The role of Simon's monastery in poor Lisa. Poor "poor Lisa". From the RG dossier

It was no coincidence that Karamzin placed the action of the story in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery. He knew this outskirts of Moscow well. Sergius Pond, according to legend, dug by Sergius of Radonezh, became a place of pilgrimage for couples in love; it was renamed Lizin Pond.

Literary direction

Karamzin is an innovative writer. He is rightfully considered the founder of Russian sentimentalism. Readers received the story enthusiastically, because society had long been thirsty for something like this. The classicist movement that preceded sentimentalism, which was based on rationality, tired readers with teachings. Sentimentalism (from the word feelings) reflected the world of feelings, the life of the heart. Many imitations of “Poor Lisa” appeared, a kind of mass literature that was in demand by readers.

Genre

“Poor Liza” is the first Russian psychological story. The characters' feelings are revealed in dynamics. Karamzin even invented a new word - sensitivity. Lisa’s feelings are clear and understandable: she lives by her love for Erast. Erast’s feelings are more complex; he himself does not understand them. At first he wants to fall in love simply and naturally, as he read in novels, then he discovers a physical attraction that destroys platonic love.

Issues

Social: the class inequality of lovers does not lead to a happy ending, as in old novels, but to tragedy. Karamzin raises the problem of human value regardless of class.

Moral: a person’s responsibility for those who trust him, “unintentional evil” that can lead to tragedy.

Philosophical: self-confident reason tramples on natural feelings, which French enlighteners spoke about at the beginning of the 18th century.

Main characters

Erast is a young nobleman. His character is written in many ways. Erast cannot be called a scoundrel. He is just a weak-willed young man who does not know how to resist life’s circumstances and fight for his happiness.

Lisa is a peasant girl. Her image is not described in such detail and contradictory, it remains in the canons of classicism. The author sympathizes with the heroine. She is hardworking, a loving daughter, chaste and simple-minded. On the one hand, Lisa does not want to upset her mother by refusing to marry a rich peasant, on the other hand, she submits to Erast, who asks not to tell her mother about their relationship. Lisa thinks, first of all, not about herself, but about the fate of Erast, who will face dishonor if he does not go to war.

Lisa's mother is an old woman who lives with love for her daughter and the memory of her deceased husband. It was about her, and not about Liza, that Karamzin said: “And peasant women know how to love.”

Plot and composition

Although the writer's attention is focused on the psychology of the heroes, external events that lead the heroine to death are also important for the plot. The plot of the story is simple and touching: the young nobleman Erast is in love with the peasant girl Lisa. Their marriage is impossible due to class inequality. Erast is looking for pure brotherly friendship, but he himself does not know his own heart. When the relationship develops into an intimate one, Erast grows cold towards Lisa. In the army he loses a fortune at cards. The only way to improve matters is to marry a rich elderly widow. Lisa accidentally meets Erast in the city and thinks that he has fallen in love with someone else. She cannot live with this thought and drowns herself in the very pond near which she met her beloved. Erast realizes his guilt and suffers for the rest of his life.

The main events of the story take about three months. Compositionally, they are framed with a frame associated with the image of the narrator. At the beginning of the story, the narrator reports that the events described at the lake happened 30 years ago. At the end of the story, the narrator returns to the present again and remembers Erast’s unfortunate fate at Lisa’s grave.

Style

In the text, Karamzin uses internal monologues; the narrator’s voice is often heard. Landscape sketches are in harmony with the mood of the characters and are in tune with the events.

Karamzin was an innovator in literature. He was one of the creators of the modern prose language, close to the colloquial speech of an educated nobleman. This is what not only Erast and the narrator say, but also the peasant woman Liza and her mother. Sentimentalism did not know historicism. The life of the peasants is very conditional; these are some kind of free (not serfs) pampered women who cannot cultivate the land and buy rose water. Karamzin's goal was to show feelings that are equal for all classes, which a proud mind cannot always control.

« Beyond Taganka the city ended. Between the Krutitsky barracks and the Simonov Monastery lay vast cabbage fields. There were also powder magazines here. The monastery itself rose beautifully... on the banks of the Moscow River. Now only half of the original building remains of it, although Moscow could be proud of the architecture of this monastery no less than the French and Germans are proud of their castles."
Historian M.N. Tikhomirov

Vostochnaya Street, 4... the official address in the directories of the oldest monastery in Moscow - Simonovsky. It is located near the Avtozavodskaya metro station.

The Simonov Monastery was founded in 1379 by the nephew and disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Abbot Theodore. Its construction was blessed by Metropolitan Alexy of Moscow and All Rus' and St. Sergius of Radonezh. The new monastery was located a few kilometers from the Kremlin on the high bank of the Moscow River on land donated to the monastery by the boyar Stepan Vasilyevich Khovra (Khovrin), who later became a monk in this monastery under the name of the monk Simonon. Nearby was the busy Kolomenskaya road. From the west, the site was limited by the steep left bank above the bend of the Moscow River. The area was the most beautiful.

