Kondraty Fyodorovich Ryleev

Voinarovsky

…Nessun maggior dolore

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice

Nella miseria…

(* There is no greater grief than remembering a happy time in misfortune ... Dante (it.).)

A. A. Bestuzhev

Like a sad, lonely wanderer, In the steppes of Arabia empty, From end to end with deep longing I wandered in the world as an orphan. The cold is hateful to people Noticeably penetrated into the soul, And I dared in madness Do not believe in selfless friendship. Suddenly you appeared to me: The bandage fell from my eyes; I completely lost faith And again in the sky The star of hope shone.

Accept the fruits of my labors, The fruits of careless leisure; I know friend you will accept them With all the care of a friend. Like Apollo's strict son, You will not see art in them: But you will find living feelings, - I am not a Poet, but a Citizen.

BIOLOGY OF MAZEPA

Mazepa is one of the most remarkable persons in Russian history of the 18th century. The place of birth and the first years of his life are shrouded in obscurity. It is only certain that he spent his youth at the Warsaw court, was a page of King John Casimir, and there he formed himself among the elite Polish youth. Unfortunate circumstances, still unexplained, forced him to flee Poland. History presents him for the first time in 1674 as Doroshenko's chief adviser, who, under the protection of Poland, ruled the lands that lay on the right side of the Dnieper. The Moscow court decided at that time to annex these countries to their state. Mazepa, having been taken prisoner at the very beginning of the war with Doroshenko, contributed greatly to the success of this enterprise with advice against his former boss and remained in the service of Samoylovich, the hetman of Little Russian Ukraine. Samoilovich, noticing in him a cunning mind and cunning, carried away by his eloquence, used it in negotiations with Tsar Feodor Alekseevich, with the Crimean Khan and with the Poles. In Moscow, Mazepa entered in connection with the first boyars of the royal court, and after the unsuccessful campaign of Sosria's favorite, Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn, to the Crimea in 1687, in order to deflect responsibility from this nobleman, he attributed the failure of this war to his benefactor Samoilovich; sent a denunciation about this to Tsars John and Peter, and as a reward for this act, in the machinations of Golitsyn, he was elevated to the rank of hetman of both Ukraines.

Meanwhile, the war with the Crimeans did not get tired: the campaign of 1688 was even more unsuccessful than last year; here at that time there was a change in the government. The dominion of Sophia and her favorite ended, and power passed into the hands of Peter. Mazepa, fearing to share the unfortunate fate with the nobleman, to whom he owed his elevation, decided to declare himself on the side of the young sovereign, accused Golitsyn of extortion and remained hetman.

Approved in this dignity, Mazepa tried in every possible way to win the favor of the Russian monarch. He participated in the Azov campaign; during Peter's travels to foreign lands, he happily fought with the Crimeans and was one of the first to advise breaking peace with the Swedes. In words and deeds, he seemed to be the most zealous champion of the benefits of Russia, expressed complete obedience to the will of Peter, warned his desires, and in 1701, when the Budzhatsky and Belgorod Tatars asked him to take them into protection, according to the ancient customs of the Cossacks, "the former Cossack customs passed, - he answered the deputies, - the hetmans do nothing without the order of the sovereign. In letters to the tsar, Mazepa said to himself that he was alone and that everyone around him was hostile to Russia; asked that they give him a chance to show his loyalty by allowing him to participate in the war against the Swedes, and in 1704, after a campaign in Galicia, he complained that King Augustus kept him inactive, did not give him ways to provide important services to the Russian Tsar. Peter, captivated by his mind, knowledge and pleased with his service, favored the hetman in a special way. He had unlimited power of attorney for him, showered him with favors, told him the most important secrets, listened to his advice. If it happened that the dissatisfied, complaining about the hetman, accused him of treason, the sovereign ordered them to be sent to Little Russia and judged as scoundrels who dared to vilify the worthy ruler of the Kozaks. As early as the end of 1705, Mazepa wrote to Golovkin: "I will never tear myself away from the service of my most merciful sovereign." At the beginning of 1706 he was already a traitor.

Several times already Stanislav Leshchinsky sent his attorneys to Mazepa with magnificent promises and convictions to bow to his side, but the latter always sent these proposals to Peter. Having planned treason, the ruler of Little Russia felt the need for pretense. Hating the Russians in his soul, he suddenly began to treat them in the most friendly way; in his letters to the sovereign, he assured more than ever of his devotion, and meanwhile, by secret means, fanned displeasure among the Cossacks against Russia. Under the pretext that the Cossacks were complaining about the hardships they had endured in the previous year's campaigns and in fortress work, he disbanded the army, withdrew the garrisons from the fortresses, and began to fortify Baturin; Mazepa himself pretended to be ill, went to bed, surrounded himself with doctors, did not get up from his bed for several days in a row, could neither walk nor stand, and while everyone considered him close to the coffin, he put his intentions into action: corresponded with Charles XII and Leshchinsky, negotiated at night with the Jesuit Zelensky sent from Stanislav about the grounds for surrendering Little Russia to the Poles, and sent secret agents to the Cossacks with disclosures that Peter intended to exterminate the Sich and that they were preparing for resistance. The hetman began to pretend even more when Charles entered Russia. In 1708, his illness intensified. Secret transfers with the Swedish king and letters to Peter became more frequent. He begged Charles for a speedy arrival in Little Russia and delivering him from the yoke of the Russians, and at the same time he wrote to Count Gavrila Ivanovich Golovkin that no charms could tear him away from the high-powered hand of the Russian Tsar and shake his immovable loyalty. Meanwhile, the Swedes were defeated at Good and Lesnoy, and Charles turned to Ukraine. Peter ordered the hetman to follow to Kyiv and attack the enemy convoy from the other side; but Mazepa did not move from Borzna; his feigned suffering increased hour by hour; On October 22, 1708, he wrote to Count Golovkin that he could not toss and turn without the help of his servants, did not eat food for more than 10 days, was deprived of sleep and, preparing to die, was already unction with oil, and on 29, having appeared in Gorki with 5000 Kozaks, put a mace and a bunchuk at the feet of Charles XII, as a sign of allegiance and loyalty.

What prompted Mazepa to betray? Was it his hatred for the Russians, which he received as a child, during his stay at the Polish court? Is it a love affair with one of the relatives of Stanislav Legtsinsky, who forced him to go over to the side of this king? Or, as some believe, love for the fatherland, which instilled in him an inappropriate fear that Little Russia, remaining under the dominion of the Russian Tsar, would be deprived of its rights? But in modern acts, I don’t see it in the act of the Hetman of Little Russia of this lofty feeling, which implies rejection of personal benefits and sacrificing oneself to the benefit of fellow citizens. Mazepa in his universals and his letters to the Cossacks swore by the most sacred names that he was acting for their good; but in a secret agreement with Stanislav, he gave Little Russia and Smolensk to Poland in order to be recognized as the sovereign prince of Polotsk and Vitebsk. Low, petty ambition led him to treason. The good of the Cossacks served him as a means to increase the number of his accomplices and as a pretext for concealing his treachery, and could he, brought up in a foreign land, having twice stained himself with betrayal, move with a noble feeling of love for his homeland?

