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.
