"Ruslan and Ludmila"- the first completed poem by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin; a fairy tale inspired by ancient Russian epics.

History of creation

The poem was written in - after leaving the Lyceum; Pushkin sometimes pointed out that he began to write a poem while still at the Lyceum, but, apparently, only the most general ideas belong to this time, hardly the text. Leading a "most distracted" life after leaving the Lyceum in St. Petersburg, Pushkin worked on the poem mainly during illness.

Pushkin set the task of creating a "heroic" fairy tale poem in the spirit of Ariosto's "Furious Roland" known to him from French translations (critics called this genre "romantic", which should not be confused with romanticism in the modern sense). He was also inspired by Voltaire (“The Virgin of Orleans”, “What the Ladies Like”) and Russian literary tales (such as the lubok story about Yeruslan Lazarevich, “Bakhariyana” by Kheraskov, “Ilya Muromets” by Karamzin, or especially “

1. REDIRECT Popovich" by Nikolai Radishchev). The immediate impetus for starting work on the poem was the release in February 1818 of the first volumes of Karamzin’s History of the Russian State, from which many of the details and names of all three of Ruslan’s rivals (Ragdai, Ratmir and Farlaf) were borrowed.

The poem is written in astrophic iambic tetrameter, which, beginning with "Ruslan", became the dominant form of the romantic poem.

The poem contains elements of parody in relation to Zhukovsky's ballad "". Pushkin consistently ironically reduces the sublime images of Zhukovsky, saturates the plot with humorous erotic elements, grotesque fantasy (episode with the Head), uses "folk" vocabulary ("strangle", "sneeze"). Pushkin's "parody" of Zhukovsky initially does not have a negative connotation and is rather friendly; it is known that Zhukovsky "heartily rejoiced" at Pushkin's joke, and after the release of the poem, he presented Pushkin with his portrait with the inscription "To the winner-student from the defeated teacher." Subsequently, in the early 1830s, the mature Pushkin, inclined to critically reevaluate his youthful experiences, lamented that he parodied The Twelve Sleeping Virgins "for the sake of the mob."

Edition

The poem began to be published in The Son of the Fatherland in the spring of 1820 in excerpts, the first separate edition was published in May of that year (just in the days of Pushkin's exile to the south) and evoked indignant responses from many critics who saw in it "immorality" and "indecency" (A. F. Voeikov, who had begun the journal publication of a neutral-friendly analysis of the poem, criticized it in the last part of the review under the influence of I. I. Dmitriev). In correspondence with Karamzin, I. I. Dmitriev compares “Ruslan and Lyudmila” with Nikolai Osipov’s well-known heroic and comic poem “Virgil’s Aeneid, turned inside out”, to which Karamzin, in a letter dated June 7, 1820, replies:

In previous letters I forgot to tell you that you, in my opinion, do not do justice to talent or poem young Pushkin, comparing it with Osipov's Aeneid: it has liveliness, lightness, wit, taste; only there is no artful arrangement of parts, no or little interest; everything is sour cream on a live thread.

A special position was taken by P. A. Katenin, who reproached Pushkin, on the contrary, for insufficient nationality and excessive “smoothing” of Russian fairy tales in the spirit of French salon stories. A significant part of the reading public accepted the poem enthusiastically, with its appearance the all-Russian glory of Pushkin began.

The epilogue (“So, an indifferent inhabitant of the world ...”) was written by Pushkin later, during his exile to the Caucasus. In 1828, Pushkin prepared a second edition of the poem, added an epilogue and a newly written famous so-called "prologue" - formally part of the First Song ("At the seashore there is a green oak ..."), which strengthened the conventional folklore coloring of the text, and also reduced many erotic episodes and lyrical digressions . As a preface, Pushkin reprinted some critical reviews of the 1820 edition, which, in the new literary environment, have already become frankly ridiculous, for example, a critical article by a little-known critic who wrote about the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila": imagine, they say, a man in bast shoes, in an Armenian coat broke into some kind of "noble assembly" and shouted: "Great, guys!" , regarding this case, literary critic Vadim Kozhinov noted: “I must say: it happens that not friends, but enemies give the highest rating to a person.” In 1830, again rejecting the old accusations of immorality in the "Refutation of Critics", the poet emphasized that now he was not satisfied with the poem, on the contrary, the lack of a genuine feeling: "No one even noticed that she was cold."

