Pushkin Article

8/20/2019 Pushkin Article

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A Pushkin Collage

ByCHRISTOI HER

U

LK RSON

Th e per sonalities of creat ive arti

st s

ar e a source of

endle

ss fasc

ination

. Each

of

th e great artists of the pas t or present

seems to

hav

e an

abundance

of talents

and

qu alities too vast to sift th rough. Yet, if we

compa re the as pec ts o f th es e arti sts

characte r, severa l disti

nct

psychological

A lexa1lder Pushkinas abuy illan 1822

eng

raving

byE. Heitmann.

types,

or

a

rtist

ic archetypes, can

distin

guished. Beethoven created works of

Herculean

power and

nu mbing subtlety;

Michelan gelo is arguably his coun terpar t

in th e visual ar ts. Though t

hey

n

omin

ally

belon g to different artist ic disciplines,

Goethe and Wa

gner

share a commitment

to o riginality, to sensual beauty

and

to an

ecurnenism of talen t each embracing

se

ver

al ar ts, sciences , and philosophies of

th eir day

th

at

mak

es them close col

leagues . F

or

th eir shared ability to

mak

e

any style they tou ched un iquely th

ei r

own, Stravinsky and Picasso ha ve often

been compared, as have, f

or

diffe ren t

reason s, Debussy and Monet. A crafty

se

nse

for confirm ing for an aud ience the

importance of their own emotions set s

Puccin i ap

art

; Hem ingway would be the

Puccini o f lite rature . Bu t

th e

greates t

reve rence has always been accorded to

artists of th e type who are a t once focuses

of their cultures and voices f

or

all h

um

an

ity, protean ta len ts able to work in any

ge n re of th

ei r

discipline, producing th ose

achingly beau tiful works of art which give

the world clear visions

of

landscapes that

are actu ally ete rna l my

steries

.

Moz

ar t

was such an arti st, and he did haveat least

one

do s

e counterpart in the per

son

of a

write r barely known in t he E

ng

lish

speaking world . Th e Mo

zart

of literature

was t he Af ro-Ru ssian po

et

Alexander

Sergeyevich Pu sh kin .

Pushkin wa s a child prodigy and a

technical wizard; he wa s

pampere

d by t

he

aristocracy th ough he

was

con

trov

ersial

at cour t; he enjoyed trem

en

dous popular

ity

and

pro fessiona l influe nce in his youth,

though he fell out of fash ion in his

th

ir

ties; he marri ed late (for his era ) to a

woma n who wa s his int ellectual in ferior,

and,

afte

r a brilli

ant

and prolific career,

died young, in mora lly suspect circum

s tances , and was rushed into his grave.

Du ring his lifeti me, Pushkin wa s

known

to anyone who was anyone, yet in his las t

yea rs kept only a tiny group

of

fri

end

s and

was a pariah in the most genteel circles.

After his untimely dea th, Pu shkin became

th e idol and indeed proclaimed

pro

phet of

the

people wh o speak th e language in

wh

ich he comp

ose

d th eir

mos

t

che

rished

poe try, sho rt s tories, novels, fairy tales,

plays, and , once th ey had been wedded to

mu sic, th

ei r

most beloved

song

s,

opera

s,

and balle ts . His wo rks are mo re than

rev ered by Rus sian speake r s they hav e

th e status of gos pel. Since Pu shkin s days,

genera tions of Russians have commi

tt

ed

whole plays, many even the

entire

ty of his

grea t novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, to

w

ord

-f

or-word

m

emory

. His characters

ar e

not only well kn

own

to

Russian

spea kers - they a re rea l people . S

om

e

Russian mu sical works based on Pushkin

include Ruslan and Lyudmila by Glinka;

Rusalka and The St

one

Gu

es

t by Dargo

mizhsky; Boris Go lu ov by

Musso

rgsky;

Eu

gme Onegi , Mazeppa, and TheQuem of

Spades

by Tchaikovsky; Mount and 5alieri,

The Taleof the Tsar

5alta and

The

Golden

Cockerel

by Rimsky-Korsakov;

Aleko and

TheMiserlyK ight by Rachm aninoff; and

The Firebird

and

Ma

ora by Stravinsky.

Pu sh k in s text s we re so reve red th a t

50

Dargomi

zh

sky and Rimsky -Ko rs

ak

ov

an ticipated Debussy (who was add icted to

Boris GoJunov in setting

who

le intac

plays to music, creat ing the operatic genr

oseph K

erman

calls the su ng play.

Pu shkin was born in to one of th

oldes t families of th e Russian gentry, in

Mosc

ow

, on May

26th

, 1799. His mothe

was a granddau

ghter

of Abram Cannibal

Group of Russian writers from the 18305

in

co

nfnn

po

rarytrlgravi

g:

I

to r.]N ikolai G

nedich

Vassily Z

hU

OVSky, Alexander Pushkin. Ivan

Krylov.

born a prin ce in Abyssinia , so ld in to

slave ry and pu rchased , freed,

and

even tu

ally promoted to Eng ine

er

Gene ral by

Peter

the G rea t, the

awe

some western

izing Tsar wh o left at least as strong an

imp

res

sion on th e Russian mind as did

the

Sun Kin g o n th e Fr

ench

. All his life

Pu shkin rem ained proud of his ancient

lineage and his Afri can blood

t

o wh ich

he

at t

ribut

ed his passi

ona

te

natu

r -

goin g so

far

as to

pu t

an ancestor

named

Push

kin

in hi s h isto rical pla y Baris

Godunov and

to write a large fr

agme

nt of

a

novel on the subjec t of TheM oor of Peter

theGreat

In the decad es pr ior to th e

Napo

leonic

Chris

topher

Fulk o

is

comp

oser d

conductor living in San Francisco.

San Francisco

Opera



wars, all genteel Russians wereweened as

Francophiles (French was

the

first lan

gu ag e of the no bility ) and Alexander

Sergeyevich 's childhood was no diffe rent .

At the age of twelve,

however

, he joined

the first class of pu pils at the exclusive

Lycee of Tsarskoe Selo (The Tsa r's Vil

lage). Vladimir Nabokov, like all Russian

wr ite rs obsessed with Push kin , was very

proud to have been educated at thi s same

eventually famou s schoo l. While still a

stude nt at Tsarskoe Selo th e neophyte

Pushkin began to pub lish vers e. His few

l

et t

ers surviving from this period already

ind

icate th

e variety of h is epi

st

ol

ar

y

expres sion. Commanded, as the Lycee's

preemi

nent

poet, to versify on the arrival

of th e Tsar , his

mann

er toward those in

power is qui te con ventional, bu t not

unconscious of how to promote a career.

If

the feelin gs of l

ove

and gratitude

towa rd ou r gre at monarch are not com

pletely unworthy of my loftysubject, how

happy [ would be if His Excellency

would be so kind as to presen t to the

Sovereign Emperor the feeble production

of an ine xper ienced versifier Relying

upon your ex t r eme indu lgence, etc .

When addressing a companion, however,

th e inexperienced versi fier loosens his

cravat. To the poet Pete r Vyazemsky, he

wri tes , . . .don'tyou complain i fmy lett er

makes Your Bardic Highness yaw n; it' s

your

own

fau lt: why did you sti r up the

unfortunate

T

sar

skoe Selo

hermit,whom

th e mad demon of paper-blotching wa s

already egg ing on . . . He quite irrever

ently addresses th e oldest member of the

Pushkin clan as the ancient Nestor and

adds , som

ewhat

prophetically, th at Fate

seems to have destined me to on ly two

kinds of letters rom isory and excusa

tory. . .

