I am re-reading Pushkin’s poem “Monument”. Amazing thing! And infectious. After him, many poets, in one form or another, also began to build poetic monuments for themselves. But this monument mania came not from Pushkin, but from the depths of centuries from Horace. Lomonosov was the first in Russian literature of the 18th century to translate Horace's verse. This translation goes like this:

I erected a sign of immortality for myself8
Higher than the pyramids and stronger than copper,
What the stormy aquilon cannot erase,
Neither many centuries, nor caustic antiquity.
I won’t die at all; but death will leave
Great is my part, as soon as I end my life.
I will grow in glory everywhere,
While great Rome controls the light.

This monument mania came from Horace. Based on the text of Horace, Derzhavin also wrote his “Monument”.

I erected a wonderful, eternal monument to myself,
It is harder than metals and higher than the pyramids;
Neither the whirlwind nor the fleeting thunder will break it,
And time's flight will not crush it.
So! - all of me will not die, but part of me is big,
Having escaped from decay, he will live after death,
And my glory will increase without fading,
How long will the universe honor the Slavic race?
Rumors will spread about me from the White Waters to the Black Waters,
Where the Volga, Don, Neva, the Urals flow from Riphean;
Everyone will remember this among countless nations,
How from obscurity I became known,
That I was the first to dare in a funny Russian syllable
To proclaim Felitsa’s virtues,
Talk about God in simplicity of heart
And speak the truth to kings with a smile.
O muse! be proud of your just merit,
And whoever despises you, despise them yourself;
With a relaxed, unhurried hand
Crown your brow with the dawn of immortality

Behind him Pushkin writes his famous “Monument”

I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands,
The people's path to him will not be overgrown,
He ascended higher with his rebellious head
Alexandrian Pillar.
No, all of me will not die - the soul is in the treasured lyre
My ashes will survive and decay will escape -
And I will be glorious as long as I am in the sublunary world
At least one piit will be alive.
Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And every tongue that is in it will call me,
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tungus, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.
And for a long time I will be so kind to the people,
That I awakened good feelings with my lyre,
That in my cruel age I glorified freedom
And he called for mercy for the fallen.
By the command of God, O muse, be obedient;
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown,
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently
And don't argue with a fool.

The attentive reader will notice that these three poetic monuments are in many ways similar to each other.
Then it went on and on. The poet Valery Bryusov builds a good monument to himself, where he confidently declares that his monument “cannot be toppled” and that his descendants will “rejoice”

My monument stands, composed of consonant stanzas.
Scream, go on a rampage - you won’t be able to bring him down!
The disintegration of melodious words in the future is impossible, -
I am and must forever be.
And all camps are fighters, and people of different tastes,
In the poor man's closet, and in the king's palace,
Rejoicing, they will call me Valery Bryusov,
Speaking about a friend with friendship.
To the gardens of Ukraine, to the noise and bright dream of the capital,
To the threshold of India, on the banks of the Irtysh, -
Burning pages will fly everywhere,
In which my soul sleeps.
I thought for many, I knew the pangs of passion for everyone,
But it will become clear to everyone that this song is about them,
And, in distant dreams in irresistible power,
Each verse will be proudly glorified.
And in new sounds the call will penetrate beyond
Sad homeland, both German and French
They will humbly repeat my orphaned poem,
A gift from the supportive Muses.
What is the glory of our days? - random fun!
What is the slander of friends? - contempt blasphemy!
Crown my brow, Glory of other centuries,
Leading me into the universal temple.

The poet Khodasevich also hoped that
"In Russia new and great,
They will put up my two-faced idol
At the crossroads of two roads,
Where is time, wind and sand..."

But Akhmatova, in her poem “Requiem,” even indicated the place where to erect a monument to her.

And if ever in this country
They are planning to erect a monument to me,

I give my consent to this triumph,
But only with the condition - do not put it

Not near the sea where I was born:
The last connection with the sea is severed,

Not in the royal garden near the treasured stump,
Where the inconsolable shadow is looking for me,

And here, where I stood for three hundred hours
And where they didn’t open the bolt for me.

Then, even in the blessed death I am afraid
Forget the rumble of the black marus,

Forget how hateful the door slammed
And the old woman howled like a wounded animal.

And let from the still and bronze ages
Melted snow flows like tears,

And let the prison dove drone in the distance,
And the ships sail quietly along the Neva.

