Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Poetry by Aleksandr Pushkin the Bronze Horseman Ruslan and Ludmila Aleksandr Pushkin. Pushkin occupies a unique place in Russian literature. It is not just that Russians view him as their greatest poet; he is also virtually the symbol of . His life, as well as his work, has acquired mythic status. To criticize Pushkin, or even one of his characters—as, for example, Tatyana, the heroine of his novel Yevgeny Onegin (written 1823–31; Eugene Onegin )—has been taken as something akin to blasphemy. Pushkin’s quasi-sacred status has itself been parodied by Russian authors, including the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, the absurdist Daniil Kharms, and, most recently, Andrey Sinyavsky in his Progulki s Pushkinym (1972; Strolls with Pushkin ). Even if one sets this mythic image aside, Pushkin is truly one of the world’s most accomplished poets; his verse, however, which relies on the author’s perfect control of form, tone, and language, does not read well in translation. Deeply playful and experimental, Pushkin adopted a vast array of conflicting masks and personae. He writes now seriously, now with irony, and now with irony at his own irony, on moral and philosophical themes. He is ultimately a philosophical fox, appreciating the limitations, as well as the virtues, of any set of ideas. A master parodist, Pushkin wrote a number of erotic and at times sacrilegious mock-epics, such as “Gavriiliada” (1821; “The Gabrieliad”), a scabrous retelling of the Annunciation, and Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820; Ruslan and Ludmila ), which, after parodying epic, folk tale, literary ballad, and romance in a spirit of pure play, ends with a startlingly sombre epilogue. His diverse lyrics include a series on the poet’s double identity as artist and man of the world; political poems that got him into trouble with the tsar as well as poems in praise of the tsar and his suppression of the Poles; some remarkable elegies (“Vospominaniye” [1828; “Remembrance”]; “Elegiya” [1830; “Elegy”]); love poems, including the “imageless” “Ya vas lyubil” (1829; “ Once”); and powerful meditations on human evil (“Anchar” [1828; “The Upas Tree”]; “Ne day mne Bog soyti s uma” [1833; “God Grant I Go Not Mad”]). Pushkin’s narrative poems include Tsygany (1824; “The Gypsies”), which considers the meaning of freedom. Plot is mere excuse for parody of literary forms and conventions in Domik v Kolomne (1830; The Little House in Kolomna ). Most famously, Medny vsadnik (written 1833; The Bronze Horseman ), which reflects on Peter the Great and the significance of St. Petersburg, examines the meaning of history in relation to individual lives. Concern with the nature of historical causation also led to complex formal innovations in the quasi-Shakespearean drama (written 1824–25), which reworked Karamzin’s Istoriya gosudarstva rossiyskogo and was in turn reworked by other artists, notably Modest Mussorgsky in his opera Boris Godunov (1869; revised 1874). Pushkin’s greatest work was probably Eugene Onegin, the first truly great Russian novel and the source of countless themes and images in Russian fiction. Playful in the manner of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Lord Byron’s Don Juan , it far surpasses them for sheer brilliance of form, wit, and thought. Amid endless clever digressions, in which the poet adopts a dazzling array of tones and engages in myriad self-conscious self-parodies, it tells the story of Onegin, a “ superfluous man”—that is, a man with no core or purpose to his life—and Tatyana, who stands for authenticity in a sea of literary or social clichés, which she somehow manages to transcend even when she accepts them. The work’s serial publication over several years enabled both its own unpredictable creation and changes in the author’s perspective to become themes of the poem itself. Each of Pushkin’s four “little tragedies,” all written in 1830, succinctly deals with a philosophical problem. The most remarkable, Motsart i Salyeri ( Mozart and Salieri ), based on a legend that Salieri poisoned Mozart, meditates on the nature of creativity while introducing, in brilliantly compressed speeches, what was to be one of the important Russian themes—metaphysical rebellion against God. After 1830 Pushkin turned to prose. He wrote both a novella and a nonfictional account— Kapitanskaya dochka (1836; The Captain’s Daughter ) and Istoriya Pugachovskogo bunta (1834; The History of Pugachev )—about the same historical events, as if to illustrate that representing the historical truth requires more than one genre. Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina (1831; Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin ) filters five narratives, each a parody of a received plot, through the minds of several narrators, collectors, or editors. Pikovaya dama (1834; The Queen of Spades ) offers a suspenseful account of a man seeking mystic knowledge that would enable him to gamble without risk and, implicitly, to know the deepest forbidden truths. Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment may be seen as an expansion of Pushkin’s brief story. Lermontov and Griboyedov. Next to Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, who personifies , is probably Russia’s most frequently anthologized poet. His celebrated lyrics often recycle lines from his own and others’ poems. “Smert poeta” (1837; “Death of a Poet”), which first earned him fame, deals with Pushkin’s death shortly after a fatal duel in 1837. Among his narrative poems, Demon (1841; The Demon ) describes the love of a Byronic demon for a mortal woman; Pesnya pro tsarya Ivana Vasilyevicha, molodogo oprichnika i udalogo kuptsa Kalashnikova (1837; A Song About Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Bodyguard, and the Valiant Merchant Kalashnikov ) is a stylized folk epic. Also an accomplished prose stylist, Lermontov wrote Geroy nashego vremeni (1840; A Hero of Our Time ), which in form is something between a novel and a complexly framed cycle of stories about a single hero, a Byronic superfluous man. This work ranges from sketches of philosophical brilliance (“The Fatalist”) to episodes of near puerility (“Princess Mary”). The theme of the superfluous man finds another important rendition in Aleksandr Griboyedov’s classic work, Gore ot uma (completed 1824; Woe from Wit ). Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin 1799-1837. 1815 At an exam in January, Pushkin publicly declaims "Recollections at Tsarskoe Selo," which synthesizes the styles of G. R. Derzhavin and K. N. Batiushkov (see right). The poem delights Derzhavin, who happens to be visiting the school. 1817 Graduates from the Imperial Lyceum, begins "Petersburg period" 1820 Writes narrative poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila"; writes first "Southern poem," the Byronic "A Prisoner of the Caucasus" 1820-6 Exiled from the capital cities because of the Emperor's dissatisfaction with his conduct and poetry. 1822-4 Publishes second "Southern poem" "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai" (written 1822) and receives 3000 rubles for it, the largest honorarium ever given a writer in Russia up to that point; Writes third Byronic "Southern Poem," "The Gypsies" 1825 Writes drama Boris Godunov. 1828 Writes romantic historical epic Poltava. 1830 Marries N. N. Goncharova (left) and is trapped at his estate Boldino while cholera rages in the capitols. Finishes his verse novel Eugene Onegin . Writes The Little Tragedies and the prose story collection The Tales of Belkin. 1833 Publishes Eugene Onegin , which he had worked on from 1823-31; writes poema The Bronze Horseman ; writes historical project History of Pugachev. 1836 Finishes historical novel The Captain's Daughter and the travelogue parody Journey to Arzrum. Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Pushkin. Aleksandr Pushkin is considered Russia's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was the first to use everyday speech in his poetry, fusing Old Slavonic with vernacular Russian. This blend gave his works their rich, melodic quality. Aleksandr Pushkin was born in Moscow on 6 June 1799 into a cultured but poor aristocratic family, with a long and distinguished lineage. On his father's side, he was a descendant of an ancient noble family; his mother was a great granddaughter of Gannibal, the legendary Abyssinian, who served under Peter the Great. Pushkin's mother took little interest in the upbringing of her son, entrusting him to nursemaids and French tutors. Pushkin got acquainted with the Russian language through communication with household serfs and his nanny, Arina Rodionovna, whom he loved dearly and was more attached to than to his own mother. In 1811, along with 30 other distinguished young men, Pushkin was admitted to the Lyceum, an exclusive school for the nobility, located outside St. Petersburg in Tsarskoe Selo. It provided the best education available in Russia at the time. An unofficial laureate of the Lyceum, in no time, Pushkin drew the acclaim of his teachers and peers for his poetry. His first publication appeared in the journal The Messenger of Europe in 1814. In 1815, at the public examination at the Lyceum, the audience was swept by his poem "Recollections about Tsarskoe Selo," which was highly praised by Gavriil Derzhavin, the most influential poet of the time. At the Lyceum, Pushkin formed rock solid friendships with many other students, and cherished this "Lyceum brotherhood" for the rest of his life. After graduating from the Lyceum in 1817, Pushkin was given a sinecure in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg. The next three years he spent easily sailing through life, welcome both in literary circles and at