Alexander Pushkin Research Articles

Books

Journal Article Books Get access Boris Godounov Alexander Pushkin Illustrated by Boris ZvorykinNew York: Viking Press, 1982 111 pages, $19.95 The Editors The Editors Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Opera Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 1983, Page 152, https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/1.1.152 Published: 01 March 1983

Poetic Genre and the Sense of History in Pushkin

the close of the eighteenth century, abandoned poetry for history. From 1802 until his death a quarter of a century later, he labored on his twelvevolume History of the Russian State, which remained the authoritative study of the subject for many years to come. Alexander Pushkin, who had established himself as Russia's foremost poetic talent by the time the final volumes of Karamzin's History were being published, undertook intensive historical research during the last decade of his brief life. His two-volume History of the Pugatchov Rebellion, extensive work on an unfinished History of Peter the Great, and numerous other, purely historical studies figure importantly in his late work. And many other, less famous Russian poets of this era were historians as well. The close relationship between poetry and history (and vice versa) is a striking characteristic of the times-and not only in Russia. If we wonder why poets are drawn to history, we may turn to Karamzin's Preface to his History where he mentions two important points: (1) what has really happened can provide effects the poet can exploit; (2) there is poetic charm in what is temporally remote. Although these factors usually appear together, they are to an extent contrary, since the charm of what is remote in time lies in the freedom of scope it allows the imagination of both the poet and his audience, while the use of historical material forces the poet to abide by certain facts. But his voluntary acceptance of these facts offers him important advantages, not unlike those enjoyed earlier by poets working with myth. (1) Like myth, history is felt to be authentic and significant, and lends the poetic presentation something like improved ontological status. (2) Like myth, history is felt to transcend the individual and bind everyone-whether as general history of humanity or as history of a nation, which includes and impels all its members. (3) Like myth (and later mythology), history deals in what is known to all. Utilizing it, the poet may presuppose an acquaintance with much of his material in his readers or spectators. In drama, for instance, this facilitates the exposition, and predetermines the conclusion from the start, creating certain expectations and attitudes. Naturally this third point will only be fully realized if the audience really does know the facts of the historical events at hand. For the general audience in Russia, this condition was not met until Karamzin

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets. Edited and translated by Carl R. Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1970. xii, 308 pp. $8.95.

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets. Edited and translated by Carl R. Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1970. xii, 308 pp. $8.95.

Review Notices : The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Esasys by Four Russian Romantic Poets. Edited and translated by Carl R. Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. 1970. xii+308 pp. £4.25. Pushkin on Literature. Selected, translated and edited by Tatiana Wolff. London : Methuen. 1971. xviii+554 pp. £7.5°

Review Notices : The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, with Critical Esasys by Four Russian Romantic Poets. Edited and translated by Carl R. Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. 1970. xii+308 pp. £4.25. Pushkin on Literature. Selected, translated and edited by Tatiana Wolff. London : Methuen. 1971. xviii+554 pp. £7.5°

Short-circuit current and active Na transport across isolated lens of the toad

Short-circuit current and active Na transport across isolated lens of the toad

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin. With Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets

The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin. With Critical Essays by Four Russian Romantic Poets

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access THE LETTERS OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN , translated, with preface, introduction, and notes by J. Thomas Shaw . University of Wisconsin Press , 1967 ; pp. 880 ; 60s. HENRY GIFFORD HENRY GIFFORD Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 17, Issue 5, May 1970, Pages 194–195, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/17-5-194 Published: 01 May 1970

J. Thomas Shaw, trans. and ed., The Letters of Alexander Pushkin, Madison and Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. 884 pp. paper. $9.00. (Distributed in Canada by Burns and MacEachern, Don Mills, Ontario).

J. Thomas Shaw, trans. and ed., The Letters of Alexander Pushkin, Madison and Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. 884 pp. paper. $9.00. (Distributed in Canada by Burns and MacEachern, Don Mills, Ontario).

