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A Pushkin Collage
ByCHRISTOI HER
U
LK RSON
Th e per sonalities of creat ive arti
st s
ar e a source of
endle
ss fasc
ination
. Each
of
th e great artists of the pas t or present
seems to
hav
e an
abundance
of talents
and
qu alities too vast to sift th rough. Yet, if we
compa re the as pec ts o f th es e arti sts
characte r, severa l disti
nct
psychological
A lexa1lder Pushkinas abuy illan 1822
eng
raving
byE. Heitmann.
types,
or
a
rtist
ic archetypes, can
distin
guished. Beethoven created works of
Herculean
power and
nu mbing subtlety;
Michelan gelo is arguably his coun terpar t
in th e visual ar ts. Though t
hey
n
omin
ally
belon g to different artist ic disciplines,
Goethe and Wa
gner
share a commitment
to o riginality, to sensual beauty
and
to an
ecurnenism of talen t each embracing
se
ver
al ar ts, sciences , and philosophies of
th eir day
th
at
mak
es them close col
leagues . F
or
th eir shared ability to
mak
e
any style they tou ched un iquely th
ei r
own, Stravinsky and Picasso ha ve often
been compared, as have, f
or
diffe ren t
reason s, Debussy and Monet. A crafty
se
nse
for confirm ing for an aud ience the
importance of their own emotions set s
Puccin i ap
art
; Hem ingway would be the
Puccini o f lite rature . Bu t
th e
greates t
reve rence has always been accorded to
artists of th e type who are a t once focuses
of their cultures and voices f
or
all h
um
an
ity, protean ta len ts able to work in any
ge n re of th
ei r
discipline, producing th ose
achingly beau tiful works of art which give
the world clear visions
of
landscapes that
are actu ally ete rna l my
steries
.
Moz
ar t
was such an arti st, and he did haveat least
one
do s
e counterpart in the per
son
of a
write r barely known in t he E
ng
lish
speaking world . Th e Mo
zart
of literature
was t he Af ro-Ru ssian po
et
Alexander
Sergeyevich Pu sh kin .
Pushkin wa s a child prodigy and a
technical wizard; he wa s
pampere
d by t
he
aristocracy th ough he
was
con
trov
ersial
at cour t; he enjoyed trem
en
dous popular
ity
and
pro fessiona l influe nce in his youth,
though he fell out of fash ion in his
th
ir
ties; he marri ed late (for his era ) to a
woma n who wa s his int ellectual in ferior,
and,
afte
r a brilli
ant
and prolific career,
died young, in mora lly suspect circum
s tances , and was rushed into his grave.
Du ring his lifeti me, Pushkin wa s
known
to anyone who was anyone, yet in his las t
yea rs kept only a tiny group
of
fri
end
s and
was a pariah in the most genteel circles.
After his untimely dea th, Pu shkin became
th e idol and indeed proclaimed
pro
phet of
the
people wh o speak th e language in
wh
ich he comp
ose
d th eir
mos
t
che
rished
poe try, sho rt s tories, novels, fairy tales,
plays, and , once th ey had been wedded to
mu sic, th
ei r
most beloved
song
s,
opera
s,
and balle ts . His wo rks are mo re than
rev ered by Rus sian speake r s they hav e
th e status of gos pel. Since Pu shkin s days,
genera tions of Russians have commi
tt
ed
whole plays, many even the
entire
ty of his
grea t novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, to
w
ord
-f
or-word
m
emory
. His characters
ar e
not only well kn
own
to
Russian
spea kers - they a re rea l people . S
om
e
Russian mu sical works based on Pushkin
include Ruslan and Lyudmila by Glinka;
Rusalka and The St
one
Gu
es
t by Dargo
mizhsky; Boris Go lu ov by
Musso
rgsky;
Eu
gme Onegi , Mazeppa, and TheQuem of
Spades
by Tchaikovsky; Mount and 5alieri,
The Taleof the Tsar
5alta and
The
Golden
Cockerel
by Rimsky-Korsakov;
Aleko and
TheMiserlyK ight by Rachm aninoff; and
The Firebird
and
Ma
ora by Stravinsky.
