"The Peasant Lady": an Existential Choice, Super-Difficult in Life, but Possible in Art

Rozin Vadim Markovich Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences  109240, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str.1, kab. 310 rozinvm@gmail.com Other publications by this author

This is the last work from the cycle of "The Stories of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin" is loved by readers and directors, but critics evaluate it differently. For example, V.G. Belinsky is very negative, saying that Pushkin wrote a thing "especially pathetic", "implausible, vaudeville". ^{[1, p. 577]} One can agree that "The Peasant Lady" is written in the genre of fairy tales, masquerade and carnival, hence the numerous disguises and transformations of the heroine, but this work does not make a pathetic impression, on the contrary, Pushkin wrote a bright, lively, dynamic story. But it is really difficult to define the genre of reality of "Peasant Girls": some critics characterize this work as a game, a conditional performance, while others - as a realistic and life?affirming poetic action. There are also assessments in the spirit of postmodernism: the author does not depict anything, but rather, by removing social conventions and the healing effect of nature, reveals the psychology of the characters. "In the Peasant Lady," writes N.N. Petrunina, ?a glorious invention" Lisa, her transformation into Akulina (...) transfers her and young Berestov from the world of social conventions and family enmity to the grove, where the laws of the environment lose their force, where the “limits of parental authority” do not reach. The mutual attraction of the “peasant woman” and the master is born and grows stronger in the free world of nature, which cleanses the feeling of the heroes from everything alluvial, reveals their true human essence. In the course of the story, the enmity of modern "fathers" reveals its ephemerality, and the threat of forced marriage hanging over the "children" only helps the lovers to destroy those obstacles on the way to the "indissoluble bonds" desired for them, which were created by a love masquerade that gave Lisa and Alexey the opportunity to see each other without any masks." ^{[4, pp. 143-144]}

I also remember my impression. I read "The Peasant Girl" in the sixth grade, I was fascinated, and it's clear why - the birth of love, the purity and youth of the characters, theater, adventure, a true detective, where you expect when and how the deception?Lisa's game will be revealed, and what Alexey and Muromsky, Lisa's father, will do. By the way, I remember, only in the last Pushkin disappointed me a little, finishing the story with the words: "Readers will save me from the unnecessary obligation to describe the denouement." Judging by my teenage impressions, as well as the unrelenting interest in the "Peasant Lady" of a certain audience of readers and directors, the great poet composed such a work in prose that has not lost its relevance and attractiveness in our time.

But after all, the "Peasant Girl" was created in a different culture, and probably Pushkin was worried about some problems of his own. Neither the Russian culture of that time, nor the personality of Pushkin, of course, I did not know at that time of my development. One of my friends, a well-known psychologist, claims that it is not necessary to know this, it is better not to know, so as not to distort the impression of the work. But I don't think so. Currently, in order to get out from under the collapse and debris of different versions of a work of art and create your own version, you have to be interested in both the culture and the personality of the author. That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'll start with observations.   

The end of the story is really strange: you look forward to the denouement of Lisa's deception, and already on a rather lively stage (here Alexey, Muromsky, the elder Berestov, the provincial noble society, and even the serfs of both houses), and Alexander Sergeyevich literally cuts off the end without revealing the acute events that, according to the logic of the plot, should have been happen. The transfer of this work to the reader looks like a simple unsubscription. The question is, why such an end? Now the second observation.

Alexey's father, Ivan Petrovich Berestov, in the story with the idea of marrying his son to Muromsky's daughter, shows himself not to be a despot (promises to disinherit him and curse him if he does not fulfill his father's will), but a normal Russian landowner and caring parent. Marriages in those days in the vast majority of cases were concluded by parents, having estimated the benefits and possible new connections. "Meanwhile," we read, "the recent acquaintance between Ivan Petrovich Berestov and Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky strengthened more and more and soon turned into friendship, here are the circumstances: Muromsky often thought that after the death of Ivan Petrovich, his entire estate would pass into the hands of Alexei Ivanovich; that in this case Alexey Ivanovich he will be one of the richest landowners of that province, and that there is no reason for him not to marry Liza. Old Berestov, for his part, although he recognized in his neighbor some extravagance (or, as he put it, English nonsense), however, he did not deny in him many excellent virtues, for example: rare resourcefulness; Grigory Ivanovich was a close relative of Count Pronsky, a noble and strong man; the count could be very useful to Alexey, and Muromsky (so Ivan Petrovich thought) would probably be happy to give his daughter away in a profitable way. The old men thought it all over to themselves until then, that finally they talked to each other, hugged, promised to process the matter in order and began to take care of it from their side" ^[5].   

