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ALEXANDER PUSHKIN ALEXANDER PUSHKIN'S BIOGRAPHY (1799 - 1837) Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born on the 26th of May, 1799 in Moscow in the noble family (his father was the retired major). In the same day the emperor's granddaughter was born. That's way the chimes had been heard all over the town during the whole day. So, on casual concurrence of events the birthday of the Russian genius was marked by people's rejoicing . The place of his born is also symbolic- Moscow is the heart of Russia, Russian life. Future poet was christened on the 8th of May in honor of Holy Alexander, Konstantinopolskiy Patriarch, in the Pushkin`s parents, Sergei Lvovich and Nadezhda Osipovna, were distant relativessecond cousins. This family (except Alexander were also Olga and Lev) belonged to the most educated part of the Moscow society.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Many poets, musicians, painters gathered in their house. French governesses, his grandmother Maria Alexeevna and the famous nanny Arina Rodionovna took part in Pushkin`s behaviour. Young poet also had access to his uncle's library. All this influenced Pushkin and formed his soul. He wrote his first verses in French, that'same in the lycee was "Frenchman". In 1811 he was selected to be among the thirty students in the first class at the lycee in Tsarskoye Selo. The syllabus of the lycee was rather extensive, but not well thought out. Pupils were prepared for high state career and had the rights of those who had graduated from the University.
Not very large number of pupils, the fact that the most of the professors were young, The humanitarian character of their pedagogical ideas, The spirit of honour and friendship created a special atmosphere in the lycee. Pushkin kept lycee friendship all his life. The pupils of the lycee released their own magazines and paid much attention towards to their literary creation. "I began to write since I was thirteen, at the same timeto publish his works",- remembered Pushkin later. He soon not only became the unofficial laureate of the lycee, but found a wider audience and recognition. He was first published in the journal The Messenger of Europe in 1814. In 1815 his poem "Recollections in Tsarskoe Selo" met the approval of Derzhavin, a great eighteenth century poet, at a public examination in the lycee.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN After graduating from the lycee he came to his mother's estate. Two years passed and he came here again in order to have a rest after serious disease . Soon after graduating from the lycee, he was given a sinecure in the Collegiums of Foreign Affairs in Petersburg. The next three years he spent mainly in carefree, light-hearted pursuit of pleasure. He was warmly received in literary circles; in circles of Guard-style lovers of wine, women, and song; and in groups where political liberals views in "revolutionary" poems, his ode "Freedom", "The village", and a number of poems on Alexander I and his minister Arackcheev. At the same time he was working on his first large-scale work, Ruslan and Ludmila. The ideas of civic freedom and political rationalism which soared in the air that time reflected in Pushkin`s poems and in the behaviour of the young poet. " Pushkin must be exiled to Siberia! He has flooded Russia with the scandalous poems! All the youth is reading it!"- that was the decision of the Russian tzar. Thanks to his friends, Pushkin had been exiled to the South. So, In April 1820, his political poems led to an interrogation by the Petersburg governor-general and then to exile to the South Russia, under the guise of an administrative transfer in the service. Pushkin left Petersburg for Ekaterinoslave on May 6, 1820.Soon after his arrival then he travelled around the Caucasus and the Crimea with the family of General Rayevsky. During almost three years in Kishinev, Pushkin wrote his first Byronic verse tales, "The prisoner of the Caucasus" (1820-1821), "The Bandit Brothers" (1821-1823). He also wrote "Gavriliada" (1821), a light approach to the Annunciation, and he started his novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (1823-1831).
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Идеи гражданской свободы, политического радикализма, которыми было проникнуто русское общество после победы над Наполеоном, нашли отражение и в стихах, и в поведении юного Пушкина. «Пушкина надобно сослать в Сибирь: он наводнил Россию возмутительными стихами; вся молодежь наизусть их читает» - таково было решение царя Александра I. Хлопотами друзей вместо Сибири Пушкина сослали на юг. Официально это был перевод по службе в г. Екатеринославль под начало генерала И. Н. Инзова, наместника Бессарабии. «Приехав в Екатеринославль, я соскучился, поехал кататься по Днепру, выкупался и схватил горячку, по моему обыкновению. Генерал Раевский, который ехал на Кавказ с сыном и двумя дочерьми, нашел меня в бреду, без лекаря, за кружкой оледенелого лимонада. Сын его ... предложил мне путешествие по Кавказским Водам ... я лег в коляску больной; через неделю вылечился» (из письма поэта брату).
