Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin

  10. “Natalya, the Boyar’s Daughter”: A sentimental historical tale by the poet, writer, and historian Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766–1826), who was much admired by Pushkin.

  11. Taras Skotinin: A character in Fonvizin’s The Dunce (see note 1 to The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin).

  THE HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF GORYUKHINO (1830)

  1. the New Grammar: The New Grammar, published in 1769 by Nikolai Gavrilovich Kurganov (1725–1796), professor of mathematics and navigation at Moscow University, had great influence on later Russian writers, Pushkin among them. Pyotr Grigorievich Plemyannikov (d. 1775) served as general under the empress Elizabeth I (1709–1762), the daughter of Peter the Great.

  2. a new Niebuhr: Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776–1831), German historian, was one of the founders of modern historiography.

  3. zemstvo: The name, derived from zemlya (land, earth), for the local organization of peasants in a village or group of villages. It acquired a new official meaning after the reforms of Alexander II in 1864.

  4. the year 1812: See note 3 to “The Blizzard.” “The twelve nations” in the next sentence refers to the alliance that formed the army of Napoleon.

  5. Misanthropy and Repentance: A play by the German playwright and author August von Kotzebue (1761–1819), who also worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Russia and served for a time as Russian consul to Germany. His plays were popular among Russian audiences.

  6. The Well-Intentioned…the Hamburg Gazette: The Well-Intentioned and The Zealot for Enlightenment mentioned later were popular Petersburg journals of the early nineteenth century. The Hamburg Gazette, one of the oldest German newspapers, was in its time the most widely read paper in the world.

  7. Rurik: Rurik, the ninth-century Swedish Varangian chieftain, invaded Russia, settled near Novgorod, and founded the first dynasty of Russian tsars, who ruled until the seventeenth century.

  8. Millot…Tatishchev, Boltin, and Golikov: The abbé Claude-François-Xavier Millot (1726–1785) was a Jesuit and a historian, author of a number of works, including Elements of General History Ancient and Modern (1772–1783). Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev (1686–1750), Ivan Nikitich Boltin (1735–1792), and Ivan Ivanovich Golikov (1735–1801) wrote on various aspects of Russian history. Catherine the Great acquired Boltin’s papers after his death and made a gift of them to the Pushkin family.

  9. Deriukhovo and Perkukhovo: The names are comical in a rather crude way, suggestive of ear-pulling and throat-clearing. Goryukhino itself is formed from the word gorye (woe, grief).

  10. a double-headed eagle: Taverns were licensed by the state and were required to display the state symbol, the double-headed eagle.

  11. Mr. Sumarokov: Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717–1777), poet and playwright, is considered the first professional man of letters in Russia.

  ROSLAVLEV (1831)

  1. Roslavlev: Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812, the second novel of Mikhail Nikolaevich Zagoskin (1789–1852), was published in 1831. His first novel, Yuri Miloslavsky, published in 1829, became the first Russian bestseller. His work was modeled on the novels of Walter Scott.

  2. Montesquieu…Crébillon…Rousseau…Sumarokov: For Montesquieu see note 8 to The Moor of Peter the Great. Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707–1777), son of a famous playwright and member of the French Academy, was himself a novelist, songwriter, and bon vivant. Rousseau is…Rousseau (see note 12 to “The Blizzard”). For Sumarokov, see note 11 to The History of the Village of Goryukhino.

  3. Lomonosov: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711–1765) wrote on a wide range of subjects—scientific, literary, historical, philological. He was also a poet and was influential in the formation of the Russian literary language.

  4. Karamzin’s History: See note 10 to “The Young Lady Peasant.” Karamzin’s twelve-volume History of the Russian State (1816–1826) was the foundational work of Russian historiography.

  5. Mme de Staël: Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766–1817), the daughter of Jacques Necker (1732–1804), minister of finance under Louis XVI, is known to literature simply as Mme de Staël. An important writer and a woman of society, she was an outspoken opponent of Napoleon, who exiled her from Paris several times. Corinne (1807), her most famous novel, is based on her travels in Italy during one of those exiles.

  6. Kuznetsky Bridge: Kuznetsky Bridge is in fact a street in Moscow, which was known at that time for its fashionable shops run by foreigners, most often Frenchmen.

