The Resurrection of Alexander Push Kin John Oliver Killens

New Directions Volume 5 | Issue 2 Article 9 1-1-1978 The Resurrection Of Alexander Push kin John Oliver Killens Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections Recommended Citation Killens, John Oliver (1978) "The Resurrection Of Alexander Push kin," New Directions: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, Article 9. Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol5/iss2/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TH[ ARTS Essay every one of the courts of Europe, then 28 The Resurrection of of the 19th century? Here is how it came to pass. Peter felt that he had to have at least Alexander Pushkin one for his imperial court. Therefore, In the early part of the 18th century, in By [ohn Oliver Killens he sent the word out to all of his that sprawling subcontinent that took Ambassadors in Europe: To the majority of literate Americans, up one-sixth of the earth's surface, the giants of Russian literature are extending from the edge of Europe "Find me a Negro!" Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky and thousands of miles eastward across Meanwhile, Turkey and Ethiopia had Turgenev. Nevertheless, 97 years ago, grassy steppes (plains), mountain ranges been at war, and in one of the skirmishes at a Pushkin Memorial in Moscow, and vast frozen stretches of forest, lakes a young African prince had been cap- Dostoevsky said: "No Russian writer and unexplored terrain, was a land tured and brought back to Turkey and was so intimately at one with the known as the Holy Russian Empire, fore- placed in a harem. He had been eight- Russian people as Pushkin. Those runner of the Union of Soviet Socialist years-old and was going to be trained to multitudinous writers who have taken Republics, which is so vast, even today be a eunuch. In the Sultan's harem, the people as their theme compared to it has seven time zones. For example, young boys were fattened and castrated Pushkin, are, with, at the most, two the United States of America has only somewhat like wealthy race horsemen exceptions, only gentlemen writing four. The Emperor of this empire was have done to their geldings, so these about the masses. Even in those two Peter the Great, Czar he was of all the boys could move among the beautiful gifted exceptions, Tolstoy and Russians. nubile women of the harem and have Turgenev, there is apt to appear upon The Russian aristocracy had a severe no sexual desires. occasion a flash of haughtiness, which inferiority complex vis-a-vis the rest of seems like an effort to bring happiness Europe, especially the French. Many This is the fate that Pushkin's great- to the masses by raising them to the Europeans looked upon the people of grandfather would have suffered had he writer's level. Without Pushkin, we Russia disdainfully as "barbaric not been kidnapped at the age of nine by would have lost, not literature alone, Asiatics." The Russian nobility wor- the Russian ambassador to Turkey and but much of our irresistible force, our shipped French as if it were a fetish that brought to the court of Peter the Great. faith in our national individuality, our would ward off evil spirits, secure to Peter took an immediate fancy to the belief in the people's power, and most them the keys to the kingdom and bring lad, who was strikingly handsome and of all, our belief in our destiny." all happy things to past. The French highly intelligent. He was promoted Franco-Russian biographer Henri Troyat language, the way of life, the entire rapidly from lackey to footman to, at wrote in his biography on Pushkin: culture were servilely worshipped and the age of 16, the office of personal "Pushkin grew with the years. Every adulated. All imperial documents, all secretary to His Most Imperial Majesty. other Russian writer claimed descent official papers, the literature, all decrees Eventually, Peter adopted the lad and from him. Inexplicably, the whole of were in French instead of Russian. A became his godfather. The Queen of Russian literature proceeded from his man might have been a street hoodlum Poland became his godmother. But the genius. Poetry, novels, short stories, or a garbage collector in Paris. In Russia lad was proud of his African origin and history, theatre, criticism-he opened he was a uchitol (house tutor) in one of refused to adopt the Christian name of up the whole gamut of literary endeavor the great Russian households. his imperial godfather. Instead, he chose to his countrymen. He was the first in In those days it was fashionable in the name of an ancient ancestor and time, he was the first in quality. He was Europe to have at least one Negro in the named himself Ibrahim Petrovich the source. Neither Gogol nor Tolstoy imperial palace, or Ethiope, or Blacka- Hannibal. Under the sponsorship of could have existed without Pushkin, for moor, as Black people were designated Great Peter, he received an education in he made the Russian language; he in the courts of Europe in that far-off France in Army engineering. Back in prepared the ground for the growth of era. Usually the Blackamoor played the Russia, after the death of Peter, he was every genre." role of lackey, footman, court jester or exiled to Siberia where he remained The question is: Why is it that most buffoon. It was the in thing in Europe, until the reign of Empress Elizabeth, literate Americans know so little about a kind of European-type feudalistic who had been his playmate when they this great Afro-Russian? And how did tokenism, as seen today in all levels of were children in the court of Peter the Alexander Pushkin happen to find him- government. Great Peter was a Euro- Great. Under the regimes of Empresses self in imperial Russia at the beginning phile, and if at least one Negro graced Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, his 29 30 star went into orbit. He became a then I was hooked. I had an Afro- Back to Moscow and to Pushkin Square, general in the Russian army and ac- Russian on my back, and loving it. I a plaza located in the heart of town quired an estate with a thousand serfs. would go away from him and write where stands a gigantic monument to He lived almost a hundred years. Ibrahim another book, then back to Alexander Pushkin at the foot of which fresh Petrovich Hannibal was the maternal Sergeivich, another book, back to flowers are placed each day of the year, great-grandfather of Alexander Sergeie- Pushkin, until I began to get invitations excepting of course those frigid snow- vich Pushkin, the father of Russian from the Soviet Union to attend the covered days of Moscow winters. Hun- literature. annual Pushkin festivals. dreds of his countrymen and women were lined up to take their tum to stand Pushkin was born on May 29, 1799. He What is a Pushkin festival? was proud of his African ancestry. One and gaze at Pushkin's magnificent of his unfinished works, published after During the last week of May and a larger-than-life monument-in-bronze. his untimely death in 1837 in a duel, couple weeks into June, an annual As a boy, Pushkin spent a lot of time was "The Negro of Peter the Great," a festival is held in the Soviet Union to alone with his books. His brother, Leo novel about his great-grandfather. which writers from all over the world could boast that at the age of 11, are invited to celebrate the life and How did I get hooked on Pushkin? Pushkin knew all of French literature contributions of Alexander Pushkin to What was my initial inspiration? by heart, including Moliere, Racine and world literature and the humanities. Voltaire. At age 12, he wrote continu- I was at my home in Brooklyn about 14 In 1968, my wife and I decided to attend a Pushkin festival. We flew to Moscow ously and in Russian idiom, which was years ago when I got a phone call from not the style in those days in Russia. He and caught a midnight train to Lenin- Paris, France, from a friend of mine- was published at 15. At 20, he was grad, which was called Saint Petersburg Harry Belafonte. He called to tell me banished from St. Petersburg to the in Pushkin's days. In Leningrad, we that he had been with Russian film south of Russia for revolutionary went to all of the places where the great producers who wanted to do an English- activity and his inflammatory verse, man lived out his brief tumultuous life speaking movie on the life of Alexander such as his Ode To Freedom, calling on so precariously. We visited the duel Pushkin. They wanted him to play the the serfs to rise up and throw off their ground where he was fatally wounded role of Pushkin, he said, and that I was shackles, and his The Dagger, in which and his apartment on Moika Street. chosen to do the screenplay. "What do he extolls the use of violence as a you think, John," he said. From Leningrad then to a city where he means of liberation. He wrote studied at the Lycee, an elitist school Derevtiya, The Village, in which he "Greatest idea you ever had, Harry.

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