In 2006, in the year of the fortieth anniversary of Akhmatova’s death, a monument to her was unveiled in St. Petersburg, on the Robespierre embankment, opposite the Kresty prison building. Exactly in the place where she indicated.

I. Brodsky erected a unique monument to himself.

I erected a different monument to myself,
Turn your back to the shameful century,
To love with your lost face,
And the buttocks to the sea of ​​half-truths...

Yesenin, too, probably as a joke, built a monument to himself:
I erected a monument to myself
From the corks of laced wines.
Wine bottles were then called corks. Talking about his meeting with Yesenin in Rostov-on-Don in 1920, Yu. Annenkov recalled an episode that took place in the Alhambra restaurant. Yesenin banging on the table with his fist:
- Comrade footman, traffic jam!
The people erected a well-deserved monument to Yesenin. And not alone. The people's path to them will not be overgrown.

But the poet A. Kucheruk persistently writes verse after verse in order to also create a monument not made by hands for himself. But he doubts “will there be a path to it?”

They tell me that all this is in vain;
write poetry... What are they for now?
After all, there have been no beautiful ladies in the world for a long time.
And there are no knights among us for a long time.

All souls have long lost interest in poetry
to minus two on the Kelvin scale...
Well, why are you really into them?
What, there are no other things to do on Earth?

Or maybe you're a graphomaniac? So you scribble
knocking lines into orderly rows?
Like a sewing machine, day and night
your poems are full of water.

And I don't know what to say to this,
because I'm really ready
with energy worthy of a poet
sing praises to friends and crush enemies.

Ready to write verse by verse persistently,
but if so my country is blind,
let me create a monument not made by hands...
Will there be a path leading to it?!!

Watching how others create monuments for themselves, I also became infected with this monument mania and decided to create my own miraculous one.

I also erected a monument to myself,
Like Pushkin, like old Derzhavin,
Your last name under the nickname NICK
I have already made him famous with my creativity.

No, gentlemen, I'm going to fucking die,
My creations will outlive me.
For always being faithful to goodness,
Descendants will light a candle for me in the church.

And thus I will be kind to the people,
That I was excited by the creativity of my heart,
What from enemies and all other freaks
I defended Holy Rus' all my life.

My enemies will die of envy.
Let them die, that’s what they need, apparently!
Descendants will erase them from memory,
And the NIK will thunder like cannonade.

Rumors about me will spread everywhere,
And both the Chukchi and the Kalmyk will remember me.
They will read my creations in a circle,
They will say that NICK was a good man.
(Joke)

But, like Kucheruk, I doubt whether there will be a path to my monument?

Reviews

Great job Nikolai Ivanovich! I read it twice. And one more time to my waking wife. Surprisingly, your monument fell in line, after all the great and not so great ones. So you are a good person, Nick. This is not even discussed. And this is the most important thing. The main monument. Well, you can’t take away your sense of humor either! Thank you!

A.S. Pushkin lived little, but wrote a lot. However, compared to how much has been written about the poet after his death, what he himself wrote is a drop in the ocean. Who hasn’t written and what hasn’t been written about Pushkin?

After all, in addition to true admirers of the great singer’s creations, he also had ill-wishers. Most likely, these people were jealous of the poet, his fame, his genius - they can be called Salierists. Be that as it may, human memory has preserved the best and truest things that have been said and written about Pushkin, the man and the poet. Even during the life of Alexander Sergeevich Gogol wrote: “At the name of Pushkin, the thought of a Russian national poet immediately dawns on me.” And this is really true: no matter what Pushkin wrote, no matter what he wrote about, “there is a Russian spirit, there is a smell of Russia.”

But “the poet, a slave of honor, died.” And the day after the poet’s death, his friend the writer Odoevsky wrote in his obituary: “The sun of our poetry has set! Pushkin died, died in the prime of his life, in the middle of his great career!.. We have no strength to talk about this anymore, and there is no need, every Russian heart will be torn to pieces. Pushkin! Our poet! Our joy, national glory!..” It’s already two hundred years since the poet’s birth and more than one hundred and sixty since his death. Who else but us, his descendants, can judge: Pushkin really belongs to national glory, his name is familiar to every schoolchild, his work captivates, enchants, makes you think...

