Public festivities and the making of a national poet: a case study of Alexander Pushkin's biography in 1899 and 1937

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the political application of the biography of a person who has canonical status in Russian culture, such as a national poet. Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), generally regarded as the founder of the Russian literary language, obtained supreme status in the Russian cultural space. Over a period of two centuries, the perception of his person and literary legacy experienced several waves of reappraisal in order to be adjusted to the ideological needs of the state regime. Pushkin's biography became one of the crucial components for strengthening the ‘proper’ image of the poet as it was manipulated through a careful selection of facts from his life story. The surge of interest in and the growth of public attention to Pushkin's figure took place in the context of anniversaries, which entailed propagandising a simplified version of the poet's image ‘for the mass use’. Two anniversary celebrations, which took place under different political regimes, are the focus of this essay: 1899 and 1937. The author analyses a number of texts published on the occasion of both jubilee events that expressed the ‘official’ interpretation of the poet's biography in order to illustrate how the plausible features of social behaviour were communicated with the help of the ‘proper’ image of the national poet.