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Медный всадник

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Поэма представляет собою одно из самых глубоких, смелых и совершенных в художественном отношении произведений Пушкина. Поэт в нем с небывалой силой и смелостью показывает исторически закономерные противоречия жизни во всей их наготе, не стараясь искусственно сводить концы с концами там, где они не сходятся в самой действительности.

Aleksandr Pushkin – Mednyj vsadnik

27 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1833

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About the author

Alexander Pushkin

3,084 books3,449 followers
Works of Russian writer Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin include the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1831), the play Boris Godunov (1831), and many narrative and lyrical poems and short stories.

See also:
Russian: Александр Сергеевич Пушкин
French: Alexandre Pouchkine
Norwegian: Aleksander Pusjkin
Spanish:Aleksandr Pushkin

People consider this author the greatest poet and the founder of modern literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated ever with greatly influential later literature.

Pushkin published his first poem at the age of 15 years in 1814, and the literary establishment widely recognized him before the time of his graduation from the imperial lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. Social reform gradually committed Pushkin, who emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals and in the early 1820s clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. Under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous drama but ably published it not until years later. People published his verse serially from 1825 to 1832.

Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, later became regulars of court society. In 1837, while falling into ever greater debt amidst rumors that his wife started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d'Anthès, to a duel. Pushkin was mortally wounded and died two days later.

Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. Tsarskoe Selo was renamed after him.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
Profile Image for Bettie.
9,977 reviews5 followers
May 30, 2015
Alexandre Benois's illustration to the poem (1904).

a narrative poem written by Alexander Pushkin in 1833 about the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. Widely considered to be Pushkin's most successful narrative poem. -wiki

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Author 2 books461 followers
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February 15, 2021
Bahçesaray Çeşmesi'ni iki defa bale olarak izleme şansına erişmiştim. Sahnede izlemek bu uzun epik şiiri okumaktan çok daha fazla keyif vermişti. Bir bale ile bir şiiri kıyaslamak doğru değil ama atmosfer açısından Azer Yaran'ın çevirisinden kaynaklı olduğunu tahmin ediyorum, (örn. "Sarmış nasıl bir düşünce usunu?" gibi.) bu şiirin yarattığı atmosfer bence zayıf. Rusçam olmadığından orjinal metne göz atamadım, belki de balesi fazla başarılıdır. Bilemiyorum.

Hem balesini izlemiş hem de balenin uyarlandığı bu şiiri okumuş başkalarının da düşüncelerini merak ederim.
Profile Image for Alberto Martín de Hijas.
1,199 reviews55 followers
April 22, 2023
En la literatura rusa del XIX das un patada y te salen dos o tres obras maestras e, incluso entre ellos, Pushkin era un puto genio. A pesar de ser un poema traducido (cosa siempre complicada) no hay una estrofa mala: La descripción de la inundación, la desesperación del protagonista y esa parte final que te transmite una sensación de terror superior a la mayoría de las obras del género. Dan ganas de estudiar ruso para poder leer el original.
Profile Image for Saeed.
52 reviews33 followers
May 10, 2013
در مقدمه‌ی کتاب، زندگی و شعر 'الکساندر پوشکین' معرفی می‌شود.ـ
سپس متن 'سوارکار مفرغی' با ترجمه‌ی فارسی و زبان اصلی (روسی) آمده است.ـ

در ابتدای این اثر، پیوتر با گفتاری به مانند خدا در ابتدای کتاب مقدس، اقدام به بنای پایتخت جدیدی می‌کند: ... این خواست طبیعت است / که از این جا / پنجره‌ای به سوی اروپا بگشاییم / و بر کرانه‌ی دریا / پای بگذاریم / استوار ...ـ

روی دیگر سلطه‌ی پیوتر از نظر پوشکین چنین بود که او در حقیقت دلسوز مردم نبود و اگر غضب می‌کرد و یا صرفا تصمیم آنی می‌گرفت، بر استخوان‌ها و خون مردم هم که شده می‌ایستاد و آن کار را به انجام می‌رساند. سراسر امپراتوری روسیه از سویی ثروت فرهنگی عظیمی برای بشریت بود و از سوی دیگر حتما با وحشی‌گری، تجاوز، ظلم، نیستی و بی‌حرمتی به انسان همراه بود. انسان، درست مثل ابزاری برای بقا و دوام امپراتوری بود. همه‌ی این‌ها در تصویر پوشکین از پتربورگ و پیوتر گرد هم آمده‌اند و مجسمه‌ی پیوتر مانند روح پتربورگ تصویر می‌شود ...ـ

'انسان کوچک' یک مضمون مهم دیگر در سوارکار مفرغی است که مضمون همیشگی ادبیات روس نیز بوده است
Profile Image for Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly.
755 reviews431 followers
January 10, 2014
A relatively new translation by Peter Norman of a poem by the great Russian poet who died young in a duel.

