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Pushkin's taste and taste for Pushkin: Toward a reconstruction of taste mechanisms
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Pushkin's taste and taste for Pushkin: Toward a reconstruction of taste mechanisms
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PUSHKIN'S TASTE AND TASTE FOR PUSHKIN: TOWARD A RECONSTRUCTION OF TASTE MECHANISMS by Mikhail Gronas A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) December 2002 Copyright 2002 Mikhail Gronas Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3093767 UMI UMI Microform 3093767 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA The G raduate School U n iversity Park LOS ANGELES, CALIFO RNIA 90089-1695 Thi s dissertation, w ritte n b y Mikhail Gronas________ U n der th e d ire c tio n o f D issertatio n C om m i ttee, an d approved b y a ll its m em bers, has been presen ted to an d accepted b y The G raduate School , in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t o f requirem ents fo r th e degree o f D O C TO R O F P H I L O S O P H Y B . e _ a e m t e x . _ 1 . 8 . » . _ 2 Q Q 2 _____ DI SSER TA T IO N C O M M IT T E E Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii My dissertation would not have been completed without the generosity of my teachers, family, and friends. Professor Alexander Zholkovsky's combination of sympathetic patience with teacherly nudging has made my dissertation's gestation time finite. Professor Marcus Levitt has scrutinized the complete draft of this dissertation and contributed many helpful comments on matters great and small. Professor Irina Paperno got me thinking about Bourdieu. I owe my interest in the issues of canonicity to a seminar of Professor Peggy Kamuf. I have consulted Professors Carlo Ginzburg, Caryl Emerson, Alexander Ospovat, Abram Reitblat, and Maxim Yegorov on subjects beyond my competence. Our departmental secretary, Susan Kechekian, has provided always friendly and patient support. I am deeply indebted to all of them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS iii Acknowledgements ii List of Tables iv Abstract v Introduction 1 Chapter 1. A Preliminary Elucidation: Towards the Question of Dating Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty v stikhakh i v proze 27 Chapter 2. Intertastes: Marginal Notes to Pushkin's Marginalia 51 Chapter 3. Memory of the Heart: Microanalysis of a Judgment of Taste and History of an Expression 73 Chapter 4. Evaluative Models: The Rhetoric of Taste and Canon 113 Chapter 5.Bulgarin as The Author of the Anonymous Conversation about Boris Godunov. A Taste Based Attribution 195 Conclusion 251 Bibliography 253 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES iv Table 1. Batiushkov's "BjierMH", Pushkin's notes, and Pushkin's "3mmhmm Bevep" 54 Table 2. Batiushkov's "Ha pa3BaJiMHax", Pushkin's notes, and Pushkin's "necHb" 56 Table 3. Batiushkov's "nocjieflHHH BecHa", Pushkin's notes and EO 59 Table 4. "TeMHo" and "Bhjio" in Pushkin's comments to OntiTbi 6 3 Table 5. Terms used by various authors to distinguish between episodic memory and generic memory 99 Table 6. Summary of differences between episodic and semantic memory according to Tulving 100 Table 7. The fashionable and the outdated in A Conversation and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava" 202-203 Table 8. Discussion of genre in A Conversation and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava" 204 Table 9. Discussion of incoherence in A Conversation, Bulgarin's "Notes", and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava" 206-207 Table 10. Criticism of rudeness in A Conversation, Bulgarin's Introduction to "Dimitrii Samozvanets, " and Notes 210-212 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This dissertation is an attempt to develop an approach to literature and literary history, focused on a systematic analysis of individual taste per se, rather than the analysis of literary works, explicit aesthetic programs, or writers' and critics' declarations. The individual taste of Alexander Pushkin, the most influential taste in Russian literary history, is chosen as a case study for a taste-centered approach. The material for the analysis of Pushkin's taste is constituted by the body of his marginal notes to literary works. The most important methodological division in the proposed model is the separation of taste content (what is liked, disliked, or reacted to) from taste mechanism (how, by what particular means it's being done). The methodological novelty of this dissertation consists in the almost exclusive concentration on a system of classificatory schemes, rhetorical devices and evaluative lexicon constituting Pushkin's taste mechanism. The Introduction proposes a methodology for the reconstruction of taste mechanisms and discusses a typology of evaluative judgments, concepts of interstaste and evaluative model, taste rhetoric and taste lexicon. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The first chapter is a necessary preliminary elucidation; it discusses the probable date of Pushkin's undated Marginalia to Batiushkov. The second chapter discusses various intertastes linking Pushkin's Marginalia with Batiushkov, Pushkin's own texts, as well as writings by Coleridge, Mandel'shtam and others. The third chapter makes a transition from the issues of individual taste to the issue of canon formation. It discusses the canonical history of one line by Batiushkov that was strongly disapproved of by Pushkin in the marginal notes, but which nevertheless achieved the highest canonical status in Russian cultural memory. The fourth and the fifth chapters concern comparative judgments of taste and rhetoric of canon formation. The fourth chapter analyzes rhetorical evaluative models used by Pushkin and his contemporaries. The fifth chapter presents an attempt to apply the taste- centered approach to traditional problems of literary scholarship. On the basis of taste-centered analysis it is proposed that the important anonymous anti-Pushkin pamphlet, "A Conversation about Boris Godunov1' (1831), was authored by Faddei Bulgarin, Pushkin's literary archenemy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION 1 1. Why taste? In the mid-1820s Alexander Pushkin, while proof reading Viazemsky's article "On the Life and Works of V.A. Ozerov," came across a passage where Viazemsky describes, somewhat grandiloquently, Ozerov's theatrical innovations and the resistance they met with: "TaKKM o6pa30M BKopeHeJibie npeflpaccyflKH n ynojiHOMOueHHbie npeflCTaBMTejin nx b oSujecTBe 3arpa?KflaioT npoM3BOJibHbiMM MexaMM nyTb reHMio, em,e HeflocTaTOMHO B0 3MyxaBineMy, uto6w c nocTOflHHOio CMejiocTMio npe3peTb mx b nojieTe CBoeM. " (Pushkin XII: 2291) [Thus deep-rooted prejudices and their representatives in society obstruct with arbitrary obstacles the way for a genius, who is not yet mature enough to ignore them with resolved steadfastness in his flight.] Pushkin - who was, generally speaking, no admirer of Ozerov's - must not only have found this passage stylistically flawed, but also disagreed with the explanation of literary evolution it contains. He 1 Here and below the texts in the margins of which Pushkin left comments and marks are quoted from the 1937 Academic Edition (Pushkin Polnoe) where these texts are reproduced with Pushkin's notes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 underlined the passage (something he did to draw Viazemsky's attention to passages he deemed superfluous) and jotted down in the margin (229) : "TyT He 6biJio hm reHMH, hm cMejioro nojieTa - npocTo BKyc" [That was a matter neither of genius nor of a bold flight — simply taste]. A hundred years later, Osip Mandel'shtam in his article "On the Nature of the Word" expressed a very similar idea: "JlMTepaTypHbie ih k o j im jkmbyt He MflenMM, a B K y c a M M . . . MOXHO C 0 3 f l a T b HIKOJIbl OflMMMM T O J Ib K O B K y c a M M , 6e3 b c h k m x M f l e f i . T o B o p f l T , B e p a flB M JK eT r o p a M H , m r C K a ? K y , b n p M M e H e H M M k n o s 3 M M : r o p a M M f lB M ^ e T B K y c " (2: 257)[Literary schools live not by ideas, but by tastes ... one can create schools out of nothing but tastes, without any ideas. They say: Faith moves mountains, but I will say, with relation to poetry, taste moves mountains.] Although later in my study I will devote a few pages to the influence that Pushkin's marginal notes exerted on Mandel'shtam, there is no need to claim any genetic connection in the case of the quotations above. In fact, Pushkin and Mandel'shtam, the two towering figures of, respectively, the Russian nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary canons, merely made explicit Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 an almost commonsensical intuition, shared by many participants in the literary process (both active ones — writers, and passive ones — readers). What afterwards is presented by literary scholars as the succession of literary schools and aesthetic movements is felt by contemporaries as, primarily, changes in taste. Now, to say "taste" is either to say too much or too little — and in either case to say nothing new. Too much — because everything having to do with art and literature relates (in a fuzzy and undefined sense) to taste, but this relation seems to be not specific enough to lead to any explanatory conclusions. Too little — because taste, as Kant has famously shown, and to which proverbs in virtually all languages testify, is a subjective, non-conceptual and non-cognitive faculty, a fleeting indefinable quality which cannot be measured by the rational standards of an intellectual judgment. Nothing new, because what if not taste has been the central topic of aesthetics from the time of its appearance during the century sometimes called "the century of taste" and isn't it the case that nowadays the notion of "taste" is well past its prime? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 Here is how the modern Encyclopedia of Aesthetics describes the unsightly old age of the notion that once called into being aesthetics itself: After Kant, idealist aesthetics had other ways of explaining what is aesthetic. The unification of taste with judgment is pulled apart again ... The determination of what is a true work no longer depends on taste, which is reduced to the role of refined sensibility. In the mid twentieth century taste briefly reappears as a matter of concern just because it is understood not to be rule-governed and plays no theoretical role. (Townsend 359 — emphasis added.) Likewise in the domain of literary studies (where it once reigned as well), taste stocks have bottomed out. Northrop Frye's influential Anatomy of Criticism is implacable: "This sort of thing cannot be part of any systematic study... The history of taste is no more a part of structure of criticism than the Huxley - Wilberforce debate is a part of structure of biological science."(18; emphasis added.) Nevertheless, the present study is an attempt to amplify Pushkin's and Mandel'shtam's intuition and to develop in a preliminary and tentative manner an approach to literature and literary history focused on a systematic analysis of individual taste, rather than the analysis of literary works, explicit aesthetic programs, or writers' and critics' declarations. As a case study Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 for a taste-centered approach I have chosen the individual taste of Alexander Pushkin, probably the most influential taste in Russian literary history. A possibility of a theoretical grounding for such an approach is afforded by the fact that taste, its sorry plight in philosophical aesthetics and literary criticism notwithstanding, has not died out, but rather migrated and found a new home for itself in the domain of the sociology of culture. The analysis of the judgment of taste in Kant's Third Critique might have prevented modern scholars from the empirical analysis of taste as such, until P.Bourdieu's seminal studies initiated the revival of interest in the systematic and empirically based analysis of taste. Bourdieu, particularly in his Distinction and The Rules of Art, has shown that not only is taste an analyzable structure, but also that such an analysis is indispensable and central for the adequate reconstruction of the dynamics of a particular literary field. In a nutshell, the major programmatic aim of the present study is to return the concept of taste, informed and enriched by the methods developed in recent Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 years by Bourdieu and his followers, to the domain of literary scholarship. 2. Bourdieu's Approach Bourdieu's approach to taste is based upon a decisive methodological rupture with "high" aesthetics. In Distinction Bourdieu leaves aside the discourse of taste, and focuses on taste as object. The discourse of taste is constituted by a long and rich philosophical and literary tradition that may be traced back to the anonymous author of the Rhetorica Ad Herennium, Cicero, and Quintillian, who were among the first to use gustatory terms to describe their perception and the appreciation of works of art (Curtius 296). It was then taken over by Renaissance theorists of art who by the end of the fifteenth century began to conflate the previously dominant term giudizio (judgment) with gusto (Klein 160-169). Its modern European history begins with Baltasar Gracian who in the mid-seventeenth century consistently uses the term "taste" to mean a sense of tact (a form of sensus communis) or instinctive capacity enabling the gentlemen Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to differentiate between good and bad art (Gadamer 30- 38, Cascardi 254-282). It reached its acme in the eighteenth century when the pure sensual understanding of aesthetic taste gave way to various theories of intellectual standards for the judgement of taste and the debates on subjective vs. universal nature of taste. Hume formulated the paradox of taste (its simultaneously universal and subjective character), and finally Kant resolved the paradox by turning it into the antinomy of taste, understood as a faculty of disinterested and non- conceptual judgment. Thus, the classical discourse of taste has been predominantly prescriptive; the central issue has been the possibility of creating a standard, and defining the various criteria that would support such a standard: its correspondence to the true nature of beauty (as in Lord Karnes and Burke), the reliance on the practice of "true judges" (as in Hume) or on the disinterestedness of judgment (as in Kant).2 Bourdieu declared "a deliberate amnesia, a readiness to renounce the whole corpus of cultivated discourse on 2 For a detailed analysis of the history of the concept of taste in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries see Friedrich Schuemmer's article "Die Entwicklung des Geschmacksbegriffs in der Philosopie des 17. und 18. Jahrhundert " (Schuemmer 120-141) and Century of Taste.by R.Dickie. Gadamer's Truth and Method contains a classical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 culture" (485) in considering the — primarily prescriptive — discourse of taste, which he found irrelevant for a descriptive analysis of taste as a social object observable in social reality. Basing himself on vast statistical data about various aesthetic and quasi-aesthetic preferences of the contemporary French (including their choices in fashion, hairstyles, furniture, sports, food etc.), Bourdieu has shown that taste functions as a transmitter of social distinctions. Thus, in regard to art and literature, the "low-brow" taste of dominated classes and social groups deprived of educational and cultural capital is based on the confusion of the representation and the represented: e.g. realist paintings or photos depicting likeable children or peaceful idyllic scenery are preferred to experiments in manner or subject matter. The "high-brow" taste of the culturally dominant is structured in opposition to "low-bow" taste as a repression of the direct and immediate sensual pleasure caused by literary texts or works of art, thus providing its bearers with means of differentiating themselves from the culturally deprived. discussion of the early development of the concept and its connection with sensus communis (Gadamer 28-42). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 One can identify two major components in Bourdieu's approach to taste: analytical methodology and explanatory logic. His method consists in treating taste as a system of classificatory schemes and hierarchies that are amenable to objectification by means of surveying systematically the group or population in question. These classificatory schemes are organized as matrices of epithets or other evaluative labels: All the agents in a given social formation share a set of basic perceptual schemes, which receive beginnings of objectification in the pairs of antagonistic adjectives commonly used to classify and qualify persons or objects in the most varied areas of practice. The network of oppositions between high (sublime, elevated, pure) and low (vulgar, low, modest), spiritual and material, fine (refined, elegant) and coarse (heavy, fat, crude, brutal), light (subtle, lively, sharp, adroit) and heavy (slow, thick, blunt, laborious, clumsy), free and forced, or, in another dimension, between unique (rare, different, distinguished, exclusive, exceptional, singular, novel) and common (ordinary, banal, commonplace, trivial, routine), brilliant (intelligent) and dull (obscure, gray, mediocre), is the matrix of all commonplaces which find such ready acceptance because behind them lies the whole social order. (Distinction 468) Bourdieu's explanatory procedures consist in correlating these matrices (caused by reactions to a number of "cultural irritants", such as light music or abstractionist painting) to the positions occupied by the informants in social space (class and group Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 affiliations, amount of educational and cultural capital, income, occupation, gender etc.)- As a result, Bourdieu is able to account for taste understood as "a practical mastery of distributions which makes it possible to sense or intuit what is likely (or unlikely) to befall - and therefore - to befit an individual occupying a given position in social space" (Distinction 468) . 3. From the sociology of taste to a taste-centered literary history. An attempt to apply Bourdieu's approach to literary history encounters a major obstacle: Bourdieu's explanations, though undoubtedly relevant, are too large in scale to account for individual phenomena in their particularity. Thus, the above-mentioned opposition of high- and low- brow taste, "disgust at the facile," can only explain some of the most general tendencies in the tastes of cultural elites. But Bourdieu himself admits that particular taste changes in individuals or groups belonging to the upper stratum of the productive sector of the literary field are determined by autonomous and ad hoc processes within the literary field itself - numerous storms in literary teacups. Bourdieusian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 sociological explanations are adequate for the statistical dimensions of the cultural field, but too general when applied on a micro-level of culture — particular authors, readers, works. Thus, in transferring Bourdieu's methodology to literary history, one can set aside the properly sociological element - i.e. the explanatory part of his analysis. Whereas Bourdieu works with class tastes, literary history cannot be satisfied with explaining away an individual taste of, say, Pushkin, as taste typical of a certain social stratum; the reason being that what interests a literary historian in Pushkin is exactly his uniqueness. However, as for the analytical part of Bourdieu's approach, that is, the presentation of taste as a system of classificatory schemes, a literary historian may find it very useful, since it affords a way to objectify the elusive matter of individual taste. But Bourdieu, who (at least in Distinction) is mostly interested in social dimensions of contemporary taste processes, relies in his analysis on a vast amount of statistical material, primarily various surveys conducted by Bourdieu's group and the Institut National de la Statistique et Etudes Economique in the early seventies. What could constitute Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 comparable material (at least in terms of quality) for a study of the individual taste of a literary figure of the past? To use as primary material the explicit aesthetic declarations found in critical writings, manifestoes and the like would undermine the purpose of such an analysis: Explicit literary programs are by-products of taste processes but they do not reflect (at least directly) the tastes of their creators. Taste, understood as a system of classificatory schemes and hierarchies, and what is usually called a literary position or aesthetic program, are mutually irreducible entities. They do relate to and influence each other, but not always and do not necessarily coincide. A well- known example of such discrepancy is analyzed by Tynianov in his classic study of the literary conflicts of Pushkin's epoch (55-69): Pushkin's explicit literary position (in the camp of the "innovators") for some time contradicted his own taste, namely his predilection for Katenin's poetic experiments, and this discrepancy later brought about substantial change in Pushkin's explicit literary position and in his writing. Bourdieu specifically cautions against the confusion between the implicit "feel" or "sense" for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 classifications (i.e. taste per se) and explicit mastery of classifications (i.e., in our case, - literary programs): The system of classificatory schemes is opposed to a taxonomy based on explicit and explicitly concerned principles in the same way as dispositions constituting taste ... are opposed to aesthetics ... The practical mastery of classification has nothing in common with the reflexive mastery that is required in order to construct a taxonomy that is simultaneously coherent and adequate to social reality ... It in no way implies the capacity to situate oneself explicitly in the classification, still less to describe this classification in any systematic way and state its principles. (471-2) Nevertheless, taking into account the scarcity of "raw taste data" for remote epochs, explicit critical opinions may be (and will be in the present work) used in the study of individual literary taste — but as material for a reconstruction, rather than for a direct analysis. The same is true about the taste material found in the opinions on literary matters casually expressed in literary works themselves, in personal correspondence, in records of conversations, memoirs and the like. This material is better suited for a taste analysis than explicit critical pronouncement: it is less "processed" by the literary programs and presents a better source Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 for studying the taste reactions in their immediacy. However, in case of Pushkin, the value of such material as a source for taste reconstruction is seriously compromised by his partiality and sometimes even hypocrisy, dictated either by consideration for his correspondents or by his respect for his colleagues. Consider for instance Pushkin's following "taste reversals": In October of 1830 Gnedich finished his translation of the Iliad. Pushkin must have felt compelled to mark with a celebratory poem the completion of a work of such significance for Russian literature. He set out to write the poem in hexameter, a meter most suitable for the occasion. However the first version he produced turned out to be rather playful and critical: KpwB 6bin THeflMM noeT, nepeBOflMMK cnenoro ToMepa Bokom oflHHM c o6pa3u,OM cxoik m ero nepeBOfl [Blind in one eye was the poet Gnedich, the blind Homer's translator. So did his translation approximate the original only by half](III 1:238) This epigram, though widely known later, is thoroughly crossed out in the manuscript. In November of the same year Pushkin writes in the same meter an "official" version of the poem which contains a diametrically opposite evaluation of Gnedich's work: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 Cjlbmiy yMO JIKHyBIIIMM 3 ByK SoJKeCTBeHHOM 3JTJIMHCKOM peun; CTapya BejiMKoro TeHb uyio cMyiyeHHOM #yiiion. [I hear the hushed sound of the divine Greek language My stirred soul senses the shadow of the great old man] (Ha nepeBOfl "MjiMaflbi" 8 Nov 1830 - III 1:256) It is clear that neither text can be used to reconstruct the real place of Gnedich's translation in the structure of Pushkin's taste. The satirical version is of course more of a joke than a serious expression of opinion: suffice it to say that Pushkin's limited knowledge of classical Greek wouldn't allow him to opine on the quality of the translation. The laudatory variant, being somewhat compromised by the earlier derisive one, can't be considered a fully genuine commendation.3 3 This story is not limited to the two hexametric poems. Ia.N. Tolstoi mentions that Pushkin, having listened to G nedich's reading of Iliad at a Green Lamp meeting in the early 1820 -s, dashed off the following impromptu: C to6ok> b cnop a He BCTynaio, At o acecTKoe b cTMxax t b o m x BCTpeuaro; H pyrcy Hajiojioui, norjraflMJi — 3aH03MJi. (Perepiska, 1, 341) Cf. however Pushkin's letter to Gnedich dating from Feb 23 1825: BpaT roBopMJi MHe o cxopoM 3aBepmeHHK Bamero ToMepa. 3to 6yfleT nepBbin KJiaccnuecKnn eBponeMCKun noflBMr b HameM OTeuecTBe. And in Pushkin's article Iliada Gomerova written in the same year(1829) as both poems to Gnedich: ...c uyBCTBOM rjiySoKHM ysaaceHMn n SjiaroflapHocTM B3npaeM Ha noeTa, nocBHTMBiuero ropno Jiyumne roflbi m 3hm MCKjnoynTenbHOMy Tpyxiy, S e C K O p b lC T H b IM B flO X H O B e H H H M VL C O B e p iIie H M O e flM H O T O , B b lC O K O T O n o f l B M r a . P y c c x a H U n M a n a n e p e n Ham. I l p M C T y n a e M k ee M 3 y n e H M i o , n a b b i c o B p e M e H e M O T f l a T b o T u e T H aniM M u n T a T e j i n M o K H w r e , n o J ia c e H C T B y io m e M M M e T b C T O J ib B a a c H o e B jiM H H u e H a O T e u e c T B e H H y i o c j i O B e c H O C T b. (XI: 88) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 Or compare two of Pushkin's opinions on the poem Spirits by his friend Kiukhel'beker. Here is the first one, in a letter to Kiukhel'beker himself: "Be3fle, rfle nosT 6pep;MT IIIeKcriMpoM, ero JierKoe B03ffyniHoe TBopeHte, peub ApMOJin m nocJieflHHH Tnpafla, - npeKpacHO." (Dec 1-6 1825; XIII: 248) [Wherever the poet is raving about Shakespeare, his light airy creation, Ariel's speech, and the last tirade are beautiful] The second was written at exactly the same time to Pletnev: "Kioxejib6eKepa flyxn - flpflHb; c t m x o b xoponiMX oueHb Majio; BbiMbicna HeT HMKaKoro. . . He roBopw 3Toro eMy - o h oropuMTCH." (Dec 4-6, 1825; XIII: 249) [Kiukhel'beker's Spirits is crap; good verses are very few; no fantasy... Do not tell him that though, he will be upset]. Thus, although all the various sources mentioned above will be used in the present study, its primary material is Pushkin's marks and comments in the margins of books he read — the source that most closely approximates Bourdieu's surveys. Two bodies of such And in a letter to Gnedich who must have been deeply moved by the article: R paflyiOCb, H TpO HyT, HTO HeCKOJIbKO CTpOK, poSKO Habpo meHHbIX MHOK) B " P a 3 e T e " , MorjiM TpoHyTb Bac no TaKOM c T e n e H K . He3HaHMe rp e u e c K o ro H3biKa MemaeT MHe npMCTynMTb k nojiHOMy p a 3 6 o p y MjiMaflbi BameM. Oh He HyxeH fljiH Bamen cjiaBbi, ho 6hji 6bi Hy»ceH hjih Poccmm . (Jan 6 1830; X IV : 56) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. notes have survived among Pushkin's manuscripts: Marginalia to Viazemsky's article "On Life and Works of Ozerov" and Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty. Of these the former is an especially suitable source for taste reconstruction. It consists mainly of short marks and notes that reveal Pushkin's most immediate, almost visceral, aesthetic reactions to particular "irritants" - Batiushkov's separate lines or whole poems, so that one can decipher the meaning of each of Pushkin's evaluative labels by consulting the lines that have caused this reaction. As distinct from Pushkin's critical prose these notes were jotted down at leisure and were not intended for publication — while writing them Pushkin did not have in mind any explicit literary program and hardly cared about the coherence of the aesthetic or evaluative system being expressed. As distinct from the meta-literary opinions found in Pushkin's literary works and correspondence, the Marginalia to Batiushkov were not to be shared with his friends — they were written completely for himself and did not reflect anything but Pushkin's immediate and unprocessed aesthetic responses. The Marginalia to Viazemsky's article were written on Viazemsky's request and, accordingly, were intended to be read by Viazemsky. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 However, from the notes themselves, and from the correspondence between Pushkin and Viazemsky it is clear that in judging Viazemsky's literary works Pushkin never held back any criticism: Viazemsky was not a reader Pushkin was afraid of insulting and their friendship did not affect Pushkin's responses. Thus, the Marginalia will be used in the present study as a primary source for reconstructing the classificatory schemes that define Pushkin's taste. Considerable attention will also be paid to the importance of the Marginalia for other, more traditional aspects of Pushkin studies. 4. Methodology Since Bourdieu's works concern mainly the statistical dimensions of taste, his methods can be only partly utilized in the present study: as shown above the sociological explanatory part of Bourdieu's analysis would be too general for specific literary analysis. Thus, the taste-centered approach advocated here requires a model of individual taste as such, relevant for literary history rather than for sociology of literature. The model I will proceed from is deliberately schematic and simplistic; it is important Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 only in the modus operandi aspect of the study, not as its modus operatus, and it is not claimed to be exhaustive, since its main function is heuristic, rather than theoretical or explanatory. The most important methodological division in the proposed model is the separation of taste mechanism from taste content. Put simply, taste content is what is liked, disliked, or reacted to, while taste mechanism is how, by what particular means it is being done. The relative methodological novelty of the present study consists in the almost exclusive concentration on the taste mechanism. Pushkin's taste content is probably one of the most studied subjects in the domain of Russian literary history: taking into account the amount of scholarly literature on this topic, it does not even make sense to give the shortest possible overview of it. Almost any "Pushkin" AND "X" combination in the Library of Congress Catalog, where X is an aesthetic or literary phenomenon of any significance, would produce a long list of hits. The taste mechanism, however, is a less studied topic, since, apart from its being comparatively new and never formulated in this particular form, it lies between the boundaries of the three traditional disciplines of Pushkin scholarship: "Pushkin as critic" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 studies, that concentrate mainly on Pushkin's critical articles, literary programs he associated himself with or fought against; studies of Pushkin's style, which examine Pushkin's vocabulary and rhetoric, and traditional histories of literary and aesthetic movements, that is, studies of Pushkin's literary or aesthetic position. All these three fields do touch upon the guestion of Pushkin's taste mechanism from their own perspectives but never treat it as an object to be reconstructed, or an object deserving independent analysis. This is not to say that Pushkin's taste mechanism is a scholarly terra incognita: in fact, there have been numerous studies that, without identifying Pushkin's taste mechanism as such, have made major contributions to its reconstruction and I will be referring to them in the body of my study below. For practical investigative purposes it is necessary to propose a typology of judgments of taste that constitute taste mechanism. The typology I will proceed from is again simplistic and does not claim to be exhaustive, or even fully adequate to its object. For mnemonic purposes I will explain this typology by referring to Lenin's opinions on art and literature that Soviet schoolboys were once supposed to know by heart: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 1) "This book has ploughed me over" (Lenin on Chernyshevsky's "What Is to Be Done?"); 2) "This is non-human music" (Lenin on Beethoven's "Sonata - Apassionata"); 3) "Of all the arts for us the most important is cinema" or "Tolstoy and God are two bears in one lair." The first type is an affective judgment-, it states that a book or a work of art had an effect or an impact (intellectual, emotional etc.) on the reader's life or psyche: "this book has killed me", "It makes me laugh, cry etc." The second type is a descriptive judgment: it assigns an evaluative label (an epithet, an adjective) to the aesthetic phenomenon in question: "a beautiful, charming book", "a light, superficial, awkward, coarse, obscure, simple, difficult poem." This type coincides with Bourdieu's "classificatory schemes" cited above. Since Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov mostly consist of judgments of this type, this text will be mainly used for the analysis of Pushkin's system of classificatory schemes and of particular meanings of his evaluative labels. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 The third type is a comparative (and superlative) judgment. It evaluates the aesthetic phenomenon not in its action or effect (as in the first type) and not intrinsically (as in the second type), but comparatively; it situates a book or a poem or an author within a hierarchy of literary merits constructed either ad hoc between the two compared phenomena, or as a total and all-inclusive view of the field as a ladder or sport pedestal etc. Since the present study proceeds from the definition of taste as a system of classificatory schemes and hierarchies, it will mostly concern the two last types of judgment, namely descriptive and comparative judgments. The second, descriptive, type of judgment that reveals the underlying system of classificatory schemes is indicative above all of the individual taste mechanism. The third, comparative, type of judgment is important for the diachronic aspect of taste studies, namely for the studies of canon formation. In fact, comparative (and superlative) judgments are the main rhetorical mechanism of canon formation; this aspect of canon-making has been largely overlooked in the canon studies of the recent decades Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 that have concentrated mainly on the institutional mechanisms of canon formation4. Apart from the types of judgment I will limit myself to just two more methodological concepts: Evaluative rhetorical model — is the term I will apply to invariant rhetorical constructs used in the process of evaluation. These models are mostly present in the second (comparative) type of judgment and are based on a trope, most often an underlying metaphor. For example, all comparative judgments are explicitly based on the rhetorical model of hierarchy, but there are many more models, used for various purposes and with various degrees of explicitness. Intertaste — is a self-explanatory neologism intended to refer to the cases of influences not between texts (as in traditional intertext), but between the individual writers' taste systems. 4John Guillory's Cultural Capital is probably one of the most important general theoretical studies in the institutional aspects of canonization. For concrete analyses of Pushkin's institutional canonization see Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 by Marcus Levitt ( on the institution of Pushkin celebration) and Social functions of Literature: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 5.Structure of the study The dichotomy descriptive judgments (classificatory schemes of individual taste) vs. comparative judgments (evaluative rhetorical models relating to canon formation) is the main structuring element of the present study. As has been mentioned, the basic material for the analysis of Pushkin's system of classificatory schemes is constituted by the body of his marginal notes to Batiushkov's Opyty and Viazemsky's "On Life and Works of Ozerov." The first three chapters relate to "Pushkin's taste" in the title of this study and are concerned with the classificatory schemes of Pushkin's individual taste as revealed in the Marginalia. The first chapter is actually a necessary preliminary elucidation; it discusses the probable date of Pushkin's undated Marginalia to Batiushkov. The subject of the second chapter is various intertastes linking Pushkin's Marginalia with Batiushkov, Pushkin's own texts, as well as writings by other authors influenced by Pushkin's taste. The third chapter makes a transition from the issues of individual taste to the issue of canon Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture by Paul Debreczeny (on educational institutions and anthologies). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 formation. It discusses the canonical history of one line by Batiushkov that was strongly disapproved of by Pushkin in the marginal notes, but which nevertheless achieved the highest canonical status in Russian cultural memory. The chapter attempts to elucidate both the logic of Pushkin's disapproval and the logic of canonical choice, which in this case contradicted that of Pushkin. The fourth and the fifth chapters relate to the "Taste for Pushkin" part of the title and concern the comparative type of judgment and the rhetorical evaluative models involved in the process of canon formation. The fourth chapter analyzes rhetorical evaluative models used by Pushkin and his contemporaries. The material for this chapter is constituted by meta- literary opinions expressed in various sources: correspondence, critical articles and literary works. The main (though not exclusive) focus is on the models used by Pushkin, and the models used in evaluating of Pushkin's works and significance. The fifth chapter is again primarily textological. It presents an attempt to apply the methods developed in earlier chapters (especially the fourth) to a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 traditional problem of literary scholarship, namely the problem of attribution. On the basis of taste-centered analysis (as well as more conventional methods of traditional textological attribution) I suggest that the important anonymous anti-Pushkin pamphlet, "A Conversation about Boris Godunov" (1831), was authored by Faddei Bulgarin, Pushkin's literary archenemy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 CHAPTER I A Preliminary Elucidation: Towards the Question of Dating Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty v stikhakh i v proze. Since in this study Pushkin's Marginalia constitute the basic material for taste analysis, it is appropriate to discuss exactly when Pushkin wrote his marginal notes to Batiushkov. Although the question of taste evolution is not central to the present study, it would be unwise to neglect the essential property of individual taste: its mutability. Most observations in this chapter have to do with Pushkin's Marginalia and, therefore, are primarily relevant to that particular moment in the evolution of Pushkin's taste when he was writing his Marginalia. The problem is that the text of the Marginalia is undated and the issue of its date has been a topic of scholarly debate. In what follows, I will review this debate and propose a solution. L.N. Maikov, the first publisher of the text, proposed a tentative date: "No earlier than the second half of 1826 and, perhaps, no later than 1828" (Maikov 291). To summarize his arguments: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 1) Pushkin mentions the opinions of Dmitriev, Viazemsky, and Batiushkov himself on several of Batiushkov's poems. Because Pushkin did not know Dmitriev very well until 1826 and was not on friendly terms with Batiushkov, and their acquaintance was short lived, it is plausible that Dmitriev's and Batiushkov's opinions were communicated to Pushkin by someone else, most likely by Viazemsky. Pushkin got to know Viazemsky very early, but until 1826 they met only rarely. According to Maikov, the facts above, though not so significant as to make possible the definitive dating, are still sufficient for suggesting 1826 as the year of the marginalia to Opyty. 2) On the last blank page before the back cover of Pushkin's copy of Opyty, Pushkin wrote the text of Batiushkov's poem Est' naslazhdenie i v dikosti lesov (1819) , which was written after the publication of Opyty. The poem was first published in 1828 in Severnye Tsvety. Viazemsky entered it in his notebook in 1826. As for Pushkin, he could not have known this poem earlier than 1826, when he returned from exile, but no later than 1828, when the poem appeared in print. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 S.A. Vengerov agreed with Maikov and dated the marginalia to 1826 in his edition of Pushkin's collected works (3: 195) . The original text that Maikov had used for his publication of Marginalia was lost as of 1910. However, in 1930 L.B. Mozdalevskii found in Maikov's library a copy of Opyty in which Maikov had carefully reproduced all Pushkin's notes, preserving their original order and place. In fact, Maikov went so far as to replicate the media in which Pushkin wrote: pencil notes are in pencil, ink notes in ink. V.K. Komarovich used this newly discovered text for the publication of Marginalia to Opyty in the Academic Edition of Pushkin's Collected Works in 1937 but proposed a different terminus post quern - August 20, 1830. His inference is mainly based upon his interpretation of Pushkin's remark in the margins of YmmpaionjMM Tacc: 3Ta ojiernn KOHevHO HMxe CBoew cjraBbi. H He BMflej: ojrerMM, flaBmew EXaTioniKokBy noBon k cBoeMy CTMXOTBOpeHHIO, HO CpaBHMTe "CeTOBaHMfl Tacca" nooTa EawpoHa c cmm toiiihm npoM3BefleHweM. Tacc flbiman JiioSoBbio m BceMM cipacTHMH, a 3flecb, KpoMe cjiaBOJiiobMn m BoSpoflymMH (cm. 3aMeu. <aHMe>) , Hwuero He BHflHO . 3tO yMMpaiOUIMH B.<aCMJTMX4> I! . <bBOBMy>, a H e TopKBaTO. (XII: 283) According to Komarovich (890), "it is hardly plausible, from the psychological point of view, that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 Pushkin would have compared Batiushkov's character to 'dying Vasilii L'vovich' before the latter had actually died [i.e. before August 20, 1830 - M.G.]