And what wonderful words the poet and critic A. Grigoriev said about Pushkin: “Pushkin is our everything!” And one cannot but agree with this: on the contrary, everyone who is familiar with the poet’s work will not exaggerate if he calls the great genius the mind, honor, conscience and soul of the Russian people. The heartfelt words of Nikolai Rubtsov are filled with love and gratitude for Pushkin:

Like a mirror of the Russian elements,

Having defended my destiny,

He reflected the whole soul of Russia!

And he died reflecting it...

The name of Pushkin is also resurrected with the word “freedom”. Oh, how the poet loved her, how dear she was to him! That’s why he glorified it, and that’s why he sang songs about will and freedom. And he considered this mission - the glorification of freedom - one of the main missions assigned to him on earth:

And for a long time I will be - that is why I am kind to the people,

That I awakened good feelings with my lyre,

That in my cruel age I glorified freedom...

Pushkin is a deeply folk poet. “And my incorruptible voice was the echo of the Russian people,” he wrote. It is important to remember his words, once said in a conversation with Zhukovsky: “The only opinion that I value is the opinion of the Russian people.” And the people heard and appreciated their noble singer, even if not immediately, even years later, but forever. His work is a kind of tuning fork for writers of many literatures, his life is an example of human dignity and honor. And as long as these qualities are valued by people, “the people’s path to Pushkin will not become overgrown.”

Here is the original Pushkin text in the original spelling:

Exegi monumentum

I have erected a monument to myself not made by hands;
The people's path to it will not be overgrown;
He rose higher with his rebellious head
Alexandrian pillar.

No! I won't die at all! Soul in the sacred lyre
My ashes will survive and flee decay -
And I will be glorious as long as I am in the sublunary world
At least one of them will be alive.

Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And every tongue that is in it will call me:
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tunguz, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.

And for a long time I will be so kind to the people,
That I awakened good feelings with my lyre,
That in my cruel age I glorified freedom,
And he called for mercy for the fallen.

By the command of God, O muse, be obedient:
Without fear of insult, without demanding a crown,
Praise and slander were accepted indifferently
And don't challenge a fool.

This poem by A.S. A huge literature is devoted to Pushkin. (There is even a special two-hundred-page work: Alekseev M.P. “Pushkin’s poem “I erected a monument to myself...””. L., “Nauka”, 1967.). In its genre, this poem goes back to a long, centuries-old tradition. It is possible to analyze how the previous Russian and French translations and arrangements of Horace’s Ode (III.XXX) differ from Pushkin’s text, what Pushkin contributed to the interpretation of the topic, etc. But it’s not worth competing with Alekseev within a short post.

The final Pushkin text has already been self-censored. If you look at

There was, as usual, a ceremonial meeting at the Bolshoi Theater. Members of the Politburo and other, as it was customary to say then, “notable people of our Motherland” sat on the presidium.

A report on the life and work of the great poet was given by Konstantin Simonov.

Of course, both the entire course of this solemn meeting and Simonov’s report were broadcast on the radio throughout the country.

But the general public, especially somewhere in the outback, did not show much interest in this event.

In any case, in a small Kazakh town, in the central square of which a loudspeaker was installed, no one - including the local authorities - expected that Simonov’s report would suddenly arouse such burning interest among the population.

The loudspeaker wheezed something of its own, not too intelligible. The square, as usual, was empty. But by the beginning of the solemn meeting, broadcast from the Bolshoi Theater, or rather by the beginning of Simonov’s report, the entire square was suddenly filled with a crowd of horsemen who had galloped up from nowhere. The riders dismounted and stood silently at the loudspeaker.

Least of all did they resemble subtle connoisseurs of fine literature. These were very simple people, poorly dressed, with tired, haggard faces. But they listened attentively to the formal words of Simonov’s report as if their whole lives depended on what the famous poet was about to say there, at the Bolshoi Theater.

But at some point, somewhere around the middle of the report, they suddenly lost all interest in it. They jumped on their horses and rode away - just as unexpectedly and as quickly as they had appeared.

These were Kalmyks exiled to Kazakhstan. And they rushed from the distant places of their settlement to this town, to this square, with one single goal: to hear whether the Moscow speaker would say when he quoted the text of Pushkin’s “Monument” (and he would certainly quote it! How could he not this?), the words: “And the Kalmyk, a friend of the steppes.”

