The action of the poem The Bronze Horseman takes place. A

22.09.2019

The time of the creation of the poem. Plot and timing. Subject

A.S. Pushkin wrote the poem "The Bronze Horseman" in October 1833 in Boldino.

The plot basis of the work is Petersburg flood of 1824. Pushkin emphasizes the strict historical authenticity of the events described in the poem. So, in the author's preface to the work, he notes: "The incident described in this story is based on truth."

The time frame of the poem is wider than its plot action. The poet makes excursion into the era of Peter I, talks about great the intention of the autocrat. Then he talks about the changes that have taken place a hundred years later. The author describes the flood of 1824 itself and the events immediately following it. The most important theme of the work is also the fate of the "little man".

Issues

The main problem posed in The Bronze Horseman is personalityand state. Pushkin comprehends the deep contradiction between the personality of the "little man" and autocratic power. In the context of this problem, Pushkin reveals the historical inconsistency of the activities of Peter I. On the one hand, the reforms he carried out strengthened the Russian State. The city built on the Neva has become a symbol of the greatness and glory of Russia. On the other hand, this city turned out to be the cause of misfortunes, suffering, death of the “little man”.

One more important problem works are human and nature. In the elements of nature, Pushkin showed the formidable Divine power, rebellious to man, not subject to the will of the kings.

Ideological orientation

The ideological meaning of the poem is ambiguous.

On the one side, Pushkin glorifies the deeds of Peter, admires the beautiful city on the Neva, bows before the greatness and glory of Russia.

On the other side, the poet deeply sympathizes, sympathizes with the “little man”, who became an unwitting victim of Peter's transformations.

Genre originality

"The Bronze Horseman" is lyric epic poem. It combines the narrative of events and characters with the lyrical self-expression of the author. So, for example, the introduction to the poem includes an excited monologue of the poet glorifying Petersburg.

Pushkin also gives his own genre definition of The Bronze Horseman. In the subtitle, he names the work Petersburg story. Pushkin, with his work, establishes a new genre in Russian literature of the St. Petersburg story about a poor official, a “little man”. Subsequently (already in prose form) this genre will be developed in the works of N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, and other Russian writers.

Composition: plot construction, main images

The poem includes introduction and two parts.

Introduction contains exposition image of Peter I. The tsar appears here as an outstanding statesman who set himself the task of transforming Russia, making it a great state, cutting through a “window to Europe”.

Although the tsar is described in the introduction as a real historical person, he already looks monumental here. 1 . The majestic figure of the autocrat is shown against the backdrop of wild, pristine nature:

On the shore of desert waves

stood he, full of great thoughts,

And looked into the distance.

The poet tells about the grandiose plan of Peter:

And he thought:

From here we will threaten the Swede,

Here the city will be founded

To spite an arrogant neighbor.

Nature here is destined for us

Cut a window to Europe

Stand with a firm foot by the sea.

Here on their new waves

All flags will visit us,

A hundred years have passed, and the young city,

Midnight countries beauty and wonder,

From the darkness of the forests, from the swamp blat

Ascended magnificently, proudly ...

Pushkin does not hide his admiration for the work of Peter. Hence the high style, the use Slavisms(“young city”, “beauty and wonder of midnight countries”, “from swamps of blat”).

Then follows lyrical monologue poet, where he talks about his love for St. Petersburg. The poet admires the architecture of the city, the majestic course of the Neva, the beauty of the white nights:

I love you, Peter's creation,

I love your strict, slender look,

Neva sovereign current,

Its coastal granite,

Your fences have a cast-iron pattern,

your thoughtful nights

Transparent dusk, moonless brilliance ...

Pushkin glorifies military power Russia:

I love belligerent liveliness

Amusing Fields of Mars,

Infantry troops and horses

monotonous beauty,

In their harmoniously unsteady formation

Patchwork of these victorious banners,

The radiance of these copper caps,

Shot through and through in battle.

These lines reminded Pushkin's contemporaries of Russia's glorious victory in the War of 1812.

The poet emphasizes the importance of such solemn moments in the life of the Russian Empire as birth of an heir to the throne and victory over the enemy, and the jubilation caused by these events turns out to be akin to the joy of contemplating the spring awakening of the Neva:

I love, military capital,

Your stronghold smoke and thunder,

When the midnight queen

Gives a son to the royal house,

Or victory over the enemy

Russia triumphs again

Or breaking your blue ice

The Neva carries him to the seas

And, feeling spring days, rejoices.

