V - N " T o p o r o v

And Poor

Karamzin
Experience
reading

For the bicentenary
from the date of publication

RUSSIAN

STATE

HUMANITARIAN

UNIVERSITY

MOSCOW-1995

BBK8
T 58

INSTITUTE
HIGHER

HUMANITARIAN

RESEARCH

Executive Editor
D.P. Tank
Artist
A.T. Yakovlev

SSb
Mnpit'ka
Udmurt"

ISBN 5 - 7 2 8 1 - 0 0 2 0 - 1

Toporov V.N., 1995
Decor. Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995

INSTEAD OF

PREFACE

When “Poor Liza” appeared, its author went
twenty-sixth year. This story was not Karamzin's debut. She was preceded by almost ten years of literary experience. In his memoirs (“A Look at
my life") I.I. Dmitriev, who first saw Karamzin in Simbirsk at a wedding feast (“a five-year-old boy in a silk peruvienne camisole with sleeves, whom the Russian nanny led by the hand to the newlywed and the ladies surrounding her”)
and became friends with him - for life - in St. Petersburg, where Karamzin arrived at the age of sixteen
young men, reports not only about their friendship, common
attachment to literature, but also about Karamzin’s first literary experience - “The conversation of the Austrian Maria Theresa with our Empress Elizabeth in
Champs Elysees", translated by him from German
language, attributed, on the advice of an older friend, to the bookseller Miller and which became “the first retribution
for his verbal labors." Almost at the same time appears
Karamzin’s first published work is a translation of the “Swiss idyll” by S. Gesner “The Wooden Leg”
(SPb., 1783).
5

The following years, before “Poor Liza,” were filled with intense and varied literary activity. Karamzin worked diligently,
with pleasure, enthusiasm, pouncing, one might say, greedily, on everything new in literature that
became known to him, and tried to immediately publish what he had written. During these years it was written
more than four dozen poems (and among them
such well-known ones as “Poetry”, “Autumn”, “Count Guarinos”, “Phyllide”, “Alina”, “Harper’s Song”, etc.).
Karamzin paid great attention to translations,
turning to very different authors and often texts very different in nature (there were also poems,
both narrative prose and drama; and artistic-literary, and natural-scientific, and philosophical texts; and Shakespeare, and Lessing, and Gesner, and
Thomson, and Genlis, and Haller, and Bonnet), diligently
approached prose - and small ones (“Eugene and Yulia”,
“Frol Silin”, “Liodor”, etc.), and large (the famous “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, the publication of which began in 1791-1792 in the “Moscow Journal” and soon - thanks to translations -
made the name Karamzin famous in Europe, in order
time is an amazing fact in itself). Much
Karamzin wrote even after “Poor Liza,” especially, if we talk about artistic prose, in the decade following it (experiments in the field of historical stories, psychological and autobiographical prose). And yet, it is “Poor Lisa”
more than anything else Karamzin did in
fiction, merged with the name of the author,
st^ia is like his personal sign: he created her, and she
forever made his name, and therefore in the current formula
“The singer of “Poor Lisa”” nothing can replace the title of this story.
In terms of Karamzin’s creativity “Poor Liza”
actually opens the decade of his original
artistic prose and becomes a kind of measure
countdown (“glorious beginning,” they say about it, if not
forgetting about Karamzin’s previous prose, then still
6

Moving it somewhat into the shadow). But “Poor Liza” became a reference point in a broader sense for all
Russian prose of modern times, a certain precedent,
henceforth suggesting - as it becomes more complex, deepening and thereby ascending to new heights - a creative return to it, ensuring the continuation of tradition through the discovery of new
artistic spaces. “Poor Liza” formulated a new and united readership under a new sign. After its appearance in print in 1792, this story was interpreted
a wide range of readers at that time
event - and not only literary, but also partly
going beyond literature, changing something
important in the very perception of literature, in the reader’s state of mind, and even in his life itself.
But the reader who judges a work by its hot
traces of what you just read, when the excitement is still
did not pass, but the emotions did not subside and the general impression
has not yet settled, often prone to natural
aberrations and, in particular, the temptations of exaggeration. After all, he, the reader, whom the author had in mind
first of all and who was the first, so to speak, hic
et nunc, the recipient of the story, could not help but feel his special connection with this story and with its author, and through them - even decades later - with that
long gone, but remaining unforgettable
with your time. With this feeling of connection between the reader and
the text and its author cannot be ignored. But partly precisely because of this intimate connection, because of its emotionality, because of the limiting “objectivity” factors of the “first meeting” of both,
It is not always possible to rely on the reader’s opinion when first perceiving the text, or rather,
most often it is impossible at all, especially since the story
turned out to be “hot” and touched primarily the feelings
"hot" readers. But over the past two hundred years, in
the course of which, - at first, as if thoughtfully
three and a half decades after “Poor Lisa” and latently gaining strength to take on something new,
7

"Poor Liza" of superior quality - Russian
prose has stepped forward fabulously, has become great and even
later in her forced captivity she did not take away
last hopes for its revival (they persist and even increase now that it stands on
historically important crossroads) - during this time, much became clearer, took its stable place, and acquired more verified and reliable reputations. IN
In the light of this experience, we can safely say that “Poor Liza” stands at the very origins of the new Russian
prose, the next steps of which, after mastering
lessons from Karamzin's story (and, of course, not only
her), there will be “The Queen of Spades” and “The Captain’s Daughter”,
"Hero of Our Time", "Petersburg Tales" and
“Dead Souls”, where, in fact, it begins
a continuous line of great Russian prose. In any case, if you don’t compromise on breadth and don’t allow yourself to descend into distractions from the main thing
little things, “Poor Liza” is exactly the root from which the tree of Russian classical prose grew,
whose powerful crown sometimes hides the trunk and distracts
from thinking about historically so recent
the origins of the Samogb phenomenon of Russian literature of the New
time.
Of course, speaking about Karamzin’s prose, one cannot
limit ourselves only to “Poor Liza”: in a variety of
directions, genres, works Karamzin expanded the space of Russian prose. His other works of art (stories and short stories), “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, “History of the Russian State”, his journalism, criticism,
literary articles, political reviews (and
n5 the topic of the day, and in understanding this anger in general), “Notes on Ancient and New Russia” and “Opinion
Russian citizen", a wonderful epistolary
heritage and even many business papers marked
achievement by Russian prose and the Russian language of a new, modern (as corresponding not
only with your time, but also to those tasks that
open in front of him) level and introduced Russian pro8

