The story "Duel" was written and published by A.I. Kuprin in 1905. Many considered and still consider this work to be the best of all that the writer created in his long life. creative life. “Duel”, indeed, gave A.I. Kuprin is a real name in Russian literature, putting him on a par with his great contemporaries: Gorky, Chekhov, Bunin. Meanwhile, the story was far from ambiguous perceived by the Russians. educated society, as well as in the military environment of the 1910s. After the events of 1917 and the bloody Civil War that followed them, the attitude of the author himself towards the content of his work, already well known to readers, radically changed.

History of the creation of the story

The story of A.I. Kuprin "Duel" is largely autobiographical. It is based on the personal impressions of the author, a graduate of the Alexander School, who served as a young officer for four years in the provincial town of Proskurov, Podolsk province. Perhaps A.I. Kuprin, according to his character, personality and temperament, was not at all created for military service, especially in peacetime. But the future writer did not choose the profession of a military man for himself: this is how life turned out. His mother, a widow, not having the means to give her son a decent education, sent the boy to a military gymnasium, which was later transformed into a cadet corps. Resentment for freedom own choice affected the entire further military career of Kuprin, as well as in his literary work. As if in a crooked mirror, it was reflected on the pages of many of the writer's "military" works and in most- in the story "Duel".

Despite the presence of a number of memoirs and other evidence, the history of the creation of the story "Duel" is extremely controversial. Some of its nuances still raise questions among literary critics, biographers, and researchers of A.I. Kuprin’s work.

Known sources indicate that the idea of ​​a large work (novel) about the life of Russian officers in a remote province was born by the writer back in the early 1890s.

In 1893, in an undated letter to N.K. Mikhailovsky, Kuprin mentions his work on a long novel:

"I'm writing a big novel, The Mourners and the Embittered, but I just can't get past chapter 5."

Neither the biographers of Kuprin, nor in his subsequent correspondence, have any more mention of this novel. There is also no information that this work was dedicated to army life. Nevertheless, most researchers consider "Grieving and Embittered" the first version of "Duel", which the author did not like, and he abandoned it.

In the 1890s, a number of Kuprin's stories appeared in print, dedicated to the life and customs of Russian officers, but Kuprin turned to a new great work from the life of the military only in 1902-1903.

While Kuprin was thinking about the plot and collecting materials, the German writer Fritz von Kürburg, who wrote under the pseudonym Fritz-Oswald Bilse, released his novel Aus einer kleinen Garnison (In the Little Garrison). This book, which aimed to expose the rude martinetism, caste isolation, vulgar arrogance and stupidity of the German military, was a huge success. A lawsuit was initiated against the author, which caused a wide public outcry not only in Kaiser Germany, but also in other European countries. Bilse-Kürburg, by order of Emperor Wilhelm II, was excluded from military service. Already in 1903-1904 in the Russian magazines "Russian wealth" and "Education" appear critical articles dedicated to the "Little Garrison". In 1904, several translations of this work by Bilse into Russian and other European languages ​​were published.

“My misfortune,” said Kuprin in an interview in 1910, “is that when I think of something and while I am about to write what I have planned, someone will definitely write it in this interval. So it was with the "Pit" - "Olga Yeruzalem" appeared, so it was with the "Duel" in 1902, when Bilze's notes "In a small garrison" appeared. Even my "Duel" was translated into French like this: "La petite garnison russe".

Kuprin intercepted the topic. "Duel" was conceived by the author as an autobiographical, confessional work. That's just for publishers and readers of the beginning of the new, XX century, the personal experiences of an army officer of the late 1880s were of little interest. The story must have contained a fashionable accusatory subtext at that time. Without it, it was impossible to count on success.

During this period, A.I. Kuprin, by his own later admission, was entirely under the influence of A.M. Gorky and writers close to him, who consider it their calling and duty to castigate social ulcers. In those years, Gorky, indeed, was perceived by Russian society as the most vivid exponent of advanced political thought in fiction. His connection with the Social Democrats, revolutionary speeches and government repressions against him were before everyone's eyes; almost every new work of his was not so much a literary as a political event. For Kuprin, Gorky was also not just a literary authority or a more successful writer. The voice of the “petrel of the revolution” sounded like the voice of a new creator of history, a prophet and arbiter of future changes.

After the publication of Bilse's book, it was Gorky who convinced the author of "The Duel" that work on the work that had begun should be continued. Then Kuprin believed that he was writing a big "novel" about what he saw and personally experienced, that he would be able to combine all his impressions with the requirements of the pre-revolutionary time and thereby "fit into the era." It turned out not to be so easy. The course of work on the book did not satisfy him. In search of inspiration, Kuprin rushed from city to city: he went to Balaklava, then lived a little in Odessa, at the end of 1904 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he again actively communicated with A.M. Gorky. However, the socially acute, topical "romance" about army life did not develop.

Only the image of Lieutenant Romashov, finally found by him, helped Kuprin connect the unconnected. A vulnerable, gullible person, in fact, deeply alien to both the military profession and the rough realities of garrison life, perceives the reality surrounding him with mental anguish: the lack of rights of soldiers, the emptiness and lack of spirituality of many officers, class prejudices, established army traditions and customs. The story masterfully conveys the “horror and boredom” of garrison life, but at the same time a heartfelt anthem of true love is created, the hero expresses a firm belief in the victory of the human spirit through the lips of the hero.

According to the recollections of Kuprin's relatives, in the winter of 1904-1905, work on the "Duel" again froze. Kuprin was not sure of success, he found any excuse not to work on the story: he drank, led a hectic life, overgrown with unfulfilled obligations, debts, creditors. They even composed such a poem about him: “If the truth is in wine, how many truths are there in Kuprin?”

Initially, “Duel” was intended for the journal “World of God”, the publisher of which was the mother-in-law of A.I. collection "Knowledge". (He reported this in a letter dated August 25, 1904 from Odessa).

Subsequently, Alexander Ivanovich himself admitted that he completed the story "Duel" only thanks to the sincere friendly participation of M. Gorky:

"BUT. M. Gorky was a touching comrade in literature, he knew how to support and cheer at the time. I remember that I abandoned The Duel many times, it seemed to me that it was not done brightly enough, but Gorky, after reading the chapters written, was delighted and even shed a tear. If he hadn’t breathed confidence in me to work, I probably wouldn’t have finished my novel.”

Elsewhere, Kuprin characterizes Gorky's role in the creation of the novel with even greater certainty: ““Duel” would not have appeared in print if it were not for the influence of Alexei Maksimovich. During the period of my disbelief in my creative powers, he was of great help to me.

But there is other evidence as well. AI Kuprin has always been a man of passions, and the determining role in the work on the story, most likely, was played not by Gorky's friendly participation, but by the persistence of the writer's adored wife, Maria Karlovna Davydova. She was tired of watching the bouts of creative doubts expressed by Kuprin, as a rule, in drunken revelry and causeless idleness. Maria Karlovna simply put her husband out of the house, saying that he should not appear on the doorstep without the next chapter of the "Duel". This method proved to be more than effective. Kuprin rented a room and, having written the next chapter, hurried to his family apartment, climbed the stairs, thrust the manuscript through the door ajar on a chain. Then he sat down on the steps and patiently waited for Maria Karlovna to read it and let him in. Once, in order to see his wife, Alexander Ivanovich brought a chapter that had already been read earlier, and the door slammed loudly. "Executed! And indeed executed! - he repeated in confusion, being unable to get up and leave ...

So, by the joint efforts of the spouses, the story was completed and published in the next collection of the book publishing partnership "Knowledge" in May 1905.

The reaction of contemporaries

May 1905. The whole country was under the heavy impression of the military failures of the Russian army and navy on Far East. The "small victorious war" turned into huge casualties. In those days, few families did not mourn the officers, soldiers and sailors who perished on the hills of distant Manchuria, died in the battles of Tsushima and Port Arthur. After the January execution, the general dissatisfaction with the government grew stronger and gained strength, which soon developed into a revolutionary movement. And suddenly - there is a story by A.I. Kuprin "Duel".

Despite the fact that the story dealt with events more than ten years ago (duels in the army were allowed in the peaceful 1894), the so-called "progressive public" perceived the story as a work more than modern and topical. Even not the most attentive and far-sighted reader was easily able to discern in the "Duel" an explanation of the reasons for Russia's military failures solely by the viciousness of her long-rotten state system.

Is it any wonder that under these conditions, newspaper and magazine criticism accepted Kuprin's story with a bang. Just a week after the publication of The Duel, the Slovo newspaper published an article by M. Chunosov (I.I. Yasinsky) “The Monster of Militarism”, in which the author called Kuprin’s work a bold indictment against bureaucracy, militarism and monarchist militarism. He was actively echoed by other critics of the democratic camp: V. Lvov (Rogachevsky), Izmailov, Lunacharsky, etc. The future Soviet People's Commissar of Education in his article "On Honor" wrote:

However, a significant part of Russian society, in contrast to positive evaluation critics and the press, perceived "Duel" as a scandalous libel, almost a spit in the face of all those who sacrificed their lives in the interests of the Fatherland in the Far Eastern theater of operations.

A critic of the very popular conservative newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti, A. Basargin (A.I. Vvedensky), described the Duel as “an unscrupulous pamphlet full of sloppy innuendo”, “obscene babble from someone else’s voice in tune with the general trend of the Knowledge collections.

The military could not agree with Kuprin either. Some of them, like Lieutenant General P.A. Geisman, who placed quite sharp article about the "Duel" in the military officialdom "Russian invalid", they really "went too far." Recognizing for Kuprin literary talent"life writer", the general sincerely did not advise the author to touch on what he, in his opinion, does not know:

“Women, flirting, adultery, etc. - this is his genre,” General Geisman reasoned, stating in conclusion: “There we advise him to direct his attention and his abilities. And about the war military science, military art, military affairs and about the military world in general, it is better for him not to talk. For him, this "grape is green." He can write pictures without explanation, but nothing more!

But the majority of representatives of the military environment were offended in "Duel" not at all by the author's ignorance or his general resentment towards the army as such. In order to please the general opposition mood prevailing in the editorial office of Knowledge, with his preaching of anti-militarism, Kuprin, first of all, shamed all the defenders of the Fatherland with their profession. Even the most benevolent reviewers noted: it is journalistic, in its own way beautiful and even spectacular malice that harms The Duel ... ”(P. M. Pilsky).

Kuprin dealt a severe blow to those who considered military service their real calling, and not an accident, a heavy duty or a ridiculous mistake. Behind the ardent desire to “expose and scourge”, the author could not discern in each of his unsympathetic characters the future defenders of Port Arthur, the true heroes of the First World War, those who stood up for their homeland in a completely hopeless situation at the beginning of 1918, created volunteer army and died in her first Kuban campaigns.

Neither before nor after the “Duel” did Kuprin give in his works such a broad picture of the life of a certain environment (in this case, officers), he never raised such acute social problems requiring their resolution, never, finally, the writer’s skill in depicting the inner world of a person, his complex, often contradictory psychology did not reach such expressiveness as in "Duel". The denunciation of the vices of military life for Kuprin's contemporaries was an expression of the general incurable ailment of the entire monarchical system, which, as was believed, rested solely on army bayonets.

Many critics called "Duel" A.I. Kuprin "duel with the entire army", as an instrument of violence against the human person. And if you take it wider - then a duel with everything state system contemporary Russian writer.

It was precisely this radical posing of the question that determined the sharpness of the struggle around the "Duel" between representatives of two social camps - progressive and protective-reactionary.

Only subsequent tragic events the beginning of the 20th century clearly showed Kuprin himself and all his contemporaries the complete illegality and untimeliness of such “fights”. Violence always remains violence, no matter how beautiful ideas people in uniform or without them cover it. It was necessary to fight not with orders, not with mechanisms or tools, but with the nature of man himself. Unfortunately, Kuprin and the "progressive public" of that time understood this too late. In The Duel, Kuprin is still trying to prove that it is not people in themselves that are bad, but the conditions in which they are placed, i.e. the environment that gradually kills everything that is best in them, everything human.

But the year 1917 came. What happened was what Kuprin's Romashov once dreamed about: the soldiers, incited by the "fighters for the people's happiness," said the same "I don't want to!" to the war! But the war didn't stop there. On the contrary, it took on an even more ugly, inhuman, fratricidal form.

"The holiest of titles," the title of "man," is as disgraced as ever. The Russian people are also disgraced - and what would it be, where would we put our eyes, if there were no "ice campaigns"! - wrote Ivan Bunin, recalling those very "cursed days".

Yeah, nobody but a bunch of yesterdays royal officers, once exhibited in the "Duel" in the form of moral freaks - victims of an inhuman, vicious system - did not even try to save Russia from the horrors of Bolshevism. No one, except for them, the defamated, betrayed, humiliated yesterday's front-line heroes and cadet boys, stood up for the disgraced Brest Peace country. No one but them tried to fight to regain the title of human...

After the Civil War, when Soviet Russia critics extolled Kuprin's "Duel" as a "truly revolutionary work" that denounced the tsarist army and rotten to the core, completely decomposed officers, the author himself held a completely different position.

It is characteristic that back in 1907, having carefully read the text of the “Duel”, L.N. Tolstoy, remarked: “Kuprin has no idea, he is just an officer.” And it was true. In the time of trials, Kuprin - an officer not by position, but in fact - could not renounce his homeland, remain indifferent to the feat of the Russian officers, who completed their way of the cross in a foreign land.

A kind of "apology" for the "Duel" was, in our opinion, the novel "Junker", written by A.I. Kuprin in exile. In it, the writer Kuprin, like many émigré intellectuals who once desperately scolded royal orders, with pain in his soul, nostalgic for his bygone youth, for the lost homeland, for that Russia that was and which they all lost.

Analysis of the work

Compositional features of the "Duel"

Kuprin himself and his first critics often called "Duel" a "novel". Indeed, the abundance of characters, several thematic lines, which, intertwined, create a complete picture of the life of the army environment, allow us to consider this work a novel. But the only storyline, simple and concise, as well as conciseness, limited events in time and space, a relatively small amount of text - all this is more typical for a story or short story.

Compositionally, "Duel" was built by Kuprin according to the principles of his first story "Moloch". The author's attention is focused mainly on the main character, his emotional experiences, characterization of his attitude to people, on his assessments of the surrounding reality - exactly the same as in "Moloch", where engineer Bobrov stood in the center. The factory and workers were the background of "Moloch", the regiment, officers and soldiers represent the background of "Duel".