Judge General Vasily Kochubey had long disagreed with Mazepa. His hatred for the hetman intensified from 1704, after the latter, using his power for evil, seduced Kochubey's daughter and, laughing at the complaints of his parents, continued his guilty relationship with her. Kochubey vowed revenge on Mazepa; having learned about his criminal plans, perhaps, driven by zeal for the king, he decided to reveal them to Peter. Agreeing with the Poltava colonel Iskra, they sent their denunciation to Moscow, and soon afterwards they themselves appeared there; but Mazepa's twenty years of loyalty and sixty-four years of life removed all suspicion from him. Peter, attributing the act of Kochubey and Iskra to personal hatred for the hetman, ordered them to be sent to Little Russia, where these unfortunate ones, having shown under torture that their testimonies were false, were executed on July 14, 1708 in Borshchagovka, 8 miles from Belaya Tserkov.

Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev is an outstanding Russian poet, a member of the Decembrist movement and a public figure. This man was distinguished by exceptional honesty, sincerity and disinterestedness, not allowing anyone to tarnish the title of a revolutionary. The decency and high level of morality of the poet are reflected in the images of the heroes of his own creations. Among them, it is worth noting the work of Ryleev "Voynarovsky".

Biography and revolutionary activity

In the life of an outstanding poet, there were many difficult situations and tragic moments that, most likely, made him grow up early. The works of Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev, who was born at the end of the 18th century - September 18, 1795 in the village of Batovo, St. Petersburg province, are thoroughly permeated with a warlike spirit, the struggle for justice.

The ideological views of the young Kondraty were formed during the period of his studies in the cadet corps in St. Petersburg from 1801 to 1814. The boy was assigned to this educational institution by his father, an army officer. By the way, the parent of little Kondraty could hardly be called exemplary: Fedor Ryleev was famous for his craving for alcohol, careless squandering, addiction to gambling and a wild lifestyle. During the training, the first works of Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev appeared.

The cadet did his military service abroad, in France. Returning to his homeland in 1818, the young man decided to devote himself to creativity. Two years later, Ryleev finished work on the famous ode "To the temporary worker." In the same year, Kondraty Fedorovich married Natalya Tevyasheva, the daughter of wealthy Ukrainian landowners. Despite the impoverished position of the groom, Natalya's parents did not interfere with the marriage and accepted their son-in-law, turning a blind eye to his unenviable financial situation.

A year later, Ryleev had to enter the civil service. The place of his work in 1821 was first the criminal chamber of St. Petersburg, and three years later - the Russian-American Company, where he held the position of the ruler of the office. Ryleev was not going to give up creativity and stop working on the creation of another poem, so he joined the Free Society of Russian Literature Lovers, and for two years (1823-1824) he published the Polar Star magazine together with Alexander Bestuzhev. In the same period, Kondraty Fedorovich joined the ranks of the Northern Decembrist Society, which radically changed his political views and played a fatal role in later life.

If earlier Ryleev was a staunch supporter of the constitutional-monarchist system, then from the moment he joined the ranks of society, he began to adhere to other principles of government - republican ones. The poet was blinded by revolutionary ideas, which naturally led to fatal consequences. Ryleev became one of the leaders of the uprising, shortly before which he participated in a duel as a second, where both duelists died. Perhaps what happened served as a kind of sign of fate, a warning signal. However, Ryleev did not doubt that he was right, and therefore was not going to back down.

Quite a natural outcome of the suppressed revolutionary uprising was the imprisonment of all the instigators and other persons involved. In prison, Ryleev behaved courageously and with dignity, trying to justify his comrades-in-arms. Kondraty Fedorovich hoped for imperial mercy, but the verdict was severe. In July 1826, the rioters, including comrades Kondraty Ryleev P. Pestel, A. A. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, M. Kakhovsky and N. Muravyov, were sentenced to hanging. During the execution, the rope broke, and Ryleev fell. The second strangulation attempt was the execution of a death sentence. So far, there is no official data on the exact place of burial of Ryleev's remains.

Parents wondered for a long time what to name a newborn boy. The church minister advised giving the child the same name as the first person he met. So they did: on the way they met a retired military man. This man later became the godfather for Kondraty Fedorovich.

The boy was the fifth child in the family, but he was the only one who did not die in infancy. Once in his childhood, according to his mother, Ryleev fell very ill. Only parental prayers helped the child to recover. According to family tradition, little Kondraty was visited by an angel who healed the baby, but foretold his tragic death at a young age.

From early childhood, Ryleev spent all his free time with a book in his hands. My father believed that spending money on buying reading material does not make sense, so the books with which the future poet was truly carried away by literature appeared with him during his studies in the cadet corps. Ryleev's first work, saturated with fiery patriotism, was written in 1813, while studying in St. Petersburg. An ode dedicated to the death of Kutuzov topped his personal list of compositions.

Kondraty Ryleev had two children: a son, who died before reaching the age of one, and a daughter, Anastasia. Subsequently, it was thanks to Anastasia that the world learned about the creative talent of her father.

What is the poem "Voinarovsky" about?

K. F. Ryleev in 1823 completed work on the thought “Death of Yermak”, and after this work he began to write the next one. This time, according to the author's idea, the plot was based on the story of one of the participants in the conspiracy against Peter I - Andrei Voinarovsky, the nephew of Hetman Mazepa.

The creation of the poem was prompted by an event related to the journey of the historiographer Miller to Eastern Siberia in the 40s of the 18th century. Allegedly, then the historian met with Voinarovsky, who spoke about how he trusted the insidious and hypocritical hetman. Mazepa deceived his nephew Andrei, disguised his evil thoughts as intentions to carry out "good" deeds for the good of the motherland.

Kondraty Fedorovich presents the main character of the poem "Voynarovsky" to the readership as a fighter for human freedoms and an opponent of any manifestations of autocracy. At the same time, Ryleev is not interested in the true reasons that prompted Mazepa's betrayal. The poet tries to convey historical truthfulness to readers, attaching great importance to details, to the smallest details. In his poem, Ryleev described the Siberian lands, customs and nature, accurately reproduced the ethnographic, folklore and everyday nuances of that time.

This event, which Ryleev put in the storyline, was not chosen by chance. In addition, the author here deliberately separated from the hero, as he tried to focus on the scale and drama of the personal fate of the characters. An in-depth analysis of Ryleev's "Voinarovsky" makes it possible to understand how successfully the author managed to achieve a demonstration of a hero with an outstanding, purposeful and strong-willed personality against the backdrop of vivid historical battles.

