How old is Tatyana Larina in the novel. Do you know exactly how old Tatyana Larina was? On the subjective perception of people's ages

Engineering systems 29.11.2023

Engineering systems

And for starters, let’s find out: the jump in grams will be “eighteen.” This is about Lensky. To support the answer - 18 years old, one joker gave "the test word - octopus. A sea reptile with 8 tentacles." Why

Sexologist Alexander Kotrovsky put forward a sensational version of the reading of the famous novel by Alexander Pushkin...
The conversation about Pushkin started almost by accident. We talked with a candidate of medical sciences about the wave of pedophilia that swept the country this year. What to do?

Take an example from Evgeny Onegin! - said the doctor. - He did not seduce young Tatyana, although the girl herself offered herself to him.

Onegin should become a model for schoolchildren. Look guys, this is a real man! There would be fewer pedophiles in the country... Nowadays, every day there are reports of child victims of violence.

The State Duma is already proposing to give life imprisonment to those who committed sexual acts with teenagers under 14 years of age. And Tatyana was 13!

Can't be! - I was amazed.

And I heard a new and, frankly speaking, slightly stunned interpretation of the novel - from the point of view of a sexologist. Here she is.

It's time to finally restore justice! A 26-year-old man quite naturally refused a 13-year-old, and the progressive public condemns him for this noble act!

Let's turn to the novel. After 17 years, Evgeniy began attending balls. Had many sexual relationships with married women. And with the girls to whom he “gave lessons privately in silence.” He was a genius in the science of tender passion. He had a strong sexual constitution.

At the age of 26, he found himself in a remote village, registering the inheritance of a wealthy uncle. All the mistresses remained in St. Petersburg. Experienced forced sexual abstinence.

And then the 13-year-old landowner’s daughter offers herself to him: “It’s the will of heaven: I’m yours!”

He refuses. Evidence that he had a normal psychosexually oriented libido by gender and age. I was drawn to mature women, sexually mature girls. But not for girls!

There were no romantic feelings for Tatyana either. I appreciated that her feelings were also immature. The girl read a lot of romance novels and decided to realize her romantic libido. Then a mysterious man from the capital turned up. And after all, Evgeny kept the very fact of the letter secret, did not boast and compromise Tatyana. A real man!

Why then did our ideal burn with passion for the married Tatyana?

After long wanderings he returned to St. Petersburg. At the very first ball I saw the most beautiful lady in the capital, immediately fell in love with her and tried to get closer. Risking my reputation and the reputation of Tatyana and her husband. This means that normal libido has been preserved. He didn’t react to the girl, but to the grown-up beauty - instantly! He hardly recognized that same Tatyana.

Another confirmation. If she had been an adult girl at their first meeting, she would hardly have changed beyond recognition. And the 13-year-old girl changed after 3-4 years.

By the way, at the beginning of the 19th century completely different morals reigned. And if Onegin had become close to Tatyana, it would have been perceived normally. But, unfortunately, there is an opinion that Tatyana is a victim, a sufferer. Onegin, a womanizer, caused her deep emotional trauma. In fact, he is a hero of our time.

I listened to the sexologist’s fantastic version, and one thought was beating in my head: “It can’t be! Tatiana, a Russian soul, cannot be 13 years old!” The sexologist made a mistake! I think that readers are also in shock.

Returning home, I was surrounded by the works of Pushkin, the memoirs of his contemporaries, the works of Pushkin scholars, literary scholars, starting with the frantic Vissarion Belinsky. I even dug up Ovid Nazon, who suffered for the science of tender passion. I studied and compared for three days.

And this is what was revealed to me...

First of all, I opened the fourth chapter of Onegin, which the sexologist referred to. It begins with the famous lines:

The less we love a woman,

The easier it is for her to like us.

But usually no one delves into the sequel, although they contain the solution to the mystery of the novel!

And the more likely we destroy her

Among seductive networks.

Debauchery used to be cold-blooded

Science was famous for love,

Trumpeting about myself everywhere

And enjoying without loving.

But this is important fun

Worthy of old monkeys

Grandfather's vaunted times...

Who isn't bored of being a hypocrite?

Repeat one thing differently

It is important to try to assure that

What everyone has been sure of for a long time,

All the same objections to hear,

Destroy prejudices

Which were not and are not

A GIRL IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD!