Even before his graduation from the

Lycee, Pushkin was regarded as a rival by

such liter

ar

y giantsof th e Russian literary

establishment asZhukovsky and Batyush

kov. In 181 6 he wrote to Zhukovsky, My

d

ear

Mr. Zhukovsky, [ hope that [ sha ll

have the pleasure of seeing you tomor

row Aft

er reading Pushkin's

Ruslan

and Lyudmila of 1820, Zhukovsky pres

ented

the

young man with his

portr

ait,

inscribed To a victo rious pupil from a

defea ted master . No t content to have

taken the younger generation, as well as

the older poet, by storm, Pushkin

wro

te to

Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky infuriates me

what has he come to like in thi s (Thomas )

More, this prim imi tator of de

form

ed

all

Sea on 98

The Nob Hill Res

tau

ra

nt

s atmosp

here

makes

you wa

nt

to

relax and comp letely surrend

er

to t

he

en

jo

yab le

exper

ience

of be

ing th

er

e:'

Th

e staff... goes abou t t

he

task

of

serving th e

meal with a rdce suggestive ofgood ballet

Each and every dessert left us glowing

with delight long after we left the

l\'ob Hill Res

tau

rant

Quotes from California Magaz

ine

J ul

1986

Reservat ions: (4 15)392-3434

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kin

did

re spect Zhukovsky as a competent litera

tician,

but

was indeed outraged wit h any

superficial Orientalism . When gain ing an

under

stan

ding of Pushkin the

man

and

artis t as seen

th rough

his letters, it m

ust

be remembered tha t he is in all cases

respondin g to the precise circumst ances at

ha nd , in a m

anner

ap pr

op r

ia te to h is

relationship to the person he is

addr

ess

ing. He has no allegiance to any theory of

life or ar t, but a deep commitment to

human e values in both, va lues which

were to deepen

th r

oughou t his life.

After

graduation in

8

7,

Pushkin

became a clerk in the Foreign Off ice.

However, like many such positions held

by the gentry, this job involved no

work

.

He led th e lifeof a dissolute sensualis t. As

your hist orian, he wrote in 181 9 to his

fr iend Pavel Ma nsurov, I shall tell you

abou t

your

fellows. Everything is going as

before: the champagne, th an k God, is

lus ty the actresses likewise the former

gets drunk up, and the latt er. . .Amen .

Amen

. Th at's as

it

oug ht to be. Before

long, however, T sar Alexander I became

aware

of

so me of Pu shkin 's

proto -

revolution

ary

v

er

ses and the poe t wa s

command ed to lea ve S1. Pe tersburg .

Immediat ely upon being transfer red to

Ekaterinoslav

became bored, he

write

s

to his bro t

he r

Lev in S

eptember 82

0,

I

went boating on the Dnepr, I took a

sw

im,

and

I caught a fever, as I usually do.

Ge ne ral Raevsky, whowa s en ro

ute

to the

Ca ucasus with a son and two daught ers,

fo und me . his son proposed to me a

Nathalie Pushkin, the

po

et s wife, in an 1844

engraving by

Gay.

j

our

ney to

th e

Cauca sian water ing

places. Th ese two months in the Cauca

sus were someof the happiest moments in

Pushkin's life.

t

was through the Raev

skys tha t he firs t came to know Byron,

w

hom

he immediately esteemed, as did

any would-be modern, mea ning Roman

tic, poet of th e time. Poet ry somber,

heroic, power ful , Byron ic is your tru e

desti ny ill the man of old in yourself,

he exhor ted his fr iend and fellow poet

Ant

on Delvig in

1821 ,

Push kin wrote a series of verse tales,

a

mo

ng them

the

masterpiece en titled,

autobiograp hically enough, ThePrisonerof

the Caucasus, on the pattern of Byron's

Infant & Chil d re n's

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Statue of eter the Great ( The Bronze Horseman ) on Senate Square in St. Petersburg, as j f appeared

in 1810,

52

San

ran

cis

co

Ope

ra



ThePushkin family e

stat

eat M ikha

y ov

skoye towhich the poet was exiled in 1824

O riental tales. Here Pushkin himself has

fallen prey to a Briton s O rientalism , just

as

Zhuk

ovsky had .Still,alth ough Pushkin

was to bath e himself in Byronism for a

sho rt time, th e only lasting effect s of thi s

immers ion we re in technica l matte rs

relating especially to th e use of poetic

mete r. By th e ti me he wro te Eugene

Onegin this and a mis t of Romant ic irony

were all th at

rem

ained of his Byro nic

bapti sm .

