Pushkin. T. Binyon J.
Pushkin wrote this poem at the end of 1814, on a theme given to him by the classics teacher, Aleksandr Galich, for recital at the examination at the end of the junior course. Listing the memorials to Catherineâs victories in the Tsarskoe Selo park, he apostrophizes the glories of her age, hymned by Derzhavin, before describing the 1812 campaign and capitulation of Paris and paying a graceful tribute to Alexander the peace-maker, âworthy grandson of Catherineâ. In the final stanza he turns to Zhukovsky, whose famous patriotic poem, âA Bard in the Camp of Russian Warriorsâ, had been written immediately after the battle of Borodino, and calls upon him to follow this work with a paean to the recent victory:
Strike the gold harp!
So that again the harmonious voice may honour the Hero,
And the vibrant strings suffuse our hearts with fire,
And the young Warrior be impassioned and thrilled
By the verse of the martial Bard.44
The examinations took place on Monday 4 and Friday 8 January 1815, before an audience of high state officials and relatives and friends of the lycéens. The seventy-one-year-old Derzhavin, the greatest poet of the preceding age, was invited to the second examination.
When we learnt that Derzhavin would be coming â Pushkin wrote â we all were excited. Delvig went out to the stairs to wait for him and to kiss his hand, the hand that had written âThe Waterfallâ. Derzhavin arrived. He came into the vestibule and Delvig heard him asking the porter: âWhere, fellow, is the privy here?â. This prosaic inquiry disenchanted Delvig, who changed his intention and returned to the hall. Delvig told me of this with surprising simplicity and gaiety. Derzhavin was very old. He was wearing a uniform coat and velveteen boots. Our examination greatly fatigued him. He sat, resting his head on his hand. His expression was senseless; his eyes were dull; his lip hung; his portrait (in which he is pictured in a nightcap and dressing-gown) is very lifelike. He dozed until the Russian literature examination began. Then he came to life, his eyes sparkled; he was completely transformed. Of course, his verses were being read, his verses were being analysed, his verses were being constantly praised. He listened with extraordinary animation. At last I was called out. I read my âRecollections in Tsarskoe Seloâ, standing two paces away from Derzhavin. I cannot describe the condition of my spirit: when I reached the line where I mention Derzhavinâs name, my adolescent voice broke, and my heart beat with intoxicating rapture â¦
I do not remember how I finished the recitation, do not remember whither I fled. Derzhavin was delighted; he called for me, wanted to embrace me ⦠There was a search for me, but I could not be found.45
âRecollections in Tsarskoe Seloâ made, for the first time, Pushkin known as a poet beyond the walls of the Lycée; the promise it gave for the future was immediately recognized. âSoon,â Derzhavin told the young Sergey Aksakov, âa second Derzhavin will appear in the world: he is Pushkin, who in the Lycée has already outshone all writers.â46 Pushkin sent a copy of the poem to his uncle; Vasily passed it on to Zhukovsky, who was soon reading it, with understandable enthusiasm, to his friends. Prince Petr Vyazemsky, a friend of Pushkinâs family, wrote to the poet Batyushkov: âWhat can you say about Sergey Lvovichâs son? Itâs all a miracle. His âRecollectionsâ have set my and Zhukovskyâs head in a whirl. What power, accuracy of expression, what a firm, masterly brush in description. May God give him health and learning and be of profit to him and sadness to us. The rascal will crush us all! Vasily Lvovich, however, is not giving up, and after his nephewâs verse, which he always reads in tears, never forgets to read his own, not realizing that in verse compared to the other it is now he who is the nephew.â47 Vasily, unlike his fellow poets, was not totally convinced of Pushkinâs staying-power, remarking to a friend: âMon cher, you know that I love Aleksandr; he is a poet, a poet in his soul; mais je ne sais pas, il est encore trop jeune, trop libre, and, really, I donât know when he will settle down, entre nous soit dit, comme nous autres.â48
Recognition led to a widening of Pushkinâs poetic acquaintance. Batyushkov had called on him in February; in September Zhukovsky â after Derzhavin, the best-known poet in Russia â wrote to Vyazemsky: âI have made another pleasant acquaintanceship! With our young miracle-worker Pushkin. I called on him for a minute in Tsarskoe Selo. A pleasant, lively creature! He was very glad to see me and firmly pressed my hand to his heart. He is the hope of our literature. I fear only lest he, imagining himself mature, should prevent himself from becoming so. We must unite to assist this future giant, who will outgrow us all, to grow up [â¦] He has written an epistle to me, which he gave into my hands, â splendid! His best work!â49
In March 1816 Vasily Lvovich, who was travelling back to Moscow from St Petersburg with Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky and Karamzin, persuaded them to stop off at the Lycée; they stayed for about half an hour: Pushkin spoke to his uncle and Vyazemsky, whom he had known as a child in Moscow, but did not meet Karamzin. Two days later he sent Vyazemsky a witty letter, complaining of his isolated life at the Lycée: âseclusion is, in fact, a very stupid affair, despite all those philosophers and poets, who pretend that they live in the country and are in love with silence and tranquillityâ, and breaking into verse to envy Vyazemskyâs life in Moscow:
Blessed is he, who noisy Moscow
Does not leave for a country hut â¦
And who not in dream, but in reality
Can caress his mistress! â¦
Only a year of schooling remains, âBut a whole year of pluses and minuses, laws, taxes, the sublime and the beautiful! ⦠a whole year of dozing before the masterâs desk ⦠what horror.â50
In April he received a letter from Vasily Lvovich, telling him that Karamzin would be spending the summer in Tsarskoe Selo: âLove him, honour and obey. The advice of such a man will be to your good and may be of use to our literature. We expect much from you.â51 Nikolay Karamzin, who at this time had just turned fifty, was Russiaâs most influential eighteenth-century writer, and the acknowledged leader of the modernist school in literature. Though best-known as author of the extraordinarily popular sentimental tale Poor Liza (1792), his real achievement was to have turned the heavy and cumbersome prose of his predecessors into a flexible, supple instrument, capable of any mode of discourse. He arrived in Tsarskoe Selo on 24 May with his wife and three small children, and settled in one of Cameronâs little Chinese houses in the park to complete work on his monumental eight-volume History of the Russian State. He remained there throughout the summer, returning to St Petersburg on 20 September. During this time Pushkin visited him frequently, often in the company of another lycéen, Sergey Lomonosov. The acquaintance ripened rapidly: on 2 June Karamzin informs Vyazemsky that he is being visited by âthe poet Pushkin, the historian Lomonosovâ, who âare amusing in their pleasant artlessness. Pushkin is witty.â52 And when Prince Yury Neledinsky-Meletsky, an ageing privy councillor and minor poet, turned to Karamzin for help because he found himself unable to compose the verses he had promised for the wedding of the Grand Duchess Anna with Prince William of Orange, Karamzin recommended Pushkin for the task. Pushkin produced the required lines in an hour or two, and they were sung at the wedding supper in Pavlovsk on 6 June. The dowager empress sent him a gold watch and chain.
Pushkinâs work â like that of Voltaire, much admired, and much imitated by him at this time â is inclined to licentiousness, but any coarseness is always