Pushkin's Works Research Articles

«На пире Платона во время чумы»: к интерпретациям пушкинской «маленькой трагедии»

The article attempts to place “A Feast in Time of Plague” by A.S. Pushkin, as well as the immediately preceding poem “Hero” (1830), in an eschatological perspective. The question of possible “pre-texts” of Pushkin's “Feast” is raised; considering the seemingly insignificant shifts of the Russian text relative to the English original, one can come to the conclusion that A.S. Pushkin, as if over the head of J. Wilson, consistently returns to the banquet ritual, reproducing the elements of archaic Dionysianism. The tragic “insoluble contradiction” of the finale of A.S. Pushkin's work is emphasized by the truncated concluding verse: the iambic tetrameter is cut off at the second foot; it is noteworthy that the metric scheme of the ending of the poem “Hero” is the same.

«Пир во время чумы» А. С. Пушкина: ценностный аспект

The proposed article reveals the problem of objective perception of the fourth of Pushkin's “short tragedies” – “A Feast in Time of Plague”. The article also indicates a significance of “A Feast in Time of Plague” in Pushkin's literary heritage as a whole. Within the framework of axiology and imagology (as a discipline directly connected with comparative studies) authors trace the connection of Pushkin's works with other samples of world literature, as a discussion about values in time when every aspect of society was being called into doubt. The article also highlights the question of the culminating role of “A Feast in Time of Plague” in the cycle of “short tragedies”. The poet often deliberately diminishes his role in the writing of his works; his plays were sometimes presented as a translations of works that never existed. Conversely, deliberately borrowed plots appear before the reader as a new look at things, in contrast to the original. Thus, the authors of the article try to explain how the poet manages to integrate borrowings into his works. His literary heritage represents common European values and plots. But Pushkin does not stop there. Pushkin's “short tragedies” are in fact an integral part of his involvement in the European worldview. The article explains how a simple translation of John Wilson's “The city of the Plague” had become an independent work by Aleksander Pushkin. Our most important conclusion in short sounds like this: the problems raised by Pushkin in his “A Feast in Time of Plague” are mostly absent in Wilson's “The city of the Plague”. In this sense Pushkin’s “short tragedy” is an absolutely new word in world literature. Pushkin had achieved this result with some decisive and crucial changes (as compared with “The city of the Plague”) in two texts inside “the translation” – “Mary Gray’s Song” and “Master’s Song”(or “A Song on the Plague”). The first Pushkin's interpretation is much more important than Mary Gray’s common play in “Scots and English” with Loisa. Pushkin's understanding of the Scottish imageme leads him to Mary Gray’s characteristic as not only “sad”, but “sophisticated” (“zadumchivaya”). As for the second one, Wilson's elegy about physical destroying, had become Pushkin's elegy about metaphysical immortality.

ТРИ ДЕСЯТИЛЕТИЯ АДАПТАЦИИ ДЛЯ ПЯТИ КЛАССИКОВ РЕЦ. НА КН.: ФЕДОРОВА Л. АДАПТАЦИЯ КАК СИМПТОМ: РУССКАЯ КЛАССИКА НА ПОСТСОВЕТСКОМ ЭКРАНЕ (М., 2022)

Review of the monograph Adaptation as a Symptom by the Russian-American researcher Lyudmila Fedorova, dedicated to post-Soviet film adaptations of the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. The question is raised about the limits of the film adaptation, about popularity of Russian literature in the world and lability of its position in modern Russia, and also about the complex imposition of genre, social and ideological attitudes of the authors of adaptations.

