The mischievous, humorous, unfinished poem" Monk " of the Lyceum period (1813) was not published during the poet's lifetime. It describes the confrontation of the monk Pancratius with the" underground sorcerer " Milk. Molok is the French form of the name Moloch. Pushkin learned it from the French translation of Milton's poem Paradise Lost.

The frivolous plot of "The Monk" is not difficult. Monk Pankratius is plagued by a demon named Molok:

Milk came (that's the devil's name),

Pankratia disappeared under the black duckweed.

The holy monk was already praying, praying,

Sighed, sighed, and the devil was right there.

Milk cannot penetrate the monk in any way and finally tempts him with the vision of a"skirt". To get rid of it, Pankratius falls asleep. Milk, however, gives him tempting dreams:

Immediately the milk suddenly turned into a fly

And flew buzzing around him.

Flying, flying, spinning around the room

And I sat on my monk's nose.

Pankratya again he started to seduce.

When Pankratius wakes up, he prays to God and is taught how to defeat the demon. After filling the pitcher with water, he "mumbled over it the words:-

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va prayers". When the skirt that disappeared during the day reappeared in the evening, the monk douses it with enchanted water.:

And lo, before him with horns and a tail,

Like a gray wolf, bristling all over,

Like a good horse with a shod hoof,

Molok appeared, trembling under the table,

Drenched from head to toe in water,

Covering yourself with the hem of your epancha,

He rolled his eyes like lanterns in the night.

"Hurrah! The monk shouted with an evil grin, -

Got you, underground wizard.

You're mine now, you can't escape, villain.

You'll pay for all the pranks with your head.

Go to the bottle, I'll seal you up,

I'm going to throw her into the well..."

So Pankratius gains power over the demon: he intends to drive him forever into a bottle and throw him into a well. Molok admits defeat:

"You've won, venerable old man, -

So answered smyrnehonko Molok. -

You've won, but be generous,

Don't drown me in rotten water.

I will obey you forever for that..."

Wanting to be saved. Molok suggests that Pankratius take him to Jerusalem; Pankratius agrees. After that, the author of the verses addresses an admonition to the monk:

Old man, old man, don't listen to me.,

Leave him, leave the Yerusalim.

Just looking for a demon to tease the saint from the side,

Don't form a close friendship with him.

(...)

If you look at what associations are associated with Milk in Pushkin's poem, then, according to our data, there will be a lot of them. (We use the method of calculating "semantic shares", which we used in a small book "The Guardian and Creator of the Russian language and Culture". Moscow, 2000.)

Molok is shaggy, has fiery eyes, horns and a tail, has horse-like legs with hooves, and has animal claws on his hands and paws. Milk has wings, and it flies. As a rule, any demon appears black, but Pushkin's" body " of Milk is covered with gray

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bristles. Milk changes size (and turns, for example, into an annoying fly). Usually devils are terrifying, but Milk doused with water and shivering from the cold can cause pity.

In addition, Molok is vicious, persistent and obsessive, acts mainly at night (during the day his power disappears), lives in hell, underground, under custody. Any person, even a monk, is defenseless against the attacks of Milk and can go to the point of falling into sin, even to the point that a demon takes possession of him. How does he tempt the righteous? Wealth, fornication, gluttony, and wine drinking. The demon disturbs a person (inspires him with sinful plans), but a person is able to understand who is persecuting him. If you pray, the Milk can not resist the action of prayer and obeys the Christian spells. This is how a mortal person gets the opportunity to punish the demon, and the demon begs for mercy. A person and a demon sometimes enter into a bargain and a deal.

That's what Pushkin's Milk is like! But after all, Milk is just Pushkin's gallicism.

What do we know about the "real" Moloch?

According to the origin of the name, Moloch is the king, the supreme ruler. Moloch is a false god of heat (the sun or underground fire), and therefore fire sacrifices were offered to him. Burnt offerings were made in the valley of Ben-Ginnom on the hill of Tophet, and later the valley's own name became a household name - the name of hell (gehenna of fire).

In the popular view, the idol of Moloch was cast from metal - in the form of a man, but with the head of a bull, crowned with horns. It was heated red hot, and a baby was placed on outstretched arms. Moloch is insatiable, he constantly demands sacrifices, especially human ones, and the ancient Jews brought them. In the ever-smoking Ginnom Valley, the stench of burning human flesh reeked. The screams of burning children were drowned out by the roar of drums.

Let's turn to the dictionary definition: Moloch "is used as a symbol of a cruel, inexorable force that requires many human sacrifices." For example, Moloch of War, Moloch of the French Revolution (=guillotine), bloody/ bloodthirsty / insatiable Moloch, capitalist Moloch. Let us recall the title of A. I. Kuprin's novel Moloch (1896). The main character of the story, engineer Bobrov, pointing to the factory, exclaims: "- Here it is-Moloch, requiring warm human blood!"

In addition, the cult of Moloch was associated with sexual orgies, including sodomy and bestiality. Both God himself and the prophets of Israel have for many centuries opposed the cult of Moloch, the "abomination of the children of Ammon"; adherence to Moloch was seen as a violation of the Covenant, as adultery, and the Old Testament provides for the death penalty for following the cult of Moloch.

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Let's compare the appearance of Old Testament Moloch and Pushkin's Milk. Both have horns on their heads, but Milk has goat horns, and Moloch's bull head has huge elongated horns.

Unlike Milk, Moloch has no tail, hooves, claws, or wings. Molok lives in hell and under the earth, while Moloch, although the lord of the underworld, still has both the sky and the sun. Finally, if a person can defend himself against Milk, outwit it, and even put it in his service, then Moloch is all-powerful and implacable.

Perhaps they have only one thing in common: they are both fornicators, profligates, and adulterers, and they demand the same from people. This is where the similarity ends.

Pushkin's Milk of the poem "Monk", fearing the Christian God and obeying prayers and spells, is not at all the powerful, merciless, bloodthirsty Moloch of the Old Testament.

Pushkin's milk is a Russian demon. In the same way, the poet has the German devil Mephistopheles, despite the name, in everything else-a Russian demon, folklore, which is not taken seriously and is not afraid. And Molok, under the poet's pen, acquired distinct, irremediable features of "settlement" in Russia.

Pushkin's work contains many borrowed images, plots and motifs, imitations of "Arabic", "Italian", "Turkish song", "French", "ancient", "Koran". There is no doubt about the worldwide responsiveness of his genius. But, as Gogol rightly noted in the article "A Few Words about Pushkin", "a poet can even be national when he describes a completely foreign world, but looks at it through the eyes of his national element" (Gogol N. V. Sobr. Soch.: In 9 vols. Moscow, 1994. Vol. 7. P. 261).

This remark of Gogol fully applies to the image of Pushkin's Milk-a biblical character only by his first name.

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