         But after all, Alexey and Lisa have already found each other, have fallen in love. However, according to the plot, it is assumed that there is none of this, moreover, Lisa did everything not to please Alexei (otherwise the deception would have been revealed) when he and his father came to the Muromskys for lunch (it happens after the parents have reconciled). It turns out so often encountered at that time a collision and a tragedy ? parents want to marry (and marry) children against their will. By the way, Lisa is also quite acutely worried about her act at first, she understands that she deceived her father, who does not love and hates her neighbor. She went against tradition (an obedient, loving parent daughter could not do that), but it would not be better for society to say after learning that she had been deceiving her father for a long time, that, posing as a simple peasant, she fell in love with a landowner.

         Maybe that's why Pushkin couldn't write the end? Let's imagine that he writes it. What happens in the end. Young people independently build their lives, for them the main thing is love and freedom of choice, and here they are forcibly involved in the world of calculation, old traditions, their fate is decided for them. In the end, for Lisa and Alexey, their love story is not only authentic, but it was not devoid of artistry, play, art (this only makes her more charming, no wonder Alexey, recognizing Lisa Muromskaya in Akulin, could not resist a joyful exclamation and rushed to kiss her hands). Not so for parents, what happened is nonsense, deception, violation of traditions. In the Russian life of the late XVIII, early XIX centuries, these two ways of life ? one inspired by Western culture and the French Revolution, the other by the House-building, were incompatible. And here in the "Peasant Lady" Pushkin succeeds, and at the expense of something - two simple accidents (Ivan Petrovich's fall from a frightened horse and Alexei's unexpected appearance in Lisa's room, where she read his letter to Akulina). Pushkin, as the smartest man in Russia, could not fail to understand that such accidents cannot overcome the gap and the confrontation of two different ways of life, two worlds ? traditional, Russian and new, assuming Western values and individual freedom. Alexander Sergeevich could not have written such an end, it would have destroyed the whole plot.

         But there was another very significant circumstance. The fact is that Pushkin himself has been in a situation of reflection on the choice of two alternative forms of life for more than a year, however, in relation to himself. "The Peasant Lady" was written by Pushkin in 1830. It was at this time that the poet faced a dilemma ? either to continue the old way of life, which some of his friends strongly disapproved of, pointing out that playing cards, love affairs and cynicism are not compatible with either the poet's poems or the true values of life, or to radically change his life in the direction, in fact, indicated P.Ya. Chaadaev ^{[12, pp. 119-120]}.

  At the beginning of 1829, Chaadaev wrote to Pushkin: "There is no more deplorable spectacle in the spiritual world than a genius who did not understand his century and his vocation. When you see that the person who is supposed to dominate the minds is bowing to the opinion of the crowd, you feel that you yourself are stopping on the way. You ask yourself: why does the person who should show me the way prevent me from going forward? Really, it happens to me every time I think about you, and I think about you so often that I'm tired of it. Give me the opportunity to go forward, I beg you. If you do not have the patience to follow everything that is happening in the world, go deep into yourself and your inner world and find the light that certainly lies in all souls like yours. I am convinced that you can bring endless benefits to the unfortunate, misguided Russia. Do not change your destiny, my friend" ^{[6, p. 44, 394]}.

            Pushkin reflects and hesitates: on the one hand, he recognizes the rightness of Chaadaev, whom he revered ("in the diary of 1821, Pushkin makes an entry relating to Chaadaev: "Your friendship has replaced happiness for me, my cold soul can love you alone" ^{[17; 12]}), on the other ? it is easy to say, cardinally few people are capable of changing their way of life. In 1830, Pushkin had not yet decided, but he was clearly considering this step.  And then "Boldinskaya autumn", Alexander Sergeevich completely immersed in the field of art. He does not forget his hesitations either. Maybe, after all, you can not change anything in your old life and start living in a new way. Well, yes, these forms of life are incompatible, contradict each other. But fate is unpredictable: she, the poet reflects, "does not stop playing pranks with you... Imagine her as a huge monkey who has been given full will; who will put her on a chain? Not you, not me, no one" (from a letter to Vyazemsky in 1926 ^[3]).

Can't fate combine these forms of life, reconcile them with each other? How? Here Pushkin shows how this can be done, for example, just as it happened in the "Peasant Lady" due to unexpected accidents. True, these forms of life were tried on not in ordinary, real life, but in artistic reality, but after all, for an artist (poet) it's almost the same thing. The same scheme is visible in the "Blizzard": Burmin ruined the life of himself and Masha, as a result, he cannot get married (she gets married), but due to a chance meeting with Maria Gavrilovna, the collision is safely resolved. Pushkin solves his dilemma within the framework of artistic creativity, creates an artistic reality (events) in which incompatible forms of life are combined and reconciled.