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Почти все лето 1820 г. Пушкин прожил на Кавказе, где начал поэму «Кавказский пленник». Далее с семьей Раевских через Тамань, Керчь, Феодосию Пушкин прибыл морем в Гурзуф и провел там три недели: «В Юрзуфе жил я сиднем, купался в море и объедался виноградом; я тотчас привык к полуденной природе и наслаждался ею со всем равнодушием и беспечностью неаполитанского Lazzarono» (из письма Дельвигу).
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"Our Pskov is worth than Siberia! Such passionate person just couldn't stay here!"- worried his
close friends about him. They were distressed by his being in exile very much. In Mikhailovskoye Pushkin was under double supervision by both civic and spiritual, besides he was bailed by his own parents. All these irritated Pushkin`s sensitive soul. He even invented the plans of escape and asked to change the place of his exile for any castle. At least, Pushkin, assuaged by his friends gave up that idea and resigned himself. A bit later he wrote:" I`m in the best situation for finishing my novel in verse..." ("Eugene Onegin"). The young Alexander Pushkin became acquainted with the family of Praskovia Osipova in the summer of 1817. During his exile in Mikhailovskoye Pushkin visited Trigorskoye frequently. After the quarrel with his father it became the only place where the poet could find peace of mind. Pushkin's friends and neighbors in Trigorskoye treated the young poet with the greatest sympathy. Personal contacts with his friends and neighbors, and observation the everyday life of them feeded his creative imagination and gave him " colors and materials for his fancies, which were so natural, true to life and which are in harmony with prose
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN nd poetry of country life of Russia" (A.I. Turgenev). The novel in verse "Eugene Onegin", the half of which was created in Mikhailovskoye is considered to be the encyclopedia of Russian life. Beautiful Russian nature , vivid and colorful talks with his nurse and neighbors, all these produced impression on the young poet! " everything stir his sensitive mind". In Mikhailovskoye he conceived and wrote the verse drama Boris Godunov, the country chapters of Eugene Onegin (Chapters 3 up 6) and the beginning of Chapter 7, the satirical poem Count Nulin and his lyric poems To the Sea, A Burnt letter, A Magic Moment I remember..., Bacchanal Song, 19th of October, Winter evening, Songs About Stephan Razin, The Prophet, and many others. In 1827 Pushkin worked over on his novel Peter The Grate's Blackmoor. As he confessed himself, that was the place where he had changed his creative methods and his writing manner. Mikhailovskoye is considered to be Pushkin`s poetical mother land. Nicholas the first's death, the Decembrist Uprising , which took place soon after that changed Pushkin's fate very much. When the Decembrist Uprising took place in Petersburg on December 14, 1825, Pushkin , still in Mikhailovskoye, was not a participant. But he soon learned that he was implicated, for all the Decembrists had copies of his early political poems. He destroyed his papers that might be dangerous for himself or others. In late spring of 1826, he sent the Tsar a petition that he be released from exile. After an investigation the showed Pushkin had been behaving himself, he was summoned to leave immediately for an audience with Nicholas I. On
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ALEXANDER PUSHKIN September 8, still grimy from the road, he was taken in to see Nicholas. At the end of the interview, Pskov was jubilant that he was released from exile and that Nicholas I had undertaken to be the personal censor of his works.
Pushkin thought that he would be free to travel as he wished, that he could freely participate in the publication of journals, and that he would be totally free of censorship, except in cases which he himself might consider questionable and wish to refer to his royal censor. He soon found out otherwise. Count Benkendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, let Pushkin know that without advance permission he was not to make any trip, participate in any journal, or publish -- or even read in literary circles -- any work. He gradually discovered that he had to account for every word and action, like a naughty child or a parolee. Several times he was questioned by the police about poems he had written.
The youthful Pushkin had been a light-hearted scoffer at the state of matrimony, but freed from exile, he spent the years from 1826 to his marriage in 1831 largely in search of a wife and in preparing to settle down. He sought no less than the most beautiful woman in Russia for his bride.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN In 1829 he found her in Natalia Goncharova, and presented a formal proposal in April of that year. She finally agreed to marry him on the condition that his ambiguous situation with the government be clarified, which it was. As a kind of wedding present, Pushkin was given permission to publish "Boris Godunov" - after four years of waiting for authorization under his "own responsibility. He was formally betrothed on May 6, 1830. Financial arrangements in connection with his father's wedding gift to him of half the estate of Kistenevo necessitated a visit to the neightboring estate of Boldino, in east-central Russia. When Pushkin arrived there in September 1830, he expected to remain only a few days; however, for three whole months he was held in quarantine by an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. These three months in Boldino turned out to be literarily the most productive of his life. During the last months of his exile at Mikhailovskoye, he had completed Chapters V and VI of "Eugene Onegin", but in the four subsequent years he had written, of major works, only "Poltava"(1828), his unfinished novel "The Blackamoor of Peter the Great" (1827) and Chapter VII of "Eugene Onegin" (1827-1828). During the autumn at Boldino, Pushkin wrote the five short stories of "The Tales of Belkin"; the verse tale "The Little House in Kolomna" his little tragedies, "The Avaricious Knight," "Mozart and Saliery", "The Stone Guest" and "Feast in the Time of the Plague", "The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda", the first of his fairy tales in verse; the last chapter of "Eugene Onegin" and "The Devils" among other lyrics.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin was married to Natalia Goncharova on February 18, 1831, in Moscow. In May, after a honeymoon made disagreeable by "Moscow aunties" and in-laws, the Pushkins moved to Tsarskoye Selo, in order to live near the capital, but inexpensively and in "inspirational solitude and in the circle of sweet recollections." These expectations were defeated when the cholera epidemic in Petersburg caused the Tsar and the court to take refuge in July in Tsarskoe Selo. In October 1831 the Pushkins moved to an apartment in Petersburg, where they lived for the remainder of his life. He and his wife became henceforth inextricably involved with favours from the Tsar and with court society. Mme. Pushkina's beauty immediately made a sensation in society, and her admirers included the Tsar himself. On December 30, 1833, Nicholas I made Pushkin a Kammerjunker, an intermediate court rank usually granted at the time to youths of high aristocratic families. Pushkin was deeply offended, all the more because he was convinced that it was conferred, not for any quality of his own, but only to make it proper for the beautiful Mme. Pushkina to attend court balls. Dancing at one of these balls was followed in March 1834 by her having a miscarriage. While she was convalescing in the provinces, Pushkin spoke openly in letters to her of his indignation and humiliation. The letters were intercepted and sent to the police and to the Tsar. When Pushkin discovered this, in fury he submitted his resignation from the service on June 25, 1834. However, he had reason to fear the worst from the Tsar's displeasure at this action, and he felt obliged to retract his resignation. Pushkin could ill afford the expense of gowns for Mme. Pushkina for court balls or the time required for performing court duties. His woes further increased when her two unmarried sisters came in autumn 1834 to live henceforth with them. In addition, in the spring of 1834 he had taken over the management of his improvident father's estate and had undertaken to settle the debts of his heedless brother. The result was endless cares, annoyances, and even outlays from his own pocket. He came to be in such financial straits that he applied for a leave of absence to retire to the country for three or four years, or if that were refused, for a substantial sum as loan to cover his most pressing debts and for the permission to publish a journal.
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The leave of absence was brusquely refused, but a loan of thirty thousand roubles was, after some trouble, negotiated; permission to publish, beginning in 1836, a quarterly literary journal, "The Contemporary", was finally granted as well. The journal was not a financial success, and it involved him in endless editoral and financial cares and in difficulties with the censors, for it gave importantly placed enemies among them the opportunity to pay him off. Short visits to the country in 1834 and 1835 resulted in the completion of only one major work, "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" (1834), and during 1836 he only completed his novel on Pugachev, "The Captain's Daughter", and a number of his finest lyrics.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Meanwhile, Mme. Pushkina loved the attention which her beauty attracted in the highest society; she was fond of "coquetting" and of being surrounded by admirers, who included the Tsar himself. In 1834 Mme. Pushkina met a young man who was not content with coquetry, a handsome French royalist emigre in Russian service, who was adopted by the Dutch ambassador, Heeckeren. Young d'AnthesHeeckeren pursued Mme. Pushkina for two years, and finally so openly and unabashedly that by autumn 1836, it was becoming a scandal On November 4, 1836 Pushkin received several copies of a "certificate" nominating him "Coadjutor of the International Order of Cuckolds." Pushkin immediately challenged d'Anthes; at the same time, he made desperate efforts to settle his indebtedness to the Treasury. Pushkin twice allowed postponements of the duel, and then retracted the challenge when he learned "from public rumour" that d'Anthes was "really" in love with Mme. Pushkina's sister, Ekaterina Goncharova. On January 10, 1837, the marriage took place, contrary to Pushkin's expectations. Pushkin refused to attend the wedding or to receive the couple in his home, but in society d'Anthes pursued Mme. Pushkina even more openly. Then d'Anthes arranged a meeting with her, by persuading her friend Idalia Poletika to invite Mme. Pushkina for a visit; Mme. Poletika left the two alone, but one of her children came in, and Mme. Pushkina managed to get away. Upon hearing of this meeting, Pushkin sent an insulting letter to old Heeckeren, accusing him of being the author of the "certificate" of November 4 and the "pander" of his "bastard." A duel with d'Anthes took place on January 27, 1837. D'Anthes fired first, and Pushkin was mortally wounded; after he fell, he summoned the strength to fire his shot and to wound, slightly, his adversary. Pushkin died two days later, on January 29.