The Afterlives of Odette and Albertine in Lolita’s Final Chapters

Abstract The article contributes to the long-standing debate about Lolita’s final nine chapters by arguing for a much tighter connection than previously acknowledged between Nabokov’s most famous novel and Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. Turning on the claim that Dolly’s alleged letter from Coalmont has a precedent in the Recherche, the essay proposes that Humbert fabricates the letter from Dolly for similar reasons that Proust’s Narrator makes himself believe that a telegram he receives from Gilberte is a missive from Albertine. The phantom letter in Lolita and the garbled telegram in the Recherche are psychologically therapeutic exercises in misreading and gestures toward paths not taken. But in Nabokov’s case, it is also an experiment in writing the kind of literary freedom he theorized in his 1941 lecture on drama titled “The Tragedy of Tragedy.” The article argues that Dolly’s potential vanishing act pays homage to the mercurial personalities that Nabokov encountered in Proust’s novel and the unconventional literary structures he admired in the works of Pushkin and Chekhov.

ETERNAL VALUES: SIGNIFICANCE OF CREATIVITY OF A.S. PUSHKIN IN THE AGE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS (For the 220th Birth Anniversary)

The purpose of the article is to study the importance of Pushkin's work in the age of scientific and technological progress, to identify and analyze the moral values that accompany the work and personality of Alexander Pushkin and are particularly relevant to our time. The article discusses the moral values of honor and dignity, the ratio between good and evil, concepts of duty, justice, love and friendship, happiness, freedom, creativity, patriotism, national idea, peoples’ friendship and the problem of preserving Russian language in modern Russia. The article is written through the prism of interpretation of Pushkin’s creativity by Russian philosophers abroad and modern philosophers. The article deals with the problem of using neural networks that make it possible to reproduce the style of A. S. Pushkin. The author concludes about the relevance of the work of A. S. Pushkin in our days. The issues of preserving spirituality, moral values, national identity, and optimistic Renaissance perception of the world, of understanding the beauty of life, remain relevant and in demand in modern age of rapid scientific and technical progress, both in Russia and in the world.

Introducing the "Pushkinalia"

Introducing the "Pushkinalia" Ilya Vinitsky and Michael Wachtel On 20–21 April 2018 Princeton University hosted the first annual "Pushkinalia," under the broad title "Pushkin Unlimited." The purpose of the event was to bring together scholars of different generations working on Push-kin's legacy. The format was closer to a brainstorming session than to a conference. The poster, an attempt to set a playful tone for the event itself, depicted Pushkin and Arina Rodionovna riding on an elephant. Outside of the keynote address, a lecture by Alexander Dolinin, Professor Emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison ("What Can We Do with the Books in Pushkin's Library? The Case of 'Puteshestvie v Arzrum'"), the participants were encouraged not to read prepared texts, but to speak freely on any aspect of Pushkin's work that they considered significant for the development of Pushkin studies, from his poetry to his correspondence to his historical and political thinking to the work of his contemporaries. Each presentation, based on brief excerpts distributed before the meeting, lasted approximately fifteen minutes and was followed by twenty minutes of discussion. The event culminated in a one-hour concert of song settings of Pushkin's poetry, presented by performance faculty of Princeton's Music Department, followed by a festive dinner that included a fierce yet friendly competition of Pushkin trivia. In addition to Alexander Dolinin, the following scholars participated: Alexey Balakin (Pushkinskii Dom), Edyta Bojanowska (Yale University), Angela Brintlinger (Ohio State), Ivan Eubanks (University College of the Cayman Islands), Alyssa Gillespie (Bowdoin College), Luba Golburt (University of California at Berkeley), Joe Peschio (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee), Oleg Proskurin (Emory University), Ilya Vinitsky (Princeton University), and Michael Wachtel (Princeton University). An account of the meeting, authored by Princeton graduate student Laura Christians, appeared in the most recent Vremennik Pushkinskoi kommissii. Building on the success of that initial event, the second annual "Pushkinalia" moved to the Cayman Islands on 11–12 January 2019. It was hosted by the University College of the Cayman Islands and, in particular, by Ivan Eubanks, a faculty member and former editor of The Pushkin Review. Titled "Pushkin Offshore: Привет, свободная стихия!" it followed the same format and included many of the same participants. Oleg Proskurin gave the keynote presentation: "Pushkin's Fake Passports: 'From Pindemonte' [End Page 1] and Its Political Background." Other participants were Edyta Bojanowska (Yale University), Caryl Emerson (Princeton University), Ivan Eubanks (University College of the Cayman Islands), Alyssa Gillespie (Bowdoin College), Luba Golburt (University of California at Berkeley), Olga Hasty (Princeton University), Svetlana Korshunova (Princeton University), Kirill Ospovat (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Ilya Vinitsky (Prince-ton University), Michael Wachtel (Princeton University), and Emily Wang (Notre Dame). Enrichment took the form of a twilight cruise ("Погасло дневное светило" or "Шумят Карибы подо мною"). The poster for the event—reproduced in this issue of The Pushkin Review—featured the famous shot of Pushkin in formal dress gazing at the ocean, surfboard in hand. Since the "Pushkinalia" was conceived as an experimental forum where participants could share unfinished work and request input from their peers, not every presentation was expected to result in a publication, and the publications that did emerge often had only a tangential relationship to the initial presentation. Whether ultimately published or not, the papers and discussion were deemed highly productive by participants, as reflected in a high rate of return for "Pushkinalia II." Many of the earlier participants will be coming to the third "Pushkinalia," which will take place again at Princeton University in January of 2020, with Igor Pilshchikov scheduled to give the keynote address. In this issue of The Pushkin Review, we are delighted to publish a selection of papers inspired by our first meeting. It is our hope that future issues will likewise feature work initially presented at the "Pushkinalia" events. [End Page 2] Click for larger view View full resolution Poster © Nina Zhong [End Page 3] Copyright © 2019 Ilya Vinitsky and Michael Wachtel

