Alexander MAYKAPAR

M.I. Glinka

"I remember a wonderful moment"

Year of creation: 1840. Autograph not found. First published by M. Bernard in 1842.

Glinka's romance is an example of that inextricable unity of poetry and music, in which it is almost impossible to imagine a Pushkin poem without the composer's intonation. The poetic diamond received a worthy musical setting. There is hardly a poet who would not dream of such a frame for his creations.

Chercher la fe mme (French - look for a woman) - this advice could not be more appropriate if we want to more clearly imagine the birth of a masterpiece. Moreover, it turns out that there are two women involved in its creation, but... with the same surname: Kern - mother Anna Petrovna and daughter Ekaterina Ermolaevna. The first inspired Pushkin to create a poetic masterpiece. The second is for Glinka to create a musical masterpiece.

Muse of Pushkin. Poem

Y. Lotman vividly writes about Anna Petrovna Kern in connection with this poem by Pushkin: “A.P. In Kern's life, she was not only beautiful, but also a sweet, kind woman with an unhappy fate. Her true vocation should have been a quiet family life, which she eventually achieved, having remarried and very happily after forty years. But at the moment when she met Pushkin in Trigorskoye, this was a woman who had left her husband and enjoyed a rather ambiguous reputation. Pushkin's sincere feeling for A.P. Kern, when it had to be expressed on paper, was characteristically transformed in accordance with the conventional formulas of the love-poetic ritual. Being expressed in poetry, it obeyed the laws of romantic lyrics and turned A.P. Kern's "genius of pure beauty".

The poem is a classic quatrain (quatrain) - classic in the sense that each stanza contains a complete thought.

This poem expresses Pushkin’s concept, according to which movement forward, that is, development, was thought of by Pushkin as revival:“original, pure days” - “delusions” - “rebirth”. Pushkin formulated this idea in different ways in his poetry in the 1920s. And our poem is one of the variations on this theme.

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

Glinka's muse. Romance

In 1826, Glinka met Anna Petrovna. They struck up a friendly relationship that lasted until Glinka’s death. She subsequently published “Memories of Pushkin, Delvig and Glinka,” which recounts many episodes of her friendship with the composer. In the spring of 1839, Glinka fell in love with A.P.’s daughter. Kern - Ekaterina Ermolaevna. They intended to get married, but this did not happen. Glinka described the history of his relationship with her in the third part of his “Notes”. Here is one of the entries (December 1839): “In the winter, my mother came and stayed with my sister, then I moved there myself (this was the period of completely deteriorated relations between Glinka and his wife Maria Petrovna. - A.M.). E.K. recovered, and I wrote a waltz for her for the orchestra in B - major. Then, I don’t know for what reason, Pushkin’s romance “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.”

Unlike the form of Pushkin's poem - a quatrain with cross rhyme, in Glinka's romance the last line of each stanza is repeated. This was required by law musical forms. The peculiarity of the content side of Pushkin's poem - the completeness of thought in each stanza - Glinka carefully preserved and even enhanced through the means of music. It can be argued that in this he could be exemplified by the songs of F. Schubert, for example, “Trout,” in which the musical accompaniment of the stanzas is strictly consistent with the content of the given episode.

M. Glinka's romance is structured in such a way that each stanza, in accordance with its literary content, also has its own musical setting. Achieving this was of particular concern to Glinka. There is a special mention of this in the notes of A.P. Kern: “[Glinka] took from me Pushkin’s poems, written by his hand: “I remember a wonderful moment...” to set them to music, and he lost them, God forgive him! He wanted to compose music for these words that would fully correspond to their content, and for this it was necessary to write special music for each stanza, and he spent a long time worrying about this.”

Listen to the sound of a romance, preferably performed by a singer, for example, S. Lemeshev), who has penetrated into his meaning, and not just reproducing notes, and you will feel it: it begins with a story about the past - the hero remembers the appearance of a wondrous image to him; the music of the piano introduction sounds in a high register, quietly, lightly, like a mirage... In the third verse (third stanza of the poem) Glinka wonderfully conveys in music the image of a “rebellious impulse of storms”: in the accompaniment the movement itself becomes agitated, the chords sound like rapid pulse beats (in in any case, this is how it can be performed), sweeping short scale-like passages like flashes of lightning. In music, this technique goes back to the so-called tirates, which are found in abundance in works depicting struggle, aspiration, and impulse. This stormy episode is replaced in the same verse by an episode in which the tirades are heard already fading, from afar (“... I forgot your gentle voice”).