." In 1972 V.B. Sandomirskaia devoted a special study to the issue of dating Marginalia to Opyty. In her article "Towards the Dating of Pushkin's Marginalia" she suggests an earlier date: 1821-1824. To substantiate her claim, she puts forward a textual argument based on her reinterpretation of the aforementioned remark about a dying Vasilii L'vovich, as well as on several observations of a general character. Her understanding of Pushkin's remark is the opposite of the one suggested by Komarovich. : "His (Komarovich's - M.G.) suggestion that it would be impossible for Pushkin to compare somebody to a dying V.L. Pushkin before his uncle actually died, seems no more acceptable than the exact opposite: right after Vasilii L'vovich's death such a frivolous and mischievous joke would be even less possible" (32). Aside from stating that it would be too cynical for Pushkin to joke about his recently dead relative, she points out that Batiushkov was much more important for Pushkin in the early twenties when Batiushkov was still perceived as an active participant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 in literary life. According to Sandomirskaia, the fact that at the time that Pushkin was preparing his first collected poems a close reading of Opyty must have aided him in developing his own conception of a book of poetry may well account for Pushkin's attention to Batiushkov's Opyty. Hence her dating the Marginalia to 1824 at the latest, by which date Pushkin had finished mapping out the plan for his first collection. Sandomirskaia also observes that both poking fun at Vasilii L'vovich (Cf:"3TO yMMpaioiyMh BacMJiwh JlbBOBMV, a He TopKBaTo") and mentioning Byron as a literary authority (Cf:"cpaBHMTe CeTOBaHMH Tacca nosTa BawpoHa c cmm toiijmm npoM3BefleHMeM") are characteristic of the earlier Pushkin. R. Gorokhova (Elegiia 20-29) adheres to Sandomirskaia's interpretation but attempts to define the dating more precisely: 1824 - 1825. Gorokhova draws our attention to the fact that Vil'gel'm Kiukhel'beker's diary contains a very similar entry to Pushkin's note on yMMpaioiriMM Tacc. On April 28, 1834 Kiukhel' beker wrote down: . . . flOjrscHO ace HaKOHeu, cKa3aTb, uto BaTiomKOB BOBce He 3acjiy5KMBaeT r p o M K w x noxBaj: 3a "YMMpaiomero Tacca", kukmmm Kaxsyum eMy sa sto Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. cTMxoTBopeHMe, Korfla oh eme 3flpaBCTBOBaji m k3kmmm eme m noHbiHe, HanpwMep b Tenerpa^e, KanHT 3a OHoe ero naMATM. "YMwpaiomMM Tacc" - nepeBoa c $paHu,y3CKoro; noflJiHHHMK oxothmkh MoryT cucKaTb b $paHu,y3CKOM "AjibMaHaxe My3" 90-x tobob. Abtop - xeHiyMHa. (qutd. in Gorokhova Elegiia 26) Both Pushkin and Kiukhel'beker state that Batiushkov's elegy does not deserve the fame it enjoys5; both mention a prototype of Batiushkov's elegy. Pushkin and Kiukhel'beker did not see each other after the former had been sent into exile in 1826 but carried on their close correspondence. According to Gorokhova, Kiukhel'beker could have formed the opinion expressed in his diary much earlier than 1834, possibly in the early twenties. He then could have conveyed his opinion to Pushkin in their exchange of letters on literary matters in 1824. The ground for her conjecture is her assumption that the subject of Batiushkov's elegy would come up quite naturally in the context of what Pushkin and Kiukhel'beker presumably were discussing. In 1824 Pushkin was considering writing an answer to Kiukhel' beker's article "0 HanpaBJieHMM Hamew nos3MM" (Mnemozina) that contained sharp criticism of incidentally, Batiushkov himself was dissatisfied with the aesthetic quality of his piece. Thus in a letter to Gnedich he writes: "H h cMemoH. He noxoac jim fl Ha cjienoro Hnnero, kotopbm, ycjibimaB ripeicpacHoro BwpTyo3a Ha ap$e, B3,n;pyr B3flyMan BOcneBaTb eMy XBany Ha BOJiLiHice mjtm Ha SajiaJiaMKe? BwpTyo3 - Tacc, ap$a - H3biK Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 fashionable elegies of dejection (yHbiJibie ajierMM) . On the basis of these observations, Gorokhova (Elegiia 43) suggests the following: B o3m o * h o j i m , v t o r iy u iK M H H n v e r o H e n n c a n 06 s t o w C T a T b e c a M O M y K i o x e j i b b e x e p y o c e H b i o 1824 r o z t a , K o r j j a O T f l a B a j i e M y c t h x h b j i h a j i b M a H a x a ? n p n o b c y a c j j e H n n ace B o n p o c o B , n o j i H H T b i x b C T a T b e K i o x e j i b b e x e p a , H e n 3 b e a c H O flO J D K H a 6 b u ia B03 H H K H y T b T e M a 06 e j i e r n n B o o b m e , o E a T i o u i x o B e n e r o " y M n p a io m e M T a c c e " — b v a c T H O C T M . K a x p a 3 b n p o u e c c e T a x o r o o b M e H a M H e H W H M H K i o x e j i b b e x e p n m o t B b i c x a3 a T b I l y m x n H y c b o i o M b ic jib 0 $ p a H u , y3 c x o M n c T O U H n x e s j i e r n n E a T i o m x o B a . Further, Gorokhova points out that Pushkin's note about Batiushkov's elegy as being "overrated" might have been a rejoinder to the high praises lavished upon YMMpaioigMM Tacc in Pletnev's 1823 analysis of the elegy in Zhurnal iziashchnykh iskusstv. To prove her point, she takes notice of a few hypothetical textual coincidences between Pletnev's article and Pushkin's note. Thus Pushkin mentions that the historical Tasso "boiled with all passions" [xnneji BceMM CTpacTHMn] , which corresponds to Pletnev's characterization of Tasso: "poet, boiling with passions" [xMneBiiMM CTpacTHMM] (37) . As becomes evident from the overview of the existing opinions, all tentative datings of the HTajTMM ero, hvhhhm r, SaJiaiiKa - h3lik Ham, acecTKMM h3uk, hto hm Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 Marginalia are highly hypothetical and based upon unproved assumptions. The main difficulty in assigning a date with any precision is the absence of any positive biographical data and the necessity to rely upon interpretations of either Pushkin's psychology (namely, his attitude toward his uncle's death) or intertexts found in the Marginalia. Any attempt to attribute the Marginalia either to the period from the late twenties to early thirties or to mid-twenties can only be conjectural, as is the case with the hypothesis that I am going to present below. Therefore, the following analysis does not claim to determine the date of Pushkin's Marginalia with any decisive evidence; it merely introduces some new textual observations and presents a hypothesis that is at least as consistent with the known facts as the ones proposed by others. To put it in a nutshell, I propose to return to Maikov's initial suggestion (1826 - 1828) and date the work to 1828 . First, let us revisit at greater length the arguments made in prior scholarship. As mentioned above, Komarovich based his date upon the argument that it would be meaningless for Pushkin to joke about his roBopn." (July 1817: Sochineniia 2: 448) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 uncle's death before Vasilii L'vovich had actually died. Sandomirskaia objects that, to the contrary, this would have been too cynical for Pushkin. Both scholars quote passages from Viazemsky and Pushkin relating to V.L. Pushkin's death that are very ambiguous in this respect. Viazemsky inserts in his notebook the following description: EeflHbiM BacwjiMM JlbBOBwv cKOHuajicn 2 0-ro uncna b Havajie TpeTbero uaca nonojiyflHM. . . HaicaHyHe bbm oh yace coBceM M3HeMoraioiipiM, ho yBvinsz AneiccaHflpa, njieMHHHMKa, CKa3aji eMy: "Kan cicyueH KaTeHMH!" Ilepefl 3THM oh uMTaji ero b JlMTepaTypHow Pa3eTe. riymKMH roBopwT, hto oh npn otmx cjiOBax m Bbimeji m3 KOMHaTbi, HTobbi flaTb tnfle yMepeTb MCTopMuecKM. IlyiiiKMH 6bm oflHaxo ace oueHb TpoHyT BceM otmm 3pejromeM m Bee BpeMH Ben cebn xax Hejib3n npHnwuHee. (Zapisnye 192) Pushkin writes to Pletnev from Boldino on September 9, 1830 : O k o j t o MeHn Konepa Mopbyc. Bnaemb jim u t o o t o 3a 3Bepb? Toro m rjiHflii, h t o 3abeaci4T OHa b B o j i h m h o , na Bcex Hac nepexycaeT — Toro n rnnflM h t o k Anne Bacujibio OTnpaBJiiocb, a Tbi m nwiiM m o io Sworpa^Mio. BeflHbiw BacujTMPi! 3Haeuib jim ero nocneflHMe cnoBa? nprre3acaio k HeMy, Haxoacy ero b 3abbiTbM, ouHyBmwcb o h y3Han MeHn, noropeBaji, noTOM, noMOJiuaB: "Kan CKyvHbi CTaTbM KaTeHHHa!" M bonee HM CJTOBa. KaKOBO? BOT H TO 3HaUMT yMepeTb VeCTHbIM b o m h o m , Ha mwTe, le cri de guerre a la bouche! (XIV: 112) Komarovich treats these passages as the evidence of an ironic or even mischievous attitude on Pushkin's part, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 which would account for the irony in the remark to Tass. Sandomirskaia, in turn, emphasizes Viazemsky's remark about Pushkin as "being very touched and behaving more than properly" and points out that Vasilii L'vovich's last words do not correspond to what Pushkin had called "love of fame and good nature" [cjiaBOJiio6Me m jjodpoflyuiMe] in Batiushkov's portrayal of Tasso's death. It seems that Pushkin's reference to the dying Vasilii L'vovich cannot be used as an unambiguous criterion for dating the note at all. First of all, it is possible to show that he was indeed cynical enough to joke about a deceased relative. On the other hand, he could have easily joked about his uncle's death well before the actual event. The psychological authenticity of Pushkin's "cynicism" finds its proof in an episode following the death of Pushkin's, aunt Anna L'vov'na Pushkina, Vasilii L'vovich's sister. Having known about his aunt's death, Pushkin inquired about Vasilii L'vovich's poetic reaction: "CMepTb Moeh TeTKM fretillon He BHyniMJia jim KaKoro-HMbyflb nepeBOfla BacMJiMio JIbBOBMvy? HeT jtm xoTb 3nnTa$MM?" (Letter to Viazemsky, Nov 29 1824; XIII: 125) Vasilii L'vovich indeed wrote an elegy. In their turn, Pushkin and Del'vig in Mikhailovskoe devoted quite Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a frivolous piece of poetry to this regrettable 37 occasion. In his next letter, Pushkin communicates the poem to Viazemsky: yjibiSHncb mom MMJibin, bot T e b e " S j i e r u j i n a C M e p T b A h h h J Ib b o b h h " O x T e T e H b K a ! O x A H H a J Ib B O B H a , BacMjibH J Ib B O B n u a cecTpa! BbiJia Tbi k MaMeHbKe JiioboBHa, BbiJia Tbi k n a n e H b K e .nobpa, B b iJia Tbi J In 3 a B e T o n Jib bobhom, J Iio b n M a S o jib in e c e p e b p a ; M a T B e w M n x a n j i o B n u , K a K K p obh u m , Te6n B C T p e u a j i c p e f l n f l B o p a . fla B H O jim c O jib r o io C e p r e B H o n , C o J Ib B O M C e p r e n n e M fla B H O jib, KaK 6bi Ha cMex cy,qb6MHe rHeBHOH, T b i p a 3 f l e j i n j i a x j i e b m a c o j i b . Ybh! 3aneM BacMJinw JlbBOBnn Tbom rpob CTHxaMM omoumji, Mjim 3aueM nofljien, nonoBMU Ero KpacoBCKHM nponycTMji. (Letter to Viazemsky, Apr 1825; XIII: 165-166) In reply, the "cautious" Viazemsky warns Pushkin against Vasilii L'vovich's possible reaction: "Ecjim "Ax T e T y n n c a ! A x , A H H a J Ib B O B H a ! " n o n a j j e T C H H a r j i a 3 a B a c w jib io J lb B O B M u y , to 3 a r o T O B b f l p y r y i o n e c H i o , n o T O M y hto oh, B e p H O , He nepeHeceT yjiapa." (June 7, 1825; XIII: 181) Indeed, the poem made Vasilii L'vovich furious and Pushkin had to appeal to Viazemsky to mollify his uncle: PaflM Bora, floxaM Bacwjimo JlbBOBwuy, uto ojierwH Ha CMepTb Ahhm Jibbobhh He Moe npoM3BejieHMe, a Kaxoro HMbyflb npyroro 6e33aKOHHMKa. Oh BOCKjiwuaeT "a OHa ero cecTpe 15000 ocTaBMJia.". . fleno b tom, hto KOHeuHO flejibBwr bojiee BHHOBaT, HeHcejiM h. (letter to Viazemsky, September, 1825; XIII: 231) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 As can be inferred from a Del'vig's letter, Viazemsky must have followed the strategy proposed by Pushkin: " O h [Viazemsky] cxasaji M H e , u t o o h y B e p w n Bacwji m h JlbBOBMua, u t o "Ax T e T y i n x a , ax AHHa JIbBOBHa" HarrocaHO m h o i o , m TeM ycnoxoMji ero poflCTBeHHyio flocaay. Mbi oveHb CMenjiMCb Hafl o t h m . " (letter to Pushkin, June 1826; XIII: 285) Meanwhile two more of Pushkin's relatives died, his grandmother, V.V. Chicherina, and another uncle, Petr L'vovich Pushkin. Viazemsky continues the theme in the already cited letter: "CKa3biBaioT, v t o y Bac y M e p eiye flobpbiw uejioBeK IleTp JIbBOBMM m ocTaBMJi xopomee H a c j i e f l C T B O . C m o t p m , H e n e p e c T a H b n w c a T b c c v a c T M H : HacneflCTBa Tax m najtaioT BaM Ha rojioBy." (June 7, 1825; XII: 181) Pushkin sneers at the new "losses" in a letter to Del'vig: "Tbi 3Haenib, v t o r MMen HecvacTbe noTepsTb babymxy VMuepMHy m flHflio rieTp.<a> JIbB.<oBnva> - nojiyunji S T M M3BeCTM3 6e3 npMrOTOBJieHMH M Haxoacycb B yacaCHOM nojioaceHMM - yTemb M e H H , s t o C B H m e H H b iM flour flpyacObi (cero CBHmeHHoro uyBCTBa)" (no later than June 8, 1825; XIII: 181). This passage, if taken out of its context, might sound quite serious, but Pushkin is unambiguously ironical and the editors of Perepiska comment: "Pevb MfleT O B.B. VMUepHHOM M n.JI. IlyillKMHe, C KOTOpbIMM y riyniKMHa He 5biJio hmkukhx CBH3efi" {ibid. ) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Thus, the ironical complaints from the opening stanza of Evgenii Onegin wouldn't be completely unimaginable in Pushkin's own mouth — nor an ironical allusion to his uncle's actual death in Marginalia. The Arzamassian playfulness with respect to Vasilii L'vovich actually survived Vasilii L'vovich and was still present at the occasion of the first anniversary of his death. Pushkin writes to Viazemsky from Tsarskoe Selo: "20 aBr.<ycTa>, fleHb CMepTn Bac . <mjirh> JIbB. <OBMva>, 3flemHHe ap3aMaccybi noMMHaJin C B o e r o CTapocTy BOTpyniKaMM, b k o m BOTKHyTO 6biJio no JiaBpoBOMy JincTy. CBeTJiaHa npoM3Hecjia HaarpobHoe c j t o b o , b KoeM c ocobeHHbiM u y b c t b o m BcnoMMHajia OHa obpnfl npMH3TMH ero b Ap3aMac. (August 1831; XIV: 217) "Votrushka" (cheesecake) is a modification of "Vot," the Arzamassian nickname of Vasilii L'vovich. A leaf of laurel in votrushka alludes to Vasilii L'vovich's love of fame (slavoliubie) , the quality mentioned in Pushkin's remark. Svetlana, i.e. Zhukovsky, recalls the famous ritual of Vasilii L'vovich's hilarious initiation to Arzamas, in the course of which Vasilii L'vovich had to undergo many severe and inventive trials, including a mock funeral. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 Incidentally, well before Vasilii L'vovich died, his death had become a popular subject for practical jokes in literary circles. A telling example is found in Viazemsky's letter to A. Turgenev written in October, 1816: H a , O e jiH b iM n y u iK M H y M e p b K o 3 e j i b C K e . H e c v a c T H b iM c t m x 3aceji y H e r o b r o p j i e : T e T ic a n o c j i a j i a 3a flO K T o p a M H m y v e H b iM M . C 'b e x a jiM C b w p e in m in u t o H e n p e M e H H O H y x H o n o r w b H y T b c T w x y m jim c T M x o T B o p u y . n o rn jiM c n o p b i, TOJiKKt n , H a K O H e u , o b m w M M H e H n e M n o jio a cM JiM c f l e j r a T b K e c a p c K y i o o n e p a u w io m H a b h k m m C T p a x c n a c T M T B o p e H w e , x o t h m H a c u e T T B o p u a , h o y B b l, T e C H O C B H 3 a H H b ie B 3 a i4 M H b IM p O flC T B O M M c p o f lC T B O M , o b a c n e jia jT O C b a c e p T B O M n a r y b H o r o M H C T p y M e H i a . C o o b m w n e v a n b H o e M 3 B e c T w e K a p a M 3 M H b iM , A p 3 a M a c u ,a M m B c e M y y B C T B M T e jib H b iM c e p f l t a M . 0 T b i, O o jio B a A p $ a , flO C T O H H a n c o n e p H w u a T p y b b i C T o r j ia c H O M m o j i b h , Cxaacw, v t o Ily iiiK M H MepTB, Bocnnaub m o t b o x h m . (Arzamas 373) Several epitaphs were written on this occasion and the event must have been discussed in correspondence as well as during Arzamas gatherings. The tradition of joking about the "dying" or "deceased" Vasilii L'vovich was initiated by a practical joke of Aleksei Mikhailovich Pushkin - a distant relative of the poets. Aleksei Pushkin, a minor poet and translator, was chiefly famous for his bon mots and witticisms. Vasilii L'vovich, his naive and good-natured relative, was a convenient object for practical jokes and friendly banter. Together they constituted an odd and funny couple. In the already Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 cited letter about the deaths of Pushkin's relatives Viazemsky recalls: E e jjH b iM m J iK )6 e 3 H b iM H a m A j i e K c e w M M x a M J iO B w v y M e p m C H e c b M o r M J iy H eM C T o m M M b iM 3 a n a c m y T O K c b o m x H a B a c M J iM H J lb B O B M u a . H e B M fla B iiiM m x B M e c T e Tbi t o u h o M oaceuib a c a m e T b 06 y T p a T e o p w r M H a jib H b ix m B b ic o K O K O M M u e c K M x c u e H . H a M yac T a x c jia f lK O H e C M e a T b c x ! BbiJiM B b ix o flK M K J ia c c M v e c K w e! (XIII: 181) Among the "classical pranks" that Viazemsky mentions there undoubtedly was the practical joke that Aleksei Mikhailovich played on Vasilii L'vovich in 1815, when he made everybody believe that Vasilii L'vovich had died. Vasilii L'vovich responded with the following poem: H a c j i y ^ a P i m y T K M A . M . Ily m K M H a , k o t o p u m y T B e p y K R a ji, v t o X y M e p . OflHo^aMMJieu, m o m , x cjibimy, yTBep^aaeT, H t o x ocTaBMJi SejibiM CBeT, H t o nyMaTb 3,n;ecb h m k t o o MepTBOM He acejiaeT... ...A yMep rjix Seceji, r ^ e K a p T O U H O M M r p o n 3 f i o p o B b e , p a 3 r o B o p m B p e M H y S M B a iO T ; H y M e p m flji« Tex, rue 6 jim :> k h m x b vac m h o m IlOHOCHT m pyraioT. Ho x acMBy eqe b j i h m c t m h h h x ,n;py3eM, flyme m cepauy m m j i h x ; ® M B y eme a j i h M y 3 , m b x w a c M H e Moew He 3Haio C K y K M x, H e B M ^cy n n e M y H b u i b i x . C C n O K O M H O M C O B e C T b lO S b lT b M 0 5 K H 0 O f lH O M y ! Monuy no cyTKaM m MevTaio, H cuacTbH BCHKOMy 5Kejiaio, A 3jia Bor b m h h t , HMKOMy K veMy MHe nbiiuHbin obeflbi, P f l e b B M H a x f l o p o r n x K y n a iO T C T e p j i n n e M ? ^CMBy ffjjx MMpHbin, npMHTHbin Seceflbi M flobpbix JiacKOBbix jipy3eM. (Pushkin V.L., 106-107) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 Alexander Pushkin certainly knew this poem. During his studies in the Lyceum, he followed literary life very closely and, of course, he would not have missed an episode involving the two Pushkins at once. It is not unlikely that it is this very poem, and, consequently, the fictional death of Vasilii L'vovich that Pushkin refers to in his note to Batiushkov's Tass. The intonation of Tasso' last monologue in Batiushkov is reminiscent of Vasilii L'vovich's poem: E.g., the bonhomie [floBpoflyinne] in Pushkin's remark corresponds to the following lines in V. Pushkin: fl cuacTbH BC3KOMy acemaio, A 3 J ia Bor b h a h t , h m k o m y . . . )KnBy fljin M n p H b in , n p w n T H b in Sece^bi M floSpbix jiacKOBbix flpy3ew. Taking into account that Pushkin could have had in mind Vasilii L'vovich's poem about his own death it is safe to say that he had reasons to joke about the dying Vasilii L'vovich both before and after his death. Moreover, he could have referred ironically to his dying uncle even during Vasilii L'vovich's lingering final illness. From what we know about Vasilii L'vovich's personality as well as from his late correspondence, one can gather that during his last year he was especially prone to sentimental and melodramatic scenes (similar to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 the one in Batiushkov's Tass) . Characteristic of Pushkin's reaction is the following passage from a letter to Viazemsky dated May 2, 1830: "flnflfl Bacnnnh JlbBOBwv TaKxe njiaKaji, y3HaB o Moen noMOJiBKe. Oh codMpaeTCB noflapwTb HaM Ha CBanbdy ctmxm. Ha ,i(hhx oh vymb He yMep w hyth He oxcmji. Eor 3HaeT tom m 3aneM oh xcMBeT." (XIV: 88 [my italics - M.G.]) Thus Pushkin could very well have referred to an episode or episodes like the one he is relating here. Therefore, "YMnpaiom.MM BacMJiMM JlbBOBnv", which is the only hypothetically verifiable chronological reference in Pushkin's marginal notes to the Opyty, cannot serve as a basis for dating the text, because this reference can in fact support any suggestion. Let us turn now to the other lines of argument proposed by scholars. Sandomirskaia attempts to use what we might call Alexander Pushkin's "taste history" as a basis for dating. She draws attention to the mention of Byron in the poet's note to Batiushkov's Tass and argues that it would be more likely to come from the mouth of an earlier Pushkin, at a time when Byron was an indisputable literary authority in his eyes. But the phrase in question - "cpaBHHTe "CeTOBaHHfl Tacca" nooTa Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 DawpoHa c cmm toiijmm npoH3BefleHMeM" - does not imply any active Byronism on Pushkin's part. It merely contains a comparison of the literary quality of specific texts; Pushkin could have preferred Byron to Batiushkov at any stage in the development of his taste. The active presence of Byron in later Pushkin's creative memory is well documented.6 Twice, in 1827 and 1835, Pushkin considered writing critical articles on Byron. Pushkin's general attitude towards Byron did change over time, yet he still spoke highly of him in sketches of critical articles in 1827: K o p c a p . . . y c T y n a e T . . . " P n y p y " b n jia M e H H O M M3 o 6 p a a c e H M M c r p a c T e n , " O c a n e K o p w H ^ a " , " I l l n ji b o H C K O M y y 3 H M K y " b T p o r a T e j i b H O M p a 3 B M T M n c e p ^ u a u e j T < O B e u e c K o r o > , b T p a r w u e c K O M curie ”napw3MHe", H a K O H e u , 3-m m 4-om n e c < H m > "Child Har. <old>" b r n y S o K O M b i c r i M n n B b i c o T e n a p e H w n h c t h h h o n o s T M u e c K o r o... (XI: 64) It is worth mentioning that the third and fourth cantos of Child Harold were Pushkin's favorites in Byron. According to Gorokhova (32), Pushkin might have confused Tasso's Complaints with the fourth canto of Child Harold, where Byron speaks about Tasso's last days. Therefore, the reference to Byron cannot be a reliable basis for dating. 6See detailed studies on the role of Byron in Pushkin's creative history in Zhirmunskii's Byron and Pushkin (Zhirmunskii Bairon) and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 Sandorairskaia also states that close attention to Batiushkov and his Opyty would be natural for an earlier Pushkin but hard to explain in the Pushkin of the period from the late 1820's to the early 30's. Again, in general it is true that Batiushkov was much more important for Pushkin during the Lyceum period and the early twenties. But this general observation cannot yield any inference for dating the text. There is ample evidence that Pushkin was interested in Batiushkov and kept rereading his poetry in the late 20's and 30's. Batiushkov's intertexts are present in Pushkin's poetry until very late. Pushkin seems to have known by heart many of Batiushkov's poems, and Batiushkov's lines kept reappearing in Pushkin's creative consciousness well after the time when Pushkin outgrew his influence. N.M. Botvinnik identifies several allusions to Batiushkov in Pushkin's lyrics of 1830-1831 (147-155). As early as 1899, P.V. Vladimirov (26) noted that the introduction and the conclusion of MeffHtm BcajjHMK are a poetic rendering of Batiushkov's nporyjixa b axajjeMMio x y g o x e c T B . Botvinnik (154) comments: CooTBeTCTBne npo3anvecKOM CTaTtn BaTiomKOBa n CTpOK B nOOMe "MeflHblW BCaflHMK" 3CHO flOKa3bIBaeT, in Kozmin's article "Pushkin on Byron" (99-111). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. u t o nyuiKMH nepeHMTbiBaj: BaTiomKOBa b 30-e roflu. ECJTM C T M X O T B O p H b ie C T p O V K M M O T T M O C T a T b C H B n a M H T M r iy n iK M H a c i o h o c t m , nopbi y B J i e v e H M H TBop^ecTBOM CTapraero n p y r a , t o Taxoe T O U H o e T e K C T y a j i b H o e cooTBeTCTBMe c npo3anqecKMM npon3BeneHHeM, Kaxoe MbI BH flM M B "MeflHOM B C a f l H H K e " , MO*eT 6 b I T b T O J l b K O pe3yJibTaTOM HenaBHero TieHMH. Another indication that Pushkin was keenly interested in Batiushkov and kept coming back to his works until very late is found in Viazemsky's 1878 memoir "M3BecTne o M 3 H H M C T M X O T B O p e H M H X M b M b . f lM M T p n e B a . Ilp M n M C K a . " Viazemsky recalls that Batiushkov was a subject of discussions between Viazemsky and Pushkin during the last years of Pushkin's life ( " b nocjieflHee BpeMH") : Co m h o m jnobMJi o h cnopMTb: m cnopwjTM Mbi flo ynany, n;o oxpwnjrocTM 06 03epoBe, flMMTpweBe, BaTiomKOBe m o MHoroM npoueM m npoueM. B nocneflHee BpeMH o h HTO-TO pa3JTK)6MJT BaTIOIIIKOBa M yBepHJT, UTO B HeKOTopbix CTMXOTBOpeHMHX ero m o 3 k h o 6bi.no yxe npeflBMfleTb 3apo,qbiiiiM 6ojie3HM, KOTopaa nosflHee nocTMrna m norjioTMna ero. B nepBbix 3fce nopax nyuiKMHa, o h HanpoTMB conyBCTBOBaji eMy, m 6bui HecKOJibKo yueHMKOM ero, paBHo wax m npnaTejib nyuiKMHa BapaTbiHCKMM. (Polnoe 160) Thus close attention to Batiushkov is not specific to the early Pushkin alone, and therefore the suggestion that the Marginalia could not have been written later does not hold up. Gorokhova's argument that Pushkin's mention of the French original of the elegy is a reference to some early correspondence or personal communication with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 Kiukhel'beker is not convincing either. The entry in Kiukhel'beker's diary has a much later date of 1834. Indeed, lost correspondence between Kiukhel'beker and Pushkin might have contained a discussion of Batiushkov's elegy and its French prototype, but it is impossible to determine when exactly Kiukhel'beker wrote to Pushkin about this matter. Even if, as Gorokhova suggests, Kiukhel'beker did communicate his opinion to Pushkin in 1824, this would not be a reason to date Marginalia to 1824: Pushkin might have kept in mind Kiukhel'beker's phrase and referred to it later. On the other hand, we know from the general character of the correspondence between Pushkin and Kiukhel'beker that the letters to and from Dinaburg fortress might have contained literary discussions and, furthermore, Kiukhel'beker might have written the letter in question much later than 1824. As we have seen, most of the arguments both for the earlier (1824) and later (1828-30) dating of Marginalia are purely hypothetical. In what follows, I will introduce a new textological argument and two circumstantial pieces of evidence that give some support to preferring the year 1828, possibly even narrowing it down to December of 1828, as the date of Marginalia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 In 1828 (most likely in July), Pushkin writes a draft of "Refutation of the Article in Atheneum" [Bo3pa*eHne Ha CTaTbio "ATeHen"]. Atheneum's critic had accused Pushkin of making grammatical mistakes in Evgenii Onegin, for example using the wrong form BpeMHH instead of the right one BpeMeH (as in Derzhavin's rmaroji BpeMeH) . In his reply, Pushkin comments: "BpeMHH", cjreflCTBeHHO flepacaBMH oiumSc h , CKa3aB: " r u a r o j i BpeMeH" H o BaTtoniKOB ( k o t o p h m BnpoveM ouiMdajiCH nouTM c r o j i b 3Ke uacTo, KaK m ,I(ep:>KaBMH) CKa3aj[: T o a p e B H i o P y c b m H p a B b i B j i a f l M M M p a B p e M H H (XI: 70) This observation about the correctness of Batiushkov's language ("ouiM6ajicH CTOJib »re uacTO, KaK m flep?KaBMH") seems to be too specific for a general impression. In Marginalia Pushkin often notes Batiushkov's grammatical mistakes. Here are a few examples: Batiushkov: nwTaeT acaflHHx nTwu, yTpoboio CBoew ( O jie rM M M3 T M S y ju ia ) Pushkin: "nwTaeT" underlined; comment: OmwSKa MM$ojiori«ecKa3 m rpaMMaTMuecKan (XI: 259) Batiushkov: . . . Cpeflb bypew p i Henyr, obHTenb f l p e B H H H VI f l O b j i e C T M VI H p S B O B . . . (BOCnOMMH3HMJl) Pushkin: "6ypeR m Henyr" underlined; comment: 6ypb, HenyroB. "HpaBOB" underlined; comment: raJiJiMyM3M (XI: 260) Batiushkov: ... uyflecHbiM fleHb, 6e3 h o u m , 6e3 3apew... (nocnaHMe M.M. M.A.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 Pushkin: "6e3 3apeM" underlined; comment: 3opb (XI: 276) On the basis of this observation it is possible to suggest that Pushkin read and commented on Opyty in 1828, when he was working on the reply the critique of Atheneum. Two independent pieces of evidence corroborate the conjecture that December of 1828 might be a likely date for Marginalia, or at least, that at this time Pushkin was either reading Batiushkov or thinking about him. In M. Pogodin's diary there is an entry dating from the late December of 1828 relating that at that time Pushkin discussed Batiushkov's poetry with him: "K Ilyin. <KMHy>. Bor aaji BceM opexn, a eMy nqpa. Cjiym. <ina.n> ero cyacqeHMn o EaTiomKOBe." (92) N.D. Ivanchin-Pisarev, a Moscow acquaintance of Pushkin, recalls in his memoirs the circumstances of their meeting on 30 December, 1828: "Oh npn MHe xe Bnwcaji /b aJibfoM/ M3BecTHbie ctmxm: "My3a." Ha Bonpoc mom, oTuero otm npniunM eMy Ha naM3Tb npejKfle bchkmx qpyrnx, - "H mx jtk>6jiio - oTBeuaji riyuiKMH: ohm OT3biBaioTCH CTMxaMM BaTKimKOBa"7 (qutd. in: Gessen 115) 7 V.V. Vinogradov comments on this passage: "cTaHOBHTca iiohhthlim yTO HMeHHO MMejl B BMfly IlymKMH, CKa3aB O CBOeM CTHXOTBOpeHMH "My3a" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 Of course the fact that in the last days of December 1828, Pushkin discussed Batiushkov's poetry with Pogodin and recalled Batiushkov in connection with a poem he was writing in Ivanchin's album is in itself only minor and oblique evidence. The reference to Batiushkov's grammatical mistakes may have also been based upon some earlier reading experience. However, as I have shown above all the proposed suggestions rely upon hypothetical assumptions. The hypothesis I suggest here might be qualitatively preferable, because it is based upon three specific pieces of evidence within the limits of one year. (1821) "B jiioSjiio ero, oho o t3 bibaetc # C T P i x a M H B a n o i i i K O B a . " k B a T io n iK O B y B O C X O f lM T K a K C e J T b C K O a H T M H H O e 0 6 p a 3 H 0 - 3 K C n p e C C H B H 0 e C H a p H J K e H M e C T M X O T B O p e H M H , T a K M e r O M e jI O J IM K O - C H H T a K C P i y e C K M M p n e y H O K . " (184) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 CHAPTER II Intertastes: Marginal Notes to Pushkin's Marginalia. 1. Introduction: The Concept of Intertaste Intertaste is a term I propose to apply to a phenomenon of textual evidence of mutual influence between individual tastes. This term is modeled after intertext, a well established term of modern literary scholarship, and in many respects it is similar to its prototype: in fact, intertastes are usually manifested as traditional intertexts — subtexts, allusions, hidden quotations, parodies etc. However, I contend that the new term is still useful, because it emphasizes the specificity of the source of intertextuality in these cases. Thus, in a nutshell, what follows is an attempt to demonstrate that tastes are no less influential than texts and that "taste data" can shed light on various intertextual phenomena. I will focus on Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty and on other minor or "marginal" texts by Pushkin in order to clarify connections between Pushkin's texts and texts by those Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 authors who either stimulated Pushkin's taste reactions (documented in Marginalia) or were influenced by Pushkin's taste (again, specifically as manifested in Marginalia) . The following notes constitute in effect my own marginalia to Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov. In the first section I will show that Pushkin in his own poetry tended to use as subtexts8 those of Batiushkov's lines and passages that triggered Pushkin's strong (either favorable or negative) reaction while he was rereading Opyty. In the second section I will suggest that on the basis of Pushkin's notes to Batiushkov analyzed together with Batiushkov's subtexts in Lenskii's elegy in Evgenii Onegin, one can add Batiushkov to the list of already known poets whom Pushkin used as prototypes (and objects of parody) in creating Lenskii's image. In the third section I will discuss Mandel'shtam as an attentive reader of Pushkin's marginal notes and show that it is possible to produce on this basis a new and convincing interpretation of one of Mandel'shtam's well-known poems. Finally, the fourth section goes beyond Marginalia and concerns one of Pushkin's paradoxical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. taste judgments found in Table-talk, another corpus of his peripheral writings. I will show that in this case it was Pushkin who was under the influence of somebody else's taste; namely, that Pushkin's paradoxical opinion on Shakespeare's Othello as "not being jealous" is borrowed from S.T. Coleridge's taste expressed in the latter's Table-talk. 2. Pushkin's use of Batiushkov's lines commented on or marked in Marginalia to Opytv. Batiushkov's Elegila iz Tibulla (XII: 259) elicited an ambiguous response on Pushkin's part. He clearly disliked the first part of the poem and made the following notes in the margins: "Bhjio," "JlnuiHnn cm," "OmnSKa Mn^ojiornuecKafl n rpaMMaTnuecKafl." But the final nine lines of the poem caused his enthusiastic response; he marked these lines with a vertical line and commented: "IlpejiecTb," "npeKpacHbih n e p e B O f l " (XII: 259). As obvious from the table below, it was exactly those Batiushkov's lines that Pushkin marked and commented upon favorably, that were used as subtexts in Pushkin's own 1825 poem "A Winter Evening" [3nMHnn Bevep] 8 I use the term subtext in the meaning developed in the 1960 -70s in Mandel'shtam studies, in works by Kirill Taranovsky, Omri Ronen Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 Table l.9 Batiushkov's "SJiernfl", Pushkin's notes, and Pushkin's "3m m h m m B e v e p ." ________________________________________________________________________ B a tiu s h k o v , "SjierM H M3 T M 6 y ju ia " (XII: 259) P u s h k in i n th e m a rg in s to B a t iu s h k o v 's poem in th e l e f t c o lu m n(XII: 259) P u s h k in , "3m m h m m B e v e p " , 1825 (II 2: 439) ITpn niyMe 3m m h m x Bbior, no,n; ceHbK) 6e3onacHOM , Ilo flp y ra b TeMHy Hovb 3a?KJKeT CBeTMJIbHMK KpaCHbIM , J d tmxo BpeTeHO KpyjKa b p y x e CBoefi PaccKa?KeT noBecTM m 6bIJIM CTapbIX flHeM . A TbI, ckjiohhh c jiy x Ha CJiaflKM He6bIJIMIJbI, 3a6yflem bCfl m o m flp y r , M TOMHble 3 eHML^bl 3aK poeT TMXOM COH M npncJiMiia M3 p yx Ila fle T . . . ripejiecT b [ p o s t c r i p t u n d e r th e poem] IIpeKpacHbiM nepeBOfl Bypn Mrjioio He6o K p o eT , BMXpM CHe»Mbie K pyT H . . . Mjim 6ypM 3aBbiBaHbeM Tbi m o m flp y r yTOMJieHa, Mjim flpeMJieiub non xy?KaHbeM C B oero BepeTeH a BbinbeM, flobpan noflpyiKKa BeflHOM IOHOCTM MOeM. . . CnoM MHe necHio KaK CMHMta Tm x o 3a MopeM m u ia CnoM MHe necHio KaK fleBMi^a 3a BOfloM no y T p y uuia As the table shows, Batiushkov's and Pushkin's texts are strikingly similar. The lyrical plot in Batiushkov's passage is almost identical with that of Pushkin's poem: a friendly woman, (a nanny in Pushkin), on a stormy winter night, distracts her friend (her master in Pushkin) with songs and fairy-tales. Further, there are obvious lexical coincidences: noffpyra - nofipymca, BpexeHa - BepexeHa, and even almost identical rhyming and their followers. 9In the tables below the italics are added and indicate an intertextual connection with the parallel text; underlined words in Batiushkov's poems are underlined by Pushkin in his copy of Opyty. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 pairs HeBMU,a-CMHMU,a in Pushkin, He6bmmj,bi-3eHMU,bi in Batiushkov. Pushkin's comment "IIpeJiecTb" stands next to the stanza: ITpn rn yM e 3 m m h m x Bbior, nofl c e H b io 6e3onacHon, Tloflipyra b TeMHy Houb 3a^ofceT CBeTHJibHHK KpacHbin, M t m x o B p e T e H O x p y x a b p y i c e C B o e M PaccKaxeT noBecTM m Smjim cTapbix ffHefi And it is this stanza that is almost entirely transposed to Pushkin's "Winter Evening." Thus, attention to the domain of intertastes sheds light on the intermediate link between the borrowed and the borrowing, namely the creative memory of the borrower. It is quite to be expected, that Pushkin would reuse those lines of Batiushkov that had elicited his specific aesthetic response, and the above mentioned intertaste allows us to document this process. Another example of Pushkin borrowing from Batiushkov's lines he commented on in Marginalia is found in Pushkin's Pesn' o veshchem Olege (1822), which contains subtexts from Batiushkov's Na razvalinakh zamka v Shvetsii. Pushkin's comments and marks are in bold and placed next to the lines they refer to. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 Table 2. Batiushkov's "Ha pa3BajinHax, " Pushkin's notes, and Pushkin's "IlecHb. " Batiushkov, "Ha pa3BajinHax 3aMKa b IllBeiiMM" (XII 257- 258) Pushkin in the margins (XII, 257 - 258) Pushkin, 1822, IlecHb o BeiijeM Onere (II 1:243-246) . . . TaM uaiiiH paflocTM CTyuaJiM no CTOJiaM TaM xpaSpbie xpyroM c flpy3bflMH JIHKOBajIH TaM CKajibflbi nejm 6paHb, n nepcTti nx jieTajin IIo njiaMeHHHM CTpyHaM TaM nenn 3Byx Menen n CBHCT nepHaTbIX CTpeJT M TpeCK IDjMTOB m rpoM yflapoB ... Kax MecHu; b HeSecax TaM CTapu,bi xaflHbin cnyx ckjiohhjtm k necHe cen, Cocyflbi nojiHbie b flecHMU,ax mx flpoxajiM, M ropflbie cepnma c BocToproM b cnoMHHajin 0 cjiaBe lOHbix flHen jkmbo, npeKpacHO. [postcript under the poem] Boo6m,e mhcjim nomjibie n CTMXM HeflOBOJIbHO JKMBbI . . . IlnpyeT c flpyxtMHOio Beuinn Ojier IIpH 3BOHe BeceJIOM CTaxaHa M Kyflpn nx 6ejibi KaK yTpeHHnn CHer Han cjiaBHon rjiaBoio KypraHa. Ohm noMHHaioT MHHyBmne flHM M 6m t b h , rfle BMecTe py6njincb o h m . . . In his notes to Batiushkov's Na razvalinakh Pushkin is rather critical of the text as a whole; the postcript to the poem says: "In general the thoughts are trivial and the verses are not lively enough." (XII: 258) But a few lines in the poem turn out to be to Pushkin's liking. And it is these lines which reappear in Pesn' o veschem 01 ege. O n c e a g a i n w e f i n d s i m i l a r i t i e s i n p l o t ( o l d V a r a n g i a n w a r r i o r s a r e f e a s t i n g a n d r e m e m b e r i n g t h e i r p a s t d a y s a n d b a t t l e s ) a n d i n p a r t i c u l a r e x p r e s s i o n s : " B c n o M M H a J iM o c j i a B e johhhx f l H e w " (B) — " rr o M M H a io T M M H y B iiiM e Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 rhk " (P). The last line of Pushkin's passage: "Bmtbm rfle BMecTe pyhwjiMCb ohm" correlates with Batiushkov's lines preceding those marked by Pushkin: "TaM nejiM 3ByK MeueM m cbmct nepHaTbix CTpejr. " As distinct from the previous example, these similarities on their own would constitute a sufficient proof of Pushkin's borrowing. But the fact that Pushkin himself singles out these fragments makes this argument much more convincing, since it tells us that these lines were active in his creative memory. Two notes in Marginalia (to Tibullova Elegiia and Plennyi) seem to confirm the suggestion that Pushkin knew a considerable number of Batiushkov's poems by heart. He marks the lines that are different from earlier Batiushkov's editions and cites, most likely from memory, the previous variants: Batiushkov: ...m cm r h . 3a ctojiom, MHe jiarepb HauepTMT Becejibix Mam b m h o m . (Tibullova Elegiia; XII: 262) [Pushkin's comment: *6biJio npeagie: Mam npojiMTbix BMHOM — TOMHee]. Batiushkov: K p o B , noxpbiTbiM hpkmm CHeroM (Plennyi; XII: 265) [Pushkin's comment: * 6biJio npejKfle: BejibiM CHeroM]. As has been shown above, I proceed from the hypothesis that the Marginalia were written in 1828. Both Batiushkov subtexts (or intertastes) analyzed above Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 appear in Pushkin's earlier poems Zimnii vecher dating from 1825 and Pesn' o veshchem Olege from 1822. It means that if my analysis is correct, Pushkin liked and learnt by heart these lines of Batiushkov in his early youth when he was very enthusiastic for Batiushkov's poetry. His creative memory may have selected these lines years before he jotted his approving notes about these same lines in Marginalia. 3. Marginalia and the "Batiushkov — Lenskii" connection Batiushkov's elegy Posledniaia vesna is not mentioned as a possible source of Lenskii's elegy in the sixth chapter of Evgenii Onegin either in Lotman's or in Brodsky's commentaries; Nabokov mentions it a propos. However, the Marginalia show that Pushkin not only knew Batiushkov's poem but also paid a great deal of attention to its mediocre aesthetic quality. He underlines nine lines of the poem and makes three notes: nopr 3Haer h t o raKoe, jjypHO and Hey/janHoe nojjpaxaHMe Millevoye. (XII: 263) To all appearances, Pushkin considered this poem to be full of "ojiernuecKnx 3aTew" and could use it in the parodic synthesis of elegiac cliches in Lenskii's elegy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 The lyrical plot of Posledniaia vesna is almost identical with that of Lenskii's elegy: "a young man bids farewell to his life and deliberates whether his beloved will come to his grave." The plot was indeed typical (which was a reason Pushkin exploited it in parody) and as such it had been hashed in numerous contemporary poems. However, specific similarities in particular details and, especially, Pushkin's comments on Batiushkov's Posledniaia vesna preserved in Marginalia suggest that Pushkin used this Batiushkov's elegy as one of the prototypes for Lenskii's elegy in Evgenii Onegin. Table 3. Batiushkov's "IIocjieflHHfl BecHa", Pushkin's notes and EO. Batiushkov, "IIocjieflHHH BecHa"(XX: 263) Pushkin in the margins (XII: 263) EBreHMM OHerKH: "yjK 6jim3ok uac. . . UBeTOUK'Vf MH.TThT , K ueMy TaK paHO yBHflaTb? / 3aKpoMTe naMHTHHK VHbUTbTM, Tne npax mom 6yaeT MCTJienaTb;/ 3aKpoHTe nVTb K H6MV cofiolo Ot b 3 opoB npvacSbi HaBcerna . / . . . McnojiHHT ~ S.narovxaHbeM/RoKpyr nVCTHHHhlH HeSoCKJIQH . . . H npy?K.6a cjie3 He ypoHMj:a/Ha npax jnobHMya CBoero/ M XlejiMH He noceTMJia nyCTblHHblh naMHTHHK ero/ Jlraiib nacTbipb b TMXMH nac fleHHMUbl, / Kax b none CTaflo BbirOHHJI,/ YHblJIOn necHbio B03Mynjaji/ MojinaHbe rpo3Hoe rpo6HHU,bi...__________ uepT 3HaeT hto Taxoe! flypno [postcript under the poem] HeyflauHoe noflpajxaHne Millevoye HO HbIHe . . . naMHTHHK yHblJIblH 3a6biT. K HeMy npMBblMHblH CJlefl 3arjiox. BeHKa Ha BeTBM HeT; OfiKH nofl HHM, CeflOH H XHJIbIM IlacTyx no npexoieMy noeT 1 4 o6yBb 6eflHyio nneTeT.(7, VII) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 Batiushkov's Posledniaia vesna is written in iambic tetrameter, the same meter as Evgenii Onegin. In Posledniaia vesna as in Evgenii Onegin the elegiac soliloquy of the young man is put in quotation marks and framed with objective authorial narrative (ambiguously ironic in Pushkin, completely serious and compassionate in Batiushkov). Some lexical similarities between Batiushkov's elegy and Pushkin's parody are predictable, since they are conditioned by the conventionality of the genre. Thus, such parallels as the rhymes grobnitsy - dennitsy; and the images of a withering flower and of a fire dying out occur in both texts (in Batiushkov "nneTOHKn mmjim, 3aueM Tax paHO yBHflaTb... a beflHbifi roH oina norac" and in Pushkin "u,BeT npexpacHbiM yBHJi h yTpeHHeh 3ape, noTy oroHb Ha ajiTape" (EO 6 XXXI) do not constitute an argument in favor of Pushkin's textual dependence on Batiushkov, since this imagery is present in numerous contemporary melancholy elegies (yHbijibie sjierMM) . Other similarities are more specific and become more convincing in light of Pushkin's note to the corresponding passages in the margins of Opyty. In Marginalia Pushkin underlines Batiushkov's passage that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 includes the expression p a m i a t n i k u n y l y i and writes in the margins: HopT 3HaeT hto Taxoe! The underlined expression reappears in E B re H M fi O H e rM H : Batiushkov in "Posledniia vesna" (underlined by Pushkin) : "3aKpoMTe naMHTHHK VHbiJibin/Pfle npax mom 6y,qeT mct jieBaTb." Pushkin in the margins: "HopT 3HaeT hto Taxoe!" Pushkin in E v g e n i i O n e g in : ''Ho HbiHe. . . naMHTHHK yHbiJibin / 3a6biT . " Another important proof of interstate is found in the image of a shepherd singing at the monument, which appears only in Pushkin and Batiushkov and is absent from poems by Milonov, Krylov, Kiukhel1beker, Perevoshchikov and Zhukovsky usually mentioned (Lotman K o m m e n t a r i i, 296-297) as sources for Lenskii's elegy. Compare in Batiushkov, P o s l e d n i a i a v e s n a : M flpyxBa cjie3 He ypoHMJia Ha npax JiioBMMya cBoero M fleJiMH He noceTMJia nycTbiHHbifi naMHTHHK ero JlMIIIb naCTbipb B THXHH Mac fleHHMybl, Kax b noJie CTaflo BbiroHHJi, YHbiJTOM necHbio B0 3Myru,aJi MojinaHbe rpo3Hoe rpobHwybi And in EBreHMfi OherMH: HO HbIHe . . . naMHTHHK yHblJIblH 3a6biT. K HeMy npHBbiHHbiM cjiefl 3arJiox. BeHKa Ha BeTBM HeT; OflHH nofl HHM, CeflOH H XHJTbIM nacTyx no npe^nneMy noeT M o6yBb BeflHyio njiemeT. (7, VII) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 Finally, an exclusively taste based argument in favor of the suggested hypothesis is found in Pushkin's well- known (and much studied) comments on Lenskii's style in Evgenii Onegin: "Tax o h nncajr T e M H O n bhjio" (Pushkin's it., 6, XXIII). Pushkin italicized the adverbs, which has provoked numerous interpretations. Some commentators have pointed out that the italics in this Pushkin's phrase indicate a quotation: according to Lidiia Ginzburg (Ob odnom 154), the quotation is from Iazykov, according to Nabokov (EO 3, 31) , it is from Chateaubriand, according to Lotman (Pushkin 676) it is from Kiukhel'beker10. However, independently of these suggestions, it is still likely that Pushkin refers here (among other sources that, of course, could have included Iazykov, Kiukhel'beker and Chateaubriand) to his own reactions to 10C f . L o tm a n 's c o m m e n ta ry : X X I I I , 1 — Taic oh rmcaji TeMHO m bhjio. . . — HaMeK Ha oyeHKy sjierM H ecK on no33MM K roxejib6eKepoM : "C m ia? — rtje HanneM ee b BoJibmen nacTM cb om x m y t h m x , HMHero He onpeflejifljoiijMx, H3HeJKeHHbix, 6ecu,BeTHbix npoM3Be,n;eHHM? " Ko BpeMeHM pa6oTbi Hafl mecTOM rjiaB O fi 77 y x e , bvirvimo, 3HaJi h BTopyio CTaTbio K io xejib6eK ep a: "Pa36op (|)OH-flep-BoproBbix nepeBOflOB pyccKMX CTMXOTBopeHMM ", r^e ejierwHecKaH rnxojia Ha3biBajiacb "bhjiom onMcaTejibHOM irace-no33Mefi". Bbi,qejiMB cjioBa "TeMHo" m "bhjio", 77 OTflejiMJi mx KaK nyjKyio penb ot OCTajIbHOTO TeKCTa . STO n03B0JIHJI0 eMy C03flaTb flByCTOpOHHHM HpoHMHecKMfi 3(|xJ)eKT: m b aflpec no33MM JleHCKoro, m b aflpec cxporoii OLteHKM sjierMfi Kioxejib6eKepoM. (L o tm an Pushkin 6 7 6 ) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 Batiushkov. Both adverbs are probably among the most common comments Pushkin jotted in the margins of Opyty. Consider the following examples: T a b le 4 . "TeM Ho" and "B h jio " i n P u s h k in 's comments to OnbiTbi. B a t iu s h k o v 's O p y ty ( X I I 257 - 2 8 1 ) : P u s h k in 's com m ents i n th e m a rg in e s ( X I I 257 - 2 8 1 ) : A x , lOHoma! cneuiM k OTeuecKMM 6 p e ra M . . . "Ha pa3BaJiMHax 3aMKa b IIlBeyMM " Bhjio . 0 b n , KOTopbie yM eeT e jno6HTb . . . "O jiern H M3 TM 6yjuia " Bhjio . Hn npy?K6bi, h m jiio6b m , h m n ecH efi My3 n pejiecT H bix. . . "OTpblBOK " Bhjio . Ho Bee jno6oBbio 3flecb McnojiHeHo M oen, M KJIHTBbl CTpalHHbie TBOM . H anoM H HaeT. . . "MiyeHMe" JlMHiHee m BHJioe K ax uacTO flMMTpMeB, p acT o p rH yB CBeTCKM y3bi, Boh; mji Hac no cjieflaM CBoen cuacTJiMBOM My3bi, "nocjiaH M e M. M. M. A . " flypHO , bhjio CTeKJiMCb, H arpH H yjiM , 3a uecTb t b o m x rpa?KflaH, 3a uecTb TBepflbiHb m cen m h m b onycTomeHHbix, "ITepexofl uepe3 PeiiH " TeMHo CTOJIb UMCTOM, KaK CTpyM IiapMI^bl CBeTJIbIX BOfl, Ha KOMX b nepBMM P a3 3p ejl . . . "nocjiaH M e M. M. M. A . " TeM H o! B t b o m x noTynrieHHbix o u a x . B Beceiibix nMpm ecTBax, t o 6o m oflymeBJieHHbix. . . "MiijeHMe " TeMHo Taking into account that the textual coincidences analyzed above are, although rather substantial, although perhaps inconclusive, the taste data may become a decisive argument in favor of the suggested hypothesis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 4. "And for me too": Mandel'shtam the student of Pushkin's taste. In the 1970s and 80s Osip Mandel'shtam's poetry became a favorite object of intertextual analysis in the works of the so-called "school of subtexts."11 Numerous quotations and allusions in Mandel'shtam's works have been studied extensively, including, of course, Mandel'shtam's play with Pushkin's texts. However, Pushkin's Marginalia have not yet been studied in the context of Mandel'shtam's poetics. In what follows I will show that Mandel'shtam was a diligent student not only of Pushkin's poetic (which has been amply documented in recent scholarship), but also of Pushkin's taste. Mandel'shtam's texts contain evidence of his reading Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty and to Viazemsky's article "On the Life and Works of V.A. Ozerov" [0 zhizni i sochineniikh V.A. Ozerova].1 2 Moreover, Mandel'shtam uses Pushkin's notes in a peculiar way, as if positioning himself in dialogical or “The most imporatnt studies of this kind are: Omri Ronen's An approach to Mandel'shtam, Kirill Taranovsky's Essays on Mandelshtam, and, more recently, Nancy Poliak's Mandelstam the Reader. 