Entering a new stage of relations with great literature
West, in the context of European prose.
What did the man need for this?
one might say that he did it alone, the author of this
prose? Karamzin himself asked a similar question. Less than a year has passed since the publication of “Poor
Lisa", in the spring of 1793, he wrote a note with a title similar to the question posed above -
“What does the author need?”, printed in the first part
almanac "Aglaya" for 1794. In this note already
the author, wise from the experience of "Poor Lisa", between
among other things, writes:
“They say that an author needs talents and knowledge: a sharp, penetrating mind, a vivid imagination and
etc. Fair enough: but that’s not enough. He needs to have a kind, gentle heart if he wants to be
friend and favorite of our soul<...>The Creator is always
depicted in creation and often against his will. The hypocrite thinks in vain to deceive his readers and
hide the iron under the golden robe of pompous words
heart; in vain speaks to us about mercy, compassion, virtue! All his exclamations are cold, without
souls<...>
When you want to paint your portrait, then first of all look in the right mirror: can it be
your face is a piece of art<...>If creative
nature produced you in an hour of negligence or in a minute
your discord with beauty: then be prudent, not
the ugliness of an artistic brush - abandon your intention. You take up a pen and want to be an author:
ask yourself, alone, without witnesses, sincerely: what am I like? for you want to paint a portrait of the soul and
your heart<...>
You want to be an author: read the history of the misfortunes of the human race - and if your heart does not bleed, leave the pen - or it will depict for us
the cold gloom of your soul.
But if all the sorrowful, all the oppressed,
everything that tears has a way into the sensitive chest
yours; if your soul can rise to passion for
9

Good, can nourish the sacred within, no spheres
unlimited desire for the common good: then boldly
call upon the goddesses of Parnassus<...>you won't be a useless writer - and none of the good ones will look
with dry eyes at your grave.
<...>many other authors, despite their
learning and knowledge disturb my spirit even when
they speak the truth: for this truth is dead in their mouth; for
this truth does not flow from a virtuous heart;
for the breath of love does not warm her.
In a word: I am sure that a bad person will not
can be a good author."
By this time in Russian literature, following
To the 81st Psalm, words have already been spoken about duty Without help, without defense I Do not leave orphans and widows and that
that there is a duty to save the innocent from harm, / the unfortunate
apply cover; / To protect the powerless from the strong, /
To tear the poor from their shackles, but this reminder was
addressed to rulers and judges, who, however,
They won't listen! - they see and do not know!, but the words about speaking with the tongue of the heart have not yet been uttered. And therefore, it is Karamzin who has the honor of defining the most important component of writing - morality, bequeathed to subsequent
Russian literature as its debt (cf. also “To Grace”, April 1792, which responded to Pushkin’s I
called for mercy for the fallen). Karamzin himself consciously internalized this duty and fulfilled it in his
creativity and, perhaps, brightest and most piercingly
in "Poor Lisa".
So, Karamzin had “talents and knowledge: a sharp, insightful mind, a vivid imagination and
nf very good.” There was also a “kind, gentle heart.” Both
opened up great and favorable opportunities for him as an author, but that’s all. Distance between
rich opportunities and their implementation,
first of all, by embodiment in a word worthy of pledges
mind, soul and heart, was very significant. IN
Russian culture as it was at the turn of the 80s and 90s
years of the 18th century, as in Russia itself, in the then
10

There was a lot in life and, finally, in the writer himself that made it very difficult to translate the possibilities into adequate words. The only way out was to prepare, and not in advance (in Russia
there was always plenty of space, but never
there was almost not enough time, which leads to far-reaching thoughts), and in the course of creativity, writing, which has already
for this reason alone it could not be fully met with cash
possibilities, conditions that would significantly
reduced and, at least partially, allowed us to overcome
difficulties that prevented the realization of these opportunities. Karamzin just started preparing
such conditions, during which elements of the new arose more and more clearly, until at the turn of the 90s
years of the 18th and early 19th centuries it did not become clear: Russian
artistic prose was renewed in its very foundations, a new stage in the development of Russian literature opened, fraught with further achievements.
Everything important was done by Karamzin himself,
who were far ahead of their contemporaries, even younger ones, in the development of prose. When “Poor Liza” was written, there were not yet those in the world who rightfully
true succession, continued the work begun by Karamzin, mastering it and overcoming it in new
ways. But Karamzin, who did so much for Russian literature and, above all, for prose, did
and the prose itself, the highest achievement of “Karamzinsky”
period of Russian literature. I thought about what it was worth at one time - and precisely in connection with
Karamzin - Chaadaev: “...what does it cost for a person born with great abilities to make himself a good writer.” Undoubtedly the price
was very high. But another one is no less important
Karamzin’s feat is his personal life’s work: he
made himself (or, as Yu.M. L'otman aphoristically put it, “Karamzin creates Karamzin”). And
way, instrument, form and meaning of this
work was for Karamzin persistent, but inspiring work on everything that came his way
into the sphere of his attention and at least once awakened to
11

Self-interest. Not only the mind, but also the heart participated
in this work (on another occasion, regretting that he still had to leave England, the author of “Letters of a Russian Traveler” notes: “This is my heart:
it is difficult for him to part with everything that occupied him at least somewhat"). That’s why this work was so controversial.
For those who know that TÓ was the result of this work, assimilated into Russian prose, it is appropriate to remind, with
h e g about Karamzin had to start. Description of Leon's childhood in "A Knight of Our Time", where
so much is autobiographical, leaves no doubt that the life of his heart was awakened in him by someone who died early
mother. Oblivion of grief or, more precisely, distraction from it
both the widowed husband and son were looking for: the father began to
household, son - for the watchmaker. In almost half a month, under the guidance of a village sexton, a seven-year-old
Leon learned to read church books, and then
books of secular press. “The first secular book, which our little hero, reading and reading, by heart
affirmed, there was Ezopov's "Fables"<...>They gave it away soon
Leon the key to the yellow cabinet in which the
his late mother's library and where on two shelves
there were novels, and on the third there were several spiritual
books: an important era in the education of his mind and heart!
"Dayra, an Eastern Tale", "Selim and Damasina",
“Miramond”, “The History of Lord N” - all was read in one summer, with such curiosity, such lively pleasure, which might have frightened another
teacher..." Of course, this is literature of low
level, but in this case it is not this that is important, but what
curious, impressionable and receptive
a boy who keeps his mother's pledges in his soul
(“Just like my mother! Sometimes I wouldn’t let the book out of my hands,”
Leon's father used to say) gained from reading these books.
The author describes why they attracted Leon: “Did the picture of love really have so many charms for
eight or ten year old boy so that he can
forget fun games of your age and all day
sit in one place, drinking in, so to speak,
with all your children's attention in the awkward "Mira12"

