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What confused the censors in the novel "Dubrovsky" and why Akhmatova did not like him
What confused the censors in the novel "Dubrovsky" and why Akhmatova did not like him

Video: What confused the censors in the novel "Dubrovsky" and why Akhmatova did not like him

Video: What confused the censors in the novel
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It is well known that Pushkin collected eyewitness accounts of the Pugachev riot for The Captain's Daughter, and that many real people can be recognized in Eugene Onegin. The great Russian poet did not betray his principle of writing from life while working on the novel "Dubrovsky".

The island is an oak grove

As you know, Pushkin was inspired by the story of the Polish nobleman, or rather, the full-speaking Belarusian Ostrovsky, originally from near Minsk. Even the surname tells us about who became the prototype: in the Slavic languages the word "island" was used to describe a thicket, grove, oak grove separately from large forests. By the way, the surname-synonym was formed from the Polish root - in the Russian manner the surname would have sounded "Dubravsky" or "Dubravin".

The young nobleman Pavel Ostrovsky was left without land and a home in exactly the same way as Dubrovsky, and he went into robbers, having put together a gang of his former peasants. He robbed only local landowners who took the side of his enemy, and officials; merchants and even more so peasants drove by Ostrovsky calmly.

Cover for the novel
Cover for the novel

There were also differences in the history of Ostrovsky from the biography of the literary Dubrovsky. For example, the papers for the estate did not burn in an accidental fire, but disappeared during the war with Napoleon. Dubrovsky is exclusively a robber - Ostrovsky was in close contact with the Polish rebels, and his attacks on officials were based, among other things, on political motives. Finally, Dubrovsky simply dismissed the gang and disappeared, and Ostrovsky was caught and put in shackles through the stage, but he managed to escape - perhaps with the help of the same Polish rebels.

By the way, the story of Ostrovsky was told to Pushkin by his close friend Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin. Young Lermontov tried to write his own story “Vadim” based on the same story.

Censorship

The very fact that a young Pole became a hero raised doubts among the censors about the possibility of allowing the novel to go to print - despite the fact that Pushkin completely removed political motives in the actions of his hero and left only the struggle with an isolated case of injustice. However, out of respect for the deceased author, they did not hold the book.

And yet the censorship has erased something. Painting a typical Russian tyrant master, Pushkin pointed out that Troyekurov raped his peasant women. The censors considered the very mention of sexual abuse immoral and deleted the point. But they calmly ignored the illegal announcement of marriage by an Orthodox priest - after all, Masha, despite the fact that later they talked about vows, never said yes in the church.

A still from the film "Dubrovsky"
A still from the film "Dubrovsky"

The novel was unfinished

The manuscript was published after the death of Pushkin. The name was invented by the publisher, based on the fact that during his lifetime Pushkin called the novel by the name of the prototype - "Ostrovsky". But it is known that in the drafts of Pushkin, a plan of events was sketched out after the wedding of Maria Troekurova and the departure of Vladimir Dubrovsky abroad.

The plan is only a few phrases that are not easy to decipher unambiguously, but it follows from it that Maria soon became a widow and, probably, Vladimir returned to his homeland to see her. There he was reported to the police. It is not known what exactly the novel was supposed to end with.

Despite the fact that schoolchildren consider "Dubrovsky" one of the most fascinating classical texts included in the program, Anna Akhmatova rated it very low, calling it pulp fiction. “It is generally believed that P has no failures. And yet "Dubrovsky" is Pushkin's failure. And thank God he didn't finish it. It was a desire to earn a lot, a lot of money, so as not to think about them anymore. "Oak", finished, by that time would have been a splendid "reading". … I leave three whole lines to list what is seductive for the reader,”she wrote.

Many, however, disagree with her and believe that Pushkin sincerely imbued with Ostrovsky's story and just as sincerely drew a typical tyrant of his time - even if he was going to get money for the book.

Pushkin's works continue to haunt the minds of readers: What does Tatyana's letter say, how old she was, and whom did Pushkin kill in the person of Lensky?.

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