12Mandel'shtam could have read Pushkin's notes either in Vengerov's 1910 edition of Pushkin's collected works (Vengerov IV 486 -490; Vengerov VI 490-500), or in L.N. Maikov's earlier publications. See Pushkin XII 467) for details on the history of publication of Pushkin's notes to Viazemsky and Batiushkov. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 even polemical relations in respect to Pushkin's evaluative practices. In these instances of intertaste Mandel'shtam revisits Viazemsky's and Batiushkov's lines that had been objects of Pushkin's evaluations, and using these lines as subtexts (or intertexts) either agrees or argues with Pushkin. The first example is a case of disagreement. Mandel'shtam's poem E c t b i^ e H H O C T e ii H e 3 b i6 jie M a H n m a jia (1914) turns out to be a polemical answer to Pushkin's disapproval of Ozerov in the margins of Viazemsky's article, an attempt to support Viazemsky's high opinion of Ozerov against Pushkin's biting comments. Mandel'shtam's 1914 poem reads (1, 40): EcTb yeHHOcTen He3bi6jieMafl cxajia Hay cKyvHbiMM oniMbKaMM bckob . HenpaBMJibHO HajioxeHa onajia Ha aBTopa B0 3BbmieHHbix ctmxob . M Bcrefl 3a TeM KaK JKajiKMn CyMapoxoB IIpojieneTaji 3ayueHHyio pojib, Kax yapcKnn CKMneTp b ckmhmm npopoKOB y Hac yBejia TopxecTBeHHafl 6ojib. Hto yejiaTb BaM b T e a T p e noJiycjiOBa M nojryMacK, r e p o n n y a p n ? M flJTH MeHfi HBJieHbe 03epoBa IIocjieflHnn Jiyu TparnuecKon 3apw The last two lines of this poem combine elements of Viazemsky's text and Pushkin's reaction to them. Mandel'shtam's "HBJieHbe 03epoBa" correlates to the following passage in Viazemsky (Pushkin XII: 221): "Hbhjich 03epoB, n MejibnoMeHa npnHHJia BJiaflbiuecTBO CBoe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 H a f l f l y n i a M M . . . Mbi y c jib iu ia jiw r o j r o c e e n o B e jie B a io iy M M fly m a M M , M r p a io iy M M u y B C T B a M H . " Pushkin must have disliked the conventional periphrases in this passage; he crossed out the sentence and wrote a corrected simplified version in the margins: "•Hbmjich 03epoB n Mbi ycjibnnajin tojioc, noBeneBafoiijMn cepnyy n.t.fl"(XII: 221) Pushkin's comment drew Mandel'shtam's attention to the corresponding passage in Viazemsky and to the phrase "-Hbujtch 03epoB" present both in Viazemsky's text and in Pushkin's correction. "TparnnecKan 3apn" in the last line of Mandel'shtam's poem ("nocjieflHMfi Jiyu Tparn^ecKon 3apn") goes back to another passage in Viazemsky, also reacted upon by Pushkin. Viazemsky discusses Ozerov's tragedy based on Sophocles' Oedipus in the following terms: Cmh TpareflMH, ocBeTnBrian Beuep cuaBbi rpenecKoro nooTa, 03apnjia yTpo cjiaBbi Hainero T p a r M K a m 6biJia 3 a p e io h o b o t o flHH Ha pyccKOM TeaTpe. (XX: 224, it. added) Pushkin crosses out the last clause: "m 6biJia 3apeio h o b o t o flHH Ha pyccKOM TeaTpe" (XII: 224), which he must have found to be a high-flown exaggeration. Mandel'shtam Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 disagreed and re-inserted in his poem Viazemsky's characterization of Ozerov rejected by Pushkin. The two lines on Sumarokov in Mandel'shtam's poem: "M BCJiefl 3a TeM KaK xaJiKMM CyMapoKOB/IIpoJieneTaji 3ay^eHHyio poJib," rephrase Viazemsky's criticism of pre- Ozerov playwrights, including Sumarokov, — and were also remarked upon by Pushkin. Viazemsky describes a pitiful state of Russian theater before "Ozerov's appearance": "AKTepbl c nblHIHblMM MMeHaMM BblXOflMJIM nepefl 3pMTeJieM, roBopnJin c t m x m , MHorfla xopomMe, vam,e flypHbie; 3pnTeJiM pyKonjiecxajiM, uauje 3eBajrn..." (XII: 221) This time Pushkin approves of Viazemsky's rhetoric: he marks out the passage and writes in the margins: " X O p O IH O . " The first quatrain of Mandel'shtam's poem presents a direct polemic with Pushkin's postscript to Viazemsky's article. Here Pushkin sums up his thoughts about Viazemsky's article and Ozerov's significance: 03epoBa h He j i i o 6 j i i o . . . CJiaBa 03epoBa yate BHHeT, a JieT uepe3 10, - npw noHBJieHMM m c t m h h o m k p m t m k m , c o B c e M Mcue3HeT ... (XII: 242). Thus, Pushkin predicts that the canonical status of Ozerov will be downgraded and in 10 years his glory will disappear completely. Therefore Pushkin, in his capacity Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 of the canonical monarch of Russian culture, by predicting Ozerov's loss of popularity, as if "imposes a ban" ("HaKJiaflbiBaeT onajiy") on Ozerov's canonical legacy. Mandel'shtam, although conscious of the fact that Pushkin's prediction had indeed come true, still disagreed with the negative evaluation of Ozerov's works and expresses his disagreement in a forceful manner: EcTb yeHHocTeh He3bi6jieMaH CKaita Hay CKyuHbiMn omn6KaMM BeKOB. HenpaBMJibHO HajioxeHa onana Ha aBTopa B0 3BbiineHHbix ctmxob . He contends that Pushkin's (and Russian culture's) "ban" on Ozerov is unjust and constitutes one of the " boring mistakes of the ages" if judged in accordance with the "unshakable scale of values" that exists above ("Hafl") the actual reputations of forgotten writers. But the most interesting result of this reading concerns the two words "n yjin Me h a " in the last stanza of Mandel'shtam's poem: Ht o fleJiaTb BaM b TeTpe nojiycjioBa M nojiyMacK, repow n yapn? M fljix MeHX HBJieHbe 03epoBa nocJieflHHM Jiyu TparwuecKOM 3apn (emph. added) Whereas the observations above have been important for an adequate interpretation of Mandel'shtam's poem, the following point affects the reading of this poem in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 the literal sense of the word, even reading it aloud. If my analysis as a whole is correct, then the words m h j i h M eH H should be understood as : "and for me too, as for Viazemsky, and as distinct from Pushkin" and read with the corresponding intonation, that is with emphasis on the word M e H H . Indeed, read outside of the context of a polemic with Pushkin's disapproval of Viazemsky's article and his evaluation of Ozerov, the phrase appears somewhat awkward and unmotivated, since the conjunction "k" in this reading has no antecedent: "and" ("n") does not connect the lyrical subject ( " f l J i n MeHH") to any other subject. However, if one accepts the proposed interpretation "m ajih MeHH" becomes absolutely logical and appropriately placed: Mandel'shtam sides with Viazemsky, who first applied the expression "T p arm iecK aH 3apn" to Ozerov, against Pushkin, who rejected this trope. Mandel'shtam thus tries to correct "the boring mistakes of ages" - that is, the canon. A last echo of this dispute may be heard in Tynianov's article " A r g i v i a n e " - n e i z d a n n a i a t r a g e d i i a K i u k h e l ' b e k e r a : " flB J ie H M e 0 3 e p o B a 6biJio BCTpeveHo npMBeTCTBMHMM co CTopoHbi KapaM3MHMCTOB . " (292, emph . added). Tynianov here borrows the phrase from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 Mandel'shtam's poem, and thus creates a sophisticated intertaste: Tynianov quotes Mandel'shtam, who in turn refers to Viazemsky through Pushkin's note in the margins. 5. "Othello Was Not Jealous": Pushkin as Student of Coleridge's Taste. From the point of view of taste analysis, Pushkin's Table-Talk (1835-37?) , a collection of aphorisms and anecdotes he collected and preserved for use in a high- society conversation, constitutes a corpus of data comparable to his Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty and Viazemsky's article on Ozerov. Table-talk consists of notes not intended for publication, or intended to be shared with friends and acquaintances in an intimate and unpretentious atmosphere of a tea-drinking party or salon. Some of the notes included in Pushkin's Table- Talk are anecdotes in the Russian sense of this word, that is jokes or funny stories. Others are more serious, often paradoxical, observations drawn from various sources. One of such paradoxes in Pushkin's Table-Talk concerns the character of Shakespeare's Othello: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. OTemio ot npwpoflbi He peBHMB - HanpoTMB: oh flOBep^HB . BOJIbTep 3TO nOHHJI, M pa3BMBafl B CBOeM noflpaxaHMM co3flaHMe IIIeKcnMpa, bjiojkmji b ycTa CBoero 0po3MaHa cjieflyroiyHM ctmx : Je ne suis point jaloux... Si je l'etais jamais!..." (XII: 157) [Othello is not jealous by nature - on the contary, he is trusting. Voltaire understood this, and, while developing in his imitation of Shakespeare's creation, he put on Orozman's lips the following verse: Je ne suis point jaloux... Si je l'etais jamais!...] Although Coleridge's influence on Pushkin has been studied extensively,13 it has not yet been noted that Pushkin borrowed this particular paradox from Coleridge's Table-Talk, the book after which Pushkin had most likely modeled his own eponymous collection. In the pages of his Table-Talk Coleridge formulates this paradox twice: ... Othello must not be conceived as a negro, but as a high and chivalrous Moorish chief... jealousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proven impure and worthless...(Dec 29, 1822: 33) I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of a jealous habit, and he says so 13 See for instance (Saitanov 153 -164) and (Iakovlev 137 -145) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. truly of himself... He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas jealousy cannot be strictly right ...(June 15, 1827: 67) The second quotation indicates that the paradox was one of Coleridge's favorites, and that it stems from Desdemona's words in Shakespeare's play. However, there is not much doubt that Pushkin owed this bon mot to Coleridge. Pushkin probably started his Table-Talk having come across that of Coleridge,1 4 and the fact that Pushkin read this book is documented in the list of the books he owned. Mozdalevsky's description of Pushkin's library contains the following entry (198) : N2 760 Specimens of the table-talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In two volumes. London. John Murray, Albemarle Street. MDCCCXXXV... and cites Pushkin's comment: xynji. 17 ifojiH 1835 rofla, fleHb fleMHfl. npa3flH. b roflOBiqMHy ero CMepm [bought on July 17 1835, the day of St. Demid, anniversary of his CColeridge's -M.G.> death] It is highly unlikely that Pushkin invented his paradox independently; his wording is very reminiscent of Coleridge's formulation, and the phrase appears in a Pushkin's text both modeled and named after that of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Coleridge's Table-talk where the prototype is contained. Besides the fact that Coleridge's book was in Pushkin's library, there is other evidence that Pushkin read Coleridge's Table-talk.1 5 As intertexts go this is a pretty decent one, especially considering how thoroughly studied Pushkin's literary connections have been. However, a more important aspect in this case is that of psychological motivation: what attracted Pushkin's attention to exactly these passages in Coleridge? It seems that the answer to this question is as follows. 1835 (when Pushkin bought his copy of Coleridge's Table-talk) was a year marked for him by family troubles. He grew increasingly irritated with his wife and jealous of D'Anthes. Thus, jealousy must have been a very important topic for Pushkin during this and the following years. It is also well known that Pushkin was always conscious, and sometimes proud, of his African descent.16 In this context the plot of Shakespeare's Othello could not help 14 Another possible model Pushkin might have in mind was Hazlitt's Table-talk, a copy of which was also present in Pushkin's library (see entry 974 in Modzalevsky 246). 15 V.Saitanov has shown that Pushkin's poem "nopa mom flpyr nopa " contains elements of translations from Coleridge's Answer and Complaint published as an appendix to the edition of Table-talk that Pushkin had in his library (Saitanov 160 -164) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 attracting Pushkin's attention. Both his friends and enemies compared him to Shakespeare's Othello, and he himself touches upon this connection in his familial letters. In light of the above, the intertextual connection in question might be considered indicative of the internal working of Pushkin's psyche during the period. Now that we know that Pushkin did read these passages from Coleridge attentively, they allow an inside-look into Pushkin's thoughts and moods. The last sentence of the second passage in Coleridge: "He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had..." might have been among the ideas Pushkin kept coming back to during the last days of his life. But this of course belongs to the domain of what in Russian is called parapushkinistika ("pop-Pushkin scholarship") and can be neither proved nor disproved. 16 See a detailed analysis of Pushkin's attitude toward his African heritage and a collection of sources in Thomas Shaw's article "Pushkin on His African Descent. " (Shaw 121-135) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 CHAPTER III Memory of the Heart: Microanalysis of a Judgment of Taste and History of an Expression 1.Introduction: Batiushkov's Canonical Lines and Pushkin's Disparaging Comments In 1815 Batiushkov wrote the elegy "Moi Genii" that was to become one of his most famous poems. In the late twenties, while rereading Batiushkov's poems, Pushkin came across this elegy and commented that the poem was charming - except for the first four lines. Remarkably, these same lines turned out to be Batiushkov's greatest canonical success and are still known by heart by educated Russians. The following is an attempt to explain this paradox: to understand what may have prompted Pushkin's disapproval of these lines; and to clarify the process of canonical selection itself, whereby collective historical taste appropriates these particular lines for preservation in the cultural memory. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 The text of Batiushkov's poem, as reproduced in Pushkin's copy of Opyty ('Essays'), reads (XII: 262): Mon P e H n n 0, naMHTb cepyya! t m cnjibHen PaccyfiKa naMHTM neuanbHon M uacTO cjiaflocTbto cBoen MeHH b CTpaHe njieHnenib yajibHon. R n o M H io t o j i o c m h jim x c j i o b , R noMHio onn rojiytbie, R noMHio JIOKOHbl 3JiaTbie HetpejKHO BbioiijHXCH BJiacoB. Moen nacTyniKM HecpaBHeHHon R noMHio Becb Hapnfl npocTon, M o6pa3 MMJibin, He3a6BeHHon IlOBCiofly cTpaHCTByeT co mhom . XpaHMTeJTb reHHM M O M - JH06O B bK > B yTexy flaH pa3JiyKe o h : 3aCHy J ib ? npMHMKHeT K M 3rOJIOBbIO M ycjiaflMT nenajibHbin c o h . Pushkin underlines lines 2, 3 and 4 and jots down in the margin (XII: 262) "Everything is charming except for the first four <lines>" [Bee n p e j i e c T b , K p o M e nepBbix 4] Thus, Pushkin clearly likes the poem as a whole but disapproves of the first quatrain: 0, n a M H T b cep,D,ya! Tbi cnjibHen PaccyflKa naMHTH neuajibHon, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 M qacTO cjiaflocTbK) CBoew MeHH b CTpaHe njieHHemb flajibHOM. [0 memory of the heart! you are stronger Than the sad memory of the reason. Often in a distant land You charm me with your sweetness.] Batiushkov wrote the poem during his stay in Kamenets in 1815 and attached it to his letter to V.F. Murav'eva, dated 11 August 1815. As becomes clear from this letter to Murav'eva, who acted as Batiushkov's confidante in an unsuccessful love affair, the poem is addressed to his beloved Anna Furman (1791-1850) who had rejected Batiushkov's proposal of marriage earlier in the same year. The psychological framework of the poem is based on the juxtaposition of two sets of feelings: The memory of reason is sad because it reminds the author of his failed bid and rejection, whereas the memory of the heart offers consolation through the recollection of the happier - if, most likely, imaginary - days with his beloved. The memory of the heart is stronger because it imparts to the author the sense of permanent proximity to his beloved and her transcendental presence as his guardian sprit. Thus, the poem is, essentially, a variation on the prototypical situation of the sentimental elegy, but with an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 important innovation: the piece is markedly concise. It is at least five or six times shorter than an average melancholic elegy (unylaia elegiia) . Yet another distinctive trait of the poem is its pensive but by no means melancholic mood: Indeed, the protagonist's acquiescence to the powers of emotional recollection is almost self-indulgent. The poetic diction of the poem exemplifies Batiushkov's trademark skill in what Pushkin (and Lidiia Ginzburg) have termed harmonious precision (garmonicheskaia tochnost') : Epithets are finely adjusted to easily recognizable images; syntax follows the rhythmical pattern (with an important exception to be discussed below); both rhymes and imagery are elegantly traditional and neither impedes the process of reading.1 7 The canonization of the poem began almost immediately after its appearance in Vestnik Evropy in 181618. In that same year, the poem was included in one of the first Russian anthologies, A Collection of Exemplary Russian Compositions and Translations (Sobranie 228), then in another authoritative anthology in 1828 (Opyt 129) . Set to the words of the elegy, Fedor 17 For detailed analysis of imagery see: Serman 136 -137. 13 BecTHMK F.Bponbi 1816, h. LXXXVI11, N5 15, aBrycT, 176 -177 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 Glinka's popular romance spurred the further dissemination of the poem: Moi Genii is included in Euterpa, a collection of the most popular songs and romances of literary origin published in 1831(Evterpa 75). In the fist half of the nineteenth century ladies' albums offered yet another channel for the canonization of a poem, and Moi Genii guickly became one of the most popular album poems. It is present in printed quasi album editions, such as Ladies' Album (1844) (Damskii 19), as well as in real manuscript albums and collections preserved in Russian archives, such as Zhukovsky's album, Bezobrazov's album, and Liuba Khoroshilova's album.19 Today the poem is present in virtually every anthology of nineteenth century Russian poetry and is included in high school and university curricula. Although the whole poem was and still is very popular, it is the first four lines, and of these, especially the first two, - ”0 memory of the heart! you are stronger / Than sad memory of the reason" [0, naMHTb cepflya! t h CMJibHeh, PaccyflKa naMHTn neuajibHOM] - the very same lines that Pushkin singles out as inferior to 19 PyKoriHCHbiM c6ophmk XyKOBCKoro, AjibSoM Be3o6pa30Ba (MPJIM) , pyKOnMCHbIM cSopHMK J I l 06bI XopOEIMJIOBOM (HPJ1M) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 the rest of the poem - that are the most widely quoted and anthologized lines from Batiushkov. These lines are also the only ones that have survived in the collective literary memory: when asked to quote from Batiushkov, an educated Russian would almost certainly recite this stanza. The opening phrase memory of the heart [ pamiat' serdtsa] has become idiomatic and is commonly found in epigraphs and titles for poetry collections, anthologies and documentaries. Here then we find something of a rarity - a curious instance when Pushkin's taste and the canon are at variance. The canonical authors tend to be canon-shapers as well, for their tastes are usually highly influential and prophetic. To explain this paradox, we need to analyze both the logic of canonical choice and the logic of Pushkin's taste as it is exemplified in this marginal note. Let us first turn to a somewhat overlooked aspect of canon formation, namely the mnemonic function of the canon. The canon can be understood as the mnemonics of culture - a device that selects and organizes cultural information that it is deemed necessary to conserve and reproduce, weeding out the rest. From this perspective, we can speak of the canonicity of texts of any size and structure, including minimal units, such as phrases from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 a film or lines from a poem. It seems useful to differentiate between two kinds of canonicity: large- scale canonicity, i.e. the canonical status of authors and significant works, and small-scale canonicity, the canonical status of smaller pieces, such as poems or even a few lines. Large-scale canonicity is documented in an author's or a work's position in reading lists, textbooks, and primers, and is supported by a whole complex of institutions of consecration; small-scale canonicity is manifested in the presence of a particular text in anthologies, and, more importantly, in how recognizable the text is, how often it is quoted, referred to or learnt by heart. Thus, the phenomenon of small-scale canonicity borders on the domain of paremiology - proverbs, sayings, bywords - or even idiomatics. Characteristically, while talking about the aesthetic qualities of Griboedov's Gore ot uma, Pushkin correctly predicted that many lines of Griboedov's comedy would be naturalized in Russian idiomatics: "Half of the verses will become proverbial" [o CTMxax a He TOBOpiO, nOJIOBMHa - flOJIJKHbl b o m t m b nocjioBMyy ] (to Bestuzhev, Jan 1828: Perepiska 1, 470). Indeed, during at least the earlier stages of the reception of Griboedov's comedy, its high canonical status was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 largely due to the phenomenon of small-scale canonicity. Lines and phrases from the comedy were, on the one hand, extremely memorizable, and on the other hand, easily applied to a wide range of cultural, political, and everyday situations. If the canon can be understood as the idiomatic or the stock in trade of culture, bordering on the linguistic idiomatic proper, then the semantic structure of the idiom can shed light on the workings of canon selection. Idioms deal with fuzzy semantic objects. On the one hand, these semantic entities are recognizable and reproducible, hence the necessity to name them. On the other hand, they are not distinct enough, not discernible or not culturally processed enough to lay claim to be "real" words. A good example of this semantic instability is the French deja vu. Everybody knows, what deja vu means, and everybody can reconstruct the semantic complex that is denoted by this idiom and apply the term to its referent, a certain psychological condition. Nevertheless, no European language has a one- word rendering of this semantic complex, which is why the French idiom became international. The logic of canonical selection sometimes follows the same model: collective cultural memory appropriates those texts, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 lines, and turns of phrase that fill certain semantic niches - or voids, waiting to be filled. "Memory of the heart" [pamiat' serdtsa] of Batiushkov's poem became canonical and nearly idiomatic precisely because this phrase names a semantic object of this kind, a hybrid of the two central concepts of late eighteenth-century sensibility. Indeed, this image seems to be cut out for expressing in compressed form the mode of emotional recollection of the happy and irrevocable past - the main topos of the sentimental elegiac poetry of this period. The timeliness and even the necessity of such an image is corroborated by the fact that by the time Batiushkov introduced it into the Russian poetic lexicon, this phrase had already been widely used in French literary discourse. 2. The Source: Massieu, Sicard's Deaf-mute Pupil. Batiushkov himself points out the immediate source from which he borrowed the phrase in the article "On the Better Properties of the Heart" (1815) [0 jiyumux CBOMCTBax cepyya] M a c b e , B o c n n T a H H M K C M K a p o B , H a B o n p o c : "Ht o e c T b 6jiaroflapHOCTb?" - oTBeuaJi: "naMHTb cepyya." npeKpacHbiw OTBeT, KOTopwM em,e 6ojiee yenaeT vecTM Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 cepyyy, H e x e j i M y M y r j r y x o H e M o r o <|>MJioco(|>a. 3 T a n a M H T b c e p y y a e c T b J iy n m a n y o 6 p o y e T e j i b M e j i o B e x a , n H e C T O J ib p e y x a , K a K n o j i a r a i o T H e K O T o p b i e C T p o r w e H a S j n o y a T e j ™ . [Massieu, a pupil of Sicard, to the question "What is gratitude?" answered "The memory of the heart." A beautiful answer, which does credit to the heart even more than it does to the reason of the deaf- mute philosopher. This memory of the heart is the best human virtue, and it is not as rare as some austere observers tend to think.] (Izbrannaia, 164) Evidently, Batiushkov admired the maxim: aside from the poem and the above-cited article, it appears in Batiushkov's notebooks entitled Thoughts [Mysli] as early as 1810: "What is gratitude? The memory of the heart." [H t o e c T b 6jiaroyapHOCTb? - naMHTb cepyya](Izbrannaia 18) Surprisingly, no critic has ever bothered to locate and identify the immediate source of the aphorism mentioned by Batiushkov himself. All existing editions either leave pamiat' serdtsa without comment, or refer to Batiushkov's own explanation in the passage quoted above. However, Batiushkov's source presents a fascinating story in its own right. Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard (1742 - 1822), a French catholic priest and a rather prolific journalist, was most famous for his pedagogic activity as one of the pioneers in the field of the training of the congenitally deaf-mute. Apart from doing administrative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 and purely practical work with deaf-mutes (he was the director of the Institution des Sourds-Muets) , he made an outstanding contribution to the theory of the instructing deaf-mute.20 As distinct from his predecessor and the founder of L'Institution, Abbot de L'Epee, Sicard claimed that it is possible to teach the deaf-mute complex abstract concepts. He developed and implemented a two-step methodology for achieving this goal. First, he deictically taught the deaf-mutes primitive words and concepts, the things of everyday life, the names of objects in their immediate surroundings, the simplest logical connections, etc. Then he explained the abstract concepts through inventive metaphorical combinations of simple and concrete concepts learned during the previous phase. This method is expounded in his various writings, most notably in his fundamental Cours d'instruction d'un sourd-muet de naissance. The effectiveness of this method was demonstrated by the visible success of his pupils, who developed a sort of "metaphorical hyperactivity" and were indeed capable of capturing the meaning of hitherto inaccessible abstractions, by 20 For a more detailed account of Sicard's biography, see the article Sicard in (Larousse XIV(l): 677) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 substituting them with metaphorical paraphrases easily expressed in sign language. To maintain the public interest in his cause, Sicard organized open sessions of his courses, where spectators were welcomed to ask the deaf-mute to define the meanings of abstract concepts in writing. Jean Massieu, the brightest of Sicard's pupils, was the star of these sessions. Sicard himself could not help boasting of Massieu's brilliance in defining abstract and figurative concepts: En initiant Massieu a la connoissance de langage figure, que de ressources je lui procurois pour 1'expression de la pensee! ... Les images les plus riches naquirent, en foule, dans cette ame sensible et pressee de rendre ses idees avec ces couleurs vives de la nature, que les objets environnans lui furnissoient, a tout instant! (Cours 4 04) [By having initiated Massieu into the knowledge of figurative language, I provided him with so many resources to express his thought! Heaps of the richest images arose in this soul, sensitive and eager to render its ideas in the living colors of nature...] "Gratitude is the memory of the heart" was probably the most famous of Massieu's answers given during a public demonstration. We find at least three accounts of the event in Sicard's writings. In one of them, Sicard reproduces a whole series of Massieu's definitions: Qu'est-ce que 1'eternite? je crois lui embarasser. C'est, me dit-il, un jour, sans hier Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ni demain; une ligne qui n'a aucun bout; et aussitot il traga, sur la planche noire, une grand cercle. Qu'est-ce qu'une revolution dans une Etat? - C'est un arbre dont les racines prennent la place de la tige. - Qu'est-ce que la reconnoissance? — C'est la Memoire du coeur. (Cours 405) [I thought to embarrass him (Massieu) "What is eternity?" He told me "It is a day without today and tomorrow; a line without an ending point" and at once he drew a big circle on the black board. "What is a revolution in a state?" "It is a tree whose roots take the place of the trunk" "What is gratitude?" "It is the memory of the heart"] Batiushkov most likely read about Massieu's answer in yet another account found in A Note on Massieu's Childhood, a supplement to Sicard's Theory of Signs by an anonymous collaborator or admirer of his. The final passage of this Note cites one more of Massieu's elegant definitions, and testifies to the fact that the "memory of the heart" answer was well-known and much discussed at the time: ...on lui demanda ce que c'est que 1'esperance;et il repondit sur le champ: c'est la fleur du bonheur. Nous allons terminer par une reponce qui, quoique tres-connue, nous semble neanmoins reclamer une place dans cette notice. Qu'est-ce que la reconnoissance, lui demanda un jour son maitre. L'eleve repondit aussitot, comme par une trait d'inspiration: "La reconnoissance est la memoire du coeur" Grande pensee qui ne peut venir elle-meme que du coeur! (Theorie 687) [...they asked him ( Massieu) "what is hope?" and he answered immediately: "it is the flower of happiness." We are going to end with an answer, which, though well known, still seems to us to deserve a place in this note. What is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 gratitude? his teacher asked him one day. "It is the memory of the heart" answered he right away, as if by a spark of inspiration. A great idea which itself could only come from the heart.] The last lines of this passage may be an indication that here we find the immediate source of Batiushkov's quotation. They echo Batiushkov's sentimental conclusion: "A beautiful answer which does credit to the heart even more than it does to the reason of the deaf- mute philosopher." Interestingly, in Moi Genii Batiushkov shifts the semantic accent of the phrase. Whereas in the original context, Massieu suggests the "memory of the heart" as an aphoristic definition of gratitude, this emotion is absent from Batiushkov's poem, and a reader who is unaware of Massieu's bon mot would not connect Batiushkov's "memory of the heart" to the concept of gratitude. In the context of his poem, the "memory of the heart" refers to a mode of emotional, non-cognitive recollection, as opposed to reason. It is with this somewhat vague meaning that the phrase (and its variations) had been used in other eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French writers, but some of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. its contexts were most likely familiar to Batiushkov and Pushkin. 3. More Memories of the Heart. Reasons for Pushkin's Disapproval The earliest use of the phrase I have been able to find dates from 1671. It is found in one Mme de Sevigne's letter to Mme de Grignan:2 1 ...combien toutes les choses nous en font souvenir. Nous sentons plus que jamais que la memoire est dans le coeur; car, quand elle ne nous vient point de cet endroit, nous n'en avons pas plus que des lievres. (A Mme de Grignan, 9 septembre, 1671: Sevigne 340) 21 As a matter of fact, a similar expression is found already in a poem by Catullus. In C. 64, Erechteus bids farewell to his son Theseus, who sets out to accompany the embassy to Crete, and urges him not to forget to set a white sail on his homecoming, in case he manages to slay the Minotaure. Erechteus asks Theseus to keep this commandment in his memor cor - lit. "remembering, mindful heart", "heart that keeps memory ", or , as in the classical translation by Leonard Smithers, "memory's heart". quod tibi si sancti concesserit incola Itoni, quae nostrum genus ac sedes defendere Erechthei adnuit, ut tauri respergas sanguine dextram, turn vero facito ut memori tibi condita cords haec vigeant mandata, nec ulla oblitteret aetas, ut simul ac nostros invisent lumina collis, funestam antennae deponant undique vestem (C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina, ed. E. T. Merrill, Cambridge, Harvard University Press 1893) Yet if the dweller on holy Itone, who deigns to defend our race and Erectheus' dwellings, grant you to besprinkle your right hand in the bull's blood, then see that in very truth these commandments deep-stored in your heart's memory do flourish, nor any time deface them. (Catullus, The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus, tr.Leonard C Smithers, London, 1894) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 [The memory is in the heart; for, when it doesn't come from this place, we have no more memory than hares have.] Montesquieu uses a similar expression in Mes pensees: "Je suis distrait, je n'ai de memoire que dans le coeur." [I am absent-minded. I have no memory but in my heart](988) Pushkin and Batiushkov were of course acquainted with Mme de Sevigne's correspondence and Montesquieu's works, but it would be difficult to prove that they came across the passages quoted above. However, the expression is also found in Benjamin Constant's Adolphe, a most influential novel of the period and a text that was very important for both Pushkin and Batiushkov and with which they were doubtless well acquainted. In the novel, Adolphe22 uses the phrase in a 22 As matter of fact, Constant most likely uses this phrase as a quotation from the intimate, family language he shared with Mme de Stael. Compare Mme De Stael in an early letter to her husband, baron de Stael: ...la plus douce raison qui m1 attache a toi, c'est l'espoir de t'etre necessaire. Ecris-moi done que tu me demandes pour vendredi, et que mes chevaux m1 attendront a Versailles a sept heures du soir. Ne va pas 1' oublier: la memoire du coeur le fait juger (ler Juillet, 1788, a M de Stael ,: Stael 1, 246) The popularity of the passages from Mme de Sevigne and Constant is attested to by the fact that they are included in modern dictionaries of popular literary quotations, under the heading of memoire (Mme de Sevigne's phrase in: Jean-Yves Dournon, Le Grand Dictionnaire des Citations Frangaises, Paris, Editions Acropole, 1982 p.559 ; Constant's in : Pierre Oster, dir., Dictionnaire des Citations Frangaises, Dictionnaires de Robert, Paris, 1994, v.2, p. 53) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 description of his and his mistress's psychological condition at the later stages of their romance: Nous vivions, pour ainsi dire, d'une espece du memoire du coeur, assez puissant pour que l'idee de nous separer nous fut douloureuse, trop faible pour que nous trouvassions du bonheur a etre unis (Constant 63) [We were living, so to speak, on a sort of memory of the heart, strong enough to make the thought of separation painful, but too weak for us to find satisfaction in being together, tr. by L. Tancock] It is well known that Pushkin admired Constant's novel. Constant's phraseology and the problem of its translation must have been an object of Pushkin's attention when he was editing Viazemsky's translation of Adolphe. To Pushkin's ear, Batiushkov's sentimental naMHTB cepnpa ("memory of the heart") might have sounded like a "caique," a "loan translation", and a simplification of the rather psychological and as it were "proto-Proustian" memoire du coeur in Constant. Pushkin's sensibility to unsatisfactory renderings of the French is explicit in his other marginalia to Batiushkov's poems.2 3 23 In Batiushkov's "Tibullova Elegiia III" ("Tibullan Elegy III"), Pushkin underlines npeff cnyvaeM : KojieH npen cjivuaeM BOBeK He npeKJioHfleT and comments in the margin: faveur. He t o . (XII: 26 1) Pushkin's comment seems to imply that Russian cjiyvaii is an unsatisfactory rendering of French faveur. Indeed, by that time Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 A possible argument in favor of the suggestion that " n a M H T b cepflya" might have been perceived as pretentious or awkward is to be found in yet another appearance of the expression, in the comedy CTyyjeHT ("Student") co authored by Griboedov and Katenin in 1817. The protagonist of the comedy, a young provincial poet, cjiyvaii has become an obsolete rendering of the French word favuer ("success", "fortune", or "being in somebody's good graces"). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the main meaning of the word cjiyvaM - "occurrence, incident, occasion" - replaced the meaning used by Batiushkov. Pushkin himself used the word cjiyuatt in its outdated meaning only ironically, as in his letter to Gnedich, dated May, 13, 1823: "H hto -to b mmjtoctm y pyccKO fi nybjiHKM. . . Bocnojib3yiocb cbomm cjiyvaeM [italics Pushkin's - M.G.], roBopn ew npaBfly HeyuTMByio, ho, mojkbt 6biTb nojie3Hyio. "(XIII: 62) [Somehow, I am in the good graces of the Russian public... I will use my chance for telling the public an impolite, but possibly useful truth.] Characteristically, Pushkin writes the word cjiyvast in italics so as to underscore the playfulness of his word choice. In the same poem by Batiushkov, Pushkin underlines the word c ysyjeHbe ("judgment") in the following line: "Korfla *e napK cymeHhe ." CymffeHbe is the literal translation of the French jugement, which in this context approximates "verdict" or "sentence." Again as in the case with the word cjiyvaX Pushkin notices the dis crepancy, underlines the word that he found renders unsatisfactorily the French concept, and provides the correct Russian equivalent, npitroBop, in the margins. Here is yet another example of Pushkin's sensitivity to the correspondence of Batiushkov's trans lations to the stylistic quality of the original. In Batiushkov's elegy Muiemie, a free translation from an elegy by Parni, Pushkin underlines the last two lines: CKa?Ky: 6y,n;b cuacTJiMBa b nocjieflHMM ra3H M v a c M . TiijeTHbi SynyT Bee moboBHMKa mojimtbh In th e m a r g in s P u s h k in c i t e s th e c o r r e s p o n d in g l i n e s fro m th e o r i g i n a l : Je dirai: qu'elle soit heureuse Et ce voeu ne pourra te donner le bonheur!(XII: 261) Finally, Pushkin adds to the juxtaposition of the two texts a terse but energetic remark: "Kaxafl pa3HMu;a!" which implies that Batiushkov's translation is inferior to the original. As the examples above show, disapproval of a caique or of an unsatisfactory translation is very common in Pushkin's evaluative practice; in light of these examples, it is qui te likely that to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 Benevol'skii, is a parody combining certain traits of many sentimental poets, including Batiushkov. Benevol'skii speaks in an affected style, full of grotesque periphrases, sentimental imagery etc. He is in love with a girl named Zvezdova who does not understand this nonsense. A characteristic dialogue occurs in the fifth act of the comedy. Benevol'skii asserts that the heart has its own memory (an obvious parody of Batiushkov's line), to which Zvezdova replies that she had never heard of anything like it: E e H e B O jib C K M M . H jKejiaji, m cBepniMJiocb; a ncKajr 6eccMepTMH b jiio6bm, 6oxecTBa b npnpofle, - n aHreJi B03BbimeHHbix Mbicjieh npeflCTaji MHe bo BceM Bejiejiennw. 3 B e 3 f f O B a . Hto Bbi roBopMTe? onoMHMTecb. E e H e s o jib C K M M . Cepyye MMeeT cboio naMHTb. Bbi npMMeTMJin tot BocTopr, KOTopbifi He b CMJiax 6biJi a yflepxaTb npn nepBon Hainefi BCTpeue? - b HeM CJIblUiaJIM Bbi TOJIOC nMMTMHeCKOM COBeCTM . 3 B e 3 f f O B a . H, cyflapb, b XM3Hb moio Hwuero noflohHoro He cjibixana m He BMflaJia. (BapMHbKe) nohyflb c hum paflM Bora, MHe cmji HeflocTaeT ero cjiymaTb. (215) Another reason for Pushkin's disapproval might have been the syntactic ambiguity in the two opening lines of the poem: 0, naMHTb cepflya ! Tbi CMJibHefi [0, memory of the heart (Gen) you (are) stronger] Pushkin's ear the expression "naMHTb cep^ma" sounded somewhat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 PaccyflKa naMHTM [(than) of the mind (Gen) memory (gen) ne^ajibHOM, sad] Due to the inverted word order the genitive of possession gets confused with the genitive of comparison. As a result the poem reads either as "the memory of the heart is stronger than the sad memory of the mind" - or as "the memory of the heart is stronger than the mind of a sad memory." The avoidance of syntactic ambiguities is an invariant principle of Pushkin's style. This is made explicit in Pushkin's remark to Batiushkov's Probuzhdenie where there is a very similar ambiguity (XII: 263): M ropflbiw [And proud y M H e n o 6 e f l M T mind (will) not win] JTio 6 b m , [Love (Gen.) XOJIOflHbIMM (with) cold CJIOBaMM words (Instr.)] unnatural. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 Pushkin underlines and comments: "CMbicjr BbixoflMT — xojioflHbiMH cJioBaMn jho6 b m — 3 a n f l T a H H e n o M O J K eT." [This then means: "by love's cold words" -- and the comma will not help here.] 4. So Why Was It Canonized? Enter Cognitive Science Thus, the opening lines of Batiushkov's poem, and its central image, the memory of the heart, were disapproved of by Pushkin and ridiculed by Griboedov. Nonetheless, the expression took deep roots in Russian cultural memory and remains Batiushkov's only contribution to a mass-scale cultural discourse and even phraseology. To tackle the reason why, one needs to turn to the deeper semantic schemes governing the appropriation and functioning of minimal units of cultural circulation, such as idioms, catch-words, famous quotations, etc. It seems that beside purely cultural and literary factors contributing to the canonical success of the phrase and its eventual idiomatization, there were also more general reasons, having to do with the ways in which modern languages, and Russian in particular, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 conceptualize memory. Most Indo-European languages conceptualize memory as an exclusively mental phenomenon. Thus, the Russian word naMXTh ("memory") is derived from the Indo-European root *men found in Latin mens, mental is; Greek memnesko and is akin to the verbs of mental activity (such as Slavic MtHMTM, MHeHMe, "to opine", "opinion"). However, our everyday experience tells us that the object called memory is far from being located exclusively in the domain of the rational: we often speak of the memory of the hands (as in typewriting or driving), musical memory ("memory of the ear"), the motoric memory etc.2 4 Even in the domain of memory proper, our intuition tells us that we are dealing with a heterogeneous phenomenon that consists of at least two major modes of remembering; and many languages do distinguish between them by opposing two verbs in the same semantic field, such as verbs to recall and to recollect in modern English. Besides that, memory's connection to emotions rather than to rationality is attested to in a few etymologies, where a conceptual alternative is used: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Sanskrit smrt derives from the verbs for agitation, excitement, and, more important in our case, Latin recordor and its heirs in Romance languages, such as Italian ricordo25, which derive from the noun cor "heart," the basic seat of emotions in the reconstructed Indo-European mythological worldview. Other examples include idioms such as Eng. to learn by heart, which are also found in numerous Indo-European languages.2 6 The conceptual distinction between rational and emotional modes of remembering is felt intuitively and attested to by etymological and lexical data in many languages. Moreover, it has been made explicit in various philosophies of mind and especially in modern cognitive psychology. Cognitive scientists, most notably 24 See a detailed discussion on various "alternative" types of memory, and especially, an analysis of motoric memory in Werner, Kuhn, Motorisches Gedachtnis, Koln, 19 84 25 Given Batiushkov's enthusiasm about Italian language, evident in his poetry and prose and made explicit in several essays, one can also suggest that naMHTb cepffga might have been an anagrammatic etymologization of Italian ricordia. 26Cf. the analysis of the concept of memory in Indo-European languages in (Buck 1228 - 1229) : " Many of the words for "remember" belong to an inherited group, from an IE root that is also widespread in the words for "mind" and "think", and several outside this group are conn ected with other words for "mind" and "think". In another inherited group "remember" or "memory" (Indo-Iranian, Latin) alternates with "be anxious, care". Some are connected with the words for "heart". . . Greek mna in memnamai, Goth, gamunan (munan - think) , Lith atminti, SI. noMbHHTM derive from IE * men. . . Skt smr (remember), Lat memor from IE (s)mer "be anxious, care" See also (Ernout 142), on etymology of latin recordor: "cor - recordor, aris - se remettre dans 1'esprit. " Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 Endel Tulving and his followers, insist on a distinction between what they call the episodic memory, on the one hand, and, on the other, semantic, or generic memory. The distinction keeps reappearing in slightly different terms in various fields, but the conceptual core of the juxtaposition is preserved in all versions. Endel Tulving in his influential Elements of Episodic Memory (1983) proposes to term the opposing types of remembering the episodic memory and the semantic memory: a distinction might be drawn between two kinds of memory - episodic and semantic. Episodic memory is concerned with unique, concrete, personal experiences dated in the rememberer's past; semantic memory refers to a person's abstract, timeless knowledge (V) Reiff and Scheerer in Memory and Hypnotic Age Regression discuss two primary forms of memory: those with the experience of an autobiographic index, to be called remembrance, and those without the experience of an autobiographic index to be called memoria . . .remembrances are always accompanied by the experience of personal continuity through time, while in memoria this experience is absent. (Reiff 18-19) Hintzman (368) traces this dichotomy back to Bergson2 7 and summarizes various variants of this opposition in different discourses in the following table: 27 Berson's view of memory, and, specifically, his distinction between true memory and habit memory is presented in his Matter and Memory (Bergson 80-83) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 Table 5. Terms used by various authors to distinguish between episodic memory and generic memory. 28 Field and Author Episodic Memory Generic Memory Phi 1osophv Berqson (1911) True memory Habit memory Ayer (1956) Event memory Habit memory D. Locke (1971) Personal memory Factual memory T. iterature Koestler (1967) Picture-strip memory Abstractive memory Neurologv Penfield (1975) Experiential record Concepts Psvchiatrv Schactel (1947) Autobiographical memory Practical memory Reiff and Scheerer (1959) Remembrance Memoria Psvcholoav Tulving(1972) Episodic memory Semantic memory Piaget and Inhelder (1973) Memory in the strict sense Memory in the wider sense Endel Tulving provides an in depth scientific basis for the dichotomy between the episodic and the generic (or semantic) types of memory. In the table, shown below, he lists the diagnostic features that enable one to distinguish between these types of memory. 23 Table from: Hintzman (368) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 Table 6. Summary of differences between episodic and semantic memory according to Tulving. Diagnostic feature Episodic Semantic Tnformation Source sensation comprehension Units events; episodes facts; ideas; concepts Organization temporal conceptual Reference self universe Veridicality personal belief social aqreement Ooerati ons Registration experiential symbolic temporal coding present, direct absent; indirect Affect more important less important Inferential ability limited rich context dependency more pronounced less pronounced Vulnerability qreat small Access deliberate automatic retrieval queries time? place? what? retrieval consequences change system system unchanged retrieval mechanisms synergy unfoldinq Recollective experience remembered past actualized knowledge retrieval report remember know Developmental sequence late early childhood amnesi a affected unaffected To sum up this digression into the realm of cognitive science and psychology, it is generally accepted that there exists an empirical distinction between two types of memory: the episodic, or personal, memory is concerned with unique, concrete, personal experiences dated in the rememberer's past; while semantic (or generic) memory refers to a person's abstract knowledge. Batiushkov's opposition memory of the heart vs. memory of reason is absolutely homologous to this opposition. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 The ways in which humans conceptualize memory are not always easily expressed by the readily available facilities of language: in these cases, a fortuitous discovery by a poet (or by any speaker) can be incorporated into the language, so as to fill a certain semantic void, to provide a term that is lacking, needed to denote a ready-made semantic object, as if waiting to be named. Batiushkov's opposition, and especially the expression memory of the heart designates an important psychological reality - the emotional, personal type of memory that is distinct from the purely mental, rational type of memory. A possible argument in favor of the proposed explanation may be found in the fact that we can observe an almost identical semantic development in a poem, written most likely independently of Batiushkov, by the famous American constitutional scholar and lawyer Daniel Webster. Although Webster's poem, titled The Memory of the Heart, is very similar to Batiushkov's in imagery and reasoning, it is highly unlikely that Webster could have had access to a translation of Batiushkov's poem. What explains the similarities between these texts is not intertextuality, but rather a common dependence on the conceptual structure of language. Both Batiushkov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 and Webster felt the insufficiency of the term memory as such, because it covers two separate and heterogeneous psychological complexes. We are dealing here with an independent occurrence of the same phenomenon: poetic language fills a semantic void left in everyday language. The Memory of the Heart If stores of dry and learned lore we gain, We keep them in the memory of the brain; Names, things, and facts, whate'er we knowledge call, There is the common ledger for them all; And Images on this cold surface traced Make slight impression, and are soon effaced. But we've a page, more glowing and more bright, On which our friendship and our love to write; That these may never from the soul depart, We trust them to the memory of the heart. There is no dimming, no effacement there; Each new pulsation keeps the record clear; Warm, golden letters all the tablet fill, Nor lose their lustre till the heart stands still. (Daniel Webster, 1839) Exactly like its Russian counterpart, Webster's poem is the most successful creature of its author. It is the only poem by Webster that to a certain extent still survives in the collective cultural memory; it was widely anthologized in the nineteenth century29, and it is still being guoted.3 0 29 Webster's poem is included in the following anthologies: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 5. Epigraphs and Titles: Social Use of an Expression Incorporated into language as filling a semantic void, the idiom naMHTb cepgija began its own independent existence. The expression became extremely popular, as a convenient title that implies either some literary awareness and high cultural status of the author, or a special mode of memoir writing, which concentrates on emotional perception of the past. A title search on "naMHTb cepflua" in the computer catalogue of the Library of Congress produces about seventy results, including not only various collections of prose and poetry, but also song and opera scores. Batiushkov's two opening lines are no less popular as epigraphs, and many of books entitled naMHTb Cepffi^a feature the two-liner on the title page. This Is For You. Love poems of the Saner Sort. Selected by William S. Lord, Chicago - NY - Toronto, Fleming N. Revell Company, 1902, p. 84 Golden Poems by British and American authors ed. by F Browne Chicago 1882 p 125 A New Library of Poetry and Song ed. by William C. Bryant NY J.B. Ford and Co. 1876, p.60 A Book of Friendship. A Collection of Verse and Prose, complied by Ina R. Warren, Philadelphia, George W. Jacobs and Co., 1910, p.62 30 A Google search on the World Wide Web produces several instances of people quoting from the poem on webboards. I ha ve not been able to find any quotes from other Webster poems, though, of course, information on Webster's speeches and political treatises is abundant. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 The most curious (and, to my knowledge, the earliest) instance in which the two lines are used as an epigraph is found in The Collected Works of Apollon Maikov, an important poet of the third quarter of nineteenth century. (A.H. ManKOB, IlojiHoe codpaHne coMMHeHMM b 4-x TOMax.ToM nepBbin, JlnpnKa Cn6. 1882) Maikov prepared the edition himself, and supplied each chapter with a pretentious epigraph. Part XXIII of the chapter called HaGpocKM is decorated with the two opening lines of Batiushkov's Mon TeHnn, but the lines are erroneously ascribed to Pushkin. The fact that Maikov, a poet adhering to the tradition of the Golden age, who was considered to be a specialist in Pushkin and Batiushkov and wrote criticism on both, misattributed the famous lines to none other than Pushkin (who, ironically, disliked exactly these lines), shows that at the time the two-liner had already acquired the high canonical status.3 1 3 1 In a l e t t e r t o P.N. B a tiu s h k o v , M a ik o v d e s c r ib e s how B a t iu s h k o v 's poetry influenced him at the early stages of his poetic career. In th e end o f th e l e t t e r we m ig h t f i n d an e x p la n a t io n f o r th e i n c i d e n t o f th e m i s a t t r i b u t e d e p ig r a p h : "ft iiomhio h to b lOHomecTBe MoeM, K o rfla h H auaji nncaTb ctm xm , e r o npoM3BefleHMH, a MMeHHO yMMparoirp-iM T a c c , £ 6 e p e r noKMflaji TyMaHHbi f t AJibbnoHa, EcTb HacJiajKneHMe, KOTopbie h Bee 3Haio H an3ycTb o t H auajia m no KOHL^a, m hotom AHTOjrorMH rpeuecrcafl — MMejiM rJiaBHoe h pemaK)m,ee BJiMHHne Ha o6pa30B aH H e M o ero c jiy x a m CTMxa m IlymKMHCKoe BJiMHHMe y * e jie rjio Ha 3 T y n oH B y. " (q u td . i n : A.M a ik o v 820) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 Remarkably, it is after the revolution and during the Soviet period that the title naMHTb cepffu,a and the two-line epigraph, became truly ubiquitous, especially a t t h e l o w e r e n d o f t h e l i t e r a r y s p e c t r u m , a m o n g a m a t e u r authors, mostly writing memoirs about their participation in the Revolution and World War II, and also among nmigrwe writers. A typical explanation of the choice of title is found in the memoirs of Lunacharskaia - Rosenel, the wife of A. Lunacharskii. In her naMHTb c e p f f i^ a ( 1 ) t h e t i t l e a n d t h e e p i g r a p h { O , n a M H T b c e p y m a , Tbi cMJibHefi etc) are supplied with the following explanatory note: Bo B p e M fl p a b o T b i H a y o t m m m B O c n o M M H a H M flM M a n o M T M H e n o j i b 3 0 B a j i a c b n c T O U H M K a M M . T J ia B H b iM m c t o h h m k o m 6 b iJ ia m o h n a M H T b , m a B H b iM K p M T e p n e M - t o x o p o m e e , h t o o c T a j i o c b b c e p f l y e o t s t o t o , T e n e p b y m e y a j i e K o r o n p o n u i o r o . I lo s T O M y a m H a 3 b iB a io c b o i o K H M r y naMHTb cepffpa. [ W h i l e w o r k i n g o n t h e s e m e m o i r s I h a v e m a d e a l m o s t n o u s e o f s o u r c e s . T h e m a i n s o u r c e w a s m y m e m o r y , t h e m a i n c r i t e r i o n w a s t h e g o o d t h a t h a s r e m a i n e d i n m y h e a r t f r o m t h i s , n o w d i s t a n t , p a s t . T h a t i s w h y I c a l l m y b o o k Memory of the Heart.] Thus, the title and the epigraph release the memoirist from the constraints of historical accuracy: the memory of the heart, as opposed to the memory of reason, does not deal with the facts per se and allows the author to select only "the good of what remains of the past." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 Numerous Soviet Memories of the Heart mushroomed in the 1960s-1980s, especially around various anniversary dates, such as "the sixtieth anniversary of the Great October Revolution" or the fortieth anniversary of the victory in World War II. The covers of these memoirs usually display stylized obelisks, helmeted Red Army soldiers, symbolic fires (as in "vechnyi ogon"'). The appearance of the covers testifies to the fact the title phrase has lost any connection with its original source and functions as a cliche of official discourse, one especially suitable to the central topics of Soviet mythology and its rituals (such as anniversary celebrations, etc). The books are often supplied with epigraphs from Lenin and Brezhnev. But even taken completely out of its original context, the phrase still manages to preserve its initial semantic charge. In most cases Memory of the heart used as a title seems to imply some personal involvement: the most prominent genre among the books so entitled is the collective edition bundling together semi-literary (and oftentimes semi literate) memoirs by participants of significant historic events. Being a title, the phrase is often thematized in various introductions that sometimes display a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 remarkable rhetorical organization. I cannot resist citing two lengthy examples - both introductions to standard memoir collections - featuring something that might be called Soviet asianism. The first example is an introduction to collection of memoirs by members of the anti-fascist resistance movement in Europe. Here we find an ideal anaphora: IlaMHTb cepflya... 3to He TOJibxo Ha3BaHwe khmtm. O H a , 3 T a n a M H T b , - b M T a jib H H C K M x r p a M O T a x m n a M H T H b ix M e f la J iH X , n o j i y u a e M b i x mockbmuom A j i e K c a H f lp o M r w o e B b iM . . . O H a b lo r o c jia B C K M X n p a B M T e jib C T B e H H b ix H a r p a f l a x , n p M C J ia H H b ix H e f la B H O X M T e jn o f l a r e c T a H a M a r o M e y y E a T b ip o B y . . . O H a - b E e c u M C J ie H H b ix n p w r J ia m e H M H X , n o c T y n a io m .M X H a MMH C O B e T C K M X y u a C T H M K O B n a p T M 3 a H C K O M 6 o p b 6 b I M 3 n O J Ib lH M , ^ p a H IJ M M , H e X O C JIO B a K M M . . . O H a B H e o f l H a x p a T H b ix n o e 3 f l x a x y p o x e H y a C m 6 m p m B n a y M M M p a I l e p e j i a f l O B a n o M e c T a M 6 o e B " P y c c K o r o y y a p H o r o 6a T a j i b O H a . OHa, 3Ta naMHTb, - b ropnuMX, KpenKMX obbHTMHX CMEwpHKa MMxaMJia lOpbeBa m ero SoeBoro ypyra Cnnpoca liMKHMTMpaca . . . OHa, KOHeuHO xe, b naMHTHMKax, B03flBMrHyTbix MHOcTpaHHbiMM TOBapMiyaMM no Opy?KMIO Ha MeCTaX repOMCKOM TMbeJIM COBeTCKMX BOMHOB... OHa B (JioTocHMMKax BoeHHbix JieT, Ha KOTopbix 3 anenaTJieHbi pnflOM MHOCTpaHHbie M COBeTCKMe napTM3aHbi c opy^MeM b pyxax ... OHa b MHorouncJieHHbix MeMyapax m jiio6o b h o o(J) o pMjieh Hbix aJib6oMax. . . OHa - b ycTHbix paccKa3ax, KOTopbie nepeyaiOTCH MOJIOfleJKM CTapiHMM nOKOJieHMeM, B HayHHbIX MCCJieJTOBaHMHX MCTOPMKOB, B Me^KflyHapOflHblX M HayMOHajibHbix cjieTax, BCTeuax, KOHrpeccax. . . OHa B COBeTCKMX neCHHX flOBOeHHbIX M BOeHHbIX JieT, KOTopbie pacneBaioT ?KMTe jim ropoflOB m flepeBeHb...OHa He CTapeeT. 3Ta KHMra - naMHTb cepyya o BepHbix coto3HMKax m ypy3bHX. 3Ta naMHTb eiye yojiro 6yyeT cjiyscMTb TeM HMCTbIM MCTOMHMKOM, M3 KOTOpOTO Hailie M TpHflyilJMe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. n o K O J ie H M H 6 y f l y T n e p n a T b ? K H B H T e ,n b H y io B J i a r y B 3 aH M O IIO H M M aH M H , C O T JiaC M H , f l p y * 6 b l H coTpyflHM^ecTBa. (Kulikov, 3-4) 108 V.Piliupiuk, the author of introduction to the collection of military memoirs published in Dushanbe in 1986, uses the opposite rhetorical device, homoioteleuton: J le T H T r o f l b i , T e v e T p e i t a n o H M e H n B p e M H , c o e y n H H H f l a n e K o e n p o u u i o e c f lH e M c e r o f lH f lin H M M , n y a j i b m e - c b y n y iijH M . A B e e - n a M H T b . C T a p b ie n o ? K e jiT e B m n e (|> O T o r p a (|)H H , n n c b M a T p e y r o j i b H M K n - n a M H T b . M M e H a r e p o e B b H a 3 B a H H H X r o p o f l O B n n a p a x o f l O B , yjrny m mKOJi - naMHTb. Bbica?KeHHbie flepeBbfl, yenbie caybi - naMHTb. O a K e jib i B e v H b ix o m e n , o 6 e j i n c K n C jia B b i - n a M H T b . B o j i b b c e p y y e , H e n 3 6 b i B H a n T o c x a M a T e p e n , * e H n - c j i e 3 b i , c j i e 3 b i . . . T a x a n O H a , r o p b K a n n a M H T b B o h H b i , n a M H T b c e p y y a . ( 1 ) In general, being widely used as a title, the phrase naMHTb cepflu,a seems to be considered an effective ending as well. Two poetry books entitled naMHTb cepffi^a end with poems of the same title. One of these poets, Pavel Ionov, ends his poem naMHTb cepjjija with the following declamation (48): Tax y Hac noBejiocb: CTpOMTb JKM3Hb HeyCTaHHO no npnMepy oryoB, no 3aBeTaM oTyoB. IlaMHTb cepnya BepHa, M O H a H e 33TMMTCH. n a M H T b c e p y y a JK H B e T n H e 3 H a e T K O H y a . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 M b rpaflyiiiMX Bexax 6yfleT nojiHMTbCH, Smtbch 3TOM n a M flT b K ) ropflbix noTQMKQB cepflija. Western debates over the canon in the eighties and nineties have called up two opposing theoretical views on the canon formation. The first view might be called sociological and its the (for example, John Guillory and Paul Lauter) tend to view canon as a depository of cultural capital, an ultimate product of the process of institutional selection embodied in the social history of reading lists, syllabi, anthologies, literary prizes, and various strategies of reputation-making. The second view might be termed aesthetic; its partisans (most notably Harold Bloom and Sir Ernest Gombrich) insist that it is aesthetic guality alone that governs the canonizing process, the latter being understood as a struggle for survival between strong creative individualities. Since both approaches tend to concentrate on large-scale canonical phenomena, they have largely overlooked a properly canonical logic, the one that is equally distant from both the institutional exclusions or inclusions and the realm of pure aesthetics. The canon has often been referred to as cultural memory; in this chapter I have tried to show Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 that a literal reading of this definition might be more productive than a metaphorical one. If indeed canon is cultural memory, then the mechanism of the canon formation must rely on a properly mnemonic, rather than a merely sociological or aesthetic logic. To understand the mechanism of cultural mnemonics one needs to look at the micro-level of the canonical process, where canonicity borders on the domains of idiom, phraseology, catchiness, and proverbiality. If we understand canonicity as historical reproducibility, repeatability, then the mechanism of canon formation can be viewed as working in the same way that new lexical units and concepts appear and secure their positions in language. Moreover, in the case of a minimal fragment of canon, such as a poetic line that became proverbial, entered everyday language, these two mechanisms are essentially identical. In the semantic primordial soup there appear "clots" - recognizable, reproducible meanings - and if there appears a felicitous naming of such an object, it survives and roots itself in language. Batiushkov's distich named such a formerly nameless recognizable semantic object; and we know the potential existence of this object from cognitive psychology and etymological Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l history. Thus, Batiushkov's lines secured for themselves a prolonged, historical reproducibility, that is to say, canonicity. A possible objection is that in my argument I substitute language for canon. Indeed we usually do not talk about the canonicity of a phrase or expression: we just call them "winged words," or popular catchy phrases or idioms. One may ask: is it possible to explain the canonicity of say, War and Peace in terms of this hypothesis? My answer is no, it is not: not because the canonicity of War and Peace is of a completely different nature, but rather because it names unnamed, recognizable meanings that are immeasurably more intricate. At the basis of my analysis lies a Wittgensteinian concept of a language game. Somebody constantly brings in new meanings; if a certain meaning is brought in often, it is convenient to name it. In case of "memory of the heart" (that is the emotional mode of remembering), this nameless recognizable meaning is described in other discourses (such as cognitive science) and it is relatively easy to describe it without naming it. But the larger and more complicated the meaning becomes, the more difficult it is to describe it, though Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 it still remains recognizable. For instance, the famous Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, is always recognizable by contemporaries. However it is always easier for them to refer to main expressions of the Zeitgeist, rather than to describe it directly. So, in the framework of my hypothesis, one can say that War and Peace indeed names heretofore nameless, recognizable semantic objects — but too many objects, objects that are too intricate. Thus when in literary scholarship we talk about the expression or reflection of epoch or of its interests, or, for example, about social or psychological types expressed in a work of art, we, as a matter of fact, are talking about naming of the nameless but recognizable. And that means that outside of the domain of microcanonicity, my approach becomes trivial. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 CHAPTER IV Evaluative Models: The Rhetoric of Taste and Canon 1. Introduction It is almost impossible to express a meaningful opinion on an aesthetic object, a work of art or an author, without having recourse to an intervening rhetorical strategy or a metaphor. These rhetorical means usually remain unnoticed both by those who use them, since they are part of unconscious speech mechanisms, and by students of literary history, who when dealing with meta-literary discourse, tend to concentrate on the message (i.e. on explicit literary or aesthetic programs) rather than the medium. Thus, in the context of Russian literary history, and Pushkin studies in particular, the content of critical polemics of the first quarter of the nineteenth century has been studied extensively and in extreme detail, whereas its linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms have not attracted comparable attention. For a taste-centered approach to literary history, such as the one advocated in the present study, the rhetoric of a taste judgment is no less important than its content. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 The concept of aesthetic value is a relatively recent borrowing from political economy.32 Although today the economic metaphor of value seems to reign in the realm of aesthetics, the language we use when speaking about a work of art shows that there is more than one metaphor at work: we judge and rank works and artists. Historically, it has been metaphors of court and sport contest that have constituted the main rhetorical support for the conceptualization and verbalization of opinions on art. The well-known history of the word classics (which initially referred to the highest social class, those Roman citizens who paid the highest taxes) reveals the source of another important metaphor, that of social classification and of hierarchy. In the history of taste, the question which texts and authors are excluded/included, preferred/rejected, exalted/berated, is as important as the question how, by what rhetorical means, this is done. The rhetorical mechanisms not only facilitate the expression of taste but also shape it by limiting the scope of possible arguments, determining the frame of reasoning, directing the choice of examples etc. Therefore, the history of taste as such has to be complemented by a history of the rhetoric of taste. This chapter is a preliminary and 32 See John Guillory's detailed analysis of the mutual influences between the domains of political economy and aesthetics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the chapter "Discourse of Value" in his Cultural Capital(Guillory 269-340) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 tentative attempt at constructing such an analysis on the material of critical discourse, and in general the body of utterances and statements about literature — of the first third of the nineteenth century, in Pushkin's texts and in texts by the authors who were relevant for Pushkin at various stages of his literary career. That means that in this chapter I will discuss the taste mechanism of a relatively narrow social stratum: Russian polite society and literary intelligentsia of the first third of the nineteenth century. This particular social and educational group is especially relevant, since it was responsible for creating the so-called "Golden Age" canon, centered on Pushkin. That is why in the following pages I will concentrate on the rhetorical models involved in meta-canonical judgments, that is judgments dealing primarily with relations and hierarchies of texts and authors, and specifically on various rhetorical devices used by Pushkin (as well as his immediate predecessors and contemporaries) to award or to deny canonical status to a certain author. Thus, I will be interested in the rhetorical mechanism of both the way Pushkin constructed his own literary hierarchies and how those around or immediately after him constructed a hierarchy with Pushkin at the top. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 In a sense, the results of such an analysis are predictable. Microhistories of rhetoric models of taste will necessarily coincide with the processes known from the traditional literary histories of the first third of the nineteenth century, such as the development from classicism through romanticism towards realism. However, the proposed mode of analysis is capable of clarifying the internal working of this well-known transition. In other words, it can present the literary history of the period not in terms of what was liked or disliked and when, but in terms of how these preferences were expressed, that is, in terms of taste rather than those of literary history or aesthetics proper. The rhetorical models to be analyzed in this chapter are as follows: 1) "X is our/Russian Y, " where X is a Russian writer and Y is a canonical European author, as in "the Russian Byron" referring to Pushkin, or "the Russian La Fontaine" referring to Dmitriev; 2) "stable pairs," a variant of the contest metaphor that pitches two writers as rivals,(as in "Sumarokov vs. Tred'iakovskii", "Derzhavin vs. Lomonosov", "Krylov vs. Dmitriev"). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 3) "poetic championship," a variant of the contest metaphor which presupposes awarding a first place among poets, as in "the first poet of Russia" 4) various other rhetorical means expressing a hierarchy of authors, such as various metaphoric uses of social hierarchies ("the king of poets," or a poetic "Table of Ranks" [Tabel' o rangakh]), a projection of the bureaucratic hierarchy onto the realm of literature. 2. 1. Russian X: A Comparative Excursus This model, which can be schematically represented as "Y is our /the Russian X, where X is a canonical classical or Western author", as in "Krylov is the Russian Aesop, Dmitriev is the Russian La Fontaine, Pushkin the Russian Byron, etc." This is a quintessential classicist model that goes back to the rhetorical equations of French writers with Greek and Roman authors in French Classicism, and further back to the corresponding tradition in Roman antiquity, where some Latin authors were repeatedly assigned Greek counterparts. The formula as such allows two different interpretations, absolute and relative: either "X equals Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 Y in greatness, importance etc." or "X is to Russia as Y is to his/her native land." As I will show below, both interpretations have been applied in the history Russian taste rhetoric. One of the earliest and, certainly best known instances of this model in Russian literary history is found in M.V. Lomonosov's futuristic passage in his 1747 "Ode on the Accession To the Throne of Her Majesty the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna" (Lomonosov 127): flep3awTe hc HbiHe oSoflpeHHbi PaveHbeM BamwM noKa3aTb, HTO M05KeT CObCTBeHHbIX IlnaTOHOB M bbiCTpbix pa3yMOM HeBTOHOB PoccM ficKan 3eMJin p o ^ a T b. This fragment presents an optimistic view of national identity in the making and reflects a topos characteristic of cultures that define themselves in this way. A strikingly similar passage is found in John Trumbull's poetic Commencement Address at Yale, 1770(qtd. in Hubbel 3): This land her Swift and Addison shall view, The former honors equall'd by the new; Here shall some Shakespeare charm the rising age, And hold in magic chains the listening stage; A second Watts shall string the heavenly lyre, And other muses other bards inspire Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 By the beginning of the nineteenth century, both in Russia and America, this model undergoes a reversal: now predictions that "we'll have our own luminaries" or proclamations that "we already have our own homegrown peers of the great ones" are being gradually replaced with complaints that "we have not much to show Europe." This is a well-studied topic in the early Russian nineteenth century literary criticism: a characteristic illustration may be found in Kireevsky's "Obozrenie Russkoi Slovesnosti" of 1829 (qtd. in Pushkin XI: 109): . . . ecjiM npocBenieHHbiM eBponeeu,, pa3BepHyB nepefl HaMM BCe yMCTBeHHbie COKpOBMHja CBOeM CTpaHbl, cnpocHT Hac: "Tfle JiMTepaTypa Bama? KaKMMM npoM3BefleHHHMH MomeT ropflHTbCfl nepefl EBponoio?" — R t o 6yfleM oTBeuaTb eMy? . . . EyfleM 6ecnpncTpacTHbi m co3HaeMCH, u t o y Hac HeT em,e nojiHoro OTpaxeHMfl yMCTBeHHoii ?KM3HM Hapofla, y Hac em,e HeT jiMTepaTypbi. . . [...should an enlightened European ... ask us: "Where is your literature? What works of art can you be proud of in Europe's eyes?" ... What shall we answer?... Let us be impartial and let us confess that we still do not have a complete reflection of the intellectual life of our people, we do not yet have a literature...] An intriguing circumstance about this passage as well as many other similarly worded complaints is that the imaginary situation in question is somewhat strained and the arrogant European is a man of straw. Europeans (except for those rare travelers to Russia who by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 necessity commented on the state of cultural affairs there) did not bother to criticize Russian cultural backwardness: Russia was totally outside of the contemporary cultural map and such a topic would lack topicality. Kireevsky uses the conditional mode ("should a European ask,") but does not name or quote any particular "enlightened European" who might have asked this question. It might be possible that the imaginary European accusations invented by Kireevsky (and many others) were in fact modeled after anti-American attacks by British journalists. Such attacks were current in contemporary periodicals, especially in The Edinburgh Review, the most influential literary magazine of the period, which was scrutinized by Russian intellectuals. As distinct from the virtually non-existent criticism of Russian cultural underachievement, British attacks directed at the American lack of cultural refinements understandably occupied a very important position in the field of contemporary European cultural polemics. Compare, for instance, the question of Kireevsky's imaginary European "Where is your literature?" and Kireevsky's self- critical answer "We do not yet have literature" with the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 following passage from Sydney Smith's article in The Edinburgh Review, 1818: Literature the Americans have none - no native literature, we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed; and may afford to live half a century on his fame. There is, or was, a Mr. Dwight, who wrote some poems; and his baptismal name was Timothy. There is also a small account of Virginia by Jefferson, and an epic by Joel Barlow - and some pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write books, when a six-week passage brings them in our own tongue, science and genius, in bales and hogsheads. (The Edinburgh Review, Dec 1818; qutd. in Hubbel 4) One may also compare another series of unpleasant questions, which Russian literati could not help addressing to themselves: In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks at the American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians and surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans?... Who drinks out of American glasses? Or eats from American plate? or wears American coats and gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? {The Edinburgh Review, Jan 1820; qutd. in Hubbel 4) Thus, at least partly, in its rhetorical structure, Kireevsky's famous passage might have been a reaction to the attacks directed at America, a kind of thought Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 experiment: "What if these accusation were made against us?" 2. 2. The Russian X after Classicism: "An Exaggeration" Straightforward classicist equations, such as "Dmitriev = Russia's La Fontaine," are beyond the focus of the present study. However, it is important in the context of Pushkin's individual taste formation that already by the late 1810s these equations had become an object of critical ridicule, especially among the authors associated with the young Pushkin's circle. Characteristically, Vil'gel'm Kiukhel'beker in his 1817 article "B3rjiH,q Ha HbiHeniHee cocTOHHne pyccicon cjioBecHOCTM" ["A View of the Contemporary State of Russian Literature"] calls this critical practice antiquated and even "harmful to the success of art" (434) : . . .MHorwe nwcaTejiw, n3yMjieHHbie rwraHTCKMM mecTBweM Poccmm Ha nym npocBemeHnn, He ycoMHMJTMCb nepBbie onbiTbi pyccKMX My3 cpaBHMBaTb c o6pa3U,OBbIMM npOM3BefleHHHMM H3bIKa PaCHHOB M BoJTbTepoB. McTopMK JleBeic CMejio nocTaBMJi CyMapoKOBa Hapnny c Jla^OHTeHOM, c Henojipa^KaeMbiM JIa4)OHTeHOM, KOTopoMy, no obmeMy npn3HaHnio, ,qo cmx nop eme He 6bmo paBHoro. Hbme ocTaBJieHbi MHeHnn CTOJib BbicoKonapHbie, CTOjib BpeflHbie ycnexaM ncKyccTBa. Hauin Beprnnnn, Harnn HnuepoHbi, Hauin Popaunn ncuesjin; MMeHa nx nflyT Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pHflOM C nO^TeHHOM flpeBHOCTblO TOJTbXO B flypHbIX iuKOJibHbix KHMrax. Ha him jiMTepaTopbi yace npMHMMaioT CTOpOHy 3flpaBOM KpMTMKM: T. Mep3JTHKOB flOKa3ajT nepBbiw, yTO XepacxoB, BnpoyeM BecbMa nouTeHHbiM nwcaTejib, o^eHb flajiex ot toto uTobbi SbiTb btophm ToMepoM, m qTo caMan nyuuiaH ero nosMa aajieKa jjaace ot BojTbTepoBOM "reHpwaflbi. " . . [Many writers, amazed with Russia's giant headway along the path of Enlightenment, did not hesitate to compare the first attempts of the Russian muses with exemplary works in the language of Racine and Voltaire. The historian Leveque dared to place Sumarokov alongside La Fontaine, the inimitable La Fontaine... These opinions, so bombastic, so harmful to the success of arts, are no longer held. Our Virgils, our Ciceros, our Horaces have disappeared; their names are found together with the names from the venerable past only in bad schoolbooks... Mr. Merzliakov was first to prove that Kheraskov, though quite a decent writer, is very far from being a second Homer, and the very best of his poems is far even from Voltaire's Henriade] Kiukhel'beker speaks of the Russian X model as something obviously old-fashioned. However, in the late 1820s, eight years after Kiukhel'beker's article, Nikolai Iazykov, another friend of Pushkin's, in a letter to his brother (Iazykov 313), speaks out against exaggerated praise for Evgenii Onegin using a rhetoric that is strongly reminiscent of Kiukhel'beker's: Mbi pyccKwe MepneM cjtoiuxom MajieHb kmm apmwHOM yMCTBeHHbie TBopeHMH m flyMaeM, uto Hama Mepa Taxan 5Ke, xax y npocBnmeHHbix Hapor;oB. Kax Majio Hame Bejiwxoe b coBpeMeHHOH JiMTepaType, hmhtojkho 3HaywTejibHoe m hm3xo B03BbimeHHoe, ecjiM B3rjiHHyTb Ha Hero 3Haa reTe m IIlMJurepa; mli nwrMew nepen cmmm McnojiMHaMM, a Bce-Taxw nyMaeM, hto mu pobhh mm, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mjim noTOMy, uto mx He 3HaeM, mjim noTOMy uto He 3HaeM cebn m b yeM coctoht mctmhh3h no33M3. [We, the Russians, measure the intellectual creations with too small a measure, and we think, that our measure is the same as in the enlightened nations. How small is our "great" in contemporary literature, how worthless is our "significant", how low is our "sublime", if we view it with knowledge of Goethe and Schiller; we are pigmies compared to these giants, but all the same we consider ourselves their equals, either because we do not know ourselves or because we do not know what constitutes the true poetry] (letter to A. Iazykov: Iazykov 313) Finally, in the late 20's, Pushkin himself resorts to ironic criticism of this rhetorical model in his 1828 review of Baratynsky's poem Ball. He points out that literary magazines tend to equate, "with undue familiarity, a wrong translation, a bleak imitation with immortal creations of Goethe and Byron." His use of the model is ostensibly ironic: whereas Kiukhel'beker in the passage quoted above considers the equations of the type "Russian Homer" "harmful for the success of literature," Pushkin, who was of course well acquainted with Kiukhel'beker's claim, points out that expressions of this type are a harmless peculiarity of critical parlance: HauiM nooTbi He MoryT acajioBaTbcn Ha m3jtmiiihk) io CTpOrOCTb KpMTMKOB m nybJiMKM — HanpoTMB. EflBa 33MeTHM B MOJIOflOM nMCaTeJie HaBHK K CTMXOCJIO2KeHMI0, 3H3HMe H3bIKa M CpeflCTB OHOTO, y3Ke TOTUaC CneiUMM npMBeTCTBOBaTb ero tmtjiom reHMH, 3a rjia^KMe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. c t m i i i k m — HesKHO 6jiaro,qapMM ero b »cypHajiax o t m m g h m uenoBeuecTBa, HeBepHbiw nepeBOfl, SjieflHoe noflpaacaHMe cpaBHMBaeM 6e3 uepeMOHMM c 6eccMepTHbiMM npoH3BefleHHHMM TeTe m BawpoHa. TaKMM o6pa30M HaSpajiocb y Hac HecKOJibk o c b o m x IlMHflapoB, A p m o c t o b 1 4 BawpoHOB 14 flecaTKa Tpw nwcaTejreM, Mejiaioin^x mctmhhyio vecTb HameMy Beicy [It. P.'s- M.G.], — ,n;o6poflyii]Me CMemHoe, h o 6e3BpeflHoe [...we have collected a few of our own Pindars, Ariostos and Byrons and about thirty writers who are a true honor to our age — ridiculous, though harmless, magnanimity...](XI: 74) Thus, in general the classicist model Russian X as such, in its primitive form, has become conspicuously antiquated by the mid and late twenties and therefore could not play an active part in Pushkin's taste mechanism, apart from emphatically ironic usage. However, more sophisticated versions of this model turned out to be more in line with the "spirit of age." 2. 3. Russian X in the context of Romantic Nationalism: "Writers and Texts as Representatives of the Nation" An interesting descendant of the rhetorical model Russian X developed on the basis of the metaphor of political representation. Russian Romantics were both interested and often involved in the contemporary struggle for political representation waged by oppressed nationalities, most notably in connection with Alexander I's early constitutional experiments (in particular in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 Poland). They were quick to transfer the logic of parliamentary democracy to the domain of the "Republic of Letters." World literature became conceptualized as a "worldwide parliament"; now, instead of identifying Russian Homers and La Fontaines, meta-literary discourse concentrated on writers able to represent Russia in an imaginary literary parliament. This idea surfaced in the context of the well-known debates on narodnost' (national originality). Pushkin, for example, repeatedly calls Ivan Krylov "the first national writer." In his letter to Pushkin (Oct 16, 1825; XIII: 238), Viazemsky, who disliked Krylov, vigorously protested against Pushkin's electing the latter such "a representative" and proposes his own delegates: <. . . >vto TaKoe 3a npeflCTaBHTejibCTBO KptmoBa? CjrenoBaTejibHO, n Opjiobckmm npeflCTaBMTejib pycKoro Hapona. KaK hm roBopw, a b yMe KpbuioBa ecTb Bee vto-to jiaicencKoe: JiyKaBCTBO, SpaHb M3-3a yrjia, Tpycocrb nepe,n; rocnoaaMH. MoaceT SbiTb, TyT m ecTb vepTbi HaporiHbie, ho, no KpawHen Mepe He hsm npH3HaBaTbCH B HM33X M He HaM MMM XBaCTaTbCfl nepe.ii; MHOCTpaHuaMM. . . Ha30BM flepacaBMHa, IloTeMKMHa npeflCTaBMTejihmm pyccKoro Hapoaa - 3to aejio apyroe; b hmx 30jioto m rpn3b HaniM par excellence, ho npeacTaBHTejibCTBO KpunoBa m b caMOM nMTepaTypHOM OTHomeHMM ecTb ouiMpKa, a b HpaBCTBeHHOM vl rocyflapcTBeHHOM aaace m npecTynjieHHe de leze - nation toOoio coBepmeHHoe. [What is this "representation" of Krylov?... There is something of a lackey in Krylov's mind: cowardice, slyness, swearing from around a corner. Maybe these are our national traits... but we ought not to confess them and ought not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to brag about them before foreigners. Call Derzhavin or Potemkin the representatives of Russian people — now that's quite another matter; the gold and the dirt which are in them are ours par excellence. But Krylov as a representative is a mistake in terms of literature, and in terms of the state and morality you have committed a crime de leze - nation] A similar rhetorical move consists in putting forward or nominating (vystavliat') a set of texts deemed deserving of being representative of Russian literature before Europeans. This type of judgment belongs to metacanonical rhetoric: the delegated texts or authors are therefore assigned a high canonical status. It is significant that the rhetorical mode in these cases is that of self-critical inquiry: it turns out that there are only a few domestically produced literary works that are worthy of European attention. In Pushkin's critical writings two such lists may be found, one compiled in 1824 and another dating from 1830. The differences between the lists reveal the development of Pushkin's individual canon. Characteristically, both lists are written in the mode of "what can be put forward before Europe." The 1824 list is included in the draft "npwuMHaMM, 3aMejjJiMBmMMM xofl Hamen cjioBecHOCTW." ["On the Reasons That Have Slowed Down the Movement of Our Literature."] (XI: 21): Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ho pyccKaa no33M3, cKaacyT MHe, f l o c T H r n a b h c o k o m CTeneHM o6pa30BaHHOCTM. CorjiaceH, uto HeKOTopne oflbi flepacaBMHa, HecMOTpn Ha Ha HepoBHOCTb cjrora m HenpaBMJibHOCTb H3biKa, wcnoJiHeHbi nopbrna mctmhhoto reHMJi, hto b "flymeHbKe" BoraaHOBMya BCTpevaiOTCH ctmxh m uejibie CTpaHMUbi, flocroMHbie JIa$OHTeHa, uto BaTJOIUKOB, CUaCTJTOBbM CnOflBM3KHMK JIOMOHOCOBa, cflejraJT rjir. pyccKoro H3HKa to ace caM oe, uto rieTpapKa rjir MTajibhhckoto; uto lyKOBCKoro nepeBejra 6bi Ha Bee h3hkm, ecjivi 6 caM oh MeHee nepeBOflMJi. [But somebody will tell me that Russian poetry has achieved a high degree of sophistication. I agree that some of Derzhavin's odes, the stylistic roughness and linguistic irregularities notwithstanding, are full of the spirit of a true genius; that in Bogdanovich's Dushen'ka one can come across verses and whole pages worthy of La Fontaine; that Batiushkov, a felicitous fellow-champion of Lomonosov, has done the same for Russian language as Petrarch for Italian; that Zhukovsky would be translated into all languages had he himself translated less.] Note that Pushkin uses the model very carefully. He equates Russian authors with their western counterparts only with reservations: Bogdanovich only has verses or pages comparable to La Fontaine; Batiushkov is only relatively equated to Petrarch, i.e. "he is to the Russian language what Petrarch is to Italian." In his 1830 article "OnbiT oTpaaceHM^ HeicoTopbix HejiMTepaTypHbix oSBMHeHMw" ["An Essay in Refuting Certain Non-literary Accusations"] (XI: 166 - 174), Pushkin proposes a slightly different list of the texts that deserve "to be put forward in front of Europe": Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. <...> Hama cjiOBecHocTb c ropflocrbio MoxeT BbicraBMTb nepea EBponoio McropMio KapaM3MHa, HecKOJibko o r , HecKOJibKo SaceH, nsaH 12 ro«a ^CyKOBCKoro, nepeBort Unwaflu, HecKOJibKO ubgtob SJierMHeCKOM n033MM< . . . > [our literature can proudly put forward in front of Europe Karamzin's History, a few odes, a few fables, Zhukovsky's paean of the year 1812, the translation of Iliad, a few flowers of elegiac poetry] (167) A very similar list of texts-"representatives" is found in Kireevsky's already cited Review of Russian Literature in 1829, written a year before Pushkin's Essay in Refutation and quoted by Pushkin in his review of Dennitsa (XI: 103-110): < . . . > e c j m n p o c B e m e H H b i M e B p o n e e n , . . . c n p o c w T H a c : « r n e j i M T e p a T y p a B a m a ? K s k m m h n p o M 3 B e j i e H H f l M M MO)iceTe Bbi r o p r i M T b C H n e p e f l E B p o n o i o ? » — Hto byjjeM OTBeuaTb eMy? Mbi yKa^KeM eMy Ha Mcroprao Poccmmckoto rocyrapcTBa; mh npeflCTaBMM eMy HecKOJibKO ort fepxaBHHa, HecKOJibKO CTMXOTBOpeHMM yKyKOBCKOTO M nyiiiKMHa, HecKOJibKO baceH KpbuioBa, HecKOJibKO cueH M3 boHBM3MHa m rpMboeflOBa, m — rfle eme HafifleM mh npoM3BeaeHMe aocTOMHCTBa eBponewcKoro?(109) [should an enlightened European ask us: "Where is your literature? What literary works can you be proud of in Europe's eyes?" - How will we answer? We will show him <Karamzin's> History of the Russian State, we will present to him a few odes by Derzhavin, a few poems by Zhukovsky and Pushkin, a few fables by Krylov, a few scenes from Fonvizin and Griboedov, and... — where else will we find works of European value?] Pushkin's and Kireevsky's lists are almost identical: Pushkin's expression "flowers of elegiac poetry" is of course a modest and playful reference to poems by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 himself and by those belonging to the same tradition, and therefore, corresponds to "a few poems by Zhukovsky and Pushkin" in Kireevsky's list. Characteristically, Karamzin's History opens both lists: in the late 1820's this book was perceived as the center of the canon in the making. Viazemsky in his letter to Pushkin dated from July, 31 1826 (XIII: 289) expresses the idea of Karamzin's centrality using the metaphor of representation quite explicitly: Bee pyccKoe npocB3meHMe HauMHaeTCH, BepTMTcn m cocpeflOTaunBaeTcn b KapaM3MHe. Oh JiyuuiMM Ham npeflCTaBMTejib Ha ceMMe eBponewcKOM. [All Russian Enlightenment begins with, turns around, and is concentrated in Karamzin. He is our best representative in the European seim ("seim" means "parliament" in Polish-M.G.)] 2.4. A Relativization of The Russian X: Pushkin as the Russian Byron and as a "Small Byron." The possibility to relativizing the model33 (i.e., to equate a Russian author with a Western one on a relative scale rather than one to one) proved useful in the late 1820's and early 1830's when Pushkin fell out 33 Besides the relativization of the "The Russian X" model there also exists the possibility of using it in the context of a "what could have been" type of deliberations on history. An illustrative example of this rhetorical development is contained in Pushkin's inscription to Chaadaev's portrait ( "K nopTpeTy RaaflaeBa ": ”Oh b PMMe 6hji 6h BpyT, b AtJinHax IlepeKJiec, A 3flecb oh o^nyep rycapcKMM [In Rome he would have been Brutus, In Athens Pericles, And here he is a hussar officer](XI: 134) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 of favor with the reading public and the majority of critics. In the early 1820's, after the success of the "southern poems", the equation "Pushkin - Russian Byron"3 4 not only became a stock in trade of critical parlance, but also penetrated into the epistolary language of Pushkin and his friends. Thus Zhukovsky (4, 513) playfully calls Pushkin "Byron Sergeevich" and admonishes him to be "Byron in lyre rather than Byron in deeds" (that is, to imitate Byron in poetry rather than in his actions) : "Cjibimnnib j i m BehpoH CepreeBMU? Ho c m o t p m 5Ke - EenpoH Ha Jinpe, a He BewpoH Ha nene." However, later some of Pushkin's admirers were forced to disavow their praise and rethink the comparison, since at that historical moment Byron was at the height of his fame, whereas Pushkin's reputation had begun to decline. The problem of "Byron and Pushkin" became one of the central topics in the contemporary critical writing. Polevoi in his article on the reception of Evgenii Onegin ("Tojtkm o "EBreHM OHerMHe", couMHeHMM A.C. nyuiKMHa") defends himself against the 3 4 Here, as is the case throughout the prese nt study, the real historical and literary "content" of the problem Byron and Pushkin (that is the problematic of influence, imitation allusions, etc.) is not examined. For a large-scale study of Pushkin's "Byronism" see Zhirmunskii. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. accusation that he has exaggerated Pushkin's 132 significance by equating him with Byron: H Bbirne CKa3ajr m onnTb MMeio uecTb noBTopnTb, hto n HMKorfla He Ha3biBaji nymiCMHa paBHbiM EeMpoHy m He flejiaj: mx obmHMKaMM oflHHaKOBOM cjiaBbi! . . . HeyacejiM M3 cjiob momx BbiBefleHO CTpaHHoe npeflnojiosceHMe, hto h paBHHio BehpoHa IlyiiiKMHy? (Tolki 272) [I have already said, and I have the honor to repeat again, that I have never called Pushkin Byron's equal nor have I considered them to be of the same stature... How on earth is it possible to derive from what I have said the strange suggestion that I equate Byron with Pushkin?] Kamashev and Bulgarin both retracted their earlier statements about "the Russian Byron" in the early thirties and explicitly relativized this model. In his review of Boris Godunov, Kamashev states that "IlymKMH HMKorfla He 6bm jiMTepaTypHbiM reHMeM pa3yMen no,n; stmm cjtobom jiMqe, nojiobHoe flaHTy, IIIeKcnMpy, BawpoHy, reTe. . . oh y Hac nepBHM, oh Majiehbkmm flaHT, UleKcnMp, BawpoH, TeTe b TecHOM wpyry PyccKOM JlMTepaTypn." (94) ["Pushkin has never been a literary genius, if the latter term means an individual like Dante, Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe ... but he is our small Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe in the intimate circle of Russian literature"] Similarly, in an article written two years after Kamashev's, Bulgarin uses an explicit version of the "Russian X" relativized: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ...Cue flapoBaHMe, cmh 3acjiyra Sonee Bejimkm OTHOCMTejIbHO UeM nOJTOyKMTe Jib HO, T e TO UTO IlyillKMH c^ejiaji b Poccmm m . ijjih Poccmm, He MOSKeT cpaBHMTbca c TeM , hto CflejiajiM reHHM-npeo6pa30BaTejin b Ahtjimm, OpaHUMM, repMaHMM. (0 kharaktere, 155) [...this <Pushkin's> gift, this merit are greater relatively than in absolute terms, i.e. what Pushkin did in Russia and for Russia cannot be compared to what genius-reformers have done in England, France, Germany.] Thus the model in question first appeared in classicism, and was used straightforwardly as a canon-making rhetorical device: the designation "Russian La Fontaine" elevated Dmitriev to the highest canonical status. In the early 1810's the model became suspect and was used primarily in an ironic vein or as a parody. The Romantic sensibility developed a new way to conceptualize the relations between Russian and Western authors in the metaphor of political representation: as we saw, Krylov's canonicity was manifested in his role as a "representative of Russia in the Parliament of world literature." In the late 1820's and early 1830's critics used the ambiguity inherent in the model in order to rethink the commonplace comparisons between Pushkin and Byron. Now instead of equation they spoke of a proportion: "Pushkin is to Russia what Byron and other Great Ones are to Europe." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 2.5. A Later Version of Russian X: The Proteus Metaphor In the 1830's, and especially after Pushkin's death, a new transformation of the model appeared in the metaphor of Proteus, the Greek sea god famous for his ability to assume different shapes. The Proteus metaphor played a central role in the rhetoric of Pushkin's canonization; it allowed one to avoid outdated, direct equations with Western canonical figures, while still preserving the canon-shaping energy inherent in the model. Now Pushkin is not actually compared to (either absolutely or relatively), or equated with, Western geniuses but rather endowed with an ability to reenact or reincarnate them. One of the earlier uses of the Proteus is found in Ksenofont Polevoi's 1829 article "On Pushkin's oeuvre" (Polevoi O sochineniiakh 137) : "mm pa3yMeeM 3,n;ecb MeJiKne CTMXOTBOpeHMH, B KOTOpbIX IlyillKMH, KTO He 3HaeT OTOTO - HBjiaeTCfl ncTHHHbiM flpoTeeM" [In his small poems Pushkin is, as everyone knows, a true Proteus.] Gnedich's 1832 poetic epistle to Pushkin is interesting in that it presents a transition from the model of relative significance to the Proteus metaphor: ITyniKMH, npoTew. . . now, KaK noenib t u, poflHow cojioBew! EanpoHa reHmm mjib PeTe, IHeiccnnpa, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tehum mx He6a, mx HpaBOB, hx cTpan. Tbi ace, nocTMrHyBiiiMM TawHCTBa PyccKoro flyxa m Mwpa, Tbi Ham BaHH! HeOOM pO,I[HbIM BflOXHOBeHHbM, Tbi Ha Pycw Ham rieBeu HecpaBHeHbiw [Pushkin, Proteus... Sing as you sing, our native nightingale! The genius of Byron, of Goethe, or of Shakespeare Is the genius of their skies, their mores, their lands. And you, who have grasped the mysteries of the Russian spirit and world, You are our Baian! Inspired by the native skies, You are our incomparable bard in Russia] (Letter to Pushkin, Apr 3, 1832: Perepiska 2, 361) Here Pushkin is called Proteus in the very first line, but the further reasoning does not seem to attribute to Pushkin any protean qualities: rather it suggests the equation "Pushkin is to Russia what Byron, Goethe, Shakespeare are to their lands." The last word of the e p i s t l e , " H e c p a B H e H H b i f i " ( " i n c o m p a r a b l e " ) , h i n t s a t t h e inherent problem of the rhetorical model "Russian X": equation and comparison imply a certain "second hand" quality or imitativeness. Compare a typical complaint about Zhukovsky's "borrowed inspiration" in Polevoi's a b o v e c i t e d a r t i c l e (O sochineniiakh 137): . . . JlMTepaTypa PyccKan Bcerjia 6buia HanepcHMuew jiMTepaTyp MH03eMHbix. . . flaace noHbme, kto . . .MoaceT noxBacTaTbCH c b o m m, He3aeMHbiM BuoxHOBeHweM? XyKOBCKMM, ceil ouapoBaTejibHbiii nosT He MOxeT SbiTb H33BaH TBOPUOM. flaace Te M3 COHMHeHHM, KOMX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M3o6peTeHMe npMHaflJieacMT eMy, HaBenHbi M3 non vyacoro HeSa. [Russian literature has always been a confidant of the foreign literatures... Zhukovsky, this charming poet, cannot be called a creator. Even those works that he himself conceived are evoked by alien skies.] The Protean metaphor is a very convenient rhetorical device that is able to transform an obvious shortcoming (being imitative or influenced by a Western writer) into an advantage (openness, responsiveness, the ability to assume various cultural shapes). This line of reasoning reached its apogee in one of the master-texts of Pushkin's canonization, Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech, where Pushkin is judged to be superior to Western geniuses, exactly on the grounds of his ability to re incarnate a foreign genius or the spirit of a different nation (10, 455): B caMOM aejie, b eBponehcicnx jiMTepaTypax Shjtm rpoMaflHOM BejrnuMHbi xyfloacecTBeHHbie r e H M - IUeKcnnpbi, CepBaHTecbi, IIInjLnepbi. Ho yxaacMTe xotb Ha oflHoro M3 otmx BeJiMKMX reHneB, KOTopbiM 6bi obnanaji TaKOK) CnOCObHOCTblO BCeMHpHOH OT3bIBUMBOCTM, KaK Ham nyniKMH. CaMbie BejiMuaniiiMe M3 eBponewcKMX nooTOB HMKoraa He Mornn BonmoTMTb b cebe c thkom cmjiom reHMM uy)Koro, coceflHero, MoxeT bbiTb, c hmmm Hapofla, nyx ero, bcio 3aTaeHHyio rnybMHy otopo nyxa M BCIO TOCKy erO npM3BaHMH, KaK MOT OTO npOHBJIHTb nymKMH. 3.1. Pairs: Classicist "Comparison of Virtues" and "Putting on the Same Plane" as the Rhetorical Roots of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 Pushkin's "Triumph of Friendship or Alexander Anfimovich Orlov Vindicated. "(1831) A comparison of the virtues of two writers perceived as equally great constitutes one of the central devices of the classicist rhetoric of taste. The tradition of speaking about great writers (as well as great political figures or military leaders) in pairs goes back to school compositions in classical education and further, back to the ancient genre of comparative biographies (such as in Plutarch). The Russian Classicist canon was structured around writers who were often discussed in pairs. Importantly, although in historical reality these authors (most famously Lomonosov, Sumarokov and Tred'iakovsky) were indeed involved in a bitter rivalry, critics used the terms of competition or contest in their connection relatively rarely. Classical taste preferred an objective and impartial comparison that discussed strengths and weaknesses of both compared authors. In this rhetoric, canonical writers are not conceptualized as rivals; the one who judges, the reader, has the prerogative of assigning one of the writers a higher canonical position, while at the same time acknowledging the virtues of the writer who comes second in his/her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 estimation. Or, in another classicist subdivision of this model, the comparison is inconclusive in terms of superiority, and this issue is left aside as superficial. Typical examples of the classicist use of the model are found in the critical writings of Pushkin's uncle, Vasilii L'vovich Pushkin. In his Thoughts and Characters we encounter two stable pairs of the early nineteenth century rhetoric of taste — Lomonosov VS. Derzhavin and Krylov VS. Dmitriev: Hama no33na o6«3aHa JTomohocoby mhotmm, sto HeocnopwMo; ho MHe Ka3KeTc;3, vto TajraHT flepxaBHHa npeBOCxoflHee. B CTMxax nocjie^Hero HaxoflHTCH Bee: no33MH, Omjtoco^mh m Mopajib. . . . % vMTaio SacHM KpbmoBa c SojibmwM yflOBOJibCTBweM, a 5Kejiaio noflpaacaTb flMMTpweBy. (Pushkin V.L. Mysli 119) [Our poetry owes a lot to Lomonosov, it is indisputable; but it seems to me that Derzhavin's talent is superior. In the latter's poems one can find everything: Poetry, Philosophy, and Morality... I read Krylov's fables with more pleasure, but I wish to imitate Dmitriev] Note, that Vasilii Pushkin does not imply any actual rivalry between the authors in question, nor does he use any rhetoric of rivalry. Traces of this impartial Classicist mode of comparison have survived in Alexander Pushkin's taste, e.g. in his comment on the stable pair "Lomonosov vs. Sumarokov": Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 CyMapoKOB Jiyume 3Haji pyccKHH H3biK, HejKejiw JIOMOHOCOB, M ero KpMTHKM ( b TpaMMaTMMeCKOM O T H o m e H M M ) o c H O B a T e j i b H e w . J I o m o h o c o b H e O T B e v a j i mum OTiuyunBajicn. CyMapoKOB TpeSoBaji yBaaceHMH k C T H x o T B o p c T B y. ("MaTepwajibi k "OTpbiBKaM M3 n w c e M , MbicjiHM m 3aMeyaHMflM"; XI: 59) The question of the comparative value of "paired" writers constituted a common topic of literary conversations between Pushkin and his friends. Thus, in a 1825 letter to Del'vig Pushkin expresses his judgment on "Lomonosov/Derzhavin" pair in a tone that suggests a reference to a prior discussion of the problem. no TBoeM OTr be3,r[e nepeueji h flepacaBMHa Bcero m bot Moe OKOHuaTejibHoe MHeHwe. 3to t uyaaK He 3Han hm pyccKow rpaMOTbi h m ,n;yxa pyccKoro H3biKa (bot noueMy oh m HMwe JIOMOHOCOBa) . (June 1825; XIII: 181-182) The pair "Dmitriev - Krylov" also kept reappearing in conversations and correspondence between Pushkin and Viazemsky.35 In 1878 Viazemsky (Polnoe 159) recalls that: . . . Cnopbl HaiUM O flMMTpweBe UaCTO BOSOSHOBJIflJIMCb 14, Kax oSbiKHOBeHHO cnopax dbiBaeT, oT3biBbi, cy*:,n;eHi4H, B03paaceHI4H CTaHOBHJIHCb BCe SOJiee 3aHOCHI4BbI. . . OH Bee HM5Ke m HMace cTaBMji flMMTpweBa, h Bee Bbirne w Bbime noflHMMaj: ero. Cf. in Pushkin's letter to Viazemsky of April 1824: . . . rpex TeSe yHwacaTb Harnero KpbiJioBa. TBoe MHeHwe flOJUKHO SblTb 33KOHOM B HaineM CJlOBeCHOCTM , a Tbi no HenpocTMTejibHOMy npwcTpacTMio cyfliimb BonpeKM cBoew 35 See (Vatsuro Dmitriev) for a discussion of the prehistory of Pushkin's and Viazemsky's debate over the comparative significance of Dmitriev and Krylov. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140 coBecTM m noKpoBMTeJibCTByeuib vepT 3HaeT KOMy. M u to TaKoe flMMTpneB? Bee e ro SacHM He c t o h t ojihom xopomew SacHM KpbiJiOBa. (Perepiska 1, 17 3) When the model involves a judgment on the superiority of one of the authors, it is done by means of the metaphor of higher or lower placement. Thus Viazemsky in the passage above "elevates Dmitriev higher and higher", whereas Pushkin "demotes him lower and lower." Or authors could be "put on the same plane" ("postavit' na odnu dosku") as, for instance, in a reference to the "Lomonosov/Derzhavin" pair in Polevoi's article "On Pushkin's works": "flaBHo jim . . . y Hac mm h JloMOHOcoBa cTaBMJiM pflflOM c MMeHeM flep?KaBMHa?" [Was it so long ago that they placed Lomonosov alongside the name of Derzhavin?](137) Kiukhel'beker, similarly dissatisfied with the outdated critical practice, in his 1824 article "0 HanpaBjieHMH HameM noo3MM, ocobeHHo jmpMuecKoii, b nocjieflHee flecHTMjieTwe" ["On the Direction of Our Poetry, Especially Lyrical, in the Last Decade"], subjects the "putting on the same plane" to severe criticism (458): . . . HamM JKM Bbie KaTajrorw , komx B3rjiH,n;bi, pa3bopbi, paccy5Kr;eHMH SecnpecTaHHO BCTpeuaemb b CbiHe O TevecTBa, CopeBHOBaTejie IIpocBemeHMH, BjiaroHaMepeHHOM m BecTHMKe EBponbi obbiKHOBeHHO CTaBHT Ha oflHy ,n;ocKy: CjioBecHOCTM Ppeuecicyio m JlaTMHCKyio, AHrjiMMCKyro w HeMeu,Kyio; BejiMKaro TeTe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — m Hefl03peBiuero UlMjiJiepa; wcnojiMHa Me*fly wcnojiMHaMM ToMepa m yveHMKa ero BeprmiMH, pocKomHoro, rpoMKoro nwHflapa — m nposawvecKoro c™xoTBopua ropau,MH; flocToiiHoro HacjieflHMKa apeBHMx TparnKOB PacMHa m — BonbTepa, KOTopbiM 6bui hctmhhom no33MM; orpoMHoro IHeKcnwpa — M OflHOoSpa3Horo EawpoHa. [they usually put on the same plane: Greek literature and Latin literature, English literature and German literature; the great Goethe and the immature Schiller; Homer, the giant among giants, and his pupil Virgil; the splendid, loud Pindar and the prosaic versifier Horace; the enormous Shakespeare and the monotonous Byron] In general, members of Pushkin's intimate circle were very sensitive to the possibility of being put on the same plane with somebody who, in their estimation, did not belong there. Thus, in 1824 Viazemsky asks Pushkin to resign his membership in The Society of Lovers of the Russian Word because Faddei Bulgarin was also a member, and in a newspaper account of the activities of the Society Pushkin's and Bulgarin's names had appeared next to each other: Cflejraw MMJiocTb oTKaacncb ot nocraflHoro vjieHCTBa ObmecTBa mobMTeJien pyccKoro cjiOBa... MHe 6bmo aocaflHO uto m TeSn m EapaTbiHcicoro BbiSpajiM BMecTe c BepcTOBCKMM, a BuepaiUHwe MocKOBCKwe BeaoMOCTH flOBepuiMjiM m o b r;ocafly: TyT yBHflwrnb: npefljrosKeHwe 06 M36paHnw b uneHbi obmecTBa Kopw$eeB cJiOBecHOCTu Hamen: A.C. nymKHHa, E.A. BapaTbiHCKoro, O.B. ByjirapwHa m OTevecTBeHHoro K0Mn03HT0pa My3bIKM A.H. BepCTOBCKOTO . . . . Mbi xyflo aejiaeM uto npeHebperaeM 3BaHneM jiMTepaTopcKMM: sto 3BaHne He to uto xpucTwaHMHa. Mbi He noefleM k BenbMoace, KOTopbiw cTaHeT Hac Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. npMHMMaTb HapaBHe c KaHajibh m h , c EyjrrapwHbiM m ApyrMMM HeqwcTOTaMM oSmecTBeHHoro Tejia. Pa3Be 3flecb He to ace? (Viazemsky's letter to Pushkin, January 2, 1824; Perepiska 1, 274) More than ten years after that Pushkin made a very similar complaint in a conversation with Pogodin: . . . HMTaio b ra3eTe UtajiMKOBa [MocKOBCKwe BeflOMOCTM] : AjieKcaH^p CepreeBwu h daymen BeHeflMKTOBMv, CMJ4 flBa Kopm^en Harnefi cmoBecHOCTM, yjjocToeHbi etc. B o j ih Bama: s t o nomeuwHa. [I am reading in Shalikov's newspaper: "Aleksandr Sergeevich <Pushkin> and Faddei Venediktovich <Bulgarin>, these two luminaries of our literature, are awarded... etc." Say what you like, it is a slap in my face] (with Pogodin Apr 7 1837; Gessen 167) Finally, the same motif reappears in one of Pushkin's anti-Bulgarin epigrams (Pushkin 77, 3 354): Korfla IloTeMKMHy b noTeMKax H Ha ripeuwcTeHKe Hawfty, To nycTb c ByjirapwHbiM b noTOMKax MeHH nocTaBHT HapHBy. [If I ever find Potemkina in the dark On Prechistenka Street, Let them put me in posterity On the same plane with Bulgarin.] As for the classicist practice of inconclusive comparison between literary figures, Pushkin came to jeer at it as an outdated rhetorical device. In the almanac Northern Lyre he came across an article designed as an amplified "balanced" comparison between Lomonosov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 and Petrarch. In his review of the almanac, Pushkin describes this article in a parodic manner, emphasizing the arbitrariness and inconclusiveness of the comparison: Ho r-H P. rjiyboKOMbicjieHHO 3aMeuaeT, uto IleTpapKa 6bui BjuoSneH b Jlaypy, a J I o m o h o c o b yBa3Kan neTpa m EjiwcaBeTy; uto neTpapica nwcaji Ha JiaTMHCKOM H3biice, Hanwcaji nooMy CuMnMOH A^pwKaHCKMM (t. e. Africa), a J I o m o h o c o b jraTMHCKOM nosMbi He Hanwcaji. O h b jnobonbiTHOM OTCTynjieHMM paccKa3biBaeT, uto CTapMK npuxoflMj: M3 HcnaHMM b Pm m k TMTy J Im b m io m uto TaKOM y v i e CTapeu,, h o k TOMy ace cjienoM, npnxoflnji BMfleTb IJeTpapKy,— TaKOBOM uynecHbiM npMMep Ham J I o m o h o c o b He MoaceT npeflCTaBMTb ; H a K O H e u , uto PobepT, Kopojib HeanojiMTaHCKMM, cnpocMj: OflHaacflbi y IleTpapKM, OTuero o h He npeflCTaBHjicH OMJiMnny m npou., h o hto o h (r. P.) He 3HaeT, hto 6bi CKa3aji J I o m o h o c o b b t s k o m cjiyvae. (XI: 4 8 ) [Mr. R points out with a profound air that Petrarch was in love with Laura, whereas Lomonosov respected Peter and Elizabeth; that Petrarch wrote in Latin, wrote the poem Scipio of Africa, whereas Lomonosov did not write a poem in Latin; in a curious digression, Mr. R tells us that an old man once came from Spain to Rome to Titus Livy, and that a similar, and, in addition, blind, old man came to see Petrarch — and our Lomonosov cannot present us with such a miraculous story; finally, that one day Robert, the king of Naples, asked Petrarch why he had not introduced himself to Philip etc., and that he (Mr.R.) does not know what Lomonosov would say under such circumstances] The two rhetorical strains in Pushkin's taste described above — first, sensitivity to situations of being undesirably put on the same plane with an unworthy and compromising "neighbor," and, second, an ironic attitude towards the critical device of pairing as such, may help Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 explain the internal workings of Pushkin's rhetorical mechanism in his 1831 article "TopacecTBO apyacSbi mjim onpaBflaHHHM AjieKcaH^p Ah^mmobmu OpjiOB" ["A Triumph of Friendship, or Aleksandr Anfimovich Orlov Vindicated"] (1830) , one of his most biting anti-Bulgarin satires. The article is constructed as an amplified parodic comparison between Pushkin's sworn literary enemy Faddei Bulgarin and the notorious graphomaniac Alexandr Orlov, an imitator of Bulgarin. In a classicist manner reminiscent of Vasilii Pushkin's comparisons between Lomonosov and Derzhavin, Pushkin balances weak and strong points of both authors: H e c M O T p a H a H e c o r j i a c w e , u a p c T B y i o m e e M e jK ,q y O a , i m e e M B e H e f lM K T O B M V e M M A j i e K C a H f lp O M A H C jD M M O B M V eM . . . n o c T a p a e M C H c p a B H M T b cmm f l B a S j r o c T a T e j i b H b i e c o j i H u a H a m e w c J i O B e c H o c T H . d a y m e n B e H e f lM K T O B m j n p e B b im a e T A j i e K c a H ^ p a A H $ n M O B n y a n jr e H M T e jib H o io m e r o jie B a T O C T M io B b ip a a c e H M M ; A j r e K c a H j i p A h i|> m m o b m u b e p e T n p e w M y m e c T B O H a s O a f l f l e e M B e H e jiM K T O B M v e M jk m b o c t m io m o c t p o t o i o p a c c K a s a . . . P o M a H b i O a f l f l e n B e H e a . b o j i e e o b a y M a H b i , f lO K a 3 b iB a iO T b o j i b i n e e T e p n e H M e b a B T o p e ( h T p e b y i o T em,e b o j i b i n e r o T e p n e H M ja b U M T a T e n e ) ; n o B e c r a A j i e K c a H , q p a A h $ . b o j i e e K p a T K H , h o b o n e e 3aMbicjroBaTbi m 3aMaHHMBbi. (XI: 206-207) The rhetorical drive of the model, which presupposes the comparability and equality of the authors in question, makes the satire especially insulting to Bulgarin, who had used this model expansively in his own critical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 practice. The whole article constitutes an extended application of "putting on the same plane." Pushkin responds to attempts to put him on the same plane with Bulgarin by putting Bulgarin on the same plane with a literary nobody. Thus, by the analysis of Pushkin's rhetoric of taste we have been able to trace the psychological development that led Pushkin to write this article: his irony toward classicist pairing mixed with sensitivity to "being put on the same plane," both of which are documented in other manifestations of Pushkin's taste, prompted him to employ it as an effective satirical device in Triumph. 3.2. Pairs: Rivalry, Business Competition and Fisticuffs As has been shown, classicist "balanced" pairing came to be perceived as outdated in the mid 1820's. With the advent of romantic tastes, predictably, the rhetoric of "impartial comparison of virtues" yielded to the rhetoric of rivalry. The rhetorical models that had been in use were "rivalized." Thus, whereas Vasilii Pushkin's Thoughts (see 3.1 above) discusses the traditional pair Krylov vs. Dmitriev in terms of both writers' virtues and shortcomings, Pletnev, in his article "5Kn3Hb vl Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 coyMHeHMfl KpunoBa" ["On life and works of Krylov"] written at the end of the next decade, conceptualizes the history of the pair as a prolonged military rivalry or fight: TombKO BocbMbK) roflaMM paHee Kpbi.noBa poflmicH flMMTpweB, KOTopoMy cy*fleHO 6bino Bbi3BaTb Ha onHO c coboio nonpwme He onacHoro Torna conepHMKa, noKasaTb eMy o6pa3u,bi, McnojiHeHHbie npejiecTew MCKyccTBa, BKyca m tohkoto yMa — m HaKOHeu, ycTynwTb eMy...(81) [Dmitriev was born just eight years before Krylov; and he (Dmitriev), was destined to challenge and to call out into the field a rival, who was not dangerous at first, to show him examples of a fascinating art, taste, and sharp wit — and, in the end, to lose to him...] The conceptualization of relations between Pushkin and Western canonical writers (as in the rhetorical model "The Russian X" above) underwent similar changes. Compare Ksenofont Polevoi's treatment of the pair Pushkin vs. Shakespeare in a rhetoric reminiscent of Harold Bloom: nyillKMH nOBTOpMJl coboio BCK3 MCTOpMIO pyCCKOM jiMTepaTypu. BocnMTaHHbiw MHOCTpaHuaMH, oh nepexoflum ot onHoro HanpaBjieHMH k npyroMy nona HaKOHeu, Hamem TawHy cBoew no33MH b nyxe CBoero OTevecTBa., b MMpe pyccKOM m wcnbiTaB cwjibi b 6opb6e c BpMTSHCKMM BejiMKaHOM cflejiajica ero nocmeflOBaTejieM (IIIeKcnwp) (Zelinsky 2, 153) [Pushkin repeated in himself the whole history of Russian literature. Brought up by the foreigners, he had been moving from one school to another until he finally found the secret of his poetry in the spirit of his motherland, in the Russian world, and having tried his force in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 the struggle with the British giant (i.e. Shakespeare), became his follower. To Pushkin's ear, however, the romantic metaphor of knightly rivalry must have sounded high-flown, and, as is the case with many common rhetoric models, Pushkin developed his own playful "down-to earth" version: the metaphor of commercial competition or boorish brawl. At the same time, this rhetorical turn reflected the process of literary professionalization and growing bitterness of literary fights. Pushkin especially liked using this model jokingly in correspondence with close friends. The context often implies a complaint that a certain colleague is spoiling Pushkin's business ("perebivaet lavochku") or a prediction that a newcomer will drive Pushkin out of the literary market. Thus, in a letter to his brother Lev (Jan 30 1823), Pushkin complains that a new poem by Gnedich threatens his (Pushkin's) market ("shop"): rHejinv <ero TapeHTUHCican fleBa> y MeHH nepebnBaeT xiaBOVKy — 3Han 6bi CBoero ToMepa, a to m hsm He byaeT MecTa Ha riapHace. (To Lev Pushkin Jan 30 1823; XIII: 56)[Gnedich is spoiling my business. He should stick to his Homer, otherwise there will be no place for us on Parnassus] A year later Pushkin uses the same expression in a letter to Rodzianko, making a joke about the threat to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 his Romantic "shop" coming from a newly written poem by Rodzianko:3 6 Rto tboh poMaHTHyecKaa nooMa «Hyn»? 3jioflew! He Memaii MHe b MoeM peMecne — nwuiM caTktpbi xoTb Ha MeHH, He nepebMBan MHe moio poMaHTMuecKyio jiaBO^Ky. (Letter to Rodzianko 1824; XIII: 128) [How is your Romantic poem "Chup"? Villain! Do not interfere with my trade. Write satires - against me if you wish — but do not mess with my romantic shop.] Almost all comments on other young poets' literary potential in Pushkin's letters are made with an intonation of playful misgiving, as if Pushkin's literary future were threatened by the success of his competitors. In a letter to Bestuzhev (March 24 1825; XIII: 155), Pushkin complains about Ryleev's literary progress and regrets "a missed opportunity to shoot him" (in a duel): O u e H b 3 H a i o , u t o h e r o [ P b u i e e B a ] y u M T e j i b b C T M X O T B O p H O M H 3 b I K e , HO OH M f l e T C B O e iO flOpOTOIO. Oh b .a y m e nooT. H o n a c a i o c b e r o H e H a m y T K y m ^ c a jie io o u e H b , u t o e r o H e 3 a c T p e j m n , K o r ^ a M M e m T O M y cnyuaPi . fla u e p T e r o 3 H a J i . [I know very well that I am his teacher in the matter of literary language, but he is going his own way. He is a poet in his soul. I am downright afraid of him and I regret that I did not shoot him when I had an occasion to do so. But who the devil could have known?] 36 The literary and biographical context of Pushkin's letter to Rodzianko and the history of their relations are analyzed in (Vatsuro Rodzianka 70-81) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 A comparable rhetorical turn consists in a playful acknowledgment that the poet-competitor has surpassed him (Pushkin) in a particular field (such as a genre) and that the only thing left for him is to stop working in this genre. Thus, twice, in an 1822 letter to Viazemsky and in an 1824 letter to Bestuzhev Pushkin expresses his admiration for Baratynsky's elegiac poetry and suggests that it makes no sense for him to continue writing his own elegies: B a p a T b iH C K M M - n p e j i e c r b m v y n o . " n p M 3 H a H M e " - c o B e p i u e H C T B O. nocjie H e r o H M K o r z t a H e craHy neuaTaTb cbomx onerm m ... (letter to Bestuzhev, Jan 12 1824; XIII: 84)3 7 ['Baratynsky is a delight and a miracle. His Confession is the perfection. After him, I will never publish my elegies] Ho KaKOB EopaTbiHCKMM? npM3Hawcn vto oh npeB30M,n;eT m napHM m EaTioiiiKOBa ecj™ Bnpenb 3amaraeT Kaic rnaran no cwx nop - Beflb 23 ro^a cvacTMBuy. OcTaBHM Bee eMy spoTMvecKoe nonpwme m KMHeMcn Kaacflbiw b CBOio cTopoHy, a to cnaceHbn HeT. (letter to Viazemsky, Jan 2 1822; XIII: 34) [But how do you like Baratynsky? Admit it, that he will surpass both Parny and Batiushkov if he further strides the way he has stridden thus far — and mind you, the lucky devil is just 23. Let's leave to him the whole field of erotic poetry, and rush away in all directions — or else there will be no rescue] 37 Later, in 1827, Pushkin again acknowledge Baratynsky's superiority in the genre of elegy: IlepBbie npoM3Be,qeHnH BapaTbiHCKoro 6buiw ojiernn m b stom poxie oh nepBeHCTByeT. ("06 ajibMaHaxe CeBepHaa JlM pa"; XI: 48) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 Characteristically, Pushkin also found this model to be a convenient rhetorical device to brag about his own poetry. In a letter to his brother Lev (Jan 30 1823) he expresses his satisfaction with the poem To Ovid that he had published recently: KaKOBbi ctmxh k Obmamio? nyma mo« m PycnaH M njieHHWK m Noel m see xpxHb b cpaBHeHMM c h m m m. PaflM Bora, jijoSm flBe 3Be3flouKM — ohm obemaioT flocTOHHoro conepHMKa 3HaMeHMTOMy PbmeeBy, SHaMeHMTOMy IlaHaeBy m ,n;pyrMM 3HaMeHMTbiM HamMM nosTaM...... (X: 45) [What do you think about the poem To Ovid..? For God's sake, love the two asterisks <Pushkin signed the poem with "**" - M.G.>. They promise a worthy rival to the famous Ryleev, the famous Panaev and our other famous poets] Pushkin's letter to Viazemsky (Nov 9, 1826) presents another example of the use of the same model. Here Pushkin expresses his admiration for the progress made by Nikolai Iazykov: 3r;ecb Hameji x ctmxm H3biKOBa. Tbi M3yMMinbcn ksk oh pa3BepHyjicn, m uto m3 Hero Sy^eT. Ecjtm y»c 3aBMflOBaTb, TaK BOT KOMy H flOJiaceH 6bl 3aBMflOBaTb . Ammhb, aMMHb rjiarojiio bsm. Oh Bcex Hac, CTapuKOB, 3a none 3aTKHeT. ( Mysli 455) [I have found here Iazykov's poems. You will be amazed how he has grown. If I would envy somebody, here is the one I would have to envy... Amen, amen I say to you: He will outshine all of us old timers.] Pushkin might have inherited this rhetorical device from his older friends: in 1815 Viazemsky discussed the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 poetic potential of the young Pushkin himself in very similar terms in a letter to Batiushkov: Hto CKaacem b o c b iH e C e p r e n J Ib B O B M u a ? H y f lo m B e e T y T . E r o „ B o c n o M M H a H M3 " B C K p y a c n n w H a M r o j i O B y c yK yKO BC KM M . K a K a H C K U ia, T O H H O C T b B B b ipaaceH M M , KaKaa TBepaafl m MacTepcKan KMCTb b KapTHHe. flaw Eor eMy 3nopoBMH m yyeHMfl, m b HeM byjjeT npoK, m rope HaM. 3a,n;aBMT, KaHajibH! (qutd. in Lotman Pushkin, 319) [What do you think about Sergei L'vovich's son Ci.e. Pushkin M.G.>. It is a miracle and that's it. His "Recollections" turned Zhukovsky's and my heads. What force, what precision in expression... God grant him health and instruction ... and woe is us. He will crush us, the rascal!] Though it is not connected directly with the subject of taste rhetoric, it is still worth mentioning that the metaphor of fisticuffs was often used in describing critical polemics. Since fisticuffs were associated with lowbrow popular amusement, this metaphor could be used both for criticizing and justifying vigorous polemic with somebody who does not deserve to be fought. Thus, in 1822 Pushkin reproaches Viazemsky for writing a satirical epistle to the despised Kachenovsky: EpaHiocb c to6ok) 3a o , i ] ; h o nocjiaHwe k KaueHOBCKOMy; KaK MOT TbI COHTH B apeHy BMeCTe c 3TMM XMJlblM KyjrauHbiM Somuom — Tbi c6mjt ero c hot, ho oh oSjimjt 6eCCJiaBHbIM TBOM BeHOK KpOBblO, acejIUblO M CHByXOM. . . Kax c hum CBH3biBaTbCH — flOBOJibHO bbmo c Hero jrerKoro xjibicTa, a He caTMpwyecKOM TBoew najiwubi. (Letter to Viazemsky Jan 2 1822; Mysli 396) [How could you come down into the ring with this decrepit fighter? — you have knocked him down, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 but he poured out his blood, bile and home-brew on your inglorious wreath...] However, in 1830 Pushkin uses the same metaphor while defending himself and Viazemsky from similar reproaches (i.e. that they should not have become involved in polemics with Bulgarin and the like). He points out that the predilection for fisticuffs is a Russian national trait38: B. BaM HpaBflTCS KyjiauHbie Somubi. A. noveMy ace HeT? Ha him 6o«pe mmm Temnjincb. flepacaBMH mx Taxace BocneBaji. MHe crojib ace HpaBMTCH KH. BH3eMCKMM B CXBBTKe C KaKMM"HM6yflb acypHaJIb HbIM by^HOM, Kax m rp. OpnoB b 6010 c hmuimkom. 3to uepTbi HapoflHOCTM. (XI: 81) 4.1. Hierarchy". The Ladder, the Pedestal and The First Poet As has been shown above, taste rhetoric of pairs underwent significant transformation in the first third of the nineteenth century. Classicists tended to use the model in a form of a balanced inconclusive comparison or an operation of "placing higher or lower." Romantics conceptualized the relation between paired authors as a 38 In an ennobled variant of the metaphor a critic might be compared to a Greek wrestler, as in Pushkin's "Bo3paaceHMe Ha CTaTbn KioxejibbeKepa b MHeMosMHe" (1825-1826) ["Objection to Kiukhel' beker's articles in Mnemozina"]: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 sort of knightly rivalry or warfare. Finally, Pushkin and writers of his circle tended to jokingly downgrade the model and preferred the down-to-earth metaphor of business competition or popular fisticuffs. All these transformations were based upon the underlying concept of artistic and literary hierarchy. Our contemporary literary ratings and top-ten-lists cater to middlebrow and lowbrow tastes; in contemporary canon formation the process of selection (for such thing as university syllabi and anthologies) has displaced to a certain degree the process of hierarchization. Early nineteenth century taste was much more connected to the tradition of metaliterary hierarchization, still alive in the classicist tastes, and going back to such institutions as contests of tragic poets in Greek antiquity, medieval and renaissance poetic laureateship, etc. Various operations of hierchizing living and dead authors still played a central role. Thus Viazemsky, whose taste rhetoric remained rather archaic throughout his life, in the 1827 article "0 3JioynoTpe6jreHMM cjiOBaMM" ["On the Misuse of Words"] Hhkto He CTaji onpoBepraTt ero, noTOMy jim, mto Bee c hum corjiacMJiMCb, nOTOMy JIM, MTO He XOTejTM CBH3aTbCH C aTJieTOM, nO-BMflMMOMy CMJIbHbIM M onbiTHbM. (XI: 41) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 gives an explicit and amplified image of poetic hierarchy as a ladder: He pa3JTMyaTb cjiOBa nosT ot cJTOBa CTnxoTBopeu ecTb HecTepnHMoe 3.noynoTpe6.neHne. B hmx Taxe pa3HOCTb KaK BCJiOBax Majinp n XMBonnceu,. Te m apyrwe b CBoeM pone ynoTpeSjiniOT ojiho opyflwe: nepBue nepo, BTopbie - KMCTb. Ho E$peM pacnMCbmaeT flBepw m oKHa, KMnpeHCKMM coBMecTHMvecTByeT npwpoBe. Ctmxm neTpoBa - no33wa, c t m x m -XepacKOBa - ctmxm. CxOflH T3KMM 06pa30M no JieCTHMIJ.e CTMXOTBOpueB Hah,n,eM mh Ha hh*hmx cTyneHHX pn$MOTBopu;eB, KOTopae TaKxe flajreKM ot CTMxoTBopu,eB, KaK m ohm ot nosTOB; HMacecjieflyiomMx mo x h o eme noflpasflejiMTb Ha SecvMCJieHHbie pa3p«flbi m cnycTMTbcn HaKOHeu, ao SecKOHevHO Majibix mjtm He yMeioiitMX cnpaBMTbcn hm c Pm^moio hm c paccyflKOM. Kpan ceM c t m x o t b o p h o m JieCTHMUbl aaHHTbl OflOJO flepxaBMHa M XpOMbIMM reK3aMeTpaMM TpeflbHKOBCKoro. (Polnoe 1, 275) Both the rhetorical structure of this criticism, and its content (Derzhavin placed at the top and Tred'iakovsky at the lower end of the ladder) are rather archaic for 1827, when Viazemsky wrote this article. The image of the ladder and a detailed hierarchy from top to bottom are absent from most contemporary uses of this rhetorical model. The model was more often used in a reduced version; contemporary critics focused on the top of the ladder, that is, on determining "the first writer." In the canon as it was shaped by the end of the second decade of the century, the first place was more often assigned to Zhukovsky rather than to Derzhavin. A Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 characteristic usage of the pedestal metaphor is found in Uvarov's review of the state of Russian literature published anonymously in a 1817 issue of the St Petersburg French newspaper Le conservateur impartial (1817, 16 (28) Octobre, N5 83 qutd. in Gillel'son 97): HecoMHeHHO, vto cpegvi HbiHemHero noKOJieHMH nepBoe Meoro npwHajJieacwT yRyKOBCKOMy; aaace Bparw ero, - a bbuio 6 flocajiHO, e c j i w 6 oh mx He MMeji, - KaxeTCfl He ocnapMBaiOT stoto yTBepacaeHMH. n e B e u , 1812 roxta - JiioSMMeu Hauroi. 3to o6menpn3HaHHo; oTflaBan npeBOcxoflCTBo ero TanaHTy m He ocnapHBafl npaBa ero Ha nepBoe MecTO, ueHMTejiw 3aTpyflHniOTCH onpeaejiMTb MecTO B a n o m K O B a , npo KOToporo mo»:ho CKa3aTb non secundus sed alter. nosTMuecKMM TaJiaHT ero, kotophm bo mhotmx OTHOiueHwnx He HM*e TajiaHTa SyKOBCKoro, CTOJib OTjroveH ot Hero no CBoeMy xapaKTepy, uto Mbicnb o noflyMHeHMMM HeyMecTHa [There is no doubt that among <the poets>of the present generation the fist place belongs to Zhukovsky; even his enemies — and it would be a pity if he did not have any — do not seem to argue with this statement. The singer of the year 1812 is. this nation's favorite...] Thus, as of 1817, Zhukovsky is the indisputable poetic champion and Batiushkov comes in a close second (though Uvarov does his best to avoid subordinating Batiushkov to Zhukovsky). By the first half of the 1820's the situation has drastically changed: from now on it is Pushkin who is increasingly assigned "the first place." A characteristic example has survived in Zhukovsky's letter to Pushkin (Nov 12 1824: Zhukovsky 4, 510): Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 . . . no flaHHOMy MHe nojiHOMOHMio npMcyacflaio Te6e nepBoe MecTO b Pocmmckom napHace. [By the authority vested in me, I am awarding you the first place on the Russian Parnassus]. The authority that Zhukovsky has in mind stems from Zhukovsky's own "poetic championship" at the prior stage of canon history. In a letter to Pushkin written a year later (April 1825), Zhukovsky again repeats the formula in a context illustrative of Zhukovsky's characteristic didacticism. In Zhukovsky's opinion, "the poetic first place" is an honor that implies a commitment, and comes with a sort of moral duty incumbent upon its holder: ... Tbi flOJUICeH SblTb n O O T O M P O C C M M , flOJUKeH 3acjiy»:MTb bjiaronapHOCTb - Tenepb Tbi nojiyunji TOJibKO n e p B e H C T B O n o TajiaHTy: npHCoeflMHH k HeMy m to uto Jiyurne em,e TajiaHTa - hoctomhctbo! (4, 511) [ y o u o u g h t t o b e t h e p o e t o f R u s s i a , y o u o u g h t t o e a r n p e o p l e ' s g r a t i t u d e - n o w t h a t y o u h a v e b e e n g i v e n t h e f i r s t p l a c e i n t a l e n t ; a d d t o i t t h a t w h i c h i s e v e n b e t t e r t h a n t a l e n t — w o r t h i n e s s ! ] Thus by 1824 Pushkin's poetic victory had been resolved for Zhukovsky himself. However, the problem of who was the first poet - Pushkin or Zhukovsky — was still a legitimate topic in contemporary literary discussions. In the same year, 1824, Viazemsky devoted a considerable part of his article "Zhukovsky. Pushkin. On the new Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. poetics of fables" to the problem of poetic 157 championship. Viazemsky's main point is that determining the relative superiority of Zhukovsky or Pushkin and the whole rhetorical procedure of awarding the first place is meaningless, since both authors have their specific and unsurpassed virtues. However, Viazemsky's own rhetoric reveals the dominance of the model he is trying to undo: at the end of the passage, Viazemsky unwillingly admits that Pushkin might be "higher" than Zhukovsky, but vigorously protests against a critic's statement that, besides Pushkin, there are other Russian poets also superior to Zhukovsky: B .ripyroM MecTe CTaBMT oh nyiuKMHa Bbime, ropa3flo Bbirne yKyKOBCKoro; ho, He onpeaejiMB cTeneHM hm toto, hm apyroro, nycwaeTCH b OflHy nycTyio M3flepacKy cjiob . Hto 3a npMHyscmeHHan m HaodyM cflejraHHan oueHKa! ^Vkobckmm He HanMcaji 6bi mhotmx CTpaHMU, B KaBK33CKOM IljieHHMKe, BaXUMCapaMCKOM $OHTaHe, MHOTMX M3 MeJIKMX CTMXOTBOpeHMM IlymKMHa KMnninMx vyBCTBOM m Mbicjtmio, ho IlyuiKMH He HanMcan 6h MHorMx CTpocj? b neBue bo CTaHe PyccKMX bomhob, b PpoModoe m BaflMMe, He bopomcH dbi c ycnexoM paBHbiM ycnexy aCyicoBCKoro c doraTbipnMM MHocTpaHHOM n033MM, B COCTH33HMHX , Tfle OH flOJTKeH dblTb nOKOpMTb CaMbIM H3bIK M OdOTaTMTb CTOJlb KMMM 3aboebaHMHMM m myx, m $opMbi, m npemejibi Harnew cuoBecHOCTM. . . B IlymKMHe HeT HMuero ^CyKOBCKoro, ho Meacfly TeM nyuiKMH ecTb cjiemcTBMe SyKOBCKoro. noeBMH nepBaro He floub, a HacjiemHMua noo3MM nocjieflHero m no cvacTMio ode ^cmbh m XMByT b Jiamy. • • Ho nycxaM eme kpmtmk bo3hocmt IlyiiiKMHa Bbime lyxoBCKoro, ecnn HenpeMeHHO xoueT CTaBMTb oflHoro nooTa Ha ronoBy mpyroMy, a He no3BOJTneT mm ctohtb pHflOM: JKyKOBCKMM noHeceT OXOTHO TaKOe dpeMH; ho 3to eme He KOHeu,: y covMHMTejin nncbMa Ha KaBKa3 ecTb b 3anace m eme HecKOJibKO, KpoMe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 nyiiiKMHa, KOTopbie Bbime ^CyKOBCKoro. Cue oTKpbiTwe, KOTopoe oh flepacwT BepoaTHO npo ceSn ana y,no6Horo cjryuaH, BbiroflHO ana nojib3bi Hamew JiMTepaTypbi, ho KaKOBO ace 6y,n;eT /KyKOBCKOMy? npeflBwacy, vto eMy He ycTOHTb, ecjiM aBTopy nwcbMa nopyveHO SyfleT coopyflMTb nnpaMM,i];y M3 nooTOB Haniax. (1, 181) [Let the critic place Pushkin above Zhukovsky, if he will not let them stand side by side. Zhukovsky will bear such a burden willingly. But <the critic> has in stock a few more <poets> besides Pushkin, who are above Zhukovsky. This discovery... will profit our literature. But what about Zhukovsky? I foresee that he won't be able to keep his balance, if <the critic> will be commissioned to erect a pyramid out of our poets] It is noteworthy that just three years after this witty condemnation of "pyramid building," Viazemsky (see 4.1) created his own pyramid (or ladder) of writers. Polevoi's 1833 review of Boris Godunov contains another characteristic testimony to the fact that 1824 and 1825 were the decisive years in determining the relative canonical status of Pushkin and Zhukovsky: E m e H e p e rn e H O S b u io n e p B e H C T B O n y iiiK M H a M eacfly C O B p e M e H H b IM M IlO O T a M M I4MM, K o r f l a M 3 ,q a T e jib T e j i e r p a ^ a , b 1825 r o s y , H a 3 b iH a ji e r o H e B T o p b iM , a f l p y r w M n o c n e X C y K O B c x a r o , m c flo b p o jiy m H b iM B o c r o p r o M lOHomw n p H B e T C T B O B a n b tom >Ke r o a y n o H B J ie H w e e r o O H e r n H a . flH K O B 0 3 o n n j m T o r j i a n p o T M B n o x B a j i Ily m K M H y — n o x B a n H a n e * n e 6 y , n a m a r o . T e n e p b c n p a m w B a e M : H e o n p a B f lb m a io T c a jim cmm Hane^K flbi? riy n iK M H , p e m M T e n e H o , H e n p M 3 H a H jim n e p B b iM M 3 c o B p e M e H H b ix P y c c K w x n o s T O B ? (Boris 171) [Pushkin's superiority among contemporary authors had not been yet decided, when, in 1825, the editor of Telegraph (i.e. Polevoi himself- M.G.) called Pushkin not second, but simply different than Zhukovsky. They cried out wildly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 then against my praises for Pushkin, the praises for the hope of the future. Now I am asking them: are not these hopes coming true? Has not Pushkin been declared decisively the first among contemporary Russian poets?] As is clear from this passage, by the early 1830's Pushkin's first place had become indisputable.39 Indeed, critical literature that appeared during this period provides many instances of the prevalence of the "Pushkin's first place" rhetoric. Thus in a review published in Moscow Telegraph by an anonymous author (Polevoi?) (1831, 37/2; Zelinskii 3, 38), we encounter the epithets "decisively and indisputably" applied to the statement of Pushkin's poetic championship: nyiiiKMH cTaHOBHTCH . . ., yace pemnTejibHO n beccnopHQ, Bbime Bcex coBpeMeHHbix pyccKMX nooTPB; MM3 ero flejiaeTCH nocjie cero npnuacTHO HebojibiuoMy uncjiy BejiMKnx nosTOB, noHbiHe bbmmnx b Po c c m m, m Meacfly HMMM rOpnT OHO flpKOM 3Be3flOIO. [Pushkin is becoming, decisively and indisputably, already higher than all other contemporary Russian poets] Compare a ls o th e s i m i l a r usag e in an a r t i c l e in Moscow Telegraph (1829 u27 N? ll; Z e l i n s k i i 2, 209): "riyiiiKMHa mojkho Ha3BaTb oflHHM M3 npocBHineHHeMiiiHx juoneM Poccmm, m BMecTe nepBbiM IIootom CBoero H a p o a a . " [P u s h k in may be 3 9 P o le v o i i s e v e n a b le t o c o l l e c t some s y m b o lic i n t e r e s t on h is e a r l y in v e s tm e n t i n P u s h k in 's fa m e . A f u l f i l l e d c a n o n ic a l p ro p h e s y r e i n f o r c e s a c r i t i c ' s p o s i t i o n; c f . a c o m p a ra b le s ta t e m e n t i n a 1 8 2 9 c r i t i c a l r e v ie w : "flaBHbiM aaBHO a y x e H a3Ban e r o nepBbiM pyCCKMM IIOOTOM, M HbIHe, XOTH nOOMa IIOJTTaBa He HpaBMTCH MHe CTOJIbKO, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 called one of the most enlightened people in Russia, and, at the same time, the first Poet of his nation.] Bulgarin wrote his 1833 article "0 xapaKTepe m flocTOMHCTBe no33M A.C. nyiiiKMHa" ["On the Character and Virtues of Pushkin's Poetry"] with pretensions of summing up the contemporary view of Pushkin's significance. It is revealing