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Message day of socialite Eugene Onegin. One day in Eugene Onegin

Socialite Day
Onegin leads the life of a young man, free from official obligations. It should be noted that only a small group of noble youth of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 19th century. led a similar life. Apart from non-employee people, such a life could only be afforded by rare young people from among the rich and noble-born mama's boys, whose service, most often in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was purely fictitious.
The right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-employee nobleman not only from the common people or his fellow soldiers at the front, but also from the village landowner-owner.
The morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by a walk at two or three in the afternoon. The walk, on horseback or in a carriage, took an hour or two. Favorite places for festivities of St. Petersburg dandies in the 1810-1820s. there were Nevsky Prospekt, English Embankment of the Neva and Admiralteysky Boulevard.
Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. The young man, leading a single life, rarely had a cook - a serf or a hired foreigner - and preferred to dine in a restaurant.
The young dandy sought to “kill” the afternoon by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. One possibility was the theater. For the St. Petersburg dandy of that time, it was not only an artistic spectacle and a kind of club where social meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs and accessible behind-the-scenes hobbies.
Dancing was an important element of noble life. Their role was significantly different from both the function of dances in the folk life of that time and from the modern one.
At the balls, the social life of a nobleman was realized: he was neither a private person in private life, nor a serving man in public service - he was a nobleman in a noble assembly, a man of his class among his own.
The main element of the ball as a social and aesthetic event was dancing. They served as the organizing core of the evening and set the style of conversation. “Mazur chat” required superficial, shallow topics, but also entertaining and sharp conversation, the ability to quickly, epigrammatically respond. The ballroom conversation was far from the play of intellectual forces, the “fascinating conversation of the highest education,” which was cultivated in the literary salons of Paris in the 18th century and the absence of which Pushkin complained about in Russia. Nevertheless, it had its own charm - the liveliness of freedom and ease of conversation between a man and a woman, who found themselves simultaneously in the center of a noisy celebration and in an otherwise impossible intimacy.
Dance training began early - from the age of five or six. Apparently, Pushkin began to study dancing already in 1808. Until the summer of 1811, he and his sister attended dance evenings with the Trubetskoys, Buturlins and Sushkovs, and on Thursdays children’s balls with the Moscow dance master Iogel.
Early dance training was painful and reminiscent of the harsh training of an athlete or the training of a recruit by a diligent sergeant major.
The training gave the young man not only dexterity during dancing, but also confidence in movements, freedom and independence in posing a figure, which in a certain way influenced the person’s mental structure: in the conventional world of social communication, he felt confident and free, like an experienced actor in stage. Grace, manifested in precision of movements, was a sign of good upbringing. The aristocratic simplicity of the movements of people of “good society” both in life and in literature was opposed by the stiffness or excessive swagger (the result of the struggle with one’s own shyness) of the commoner’s gestures.
The ball in Onegin's era began with a Polish (polonaise). It is significant that in Eugene Onegin the polonaise is not mentioned even once. In St. Petersburg, the poet introduces us to the ballroom at the moment when “the crowd is busy with the mazurka,” that is, at the very height of the holiday, which emphasizes Onegin’s fashionable lateness. But even at the Larins’ ball, the polonaise is omitted, and the description of the holiday begins with the second dance - a waltz, which Pushkin called “monotonous and crazy.” These epithets have not only an emotional meaning. “Monotonous” - because, unlike the mazurka, in which at that time solo dances and the invention of new figures played a huge role, the waltz consisted of the same constantly repeating movements.
The definition of waltz as “crazy” has a different meaning: the waltz, despite its universal distribution, was used in the 1820s. reputation for obscene or at least excessively free dance.
The old “French” manner of performing the mazurka required the gentleman to make light jumps, the so-called entrechat (“a jump in which one foot hits the other three times while the body is in the air”). The “secular” manner began to change in the 1820s. English The gentleman was required to make languid, lazy movements; he refused the mazurka chatter and remained sullenly silent during the dance.
Smirnova-Rosset’s memoirs tell an episode of her first meeting with Pushkin: while still an institute, she invited him to a mazurka. Pushkin silently and lazily walked with her around the hall a couple of times. The fact that Onegin “danced the mazurka easily” shows that his boredom and fashionable disappointment were half fake in the first chapter. For their sake, he could not refuse the pleasure of jumping in the mazurka.
One of the dances that concluded the ball was the cotillion - a type of quadrille, the most relaxed, varied and playful dance.
The ball provided an opportunity to spend a fun and noisy night.