  Perhaps thinking through this artistic rehearsal, but naturally, not only that, helped Alexander Sergeevich to take a decisive step next year and start a new life. And wasn't his marriage a deliberately created accident designed to incline the fate of the monkey to voluntarily put himself on a chain? "The delusions of my early youth," Pushkin wrote in 1830 to N.I. Goncharova, the mother of his future wife, "presented themselves to my imagination; they were too heavy in themselves, and slander further strengthened them; word of them, unfortunately, spread widely." And a day or two later he writes to his parents: "I intend to marry a young girl whom I have been in love with for a year ? m-l Natalie Goncharova... I ask for your blessing, not as an empty formality, but with the inner conviction that this blessing is necessary for my well?being - and may the second half of my existence be more comforting for you than my sad youth" ^{[8; 9]}. In real life, Alexander Sergeevich does not just reduce and try on his former life with the present, but really, radically changes his life, abandoning the old one.

"I have been married for about a year," Pushkin wrote in 1832, "and as a result, my lifestyle has completely changed, to the indescribable chagrin of Sophia Ostafyevna and the cavalry sharomyzhniki. I've been behind cards and dice for more than two years..." ^[7].

"At this last stage of life, in fact, the second life ? righteous and spiritual, Pushkin especially needed support, because he took on impossible tasks. On the one hand, he wanted, well, not to re?educate the tsar, but in any case to decisively influence him, on the other - to write a history of Russia that would indicate a way out for all educated people.

The main points of his tactical program were clear to him as early as 1831. To influence the sovereign so that he restricts the bureaucratic aristocracy and puts forward a true aristocracy, an enlightened family nobility with irrevocable hereditary privileges, a nobility that would represent the entire people at the throne and which would limit the autocracy. The sovereign, under the pressure of public opinion, must go to limit his own power. To mobilize public opinion, the intellectual movement of the Russian nobility should be directed accordingly, and its duty should be explained to it" ^{[2, p. 46]} …

Both tasks set by Pushkin, as we understand today, were utopian, and to Pushkin's credit, he eventually had to part with his illusions. Pushkin formulated these tasks for himself in many ways as a poet, and appreciated their unreality already as the smartest man in Russia. By 1834, he was groping for a more realistic civic position: it is necessary to work not for the tsar, but for the government, education and enlightenment, that is, for Russian culture. In an article about Radishchev , Pushkin writes: "I did not begin my notes in order to flatter the authorities, comrade, the one chosen by me, is a thin inspirer of endearment, but I cannot help but notice that since the enthronement of the Romanovs, from Mikhail Fedorovich to Nicholas, the government has always been ahead of us in the field of education and enlightenment. The people follow him always lazily, and sometimes reluctantly" ^{[2, p. 58]}.

  But by this time Alexander Sergeyevich had thoroughly got into debt, got entangled in relations with the tsar, who deftly used his political dreams, came under fire from critics who expected Pushkin's former romantic poems. In early June 1834, he wrote to his wife: "... I should not have joined the service and, even worse, entangle myself with monetary obligations. The dependence of family life makes a person more moral. The dependence that we impose on ourselves out of ambition or out of need humiliates us. Now they look at me as a slave, with whom they can do as they please. Disgrace is easier than contempt. I, like Lomonosov, do not want to be a fool below the Lord God." Pushkin found himself at a crossroads: he could not, and did not want to turn back, but he could not live as before.

  Probably, at this fateful time for him, Pushkin began to better understand the position of Karamzin and Chaadaev, who preferred to distance themselves from the tsarist government and valued personal freedom above all else…Judging by the lyrics of the last two years, Pushkin is beginning to lean towards this.

                               There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will.

                               I 've been dreaming of an enviable share for a long time ?

                               Long ago, a tired slave, I plotted escape

                               To the abode of distant labors and pure bliss.

  And then in prose: "Oh, will I soon transfer my penates to the village ? fields, garden, peasants, books; poetic works - family, love, etc. "religion, death." However, in 1834, to which these lines refer, Pushkin's illusions had not yet completely dried up, he was not yet ready to radically change his life for the third time" ^{[12, pp. 123-125]}. But let's return to the "Peasant Lady".

         An attentive reader may notice that the author identified the two lives in the "Peasant Lady" with the two lives of Alexander Sergeevich, but this is probably not the same thing. I do not argue, but I will note that a common problem of choice can bring them closer, as well as the fact that both oppositions are about the old and the new (world, life). In addition, our psyche, as I show, most often tries to identify situations close to consciousness, even resorts to hallucinations for this, the phenomenon of "prophetic dreams" is based on this, in particular. ^{[10, pp. 83-85; 11]} Of course, the "Peasant lady" is not a waking dream, but an artistic one the work, however, made as a fairy tale, as a utopia, it, in fact, solves a similar task ? it preserves the mental health of Pushkin and his enlightened readers who find themselves in the gap between the old and the new life.

