How old was Tatyana Larina: The version that turned the whole novel

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For several years now, a version has been discussed on the Internet, according to which Tatyana Larina, when she wrote a letter to Onegin, was not 17, but 13 years old. It is to this conclusion that Alexander Viktorovich Kotrovsky, a candidate of medical sciences and a venereologist, came to this conclusion after carefully reading Pushkin's lines. This interpretation divided the readers into two camps: some strongly disagree with the "indecent" views, while others, on the contrary, find this reading to be logical and consistent with the author's intention. Of course, if you take Tatiana in love for a minor girl, then everything that happens in the novel can be viewed from a completely different point of view.

Supporters of 13-year-old Tatiana have several important reasons. For example, if you carefully read "Eugene Onegin", you can find the following lines:

Further, Pushkin gives a very clear assessment of the actions of the 26-year-old St. Petersburg womanizer:

According to a specialist who has been dealing with gender problems for many years, such a reaction is normal for a man with healthy views, and, in addition, the situation itself is then more understandable. Indeed, at that time a 17-year-old girl would hardly have been called a “child” or “girl” - views on this issue have changed a lot over the last hundred years. For example, here is an excerpt from the essay of the economist S. Drukovtsev, written at the end of the 18th century:

It was in accordance with this "rule" that at the age of 13 Tatyana's nanny was married, Pushkin himself tells us about this, and then transmits the conversation of Tatyana, who asks her teacher whether she was in love with the old days. The old woman's answer is another "plus" to the controversial version:

It is about her age, when she was "of marriageable age," that the nanny tells. And here is what the famous literary critic Yuri Lotman wrote about this in the comments to the novel:

And this is how Belinsky wrote in an article about Onegin:

That is, it turns out that no one would marry Tatyana at the age of 13, but she could well feel mature enough for serious feelings, especially after reading love novels. Such a version would explain a lot: why, for example, Eugene so sharply rejected a girl in love, and even decided to lecture her to her: Or, why did he not immediately recognize her, having matured, at the ball - after all, the difference then would have been more significant than between 17 and 20 years, when girls don't change so much anymore.

On the other hand, such a "change" in the age of the main character should lead to other "revisions". For example, the younger sister Olga turns into a 12-year-old girl in this version. This may be surprising, because she already has a fiancé - Lensky, but taking into account the above, it turns out that this is quite possible - agreeing on a marriage, which will happen much later, could have been for a girl at such a young age. Literary critics believe that Pushkin was usually very precise in his wording. Therefore, the words of the outraged Lensky, when Olya danced with Onegin, can be understood more literally:

As for Eugene Onegin himself, it turns out that his attitude towards the "timid girl" can also be completely revised (and even "understood and forgiven"). Pushkin himself speaks of his act quite unambiguously:

As supporters of the 13-year-old Tatiana's version assure, the epigraph to the fourth chapter also becomes clearer (it is in her that the explanation takes place in the garden):

The opponents of the scandalous interpretation also have reasons. The main one is the mention of Tatyana's age in Pushkin's letter to Vyazemsky. The prince found contradictions in the recognition of the heroine, to which the poet replied that it was. It is difficult to argue with the author of the novel, so the question of how old Tatiana was can still be considered "widely discussed." It is possible that further research will make it possible to either confirm or refute the controversial version, but its authors in any case insist that this interpretation has nothing to do with the immoral modern ideas about "age-old" relationships. Most likely, Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin - these are collective images, but they, like other famous literary characters, had prototypes.