|
Russian Studies Fall 2013
Spragins “The Queen of Spades”
(1834)
Pushkin’s impact on Russian
literature during the nineteenth century is equivalent to the influence on English
literature of Shakespeare and Chaucer combined. He created the prose language
in which the great masterpieces of 19th century Russian fiction were
written, but he also excelled in every European literary genre: verse epics
in imitation of Byron, Shakespearean tragedy, historical novels ala Walter
Scott, and even analytical works of history. Pushkin imbued Western literary
forms with the Russian soul. He taught the intelligentsia how to speak out when all traditional
forms of political discourse had been muzzled by censorship. Pushkin invented
the ‘fantastic- realist’ style that inspired the writers we will be reading
in this course. His personal life even reads
like an epic poem. His father, who came from an old, impoverished noble
family, had taken an independent and rebellious attitude toward the
autocracy, and Peter the Great had him hanged. His mother was the descendant
of Abraham Gannibal, a black Abyssinian prince brought as a hostage to the
court of Peter the Great, who had been raised by the emperor and served in
the Russian army. Pushkin’s childhood had
both French and Russian influences: French tutors introduced him to the ideas
of the Enlightenment, but his Russian nurse and grandmother filled his
youthful imagination with folktales of the supernatural. Later, he was
educated at an exclusive school. His youthful imagination was fed by stories
of intrigue in the Russian aristocracy and by literary competitions with his
ambitious classmates. He read voraciously and wrote constantly. Pushkin’s
first poem was published in 1814, while he was still a student, and he had
become known in literary circles by his 18th birthday. Pushkin’s politics were
influenced by his encounters with the army officers returning from the
Napoleonic Wars who sought to force the tsar to accept a liberal
constitution. After his graduation from the university, Pushkin worked in St.
Petersburg as a clerk, pursuing a debauched life full of parties, love
affairs, duels, poetry and politics. His political epigrams drew the
displeased attention of Alexander I’s censors. Pushkin was exiled to the
South from 1820-24 and traveled in the Crimea where he associated with other
political radicals. He studied the English poet Byron and imitated him in
satirical narrative poems like Eugene
Onegin whose hero became the model for many subsequent Russian writers.
While working in a government post in the Southern port city of Odessa, he
befriended the woman who would later marry one of the leaders of the 1825
Decembrist Rebellion. In 1824 Pushkin was
expelled from After the Decembrist
Rebellion had been crushed, the new tsar Nicholas I recalled Pushkin to
Moscow. There Nicholas pardoned the poet and promised to protect him by
serving as his personal censor. During this period of his life, Pushkin
imitated the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz and wrote some of his most famous
poems including The Bronze Horseman.
Pushkin had become disillusioned with the West after the failed Polish
Rebellion of 1830-31. While at court, Pushkin
fell in love with Nathalie Goncharov, a great beauty, but initially she
refused his proposals. Pushkin left St. Petersburg and traveled to the
Caucasus where he wrote about the Russo-Turkish War. In 1830 Nathalie finally
accepted his proposal and they married. The couple spent the autumn in
Boldino, an estate in the country, where Pushkin wrote many of his greatest
works including The Tales of Belkin.
The couple married in 1831
and returned to St. Petersburg where Nathalie achieved immediate social
success. She drew the attention of Tsar Nicholas who awarded Pushkin a title,
thus enabling his beautiful wife to attend court balls. Pushkin became
financially indebted to the Tsar and was regarded in society as a sycophant.
During these court years, Pushkin studied the Pugachev rebellion of the
1770’s and wrote an historical account of the period as well as a historical
novel, The Captain’s Daughter. In
1834 he wrote his short masterpiece, “The Queen of Spades”. In 1836 George d’Anthes, a
French nobleman in the service of the Tsar began openly courting Nathalie.
Pushkin received an anonymous letter announcing his appointment as “the Great
Master Naryshkin of the Order of the Cuckolds.” Pushkin challenged d’Anthes
to a duel, and on January 27, 1837, he was mortally wounded. Pushkin died on
January 29th, and the Tsar, fearing public demonstrations, had his
body buried with no special ceremonies. When the news of Pushkin’s
death spread, all Study Questions for “The Queen of Spades” 1. Carefully
analyze how Pushkin depicts his characters. Remember that this is not only a
psychological study but also a political allegory. From which social class
does each character come? 2. As you read the
story, observe how Pushkin has taken a Western story based on the Cinderella
fairytale and refracted it through a Russian imagination. What happens when
he casts Russian types as the story’s leads? 3. Is there a way
out of What is Faro?
"Faro." Encyclopædia
Britannica. 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 16
Sep, 2003 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article?eu=34370>. One of the oldest gambling games played with cards,
supposedly named from the picture of a pharaoh on French playing cards imported
into In the
game the 13 cards of the spade suit, representing the ranks of all suits, are
enameled on a layout on which the bets are placed against the house. A bet
may be placed on any rank to win or (by coppering the bet—i.e.,
placing a copper counter on the chips) to lose; or, by the manner in which
the chips are placed on the layout, a bet may cover several ranks. A shuffled
pack of playing cards is placed face up in a dealing box. The top card is
removed and not used. The next card taken from the box loses (the house pays
the coppered bets placed and takes in bets placed on the card to win). The card
left showing in the box wins, and the house pays the amount of any bet placed
on that rank to win. The two cards constitute a turn. The dealer then removes
the exposed card from the box, puts aside another card (which loses), and
leaves exposed another card (which wins). The game continues in this fashion
through the pack. The last card in the box does not count. When cards of the
same rank appear in the same turn and so both win and lose, the house takes
half of each bet on that rank, whether to win or to lose. This is called a
split. Stuss is a variant of the game in which the cards are dealt
from a pack held face down in the dealer's hand, not from a dealing box. When
a split occurs the house takes all the bets on that rank instead of only half
of them. |
