Pushkin’s Political Weltanschauung

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of Pushkin's political views as reflected in his creative works, correspondence, and diary. Pushkin's place in Russian literature is assured, and volumes have been written to reinforce his literary status. His political quality, however, has yet to be fully discussed. While his impact on Russian literature has been far-reaching, his influence on Russian political thought during the nineteenth century was practically nil. Indeed, only very few of his contemporaries recognized his political talent. His friend, Prince P. A. Vyazemsky, however, grasped the significance of the poet's political insight and characterized him as a liberal-conservative, although realizing that such an abstract label was inadequate.1 Some attempts have been made to discover the spiritual side of Pushkin's genius, notably by Merezhkovsky, Gershenzon, S. L. Frank, P. V. Annenkov, and V. Tomashevsky.2 None of these, however, have succeeded in assessing his importance as a political thinker. It is both strange and tragic that Russian scholars dealing with the history of the development of socio-political ideas have ignored his contribution in this area.