For two years, Push kin did a litt le

official work in Kishinev and returned to

the

life of pl

easu

re he had led in SI.

Petersburg . He spent much of his time

wit h the

gro

up of revolutionaries eventu

ally to be kn own as th e Decembr ist s.

Though it was not completed un til1831, it

was in 1823 in Kish inev th at he began to

wri

te his gr eatest

wor

k, th e novel in

verse ugene On g in called by Edmund

Wilson perhaps the mos t influen tial an d

within Russia the most widely popu lar

work of Russian liter ature.

Eugene Orregin is a stor y classical in its

spirit and in its humanity,yet Romant ic in

its met hods. It is a sati re of Russian

provincial and city life in th e 18205. It is

par tly autobiographical: th e nar rat or is

Pushkin himself. The hero of my novel,

w ithout pre ambles, for t

hw

ith , I d like you

to meet : Onegin, a good pal of mine . . .

Pushkin makes frequent mention of his

. own wo rks in On

egin

and even names his

ow n fr iends and mistresses among the

cha racters, clearl y establishing himself as

the first -person narrator. Furthermore ,

O negin him self sh ares qualit ies of his

pal Pu shkin , and can from time to time

be iden ti fied with his author. He had

enou gh knowledge of La t in, w rit es

54

Push kin of O negin, to make out epi

graphs, descan t on [uven al, pu t at the

bottom of a l

ette

r

vale

. . Like his crea

t ion O negtn. Pu sh kin u sed th e La tin

farew ell in l

ette

rs and conversation, a

habi t he adopt ed from Voltaire. Onegin,

like Pus hkin, is a Byronic figure , a young,

al

oof

rom an tic, cyn ical beyond his years,

successfu l with the fair sex, yet bored

with his lifestyle . Edmund Wilson, who

did more to make English-speaker s

awar

e

of Pu

shk

in s great ness tha n any other

criti c, sa id of O ne

gin that

Pu shk in

neither exalts him in the perver se Roman

tic wa y nor yet, in exposing his wea

kne sses, hands him over to conventiona l

mor

alit y

. Pu shkin s novel in verse

came out of his deepest self-kn ow ledge.

Though Zhukovsky s tran slat ion of Don

uan influenced th e rhythms of the novel,

it is th e opposite of Don

ua

n in being a

wo rk of u nwa ver ing co ncentra tion.

ugene Onegin th en, is at once classical

and Rom an t ic; per sonal. yet

uni

versal;

satirical,

yet. ultimately, unjudgme

nt

al.

Like its creat or, accepts the human

condit ion as it is, w ithou t any precon

ceived progr am .

Th e firs t epistolary mention of the

novel is to th e author s fr iend Vyazemski,

whom we have met . After working on th e

tex t for six months, Pushkin says as for

what I am doing, I am writing, not a novel

but a novel in verse- a devil of a dif fer -

ence .

In 1823, Pushkin wa s tran sferred to

the relatively mor e European port City of

Odessa , wher e he worked steadily and

became even more dissolu te, exhilarating

in Italian opera, champag ne, and love

affairs with two married women simul-

San F

ran

cisco Ope

r



taneou

sly.