Napoleon and Alexander I in Pushkin's Pre-exile Poetry

The historical and mythical Napoleon plays a significant role in Pushkin's work from his first published poem, "Recollections in Tsarskoe Selo" ("Vospominaniia v Tsarskom Sele," 1814) to his famous poem about Napoleon of 1830, "The Hero" ("Geroi"). However, the works of the pre-exile period in which Napoleon plays an important role have not received the attention they deserve. Critics have passed over these early poems because they view the image of Napoleon in these works as borrowed, unoriginal, and imitative. But this view overlooks the different function of Napoleon in each of these poems, and, most important, the changing relationship between Napoleon and Alexander which these poems delineate, culminating in the surprising comparison in the ode "Freedom" ("Vol´nost´") of Alexander to Napoleon as a regicide. I hope to show that the less than enthusiastic eulogy of Alexander—as well as the relatively restrained condemnation of Napoleon—in the first of these poems, "Recollections in Tsarskoe Selo," led Pushkin, in later poems, to compensate for this oversight by creating more derogatory images of Napoleon and more eulogistic images of Alexander. When in "Freedom" Pushkin was under no external constraints, and writing for no occasion, he took a very different direction, using Napoleon not to enhance Alexander as the victor over Napoleon and the liberator of Europe, as in the previous poems, but to post a warning to Alexander about his future actions. Pushkin is not writing in a historical mode in the pre-exile poetry, but his use of the past to make political judgments about the present is already in place. He can employ, for example, the age of Catherine to formulate an implicit critique of Alexander in one poem and to praise him in another.