Pu sh k in s text s we re so reve red th a t
50
Dargomi
zh
sky and Rimsky -Ko rs
ak
ov
an ticipated Debussy (who was add icted to
Boris GoJunov in setting
who
le intac
plays to music, creat ing the operatic genr
oseph K
erman
calls the su ng play.
Pu shkin was born in to one of th
oldes t families of th e Russian gentry, in
Mosc
ow
, on May
26th
, 1799. His mothe
was a granddau
ghter
of Abram Cannibal
Group of Russian writers from the 18305
in
co
nfnn
po
rarytrlgravi
g:
I
to r.]N ikolai G
nedich
Vassily Z
hU
OVSky, Alexander Pushkin. Ivan
Krylov.
born a prin ce in Abyssinia , so ld in to
slave ry and pu rchased , freed,
and
even tu
ally promoted to Eng ine
er
Gene ral by
Peter
the G rea t, the
awe
some western
izing Tsar wh o left at least as strong an
imp
res
sion on th e Russian mind as did
the
Sun Kin g o n th e Fr
ench
. All his life
Pu shkin rem ained proud of his ancient
lineage and his Afri can blood
t
o wh ich
he
at t
ribut
ed his passi
ona
te
natu
r -
goin g so
far
as to
pu t
an ancestor
named
Push
kin
in hi s h isto rical pla y Baris
Godunov and
to write a large fr
agme
nt of
a
novel on the subjec t of TheM oor of Peter
theGreat
In the decad es pr ior to th e
Napo
leonic
Chris
topher
Fulk o
is
comp
oser d
conductor living in San Francisco.
San Francisco
Opera
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wars, all genteel Russians wereweened as
Francophiles (French was
the
first lan
gu ag e of the no bility ) and Alexander
Sergeyevich 's childhood was no diffe rent .
At the age of twelve,
however
, he joined
the first class of pu pils at the exclusive
Lycee of Tsarskoe Selo (The Tsa r's Vil
lage). Vladimir Nabokov, like all Russian
wr ite rs obsessed with Push kin , was very
proud to have been educated at thi s same
eventually famou s schoo l. While still a
stude nt at Tsarskoe Selo th e neophyte
Pushkin began to pub lish vers e. His few
l
et t
ers surviving from this period already
ind
icate th
e variety of h is epi
st
ol
ar
y
expres sion. Commanded, as the Lycee's
preemi
nent
poet, to versify on the arrival
of th e Tsar , his
mann
er toward those in
power is qui te con ventional, bu t not
unconscious of how to promote a career.
If
the feelin gs of l
ove
and gratitude
towa rd ou r gre at monarch are not com
pletely unworthy of my loftysubject, how
happy [ would be if His Excellency
would be so kind as to presen t to the
Sovereign Emperor the feeble production
of an ine xper ienced versifier Relying
upon your ex t r eme indu lgence, etc .
When addressing a companion, however,
th e inexperienced versi fier loosens his
cravat. To the poet Pete r Vyazemsky, he
wri tes , . . .don'tyou complain i fmy lett er
makes Your Bardic Highness yaw n; it' s
your
own
fau lt: why did you sti r up the
unfortunate
T
sar
skoe Selo
hermit,whom
th e mad demon of paper-blotching wa s
already egg ing on . . . He quite irrever
ently addresses th e oldest member of the
Pushkin clan as the ancient Nestor and
adds , som
ewhat
prophetically, th at Fate
seems to have destined me to on ly two
kinds of letters rom isory and excusa
tory. . .