For a quarter of a century, the monastery's buildings were made of wood. Vladimir Grigorievich Khovrin builds the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in the Simonov Monastery. This temple, one of the largest in Moscow at that time, still stands on a massive white-stone basement and is very decorated in Italian style (a student of Aristotle himself, Fioravanti, took part in its reconstruction at the end of the 15th century). Its construction was completed in 1405. Seeing this majestic structure, contemporaries said: “Such a blunder has never happened in Moscow.” It is known that in the 19th century an icon of the Lord Pantocrator, which belonged to Sergius of Radonezh, was kept in the temple. According to legend, Sergius blessed Dmitry Donskoy with this icon for the Battle of Kulikovo. After perestroika at the end of the 15th century, the Assumption Cathedral became five-domed.

Assumption Cathedral of the Simonov Monastery 1379-1404.

(reconstruction by P.N. Maksimov based on the results of field studies in 1930)

In addition to the monastery’s Assumption Cathedral, Vladimir Grigorievich “made a brick fence near the monastery.” This was the first stone monastery fence in Moscow architecture, built from a material that was then new in Moscow - brick. Its production has just been established by the same Aristotle Fioravanti not far from Simonov, in the village of Kalitnikov. In the 16th century, unknown architects erected new fortress walls with powerful towers around the Simonov Monastery (some historians suggest the authorship of the famous Russian architect Fyodor Kon, builder of the walls of the White City of Moscow, the Smolensk Kremlin and the walls of the Borovsko-Pafnutev Monastery). Each of the fortress towers had its own name - Dulo, Kuznechnaya, Salt, Watchtower and Taininskaya, which faced the water.

Dulo Tower. 1640s

View from the bell tower to the Moscow River. In the foreground are the Dulo and Sushilo towers. Photography from the beginning of the 20th century.

From the moment of its creation, the Simonov Monastery was located on the most dangerous southern borders of Moscow. Therefore, its walls were made not just monastery, but fortress walls. In 1571, Khan Davlet-Girey looked at the burning Moscow from the tower of the monastery. The capital then burned out in three hours, and about two hundred thousand Muscovites died in the fire. In 1591, during the invasion of the Tatar Khan Kazy-Girey, the monastery, together with the Novospassky and Danilov monasteries, successfully resisted the Crimean army. In 1606, Tsar Vasily Shuisky sent archers to the monastery, who, together with the monks, repelled the troops of Ivan Bolotnikov. Finally, in 1611, during a severe fire in Moscow, caused by the Poles, many residents of the capital took refuge behind the monastery walls.

The Royal Doors from the Simonov Monastery.
Detail. Tree. Moscow. End of the 17th century

Throughout history, the monastery was the most visited in Moscow; members of the royal family came here to pray. Everyone considered it their duty to take part in the construction and decoration of the monastery, once one of the richest in Russia. The monastery bell tower was also famous throughout Moscow. Thus, in the Nikon Chronicle there is a special article “On Bells”, which talks about the strong and wonderful ringing of bells, which, according to some, came from the cathedral bells of the Kremlin, and according to others, from the bells of the Simonov Monastery. There is also a famous legend that on the eve of the assault on Kazan, young Ivan the Terrible clearly heard the ringing of Simon's bells, foreshadowing victory.

Therefore, Muscovites felt respect for the Simonov bell tower itself. And when it fell into disrepair by the 19th century, the famous architect Konstantin Ton (the creator of the Russian-Byzantine style in Moscow architecture) erected a new one above the northern gate of the monastery in 1839. Its cross became the highest point in Moscow (99.6 meters). On the second tier of the bell tower there were the churches of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, and St. Alexander Nevsky, on the third - a belfry with bells (the largest of them weighed 16 tons), on the fourth - a clock, on the fifth - an exit to the head of the bell tower. This majestic structure was built at the expense of the Moscow merchant Ivan Ignatiev.

Simonov Monastery in the 17th century. Reconstruction by R.A. Katsnelson

There was a time when Simonovo was known as a favorite place for country walks among Muscovites. Not far from it there was a marvelous pond, according to the chronicles, dug by the brethren with the participation of Sergius of Radonezh himself. It was called that way - Sergiev Pond. During Soviet times, it was filled up, and today the administrative building of the Dynamo plant is located on this site. A little more about the pond below.

The plague epidemic that began in 1771 led to the closure of the monastery and its transformation into a “plague quarantine.” In 1788, by decree of Catherine II, a hospital was organized in the monastery - there was a Russian-Turkish war.