On August 17, Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka and the escort hussar, who had just returned from captivity, from their Yankovo ​​camp, fifteen miles from Bogucharov, went riding - to try a new horse bought by Ilyin and find out if there is hay in the villages.
Bogucharovo had been between the two enemy armies for the last three days, so that the Russian rearguard could just as easily enter there as the French avant-garde, and therefore Rostov, as a caring squadron commander, wanted to take advantage of the provisions that remained in Bogucharov before the French.
Rostov and Ilyin were in the most cheerful mood. On the way to Bogucharovo, to the princely estate with a manor, where they hoped to find a large household and pretty girls, they first asked Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, then they drove, trying Ilyin's horse.
Rostov did not know and did not think that this village to which he was going was the estate of that same Bolkonsky, who was his sister's fiancé.
Rostov and Ilyin let the horses out for the last time in the cart in front of Bogucharov, and Rostov, having overtaken Ilyin, was the first to jump into the street of the village of Bogucharov.
“You took it ahead,” said Ilyin, flushed.
“Yes, everything is forward, and forward in the meadow, and here,” answered Rostov, stroking his soaring bottom with his hand.
“And I’m in French, Your Excellency,” Lavrushka said from behind, calling his draft horse French, “I would have overtaken, but I just didn’t want to shame.
They walked up to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was standing.
Some peasants took off their hats, some, without taking off their hats, looked at the approachers. Two long old peasants, with wrinkled faces and sparse beards, came out of the tavern and with smiles, swaying and singing some awkward song, approached the officers.
- Well done! - said, laughing, Rostov. - What, do you have hay?
“And the same ones…” said Ilyin.
- Weigh ... oo ... oooh ... barking demon ... demon ... - the men sang with happy smiles.
One peasant left the crowd and approached Rostov.
- Which one will you be? - he asked.
“French,” answered Ilyin, laughing. "That's Napoleon himself," he said, pointing to Lavrushka.
- So, the Russians will be? the man asked.
- How much of your power is there? asked another small man, approaching them.
“Many, many,” answered Rostov. - Yes, what are you gathered here for? he added. Holiday, huh?
“The old men have gathered, on a worldly matter,” answered the peasant, moving away from him.
At this time, two women and a man in a white hat appeared on the road from the manor house, walking towards the officers.
- In my pink, mind not beating! said Ilyin, noticing Dunyasha resolutely advancing towards him.
Ours will be! Lavrushka said with a wink.
- What, my beauty, do you need? - said Ilyin, smiling.

Municipal state educational institution "Gorkovskaya special (correctional) general education school - a boarding school for students, pupils with disabilities"

The history of the creation of the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" by M.I. Glinka

Work on the opera began in 1837 and went on for five years with interruptions. Glinka started composing music without having anything ready. Due to the death of Pushkin, he was forced to turn to other poets, including amateurs from among friends and acquaintances - Nestor Kukolnik, Valerian Shirkov, Nikolai Markevich and others.

The text of the opera included some fragments of the poem, but in general it was written anew. Glinka and his librettists made a number of changes to the actors. Some characters disappeared (Rogdai), others appeared (Gorislava); subjected to some alteration and storylines of the poem.

The idea of ​​the opera is largely different from the literary source. Pushkin's brilliant youthful poem (1820), based on the themes of a Russian fairy tale epic, has features of light irony and a playful attitude towards the characters. Glinka resolutely refused such an interpretation of the plot. He created a work of epic scope, full of great thoughts, broad life generalizations.

Heroism, nobility of feelings, fidelity in love are sung in the opera, cowardice is ridiculed, deceit, malice and cruelty are condemned. Through the entire work, the composer conveys the thought of the victory of light over darkness, of the triumph of life. Glinka used the traditional fairy tale plot with exploits, fantasy, magical transformations to show a variety of characters, complex relationships between people, creating a whole gallery of human types. Among them are chivalrous and courageous Ruslan, gentle Lyudmila, inspired Bayan, ardent Ratmir, faithful Gorislava, cowardly Farlaf, kind Finn, treacherous Naina, cruel Chernomor.

The opera was written by Glinka for five years with long breaks: it was completed in 1842. The premiere took place on November 27 (December 9) of the same year at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg.