Шекспир и Пушкин

Modern researchers pay attention first of all to the typological connections of Pushkin's works, but it seems to us that the productive method of studying the similarity of English-Russian communications in this context is not associated with specific figurative-thematic or genrethematic calls, not with the commonality of individual motifs and, finally, not with the concepts of the Russian poet’s responses to specific works of the English bard, but with the genetic textand meaning-generating links of the Russian poet’s creativity with Shakespeare’s poetics in nuce. No wonder M. P. Alekseev noted that Shakespeare was for Pushkin “the problem of worldview”. On the other hand, it seems fundamental that E. W. M. Tillard justified the need to introduce the category “picture of the world” in relation to the analysis of Shakespearean dramas, because, as S. Coleridge said, in any particular, the great playwright opened the universal, potentially existing, and opened in the image of homo generalis. In this retrospect, the statement of H. Bloom, the author of the bestseller “Western Canon”, “there is a man before and after Shakespeare” entails another consideration: “there is a man before and after Pushkin”. Both are the creators of the latest drama. A student of M. P. Alekseev, great comparatist Yu. D. Levin thought: “In the history of Russian experme... Pushkin is the Central figure. It was he who carried out the creative processing of Shakespeare’s poetics, which was then mastered by the development of Russian drama.” About the exceptional importance of Pushkin in the arrangement of Shakespeare’s poetics on Russian soil indirectly expressed in his notebooks Pushkin's friend P. A. Vyazemsky: “What threw our dramatic art on the narrow road of the French? – he asked. – Thin Sumarokov tragedy. If he had been an imitator of Shakespeare, we would have perfected his thin imitations of the English, as we have now perfected his pale imitations of the French.” Brilliant poets were led to creative achievements by impartial comprehension of human nature, and on this way they showed the image of man in the fullness of his own historical reality. This was expressed primarily in the independent dignity of poetry, which neither Shakespeare nor Pushkin was able to find support for religious, rhetorical, philosophical or political considerations that were not in its favour. No wonder the context of Pushkin’s creativity, V. S. Nepomnyashchy believes, not literature, not culture, not history even as such, but existence itself in its universal understanding, integral unity. It is noteworthy that, according to G. Bloom, and Shakespeare’s plays give “us the opportunity to join what can be called the primary aesthetic value.” The link between the two poets was the “grandeur of the idea”, the integrity of the artistic consciousness, the ability, as Heraclitus said, “to see everything as one”, and the deep psychological development of an unpredictable human character.

Самоподдерживающийся карточный сюжет в «Пиковой даме» А. С. Пушкина

The success of a card secret arises not only due to the knowledge of the cards themselves but also due to an implied treaty between a bearer and receiver of a gift. We reconstruct the conditions of this treaty T1 that describe the transmission of this secret from Saint-Germain to the countess and from her to Chaplitsky. As a result, a receiver of such a gift becomes its potential bearer. Further, not only the knowledge of concrete cards and the conditions of the treaty are transmitted along the chain but also the ability itself to such a transmission (the property of hereditability). Only one conditions of treaty T1 is explicated in the text – this is the prohibition of further gambling. The other conditions are recovered according to the logic of the plot. In doing so, we find a so-called «hidden plot» that ensables us to explain the Chaplitsky’s story and relate it to the motif of receiving a heritage. At the same time, this finding explains why the countess opened her mystery just to Chaplitsky (but not to other young people). This is because both of them found themselves in the situation when a rich relative had a possibility to cover a card debt but denied to do it. The presence of the mechanism in which the card secret is transmitted from one generation to another, makes a card plot self-supporting. When the countess’s ghost opens the secret to Germann, the initial conditions change, so instead of treaty T1 that was in force in the previous cases, now a new treat T2 becomes relevant. We analyze the difference between T1 and T2 and how the violation of T2 leads Germann to the failure. Marriage between Germann and Lizaveta Ivanovna, necessity of which was claimed by the ghost, is important not only for the countess’s ghost itself but also for fantastic forces that sent the ghost to Germann. In case of the marriage, Germann could transmit the card secret to his children and thus continue the card plot. We also suggest an interpretation of a new condition in T2 which was absent from T1 – to stake no more than 1 card per day. This gave possibility for Germann to fulfill the condition about marriage before the end of game. As he ignored this condition (not given explicitly but tacitly assumed), fantastic forces, correspondingly, also ignore theirs. They intruded in the game giving rise to his failure. Replacing the image of a young queen with that of an old woman corresponds to previous actions of Germann himself who preferred to seek for a card secret instead of love of the countess's pupil and did not change this state of affairs. Our reasonings generalize essentially a recent key observation made by V . S. Listov about the motif of inheritance in this Pushkin work.