Even before his graduation from the
Lycee, Pushkin was regarded as a rival by
such liter
ar
y giantsof th e Russian literary
establishment asZhukovsky and Batyush
kov. In 181 6 he wrote to Zhukovsky, My
d
ear
Mr. Zhukovsky, [ hope that [ sha ll
have the pleasure of seeing you tomor
row Aft
er reading Pushkin's
Ruslan
and Lyudmila of 1820, Zhukovsky pres
ented
the
young man with his
portr
ait,
inscribed To a victo rious pupil from a
defea ted master . No t content to have
taken the younger generation, as well as
the older poet, by storm, Pushkin
wro
te to
Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky infuriates me
what has he come to like in thi s (Thomas )
More, this prim imi tator of de
form
ed
all
Sea on 98
The Nob Hill Res
tau
ra
nt
s atmosp
here
makes
you wa
nt
to
relax and comp letely surrend
er
to t
he
en
jo
yab le
exper
ience
of be
ing th
er
e:'
Th
e staff... goes abou t t
he
task
of
serving th e
meal with a rdce suggestive ofgood ballet
Each and every dessert left us glowing
with delight long after we left the
l\'ob Hill Res
tau
rant
Quotes from California Magaz
ine
J ul
1986
Reservat ions: (4 15)392-3434
E1\ 1ARKHor NS lNTER·CONTINENTAL SAN ffiANClSCO 0 NUMBERONENOBHILL
LLY
OF SWITZERLAND
51
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A Change
in Image
Modern
Crisp
and
Young
Designer co ections
and
accessories
m
i s o n
endesso l l e
San
s
raocrsco
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Dallas. Famlont Hol:eJ
EXPECTING?
Over60 cribs andchests
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All
at
Discount P r
ices
O riental imagination? Th ese
utteran
ces
ar
e not cont rad ict ory ush
kin
did
re spect Zhukovsky as a competent litera
tician,
but
was indeed outraged wit h any
superficial Orientalism . When gain ing an
under
stan
ding of Pushkin the
man
and
artis t as seen
th rough
his letters, it m
ust
be remembered tha t he is in all cases
respondin g to the precise circumst ances at
ha nd , in a m
anner
ap pr
op r
ia te to h is
relationship to the person he is
addr
ess
ing. He has no allegiance to any theory of
life or ar t, but a deep commitment to
human e values in both, va lues which
were to deepen
th r
oughou t his life.
After
graduation in
8
7,
Pushkin
became a clerk in the Foreign Off ice.
However, like many such positions held
by the gentry, this job involved no
work
.
He led th e lifeof a dissolute sensualis t. As
your hist orian, he wrote in 181 9 to his
fr iend Pavel Ma nsurov, I shall tell you
abou t
your
fellows. Everything is going as
before: the champagne, th an k God, is
lus ty the actresses likewise the former
gets drunk up, and the latt er. . .Amen .
Amen
. Th at's as
it
oug ht to be. Before
long, however, T sar Alexander I became
aware
of
so me of Pu shkin 's
proto -
revolution
ary
v
er
ses and the poe t wa s
command ed to lea ve S1. Pe tersburg .
Immediat ely upon being transfer red to
Ekaterinoslav
became bored, he
write
s
to his bro t
he r
Lev in S
eptember 82
0,
I
went boating on the Dnepr, I took a
sw
im,
and
I caught a fever, as I usually do.
Ge ne ral Raevsky, whowa s en ro
ute
to the
Ca ucasus with a son and two daught ers,
fo und me . his son proposed to me a
Nathalie Pushkin, the
po
et s wife, in an 1844
engraving by
Gay.
j
our
ney to
th e
Cauca sian water ing
places. Th ese two months in the Cauca
sus were someof the happiest moments in
Pushkin's life.
t
was through the Raev
skys tha t he firs t came to know Byron,
w
hom
he immediately esteemed, as did
any would-be modern, mea ning Roman
tic, poet of th e time. Poet ry somber,
heroic, power ful , Byron ic is your tru e
desti ny ill the man of old in yourself,
he exhor ted his fr iend and fellow poet
Ant
on Delvig in
1821 ,
Push kin wrote a series of verse tales,
a
mo
ng them
the
masterpiece en titled,
autobiograp hically enough, ThePrisonerof
the Caucasus, on the pattern of Byron's
Infant & Chil d re n's
Depart
ment S tor e
Clo thing an d Accessories
Since 1947
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(415) 588 7644
Open Ever y Day
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l,om ll ll ... IheHlI A,e,,·· .