If he had uttered them, it would have meant that the gloomy fate of the exiled people was suddenly illuminated by a faint ray of hope.
But, contrary to their timid expectations, Simonov never uttered these words.

He, of course, quoted “Monument”. And I even read the corresponding stanza. But not all of it. Not completely:

Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',
And every tongue that is in it will call me,
And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild
Tungus...

And that’s it. On “Tungus” the quote was cut off.

I also listened to this report then (on the radio, of course). And I also noticed how strangely and unexpectedly the speaker re-halved Pushkin’s line. But I learned about what was behind this dangling quote much later. And this story about Kalmyks who rushed from distant places to listen to Simonov’s report was also told to me later, many years later. And then I was only surprised to note that when quoting Pushkin’s “Monument,” the speaker somehow lost his rhyme. And he was very surprised that Simonov (a poet after all!), for no reason at all, suddenly mutilated Pushkin’s beautiful line.

The missing rhyme was returned to Pushkin only eight years later. Only in 1957 (after Stalin’s death, after XX Congress), the exiled people returned to their native Kalmyk steppes, and the text of Pushkin’s “Monument” could finally be quoted in its original form.Even from the stage of the Bolshoi Theater."
Benedikt Sarnov «

Buyan Island: Pushkin and Geography Trube Lev Ludvigovich

“And the Kalmyk, a friend of the steppes”

“And the Kalmyk, a friend of the steppes”

Every nation is unique. A. S. Pushkin tried to explain this by the influence of climate, the way of government, and faith, which gives “every people a special physiognomy, which is more or less reflected in the mirror of poetry.” “There is a way of thinking and feeling, there is a darkness of customs, beliefs and habits that belong exclusively to some people,” he wrote in the article “On Nationality in Literature.”

In Pushkin's works there are names of many peoples, both famous and little-known; Some of these peoples appear under names that still exist today, while others appear under old names that were in use in former times. And above all, these are the names of peoples, captured in his insightful “Monument”:

Rumors about me will spread throughout Great Rus',

And every tongue that is in it will call me,

And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild

Tungus, and friend of the steppes Kalmyk.

The poet’s choice of the names of peoples given in the “Monument” is not accidental, as is the case with other poets for rhyme, but is deeply thought out. The four names of peoples essentially cover the entire vast territory of Russia. “The Proud Grandson of the Slavs” represents Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians; Finn - a representative of the peoples living in the vast territory of the north of the country; Tungus - the peoples of Siberia and Kalmyk - the south and southeast, Mongol-Turkic peoples. True, while working on this poem, the poet did not immediately identify the four peoples indicated. As the draft shows, only two names were indisputable for him, appearing in all versions of the poem - “Russian” and “Finn”. “Tungus” and “Kalmyk,” included in the initial version, were then replaced and the following options were outlined: “and Finn, Georgian, Kyrgyz,” and “Finn, Georgian and now wild Circassian.” As you can see, the poet focused on the names of the most representative peoples, more precisely, on the names of the peoples who inhabited the vast territory of the country - from the shores of the Baltic to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, from the Arctic Ocean to the Caspian Sea. This only emphasizes A. S. Pushkin’s awareness of issues of ethnic studies, his knowledge of the history of different peoples, and he knew the history of the Kalmyks well from the manuscript of N. Ya. Bichurin, which he wrote about in the notes to “The History of Pugachev”: “With gratitude we place what he reported (Bichurin. - L.T.) an excerpt from his still unpublished book about the Kalmyks.” At the same time, Pushkin, according to researcher A.I. Surzhok, “adheres to his own, completely independent concept regarding the tragic departure of the Kalmyks from Russia” 1: “driven out of patience by oppression, they decided to leave Russia...”. Only a part of the Kalmyks went to their ancestral homeland, Dzungaria. Having lost many fellow tribesmen on the way, they reached Dzungaria. “But the border chain of Chinese guards menacingly blocked their entry into their former fatherland, and the Kalmyks could only enter it with the loss of their independence” (notes to “The History of Pugachev”).

There is no need to say much about the “proud grandson of the Slavs”: the poet dedicated many lines to him in his works.