Dandies were distinguished by a pleasant style of speech and impeccable language. Many of them were highly gifted and excelled in everything they did; less talented ones, if they failed at something, knew how to stop in time, without any special illusions or enthusiasm. They demonstrated gentlemanly training - generosity and magnanimity. Ephemeral as youth and spirits, they still had one constant feature - loyalty in friendship, despite later rivalry.

Dandies paid great attention to their appearance. Dandies professed the principle of minimalism and the associated principle of “conspicuous invisibility,” which formed the basis of the modern aesthetics of men's suits. Instead of pompous, pretentious luxury, the dandy allows himself one elegant, expressive detail in his suit. The next important principle is thoughtful (deliberate) negligence. You can spend a lot of time on the toilet, but then you need to act as if everything in the costume came together by itself, as a random improvisation. “Pedantic thoroughness” is vulgar because it does not hide the preliminary tension and, therefore, betrays a beginner who, sweating, comprehends the science of dressing decently. That is why the ability to tie an elegantly casual knot on a neckerchief became highly valued in this era.

« Ideally, a real dandy should have a slender build" 5 . " Dandies were rare cleanliness even by modern standards. A true dandy was recognized by his clean gloves - he changed them several times a day; the boots were polished to a shine» 6. The dandy's costume is characterized by another remarkable detail. Dandies wore monocles, glasses, lorgnettes, binoculars - these were fashionable camouflage items.

Dandies, possessors of impeccable taste and role models in men's fashion, acted as merciless critics, making short, witty, caustic remarks about errors in costume or the vulgar manners of their contemporaries.

« The principle of minimalism was also evident in the manner of speech. Aphorisms are typical for dandies. The dandy’s speech cannot be monotonous and tiring: he aptly omits his “bonmots” (words), which are immediately picked up and quoted everywhere. In addition, a true dandy will never repeat the same thing twice» 7.

Three famous dandy rules:

    • Don't be surprised at anything.
    • While maintaining dispassion, surprise with surprise.
    • Leave as soon as the impression is achieved.

Newcomers to secular society tried to strictly follow the rules of etiquette and went out of their way to look like a secular person. Hence - tension and uncertainty, as well as pretentiousness of manners (exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, forced expression of surprise, horror or delight). The paradox of the dandy, and indeed of a truly secular person, is that in full compliance with secular conventions, he seems as natural as possible. What is the secret of this effect? Thanks to the fidelity of taste - not in the field of beauty, but in the field of behavior - a secular person in the most unforeseen circumstances instantly grasps, like a musician who is asked to play a piece unfamiliar to him, what feelings need to be expressed now, with the help of what movements, and unerringly selects and applies technical techniques.

« In the culture of dandyism, a special concept has developed - flanning (from the French fleneur), or a slow walk around the city - mainly with the purpose of showing off. Smoothness plays a special role in the subtle art of dandy flanking, since slow movement, as was believed at that time, is essentially majestic" 8 .

Chapter 4. The novel “Eugene Onegin” - an encyclopedia of “secular” life

Onegin was born into the family of a wealthy nobleman. His father “gave three balls every year and finally squandered it.” Like all aristocratic youth of that time, Onegin received home upbringing and education under the guidance of a French tutor.