Thus, Pushkin's Petersburg is a symbol of a new, transformed Russia.

Meanwhile, the reforming activity of Peter, according to the poet, brought Russia and its people not only greatness, but also severe suffering. “My story will be sad,” the poet remarks at the end of the introduction, preparing the reader for the mournful events described in the first and second parts of the poem.

first part"The Bronze Horseman" opens with a gloomy picture of autumn nature. Neva is compared to a sick person:

Above the darkened Petrograd

November breathed autumn chill.

Rushing in a noisy wave

At the edge of its slender fence,

Neva rushed about like a patient

At the time of the guests home

Eugene came young ...

exposition the image of the central character occupies the first half of the first part poems. The poet explains why he chose the name "Eugene" for his hero:

We will be our hero

Call by this name. It

Sounds nice; with him for a long time

My pen is also friendly.

Eugene comes from an ancient aristocratic family. However, in the era when the action of the poem takes place, his surname speaks to few people about something:

We don't need his name.

Although in the past

It may have shone

And under the pen of Karamzin

In native legends it sounded

But now with light and rumor

It is forgotten...

Eugene - typical petty official, "little man":

Our hero

Lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere,

It shy of the noble and does not grieve

Not about the deceased relatives,

Not about the forgotten antiquity.

It should be noted that the “little people” are the product of Peter the Great's reforms, which turned Russia into a state of officials.

We should not forget that the gallery of "little people" in Russian literature goes back to Pushkin. Samson Vyrin from the Stationmaster is the first in their line, the second is Evgeny from the Bronze Horseman. Later, Russian literature will include the heroes of Gogol (for example, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin from The Overcoat), writers of the "natural school", Dostoevsky.

O world outlook"little man" can be judged by his dreams:

What was he thinking about? About,

That he was poor, that he labored

He had to deliver

And independence, and honor ...

Marry? Well... why not?

It's hard, of course.

But well, he's young and healthy

Ready to work day and night;

He somehow arranges himself

Shelter humble and simple

And Parasha will calm down in it.

Eugene, unlike the autocratic tsar, is not concerned with grandiose plans of a state scale, but with urgent matters: he dreams of family happiness, of raising children.

It is also significant that Eugene's beloved is not an aristocratic lady, but a simple girl Parasha, with whom he is going to share a modest and difficult family life.

In the poems of the poet expressed sympathy"little man", sincere Attention to his concerns.

When creating images of Peter and Evgeny, Pushkin resorts to antithesis, which emerges already in the introduction to the poem and in its first part. The majestic figure of Peter against the backdrop of the deserted, calm Neva is contrasted with Evgeny, immersed in the hustle and bustle of life, a “small” and, by state standards, an insignificant person, returning home near the river, restless, restless, inspiring the hero with fear for loved ones.

Second half of the first part the poem is dedicated to the description floods. Raging Neva acts as a merciless natural element that takes revenge on a person for trying to limit her freedom, chained in granite. When describing a natural disaster, Pushkin uses detailed personifications, comparisons, colorful epithets. The Neva appears before us as a terrible beast that destroys everything around:

The Neva swelled and roared,

Cauldron bubbling and swirling,

And suddenly, like a wild beast,

Rushed to the city...

It is no coincidence that Alexander I, at the end of whose reign the flood of 1824 occurred, utters significant words: "The tsars cannot control the elements of God." The forces of nature are symbolized here by God's wrath against people who have decided to subjugate the elements, and here even the king is powerless. Nature takes revenge on man for arbitrariness over her.

It is significant that Pushkin emphasizes the inextricable connection between the disasters caused by the flood and Peter's long-standing decision to build a city in this very place - contrary to the laws of nature. As a result, the terrible suffering of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, especially the "little people", turned out to be the result of Peter's activities in the previous century.

Not by chance at the end of the first part of the poem, the images of Peter I and Eugene again opposed, only the autocrat appears here no longer as a historical figure, but as a statue, an "idol". Eugene, fleeing the flood, sits "on a marble beast" and sees in front of him a motionless statue of Peter. At the same time, the monument turns out to be “turned back to him”: it turns out that the desperate “little man” cannot count on help:

And with his back turned to him,

In the unshakable height

Over the perturbed Neva

Standing with outstretched hand

Idol on a bronze horse.

