A Commentary to Pushkin’s Lyric Poetry, 1826–1836

1826

 – To Baratynskii Pushkin was a great admirer of the poetry of Evgenii Abramovich Baratynskii (–). The present epigram concerns Baratynskii’s narrative poem “Эда,” set in Finland, in which the innocent eponymous heroine falls for a Russian soldier. The work was attacked by several critics whom Pushkin detested and distrusted (see line ). The poem is written in a five-line stanza of iambic tetrameter rhyming a-B-a-a-B.  черво́нец – a golden coin  Чухо́ночка – diminutive of чухонка, a Russian word for Finn. Pushkin refers to Eda, the beautiful bucolic heroine of Baratynskii’s poem. ей-ей – truly  Греча́нок Байрона миле́й (=милее) – dearer than Byron’s Greek women. The allusion is to Byron’s poem The Corsair, which features a number of Greek women slaves.  твой Зои́л прямо́й чухо́нец – Your Zoilus is a real “chukhonets.” Zoilus was a philosopher and literary critic in the fourth century BCE. His works do not survive, but his reputation as a harsh (and petty) critic does. Here the name refers to Faddei Bulgarin (see commentary to “На Булгарина”), who had published what Pushkin considered an “indecent” review of Baratynskii’s poem. The “joke” of the final line is that, in Russian, “chukhonets” was often used as a pejorative term for an uncultured person.  – From a letter to Velikopol’skii Ivan Ermolaevich Velikopol’skii (–) was a minor but prolific poet and a compulsive gambler. In , he lost , rubles (a huge sum) in the provinces and then still more in Petersburg, where he attempted recoup his losses. He and Pushkin exchanged a number of poems; not surprisingly, they are all devoted to gambling. (See also “Послание к Великопольскому” and “На Великополь- ского”). Though Velikopol’skii wrote poetry about the evils of gambling, he was unable to refrain from this vice. Worse still, as this poem makes clear, he usually lost. It is written in iambic pentameter with a caesura after the second foot, with the rhyme scheme a-B-B-a-C-d-C-d.  мне вновь счита́ться довело́сь – Again I had occasion to settle accounts  Певе́ц любви́ – Singer of love. Quite possibly a reference to a “romance” that 1826   Velikopol’skii had penned in , which began with the exclamation “Певец любви!” (The entire poem is cited in Modzalevskii , .)  штос – Shtoss (from Austrian-German “Stoß”). A card game, related to Faro (also: Pharaoh), one of the most popular among gamblers in Pushkin’s day.  Пять сот (=Пятьсот) – Five hundred  Нали́чные свиде́тели тому́ – Clear witnesses to this. There is a pun here: in addition to the fixed phrase “Наличный свидетель” (literally: a witness who is present) the word “наличные” was commonly used as a substantivized adjective, a shortened version of the phrase “Наличные деньги” (cash on hand, ready money).  Сейча́с, мой друг, уви́дишь почему́ – Now, my friend, you will see why. According to Modzalevskii (, ), this poem ended not with a period, but with a colon, which led directly to a brief prose passage that concluded the letter: “Сделайте одолжение, пятьсот рублей, которые вы мне должны, возвратить не мне, но Гавриилу Петровичу Назимову, чем очень обяжете преданного Вам душевно Александра Пушкина.” (“Do me a favor: do not return to me the  rubles that you owe me; to Gavriil Petrovich Nazimov. In doing so you will greatly oblige your sincerely devoted Aleksandr Pushkin.”) In other words, Pushkin had already managed to gamble away the money he had won from Velikopol’skii. Nazimov (–) was a landowner in the Pskov region. Literature: Modzalevskii , –.  K Е. Н. Вульф – To E. N. Vul’f Evpraksiia Nikolaevna Vul’f (–), a member of the Osipov family, lived at Trigorskoe while Pushkin was in exile at the neighboring village of Mikhailovksoe. “Pushkin’s relations with the Osipov family, his country neighbors, are not easily duplicated in the annals of literary amours. During his years of enforced rustication […] and later on visits to the Vulfs in their province-of-Tver lands, he courted five or six members of the clan.” (Nabokov, :). Little is known of the precise nature of Pushkin’s relationship to Evpraksiia Nikolaevna (as part of her last will and testament she apparently ordered Pushkin’s letters to her destroyed). It is probable that Pushkin only flirted with her at this time, since his more serious attentions were directed to slightly older members of her family. This light and witty poem is written in iambic tetrameter with the rhyme scheme A-A-b-A-b.  Зина – Pushkin called her both “Zina” and “Zizi” (e.g., in a famous passage in Eugene Onegin :XXXII)  И впредь у нас не разрыва́йте – And in the future do not tear up  Ни мадрига́лов, ни серде́ц – Madrigals or hearts. In the usage of Pushkin’s day, a madrigal was a brief poem of flattery addressed to a woman. This line is a classic example of a zeugma, when a single verb is “yoked” to two nouns, either of which would be an appropriate complement, but which together   produce a strange (often comic) effect...