However, in The Duel, Kuprin had already departed from the principle of a “summary” image of the background: instead of the faceless mass of Moloch workers, Duel contains a more detailed, more differentiated characterization of the soldier mass and a very expressive gallery of officer portraits. Regiment, officers, soldiers - written close-up in organic interaction with the main character of the story, Romashov. The reader sees interspersed realistic paintings in front of him, creating a large canvas in which "secondary" characters can be as important to the artistic whole as the main images.

Loser Hero

In the center of the "Duel", as in the center of the story "Moloch", is the figure of a man who, in Gorky's words, has become "sideways" to his social environment.

The reader is immediately struck by Romashov's "foreignness", his worthlessness and uselessness to the mechanism of which he is forced to consider himself a part, his incompatibility with the surrounding reality, with the realities of army garrison life. At the same time, Kuprin makes it clear that Romashov is not a student or high school student who accidentally got into the army, who had just been excommunicated from his parents, torn out of his family or from some other, more prosperous environment. Romashov initially had a desire to make a military career: he studied at a military school, mastered special knowledge, even dreamed of entering the academy. And suddenly, faced with what he has been preparing for so many years - namely, with real army service - all the plans of the young officer turn out to be untenable. There is an internal protest against boredom, violence, inhumanity, etc. etc. The entire action of the story, which includes the complete rebirth of the hero, takes only a few months (from April to June). The development of the image is unnaturally fast, even lightning fast: yesterday everything was fine, but today it is a complete collapse and the realization of one's own tragic mistake.

The conclusion involuntarily suggests itself that such a hero in any field he chooses could come to the same disappointment, rejection of the surrounding reality and simply die. Why is the army here?

Kuprin repeatedly emphasizes the inner growth of his hero, which, ultimately, results in a desire to be freed from military service, as an instrument of violence against his personality. But what is the former "fendrik" Romashov going to do? Write novels? Shake the already wretched building of Russian statehood? To bring closer the "bright future", which then Kuprin's contemporaries saw in the revolution and the destruction of the old world? This hero has no more or less clear program of action.

Soviet critics who analyzed Kuprin's "Duel" interpreted the image of Romashov in an extremely contradictory way. Some saw in him a future revolutionary, a fighter for the freedom of the human person. Thus, the magazine critic New world" L. Mikhailova, in her review of the three-volume collected works of Kuprin, published by Goslitizdat in the early 1950s, wrote: "If Romashov wore not the shoulder straps of an infantry lieutenant, but a green student jacket, we would most likely see him at a student gathering, in circle of revolutionary youth.

Others, on the contrary, pointed to the worthlessness and uselessness of such a loser hero, who has no place in a bright tomorrow. The author of one of the dissertations dedicated to A.I. Kuprin, K. Pavlovskaya, noted in her abstract: “... the characterization of Romashov emphasizes the unviability of such people, the failure of their struggle for individual freedom. Kuprin realized that the Romashovs were no longer needed in life.

Most likely, Kuprin himself did not know (he could not even imagine) what would become of his hero when he gained such a desired freedom. Lieutenant Romashov looks like a randomly grown flower in the neutral zone between two warring armies. According to all laws, he should not have grown up on the plowed by shells, burned land, but he grew up, and the soldier running to attack crushed him with his boot. Will this flower dry up or rise again to die in a funnel from another explosion? Kuprin did not know. The image of Romashov so fell out of the general picture of the future socialist realism, which even then began to be preached in the literature of A.M. Gorky and K that the author decided to simply send him into oblivion.

The death of the hero on the eve of the revival is quite successful literary device. It occurs precisely at the moment when Romashov made an attempt to rise, escaping from an environment alien to him, and therefore symbolizes the active hostility of this environment to anyone who in one way or another comes into conflict with it.

The story's character system

Researchers of Kuprin's work often denied the author the realistic disclosure of the images of many characters in the "Duel", arguing that he deliberately deprives all the officers - heroes of the story of even glimpses of humanity, exposes each of them as a cardboard embodiment of any of the army's vices: rudeness, cruelty, martinetism, drunkenness, money-grubbing, careerism.

P.N. Berkov in his book about Kuprin noted that “despite such big number images of officers in the "Duel", they are all in greater or lesser degree similar”, in the novel there are many “officers that differ little from each other”.

At first glance, this assertion may not seem unfounded. In "Duel" there is only one hero - Romashov. All other characters are built around him, creating a kind of faceless vicious circle, breaking out of which becomes the main task of the protagonist.

However, if we turn to the work of Kuprin itself, it becomes clear that in reality everything is far from being so simple. This is the strength of Kuprin as a realist artist, that, drawing many officers of the same provincial garrison, similar, like “cogs” of a huge mechanism, he tried to portray people endowed with their own, inherent only to them, individual features.

The author does not deprive his characters of humanity. On the contrary, in each of them he finds something good: Colonel Shulgovich, having scolded the officer who squandered state funds, immediately gives him his money. Vetkin is a kind person and a good friend. A good comrade, in essence, is Bek-Agamalov. Even Plum, the stupid campaigner who beats the soldiers, gets drunk alone, and he is impeccably honest in relation to the soldiers' money passing through his hands. The point, therefore, is not that only degenerates and monsters pass before us, although there are such among the actors of the Duel, but that even officers endowed with some positive inclinations in the conditions of terrible arbitrariness and lack of rights that prevailed in tsarist army, lose their human appearance. "Wednesday stuck" - that's a simple and understandable explanation for all the surrounding evil. And at that moment this explanation suited the vast majority of Russian society.

Three years before the appearance of "Duel" A.P. Chekhov, in one of his letters to Kuprin, criticized his story “At Retirement”, dedicated to the depiction of the bleak life in the almshouse of several elderly actors: “Five clearly depicted appearances tire attention and eventually lose their value. Shaved actors are similar to each other, like priests, and remain similar, no matter how carefully you portray them.

"Duel" is evidence of how organically Kuprin accepted Chekhov's criticism. Not five, but more than thirty representatives of the same social environment are depicted in the story, and each of them has its own character, its own special features. It is impossible to confuse the old army serviceman, the degraded drunkard Captain Sliva, with the pretender to aristocracy, imitating the guards "golden youth" dandy lieutenant Bobetinsky. It is impossible to confuse the other two officers - the good-natured, lazy Vetkin and the cruel and predatory Osadchy.

It is characteristic that at the moment of acquaintance with the hero, the writer, as a rule, does not give a detailed description of his appearance. The portrait characteristics of Kuprin are extremely compressed and serve to reveal the main character traits of the depicted person. So, speaking of Shurochka's husband, Lieutenant Nikolaev, Kuprin notes: "His militant and kind face with a fluffy mustache turned red, and his big dark bull eyes flashed angrily." In this combination of kindness with belligerence, the bull's eye expression with an angry gleam - the lack of a strong character, stupidity and vindictiveness inherent in Nikolaev are manifested.

Some of the portraits in "Duel" are interesting in that they contain the prospect of further development of the image. drawing appearance Osadchy, Kuprin notes: “Romashov always felt in his beautiful gloomy face, the strange pallor of which was even more set off by black, almost blue hair, something tense, restrained and cruel, something inherent not to a person, but to a huge, strong beast. Often, imperceptibly watching him from afar, Romashov imagined what this man must be like in anger, and, thinking about it, turned pale with horror and clenched his cold fingers. And later, in the picnic scene, the writer shows Osadchy "in anger", confirming and deepening the impression that this officer evoked in Romashov.

No less persuasive portrait characteristic Kuprin even when he depicts people who are simple and even primitive, clear at first sight: the dull staff captain Leshchenko, the widowed lieutenant Zegrzht with many children, etc.

Even the episodic characters in "Duel" are wonderfully done. Among them, Lieutenant Mikhin should be especially singled out. He, like Romashov and Nazansky, is drawn by the author with sympathy. Kuprin emphasizes and highlights “Romashov’s” features in Mikhin: ordinary appearance, shyness - and along with this moral purity, intolerance and aversion to cynicism, as well as unexpected in this plain-looking young man physical strength(when he defeats the taller Olizar at a picnic).

It is significant that when Romashov, after a collision with Nikolaev, is summoned to the court of a society of officers, the only one who openly expresses his sympathy for him is Mikhin: “Only one lieutenant Mikhin long and hard, with wet eyes, shook his hand, but said nothing, blushed, hurriedly and awkwardly dressed, and left.

Nazan

Nazansky occupies a special place among the heroes of the Duel. This is the least vital character in the story: he does not participate in the events in any way, it is generally impossible to call him the hero of the work. The image of a drunken, half-crazy officer was introduced by Kuprin solely to express his cherished thoughts and views. It would seem why they cannot be put into the mouth of such beautiful person like Romashov? Not! Kuprin follows the established literary tradition realism: in Russia, either drunkards, or holy fools, or " former people". As the saying goes, "what a sober man has in his head, then a drunkard has on his tongue." It is no coincidence that in the works of the same A.M. Gorky, it is tramps, drunkards, “former people” who are engaged in Nietzschian sermons (for example, Satin in the play “At the Bottom”). In this regard, Nazansky successfully complements the image of the sober romantic Romashov. Nazansky exists, as it were, outside of time and space, outside of any social environment that has long since ground it up and spit it out like unnecessary rubbish.

It was in the mouth of such a person that Kuprin put his merciless criticism of the army and officers. “No, think about us, the unfortunate Armeuts, about the army infantry, about this main core of the glorious and brave Russian army. After all, all this is rubbish, rubbish, garbage, ”Nazansky says.

Meanwhile, the views of Nazansky are complex and contradictory, just as the position of Kuprin himself was contradictory. The pathos of Nazansky's monologues is, first of all, the glorification of a personality free from shackles, the ability to distinguish between true life values. But there is something else in his words. According to Nazansky, the possession of high human qualities is “the lot of the chosen ones,” and this part of the hero’s philosophy is close to Nietzscheanism, which Gorky had not yet been ill with at that time: “... who is dearer and closer to you? Nobody. You are the king of the world, its pride and adornment. You are the god of all living things. Everything you see, hear, feel, belongs only to you. Do what you want. Take whatever you like. Do not be afraid of anyone in the whole universe, because there is no one above you and no one is equal to you.

Today, all the lengthy philosophical monologues of this character look more like a parody, an artificial author's insert-remark into the body of a living work. But at that moment Kuprin himself was fascinated by Nietzscheanism, was under the influence of Gorky and believed that they were absolutely necessary in the story.

Society insistently demanded change. The sharply topical monologues of Nazansky were enthusiastically perceived by the opposition-minded youth. For example, in the words of Nazansky about the "jolly two-headed monster" that stands on the street: "Whoever passes by him, it is now in his face, now in the face," - the most radical readers saw a direct call to fight this monster, under which, of course, implied autocracy.

In the revolutionary days of 1905, Kuprin successfully performed reading excerpts from The Duel in a variety of audiences. It is known, for example, that when on October 14, 1905, the writer read Nazansky's monologue at a student evening in Sevastopol, Lieutenant Schmidt approached him and expressed his admiration. Soon after, the delighted lieutenant went to Ochakov, where he killed hundreds of people with his adventurous actions.

Defending the right to freedom of an individual worthy of her, Nazansky speaks with complete disdain about other people: “Whoever will prove to me with clear persuasiveness what I am connected with this - damn him! - my neighbor, with a vile slave, with an infected, with an idiot? .. And then, what interest will make me break my head for the sake of the happiness of the people of the thirty-second century?

Schmidt and similar "figures" thought exactly the same. As you know, the rebellious lieutenant was not going to die heroically for the happiness of the "vile slaves": he successfully escaped from the burning cruiser, and was caught only by pure chance. For a long time, this was perceived by society as a high moral feat. An excellent illustration for the sermon of the most "advanced" character of the "Duel"!

However, it cannot be said that Nazansky, this hero-reasoner, hero-mouthpiece, designed to convey a certain idea to the reader, fully expresses the opinion of the author of the story on all the topical issues he raised.

It is especially indicative that Romashov, who listens attentively to Nazansky, seems to find answers to important questions in his words, agrees with him, but in fact does not at all follow the advice of a half-mad friend. And Romashov’s attitude towards the unfortunate, downtrodden soldier Khlebnikov, and even more so his refusal to own interests in the name of the happiness of the beloved woman - Shurochka Nikolaeva testify that the preaching of militant individualism, developed by Nazansky, only excites the consciousness of the hero of the story, without touching his heart. It is in this, in our opinion, that the contradictions between the ideas declared by the mind and those qualities that were originally inherent in nature in every person, which tormented the author of the “Duel”, already then tormented the author of the “Duel”, manifested themselves. This is the main merit of Kuprin as a humanist writer: only a person who has called for help all his best human qualities, who has renounced selfish egoism and self-deception, is able to change something, make this world better and love it. There is no other way.

Shurochka

The principles preached by Nazansky are fully implemented in the story by Shurochka Nikolaeva, who dooms Romashov, who is in love with her, to certain death in the name of her selfish, selfish goals.

All critics unanimously recognized the image of Shurochka as one of the most successful in the "Duel". Kuprin, perhaps for the first time in Russian literature, managed to create a generally negative female image, without showing either the author's condemnation or compassionate condescension towards his heroine. Unlike many of his predecessors (L.N. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov), Kuprin does not “explain” anything in this character, he perceives Shura as she is, and at the same time endows her with a number of attractive features. Shurochka is beautiful, smart, charming, in every respect stands head and shoulders above the other officer ladies of the regiment, but she is prudent, selfish and, unlike the same Romashov, has a clear, definite purpose. True, in her ideas about a better life, the young woman still does not go beyond the dream of the capital, of success in high society, and so on. But a person who is able to have a dream and act with the most radical methods in order to realize it, as a rule, achieves a lot in life.

