Karamzin poor Lisa about what. "Poor Liza": analysis of the work of Karamzin

Characteristics of the hero

Lisa is a poor peasant girl. She lives with her mother ("sensitive, kind old woman") in the village. To earn her living, Lisa takes on any job. In Moscow, selling flowers, the heroine meets the young nobleman Erast and falls in love with him: “completely surrendering to him, she only lived and breathed”. But Erast betrays the girl and marries another for the money. Upon learning of this, Lisa drowns in a pond. The main trait in the character of the heroine is sensitivity, the ability to love devotedly. The girl lives not with her mind, but with feelings ("tender passions"). Lisa is kind, very naive and inexperienced. She sees only the best in people. Mother warns her: “You still don't know how evil people may offend the poor girl. " Liza's mother connects evil people with the city: “My heart is always out of place when you go to the city ...” Karamzin shows bad changes in Liza's thoughts and actions under the influence of the depraved (“urban”) Erast. The girl hides from her mother, whom she had previously told everything, her love for the young nobleman. Later, Lisa, along with the news of her death, sends the old woman the money that Erast gave her. "Liza's mother heard about terrible death his daughter, and ... - eyes closed forever. " After the death of the heroine, pilgrims began to visit her grave. To the place of Liza's death, the same unfortunate girls in love came to cry and grieve, as she herself was.

The story "Poor Liza", which became a model of sentimental prose, was published by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in 1792 in the publication "Moscow Journal". It is worth noting Karamzin as an honored reformer of the Russian language and one of the most highly educated Russians of his time - this is an important aspect that makes it possible to further evaluate the success of the story. First, the development of Russian literature had a “catching up” character, since it lagged behind European literature by about 90-100 years. While in the West they wrote and read sentimental novels with might and main, clumsy classical odes and dramas were still being put together in Russia. Karamzin's progressiveness as a writer consisted in “bringing” sentimental genres to his homeland from Europe and developing a style and language for further writing such works.

Secondly, the assimilation of the literature of the late 18th century by the public was such that at first they wrote for society how to live, and then society began to live according to what was written. That is, before the sentimental story, people read mainly hagiographical or church literature, where there were no living characters or lively speech, and the heroes of the sentimental story - such as Liza - gave secular young ladies a real scenario of life, a guide to feelings.

The history of the creation of the story

Karamzin brought a story about poor Lisa from his numerous trips - from 1789 to 1790 he visited Germany, England, France, Switzerland (England is considered the birthplace of sentimentalism), and upon his return he published a new revolutionary story in his own magazine.

Poor Liza is not an original work, since Karamzin adapted its plot for Russian soil, taking it from European literature. We are not talking about a specific work and plagiarism - there were many such European stories. In addition, the author has created an atmosphere of amazing authenticity by painting himself as one of the heroes of the story and masterfully describing the setting of events.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, shortly after returning from a trip, the writer lived in a dacha not far from the Simonov Monastery, in a picturesque quiet place. The situation described by the author is real - the readers recognized both the surroundings of the monastery and the "lysine pond", and this contributed to the fact that the plot was perceived as reliable, and the heroes - as real people.

Analysis of the work

The plot of the story

The plot of the story is loving and, according to the author, utterly simple. Peasant girl Lisa (father was wealthy peasant, but after his death, the economy is in decline and the girl has to earn money by selling handicrafts and flowers) lives in the bosom of nature with her old mother. In a city that seems huge and alien to her, she meets a young nobleman, Erast. Young people fall in love - Erast out of boredom, inspired by pleasures and the noble way of life, and Liza - for the first time, with all the simple, ardor and naturalness of a "natural man". Erast takes advantage of the girl's gullibility and takes possession of her, after which, of course, begins to be weighed down by the girl's company. The nobleman leaves for the war, where he loses all his fortune at cards. The way out is to marry a rich widow. Liza finds out about this and commits suicide by throwing herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery. The author, who was told this story, cannot remember poor Lisa without holy tears of regret.

For the first time among Russian writers, Karamzin unleashed the conflict of the work with the death of the heroine - as, most likely, it would have been in reality.

