A peculiar character in the works of several generations of Russian writers of the XIX century was the "master of Russian forests" brown bear. His appearance was not unexpected: this image widely reflected Russian folklore. As you know, even in the time of paganism, the Eastern Slavs had a cult of the bear, and then the bear became the hero of fairy tales, legends, legends, proverbs, sayings, riddles, songs, rituals, Christmas games (see: Voronin N. N. The Bear cult in the Upper Volga region in the XI century // Local lore notes. Issue No. 4. Yaroslavl, 1960; Ivanov V. V., Toporov V. N. Slavyanskie yazykovye, modelirovushchie, semioticheskie sistemy [Slavic language, modeling, and semiotic systems]. Moscow, 1965, pp. 160, 164]. Fear and reverence for the former god gradually gave way to a sober and ironic view of him: the bear became a symbol of brute strength, ferocity, as well as simplicity, laziness, and voluptuousness. It is these qualities of a bearish nature that Russian writers used to denounce tyranny, arbitrariness, inertia, ignorance, and predatory aspirations. The beginning of the development of the satirical "bear theme", as one might expect, was laid by the masters of the most democratic genre-fables. Bearish stupidity, stupidity and ferocity were vividly depicted by I. A. Krylov in the fables "The Hermit and the Bear", "Pied Sheep", "The Bear at the Bees", "The Hardworking Bear". Even here, the image of the bear as a rude and merciless persecutor of the poor and defenseless was clearly defined. This point of view was supported by A. S. Pushkin in the story "Dubrovsky", bringing together the landowner-beast Troyekurov with his pet, a domestic bear (ch. VIII). Both of them received an unexpected blow from a man who boldly declared that "I do not intend to suffer offense.".. In the heroine of the novel "Eugene Onegin" Tatiana Larina, a young lady with a subtle, lofty spiritual disposition, the collapse of ideals and hopes was reflected in a peculiar way i ... Read more