Monda" or "Dairy"? No, Leon was more involved
incidents, connections between things and cases, rather than
feelings of romantic love. Nature throws us into
the world is like a dark, dense forest, without any ideas and
information, but with a large supply of curiosity, which begins to act very early in the baby,
the sooner the natural basis of his soul is more tender and
more perfect..." and a little further: "Leon opened up
new light in novels; he saw how in a magical
lantern, many different people on stage,
many wonderful actions, adventures - game
fate, hitherto unknown to him<...>Soul of Leonov
floated in the book light, like Christopher Colomb on
Atlantic Sea, for opening. . . with hidden information This reading not only did not harm his young
soul, but it was still very useful for. education in
a little moral feeling. In “Dayra”, “Miramonda”, in “Selim and Damasin” (does the reader know them?), in a word, in all the novels of the yellow cabinet
heroes and heroines, despite the numerous temptations of fate, remain virtuous; all the villains
described in the blackest colors; the first finally triumph, the last are finally like dust,
disappear. Inconspicuous in Leon's tender soul
image, but written in indelible letters
corollary: “So, courtesy and virtue are one!”
So, evil is ugly and vile! So, virtuous
always wins, and the villain dies! "How
feeling is saving in life, what a solid support
it serves for good morality, there is no need
prove. Oh! Leon, in his advanced years, will often see the opposite, but his heart will not part with its
comforting system...” This passage is the first
the experience of subtle reader reflection on the “novels” read: “novels” are scarce, reflection is rich. But a little more than a decade and a half will pass, and the time will come when reader reflection
Karamzina will turn to the works of Kalidasa and
In the quotes here and below, the detente is ours. — V.T.

“Centuries will not be erased...”: Russian classics and their readers Nathan Yakovlevich Eidelman

A. L. ZORIN, A. S. NEMZER PARADOXES OF SENSITIVITY N. M. Karamzin “Poor Liza”

A. L. ZORIN, A. S. NEMZER

PARADOXES OF SENSITIVITY

N. M. Karamzin "Poor Liza"

In 1897, Vladimir Solovyov called Zhukovsky’s elegy “Rural Cemetery,” translated from the English poet T. Gray, “the beginning of truly human poetry in Russia.” “The birthplace of Russian poetry,” he titled his own poem about a village cemetery. Not without polemical sharpness, Solovyov contrasted the state lyrics of the 18th century with the poetry of a “meek heart,” a “sensitive soul,” compassion for the little ones of this world and sweet melancholy over an unknown grave.

Meanwhile, the literary tradition behind the young Zhukovsky was already quite strong. His elegy appeared in 1802 in the magazine "Bulletin of Europe", whose publisher Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin published a story exactly ten years earlier that could, in the Solovyov sense of these words, be called the beginning of truly human prose in Russia. Easily localized, if we continue to use Solovyov’s definitions, is “the birthplace of Russian prose.” This is the shore of a small pond near the Simonov Monastery in Moscow.

The places where poor Liza spent and ended her days were long ago favored by Karamzin. Having already assured the readers of the story in the first sentence that “no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as he does,” the narrator admitted that “the most pleasant place” for him is “the place where the gloomy Gothic towers of the Si<мо>new monastery." Behind this literary evidence stood biographical reality. Much later, I. I. Dmitriev told N. D. Ivanchin-Pisarev how he and Karamzin spent whole days at the walls of Simonov in their youth and how he "climbed<…>on the steep Simonovsky bank, holding on to the hem of his friend’s caftan. In June 1788, four years before writing “Poor Liza,” another friend of Karamzin, A. A. Petrov, imagining the Moscow leisure time of his correspondent in a letter, assumed that he “occasionally travels to the Simonov Monastery and does other usual things.” When preparing his letters for publication after Petrov’s death, Karamzin inserted into this phrase the words “with a bag of books.” Apparently, he wanted the detail of their collaboration with him to remain in the minds of his readers. Petrov’s Moscow studies, which was not reflected in the letter.

Carrying books with you on walks was common in those years. In the works of their favorite writers, they looked for examples of precise emotional reactions to certain life experiences, and compared their mental state against them. In the essay "Walk", published in the magazine "Children's Reading", one of the publishers of which was the same Petrov, Karamzin told how he went out of town with Thomson's poem "The Seasons" in his pocket. And yet, for such a “sensitive” pastime, a “knapsack of books” is a clear excess. By retroactively editing his friend’s letter, Karamzin clearly wanted to emphasize that he went to Simonov not only to enjoy the beauty of nature, but also to work.

It is obvious that in the summer of 1788 Karamzin might have needed books primarily for his translation work in Children's Reading. However, anticipating the publication of the letter, he could not help but realize that the mention of the Simonov Monastery would inevitably cause readers to associate it with “Poor Liza.” “Near the Simonov Monastery there is a pond, shaded by trees and overgrown,” Karamzin wrote in 1817 in “Note on the sights of Moscow.” “Twenty-five years before that I composed “Poor Liza” there, a very simple fairy tale, but so happy for the young author that thousands of curious people traveled and went there to look for traces of the Lisins.”

The writer’s creative impulse is formed, as it were, by two disparate sources, under the cross influence of which the artistic world of “Poor Lisa” is formed.

On the one hand, Karamzin’s literary orientation was clearly determined by the “knapsack of books” behind him, which contained the classics of sentimental prose of the 18th century: “Pamela” and “Clarissa” by Richardson, “The New Heloise” by Rousseau, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Goethe. It was the correspondence of the events described in the story and the experiences they caused to high standards that served as a criterion for its artistic significance. But, on the other hand, the recognition of the literary tradition was complemented by the recognition of the place - Karamzin’s readers were flattered to find out that a drama similar to those that the greats narrated happened here too, and the pond where poor Liza died can be seen with their own eyes, and the trees, under which she met with Erast - to touch or decorate with some maxim appropriate for the occasion. Before writing “Poor Liza,” young Karamzin traveled through Western Europe, where he religiously visited all memorable literary places. He had an excellent sense of the emotional charge fraught with the effect of co-presence, and enriched the Russian public not just with an original sentimental story, but also with a place for sensitive pilgrimages, not inferior to the shores of Lake Leman, praised by Rousseau, or the inn in Calais, where the hero of Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey” met with Friar Lorenzo.

“Lizin Pond, this place, enchanted by Karamzinov’s pen, has long become very briefly familiar to me,” wrote the young artist Ivan Ivanov from Moscow to St. Petersburg on August 18, 1799 to his friend Alexander Ostenek, later the famous writer and scientist A. Kh. Vostokov, “and you don’t know this - Oh! It’s my fault, a hundred times my fault, why didn’t I write in the first mail after that, at least in three words with which you would be pleased: I saw the pond, but no, I wanted to see everything that was worthy curiosity, and then suddenly blind you with it. On Peter’s Day, I went there for the first time, not forgetting to take your extracts (six reprints of the story in seven years did not satisfy everyone, and it had to be rewritten by hand. - L. 3. , A.N.), with which you lent me and which are now in my suitcase, intact. Imagine, if you had read before, in a word, to see what they write about in books, wouldn’t it be nice to get busy waiting to see , is this place like what I imagined?<…>I found a hut, which by all accounts must be the same one, and finally I found a pond, standing in the middle of a field and surrounded by trees and a rampart, on which I sat down and continued to read, but Oh! Ostenek, your notebook almost tore out of my hands and rolled into the very pond, to Karamzin’s great honor that his copy is in every way similar to the original.”