To convey the mood of the “wilderness” and “darkness of imprisonment”, Glinka also finds a solution that is remarkable in terms of expressiveness: the accompaniment becomes chordal, no stormy passages, the sound is ascetic and “dull”. After this episode, the reprise of the romance sounds especially bright and inspired (the return of the original musical material is the very Pushkin revival), with the words: “The soul has awakened.” Reprise musical Glinka's corresponds exactly poetic reprise. The ecstatic theme of love reaches its climax in the coda of the romance, which is the last stanza of the poem. Here she sounds passionately and excitedly against the background of an accompaniment that wonderfully conveys the beating of the heart “in ecstasy.”

Goethe and Beethoven

For the last time A.P. Kern and Glinka met in 1855. “When I entered, he received me with gratitude and that feeling of friendship that marked our first acquaintance, without ever changing in his character. (...) Despite the fear of upsetting him too much, I could not stand it and asked (as if I felt that I would not see him again) for him to sing Pushkin’s romance “I remember a wonderful moment...”, he performed this with pleasure and brought me to delight! (...)

Two years later, and precisely on February 3 (my name day), he was gone! He was buried in the same church in which Pushkin’s funeral was held, and in the same place I cried and prayed for the repose of both!”

The idea expressed by Pushkin in this poem was not new. What was new was its ideal poetic expression in Russian literature. But as for the world heritage - literary and musical, one cannot help but recall in connection with this Pushkin masterpiece another masterpiece - the poem by I.V. Goethe "New love - new life" (1775). In the German classic, the idea of ​​rebirth through love develops the thought that Pushkin expressed in the last stanza (and Glinka in the coda) of his poem - “And the heart beats in ecstasy...”

New love - new life

Heart, heart, what happened,
What has confused your life?
You are filled with new life,
I do not recognize you.
Everything that you were burning with has passed,
What loved and desired,
All peace, love for work, -
How did you get into trouble?

Limitless, powerful force
This young beauty
This sweet femininity
You are captivated to the grave.
And is treason possible?
How to escape, escape from captivity,
Will, to gain wings?
All paths lead to it.

Oh, look, oh, save me, -
There are cheats all around, not myself,
On a wonderful, thin thread
I'm dancing, barely alive.
Live in captivity, in a magic cage,
To be under the shoe of a coquette, -
How can I bear such a shame?
Oh, let me go, love, let me go!
(Translation by V. Levik)

In an era closer to Pushkin and Glinka, this poem was set to music by Beethoven and published in 1810 in the cycle “Six Songs for Voice with Piano Accompaniment” (op. 75). It is noteworthy that Beethoven dedicated his song, like Glinka’s romance, to the woman who inspired him. It was Princess Kinskaya. It is possible that Glinka could know this song, since Beethoven was his idol. Glinka mentions Beethoven and his works many times in his Notes, and in one of his discussions dating back to 1842, he even speaks of him as “fashionable,” and this word is written on the corresponding page of the Notes in red pencil.

Almost at the same time, Beethoven wrote a piano sonata (op. 81a) - one of his few program works. Each part has a title: “Farewell”, “Separation”, “Return” (aka “Date”). This is very close to the theme of Pushkin - Glinka!..

Punctuation by A. Pushkin. Quote By: Pushkin A.S.. Essays. T. 1. – M.. 1954. P. 204.

Glinka M. Literary works and correspondence. – M., 1973. P. 297.

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

Analysis of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Pushkin

The first lines of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” are known to almost everyone. This is one of Pushkin's most famous lyrical works. The poet was a very amorous person, and dedicated many of his poems to women. In 1819 he met A.P. Kern, who captured his imagination for a long time. In 1825, during the poet’s exile in Mikhailovskoye, the poet’s second meeting with Kern took place. Under the influence of this unexpected meeting, Pushkin wrote the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.”