Glinka's opera "Ruslan and Ludmila"short description

CHARACTERS:

SVETOZAR, Grand Duke of Kiev (bass)
LYUDMILA, his daughter (soprano)
RUSLAN, Kiev knight, fiance Lyudmila (baritone)
RATMIR, prince of the Khazars (contralto)
FARLAF, Varangian knight (bass)
GORISLAVA, captive of Ratmir (soprano)
FINN, the good wizard (tenor)
Naina, the evil sorceress (mezzo-soprano)
BAYAN, singer (tenor)
Chernomor, the evil wizard (no words)
SONS OF SVETOZAR, VITYAZS, BOYARS AND
BOYARINS, HAY GIRLS, NUNS AND NUMS,
OTROKI, GRIDNI, CHASHNIKI, STOLNIKI,
DRUZHINA and PEOPLE; VIRGINS OF THE MAGIC CASTLE,
Dwarfs, Slaves of Chernomor, Nymphs and Undines.

Time of action: epic (“long gone days”).
Location: Kyiv and fabulous places.
First performance: St. Petersburg, November 27 (December 9), 1842.

Action 1 .Svetozar, Grand Duke of Kiev, arranges a feast in honor of his daughter Lyudmila. Suitors for Lyudmila's hand are the knights Ruslan, Ratmir and Farlaf, who surround the beautiful princess. Lyudmila offers her hand to Ruslan. The prince approves of his daughter's choice, and the feast turns into a wedding celebration. Bayan predicts in his songs the trouble that threatens Ruslan and Lyudmila. The people want the young to be happy. Suddenly a terrible thunder shakes the mansions. When everyone comes to their senses, it turns out that Lyudmila has disappeared. Svetozar, in desperation, promises Lyudmila's hand to the one who will return the disappeared princess.

Action 2

Picture 1. And so Ruslan, Farlaf and Ratmir went to look for Lyudmila. Ruslan finds the hut of the wizard Finn. Here the young knight learns that his bride is in the power of the evil dwarf Chernomor. Finn talks about his love for the arrogant beauty Naina and how he tried to win her love for himself with charms. But he fled in fear from his beloved, who by that time had grown old and became a witch. Naina's love turned into great malice, and now she will take revenge on all lovers.

Picture 2.

Farlaf is also trying to get on the trail of Lyudmila. Suddenly, the evil sorceress Naina appears. She advises him to go home, promising to "get" Lyudmila for him.

Scene 3 . Meanwhile, Ruslan is already far away. The horse brings him to an enchanted field littered with dead bones. A huge head - a victim of Chernomor - taunts Ruslan, and he strikes her. A magic sword appears, the head dies, but manages to tell a secret: only with this sword can one cut off Chernomor's beard and deprive him of his witchcraft power.

Action 3 The sorceress Naina promised Farlaf to rid him of his rivals. Her charmers lured Ratmir to her and do not let him go, depriving him of his will, seducing him with songs, dances and their beauty. Here sounds the "Persian choir", written by Glinka on the basis of the Azerbaijani folk song "Galanyn dibinde". Then Ratmira must kill Nain. The same fate awaits Ruslan. Her captive Gorislava, who left her harem in search of Ratmir, is trying to prevent Naina's charms. But Finn appears and frees the heroes. They all go north together.

Action 4

In the palace of the evil Chernomor, Lyudmila is entertained with music and dance. But all in vain! Lyudmila thinks only of her beloved Ruslan.

But finally Ruslan gets to the palace of Chernomor. Chernomor plunges Lyudmila into a deep sleep, and then accepts Ruslan's challenge to a mortal battle. With a magic sword, Ruslan cuts off the dwarf's beard, which contained his power. Ruslan defeats Chernomor and rushes to Lyudmila. Ruslan sees that his bride is sleeping like a dead sleep, involuntary jealousy seizes the knight. But Ratmir and Gorislava calm him down. Ruslan takes her and, accompanied by friends and former slaves of Chernomor, leaves the palace, directing his way to Kyiv in the hope of waking up the young princess there.

Action 5 Scene 1. Night. On the way to Kyiv, Ruslan, Ratmir, Gorislava and the liberated slaves of Chernomor accompanying them stopped for the night. Their dream is guarded by Ratmir. His thoughts are turned to Gorislava, he is seized by a resurrected love for her. The slaves of Chernomor run in and inform Ratmir that Farlaf, instigated by Naina, kidnapped the sleeping Lyudmila, and Ruslan disappeared into the darkness of the night. Finn, who appears, orders Ratmir to follow Ruslan to Kyiv and gives him a magic ring that will wake Lyudmila from her sleep.