He leads an idle life typical of “golden youth”: every day there are balls, walks along Nevsky Prospekt. But Onegin, by his nature, stands out from the general mass of young people. Pushkin notes in it “ involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind", a sense of honor, nobility of soul. And Onegin could not help but become disillusioned with social life.

A different path followed by some of the noble youth of the 20s is revealed through the example of Lensky’s life.

He was educated and brought up in " Germany foggy" From there he brought " freedom-loving dreams...and shoulder-length black curls" Pushkin points out Lensky's inherent " the noble aspiration of both the feelings and thoughts of the young, tall, gentle, daring" Lensky perceives people and life as a romantic dreamer. Lack of understanding of people and enthusiastic daydreaming lead Lensky to a tragic end at his first encounter with reality. He sees the purpose of life in love for Olga, considers her perfection, although she is an ordinary girl. " Always modest, always obedient", she does not think deeply about anything, but follows the accepted rules of life. Her feelings are not deep and stable. She " I cried for a while" about Lensky and soon got married.

Olga’s sister Tatyana was distinguished by her stability and depth of feelings. Tatyana Larina was brought up on French novels, so she was just like Lensky, romantic. But Tatyana is close to the people. Tatyana dreams of a person who would be like the heroes of her favorite novels. It seems to her that she found such a person in Onegin. But he rejects Tatiana's love. Her fate is tragic, but her character has not changed.

An analysis of the characters of the main characters showed that only using the example of Onegin, his lifestyle described at the beginning of the novel, can one consider the life of a typical nobleman, his entertainment and activities, and also imagine what the day of a socialite could be like.

4.1 Entertainment

“The day of the capital’s nobleman had some typical features. However, those signs that mark the day of an officer or departmental official are not noted in the novel, and there is no point in dwelling on them,” 9 - this is how Y. Lotman begins his commentary on Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.”

Onegin leads the life of a young man, free from official obligations. Apart from non-employees, such a life could only be afforded by rare young people from among the rich and with noble relatives, “mama’s boys, whose service, most often in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was purely fictitious” 10.

A secular person, not burdened with work, got up very late. This was considered a sign of aristocracy: after all, only those who had to earn their daily bread with their labor - artisans, traders, and office workers - had to wake up early. Russian aristocrats adopted this habit from the French. Parisian ladies of high society were proud of the fact that they never saw the sun, going to bed before dawn and waking up at sunset.

Having gotten out of bed and done the morning toilet, it was supposed to drink a cup of tea or coffee. At two or three o'clock in the afternoon it was time for a walk - on foot, on horseback or in a carriage, during which it was possible to pay visits to relatives and friends, of which everyone had many.

The walk, on horseback or in a carriage, took an hour or two. Favorite places for festivities of St. Petersburg dandies in the 1810-1820s. there were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva.

The daily walk of Alexander I influenced the fact that the fashionable daytime festivities took place along a specific route. At one o'clock in the afternoon he left the Winter Palace, followed the Palace Embankment, and at Pracheshny Bridge he turned along the Fontanka to the Anichkovsky Bridge. Then the sovereign returned to his place along Nevsky Prospekt. It was at these hours that Onegin walked along the “boulevard”:

While in morning dress,

Putting on a wide bolivar,

Onegin goes to the boulevard

And there he walks in the open space,

While the watchful Breget

Dinner won't ring his bell.(1, XV, 9-14)

Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. Such hours were clearly felt as late and “European”: for many they still remembered the time when lunch began at twelve.

The young man, leading a single life, rarely had a cook - a serf or a hired foreigner - and preferred to dine in a restaurant. With the exception of a few first-class restaurants located on Nevsky, dinners in St. Petersburg taverns were of worse quality than in Moscow.

The gathering place for St. Petersburg dandies at that time was the Talona restaurant on Nevsky:

        He rushed to Talon: he is sure

        What is Kaverin waiting for him there?