The short work is an example of a poetic declaration of love. In just a few stanzas, Pushkin unfolds before the reader the long history of his relationship with Kern. The expression “genius of pure beauty” very succinctly characterizes enthusiastic admiration for a woman. The poet fell in love at first sight, but Kern was married at the time of the first meeting and could not respond to the poet’s advances. The image of a beautiful woman haunts the author. But fate separates Pushkin from Kern for several years. These turbulent years erase the “nice features” from the poet’s memory.

In the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” Pushkin shows himself to be a great master of words. He had the amazing ability to say an infinite amount in just a few lines. In a short verse, a period of several years appears before us. Despite the conciseness and simplicity of the style, the author conveys to the reader changes in his emotional mood, allowing him to experience joy and sadness with him.

The poem is written in the genre of pure love lyrics. The emotional impact is enhanced by lexical repetitions of several phrases. Their precise arrangement gives the work its uniqueness and grace.

The creative legacy of the great Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is enormous. “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is one of the most precious pearls of this treasure.

I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared before me, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. In the languor of hopeless sadness In the worries of noisy bustle, A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time And I dreamed of sweet features. Years passed. The rebellious gust of storms scattered my former dreams, And I forgot your tender voice, your heavenly features. In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement, my days dragged on quietly, without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love. The soul has awakened: And here you are again, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love have risen again.

The poem is addressed to Anna Kern, whom Pushkin met long before his forced seclusion in St. Petersburg in 1819. She made an indelible impression on the poet. The next time Pushkin and Kern saw each other was only in 1825, when she was visiting the estate of her aunt Praskovya Osipova; Osipova was Pushkin’s neighbor and a good friend of his. It is believed that the new meeting inspired Pushkin to create an epoch-making poem.

The main theme of the poem is love. Pushkin presents a succinct sketch of his life between the first meeting with the heroine and the present moment, indirectly mentioning the main events that happened to the biographical lyrical hero: exile to the south of the country, a period of bitter disappointment in life, in which works of art were created, imbued with feelings of genuine pessimism (“ Demon”, “Desert Sower of Freedom”), depressed mood during the period of new exile to the family estate of Mikhailovskoye. However, suddenly the resurrection of the soul occurs, the miracle of the revival of life, caused by the appearance of the divine image of the muse, which brings with it the former joy of creativity and creation, which is revealed to the author from a new perspective. It is at the moment of spiritual awakening that the lyrical hero meets the heroine again: “The soul has awakened: And now you have appeared again...”.

The image of the heroine is significantly generalized and maximally poeticized; it differs significantly from the image that appears on the pages of Pushkin’s letters to Riga and friends, created during the period of forced time spent in Mikhailovsky. At the same time, putting an equal sign is unjustified, as is identifying the “genius of pure beauty” with the real biographical Anna Kern. The impossibility of recognizing the narrow biographical background of the poetic message is indicated by the thematic and compositional similarity with another love poetic text called “To Her,” created by Pushkin in 1817.

Here it is important to remember the idea of ​​inspiration. Love for a poet is also valuable in the sense of giving creative inspiration and the desire to create. The title stanza describes the first meeting of the poet and his beloved. Pushkin characterizes this moment with very bright, expressive epithets (“wonderful moment”, “fleeting vision”, “genius of pure beauty”). Love for a poet is a deep, sincere, magical feeling that completely captivates him. The next three stanzas of the poem describe the next stage in the poet’s life - his exile. A difficult time in Pushkin’s life, full of life’s trials and experiences. This is the time of “languishing hopeless sadness” in the poet’s soul. Parting with his youthful ideals, the stage of growing up (“Dispelled old dreams”). Perhaps the poet also had moments of despair (“Without a deity, without inspiration”). The author’s exile is also mentioned (“In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment ...”). The poet’s life seemed to freeze, to lose its meaning. Genre - message.

Pushkin was a passionate, enthusiastic person. He was attracted not only by revolutionary romance, but also by female beauty. Reading the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin means experiencing the excitement of beautiful romantic love with him.

Regarding the history of the creation of the poem, written in 1825, the opinions of researchers of the work of the great Russian poet were divided. The official version says that A.P. was the “genius of pure beauty.” Kern. But some literary scholars believe that the work was dedicated to the wife of Emperor Alexander I, Elizaveta Alekseevna, and is of a chamber nature.