Refectory of the Simonov Monastery. 1685
Photo from the History of Russian Art by I. Grabar

A major role in the restoration of the Simonov Monastery was played by the Chief Prosecutor of Moscow A. I. Musin-Pushkin. At his request, the empress canceled her decree and restored the monastery's rights. The Musin-Pushkin family is buried in the family crypt of the necropolis of the Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God of the monastery.

The first, in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Mother of God, was buried the contributor and builder of this church, Grigory Stepanovich Khovru. Subsequently, the cathedral became the tomb of the metropolitans Varlaam, the son of the Moscow prince Dmitry Ioannovich (Donskoy) - Prince Konstantin of Pskov, the princes Mstislavsky, Suleshev, Tyomkin, the boyars Golovin and Butyrlin.

Until now, in the ground, under the local Children's Park, rest: the first holder of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, comrade-in-arms of Peter I, Fyodor Golovin; the head of the Seven Boyars, who refused the Russian throne three times, Fyodor Mikhailovich Mstislavsky; princes Urusov, Buturlin, Tatishchev, Naryshkin, Meshchersky, Muravyov, Bakhrushin.

Until 1924, there were tombstones here on the graves of the Russian writer S.T. Aksakov and his early deceased friend A.S. Pushkin poet D.V. Venevitinov (on his tombstone there was a black epitaph: “How he knew life, how little he lived”).

Tombstone over the graves of the Venevitinovs

The monastery was closed for the second time already in 1923. Its last abbot Antonin (in the world Alexander Petrovich Chubarov) was exiled to Solovki, where he died in 1925. Now Abbot Anthony has been canonized among the Russian New Martyrs...

A. M. Vasnetsov. Clouds and golden domes. View of the Simonov Monastery in Moscow. 1920

Only a few buildings have survived from the once powerful fortress:
- Fortress walls (three spindles);
- Salt tower (corner, southeast);
- Blacksmith tower (pentahedral, on the southern wall);
- "Dulo" (corner, southwestern tower);
- “Water” gate (1/2 of the 17th century);
- “Kelarsky building” (or “Old” refectory, 1485, XVII century, XVIII century);
- “New” refectory (1677-1683, architects P. Potapov, O. Startsev);
- “Sushilo” (malt room, 16th century, 2/2 17th century);
- Treasury cells (1/3 of the 17th century).
- One closed temple with 5 thrones was preserved, but five other temples with 6 thrones were destroyed.

Modern photographs of the state of the monastery

Well, now some lyrics. This monastery is also famous for its romantic stories...

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin immortalized the Simonov Monastery:

“... the most pleasant place for me is the place where the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Simonov Monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost the whole of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to the eye in the form of a majestic amphitheater: a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays glow on countless golden domes, on countless crosses ascending to the sky! Below are lush, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, along the yellow sands, flows a bright river, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the helm of heavy plows that sail from the most fertile countries of the Russian Empire and supply greedy Moscow with bread.

On the other side of the river one can see an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of trees, sing simple, sad songs and thus shorten the summer days, so uniform for them. Further away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; even further, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills are blue. On the left side you can see vast fields covered with grain, forests, three or four villages and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.”

"Lizin Pond"

In his story “Poor Liza,” Karamzin very reliably described the surroundings of the Tyufel Grove. He settled Lisa and her elderly mother near the walls of the nearby Simonov Monastery. A pond near the monastery walls in the southern suburbs of Moscow suddenly became the most famous pond, a place of mass pilgrimage for readers for many years. The pond was called Saint, or Sergius, because, according to monastic tradition, it was dug by Sergius of Radonezh himself, the founder and first abbot of the Trinity Monastery on the Yaroslavl Road, which became the famous Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

The Simonov monks bred some special fish in the pond - size and taste - and treated it to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich when he, on his way to Kolomenskoye, stopped to rest in the chambers of the local abbot... A story was published about an unfortunate girl, a simple peasant woman, who ended her life not at all in a Christian way - with an ungodly suicide, and the Muscovites - with all their piety - immediately renamed the Holy Pond to Lizin Pond, and soon only the old inhabitants of the Simonov Monastery remembered the former name.

Numerous trees surrounding him were covered and cut with inscriptions of compassion for the unfortunate beauty. For example, like this:

In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days,
If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh!

However, according to contemporaries, more ironic messages appeared here from time to time:

Erast’s bride died here in the pond,
Get warm, girls, there's plenty of room for you here.

In the twenties of the last century, the pond became very shallow, overgrown, and became like a swamp. In the early thirties, during the construction of a stadium for workers of the Dynamo plant, the pond was filled in and trees were planted in this place. Now the administrative building of the Dynamo plant rises above the former Liza Pond. At the beginning of the 20th century, a pond named after her, and even the Lizino railway station, appeared on maps.