Of course, despite the progressiveness of Karamzin's story, his characters differ significantly from real people, they are idealized and embellished. This is especially true of the peasants - Liza does not look like a peasant. Hard work would hardly have contributed to the fact that she remained "sensitive and kind", it is unlikely that she conducted internal dialogues with herself in an elegant style, and she could hardly keep up a conversation with a nobleman. Nevertheless, this is the first thesis of the story - "and the peasant women know how to love."

main characters

Lisa

The central heroine of the story, Liza, is the personified sensitivity, ardor and ardor. Her intelligence, kindness and tenderness, the author emphasizes, is by nature. Having met Erast, she begins to dream not that he, like a handsome prince, will take her to his world, but that he would be a simple peasant or a shepherd - this would equalize them and allow them to be together.

Erast differs from Lisa not only in social terms, but also in character. Perhaps, the author says, he was spoiled by the light - he leads a lifestyle typical for an officer and a nobleman - he seeks pleasures and, having found them, cools to life. Erast is both clever and kind, but weak, incapable of actions - such a hero also appears in Russian literature for the first time, a type of "disappointed aristocrat's life." At first, Erast is sincere in his love impulse - he does not lie when he tells Lisa about love, and it turns out that he is also a victim of circumstances. He does not withstand the test of love, does not resolve the situation "like a man", but experiences a sincere torment after what happened. After all, it was he, allegedly, who told the author the story of poor Lisa and brought him to Lisa's grave.

Erast predetermined the appearance in Russian literature of a number of heroes such as "superfluous people" - weak and incapable of making key decisions.

Karamzin uses " speaking names". In the case of Lisa, the choice of the name turned out to be "double bottom". The fact is that classical literature provided for typing techniques, and the name Liza was supposed to mean a playful, flirtatious, frivolous character. Such a name could have been given to a laughing maid - a cunning comedy character, prone to love adventures, by no means innocent. Choosing such a name for his heroine, Karamzin destroyed the classical typing and created a new one. He built a new relationship between the name, character and actions of the hero and outlined the path to psychologism in literature.

The name Erast was also not chosen by chance. It means "adorable" from the Greek. His fatal charm, the need for novelty of impressions lured and ruined the unfortunate girl. But Erast will reproach himself for the rest of his life.

Constantly reminding the reader of his reaction to what is happening (“I remember with sadness ...”, “tears are rolling down my face, reader….”), The author organizes the story so that it acquires lyricism and sensitivity.

Quotes

"Mother! Mother! How can this happen? He is a master, but among the peasants ...". Lisa.

"Nature calls me into her arms, to her pure joys," he thought, and decided - at least for a while - to leave the big light. ".

"I can't live," Liza thought, "I can't! .. Oh, if the sky had fallen on me! If the earth had swallowed up the poor! .. No! The sky does not fall; the earth does not vibrate! Woe is me." Lisa.

"Now, maybe they have already reconciled!" author

Theme, conflict of the story

Karamzin's story touches on several topics:

• The theme of the idealization of the peasant environment, the ideality of life in nature. The main character is a child of nature, and therefore, by default, she cannot be evil, immoral, insensitive. The girl embodies simplicity and innocence due to the fact that she is from a peasant family, where eternal moral values ​​are kept.
• The theme of love and betrayal. The author praises beauty sincere feelings and sadly talks about the doom of love, not backed up by reason.
• The theme of the opposition of the village and the city. The city turns out to be evil, a great unkind force capable of breaking a pure creature from nature (Lisa's mother intuitively feels this evil force and prays for her daughter every time she goes to the city to sell flowers or berries).
• Theme " little man". Social inequality, the author is sure (and this is an obvious glimpse of realism) does not lead to happiness for lovers from different backgrounds. This kind of love is doomed.

The main conflict of the story is social, because it is because of the abyss between wealth and poverty that the love of the heroes perishes, and then the heroine. The author extols sensitivity as the highest value of a person, asserts the cult of feelings as opposed to the cult of reason.

In the vicinity of Moscow, not far from the Simonov Monastery, once lived a young girl Liza with her old mother. After the death of Liza's father, a rather wealthy peasant, his wife and daughter became impoverished. The widow became weaker day by day and could not work. Liza alone, not sparing her tender youth and rare beauty, worked day and night - weaving canvases, knitting stockings, picking flowers in spring, and selling berries in Moscow in summer.