Pushkin met Anna Petrovna Kern in 1819. He instantly fell in love with her and for many years kept the image that struck him in his heart. Six years later, while serving his sentence in Mikhailovskoye, Alexander Sergeevich met with Kern again. She was already divorced and led a fairly free lifestyle for the 19th century. But for Pushkin, Anna Petrovna continued to remain a kind of ideal, a model of piety. Unfortunately, for Kern, Alexander Sergeevich was only a fashionable poet. After a fleeting romance, she did not behave properly and, according to Pushkin scholars, forced the poet to dedicate the poem to himself.

The text of Pushkin’s poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is conventionally divided into 3 parts. In the title stanza, the author enthusiastically talks about his first meeting with an amazing woman. Delighted, in love at first sight, the author is perplexed, is this a girl, or a “fleeting vision” that is about to disappear? The main theme of the work is romantic love. Strong, deep, it absorbs Pushkin completely.

The next three stanzas tell the story of the author's exile. This is a difficult time of “languishing hopeless sadness,” parting with former ideals, and confronting the harsh truth of life. Pushkin of the 20s was a passionate fighter who sympathized with revolutionary ideals and wrote anti-government poetry. After the death of the Decembrists, his life seemed to freeze and lose its meaning.

But then Pushkin again meets his former love, which seems to him a gift of fate. Youthful feelings flare up with renewed vigor, the lyrical hero seems to awaken from hibernation, feels the desire to live and create.

The poem is taught in a literature lesson in 8th grade. It is quite easy to learn, since at this age many experience their first love and the poet’s words resonate in the heart. You can read the poem online or download it on our website.

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

Anna Kern: Life in the name of love Sysoev Vladimir Ivanovich

"GENIUS OF PURE BEAUTY"

"GENIUS OF PURE BEAUTY"

“The next day I was supposed to leave for Riga with my sister Anna Nikolaevna Wulf. He came in the morning and, as a farewell, he brought me a copy of the second chapter of “Onegin” (30), in uncut sheets, between which I found a four-fold sheet of paper with verses:

I remember a wonderful moment;

You appeared before me,

Like a fleeting vision

Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,

In the worries of noisy bustle,

And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust

Dispelled old dreams

Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment

My days passed quietly

Without a deity, without inspiration,

No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:

And then you appeared again,

Like a fleeting vision

Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,

And for him they rose again

And deity and inspiration,

And life, and tears, and love!

When I was about to hide the poetic gift in the box, he looked at me for a long time, then frantically snatched it away and did not want to return it; I forcibly begged them again; I don’t know what flashed through his head then.”

What feelings did the poet possess then? Embarrassment? Excitement? Maybe doubt or even remorse?

Was this poem the result of a momentary infatuation—or a poetic epiphany? Great is the secret of genius... Just a harmonious combination of a few words, and when they sound, a light female image, full of enchanting charm, immediately appears in our imagination, as if materializing out of thin air... A poetic love letter to eternity...

Many literary scholars have subjected this poem to the most thorough analysis. Disputes about various options for its interpretation, which began at the dawn of the 20th century, are still ongoing and will probably continue.

Some researchers of Pushkin’s work consider this poem to be simply a mischievous joke by the poet, who decided to create a masterpiece of love lyrics from the cliches of Russian romantic poetry of the first third of the 19th century. Indeed, out of one hundred and three of his words, more than sixty are well-worn platitudes (“tender voice”, “rebellious impulse”, “divinity”, “heavenly features”, “inspiration”, “heart beats in ecstasy”, etc.). Let's not take this view of a masterpiece seriously.

According to the majority of Pushkinists, the expression “genius of pure beauty” is an open quote from V. A. Zhukovsky’s poem “Lalla-Ruk”:

Oh! Doesn't live with us

A genius of pure beauty;

Only occasionally does he visit

Us from heavenly heights;

He is hasty, like a dream,

Like an airy morning dream;

And in holy remembrance

He is not separated from his heart!

He is only in pure moments

Being comes to us

And brings revelations

Beneficial to hearts.

