No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Moral Dimension of the Prophetic Ideal: Pushkin and His Readers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Abstract
In this article Pamela Davidson identifies a range of literary strategies that evolved in response to the disparity between the high standard of moral purity, which was a prerequisite for the Hebrew prophet, and the much laxer moral standards of Russian writers who adopted this role model. Strategies designed to reinforce the moral credentials of Aleksandr Pushkin, commonly regarded as the prototype of the poet-prophet, include the substitution of artistic for moral integrity (Nikolai Gogol'), the treatment of literary accounts of purification as evidence of the writer's moral standing (readings of “The Prophet”), the cult of martyrdom as an aspect of the writer's biography, derived from his suffering in life (Mikhail Lermontov) and extended to the interpretation of his death (Vladimir Solov'ev). Although these strategies enabled such later writers as Fedor Dostoevskii to assume the role of prophet, the blurring of the moral dimension of the prophetic ideal had long-term consequences for the development of Russian society and culture.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2002
References
This article forms part of a wider project on the development of the image of the writer as prophet in the Russian literary tradition. I am extremely grateful to the British Academy for the award of a two-year Research Readership in 1997-99 and to the Arts and Humanities Research Board for a grant for research leave in 2000-2001 that enabled me to investigate this topic.
1 For an early view of Pushkin's prophetic qualities, based on his use of language, see Gogol', N. V., “Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine” (dated 1832, revised 1834, first published January 1835), in his Polnoe sobraniesochinenii, ed. Meshcheriakovetal, N. L.., 14 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-52), 8:50–55 Google Scholar (hereafter, PSS). Around the same time, Belinskii introduced the concept of the poet-prophet into Russian literary criticism by describing the “veshchii, prorocheskii glagol” of Derzhavin's verse in terms that directly echoed Pushkin's “Prorok“; see Belinskii, V. G., “Literaturnye mechtaniia (Elegiia v proze)” (dated 12 December 1834, first published in a series of issues oiMolva, passed by the censor between 21 September and 29 December 1834), in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1953-59), 1:48 Google Scholar. Both Gogol’ and Belinskii continued to develop the theme of Pushkin's prophetic and narodnyi qualities during the 1840s.
2 Dostoevskii, F. M., “Pushkin (Ocherk),” in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridlsati tomakh, ed. Bazanov, V. G. et al., 30 vols. (Leningrad, 1972-90), 26:136–49Google Scholar (Dnevnik pisatelia, August 1880, chap. 2).
3 See Davidson, Pamela, “Vladimir Solov'ev and the Ideal of Prophecy,” Slavonic and East European Review 78, no. 4 (October 2000): 643–70Google Scholar.
4 See the chapter “'Kak trup v pustyne ia lezhal …'” (1987), in Mikhail Epshtein, Vera i obraz: Religioznoe bessoznatel'noe v russkoi kul'ture 20-go veka (Tenafly, N.J., 1994), 85.
5 Private communication from Sergei Borisovich Filatov of the Moscow Public Science Foundation and Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, after a talk on “Religion in the Russian Federation today,” delivered on 15 November 2000 at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.
6 Maimonides, Moses, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans, from the original Arabic text by Friedlander, M., 2d rev. ed. (New York, [1956]), 220 Google Scholar. For a comprehensive overview of prophecy, see part 2, chaps. 32-48 (219-50) of this work.
7 Genesis 12:1.
8 Exodus 2:10.
9 I Samuel 2:22-28. On Midrashic sources regarding Elkanah's role as an unknown prophet, see the Introduction, in Rosenberg, Rabbi A.J., ed. and trans., Samuel I: A New English Translation of the Text and Rashi, with a Commentary Digest (New York, 1984)Google Scholar, viii. Like her husband, Hannah was favored with the gift of prophecy. She is counted among the seven prophetesses in the Talmud (Megillah 14a) and in Seder Olam (chap. 20). Her prayer of thanksgiving after bringing Samuel to the Tabernacle (I Samuel 2:1-10) has traditionally been interpreted as a prophecy of Jewish history. See ibid., ix (introduction) and 14- 18 (text of prayer and commentary).
10 King Saul encounters a “band of prophets” at “the hill of God,” where the Holy Ark was stationed, and begins to prophesy under their influence (1 Samuel 10:5-6,10). Later he sends messengers, who see Samuel standing as head over a “company of prophets” at Naioth in Ramah; three successive delegations of messengers, followed by Saul himself, are in turn infected with die spirit of prophecy (1 Samuel 19:20-24).