In comparison with the thoughts of the poet's previous "Voinarovsky" works, the poem has a romantic character. In addition, the narrative element is strengthened in it. Despite the fact that the main character here is separated from Ryleev, it is Mazepa's nephew who presents the author's ideas to readers. Many literary critics believe that the personality of Voinarovsky in the poem is too idealized. If we consider the actions of the hero in the plane of real history, it would be wrong to consider him as nothing but a traitor. He supported Mazepa, wanted Ukraine to separate from Russia and went over to the side of the enemies of Emperor Peter I.

general description

The storyline of the work boils down to a story about how the freedom-loving and rebellious spirit of Andrei Voinarovsky led him to political exile. Being far from his native land, he begins to analyze his life, doubting the correctness of his previous actions, which leads the main character to complete bewilderment. The drama of the poem "Voinarovsky" lies in the fact that Mazepa's associate could not fully understand himself and understand whose interests he actually served.

Even when viewing the summary of Ryleev's Voynarovsky, it becomes clear that the main character, wanting to overthrow the tyrant from the throne, obeyed Mazepa's ideas in everything. But over time, as he himself eventually admitted, he acted recklessly, not foreseeing the consequences and not knowing the true intentions of the hetman. Andrei could not distinguish the real motives of Mazepa, who deliberately went to outright betrayal. There was no malicious intent in Voinarovsky's motives, but the reckless execution of the hetman's orders made him a traitor in the eyes of his own people. The main character never managed to comprehend the real motives of the treacherous act of the Ukrainian hetman.

Thus, the patriotic Voinarovsky became a hostage to his own mistakes. The apostasy of Mazepa, known from the history of that period, prevented Ryleev from finishing the work with a fair, natural ending - a punishment for betrayal.

The image of the main character

Ryleev presents Voinarovsky to readers in different ways. On the one hand, the main character is portrayed as honest, unaware of Mazepa's vile intentions. Andrei cannot be responsible for the hetman's secret intentions, since they were not known to him. But on the other hand, Voinarovsky is a participant in an unfair social movement who betrayed the people and the emperor, and only after being exiled could he think about the real state of things. Only in conclusion did the hetman's comrade-in-arms realize that he was just a toy in Mazepa's hands, and not his associate and comrade.

The double image helps the reader to understand that the exile is at a spiritual crossroads. In this sense, a comparison with the heroes of Ryleev's thoughts would be appropriate. Voinarovsky, unlike them, languishing in prison, could not preserve the integrity of his personality, as he doubted the rightness of the once just cause, was not convinced of justice. By the way, the main character was dying, being lost and forgotten, having no hope for people's memory and respect.

The freedom-loving verses of the poem "Voynarovsky" carry the direct idea of ​​the work. Andrei was completely faithful to the idea, passion, but at the same time he did not know the true meaning of the insurrectionary movement, of which he was a member. Political exile has become a completely logical and natural fate for a person who has connected his life with a traitor hetman.

Despite the fact that literary critics attribute Voinarovsky to romantic works, the love plot is muted here. Ryleev creates a poetic image of Andrei's wife, who went through all of Siberia to find her husband. Many lines in the poem are devoted to the soulfulness and selflessness of the beloved woman. But nevertheless, Ryleev brought to the fore the socio-political motives, the civic position of the heroes.

What is the drama of the poem

The hero of this work is a fighter against autocracy and tyranny, but at the same time there is no doubt in his genuine love of freedom. Difficult life circumstances forced the man to evaluate the entire life path he had traveled. That is why the conflict in the poem "Voynarovsky" lies in the combination of two incompatible images - a freedom-loving fighter carrying his cross with his head held high, and a martyr reflecting and analyzing his misdeeds. Andrey accepts his sufferings, adhering to the same convictions in exile as in freedom. Voinarovsky is a strong, unbroken man who considers suicide a weakness. His choice is to bear responsibility to the end, no matter how unbearable it may be.

The soul of Voinarovsky cries for his native land. He is devoted to dreams of the well-being of the fatherland, his native people, wants to see him happy. One of the features of Ryleev's poem "Voynarovsky" is that the main character's doubts and hesitations practically permeate all parts of the work. First of all, they affect the hostile attitude of Mazepa towards the Russian Tsar. Until his last breath, Andrei reflects on who, after all, did the people find in Peter I - a hostile ruler or a friend? The protagonist suffers from his own misunderstanding of the hetman's secret intentions and the meaning of his life. On the one hand, if Mazepa's actions were driven only by vanity, self-interest and a desire for power, then, based on this, Voynarovsky made a mistake and is a traitor. On the other hand, if the hetman is still a hero, then Voinarovsky's sacrifice was not in vain, which means that the life of the associate was not in vain.

Monologues by Andrey Voinarovsky

All memories of the past and reasoning about the correctness of past actions, the protagonist shares with the historian Miller. That is why the predominant part of Ryleev's poem "Voynarovsky" consists of monologues of the protagonist. He describes pictures, events, individual episodes, meetings with the sole purpose of justifying himself, finding an explanation for his actions, assessing the true state of mind and his own experiences.

In an attempt to affirm the disinterestedness and purity of thoughts, to prove comradely loyalty and devotion to society, Ryleev contrasts the image of the hero with doubts about Mazepa's wrongness. This also prompts the author to reveal Andrei's personality in a different light, not keeping silent about his weaknesses and civic passion that filled his soul. The paradox lies in Voinarovsky's misunderstanding of the essence of those historical events in which he was a direct participant. In his monologues, he repeats more than once about delusion, calls himself "blind."

Transmitting a summary of the poem "Voinarovsky", one should definitely mention the conversation between Andrei and Hetman Mazepa. The protagonist himself calls this conversation "fatal", because it was after it that troubles fell on Voinarovsky's lot. Andrei is perplexed by the revealed temper, meanness and cunning of the "leader", but at the same time, as already mentioned, he remains unaware of the real motives for Mazepa's betrayal. Ryleev decided not to make any assumptions about this. The only thing that is emphasized is the description of vivid episodes that pop up in Andrey's memory, confirming his doubts in every possible way. And although Voinarovsky never knew the truth, he finally realized that he was not acting for the good of the people.

Devoting lines to the last days of Mazepa's life, Andrei recalls how the hetman was tormented by remorse. Until the last seconds, images of the victims who died through his fault - Kochubey, Iskra, rose before his eyes. Mazepa admitted that on the day of the execution of the innocent, when he saw the executioner, he trembled with fear, his soul was filled with horror. Voinarovsky, plunging into memories, which he himself called "vague thoughts", struggled with a misunderstanding of what had happened.