A.S. Pushkin was proud of his people, the Russian people, first of all the peasants who formed the basis of the Russian people. “Look at the Russian peasant,” he wrote, “is there a shadow of slavish humiliation in his behavior and speech? There is nothing to say about his courage and intelligence. Its variability is known. The agility and dexterity are amazing. A traveler travels from one region to another in Russia, not knowing a single word of Russian, and everywhere he is understood, his demands are fulfilled, and terms are concluded with him. You will never meet among our people what the French call un badaud; you will never notice in him either rude surprise or ignorant contempt for the things of others” (“Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg”).

Finn A. S. Pushkin clearly has a collective name, that is, it refers not only to the Finns themselves (Suomi, as they call themselves), who make up the main population of Finland, but also to their related Karelians, Estonians and other peoples of the Finnish language group. Previously, in pre-revolutionary times, they were also called Chukhons (Finnish population surrounded by St. Petersburg):

Your little girl, hey,

Byron's Greek girls are cuter,

And your Zoil is a straight Chukhonian.

"To Baratynsky"

In our country, the peoples of the Finnish group (Karelians, Estonians, Maris, Mordovians, Udmurts, Komi) number more than 4 million people, and the area of ​​the republics formed by these peoples is 1375 thousand square meters. kilometers, that is, over 1/4 of the European territory of the USSR.

Tungus , or, as they are now called by the self-name of the people, the Evenks, although they represent a small people (only 28 thousand people), forming an autonomous district within the Krasnoyarsk Territory, they are settled not only in the territory of the district, but also far beyond its borders - on most of Siberia, from the Ob to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The widespread settlement of the Evenks since ancient times is evidenced, in particular, by numerous Evenki geographical names, primarily of a number of large rivers - the Yenisei, Lena, Yana, which are based on the Evenki word no, meaning "big river". Evenk is truly a representative of the peoples of all Siberia, and is no longer a “wild” representative of it, but no less enlightened than other peoples.

But in the pre-revolutionary past, the Evenks, like many other small peoples, did not have their own written language and were, one can directly say, completely illiterate, led a nomadic lifestyle, and conical tents in the camps served as their homes.

WITH Kalmyks the poet communicated directly, was a guest of a Kalmyk family in a steppe tent, tasted national food, although he, accustomed to Russian cuisine, did not like it. This is how A. S. Pushkin describes his visit to a Kalmyk family on the way to the Caucasus in 1829: “The other day I visited a Kalmyk tent (a checkered fence covered with white felt). The whole family was getting ready to have breakfast; the cauldron was boiled in the middle, and the smoke came out into a hole made in the top of the wagon. A young Kalmyk woman, very good-looking, was sewing while smoking tobacco. I sat down next to her. "What is your name?" "***" - "How old are you?" - “Ten and eight.” - “What are you sewing?” - “Trouser.” - "To whom?" - "Myself". - She handed me her pipe and began to have breakfast. Tea was brewed in a cauldron with lamb fat and salt. She offered me her ladle. I didn’t want to refuse and took a sip, trying not to take a breath... I asked to eat it with something. They gave me a piece of dried mare's meat; I was glad about that too. Kalmyk coquetry frightened me; I quickly got out of the wagon and drove away from the steppe Circe” (“Journey to Arzrum”).

Judging by the rough recording, the end of this visit to the Kalmyk tent looked somewhat different. According to the original version of the recording, the poet swallowed the served piece of dried mare meat with great pleasure. “After this feat, I thought that I had the right to some reward. But my proud beauty hit me on the head with a musical instrument similar to our balalaika. Here is a message to her that will probably never reach her..."

Farewell, dear Kalmyk!

A little bit, in spite of my plans,

I have a commendable habit

Didn't captivate me among the steppes

Following your wagon.

Your eyes are, of course, narrow,

And the nose is flat and the forehead is wide,

You don't babble in French,

You don't squeeze your legs with silk,

In English in front of the samovar

You can't crumble bread with a pattern.

Don't admire Saint-Mars

You don't appreciate Shakespeare a little,

Don't fall into daydreaming

When there is no thought in your head,

Don’t you sing: Ma dov’?,

You can't gallop in a meeting...

What needs? - Exactly half an hour,

While they were harnessing the horses for me,

My mind and heart were occupied

Your gaze and wild beauty.

Friends! Aren't they all the same thing?

Lose yourself as an idle soul

In a brilliant hall, in a fashionable box,

Or nomadic in a wagon?

It is interesting to note that A. Blok “started” from this poem when creating a portrait of an Egyptian woman: “All the features of an Egyptian woman are far from any “canon” of beauty. The forehead seems to be too large; it was not for nothing that she covered it with her hair. There is something Mongolian in the oval of the cheeks, perhaps what made Pushkin “forget himself in an ardent dream” in the “nomadic wagon” and dreamily scribble across manuscripts of poetry with profiles” 2 .

A nomadic people in the past, the Kalmyks now form their own autonomous republic within the Russian Federation, within which 4/5 of the more than 170 thousand of them in the country live. Now the Kalmyks, who have reached the same heights in education as other peoples of our multinational country, are not alien to all the achievements of human culture. In the capital of the republic, Elista, a monument to A. S. Pushkin, the great internationalist poet, whose poems every Kalmyk turns to, was erected.

Many nations appear in his works.

The poet dedicated an entire poem gypsies , who “... wander around Bessarabia in a noisy crowd.” He spent two weeks in a gypsy camp.

“Living in Bessarabia,” writes V. A. Manuilov, “Pushkin studied the gypsy language, became acquainted with gypsy songs, wrote down ancient Moldavian legends and songs... “Black Shawl” is an artistic reworking of a Moldavian song...” 3.

The unusual fate of the gypsies prompted A. S. Pushkin to give notes to the poem, in which he writes: “For a long time in Europe they did not know the origin of the gypsies; they were considered to come from Egypt - to this day in some lands they call them Egyptians. English travelers finally resolved all the confusion - it was proven that the gypsies belong to an outcast caste of Indians called pariah. Their language and what can be called their faith, even their facial features and lifestyle are true evidence of this. Their attachment to the wild freedom ensured by poverty, everywhere tired of the measures taken by the government to transform the idle life of these vagabonds - they wander in Russia, as well as in England; men engage in crafts necessary for basic needs, trade horses, drive bears, deceive and steal, women make a living in divination, singing and dancing.

In Moldova, Gypsies make up the majority of the population..."

The last statement of the poet, who did not have statistical data, is incorrect (gypsies did not make up the majority of the population of Moldova). It is no coincidence that he added to his note about Bessarabia: “Bessarabia, known since ancient times, should be especially interesting for us.

She was glorified by Derzhavin

And full of Russian glory.

But to this day we know this region from the erroneous descriptions of two or three travelers” 5.

According to data for 1833, Bessarabia had a population of 465 thousand people 6 . Over the next half century it increased to 1.6 million people, of which in 1889 about half were Moldovans and 18.8 thousand were Roma.

Currently, in Moldova, out of 4 million people, Moldovans make up about 2/3 of its population, and the Gypsies number a little more than ten thousand people, and among other nationalities of this multinational republic they are in eighth place in number (after Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Gagauz , Bulgarians, Jews, Belarusians). Only 1/20 of all Gypsies in the USSR live in Moldova (according to the 1979 census, there were 209 thousand of them in the country).

And here is the poet’s apt remark about the numerous old Chisinau bazaar:

A money-loving Jew is crowded among the crowd,

Under the cloak is a Cossack, ruler of the Caucasus,

The talkative Greek and the silent Turk,

Both an important Persian and a cunning Armenian.

"Crowded among the crowd..."

The peoples of the Caucasus were not ignored by the poet. Having visited Georgia, he spoke about Georgians : “Georgians are a warlike people. They have proven their courage under our banners. Their mental abilities expect greater education. They are generally of a cheerful and sociable nature” (“Journey to Arzrum”). In four laconic phrases, a succinct description of the people is given with its potential capabilities, which were fully revealed only a century later - in Soviet times.

Driving through the land of ancient Armenia, A.S. Pushkin stopped for the night with people completely unfamiliar to him, who received him very cordially, to which he draws his attention: “The rain poured down on me. Finally, a young man came out of a nearby house Armenian and, having talked with my Turk, called me to him, speaking in fairly pure Russian. He led me up a narrow staircase into the second apartment of his house. In a room decorated with low sofas and shabby carpets, sat an old woman, his mother. She came up to me and kissed my hand. The son told her to light the fire and prepare dinner for me. I undressed and sat down in front of the fire... Soon the old woman cooked me lamb with onions, which seemed to me the height of culinary art. We all went to bed in the same room; I lay down in front of the dying fireplace and fell asleep...” This is a small ethnographic sketch showing the life of ordinary people in Armenia.

