The problem of following fate in A.S. Pushkin’s “The song of prophetic Oleg”

The purpose of our work is to consider the possibility of faithfully following the fate of the hero of the Song of Prophetic Oleg by A.S. Pushkin. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it makes the transition from defining the “guilt” of the prince to understanding the “hint” embedded in the text about how one could imagine the right path of a hero “captured by fate” in the understanding of V.N. Toporov. A wide range of explanations of the causes of the death of the hero of the “Song” that have developed to date is considered. In order to fund the problems of fate, the “Song of Prophetic Oleg” draws parallels between the poem by A.S. Pushkin and the tragedy “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles. The author of the work notes the similarity of the dialogues of the prophetic Oleg with the Magus and Oedipus with the soothsayer Tiresias. The article also develops the idea of the realization of the “tragedy of knowledge” in the “Song”. Oleg’s false interpretation of the words of the magus is associated with the “solitary consciousness” of the hero. The work examines the general attitude of A.S. Pushkin to the question of fate and predestination, shows that, in the poet’s understanding, following fate can be associated with a moral victory over it and the preservation of inner freedom. The author of the article concludes, among other things, that prophetic Oleg refuses the heroic path. He betrays a friend, wanting to escape death, accuses the Khazars of unreasonableness, but at the same time loses his mind himself when he accuses the magus and demonstrates the deceptive evidence of an unfulfilled prophecy. As an alternative to the proud and therefore false path of the prince, the positive image of overcoming rock is considered by the bearers of “convergent consciousness” the main characters in the epic “Three Trips of Ilya Muromets” and in the novel “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin.