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Writing the Story of Pushkin's Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Leslie O'Bell
Leslie O'Bell*
Affiliation:
The Department of Slavic Languages, University of Texas, Austin
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Extract

Biography would seem to be firmer ground than literary criticism: at least we like to think that biography has a factual basis in the writer's life. But of course, when we deal with biography, our sources turn out to be yet more texts (memoirs, diaries, letters, and the like), and for this reason we often discover that the documentary evidence for the writer's life is less than objective and in fact displays its own biases and is governed by its own conventions of representation.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 58 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Aleksandr Pushkin 1799-1999 , Summer 1999 , pp. 393 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1999

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References

1. The central studies of Pushkin's duel and death are P. E. Shchegolev's classic Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina: Issledovanie i materialy (1916, 2d ed. 1917, 3d ed. 1928; reprint, Moscow, 1987) and Stella Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina: Ianvar’ 1836–ianvar’ 1837 (St. Petersburg, 1994), the culmination of two decades of work. Shchegolev's studies include an appendix with most of the primary documents on the subject. From the western perspective we have Walter Vickery's Pushkin: Death of a Poet (Bloomington, 1969) and most recently Serena Vitale's study, Il bottone di Pus˘kin (Milan, 1995). See also the English translation, Pushkin's Button, trans. Ann Goldstein and Jon Rothschild (New York, 1998). This edition was not available to me at the time this article was written.

2. I am indebted to Caryl Emerson for this formulation.

3. See, for example, Leonid Grossman, “Kul'tura pisem v epokhu Pushkina,” in his Tsekh pera: Stat'i o literature (Moscow, 1930), 236–245; Lotman, Iu. M., “Dekabrist v povsednevnoi zhizni,” in Bazanov, V. G. and Vatsuro, V E., eds., Literatunoe nasledstvo dekabristov (Leningrad, 1975), 25–75.Google Scholar

4. Pushkin, A. S., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 10 vols. (Moscow, 1962–1966), 10: 621 Google Scholar (hereafter PSS, 10 vols.).

5. See Akhmatova, Anna, O Pushkine: Stat'i i zametki (Leningrad, 1977), 118–19, 131.Google Scholar

6. As cited in Gershtein, Emma, Sud'ba Lermontova (Moscow, 1964), 54.Google Scholar

7. Duel’ Pushkina s Dantesom–Gekkerenom: Podlinnoe voenno–sudebnoe delo 1837g. (St. Petersburg, 1900), 6.

8. Eidel'man, N. Ia., Gertsen proliv samoderzhaviia (Moscow, 1973), 270–71.Google Scholar

9. In 1995 the Italian Slavicist Serena Vitale published (in Russian translation) most of the twenty–five letters from d'Anthés to Heeckeren that she photocopied in the family archive of Baron Claude de Heeckeren. The letters, discussed at the end of this article, help to decide the question of the authenticity of d'Anthés's passion. See Serena Vitale and Vadim Stark, “Pis'ma Zhorzha Dantesa Baronu Gekkerenu 1835–36 godov,” Zvezda, 1995, no. 9: 166–98. For another exposition of the letters, see Prozhogin, N. P., “Pis'ma Dantesa: Istoriia dueli v interpretatsii ital'ianskoi issledovatel'nitsy,” Moskovskii pushkinist 4 (Moscow, 1997): 298–330.Google Scholar

10. In Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 284.

11. Gershtein, Sud'ba Lermontova, 55.

12. Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 129. This echoes one of Viazemskii's expressions. See Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 315.

13. Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 138. On Akhmatova's Pushkin scholarship, see my article “Akhmatova and Pushkin's Secret Writing,” in Ketchian, Sonia, ed., Anna Akhmatova 1889–1989: Papers of the Akhmatova Centennial Conference (Berkeley, 1993), 136–48Google Scholar.

14. The pendulum has now swung back against overreading Pushkin's death as determined by social and political factors, especially by the tsar himself and his purported love interest in Natal'ia Nikolaevna. See Lotman, Iu. M., “O dueli Pushkina bez ‘tain’ i ‘zagadok'” (1985), in his Pushkin (St. Petersburg, 1995), 375–88.Google Scholar

15. Efimov, N. N., “Biograficheskie fil'my o Pushkine,” Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy (Leningrad, 1967), 5: 309.Google Scholar

16. PSS, 10 vols., 5: 191.

17. PSS, 10 vols., 10: 279, letter of 5 April 1830.

18. Ibid.

19. As quoted in Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 35. The mythological reference is to the mismatched couple of the beautiful goddess and the ugly smith (who would later forge a net to catch Venus sporting with Mars).

20. As quoted in Raevskii, N., Portrety zagovorili, 2d ed. (Alma–Ata, 1976), 388.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., 389.

22. Ibid., 388.

23. Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 284.

24. Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 121–22.

25. As quoted in Raevskii, Portrety zagovorili, 357.

26. Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 144.

27. See Raevskii, Portrety zagovorili, 359–60.

28. For the legends, see Bartenev, P. E., O Pushkine (Moscow, 1992), 138–39Google Scholar. The legends are based on phrases in Pushkin's letter of 24 September 1824. See PSS, 10 vols., 10: 17. But compare Kunin, V V., Zhizn’ Pushkina rasskazannaia im samim i ego sovremennikami, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1987), 1: 332–34.Google Scholar

29. See Raevskii, Portrety zagovorili, 346, 424–25.

30. Lotman, “O dueli Pushkina bez ‘tain’ i ‘zagadok, '” 385.

31. Quoted in Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 315. She equates the intrigues with the anonymous letters.

32. PSS, 10 vols., 10: 621 (votre bâtard ou soi–disant tel).

33. Memoirs of Vladimir Sollogub as quoted in Shchegolev, Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, 2d ed., 105.

