From lonely hero to hero in family: trend of family in Alexander Pushkin's mature period

The maturation of the idea of family in the works by the mature Alexander Pushkin, starting with “Eugene Onegin”, “Boris Godunov” and ending with “The Captain’s Daughter”, is shown as a difficult process. The article highlights the factors which influence the formation of the family idea: the type of hero, theme, method, the author’s age. A distinction is made between a lonely hero, often a bearer of romantic passions - love, revenge, glory - and a hero in the family. In the first case, the connection between realization in passion, loneliness, individual choice is outlined; the thirst for enrichment (as in “The Queen of Spades”) is also possible. In the heroes of the realistic stage - as Eugene Onegin or Silvio - the substantial problem of loneliness, or “a hero outside the family” problem is associated with the socio-ideological and cultural context. The hero in the family is inscribed in a tradition in which the family is an immutable element of being (“The Moor of Peter the Great”, “The Bronze Horseman”, “The Captain’s Daughter”). The teleology of a family and its value meanings would be revealed most fully in “The Captain’s Daughter”.