Statue of eter the Great ( The Bronze Horseman ) on Senate Square in St. Petersburg, as j f appeared
in 1810,
52
San
ran
cis
co
Ope
ra
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ThePushkin family e
stat
eat M ikha
y ov
skoye towhich the poet was exiled in 1824
O riental tales. Here Pushkin himself has
fallen prey to a Briton s O rientalism , just
as
Zhuk
ovsky had .Still,alth ough Pushkin
was to bath e himself in Byronism for a
sho rt time, th e only lasting effect s of thi s
immers ion we re in technica l matte rs
relating especially to th e use of poetic
mete r. By th e ti me he wro te Eugene
Onegin this and a mis t of Romant ic irony
were all th at
rem
ained of his Byro nic
bapti sm .
For two years, Push kin did a litt le
official work in Kishinev and returned to
the
life of pl
easu
re he had led in SI.
Petersburg . He spent much of his time
wit h the
gro
up of revolutionaries eventu
ally to be kn own as th e Decembr ist s.
Though it was not completed un til1831, it
was in 1823 in Kish inev th at he began to
wri
te his gr eatest
wor
k, th e novel in
verse ugene On g in called by Edmund
Wilson perhaps the mos t influen tial an d
within Russia the most widely popu lar
work of Russian liter ature.
Eugene Orregin is a stor y classical in its
spirit and in its humanity,yet Romant ic in
its met hods. It is a sati re of Russian
provincial and city life in th e 18205. It is
par tly autobiographical: th e nar rat or is
Pushkin himself. The hero of my novel,
w ithout pre ambles, for t
hw
ith , I d like you
to meet : Onegin, a good pal of mine . . .
Pushkin makes frequent mention of his
. own wo rks in On
egin
and even names his
ow n fr iends and mistresses among the
cha racters, clearl y establishing himself as
the first -person narrator. Furthermore ,
O negin him self sh ares qualit ies of his
pal Pu shkin , and can from time to time
be iden ti fied with his author. He had
enou gh knowledge of La t in, w rit es
54
Push kin of O negin, to make out epi
graphs, descan t on [uven al, pu t at the
bottom of a l
ette
r
vale
. . Like his crea
t ion O negtn. Pu sh kin u sed th e La tin
farew ell in l
ette
rs and conversation, a
habi t he adopt ed from Voltaire. Onegin,
like Pus hkin, is a Byronic figure , a young,
al
oof
rom an tic, cyn ical beyond his years,
successfu l with the fair sex, yet bored
with his lifestyle . Edmund Wilson, who
did more to make English-speaker s
awar
e
of Pu
shk
in s great ness tha n any other
criti c, sa id of O ne
gin that
Pu shk in
neither exalts him in the perver se Roman
tic wa y nor yet, in exposing his wea
kne sses, hands him over to conventiona l
mor
alit y
. Pu shkin s novel in verse
came out of his deepest self-kn ow ledge.
Though Zhukovsky s tran slat ion of Don
uan influenced th e rhythms of the novel,
it is th e opposite of Don
ua
n in being a
wo rk of u nwa ver ing co ncentra tion.
ugene Onegin th en, is at once classical
and Rom an t ic; per sonal. yet
uni
versal;
satirical,
yet. ultimately, unjudgme
nt
al.
Like its creat or, accepts the human
condit ion as it is, w ithou t any precon
ceived progr am .
Th e firs t epistolary mention of the
novel is to th e author s fr iend Vyazemski,
whom we have met . After working on th e
tex t for six months, Pushkin says as for
what I am doing, I am writing, not a novel
but a novel in verse- a devil of a dif fer -
ence .
In 1823, Pushkin wa s tran sferred to
the relatively mor e European port City of
Odessa , wher e he worked steadily and
became even more dissolu te, exhilarating
in Italian opera, champag ne, and love
affairs with two married women simul-
San F
ran
cisco Ope
r
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taneou
sly.