Reading it reminded me of the recent devastation wrought upon my country by what was reportedly the strongest typhoon which ever hit land ("Yolanda," international codename: "Haiyan"), the city it destroyed (Tacloban), the great sea surges it created and the various tragic human sufferings it caused.

The poem's central character was a guy named Yevgeny and the city was Petrograd (before it became St. Petersburg). He was away from his fiancee Perasha when the storm struck and swelled the river Neva--


"All night the Neva
Strained towards the sea, against the strom,
But could not overcome their raging fury...
And no longer could it struggle...
By morning above its banks
Throngs of people jostled each other,
Revelling at the towering of
Spray and foam of waters now enraged.
But the strength of the winds from the gulf
Drove back the blocked Neva and it
Turned furious, tempestuous,
And plunged the islands into flood,
The weather grew more violent still,
The Neva swelled up and roared,
Bubbling like a cauldron, swirling,
And of a sudden, like a frenzied beast,
Flung itself upon the city.

All fled before it; round about
All was of a sudden empty--the waters
Flowed into subterranean cellars,
The canals surged against the gratings,
And Petropolis became afloat, deep
Like Triton, plunged waist-high in water.

A siege! Attack! Malicious waves,
Like thieves, climb through the windows. Boats
Ram and smash the glass panes with their poops;
Trays under soaking coverings,
Broken pieces of huts and beams and roofs,
The goods of thrifty traders,
The chattels of beggars, pale of face,
Bridges torn away by storm,
Coffins from the sodden churchyard
Float down the streets!"

Water and wind can destroy completely. As in Tacloban and the places which crossed Yolanda's path, the survivors' immediate needs were the most basic--


"The people
Perceive God's wrath and wait their doom.
Alas! All is lost: where will they find
Both food and shelter? ..."

Then the leader and the relief efforts:

"...In that grim year
The late Emperor still ruled with glory
Over Russia. Onnto the balcony
He stepped, both saddened and bemused
And spake: 'No Tsar can command
The elements of God.' In thought he sat
And gazed and gazed with eyes of sorrow
At the terrible disaster.
Whole squares were turned to lakes,
Broad rivers flooded into streets.
The palace seemed a forlorn island.
The Tsar gave voice and from end to end,
By streets both near and far his generals
Set off on their perilous journeys,
Through raging waters to save the folk,
Struck dumb with fear, from drowning,
And secure their homes, their houses."


Yevgeny survived the catastrophe and immediately went to look for his beloved Parasha (and her widowed mother). But her house was gone--


"A pile of rubble heaped before him;
Some buildings abandoned, some torn down,
Some houses all awry, some destroyed,
Others shifted by the waves; all around
Lie scattered bodies, like a battlefield.
Quite heedless, tormented to exhaustion,
Yevgeny runs headlong to the spot,
Where fate awaits him with unknown news,
As though enclosed in a sealed letter.
And now he runs through the town's outskirts,
And here's the gulf, the house is near...
But what is this?...
He came to a halt,
Went back a little and returned.
He looks...he walks...he looks again.
Here's the spot where their house stood;
Here's the willow. The gates were here--
Torn down, it's clear. Where then's the house"


To know what happened to Yolanda's many surviving victims is to know Yevgeny's fate in this story-poem written 170 years ago.
Profile Image for Imi.
396 reviews147 followers
July 27, 2016
I listened to this reading on youtube while reading along simultaneously.

It's about time I read one of the most influential works in Russian literature! Especially as I visited St. Petersburg myself at the end of last year. This narrative poem is a celebration of the city, which I was expecting, of course, after hearing so much about it, but I was not expecting what happened at the end of this little story!

This is very short, but very much worth your time if you want to give it a read, although I'm unsure what would be the best English translation to go for.
Profile Image for Fred.
638 reviews43 followers
November 4, 2025
“Is all our life, devoid of sense, / A dream: Fate’s jest at Man’s expense?”

“The wind, tumultuous roar / Of wind and waves reverberated / Inside his head.”

“His remains were here / Interred with simple rites, as fitting.”