It is curious that at first Ivanov expressed himself much more cautiously about the hut he discovered: “... I don’t know if it’s exactly the same,” but then he decided not to burden himself and his friend with doubts and, having crossed out this phrase, wrote in a more decisive one: “... in everything there must be that the most." Of course, only “that same” hut and “that same” pond could justify the incomparable spiritual mood experienced by the author of the letter: “As I walked, I was definitely trembling with joy in anticipation of it, the closer I came to the Simonov Monastery, the more my imagination imagined the places surrounding me, it seemed stranger to me that I was separating from the ordinary world and moving into a bookish, pleasant, fantasy world, trees, hillocks, bushes in some inexplicable way reminded me of Lisa, just as music acts when reading any story."

However, regarding the hut, it could still be assumed that it was not the same. The provincial writer I. A. Vtorov, who visited these places a year later, also “looked for the hut in which she lived<…>poor Liza, and saw only a few signs on the mounds and holes." But there was no doubt about the pond, and Vtorov confidently writes that “he saw that pond, or better yet, the lake, shaded by birches, in which Liza drowned herself." Meanwhile, the pond too , most likely, it was not the same one.

In the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery at that time there were two ponds. The monastery was originally founded on the first, so-called Fox Pond or Bear Lake. The buildings preserved there, and above all the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, were called Starosimonov in the Karamzin era. The second pond, located closer to the later building of the monastery behind the Kozhukhovskaya outpost, was, according to legend, dug by Sergius of Radonezh. Back in 1874, Archimandrite Eustathius, in a book about the Simonov Monastery, warned against the widespread but erroneous confusion of these two bodies of water.

It seems that the story is about Fox Pond. First of all, its very name suggests the possibility of rethinking. It is natural for the word “Lisin” to turn into “Lizin,” and Karamzin seemed to provide the motivation for this kind of re-ethymologization. In this case, the name of the heroine, like the entire artistic world of the story, turns out to be dictated by two sources: European literature (Eliza Stern, the new Heloise of Rousseau, Louise from Schiller’s “Cunning and Love”) and Moscow toponymy. In addition, according to Karamzin, the pond where Liza and Erast met was “overshadowed” by “hundred-year-old oak trees.” These oak trees can still be seen in the painting depicting Lisin (Lizin) pond in the Gatsuk Newspaper (1880, Sept. No. 36, p. 600). Meanwhile, numerous pilgrims to the Karamzin places of Moscow moved to the Sergievsky Pond and unanimously testify that they left their inscriptions on the birch trees with which it was lined and which, again, are clearly visible in the engraving by N. I. Sokolov, attached to the 1796 edition of “Poor Lisa” of the year. Finally, it is worth noting that Sergievsky Pond was located behind the outpost, near the road, was open to view and could hardly serve as a convenient place for love affairs. However, it is possible that Karamzin himself mixed up the history of both reservoirs, since he wrote that the meeting place of Lisa and Erast was “a deep, clear pond, fossilized in ancient times.” (Lisin Pond was, as Archimandrite Eustathius writes, a “living tract,” that is, it had a natural origin.)

Thus, if our assumption is correct, the domestic public went to the wrong place to worship the ashes of poor Lisa for many years. And in the light of the history of the early reception of the story, this curious circumstance takes on an almost symbolic resonance. But in order to truly understand the problems of “Poor Liza” and the logic of its first interpreters, it is necessary to take a close look at both the story itself and the era that gave birth to it.

One of the most outstanding events in the spiritual life of Europe in the second half of the 18th century was the discovery in man of sensitivity - the ability to enjoy the contemplation of his own emotions. It turned out that by having compassion for your neighbor, sharing his sorrows, and finally helping him, you can get the most exquisite joys. This idea promised a whole revolution in ethics. It followed from it that for a mentally rich person to perform virtuous actions means following not external duty, but one’s own nature, that developed sensitivity in itself is capable of distinguishing good from evil, and therefore there is simply no need for normative morality.

It seemed that as soon as sensitivity was awakened in the souls, all injustice would disappear from human and social relations, for only those in whom this divine gift was still dormant or already suppressed by circumstances could not understand what his true happiness consisted of and could commit bad actions. actions. Accordingly, a work of art was valued by the extent to which it could touch, melt, and touch the heart.

In the early 90s, when Karamzin created his story, sentimental ideas about man in the West were already exhausted. But in Russia they were still at their very zenith, and the writer, who was superbly oriented in the European cultural situation and at the same time working for the Russian public, keenly felt the severity and ambiguity of the problem.

It is easier to understand Karamzin’s view of sensitivity if we compare “Poor Liza” with other works in which situations arise that are to a certain extent similar.

In P. Yu. Lvov’s novel “Russian Pamela,” written in 1789, three years before “Poor Liza,” the nobleman Victor, having married the daughter of a peasant farmer Maria, forgets about her for a while under the influence of evil and heartless friends. When the hero’s conscience awakens again, the writer comments on this transformation as follows: “He became meek, reasonable, well-behaved, and his sensitivity again ascended to the highest level.” The idea of ​​the book is to show that, in the author’s words, “sensitivity is good for humans.”

The same Lvov’s story “Sofya” was published two years later than “Poor Liza”, but dated in the magazine “Pleasant and Useful Pastime of Time” in the same 1789. The seduced heroine of this story, like Lisa, ends her life in a pond. But, unlike Lisa, Sophia becomes the victim of a voluptuous scoundrel, Prince Windfly, whom she prefers to the noble and sensitive Menander, and the fate that befell her is presented by the author as cruel, but, in a certain sense, fair retribution. And Vetrolet himself, who, like Erast, married a rich bride, is punished not by the pangs of repentance, but by his wife’s infidelity and serious illnesses, the consequences of a vicious lifestyle. Thus, it is not sensitivity, but its loss, that is always to blame for the bad deeds, mistakes and misfortunes of the heroes.

In 1809, Zhukovsky did not even allow the thought that sensitivity could lead the heroine of his story “Maryina Roshcha” to betray her fiancé: “Her heart could never have wavered. But, alas, a blinded mind blinded the tender heart of Mary.”

The situation is completely different in Poor Liza. It has been noted for a very long time that Erast is not at all an insidious seducer. He essentially becomes a victim of his feelings. It is the meeting with Lisa that awakens in him the previously dormant sensitivity. “He led an absent-minded life, thought only about his own pleasure, looked for it in secular amusements, but often did not find it, was bored and complained about his fate. Lisa’s beauty at the first meeting made an impression in his heart... It seemed to him that he had found something in Lisa ", what his heart had been looking for for a long time. “Nature calls me into its arms to its pure joys,” he thought."

Let us note that such an effect of female beauty on the male soul is a constant motif in sentimental literature. Lvov, already quoted by us, admiring his “Russian Pamela,” exclaimed: “When all these inner treasures are combined with outer beauty, isn’t she a perfect genius, revealing the sensitivity of the tender hearts of men.” However, in Karamzin it is precisely this long-awaited revival of sensitivity in Erast’s “kind by nature, but weak and windy heart” that leads to fatal consequences.

It would be wrong to conclude that the author wants to contrast Erast Lizina’s false sensitivity with the true and natural one. His heroine also turns out to be partly to blame for the tragic outcome. After the first meeting with Erast, despite her mother’s warnings, she seeks a new date with him; her ardor and ardor largely determine the outcome of their relationship. But another circumstance is much more significant.

After the explanation with Erast, listening to her mother’s words: “Perhaps we would forget our soul if tears never fell from our eyes,” Lisa thought: “Ah! I would sooner forget my soul than my dear friend.” And she really “forgets her soul” - she commits suicide.

Let's pay attention to one detail. Erast, and this is his worst act, tries to pay off Lisa and gives her a hundred rubles. But, essentially, Lisa does the same in relation to her mother, sending her Erast’s money along with the news of her death. Naturally, these ten imperials are just as unnecessary for Lisa’s mother as for the heroine herself: “Liza’s mother heard about the terrible death of her daughter, and her blood grew cold with horror - her eyes closed forever.”

And yet Karamzin does not condemn sensitivity, although he is aware of the catastrophic consequences it can lead to. His position is completely devoid of straightforward moralizing. First of all, it is much more complicated.

The most important feature of the poetics of “Poor Lisa” is that the narration in it is told on behalf of the narrator, who is mentally involved in the relationships of the characters. Events are presented here not objectively, but through the emotional reaction of the narrator. This is emphasized, as Yu. M. Lotman noted, by the title of the story: “It is built on combining the heroine’s own name with an epithet characterizing the narrator’s attitude towards her. Thus, the title includes not only the world of the subject of the story, but also the world of the narrator, between whom a relationship of sympathy has been established." For the narrator, we are not talking about a third-party event requiring moralizing conclusions, but about the fates of people, one of whom was familiar to him, and the grave of another becomes a favorite place for his walks and sentimental meditations.

The narrator himself, of course, belongs to the number of sensitive people, and therefore he does not hesitate to justify Lisa and sympathize with Erast. “In this way, the beautiful soul and body ended her life,” he writes about Lisa and even takes upon himself the courage to decide the issue of saving the souls of the heroes. “When we see each other there, in a new life, I will recognize you, gentle Lisa.” “Now, perhaps, they (Liza and Erast. - L. 3., L.N.) have already reconciled.” Such judgments look very unorthodox. Let us remember that according to church canons, suicide was considered a grave sin.

The narrator constantly strives to shift responsibility from the heroes to providence. “At this hour, integrity should have perished,” he says about the “fall” of Lisa, and refusing to judge Erast, he sighs sadly: “I forget the man in Erast - I’m ready to curse him - but my tongue does not move - I look at the sky, and a tear rolls in my face. Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad true story.”

If providence is more to blame for the misfortunes that befell Lisa and Erast than they themselves, then it is pointless to condemn them. One can only regret them. The destinies of the heroes turn out to be important not because of the instructions that can be extracted, but because they bring the narrator and readers the refined joy of compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow.”

Lisa's beauty lies in her sensitivity. The same quality that leads Erast to sincere repentance helps to reconcile with him. And at the same time, it is sensitivity that leads heroes to delusion and death. The story contains contradictory ideological tendencies. Its plot basis - the events in question - leads to the idea. that the main value of a sentimental worldview is incompatible with virtue and is disastrous for a person. However, the plot treatment of the plot, the organization and style of the narrative, the very thinking of the narrator suggests a completely different interpretation. This construction expresses a certain position of the author.

First of all, it is essential that the events themselves as such do not say anything about themselves. In order to correctly assess what is happening, knowing them is not enough. Truth, in this case we are talking about moral truth, turns out to be dependent on the subject of knowledge and evaluation. The search for a whole century in the field of epistemology did not bypass Karamzin.

In the literature about “Poor Liza” one can often come across indications of the conventional character of the heroine and the great psychological development of the hero. It still seems that Karamzin’s main artistic achievement was the figure of the narrator. The writer managed to highlight from the inside both the attractiveness and limitations of sensitive thinking. The moral problems raised in the story - the responsibility of a person who unwittingly, through error, destroyed someone else's life, atonement for guilt through repentance, assessment of readiness in a fit of feeling to “forget your soul” - turned out to be too complex. Difficult, perhaps, not only for the narrator, but also for the author himself at that period of his spiritual evolution. Karamzin tactfully avoids resolving the questions he poses, only hinting - through a sharp clash between the essence of what is being told and the manner of the story - at the possibility of other approaches.

The Russian reading public has removed only the top layer of the story's content. “Poor Liza” touched, influenced sensitivity, and that was enough. “I visited your ashes, tender Liza,” wrote the once famous writer and fanatical Karamzinist P. I. Shalikov in the essay “To the Ashes of Poor Liza.” “To anyone with a sensitive heart,” he added a note to these words, “poor Liza is unknown.” It is important that “Poor Liza” is perceived as a story about true events. In Ivanov’s already quoted letter it is reported that there are people who scold Karamzin, saying “that he lied, that Liza drowned, that she never existed in the world.” For the writer's detractors, as well as for his fans, the artistic merits of the story were directly related to the truth of what was described in it.

This approach, which did not distinguish between fact and fiction, led to a rearrangement of many accents. First of all, the thin line between the author and the narrator was erased; accordingly, the latter’s judgments and assessments were perceived as the only possible ones. Shalikov, for example, went even further than Karamzin's narrator, arguing that the heroine of the story resides in heaven "in the crown of innocence, in the glory of the immaculate." Not without a certain ambiguity, these epithets indicate that in his perception the problematics of Karamzin’s story have essentially disappeared. The whole thing comes down to glorifying: first of all sensitivity, then Lisa, whose fate evokes such emotions, and most importantly, the writer who made this fate public:

“Perhaps before, when poor Liza was unknown to the world, I would have looked at this very picture, at these very objects, indifferently and would not have felt what I feel now. One tender, sensitive heart makes a thousand others so, a thousand that need there was only excitement, and without that they would have remained in eternal darkness. How many now, like me, come here to nourish their sensitivity and shed a tear of compassion on the ashes, which no one knows would have decayed. What a service to tenderness!" It is not surprising that Liza’s story turns out to be not tragic for Shalikov, but pleasant: “It seemed to me that every leaf, every grass, every flower breathed sensitivity and knew about the fate of poor Liza.<…>Melancholy has never been more pleasant to me.<…>It was the first time in my life that I enjoyed such pleasure." Shalikov concludes his essay with a poem he inscribed on a birch tree near the pond:

"Beautiful in body and soul in these streams

She died her life in the blooming days of her youth!