bacchanal Guard parties. Despite this frivolous lifestyle, Pushkin nevertheless was still committed to social reform. Like many of his Lyceum friends, he became associated with members of a radical movement, responsible for the Decembrist uprising of 1825, but Pushkin himself was never a part of the plot. Between 1817 and 1820, his ideas were vocalized in "revolutionary" poems, namely his "Ode to Liberty," "The Village" and a number of poems about Emperor Alexander I and his conservative minister Arakcheev. At the same time, Pushkin took up his first large-scale work, "Ruslan and Ludmila," a in verse. "Ode to Liberty" angered the Russian Emperor, and he banished Pushkin from St. Petersburg for six years. Pushkin left for Ekaterinoslav on 6 May 1820. Soon after his arrival there, Pushkin traveled around the Caucasus and the Crimea. He was then transferred to Chisinau, Moldova, for three years. In the meantime, Pushkin fell under the spell of George Byron's work, and eventually became the leader of the Russian Romantic Movement. He wrote a series of narrative poems, featuring exotic southern settings and tragic romantic encounters: "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1820-1821), "The Bandit Brothers" (1821-1822), and "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" (1821-1823). With the aid of his influential friends, in July 1823 Pushkin was transferred to Odessa, Ukraine, where he engaged in going to the theater, social outings, and love affairs. His literary creativity thrived, as he completed "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray," began "The Gypsies" and the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin," his big-name novel in verse which provided a dazzling yet insightful portrait of a world-weary young member of the nobility who fails to appreciate a woman's love until it is too late and she is married to another person. After postal officials intercepted a letter which revealed his thinly-veiled support of atheism, Pushkin was exiled to his mother's estate of Mikhaylovskoye in northern Russia. The next two years, from August 1824 till August 1826, he lived at Mikhaylovskoye under surveillance. However unpleasant Pushkin might have found his virtual imprisonment in the village, the years at Mikhailovskoye saw the maturation of his talent, as he moved away from the sensuous flavor of his southern poems toward a more austere and incisive form. While at Mikhaylovskoye, he completed "The Gypsies," wrote the dramas "Boris Godunov" and "Count Nulin" and the second chapter of "Eugene Onegin." His sweeping historical tragedy, "Boris Godunov," was published in 1831. It was based on the controversial reign of Boris Godunov, the Russian Tsar from 1598 to 1605. When the new Emperor, Nicolas I, allowed Pushkin to return to Moscow, the poet openly abandoned his revolutionary sentiments. When the Decembrist Uprising took place in St. Petersburg on 14 December 1825 (the failed conspiracy organized by a group of aristocrats to overthrow the legitimate Emperor Nicolas I and to replace him with their protégé, the Emperor's brother Konstantin), Pushkin, still at Mikhailovskoye, was not involved, but greatly sympathized with the rioters, many of them being his Lyceum friends. In the late spring of 1826, he sent the Tsar a petition that he be released from exile. After the uprising had been suppressed and many of its participants sentenced to the death penalty, Pushkin's friends among them, Pushkin's activity was subjected to a meticulous investigation to establish his plausible connection with the rioters. After a very detailed interview with the Emperor himself, Pushkin was ecstatic to find out his appeal had been allowed, however, with the Emperor personally censoring all of his works. Later, Pushkin was to discover that his freedom was not entirely unconditional. Count Benkendorf, Chief of the Gendarmes, let Pushkin know that without prior permission he was not to make any trip, participate in any journal, or publish - or even publicly read - any of his works. He was questioned several times by the police about poems he had written. Meanwhile, Pushkin, still light-hearted and at the stage of matrimony, engaged in searching for an appropriate wife. He sought no less than the most beautiful woman in Russia for his bride. In 1829, he found her in Natalya Goncharova, and plighted his troth to her in April of that same year. She finally agreed to marry him on the condition that his ambiguous situation with the government be clarified - and it was. As a wedding gift, Pushkin was given permission to publish "Boris Godunov" after four years of waiting for approval. He was formally betrothed on 6 May 1830. Financial arrangements in connection with the recent acquisition of part of the family stead required that he visit the neighboring estate of Boldino in east-central Russia. Pushkin had only planned go be