Psychological constructs of the character of professional military men in the works of A.S. Pushkin

Naumov Petr Yur'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-2875-2322 PhD in Pedagogy Assistant to the Head of the Hospital for Legal Work; Head of the Department of Legal Support; Main Military Clinical Hospital of the National Guard Troops of the Russian Federation 143914, Russia, Moscow region, Balashikha, ul. Vishnyakovskaya, 101 petr.naumov.777@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. The study of images of the Russian military intelligentsia, woven from historical portraits of heroes and intertwined with fictional artistic characters, who eventually became independent carriers of psychological properties characteristic of the Russian officers is an urgent scientific task for modern psychological knowledge. This is due to the fact that it is historical and artistic landmarks and images that enter the subjective value field of a personality from an early age, the formation of a child in the family and school and the formation of cognitive, communicative and axiological potentials of his consciousness.

The relevance of this study is also due to the fact that the practical organization of the educational and educational process in a military university of any profile requires the presentation of the best examples of professional behavior to the students. In this aspect, using the potential of the personal example of literary heroes has serious prospects and is effective, since the heroes of fiction books are familiar to the future officer from school.

In the Russian aesthetic and artistic tradition, the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin stands apart as the creator of unique and specific cultural and psychological characteristics of his characters, reflecting not only the patterns and drama of personality development, but also in many ways anticipating the development of all Russian literature. From a heuristic point of view, it is very valuable that the work of Alexander Sergeevich is familiar to a huge number of readers from a very young age, and attracts them to a very advanced age.

The purpose of the study is a comprehensive knowledge of the psychological characteristics of the personality of professional military personnel based on the study of the character of the heroes of the works of A.S. Pushkin, who, according to the writer's artistic plan, are professional military men. In the aspect of achieving the objective of the study, the main task of the work is the consistent disclosure of psychological characteristics that are characteristic of the images of the military in the works of A.S. Pushkin.

The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it summarizes the qualities and personality traits of professional military heroes of the works of A.S. Pushkin. Prior to this study, problems of this kind have not been solved in the scientific literature. The present work resolves this contradiction and provides conceptual answers to the questions of what typological character traits professional military men possessed from among the heroes of A.S. Pushkin's works, how they built their social activities and what psychological problems they faced.

The research uses system-activity and axiological approaches as a reference methodology. They made it possible to understand the psychological properties of the personality of A.S. Pushkin's heroes as a set of their typological character traits, identify their social functions and summarize information about how they can serve as an example for students. The main methods of obtaining meaningful scientific information in the framework of this study were theoretical, general logical and empirical intellectual methods and techniques (analysis, analogy, abstraction, generalization, comparison, conceptualization).

The subject of the research in the article is the knowledge of the psychological properties of professional soldiers, characteristic of their images in the works of A.S. Pushkin. It is worth mentioning right away that the psychological constructs in this study are understood by the author as those existential, value-semantic, cognitive, communicative and aesthetic properties of the personality of a professional military man, the totality of which determines both his social functions and actions in specific social situations.

The main part. The gallery of military images in the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is representative and diverse: from the fabulous knight Ruslan, the medieval knight and Prophetic Oleg to figures of historical scale – Peter I and Pugachev. Yemelyan Pugachev, of course, does not belong to intellectuals either by occupation or by origin, but all other military men in the image of the writer are officers and noble people.

For example, Prince Ruslan is the main character of the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". Researchers A.L. Slonimsky and B.V. Tomashevsky noted that the poet paints him in different genre colors: Ruslan appears as a fairy-tale character, a legendary Russian knight, a medieval knight, a sentimental lover, and the hero of a ballad. Ruslan goes in search of his wife, whom the evil wizard Chernomor kidnaps from the bedroom immediately after the wedding feast.