Th

ese

were

Amalie Riznich,

th

e great sensual love of his life, and th e

object, afte r

he r death

, of someof his most

beautiful verses, and the Countess Eliza

beth

Vorontsova. Not surprisingly, but

very unfortunately, no let ters to either of

th

ese wom en su rvive. Alexander

Ra evsky,

Pu

shk

m s

old

collea

gue

in

Byron,

was

also one of the Countess

lovers, and a treacherous one . In 1824, the

po

et

was suddenly expelled from Odessa

and ordered to live permanently on his

mother s esta te in Mikhaylovskoye in th e

province of Pskov. After qu arreling with

his parents, with whomhe

hadnever

been

dose Pushkin lived alone at Mikhaylov

skoye with his old nurse. One of his best

known

ly r

ics,

Wi

nter Evening: was

wri

tt e

n to he r and captures th e mood of

that period. The sto rm covers th e sky in

darknes s, spinning th e

sno

wy whirl

winds;

now

it howls like a wild beast, now

it cries like a child, now it suddenly rustle s

the thatch on a ramshackle

roof

now, like

a belated traveler, it knocks at ou r win

ew Our tumble-down hu t is gloomy and

dark. Why, little old lady, have you fallen

silent by

th

e window? Here nature is an

image for Pushkin and his life.

In 1825, during the Decembrfst upris

ing ,Alexander Pushkin

was

in Pskov, safe

from blame, at his mother s. But th e new

Tsa r was clearly aw a re of Push ki n s

connection wit h the revolutionaries. As

the cri tic Prince Mirsky observed, by a

mast er stroke of cleve r policy, (he) sum

moned the poet to Moscow (September

1826 gran ted him a fu ll pardon, and

promised to be his speci al

patr

on and

protector. This was indeed the act of an

enlightened despot

-awar

e of the poet s

popular it y, great gifts and

trou

blesome

temperament, Tsa r Nicholas I kep t Push

kin within easy observation, yet in an

environmen t in which he cou ld write as

much

as he liked. But

the pro

tection of his

clemen t prince became ins ufferable to

Pu shktn, whose spirit langu ished.

Th

e

next four years

saw

the completion of a

few new wo rks, while others dragged on

or were lef t incomplete.Severa lof his best

efforts we re shelved by the censor,includ

ing Boris GodunoD and though Pushkin

practically inven ted the

now

-common

Russian hab it of circulating his work in

manuscript, he could not receive pub lica

tion fees for them. Th e two censors most

odious were Shishkov

and

Benkendorff.

Th e latter was the leader of Pushkin s

persecut io n and f

urthermor

e abused him

San Francisco O pera

Ba

n

Gee rges

D A nthes in a

conte

mporary

engraving

for his black ancest ry. I avail myself to

spe ak to you of a completely personal

matter, Pushkin wrote h im,

about

a

yea r

ago

in

on

e of

ou

r journals

was

printed a satirical ar ticle in which a c

ertain

man of le

tter

s wa s spoken of...it added

th at his mothe r was a mulatto whose

father

, a po

or

pickaninn

y,

had been

bough t by a sailor f

or

a bottle of

rum

...

Pet

er

the

Great little resembled a

drunk

en

sailor...

Our poet made several attempts to

settle

do

wn

, and ha ving be

en on

ce

refused, was finally accepted by and in

1831

marr

ied

t he e ight een

year-old

beauty Nathalie Goncharova. The period

before the wedding was spent at Tsars

koye Selo . His financial affairs were a

wr

eck, but Pushkin trie d to make plans for

his coming family life. From

th

e Tsar s

Village he w

rote

to B

enkendor

ff, 1make

bold to disturb Your High Excellencywith

a most humble request for permission to

publish in a separate book

the

poems of

mine which have already been publi shed

du ring th e last three yea

rs. Th

is is a

groveling Pushktn we have not seen since

the days of the Lycee. In the same letter

we find evidence of the poet s humiliating

situation and its

eff

ect on his ar t, T he

Sovereign s tr us t places on me the obliga

tion to be a most s

tr

ict censor toward

myself. Here, Pushkin is

not

speaking in

fo

rm

a li ti es; he is acknow ledging t

he

conditions of his pat ronage.

f all Season 986



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A romantic vision of lexander Pu

sh n

represented in an 183 7 engraving

by

N.

Konoshchenko

At last Boris

Godun

ov was allowed to

be print ed, as a speci al roya l

wed

ding

favo r, after five years of suppression. It

met with harsh criticism .