there for a few days but to his dismay, he got stranded by an Asiatic cholera outbreak for three months. These three months in Boldino, however, turned out to be the most fruitful period of his life in terms of creativity. During the last months of his exile at Mikhaylovskoe, he did produce two more chapters of "Eugene Onegin", but in the four subsequent years he had only written "Poltava"(1828), his unfinished novel "The Blackamoor of Peter the Great" (1827), a narration about his Abyssinian ancestor Gannibal, and chapter seven of "Eugene Onegin" (1827-1828). During the autumn at Boldino, Pushkin wrote the five short stories of "The Tales of Belkin"; the versed tale "The Little House in Kolomna"; four "little tragedies": "The Avaricious Knight," "Mozart and Salieri;" "", and "Feast in Time of Plague"; fairy tales in verse, the last chapter of "Eugene Onegin" and a great number of poems. Pushkin finally married Natalya Goncharova on 18 February1831 in Moscow. In May, the Pushkins moved to Tsarskoe Selo, to settle for a more frugal life and enjoy the peace and tranquility of the countryside. They never found what they wanted, as a cholera outbreak in St. Petersburg drove the Emperor and his court to take refuge in Tsarskoe Selo in July. In October of 1831 the Pushkins moved back to St. Petersburg to an apartment where they spent the rest of their lives. Natalya's beauty immediately made a sensation in high society, the Emperor himself being one of her admirers. Because of her popularity, Pushkin was forced to spend more time in the capital than he wished. On 30 December 1833, Nicholas I made Pushkin a Kammerjunker, a low court rank usually granted to the youngsters of high aristocratic families. Pushkin was deeply offended and all the more convinced, that, apart from being worthless in terms of career, the rank was merely an excuse for his wife to frequent court balls. Pushkin could ill afford the expense of gowns for Natalya for court balls, required for performing court duties. His troubles further increased when her two unmarried sisters came to live with them in the autumn of 1834. In addition, in the spring of 1834, he had taken over the management of his father's estate and agreed to settle the debts of his heedless brother. His financial situation was so aggravated that he applied for a substantial loan to cover his most pressing debts, and for the permission to publish a journal. He received the loan and a little later, in 1836, was permitted to publish a quarterly literary journal, The Contemporary. The journal was not a financial success; in addition, it got Pushkin involved in endless editorial and financial debates and in trouble with the censors. Short visits to the country in 1834 and 1835 resulted in the completion of his fairy tale in verse, "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"(1834) while in 1836 he completed his novel, "The Captain's Daughter," about Pugachev's peasant uprising of 1773-1775, and a number of his finest lyrics. By the mid 30s, many critics began to refer to Pushkin's works as outdated and obsolete, which was a disastrous thing for Pushkin to hear; it dispirited him immensely. In addition to that, his family life had hit the rocks as well. In 1834 Natalya Pushkina met a handsome French royalist émigré in Russian service. Young d'Anthes had been pursuing her for two years, and eventually, his claims became so open and unabashed, that in the fall of1836, it led to a scandal. Pushkin challenged d'Anthes to a duel. He retracted the challenge, however, when he learned from rumors that d'Anthes was "really" in love with Natalya's sister, Ekaterina Goncharova. On 10 January 1837, their marriage took place, but Pushkin refused to attend the wedding or to receive the couple in his home. After the marriage, d'Anthes resumed pursuing Natalya Pushkina with doubled tenacity. A duel between Pushkin and d'Anthes finally took place on 27 January 1837. D'Anthes fired first, and Pushkin was mortally wounded. He died two days later, on 29 January. Thousands of people of all social levels came to Pushkin's apartment to express sympathy and to mourn him. Fearing a public outcry over the senseless loss of this great figure, the authorities falsely declared that a funeral service would be held in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, with admission only granted to members of the court and diplomatic society. The real service, however, was held in secret a day before it was announced, and Pushkin's body was smuggled out of the capital in the dead of night. Pushkin was buried beside his mother at dawn on 6 February 1837 at Svyatye Gory Monastery, near Mikhaylovskoye. This place, with exquisite Pushkin family estates snuggled in the picturesque landscapes, has become a Mecca for all those in love with Pushkin's works and literature in general. Aleksandr Pushkin. (Russia's major classic, post-Romantic