Researcher J.F. Jacquard points out that Ruslan, in an effort to free Lyudmila from captivity, is eager to finish what he started in the bedroom, returning to the interrupted "delights". The eroticism of the plot is ridiculed by the ironic author. Ruslan has his feeling on his side, his strength as a warrior, as well as the help of the hermit Finn and the heroic head. The prince defeats in battle one of his three rivals, the warrior Rogdai, the head of Chernomor's brother and the wizard himself. He does not stray on the way to the charms of "charming, half–naked" maidens, like his competitor Ratmir, he is not lazy and not mean, like Farlaf, his other rival for the liberation of Lyudmila, who, pushed by the sorceress Naina, kills the sleeping Ruslan and brings Lyudmila to the palace. Ruslan, for all the ridicule of the author, is the direct heir of the heroes of Russian fairy tales and epics. As once the blows of Ilya Muromets were mosquito bites for Svyatogor, so Ruslan's blows for the giant head are tickling the nostrils; Svyatogor shares his power with Ilya, the heroic head entrusts the magic sword to our hero. And good magic accompanies Ruslan – Finn gives him the secret of Chernomor's beard, and then revives the murdered man. But the most important thing is that Ruslan protects Kiev from the Pechenegs – describing the battle with them, Pushkin calls the hero a "hero":

The sudden cry of battles broke out;

The heart of Kiev was confused;

They run in disjointed crowds

And they see: in the field between the enemies,

Resplendent in armor, as if on fire,

A wonderful warrior on horseback

It rushes like a thunderstorm, stabs, cuts,

In a roaring horn, flying, blowing ...

It was Ruslan. Like God's thunder,

Our hero fell on the basurman;

He's prowling with Carla behind the saddle

Among the frightened camp.

Wherever the terrible sword whizzes,

Wherever an angry horse rushes,

Everywhere the heads fall off the shoulders

And with a scream, the line falls on the line;

In an instant, the battle meadow

Covered with mounds of bloody bodies,

Alive, crushed, headless,

A mass of spears, arrows, chain mail.

To the trumpet sound, to the voice of battle

Cavalry squads of Slavs

We raced in the footsteps of the hero,

We fought... gibney, basurman! ^{[6, p. 71]}

S.M. Bondi claimed that the description of this battle is not much inferior in skill to the famous Poltava battle in the poem "Poltava".

The following ancient warriors of Pushkin are the heroes of the "Stingy Knight", one of his "Little Tragedies". At the center of the work is the conflict between father and son, the Baron and the young knight Albert. Both of these warriors are being tested with money. And, although one saves wealth, and the other needs funds for knight's armor, both are equally conquered by the golden calf. The Baron's thrift turned into avarice, dried up his soul, linking feelings and thoughts only with the accumulation of gold:

Oh, if I could get away from the eyes of the unworthy

I hide the basement! Oh, if only from the grave

I could have come as a watchful shadow

Sitting on a chest and away from the living

To keep my treasures as they are now!..^{[6, p. 347]}

The Baron says about his son:

He spends his youth in a riot,

In the vices of low...^{[6, p. 350]}

For Albert, being a knight means serving the cult of a beautiful lady and participating in court tournaments. For the baron, a representative of a former era, being a knight means first of all being a brave warrior and a rich feudal lord, and although he is old, in the final scene he says to the Duke:

... God will give war, so I

Ready, groaning, to climb back on the horse;

The old sword will still get the strength

To bare it for you with a trembling hand. ^{[6, p. 349]}.

And the Duke answers:

Baron, we know your diligence;

You were my grandfather's friend; my father

I respected you. And I've always considered

You are a faithful, brave knight...^{[6, p. 349]}

But the Baron is in vain proud of his military spirit, the Baron has already been defeated, defeated by wealth, and therefore his own son becomes an enemy for him, he is fighting in his house, in his family, fighting with his son – his heir. In front of the Duke, he throws down the gauntlet to his son. Albert picks it up, ready to kill his father in a duel. "A terrible age, terrible hearts!" exclaims the sovereign. G.A. Gukovsky relied on these words ^[2], blaming the spirit of the times and recognizing for each of the characters his own truth – the truth of outdated and new social principles. Yu.M. Lotman, on the contrary, wrote that in "The Stingy Knight" the plot collides two equally great untruths that absorb the ancestral truth of humanity ^[3].

Literary critics pay attention to the fact that Albert picks up the glove thrown by his father very quickly ^{[1, p. 140]}.

The idea of class-based noble justice is embodied in the tragedy of the "Stingy Knight" Duke, who calls the Baron a "madman" and Albert a "fiend". Practically here we observe how a warrior can be reborn and actually die in a person – a warrior as a defender of the country, as the embodiment of masculinity and honor.