For Zhukovsky, this phrase was associated with a number of symbolic images - a ghostly heavenly vision, “hasty, like a dream,” with symbols of hope and sleep, with the theme of “pure moments of being,” the separation of the heart from the “dark region of the earth,” with the theme of inspiration and revelations of the soul.

But Pushkin probably did not know this poem. Written for the holiday given in Berlin on January 15, 1821 by the Prussian King Frederick on the occasion of the arrival from Russia of his daughter Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, it appeared in print only in 1828. Zhukovsky did not send it to Pushkin.

However, all the images symbolically concentrated in the phrase “genius of pure beauty” again appear in Zhukovsky’s poem “I used to be a young Muse” (1823), but in a different expressive atmosphere - expectations of the “giver of chants”, longing for pure genius beauty - when his star twinkles.

I used to be a young Muse

Met in the sublunary side,

And Inspiration flew

From heaven, uninvited, to me;

Pointed to everything earthly

It is a life-giving ray -

And for me at that time it was

Life and Poetry are one.

But the giver of chants

Haven't visited me for a long time;

His longed return

Should I wait until again?

Or forever my loss

And will the harp never sound?

But everything that is from the wonderful times,

When he was available to me,

Everything from the dear dark, clear

I saved the days gone by -

Flowers of a secluded dream

And life's best flowers, -

I place it on your sacred altar,

O Genius of pure beauty!

Zhukovsky provided the symbolism associated with the “genius of pure beauty” with his own commentary. It is based on the concept of beauty. “The beautiful... has neither name nor image; it visits us in the best moments of life”; “it appears to us only in minutes, solely to tell us, to revive us, to elevate our soul”; “Only that which is not there is beautiful”... The beautiful is associated with sadness, with the desire “for something better, secret, distant, that connects with it and that exists for you somewhere. And this desire is one of the most inexpressible proofs of the immortality of the soul.”

But, most likely, as the famous philologist Academician V.V. Vinogradov first noted in the 1930s, the image of the “genius of pure beauty” arose in Pushkin’s poetic imagination at that time not so much in direct connection with Zhukovsky’s poem “Lalla-Ruk” or “I am a young Muse, it happened,” as much as under the impression of his article “Raphael’s Madonna (From a letter about the Dresden Gallery),” published in the “Polar Star for 1824” and reproducing the legend widespread at that time about the creation of the famous painting “The Sistine Madonna”: “They say that Raphael, having stretched his canvas for this painting, did not know for a long time what would be on it: inspiration did not come. One day he fell asleep thinking about the Madonna, and surely some angel woke him up. He jumped up: she is here, shouting, he pointed to the canvas and drew the first drawing. And in fact, this is not a painting, but a vision: the longer you look, the more vividly you are convinced that something unnatural is happening before you... Here the soul of the painter... with amazing simplicity and ease, conveyed to the canvas the miracle that took place in its interior... I... clearly began to feel that the soul was spreading... It was where it can only be in the best moments of life.

The genius of pure beauty was with her:

He is only in pure moments

Genesis flies to us

And brings us visions

Inaccessible to dreams.

...And it certainly comes to mind that this picture was born in a moment of miracle: the curtain opened, and the secret of heaven was revealed to the eyes of man... Everything, even the very air, turns into a pure angel in the presence of this heavenly, passing maiden.”

The almanac “Polar Star” with Zhukovsky’s article was brought to Mikhailovskoye by A. A. Delvig in April 1825, shortly before Anna Kern arrived in Trigorskoye, and after reading this article, the image of the Madonna firmly established itself in Pushkin’s poetic imagination.

“But the moral and mystical basis of this symbolism was alien to Pushkin,” says Vinogradov. – In the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” Pushkin used the symbolism of Zhukovsky, bringing it down from heaven to earth, depriving it of a religious and mystical basis...

Pushkin, merging the image of his beloved woman with the image of poetry and preserving most of Zhukovsky’s symbols, except for religious and mystical ones

Your heavenly features...

My days passed quietly

Without a deity, without inspiration...

And for him they rose again

Both deity and inspiration...

builds from this material not only a work of a new rhythmic and figurative composition, but also a different semantic resolution, alien to Zhukovsky’s ideological and symbolic concept.”