Contrary to the monologues of the protagonist, Ryleev managed not to distort historical facts. Although the poet shows hidden sympathy for the rebel and patriot, the poem is not without a sober look: a firm civic stand and unquestioning obedience to the hetman led to defeat.

What did the author want to convey?

It is quite possible that by creating Voinarovsky, Ryleev wanted to warn about the true meaning of social activity, thereby saying that the good of citizens depends not only on the desire of the leader, his activity and readiness, if necessary, to sacrifice himself to a just cause, but also on the true meaning and understanding the motives of the social movement. The paradox is that soon the author of the poem himself will have to face a real situation in life, which will provide an opportunity to reflect on personal delusions and understand whether his subjective aspirations and goals coincided with the declared meaning of the revolutionary movement to which he joined.

At the same time, the artistic task contradicts the content of the poem "Voynarovsky" and the above conclusion. Ryleev's main goal was to create an image that would remove the burden of historical responsibility and personal guilt from the hero's shoulders. Kondraty Fedorovich managed to achieve this by endowing Voinarovsky with disinterestedness and personal honesty. In the eyes of the reader, Andrei still remains an implacable fighter against tyranny.

But if Voinarovsky is not guilty, according to the author's idea, then who is responsible for the betrayal? Ryleev shifted the blame to the vicissitudes of fate, its unforeseen and sometimes unfair laws. An analysis of the poem "Voynarovsky" literally reveals the essence of the content: it is the struggle of patriotic individuals against the tyranny of power and autocracy. It is for this reason that Tsar Peter I, the Ukrainian hetman Mazepa and his nephew Voinarovsky were portrayed biased and one-sided. The emperor in Ryleev's poem got exclusively the role of a tyrant, and the traitor Mazepa and Voinarovsky - freedom-loving people who oppose despotism. At the same time, the essence of the actual conflict known from history was immeasurably more complicated. Hetman and Voinarovsky acted consciously and in fact were not guided by civic prowess.

According to many historians, in the work "Voynarovsky" the protagonist is undeservedly credited with uplifting qualities that have nothing to do with him: patriotism, the struggle for truth and justice. Given the romantic nature of the poem, this discrepancy remained unresolved.

Analysis of the genre of "Voinarovsky"

Ryleev showed a certain independence in the construction of his poem. The composition and composition of "Voinarovsky", external devices have imprints of a romantic manner of presentation. Despite the fact that the work was created in the form of a confession, nothing prevented Ryleev from building a unique compositional basis for the work, which was originally planned to be written in the epic genre. It is not surprising that in the poem "Voynarovsky" the breaks in the storyline characteristic of a romantic work are not visible.

The installation of the work, according to modern literary critics, is agitational and propaganda. A simple perception of the poem is facilitated by the narrative style of presentation, the prevailing simple sentences that do not contain colorful metaphors, verbose phrases. Ryleev successfully moved away from a depressive and oppressed mood to revealing the truth of life. It was possible to revive the poem with the help of elements of folklore, a detailed description of Siberian life, the life of the people, natural conditions - all this made the poem popular with a wide range of readers.

A. S. Pushkin gave his assessment of Ryleev’s “Voynarovsky” in a short message to A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. The great Russian writer noted that this poem surpassed previous creations (thoughts). Pushkin liked Ryleev's style - he called him "matured" and "full of life."

What role did the poem play in Russian literature

Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev is one of the authors who is convinced that the poet's vocation is to actively intervene in life, improve it and fight for equality and justice. Ryleevsky revolutionary-civil pathos found its continuation in the lyrical poems of Lermontov, Polezhaev and Ogarev, in the revolutionary ideas of Nekrasov. In simple terms, Kondraty Fedorovich managed to create a positive image for a negative hero, endowing Voinarovsky with exemplary patriotism, courage, love of freedom.

The literary personality of Ryleev is attractive to many admirers of poetry. He perceived his creative talent as a service to civil society for the common good. During his lifetime, Ryleev's works were popular, but after his tragic death, the poet's name was erased from literature for several decades to come. The revolutionary's poems saw the light again in 1872 thanks to the efforts of his daughter Anastasia.

Realizing his ideas and relying on the experience of Pushkin's romantic poems, learning from him the poetic language, Ryleev began in 1823 to work on the poem "Voinarovsky" (1825). the plot is outlined in the thoughts “Volynsky”, “Natalia Dolgorukova”, “Menshikov in Berezov”, especially in the tragedy “Mazepa”, the ideas of which the poet sketched in 1822. The image of Mazepa by this time had already riveted the attention of two geniuses of world significance. Voltaire mentioned him in The History of Charles XII (1731), and Byron published the poem Mazeppa in 1819.

Ryleev's poem was created on the wave of the rapid rise of the liberation movement, the continuous growth of revolutionary self-consciousness and the artistic maturity of Ryleev himself. This gave its content a spirit of rebelliousness and rebellion, and a form - a brilliance that fascinated Pushkin. The main theme of the poem is the struggle for the national independence of Ukraine. The plot of the poem was the life of Voinarovsky, Mazepa's nephew and associate, his struggle for the freedom of his homeland and exile. The plot also includes a love motive - Voinarovsky's marriage to a simple Cossack woman, separation, and then an unexpected meeting with her in Siberia. But the defining pathos of the work is civil.

The poem "Voynarovsky" is the highest achievement of Ryleev's poetic evolution. The leading characters are embodied by him as psychologically complex to some extent. The poet portrayed Voinarovsky as a heroically brave tyrant-hater, accustomed from childhood to "honor Brutus", the soul of a "truly free" and noble "defender of Rome". In fierce resistance to despotism, he would not have spared Mazepa, his own uncle, if he had known about his deceit. This is a fiery patriot, ready for any sacrifice for the sake of the motherland.

The fate of Voinarovsky is tragic. Destined by his inclinations for great deeds, he became a victim of Mazepa's insidious intrigues and turned into an unfortunate accomplice of his careerist intrigues. Voinarovsky did not know the true intentions of Mazepa and, blindly believing in his "patriotism", honored in him the "head of the people." Voinarovsky's deep faith in Mazepa was greatly shaken, but not completely dispelled even by long years of exile. And this was the reason for his contradictions in relation to Peter and Mazepa, in understanding his activities. Even before his death, it was not clear to him whom to blame and whom to bless: “Ah, maybe I was in error, Boiling jealousy of grief; But I am in blind bitterness, I revered the king as a tyrant ... "

"Voynarovsky" is a romantic poem of the heroic-patriotic genre. Her leading images are heroes fighting for the independence of their homeland. These are not groundless loners, renegades who have gone into themselves, into their spiritual world, but leaders who lead the movement of the people. Their loneliness, which was the result of defeat, forced, bringing them suffering.