STENDHAL, PUSHKIN, GOGOL: TOWARDS THE METAPHYSICS OF A MONUMENT

The metaphysical motif of the monument in the works of Pushkin and Gogol is compared with Stendhal’s monument philosopheme. The article demonstrates the ideatorial and material, spiritual and tangible aspects of the motif in the works of these authors, as well as its connection with the historical element in culture and daily reality.The monuments in Pushkin’s ode and Gogol’s Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends [Vybrannie mesta iz perepiski s druziyami] is perceived by the two authors through the dichotomy of culture as opposed to civilization. It was on Russian soil that Pushkin and Gogol further developed the cultural-historical and philosophical-historical pathos of Stendhal’s observations, moving in the same romantic/post-romantic flow.The author infers that, in his Monument [Pamyatnik], Pushkin preserved and uncovered his creative self as a combination of the spiritual and the tangible. By contrast, Gogol’s late works show his attempts to evade such preservation or to use ambiguous ways to imply the existence of his morphed self. Indeed, Gogol did not ‘repeat’ Pushkin, but only in the constant inner dialogue with the poet amid history in motion.

«Ромео и Джульетта» Шекспира в критике и поэтике А. С. Пушкина

<p>Принято считать, что трагедия У. Шекспира «Ромео и Джульетта» не оставила в творчестве А. С. Пушкина значительного следа. Обычно отмечаются сходство в интерпретации любовного сюжета и образов лирических героев, конфликт между враждующими семьями родителей и т. д. Важное значение в изучении шекспиризации и шекспиризма в русской литературе имеет тезаурусный подход (В. А. Луков, Вл. А. Луков), который применяет автор статьи для анализа творчества Пушкина. В статье уточняется, какое место печальная история юных возлюбленных играла в творческом развитии русского поэта.</p><p>Начиная с 1770–1780-х годов в русской литературе стал набирать силу процесс шекспиризации. В журналах публикуются попытки перевода отдельных отрывков из шекспировских пьес. Романтический культ Шекспира в России начала XIX в. был целиком подготовлен предромантическим влиянием европейской литературы XVIII в. А. С. Пушкин, а также В. К. Кюхельбекер, А. С. Грибоедов, О. М. Сомов, опирались на пример Шекспира и создавали самобытную национальную литературу, пропитанную духом народности. Пушкин был несомненно наиболее значительным русским шекспиристом. Это прослеживается в его творческой эволюции.</p><p>Шекспир и его герои, в первую очередь Ромео и Джульетта, постоянно упоминаются в рукописях Пушкина. Их литературно-критический уровень настолько значителен и самоценен, что исследователи предполагали, что поэт собирался написать «трактат о Шекспире». После «Бориса Годунова» и «Графа Нулина» пушкинский шекспиризм приобрел более отчетливые черты. Шекспировские аллюзии заметны и в поэтических произведениях, и в драматургии Пушкина. </p><p>Во второй половине XIX — начале XX в. русская культура продолжала развивать пушкинскую модель шекспиризма в творчестве русских писателей (Ф. М. Достоевский, И. С. Тургенев, А. П. Чехов, А. А. Блок, Б. Л. Пастернак и др.). Значительными оказались музыкальные произведения: вдохновленные шекспировской пьесой увертюра-фантазия «Ромео и Джульетта» П. И. Чайковского и признанный классический балет С. С. Прокофьева. В живописи заметными явлениями стали работы М. А. Врубеля, М. З. Шагала и др. Новаторский характер имели в 1920–1930-х годах театральные постановки пьесы Шекспира. Таким образом, к середине XX в. трагедия Шекспира прочно вошла в русскую культуру. </p>

Chodasevič’s Puškin

An overview of Khodasevich's studies of Pushkin and his contemporaries, as collected in Pushkin i poety ego vremeni (Vols. 1–3; Berkeley, 1999–2014). Includes an attempt at defining Khodasevich’s critical method, which was often devoted to determining the angles of refraction of autobiography in Pushkin's works.