In the second part poems are about the death of Parasha, O craziness Eugene, about him rebellion against power, finally about his own death.

Parasha's death acquires a symbolic meaning in the poem: it is a sign misfortunes all ordinary people - Petersburg residents , turned out to be hostages of Peter's reforms. The death of the bride was also the cause of Eugene's madness. His consciousness could not stand the ordeal:

But my poor, poor Eugene...

Alas! His confused mind

Against terrible shocks

Didn't resist...

It should be noted that the motive of madness in connection with the theme of St. Petersburg is widely covered in subsequent Russian literature. Let us recall, for example, Gogol's Notes of a Madman, Raskolnikov's nightmares in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

The second part of the poem contains her climax- story about rebellion hero against the power that the statue of Peter represents. The author prepares the reader in advance for this new confrontation between Eugene and the Bronze Horseman. The details of their first meeting, which happened during the flood, are repeated again:

Eugene shuddered. cleared up

It has terrible thoughts. He found out

And the place where the flood played

Where the waves of prey crowded,

Revolting viciously around him,

And the lions, and the square, and that,

Who stood still

In the darkness with a copper head ...

Poet in lyrical monologue refers to the statue of Peter - a symbol of autocratic power:

Where are you galloping, proud horse,

And where will you lower your hooves?

O mighty lord of destiny!

Are you not so above the abyss,

At a height, an iron bridle

Raised Russia on its hind legs?

Pushkin emphasizes here the grandeur of the appearance of Peter. Meanwhile, the figure of Eugene at the moment of his rebellion against the idol becomes majestic in its own way. It is no coincidence that the poet in the description of the "little man", as in the description of the statue of the autocrat, uses high-style vocabulary. 1 :

Around the foot of the idol

The poor madman walked around

And brought wild eyes

On the face of the ruler of the semi-world.

His chest was shy. Chelo

It lay down on the cold grate ...

Two opponents are stylistically “equalized”: the “ruler of the semi-world” has “face”, the rebel has “brow”. The hero in a frenzy utters words filled with anger:

Welcome, miraculous builder!

Already to you!

The riot ends nightmare Evgenia. The Bronze Horseman pursues his prey.

In a peculiar epilogue, not titled by the author, but highlighted textually, tells about of death unfortunate Evgeniya who could not stand the fight with a cruel fate:

Found my madman

And then his cold corpse

Buried for God's sake.

play an important role in the work symbolic images. Image Petersburg carries the idea of a new, transformed Russia with its greatness and glory. At the same time, St. Petersburg is a symbol of misfortune, the suffering of ordinary people.

Raging Neva- a symbol of God's wrath that fell on a person who planned to subjugate the natural elements.

Finally, Bronze Horseman- the personification of autocratic power in its tragic opposition to the people. The horse is the Russian people, the Horseman is the autocrat who raised his subjects “on their hind legs”.

Questions and tasks

1. Where and when did Pushkin write the poem "The Bronze Horseman"? What is the plot of the story? Outline the time frame of the events described in the poem. List the main themes of the work.

2. What problems does the poet comprehend in The Bronze Horseman? What is the originality of the author's interpretation of such a problem as the individual and the state?

3. Describe the ideological orientation of the poem. Why can't the position of the author be called unambiguous?

4. Why is The Bronze Horseman a lyrical epic? What genre definition did Pushkin himself give to the poem? What is the uniqueness of The Bronze Horseman as a Petersburg story? Who else among Russian writers created works in this genre?

5. What parts does Pushkin's poem consist of? What compositional elements does the introduction include? How does Peter I appear before us in the introduction? What does the poet say about Peter's plan? How Pushkin draws Petersburg a hundred years after its foundation. Describe the author's lyrical monologue. What exactly fascinates him "Peter's creation"?

6. What can you say about the exposition of the image of Eugene at the beginning of the first part of the poem? How does the author describe the Neva? How does he present the central character to the reader? What does Pushkin write about the name and surname of the hero, about his origins, occupations, dreams, ideals? What can you say about Evgeny's beloved? Why can Eugene be called a "little man"? When and for what reasons did this socio-historical type of people arise? Which of the Russian writers first discovered it? What other characters - Pushkin himself and other authors - can be attributed to this literary type?

What is the meaning of the antithesis "Peter - Eugene"?