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ALEXANDER PUSHKIN As Pushkin lay dying, and after his death, except for a few friends, court society sympathized with d'Anthes, but thousands of people of all other social levels came to Pushkin's apartment to express sympathy and to mourn. The government obviously feared a political demonstration. To prevent public display, the funeral was shifted from St. Isaac's Cathedral to the small Royal Stables Church, with admission by ticket only to members of the court and diplomatic society. And then his body was sent away, in secret and at midnight. He was buried beside his mother at dawn on February 6, 1837 at Svyatogorsky Monastery, near Mikhailovskoe.Today, as annually on the 10th of February, 6th of June, 21st of August - memory day, the poet's birthday and the date of his arrival at exile-at the poet's gravestone a joint pray will be carried out for the repose of the eternal sole of Alexander Pushkin. Nowadays the poet’s grave is declared as the national property of Russian Federation.
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PUSHKIN Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1836) is Russia's greatest and most beloved poet. He was so prolific he gave away his plots to Gogol and inspired more than 4,000 pieces in art, music and literature. Based on the number of books written about him (1,614 in 1999 in the Library of Congress collection), Pushkin was is the world's 19th most famous person. He ranks behind Jesus and Wagner but ahead of Gandhi and Beethoven. [Source: Robert Wernick, Smithsonian; National Geographic, September, 1992] Dostoevsky wrote: "For the very first time, he gave us the artist models of Russian beauty which come directly out of the Russian soul, living in our national truth, on our national soil." Gogol said, "Pushkin is a unique expression—and perhaps even the only expression—of the Russian soul." Pushkin was short: only 5 foot, six inches. He had pale blue eyes, a protruding jaw and curly unmanageable hair and once described his looks as "a true ape by his face." “His terrible side whiskers, his long nails which looked like claws, his short stature, his mincing manners, the impudent way in which he stared at the women whom he found attractive...and his natural unlimited vanity" were some of his endearing qualities, according to Anna Olenin, a woman who once considered marrying him. Sometimes he wore a black frock coat and a silk top hat. Other times he donned a fez and Turkish pantaloons.
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ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Source: Mike Edwards, National Geographic, September 1992] Books: Pushkin: A Biography, an excellent work by T.J. Binyon, a lecturer of Russian literature at Oxford (Knopf, 2003); Pushkin, the Man and His Age by Robin Edmonds (St. Martin's Press, 1997); Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998;
Pushkin and Russians The passion and feelings that Russians have for Pushkin is much stronger than say the English have for Shakespeare, Americans for Mark Twain or the Spanish for Cervantes. Pushkin's great-great-great daughter told Reuters, "There is not a man, woman or taxi driver in Russia who cannot quote Pushkin, and usually with tears in their eyes...Pushkin virtually singlehandedly created the Russian literary language." Russians read Pushkin’s fairy tales when they are children and young men woo their girlfriends with his verse. Liberals treasure his skepticism and irony. Nationalists and patriots credit him with helping to create a Russian identity. Romantics treasure his love verse. Believers find spirituality in his works. And all Russians consider him the father of Russian literature. [Source: Robert Wernick, Smithsonian] The Russian love for Pushkin remains strong. All over Russia, streets, palaces, monuments, squares, towns and museums have been named after him. His boyhood home is a national shrine. Twenty-three new books about the poet were published in Russia in 1993 alone. While sentiments about other Russian writers rise and fall, Tolstoy included, the love for Pushkin remains strong and consistent. Even Stalin loved him.
Pushkin's Family Background
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin's Family Background Pushkin's family were boyars—members of the Russian aristocracy—but they squandered away much of their money at the beginning of the 19th century. Pushkin liked to boast his boyar heritage went back 600 years. In aristocratic terms, Pushkin life was not at comfortable as he could have been but in absolute terms he didn't do too badly. Pushkin's maternal great grandfather was an “Ethiopian” slave (from the Cameroon) bought from the Turks by Peter the Great, who made him a godson, enabling him to get an education and receive military training. Some say his great, grandfather was an Ethiopians prince. Pushkin was proud have African blood running through his veins. Pushkin's great grandfather became a nobleman and miliary commander. According to one account the tsar wanted "to make an example of him and put Russians to shame by convincing them that even among wild men there can be formed men who can obtain learning and this become helpful to their monarch."