11 See the commentaries on these verses in Rosenberg, ed. and trans., Samuel/, 76- 78,163-64.
12 In the times of Elisha, for example, the “sons of the prophets” told Elisha that the place where they dwelt was too small for them and requested permission to move to the Jordan to build a larger dwelling-place for themselves (2 Kings 6:1-2). The connection between prophecy and music is also mentioned later in relation to Elisha (2 Kings 3:15).
13 Here we are not concerned with false prophets, against whom numerous explicit warnings are issued in the Hebrew scriptures.
14 Numbers 22-24.
15 See sermon, Ilarion's “On Law and Grace” (Slovo o zakone i blagodati, ca. 1047- 50), in Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus', trans, and with an introduction by Franklin, Simon, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 5 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 3–29 Google Scholar.
16 For one of the earliest systematic studies of the image of the poet-prophet in Pushkin's verse, see N. V. Fridman, “Obraz poeta-proroka v lirike Pushkina,” Uchenyezapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 118, Trudy kafedry russkoi literatury, no. 2 (1946): 83-107. Fridman covers a wide range of examples; his overall interpretation of their significance, however, is marred by a distorted emphasis on the social and civic dimensions of the image of the poet-prophet. For a more recent treatment of Pushkin's use of the image of the poet-prophet, set in its contemporary context, see Gasparov, B. M., Poeticheskii iazyk Pushkina kakfakt istorii russkogo literaturnogo iazyka (St. Petersburg, 1999)Google Scholar, particularly chap. 1 of pt. 3, “Poet-prorok (Eskhatologicheskie i profeticheskie motivy v zrelom tvorchestve Pushkina,” 231-55.
17 The importance of die power of language was underlined by Pushkin in his notes to the cycle: “nravstvennye istiny izlozheny v Korane sil'nym i poeticheskim obrazom“; “plokhaia fizika; no za to kakaia smelaia poeziia!” Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. V D. Bonch-Bruevich, 17 vols. (Moscow, 1937-59; reprint, Moscow, 1994-97), 2/1:318 (hereafter PSS). On Pushkin as poet-prophet, see, for example, Fridman, “Obraz poeta-proroka,” 8 5 - 93, and Tomashevskii, B., Pushkin, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Moscow, 1990), 2:279–303 Google Scholar. Tomashevskii finds an autobiographical motif in Pushkin's substitution of exile for orphanhood in the cycle. He also notes the poet's introduction of a theme absent in the Koran, “temu vlasti iazyka, mogushchestva slova” and “silu slova,” in lieu of the “tenia poucheniia” present in the original (2:282).
18 Letter to Viazemskii, P. A. of 29 November 1824, in Pushkin, A. S., Sobranie sochinenii, ed. Blagoi, D. D. etal., 10 vols. (Moscow, 1974-78), 9:116 Google Scholar.
19 Pushkin, PSS, 2/1:355.
20 Letter to P. A. Pletnev of 4 - 6 December 1825, in Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, 9:207.
21 Ibid., 9:548-49. For further details of the inquiry, including the tsar's questions to Pushkin about the poem during their meeting on 8 September 1826, see Eidel'man, N., Pushkin: h biografii i tvorchestva, 1826-1837 (Moscow, 1987), 37–41 Google Scholar.
22 Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:424. The variants of this line, “Prizvan'iu svoemu o Muza,— bud’ poslushna” and “Sviatomii zhrebiiu o Muza bud’ poslushna” (3/2:1034), suggest that the phrase “velen'iu Bozhiiu” chosen in the final version of the poem carried a more diffuse general meaning, associated with the muse's sacred calling, than the religious and prophetic dimension ascribed to it by Pushkin's critics.
23 See, for example, Fridman, “Obraz poeta-proroka,” 105-7, and, more recently, Listov, V. S., “Mif ob ‘ostrovnom prorochestve’ v tvorcheskom soznanii Pushkina” (1980), in Virolainen, M. N., ed., Legendy i mify o Pushkine (St. Petersburg, 1999), 192–215 Google Scholar. Listov reads the poem as the culmination of a long line of works, in which Pushkin links his growing awareness of his prophetic calling to the figure of St. John the Apostle, the author of the prophetic Book of Revelation, composed on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9). At the outset of his article he presents his “unpolemical” view of the poem as “stikhi prorocheskie. Ikh moshchnye luchi pronikaiut daleko za chertu skoroi gibeli poeta, vysvechivaiut griadushchee, poka eshche sokrytoe ot pushkinskikh sovremennikov.” Listov, “Mif ob ‘ostrovnom prorochestve,'” 193.
