Eugene Onegin is one of the best-known and most beloved works in all of Russia, so much so that even today schoolchildren memorize (at least) excerpts from Tatiana’s letter to Eugene.
This book, originally written in a form that resembles a poem more than a novel, focuses on a young Russian dandy who, after a period of dissipation in the city, moves to the countryside. There he meets Lensky, who is radically different from him and becomes a close friend. It is Lensky who introduces him to his fiancée’s sister, Tatiana, who soon falls in love with him.
The rhythm of the book is driven more by the reflections the author addresses to the reader (a brilliant strategy on Pushkin’s part) than by the story itself, which largely remains in the background. Eugene Onegin is clearly influenced by Romanticism, something of which readers should be aware, and it contains numerous references to Russian and European authors, both contemporary and from ancient Greece. This aspect may make the work more difficult to read if the reader is unfamiliar, as is often the case today, with these thinkers and writers.
As for the morality of the narrative, there is a passage in the first chapter that refers to Onegin’s way of life and is somewhat sensual and inappropriate (though not explicit), and this theme is briefly mentioned again midway through the book. Likewise, the novel portrays the Russian aristocratic and landowning youth, completely detached from the traditions and religion of their parents, which have been replaced by an exaltation of feelings (a characteristic feature of the nineteenth-century cultural and artistic movement already mentioned).
However, the author does not pass judgment on any of this (although the narrator is clearly a Romantic and shows it); rather, he presents it so that readers may judge for themselves the consequences of this way of life, which continues to influence the modern world in many respects. For this reason, it is an exceptionally interesting read for anyone well grounded in the Faith and unlikely to be misled by this philosophy (which is contrary to the teachings of the Church and a product of the Enlightenment).