We must not forget that Vinogradov made such a statement in 1934. This was a period of widespread anti-religious propaganda and the triumph of the materialistic view of the development of human society. For another half a century, Soviet literary scholars did not touch upon the religious theme in the works of A. S. Pushkin.

The lines “in the silent sadness of hopeless”, “in the distance, in the darkness of imprisonment” are very consonant with “Eda” by E. A. Baratynsky; Pushkin borrowed some rhymes from himself - from Tatyana’s letter to Onegin:

And at this very moment

Isn’t it you, sweet vision...

And there is nothing surprising here - Pushkin’s work is full of literary reminiscences and even direct quotes; however, using the lines he liked, the poet transformed them beyond recognition.

According to the outstanding Russian philologist and Pushkin scholar B.V. Tomashevsky, this poem, despite the fact that it paints an idealized female image, is undoubtedly associated with A.P. Kern. “It’s not for nothing that in the very title “K***” it is addressed to the beloved woman, even if depicted in a generalized image of an ideal woman.”

This is also indicated by the list of poems compiled by Pushkin himself from 1816-1827 (it was preserved among his papers), which the poet did not include in the 1826 edition, but intended to include in his two-volume collection of poems (it was published in 1829). The poem “I remember a wonderful moment...” here has the title “To A.P. K[ern], directly indicating the one to whom it is dedicated.

Doctor of Philological Sciences N.L. Stepanov outlined the interpretation of this work that was formed in Pushkin’s times and has become a textbook: “Pushkin, as always, is extremely accurate in his poems. But, conveying the factual side of his meetings with Kern, he creates a work that also reveals the inner world of the poet himself. In the silence of Mikhailovsky solitude, a meeting with A.P. Kern evoked in the exiled poet memories of the recent storms of his life, and regret about the lost freedom, and the joy of a meeting that transformed his monotonous everyday life, and, above all, the joy of poetic creativity.”

Another researcher, E. A. Maimin, especially noted the musicality of the poem: “It’s like a musical composition, given both by real events in Pushkin’s life and by the ideal image of the “genius of pure beauty,” borrowed from Zhukovsky’s poetry. A certain ideality in solving the theme does not, however, negate the living spontaneity in the sound of the poem and in its perception. This feeling of living spontaneity comes not so much from the plot as from the captivating, one-of-a-kind music of the words. There is a lot of music in the poem: melodious, lasting in time, lingering music of the verse, music of feeling. And as in music, what appears in the poem is not a direct, not objectively tangible image of the beloved - but the image of love itself. The poem is based on musical variations of a limited range of images-motives: a wonderful moment - a genius of pure beauty - a deity - inspiration. By themselves, these images do not contain anything immediate, concrete. All this is from the world of abstract and lofty concepts. But in the overall musical design of the poem they become living concepts, living images.”

Professor B.P. Gorodetsky in his academic publication “Pushkin’s Lyrics” wrote: “The mystery of this poem is that everything we know about the personality of A.P. Kern and Pushkin’s attitude towards her, despite all the enormous reverence of the woman who turned out to be able to evoke in the soul of the poet a feeling that has become the basis of an inexpressibly beautiful work of art, does not in any way and in no way bring us closer to comprehending that secret of art that makes this poem typical of a great many similar situations and capable of ennobling and enveloping feelings with beauty millions of people...

The sudden and short-term appearance of a “fleeting vision” in the image of a “genius of pure beauty,” flashing among the darkness of imprisonment, when the poet’s days dragged on “without tears, without life, without love,” could resurrect in his soul “both deity and inspiration, / And life, and tears, and love” only in the case when all this had already been experienced by him earlier. This kind of experience took place during the first period of Pushkin’s exile - it was they who created that spiritual experience of his, without which the subsequent appearance of “Farewell” and such stunning penetrations into the depths of the human spirit as “The Spell” and “For the Shores of the Fatherland” would have been unthinkable distant." They also created that spiritual experience, without which the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” could not have appeared.

All this should not be understood too simplistically, in the sense that for the creation of the poem, the real image of A.P. Kern and Pushkin’s relationship to her were of little significance. Without them, of course, there would be no poem. But the poem in the form in which it exists would not have existed even if the meeting with A.P. Kern had not been preceded by Pushkin’s past and the whole difficult experience of his exile. The real image of A.P. Kern seemed to resurrect the poet’s soul again, revealing to him the beauty of not only the irretrievably gone past, but also the present, which is directly and precisely stated in the poem:

The soul has awakened.