One spring, two years after her father's death, Liza came to Moscow with lilies of the valley. Young, well dressed man met her on the street. When he learned that she was selling flowers, he offered her a ruble instead of five kopecks, saying that "beautiful lilies of the valley, plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl, are worth a ruble." But Lisa refused the proposed amount. He did not insist, but said that henceforth he would always buy flowers from her and would like her to pick them only for him.

Arriving home, Lisa told her mother everything, and the next day she picked the best lilies of the valley and again came to the city, but this time she did not meet the young man. Throwing flowers into the river, she returned home with sadness in her soul. The next day in the evening a stranger himself came to her house. As soon as she saw him, Liza rushed to her mother and excitedly announced who was going to them. The old woman met her guest, and he seemed to her a very amiable and pleasant person. Erast - that was the name of the young man - confirmed that he was going to buy flowers from Lisa in the future, and she didn’t have to go to town: he himself could visit them.

Erast was a fairly wealthy nobleman, with a fair mind and a naturally kind heart, but weak and windy. He led scattered life, thought only about his pleasure, looked for it in secular amusements, and not finding it, bored and complained about fate. The immaculate beauty of Lisa at the first meeting shocked him: it seemed to him that in her he found exactly what he had been looking for for a long time.

This was the beginning of their long dates. Every evening they saw each other either on the banks of the river, or in a birch grove, or under the shade of centenary oak trees. They hugged, but their embrace was pure and innocent.

Several weeks passed in this way. It seemed that nothing could interfere with their happiness. But one evening Lisa came to a date sad. It turned out that the groom, the son of a rich peasant, was wooing her, and mother wanted her to marry him. Erast, comforting Liza, said that after his mother's death he would take her to him and would live inseparably with her. But Lisa reminded the young man that he could never be her husband: she is a peasant, and he is of a noble family. You offend me, said Erast, for your friend the most important thing is your soul, a sensitive, innocent soul, you will always be closest to my heart. Liza threw herself into his arms - and in this hour purity must perish.

Delusion passed in one minute, giving way to surprise and fear. Liza cried, saying goodbye to Erast.

Their dates continued, but how everything changed! Liza was no longer an angel of purity for Erast; platonic love gave way to feelings that he could not "be proud of" and which were not new to him. Liza noticed a change in him, and this saddened her.

Once, during a meeting, Erast told Lisa that he was being drafted into the army; they will have to part for a while, but he promises to love her and hopes to never part with her upon his return. It is not difficult to imagine how hard Liza experienced separation from her beloved. However, hope did not leave her, and every morning she woke up with the thought of Erast and their happiness upon his return.

About two months passed in this way. Once Liza went to Moscow and on one of the large streets she saw Erast passing by in a magnificent carriage, which stopped near a huge house. Erast left and was about to go to the porch, when he suddenly felt himself in Lisa's arms. He turned pale, then, without a word, led her into the office and locked the door. Circumstances have changed, he announced to the girl, he is engaged.

Before Lisa could recover, he took her out of the office and told the servant to see her out of the yard.

Finding herself on the street, Liza went wherever she looked, unable to believe what she had heard. She left the city and wandered for a long time, until she suddenly found herself on the bank of a deep pond, under the shade of ancient oak trees, which for several weeks before had been silent witnesses of her enthusiasm. This memory shocked Lisa, but after a few minutes she plunged into deep thought. Seeing a neighbor's girl walking along the road, she called her, took all the money out of her pocket and gave it to her, asking her to give it to her mother, kiss her and ask her to forgive her poor daughter. Then she threw herself into the water, and they could no longer save her.

Liza's mother, having learned about the terrible death of her daughter, could not withstand the blow and died on the spot. Erast was unhappy for the rest of his life. He did not deceive Lisa when he told her that he was going to the army, but instead of fighting the enemy, he played cards and lost his entire fortune. He had to marry an elderly rich widow who had been in love with him for a long time. Having learned about Lisa's fate, he could not be comforted and considered himself a murderer. Now they may have already been reconciled.

Once upon a time there lived a young and sweet girl Liza. Her well-to-do father died, and Lisa was left with her mother to live in poverty. The unfortunate widow grew weaker every day and could no longer work. Liza wove canvases day and night, knitted stockings, went for flowers in the spring, and picked berries in the summer, and then sold them in Moscow.