So, the main question: where did the THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl in the novel come from, about whom our hero was thinking when he received Larina’s letter? Who is she? Tatiana's nanny? (All the teachers and intellectuals I interviewed instantly pointed to the old woman!)
She really went down the aisle at the age of 13, but there was no smell of the debauchery of old monkeys. Husband Vanya was even younger! And Onegin did not know about the early marriage of some nanny - Tatyana did not write about her, and personally, before the explanation in the garden, she did not speak to her beloved at all. Accidental typo?
I opened the pre-revolutionary collected works of Pushkin of the 19th century with yats. Also - “thirteen”. Is there a word inserted for rhyme? You could just as well have written “fifteen” and “seventeen.”
The girl is an abstract figure, to put it simply? But Pushkin has nothing accidental in his poems. He is always accurate even in details.
It turns out that Tatyana Larina was 13 years old when she sent Evgeniy a letter?! After all, her age is not indicated anywhere else in the novel.
And Pushkin always reported the age of his heroines. Even the old Queen of Spades. (The exceptions are the old woman with a broken trough and Lyudmila, Ruslan’s fiancée. But those are fairy tales.)
And in the main novel of his life, he could not break the tradition. I haven't forgotten about the men. Lensky is “nearly eighteen years old.”
For the first time we also see Onegin himself as a “philosopher at eighteen”, getting ready for a ball. At the balls, the hero “killed eight years, losing the best color of life.” It will turn out to be 26. Exactly according to Pushkin: “Having lived without a goal, without work until the age of twenty-six.”
There are also frank hints in the novel about Tatyana’s young age. “She seemed like a stranger in her own family.” She didn’t play with dolls or burners, and she didn’t go to the meadow with the youngest Olenka and her “little friends.” And I read romance novels avidly.

British Muse of Tall Tales

The girl's sleep is disturbed.

The girl's sleep is disturbed. (A youth, a young woman - ages from 7 to 15 years, according to Vladimir Dahl’s famous explanatory dictionary. Doctor Dahl was a contemporary of the poet, he was on duty at the bedside of the mortally wounded Pushkin.)

Inflamed with passion for Onegin, the girl asks the nanny if she was in love?

And that's it, Tanya! THIS SUMMER

We haven't heard about love;

Otherwise I would have driven you away from the world

My deceased mother-in-law.

IN THIS (that is, Tanya) SUMMER, the nanny has already walked down the aisle. And let me remind you, she was 13 years old.

Onegin, returning from the ball, where he saw the general’s wife, a society lady, for the first time, asks himself:

Is it really the same Tatyana?

That GIRL... Or is this a dream?

That GIRL he

Neglected in humble fate?

It wasn't news to you

Humble GIRL love?

Tatyana herself reprimands the hero.

Let's continue reading the fourth chapter, where a 13-year-old girl appeared.

Having received Tanya's message,

Onegin was deeply touched...

Perhaps the feeling is an ancient ardor

He took possession of it for a minute;

But he didn't want to deceive

The gullibility of an innocent soul.

It turns out that Evgeny did not want, like an old depraved monkey, to destroy an innocent girl. And that’s why he refused. Tactfully taking all the blame on himself so as not to injure Tatyana. And at the end of the date he gave the girl good advice:

Learn to control yourself;

Not everyone will understand you like I do;

Inexperience leads to trouble.

I read Alexander Sergeevich carefully and suddenly realized what stupidity we were forced to do at school, tormented over essays about the relationship between Evgeny and Tatyana! Pushkin explained everything himself and himself assessed the actions of his hero.

You will agree, my reader,

What a very nice thing to do

Our friend is with sad Tanya.

How old was Olga then, whom 17-year-old Lensky was going to marry? Maximum 12. Where is this written?
In this case, Pushkin only indicated that Olya was the younger sister of 13-year-old Tatyana. A little boy (about 8 years old according to Dahl), Lensky was a touched witness of her INFANT amusement. (Infant - up to 3 years old. From 3 to 7 - child).
We consider: if he was 8 years old, then she was 2-3 years old. By the time of the duel, he was almost 18, she was 12. Do you remember how indignant Lensky was when Olya danced with Onegin?

Just out of diapers,

Coquette, flighty child!

She knows the trick,

I've learned to change!

Of course you are shocked. At that age - and get married?! Don't forget what time it was. Here is what Belinsky wrote in an article about Onegin:
“A Russian girl is not a woman in the European sense of the word, not a person: she is something else, like a bride... She is barely twelve years old, and her mother, reproaching her for laziness, for her inability to behave..., tells her: “Don't be ashamed.” Do you care, madam: you’re already a bride!”
And at 18, according to Belinsky, “she is no longer the daughter of her parents, no longer the beloved child of their hearts, but a burdensome burden, goods ready to linger, excess furniture, which, just behold, will fall off the price and will not get away with it.”
“This attitude towards girls and early marriages are explained not by the savagery of customs, but by common sense,” says sexologist Kotrovsky. - Families then, as a rule, had large families - the church prohibited abortion, and there were no reliable contraceptives.
The parents tried to quickly marry the girl (“an extra mouth”) into someone else’s family, while she looked young. And the dowry required for her was less than for a withered maiden. (The age-old girl is like an autumn fly!)
In the case of the Larins, the situation was even more acute. The girls' father died, the brides had to be arranged urgently! Yuri Lotman, a famous literary critic, wrote in his comments to the novel:
“Young noblewomen married early in the 19th century. True, the frequent marriages of 14-15-year-old girls in the 18th century began to go out of common practice, and 17-19 years became the normal age for marriage.
Early marriages, which were the norm in peasant life, were not uncommon at the end of the 18th century for provincial noble life not affected by Europeanization. A. Labzina, an acquaintance of the poet Kheraskov, was married off when she was barely 13 years old.
Gogol's mother was married at 14. However, the young novel reader's first hobbies began much earlier. And the surrounding men looked at the young noblewoman as a woman already at that age at which subsequent generations would have seen in her only a child.
The 23-year-old poet Zhukovsky fell in love with Masha Protasova when she was 12. The hero of “Woe from Wit” Chatsky fell in love with Sophia when she was 12-14 years old.”