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin's Early Life Pushkin was born in May 1799 in Mikhaylov (near Pskov), his mother's family estate, and lived there off and on his whole life. He spoke French at home as was taught Russian by his nanny. His father was prone to angry outburst and fits of weeping. His beautiful creole mother loved Pushkin’s younger brother best and went months without even speaking to Aleksandr and let two years pass without seeing him when he was away at school. Pushkin's childhood was unhappy. He was chubby and awkward and considered himself ugly and unloved and was ashamed of his dark skin. He wasn't a very good student and hated physical exercise but he loved language and had a flair for it and immersed himself in Russian folklore and red French literary classic and explicit erotic literature. At the age of eight he memorized the complex fairy tales that were told to him by nanny and wrote poetry in French. Pushkin attended the imperial lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg. He joined several semi-secret clubs including one called the Society of the Unknown People and The Green Lamp, and fell in with the Decembrist revolutionaries, who staged an uprising against the tsar in 1825, but did not participate in their coup attempt. He also wrote extraordinary poetry that caught the attention of the literary establishment and the secret police. After Pushkin graduated he was named a collegial secretary of the 10th rank at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For this job he was paid 700 rubles a year for pretty much doing nothing at all. When he was asked to do something he considered it a “gross affront” to someone of his class. He spent a great deal of time playing faro, French gambling card game, and visiting brothels. Much of his writing was limited to satires and obscene epigrams.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin and Politics In 1820, one of Pushkin’s anti-authoritarian poems caught the eye Tsar Alexander I and he was exiled— to the Caucasus and Black Sea area not Siberia— with the promise that he would not write any antigovernment verse. He was allowed to finish his exile at his family’s estate under the supervision of a bailiff, whose 19-year-old daughter Pushkin impregnated. Pushkin walked a fine line between criticizing and praising the royal family, and came within a whisker of being exiled to Siberia on several occasions. Alexander I was particularly upset by a poem called Ode to Liberty, which mocked the tsar and the Orthodox church and earned him his five years of exile and of house arrest in the Black Sea and at Mikhaylov. At least 11 of the Decembrists who were exiled or executed were good friend of Pushkin. Several expressed admiration for his freedom poem. Pushkin wrote an unfinished 10th chapter to Onegin that explained his association with the Decembrists but he burned it. He reportedly was not involved in any of the conspiracies because of concerns he could not keep his mouth shut. In any case, at the time the Decembrists were being exiled to Siberia or executed Pushkin was invited back to Moscow and St. Petersburg. When Alexander I's brother, Nicholas I, took the throne he allowed Pushkin to return to St. Petersburg and helped the poet with his creditors. Pushkin returned the favor by writing flattering poems about him. Still, the poet wasn't trusted and he was almost constantly watched, his mail was opened and lines and stanzas were censored from his works. Nicholas gave Pushkin the position oKammerjunker ("gentleman of the bedchamber"). At that time Pushkin’s political views also changed. Instead of voicing admiration for the Turks and the mountain people of the Caucasus, he supported their “pacification” and conquest.
Pushkin's Character
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin was a notorious rogue, womanizer and gambler, something the Russian people seem to love about him. He liked to dance with gypsies; eat smoked sturgeon; get drunk in local taverns; listen to Rossini; challenge authority; and take steam baths on trips to Georgia. Pushkin was so temperamental and unpredictable that he would likely be described as manic depressive if he were alive today. He could be offensive just as easily as charming. He flew off the handle with the slightest perceived offense, heckled actors on stage and accused strangers of cheating at cards. He was regarded by many as a snob and others as s great patriot and a sort national prodigal son. Some have compared his relatively short, precocious, tempestuous life to that of Mozart. Pushkin was paraphrased as saying “Everything on earth is done to attract women.” He often bragged that he got his passions and his dark complexion from his maternal great grandfather. He bragged he had 113 great loves including a general's wife and gypsy women who let him share her tent and the passionate Princess Evdokiya Golitsyna. He seemed to be attracted by little more than a woman's looks and their tiny feet. On the later he told a friend, “I usually write elegies, as another has wet dreams.” He wrote many notes to women identified only as N.N. who some say was Pushkin's one true and secret love.