That is why the problem of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” should be solved, as if turning it the other way: it was not a chance meeting with A.P. Kern that awakened the poet’s soul and made the past come to life in new glory, but, on the contrary, that process of revival and restoration of spiritual the poet’s strength, which began somewhat earlier, completely determined all the main characteristic features and internal content of the poem caused by the meeting with A.P. Kern.”

Literary critic A. I. Beletsky, more than 50 years ago, first timidly expressed the idea that the main character of this poem is not a woman at all, but a poetic inspiration. “Completely secondary,” he wrote, “seems to us the question of the name of a real woman, who was then elevated to the heights of a poetic creation, where her real features disappeared, and she herself became a generalization, a rhythmically ordered verbal expression of a certain general aesthetic idea... The theme of love in this The poem is clearly subordinated to another, philosophical and psychological theme, and its main theme is the theme of the different states of the poet’s inner world in the relationship of this world with reality.”

Professor M.V. Stroganov went the furthest in identifying the image of Madonna and the “genius of pure beauty” in this poem with the personality of Anna Kern: “The poem “I remember a wonderful moment...” was written, obviously, on one night - from July 18 to 19 1825, after a joint walk between Pushkin, Kern and the Wulfs in Mikhailovskoye and on the eve of Kern’s departure to Riga. During the walk, Pushkin, according to Kern’s recollections, spoke about their “first meeting at the Olenins’, spoke enthusiastically about it, and at the end of the conversation said:<…>. You looked like such an innocent girl...” All this is included in that memory of the “wonderful moment” to which the first stanza of the poem is dedicated: both the first meeting itself and the image of Kern – “an innocent girl” (virginal). But this word - virginal - means in French the Mother of God, the Immaculate Virgin. This is how an involuntary comparison occurs: “like a genius of pure beauty.” And the next day in the morning Pushkin brought Kern a poem... The morning turned out to be wiser than the evening. Something confused Pushkin about Kern when he conveyed his poems to her. Apparently, he doubted: could she be this ideal example? Will she appear to them? - And I wanted to take away the poems. It was not possible to pick them up, and Kern (precisely because she was not that kind of woman) published them in Delvig’s almanac. All subsequent “obscene” correspondence between Pushkin and Kern can, obviously, be considered as psychological revenge on the addressee of the poem for his excessive haste and sublimity of the message.”

Literary critic S. A. Fomichev, who examined this poem from a religious and philosophical point of view in the 1980s, saw in it a reflection of episodes not so much of the poet’s real biography, but rather of an internal biography, “three successive states of the soul.” It was from this time that a clearly expressed philosophical view of this work emerged. Doctor of Philological Sciences V.P. Grekh-nev, based on the metaphysical ideas of the Pushkin era, which interpreted man as a “small universe”, organized according to the law of the entire universe: a three-hypostatic, God-like being in the unity of the earthly shell (“body”), “ soul" and "divine spirit", saw in Pushkin's "wonderful moment" a "comprehensive concept of being" and, in general, "the whole of Pushkin." Nevertheless, both researchers recognized the “living conditionality of the lyrical beginning of the poem as a real source of inspiration” in the person of A.P. Kern.

Professor Yu. N. Chumakov turned not to the content of the poem, but to its form, specifically to the spatio-temporal development of the plot. He argued that “the meaning of a poem is inseparable from the form of its expression...” and that “form” as such “itself... acts as content...”. According to L. A. Perfileva, the author of the latest commentary on this poem, Chumakov “saw in the poem the timeless and endless cosmic rotation of the independent Pushkin Universe, created by the inspiration and creative will of the poet.”

Another researcher of Pushkin’s poetic heritage, S. N. Broitman, identified in this poem “the linear infinity of semantic perspective.” The same L.A. Perfilyeva, having carefully studied his article, stated: “Having identified “two systems of meaning, two plot-shaped series,” he also admits their “probable multiplicity”; The researcher assumes “providence” (31) as an important component of the plot.”