View of Tyufelev Grove and Simonov Monastery

Along with the pond, Tyufeleva Grove has become an equally popular place of pilgrimage. Every spring, society ladies specially went here to collect lilies of the valley, just as the heroine of their favorite story did.

Tyufeleva Grove disappeared at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, contrary to existing opinion, it was not the Bolsheviks who exterminated it, but representatives of the progressive Russian bourgeoisie. On August 2, 1916, the groundbreaking ceremony for the first automobile plant in Russia took place here. An enterprise called the Automobile Moscow Society (AMO) belonged to the trading house Kuznetsov, Ryabushinsky and K. However, the October Revolution did not allow the plans of entrepreneurs to come true. In August 1918, the still unfinished plant was nationalized, and on November 1, 1924, the first Soviet truck, the AMO-F-15, was assembled here from Italian parts.

Romantic walks around the Simonov Monastery brought two people closer together - Dmitry Venevitinov and Zinaida Volkonskaya.

V. Odoevsky introduced Dmitry to Zinaida Volkonskaya in 1825. The princess's Moscow house was well known to all connoisseurs of beauty. Its charming owner turned it into a kind of art academy. Pushkin called her “The Queen of Muses and Beauty.”

P.F. Sokolov Portrait of D.V. Venevitinov. 1827

The meeting with Volkonskaya turned Venevitinov’s life upside down - he fell in love with all the passion of a twenty-year-old poet. Alas, it was hopeless: Zinaida was 16 years older than him, and besides, she had been married for a long time, to the brother of the future Decembrist.

Z. Volkonskaya

The time has come, and Zinaida asked to break off relations, giving Dmitry a ring as a sign of eternal friendship. A simple metal ring, brought to light from the ashes during the excavations of Herculaneum... Friends said that Venevitinov never parted with the princess’s gift and promised to wear it either when walking down the aisle, or when standing on the verge of death.

To my ring

You were dug up in a dusty grave,
Herald of age-old love,
And again you are dust from the grave
You will be bequeathed, my ring.
But not love now by you
Blessed the eternal flame
And above you, in heartache,
She made a holy vow...
No! friendship in the bitter hour of farewell
Gave to weeping love
You are the key to compassion.
Oh, be my faithful talisman!
Protect me from serious wounds,
And the light and the insignificant crowd,
From the caustic thirst for false glory,
From a seductive dream
And from spiritual emptiness.
In hours of cold doubt
Revive your heart with hope,
And if you are imprisoned in sorrows,
Far from the angel of love,
It will plan a crime -
With your wondrous power you tame
Gusts of hopeless passion
And from my rebellious breast
Turn away the lead of madness.
When will I be at the hour of death
Saying goodbye to what I love here,
I won't forget you when I say goodbye:
Then I'll beg my friend,
So that he is cold from my hand
I didn’t take you off, my ring,
So that the coffin does not separate us.
And the request will not be fruitless:
He will confirm his vow to me
With the words of the fatal oath.
Centuries will fly by, and perhaps
That someone will disturb my ashes
And in it he will discover you again;
And again timid love
He will whisper to you superstitiously
Words of tormenting passions,
And again you will be her friend,
Just as it was for me, my ring is faithful.

When these poems were written, Venevitinov had only a few days left to live. At the beginning of March 1827, he danced at a ball, and then, heated, he ran across the yard to his outbuilding in a barely thrown overcoat. The cold turned out to be fatal. On March 15, Venevitinov passed away. In a moment of agony, his friend, Fyodor Khomyakov, brother of the poet Alexei Khomyakov, put the ring on the finger of the dying man.

In January 1930, the Simonov Monastery, in which Venevitinov was buried, was blown up in order to build a Palace of Culture on the vacant site. The exhumation of the poet’s remains was scheduled for July 22. “Venevitinov’s skull,” wrote M.Yu. Baranovskaya, an employee of the Historical Museum, “surprised anthropologists with its strong development. I was amazed by the musicality of the fingers. A bronze ring that belonged to the poet was taken from the ring finger of his right hand.” Venevitinov’s ring was transferred to the Literary Museum.

House of Culture ZIL

Simonov Monastery will soon turn 630 years old. The first restoration work began here only in the 50s of the 20th century. In the 80s, the restoration of the Salt Tower and the southern wall was underway, and at the same time part of the eastern wall was restored.

On May 29, 1991, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II blessed the creation of a parish in Simonovo for believers with hearing impairments. On December 31 of the same year, the deaf community of the temple in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God of the former Simonov Monastery was registered here. The monastery, which in those years lay in ruins in the very heart of the capital.

Temple of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God

The year 1994 became a turning point for Simonov in the history of the holy monastery - the Moscow government allocated the entire complex of surviving buildings of the Simonov Monastery for free use by the Moscow Patriarchate.