Pushkin's Wealth, Fame and Debts Even though he was considered poverty stricken by aristocratic terms, Pushkin’s family estate had 200 serfs and servants and was valued at 38,000 rubles, a large sum of money in his time. Despite being labeled as "the most intelligent man in Russia" by Tsar Nicholas I, Pushkin was a terrible gambler, losing large chunks of his handsome royalties at whist. He was deep in debt as a result of his gambling losses, exorbitant household expenses and supporting his free-loading brother and his in-laws.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Pushkin mortgaged his estate to pay off his debts and made his situation worse by borrowing money at high interest rates. He also frequently quarreled with is father on matters related to money and quibbled with his siblings on how their parents's estate would be divided. Pushkin's pressing monetary concerns was one of his main motivations for writing. He knew that value of his work and bargained hard to receive the handsome sum of 10 rubles a line. During his time Pushkin was probably the most famous man in Russia. Audiences were cast by his spell and people flocked around him to touch his clothes.
Pushkin's Literary Works Pushkin's work take up 16 volumes. He wrote poems, novels, dramas. history, historical romance, pornography, children stories, folk tales, love stories, political critiques and more than 400 sonnets. His characters included rouges, serfs, magicians, fairy tale characters, aristocrats and ghosts. Despite this seemingly endless fountain of creativity he had trouble finishing his longer pieces. Pushkin was the first Russian writer to write almost exclusively in Russian rather than French, the language of the Russian court and aristocracy. He is credited with absorbing the entire humanistic and literary tradition of the West and using that knowledge to dig deep into the Russian soul and develop a uniquely Russian literature. He managed this despite, he claimed, being “harassed and persecuted� by the tsar’s censors.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Friends said that Pushkin wrote in inspired bursts, with his time exile in the Caucasus and the Black Sea coast being his most productive periods. There he wrote the folkloric epic Rusain and Ludmilla, The Prisoner of the Caucasus, about a Russian who is rescued by and then reject the love of a Circassian beauty, The Gypsies and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray His most well-known works—the verse-novel, Eugene Onegin, and the historical drama Boris Godunov—came soon afterwards. Pushkin wrote lyric poetry, short stories, novels in verse, historical tragedies in iambic pentameter, fairy tales, history, psychological studies, and translations. In one creative burst that lasted for six weeks he completed History of Pugachev, wrote The Bronze Horseman and several short stories, reworked the Shakespeare play Measure for Measure and folk tales, translated ballads by the poet Mickiewicz, and wrote The Tale f Dead Tsarevma and the Seven Heroes. The Bronze Horseman is regarded by many as Pushkin’s masterpiece. It explores no less than nine major themes, according to one scholarly analyst, and explores them with “stereoscopic depths.” Pushkin’s work inspired others. Eugene Onegin was scored by Tchaikovsky. Boris Godunov was made into an opera by Mussorgsky. Ballets and pieces by Glinka and Stravinsky were also inspired by his work. Pushkin also wrote the novel The Captain's Daughter Book: Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary by John Bayley (1971) is regarded as one of the best works on Pushkin’s literary achievements, Pushkin's Style Pushkin work is known for its clarity, grace and power and ability to combine romantic sentimentality and with deeply-felt tragedy. A great admirer of Byron, he wrote with great ease and economy and precision utilizing a great richness of sound, rhymes and rhythms. Pushkin, wrote Celestine Bohlen in the New York Times is "so accessible, so clear and so human that it slips effortlessly into memory, like a child's prayer." Pushkin's writing tends to be less sermonizing and moralistic than other Russian writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He was more interesting in capturing the joys of life than pondering the darkness of the soul. "Long live the sun! And down with the night!" he wrote in a 1825 poem.