One cannot but say about the view of the tragedy "The Miserly Knight" by the Russian literary critic, linguist and cultural historian D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky. Since he was a student and follower of A.A. Potebni, one of the founders of the psychological trend in literary studies, and in the analysis of works of art he proceeded from the study of the spiritual experiences of a literary hero, and then moved towards the method of his artistic embodiment, then, considering the Baron, he makes a psychological diagnosis and names the reasons that nourished and nurtured in a person passion: "... avarice is reduced here to the thirst for power, domination over people and the belief that wealth is the surest means to achieve an end. The baron is first of all an ambitious man, and then a miser, who finally turned into a miser" ^{[4, p. 16]}.

Money also becomes the dream of another Pushkin hero – a young engineer officer Hermann from A.S. Pushkin's novel "The Queen of Spades".

The military, gathered at the horse guardsman Narumov, are amazed by the behavior of Hermann, who "has never taken ... cards in his hands... and sits until five o'clock... and looks at our game!" ^{[7, p. 374]} One of the audience – Tomsky – remarks: "Hermann is a German: he is calculating, that's all!" ^{[7, p. 374]}, this man is understandable, incomprehensible to Tomsky is his grandmother, who does not pontificate, that is, no longer plays cards.

Countess Anna Fedotovna does not pick up cards because she faithfully fulfills the order of the legendary Saint-Germain, who saved her from a huge debt to the Duke of Orleans and made her promise not to play anymore.

Tomsky's story excited Hermann most of all. This passionate man is constantly fighting with himself: "Hermann was the son of a Russified German who left him a small capital. Being firmly convinced of the need to strengthen his independence, Hermann did not touch interest, lived on a salary, did not allow himself the slightest whim. However, he was secretive and ambitious, and his comrades rarely had a chance to laugh at his excessive frugality. He had strong passions and a fiery imagination, but firmness saved him from the ordinary delusions of youth. For example, being a gambler at heart, he never took cards in his hands, because he calculated that his condition did not allow him (as he said) to sacrifice what was necessary in the hope of acquiring what was superfluous, and yet he sat at card tables all night and followed with feverish trepidation the various turns of the game. The anecdote about the three cards had a strong effect on his imagination and did not leave his head for the whole night" ^{[7, p. 382]}.

As a military man and a prudent German, Hermann built a plan to take the secret of three cards: to charm Lizaveta Ivanovna, a pupil of the countess, with letters, then with the help of Lizaveta Ivanovna to get to the countess and, finally, to find out the desired secret from the countess. Hermann does not take into account the specific means of such tactics – he does not talk about the life and reputation of these two women, he talks about the wealth he seeks to acquire, and in the face of an old, greatly frightened Anna Fedotovna, he talks about his strategy: "For whom do you protect your secret? For the grandchildren? They are rich enough without that; they don't know the value of money either. Your three cards won't help the Mot. Those who do not know how to protect their father's inheritance will still die in poverty, despite all the demon efforts. I'm not a moth; I know the value of money. Your three cards will not be lost for me" ^{[7, p. 388]}.

The Countess is silent, and Hermann says: "Think that a person's happiness is in your hands; that not only I, but my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will bless your memory and honor it as a shrine… The old woman did not answer a word" ^{[7, p. 388]}.

Anna Fedotovna in the scene with Hermann is consistently referred to as "the countess", "the old woman" and, finally, "the old witch"; the man takes a pistol out of his pocket, threatening to force the old woman to answer, but she does not give up – this soldier of honor does not betray his savior Saint Germain, this soldier simply dies.

To get out of the house, Hermann had to go to someone who would help him do this – Lizaveta Ivanovna. Hermann told her everything. The girl wept bitterly after learning that it was not love for her, but money that the soul of this man "craved", that she was "a blind assistant ... to the murderer of her benefactress." The author writes: "Hermann looked at her in silence: his heart was also tormented, but neither the tears of the poor girl nor the amazing charm of her grief disturbed his harsh soul. He felt no remorse at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing terrified him: the irretrievable loss of a secret from which he expected to enrich himself" ^{[7, p. 391]}.