<…>

Before him roast-beef is bloody,

And truffles, the luxury of youth,

French cuisine has the best color.(1, XVI, 5-14)

To appear in one restaurant or another meant to appear at a gathering point for single youth - “lions” and “dandies”. And this required a certain style of behavior for the entire time remaining until the evening.

« However, Pushkin himself, in the absence of his wife in St. Petersburg, often dined at a restaurant. In 1834, in his letters to Natalya Nikolaevna, who was in Moscow at that time, the phrase is often found: “I’m having lunch at Dumais’s” - meaning a famous metropolitan restaurant" eleven .

The young dandy sought to “kill” the afternoon by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. One possibility was the theater. For the St. Petersburg dandy of that time, it was not only an artistic spectacle and a kind of club where social meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs and accessible behind-the-scenes hobbies.

Many in secular society were known as theater regulars. After all, the theater at the beginning of the 19th century. was not just a temple of art, but something like a permanent meeting place. Here you could chat with friends, find out the latest, far from theatrical, news, and start a love affair. Gentlemen patronized actresses, were friends with actors, and participated in theatrical intrigues, like Onegin:

        The theater is an evil legislator,

        Fickle Adorer

        Charming actresses

        Honorary Citizen of the Backstage,

        Onegin flew to the theater,

        Where everyone, breathing freedom,

        Ready to clap enterchat,

        To flog Phaedra, Cleopatra,

        Call Moina (in order to

        Just so they can hear him).(1, XVII, 5-9)

4.2 Ball

Dancing occupies a significant place in the novel “Eugene Onegin”: the author’s digressions are devoted to them, they play a large role in the plot.

Dancing was an important structural element of noble life.

In the era of Pushkin, the ball opened with a polonaise, which replaced the mannered minuet of the 18th century. Usually it was started by the mistress of the house together with one of the eminent guests. If the august family was present at the ball, then the emperor himself walked in the first pair with the hostess, in the second - the owner of the house with the empress. The second dance at a ball at the beginning of the 19th century. became a waltz:

        Monotonous and crazy

        Like a young whirlwind of life,

        A noisy whirlwind swirls around the waltz;

        Couple flashes after couple.(5,XLI, 1-4)

It is interesting how the word “waltz” is interpreted in the Onegin Encyclopedia: “The waltz in Eugene Onegin is mentioned three times: twice in the scene of Tatiana’s name day and once in the seventh chapter (the ball in the Assembly of the Nobility).

In the 1820s, when the fashion for the waltz spread in Russia, it was considered too free. “This dance, in which, as is known, persons of both sexes turn and come together, requires proper caution<...>so that they do not dance too close to each other, which would offend decency” (Rules for Noble Public Dances, issued by<...>Louis Petrovsky. Kharkov, 1825, p. 72.). Pushkin calls the waltz “crazy”, “frisky” and associates it with love play and frivolity.

The epithet “mad” is associated with the characteristics of the dance that we gave above” 12.

In 1830 A.S. Pushkin wrote one of the brightest works of his era - the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”. At the center of the story is the story of the life of a young man, after whom the novel takes its name.

In the first chapter, the author introduces the reader to the main character - a typical representative of the young generation of aristocrats. Onegin was born in St. Petersburg, and from infancy was given to nannies and tutors. He was educated at home, but no science really fascinated him. The Frenchman who taught the young man was not strict with his student and tried to please him. He knew French and a little Latin, danced well and knew how to carry on any conversation. But he got the greatest pleasure from communicating with women.

The handsome and well-mannered young man was liked by secular society, and eminent people invited him to visit him every day. His father constantly borrowed money, but despite this, he organized three balls every year. Father and son did not understand each other; each of them lived his own life.

Each new day in the hero's life was similar to the previous one. He woke up in the afternoon and devoted a lot of time to his appearance. For three hours, Onegin tidied up his hair and clothes in front of the mirror. He did not forget to take care of his nails, for which he had various scissors and files. After this, the hero went for a walk. Then a sumptuous lunch awaited him: roast beef, truffles, wine. Everything is prepared to please the young man.