Несколько дополнений к будущим “Трудам и дням Ходасевича”

The article describes Khodasevich's copy of Pushkin's Works and Days (1910) by N.O. Lerner with the author's inscription. This copy contains notes to Khodasevich's historical and literary works: the plan of Pushkin's biography and the remarks on the book Baron Del'vig (1922) by Iurii Verkhovskii; they are published and commented in the article.

“A Feast in Time of Plague” by A.S. Pushkin in the Context of Russian and European Literary Traditions

In the center of attention of the authors of this article is semantic discrepancies in the text of the tragedy of A. S. Pushkin A Feast in Time of Plague and dramatic poem of John Wilson's city of the Plague, which, admittedly, is a literary source of Pushkin's works. This topic long ago has attracted the attention of literary critics. The article raises the question of the conceptual differences of the two authors (Russian and English) in their submissions about the and eternal For the characters of John Wilson's death is presented as a means of overcoming human suffering, inevitable within the boundaries of earthly life. Understanding of immortality is associated by them with the sense of freedom from the burden of earthly suffering. For A. S. Pushkin eternal life (immortality) is associated with the expectation of a personal meeting of loving people outside of death in the circumstances, free from the limitations and problems of their earthly life. An appeal to the texts of the literary predecessors of John Wilson and A. S. Pushkin – J. W. Goethe and N. M.Karamzin – in description of their ideas of eternal life allows us to speak about the non-randomness of Pushkin deviations from the text of the English original. According to the authors of the article in the texts of A. S. Pushkin and John Wilson are identified discrepancies, caused by the profound reasons of mental character. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s3p271

The Lifelike Statues of Ovid and Pushkin's Orthodoxy

Ovid's imitation of Horace's Exegi monumentum is the culminating image of the ekphrastic and iconic modes of the many lifelike statues in Metamorphoses . In the fourth century, classical concepts of metamorphosis and metaphor play an integral role in the formulation of Eastern Orthodox concepts of Incarnation and theosis . This article demonstrates the intersection of the Ovidian and Orthodox paradigms of the lifelike statue in Pushkin's imitation of Horace and its various Russian manifestations: Monument (1836). Analysis refines notions of the conflict between word and image in the poem to emphasize the mutually enlightening progressions of matter and spirit as a continuum, not a binary opposition, challenging traditional interpretations of Monument. Pushkin's concept of his poetic legacy rejects the notion of a static immortality, privileging writerly over readerly reception as the fundamental component of his life after death. The sulunar pit that Pushkin references in the second stanza is read not as a future sympathetic reader, but as a future innovative writer that will transform Pushkin's works into new ones, thereby ensuring the poet's vital and earthly immortality. Pushkin's sculptural myth becomes a paradigm for allusion as the rite by which the sacred life of poetry is perennially renewed.

On Laughter and Dreaming in Pushkin

This article argues that the dreams depicted in Alexander Pushkin's poems, plays, and stories often concern the nature of social relations, and the dynamics of social power and social impotence. It argues that moments of scornful dream-laughter and merriment are central to Pushkin's negotiation of intersubjectivity: in the moment of being laughed at, the dreamer is made aware of how powerfully he or she has internalized the opinions and attitudes of others. This article argues that Pushkin's dreams follow a distinctive schema, in which laughter engenders a simultaneous alienation and envelopment in a dream, and that this in turn causes a state that resembles what sociologists call social death. This article treats dreams throughout Pushkin's corpus, and relies on Bakhtin, Max Scheler, Orlando Patterson, and Plato to offer a theoretical model for the perils and powers of social life depicted in Pushkin's work.

