Lunar calendar 

Only miles are striped. “Winter Road” A. Pushkin. A. S. Pushkin “Winter Morning”

The moon makes its way through the wavy fogs, It pours a sad light onto the sad meadows. Along the winter, boring road, Three greyhounds are running, The monotonous bell is rattling tiresomely. Something familiar is heard in the long songs of the coachman: That daring revelry, That heartfelt melancholy... No fire, no black hut... Wilderness and snow... Towards me Only striped miles come across one. Boring, sad... Tomorrow, Nina, Tomorrow, when I return to my dear one, I will forget myself by the fireplace, I’ll take a long look. The hour hand will make its measured circle with a resounding sound, And, removing the annoying ones, Midnight will not separate us. It’s sad, Nina: my path is boring, my driver has fallen silent from his doze, the bell is monotonous, the moon’s face is foggy.

The verse was written in December 1826, when Pushkin’s friends, participants in the Decembrist uprising, were executed or exiled, and the poet himself was in exile in Mikhailovskoye. Pushkin's biographers claim that the verse was written about the poet's trip to the Pskov governor for an inquiry.
The theme of the verse is much deeper than just the image of a winter road. The image of a road is an image of a person’s life path. The world of winter nature is empty, but the road is not lost, but marked with miles:

No fire, no black house...
Wilderness and snow... Towards me
Only miles are striped
They come across one.

The path of the lyrical hero is not easy, but, despite the sad mood, the work is full of hope for the best. Life is divided into black and white stripes, like mileposts. The poetic image of “striped miles” is a poetic symbol that personifies the “striped” life of a person. The author moves the reader’s gaze from heaven to earth: “along the winter road”, “the troika is running”, “the bell ... is rattling”, the coachman’s songs. In the second and third stanzas, the author twice uses words of the same root (“Sad”, “sad”), which help to understand the traveler’s state of mind. Using alliteration, the poet depicts a poetic image of artistic space - sad meadows. While reading the poem, we hear the ringing of a bell, the creaking of runners in the snow, and the song of the coachman. The coachman's long song means long, long-sounding. The rider is sad and sad. And the reader is not happy. The coachman’s song embodies the basic state of the Russian soul: “daring revelry,” “heartfelt melancholy.” Drawing nature, Pushkin depicts the inner world of the lyrical hero. Nature relates to human experiences. In a short segment of text, the poet uses ellipses four times - The poet wants to convey the sadness of the rider. There is something left unsaid in these lines. Maybe a person traveling in a wagon does not want to share his sadness with anyone. Night landscape: black huts, wilderness, snow, striped mileposts. Throughout nature there is cold and loneliness. The friendly light in the window of the hut, which can shine for a lost traveler, does not burn. Black huts are without fire, but “black” is not only a color, but also evil, unpleasant moments in life. The last stanza is again sad and boring. The driver fell silent, only the “monotonous” bell sounded. The technique of a ring composition is used: “the moon is making its way” - “the lunar face is foggy.” But the long road has a pleasant final goal - a meeting with your beloved:

Bored, sad... Tomorrow, Nina,
Returning to my dear tomorrow,
I'll forget myself by the fireplace,
I can't stop looking at it.

Leonid Yuzefovich

winter road

General A. N. Pepelyaev and anarchist I. Ya. Strod in Yakutia

Documentary novel

Such is the tragic nature of the world - along with the hero, his opponent is born.

Ernst Junger


Don't ask those fighting about the road.

Chinese wisdom

PARTING

In August 1996, I was sitting in the building of the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Siberian Military District in Novosibirsk, on Voinskaya, 5, reading the nine-volume investigative file of the white general Anatoly Nikolaevich Pepelyaev. A year before my arrival, it was transferred there from the FSB at the request of his eldest son, Vsevolod Anatolyevich, who asked for his father’s rehabilitation. At that time, thousands of such applications were received; prosecutors simply did not have the time to consider them in a timely manner. Investigative files were not supposed to be revealed to outsiders, but in those years official instructions were easily violated, not only for the sake of self-interest. The authorities, in the person of two colonels, took pity on me when they learned that this was the only reason I flew from Moscow.