34. Letter of Sof’ia Karamzina as quoted in Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 323.

35. See Shchegolev, P. E., “Anonimnyi paskvil’i vragi Pushkina,” in his Duel’ i smert’ Pushkina, ed. Tsiavlovskii, M. A. (Moscow, 1936), 357–58Google Scholar; Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 128, 250–51; Lotman, “O dueli Pushkina bez ‘tain’ i ‘zagadok, '” 385–87. Leonid Grossman's fictionalized Zapiski d'Arshiaka depicts Heeckeren as in love with d'Anthès and jealous of his infatuation with Natal'ia Nikolaevna (1931; reprint, Moscow, 1990). This was also the opinion of Pushkin's first biographer, Pavel Annenkov. See Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 71.

36. See Shchegolev, “Anonimnyi paskvil’ i vragi Pushkina,” 269. Shchegolev felt able to write, in the shrill tones of the 1930s, “Pushkin's enemies were many in high society. […] The physical executors [of its will] come from the lower depths [ot nizin idut fizicheskie ispolniteli]. They adhere to a pathological sexual group formed around Heeckeren. […] Bound by the ‘tender ties’ of mutual male love [muzhskaia vliublennosl’], these young men […] conceived evil designs against Pushkin's honor—and as it turned out—against his life” (357–58).

37. Quoted in Shchegolev, “Anonimnyi paskvil’ i vragi Pushkina,” 357.

38. Botashev, N. and Andronnikov, I., “Iz pisem Karamzinykh,” Novyi mir, 1956, no. 1: 198 Google Scholar.

39. Gershtein, Sud'ba Lermontova, 69.

40. As quoted in Raevskii, Portrety zagovorili, 385.

41. Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 305.

42. Ibid., 114–15.

43. PSS, 10 vols., 10: 621. The “platitude” was d'Anthès's “flat” pun about Natal'ia Nikolaevna's corns. D'Anthès jested that the podiatrist thought Natalie's “cors” (corps) more beautiful than her sister Catherine's, comparing their “corns” or “body.” As quoted in Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 266.

44. The full title of the novel is Les Liaisons dangereuses ou lèttres recueilles dans une société et publiées pour l'instruction de quelques autres (Paris, 1782).

45. On the “duel'nyi sbornik,” see Eidel'man, N. la., Pushkin: Iz biografii i tvorchestva 1826–1837 (Moscow, 1987), 433–36Google Scholar. Eidel'man calls the collection, which was first published by Aleksandr Herzen in Polar Star, the “first investigative study” of Pushkin's duel and death.

46. Eidel'man, Pushkin, 415.

47. Eidel'man, N. la., “Niderlandskie materialy o dueli i smerti Pushkina,” Zapiski otdela rukopisei, no. 35 (Moscow, 1974), 202.Google Scholar

48. Eidel'man, Pushkin, 201.

49. I. Andronnikov, “Tagil'skaia nakhodka,” and N. Botashev and I. Andronnikov, “Iz pisem Karamzinykh,” both in Novyi mir, 1956, no. 1: 153–63, 163–210. The standard edition is Pushkin v pis'makh Karamzinykh 1836–37 godov (Moscow–Leningrad, 1960).

50. Eidel'man, Pushkin, 394. This might also have been another copy of Pushkin's letter to Heeckeren.

51. Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 286.

52. PSS, 10 vols., 10: 606, letter to Benkendorf of 21 November 1836.

53. Ibid., 10: 621.

54. Vol'pert, Larisa, “Druzheskaia perepiska Pushkina mikhailovskogo perioda (sentiabr’ 1824–dekabr’ 1825),” in Pushkinskii sbornik (Leningrad, 1977), 49–62.Google Scholar

55. de Laclos, Choderlos, Les Liaisons dangereuses (Paris, 1961), 157 Google Scholar. Where I provide translations, they are my own.

56. Ibid., 283.

57. See Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 300.

58. Vitale and Stark, “Pis'ma Zhorzha Dantesa Baronu Gekkerenu,” 184.

59. Ibid., 186.

60. Ibid., 187.

61. Ibid., 188.

62. Ibid., 189–90.

63. Ibid., 191.

64. Ibid.

65. A position summarized in Fridkin, V M., Chemodan Kloda Dantesa: Rasskazy (Moscow, 1997), 40.Google Scholar

66. See Laroch, Philippe, Petits–maîtres et roués: Évolution de la notion de libertinage dans le roman français du XVIIIe siècle (Québec, 1979).Google Scholar

67. Ibid., 146

68. Ibid., 271.

69. Ibid., 256.

70. Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses, 136.

71. Laroch, Petits–maîtres et roués, 4.

72. Abramovich, Predystoriia poslednei dueli Pushkina, 63.

73. Laroch, Petits–maîtres et roués, 11.

74. Pushkin v pis'makh Karamzinykh, 192.

75. Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses, 379.

76. On Natal'ia Nikolaevna and the response of Tat'iana, see Akhmatova, O Pushkine, 115 (note). As Pushkin had reminded his wife, “You know how I hate everything that smacks of the Moscow baryshnia, everything that is not comme il faut, that is vulgar.” PSS, 10 vols., 10: 453–54, letter of 30 October 1833.

77. Naumov, A. V., “Voenno–sudnoe delo o poslednei dueli Pushkina,” Moskovskii pushkinist 2 (Moscow, 1996): 265–91Google Scholar. See also his book Posmertno podsudimyi (Moscow, 1992), 187–277.

78. PSS, 10 vols., 10: 621.

79. Naumov, “Voenno–sudnoe delo o poslednei dueli Pushkina,” 288–89.