The poem "Voynarovsky" is a classic example of romantic architectonics. Its center is the figure of the protagonist. In addition to the introduction, which is a kind of prologue to the entire poem, a short descriptive remark linking the first and second parts of the poem, and an epilogue, the poem is a confession of Voinarovsky. She captivates with the skill of storytelling.

The romantic nature of the structure of the poem is reinforced by sharply antithetical characters (the noble Voinarovsky and the treacherous Mazepa) and unusual situations: Voinarovsky's desire for exploits and his participation in Mazepa's insidious plan, the idyll of Voinarovsky's love with a Cossack girl, separation from her and meeting many years later in the snows of Yakutia.

Gloomy. The dramatic story of Voinarovsky is reinforced by the epithets of predominantly stern-gloomy (“gloomy shelter”, “dull and stern look”, “coffin hill”) and emotionally heightened quality (“sparkling eyes”, “unbearable torment”, “ardent soul”). In full accordance with the dramatic vicissitudes of the leading hero of the poem, there are also comparisons: unusual, with a clear tendency to hyperbolicity (“and we, like a thunder cloud”, “the whole earth seemed like a corpse”), emotionally emphasized (“Faded in the bloom of youth, Timelessly, in cold Siberia, Like a flower on a withered stalk In a hothouse stuffy, bleak”).

Nature is widely shown in the poem. Serving as a background, emphasizing the state of mind of Voinarovsky, it is imbued, like verbal and pictorial means, with gloom. In the steppe "wild and empty", in constant battles, Voinarovsky spent his youth. In places "dull" flashed his three years of happiness with his beloved. In the "deaf steppe" Mazepa opened up to him in his hatred for Peter. In the "desert" country, among the boundless snows and gloomy forests, his years of exile flowed, and he, "like the Siberian climate, became cruel and cold in his soul." The poem begins with a picture of nature, like an overture: “In the country of snowstorms and snows…” It ends with a sketch of a lonely grave and Voinarovsky sitting on it “in a fatal stupor”.

The lyrical immediacy and liveliness of Voinarovsky's confession is conveyed by the colloquial iambic tetrameter and the free meter of its stanzas, sometimes short, sometimes long, depending on the nature of the episode being recreated.

"Voynarovsky" is Ryleev's central work, included in a number of the best poems of civil-heroic romanticism. After reading excerpts from the poem, published in 1824 in the Polar Star, Pushkin wrote on January 12, 1824 A.A. Bestuzhev: “Ryleev’s Voinarovsky is incomparably better than all his Dooms.

The poem had a strong influence on Decembrist poetry, in particular on the work of A.A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky (ballad "Saatyr" and poem "Andrey, Prince Pereyaslavsky") and V.F. Raevsky ("Duma"). Her influence affected the works of A. Yakovlev ("Chigirinsky Cossack") and A. Podolinsky ("Gaidamaki"). Its echoes are undeniable in the poems of Ogarev ("Don") and Nekrasov ("Russian Women").

This poem was read with interest by subsequent generations. Banned by the tsarist government, it was distributed in lists. Herzen found "great beauties" in Voinarovsky. N.P. Ogarev in 1861, in the preface to the collection Russian Hidden Literature of the 19th Century, wrote: “Rereading Voinarovsky ... we came to the conclusion that it is now as fascinating as it was then.”

The poem is one of the most popular genres of romanticism, including civil or social. The Decembrist poem was a milestone in the history of the genre and was perceived against the backdrop of Pushkin's southern romantic poems. The most willingly developed in the Decembrist poem was the historical theme presented by Katenin (“The Song of the First Battle of the Russians with the Tatars on the Kalka River under the leadership of Galitsky Mstislav Mstislavovich the Brave”), F. Glinka (“Karelia”), Kuchelbeker (“Yuri and Xenia”), A. Bestuzhev (“Andrei, Prince Pereyaslavsky”), A. Odoevsky (“Vasilko”). Ryleev's poem "Voinarovsky" is also in this row.

Ryleev's poem "Voynarovsky" (1825) was written in the spirit of romantic poems by Byron and Pushkin. The basis of the romantic poem is the parallelism of pictures of nature, stormy or peaceful, and the experiences of an exiled hero, whose exclusivity is emphasized by his loneliness. The poem developed through a chain of episodes and monologues of the hero. The role of female characters in comparison with the hero is always weakened.

Contemporaries noted that the characteristics of the characters and some episodes are similar to the characteristics of the characters and scenes from Byron's poems "Gyaur", "Mazeppa", "Corsair" and "Parisina". There is also no doubt that Ryleev took into account Pushkin's poems "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai", written much earlier.

Ryleev's poem has become one of the brightest pages in the development of the genre. This is due to several factors.

First, the love story, so important to the romantic poem, is relegated to the background and noticeably muted. There is no love collision in the poem: there are no conflicts between the hero and his beloved. Voinarovsky's wife voluntarily follows her husband into exile.

Secondly, the poem was distinguished by its accurate and detailed reproduction of pictures of the Siberian landscape and Siberian life, revealing to the Russian reader a natural and everyday way of life largely unknown to him. Ryleev consulted with the Decembrist V.I. Shteingel about the objectivity of the painted pictures. At the same time, the harsh Siberian nature and life are not alien to the exile: they corresponded to his rebellious spirit (“I was pleased with the noise of the forests, I was pleased with the bad weather, And the howling storm and the splashing of the ramparts”). The hero was directly correlated with the natural element related to his moods and entered into complex relationships with it.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the originality of Ryley's poem lies in the unusual motivation for exile. In a romantic poem, the motivation for the hero's alienation, as a rule, remains ambivalent, not entirely clear or mysterious. Voinarovsky ended up in Siberia not of his own free will, not as a result of disappointment, and not in the role of an adventurer. He is a political exile, and his stay in Siberia is of a forced nature, determined by the circumstances of his tragic life. In the exact indication of the reasons for the expulsion - Ryleev's innovation. This both concretized and narrowed the motivation for romantic alienation.

Finally, fourthly, the plot of the poem is connected with historical events. The poet intended to emphasize the scale and drama of the personal destinies of the heroes - Mazepa, Voinarovsky and his wife, their love of freedom and patriotism. As a romantic hero, Voinarovsky is ambivalent: he is depicted as a tyrant-fighter, thirsting for national independence, and a prisoner of fate ("I was promised cruel fate").

This is where Voinarovsky's hesitation in assessing Mazepa, the most romantic person in the poem, comes from.

On the one hand, Voinarovsky faithfully served Mazepa:

We honored the head of the people in it,

We adored our father in him,

We loved our country in it.

On the other hand, the motives that forced Mazepa to speak out against Peter are unknown or not fully known to Voinarovsky:

I don't know if he wanted

Save the people of Ukraine from troubles,

This contradiction is realized in character - civic passion, aimed at quite specific actions, is combined with the recognition of power outside personal circumstances, which ultimately turn out to be decisive.

