RUSSIAN VIEWS

OF PUSHKIN'S
EUGENE ONEGIN

TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

Sona Stephan Hoisington

VERSE PASSAGES TRANSLATED BY

Walter Arndt

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Bloomington & Indianapolis

Pushkin
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
(1880)
"Puskin is an extraordinary phenomenon and perhaps the most singular
marufestation of the Russian spirit," observed Gogol. 1 And I would add: he is
a prophetic phenomenon. Indeed, in his coming there is unquestionably some
thing prophetic for all us Russians. Pushkin appears exactly at the dawning of
our true consciousness, for it was a whole century after the reforms of Peter the
Great before that consciousness awakened within us. Pushkin's coming, like a
guiding light, greatly helped to illuminate the dark road in front of us. And in
this sense Pushkin is prophetic, pointing toward the future.
I divide the works of our great poet into three periods. I do this, speaking
not as a literary critic but in order to explain my idea about Pushkin's prophetic
_ with science, delivered lectures; and it is still like that today. These people draw
s1gnficance for us Russians and what I mean by the word "prophecy." In
passmg, however, I would note that Pushkin's works do not fall neatly into
periods. For example, the beginning of Eugene Onegin in my opinion belongs
to the poet's first period, but that work was completed in the second period.
By that time Pushkin had found the ideals he longed for in his native land, had
taken them to heart, and had come to love them with all his being. It is often
said hat in his first period Pushkin imitated European poets like Parny,
heruer, and, above all, Byron. Undoubtedly, European poets did greatly
mfluence the development of Pushkin's genius and continued to do so
throughout his life. Nevertheless, even Pushkin's first poems were more than
mere imitations; already the extraordinary originality of his genius shone
brightly in them. Poems that are imitations would never give expression to the
intense suffering and profound self-awareness found, for example, in The
Gypsies, a work which in my opinion falls wholly within the first period of
Pushkin's literary development. If this work were merely an imitation, it
would not be suffused with such dramatic power, such impetuosity.
A powerful, profound, purely Russian idea clearly manifests itself in
Aleko, the hero of The Gypsies. The idea finds even fuller expression in Eugene
Onegin, in which Aleko appears again, no longer wearing a fantastic guise but
assuming a completely comprehensible form. In Aleko Pushkin's genius
grasped and masterfully delineated a specifically Russian type: the unhappy
wanderer, uprooted, cut off from his own people, a stranger in his native land.
Pushkin did not simply borrow this type from Byron. This is a real Russian
Pushkin 57
type, and Pushkin's genius grasped it. The type has been with us a long time. It
settled among us, on Russian soil, and even now homeless Russian wanderers
of this sort continue their peregrinations, and they are not likely to vanish for a
long time. Today they no longer go off to gypsy camps, hoping to find their
ideals realized in the primitive gypsy way of life and seeking a refuge from the
hurly-burly of civilization in the bosom of nature. Now they get caught up in
socialism, which did not exist in Aleko's day, and go out armed with a new
faith into a different vineyard, where they work zealously, believing, just like
Aleko, that through such a fantastic enterprise they will attain their goal of
bringing about happiness not only for themselves but for all mankind. This is
essential: the Russian wanderer must attain happiness for all mankind in order
to find peace. He will not settle for less. Of course, at the present all this
remains in the realm of theory. But this is the very same Russian type; it is just
that the times have changed. The type, I repeat, was born exactly a century
after the reforms of Peter the Great, reforms which uprooted and cut off the
educated part of our society from the people, from their strength.
In Pushkin's time the vast majority of educated Russians were content to
serve as civil servants and work in the treasury or for the railroads or in banks.
Or they simply found various ways to make money or occupied themselves
their salaries, play cards, and have absolutely no desire to run off to gypsy
camps or anywhere else more in keeping with the times. Many of them play
the liberal "with a touch of European socialism," a stance which has acquired a
certain benign Russian character, but it is simply a matter of time. What
difference does it make that some have yet to become restless, while others
have already succeeded in reaching the locked door and have beat their heads
against it? They can all expect to end the same way, unless they find the road to
salvation and humbly commune with the people. Maybe this will not happen
to all of them. Maybe it will only be the fate of the "chosen." But even if it is
the fate of only one-tenth of those who become infected witl;i socialism, it will
be enough to prevent all the rest from finding peace.
Of course, Aleko does not know how to express his anguish except in a
rather abstract way: he longs for nature, he complains about society, he has
universal aspirations, he laments the truth, which has somehow vanished,
which, try as he may, he cannot find. In all of this there is a touch of Rousseau.
Just what this truth is, where and in what form it will appear, and when exactly
it vanished, he of course cannot say; but he suffers deeply. This fantastic and
impatient man thirsts for salvation and believes that he will find it in external
phenomena, and that is the way it must be. 'The truth,' he says, 'lies outside
me, perhaps abroad, for example, in Europe, where political systems are
firmly entrenched and society has long, established traditions.' He will never
understand that truth is found within. And how can he? In his own country he