Picture 2. In the city center of Svetozar in Kyiv, they mourn the beautiful Lyudmila, whom no one can wake up. Farlaf, who kidnapped her, brought her, but he is unable to wake her up. The noise of approaching riders is heard - this is Ruslan with friends. The cowardly Farlaf is horrified. Ruslan comes up to Lyudmila and puts Finn's magic ring on her finger. Lyudmila wakes up. The people praise the great gods, the Holy Fatherland and the wise Finn.

Compiled by: M.A. Bulygina music teacher

History of creation

Written in 1818-1820, after leaving the Lyceum; Pushkin sometimes pointed out that he began to write a poem while still at the Lyceum, but, apparently, only the most general ideas belong to this time, hardly the text. Leading a "most distracted" life after leaving the Lyceum in St. Petersburg, Pushkin worked on the poem mainly during illness.

Pushkin set the task of creating a "heroic" fairy tale poem in the spirit of Ariosto, known to him from French translations of "Furious Roland" (critics called this genre "romantic", which should not be confused with romanticism in the modern sense). He was also inspired by Voltaire (“The Virgin of Orleans”, “What the Ladies Like”) and Russian literary fairy tales (such as the popular tale about Yeruslan Lazarevich, “Bakhariyana” by Kheraskov, “Ilya Muromets” by Karamzin, or especially “Alyosha Popovich” by Nikolai Radishchev). The immediate impetus for starting work on the poem was the publication in February 1818 of the first volumes of Karamzin's "History of the Russian State", from which many details and the names of all three of Ruslan's rivals (Rogdai, Ratmir and Farlaf) were borrowed.

The poem is written in astrophic iambic tetrameter, which, beginning with Ruslan, has become the decisively dominant form of romantic poetry.

The poem contains elements of parody in relation to Zhukovsky's ballad "The Twelve Sleeping Maidens". Pushkin consistently ironically reduces the sublime images of Zhukovsky, saturates the plot with humorous erotic elements, uses grotesque fantasy (the episode with the Head) and uses “vulgar” vocabulary (“strangle”, “sneeze”). Pushkin's "parody" of Zhukovsky initially does not have a negative connotation and is rather friendly; it is known that Zhukovsky "heartily rejoiced" at Pushkin's joke, and after the release of the poem, he presented Pushkin with his portrait with the inscription "To the winner-student from the defeated teacher." Subsequently, in the early 1830s, the mature Pushkin, inclined to critically reevaluate his youthful experiences, lamented that he parodied The Twelve Sleeping Virgins "for the sake of the mob."

The poem began to be published in the "Son of the Fatherland" in the spring of 1820 in excerpts, the first separate edition was published in May of the same year (just in the days of Pushkin's exile to the south) and evoked indignant responses from many critics who saw in it "immorality" and "impropriety" (A.F. Voeikov, who had begun the journal publication of a neutrally benevolent analysis of the poem, criticized it in the last part of the review under the influence of I.I. Dmitriev). P. A. Katenin took a special position, reproaching Pushkin, on the contrary, for insufficient nationality and excessive “smoothing” of Russian fairy tales in the spirit of French salon stories. A significant part of the reading public accepted the poem enthusiastically, with its appearance the all-Russian glory of Pushkin began.

Epilogue(“So, an indifferent inhabitant of the world ...”) was written by Pushkin later, during his exile to the Caucasus. In 1828, Pushkin prepared a second edition of the poem, added an epilogue and a newly written famous so-called "prologue" - formally part of the First Song ("At the seashore there is a green oak ..."), which strengthened the conventional folklore coloring of the text, and also reduced many erotic episodes and lyrical digressions . As a preface, Pushkin reprinted some critical reviews of the 1820 edition, which, in the new literary environment, have already become frankly ridiculous. In 1830, again rejecting the old accusations of immorality in the "Refutation of Critics", the poet emphasized that now he was not satisfied with the poem, on the contrary, the lack of a genuine feeling: "No one even noticed that she was cold."

Prologue to the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". The famous prologue appeared in the second edition of the poem in 1828. At one time, the poem aroused criticism from critics for peasant rudeness and "street" democracy. Eight years later, the poet did not deviate from his views on the folk tale as a source of beauty, emphasizing the main difference between folk magical fiction and fiction in a literary fairy tale: the world of folk fantasy is endless, miracles have no count or limit.