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Unfortunately, Pushkin's work doesn't translate very well into English, which is why his works are not widely read in the West and Westerners have a hard time figuring out what all the brouhaha is about. After reading some poorly translated Pushkin's poem, Flaubert told Turgenev, "He is flat, your poet." One Pushkin poem goes: Skyward soar the whirling demons, Shrouded by the following snow, And their plaintive, awful howling Fills my hear with dread and woe. Eugene Onegin Eugene Onegin (1831) is regarded as Pushkin's best and most ambitious work. Similar to Byron's Don Juan and the inspiration for a 1879 Tchaikovsky opera, it is a novel in verse and moralistic tale about a jaded aristocrat from St. Petersburg, Onegin, who inherits an estate from his uncle and intimidates the local nobles with his sophistication and scandalizes them with his proposal to free his serfs. Onegin’s life begins to unravel when his superciliousness forces a good friend to challenge him to a duel and spurns a declaration of love by the beautiful, tender-hearted Tatyana Larin. He leaves the state and travels the world and returns to St. Petersburg six years later where he runs into Tatyana, who by this time has become the wife of Onegin's cousin, a prince. Onegin is regarded as "superfluous man" and a "guilty nobleman," figures that became themes in Russian literature. Tatyana is considered an embodiment of all Russian female virtues. She is a Cinderella-like character who rose up from poverty to high society after Onegin breaks her heart. A film version Onegin (1999) starred British actor Ralph Fiennes as Onegin and Liv Tyler as Tatyana. Fiennes sister Martha directed it and their brother Magnus composed the film's score. His girlfriend Francesca Annis had a cameo role. Fiennes said, "I was mesmerized by the emotional intensity of the story.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN had a cameo role. Fiennes said, "I was mesmerized by the emotional intensity of the story. Pushkin's verse-novel was such a powerful narrative about love and loss, and it completely took me over. It was the wisdom and humor that drew me—that and the great tragedy at its core." Passage from Eugene Onegin Pushkin often digresses from the narrative but it is the language than brings it alive. Even though much of harmony and vividness is lost in the translation, its imagery and emotion are born out: Evegeny stood, with soul regretful, and leant upon the granite shelf; he stood there, pensive and forgetful, just as a poet paints himself. Silence was everywhere enthralling; just sentries to each other calling, and then a drozhky's clopping sound from Million Street came floating round; and then a boat, with oars a-swinging, swam on the river's dreaming face, and then, with an enchanting grace, came distant horns and gallant singing. Pushkin and Natalya Goncharova When Pushkin was 27 he decided to settle down. He chose as his bride 16-year-old Natalya Goncharova, widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in Russia in Pushkin's time. "I don't believe there was any man who did not fall in love with her," one chronicler wrote. A thirteen-year-old once came up to her and said, "I must tell you now that I love you, because soon I must go to bed." Pushkin and Natalya's life together was one long series of parties, interrupted only by pregnancies and illnesses. Natalya was also regarded as a beautiful but dumb and considered a superficial party girl. She once told Pushkin, "Lord how you bore me with your poetry." She much preferred waking up in the afternoon and attended highsociety parties, where she could dance until dawn and flirt with all the gentlemen, included the tsar, who lavished her with attention.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN The attention that Natalya received unfortunately spelled doom for Pushkin. At the tsar’s parties, Natalya was wooed by a young Frenchman named Geoges d'Anthés, an assistant and "adopted son" to the wealthy Dutch Ambassador to the Russian court, Baron Jacob von Heeckeren. D'Anthés was a tall, blonde, muscular and strikingly handsome man who didn't speak a word of Russian but that didn't stop him from pursuing Natalya in public and spending entire parties dancing and talking to her. By all accounts D'Anthés was a distasteful character. Scholars believe that he was either was bisexual or coldly manipulative of von Heeckeren, who was gay and had a crush on D'Anthés. In any case he acted liked a stalker with Natalya, who flirted with D'Anthés but by most accounts remained faithful to Pushkin.
Pushkin Duel with Natalya's Admirer Pushkin was a compulsive duelist, who perceived slights on his honor at every turn. He used to practice for duels by shooting off 100 rounds a day and walking around public gardens swinging an 18pound cudgel to strengthen his pistol-firing arm. Before 1836, by one count he had been in six duels, once over the selection of a song at a ball, but had never even been scratched. Other duel challenges were avoided one way or another. On November 4, 1836 Pushkin received a "citation" in the mail awarding him the "Grand Master of the Order of the Cuckold." It was not clear who sent the message or whether anything had really happened between Natalya and D'Anthés. Pushkin was not in a good mental state at the time. The burden of his debts and obligations may have been too much. His biographer T.J. Binyn wrote he was in a “sullen rage...incapable of rational thought or action, and lashed indiscriminately at anyone or anything, caring little—on the contrary hoping—he might, like Samson at Gaza, bring the whole edifice of his life crashing about him.”