Lizaveta Ivanovna calls Hermann a monster, and he justifies himself by answering that he did not want the Countess dead, because his pistol was not loaded. A futile lie! His pistol went off without a shot, the pistol worked, because Anna Fedotovna was killed, killed by the sight of a formidable weapon, the pressure of the cruelty of an unknown man who looked into her soul and demanded not the secrets of the cards, but such a great secret, in which a woman who once shone in Paris, who knew the greatest people of her time and loved them, did not admit I could have done it to no one. It is also possible that she was made not only to vow not to play anymore, but also to vow not to reveal the secret of the three cards; or maybe the secret could still be said once, which she did; maybe the open secret "worked" only for the person you fell in love with – perhaps Chaplitsky Anna Fedotovna fell in love… One thing is clear: it was impossible to reveal the secret to the Countess, and she fulfilled her duty to the end at the cost of her life. In addition, Hermann did not die, as the countess who acquired a gambling debt at the French royal court once died, Hermann was not in despair from the losses that Chaplitsky could have, because Hermann did not need help in the most difficult moment of his life - he needed enrichment.

Lizaveta Ivanovna is horrified when she sees a portrait of Napoleon in the sitting Hermann, she recalls Tomsky's words: "... he has the profile of Napoleon, and the soul of Mephistopheles. I think he has at least three villainies on his conscience" ^{[7, p. 390]}.

The Countess nevertheless calls Hermann three lucky cards – she comes to him after death. Why does it still come? Because he says that he became "the cause of her death, because " without feeling remorse, he could not, however, completely drown out the voice of conscience, telling him: you are the murderer of an old woman! Having little true faith, he had many prejudices. He believed that the dead Countess could have a harmful effect on his life..." ^{[7, p. 392]}.

Hermann is in a hurry to use the power of luck given to him by the ghost. Luck is the meaning of the Pharaoh game played by the heroes of The Queen of Spades, a game in which it is not the skill of the player, but chance that determines the winnings. One of the players throws a pot – this is a banker, the other player makes a bet – this is a punter. The punter chooses a card from his deck, which he bets on, and the banker sweeps his deck left and right. If the ponter's card was placed to the right of the banker, then the banker won, if to the left of the banker, then the ponter won. Lermontov's Arbenin from "Masquerade", Tolstoy's Nikolai Rostov from "War and Peace" play "Pharaoh" or "stoss". The game had two decks with 52 cards from deuce to ace. In the Queen of Spades, the game was played with new decks printed at the table to avoid cheating. Hermann did not name his card, but simply selected it from the deck and placed it upside down on the table. The opponent did not know which card he was betting on. This is also a precaution so that there is no deception.

Hermann wins both a three, a seven, and an ace. But he "pulls himself together", and the queen of spades on the map laughs at him again, as does the deceased countess in the coffin, to whom he came.

What is the reason that Hermann is losing? Next to this question, another one arises: was it worth believing the countess who had dreamed in this way? F.M. Dostoevsky, who found The Queen of Spades to be the height of fantastic art, wrote: the reader believes that Herman really had a vision, but after reading the story, he does not know whether this vision came from Hermann's nature or whether he touched the world of spirits hostile to man.

A look at the heroes of the story from the military side allows you to highlight the images of the "Queen of Spades" in a special way. The beginning of the story is a card game by the horse guardsman Narumov; the military, acquiring the skill of combat, nevertheless are also at the mercy of chance, which can equally save them and ruin them; playing cards is an attempt to prevail over chance. About the game of "pharaoh" by Hermann and Chekalinsky, who came from Moscow to St. Petersburg, "who spent the whole century playing cards and once made millions by winning bills and losing clean money," Pushkin says: "It was like a duel" ^{[7, p. 397]}. We fought at the card table. A man who has played cards all his life, and a man who has never picked up a card. Hermann is completely at the mercy of his vision. Perceiving the arrival of the dead countess from a military perspective, one can say: who came from another world in the guise of Anna Fedotovna or Anna Fedotovna herself says that she came "against her will", that she was "ordered to fulfill" his request, that is, this is an order and she is the executor of the order, his slave; the Countess's own request to Hermann – to marry her pupil Lizaveta Ivanovna, only then does she forgive Hermann her own death. This is not just a condition – it is also an order, and a man must fulfill it without fail. If there is a gift, there is a fee for it. Hermann does not want to pay anyone or anything – neither feelings and hands to Lizaveta Ivanovna, nor gratitude to the countess, nor to the occasion itself for the money won from Chekalinsky twice. Many researchers believe that Hermann was punished for not having plans to marry Lizaveta Ivanovna, and "All his thoughts merged into one – to take advantage of a secret that cost him dearly. He began to think about retirement and about traveling. He wanted to force the treasure from the enchanted fortune in the open gambling houses of Paris" ^{[7, p. 395]}.

