In his early work, Alexander Sergeevich very often copied the thoughts of Byron and Rousseau. These writers were idols for the great Russian poet, but the period of romanticism passed, and with it new thoughts about the universe and the attitude of people in society appeared. Pushkin began to think more realistically, so he entered into some kind of dispute with Byron. He began it in the poem “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” which was written in the spirit of romanticism, but this romanticism was rather critical. The poet came to the conclusion that the return of man to his natural habitat is a step back, not forward. Alexander Sergeevich perceives such behavior as a betrayal of a person’s destiny, which is determined by the Creator.
Artificial return of man to nature
Alexander Pushkin wrote “Gypsies” in 1824; the poem was a continuation of the experiment he had begun and the end of the dispute with the romantics. In order to more realistically describe the events in his work, the writer lived for several weeks in a gypsy camp in Chisinau, experiencing all the delights of a free life. The hero of the poem “Gypsies” by Pushkin, Aleko, is very similar to the author himself, even the name was chosen to be in tune with Alexander. The poet, being in exile in Moldova, often compared himself with Ovid; he languished in the stuffiness of the cities - all this is present in the work.
The main character is tired of civilization, and now he has to discover new world, in which people are devoid of any prejudices, they are free, simple, they are not characterized by pretense or artificiality. Pushkin wrote “Gypsies” to show whether a change in social circle and living conditions will affect a person. Aleko found himself in a gypsy camp, he ended up exactly where he wanted. It is assumed that main character must be liberated, gain peace of mind, but that didn't happen. Even love for Zemfira did not bring the desired update.
Solving the problem of “man and environment”
Pushkin composed “Gypsies” with the aim of showing the erroneous judgment of Rousseau, who believed that every person can find harmony in the lap of nature. Aleko hates a society that trades in its will, but he himself acts like the people he despises. The main character found himself in a world he had long dreamed of, but could not overcome his loneliness. Aleko proudly declared that he would never give up his rights, but then what right did he have to take the life of another person or control his feelings?
Pushkin created “Gypsies” to show that he could not overstep his beliefs. Aleko was defeated because, despite his loud statements, the hero himself turned out to be a defender of spiritual slavery. In his early work, the poet placed a hero whom he associated with himself in a central place. In the same poem, Pushkin portrayed the main character objectively. “Gypsies,” the analysis of which showed how much the author’s views had changed, became the first work in which Alexander Sergeevich looks at the hero from the outside. The poem clearly shows Alexander Pushkin's transition from romanticism to realism.
While working on the poem “The Gypsies” (1824), Pushkin created characters and described the life of the gypsies not from hearsay - he carefully studied their life and even lived for several days in a gypsy camp. In 1823-1824, which Pushkinists call the time of Pushkin’s ideological crisis, he was faced with a number of pressing life and creative questions. They were primarily concerned with choice life path(Pushkin thought about leaving Russia) and literary style(the poet experienced deep doubts about the prospects of the romantic style). In this difficult atmosphere of reflection and choice, “Gypsies”, the elegy “To the Sea” (1824) were created, and work continued on the first chapters of the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”.
The plot of "Gypsies" may seem very far from real life. Why did Pushkin turn to such an exotic and unrealistic story? Of course, at the time of creating the work, the poet lives in the south of Russia and encounters many unusual things, and the customs of the nomadic people are interesting to readers from distant capitals. However, the description of gypsy life is not the first most important place in the poem. At the heart of the conflict in the poem is the clash of two opposing ways of life of people - civilization and primitive culture. At the beginning of the poem, Pushkin depicts a gypsy camp and describes the appearance of the hero Aleko in it.
The beginning of the conflict in the poem is outlined in Zemfira’s story about Aleko’s desire to stay with the gypsies. It is indicated through the contrast with the free life of the gypsies:
Like liberty, their night is cheerful
And peaceful sleep under the skies
and the reasons that brought Aleko to them:
He wants to be like us, a gypsy;
The law is pursuing him...
In the conventional language of a romantic poem, Zemfira’s words that Aleko is “pursuing the law” should not be understood to mean that he committed a crime. The hero is a voluntary exile, this is the main type romantic hero, such is Childe Harold in Byron, the captive in Pushkin’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and others. Aleko is running away from a culture where law and coercion rule, personality, freedom of conscience, thought and speech are suppressed - Aleko expresses all this in his passionate monologue to Zemfira.
Aleko’s flight is an unconditional protest against the unacceptable order for a nobleman in Russia, which has a political basis, because it was in 1824 that the discontent of the progressive part of society increased and secret political societies became more active. In 1824 A.S. Griboedov completed the comedy “Woe from Wit,” in which he sharply ridiculed the inert and conservative society of that time.
Aleko's flight is also a protest against civilization, which deprives a person of natural freedom, simple feelings and relationships - friendship and love. The hero hopes to find a worthy and free life among free gypsies, whose lives are untouched by either civilization or culture with its conventional laws and personal restrictions. The image of Aleko, of course, contains biographical features - it is not for nothing that Pushkin gives the hero his name, it is possible that someone called Pushkin exactly that during his stay in the camp. Moreover, fate literary hero Aleko recalls the fate of Pushkin, who was in exile.
Meanwhile, one should not simplify the situation of the conflict, since the hero does not simply flee from the “stuffy cities” of his own free will, he is forced by circumstances. The poem contains two main romantic motive The themes that the poet resorts to when creating the image of the hero are the motive of escape and the motive of exile.
Pushkin does not stop at the simple contrast between nature, the free life of the camp and the “captivity of stuffy cities.” If the poet had not distinguished between romantic fiction and reality, he would probably have left Aleko among the gypsies and thereby resolved the conflict in favor of a simple, natural life without laws, without a developed culture. The “poetic savagery” of the gypsies, as Vyazemsky put it, attracted Pushkin as a vivid background for depicting the conflict. But will Aleko be able to accept not only everyday life, but also the customs themselves, the unwritten rules of life for the gypsies? What does their freedom mean?
The development of the plot leads to the fact that after two years of Aleko’s life, an event occurred in the “peaceful crowd” of gypsies, which for him became a disaster, but for gypsy morals and their natural “philosophy” it was only a natural episode: Zemfira lost interest in Aleko and cheated on him, moreover, just as easily and thoughtlessly as she had brought him to the camp earlier.
Zemfira sings a song calling Aleko “old husband,” but this expression should not be taken literally: Aleko is not old in age, he is a husband who lives with her for a long time, that is, a boring husband. Now she met another, “fresher than spring, hotter summer day", and, like a young plant, reaches out to him. Aleko goes on a rampage and goes crazy, but this evokes in Zemfira not sympathy, but fear. Zemfira's father, in order to console the jealous man, tells Aleko his story.
Let us note that both Zemfira and her mother Mariula leave their husbands with their little daughters, that is, they act of their own free will, obeying only the call of nature, knowing neither responsibility nor duty. Zemfira's father accepts this freedom without complaint, as a natural law of life. This is the gypsy life that Aleko could not comprehend, no matter how long he lived among this tribe. He is irreconcilable, introducing his demands, laws and will into the life of the gypsies. So the main moral conflict The poem is associated with different understandings of will: “will” as desire and its free execution and “will” as the suppression of another, coercion. This conflict is also insoluble. The culmination of the conflict in the poem is traditional for romantic poetics, occurring in an atmosphere of frantic passions and dramatic actions. So, in the midst of Zemfira’s night date with a young gypsy, Aleko appears. Zemfira dies unconquered, true to her natural freedom, there is no shade in her feelings eternal love and the devotion that romantics endowed their heroines with. She is free to love anyone who captivates her imagination, but the depths of her soul remain untouched.
Thus, the incompatibility of culture and wild freedom, high spirit and crude naivety and, as a consequence, the intractability of the conflict are shown by Pushkin through a love situation. The denouement of the poem is Aleko’s expulsion from the camp.
Pushkin’s thought is that neither escape from real life, nor the most decisive change of place and lifestyle, nor philosophy or beliefs will protect a person from himself, from “fatal passions,” that is, it is impossible to guess the future and isolate himself from it, “ there is no protection from fate,” we must boldly move forward. This explains why Pushkin submitted to the will of the Tsar and went into exile in Mikhailovskoye rather than choose to flee. The poem also reflects the departure from romanticism and the formation of a new artistic style poet.
Source (abbreviated): Moskvin G.V. Literature: 9th grade: in 2 hours. Part 2 / G.V. Moskvin, N.N. Puryaeva, E.L. Erokhin. - M.: Ventana-Graf, 2016
"Gypsies" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, issues and other issues are discussed in this article.
In the summer of 1821, during his exile in Chisinau, Pushkin traveled for several weeks with a camp of gypsies. Impressed by those days, he began to write a poem "Gypsies", which he completed at the end of 1824 in Mikhailovsky. For the first time, excerpts from the poem were published in the almanac “Polar Star”, then in “Northern Flowers”. Get acquainted with full text Readers were able to read “Gypsy” only in 1827, when the work was published as a separate edition.
“Gypsies” completes the cycle of Pushkin’s “southern” poems. It's practically last piece poet, written in romantic style. It reflected the author’s creative crisis and profound changes in his worldview. The main theme of the poem is the debunking of the romantic hero. But the poet did not find anything to replace the usual ideals, which is why the ending of the work is so gloomy.
Motive flight from civilization to free savages was quite popular at that time. In "Gypsies" Pushkin showed how false and utopian such an idea is. The hero of the poem, Aleko, is an exile persecuted by the law. But the young man not only wants to avoid responsibility for the crime he committed. Aleko became disillusioned with civilization and hated city life. Among the gypsies he seeks freedom and sincerity of feelings.
This type of plot is typical for romantic work. The author does not say anything about Aleko’s past, about the crime he committed. The reader can only guess about this from individual points. It is clear that Aleko is an educated person, since he is aware of the fate of Ovid. Surely he knows city life well, about which he speaks as follows: “Crowds: mad persecution or brilliant shame”.
Aleko easily accepts the primitive life of the gypsies and quickly fits into their nomadic life. "Tattered Tents", "poor dinner", tattered clothes and the need to walk around villages with a tame bear to earn bread do not frighten him. The love of the beautiful Zemfira and the desired freedom should make Aleko completely happy. But this did not happen.
Owns the hero "secret sadness", the reason for which even Aleko himself does not understand. This is a longing for familiar life, comfort, communication with educated people. In fact, Aleko never became part of the gypsy freemen, because he did not understand and did not accept the essence of this will - freedom of feelings and actions.
The heroines of the poem, Zemfira and Mariula, have no moral obligations to men and children. They blindly follow their desires, obey their passions. Pushkin deliberately created the image of Zemfira’s mother, who left her daughter for the sake of new love. In a civilized society, this act would cause universal condemnation, but Zemfira does not condemn her mother. She does the same.
Gypsies do not consider betrayal a sin, because no one can hold back love. For an old man, his daughter’s action is common. But for Aleko, this is an attack on his rights, which cannot go unpunished. The murder of Zemfira and her lover clearly shows that in his soul the hero of the poem never became a gypsy. "I'm not like that", admits Aleko.
The old man calls the young man a proud man, angry and brave as opposed to peaceful and "timid soul" fellow tribesmen. He clearly defines the reason for Aleko's action - selfishness. “You only want freedom for yourself”, - Zemfira’s father accuses the killer. Considering himself free, Aleko does not want to see others free.
For the first time, Pushkin depicted the expulsion of a romantic hero not only from a civilized society, but also from the world of freedom. Aleko commits a crime not against prejudices and traditions, but against universal human values. His jealousy and cruelty do not evoke the sympathy of readers. The hero turns out to be an egoist and a murderer.
At the same time, the poet destroys the romantic aura of gypsy will. The colorfully described details of everyday life show the poverty and ignorance of the wild people, and freedom of love and action does not bring them happiness. This plot twist and assessment of the characters’ actions allowed critics to call the poem “atypical.”
Compositionally the work is built around the gypsy song of Zemfira, which, not by chance, occupies a central place, since it is culmination conflict. The poem consists of eleven parts. Nine of them are written in iambic tetrameter, and Zemfira’s song is written in two-foot anapest. Another song, “The Bird of God Doesn’t Know...” is written in trochee tetrameter.
In addition to the two songs, the poem contains two more stories by the old gypsy: about the exiled poet and about his unfaithful wife Mariula. They serve to develop the plot and reveal the characters' characters well. Parts of the work are completely different shapes. There is a narration on behalf of the author, descriptions of the nature and life of the gypsies, and dialogues. All parts are masterfully combined into one whole and consistently realize the poet’s intentions.
“Gypsies” did not have much success in Russia, although some phrases of the poem became catchphrases. The work was enthusiastically received by the European public. It was “Gypsies” that inspired Merimee to write “Carmen”, and Rachmaninov - his first opera “Aleko”. The song “The Bird of God Doesn’t Know...” was set to music by 32 composers. She was included in many children's books and anthologies.
The poem was written by A.S. Pushkin in 1824. It reflects the strongest crisis of the romantic worldview that the poet experienced at this time (1823-1824). He became disillusioned with all his romantic ideals: freedom, the high purpose of poetry, romantic eternal love.
At this time he writes a number of gloomy, bitter poems, pouring out his “bile” and “cynicism” (in his words): “The Sower”, “Demon”, “Conversation of a Bookseller with a Poet”, and a little later - “Scene from Faust" and others that remained unfinished in the manuscript.
Among such works is the poem “Gypsies”. Its content is a critical exposure of the romantic hero and the romantic ideal of freedom.
The hero of the poem - a romantic exile - in search of freedom, flees from a cultural society, from the “captivity of stuffy cities” to the free gypsies living a simple life close to nature. The free and cheerful gypsies depicted by Pushkin, of course, do not resemble the real Bessarabian gypsies, who then lived in a “serfdom.” But Pushkin needed to create an environment for his hero in which he could fully satisfy his passionate desire for absolute, unlimited freedom. And then it turns out that Aleko, who demands freedom for himself and uses it in gypsy society, does not want to recognize it for others (for Zemfira), if this freedom affects his interests, violates his imaginary “rights” (“I’m not like that,” he says he to the old gypsy. - No, I won’t give up my rights without arguing”). The poet debunks the romantic hero, showing his true essence as an egoist and murderer.
In "Gypsies" the romantic ideal of unlimited freedom is debunked. Pushkin convincingly shows that complete freedom of action, the absence of restrictions and obligations in public life are possible only for a society of people who are primitive in their needs, lazy, idle, and, moreover, timid and weak.
...We are timid and kind at heart,
You are angry and brave- leave us alone, -
says the old gypsy to the stranger Aleko, who killed his wife and the young gypsy, her lover.
Absolute freedom in love relationships, which do not create any mutual obligations, no spiritual connection between lovers, is shown by Pushkin in the behavior of Zemfira and her mother Mariula. Zemfira is “bored, her heart asks for freedom,” and she easily cheats on Aleko, who passionately loves her.
Moreover, complete freedom of action does not at all give “free” gypsies happiness. The old gypsy is as unhappy as Aleko, but only he resigns himself to his misfortune, believing that this is the normal order, that “in succession everyone is given joy, what happened will not happen again.”
Having debunked both the romantic ideal of freedom and the romantic hero in his poem, Pushkin even then, in 1826, did not know how to replace these ideals, how to build his worldview on a real basis... Therefore, the conclusion of the poem sounds tragically hopeless:
And everywhere are fatal passions,
And there is no protection from fate.
These deep thoughts and feelings, suffered by Pushkin, are expressed in “Gypsies” in a perfect poetic form. The free and at the same time clear composition of the poem, vivid pictures of the life and everyday life of the gypsies, lyrical descriptions of the hero’s feelings and experiences, dramatic dialogues that reveal the conflicts and contradictions that make up the content of the poem, extraneous episodes included in it - poems about carefree bird and the story about Ovid - all this makes the poem “Gypsies” one of best works young Pushkin.
The work became the final romantic poem. Below we will touch upon the history of the creation of the poem, its composition and problematics. The poem "Gypsies" still remains popular; it is also studied in school curriculum.
History of creation and other features of the poem
The work “Gypsies” was written in Chisinau in 1824, where Pushkin was in exile. While staying in a gypsy camp for several weeks, the poet became imbued with their life and wrote this poem. This is a kind of response to the southern poem "Caucasian Prisoner". During this period, many dark and strange, but also unfinished works were written.
If we analyze the composition of the poem “Gypsies,” it is worth noting that it was written according to the rules of romanticism. But in this work, the poet continues the conflict with Byron and makes romanticism more critical. For Pushkin, returning to the natural environment is not a solution, but an inhibition in the development of personality and creativity.
The main conflict of the poem is the collision of two worlds: the modern civilized and the simply primitive. One has laws that regulate the order of life, and the other has rituals that also exercise control. The work traces the love story of Zemfira and Aleko.
Aleko is the main character of the poem, the main image. He flees the city, in which he cannot come to terms with injustice and hypocrisy, falsehood. The image of the Moon is a reflection of Aleko's soul. After his sleep, the Moon was darkened, as was the state of the protagonist's soul.
General analysis of the poem “Gypsies” by Pushkin
The poem contains the plot of a young man's escape from a rotting society into a free gypsy camp. The hero is a romantic by nature, who does not want to put up with the atrocities of a cultural society.
The young man, depressed by his problems, at first did not notice the beautiful gypsy. The free Aleko falls in love with Zemfira, but even here he is faced with human vices, such as fornication. His beloved sings to him a song that her mother sang to her as a child. She sings about her husband, whom Aleko will never know about, because he loves her so much. One night, he was waiting for her. But Zemfira did not come, and he himself found a couple in love. In front of the gypsy woman, he killed his lover, and then her. He died with love for Aleko, he died loving.
Aleko does not find what he was looking for in the camp; they also do not have complete freedom. This was his wrong position. But there are also people in the camp, like the old gypsy, who has already resigned himself to the fate of his society and is content with what he has. But the essence of the wanderer is not revealed with the best side. He is revealed as an egoist and a murderer. Perhaps he needed to look for the problem in himself, and not in society. After all, a person decorates the world, and not vice versa. The final scene of the poem shows that not a single person from one world can escape what is destined for him from above.
We conducted a relatively small analysis of the poem “Gypsies” by Pushkin. We looked at what prompted Alexander Pushkin to write the work, as well as the main themes that are raised. Although the poem “Gypsies” was written almost two hundred years ago, the problems raised by the writer remain relevant to this day. We hope that this analysis of the poem “Gypsies” helped you more accurately understand Pushkin’s intentions. If you want to know the plot of the work in more detail, you can read