I was sitting in a walk-through room, and behind the plywood bulkhead next to my desk was the office of one of the investigators, not too young for his rank of captain. Sometimes visitors came to him, and I could clearly hear their conversations. One day he was talking with the wife of an arrested tank regiment commander. Through the plywood covered with cheerful wallpaper, his feignedly dispassionate voice could be heard: “So, it was that year when the whole country groaned under the yoke of Red...” This meant Anatoly Chubais, who was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 1995. At that time, the colonel wrote off and pushed two tank tractors to the side. The investigator, with vindictive methodicality, explained to his wife the circumstances of the transaction. She was crying. In the margins of my workbook, their conversation, her sobs and the metallic tone of his speech are noted as the background against which I copied into the notebook one of Pepelyaev’s letters to his wife, Nina Ivanovna: “It seems that this is the tenth letter I’ve written to you since leaving Vladivostok. We parted not so long ago - it was August 28 - and there are so many new impressions, experiences, so many changes of mind here, difficult experiences, but I still console myself that our cause is just, I believe that the Lord made us come here, that He will guide us and will not abandon us.”

They said goodbye on August 28, 1922 in Vladivostok. A month earlier, Pepelyaev arrived here from Harbin to form a detachment of volunteers and go with him to Yakutia to support the anti-Bolshevik uprising that was blazing there. At first, in order to classify the arena of upcoming military operations, the detachment was called the Tatar Strait militia, then it was renamed the Northern Territory militia, but in the end it became the Siberian volunteer squad. By the end of the summer, Pepelyaev was ready to sail with her to the port of Ayan on the Okhotsk coast, and from there move west to Yakutsk.

He recently turned thirty-one, Nina Ivanovna is a year younger. They have been married for ten years. In the photograph taken shortly before the wedding, Nina sits with a paper wreath in her lush dark hair, in a Polish or Ukrainian dress with embroidery, with strings of large beads lying on her chest - she was probably taken after participating in some amateur performance or in a costume that could have been worn by my paternal grandmother. Ten years later, a photographer captured her in profile over a crib with a naked baby. It is clear that she is tall, the wavy hair pinned at the back of her head has become even more voluminous, as happens after childbirth, but her heavy chin and long nose are noticeable. This is how Nina Ivanovna remained in her husband’s memory.

All of Pepelyaev’s letters to his wife that were preserved in the file were written by him in Yakutia. None of them reached her. Judging by the fact that he constantly made excuses to her, referring either to the higher will that sent him on this campaign, or to his duty to the people, Nina Ivanovna was not enthusiastic about the prospect of being left alone for an indefinite period with two small children in her arms and hardly accepted it is with humility. Pepelyaev assured her that the separation would last no more than a year, but for a year of life he was able to leave the family only a modest sum of a thousand rubles. This, presumably, did not add optimism to Nina Ivanovna. In addition, she saw some of those who encouraged her husband to sail to Yakutia, and could not help but think that this would not end well.

Pepelyaev felt guilty before his wife and on the eve of departure he wanted to cheer her up with gifts. On the first pages of the notebook included in the investigation file, which will soon become his diary, but for now served for business notes and recording cash expenses, under the heading “Own money,” which partly explains why, despite his enormous opportunities, he was always poor, it is written in a column:


“Nina’s handbag – 10 rubles.

Inscription (apparently on the handbag, commemorative. - L.Yu.) - 10 rubles.

Chain – 10 rub.

Bracelet – 15 rubles.”


Other expenses are also listed here: for the dentist (in the coming months he will have nowhere to put a filling), for food for the mother (a pound of sugar, ten pounds of butter, a pound of coffee, etc.), for rent, for firewood (for chopping separately) , finally, for the photographer - 17 rubles. A considerable amount indicates that several photographs were taken. The photograph of Pepelyaev himself must have been intended for Nina Ivanovna, and he wanted to take the photo of his wife and sons with him to Yakutia. The eldest, Vsevolod, was almost nine years old, Lavr was four months old. The boy near the crib and the baby in the crib, over whom the bushy-haired woman is leaning over, look like that, which means that this is a duplicate of one of those same photographs, but I did not find them in the investigative file. Perhaps they were not taken away and remained with Pepelyaev in prison before and after the 1924 trial. The rules in the then Soviet dorms and political isolation wards were still quite soft.

Shortly before departure, Nina Ivanovna with Seva and Lavrik came from Harbin to Vladivostok to say goodbye to her husband. By Siberian standards, the journey was considered short, seven to eight hours by train. The weather was warm, the water in the sea had not yet cooled down. In his old age, Vsevolod Anatolyevich will remember how the whole family went swimming, his father swam, and he sat on his father’s shoulders.