Analyzing this amazing story, they write that after the first win, Herman had to get married, that he did not have to play for the third time. But that's not the point at all. If special forces interfere in the matter, if they find and visit a person, then they, knowing too well not only his actions, but also all his thoughts, always test the person and almost always offer the impossible. The loss did not happen in the third game, not on the third day – it was already in the first game of Hermann and Chkalinsky, and even more so in the second, it was already in the fact that Hermann believed the vision. (But he didn't fully believe it, otherwise he would have done everything he was told. Hermann believed that a secret had been revealed to him.) He could have lost money by winning for the third time, as Chaplitsky and Chekalinsky lost huge winnings, but he does not even lose his life – it remains meaningless, Hermann loses the very reason that, the only one, is able to cope with passions, fears, and social limitations, both with faith and prejudice. In fact, it is reason that is the payment that is charged by otherworldly forces for the gift of a secret, because this secret was not intended for Hermann. Hermann has been at the mercy of these forces for a long time: constant observation of the card game; the perceived story about the countess at his own expense; the involuntary appearance at the countess's house; the theft of Anna Fedotovna (Hermann first asks, then convinces the countess to reveal the secret of winning, then begs, then threatens, and then wants to snatch the secret of three cards by force and weapon); the mockery of the dead woman in the coffin he saw; the vision itself; the mockery of the map. I don't want to say that the hero is gradually going crazy – I'm talking about how consistently the mind surrenders its positions in this person, but at the same time this mind begins to "work" for passion: we have already mentioned that the penetration into the countess's house was planned in detail in a military way. Hermann's mind did not see a contradiction in the words of the ghost: the countess says that she came against her will and at the same time claims that she forgives him her death. But this means that the Countess has not forgiven. She herself or someone big for her (maybe Saint Germain) is taking revenge on someone who has encroached on becoming the master of a secret that is intended for salvation, not for enrichment. For the military, this is a choice of two hypostases: invader or defender, conqueror or savior. Generally speaking, special, fateful secrets are not revealed – they are bestowed, and bestowed on someone who deserves it, or just someone who is loved.

The Queen of Spades tells about the card games of the upper world: indirectly about the game at the royal court of France and in person about the game under the chairmanship of Chekalinsky in a society of rich players, where Hermann was brought by the horse Guard Narumov (horse guards – elite royal troops). These games are attended by very noble people, whose fortunes have been developing for generations. Yes, having or acquiring millions, winning, receiving as an inheritance or with a dowry, they can lose these millions, which is why the game of "pharaoh" was eventually banned. Hermann strives to complete this path of acquiring wealth, which took centuries for high-born people, in one lifetime, but this crushes him. Usually, in the greedy desire to play, to play endlessly, both when losing and when winning, they see the passion of the player – for Hermann, this is an unstoppable thirst for enrichment: no matter how much you have, everything is small compared to the insane dream of all–encompassing possession, even to the limit beyond which you lose everything – health, sincere human relationships, the very mind. But at the same time, how dangerous it is to save money without using it, how dangerous it is to sit at the card table and not play! How dangerous it is to live without giving yourself the will to live!

Ibrahim in the "Arap of Peter the Great" is the son of an African prince, presented to Peter I, who became his godson and was sent "to foreign lands to acquire information necessary for the transformed state." Ibrahim studied at the Paris military College, and was released as an artillery captain, distinguished himself in the Spanish War. The splendor of Paris, the attention of women, and the affection of Countess D. kept Ibrahim in France, but Peter I wrote a letter to his godson saying that "he leaves it to his good will to return to Russia or not, but that in any case he will never leave his former pet. Nothing had touched Ibrahim so much, "to the depths of his heart," until now, because women looked at him as a kind of rare beast, and Countess D. was "wayward and frivolous."

Ibrahim leaves for Russia, because he sees this as his own duty. The tsar rode out to meet him in two days. Here they are in St. Petersburg. Ibrahim is curious about "the newborn capital, which rose from the swamp due to the mania of autocracy. Naked dams, canals without embankments, wooden bridges everywhere showed the recent victory of the human will over the resistance of the elements" ^{[7, p. 188]}.

Possessing an accurate and observant mind, possessing a sense of gratitude, Ibrahim "saw that the new way of life awaiting him, activity and constant pursuits could revive his soul, tired of passions, idleness and secret despondency. The idea of being an associate of a great man and acting together with him on the fate of a great nation aroused in him for the first time a noble sense of ambition" ^{[7, p. 190]}.