poet and novelist; b. Moscow, part African descent; st. at Tsarkoe Tselo, l. St. Petersburg, Romantic and liberal, banished for blasphemy, famous writer, pardoned by Nicholas I, married socialite Natalia Goncharova, affairs, d. in a duel in Saint Petersburg killed by one of his wife's suitors) Works. Pushkin, Alexandr. (Memories of Tsarkoe Tselo). c. 1814. Ruslan and Ludmila. Folk romantic poem. 1920. Gavriliad. Poem. (Author banished for blasphemy). Boris Godunov. (Written during Pushkin's banishment). Boris Godunov. In Pushkin, The Complete Works: Volume Six: Boris Godunov and Other Dramatic Works. Trans. Roger Clarke et al. Downham Market (Norfolk): Milner and Co., c. 2000. Evgenij Onegin. Verse novel. Written 1823-31, pub. 1825-32. (Written during his banishment). Evgenij Onegin. Ed. Dmitry Cizevsky. Cambridge (MA): Harvard UP, 1953. Eugene Onegin. Trans. Walter Arndt. New York: Dutton, 1963. Rev. 1965. Eugene Onegin. Trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964. Eugene Onegin. By Aleksandr Pushkin. Trans. with a commentary by Vladimir Nabokov. 4 vols. New York: Bollingen, 1964. Eugene Onegin. Rev. ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975. 1981. Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse. By Aleksandr Pushkin; translated from the Russian, with a commentary, by Vladimir Nabokov. 4 vols. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, [1976]. Eugene Onegin. Trans. Charles Johnston. London: Scolar Press, 1977. Eugene Onegin. Trans. Charles Johnson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Eugene Onegin. In Pushkin, The Complete Works: Volume Four: Eugene Onegin. Trans. James Falen and Roger Clarke. Downham Market (Norfolk): Milner and Co., c. 2000. The Stone Guest. Drama. The Bronze Horseman. Introd. and trans. Robert Powell-Jones. Malton: Stone Trough, c. 2000. El caballero de bronce. (Peter the Great's Negro). Historical novel. The Captain's Daughter. In Pushkin, The Complete Works: Volume Seven: The Captain's Daughter. Trans. Paul Debreczeny. Downham Market (Norfolk): Milner and Co., c. 2000. La hija del capitán. Novel. "The Pistol Shot." Story. "The Queen of Spades." Story. "Mozart and Salieri." Trans. Vladimir Nabokov. (Bielkin stories). (Pikovaia Dama). "On Man's Duties: An Essay for Silvio Pellico." 1836. In The Critical Prose of . Trans. Carl Proffer. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1969. (Complete works). 6 vols. Russia: Academia, 1936. The Tempest. La ventisca y otros cuentos. Trans. Odile Gommes. Madrid: Edaf, 1967. Dubrovski. Los relatos de Belkin. Estella: Salvat, 1983. The Queen of Spades and Other Stories. Trans. Alan Meyers. (World's Classics). Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Rusalka. The Complete Works: Vol. 3: Lyric Poems, 1826-1836. Various translators. Volume Four: Eugene Onegin. Trans. James Falen and Roger Clarke. Volume Six: Boris Godunov and Other Dramatic Works. Trans. Roger Clarke et al. Volume Seven: The Captain's Daughter. Trans. Paul Debreczeny. Volume Ten: Letters, 1815-1826. Trans. J. Thomas Shaw. Downham Market (Norfolk): Milner and Co., c. 2000. The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin. Trans. Carl Proffer. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1969. Feinstein, Elaine, ed. After Pushkin: Versions of the Poems of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Manchester: Carcanet / Folio Society, c. 2000. Hughes, O. R., RIP Hughes and Gleb Strube, eds. A Century of Russian Prose and Verse from Pushkin to Nabokov. New York: Harcourt, 1967. Nabokov, Vladimir, trans. Three Russian Poets. Verse translation. Norfolk (CT): New Directions, 1945. Enlarged ed., under the title Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev. London: Lindsay Drummond, 1947. Criticism. Benítez Burraco, Antonio. Tres ensayos sobre literatura rusa: Pushkin, Gógol y Chéjov. (Acta Salmanticensia; Estudios Filológicos, 313). Salamanca: Ediciones U de Salamanca, 2006. (Pushkin's poetry, The Overcoat, Chekhov's 'small trilogy'). Bethea, David M. Realizing Matters: Alexander Pushkin and "The Life of the Poet." (Wisconsin Center for series). U of Wisconsin P, 1998. Благой, Дмитрий. Мастерство Пушкина. Москва, 1955. Boyd, Brian. "Nabokov, Pushkin, Shakespeare: Genius, Generosity, and Gratitude in The Gift and Pale Fire. " In Boyd, Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays. New York: Columbia UP, 2011. 203-13.* Briggs, A. D. P., ed. Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia's Best-Loved Writer. Hazar, c. 2000. Chemiakin, Mikhail, and Vladimir Retsepter. The Return of Pushkin's Rusalka. St. Petersburg: Pushkin State Theatre Center, c. 2000. Clayton, J. Douglas. Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1985. Cooke, Brett. Pushkin and the Creative Process. UP of Florida, 1998. Davydov, Sergej. "Nabokov and Pushkin." In The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. Ed. Vladimir Alexandrov. New York: Garland, 1995. 