Two years after the death of her father, the girl went to the city to sell lilies of the valley and met a young man on the street. He offered a whole ruble for her goods instead of five kopecks, but the girl refused. The guy asked to always sell him flowers, picked just for him.

When Lisa returned home, she told her mother about the stranger. In the morning she picked the most beautiful lilies of the valley, but did not meet the guy. Frustrated, Lisa threw flowers into the river, and in the evening of the next day the young man came to her house himself.

Lisa and her mother met the guest. He seemed very sweet and helpful to them. The guy introduced himself as Erast and said that from now on he would become Lisa's only buyer, and that the girl would no longer go to the city.

Erast was rich, smart, kind, but weak and fickle in character. Lisa's beauty sunk deep into the soul of the nobleman. So their meetings and long dates began. Several weeks passed, and everything was fine with them, but one day Lisa came with a sadness on her face. A rich groom began to woo her, and her mother decided to marry her. Erast promised the girl to take her to him after the death of her mother, despite the fact that the peasant woman and the nobleman cannot be together. One more moment and the couple would have drowned in depravity, but delusion was replaced by reason.

After some time, Erast went into the army, but promised to return and love the girl forever. But two months later, Lisa met Erast in the city and learned that he was engaged. Lisa was beside herself with grief. She walked down the street and reached a local deep pond. She stood for a long time, lost in thought. I saw a girl passing by, and gave her all the money so that she would give it to her mother, and then threw herself into the water.

Having learned about the death of her daughter, the old woman died on the spot. And Erast was unhappy until the end of his days. In the army, he played cards and lost all his fortune, after which he had to marry an elderly rich widow to pay off the debt. He learned about Lisa's fate and felt guilty.

Words and tastes in spite of

And contrary to desires

On us from a faded line

Suddenly it breathes with charm.

That a thing is strange in our day

For us, it is by no means a secret.

But there is dignity in it:

She is sentimental!

Lines from the first performance "Poor Liza",

libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev

In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of French revolution, in the heat of feelings that was characteristic in those years for Europe, but with the ceremoniality and splendor of the Baroque still preserved, the leading directions in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the emergence of romanticism in Russia is due to translations of the works of these poets, and only later was developed by their own Russian compositions, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is "Poor Liza" by Karamzin.

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Liza" is "a very simple tale." The story about the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author's admission that he often comes to the "deserted monastery" where Liza is buried, and "hears the dull groan of times, absorbed by the abyss of the past." With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space was not familiar to Russian literature before Karamzin. The title of the story is built on the connection own name heroine with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who at the same time constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events ("Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad story?").

Liza, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets a young man on the street who expresses a desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Liza and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa is waiting for a new acquaintance, Erast, to appear, not selling his lilies of the valley to anyone, but he comes only the next day to Lisa's house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time "their embrace was pure and innocent," and Erast "all the brilliant fun of the great world" seems "insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart." However, soon the son of a rich peasant from a neighboring village wooed Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding, and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa "the most important thing is the soul, the sensitive and innocent soul." Their dates continue, but now Erast "could no longer be content with being alone innocent caresses." "He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not desire anything ... Platonic love gave way to feelings that he could not be proud of and that were no longer new to him." After a while, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is going on a military campaign. He says goodbye, gives Lisa's mother money. Two months later, Liza, having come to Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa's embrace, says that he still loves her, but the circumstances have changed: on the campaign he lost almost all of his estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Lisa one hundred rubles and asks the servant to see the girl out of the yard. Liza, reaching the pond, under the shade of those oak trees, which only "a few weeks before had witnessed her delight," meets the neighbor's daughter, gives her money and asks to tell her mother, saying that she loved a man, and he cheated on her. Then he throws himself into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but too late. Liza was buried near the pond, Liza's mother died of grief. Erast until the end of his life "could not be comforted and considered himself a murderer." The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.

The story 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 "and the peasant women know how to love" became winged. Unsurprisingly, the story was very popular. In the lists of nobility, many Erasts appear at once - a name that was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant at 26 Leninskaya Sloboda Street), was called Lisin Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“In these streams poor Liza has died; bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond ").

