The significance of Zhukovsky’s Svetlana in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin was first fully published in 1833. At that time, Neo-Classicism shifted to the rear view and Romanticism and Sentimentalism became the main genres of the writers and poets. Pushkin, however, employs various styles of writing in Eugene Onegin to convey the desired feelings and emotions about his characters, circumstances, nature, and the traditional Russian folklore to the reader. He alludes to many Western European and Russian writers and poets, who have influenced the theme and style of his poems by their famous works. Zhukovsky’s Svetlana was one of the well recognized traditionally written Russian ballads that Pushkin often mentions in Eugene Onegin. Pushkin alludes to Zhukovsky’s Svetlana in the Eugene Onegin to recognize his predecessor’s successful work and to demonstrate that his heroine, Tatyana, exhibits the same qualities and characteristics that Zhukovsky so masterfully portrayed in his heroine Svetlana. Zhukovsky was born in 1783 and was able to translate and compose free adaptations of many famous Western European writings in the sixty-nine years of his life. He spoke five different languages and was one of the first people to introduce Romanticism to the Russian public, who believed that “the principal purpose of poetry was to assist in enhancing the image of the state and establish civil order”(Semenko, [1]). Since Zhukovsky's writings often discussed the fundamental questions of human life, he was regarded as the person, who has “… reoriented poetry toward the disclosure of the inner world of the individual”(Semenko, [2]) and was able to make his writings “assume features of lofty dreaminess, lyricism, and melodious tenderness”(Semenko, [3]). Belinsky has said, “Without Zhukovsky, we would not have had a Pushkin”(Semenko, [3]). I...