Th
ese
were
Amalie Riznich,
th
e great sensual love of his life, and th e
object, afte r
he r death
, of someof his most
beautiful verses, and the Countess Eliza
beth
Vorontsova. Not surprisingly, but
very unfortunately, no let ters to either of
th
ese wom en su rvive. Alexander
Ra evsky,
Pu
shk
m s
old
collea
gue
in
Byron,
was
also one of the Countess
lovers, and a treacherous one . In 1824, the
po
et
was suddenly expelled from Odessa
and ordered to live permanently on his
mother s esta te in Mikhaylovskoye in th e
province of Pskov. After qu arreling with
his parents, with whomhe
hadnever
been
dose Pushkin lived alone at Mikhaylov
skoye with his old nurse. One of his best
known
ly r
ics,
Wi
nter Evening: was
wri
tt e
n to he r and captures th e mood of
that period. The sto rm covers th e sky in
darknes s, spinning th e
sno
wy whirl
winds;
now
it howls like a wild beast, now
it cries like a child, now it suddenly rustle s
the thatch on a ramshackle
roof
now, like
a belated traveler, it knocks at ou r win
ew Our tumble-down hu t is gloomy and
dark. Why, little old lady, have you fallen
silent by
th
e window? Here nature is an
image for Pushkin and his life.
In 1825, during the Decembrfst upris
ing ,Alexander Pushkin
was
in Pskov, safe
from blame, at his mother s. But th e new
Tsa r was clearly aw a re of Push ki n s
connection wit h the revolutionaries. As
the cri tic Prince Mirsky observed, by a
mast er stroke of cleve r policy, (he) sum
moned the poet to Moscow (September
1826 gran ted him a fu ll pardon, and
promised to be his speci al
patr
on and
protector. This was indeed the act of an
enlightened despot
-awar
e of the poet s
popular it y, great gifts and
trou
blesome
temperament, Tsa r Nicholas I kep t Push
kin within easy observation, yet in an
environmen t in which he cou ld write as
much
as he liked. But
the pro
tection of his
clemen t prince became ins ufferable to
Pu shktn, whose spirit langu ished.
Th
e
next four years
saw
the completion of a
few new wo rks, while others dragged on
or were lef t incomplete.Severa lof his best
efforts we re shelved by the censor,includ
ing Boris GodunoD and though Pushkin
practically inven ted the
now
-common
Russian hab it of circulating his work in
manuscript, he could not receive pub lica
tion fees for them. Th e two censors most
odious were Shishkov
and
Benkendorff.
Th e latter was the leader of Pushkin s
persecut io n and f
urthermor
e abused him
San Francisco O pera
Ba
n
Gee rges
D A nthes in a
conte
mporary
engraving
for his black ancest ry. I avail myself to
spe ak to you of a completely personal
matter, Pushkin wrote h im,
about
a
yea r
ago
in
on
e of
ou
r journals
was
printed a satirical ar ticle in which a c
ertain
man of le
tter
s wa s spoken of...it added
th at his mothe r was a mulatto whose
father
, a po
or
pickaninn
y,
had been
bough t by a sailor f
or
a bottle of
rum
...
Pet
er
the
Great little resembled a
drunk
en
sailor...
Our poet made several attempts to
settle
do
wn
, and ha ving be
en on
ce
refused, was finally accepted by and in
1831
marr
ied
t he e ight een
year-old
beauty Nathalie Goncharova. The period
before the wedding was spent at Tsars
koye Selo . His financial affairs were a
wr
eck, but Pushkin trie d to make plans for
his coming family life. From
th
e Tsar s
Village he w
rote
to B
enkendor
ff, 1make
bold to disturb Your High Excellencywith
a most humble request for permission to
publish in a separate book
the
poems of
mine which have already been publi shed
du ring th e last three yea
rs. Th
is is a
groveling Pushktn we have not seen since
the days of the Lycee. In the same letter
we find evidence of the poet s humiliating
situation and its
eff
ect on his ar t, T he
Sovereign s tr us t places on me the obliga
tion to be a most s
tr
ict censor toward
myself. Here, Pushkin is
not
speaking in
fo
rm
a li ti es; he is acknow ledging t
he
conditions of his pat ronage.
f all Season 986
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A romantic vision of lexander Pu
sh n
represented in an 183 7 engraving
by
N.
Konoshchenko
At last Boris
Godun
ov was allowed to
be print ed, as a speci al roya l
wed
ding
favo r, after five years of suppression. It
met with harsh criticism .