Famous researchers S.L. Abramovich, L.I. Volpert, V.F. Khodasevich, L. Yakubovich saw in Ibrahim's views on Russia, St. Petersburg, and Peter I an objective view of history itself, different from the point of view of the tsar's confidants, whom they accept only as a ruler, and different from the point of view of the boyars as a symbol of the old the Russian way of life.

Peter I in the "Black Sheep of Peter the Great" is a caring father of his country, from which he builds a strong empire, he is a hard worker and a master ^{[7, p. 189]}.

A.S. Pushkin's poem "Stanzas" gives us a three-dimensional image of the indefatigable and strong tsar-emperor:

With an autocratic hand

He boldly sowed enlightenment,

He did not despise his native country:

He knew its purpose.

Now an academician, now a hero,

Now a navigator, now a carpenter,

He is an all-encompassing soul

There was an eternal worker on the throne ^{[5, p. 226]}.

The portrait of Peter I is framed by lines of appeals to Nicholas I, whom the poet urges to be like his ancestor - adamant, but not malicious in memory: the artist calls for the Decembrists to be pardoned. The poet was condemned for this poem.

In the poem "Poltava" A.S. Pushkin created the image of Peter the Great not only as a statesman, but also as a warrior and commander. About the time to which the poet dedicates his work, he said:

It was that time of troubles,

When Russia is young,

Straining my strength in the struggles,

She was married to Peter's genius.

He was harsh in the science of glory

She has been given a teacher: not one

The lesson is unexpected and bloody

The Swedish paladin asked her ^{[6, p. 164]}.

The main part of the poem is devoted to the fate of Hetman of Ukraine Mazepa and his betrayal of Russia and the tsar – the more contrasting is the image of the future emperor fighting for his Homeland:

... From the tent,

Surrounded by a crowd of favorites,

Peter comes out. His eyes

They shine. His face is terrible.

The movements are fast. He's beautiful,

He is all like God's thunderstorm ^{[6, p. 191]}.

After the victory over Karl

At the clicks of his army,

In his tent he treats

Their leaders, the leaders of others,

And he caresses the glorious captives,

And for their teachers

Raises the cup of health ^{[6, p. 194]}

This is a noble warrior, a noble lord, who has enemies, who has traitors, whom he does not always recognize, who has formed a strong army, a strong environment:

These are the chicks of Petrov's nest –

In the premenes of the earthly lot,

In the Works of the State and the War

His comrades, his sons...^{[6, p. 192]}

The image of Peter I in "Poltava" is, of course, schematic – the victory is not schematically conveyed; vividly, in military details, the battle that became the apogee of the Northern War is resolved.

M.O. Gershenzon and Y.M. Lotman noted that Peter I differs from other heroes of the poem – the Ukrainian hetman Mazepa and his associate Kochubey – in that he is driven not by a thirst for power or revenge, but by a high passion for statesmanship, that for Peter power is not an instrument of violence, like Mazepa, but an instrument of national creativity that the future emperor is associated with the poet's element of the nascent light, while Mazepa is associated with the night element.

In Belkin's Novellas, A.S. Pushkin portrayed officer Silvio (the story "Shot"), hussar Minsky ("Stationmaster"), heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812, Hussar Colonel Burmin and army ensign Vladimir, who died from a wound received on Borodin's field (the story "Blizzard").

The image of Silvio is especially noteworthy among the military shown in Belkin's Novels. A.O. Kojak and M.A. Petrovsky consider Silvio a duelist obsessed with revenge, find the "byronic" description of the hero's appearance to look like a parody, and see his spiritual appearance as unambiguous. But this view is fundamentally wrong. This is a real freedom of interpretation of a polysemous text.

It is known that the short novel "Shot" opens to the reader the "Stories of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin", demonstrating the depth, essence and strength of the Russian military character, brave, just and indomitable, although it uses original creative material and techniques for this.

Silvio, who seemed to be Russian, but bearing a foreign name, once served in the Hussars, but retired and settled "in a poor place where he lived together both poorly and wastefully: he walked forever on foot, in a worn-out black coat, and kept an open table for all the officers of our regiment. True, his dinner consisted of two or three dishes made by a retired soldier, but champagne flowed freely at the same time" ^{[7, p. 228]}.