In the community of the deaf and hard of hearing, it is planned to create a step-by-step system of education and training for the deaf: kindergarten - school - college. It is planned to organize a home for the elderly and infirm. For all this, personnel are now being trained at the St. Dimitrovsky School of Sisters of Mercy.

My interlocutor is the scientific director of the State Museum A.S. Pushkina Natalya Ivanovna Mikhailova.

What do you like most about Karamzin?

Natalya Mikhailova: This may seem strange, but I really love “Poor Liza.” This is beautiful prose. I remember well my first, back in school, impression of this story.

It was “Poor Liza”, and not Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State”, that you dedicated the exhibition that opened not so long ago...

Natalya Mikhailova: We are not at all contrasting these two masterpieces. It’s just that “Poor Lisa” is 225 years old this year. Its publication brought 25-year-old Karamzin his first great success. And what is also important: “Poor Liza” is also a story, also an awareness of oneself, one’s soul, only not through the history of the state, but through a personal tragedy. It is no coincidence that “Poor Liza” remains in our reading circle in the 21st century.

Do you really hope that "Poor Lisa" will touch a modern girl?

Natalya Mikhailova: I think that if I explain something to her, she will certainly touch her. That's what researchers are for...

And what would you tell a girl who is wondering whether to read Poor Lisa or hang out on social networks?

Natalya Mikhailova: Dear child! - I would say. - This story happened more than two centuries ago. It happened in Moscow, near the Simonov Monastery. You will definitely notice its towers if you come to the capital and get off at the Avtozavodskaya metro station...

And on the tower you will see a memorial plaque: “Near these walls lived poor Liza, the heroine of Karamzin’s story”...

Natalya Mikhailova: We will not find such a tablet at the Simonov Monastery. And I don’t know if it’s needed. But I would put up a sculptural group. So that again at the Simonov Monastery you can see Lisa and Erast. Lovers would come to them. I remember the cartoon “Poor Liza,” filmed back in 1978, with music by Alexei Rybnikov and incredibly expressive dolls by Nina Vinogradova. And the film was directed by Idea Nikolaevna Garanina. There is not a single word, but, in my opinion, this is one of the most outstanding adaptations of a literary work.

Let's return to the towers of the Simonov Monastery and the girl who is thinking whether or not to read “Poor Liza”...

Natalya Mikhailova: Well, I’ll continue the conversation with my imaginary interlocutor... Meanwhile, dear child, near these towers of the Simonov Monastery at the end of the eighteenth century one could often see the writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. He wrote poems and stories, and then became a historiographer and wrote “The History of the Russian State.” And he and his friends sailed to the Simonov Monastery by boat across the Moscow River. They spent whole days here. There was also a pond nearby, next to which the girl Lisa lived. It’s a pity, this pond has been gone for a long time, and we don’t even know exactly where it was. To understand the full drama of the plot of "Poor Lisa", it is important to know that at that time there were serfs and nobles. There was an abyss between them, and two people who were separated by this huge abyss - a peasant girl and a nobleman - they fell in love with each other. And what happened next - please read for yourself. After all, it is impossible to retell a work of genius. "Poor Lisa" will help you look at the people around you differently. I would also invite you to the exhibition “Lisa and the Lilies of the Valley”, which is taking place in our museum. There you will see both the animated film that I talked about and the first edition of “Poor Lisa”...

Was it something special?

Natalya Mikhailova: Yes, it is somewhat of a mysterious edition and has never been reproduced. By studying it, you can make interesting discoveries. One such find is associated with the poet Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich’s uncle.

In 1818, Vasily Lvovich wrote to Vyazemsky: “We went to the Simonov Monastery, were at the all-night vigil, walked along the banks of the Moscow River, saw the pond where Poor Liza ended her life, and I found an inscription in my own hand that I drew about twenty years ago, and maybe even more ago: Non la conobbe il mondo mentre l ebbe; Conobbil io, cha pianger qui rimasi.”

“Twenty years, or maybe more ago” - this is exactly the time when, after the publication of Karamzin’s story in the Moscow Journal, many Muscovites went to the scene of Poor Liza. Then Vasily Lvovich left two lines on the birch tree, carving lines from Petrarch, from the 338th sonnet “On the Death of Madonna Laura” on the bark. Translated, they sound like this: “The world did not know her while he had her; I knew her, and now all I have to do is mourn.”

In 1796, when the first separate edition of “Poor Liza” was published, it was accompanied by an engraving depicting both the Simonov Monastery and the pond, and some inscriptions on birch trees were also reproduced there. One of them, the same line from Petrarch, became the epigraph to the story!

I wonder if Karamzin knew that it was Vasily Lvovich who carved this inscription on the tree?

