“ONEGIN REMEMBERED ME”: ON THE QUESTION OF THE “CRIMEAN CRADLE” OF PUSHKIN’S NOVEL IN VERSE

Onegin in Pushkin’s novel is last mentioned in the “Excerpts from Onegin’s Journey” in the 19th stanza, where it is reported that he “remembered” the, 2025 10 author while wandering around the Crimea “three years later” after him. This message interrupts the author’s monologue about his life in the south, separating the “Crimean” stanzas from the “Odessa” ones. The article considers it as a humorous indication of the time when Pushkin began working on the novel (1823), as well as the time and place of origin of his initial idea (1820, Crimea). Pushkin’s later testimony about the “Crimean cradle” of his novel (in a letter to N.B. Golitsyn, November 10, 1836) confirms this indication, which is in his text itself, and clarifies the meaning of the relevant verses. The verse “Among the lush, empty halls”, following the lifetime editions, should be understood as referring to Onegin, who remembered the author (and not to the author who “imagined Zarema”): he points to the connection of the original idea of the novel with the poem The Fountain of Bakhchisarai