But - Lisa! Who would have known that the disastrous fate

You are buried here...

Who would have a sad tear

Sprinkled your ashes...

Alas, he would have decayed like that,

That no one in the world, no one would know about him!

Se... gentle K<арамзи>n, sensitive, kind

He told us about your deplorable fate!”

Shalikov's reaction was extremely typical, and it was this that was widely replicated in sentimental literature. In dozens of stories by Karamzin’s imitators, the technique he discovered was picked up and spread - narration on behalf of a narrator who did not take part in the incident being described, but learned about it from one of the heroes or eyewitnesses. But this technique almost never carries the functional load that is assigned to it in “Poor Liza” - there is no discrepancy between the narrator’s position and the obvious meaning of the events presented. Such a composition takes on a completely different meaning. For the narrator, any active participation in the described incident is already excluded. He can only sympathize with the heroes, and his reaction becomes a model for the reader, showing what impression the story told should make on a sensitive heart.

“I hastened to see the monument to sensitivity. Having seen it, I honored the ashes of Lisa with a hot tear and a heartfelt sigh, copied the picture, copied all the inscriptions and at the same time, writing the following verses, left them on the grave:

To the ashes of unfortunate Lisa...

Lover of tenderness at the coffin collects

And the eyes of the sensitive are attracted by love,

And I dropped my tears on your ashes

And he honored the unfortunate woman with a true sigh.”

This time we are not talking about Karamzin’s heroine. This is how Prince Dolgorukov’s story “Unhappy Liza” ends, the very title of which indicates the model that inspired its author. The sweet experiences of Karamzin’s narrator at Liza’s grave here acquired the character of some kind of almost grotesque narcissism. A kind of embodiment of this perception was a separate publication of the story, undertaken in 1796 in Moscow by the Dependent of the Literature Lover. “By publishing a monument to the sensitivity and delicate taste of Moscow readers,” wrote the Literature Lover, introducing the publication, “I hope to bring them more pleasure than the author of “Poor Liza.” Attention to everything that attracts special attention, love for the elegant in the hearts, in paintings, books... in everything - were the only motivation for this publication." The book was accompanied by a picture drawn and engraved by N. I. Sokolov and representing, according to Moskovskie Vedomosti, “touching and beautiful places from the adventures of poor Liza,” and according to a note in one of the reissues, “an image of that sensitivity.” The “image of sensitivity” consisted of a monastery, a pond densely lined with birch trees, and walkers leaving their inscriptions on the birch trees. Here on the frontispiece there is also a text explaining the picture: “A few fathoms from the walls of Si<мо>In the new monastery along the Kozhukhovskaya road there is an ancient pond surrounded by trees. The ardent imagination of the readers sees poor Lisa drowning in it, and on almost every one of these trees, curious visitors in different languages ​​depicted their feelings of compassion for the unfortunate beauty and respect for the author of her story. For example: on one tree there is carved:

In these streams, poor Lisa passed away her days;

If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh.

On the other, perhaps a gentle hand wrote:

Dear Karamzin

In the folds of the heart - hidden

I will weave a crown for you.

The most tender feelings of the souls captivated by you (much cannot be made out, it has been erased).”

In addition, the story was equipped with an epigraph: “Non la connobe il mondo mentre l’ebbe,” also taken “from one of the surrounding trees.” This line from Petrarch’s 338th sonnet on the death of Laura, together with the next one (“I knew her, and now all I have to do is mourn her”), was “drawn with a knife on a birch tree” by another Karamzinist writer, Vasily Lvovich Pushkin. In the summer of 1818, he wrote to Vyazemsky that, while walking near Simonov, he discovered on a tree a trace of his old delights still preserved. It was not by chance that the publisher chose this very inscription as the epigraph, because in such a context it conveys the essence of the ideas about the purpose of literature characteristic of the era: the writer saves high examples of sensitivity from obscurity. Before us is a kind of sentimental re-interpretation of traditional ideas about bards passing on the deeds of heroes to their descendants. With characteristic ironic intonation, these ideas clearly manifested themselves in a review that appeared in 1811 in the journal "Bulletin of Europe" on one of the productions of the well-known theatrical adaptation of "Poor Lisa" - V. M. Fedorov's play "Liza, or the Consequence of Pride and Seduction" ": "Only laymen do not go to visit Liza's grave and do not walk under Liza's pond, overshadowed by curly birches and poetic inscriptions. The old residents of the former monastic settlement cannot wonder why there is such a gathering near their pond. They have not read "Poor Liza" "They didn't even hear anything about her pitiful death and don't know if Lisa was in the world! If it weren't for Erast himself who told the author of the story about poor Lisa her story, then we would now have to doubt the justice of this story and regard it as fiction. If If the fall and death, the desperate and heroic death of poor Lisa had not been described, then sensitive souls would not have shed tears into her lake.<…>How many people know that not far from the Lizin Pond - where the Simonov Monastery used to be and where the ancient stone church, now a parish church, remains, lies the ashes, as they say, of one of those glorious monks who accompanied Demetrius Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field? Hardly many people know about this. And no wonder! caret quia vate sacro, for his deeds are not handed down to posterity. Lisa is happier in this than Dimitriev’s associate. Lisa is mourned, Lisa's story is made into a drama, Lisa is turned from a poor peasant woman into the daughter of a nobleman, into the granddaughter of a noble master, life is restored to the drowned Lisa, Lisa is married off to the kind Erast, and Lisa's shadow now does not envy the celebrity of Achilles, Agamemnon, Ulysses and other heroes "Iliad" and "Odyssey", heroes first sung by Homer, and then glorified by tragedians on the Greek stage."

As if confirming his thoughts, the reviewer demonstrates his own little knowledge of the relics of the Simonov Monastery, where the graves of two heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo - Peresvet and Oslyaby were located. However, the literary memorial created by Karamzin’s pen decisively outweighed the historical and religious monuments of Simonov in the minds of readers of that time. Let us pay attention to one important circumstance. When young Karamzin wrote his story at Simonov’s walls, the monastery was not functioning. Closed during the Moscow plague of 1771, it was officially transferred to the Kriegskomissariat in 1788 for the establishment of a permanent military hospital. But work on the refurbishment of the monastery buildings never began, and Karamzin, catching the then fashionable fascination with ruins in European literature, took advantage of the atmosphere of desolation that reigned in the monastery to create the necessary emotional flavor. The description of abandoned temples and cells was supposed to precede the story of the destroyed hut of Lisa and her mother and their ruined destinies. However, in 1795, the monastery again began to serve in its former capacity, and Karamzin’s admirers had to come to mourn Lisa to the walls of the existing church institution. In addition, the pond, which, apparently against the intention of the author of the story, became a place of pilgrimage, was itself a holy place. Dug, according to legend, by Sergius of Radonezh, it was revered as having miraculous healing powers. As the “Picturesque Review” testified in 1837, “the old people still remember how the sick came and came here, who, despite the weather and time of year, swam in the pond and hoped for healing.” Thus, the literary and religious reputations of the pond were in a certain contradiction, and it must be said that in this strange rivalry with the Orthodox saint, the advantage was clearly on Karamzin’s side.

An interesting piece of evidence was preserved in a letter from Merzlyakov to Andrei Turgenev, published by Yu. M. Lotman. Merzlyakov, who visited Lizin Pond during a festivities on August 1, 1799, accidentally overheard a conversation between a peasant and a craftsman, which he cited in his letter:

“Worksman (about 20 years old, in a blue zipun, getting dressed): People bathe in this lake for fever. They say that this water helps.

Man (about 40 years old): Oh! brother, should I bring my wife, who has been ill for six months now.

Craftsman: I don’t know, will it help the wives? The women are all drowning here.

Man: How?

Craftsman: About 18 years ago, the beautiful Liza drowned here. That’s why everyone is drowning.”

We omit the further retelling by the “masters” of the content of the story, on the basis of which Yu. M. Lotman identified the mechanisms for translating the Karamzin text into the cultural language of the common people’s consciousness. Let us only note that his ideas about the healing power of Sergius Pond (“they bathe for fever”) are seriously crowded out by the correspondingly meaningful impressions of the story (“the women are all drowning here”). In addition, it is noteworthy that Karamzin’s book, in this case his collection “My Trinkets,” which included “Poor Liza,” was received by the artisan who gilded the iconostasis in the monastery from the monk.

Even more revealing is the scandalous episode witnessed by the artist Ivanov, already known to us, who saw on Liza’s pond how “three or four merchants”, “having drunkenly, stripped their nymphs naked and forced them into the lake unwillingly to swim. We saw the girls jumping out of there, - Ivanov said, - and, ashamed of us, they wrapped themselves in their solops. One of them, walking around the lake, said that she was poor Liza. It is worthy of note, my friend, that here in Moscow everyone knows poor Liza, young and old, and from a respectable old man to an ignorant b... The loud songs of the merry merchants attracted several women from the settlement where Liza lived, and several servants from the Simonov Monastery. They, apparently, looked with envious eyes at their fun and found a way to interrupt it. Immediately, approaching them, they began "They should imagine that it is not right to commit outrages in such a venerable place and that Simon's archimandrite can soon calm them down. How dare you, they said, pollute the water in this lake when a girl is buried here on the shore!"

It must be said that the reaction of the servants of the Simonov Monastery to the disgrace under the walls of the monastery looks very non-trivial. The shrine, the desecration of which they demand to stop, turns out to be not the miraculous POND associated with the name of the legendary founder of their monastery, but the grave of a sinner and suicide. An interesting historical and cultural perspective is revealed by another character from Ivanov’s letter - a drunken “nymph” who calls herself poor Liza.

The fact is that with all the emotional and psychological overtones layered on the plot, Karamzin’s story still remained a story about the “fall” and therefore, primarily thanks to these very overtones, could be perceived as a kind of justification for the “fallen” who become victims seduction, social inequality and disharmony of existence. The long series of sacrificial prostitutes appearing in Russian prose of the 19th century, directly or indirectly related to Karamzin’s purest heroine, is one of the characteristic paradoxes of Russian literature. Already in the 20th century, Vladislav Khodasevich wrote in his memoirs about Andrei Bely how, having talked with one of the representatives of the oldest profession and asked about her name, they heard in response: “Everyone calls me poor Nina.” The projection onto Karamzin's story in this response was hardly conscious, but that does not make it any less obvious.

The cultural energy of the myth of poor Lisa turned out to be so significant in many respects precisely because sin and holiness were connected in it by invisible and inextricable threads. This myth was able to so easily displace and replace church tradition, because from the very beginning it acquired, in fact, a quasi-religious character. Therefore, mass trips to Simonov inevitably had to be perceived as cult worship.

This is seen with particular clarity, of course, in ironic reviews. Thus, N.I. Grech recalled that the Arzamas writer and statesman D.N. Bludov “believed in poor Liza as in Varvara the Great Martyr,” and the parody “Karamzinist Commandments” prescribe “to walk and walk around for six days without a plan and without a goal, all the surroundings of Moscow, and on the seventh day" head to the Simonov Monastery. However, if we remember Shalikov’s essay and his words about “the crown of innocence and the glory of the immaculate,” we will see that there is almost no exaggeration in these ridicule.

Poor Liza was, in fact, canonized by sentimental culture.

Obviously, this process could not but cause a negative reaction. The same Ivanov testifies that on the birch trees near Simonov there were inscriptions hostile to Karamzin. The couplet acquired particular fame: “Erast’s bride perished in these streams. Drown yourself, girls, there is plenty of room in the pond.” An unknown reader of the early 19th century wrote it down on his copy of the story, which is now stored in the Book Museum of the State Library named after V.I. Lenin, Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev told I.A. Vtorov about it, he cited it back in 1861 on the pages of his “Chronicle of the Russian Theater "Pimen Arapov. The couplet is not just a crude trick, since it quite accurately reproduces the basic attitude of sentimental literature to create universal models of sensitive behavior, an attitude that, in fact, allowed it to take on the functions of a kind of secular religion. Only the anonymous author of the epigram allowed for a semantic shift, inviting readers of the story to follow the example not of the narrator shedding “tears of tender sorrow” over the ashes, but the example of the heroine herself.

As we know from the history of the reception of The Sorrows of Young Werther, such cases were by no means few in number.

“Poor Liza,” despite the ambiguity of her philosophical and ethical concepts, was completely assimilated by sensitive thinking. And naturally, the crisis of this thinking could not but affect the reputation of the story. As sentimental prose lost popularity and the charm of novelty, “Poor Liza” ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, much less an object of worship, but became in the minds of most readers a rather primitive fiction and a reflection of the tastes and concepts of a long-gone era. .

It is clear that critical pathos grew over the years.

In 1812, the poet Konstantin Parpura wrote in the pamphlet “Twelve Lost Rubles”: “Like Vzdoshkin, I will wander all over Moscow with one thought - and this thought, with a hangover, Alas! could find Lizin’s grave... The reader, understand, not in prose, but in verse I won’t drown poor Liza in the waves. Why drown her - I myself regret her And I don’t dare to resort to such cruelty.<…>Why kindly drown yourself in the Moscow River? It’s more honorable to hang yourself a hundred times over on dry land.”

Unlike the unknown epigrammatist, K. Parpura is rude and not very witty. As it turns out, he doesn’t even remember where exactly poor Lisa ended her days. However, the nature of his attitude towards Karamzin’s story is quite clear - from his point of view, it is nonsense that does not deserve attention.

In 1818, the magazine "Ukrainian Bulletin", without the knowledge of the author, published the "Note on Moscow Monuments" written by Karamzin for the Empress, which contained the already mentioned memory of the work on "Poor Liza" and its success. In the "Bulletin of Europe" the publisher of the magazine, M. T. Kachenovsky, wrote about the "Note" with exceptional harshness. Pretending that he did not believe Karamzin’s authorship, he with even greater anger attacked the unknown writer, who had clearly fabricated the absurd manuscript: “Speaking of monasteries, the writer forges it too rudely and awkwardly, says that he spent pleasant evenings near Simonov and looked at the setting sun from the high bank of the Moscow River, this is not enough, mentions poor Liza, that he composed it in his youth (joci juvenilis), that thousands of curious people went and went looking for traces of the Lizas! And such strange reviews about himself, The unknown author of the Notes dared to attribute such inappropriate idle talk to our first writer and historiographer.<…>Not a single author, modest of course, would attribute his walks or his fairy tales to the monuments of Moscow." Two years later, Karamzin openly admitted authorship, including the "Note" in his collected works. However, he removed the passage about "Poor Liza." Probably this remark , perhaps the only one of the many expressed by Kachenovsky, seemed to him to be somewhat convincing.

It is interesting to see how the nature of references to Karamzin changes when describing the Simonov Monastery in guidebooks to Moscow and special books and articles. For Vasily Kolosov, a member of the Kremlin expedition, who published his “Walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery” (M.) in 1806, there is still no contradiction between the sensitive pilgrimage to the grave of poor Lisa and the worship of the religious and historical shrines of the monastery. “Whose heart, imbued with sensitivity,” he writes, “has not felt pleasant beatings when walking on May evenings, blessedly through the meadows strewn with aromatic flowers, surrounding its famous walls and towers of antiquity. The hand of a relative and disciple of a Teacher respected from the rulers of the earth laid the first stone to the foundation this monastery" (p. 8). V. Kolosov makes a detailed note about this place about the nephew of Sergius of Radonezh Fedor, who founded the monastery, and about Peresvet and Oslyab and calmly moves on to the story of the “memorable consequences of passions and seduction”: “The disfigured shadow of Lisa, beautiful in purity, appeared in the moonlight to my eyes "; poor, trembling Erast stood on his knees before her and tried in vain to beg for forgiveness. The poor victim of delusion, Liza, deceived by him, was ready to forgive him, but Heavenly Justice unleashed its sword on the head of the criminal" (p. 12).

Such a moralizing interpretation of Karamzin’s story made it possible to temporarily reconcile both associative series generated by these places. However, such a compromise could not be long-lasting or sustainable. The author of the four-volume book “Moscow, or a Historical Guide to the Famous Capital of the Russian State,” published in 1827-1831, still considers it necessary to talk about Liza’s Pond, although he does this not without condescending irony: “In his ardent youth, the venerable author fantasized and produced a happy fable, which you can always read and reread with pleasure (which few creations deserve). Be curious to look at the trees here and marvel: there is not a single one on which some kind of poems, or mysterious letters, or prose expressing feelings are written. It seems to guarantee that this was written by lovers and, perhaps, as unhappy as Liza.” In the same vein they wrote on this topic in 1837 in the magazine “Picturesque Review”. However, when N.D. Ivanchin-Pisarev, who idolized Karamzin and was incapable of any irony in relation to his works, took on the description of the Simonov Monastery, he had to justify his idol in writing “Poor Liza.”

“There will be people,” predicted N.D. Ivanchin-Pisarev, “who will say: Karamzin, who visited Simonov, adequately depicted in his story life, so edifying for the laity, who rejects everything perishable,<…>everything wrong for a private conversation with God<…>. But these people will forget that Karamzin was then still a dreamer, as everyone is in their youth, that the philosophy of the 18th century reigned over all minds at that time, and that it was enough to turn to morality alone and frighten the youth with pictures of what in the vain world they are accustomed to calling their pranks."

Ivanchin-Pisarev clearly exaggerated the didactic orientation of “Poor Liza,” but even with this interpretation, the inconsistency of its content with the spiritual atmosphere that the monastery should radiate was too obvious. The specificity of topographical descriptions and the universalism of plot schemes of sentimental literature - two elements that Karamzin synthesized with such skill in his story - began to diverge and contradict each other. Subsequently, authors writing about Simonov find a way out of this contradiction that is not devoid of wit: they mention Karamzin as a historiographer, report that the surroundings of the monastery were his favorite place for walks, quote the famous description of Moscow from Simonovsky Hill and seem to forget about the work, which was revealed by this landscape.

Thus, the cultural history of the monastery is enriched by the name of the publisher of the “History of the Russian State” and at the same time the high seriousness of the subject is not overshadowed by the story of seduction and suicide.

In 1848, the third volume of the book by the famous novelist M. N. Zagoskin “Moscow and Muscovites” was published, including the chapter “Walk to the Simonov Monastery”. Having told about Simonov’s extraordinary popularity among Moscow residents and visitors, Zagoskin named among his attractive aspects “the magnificent singing of the monastery monks” and “the colossal panorama of one of the most picturesque cities in the world.” Karamzin places have clearly lost their charm for the public.

However, in M. N. Zagoskin’s essay itself, the situation is somewhat different. Among those going to Simonov are Nikolai Stepanovich Solikamsky, a true expert and connoisseur of Moscow antiquities, and Princess Sofya Nikolaevna Zorina, an old-fashioned, stupid, beautiful-hearted, but very kind woman. “Princess Zorina,” writes Zagoskin, “was once the most zealous admirer of a certain Russian young poet. This writer of smooth poems, sensitive stories and small magazine articles later became one of those great writers who make up eras in the literature of every nation; but the princess did not want and know about it; for her he remained as before a charming poet, a singer of love and all its sufferings, a sweet storyteller and the beloved son of the Russian Aonids. It never occurred to her to read his “History of the Russian State,” but she knew it by heart " Natalya, the boyar's daughter" and "Bornholm Island".

Naturally, Solikamsky leads the assembled company to the graves of Peresvet and Oslyabi, and the princess leads to Lizin Pond. On the way, she remembers the poems that the Moscow poet Prince Platochkin (obviously meaning Shalikov) once wrote in honor of poor Liza “in pencil on a birch tree”, and asks her companions to read the surviving inscriptions. Alas, they all turn out to be abusive.