Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 8, Number 3, Fall 1999 ‘Pushkin Was a Live Volcano...’ The Poet, As Seen by His Contemporaries by E.S. Lebedeva Pushkin was a live volcano, whose collaboration, chance meetings on inner life burst from him like the post roads, or in some Cos- a column of fire. sack settlement, or on the Geor- —F. Glinka (I, 245)1 gian Military Highway. People of different levels of culture gave Poetry is the exclusive passion of those testimony about him, and there is few, who are born poets. a great range of variety in how —A.S. Pushkin they perceived the personality of the poet: from tender solicitude at ushkin lived his life in a big the sight of a missing button on and noisy crowd—not in his jacket, to amazement at the Pisolation, but surrounded by scope of the phenomenon that many people who had the opportu- was Pushkin. nity to see him. We can hear the All social layers are represent- chorus of his contemporaries, with ed on the list of people who have its great range of voices, in their said what they had to say about reminiscences about him. the poet—from the Emperor to These memoirs have a certain the serf, from the fashionable for- peculiar feature. The people closest tune-teller to the old Cossack to the poet found it difficult to Manuscript sketch, 1820, self-portrait (lower left) woman, who remembered speak, and they did not do so right with members of the Rayevsky family. Pushkin. The richness of these away. Alexander Sergeyevich’s memoirs is a natural response to friend S.A. Sobolevsky expressed the reason for this con- the character of his genius, open as it was to the world straint, in his own way, in 1855: “In order not to retell and to people: In Pushkin’s own words (as related by what is superfluous, or fail to tell adequately what should A.O. Smirnova), he saw his own mind in every person, be told, every friend of Pushkin ought to remain silent. .. and every conversation partner was interesting for him— Let those who didn’t know him, write about him.” (I, 38) “from the police watchman, to the Tsar.” Be that as it may, memoirs about the poet ultimately I.I. Pushchin, the “first friend, . priceless friend,” filled two large volumes. sketched the far from simple relations among the Lycée The degree of his closeness to the memoir writers classmates. “From the very beginning, Pushkin annoyed varies—friendship of many years, blood kinship, literary many people, and therefore did not inspire general sym- pathy; that is the lot of an eccentric being, among peo- –––––––––– ple.” (I, 82) Even earlier, his perceptive and loving grand- Eleonora Sergeyevna Lebedeva heads the methodological mother had worried, as she observed the unusual child: department of the All-Russian Pushkin Museum in St. “He rushes from one extreme to another. He has no mid- Petersburg, and is the founder of the periodical, “Christian dle ground. God only knows, what it will all end in.” Culture: The Pushkin Epoch.” She works in Tsarskoye Selo (Ver., 33)2 (Pushkin), the suburb of St. Petersburg where Pushkin P.A. Pletnyov, whom the poet described as the posses- attended the Lycée. sor of “a beautiful soul, full of sacred dreams, living and 67 © 1999 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. clear poetry, lofty thoughts and simplicity,” formulated . but slim, strong and well-built. Women liked Pushkin; his amazement at Pushkin, in this way: “The ardent he fascinated them, and he inspired more than a few pas- nature of his soul, fused with his clarity of mind, made sions in his time. When he was flirting with a woman or him an extraordinary, even strange being, in whom all when he was genuinely engaged with her, his conversation qualities took an extreme form.” (II, 254) became unusually alluring. It should be noted that one In 1820, I.A. Capodistria, chief of the Collegium of rarely meets a person, who can express himself as indiffer- Foreign Affairs, wrote upon sending Pushkin to General ently and insufferably as Pushkin used to, when he was Inzov in the South: “There is no extreme, into which this not interested in the topic of discussion. But he would unfortunate young man would not fall, nor is there any become brilliantly eloquent, when it had to do with some- degree of perfection, which he could not attain, highly thing close to his heart. Then he was a poet, and rather gifted as he is.” (Ver., 90) more inspired than in any of his compositions.” (I, 63) Count Benkendorf recorded the paradox of Pushkin, The remarks of A.N. Vulf, “the Lovelace of Tver,” are from his own point of view: well known: “He knows wo- “Pushkin united in himself men like nobody else. For that two unique beings: He was a reason, though lacking any of great poet, and a great liberal, the external attributes, which hating any authority.” always influence the fairer sex, Adam Mickiewicz saw the he wins their favor with the uniqueness of his Russian fel- sheer brilliance of his mind.” It low writer, in his combination is interesting to contrast yet of poetic genius and civic, his- another “male” view of torical thinking: “The bullet Pushkin with these opinions— that felled Pushkin inflicted a the less popularized statement terrible blow against intellec- by A.A. Mukhanov (in a letter tual Russia. Now Russia has to his brother, May 1827): excellent writers . But “Alexander Pushkin, who is nobody will replace Pushkin. setting off into the night, will Only once is it granted to a bring you this letter.Try to get country, to produce a person, to know him better; it is who unites in himself to such impossible to value highly a degree such diverse and, enough the pleasure of passing seemingly, mutually exclusive time with him, thinking about qualities.” (I, 143) the impressions which his Russian religious philoso- unusual gifts awake in us. He phy has remarked upon Push- is a hundred times more inter- kin’s antinomic nature, from Manuscript page, “The Prisoner of the Caucasus,” 1834. esting in male company, than an ontological standpoint.3 with women, when he makes The comments cited above are sweeping statements himself comprehensible to the females by constantly dissi- about the poet’s personality. Other observers record more pating himself into pettiness.” (Ver., 235) particular, but very striking contradictions in the poet’s A.P. Kern, who observed the poet in quite varied cir- character, actions, and psyche. cumstances, noted: “He was very uneven in his manners: “I knew Alexander Sergeyevich as a quick-tempered sometimes loudly merry, sometimes sad, sometimes shy, person, sometimes to the point of frenzy,” testified his sometimes bold, sometimes inexhaustibly gracious, some- Kishinyov acquaintance, Lt. Col. I.P. Liprandi, “but at a times exceedingly boring—and there was no way to moment of danger, specifically, when he came face to face guess what mood he would be in a minute later.”4 with death, at which moment a person completely reveals These states, coming in frequent and rapid succession, himself, Pushkin was to a high degree imperturbable. sought an outlet, and Pushkin’s artistic nature expressed When things reached that barrier, he was as cool as ice. .. them not only in his creative work, but in life. In such cases, I have rarely encountered such a nature as “The Arabian Devil” [“Bes-Arabsky,” a pun on Pushkin’s. These two extremes, united as they were in “Bessarabian”–RBD] Petersburg friends of the poet called Alexander Sergeyevich, must be very rare.” (I, 316) him among themselves, when he was exiled to Bessarabia. The poet’s brother recalls: “Pushkin was not good-look- One rather air-headed Kishinyov lady saw him like this: ing, but his face was expressive and animated; he was short “Pushkin was still very young. He wasn’t exactly black, 68 but swarthy, or sun-burned. He was kind, well-mannered, physiognomy is so special and expressive, that any good but a mischief-maker. I would tell him, ‘You’re such a painter can capture it, but at the same time, it changes and child!’ And he called me a rose in the sweetbriar. I would shifts so much, that it is difficult to imagine that any por- say to him, ‘You’ll be jealous.’ And he’d say, ‘No! No! trait of Pushkin could give a true idea of him.” (Ver., 232) Never.’ He would improvise verses for us. Pushkin would That was said in 1827. After Pushkin’s death, his often walk in the city park. But every time, he put on a acquaintance V.A. Nashchokina recalled, “I have seen different costume. You’d look, and there would be many portraits of him, but sadly I must admit that not Pushkin as a Serb or a Moldavian. Ladies of his acquain- one of them conveyed even one-hundredth of the spiritual tance gave him the clothes. The Moldavians were wearing beauty of his face—especially his amazing eyes. In my cassocks at the time. Another time, you’d look, and whole long life, I have never seen any other eyes like Pushkin would be a Turk. that.” His eyes were light blue, or When he walked about in ordinary sometimes dark blue. clothes, in his overcoat, then he’d In 1827, when Pushkin was at always have one side over his the zenith of his fame, O.A.