The portrait of Shurochka is also peculiarly given in the story. Kuprin deliberately evades the author's description of her appearance, leaving Romashov himself to draw her as he sees her. From his inner monologue, we have not just a detailed portrait, but also the expressed attitude of the hero to his beloved:

“How she boldly asked: am I good? O! You're beautiful! Cute! Here I sit and look at you - what happiness! Listen, I will tell you how beautiful you are. Listen. You have a pale and swarthy face. Passionate face. And on it are red burning lips - how they should kiss! - and eyes surrounded by a yellowish shadow ... When you look straight, the whites of your eyes are slightly blue, and in the large pupils there is a cloudy, deep blue. You're not a brunette, but there's something gypsy about you. But on the other hand, your hair is so pure and thin and converges behind in a knot with such a neat, naive and businesslike expression that you want to quietly touch it with your fingers. You are small, you are light, I would lift you in my arms like a child. But you are flexible and strong, you have breasts like a girl's, you are all impetuous, mobile. On your left ear, below, you have a small mole, like a mark from an earring - it's lovely ... "

At first, as if with random strokes, and then more and more clearly, Kuprin sets off in the character of this woman such traits, at first not noticed at all by Romashov, as spiritual coldness, callousness, pragmatism. For the first time, he catches something alien and hostile to himself in Shurochka’s laughter at a picnic: “There was something instinctively unpleasant in this laughter, from which it smelled of chill in Romashov’s soul.” At the end of the story, in the scene last date, the hero experiences a similar, but significantly intensified feeling when Shurochka dictates his duel conditions: “Romashov felt something secret, smooth, slimy crawling between them invisibly, from which it smelled of cold on his soul.” This scene is supplemented by the description of Shurochka's last kiss: "her lips were cold and motionless."

For Shurochka, Romashov's love is just an unfortunate misunderstanding. As a means to achieve her cherished goal, this person is completely hopeless. Of course, for the sake of his love, Romashov could have passed the exams at the academy, but that would have been just a senseless sacrifice. He would never have fit into the life that so attracted his chosen one, he would never have achieved what was so necessary for her. Nikolaev, on the contrary, from the point of view of Kuprin, possessed all the qualities necessary for this. He is flexible, diligent, hardworking, and natural stupidity has not prevented anyone from achieving high ranks and gaining a position in society. The reader does not even have any doubts that with a woman like Shurochka, Nikolayev, a jerk, will definitely become a general in twenty years. Only now, after October 1917, he will not have to count on the general's pension ...

Soldier images

The images of soldiers do not occupy such a significant place in the story as the images of officers. They were introduced by Kuprin solely for the purpose of demonstrating social inequality and class prejudices that prevailed in the army.

In the story, only the private of the platoon commanded by Romashov, the sick, downtrodden soldier Khlebnikov, is singled out in close-up. He appears directly in front of the reader only in the middle of the story, but already on the first page of "Duel" Khlebnikov's name, accompanied by swear words, is pronounced by his closest superior, Corporal Shapovalenko. This is how the reader's first, yet absentee, acquaintance with the unfortunate soldier takes place.

One of the most exciting scenes of the story is a night meeting at the railroad track of two losers, potential suicides - Romashov and Khlebnikov. Here, with the utmost completeness, the plight of the unfortunate, driven and downtrodden Khlebnikov, and the humanism of Romashov, who sees in a soldier, first of all, a suffering person, the same as himself, are revealed. Romashov, in a fit of philanthropy, calls Khlebnikov “my brother!”, But for Khlebnikov, the officer who descended to him is a stranger, master (“I can’t, gentleman, anymore”). And the humanism of this gentleman, as Kuprin sharply emphasizes, is extremely limited. Romashov's advice - "you must endure" was given to him, rather, to himself than to this desperate person. The author clearly proves that Romashov is not able to change anything in the fate of Khlebnikov, because there is a bottomless abyss between him, even the most useless and low-paid infantry officer and a simple soldier. It is absolutely impossible to overcome this abyss under the given conditions, and at the end of the story Khlebnikov nevertheless commits suicide. Romashov does not know what needs to be done so that hundreds of “these gray Khlebnikovs, each of whom is sick with his own grief,” really feel free and breathe a sigh of relief. Neither does Nazansky know and does not want to know this. And those who believed that they knew what to do began by killing the gentlemen themselves with the hands of these same Khlebnikovs. But did the Khlebnikovs become happy and free from this? Unfortunately no.

Heroes and prototypes

Often readers of the “Duel” ask the question: did the heroes of the famous story have real prototypes among the officers of the regiment in which Kuprin served in the first half of the 1990s? Based on the data at their disposal, the researchers answer in the affirmative to this question.

The following year, after the writer left the army in Kamenetz-Podolsk, the “Address-calendar of the Podolsk province” was published, which contains a complete list of officers of the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment. In the year that has passed since Kuprin left the army, the officers of the regiment, which was very stable in those years, could change only slightly.

Kuprin's fidelity to the facts of the biography of individual officers of the Dnieper regiment, who served as his prototypes, is in some cases simply amazing. For example, here is what the story says about the regimental treasurer Doroshenko:

“The treasurer was staff captain Doroshenko - a gloomy and stern man, especially towards the Fendriks. In the Turkish war, he was wounded, but in the most uncomfortable and dishonorable place - in the heel. Eternal teasing and witticisms over his wound (which, however, he received not in flight, but at the time when, turning to his platoon, commanded the offensive) did what, having gone to war as a cheerful ensign, he returned from it bilious and irritable hypochondriac."

From the track record of staff captain Doroshevich, stored in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), it follows that in his youth he participated in the Russian-Turkish war and was wounded during the battle near the village of Mechke in his right leg with two rifle bullets. Serving for many years in the Dnieper regiment, Doroshevich from 1888 to 1893 was the regimental treasurer, and from March 1894 - a member of the regimental court. Doroshevich served in the Dnieper regiment until 1906 and retired as a colonel.

The prototype of the image of the battalion adjutant Olizar was another colleague of Kuprin, adjutant Olifer.

Olizar, along with Archakovsky, Dietz, Osadchy and Peterson, belongs to the most negative characters"Duel". And his appearance is “long, thin, sleek, pomaded - a young old man, with a naked, but wrinkled, handsome face,” and all his behavior speaks of Kuprin’s sharply hostile attitude towards him. Particularly indicative are the pages of "Duel", which depict the adventures of officers in a brothel. Olizar's actions are distinguished by extremely frank cynicism here. It is characteristic that, describing the return of the officers from the brothel and pointing out that they "behaved a lot", Kuprin, in the first printed version, attributed the most ugly act to Olizar. Subsequently, while editing the story, the writer removed this episode, obviously afraid of shocking the reader, but the general negative evaluation it has been preserved. That is why, in the picnic scene, Kuprin shows with particular pleasure how “small, awkward,” but deeply sympathetic to the reader, Mikhin wins a victory over Olizar in the fight.

According to the track record, the prototype of Olizar, Nikolai Konstantinovich Olifer, "from the hereditary nobles of the Voronezh province", served in the Dnieper regiment from 1889 to 1897, and from the beginning of the service until 1894 he was a battalion adjutant. After the Dnieper Regiment, he served in the border guards and was dismissed in 1901 due to a "morbid condition". From the act medical examination stored in personal file Olifera, it is clear that he was ill with syphilis. The disease led him to a mental breakdown in the form of paralytic dementia.

This gloomy end, in all likelihood, Kuprin did not know. But even if he did, he wouldn't be surprised. “Seventy-five percent of our officers are sick with syphilis,” Kuprin reports through Nazansky. It is unlikely that venereologists would share such statistics with the writer, but the story of Olifer indirectly illustrates these words.

Kuprin's autobiography, dated 1913, tells of his clash with the regiment commander, Alexander Prokofievich Baikovsky. The old colonel is characterized in such a way that Shulgovich, the commander of the regiment in which Romashov serves, involuntarily comes to mind:.

In the seventh chapter of the "Duel" after the dressing inflicted by Shulgovich, Romashov, like Kuprin, dine at his regimental commander, and he establishes that they are countrymen.

Interesting information about Baykovsky was reported by T. Goigova, the daughter of Kuprin's colleague S. Bek-Buzarov, whose individual features Kuprin used when creating the image of Bek-Agamalov:

“In my memory, neither Kuprin, nor Baikovsky was already in the regiment (I saw him at our house later, when he came, being retired, to Proskurov from Kyiv, where he lived at that time), nor Volzhinsky. But about each of them I have a vivid idea, formed according to the stories of my parents. Baikovsky seems to me more like a notorious tyrant than a beast. They told how he put into a deep puddle filled with liquid mud, two officers in patent-leather boots, who had just been invited by him to his crew, only because the officers recklessly pronounced "merci", and Baikovsky could not stand anything foreign. Similar examples there was a lot of tyranny behind him. At the same time ... outside the service, he showed attention to the officers. I know a case when he summoned an officer who lost at cards to his home and, having previously scolded him, forced him to take money to pay off a gambling debt.

Under the pen of the writer Kuprin, the chief and countryman of Lieutenant Kuprin Baikovsky also turned into one of the most striking figures in his work.

Despite the fact that the story "The Duel" is wholly and completely a product of its own era, already quite far removed from us, it has not lost its relevance today. With this book, Kuprin voluntarily or involuntarily predetermined the nature of the image of the tsarist army in all subsequent Russian-language literature. Such significant works of the 1900s devoted to the army as "Retreat" by G. Erastov, "Babaev" by S. Sergeev-Tsensky and a number of others arose under the direct influence of "Duel".

In the wake of general social upheavals of the late XX - early XXI century, it has again become fashionable to expose the vices of the Russian state system to the public, and at the same time to scold the Russian army. It was then that it became clear that it was possible to honestly write about army everyday life only in the spirit of "Duel". The authors of the military theme are Y. Polyakov (“One Hundred Days Before the Order”), V. Chekunov (“Kirza”), V. Primost (“730 Days in Boots”), screenwriter and director of the film “Anchor, more Anchor!” P. Todorovsky and many others - today raise the same "eternal" problems that were first voiced in the once sensational story of A.I. Kuprin. And again - some critics and readers enthusiastically applaud the bold, accurate characteristics, sharing the good and not quite good humor of the creators of these works; others reproach the authors for excessive "darkness", slander and unpatriotism.

However, most representatives today's youth, able to read until the end except that the label on a bag of chips, learns about the problems modern army not so much from fiction as from my own bitter experience. What to do with it, and who is to blame - these are the eternal Russian questions, the solution of which depends on us.

Elena Shirokova

Materials used:

Afanasiev V.N.. A.I. Kuprin. Critical biographical essay. - M .: Fiction, 1960.

Berkov P.N. Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. - Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M-L., 1956

Druzhnikov Y. Kuprin in tar and molasses // New Russian word. - New York, 1989. - 24 Feb.

Grade 11. Lessons based on the novel by A. I. Kuprin "Duel" (1905)

The purpose of the lesson: to show the significance of Kuprin's story for society's awareness of the crisis of all Russian life; humanistic, anti-war pathos of the story.

Methodical methods: analytical conversation, commented reading.

During the classes

Teacher's word. The revolutionary era brought before all writers an urgent need to understand the historical fate of Russia, its people, and national culture. These global issues led to the creation of large "numerous" canvases. The writers comprehended the pace of the world in a contradictory time. This is how the stories "Duel", "Dry Valley" and "Village" by Bunin are written; "Judas Iscariot" by L. Andreev; "Movements", "Bear Cub" by Sergeev-Tsensky.

At first glance, the story (any of them) is simple in its content. But according to the author's generalizations, it is multi-layered, reminiscent of a "casket in a casket" that stores a treasure.

Tale " Duel" came out in May 1905, in the days of the defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima. The image of a backward, incapacitated army, decomposed officers, and downtrodden soldiers had an important socio-political meaning: it was the answer to the question about the causes of the Far Eastern catastrophe. With hard strokes, as if paying off the past, Kuprin draws the army, to which he gave the years of his youth.

This story can be defined as psychological and philosophical. Since "Fathers and Sons" there was no such work.

Story conversation:

What is the theme of the story? The main theme is the crisis of Russia, of all spheres of Russian life. The critical orientation of the story was noted by Gorky, classifying "The Duel" as civil, revolutionary prose. The story had a wide resonance, brought Kuprin all-Russian fame, became the reason for controversy in the press about the fate of the Russian army. The problems of the army always reflect the general problems of society. In this sense, Kuprin's story is still relevant today.

Dedicating "Duel" in her first publication to Gorky, Kuprin wrote to him: " Now, finally, when everything is over, I can say that everything bold and violent in my story belongs to you. If you knew how much I learned from Vasya, how grateful I am to you for it.

What, in your opinion, in "Duel" can be defined as "bold and exuberant »? From the denial of petty rituals (holding hands at the seams and heels together in a conversation with superiors, pulling a sock down when marching, shouting “On the shoulder!”, Ch. 9, p. 336.), the main character of the “Duel” Romashov comes to the denial of what that in a rational society there shouldn't be wars: « Maybe all this is some kind of common mistake, some kind of worldwide delusion, insanity? Is it natural to kill? “Let's say tomorrow, let's say, this very second this thought occurred to everyone: Russians, Germans, British, Japanese ... And now there is no more war, there are no officers and soldiers, everyone has gone home.” Romashov naively believes that in order to eliminate the war, it is necessary that all people suddenly see the light, declare in one voice: "I don't want to fight!" and dropped their weapons.« What courage! - said admiringly L. Tolstoy about Romashov. - And how did the censors let it through and why don’t the military protest?”

The preaching of peacemaking ideas provoked strong attacks in the fierce magazine campaign unleashed around the "Duel", and military officials were especially indignant. The story was a major literary event that sounded topical.

What thematic lines can be identified in the story? There are several of them: the life of officers, the combat and barracks life of soldiers, relations between people. It turns out that not all people hold the same pacifist views as Romashov.

How does Kuprin draw images of officers? Kuprin knew the military environment very well from his many years of experience. The images of the officers are given accurately. Realistically, with ruthless authenticity. Almost all the officers in the "Duel" are nonentities, drunkards, stupid and cruel careerists and ignoramuses.

Moreover, they are confident in their class and moral superiority, they are contemptuous of civilians, who are called " hazel grouses", "shpaks", "shtafirks". Even Pushkin for them " some kind of spat". Among them, it is considered “youthfulness to scold or beat a civilian for no reason, put out a lit cigarette on his nose, put a top hat over his ears.” Arrogance based on nothing, perverted ideas about the "honor of the uniform" and honor in general, rudeness - a consequence of isolation, isolation from society, inactivity, stupefying drill. In ugly revels, drunkenness, absurd antics, some kind of blind, animal, senseless rebellion against mortal anguish and monotony. Officers are not used to thinking and reasoning, some seriously believe that in military service in general " not supposed to think"(N. Rostov visited similar thoughts).