The reader sees that Onegin does not have a clear daily routine, he obeys his whims and desires. If during lunch he receives news that a theatrical performance has begun, he immediately rushes there. But it is not the love of art that drives his impulses. Evgeniy greets all his acquaintances and looks for beautiful girls among the spectators. The performance itself bores Onegin. He spends the whole night at the ball, returning home only in the morning. At a time when all the people go to work, our hero just goes to bed to rest before the start of a day full of social balls and evenings. This is one day in the life of Eugene Onegin from chapter 1 of Pushkin’s novel. But then everything changed...

The hero is not happy, he is dissatisfied with his life, which only brings boredom and blues to him. Deciding to change, he begins to read a lot and tries to write. But soon apathy overwhelms him. At this time, Eugene's father dies, whose debts force Onegin to give all the money to creditors. But this does not frighten the young dandy; he knows about the imminent death of his uncle and expects to receive a large fortune from him. His hopes come true and soon he becomes the owner of lands, factories and forests.


The day of the capital's nobleman had some typical features. However, those signs that mark the day of an officer or departmental official are not noted in the novel, and it makes no sense to dwell on them in this essay.
Onegin leads the life of a young man, free from official obligations. It should be noted that quantitatively only a small group of noble youth of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 19th century. led a similar life. Apart from non-employee people, such a life could only be afforded by rare young people from among the rich and noble-born mama's boys, whose service, most often in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was purely fictitious. We find the type of such a young man, albeit at a slightly later time, in the memoirs of M.D. Buturlin, who remembers “Prince Pyotr Alekseevich Golitsyn and his inseparable friend Sergei (forgot his middle name) Romanov.” “Both of them were civil servants, and both, it seems, were then serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I remember that Petrusha (as he was called in society) Golitsyn used to say, que servant au ministere des affaires etrangeres il etait tres etranger aux affaires (untranslatable play on words: the French “etrangere” means both “foreign” and “stranger” - “serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I am alien to all sorts of affairs.” - Yu.L.)" (Buturlin. P. 354).
Guards officer in 1819-1820. - at the very height of Arakcheevism, - if he was in the lower ranks (and due to Onegin’s age at that time, of course, he could not count on a high rank, which would provide certain relief in the course of everyday military drill - looking at a number of biographies shows fluctuations in ranks between the guards lieutenant and army lieutenant colonel), had to be in his company, squadron or team from early morning. The soldier order established by Paul I, in which the emperor was in bed at ten o'clock in the evening and on his feet at five in the morning, was preserved under Alexander I, who loved to repeat, flirtatiously, that he was a “simple soldier.” P called him “the crowned soldier” in a famous epigram.
Meanwhile, the right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy, separating the non-employee nobleman not only from the common people or fellow laborers, but also from the village landowner-owner. The fashion of getting up as late as possible dates back to the French aristocracy of the “old regime” and was brought to Russia by royalist emigrants. Parisian society ladies of the pre-revolutionary era were proud of the fact that they never saw the sun: waking up at sunset, they went to bed before sunrise. The day began in the evening and ended in the morning twilight.
J. Soren in the comedy “Morals of Our Time” depicted a dialogue between a bourgeois and an aristocrat. The first one praises the delights of a sunny day and hears the answer: “Fie, monsieur, this is an ignoble pleasure: the sun is only for the rabble!” (cf.: Ivanov I. The political role of the French theater in connection with the philosophy of the 18th century. // Academic Zap. Moscow University. Department of History and Philology. 1895. Issue XXII. P. 430). Waking up later than other people of the world had the same meaning as showing up to a ball later than others. Hence the plot of a typical anecdote about how a military servant catches her sybarite subordinate in the morning disabilities (quite natural for a secular person, but shameful for a military man) and in this form leads him around the camp or St. Petersburg for the amusement of the audience. Anecdotes of this kind were attached to Suvorov, and to Rumyantsev, and to Paul I, and to Grand Duke Konstantin. Their victims in these stories were aristocratic officers.
