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By Olga Bobrova
"Pushkin house".... The metaphor belongs to contemporary writer Andrei Bitov to describe Russian literature - that is, everything created in the two centuries - from June 6th, 1799 when the great poet was born, up to this day. Russian literature was born together with Pushkin.
The history of civilization there are few people whose legacy has come to signify the entire epochs - Shakespeare, Napoleon, in Russia - Tzar Peter the Great. Pushkin is one of them, said the prominent Russian 20th century poetess Anna Akhmatova. "Beauties, maids of honour, hostesses of regular gatherings, top government officials and ministers - all came to be referred to as Pushkin's contemporaries, - wrote Akhmatova. - He won a victory over time and space. They say: Pushkin era, Pushkin Petersburg".
Pushkin era is an age of the enlightenment. In the 19th century Pushkin completed what Tzar Peter the Great had started in the 18th century. Peter the Great called on Russia to receive education and it responded one hundred years later by the appearance of Pushkin. The opinion belongs to Alexander Herzen, a 19th century writer. Pushkin became the "leader of the entire generation of people waking up to education and artistically studying the world",- believed the 20th century literary man and thinker Anatoly Lunacharsky. The surge of education awoke artistic consciousness in Russia. "The pre-Pushkin literature was secular entertainment, - described the historical situation the 20th century classic Maxim Gorky. Pushkin was the first to understand that literature is a national cause of primary importance. The poet managed to convey the soul of the nation and its life". And on top of that, to introduce Russian literature to the world.
"Pushkin by turns became the poet of different countries and ages", - thought the writer of the late 19th - early 20th century Valery Bryusov. The ancient world is recreated in his translations of ancient Greek and Roman poets and his Russian-language imitations of Oriental poems. The world of Islam is portrayed in his imitations of texts from the Koran and in the poems "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai" and "The Prisoner of the Caucasus". The European Middle Ages is vivid in his drama "The Covetous Knight". Almost all countries and peoples of new Europe are represented in the characters of his poems. Bryusov's list mentions Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany, Scotland, Portugal, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and America. Gogol wrote: "Pushkin is a Spaniard in Spain, a Greek in Greece and a free mountaineer in the Caucasus..."
Pushkin, nevertheless, created Russian literature, its national character. "The nature of Pushkin's poetry coincides with the nature of our people. Let alone his charming, powerful and lucid language, his outright frankness, simplicity and integrity - all these good traits of good Russian people are startling in Pushkin's works", wrote the prominent 19th century author Ivan Turgenev. And the 19th century Russian classic Fyodor Dostoyevsky singled out the genuinely Russian characters described by Pushkin. This is Aleko, the central character of the poem "Gypsies" - "a traditional Russian wanderer and sufferer", Tatyana - the main female character of "Evgeni Onegin" - "brings out the best there is in Russian woman, the positive beauty type"... Dostoyevsky was sure that if Pushkin had lived longer, "he would have given a more profound picture of the Russian soul, which is already clear to our European brothers. Had he lived longer, we would have less misunderstanding or disputes than we have now".
Though viewed as a symbol, an ideal and an unshakeable authority, Pushkin remains very much alive to his literary inheritors. "I love you but as a living man, not a mummy" - declared avant-garde poet Vladymir Mayakovsky in the early 20th century. "I'm shaking his hand, not licking it" - said a bit later the outstanding poetess Marina Tsvetayeva... Hence every Russian writer has his own Pushkin.
Nikholai Gogol described him as a Russian man in progress - the way he would become in 200 years.
By contrast, Valery Bryusov and Alexander Herzen were carried into the past by historical analogues: Pushkin is an Hellenic life lover. "His muse, - wrote Herzen, - is not a pale nervous creature but a passionate health-radiating woman".
Alexander Blok - a prominent symbolist poet of the late 19th-early 20th century - exclaimed: "a merry name: Pushkin. Light-heartedly was he carrying his burden - to get harmony out of chaos". Maxim Gorky "would prefer Pushkin, not Dostoyevsky, to be the uniting force in the cultural world since Pushkin is a talent both harmonious and healthy".
Osip Mandelstam - the biggest and most tragic name in the poetry of the 20th century - made an unexpected combination of Pushkin and Skryabin, the late 19th -early 20th century composer, musical reformer and mystic. "Pushkin and Skryabin, - wrote Mandelstam, - are two transformations of one sun, two transformations of one heart".
Among other "occupants" of the symbolic "Pushkin house" is Marina Tsvetayeva, a poetess with particularly acute feelings towards Pushkin. The name is tragic and so is her insight into "the sun of Russian poetry". When a child Marina Tsvetayeva saw a picture depicting Pushkin fatally wounded at the duel. Since then her knowledge about the poet combined the most dramatic aspects only. "Pushkin was my first poet, - wrote Marina Tsvetayeva, - and he was killed. Since then I divided the world into Pushkin and the rest and chose the poet, the one I would protect from the rest".