Silvio's main exercise, according to the narrator's memoirs (the narrator is young, and he and his comrades considered 35-year-old Silvio an old man) was shooting with a pistol: "The walls of his room were all riddled with bullets, all in boreholes, like honeycombs of bees. A rich collection of pistols was the only luxury of the poor hut where he lived. The art he achieved was incredible, and if he had volunteered to knock a pear off someone's cap with a bullet, no one in our regiment would have hesitated to expose their heads to him" ^{[7, p. 228]}.

And so the young officers gathered in Silvio's house began to play cards, persuading the owner to throw the pot: "For a long time he refused, because he almost never played; finally he ordered the cards to be served..." ^{[7, pp. 228-229]}. While playing, Silvio kept "perfect silence, never argued or explained, if ponter happened to miscalculate, he immediately either paid the rest or wrote down the excess" ^{[7, p. 229]}. The officers knew this and did not interfere with the management, but the recently transferred officer was outraged, let a copper shand into Silvio, the duel was resolved, everyone considered the new comrade killed. However, Silvio did not fight, contenting himself with an easy explanation and reconciliation. And all because Silvio had postponed a dueling shot at the count who had once insulted him. Yes, the hero fought with the count for the championship in the Hussar regiment. Silvio was reputed to be the first brawler in the army: in all the duels that happened every minute in their regiment, he was either a witness or an actor and enjoyed his fame as a man whom his comrades adored, and the regimental commanders perceived as a necessary evil. A young rich and noble man who joined the regiment, "a brilliant lucky man," as Silvio said of him, shook this primacy: "His successes in the regiment and in the company of women drove me to utter despair. I began to look for quarrels with him; he answered my epigrams with epigrams that always seemed to me more unexpected and sharper than mine, and which, of course, were not an example of more fun: he was joking, and I was angry. Finally, one day at a ball at the Polish landowner's, seeing him the object of attention of all the ladies, and especially the hostess herself, who was in touch with me, I said some flat rudeness in his ear. He flared up and slapped me in the face. We rushed to the sabers; the ladies fainted; we were dragged apart, and that same night we went to fight" ^{[7, p. 232]}.

One should not be deceived by the revelation of the hero, because he judges himself. A few years later, the count will frankly tell his wife about the narrator who came to visit them: "... I will tell everything; he knows how I offended his friend: let him find out how Silvio took revenge on me" ^{[7, p. 237]}.

Silvio postpones his duel shot because the count, having shot through his cap, I lowered the pistol. "You don't seem to be dying now," I told him, "you're having breakfast; I don't want to disturb you" ^{[7, p. 233]}. It is known that this fact of the fate of the characters of the "Shot" is autobiographical: in 1822, in Chisinau, Pushkin ate cherries in a duel while his opponent was shooting. The initials "I. L. P.", appearing in the story, hint at the famous poet of Pushkin's time, I.P. Liprandi.

Every day Silvio thinks about revenge, but comes to the count's estate only when he is preparing for the wedding. In the days of his youth, the duel for the count was a game of enthusiasm and eternal luck that accompanied him, now he values his life.

Literary research on the subject of social envy of the "romantic" hero for the "lucky idle man", on the subject of the meanness of Silvio, who allegedly violates the unwritten code of noble honor and aims at a duel opponent in front of a woman ^{[1, pp. 171-173]}, is a subjective presentation of psychological attitudes (constructs). It is necessary to objectify these constructs.

The installation is the first. For Silvio, defending honor is not a game, he wants to see the same thing from a person in a duel that decides their life and their death. And Silvio expects a situation in the count's life when he will be considered even before the shot is fired. Not to despise, because this is not a prince or a count, or a rich man, but to appreciate and respect as an equal.

The second installation. Silvio, who was left with a shot, suggests casting lots again: "I regret ... that the gun is not loaded with cherry stones ... the bullet is heavy. It always seems to me that we are not having a duel, but a murder: I am not used to aiming at an unarmed person. Let's start all over again; let's draw lots for who to shoot first" ^{[7, p. 237]}. Is this ostentatious nobility? This true nobility is one that is not related only to the bloodline of blood and wealth, but is related exclusively to your spiritual height.