Everything seems to be working out smoothly. And yet, I confess, dear reader, I was constantly tormented by one question. Why, why did Pushkin assign his beloved heroine to be 13 years old?
All his other heroines in love were older. Dunya, the daughter of a stationmaster, ran away with a hussar after 14 years. The peasant young lady Liza, Dubrovsky’s beloved Masha Troekurova, Marya Gavrilovna from “The Snowstorm” turned 17. The captain's daughter Masha is all 18. And here...
And suddenly it dawned on me!
Yes, he deliberately made Tatyana so young!
If Onegin had rejected the love of 17-year-old Larina, questions could really arise for him. A callous person!
But it was precisely at her young age that Pushkin was able to emphasize the morality of his beloved hero, whom he largely copied from himself.

PRIVATE BUSSINESS

KOTROVSKY Alexander Viktorovich, 62 years old. Candidate of Medical Sciences, venereologist, sexologist. He has more than 70 scientific papers on medicine and a healthy lifestyle. Friends call him a walking medical encyclopedia. Works in Moscow. Married.

PARALLELS

In Russian literature there is only one heroine who, in the love of readers, comes close to Tatyana Larina. Natasha from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
Also a noblewoman. We meet the girl for the first time on her name day. In love with officer Drubetsky, she caught Boris in a secluded place and kissed him on the lips. Embarrassed Boris also confessed his love to the girl, but asked not to kiss her again for 4 years. “Then I will ask for your hand.”
Natasha began to count with her thin fingers: “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.” She was 13.
The situation is exactly like in Eugene Onegin. But it does not cause controversy. And at this time, her father, Count Rostov, recalls in small talk that their mothers got married at the age of 12 - 13.

CONTRADICTION?

Yuri Lotman refers to Pushkin’s correspondence with Vyazemsky. The prince found contradictions in the heroine's confession. The poet replied that this was “a letter from a woman, 17 years old at that, and in love!” It would seem that there is nothing to argue about.
But let's try to argue. The poet answered his friend in obvious irritation: “I’m amazed how Tatyana’s letter ended up in your possession. Interpret this to me." The intrigue is that the prince dreamed of publishing the third chapter himself, but Pushkin gave it to his brother. And it hasn't come out yet!
Where did the information leak come from? (The poet wrote the novel in verse for 8 whole years! And published it in separate chapters as they were ready.) He could then simply write back to the prince about 17 years. Or he didn’t want to reveal the heroine’s age.
But, most importantly, at that moment Pushkin had not yet sat down to the 4th chapter, where the girl appears at the age of 13. The original plan may have changed. But even Lotman did not comment on the girl without prejudice...
Although he indicated the ages of Onegin and Lensky strictly according to the novel.

Tatyana Dmitrievna Larina, married Princess N(in opera - Princess Gremina) - the main character of the novel “Eugene Onegin”. The standard and example for countless female characters in the works of many Russian writers, the “national type” of the Russian woman, ardent and pure, dreamy and straightforward, a steadfast friend and heroic wife.

Description

Versions

One of Trigorsky’s young ladies, for example, Anna Petrovna Kern or Eupraxia Wulf. Eupraxia's name day falls on Tatiana's day, January 12th. But Olga and Tatiana were depicted by the poet in Odessa, before his exile in 1824-1826. Before that, he was in Mikhailovskoye in July-August 1817, when “the young Wulf-Osipovs were 8-12 years old; in Pushkin’s field of vision there could only be Anna Nikolaevna Wulf, but it is difficult to find a woman characterologically less similar to Tatyana Larina.”
The Raevsky sisters, including the wife of the Decembrist Maria Volkonskaya. However, “they were not “district young ladies,” and for many other reasons, none of them fit Tatyana in chapters 2-6.” Nevertheless, Volkonskaya can serve as an example of the tenacity of Tatiana from Part 2.
Elizaveta Vorontsova. In the conventional language of conversations and correspondence with Alexander Raevsky, Pushkin apparently called “Tatyana” some woman close to him (it was suggested that it was Vorontsova, which Lotman considers doubtful). Guber agrees with the version about Vorontsova: it is based on the assumption that the character of Onegin is based on Raevsky, Vorontsova’s lover, thus Vorontsova turns out to be “Tatyana”.
Avdotya Norova, in love with Chaadaev.
Natalya Fonvizina, the wife of the Decembrist general, was firmly convinced that she served as a prototype. Her second husband, Pushchin, a friend of Pushkin, agreed with her.
Pushkin's sister Olga - for Tatyana of the 1st period.

