MLIT 3340/Russian 3305

Dr. Bruce T. Holl

Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

F 9-1 Early 19th Century Russia & Aleksandr Pushkin

1. Announcements

- Hand out assignment

- Remind students of 2/3 paper requirement.

2. Review

- Rus 10th-13th centuries: more or less autonomous city states with democratic traditions

- 1240-1480: Tatar period

- As a result: gradual consolidation of rulers and migration toward Moscow which becomes capital of unified, centralized Russia

- Old Russian literature: written in church slavonic, consisting mainly of sermons, saints lives and historical records called chronicles.

- Major event of late 16th century under Ivan IV: peasants are deprived of the legal write to change landowners.

3. 18th c. (conclusion)

- See notes from 8-30

4. The "Age of Pushkin": The historical backgroud

- The empire grows (Catherine II [r.1762-96] and her successors, son Pavel I [r. 1796-1801], grandsons Aleksandr I and Nikolai I [of whom more in a moment]), all oversaw conquests of new territories; familiarity with and access to new these new lands permits still greater outside influence.

- The Russians' victory over Napolean in 1812 produced a certain patriotic fervor which was reflected in literature (What later military reversal would have the opposite effect? [Crimean War 1854-56])

- This period saw the incorporation of much of Poland; this expanded the Empire and brought a huge Jewish population into the Empire, resulting in a confluence of Jewish culture and the Russian language which later would produce some of Russia's greatest writers -- but would also make anti-semitism and "The Jewish Problem" a political issue that continues to this day..

- Aleksandr I (reigned 1801-25), like Catherine in the 18th c., first favored relatively liberal policies but then grew more conservative

- There occurred the Decembrist uprising (1825) upon Aleksander's death; This produced Decembrist poetry, and civic poetry

- The repressive Nikolai I (r. 1825-55) thwarted the Decembrists and took the throne in 1825 (Why did political repression coincide with the flowering of literature? Of Romantic Literature? Are there parallels today?)

- Literary terms for this time:

- Transition period (between neo-classicism and Sentimentalism/Romanticism)

- Sentimentalism: A brief, French-influenced movement during which highly sentimental love stories, often involving an aristocratic love triangle or a peasant/aristocrat love story, were in vogue; Cf. Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826)

- Golden age of poetry: Poetry usually precedes prose in the life-cycle of a literary era; the same cycle would begin again at the beginning of this century

- Romanticism -- this is the main literary movement of the early 19th century

5. Life of Pushkin

- Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (explain Russian names)

- Born May 26, 1799 (old style) in Moscow (explain Russian dates)

- Family on father's side had been noble for more than 600 years but was now poor.

- Great-grandfather on mother's side was Abyssinian prince (maybe) who served Peter the great

- Pushkin was proud of both families; he felt that Russia's ancient noble families were not accorded the respect they deserved.

- Was taught by (mostly French) governesses

- "[C]hief source his early education" (Shaw 660) was father's library of 17th and 18th century classics.

- Pushkin's father, although he was never close to Pushkin, was himself a writer and he inculcated in Pushkin an early love of literature and desire to be a writer

- In 1811 Pushkin was selected to be among the first 30 students at the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum established by Alexander I to educate noblemen's sons for important positions.

- Pushkin thus received the best education available at the time in Russia.

- He had by this age already determined that he would become a writer

- He appeared in print for the first time (with a poem) in 1814

- 1817 becomes a member of "Arzamas," a literary society which included Zhukovskii, Batiushkov and Viazemskii.

- 1817 graduates, recieves a position in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs

- The job did not prevent him from leading at that the generally dissipated life he describes so well in Eugene Onegin

- 1817-20 writes liberal verse; works on Ruslan and Liudmilla, first large-scale work (note the reference at the very beginning of Eugene Onegin)

- The publication of Ruslan and Liudmilla raised Pushkin to the status of the best Russian writer

- Having expressed liberal political views in some poems that came to the attention of the Tsar', he is dispatched to the Caucasus, ostensibly a transfer; his views become more radical

- He travels in the south, spends nearly three years in Kishinèv (Moldova) where he writes southern works

- At the very beginning of his southern period he was ill and was granted a three-month leave to recuperate

- He travelled with his friends the Raevskii family, saw the scenery of the south which deeply affected him, and was introduced by the Raevskii sisters to their favorite author, Byron

- This period in Pushkin's life is often referred to as his "Byronic" period.