Literary critic Yu. V. Babicheva writes: “ The officers of the regiment have a single "typical" face with clear signs of caste limitation, senseless cruelty, cynicism, vulgarity and swagger. At the same time, in the course of the development of the plot, each officer, typical in his caste deformity, at least for a moment is shown as he could have become if it were not for the destructive influence of the army.».

Do you agree that the officers in the story "Duel" have a single "typical" face? If so, what is the manifestation of this unity? The writer shows the officer environment in a vertical section: corporals, junior officers, senior officers, senior officers. " With the exception of a few ambitious and careerists, all officers served as a forced, unpleasant, disgusted corvee, yearning for it and not loving it.". A scary picture ugly wholesale revelry " officers. 406, ch. eighteen.

Except common features, characteristic of most officers, each of them has personality traits, outlined so vividly and expressively that the image becomes almost symbolic :

BUT) Regimental commander Shulgovich, under his thunderous bourbon, hides his concern for the officers.

B) What can you say about the image of Osadchy? An ominous image of Osadchy. " He Cruel person», - says Romashov about him. The cruelty of Osadchy was constantly experienced by the soldiers, who trembled from his thunderous voice and the inhuman force of blows. In Osadchy's company, more often than in others, there were suicides of soldiers. Animal-like, bloodthirsty Osadchy, in disputes about the duel, insists on the need for a fatal outcome of the duel - “ otherwise it will only be a stupid pity ... a comedy. At the picnic he makes a toast for the joy of former wars, for the cheerful bloody cruelty". In a bloody battle, he finds pleasure, the smell of blood intoxicates him, he is ready to chop, stab, shoot all his life - no matter who and for what ( ch. 8, 14)

C) Tell us about your impressions of Captain Plum. « Even in the regiment, which, thanks to the conditions of wild provincial life, did not differ in a particularly humane direction, it was some kind of outlandish monument of this ferocious military antiquity. He did not read a single book, not a single newspaper, and despised everything that went beyond the limits of the order, charter and company. This is a sluggish, downcast man, he brutally, to the point of blood, beats the soldiers, but he is attentive " to soldier's needs: does not delay money, personally monitors the company's boiler"(Ch. 10, 337)

D) What is the difference between Captain Stelkovsky, commander of the 5th company? Perhaps only the image of Captain Stelkovsky - patient, cold-blooded, persistent - does not cause disgust , "soldiers truly loved: an example, perhaps the only one in the Russian army"(Ch. 15. 376 - 377). “In his company, they didn’t fight and didn’t even swear, although they weren’t particularly gentle, and yet the company, in terms of its magnificent appearance and training, was not inferior to any guards unit.” It is his company at the May review that causes tears from his corps commander.

D) Lieutenant colonel Rafalsky (Brem) loves animals and devotes all his free and non-free time to collecting a rare domestic menagerie.352.

E) What are the distinguishing features of Bek-Agamalov? He boasts of his ability to chop, says with regret that he probably won’t cut a man in half: “ I’ll blow my head to hell, I know that, but so that it’s oblique ... no ”My father did it easily…» (« Yes, there were people in our time…”). With his evil eyes, his hooked nose and bared teeth, he looked like some kind of predatory, angry and proud bird"(ch.1)

8) Bestiality generally distinguishes many officers. During a scandal in a brothel, this bestial essence comes through especially brightly: in Bek-Agamalov's rolling eyes " naked round squirrels sparkled terribly, his head" was lowered low and menacingly", "an ominous yellow gleam lit up in the eyes». “And at the same time, he bent his legs lower and lower, all cringed and absorbed his neck, like a beast ready to make a jump”. After this scandal, which ended in a fight and a challenge to a duel, " everyone dispersed, embarrassed, depressed, avoiding looking at each other. Everyone was afraid to read in other people's eyes their own horror, their slavish, guilty longing - the horror and longing of small, evil and dirty animals.» (Ch. 19).

9) Let us pay attention to the contrast of this description with the following description of the dawn " with clear, childlike skies and still cool air. Trees, damp, shrouded in barely visible ferry, silently woke up from their dark, mysterious night dreams". Romashov feels " short, ugly, ugly and infinitely alien in the midst of this innocent charm of the morning, smiling half-awake».

As the mouthpiece of Kuprin - Nazansky says, “all of them, even the best, most tender of them, wonderful fathers and attentive husbands, all of them in the service become base, cowardly, stupid little animals. You will ask why? Yes, precisely because none of them believe in the service and do not see the reasonable goal of this service».

10) How are the "regimental ladies" depicted? Officers' wives are just as predatory and bloodthirsty as their husbands. Evil, stupid, ignorant, hypocritical. Regimental ladies are the personification of extreme squalor. Their everyday life is woven from gossip, a provincial game of secularism, boring and vulgar connections. The most repulsive image is Raisa Peterson, the wife of Captain Talman. Evil, stupid, depraved and vindictive. " Oh, how nasty she is!” Romashov thinks of her with disgust. " And from the thought of the former physical intimacy with this woman, he had such a feeling, as if he had not washed for several months and had not changed his linen ”(ch. 9).

Not better and the rest of the "ladies". Even with outwardly charming Shurochka Nikolaeva the features of Osadchy, who seems to be unlike him, appear: she stands up for fights with a fatal outcome, says: “ I would shoot these people like rabid dogs". There is no truly feminine left in her: “ I don't want a child. Fu, what a mess!" - she confesses to Romashov (ch. 14).

What role do images play?soldier? Depicted by the mass, motley in national composition, but gray in essence. The soldiers are completely powerless: officers take out their anger on them, beat them, crush their teeth, break their eardrums.

Kuprin gives and individualized images(there are about 20 of them in the story). A whole series of ordinary soldiers - in chapter 11:

A) poorly thinking, slow-witted B ondarenko,

B) intimidated, stunned by shouts Arkhipov, which the " does not understand and cannot memorize the simplest things»,

B) loser Khlebnikov. 340, 375, 348/2. His image is more detailed than others. Ruined, landless and impoverished Russian peasant, shaved into soldiers. Khlebnikov's soldier's lot is painful and pitiful. Physical punishment and constant humiliation - that's his lot. Sick and weak, with a face in cam”, on which a dirty nose turned up absurdly stuck up, with eyes in which“ froze stupid, submissive horror", This soldier has become a general ridicule in the company and an object for mockery and abuse. He is driven to the idea of ​​suicide, from which Romashov saves him, seeing in Khlebnikov his brother-man. Pitying Khlebnikov, Romashov says: Khlebnikov, are you sick? And I'm not feeling well, my dear... I don't understand anything of what's going on in the world. Everything is some wild, senseless, cruel nonsense!But you have to endure, my dear, you have to endure …» Khlebnikov, although he sees in Romashov good man, humanly related to a simple soldier, but, above all, sees in him master.Cruelty, injustice, the absurdity of the way of life become obvious, but the hero sees no way out of this horror, except for patience.

G) educated, intelligent, independent Fokin.

Depicting gray, impersonal, crushed « own ignorance, general slavery, bossy indifference, arbitrariness and violence » soldier, Kuprin evokes compassion in the reader for them, shows that in fact they are living people, and not faceless "cogs" of the military machine .

So Kuprin comes to another, very important topic - personality theme.

D. h. 1) Prepare messages based on the images of Romashov and Nazansky (in groups) (portrait characteristics, relationships with people, views, attitude to service, etc.)

2) Answer the questions:

How is the theme of love dealt with in the story?

What is the meaning of the title of the story?

Lesson 2

Topic: The metaphorical nature of the title of A. I. Kuprin's story "Duel".

The purpose of the lesson: analyze the images of the characters expressing the author's position in the story.

Methodical methods: students' messages, work on the text, analytical conversation.

Characteristics of the image of Nazansky. The conversations between Romashov and Nazansky contain the essence of the story.

BUT) We learn about Nazansky from the conversation between the Nikolaevs and Romashov ( ch. four): this is " inveterate person", he " goes on vacation for one month due to domestic circumstances ... This means that he took a drink”; “Such officers are a disgrace to the regiment, an abomination!”

B) Chapter 5 contains a description of the meeting between Romashov and Nazansky. We see first white figure and golden head"Nazansky, we hear his calm voice, we get acquainted with his dwelling:" 288", ch. 5. All this, and even a direct look " thoughtful, beautiful blue eyes”contradicts what the Nikolaevs said about him. Nazansky argues " about sublime matters”, philosophizes, and this, from the point of view of others, is“ nonsense, idle and absurd chatter". He thinks about 289 ". This is for him" 290/1 ". He feels someone else's joy and someone else's sorrow, feels injustice exist with Troy, the aimlessness of your life, looking for and not finding a way out of the impasse. 431-432.

Description of the landscape, the mysterious night that opens from the window, according to his lofty words: « 290/2 ».

Nazansky's face seems to Romashov " beautiful and interesting": golden hair, a high, clean forehead, a neck of a noble pattern, a massive and graceful head, similar to the head of one of the Greek heroes or sages, clear blue eyes, looking " lively, smart and meek". True, this description of an almost ideal hero ends with a revelation: “ 291/1".

Dreaming about " future godlike life”, Nazansky glorifies the power and beauty of the human mind, enthusiastically calls for respect for a person, enthusiastically talks about love - and at the same time expresses the views of the author himself: “ 293/1 ". Love according to Kuprin is a talent akin to a musical one. Kuprin will develop this theme later in the story " Garnet bracelet”, and much of what Nazansky said will go directly into the story.

AT) « 435 -underlined » (ch. 21). Preaches equality and happiness, sings of the human mind.

In the passionate speeches of Nazansky a lot of bile and anger, thoughts on the need to fight against"two-headed monster" - the tsarist autocracy and police regime in the country, forebodings of the inevitability of profound social upheavals: « 433/1 ". Believes in the next life.

He anti-military and the army in general condemns the brutal treatment of soldiers (ch.21, 430 - 432). Nazansky's accusatory speeches are full of open pathos. It's kind of duel hero with a senseless and cruel system. Some statements of this hero, as Kuprin himself later said, “ sound like a gramophone, but they are dear to the writer, who invested in Nazansky much that worried him.

D) What do you think, why was such a hero needed in the “Duel” next to Romashov? Nazansky asserts: there is only man, the complete freedom of man. Romashov embodies the principle of human lack of freedom. The door is not closed, you can go out. Romashov recalls that his mother tied him to the bed with the thinnest thread. She caused him mystical fear, although it was possible to break.

Characteristics of Romashov.

Lieutenant Romashov, main character"Duel", is infected with the moods and thoughts of Nazansky. This is a typical Kuprin image of a truth seeker and a humanist. Romashov given in perpetual motion, in the process of internal change and spiritual growth. Kuprin reproduces not all biography hero, and the most important moment in it, without a beginning, but with a tragic end.

Portrait the hero is outwardly expressive: 260, ch. one ", sometimes unsophisticated. However, in the actions of Romashov one can feel inner strength coming from a sense of righteousness and justice. For example, he unexpectedly defends the Tatar Sharafutdinov, who does not understand Russian, from a colonel who insults him (Ch. 1, 262-263 )

He stands up for the soldier Khlebnikov when a non-commissioned officer wants to beat him ( ch.10, 340/1).

He even triumphs over the bestial Bek-Agamalov, when he almost hacked to death a woman from a brothel where the officers were drinking: “ 18 ch., 414". Bek-Agamalov is grateful to Romashov for not letting him, who had gone berserk from drunkenness, kill a woman

In all these fights Romashov is at his best.

- What lifestyle does ? (bored, drunkenness, loneliness, is in connection with an unloved woman)

- There are plans ? Extensive in self-education, the study of languages, literature, art. But they remain only plans.

- What is he dreaming about? About a brilliant career, sees himself as an outstanding commander. His dreams are poetic, but they are wasted. 267-269.

- Where does Romashov like to go? ? Meet trains at the station 265. ch.2. His heart yearns for beauty. Wed Tolstoy ("Resurrection"), Nekrasov ("Troika"), Blok ("On the Railway", 439) .Straight reminiscence ( echo, the influence of someone's creativity in a work of art). The railway is read as the theme of the distance, the theme life exit

Romashov is a romantic, subtle nature. Him " 264 ". Attractive in the hero softness of mind, kindness, congenital sense of justice. All this sharply distinguishes him from the rest of the officers of the regiment.

Painful, boring army situation in a provincial regiment. Senseless, sometimes idiotic military practice. His disappointments are painful.

-Why is Kuprin's hero young? Over blossoming youth is dominated by soul-deadening treasury. By choosing young hero, Kuprin increased the torment " nonsense, incomprehensibility».

- What feeling does Romashov evoke in the reader? Deep sympathy.

Romashov has trend towards evolution. Moves towards the knowledge of life. Clash of man and officer first takes place in Romashov himself, in his soul and mind. This internal struggle gradually turns into an open one. duel with Nikolayev and with all the officers. pp. 312 (ch. 7), 348, 349, 419.

Romashov gradually freed from a false understanding of honor officer's uniform. The turning point was the hero's reflections on the position of the human person in society, his internal monologue in defense of human rights, dignity and freedom. Romashova " I was stunned and shocked by the unexpectedly bright consciousness of my individuality. and he rose in his own way against depersonalization of a person in military service, in defense of the ordinary soldier. He is indignant at the regimental authorities, who maintain a state of enmity between soldiers and officers. But his impulses to protest are replaced by complete apathy and indifference, his soul is often overwhelmed by depression: “ My life is gone!"

The feeling of absurdity, confusion, incomprehensibility of life depresses him. During a conversation with a sick, disfigured Khlebnikov Romashov is experiencing deep pity and compassion for him (ch. 16). He, brought up in the spirit of superiority over the mass of soldiers, indifference to the hard fate of a soldier, begins to understand that Khlebnikov and his comrades are impersonal and crushed by their own ignorance, general slavery, arbitrariness and violence, that soldiers are also people who have the right to sympathy. 402/1, 342 .

A. And Kuprin recalled that the scene at the railroad track made a great impression on Gorky: « When I read the conversation between Lieutenant Romashov and the miserable soldier Khlebnikov, Alexei Maksimovich was moved, and it was terrible to see him. big man with wet eyes.

Unexpectedly for himself, he suddenly rebels against God himself, who allows evil and injustice (another duel perhaps the most important). « 402" . He withdrawn into himself, focused on his inner world, determined to break with military service to start a new life: "403"; "404/1 ”- this is how Romashov defines for himself the worthy purpose of life.