Now let's get acquainted with the rather original point of view of L.A. Perfileva herself, which is also based on a metaphysical approach to the consideration of this and many other works of Pushkin.

Abstracting from the personality of A.P. Kern as the inspirer of the poet and addressee of this poem and in general from biographical realities and based on the fact that the main quotes of Pushkin’s poem are borrowed from the poetry of V.A. Zhukovsky, who has the image of “Lalla-Ruk” (however, like other images of his romantic works) appears as an unearthly and immaterial substance: “ghost”, “vision”, “dream”, “sweet dream”, the researcher claims that Pushkin "genius of pure beauty" appears in his metaphysical reality as a “messenger of Heaven” as a mysterious intermediary between the poet’s author’s “I” and some otherworldly, higher entity - “deity”. She believes that the author’s “I” in the poem refers to the poet’s Soul. A "fleeting vision" To the poet's soul "genius of pure beauty"- this is the “moment of Truth”, the divine Revelation, which with an instant flash illuminates and permeates the Soul with the grace of the divine Spirit. IN "languishing hopeless sadness" Perfilyeva sees the torment of the soul’s presence in a bodily shell, in the phrase “A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time”– archetypal, primary memory of the soul about Heaven. The next two stanzas “depict Being as such, marked by soul-wearying duration.” Between the fourth and fifth stanzas, providence or the “Divine Verb” is invisibly revealed, as a result of which “The soul has awakened.” It is here, in the interval of these stanzas, that “an invisible point is placed, creating the internal symmetry of the cyclically closed composition of the poem. At the same time, it is a turning point, a return point, from which the “space-time” of Pushkin’s small Universe suddenly turns, starting to flow towards itself, returning from earthly reality to the heavenly ideal. The Awakened Soul regains the ability to perceive deities. And this is the act of her second birth - a return to the divine fundamental principle - “Resurrection”.<…>This is the discovery of Truth and the return to Paradise...

The intensification of the sound of the last stanza of the poem marks the fullness of Being, the triumph of the restored harmony of the “small universe” - the body, soul and spirit of man in general or personally of the poet-author himself, that is, “the whole of Pushkin.”

Summing up her analysis of Pushkin’s work, Perfilyeva suggests that it, “regardless of the role that A.P. Kern played in its creation, can be considered in the context of Pushkin’s philosophical lyrics, along with such poems as “The Poet” (which, according to the author of the article, is dedicated to the nature of inspiration), “Prophet” (dedicated to the providentiality of poetic creativity) and “I have erected a monument to myself not made by hands...” (dedicated to the incorruptibility of spiritual heritage). Among them, “I remember a wonderful moment...” is indeed, as already noted, a poem about “the whole fullness of Being” and about the dialectics of the human soul; and about “man in general”, as a Small Universe, organized according to the laws of the universe.”

It seems that foreseeing the possibility of the emergence of such a purely philosophical interpretation of Pushkin’s lines, the already mentioned N. L. Stepanov wrote: “In such an interpretation, Pushkin’s poem is deprived of its vital concreteness, that sensory-emotional principle that so enriches Pushkin’s images, gives them an earthly, realistic character . After all, if you abandon these specific biographical associations, the biographical subtext of the poem, then Pushkin’s images will lose their vital content and turn into conventionally romantic symbols, meaning only the theme of the poet’s creative inspiration. We can then replace Pushkin with Zhukovsky with his abstract symbol of the “genius of pure beauty.” This will deplete the realism of the poet’s poem; it will lose those colors and shades that are so important for Pushkin’s lyrics. The strength and pathos of Pushkin’s creativity lies in the fusion, in the unity of the abstract and the real.”

But even using the most complex literary and philosophical constructions, it is difficult to dispute the statement of N. I. Chernyaev, made 75 years after the creation of this masterpiece: “With his message “K***” Pushkin immortalized her (A. P. Kern. - V.S.) just as Petrarch immortalized Laura, and Dante immortalized Beatrice. Centuries will pass, and when many historical events and historical figures will be forgotten, the personality and fate of Kern, as the inspiration of Pushkin’s muse, will arouse great interest, cause controversy, speculation and be reproduced by novelists, playwrights, and painters.”

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