Features of Pushkin

Critic rating

Literature

Rakov Yu. In the footsteps of literary heroes. M., 1974
Types of Pushkin/Ed. N. D. Noskova with the collaboration of S. I. Povarnin. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house “Slov. lit. types", 1912. - P. 132-138 (= 164-170). - (Words lit. types; T. VI, issue 7/8).

Notes

Lotman. Roman A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”. A comment
Vladimir Nabokov. Commentary on the novel “Eugene Onegin”
Nabokov comments: “In the draft of the stanza (2369, l. 35), instead of the name Tatyana, Pushkin tried the name Natasha (diminutive of “Natalia”) for his heroine. This was five years before his first meeting with his future wife Natalya Goncharova. “Natasha” (like “Parasha”, “Masha”, etc.) compared to “Tatyana” has significantly fewer rhyming possibilities (“our”, “yours”, “porridge”, “bowl” and several other words). This name has already been found in literature (for example, “Natalya, the boyar’s daughter” by Karamzin). In Pushkin, Natasha appears in “The Groom, a Common Folk Tale” in 1825 (see Chapter 5, Tatyana’s dream) and at the end of the same year in “Count Nulin.”

Quite a thorough textual analysis, indicating that Tatyana Larina was 13 years old.
But in the text at the link you shouldn’t pay attention to the absurd speculations born of modern pedophilophobia that Pushkin makes Onegin a hero because he decided not to reciprocate the “child’s” feelings. A child is a person who has NOT reached puberty.

12-13 girls who were married off (not only in the 19th century, but throughout the history of mankind) are adults capable of sexual activity (that’s how God created them).

What then is Onegin’s moral rightness?

The fact that he did not want to take what was offered to him - without love!

It was when I fell in love that I changed my mind (but it was too late).

26 years old and 13 years old is absolutely harmonious and correct.
And the text mentions this:

“By the way, at the beginning of the 19th century, completely different morals reigned. And if Onegin had become close to Tatyana, it would have been perceived normally. But, unfortunately, there was an opinion that Tatyana was a victim, a sufferer. Onegin was a womanizer, causing her deep mental trauma "

And that it is a sin for a 26-year-old man to love a 13-year-old girl - this is deliberately imposed on society unnatural ideology (conspiracy).

A 50-year-old and a 13-year-old may not be pretty. But it’s ugly purely aesthetically. There is nothing “immoral” about this either.
Two sexually mature people have every right (If, of course, everything is done by mutual consent. I always explain that it is not age that is immoral, but practice violent marriages that have been carried out for centuries.)
it

..." “It can’t be! Tatiana, a Russian soul, can’t be 13 years old!” The sexologist made a mistake, I think that the readers are in shock too.
Returning home, I was surrounded by the works of Pushkin, the memoirs of his contemporaries, the works of Pushkin scholars, literary scholars, starting with the frantic Vissarion Belinsky. I even dug up Ovid Nazon, who suffered for the science of tender passion. I studied and compared for three days.

And this is what was revealed to me...

First of all, I opened the fourth chapter of Onegin, which the sexologist referred to. It begins with the famous lines:

The less we love a woman,
The easier it is for her to like us.

But usually no one delves into the sequel, although they contain the solution to the mystery of the novel!

And the more likely we destroy her
Among seductive networks.
Debauchery used to be cold-blooded
Science was famous for love,
Trumpeting about myself everywhere
And enjoying without loving.
But this is important fun
Worthy of old monkeys
Grandfather's vaunted times...

(In a letter to his younger brother Lev, the 23-year-old poet expressed himself more specifically: “The less they love a woman, the sooner they can hope to possess her, but this fun is worthy of an old monkey of the 18th century.” He hasn’t sat down to “Onegin” yet. - E. Ch.)
Who isn't bored of being a hypocrite?
Repeat one thing differently
It is important to try to assure that
What everyone has been sure of for a long time,
All the same objections to hear,
Destroy prejudices
Which were not and are not

A GIRL IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD!

So, the main question: where did it come from in the novel? THIRTEEN YEAR OLD
the girl our hero was thinking about when he received Larina’s letter? Who is she? Tatiana's nanny? (All the teachers and intellectuals I interviewed instantly pointed to the old woman!)

She really went down the aisle at the age of 13, but there was no smell of the debauchery of old monkeys. Husband Vanya was even younger! And Onegin did not know about the early marriage of some nanny - Tatyana did not write about her, and personally, before the explanation in the garden, she did not speak to her beloved at all. Accidental typo?

I opened the pre-revolutionary collected works of Pushkin of the 19th century with yats. Also - “thirteen”. Is there a word inserted for rhyme? You could just as well have written “fifteen” and “seventeen.”

The girl is an abstract figure, to put it simply? But Pushkin has nothing accidental in his poems. He is always accurate even in details.

It turns out that Tatyana Larina was 13 years old when she sent Evgeniy a letter?! After all, her age is not indicated anywhere else in the novel.

And Pushkin always reported the age of his heroines. Even the old Queen of Spades. (The exceptions are the old woman with a broken trough and Lyudmila, Ruslan’s fiancée. But those are fairy tales.)

And in the main novel of his life, he could not break the tradition. I haven't forgotten about the men. Lensky is “nearly eighteen years old.”