24 See, for example, the tone of Pushkin's confident prediction to Pletnev that Gnedich would not die before finishing his translation of die Iliad; after paraphrasing a phrase from the psalms of the prophet David (“reku v serdtse svoem“), he added: “Ty znaesh', chto ia prorok.” Letter to P. A. Pletnev of 3 March 1826, in Pushkin, Sobraniesochinenii, 9:214.
25 For the text of the poem and its publication history, see Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:30-31 (text), 3/1:578 (variants), 3/2:1130 (notes). The title “Prorok” was not added by Pushkin until sometime between late April and August 1827.
26 Isaiah 6:6-7.
27 The first critic to argue in favor of the Koran as the main source of “Prorok” was N. I. Cherniaevin ‘Prorok'Pushkina v sviazi segozhe ‘PodrazhaniiamiKoranu‘ (Moscow, 1898). See Fomichev, S. A., Poeziia Pushkina: Tvorcheskaia evoliutsiia (Leningrad, 1986), 176n 26 Google Scholar. Vladimir Solov'ev devoted much space to refuting Cherniaev's reading of “Prorok” in his third essay on Pushkin, “Znachenie poezii v sukhotvoreniiakh Pushkina” (1899). On the link between “Prorok” and Isaiah, see Mikhailova, N. I., “Vitiistva groznyi dar …“: A. S. Pushkin i russkaia oratorskaia traditsiia ego vremeni (Moscow, 1999), 133–38Google Scholar. Mikhailova acknowledges the presence of motifs from the Koran but gives most attention to the biblical source.
28 In November 1827 M. P. Pogodin noted in his diary: “voskhishchfalsia] stikhami Pushkina iz Isaii.” In January 1828 Pogodin recorded reading out to an assembled company a canto from Tasso, his own story “Suzhenyi,” Pushkin's “Prorok,” and the description of Moscow from Evgenii Onegin. “Prorok” was first published in Pogodin'sjournal Moskovskii vestnih, 1828, no. 3:269-70. See Tsiavlovskii, M. A., “Pushkin po dokumentam Pogodinskogo arkhiva,” in Pushkin i ego soxrremenniki: Materialy i issledovaniia, no. 19-20 (Petrograd, 1914), 87–88 Google Scholar.
29 Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:58.
30 Ibid., 3/1:286 (text), 3/2:885-90 (variants), 3/2:1237 (notes). The poem was not published until after Pushkin's death; lines 1-16 first appeared as “K N**” in Zhukovskii's edition of 1841.
31 Ibid., 3/2:885.
32 On the poet as child, see the variant phrases from “S Gomerom …“: “Kak rezvoe ditia” (ibid., 3/2:888), “I s detskoi radost'iu,” “I s detskoi veroiu” (3/2:889); these recall the lines from “Poet” (15 August 1827): “I mezh detei nichtozhnykh mira, / Byt’ mozhet, vsekh nichtozhnei on” (3/1:65). On the poet's pantheism, see the phrase “On vkhodit v dom bogov” (3/2:888). On his role as echo of the natural world, see “Ty vtorifsh’] ekhu gor” (3/2:887). The parallels between Pushkin's address to Gnedich and his earlier poem “Ekho” (1831) include textual reminiscences of lines from “Ekho” such as “Ty vnemlesh' grokhotu gromov” or “Takov/ I ty, poet!” (3/1:276) and confirm the fact that Pushkin's poem to Gnedich, while containing numerous features specific to the addressee, also functions on a more general level, dealing with the poet and prophet as archetypal figures.
33 Gnedich, N. I., “A. S. Pushkinu, po prochtenii skazki ego o tsare Saltane i proch“ (23 April 1832), in his Stikhotvoreniia, ed. Medvedeva, I. N., poeta, Biblioteka, seriia, Bol'shaia (Leningrad, 1956), 148 Google Scholar.
34 On the significance of Proteus in Russian verse of the 1830s as an image of “universal genius,” applied to Pushkin and Goethe, see Gasparov, Boris, “Tridtsatye gody— zheleznyi vek (k analizu motivov stoletnogo vozvrashcheniia u Mandel'shtama),” in Gasparov, Boris, Hughes, Robert P., and Paperno, Irina, eds., Cultural Mythologies of Russian Modernism: From the Golden Age to the Silver Age (Berkeley, 1992), 168–69Google Scholar.
35 Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:250.