This remains one of the best narrative poems ever. It is a gothic adventure narrative in which Hell and the natural world are intertwined, and human beings are brutally punished for their arrogance and power grabbing, with society’s least powerful suffering the most. Although I found it more ambiguous this time around than on a first reading - are we meant to side against Peter the Great? Or is it a vindication of Peter’s policies? I still side ultimately with my first reading, but it is worth noting that the speaker praises Peter’s city developments as much superior to what St Petersburg was like before.

But then - Yevgeny does suffer for it badly. The humans are no match for the gothic terror of the natural world, and its Hell-like connotations (I still love the underworld imagery of the boatman taking Yevgeny to Parasha’s house for a “copper-coin”). We are punished for “impos[ing] order on the primeval natural scene” (Dewey).

Perhaps John Dewey put it best when he said, “Pushkin’s own ambivalent attitude towards Peter is present throughout the poem.”

***MY FIRST READING BELOW***

19th-century Russian literature is always so good - Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky - and Pushkin is no exception. This poem is eerily reminiscent of today's concerns with environmental tumult: it's almost as if Pushkin was looking into our own time. The poem is creepy, haunting, and seemingly aware of how the working-classes suffer most from environmental hardship, whilst the rich people at the top who caused it suffer relatively little. Its exploration of "madness" was also fascinating.

Favourite Quotations:

O how I love you, Peter's daughter! - the speaker shows bias; they are on the side of Saint Peter and their city creation.

His name? Yevgeny - let us be contented / To call our hero this: its sound / Is pleasing, and my pen has found / It an agreeable convention. - Yevgeny is so downtrodden that even the speaker acts towards him with indifference: lazy attention is drawn to his fictional construction ("Let's just call him this because it sounds nice and I fancy writing that") rather than presenting him as a living, breathing human being. Yevgeny is subjugated even by the poem's literary form.

Our hero earns his honest pay / As clerk, lives somewhere as a boarder, / Shuns those ordained to rule and order, / Gives his dead ancestors no thought / And sets the vanished past at naught.

During the flood, the poor Russian citizens are described as having no food, no shelter; unavailing / Their cries for help.

Immense waves raging there had mixed / The depths [of the city] into a deadly potion

And so the river fretted, breathing / Hard as a steed hot from the fray. - Nature is presented as a living, breathing, very devil-like and ferocious creature with sinister agency. Nature seeks to bring down human civilisation like a predator.

Yevgeny looked: a boat was waiting. / He called and ran towards it, rating / This godsend was a sure sign of grace, / And for a copper coin was taken / Across the waves. The boat was shaken / Yet carefree was the boatman's face. - Pushkin evokes the language of the Greek underworld - the boat being drawn across the water by an indifferent boatman. Yevgeny is almost going through Hell, it seems.

The wild, tumultuous roar / Of wind and waves reverberated / Inside his head. - 'madness' is symbolised as the chaos of Nature being present inside one's own head. Nature and human insanity are presented as intertwined.
Profile Image for Antonella.
284 reviews10 followers
November 10, 2014
Un piccolo capolavoro pietroburghese.

È una gran fortuna che qualcuno abbia deciso di pubblicare questo racconto dato che Puskin non lo pubblicò mai. La critica contenuta in questo libricino era talmente forte che l'autore preferì non divulgarlo.
E ancora maggiore fortuna è che qualcuno si sia incaricato di tradurlo e metterlo a disposizione del lettore italiano.

Racconto brevissimo, critico e profondo. Molto bello.
Inutile analizzare gli intenti e il significato del racconto in quanto sono spiegati egregiamente nella prefazione del traduttore Gianfranco Lauretano.

http://ifyouhaveagardenandalibrary.bl...
Profile Image for Yani.
424 reviews206 followers
August 30, 2016
El Neva había luchado
la noche entera contra la tormenta
y al final, tras inútiles esfuerzos,
comprendió que la lucha era imposible.


Qué historia tan bonita y tan poderosa, que dice tanto en tan poco espacio.
Profile Image for Behnam Taki.
71 reviews6 followers
June 18, 2024
یک اثر فاخر از الکساندر پوشکین که روایتی ست از شکست.
پیوتر پدری‌ست که با برپایی شهری جدید (سنت پترزبورگ کنونی) در چشم دنیا و حسودانش (موج‌های فنلاند) آن را با شکوه جلوه می‌دهد اما فرزندان خانه‌اش از این جلال و جبروت چیزی جز امواج عضبناک رود نِوا که زندگی‌شان را به یغما می‌برد چیز دیگری نصیبشان نمی‌شود. سوارکار مفرغی ما را دنبال می‌کند

کتابی کم حجم که در نهایت اختصار داستانی ماندنی در ذهن و قلب خوانندگانش می‌سازد. پوشکین به معنی واقعی کلمه یک استاد تمام‌عیار است.
Profile Image for Piero Marmanillo .
331 reviews33 followers
March 29, 2022
Impresionante poema narrativo de Alexandr Pushkin. El jinete de bronce es una de sus obras maestras, su último gran poema narrativo. En él se fragua la inmensidad de Pedro el grande y San Petersburgo con la insignificancia de un pequeño funcionario del siglo XIX. La naturaleza sacude su verdadera fuerza un día de 1824 para inundar la gran ciudad y con ello destruir todo a su paso y también destruir todos los sueños del joven Eugenio hasta llevarlo a la locura y la muerte. Desgarrador desenlace.

Como nota es importante señalar que este libro fue uno de los varios que influyeron en Dostoievski para su creación de El doble.
Profile Image for małgosia ੯‧̀͡⬮.
90 reviews23 followers
July 3, 2024
aleksander puszkin to moje ulubione narzędzie propagandowe!!!!
w ogóle tłumaczenia tuwima takie są żywe i energiczne zawsze mi się najprzyjemniej czyta
Profile Image for Emma.
715 reviews25 followers
February 9, 2021
*** I guess that this review is pretty much spoiler-free ***

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 (3/5 stars).

I had to read this narrative poem for one of my university elective courses called Russian & Eastern European Literature: The Classics; one of the easiest courses I have ever taken in my life. I did wish we actually read some of the great classics like Anna Karenina, War and Peace, or Crime and Punishment instead of fragments and short stories written by those famous authors. I still have an interest in reading those books eventually so I am slowly collecting them whenever I find them in a thrift store, aka the place where I get most of my classics from.


Haha, I myself am surprised that I read once again something else for school and that it even was a long-ass poem narrative poem. It is even more surprising that I actually quite liked it and that I was able to understand most of what the poem was saying or at least tried to tell.

It´s quite a dramatic, grim/dark, gloomy read where a flood happens that kills people but also where statues from the founding father of Sint Petersburg came alive and haunted our poor narrator. He definitely got so much shit he did not deserve and he never got a happily ever after (quite the opposite of it). Very dramatic, very much inspired by religion and the sublime, so it was also interesting to analyze this poem and write a short little essay on it.

I also liked how the poem started off by telling us the readers how Petersburg came to be. In all honesty, I had no clue how Petersburg came to be and how it became the great city that it is now so it was interesting to learn about its origins through this poem. I also did not know that the city´s location is very close to a huge river? lake? ocean? (Neva) and that it had been plagued by numerous floods. Haha, I thought we the Dutch people only had issues and that many natural disasters of cities being flooded, but I cause we´re just basic bitches after all.

Now I have the song the Neva flows from Anastasia the Musical stuck in my head, hahaha. It would have made more sense if the song was My Petersburg (another Musical Anastasia song) but nope my brain apparently dislikes logic.


I don´t have much else to say about this poem, besides that it was a nice read and one of the rare old poems that I actually like.
Profile Image for Elena.
Author 3 books38 followers
February 10, 2017
Molto bello! Non posso valutare se e quanto sia fedele all'originale perché non conosco il russo, ma posso dire che la lettura è stata molto bella, scorrevole ed evocativa.
Mi è piaciuto particolarmente come Puskin ha descritto la Nevà, paragonandola a dei briganti e ad altre persone. Molto bellabella!
Ammetto che ho voluto leggerlo spinta dalla curiosità che mi è venuta leggendo Il cavaliere d'inverno di Paullina Simons, ma ora ho anche un altro motivo per apprezzare questo bellissimo componimento dedicato al fondatore di San Pietroburgo!
Profile Image for Kaveh Rezaie.
281 reviews25 followers
March 20, 2015
شعر. البته شاید به ترجمه که می آید همان روسی نشود ولی همه سعی و تلاش شده است که بهترین باشد. مقدمه خیلی خوبی بر احوالات پوشکین دارد. تصویرهای رنگی زیبایی هم متناسب باهر قطعه در کنار هر قطعه هست.
Profile Image for Ian.
246 reviews56 followers
July 16, 2013
Today I am trying something a little different by reviewing a short story/ poem in prose. Poetry often doesn't translate as well across the language barrier as novels do. One reason for this is because wordplay and double meanings are harder to translate than character development and themes. This poem however is exceptionally good in any language. It is a brilliant portrayal of the individual vs. the state. I could go on about this piece, but today I think I will end this review short and simply recommend you read it!
Profile Image for Bahman Bahman.
Author 3 books242 followers
February 20, 2020
….دوستت می دارم