On August 28, either Nina Ivanovna accompanied her husband to the ship, or Pepelyaev put her and the children on the train to Harbin and parted with them on the platform. The next day, the mine transport "Defender" and the gunboat "Battery" with the Siberian squad on board left the Vladivostok harbor and headed north.

Together with Pepelyaev, Colonel Eduard Cronier de Paul, a military engineer, a Warsawian, brought to Primorye by the winds of the Civil War, sailed from Vladivostok to Ayan. He took with him a brand new notebook, which would be confiscated from him in a year. I found it in the same investigative file of Pepelyaev, combined with the files of the officers tried with him.

Through the wavy mists
The moon creeps in
To the sad meadows
She sheds a sad light.

On the winter, boring road
Three greyhounds are running,
Single bell
It rattles tiresomely.

Something sounds familiar
In the coachman's long songs:
That reckless revelry
That's heartbreak...

No fire, no black house...
Wilderness and snow... Towards me
Only miles are striped
They come across one.

Bored, sad... Tomorrow, Nina,
Tomorrow, returning to my dear,
I'll forget myself by the fireplace,
I'll take a look without looking at it.

The hour hand sounds loud
He will make his measuring circle,
And, removing the annoying ones,
Midnight will not separate us.

It’s sad, Nina: my path is boring,
My driver fell silent from his doze,
The bell is monotonous,
The moon's face is clouded.

Analysis of Pushkin's poem "Winter Road"

Alexander Pushkin is one of the few Russian poets who, in his works, managed to masterfully convey his own feelings and thoughts, drawing a surprisingly subtle parallel with the surrounding nature. An example of this is the poem “Winter Road,” written in 1826 and, according to many researchers of the poet’s work, dedicated to his distant relative, Sofia Fedorovna Pushkina.

This poem has a rather sad backstory.. Few people know that the poet was connected with Sofia Pushkina not only by family ties, but also by a very romantic relationship. In the winter of 1826, he proposed to her, but was refused. Therefore, it is likely that in the poem “Winter Road” the mysterious stranger Nina, to whom the poet addresses, is the prototype of his beloved. The journey itself described in this work is nothing more than Pushkin’s visit to his chosen one in order to resolve the issue of marriage.

From the first lines of the poem “Winter Road” it becomes clear that the poet is by no means in a rosy mood. Life seems to him dull and hopeless, like the “sad meadows” through which a carriage drawn by three horses rushes on a winter night. The gloominess of the surrounding landscape is consonant with the feelings experienced by Alexander Pushkin. The dark night, the silence, occasionally broken by the ringing of a bell and the dull song of the coachman, the absence of villages and the eternal companion of wanderings - striped mileposts - all this makes the poet fall into a kind of melancholy. It is likely that the author anticipates the collapse of his matrimonial hopes in advance, but does not want to admit it to himself. For him the image of a beloved is a happy release from a tedious and boring journey. “Tomorrow, when I return to my sweetheart, I will forget myself by the fireplace,” the poet dreams hopefully, hoping that the final goal will more than justify the long night journey and will allow him to fully enjoy peace, comfort and love.

The poem “Winter Road” also has a certain hidden meaning. Describing his journey, Alexander Pushkin compares it with his own life, which, in his opinion, is just as boring, dull and joyless. Only a few events bring variety to it, like the way the coachman’s songs, daring and sad, burst into the silence of the night. However, these are only short moments that are not capable of changing life as a whole, giving it sharpness and fullness of sensations.

We should also not forget that by 1826 Pushkin was already an accomplished, mature poet, but his literary ambitions were not fully satisfied. He dreamed of great fame, but in the end, high society actually turned away from him not only because of freethinking, but also due to his unbridled love of gambling. It is known that by this time the poet had managed to squander the rather modest fortune he had inherited from his father, and hoped to improve his financial affairs through marriage. It is possible that Sofya Feodorovna still had warm and tender feelings for her distant relative, but the fear of ending her days in poverty forced the girl and her family to reject the poet’s offer.

Probably, the upcoming matchmaking and the expectation of refusal became the reason for such a gloomy mood in which Alexander Pushkin was during the trip and created one of the most romantic and sad poems, “Winter Road,” filled with sadness and hopelessness. And also the belief that perhaps he will be able to break out of the vicious circle and change his life for the better.