         We see another example of the connection and reconciliation of two forms of our life in the life of Marina Tsvetaeva. In the early 20s in Moscow, she faced a dilemma: to start working and quit poetry in order to raise children, which was very difficult in these hungry years, or to continue writing poetry, turning a blind eye to children. Marina chooses the second way, continues to write poetry, attend poetry gatherings, and hands over the children to the Kuntsevo orphanage (saying that these are other people's children, otherwise they would not have been taken). The children in the orphanage get sick, and the unloved Irina dies, while Marina did not even come to her funeral. It cannot be said that she did not understand the enormity of her behavior, she understood it perfectly, but justified it, on the one hand, like Pushkin, with the help of art (in this case, poetry), on the other hand, by keeping a diary where she explains her actions, on the third hand, almost philosophically, claiming that the great poets (artists) morality does not apply. Here is the first excuse, well, not exactly an excuse, but rather an image of life in the desired direction. The eldest, beloved daughter, Alya begs her mother to come, writes that if her mother does not come, she will commit suicide, and Marina at this time composes beautiful poems on her topic.

"Little house spirit,

My house genius!

Here it is, the separation of two

Kindred inspirations!

I feel sorry when in the oven

Heat, – and you don't see!

At the door – a star in my night!

You won't get up, you won't get out!

                     Your dresses are hanging,

Exactly the forbidden fruit.

On the attic window – garden

Blooms – in vain.

Pigeons are knocking on the window, –

It's boring with pigeons!

The winds shout hello to me, –

God be with them, with the winds!

Not to tell the gray winds,

Flocks of pigeons –

Your miraculous

Voice: – Marina!" ^[16]

The second excuse in Tsvetaeva's diary: "Irina! – I don't think much about her now, I've never loved her in the present, always in a dream – I loved her when I came to Lila and saw her fat and healthy, I loved her this autumn when Nadia (nanny) brought her from the village, admired her wonderful hair. But the sharpness of novelty was passing, love was cooling down, I was annoyed by her stupidity, (her head was plugged like a cork!) her filth, her greed, somehow I didn't believe that she would grow up – although I didn't think about her death at all – it was just that she was a creature without a future… Irina's death is as unreal to me as her life.— I don't know the disease, I didn't see her sick, I wasn't present at her death, I didn't see her dead, I don't know where her grave is.

– Monstrous? – Yes, from the outside. But God, Who sees my heart, knows that it was not out of indifference that I did not go to the orphanage to say goodbye to her, but because I COULD NOT. (I didn't come to live... )

Irina! If there is heaven, you are in heaven, understand and forgive me, who was a bad mother to you, who could not overcome dislike for your dark incomprehensible essence" ^[14].

The third is in the article "Art in the light of conscience". "Artistic creativity," Tsvetaeva writes in the article "Art in the light of Conscience", "in other cases, a kind of atrophy of conscience, I will say more: a necessary atrophy of conscience, that moral flaw, without which it, art, cannot be. In order to be good (not to tempt these little ones), art would have to give up a good half of itself. The only way for art to be obviously good is not to be. It will end with the life of the planet <...> “An exception in favor of genius.” Our whole attitude to art is an exception in favor of genius. Art itself is the genius in favor of which we are excluded (turned off) from the moral law… The state of creativity is the state of dreaming, when you suddenly, obeying an unknown necessity, set fire to a house or push a friend down a mountain. Is this your act? Clearly yours (you're sleeping, you're sleeping!). Yours is in full freedom, your act is without conscience, you are nature…  The poet is often compared to a child by the assumption of innocence alone. I would compare them on the assumption of one irresponsibility. Irresponsibility in everything except the game" ^[15]. 

"Therefore, if you want to serve God or people, in general, you want to serve, do a good deed, join the Salvation Army or somewhere else - and drop the poems <...> And knowing this, having signed it in full reason and firm memory, I affirm in no less complete and no less firm that I would not exchange my business for any other. Knowing more, I create less. Therefore, there is no forgiveness for me. Only people like me will be asked at the Last Judgment of conscience. But if there is a Last Judgment of the word, I am clean on it" ^[15].     

         Again, we see that incompatible forms of life in life may well coexist in art or in other types of rationality of personality consciousness. From the point of view of morality or the harsh reality of life, such coexistence is an action of a protective mechanism in the human psyche, a form of escapism, but from another point of view (ecological), it is a way to preserve mental health.