482-96.* Dolack, Tom. "Homo Oneginensis: Pushkin and Evo- Cognitive Approaches to Literature." Style 46.3-4 (2012): 338-54.* http://www.engl.niu.edu/ojs/index.php/style/article/view/318/252 2013 Dolinin, Alexander. "Eugene Onegin." In The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. Ed. Vladimir Alexandrov. New York: Garland, 1995. 117-30.* Garrard, John, ed. The Russian Novel from Pushkin to Pasternak. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983. Goscilo, Helena. "Multiple Texts in Eugene Onegin: A Preliminary Analysis." Russian Literature Triquarterly 23 (1990): 271-85. Kagan, Matvei Isaevich. "O puchkinskich poèmakh" ["On Pushkin's Narrative Poems"]. In V mire Pushkina: Svornik statei. Ed. S. Mashinskii. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1974. 85-119. Kahn, Andrew. "Trailing Pushkin." Reviews. TLS 10 March 2000: 24.* Lotman, Iuri M. (Юрий Лотман). "Идейная структура 'Капитанской дочки'." In Пушкинский сборник. Псков, 1962. 3–20. Lukács, Georg. "Pushkin's Place in World Literature." In Lukács, Writer and Critic. London: Merlin, 1978. 227-56. Lunacharsky, Anatoly. "Alexander Pushkin." 1922. In Lunacharsky, On Literature and Art. Moscow: Progress, 1965. 93-100. Malia, Martin. Russia under Western Eyes: From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum. Cambridge (MA): Harvard UP- Belknap Press, 1999. Mashinskii, S., ed. V mire Pushkina: Svornik statei. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1974. Meyer, Priscilla. "Nabokov's Lolita and Pushkin's Onegin: McAdam, McEve and McFate." In The Achievements of Vladimir Nabokov: Essays, Studies, Reminiscences and Stories. Ed. George Gibian and Stephen Jan Parker. Ithaca: Cornell University Center for International Studies, 1984. 179-212.* Monnier, A. "Pushkin (1799-1837)." In A History of European Literature. Ed. Annick Benoit-Dusausoy and Guy Fontaine. London: Routledge, 2000. 438-41.* Nabokov, Vladimir. "Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable." Essay. (French). Nouvelle Revue Française (March 1937): 362-78. Rpt. in Magazine littéraire 233 (1986): 49-54.* "Pushkin, or the Real and the Plausible." Trans. Dmitri Nabokov. New York Review of Books 31 March 1988. "Problems of Translation: Onegin in English." Partisan Review (Autumn 1955): 496-512. "Problems of Translation: Onegin in English." In Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Ed. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1992. 127-143. "Problems of Translation: 'Onegin' in English." 1955. In. The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2000. 2001. 71-83.* Notes on prosody, and Abram Gannibal; from the Commentary to the author's translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. (Bollingen series, 72) Princeton (NJ): Princeton UP, [c1964]. "On Translating Pushkin: Pounding the Clavichord." Rev. of Arndt's translation. New York Review of Books 30 April 1964: 14-16. "Pounding the Clavichord." In Nabokov, Strong Opinions. New York: Random House-Vintage International, 231-40.* Letter to Editor. "Nabokov v. Deutsch." New Statesman 22 Jan. 1965. "Pushkin v. Deutsch." New Statesman 23 April 1965. "Nabokov's Onegin." Letter to Editor. Encounter (May 1966): 91-92. "Translation." Letter to Editor. New York Review of Books 20 Jan. 1966. "Pushkin's English." Letter to Editor. New Statesman 19 Jan. 1968. Naumann, Marina Turkevich. Nabokov and Pushkin Tuning Fork. Princeton: Princeton University, 1991. Ortiz, Javier. "The Ironic Narrative in Eugene Onegin and Don Juan." Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 24 (1992): 19-32. Petrovskij, Michail. "Die Morphologie von Pushkins Erzählung 'Der Schuss'." Ed. and trans. Matthias Aumüller. In Russische Proto-Narratologie: Texte in kommentierten Übersetzungen. Ed. Wolf Schmid. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. 67-89.* Rev. of Eugene Onegin. By A. Pushkin, trans. V. Nabokov. TLS 28 jan. 1965. Rubás, Stanislav. Já písi vám: Evzen Onegin v Ceskych prekladech. Brno: Host, 2009. Shapiro, Michael. "Pushkin's Poetic Mentors." In Shapiro, The Sense of Form in Literature and Language. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998. 117-42.* Shapiro, Michael, and Marianne Shapiro. "Pushkin's Poetic Mentors." In The Sense of Form in Literature and Language. 2nd ed. by Michael and Marianne Shapiro. California: Scotts Valley, 2009. 223-58.* Shklovski, Viktor. Ocherki po poetike Pushkina. Berlin, 1923. "Eugenio Oniegin: Pushkin y Sterne." In Antología del formalismo ruso y el grupo de Bajtin. Ed. Emil Volek. Madrid: Fundamentos, 1992. 187-90. Tammi, Pekka. "Nabokov's Symbolic Cards and Pushkin's 'The Queen of Spades'." The Nabokovian 13 (1984): 31-32. Tynianov, Iuri (Iouri Tynianov). "Les archaïstes et Pouchkine." In Tynianov, Formalisme et histoire littéraire. Ed. and trans. Catherine Depretto-Genty. Lausanne: L'Age d'Homme, 1991. 