Natalya Mikhailova: I can't confirm this yet. It is unknown whether Vasily Lvovich knew that the quotation from Petrarch migrated from the birch tree to “Poor Liza” with his light hand. And yet, the main thing has already been revealed to us: with his inscription from Petrarch, carved on a birch tree, Vasily Lvovich Pushkin included “Poor Liza” in the context of world culture, because two lines from Petrarch are also the epigraph to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel “Julia, or the New Heloise” ". And now they stand in one row: Petrarch, Rousseau and Karamzin. I think this is very interesting...

And I’m wondering, but how can we make all this interesting for those kids who are studying “Poor Lisa” in ninth grade?

Natalya Mikhailova: The role of literary historians is great here. They must write not only for their fellow scientists, but also for the modern reader. And a lot depends on the teacher.

Talking about feelings in class seems to have remained in the 1970s. The teacher is so overloaded with reporting that he simply does not have time to listen to the children, argue with them, or go together in search of Liza’s Pond...

Natalya Mikhailova: This system of predetermined frameworks is absolutely destructive specifically for the teaching of literature. If there is no joy, then only pragmatism remains: “Why would we go to a museum if it doesn’t help us pass the Unified State Exam? Why would I read a book?..” As a result, we get generations that cannot express their thoughts either in writing or orally.

Sensitivity today is understood as weakness.

Natalya Mikhailova: Sensitivity in the era of Karamzin and Pushkin is the ability to have high feelings, tenderness in love, loyalty in friendship, responsiveness to the grief of others, sensitivity to shades of feelings, to the complexity of human relationships...

Read the continuation of Karamzin's conversations in one of the upcoming issues of RG-Week.

From the RG dossier

Natalya Ivanovna Mikhailova - scientific director of the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin, Doctor of Philology, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, laureate of the State Prize, head of the publishing project "Onegin Encyclopedia", laureate of the magazine "Our Heritage" named after. A. Blok. Author of many books, as well as Pushkin expositions and exhibitions.

State Museum of A.S. Pushkin is located in Moscow at the address: Prechistenka, 12/2. Directions to the Kropotkinskaya station. The museum is open from 11.00 to 19.00, on Thursdays from 12.00 to 21.00. Every third Sunday of the month the museum is open free of charge. Day off: Monday. The exhibition "Lisa and the Lilies of the Valley" will be open until the end of September.

Chusova M.A.

A lot has been written about Karamzin’s Lizin Pond. However, the early history of this reservoir was usually not considered, and many inaccuracies were allowed in its description.

The pond was located behind the Kamer-Kollezhsky shaft, on the road leading to the village of Kozhukhovo, on a flat, elevated and sandy place, it was surrounded by a rampart and lined with birch trees, and it never dried out. It was about 300 meters in circumference, and the depth in the middle reached 4 meters. According to church tradition, which we have no reason not to trust, the pond was excavated by the hands of the first monks of the Simonov Monastery. The latter was originally founded in 1370 on the site of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Stary Simonovo by the nephew of Sergius of Rado-Nezh, Theodore. According to legend, the Holy Elder, during his stay in Moscow, stayed in Simonovo. On one of his visits, together with Theodore (who is mentioned as the creator of the reservoir along with the Reverend) and the monks of the monastery, he dug a pond not far from the monastery (200 meters south of Old Simonov). In memory of this, the pond was called Sergievsky, sometimes - Saint. In the 19th century, the legend about the healing power of its waters was still fresh. Since ancient times, on the day of Midsummer, the abbot of the monastery came here every year with a procession of the cross, in front of a gathering of people, to bless the water according to the general charter.

Probably, as a monastery pond since ancient times, the pond was left behind by Simonov after the secularization of the monastery lands in 1764. Archimandrite Gabriel reported to the Ecclesiastical Consistory in 1770 that near the pond in which fish are bred, there is a monastery compound, fenced with a fence, with buildings and a cell for a watchman. People have been going to Sergiev Pond for healing for a hundred years before this time and more.

In 1797, Sergiev Pond was designated as unsuitable for fishing.

In 1792, having arrived from abroad and gained “free-thinking” there, N.M. Karamzin wrote the story "Poor Liza". He was the first to point out the beauty of these places and open them to the public: “Go on Sunday... to the Simonov Monastery... there are many people walking everywhere... Not so long ago I wandered alone through the picturesque outskirts of Moscow and thought with regret : "What places! and no one enjoys us with them!”, and now I find companies everywhere.”

From Karamzin's story it turned out that Lisa lived in Simonova Sloboda (70 fathoms from the monastery, near a birch grove, in the middle of a green meadow) and drowned herself in a pond 80 fathoms from her hut. This pond was deep, clean, “fossilized in ancient times,” it was located on the road, it was surrounded by oak trees.

The birch forest is mentioned in the notes to the General Land Survey plans in the Simonova Sloboda dacha; birch trees also grew around the pond. Perhaps Karamzin had in mind Tyufelev Grove, which along the edge could consist of birch trees; it was located half a kilometer from the settlement. The green meadow near Simonova Sloboda is shown on plans throughout the 19th century.

