty cannot be unloved by God, otherwise he would not try to create such a beautiful and harmonious world.
The fulfillment of all desires is the most dangerous temptation of love.
There is always love fervor between lovers, however, in the case when relationships between people develop too quickly and the effect of permissiveness is present, the fervor quickly fades away - when everything has been achieved, then there is not a single nook left in a person’s soul where a dream or desire to penetrate fantasy - there is no reason for dreams, if in this case the relationship does not reach another level (for example, marriage), then there is a fading of emotions and passion in relation to the object of one’s passion and admiration.
Death for the fatherland is not scary
A person is unthinkable without his “roots”; one way or another, each individual must recognize himself not only as a part of society, but also as a part of the state. The welfare and problems of the state should be perceived by everyone as the problems of their own family, therefore death in the name of one’s state is not inglorious.
Test on the plot of the story
1. How old was Lisa when her father died?
A) 19
B)15
AT 10
2. Why, after the death of the father, did the family begin to live in poverty?
A) could not pay rent for the land
B) the workers did not cultivate the land so well and the harvest decreased
C) the money was spent on the treatment of sister Lisa
3. At what price did Lisa sell lilies of the valley?
A) 5 kopecks
B) 5 rubles
B) 13 kopecks
4. Why didn’t Lisa sell flowers for 1 ruble?
A) It was too cheap
B) her conscience did not allow her
B) The ruble was damaged
5. Why do Lisa and Erast meet at night?
A) Erast is busy all day
B) They may be slandered
C) Their meetings could cause a quarrel with Erast’s fiancee
6. Why was Lisa afraid of a thunderstorm during one of their night meetings with Erast?
A) She was afraid that the thunder would strike her like a criminal.
B) Lisa was always afraid of thunderstorms.
C) The thunderstorm was very strong and the girl was afraid that her mother would wake up and find that Lisa was not at home.
7. Why didn’t Erast refuse to go to war?
A) could not contradict the order
B) Lisa became disgusting to him
C) everyone would laugh at him and consider him a coward
8. Why is Erast not afraid to die in war?
A) He knows no fear
B) death for the Fatherland is not scary
C) he has been dreaming about death for a long time
9. Why did Erast order Lisa to forget him?
A) he is tired of the girl
B) was afraid that everyone would laugh at him after learning about his relationship with Lisa
C) he was engaged and his relationship with Lisa could harm his marriage.
10. What did Lisa do with the money that Erast gave her?
A) returned Erast back
B) gave it to the beggar standing under the church
B) gave them to the neighbor’s daughter so that she could give them to Liza’s mother.
11. How did Lisa’s mother perceive her death?
A) Killed Erast
B) Drowned from grief
C) The news was so stunning for her that she died immediately
It was no coincidence that Karamzin placed the action of the story in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery. He knew this outskirts of Moscow well. Sergius Pond, according to legend, dug by Sergius of Radonezh, became a place of pilgrimage for couples in love; it was renamed Lizin Pond.
Literary direction
Karamzin is an innovative writer. He is rightfully considered the founder of Russian sentimentalism. Readers received the story enthusiastically, because society had long been thirsty for something like this. The classicist movement that preceded sentimentalism, which was based on rationality, tired readers with teachings. Sentimentalism (from the word feelings) reflected the world of feelings, the life of the heart. Many imitations of “Poor Lisa” appeared, a kind of mass literature that was in demand by readers.
Genre
“Poor Liza” is the first Russian psychological story. The characters' feelings are revealed in dynamics. Karamzin even invented a new word - sensitivity. Lisa’s feelings are clear and understandable: she lives by her love for Erast. Erast’s feelings are more complex; he himself does not understand them. At first he wants to fall in love simply and naturally, as he read in novels, then he discovers a physical attraction that destroys platonic love.
Issues
Social: the class inequality of lovers does not lead to a happy ending, as in old novels, but to tragedy. Karamzin raises the problem of human value regardless of class.
Moral: a person’s responsibility for those who trust him, “unintentional evil” that can lead to tragedy.
Philosophical: self-confident reason tramples on natural feelings, which French enlighteners spoke about at the beginning of the 18th century.
Main characters
Erast is a young nobleman. His character is written in many ways. Erast cannot be called a scoundrel. He is just a weak-willed young man who does not know how to resist life’s circumstances and fight for his happiness.
Lisa is a peasant girl. Her image is not described in such detail and contradictory, it remains in the canons of classicism. The author sympathizes with the heroine. She is hardworking, a loving daughter, chaste and simple-minded. On the one hand, Lisa does not want to upset her mother by refusing to marry a rich peasant, on the other hand, she submits to Erast, who asks not to tell her mother about their relationship. Lisa thinks, first of all, not about herself, but about the fate of Erast, who will face dishonor if he does not go to war.
Lisa's mother is an old woman who lives with love for her daughter and the memory of her deceased husband. It was about her, and not about Liza, that Karamzin said: “And peasant women know how to love.”