Pushkin's marriage was at first quite
a happy one, but Nat halie was cold and
not embarras sed by any intellectua l pre
ten sions. Worse than this, it soo n became
clear
th at hi s presence a t court wa s
tolera ted in or de r tha t h is beautiful wife
could be invited to social events. In fact, to
facilitate th is, Nicho las made Pushkin a
gentleman of
the
chambe r in 1834, a
ti tle usua lly give n to men in their ea rly
twenties and an honor the poet deeply
resented. To his friend Pavel Nashchokin
Pushkin wrot e Here a re some other
pieces of news fo r you : I've been a Kam
merjunker since th e mon th of January .
The Bro
nu
Ho
rs
em
an
was not passed ...
Push kin a ll but abando
ne
d
poetry
, at
which he had not wo rked much since his
engagem en t to
Nathali
e, and devoted
himself to writing prose stories and to
histor ies that would never be completed .
He began to feel inc r
ea
si ngly st ifled
( Pu shkin died fr
om
lack of air: ' sa id
Mayakovsky later ), bu t, after repeated
refusals was allowed to star t a literary
journal.
The CO
temporary
in 1836. Like
eve rything Pushkin did aft er 1831, this
effort met with no public success.
T he
poe
t s t ragic end par alleled
exactly tha t of one of his own characters,
Len sky in Eugene O tug in. H e became
exasperatingly jealous of the att entions
paid Nat ha lie by t he Baron Geo rg e
D
An
thes, a Fren chman in th e Russian
serv ice. Push kin challenged him to a duel,
but th is eve nt wa s circ umve n ted by
D'A
nth
es's sudden marriage to Na thalie's
si s ter, making Pu
sh k
in 's su spicions
appear ridiculous. But just a few daysafter
th e wedding, he learned that Na thalie and
D'An t
hes
had aga in secr e tly met, and
Pu
sh k
in d
emand
ed satis fac
tio
n in
an
un ambiguous lett er to th e Baron's fa
ther.
Baron he
write
s, Permit me to sum
marize what has jus t taken place . . .1 am
obliged to point out. tha t you r ro le has
no t been altoge ther
see
mly. Y
ou
, th e
rep resentative of a
crowne
d head, have
paternally acted as your son's pand
er
.
like an obscene old woman, you go and lie
in wa it for my wife on every co
rne
r, in
ord e r to t ell he r of t
he
love of you r
bastard, and when,
ill
with syphillis, he
was
kep t hom e, you wou ld say he was
dying of love for her. . .
From a communicat ion such as this
D'A
nth
es could not shrin k. Satisfactio n
was
granted on January 27, 1837 . Push
kin's last lette r is grim in its
tr
iviality.
Dear Madame, Alexand ra Os ipovna, I
regret extremely that it will
impossible
for me to come at your invita tion today.
That afte rnoon, in a French duel
vo
lon
tt
Pushkin and D
Ant
hes
appro
ached
each othe r, pistols in hand. As a seriou s
du elis t, Pu shkin allowed his adversary to
fire first , in order tha t he, Pushkin, might
advan ce to the
ba
r
rie
re the limit of th e no
man
's-land uncrossable by each, and fire
at poi
nt-b
lank ra
nge
.
Bu t by accepting D Anthes's fire,
Pushkin accepted his projectile as well.
M
or t
ally wounded, Alexander Sergeye
vich Pushkin, and indeed the Golden Age
of Russian poe try, died two days lat
er
. As
Prince Mirsky observed, for fear of public
demon strations of sympathy, his coffin
was hurr ied away in the ni
gh t
from St.
Petersbu rg to th e m
on
astery n
ear
Mi
khaylovskoye, which he had chosen for
h is burial place. The para llels betwen
Pushkin's and Mozart's lives and person
alities are numerou s and often striking ,
but nowhere more haunting t
han
in the
fact that befo re leaving for his fatal duel.
Push kin took a few minu tes' time to pu t
the finishing touches on
The Sto
ne
Gu
est
his drama based on
the
same legend th at
inspired Mozar t's on Giovanni •