Literature      04/17/2020

When it is silent for a mortal. The right to privacy. Memories in Tsarskoye Selo

Approaching thirty years, Pushkin is experiencing a spiritual rebirth. Increasingly, philosophical notes are heard in his work. To read the verse “Recollection” by Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich means to be a witness to how great poet summarizes his personal and creative life. The poem was written in 1828. It was a difficult time for the poet, who had returned to St. Petersburg a year earlier. Longing for the capital, he rethinks his life and work. "Remembrance" is a prime example of philosophical lyrics. The archaic language of Pushkin is distinguished by a clear objectivity, materiality. The action takes place late at night, the atmosphere of which involves the knowledge of both oneself and the world.

The text of Pushkin's poem "Recollection", which takes place in a literature lesson in grade 8, is quite complicated. This work can be called a confession. The poet, reading his own life with disgust, seems to ask forgiveness for the time spent in idleness. Pushkin is merciless to himself, and the two guardian angels whom he sees with spiritual vision personify for him not the merciful love of the Creator, to whom his bitter words are addressed in particular, but his power. We can say that the author experiences the fear of God, and this is the first step to knowing the truth.

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When the noisy day falls silent for a mortal
And on the mute hailstones
A translucent shadow will cover the night,
And sleep, day's work is a reward,
At that time for me to drag in silence
Hours of weary vigil:
In the inactivity of the night live burn in me
Snakes of heart remorse;
Dreams boil; in a mind overwhelmed by longing,
An excess of heavy thoughts crowds;
The memory is silent before me
Its long develop scroll:
And, with disgust reading my life,
I tremble and curse
And I complain bitterly, and bitterly shed tears, -
But I do not wash off the sad lines.

More merciless than his elegy:

Memory

When the noisy day falls silent for a mortal,
And on the mute hailstones
Translucent will cast a shadow on the night
And sleep, day's work is a reward,
At that time for me to drag in silence
Hours of weary vigil:
In the inactivity of the night live burn in me
Snakes of heart remorse;
Dreams boil; in a mind overwhelmed by longing,
An excess of heavy thoughts crowds;
The memory is silent before me
Its long progress scroll;
And, with disgust reading my life,
I tremble and curse
And I bitterly complain, and bitterly shed tears,
But I do not wash off the sad lines.
(1828)

Memories in Tsarskoye Selo

Confused by memories
Filled with sweet longing
Beautiful gardens, under your sacred dusk
I enter with a bowed head.
So the boy of the Bible, the insane spender,
Having exhausted the phial of remorse to the drop,
Seeing at last the native abode,
Head drooped and sobbed.
In the heat of fleeting delights,
In a barren whirlwind of vanity,
Oh, I have squandered many treasures of my heart
For unreachable dreams
And I wandered for a long time, and often, tired,
With repentance of grief, anticipating troubles,
I thought about you, blessed limit,
I imagined these gardens.
I imagine a happy day
When a lyceum arose among you,
And I hear our games again, I playful noise,
And I see a family of friends again.
Again, a gentle lad,
sometimes ardent, sometimes lazy,
Vague dreams melt in my chest,
Wandering through meadows, through silent groves,
I forget as a poet.<...>
(1829)

Why did our poet repent so bitterly, so mercilessly? Of course, in sins against the seventh commandment - in this respect, his conscience turned out to be more sensitive even in comparison with the conscience of blessed Augustine, who wrote his sincere confession.

The latter openly repented before his readers, not sparing his hierarchal authority, but in what main? Alas, here, too, a more Roman lawyer than a humble Christian showed up in him: he mourns the sins of his youth, but mainly that he, in his childhood ... stole apples and other fruits in someone else's garden, which, of course, every decent boy does , especially in the sultry South, where fruits are cheaper than our sorrel. Blessed Augustine cruelly torments his heart because, stealing fruit, he did it not under the pressure of need, but for the sake of stupid youth. But extremely indifferently, he mentions the illegitimate child he had, whom death stole already in his youth.