  7. the Confederation of the Rhine: A confederation of German states formed by Napoleon after his victory at Austerlitz in 1805. It lasted until Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig in 1813.

  8. the sovereign’s appeal…Rastopchin’s folk-style leaflets…Pozharsky and Minin: The appeal of Alexander I for the defense of Moscow was published in August 1812. Count Fyodor Vasilyevich Rastopchin (1763–1826), military governor of Moscow at the time, ordered the distribution of one-page fliers with woodcut images calling for resistance. In 1612, Prince Dmitri Pozharsky and the merchant Kuzma Minin gathered a volunteer army and drove out the invading forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ending what is known as the Time of Troubles.

  9. Charlotte Corday…Marfa Posadnitsa…Princess Dashkova: Charlotte Corday (1768–1793) assassinated Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793), leader of the radical Jacobin faction during the Reign of Terror, for which she was guillotined. Marfa Posadnitsa, the wife of the mayor (posadnik) of Novgorod, is the heroine of the last work of fiction by Nikolai Karamzin (see note 4 above); she was involved in the unsuccessful defense of republican Novgorod against monarchical Moscow in 1478. Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova (1743–1810) was a close friend of Catherine the Great and by her own account played a central part in the coup d’état of 1762 that brought Catherine to the imperial throne.

  10. Count Mamonov…entire fortune: Count Matvey Alexandrovich Dmitriev-Mamonov (1790–1863) was one of the richest landowners in Russia. At the beginning of the war against Napoleon he made a speech to members of the Moscow nobility pledging to give his entire income to the struggle, and he went on to raise a mounted Cossack regiment at his own expense.

  11. Borodino: See note 4 to “The Blizzard.”

  DUBROVSKY (1832–1833)

  1. seventy souls: That is, seventy male serfs—an extremely modest number for a Russian landowner; Count Mamonov, for instance, owned 15,000.

  2. We insert it here in full: What follows is Pushkin’s transcription of an actual court decision of the time; the only change he made was the substitution of the names of his characters for the names of the actual participants.

  3. the Cadet Corps: An elite school in Petersburg for aristocratic boys, founded by the empress Anna Ioannovna in 1731. Its graduates had favored status for advancement in military or civil careers.

  4. Derzhavin: See note 10 to The Moor of Peter the Great. The line here also comes from the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky” (1779).

  5. “Thunder of victory resound”: The opening words of Derzhavin’s choral ode, set to music by Osip Kozlovsky (1757–1831), written for the celebration given by Potemkin (see note 1 to “The Coffin-Maker”) on the taking of Izmail in 1791.

  6. laid it out on the same table: See note 5 to “The Coffin-Maker.”

  7. “Vanity of vanities…‘Memory Eternal’ ”: “Vanity of vanities” comes from the opening of Ecclesiastes (1:2). “Memory Eternal” is the prayer of supplication sung at the end of the Orthodox funeral service.

  8. “Eschew evil and do good”: Words from Psalm 37:27, quoted in the first epistle of Peter (3:11).

  9. the Turkish campaign: That is, the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1791.

  10. Lavaterian guesswork: Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) was a Swiss poet, philosopher, and theologian, remembered mainly for his book Physiognomical Fragments (1775–1778), detailing the analysis of personal character based on facial and bodily features.

  11. Kulnev: General Yakov
Petrovich Kulnev (1763–1812), one of the most popular and colorful figures of the Napoleonic Wars, was killed pursuing the French at the battle of Klyastitsy. His lithographic portrait was widely distributed after his death.

  12. Radcliffe: The English novelist Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) perfected what came to be known as the Gothic novel, full of terror and the supernatural. Her most famous work, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), was very popular in Russia.

  13. Misha: Misha, the diminutive of Mikhail, is the name traditionally given to bears in Russia.

  14. Rinaldo: Hero of the popular novel Rinaldo Rinaldini, the Robber Chief (1797), by the German author Christian August Vulpius (1762–1827), author of numerous romantic tales and libretti and brother-in-law of Goethe.

  15. Amphitryon’s wines: Amphitryon was a legendary prince of Tiryns, in the Peloponnese. The Roman playwright Plautus (ca. 254–184 BC) made him the hero of a burlesque comedy, which in turn inspired Molière’s Amphitryon (1668). His name came to stand for a generous host.