The prologue is perceived as an independent work. The principle of its construction is mosaic. The enumerated images-pictures are held together only by the basis of a fabulous, unreal world. "There", i.e. in a fairy tale, everything is wonderful and beautiful, even terrible. The mysterious world, in which every step is a miracle, unfolds in a series of images-pictures. The poet understood that the "lie" of a fairy tale nevertheless requires trust. In this respect, a fairy tale is a perfect art, if pure fiction, which seems to have nothing in common with reality (“There are miracles ...”, “There the forest and valleys are full of visions ...”), has a powerful force of influence on a person, makes to see what is not there:

And I was there, and I drank honey;

I saw a green oak by the sea ...

Note that the poet is somewhat ironic about the tale with its naive conventionality (“There is a prince in passing / Captivates the formidable king ...”), thereby emphasizing the difference between folklore and literature.

Each of the images-pictures can be expanded into a separate fairy tale, and the whole prologue is built as a single fairy tale - with a saying, with a chain of actions of fairy-tale heroes and an ending.

The protagonist of the prologue is a "scientist cat", songwriter and storyteller (he is also the hero of the folk tale "Wonderful Children"). It is not for nothing that Pushkin precedes the mosaic of fairy tales with a saying about where and how songs and fairy tales are born: folk fictions are so unusual that they cannot be composed by a person, their very origin is shrouded in mystery. At the end of the prologue, the poet meets a wonderful cat and listens to his tales, including Ruslan and Lyudmila.

The list of miracles begins with a goblin and a mermaid - heroes not of a fairy tale, but of demonology, i.e. heroes that people believe in. Then an unknown world opens, either fictional or real: “There, on unknown paths / Traces of unseen animals ...” And immediately after the unknown world, a transition is made to the world of the fairy tale itself: the hut on chicken legs also has a meaning in the folk tale the boundaries between the field and the forest, i.e. between two kingdoms - the human one, in which the hero's family lives, and the inhuman, "other", in which Kashchei the Immortal lives. “There the forest and valleys are full of visions ...” - the poet emphasizes the close relationship between mysterious nature and magical fiction, and then “shows” the appearance of a miracle from the sea: “There, at dawn, waves will rush / On the sandy and empty shore, / And thirty beautiful knights / A succession of clear waters emerge, / And with them their sea uncle ...” The reader is already ready to actually “see” both the prince captivating the king, and the flying sorcerer with the hero (looking along with the people from the ground), and the princess with the brown wolf. Finally, the most majestic creations of the common people's imagination appear - Baba Yaga and Tsar Kashchei. “There is a Russian spirit ... There it smells of Russia!” - such is the highest assessment of the folk tale, made by the poet. “And I was there, and I drank honey...” - literally citing the folklore ending, the author declares folk poetry the source of his own creativity.

Introduction

A.S. Pushkin (1799-1837) the greatest Russian poet and writer, the founder of new Russian literature, the creator of Russian literary language. Pushkin is the author of numerous works that have become classics of Russian and world literature. One of the most famous Russian writers and poets in Russia and abroad. The variety of developed genres and styles, the lightness, elegance and accuracy of the verse, the relief and strength of characters (in large forms), "enlightened humanism", the universality of poetic thinking and Pushkin's personality predetermined his paramount importance in Russian literature; Pushkin raised it to the level of the world.

The freedom-loving mood of the young poet does not go unnoticed by the authorities, and under the guise of official necessity, Pushkin is sent to the south. During his stay in the Caucasus and Crimea, Pushkin wrote The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, The Robber Brothers. In 1820, his poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was published.

The poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was and still is a huge success with readers. How did the poem come about? Why was she so loved? This I would like to reveal in my work, as well as how the poem is studied at school.

The history of the creation of the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Ruslan and Lyudmila"

A poem is a large poetic work with a narrative or lyrical plot. Many genre varieties of poems are known: heroic, didactic, satirical, historical, lyric-dramatic, etc. The well-known poem by A.S. Pushkin “Ruslan and Lyudmila” belongs to one type of such poems.

Thanks to his nanny, Arina Rodionovna, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin forever fell in love with folk tales. They became material for his own fairy tales-poems. Bursov B.A. The fate of Pushkin - Soviet writer. Leningrad. department, 1986, p. 60

One of the most famous is "Ruslan and Lyudmila", in which Prince Ruslan sets off on a long journey to find his wife Lyudmila, who was kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Chernomor. Having overcome many obstacles, Ruslan frees his beloved. The poem ends with the triumph of Good over Evil.