"Poor Liza" became one of the heights of Russian sentimentalism. It is in her that the refined psychologism of Russian fiction, recognized throughout the world, is born. The artistic discovery of Karamzin was of great importance - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of pure first love is drawn very touchingly: “Now I think,” says Lisa to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. The bright month is dark without your eyes; the nightingale singing is boring without your voice ... ”Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also characteristically drawn: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Liza appears to be a beautiful shepherdess, least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet society lady brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite the dishonorable act, reproaches himself for him for the rest of his life.

In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elisabeth is translated as "worshiping God." In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later, the literary heroine Eloise, Abelard's friend, appears. After it, the name is associated with love theme: the story of the "noble maiden" Julie d "Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Pré, Jean-Jacques Rousseau calls" Julia, or New Eloise "(1761). Until the early 80s of the 18th century, the name" Lisa "was almost never encountered in Russian literature.Choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European literature of the 17th - 18th centuries, in which the image of Lisa, Lisette was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a maid servant, who is usually quite frivolous and perfectly understands everything connected with a love intrigue.The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond the framework of classicism, weakened the connection between the name and its bearer in literary work... Instead of the usual for classicism link "name - behavior" appears a new one: character - behavior, which was a significant achievement of Karamzin on the way to "psychologism" of Russian prose.

Many readers were struck by the author's insolence in the style of presentation. One of the critics from Novikov's circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: "I do not know if Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it is very bad." Further, the author of these lines writes that in "Poor Liza" "bad manners are called good manners"

The plot of "Poor Liza" is maximally generalized and condensed. Possible lines of development are only outlined, often the text is replaced by dots and dashes, which become its "significant minus". The image of Liza is also only outlined, each trait of her character is a theme for the story, but not the story itself.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of town and village into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to actively act 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 - turns out to be defenseless, falling into an urban space, where laws differ from those of nature. No wonder Liza's mother tells her: "My heart is always out of place when you go to town."

The central feature of Liza's character is sensitivity - this is how they defined the main merit of Karamzin's stories, meaning the ability to sympathize, to reveal “the most tender feelings” in the “bends of the heart”, as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one's own emotions. Liza trusts the movements of her heart, lives with “tender passions”. Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead her to death, but she is morally justified. Karamzin's consistent thought that it is natural for a mentally rich, sensitive person to do good deeds removes the need for normative morality.

Many people perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and frivolity, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to go with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man “with a fair amount of reason and kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy. " It was Erast, who, from the point of view of the lysin social stratum, is the "darling of fate", was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast is represented by an egoist who thinks that he is ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, not burdened by the rules of civilization, in the bosom of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and an oversaturation of secular life.

In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it is not for nothing that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which "all people carelessly walked along the rays, swam in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles," he decided that "he found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time." Therefore, he dreams that he will "live with Liza, like a brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!"

At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, “kind by nature,” cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Lisa's mother is when he does not want to meet with Lisa anymore and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time - when Lisa finds him in the city and he informs her about his upcoming marriage.

The story "Rich Liza" in Russian literature opens the theme of the "little man", although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted.

The story caused many frank imitations: 1801. AE Izmailov "Poor Masha", I. Svechinsky "Seduced Henrietta", 1803. "Unhappy Margarita". At the same time, the theme of "Poor Lisa" can be traced in many works of high artistic value, and plays a variety of roles in them. So, Pushkin, passing to realism in prose and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of Poor Liza and turned the "sad story" into a story with a happy ending "The Young Lady - Peasant Woman" ... Nevertheless, the same Pushkin in "The Queen of Spades" shows the line later life Karamzinskaya Liza: the fate that would await her if she did not commit suicide. An echo of the theme of the sentimental work is also heard in the novel "Sunday" written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train.

Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual departure of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary currents.

Poor Lisa

(Tale, 1792)

Lisa (poor Lisa) - the main heroine of the story, who 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 "and the peasant women know how to love" became winged.