While in the Baltic states, the hero of the poet’s unfinished work (“In 179 * I returned…”) notes: “From a distance the sad song of a young Estonians ».

Of course, A.S. Pushkin knew his Boldino neighbors - Mordovians , as well as our other neighbors - Chuvash And cheremisy (now Mari). In “The History of Pugachev” he writes: “The Mordovians, Chuvash, and Cheremis ceased to obey the Russian authorities.” In Pugachev’s army there were “...up to ten thousand Kalmyks, Bashkirs, tribute Tatars...”. Above we talked about Kyrgyz-Kaisakah (Kazakhs).

More than two dozen names of the peoples of our country are found in the works of the poet.

Various peoples of foreign countries are also mentioned in the works of A. S. Pushkin: Arnauts, Bosniaks, Dalmatians, Wallachians, Ottomans, Adechs, Saracens (Saracins) and others, which indicates the poet’s broad geographical knowledge.

Arnauts - the Turkish name for the Albanians, under which they appear in the story “Kirdzhali”: “... the Arnauts in their ragged and picturesque attire, slender Moldavian women with black-faced children in their arms surrounded the karutsa” (karutsa - wicker cart).

Bosniaks (Bosnians) - residents of Bosnia, formerly a Turkish province, and now a republic within Yugoslavia: “Beglerbey with his Bosniaks came against us...” (“Battle of Zenica the Great” - from “Songs of the Western Slavs”).

Dalmatians - residents of Dalmatia, formerly an Austrian province near the Adriatic Sea, and now a region in Yugoslavia: “And the Dalmatians, seeing our army, twirled their long mustaches, put their hats on one side and said: “Take us with you: We want to fight the Busurmans.” (“The Battle of Zenica the Great” - from “Songs of the Western Slavs”).

Wallachians - residents of the Principality of Wallachia, which was under Turkish rule; then, after liberation, they became part of the Romanian nation, and Wallachia became part of Romania. The hero of the story “Kirdzhali”, after whom it is named, says: “For the Turks, for the Moldovans, for the Wallachians I am, of course, a robber, but for the Russians I am a guest.” And Kirdzhali’s origin “was Bulgar.”

Ottomans - the ancient name of the Turks (named after the 16th century Turkish Sultan Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire).

I was also among the Donets,

I also drove away a gang of Ottomans;

In memory of the battle and tents

I brought home a whip -

This is how the poet remembers his participation in the battle of Arzrum, which he is silent about in “Journey to Arzrum”, placing only a drawing in which he depicted himself on a horse with a pike. This is evidenced by eyewitness N.A. Ushakov: “The shootout on June 14, 1829 is remarkable because our glorious poet A.S. Pushkin took part in it... Grabbing the pike of one of the killed Cossacks, he rushed against the enemy horsemen. One can believe that our Don people were extremely amazed to see before them an unfamiliar hero in a round hat and burka. This was the first and last debut of the favorite of muses in the Caucasus” 7. By the way, having received from the author a book in which this episode is described, A.S. Pushkin answered him in June 1836: “I saw with amazement that you had granted immortality to me too - with one stroke of your pen.”

This episode inspired Pushkin's poem "Delibash". Here's the beginning:

Shootout over the hills;

Looks at their camp and ours;

On the hill before the Cossacks

The red delibash is flying.

Adeji - from the self-name “Adyghe” of three related peoples - Kabardins, Circassians, Adyghe, who were also previously called Circassians.

Not for conversations and rejoicings,

Not for bloody meetings,

Not for questioning kunak,

Not for robbers' fun

The Adekhi came together so early

To the courtyard of Gasub the old man.

Sarachins (by the poet in the form of a magpie), or Saracens, originally (by ancient historians) the name of the nomadic tribes of Arabia, and then of all Arabs in general, and sometimes Muslims. Actually, the Sarachins are Western Polovtsians.

Brothers in a friendly crowd

They go out for a walk,

Shoot gray ducks

Amuse your right hand,

Sorochina rush to the field...

"The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights"

Also noteworthy is A. S. Pushkin’s explanation of “Arabs” and “Araps” in a letter to P. A. Vyazemsky (second half of 1835-1836): “Arab (does not have a feminine gender) is a resident or native of Arabia, an Arabian. The caravan was plundered by the steppe Arabs.

