On fate and/or providence in Pushkin’s short story ‘The blizzard’

It has been repeatedly noted that there are similarities between Pushkin’s short story ‘The blizzard’, Zhukovsky's ballad ‘Svetlana’, from which Pushkin borrowed the epigraph, and Burger's ‘Lenora’, which was twice used by Zhukovsky in different contexts. Differences in the functioning of the traditional plot are considered against the background of the interrela­tion and interdependence between fate, chance, and free will. In a Christian reading, the atti­tudes of the main characters of the three works to God's providence explain the motives be­hind their actions, the further course of events, and the endings of the works.