36 Ibid., 3/1:212. Pushkin was responding to a poem that Metropolitan Filaret had composed for him to counter the unrelieved pessimism of his earlier poem, “Dar naprasnyi, dar sluchainyi … ,” written on his birthday (26 May 1828). Metropolitan Filaret's poem, “Ne naprasno, ne sluchaino … ,” was cast in the form of a first-person prayer, addressed by Pushkin to God, and exactly reproduced the form of Pushkin's poem (including its stanzaic structure, meter, and rhymes). It was first published anonymously in 1840; for the text and details, see Gogol', N. V., Sobranie sochinenii, comp. and ed. Voropaev, V. A. and Vinogradov, I. A., 9 vols. (Moscow, 1994), 6:434 Google Scholar. Pushkin was delighted with the poem; in a letter to E. M. Khitrovo of January 1830 he exclaimed: “Des vers d'un Chretien, d'un eveque russe en reponse a des couplets sceptiques! c'est vraiment une bonne fortune.” Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, 9:285-86.
37 Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:254. On autobiographical elements in this poem and their relation to Dante's spiritual journey, see Davidson, Pamela, “Divine Service or Idol Worship: Russian Views of Art as Demonic,” in Davidson, Pamela, ed., Russian Literature and Its Demons (New York, 2000), 148–54Google Scholar.
38 This is, for example, the opinion of Lesskis, G. A., Religiia i nravstvennosl’ v tvorchestve pozdnegp Pushkina (Moscow, 1992), 143 Google Scholar: “Drevnii religioznyi stikh, poluchivshii v vekakh znachenie khristianskoi molitvy, v perelozhenii Pushkina stanovitsia vmeste s tern vyrazheniem ego lichnoslnogo dukhovnogo soznaniia” (my emphasis).
39 Pushkin adapted the text of a Lenten prayer composed by the biblical exegete and ecclesiastical writer St. Ephraem of Syria (303-73), rendered into Slavonic as “Gospodi i Vladyko zhivota moego …” Pushkin, Sobraniesochinenii, 2:613. His poem was first published by Zhukovskii in 1837 under the title “Molitva.” Pushkin, PSS, 3/2:1270. Ephraem's writings were mostly in verse; he was famous for his liturgical poetry and cycles of hymns. Although his inspiration was scriptural, his style was literary, marked by extensive use of repetition and saturated with metaphors. These literary qualities may have attracted Pushkin to his prayer.
40 In this respect I do not entirely agree with Sergej Davydov's interpretation of this poem as presented in his “Puškin's Easter Triptych: ‘Hermit Fathers and Immaculate Women,’ ‘Imitation of the Italian,’ and ‘Secular Power,'” in Bethea, David, ed., Puškin Today (Bloomington, 1993), 38–45 Google Scholar. Davydov reads the poem in an autobiographical light as evidence of Pushkin's spiritual growth in later years; on the basis of the “progression from impersonal to personal mode, revealed on the pronominal level,” he argues that “the prayer becomes internalized, the ‘alien word’ becomes one's own” (43). While concurring with the view that the poem reflects Pushkin's increasing awareness of the problem of moral purification, I do not accept the incorporation of the text of the prayer into Pushkin's poem as evidence that Pushkin had achieved a similar level of religious and moral feeling in his own life.
41 Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:419. The unusual adjective sionskii (of which this is the only instance in Pushkin's verse) carries clear biblical and prophetic connotations; see also the reference to “Sion” in Pushkin's sonnet “Madona,” 8 July 1830 (3/1:224).
42 In Inferno 1, when Dante attempts to leave the dark wood in which he was lost (11. 2-3), he reaches the foot of a hill (1. 13) and looks up toward the sun. He then takes up his way across “the desert strand” (la piaggia diserta, 1. 29), but his progress is impeded by three animals: a spotted leopard, a “lion that appeared to me and seemed to be coming at me, head high and raging with hunger, so that the air seemed to tremble at it“ (11. 45-48), and a wolf. As a result Dante “lost hope of the height” (1. 54); he is pushed back to where the sun is silent and would not have succeeded in escaping, had he not been rescued by Virgil, who appears to him “in that vast desert” (nel gran diserto, 1. 64). Pushkin has borrowed from Dante the challenge of the heights to be ascended, the threat of the hungry lion, and the image of the sandy desert (the “pesok” of the fragment echoes Dante's “piaggia“; the word pustynia, which occurs in the variants, echoes Dante's “gran diserto“).
43 “O lirizme nashikh poetov” (1846), in Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami, in Gogol', PSS, 8:261.
