B. Sh. Okudzhava

The article regards how significant elements of the main character image in N. M. Karamzin’s novel and «Liza’s complex» described by V. N. Toporov are transformed in the plot lines of B. Sh. Okudzhava’s novel A Date with Bonaparte related to Liza Svechina. The motives of the incongruity of reality and the ideas from books and the topic of suicide set in Poor Liza, associated with the Decembrist theme, accentuate the problems of forced reorganization of society and personal responsibility.

In two articles we propose to consider Karamzin’s reminiscences (predominantly from the novel Poor Liza) in the novel by B. Sh. Okudzhava A Date with Bonaparte. The first article is dedicated to the plot lines of the novel related to the image of the serf Arina. One of the most important historic problems of the novel is actualized in them (serfdom); they also contain links to the up-to-date issues of the relationships between the intelligentsia and the people, inner and outer freedom.