that the article, despite the fact that Pushkin remained Bulgarin's literary enemy, is permeated with "first place" rhetoric. Bulgarin even claims, somewhat anachronistically, that Pushkin had occupied the canonical first place from the very beginning of his literary career: "Hbhjtch ITyuiKMH. EflBa nepemarHyB 3a py6e?K fleTCKaro B03pacTa, oh McnojiMHCKMMM niaraMM onepeflMJi Bcex cbomx npeflmecTBeHHMKOB n 3aHHJi nepBoe MecTO." (O kharaktere 155) [Having barely crossed the threshold of childhood, he, with a giant's stride, passed ahead of all of his predecessors and took up the first place.] Having determined that Pushkin actually "had taken up the first place" long ago, Bulgarin then keeps returning to this rhetoric throughout the article, while expressing certain careful reservations: KaK U,biraHbi m BaxwucapaficKMM <|>OHTaH, h Bee ocTarocb npn tom ace MHeHHM. " (Cuh OTevecTBa 1829 y 125 N! 16) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 . . . IlyiiiKMH, ctqmt Bbime Bcex riosTOB b Po c c m m, m ecjiH MHe yKaacyT HecKOJibKO MejiKMX nbec npyrMX riOSTOB OflMHaKOBarO flOCTOMHCTBa c npOM3BefleHMHMM nyniKMHa, mjim maxe Bbime mx b o c t o h c t b o m to Bee oto eme He othmmct nepBeHCTBa y riymKMHa. Hto hm roBopM, KaKt hm pa3,n:po6jiHMCH btj cyacmeHMHx m SCTeTMHeCKMX t o h k o c t h x, a b c e—t a KM riyiUKMH CO BceMM cbommm KpacotaMM m HeflociaTKaMM (creaky Xiaace, c BaacHbiMM HemocTaTKaMM) , ocTaHeTcn nepBbiM pyccKMM IIo s t o m. (0 kharaktere 158) [Pushkin towers above all poets in Russia, and if you show me a few minor pieces worthy of Pushkin's works in other poets, or even higher than they, all of that will still not take away Pushkin's first place. Whatever you say, whatever hairsplitting in judgments and aesthetic subtleties you indulge in, Pushkin, with all his beauties and shortcomings (I will even say - important shortcomings) Pushkin will still remain the first Russian poet.] Toward the end of the article Bulgarin repeats this pronouncement again; but he cannot resist adding a fly to the ointment by referring to the model of relative significance (see 2.4 above) : .". .MecTO ero Meamv HaniMMM coBpeMeHHbiMM nosTaMM IIooTaMM - nepBoe, m He nocjieflHee b HehojibinoM xpyry nooTOB bceMMpHbix (159) [His place among our contemporary poets is the first one, and not the last one in the small circle of the world poets] Thus, in the early 1830's Pushkin's first place became incontestable; from that point, however, Pushkin's literary reputation steadily declined until his death, after which the phrase "the first poet of Russia" became again a cliche. One of the more well- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 known uses of the expression is found in Zhukovsky's letter to Benkendorf (the chief of the secrete police department), written soon after Pushkin's death: "xepTBOH m h o 3eMHoro pa3BpaTHMKa cfleJiajicH nepBbiM nooT Po c c m m ." [The first poet of Russia was made a victim of a foreign degenerate.] (February - March 1837, Zhukovsky 4, 262) Pushkin himself rarely uses the "first poet" rhetoric. He turns to a variation on the model in his 1830 article on Baratynsky. Here Pushkin constructs a pedestal or a literary pedestal that presents his own version of the poetic canon in the making. Pushkin points out that Baratynsky has not been enjoying the high esteem he deserves, and that it is high time to place him "on the same step of the pedestal as Zhukovsky, and above the singer of Penates and Tauris (i.e. Batiushkov)": "BpeMH eMy <BapaTbiHCKOMy> 3aHHTb CTeneHb, eMy npnHaflJiexaiiiyio, m CTaTb nofljie XyKOBCKoro n Bbime neBU,a neHaTOB m TaBpnflbi. ("CTnxoTBopeHMH EBreHMH BapaTbiHCKoro 1827", XI: 124). It is interesting that Pushkin modestly refrains from discussing his own position, though of course it was obvious for a potential reader that the pedestal Pushkin described Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 should have been shifted so as to allow Pushkin himself to be placed at the top. The model of a triumvirate of poets that Pushkin uses in his article on Baratynsky constitutes a separate subdivision of the rhetoric model in question. Whereas talking about writers "in pairs" (see 3.1 and 3.2 above) implies comparative or competitive aspect, the triumvirate model is used for the purposes of hierarchization.4 0 Thus Bestuzhev ends his discussion of Zhukovsky, Batiushkov and Pushkin in his 1823 article "A View of Old and New Poetry" with the following generalization: " A n e K c a H f l p Ily iiiK M H B M e c T e c flB y M H n p e flb ifly n jM M M c o c T a B J i n e T H a m n o o T M u e c K M M T p M V M B M p a T " (Vzgliad 115) [Pushkin along with the two discussed above <Zhukovsky and Batiushkov > constitute our poetic triumvirate]. A poetic version of the triumvirate model may be found in Baratynsky's 1829 epigram about Kachenovsky. Here Kachenovsky is described “Pushkin inserts in his Table-Talk a characteristic anecdote which contains a reference to one of the earlier triumvirates in Russian poetry : CyMapoKOB oueHb ysasKaji BapKOBa KaK yueHoro n ocTporo KpnTMKa m Bcerp;a TpeCoBaJi ero MHeHHH KacaienbHO cbomx couwHeHMM. BapKOB nprnneji oflHaac^bi k CyMapoKOBy. "CyMapoKOB BejittKun uejiOBeK! CyMapoKOB nepBtM pyccKMM CTwxoTBopeu,!" — CKa3aji oh eMy. OCpanoBaHHHM CyMapoKOB Beneji TOTuac nojiaTb eMy bohkh, a BapKOBy TOJibKo Toro m xoTenocb. Oh HanwjicH nbHH. Bbixoflia oh CKa3aji eMy : "AneKcaHflp rieTpoBtiu, n TeOe cojiran. IlepBbiM-TO pyccxhm craxoTBopeu, - n, BTopon - JIomohocob, a Tbi TOJibKO uto TpeTmm" CyMapoKOB uyTb ero He 3ape3aji" (XII: 170) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 as a literary enemy of the three first writers of Baratynsky's personal canon: XBajia, MacTMTbiM Ham 3omji ! Korfla-To flMHTpweB becMJi TeSn cnacTJiMBbiMM CTpyHaMM; BecMJi ^CyKOBCKMM BCJiejj 3a hum; Bot SecwT nymKMH: KaK jiio6mm Tbi flajibHOBMflHbiMM CyflbSaMw! TpM noKOJieHMH neBu,OB Te6n Kpacoii cbomx BeHUOB B HeroflOBaHbe npMBOflMJiw; neKMCb O 3flpaBMM CBOeM, HtoSh , nojioSHo nepBbiM TpeM, flpyrwe Tpw TeSn SecwjiM. (103) [Praise to you, our venerable Zoilus! Once Dmitriev drove you wild With his happy strings; After him Zhukovsky drove you wild; Now Pushkin does; how beloved you are By the prescient Fates. Three generations of singers Have been infuriating you With the beauty of their wreathes. Take care of your health So that, like the first three, A new trio would be able to drive you wild.] Finally, the young Pushkin used this model to create an anti-canonical triumvirate (i.e. the three worst writers in his estimation) in his 1815 epigram "There is a trio of gloomy singers" ("YrpioMbix TpoMKa ecTb neByoB") YrpioMbix TpoiiKa ecTb neBiyoB - IIlMXMaTOB, IIIaXOBCKOM, I I I miukob, YMy ecTb TpoiiKa cynocTaTOB - I I I miukob Ham, IIIaxoBCKOM, IIlMXMaTOB, Ho kto rjiyneM M3 tpomkm 3jiom? I I I miukob, IIlMXMaTOB, IIIaxoBCKOM! (I: 133) [There is a trio of gloomy singers - Shikhmatov, Shakhovskoi, Shishkov, There are three enemies of reason - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 Our Shishkov, Shakhovskoi, Shikhmatov. Who is the most stupid among the evil trio? - Shishkov, Shikhmatov, Shakhovskoi!] In the examples above, the historical meaning of the term "triumvirate," that is, the reference to the Roman trumvirs, is of course effaced (though perhaps less so in Pushkin's epoch than in modern usage). But in many other instances various tropes and metaphors derived from the domain of social hierarchies preserved a deeper connection to their original meaning in social reality. In general, projections of various social hierarchies very often serve as structures that organize the canon. The following is a preliminary analysis of several metaphoric transfers from the social domain to that of canon and taste rhetoric in the Pushkin period. 4.2 Hierarchies'. Metaphorical Projections of Social and Bureaucratic Hierarchies The rhetorical model of the "first poet" discussed above is implicitly based upon the metaphor of sport competition or an abstract "ladder" or "pyramid" of writers (see 4.1.). It is natural that turning to the hierarchical social classifications may rhetorically reinforce an abstract "ladder" or "pyramid." Thus, in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 the context of Russian autocracy "the first poet" easily transforms into "the Tsar of poets." Possible rhetorical tropes include comparisons with real monarchs, most suitably with Peter the Great, perceived as the founder of the modern Russian state. Consider in Baratynsky's letter to Pushkin dating from Dec. 1825: Mm m , flOBepuian HavaToe, Tbi, b kom nocejiwjiCH PeHmm! Bo3Be,n;M pyccicyio no33Mio Ha Ty CTyneHb Me^Kfly n033M3MM Bcex HapOflOB, Ha KOTOpyiO neTp BejIMKMM B03Beji Poccmio Mescny aepacaBaMw. (Perepiska 1, 309) [Go, and finish what you have started, you, whom Genius made his home! Raise Russian poetry to the same level among the poetries of all peoples, as the level to which Peter has raised Russia among the nations] Such grandiloquent usage of the model may be contrasted with an ironic, but no less characteristic in a letter from Del'vig to Pushkin (Sept 10, 1824) : "IIoflyMaMTe, Banie napHaccKoe BejiwuecTBo". (XIII: 108) [Think, Your Parnassian Majesty].4 1 The metaphor could also be understood quite seriously as in the inventive rhetorical combination of "three Alexanders" in Adam Kirkor's lament about the 41 Delvig liked this type of playful address and used it repeatedly. Cf. in his letter to P ushkin on Feb 18, 1828: "Bame riOSTMUeCKOe BblCOKOnpeBOCXOHHTeJIbCTBO r UeCTb MMeiO flOHeCTM BaM, MTO H yxe 10 flHen Haxoxycb b ropone XapbKOBe " flejibBMr IlyiiiKHHy (XIV: 4) . This address ( "Your Poetic Excellency ") implies the metaphor of military hierarchy, to be analyzed in detail below. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 deaths of Alexander I, Alexander Bestuzhev and Alexander Pushkin: Eojice! B3TJ1HHM Kax miaueT pyccKan 3eMJin! 3a hto Kapaemb ee TaK acecTOKO? B HenpoflOJUfCMTejibHOM BpeMeHM flapoBaji th HaM Tpex BeraKMx AjieKcaHjipoB. Bee ohm SbiJiM uapHMM b cBoeM Ha3HaueHMM. AjieKcaHrtp I - cnacMTejib Ham, gapb Hapoja pyccKaro; AjieKcaHrtp riyuiKHH - n,apb nooTPB; ArteKcaHjtp SecTyaceB - gapb npo3anKOB. (qutd. in Abramov 102) [God! Look at how the Russian land is crying! Why do you punish her so cruelly? In a short span of time You have granted us three Alexanders. All of them were Tsars in their vocations. Alexander I - our savior, the Tsar of Russian people; Alexander Pushkin — the Tsar of poets; Alexander Bestuzhev - the Tsar of prose writers] As any student of Russian history knows, the bureaucracy (both in its state and military versions) was no less important than the autocracy in structuring the power relations in the Russian Empire. Attacks against the established literary canon were often metaphorized as a fight against the authorities. Thus, Kachenovsky denounced "literary generals" as he initiated a critical campaign against Karamzin's History, the work that was undoubtedly at the top of the pre-Pushkin canon: [Bbimna "Mctopmh rocynapcTBa PoccHMCKoro", m TOTuac rocnojia peaaKTopbi acypHanoB, Ka^cflbiw b cboio ouepe,n;b, oTflaj™ uecTb ew BbicoKonapHbiM npMBeTCTBMeM, KaK BoeHHbie Kapayjibi mmmo enymeMy reHepajry OTnaioT vecTb wrpaHMeM Ha Tpybax mjim SapabaHHbiM boeM. ] ("Ot kievskogo zhitelia k ego Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 drugu", 1818, qutd. in Gillel'son 37) [<Karamzin's> History of the Russian state came out and the Messrs. editors at once, each in turn, saluted it with a grandiloquent greeting, like military guards salute a passing by general by blowing trumpets and beating drums] Since power and authorities do not necessarily imply negative connotations, defenders of the canon, in turn, could use similar metaphors to support their cause. Thus Viazemsky in his notebooks pictures Polevoi (who was involved in several anti-canonical critical campaigns) as a robber or a raving mutineer who is determined to subvert the "legitimate literary authorities":42 nojieBOM y Hac poflOHauajibHMK jiMrepaTypHbix Hae3flHMKOB, K3KHX “TO KOHflOTbepH, HwcnpoBepraTeJiew 3aKOHHbix nwTepaTypHbix BjiacTeM. Oh m3 nepBbix npwyuMJi nybjiMicy CMOTpeTb paBHOflymHO, a MHorfla m c yuoBOJibCTBMeM kbk KMflaioT rpH3b b MMeHa, ocBnmeHHbie cnaBOio m BceobmMM yBa^eHHeM, Kax, HanpMMep, b MMeHa KapaM3MHa, XyKOBCKoro, flMMTpMeBa, nymKMHa (1846 entry: Zapisnye 286) [Polevoi is among us the progenitor of literary raiders, a kind of condottieres, denouncers of the legitimate literary authorities. He was the first to habituate the public to watching with indifference, and sometimes even with pleasure, while names sanctified with fame and universal 4 2 See Lidiia Ginzburg's analysis of Viazemsky's inclination toward hierarchization and defense of what constituted for him the legitimate literary authorities in (Ginzburg Viazemsky, 30): "PlMeHHO no MepapxMtecKMM ochob3hmhm b SojibmeM CTeneHH, ueM no ocTeTHnecKUM, BH3eMCKnn b cBoe BpeMH HacTanBaji Ha npeflnoyieHMM flMMTpneBa KptmoBy. OTCigqa ace KyjibT KapaM3MHa n KpamaH HeTepnnMOCTb b nponBJieHnnx OTOro KyjibTa, no6yacpi;aBman BnseMCKOro CMOTpeTb Ha Kaac,n;oro npoTMBHHKa Mctopmm rocynapcTBa PoccnMCKoro KaK Ha HapyuiMTena obmecTBeHHOM BjiaronpncTOMHocTM." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 approval, such as those of Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Dmitriev, Pushkin, had mud slung at them.] The rhetorical force and a certain degree of ambiguity in these metaphors came from the fact that the polemics took place at a time when an autonomous literary field in Russia was forming. This is a time that Pierre Bourdieu describes as one of struggle for emancipation of the autonomous literary hierarchy from the heteronomous hierarchies - such as those of social and political power.4 3 An accusation of belonging to the literary authorities could be especially damaging since it had been not long ago that access to the court and success in the bureaucracy were indeed factors determining an author's position in the literary hierarchy. Thus, during the debate over "literary aristocracy" Bulgarin's party tried to connect the literary success of Pushkin and his friends to their high social positions. Though the debate itself took place in the early thirties, Bulgarin was apparently considering this line of argumentation as early as 1823. In his article "A Short Survey of Russian Literature in 1822," published in Northern Archive (5, 1823), he first Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 introduced the idea that for a Russian author to achieve literary fame he (or, as was rarely the case, she) had to be distinguished in some other field - either by social origin or by being successful at the court or in the military or bureaucratic service: M3peflKa BCTpevaioTCH npwMepbi, uto HeKOTopbie HeoSbiKHOBeHHbie jiMTepaTopbi, 3acJiyacMB cjiaBy, ycnejiw npMObpeCTM M3BeCTHOCTb B Pocchm. Ho M B CeM cjiyuae KaKMM-HMbyflb SjiaronpwHTHbiM obcTOHTejibctb bm HaflnesKano npeac^e BbmecTb cmx niofleM Ha nyTb CVaCTMjq, MJIM OTJTMHMTb flpyrMM pOflOM 3HaMeHMTOCTM, HTObbI BO BCeM bjieCKe BbIKa3aTb MX flOCTOMHCTBa. (qutd. in Viazemsky Zamechaniia 101) [It happens rarely that some extraordinary authors, having deserved glory, have managed to attain renown in Russia; however, even in this case certain auspicious conditions had first to lead them to the path of happiness, or to distinguish them with some other type of fame, in order to demonstrate their virtues in all their glory.] Though at that time Bulgarin's attacks were not aimed specifically against the "literary aristocrats," Viazemsky must have had a presentiment that this might be the next step and was quick to refute this accusation: Mbicjib r .EyjirapMHa, uto M3BecTHocTb jiyqmnx JIMTepaTOpOB HaiHMX 3aBMCeTb flOJTSCHa OSblKHOBeHHO OT KaKMX-HMSynb SjiaronpMnTHbix o6ci, OHTejibCTB, KaxeTca MHe coBepmeHHO oniMbovHa m naisce npeflocyuMTenbHa, Kaw flJTH caMMx flapoBaHMH, Tax m fljrn mhchmh obmecTBeHHoro. flepacaBMH, KOHevHo He UMHaM m 43 See Bourdieu's analysis of relations between various types of societal hierarchies in the process of formation of the autonomous literary field, in his The Rules of Art Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 nouecTHM c b o m m o6a3aH, h t o Po c c m h 3aTBepamia c t m x h ero; ho CKopee m o *h o onpenejiMTb, h t o aapoBaHwe ero 6 h j i o nepBoio CTeneHbio ycnexoB no cjryacSe... He HaxoflMM b cnwcice m c t m h h o 3acjiy:*:eHHbix nwcaTejiew Hamwx h m oflHoro, k o t o p h m oba3aH 6bui 6bi 3a M3BecTHocTb 3acJiyr c b o m x jiMTTepaTypHbix BbicjiyraM cbetck m m m nobouHbiM.44 (Ibid. 101) [Mr. Bulgarin's idea that the fame of our best authors must usually depend on some auspicious conditions seems to me absolutely erroneous and even reprehensible, both for the gifted authors themselves, and for public opinion. It was obviously not due to Derzhavin's <bureaucratic> rank and honors, that Russia has learned his poems by heart; rather, it might be said that his talent was the first step of his success in service... we do not find in the list of our writers of true merit, any whose literary fame were indebted to accomplishments in high society and the like] The following are two more examples of the rhetoric of "literary general" used by Pushkin in an ironic vein. In an early epistle to Denis Davydov, Pushkin playfully contrasts military and poetic hierarchies to the effect that Davydov (who was both a poet and a military hero) is declared to be Pushkin's superior in both "services": Tebe , neBuy, Tebe, repoio! He yijajiocb MHe 3a toSoio npw rpoMe nymeuHOM, b orHe CxaKaTb Ha beiueHHOM KOHe. HaesflHMK CMwpHoro ITeraca, Hocmji a C T a p o r o napHaca ]A3 MO flbl BbimefllUMM MyHflMp : 44 Viazemsky's sensitivity to this subject is obvious in his discussion of Ancelot's Six mois en Russie. Ancelot describes Karamzin's funeral and mentions that he was buried with "the high honors usually conferred on Privy Councilors (the highest bureaucratic rank) or famous writ ers." (Viazemsky rev. of Six Mois, 249) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ho m no s t o m cjryac6e TpyflHOM, M T y T, o, m o m H a e 3 f l H M K n y x tH b iM , TbI MOM OTea M KOMSHflMp. (I: 113) [To you, singer, to you, hero! I have failed to ride a mad horse following you In fire, in canon thunder. Being a rider on a meek Pegasus, I have been wearing The outmoded uniform of old Parnassus: But even at this difficult service, Even there, o my wonderful raider, You are my father and commander.] Yet another instance of this rhetorical model is found in Pushkin's letter to his brother Lev written in January - February 1825. Pushkin appeals to the diplomatic hierarchy and appoints himself to the post of the minister of foreign affairs or secretary of state: "IIo ?tcypHajiaM b m jk y HeodbiKHOBeHHoe BpoxeHne MbicJien; s t o npeflBeiiiaeT nepeMeHy Ha napHace. % m m h m c t p MHOCTpaHHbix jen m , KaJKeTCii, flejio flo MeH3 He KacaeTca. E c j i m "najieM" noMfleT KaK Havaji, PbineeB SyfleT m m h m c t p o m . " (XIII: 143) [I am the secretary of state< on Parnassus>... If <Ryleev's poem > Palei continues the way it was started, Ryleev will be a minister as well.] From the time of Peter the Great, the bureaucratic, diplomatic, and military hierarchies of the Russian Empire were unified and strictly organized in the form of the Table of Ranks, a list of so called classes that was produced and maintained by the government. The Table Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 of Ranks included fourteen classes, the first the highest and the fourteenth the lowest. Each military, bureaucratic, and diplomatic rank corresponded to a certain "class" and any career advancement or promotion in virtually any institutionalized field constituted a movement up in the Table. The Table of Ranks, as a structure that informed all bureaucratic activity, understandably served as a master-metaphor for any hierarchy, the literary one included. The most explicit use of "Table of Rank" rhetoric applied to literature is found in A.F. Voeikov's IJapHa c c k m m ajjpec xajieHffapb, pocrmcb vm h o b h m x ocob cjiyx:am,MX npj4 ffBope 0e6a m b h m i k h m x 3eMcxxx uxnax FejiidKOHa [A Parnassian Address-Calendar, or a List of the High Ranking Official Persons Serving at the Court of Phoebus, and of the Functionaries of the Lower Ranks in Helicon] ( Arzamas 2, 7-10). In this parody, Voeikov imitates the "Address-Calendar", the annual official list of those who occupy the various ranks in the Table (analogous to a modern American Who's Who) . The poets in Voeikov's parody are arranged according to classes, and the resulting hierarchy, though a playful one, represents a version of the literary canon developed in the early period of Arzamas. Thus, Voeikov places Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 Dmitriev at the top of the hierarchy: "M . M. flMMTpweB, fleftCTBMTejibHbiM nosT nepBoro KJiacca. no npomeHMio yBOJieH o t no33HM b u a p c T B O j];py*:6bi m c j r a B b i . " [I. I. Dmitriev, full poet of the first rank. By petition, he has been dismissed from poetry to the kingdom of friendship and glory.] Voeikov's joke is reinforced by the fact that Dmitriev indeed was an official of high standing. The use of the epithet pervoklassnyi ["first-rank" or "first-class"] applied to poets (as in "the first- rank poet") will be analyzed in more detail below (see 5.6). Here it will suffice to give a brief account of the epithet as it pertains to our current discussion. In the first quarter of the century the expression pervoklassnyi (first-class) served as a very popular rhetorical device for expressing the idea of superiority of a certain poet (very often Pushkin) and was widely used in a neutral context. Compare A.I. Turgenev on Pushkin's poetic potential: "Ectb jim TajiaHT ero He B b lflO X H e T C H . . . T O OH 3 a T M M T M H O T M X M 3 H aiU M X n e p B O K J i a C C H b I X n o s T O B . " [If his talent does not fizzle out he will eclipse many of our first-rank poets] A.M. TypreHeB - C.M. TypreHeBy (letter to S.I. Turgenev, March 21, 1821; Shebunin 198) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 Faddei Bulgarin was especially fond of this epithet and it permeates his critical oeuvre. In the last four of the examples that follow, Bulgarin applies the epithet to Pushkin: E a p o H f l e j i b B M r M M e e T o n e H b n p n n T H b iw T a J i a H T , ho oh B e c b M a f l a j i e x ot H a u r a x n e p B O K J i a c c H b i x n o o T O B . . . H e n o c T a T K M . . . < c r a T b M > : M 3 J iM n iH n n c a M O H a a e f lH H O C T b A B T o p a b c y 5 K ji;e H M H X m H e n p a B M ji b H b ie n p n T H 3 a H M H k n e p B O K j i a c c H b i M n o o T a M . . . (Kritika 11) H e SyflyuM hm BawpoHOM, hm inwruiepoM, hvl Teve, mo»:ho e m e C T o ^ T b o u e H b bhcoko m S b iT b n e p B Q K J ia c c H b iM n w c a T e j i e M . (Razbor 1 5 4 ) MHorwe jiMTTepaTopbi, jpy3bH Hamero nepBPKJiaccHoro noara, vl oh caM, byayT c h3mm b otom He c o r n a c H b i . . . (Poltava 1 1 2 ) nepBan ero nooMa <PycjiaH vl JlioflMMJia> npwrueHa k n e p B O K J ia C C H b lM n p O M 3 B e J te H M H M C J lO B e C H O C T M . . . (Razbor 1 5 9 ) TBopeHwe nepBPKJiaccHoro nooTa, obpamaiomero Ha Ce6fl BHMMaHMe OTeueCTBeHHOM VL MHOCTpaHHOM n y S j i M K M . . . (Godunov 4 3 ) As will be shown in chapter 5 it is possible that Bulgarin turned to the epithet pervoklassnyi first-rank when his conflict with Pushkin attained its apogee and he(?)4 5 published anonymously the anti-Pushkin pamphlet A Conversation about Boris Godunov. The protagonist of the Conversation, a provincial teacher, confuses the literal and figurative meanings of the epithet and gets 45 See attribution in Chapter 5. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 frightened by the possibility that he is criticizing a bureaucrat who belongs to the first class of the Table of Rank. This pun constitutes the rhetorical frame of the pamphlet. Conversation begins with wordplay on bureaucratic and poetic "first-rankness." The timid teacher being told that "Pushkin is a first class poet" exclaims: Kax, SaTiomKa, o nepBOKJiaccHOM? Xopomyio ace bh Cbirpajro co m h o k) uiTyicy! ... fla ecjiw 6bi 3Han n, uto aBTop EopKtca ronyHOBa b nepBOM Kjracce, hm 3a uto 6h He npnHHJicn aenaTb Ha Hero 3aMeuaHin: Hy, Eoace ynacn, Kax sto orjiacHTca! MyapeHO jim nepBOMy KJiaccy 3aaaBHTb flBeHarmaTbiM! (107) [Why sir! First-rank? That's a good joke you played on me, frankly. Why, if I knew the author of Boris Godunov is of the first rank, I would never have taken up the task of criticizing him... It is not hard for the first rank to run down the twelfth.] And in the last lines of the pamphlet the anonymous author (Bulgarin?) returns to the pun. Now the teacher, who has just provided ample proofs of Pushkin's literary insignificance, is again asked about Pushkin's "first rankness ." This time he replies sarcastically that it is not his business to either promote or demote: rioMeinMK. Hy, nopa nepecTaTb. Hto* th flyMaeuib o nepBQKJiaccHocTM CouMHMTejin? yvMTeJib. He Moe fleno. MHe, cy^apb, hm acanoBaTb, HM pa33KaJIOBaTb HeB03M05KH0. (115) Landowner: Well, it is time to stop. So, what do you think about the first-rankness of the author (i.e. Pushkin)? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill Teacher'. It is none of my business. I, sir, can't either appoint or demote. In (5.6), I will give other examples of the use of pervoklassnyi, including Pushkin's ironic application of the term to Dmitriev and Gogol's explicit angry denunciation of both the epithet and the transfer from the bureaucratic to the poetic sphere it implies. The history of the term pervoklassnyi ("first-rank" / "first-class") would be a minor addition to the study of taste lexicon were it not for an interesting typological parallel found in the history of the central metaliterary term classics. The first known usage of the word classicus applied to a literary figure is in Noctes Atticae by Aulus Gellius. In a famous passage, the scholar suggests that to check whether a certain grammatical form is correct it is necessary to ask a "classical" writer, rather than a "proletarian" writer. Classical meant belonging to the class of citizens paying the highest taxes, and therefore, the most socially prominent one: Ite ergo nunc, et quando forte erit otium, quaerite an "quadrigam" et "harenas" dixerit e cohorte ilia dumtaxat antiquiore vel oratorum aliquis vel poetarum, id est classicus adsiduusque aliquis scriptor, non proletarius [Now go, and when you happen to have leisure, ask — but only somebody from the "old guard" of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 poets and orators, that is a classical (literary: belonging to the first - class in regard to taxes, paying the highest taxes), well-off wrier, and not a proletarian (literally: pauper, exempted from taxes] whether he says "quadriga"[in Sg.] and "harenae" [in PI-]?] (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, XIX, vii, 15) The Russian term pervoklassnyi repeated the etymological history of the Latin classicus-. both words are metaphoric transfers from the most important hierarchical social system to the realm of literature. Though the Russian word turned out to be less successful than its Latin counterpart and gradually went out of use and became obsolete46, the recurrence of the same rhetorical phenomenon in two cultures more than two thousand years apart suggests that we are dealing here with a deep universal of canon formation. To go back to the Russian Table of Ranks, it is worth mentioning that the lower end of the hierarchy proved useful to taste rhetoric as well. Since the official Table of Ranks consisted of fourteen classes, the fourteenth being the lowest, it was a popular joke to apply the epithet "nnTHaflyaToro KJiacca" ("of the fifteenth rank") to authors or works considered to be of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 the worst aesthetic quality. Baratynsky's 1823 satirical poem "Poets of the fifteenth Rank" is structured around this rhetorical device. In the poem Baratynsky lists his literary enemies (a stanza or two for each) and in each case provides a biting explanation why the author in question belongs to the fifteenth class (368): nooTbi 15-ro Kjiacca. KHH3b IIIa x o B C K O M corHaji c napHaca 14 MejiOflpaMy m acypHan; H o »cajib, u t o T O Jib K O He c o r H a j i r i e B u a 15 K J ia c c a H o h 6bi H e corHaji c napHaca Hm M e n o f l p a M y hm a c y p H a n , A xopomeHbKO 6 OTKaTan neBiia 15 Kjiacca. H e Mor o h oceflJiaTb napHaca; 3aTo XBocTOBa ocefljraji Y l b o t 3a u t o n He corHaji neBua 15 Kjiacca ( T e n e p b n e B ifb i r o B o p H T cam) X o t h m c o r H a H n c napHaca, B e e H a n e c x a x h M O J io fle u ;; H npenceflaTejib m OTeu, neBUOB 15 Kjiacca. H nepeBej: no-pyccKM Tacca, X o t h e r o H e n o H M M a n , M no flOCTOMHCTBy nonaji B neBH,bi 15 Kjiacca. noMMaB b napwace CeH-ToMaca, H C HMM M CTOpM IO C K p o n a jT 46 To my knowledge the latest literary use of the expression nepBOKJiaccHMM nosT is found in a poem Esenin wrote in the mid 1920s: "fl b CTOJinye CTaji nepBOKJiaccHeHinnM nosT " (46) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 M o6m,MM rojiocoM nonaji B neBUbi 15 Kjiacca. H caM KHH5KeBMU, ot neraca Tojiukm JiMXMe nojiyuaji M 3a TepneHMe nonan B neBUbi 15 Kjiacca. XoTeji flocTMTHyTb h napHaca, Ho 0e6 MHe onjieyxy naji, M ysc 3a fleHbrw r nonaji B neBUbi 15 Kjiacca. Kon - uto r pyccKoro napHaca H H e npo3anK, He neBeu, % He 15 Kjiacca H ueH3op - cwpenb - n noujieu.47 5. The Rhetoric of the Lower Body: Literature as Defecationf Masturbation etc. To end this somewhat drawn-out chapter on a lighter note, I will turn to a peculiar variety of meta-literary rhetoric, which rarely if ever surfaced in published critical articles and was mainly kept within the domain of personal correspondence and friendly conversations on literature. I have in mind the metaphorization of poetic production and texts as "lower" (in Bakhtinian terms) bodily functions: defecation, ejaculation, perspiration 47 The targets of Baratynsky's satire are: in stanzas 1, 2 - Shakhovskoi, 3,4 - Izmailov, 5 - Ostolopov, 6 - Panaev, 7- Somov, 8 - Lobanov, 9 - Kniazhevich, 10 - Khvostov, 11- censor Birukov. Pushkin (XI: 201) quotes another example of "15 class" rhetoric in "HecKOjibKO cjiob o MM3MHU,e r -Ha ByjirapMHa m o npoueM ": "IIpon3BefleHMe mockobckom jiMTepaTypbi, Hocamee Ha ce6e neuaTb M3flejiMH KHwronpoflaBueB nHTHajmaToro Kjiacca npMBonnT Hac b HeBOJibHbM TpeneT." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 etc. These metaphorical models do not belong to canonic rhetoric proper, but it is appropriate to discuss them here because they served as a sort of rhetorical counterweight to the overly serious, high discourse of literary consecration and canonization. Throughout the chapter, we have seen that in the metaliterary discourse of Pushkin, his friends and contemporaries almost all "serious" rhetorical models had their playful or parodic counterparts. Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that canon making is an inherently ambiguous occupation. The literary hierarchy is being constructed as a "real" hierarchy, analogous to hierarchies of political and bureaucratic power; at the same time, its specifics (or, in Bourdieu's terms, its autonomy) stem from its opposition to, or negation of, the real systems of power distribution. Therefore, canon-makers, especially at the early stages of the autonomization of the literary field as in the epoch under discussion, often manifest an ambiguous attitude towards their activity, to elevate, ennoble, and to belittle it at the same time. The metaphors of the "lower body" serve as a perfect gauge of such ambiguity; the more high-flown rhetoric Pushkin and his friends used in talking about Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 literature in public and in their serious texts, the lower they felt compelled to go in their private correspondence. Thus, for example, what elsewhere in their writings is represented as a quasi-religious phenomenon of inspiration, here becomes a case of diarrhea, and poems are excrement, the paper - toilet paper, etc. This particular metaphoric transference was especially popular with Pushkin and Viazemsky, who used it repeatedly and applied it indiscriminately to the poets they mocked (like Count Khvostov), to themselves, and to their older literary companions-in-arms (such as Zhukovsky). Arzamassians associated Count Khvostov, a favorite target of their in-house jokes and parodies, with the theme of defecation. Thus, in his letter of May 27, 1819, to Viazemsky, Alexander Turgenev writes: "OcTaBb XBOCTOBy 6bITb OflHOCyiqeCTBeHHbIM C KMinxaMM CBOMMM, a TbI 6yfib Bbime mx 3anaxy n caM txraroyxan b ropHeM 3(|)Mpe. " {Ostaf'evo 34) [Let Khvostov be of the same substance as his intestines, and you be above their smell and you be fragrant in the upper ether.] Viazemsky and Pushkin seem to use the metaphor "writing = defecation" regularly. Pushkin wrote to Viazemsky (Apr 21 1820) : Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. H HMTaJI . . . <KaTeHMHy> - HeCKOJIbKO CTpOX, toSoio MHe HanwcaHHHX b irocbMe k TypreHeBy, m no3,n;paBMJi ero c c^acTJTOBbiM wcnpaacHeHMeM nwpoB ToMepoBbix. Oh OTBenaji hto tobho TBoe, a He ero. (XIII: 14) [I read to Katenin a few lines from the letter to Turgenev's which you had written to me. <Pushkin had thought they were by Katenin>— and congratulated him <Katenin> upon the happy defecation of Homeric feasts. He answered that the shit was yours, not his] Five years later Viazemsky again returns to the joke and comes up with an amplified treatment of the metaphor in a letter to Pushkin dating of October 16, 1825 (XIII: 238) : Th caM XBOCTOBa noflpaacaTenb, KpacoT ero JiiobocTjmscaTejTb, Bo t m o m , ero, t b o m , Ham HaB03! Ym xopoino, a flBa Tax jiyume, 3ar; xopomo, a rpw Tax ryme, M x cnaBe thhotch Ham bo3. Ha MeHH xojiacxa MMeeT meMCTBMe HacTo^mero cyrtHa, cyxonyTHoro m Mopcxoro: b ,n;opore MeH« pBer m cjiabMT XBOCTOBbiM. Oto y5Ke Tax 3aBefleHO. Bot ncnpa*HeHHe Moew nocmeflHeM noe3flxn. YnbibHMCb moh xpacoTxa Ha Moe tobho. [You yourself are Khvostov's imitator, A grabber of his beauties. Here is my, his, your, our dung! A mind is good but two are better, An ass is good but three are thicker, And our cartload is dragging on towards glory. On the road I shit and throw up with Khvostov. That's how it is. Here is the excrement from my last trip. Smile, my beauty, at my shit] Here Viazemsky alludes to the old joke connecting Khvostov's poetry and defecation and states that all three of them - Khvostov, Pushkin and Viazemsky - are united in the same "poetry-shitting" activity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 Pushkin liked his friend's "poetic dung" a lot, as he let him know in his next letter (Nov 7, 1825; XIII: 239) : hejiyio Te6>3 b tboio nooTnvecKyio cpaicy. - c Tex nop Kax n b MnxanjiOBCKOM, n tojtbko flBa pa3a xoxoTaji: npn pa36ope hobom hmhtmkm SaceH m npn nocBnmeHMM roBHa TBoero [I kiss you in your poetic asshole. Since I have been in Mikhailovskoe I have roared with laughter only twice: when I looked into your "New Poetics of Fables" and while being initiated into your shit.] Not to be outwitted, Pushkin produces his own "piece of poetic shit," in which he, much more inventively than Viazemsky, gives an even more detailed treatment of the metaphor. Pushkin's creative inactivity, his lack of inspiration, is compared to constipation, the poems that Viazemsky sent to Pushkin are called "fanciful dung," and they are said to somehow provoke Pushkin to release his bowels (XIII: 239): B rjryiuM, M3Myvacb >KM3Hbio n o c T H O M , I43HeMoran jkmbotom, H He napio — cbray opnoM M SOJieH npa3X(HOCTbK3 nOHOCHOH. ByMarw Sepery 3anac, HaTyry BfloxHOBeHbfl uy^flbiM, Xo:*: y h peflKO Ha napHac, M TOJTbKO 3a bOJTblHOIO Hy»C,n;OM. Ho TBOM 3aTeMJIMBbIM H3B03 npMHTHO MHe UieKOTMT HOC! XBOCTOBa oh HanoMMHaeT, TBopua 3y6acTbix rojrybew, Y l ,n;yx mom CHOBa no3biBaeT Ko McnpaacHeHbio npeacHMx anePi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [In the back of beyond, being tortured by life of fasting, Exhausted with the stomach pain, I do not fly like an eagle, rather I am sitting like an eagle <Russian idiom meaning "to sit on the crapper " M.G.> And I am sick with a reprehensible idleness <a pun: ponosnyi means "reprehensible in Old Church Slavonic and "pertaining to diarrhea" in Modern Russian M.G.>. I am saving my stock of paper, Being alien to the contractions of inspiration. And I rarely go to Parnassus, And only for my number two need. But your fanciful dung Is pleasantly tickling my nose: It reminds me of Khvostov, The creator of toothy doves, It calls my spirit again To the defecation of the past] In 1831, during the cholera epidemic, Pushkin returned to this old joke, now telling Viazemsky about Zhukovsky's unexpected return to creative activity: "y X y K O B C K o r o n o H O C n o s T M v e c K H M xotb m n p e x p a T n j i c H oflHaxo oh Bee e i y e cpeT r e K 3 a M e T p a M M . " (Aug 14 1831; XIV: 208) . [Though Zhukovsky's poetic diarrhea has stopped, he is still shitting hexameters]. Two weeks later, Zhukovsky was still writing, and Pushkin was in the middle of one of his most productive periods. Pushkin attributes it to cholera: "^KyKOBCKnn B e e e m e nwrneT. . . Tax ero vl HeceT. H Havaji Tarae cpaTb. Ha j];hhx ncnpa3HMJic^ cKasKow b Tbic^uy ctmxob . flpyran b Spioxe bypvMT. A B e e xojiepa." (Letter to Viazemsky, Sept 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 1831; XIV: 220) [Zhukovsky is still writing. What diarrhea he is having. I also started to shit. The other day I defecated a fairy tale a thousand verses long. Another one is bubbling in my paunch. All of this is because of the cholera.] A rhetorical experiment with another bodily function is found in Viazemsky's May 10, 1826 letter to Pushkin. Here Viazemsky connects Vasilii L'vovich Pushkin's sweatiness to his (V.L.'s) nephew's poetic productiveness: "Kax BacnjiMh JIbBOBMU noTeeT BexoBeuHo, Tax m ot Te6n Mflet ncnapMHa xoponiMx ctmxob . Te6e He HysKHO , n ; j i n toto TonMTb 6aHm : tbi Be3r;e b 6aHe." (XIII: 262) [In the same manner as Vasilii L'vovich perspires eternally, you are sweating all over with good poems. You do not need to heat up a bathhouse for this purpose; you are in bathhouse everywhere]. The metaphorical connection between creativity and childbearing is of course archaic and well established. But in the playful language of the young Pushkin and his friends, the metaphor was renewed and re-emphasized by attention to the physiological side of the process (since almost all of the writers were male, these rhetorical operations often implied a ribald gender shift as well). Thus Pushkin, in a letter to his uncle Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 Vasilii L'vovich, apologizes for not responding to a l e t t e r f o r n i n e m o n t h s : "Hraic, J iK > 6 e 3 H e n m n n M 3 B c e x A H f l e M - n o o T O B 3 f l e n i H e r o M n p a , m o j k h o j im H a f l e a T b C f l , m t o Bbi n p o c T M T e f le B H T M M e c H V H y io 6 e p e M e H H o c T b n e p a j r e H M B e n u i e r o M 3 n o s T O B - n j ie M H H H M K O B " (Dec 28, 1816; XIII: 5) [So, m o s t a m i a b l e o f a l l t h e u n c l e - p o e t s i n t h e w o r l d , i s i t p o s s i b l e t o h o p e t h a t y o u w i l l f o r g i v e t h e n i n e - m o n t h l o n g p r e g n a n c y o f t h e p l u m e o f t h e l a z i e s t o f p o e t - n e p h e w s ? ] . Viazemsky, talking about Vasilii L'vovich yet again, produces an extended joke based upon the realization of the metaphor — a characteristic example of Arzamassian humor: fla, 6e,i(Hbin riyuiKMH yMep b Ko3e.nbCKe. HecvacTHbiw ctmx 3aceji y Hero b ropjre: TeTeHbKa nocnajia 3a flOKTopaMH m yveHbiMM. CBexajiwcb m pemwjiM hto HenpeMeHHO HyacHO norwSHyTb crwxy mjim CTMXOTBopuy. nomjiM cnopbi, tojikm pi, HaKOHen,, odmMM MHeHHeM nonoacMjiM c^ejiaTb KecapcKyio onepauwio m Ha bchkmh CTpax cnacTM TBopeHwe, xoth m Ha cveT TBopua, ho yBbl, TeCHO CBH3aHHbie B3aMMHbIM pOflCTBOM M cpoflCTBOM, o6a crsejiajiMCb *epTBOM narydHoro MHCTpyMeHTa. CooSium nevanbHoe H3BecTwe KapaM3MHbiM, ApsaMacpaM m BceM vyBCTBMTejibHbiM cepauaM. (Letter to A. Turgenev, Oct 5 1816: Arzamas 2, 373) [Yes, poor <Vasilii> Pushkin died in Kolomna. An unhappy verse got stuck in his throat: auntie sent for doctors and scientists. They assembled and decided that either the poet or the verse had to die certainly. There began debates, talk, and finally, by the general opinion they decided to do a Caesarian section, and notwithstanding the horror, to save the creation even if at the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 expense of the creator. But, alas, being closely tied by their mutual kinship and affinity, both became the victims of the pernicious instrument. Communicate this sad news to the Karamzins, Arzamassians and to all sensitive hearts.]4 8 Sexual intercourse and various aspects of sexual physiology constituted yet another rhetorical basis for talking about literature. As one might expect, Pushkin was also very inventive in this sub-variety of metaliterary rhetoric. Thus in a 1828 letter to Delvig he speaks about difficulties with writing a poem in terms of sexual impotence: "Bo t TeSe b U,BeTbi OTBeT KaTeHMHy BMecTO OTBeTa roTOByeBOM, KOTopbih He totob . R c o B e p m e H H O p a 3 y v M J i c H j n o 6 e 3 H M v a T b : M H e T a K x e T p y f lH O npojioMaTb MaflpMraji, max m lyejixy. (Nov 1828; XIV: 34) [My answer to Gotovtseva is still not ready. I have completely unlearned how to pay compliments. It is as difficult for me to pop out a madrigal as to pop a cherry]. In another letter to Del'vig (Perepiska 1, 48 Cf. also for instance in a Viazemsky's letter to Pushkin:...bch acw3Hb KapaM3MHa 6bina oOflyMaHneM ero HCTopnH, oh He BbiKMflbiBan KaK riojieBow, oh poxaji nocne CepeMeHHOCTn 3,n;opoBOM, McnonHMBiueM 3aKOHHbM cpoK cbom. (Jan 2 1824: Perepiska, 1 274)[All Karamzin's life had been the thinking over his History. He did not have a raisca rriage as Polevoi did, he gave birth after a healthy pregnancy that had fullfilled its legitimate term] A few of Pushkin's jokes are based upon the model "creatures are children", e.g. in Evgenii Onegin ( XXVI) the list of guests at Larins's party include s: "Moft 6paT ABOiopoflHbiM ByflHOB " : Buianov, a hero of V. L. Pushkin's poem The Dangerous Neighbor, is meant to be V.L. son, and, therefore, Pushkin's cousin, (see Lotman Kommentarii, 84). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 467), Pushkin formulates his own brutal version of the Freudian concept of "sublimation": nocyflpi caM: MHe cjiyunnocb KaK to BbiTb BJiiobJieHy 6e3 naMHTM. H oSbiKHOBeHHo b TaKOM cnyuae nnmy ojierMH KaK flpyron jipouMT. Ho npMHTenbCKoe jim flejio BbiBemnBaTb HanoKa3 MOKpbie npocTbiHn? [Judge for yourself: once I happened to be in love head over heels. Usually in such a case I write elegies, like another jerks off. But is it a friend's business to hang my wet sheets out for show?] Finally, in two letters to Viazemsky, Pushkin uses the metaphor of sexual intercourse and ejaculation (or coital and post-coital metaphors) to describe his mixed feelings about having finished writing a long poem: kct3th o CTMxax: ceroflHH kohhmjt r nosMy RuraHe. He 3Haio, uto 06 Hew CKa3aTb. OHa noKaMecT MHe onpoTMBejia, TOJibKO hto kohumjt m He ycneji oSMbiTb 3anpeBmne My,qM.(Oct 8, 1824; XIII: 111) [... talking about poems: today I have finished the poem Gypsies. I do not know what to say about it: by now it has became repulsive to me. I have just come/finished <a pun: Russian konchit' "to finish" is used in slang with the meaning of English "to come"> and have not had time to wash my steamed up balls.] noSMy CBOIO R KOHUMJI. M TOJibKO nOCJiejIHMM, T.e. OKOHuaTejibHbiM ctpix ee npMHec MHe MCTMHHoe yflOBOJibCTBMe. (Apr 21, XIII: 15) [I finished my poem, and only the last, i.e. the finishing verse brought me the true pleasure.<again the pun on two meanings of Russian "konchit'" finish)M.G.>] It is worth mentioning that this post-coital ambiguous feeling of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction with having finished a work constitutes what A.K. Zholkovsky Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 would call an invariant in Pushkin's rhetoric and as such reappears in a highly unlikely context. In 1830, Pushkin finished the central work of his life, the novel Evgenii Onegin, and dedicated to this event the poem Trud [Work]. In this poem, the author, having just finished his creation, describes his mixed feelings in a manner that surprisingly recalls the "post-coital" passages from Pushkin's letters quoted above TPYfl. Mnr Bo^jjejieHHbin Hacraji: OKOHveH mom Tpyfl MHorojieTHnn. Pto ac HenoHHTHan rpycTb t3hho TpeBoacnT MeHfl? Mjih, cbom noflBwr CBepiiMB, a ctoio, kbk noaeHinMK HeHyjKHbin, rinaTy npnnBinnn cbokj, uyacflbin paboTe apyron? Mjim acajib MHe Tpyaa, MOJiuajiMBoro cnyTHMKa houm, flpyra ABpopbi 3JiaTow, npyra neHaTOB cbhthx?49 (III 1: 230) Compare the first two lines in Trud: The desired, the longed-for moment has come. My work of many years is finally finished. Why then an inexplicable sadness is secretly troubling me? with the graphic description from the letter to Viazemsky about finishing Tsygane quoted above. In essence, the meaning in the two passages is identical; the first passage constitutes a sort of 49 The same situation ("having finished a life-work") reappears in Boris Godunov. The monk-chronicler Pimen, is about to finish the chronicle he has been writing all his life: IlMMeH (nnmeT nepefl jiaMnafloh) Eme oflHO, nocJieflHee CKa3aHbe — M jieTonwcb OKOHueHa mos Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 translation of the second passage from slang to high style poeticism. An additional argument in favor of this risky interpretation may be found in the fact that the Russian word vozhdelennyi (desired or longed-for) has almost exclusively sexual connotations; taken out of context the noun vozhdelenie and the verb vozhdelet' are likely to be understood by an educated speaker of Russian as a high style reference to sexual desire. Besides, the word mig ("moment") is used by Pushkin as a reference to orgasm in one of his most sexually explicit "serious" lyrical poems, "HeT n He nopoxy MHTeacHbiM HacjiaacfleHteM" ["No, I do not value stormy enjoyment"], which was written in the same year as Trud50: Korfla BMACb b momx o6t3TM«x 3mmePi, nopblBOM nblJIKMX JiaCK M H3BOBD JT063aHMM OHa ToponwT M r nocjreriHMX coaparaHM H [When she, twisting in my arms, by a gust of fiery caresses and with a sting of kisses, she hurries the moment [mig] of the last shuddering] 6. Conclusion The main focus of this chapter (with the exception of the last part) has been on models of taste rhetoric, 50 A linguo-psychoanalytic a parte: phonetically, the Russian word trud is associated with two basic obscene words: ud - slang for "penis," and "mudi" - slang for "testiculi". Of course, if this circumstance had played any part in Pushkin's choice of the title for his 1830 Trud, it must have been an unconscious process. Cf . however the word mudi "He ycneji oSMbiTb 3anpeBiiiMe MyflM " in the letter analyzed above. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 or, more specifically, on models of canon-forming rhetoric of the first third of the nineteenth century. Whereas the taste content of the epoch has been studied extensively, its taste mechanisms, in my opinion, still remain underappreciated. In this chapter I have attempted to partially fill this gap with a preliminary analysis of the repertoire of canon-making rhetorical models. This type of analysis allows us to trace the deeper mechanisms at the basis of well-known aesthetic movements and conflicts (such as the "archaists and innovators," the classicists, romantics, and realists). Taste rhetoric sheds light on the internal workings of the ever changing "spirit of the age" and allows us to discuss cultural changes not in terms of who and what was liked, read, consecrated, and when, etc., but in terms of how all this happened, by means of what rhetorical devices. Thus in the case of the models "Russian X", "pairings", "ladder" metaphors the analysis has been able to show the correspondence between changes in rhetorical usage of the models and the changes in taste known from "external" evidence (such as explicit literary programs and contemporary criticism). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 Classicist canon-makers used Russian A" as a statement of equation of virtues; Romantics problematized this relation and revamped the model as a statement about national representatives; the Proteus metaphor, central for Pushkin's canonization, was a later (realist?) innovation, unthinkable at the early stages of the history of the model. A comparable process can be traced in the "pairs" model. Classicist taste tended to concentrate on a static and often inconclusive comparison; if the question of canonical superiority arose it was the taste-maker himself who was in charge of placing one poet "higher" or "lower." Romantic usage of this model emphasized their rivalry, the "pairs" became dynamic; and in Romantic canonical judgments, the authors themselves became involved in the canonical battle. The analysis has also shown that rhetorically the formation of canonical hierarchies is to a large degree based upon the hierarchies of power already active in society. The similarity between the use of the Russian Table of Ranks (consisting of classes) and the ancient Roman Table of Tax-Classes in respective histories of taste rhetoric suggests this might be a universal phenomenon. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These and other observations in this chapter are of a preliminary character; the goal has been not to produce an exhaustive analysis of this domain, but rather to draw attention to the importance of this and similar material for various branches of literary scholarship. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 CHAPTER V Bulgarin as the Author of the Anonymous Conversation about Boris Godunov. A Taste Based Attribution. 1.Introduction In this chapter I will attempt to apply the taste- centered approach to a traditional problem of literary scholarship, namely, to the attribution of an anonymous text. Admittedly, attribution as a scholastic procedure is not limited to textological coincidences and presupposes a thorough study of a proposed author's literary manner, idiosyncratic stylistic and ideological traits. Yet, genre peculiarities of the anonymous A Conversation about Boris Godunov make taste analysis especially appropriate: the anonymous text that is the subject of this chapter is a part of very intense and sometimes aggressive literary polemics; it is, in a sense, a categorical taste judgment of Pushkin's Boris Godunov. The publication of Pushkin's Boris Godunov brought about a heated polemic in contemporary criticism. Among the first negative responses to the tragedy, there Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 appeared in May, 1831, an anonymous pamphlet About Boris Godunov,, an especially severe criticism supplied with the subtitle: "Pa3roBop IlOMeiyMKa, npoe3^aioiiiaro M3 Mockbm uepe3 ye3flHbih ropoflOK, n BOJibHonpaKTMKyioiijaro b ohom yuMTeJifl PocciMCKOh CjioBecHOCTM. " ["A Conversation between a Landowner Passing from Moscow Through a Provincial Town and a Private Teacher of Russian Literature, Practicing in this Town."] Contrary to the literary customs of the time, the Conversation was published not in a form of a magazine article, but as a separate booklet. It was printed at the Moscow University printing-house and permitted to be published by the Moscow Censorial Committee. The characters of the pamphlet, a landowner, Petr Ivanovich and a teacher of Russian literature, Ermil Sergeevich, discus the merits and demerits of Pushkin's latest literary production. The provincial teacher gives a critical reading of Boris Godunov to the transient landowner from Moscow; the latter mostly agrees with the teacher's vitriolic remarks while commenting ironically both on Pushkin's text and on his interlocutor's painstaking and somewhat pedantic deliberations. The general stylistic mode of A Conversation is one of parody or pastiche. The teacher Ermil Sergeevich, who does most of the talking, is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 slightly caricatured; his turns of speech are often grotesquely scholastic and at times he parades his Latin. The laconic and straightforward landowner is running late for his train and, therefore, forced to rush his grandiloquent interlocutor along. Although the characters are presented in a somewhat ironic vein, their criticism is apparently meant to be taken at face value. The critical part of the pamphlet consists of what afterwards became the stock repertoire of judgments of the imperfections of Pushkin's tragedy. The play is criticized for its lack of believable characters, for its vagueness of genre and absence of a distinct plan, for historical inaccuracies, and even for certain stylistic flaws. Besides literary observations, A Conversation also contains certain elements of political denunciation, namely, hints at Pushkin's political disloyalties and alleged lack of respect for the monarchic ideals. The fact that the pamphlet was among the earliest critical responses to Boris Godunov, its unusual format, and, most important, the bluntness of its accusations, made A Conversation something of a point of reference in subsequent criticism of the play. Reviewing the critical reception of Pushkin's tragedy, B.P. Gorodetskii notes: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 In those days, A Conversation played a peculiar role. It delineated the borders between literary-political groups more distinctly by causing certain, either negative or positive, responses. (Gorodetskii 92) Indeed, among the anti-Pushkin party, especially in M. Bestuzhev-Riumin's magazine, the pamphlet was met with approval and its author praised for wittiness. "G. Z- ia," in the magazine Girlianda (1831, 2, no.24-25), singles out the pamphlet among critical articles on Godunov, but slightly reproaches it for being too severe: B UMCJie KpHTMK, BblineflUIMX Ha M3BeCTHOe npon3BeneHMe riyniKMHa, 3Ta Spoimopica, no HaraeMy MHeHnio, flonacHa 3aH3Tb, ecJiM He caMoe nepBoe, to, no KpawHew Mepe, noneTHoe MecTO. BnpoueM, HaM KaaceTCH, HTO KpnTMK CMOTpHT Ha npoM3BefleHne riymKMHa c Sojiee CTporoM tovkm 3peHHH, He:*:ejiM HaflnexajTO. (Zelinskii 3, 115-116) . [Among the critical articles on Pushkin's latest work, this pamphlet, in our opinion, will be placed, if not at the very first, then, at least, at a respectable place. However, it seems to us that the critic looks at Pushkin's work from a point of view which is more severe than it should be.] Bestuzhev-Riumin in Severnyi Merkurii (1831, no.28,116 qutd. in Gorodetskii, 92) notes that: B mx (YuMTejin m IloMemMKa) cysmeHMnx mbi cnepBa OaCMflaJIM HaMTM MHOrO npOBMHII,MaJIM3Ma, HO BMeCTO Toro HamjiM mhoto CTonMHHoro ocTpoyMMH. [At first, we expected to find in their (Teacher's and Landowner's) opinions a lot of provincialism, but instead we found a lot of capital wit.] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 At the other end of the literary spectrum, among Pushkin's partisans, A Conversation aroused righteous indignation. Young Belinsky, at the time just entering his critical career, equates the anonymous author with the notorious graphomaniac Alexander Orlov and calls the pamphlet "idle schoolboy talk": 3 T O O flH O M 3 T e x 3 H a M e H M T bIX T B O p e H M M , K O T O p b IM M H aBO flH HKD T H a m y J i M T e p a T y p y r-H O p jio B m e M y n o f l o t H b i e . . . c a M O H a 3 B a H M e s t o m i ii k o j ih p h o m 6 o j i t o b h m n p e f l y B e f l O M j i n e T b k b k o m f l y x e H a n w c a H P a 3 r o B o p o B o p M c e T o f l y H O B e ; H a n e u a T a H x e o c o t o i o 6poim opK O K ) o h , Bepoflrao, n o T O M y , mto n o x a K M M - H M6y f l b n p M M M H a M H e M O r flB M T b C fl HM B O flH O M xypHane. (Listok 1831 no.167; Zelinskii 3, 117) [It is one of these famous creations with which Mr. Orlov and the like flood our literature... the title itself of this idle schoolboy talk gives you an idea in what spirit Conversation is written; and it was published as a separate booklet, because, in all likelihood, for some reason, it could not appear in any magazine.] I will revisit the critical reception of the pamphlet later; for the moment, suffice it to say that Conversation was noted and reacted to, but almost nobody, in either contemporary polemics or consequent literary scholarship, has suggested who its author might have been. The hypothesis I hope to prove below is that, perhaps not surprisingly, A Conversation was authored by none other than Faddei Bulgarin, whose animosity towards Pushkin reached its peak in the early 1830's and who every reason to conceal his identity at that particular Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 moment. The attribution proposed below is based upon the phenomenon of taste consistency. The validity of this attribution mostly depends on textological evidence of the surface expressions representing the underlying structure of Faddei Bulgarin's evaluative system. Therefore, the strategy employed in this attribution is somewhat different from that of traditional attribution. Each argument consists of a textological parallel between the text being attributed and other texts of the suggested author (Bulgarin); and each parallel is supplied with the evidence of taste, that is, proofs that parallel places in the compared texts are indeed consistent manifestations of Bulgarin's taste. From the theoretical point of view, the following attribution is based upon the assumption that authorship presupposes the consistency of the structure of taste. A full analysis would require a complete reconstruction of Bulgarin's taste, but for the purposes of the present chapter it will suffice to focus on those elements of Bulgarin's taste structure that are relevant to the task of attribution. The attribution is based comparative taste reconstruction and on a number of stylistic traits common to A Conversation and the body of texts signed by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 or previously attributed to Bulgarin. Bulgarin's texts used as a basis for comparison include: his article on Pushkin's Poltava (1828), his review of the first published scenes from Godunov (1831), the introduction to his novel Dmltrii Samozvanets (1831), and the anonymous censorial report Notes on Boris Godunov, attributed to Bulgarin by Vinokur and Gozenpud (Vinokur 64; Gozenpud 68). 1. Taste Zones: the Outdated and the Fashionable The teacher Ermil Sergeich, the main character of A Conversation, begins his critique with remarks on the generic ambiguity of Pushkin's work: Boris Godunov doesn't fit into known dramatic genres, and, therefore, is to be considered an example of a genreless, romantic composition, a romantic poem. He then proceeds to juxtapose of the old (classicist) and the new (romantic) modes of poetry and concludes that, although some obligatory classicist features (such as traditional invocations) of the former are indeed outdated, the newly introduced liberties of the romantic poem had already had time to become boring and too easily imitated. Not only is this argument very similar to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 Bulgarin's review of Poltava ("Pa36op nosMbi IIojiTaBa", CO 1829, part 125 no.15), but the choice of words in both cases is sometimes identical. Table 7. The fashionable and the outdated in A Conversation and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava."_____________________________________ A Conversation (anonymous) (Zelinskii 3, 107) "Review of Poltava" by Bulgarin (Zelinskii 2, 150-151) IIOM. y*: 3TO, KaaCeTCH MHe, cymin B3flop, juo6e3HbH4 EpMnn Ceprenub: sto nosMa. yu. (c acapoM) Nego, cyqapb, BecbMa nego. IIosMa aojixcHa MMeTb He06X 0flMM0 CBH3b B npoflOJiaceHin Bcero noBecTBOBaHia m coxpaHHTb, xots HeBnojiHe, ocBaneHHtw BeKaMH npaBMJia. CorjiaceH: MOaCHO yHMUTOaCMTb CTapMHHOe noK), mGo HbiHue hhkto no3M He noeT; MoacHO saGbiTb npn3biBaHHe KaKoro HnSyflb H3biuecKaro IlpeacHMe noeMbi, TaK Ha3biBaeMbie KJiaccwuecKMe, Gbum He uto MHoe, KaK noflpoGHoe onwcaHHe KaKoro HnGyflb npoMniecTBM3, uenoh snoxn mjjm BbiMbinuieHHoro coGhtmh, pon CTI4XOT BOpHOM MCTOpMM, yKpailieHHOM BbiMbicjiaMn cyeBepMH, npeflaHHM o BOJimeGcTBe, o yyaecHOM. B chx nosiiax Bee nouTM CTpacTM nper(CTaBJieHbi ojiMueTBopeHHbiMK, m KaambM repoM flencTBOBaji KaK ManiMHa, no bHymehmio KaKoro-HwGyflb GoacecTBa, BOJimeGHMUbi hjih qapojjea cyMacGpoflHas jnoGoBb, OJII4LI,eTBOpeHHbie CTpaCTM... BCe 3TI4 npyacMHH cjimiukom ocjraGjin ot I43JiJ4iiiHHro ynoTpeGueHMH. . . He MeHee yTOMWTejibHbi cflejiajincb Bee stm npucTynbi k necHHM, 3ni430,qbi, noflpoGHbua onncaHna MecTonojioateHMM, portocjiOBHbie repoeB m sth BeuHbie BocKJinuaHMH: noio! m npn3braaHi4H My3bi. Oahmm cjiobom, jtioah TpeboBajiM ot no3M uero-TO npyroro; uyBCTBOBajin uto MoaceT GbiTb UTO-HnGynb Jiyuiue, cnjibHee, 3aHMMaTejibHee — m oacnflajiM. Hbhjtch reHi4H<BaMpoH> m COTBOpMJI HOBbIM pOfl. . . IloCJie BafipoHa , Bee novTH nosTbi cTajin TaKHM 0bpa30M nMCaTb CBOM rtoSMbl I4J1I4 riOBeCTH, Ha3bIBaeMbie Il03MaMI4. Hto ace M3 stot o BbixoflMT? TaK KaK npeacfle Gbuio CKyuHO enwHOBpeMeHHoe pa3fi;ejieHMe nosM Ha Ha necHM m snoxw, KaK yTOMHTejTbHbl GbUin SoacecTBa, mjjm ojiraieTBopeHHaro nfleaJibHaro cymecTBa m m noflMorw b nene, m 6o bmaho, uto cin SoatecTBa m cymecTBa He MHorHM noMorajm — fla m cyuHOCTb noBecTBOBaHia ot toto Hnuero He Tepnm. Ho GpocaTbcs m Tyaa m ciofla, Ges bchkom CBS3M, npaBO, He npOCTMTeJIbHO . . ] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 Table 7. The fashionable and the outdated in A Conversation and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava." (Continued)_____________________ {I agree: one can abolish the outdated "I sing!". for nowadays nobody sings poems; one can forget invocations of some pagan deity or a personified ideal being . . . But to rush all over the place without any coherence is, honestly, unforgivable] OjTOLteTBopeHMH , npwcTynbi c BQCKjinijaHneM noio, onncaHMH 6mtb h pOflOCJIOBHLW, TaK HbIHe CKyUHLI M eflWHOo6pa3Hbi Bee stm Kyvn OTpblBKOB, KOTOpbie, KaK OTJIOMKH pa3Hbix cocyflOB, n nparoueHHbix, m CaMbIX otblKHOBGHHblX, npeflCTaBJiHSDTCH HaM b onHOM MeniKe, non; MMeHeM II oo m. [In these (classicist) poems almost all passions were personifi ed and each character acted as a machine operated by some deity. . . extravagant love, personi f i ed passi ons. . . all these springs have grown weak through overuse. All of these formulaic beginnings of songs, constant exclamations "I sing!" and invocations of the Muses have become no less tiresome... The genius <of Byron> appeared and created a new genre. After Byron, almost all poets began writing their own poems or tales, which they called poems, in his manner. So what comes of this? Just as before the personifications and beginnings with the exclamation "I sing!" were fatiguing, so now are boring and monotonous all these piles of fragments . . . ] The outdated features of classicist poems and the imperfections of the new romantic poems are described in almost identical terms. Moreover, the same taste structure (namely, a prudent distance both from literary innovations and antiquated classicism) is revealed in both texts. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2. Taste Zones; "A Poem or a Tale?" 204 Both in A Conversation and in the Review, the term poem [nosMa] is judged to be misapplied to Pushkin's works under consideration (Boris Godunov and Poltava respectively) and in both cases the term tale [ n o B e c T b ] is preferred. Table 8. Discussion of genre in A Conversation and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava. " A Conversation (Zelinskii 3, 107) Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava (Zelinskii 2, 150) Yu. ...K KaKOMy pony h3hii( hom CJiOBecHocTM npMHafljrejKMTb cie TBopeHie? IlOM. y* 3to, KaaceTcn me, cymin B3flop, juo6e3HbM EpMMJi Ceprewub: sto nosMa. Yu. (c *apoM) Nego, cyflapb, BecbMa nego. IIosMa flOJiacHa MMeTb HeobXOflMMO CBH3b... II o m. C to6om He croBopraiib. Hy tsk noBecTb? Yu. ... 3a KaKMe noflBMru mojkho Ha3BaTb Bopwca repoeM noBecTM? (fla SyneT noBecTb!) ...Bot BaM, IleTp AjieKceeBMu, Becb repow nosMbi, mum nosecrM, KaK BaM yroflHO [Teacher: To what genre of belles-lettres does this work belong? Landowner: Well, this is nonsense my dear Ermil Sergeich. Tt is quite clear that it is a poem Teacher: Nego (I disagree - lat. ) , sir, quite nego, a poem must have a certain unity. Landowner: It is hard to come to an agreement with you. How about a tale? Teacher: ...well, let it be a tale-1_________________________ Pa3Cop nosMbi IlojiTaBa: Ilocjie BaPipoHa, see novTM noeTu CTajlM TaKMM 06pa30M IlMCaTB CBOM II03MU MJ1M IIOBeCTM, Ha3HBaeMue IIOSMaMM. [After Byron, almost all poets began writing their own poems or tales, which they called poems. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 Ermil Sergeevich's insistence upon the point that Pushkin's work is better described as a tale [noBecTb] correlates with the opinions on Godunov's genre stated in another of Bulgarin's texts, his censorial Notes on Boris Godunov, commissioned by the Tsar in 1824. Here the censor (i.e. Bulgarin) states that the abundance of Conversations makes Pushkin's work seem "like pages pulled out of a Walter Scott's novel" (Notes 92). This characterization by Bulgarin seems to have won special approval of the only reader to whom Notes were intended. Tsar Nicholas borrowed this idea from Bulgarin's report and used it in his resolution written in the margins of Notes: H cuwraio, u t o uejib r-Ha riyuiKMHa 6bi.ua 6bi BbinonHeHa, e c jiM 6 c HyacHbiM ouwmeHMeM nepe,n;ejia.n KOMeflMio cboio b ncTopnuecKyio noBecTb mjivl poMaH Hanoflobwe BanbTep CKOTa. (Reitblat 97) [I think that Mr. Pushkin would achieve his goal if he, with necessary cleansing, had made out of his comedy a historical tale or a novel, in the manner of Walter Scott.] It is known that Bulgarin perceived the Tsar's remark as a directive and a few years later even tried to comply with the wish by writing his own prosaic version of the same episode of Russian history in the form of a historical novel (Dmitrii Samozvanets) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 3. Taste Zones: Incoherence The author of A Conversation imputes to romantic poems in general and to Boris Godunov in particular incoherence and the absence of the unity between its parts. The same charge is directed toward Pushkin's Poltava in Bulgarin's review and toward Boris Godunov in the censorial Notes. Again in all three cases we find very similar wording and rhetoric. Table 9. Discussion of incoherence in A Conversation, Bulgarin's "Notes", and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava. "_______________________ A Conversation (108) Bulgarin's "Notes" (91) Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava" (72-73) IIoM. Beflb HaflobHo ace, SpaTeu, naib KaKoe HMbyflb Ha3BaHie Bopwcy ToflyHOBy. Hy, Tpareflia? Yu. PteOaBM, Tocnoflu! A yto TyT ecTb TpamyecKaro? He npMKaaceTe jim npeflCTaBMTb ce Ha TeaTpe? V KyjiMCHbix- to MacTepoB 3a6ojiejiM 6li pyKM. 3to, cyrtapb, HacToamiH B ceil nMece HeT ...neCHM COCTOHT M3 HMuero uejioro: s t o OTpblBKOB, MJIM OTflejIbHblX OTflejibHbie cueHbi mjim, npOMUieCTBMM, jiyurne CKa3aTb, npencTaBJiHioiiiMxcH, KaK b OTpblBKM M3 X M XI TOMa WCTOpMM rocynapcTBa Po c c m m c k o t o , COUMHeHMH KapaM3MHa, nepenejiaHHbie b pa3roBopbi m cueHbi. . . . JlMTeparypHoe flOCTOMHCTBO ropa3flO HMace HeacejTM Mbi oxcMflajiM. 3to He ecTb BOJimetHOM <[>OHape. . . ] ..the .sonas consist of fraaments, or separate adventures, as in the maai c .lantern. . . KMTaMCKi^ TeHM. noflpaacaHMe IIIeKcriMpy, fleiicTBie Teie mjim IIlMjuiepy; m 6o nepecKaKMBaeT m 3 y c m x nosTOB b MOCKBbI B riOJIbiny, M3 COUMHeHMHX, nOJIblUM B MoCKBy, M3 COCTaBJieHHblX M3 KejlbM B KOpUMy. . . pa3Hbix snox, Bcerua EcTb HeuTo noflofiHoe HaXOflMTCH CBH3B M b flpaMaTMuecKMX uejioe b nMecax npon3BeneHiflx FThis plav does not IIIeKcnMpa, na Bee t 3k m nocoBecTHee... it is <a collection [Landowner: But it is necessary, my dear, of >separate scenes, or, better sav. fraaments from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 Table 9. Discussion of incoherence in A Conversation, Bulgarin's "Notes", and Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava." (Continued)________ to give some subtitle to Boris Godunov. Maybe a tragedy? Teacher: God forbid! What is there that is tragic? Would you like to have it staged in the theater? The stage crew would blister their hands . . . These, sir, are real Chinese shadows... There is something like that in Shakespeare's dramatic works, but not so bluntlv... The action jumps from Moscow to Poland, from Poland to Moscow, from a cell to a bar. . . volumes X and XI of Karamzin's History of the Russian State, reshaped into Conversations and scenes... The literary quality is considerably lower than we expected. It is not an imitation of Shakespeare, Goethe or Schiller; because in these poets, in composition drown from different epochs, there is always coherence and wholeness in the plays. Both in the Conversation and in the Notes, incoherence in Boris Godunov is compared to Shakespeare's manner, and Shakespeare is judged to be superior because in his works one still can find unity. It is noteworthy that the authors of A Conversation and Review of Poltava use similar metaphors (Chinese shadows and magic lantern) to describe the chaotic character of relations between Pushkin's scenes. This metaphor seems to be one of Bulgarin's favorites; he also used it as the title of his critical column in Literaturnye Listki. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4. Taste Zones: Characters 208 I n A Conversation, b o t h t h e t e a c h e r a n d t h e l a n d o w n e r c o n s i d e r P u s h k i n ' s t r e a t m e n t o f h i s c h a r a c t e r s t o b e i n a d e q u a t e . T h e t e a c h e r E r m i l S e r g e e v i c h s p e c i f i c a l l y d i s a p p r o v e s o f t h e c h a r a c t e r o f B o r i s G o d u n o v , w h o , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e t e a c h e r , i s n e i t h e r t h e h e r o o f t h e t r a g e d y ( t h a t i s , h e i s n o t t h e m a i n c h a r a c t e r ) n o r a h i s t o r i c a l h e r o ( t h a t i s , h i s d e e d s w e r e n o t i m p o r t a n t e n o u g h a n d h i s s i g n i f i c a n c e h a s b e e n g e n e r a l l y o v e r s t a t e d b y w r i t e r s a n d h i s t o r i a n s ) . T h i s d o u b l e c r i t i c i s m f i n d s i t s d i r e c t p a r a l l e l i n B u l g a r i n ' s i n t r o d u c t i o n t o Dmitrii Samozvanets, w h e r e B u l g a r i n , a p p a r e n t l y h i n t i n g a t P u s h k i n , c r i t i c i z e s t h e g e n e r a l t e n d e n c y t o e x a g g e r a t e B o r i s ' h i s t o r i c a l i m p o r t a n c e . A Con versa tion (10 9) Y u . . . . B o n p o c 2 - o m : K t o r e p o n b o t o m c o u w H e H i M ? . . . p a 3 6 e p M T e c a M M — B a c n o j i y u m e H a c y u M J iM — p a 3 6 e p M T e , 3 a m a x i e n o n B M r M m o m q H a 3 B a T b E o p M c a r e p o e M n o B e c T H ? . . . H a u H e M c H a v a n a ! . B o p n c H B J iH e T C H b n e p B b iw p a 3 H a C T p a H M y e 1 0 - m , r f l e M 3 6 M p a to T e r o U ,a p e M ; T y T H e T h vlks lk vix O T JiM V H bix n o f l B M r o B ; n o T O M n o K a 3 b i B a e T C H o flM H m r o B o p w T c a M c c o 6 o k ) B C J iy x y x a c H o f i M O H O J i o r . . . H e M H o r a o p a 3 K a M B a e T c a b c b o m x n p e r p e m e H i n x , B p a H M T u e p H b 3 a p a 3 H b i e H a H e r o (h k o 6bi) K J ie B e T b i. . . . . .rioM. ... , n ; a roBopw, Jiio6e3HbiM, o flejie — o noflBMrax repon Bopwca. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 YM...MTaK, noBTopMM, kto 6o jiee o6pam,aeT Ha ce6n BHMMaHie HMTaTejiH, ESopwc mjim rpmiiKa? Kto 3acjivag^BaeT 6o jiee H a 3 B a H ie re p o g riosMbi? Bulgarin's Samozvanets (5): 0 HeKOTopbix MCTopMuecKMX xapaKTepax b 6ojibiiien uacTM UMTaroiqeM ny6jiMKM yKopeHMJiocb HecnpaBeflJiMBoe noHATMe. TaKMM o6pa3QM, npMBbiKJiM M3o6pa2KaTb BopMca FonvHOBa repoeM. Oh 6biJi yMeH, XMTep, npOHbipjTMB, HO He MMeJI TBepflOCTM flyineBHOM m MyxecTBa bomhckoto m rpaxflaHCKoro. PaccMOTpMTe nejia ero! BejtMuaJiCH b cuacTbe, He cMeji fla?Ke hbho K33HMTb Tex, KOTOpbIX nOHMTajI CBOMMM BparaMM, M B nepByio 6ypio ynaji! r^e ace repoHCTBQ? Again, in both cases we find similar rhetoric: both the teacher in A Conversation and Bulgarin in Introduction playfully propose to analyze Boris' deeds in order to find out whether he deserved to be called a hero, and then in both cases the deeds are ironically enumerated so as to make obvious their presumed unimportance and lack of heroism. Both texts use play on the ambiguity of the word "hero." Compare also the syntactic similarity: " p a 3 6 e p n T e , 3 a Kaicie n o f l B M r a mojkho Ha3BaTb B o p w c a r e p o e M noBecTH?" (A Conversation) a n d " P a c c M O T p w T e f l e j i a e r o ! . . . Tae )Ke repowcTBO?" (In tr o d u c t io n to Samozvanets) 5. Taste Borders: The Disgusting Another important critical point that helps to identify Bulgarin as the author of Conversation is the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 disapproval of Pushkin's use of a crude, low-style lexicon. Bulgarin makes this point especially clear in his introduction to D m i t r i i S a m o z v a n e t s . In the introduction, Bulgarin tries to imply that his own treatment of the story of Boris and Samozvanets was superior to Pushkin's in terms of the characters' language. Whereas Pushkin used a low-style or words and expressions, inappropriate in polite company, in order to depict low mores, Bulgarin, according to his introduction, managed to achieve the same goals while observing literary decencies: "npocTopeune" (low-class speech) is expressed by "npocTOMbicjiMe" (simple- mindedness) . The criticism of Pushkin's rudeness is present in the anonymous A C o n v e r s a t i o n , in the censorial N o t e s and in the introduction to Dmitrii Samozvanets. Table 10. Criticism of rudeness in A Conversation, Bulgarin's Introduction to "Dimitrii Samozvanets," and Notes.___________ A Conversation Bulgarin's Introduction to "Dimitrii Samozvanets " Bulgarin's Notes rioM. Uto tbi CKaxcemb 06 3 TOM "TOIIIHMT"? Yu. He xopomo, IleTp AjieKceeBMUb, BecbMa OTBpaTMTejIbHO . IIOM. A BOT KaK Hexopoiuo: sto IIpeflCTaBJTHH npocTOH Hapofl, h oflHaKoac k He xoTejr nepeflaTb HMTaTejrio Bcew rpyOocTM npocTQHapoflHoro HeKOTopue MecTa flO J U K H o H e n p e M e H H O MCKJHOUMTb . TOBOpH CMe flOJUKHO 3aMeTI4Tb, UTO uejioseK c MajreMiiiMM BKyCOM M TaKTOM He ocMejiMJiCH 6bi HMKoraa Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 Table 10. Criticism of rudeness in A Conversation, Bulgarin's Introduction to "Dimitrii Samozvanets," and Notes(Continued) npenecTb; sto 3HayMTb, ijto Abtop noncjiymaji tojioc npMpoflbi; 3TO HauioHajibHocTb, TpeboBaHie Harnero BeKa. Yu. Beflb no,n;cjiymaTb- to, cyflapb, c no3BOJieHia CKaaaTb, MajlO JIM hto mojkho, fla pa3CKa3MBaTb 06 stom v l neuaTaTb He .qojiacHo. Bbi cjibixajiM, flyMaio, o pa3roBope flByx 3 H aMe HM T bIX HaiUMX nOSTOB. y OflHOrO M3 hhx HanwcaHO Ghjio b CTPIXaX HTO-TO 06 ap6y3ax fla 06 cojieHbix orypuax; flpyron: 3aMeTMJi, hto npiipoay HajioSHO MCKaTb He b o6?kophom pbiHKe. TaK m 3flecb, npM cjiOBe TOmHMT, He Moaceib JIM MHOMy UyBCTBMTejIbHOMy HMTaTejIIO npeflCTaBMTbCH nocneflCTBie TOIUHOTbl. . . CJIOBOM CKa3aTb, BecbMa OTBpaTMTejibHO. He yace jim Abtop BopMca He CJIblXMBajI 06 M3HUJ;HOM npupofle? ... Yh . (nOBOpOTH CTpaHMigy Ha3am) no MCTMHe: Es ist Schande■ . ..Taxia BbipaaceHia, IleTp AneKceeBMHb, uepT c h m m m , a OCOOeHHO MOUM HeT, npM BCHKOM pOMaHTMHeCKOM HapiOHajIbHOCTM — HM Kyna He roflHTCH. HapeHMa, mGo nOHMTaiO 3TO HenpMjiMHHbM m flaaie He3aHMMaTejibHbiM. Ha KapTMHax (JwiaMaHflCKOM niKOJibi M3o6paacaraTca yBeceaeHMa m saHaTMa npocToro Hapo,na: sto npnaTHO fljia B3opoB. Ho ecjiM 6 kto-to 3axoTea npeflCTaBMTb co6jia3HMTejibHbie CH,eHbI M HenpMJIMUMH, to KapTMHa, npM BceM MCKyccTBe xyfloacHMKa, Gbuia 6bi OTBpaTMTeabHOIO. CaMoe BepHoe M3o6paateHMe HpasoB flOJflKHO nOflUMHHTb npaBHjiaM BKyca, 3CTeTMKM, M a npM3Hai0Cb, HTO rpyGaa CpaHb m atecTKMe BbipaaceHMa pyccKoro (m BcaKoro) npocToro Hapojia KaacyTca MHe H e npMJIMH HbIMM B KHMre. IlycTb roBopaT, uto xotht MOM KpMTMKM, HO a He CTaHy HMKOMy noupaacaTb b stom ciiyyae, m flyMaio, uto peuM, BBeueHHbie B KHMry M3 nMTeMHbIX flOMOB, He cocTaBaaioT BepHoro M3o6pa*eHMa Happfla.] (flMMMTpMM CaM03Baneu, npeflMCJioBMe, (Vinokur 210) npeflCTaBMTb nyGjinxe BbipaaieHMa, KQTopbie Hejib3a npoM3HecTb hm B OflHOM SjiaronpncTOMHOM TpaKTMpe! HanpMMep cjiOBa MapacepeTa. ...XOTH 3TM MOHaXM M Geacajin M3 MOHacTbipa m XOTH 3TO OGCTOHTejlbCTBO HaxoflMTca y KapaM3MHa, ho KaaceTca, caMbiM pa3BpaT m nonoMKa flOJiaCHbl GbITb oGjiaropoaceHbi b no33MM] (92) [Some places should be kept out no matter what. At that, one has to mention that a person with minimal taste or tact would never dare to present to the public expressions that are not possible to utter in any decent publi c eating-house. For instance the words of Margeret . . . Even though these monks have escaped the monastery and this fact is found in Karamzin, still, it seems, that the fornication and drinking-bout should be ennobled in poetry... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 Table 10. Criticism of rudeness in A Conversation, Bulgarin's Introduction to "Dimitrii Samozvanets," and iyotes(Continued) Landowner: Stop for a minute. What do you think about "nausea"? Teacher: Not good,Petr Alekseevich, quite discmsti na . Landowner: "Not good" you said... <but they say >it means that the author has overheard the voice of Nature; it is the nationality, the demand of the time. Teacher: One can overhear a lot of things, but it should not be said and published. I think, you've heard about the conversation of our two famous poets: one of them wrote something about melons and pickles; another noted that it is not in the food marketplace where one should look for Nature. . . . Is it possible that the author of Boris has not heard about fine Nature? Though writing about common people, I did not want to express all the crudeness of the common people's speech, for I consider it indecent and even uninteresting. The paintings of the Flemish School portray diversions and occupations of the common people: it pleases our eyes. But if someone wished to depict some seducing scenes or indecencies, the painting would be di sgusti ng . . .Let my critics say whatever they want... but I think that expressions, introduced into a book from beer houses . do not constitute a true representation of the people. In A Conversation and Notes, criticism is aimed at the same place in Boris Godunov - the indecent remark of Margeret in the scene of the fight between the Russians and Dimitrii's troops. The rhetoric used in both cases is rather similar. In A Conversation, the speech of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 Pushkin's characters is relegated to the food-market place and in Notes the expression used by Margeret is judged to be inappropriate in any somewhat decent public eating-house. In the Introduction, r iM T e iiH b iM f fO M (public beer house) is used for the same rhetorical purpose. The idea that, though one can easily overhear rudeness and indecencies spoken on the street, one should not bring them into literary language is present in both A Conversation and Introduction to Dmitrii Samozvanets. More important, in both cases the same evaluative label, disgusting, is used in similar contexts. Here, as in other cases, the serious critical reproaches present in Bulgarin's censorial Notes and signed articles are somewhat downplayed and as if reenacted in A Conversation. The general rhetorical scheme of the relationship between A Conversation and other texts on Pushkin by Bulgarin is that of a prediction coming to pass: in Notes and Introduction, Bulgarin predicts that the rudeness of Pushkin's characters will not be tolerated by enlightened literary taste; in A Conversation the interlocutors, the fictional readers of Boris Godunov, put this hypothetical claim into practice and confirm that such things as Margeret's remark indeed disgust them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 6. Evaluative Lexicon: first-rank [nepBOKJiaccHbiM] Besides the direct lexical parallels to Bulgarin's critical articles, A Conversation also contains less specific indications of his authorship, which complement the strictly textological arguments. These include characteristic features of Bulgarin's style, rhetorical strategies employed in his evaluative practices, and traces of his literary position and political views. One of these indications concerns the use of the evaluative label nepBOKJiaccHbiM (first-class or first- rank) . The author of Conversation plays on the semantic ambiguity of the term: the landowner calls Pushkin "nepBOKJiaccHbih nosT"[a first-class or first-rank poet]; the teacher gets frightened because he misinterprets the epithet as referring to the official Table of Ranks i.e. to the bureaucratic, not poetic, hierarchy (see chapter 4). IIOMemnK. 3,qpaBCTByn, EpMnji Ceprenu! Bto? c BopncoM m 3aMeuaHiHMn? Hy, nocjiymaeM, hto CKa3aji Tbi o nepBOKJiaccHOM nameM nosore? YuMTejib. (OTCKaKHBaeT m KJiaaeT Teipaflb b KapMaH.) Kax, baTioniKa, o nepBOKJiacHOM? Xopomyio : * : e Bbi cbirpajro co mhoio iuTyxy! ... fla ecjiw 6bi 3Haji n, uto aBTop Bopnca ro,n;yHOBa b nepBOM KJiacce, hm 3a uto 6bi He npMHHJTcn flejiaTb Ha Hero 3aMeuaHiM: Hy, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Boace ynacn, KaK sto orjiacwTcn! MyapeHO jim nepBOMy KJiaccy 3aflaBMTb flBeHajmaTHM! (107) [Landowner: How do you do, Ermil Segeevich! So... Is that Boris Godunov and your commentaries there? Well, let us hear what you have to say about our first-rank poet. Teacher'. (Jumps back and puts his notebook back into his pocket) . Why sir! First-rank? That's a good joke you played on me, frankly. Why, if I knew the author of Boris Godunov is of the first rank, I would never have taken up the task of commenting on him. It is not hard for the first rank crush the twelfth.] The landowner reassures the teacher condescendingly: "3t o , flpyr m o m , He u m h , paBHbiii HanpMMep c OejibflMapmajibCKMM. . . 3 t o Ha3BaHie aaioT 3a OTjiMUHeMmin npoM3Be,qeHiH." (108) ["This, my friend, is not a rank as, say, that of a field-marshal. It is a title given for the best works."] The bewildered teacher asks what official body bestows this rank. The landowner responds: " X y p H a jiM C T b i, M 3 a a T e jiM r a 3 e T , n p M H T e jiM , T O B a p w m M (CMeeTcs) . . . 3a uameii KpyroBoio." ["Journalists, newspaper editors, friends, cronies (laughing) . . . around a glass of wine."] The teacher then decides that it is safe to go ahead with his criticism. The theme of the closed circle of literary cronies bestowing an undeserved highest rank on Pushkin reappears when the characters discuss the romantic features of Pushkin's play (108): Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Landowner: Nowadays, those who do not believe in Romanticism are considered apostates. Teacher: Considered by whom? I assume by those who assign the first rank to their cronies? [rioM. . . . Tenept Henpn3Haiomnx Pom3htm3m cunTaioT HapaBHe c BorooTCTynHMKaMM. Y u . H e Te jim ace Tax ayMaiOT, IleTp A n e K c e e B M U b, KOTopue b nepBOM-To Kjiacc ,n;py3en cbomx npOH3BOflKT?] And at the end of A Conversation the landowner returns to the question of Pushkin's rank (115): n o M . H y , n o p a n e p e c T S T b . H t o *: t b i a y M a e m b o n e p B O K J i a c H O C T n C o v n H M T e j i H ? Y u . H e M o e a e j i o . M H e , c y n a p b , hm a c a n o B a T b , hm pa3acajiOBaa?b HeB03M0acH0. [Landowner: Well, it is time to stop. So, what do you think about the first-rankness of the author (i.e. Pushkin)? Teacher: It is none of my business. I, sir, can not either appoint or demote.] Thus, A C o n v e r s a t i o n begins and ends with word play on the epithet f i r s t - r a n k \n e p B O K J ia c c H b iM] and the author of A C o n v e r s a t i o n demonstrates animosity towards the clique of Pushkin's friends and reputation makers, who assign literary ranks. This animosity is of course perfectly in tune with Bulgarin's attitude towards what he and his supporters called l i t e r a r y a r i s t o c r a c y (i.e. Pushkin's and Del'vig's circle). But more specifically, the epithet n e p B O K J ia c c H b iM itself also points to Bulgarin possible authorship. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 As we saw in chapter 4, in his critical writings, Bulgarin seems to be fond of this epithet and uses it extensively, particularly in speaking about Pushkin. Exactly the same formula as in the opening lines of Conversation ("Let's listen to what you have said about our first-rank poet") is found in Bulgarin's first response to Poltava'. "MHorne JiMTepaTopu, ,qpy3bH Hamero nepBQKjiaccHoro nooTa, m oh caM, SynyT c h3mm b otom He corjiacHbi" (Zelinskii 2, 134) ["Many writers, the friends of our first-rank poet, will disagree with me."] In his subsequent, more extensive analysis of Poltava, Bulgarin used this epithet three times. While reviewing Pushkin's poetic evolution, he makes the point that, notwithstanding juvenile imperfections, Pushkin's Ruslan i Liudmila was ranked among the best literary works: "His very first poem was thought to be a first rank work [nepBOKJiaccHoe npoM3BefleHMe] of our literature" (Zelinskii 2, 160). Then, while criticizing general shortcomings of Poltava, Bulgarin gives it its due by citing the lyrical quality of several passages and referring to their "first-rank beauty": "KaKMx HeflocTaTKOB He BbiKynnT otm KpacoTbi, KpacoTbi nepBOKjraccHbm." (Zelinskii 2, 160) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 Bulgarin also uses the epithet in answering the criticism that he belittled Pushkin by downplaying his significance when judging him inferior to the great Western poets: "He bynyyn hh EawpoHOM, hm HlMjiJiepoM, hm PeTe, mo2kho eme CTOHTb oueHb bhcoko m bbiTb nepBOKJiaccHbiM nncaTejieM." (Zelinskii 3, 154) ["Even not being a Byron, a Schiller, or a Goethe, one can still stand very high and be a first-rank writer."] Finally, Bulgarin uses the epithet in the editorial announcement (Zelinskii 3, 43) of the publication of Boris Godunov. "TBopeHwe nepBOKJiaccHoro ITooTa, obpamaiomero Ha cebn BHMMaHwe OTeuecTBeHHOM m MHocTpaHHOM nybjiMKM. . ." ["It is a creation of a first-rank poet, who attracts the attention of both the domestic and foreign public."] Bulgarin's extensive use of this bureaucratic metaphor was noticed by contemporary journalists, who did not miss the opportunity to taunt him. Thus, the anonymous critic of Galatea, in his review of Bulgarin's article on Poltava, cited above, uses the epithet to make fun of Bulgarin's statement that minor characters in Poltava are psychologically unconvincing: PeyeH3eHT <ByjirapM H> ^ a jie e T , mto IlymKMH He npeflCTaBMJi noflpobHO npwuMH, nobyflMBiimx Mcxpy yuacTBOBaTb b flOHoce Ha TeTM aH a. IIpM3Haiocb, hto Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m MHe 3Toro BecbMa 2Kajib; ho hto tk flejiaTb, bmaho b njiaH aBTopa He bxoamjio : cflejiaTb nepBOKJiaccHbiMM BTopocTeneHHbix repoeB cBoew nooMbi. (Zelinskii 2, 162) [The reviewer <Bulgarin> complains, that Pushkin does not present detailed reasons for Iskra's willingness to participate in the conspiracy against the Hetman. I must confess: I also regret it. Well, what can we do? It seems that the author did not plan to make first-rank characters out of second-rank ones.] Though the epithet was very popular in critical discourse of the first quarter of the century, it had come to be considered in conspicuously "bad taste" by the late twenties because of the implied reference to the bureaucratic hierarchy of the "Table of Ranks", and, therefore to the outdated eighteenth century practice of the state and the court sanctioning and patronizing literary achievements. A telling example of the fact that, in the late 1820's, the epithet was more likely to be applied to a literary figure ironically is a remark found in Pushkin's introduction (1828) to the second edition of Ruslan i Liudmila. At the end of this text, the vindictive Pushkin reminds his readers of Dmitriev's disapproval of Ruslan i Liudmila; he doesn't name Dmitriev directly but refers to him periphrastically as "oflMH M3 HaiiiMX yBeHuaHHbix, nepBOKJiaccHbix nMcaTejieM" [one of our crowned, first-rank writers], and italicizes the phrase in order to underscore the irony: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 f l o j i r M C K p e H H o c T M T p e S y e T TaK ace y n o M H H y T b m o M H e H M H O flH O T O M3 y B e H V a H H b IX , nepBOKJiaCCHHX O T e y e c T B e H H b ix r i M c a T e a e M , K O T o p b iM , n p o ^ H T a B P y c a a H a m J Iio flM M jiy , c K a 3 a j i : H Tyv H e BMacy hm M b ic jie M , hm n y B C T B a - t o j i b k o H y B C T B e H H O C T b . f l p y r o M ( a M oaceT 6biTb m t o t ace) y B e H U a H H H M , nepsoKJiaccHuPi n M c a T e J ib n p M B e T C T B O B a ji c e w o n b iT M o a o a o r o n o s T a c jie a y io m M M c t m x o m : ( P K 1 8 4 , i t a l i c s P u s h k i n ' s , s e e a l s o V i n o g r a d o v Stil ' 3 9 6 - 3 9 7 ) MaTb aouepM BeaMT Ha 3Ty KHMacxy naKwyTb. [ T h e d u t y o f s i n c e r i t y r e q u i r e s u s t o m e n t i o n t h e o p i n i o n o f o n e o f o u r c r o w n e d , first-rank writers, h a v i n g r e a d Ruslan, s a i d : " I d o n o t s e e h e r e e i t h e r t h o u g h t s o r f e e l i n g s , o n l y s e n s u a l i t y . " A n o t h e r ( o r m a y b e t h e s a m e ) first- rank writer g r e e t e d t h i s a t t e m p t o f a y o u n g p o e t w i t h t h e f o l l o w i n g v e r s e : T h e m o t h e r t e l l s h e r d a u g h t e r t o s p i t o n t h i s b o o k . ] I t i s q u i t e p o s s i b l e t h a t a n o t h e r r e a c t i o n t o B u l g a r i n ' s e x c e s s i v e u s e o f t h e n o t o r i o u s e p i t h e t i s f o u n d i n G o g o l ' s a r t i c l e o n Boris Godunov. B e a u t i f u l ! I n c o m p a r a b l e ! U n i q u e ! B u t w i l l t h e s e w o r d s e x p r e s s e v e n a s i n g l e s t r e a m i n t h e b o u n d l e s s o c e a n o f f e e l i n g s ? P o w e r l e s s < w o r d s > ! B e c a u s e o f t h e f r e q u e n t r e p e t i t i o n s t h e y h a v e l o s t e v e n t h e i r o w n m e a g e r m e a n i n g . B u t I f i n d a l l t h e m o r e a b s u r d a n d h i l a r i o u s t h o s e p e o p l e w h o b e s t o w o n p o e t s p i t i f u l e p i t h e t s a n d c a l l t h e m f i r s t - r a n k a s i f t h e y w e r e p l a n t s o r l i f e l e s s m i n e r a l s t h a t r e q u i r e a s y s t e m i n o r d e r t o b e k e p t i n m i n d . [ n p e i c p a c H o ! d e c n o a o d H o , e f l M H C T B e H H O ! " Ho B b i p a 3 H T JIM 3 T M C JTO B a X O T H O ^ H y C T p y i o 6 e 3 r p a H M U H o r o o i c e a H a u y B C T B ? B e c c M J i b H b i e ! O hm o t v a c T o r o n o B T o p e H M f l a io a b M M n o T e p n j i M aa ac e d e a H o e c o S c T B e H H o e 3 H a y e H n e . H o e q e S e c c M b i c j i e H H e e , e m e C M e iim e e M H e K a x y T c a ju o b m , K O T O p b ie n a p H T I I 0 3 T 0 B , S y a T O H M H a M M , 5KaaKMMM 3 n M T e T 3 M M , H a 3 b IB a iO T MX n e p B O K J ia C C H b IM M , K a K d y a T O n o s T b i , K a K p a c T e H M f l mjim d e 3 a c M 3 H e H H b ie M M H e p a a b i, T p e d y iO T C M c r e M b i, v T o d b i y a e p a c a T b c a b r o a o B e ! ] ( 6 , 7 1 2 ) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 Thus, if my hypothesis is right, in A Conversation, Bulgarin, although anonymously, answered the criticism of his opponents in his characteristic manner: accused of overusing of the bureaucratic epithet, he tries to turn the tables on his literary enemies and ironically exaggerates and de-metaphorizes the metaphor. In this, he reveals an astute and self-conscious insight into the mechanism of literary reputation-making. The landowner Petr Ivanovich explains to his naive interlocutor that literary ranks are produced by "journalists, newspaper- editors, friends, cronies." It is noteworthy that "journalists and editors", i.e. the categories to which Bulgarin himself belonged, are placed at the beginning of this list. Apparently, Bulgarin considered himself a benefactor insulted by ingratitude. His intention might have been to prove that since he contributed to the making of Pushkin's reputation, it was also in his power to reverse the process and withdraw "the first-rank." In general terms, we encounter here the first explicit conflict between what Pierre Bourdieu calls two principles of hierarchization: the heteronomous principle, which is favorable to those relying on worldly success and the commercial profitability of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 literary enterprise, and the autonomous principle, which is based on recognition by peers. Bulgarin perceived this emerging opposition as a kind of conspiracy against him: he was the most popular and the most widely read writer but suffered from the low esteem among his colleagues. In a review of Pogorel'sky's Monastyrka (1830), Bulgarin addressed this problem explicitly and formulated it in almost Bourdieusian terms: EecnpncTpacTHbin u w T a T e jit, He 3HaiomMM KaKMM nopajiKOM wjieT npoM3BojiCTBO a e ji Ha n ap H acce, yflMBJineTCH m HeaoyMeBaeT, bm^h, uto khurn HpaBHmwecn nybjinice, becnomaflHO m 6e3 AOKa3aTejibCTB pa3pyraHbi b HeKOTopbix !3CypHajiax. . . riMcaTenM, CTHHcaBiiiMe 3HaMeHMTocTb no jraHKacTepoBOM Mone™ BsaHMHoro BocxBajreHWH, BOopy5KaiOTCJ? c BeJTMuawmMM oxecToyeHMeM npoTMBy aBTopoB, 3acnyacMBmMX SjraroBOJieHMn nybjiMKM cbommm Tpy^aMM. ( Monas tyrka 2 8) [The unbiased reader, who knows not how things work on Parnassus is surprised and bedazzled seeing how books admired by the public are mercilessly and undeservedly criticized in some magazines. Writers who earned their fame according to the Lancaster model of mutual praise, arm themselves against those authors, who earned the reader's benevolence through their works.] 