44 In “Predmety dlia liricheskogo poeta v nyneshnee vremia” (1844), Gogol’ assures the poet N. M. Iazykov that his words will fly forth like fire, “kak ot drevnikh prorokov“ (PSS, 8:281), if he models his behavior on that of the prophets and embraces his literary calling with the same spirit of dedication. In “O lirizme nashikh poetov” (1846), he argues that Russian poetry possesses a unique, biblical, and prophetic spirit, because Russia, unlike France, England, and Germany, is strongly aware of the hand of God in her history (PSS, 8:249, 251). On the potential of the theater, see “O teatre, ob odnostoronnem vzgliade na teatr i voobshche ob odnostoronnosti” (1845), PSS, 8:267-77; for the digression on Pushkin, see 8:274-77.
45 The main critic was S. A. Burachok, whose article “Videnie v tsarstve dukhov” was published in 1840 in his journal Maiak; Burachok accused Pushkin of lack of faith and immorality. Burachok and another contributor, A. M. Martynov, subsequently wrote further articles in this vein, published in Maiak in 1843-45. Gogol’ referred to Burachok's views as one of the sources of his article on the theater in his letter of 9 May 1846 to the priest Matfei Konstantinovskii, who had raised strong objections to Gogof's defense of the theater; see Gogol', Sobraniesochinenii, 6:441-42.
46 Gogol', PSS, 8:275.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., 8:276.
49 “O lirizme nashikh poetov,” ibid., 8:249. Gogol’ probably saw Metropolitan Filaret's poem (to which Pushkin was responding) in Burachok's article of 1840 in Maiak, where the poem was first published anonymously. In March 1845 Gogol'wrote from Frankfurt to a friend in Paris, asking him to obtain a copy of Filaret's poem to Pushkin for him; see Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 6:434.
50 Gogol', PSS, 8:276.
51 Ibid., 8:277, 276.
52 Ibid., 8:277. In the original 1847 edition of Vybrannye mesta, the words “podobno samomu Bogu” were cut by the censor (not surprisingly, as they suggest a comparison between writers, including Gogol', and God).
53 From the memoir of Father Obraztsov, F. I., a colleague and long-time friend of Father Matfei's, cited in Karlinsky, Simon, The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol (Chicago, 1976), 274 Google Scholar.
54 “S Gomerom dolgo ty besedoval odin …” was first published under the title “To N**“; see “O lirizme nashikh poetov,” in Gogol', PSS, 8:253-54 (text), 791 (notes). Most of this passage was cut by the censor from the original edition of 1847 and was not published until F. V Chizhov's edition of 1867. Gogol“s misreading of Pushkin's poem is all the more surprising as Belinskii had already identified the addressee of the poem as Gnedich in his “Sochineniia Aleksandra Pushkina: Stat'ia tret'ia,” Otechestvennye zapiski 30, no. 10, section 5 (1843): 81-82; reprinted in Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 7:255-56. In a letter of 30 January 1847 to Gogol', S. P. Shevyrev expressed astonishment at Gogol“s misreading of Pushkin's poem. In his reply of 27 April 1847, Gogol'defended his monarchist reading of the poem and enclosed a separate sheet with the passage that had been cut. Gogol', PSS, 13:290-91. On this sheet Gogol’ added a (highly confusing!) note to the effect that he had spread the original “rumor” about the poem being addressed to Gnedich, a report that had then been picked up by Otechestvennye zapiski; see Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 6:435-36.
55 Gogol', PSS, 8:229. According to Gogol', Pushkin spoke these words after reading the closing lines of Derzhavin's poem to A. V. Khrapovitskii, “Khrapovitskomu“ (“Khrapovitskii! druzhby znaki … ,” written 30 March 1797, first published 1808): “Za slova—menia pust’ glozhet, / Za dela—satirik chtit.” Derzhavin, G. R., Stikhotvoreniia, comp. and ed. Kucherov, A. la. (Moscow, 1958), 173–74Google Scholar. Editions of Gogol'give no source for the statement attributed to Pushkin, which I have not been able to trace in his published works; it seems likely that Gogol’ is citing Pushkin from memory, possibly recalling a conversation with him. It is, of course, entirely possible that Gogol’ adapted or even invented Pushkin's words to suit his purposes; what matters from our point of view is that he wished to present Pushkin in this light.
56 Gogol', PSS, 8:231.
57 Ephesians 4:29. Gogol’ only cited the opening words of this verse: “Slovo gnilo da ne iskhodit iz ust vashikh!” Gogol', PSS, 8:232. The same biblical verse is quoted in the fragment entitled “O slove” (from “Raznye izrecheniia iz Ioanna Zlatousta,” based on his commentary on Psalm 140). Gogol’ included this fragment in his “Vybrannye mesta iz tvorenii sv. ottsov i uchitelei tserkvi,” a compilation of passages that he copied out in 1843 from various sources, including Khristianskoe chtenie. See Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 8:512- 13 (text), 835-37 and 843-44 (notes). The fragment is linked to the views on language expressed in “O torn, chto takoe slovo” and casts further light on Gogol“s attempt to relate the use of language in literature to sacred sources, reaching back through patristic tradition to the Bible.