آن گاه که طلوعی شتابان سر می رسد

و پیش از آنکه ظلام شب

به تمامی

آسمان های زرین را پوشانده باشد

جای طلوع پیشین را می گیرد

و شب نیم ساعتی پیش نمی پابد

هوای ماسیده و

سرمای بی رحم زمستانت را

دوست می دارم

تَکِ سورتمه

در امتداد نوای عریض را

دوست می دارم

آنگاه که رخسار دوشیزگان

از گل های سرخ درخشانتر است
Profile Image for Miguel Duarte.
132 reviews54 followers
January 11, 2016
A parte central desta colectânea, o Cavaleiro de Bronze, é de tal forma incrível que não pode ser atribuída outra nota, mesmo não estando os poemas seguintes todos ao mesmo nível.
Profile Image for Isaac Chan.
263 reviews14 followers
June 29, 2025
Note: I read the John Dewey (no relation with the philosopher) translation

Exceeded my expectations. Although I of course cannot comment on the original Russian verse, Dewey did a superb job of capturing the dream-like, surreal vibe of Pushkin. I also did not expect a poem about the Great Flood of Petersburg to carry such subtly profound themes (which Dewey explained in his commentary, or else I would’ve missed them entirely) about politics and society, a meditation about authoritarianism and the possibility that it is necessary, and whether great men impose their will on the fate of nations (a question which Tolstoy plumbed the depths of in War and Peace), etc. That Pushkin was heavily subjected to Tsarist censorship was also helpful context that Dewey provided. The great lengths that Pushkin went thru to research this historical event, and his friendship and later falling out with Adam Mickiewicz (generally regarded as Poland’s greatest poet) was also interesting and helpful.

Like Pushkin, I am also greatly in awe of the majesty of the sight of great men on horseback - it’s a great, moving symbol of power and strength, e.g. the famous Theodore Roosevelt portraits, the iconic Napoleon portrait, Marcus Aurelius on horseback, and ofc, the Bronze Horseman - and Pushkin brought to life the poem that was lingering in my subconscious, with a tinge of irony and soberness about the effects of authoritarianism on the suppression of individual freedom. A true master at work.
Profile Image for Raúl.
Author 10 books60 followers
September 3, 2023
Un poema, traducido al español por Alonso Luengo en endecasílabos y rima libre, cuando el original en está en rima consonante, en el que se une la leyenda, la crónica histórica, la parodia, la fantasía, en el humor y el horror, en el que la brillantez de la parte lírica se une a un juego de ecos y paralelismos narrativos.
Profile Image for Javier Muñoz .
349 reviews11 followers
May 14, 2018
Pushkin es un genio, fuera de la lectura que se pueda haber entre lineas es un poema increíble, hasta aprendi un poco sobre Rusia; ahora solo quiero subirme a un avión e ir a San Petersburgo y ver a Pedro el Grande!
Profile Image for маја.
469 reviews297 followers
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June 23, 2022
idk how to rate these, they're interesting but too short for me to have a proper developed opinion
Profile Image for Ángel Agudo.
334 reviews62 followers
December 22, 2022
«Le envuelve el ruido de su interna angustia,
y así arrastra su vida de infortunio,
sin ser fiera ni hombre, ni viviente
ni fantasma...»
Profile Image for Wiktor Seweryn.
184 reviews
December 8, 2025
[7,5/10] – (2025) – ciekawy obraz imperialnych ambicji okupionych krzywdą szarego człowieka
Profile Image for dănuț.
296 reviews2 followers
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March 6, 2024
I will communism the shit out of this mâine la oră
Profile Image for Bakunin.
310 reviews279 followers
September 14, 2022
Read it for my Russian literature class. I really liked the new Swedish translation of Pushkins famous poem, the Bronze horseman about Petersburg and the relatonship between one of its inhabitants and the statue of Peter the great.
Profile Image for Stephen Bruce.
119 reviews19 followers
January 23, 2019
Before I read The Bronze Horseman, I had formed some vague conceptions about its themes: the debate about Peter the Great and the wonders and dangers of the city he built. Now that I've read it, along with Michael Basker's excellent introduction and notes, I see how marvelously complex it is.