A modest person grows spiritually, discovers the eternal values ​​of being. Kuprin sees in the youth of the hero hope for the future transformation of the world. The service makes a repulsive impression on him precisely because of its unnaturalness and anti-humanity. However, Romashov does not have time to fulfill his dreams and dies as a result of betrayal.

4. Thoughts about the possibility of another life are combined in him with thoughts about love for Shurochka Nikolaeva. Sweet, feminine Shurochka, with whom Nazansky is in love, is essentially guilty of the murder of Romashov to a duel. Greed, calculation, lust for power, duplicity, « some evil and proud force", Shurochka's resourcefulness is not noticed by Romashov in love. She demands: You must shoot tomorrow”- and Romashov agrees for her sake to a duel that could have been avoided.

Types of business people have already been created in Russian literature (Chichikov, Stolz). Shurochka - business man in a skirt. She seeks to escape from the environment. The only way - her husband's admission to the academy, seeks to leave for the capital from the petty-bourgeois province. 280, 4 ch.

For the sake of winning his place in the world, he rejects Nazansky's passionate love, for the sake of preserving his husband's reputation and career, he sacrifices Romashov. Outwardly charming and smart, she appears disgusting in a conversation with Romashov on the eve of a duel. 440/2.

Discussing the meaning of the story's title.

BUT) The title itself conveys the personal and social conflict underlying the plot.

plot aspect. P fights, which we have already talked about, is inevitable and natural lead to the denouement - to the last fight.

Final Feature . The duel between Romashov and Nikolaev is not described in the story. O the death of Romashov report dry, official, soulless lines report Staff Captain Dietz ( ch.23, 443). The ending is perceived as tragic because Romashov's death is meaningless. This last chord is full of compassion. This duel, the death of the hero is a foregone conclusion: Romashov is too different from everyone, to survive in this society.

Mentioned several times in the story duel, a painful, stuffy atmosphere is being forced. Chapter 19 describes how drunken officers are pulling funeral tune,(in Vetkin's stupid eyes this motive causes tears), but pure sounds funeral services suddenly interrupted " terrible, cynical swearing" Osadchy , 419. Offended Romashov is trying to reason with people. After that, a scandal is played out, which led to the fact that Romashov challenges Nikolaev to a duel, 420, 426.

B) The meaning of the name is in Romashov's duel with the evil that is in himself. This conflict is given as a philosophical one, the hero's comprehension of freedom and necessity.

C) The theme of the duel - a sign of reality itself, the disunity of people, the misunderstanding of one person by another.

G) Civilian - officers, 411-412. Caste officer prejudices.

D) officers and soldiers(humiliated, let's remember the Tatar, Romashov's orderly, finishing his coffee after him, finishing his dinners)

E) But the name is also metaphorical, symbolic meaning. Kuprin wrote: With all the strength of my soul, I hate the years of my childhood and youth, the years of the corps, the cadet school and service in the regiment. About everything. What I have experienced and seen, I must write. And with my novel I will challenge the royal army to a duel". The name has another, much larger social aspect. The story is Kuprin's duel with the whole army, with the whole system that kills the personality in a person and kills the person himself. In 1905, this story, of course, was taken by the revolutionary forces as a call to fight. But even almost a hundred years after writing, the story remains a call for respect for the human person, for reconciliation and brotherly love.

5. So, traditions of Russian literature:

1) Kuprin's hero is closely connected with the concept of a superfluous person, Tolstoy's hero.

2) Subtle psychological drawing (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). Like L. Tolstoy, he explores in depth the struggle of feelings, the contradictions of the awakening consciousness, their collapse. Romashov is close to Chekhov's characters. Kuprin's approach to his hero is akin to Chekhov's. An embarrassing, short-sighted and baggy lieutenant, thinking of himself in the 3rd person with the words of stilted novels, 375, 380. 387., evokes a mocking and compassionate attitude. This is how the figure of Petya Trofimov is illuminated.

3) Spontaneous democracy, sympathy for the little man. (Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky)

4) Socio-philosophical definition of good and evil.

5) Orientation to some kind of doctrine. Tolstoy is looking for his "green stick". Kuprin does not know how to rebuild the world. His work contains the rejection of evil.