58 Gogol', PSS, 8:230.
59 Ibid., 8:231.
60 Exodus 6:12, 30 and 4:11.
61 Gogol', PSS, 8:232. The tradition of deliberately cultivating a period of literary silence as a moral discipline continued to manifest itself in the works of numerous writers after Gogol'; prominent examples include Lev Tolstoi and Viacheslav Ivanov.
62 Tsiavlovskii, M. A., Letopis'’ zhiznii tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina (Moscow, 1951), 1:717— 19, 725-26Google Scholar. These dates are also given in most authoritative editions of Pushkin; see, for example, Pushkin, PSS, 3/2:1130.
63 On 29 March 1837, M. P. Pogodin responded to an inquiry from P. A. Viazemskii about the location of “Prorok” and various other works by Pushkin: “Prorok on napisal, ekhavshi v Moskvu v 1826 godu. Dolzhny byt’ chetyre stikhotv., pervoe tol'ko napechatano (Dukhovnoi zhazhdoiu tomim etc.)“; Tsiavlovskii, M., “Zametki o Pushkine,” in Zven'ia: Sborniki materialov i dokumentov po istorii literatury, iskusstva i obshchestvennoi mysli XIX veka, ed. Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir (Moscow-Leningrad, 1936), 153 Google Scholar (text), 155 (notes). For an account of Pushkin hurriedly burning some notes and poems in the stove when told of the unexpected arrival of the messenger who had come to fetch him, see the record of Bartenev's, P. I. conversations with Nashchokin, P. V., in Tsiavlovskii, M., ed., Rasskazy o Pushkine, zapisannye so slov ego druzeiP. I. Bartenevym v 1851-1860godakh (Leningrad, 1925), 34 Google Scholar. The poems included one described as “stikhotvorenie Prorok, gde predskazyvalis’ sovershivshiesia uzhe sobytiia 14 dekabria“; from this description of its contents, it cannot have been the same as the published “Prorok.“
64 In Bartenev's record of his conversations with P. V. and V. A. Nashchokin, the fragment is headed “Okonchanie Proroka” and followed by the comment “ot Pogodina, tozhe soobshchil i Khomiakov.” Ibid., 31. Its portrayal of a cowed, submissive “prophet of Russia“ bears only a parodic relation to the universal, biblical prophet described in “Prorok.“
65 Pushkin, re5, 3/1:461 (text), 3/2:1055 (variants), 3/2:1282 (notes). The fragment was in circulation for many years but remained unpublished until 1880.
66 From the recollections of A.V. Venevitinov (first published by A. P. Piatkovskii in 1880), cited in Tsiavlovskii, ed., Rasskazy o Pushkine, 93. This report would seem to tally with Iu. Strutyn'skii's reference to an epigram in his account of Pushkin's reaction to his discovery upon arriving in Moscow that he was being summoned for an audience with the tsar: “dusha moia vdrug omrachilas',—ne trevogoiu, net! — no chem-to pokhozhim na nenavist', zlobu, otvrashchenie. Mozg oshchetinilsia epigrammoi, na gubakh igrala nasmeshka, serdtse vzdrognulo ot chego-to pokhozhego na golos svyshe …” Cited in Doldobanov, G. I., comp., Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina, ed. Nepomniashchii, V. S., 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000), 1:13 Google Scholar.
67 For a review of conflicting accounts (mostly published between 1866 and 1880) of the origins of “Prorok” and its relation to the fragment, see the notes in Tsiavlovskii, ed., Rasskazy o Pushkine, 91-94.
68 For detailed accounts of Pushkin's meeting with the tsar, see Eidel'man, Pushkin: lz biografii i tvorchestva, 32-41, and Doldobanov, comp., Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina, 1:13-19.
69 The cult of martyrdom or suffering as a value in itself plays a central role in the Christian tradition and is particularly emphasized in Russian Orthodoxy; it is much less prominent in Judaism. The tests and trials to which the Hebrew prophets were subjected were designed to refine their faith and trust in God and obedience to the divine will but did not in themselves make the prophets any holier. On literary representations of saintly martyrs, see Ziolkowski, Margaret, Holography and Modern Russian Literature (Princeton, 1988)Google Scholar. Although Ziolkowski does not examine the figure of the prophet, many of her comments on saintly martyrs in literature are also applicable to the treatment of the prophet.