«Ум ищет божества…»: Эволюция религиозно-философских воззрений Пушкина от французского скептицизма к немецкому идеализму

The article is devoted to the ideological evolution of Pushkin : from skepticism (bordering with atheism) – to religiosity. In this regard, the pagan antiquity as a whole (and skepticism generated by it, in particular), as well as the Christian culture are the two equal important sources of Pushkin's creative work. In this research the author proves the following theses: 1) the mature Pushkin `s works are deeply akin to Goethe's ones, his position in the history of Russian literature is isomorphic to that of Goethe in the history of German literature 2) the position of the majority of Pushkin scholars who argued that the poet despised German me-taphysics, is based on selective quotations and therefore wrong 3) towards the end of his life Pushkin inclined to German idealism, and some of his works of the 1830`s have sonata (dialec-tical in nature) form; some of them are built as a dialogue of opposites 4) the commonplaces of the modern Pushkin`s myths (Pushkin Voltairean, monarchist, an Orthodox-Christian) are the consequence of a unilateral approach 5) only holistic reconstruction of his philosophical and religious beliefs makes it possible to interpret his masterpieces adequately.

Повесть А. В. Чаянова “Необычайные, но истинные приключения графа Фёдора Михайловича Бутурлина…” и иллюстрации А. И. Кравченко

The aim of this work – based on the study of romantic novels A. V. Chayanov and illustrations to it, made A. I. Kravchenko, identify factors romantic desire for synthesis of different kinds of arts, see how the tools of painting helps to convey the idea of disharmony, discord with the romantic world. The primary objective for us is to study the relationship of art and illustrations to him early XX century with the traditions of the Romantic period. Connection with the traditions of Romanticism, in the works of Chayanov, manifested at the level on the system of motive, images and issues. Nonrandom selection of Chayanov as Illustrator A. I. Kravchenko, whose best works are illustrations for the works of Pushkin, Hoffmann and Byron. Romantic tone prints Kravchenko. Chayanov drew his musical rhythm, the ability to map the world in its disharmony and mutual penetration of the fantastic and the real elements. The idea of synthesis of the arts, as an independent, was first comprehended by German romantics. We had to find out for what purpose did Chayanov emphasis on illustrations to his work, drew readers' attention to the synthesis of the arts, beginning with the title of the story, and by what means is updated romantic desire for synthesis of different kinds of arts and at the level of art, and the word level. As a result of the study, we concluded that the link with the traditions of romanticism in the works of A. V. Chayanov was reflected in the world of illustration, A. I. Kravchenko, in order to provide a multilateral aesthetic impact on the reader. For Chayanov, as a man of imagination, the important thing was to rely on the impact on the reader, not only with words, but also the means of representation.