N.D. Ivanchin-Pisarev wrote about the reception of Karamzin’s story: “not a single Writer, if we exclude Rousseau, has produced such a strong effect in the Public. Having written a fairy tale in his leisure hours, he turned the entire Capital to the environs of the Simonov Monastery. All the secular people of that time went to look for Lizina graves." They recognized the description as a pond near the road. So Sergius Pond became Lizin’s, and only monks, pilgrims and residents of the surrounding villages began to remember its holiness.

Sergiev Pond. Drawing by K.I. Rabusa

Whether the quiet Elder was offended by Karamzin, great fame came to the writer, which, sometimes, he was not happy about. Someone even managed to get close to her: everywhere, when mentioning “Poor Lisa” and her perception by the public, they cite an inscription on one of the trees near the pond by an unknown author (in all sorts of variations):

Here Lisa drowned, Erast’s bride!

Drown yourself girls in the pond, there will be room for everyone!

To justify the fact that Karamzin “did not present the history of the monastery with enough respect,” Ivanchin-Pisarev said that at that time the historiographer was still young and dreamy and knew nothing about the sanctity of the pond. Ivanchin-Pisarev also cited another name for the reservoir - Li-siy (one history buff told him about this).

Over time, they began to forget about “Poor Lisa”. In 1830, the monk told one old admirer of Karamzin, already on the secluded shore of the pond, that once all of Moscow came here, looked for a collapsed hut and asked where Liza lived.

In 1833, in the Telescope, the anonymous author [N.S. Selivanovsky, it turned out later when writing the article] told legends told to him by a hundred-year-old old woman (there is a lot of truth in them), probably dating back to the end of the 17th - 18th centuries. In her memory, the old people said that near the pond there was a monastery hotel for pilgrims, with a cross above the door, pilgrims stayed there for free, there were tall oak trees near the pond (matches Karamzin’s description), and there was a garden near the monastery wall cherry (the garden is shown on the General Survey plan). “Planted, tagged” fish were allowed into the pond (fish were actually bred there in the 18th century). The banks of the pond were fenced with rails; there was a passage across the pond on stilts, all covered with glass frames. The author argued that even today the surrounding villagers point to the healing power of the waters of the pond and one can often meet a sick woman on the shore who has come to swim. “I must not forget the old woman’s superstitious story,” he wrote, “about the purity of its waters and the woeful horror of it, that the shrine was desecrated by villainous comedians with a fable about a murderer. This is how the poet’s inventions are reflected dramatically among the people!” The author found a pond still full of water, a dried oak tree and several birch trees, mutilated with inscriptions. Behind the pond are the remains of a “hotel”, which many took for Lisa’s hut. Here he found Peter's money. “The nest of greenery, nurtured by the quiet labor of the monks, was abandoned to the plunder of both people and time,” he summed up.

The remains of Lisa's supposed hut are also mentioned in other memoirs. They were obviously the remains of a destroyed outbuilding for the guards at the pond.

As for the luxurious transition, it could have existed during the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The latter repeatedly stayed at the monastery and lived there during fasting periods. There is also a legend that fish were specially bred for him in Sergievsky Pond.

M.N. Zagoskin in 1848 wrote about Lizin’s pond, which still had birch trees with barely noticeable inscriptions that it looked more like a rainy puddle.

In 1871, Archimandrite Eustathius claimed that the Simonov Monastery sacredly honors traditions and every year on the day of Midsummer the abbot marches with a procession to Sergius Pond, and in recent years with a large icon of Sergius of Radonezh. The pond is always clean, and local residents do not dump garbage there, but take water from it; crucian carp are found in the pond.

In the 19th century, the land near Sergius Pond (130 sazhens) was leased to surrounding peasants for vegetable gardens, with the condition that the owners would not interfere with the religious procession taking place on the day of the Midsummer. At the beginning of the 20th century, this land became the object of housing construction for the expanding Simonova Sloboda (the resulting settlement was called Malaya Simonova Slobodka). The surrounding residents polluted the pond so much that it was no longer suitable for swimming.

“The temple itself and the pond excavated by St. Sergius are lost behind awkward houses, the builders of which had one goal, to get as much benefit as possible from the poor factory workers...” wrote the priest of the church on Stary Simonovo.

Sergiev Pond. Early 20th century

Time has changed, and history has changed. According to the recollections of Simonovka workers, on the pond, which shone like a mirror in winter, and where children skated, the famous “walls” began: residents of Simonova Sloboda met with residents of Lizina Slobodka (Koshachya) for a fist fight, after which the ice was stained with blood.

Lizin Pond, from a place of pilgrimage for Karamzin’s fans, became a place of workers’ gatherings (and the underground workers lived right next door), which were held here in 1895 and 1905.

