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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
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The Collected Stories
Reviewed by Lienna Silver
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Knopf, as part of its Everyman’s Library, has recently released a revised and expanded collection of the work of Alexander Pushkin. (The 1999 reissue is appropriate, as the year marked the bi-centennial anniversary of his birth.) In his lovely introduction to the collection, John Bailey reminds us that "Pushkin is an acquired taste, and as we acquire it we begin to realize more and more the subtleties that lie beneath the simplicity of his manner." Such subtleties, and collections such as this, have earned Pushkin his place in the European literary tradition. It is hard to overestimate Pushkin’s stature in Russian culture. His subtle sense of irony, his acute social observations, and his elegant but never vitriolic humor gained him the admiration of Russian writers, intellectuals, and regular readers alike. No parameters were set in Russian literary prose at the time. The novel scene was bleak. Pushkin single-handedly defined the future of Russian literature and made the leap to a new linguistic level. Generations of Russian writers have tuned their style to the sound of his prose. His influence can only be compared to that of Shakespeare in English literature. (Like Shakespeare, Pushkin was unexceptional in his plotting – he borrowed heavily from other writers, rewrote on the themes developed by others, and explored historical themes from the psychological point of view, rather than as a historian.) |
 The Collected Stories Novel by Alexander Pushkin Hardcover - $14.00 Published June 1999 Everyman's Library |
Pushkin came to prose relatively late, as a natural transition from Evgeni Onegin, a novel in verse, and Boris Godunov, a drama in blank verse. English and French literature had a tremendous impact on the development of his style. He considered Voltaire the epitome of prose style, concluding, "the precision and tidiness are the prime methods of prose." Pushkin read Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Balzac, and Stendhal. His experiments with novelistic styles in his unfinished pieces presented in the collection are linked firmly to the traditions of Western European Literature, and yet remain rooted in the uniquely Russian literary expression.
Born in 1799, Pushkin died in 1837 after a duel with his wife’s suitor. His life reads like one of his tales. His maternal great-grandfather was black – of noble Ethiopian descent – and was sold as a page by the Turks to Peter the Great. The Tzar treated him as his own son and subsequently made him a landowner, linking him in marriage with an Old Russian family. Pushkin was proud of his lineage and wrote "The Blackmoor of Peter the Great" about his African ancestor. Though unfinished, it seems appropriate that it opens this collection.
Extremely prolific during his short life, Pushkin wrote dramas, novels, novels in verse, poetry, novellas, essays on literature and political events, epigrams and aphorisms, translated and even composed fairy tales for children. This particular volume delivers most of his stories and novels in prose, including some unfinished novels that influenced a range of 19th century Russian writers. Tolstoy named "When Guests Were Arriving at the Dacha" and "In the Corner of a Small Square," (appearing here in English for the first time) as his major inspiration in the creation of Anna Karenina.
The arrangement of material in this collection is thematic, rather than chronological, which can prove confusing. It does not allow traveling through his works as they were written. Beyond that, the collection's diversity is refreshing. A reader without prior knowledge of Pushkin has the opportunity to become acquainted with his well-known as well as his obscure pieces. Two of these more obscure (at least in the West) pieces – "Captain’s Daughter" and "Tales of Belkin" – are also two of the most important works in the collection.
"Captain’s Daughter" is the story of a young nobleman, Grinev, sent to serve in the army. He arrives at the fort and becomes friends with Captain Mironov, falls in love with the captain’s daughter, Maria, and consequently becomes the nemesis of another young officer, Schvabrin, who is also in love with Maria. The set-up is naïve and melodramatic, but the prose style is vivid and precise. Pushkin does not allow flowery language in his prose and wrings it free of excess.
The story takes on different weight and becomes less predictable when Pugachov appears on the scene. He was a schismatic Cossack who led a resurrection against Catherine the Great under the pretense of being the Sovereign. The uprising was crushed with great effort. Thousands died on both sides, and a vast area of the Russian Empire was destroyed.
Before embarking on this novella, Pushkin wrote "The History of Pugachov’s Uprising," also included in this collection. It was planned as part of a bigger project that never came to fruition, yet the material collected in it was transformed into the fiction of "Captain’s Daughter." It is interesting to read them in sequence (as they are presented in the book) and to observe the formation of future characters as a compilation of true episodes and real people involved in the bloody confrontation. This is one instance when the thematic arrangement works, but only because the two pieces are closely related and were written only a few years apart.