Traveling Domestics: The Penates and the Poet in Pushkin's Lyric Verse

Traveling Domestics:The Penates and the Poet in Pushkin's Lyric Verse Ingrid Kleespies Иль жаль мне труда, молчаливого спутника ночи, Друга Авроры златой, друга пенатов святых? — A. S. Pushkin 1 There are a number of references to the Classical figures of the ancient Roman household gods, the Penates, throughout Pushkin's poetic oeuvre. Often paired with the Lares, the Penates hold a central place in the European literary and cultural tradition as symbols of home, in both its physical and emotional incarnations, and as representatives of homeland. Gods of the domestic hearth and of the state, the Penates of ruined Troy are a critical presence in Virgil's Aeneid, where they legitimize the formation of the new Roman state. As symbols, the Penates encapsulate a complex meaning that is at once private and communal. While Classical symbols and allusions necessarily lay at the core of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European literature, the image of the Penates occupies a special place in the Russian Classical and Neoclassical contexts, and particularly in Pushkin's work. Pushkin's engagement with Classicism has been the subject of extensive commentary, but the discrete significance of the Penates in his lyric poetry has been overlooked. 2 Their presence in key instances is linked to important aspects [End Page 27] of his lyric persona, and it signifies the importance of writing—or poeticizing—as a figurative home ground for the peripatetic poet. Pushkin's poeticization of domestic yearnings in the 1820s and 30s is well known. 3 That the Penates as metonyms of home would have personal relevance for a poet who at times struggled to find a domestic center for himself and who suffered exile, house arrest, and a difficult marriage seems hardly surprising. The Penates play an idiosyncratic and complex role in Pushkin's verse, one that engages with notions of domesticity but that is also tied to the acts of poetic labor and creativity. As I will argue, Pushkin's personalization of the Penates is not without historical precedent, but in his work the symbol acquires new and complex meaning, one that sheds new light on the poet's relationship to the act of writing. The Penates appear twelve times in Pushkin's work, including in the text of Eugene Onegin. Many of these references do little more than support the Classical edifice of these poems, but in four separate, yet related places, the image of the Penates proves to be central to the poem in question and signals a connection between creativity—or the act of creation—and shelter for the poet. 4 The examples to be considered here are the 1815 [End Page 28] "The Dreamer" ("Mechtatel´"), "Yet One More High, Solemn Song" ("Eshche odnoi vysokoi vazhnoi pesni")—Pushkin's 1829-30 translation of a fragment of the English Lake Poet Robert Southey's 1797 poem "Hymn to the Penates"—the short 1830 poem "The Work" ("Trud"), and, finally, the use of an image from Southey's "Hymn to the Penates" in one of the stanzas removed from the fragmentary appendix to Eugene Onegin, "Onegin's Journey," composed between 1825 and 1830. The manifestations of the Penates in these instances are quite distinct, ranging from a parodic association with Horatian leisure in "The Dreamer" to a sanctified position in the stoic short poem "The Work." Yet, despite the differing metric and stylistic contexts, these four instances are linked by a common thematic thread: the Penates are of central importance to the poems and are connected to motifs of home, travel, and writing. In these works, the Penates serve a richly layered purpose as audience for the poet and his act of creation, as projection of the poet himself and his work, and as symbol of the "home" the poet finds in writing, or the home that travels with him—elements of a chronotope that I will call the "poet at home." What did the Penates represent in Pushkin's work? What special resonance did they have, both as an expression of individual poetic identity and as a reflection of his Russian identity? Before discussing the poems, I will briefly consider some of the complexities of the Penates as a literary symbol. The Penates and the Ambiguities of Home The Penates—or "inner...

New Series of Pushkin Editions in English

New Series of Pushkin Editions in English Roger Clarke Alma Classics of Richmond, United Kingdom, is bringing out a new series of Pushkin texts in English. Their intention is, during the next few years, to publish in paperback volumes, purchasable individually, the whole Pushkin corpus in English translation, with appropriate commentaries and background material. This series will supersede the fifteen-volume set of Pushkin's works in English published by Milner and Company in England between 1999 and 2003. The Milner edition is out of print, but Alma Classics (formerly One-world Classics) now own the rights to that material and will draw on it, with corrections, revisions, and additions, in developing the new series. Five volumes have already appeared— Ruslan and Lyudmila (2009: dual-language text, reprinted in 2012) Boris Godunov and the Little Tragedies (2010) Eugene Onegin (2011: dual-language text) The Queen of Spades and Shorter Prose Fiction (including unfinished works) (2011) The Captain's Daughter and A History of Pugachov (2012) The translations and extensive commentaries in the first three volumes are by Roger Clarke, the Series Editor for the project. The last two volumes are made up primarily of Professor Paul Debreczeny's translations, first published by Stanford University Press in 1983 and reissued (with permission) by Milner; but the texts have been re-edited and re-presented and are supplemented with some new translations and commentary. Alma Classics is proposing in 2013 to bring out a volume of some of the lyrics, followed by a new translation of The Tales of Belkin. Volumes already issued can be ordered from the publisher Alma Classics on www.almaclassics.com, or through high street and electronic booksellers. [End Page 161] Copyright © 2012 by its author