Fyodor Dostoyevsky said one hundred years ago: "Pushkin took with him a great secret which we are trying to uncover" .
By Olga Rusanova
There are 150 places in Moscow connected with Russia's great and most beloved poet Alexander Pushkin. Moscow is the city where he was born, grew up, married, spent his honeymoon and where he repeatedly came back during his life.
It looks like the most popular Pushkin sight in Moscow is Pushkin Square with the famous statue to the poet designed by Alexander Opekushin. This is where the festivities on the occasion of the poet's 200th birthday began on June 5th. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is proud to say that "Moscow has all the rights to host the celebrations being the poet's birthplace, to which he devoted his verses , so tender and beautiful that none of the later poets managed to live up to".
In Moscow too Pushkin met his future wife Natalya Goncharova. It was in December 1828, quite near Pushkin Square, in 22 Tverskoy Boulevard, a building which has not survived. It was here that four generations of the Moscow nobility learned to dance at balls given by famous dancing-master Yogel. And it was at one of those balls that Pushkin met the charming 16-year-old Natalya Goncharova.
At the end of Tverskoy Boulevard there is a beautiful church - the Church of the Assumption - where Alexander and Natalya got married in February 1831. A fountain unveiled near the church last weekend has a rotunda in the centre featuring the statues to Pushkin and his wife.
On June 4th several couples got married in the church. After the ceremony the newly-weds got into carriages like the ones used in the 19th century and went to the Pushkin Memorial Apartment in Arbat Street where the Pushkins had spent three months following their marriage.
The apartement is a place where Pushkin held a stag-party on the eve of his marriage. The poet invited his close friends: Vyazemsky, Baratynsky, Nashchokin, Yazykov and his brother Lev Sergeevich. "Pushkin was inexplicably sad, - recalled one of the guests, it was embarassing. He was reciting his poems saying good-bye to his younger days... But the next day, during the wedding, everybody admired the vivacious and jovial newly-weds with the young wife being amazingly beautiful"...
In the apartment the Pushkins give parties with the poet reciting chapters from his masterpiece, the novel in verse "Evgeni Onegin" and from the five short prose tales collected as "Tales by I.P.Belkin". Pushkin's visits breathed new life into Moscow's literary community. The first readings of his tragedy "Boris Godunov" in autumn 1826 was a significant event. They took place at Pushkin's friends': Sobolevsky, Baratynsky, Vyazemsky, the Venevitinovs. One of such gatherings at the Venevitinovs, right in the centre of the city near Lubyanka Square, was impressive enough bringing together about 40 writers, journalists and literature connoisseurs.
"Instead of a high-flown language we listened to a simple, clear, ordinary and at the same time poetic, fascinating speech!" - recalled writer Pogodin.
In 1826 as Pushkin entered the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre situated on Teatralnaya Square near the Kremlin to hear Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri" "all glasses were directed towards him, rather than the stage", recalled witnesses.
The nearby Maly Theatre was also visited by Pushkin who would yawn with boredom there at performances given by touring companies. Opposite the Bolshoi is a classical building designed by Kazakov which was known as Nobility Assembly Hall. Now it is the Great Hall of Columns. - It was none other than a nobility club. " Up to five thousand people gathered at the Nobility Assembly Hall twice a week. The venue was widely used for match-making", wrote Pushkin. The main female character of "Evgeni Onegin" - Tatyana Larina - met her future husband in the Nobility Assembly Hall. Pushkin could often be seen there too - at balls, performances and concerts.
In autumn 1832 Pushkin came to the Moscow University to attend a lecture on "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", one of the best pieces of medieval Russian literature. In a dispute which started there over the authenticity of the tale Pushkin relentlessly kept upholding his point of view saying that the literary monument was genuine. "That this is so, - said the poet, - is proved by the spirit of the time which cannot be faked".
Pushkin spent his time between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Old Moscow lost its status as a capital in the early 18th century during the reign of Peter the Great and returned it more than two centuries later, in 1918. Pushkin, though a born Muscovite, loved both cities and spent many years in the then capital Petersburg.
"Two capitals cannot be equally flourishing within one and the same state, like two hearts cannot exist in a human body, - wrote Pushkin. But Moscow, though no longer marked by aristocratic splendour, is flourishing in other respects: its government-encouraged industry is prospering. The merchant class is growing rich and is beginning to settle in chambers abandoned by the nobility. On the other hand, the city is a hub of education and science now that it has a University founded by Count Shuvalov on advice from Lomonosov. Learning, love for the arts and talents are, undoubtedly, the privilege of Moscow...."
Pushkin also said: "Moscow's streets are younger than Moscow's beauties" by which he meant that the reconstruction of the city after the fire of 1812. Moscow of today is getting younger too being renewed and rebuilt. Nevertheless, it is much the same as in Pushkin's lifetime, a "nice old lady" that remembers everything and, first of all, what is related to one of her greatest sons - Pushkin .
 
 
 

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