Poor peasant girl L. is an orphan at an early age. She lives in one of the villages near Moscow with her mother, a "sensitive, kind old woman," from whom L. inherits her main talent - the ability to love devotedly. To support himself and his mother, L., "not sparing his tender youth," undertakes any job. In the spring she goes to town 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 "brother's love." So it seems to him. However, soon platonic love turns into sensual. L., "completely surrendering to him, they only lived and breathed." But gradually L. begins to notice the change taking place in Erast. He explains his cooling off by natural preoccupation: he needs to go to war. However, in the army, he does not so much fight with the enemy as he loses at cards. To improve matters, Erast marries an elderly rich widow. Upon learning of this, L. drowns in a pond.

Sensitivity - so in the language of the end of the XVIII century. determined the main merit of Karamzin's stories, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to reveal in the "bends of the heart" "the most tender feelings", 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, lives "tender passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead L. to death, but it is morally justified. Karamzin's consistent thought that it is natural for a mentally rich, sensitive person to do good deeds removes the need for normative morality.

The motive for the seduction of a pure and pure girl, which in one form or another is found in many of Karamzin's works, acquires an emphasized social resonance in Poor Liza. Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of town and village into Russian literature. In the world folklore-mythological tradition, heroes are often able to actively act 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 - turns out to be defenseless, falling into an urban space, where laws differ from those of nature. It is not for nothing that L.'s mother tells her (thereby indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always out of place when you go to town; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God to keep you from any misfortune and misfortune. "

It is no coincidence that the first step on the road to disaster is L's insincerity: for the first time she “retreats from herself,” hiding, on the advice of Erast, their love from her mother, whom she had previously confided in 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 "buy off" L. and, chasing her away, gives her a hundred rubles. But L. will do the same, sending his mother along with the news of his death those "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 cooled with horror - her eyes closed forever."

The tragic outcome of the love of a peasant woman and an officer confirms the mother's rightness, 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 concrete 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 maximally generalized and condensed. Possible lines of development are contained in an embryonic state, dots and dashes sometimes replace the text, become its "equivalent", "significant minus." This consistency is reflected at the character level as well. The image of L. is outlined by a dotted line, each feature 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 the characters in the story, it is also essential 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 emotionally involved in the relations of the heroes. Already the title of the story is built on the combination of the heroine's own name 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 story?"). A kind of "self-sufficiency" of the hero, his "independence" from the author largely determines the specifics of the image's existence in the text, more precisely, its going beyond the text, carried out in two main directions. In Poor Liza, the topographically concrete space of Moscow is combined with the conventional space of the 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 a "registration". "... more and more often attracts me to the walls of Si ... the new monastery is a memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza" - this is how the author begins his story. For a gap in the middle of a word, any Muscovite guessed the name of the Simonov Monastery. (The Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the XIV century, has survived to this day; located on the territory of the Dynamo plant at Leninskaya Sloboda, 26.) 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 "forgiven" even the sin of suicide. In the minds of the monks of the Simonov Monastery, who zealously guarded the memory of L., she was primarily a fallen victim. But in essence, L. was "canonized" by sentimental culture. Thus, the heroine Karamzin 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 came to the place of Lisa's death to cry and grieve, such as L. herself. 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 died her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, breathe a sigh"), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired special fame among such "birch epigrams": "Erast's bride perished in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond").

The very name Elizabeth is of Hebrew origin (with subsequent Greco-Latin adaptation) and is translated as "worshiping God." The “world” context of the name Liza / 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 Zachariah and the mother of John the Baptist (Luke, 1, 5). In the gallery of literary heroines special place takes Eloise, Abelard's girlfriend. After her, the name is 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 New Héloise ... "(1761). 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 "Liza" until the beginning of the 80s. XVIII century almost never occurred in Russian literature, and if it did, it was in its foreign language version. Choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin went to break the rather strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Liza should be like, how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in the European literature of the 17th-18th centuries. the fact that the image of Lisa, Lisette (Lizette) was associated primarily with comedy. Lisa of the French comedy is usually a maid (maid), confidante of her young mistress. She is young, good-looking, quite frivolous and understands from a half-word everything that is connected with a love intrigue, with the "science of tender passion." Naivety, innocence, modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role.

Shattering the expectations of the reader, 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 signifier, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. For all the conventionality of the image of L., her name is associated precisely with the character, and not with the role of the heroine. Establishing the relationship between "internal" character and "external" action was a significant achievement of Karamzin on the way to the "psychologism" of Russian prose.