Plot and composition
Although the writer's attention is focused on the psychology of the heroes, external events that lead the heroine to death are also important for the plot. The plot of the story is simple and touching: the young nobleman Erast is in love with the peasant girl Lisa. Their marriage is impossible due to class inequality. Erast is looking for pure brotherly friendship, but he himself does not know his own heart. When the relationship develops into an intimate one, Erast grows cold towards Lisa. In the army he loses a fortune at cards. The only way to improve matters is to marry a rich elderly widow. Lisa accidentally meets Erast in the city and thinks that he has fallen in love with someone else. She cannot live with this thought and drowns herself in the very pond near which she met her beloved. Erast realizes his guilt and suffers for the rest of his life.
The main events of the story take about three months. Compositionally, they are framed with a frame associated with the image of the narrator. At the beginning of the story, the narrator reports that the events described at the lake happened 30 years ago. At the end of the story, the narrator returns to the present again and remembers Erast’s unfortunate fate at Lisa’s grave.
Style
In the text, Karamzin uses internal monologues; the narrator’s voice is often heard. Landscape sketches are in harmony with the mood of the characters and are in tune with the events.
Karamzin was an innovator in literature. He was one of the creators modern language prose close to the colloquial speech of an educated nobleman. This is what not only Erast and the narrator say, but also the peasant woman Liza and her mother. Sentimentalism did not know historicism. The life of the peasants is very conditional; these are some kind of free (not serfs) pampered women who cannot cultivate the land and buy rose water. Karamzin's goal was to show feelings that are equal for all classes, which a proud mind cannot always control.
"Poor Lisa"- a sentimental story by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, written in 1792.
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
The plot of the story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to “Russian” soil. The author hints that he personally knows 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 Liza'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 “smooth” language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavonicisms and pomposity, which made the work easy to read.
Criticism about the story
V.V. Sipovsky:
“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, met for the first time in this story the bitter truth of life.
"Poor Lisa" in art
In painting
- In 1827, Orest Kiprensky painted the painting “Poor Liza.”
Literary reminiscences
- Sentimental story “Unhappy Liza” by an unknown author (published in the magazine “Aglaya” in 1810).
- The plot of “Poor Liza” is clearly reflected in A. S. Pushkin’s stories “The Peasant Young Lady” and “”, and in the first case the story of the relationship between the peasant woman and the master is revealed as a comedy, in the second - as a tragedy.
- The story of Erast and Lisa is played out in the names of the characters and the plot of Boris Akunin’s novels “Azazel”, “The whole world is a theater”.
Dramatizations
- 1989 - musical “Poor Lisa” - theater “At the Nikitsky Gate”, director Mark Rozovsky.
- Chamber opera “Poor Liza” - State Theater of Nations, director Alla Sigalova, composer Leonid Desyatnikov, starring Chulpan Khamatova, Andrey Merkuryev.
Film adaptations
- 1967 - “Poor Liza” (television play), directed by Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, starring: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrei Myagkov.
- 1978 - “Poor Liza”, director Idea Garanina, composer Alexey Rybnikov
- 1998 - “Poor Lisa”, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.
POOR LISA
(Tale, 1792)
Lisa (poor Lisa) - the main character of the story, which made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the 18th century. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, Karamzin turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words “even peasant women know how to love” became popular.
Poor peasant girl L. remains an orphan early on. She lives in one of the villages near Moscow with her mother - a “sensitive, kind old lady”, from whom L. inherits his main talent - the ability to love devotedly. To support himself and his mother, L., “not sparing his tender youth,” takes on any job. In the spring she goes to the city to sell flowers. There, in Moscow, L. meets the young nobleman Erast. Tired of the windy social life, Erast falls in love with a spontaneous, innocent girl “with the love of a brother.” It seems so to him. However, soon platonic love turns into sensual. L., “having completely surrendered to him, she only lived and breathed by him.” But gradually L. begins to notice the change taking place in Erast. He explains his coolness by natural concern: he needs to go to war. However, in the army he does not so much fight the enemy as lose at cards. To improve matters, Erast marries an elderly rich widow. Having learned about this, L. drowns himself in the pond.
Sensitivity - so in the language of the late 18th century. determined the main advantage of Karamzin’s stories, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover the “tenderest feelings” in the “curves of the heart,” as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one’s own emotions. Sensitivity is also the central character trait of L. She trusts the movements of her heart and lives by “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to L.’s death, but it is morally justified. Karamzin’s consistent idea that for the mentally rich, sensitive person doing good deeds naturally removes the need for normative morality.
The motif of seducing a pure and immaculate girl, found in one form or another in many of Karamzin’s works, takes on a distinctly social meaning in “Poor Liza.” Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the contrast between city and countryside into Russian literature. In the world folklore and mythological tradition, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - finds himself defenseless when he finds himself in urban space, where laws different from the laws of nature apply. No wonder L.’s mother tells her (thus indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to the city; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God that he will protect you from all troubles and misfortunes.”
It is no coincidence that the first step on the path to disaster is L.’s insincerity: for the first time she “retreats from herself,” hiding, on Erast’s advice, their love from her mother, to whom she had previously confided all her secrets. Later, it was in relation to his dearly beloved mother that L. would repeat Erast’s worst act. He will try to “pay off” L. and, driving her away, gives her a hundred rubles. But L. will do the same, sending his mother, along with the news of his death, the “ten imperials” that Erast gave her. Naturally, this money is just as unnecessary for L.’s mother as for the heroine herself: “Liza’s mother heard about the terrible death of her daughter, and her blood grew cold with horror—her eyes closed forever.”
The tragic outcome of the love between a peasant woman and an officer confirms the rightness of the mother, who warned L. at the very beginning of the story: “You still don’t know how evil people can offend a poor girl.” General rule turns into a specific situation, poor L. herself takes the place of the impersonal “poor girl,” and the universal plot is transferred to Russian soil, acquiring a special national flavor.
At the same time, the plot of “Poor Lisa” is as generalized and compressed as possible. Possible lines of development are contained in an embryonic state, ellipses and dashes sometimes replace the text, becoming its “equivalent”, “significant minus”. This kind of conciseness is reflected at the level of the characters. L.'s image is outlined with a dotted line, each trait of her character is a theme for the story, but not yet the story itself. This does not prevent the duet of L. and Erast from remaining the plot center of the story, around which all the other characters are organized.
For the arrangement of characters in the story, it is also important that the narrator learns the story of poor L. directly from Erast and himself often comes to be sad at “Liza’s grave.” The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space was not familiar to Russian literature before Karamzin. The narrator of “Poor Lisa” is mentally involved in the relationships of the characters. Already the title of the story is based on the connection own name heroine with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events (“Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad true story?”). A kind of “self-sufficiency” of the hero, his “independence” from the author largely determines the specificity of the existence of the image in the text, or more precisely, its going beyond the text, carried out in two main directions. In “Poor Liza,” the topographically specific space of Moscow is combined with the conventional space of literary tradition. At the point of intersection stands the image of L. “Poor Liza” is perceived as a story about true events. L. belongs to the characters with “registration”. “...more and more often I am drawn to the walls of the Si...nova Monastery - the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa,” - this is how the author begins his story. Any Muscovite could guess the name of the Simonov Monastery by looking at the gap in the middle of the word. (Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the 14th century, has survived to this day; it is located on the territory of the Dynamo plant at Leninskaya Sloboda, 26.) The pond located under the walls of the monastery was called the Fox Pond, but thanks to Karamzin’s story it was popularly renamed to Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. The paradox is the absence of a contradiction between Christian morality and the innocence of L. She is even “forgiven” the sin of suicide. In the minds of the monks of the Simonov Monastery, who zealously guarded the memory of L., she was, first of all, a fallen victim. But essentially, L. was “canonized” by sentimental culture. Thus, Karamzin’s heroine stands not only at the intersection of fiction and were, but also at the intersection of two religions: Christian and sentimental religion of feeling.
The same unfortunate girls in love, like L. herself, came to the place of Liza’s death to cry and grieve. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut by the knives of the “pilgrims.” The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh”), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired particular fame among such “birch epigrams”: “Erast’s bride perished in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond”).
The name Elizabeth itself is of Hebrew origin (with subsequent Greco-Latin adaptation) and is translated as “who worships God.” The "world" context of the name Lisa/Elizabeth begins with biblical texts. This is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron (Ex. 6:23), as well as the wife of the priest Zechariah and the mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5). In the gallery of literary heroines, Heloise, Abelard's friend, occupies a special place. After her, the name is associatively associated with a love theme: the story of the “noble maiden” Julie d’Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Pré, J. J. Rousseau calls “Julia, or the New Heloise...” (1761). It is located in the Hermitage the famous bust of the innocent and naive “Little Lisa” by the French sculptor Houdon (1775), which could also have influenced the image created by Karamzin.
The name "Lisa" until the early 80s. XVIII century almost never found in Russian literature, and if it did, it was in its foreign language version. By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin set out to break a fairly strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Liza should be like and how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in European literature of the 17th–18th centuries. because the image of Lisa, Lisette (Lizette) was associated primarily with comedy. The Lisa of a French comedy is usually a maid-servant (chambermaid), the confidante of her young mistress. She is young, pretty, quite frivolous and understands at a glance everything connected with a love affair, with the “science of tender passion.” Naivety, innocence, and modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role.
By breaking the reader's expectations, removing the mask from the heroine's name, Karamzin thereby destroyed the foundations of the very culture of classicism, weakened the connections between the signified and the signified, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. Despite the conventionality of the image of L., her name is associated precisely with the character, and not with the role of the heroine. Establishing a relationship between “internal” character and “external” action became a significant achievement of Karamzin on the path to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.