The third installation. Silvio, as the count tells about his wife five years later, "wanted to aim at me in front of her!" Only "wanted to", but did not aim. If the count was really going to remove his wife, he would have done it more reliably. Suppose that she still broke through the closed doors, but the count, calming the woman, says words that do not distract her and do not send her out of the hall, but utters the false words "... don't you see that we are joking...", to which Silvio could not help but answer: the woman asks the stranger again, and he he does not want to be played with – Silvio perceives a woman equally, does not lie to her: "He is always joking, Countess... once he gave me a slap in the face, jokingly shot me this cap, jokingly gave me a miss now; now I want to joke!" ^{[7, p. 238]}.

The fourth installation. Silvio, having received a second shot by lot, shoots not at the count, but at the painting, which the count hit with his first shot. Why? Silvio answers this question himself: "... I am satisfied: I saw your confusion, your timidity; I made you shoot at me, I've had enough. You'll remember me. I betray you to your conscience" ^{[7, p. 238]}.

The fifth installation. Silvio does not use his brilliant shooting skills against a person. He shoots at the conscience – he said so. The count describes how his wife was worried, how he suffered. Why is there no mention of the code of noble honor here, since the continuation of the duel was postponed by the Count himself? The skill of the shooter is demonstrated in shooting at the canvas on the wall – Silvio, leaving and almost without aiming, hits the picture shot by the count. And so, years later, this painting with two bullets embedded in one another remained on the wall of the count's house.

The sixth installation. At the end of the story, it is reported that Silvio "during the indignation of Alexander Ypsilanti led a detachment of etherists and was killed in the battle of Skulyany" ^{[7, p. 238]}. He is not only a man of honor and nobility, not only as a military defender of his country, but also a fighter for the liberation of the Greeks from the enslavers of the Turks. The battle of Skulyany took place on June 17, 1821. There were four thousand Ottoman Turks, and only 400 Etherists. The Etherists fought bravely and desperately, and most of them died. General Inzov said, "If Ypsilanti had ten thousand like these, he would have been able to resist forty thousand Turks." The Russian tsar Alexander I did not help the Greek side in the battle of Skuliany, as everyone expected of him. Russian troops were stationed on the left bank of the Prut, but they only watched the battle, observing neutrality. When, unable to stand it, the soldiers rushed to help the rebels, the officers stopped them. So the Turks and the Greek etherists (as well as those who, like Silvio, helped them) had to fight hand-to-hand so that neither bullets nor shells hit the Russian coast. But even this is blamed on Silvio: he did not need the skill of a shooter here ^{[1, p. 173]}, he lost the purpose of life, and it consisted only in revenge, that's why he died. If the heroes of the liberation wars and battles, if the literary heroes presented to us by the writers, we will measure by the type of weapons they fought with, or even the absence of these weapons, then will we not remind the youngest Silvio, who was jealous of the count's successes? Silvio matured in his youthful enthusiasm, gained military skill, worldly wisdom and spiritual nobility and fell in battle, but are we able to appreciate such literary heroes and such people?

Conclusion. The psychological images of soldiers, military personnel, officers, and hereditary military in Russian fiction are different. The dramatic history of our country, its constant struggle for freedom, independence and its own territories, has also caused a corresponding cultural and historical trace in fiction, where images of professional soldiers were assigned a serious functional role.

Literary heroes, due to their influence on the formation of the consciousness of the younger generation, are independent sources and examples of professional behavior, value-semantic guidelines, and actions in specific social situations. Their knowledge is of great importance and allows you to more effectively and efficiently organize the educational process for the formation and development of the personality of a future officer in a military university.

The work summarizes the psychological constructs of the character of professional military in the work of the Great Russian writer and poet A.S. Pushkin. He endowed a warrior, a defender, a professional military man with a set of properties that characterize a serviceman as a very intelligent and even educated person, i.e. intelligent, direct, honest, morally mature, aesthetic, open but attentive to his behavior and the behavior of others. This is a man who is not indifferent to the fate of the country and citizens, desperately weak but just as merciful. In difficult social situations, a professional military man, according to the writer, is an active person, he is not characterized by inaction, apathy or frustration. Despite the bitterness from wrong actions, the works of A.S. Pushkin show the moral growth of the characters, the desire to purify the soul and conscience, prevent possible harm and atone for their mistakes.

The theoretical generalizations obtained based on the results of the conducted research can be useful in organizing educational work with cadets, as well as conducting other forms of work with military personnel in the formation of their personal qualities and value attitudes.