Evening classes in the sixth company were coming to an end, and the junior officers looked at their watches more and more impatiently. The charter of garrison service was practically studied. Throughout the parade ground, the soldiers stood scattered: near the poplars that bordered the highway, near the gymnastic machines, near the doors of the company school, at the sighting machines. All these were imaginary posts, such as, for example, the post at the powder magazine, at the banner, in the guard house, at the money box. Breeders walked between them and posted sentries; the changing of the guards took place; non-commissioned officers checked the posts and tested the knowledge of their soldiers, trying either to lure his rifle from the sentry by cunning, then to force him to leave his place, then to hand him some thing to keep, mostly his own cap. The old-timers, who knew this toy casuistry more firmly, answered in such cases in an exaggeratedly stern tone: “Go away! I do not have the full right to give the gun to anyone, except when I receive an order from the Sovereign Emperor himself. But the young people were confused. They still did not know how to separate jokes, examples from the real requirements of the service, and fell into one or the other extreme. Khlebnikov! Devil with a scythe! Shouted the small, round, and nimble corporal Shapovalenko, and in his voice one could hear the pain of authority. “I taught you, you fool!” Whose order are you now fulfilling? Arrested? And, to you! .. Answer, why were you appointed to a post? There was serious confusion in the third platoon. The young soldier Mukhamedzhinov, a Tatar who barely understood and spoke Russian, was completely bewildered by the dirty tricks of his superiors - both real and imaginary. He suddenly became furious, took the gun in his hand, and responded to all persuasion and orders with one decisive word:- Z-stall! "Wait a minute... you're a fool..." non-commissioned officer Bobylev tried to persuade him. “After all, who am I?” I'm your guard chief, so... - I'll stab! the Tartar shouted frightened and angrily, and with his eyes filled with blood, he nervously thrust his bayonet at anyone who approached him. A handful of soldiers gathered around him, rejoicing at the ridiculous adventure and a moment's rest in the bored drill. The company commander, Captain Sliva, went to investigate the matter. While he trudged along with a sluggish gait, hunched over and dragging his feet, to the other end of the parade ground, the junior officers got together to chat and smoke. There were three of them: lieutenant Vetkin, a bald-headed, mustachioed man of about thirty-three, a merry fellow, a talker, a songwriter and a drunkard, lieutenant Romashov, who had served only his second year in the regiment, and lieutenant Lbov, a lively, slender boy with sly, affectionately stupid eyes and with eternal a smile on his thick, naïve lips—all as if stuffed with old officer jokes. “Swine,” said Vetkin, glancing at his cupronickel watch and angrily clicking the lid. “What the hell is he still holding a company of?” Ethiopian! “And you should explain it to him, Pavel Pavlich,” he advised sly face Lbov. - Hell no. Come on, explain yourself. The main thing is what? The main thing is that it's all in vain. They always flog a fever before the shows. And they always overdo it. They pull a soldier, torture him, turn him around, and at the review he will stand like a stump. You know famous case how two company commanders argued, whose soldier will eat more bread? They chose both the most severe gluttons. It was a big bet - something like a hundred roubles. Here is one soldier who ate seven pounds and fell off, he can no longer. The company commander is now on the sergeant major: “What are you, such, such, let me down?” And the sergeant-major only stares with his eyes: “So I can’t know, your dignity, what happened to him. In the morning they did a rehearsal - eight pounds cracked in one sitting ... "So ours ... They rehearse to no avail, but at the review they will sit in a galosh. “Yesterday...” Lbov suddenly burst out laughing. “Yesterday, classes were finished in all the companies, I’m going to the apartment, it’s already eight o’clock, perhaps it’s completely dark. I look, in the eleventh company they teach signals. Chorus. “Navi-di, to the chest-di, pa-di!” I ask lieutenant Andrusevich: “Why do you still play such music?” And he says: "It's us, like dogs, howling at the moon." - I'm tired of everything, Cook! Vetkin said and yawned. “Wait a minute, who is that riding?” Looks like Beck? - Yes. Bek-Agamalov, the sharp-sighted Lbov decided. - How beautifully sits. “Very beautiful,” agreed Romashov. - In my opinion, he rides better than any cavalryman. Ltd! I danced. Beck is flirting. An officer in white gloves and an adjutant's uniform rode slowly along the highway. Beneath him was a tall, long horse of golden color with a short, in English, tail. She got excited, impatiently shook her steep, collected mouthpiece neck and often fingered her thin legs. - Pavel Pavlich, is it true that he is a natural Circassian? Romashov asked Vetkin. - I think it's true. Sometimes, indeed, Armenian women pretend to be Circassians and Lezgins, but Beck does not seem to be lying at all. Yes, look what he is on a horse! "Wait, I'll shout to him," said Lbov. He put his hands to his mouth and shouted in a choked voice, so that the company commander could not hear: - Lieutenant Agamalov! Beck! The officer on horseback pulled on the reins, stopped for a second, and turned to the right. Then, turning the horse in this direction and slightly bending in the saddle, he forced it to jump over the ditch with an elastic movement and galloped to the officers at a restrained gallop. He was smaller than average, lean, wiry, and very strong. His face, with a forehead sloping back, a thin hooked nose, and resolute, strong lips, was courageous and handsome, and still has not lost its characteristic oriental pallor - both swarthy and matte. “Hello, Beck,” Vetkin said. “Who were you playing with there?” Daevas? Bek-Agamalov shook hands with the officers, leaning low and carelessly from his saddle. He smiled, and it seemed that his white clenched teeth cast a reflected light on the entire bottom of his face and on a small black, sleek mustache ... “There were two pretty little Jews walking around there. Yes to me what? I'm zero attention. We know how bad you play checkers! Vetkin shook his head. "Listen, gentlemen," Lbov began, and again he laughed in advance. - Do you know what General Dokhturov said about infantry adjutants? This is about you, Beck. That they are the most desperate riders in the whole world... “Don’t lie, Fendrik! Bek-Agamalov said. He pushed the horse with his legs and pretended to want to run into the ensign. — By God! All of them, he says, do not have horses, but some kind of guitars, cabinets - with a fuse, lame, buggy, drunken. And if you give him an order - know yourself frying, anywhere, for the whole quarry. A fence is a fence, a ravine is a ravine. Rolls through the bushes. Lost the reins, lost the stirrups, hat to hell! Dashing riders! — What's new, Beck? Vetkin asked. - What's new? Nothing new. Now, just now, the regimental commander found Lieutenant Colonel Lech in the meeting. He yelled at him so that it was audible in the cathedral square. And Lekh is drunk as a serpent, he cannot speak out to his father and mother. He stands still and sways, his hands behind his back. And Shulgovich would bark at him: “When you are talking with the regimental commander, if you please, don’t keep your hands on your ass!” And the servants were here. - Screwed tight! Vetkin said with a grin, half ironic, half encouraging. - In the fourth company yesterday, they say, he shouted: “Why are you poking me tired in the nose? I am tired for you, and no more talk! I am the king and god here!” Lbov suddenly laughed again at his own thoughts. - And yet, gentlemen, there was a case with an adjutant in the N regiment ... "Shut up, Lbov," Vetkin remarked to him seriously. - Eco broke through you today. “There is more news,” continued Bek-Agamalov. He again turned the horse in front of Lbov and, jokingly, began to run into him. The horse shook its head and snorted, throwing foam around it. - There is more news. The commander in all companies requires officers to cut stuffed animals. In the ninth company, I caught up with such a cold that horror. Epifanov rolled up under arrest for the fact that the sword was not sharpened ... Why are you a coward, Fendrik! Bek-Agamalov suddenly shouted at the ensign. - Get used to it. You yourself will someday be an aide-de-camp. You will sit on a horse like a fried sparrow on a platter. “Well, you Asian!.. Get out with your dead bed,” Lbov waved away the horse’s muzzle. “Did you hear, Beck, how one adjutant in the N regiment bought a horse from the circus?” I rode it for a review, and she suddenly began to parade in front of the commander of the troops with a Spanish step. You know, like this: legs up and that way from side to side. Finally crashed into the head company - turmoil, screaming, disgrace. And the horse - no attention, know yourself with a Spanish step butchers. So Dragomirov made a mouthpiece - like this - and shouts: “Instruct-ik, with the same gait to the guardhouse, for twenty-one days, ma-arsh! ..” “Eh, nothing,” Vetkin grimaced. “Listen, Beck, you really gave us a surprise with this felling. This means what? No free time at all? So yesterday they brought us this freak. He pointed to the middle of the parade ground, where stood a stuffed animal made of damp clay, representing some semblance of a human figure, only without arms and without legs. — What are you? Chopped? Bek-Agamalov asked with curiosity. Romashov, have you tried it?- Not yet. - Too! I'll start doing nonsense, - Vetkin grumbled. — When is my time to chop? From nine in the morning to six in the evening, all you know is that you are hanging around here. You barely have time to eat and drink vodka. I gave them, thank God, not a boy ... - Freak. Why, after all, an officer must be able to wield a saber. Why is this, you ask? At war? Under the current firearms They won't let you even a hundred steps. Why the hell do I need your checker? I am not a cavalryman. And if you need it, I'd rather take a gun and a butt - bam-bang on the head. It's more true. - Well, well, but in peacetime? You never know how many cases there may be. Riot, outrage or something... — So what? What does the checker have to do with it again? I'm not going to do menial work, whip people's heads. Ro-ota, plee! - and it's in the hat... Bek-Agamalov made a displeased face. “Eh, you’re all stupid, Pavel Pavlich. No, you are serious. Here you go somewhere for a walk or in a theater, or, let's say, some shpak insulted you in a restaurant ... let's take an extreme - some civilian will give you a slap in the face. What will you do? Vetkin raised his shoulders and pursed his lips contemptuously. - W-well! Firstly, no shpak will hit me, because they only beat the one who is afraid that he will be beaten. And secondly... well, what am I going to do? Bang him with a revolver. - And if the revolver was left at home? Lbov asked. — Well, damn it... well, I'll go get him... That's nonsense. There was a case that they insulted one cornet in a cafeshantan. And he went home in a cab, brought a revolver and killed two of some hazel grouses. And that's it!.. Bek-Agamalov shook his head in annoyance. - I know. Heard. However, the court recognized that he acted with premeditated intent and sentenced him. What's good here? No, I, if someone insulted me or hit me ... He did not finish, but clenched his small hand holding the reins into a fist so tightly that it trembled. Lbov suddenly shook with laughter and burst out laughing. - Again! Vetkin remarked sternly. “Gentlemen…please…Ha-ha-ha!” There was a case in the M-skom regiment. Lieutenant Krause in the Noble Assembly made a scandal. Then the barman grabbed him by the shoulder strap and almost tore him off. Then Krause took out a revolver - hit him in the head! On the spot! Then another lawyer turned up for him, he and his bang! Well, of course, everyone fled. And then Krause calmly went to his camp, to the front line, to the banner. The sentry calls out: "Who's coming?" - "Ensign Krause, die under the banner!" He lay down and shot himself in the arm. Then the court acquitted him. - Youth! Bek-Agamalov said. The usual conversation, beloved by young officers, began about cases of unexpected bloody massacres on the spot and how these cases almost always took place with impunity. In one small town, a beardless, drunken cornet hacked with a saber into a crowd of Jews, from whom he had previously "destroyed an Easter pile." In Kyiv, an infantry lieutenant hacked a student to death in a dance hall for pushing him with his elbow at the buffet. in some big city- either in Moscow, or in St. Petersburg - an officer shot, "like a dog," a civilian who remarked to him in a restaurant that decent people do not stick to unfamiliar ladies. Romashov, who had been silent until now, suddenly, blushing with confusion, adjusting his glasses unnecessarily and clearing his throat, intervened in the conversation: “And here, gentlemen, is what I will say for my part. Let's say I don't count the barman... yes... But if he's a civilian... how should I put it?... Yes... Well, if he honest man, a nobleman, and so on ... why would I attack him, unarmed, with a saber? Why can't I demand satisfaction from him? After all, we are people of culture, so to speak ... “Hey, you’re talking nonsense, Romashov,” Vetkin interrupted him. - You demand satisfaction, and he will say: “No ... uh ... I, you know, generally ... uh ... do not recognize duels. I'm opposed to bloodshed... And besides, uh... we have a magistrate...' So go around all your life with a bat in your face. Bek-Agamalov smiled broadly with his beaming smile. - What? Aha! Do you agree with me? I tell you, Vetkin, learn to cut. In the Caucasus, everyone has been studying since childhood. On rods, on mutton carcasses, on water... - What about people? Lbov put in. “And in public,” Bek-Agamalov answered calmly. - Yes, how they cut! With one blow, a person is cut from shoulder to hip, obliquely. Here is a blow! And what to mess with. — Can you do that, Beck? Bek-Agamalov sighed with regret: "No, I can't... I'll cut a young lamb in half... I've even tried a calf's carcass... but I don't think I can cut a man... I won't cut it." I'll blow my head to hell, I know that, but so that obliquely ... no. My father made it easy... "Come on, gentlemen, let's go and try," said Lbov in a pleading tone, with his eyes lit up. "Beck, honey, please let's go..." The officers approached the clay effigy. Vetkin was the first to cut. Putting on a brutal expression on his kind, rustic face, he struck the clay with all his strength, with a large, awkward swing. At the same time, he involuntarily made that characteristic sound with his throat - crack! - which butchers do when they cut beef. The blade entered the clay by a quarter of an arshin, and Vetkin with difficulty untied it from there. - Badly! Bek-Agamalov remarked, shaking his head. — You, Romashov... Romashov pulled his saber out of its scabbard and awkwardly adjusted his glasses with his hand. He was of average height, thin, and although rather strong for his build, he was clumsy because of his great shyness. He did not know how to fence with espadrons even at the school, and in a year and a half of service he completely forgot this art. Raising his weapon high above his head, he instinctively extended his left hand at the same time. - Hand! shouted Bek-Agamalov. But it was already too late. The end of the checker only scratched lightly on the clay. Expecting more resistance, Romashov lost his balance and staggered. The blade of the checker, hitting his outstretched hand, tore off a piece of skin at the base of the index finger. Blood spattered. - Eh! Here you see! Bek-Agamalov exclaimed angrily, dismounting from his horse. - So cut off the hand for a short time. How can you handle a weapon like that? Nothing, nothing, tie a scarf tighter. Institutka. Hold the horse, Fendrik. Here, look. The main essence of the blow is not in the shoulder and not in the elbow, but here, in the crook of the hand. He made several quick circular motions with his brush. right hand, and the checker blade turned over his head into one continuous sparkling circle. - Now look: I put my left hand back, behind my back. When you strike, do not hit or chop the object, but cut it, as if sawing, pull the saber back ... Do you understand? And besides, remember firmly: the plane of the checker must certainly be inclined to the plane of impact, without fail. This makes the angle sharper. Here, look. Bek-Agamalov moved two steps away from the clay blockhead, glared at him with a sharp, aiming look, and suddenly, flashing his saber high in the air, with a terrible, elusive movement for the eyes, all falling forward, dealt a quick blow. Romashov only heard the piercing whistle of the cut air, and immediately upper half the stuffed animal softly and heavily flopped to the ground. The plane of the cut was smooth, finely polished. “Ah, damn it! Here is a blow! exclaimed the admiring Lbov. — Beck, darling, please, one more time. “Come on, Beck, one more thing,” Vetkin asked. But Bek-Agamalov, as if afraid to spoil the effect produced, smiling, sheathed the saber. He was breathing heavily, and at that moment, with wide, malicious eyes, with a humpbacked nose and bared teeth, he looked like some kind of predatory, angry and proud bird. - What's this? Is this a cutting? he said with mock disdain. - My father, in the Caucasus, was sixty years old, and he chopped the horse's neck. in half! You must, my children, constantly exercise. This is how they do it here: they put a willow rod in a vise and cut it, or let water from above in a thin string and cut it. If there is no splash, then the blow was correct. Well, Lbov, now you. Non-commissioned officer Bobylev ran up to Vetkin with a frightened look. "Your Honor... The regimental commander is coming!" - Smi-irrrna! shouted Captain Plum in a long, stern, excited voice from the other end of the square. The officers hastily dispersed to their platoons. A large, clumsy carriage slowly drove off the highway onto the parade ground and stopped. On one side, the regimental commander heavily climbed out, tilting the entire body to one side, and on the other, the regimental adjutant, Lieutenant Fedorovsky, a tall, dapper officer, easily jumped to the ground. - Hello, sixth! came the colonel's thick, calm voice. The soldiers shouted loudly and discordantly from different corners of the parade ground: - We wish you good health, your-oh-oh-oh! The officers put their hands to the visors of their caps. “I ask you to continue your studies,” the regiment commander said and went up to the nearest platoon. Colonel Shulgovich was very out of sorts. He walked around the platoons, asked the soldiers questions from the garrison service and from time to time cursed swear words with that special youthful virtuosity, which in these cases is inherent in the old front-line servicemen. The soldier seemed to be hypnotized by the fixed, stubborn look of his senile, faded, stern eyes, and they looked at him without blinking, barely breathing, stretching out in horror with their whole body. The colonel was a huge, corpulent, portly old man. His fleshy face, very broad at the cheekbones, tapered upwards towards the forehead, and at the bottom passed into a thick silver beard with a spade and thus had the shape of a large, heavy rhombus. Eyebrows were grey, shaggy, menacing. He spoke almost without raising his tone, but every sound of his extraordinary, famous voice in the division - the voice in which, by the way, he made his entire service career - was clearly audible in the most distant places of the vast parade ground and even along the highway. - Who are you? the colonel asked abruptly, suddenly stopping in front of a young soldier, Sharafutdinov, who was standing by the gymnastic fence. - Private of the sixth company Sharafutdinov, your high nobility! - diligently, hoarsely shouted the Tatar. - Fool! I ask you, what post are you dressed up for? The soldier, bewildered by the shouting and the angry look of the commander, was silent and only blinked for centuries. - W-well? Shulgovich raised his voice. “Which face is sentry ... inviolable ...” the Tatar stammered at random. "I can't know, Your Excellency," he finished suddenly, quietly and decisively. The commander's plump face went red with a thick, brick-colored senile blush, and his bushy brows twitched angrily. He turned around and asked sharply: Who is the junior officer here? Romashov stepped forward and put his hand to his cap. - I'm Colonel. — Ah! Lieutenant Romashov. Well you must be dealing with people. Knees together! Shulgovich suddenly barked, rolling his eyes. How do you stand in the presence of your regimental commander? Captain Plum, I bet you that your subaltern officer does not know how to behave in front of his superiors when on duty. official duties... You, the soul of a dog, - Shulgovich turned to Sharafutdinov, - who is your regimental commander? "I can't know," the Tartar replied dejectedly, but hastily and firmly. — Wu!..... I'm asking you, who is your regiment commander? Who am I? You see, I, I, I, I, I! .. - And Shulgovich hit himself on the chest with his palm several times with all his might. - I can not know... — .......... — ... — the colonel cursed in a long, twenty-word, confusing and cynical phrase. “Captain Plum, if you please put this son of a bitch under the gun with full gear right now. Let him rot, scoundrel, under the gun. You, second lieutenant, think more about woman's tails than about service, sir. Do you dance waltzes? Are you reading Paul de Kokov?.. What do you think this is - a soldier? he poked Sharafutdinov's lips with his finger. - This is a shame, a disgrace, disgust, not a soldier. He doesn't know the name of his regimental commander... I-m-marvel at you, second lieutenant!... Romashov looked into his gray-haired, red, irritated face and felt his heart pounding from resentment and excitement and darkening before his eyes ... And suddenly, almost unexpectedly for himself, he said in a dull voice: - This is a Tatar, Colonel. He doesn't understand Russian, and besides... Shulgovich's face instantly turned pale, his flabby cheeks jumped and his eyes became completely empty and terrible. - What?! he roared in such an unnaturally deafening voice that the Jewish boys, who were sitting on the fence near the highway, fell like sparrows into different sides. - What? Speak? Ma-al-chat! Baby, the ensign allows himself ... Lieutenant Fedorovsky, announce in today's order that I am subjecting Lieutenant Romashov house arrest for four days for misunderstanding of military discipline. And to Captain Sliva I announce a severe reprimand for not knowing how to inspire his junior officers with real concepts of duty. The adjutant saluted with a respectful and impassive air. Plum, hunched over, stood with a wooden, expressionless face and kept his shaking hand at the visor of his cap all the time. “Shame on you, Captain Plum, sir,” grumbled Shulgovich, gradually calming down. - One of the best officers in the regiment, an old campaigner - and so you dismiss the youth. Pull them up, bug them without hesitation. Nothing to be ashamed of with them. Not young ladies, not getting wet ... He turned abruptly and, accompanied by an adjutant, went to the carriage. And while he sat down, while the carriage turned onto the highway and disappeared behind the building of the company school, there was a timid, perplexed silence on the parade ground. - Oh, ba-shadow-ka! - Sliwa said with contempt, dryly and unfriendly a few minutes later, when the officers went home. - It made you want to talk. They would stand and be silent, if God had already killed. Now here is a reprimand for me because of you. And why the hell did they send you to my company? I need you like a dog's fifth leg. You should suck boobs, not... He did not finish, waved his hand wearily and, turning his back on the young officer, hunched over, lowered himself, trudged home, to his dirty, senile bachelor apartment. Romashov looked after him, at his dull, narrow and long back, and suddenly felt that in his heart, through the bitterness of recent resentment and public disgrace, regret was stirring for this lonely, hardened, unloved man, who had left all over the world only two affections: the martial beauty of his company and the quiet, secluded daily drinking in the evenings - "up to the pillow," as the old drunken bourbons expressed themselves in the regiment. And since Romashov had a slightly ridiculous, naive habit, often characteristic of very young people, of thinking about himself in the third person, in the words of stereotyped novels, he now said inwardly: “His kind, expressive eyes turned into a cloud of sadness ...”

The story of A. I. Kuprin "Duel" was published in 1905. She immediately attracted everyone's attention and made her author famous. Indeed, it is difficult to name another work where the state of the army of that time and the morals reigning in it are shown with such force and skill.

The material for "Duel" was given to Kuprin by life itself. The writer studied at cadet corps and in the cadet school, then served in an army infantry regiment for almost four years. The accumulated impressions formed the basis of the story, allowed the writer to truthfully depict pictures of provincial army life and create a whole gallery of portraits of officers and soldiers.

The officers of the N-th regiment have common features due to the similarity of service, life, and living conditions. Their everyday life consists of attending military exercises and studying military regulations, attending an officer's meeting, drinking alone or in company, relationships with other people's wives, playing cards.

However, each of the officers is distinguished by its originality, some of its own, characteristic features. Here we have the unpretentious, good-natured lieutenant Vetkin. He is used to not thinking about anything, to live everyday life. Despite his relative "harmlessness", Vetkin gives the impression of a frivolous and narrow-minded person. The company commander, Captain Sliva, is a stupid campaigner, "a rude and heavy fragment of the former cruel discipline that has fallen into the realm of tradition" - he is not interested in anything that goes beyond the limits of the company, formation and charter. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the whole world he has only two attachments: "the military beauty of his company and the quiet, solitary daily drunkenness in the evenings." Lieutenant Bek-Agamalov cannot cope with outbursts of wild bloodthirsty instincts; Captain Osadchy became famous for his cruelty. He sings of "fierce merciless war" and inspires "inhuman awe" in his subordinates. This gallery of portraits is continued by the melancholic and passive Staff Captain Leshchenko, "capable of inducing melancholy by his very appearance"; veil and dummy Bobetinsky, who imagines himself to be an elegant high-society man; the "young old man", the posh lieutenant Olizar, and many others. The impoverished widowed lieutenant Zegrzht, who lacks a tiny salary to feed four children, evokes sincere pity.

Fleeing from boredom and routine, officers try to think of some kind of occupation for themselves, a means to get away from the heavy nonsense of military service. So, Lieutenant Colonel Rafalsky, nicknamed Brem, takes his soul away in his home menagerie. Among his comrades, he is known as "a sweet, glorious eccentric, kindest soul." But once the "kindest man", enraged that the bugler, due to extreme fatigue, incorrectly followed his order, hit him so hard that the soldier spat out his broken teeth on the ground along with blood.

A true military man by vocation is Captain Stelkovsky. He takes care of his soldiers, he has the best company in the regiment: “The people in it were all, as if they were selected, well-fed, lively, looking meaningfully and boldly into the eyes of any superiors ... In his company he didn’t fight and didn’t even swear. .. his company, in terms of its magnificent appearance and training, would not have yielded to any guards unit. During the military review, the captain proves himself to be an excellent commander - resourceful, quick-witted and proactive. However, outside the service, Stelkovsky cannot boast of nobility and high spiritual qualities: he seduces young peasant girls, and this has become a kind of entertainment for him.