And it begins with the famous introduction “A green oak near the seashore ...” This is a picture of various fairy-tale motifs and images, giving the key to understanding the genre of the work.

When you read these poetic lines, Russian folk tales come to mind - “The Frog Princess”, “Mary the Princess”, “Baba Yaga”, “The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf”, “Koschey the Immortal” ...

"Ruslan and Lyudmila" is an original work in which the features of a fairy tale are combined with the features of a romantic poem. 2

The plot of the poem is fabulous, everything in it breathes youth and health, the sad is not sad, but the terrible is not scary, because sadness easily turns into joy, and the terrible becomes ridiculous. The triumph of truth over deceit, malice and violence is the essence of the poem. A.S. Pushkin worked on his poem for 3 years. He began to write it before graduating from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1817 and finished in March 1820.

The poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was written in 1818-1820, after the poet left the Lyceum; Pushkin sometimes pointed out that he began to write a poem while still at the Lyceum, but, apparently, only the most general ideas belong to this time. Indeed, after leaving the Lyceum, leading a “most scattered” life in St. Petersburg, Pushkin worked on the poem mainly during his illnesses. The poem began to be published in the "Son of the Fatherland" in the spring of 1820 in excerpts, the first separate edition was published in May of the same year (just in the days of Pushkin's exile to the south) and evoked indignant responses from many critics who saw in it "immorality" and "indecency" ”(A.F. Voeikov, who had begun the journal publication of a neutral-friendly analysis of the poem, criticized it in the last part of the review under the influence of I.I. Dmitriev). P. A. Katenin took a special position, reproaching Pushkin, on the contrary, for insufficient nationality and excessive “smoothing” of Russian fairy tales in the spirit of French salon stories. A significant part of the reading public accepted the poem enthusiastically, with its appearance the all-Russian glory of Pushkin began. Slonimsky A.I. Pushkin's skill. -- Moscow: State. ed. thin literature, 1963, p. 187 - 216

Maymin E.A. Pushkin. Life and art. -- Moscow: "Nauka", 1982, p. 35 - 39

The epilogue (“So, an indifferent inhabitant of the world ...”) was written by Pushkin later, during his exile to the Caucasus. In 1828, Pushkin prepared a second edition of the poem, added an epilogue and a newly written famous so-called "prologue" - formally part of the First Song ("At the seashore there is a green oak ..."), which strengthened the conventionally folklore coloring of the text, and also reduced many erotic episodes and lyrical retreats. As a preface, Pushkin reprinted some critical reviews of the 1820 edition, which, in the new literary environment, have already become frankly ridiculous. In 1830, again rejecting the old accusations of immorality in the "Refutation of Critics", the poet emphasized that now he was not satisfied with the poem, on the contrary, the lack of a genuine feeling: "No one even noticed that she was cold."

Pushkin set the task of creating a "heroic" fairy tale poem in the spirit of Ariosto, known to him from French translations of "Furious Roland" (critics called this genre "romantic", which should not be confused with romanticism in the modern sense). He was also inspired by Voltaire (“The Virgin of Orleans”, “What the Ladies Like”) and Russian literary fairy tales (such as the popular tale about Yeruslan Lazarevich, “Bakhariyana” by Kheraskov, “Ilya Muromets” by Karamzin, or especially “Alyosha Popovich” by Nikolai Radishchev). The immediate impetus for the beginning of work on the poem was the release in February 1818 of the first volumes of Karamzin's "History of the Russian State", from which many details and the names of all three of Ruslan's rivals (Rogdai, Ratmir and Farlaf) were borrowed.

The poem is written in astrophic iambic tetrameter, which became, starting with Ruslan and Lyudmila, the decisively dominant form of the romantic poem.

The poem contains elements of parody in relation to Zhukovsky's ballad "The Twelve Sleeping Maidens". Pushkin consistently ironically reduces the sublime images of Zhukovsky, saturates the plot with humorous erotic elements, grotesque fantasy (the episode with the Head), uses “common” vocabulary (“I strangle”, “sneezed”). Pushkin's "parody" of Zhukovsky initially does not have a negative connotation and is rather friendly; it is known that Zhukovsky "heartily rejoiced" at Pushkin's joke, and after the release of the poem, he presented Pushkin with his portrait with the inscription "To the winner-student from the defeated teacher." Subsequently, in the early 1830s, the mature Pushkin, inclined to critically reevaluate his youthful experiences, lamented that he parodied The Twelve Sleeping Virgins "for the sake of the mob."