After the revolution, Lizin Pond, apparently, was a pitiful sight. S.D. Krzhizhanovsky wrote: “I took tram No. 28 and soon stood by a black, fetid puddle, pressed into its slanting banks like a round spot. This is Lizin’s pond. Five, six wooden houses, turning their backs to the pond, are fouling directly into it , filling him with sewage. I turned my back abruptly and went: no, no, quickly back to the land of the Nets."

The pond, according to an old-timer, was filled up in the early 30s of the 20th century; at the end of the 1970s, the administrative building of the Dynamo plant began to be erected in its place. We managed to find new facts. It turns out that the reservoir existed back in 1932, when the FZU building already stood on its shore. At this time, the water in it was clean, the springs fed it, and it was difficult to fall asleep. So the worker S. Bondarev put forward a proposal to preserve Lizin Pond. “All residents of Leninskaya Sloboda know Lizin Pond well,” he wrote in the Motor newspaper, “which recently was still a good source. The kids swam in it and came to it to breathe fresh air. In 1930, the Proletarsky District Council ordered the final filling of Lizin Pond. But since this pond is flowing, they have been filling it up for three years, but they can’t fill it up. Now the pond is completely filled with clean, clear water, even overflowing its banks. The pond has water-bearing springs, from which cold, completely drinkable water flows continuously, so it is impossible to fill it up. If you save it, you can breed fish and swim in it. I propose to preserve the Lizin pond, turning it into a place for swimming. To do this, the following measures should be taken: clean the dirt and strengthen the banks. The initiators of this work should be the students of our FZU, because the FZU building is located on the shore of the pond, and it will be primarily used by factory students.” What kind of reaction there was to the article is unknown. The pond was finally filled in.

FZU plan. 1930

Vocational school "Dynamo" (FZU). This building still remembered Lizin Pond. But he’s gone now too.

In addition to the Lizino pond, there were: Lizin dead end leading to the pond, Lizin settlement nearby, the Lizinskaya railway line with the Lizino freight station, Lizin Square (to the south of Lizin pond, between the pond and the railway line).

And here everything would seem clear. But in the second half of the 19th century, when memory began to weaken, a desire arose to change history. I wanted Sergiev Pond to not be Lizin’s. Arch-mandrite Eustathius, who published several brochures about the Simonov Monastery, wrote that the monastery was founded near a tract called by the chronicler (it is unknown which one) Bear Lake, or Fox Pond. This lake, according to him, was later renamed by the villagers to Postyloye as it was already swampy. Eustathius asked not to confuse Sergius Pond with Bear Lake. According to the consonance, it turned out that the Fox Pond is Lizin.

So, some began to believe that there are Sergius Pond and Bear Lake, or Fox Pond, which became Lizin. This misconception migrated into the 20th century, and some researchers of Karamzin’s work began to repeat it.

What kind of pond was described by Karamzin, where was Sergius Pond located and what pond was called Lizin?

Lake Postyloye was located 2 km from the monastery, behind Tyufelovaya Grove; there were other lakes there. They clearly do not fit the description of Karamzin’s pond: his pond was located 80 fathoms from Liza’s hut, and was excavated in ancient times (lakes were natural reservoirs). The name Bear Lake could not be found among local toponyms. It is not clear where Eustathius got it from. Passek and Ivanchin-Pisarev, for example, say nothing about this, and the latter definitely indicated that Lisiy is the second name of Sergius Pond. Was the archimandrite mistaken? The fact is that at the end of the 14th century, the Simonov Monastery founded a small monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior near the Bear Lakes (now located in the Shchelkovsky district). Eustathius could have mistaken its name for the name of the Simonov Monastery.

In the vicinity of Simonov there was another pond, located under the mountain of the monastery (not shown on the General Land Survey plan), “dug like a round pool”; it is mentioned in the monastery documents as an object for rent. It can be seen in 19th century engravings. But this pond also does not fit Karamzin’s pond: it was not located near the road and was not surrounded by hundred-year-old oaks, or trees in general.

All that remains is Sergius Pond, which is clearly defined: it is mentioned in monastic documents of the 18th-20th centuries, indicated on the General Land Survey plan (without name), and illustrated in the historical description of Passek.

Lizin Pond (or rather, the one that the public called Lizin) is indicated on the plans in the same place where Sergius Pond was located. In addition, such a renaming of the monastery pond was mentioned more than once by contemporaries. And the religious procession, according to the workers’ recollections, took place precisely to Liza’s Pond.

And the writer himself admitted: “Near Simonov there is a pond, shaded by trees and overgrown. Twenty-five years before this I wrote Poor Liza there - a very simple fairy tale, but so happy for the young author that a thousand curious people went and went there look for traces of the Lisins."

ILLUSTRATIONS

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