7. How does Pushkin draw the raging elements? What artistic techniques does he use here? What is the meaning of the words of Alexander I quoted by the poet? How is the theme of the flood of 1824 related to the theme of Peter's reforms? Explain the meaning of the episode of confrontation between Eugene and the statue of Peter during the flood.

8. What are the main events of the second part of the poem. Why does the death of Parasha and the madness of Yevgeny acquire symbolic meaning in the work?

9. Describe the climax of the action of the poem? Why can we say that the images of Eugene and Peter at the moment of the hero's rebellion are stylistically equal? What causes a hero's rebellion? What is the symbolic meaning of Eugene's death? Which description serves as an epilogue in the poem?

10. Summarize the meaning of the symbolic images in the poem. Why is the symbolic image of St. Petersburg interpreted ambiguously? How can one interpret the meaning of the image of the raging Neva? Comment on Pushkin's interpretation of the image of the Bronze Horseman.

11. Outline and prepare oral presentation

The poem "The Bronze Horseman" was created by A. S. Pushkin in 1833. This last work, which was written by the great Russian poet in Boldino. It is written in poetic form, and the two main characters of the work are Eugene and the monument to the emperor. Two themes intersect in the poem - Emperor Peter and a simple, "insignificant" person. The poem is considered one of the most perfect works of the great Russian poet.

Historical vantage point chosen by the poet

In the analysis of The Bronze Horseman, it can be mentioned that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin managed to overcome the canons of the genre in his work. In the poem, Peter does not appear as a historical character (he appears in the guise of an "idol" - a statue). Also, nothing is said about the time of his reign.

The Petrine era for the poet himself is a time that did not end with the death of the great ruler. At the same time, A. S. Pushkin refers not to the beginning of this great period in the history of the Russian state, but to its results. One of the historical points, from the height of which the poet looked at the emperor, was the flood of November 7, 1824, the “terrible time”, which remained in memory for a long time.

Analyzing The Bronze Horseman, it can be noted that the poem was written in iambic tetrameter. In this short work (contains less than 500 verses), the poet combined history and modernity, the private life of a "little man" with the history of the country. The Bronze Horseman has become one of the immortal monuments to St. Petersburg and the period of Peter's reign.

The main plan of the poem, theme, main idea

The theme of The Bronze Horseman is the conflict between man and state system. The central event of the work is a flood. The story about him forms the first plan of the poem - historical. The flood is one of the main plots of the entire poem. It is also a source of conflict between the individual and the country. The main idea of the work is that a common person may go mad with grief, anxiety, and restlessness.

Conditionally literary plan

There is also a second plan in the poem - conditionally literary. It also needs to be told in the analysis of The Bronze Horseman. The poet sets it with the help of the subtitle "Petersburg Tale". And Eugene is the central character in this story. The faces of the rest of the inhabitants of the city can not be distinguished. This is the crowd that floods the streets, drowning; cold and detached residents of the city in the second part of the work. The poet's story about the fate of the protagonist sets off the historical plan and interacts with him throughout the entire work. At the climax of the poem, when the Horseman is chasing Eugene, this motif dominates. A mythical hero enters the stage - a statue that has come to life. And in this space, the city turns into a fantastic space, losing its real features.

"Idol" and understanding of St. Petersburg

In the analysis of The Bronze Horseman, the student may mention that the Bronze Horseman is one of the most unusual images in all of Russian literature. Awakened by the words of the protagonist, he ceases to be an ordinary idol and turns into a formidable king. From the very moment of the founding of St. Petersburg, the history of the city received different interpretations. In myths and legends, it was considered not an ordinary city, but the embodiment of completely mysterious and incomprehensible forces. Depending on who held the post of king, these forces were understood as beneficent or as hostile, anti-people.

Emperor Peter I

At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, two large categories of myths began to take shape, opposite each other in their content. In some, Emperor Peter appeared as the "father of the Fatherland", a kind of deity who managed to organize a reasonable cosmos and a "dear country".

These ideas often appeared in poetry (for example, in the odes of Sumarokov and Derzhavin). They were encouraged at the state level. Another trend tends to represent Peter as a "living Antichrist", and Petersburg as a "non-Russian city". The first category of myths characterized the founding of the city as the beginning of a "golden era" for Russia; the second predicted the imminent destruction of the state.