"Ruslan and Ludmila"- the first poem by Alexander Pushkin, written in 1817-1820. Pushkin sometimes pointed out that he began to write a poem while still at the Lyceum, but, apparently, only the most general ideas belong to this time.

Pushkin set the task of creating a "heroic" fairy tale poem in the spirit of Ariosto, known to him from French translations of "Furious Roland". He was also inspired by Voltaire (“The Virgin of Orleans”, “What Ladies Like”) and Russian literary tales: a popular tale about Yeruslan Lazarevich, “Bakhariyana” by Kheraskov, “Ilya Muromets” by Karamzin, “Alyosha Popovich” by Nikolai Radishchev. The immediate impetus for the beginning of work on the poem was the release in February 1818 of the first volumes of Karamzin's "History of the Russian State", from which many details and the names of all three of Ruslan's rivals (Rogdai, Ratmir and Farlaf) were borrowed.

The poem contains elements of parody in relation to Zhukovsky's ballad "The Twelve Sleeping Maidens". Pushkin consistently ironically reduces the sublime images of Zhukovsky, saturates the plot with humorous erotic elements, grotesque fantasy, and uses common language. Pushkin's "parody" of Zhukovsky initially does not have a negative connotation and is rather friendly. It is known that Zhukovsky "heartily rejoiced" at Pushkin's joke, and after the release of the poem, he presented Pushkin with his portrait with the inscription "To the winner-student from the defeated teacher." Subsequently, in the early 1830s, the mature Pushkin, inclined to critically reevaluate his youthful experiences, lamented that he parodied The Twelve Sleeping Virgins "for the sake of the mob."

The poem began to be published in the "Son of the Fatherland" in the spring of 1820 in excerpts, the first separate edition was published in May of the same year and evoked indignant responses from many critics who saw in it "immorality" and "indecency". P. A. Katenin took a special position, reproaching Pushkin, on the contrary, for insufficient nationality and excessive “smoothing” of Russian fairy tales in the spirit of French salon stories. A significant part of the reading public accepted the poem enthusiastically. It is believed that Pushkin's all-Russian glory began with the appearance of Ruslan and Lyudmila.

The epilogue (“So, an indifferent inhabitant of the world ...”) was written by Pushkin later, during his exile to the Caucasus. In 1828, Pushkin prepared a second edition of the poem, added an epilogue and a newly written famous so-called "prologue" - formally part of the First Song ("At the seashore there is a green oak ..."), which strengthened the conventional folklore coloring of the text, and also reduced many erotic episodes and lyrical digressions. As a preface, Pushkin reprinted some critical reviews of the 1820 edition, which, in the new literary environment, have already become frankly ridiculous. In 1830, again rejecting the old accusations of immorality in the "Refutation of Critics", the poet emphasized that now he was not satisfied with the poem, on the contrary, the lack of a genuine feeling: "No one even noticed that she was cold."

It should be noted that the poem is written in astrophic iambic tetrameter, which, beginning with Ruslan, became the decisively dominant form of the romantic poem.

The poem amazed contemporaries and now delights readers with the richness and variety of content (albeit not very deep), amazing liveliness and brightness of paintings, even the most fantastic ones, the brilliance and poetry of the language. Apart from the numerous and always unexpected and witty jokingly erotic episodes in "Ruslan and Lyudmila", we sometimes meet living, almost "realistically" images of fantastic content seen by the poet (for example, the description of a giant living head in the second song), then in several verses shown a historically accurate picture of ancient Russian life (the wedding feast at Prince Vladimir at the beginning of the poem), although the whole poem does not at all pretend to reproduce historical color; sometimes gloomy, even tragic descriptions (Ruslan's dream and his murder, the death of a living head); finally, the description of the battle of the Kievites against the Pechenegs in the last song, which in terms of skill is not much inferior to the famous "Poltava battle" in the poem "Poltava". In the language of his first poem, using all the achievements of his predecessors - the accuracy and elegance of the story in Dmitriev's verses, the poetic richness and melodiousness of intonations, the "captivating sweetness of Zhukovsky's verses", the plastic beauty of Batyushkov's images - Pushkin goes beyond them. He introduces into his text words, expressions and images of folk vernacular, strongly avoided by the secular, salon poetry of his predecessors and considered rude, unpoetic.