In memory of Asenkova (poem)

"In memory of Asenkova" was written by Nekrasov in a difficult life period, marked by the death of his son and his own serious illness. In general, the leitmotif of death was one of the key for the poet at that time and went through many of his works. This is clearly seen from the order in which Nekrasov placed the poems in a collection of 1856 ^[1] . One of the poet’s scholars commented on this as follows ^[2] :

Initially, the work was published under the heading “Remembrance (Excerpt)”, which only emphasizes the time gap with the one whose memory it is dedicated to. Then the title was changed to “Actress. [In memory of V.N.A.] ”and only after some time received its final name. It can be assumed that Nekrasov highly appreciated his poem, since he included it in the first part of all his lifetime poetry collections, but with the title “Memory of the Second”.

Poems on the theme of death occupy a prominent place in the work of Nekrasov, but there are only a few texts about real historical figures. A detailed description of three such poems in one of his works ^{[3] is} given by the modern Russian literary critic M.Yu. Styopina. “In memory of Belinsky ,” “In memory of Dobrolyubov ” and “In memory of Asenkova” have the same way of constructing a title. In addition, the common feature that unites them is the whole person’s life captured by the gaze, or rather, the most significant, according to the author, that it is important to remember about it. A peculiar closed structure arises, inside of which are real events, material, everyday, and at the beginning and at the end - contact with higher matters. In this regard, it is necessary to indicate the meaning of life that Nekrasov notes among the heroes of the poems. While Belinsky and Dobrolyubov are described as carrying knowledge to the masses, Asenkova is valuable for her talent, beauty and innocence, for simply living. In addition, there is another poem that dates back to 1855 and has certain semantic parallels with Asenkova's Memory. “I visited your cemetery” is also written in the form of a memory, in addition, it indicates that the lyrical hero visited the grave of a girl whom he knew. Of course, the plots of these texts cannot be identified, but their similarity proves that Nekrasov at that time was characterized by reflection on the past and idealization of memories.

In the year of the death of Asenkova ( 1841 ), Nekrasov was 20 years old, shortly after her funeral, he made his debut as the author of a vaudeville . Consequently, the young man was also witnessing the actress's brilliant performances, who were probably deeply impressed by the appearance and play of Barbara. Creating a poetic commemoration in fifteen years, he was more able to turn only to his own memoirs, which over the years have gained idealism, "adjusting" to the toposs of an early faded beautiful actress. In addition to the “Memory of Asenkova” in the 1850s, the poet repeatedly turned to the memories of her to translate his artistic ideas into other works. So, for example, in “The Beautiful Party” ( 1852 ) V.N. Asenkova. However, in addition to well-known texts, there is one more that reflects on the life tragedy of not an abstract collective image of the artist, namely Barbara. These are excerpts from the play by Nekrasov, found by KI Chukovsky , dating from 1855–1856 ^[4] .

In his comments to them, the researcher writes the following:

Chukovsky also writes that after death there were rumors that Nicholas I was the culprit of the girl’s death. The poet’s awareness was also noted: “With his proximity to the imperial scene, Nekrasov knew the tragic history of Asenkova in detail and subsequently repeatedly tried to reproduce it in his writings.”

• At the semantic level , the predominance of nouns among independent parts of speech is important. In this case, one can observe an abundance of emotionally pronounced nouns, in particular, abstract. Almost every stanza contains words similar to the following: torment, art, talent, failure, destiny (in the meaning of "fate"), etc. These words indicate the exalted attitude of the narrator to the actress, to his memory.

Along with abstract nouns, there are concrete ones that characterize people, their qualities, occupation or age: amateur, skeptic, rich man, theatrical, etc. There is a third group of nouns that deserve attention - those that are neutral out of context, in this case they are most often emphasized negative (sighs, couplets, hints, lips). Having examined the classification of nouns used in the poem, we can conclude: the main value is given to the reflection of feelings and emotions, that is, the subjective look at the situation of the narrator. He talks about the actress with a sense of sublimity, speaking negatively about the audience and the crowd.

• At the phonetic level , assonances and alliterations play an important role in the poem. For example,

I loved one of them

Wake up in the soul of a harsh

One of the many graves

Mourned the sorrow of the new ...

This is the second stanza, after which the story begins about the career and life path of the heroine. Due to the assonance of the letter “o”, which in the unstressed position is the sound of “a” and the letters “y” and “y” (giving the sound “y”), the length characteristic of the beginning of the story is reached when the narrator introduces the reader to the story. Cross rhyme, like size, is sustained in all stanzas. The poem is written by iambic 4-3 with pyrrhic .

• Ideological level

All images are divided into two clearly delineated groups - positive and negative. Two actors are positive: a narrator and an actress. It is noteworthy that sometimes adjectives, semantically negative, acquire a “touch” in the context of history, referring to the characteristics of these heroes. So, for example, the “stern" soul of the narrator and the "naivety" of the actress are designed to arouse sympathy in the reader, and not at all contempt or misunderstanding. The crowd (in the broad sense) constitutes a negative group of characters. The image of the public, admired by the actress, and later breaking her life, is expressed by a circle of people about whom almost nothing is mentioned separately. The author lists some representatives of the crowd, using negatively colored vocabulary to characterize them. But it is not the images of the people themselves that are most clearly reflected, but the actions they perform.