Pushkin's marriage was at first quite

a happy one, but Nat halie was cold and

not embarras sed by any intellectua l pre

ten sions. Worse than this, it soo n became

clear

th at hi s presence a t court wa s

tolera ted in or de r tha t h is beautiful wife

could be invited to social events. In fact, to

facilitate th is, Nicho las made Pushkin a

gentleman of

the

chambe r in 1834, a

ti tle usua lly give n to men in their ea rly

twenties and an honor the poet deeply

resented. To his friend Pavel Nashchokin

Pushkin wrot e Here a re some other

pieces of news fo r you : I've been a Kam

merjunker since th e mon th of January .

The Bro

nu

Ho

rs

em

an

was not passed ...

Push kin a ll but abando

ne

d

poetry

, at

which he had not wo rked much since his

engagem en t to

Nathali

e, and devoted

himself to writing prose stories and to

histor ies that would never be completed .

He began to feel inc r

ea

si ngly st ifled

( Pu shkin died fr

om

lack of air: ' sa id

Mayakovsky later ), bu t, after repeated

refusals was allowed to star t a literary

journal.

The CO

temporary

in 1836. Like

eve rything Pushkin did aft er 1831, this

effort met with no public success.

T he

poe

t s t ragic end par alleled

exactly tha t of one of his own characters,

Len sky in Eugene O tug in. H e became

exasperatingly jealous of the att entions

paid Nat ha lie by t he Baron Geo rg e

D

An

thes, a Fren chman in th e Russian

serv ice. Push kin challenged him to a duel,

but th is eve nt wa s circ umve n ted by

D'A

nth

es's sudden marriage to Na thalie's

si s ter, making Pu

sh k

in 's su spicions

appear ridiculous. But just a few daysafter

th e wedding, he learned that Na thalie and

D'An t

hes

had aga in secr e tly met, and

Pu

sh k

in d

emand

ed satis fac

tio

n in

an

un ambiguous lett er to th e Baron's fa

ther.

Baron he

write

s, Permit me to sum

marize what has jus t taken place . . .1 am

obliged to point out. tha t you r ro le has

no t been altoge ther

see

mly. Y

ou

, th e

rep resentative of a

crowne

d head, have

paternally acted as your son's pand

er

.

like an obscene old woman, you go and lie

in wa it for my wife on every co

rne

r, in

ord e r to t ell he r of t

he

love of you r

bastard, and when,

ill

with syphillis, he

was

kep t hom e, you wou ld say he was

dying of love for her. . .

From a communicat ion such as this

D'A

nth

es could not shrin k. Satisfactio n

was

granted on January 27, 1837 . Push

kin's last lette r is grim in its

tr

iviality.

Dear Madame, Alexand ra Os ipovna, I

regret extremely that it will

impossible

for me to come at your invita tion today.

That afte rnoon, in a French duel

vo

lon

tt

Pushkin and D

Ant

hes

appro

ached

each othe r, pistols in hand. As a seriou s

du elis t, Pu shkin allowed his adversary to

fire first , in order tha t he, Pushkin, might

advan ce to the

ba

r

rie

re the limit of th e no

man

's-land uncrossable by each, and fire

at poi

nt-b

lank ra

nge

.

Bu t by accepting D Anthes's fire,

Pushkin accepted his projectile as well.

M

or t

ally wounded, Alexander Sergeye

vich Pushkin, and indeed the Golden Age

of Russian poe try, died two days lat

er

. As

Prince Mirsky observed, for fear of public

demon strations of sympathy, his coffin

was hurr ied away in the ni

gh t

from St.

Petersbu rg to th e m

on

astery n

ear

Mi

khaylovskoye, which he had chosen for

h is burial place. The para llels betwen

Pushkin's and Mozart's lives and person

alities are numerou s and often striking ,

but nowhere more haunting t

han

in the

fact that befo re leaving for his fatal duel.

Push kin took a few minu tes' time to pu t

the finishing touches on

The Sto

ne

Gu

est

his drama based on

the

same legend th at

inspired Mozar t's on Giovanni •

Documents

Pushkin Article