Pushkin completed this in less than a month (while working on several other poems) at his family estate in Boldino. In fact he dashed off the whole second part (222 lines!) in only two nights, finishing it at 5:05 a.m. on November 1, 1833 (he must have burned lots of candles).

The central story takes place during the great Petersburg flood of 1824. Evgenii, a low-level bureaucrat, who loses his love to the waves, comes face to face with the bronze statue of Peter the Great, whom he blames for his calamity. The statue awakes (or so it seems to Evgenii) and begins to chase him down...

In some ways, Basker argues, the poem can be reduced to a triangular opposition between Peter the Great, Evgenii, and the forces of nature. But this is complicated in several ways; for example, Peter the Great is alternately a heroic, terrifying, noble, and destructive figure.

The poem switches stylistically from a formal ode, to a realistic narrative, to a fantastic vision, and the use of rhyme, enjambment, and alliteration is similarly complex. Here is one of the best passages, filled with alliteration:
И, озарен луною бледной,
Простерши руку в вышине,
За ним несется Всадник Медный
На звонко-скачущем коне;
И во всю ночь безумец бедный,
Куда стопы ни обращал,
За ним повсюду Всадник Медный
С тяжелым топотом скакал.
John Dewey's translation (1998), though it lacks the sound effects of the original, captures some of the frightfulness of the horse's charge:
For after him, with arm extended,
The Bronze Colossus on its steed
Charged at the gallop and offended
The moonlit calm with its stampede.
And then, no matter where he wended
His way, he found that all night through –
Poor, hapless wretch – he was attended
By bronze hooves beating their tattoo.
Profile Image for Janet.
Author 8 books88.9k followers
July 9, 2012
Reading this in Russian and also in English (a really vile translation), and piecing together the sense of it, while mostly digging what it sounds like in Russian--that riding four beat line (Nicholson Baker was soooo right about that)--There's a lovely set of videos on Youtube of an actor reciting The Bronze Horseman out loud, I recommend listening to it and reading along in English, something better than the one I've got--I've heard the DM Thomas translation is very good. The one on the internet barely sounds like English.

But for the SOUND--check it out:

"Медный всадник" (читает И.Смоктуновский) - 1 часть

It says "Mednie vsadnik" (Bronze Horseman, read by I. Smoktunovsky, part 1)

It's read a little sensitively, avoiding the singsongy 4 beat line, which I stress when I read it aloud because I love that stuff and can't get enough of it.

Bronze Horseman is the ultimate Petersburg tale-in-verse. Very short (12 pages), it starts with a celebration of the city and all the things the poet loves about it, and then moves to the hero of the tale, a poor working zhlub named Evgeny (a joke, in that the hero of Puskhin's greatest work is Eugene too, Eugene Onegin. (He even jokes about it in the prologue, how the hero's name is one with which the poet is very friendly.)
It's about the great flood of of 1824, and the founder of Petersburg, Peter I, comes to life in the storm, or rather, his great brazen statue by Falconet, which overlooks the Neva River, and pursues the poor defenseless Evgeny to the death. (oops, spoiler.) Pushkin is the Russian Shakespeare, he could do everything, poetry, prose, novels in verse. This little excursion just reemphasizes the man's genius.
Profile Image for Svetlana.
92 reviews25 followers
December 11, 2013
I loved this story, even thou it was a very short read. It made me really sad in the end, and the feeling has stuck with me all day, but then again that is the thing I love about Pushkin. He can write three lines that have more emotional value then a book of a thousand pages written by someone else. The way he describes the surroundings and nature is an other thing I admire. It's at the same time simple easy to understand, but also very picturesque. I find his description of the scene after the Neva retreated really interesting, and I can't get it out of my head. Oh and an other interesting thing, here we find out what happens to Eugene. Love the story and Love Pushkin, that's all I have to say.
Profile Image for Read a Book.
454 reviews18 followers
August 3, 2015
A Pushkin classic, he leaves the reader questioning who to support. The Horseman (Emperor Peter), who modernized Russia and made Petrograd/St. Petersburg a reality? Or Yevgeny, who suffers from the storm and flooding of the Neva, loses his love interest, and is haunted by an animated Bronze Horseman in a sick and delirious state?

There is an argument for both, but neither argument is fulfilling. That's what makes Pushkin a genius - you can interpret his work a hundred ways and always find new things to discuss.
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