Arab, female arapki, this is how blacks and mulattoes are usually called. Palace araps, blacks serving in the palace. He leaves with three smart araps».

The names of different peoples in A.S. Pushkin are organically woven into the fabric of his works, in which apt characteristics and definitions are given, creating their visible images in one or two words: “Moldavian with a mustache and a lamb’s cap.”

A.S. Pushkin was an ardent champion of the equality of peoples, their friendship and, naturally, did not consider it shameful for a person to belong to one or another people, as long as he was decent.

It doesn’t matter that you’re Pole:

Kosciuszko pole, Mickiewicz pole!

Perhaps, be yourself a Tatar, -

And I don’t see any shame here;

Be a Jew - and it doesn’t matter;

The trouble is that you are Vidocq Figlarin.

“It’s not a problem...”

The poet was proud of his ancestor (on his mother’s side) - Hannibal, a native of Africa, the “amoor” of Peter the Great:

Figlyarin decided, sitting at home,

That my black grandfather is Hannibal

Was bought for a bottle of rum

And it fell into the hands of the skipper.

This skipper was that glorious skipper,

Where did our land go,

Who gave a powerful run to the sovereign

The helm of my native ship.

This skipper was available to my grandfather.

And a similarly purchased blackamoor

He has grown diligent, incorruptible,

The king is a confidant, not a slave.

And he was the father of Hannibal,

Before whom among the Chesme depths

The mass of ships flared up

And Navarin fell for the first time...

"My Pedigree"

A.S. Pushkin, as a thinker, thought about the fate of not only the peoples of his country, but also the world. And this immense breadth of interests, the depth of penetration of his genius into all aspects of the life of the contemporary world was appreciated by the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz: “...No one will replace Pushkin. Only once is it possible for a country to reproduce a person who to such a high degree combines such different and, apparently, mutually exclusive qualities. Pushkin, whose poetic talent surprised readers, captivated, amazed listeners with the liveliness, subtlety and clarity of his mind, was gifted with an extraordinary memory, correct judgment, and refined and excellent taste. When he spoke about foreign and domestic policy, one could think that you were listening to a man seasoned in state affairs and imbued with daily reading of parliamentary debates. He made many enemies for himself with epigrams and caustic ridicule. They took revenge on him with slander. I knew the Russian poet quite closely and for quite a long time; I found in him a character too impressionable, and sometimes frivolous, but always sincere, noble and capable of heartfelt outpourings. His errors seemed to be the fruits of the circumstances among which he lived; everything that was good in him flowed from his heart” 8.

And the poet’s heart beat restlessly in worries for the fate of large and small nations, for the future of humanity.

Friendship of free peoples is peace on Earth, which A. S. Pushkin passionately desired, foreseeing it in the future. In a note about the “Project of Perpetual Peace” by Abbot Saint-Pierre, dating back to his stay in Chisinau, he wrote:

"1. It cannot be that over time the ridiculous cruelty of war will not become clear to people, just as slavery, royal power, etc. became clear to them... They will be convinced that our destiny is to eat, drink and be free.

2. Since constitutions - which are a major step forward in human thought, a step that will not be the only one - necessarily tend to reduce the number of troops, for the principle of armed force is directly opposed to every constitutional idea, it is possible that in less than 100 years there will be no there will already be a standing army.

3. As for great passions and great military talents, the guillotine will remain for this, because society is not at all inclined to admire the great plans of a victorious general: people have enough other concerns, and only for this reason they have put themselves under the protection of the laws” (“On Eternal Peace” ).

It can be assumed that our fellow countryman A.D. Ulybyshev also influenced the development of the poet’s freedom-loving views on the issue of “eternal peace.” Academician M.P. Alekseev writes about this: “Back in St. Petersburg, among the members of the “Green Lamp” at the end of 1819, he could hear the reading of a short work by his friend A.D. Ulybyshev called “Dream”, this early Decembrist “utopia” “, which talks about the future Russia, liberated after a revolutionary coup from the oppression of the feudal-absolute regime” 9. It was a document of advanced political thought in Russia.

A. S. Pushkin, together with the great Polish poet A. Mickiewicz, was convinced that the time would come,

When peoples, having forgotten their strife,

They will unite into a great family.

“He lived among us...”

“Let’s hope that Pushkin was right this time too,” - this is how M. P. Alekseev ends his study “Pushkin and the problem of “eternal peace.”