Eugene Onegin characters

Appears from the start

A fashionable young man from St Petersburg who has mastered society's manners but grown bored with its pleasures. After inheriting a country estate from his uncle, he withdraws to rural life, where his aloof intelligence and refusal to follow local customs make him an object of curiosity.

First appears in chapter 2

The elder Larin daughter, quiet, solitary, and deeply absorbed in novels. Unlike her sociable sister, she feels out of place in conventional country life and responds to Onegin's arrival with the intensity of a romantic imagination.

First appears in chapter 2

Onegin's young neighbor, a poet recently returned from study in Germany. Earnest, idealistic, and inexperienced, he believes strongly in friendship and romantic devotion and is engaged to Olga Larina.

First appears in chapter 2

Tatyana's younger sister and Lensky's fiancée. Pretty, cheerful, and at ease in local society, she fits the familiar image of a charming young woman more readily than her introspective sister does.

Also known as Tatyana and Olga's mother

First appears in chapter 2

The widowed mother of Tatyana and Olga. In youth she had romantic tastes of her own, but an arranged marriage brought her to the country, where she gradually adapted and became a practical manager of family and estate life.

Also known as Tatyana's nurse

First appears in chapter 3

Tatyana's elderly nurse and trusted attendant. When Tatyana tries to speak about love, the nurse answers from the very different experience of an early arranged marriage and helps her deliver a private letter.

First appears in chapter 6

A landowner with a colorful past as a brawler and gambler, now outwardly settled into respectable rural life. His reputation as an authority on duels makes him the formal second when Lensky challenges Onegin.

Also known as The General, The Prince

First appears in chapter 8

Tatyana's husband, a distinguished general and prince in St Petersburg society who is related to Onegin. He proudly introduces Onegin to his wife when the two men meet at a glittering social gathering.