Pushkin's repentance for his youthful sins was not just a surge of unaccountable feelings, but had a close connection with his public and even state convictions. Here are the dying words he puts into the mouth of the dying Tsar Boris Godunov to his son Theodore:

Keep, keep holy purity
Innocence and proud modesty:
Who senses in vicious pleasures
In my younger days, I got used to drowning,
He, matured, gloomy and bloodthirsty,
And his mind darkens untimely.
In your family, always be the head;
Honor your mother, but rule yourself -
You are a husband and a king; love your sister
You remain her only guardian.

Pushkin was far from the now universally recognized paradox that the moral life of everyone is exclusively his private business, and social activity its completely unrelated to the first.

In the years of his adulthood, Pushkin hoped to free himself from youthful passions and wrote the poem "Renaissance":

Artist-barbarian with a sleepy brush
Blackens the picture of a genius
And your drawing is lawless
It is meaningless drawing over it.
But the colors are alien, with the years,
Fall off with decrepit scales;
The creation of genius before us
Comes out with the same beauty.
This is how delusions disappear.
From my tortured soul
And visions arise in her
The original, pure days.

He returns to the same topic more than once, revealing to the reader the changing better mood your soul.

I've outlived my desires
I fell out of love with my dreams;
All I have left is suffering
Fruits of heart emptiness.
Under the storms of cruel fate
Withered my blooming crown;
I live sad, lonely
And I wait: will my end come?
So, struck by the late cold,
Like a storm, a winter whistle is heard,
One - on a naked branch
A belated leaf trembles! ..

Pushkin constantly thought about the inevitable outcome human life:

Do I wander along the noisy streets,
I enter a crowded temple,
Am I sitting among the foolish youths,
I surrender to my dreams.
I say the years go by
And no matter how much you see us here,
We will all descend under the eternal vaults -
And someone's hour is near.
I look at the solitary oak,
I think: the patriarch of the forests
Will survive my forgotten age,
How he survived the age of his fathers.
I caress the sweet baby,
I'm already thinking: I'm sorry!
I give you a place:
It's time for me to smolder, for you to bloom.
Every day, every year
I'm used to thinking
coming death anniversary
Between them trying to guess.
And where will fate send me death?
Is it in battle, in wandering, in waves?
Or the neighboring valley
Will my will take the chilled dust?
And though the insensible body
It's the same everywhere to rot,
But closer to the sweet limit
I would like to rest.
And let at the coffin entrance
Young will play life
And indifferent nature
Shine with eternal beauty.

However, the thought of death inspires him not with despondency, but with obedience to the will of God and reconciliation with his lot:

...I visited again
The corner of the earth where I spent
An exile two years inconspicuous<...>

Pushkin's religious feeling did not have only a strictly individual character: the image of an inspired prophet, to whom he addressed more than once, floated before his mind. More than once we have already read about the amazing impression that Dostoevsky's recitation of Pushkin's "Prophet" produced. At these moments, both great writers, as it were, merged into one being, apparently applying to themselves that vision of the prophet Isaiah, which Pushkin outlined in his poem:

Spiritual thirst tormented,
In the gloomy desert I dragged myself
And the six-winged Seraphim
At the crossroads he appeared to me;
With fingers as light as a dream,
He touched my eyes.
Prophetic eyes opened,
Like a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the shudder of the sky,
And the heavenly flight of angels,
And the reptile of the sea underwater course,
And the valley of the vine vegetation.
And he clung to my lips
And tore out my sinful tongue,
And idle and crafty,
And the sting of the wise snake
In my frozen mouth
He invested it with a bloody right hand.
And he cut my chest with a sword,
And took out a trembling heart,
And coal burning with fire
He put a hole in his chest.
Like a corpse, I lay in the desert.
And God's voice called out to me:
“Arise, prophet, and see, and listen,
Fulfill my will
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn people's hearts with the verb."

To be continued...

The memory is silent before me,
Its long develops a scroll.

And with disgust reading my life,
I tremble and curse
And I bitterly complain, and bitterly shed tears,
But I do not wash off the sad lines.

A. S. Pushkin "Recollection".

You can often hear these words:

Do I have the right to personal life?

I should have free time too!

People must have their little secrets!

It is difficult, at first glance, to object to these conclusions. I myself was previously an uncompromising fighter for the privacy of men in the family.
Who doesn't want to diversify their leisure time with various innocent pranks? Hang, for example, on the Internet on a dating site, chat on sexual topics with some pretty girl. Go to porn sitessee what's new in the world. Throw SMS to the girlfriend on duty and agree on sex without foreplay. Meet friends for a bottle of good old whiskey. Go to a club with them, in search of new exciting acquaintances, and eventually get into a sauna with prostitutes. Give your lover a car. Fly to the Emirates for a week with a new passion.

But let's define what "personal life" is? It is difficult to find a clear definition of this phrase. Then let's look at the word "personal": 1.concerning directly some faces, somepersonalities affecting only their. 2. Connectedwith someone private, intimate life.

Thus, the phrase "personal life" we, firstly, use in the sense of "intimate life". And, secondly, as things that concern us directly. But in marriage, personal life concerns both spouses. Therefore, for simplicity, we will call it "the secret life." The life of our actions, thoughts and words, about which we do not want to expand at all. And what do we not want to talk about? Yes, about the various dirty tricks that we have created.

The secret life gives us a lot of advantages, base pleasures and seething adrenaline. Life abounds. There is, as they say, something to remember, but there is nothing to tell the children. The downside is only one thing: sooner or later everything will collapse. Family, business, friends, lovers, dreams of world domination and the illusion of one's own infallibility, everything can disappear overnight. All that remains is the record on the subconscious's hard drive, which can be viewed either with disgust or with tears in the eyes. I speak as someone who has gone through this. Everything will have to start all over again ... If you have enough strength ... Otherwise, it can be easier to jump out of the window. Sad? Yes a little.

The life of a person in a family can be conditionally divided into the following components:

1. The time he devotes to his wife and children.

2. The time he devotes to work.

3. Time spent on sports, health and hobbies.

In this scenario, a simple principle is known: we get a return where we put our attention and energy. For example, time spent in the family gives a result when we actively communicate with our spouse or children: we do homework, collect puzzles, lead intimate conversation, or go to the zoo, or the theater. Activities such as watching TV, sitting in classmates" and mere presence at home do not fall into this category. Accordingly, if you are “present” at home after work, but communicate with family members for 15 minutes, then be sure that nothing good awaits you on this front. Try to build a house, spending 15 minutes a day on construction work. God forbid if your grandchildren finish it. In fact, this is how people get it: marriage, divorce; divorce, marriage, or rather longing and regret. Regret about the "uselessly lived years." Life went on and on and on.

Ideally, the distribution of time over the three components should be proportional. Things like self-improvement, personal development, and spiritual quest are evenly distributed among them and cannot be categorized unless you are an Indian sannyasin or the unmarried heir of Warren Buffett. By and large, our spiritual search and self-improvement lies in the observance of the gospel commandments. It sounds very simple, but in practice it is difficult to do. It is much easier to meditate in an Indian ashram than in Everyday life follow decency. It is more fun to sing mantras than every day, facing misunderstanding and aggression, to remain a benevolent and understanding person. Therefore, if you meet a person who is passionate about “spiritual search”, then with a great deal of confidence we can say that he is running from his internal problems or problems in the family, which he himself created. And honestly, he does not want to solve them. Why, if there is a search for truth? The search can go on forever.

"The Secret Life" shamelessly takes away a person's time, money and energy. And since these three concepts are almost equivalent, we can say that a person loses his vitality. And loses it for nothing. Any goal in life needs to be filled with your own energy, only then it is achieved. Grains need to be planted in fertile soil so that they bring a decent harvest. And the man? A man scatters stones, and does not have time to turn around, when the time comes to collect them. We so rarely think about the common truth that “the ball is round”, and everything we have done comes back as a “boomerang”.

There is one more point. The more personal secrets a person has, the more effort he needs to hide these secrets. The logical chain is this: the more a person hides, the more closed he is. The more closed he is, the less he is inclined to communicate. Who wants to lie all the time? Although people are different. I have a friend, for the last six years he has kept a mistress, sometimes I listen to what pearls he gives out to his wife about his absence until the morning or being late for dinner, tears of emotion well up in my eyes.

"Non-communication" leads to inattention, misunderstanding, alienation. And further, to other "charms" of joint life. On the websites of our home-grown psychologists, in "glamorous" magazines and other fiction, you can often read a lot of useful advice for a woman. How to find out about cheating husband? What to do if you have a lover? What if your husband starts to suspect you? Is it worth it to be jealous of an insidious traitor and how to repay him? Such recommendations imply a turbulent "secret life" of the spouses and treat them like two poker players playing against each other, they say, the one who bluffs more wins.

One more nuance. The “secret life” that one of the spouses leads sometimes seems quite harmless to him. Remorse of conscience is suppressed by iron arguments about the need for this or that action. Justifying himself, a person leads a slander on a partner, it is easier to get rid of guilt. Yes, and why bother, because I have the right to "private life." But let's imagine that our partner has a "secret life". After all, each of the spouses has the right to “private life”. What happens? They ate noodles with chicken and fled, one to his mistress, the other to his lover. Normal "Swedish family". A family affected by a lie virus, in addition to venereal viruses. Herpes, chlamydia and human papillomavirus are the most harmless of them.

Well, and the last. You have the right to ask: how is it yourself? Do you have the perfect family or are you the perfect husband? Maybe you are a man, but everything human is alien to you?

Not at all, my dear friends. Both I and my family are far from ideal. But we are consciously striving for it. We started small: we began to talk more with each other, outlined some common goals, excluded from communication lie. And the seeds of the rational, the good, the eternal, sprout surprisingly quickly, I will report to you. And this suggests that we have chosen the right path ... Well, we don’t have a “personal life” either. We made it a rule to discuss any situation. For example, someone said a compliment to my wife, or she bought a blouse that was not provided for by the budget, “but very inexpensively,” and a girl approached me at a party and tried to make an acquaintance. Our mobile phones are always available for viewing, and SMS can be read by anyone. Email available for viewing. If someone is sitting at the computer, then another can come up at any time and ask what you are doing. And this does not cause any rejection or discomfort, because there is nothing to hide. No need to be afraid of exposure, no need to be ashamed of anything. Wherever I am going, I can always take my wife with me, or I can go alone. The same is true in her case. We put each other's interests first, followed by the interests of children and the rest of the world. We just don't have a need for personal life".

When the noisy day falls silent for a mortal,
And on the mute hailstones
Translucent will cast a shadow on the night
And sleep, day's work is a reward,
At that time for me to drag in silence
Hours of weary vigil:
In the inactivity of the night live burn in me
Snakes of heart remorse;
Dreams boil; in a mind overwhelmed by longing,
An excess of heavy thoughts crowds;
The memory is silent before me
Its long progress scroll;
And with disgust reading my life,
I tremble and curse
And I bitterly complain, and bitterly shed tears,
But I do not wash off the sad lines.

Analysis of the poem "Recollection" by Pushkin

The poem "Recollection" was written by Pushkin in 1828 under the influence of the St. Petersburg white nights. Tired of secular entertainment, feeling the onset of a period of reaction after the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, the great poet often thought about the meaning own life. During this period, he experienced a spiritual crisis, expressed in the sad and sad lines of the poem. Initially, Pushkin planned to name the work "Insomnia" or "Vigil". The final version for publication was half as long as the manuscript.

Night solitude was extremely conducive to Pushkin's philosophical reflections. Suffering from insomnia, he indulges in bleak memories. The depressed state evokes in his memory only the sad moments of life, to which the poet feels disgust. At the same time, he does not renounce anything, feeling responsible for all the actions committed in life (“but I do not wash off the sad lines”). This line ends the printed poem.

The poet sees the whole past in black. He is hurt again and again by the insults, slander and betrayal once inflicted. Further, Pushkin speaks of two angels given to him by fate. He means two women, but their names have not yet been established. The memory of these "ghosts of the young" also torments the poet, because the angels "with a fiery sword" are seized with a thirst for revenge.

As already mentioned, Pushkin crossed out the second half of the poem. One can only speculate about the reasons for this decision. Perhaps he wanted to give the work a more solid and compressed form. The phrase “I don’t wash off the sad lines” already sums up the bleak memories. On the other hand, in the second part of the poet's reflections are very personal. Pushkin simply did not want to put them on public display. Many critics and admirers of the poet's talent believed that the unpublished part was in no way inferior to the first in terms of emotionality and sincerity of feelings. But the author's decision cannot be challenged, so Reminiscence is usually printed in its shortened version.