- Pushkin begins writing his novel in verse, Evgenii Onegin, in 1823, two months before leaving Kishinèv

- 1823 he is transferred to Odessa

- Pushkin quarrels with governor-general

- Pushkin writes a letter sympathetic to atheism which is read by the governor-general's censors, and is banished to mother's estate, Mikhailovskoe, in northern Russia

- Under police surveillence, he continues to write, 1824-26; continues work on his long poems, and Onegin

- Pushkin is still in exile during the Decembrist revolt, but is implicated

- He was a sympathizer, a friend of many Decembrists, and would have participated, although, for various (possible) reasons, he was not a member of the secret societies which actually organized the revolts.

- At this point Pushkin wants to be freed from exile, writes to and is granted an audience with Nikolai I, who agrees to act as personal censor

- This event finds a parallel in 20th century Russian literature: Solzhenitsyn's novel A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, is said to have been read and approved for publication by the Soviet leader Khrushchev

- Pushkin is optimistic, but censorship turns out to be rigid, and Pushkin's personal connection to the court turned out to be a negative phenomenon (as we shall see in a moment). He is, however, freed from exile

- 1826-31 searches for a wife, as a way out of his increasing depression over restrictions on his personal liberty, and because he thinks the time is appropriate

- 1829 he meets Natalia Goncharova; he proposes, is given a vague answer and, distraught, goes to Turkey to visit unofficially the his brother, who is serving in the Russian army at the front during the Russo-Turkish war

- This is Pushkin's only time outside the Russian empire.

- The visit is permitted by the authorities but casts further suspiscion on Pushkin

- 1830 his proposal to Goncharova is accepted.

- 1830 goes to his father's estate at Boldino on business (to mortgage serfs to acquire money for the wedding and marriage), is detained there three months because of a cholera epidemic elsewhere in Russia; these are considered the most productive three months of his life; he writes The Tales of Belkin, verse tale The Little House in Kolomna, the Little Tragedies, the final chapters of Onegin (on which he had been working progressively), and many lyrics.

- Feb. 18, 1831 he marries Goncharova; they move to Petersburg where she makes a great social success

- Pushkin begins his work in the historical archives, studies the Pugachev rebellion (1773-75)

- Dec. 1833 Pushkin is made a Kammerjunker, normally a court positon for a much younger man (Pushkin was then 34), in all probabliity so that he could attend court balls with his wife, whom Nikolai I admired (or so Pushkin thought); Pushkin is deeply offended

- Pushkin also suffers severe financial problems at this time (as he often did throughout his life)

- 1835 he becomes editor of the literary quarterly Sovremennik [The Contemporary], which has financial and censorial problems

- Meanwhile, 1n 1834, Mrs. Pushkin meets George d'Anthès-Heeckeren, who pursues her for two years

- A letter of obscure origin, calling Pushkin a cuckold and in general ridiculing him, is circulated among Pushkin's friends

- Pushkin, believing D'Anthes to be involved, challenges him.

- d'Anthes, avoids the duel by marrying Goncharova's sister Ekaterina

- In society d'Anthès pursues Pushkin's wife even more openly

- Finally Pushkin publicly insults d'Anthès, making a duel inevitable; on Jan. 27, 1837 Pushkin is mortally wounded and dies two days later.

- Controversy still surrounds (and will probably always surround) the duel; some even accused Nikolai of supporting d'Anthes for the purpose of eliminating Pushkin (cf. the comment of Oldwise in The Infant)

- Pushkin was sufficiently popular that the authorities feared public reaction, and kept secret the details of his funeral

- In consequence only some government officials attended -- a terrific irony in light of the fact that these same officials persecuted Pushkin and supported his wife's lover.

3. Pushkin's works

- Pushkin wrote in all of the basic poetic genres of the day, the greatest prose of the day (see Shaw's statement: first Russian prose fiction that can still be read today with pleasure).

- Long narrative poems: Ruslan i Liudmilla (1817-20), the Gavriliada (1821), Southern or Romantic poems (Kavkaskii plennik [1820-21], Bakhchisaraiskii fontan [1821-23], Tsygany [1824]), Graf Nulin (1825), Domik v Kolomne (1830), Poltava (1828), Mednyi Vsadnik (1833)

- verse novel: Evgenii Onegin (1823-31)

- lyrics (probably his greatest genre)

- dramas: Boris Godunov (1824-5) and the four Little Tragedies (1830)

- verse fairy tales

- prose fiction: The Tales of Belkin, The Captain's Daughter

- Pushkin was immesnsely popular even in his own day, although his popularity began to wane, and his writing to be considered somewhat old-fashioned, in the 1830s