In light of the above, the strange quirk of Princess Avdotya Golitsyna, nicknamed “Princesse Nocturne” (nocturne in French means “night” and, as a noun, “night butterfly”), probably becomes clearer. The “Night Princess” who lived in a mansion on Millionnaya, a beauty “as charming as freedom” (Vyazemsky), the object of P and Vyazemsky’s hobbies, never appeared in daylight and never saw the sun. Gathering a sophisticated and liberal society in her mansion, she received only at night. This even caused the alarm of the Third Department under Nicholas I: “Princess Golitsyna, who lives in her own house in Bolshaya Millionnaya, who, as is already known, tends to sleep during the day and is engaged in company at night - and such use of time is highly suspect , because at this time there are special activities with some secret affairs...” (Modzalevsky B.L. Pushkin under secret supervision. L., 1925. P. 79). A secret agent was assigned to Golitsyna's house. These fears, despite the clumsiness of police exaggerations, were not completely without foundation: in the climate of Arakcheevism, under the rule of the “crowned soldier,” aristocratic particularism acquired a shade of independence, noticeable, although tolerable under Alexander I and turning almost into sedition under his successor.
The morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by a walk at two or three in the afternoon. The walk, on horseback or in a carriage, took an hour or two. Favorite places for festivities of St. Petersburg dandies in the 1810-1820s. there were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva. We also walked along Admiralteysky Boulevard, which was laid out into three alleys at the beginning of the 19th century. on the site of the glacis of the Admiralty, which was renewed under Paul (glacis - an embankment in front of a ditch).
The daily walk of Alexander I influenced the fact that the fashionable daytime festivities took place along a specific route. “At one o’clock in the afternoon he left the Winter Palace, followed the Palace Embankment, and at Pracheshny Bridge he turned along the Fontanka to the Anichkovsky Bridge<...>Then the sovereign returned to his place along Nevsky Prospekt. The walk was repeated every day and was called le tour imperial [imperial circle]. Whatever the weather, the sovereign walked in only a frock coat...” (Sollogub V.A. Stories. Memoirs. L., 1988. P. 362). The emperor, as a rule, walked without accompanying persons, looking at the ladies through his lorgnette (he was nearsighted) and responding to the bows of passers-by. The crowd at these hours consisted of officials whose service was fictitious or semi-fictitious. Naturally, they could fill the Nevsky during office hours, along with walking ladies, visitors from the provinces and non-working dandies. It was at these hours that Onegin walked along the “boulevard”.
Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. Such hours were clearly felt as late and “European”: for many people they still remembered the time when lunch began at twelve.
The young man, leading a single life, rarely had a cook - a serf or a hired foreigner - and preferred to dine in a restaurant. With the exception of a few first-class restaurants located on Nevsky, dinners in St. Petersburg taverns were of worse quality than in Moscow. O.A. Przhetslavsky recalled:

“The culinary part in public institutions was in some kind of primitive state, at a very low level. It was almost impossible for a single person who did not have his own kitchen to dine in Russian taverns. At the same time, these establishments closed quite early in the evening. When leaving the theater it was possible to dine in only one restaurant, somewhere on Nevsky Prospect, underground; he was kept by Domenic"
(Landlord Russia... P. 68).

The “single” atmosphere of a restaurant dinner is vividly depicted by P in letters from the spring of 1834 to Natalya Nikolaevna, who left through Moscow for the Linen Factory:

“...I appeared to Dumas, where my appearance created general joy: single, single Pushkin! They began to tempt me with champagne and punch and ask if I would go to Sofya Astafievna? All this confused me, so I no longer intend to come to Dumas and am having lunch at home today, ordering Stepan botvina and beef-steaks.”
(XV, 128).