  16. Konrad’s mistress: Konrad Wallenrod is the eponymous hero of a narrative poem by the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), who was much admired by Pushkin.

  THE QUEEN OF SPADES (1834)

  1. The verses of the epigraph to chapter 1 are by Pushkin himself, who partially quotes them in a letter of September 1, 1828, to Vyazemsky (see note 1 to “The Stationmaster”). It has also been said that Pushkin, who was a passionate gambler himself, first wrote them on his sleeve in chalk while playing at Prince Golitsyn’s.

  2. mirandole: A term in the card game of faro, meaning to play only one card at a time and not double your bets. Faro (pharaon) is a simple French gambling game in which a banker plays individually against any number of players and winning depends on the matching of cards. To stake en routé is to bet repeatedly on the same lucky card. Paroli means to double bets on the same card, indicated by bending down the corners of the card. To punt is to place a bet against the bank.

  3. Richelieu: See note 7 to The Moor of Peter the Great.

  4. the comte de Saint-Germain…Casanova: The comte de Saint-Germain (ca. 1712–1784) was a prominent figure in European society, a wealthy and well-educated man and an accomplished musician, who claimed to be the son of Francis II Rakóczi, Prince of Transylvania. Various myths arose about him, to do with his interest in mysticism and alchemy, his membership in secret societies, his being the Wandering Jew, a prophet, and an “Ascended Master.” Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725–1798), born in Venice, was also a notable figure in society, a libertine and womanizer, a friend of royalty and also of Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart. He is remembered mainly for his autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (“The Story of My Life”), written in French—a vivid description of the mores of eighteenth-century Europe and of his own in particular.

  5. Pushkin’s friend Denis Davydov (see note 3 to “The Shot”) wrote to him about this epigraph: “Good heavens, what a devilish memory! God knows, I once told you my reply to M. A. Naryshkina about les suivantes qui sont plus fraîches, and you set it down word for word as an epigraph to a chapter of The Queen of Spades.”

  6. Bitter…Dante…stairs: A paraphrase of Paradiso XVII:58–60: Tu proverai sì come sa di sale / lo pane d’altrui, e come è duro calle / lo scendere e ‘l salir per altrui scale (“You will taste how salty / is another’s bread, and how hard a path it is / going down and up another’s stairs”).

  7. two portraits…Mme Lebrun: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842) was one of the finest portrait painters of her time. Her successful career in Paris was interrupted in 1789 by the French Revolution, after which she lived abroad until 1802, spending the years from 1795 to 1801 in Russia.

  8. Leroy…Montgolfier…Mesmer: Julien Leroy (1686–1759) was a famous Parisian clockmaker; in 1739 he was named Royal Clockmaker to Louis XV. The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel (1740–1810) and Jacques-Etienne (1745–1799), invented the hot-air balloon, which made its first flight in 1783. Franz Mesmer (1734–1815), a German doctor, proposed a theory of the transfer of energy between the animate and the inanimate, which he called “animal magnetism” and which later became known as “mesmerism.”

  9. Homme sans moeurs et sans religion!: The phrase, which was much in the air during the Enlightenment, has been attributed to Diderot and to Voltaire. In the dialogue Des devoirs de l’Homme et du Prince (“On the Duties of Man and Prince”), by Jaques Vernet (1698–1789), professor of theology and history in Geneva, Socrates speaks of “un homme sans religion et sans moeurs.”

  10. Oubli ou regret: “Forget or regret.” A game that allowed ladies to choose a partner at a ball. They would secretly take the name of oubli or regret, approach the man, and pose the question. He would choose at random and then take the next dance with the lady who bore the name.

  11. Swedenborg: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) was a Swedish scientist and inventor who later became a mystic and visionary reformer of Christianity. The epigraph, as is often the case with Pushkin, is a playful stylization.

  12. the midnight Bridegroom: See Matthew 25:1–13, Christ’s parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Pushkin suggests an ironic parallel between the Bridegroom and Hermann.

  13. “Attendez!”: “Wait!” in French. In the original, Pushkin uses the Russified French word Atandé, used in faro when a player wants to change his stake before the betting is closed. In the epigraph, the aristocratic banker takes offense at the tone of it.