The story "Duel" reveals the inhumanity, spiritual devastation of people in the conditions of army life, their grinding and vulgarization.

The army environment, with its inert officer caste and soldiers driven to stupefaction, is opposed by Lieutenant Romashov and his senior friend officer Nazansky. These characters personify the humanistic principle in the story.

F. Levin notes that many critics and literary historians believe that Romashov has many autobiographical features of Kuprin: "Like the writer himself, Romashov comes from the city of Narovchat, Penza province, he only has a mother, he does not remember his father, his childhood passed in Moscow, he studied in the cadet corps, and then in a military school. All this coincides with the circumstances of Kuprin's life. "

For the reader, Romashov is, first of all, a charming young man who attracts with his nobility and spiritual purity. However, precisely because of these qualities, it is difficult for Romashov to get along in an army environment. He is kind and simple-hearted, has a vivid imagination, childish reverie. Surrounding him, for the most part, are degraded vicious people who have forgotten how to think. It is not surprising that Romashov feels himself a stranger and lonely among them: “It was not the first time in a year and a half of his officer service that he experienced this painful consciousness of his loneliness and lostness among strangers, unfriendly or indifferent people..." He does not like rough army habits, cards, drinking parties, vulgar connections, mockery of soldiers.

Readers are especially sympathetic to his responsiveness, compassion for the misfortune of others. So, Romashov stands up for the Tatar Sharafutdinov, who hardly understands Russian and cannot understand what the colonel wants from him. He keeps the soldier Khlebnikov, driven to despair by bullying and beatings, from committing suicide. Romashov, unlike other officers of the regiment, understands that "the gray Khlebnikovs with their monotonously submissive and meaningless faces are in fact living people, not mechanical quantities ..."

The humanity of the second lieutenant is also reflected in many other things: in the discussion of officer reprisals against "spaks", in the way he treats his batman Cheremis Gainan and, by the way, to his pagan beliefs, in how Romashov, risking his life, was left alone in front of distraught Bek-Agamalov and protected a woman from him, in how painfully Romashov was weighed down by a vulgar affair with Raisa Peterson, in how, finally, he fell in love with Alexandra Petrovna purely and selflessly.

Creating images of the heroes of the story, Kuprin shows amazing observation in describing everyday details, imperceptible, but important little things. He knows how to characterize a person with a well-aimed word so that you immediately imagine him. For example, Romashov has a naive youthful habit of thinking about himself in the third person in the words of novels that he has had time to read. And now, as if alive, the image of a young man appears before us, a little funny, impressionable and insecure, who wants to appear significant.

A special place among the heroes of "Duel" is occupied by Nazansky. This is the least vital character in the story. Apparently, the writer introduces it to express his cherished thoughts and worldview. It would seem, why can't they be put into the mouth of such a wonderful person as Romashov? I think that Kuprin considered the second lieutenant too young and insufficiently educated to become an exponent of such a philosophy. At the same time, Nazansky successfully complements the image of Romashov.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Nazansky feels happy and free only in a drunken stupor, when the next binge comes. “And now this time is coming for me, which they call such a cruel name,” he shares with Romashov. “This is the time of my freedom ... freedom of spirit, will and mind. I live then, maybe strange, but deep, wonderful inner life, such a full life!"

But, in spite of everything, Nazansky has a great love of life. Kuprin conveyed to him his admiration for life, his admiration for its joy and beauty. “But look, no, just look how beautiful, how seductive life is!” Nazansky exclaimed, spreading his arms wide around him. “Oh joy, oh divine beauty of life! Kuprin’s hero is sincerely convinced that he will glorify the charm of life even in the most terrible moments, even if he falls under a train and his insides "mix with sand and wrap around the wheels." This love of life, full of a sense of joy and beauty, was inherent in the writer's worldview. The inspired words about love for a woman that he utters are just as close to him Nazansky. In his opinion, love is the most beautiful and amazing feeling, even if it is not shared. Vasily Nilovich speaks of happiness at least once a year by chance to see the woman he loves, to kiss the marks of her feet, once in a lifetime to touch her dress. He sings of the willingness to give for her, "for her whim, for her husband, for her lover, for her beloved dog" and life, and honor, "and everything that is possible to give!" Excited Romashov wholeheartedly accepts these words, because that is how he loves Alexandra Petrovna.

Nazansky shares with Romashov and other thoughts about the future, about "new, brave and proud" people, about his ideal. Nazansky rejects the gospel instruction "love your neighbor as yourself." He claims that in place of love for humanity there is a new faith: "But love for yourself, for your beautiful body, for your all-powerful mind, for the infinite wealth of your feelings ... You are the king of the world, its pride and adornment ... Do what you want. Take whatever you like. Do not be afraid of anyone in the entire universe, because there is no one above you and no one is equal to you. The time will come when great faith in your "I" will overshadow, like fiery tongues of the holy spirit, the heads of all people, and then there will be no slaves, no masters, no cripples, no pity, no vices, no malice, no envy. Then people will become gods.

In my opinion, in such a position of the character one can feel the influence of the theory of the superman, a strong personality in the spirit of Nietzsche's philosophy. This theory was very popular at the beginning of the 20th century. Apparently, A. I. Kuprin did not escape this hobby either.

Although Romashov enthusiastically listens to Nazansky's revelations and even wants to call his interlocutor a teacher, Nietzsche's contempt for the weak is alien to him. Suffice it to recall how carefully he treats Khlebnikov, how kind he is to Gainan. Despite Nazansky's intelligence and brilliance, I find Romashov much more noble, more humanly attractive. Apparently, in the image of Lieutenant Kuprin, he wanted to emphasize the idea that an honest and decent person is always superior, always remains a winner in spiritual terms.

Grade 11. Lessons based on the novel by A. I. Kuprin "Duel" (1905)

The purpose of the lesson: to show the significance of Kuprin's story for society's awareness of the crisis of all Russian life; humanistic, anti-war pathos of the story.

Methodical methods: analytical conversation, commented reading.

During the classes

Teacher's word. The revolutionary era brought before all writers an urgent need to understand the historical fate of Russia, its people, and national culture. These global issues led to the creation of large "numerous" canvases. The writers comprehended the pace of the world in a contradictory time. This is how the stories "Duel", "Dry Valley" and "Village" by Bunin are written; "Judas Iscariot" by L. Andreev; "Movements", "Bear Cub" by Sergeev-Tsensky.

At first glance, the story (any of them) is simple in its content. But according to the author's generalizations, it is multi-layered, reminiscent of a "casket in a casket" that stores a treasure.

Tale " Duel" came out in May 1905, in the days of the defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima. The image of a backward, incapacitated army, decomposed officers, and downtrodden soldiers had an important socio-political meaning: it was the answer to the question about the causes of the Far Eastern catastrophe. With hard strokes, as if paying off the past, Kuprin draws the army, to which he gave the years of his youth.

This story can be defined as psychological and philosophical. Since "Fathers and Sons" there was no such work.

Story conversation:

What is the theme of the story? The main theme is the crisis of Russia, of all spheres of Russian life. The critical orientation of the story was noted by Gorky, classifying "Duel" as civil, revolutionary prose. The story had a wide resonance, brought Kuprin all-Russian fame, became the reason for controversy in the press about the fate of the Russian army. The problems of the army always reflect the general problems of society. In this sense, Kuprin's story is still relevant today.

Dedicating "Duel" in her first publication to Gorky, Kuprin wrote to him: "Now, finally, when everything is over, I can say that everything bold and violent in my story belongs to you. If you knew how much I learned from Vasya, how grateful I am to you for it.

What, in your opinion, in "Duel" can be defined as " bold and exuberant »? From the denial of petty rituals (holding hands at the seams and heels together in a conversation with superiors, pulling a sock down when marching, shouting “On the shoulder!”, Ch. 9, p. 336.), the main character of the “Duel” Romashov comes to the denial of what that in a rational societythere shouldn't be wars : « Maybe all this is some kind of common mistake, some kind of worldwide delusion, insanity? Is it natural to kill? “Let's say tomorrow, let's say, this very second this thought came to everyone's mind: Russians, Germans, British, Japanese ... And now no more war, there are no officers and soldiers, everyone went home. Romashov naively believes that in order to eliminate the war, it is necessary that all people suddenly see the light, declare in one voice:"I don't want to fight!" and dropped their weapons. « What courage ! - said admiringlyL. Tolstoy about Romashov. - And how did the censors let it through and why don’t the military protest?”

The preaching of peacemaking ideas provoked strong attacks in the fierce magazine campaign unleashed around the "Duel", and military officials were especially indignant. The story was a major literary event that sounded topical.

What thematic lines can be identified in the story? There are several of them: the life of officers, the combat and barracks life of soldiers, relations between people. It turns out that not all people hold the same pacifist views as Romashov.

How does Kuprin draw images of officers? Kuprin knew the military environment very well from his many years of experience. The images of the officers are given accurately. Realistically, with ruthless authenticity. Almost all the officers in the "Duel" are nonentities, drunkards, stupid and cruel careerists and ignoramuses.

Moreover, they are confident in their class and moral superiority, they are contemptuous of civilians, who are called "hazel grouses", "shpaks", "shtafirks ". Even Pushkin for them "some kind of spat ". Among them, it is considered “youthfulness to scold or beat a civilian for no reason, put out a lit cigarette on his nose, put a top hat over his ears.” Arrogance based on nothing, perverted ideas about the "honor of the uniform" and honor in general, rudeness - a consequence of isolation, isolation from society, inactivity, stupefying drill. In ugly revels, drunkenness, absurd antics, some kind of blind, animal,senseless rebellion against mortal anguish and monotony. Officers are not used to thinking and reasoning, some seriously believe that in military service in general "not supposed to think "(N. Rostov visited similar thoughts).

Literary critic Yu. V. Babicheva writes: “The officers of the regiment have a single "typical" face with clear signs of caste limitation, senseless cruelty, cynicism, vulgarity and swagger. At the same time, in the course of the development of the plot, each officer, typical in his caste deformity, at least for a moment is shown as he could have become if it were not for the destructive influence of the army. ».

Do you agree that the officers in the story "Duel" have a single "typical" face? If so, what is the manifestation of this unity?The writer shows the officer environment in a vertical section: corporals, junior officers, senior officers, senior officers. "With the exception of a few ambitious and careerists, all officers served as a forced, unpleasant, disgusted corvee, yearning for it and not loving it. ". A scary pictureugly wholesale revelry " officers. 406, ch. eighteen .

In addition to the common features common to most officers, each of them haspersonality traits, outlined so vividly and expressively that the image becomes almost symbolic:

BUT) Regimental commander Shulgovich, under his thunderous bourbon, hides his concern for the officers.

B) What can you say about the image of Osadchy? An ominous image of Osadchy. "He's a cruel man." - says Romashov about him. The cruelty of Osadchy was constantly experienced by the soldiers, who trembled from his thunderous voice and the inhuman force of blows. In Osadchy's company, more often than in others, there were suicides of soldiers. Animal-like, bloodthirsty Osadchy, in disputes about the duel, insists on the need for a fatal outcome of the duel - “otherwise it will only be a stupid pity ... a comedy. At the picnic he makes a toastfor the joy of former wars, for the cheerful bloody cruelty ". In a bloody battle, he finds pleasure, the smell of blood intoxicates him, he is ready to chop, stab, shoot all his life - no matter who and for what (ch. 8, 14)

C) Tell us about your impressions of Captain Plum. « Even in the regiment, which, thanks to the conditions of wild provincial life, did not differ in a particularly humane direction, it was some kind of outlandish monument of this ferocious military antiquity. He did not read a single book, not a single newspaper, and despised everything that went beyond the limits of the order, charter and company. This is a sluggish, downcast man, he brutally, to the point of blood, beats the soldiers, but he is attentive "to soldier's needs: does not delay money, personally monitors the company's boiler "(Ch. 10, 337)

D) What is the difference between Captain Stelkovsky, commander of the 5th company? Perhaps only the image of Captain Stelkovsky - patient, cold-blooded, persistent - does not cause disgust, "soldiers truly loved: an example, perhaps the only one in the Russian army "(Ch. 15. 376 - 377). “In his company, they didn’t fight and didn’t even swear, although they weren’t particularly gentle, and yet the company, in terms of its magnificent appearance and training, was not inferior to any guards unit.” It is his company at the May review that causes tears from his corps commander.

D) Lieutenant colonel Rafalsky (Brem ) loves animals and devotes all his free and non-free time to collecting a rare domestic menagerie.352.

E) What are the distinguishing features of Bek-Agamalov ? He boasts of his ability to chop, says with regret that he probably won’t cut a man in half: “I’ll blow my head to hell, I know that, but so that it’s oblique ... no ”My father did it easily …» (« Yes, there were people in our time …”). With his evil eyes, his hooked nose and bared teeth, helooked like some kind of predatory, angry and proud bird" (ch.1)

8) Bestiality generally distinguishes many officers . During a scandal in a brothel, this bestial essence comes through especially brightly: in Bek-Agamalov's rolling eyes "naked round squirrels sparkled terribly, his head" was lowered low and menacingly", "an ominous yellow gleam lit up in the eyes ». “And at the same time, he bent his legs lower and lower, all cringed and absorbed his neck, like a beast ready to make a jump” . After this scandal, which ended in a fight and a challenge to a duel, "everyone dispersed, embarrassed, depressed, avoiding looking at each other. Everyone was afraid to read in other people's eyes their own horror, their slavish, guilty longing - the horror and longing of small, evil and dirty animals. » (Ch. 19).

9) Let us pay attention to the contrast of this description with the following description of the dawn "with clear, childlike skies and still cool air. Trees, damp, shrouded in barely visible ferry, silently woke up from their dark, mysterious night dreams ". Romashov feels "short, ugly, ugly and infinitely alien in the midst of this innocent charm of the morning, smiling half-awake ».

As the mouthpiece of Kuprin - Nazansky says,“all of them, even the best, most tender of them, wonderful fathers and attentive husbands, all of them in the service become base, cowardly, stupid little animals. You will ask why? Yes, precisely because none of them believe in the service and do not see the reasonable goal of this service ».