And later: “I have lunch at Dumais’s at 2 o’clock, so as not to meet with the bachelor gang” (XV, 143).
A fairly complete overview of St. Petersburg restaurants in the 1820s. (albeit dating back to a time somewhat later than the action of the first chapter of the novel) we find in one of the diaries of contemporaries:

“June 1, 1829. Had lunch at the Heide Hotel, on Vasilievsky Island, in the Kadetskaya Line - almost no Russians are visible here, all are foreigners. The lunch is cheap, two rubles in banknotes, but they don’t serve any cake at any cost. Strange custom: put little oil and a lot of vinegar into the salad.
June 2nd. I had lunch at the German restaurant Kleya, on Nevsky Prospekt. Old and smoky establishment. Most of all, the Germans drink little wine, but a lot of beer. Lunch is cheap; I was given a lafite worth 1 ruble; I had a stomach ache for two days after that.
June 3rd Lunch at Dumais's. In terms of quality, this lunch is the cheapest and the best of all lunches in St. Petersburg restaurants. Dumais has the exclusive privilege of filling the stomachs of St. Petersburg lions and dandies.
June 4th. Lunch in Italian taste at Alexander or Signor Ales, along the Moika near the Police Bridge. There are no Germans here, but more Italians and French. However, in general there are few visitors. He only accepts people he knows well, preparing holiday meals at home. The pasta and stofato are excellent! He was served by a Russian girl, Marya, renamed Marianna; Self-taught, she learned to speak French and Italian perfectly.
5th. Lunch at Legrand's, formerly Feuillet, in Bolshaya Morskaya. Lunch is good; last year you couldn't dine here twice in a row because everything was the same. This year, lunch here for three rubles in banknotes is excellent and varied. The sets and all the accessories are lovely. They are served exclusively by Tatars, in tailcoats.
June 6th. Excellent lunch at Saint-Georges, along the Moika (now Donon), almost opposite Ales. The house in the courtyard is wooden, simply but tastefully decorated. Each visitor occupies a special room; there is a garden at the house; It’s a delight to dine on the balcony; the service is excellent, the wine is excellent. Lunch for three and five rubles in banknotes.
On June 7th I didn’t have lunch anywhere because I had breakfast carelessly and spoiled my appetite. On the way to Ales, also on the Moika, there is a small Diamant shop, which serves Strasbourg pies, ham, etc. You can't dine here, but you can take it home. At my request, the owner allowed me to have breakfast. His food is excellent, Mr. Diamond is a golden master. His shop reminds me of the Parisian guinguettes (small taverns).
June 8th. I had lunch at Simon-Grand-Jean, on Bolshaya Konyushennaya. Lunch is good, but the smell from the kitchen is unbearable.
June 9th. Dined at Coulomb's. Dumais is better and cheaper. However, there are more lunches here for those living in the hotel itself; the wine is wonderful.
June 10th. Lunch at Otto's; tasty, filling and cheap; you can hardly find a better cheap lunch in St. Petersburg"
(quoted from: Pylyaev M.I. Old Life: Essays and Stories. St. Petersburg, 1892. P. 8-9).

This passage characterizes the situation at the end of the 1820s. and by the beginning of the decade can be applied only with some reservations. Thus, the gathering place for St. Petersburg dandies at that time was not the Dumais restaurant, but the Talon restaurant on Nevsky. However, the overall picture was the same: there were few good restaurants, each visited by a certain, stable circle of people. To appear in one restaurant or another (especially in one like Talona or later Dumais) meant appearing at a gathering point for single youth - “lions” and “dandies”. And this required a certain style of behavior for the entire time remaining until the evening. It is no coincidence that in 1834 P had to dine earlier than usual in order to avoid meeting with the “single gang.”
The young dandy sought to “kill” the afternoon by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. One possibility was the theater. For the St. Petersburg dandy of that time, it was not only an artistic spectacle and a kind of club where social meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs and accessible behind-the-scenes hobbies. “The theater school was located across the house from us, on the Catherine Canal. Every day, lovers of pupils walked countless times along the canal embankment past the windows of the school. The pupils were housed on the third floor...” (Panaeva A.Ya. Memoirs. M., 1972. P. 36).
During the second half of the 18th and first third of the 19th century. The daily routine shifted steadily. In the 18th century the business day started early:

“The military reported for services at six o’clock, the civil ranks at eight and opened their Presence without delay, and at one o’clock in the afternoon, following the regulations, they stopped their judgments. Thus, they very rarely returned to their home later than two o’clock, while the military were in their apartments already at twelve o’clock<...>Private evenings generally began at seven o'clock. Whoever arrived at them at nine or ten o’clock, the owner immediately asked: “Why is it so late?” The answer would be: “The theater or the concert was delayed, I couldn’t wait for the carriage!”
(Makarov. About the time of lunches, dinners and congresses in Moscow from 1792 to 1844 // Shchukinsky collection [Issue] 2. P. 2).

V.V. Klyucharev wrote in the 1790s. To I. A. Molchanov: “I can be with you until seven o’clock, and at seven o’clock the ball in the club will begin, then everyone knows.”
In 1799, the dinner party of the commander-in-chief in Moscow, Count I.P. Saltykov, began at three o’clock, and the evening at seven and “ended with a light dinner at one after midnight, and sometimes earlier” (Ibid. P. 4).
In 1807, people began to come to the Moscow commander-in-chief T.I. Tutolmin for his evenings and balls from nine to ten o’clock.

“...Recorded dandies, nowadays lions, appeared there at eleven, but this was sometimes noticed by him, the owner, with displeasure...”
(Ibid. P. 5).

In the 1810s. the daily routine shifted even more: in 1812, “Madame Stahl, being in Moscow, usually had breakfast at the Gallery on Tverskoy Boulevard, this happened at two o’clock” (Ibid. p. 8).
By the beginning of the 1820s. dinner moved to four o'clock, the time of evening meetings to ten, but the dandies did not arrive at the balls until midnight. Where dinner took place after the ball, it took place at two or three in the morning.

Slide 2

First chapter

In the first chapter of the novel “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin describes in detail the ordinary day of Eugene Onegin, the ordinary day of a young nobleman of the 20s of the XIX century, who leads the life of a young man, free from official obligations. This day, like the other, is perceived by Onegin as a necessary secular ritual: “And tomorrow is the same as yesterday”: balls, French restaurants, ballet and opera performances at the Mariinsky Theater, walks along Nevsky Prospekt

Slide 3

Life in St. Petersburg

Only a small group of noble youth of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 19th century. led a similar life. Such a life could only be afforded by young people from among the rich and with noble relatives, mama's boys, whose service, most often in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was purely fictitious.

Slide 4

Morning of Onegin

Onegin got up late, no earlier than 12 o'clock. This was a sign of aristocracy. The fashion for waking up late came from France: Parisian society ladies were proud of the fact that they had never seen the sun: waking up at sunset, they went to bed before sunrise. The morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by a walk at two or three o'clock in the afternoon.

Slide 5

Onegin Day

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Emperor Alexander I went out for a walk. His daily walk influenced the fact that the fashionable daytime walk “along the boulevard” took place along a certain route. A walk, on horseback or in a carriage took Onegin an hour or two. His favorite places to hang out were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva.

Slide 6

Onegin's lifestyle

Around four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for lunch. Onegin led a single life, so he did not support a cook and preferred to dine in a restaurant. Only French restaurants in St. Petersburg could offer decent food. The quality of food in the taverns was poor, especially since they closed early.

Slide 7

Onegin's free time

In French and Italian restaurants there was an optimal ratio of price and quality. Mostly foreigners dined there. The food was varied, the average cost of lunch was three rubles. Onegin sought to “kill” the afternoon by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. One possibility was the theater. The theater was not only an artistic spectacle and a club where social meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs.