« Poor Lisa"(1792) by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is much more complex and much more interesting than it might have seemed when you first met it. And if then, as it should be, we followed primarily the fate of the heroes, now we will focus on the figure of the narrator and how the plot of the story is built.
And to do this, let’s make a little effort, let’s try to imagine ourselves as readers of the end of the 18th century, who came into the hands of the latest issue of the Moscow Journal for 1792 with another story by a very young but prolific writer and publisher Nikolai Karamzin. We, readers of the late 18th century, are accustomed to the fact that “correct” writers immediately bring us “up to date”, explain what’s what, give preliminary estimates characters: one is good, the other is not very good, and the third is completely bad.
And now we open “Poor Lisa”:
“Perhaps no one living in Moscow knows the outskirts of this city as well as I do, because no one is in the field more often than me, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever the eyes look - through the meadows and groves, hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauty in old ones.
But the most pleasant place for me is the place where the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Sin...nova monastery rise..."
Strange. Instead of starting with the characters, the author begins with himself, with a story about his experiences. Instead of immediately setting the flywheel of the plot into motion, he describes in detail the surrounding landscape near the Simonov Monastery... And only after reading these descriptions, we - people of the late 18th century - begin to understand what is going on here.
After all, the landscape only seems so simple and uniform. In fact, the “picture” bifurcates, stratifies, like a photographic image - into “positive” and “negative”. The “positive” captures the motionless, unchanging, natural life of nature. It does not change century from century, especially year from year. And therefore it gives the sensitive author a feeling of lasting peace. This is how it was customary to depict nature (or, as they said then, “the mystery of nature”) in the gentle genre of the idyll, dedicated to the story of the peaceful life of shepherds and shepherdesses far from noisy cities:
“...On the other side you can see an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of trees, sing simple sad songs and thereby shorten the summer days, so uniform for them.”
The “negative” shows the moving, changeable, formidable life of history. Traces of fast-flowing time are noticeable everywhere - and they remind the same sensitive author that the life of nature is not as calm, not as unchanged, as it sometimes seems. After a happy spring comes a sad autumn; after youth comes old age, after old age comes death...
“...I often come to this place and almost always meet spring there; I come there and grieve with nature on the dark days of autumn. ...There, leaning on the ruins of tombstones, I listen to the dull groan of times, swallowed up by the abyss of the past... All this renews in my memory the history of our fatherland - the sad history of those times when the ferocious Tatars and Lithuanians devastated the surrounding area with fire and sword Russian capital and when unfortunate Moscow, like a defenseless widow, expected help from God alone in its severe disasters...”
No wonder the narrator meets us on the border between Moscow and a rural suburb. It is as if he wants to remind the reader: in man, in the human personality, there are both natural and unnatural principles, both good and evil are combined in him. And most importantly - modern man, unlike people of previous, happier eras, cannot hide in the lap of nature from the raging history, cannot once and for all retire from the city to the countryside. The city is still nearby, and the vices that reign in it can sooner or later “flow” into peaceful village life. But for the city, the encounter with rural life will not pass completely without leaving a trace; it will not be able to fence itself off once and for all with fortress walls from the influence of simple and natural morals. In other words, in the current world there is nothing immutable; all boundaries are easily shifted; This contains both evil and good. Both good and evil.
For people of the era of globalism, this idea is more than understandable and familiar. But we are trying to take the point of view of people at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. And therefore they are amazed at Karamzin’s philosophical audacity. However, it seems to him that this is not enough: he wants to amaze our reader’s imagination with his unheard-of literary audacity. And he immediately begins to implement his plans.
Lisa's mother, a kind and simple-hearted peasant woman, completely belongs to the rural world - the world of patriarchal feelings and ideas about life. She does not seek wealth, because she is convinced: “it is better to feed yourself by your labors and not take anything for nothing.” Thus, a theme is latently introduced into the story, which was also completely new for Russian literature of that time: the theme of money. Moreover, the narrator is not interested in money as such, for him it is a symbol of unnatural relationships, based not on the dictates of the heart, not on the trust of people in each other, but on benefits and disadvantages, on calculation and sometimes deception. Of course, money reigns not in the village, but in the city: but the trouble is that poor Lisa’s home is located too close to the dangerous line.
From now on, the theme of money will play a key role in constructing the plot of the story. The impulse of Erast, who offered Lisa a ruble for a bouquet of lilies of the valley instead of 5 kopecks, is in itself sincere, comes from the heart. But the monetary form in which it is clothed initially indicates the urban “depravity” of a generally good person. It does not occur to him that natural feelings are incompatible with monetary calculations, with money. And it’s not for nothing that the narrator immediately notices, having become an involuntary witness to this scene, that those passing by began to stop and grin wryly. They are much more spoiled than Erast. For them, a “money” gesture can only mean one thing: an attempt to buy love.
That's why Lisa flatly refuses extra money and agrees to sell the flowers only for the true price - 5 kopecks. And when she comes to the city again in the secret hope of meeting the stranger she loves, she answers passers-by that her flowers are not for sale and prefers to throw them into the river rather than give them for money. And you and I, as true connoisseurs of fine literature of the late 18th century, understand that flowers, in turn, also turned into a symbol. A symbol of purity, innocence, that reverent love that Lisa believes and hopes for. But, unlike the ancient writers whom Erast reads (and on whom the first readers of “Poor Liza” were brought up), Karamzin’s narrator looks at life with sadness. He would like sublime, pure love to be able to overcome the class gap, but he doubts whether this is possible.
And again let’s try to take the point of view of Karamzin’s first readers. They are accustomed to the fact that each character has his own path laid out through the plot space. The positive hero moves in one direction, the negative one in another, and their tracks, like parallel lines, do not intersect. And now the attention of readers is offered to a story, the main characters of which not only lack unambiguous characteristics, but are also able to move from their own “track” to someone else’s and back. Liza, without noticing it herself, adopts a lot from Erast. Erast is with Lisa.
He, having forgotten about everything in the world, longs for only one thing: pure, immaculate love. Now he is a little closer to his original, “natural” state, to his soul. Lisa, on the contrary, is now ready to forget “her soul rather than her dear... friend!” Of course, both Erast and Lisa remain true to themselves, their views, their habits. He still tries to translate everything into money, including his own good feelings. When buying Liza’s work, he “always wanted to pay ten times more than the quoted... price.” She is still sincere, sensitive, touching. (By the way, the word “touching” itself was introduced into the Russian language in its current meaning by Karamzin.) But after Liza responds to Erast’s passionate impulse and gives herself up to him - also, by the way, a scene unheard of at that time, despite all her modest bashfulness Karamzin's descriptions! - a turning point occurs both in the destinies of the heroes and in their feelings. Disjoint lines suddenly intersected and after the intersection diverged in different directions:
“...Finally, for five days in a row she did not see him and was in the greatest anxiety; at the sixth he came with a sad face..."
Time, which cannot dominate in the “natural” world, imperiously invades Liza’s life. She literally begins to count the days. Moreover, note: the first meeting of the heroes took place in the city, on the “territory” of Erast, where Lisa brought flowers - a symbol of natural, natural sensitivity. And she learns about the upcoming separation in the village, on her “territory”, where the “handsome Moscow gentleman” Erast brings money, a symbol of untrue, contrary to the laws of “nature” relationships between people: “He forced her to take some money from him” so that Lisa I didn’t sell flowers to anyone while Erast was at war.
It all started with money, and everything ends with money. After some time, Lisa goes to Moscow. Not for selling, but for shopping. (This detail is important to Karamzin.) She meets Erast, who, it turns out, instead of performing military feats in the army, lost his estate. And he is forced to marry a rich widow. That is, he played for money, for the sake of money, but in the end he lost love, betrayed his “nature.” And the worst thing is that when we part, we part forever! - with his beloved Lisa, he again offers her money, as if trying to pay off his failed love: “Here are 100 rubles - take them,” he put the money in her pocket. “Escort this girl from the yard.”
Of course, the sentimental narrator does not want and cannot justify such an act of the hero. But something else is much more important. The narrator describes the last moments of Lisa, who, before committing suicide, says goodbye to the shadow of the ancient oak trees, “witnesses of her delight.” And as if in passing, he notes along the way: the last thing Lisa did in this life was to send 10 imperials to her mother through her neighbor’s daughter Anyuta. That is, she voluntarily or unwittingly repeated Erast’s “farewell gesture”, consciously or unconsciously submitted to his unnatural “urban” logic. Money seems to be called upon to atone for her daughter’s guilt; it becomes the price of eternal separation from her mother...
Russian literature of that era had never known such complex artistic and moral decisions. However, Karamzin did not stop there. Having unraveled the plot of the story directly related to Lisa, he focused on analyzing his own feelings. And he did not hide from readers that he was not able to understand them! His narrator can only suffer, reflecting on what happened; he does not condemn anyone: “I often sit in thought, leaning on the receptacle of Liza’s ashes; there is a pond flowing in my eyes.”
And the last phrase of the story, which we read after we learned about the death of Erast himself, who spent the rest of his days in sadness, sounds incredibly bold: “Now, perhaps, they have already made peace!” A storyteller is no worse than his reader! - knows that suicide is considered the most terrible sin, that suicides are not buried in church and are not buried within the church fence, that there is no way to heaven for the souls of suicides, and in hell it is impossible to “meet and reconcile.” But the narrator’s scale of religious values does not coincide with the church’s. It coincides with the scale of values of sentimental culture, which allowed Goethe to justify young Werther who committed suicide.
Yes, Lisa (like Werther) acted wrongly, just as Erast also acted wrongly. But the main thing for Karamzin is different: that both he and she, albeit to varying degrees, listened to the voice of their own hearts, were sensitive, approached the “mystery of nature” (although they later moved away from it). This means that the question of “hell” or “heaven” does not arise for them. Their souls will unite in heaven. How? Where? The author doesn't know. Yes, he is not interested in knowing that. The main thing is that he, like any person professing the cult of the heart, does not need normative morality. He needs something else - refined experiences, empathy, compassion.
It is not for nothing that his story is called not “Liza and Erast” (as any “correct” writer of the previous generation would have called his work), but “Poor Liza.” Listen, think about it: the voice of the narrator himself is clearly heard in the title, his sympathetic intonation is present.
And it couldn’t have been any other way. After all, “Poor Liza” not only tells about the unhappy love of a peasant girl, but also speaks in detail about the experiences of the author himself, who tells this story to his readers.
The literary movement of sentimentalism came to Russia from France at the end of the 18th century and addressed mainly the problems of the human soul.
Karamzin's story "Poor Liza" tells about the love of a young nobleman
Erast and the peasant woman Liza. Lisa lives with her mother in the outskirts of Moscow. The girl sells flowers and here she meets Erast. Erast is a man “with a fair amount of intelligence and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.” His love for Lisa turned out to be fragile. Erast plays cards. In an effort to improve matters, he is going to marry a rich widow, so he leaves Lisa. Shocked by Erast's betrayal, Lisa throws herself into the pond in despair and drowns. This tragic end is largely predetermined by the class inequality of the heroes. Erast is a nobleman. Lisa is a peasant woman. Their marriage is impossible. But the ability to love and be happy do not always coincide. In the story, the author values not nobility and wealth, but spiritual qualities, the ability to deeply feel.
Karamzin was a great humanist, a man with a subtle soul. He denied serfdom, not recognizing the power of people to control the lives of other people. Although the heroine of the story is not a serf girl, but a free peasant woman, nevertheless, the class wall between her and her lover is insurmountable. Even Lisa's love could not break this barrier.
Reading the story, I am completely on Lisa’s side, experiencing the delight of love and grieving over the death of the girl. Turning to the lofty theme of unrequited love, Karamzin understood and felt that the drama of human feelings cannot be explained only social reasons. The image of Erast in this sense is very interesting, his character is contradictory; He has a gentle, poetic nature and is handsome, which is why Lisa fell in love with him. At the same time, Erast is selfish, weak-willed, and capable of deception; with cold cruelty he takes Lisa out of his house, but upon learning of her death, he could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer. The author emphasizes that no class superiority frees a person from responsibility for his actions.
Poor Lisa (story)
| Poor Lisa | |
O. A. Kiprensky, “Poor Liza”, 1827 |
|
| Genre: | |
|---|---|
| Original language: | |
| Year of writing: | |
| Publication: |
1792, “Moscow Magazine” |
| Separate edition: | |
| in Wikisource | |
History of creation and publication
Plot
After the death of her father, a “prosperous villager,” young Lisa is forced to work tirelessly to feed herself and her mother. In the spring, she sells lilies of the valley in Moscow and there she meets the young nobleman Erast, who falls in love with her and is even ready to leave the world for the sake of his love. The lovers spend all evenings together, sharing a bed. However, with the loss of innocence, Lisa lost her attractiveness for Erast. One day he reports that he must go on a campaign with the regiment and they will have to part. A few days later, Erast leaves.
Several months pass. Liza, once in Moscow, accidentally sees Erast in a magnificent carriage and finds out that he is engaged (he lost his estate at cards and is now forced to marry a rich widow). In despair, Lisa throws herself into the pond.
Artistic originality
Simonov Monastery
The plot of the story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to “Russian” soil. The author hints that he is personally acquainted with Erast (“I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa’s grave”) and emphasizes that the action takes place in Moscow and its environs, describes, for example , Simonov and Danilov monasteries, Vorobyovy Gory, creating the illusion of authenticity. This was an innovation for Russian literature of that time: usually the action of works took place “in one city.” The first readers of the story perceived Lisa's story as a real tragedy of a contemporary - it is no coincidence that the pond under the walls of the Simonov Monastery was named Liza's Pond, and the fate of Karamzin's heroine received a lot of imitations. The oak trees growing around the pond were covered with inscriptions - touching ( “In these streams, poor Lisa passed away her days; If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh!”) and caustic ( “Here Erast’s bride threw herself into the pond. Drown yourself, girls: there’s plenty of room in the pond!”) .
However, despite the apparent plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Liza and her mother have sophistication of feelings and perceptions, their speech is literate, literary and no different from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of poor villagers resembles a pastoral:
Meanwhile, a young shepherd was driving his flock along the river bank, playing the pipe. Lisa fixed her gaze on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, - and if he were now driving his flock past me: ah! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd!” Where are you driving your flock? And it grows here green grass for your sheep, and here there are red flowers from which you can weave a wreath for your hat.” He would look at me with an affectionate look - maybe he would take my hand... A dream! A shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and disappeared with his motley flock behind a nearby hill.
The story became an example of Russian sentimental literature. In contrast to classicism with its cult of reason, Karamzin affirmed the cult of feelings, sensitivity, compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!” . Heroes are important first of all for their ability to love and surrender to feelings. There is no class conflict in the story: Karamzin sympathizes equally with both Erast and Lisa. In addition, unlike the works of classicism, “Poor Liza” is devoid of morality, didacticism, and edification: the author does not teach, but tries to evoke empathy for the characters in the reader.
The story is also distinguished by its “smooth” language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavonicisms and pomposity, which made the work easy to read.
Criticism about the story
“Poor Liza” was received by the Russian public with such enthusiasm because in this work Karamzin was the first to express the “new word” that Goethe said to the Germans in his “Werther.” The heroine’s suicide was such a “new word” in the story. The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to consoling endings in the form of weddings, who believed that virtue is always rewarded and vice is punished, met for the first time in this story the bitter truth of life.
"Poor Lisa" in art
In painting
Literary reminiscences
Dramatizations
Film adaptations
- 1967 - “Poor Liza” (television play), directed by Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, starring: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrei Myagkov.
- - “Poor Lisa”, director Idea Garanina, composer Alexey Rybnikov
- - “Poor Lisa”, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.
Literature
- Toporov V.N.“Poor Liza” by Karamzin: Reading experience: To the bicentenary of its publication. - Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.
Notes
Links
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
See what “Poor Lisa (story)” is in other dictionaries:
POOR LISA- Story by N.M. Karamzin. Written in 1792 and then published in the Moscow Journal, which was published by the writer himself. The plot of the story, which had been reproduced many times before in European bourgeois drama of the 18th century, is simple. This is a love story... ... Linguistic and regional dictionary
Cover of one of Leo Tolstoy's stories. The story is a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand ... Wikipedia
The request "Karamzin" is redirected here; see also other meanings. Nikolai Karamzin ... Wikipedia
1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 See also: Other events in 1792 Contents 1 Events 2 Prizes ... Wikipedia
Historiographer, b. December 1, 1766, d. May 22, 1826 He belonged to a noble family, descended from the Tatar Murza, named Kara Murza. His father, a Simbirsk landowner, Mikhail Egorovich, served in Orenburg under I. I. Neplyuev and ... Large biographical encyclopedia
Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 1826) an outstanding writer and literary figure, the head of Russian sentimentalism (see). R. and grew up on the estate of his father, an average Simbirsk nobleman, a descendant of the Tatar Murza Kara Murza. He studied with a village sexton, later... ... Literary encyclopedia
Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich - .… … Dictionary of the Russian language of the 18th century
The story “Poor Liza,” written by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, became one of the first works of sentimentalism in Russia. The love story of a poor girl and a young nobleman won the hearts of many of the writer’s contemporaries and was received with great delight. The work brought unprecedented popularity to the then completely unknown 25-year-old writer. However, with what descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin?
History of creation
N. M. Karamzin was distinguished by his love for Western culture and actively preached its principles. His role in the life of Russia was enormous and invaluable. This progressive and active man traveled extensively throughout Europe in 1789-1790, and upon his return he published the story “Poor Liza” in the Moscow Journal.
Analysis of the story indicates that the work has a sentimental aesthetic orientation, which is expressed in interest in people, regardless of their social status.
While writing the story, Karamzin lived at his friends’ dacha, not far from which he was located. It is believed that he served as the basis for the beginning of the work. Thanks to this, the love story and the characters themselves were perceived by readers as completely real. And the pond not far from the monastery began to be called “Liza’s Pond.”
“Poor Liza” by Karamzin as a sentimental story
“Poor Liza” is, in fact, a short story, a genre in which no one had written in Russia before Karamzin. But the writer’s innovation is not only in the choice of genre, but also in the direction. It was this story that secured the title of the first work of Russian sentimentalism.
Sentimentalism arose in Europe back in the 17th century and focused on the sensual side human life. Issues of reason and society faded into the background for this direction, but emotions and relationships between people became a priority.
Sentimentalism has always strived to idealize what is happening, to embellish it. Answering the question about what descriptions the story “Poor Liza” begins with, we can talk about the idyllic landscape that Karamzin paints for readers.
Theme and idea
One of the main themes of the story is social, and it is connected with the problem of the attitude of the noble class towards the peasants. It is not for nothing that Karamzin chooses a peasant girl to play the role of bearer of innocence and morality.
Contrasting the images of Lisa and Erast, the writer is one of the first to raise the problem of contradictions between the city and the countryside. If we turn to the descriptions with which the story “Poor Liza” begins, we will see a quiet, cozy and natural world that exists in harmony with nature. The city is frightening, terrifying with its “huge houses” and “golden domes.” Lisa becomes a reflection of nature, she is natural and naive, there is no falsehood or pretense in her.
The author speaks in the story from the position of a humanist. Karamzin depicts all the charm of love, its beauty and strength. But reason and pragmatism can easily destroy this wonderful feeling. The story owes its success to its incredible attention to a person’s personality and his experiences. “Poor Liza” aroused sympathy among its readers thanks to Karamzin’s amazing ability to depict all the emotional subtleties, experiences, aspirations and thoughts of the heroine.
Heroes
A complete analysis of the story “Poor Liza” is impossible without a detailed examination of the images of the main characters of the work. Lisa and Erast, as noted above, embodied different ideals and principles.
Lisa is an ordinary peasant girl, whose main feature is the ability to feel. She acts according to the dictates of her heart and feelings, which ultimately led to her death, although her morality remained intact. However, there is little peasant in the image of Lisa: her speech and thoughts are closer to book language, but the feelings of a girl who has fallen in love for the first time are conveyed with incredible truthfulness. So, despite the external idealization of the heroine, her inner experiences are conveyed very realistically. In this regard, the story “Poor Liza” does not lose its innovation.
What descriptions does the work begin with? First of all, they are in tune with the character of the heroine, helping the reader to recognize her. This is a natural, idyllic world.
Erast appears completely different to the readers. He is an officer who is only puzzled by the search for new entertainment; life in society tires him and makes him bored. He is intelligent, kind, but weak in character and changeable in his affections. Erast truly falls in love, but does not think at all about the future, because Lisa is not his circle, and he will never be able to take her as his wife.
Karamzin complicated the image of Erast. Typically, such a hero in Russian literature was simpler and endowed with certain characteristics. But the writer makes him not an insidious seducer, but a sincerely in love with a person who, due to weakness of character, could not pass the test and preserve his love. This type of hero was new to Russian literature, but immediately took root and later received the name “ extra person».
Plot and originality
The plot of the work is quite simple. This is the story of the tragic love of a peasant woman and a nobleman, the result of which was the death of Lisa.
What descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin with? Karamzin draws a natural panorama, the bulk of the monastery, a pond - it is here, surrounded by nature, that the main character lives. But the main thing in a story is not the plot or descriptions, the main thing is feelings. And the narrator must awaken these feelings in the audience. For the first time in Russian literature, where the image of the narrator has always remained outside the work, a hero-author appears. This sentimental narrator learns a love story from Erast and retells it to the reader with sadness and sympathy.
Thus, there are three main characters in the story: Lisa, Erast and the author-narrator. Karamzin also introduces the technique of landscape descriptions and somewhat lightens the ponderous style of the Russian literary language.
The significance of the story “Poor Lisa” for Russian literature
Analysis of the story, thus, shows Karamzin’s incredible contribution to the development of Russian literature. In addition to describing the relationship between city and village, the appearance of the “extra person,” many researchers note the emergence of the “little person” - in the image of Lisa. This work influenced the work of A. S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, who developed the themes, ideas and images of Karamzin.
The incredible psychologism that brought Russian literature world fame, also spawned the story “Poor Liza.” What descriptions does this work begin with! There is so much beauty, originality and incredible stylistic lightness in them! Karamzin’s contribution to the development of Russian literature cannot be overestimated.
(The illustration shows a portrait painted by O. Kiprensky based on the work of N.M. Karamzin “Poor Liza”)
Poor girl Lisa is the main character of the story by N.M. Karamzin “Poor Liza”, published in 1792 in the “Moscow Journal” and is a striking example of classic sentimental prose. At that time, a dogmatic, ecclesiastical orientation reigned in Russian literature, completely devoid of feelings and emotions. The story, written by the author after a visit to more advanced Europe, where the public was engrossed in samples of sentimental literature, became a real breakthrough in Russian literature in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and marked new stage in its further development. All the most important things are concentrated in it clear signs sentimentalism: idealized heroes, simple and understandable problems for the general public, a very mediocre and far from new storyline (the seduction of a poor peasant girl by a rich gentleman in the conditions of ordinary Russian reality).
Characteristics of the heroine
Liza is a simple and hardworking 17-year-old peasant girl who cannot even read or write, who earns her living by selling flowers in the spring and berries in the summer. Selling lilies of the valley for five kopecks, she refuses a generous offer to buy them for a ruble, because this contradicts her honest and modest nature, far from pragmatism and material enrichment. The poor thing does not refuse any work (weaving canvas, knitting socks, selling flowers and berries) in order to somehow support herself and her sick old mother, who lives with her in a poor empty hut on a green meadow near the local monastery.
The girl is distinguished by a calm and quiet disposition, timidity and shyness in communication (she blushes easily and is embarrassed when talking with strangers). At the same time, she has an attractive Slavic appearance (blond hair, Blue eyes), a sensual and vulnerable soul, capable of ardent love and loyalty to the very grave. Her naivety, kindness and inexperience ultimately lead to her sad ending. love relationship with a young rake and spendthrift, who used her for his own purposes and, after completely cooling off, married a rich widow for the sake of his fortune.
Having met a young and attractive nobleman Erast in the city, Lisa first feels deep sympathy for him, and then falls madly in love, completely immersed in the ocean of passions and discarding all reasonable arguments. Her pure and childishly naive soul does not see evil in people and attributes only the bright and good to them, although her old mother warns her about how “ evil people They might offend the poor girl."
Having given all of herself without looking back to the sophisticated seducer Erast, Lisa cannot even imagine how this could end for her and believes him without looking back. Under his harmful influence, she becomes secretive and insincere and begins to hide from her mother, who was closest to her in the world, her relationship with the young nobleman. Later, trying to pay off ex-lover, he hands Lisa 100 rubles, which she, in turn, after her tragic death sends to her poor mother, also trying to somehow brighten up the terrible sin she committed. And the elderly mother, having learned about the death of her only joy in life, her beloved daughter, immediately falls dead. To the grave where a simple peasant girl Liza was buried with such tragic fate then other unhappy girls in love began to come to grieve and cry about their broken heart and cruelly trampled feelings.
The image of the heroine in the work
The tragic ending at the end of this work, although it fully fits into the concept of a classic sentimental novel, was still a bit of a shock for the Russian reader of that time, accustomed to a happy ending to events, and led to a real revolution in their consciousness. However, those strong emotions and feelings caused by the suicide of the main character would have been impossible to evoke if the ending of the story had been less sad and tragic. In “Poor Liza,” Karamzin contrasts the city for the first time in Russian literature ( bright representative- young nobleman Erast) village (sweet and trusting child of nature Lisa). A village girl, simple and naive, finds herself defenseless against a cunning and treacherous city dweller and dies, unable to withstand the cruelty and soullessness of the world around her.