The story of the deceased Ivan Petrovich Belkin. Small tragedies

This book was compiled by two cycles of the works of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, written by the legendary Boldine in the fall of 1830. When the author was asked who this Ivan Petrovich Belkin replied, Pushkin replied: Whoever he was there, and this one must write: just, briefly and clear. Not everything was clear with Belkin’s stories in Pushkin’s times, and today it is not easy to understand why their first Baratynsky reader laughed and fought. It is already necessary to explain that Pushkin stylized each story in one way or another, that he tried to create reading for county young ladies, but could not maintain too serious a mine - therefore, both hidden irony and parody motifs. "Little tragedies" - a cycle of short plays for reading. On them, according to literary critics, lies the reflection of the work of the English playwright B. Cornwall, whom Pushkin was fond of at that time. But now what to look for the origins and motives - they have long been of any meaning. It is only important that we inherited from the genius crystal Russian prose, poetry, drama.

The accompanying articles by Igor Svinarenko, Sergey Gandlevsky. Notes of Boris Tomashevsky

Igor Nikolaevich Svinarenko (born 1957) - Russian journalist, writer, publisher. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, published books in Samizdat, worked in Komsomolskaya Pravda, "interlocutor", "Kommersant". He was the chief editor of the magazines "Brownie" and "Bear", his own correspondent of the magazine "Capital" in the USA. The author of more than 20 books of journalism and prose, including a "box of vodka" (in collaboration with A. Koch), "Moscow behind the Ocean" and "VPZR".

Sergey Markovich Gandlevsky (born 1952) - Russian poet, prose writer, essayist, translator. He graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. One of the founders of the poetic group "Moscow Time". Until the second half of the 1980s, he was published in emigrant publications, in his homeland-from the late 1980s. The author of several books of prose ("trepanation of the skull", "NRZB", "thoughtless past") and poetry. The works of Sergey Gandlevsky are translated into dozens of languages. He is a laureate of a number of Russian and foreign literary awards, including the National Prize "Poet" (2010)