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Enraged by the citation Pushkin challenged d'Anthés to a duel. D'Anthés was willing but von Heeckeren negotiated a bizarre solution to the dispute by convincing D'Anthés to state publicly that he showered attention on Natalya only because he wanted to marry her sister Katerina and Pushkin would say he had not been dishonored. The duel was called off and D'Anthés married Katerina, who was already pregnant before their wedding.. D'Anthés used his marriage as an excuse to spend time with Natalya and their meetings disturbed Pushkin so much he prohibited D'Anthés from entering his house. One friend wrote, "Pushkin gnashes his teeth and assumes his constant expression of a tiger. Natalya dabs her eyes and blushed at the long passionate gaze of her brother in law. [Katerina] directs on both of them a jealous lorgnette." Book: Pushkin's Button by Serena Vitale (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999) Pushkin's Tragic End Unable to bear it any longer, Pushkin wrote a letter to the von Heeckeren that was so insulted there was no choice but to have a duel. Of D'Anthés, he wrote "Like some obscene old harpy you have been sidling up to my wife in corners to urge the suit of your bastard." By all accounts Pushkin looked forward to the duel. He picked a second who wouldn’t talk him out of it, talked cheerfully on the way to the duel and even stopped for a lemonade at a café. A friend described him as in “state bordering on lunacy...free...from those mental sufferings which had so terribly tortured him.” Both D'Anthés and Pushkin were excellent shots. Pushkin insisted that Lepage pistols, hand made in Paris, be used and pawned off some table silver to pay for them. After meeting at a field with knee-deep snow near the Moyka Embarkment on Black River in St. Petersburg, Pushkin and D'Anthés lined up a 20 paces apart and started walking towards each other as was the custom. Either one could fire at any time they chose.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN When they were less than 12 steps apart d'Anthés, fired and hit Pushkin in the abdomen. Pushkin fell but propped on one arm he managed to shot d'Anthés, who miraculously survived when the bullet was deflected by a button on his chest and was left with only two cracked ribs (some scholar believed the bullet was actually deflected by some kind of body armor). Pushkin was brought back to his apartment. He suffered intense pain and stayed alive for 36 hours. He was given opium and the sacraments. When his doctor asked him if there was anyone he wanted to say goodbye to, he looked at his collection of books as said, "Farewell Friends." He died surrounded by his family. Pushkin's death was similar to that of Onegin's artistic friend Lensky. Before he had died: Not all of me is dust, Within my song, safe from the worm, my spirit will survive. Pushkin's Funeral Russians were shocked by Pushkin’s death. One of Pushkin’s friends wrote, Thousands—"women, old men , children, students, ordinary people in sheepskins and some even in rags"— appeared at the field where the duel took place. Many also appeared outside Pushkin's apartment to bow and kiss the hand of the dead poet. The Orthodox church in St. Petersburg refused to perform a funeral for Pushkin “on the grounds that a death in a duel was tantamount to suicide.” Pushkin's body was taken from the apartment in the middle of the night and funeral services were held at a small church with no public announcement. Again in the middle of the night, his body was taken to Svyatogorsky monastery in Mikhaylovkpye for burial. Pushkin's body was reportedly rolled up in a carpet and only a few friends were on hand to see him buried.
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Nicholas I was generous to Natalya and her and Pushkin's children. After a period of mourning she returned to the St. Petersburg ball scene and eventually married a major general and lived quietly with him until her death. D'AnthĂŠs was demonized for his role in the duel and he and Katerina late made their way to France where they lived happily. Many Russians believe that Gorbachev' greatest achievement was retrieving the pistols used in the duel from France. The retrieval of some of Pushkin's love letters from Switzerland was also front page news.
Pushkin's Legacy Stop a Russian on the streets and chances are he can recite some Pushkin verses. Mussorsky made an opera from Boris Godunov. Tchaikovsky made operas of Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades. Glinka did Rusland and Lyudmila. The way Pushkin's life and death has been honored give an indication his influence and his ability to be all things to all people and. In 1999, the 200th anniversary of Pushkin's birth, he was praised as a paragon of Russian spirituality and virtue. The year 1937 was the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's death. He was depicted as one of Russia's great revolutionary figures. Pravda wrote: Pushkin "made literary Russian accessible to millions of workers, giving them the most important weapon of cultural growth and development...He remains a great teacher, and through love for Pushkin, through a genuine acquaintance with this works, we will educate Soviet youth. Stalin was in power in 1937 and the Reign of Terror was at its height . While people were being executed and sent to labor camps in Siberia, symposiums and readings of Pushkin were held and statues or Stalin reading his work were raised. The the 200th anniversary of Pushkin's birth in 1999 was celebrated with an endless series of television specials, concerts, poetry reading and advertisements with the poets image. Pictures of Pushkin appeared everywhere: on buses, trams, the sides of buildings, plastic bags, boxes of matches and vodka bottles. Image Sources:
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.
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