“Count Nulin” By Alexander Pushkin

“Count Nulin” By Alexander Pushkin

“The Gypsies” by Alexander Pushkin

“The Gypsies” by Alexander Pushkin

The Letters of Alexander Pushkin. Translated, with Preface, Introduction, and Notes, by J. Thomas Shaw. 3 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963. Pages 880. $25.00.

The Letters of Alexander Pushkin. Translated, with Preface, Introduction, and Notes, by J. Thomas Shaw. 3 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963. Pages 880. $25.00.

The African Ancestry of Alexander Pushkin

The African Ancestry of Alexander Pushkin

The Upas Tree: Pushkin and Erasmus Darwin

In 1828 Alexander Pushkin wrote his famous poem “Ančar,” usually rendered in English as “The Upas Tree.” Because of the obviously derivative theme of the lyric, scholars have been searching for the exact place where the poet learned of this tree and its terrible powers. At first the searchings were random. Professor Sumcov, writing around the turn of the century, claimed that Pushkin had read of the tree in some of the popular “travels to the east.” Not convinced by Sumcov's argument, P. O. Morozov proposed a stanza (iv, 126) from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Valerij Brjusov, the scholarly Symbolist poet who edited a collection of Pushkin's works (1919), thought that a poem by Millevoye, apparently “Le Mancenillier,” was the real source. In the collection of essays entitled Pushkin in World Literature (1926), N. Jakovlev showed that a proposed epigraph for the poem was from Coleridge; ten years later the Academy edition of Pushkin's works had this note: “the poem is thematically related to Coleridge's work Remorse.” In an interesting short study Professor Jakubovič has shown a certain parallel with Pushkin in a passage from Colman's play The Law of Java; the passage, however, could hardly be the only direct source.

Alexander Pushkin's View of Goethe

T HE PROBLEM of Alexander Pushkin's approach to Goethe, and the degree and nature of his dependence on Goethe for themes and inspiration, has been and continues to be debated by Russian literary scholars, and has not been altogether neglected by scholars in the West.l Non-Russian contributions, however, tend to slight the rich biographical materials which Russian research on Pushkin has made available, and do not pay sufficient attention to the general cultural background against which Pushkin's attitude toward the German poet must be viewed for proper perspective. As a boy and impressionable youth, Pushkin moved in a cultural environment that was, by and large, indifferent if not actually hostile to German art and letters and, in particular, to literary products from the pens of the Sturm und Drang authors which were just then beginning to reach the Russian public. A vivid picture of this prevailing attitude in the circles in which Pushkin's family played a prominent role

Pushkin and the Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I

One hundred years ago Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, called by his detractors gendarme of Europe and by his admirers pillar of conservatism/' died in the midst of the Crimean War. And with him died an era often labelled a police state by radical critics. Yet it was precisely in this era that Russian literature, long a captive of foreign influences, emerged as a national expression of the genius of the Russian people. And in this beginning of the true Golden Age of Russian letters, Alexander Pushkin, often called the Shakespeare of Russia, played not only the leading but also the pioneering role. Ever since his tragic death after a duel in 1837, which preceded the death of Nicholas I by eighteen years, opinion in Russia and elsewhere has been divided on the question whether Pushkin was a liberal or a conservative. Volumes have been written on the subject; scholars have investigated every phase of Pushkin's life, every line of his verse and prose, invariably arriving at one or the other of the two debated and debatable conclusions. To one group Pushkin was a liberal, a republican, a lover of liberty, and a hater of tyrants; to the other, the great poet was naturally and essentially conservative, supporting the established absolute order in Russia by virtue of his birth, of his education, of his position in Russian society. It is true that each group was able to find both in Pushkin's writings and in his life enough material for the support of its particular thesis, thus carving two different human beings out of the flesh and blood that was Pushkin. Yet, it has always seemed to the author that Pushkin combined in himself a perfect blend of liberal ardour and of conservative wisdom, the two essential elements necessary for the making of a national poet. As such, he can best be understood when one reviews his relationships with the two sovereigns in whose reigns he livedthe once liberal Alexander I and the always conservative Nicholas I.

Mozart and Salieri (Pushkin)

A translation of Alexander Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri by A. F. B. Clarke.