7. Evaluative Models: the Good Part and the Bad Whole Conversation contains not only one of Bulgarin's favorite evaluative epithets but also traces of his favorite evaluative models. Of course, rhetorical evaluative models belong to the common stock of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 critical language of the epoch and the following arguments are only valid in the context of the textological observations listed above. At least two models employed in Conversation are particularly typical of Bulgarin. The first model involves bestowing exaggerated praise on a fragment while criticizing the work as a whole and suggesting that the whole would be a success if it had been more like the chosen fragment. This model allows the critic to convey the impression that he is both unbiased and capable of discriminative aesthetic judgment, that is, of judging both the high lyrical quality of a fragment and the imperfections of the general design. Bulgarin uses this evaluative model rather often. The example closest in time and in subject matter to A Conversation, is found in the article on Pushkin's Poltava which Bulgarin published in Severnaia Pchela in 1829. Compare in A Conversation (113): Y u . 3 a cum, uto Ha3biBaeTCH c O H M K a , cjieayeT n p e w p a c H o e o b p a m e H i e K y p b c i c a r o k C B o e M y OTeuecTBy: BoTb, BOTb OHa, botb Pyccwafl rpaHnua! CBHTaH Pycb! OTeuecTBo! h tbom! y y a c b M H b i n p a x c n p e 3 p e H b e M O T p n x a i o C momx o f l e a c f l , n b io a c a n H O B03flyx hobhm: Oh MHe poflHOM! Tenepb tboh .qyrna, 0 mom O T e u , yTemnjTacb, m b r p o b e Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. OnaJibHbiH BOspaflyiOTCH k o c t m, m npov. noM. fla! ecjiM 6bi TaK HanwcaHa 6bina bch noBecTb. Yu. Torja 6bi CTajiM xBajiMTb. [Teacher: After that, all of a sudden, there follows Kurbskii's beautiful address to his fatherland... Landowner: Yes! If the whole tale were written in this vein... Teacher. Then they would praise it.l And in Bulgarin's "Review of Poltava": . . . BbinncbiBaeM Jiyumee, no HarneMy MHeHMio, MecTO, a MMeHHO: M3o6pa»:eHMe Ka3aKa, Be3ymaro k neTpy flOHOC Ha Ma3eny . Kto npw 3Be3flax m npm JiyHe TaK no3flHo ejieT Ha KOHe . . . . . .flOHOC Ha reTMaHa 3Jioja;en Rapio neTpy ot Kouyben noBTopneM, uto 3to Jiyuiuee, no HameMy MHeHMio, MecTO b uenoM nosMe, m He B3Mpan Ha to, uto uejran nosMa npewpacHan, nyiiiKMHCKan, ho ecjiM 6 b Hew bbuio TaKMx aecnTb cTpaHMu,, to QHa SbiJia 6bi b aecflTepo Jiyume. (Zelinskii 2, 134) [We cite the best, according to our opinion, place <in the poem>, namely: a portrayal of a Cossack, who is bringing the denunciation of Mazepa to Peter... We repeat that this is, in our opinion, the best place in the whole poem, and, notwithstanding the fact that the poem is beautiful, Pushkinian, if there were ten such pages in it, it would be ten times better.] In both cases the quoted poetic fragment is supplied with a wish that the whole text be written the way the fragments are. Compare the use of subjunctive in Review of Pol ta va : ecjiM 6 b Hew 6bmo tskmx necnTb CTpaHMu,, to and in Con versa ti on: ecjiM 6bi Tax HanwcaHa 6buia bch noBecTb . . . Torfla 6bi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 8.Evaluative Models: Petty Criticism Another, though less specific evaluative model typical of Bulgarin's critical discourse consists of petty criticism, i.e. exaggerated attention paid to erroneous details, trivial or insignificant errors and factual incongruity. Bulgarin was especially disposed towards this model because he did not posses any explicit literary ideology that would supply him with self-evident, aesthetic criteria, and, therefore, in constructing his literary reprimands he was forced to resort to more general frames of reference such as common sense and factual accuracy. In many cases he used petty criticism in order to underscore his own competence and experience. Characteristically, while proving that a certain detail is wrong, Bulgarin himself would usually go into considerable detail and display either his competence in the matter in question or a certain common-sense observation, which would impart cogency to his argument. In these cases, Bulgarin's criticisms have a recognizable intonation and an invariant rhetorical structure. Namely, he used italic to emphasize the wrong or incongruous words; then, in an apropos mode, he supplied a necessary explanation or factual reference. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 A Conversation contains an example of this evaluative model, which is rather similar in terms of rhetorical structure to the criticism of this kind found elsewhere in Bulgarin's writings, in particular in his articles on Pushkin. In A Conversation, the teacher Ermil Sergeevich points out that Pushkin's Boris inaccurately used the epithet xpirpo (skillfully) while talking about the geographical map made by his son Feodor. The teacher notes that, since Boris himself could not find Moscow, Novgorod or Volga, on the map he should not have called the map skillful (109) : yuwTejib: ...Oh <roayHOB> ... cbiHa xBajiHT 3a to, hto M3o6pa3MJi xHTpo Ha SyMare Bee objiacTM PyccKi^. Ho 3aMeTMM o^HaKo: Bopwc He mot pa3obpaTb, r,qe, Ha otom uepTexe, MocKBa, HoBropofl, AcTpaxaHb, m He y3Haji Bojitm. M Taw, n o 3 B O J i b T e c n p o c M T b , X M T p o Jii4 H a n w c a H 6 b in y e p T e * ? The word X M r p o in the teacher's rendering of Pushkin's fragment is italicized; the common sense rationale of the criticism is introduced by an apropos remark: "Ho 3aMeTMM OflHaKO." The same rhetorical strategy is present in the following passage from Bulgarin's Review of Poltava. The critic comments on Pushkin's metaphor: B o K p y r B b i c o K o r o u e j i a , Kan TyvM, jiokohh uepHeiOT Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. He cjimiiikom j jvl CMJibHa rMnepbona: j i o k o h h, KaK Ty^M? IIpMceM 3aMeqy, hto bo BpeMeHa Ma3enti jiokohob He HOCMJ1M B MaJIOpOCCMM. 0 HblHeiUHMX JTOKOHaX MO*HO 3TO CKa3aTb, ho TOJibKO b HacMeiiiKy. (157) [Is not the hyperbole "curls like clouds" too strong? At that, I will note that at the time of Mazepa they did not have curls in Little Russia. As for today's curls one can indeed say it but only jokingly.] H e r e t h e w o r d s i n q u e s t i o n a r e a l s o i t a l i c i z e d , a n d t h e c o m m e n t a r y i s i n t r o d u c e d b y t h e v e r b 3 a M e u a T b : n p n c e M 3 a M e u v . A n o t h e r e x a m p l e f r o m B u l g a r i n ' s r e v i e w o f P o l t a v a : y K a n b , u t o I T o o t HMKorfla H e 6bm 3pnTejieM cpaaceHh h , M nOTOMy KapTMHbl SMTBbl HanOJIHeHbl HeBep03TH0CT3MM, KOTopue 3 a r .n y iiia io T bcio npejiecTb I Io 3 3 m m . HanpMMep: . . . Thxkom Tyvew O T p n flb i KOHHMu,bi J i e T y u e M , EpasnaMM, cabnHMM 3Byua, CmnbaHCb, pybnTcn c nneua. B p o c a n r p y n b i T e n H a r p y n y , Illapbi uyryHHbie noBciony Me)K hmm m npbiraiOT, pa3HT, npax pOIOT M B KpOBM IIIMnHT . UlBen pyccKMM KOJieT, pybMT, peaceT. B om 6 a p a 6 a H H b i M , k jim k m , c w p e ^ c e T , ( ? ) P p o M n y r n e K , r n o n o T , p a c a H b e , c t o h , M cMepTb m a n co Bcex c t o p o h . BoeHHbiM uenoBeK cxaneT Ha s t o : ecjiM KaBanepMH c b o 3 m HenpMHTenbCKan pybnTCH Mescny coboio t o nnpa He MoryT Meacny h m m m npbiraTb m pa3HTb, nOTOMy h t o b TOJiny HenpMHTejiH, CMemaHHoro co c b o m m m , C T p e n H T b H e C T a H y T . H n p a M o r y T m w n e T b b kpobm, K o r a a ohm p a c K a n e H b i , ho p a c K a n e H H b iM M n n p a M M b n o n e B b ix c p a a c e H M H x H e C T p e n n iO T . C K p e ^ c e m y b S M T B a x n o H b iH e H e c n u x M B a j i M . . . ( Z e l i n s k i i 2, 161-162) T h e w o r d c x p e j K e T i s i t a l i c i z e d a n d t h e c o m m e n t a r y i s g i v e n i n t h e s a m e r h e t o r i c a l m a n n e r o f a c o m m o n s e n s e a n d s o m e w h a t c o n d e s c e n d i n g e x p l a n a t i o n . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228 9. Taste and Literary Programs: Between Romanticism and Classicism Whereas classificatory schemes and evaluative models constitute a necessary part of literary taste and are implicitly present in all critical and literary productions of a given author, an explicitly stated literary program is not necessarily a part of aesthetic consciousness. Thus, Bulgarin does not seem to be engaged in either the construction of his own literary ideology, or in the contemporary conflicts of distinct literary camps. Bulgarin occupied something of an intermediate position in the contemporary literary field and in the conflicts between romanticist and classicists or archaists and innovators. On the one hand, his most prestigious literary connection was Griboedov, a representative of the young faction within the classicist party; on the other hand, in his own writings Bulgarin exploited the interest in historical narrative, and associated himself with Walter Scott tradition and the romantic movement. As a result of this ambiguous position, and, perhaps, because of his more utilitarian approach to literature, which prevented him from purely theoretical endeavors, Bulgarin was not able to define himself in terms of a particular literary trend and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 preferred to consider himself as "above the brag." Accordingly, his writings rarely contain judgments on the conflicts of literary ideologies; he tends to disregard literary divisions and emphasize the qualities that transcend them. A trace of this attitude may be found in Conversation. On the face of it, the explicit literary ideology of Conversation seems to contradict the proposed attribution. Teacher Ermil Sergeevich obviously represents the archaist literary position, incompatible with what is known of Bulgarin's literary orientation. But it is clear from the general tone of parody and comic exaggeration in the treatment of the teacher's character in A Conversation, that the real views of the anonymous author do not completely coincide with those of the teacher Ermil Sergeevich. The author of Conversation tries to convey his judgments by recreating the reactions of a naive provincial reader. Once the prismatic effect produced by stylization and the author's dissimulating strategy is taken into account, the judgments on literary schools in A Conversation become almost identical to those found in Bulgarin's writings. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230 Thus, Ermil Sergeevich expresses quite a sophisticated position in respect to the conflict between classicism and romanticism. YuMTejib: BceM M3Becrao, uto Te, KOTopbie no cjiobsm BojibTepa, He yMeJin HanncaTb hm Tparennn, hm KoMeflHM, Hauajin nncaTb flpaMbi; a k TOMy npnSaBMTb m o3 kho : He yMeBfflwe n flpaMbi HanncaTb CTaJin covwHHTb MenoflpaMbi n TOMy noflodHoe, uto n 6e3npaBnjibHbin PoMaHTM3M, njin cKa3aTb nooTKpoBeHHee, s to SeccMtmeHHoe cjiobo BbinyMaHo TeMn, KOTopbie He yMenn couwHHTb Hnuero npaBMJibHaro. Bee m h , kto x ot b HeMHOXKO noyunjicn, unTbiBajin nosMbi n apeBHMH n HOBbin, fla KOMy npnxoflnjio b yM pa3flejiHTb m x Ha KjiaccnuecKMH n PoMaHTnuecKnn? 3Hatomne tojik Bocxnmajincb xopomnM n nopnuajro nypHoe. The first part of this passage is structurally similar to the description of the New (i.e. romanticist) school in Bulgarin's article Literaturnye Prizraki. Compare Ermil Sergeevich in A Conversation: uto n 6e3npaBMJii>HHM PoMaHTH3M, njin cica3aTb nooTKpoBeHHee, sto SeccMbureHHoe cjiobo BbmyMaHO TeMM, KOTopbie He yMejin counHHTb Hnvero npaBMJibHaro And Arkhip Fadeevich in Prizraki (660): 3tm no6pbie moan cvnTaioT ce6n ocHOBaTejinMn Ho b o h niKOJibi, noTOMy eflMHCTBeHHO, h to b Hejienbix CBOMX TBopeHMHx ynoTpebjmeT HexcTaTn HexoTopbie HOBue cjiOBa n peveHnn, k c t s t m BBefleHHbin b h3m k OTjinvHbiMn nncaTeJTHMn. Both texts have an element of comical exaggeration and are not meant to be taken at face value. In both texts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 judgments are pronounced by an old-fashioned raisonneur type whose functions in the respective texts and even names are very similar: Ermil Sergeevich in Conversation and Arkhip Fadeevich in Prizraki. Both characters use the same rhetorical device: a pun-like etymologization of the epithets that describe the essence of the romantic school. In A Conversation: they are rule-less because they could not follow the rules; In Prizraki'. they are new only by virtue of using neologisms inappropriately. In both cases the epithets in question are italicized. The second part of Ermil Sergeevich's judgment on literary schools also finds a direct parallel in Bulgarin's writings. As already mentioned, Bulgarin's ambiguous literary position predisposed him to ambiguity in respect to literary ideologies. He criticized both classicism and romanticism and insisted on the arbitrariness of this division. And this is exactly what Ermil Sergeevich in Conversation seems to imply. Ermil Sergeevich first agrees that the classicist conventions are no longer appropriate, then criticizes romantic poems for their incoherence and superficial effects, and finally comes to the conclusion that this division Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 itself is unnecessary and should be rejected in favor of a properly aesthetic approach: Bee MbI, KTO XOTb HeMHOyKKO nOyUMJTCH, HMTblBaJIM nOOMbl 14 MpeBHMX 14 HOBblH, fla KOMy npMXOflMJIO B yM pa3fleJTHTb MX Ha KjiaCCMUeCKMH 14 POMaHTMUeCKMH? 3Haioiu;M:e tojtk BOCxnmajiMCb xopomwM m nopMuaJiM flypHoe.(34) A similar formula in found in Bulgarin's 1824 "Note to Olin's Kriticheskii Vzgliad Na Bakhchisaraiskii Fontan": H nojiaraio He m3jimiuhmm npw ceM cjiyuae M3.no:>KMTbMOM oSpa3 Mbicjrew HacueT poMaHTMuecrcoM nos3MM, o KOTopoM MHorwe cnop3T, acejian OHyio onpoBeprHyTb. Bo-nepBbix, CKa*:y CMejio, vtoh He npw3Haio HHKaKoro pofla n033MM, HM KJiaCCMHeCKOM, HM pOMaHTMHeCKOM, 14 cjieayio SyKBajibHO CMbicjiy MSBecTHoro CTHxa: Tous les genres sont bons, hors les genres ennuyeux. (Primechanie 203) [I will take this occasion to explain my position in relation to Romantic poetry, about which many quarrel today, trying to disprove it. In the first place, I do not recognize any division of poetry into either Classical or Romantic, and I literally follow the idea concealed in this famous poem: Tous les genres sont bons, hors les genres ennuyeux.] 10. Taste and Political Ideologies: Denunciations Political ideologies are of course even less individual than literary ones. The presence of certain traces of a definite political ideology in itself would not constitute an argument for any attribution. However, it is the specific manner of putting political views into the text, a particular rhetorical strategy of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233 applying ideology to the realm of literary judgment that is common to A Conversation and to many texts authored by Bulgarin, that makes a substantial though a circumstantial argument in favor of the proposed attribution. The fact is that A Conversation contains obvious elements of political denunciation. To be sure, the image of Bulgarin as political informer has been greatly exaggerated by Russian progressivist critics and then by Soviet scholarship. But the fact remains that Bulgarin did collaborate with the secret service, and political denunciations constitute a considerable part of his oeuvre. It is also clear that political denunciations were more permissible from the point of view of the ethics of the time and Bulgarin might well have considered this activity to be noble and politically useful. Still, his reputation was at least partially well deserved and he was much more prone to mixing political and literary accusations than most journalists of the time. That is why the obvious traces of political denunciation in A Conversation might add some weight to the proposed hypothesis. All political remarks in Conversation, both attacks aimed at Pushkin's subversive deviations and commendations for instances of patriotism and monarchism, are traceable to Bulgarin's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. political ideology. According to A.I. Reitblat: 234 [Bulgarin] r ip o B O f lM ji u e n b H y j o m n o c n e f l O B a T e j i b H y i o CHCTeMy B3rjlHflOB, KOTOpyiO M02CH0 Onpe^eJTMTb KaK npOCBeTHTejlbCKHM MOHapXM3M, B flyxe $paHUy3CKHX SHUMKJioneflMCTOB. ByjirapwH cuMTaji. . . abconiOTMCTKyio MOHapxwio ejHHCTBeHHOM npneMjieMOM . i j j i h Poccmm $opmom npaBneHMH. . . 3a,n;aua JiMTepaTypbi, no ero MHeHMio, - npocnaBJiHTb Myapbix npaBMTejieM, BoeHHbie ycnexM m T.n., McnpaBJiHTb HpaBbi m noMoraTb ynpaBJiHTb HacejieHMeM. (Reitblat 20) The monarchist views of the author of A Conversation are expressed in a number of critical remarks. The first denunciatory remark appears in the discussion of the main character of Boris Godunov. Ermil Sergeevich analyzes the comparative weight of the two main personages, the Tsar and the Impostor, and concludes that in fact it is the Impostor rather than the Tsar who is placed at the center of the play. The teacher lists all the actions of the Impostor and points out that not only is the Impostor the main figure but also he is treated too favorably. Thus, the author of A Conversation implies that Pushkin sympathizes with the Impostor at the expense of the Tsar and nobility. Yu. ... ecjiM 6bi TMnorpa^CKiM-TO HaSopm,MK o iu m 6 c h , m Ha MecTo EopMca TortyHOBa HaneuaTaji PpMiiiKa OTpenbeB? Torna 6 b i u t o bh m 3 b o j im j t m cKasaTb? I l o M . B 3 f l o p K a K O M ! H e n p o n y c T M j i 6bi K o p p e K T o p . Yu. J 4 TaK, noBTopMM, k t o bojiee obpamaeT Ha ce6n BHMMaHie UMTaTenn, Bopwc m j t m TpMiiiKa? K t o 3acjiy*;MBaeT Sonee Ha3BaHie repon nooMbi? (108) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 At the end of the pamphlet, Ermil Sergeevich lists the "harsh thoughts" of Boris Godunov: "Tenept ocTajiocb TOJlbKO nOK33aTb HeKOTOpHfl pe3Ki« MbICJIM, BCTpevaeMblH B npoflOJiaceHiw IIO BecTM ." Among th e s e " h a rs h th o u g h ts " is the already quoted dialogue between Boris and Basmanov. Both the teacher and the landowner are indignant at Pushkin's irreverent treatment of the royal personage, namely, at the presumably inappropriate portrayal of political cynicism in the dialogue. Again, the criticism seems to be made so as to provide readers of Godunov with the appropriate reaction to the passage. The landowner is even afraid that the dangerous quotation may be overheard. The teacher replies that he quotes from the printed (and therefore censored) text and the landowner expresses perplexity that such text was permitted for publication. JlMIUb CTporOCTbK) MbI M03KeM HeycbinHOM Cflep5KaTb Hapofl. . . HeT, mmjtoctm He vyBCTByeT Hapofl: TBopw , n ; o6po He cKaaceTb oh cnacwSo; Tpabb m K33HM Tebe He Sy^eT xyace. noM. nojTHO, SpaTeu, nojiHO! Hto6 He noacjiyuiajiH. Yu. fla Beflb 3to roBopwT Bopwc b neuaTHOM. noM. TaK M03KH0 npMMOJIBMTb : M MHJIOCTMBO M npeMyjipo! HeT, He Bepio, hto6h Bopwc, KaKOB hm 6bm OH, CTaJI TOBOpMTb T3KMM MaKiaBejlb CKMM H3BIKOM. ( 115 ) Both the teacher and the landowner disapprove of Basmanov's maxim: "Bcerfla Hapop; k CMHTeHbio TaMHO Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 CKJioHeH." The landowner again expresses the criticism in a naive manner and, as in the previous case, the critical remark is followed by an exaggerated expression of loyalty: noM. BoTb B3,i(op KaKOM! Bcerfla ckjiohoh. nycroe, c 3TMM h coBepmeHHO He cornaceH; KaK-bwiub th flaBwue CKa3aji: ma, nego, BecbMa nego. P I PyccKOMy jto BonpwHy TaK OT3bmaTbCH o npaBOCJiaBHOM PyccKOM Hapofle?(115) And finally the teacher points to the stylistic irreverence for the royal heir in the scene Lobnoe Mesto: YuMTejib. V I b o t b eme m 3bojtbTe B3rjiHHyTb Ha CTpaHMuy 139-jo! KaKOBO MyacwKB k p m u m t b Hapony c b KaKoro-TO AMBOHa: CTynaw! Bn3aTb BopwcoBa meHKa! To ecTb, Oeoflopa, EopwcoBa cbiHa, KOTopoMy npwcnrHyjiM b b BepHOCTw! BopwcoBa iyeHKa! (115) The positive remarks in Conversation are also those of an ideal loyal subject. The teacher and the landowner praise Kurbskii's patriotic address to his motherland in the scene "On the Lithuanian Border" and the prayer for the Tsar in the scene "Moscow. Shuiskii's house": yuMTejib: IIpeKpacHa m mojimtbs, npoM3HocMMan MajibHMKOM 3a hapn, no npMKa3aHiio IlIywcKaro. % BbinMcan ee: Uapio Hebec, Be3fle m npwcHOcymiw, Cbomx paboB MOJieHiio BHeMJiw: IIOMOJTOMCfl o HameM Tocyflape, Ob M3bpaHHOM Tobow bnarouecTMBOM, Bcex XpwcTiaH Ifape caMonepacaBHOM. XpaHM Ero b najiaTax, b none paTHOM. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M Ha nyTflx, m Ha Oflpe Houjiera. rioflaw EMy nobejjy Ha Bparw, fla cjiaBMTCH Oh ot Mopn jjo Mopn. fla 3flpaBieM u,BeTeT Ero ceMba, fla oceHHTb Eh jjpariH BeTBM Becb Mip 3eMHOM a k HaM, cbomm paSaM, fla Sy^eT Oh KaK npeayje bjiarojiaTeH, M MMJIOCTMB M flOJiroTepnejiMB, fla MyapocTM Ero HencTomnMOH npOM3TeKyT HCTOHHHKM Ha HaC,* H, L[apcKyio Ha to B03flBnrHyB vaniy, Mbi mojimmch Te6e, Ifapio HeSec. noM. OTy MOJiMTBy, EpMMjr Ceprewnb, npoHMTaji h Heckojibko pa3, noflpaayMeBan HbiHeuiHee BpeMH. Yhmt . P I npeKpacHO m3bojimjim npwjiyMaTb . . . (112) The common political consciousness expressed in these passages and in this mode of criticism does not necessarily indicate Bulgarin's authorship. Although many literary figures held rather conformist political opinions, they (including Bulgarin himself) rarely engaged in open political criticism of the kind presented in A Conversation, for fear of being considered denunciators. But in the case of A Conversation, anonymity has shields the real author from the negative sanctions of the public literary opinion, still allowing him to settle a political score with Pushkin. As we saw, A Conversation often serves as a practical realization of the opinions expressed by Bulgarin elsewhere. This is repeated also in the following case. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238 In his Censorial Notes, Bulgarin suggests that the c o n v e r s a t i o n b e t w e e n B o r i s a n d B a s m a n o v c o n t a i n s s o m e p o l i t i c a l l y r i s k y p o i n t s t h a t s h o u l d h a v e b e e n c o m m e n t e d u p o n o r o b j e c t e d t o i n o r d e r t o s a f e g u a r d a n u n p r e p a r e d r e a d e r f r o m d a n g e r o u s c o n f u s i o n . I n A Conversation, b o t h E r m i l S e r g e e v i c h a n d h i s l i s t e n e r a r e i n d e e d p e r p l e x e d a n d s h o c k e d b y t h i s d i a l o g u e . B o r i s ' ' a n d B a s m a n o v ' s c r u e l t y a n d c y n i c i s m w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e p e o p l e s e e m t o t h e c h a r a c t e r s o f A Conversation i m p o s s i b l e i n t h e m o u t h o f a R u s s i a n b o y a r d a n d T s a r . C o m p a r e i n A Conversation Y u . A E o p n c - T o ? . . ( H M T a e T H a n3y c T b ) . JlMUIb C T p o r O C T b K ) MbI MO?KeM H e V C b O lH O M C f le p r c a T b H a p o f l . . . . . . H e T , m h j i o c t m H e u y B C T B y e T H a p o f l : T b o p m f l o b p o — H e c x a x e T o h c n a c n S o ; T p a6 b m K a 3 H M — T e6e H e S y f l e T x y m e . I Io m . I I o j i h o , 6p a T e u , , n o j i H O ! H t o 6 H e n o f l C J iy m a ji M . Y u . f l a B e f lb 3 t o r o B o p M T B o p n c b n e u a T H O M . I I o m . T a x MO?KHO n p M M O J IB M T b : M M M JIO C TM B O M n p e M y n p o ! H e T , H e s e p t o , H T o6bi B o p n c , K a x o B hm 6bIJI O H , C T a J I r O B O p M T b T a K M M M a x i a B e j i b C K M M H 3 b IK O M . (115) A n d i n B u l g a r i n ' s Censorial Notes: JlMIIIb C T p o r O C T b l Q MbI M O ^ e M H e V C b in H O H C f le p jK a T b H a p o f l . . . . . . H e T , m h j i o c t m H e u y B C T B y e T H a p o f l : T b o p m ,n;o6p o — H e cxaxeTb o h c n a c n B o ; T p a6 b m x a 3 H M — T e6e H e B y f l e T x y ? s e . Cmr T M p a f l a n p o M 3 B e f l e T H e n p M H T H o e B n e u a T j i e H M e . Y Hac enje He n p M B b iK J iM , U T o6bi xaTK^biM r e p o r t p o M a H a rO B O p M J I CB O M M H 3bIKO M 6 e 3 BQ3pa}KeHMH B C J ie fl 3a e r o Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 VMCTBOBaHMeM. IIpeflOCTaB JIHTb Ka^KflOMy MMTaTeJTIO B03paxaTb caMOMy — em,e y Hac He npnHHTO, fla m nySjiMKa Hama fljir cero He co3peji(92) There is the literal coincidence: "He Bepio, vrodbi Bopwc, KaKOB HM SblJl OH, CTaJI TOBOpMTb T3KMM Maxi aBejTb CKMM «3bikom" (A Conversation) and "y Hac eme He npMBbiKJiM, HToSbi Ka^cqbiM repoM poMaHa roBopMji cbomm h3h k o m (Notes) Both phrases are addressed at the same passage from Boris' speech, and, what makes it especially important for the purpose of attribution, in both texts Boris' tirade is quoted not from the beginning line of the monologue, but from the third line "JlMiiib CTporocTbio mm MoaceM HeycbiriHOM." In all likelihood, Bulgarin thought that the first two lines of the monologue did not add much to the point he was making and therefore they could be omitted in citation. This omission in both texts could hardly be merely coincidental: in both cases the citation refers to the same argument, and moreover, the argument itself is formulated in similar terms. Conclusion: Historical and Biographical Context As we have seen, textological data and evidence of taste structure, rhetorical strategies and evaluative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 models, traces of literary and political ideologies provide rather convincing arguments in favor of Bulgarin's authorship. However, the historical and biographical contexts present certain difficulties for the proposed attribution. First of all, A Conversation was published in Moscow, and not in Petersburg, as was true of almost all of Bulgarin's work. Bulgarin lived and worked in Petersburg, where he had a well-established network of literary and personal relations. His Moscow connections were much weaker and he never published in Moscow magazines and rarely traveled there. The publication of any text was a rather complicated process and an author wanting to publish had to go through various bureaucratic procedures (censorship first among them), which was difficult to accomplish without being physically present and without connections. If Bulgarin indeed published the text in Moscow, there must have been some extraordinary circumstances that forced him to do it there, rather than in Petersburg. Another logical objection to the proposed attribution has to do with the anonymity itself. According to the norms of contemporary literary polemic it did not make much sense to conceal the authorship of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 a literary attack. To be sure, pseudonyms were abundant, but the real author was usually easy to guess. Therefore, if the author was Bulgarin, he should have had very specific reasons for both concealing authorship and choosing an unusual place of publication. As the following analysis suggests, in the spring of 1831 Bulgarin's political and personal situation indeed predisposed him to unusual maneuvers and an abrupt change in literary behavior. A Conversation is accompanied by two pieces of bibliographical data. At the end of the pamphlet, there is an indication of the place it was supposed to have been composed ("sent from Astrakhan'"), and the date when the author supposedly finished writing: 15 April. As for the reference to Astrakhan, it is, in all likelihood, misleading, and part of a deliberate literary mystification undertaken by the anonymous author. It is highly unlikely that there existed anybody in faraway Astrakhan, at the time, who would be so passionately involved in these abstruse metropolitan literary squabbles. However, the date indicated by the anonymous author is very likely a valid one. In fact, it would not make sense to invent a fictional date, since it would not add Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 anything to the stylistic aura or to the meaning of the text. A Conversation passed the censorial committee in the middle of May, which also makes the date April, 15 a very plausible one. Since the object of A Conversation, Pushkin's Boris Godunov, appeared in the press at the very end of 1830, it may be safely assumed that whoever the anonymous author of A Conversation was, he was actually working on the text in the winter-spring of 1831, presumably in the first weeks of April, 1831. An analysis of Bulgarin's biographical circumstances in the Spring of 1831 shows that it is precisely during this period that he was most likely to write such an anti-Pushkin pamphlet anonymously, not giving any clues about his identity. In 1830, Bulgarin's relations with the writers grouped around Pushkin and Zhukovsky took a turn for the worse. Zhukovsky, usually less involved in literary wars, twice used his proximity to the royal family: first in a letter and then in personal conversation - to complain to the Tsar about Bulgarin's attacks. Before that, in January, 1830 Nicholas had ordered the arrest of Bulgarin for his unwillingness to discontinue the publication of his articles against Zagoskin's novel, Iuri Miloslavsky. Finally, the Tsar, at least initially, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 sided with Pushkin in the developing conflict between him and Bulgarin. Having read Bulgarin's negative review of Evgenii Onegin, Nicholas wrote to Benkendorf: B ceroflHnuiHeM HOMepe "Iluejibi" HaxoflMTcn onaTb HecnpaBefljiMBeMmaa n nojuiewmaH CTaTbn, HanpaBJieHHan npoTHB riyiiiKMHa; k otoh CTaTbe HaBepHoe 6yn;eT npoflOJiHceHMe nooTOMy npeflnaraio BaM npn3BaTb BynrapnHa m sanpeTMTb eMy oTHbiHe nevaTaTb Karae 6bi to h m Shjio k p m m k Ha jiMTepaTypHbie npoM3Be,n;eHMH m, ecjm bo3moxho, 3anpeTMTe ero acypHan (qutd. in Reitblat 27-28) [In today's issue of Severnaia Pchela there is again a most unfair and mean-spirited article against Pushkin. These attacks are likely to be continued. That is why I suggest that you summon Bulgarin and prohibit him from publishing any more critical articles, and, if possible, that you suppress his magazine.] Though the Tsar did not suppress the publication of Pchela, his general attitude towards Bulgarin remained very negative during the whole year. Nicholas was especially indignant about the nasty tone of the literary debates. In that same year, 1830, Bulgarin, Grech and their opponent Voeikov were all on the Tsar's direct order imprisoned for excessively harsh polemics (Reitblat 29). Thus, Nicholas became very irritated at literary squabbles, which is understandable because at that time he had much more important problems to deal with; 1830 and 1831 were peak years of the Polish uprising. This was another circumstance that forced Bulgarin to keep an especially low profile. Being a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 Pole, Bulgarin was under a lingering suspicion about his possible sympathy for the Polish insurgency movement. Bulgarin indeed patronized and helped young Poles in Petersburg, promoted Polish culture, and even interceded for some of his compatriots. It is obvious that during the uprising, Bulgarin was not in the least interested in attracting any kind of public attention, especially in relation to his literary wars with Russian writers at a time when a real Russian - Polish war was getting into full sway. On the other hand, Bulgarin's conflict with Pushkin also entered a critical stage. In 1830, Pushkin published his review of Vidocque' s Memoirs - a devastating pamphlet aimed at Bulgarin's as a political informer. At the beginning of 1831, one of Pushkin's most biting anti-Bulgarin epigrams, "Avdei Fiugliarin", appeared in Dennitsa. Bulgarin, who rarely left attacks unanswered, felt, of course, that he owed Pushkin a response; however, taking into account the Tsar's reaction to his previous anti-Pushkin article and the political situation in general, Bulgarin must have figured out that an open counterattack would be too risky and untimely. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 In March of 1831 (Reitblat 425), Bulgarin left Petersburg for his estate, Karlovo. The reasons for his departure are not clear: either he himself prudently- decided that to stay in Petersburg at such a dangerous time would be unwise, or it was the Tsar who forced him to leave. The latter suggestion finds some support in a rumor, communicated by Pushkin to Viazemsky on June 1, 1831: O t n o jiM T M K M n e p e x o : * : y k j i M T e p a T y p e , T . e . k E y r r r a p w H y . 3 H a e m b jt m , 3 a h t o e r o B b i r H a j i n M 3 I l e T e p b y p r a ? r o B o p n T , b y f l T O 6 bi n p n n o H B jie H M M s n n r p a M M b i " O w r J iH p w H , b o t n o J iH K n p n M e p H b i w " o h T a w o r o p u M J T C H , h t o npHMO ajipecoBajicH k r o c y a a p i o co c j i e 3 H O M a c a m o b o M H a M e H H , c f l e j i a M T e - f l e , B a m e B e j i M u e c T B o T a K y i o c j i e s H y i o M M j i o c T b , y m m m t e Il y m K M H a , K O T o p b iw B e e M e H H o b r c i c a e T . r o c y g a p i o 6 b m o H e a o C T n m K O B; BymrapwH 3Ke He b n e p B b iw pa3 aoca^Knaji e M y cbohmm acamobaMM m f l O H O c a M H . o h m Bejien ero B b i c n a T b , K a w u e j i o B e K a S e c n o K O M H o r o . (XIV: 169) [From politics I move on to literature, i.e. to Bulgarin. Do you know why they drove him out of Petersburg? They say that after the epigram "Figliarin, here is an exemplary pole" appeared, he grew so depressed that he went straight to His Majesty in tears asking him to quiet Pushkin, who keeps offending him. His Majesty, at the time, did not care much for petty poems. As for Bulgarin, it was not the first time he annoyed His Majesty - and he exiled him as a bothersome individual] If this rumor is at least partially true, then it is understandable why Bulgarin, in the circumstances, would not have resorted to an open attack. On the other hand, the publication of Boris Godunov must have tempted him to unleash an attack against Pushkin's new writings. Bulgarin considered himself an authority on the history Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 of Russian - Polish relations, especially on the Time of Troubles. He authored a treatise on Marina Mnishek in 1824 and the historical novel, Dmitrii Samozvanets, in 1829. He was also accused (and not without some basis) of plagiarizing Boris Godunov, which must have made the subject especially provocative, since he must have aspired to prove that his treatment of the topic was superior to Pushkin's. Finally, Bulgarin had already written some criticism on Boris Godunov before, when he was preparing a censorial report (Notes) on the earlier version of Pushkin's play. He, had, therefore, some critical ideas and observations still unknown to the public and might have been willing to use this material. The accusations of plagiarism, coupled with the extremely untimely subject matter of the play, would have made his signed criticism of Boris Godunov even more scandalous. In addition to all these inconveniences, the play had been officially approved by none other than Tsar Nicholas himself, the person with whom Bulgarin was least interested in entering into a literary polemic. Thus, the internal logic of literary war, his ambition, aggravated by unanswered attacks, and a special attitude toward the subject and literary quality Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 of the play which he considered as competing with his own work on the same subject, all these factors in their totality, might have impelled Bulgarin to publish a critical review. On the other hand, the Tsar's distaste for writers' quarrels in general and Bulgarin's behavior in particular, the extremely inconvenient political situation, and, again, suspicions of plagiarism concerning the very play he was going to criticize, made it impossible for Bulgarin to publish such an article, at least in the form and in the tone he would have preferred. If the hypothesis proposed above is correct, Bulgarin solved this problem by writing and publishing the text in such a manner that it was very difficult even for experienced literary players to recognize him as the author. This would be impossible to accomplish by publishing the text in Petersburg: first, because after the publication he would have immediately fallen under suspicion as Pushkin's main enemy in Petersburg; second, because in Petersburg it would be impossible to maintain the anonymity and secrecy during the process of publication and censorial review. On the contrary, the publication of the text in Moscow, where Bulgarin never published, would almost certainly secure him from all Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 possible suspicion. And for Bulgarin, who lived at the time in Karlovo near Derpt, sending the text to Moscow was as convenient as sending it to Petersburg. How exactly he might have done this and which of Bulgarin's contacts in Moscow were involved remains unclear and further research on the facts of this matter has to be conducted. However, the general outline of the events seems to be well established: Bulgarin, insulted by Pushkin's latest attacks and yet forced to restrain himself by the political situation and because of the Tsar's discontent, resorted to anonymity and mystification. There is one fragment in A Conversation that might be read as Bulgarin's quasi-signature, a metadescriptive observation or hint, which only Bulgarin himself could understand. Ermil Sergeevich begins the list of dangerous thoughts ( pe3KMe m m c j i m) with the following note (114): Tenepb ocTajrocb tojibko noKasaTb HeKOTopbie pe3Kne MbicjiM, BCTpeuaeMbie b IloBecTM; HanpMMep, naTep HepHMKOBCKin roBopwT cnpaBefljiMBO: npnTBopcTBOBaTb npe,n; ornameHHbiM cbetom HaM wHorjta flyxoBHbM flOJir bojiht . 3 T y E 3 y n T C K y i o M o p a j i b j i y u i u e 6 b i H e B b m a B a T b b o r n a m e H H b i n c B e T . As a matter of fact, this criticism does not make sense in the context of the teacher's ideology. In Boris Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249 Godunov the Jesuit, Pater Chernikovskii pronounces the cynical maxim, and it is consistent with the official doctrine: Jesuits are supposed to be cynical. It would be different if the idea were expounded by an orthodox priest, a Russian nobleman or the Tsar, but that is not the case. Therefore, according to the strictest patriotic standards this criticism is groundless. The keyword here is cnpaBejjJTMBo. The teacher actually agrees with the maxim and it might be an indication that Bulgarin chose the maxim as the motto for the whole venture and applied it to his own motives for writing the pamphlet. In his own internal representation of the event, Bulgarin pretended to be somebody else because that was what his spiritual duty ordered him to do. Though this concealed message was accessible only to Bulgarin himself, it might have compensated him for the loss of the most enjoyable component of a successful literary attack: the knowledge that the enemy knows who hit him. As in the case of a terrorist attack for which nobody has claimed responsibility, the aim of A Conversation was to maximize harm, and, as can be seen from the contemporary polemics, A Conversation indeed affected the reception of Boris Godunov by setting the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 tone of critical discourse. As for Pushkin himself, it is not clear whether he read the pamphlet. Most likely he did not. On June 17, 1831, Viazemsky wrote to Pushkin: "iMTaji Jim th o Eopwce roayHOBe, pa3roBop, HaneuaTaHHbiw b MocKBe? npouTM, mo3 paflocTb.]." (XIV: 177). [Have you read About Boris Godunov, A Conversation, printed in Moscow? Read it, my dear.] Pushkin's answer: "Pa3roBopoB o Bopwce He cjibixaji m He BMflaji. H b uy5KMe pa3roBopbi He BMemMBaiocb." (July 3, 1831; XIV: 187) [I have not heard and have not seen conversations about Boris. I don't inject myself into other people 1s conversations.] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 CONCLUSION In conclusion, I will limit myself to summing up the results of my study. On the level of textology the findings include: 1) Establishing a new date for Pushkin's Marginalia to Batiushkov's Opyty. (Chapter 1) 2) The attribution to Faddei Bulgarin of the anonymous anti-Pushkin pamphlet "Conversation about Boris Godunov," that was the first ever piece of criticism on Pushkin published as a separate edition. (Chapter 5) On the level of interpretation the major results include: 1) The elucidation of the role played by Pushkin's Marginalia in a number of intertextual interactions, including arguments in favor of the hypothesis that Batiushkov's poetry was one of the main sources for Lenskii's parodic poetry in Evgenii Onegin. (Chapter 2) 2) A reinterpretation of Mandel'shtam's poem "Est' tsennostei nezyblemaia skala" as a polemic with Pushkin's Marginalia (Chapter 2) On the level of methodology the most important results of the study consist in: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 1) Developing tools for the analysis of individual literary taste, relevant for the traditional problems of literary scholarship; examples of analysis of a system of classificatory schemes and a system of evaluative rhetorical models. (Chapter 4) 2) Introducing the concept of intertaste. (Chapter 2) Finally, on the theoretical level, the present study proposes for future discussion the question of individual literary taste and group tastes as objects of systematic reconstruction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 Abramov - - A6paMOB, M., "M3 3anMcen AflaMa Knpxopa (1837) . 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Ba3eMCKoro "BMorpac|)MHecKMe m JiMTepaTvpHbie 3anMCKM o fleHMce MBaHOBMve 0oHBM3MHe", M.-JT., Hayxa, 1968. - - -, Rodzianka - - Bayypo B.3., "nyniKMH m ApxayMM Pofl3HHKa" b Bayypo B.3., nvniKMHCKan nopa, AKayeMMuecKMM npoeKT: C-n6, 2000, 57-84. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 - - Gilel'son - B.3. Bayypo, M.M. TMJiejibcoH, HoBQHaMyeHHbiM aBTorpatj? nyniKMHa. 3aMeTKM Ha pvKonMCM khmpm TT.A. Bfl3eMCKoro "EMorpacjjMHecKMe m JTMTepa TVpHbie 3 ailMCKM O fleHMCe MBaHOBM^e $OHBM3MHe", M.-JT., HayKa, 1968. - - V Kritike - - nyniKMH b npM3KM3HeHHOM KptiTMKe. 1820-1827. riofl oSmen: peyaKyweM B.3. B ayypo, C.A. OoMMBeBa. C aH K T -n e T ep S yp r: rocyyapcTBeHHbiM nyuiKMHCKMM TeaTpajibHbiM yeH Tp, 1996. V e n g e ro v P u s h k in - - IlyniKMH A.C. ITonHoe CoSpaHMe CoHMHeHMfi nofl pey. C. BeHrepoBa, Cn6, 1910-12. Viazemsky Polnoe — Bn3eMCKMM n.A. IIojiHoe co6paHne cohmhshmm, Cn6, 1878. - - -, Zapisnye — BH3eMCKMM n.A. 3anMCHbie khmkkh (1813-1848). pey B.C. HenaeBa, M., 1963. V in o g ra d o v - BMHorpayoB B.B. Ctm jih nyniKMHa, M., 1961. V in o k u r — BMHOKyp, T.O. "K t o 6 mji yeH3opoM "Bopnca ToyyHOBa?" BpeMeHHMK nvniKMHCKon kommccmm . Bbin . 1. , M., JI., 1936, 109-119. Woodward, Ian, and Michael Emmison. "From Aesthetic Principles to Collective Sentiments: The Logics of Everyday Judgements of Taste." Poetics 29 (2001) : 295-16. Wul'f' -- Byjibcj? A.H., "flHeBHMK 1828-1831rr." nvmKMH m e ro coRpeMSHHMKM. 6 (Bbin 21-22), n e T p o rp a y , 1916. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267 Zelinskii — PvccKafl KpHTnvecKafl JinTepaTvpa o npoM3BefleHMflx A.C. nyniKMHa. XpoHonorHvecKMM cGopHMK KpnTnKo-6n6jTnorpa(|)MMecKMX cTaTen. Coct. B . 3ejiMHCKMM, MocKBa, 1887. Zhirmunskii — X m p m y h c k m m B.M. 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Gronas, Mikhail
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Core Title
Pushkin's taste and taste for Pushkin: Toward a reconstruction of taste mechanisms
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Doctor of Philosophy
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Slavic Languages and Literatures
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University of Southern California
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Biography,Literature, Slavic and East European,OAI-PMH Harvest
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Gronas, Mikhail
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