Remaining a tyrant-fighter to the end, Voinarovsky feels his exposure to some fatal forces that are unclear to him. The concretization of the motivation for exile thus acquires a broader and more comprehensive meaning.

The personality of Voinarovsky in the poem is significantly idealized and emotionally uplifted. From a historical point of view, Voinarovsky is a traitor. He, like Mazepa, wanted to separate Ukraine from Russia, went over to the enemies of Peter I and received ranks and awards either from Polish magnates or from the Swedish king Charles XII.

Katenin was sincerely surprised by Ryley's interpretation of Voinarovsky, the attempt to make him "some kind of Cato." Historical truth was not on the side of Mazepa and Voinarovsky, but on the side of Peter I. Pushkin restored poetic and historical justice in Poltava. In Ryleev's poem, Voinarovsky is a republican and a tyrant-fighter. He says about himself: "I have been used to honoring Brutus since childhood."

Ryleev's creative plan was initially contradictory: if the poet had remained on historical grounds, then Voinarovsky could not have become a lofty hero, because his character and actions ruled out idealization, and the romantically elevated image of a traitor inevitably led, in turn, to a distortion of history. The poet, obviously, was aware of the difficulty that confronted him and tried to overcome it.

Ryleev's image of Voinarovsky has split in two: on the one hand, Voinarovsky is portrayed as personally honest and not privy to Mazepa's plans. He cannot be held responsible for the secret intentions of the traitor, since they are not known to him. On the other hand, Ryleev connects Voinarovsky with a historically unjust social movement, and the hero in exile thinks about the real content of his activity, trying to understand whether he was a toy in the hands of Mazepa or an associate of the hetman. This allows the poet to preserve the high image of the hero and at the same time show Voinarovsky at a spiritual crossroads. Unlike the heroes of thoughts languishing in prison or in exile, who remain whole individuals, have no doubts about the rightness of their cause and respect for their offspring, the exiled Voinarovsky is no longer completely convinced of his justice, and he dies without any hope for the people's memory, lost and forgotten.

There is no discrepancy between Voinarovsky's freedom-loving tirades and his actions - he served the idea, passion, but the true meaning of the insurrectionary movement to which he joined is inaccessible to him. Political exile is the natural lot of the hero who connected his life with the traitor Mazepa.

By muffling the love plot, Ryleev brings to the fore the social motives of the hero's behavior, his civic feelings. The drama of the poem lies in the fact that the tyrannical hero, in whose sincere and convinced love of freedom the author has no doubt, is placed in circumstances that make him appreciate the life he has lived. Thus, Ryleev's poem includes a friend of freedom and a sufferer, courageously carrying his cross, a fiery fighter against autocracy and a martyr reflecting and analyzing his actions. Voinarovsky does not reproach himself for his feelings. And in exile he holds the same convictions as in the wild. He is a strong, courageous man who prefers torment to suicide. All his soul is still turned to his native land. He dreams of the freedom of his homeland and longs to see her happy. However, hesitations and doubts constantly burst into Voinarovsky's thoughts. They relate primarily to the enmity between Mazepa and Peter, the activities of the hetman and the Russian tsar. Until his last hour, Voinarovsky does not know who his homeland found in Petra - an enemy or a friend, just as he does not understand Mazepa's secret intentions. But this means that Voinarovsky is not clear about the meaning of his own life: if Mazepa was led by vanity, personal self-interest, if he wanted to “erect a throne”, then, therefore, Voynarovsky became a participant in an unjust deed, but if Mazepa is a hero, then Voynarovsky’s life was not in vain .

Remembering his past, telling the historian Miller about it (most of the poem is a monologue by Voinarovsky), he vividly draws pictures, events, episodes, meetings, the purpose of which is to justify himself to himself and the future, to explain his actions, his state of mind, to affirm the purity of his thoughts and devotion to the public good. But the same pictures and events prompt Ryleyev to cover the hero in a different way and make convincing amendments to his declarations.

The poet does not hide the weaknesses of Voinarovsky. Civic passion filled the whole soul of the hero, but he is forced to admit that he did not understand much in historical events, although he was their direct and active protagonist. Voinarovsky speaks several times about his blindness and delusions:

I blindly surrendered to Mazepa...

Oh, maybe I was delusional

Boiling jealousy of grief, -

But I'm in blind bitterness

The tyrant revered the king ...

Perhaps, carried away by passion,

I could not give him a price

And attributed it to autocracy,

What the light carried to his mind.

Voinarovsky calls his conversation with Mazepa "fatal" and considers it the beginning of the troubles that have befallen him, and the "temper" of the "leader" himself is "cunning". Even now, in exile, he is perplexed about the true motives for the betrayal of Mazepa, who was a hero for him:

We honored the head of the people in it,

We adored our father in him,

We loved our country in it.

I don't know if he wanted

Save the people of Ukraine from troubles

Or erect a throne in it, -

The hetman did not reveal this secret to me.

To the right of the cunning leader

I managed to get used to in ten years;

But I can never

There were plans for him to penetrate.

He was secretive from his youthful days,

And, wanderer, I repeat: I don’t know

What's in the depths of your soul

He prepared for his native land.

Meanwhile, the expressive pictures that pop up in Voinarovsky's memory confirm his doubts, although the truth constantly eludes the hero. The people, whose welfare Voinarovsky puts above all else, stigmatizes Mazepa.

The captive Baturin boldly throws in the face of the traitor:

The people of Peter blessed

And, rejoicing in the glorious victory,

He feasted noisily on the stognas;

Well, Mazepa, like Judas,

Ukrainians curse everywhere;

Your palace, taken on a spear,

Was betrayed to us for plunder,

And your glorious name

Now - and scolding and vilification!

Drawing the last days of Mazepa, Voinarovsky recalls the remorse of the hetman's bad conscience, before whose eyes the shadows of the unfortunate victims appeared: Kochubey, his wife, daughter, Iskra. He sees the executioner, trembles “with fear”, “horror” enters his soul. And Voinarovsky himself is often immersed in a “vague thought”, he is also characterized by a “soul struggle”. So Ryleev, contrary to the stories of Voinarovsky, partially restores the historical truth. The poet sympathizes with the rebellious tyrannical hero and patriot, but he understands that the civic feelings that overwhelm Voinarovsky did not save him from defeat. Ryleev, thus, endows the hero with some weaknesses. He acknowledges the possibility of Voinarovsky's personal delusion.

However, Ryleev's actual artistic task was at odds with this conclusion. The main goal of the poet was to create a heroic character. Selflessness and personal honesty in the eyes of the poet justified Voinarovsky, who remained an implacable fighter against tyranny. Historical and personal guilt was removed from the hero. Ryleev shifted responsibility from Voinarovsky to volatility, the vicissitudes of fate, to its inexplicable laws. In his poem, as in his thoughts, the content of history was the struggle of tyrant-fighters and patriots against autocracy. Therefore, Peter, Mazepa and Voinarovsky were portrayed one-sidedly. Peter in Ryleev's poem is only a tyrant, while Mazepa and Voinarovsky are freedom lovers who oppose despotism. Meanwhile, the content of the real, historical conflict was immeasurably more complex. Mazepa and Voinarovsky acted quite consciously and did not personify civic prowess. The poeticization of the hero, who in the poem is attributed love of freedom, patriotism, demonic features that give him significance and elevate him, came into conflict with his historically truthful portrayal.

The Decembrist romantic poem was distinguished by the sharpness of the conflict - psychological and civil, which inevitably led to disaster. This characterized the reality in which noble, pure-spirited heroes who did not find happiness perished.

The poem revealed in the process of evolution an attraction to the epic, to the genre of the story in verse, evidence of which was the strengthening of the narrative style in the poem "Voinarovsky".

He was noticed and approved by Pushkin, especially praising Ryleev for his "sweeping style." Pushkin saw in this Ryleev's departure from the subjective-lyrical manner of writing. In a romantic poem, as a rule, a single lyrical tone dominated, the events were colored by the author's lyrics and were not of independent interest to the author. Ryleev broke this tradition and thereby contributed to the creation of verse and stylistic forms for an objective image. His poetic searches corresponded to Pushkin's thoughts and the needs of the development of Russian literature.

About Pushkin's romantic poems in connection with Byron's poems, see the chapter “A.S. Pushkin.

History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 1. 1795-1830 Skibin Sergei Mikhailovich

Poem "Voynarovsky"

Poem "Voynarovsky"

The poem is one of the most popular genres of romanticism, including civil or social. The Decembrist poem was a milestone in the history of the genre and was perceived against the backdrop of Pushkin's southern romantic poems. The most willingly developed in the Decembrist poem was the historical theme presented by Katenin (“The Song of the First Battle of the Russians with the Tatars on the Kalka River under the leadership of Galitsky Mstislav Mstislavovich the Brave”), F. Glinka (“Karelia”), Kuchelbeker (“Yuri and Xenia”), A. Bestuzhev (“Andrei, Prince Pereyaslavsky”), A. Odoevsky (“Vasilko”). Ryleev's poem "Voinarovsky" is also in this row.

Ryleyev's poem "Voynarovsky" (1825) was written in the spirit of romantic poems by Byron and Pushkin. The basis of the romantic poem is the parallelism of pictures of nature, stormy or peaceful, and the experiences of an exiled hero, whose exclusivity is emphasized by his loneliness. The poem developed through a chain of episodes and monologues of the hero. The role of female characters in comparison with the hero is always weakened.

Contemporaries noted that the characteristics of the characters and some episodes are similar to the characteristics of the characters and scenes from Byron's poems "Gyaur", "Mazeppa", "Corsair" and "Parisina". There is also no doubt that Ryleev took into account Pushkin's poems "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai", written much earlier.

Ryleev's poem has become one of the brightest pages in the development of the genre. This is due to several factors.

First, the love story, so important to the romantic poem, is relegated to the background and noticeably muted. There is no love collision in the poem: there are no conflicts between the hero and his beloved. Voinarovsky's wife voluntarily follows her husband into exile.

Secondly, the poem was distinguished by its accurate and detailed reproduction of pictures of the Siberian landscape and Siberian life, revealing to the Russian reader a natural and everyday way of life largely unknown to him. Ryleev consulted with the Decembrist V.I. Shteingel about the objectivity of the painted pictures. At the same time, the harsh Siberian nature and life are not alien to the exile: they corresponded to his rebellious spirit (“I was pleased with the noise of the forests, I was pleased with the bad weather, And the howling storm and the splashing of the ramparts”). The hero was directly correlated with the natural element related to his moods and entered into complex relationships with it.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the originality of Ryley's poem lies in the unusual motivation for exile. In a romantic poem, the motivation for the hero's alienation, as a rule, remains ambivalent, not entirely clear or mysterious. Voinarovsky ended up in Siberia not of his own free will, not as a result of disappointment, and not in the role of an adventurer. He is a political exile, and his stay in Siberia is of a forced nature, determined by the circumstances of his tragic life. In the exact indication of the reasons for the expulsion - Ryleev's innovation. This both concretized and narrowed the motivation for romantic alienation.

Finally, fourthly, the plot of the poem is connected with historical events. The poet intended to emphasize the scale and drama of the personal destinies of the heroes - Mazepa, Voinarovsky and his wife, their love of freedom and patriotism. As a romantic hero, Voinarovsky is ambivalent: he is depicted as a tyrant-fighter, thirsting for national independence, and a prisoner of fate ("I was promised cruel fate").

This is where Voinarovsky's hesitation in assessing Mazepa, the most romantic person in the poem, comes from.

On the one hand, Voinarovsky faithfully served Mazepa:

We honored the head of the people in it,

We adored our father in him,

We loved our country in it.

On the other hand, the motives that forced Mazepa to speak out against Peter are unknown or not fully known to Voinarovsky:

I don't know if he wanted

Save the people of Ukraine from troubles,

This contradiction is realized in character - civic passion, aimed at quite specific actions, is combined with the recognition of power outside personal circumstances, which ultimately turn out to be decisive.

Remaining a tyrant-fighter to the end, Voinarovsky feels his exposure to some fatal forces that are unclear to him. The concretization of the motivation for exile thus acquires a broader and more comprehensive meaning.

The personality of Voinarovsky in the poem is significantly idealized and emotionally uplifted. From a historical point of view, Voinarovsky is a traitor. He, like Mazepa, wanted to separate Ukraine from Russia, went over to the enemies of Peter I and received ranks and awards either from Polish magnates or from the Swedish king Charles XII.

Katenin was sincerely surprised by Ryley's interpretation of Voinarovsky, the attempt to make him "some kind of Cato." Historical truth was not on the side of Mazepa and Voinarovsky, but on the side of Peter I. Pushkin restored poetic and historical justice in Poltava. In Ryleev's poem, Voinarovsky is a republican and a tyrant-fighter. He says about himself: "I have been used to honoring Brutus since childhood."

Ryleev's creative plan was initially contradictory: if the poet had remained on historical grounds, then Voinarovsky could not have become a lofty hero, because his character and actions ruled out idealization, and the romantically elevated image of a traitor inevitably led, in turn, to a distortion of history. The poet, obviously, was aware of the difficulty that confronted him and tried to overcome it.