70 Bakhtin, Mikhail, “Avtor i geroi v esteticheskoi deiatel'nosti,” in h\s Avtor igeroi: K filosofskim osnovam gumanitarnykh nauk, ed. Bocharov, S. G. and Averintsev, S. S. (St. Petersburg, 2000), 153 Google Scholar.
71 Lermontov, M. Iu., Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii, intro. Maksimov, D. E., ed. Naidich, E. E., Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2 vols. (Leningrad, 1989), 2:7–9 Google Scholar.
72 Ibid., 2:19. See, for example, an earlier version of the poem cited, “K ***“ (“Kogda tvoi drug s prorocheskoi toskoiu … ,” between 1830 and 1832), “Son” (“la videl son: prokhladnyi gasnul den'… ,” 1830 or 1831), and “Son” (“V poldnevnyi zhar v doline Dagestana… ,” 1841).
73 Ibid., 2:29. See also “Zhumalist, Chitatel’ i Pisatel'” (20 March 1840), in which the writer refers to his “prorocheskuiu rech'” (2:48).
74 In his first article on Pushkin, Solov'ev refers scornfully to “the false assessment of Pushkin as a teacher of ancient wisdom and prophet of a new or renewed classical beauty;“ “Sud'ba Pushkina” (1897), in Solov'ev, Vladimir, Stiklwtvoreniia. Estetika. Literaturnaia kritika, comp. and ed. Kotrelev, N. V. (Moscow, 1990), 356 Google Scholar. The essay was first published in Vestnik Evropy in September 1897 and then reissued with substantial additions as a separate booklet in 1898 (the version cited here). In his second article, “Osoboe chestvovanie Pushkina: Pis'mo vredaktsiiu [zhurnala ‘VestnikaEvropy’]” (1899), ibid., 381-89, Solov'ev develops this point by mounting a vigorous attack on the “pagan prophecy” of the “orgiasts“ (383), Rozanov, Merezhkovskii, and Minskii, who stressed Pushkin's amoral, aesthetic aspects in their contributions to the 1899 centenary issue of Mir iskusstva. Solov'ev's determination to rescue Pushkin from the camp of the aesthetes (and, through him, the image and function of the poet in general) explains why he preferred to read “Prorok” as a poem, not about the biblical prophet (contrary to the evidence of the text), but about the poet in his highest, ideal incarnation as a moral figure. See his last essay on Pushkin, “Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina” (1899), ibid., 395-440; sections 5-11 (408-32) are devoted to “Prorok.“
75 Solov'ev, “Sud'ba Pushkina,” 360, 365, 360, 361, 364. Solov'ev underlines the contrast between these two perspectives in his last essay on Pushkin, where he reminds the reader once more that, although Pushkin did not at any stage demand “polnogo nravstvennogo pererozhdeniia” from himself or from anyone else, circumstances caused him to experience this moral regeneration during the last three days of his life. “Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina,” ibid., 424.
76 Solov'ev, “Sud'ba Pushkina,” 36], 364.
77 Ibid., 364, 363.
78 Ibid., 363, 361.
79 In this sense, Solov'ev's approach to Pushkin was perhaps not as “modern” as Williams Mills Todd has suggested in his interesting analysis of Solov'ev's three articles on Pushkin. Todd's argument that Solov'ev initiated a more modern approach to Pushkin, based on a close reading of the texts, divorced from the poet's biography, is largely persuasive but overlooks the extent to which Solov'ev still remained wedded to the biographical approach, including the notion of Pushkin as martyr in relation to his last days; see Williams Mills Todd III, “Vladimir Solov'ev's Pushkin Triptych: Toward a Modern Reading of the Lyrics,” in Gasparov, Hughes, and Paperno, eds., Cultural Mythologies of Russian Modernism, 253-63.
80 This purpose is consistent with Solov'ev's final formulation of the significance of “Prorok” as the supreme expression of Pushkin's “poeticheskoe samosoznanie,” of the “vysshei potentsii tvorcheskogo geniia” that he felt within himself: “Pushkinskii ‘Prorok' [ … ] ne est’ [ … ] sam Pushkin, a est’ chistyi nositel’ togo bezuslovnogo ideal'nogo sushchestva poezii, kotoroe bylo prisushche vsiakomu istinnomu poetu, i prezhde vsego samomu Pushkinu v zreluiu epokhu ego tvorchestva i v luchshie momenty ego vdokhnoveniia“ (my emphasis); “Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina,” in Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia. Estetika. Literaturnaia kritika, 424-25.