Combining the two approaches

Alexander Sergeevich in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" was able to create a synthetic image of St. Petersburg and the emperor. In his work, those images that exclude each other in their meaning complement each other. The poem begins with a description of the poetic myth about the founding of the city, and the myth of destruction is reflected in the first and second parts of the work, which describes the flood.

The image of Peter in the poem "The Bronze Horseman" and the historical plan of the work

The originality of the poem is reflected in the simultaneous interaction of three planes. It is legendary-mythological, historical, and also conventionally literary. Emperor Peter appears on the legendary mythological plane, because he is not a historical character. He is the nameless hero of the legend, the builder and founder of the new city, the executor of the highest will.

But Peter's thoughts are specific: he decided to build a city "for the evil of an arrogant neighbor" so that Russia could "cut a window into Europe." A. S. Pushkin emphasizes the historical plan with the words "a hundred years have passed." And this phrase envelops the ongoing events in the haze of time. The emergence of the "young city" is likened by the poet to a miracle. In the place where there should be a description of the process of building the city, the reader sees a dash. The story itself begins in 1803 (on this day, the “city of Peter” turned a hundred years old).

Parallels in the work

In "The Bronze Horseman" by Pushkin, the reader discovers many semantic and compositional parallels drawn by the poet. They are based on the relationships that have been established between the fictional character of the work, the elements of the flood, the city and the monument - the "idol". For example, the poet parallels the “great thoughts” of the emperor with the reflections of the “little man”, Eugene. The legendary emperor thought about how the city would be founded, the fulfillment of the interests of the state would be achieved. Eugene thinks about small things common man. The emperor's dreams come true; the dreams of the "little man" collapsed along with a natural disaster.

Eugene - "little man"

Eugene is one of the main characters in Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman. He is burdened by his plight, as he is poor and barely makes ends meet. He connects his hopes for a happy future with the girl Parasha. But his life is tragic - it takes away his only dream. Parasha dies during a flood, and Eugene goes crazy.

"The Bronze Horseman": excerpt

To learn by heart, schoolchildren are often asked to learn part of the poem. It could be, for example, the following passage:

"I love you, Peter's creation,
I love your strict, slender look,
Neva sovereign current,
Its coastal granite ... ".

A student can have several stanzas to get a higher grade. Learning an excerpt from The Bronze Horseman is a pleasure, because the poem is written in the beautiful Pushkin language.

The image of the "city of Peter" in the poem

The world of Petersburg appears in the poem as a closed space. The city exists according to the laws that are adopted in it. In the poem "The Bronze Horseman" he seems to be a new civilization built on the expanses of wild Russia. After Petersburg appears, the “Moscow period” in history becomes a thing of the past.

The city is full of many internal contradictions. The great Russian poet emphasizes the duality of St. Petersburg: on the one hand, it “rises magnificently”, but on the other hand, it comes “from the darkness of the forests”. In the poet's wish to the city, anxiety sounds - "May the conquered element be reconciled with you ...". The beauty of the city may not be eternal - it stands firmly, but it can be destroyed by the raging elements. For the first time, the image of a raging element appears on the pages of the poem.

The basic idea

The poem "The Bronze Horseman" was written by A. S. Pushkin in 1833. It was not immediately allowed to print because of the presence of the theme of the relationship of the individual with the authorities. However, in 1837, with some censorship changes, the poem was published in Sovremennik. This is Pushkin's last work on the topic of the formidable Tsar Peter I and his transformations. In it, the monumental figure of the king is contrasted with harsh nature. Despite the fact that Peter I was able to conquer the elements and build a royal city on the banks of the Neva, nature remained inflexible. She still rebelled from time to time, and with each new storm, hundreds of civilians died.

A. S. Pushkin put the relationship of the individual with power and the relationship of man with nature as the basis of his poem. An ordinary person risks his life and well-being, fulfilling the will of the authorities. The same situation can be seen in the poem "The Bronze Horseman". While a poor young official named Yevgeny is making plans for the future, a devastating storm is playing out in the city built on the banks of an eccentric river by the will of Peter I. In

during this element, the girl of the protagonist dies - his only hope for a peaceful existence. Only with her he connected all his dreams and hopes for the future. I wanted to build a family with her, have kids and continue to live.