42-181.* Simmons, Ernest. Rev. of Eugene Onegin. By A. Pushkin, trans. V. Nabokov. New York Times Book Review 28 June 1964. Ulicny, Miloslav. Rev. of Já písi vám: Evzen Onegin v Ceskych prekladech. By Stanislav Rubás. Hermeneus 12 (2010): 281-83.* Wilson, Edmund. "In Honour of Pushkin." 1937. In Wilson, The Triple Thinkers. London: Lehmann, 1952. 37-63.* Rev. of Eugene Onegin. By A. Pushkin. Trans. V. Nabokov. New York Review 26 August 1965. Rev. of Eugene Onegin. Rev. version in Wilson, A Window on Russia. New York: Farrar, 1972. Zhirmunski, Viktor. "Byron y Pushkin: El concepto de influencia literaria." In Antología del formalismo ruso y el grupo de Bajtin. Ed. Emil Volek. Madrid: Fundamentos, 1992. 191-204.* Wain, John. Rev. of Eugene Onegin. By A. Pushkin, trans. V. Nabokov. Listener 29 April 1965. Nabokov. "On Translating 'Eugene Onegin'." In Nabokov, Poems and Problems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. 175. Djargomijski. Rusalka. Opera. Shostakovich, Dmitri. Three Romances on Poems by Pushkin op. 46a. In Shostakovich, The Orchestral Songs, Vol. 1. Sergei Leiferkus. Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Neeme Järvi. CD. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, 1994.* ("Regeneration"; "A Jealous Maiden"; "Premonition"). Tavener, John. Diódia. The World. Akhmatova Songs. Many Years. Patricia Rozario. The Vanbrugh Quartet. CD. London: Hyperion, 2001.* (Akhmatova Songs: "Dante," "Pushkin and Lermontov," "Boris Pasternak," "Couplet," "The Muse," "Death"). Tchaikovski, Piotr Ilich Eugene Onegin. Opera in three acts. Libretto by Tchaikovski, based on the poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. 1877-78. Eugene Onegin: Arias and Scenes. Weikl, Kubiak, Burrows, Hamari, Ghiaurov. John Alldis Choir; Orchestra or the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Sir Georg Solti. Prod. Decca, 1975. CD. (La Gran Opera). Madrid: Decca / Club Internacional del Libro, 1999.* Pikovaya Dama. Opera in three acts. Libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky, after Pushkin. Written 1890. Pique Dame: The Queen of Spades. Vladimir Atlantov, Mirella Freni, Sergei Leiferkus, Maureen Forrester, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Katherine Ciesinski, Dominique Labelle, Janis Taylor, Ernesto Gavazzi, Julian Rodescu, Richard Clement, Dennis Petersen, Jorge Chaminé. Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver). American Boychoir. Boston Symphony Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa. Prod. Jay David Saks. Rec. 1991. 3 CDs, with libretto in Russian (translit. Martin Cooper 1977), English (trans. Martin Cooper, 1977), German (trans. Dr. Detlef Gojowy, 1977) and French (André Lischke, 1977). Notes by Steven Ledbetter. (RCA Victor Red Seal). BMG Ariola, 1992.* Web site to visit: https://www.unizar.es. Author of the text: indicated on the source document of the above text. Alexander Pushkin.

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин, Aleksandr Sergeevič Puškin , listen ) ( June 6, 1799 [ O.S. May 26] – February 10, 1837 [ O.S. January 29] ) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers. Pushkin's father descended from a distinguished family of the Russian nobility which traced its ancestry back to the 12th century, while his mother's grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was a great military leader, engineer and nobleman under the auspices of his adoptive father Peter the Great. It should be noted that some British aristocrats descend from Gannibal, such as Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster. Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen. By the time he finished as part of the first graduating class of the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo near St. Petersburg, the Russian literary scene recognized his talent widely. After finishing school, Pushkin installed himself in the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, St. Petersburg. In 1820 he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila , amidst much controversy about its subject and style. Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. This angered the government, and led to his transfer from the capital. He went first to Kishinev in 1820, where he became a Freemason. Here he joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organization whose purpose was to overthrow the Ottoman rule over Greece and establish an independent Greek state. He was inspired by the Greek Revolution and when the war against the Ottoman Turks broke out he kept a diary with the events of the great national uprising. He stayed in Kishinev until 1823 and—after a summer trip to the Caucasus and to the Crimea—wrote two Romantic poems which brought him wide acclaim, The Captive of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray . In 1823 Pushkin moved to Odessa, where he