81 Liubimov, D. N., “Iz vospominanii,” in Tiun'kin, K., ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1990), 2:418 Google Scholar.
82 See Dostoevski's letter to A. G. Dostoevskaia of 8 June 1880, in Dostoevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 30/1:184 — 85.
83 According to his wife's notebooks, Dostoevskii put special emphasis on the words ugi and zhgi and uttered the verb vyrval as sharply as possible; Grossman, Leonid, Zhizn’ i trudy F M. Dosloevskogo: Biografiia v datakh i dokumentakh (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), 302 Google Scholar. Another memoirist recalls that as he read die line “I serdtse trepetnoe vynul,” Dostoevskii would hold his hand out in front of him as if it contained his heart (according to Koni, this reading of “Prorok” took place “on the eve” of Dostoevskii's speech, i.e., on 7 June 1880); A. F. Koni, “F. M. Dostoevskii,” in Tiun'kin, ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:244.
84 The extraordinary notion that Pushkin actually “saw” Dostoevskii before him when he was writing “Prorok” is expressed by E. P. Letkova-Sultanova in her description of a reading, apparently given about a year before the Pushkin celebrations on 9 February 1879; E. P. Letkova-Sultanova, “O F. M. Dostoevskom: Iz vospominanii,” in Tiun'kin, ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:446. In a description of a later reading held on 19 October 1880, another memoirist, Vladimir Posse, took the comparison of Dostoevskii to Pushkin's prophet even further, giving the most remarkably literal application of it every stage of the way, and stopping only at die more gruesome details of the torn-out heart and burning coal; V. A. Posse, “Iz knigi ‘Moi zhiznennyi put','” ibid., 2:439-42.
85 Strakhov describes how Dostoevskii convulsively held down his right hand during his reading of “Prorok,” as if restraining himself from a gesture of prophetic command. He also notes Dostoevskii's early faidi in himself and sense of literature as a higher, prophetic calling; N. N. Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom,” ibid., 1:514-15, 522.
86 Strakhov, N. N., Letter to Tolstoi, L. N. of 28 November 1883, in Perepiska L. N. Tolstogos N. N. Strakhovym (St. Petersburg, 1913), 307–10Google Scholar.
87 That Strakhov regarded Tolstoi as his spiritual teacher is clear from Strakhov's letter to Tolstoi of 6 June 1883. Before setting off to stay with Tolstoi in the summer of 1883, he wrote to him: "Poedu k Vam?v Mekku [ … ] chtoby ozhivit'sia, chtoby prikosnut'sia k neistoshchimoi dukhovnoi zhizni"; ibid., 303.
88 In an earlier letter to Tolstoi of 16 August 1883, Strakhov had already hinted at these feelings. After announcing that he had nearly finished his "biography," he added a revealing comment: "Kakoe strannoe iavlenie etot chelovek! I ottalkivaiushchee, i privlekatel'iioe"; ibid., 305.
89 Ibid., 308.
90 Letters of 16 August 1883, 28 November 1883, 12 December 1883; ibid., 305, 309, 310.
91 Ibid., 309.
92 Tolstoi's reply to Strakhov, written in early December 1883, was first published in Biriukov, P., comp., Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi: Biografiia, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1908), 2:457 Google Scholar.
93 In the words of Liubimov, Tolstoi “blestel svoim otsutstviem“; Liubimov, “Iz vospominanii,” in Tiun'kin, ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:403. Tolstoi received three invitations, one of which was personally brought to him by Ivan Turgenev.
94 N. N. Strakhov, Letter to L. N. Tolstoi of 12 December 1883, in Perepiska L. N. Tolstogo s N. N. Slrakhovym, 310.
95 Shestov, Lev, Nachala i kontsy: Sbornik statei (St. Petersburg, 1908), 69–91 Google Scholar.
96 “Viach. Ivanov o F. M. Dostoevskom [Vystupleniia po dokladu S. N. Bulgakova v Religiozno-filosofskom obshchestve 2 fevralia 1914]: Rech'V. Ivanova,” in Gogotishvili, L. A. and Kazarian, A. T., eds., Viacheslav Ivanov: Arkhivnye materialy i issledovaniia (Moscow, 1999), 64 Google Scholar.
97 See Duncan, Peter J. S., Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism and After (London, 2000)Google Scholar.
98 Solov'ev, Vladimir, Natsional'nyi vopros v Rossii, vyp. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1891), 332 Google Scholar; cited in Duncan, Russian Messianism, 45 (my emphasis).