Remember the lines "That year the autumn weather stood for a long time in the yard." Just like ours now. But what year it was and whether the poet had cheated, we found out with the experts.
Increasingly now, being surprised by the abnormally snowless winter and December showers, people are quoting lines from the fifth chapter of Eugene Onegin.
New style - on the night of January 15! Can you imagine? The first snow is only after the Old New Year. However, this strange holiday in Russia began to be celebrated after 1918, when the Bolsheviks abolished the Julian calendar and introduced the Gregorian calendar, according to which enlightened Europe had lived since 1582.
Promotional video:
WHEN WAS THE AUTUMN WEATHER LONG IN THE YARD?
It is important to note: winter then immediately came in earnest and for a long time, covering everything with a white carpet.
Did winter really come so late, as described by Pushkin? And if so, what year was it? Or are these lines just a poetic fantasy of Alexander Sergeevich?
This is not an idle question.
“We dare to assure that in our novel the time is calculated according to the calendar,” the poet himself said.
Based on this phrase, the famous literary critic Yuri Lotman made a number of calculations and built the chronology of Eugene Onegin. According to it, the fifth chapter takes place in January 1821.
“The real weather that year did not coincide with Pushkin’s description,” said Professor Lotman. - The snow fell extremely early. On September 28, 1820, Karamzin wrote to Dmitriev from Tsarskoye Selo: "Snow fell." True, the snow did not last long; On October 14, 1820 NI Turgenev informed his brother Sergei to Constantinople from St. Petersburg: "We live between rain and mud, in the physical and moral sense."
Here are the ones on! It turns out that the poet invented everything and we are in vain to quote his lines about the snow that fell only in the middle of the calendar winter?
In my opinion, it was Lotman who took poetic allusions to dates and numbers too bluntly.
Let's turn to a reliable independent source. “A thousand-year chronicle of extraordinary natural phenomena” by E. Borisenkov and V. Pasetsky. Published in 1988. The authors, geophysicist and historian, doctors of sciences, having studied more than a thousand Russian chronicles, a lot of other domestic and foreign documents, meteorological records, have restored, literally by years, a detailed chronicle of natural disasters. But their main task is the history of the climate. Indeed, “in the literature, especially the popular one, there are many reports about the unusualness of the modern climate, its extremeness, which supposedly has never been observed before, and that all this is associated with the expanded scale of human activity. Meanwhile, consideration of the modern climate in historical terms gives grounds for a more moderate assessment of the current events."
Written over 30 years ago. But today it sounds even more relevant. After all, speculation around weather anomalies has only increased. In any case, there was no hype about global warming three decades ago.
AND FLOODING IN THE GREAT
Here is a line from the Millennial Chronicle of Extraordinary Natural Phenomena:
“The winter of 1824/25 came to the northwest unusually late. Pushkin, who lived in exile in Mikhailovskoye, very figuratively depicted this natural phenomenon in the fifth chapter of Eugene Onegin: "The snow fell only in January …"
By the way, Pushkin began writing the fifth chapter on January 5, 1826. A year after the arrival of an unusually late winter, which he witnessed. So Alexander Sergeevich did not cheat with the climatic phenomenon.
That surprisingly late winter was preceded by another extraordinary natural phenomenon, also recorded by Pushkin and the Chronicle of Doctors of Sciences E. Borisenkov and V. Pasetsky. Petersburg flood on November 7 (19), 1824. The most significant and destructive in the history of the Northern capital.
The water then rose 4.21 meters. “In St. Petersburg, according to some sources, 208 people died, according to others - 569 people. 462 houses were destroyed, 3681 houses were damaged. The stores got wet and became unusable 900 thousand poods of flour for 248 460 rubles. 3,600 head of livestock were killed. The total damage from the flood amounted to about 20 million rubles. banknotes."
And here is what Pushkin wrote in the poem "The Bronze Horseman":
ICE AND FLAME
These two climatic phenomena in northwest Russia, separated by two months of prolonged autumn weather, had something in common. Global.
The first quarter of the 19th century was coming to an end. And along with it - the Little Ice Age, which reigned on Earth since the XIV century. It was caused, according to scientists, by the slowing down of the warm Gulf Stream, minimal solar activity, strong volcanic eruptions …
“Although in the second quarter of the 19th century, judging by the instrumental data, there was a transition from the Little Ice Age to a general gradual warming in the northern hemisphere, the number of especially dangerous natural phenomena, and with them severe hunger years, not only did not decrease, but, on the contrary, has increased, - write E. Borisenkov and V. Pasetsky. - In total in historical sources for the first half of the 19th century. 35 droughts were noted. 25 times heavy rains damaged crops and grasses. 23 cold returns in late spring - early summer and 21 early frosts not only at the end, but sometimes in the middle of summer. For half a century, Russia and Western Europe have experienced 31 cold, 8 moderate and 11 mild winters. In the second half of the XIX century. the gradual warming of the climate in the northern hemisphere is being felt more and more clearly. First of all, this was noticed in the Arctic, the sea ice coverage of which has noticeably decreased,which made it possible to resume navigation to the estuaries of the Ob, Yenisei and Lena and to make the first through navigation by the Northern Sea Route in 1878/79. The number of frosty days in the second half of the 19th century. decreased by 2 times compared with the previous half century. This did not mean that the manifestation of unusual natural phenomena had sharply decreased. The initial stage of modern warming has not escaped extreme cold weather, increased humidity, or severe droughts. "no increased moisture, severe droughts. "no increased moisture, severe droughts."
Yes, it's hard to live in an era of change. Including climatic.
It turns out that the "sun of Russian poetry" not only figuratively described the very late arrival of winter in 1825, but also recorded in his novel the historical transition from the Little Ice Age to the global warming that is still going on on Earth.
Recently it has been called Global. However, around this term, no less global passions are boiling among politicians, climatologists and other stakeholders. Is the current warming actually caused by human activities? Or is it a common natural phenomenon? In the history of our planet, periods of warming and cooling have always alternated. The main opponent is US President Donald Trump. He publicly calls global warming a global hoax, an expensive fake, an expensive nonsense. And defiantly withdrew from the Paris Climate Treaty in order not to pay billions of dollars to the common piggy bank to combat the rise in temperature on Earth.
Abnormal autumn weather right up to the New Year 2020, some are also trying to "sew on" global warming caused, they say, by industrial emissions.
Let us recall, however, Pushkin: "The snow fell only in January."
Although there were no industrial emissions in such volumes as today. And no one stuttered about global warming. And, by the way, no one raised the panic over the late winter, judging by the novel "Eugene Onegin", as now.
EUGENE CHERNYKH