We also see Onegin himself for the first time "a philosopher at eighteen years old" going to the ball. Hero to the balls "killed eight years, losing the life of the best color." You get 26. Exactly according to Pushkin: “Having lived without a goal, without work until the age of twenty-six.”

There are also frank hints in the novel about Tatyana’s young age. “She seemed like one of her own in the family GIRL stranger". She didn’t play with dolls or burners, and she didn’t go to the meadow with the youngest Olenka and her “little friends.” And I read romance novels avidly.

British Muse of Tall Tales
The girl's sleep is disturbed.

And that's it, Tanya! THIS SUMMER
We haven't heard about love;
Otherwise I would have driven you away from the world
My deceased mother-in-law.

IN THIS (that is, Tanya) SUMMER, the nanny has already walked down the aisle. And let me remind you, she was 13 years old.
Onegin, returning from the ball, where he saw the general’s wife, a society lady, for the first time, asks himself:

Is it really the same Tatyana?
That GIRL... Or is this a dream?
That GIRL he
neglected in humble fate?
It wasn't news to you
Humble GIRL love?

Tatyana herself reprimands the hero.

Let's continue reading the fourth chapter, where a 13-year-old girl appeared.

...having received Tanya's message,
Onegin was deeply touched...
Perhaps the feeling is an ancient ardor
He took possession of it for a minute;
But he didn't want to deceive
The gullibility of an innocent soul.

Learn to control yourself;
Not everyone will understand you like I do;
Inexperience leads to trouble.

You will agree, my reader,
What a very nice thing to do
Our friend is with sad Tanya.

***
How old was Olga then, whom 17-year-old Lensky was going to marry? Maximum 12. Where is this written?
In this case, Pushkin only indicated that Olya was the younger sister of 13-year-old Tatyana. A little boy (about 8 years old according to Dahl), Lensky was a touched witness of her INFANT amusement. (Infant - up to 3 years old. From 3 to 7 - child).

We consider: if he was 8 years old, then she was 2-3 years old. By the time of the duel, he was almost 18, she was 12. Do you remember how indignant Lensky was when Olya danced with Onegin?

Just out of diapers,
Coquette, flighty child!
She knows the trick,
I've learned to change!

Of course you are shocked. At that age - and get married?! Don't forget what time it was. Here is what Belinsky wrote in an article about Onegin:

“A Russian girl is not a woman in the European sense of the word, not a person: she is something else, like a bride... She is barely twelve years old, and her mother, reproaching her for laziness, for her inability to behave..., tells her: “Don't be ashamed.” Do you care, madam: you’re already a bride!”

And at 18, according to Belinsky, “she is no longer the daughter of her parents, not the beloved child of their hearts, but a burdensome burden, goods ready to languish, excess furniture, which, just like that, will fall off the price and will not get away with it.”

This attitude towards girls and early marriages are explained not by the savagery of customs, but by common sense, says sexologist Kotrovsky. - Families then, as a rule, had large families - the church prohibited abortion, and there were no reliable contraceptives.

The parents tried to quickly marry the girl (“an extra mouth”) into someone else’s family, while she looked young. And the dowry required for her was less than for a withered maiden. (The age-old girl is like an autumn fly!)

In the case of the Larins, the situation was even more acute. The girls' father died, the brides had to be arranged urgently! Yuri Lotman, a famous literary critic, wrote in his comments to the novel:

“Young noblewomen married early in the 19th century. True, the frequent marriages of 14-15-year-old girls in the 18th century began to go out of common practice, and 17-19 years became the normal age for marriage.
Early marriages, which were the norm in peasant life, were not uncommon at the end of the 18th century for provincial noble life not affected by Europeanization. A. Labzina, an acquaintance of the poet Kheraskov, was married off when she was barely 13 years old.

Gogol's mother was married at 14. However, the young novel reader's first hobbies began much earlier. And the surrounding men looked at the young noblewoman as a woman already at that age at which subsequent generations would have seen in her only a child.

The 23-year-old poet Zhukovsky fell in love with Masha Protasova when she was 12. The hero of “Woe from Wit” Chatsky fell in love with Sophia when she was 12-14 years old.”

PARALLELS

In Russian literature there is only one heroine who, in the love of readers, comes close to Tatyana Larina. Natasha from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Also a noblewoman. We meet the girl for the first time on her name day. In love with officer Drubetsky, she caught Boris in a secluded place and kissed him on the lips. Embarrassed Boris also confessed his love to the girl, but asked not to kiss her again for 4 years. “Then I will ask for your hand.”

Natasha began to count with her thin fingers: “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.” She was 13.
The situation is exactly like in Eugene Onegin. But it does not cause controversy. And at this time, her father, Count Rostov, recalls in small talk that their mothers got married at the age of 12 - 13. "

Pushkin published his novel in verse almost two hundred years ago, but it is still the subject of heated discussions, reflections, and interpretations. It is as easy to excite bloggers with the assumption that Tatyana was 13 years old as with news from the personal life of a movie star. Is Tatiana's letter an example of vulgarity or trepidation? Who could Tatiana's husband be? Is Onegin a heartless type or a decent person? These questions do not torment art critics - ordinary people who put the novel aside with relief back in school. And then they grew up and suddenly started thinking.