However, fate is relentless. She deprives Eugene of the meaning of life, and at the same time he loses his mind. At the time of the events, Peter I had already become the property of history. He is depicted as a gigantic idol on a bronze horse. Despite this, he remains an object of worship and a symbol of autocracy. Ordinary people they bow as they pass by, and are afraid to raise their eyes to him. Only the insane Eugene decided during the next storm to go and look angrily into the eyes of the rider, which he later regretted very much. All night after that, it seemed to him that the rider was pursuing him on his bronze horse.

Thus, the poor Petersburg official became a victim of "historical necessity". On the one hand, he is a victim of the authorities, on the orders of which the city was once built on the banks of an eccentric river. On the other hand, he is a victim of elemental nature, against which even the figure of the king fades and becomes bleak. It is noteworthy that the author carried the duality of characters and images through the entire poem. So, two Peters (a living and proud idol), two Eugenes (a poor official and a madman), two Neva (an adornment of the city and its threat) and two Petersburgs (the majestic city of Peter the creation and the killer city) meet in it. This compositional split is the main philosophical idea of the poem - the idea of a person and his value.

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Images in the poem "The Bronze Horseman"

The introduction to the poem speaks of Emperor Peter: he built St. Petersburg without thinking about ordinary people, not thinking that life in a city in a swamp can be dangerous ... But for the emperor, the greatness of Russia was more important.

The protagonist of the poem- a young man named Eugene, an official. He wants a little: just to live his life in peace. ordinary life... He has a bride - Parasha, a simple girl. But happiness does not come true: they become victims of the St. Petersburg flood of 1824. The bride dies, and Yevgeny himself manages to escape by climbing onto one of the St. Petersburg lions. But, although he survived, after the death of the bride, Eugene goes crazy.

His madness is caused by the realization of his own powerlessness before the elements that happened in St. Petersburg. He begins to get angry at the emperor, who allowed such troubles in the city of his name. And thus angers Peter: one fine night, when he approaches the monument to the emperor, he imagines that the Bronze Horseman (the equestrian statue of Peter the Great on Senate Square) descends from his pedestal and chases him all night through the streets of St. Petersburg. After such a shock, Eugene can not stand it - the shock turned out to be too strong, in the end the poor fellow died.

In this poem, Pushkin compares two truths: the truth of Eugene, a private person, and the truth of Peter - the state. In fact, the whole poem is their unequal conflict. On the one hand, it is impossible to make an unambiguous conclusion about who is right: both pursue their own interests, both positions have the right to exist. However, the fact that in the end Yevgeny still surrenders (dies) allows us to understand that, according to Pushkin himself, Peter is right. The greatness of the empire is more important than the tragedy of small people. A private person is obliged to submit to the will of the emperor.

Interestingly, in addition to Peter, Alexander the First also appears in the poem. He looks at the flood from the palace balcony and understands: the kings cannot cope with God's element. Thus, Pushkin builds a hierarchy: the emperor is higher than the common man, but God is higher than the emperor.

" Bronze Horseman"- a philosophical, social and historical poem. Pushkin's poem raises the problems of the relationship between the state, power and personality, sometimes incompatibility of their interests.
It was the result of the poet's thoughts about the personality of Peter I, about Russian history and the state, about the place of man in it.
This work organically combines the story of the fate of an ordinary resident of St. Petersburg, who suffered during the flood, Yevgeny, and historical and philosophical reflections on the state, the formation of which is associated with the personality and work of Peter.

The main idea of the story "The Bronze Horseman" is that an ordinary person can go crazy with a storm, with grief and anxiety. Not finding his bride Parasha among the debris and ruins left by the storm, the hero of the poem Eugene goes crazy. on horseback. Since then, it began to seem to him that the same horseman was constantly chasing him, stepping heavily, on his copper horse. He soon died of despair and fear.

Main characters Bronze Horseman

The Bronze Horseman plot

The poem tells about the poor, insignificant Petersburg resident Evgeny, stupid, not original, no different from his brothers. He was in love with Parasha, the daughter of a widow living by the seaside. The flood of 1824 swept away their house; the widow and Parasha died. Eugene could not bear this misfortune and went mad. One night, passing by the monument to Peter I, Eugene, in his madness, whispered to him a few malicious words, seeing in him the culprit of his disasters. It seemed to Yevgeny's frustrated imagination that the bronze horseman was angry with him for this and chased after him on his bronze horse. A few months later, the madman died.