Ryleev's image of Voinarovsky has split in two: on the one hand, Voinarovsky is portrayed as personally honest and not privy to Mazepa's plans. He cannot be held responsible for the secret intentions of the traitor, since they are not known to him. On the other hand, Ryleev connects Voinarovsky with a historically unjust social movement, and the hero in exile thinks about the real content of his activity, trying to understand whether he was a toy in the hands of Mazepa or an associate of the hetman. This allows the poet to preserve the high image of the hero and at the same time show Voinarovsky at a spiritual crossroads. Unlike the heroes of thoughts languishing in prison or in exile, who remain whole individuals, have no doubts about the rightness of their cause and respect for their offspring, the exiled Voinarovsky is no longer completely convinced of his justice, and he dies without any hope for the people's memory, lost and forgotten.

There is no discrepancy between Voinarovsky's freedom-loving tirades and his actions - he served the idea, passion, but the true meaning of the insurrectionary movement to which he joined is inaccessible to him. Political exile is the natural lot of the hero who connected his life with the traitor Mazepa.

By muffling the love plot, Ryleev brings to the fore the social motives of the hero's behavior, his civic feelings. The drama of the poem lies in the fact that the tyrannical hero, in whose sincere and convinced love of freedom the author has no doubt, is placed in circumstances that make him appreciate the life he has lived. Thus, Ryleev's poem includes a friend of freedom and a sufferer, courageously carrying his cross, a fiery fighter against autocracy and a martyr reflecting and analyzing his actions. Voinarovsky does not reproach himself for his feelings. And in exile he holds the same convictions as in the wild. He is a strong, courageous man who prefers torment to suicide. All his soul is still turned to his native land. He dreams of the freedom of his homeland and longs to see her happy. However, hesitations and doubts constantly burst into Voinarovsky's thoughts. They relate primarily to the enmity between Mazepa and Peter, the activities of the hetman and the Russian tsar. Until his last hour, Voinarovsky does not know who his homeland found in Petra - an enemy or a friend, just as he does not understand Mazepa's secret intentions. But this means that Voinarovsky is not clear about the meaning of his own life: if Mazepa was led by vanity, personal self-interest, if he wanted to “erect a throne”, then, therefore, Voynarovsky became a participant in an unjust deed, but if Mazepa is a hero, then Voynarovsky’s life was not in vain .

Remembering his past, telling the historian Miller about it (most of the poem is a monologue by Voinarovsky), he vividly draws pictures, events, episodes, meetings, the purpose of which is to justify himself to himself and the future, to explain his actions, his state of mind, to affirm the purity of his thoughts and devotion to the public good. But the same pictures and events prompt Ryleyev to cover the hero in a different way and make convincing amendments to his declarations.

The poet does not hide the weaknesses of Voinarovsky. Civic passion filled the whole soul of the hero, but he is forced to admit that he did not understand much in historical events, although he was their direct and active protagonist. Voinarovsky speaks several times about his blindness and delusions:

I blindly surrendered to Mazepa...<…>

Oh, maybe I was delusional

Boiling jealousy of grief, -

But I'm in blind bitterness

The tyrant revered the king ...

Perhaps, carried away by passion,

I could not give him a price

And attributed it to autocracy,

What the light carried to his mind.

Voinarovsky calls his conversation with Mazepa "fatal" and considers it the beginning of the troubles that have befallen him, and the "temper" of the "leader" himself is "cunning". Even now, in exile, he is perplexed about the true motives for the betrayal of Mazepa, who was a hero for him:

We honored the head of the people in it,

We adored our father in him,

We loved our country in it.

I don't know if he wanted

Save the people of Ukraine from troubles

Or erect a throne in it, -

The hetman did not reveal this secret to me.

To the right of the cunning leader

I managed to get used to in ten years;

But I can never

There were plans for him to penetrate.

He was secretive from his youthful days,

And, wanderer, I repeat: I don’t know

What's in the depths of your soul

He prepared for his native land.

Meanwhile, the expressive pictures that pop up in Voinarovsky's memory confirm his doubts, although the truth constantly eludes the hero. The people, whose welfare Voinarovsky puts above all else, stigmatizes Mazepa.

The captive Baturin boldly throws in the face of the traitor:

The people of Peter blessed

And, rejoicing in the glorious victory,

He feasted noisily on the stognas;

Well, Mazepa, like Judas,

Ukrainians curse everywhere;

Your palace, taken on a spear,

Was betrayed to us for plunder,

And your glorious name

Now - and scolding and vilification!

Drawing the last days of Mazepa, Voinarovsky recalls the remorse of the hetman's bad conscience, before whose eyes the shadows of the unfortunate victims appeared: Kochubey, his wife, daughter, Iskra. He sees the executioner, trembles “with fear”, “horror” enters his soul. And Voinarovsky himself is often immersed in a “vague thought”, he is also characterized by a “soul struggle”. So Ryleev, contrary to the stories of Voinarovsky, partially restores the historical truth. The poet sympathizes with the rebellious tyrannical hero and patriot, but he understands that the civic feelings that overwhelm Voinarovsky did not save him from defeat. Ryleev, thus, endows the hero with some weaknesses. He acknowledges the possibility of Voinarovsky's personal delusion.

However, Ryleev's actual artistic task was at odds with this conclusion. The main goal of the poet was to create a heroic character. Selflessness and personal honesty in the eyes of the poet justified Voinarovsky, who remained an implacable fighter against tyranny. Historical and personal guilt was removed from the hero. Ryleev shifted responsibility from Voinarovsky to volatility, the vicissitudes of fate, to its inexplicable laws. In his poem, as in his thoughts, the content of history was the struggle of tyrant-fighters and patriots against autocracy. Therefore, Peter, Mazepa and Voinarovsky were portrayed one-sidedly. Peter in Ryleev's poem is only a tyrant, while Mazepa and Voinarovsky are freedom lovers who oppose despotism. Meanwhile, the content of the real, historical conflict was immeasurably more complex. Mazepa and Voinarovsky acted quite consciously and did not personify civic prowess. The poeticization of the hero, who in the poem is attributed love of freedom, patriotism, demonic features that give him significance and elevate him, came into conflict with his historically truthful portrayal.

The Decembrist romantic poem was distinguished by the sharpness of the conflict - psychological and civil, which inevitably led to disaster. This characterized the reality in which noble, pure-spirited heroes who did not find happiness perished.

The poem revealed in the process of evolution an attraction to the epic, to the genre of the story in verse, evidence of which was the strengthening of the narrative style in the poem "Voinarovsky".

He was noticed and approved by Pushkin, especially praising Ryleev for his "sweeping style." Pushkin saw in this Ryleev's departure from the subjective-lyrical manner of writing. In a romantic poem, as a rule, a single lyrical tone dominated, the events were colored by the author's lyrics and were not of independent interest to the author. Ryleev broke this tradition and thereby contributed to the creation of verse and stylistic forms for an objective image. His poetic searches corresponded to Pushkin's thoughts and the needs of the development of Russian literature.