  KIRDJALI (1834)

  1. Ypsilanti…insurrection: See note 4 to “The Shot.”

  2. Georgi Kantakuzin: A Greek prince, one of the notable participants in the Greek uprising. Pushkin met him when he was serving in Kishinev during the early 1820s. Kishinev, now the capital of Moldova, had recently been annexed by Russia from Turkey.

  3. Nekrasovists: A group of Don Cossacks, led by Ignat Nekrasov (d. 1737). They were Old Believers, condemned as heretics by the Russian Orthodox Church, and fled Russia in 1708.

  4. Klephtes: Greek for “bandits.” The name was given to Greek mountaineers who preserved their independence after the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine empire in the fifteenth century.

  5. A man…important post: Mikhail Ivanovich Leks (1793–1856), whom Pushkin had served under in Kishinev, was by then the director of the chancellery of the Ministry of Interior in Petersburg.

  EGYPTIAN NIGHTS (1835)

  1. an album: A whole culture developed around the personal albums kept by upper-class Russian girls, in which they would ask friends and new acquaintances to write verses or personal messages.

  2. ragged abbés: Abbé, or “abbot,” was a title of lower-ranking clergymen in France. Abbés were appointed by the king and received a small income without necessarily serving in an abbey. They sometimes took to writing (see note 8 to The History of the Village of Goryukhino). The Abbé Prévost, author of Manon Lescaut (1731), is perhaps the most well-known example.

  3. Derzhavin: See note 10 to The Moor of Peter the Great. The line is from Derzhavin’s famous ode “God” (1784).

  4. Signora Catalani: Angelica Catalani (1780–1849) was one of the greatest sopranos in the history of opera, renowned for her three-octave range. She sang in Petersburg in 1820.

  5. Tancredi: An opera by Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), based on Voltaire’s tragedy Tancrède (1760).

  6. Aurelius Victor: Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320–390 AD), a Roman statesman and historian, wrote a short history of the Roman Empire.

  THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER (1836)

  1. Knyazhnin: See note 4 to “The Coffin-Maker.” The quotation is from his comedy The Braggart (1786).

  2. Count Münnich: Burkhard Christoph von Münnich (1683–1767), a German-born military officer and engineer, came to Russia in 1721, was taken into the Russian army by Peter the Great, and rose to become a field marshal and count. He played a major role in Russian military and political affairs under several monarchs.

  3. the Semyonovsky regiment: Founded in 1683 by Peter the Great
, it was one of the two oldest and most distinguished guards regiments in Russia.

  4. passport: Russians were required to carry an “internal passport” when they traveled within Russia.

  5. Orenburg: A city in the southern Ural region, over nine hundred miles east of Moscow. It was founded in 1743 as a frontier outpost, bordering on the territory of the nomadic Kazakhs.

  6. “the keeper…my affairs”: A quotation from the poem “Epistle to my Servants Shumilov, Vanka, and Petrushka” (1769), by Denis Fonvizin (see note 1 to The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin).

  7. a Yaik Cossack: Yaik was the old name of the Ural River. The Cossacks of the Yaik and the Don served as frontier guards for Russia, in exchange for certain freedoms. After their support for Pugachev’s rebellion, Yaik Cossacks lost those privileges and, like the river itself, were renamed Ural Cossacks.

  8. above the stove: Russian stoves were large and elaborate structures, used for cooking, laundry, bathing, and sleeping, as well as for heating.

  9. the revolt of 1772: In 1772, just prior to Pugachev’s rebellion, there was a revolt of the Yaik Cossacks over forced conscription and low pay, which led to the killing of the Russian military commander of the Orenburg region, the harsh Major General Mikhail Mikhailovich Traubenberg (1719–1772).

  10. the time of Anna Ioannovna: Anna Ioannovna (1693–1740) was the daughter of Peter the Great’s physically and mentally handicapped brother Ivan V, who ruled jointly with Peter until his death in 1696. In 1730 she became empress of Russia.

  11. The Dunce: See note 1 to The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin.

  12. Küstrin and Ochakov: The Turkish fortress of Ochakov fell to the Russians in 1737, during the Austro-Russian-Turkish War; the Prussian fortress of Küstrin was besieged by the Russians in 1758, during the Seven Years’ War, but not actually taken.