again clashed with the government, which sent him into exile at his mother's rural estate in north Russia from 1824 to 1826. However, some of the authorities allowed him to visit Tsar Nicholas I to petition for his release, which he obtained. But some of the insurgents in the Decembrist Uprising (1825) in St. Petersburg had kept some of his early political poems amongst their papers, and soon Pushkin found himself under the strict control of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will. He had written what became his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov , while at his mother's estate but could not gain permission to publish it until five years later. In 1831, highlighting the growth of Pushkin's talent and influence and the merging of two of Russia's greatest early writers, he met Nikolai Gogol. The two would become good friends and would support each other. Pushkin would be greatly influenced in the field of prose from Gogol's comical stories. After reading Gogol's 1831-2 volume of short stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Pushkin would support him critically and later in 1836 after starting his magazine, The Contemporary, would feature some of Gogol's most famous short stories. Later, Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, became regulars of court society. When the Tsar gave Pushkin the lowest court title, the poet became enraged: He felt this occurred not only so that his wife, who had many admirers—including the Tsar himself—could properly attend court balls, but also to humiliate him. In 1837, falling into greater and greater debt amidst rumors that his wife had started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d'Anthès, to a duel which left both men injured, Pushkin mortally. He died two days later. The government feared a political demonstration at his funeral, which it moved to a smaller location and made open only to close relatives and friends. His body was spirited away secretly at midnight and buried on his mother's estate. There were 4 children of Pushkin's marriage to Natalya: Alexander, Grigory, Maria, and Natalia (who would marry into the royal house of Nassau and become the Countess of Merenberg). His last words were: "Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent." Literary legacy. Critics consider many of his works masterpieces, such as the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest , a tale of the fall of Don Juan. His poetic short drama "Mozart and Salieri" was the inspiration for Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Pushkin himself preferred his verse novel Eugene Onegin , which he wrote over the course of his life and which, starting a tradition of great Russian novels, follows a few central characters but varies widely in tone and focus. "Onegin" is a work of such complexity that, while only about a hundred pages long, translator Vladimir Nabokov needed four full volumes of material to fully render its meaning in English. Unfortunately, in so doing Nabokov, like all translators of Pushkin into English prose, totally destroyed the fundamental readability of Pushkin in Russian which makes him so popular, and despite other translations into English verse, Pushkin's verse remains largely unknown to English readers. But even with these difficulties, Pushkin has profoundly influenced western writers like Henry James. Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was conveniently pictured by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. They renamed Tsarskoe Selo after him. Pushkin's works also provided fertile ground for Russian composers. Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila is the earliest important Pushkin-inspired opera. Tchaikovsky's operas Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (1890) became perhaps better known outside of Russia than Pushkin's own works of the same name, while Mussorgsky's monumental Boris Godunov (two versions, 1868-9 and 1871-2) ranks as one of the very finest and most original of Russian operas. Other Russian operas based on Pushkin include Dargomyzhsky's Rusalka and The Stone Guest ; Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri , Tale of Tsar Saltan , and The Golden Cockerel ; Cui's Prisoner of the Caucasus , Feast in Time of Plague , and The Captain's Daughter ; and Nápravník's . This is not to mention ballets and cantatas, as well as innumerable songs set to Pushkin's verse. Influence on the Russian language. Pushkin is usually credited with developing literary Russian. Not only is he seen as having originated the highly nuanced level of language which characterizes Russian literature after him, but he is also credited with substantially augmenting the Russian lexicon. Where he found gaps in the Russian vocabulary, he devised calques. His rich vocabulary and highly sensitive style are the foundation for modern literary Russian.