Tatyana's age

For several years now, a text has been circulating on social networks proving that at the time of falling in love with Onegin, Tatyana was 13 years old. The author's line of reasoning is interesting, but is refuted by two circumstances. Firstly, Tatyana and her younger sister Olga began to be brought out into the world. And not just take them out - adult men are allowed to dance with them. In Pushkin’s time, girls began to attend balls “in an adult way” at the age of 16-17, although it was still not considered too shameful to fall in love with a younger girl - but a man in love could not see each other at balls and dance with her. Remember that Natasha Rostova’s first ball - also the beginning of the 19th century - occurred when she was 16 years old!

Secondly, Pushkin himself mentions in a letter to Vyazemsky that Tatyana is 17. But you can’t argue with the author. That is, the poet, of course, may not track the voice of his unconscious at some moments, but the plan is the plan. Tatyana is conceived as a girl in her late teens and behaves, it must be said, quite in keeping with her years.

By the way, Pushkin himself condemned the hunting of ladies' men of the previous generation for girls 13-14 years old. In this respect, he was in the progressive part of Russian society.

Tatiana's letter

In school lessons, it is customary to interpret Tatyana’s first love letter as an example of pure, reverent, high recognition. Without a doubt, there is a pure and reverent feeling behind it. But the letter itself is intended by the author as an example of bad taste; it is stuffed with templates from French novels. Perhaps Tatyana herself does not realize what the wording she has chosen is talking about - and they, in fact, are not just about a date and confession of feelings, but about the readiness to “fall”, to give up her virginity.

Fortunately, Onegin perfectly understands the difference between the romantic wording of the letter and Tanya’s true intentions, he gives her (an offensive, one might think, at that age) lecture on safety, and... After this, he gives the girl access to his extensive library. If at first a girl reads books only because her lover read them, then in the end reading helps her to seriously grow above herself. Pushkin clearly shows that Tanya’s act, the vulgarity of her letter, is not at all a consequence of the vulgarity of nature. The usual lack of impressions, food for thought, education.

In addition, Tatiana's letter helps to appreciate how much she has grown as a person by the end of the novel. From clichéd speech to simple, free phrases, behind which lies independent thinking.

Character prototypes

Although Pushkin is famous as a womanizer and, in the spirit of his time, chose disparaging language when talking about women with other men, when communicating with living women he showed sincere friendliness. I was worried about a friend who almost died - the birth lasted several days. He considered his wife not only beautiful, but also a moral and intelligent woman (unlike most of Pushkin’s fans, among whom insults to Natalya Pushkina became the norm at some point). He highly appreciated the heroism of the gentlewoman Nadezhda Durova and defended her from the attacks of bigots. Among the disgusting features of the landowner, Troekurov listed the rape of peasant women - the censorship did not let it through. Although, even if she had missed this, many landowners would not have understood why such treatment of a serf woman, a girl, was somehow bad. Although at the time of writing “Onegin” the poet was still full of prejudices, later, after reading the notes of Ekaterina Dashkova, he began to defend a woman’s right to the most ordinary, normal, human mind.

It is quite possible that Tatyana Larina was not just some kind of embodied ideal, and her prototype should be looked for among Alexander Sergeevich’s acquaintances. But this is not so easy to do. After all, Tanya is not only a certain appearance (pale, dark-haired, not very beautiful) and biography (born and raised in a village, married a general). Her reserved character, frankly strange to those around her, is noteworthy. Perhaps she simply does not fit into her society too well, but our contemporary can offer autistic character traits. She was shy of people, did not understand very simple things, and gravitated toward books more than any other pastimes.

In any case, many girls are seen as prototypes of the heroine. Including Pushkin’s sister Olga! She looked exactly as the poet describes Tanya. But, in addition, . Even when Olga secretly got married, the first person she told about it - and asked to tell her parents - was her brother Alexander. By the way, Olga was also a writer, and her son highly appreciated at least the historical value of her notes, but one day she became interested in spiritualism and, as if taught by the spirit of her dead brother, burned almost all of her works.

Onegin, without a doubt, is in many ways similar to his creator and his comrade Pyotr Chaadaev. The prototype of Lensky is called the friend of his youth, the poet Kuchelbecker. And Tatyana Larina’s husband is most likely one of the young generals of 1812. And, although Tatyana finds him “fat,” he is unlikely to be much older than her. Judging by the drafts, Tatiana’s husband is generally the same age as Onegin. However, starting with Dostoevsky, many readers see him as an old man - this is a very popular misconception.

Exactly how old Tatyana is is not stated in the novel.
For the first time, her age is mentioned with the word “youth” (3, XII).

There is a myth, a version that at the time of her first appearance in the novel, Tatyana is 13 years old, since the novel contains the lines: “A girl is thirteen!” And therefore, they say, Onegin showed true nobility and healthy anti-pedophile tastes.