10) How are the "regimental ladies" depicted? Officers' wives are just as predatory and bloodthirsty as their husbands. Evil, stupid, ignorant, hypocritical. Regimental ladies are the personification of extreme squalor. Their everyday life is woven from gossip, a provincial game of secularism, boring and vulgar connections. The most repulsive image is Raisa Peterson, the wife of Captain Talman. Evil, stupid, depraved and vindictive. "Oh, how nasty she is!” Romashov thinks of her with disgust. "And from the thought of the former physical intimacy with this woman, he had such a feeling, as if he had not washed for several months and had not changed his linen ”(ch. 9).

Not better and the rest of the "ladies" . Even with outwardly charmingShurochka Nikolaeva the features of Osadchy, who seems to be unlike him, appear: she stands up for fights with a fatal outcome, says: “I would shoot these people like rabid dogs ". There is no truly feminine left in her: “I don't want a child. Fu, what a mess !" - she confesses to Romashov (ch. 14).

1. What role do images play? soldier? Depicted by the mass, motley in national composition, but gray in essence. The soldiers are completely powerless: officers take out their anger on them, beat them, crush their teeth, break their eardrums.

   Kuprin gives and individualized images (there are about 20 of them in the story). A whole series of ordinary soldiers - in chapter 11:

A) poorly thinking, slow-witted Bondarenko ,

B) intimidated, stunned by shoutsArkhipov, which the " does not understand and cannot memorize the simplest things »,

B) loser Khlebnikov. 340, 375, 348/2. His image is more detailed than others. Ruined, landless and impoverished Russian peasant,shaved into soldiers. Khlebnikov's soldier's lot is painful and pitiful. Corporal punishment and constant humiliation - that's his destiny. Sick and weak, with a facein cam ”, on which a dirty nose turned up absurdly stuck up, with eyes in which“froze stupid, submissive horror ", This soldier has become a general ridicule in the company and an object for mockery and abuse. He is driven to the idea of ​​suicide, from which Romashov saves him, seeing in Khlebnikov his brother-man. Pitying Khlebnikov, Romashov says:Khlebnikov, are you sick? And I'm not feeling well, my dear... I don't understand anything of what's going on in the world. Everything is some wild, senseless, cruel nonsense! But you have to endure, my dear, you have to endure …» Khlebnikov, although he sees in Romashov a kind person who humanly relates to a simple soldier, but, first of all, he sees in himmaster . Cruelty, injustice, the absurdity of the way of life become obvious, but the hero sees no way out of this horror, except for patience.

G) educated, intelligent, independentFokin.

Depicting gray, impersonal, crushed « own ignorance, general slavery, bossy indifference, arbitrariness and violence » soldier, Kuprin evokes compassion in the reader for them, shows that in fact they are living people, and not faceless "cogs" of the military machine.

So Kuprin comes to another, very important topic – personality theme.

D. h. 1) Prepare messages based on the images of Romashov and Nazansky (in groups) (portrait characteristics, relationships with people, views, attitude to service, etc.)

2) Answer the questions:

How is the theme of love dealt with in the story?

What is the meaning of the title of the story?

Lesson 2

Topic: The metaphorical nature of the title of A. I. Kuprin's story "Duel".

The purpose of the lesson: analyze the images of the characters expressing the author's position in the story.

Methodical methods: students' messages, work on the text, analytical conversation.

Checking the house. tasks. The author's ideals are expressed by the heroes opposed to the main mass - Romashov and Nazansky. These heroes are represented by several students (in groups)

Characteristics of the image of Nazansky. The conversations between Romashov and Nazansky contain the essence of the story.

BUT) We learn about Nazansky from the conversation between the Nikolaevs and Romashov (ch. four): this is " inveterate person ", he " goes on vacation for one month due to domestic circumstances ... This means that he took a drink”; “Such officers are a disgrace to the regiment, an abomination!”

B) Chapter 5 contains a description of the meeting between Romashov and Nazansky. We see firstwhite figure and golden head "Nazansky, we hear his calm voice, we get acquainted with his dwelling:"288", ch. 5. All this, and even a direct look "thoughtful, beautiful blue eyes ”contradicts what the Nikolaevs said about him. Nazansky argues "about sublime matters ”, philosophizes, and this, from the point of view of others, is“nonsense, idle and absurd chatter ". He thinks about 289 ". This is for him" 290/1 ". He feels someone else's joy and someone else's sorrow, feelsinjustice exist with Troy, the aimlessness of your life , looking for and not finding a way out of the impasse . 431-432.

Description of the landscape , the mysterious night that opens from the window, according to hislofty words : « 290/2 ».

Nazansky's face seems to Romashov "beautiful and interesting ": golden hair, a high, clean forehead, a neck of a noble pattern, a massive and graceful head, similar to the head of one of the Greek heroes or sages, clear blue eyes, looking "lively, smart and meek ". True, this description of an almost ideal hero ends with a revelation: “291/1".

Dreaming about " future godlike life ”, Nazansky glorifies the power and beauty of the human mind, enthusiastically calls for respect for a person, enthusiastically talks about love - and at the same time expresses the views of the author himself: “293/1 ". Love according to Kuprin is a talent akin to a musical one. Kuprin will develop this theme later in the story "Garnet Bracelet", and much of what Nazansky said will go directly into the story.

AT) « 435 -underlined » (ch. 21 ). Preaches equality and happiness, sings of the human mind.

In the passionate speeches of Nazanskya lot of bile and anger , thoughts on the need to fight against "two-headed monster" - the tsarist autocracy andpolice regime in the country, forebodings of the inevitability of profound social upheavals : « 433/1 ". Believes in the next life.

He anti-military and the army in general condemns the brutal treatment of soldiers (ch.21, 430 - 432 ). Nazansky's accusatory speeches are full of open pathos. It's kind ofduel hero with a senseless and cruel system . Some statements of this hero, as Kuprin himself later said, “sound like a gramophone, but they are dear to the writer, who invested in Nazansky much that worried him.

D) What do you think, why was such a hero needed in the “Duel” next to Romashov? Nazansky asserts: there is only man, the complete freedom of man. Romashov embodies the principle of human lack of freedom. The door is not closed, you can go out. Romashov recalls that his mother tied him to the bed with the thinnest thread. She caused him mystical fear, although it was possible to break.

Characteristics of Romashov.

Lieutenant Romashov, the protagonist of The Duel, becomes infected with the moods and thoughts of Nazansky. This is a typical Kuprin image of a truth seeker and a humanist. Romashovgiven in perpetual motion , in the process of his inner change and spiritual growth. Kuprin reproducesnot all biography hero, and the most important moment in it, without a beginning, but with a tragic end.

Portrait the hero is outwardly expressive:260, ch. one ", sometimes unsophisticated. However, in the actions of Romashov one can feelinner strength coming from a sense of righteousness and justice. For example, he unexpectedly defends the Tatar Sharafutdinov, who does not understand Russian, from a colonel who insults him (Ch. 1,262-263 )

He stands up for the soldier Khlebnikov when a non-commissioned officer wants to beat him (ch.10, 340/1).

He even triumphs over the bestial Bek-Agamalov, when he almost hacked to death a woman from a brothel where the officers were drinking: “18 ch., 414" . Bek-Agamalov is grateful to Romashov for not letting him, who had gone berserk from drunkenness, kill a woman

In all these fights Romashov is at his best.

- What lifestyle does ? (bored, drunkenness, loneliness, is in connection with an unloved woman)

- There are plans ? Extensive in self-education, the study of languages, literature, art. But they remain only plans.

- What is he dreaming about? About a brilliant career, sees himself an outstanding commander. His dreams are poetic, but they are wasted.267-269.

- Where does Romashov like to go? ? Meet trains at the station265. ch.2. His heart yearns for beauty. Wed Tolstoy ("Resurrection"), Nekrasov ("Troika"), Blok ("On the Railway",439) . Straight reminiscence ( echo, the influence of someone's creativity in a work of art). The railway is read as the theme of distance, the theme of life's way out

Romashov is a romantic, subtle nature. Him "264 ". Attractive in the herosoftness of mind , kindness, congenital sense of justice . All this sharply distinguishes him from the rest of the officers of the regiment.

Painful, boring army situation in a provincial regiment. Senseless, sometimes idiotic military practice. His disappointments are painful.

- Why is Kuprin's hero young? Over blossoming youth is dominated by soul-deadening treasury. Choosing a young hero, Kuprin intensified the torment "nonsense, incomprehensibility ».

- What feeling does Romashov evoke in the reader? Deep sympathy.

Romashov has trend towards evolution . Moves towards the knowledge of life.Clash of man and officer first takes place in Romashov himself, in his soul and mind. This internal struggle gradually turns into an open one.duel with Nikolayev and with all the officers. pp. 312 (ch. 7), 348, 349, 419.

Romashov graduallyfreed from a false sense of honor officer's uniform. The turning point was the hero's reflections on the position of the human person in society, his internal monologue in defense of human rights, dignity and freedom. Romashova "I was stunned and shocked by the unexpectedly bright consciousness of my individuality. and he rose in his own wayagainst depersonalization of a person in military service , in defense of the ordinary soldier. He is indignant at the regimental authorities, who maintain a state of enmity between soldiers and officers. But his impulses to protest are replaced by complete apathy and indifference, his soul is often overwhelmed by depression: “My life is gone!"

The feeling of absurdity, confusion, incomprehensibility of life depresses him. During a conversation with a sick, disfiguredKhlebnikov Romashov is experiencingdeep pity and compassion for him (ch. 16 ). He, brought up in the spirit of superiority over the mass of soldiers, indifference to the hard fate of a soldier, begins to understand that Khlebnikov and his comrades are impersonal and crushed by their own ignorance, general slavery, arbitrariness and violence, that soldiers are also people who have the right to sympathy.402/1, 342 .

A. And Kuprin recalled that the scene at the railroad track made a great impression onGorky : « When I read the conversation between Lieutenant Romashov and the miserable soldier Khlebnikov, Alexei Maksimovich was moved, and it was terrible to see this big man with wet eyes.

Unexpectedly for himself, he suddenly rebels against God himself, who allows evil and injustice (anotherduel perhaps the most important). « 402" . He withdrawn into himself, focused on his inner world , firmly decided to break with military service in order to start a new life:"403"; "404/1 ”- this is how Romashov defines for himself the worthy purpose of life.

A modest person grows spiritually, discovers the eternal values ​​of being. Kuprin sees in the youth of the hero hope for the future transformation of the world. The service makes a repulsive impression on him precisely because of its unnaturalness and anti-humanity. However, Romashov does not have time to fulfill his dreams and dies as a result of betrayal.

4. Thoughts about the possibility of another life are combined in him with thoughts about love forShurochka Nikolaeva . Sweet, feminine Shurochka, with whom Nazansky is in love, is essentiallyguilty of the murder of Romashov to a duel. Greed, calculation, lust for power, duplicity , « some evil and proud force ", Shurochka's resourcefulness is not noticed by Romashov in love. She demands:You must shoot tomorrow ”- and Romashov agrees for her sake to a duel that could have been avoided.

Types of business people have already been created in Russian literature (Chichikov, Stolz). Shurochka is a business man in a skirt. She seeks to escape from the environment. The only way - her husband's admission to the academy, seeks to leave for the capital from the petty-bourgeois province.280, 4 ch.

For the sake of winning his place in the world, he rejects Nazansky's passionate love, for the sake of preserving his husband's reputation and career, he sacrifices Romashov. Outwardly charming and smart, she appears disgusting in a conversation with Romashov on the eve of a duel.440/2.

Discussing the meaning of the story's title.

BUT) The title itself conveys the personal and social conflict underlying the plot.

plot aspect. P fights , which we have already talked about, is inevitable and naturallead to the denouement - to the last fight .

Final Feature . The duel between Romashov and Nikolaev is not described in the story. Othe death of Romashov report dry, official, soulless linesreport Staff Captain Dietz (ch.23, 443 ). The ending is perceived as tragic because Romashov's death is meaningless. This last chord is full of compassion. This duel, the death of the hero is a foregone conclusion:Romashov is too different from everyone, to survive in this society.

Mentioned several times in the storyduel , a painful, stuffy atmosphere is being forced. Chapter 19 describes how drunken officers are pullingfuneral tune, (in Vetkin's stupid eyes this motive causes tears), but pure soundsfuneral services suddenly interrupted "terrible, cynical swearing" Osadchy , 419. Offended Romashov is trying to reason with people. After that, a scandal is played out, which led to the fact that Romashov challenges Nikolaev to a duel, 420, 426.

B) The meaning of the name is in Romashov's duel with the evil that is in himself. This conflict is given as a philosophical one, the hero's comprehension of freedom and necessity.

C) The theme of the duel - a sign of reality itself, the disunity of people, the misunderstanding of one person by another.

G) Civilian - officers, 411-412. Caste officer prejudices.

D) officers and soldiers (humiliated, let's remember the Tatar, Romashov's orderly, finishing his coffee after him, finishing his dinners)

E) But the name is also metaphorical , symbolic meaning. Kuprin wrote:With all the strength of my soul, I hate the years of my childhood and youth, the years of the corps, the cadet school and service in the regiment. About everything. What I have experienced and seen, I must write. And with my novel I will challenge the royal army to a duel ". The name also has another, much larger social aspect. The story is Kuprin's duel with the whole army, with the whole system that kills the personality in a person and kills the person himself. In 1905, this story, of course, was taken by the revolutionary forces as a call to fight. But even almost a hundred years after writing, the story remains a call for respect for the human person, for reconciliation and brotherly love.

5. So, traditions of Russian literature:

1) Kuprin's hero is closely connected with the concept of a superfluous person, Tolstoy's hero.

2) Subtle psychological drawing (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). Like L. Tolstoy, he explores in depth the struggle of feelings, the contradictions of the awakening consciousness, their collapse. Romashov is close to Chekhov's characters. Kuprin's approach to his hero is akin to Chekhov's. An embarrassing, short-sighted and baggy lieutenant, thinking of himself in the 3rd person with the words of stilted novels, 375, 380. 387., evokes a mocking and compassionate attitude. This is how the figure of Petya Trofimov is illuminated.

3) Spontaneous democracy, sympathy for the little man. (Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky)

4) Socio-philosophical definition of good and evil.

5) Orientation to some kind of doctrine. Tolstoy is looking for his "green stick". Kuprin does not know how to rebuild the world. His work contains the rejection of evil.

Agenosov's textbook, part 1, p. 26.

V. Lilin, With. 64 - reviews of the "Duel" by Gorky, L. Tolstoy.

A. I. Kuprin . Selected writings. Moscow, "Fiction", 1985