Epithets, metaphors, personifications

The text contains the following means of artistic expression:

  • personifications - “the moon makes its way, shedding light”, “removing the boring (annoying, unnecessary) ones, midnight ... will not separate”, “sad meadows” - allow the author to “construct” the interlocutor during a long boring journey, to give the text liveliness and imagery;
  • epithets - “greyhound (frisky) troika”, “daring revelry”, “heartfelt melancholy”, “striped miles”, “measured circle”, “lunar face” - create a unique content and orient the reader to a special emotional perception;
  • metaphors - “light is pouring”, “the face is foggy” - vividly create an indefinite atmosphere of a moonlit evening;
  • Numerous examples of inversion - “the moon is making its way, pouring ... its light”, “something familiar is heard”, “miles are striped”, “hour hand”, “my path is boring”, “my circle”, “the coachman fell silent” - allow you to build rhyme and focus on the final word;
  • catachresis (a combination of words that are incompatible in meaning, but form a semantic whole) “pours sadly” confirms that everything in the poem is permeated with sadness, even the light;
  • polyunion - “now revelry, now melancholy...”, “no fire, no... hut” - reflect the contradictory mood of the lyrical hero, his ardent desire for human communication;
  • lexical repetition - “Tomorrow, Nina, tomorrow to my dear...” - reflects the poet’s impatience;
  • antonyms - “revelry - melancholy”;
  • Numerous omissions - “wilderness and snow...”, “... only miles and miles are found...”, “Boring, sad...” speak of the despair that gripped the lonely traveler, his search for consolation and sympathy.
  • The oxymoron - “I’ll just stare at it” - reflects the strength of the lyrical hero’s feelings.
    The phrase “striped versts” denotes mileposts, which were painted striped to stand out among the snowdrifts.

The text contains a sign of high style - the word “face”. The overall painful atmosphere is created by numerous repetitions - “she sheds a sad light on the sad meadows,” “longing,” “boring, sad...”, “sad, ... my path is boring.” The lonely traveler's dreams of warmth, comfort, the crackle of a fireplace and pleasant company are interrupted by the same ringing of the hated bell.

Few poets managed to harmoniously intertwine personal feelings and thoughts with descriptions of nature. If you read the poem “Winter Road” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin thoughtfully, you can understand that the melancholy notes are associated not only with the author’s personal experiences.

The poem was written in 1826. A year has passed since the Decembrist uprising. Among the revolutionaries there were many friends of Alexander Sergeevich. Many of them were executed, some were exiled to the mines. Around this time, the poet wooed his distant relative, S.P. Pushkina, but is refused.

This lyrical work, which is taught in a literature lesson in the fourth grade, can be called philosophical. From the first lines it is clear that the author is by no means in a rosy mood. Pushkin loved winter, but the road he has to travel now is bleak. The sad moon illuminates the sad meadows with its dim light. The lyrical hero does not notice the beauty of sleeping nature; the dead winter silence seems ominous to him. Nothing pleases him, the sound of the bell seems dull, and in the coachman’s song one can hear melancholy, consonant with the traveler’s gloomy mood.

Despite the sad motives, the text of Pushkin’s poem “Winter Road” cannot be called completely melancholic. According to researchers of the poet’s work, Nina, to whom the lyrical hero mentally addresses himself, is the chosen one of Alexander Sergeevich’s heart, Sofya Pushkin. Despite her refusal, the poet in love does not lose hope. After all, Sofia Pavlovna’s refusal was associated only with fear of a miserable existence. The desire to see his beloved, to sit next to her by the fireplace gives the hero strength to continue his joyless journey. Passing the “striped miles” that remind him of the fickleness of fate, he hopes that his life will soon change for the better.

It is very easy to learn the poem. You can download it or read it online on our website.

Through the wavy mists
The moon creeps in
To the sad meadows
She sheds a sad light.

On the winter, boring road
Three greyhounds are running,
Single bell
It rattles tiresomely.

Something sounds familiar
In the coachman's long songs:
That reckless revelry
That's heartbreak...

No fire, no black house...
Wilderness and snow... Towards me
Only miles are striped
They come across one.

Bored, sad... Tomorrow, Nina,
Tomorrow, returning to my dear,
I'll forget myself by the fireplace,
I'll take a look without looking at it.

The hour hand sounds loud
He will make his measuring circle,
And, removing the annoying ones,
Midnight will not separate us.

It’s sad, Nina: my path is boring,
My driver fell silent from his doze,
The bell is monotonous,
The moon's face is clouded.