This “brilliant” concept, which was apparently put forward by sexologist Alexander Kotrovsky, sounds like this:

Also an indication of the heroine’s age are the lines: “The British muse’s fables / Disturb the sleep of a young woman” (the word “youth” refers to an age from 7 to 15 years, for example, according to Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary).

A conversation with the nanny confirms: “That’s enough, Tanya! During these summers We did not hear about love,” the words “these summers” are consistent with the fact that the nanny was married off at the age of 13.

Sexologist Kotrovsky claims that this version explains well and puts everything in its place: for 26-year-old experienced Evgeniy, 13-year-old Tatyana seemed too small, and he rejected her. Feelings flared up when he saw her as an adult girl. Another confirmation of Tatiana’s extreme youth is that, having later met Tatiana again at the ball, Evgeny at first barely recognized her - she had changed so much. If Tatyana had been an adult right away, this would not have happened. And the fact that a 13-year-old girl has changed a lot after a few years is a common thing.

Returning from the ball, Onegin thinks: “Is it really the same Tatyana? That girl..." (that is, he previously perceived her as a girl). “Wasn’t the humble girl’s love news to you?” - Tatyana confirms. In accordance with this version, the younger sister Olga could have been 12 years old: barely a teenager (that is, according to Dahl, this is about 8 years old) Lensky witnessed her infantile fun (a baby, according to Dahl, means up to 3 years old), that is, when Lensky was 8 years old, Olga was about 2 years old. At the time of the duel, Lensky is approximately 18, and Olga, according to this logic, is about 12 years old. Lines from the novel about the fact that she danced with Onegin: “Just out of diapers, Coquette, flighty child! She already knows cunning, She’s already learned to change!”

But literary scholars and Pushkin scholars do not agree with this idea of 13-year-old Tatiana; it is traditionally accepted that Tatiana was older.

Let us first open the stanza with that same number, here it is in its entirety:

Who isn't bored of being a hypocrite?
Repeat one thing differently
It is important to try to assure that
What everyone has been sure of for a long time,
Still hearing the same objections,
Destroy prejudices
Which were not and are not
A girl at thirteen years old!
Who can't be tired of threats?
Prayers, oaths, imaginary fear,
Notes on six sheets,
Deceptions, gossip, rings, tears,
Supervision of aunts, mothers,
And friendship is difficult between husbands!

The lines clearly have no connection to a specific person (see the entire chapter); the text shows that this is just a figure within the framework of chatter.

In addition, how many years Onegin wandered around Russia, it is known - he left the village in 1821, and arrived in St. Petersburg in 1824. In this case, the “new” Tatiana - the socialite of St. Petersburg, the embodiment of composure, should be only 16, or even 15 years old, which is absurd.

Yuri Lotman, in the comments to the book, writes that she was probably born in 1803, since the novel begins in 1819, and in the summer of 1820, according to Lotman, she was 17 years old. (Lensky was 18 years old at the time of his death, Onegin was 26 years old at the time of his departure from the village, as is directly stated in the text).

The heroine’s 17-year-old age in the first part of the book is clear from Pushkin’s letter to Vyazemsky dated November 29, 1824. Then, in response to comments regarding the contradictions in Tatyana’s letter to Onegin, the poet wrote to a friend: “... a letter from a woman, also 17 years old, moreover in love!”

Lotman considers age like this: " Olga, Tatyana's younger sister, was Lensky's fiancée in 1820.

According to the norms of that era, she was most likely somewhat younger than him and at the same time she could not have been less than 15 years old. Most likely, she was 16 years old. Tatyana was apparently a year older than Olga."

(...) Young noblewomen married at the beginning of the 19th century. entered early. True, frequent in the 18th century. marriages of 14- and 15-year-old girls began to go beyond the usualpractices, and the normal age for marriage has become 17-19 years. However, the life of the heart, the time of the first hobbies of the young novel reader, began much earlier. And the surrounding men looked at the young noblewoman as a woman already at that age at which subsequent generations would have seen in her only a child. Zhukovsky fell in love with Masha Protasova when she was 12 years old (he was 23 years old). In his diary, entry on July 9, 1805, he asks himself: “...is it possible to be in love with a child?” (cm.:Veselovsky A. N.V. A. Zhukovsky. Poetry of feeling and “heartfelt imagination.” St. Petersburg, 1904. P. III).

Sophia at the time of the action of “Woe from Wit” is 17 years old, Chatsky was absent for three years, therefore, fell in love with her when she was 14 years old, and perhaps earlier, since the text shows that before his resignation and departure abroad, he had some served in the army for a certain period and lived in St. Petersburg for a certain period (“Tatyana Yuryevna told something. Returning from St. Petersburg, / With the ministers about your connection...” - D. III, iv. 3). Consequently, Sophia was 12-14 years old when the time came for her and Chatsky

Those feelings, in both of us the movements of those hearts,
Which have never cooled in me,
No entertainment, no change of place.
I breathed and lived by them, was constantly busy! (D. IV, Rev. 14)

Natasha Rostova is 13 years old when she falls in love with Boris Drubetsky and hears from him that in four years he will ask for her hand in marriage, and until that time they should not kiss. She counts on her fingers: “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen” (“War and Peace,” vol. 1, part 1, chapter X).

Regarding the age of the nanny at the time of her marriage, Lotman writes this:

"And I was thirteen years old". - “The legal provision for peasants has been made very decently - a woman is thirteen years old, and a man is fifteen years old for marriage, through which, at their young age, having become accustomed, firstly, to each other, and secondly, to their parents, they will have direct love with fear and obedience" ( Drukovtsev S. V. Economic calendar... 1780. P. 125).

To understand the ethical nuances of Tatiana’s conversation with the nanny, it is necessary to take into account the fundamental difference in the structure of peasant and noble women’s morality of that time. In noble life, the “fall” of a girl before marriage is tantamount to death, and adultery of a married lady is an almost legalized phenomenon; Peasant ethics allowed relative freedom of behavior for a girl before marriage, but considered infidelity by a married woman to be a grave sin. Each of the interlocutors talks about forbidden and “disastrous” love, understanding it completely differently.

The mention that “Vanya was younger” (6-7) than his bride indicates one of the abuses of serfdom. Wed. in “The History of the Village of Goryukhin”: “Men usually married 20-year-old girls in the 13th year. The wives beat their husbands for 4 or 5 years. After which the husbands began to beat their wives” (VIII, 136).

According to Baevsky, Tatyana Larina is even older than Lotman suggests.

When she meets Onegin, Tatyana behaves like a young girl: she falls in love at first sight, imagines her lover as the hero of a moralizing novel, and writes him a passionate letter. But then it seems like only a year passes - the concatenation of events in village life, from the end of the first chapter to the middle of the seventh, does not allow one to doubt this - and Tatyana’s mother is concerned:

Find a girl, hey,
It's time; what should I do with her?

And although she has little money, her mother decides to take Tatyana “to the bride fair” in Moscow, and there, against her will, she rushes to marry her off to an unloved, fat, mutilated general.

It is possible, of course, for the mother of an eighteen-year-old girl who, for some reason unknown to her, is fading and sad, to do this, but still it does not look particularly convincing. This behavior is more natural for a woman concerned about the future of her daughter, approaching the age beyond which marriage becomes problematic.

No matter how you define such an age, Tatyana, if she is 18 years old, is far from it.

Yu. M. Lotman points out that at the beginning of the 19th century. “The normal age for marriage was considered to be 17-19 years old.” The poet's mother got married at the age of 21, his friend Ekaterina Nikolaevna Raevskaya at 24, his sister Olga Sergeevna, shortly before Pushkin began working on the seventh chapter, got married at the age of 31, etc. Tatyana loves unrequitedly, survived the death of her sister's fiancé at the hands of her lover, refused several suitors, and plunged into the world of Onegin’s books. The abundance of experiences that befell Tatiana makes the reader assume that she is over 18 years old. This assumption is further strengthened by the mother's energetic concerns about her marriage.

In St. Petersburg, together with Onegin, we see Tatyana as “the unapproachable goddess of the luxurious, royal Neva.” When she appears at the reception

The crowd hesitated
A whisper ran through the hall
............
The ladies moved closer to her;
The old women smiled at her;
The men bowed lower
They caught the gaze of her eyes;
The girls walked by more quietly
Across the hall in front of her.

She reigns in the great world not through beauty. Even in my first youth

Not your sister's beauty,
Nor the freshness of her ruddy
She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

And ladies, old women and girls would not bow to beauty alone. Just as at the beginning of the novel, Olga’s beauty does not obscure the spiritual merits of her older sister from Onegin, so in the eighth chapter the poet reports that Tatyana could not be overshadowed by the marble beauty of the brilliant Nina Voronskaya. At the same time, she not only does not achieve the position of “legislator of the hall,” but she is burdened by all this “rags of a masquerade, all this glitter, and noise, and fumes.”

How old is this lady who confidently and effortlessly rules the capital’s world?

According to the traditional chronology of the novel's commentators, she is 20 years old.

Of course, this is not as impossible as walking around St. Petersburg often during the white nights, leaving it at the beginning of May, but it is unlikely. M.I. Kutuzov’s daughter Elizaveta Mikhailovna Khitrovo, her daughter Countess Dolly Fikelmon, Karamzina’s wife Ekaterina Andreevna, Princess Zinaida Aleksandrovna Volkonskaya became influential society ladies and hostesses of fashion salons when they were 25, 30 or more years old.

Katenin wanted there to be another chapter between the “Moscow” and “St. Petersburg” chapters, which would depict Onegin’s journey, otherwise “the transition from Tatiana, a district young lady, to Tatiana, a noble lady, becomes too unexpected and unexplained” (VI, 197) . Pushkin himself pointedly told us this remark and expressed solidarity with it. In it we see recognition of the need for not only a psychological, but also a temporal perspective.

In short, the researcher summarizes: We can say that the heroes of the novel in each episode are as old as artistic and psychological truth requires.